Through a Glass, Darkly

When it came out a few months ago, I had thought I would read Everything Bad is Good for You, and another friend, who often talks with me about movies and reality television, said that she enjoyed it, so I grabbed it from the shelf yesterday as I was leaving work.

The basic premise of the book is that the complexities of the media we face such as video games and television is actually much more complex than in past years, and that instead of making us dumber, it’s actually helping our brains. I’m about halfway through the book, and I have to say that I am enjoying both how he phrases things I know but haven’t been able to put in words and the arguments he’s put forth. The three sections I have read so far have dealt with video games, television (both scripted dramas and reality programming), and the internet. I admit that, when it comes to my own opinions about these things, he’s pretty much preaching to the choir, because I personally feel that all of those things have their merits, but it was interesting enough that I thought I’d talk about it here today.

Let’s start with video games. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t hate them just because I hate Halo 2. I don’t enjoy playing them by myself, but Joseph and I used to play them together (or against each other) and I have very fond memories of playing Nintendo games like Zelda with him, figuring that stuff out. On some of the computer games, I’d work out the maps and read the guidebooks and he would control the characters, and I always enjoyed doing that with him. He was much more likely than I was to play by himself, but I enjoyed watching the stories unfold and uncovering the different challenges. By myself, I was more likely to set up a town in SimCity and then attack it with a monster, but Joseph and I saved princesses and found hidden gold and learned magic spells and killed trolls together.

Where video games lost me was when they started getting so complex, with side quests and fewer and fewer directions (and a less linear story).

In the video game world . . . the rules are rarely established in their entirety before you sit down to play. You’re given a few basic instructions about how to manipulate objects or characters on the screen, and a sense of some kind of immediate objective. But many of the rules– the identity of your ultimate goal and the techniques available for reaching that goal–become apparent only through exploring the world. You literally learn by playing. This is one reason video games can be frustrating to the non-initiated. You sit down at the computer and say, “What am I supposed to do?” The regular gamers in the room have to explain: “You’re supposed to figure out what you’re supposed to do.”

Exactly. That’s exactly why I am hesitant to start a video game these days. How will I know what to do? Anyway, reading the book made me realize that’s my fear: “How will I know what to do?” and gave me a greater appreciation for those of you who play those kinds of complex games. Really, the only games I object to are the violent ones and the ones that objectify people. I don’t object to someone playing through the levels of Halo as much as I object to the killing sprees that the Halo parties always turn into. But that’s another complaint for another time.

(Speaking of video games, Mike’s nephew got his own Gameboy for his birthday, so now he and Mike’s niece each have one. When he opened it, someone who knows about those things said, “What color is it?” It turned out to be blue, and I turned to Mike and said, “Back in my day, our Gameboys were gray and we liked it!” I’m getting so old. I also never had a Gameboy.)

I have already confessed that I enjoy reality television quite a lot, so this is the area where he is preaching the most to the choir.

The role of audience participation is one of these properties that often ends up neglected when the critics assess these [reality] shows. If you take reality programming to be one long extended exercise in public humiliation, then the internal monologue of most viewers would sound something like this: “Look at this poor fool–what a jackass!” Instead, I suspect those inner monologues are more likely to project the viewer into the show’s world; they’re participatory, if only hypothetically so: “If I were choosing who to kick off the island, I’d have to go with Richard.” You assess the social geography and the current state of the rules, and you imagine how you would have played it . . . in the world of reality programming, that projection is a defining part of the audience’s engagement with the show.

Now, you can do that with scripted dramas, too, but I think it tends to be more, “I can’t believe Lorelai said that,” whereas with reality television, I am the one playing. At work and with friends and with Mike, we talk about who we would have voted off or which task we would have chosen. We discuss strategy and social interactions, admiring one contestant’s actions while bemoaning another’s. The point, though, is that we are thinking about it. And as so much of reality television focuses on social interaction, it’s interesting to see how I react differently to situations and characters than Mike does.

The thrill of [a dramatic moment such as someone getting voted off the island] is the thrill of something real and unplanned bursting out in the most staged and sterile of places, like a patch of wildflowers blooming in a parking lot. I find these moments cringe-inducing, because the emotions are so raw, but also bizarrely hypnotic: these are people who have spent the last six months dreaming of a life-changing event, only to find at the last minute that they’ve fallen short. The thrill of reality TV is seeing their face at the moment they get the news; the thrill of thinking, “This is actually happening.” Next to that kind of emotional intensity, it’s no wonder the sitcom–with its one-liners and canned laughter–has begun to wither.

Now, here I will admit that I would love to be in complete agreement with him, though I do agree that the unscripted nature of the programs and the real feelings involved make the show more compelling to me than Two and a Half Men. The voyeuristic component as he talks about it here does make me a like uncomfortable. I enjoy Survivor more when people don’t take it so personally (which is what I thought was wrong with the All-Star edition). I think The Amazing Race is at its best when the teams work through their problems together and learn to appreciate each other more. I find that kind of real emotion very compelling, and when people can keep the perspective of being disappointed about losing a game, it’s still enjoyable and relatable. But when people’s actual feelings get hurt, that’s not so much fun to watch. The last tribal council of the All-Star season comes to mind. It was just painful.

Anyway, I just started the film section of the book, and I’m enjoying it very much. I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys thinking about or discussing popular culture. While I don’t agree with everything in the book, I appreciate the thoughtful analysis of our culture and how our responses to it have changed over time.

Season 5 on DVD December 13.

And Mike said I wasn’t allowed to count down to the premiere until two weeks before. So I’ll say: TWO MORE WEEKS! Yay!

