As good as I remembered

I just finished rereading one of my all-time favorite books, "Fair and Tender Ladies" by Lee Smith. It's our book club's April selection -- Sonya and I both recommended it -- and I was glad to have an excuse to read it again. It had been about 10 years. But I was also a little apprehensive and wondered whether it would live up to the hype I've built up about it in my own mind. It's so disappointing to read a book, love it, tell everyone you know they should read it, then reread it yourself a few years later and wonder why you thought it was so great. I am prone to this.

However, "Fair and Tender Ladies" was every bit as good as I remembered, although I still think the cover needs a redesign. I fell in love with Ivy Rowe, and Smith's beautiful writing, all over again. There was some talk of inviting Smith to our book club -- the manager of our wonderful local bookstore is in our book club and can swing such things -- but that talk died down, which is just as well, because if I were hanging out in someone's living room, maybe even my own, with Lee Smith I'd probably either forget how to talk or forget how to shut up.

These quotations won't be as good out of context, but I'm recording them here, because I love lines that really resonate and give you something to think about.

"But I feel that things are happening two times allways, there is the thing that is happening, which you can say, and see, and there is another thing happening too inside it, and this is the most important thing but its so hard to say."

"You know I used to have so much spunk. Well, I have lost my spunk some way. It is like I was a girl for such a long time, years and years, and then all of a sudden I have got to be an old woman, with no inbetween. Maybe that has always been the problem with me, a lack of inbetween. For all of a sudden when I saw those lights, I said to myself, Ivy, this is your life, this is your real life, and you are living it. Your life is not going to start later. This is it, it is now. It's funny how a person can be so busy that they forget this is it. This is my life."

"Sometimes I despair of ever understanding anything right when it happens to me, it seems like I have to tell it in a letter to see what it was, even though I was right there all along!"

"There has got to be one person who is the lover, and this time it was me, and one who is the beloved which was Honey. And I will tell you the truth -- may be it's best to be the lover, some ways. Because even if it don't work out, you are glad. You are glad you done it. You are glad you got to be there, anyway, however long it lasted, whatever it cost you -- which is always plenty, I reckon."

"The statue of Oakley is always working. Its back is always bent, its face is always turned away. For it aint no way to make a living from a farm. And you know, I must of knowed that somehow, it must of been down in my mind the same as those stories are, in the still place where you just know things. I must of knowed it from childhood, from watching it kill Daddy first, then Momma. But that is the thing about being young -- you never think that what happened to anybody else might happen to you, too. Your life is your own life, that's how you think, and you are always so different. You never listen to anybody else, nor learn from what befalls them. And the years go so fast."

"Life seems contrary to me, as contrary as I am. I feel like you never say what you ought to, nor do as you should, and then it is too late. It is all over. I have spent half of my life wanting and the other half grieving, and most often I have been wanting and grieving the same thing. There has been precious little inbetween."

"Even if it is just me sitting on this porch, I will not be lonely. Although I know that not one hour for the rest of my life will go by without me missing Oakley and that's a fact. But I will tell you another fact which is just as true, it hit me yesterday. I can read every book that John O'Hara ever wrote. I can make up my own life now whichever way I want to, it is like I am a girl again, for I am not beholden to a soul. I can act like a crazy old woman if I want to which I do. I can get up in the morning and eat a hot dog, which I did yesterday. I don't know what I might do tomorrow!"

"So says Molly, who has gotten right set in her ways with old age. I think a person will go one way or the other, don't you? Either they will get more set in their ways, or they will get all shook up. I am shook up, myself."

Recent questions and quotations from the one and only Claire

"Who is God's mama? Who is God's daddy?"

"What makes our car go?"

"Does God cry when He falls down?"

As I was complaining about how long a stoplight was taking to change: "Be patient, Mommy. It's gonna turn green in a minute."

"Is double two?" (I confirmed.) "I'm gonna be triple on my birthday!"

