This picture was taken in December. Those are unknowing googly eyes.

Currently reading: The Marriage Plot

Even though I love speaking critically about books and it is basically what I am trained to do, I can’t bring myself to write book reviews.  It’s one of the few areas where I’d rather have a conversation than spend time carefully putting my thoughts into words.  I don’t want to write about the book as a thing that exists on its own.  I want to write about it from my own perspective.

In this case, I want to write about my experience of a book that I am not even half completed.  Because reading it has been an experience.  Like when I read Just Kids, I find myself putting this book down because, I don’t know, it makes me feel restless.  I want to talk about it or just look up from the page to make some kind of face at someone who understands.   Maybe we would have one of those conversations that begins and ends with, “I know, right?”

The novel begins in an academic setting with characters who study English, philosophy, and religion.  Do you know that that is my life?  I’ve spent enough years in a little bubble where it seems normal to care as much about these subjects as I do, but at one point it was a crazy decision I made, and still it is strange for me to read in fiction about Derrida and Tillich.  That’s so specific that I am nervous just putting those names together, because I know a classmate working on a paper is going to do a search and find this post.

(To that person I say: Hello.  Yes, it is that girl who sat next to you in that one class. Sorry that you found a bunch of my feelings instead of anything helpful.  But your paper sounds interesting and I’d love to read it.)

I can’t say that I find any of the philosophical discussion in the book enlightening, but reading someone write about things that I know very well make me realize that I should be doing that.  I don’t know what it means to have a purely academic interest in anything.  To me, everything is personal.  But reading about the (again, really specific) things that I study, I keep thinking that I need to find new ways to share all the meaning I find shoving my face into books and writing research papers.

As a grad student in an age of overwhelming distraction, I always romanticize student life in earlier decades, but the minute one character had to stay in on a Friday waiting for a boy to call, I was pretty happy to be back in own decade. I am not yet willing to say I am a great fan of the main female character, but smart girls are sometimes written very strangely, as if being intelligent means never being stupid or lacking confidence, and she seems complex in a way that is real, whether I want to be her best friend or not.  I wish I’d understood that kind of complexity when I was younger.

I am so aware reading this book that I am not 22 anymore. Only now am I getting to the point where I can think back on my early twenties with anything more than relief that I somehow survived them to become a sane and happy person.  I keep thinking of how strange it would have been to read this book when I was the same age as the characters.  I don’t know whether it’s good or bad that it hadn’t yet been written.

I find myself somewhat critical of the writing, but I am still so engaged.  It doesn’t feel transcendent like Middlesex, which was so well done that it seemed to belong to a different world, but the experience of reading has been so much more fun.  I really want to know what happens, and that’s not always the way I feel reading serious literature.

Whether in the end I decide that The Marriage Plot is a good book or not is second to the fact that it matters to me and I am having an experience (worthy of italics) just reading it.

In March, I decided to start reading for fun again. Mostly because I missed it and reading a book or two each year on breaks from school was making it difficult for me to justify being so pretentious.

My modest goal was to read 10 books by the end of the year, and I read 19!

Favorite book I read this year: Just Kids.  If you like memoirs or like things that I like, I suggest reading it.  It’s one of those books that I wish I could read over and over again as if for the first time.  It was an experience.

After a year of debating getting an e-reader, I finally have one.  I considered every option and then decided I wanted an iPad, but hey they are expensive, so I was in no hurry.  Then my dad kindly gave me one for my birthday.  Oh my, it’s better than I even expected.  I’m still buying books in paper as well, but I enjoy reading on the iPad.  And the world has not fallen to pieces.

I have a big stack of books I’m looking forward to reading in 2012.  I would like to make some crazy reading goal, but I would also like to have time to write and work on my degree, so I’ll say my goal is to read 30 books by the end of the year.  Starting with Born Standing Up and then The Marriage Proposal for #twookclub.

It turns out that I know myself very well.  I am not good at studying on my own without deadlines.  I am a skilled procrastinator, and I really mean that.  I don’t waste my time like an amateur might; I do a lot of things I am very proud of.  The problem is that none of them get me closer (at least in obvious ways) to that big thing I have kind of been working toward forever now.  

This is not a cocktail party, so I’m not continuing to mention the fact that I’ve been reading a lot just to impress you.¹  It’s just that I’m kind of surprised by it.  No matter how many years of practice I put in, reading for fun is not a habit that came back to me as soon as I had a minute and picked up a book.  Even after I picked up a book, it still took several months, and I am not there yet.  I ask other grad students about their reading habits.  I am entertaining the idea of reading before bed as if it is an experiment I should approach with caution.

A few nights ago when I was walking home from work, I had the thought my 14 year old self wanted to believe so desperately: reading a lot makes me a more interesting person.  Right, except, not really.  I mean, not alone.  You keep reading, 14 year old Ashley, but don’t think that makes you better than anyone.  This is what’s going to happen: you’re going to become a real person with a unique perspective and a lot of thoughts, and all that reading will deepen those thoughts and make you better at articulating them, but the act of carrying around a book does not make you interesting.  Rory Gilmore is fictional!

What I’m getting at is that being a person is really important and it does not always keep pace with all the stuff coming at you.  See, for instance, my first two years of grad school.  I did not know who I was or where I was going, and that made everything really difficult.  I like that I am a person who takes what I study and read personally, but for a while that was really hard.

That time was important, and I know that a lot of life is being faced with things you are not prepared for, but I like that things I am reading now resonate on a different level than they did before, because I know myself better.  I think, “Why didn’t I read this book in high school?”  And then, “I’m glad I didn’t read this book in high school.”

One thing I was certainly better at in high school: writing by hand.  In another feat of advanced-level procrastination, I have been writing in my journal every day.²  Yesterday my hand hurt so badly that I was really excited to do my dishes, since it meant resting my hand in warm water.  I write nothing else by hand, and I’m starting to see why.  It hurts!

I have actually been doing all kinds of writing, which in my life has always been the thing I should be doing.  For many years, I even listened to a podcast called I Should Be Writing.  Reading Patti Smith made me think a lot about how much time I spend working on my art³, and then I realized that I already have a lot of momentum in this area, and please hold now while I pat myself on the back for that.

Just when you have forgotten what this post is about, I am here to remind you.  These are the things that I am doing.  They are awesome.  But they are not the things I should really be focusing on.  So I’ve been having a lot of conversations like this:

Coworker: “What are you reading?”
Me: [Holds up novel]
Coworker: “Is that getting you closer to passing your German exam?”
Me: No. [laughs]⁴

I need to finish my degree.  Not for any reason more important than I want to.  I like that these other things are part of my life.  I hope they are always a part of my life.  But I need to prioritize. School has always quite naturally been my top priority (behind being happy), and this is a really bad time for that to no longer be the case.

