I thought about quitting

Reading, in Seward Park, on a sunny Seattle day.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I finished my first book!

Well, of the "Read a Book a Week" challenge, not my first book ever.  Duh.  Although, there have been times in my life when I felt like I would never finish a book.  I picked them up in abundance, read a few pages and decide them to be flat, contrived or just plain old bad.  My husband, Jamie, wrote this in the front page of a book he bought me in 1997:

"Melissa,  After you read this book...then maybe we can get you another one.   

With stern affection, Jamie."

The book was titled, Self-Reliance. (Inspirations from Ralph Waldo Emerson.)  I truly believe Jamie thought I would never finish that book.  And therefore I would never be gifted another book.  Ever.  However, I can be determined to not give up in the face of those nay-sayers thinking I'll quit, and I read that entire book.  Lord, I am nearly 3 figures in debt due to the fact that I was told by a few people that I would give up on my graduate school.  Well, that and the inner compass leading me to my true destiny.  (As an aside, Please, let this still be true, and let one of the midwifery schools I applied to call me.  Soon!)

Regardless, what I am trying to say is that, historically speaking,  I have not been a reader.  In my undergrad I majored in English, and was horribly embarrassed by my lack of knowledge around the classic books that everyone else had read.  The truth is, I hated some of them.  Maybe I am too low brow for fine literature?  Maybe, like my taste and aptitude for puns, I fall into the category of low?

Fine with me.  Call me tasteless, call me average and mainstream...I loved this book that I read, The Descendants.  It wasn't all artsy and hard to follow.  It was simple, direct, emotional and real.  But, I have to admit, as I read the fist page, I thought about quitting.  I thought it sounded flat and contrived, like so many others.  I read on, given my commitment to the blog, and my commitment to proving Jamie wrong about my reading ability. (Yes! Still, after 15 years.)  And not 10 or 15 pages into the book, I was hooked.  I wonder how many other books I might have loved if I never gave up on them.

I started a new book today, a day early.  So far I like it.  It seems a bit fancy, in that as soon as I started figuring out the story line and who was who, the next chapter threw me for a loop with a new person in the first person, and I had no f'n idea who they were.  Well, I did, but my idea made no sense given the first chapters.  I guess I'll just have to keep reading and hope it all becomes clear.

And hope that I love it.  I really do.  Otherwise, this week is gonna be hard.  Because as much as I loved The Descendants, it took a lot of time.  Time squeezed in between school, parenting, studying, blogging, sleeping, eating and watching TV.  (Speaking of, I dreamt last night that I was hanging with the Kardashians.  Kris Humphries was flirting with me, and while I don't find him attractive, I still flirted back.  No one cared since Kim had already divorced him.  It was just weird that he was even there.)

How are you all doing with your reading?

Can I convince anyone else to read The Descendants?  I need someone to talk to about it!

Don't forget to let us know where you stand on the poll?  Are you reading a book a week?  Are you reading 2 books this month?  Or are you cheering us on, and maybe reading a book at your leisure?

-Melissa

  

Reading The Descendants

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
The first book choice for our "Read a Book a Week" month is The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings.  It is a movie out on the theaters right now, and has been nominated for numerous awards; most notably the Oscar's for Best Picture, Best Leading Actor, Best Director.  I first heard of it as a movie, and have been drawn to go and see it, although I have not.  I thought maybe the draw was the fact that it is set in Hawaii, given our dark and rainy winter days here in Seattle.

Turns out, not only am I taken to the islands as I quickly read page after page, but I am also taken right into the King family.  I love the main character.  He reads as being honest about his flaws, admittedly lost in his life as it unexpectedly unfold before him and human.  The family is far from "perfect", even with all their money and beauty and the perks that those things can bring.  Things I sometimes wish I had, a pool, a house on Oahu, the beauty of a model.  Things that admittedly, I think would make life "perfect."

I find it refreshing to read a book about a family that is what it is.  A family with kids that act out and say things they aren't supposed to say.  And while there are some things about their life and behaviors I don't desire for my own, I find them all endearing and lovable.  I'd say the author has done her job well.

I wouldn't say this book is filled with lyrical prose like I have found in All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy or the last book I read, A Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart.  Those books were at times slow, but there were those sentences or paragraphs that lifted my heart and senses with the author's artistic skill.  Leaving me in a moment of connection with all that is, opening and connecting with life itself.  I know, that's some powerful shit right there.  And all from reading.

The difference, to me, in Hemming's writing so far is that I haven't come across any of those sentences that give me rise from the mundane of my everyday existence.  However, of equal importance, is the fact that she accomplishes that same effect overall.  It is through the dialogue, through the inner dialogue of the main character and through the way the characters bear the pain of avoiding being fully alive to the cruelty of life.

It is the dawn of the fourth day of the first week of our reading challenge.  I am happily 133 pages into my  283 pages book.  I have 150 more pages the I am eagerly looking forward to.  I feel like I am cheating by reading this book.  It is so easy to read, so engaging.  But cheating or not, today I will read on!

Don't forget to click "Yes!" on our poll in the sidebar if you are joining us on the "Read a Book a Week" challenge.

-Melissa

(Not) Reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Posted by Melissa Baumgart

Me, reading last week's book, and having
some Æbleskiver.
(Although, it has wheat and sugar, so I
didn't actually eat any.)

The New Book-of-the-Week
I feel like I am just reading words.  Like this book is in another language, and words after words keep logging into the spaces of my brain, but not congealing into anything that makes a lick of sense.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré is my third book this month.  After the reading success of my previous two weeks, I am feeling defeated as I am on the 4th day of this book and I have barely read 30 pages.  Maybe, after I get 50 more pages in, it will all start making sense.  That is if I remember any of these words I keep reading and rereading.  A big IF.

The Theme
I love a theme.  I don't know if I was always this way, but I noticed it cropping up when I hosted dinner parties.  If I am making Indian food, then it is all Indian, and as authentic as I can manage.  I love to find some Indian music and perhaps a drink from the country to add to the flavor.  Recently, at our Mother-Daughter book club, the host made Æbleskiver (a Danish donut kind of thing) because the book we read took place in Denmark.  I felt right at home, even thought I am not Danish nor do I think I could ever remember how to pronounce the sweet treat's name.

