3 days and counting

Just three days to go until I leave for Spain. Almost packed and still debating over what books to take…

I’m freaking out a little.

See more progress on: travel to europe

confessional part 2

1. While I know what I must do to help myself, I don't really know how to do it. I have a lot of growing up to do.
2. I have to choose just 2 books for Spain. There are 8 or 10 on my table and one in my car. I alos have like, 5 magazines I haven't read.
3. I never sleep any more. I doze and wake and think about my life until the waking and dreaming wind together and things stop making sense.
4. I dreamed he turned to me and said, "Why are you always so far away?" It scared me so much I woke up.
5. I have 4 1/2 feet of magazines I need to go through at work. I measured them.
6. I bought a phrase book and now I know how to cuss in Spanish.
7. I'm looking forward to 16 hours on a plane but I'm sure I'll change my mind a couple of hours in to the flight.
8. I want to lie in Spain and tell people I'm Canadian so they won't ask me about Iraq or Bush or the White Sox.
9. Sometimes I think about going home and getting drunk -- I never do. But I sure think about it.
10. My 11th wedding anniversary is Saturday. I never believed that anyone would love me for that long.
11. "Love, Actually" makes me cry. Every time. It's the scenes in the airport that get me most. It's that concept of how we, at our most basic, are really loving beings. I also like that there are so many stories interwoven into the movie and not all of them have happy endings. Love isn't always requited. Love isn't always joyful. Sometimes it's damn hard. But it actually is all around.

"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love!" - Sam from "Love, Actually"

confessional

• less than 2 weeks until Spain. I have not done one thing to brush up on my Spanish. I have not packed anything, I have not bought my phrasebook.
• I like Old Navy just below waist flare jeans, they make me feel cool, which I am not.
• my nails are getting really long again. they feel funny.
• no matter how much hairspray I put on my hair it still looks like I've been electrified by the time 4 p.m. rolls around.
• I absolutely am in no way ready to deal with the holidays.
• I am absolutely in no way ready to deal with my life.
• No matter how cool a trip I am about to take, I would always rather go somewhere else. Last year I was wishing for London on the way to Hawaii. This year I am wishing for any country that speaks English.
• I'm afraid to go to Spain. There!! OK?? I'm afraid.
• I'm also afraid of life after Spain.
• Fear is not my friend. I know this but the head and heart won't connect. In fact I know many things these days -- more than I used to. But the knowledge does not translate to the sluggish regions of my patchwork heart.

Now that I've confessed it's time for penance....

Time Magazine lists these books as the best English language novels from 1923 to present. As a book lover, I must have bad taste in books because most of these look like that list you got in high school English where you're thinking, "My lord there isn't one single book on here I'd actually want to read." Then again I have read a few (see the red ones) and read some other novels by same authors -- Like I've read just about everything ELSE Margaret Atwood has written...

A list like this just makes me feel guilty about the stuff I do read -- but that's why I'm no longer a student. After 19 1/2 years of education, I can now read what I want.

Funny little side note about Kurt Vonnegut. When I was a junior in high school I got one of those aforementioned lists and my teacher said we could only read Vonnegut with permission from our parents. I promptly went home and asked my mother if I could read Vonnegut. My mother, who is not a reader of much more than "Organic Gardening" said she trusted me to read whatever I wanted. I proceeded to read about a half dozen Vonnegut books, all of which I liked until the last (Galapagos, for those keeping score). Having satisfied my rebel instincts, I once again retired to tamer fare, such as Watership Down and Nicholas Nickleby.

