Through a Glass, Darkly

“Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?”
“So easily that, to tell the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.”
-Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night

First off, a little business regarding this quote - I have decided that Gaudy Night would have to replace Evensong in my top ten list. I have been entranced ever since I first met Lord Peter (in Murder Must Advertise, I believe) and this is unquestionably the best of his books. Lord Peter is another favorite character I was introduced to by my high school librarian. I am greatly in her debt. My family probably doesn’t see it that way, since I haunted used bookstores from High Point to Chapel Hill searching for the complete Lord Peter series. I remember finding the last one on Franklin Street as a friend and I were looking for prom shoes.

Anyway.

I was thinking of that quote today because my aunt asked me for some of the quotes I used at my graduation party (I made bookmarks and little signs with quotes on reading and books and libraries), so I sent her what I could remember. That’s always been one of my favorite scenes in that book, as he sleeps and she reads and realizes how important he has become to her.

Yesterday I checked out the second in the Deborah Knott series by Margaret Maron (An aside: is it bad that I got interested in this series partly because Lauren Winner of Girl Meets God fame mentioned somewhere that she likes this series? Am I an insane stalker fangirl!?) and I finished it today at lunch. Thanks to my fantastic job, I was able to go right out to the stacks and grab the third. I had planned to work on my reading journal a bit during lunch, but I was so close to finishing the book that I did that instead. I always forget to write down which books I have read after I finish them - I’m usually too anxious to start another. But since I had the journal here with me, I decided to check. Unless I’ve forgotten something, I’ve already read almost 20 books this year!

Drunk on words, indeed.

(And, if you like British mysteries, do yourself a favor and check out Lord Peter. I’d start with the first one - Whose Body - or the first one featuring Harriet Vane - Strong Poison.)

A patron just came up to the desk and asked if we had any books on winches.

Not being the most tool-inclined person, what did I hear?

“Do you have any books on wenches?”

Luckily my filter was on, so I did not in fact ask why the boy wanted books on prostitutes. I asked him to spell it, and he indicated that it was a tool, so I quickly went to dictionary.com to see what kind of tool it was. Danger was averted, albeit barely. Nothing to see here.

(If you were wondering, we have no books on winches. Or wenches.)

My husband is one of the bravest people I know. Being open and honest is really hard for him - he has the same fears that we all do of being rejected and being afraid to let people see our messes. Lately I have seen him take some huge steps, things that neither of us would have dreamed of a year ago. He is trying very hard to let people in, and it’s been amazing to see how much more free it is making him. I am proud of him and proud to be married to him.

It’s the kind of morning that it’s nice to curl up with a mug of coffee and sit under a blanket with the windows open . . . but unfortunately I can’t do that. Well, I do have coffee, but there’s really nowhere to curl up here at work. I am still on probation as far as being able to use my vacation time, but I am looking forward to next spring, when I will be able to take a mental health day now and then. I really long to be outside in the spring. Last year, even though I was disappointed that I was having a hard time finding a job, I have to admit that I loved the freedom to be outside. I went to the park and read and journaled a lot. I have one particular bench that I claim as my own, and I’d get a smoothie and spend the afternoon there. I’m going to need to find a good bench in my new home now.

There are a lot of things going on around me, and a lot of things that need to be done, but I have to say that I feel pretty content, and thankful.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body . . .” ~Proverbs 14:30a

Mike and I have been together five-and-a-half years, but have never washed a car together until today. As you might expect, our car washing styles were completely different. He’s much more professional about it than I am. You should have seen all the supplies he bought, and he was much more particular about what kind of rags to use and that kind of thing. It was very eye-opening, and it’s always fun to realize that I still don’t know everything about him.

The other thing I have noticed today is that our next-door-neighbor sounds exactly like Sue Hawk. I kid you not - both Mike and I thought so. Mike even thinks she looks like Sue, but you can’t really say that to someone as a compliment, hehe.

A Reader’s Bill of Rights.

I love to read. I really do read all the time - now that my hair is long again, I love to set a book open on the counter and read while I’m drying it. I find it makes the time spent go much faster. I read while cooking, while eating, and while exercising (if at all possible). I completely agree that you should read where you want, that you shouldn’t apologize for what you read, and that if you don’t like it you should stop. And I have been known to read the last chapter first myself. I do tend to finish a book if I start it, but that’s just me. Sometimes I wish I had enough willpower to stop reading a crummy book. I can only read one book at a time or I get confused and forgetful (but I read very quickly, so it’s not a big issue for me), and I hate reading a series out of order.