This is all to say, I created a theme for myself with the books.  I decided to read all books that had been made into movies.  I heard that my friend's teenage daughter scoffed a bit at my "movie" books, wondering if that is all I read.  I do read other books, actually besides one, I don't think I have read any other movie books. (Probably because I have not read many books at all.)  Right now, I wish I had picked any other book than the movie book I have next to my keyboard.

The worst part: it turns out reading books and then going to see the movie almost always sucks.  Jamie and I went to see The Descendants this week.  I was really, really looking forward to it.  We both were, because he had read the book too, and loved it.  Loved the BOOK, let's just be really clear about this.

We did NOT love the movie.  Within the first 30 seconds I was done.  The main character's wife is in a coma, and in the book her name is Joanie.  I grew to really like her name, it fit her personality, and I felt a little like I knew Joanie as they author took you back in time, before the accident.  Well, then there goes Goerge Clooney up on the big screen, playing Matt King, Joanie's husband, and what does he call her?  Elizabeth!  Really?  WTF is wrong with the name Joanie?

Beyond that, there were glaring differences, touching and important scenes left out and poor casting.  The best actor in the whole movie was the grandma that had dementia.  I have heard that people who have not read the book really liked the movie.  I say, good for you.  But I am glad I read the book, even if it meant having to sit through that terrible movie.

I doubt I'll even try to see the movie version of Extremely Loud & Incredible Close.  Even though everyone I know loves it.  After my Descendants experience, I seriously cannot imagine the brilliance of Foer's novel standing up to a screen version.

The Screen Diet
I have been true to my word on the screen diet.  I have seriously cut back on screen time.  I do find it difficult to keep track.  I wonder if there is a screen time version of a pedometer.  Keeping track of every blink of your online steps.  I suppose I could practice statistics by gathering information for my browsing history.  That sounds fun.

The phone is a tempting ground for cheating on my diet.  I have Facebook, email, Twitter...all of it right there letting me know every time something new has occurred.  It is harder to not pretend to myself that it doesn't count to check in real quick on my social media world via my phone.

The phone is always there.  Even in the car.  Just the other day, I *very softly* rear ended someone at a red light after I had looked at the photo on the screen saver for my phone.  I wasn't even doing anything with the phone while actually driving.   But glancing down at it at a red light was enough for me to be distracted, and not realize the person in front of me slammed on their brakes just after the light turned green.

The screen diet has been a catalyst to me making a commitment to not look at my phone in the car.  I am embarrassed to say that it is proving to be difficult.  But perhaps not as difficult as reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Can't I just rent the TV series from the video store up the street and call it good?

Well, I won;t do that, so wish me good luck in finishing this spy book.  Why in the world did I pick a spy book from the 70's?  I think people who know me are probably wondering the same thing.

-Melissa

I am going on a diet

Oooh, so I see some screens down there?  
Oh well, just books!

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I am 77 pages away from finishing my book this week.  I had a huge anatomy & physiology exam this morning and I had a hard time studying for it.  I just couldn't seem to engage with the material like I usually do.  I found myself picking up my Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close book instead, completely engaged with every word.

And while I didn't perform to a perfect standard, as I like to do on exams of all sorts, I still think I did OK.  The cool part was that I wasn't stressed or panicked during the exam.  I wasn't hastily scribbling down my answers for fear that if I took too long the information would somehow escape like sands through a broken hourglass.  I was calm and I took my time, thinking through each question and making sure to breathe.  It was a completely different experience.

It may have come from having a calm place to go besides always staring at a screen for entertainment.  I have my book.  It is stimulating in an entirely different way then a screen is.  Screens can create overstimulation for myself.  And the social media aspect, the Facebook and messaging and Pinning and checking to see if anyone repined or liked your identity in the form of a virtual dream collage, creates a state of anticipation that acts like a stress response in the body.

Sure, it is fun for a bit, but prolonged exposure to the stress hormones isn't so great for your body.  I heard a classmate share that when she was teaching high school in Japan, several of her students complained of not being able to sleep because they didn't want to stop texting and Facebooking.  Kids are losing sleep over this?  Because they have to respond to the next message, and the next, and the next?

It all brings me back to a nagging notion that I have has since starting "Read a Book a Week" month.  I need to go on a diet.  A screen diet.  Did I ever tell you that once during game of charades, my 6 year old picked my name, and to act like me she pretended to be sitting at the computer?  If I did tell you already, it's because I felt incredibly guilty after that.  I want to be present to my kids, to my family and friends, not the screen.

I keep resisting it though.  It is such an easy outlet for that thing I wrote about last, procrastination.  But maybe so can a book.  Or cleaning my apartment.  Or being productive in some other way than surfing the web, doing "research" and seeing if any blog readers have popped up from Saudi Arabia this week.  Those stats are so cool, though.  Thanks for reading, whoever you are in Jiddah, Makkah, Saudi Arabia!

So, here it is, another challenge...besides blogging, only 1 hour of screen time per day for the next week.  It may still seem like a lot to some of you, but that is cutting it considerably for me.  I hate to even admit that, but it is true.  I want to create a new habit, and I know that it is possible.  Perhaps difficult, but possible.

My last challenge I gave myself was during January's Healthival festival.  During Healthival, I followed through completely on almost half of the 18 things on my list.  That was pretty good for me, considering the list, and my unintentional aversion to some of the things on it.  This challenge is more simple in some ways, but so pervasive.  And as much as I can look procrastination in the face with a refreshing and nonjudgmental perspective, I can't hide from my inner voice any longer.

(Crap.  I am already thinking.  I do not want to do this.  But I have to.  Must summon English bulldog determination.  Thanks, Bikram!)

And now onto another pressing issue, what book to read next?  Do I stick with the theme I have going of reading Books nominated for Best Picture this year?  Or do I just grab something off my shelf at random?

-Melissa

PS...If you join me on the screen diet, reading Good Luck With That! doesn't count.  It's free screen time. Everything has it's exceptions, right?

  

Book Number 3 Competing Priorities

Posted by Amy Baranski

For my third book I've chose a piece of non-fiction, Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew B. Crawford, that was once in a heap of books belonging to my husband. The title caught my attention. I think I was romanced by the last two syllables "soulcraft." It's subtitled An inquiry into the value of work. I've often explained to friends, co-workers, anyone that will listen, that my most rewarding job was one in which I was working with my hands. This book, at least by title,seemed like it would address the struggle I feel as a knowledge worker who feels a contradictory and deep seeded primal desire need in me to make art or anything with my hands. I think that's why I enjoy the process of cooking so much. It allows me to create with my hands, away from the computer and abstract ideas, and work with tangible and raw materials.