As I was singing "Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This": "There's a song about you?"

When I asked if she wanted a ceiling fan in her new bedroom: "No. I want a chandelier."

As I took a right on red: "Red light! STOP!"

Out of the blue, mid-stanza, as we sang "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean": "Mom, I don't like potatoes."

Birthday perks

The great thing about being married to the birthday boy is that you get to enjoy all of the day's perks without being a year older. In our household, Matt's birthday celebration kicked off just minutes after I blogged Monday night, when we prematurely treated ourselves to a generous slice of cake. It's so much better when it's warm that it would have been a shame to save ALL of it for breakfast the next day.

Tuesday morning Claire helped me with the finishing touches (sprinkles) and then our whole family dug in, no one more enthusiastically than Evan. I made sure to wipe the kids' faces really well before school that morning. It's one thing to show up at 8:30 a.m. with traces of oatmeal or toothpaste around the edge of your mouth, but responsible teachers might frown upon evidence of chocolate cake.

For lunch the greater Kirby crew went to Mellow Mushroom, where we had the whole outdoor seating area to ourselves, so the kids didn't have to sit still or be particularly quiet while we waited for our food. Then for dinner Matt and I got a babysitter and went to a frugalish dinner at Ashten's. Through a Restaurant.com deal improved by my (waning) affiliation with Demand Studios we bought three $25 gift cards for $2 each awhile back, and this was the perfect chance to use one of them.

We claimed a couch and ate and drank and talked for a lovely couple of hours. In that time I realized I now hate light beer. I ordered a Michelob Ultra out of habit and I could not finish it because it tasted so watered-down. Matt has always said that and I have always responded by accusing him of being a beer snob. I think he felt vindicated and proud. We don't do birthday presents, but this was probably a good substitute. He's turned me on to IPAs lately and I don't know that there's any going back.

We ended the night by finishing most of our Christmas shopping and then having a two-person wrapping party for our kids from Amanda's Angel Tree (not too late to participate, people! Click here).


Before reading our book club's November selection, "The Man Who Was Thursday," by G.K. Chesterton, I knew of Chesterton only because he's credited with a quotation I once ran across and liked enough to write in my handy-dandy quote-noting book: "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

"Happiness doubled by wonder" pretty well describes how I feel to be living life as Matt's right-hand woman. Happy 33rd birthday, babe.


"It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy." - Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"

P.S. And one more from the same book, because it's good enough to be included with no relevance whatsoever to this post:

"Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front ..."

Done

October 2011 NaBloPoMo is officially over! Jury's still out whether I'll do November. I did sign up for it even though I'm feeling a little burned out. I do like being back in the blogging groove. I wish you could get a free pass every week or two and still be eligible for prizes, but I don't make the rules. I suppose I'll decide tomorrow.

I'm playing fantasy football this year with the worst team I've ever had (my first pick was Jamaal Charles), paying less attention than ever before, and my record is the best it's ever been at this point in the season. (Not that that's saying much.) Go figure.

Oh, I can't forget ... happy Halloween! Claire was a butterfly (modified tonight to be Super Butterfly) and Evan was a pirate. I have a few pictures but haven't gotten them off my camera yet.

After Evan got his hands on some sugar this weekend at an early round of trick-or-treating, Matt and I witnessed a true sugar high. For the first hour of his afternoon "nap" we heard nothing but gleeful squealing followed by loud bumps followed by more of the same. He was repeatedly leaping from one side of his crib to the other, and he couldn't have been happier about it. Sweet boy. Can you believe he'll be 1 on Saturday?

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December's here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn!
How did it get so late so soon?
- Dr. Seuss

Hug an e-reader? I doubt it

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." - C.S. Lewis

"I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves." - Anna Quindlen

Last time I went Dumpster-diving for coupons I came home with a bunch of magazines and I'm slowly working my way through them. Last night I read this and got a sinking feeling:

"The age of the e-book is officially here. It's a parlor game in publishing circles to guess how long it will take for e-books to constitute a majority of books sold in the U.S. New figures show the answer is soon."