I think people get intimidated by books and reading (and librarians) - I see that a lot at work. People feel the need to apologize when they’re asking for a romance novel or something on the best-seller list. Here’s a “secret” - we like to read fluffy stuff sometimes, too.

My friends read, but we don’t read the same books. A lot of my friends like Christian fiction or Christian living (which is generally non-fiction, sometimes self-help) books, and I don’t read that genre as much. I do like books with religious themes, books that cause me to think about whether I agree with what the author is saying about God or religion. I read mysteries, popular fiction, young adult/children’s literature, and classics. I’ll read non-fiction if it’s biographical, like Traveling Mercies or Girl Meets God or Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks journals, but I don’t read much non-fiction at all. So, in a sense, reading makes me lonely. I love to talk about what I have read - to discuss the themes and what stood out to me, and what I didn’t like about a book. But none of my friends are interested in the majority of the books that I read, even when I’m reading something at the top of the best-seller list. I don’t think I’m a reading snob (except maybe regarding the Left Behind books), so why don’t my friends and I enjoy the same books? Why haven’t my friends even heard of the books I’m reading? One of my friends suggested that it’s because I read more than the average person. I have no idea if that’s true or not. I always give books as presents, because it’s easy for me to think of the perfect book for someone. But no one ever gives me books.

I think the connectivity is why I enjoy the concept of an all-city read. I love the idea of people coming together to talk about literature. I wish I had more people to talk to about books. I think I need a book club.

I am currently in between books, but not for long - today I should receive the first in a series that has been recommended to me several times, and I’m looking forward to one next month in a series that I already love. And Brian thinks I would enjoy Dracula, so I plan to try that soon, as well.

Reading is as essential to me as eating and breathing. Is that so odd?

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” ~ Louisa May Alcott

I don’t know how to talk about this book without talking about the ending. So, if you aren’t interested in spoilers, you’ve been warned.

Last night I finished The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. After I finished, I cried for quite a while. Not because I was especially attached to the characters, but because of what it made me feel about my own marriage, and the hopelessness of the characters’ situation.

The main characters are Clare and Henry. Henry can travel in time, usually triggered by stress. Clare has known Henry since she was six, because his 40-year-old self has traveled back in time to her. They meet again in Chicago when she is 20 and he is 28, but he has never met her before - it’s only the Henry of the future that she knows. Clare is already in love with Henry, and he soon falls in love with her. The book follows their relationship back and forth through time - Clare getting to know Henry as she grows into adulthood, and Henry growing into the person Clare already knows. We also follow them through their struggle to have a child, and they ultimately do have a daughter who inherits Henry’s time-traveling genes.

In the end, Henry loses his feet to frostbite (a tragic loss for a time-traveler who often has to run to save himself) and dies soon after at the age of 43. We get a few pages of Clare wondering how she will go on without him, and then we see that she receives one last visit from him when she is in her 80’s. She knew he was coming, because he left her a letter explaining that he had visited her in the future (for those of you who might wonder, Henry’s rules of time traveling were that he couldn’t change anything - basically he moved along in a predetermined existence. It’s just that his predetermined existence included jumping in and out of time), so she was waiting for him.

So, why was I upset? I was disturbed by the hopelessness of it all. Henry and Clare don’t believe in God, so all she has to look forward to is that last visit from him. She doesn’t have the hope of an afterlife, the hope of seeing Henry again on the other side. All she has is the here and now, and Henry wasn’t even around for very much of that. He died when she was 35, and was always popping in and out of the present even when he was alive.

The most upsetting part for me was the fact that it reminded me that I’m not invincible. Mike could die now, or he could live to be 87 years old. I have no way of knowing. I need to make a concerted effort to live in the present - not dwelling on past hurts or offenses. In the book, Henry was able to make his peace with all his friends, to say that he loved and appreciated them, because he knew when he was going to die. The rest of us don’t have that luxury. We need to reconcile and be reconciled to those around us (if at all possible). We need to take those hard steps towards forgiveness. We need to let people know that we care for and appreciate them. We don’t see the future laid out before us, as Henry and Clare did. We only see a very small part of the great overall plan.