What you really need to know about yesterday’s trip to Rock Hill is that Mike is so hardcore about hide-and-seek that he hid in a Rubbermaid container. From his five-year-old nephew (and his twenty-six-year-old wife). When I was hiding from the five-year-old, I hid behind a tree. And I planned to let him catch me. I find Mike’s hide-and-seek playing to be not very jolly. He made it to base, though, so it worked out for him. Maybe this is one of those birth order things - Mike is the youngest in his family, so he has to play extra-hard to win, while I am the oldest and learned that I am supposed to let the kiddies have a fair shot. (Anyone who knows how competitive I can get is snorting at that theory. But, actually, now that I think about it, I have been known to intentionally answer Trivial Pursuit questions wrong when I feel I’ve gotten too many pieces in a row.)

The trip also included Star Wars toys (our nephew whispered to his mother, who said, “Yes, Aunt Kari likes Star Wars a lot, so I am sure she wants to see your toys”), pizza, two cakes, a new bike, lots of piratey things, discussion of Kari’s book club (”Are you like Oprah? Do your books have a big K on the front?”), and many children. Good times.

I am in the last chapter of Freakonomics, and I have to say that it was a thorougly enjoyable read. Mike took it at one point and read about 20 pages while I was doing dishes yesterday, and I wouldn’t have thought that he would be interested in it (I was, after all, an economics major), but we had a good discussion about the stuff he read regarding teaching, test scores, and No Child Left Behind.

Overall, we had a nice trip yesterday (even though I hated missing Susan’s festivities) and a good (but tiring) weekend.

KARI: Now you got that stupid song in my head. Fix it.

MIKE: Okay . . . how about this? “This is the song that doesn’t end, it just goes on and on my friend . . .”

KARI [singing a slightly slow, jazzy version]: “Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it forever just because.” That’s it. Just because.

MIKE: You sing that song boring. You need to sing it fast. I can’t wait to teach our kids that song. On road trips.

KARI: Or “100 bottles of root beer on the wall.”

MIKE: How about 100 bottles of Coke? You can’t add extra syllables to it.

KARI: Well, we sang it “beer.” I was just trying to be considerate and not teach our children songs about alcohol. How did you sing it?

MIKE: Beer, too.

KARI: Oh, well, I guess that’s fine then. We seem to have turned out okay.

MIKE: You could say milk.

KARI: You need something that comes in a glass bottle. Milk doesn’t usually come in a glass bottle.

MIKE: It does sometimes.

KARI: But not normally.

MIKE: It’s so good in a glass bottle. Oh, I love milk in a glass bottle.

KARI: No you don’t. You just think you do. You’re so old, “Oh, Coke hasn’t been the same since they started putting it in plastic.”

MIKE: I like Coke in plastic.

KARI: “Oh, I wish I could drink milk from a glass bottle, like in the old days.” Did you ever actually drink milk from a glass bottle or do you just like the idea of it in a glass bottle?

MIKE: . . .

KARI: If I pour it into a glass for you so you don’t have to touch the plastic, would that cover the glass requirement?

MIKE: I’m done with this conversation.

It’s amazing how the human body heals - bones knit themselves back together and our skin can mend and so many parts of our bodies just seem to work out what is wrong (given enough time and treatment). But the other thing that’s amazing is how our injuries linger.

When I was in second grade, we had our annual field day. The weather was pretty cool, especially for that late in spring, and I am not very athletic, and it all added up to me being kind of miserable. I didn’t think I could do the things that were being asked of me, and I didn’t really want to do them. I remember telling one of my friends that if I broke a bone, I bet they’d let me go home.

Finally, in the late morning or early afternoon, when we had just a few more events left, it was our turn to try the hurdles. I took one look at them and told my teacher that they were too high, that there was no way I was going to be able to do it. Since I’d been whining all day, she had no reason to believe me, and snapped at me that I had to, just like everyone else. I can’t remember whether I made it over any of them at all, or if they got higher, but I remember seeing one and thinking, “I can’t do it.” Whether that was self-fulfilling prophecy, I don’t know. I just know that my toes caught on the hurdle and I fell right on top of my wrist, which made an awful snap. I got up, hurting, but feeling slightly triumphant (”I told you I couldn’t do it,” is what I was thinking) and walked over to my teacher, who freaked out. I thought it was just out of joint or something (there’s a famous story in my family about the first time my mom left me and my brother with my dad after my brother was born and my dad tried to pick me up by my arms and my shoulder came out of joint), but then, as they were hustling me into the nurse’s office, I heard the P.E. teacher say, “Only the third broken bone of my career.” Oh. (For many years I thought that it was my punishment for my earlier broken bone comment, until I finally confessed it to someone who was astonished that I would believe that.)

So I got a cast, and everyone in my class sent me cards, and lots of people signed it. Since it was the end of the school year, I missed out on a lot of swimming that summer, but I don’t remember it being so bad. Which is why it’s so funny to me that, from time to time, I still have problems with it. If I’ve been typing a lot or doing a lot of data entry (like today), it gets to the point that it’s just uncomfortable for me to use it anymore. And sometimes when it’s rainy and cold it aches, like it’s rheumatic or something. I would probably forget completely about the injury if it didn’t act up every now and then to remind me of its presence. And today, unfortunately, is one of those days it’s decided to rage.

I have seen some interviews where Oprah asked people, usually celebrities, what they know for sure. The one I remember vividly was when the women from The Hours were on, and Nicole Kidman said something like, “Be open and trust people,” and Meryl Streep said she knew she was never going to lose the weight from her first baby. So, you know, from profound to silly, but I always thought it was interesting, what people know for sure, and how different it can be from my own experiences. People might say that they know they can’t walk past a bookstore wtihout stopping in, or holding a baby makes them calm, all kinds of things. At one point I thought maybe I could make a post of things I know for sure, but I couldn’t come up with enough things for an entire post. And I realized when looking at the draft of that post that the things I think I know for sure aren’t always as constant as I once believed. I wrote, “Mike will never say no to a Diet Coke,” but we know that’s not really the case anymore, and he’s been saying no for about a week and a half. I wrote, “Rainy summer days are always bad hair days,” but lately they haven’t been so bad. And I think about relationships, how I am sure I know how people I love will treat me and others, and how people have surprised me, in both good and bad ways. And we keep making plans for the future and they keep changing, so it seems like what I know for sure is not to take anything for granted, not to plan your life away, be open to change, that kind of thing. (Mike just snorted when he read that I, of all people, recommended that anyone be open to change.)