MAJORITY? SOON? The article (in the March 21, 2011, issue of Time) went on to say that e-book sales grew 164 percent from 2009 to 2010. I am not opposed to change, progress or technology (hello, blog), but I don't always think technological advances equal progress.

I am strongly in favor of leisurely browsing at friendly bookstores and libraries, of sharing books among friends, of turning down page corners to mark my spot, and of the way those pages smell. I would buy a candle called "New Book."

I like underlining my favorite lines. I like flipping through used books and seeing what previous owners underlined. I like feeling instant kinship based on what I see on someone's bookshelves. Speaking of bookshelves, I love built-in ones, and I think their highest and best use is not displaying knickknacks.

I don't like the trend toward online newspapers and magazines, but I understand it. And I know people don't form an emotional bond with the Sunday paper.

But books? Different story. I remember one time, reading "The Stone Diaries," when one of its sentences struck me as so utterly perfect and right that I literally hugged the book. Could I hug an e-reader? Would I? I hope I never have to find out.

Any book lovers who have made the switch want to try to change my mind?

Lovefest

Evan was not the happiest baby on the block at Bri's birthday party the other week. That day he already had endured a chilly Stoneybrook and missed both of his normal naps. He's too young to be distracted by the party's adjoining playground, and he was running on fumes. But when he landed on Granny's lap, he forgot all that.

"You can only perceive real beauty in a person as she gets older." - Anouk Aimee

I ran across this quotation a couple of years ago and saved it because it reminded me of radiant, beautiful Granny. I love you so much!

Propinquity, etc.

I may have blogged about this before, but a concept that has fascinated me ever since it was introduced to me is that physical proximity plays an important role in relationships. Generally speaking, the more you're around someone, the more likely the two of you are to establish a friendship.

For me, casual relationships with neighbors (especially in close quarters, e.g., dorms), clients, co-workers, randomly assigned members of group projects and many others who serendipitously dropped into my life have all occasionally developed into full-blown friendships. In high school, I played a sport every season, so every few months I had a different group of friends to commiserate with and share water bottles with and procrastinate practicing with and gossip with on the way to games. In many cases that team was our only common denominator. Without, we literally might never have had a conversation. (In retrospect this is probably the aspect of high school sports that I most value.)

Similarly, it's starting to dawn on me that sometimes I'm quick to write people off, but when I actually spend time with them, I frequently find that I've misjudged their friend potential. Quirks that initially got on my nerves often start to seem endearing. I'm not sure why this is true; it's counter-intuitive. But I'm thankful for it, because let's face it, all of us do things and have habits that other people find annoying. If you think you're an exception, I promise that you are not.

(I have to add this disclaimer: No one in particular inspired this line of thought! I'm never sure exactly who reads this blog, but no one should get paranoid that they're my formerly annoying friend.)

No one's perfect -- which is a great thing to remember in friendships as well as marriages. I'll give Elisabeth Elliot the last word:

"Many women have told me that my husband’s advice, which I once quoted in a book, has been an eye-opener to them. He said that a wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps 80 percent of her expectations. There is always the other 20 percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the 80 percent, and both of them will be happy. It’s a down-to-earth illustration of a principle: Accept, positively and actively, what is given. Let thanksgiving be the habit of your life."

Six somethings

3 somethings great as of late:

- I am loving small group this year! Last year's group got so big that we had to divide (multiply, in DrewSpeak) into two smaller groups. Of course we miss seeing the other half every week, but the smaller size is much better for discussion and intimacy (I hate that word ... why don't we all just start murmuring). Besides, we hang out as a big group once a month. And Romans is just awesome.