Do I recommend the book? I really agreed with Kirkus Reviews (as taken from bn.com): “Presented as a literary novel, this is more accurately an exceedingly literate one, distinguished by the nearly constant background thrum of connoisseurship. Henry works as a rare-books librarian and recites Rilke; Clare is an avant-sculptress and papermaker; they appreciate the best of punk rock, opera, and Chicago, live in a beautiful house, and have better sex than you. A Love Story for educated, upper-middle-class tastes; with a movie sale to Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, it could have some of that long-ago book’s commercial potential, too.”

The book was interesting and thought-provoking. The characters (especially some of the supporting characters) were interesting, and the time travel was more matter-of-fact than gimmicky. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. However, I couldn’t recommend it without the disclaimer that Clare and Henry have a lot of fairly explicit sex (so much so that I was a little surprised that it was chosen for the Today show’s book club). If you’ve read it (or do so in the future), let me know what you think.

Yesterday I brought my Harry Potter Lego Hogwarts Castle to work. It’s sitting on the very top shelf of my bookcase. I think the Lego people were very clever to realize that Harry Potter fans are likely to be Lego fans.

Legos are my favorite toys. Remember the Lego commercials they used to have, and the Legomaniac song? I loved that song. I still get Legos every year for Christmas. This year, Mike gave me a companion piece to the Hogwarts Castle that I still haven’t put together yet. We didn’t really have room for it. But now I can put it with the rest of the castle.

My favorite Legos were the pirate ones that came out in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I had many hours of fun with them. They are all still at my parents’ house, along with the Lego town I created. Joseph had some other bits of the town, and he had a lot of space Legos. Neither of us were very interested in the Knight ones - the ones with the castles and the horses and guards. We asked for smaller sets, so Mom & Dad would actually buy them. Looking now, I see that Legos are expensive!

I think I would really like to get Main Street to go with my town. I don’t need it, of course. I just love all the little Lego pieces and how cute they are.

I have a secret dream of going to LegoLand someday. I remember reading about it as a kid and thinking that it sounded like the best place in the world.

Who else had Legos? Which sets were your favorites?

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

I love to swing. Whenever my mom would push me on the swing as a child, she would recite this poem. I still think of it when anyone mentions swinging, or when I get on a swing myself.

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside–

Today I am kind of stressed out. Right now, what I would like most of all is to be outside, in the sun, swinging. I would glide through the air and lean back and let the sun shine on my face and the wind flow through my hair. The sun and the wind and the sky and the movement of the swing cutting through the air would help me relax.

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown–
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

It’s not as if it would actually make anything better, but I think it would make me feel better. Swinging is childhood and grandma’s and Charlotte’s Web and summer and crickets and strawberry jam. I could use a little of that today.

I am a very verbal processor. I tend to do much better when I talk out my problems. I think the hardest part of losing my best friend has been the lack of someone to process with. It’s been bad lately (in terms of me having stuff I need to process), and, let’s face it, Mike can only listen to me talk through things so much. Today has been especially bad. I tried to call one of my friends, really the only person I could call to discuss what I have been thinking about, and her cell phone died right away.

I know when this happens that I need to take it to God. I would be much happier if he were sitting here in the room.

Do you think Wal-Mart makes their parking lots hard to get out of so that we will all just give up and move in there like Natalie Portman did?

I am not normally a Wal-Mart girl, but I may have been converted. The Wal-Mart here is great. It’s not crowded, and it’s a Super Wal-Mart, so I can buy all my groceries there. And the people who work there speak English! That was not the case in the Super Wal-Mart in Greensboro. So, if you couldn’t find something, you were pretty much out of luck. But not here - if you can’t find something, you just ask! What a concept!

I have friends who consider shopping at Wal-Mart to be beneath them. I don’t really get that. Wal-Mart is cheap. That’s really my top priority. If I need super-fresh produce, I’ll go somewhere else, but for everyday stuff, I like saving a dollar per item.

Note: Please do not talk to me about how Wal-Mart is evil and they don’t pay a liveable wage. I read Nickel and Dimed. I care about the poor. But I also want to lower my grocery bill.

Another thing I love about my new house? The hot water heater. It’s so big. In our apartment, it was difficult to take back-to-back showers without someone getting shafted. And, yes, that was mostly my fault for taking longer showers than Mike, but he also likes his water insanely hot. Now? We can both take showers as long or hot as we want. This large hot water heater may very well save our marriage.

