A lovely thing has transpired.

Was there a class? Your first year in college? A class that felt to you to be what college was supposed to be about? A class that had a uniquely formative effect on the classes you took, the friends you kept, from that point on?

I suppose there were two, actually, in my case. And they kind of blur together in my brain at this point. So much so that I just had to look up in a photo album to confirm that I was wrong in my original impression, that one of my friends did not share one particular class with me, but the other one. So I had made some silly erroneous statement on Facebook. Anyway.

That's the history. This is the present. My dear friend Burt, who I had a massive crush on in college (and whose subsequent coming out was a massive relief for me, as it meant that his gentle rejection of me was most assuredly not about me) made an idle post on Facebook about fast upcoming trips to Chicago and DC. You know, like you do. Upon which my friend Tava, who lives near DC now, pounced and told him he had to visit.

Okay, more history is necessary. My freshman year, Tava and I had a game. The Burt game. We both had big crushes on him, and we had a friendly competition to capture his attention. So much so that we assigned points to various forms of interaction, constantly updating each other on who was "ahead." For the record, I am ahead, for all the good that will ever do me.

So Tava teased me that if Burt visited her in DC, she might be ahead, and would I forgive her? Then, the professor of the class in which I met Burt chimed in and inquired about meeting for dinner. And I said THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. IF THERE IS GOING TO BE A BURT-SANDY-TAVA REUNION I AM GOING TO BE THERE.

An idle threat (and also silly, as what I just looked up is what confirmed was that Tava was not in this class, but the other one), as I had no realistic way to get to DC and didn't even know when all this was.

Then I got a Facebook message. Burt told me that if I could figure out the details -- child care, a place to stay, etc., he would buy my plane ticket.

SOLD.

I spent the afternoon calling my husband for permission and appealing to my supervisor for a day off and getting all the details in line so that I could figure out when I could get on a plane.

So I am going. To DC. Both friends who I am going to meet are incredibly busy and I don't know how much time we will have to hang out or really where I am staying or when I am meeting them, but when travelling alone I am extremely hard to rattle. I will bring a book and my membership card to the National Museum of the American Indian, which I have still not visited, and my husband's cell phone and will have an adventure.

Seriously, I spent most of Friday at work skipping into people's offices and doing little happy dances.

I don't want to gloat about it too much, as this particular weekend I am working is an "all hands on deck weekend" and nearly everyone else will have to work, but by some miracle I was not on the schedule for Saturday, and as much as I feel guilty taking Friday off during the crazy busy camp sign-up season, both of the co-workers who will be covering for me were like "are you kidding? if someone called me up and bought me a plane ticket to go have an adventure somewhere, we would be dropping everything, too!" And I would certainly try to pick up the slack for them in that case. Maybe even do some accounting work. *shudder*

Also, tomorrow is Andrew's and my 12th anniversary, and we are dropping the kids off at grandma's for a little vacation. And the weekend *after* next we are going to Chicago for a Medieval Times dinner adventure, courtesy Penny's Christmas gift. And the weekend after *that* we are going to a wedding and then meeting my mom in Chicago to transfer temporary custody of Jefferson who we will pick up again the week of July 4th, which we are taking off to go to Kansas to see relatives who we have not seen in quite a while.

There is suddenly a lot to look forward to.

Pretty much my entire adult life, I've said that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I have too many interests, and never found a satisfactory way to synthesize them all. I've had jobs that I thought I could do pretty much indefinitely, if only I could figure out an outlet for all those other interests that were left like gaping holes.

Right now I am feeling very strongly called. Repeatedly called, over and over, in many different ways, some coincidental, others very much less so. The trouble is, there are two calls. And in very opposite directions.

Both are compatible with my current job, at least in the short term. They very in how compatible they would be in the long term.

Both are pretty much completely incompatible with each other.

I am preoccupied with the wish to find someone who I could sit down and talk to, who I could fully lay out both ideas to. Someone who knows me well enough to have some insight, but not someone who would have a terribly vested interest in my choosing one or the other. Or neither.

I vary day to day over whether I would like this imaginary perfect person to just make the decision for me, or whether I want them to just be the kind of listener that would help me make the decision.

Yes, I am being purposefully vague until I figure this out better. Isn't it annoying?

But I've questions for you. How do you make big decisions? How did you know what you wanted to do with your life, if you do?

The Eternal Philistine by Ödön von Horváth




Okay, I will admit it. I was very likely influenced to order this book instead of any other from the Neversink collection because there was a forward written by Shalom Auslander, author of the wickedly awesome collection of short stories, Beware of God. Once I'd read that introduction, I have to say, that if I had picked this book up in a shop somewhere, and skimmed through or read that introduction, I would have been compelled to buy this book immediately, at nearly any cost, no matter the state of my bank account. As it was, I spent days trying to explain, to anyone who would listen, how witty and pointed this introduction was.

It wouldn't be easy to live up to a build-up like that.