And I know that there are people who would talk about God when it comes to things they know for sure, but I think I’m still figuring a lot of that out. There were many things I thought I knew for sure about God and the way he works that haven’t proven to be true, partly because I kept expecting God to work in a certain systematic way and partly because I just needed to get over some adolescent self-centeredness (now I’m in my 20-something self-centeredness phase, but at least it’s a new and different kind of self-centeredness, right?). I don’t blame God for that, but neither am I willing to make pronouncements about the eternal here on the web for anyone to see. I’ll just keep figuring that out in private, if it’s okay with you.

Anyway, thinking about what I know for sure gives me a slightly stressed-out feeling, like there are all these things, beautiful things, that I wish I could say about people and relationships and life here on earth. But there’s always a loophole or an exception. You can’t depend on people, because they are going to let you down at some point. I know that for sure, but it’s not very positive, so I’d rather not leave you with that. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe Nicole Kidman had it right . . . despite the fact that you can’t depend on people, I think I know for sure that you can’t stop trying, that you have to be open, because being closed means you’re going to miss out on a lot of joy. The thing is, I feel pretty confident that I know that for sure, but I am not at all sure how to apply it to myself on a regular basis. But I know for sure that I should.

Mugabe Speaks Out Against Rory Gilmore

At least, it looks like I am. She’s speaking at NCLA this year about Reader’s Advisory (”I like this book, can you recommend some similar books?”) and I’m going to go.

What’s that? You don’t know who Nancy Pearl is?

Yes you do:

She’s the Seattle librarian who was the inspiration for the librarian action figurine. Mine’s out of the package, though, and residing on my desk, so I don’t suppose I’ll get her to sign it. Knowing me, there’s no way I would go up to her even if she was signing things, so it’s not really an issue.

Anyway, it should be fun, and it’ll be fun to say that I’ve seen her.

I forgot an important event from over the weekend. Remember how I said that we made s’mores the other day by toasting marshmallows on fondue forks over the side burner of our grill? I realized on Friday that Mike didn’t know how to heat marshmallows in the microwave. So of course I had to show him. It mostly consisted of me standing beside the microwave laughing uncontrollably as I watched the marshmallow get bigger and bigger. He was a little frightened by how much it made me laugh, I think. If I had a list of my favorite things, putting marshmallows in the microwave would be on the list for sure. Just thinking about it makes me giggle. And the way Mike said, “Woah,” as it suddenly tripled in size right before our eyes. hehe.

This morning my mom diagnosed that the problem with my cobbler was in fact that the shortening was too old. I guess I will try again, using butter. Because shortening is kind of gross anyway. Also: Betty? I apologize for calling you a homewrecker. Crisco, though, has some ’splaining to do.

Spoilers through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ahead.

So, it’s been a little over a month. Mike’s been rereading the first five Harry Potter books, looking for clues, and I’ve been cruising the web, reading essays and discussions, coming up with theories. On one of the boards I’ve been reading, someone linked to this LiveJournal post from arabellasq. While I have never been a huge ’shipper (yes, I rooted for Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, but they’re kids. It’s not as much fun for me as rooting for Luke and Lorelai. Hardcore rooting for kids seems slightly creepy) and I don’t read Harry Potter fanfiction, I can still agree with the sentiments expressed. I have enjoyed reading theories and speculation on the web about the books. I’ve enjoyed going to parties for the last three books. I’ve enjoyed staying away from spoilers and reading with Mike and falling in love with the characters over and over again. It’s been fun not to know the answers, and not to have them readily available. To wait with the other fans and to let the excitement build. For me, at least, it’s been a pure pleasure to be a fan of this series. We didn’t get into the books because of any hype, but because we love the story. And we have stayed because we love the story. Are the books overhyped? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t have the best perspective on it, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. I seem to genuinely enjoy some things that people consider overhyped (LotR and Desperate Housewives, for two), and that’s fine with me because there are things I haven’t gotten into that are overhyped, too (Lost, for one).

An aside: Yesterday Mike and I were discussing that one of the things I like about myself is that, despite my many insecurities and people-pleasing tendencies, I am able to form my own opinions about the media around me. I don’t read a book just because everyone else is reading it, but I won’t not read it just because everyone else is reading it, either. I get informed and I make pretty good decisions. I like that.

When we finished HBP, I was really sad, both because of what happened and because there’s only one left. I might be the most hardcore fan here at the library, but by most standards I’m not a hardcore fan, and yet . . . I don’t want it to be over. I want to relish this time before we know everything, before we’ve got all the answers. I love the questions that are still unresolved and our speculation and the crazy theories. I look back on that three-year-summer and I remember how we were dying for the book, because Voldemort was back and Fudge wouldn’t believe it, and I went around and around with Mike and Theresa, talking about what was going to happen next. In many ways, we had a pretty clear idea of what had to happen next at that point: the “old crowd” had to reorganize, and Hagrid was going to talk to the giants, and a few people knew about Sirius. After OotP, things were less clear, because there was still a lot we didn’t know about the prophecy. Now we have a lot of information, but there are so many huge things we don’t know. I agree that that was the golden age of fandom, no question. But this is pretty good.

It has been a lot of fun to be a fan, to watch the story unfold over several years. We’ve been fans for about six years at this point. And as much as I wish I could read book 7 today, I don’t want to wish this time away. I want to savor every minute of it. I want to keep being stopped by my pastor after the service to talk about our new ideas, and I want to keep going around and around with Mike and I want to keep making Brian and Sarah talk about it when they come over. I know some people would give their right arm for the book today, but I don’t feel that way. These days, I am looking forward to this last bit of waiting, this last bit of time before we’ll know everything. The two years before HBP went by so quickly. I’m not ready for it to be completely over.