I made a decision over the weekend that was not about changing my plans, but rather putting them in perspective, and with this clearer (except here where it is totally vague) goal in mind, I am ready to do all that hard work that history suggests I am pretty good at.

1. What if I could call my blog a cocktail party?  How great would that be?!
2. I was inspired by Cait.  JEDIO (Journal every day in October), anyone?
3. I am so uncomfortable using that word, but I think that’s actually part of them problem.
4. This is a true story, but in retelling it I realize that it makes my coworker sound like a jerk.  He was just joking and he’s actually in the same boat and was also reading a book for fun.  I’m not sure if this coworker reads my blog or not, but in case he does, I just want to say thanks for putting up with me when I was in coursework.  I know that stressed-out me is not exactly the most pleasant person to be around, and you had no choice but to be around me.  I apologize for all of my glaring.

I decided on Tuesday when it was rainy and cold that I wanted to spend the weekend reading.  I began to question this plan later in the week as the weather improved, but when I shushed someone in the library hours before my weekend was to begin, I knew my first instinct had been correct.

I tend to underestimate how much I enjoy actually talking to people and overestimate my ability to sit and do anything for an extended period of time. Sometimes I have the great idea to just write all weekend or just read all weekend, and then I go crazy or get nothing done.

This weekend was different.

I started by cleaning everything.  I have a hard time focusing in a messy apartment and though I have a gift for artfully stacking my dishes, at some point I do run out of coffee mugs.   By the time I was done cleaning, it was already mid-day.  I looked at the clock and thought, “I am already failing at this weekend!”

I pulled out the big headphones.  The expensive ones that block out all noise, so that if my nose was in a book, a stranger could walk into my apartment and steal my Justin Timberlake bobblehead without me even noticing. Putting these headphones on is always like saying I will focus now.

Before I could focus, I had to ask a trusted friend an important question, “Drink more coffee or move on to wine?”  She answered correctly: wine.

So with wine and my big headphones, I sat down in my clean apartment to read Just Kids. Really, it’s the only reason I thought this weekend was worth recapping.  Several people have recommended this book to me over the last couple years, I bought it a few months ago, and this weekend I finally started it.

Patti Smith had me from the beginning.  It was the writing, which is hard to describe, because it isn’t particularly distinctive.  Just my style.  No big words when small work better and no three-paragraph descriptions of every season–just really clear and honest writing.

Good books always make me want to write, and since I was reading a memoir, I sat with my wine and my big headphones in my clean apartment, reading Just Kids and occasionally stopping to write a paragraph in my journal.

When I started my new journal–the biggest Moleskine I could find and with the tiniest ruling–I thought I would never finish it.  Five months later, I am nearly halfway through it, and I am ready to confirm what the world already knows, I have a lot of feelings!

In Just Kids, Patti talks about how she and Robert would choose one album, making it the Album of the Night, listening to it over and over, and letting it set the tone as they worked.  I often do this when I’m working on papers, but I made a point to do it this weekend.  Friday:  Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons.  Saturday: High Violet by The National.

Thoughts: I want to concentrate more on the kind of work that matters to me.  Maybe one day I will even be comfortable calling it art.  I always want people around me who encourage me in this direction.  I think memoirs are perhaps the most important kind of writing. I could live well on a lot less.  How is it even possible for faulted humans to create such perfect music?  I should tell twitter how good this wine is.

I am taking my time reading Just Kids.  I think because I like the idea of recreating weekends like this one where I do all the things I’ve always done, but somehow they seem new.  Nothing life changing, but a pleasant shift in perspective.  The kind that makes you really happy where you are, while you think of all the places you have yet to go.

Missing from this recap are conversations with actual people, pizza, too many episodes of The Tudors, getting rid of even more things, and tripping over the things I was getting rid of while making my way to the bathroom in the dark.

When I used to say that it’s really hard to read for fun when you’re in grad school, I always felt like I was making excuses.  I’d been a dedicated reader from about sixth grade up through college and then I basically just stopped.  I tried several times to get back on track, but the same book would sit by my bed for months on end.  One of the librarians I work with (and I think they’re experts on such things) assured me that I would pick it back up after grad school, but I had trouble believing her.

I made the modest goal in March to read ten books by the end of the year, and as of this week, I have met that goal.  What is more exciting is that reading has become a much bigger part of my life since I finished coursework.  It turns out that when you’re not required to read 300-600 pages of academic text a week for school, it’s a lot easier to pick up a book and read for fun.

I am still struggling to find a place for reading in my everyday life.  I’m something of a binge reader, covering hundreds of pages in a day and then not reading at all for a while after that.  As valuable as I think reading is, I often feel guilty when I sit down to read, thinking I should really be doing something else.  The silence of reading makes it easy for all of those thoughts to scream in my head.

Then there is the actual reading itself, which is kind of awkward, because I have become so accustomed to scanning texts quickly with an eye only for the main points.  It is a survival technique for academics.  I’m used to sitting at a desk with a pen in my hand, leaning over the text while my eyes jump around.  This is not the way to enjoy literature, but it has been difficult to train my eyes to slow down and I cannot help but try to finish every book as quickly as possible.

Then there is the big one, which I mentioned previously in a vlog.  It is really hard to be a dedicated reader and a dedicated writer at the same time.  I had so much time to read when I was younger, because I didn’t write that much.  I just talked a lot about writing. (Also, I didn’t have to support myself.)  In the years that I haven’t been reading much, I have been writing more than ever before.  Now I feel like I’m always deciding between the two.

All of those complications aside, I am loving reading again and all of the stuff that goes with it.  It is just that things have changed since I was last in the habit of buying books.  There are fewer bookstores to wander around and the big ones that are left charge significantly more than Amazon.

I am feeling nostalgic for all the time I used to spend in used bookstores, often with my parents.  I miss not just the prices, but not knowing what I was going to find.  There was some degree of chance in what I would read next.  (Must investigate whether there are any used bookstores near me.)  What would I do if faced with the full range of Baby-sitter’s Club books?  Sweet Valley High?  I have weaknesses, people!

I am getting closer to purchasing an ereader, but I am not willing to make the leap yet.  I know I will get there, but this is one of the few technological changes I find painful.

What’s that thing where you want to keep writing the same post over and over again.  Not because you need something to post, but because somehow you feel like you have more to say.  But, like, what more do I really have to say about my frustration over all the things I want to do in too little time?  I think I’ve covered it.

Maybe it’s really that thing where you like someone and you want to talk about that person all the time even though you really don’t have anything new to say and your friends don’t care that much.

