Song I'm Digging This Week

The words are all escaping, coming back all damaged, and I would put them back in poetry, if I only knew how...

"All This and Heaven Too" - Florence + The Machine

Song I'm Digging This Week

I don't need your sympathy - I'll always be just fine...




"Helena" - Nickel Creek

Christina Aguilera makes me angry.

I can't stand Christina Aguilera.  Cannot.  Stand.  Her.

Yes, this probably makes me mean.  But I can't help it.  I'm sure if she met me, she'd dislike me, too.

I have many reasons for my annoyance with Xtina (as if her re-creation of her name wasn't enough).  Her smug attitude on "The Voice" just cemented all of them.  She's constantly smirking.  She has a fancy fan with her at all times.  I'm convinced that she's rude to anyone she feels can actually sing.  I think she believes she's the most talented person in the entire universe.  I think she'd challenge God Himself to a sing-off, and then refuse to believe she had lost.

But honestly, I've disliked her since she was a 12-year-old(ish) kid on "MMC."  

Did I have a real reason back then?  Nope.  I just didn't like her.  There was something about her that made me cringe.

My theory is that we each have one celebrity we dislike for real or unexplained reasons, and we get weirdly, passionately mad about them when they're on TV or in a movie.  

My sister despises Hilary Swank.  She says it started with "The Next Karate Kid," (which, yes, was really awful), but her irritation with Ms. Swank has lasted for about 15 years. "She's just...ugh," Holly Jo told me the last time I was at her house.

My best friend Ashleigh feels violent about Joseph Gordon Levitt.  Every time he shows up in a show or in a movie, she makes a face and says "I would like to punch that guy."  Why?  No real reason.  She just doesn't like his face.  Or speech pattern.  Or dance moves.  Or speaking voice. (I actually think he's pretty cute.)

Donny Osmond makes my dad angry.  Literally angry.  Why?  Dad says it's partly because he just cries too much for a man.  Whenever Dad and I are watching TV and Donny O. shows up, Dad turns to me and says "Just wait.  He'll start crying in a second."  And he usually does.

Am I right about this?  What celebrity do you dislike?  Do you have a reason?  

The Less-Than Girl

I'm going to be totally honest today:

Sometimes I wish I was better at being a girl.

Now before some of you get all weirded out on me, let me try my best to unpack that statement:
1.  I haven't decided to bat for the other team.  Still like the fellas.
2.  I was not born with lady-bits and man-bits.  Straight up female here.

What I really mean is that sometimes I read magazine articles, books, and different blogs and then end up feeling like I'm just not doing a great job at being a girl.

My eyes aren't large, blue, and "full of womanly tenderness".  They're average-sized (one is actually a tad smaller than the other one), brown, and...brown.  My neck isn't long and graceful.  My hair doesn't tumble down my back in glossy waves.  It's curly and usually a little frizzy.

And that's just in the looks department - really, that's just above the chest.  That doesn't even begin to cover my lack of cooking prowess or the fact that I have never successfully "crafted" anything.  I'm not even going to begin to talk about the barren wasteland that is my love life.

I want to be careful here, because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea - I really do love reading blogs, novels, and magazines.  If it weren't for some of these mediums, I would never have perfected the art of the adult non-80's side ponytail and I wouldn't have figured out how to make the world's best scrambled eggs (gently nudge the eggs - just nudge).  But I think that sometimes they make me feel a little "less than," a little stupid, and a little clumsy.

So here are some images from blogs that I saw yesterday.  I'm not going to say where they came from, because I really don't want hate mail, and once again - I follow these blogs because I like them.  I really do.  But here's how they occasionally make me feel:

#1:  "We look perfect, even first thing in the morning."*
This particular blogger states that these pictures were just part of her normal morning routine.  Now.  I dig the looks, honestly.  The girl on the right is all kinds of cozy, what with her wintry pom-pom hat, chunky cardigan, and slouchy socks.  The girl on the left did a bang-up job of mixing patterns.
How I felt when I saw this picture yesterday:  I was feeling good about the fact that my bangs dried straight.  Now I feel like I should have a floral crown.  How could I step outside without a floral crown?!
Reality check: Come on.  I have never, in the history of my time on this planet, looked this adorable first thing in the morning.  I have never seen anyone in real life who looks this adorable first thing in the morning.  I  have never worn a floral crown that I made myself (except for that time I was Ophelia in "Hamlet").  Even when I am rockin' my style, I don't ever conveniently have a great photographer on hand to capture it in the most flattering detail.