The book did its best, but it was hindered by my near-complete lack of comprehension of the historical context of the stories. (The book is in three parts, which are definitely connected, but kind of separate.) An appreciation of this book doesn't require a familiarity with the political and economic conditions of Europe between the two world wars, but I couldn't help feeling it would be greatly improved by such knowledge. Particularly during Kobler's train voyage -- the attitudes that various strangers from different regions and countries took toward one another, not to mention remarks on cities and geographical features they passed through or by -- I felt repeatedly frustrated that I just had no context to place these in.

Despite all my lack of prior knowledge, The Eternal Philistine still managed to convey a great deal about its time and place, but even more about the universal state of people caught up in societal forces beyond their control. Some seek for, and some find, a way to thrive in their changing times. Others die by inches. There is an excellent quote near the end of this book, which could sum up most of it:

"If all the shitheads went and helped each other out, then every shithead would be better off."

Yes, this book is bitter, and dark. But what makes it bearable is not the comedy, but what makes any horror in life more bearable -- a little bit of human solidarity.




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So, I've barely read anything at all today! Instead, my goodreads addiction continues. I've been typing up reviews already in my journal, catching up my journal on books I've read but need to review, and in between, I've been entering my archive of bookslut reviews into goodreads, in order to try to collect more of my book reviews in one place. As I've started to use goodreads more, I've been frustrated when I wanted to recommend a book to someone by sending them to a link of my review, only to find I hadn't entered that reviews at goodreads, and I'm not entirely sure where I wrote about the book in the first place.

But I'm not at all bothered by the not reading. I've been frustrated for a while by how behind I am reviewing the books I've read, it feels good to be catching up. I do, of course, often fall behind on things like this, but added to the problem was the fact that I really wanted to spend some more time processing The Hunger Games trilogy before I wrote about it. I'd read so much of other people's opinions of the books, I wanted to disengage with all those theories before writing my own. Now that I've cleared those three, I've been writing my other reviews much faster.

I am a little sad that I am not motivated at all to spend any time beading on this two day break. Maybe tomorrow I will get bored of reviews? Except I expect tomorrow to be so full of errands that I probably won't have much time for beading then, either.

I am very excited for Sherlock tonight. I am loosely planning to walk to my friend's house. Don't tell her, as she would never let me walk back after dark.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If I have criticisms of this series, they are of this third book. But it is an ending. Endings are tricky things.

At the same time, in ways this is the easiest book to read. I've heard the same thoughts from multiple friends who found the first two books troubling in ways the third was not. The third is a war book. We've all read war books. We think we know what to expect.

But this book breaks the script, too. For one thing, our hero starts out the war already broken. Katniss spends much of the first part of the book suffering from some form of PTSD -- hiding in small places and shirking her duties. Once she is engaged in the fight, it's in stops and starts. The big epic battle at the end is lots of waiting, goofy photo ops, then sudden, unrelenting hell, hiding, strategizing, and then, just... over. But all of these things, while they're not generally what we've been trained to expect from big, Hollywood, relentlessly paced blockbusters, seem authentic. They seem to more closely match accounts of battles I've read that were written by the soldiers who were there.

Now that I've written this far, I have trouble telling you what my criticisms are. They mostly seem petty. Characters who died who I'd rather see live. An act that was shocking -- though not unrealistic, and indeed, for the characters in the situation, hardly any other outcome seems plausible. Things -- political things, organizational things -- that I wish had been fleshed out better, but certainly they would not be explained to Katniss, so I suppose that works out.

All in all, I enjoyed the series. Clearly, as I read all three of them in a matter of days. A very welcome addition to the speculative fiction universe.



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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's pretty much a universal truth that in a trilogy, if things are bad in the first book, they have to get much, much worse in the second. And oh, it does. At one point I stopped reading this book to tell my husband that regardless of whether he ever decided to read The Hunger Games or not, he should probably never read this one.

Okay, there is no meaningful way to talk about this volume without some spoilers, so I'm just going to have to put the spoiler flag on this one. ( spoiler alert )

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Okay, yeah, I'd heard a lot of hype about the Hunger Games trilogy. Mentions in the feminist blogosphere, analysis in Bitch magazine, some friends in social media. I resisted mostly because it's a series, and I hate to commit so much time, when there already so many books in the world to be read. Plus, once the commentary, really heated up, it was because the movie release was pending. And if I hadn't already read the book in the past, I'd rather watch the movie first Because, let's face it, the book is almost always better. So better to have my imagination somewhat pre-determined when reading the book than to have the book so fresh in mind as to be picking apart the movie without enjoying it. Better still to avoid getting sucked into three books in the first place, if it isn't going to be worth it.

It was worth it.

Immediately after watching the movie, I set about procuring the books from June, who'd mentioned she had them. I read them fast, in succession, all three, as non-stop as I could manage as the mother of two young boys with a pile of (a week's worth) of laundry to do, over the course of a few days. I will do my best to review them one at a time, without letting them blur too much.