- Amanda had a yard sale at our house two weekends ago and I can't believe I never blogged about it. I've wanted to have a yard sale my whole life and it was so much fun! I'll definitely do it again, but I need to accumulate some more junk first. Mom and Dad went through their closets and garage and so did I, so combined with Amanda's stuff we had quite a pile. My biggest money-maker was a big batch of Matt's old colognes -- and by old I mean he had some of them before he had me. He never wears cologne so why we've been carting them from house to house I can't say, but we sold them for $5 each, which is big bucks in the yard sale world (I did negotiate on a few that were mostly empty). The only one we kept was the one he always wore when we started dating in 1996 -- Eddie Bauer Adventurer. Man, does that smell take me back.

- I have my first closing since Claire was born this Friday and the buyers are Brooke and Johnathan! My favorite feature of their new house is that it's five minutes from ours. They have been incredibly easy buyers and I am not just saying that because they're our friends and Brooke reads this blog. :) It is just great to work with sane people once in a while.

3 somethings not great as of late:

- I am doing my best to be a good couponer, but it is not easy! I've spent a lot of time in the past two weeks making a price book, clipping and organizing coupons, studying circulars, maneuvering Claire through the aisles of grocery stores and Rite Aid and, yes, being that girl who's using a calculator in those aisles. The theory is that it's easier to save money than to make more money, which I still think is true, but only once you have a well-oiled couponing system. I'm not going to give up.

- Claire is going through a phase -- let's hope it's a phase -- of throwing absolute fits when she's ready for sleep (bedtime more so than naps) and is denied. I never wanted to cater to my kids' schedules, but if a baby's exhausted, who am I to tell her she needs to stay up so I can enjoy a late dinner out?

- I suck at fantasy football. I am 1-5 and dead last in our league. I pay attention, but luck is never on my side. Matt sent me this (from The Sports Guy, I think) to cheer me up: "Tim Hasselbeck plays in a league with his brother Matt. Matt owns himself and Brett Favre. Two weeks ago, Matt BENCHED HIMSELF for Brett. Matt wound up with four touchdown passes and a much better fantasy day than Brett. When the guy who will actually be executing the plays and knows the gameplan doesn't know ... We're all just trying our best to make smart, educated guesses. Nature of the game."

Life is good

We sold the Acura yesterday and in cleaning out the console I found an old scrap of paper on which I'd scribbled some comments that tickled my funny bone and I didn't want to forget:

Matt: "We're living in an age of quarterback depletion." (re: fantasy football strategy)

*****

Amanda: "Well, if their hearts aren't growing warm, their voices are growing husky." (re: Christian romance novels)

*****

Me: "Thank you for getting me this chapstick!"
Amanda or Mom: "I didn't get it for you, I found it in the couch." (I remember this exchange taking place in the hotel on our New York trip, but I don't remember which of them said this! Amanda and Mom, do you?)

*****

I want to extend major props to Mom for going to a yard sale this weekend where she noticed they were selling Bum Genius one-sizes for $10 each, a great price (plus a boatload of other cloth diapers and accessories). She called me and Amanda and I ended up buying five for $6 each, so I now have 16 and am done. With these extra five I will keep washing a load of diapers once a day but now I can line-dry them, saving on electricity, plus keep one or two in the diaper bag at all times.

The first 11 I received as gifts, so these are the first diapers I've bought (except for disposables for babysitters) so our out-of-pocket expense for diapers for Claire is $30. Boo-yah!

Check this out: The mirror hanging over our fireplace (which Dad rescued from the dump, gave to me, and I painted) is featured in an Etsy treasury right now! This doesn't really mean anything, it's just cool.

Matt beat me in fantasy football this week by 2.5 points because I stupidly overmanaged my team and benched Tony Romo, who exceeded all expectations to get something like 22 points. Grrr. Next time, husband ... next time ...

