2. “If my childhood was a cracker …” Because believe it or not, normal people don’t say things like that, and you will end up as the subject of a blog post.

3. “Sure I’m in favor of gun control.” Because inevitably someone in your office is a member of the NRA. And has a gun. And doesn’t agree with you. And now they’re ticked.

4. “I actually don’t eat beef unless it’s hormone-free, but I’d love some extra veggies.” Because it doesn’t matter how honest you think your friend wants you to be when she asks if you can eat everything she made for dinner, she’ll never ask you over again.

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 5. “Yeah … I like to go to shows.” Because week after week, you will find yourself at shows in small, smokey venues that you were positive were going to spotlight your friends’ bands. You will always be wrong, and you will have to listen to five hours of music which sounds vaguely like death-metal.

6. “I don’t really know very much about beer … just order an extra of whatever you’re having.” Because your friend will inevitably return with cheap, disgusting beer or a “good” beer that looks and tastes similar to tar.

7. “I guess I’d say that I’m a moderate.” Because no one believes that being politically moderate means that you vote based on the qualifications of individual candidates. They think that you’re a fence rider who can’t make up your mind and will proceed to challenge you on every point they can think of, just so that they can prove that choosing a political party makes you smarter. Not that I find that annoying …

8. “You’re right, we don’t spend enough time together, and yes, I am free this weekend.” Because you should never promise up to two days of your time without first confirming that you will not in fact be helping someone move when they “suddenly remember” that that’s what they have to do this weekend.

9. “I’m not much for country decor; it’s a little tacky.” Because the person you’re talking to has gingham wallpaper and sunflower-print curtains in their living room. And so does their mother. And their best friend who is standing next to them.

10. “I don’t care what we do as long as we’re together.” Because you will care. Trust me.

11. “I’d love for you to recommend a book to me.” Because they will also give you said book to read out of their private collection, it will be awful, and they will ask you every time they see you for the rest of your life if you’ve read it yet and if you enjoyed it.

12. “Anything’s fine, as long as it’s not decaf.” Because now you’re getting instant coffee.

13. “My boyfriend has a truck …” Because now they are going to use both of you.

14. “I pretty much like all music.” Because you don’t. You enjoy different genresof music which is very different, and now you’re going to have an awkward conversation about how you really can’t listen to every single CD Toby Keith ever made on your twelve-hour road trip because you hate him.

15. ”I have a blog too!” Because you don’t actually want them to read it–you’re just trying to connect. Find another common ground. You probably included them in an anecdote you’d prefer that they didn’t see anyway.

My mini break jump-started me back into reading again. I’ve decided to give myself an achievable goal for the second half of the summer: establish a short book list and finish it. Any one want to join me? Okay, there’s about six and a half weeks until August 31, but what with being in Red’s wedding my free time is going to be more limited than usual, so I think I’ll set a goal of five books–a little less than one a week. And I’m going to choose light reading (well, light-er reading; not all of these books are exactly beach books) and I refuse to feel guilty about that because this is summertime.

Okay, here it is:

1. The Jane Austen Book Club: I actually liked the movie, and I’ve been told that the book is much better. Perfect for summer fluff.
2. Life of Pi: Deluxe Illustrated Edition: I heard an interview with Yann Martel and Tomislav Torjanacon on NPR a couple of months ago and have been hankering to read it ever since.
3. Possession: I’ve been hearing about the book and the movie for years, and I want to watch the movie, but I want to read the book first. I actually generally prefer to watch the movie first and read the book second–is that horrible coming from an English major? I’m just usually disappointed in film adaptations because they don’t live up to my idea of the book. However, trying to work my way through Atonement already knowing the general outcome has been hard, so I’m trying this the other way around.
4. A Severe Mercy: A good friend pressed a copy of this into my hands during my senior year of college and insisted that I read it. I ended up giving it back because I didn’t have time to write my senior thesis and read for fun, but now I’m eager to see what I’ve been missing.
5. Watership Down: Everyone has read this book. Even baby sister. I should too. Plus, it’s about rabbits.
   