Some recent things I am proud of:

-On Thursday night, I made it to Susan’s house without directions! I had been there twice, so I figured I could do it, but still, yay for me!

-On Friday, I made shortcakes for the celebratory Brian-got-a-job dinner. It was funny, because that was how my family always ate strawberry shortcake (sweet biscuits with strawberries and whipped cream), but Brian, Sarah, and Mike hadn’t had it like that.

-I (finally) finished The Moviegoer.

-I bought a wedding present about six weeks early and delivered it to the bride on Sunday. I usually take it to the wedding even though I know you’re technically not supposed to. This time, though, I actually delivered it early because the bride and groom both live in Charlotte and their wedding is in Virginia. I couldn’t see taking it to Virginia just for them to have to bring it back here.

Some recent things I am not so proud of:

-My peach cobbler. I am so disappointed that it didn’t turn out quite right. We’re not sure if the shortening was too old (we don’t use it all that often) or if there was another problem. The crust just tasted bad. I am normally a very good baker, so Mike very supportively suggested that the problem is that Betty Crocker is a whore. I was just sad enough to agree. (When I mentioned that “whore” isn’t a very nice thing to say, he changed it to “homewrecker.”)

-My hair. It’s so long. I don’t know what to do with it. It made me cry yesterday.

-My lack of forgiveness. I have noticed lately that I am pretty bitter towards a few people and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

Other things of note:

-Shelby is getting married really soon! I went to one of her showers today and it was fun to see all her new stuff! And her mom! And some of her friends I hadn’t seen in a while! Shelby makes me talk in exclamation points because She! Is! So! Fun!

-After last night’s sad peach cobbler incident, Mike decided to drive with me to Charlotte for Shelby’s shower so that we could then go to P.F. Chang’s! Delicious.

-We watched Ocean’s 12. It was funny. Not as good as Ocean’s 11, though.

-Mike and I ate the world’s best brownies today (and that is not one bit of an exaggeration - I have had them before and nothing else comes close) from Dean & DeLuca.

-We’ve hooked some more of our friends on Harry Potter by lending them the books on CD for their vacation. mwuhahahahaha!

That’s about it. Is that enough for one weekend?

If you haven’t seen Mike’s announcement, perhaps you should click on over and read it. If I don’t post for a while, it may be because I withheld the Diet Coke and he killed me. Just be aware.

Lately I haven’t been interested in much of anything. It’s been quite a week. However, in an attempt to provide my readers with something new and interesting, I will direct you to a new band whose music I’ve been enjoying: The Damn Millionaires. Now, listen, if you don’t like their stuff, I don’t want to hear about it, because music is a personal thing for me and the thing that has cheered me up the most in the past two days is the clip of “Brand New Year”. (You can read the lyrics to the whole song here, in case you were wondering.) I keep singing the song over and over and I am anxiously awaiting the day when the CDs are on sale so I can have this song for my very own. (I have liked the other clips I heard, too.) Mike, whose music taste leans a little more rock ‘n’ roll, says he likes the music and guitars but the singing is a little too country for him. I don’t think he should have said that. He, of all people, knows the crummy week I’ve had. Maybe it was just the Diet Coke withdrawal making him lash out.

On Saturday, we went to a wedding of a former employee of Mike’s.

USHER: Bride or groom?

KARI: Um, bride, I guess.

Kari and Mike are led to the very last row in the very back of the church.

MIKE: Look at all that room on the groom’s side. You should have said, ‘first available.’

KARI: I don’t think it works like that.

MIKE: This church is really pink.

KARI: Um, some of the people around us may go here. Keep it down.

MIKE: Look how pink that window is! It’s so pink!

KARI: Wow, it really is. Wow.

MIKE: Hey, why is rain on your wedding day ironic?

KARI: It’s more inconvenient than anything, really. Especially for the girls, and at a church like this, where the entrance to the sanctuary is outside. It’s a hassle if it’s raining. There’s no way to keep the dresses dry.

MIKE: Unless you are a meteorologist. Then rain on your wedding day is ironic.

KARI: So you just wanted to make a joke instead of having an actual conversation, is that right?

MIKE: Yes. Hey, look, Theresa and Sally are sitting on the groom’s side. Do you think they said first available?

The wedding was very nice, the flowers were beautiful, and the ceremony was lovely. And the church was small enough that we could see just fine, and when communion was served it didn’t take an hour to serve it to everyone.

MIKE: When we go up for communion, take your purse, and we’ll go sit with Theresa and Sally.

KARI: Since we’re the last ones to take communion, I’m pretty sure someone might notice if we don’t go back to our seats.

MIKE: Take your purse!

KARI: I am not taking my purse! The ceremony is almost over!

At the reception, we had lots of fun with Theresa and Sally, talking about pharmacy school and Harry Potter and all kinds of things. Mike had very thoughtfully insisted that we bring the camera so that I could get a recent picture of me and Theresa, and I will be interested to see how they turn out. They’re either going to be super-cute or super-strange, because the sun was in our eyes.

That night we goofed off and watched some season 3 Gilmore Girls and went to bed really early. The next morning, though, I didn’t feel like myself, so we ended up not going to church and instead I worked on my scrapbook stuff and watched movies. We watched three movies on Sunday, and I finished three pages of my scrapbook. So you can see that I was a little more into the movies than the scrapbook. Of the three, two we owned and had already seen (Pieces of April and Bend it Like Beckham) and one I had gotten from the library and neither of us had seen (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

I loved Eternal Sunshine. I had expected to like it, but I really loved it. Last week I talked a bit about how, after a relationship goes bad or a situation is awkward, I paint everything in that light, and how I need to let the past be as it was instead of letting it be colored by things that happened after. And the movie made me think about that a lot, too: Their relationship had gone bad, so they both simply tried to get rid of it, but the things that happened before were so good. It’s a shame they lost those precious memories. I hope I am getting to the point where I can see the value of the things that came before some of my relationships went sour.