Still bubbling over here.  Still trying to run in every direction at the same time.  Still trying to figure everything out, as if that’s possible.

The secret about very organized people is that we spend most of our time feeling very unorganized.  And we can’t think clearly in the midst of mess, so we put everything in lists and categories.  Life doesn’t fit all that well into lists and categories, so we work on creating better lists and categories.  It’s fun.  We enjoy it.  But trust that our heads are as chaotic as all the rest.  Maybe even more so.

I know this already, but it always seems to surprise me anyway.  I do not calm my anxiety by finding a new way to think about things.  I calm it by doing something.  Even something small, like taking my lunch break to sit outside and read Infinite Jest.

For a few years, I had trouble reading.  In the quiet of it, my mind would become flooded with the thoughts I was working hard to distract myself from.  I don’t feel that way anymore.  Reading brings me peace now in the way it did when I was younger.  It’s like taking a deep breath.

I had this plan to read Infinite Jest this Summer.  So I asked if anyone wanted to read it with me.  I expected to hear only the sound of crickets in return, but this is the internet and the internet loves to surprise me, so instead I heard a chorus of “I do!”

I was like, “Yes!”

Then I thought about how we might do this.  And I talked to a few people about it.  Then I thought about it some more.  Now I must admit that I still have no idea how to proceed.  If I was starting a book club, I certainly wouldn’t choose Infinite Jest as the first book.  It’s huge and, well, that’s pretty much all I know about it because I haven’t read it yet.

So I’m thinking we keep it pretty simple.  We’ll try to keep a pace of 100 pages a week (so it will take us most of the Summer) and we’ll try to find different ways to talk about it (on our blogs, on twitter, maybe in vlogs, even a group chat if there’s the interest).  Some of the guides on the Infinite Summer site might be helpful.

The real goal is just to read the book.  It probably won’t be easy, but we can do it together.  Join me!

Here’s what you should do:
1. Let me know you want to participate! (Even if you have already; I’ll make a contact list.)
2. Get a copy of Infinite Jest.
3. Start reading June 1st.
4. Participate in discussions, start discussions, or just read along.
5. Finish reading August 13th.  High fives with me are required.

Pace Keeper (Hard Copy):
June 1: Page 1
June 5: Page 30
June 12: Page 100
June 19: Page 200
June 26: Page 300
July 3: Page 400
July 10: Page 500
July 17: Page 600
July 24: Page 700
July 31: Page 800
August 7: Page 900
August 13: Done!  We win!

Pace Keeper (Ebook–Thanks Kathleen!):
June 19: Page 254
June 26: Page 382
July 3: Page 509
July 10: Page 636
July 17: Page 763
July 24: Page 891
July 31: Page 1018
August 7: Page 1145
August 13: Done!

Participants
Allison – Lemonade Life/@AMBlass
Amy - Just a Titch/@justatitch
Andrea - andreadisaster.com/@andreadisaster
Berrak –  DC Princess/@DC_PQ
Bri – Habbala/@habbala
Christa – Growing Up Ginsburg/@christagins
Clare – Never Niche/@clareyt
Danielle – Wonju Wife/@wonjuwife
Ellen - Company of Clever/@companyofclever
Gina – Gina Marie Rose/@gina_marierose
Heather – Musings of a Girl/@yesthatgirl
Jenn – Avec Moi/@jennbizzle
Jeremiah – –/–
Katherine - purekatherine/@purekatherine
Kathleen - Kapachino/@kapachino
Lisa Jennea – LisaJennea/@lisajennea
Meg  Life in Bloom/@megaug
Melissa – By Melissa/@bymelissa
Miranda – Imperfectly Candid/@MprfectlyCandid
Nico - nicopolitan/@nicopolitan
Nicole – Nicole Marie Says/@nicolemariesays
Rachel – Rachelskirts/@rachelskirts
Stevie – Seattle Stevie/@seattlestevie
Kate – Suburban Sweetheart/@heysuburban
Suki - Super Duper Fantastic/@suki
Tabitha - Probably Tabitha/@probablytabitha
Terra – Terra Bear/@terrabear
Tom – Week 11/@tomfromhr
Tom - Winston-Salem’s Lone Beatnik/@tbevilacqua1034

At the beginning of March, I said I was going to start reading again. Well, I have.  And I’ve loved it, which is a relief, because it’s been like recovering a part of myself that I thought might be lost.  I keep thinking, how have I not been reading fiction all of this time?

I’m trying to alternate between classics and contemporary literature, which is working well for me.  Though, I must say that I haven’t quite found a permanent place in my current life for reading.  It’s hard to fit it in during the busy part of my week, because I’m reading so much for school.  Before bed doesn’t work well, because I’m always so tired that I  start drifting off about half a page in.  Free time at the library after I’ve finished school for the week is usually filled with blogging and talking to people on the internet. So I end up doing most of my reading on the weekends in long stretches.

I decided a number of years ago not to buy anymore books.  It was probably after my third move in two years (books are heavy, you know, and I like the idea of being more mobile than a huge book collection allows).  My apartment is small and my bookcase overloaded, so I told myself I’d only buy the books I needed for school.  Then there was the money issue; I was in debt and did not need to be spending money on books when I wasn’t even reading much.  Plus, I work in a library where I have immediate access to more than two million books and can get any book we do not have delivered in 3-5 days. Free!

This has worked well for me, and even though I’m now out of debt and can afford to buy books, I was planning on sticking with it for all those other reasons.  But, I like (and am used to) writing in my books (I’m a big underliner) and I can’t do that when I get them from the library. Post-its (which librarians are not a fan of because they easily damage books) work well enough, but when I finish a book, I don’t know what to do with everything I’ve marked.  Copy the quotes down? Write notes on the style choices?  I can’t deny that I like owning my own copies that I can write all over and then save (and possibly organize on shelves by color).

So here’s where we get to the debate in my head and the potential hypocrisy.  I’ve worked in libraries for about five years now and in that time I’ve listened to people complain about every single change we’ve made.  Some act like our secret plan is to throw out all the books and fill the building with computers and trampolines (not a bad plan, really). This kind of resistance to change–90% of which makes research easier–irritates me.  And it has carried over to people who act like e-readers mark the end of civilization.  I get that you like actual books, but the Kindle is not the devil (I study theology, so I should know).

The whole debate was impersonal to me, because most of my books for school are not available for e-readers and I’d decided to get all of my books from the library otherwise, but now I find myself wanting to buy books and totally resisting e-readers.  And I get that I can do whatever I want and I won’t feel bad about buying actual books, but I hate to be a hypocrite!   I don’t care to do anything on principle alone, so I won’t buy a Kindle until I really want one (I’m sure I’ll come around at some point), but in the meantime, I guess I can be more understanding of the other resisters (but no comparing anything to the devil, people!).