So on one hand I feel a great importance and value in finishing this book. It doesn't feel like reading for pleasure. It feels like reading to better understand the human condition and my role in society.

Although it ironically comes off a bit academic-y, given that it's about valuing work outside the ivory tower, it has potential. But I'm in a bit of a pickle because I didn't start reading this book until a few days ago, and even then I've only handled about 10 pages at a time, versus 42. Last night, my husband suggested I take on a piece of young adult fiction just to meet the Read a Book a Week requirement. But I stared him down explaining the month's exercise was to stop setting down books that I've picked up and letting them collect dust for months on the bedroom floor near my nightstand. The point was to carry on with it and meet the deadline. I just don't know if it's feasible today. I still have loads of work to do, a trip to the bank ahead of me, dishes to wash, dinner to plan, weekly grocery shopping, and a slough of emails to respond to from friends and family. This week, or at this moment, I keep telling myself that I must be guided by my list of priorities (and yes I keep that list tacked to my wall updated daily). So, maybe I'll conk out and read a smaller, easier, more enjoyable book just to feel like "I did it" for the blog. Or maybe I'll extend this book into next week and try for a fourth book later on. I'm not sure yet what I'll do.

So on the other hand I feel a great importance in facing the facts of meeting personal goals beyond this blog that may help me better understand my own human condition and change my role in society.

A Sweepstakes for you, the Good Luck With That reader!

posted by Melissa Baumgart and Amy Baranski
Guess what, everyone?  YOU have a chance to WIN in January!

Good Luck With That is not only giving you a sneak peek into our next year's adventures, but also a jump start on joining us in February's fun.

Our next month, kicking off 2012 for the blog, will be Read a Book a Week.  It's a lofty goal (says Melissa) that was chosen by Amy for one of her 6 things to do.  Amy says she would like to read more, and thought this would be a fun way to bring that back into her life.  Melissa was happy to hear the challenge, as she recently was swept away by a young adult fiction novel, and finished it within 24 hours.

So, the good news for you is that we are offering one lucky winner 4 books of our choosing, each with its very own Powerball ticket bookmark!  We chose books that we have read and found to be read-able within a week.  The kind of books that you don't want to put down.  The kind that have you forgetting to eat, or forgetting to make dinner for your kids.  The really good kind.

The books range in variety from a young adult fiction novel with an emotionally brave heroine (yes, the aforementioned one) to a post-apocalyptic drama, and from a story narrated by a nine-year-old boy who searches for clues about a found key from his grandfather to the 2007 National Book Award winner for young adult fiction that's written from the viewpoint of a Native American teenager.

By entering, You can win a copy of each of these books:

• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
• Becoming Naomi León by Pam Muñoz Ryan
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

AND 4 of your very own Powerball tickets, for a chance to win even more!

Here's how to enter:

• Leave a comment on our blog.  Simply click on the link that says "comment" below and post a message with the title of your favorite "can't put it down" book.  
• Make sure to put your name on the comment.  (You do not have to be a google member.)
• If you don't already "like" us on Facebook, click here and stop on over to our page and like us.  That way we can have you contact info if you win!

On Monday, January 30th, we will announce the winner of our Sweepstakes!  The comments will be numbered and we will draw the winning number out of a hat.   We'll hastily put your books in the mail so you'll have them to read throughout February!

Thank to everyone for reading along on our journeys.  We are so grateful to share our ups and downs of trying new things with all of you!

-Amy and Melissa

Learn to Love to Read

Posted by Amy Baranski

So, as you hopefully know by now this month is Read a Book a Week. Our week goes from Wednesday to Wednesday until the 29th of February. We all get one whole extra day this year stock pile pages of literature to our hearts' content.

The first week I procrastinated on starting my book. After working through the guilt and shame of that and the very public failure I was facing of not finishing a task that I thought up in the first place I decided to take a different approach. So last night I chose my next book from my ridiculous stack of unread books, and I began to read it. I decided if i could get to 30 pages I could turn off the light and go to sleep and feel more self confident about the week's challenge. I made it to 20.

Good enough!

I turned off the light and woke up three minutes before my alarm. Because I had set my work clothes out the night before (NERD!) I reduced the amount of time I'd spend hemming and hawing over which of my (two or three) work outfits to wear. You'd be surprised how long a decision can take when you don't have that many choices to decide between.

This genius idea of getting prepared the night before (thanks Mom!) gave me a whole hour this morning to read. So after getting some juice I got back in bed and I got to reading. As I did the days before I set my alarm for an hour increment. When the bell sounds at the hour I finish the chapter I'm on. If the chapter is inexorably long and I'm at the beginning of it I just read to the next break.

So I did that. By the time I was done I had made it to page 90 something. Wow, this totally feels incredible. a completely different experience from my self flagellation last week. I got up and got on with my day. Taking the bus out to work gave me extra time to read and I managed to flip through 17 more pages. This was fantastic because ahead of me was a very time consuming and focused (but productive) workday with no room for a leisurely read.

Now it's 7pm-ish and I feel so tired I might collapse. I'd really like to reward myself with a television show or even just a pillow, but I think I'll try holding the book up again and see if it takes me anywhere. After all, this is a process of learning something (or re-learning something that we lost) And if it doesn't take tonight that's OK too, I'll just try again in the morning.

Oh, and the book I'm reading is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I know nothing about it. My best friend Christina gave it to me, I think in 2008, for my birthday. I'm happy to finally be reading it!

(Please, please. please show your support on our reading challenge poll; it's in the right hand margin of this page. More importantly GO READ!)

A new chapter

Posted by Amy Baranski

Dear readers

I've been carrying around an heirloom tomato-sized secret for the past four months. It recently grew that big. It was skittle-sized, then proportioned like a strawberry, and lime-sized before that. In addition to the three books I've completed for Read a Book a Week month I've had some other literature on my mind. I'm sure you can see why.

Perhaps our 2012 list of things to do, and it's order, will make perfect sense to you now. This month was about reestablishing good reading habits. A love of books and reading is something my husband and I share, and we know that where we might lack in other areas that's one gift we can always give our child. Many moons ago we ditched our television in pursuit of listening to more music, playing games, having conversation, and reading. It's been hard! And, we're both really going to miss watching the Tour de France in real-time this year.