My parents gave us a dogwood tree as a housewarming gift. We are going to plant it this weekend. Speaking of housewarming, our friends keep asking us about having a housewarming party. I haven’t consulted Amy Vanderbilt (she’s in a box somewhere), but wouldn’t it be wrong for us to throw ourselves a housewarming party? How does that work? I don’t want people to feel that we are throwing a party just so they have to come over and give us presents. That seems . . . impolite.

In other weekend news, tomorrow the weather is supposed to be fabulous. So guess where I will be? At work! Yesterday I had the day off. It poured all day. Insert your own joke about the universe being against me.

I have been thinking a lot about the counseling thing. I am going to work on my assignments tonight [admittedly probably not with the best attitude, but at least they will be done] and we will see what happens next week. I am leaning towards taking a break right now. Just because of not living in Greensboro anymore, and it being a distance. I have also been processing a lot of what happened on Tuesday, and some of it doesn’t bother me as much . . . but one of the things she said really does bother me. I have run it by a few of my friends, and they seem to agree with me that she was way off on her diagnosis of me. It really hurt, so I am not sure how to go in next Tuesday with a good attitude. I guess we will see.

Overall, there seems to be a lot of potential for great goodness in the next few months, and I am excited (and scared) to see how it will all play out.

A few weeks ago, we visited with Mike’s sister for a few hours. They had just come back from Disneyworld, so the kids had lots of souvenirs to show us. Mike’s three-year-old nephew had a big plastic dinosaur that looked kind of similar to a T-Rex. I personally thought the dinosaur looked more goofy (though not in the Disney-goofy way) than scary. So when Jacob kept trying to attack us with the dinosaur, I took it and said, “No, see, he’s not mean! He wants to be friends!” I then took the dinosaur’s little stumpy arms and had him give me a hug.

Jacob looked slightly disgusted.

Mike got in on the game and gave the dinosaur a hug of his own. When Uncle Michael does something like that, it’s remarkably more convincing than when Aunt Kari does it. And by the end of our time there, the dinosaur was friends with everyone in the house.

Mike and Kari: Promoting love and peace among species everywhere.

On the way to work this morning, I drove through our little town. I looked at the houses and the split-rail fences and the rooster in our neighbors’ yard. Have you ever seen a cat have a good stretch in the sun and then curl up for a nap? That’s exactly how my soul felt. It just seems to fit. I feel completely at home in this little town, even though we don’t know anybody yet.

Those who know me would undoubtedly be surprised by this. I am a little surprised by it myself. My family moved to a similar small town when I was nine, and I spent the next nine years of my life trying to get out of it. That particular town is still not somewhere where I feel that I can live, but I think I am ultimately a small-town girl at heart. I love going to the hairdresser and catching up on all the town gossip. I like the fact that, one day, if we live here long enough, when I go grocery shopping I will know the people who shop there and the people who work there, and we’ll all say hi and ask how one another is doing.

There is a lot of convenience to living in a city, but I already find myself driving a little slower and breathing a little easier. It sounds like I’m making it up, but I’m not. I come from generations of farmers, and I was created to love having room for my soul to stretch, to be able to breathe in deeply. To be able to see the stars at night, and to sit and drink lemonade on my front porch.

I already knew I was 100% Southerner, but I am suddenly discovering my inner farm-girl. And I like her.

(I have no idea why I have been so verbose the past few days. I assume I’ll slow down in a day or two.)

In alphabetical order by author’s last name:

-Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
-Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
-Evensong by Gail Godwin
-The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
-Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
-Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle
-A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle
-The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (I admit I’m cheating here, but how can I choose when the series hasn’t been completed?)
-The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
-Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner

[ETA: How did I forget Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers? Aarrgh!]

Wow, Mr. Tolkien is the lone male author. Interesting.

I know a book is a favorite because I pick it up when I’m upset or tired to be comforted. To return those familiar characters. Thus the inclusion of Circle of Friends - the ultimate comfort book as far as I’m concerned.

Please discuss. And share your favorites. Or tell me which of these you hate.

PS - This list is subject to change, because my books are still packed away and I probably forgot something important. But I have done my best.