One minor (minor) problem is that I only own two of the five books. I’m going to try to order them offline inexpensively … fingers crossed.

Update: with the help of bigwords.com I successfully ordered the three missing books. They should be here by the time I finish Watership Down and The Jane Austen Book Club.

While not a Great Love affair, my most recent read did turn out to be an Affair to Remember. I Wish Someone was Waiting for Me Somewhere is a collection of short stories, 10-15 pages in length, written by Anna Gavalda.

The narration is written in first-person, and as such has an easy, conversational tone. Love is loosely the common thread that holds these stories, but only (so it seems) incidentally. Gavalda gives her reader snap-shots into the lives of her characters (she herself is one of them) for the briefest moment, then steps away. Like a perfect visit with a good friend, she always finishes her story just soon enough to leave you satisfied, but wanting more.

Gavalda’s writing is beautiful in it’s sparseness. She doesn’t string adjectives on to fifty-cent words or take the easy way out and bombard her reader with overly-romantic, melodramatic sentiment, hallelujah. I wish I wasn’t reading her works in translation. I get the strong sense that her carefully chosen wording would be even more brilliant, more precise in French.

I gobbled up this book in the matter of a couple of days, most in one sitting on a beach in South Carolina while browning my skin to a more acceptable summer hue and squidging my toes in the sand. I got quite a lot of reading in this weekend, actually. The drive to the beach and back took a total of 15 hours, so I listened to the better part of Atonement on CD (no wisecracks, please), and also read all but fifty pages of A Long Way Down. These books were all vastly different in tone and subject matter. Atonementmade Gavalda’s novel seem all the more sparse, while Atonement felt really wordy. However, I enjoyed/am enjoying them all and hope to finish them this week.

In other news, my trip was relaxing and full of lots of fresh seafood, as well as a beautiful dinner at 82 Queen in downtown Charleston (an early birthday present from my uncle). We sat in a garden full of blown-glass bubbles and with lights in the trees. Our table was in a tiny pavilion (with a fan!). The tables were marble, the seats were painted white wrought-iron and leather, and faint classical music played. Far from being stuffy, the atmosphere was very relaxed. We feasted on crab cakes, scallops, tillapia, shrimp, lamb, salads, roasted summer vegetables, grits, cheese biscuits, white and red wines, crème brûlée, chocolate ganache torte, fresh fruit with Grand Marnier, espresso, and brandies Alexander. Yum.

I went for walks on the beach at night and watched the moon’s reflection play on the surface of the water. It was oddly reminiscent of a night I spent in Gulf Shores, Alabama, after a hurricane when all the street lights were out for miles. The stars were so bright they reflected off the water and we were so overjoyed by it that we laughed like maniacs and danced down the beach to keep from bursting. That was a good night.

Best of all, I got up early and watched the sun rise.

A friend asked me for my lettuce wrap recipe, so here it is. This recipe is the sort of cooking I like: extremely flexible and no-frills, open to substitutions and changes. And healthy.

Ingredients

• sesame oil
• peanut sauce and szechuan sauce (in a pinch I use the House of Tsang brand you can buy in the oriental food section at most grocery stores, though making it from scratch is healthier and tastes better)
• fresh ginger (optional)
• red pepper flake
• chicken
• tofu
• carrots, shredded (use a grater)
• dry roasted peanuts, chopped
• lots of cilantro, chopped
• cucumber, julienned
• short, crispy wheat or rice noodles (check the packaging, some aren’t too bad for you and some are super fatty and fried)
• bib leaf lettuce leaves (can substitute iceberg)

Cut the chicken and tofu into tiny pieces and toss in a wok with a tiny drizzle of sesame seed oil, the sauces to taste (don’t overdo it), some red pepper flakes, and ginger. Once it’s cooked through, toss in a handful of crushed peanuts and serve taco-style on lettuce leaves. Pile with cilantro, carrots, a bit of the noodles, and the cucumber. You should acheive something approximating this (only with more veggies, of course):

Other toppings include:

• mango
• extra peanuts
• slices of chili pepper
• dash of soy or tamari sauce

With all the weddings and visitors this summer, I haven’t felt like I’ve had much of a break. I usually like to take vacation time in the fall or winter when tourist season isn’t at its peak. However, this weekend, I’m looking forward to three whole lovely days of doing nothing. No vicarious wedding planning, no visiting, no hostessing. Not even tending my garden, which I love to do.