If you want to be friends on goodreads, you can find me here.  In addition to reading, I’ve also been listening to new music and watching movies I’ve always meant to see.  The list of things I’m currently reading/listening to/watching is in the sidebar (left) of my blog and I update it weekly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I consume.  I spend all day, every day reading things, watching things, and listening to things. Rarely only one at a time. If my eyes are reading, then my ears should be doing something too!  I wouldn’t say I feel inundated with images and noise. It’s rare that I feel overwhelmed enough that I need to take a break from it all.  But I do think about the quality of the things I’m consuming.

I’m as guilty as everyone else of refreshing my twitter stream even though only seconds have passed since I last refreshed it and, hey, why don’t I check tumblr to see if anyone has posted anything in the last minute, and then after that, I should probably check twitter again because it’s been 30 seconds.  At a certain point I realized that cycle is boring and unfulfilling; whatever I’m avoiding is probably more interesting and if I just need to connect with people, I have better ways of doing that.

I get anxious when I think of all the things I want to see and read and hear and experience, so I’m trying to be more intentional about what I consume. As I am prone to do, I’ve been in a rut lately, listening the same music I always do, watching the same shows, and barely reading fiction at all.¹  I stick to what’s familiar instead of seeking out what is new.  But right now I find myself itching to experience novelty.

To consume sounds so passive, but it can really be very active.  It takes some discipline to keep myself moving.  Or at least some intention. I’m ready to take that challenge more seriously even though I am as much plagued by a lack of time as always.  At the moment, I find myself wanting to consume as much quality content as I can. I know it’s unreasonable, but I keep thinking that I should be able to read a novel a week, listen to a new album a week, and watch a thought-provoking movie a week.  I’m going to fall short (especially trying to read a novel a week), but I’m going to try anyway.

What you consume is important, because it becomes part of who you are.  And it becomes part of what you create.  That’s the other part of this.  I’ve been thinking a lot about what I create.  I guess I’ve always placed a higher value on creating than consuming, because it requires so much hard work. More than just hard work.  It takes courage and talent you’re not sure you possess and so much patience. I’m proud of how much I produce, but right now I’m thinking that I want to say so much more.  I want to say as much as possible.  For a long time, I’ve had this crazy idea that I should write a novel and fill a journal every year.²

I’m going to keep up with my own ambitions the best that I can and especially focus on reading fiction and listening to new music.   I hope to find things worth writing about and sharing.  I like the idea of connecting to people through literature and music especially.  I’m going to try to post what I’m reading/listening to/watching in the sidebar of my blog (in part to keep myself accountable).  If you have any suggestions, throw them my way, and I’ll add them to my long and growing lists of things I must consume right this second.

I’m starting to think there might be something about this time of year.  In 2010 I was listening to Contra on repeat and obsessively plotting out the next five years of my life.

1. Well, I actually have been since writing this post, but so far I’ve only read Never Let Me Go.
2. Uh, maybe once I have the PhD.

Spoiler free.  And not really a review at all. I always recommend seeing and reading for yourself.

So I read Never Let Me Go and then I watched the movie.  Controversial statement: I liked the movie better.  At least I did at first; I grow less sure the more I think about it.  The plot was the same, but the tone was so different.

The movie is beautiful and dynamic.  It has so much feeling.  It is incredibly sad.  The book is far more understated, but somehow so much more tragic. Big feelings are sweeping and simple, but real feeling is so mixed with apathy and uncertainty and defensiveness that too often things don’t work out the way they should.

What the book does so well is show how the smallest moment can have such a major impact on a relationship.  One conversation can set something in motion that will change everything.  And so often you can’t even see it happening.  Or you don’t believe things can be different than they always have been.  So you let it happen.

“It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven could unravel and separate over a thing like that. But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we’d understood that back then—who knows?—maybe we’d have kept a tighter hold of one another.”

It makes me think of the friendships I had and lost in that awkward transition from Elementary School to Middle School.  I had really good friends in Elementary School.  Smart and kind girls who never let me down; the worst I can say about them is that they used to tease me for zoning out and staring off into space.  I wasn’t that great in school and they were all in a gifted program.  Their parents were happily married and mine were bitterly divorced.  But they never made me feel any of those differences.

Then we got to Middle School and things slowly fell apart.  My best friend went to another school. The rest of us were in different classes and we started meeting new people.   I became friends with a girl who let me down and I was too slow to forgive her, because all I knew of friendship was people who never would have hurt my feelings like that.  One conversation in the morning before school out where the buses parked and that friendship was over, and it weirdly changed the direction of my life, because I didn’t have my new friends and I didn’t really have my old friends either, so I turned my attention to being a good student instead.

It only makes me sad when I stop and look back.  I don’t think of the connections I have with people being that fragile.   But, those girls from Elementary School could have been lifelong friends and now the only one I speak to is the one who went to a different school and then moved a thousand miles away (really, the friendship that seemed least likely to survive).  And I don’t really wish to reconnect with them now, but I do wonder how things might have gone if I’d fought to keep us all from drifting apart the way we did.

When it’s happening, you can’t see clearly. You don’t know it’s the end.  And maybe it’s better to let some people go.

I was in a situation a couple months ago where I remembered that I have a BA in English Literature.  Is that really something to forget about yourself?¹

I just feel so far out of that world, because I don’t read anymore.  I haven’t since I started grad school. ²

I have a million good reasons to read fiction, but mostly I just miss it terribly.

I’ve said things like this before, but haven’t done much about it.  I can’t say everything is different this time, but some things are different and I want to try again to get back into reading.

I’m publicly setting the very reasonable goal of one book a month (privately I’m setting a far more ambitious goal, because I’m a crazy perfectionist with unrealistic expectations of myself).

I have a list and the first up is, Never Let Me Go, which I have been carrying around for months.  I’m going to read it and then I’m going to watch the movie and then I’m going to tell you how much I loved them both.  That is my prediction anyway.  Wish me luck!

1. Actually, I’m sure a lot of people forget this about themselves, because so few get to actually use their English degrees.  As for me, I was a double major and chose to pursue the other major–theology.
2. Fiction, we’re talking about.  I read hundreds of pages of theology/philosophy a week.