I know that I have claimed to enjoy the messiness of Christianity, the working out of my faith. I probably meant it when I said it. But, the truth is, I don’t do well when things are unsettled. And things have been kind of chaotic for the last month or so. Not just house stuff, not even mostly house stuff. Things on a personal level have just been kind of jumbled and intense and confusing. Miscommunication is the word of the month.

Today I went to see the counselor I have been meeting with for the past few months. It had been a month since I met with her, and I hadn’t finished the assignments she gave me (see above re: recent chaos in my life). When I told some of my friends that last night, they were proud of me for not doing my assignments. They knew that it would take a lot for me to not do my homework, and they were proud of me for not beating myself up about it. [Full disclosure: I don't want to do the assignments I've been given. So I didn't exactly make time to do them.] That encouraged me, and made me brave for today. What happened today? Well, I wasn’t beating myself up, but she did that quite enough for the both of us.

“Kari, if you don’t do your assignments, we aren’t going to be able to be as fruitful as we would if you completed them. Counseling is not just about this time here . . . it’s more about your growth in the time you spend away from here.” Well, for lack of a better word, duh.

The best way to motivate me is definitely not to act disappointed in me. It makes things worse. I am hard enough on myself as it is. If you act disappointed in me, I am probably either going to beat myself up or harden my heart. As I was sitting there, I felt myself go cold. I know if she had said, “It sounds like you’ve had a hard and busy time, and I completely understand . . . can you try to have them done in two weeks?” that I would have been so much more responsive.

I am not sure what to do. Part of my hard-heartedness is undoubtedly the assignments themselves. I could explain what they are, but, it just boils down to the fact that I don’t want to do them, that I see them as kind of overwhelming. I have asked repeatedly how they will help me so that I could get motivated to do them, and I have gotten no answer. I want to buy into them, but when she won’t tell me how they will help me, well, that makes it hard. Another part of it is . . . how do I say this? I see all these problems in my life, and I want to talk about them and talk about scripture in relation to them. Not the things I’ve been assigned. I know that it’s all supposed to build to a point where it will help me, but I can’t see where we’re going, and I get no response when I ask. And it boils down to the fact that I don’t trust that she really understands me, so I don’t trust that these assignments will ultimately be helpful.

So, I feel kind of stuck. Do I need to bow out? I hate being a quitter. But neither do I feel like this is helping like I had hoped. Are my expectations just too high?

It’s not really a stretch to claim that the bed is pretty symbolic and important in a marriage relationship. We have a queen size sleigh bed that we got a year and a half ago. We have had some great times reading and talking and just being together there, but we have also had some terrible, heartbreaking fights and discussions. Things have been said there that I want to never forget, and things have been said that I wish we could just erase from our memories.

I’m not one of those people who will stay up until 4am talking about a fight or disagreement so that “the sun doesn’t go down on our anger.” I think it’s okay not to take that verse 100% literally - we should resolve our disagreements as quickly as possible, but sometimes it’s just too late and we’re too tired and upset. We have to sleep on it. Those are the times when it’s scary to be in bed together . . . you know it hasn’t been resolved, but here you are, sharing a bed. What are you supposed to do?

All the complicated wars
They end pretty simple
Here when the lights go down
We roll to the middle

No matter how my pride resists
No matter how this wall feels true
No matter how I can’t be sure
That you’re gonna roll in too
No matter what, no matter what
I’m going to reach for you

I was listening to the new Sara Groves CD this morning, and that song really hit me as being very much what marriage is about. Rolling to the middle of the bed, even after you have both said and heard the worst possible things (which is easy to do, since you know each other so well). Making that first move, and being the one to put your pride aside. For some reason, it’s always easier for me to do that in bed, when the lights are off. To say I’m sorry or I forgive you. And to let the holding and the closeness heal that anger and hurt.

I was thinking about our bed today, not because we have had any big fights recently, but because my favorite thing about our new house (not the dishwasher, surprisingly enough) is the central air and heat. We’ve had baseboard heat and a window air conditioning unit since we were married. That meant that we couldn’t touch in the summer without being all sticky, and in the winter it would either be too warm or too chilly in our apartment. But the past few nights in our house, we’ve been able to be close all night long without either of us getting too hot or having to move. That never happens. It’s a small thing, but it makes me really happy to wake up in the middle with Mike.

