Among the list are the ever-present BSC and Mary Higgins Clark books. I know they’re not all that great, and yet. I am also counting two fanfiction sagas. Hold up, you may say.  What are the rules here? I have determined that if a fanfiction saga holds over 100,000 words, I’m counting it. One of the fanfiction pieces I read has over 4o0,000 words. Hells yeah. I even read one piece of nonfiction. So, if you’re really bored or curious, check the Books tab. It’s going to be updated fairly regularly.

So That You Will Hear Me

So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.

Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands as smooth as grapes.

And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering ivy.

It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.

Before you, they are peopled in the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.

Now I want to make them say what I want to say to you
and to make you hear as I wasn’t you to hear me.

The winds of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice

Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Leave me, companion. Don’t forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.

But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

I updated my books and movies. I’m just now over 20 books read, and I am still working towards my goal of reading 100. Looking over my list a few minutes ago, I felt a TON of English major guilt. I’ve read predominantly “popcorn books,” books kind of like those popcorn action flicks of summers. Fortunately, I’ve decided that that shit is dumb–the guilt, that is. I’m actually reading somewhat again; if I start with books that don’t have a lot of intellectual/literary merit, at least it gets me back into the habit.  And I’ve at least looked at Lolita by Nabokov. I have it on my shelf. I think it’ll be on my reading plate very soon. I also am feeling the urge to read lots of adolescent and juvenile literature.

Following Haley’s leading, I’ve made a list of books I’d like to read this summer in addition to my popcorn novels.

1. Lolita
2. The Graveyard Book
3. Ella Enchanted
4. Wide Sargasso Sea
5.  Prague
6. Live From New York
7. Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair
8. Laughable Loves

As for movies, I seem to do a better job of watching more thoughtful and artistics films amongst the fun, light-hearted movies. I’ve started watching more documentaries, and I surprised myself by really enjoying them. Anybody have any recommendations for books or films?

Worthless. That one word is EXACTLY why I’m breaking my silence. Too many Christians are tossing that word around. No doubt, there is fraud on our welfare system and Medicare. It’s wrong, but I would rather err on the side of giving someone grace than deny people help. If you are a believer and feel free to call God’s creation worthless without apology, then you are not compassionate or gracious or loving. I try not to make blanket statements like that often. This post is full of qualifying statements.  But I am sick of the people who claim Christianity disparaging their fellow men, whom God created and loves. You have differing views on the role of government? Fine. You think that social justice, charity, helping those in need of food and health care should be done by the private sector and by churches in particular? I disagree somewhat, but I don’t have to call you a murderous aristocrat. Although, let’s face it. It is NOT getting done by churches. It isn’t. Your church may be doing something, and that is awesome. I think that churches and the government should BOTH be working to help American citizens. As a whole, however? Churches ARE NOT taking care of the widows and the orphans, the sick and the poor. I’ve heard too many Christians state that exact fact to expect much of an opposition on that point. Too many kids and adults are sick and are going to DIE because they cannot get access to affordable health care, many through no fault of their own. 

Ultimately, as  you may have guessed, I am quite in favor of the health care reform. In fact, I would have like it to have gone much farther. Personally, I am in favor of universal health care. This blog, however, is not about convincing you of my position. I probably won’t. (Side note: I do wish that more people were better informed, on both sides. Not everything that Glenn Beck or Fox News or Keith Olbermann or MSNBC claims is truth.)

What I want to do is proclaim that calling someone worthless is not loving. It seems outrageous that I even have to make that distinction. Trust me, if a husband called his wife worthless, the very same people who throw that adjective around would be outraged. You may find someone’s actions reprehensible, but calling someone worthless is actually a pretty serious statement. Your words mean something. God is not amused by your rants calling someone he loves worthless.

What I want to do is say that I can be a Christian and not a Republican. God does not belong to the Republicans, the Democrats, or the Libertarians. He is not a political party. Pastors, please stop telling me that my political views are sin simply because I identify with the Democratic party. You don’t know all of them, for one, and it is not sin to believe in a stronger national government. It simply is not. I don’t trust it for my salvation, therefore it is not a sin.

On that note, you can be a Democrat and be pro-life. Moreover, you can be anti-abortion and not be pro-life. There is a difference. Pro-life encompasses more than the abortion battle. For instance, it does not demonstrate high esteem of life to want every child to be born at the same time you battle against making sure they have health care and food. It is not reverent of life to expect a mother to keep her unborn child and leave her/want to leave her without resources, medically and otherwise. You cannot claim to be completely pro-life and stop caring (in terms of real action) for people after they are born, sometimes into terrible situations. That just makes you anti-abortion. I am not saying that every Christian Republican is like this, ; many people unfortunately are. I am also aware of the semantic war over the labels I’m using. Make no mistake, I believe abortion is wrong. I also believe valuing human life so little as to deny health care to everyone, particularly children, is just as wrong.