#2: "What?  You didn't bake cookies from scratch this morning?  You don't have three kinds of sprinkles in your cupboard?"
This blogger claims that at this time of year, homemade sugar cookies "are a must!"  She makes them every year. Several times a year.  Everyone loves them, and everyone wants the recipe.
How I felt when I saw this picture yesterday: I heated up a frozen waffle in the toaster oven for breakfast.  I reheated pizza in the microwave for lunch.  Yep.
Reality check: Ok, so I'm not the greatest cook.  Also, I don't want diabetes, which I would completely get if I made cookies all the time, because I would eat them all.  All.  Of course, I just checked on Facebook and my best friend just made about 14 batches of Christmas cookies in her limited spare time today.  Ugh.

#3: "We handcrafted this play kitchenette today.  No biggie."
This blogger loves her kids.  I mean, really loves her kids.  Enough to work with wood.  And hammers.  Enough to build a toy kitchenette on a random Tuesday.
How I felt when I saw this picture yesterday: I was pretty pumped to find someone who would embroider "My Aunt Manda Loves Me" on a bib for my niece for Christmas.  But now I'm feeling like maybe I should have set up a buzz-saw in my living room and made her a homemade Easy Bake Oven.  Will she think I don't love her?  Will she wear that bib and realize that a stranger embroidered it?  Will this cause her to take drugs in 2028?
Reality check: I don't have any kids.  My niece is six months old.  And since I like my limbs, I should never come near a buzz-saw.

Of course, most of these bloggers make a living by being beautiful, cooking, and crafting on a daily basis.  But that's just not real life, is it?  Real life is a lot messier.  Real life is more, well, real.

Maybe you can relate to this feeling of inadequacy, or maybe you're totally unlike me and you woke up this morning confident that you're going to work out, cook a ten course meal for your man, knit sweaters for your two perfect children, and gaze upon your entire family with womanly tenderness before you go to bed. Of course, maybe you'll do all that today, and then wake up tomorrow and do nothing but watch an all-day marathon of DVR'd "Revenge," eat a carton of ice cream, heat up Lean Cuisines for dinner, and run out of toilet paper just before bed.

Either way, let's just accept that most girls struggle with "less-than" feelings at some point.

We can all be these blogtastic girls every once in a while, but most of the time?

Let's just be us.

I will now get back to taking lots of pictures of my adorable cat.  Just keepin' it real.

*I have created titles for all of these pictures.  None of these bloggers are that annoying.

Song I'm Digging This Week

So many things I could have written down in the passing of a restless night...Some of those were worth keeping...There are things which you should never write...

"Everything's Gonna Be Undone" - Band of Horses

October Reading Recap

1.  The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
All three of you who actually read my book reviews have probably noticed that I love a good mystery.  I mean, I love them.  I also love anything (anything) set in the turn of the 20th century in England.  So a novel about a mystery involving Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, set in the early 1900's and in England?  Yeah.  I'm gonna be all over that.  This story bounces back and forth between a mystery concerning Doyle and into the present day and a member of the illustrious Baker Street Irregulars (sort of the literary version of Trekkies) who is trying to solve a mystery about what happened to Doyle's long-lost diary.  Based on actual events, this book hit all the right spots.  Murder, intrigue, deduction -- just great.  I was actually sorry for it to end.

2.  Jane Slayre by Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin
I've always been a little more Team Bronte than Team Austen (I know- gasp!, right?).  As much as I love Elizabeth Bennett, I think I prefer Jane Eyre.  She's just a little darker, a little edgier.  I've always thought that Jane Eyre was a spooky story on its own, and this version, which adds vampires, zombies, and werewolves into the mix, is a fun diversion.  I love that Erwin stuck to the original story and just added some hilarious plot twists -- like Helen Burns coming back as a zombie, Bertha not only being nutzo, but also a werewolf, etc.  My only small gripe is that sometimes the language doesn't quite fit in with the original writing.  Bronte didn't use a bunch of contractions, and when it's the "new" story, Erwin uses too many of them.  But all in all, this made me laugh out loud several times at the witty storyline changes.  Fun reading.