Read a Book a Week month has been very inspirational, even if I did quit one of my books. I feel great about having completed three in 29 days, and today I am starting my fourth which is Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. When I was 23, Abhijit, a co-worker of mine took me to a second hand book store and bought me 10 books that he felt important for me to read. This is an excellent gift for a 23 year-old. A collection of Ray Bradbury novels was one of them. I  plan to continue reading as much as possible throughout this pregnancy, and beyond. Navigating sleepless nights and busy schedules will be an adventure that will hopefully allow us to continue reading and growing together.

It has been asked multiple times: Did you think about doing Have a Baby month on the list this year? Of course! I just couldn't give up tennis.

My blog partner was very accommodating in designing this year's schedule, thank you Melissa. So, now I join the ranks for the mommy blog-o-sphere! God help us all.

In all seriousness, giving birth is one of the biggest adventures of my life, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

I have experienced such an outpouring of love from so many people that helped form my life--such as my mother, who bawled like a baby when I told her the news, and my sister, who is over the moon with baby shower themes and ideas and sisterly support, to my nephew Ty who tells me repeatedly that he loves me, (and that he like my baby too), not to mention my father and brother who gleam with the Baranski pride in their eyes when they see me. There is so much love, it's humbling, and I've only mentioned just a very few people who have been supportive. There's a whole party going on over at my Facebook page at the moment and it's very humbling and heart warming. I hope you can share in my joy.

If you're new to this blog: my friend and I try to step out of our comfort zone by trying something different each month. Read our list for 2012.

Reading Ishmael Pt. 2

Posted by Amy Baranski

On Friday, my husband and I escaped Seattle for the great Pacific Ocean. One of our favorite spots, a place we've returned to year after year, that’s located on the Olympic Peninsula. Getting here feels like traveling to the far reaches of earth. I love everything about it, except Weyerhaeuser.

The peninsula, rich with ancient cultures and still home to indigenous peoples, has a vast and unparalleled beauty. The traditions of the Makah, the Quileute, and the Quinault, to name a few, date back thousands of years. These first nations still practice ancient traditions such as fishing, now in motorized vessels, and hospitality to foreigners, now with resorts and RV parks. And ancient ways, in the ancient forms, are still alive. You can experience them and learn more by joining in weekend-long celebrations that honor Native American heritage or by simply talking to tribal members to learn more.

The reason I bring up indigenous cultures is because of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I finished Ishmael last week as my second book during our Read a Book a Week challenge this month. Ishmael imparts an ecological urgency for humankind to change its current course which is doomed. Quinn stages his story as a conversation, in the Socratic Method, between a man and a teacher. Ishmael, the teacher, sits behind a large Plexiglas window and takes the shape of a giant ape that munches on leafy branches while bemused by the intellectual density of his pupil—a man.

Ishmael guides his student through an epistemological and anthropological journey to understand how we know what we know and what pivotal cultural events have led us to the brink of our current ecological demise. Quinn penned the first draft in 1977. After many revisions it finally published as a novel in 1990. That’s when I was ten and before the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was discovered in the North Pacific Gyre. It’s 2012, and there are now five garbage patches in different oceans around the world.

Ishmael, who doesn't know about the Pacific Trash Vortex, but can account for other frightening man-made environmental disasters, theorizes that during human evolution (which continues today) home sapiens split into two groups. Each group has enacted a different story, based on cultural norms and epistemological values. Ishmael calls one group the takers and the other the leavers. Ishmael argues the taker offshoot began in 8,000 BC, during the beginning of the agricultural revolution. Leaver culture began long before, and continues as a minority culture found in the practices of indigenous peoples.

In short, taker culture requires humans to take more than they've had in the past and hold dominion over the earth. Leaver culture requires humans to limit consumption and leave enough to satisfy the competing needs of other organisms to achieve a balance in nature. Takers view themselves outside of nature while leavers don’t make that separation. Ishmael says this difference comes from variant creation mythologies between the two groups. He details the stories of Adam’s fall and the Tree of Knowledge and the conflict between Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis. How we interpret these stories influences the dominant themes and customs of each culture.

Getting to Ishmael’s central argument feels tedious to the pupil, and a bit to this particular reader. He spends a lot of time discussing population explosions in relation to food production—as manufactured by methods born out of the agricultural revolution. Ishmael and Quinn want their student and reader to have hope. The message is, even though there’s much to be pessimistic change can happen at a greater speed than ever before.

There’s a lot more to the book, and in some ways the story feels a bit dated but in others it holds merit. Although Ishmael pales in comparison to one of the greatest environmental books ever written, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, it’s still worth picking up as an interesting thought-experiment.

I spent the better part of the weekend immersed in nature listening to the boom of the surf, watching bald eagles buzz the tree line and a nearby kite, searching for the periscope necks of harbor seals, beach combing for sea glass, and leapfrogging over drift wood. At a glance the environment appears in balance here, but beneath the surface lies another truth.

When procrastination wins over production

Trying to read at a basketball game, didn't really work.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Some days are just days.  Nothing much happens, even though there are a million things to do.  Procrastination wins over production, and I feel like I am left with the remnants of undone aspirations of which I have many choices of what I can make of them.  I can be creative, and twist them into a DIY project that makes my life appear more beautiful and shines a rosy light of "Wow, look what she did!" over my wasted day.  Or I can go the opposite direction, and wallow and wade through them like I am the main character on an episode of "Hoarders."

Even on productive days, on love-y sun filled golden days, we still have that choice.  I think that is why some people remain depressed, no matter their external circumstances.  There is a psychology epistemology called Post-Modernism.  In it they propose that we are constantly creating our experience, and that it is through our own mental constructs that we live and breathe.  We can live and breathe a day as a failure or as a success, no matter what happened that day.  What matters, they say, is how we choose to perceive it in the moment in which we are taking each breath.

These are the things I think about after a day filled with nothing much but a little reading in my book.  Yesterday was the kind of day with a long to-do list, and the to-do list never even got written.

Today is a new day.  And I am choosing to walk forward with the perspective that I am exactly where I need to be, in every way.  I am trying to create more of that in my everyday life, and not just from those special moments.  I have the idea that the more we step outside of our comfort zone, and find the magical moments in life...the more we are able to see that they are always around us, just waiting to be found.