I don't have to say that the books are engaging. The Hunger Games phenomenon wouldn't exist, otherwise. Katniss's cold pragmatism might have made her unrelatable as a protaganist, if not for the perfect backstory to secure our sympathies and not just explain, but justify her behavior. There were some world-building details that seemed false or excessive vague, but mostly in ways that were forgiveable for the sake of moving the story along for a young adult audience.

Most of the criticism of this book seems to lose sight of one important fact: Katniss was 16. By the end of most of the action in the third book, she's still only 17. So all of this "Katniss wasn't proactive enough," or "feminist enough," or somehow otherwise failed to personally destroy the entire mechanism of the Capitol all by her little lonesome in the first book is out of touch with reality. Or, at the very least, what it is to be a feminist character, book or film.

What makes Katniss remarkable is exactly what Peeta worries about on the eve of the Games. That she is always herself. She does not let them make her into something she is not. Even her "performance" in the caves, which seems out of character, is born out of both her pragmatism and her respect for the dignity of human life.

I am running out of things to say without spoilers. On to the next book!





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So this Mother's Day, I am grateful for Prairie Home Companion. Why? Because last week, we were driving around in the car, listening to NPR as they did a segment on Mother's Day. After a humorous bit on a husband buying his wife fishing tackle in an effort to bamboozle her into thinking his plans to spend Sunday at the lake fishing were actually about spending "quality time" with her. This was followed up by an assertion that "studies have shown" that what mothers really want for Mother's Day is to be horizontal, with a cup of coffee, and to be left alone. With a book.

Unexpectedly, Andrew was paying attention, and a few days later announced that for Mother's Day, he was going to take the kids (and his brother) to Grandma's house, giving both his mom and his kids' mom what they really wanted for Mother's Day.

So. It is my intention to head over to Artie's Filling Station (a coffee shop with DIVINE pastry sandwiches) for breakfast, read book(s), and spend some time catching up both my bookjournal and my reviews on bookreads. Don't be surprised if my livejournal fills up with book reviews today.

Then tomorrow! I have the day off, as I will be working the East Lansing Art Festival next Saturday. Plans are to read more, break out the Great Penguin Book Chase board game with a friend who is convalescing from surgery, return a teacup to Max, an elderly Libyan neighbor who sort of kidnapped me on Monday (long story), and read.

Beading should probably figure more heavily into my plans for two days off. But I'm frustrated with the state of most of my current projects, and unwilling to start new ones until at least a few of them are completed. So we'll see.

Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh, how I love Joan Slonczewski and the Door Into Ocean universe! So much so that I somehow got two copies of this from paperbackswap. Ooops. Once I got the second copy in the mail, it was clearly time to start reading one of them.

I believe this is the fourth book in the Elysium Cycle. It takes place soon after The Children Star. Like that book, this one continues to explore what it means to be sentient. Taking place back on Valedon, we follow an artist, Chrys, as Valans struggle to adapt to the influence of the micros from The Children Star. Some, elite members of society flourish with their "microbial enhancers," though they must be kept under close medical (and social) supervision. Ever the danger that they may fall prey to "the brain plague" -- "bad" micros who take over their hosts, keep them strung out, seeking arsenic, rewarded or punished by the neurochemicals the micros control -- ending up as shuffling "vampires" or hijacking ships to take to The Slave World -- the existence of which the Valan government (among others), is trying desperately to find.

Like all Slonczewski's work, this one explores fascinating ideas. The relationship between civilizations and their god, -- the need for genetic and cultural interchange between civilizations. The nature of addiction. Inequity in access to healthcare.

My only complaint of this book? The love scenes. Oh, my dear, sweet Lord, the love scenes. I still don't know what happened in the first of these -- but what I do know? It wasn't sexy. Even though it was a payoff to a relationship I had long been watching and hoping for. Thankfully, these instances are brief and confined to a short section of the novel.

I will continue to recommend Slonczewski's work far and wide. Though I will also continue recommending Door Into Ocean as the first work -- not only because it is the first book of the Elysium Cycle (as far as I know), but also remains, in my mind, the best.



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All I can say is, Goodreads had better not up and suddenly disappear. Like whatever book cataloging app I used to use constantly on Facebook, that I spent hours updating reviews into and listing all of my books for and then suddenly it was just gone. I can't even remember what it was called to go looking and see if some version is still there.

Because lately I've been spending hours and hours on goodreads. And it's great fun, but part of the reason to do it is to have it as a record. So it had better stick around, that's all.

Tonight I decided to catalog my poetry shelf. I'm pretty sure all of my poetry books are together in one place, they only take up two or three shelves, so it's a concrete and manageable job. Except, of course, it's expanding into craziness, but in a fun way, as I get distracted by one thing and another. By reading an entire volume of poetry, because flipping through it to try to remember if I'd read it before, it was so short I thought I should just read it now and be sure. Then other books, stopping to re-read a poem or two, to write short little mini-reviews of those I remember well enough. And after each short batch is entered in, checking my new poetry recommendations, and delighting in how much closer to my taste they are, how many books recommended are books I already own but just haven't gotten to yet.

It's lovely. And a great motivator to make sure I read more poetry this year!