During Pieces of April, I had a little trouble finding some of my supplies.

KARI: Where are my scissors?

MIKE: Right there on your pants.

KARI: Oh. hee hee.

(Time passes.)

KARI: I can’t find the pictures from the 4th of July. I looked in every drawer in the card catalog and in our room and I’m not sure where else to look. Any suggestions?

MIKE: I’ll pause the movie and we’ll look for them.

(Time passes. Much searching ensues.)

KARI: Well, that’s okay. I’m sure they’ll turn up . . . Oh. Um, here they are, right on the floor with some of the other pictures.

MIKE: . . .

KARI: (rubs Mike’s leg) Sorry, baby.

MIKE: I should have known from the scissor incident that they’d be on the floor.

KARI: I’m not very good at finding things.

MIKE: Where were the scissors?

KARI: On my pants. *hangs head in shame*

We didn’t want to be cooped up in the house all day, so we made a milkshake run that turned into a DQ run when we realized we had coupons for a buy-one-get-one free blizzard. At first, though, we’d planned on going to Cookout.

MIKE: Onion rings would be good.

KARI: Mmmmmmm. Onion rings.

MIKE: I should get french fries so you won’t eat any.

KARI: That’s just wrong.

MIKE: If I ordered onion rings, I’d tell you you were getting tubby so you’d stay out of them and I could eat them all.

KARI: I’m not getting tubby!

MIKE: You make Baby Jesus cry.

KARI: But not by sitting on him!

It was a good weekend, and a fitting end to the summer. Mike started school yesterday, and so far it looks like he’s got good classes. Our schedule seems normal again. Our house is better than it was. I consider the summer seized into submission.

(I didn’t mention Nicole by name when I talked about my friendship with her and Kim because I was focusing on Kim, so here’s a little bit about Nicole.)

My ninth birthday took place just weeks before my family was moving. One of my best friends (the third member of the Owls) was moving the week of my birthday, so we arranged my party so that she could be there. I don’t remember a lot about the party itself, just the things that have to do with her: She and her brother came over and we decorated the cakes (you’ve never seen so much icing in one place). I remember we said goodbye, and she left, and I cried while my mother vacuumed the floor. And I remember that she gave me a copy of Anne of Green Gables, a hardcover copy that I still have today.

Because I was missing my friend, I read it right away. I don’t know if she was the one who chose it or if she had ever read it. Even at 9, I had already figured out that there were people who were cooler and more informed than I was, and my friend was definitely one of those people. If it was associated with her in some way, I was definitely going to read it. When I got in my waterbed that night, I started navigating sentences like, “Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting “cotton warp” quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices—and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond.” I had to get my mother to translate, because I had never seen the word “wont” used in that way. I still think of Mrs. Lynde almost every time I see it.

It probably goes without saying that I loved the book. Anne is the perfect companion for a nine-year-old girl who is about to move to an unknown place. She gave me hope that I could start over and find a friend like Diana, that I could conquor the Josie Pyes in my life, and that I could win the hearts of people in my new town. I read it over and over, driving my mother crazy with talk of kindred spirits and bosom friends and the depths of despair. I haven’t talked much about the book on this site (especially compared to some of my other favorites), or even really to Mike, because I don’t really have the words to explain my feelings about Anne and Marilla and Diana and Gilbert and Avonlea. Anne was such a personal experience for me that sometimes it surprises me to think that other people have read it, too, and that it means something to them. I didn’t think I was creative or passionate enough to be Anne, but I wanted to be her and to have a bosom friend and to walk the ridgepole and to wear puffed sleeves. I wanted to write stories and float in a dory and embrace romance (not just the boy-and-girl kind, either).

The book paved the way for the miniseries, which led to me reading the rest of the books in the series, which culminated in our trip to PEI for our honeymoon, where we saw the play. I count the books as one of my favorite series, and my favorite thing about them is that there’s an Anne book for all the different stages of my life. In college, I liked Anne of the Island the best, but these days I like Anne’s House of Dreams. And yet, I don’t talk about them much to anyone. My best friend in high school and college borrowed Anne of Green Gables from me and dismissed it as “stupid.” (I should have known then that she wasn’t worth keeping as a friend.) I think it made me hesitant to open up about books that are really close to my heart.

Anne makes me think of my friend Nicole: The gift of her friendship and the last gift she gave me before we both moved away. Anne reminds me of my nine-year-old self, passionate and curious and just starting to become self-conscious. And she gives me the feeling of acceptance and understanding that I often couldn’t find outside of books. The worn-out paperback series on my shelf is a testament to the comfort that Anne and her books have provided me over the years.

(I can’t believe I’ve never used that quote for a title before.)

A few weeks ago, Sarah talked about why she is afraid of thunderstorms. I get a little freaked out at thunderstorms (or any loud noises, really) when I’m asleep, but overall I like them, especially in the evening when they cool things off. And in the winter when a thunderstorm is supposed to mean snow. hehe. And, you know, I’m a little bit afraid of big dogs, and spiders creep me out, and when Mike goes out of town I usually sleep with the light on, but I can’t think of anything like what Sarah is talking about.

There are, of course, things that freak me out. Mine are just a little more internal. Like public embarassment. Earlier this week I pretty much made a fool of myself at work, and when I went to bed that night, my whole body hurt from tension. I couldn’t sleep. I was mortified. It wasn’t something that was a big deal, but I couldn’t let it go. Mike was pretty patient about it, but even he was like, “You have got to let this go.” And then I was afraid he was going to think I was being too much work (which . . . I probably was), and I was getting all neurotic about a simple mistake that anyone could make. That everyone probably laughed about and forgot. I mean, yeah, it was dumb, and maybe they do think I’m an airheaded ditz, but why does that matter so much?