3.  The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
My dad told me this was an amazing book a few years ago, and it's been sitting in my "to read" pile until this month.  I was fascinated throughout the book by Lee Strobel's exhaustive journey towards literally proving beyond a shadow of a doubt (in my opinion, anyway) Christ's existence and deity.  Strobel came to Christ in 1981, after years of atheism.  He was a celebrated Chicago editor and journalist (Yale educated to boot), who had a hard time just accepting that Christ really was the Messiah, so he set out to prove that He wasn't. In the course of his investigation, he proved the exact opposite.  This book is perfect for "thinkers" -- for both skeptics of Christianity and Christians who are struggling with doubt.

4.  All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn
Mary Downing Hahn was my favorite ghost story writer when I was a kid, and since October is the month of all things spooky, Amazon was selling her books for $1.99 apiece.  I racked up.  This book (about a haunted bed and breakfast) is definitely, without a doubt, for kids, but I still loved it.  It transported me back to around 1989, when I would devour her books in the back of our motor home.  And then, of course, I'd be afraid to go to sleep at night.  In the best way.

5.  What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
This was my first Laura Lippman book, and it won't be the last.  She writes a great, taut mystery.  This story, about two young girls who went missing in the 70's only for one to resurface almost 30 years later, is completely gripping.  Lippman does a wonderful job fleshing out each character's storyline without boring the reader with unnecessary details.  By the end of the book, I actually cared about what happened to each person.  There was also a great twist that surprised me, and I love when that happens.

6.  The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
I read a bunch of Agatha Christie in high school, but a few of them escaped me.  This mystery, which introduces the amateur sleuths Tommy and Tuppence, was just utterly charming.  I found myself thinking I'd figured it all out about ten times, only to doubt myself again and again.  And of course, I turned out to be wrong.  Christie is famous for her red herring writing, and she usually gets me.  I've heard that Agatha Christie herself was a pretty fascinating person, so I'm looking forward to reading more about her, too.

7.  Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn
This was my first Hahn book, and it scared the junk out of me.  Seriously.  It really is the first book I can remember reading and needing to sleep with the light on afterwards.  Even as an adult, there are some chilling moments (when Helen tries to drag Heather into the pond with her, promising her that "there are mermaids down here" - shudder), and I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the book.  I did sleep without the lamp this time, though.

8.  The Final Reckoning by Sam Bourne
When I bought this book, I didn't realize it was about the Holocaust.  I tend to shy away from books on that subject, mainly because they're so sad.  This one was no exception, but at least this one was about some Jewish people who kicked major butt and got big, satisfying revenge on some awful Nazis.  The story begins with an old man from London being mistaken for a terrorist at the United Nations, and subsequently being killed.  A former UN lawyer is hired to go and "make nice" with the man's daughter, but then realizes that maybe the old man wasn't as innocent as everyone originally thought.  And of course, the lawyer falls hard for the daughter (which is my only gripe with the story -- the love story seemed a bit forced).  But the ending left me feeling triumphant, and I'll check out some more of Bourne's work.

9.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
This is the first time readers were introduced to the little Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and I have to say - he gives Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.  In fact, Poirot and Holmes are almost polar opposites in personality - Poirot is boisterous and highly emotional, while Holmes is removed and analytical - but their methods are really pretty much the same, down to the bumbling Watson-esque sidekicks.  And again, I didn't figure out who the murderer was until Christie revealed it in the last chapter.  Thwarted again.

Listen...do you wanna know a secret?

photo found here

Yesterday, Dane, a seven-year-old piano student, got up to leave at the end of his lesson, suddenly turned to me and whispered (even though we were the only ones in the room) "Wanna hear about the grossest thing I've ever seen?"

I didn't, but he didn't wait to hear my answer.  He got even closer to me and, in a hushed voice, said directly into my ear:

"Once, my dad lost his balance and fell right...into...a big pile...of dog poop."

He was very serious.  No smiling.  I looked back at him with as straight a face as I could manage and said "That is gross."

He walked slowly to the door, turned back to me, and said "You cannot tell my mother.  She will freak.  Out."  

I sort of felt like there was an unspoken threat somewhere in that last bit.

And I'm really, really glad that's the grossest thing he's ever seen.