I think I mentioned we're going to be listing our house next week. Because of that we cleaned out the garage this weekend so potential buyers will understand it can be used to park cars as well as store junk. Matt has decided, and I must agree, that our handy-dandy manual lawn mower will not be joining us at future homes, now that it's been replaced with a loud, gas-guzzling version of itself. So ... anyone want to claim this thing? You can read about its merits here.

Lent

I just realized I never blogged about my Lent sacrifice, and after all this time it's going to seem anticlimactic, but ...

Instead of a sacrifice I made a resolution to have daily devotions -- focused time for reading either the Bible or some sort of devotional book, plus prayer. This was also my New Year's resolution (incorporating C.S. Lewis' "The Business of Heaven," which so far I highly recommend) but by Ash Wednesday I had already gotten slack about it.

Flannery O'Connor was Catholic and she wrote this about Catholics, but it applies to all Christians:

"Catholics who are not articulate about their love of the Bible are generally those who do not love it, since they read it as seldom as possible, and those who don’t read the Bible do not read it because of laziness or indifference or the fear that reading it will endanger their faith, not the Catholic faith, but faith itself."

I've never been great about doing devotions on my own. I've gone through phases, including some extended phases, of being in the habit since I was a teenager, but they never last. I like to read, but I don't really like to study, and my mind wanders like crazy when I try to pray for long periods of time. Being in a weekly Bible study/small group helps to some extent, but Flannery was right: What it boils down to is I'm often lazy and indifferent.

Studies with daily reading and homework sort of suit me in that they encourage discipline, but on the other hand, inevitably I get behind on them and wind up doing a week's worth of lessons on day 7, which defeats the purpose. Besides, most mass-marketed "devotional aids" drive me mad with their Sunday school questions and simplistic lessons. What's the point of a forgettable Bible study?

You people who have committed to and stuck with daily devotions for long periods of time -- what works for you? Seriously, I'm curious. Please comment.

Weekend update

Sunday, for the first time in my life, I completely forgot about the time change! I knew it was coming and even tried to justify a weekend-long beach party to celebrate it, but Saturday night we babysat Riley so from about 6 p.m. on we didn't leave the house or watch TV or sit at a computer or do anything else that might have reminded us, and at bedtime adjusting our clocks didn't even cross our mind.

Sunday morning we woke up with (we thought) plenty of time to cook a bull's eye/bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich hybrid that Matt had been wanting to try. As we lazily lay there thinking about food and loving the fact that fresh air was blowing in through open windows, Matt suddenly realized it wasn't 9:30 a.m. but 10:30 a.m.

Oops! No church for us. Instead it was a Stephen Davey morning, supplemented with strawberries and coffee and Matt's creation. (I like this from a website with some of his sermons: "In an age where many are expounding on life and illustrating with Scripture, Stephen is committed to expounding on Scripture and illustrating with life.")

Afterward we read on the porch for a while and then went over to Stephen's to watch the Carolina-Duke game and enjoy an all-afternoon-into-the-evening cookout.

It was a perfect day. I even slipped a "Beat Duke" pin onto Riley for a few minutes until Matt and Stephen noticed and threw a fit.

While throwing the football I jammed my left ring finger and couldn't get my wedding band off before the swelling was too bad. A few minutes later Matt jammed the same finger but did get his ring off before it swelled. And then a few minutes later he probably broke his toe. This is why God created shoes.

His finger looks terrible but his toe feels much worse -- I don't know when he'll be able to run again. He did say it was better today, though, so maybe it will turn out to just be jammed too.These pictures don't do the swelling and bruising justice, but trust me, in real life they look pretty gross. Especially Matt's.

Cheap

"I've always disliked and mistrusted this carnival shill approach to the church -- and yet heaven knows we see it often enough. Does it really work? I don't think so, but more than that I think it's all wrong.

"Because for one thing it's so unworthy. I don't mean by this that it's too informal, too much in the market place, too "popular"; I do mean, quite simply, that it's cheap. Obviously when you talk about such things as God, religion, the church, man's soul, to a great many different people, you must necessarily do so in a great many different ways and on a great many different levels.