I am insanely excited about my new book. It finally came in to the library yesterday (I was first on the list, having been the person who suggested it for purchase - I can’t afford to buy the hardcover) and started reading it at lunch today. This buying a house stuff sure cuts into my reading time.

The Mary Russell series is one of my favorite series. I count the first book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, in my top ten books of all time. (Maybe I will work on an actual written top ten books list instead of just saying that about a lot of different books.) The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is a book I give people to test them. If they get the book, they are going to get me. It was my initiation into the Quiz Bowl team - the librarian and one of the other girls said I had to read it, and when I enjoyed it as much as they did, I was welcomed into the fold with open arms. So for me, the series also symbolizes a real sense of belonging, of knowing when you can truly connect with someone.

What is this series about? It’s about a lot of different things, but the characters are Mary Russell, who is 15 or 16 in the first book, and Sherlock Holmes, who is in his 50’s at this time. Holmes no longer lives at 222B Baker Street - he has retired to the country, where he meets Mary. He soon finds out that her mind is as quick as his, and he takes her on as an apprentice, teaching her what he knows about detecting and life. I like the odd books in the series the best, but when I did a re-read of all of them a year or two ago, I found that I enjoyed the evens more than I remembered. There’s mystery and travel and logic and passion and religion . . . and I love it all. I just about had a cow when I saw The Game at Barnes and Noble on Sunday night.

Mike gets this way about DVD’s, but for me it’s always books. Especially a series - I am dying to know what Holmes and Russell are up to now. I’ve been friends with them for a long time, and I’m glad to check in with them again this weekend. (I hear they’re going to India!)

Want to hear about my brush with the law last night?

First night in a new town. Driving excitedly down the road to see my house for the first time as its actual owner. Pass a cop going the other way. Look at the spedometer and realize I’m going waaaaaaaay too fast. See the cop turn around behind me, and know I’m busted. I use profanity.

Dad always told me: Don’t speed. And if you do speed, and you get caught, don’t argue. Your integrity is not worth the price of a speeding ticket. Even if you weren’t doing it, you’ve done it before, so you probably deserve the ticket anyway. (For the record, I have only been pulled once before last night, and I have never had a ticket or been in an accident.)

Very Nice Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over?

Very Sheepish Kari: I was going too fast.

VNO: [Looks at my license.] Do you still live in Greensboro?

VSK: We bought a house here today. I was kind of excited to get home.

We chat about exactly how fast I was going and where my new house is. I make no excuses for it, because I KNOW I deserve the ticket. I just apologize. The VNO goes to his car, and I sit there thinking how amused Mike, Brian, and Sarah will be at all this. They are at my house waiting for me so we can paint.

The VNO comes back and says, since my record is clean, he doesn’t want to give me a ticket on my first night in a new town. He doesn’t even give me a warning. But he tells me I’d better slow down. He gives me a good-old-boy grin, and I grin sheepishly back.

So, I did what my Daddy told me, my record is still clean, and I have a good story about my first night in Randleman. It was probably good for me, because I have been wielding quite a lead foot lately, and I needed a reminder to keep it within reason. (But when Sarah and I went to Wal-Mart later, I made her drive.)

So, after all the excitement and six days of, “We’re closing tomorrow . . . no, no, we’re not . . . we’ll close the next day,” we finally got to sign papers.

And can I just say, it was pretty anti-climactic. At the end, it was like, “Go have fun painting!” It seemed like we should have gotten a small model of the house or some skywriting. At the very least a t-shirt that says “I’m a HOMEOWNER!” All we got was a handshake. And a house payment.

Everyone keeps telling us . . . welcome to the real world.

(I’m excited nonetheless.)

I have an origami zoo on my desk. One of my coworkers likes origami, and she has a tear-off calendar with an origami-a-day. I currently have a penguin (my corner is the coldest in the building, so the penguin keeps me company), a carp (the symbol of strength - she made it when I made it to work in the snow one day), and a peacock (as far as I know, there’s no particular reason for the peacock). I had a frog for a while, but I gave it to my niece and nephew. If you pushed down on the back of it, it would hop. I, much to my sister-in-law’s dismay, showed them how to make it hop from the counter all the way to the table. Color me a bad influence.