Every year my family makes a pilgrimage to South Carolina, where my parents grew up. We stay on one of the islands near Charleston (mum’s hometown) in the same beach house. My ritual is simple and unvarying: I wake up in the morning, change into my suit, grab a book, and make for the water. I spend the whole day walking, sunning, swimming, and reading, with a short break at the beach house during the heat of the day for lunch. For dinner, we walk to the local dives and eat fresh seafood. The evenings are devoted to walks on the beach and movies.

Stuff I’m looking forward to:

1. Righteous tan lines.

2. Finishing my current book and starting (and possibly finishing) another.

3. Coconut Joe’s coconut shrimp platter. Mmm, bring on the deep-fried goodness!

4. The exfoliating properties of sand. My feet have been looking rough with all the Chaco-wearing I’ve done this summer.

5. Seeing my aunt and uncle.

6. Sharing a room with my little sister. It’s like camp, only I like the person in the next bunk.

7. Turning off my cell phone. “The AT&T caller you have dialed is not able to take your call right now. Please leave a message.”

8. No internet access. Mwahaha. I will SO not be checking email.

9. Naps.

10. Having my mummy cook for me.

On Monday evening I finally settled in to watch I’m Not There. If you’re not familiar, it’s … well, I wouldn’t really know what to call it, but it’s about Bob Dylan. Six different actors portray Dylan, all under different names, including Woody Guthrie (who is not, in fact, the Woody Guthrie).

This is the only film about the artist that he himself approved of.

If you know me, you know I love Bob Dylan. I LOVE him. I was all set and ready to be interested in the concept of the movie, but let down a little by it. Nope. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Definitely a nine. Maybe nine and a half (can I do that?). Cate Blanchett does a bang-up job as the most easily recognizable Dylan. How she lost the Oscar to Tilda Swinton, I’ll never know. (Though I guess actually watching Michael Clayton might help.)

At the very beginning of the movie, it describes the six versions of Dylan you’re about to experience, including Dylan the Fake, represented by this actor:

Even Edie Sedgwick makes an appearance under the name “Coco.” (I have a strange fascination with her that was only aggravated by repeat viewings of Factory Girl.)

There’s really no plot, and certainly no linear narrative. The viewer drifts between interviews with friends and colleagues, a young, chain-smoking Dylan being interrogated, concert performances, flash backs, flash forwards, and yet I never felt disoriented. The cast is made up of several of my favorite actors, though I must admit I was totally indifferent to Richard Gere’s performance. Several images from Dylan covers turn up in the movie, including this one:

There is, however, a downside. It’s not the sort of movie that you can recommend to someone who doesn’t love Bob Dylan, or art for art’s sake. It’s not a crowd-pleasing film. The editing is great and I think that the use of color v. black and white film is beautiful. However, were I not truly in love with Bob Dylan, I might have had the same reaction to this film that I had to Coffee and Cigarettes: pre-ten-tious. (I am, for you fans, going to give Coffee and Cigarettes another try and V’s request.) In any case if you’re a lover of film and visual arts, give it a go. If you’re a Bob Dylanite, SEE IT. If blockbusters are more your cup of tea, it’s really not worth your time, much as it pains me to say it.

I’ve got a new film fettish of the moment, and that’s always good. Here’s some mug shots for you:

I’m back from my brief blogging hiatus. The past two weeks have been wonderful and stressful. Earl and Monkey’s wedding went off … well, not with out a hitch (no pun intended), but very well. Best of all, old, not-so-old, and new friends-in-the-making, crowded into town to celebrate with us. My house has been full of guests since Thursday, June 19, and we’ve just now said farewell to the last visitor. All told, we probably had close to twenty house guests throughout those two weeks.