"But none of these levels can be -- or at least none of them should be -- in any sense flashy or false or vulgar, because if they are -- no matter what the apparent justification -- you run the very serious risk of making God, religion, the church, and man's soul seem just a little bit of the same.

"It's all very well to suggest that this really doesn't matter so much, that what does matter is that, as a result, the people come in, but I think that's a great mistake. I know they come in -- and often in considerable numbers -- in response to such techniques. That's not surprising. The gaudy, the meretricious, frequently have a powerful and immediate seductiveness: at a fair or a circus, the children invariably make a beeline for those horrible puffs of pink candy. But what is surprising is that we sometimes take comfort from this: I know priests, for example, who will point with great pride to statistics proving the value of such appeals. So many appeals, so many souls for God: Q.E.D.

"Of course what the statistics don't do so well is to measure the depth, the strength, and the duration of the faith of those who do so come in -- or in other words, they tell you absolutely nothing about the only thing that counts. And -- still more -- while there are all sorts of statistics to tell you how many souls these tactics have brought in, there are no statistics at all to tell you how many they may have kept out.

"Who knows, for instance, who can even guess the number of those who, with every sympathy, with every good will, have tentatively approached the church only to be repelled by vaudeville antics at their first point of contact? As I say, we have no statistics for that at all; if we had, they might not be so comforting."

- "The Edge of Sadness" by Edwin O'Connor

Uh ... another quickie

"Either that wallpaper goes or I do." (Oscar Wilde's last words, 1900) (according to Meg)

I've been chastised for promising to blog yesterday and then failing to ... I'm sorry. I had the best of intentions but as soon as I got to the office Friday I learned we'd be spending the rest of the day tearing wallpaper (infuriating one-inch strip by one-inch strip) from the kitchen and bathrooms of a rental house. The best thing I can say about it is it made me newly grateful that I don't have a tedious, menial, mind-numbing job. Wallpaper has got to be the worst idea ever. We went back over there for a while this afternoon, and Terry figured out that straight acetone worked pretty well on the glue, but the fumes were killer and probably baby-damaging so I stayed away from where she was. Oh, I hate wallpaper.

Dad blogged today about two of the Christmas parties we've had this week. (Amanda also posted some pictures and her highly demanded wassail recipe.) Christmas has gotten so much easier since our family agreed to stop exchanging gifts, except for the kids. The adults pick charities to be donated to in their honor, which may be a lazy way out, but none of us needs anything or loves Christmas shopping, so it works for us.

I read about a similar idea I like a lot, too: Around Thanksgiving, choose a dollar amount, say $25, and draw names, and whoever you draw you have to give away the $25 in a way they would appreciate (e.g. you could donate to a no-kill animal shelter for a dog lover, etc.). I like that idea because it serves essentially the same purpose but requires more thought and allows for more creativity.

I've made the same fruit dip for several Christmas parties lately and a few people have asked me for the recipe. It's actually Sallie's recipe and I LOVE it, and it's simple to make: Just combine softened cream cheese and brown sugar to taste. It improves all fruits.

Wednesday already. Sad

I know all these pictures are starting to get obnoxious. I also know that if I don't post them now, I never will. Sorry ...

We had planned to bike today but instead we hiked again and will bike tomorrow. Matt mapped out a route that went up to and around several smaller summets, mostly along the ocean. At the end of the day we caught the free Acadia bus back to our car.

This stone ridge wound all the way down one of the mountains. Note the cairn. :)
You can see that the first leaves are starting to change.
No snakes today, Dad, but here's a crazy-looking tree for your viewing pleasure.
There was even more climbing today than yesterday. Love it.