Over a year ago, I said the following:

Mike says that when most people play games in a group setting, their goals are something normal, like having fun or winning. He says that my goal is usually just to not look stupid, but that no one is looking at my poor Nerts skills and thinking that I am stupid. I realize that it’s very egocentric of me to think that everyone is looking at me all the time. I think I can be pretty paranoid about not knowing how to do things, or not having information that other people have. I know why I feel that way (I suppose everyone feels that way to some extent), but it was definitely causing me to overreact. It’s funny – I am a competitive person, but, for once, I wasn’t upset about losing. I didn’t expect to win this game the first time I played it. I just felt a lot of unreasonable shame about being the only person with a negative score.

I spend a lot (and I mean a lot) of time trying not to look stupid. It’s pretty much always my goal. I tend to be afraid that I’ve got the book-knowledge covered, but not so much the common sense. I know that no one likes looking stupid, but I’m not sure where my fear came from that makes it the overarching goal of my life. If I had to speculate, I would say that it possibly comes from the fact that I know I’m not very extraordinary. I don’t have any musical abilities, or artistic abilities, or athletic abilities. The only thing I had growing up was that I was the girl who always made the best grades, the girl who read the fastest and the most, but those aren’t such important skills to have in the real world. No one cares about my GPA anymore (and, really, I am glad to say that I have mostly moved away from the stage of my life in which I defined myself by my GPA), which means I have to find other ways to be extraordinary, or at least to not stand out as unworthy. And as my definition of myself for so long included being the smartest, I control things as much as I can, I gather as much information as I can, I do everything as right as I can . . . so that at least I won’t look stupid. I might not be the smartest, but I can try very hard not to be the dumbest.

But, as Mike says, everyone looks stupid now and then, so it shouldn’t throw me off as much as it does. It’s not the end of the world. I shouldn’t be physically sore because I embarassed myself (unless maybe I embarassed myself by falling down a flight of stairs or something).

I want to be one of those people who can laugh at herself. Is that a skill I can learn?

I tend to go through phases where I read one author or one subject for a few weeks. I thought about that last night, because I am finishing up Shake Hands with the Devil and starting We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. And since I keep a book journal, I can one day go back and say, “Oh, I remember how in August of 2005 I started reading about Rwanda.” Some of the ladies in my book club organize their book journals alphabetically, but I organize mine chronologically. I note whether it’s a reread (which often indicates comfort reading) and if it’s for my book club. Their organization makes more sense if you want to be able to figure out whether you’ve read a book or not, but I like that I can look back and see what I read on vacation one year, and when it was that I read up on the Kennedy assassination, and when I read all those Margaret Maron books in a week, and when I was escaping by reading the fluffiest of chick lit. I don’t keep a written journal (other than this one), but I can look back at my book journal and see what I was reading at different points in my life.

Here are some books I’m on hold for at the library:

Rituals of the Season by Margaret Maron (Should be out in a few weeks and is the cheerful book I’m looking forward to as a reward for all the heavy stuff I’ve been reading lately)
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (I feel like I’ve been on hold for this one forever.)
Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich (I don’t read this series, but a friend of mine does and the list at her library was hugely long, and she just had a baby, so I figured that checking it out for her is the least I could do. I’m number 16 on the list. She was number 300 or something like that.)
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith (The latest in the Sunday Philosophy Club series.)
Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs (I heard her on NPR’s The State of Things, and I decided I’d like to check this book out. This is breaking one of my usual rules, because I don’t normally like to read a series out of order.)
Eldest by Christopher Paolini (This is for Mike. It’s just easier if I put his holds on my card.)
The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg (The website was so fun, I decided to check out the book.)

Yesterday morning I was doing some ironing and I picked up a green cotton polo shirt that I got a couple of years ago from American Eagle. As I was pressing it, I thought about the reason I bought it: I had to have a difficult conversation with someone, and I decided that a new shirt would make me more confident. I’m not really sure if it helped, but the conversation went about as well as could be expected. The bad thing is that I’m reminded of it every time I put the shirt on. Which is why it’s languished in the “to be ironed” pile for most of the summer.

I think I attach memories to objects more than Mike does. Well, that may not be true. But I think I attach negative memories to objects more than he does. He’s more likely to let negative stuff go, while I’m more likely to hold on to it like a pretty pet. Even pictures of better times are hard for me. Over the weekend I had planned to work on some scrapbooking, but some relationship issues I am having with the subject of the photos made it too hard for me to face up to the pictures right now. I threw away many of the pictures of me and my former best friend, and I got rid of a lot of the stuff she gave me. I think one of my many shortcomings is that I see relationships in black-and-white. If someone hurts me, I am not able to be very objective about the things that came before, as if it’s all been tainted. As I wrote that sentence, I realized it’s not a new sentiment for me, that I have actually expressed those same feelings two times before. I can’t decide if it’s a bad sign or a good sign that I didn’t remember writing it until just now.

Anyway, I decided yesterday that what I need is to redeem the shirt, to make some new memories in it. I wasn’t defeated by the hard conversation and I won’t let the shirt be a casualty, either.

Today I’m feeling especially grumpy. I had all these different ideas for topics, including “uninformed people who try to tell you what to do when you are actually the one who knows what is going on” and “people who don’t take you at your word” and “people who are super-critical.” But then I realized that last one might be a bit hypocritical. hehe. Plus, I figured no one wants to hear me complain. I’ll just keep it to myself. (Actually, I’ll probably just complain to Mike, he’ll tell me I’m being too critical, and I’ll feel chagrined.)

Last night Mike and I moved a sleeper sofa up the stairs. We now have to touch up a bit of the paint on the stairwell. Unlike last time, we didn’t take any of the door frame with us, but I did get pinned between the couch and the wall, with my ear taking the brunt of the weight. My ear is kind of sore today. It also hit me in the face, just below my eye, and I told Mike that if I got a black eye I was going to tell everyone he gave it to me. Now we have an extra place for people to sleep so that when we have a full house no one has to sleep on the couch downstairs. (Alisa, this means you.)

