Words. Words. Words.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall.

1. In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez

2. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

4. On Writing - Stephen King

5. Guests of the Sheik - Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

6. Teacher Man - Frank McCourt

7. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

8. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

9. She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb

10. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

11. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

12. Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck

13. The Awakening - Kate Chopin

14. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

15. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I held out defiantly until about a month ago, but I've caved into the Twilight craze. I'm on book three. They're fantastically mindless reads, and full of harlequin-novel romance - I found myself relaxing while turning their pages. They can't compare to Rowling, but I'm surprisingly taken in. A welcome departure from political philosophy. While I'm not buying into the pandemonium of vampire lit, I can say they're enjoyable, even cute. Brings me right back to the jitters of first love and high school dates. Not so much of a lit snob that I didn't give it a try!

Currently Nip/Tuck - Season 5, Part 2 By Dylan Walsh, Julian McMahon see related

Treatise on Venus

*****CAUTION****THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED*****

Women: let us take a minute and appreciate the sacrifices we go through. The subject is nails. You know, those long, glistening, smooth-as-silk pink and french-tipped perfections gracing our fingertips. The day after a "full set," you can't help but staring. So beautiful, so sophisticated. But either economics (those fills are so damn expensive!) or practicality (raking the leaves unscathed? really?) force us to take them off, and that necessitates a few approaches. You can take the grow-them-out approach, which leaves a hideous gap between the cuticle and fake stuff. You can shell out more cash to get them removed. Or, for the frugal set, you can take them off yourself. It's a cheap thrill, really. To peel up one end as you feel your real nail underneath screaming for mercy. Juuussttt a liiiittllle mooorrreeee.......the pain is almost unbearable, but, yes! you got it off. Then the blood starts, beading up slowly, then threatening to gush. You've pulled your own nail off, down to the skin. No pain, no gain!

And I'm sure you're asking just how I can be typing with my raw fingertips. Well, for one, not all of the fakes are off. I've got one ring finger and two thumbs hanging on. It's sexy, really. And for another, I felt the need to spread the word - women, you're not alone! Here is one resounding note of appreciation for what you do! As I nurse my digital wounds, I salute you!

Where did THANKSgiving go?

Three days past Halloween and the boob tube is plastered with Christmas commercials. Am I missing something here? Did we cancel Thanksgiving? Has it become less glamorous next to the glitz and kitsch of the uber-commercialized, uber-materialized holidays its stuck between? Every year I go searching for Thanksgiving decorations - because, yes, I decorate my home to the nines from about October through April for each holiday - and every year I'm disappointed by the selection. I've got my ceramic turkey, I've got my fake leaves and cornucopias, but how about some more die-cut posters, window clings, inspirational decor with at least the WORD "thanks" on it?

I'll tell you exactly what the problem is, but then I'd be a cynic. All I'll say is this: before we move from the self-aggrandization of Halloween onto the greed of Christmas, let's remember to take a moment to reflect on a 'lil thing called gratitude.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. 

It turns what we have into enough, and more. 

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. 

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. 

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision

for tomorrow.

-Melody Beattie

Who's Embarassed?

Mr. "Anonymous," who commented on my last post: I make no apologies for my feelings. For a long, long time I didn't know how to express them. Yesterday's entry could have just as easily been done in a diary - but the point was not what I was saying - it was the sheer fact that I said it, showed my vulnerabilities for all the world to see. It's amusing, really, that some feel the need to judge with smug superiority simply because they don't maintain that level of honesty. To each their own. I DO think we have reached an age of too much transparency, but keep in mind, everyone has full control of what they reveal. I chose to reveal what was an extremely difficult pill for me to swallow, because I needed some way of coming to terms with it, and not privately. Was it a call for help? Perhaps. I did feel better after "talking" about it, especially for the fact that I was admitting to the world that, no, I wasn't ok.

Keep in mind that my audience - if one exists - consists of those who care about what I'm up to. This blog is intended for only those that know how to get to it, and that would be friends and family. Digesting a difficult thing online, thinking it through, is for the benefit of one person, and one person alone: me. Do I care if other people have a problem with it? Hell no. Some may censor themselves because they're embarassed, cautious, elitist.....but I happen to think that opening up oneself and naming their weaknesses or struggles, through whatever medium and for whatever purpose, is not cause for embarassment, but admiration.   

So, I fully admit that I am investing far too much thought and care in someone that doesn't deserve a bit of it. I probably did dwell on it too much this week. But I'm not embarassed - I'm liberated. There isn't a person in the world who hasn't been affected to some degree, good or bad, by an update on the ex.....and if you claim not to have been, you're lying. Dwelling? Really? I've been living a happy, fulfilled life, with yesterday's feelings triggered by a place that carried a hell of a lot of baggage. My physical return to Plymouth brought me back to the same emotional place I was five years ago, and stupidly, I thought that seeing what my ex was up to would help me to make sense of the memories that had come flooding back, and, in turn, I would have a new perspective on said place. Thanks to the many, many people I have in my life who care about me, I have been reminded that I have come so far past it.   

My, my, Mr. "Anonymous" (though I have a pretty good idea of who you are), you certainly went out of your way to insult me. Quite the effort to be unkind. But this is hardly out of character. You should be proud.

The Engagement

So I am supposed to be thrilled, take the higher road, pretend I'm ok. I went to Plymouth State's Homecoming and it was the biggest step I have made in several years. I was terrified of running into him. I wanted to appear happier, prettier, better off. And by the time I got up there, stopped several times to primp and calm down, I felt ready to run into him....even the two of them. And I proceeded to have an absolutely wonderful day, visiting my school.....yes, MY school.....I may have not graduated from there, but it is where I grew up. It's where my memories are stored, it's where so much of myself is invested, and I still haven't come to terms with. I lost so much, burned so many bridges. But I have come a far, far way. I finally arrived at a place where I was convinced that I was worthy, that my very existence wasn't a waste.....because that's what he had convinced me of for so long. I wanted to flaunt it. But no matter, I returned to Plymouth, MY school, and was ok. I survived. I left the day feeling a semblance of closure.

And then I come home. In fear of exactly how close we may have been to running into each other on that day, I visited his facebook profile. I was greeted by the details of a proposal that I had mentioned to him several years ago. Pumpkins. I vividly recall telling him how romantic it was, how wonderful.

The knee-jerk reaction is that I gave him the best years of my life, that I put up with a hell of a lot of betrayal and hate and utter dehumanization.....all for what I thought was a better cause....and here I am, at the place he always wanted me to be, and still unhappy, still incomplete. This is what I'm hung up on. This is what will keep me awake tonight, and god knows how many other nights. I have to wonder....did I do all of this for myself? Because right now, where I am, doesn't matter a flip to me, without at least knowing that I was good enough.