The wedding reception was held at a state park overlooking a huge canyon, and the weather was miraculously temperate. One of the guests (and consequently my boss) remarked to me that she had never seen so many long-haired, pierced, and tattooed men all in one place before (not least of all boyfriend). My favorite moment of the reception was during the bouquet toss. Small confession that I hope won’t step on anyone’s toes: I think that is a ridiculous tradition and I’ve never taken part in it–until last weekend. Earl flung her bouquet high in the air where it was deftly caught by our friend, Hannah. Hannah, sensing a fight, took off running down the side-road and towards the woods. And ALL of the girls (there were a lot of us) chased after her. The pursuit was long–I was in stillettos, so I only made it about a quarter of a mile before my fear of a sprained ankle prevented me from going further–and Hannah remained the victorious bouquet-possesor.

We stuffed ourselves with Japanese food that night and then crawled back to the Red House to look at pictures from Beth’s recent trip to Machu Pichu. Oh, and the bachelorette party was a lot of fun, but I’m going to keep you in the dark. Those of you who were there that are reading this know why.

My visit with T.S. and Paulie was lovely as well. We bummed around our little town, eating out too much (I’m eating salad for a month, T.S.) and enjoying one another’s company. The boys were absent on and off for the Euro Cup (fine with us) and we spent time sipping tea and catching up (and shopping a little). Hmm … that might sound boring, but the best bits were just chatting and being near my friend again. T.S., Paulie, boyfriend, and I discussed the possibility of flipping houses together in Seattle as a money-making option: buy a house big enough for four, flip it, and then move to a bigger place and repeat. I told boyfriend that the second he decided to move to Seattle I’d break my lease and rent a U-haul. We’ll see if he makes that decision … because if he does, I really will be moving!

In other news, I think that my love of reading is slowly being revived by this book.  Since my last great book love was written by Anna Gavalda, I decided to give it a whirl. I figure that if I can get back into the habit of reading faithfully, maybe I’ll read other things as well. Maybe it was a tad ambitious to expect to read all the Dostoevsky books that I missed in my year following college. The book is petite, and the stories are brief but delightful. In searching for this book online, I ran across the Better World bookstore. They have a large selection of new and used books, and shipping is free–they just add a few cents (in my case, 3 cents) to your total to offset the carbon emissions that are used to mail your book. They packaging is eco-friendly, too. Unfortunately, they didn’t have another book that I was looking for (Anna Gavalda’s other novel Someone I Loved), so I won’t buy books from them exclusively. Besides, my book-buying fetish often demands instant gratification. I generally use this great media search engine called Big Words to find the lowest prices on books and DVDs and stuff, which is how I found Better World in the first place.

Lil also moved in amidst the chaos (brave girl) and is now temporarily sharing a bedroom with Sicily, until Red moves out and she has a room all to herself. Ah, communal living. I’ve seen Lil for a total of twenty minutes since she moved in, as I have this really awful habit of double-booking myself on nights when I’m not actually free to begin with. I’m looking forward to my weekend on the Isle of Palms July 11-14.

I’m also hatching plans to go somewhere for the week of Labor Day. Canada? I don’t know. I don’t have much money but I have to go somewhere. Frenchie is determined to get us to Ais de Provença for Christmas. I wish, I wish, I wish … We’d be there during some beautiful weather as we’d miss the Mistral and the bitterly cold part of winter, I’m told. Mmmm. I don’t have plans for this holiday weekend–well, none that I can’t break. Maybe I should go to Frenchie and make travel plans over a nice glass of Côte du Rhône. Mmm.

Or maybe I should stay put and not push myself for a chance. With the nice glass of Côte du Rhône. After all, home is an inviting place:

We’ll see. The desire to move about is a powerful itch.

I have a lot to be excited about today. One of my dear friends is flying all the way from Seattle (well, Vegas, technically) to see me! Okay, not just me, but it’s most important to me that she sees me, so … whatever. I lived with T.S. on-and-off up until my senior year of college. I haven’t seen her in almost two years now, and that’s too long. She’s flying in with her lovesband, Paulie, and I’ll be picking them up from the airport in Nashville (a few hours drive from where I am).