Mike had a milestone the other day. I would let him talk about it, but I don’t think he sees it as quite a big deal as I do. Let me set the scene: Women’s Hospital, a new mama and a newborn little boy. I didn’t used to hold newborns because I was a little afraid of them, but I have gotten much better, and he was so sweet I couldn’t resist. Mike, however, was flat-out refusing to get anywhere near the baby, which is what he usually does “until their heads aren’t so wobbly.” His words, not mine. He didn’t hold his niece or nephew until they were older, and many of our friends have tried to talk him into holding their newborns, but Mike always says no. Well, apparently they just needed to be tougher, because this new mom put the video camera on him and said she wasn’t turning it off until he held the baby. And it worked. I couldn’t believe it. There is actual video of Mike holding a baby. I am not sure if he secretly wanted to hold a baby and just needed a little encouragement, or if he was afraid that the new mom might beat him up. Or maybe it was me mocking him, “You can’t turn 30 and never have held a newborn.” Whatever it was, it was his first baby-holding experience, which means we are a tiny bit closer to having our own one day. (This is not an announcement.)

“So he just drove all the way to New York, picked up the cheese, drove back. Nobody talked about it ever again.”

We watched the Gilmore Girls episode “Dear Emily and Richard” the other night, and besides the fact that it makes both of us feel awkward to see Luke all GQed up for Nicole, we think that the cheese story sounds like the worst story of all time. Saturday night Mike and I kept saying, “So then he had to drive to New York, get the cheese, and drive all the way back. We never spoke of it again.” Then we laughed hysterically. We did it when we were at Chili’s as we were walking past other people, and we concocted this plan in which we are at other people’s houses and when they answer their door, we’re telling the punchline and laughing like it’s a real story. I don’t know why exactly we think this is funny, but we do. hehe.

Mike is not a very good joke-teller, which I hadn’t really thought about until the other day, when he was trying to tell me a couple of jokes he heard on the radio and he kept forgetting how they went. So he tried to summarize. “Okay, so the rabbi said . . . Okay, um, well, to sum it up . . . Well, the point of the story is that . . . ” By that point I was laughing so hard that when he finally got the jokes out they were kind of a letdown. Buildup is really important in a joke.

In honor of crappy joketelling, here are my top three favorite punchlines:

3. One: he holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.
2. The brick!
1. Moooooooo!

Honorable mention: “And then I found $30.”

The summer is still being seized at our house. The latest and greatest thing we are doing has to do with our garden. And when I say “garden,” I really mean, “four tomato plants and a couple different kinds of peppers.” But let’s not get too technical. Our few plants have been such a success this summer that we are planning on having even more next year. More peppers, squash, cucumbers, and of course more tomatoes.

Our tomato plants are doing so great that we have no choice except to make lots and lots of salsa. We even have our own jalapenos with which to make the salsa! As I explained to my friend Emily a few weeks ago, I love homemade salsa so much that from time to time (okay, when we are out of chips) I eat it with a spoon. I have also been known to pour the chip crumbs into the salsa and eat that with a spoon. However, seizing the summer has meant that we learned how to make our own chips in our deep fryer, so I no longer have to resort to those desperate measures. Nothing says summer like fried food, right? And Mike and I can’t get enough of our homemade chips. They are so great. We even have a tradition where Mike pulls them out of the oil and says, “Salt those mofos!” This is especially funny if you know that I have never heard Mike utter so much as a single curse word. Even when he and Brian were trying to move a recliner up the stairs and it got stuck.

I realized a slight problem with seizing the summer; you may have noticed it, too. So far, everything we’ve done has centered around food. By September, we may have added on as much as 30 pounds. However, we will have wrestled the summer into submission, so I’m pretty sure it’s worth it.

Last night we continued in our efforts to seize the summer by roasting marshmallows on the grill and making s’mores. Mike went camping a few months ago, and it was the first time he’d ever had s’mores (pause just a second and let that sink in . . . I am still not sure I quite comprehend it myself) and he had been wanting to try again. Picture it: the two of us standing on our back porch with marshmallows on fondue forks, roasting them over the side burner. That’s a nice mental image, isn’t it? hehe. I did a respectable job of showing him how to perfectly toast a marshmallow, but I get the feeling we need a little more practice. hehe.

We got a new entertainment center this week, and were therefore able to move the television out of our bedroom and back downstairs. We have celebrated this by watching The Incredibles (am I going to be hung up by my thumbs if I admit that it was just okay? I didn’t love it. I thought it was a little long, and by the time we got to the fun family superhero stuff, there were only like 30 minutes left. I would rather have had the family stuff sooner, and just had one visit to the island, instead of having Mr. Incredible go twice. I wanted to like it more than I did. Of course, I’m not really a big superhero kind of girl) and two more episodes of Gilmore Girls. We hadn’t watched any since the day we came back from vacation, which was seven weeks ago. Season 3 was supposed to get us through until September, but we may have taken those instructions a little too seriously. Anyway, just sitting in my living room watching DVDs was more wonderful than I can say. It’s the little things.

I read a poem a few days ago called Things I Didn’t Know I Loved. I have been thinking about it this week as our lives resumed normalcy at home. Here are a few things I didn’t know I loved: home makeover edition (with apologies to Nazim Hikmet).

I didn’t know I loved walking barefoot around the house without fear of stabbing myself in the foot. I didn’t know I loved taking off my shoes after work during the summertime and driving home barefoot, walking in the front door with my bag over one arm and my shoes dangling from one hand. I didn’t know I loved the feeling of carpet under my toes. I didn’t know I loved throwing the laundry in the hall when I am sorting the piles. I didn’t know I loved having my home be a welcoming place. I didn’t know I loved sweeping the kitchen floor. I didn’t know I loved having more than one or two rooms to relax in. I didn’t know I loved using the hall bathroom when I’m in a hurry. I didn’t know I loved the sound of silence when I’m walking down the stairs (yay for carpeted stairs!).

I didn’t know just being able to take off my shoes was such a big exciting deal. Welcome to my life.