The ocean is every bit as blue as it looks in these pictures.
We went through our water a lot faster today, despite having an extra bottle, and even had to conserve near the end. It was warmer than yesterday and our route was more strenuous though shorter. Our parents (everyone who loves us, actually) will be glad to hear we opted out of two "ladder trails" -- which are considered not so much hiking trails as nontechnical climbs, and which involve ladders going straight up and down the side of the mountain.

I like a challenge as much as the next person, but as I've gotten older I have acquired a healthy respect for heights and the fact that falling from them will kill you. The big sign warning us that many injuries and deaths have occurred on those trails was all the persuasion we needed to stick to our original plan.

We ate dinner at the place we tried to eat yesterday. Matt got a tourist-trap lobster meal and I got pasta because I don't like lobster and have been craving pasta all week. It wasn't as good as the Thirsty Whale, and it cost twice as much, but how can you visit Maine without ordering lobster at least once?

In the "small world" category, Matt met a woman here who used to live in Southern Pines. She recognized the local phone numbers on the Kirby Explo', which we're driving since it holds the bikes and already has a ton of miles on it. She has been coming to Bar Harbor and staying at Emery's Cottages for 14 years.

"Some people would say at this point, 'Small world,' but it isn't a small world. It's an enormous world, bigger than you can imagine, but it's all connected up." - Elizabeth Spencer, "A Southern Landscape"

On top of that, yesterday Matt and I were on the summit of Dorr Mountain at the same time as one other couple and the guy noticed my Kirby shirt and said he'd seen our car around town. That was 48 hours after we arrived in Maine. Crazy.

Anna

I finally finished "Anna Karenina" so now I will shut up about it. After this post.

This is a perfect example of a book I'm so glad I wasn't forced to read in high school or college. In all likelihood I would have speed-read it, kept turning the pages when I was distracted, totally missed all the subtle humor and some major plot twists, resorted to Cliff's Notes and finally concluded that I hated it. None of this happened when I read it at my own pace (although that did take me all summer).

As much as the storylines, I loved the book's social commentary. Politics, religion, family life, love and sex and (in)fidelity, business management principles, personal morality, keeping up with the Joneses ... it was all there. The thing that struck me over and over as I read was how human nature just doesn't change.

No doubt, it's worth reading, at least once. But if you want to give it a shot, I suggest borrowing my copy, not the library's. No renewal policy could have seen me all the way through AK.

Finally, it's a very quotable book. Here are a few that particularly rang true or made me stop and think:


"To Levin, as to any unbeliever who respects the beliefs of others, it was very irksome to attend and take part in all the church services. ... To be obliged to lie or commit sacrilege -- he felt incapable of doing either the one or the other." (He was required to confess and take communion before being married.)

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"'It is a pleasure to work with his excellency,' the architect replied. ... 'It's not like having to do with local authorities. A matter they would use reams of paper writing about, I merely report to the count, we talk it over and in three words we settle the whole business.'

"'American fashion!' said Sviazhsky, with a smile.

"'Yes, there they build in a rational manner ...'" (Ironic.)

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"[Karenin] saw nothing impossible and incongruous in the notion that death, though existing for unbelievers, did not exist for him, and that being in possession of the most perfect faith -- of the measure of which he was himself the judge -- his soul was free from sin, and he was already experiencing complete salvation here on earth.

"It is true that the shallowness and error of this conception of his faith were dimly felt by Karenin ... But for [him] it was a necessity to think thus: it was so essential to him in his humiliation to have some elevated standpoint, however imaginary, from which, looked down upon by all, he could look down on others, that he clung to this delusion of salvation as if it were the real thing."

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"Vronsky, meanwhile, notwithstanding the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not entirely happy. He soon began to feel that the realization of his desires brought him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of bliss he had expected. It showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that happiness consists in the realization of their desires. ...

"Involuntarily he began to clutch at every fleeting caprice, mistaking it for a need and a purpose. Sixteen hours of the day must be filled somehow ... As a hungry animal seizes upon everything it can get hold of in the hope that it may be food, so Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, then pictures."