As you can see, another reason I don’t normally write about political issues is that I’m not good at it. I’m too passionate, I guess, and yet I must restrain myself, for I don’t believe that every Republican/Libertarian/No Party Alignment out there calling me and people like me idiots responsible for the end of civilization (melodramatic!) is a bad person. Personally, I think they are wrong (as they do me) and that perhaps some are misguided, but I would never want to lump all Republicans/opponents of the health care reform together. If you feel that I am doing that, I apologize. That was not my intent. My goal was to call attention to a specific group of Christian Republicans (or Independents, etc.) who are not displaying Christ in their words and attitudes. I expect that I might get a couple of comments, so please keep it civil, or I will moderate your comment.

Parson's Desk from West Elm

This is the desk that I want. Of course, for $299 plus shipping, I might could love a similar shaped table painted this color as much. My vision for the whole room is as such. I want super white walls, yellow desk, black chair. Window coverings, if needed, would be white, yellow, and some complementary color. Blue? Green? Pink? I can’t decide. Since this is my ideal office, I want dark hardwood floors. Maybe even a black floor. Then, my color palette would be black, white, yellow, red. Like a school bus. And since I have a slight obsession with obtaining a toy school bus like the one from How I Met Your Mother, that might be neat. I could end up with something along the lines as this. 

From Hashai.com

Desk here is a different color, but I like the general feel. It’s a teen girl’s desk in her bedroom, but I feel that the idea can be extrapolated into a full room. I like the idea of using trays and glass jars as storage in addition to using the very popular storage boxes. 

From Real Simple.com

You can see an idea of what I’m going for with that thought here. Imagine red pencils instead of blue (I think I’ve determined my color palette). You know, home office stuff is usually quite boring. Why not create a cheery vibe? I think, for me, going a more traditional route, with heavy fabrics and desks, would make me sad or too uptight. If I must keep my papers in order, and apparently I must, I want to do it with style. Pretty folders make me want to use them! Pretty rooms will make me want to go in there and keep them pretty. 

Right now, I’m musing over getting rid of the tiny round table in our kitchen. It’s too small for the four of us to eat at, so all it is used for is holding a trifle bowl with various decorations. Actually, it is used as a catch-all, and I’m tired of removing the dog’s leash, army men, a DS, mail, and dirty dishes from its surface. I’m thinking of removing it not so we stop using it as a catch-all, but so we can reclaim this space that is largely not being used. 

From Real Simple.com

I’m thinking of putting a desk or two in there for the boys. Currently, they do homework either in the living room or their bedroom. Both have TVs and myriad other distractions in them, and the rooms aren’t really conducive to studying and homework. So, something like this, altered to fit the purposes of two elementary school boys, would work nicely. The combination of modern desk and bulletin board is a great one for what we need. The bulletin board can hold their newsletters and spelling words and such. Because they are boys and we already have a green kitchen, I’d use green accents. A silver desk would be wicked rad, but a white one would do just fine. 

From Internet World. Let me know if you know.

What do you think? Also, I just put this last picture in the post because I like it. It has the vibe I’m going for.

-Martin Luther King
 March 22, 1965

Beach Music by Pat Conroy. I still like his stories, even though I am often tempted to slash out whole passages.  Man needs a iron-fisted editor is what I’m saying. And a new plot. But still, I reread his books because I loved them so in high school and some of college.  Plus, this book has  a scene in which a schizophrenic off his medication forces his four brothers to jump off a bridge naked in front of rush hour traffic. It’s funny.

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. A reread. I like this novel, but I don’t love it. I liked it less this time than the first. I genuinely like Charlotte at the beginning of the piece. Her naivete is then endearing but becomes more and more off-putting. I think her characterization is a bit muddled. Tom Wolfe spent some time at universities researching for this work, and it shows, mostly. There are bits here and there that reveal him to not be as familiar with this world, this generation as other claimed him to be. Most of the characters end up unlikeable, sadly, save for one. Jojo has an interesting tale of redemption.

Fudge-a-Mania by Judy Blume. Another reread. Still fun.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. This one left me feeling a little cold. I, as a general rule, tend to enjoy TV shows and books relating to serial killers. This one fit the bill and was well-written, but I felt no life in it. Perhaps that’s the point of course, but only in one passage did I genuinely feel the darkness of the protagonist. Mostly,  he felt like a cipher–no human or inhuman characteristics, or even any at all. Also, all the descriptions of smell did nothing for me. They were well-done I’m sure, but I didn’t connect on any level.

#2 was The Ugly Duckling by Iris Johansen is a pretty mindless piece of thriller fluff. Not written exceptionally well, mostly thinly drawn characters, pretty thin plot too. Fortunately, it was interesting and kept my attention. Kind of like big action movies in that way. One character I did love though–strident foreign female with no sense of boundaries and a heart of gold. Sure, not original, but always fun to my mind.

Book #3 was The Giver by Lois Lowry. I’d never read this young adult novel, and I have certainly been missing out until now. I read this in one day. It’s a provocative book in terms of themes and issues the novel speaks to. Interdependence vs. independence, same vs. different, freedom, CHOICE. Is choice a right we take for granted? If we weren’t to have it, would the thought of it become dangerous? There’s also a lot of political parallels that can probably be made, and I would love to discuss those with someone, but I tend to think those conversations flow better in person. If you haven’t read this, I highly recommend it. It’s a book that can stay with you– I’m still thinking through some of the points it raised for me.