I also have a star that could be a Christmas tree ornament, and an origami house to congratulate me on our new house. Even though we don’t have a house yet, I was happy to see the animals now have a place to stay in this cold corner. I like origami, but I don’t know as much about it as my coworker does. But, based on the success of the frog, I think I’ll give my niece an origami book for her birthday. I was fascinated by that kind of thing when I was a kid.

My one nod to librarianship is my librarian action figure, which some very fun friends sent me in the mail.

My desk also houses a word-a-day calendar. Today’s word? Jocund. It means “sprightly and lighthearted in disposition, character, or quality.”

The only other thing on my desk (besides random papers and a computer and a phone - I mean the fun stuff) are three pictures. One of me and Mike at the Harry Potter release party in June, one of me and Mike in Boone last November, and one of me and three of my close friends that is not online.

I like my desk. My dad was always a salesman kind of guy, and he never had a desk. I always wanted him to be like the other dads and have a place where he could proudly display my picture (of course, the grass is always greener - my friends were jealous that my dad had lots of candy in his truck and in his warehouse). I am glad I have a home base here, even if I have to share it with so much wildlife.

Stories like this are why I love this time of year.

ETA: If you’re not registered and don’t want to register, the story is about Mount St. Mary’s, whose basketball team gets to go to the NEC tournament because of a game they won last night, placing them eighth in their conference.

The students stormed the court, chanting, “We’re number eight!”

Good times.

I used to be staunchly against diet soft drinks. Who wants to put such disgusting chemicals in their bodies? Chemicals that kill lab rats!! I had principles, and I stood by them.

Well, last year I realized that my metabolism is no longer what it was. I can no longer eat whatever I want and still sit around on my butt. I had to make a few changes. One of those changes was doing more exercise (I got some pilates videos that I like a lot), another was eating fewer carbohydrates (I haven’t had french fries in months, and french fries are my obsession. I gave them up for Lent one year), and the final change was drinking more water and diet soft drinks. All those things have worked, and I feel and look better than I did last summer.

Mike sees this as a bit of a victory for him. He is a huge fan of Diet Coke. I used to say it was disgusting, and I wouldn’t kiss him after he drank it. But now I am just like him. He wore me down. I drink Diet Coke all the time. And Diet Dr Pepper. How did this happen, I ask myself? How did I suddenly become someone who loves what she used to hate? What does this say about me? Am I wishy-washy?!

The thing is, I still prefer Coke. I had an upset stomach a few weeks ago, and I had a real Coke for the first time in about eight months. It was heavenly. But I will keep drinking my diet soda and save the Coke (and the french fries) for special occasions. It’s hard at times, but it’s worth it.

Oh, and Diet Coke with Lime? Two thumbs up.

I just finished The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. Her most famous book is probably Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I also enjoyed. Tracy Chevalier likes to take a famous work of art and imagine the story behind it. This particular work was a set of tapestries. She imagined the painter to be quite a ladies’ man, wreaking havoc in two households during the creation of the tapestries.

What I liked about the book was what I learned about the creation of tapestries. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, I learned a lot about the creation of paint. This time I learned about dyes and weaving. I didn’t feel very sympathetic to any of the characters in this book. I suppose I related more to the mothers of the two households than I did the daughters. Does this mean I am getting old?

On her website, Tracy Chevalier mentions that she went through a unicorn phase (instead of a horse phase) when she was younger, and that was when she first saw pictures of these tapestries. I can’t remember specifically going through a unicorn phase, but I did like unicorns. Unicorns always make me think of two things - Shel Silverstein’s poem “The Unicorn” and Madeleine L’Engle’s Many Waters. I never connected until just now that both are about Noah and unicorns. I like to imagine that there were more magical creatures around in that time, and that the magic has faded away. Very Tolkienesque, yes?

So, anyway, I enjoyed the book. I wouldn’t give it my highest recommendation, and if you were interested in reading any of Chevalier’s books, I’d read Girl . . . first. But I love the concept of imagining what’s behind a work of art, so I hope she writes more books along those lines.

One of my (many) failings is how much I . . . I think “depend” is the word I need here . . . how much I depend on the input of others. I can make decisions okay, mostly. But I like to hear what other people think. I am a very communal person. One of the things I love about participating in an online community is the instant gratification of posting a question or statement and having it responded to almost immediately. I stopped blogging for a couple of years because I felt I was writing for others instead of for myself - I was writing to get people’s comments.