I don’t want to be overly superlative, so I’m not going to say that we had the longest ice cream run of all time the other night, but it took a freaking long time, that’s for sure. There was an accident on the highway, and we had to wait about 30 minutes just sitting there. I got pretty discouraged and we almost turned around and gave up. We were just trying to seize the summer! Why is that so difficult?!

Luckily, we made it to Coldstone and I tried their August Red Pan flavor: Blueberry. mmmmmm. It was delicious. And we remembered the Nalgene so that we didn’t have to go thirsty after eating our ice cream. Clever, yes? On the way home, Mike said that most people would have given up and gone to Wal-Mart to get vanilla ice cream and blueberries to mush up in it. But we persevered!

So, speaking of the accident on the highway . . . we were probably about 10 cars back from where the road was closed, maybe not that many. There had been a sign a mile or so back that indicated that the left lane was closed, but we hadn’t realized that both lanes were closed (there were a lot of logs in the road). As we waited patiently, they were trying to get the logs cleared off. And all these NEW cars who HAD BEEN WARNED kept coming up to the front of the line. We waited there 30 minutes, and those bozos thought they were entitled to get ahead of us because they were waiting five minutes. I didn’t see any women in labor or grandmothers needing to go to the hospital, so I most decidedly did not let them in. They were trying to steal my summer joy, but my joy returned when I shut them out of my lane.

No, it wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but it was the only thing I could do. I was thisclose to getting out of the car and asking a driver what in the WORLD made him think that he was so important that he didn’t have to wait in line like everyone else. But then I realized that I didn’t have anywhere to go after I said that, and despite the presence of police officers, I might get hurt. Also, Mike never lets me do that kind of stuff. I don’t really get road rage (I am sure you won’t believe me now, but it’s true), and I can handle being stopped in traffic since I don’t have to do it regularly, but I canNOT stand when someone thinks he is so entitled that he can inconvenience hundreds (or thousands) of others just because he doesn’t want to wait his turn. Sure, we all do it accidentally from time to time, but you can tell the accidental people from the entitled people. It’s all in the signaling.

Wow, there are a lot of capital letters there. Guess this must be an important issue to me. hehe.

Anyway, to sum up: Blueberry ice cream = Good. Entitled drivers = Bad.

So last week we watched Hotel Rwanda.

I haven’t known how to talk about it, what to say exactly. It covers a situation that I knew the bare-bones information about, and as I have mentioned many times, when something sparks my interest, I like to find out about it. So I spent the weekend watching clips from Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda and reading as much as I could from that site and a few others. I’ve also checked out some books and put some others on hold. I keep saying things to Mike like, “Some observers believe that almost every woman and adolescent girl who survived the genocide was raped. Can you believe that?” I sent Josh all these impassioned messages, and he very kindly sent me back some resources so I’d know how to channel that anger. I made my parents watch the movie. I haven’t wanted to talk about it here until my thoughts were more fully formed, because I didn’t want to have a cliched entry in which I explain how, two days after watching it, the movie has changed my life and I’m selling all my possessions and moving to Africa to help with the rebuilding process. But I thnk maybe it - combined with a lot of the reading I’ve been doing lately, like The Kite Runner and Confessions of a Pagan Nun - has changed my life a little bit. I’ve been thinking about my life here in America and comparing it to what I’ve been reading. And it makes me thankful that I live here, that I am able to get an education, that I can read, that I am treated as an equal, that I have all this freedom, that I have all these opportunities. My prayer the past week or so has been that I would let these things change me. That I wouldn’t be the same person I was before I started thinking about them.

I would say that I am not generally the kind of person who thinks very much about those in this world who are worse-off than I am. Which, you know, is most of the world. I suppose a lot of times I think that my dollars speak for themselves, and because I give to good causes that I am doing enough. But lately, Mike and I have started feeling like we aren’t doing enough. We’re trying to make better decisions with our money. We’re following the news more and staying more informed. I even talked to the youth pastor at church yesterday about being willing to go with them on mission trips. I grew up in the church and I have never been on a mission trip, so it’s actually a big deal for me to say that. This summer has caused a paradigm shift, to be sure, and I’m trying to let it stick.

This morning two of my friends came to see all the work we’ve done on the house. It was a good self-esteem boost, because they ooohed and aaahed just like friends should over all the changes. One of them turned to me and said, “I know your July was kind of a bust, but looking at this room, it’s totally worth it!” I was like, “Eh, easy for you to say when you weren’t the one having to wear flip-flops around the house to keep from getting stabbed in the foot.” We all laughed and she said, “Now it’s August! Your August is going to be great!” Again, I thought (but did not say), “Easy for you to say - you’ve had two week-long vacations and are about to go to the beach again. Whereas my vacation ended on a difficult note and then I came home to this.”

After they left, I was thinking about that, and I realized that it was a better way to look at things than how I had been looking at them. Instead of moping around like I have been doing, I’m going to try to enjoy what is left of the summer. August may be hot and sticky, but I’m going to try to enjoy every moment of it that I can.

In that spirit, I started A Prayer for Owen Meany over the weekend, which I have read two times before, but not in four or five years. It kept coming up in conversation, and I thought, “I really need to read that again.” I have been enjoying it so much. This time I noticed that in the acknowledgements John Irving thanks Frederick Buechner. I thought that was cool since I just read some of his stuff this spring. I’m trying to decide if I want to read more John Irving, and if I do, should I start with his newest or some of the classics? I love working in a library. There is always something new to discover.

As much of a dud as July was for me reading-wise, I have to say that I did get some older books crossed off my reading list. I have a notebook here that Sarah gave me to write down books I’d like to read, and I’m always jotting things down in it, so it’s a wonderful feeling to be able to go back and mark things off. My plans for August include a lot of reading (in our new library/study), a lot of time with my friends (when I am in a funk I tend to retreat, so my friends haven’t seen that much of me the past few weeks), and a lot of relaxing with Mike before he goes back to school in two weeks (!!!).

Hear that, internet? I’m gonna cheer up and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.