A momentary uneasiness hit me last night as I realized I hadn’t come up with any plans, etc. to do while they’re here–nothing firm, of course, but some optional stuff. I’ve been so excited about them being here that it didn’t occur to me that we might need things to do. But the truth is, we don’t. T.S. is one of those rare people who are just comfortable to be around. Paulie is too, come to think of it. We don’t have to make conversation, it’s just easy and lovely to be around each other. So, I’m not going to come up with anything. (Plus they’re splitting their time between seeing me and catching up with other local friends, so it’s not like we’ll be staring at one another for a week.)

As an aside, I woke up early this morning to water my garden and started humming something. I couldn’t remember what it was, only the lyrics, “A lovely night, a lovely night, a finer night you know you’ll never see.” I Googled it and realized it’s from that Rogers and Hammerstein’s version of Cinderella from the sixties. So now that the song is stuck in my head, hear you go–it can get stuck in yours too:

My absolute favorite job in high school was working at a ranch. I shoveled manure, exercised horses, herded cattle, stacked hay bales, fed the animals, and killed giant rats, all with great delight. During the summers, I also taught horseback riding. My trainer happily passed off her beginner students to me. Even better, I got to work with the therapeutic riding students.

The TR students were my absolute favorites–they were by far the most fun to teach. In the beginner classes, I came across a fair number of spoiled kids who would probably give up horseback riding the first time they fell off. They didn’t seem interested in learning or listening, and their parents cheerfully forked over fistfuls of cash for riding lessons, velvet hardhats, glossy leather boots, riding togs they would rapidly grow out of, gorgeous tack, and even showy-looking ponies.

All of my TR students were really in love with horses and best of all, nurturing their love also made them feel great. One of my students, an angel of a girl named Amber, had very advanced Cerebral Palsy. At the beginning of our lessons she had almost no mobility, but at the end of the two hour period, with lots of slow and careful work, she was able to stretch out her arms and limbs and was giggling infectiously. Her favorite pony, Poncho, was a squat little appaloosa, white smattered with raindrop-shaped black spots. We would sit together on a special bench that Roger, the owner, had rigged up for us, and would brush him from nose to tail after every lesson.

I went back to visit the ranch throughout college and sometimes ran into Amber and a couple of my other favorite students. None of them were seeing much long-term physical improvement, but they were all a lot happier with horses in their lives than they would have been without. I miss them all like crazy–I don’t often cry but just seeing their pictures makes me tear up every time. I’ve never met young men and women with more drive and better attitudes. In their daily routines they have more to overcome than I hope I ever understand from first hand experience. When I start to feel sorry for myself, I think about Amber’s joy and I shame myself out of moping.

And now for the news: I’m finally going back to teaching again. I have a contact for two therapeutic riding centers nearby. If all goes well, by September I’ll have students again! And I’ll be around horses again–the heavy musk of their coats, the spicy aroma of wood chips, the sweetness of the hay. Mmm. I can’t wait. What I’m really hoping for is that in exchange for volunteering, I’ll get to take the lesson horses out for rides (I hope, I hope, I hope). I’m looking forward to ever last detail of it–cleaning tack, brushing coats, laughing hysterically at my students’ antics. Yesss. I’m going back.

Growing up, I knew exactly what I wanted to be: a novelist. I wrote my first book on a yellow legal pad when I was six years old. It was a controversial tale of love and acceptance: a mouse and a bird wanted to be friends and roommates, but they were scrutinized by the mayor of the field community, a mole, for their differences. In the end, they overcame the stigma and ate cheese and berries together every evening. I think this had something to do with the fact that I had been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss.

My desire to write stuck with me, only overshadowed during the brief periods of time when I wanted to be a secret agent (when I was nine and into Nancy Drew and Mission: Impossible reruns), and when I wanted to be a Thoroughbred jockey (Pat Day was my hero), and when I wanted to be an actress (my parents actually encouraged this because they considered me to be a very emotional child, and thought that acting would help work it out of my system).