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"[Vronsky] was away all day and when he returned late at night the maid told him that Anna had a headache and asked him not to go in to her. ...

"In the evening when she retired to her room, having left word for him that she had a headache, she said to herself, 'If he comes in spite of the maid's message, it means that he loves me still. If he doesn't, it means that all is over, and then I shall have to decide what to do ...'

"In the evening she ... heard his steps and his voice talking to the maid. He had taken the maid's word, did not care to find out more, and went to his room. So all was over!" (This led to her jumping in front of a train to get back at him. Classic crazy-woman logic.)

Quote of the day

"I'd like to dedicate a song to my fiance. He's suffering from depression."

(Heard while flipping through radio stations on the way home from D.C.)

My mom is the best

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." - Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Mom, I love you so much! Happy Mother's Day!

For sale

"A woman's mind is as complex as the contents of her handbag. Even when you get to the bottom of it, there is always something at the bottom to surprise you." - Billy Connelly

I am having buyer's remorse about this Coach purse that I bought in New York. When I got home I realized it was basically the same size as the one I already have (I thought it was shorter and wider), and I'm going to sell it. I'm giving you guys first right of refusal, and if no one wants it, I'll sell it on eBay.

I think it's a fake, but a very good fake. (The interior lining has the interlocking-Cs Coach logo, which I think I read an authentic Coach bag never has.)

Details: There is a small exterior pocket on both sides of the bag that's big enough for a cell phone, keys, etc. There's also a pocket on the front of the bag between the straps, but I think it's mainly for looks. The inside has a zippered pouch on one side and two open pouches on the other side -- one's perfect for a cell phone, the other would be good for lipstick, gum, etc.

The leather label on the front of the bag reads "Coach Leatherware Est. 1941." On the inside is sewn a leather tag that the real bags all have that reads "This is a Coach bag. It was handcrafted in China from the finest materials ..." etc. and it has a serial number, which if this is a fake is meaningless, but if it were real would allow you to register it. The lining, as I mentioned, is covered with the interlocking-Cs Coach logo. There is an attached gold-toned metal Coach tag.

The bag is about 15 inches wide and 9 inches tall -- perfect to carry every day.

I know these pictures are dark, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

I'm asking $40, which is what I paid. It comes with the white protector bag with "Coach" on it.

Movie meme

Here are the rules:
1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb.com and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike each out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. No Googling or IMDb-ing. That’s cheating and that’s no fun.

1. "Where is this love? I can't see it, I can't touch it. I can't feel it. I can hear it. I can hear some words, but I can't do anything with your easy words." "Closer," guessed by Amanda

2. "In a good shoe, I wear a size six, but a seven feels so good, I buy a size eight." "Steel Magnolias," guessed by Melody (hi!)

3. "I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up 'money laundering' in a dictionary." "Office Space," guessed by Amanda

4. "'Not Allowed' signs are the latest trend! The other day, I was in a shop with my friend the kangaroo, but their sign said 'No Kangaroos Allowed,' and I said to my friend, 'Well, what can I do? They don't allow kangaroos.'"

5. "Meanwhile, the more fortunate in Flint were holding their annual Great Gatsby party at the home of one of GM's founding families. To show that they weren't totally insensitive to the plight of others, they hired local people to be human statues at the party."

6. "I don't want anyone sitting on the furniture. If you have to sit down, just sit on the floor. Also, don't anybody use the telephone. ... And furthermore, Daddy's bourbon is strictly off limits. Other than that, make yourselves at home!"

7. "After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm."

8. "Oh my God, I'm getting pulled over. Everyone, just ... pretend to be normal."

9. "Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Don't be resigned to that. Break out!" "Dead Poets Society," guessed by Ally

10. "Wow, your shorts are, like, especially gold today."

I identify

"Grammar is a piano I play by ear." (Joan Didion)