I take in a lot of content every day. I’m not just a person with senses and people to interact with, but I read blogs and listen to several podcasts and watch YouTube videos and catch up on TV shows and follow twitter and scan the news and reply to emails and listen to music. I’m so used to the steady stream of noise and visuals that when it’s quiet, I still hear the noise in my head, and when I have nothing to look at, I create scenes in my mind. This semester, my time seems more precious and I’ve become more selective about the things I distract myself with. I’ve stepped up the level of content and while it’s still far from what I’d pretentiously call cultured, it’s certainly more enriching. And worth writing about.

I read Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas over Christmas break and while there were a few standout essays, I wasn’t hugely impressed. Chuck and I, we just weren’t a good match. But, I usually enjoy Chuck on Bill Simmons’s podcast, so I thought I’d give another of his books of essays a chance. This time I went for Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. The first half of the book confirmed my earlier suspicions that Chuck love just wasn’t going to happen for me and maybe I didn’t need to keep reading to convince myself to like some essays just because other people I like like them. But, then, just as with my first experience, there was one essay near the end that made continuing to read worth it. It was the essay on Saved By The Bell that I’d heard so much about. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was full of all the facts about Saved By The Bell that would make anyone who watched smile. Chuck estimated that no one born after 1977 would get the show, but I was born in the last days of 1983 and I and all of my friends watched it, mostly in reruns. And, maybe that’s part of why Chuck and I aren’t bffs. He makes a lot of statements like, some more significant, that I find to be false–not just personally false, but decidedly false. But, then, he also writes about a lot of pop culture stuff that is not part of my generation and for that reason, doesn’t interest me to read about later.

The surprising part about the Saved By The Bell essay is also the point of the piece. Apparently when the gang were all seniors, Tiffany Amber Thiessen (Kelly) and Elizabeth Berkeley (Jessie) were mysteriously missing for most of the season, so they brought in another girl who was basically a combination of their two personalities, named Tori. But when Kelly and Jessie came back for the graduation episode, Tori mysteriously disappeared and was never mentioned or heard from again. This got Chuck thinking that we have a lot of Toris in our lives and sometimes we’re Tori ourselves. People, even people who matter to your life, pass in and out. You’re close to someone for a few months, because you have a class together, and then when the class is over, you just wave awkwardly when you see her once in a while. Or one of the friends in your group is going through something for a while and is absent for nights out. Or, as in Chuck’s case, your friends decided for a while in college that they hate you and you’re excluded from the group for months, and then you’re welcomed back in. The thing is that, these things happen. You won’t have the same friends your whole life and people will come and go and then reappear in ways you sometimes won’t even notice or remember later. So, maybe it’s not so weird that Zack never froze time to stop and look at the camera to say, “Tori got runover by a car and that’s why she’s not here for graduation.” (You can find more about The Tori Paradox (Klosterman coined) on the Saved By The Bell Wikipedia page. You should read the essay too, because I don’t know that I represent it well here; I no longer have access to the book and the details are fuzzy in my mind.)

I’ve somehow managed to mention Weeds in just about every post I’ve written in the last few weeks. All I can say is that I love the show. The last time I wrote about Weeds, I shared my disappointment in Season 5 and called Nancy Botwin the weirdest character ever. Having recently rewatched Seasons 1-4, I want to step back a bit. Even knowing what happens, I think it’s possible to relate to Nancy and like her at least up until Season 4. She does something crazy at the end of Season 3 that makes even her family, who have accepted a lot, stare at her in bewilderment. That’s when Nancy started leaving the ground. And, you know, that’s fine, but what’s annoying about her is that she’s so totally lacking in self-awareness that she never seems to recognize how responsible she is for the situations she finds herself in. I go back and forth about whether I just don’t like her character anymore or whether she’s no longer a well-written character. I think it’s a bit of both, because when Nancy started getting too far away, she stopped being interesting and engaging. I buy her as a character, but I no longer care that much about her or her story.

In Season 4, the show takes a major turn by leaving the suburbs. The writers said that they felt stifled by that setting (how fitting for the suburbs) and like they’d exhausted the story of Agrestic/Majestic. I first started watching Weeds over the Summer. I was at the height of my obsession when I went home to visit my parents in Washington. I remember telling my mom about the show (I might have left out the whole weed plot line) and saying, “I have lived in the suburbs my whole life and it’s nothing like this!!” What I meant is that even as an adult, I don’t believe that all of my neighbors were having affairs and smoking weed. I was super naive then and I’m still naive now, but I just don’t think they were all living these secret lives. Of course, I grew up in nice suburbs, but not super rich suburbs. Not the kind of suburbs where people have money and time to burn. So, there’s that. But, ultimately, it’s of course a heightened reality for the show and whether it’s accurate or not, it’s interesting and funny. And you don’t realize how much you love the suburb angle until it’s gone!

There’s this weird feeling I get when I watch Nancy and I get it with a lot of people. I see them going off track, standing still, or walking down a dark road and I just want so badly for them to pull it together or turn things around. I want it so badly that I can hardly stand to watch them continue to bury themselves, so I look away. I need for them to be okay–my idea of okay–for my sake. It’s pretty selfish, really.

I found out while watching the Season 4 commentaries that they film all the fake-city-near-the-border stuff in Manhattan Beach. After visiting there this Summer and then seeing it again and again on screen, I’ve decided for certain that I need to live there. When I say things like that to my dad, he’ll say, “you’ll buy a place with the money you make off your second book.” (The money from the first is to pay for my extensive education, of course.) There’s something really amazing about having someone believe in you a thousand times more than you believe in yourself.

I have mentioned several times that I don’t read anymore.  Which is strange, because I used to read constantly, obsessively.  Of course, blah blah, I read all the time, because that’s the life of a grad student in the humanities, but reading for fun is different.  I don’t lay down on my bed and read until I’m lost in another word.  I sit at a desk with a pen in my hand and force myself to concentrate on every sentence, because if I don’t, I will reach the last page and then realize I have no idea what I just read.

I fell in love with reading when I was in middle school and we grew apart in my later years of college when I was working two jobs and trying to finish two majors.  We haven’t been close since, despite several attempts on my part to reconnect.

The biggest problem was that I just fell out of the habit of reading.  But, there are other reasons.  I’m much busier than I used to be, but I also have a lot of other distractions.  The internet chief among them.  I’m always so annoyed to hear people complain about how we’re all instant-gratification junkies with no patience these days, but it’s true I have a much harder time sitting still than I used to.   It’s embarrassing how much of my limited free time I waste by checking my email and twitter and youtube and every other time suck.

When I remove the distractions and sit down to read, I find my mind instantly flooded with everything.  Things I need to do, things that are stressing me out, things I’ve been avoiding.  And that’s another reason I don’t read anymore.  I don’t want to think about all that stuff.