My mom was friends with a publisher that specialized in writing for children and adolescents by children and adolescents. The company has since folded–I think they might have been a little before their time–but my mom submitted one of my novels to them. It was a horrific thing that was probably three hundred pages long. I was fifteen at the time, and remember distinctly getting the call from her friend, asking if I would come into the office to speak with her and a couple of her colleagues. I panicked. No, no, no, no. This was not what I wanted. This was not how I wanted to be remembered. This book wasn’t any good! It was a crap piece of fiction written by an angsty fifteen year old and I knew it. I refused to meet with them and stopped writing. The fact that my book would have been a flop in terms of copies sold wasn’t the problem. I was sick and ashamed that anyone had seen such thoughtless writing. I would never write again until I had something to say.

I couldn’t get a way from my love of books, so I entered college as an English major, figuring I would sort out what to do for a career later on. My sophomore year I had it: I would become an editor. I could still work with text, it was still creative, and I wasn’t writing it. I didn’t have to fear that my work would be meaningless or that I would be redundant. Instead, I could help others escape that fate.

I sat down with my toughest (and one of my favorite) professors. He was the most feared, most disliked, and most adamantly defended by his few supporters in the entire department. I told him what I wanted to do and he looked at me quizzically. “But I thought you didn’t want to write?” he asked. “I don’t. But this isn’t writing.” He gave me an infuriating little smile. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, then,” he muttered. “Listen, you want to be an editor that works with clients, right? Not just a proofreader or a copy editor.” I nodded. “The best editors evoke great writing. They’re like collaborative authors–they decide what doesn’t work, and that’s more creative than you might think. They have to be muses and excellent writers. It can be harder work for you than for an author.”

I thought for a long minute. “You know I’m not scared of work,” I responded. “Yeah, but you are scared of writing, which is stupid.” Dr. F. didn’t mince words. “I’m scared of bad writing.” He shrugged. “Well, there’s only one way to fix that: write.” I sighed. “Look, I think you can do the editing thing. I think you’d actually be good. You’re very collaborative, and that’s important. But you’re going to have to get over your fear of writing. Even if it’s not in big print, your name is going to be on the books you edit. And you are just as important as the author.” I stared at him moodily for a while. Dr. F. is one of those people that you can get mad at and he takes it as a sign that you’re comfortable with him. “It’s still what I want to do with my life.” “Swell.” That was the end of that. We didn’t talk about it again, though I found out later that he put me up for my current job where I’ve been getting a lot of editing experience.

I resisted writing for another year, only working on my character sketches. I said that it was just writers block, but the truth was, far beyond writer’s block the thought of writing made me ill. I wrote short works of fiction and terrible poetry when forced, and churned out essays with great efficiency. I worked in the writing center and discovered that my instincts had been correct–the part of the writing process that I was most comfortable with was working with other people’s material.

Eventually, though, I knew that I would have to start writing again. It was like a ghost–it wouldn’t go away and I had to exorcise it by staring it in the face. My friend and professor Dr. W. tried to help. He spent quite a good deal of time listening to my ideas and talking about what we could do with them. I wrote very short pieces and let him look at them. Most of it was creative non-fiction or experimental: abstract descriptions, third person observations of my life, and dark, one-page children’s stories. It was torturous. I found a kindred spirit in Nick Hornby, who said that he realized that he was too ignorant and too mortal to reread many books. I used it to justify my lack of desire to write public discourse. Why add to the pile of books already out there? What have I to contribute?

The idea of writing has never gotten any easier. I started blogging, mostly to keep overseas friends in my day-to-day life, but also with the idea in mind that at least I would be writing something. There is, however, a more recent development.

One night when I was home alone, I poured myself a very small glass of Scotch and dragged a table into my bedroom. I locked the doors and drew the curtains and sat down with a legal pad and began to write. Something was welling up to the surface, and I was going to try to let it out. I had carefully selected four different pens, and every time I finished a sheet, I changed writing implements. My hand flew across the blank paper for hours, crossing it with scrawl. At the end of the night I was exhausted, my eyes were bloodshot, and I knew I wasn’t going to sleep well. However, for the first time in years, I had stack of papers with writing on them. I carefully folded them into a shoe box and locked them in the bottom of my trunk.