The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow
All the King's MenRobert Penn Warren
American PastoralPhilip Roth
An American TragedyTheodore Dreiser
Animal FarmGeorge Orwell
Appointment in SamarraJohn O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume
The AssistantBernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-BirdsFlann O'Brien
AtonementIan McEwan
BelovedToni Morrison
The Berlin StoriesChristopher Isherwood
The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood
Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy
Brideshead RevisitedEvelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton Wilder
Call It SleepHenry Roth
Catch-22Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat TurnerWilliam Styron
The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell
The Day of the LocustNathanael West
Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather
A Death in the FamilyJames Agee
The Death of the HeartElizabeth Bowen
DeliveranceJames Dickey
Dog SoldiersRobert Stone
FalconerJohn Cheever
French Lieutenant's WomanJohn Fowles
The Golden NotebookDoris Lessing
Go Tell it on the MountainJames Baldwin
Gone With the WindMargaret Mitchell
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Gravity's RainbowThomas Pynchon
The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald
A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh
The Heart Is A Lonely HunterCarson McCullers
The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene
HerzogSaul Bellow
HousekeepingMarilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. BiswasV.S. Naipaul
I, ClaudiusRobert Graves
Infinite JestDavid Foster Wallace
Invisible ManRalph Ellison
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the WardrobeC.S. Lewis
LolitaVladimir Nabokov
Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding
The Lord of the RingsJ.R.R. Tolkien
LovingHenry Green
Lucky JimKingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved ChildrenChristina Stead
Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie
MoneyMartin Amis
The MoviegoerWalker Percy
Mrs. DallowayVirginia Woolf
Naked LunchWilliam Burroughs
Native SonRichard Wright
NeuromancerWilliam Gibson
Never Let Me GoKazuo Ishiguro
1984George Orwell
On the RoadJack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey
The Painted BirdJerzy Kosinski
Pale FireVladimir Nabokov
A Passage to IndiaE.M. Forster
Play It As It LaysJoan Didion
Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip Roth
PossessionA.S. Byatt
The Power and the GloryGraham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark
Rabbit, RunJohn Updike
RagtimeE.L. Doctorow
The RecognitionsWilliam Gaddis
Red HarvestDashiell Hammett
Revolutionary RoadRichard Yates
The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles
Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut
Snow CrashNeal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed FactorJohn Barth
The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner
The SportswriterRichard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carre
The Sun Also RisesErnest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston
Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee
To the LighthouseVirginia Woolf
Tropic of CancerHenry Miller
UbikPhilip K. Dick
Under the NetIris Murdoch
Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry
WatchmenAlan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White NoiseDon DeLillo
White TeethZadie Smith
Wide Sargasso SeaJean Rhys

blog search

I've updated my blog list a little but to be honest, I'd love some suggestions of great blogs anyone has read. I like my blogs but many don't update very regularly and (unless the author is a personal friend) if it isn't updated for 2 months, it gets the boot.

So anyone read or written any good blogs lately? It might be a long winter.

Home

Tuesday I went to Lake Geneva, WI to visit a company I have been working with for a couple of years. Although the trip made for a long day (about 15 hours door-to-door) the driving portion was amazingly pretty: crisp blue skies, bright sun, red, orange and yellow leaves, pumpkins, mums, old rustic barns. I swear it looks like the whole state of Wisconsin hired a professional landscaper. It was just that pretty.

Ruminating during my marathon trip ... I thought about home. Not my home specifically but rather the concept of home. My perception of that company and the people in it changed when I saw their beautiful hometown, the pride they had in their work, the success they've had, the machinery, the buildings and so on. And that got to thinking about one of my favorite moments in any relationship -- when you see someone on their home turf for the first time.

Going to someone's house or hometown or even their office for the first time is an profound moment of discovery to me. You see immediately what's important: is it family, play, wealth, appearance, comfort, pets, spirituality? Are they neat or messy? Some people like to peek in medicine cabinets but personally I like to see what's in the fridge (although I promise I don't snoop). And when you look around town, what was the high school like? Where did they hang out?

And another telling thing to me -- how far from where they grew up are they now? I'm equally fascinated by people who are halfway across the country from home or those who are just a few blocks from home. I have a friend who recently found himself living across the street from where his parents lived when he was a toddler. It's sort of a fluke but not much ... his high school is down the street, so are his parents, a sister and brother. On the other hand I have a friend who moved out of her home state immediately after college and now lives 2 time zones away.

I also love houses -- looking at them, touring them. An afternoon spent looking at houses, even if I'm not in the market, is still fun. I almost got my real estate license so I could do it all day long. Furnished is better than unfurnished -- it's definitely the "stuff" that gives a place it's character.

So anyway, while I've always loved to travel and have these romanticized ideas of living somewhere new and different someday, I'm still just across town from where I was born. And honestly, after being away for just a day I was glad to come home again. (Traffic on I-94 will do that to anyone I think.) Home is more than a place to me, it's a comfort level, it's the concept and the dream of safety and rest.