I woke up this morning and immediately did the dishes of previous days gone by.  I set up my study-station on the dining room table.  I took my seat here at the computer to write this post.  Who knows what the rest of the day will bring...hopefully some more pages being read form my book of the week.

I mentioned in my previous post that my book I am reading, Extremely Load & Incredibly Close (yes, I am starting to really remember the title), had a very powerful sentence.  Turns out it is filled with them.  Every page has a new thought provoking phrase, or after reading a chapter I might realize that the last few pages have been completely symbolic in nature, while still keeping with the story line.  I am finding the book to be very touching and inspiring.  Not inspiring in the sense that I am walking around beaming from ear to ear and spreading world peace, but in a creative and life affirming sense.

I leave you now to get on with my day, whatever it may bring.  But I have to admit, I do hope it brings me a deeper understanding of endocrinology, the nervous system and sight and hearing physiology for my upcoming exam.  It is interesting to bounce between literary fiction, exploring the emotional elements of being human; and anatomy & physiology, learning about the minute details of how our bodies keep us alive and healthy.

And one last thing, speaking of health: I have not forgotten about Healthival.  It continues on into February, with a few minor adjustments.  In addition to no wheat, no dairy and no sugar I have added no corn chips, I overeat them and feel like crap.  A little wine added in, for fun.  And I have made more phone calls to friends, well a lot of calls to one friend, but you gotta start somewhere!

So far we have 6 readers in on the "Book a Week" challenge and 2 reading two books this month! Anyone else reading along?  Leave us your vote of support on our poll.  Thanks!

xo
Melissa

Reading Ishmael Pt. 1

Posted by Amy Baranski

It's Valentine's and I'm cozied up to a warm cup of Midnight Blue tea listening to Life in a Glasshouse by Radiohead at Victrola. It's perfect.

Reading Ishmael at the Broadview branch library.

I finished Ishmael today.

What an interesting and completely unexpected book. I knew next to nothing about it before picking it up. My friend Christina gave it to me in 2008. A couple years later, when a writing professor from Valparaiso was staying at our house, it came up in conversation. She eyed it on our big bookshelf and said her students often talked it up in class. She was curious what the fuss was as all about. I told her I'd read about 10 or so pages and wasn't compelled to read further. Thus making it, even two more years later, an excellent candidate for Read a Book a Week month.

When I posted on Facebook that I was currently reading Ishmael I received some interesting comments from a cluster of people I've met at during different decades of my timeline, people whom I have admired, and who know nothing of each other:

• "I read it for the first time in high school shortly after it came out. it held up pretty well shortly after college but I have since read some of his other books and he has one really good argument. But I am not sure it can really sustain more than one book. Ishmael is by far the best."
• "I love Ishamel!!!! I read that in high school! Oh I love that book!"
• "Read that many moons ago! Such a good one!"

Melissa, or perhaps it was Jamie, offered that Ishmael was one of those books that develops a cult following like the Celestine Prophecy or The Secret. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. 

Then Melissa sent me a email asking what kind of book was I reading. Her email contained a link to an article published in the Christian Science Monitor: "My Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn: Why did gunman James Jae Lee embrace this book?

Curious indeed.

When to quit reading a book

Posted by Amy Baranski

Call me a quitter, a slacker, a blank--I don't care. I quit reading Shop Class as Soul Craft and I'm not picking it up again.

My husband's Good Reads review of it tells me what I need to know. Besides I'm not going to figure out the new direction of my life's work by reading this book--my expectations were too high. And do I really need some PhD-turned-craftsman's pseudo thesis-style book disguised with a cool title dissecting the value of the working class in which I grew up? I think not. I got 20 pages in, now I'm out.

But I wouldn't quit that piece of fiction you might be working if you're not at least 50-70 pages in. Because you are so close to 100, which is already a half, third, or quarter of the way through. That's my new rule. I'm not sure what the rule for non-fiction is. I suppose I'll have to try another and see how long I last.

So now I'm 72 pages into The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is also from my ridiculous stack of unread books. It's actually a book that someone asked me to give to someone I went to college with as a graduation present, and I never did. That was a LONG time ago. It's been sitting on my shelf all these years. I tried to pick it up once. But, I usually stray from anything that wreaks of moral high-ground or is explicitly about following your moral compass. We have the bible, and or the great religious texts for those stories. But this time with the Read a Book a Week challenge I needed something doable (so I could potentially squeeze in two more books to reach my four book quota for the month) by the 29th. Thank God it's leap year!

So far I'm liking it. The storytelling kind of reminds of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. And I'll probably knock it off the list today since I have a few hours of free time (thank God for personal time on a Saturday and Sunday -- I'm going to miss that someday!)

So, if you're quitting a book to pick up and finish another one, consider yourself absolved. I do.

Mission Aborted

"And that's how Wacky Wednesday began."
This really is the page where
Tallulah's bookmark was found this morning.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
My family walked to the library yesterday.  It was Tallulah's second time using her first library card, which meant she was returning her first library books.  The fact that these books were returned before the due date is a Baumgart Family Miracle.  The fact that she read all of these books is also quite impressive.  As Lily checked her books out, she was informed of some late fees (see what I mean), which she responsibly paid with her own money.  I watched from behind a shelf of books, wondering if I should be walking up to offer my motherly, if not monetary, help.

When I got to the self-checkout a bit later, the librarian popped over to my station.  I was ready to offer some excuse for our fines, or apologize for my kids being too loud.  But instead she offered this observation, "I just want to share with you that your children are very polite.  You oldest daughter was so responsible and mature, handling her late fees and talking with me when she checked out.  And she's so beautiful, she really rocks that short hair cut."  We joked some about the fact that my middle-schooler doesn't seem to be experiencing any awkward stage like those of us nearing forty painfully remember going through.  And I thanked her for sharing, since on my end, as the mother, I don't always get to see that side of my own children.

Should I have chosen something...easier?  More fun?

I can tend toward hands off parenting.  Sometimes I wonder if I should help more, like when I was watching Lily check out, and saw Levi walking to find me to get one more dollar for his sister to pay her fine.  But I think this allows them to discover their autonomy and independence.  To have interactions in a safe environment with adults that allows them to learn about the world they live in, firsthand.  Oh, and by the way, Levi returned with the dollar a few minutes later, "Lily didn't need this after all.  So, I am going to keep it, OK?"  "No," I replied and snatched it back.  See, this is the version of my kids I get to see.  