In recent months, I’ve tried to stop avoiding things. My schedule has become more structured, so that I don’t have to constantly feel like I should be doing something else.  And, I’ve started reading again.  I enjoy the quiet–not haunted by it.  I have that old feeling I used to get when I read.  I didn’t know I’d been missing it.

So far, I’ve mostly been reading non-fiction.  Books of essays.  But, I’ve begun to pile up all kinds of things to read.  Working in a library makes that pretty easy.  I don’t know that the habit will stick again.  Reading competes for time with all of my other interests, but it’s funny how you find the time to do the things you want to do.  And I want to read.

I’m going to go out on a limb and admit how much I love TV shows on DVD.  Oh, wait, it’s very crowded on this limb.  Most recently, I used a gift card from Christmas to buy the first season of Ally McBeal.  I was aware of the show when it originally aired and watched it very casually, but I was excited to see it again.  I had several reactions.  First, these people are supposed to be roughly my age.  Ally is 27 and almost everyone she works with was in her graduating class, so I guess they’re also supposed to be 27.  Except they look 35-40.  I need to watch a show that’s actually about mid-late twenty somethings.  Maybe a comedy-drama about grad students?  That sounds fascinating.  Second, Ally wears really short skirts and really long coats and weird shoes.

Third, Ally definitely channels Carrie in that she makes every conversation with friends about her and her problems only.  Also, she’s clearly kind of crazy, yet every guy loves her.  Fourth, she’s crazy in a way that doesn’t annoy me like adorably quirky female characters. She actually sees things, like dancing babies.  Let me actually go out on a limb this time and say that I think little animated characters dancing is the most hilarious thing ever.  I wish we saw more of this baby.  Fifth, I enjoy the show and if I adopt any Fishism, it’ll probably be “bygones!”  Since you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, because Ally McBeal isn’t exactly topical, you can basically say whatever you want, offend someone even, and then say “bygones!”–like, let’s forgive, forget, and move on already.

Over Christmas break, I resolved to read one book.  I made it Chuck Klosterman IV: Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, a book of essays.  I heard of Klosterman from Bill Simmons, The Sport’s Guy, who I heard of from Adam Carolla’s podcast.  On his podcast, Simmons recently named Klosterman the czar of social commentary.  I enjoy hearing what he has to say, even though I don’t agree with a lot of his conclusions.  That’s about how I felt about the book.  I started reading it on the plane home to Washington.  By the time I got to the essay on U2, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to open the emergency exit and throw the book out of the plane or keep reading.   It sent me into a mini crisis about how hard it is to express yourself as an essayist and as one of the artists Chuck was profiling.  It’s like, no matter what you do or how authentic you are, someone can so easily come by and poke holes through everything you’ve done.  I was doing the same thing to Chuck that he was doing to Britney Spears and U2 and Val Kilmer. Something about that really bothered me.

There were a few more things that drove me absolutely insane, like a whole essay on how women hate women, all discussed as if it was a hilarious and original concept.  He also seems to conclude pretty often that nothing really matters that much, so what’s the point in being invested in anything.  That kind of relativism seems to completely undermine his own work.  The most redeeming essay was one near the end about guilty pleasures.  Chuck (I really enjoy calling him Chuck) destroys the very concept of guilty pleasures and says if you like something, then you can just like it and you don’t have to be ashamed of that.  On top of which, most of the things people name as guilty pleasures don’t even make sense.  One example he uses is the album Thriller.  Why would anyone be ashamed to like one of the best selling albums of all time by one of the biggest icons of all time featuring a song with one of the best videos of all time and another song with one of the best base lines of all time?  What’s to be ashamed of?

Over the weekend, I was finally able to watch the fifth season of Weeds.  I was apprehensive, because I didn’t really enjoy the fourth season; it seemed that whatever had been so captivating about the first three seasons had completely disappeared.  It turns out I was right to be apprehensive.  The magic did not return for season five.  There were some good moments, for sure, but not enough to make me watch intently.  At a certain point, I only kept watching because I wanted to be done.  I did, however, cement my opinion that Nancy Botwin is one of the weirdest characters I have ever encountered. She has really never made any sense, but in the beginning, you assign all these feelings to her, because she’s just lost her husband and she’s trying to support her kids.  At first you believe her when she says she’s just doing the best she can.  That eventually becomes very hard to believe.  It turns out she’s just incredibly selfish.  But that’s not really what’s weird about her.  What’s weird is the amount of time she spends chewing on straws and staring into space with her giant eyes.  And the ways she usually doesn’t react to things at all, but sometimes reacts in a really over the top way.  What’s weird is that you can never figure out her motivations.  What’s annoying is that she never seems to realize she’s responsible for the way everything always seems to be going wrong. Finally in season five she starts to get called on it.  My breakdown makes the show seems 100% serious, which it’s not.  It’s funny too, but not as funny as it used to be.

East of Eden is probably one of my favorite books, but what’s for certain is that Cal Trask is for sure my favorite fictional character.¹  I never got Holden Caulfield the way other people get Holden Caulfied, but Cal I got.  I haven’t read East of Eden since I was a teenager, but I think of Cal often and I think he’s still relevant to me now.  I mean, I’m only a hundred times more angst-ridden today than I was then.  What’s so interesting about Cal is that he tries so hard and yet fails over and over.  Maybe that makes him an anti-hero, but it’s his awareness of what he lacks that makes him so interesting as a character.  His dad and his brother are simply good, but they don’t see what’s happening around them.

East of Eden itself is an impressive book.  I tire sometimes of Steinbeck’s descriptions.  If you’ve tried to read The Grapes of Wrath, but could never get past the extensive description of dust in the first chapters, give it another try, because it gets a lot better.²  I should read East of Eden again as a Californian; it’s a character in itself.  The story in East of Eden is really interesting, but it’s the relationships between the characters or maybe more so the characters’ motivations that leave me thinking, “how did Steinbeck do that?”  It’s genius.  Magic.  Somehow he even pulls off a biblical allusion.³

I’ve been wanting to see the movie East of Eden for years, especially because it stars James Dean as Cal.  I finally got a chance to watch it this weekend.  The movie was kind of disappointing to me.  I’m not a big fan of old movies or of soundtracks that basically scream at you how you should be feeling at that moment.⁴ While James Dean is totally enchanting, he just wasn’t Cal for me.  There was a lot about his performance I liked.  He does the loner thing well and he has kind of a charmingly awkward way about him, but I just kept thinking, “that’s James Dean.”  It’s not just that he’s an icon; the character was a bit different–more dramatic and over the top.  I’m of the philosophy that books are books and movies are movies, but I guess when you love a character so much, all those reasonable thoughts go out the window.