Maybe that's why The Hobbit was one of my favorite books ... like Bilbo I always look for an adventure but in the end I want to go home to my little hobbit hole and put my feet up with a book and a nice cup of hot chocolate.

mental photo album

A 50 degree day with 2 feet of melting snow at Silver Dollar City, the sun sparkling off every surface, cold wind on our faces as we screamed and laughed on the roller coaster. Fried potatoes, spiced cider, s'mores made with chocolate chip cookies. My bark owl and mushroom birds for the tree.

The day I first said "I love you" while you were sitting on the rock wall in the park and you sang back your answer.

Driving through the pineapple fields on a Monday morning to the North Shore and loving how happy you were to look and not drive.

40 gallons of water with a 5-gallon bucket and a cheap plastic funnel in a driving rainstorm-- and how bad you felt that you hadn't checked the water tank light inside the camper.

Dinner at that restaurant in the Smokies.

The day you took me to the jewelry store to buy me my ring after 5 years of marriage.

Scrubbing bathrooms and fixing broken plumbing to get the church ready for its first service. Me singing away to whatever CD I had with me and Glorifying God with a toilet brush!

The anxious days after 9/11 when you were stranded half a country away and I just wanted you to come home to me.

Lying in bed trying to coax a new kitten up for petting and the "foot game".

Driving to my mom's with a new puppy on my lap... warm puppy tummies and that funky puppy breath.

Huge platters of fried oysters, clams, scallops and fish at that little place in Plymouth, MA and the sunset on Cape Cod. Fish every day!

Loonies and Twonies in Nova Scotia and a long lazy drive to nowhere. And fish every day!

The day we brought the girls to see the house for the first time and the nights we spent thereafter painting and stripping wallpaper and requesting corny country songs while we worked late every night for the wedding.

**I suppose when I am old and gone a little soft these are the memories I will call up -- and our daughters will smile indulgently, our grandchildren will wonder and they will shake their heads and say "No grandma, I'm not Angie".**

reunionville

My 20th high school reunion went on without me this weekend.

High school for me was not a super-enjoyable experience: not quite as bad as getting your wisdom teeth removed and not quite as good as being on a long plane ride with a boring book. I did not love it.

However being the curious and nosy person that I am I always enjoy seeing how people have turned out and how they've aged and my, some of us have aged a little more than others, have we not? Of course some of them turned out to be a little more sumthin' sumthin' than others, too, which is OK.

I'm lucky, I have great genes, so I'm still getting carded from time to time -- flattering, amusing and incredibly myopic but bless them anyway, I say. And I have a cool job and a good education and am generally happy with myself. Others, well, time has not been kind, either in looks, finances or life. The girls seem to fare better than the guys -- thanks to the gift of good makeup and a night-time skin regimen.

My 9th grade locker mate e-mailed me the pictures she took. How strange to look at those faces after all this time and think about the things we went through and the cliques and dividing lines that existed. People that wouldn't have spoken or acknowledged one another's presence were evidently tipping back a few and having a great time at the reunion. I'm sort of sorry I missed it -- but there's always the 25th. Maybe that time I will be in the pictures and not just looking at them.

I love books

Ever since I was a little girl I have had a real love affair with the written word. One of my early memories is my father bringing me a Hallmark Snow White pop-up book -- which I still have. I've attempted to do some writing of my own (hence this blog and the title) -- but not in a serious way. Really I read fabulous books and then give up hope of ever being that good, so I still haven't started my great American novel. Although from the looks of my friends' book projects, maybe that's a good thing...

So my list of books "on deck" consists of the following:

3 books I bought at the Cool Springs Barnes & Noble in Nashville when I was killing an afternoon waiting for the guys to finish playing golf with customers: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Mirror, Mirror, Oryx & Crake

Also on my list: Rebecca, The Chronicles of Narnia, the two on my All Consuming list and The Man of Her Dreams, the Woman of His (which I am reading right now).

I also have a long list of other books I'd like to read, including Freakonomics, The City of Falling Angels, Assasination Vacation, Persopolis, and Syrup.

Beautiful books. Cheaper than a vacation and great companionship for long plane rides, waiting rooms, hotel rooms in strange cities and lazy Saturday afternoons (if such a thing still exists).