When we got home, Tallulah sat down to read and in one evening, my six-year-old read more than I did this past week.  By bedtime she had read "more than she had not read" (as she put it) of The Big Green Book of Beginner Books, by Dr. Seuss.  She read 138 pages.  I have been stuck at 72 pages for the past five days.

I woke up at 1am last night and sleepily made my way down our long hallway to the bathroom.  I heard something and turned to see Lily.

"What are you doing up, sweetie?"

"Oh, I am just going to bed.  I was reading that pink and green book I got from the library and I couldn't stop reading it so I finished the whole thing."

 "Wow, OK, well, get to bed," is what I said, half asleep.  But what I was thinking was, "Damn, both of my girls are showing me up today."

It is now Wednesday morning.  I did not read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  I did not finish any book this past week.  I am left with a choice.  Do, I trudge on through and attempt to finish the book I started?  Or do I pick something more fun and easy?  And sometimes, it is hard to know what will be fun and easy.  I know a friend that loved this spy book.

The truth is, this past week, I chose studying for school and being a mom over the blog.  Sure, if the book had been easier and more to my liking, I would have done all three things.  I typically do.  But this past weekend, Jamie was away at a silent meditation retreat and instead of reading all weekend, I chose to study some each day and spend the rest having fun with the kids.

We went to the Burke Museum, went bowling, found some supplies for a paper mâché solar system, shopped for ingredients for homemade ricotta cheese (we learned how to make it at a demonstration while at the museum), among many other things.  Lily and her BFF made us dinner Sunday night: fresh pasta pesto lasagna with homemade ricotta, caprese salad, breadsticks, and almond cake.  I even made an exception to my Healthival exemptions and ate everything!  It was all soooo delicious, especially the cake.  Just this morning I was still thinking about how happy I was that I chose to eat the cake.

Oh, and I even got to reconnect with a friend over tea.  It really was a lovely weekend.  So, to be honest, I don't feel all that bad (Not that I think you think I should, it's just that I usually think I should.  Feel bad, that is.) about the reading being left out.  I feel like I made my choice, with no excuses or regrets, and sometimes that is what we all must do.

How is all of your reading going?  Are you sailing along?  Or are you finding that you, too, need to make some choices when reality stands in your face?

Happy Wacky Wednesday!
-Melissa

Let's Read!

Posted by Melissa Baumgart and Amy Baranski

In honor of Reading a Book a Week Month, we did our monthly photo shoot at one of the most beautiful buildings in Seattle, The Seattle Public Library.  The angles, the colors, the lighting...it all came together and ignited our inspiration to read all month long, at any moment.  Perhaps even on an escalator!

We hope you feel inspired as well.  Whether you read books all the time, or you haven't read a book since Wuthering Heights in 9th Grade; we invite you to join us on this challenge.  Both of us have not read as much as we would like to in recent years, so if this isn't in your comfort zone, you're in good company.

On the side bar of the blog, you'll find a poll.

If you're in for reading a book every week, simply click on the "Yes!"  We can all share in the inspiration from the increasing numbers of fellow readers out there.  Feel free to share your experiences, joys, failures and thoughts in our comments or on our Facebook page.

Reading can evoke facial expressions.  Intense and relaxed.

Here are some suggestions for those joining us:

• Wednesday to Wednesday makes up one week.   
• You can choose any books you like.  
• Some people will just read and read and read, without the need for any motivation.
• Some people may find it helpful to divide their number of pages by 7, so they can see how many pages they need to read every day to stay on track.
• Any other questions?....Just Ask!

Read on!

If you're new to this blog, check out what we do, why we do it and like our Facebook page to stay up to date and participate.

Reading The Awakening

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I chose a new book.  I am leaving Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy behind for now.  Perhaps I will still finish it, but it might take me a bit more time than a week.  Like when I read All the Pretty Horses.  I thought about giving up on it, since it was taking so long to get through, but I stuck it out and ended up finding so much beauty within those pages.  As for TTSS, I am simply taking a break, coming back later to discover its beauty.

The book I am reading now is The Awakening by Kate Chopin.  It was recommended by GLWT reader and my dear friend, Erin, in her comment when entering our sweepstakes last month.  As I was browsing through the books at the Value Village in Capitol Hill, I happened across the title.  It was a thin book, and so I picked it up.

I read this description on the back of the book:

When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity.  Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation.

Aside form its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities.  Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D.H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity."

Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.

Shocking, daring, honest and controversial.  I was won over.  Given the number of pages, 116 compared to the 382 of my last book, and the recommendation as well as the description, how could I not choose this book next?

I have read eleven pages thus far.

What I like: You definitely get a feel for the time and place, the late 1800's and at a summer resort outside of New Orleans.  While current literature and media may throw infidelity at us left and right, numbing our reaction to the plethora of indecencies, reading The Awakening brings a level of purity to the reader's perception.  You get a sense for how "wrong" it was then.  Whether it happened as much as it does now is a moot point, for it is within the views of the society in which you live that that you find the shocking quality.  Current media still plays upon the drama of infidelity, but with an underlying thread of inevibility.

What I do not like:  Coming across words like befurbelowed.  "Children, freshly befurbelowed, were gathering for their games under the oaks."  What the hell does that mean?  Jamie and I had a ball with that word last night, using it willy-nilly in various sentences, and thinking about trying to use it out and about in the world the next day.  It was so fun (OK, so I didn't really not like this part after all) that I don't know if I even want to know what the definition really is.

I looked it up.  As far as I could see online, it is not defined by any dictionary.  I did find this answer on ChaCha, a Q&A website that I have never seen before, "Befurbelowed ? Furbelows are flounces or elaborate trim on a dress or shirt. Befurbelowed means to be dressed up in particularly fancy clothes."
So, have fun with that one.  We kinda like how it sounds like Beefer the way we pronounce it.  "Beefer-bellowed"  he-he

Have fun reading!
Melissa

  

Ingredients for Self Reliance

Posted by Amy Baranski

Big-belly blackberry laugh.
Fruits from the urban foray.