I didn’t know much about James Dean, though I’d recognize his image anywhere.  I know I’ve already overused the word “interesting” in this post, but he really did have such an interesting look.  And an interesting character.  If I’d ever known him in real life, I probably would have either hated him or been in love with him.  On the one hand, he really was Cal Trask, but on the other hand, he was unpredictable and a rebel and someone who liked to mess with people.  According to a documentary on the East of Eden DVD, he had his heart broken by a girl who then turned around and got engaged almost immediately, so he showed up outside of the church on his motorcycle, making all kinds of noise.  He also may or may not have been gay or bisexual.

He died when he was only 24.  He’d made three movies, but only the first had been released.  I knew that he’d died tragically in a car accident, but I’d always imagined a Rebel Without a Cause-like scene where he was speeding around a corner or something.  The reality is that he raced cars and was actually on the way to a race (his mechanic with him in the car) in Salinas–John Steinbeck country–when a college student turned right in front of him.  He tried to avoid hitting the guy, but he couldn’t.  Jimmy, as his friends called him, was the only casualty of the crash.⁵  People were just falling in love with him when he died.  There were a lot of Elvis-like conspiracies that he wasn’t really dead.  People also ransacked his apartments and a bunch of his personal items have never been recovered.  Even the car he crashed in quickly disappeared.

I’ve never used a footnote to reference Family Guy before.

1. Bobby Hill from King of the Hill is my second favorite fictional character.  You just can’t deny that kid.
2. Don’t give it another try until we’re in better economic times.  It will only freak you out now.
3. Most simply, Cal and his brother Aron are Cain and Abel
4. The music in this movie totally reminded me of the Distracting Trumpet scene from Family Guy.
5. Can you imagine being the guy responsible for James Dean’s death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrd6fw-GQ_M

This is me talking for 7+ minutes about books and reading and stuff.  Here are the Cliff Notes if you don’t have the time or interest to watch the whole thing.

• I didn’t get into reading when I was really young, but when I got the bug in middle school, it hit hard.  I devoured anything I could find.  I later majored in literature in college, thinking I would like to teach English.
• I don’t have the appropriate appreciation for classic literature.  I am a shame to my fellow lit majors.   Reading, to me, is about enjoyment, and I haven’t always enjoyed classic literature.
• The more you read, the less you’ve read.
• They say that writers should read a lot.  They are right.  When you stop reading, the instinct you have for writing, for how dialogue sounds, and how words flow starts to fade.
• As I’ve admitted before, I don’t read nearly as much as I used to.  I barely read fiction at all.
• Nothing has affected the way I read fiction more than writing my own.  It’s made me much more critical of other writers and much more forgiving as well.
• I say that Catch 22 is funny, I talk up Stephenie Meyer, and I hate on My Sister’s Keeper.
• Add in some goofy faces and a few too many “um”s, and you get the idea.

Warning: You might not want to read this if you haven’t read the whole

Twilight Saga.

I have a question for the Twilight readers out there.  Did you like Breaking Dawn?

I ask, because I freaking hated it.  Lisa and I both read it the day it came it out: August 2nd.  The initial response on the internet matched ours.  Everyone felt like the final book was nothing like the previous three.  They were hugely disappointed.  There was a backlash against Stephenie.  I said to a few people that it almost ruined the series for me, but the truth is that it pretty much did ruin the series for me.

Lisa and I spent several days detailing all of our complaints.  But, then we pretty much dropped it.  Later when Twilight fever struck the blogosphere, I assumed everyone would have the same reaction to Breaking Dawn, but it doesn’t sound like people did.  And now many people I know in real life are enjoying Breaking Dawn too.

I am really confused by this.  I definitely don’t expect people to have the same opinions as me, especially about movies, music, or books, but Breaking Dawn hate seems like a no brainer to me.  I’m wondering if the difference is that we had time–a few months–to build up Breaking Dawn in our minds.  Maybe our expectations were too high.  Maybe we’d thought too much about what might happen.  Maybe we were too invested in our own what-might-have-beens.  Or, maybe this isn’t different than anything else–maybe our tastes are just different.

So, again, I’m just wondering what you thought of Breaking Dawn.

For the sake of clarity, I’ll tell you some of the major reasons I disliked it:

1. The characters felt like different people to me.  It’s hard for me to explain this one, because it’s more about tone and feel.  But, I felt very little attachment to the characters of Breaking Dawn, though I was attached to them throughout the first three books.  Especially in the second and third parts.  We don’t see them much through Jacob’s part, and then suddenly they’re mature adults without any of their previous sufferings in the third part.
2. It’s hard to swallow that a girl who didn’t want to be married and didn’t want kids is suddenly married and with child at 18 and couldn’t be happier about it.  I’ll drop my complaint about her ditching college, because she never cared that much about it, but can’t it just be okay, especially at such a young age, for someone not to want those conventions?
3. It seemed that every real conflict of the series was dissolved in Breaking Dawn without ever really coming to a climax.  I wanted a happy ending too, and I expected one.  But, no one had to sacrifice a single thing.  Jacob’s broken heart is instantly healed.  Bella turns into a vampire without any trouble at all.  There’s zero regret about giving up mortality.  Bella doesn’t have to sacrifice the relationships she has with her parents.  She doesn’t have to give up even the possibility of having a child, which she might have later regretted.  She had to be turned into a vampire; the only other option was death, so no one–Edward!–had to make a real decision there.  The big battle at the end turns into nothing at all.
4. That leads me into the end of the book.  I know several people will defend the concept of a battle that turns into a battle of minds with no violence.  They’ll say it’s clever.  Yeah, it might be a clever concept, but it wasn’t executed cleverly.  Why introduce us to 345987 new characters just to make nothing happen with them?  A battle of words that turns out to be no real threat?  Didn’t that same thing already happen at the end of New Moon and (kind of) Eclipse?  It seem the Volturi are always full of empty threats, which makes all the battle build up seem silly.
5. Finally, okay, I found Bella’s insecurities sometimes annoying throughout the novels.  I wanted to see her be a strong character.  I wanted her to stop being so bent on self-sacrifice.  I wanted her to stop letting herself be manipulated by Edward and Jacob.  But then she becomes a vampire, and she’s pretty and physically strong, and away go all the insecurities and inhibitions she ever had.  This transformation didn’t feel very realistic to me, and it was also terribly boring.  In real life, you see people insecure about their weight lose the weight and find out that it doesn’t cure all their issues.  You see lonely people meet the perfect mate, and, funny, it doesn’t make everything else in their lives perfect.  She has no insecurities, and Edward The Perpetually Tortured Soul is a different person now too, because he doesn’t have to worry about Bella.  Who are these people anymore?