This is a huge stressor for me when it comes to things like shopping. I don’t shop very well by myself. I need input from others to tell me if the pants make my butt look too big, or if this brand of pasta sauce is better than that other one. (Well, actually that last one is not true. I always buy Classico. But take it as an example.) I truly get overwhelmed by all the choices on the shelves, and find shopping much easier when I am not alone.

One of the downfalls of needing so much input is that when I get excited about something, I like to share it so others will be excited, too. I had many job interviews in the fall, and I kept sharing with my friends that I had an interview so that they would pray for me and be excited with me. But then job after job didn’t work out. And I was embarassed. I have shared about the house we placed an offer on. Now the house stuff is presenting some difficulties, and I’m embarassed.

I don’t know how to play my cards closer to my chest. I feel that living in Christian community dictates that we share our joys and sorrows with each other. I think my tendency to desire input causes me to overshare. I’m not sure what (if anything) to do about that.

I have some pictures of the exterior (some I took in the snow!) that I will load when RMFO pics is working again. I took some pictures of the inside today, but I will probably wait to take better inside pictures when we’re all painted and moved.

Speaking of paint, I picked out some colors today. I’m going to go buy them on Sunday.

Mike has gone to buy us some nice new grown-up bookcases to be delivered next week. The refrigerator will be delivered on Monday.

And, finally, we’re supposed to close on Monday. I am having a hard time believing it’s going to work out. It didn’t help that we were supposed to close today, and it got bumped back. I am (still) fearing the worst. Which makes me extra grumpy (just ask Mike). One reason I feel stressed about it because I have to work next week. I had today off, which would have been ideal for closing. And then I would have had the weekend to start moving things. But now I won’t be as helpful, and it’ll be more stressful overall because of us having less time to be organized. Please send Positive Thoughts in the direction of us closing on Monday. The big moving date is still March 13.

That is your House Update for this Thursday, March 4.

Saturday I had to tell our mailman that we’ll be moving in two weeks. It was really sad. No, it really was. I love our mailman. His name is Mario. He has two gold teeth, right in the front. He always seems happy to see us, and he stops to say hello when he can. Mike and I live in a neighborhood mostly populated with senior citizens, and he is always very kind and sweet with the little old ladies. I like it when I’m home during the day, because I give him cookies or just stop and chat about the weather and his daughter. Last year we had a tear-off calendar with a holiday for each day. March 10 is “Mario Day” (get it - Mar10). We taped it to the mailbox so he would be sure to see it, and he was so pleased. Whenever we’re going out of town, he takes care of our mail, and he makes it seem as if it’s no trouble at all.

I would like to nominate him for the “Best Mailman in the World” award. I really will miss him. I tried to convince him to switch his route to our new town. Or even to move there into our neighborhood so we could all hang out.

I have lived in Greensboro for six-and-a-half years. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for almost four years. It’s hard to realize how much my life is about to change.

Well, I want to talk about the Oscars. Because I love celebrity stuff like that. Since there weren’t any surprises, there’s not really much to say. But I do have a couple of thoughts.

Of course my favorite thing is that Peter Jackson and crew finally got the recognition they deserved. I honestly didn’t think they’d sweep until they won for Best Adapted Screenplay. When they didn’t win that one two years ago, they were completely robbed. But I knew after they won it last night that they’d get the rest. Yay!

My other favorite moments:

Mitch and Mickey singing “Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.” I have a feeling that a good bit of America was like, “Who are these people, and why are they dressed so weird?!” hehe. And they did kiss. So cute. I secretly wanted them to win, because it would have been so funny. But I am glad the Lord of the Rings crew won that one, too.

The other thing I loved was from the pre-show. I have to confess that the only one of the Best Actress performances I had seen was The Whale Rider. And I thought Keisha Castle-Hughes was amazing in it. So I was hoping against hope that she might win. But I was also just excited for her that she was there, and that she looked so cute in her pink dress. During the pre-show, someone asked her which actor she most wanted to meet tonight, and she said, “Johnny Depp, because he’s a stud.” Right before the Oscars went on, one of the interviewers grabbed her arm and took her over to Johnny Depp to introduce her. It was so cute. And he was so sweet to her - he took her hand and kept saying that he thought she was amazing in the movie. Since she couldn’t win, I was glad she had her Johnny Depp moment.

And, for the record, I thought he looked great.