It's the long awaited Urban Homesteading month! Besides working yesterday I kicked off the month by checking on my three gardens, and harvesting greens, carrots, squash, tomatoes, and a cucumber. In the evening I foraged for blackberries and picked a few apples from an abandoned tree. Later, I celebrated the first of the month by making garden salad out of home-grown ingredients and eating a homemade dinner with my blogging partner who had whipped up lasagna.

What do we mean by Urban Homesteading anyway? 

The month is about becoming more self-reliant while living in the city, a place designed for people to rely on public and privatized systems. So, how about trying to rely on ourselves for a month? This could be taken to the extreme, but I think setting and meeting small goals will more likely effect long-term change in my life. As my mother-in-law says: a goal without a plan is just a wish. So, here are some of my goals and plans to meet them.

Goal #1: Learn about homesteading

Baby Scarlet Nantes and my first cucumber.
Photo by Amy Baranski.

Plan: First, I plan to read 45 pages a day. Below I've listed four books--two guides and two narratives. If I blaze through these I'll add more. I will designate reading time in the morning before work and the evening before bed. Second, I'll attend classes. I'm registered for a canning class via the local co-op (thanks Melissa), and a class on Composting for Apartment Dwellers via Seattle Tilth and Seattle Public Parks. Third, I plan to talk with people. I have some brilliant gardener friends and family who know the A to Seeds of composting, growing, harvesting and preserving, there's much to learn from their experience. Lastly, I will do. I learn best through doing, so trying a few new things during the month will help to at least lay a foundation of knowledge about urban homesteading practices.

Book list:

• The Urban Homestead, by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen
• Fat of the the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, by Langdon Cook
• Your Farm in the City: An Urban Dweller's Guide to Growing Food and Raising Animals, by Lisa Taylor and the gardeners  of Seattle Tilth
• A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them, by Sue Hubbell

Melissa trying to untangle the mess of yarn.
It was a rough moment.
Photo by Amy Baranski.

Goal #2: Accomplish daily self-reliant tasks
Plan: Making a daily commitment to a few things will help integrate a sense of self reliance into my way of living. Some of the daily tasks I've chosen are matter of habit already. Some are not. My plan is to bring more intention and understanding to each activity by keeping a daily log of these tasks. I will keep the log simple, indicating if the chore was done, at what time, and will add notes as needed. My daily commitments for the month are:

Daily Commitments 

• Make meals--mostly from scratch, no purchasing of processed foods, don't eat out
• Reduce energy consumption--less screen time, quick showers, turn off lights
• Compost--all food waste makes it to the compost bin
• Recycle--all recyclables make it to the recycling bin
• Keep a tidy house--wash dishes, clean kitchen & bathroom floor, dust & vacuum

Greens from the garden.
Photo by Amy Baranski.

Goal #3: Complete larger monthly challenges 
Plan: In order to take on new and larger projects I will designate Sunday evening as my weekly planning session. I will list out the steps to each challenge and create a work-back schedule for two projects each week. The work-back schedule will go from Sunday to Sunday.

• Make a compost system
• Create a living wall
• Preserve food: canning, dehydrating, freezing
• Design & implement a garden plan to maximize growing space around the apartment building
• Investigate & implement a water catchment system
• Host a yard sale
• Hand craft: sew, knit, make a book
• Support the Urban Bee Company, my husband's beautiful project

That's a lot. I think If I stick to this plan some of this might actually get done.

Hot Tubs, Moldy Towels and The Birth House

Posted by Melissa Baumgart

A Weekend Away.
I had the pleasure of going to the Oregon Coast this past weekend.  Our dear friends (and GLWT reader number uno) hosted us at their beach house just south of Astoria, OR.  I loved every minute of it, from driving through the old town where the Goonies was filmed, the windy walk down to witness the mighty Pacific Ocean, the sauna, the breakfast of seasonal frittata and dinner of dungeness crab to catching up in front of the fire after the kids were tucked in bed.  So, no, I did not do any water aerobics this past weekend.  Not unless you count raising my glass while relaxing in the hot tub as a form of excersize.


My Pool is Closed.
It's a bummer, Green Lake's Evans Pool is closed for two weeks.  I am hugely disappointed, since that was my favorite place for water aerobics in Seattle.  I just don't know if I'll find another spot that fills me up, emotionally and physically, like that one.  If you know of one, I am all ears.  And in case you weren't aware, I prefer my water aerobics in the deep end with lots of old people.

Project Simplify is on.

I don't even use half of this stuff.

Last week, Amy started a challenge that has to do with organizing.  Amy found a blog, Simple Mom, and she does a decluttering/organizing project every March.  She sets up guidelines and helps you to focus on one "hot spot" in need of attention in your home every week.  When I first read Amy's post, I cringed.  Organizing and cleaning used to be my thing, until kids.  I suppose I still do OK in the category, but for me, with these things, it's like I either do it really well or I throw in the towel.  Consider my towel thrown, so long ago, it's probably in some cluttered recess of my closet growing the mold that is giving me allergies and my leg rash.  Now when I hear about other people "organizing" my ego takes it as a personal blow.  Like someone just plastered my old moldy towel on the cover of US magazine next to Snooki's baby bump.  


My weekend away was spent with a friend of mine that excels in the organizing and cleaning categories of life.  Every closet or drawer I opened was a new challenge.  How do I feel good about my personal flaws in the face of perfection?  Well, believe me, it is hard for a Virgo woman.  Hell, it might be hard for any woman, if they are being honest.  It wasn't until I got home that it really hit me, when I was faced with all the clutter and disorganization and mess of my own space.  I walked through my door with a smile on my face from all the fun, and quickly discovered an uncomfortable chip on my shoulder, longing for the neat and orderly me of yesteryear.

The wretched container cupboard. 

Instead of wallowing in my imperfections, I decided to move through my cringing and right on into Project Simplify.  It feels like less of a To-Do list for me, and more like some kind of intense exposure therapy.  Let's just hope it goes better than my trip to the mountainside.  Although, I wouldn't rule out a few tears being shed.