Okay, now I feel a little silly for taking these books so seriously, but I love dissecting things this way.  Please feel free to disagree with me.

Yeah, that’s me standing in a grocery store with an apple.  Thanks to Elyse–Breaking Dawn defender that she is–for taking the picture.

]]> http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2009/01/24/twilight-question/feed/ 27 http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2008/11/10/twilight/ http://www.writingtoreachyou.com/2008/11/10/twilight/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:00:32 +0000 Ashley http://writingtoreach.wordpress.com/?p=791

It seems like there’s a new wave of people discovering Twilight. I love reading everyone’s blogs as they fall in love with Edward. It’s inevitable, right? I move around the blogosphere making insightful comments like, “Yay!! I love Edward.” But, I fell in love with Edward and Twilight months ago, and it’s hard to maintain such strong affections for a fictional character once you’ve stopped reading the books. For my initial reactions, I’ll defer to this post I wrote in May:

I first heard about Twilight some time ago, but it didn’t sound like anything I’d be particularly interested in. Then, I saw the movie trailer and something caught my eye. His name is Robert. So, I picked up the book on a whim. It’s pretty good. But, the exciting part is that for the first time in forever, the world totally overwhelmed me. I could feel the Washington rain. And, okay, that’s not much of a stretch for someone who grew up in the Northwest, but still. I saw past the annoyance that usually burns inside me when 17 year olds talk about how they’ve found the loves of the lives. I didn’t care that the main character was naturally thin and cutely clumsy, and, oh yeah, every boy in school wants to date her. The lines blurred between my life here in California where I work in a library and have all these worries pulling on me, and Bella’s life in Washington where she’s adored by a vampire who looks like Robert.

Now that the books are done, and Midnight Sun is on hold for at least a couple years, there’s not a lot to look forward to. Except–oh!–the movie is almost here. Lisa and I have our tickets already, and we’ve long been planning to dress up Harry Potter-style and go as pale Washingtonians. Thankfully, that couldn’t come easier to us. Break out the fleece and rain jackets! Hurry up and get here November 21st!

We haven’t decided yet whether we’re going to show up to the movie sober. You see, unlike some people, I do think the movie is going to be good, but it is bound to be awkward. Rob is as smooth as they come, but I doubt even he can pull off those Edward lines. Edward is just plain cheesy. It’s part of his charm. I’m thinking that alcohol will make me feel less uncomfortable while I’m watching, because when I’m sober, I’m the kind of person who walks aways from my TV when the awkward levels get too high (like, for instance, on The Office).

For my thoughts on Breaking Dawn and getting to meet Stephenie Meyer (okay, that’s a stretch), click here.

I think I’ve proclaimed my love for Fridays more than once, but they just got better, because now they are the start to my weekend. I work Sunday through Thursday, but after a short class in the morning, Fridays are my own. I want to scream TGIF in everyone’s face, but that might be annoying. It’s also payday!

• School started this week. Actually, for me, school started yesterday. I only have two classes, and they’re on Thursdays and Fridays. I guess I’ve finally accepted that Summer is over. Before yesterday I was protesting the start of Fall by refusing to buy books and make other preparations. But, I give in, and I’m even a little bit excited about the start of my favorite season.

• I have a lot to do this semester. I’ll be working almost 50 hours a week, taking two small classes, writing my thesis, and applying to schools. I think I can do it.

• My mom and step-dad are coming to visit me next week. I’m really excited. My mom has been here once, and my step dad never. Good company, good meals–sweet!

• For anyone wondering, my iPhone and I are doing well. We have a very healthy relationship. To my relief, I have not become one of those people constantly on the phone, and no more near accidents. It really does come in handy all the time. I got off work at midnight the other day, and I really needed to sign up for an appointment with my professor. The list is outside his office, but all the lights outside the building were off. Thankfully, I have a flashlight application on my phone, which turns the screen completely white and acts, obviously, as a flashlight. It did the trick! I know you’re thinking, “Ashley, a real flashlight would be a lot cheaper.” But, the point is that a flashlight can’t check email and facebook.

• I have never been one to hate on freshman, but oh my gosh, the questions some of these students ask at the library. It’s pretty obvious they’ve never used a library before, but walking into a huge building full of books and thinking we’ll be able to find them the right book even though they don’t know the title, author, or even the name of their professor, that’s just a lack of common sense, right? I’m cool with the ones who don’t know what to do and ask for help, but there are some who don’t realize they’re being ridiculous.

• It’s been surprisingly easy to get back into my healthy eating mode. On Monday, I had to say no to breakfast pastries, pizza (my favorite), and cookies. They were all part of our training day at work, but resisting wasn’t that hard (that’s rare). I’ve also enjoyed my time at the gym, though I haven’t had the best or most intense of workouts.

• Last weekend, I made a post about Adorable Boy. This week I saw him again. It was busy, so I didn’t get to talk to him, but he handed me a book, and looked at me oddly, which was probably a hey didn’t you used to work at the other library (a question everyone has asked me) look, but I read it paranoiacally as hey I read your blog and I know what you think of me and my green Crocs even though I have no way of knowing you have a blog look. You understand.

• Hey, writing that post last week shamed me into actually finishing a book. Me Talk Pretty One Day was great (as expected). I think I’m going to read Obama’s autobiography next, but already my free time available for reading has shrunk to almost nothing.

• The main elevator at the library broke last Sunday. Actually, it broke twice. And, both times there were people in it. Both times the emergency phone inside didn’t work, but the people had cell phones on them. Both times, it took more than an hour to get the people out. I avoid it when I can, but I can’t always. Hey, one of these days you may see a post titled I GOT STUCK IN A FREAKING ELEVATOR!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

I have a confession, but I think you can guess it from the title. I don’t read like I used to. I used to devour books, and I was always on the search for more. I would wake up early and read before school, read after school, and stay up too late to do more reading. I kept the habit up most of the way through college. I got pretty busy in my junior and senior years, but since I was a Lit major, I was still reading plenty of fiction.

Then I started grad school. For a long time, I used the excuse that I had so much reading to do for school that the last thing I wanted to do in my free time was more reading. I guess that was valid for a time, but you fall out of the habit, and then you’re just a person who used to read a lot.

I tried to get back into it last summer. I made it through The Grapes of Wrath and Catch 22. Both were good and Catch 22 is hilarious (and misogynistic), but they’re not the kind of books that really get me excited about reading. I also feel guilty when I read fiction for pleasure instead of studying for school. But, given the amount of time I waste on the internet, I have plenty of time to start reading again. And, I want to.

I decided that Me Talk Pretty One Day would be a good place to begin, because I love everything of David Sedaris that I’ve heard on NPR or read in others of his books.