This week is going to be spent tackling the kitchen.  I love cooking, so this is an area I spend a lot of time in.  I figure it is a good place to start.  I have agreed to three things for the week:

1. Cleaning out my fridge and freezer.  This means getting rid of things I don't use, no matter how healthy and good they are for me.  If I don't use them, they are doing no good.
2. Organizing my containers, plastic and otherwise.  This cupboard is out of control.  I can get it all tidy in the afternoon, and by nightfall it is a complete mess.  I am going to also find a way to keep it tidy.  My recent purchase of a Martha Stewart magazine on organizing says, "Staying organized is an ongoing process; if something isn't working well for you, change the process until it is."  That is my goal for this cupboard.
3. Making a meal plan and sticking to it.  I used to do this and it always felt so good.  Knowing that all the fresh, healthy food in my fridge is going to be used and not found rotten two weeks later is always a good feeling.    

Reading more.

I have continued to read, since last month sparked my love for reading.  I am not reading at the same pace as last month, but I am working through a 400+ page book, The Birth House by Ami McKay.  It takes place in the early 1900's and is about a woman that apprentice's with an old granny midwife and has to cope with medical technologies like twilight sleep being offered to the women of her rural town.  She has to walk the delicate line between being a good wife in the context of the culture she was raised in, and following her calling, which is serving women, not her husband's needs.

I am really enjoying it and I feel a strong sense of reading the right book at the right time.

Until next time.  And please, consider checking out a water aerobics class near you.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
-Melissa

what beauty lies 11 pages away from where you might give up?

posted by Melissa


Do you ever start books and have a hard time getting through, oh, I don't know...the first 150 pages?  Sometimes, a lot of times, that happens for me.  Even with books that I eventually end up liking, if I ever do get past those first pages.  I started the book, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Don't read the "plot summary" part of the link if you haven't read the book, it gives away the story line.)  about 5 months ago.  Just a week ago or so I made it past page 150, and it finally got gripping.  So much so that last night I was actually angry at Tallulah for not wanting the light on because I wanted to keep reading the book in bed.

I find this whole tai chi adventure to be similar.  Here we are half way through the month and I am still confused, my attention drifting easily to everything else in my life, and wondering why I am doing this in the first place.  But like the McCarthy book, I have something invested in finishing this out.  With the book it was my love for his other book, The Road, that kept me going.

tough choices 

With tai chi, it is the blog, and my love for finding my way through whatever challenge it brings that keeps me going.  If I had first read the horse book without having read the post-apocalyptic tale beforehand, my guess is that I would have given up on reading about horses.  And if I did have a commitment to this blog, and what I have seen transform in myself through the pursuit of the blog, I would probably have quit you too, tai chi.

And so this morning, instead of finishing my horse book, I will pick up this lovely little gem of a tai chi book and see where it takes me.  Who knows, I might find a passage as moving as the one I will leave you with today.  I found it on page 161 in the horse book...11 little pages past my usual quitting point.  I guess you never know what beauty lies a few page turns away.

"THAT NIGHT he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers all ran blue and yellow as far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down all the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off of them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like music among them and they were none of them afraid horse nor colt not mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised."  -Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses 

Ok, so I know I said I was leaving you with that quote, but as I wrote the title to the post it got me to thinking.  What else do I give up on?  Why?  Isn't it sometimes good to know when to say something isn't working any more?  How do you know when that time is right?  or wrong?

I, of course, started thinking about yoga.  In class yesterday my teacher, Laura, said something that totally brought me to a new place of my practice.  And one that coincidentally is totally aligned with my writing this morning.  She said something to this effect, "In Bikram yoga it is believed that you get the physical in shape and the spiritual will follow.   Physical, mental and then spiritual."  She had also shared another little nugget of wisdom earlier in the same class about moments of self love and how we come to this class for ourselves.  This is MY practice, wow.  For me.

And it hit me, in every class lately I have so many moments of wanting to quit.  "I'll only do one of those postures."  Even when I can physically, I fall out mentally.  I was showing up for the challenge of the 30 days, for the teachers, for the Sweatbox...but not for me.  This is my life, this is my practice, my body.  It is so motivating to be reminded of what I fell in love with about Bikram yoga.

What beauty lies within me...maybe just one pose away?  I think I am willing to find out.

And now I really will leave you...with one of my favorite Bikram quotes:

"Never too late, never too old, never too bad, and never too sick to do this yoga and start from scratch once again." -Bikram Choudury

peace,
Melissa

A hole that every happy thing falls into.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
"That secret was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into." -Oskar Schell, 9 years old.

That's a powerful sentence.  One sentence can make you feel so many things.

Oskar Schell is one of the main characters in the book I am reading this week, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It is currently in the movie theaters, and like the last book I read, is also up for an Oscar for Best Picture.  In the past, I used to love movies that were taken from great novels, so I could talk with people that actually read books and sound like I knew a little something.  Right now, after reading The Descendants and starting this book, I have different feelings about the book-to-movie phenomenon.

I think I only want to go and see The Descendants to keep the book alive, to relive it again without forcing everyone I know to read it out loud to me.  Like Jamie was doing today, he even called me on my way to school to share a funny part.  So sweet.  And already only 80 pages into the "Incredibly Close" book (that's what I call it since I can never seem to remember the order of the title words.  Sorry, Mr. Foer.) I agree with Amy, I just don't know if a movie could capture this book.

Amy shared with me that this is one of her all-time favorite books.  She said it is revolutionary in it's format.  But I think she used a smarter, more appropriate word, other than format.  Style?  Layout?  No, but something to that effect.

So far, I adore Oskar Schell.  His fears, his random thoughts, his creative inventions that cannot ever truly exist.  They all make for a lovable kid, at least from the perspective of a reader.  If he were my kid, I don't know if I would've had the patience for him day after day.  How sad is that?  That we often cannot see the magic of our own offspring because we don't have the perspective of the "reader", we instead have to make sure they are safe and fed and educated and all that parent-y kinda stuff.

Even in The Descendants, when the kids are saying outrageous things, I laugh.  If my kids said things like that, I would feel obligated to tell them how wrong it was, or to punish them.  Especially if some other, more parent-y kinda parent were standing there.  Why can't we just laugh sometimes in real life?  I don't know, maybe all this fiction is getting to me.  Maybe I prefer it.

Maybe we let all the happy things fall into all the holes we create form our perceived pain, and we forget how to laugh.  As a community, as a country, as a society.  Why do we all have to behave so goddamn perfect all the time?

Poor, sweet, Oskar Schell, though.  His Dad died.  To lose your Dad as a young boy...that must be a pain that creates a huge, cavernous hole.  I can't imagine him being able to laugh, for a while.  Even at outrageous teenaged inappropriateness.

-Melissa