On the classics

I read a lot.  I like to consider myself a well-rounded reader in that I try to engage in books across all genres and all authors.  As an English major in college I read everything from John Milton to Annie Proulx, and if my English degree helped me with one thing it was expanding my exposure to different types of writing, different types of authors, and forcing me to sit down and actually read books I would otherwise not afford a second glance.  

In high school and in college I like many other students also had to give some attention to those books that are lumped into a very general group known as "the classics."  I don't really have a firm grasp on each and every book that is purported to fall into this category, but to me, the classics are books that have survived throughout time and still have relevance to readers, and often to society, in the present day.  I don't think the idea of a book becoming a classic is a bygone concept, either.  Books that are written today can easily make an impact and become lasting, the question is whether future generations will continue to see them that way. 

I have always had this idea in my head that to be a well-rounded reader one must indulge in the classics.  If not the entire list (for which I'm not even sure a comprehensive one exists), then at least some of the highlights.  I've read my fair share of the group and have a number of them sitting on my bookshelves at home that still beckon to be read.  But I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. 

I don't really like reading the classics.  

As a hopeful writer and a very avid reader, my inclination to steer away from the classics makes me feel like something of a disappointment.  Don't get me wrong, I do have some favorites among the classics, some of which I consider all-time favorite books.  Trust me, that's a big statement.  Books like "Wuthering Heights," "Rebecca," even "Paradise Lost" all had a huge impact on me as a reader and will forever be treasured favorites.  Of course, all of these are also books I had to read as part of a class.....which again, makes me thankful I was an English major. 

What is it about the classics that doesn't appeal to me?  Yes, the writing styles are much different than those of today which requires more from the reader in terms of interpretation, but is that necessarily a bad thing?  It's the overall story that is the real matter of importance, which means that maybe I'm just a lazy reader.  

Most of the time I shy away from the classics simply because there are other books on my To-Read list that seem more exciting, or that I literally cannot wait another second to dive into.  The classics to me always seem like something that can be saved for another day, when I run out of other things to read.  I don't get home at night and feel a burning need to tear into "A Tale of Two Cities," although who knows, maybe I would if I actually attempted to read it. 

I don't know.  Does this even matter?  Am I still a good reader if I neglect these works?  Is it enough that I have read some of the classics and at least have a good, basic foundation?  Different people will probably have different answers to these questions, so there probably isn't a right or wrong way to go.  But I do want to make an effort to revisit a lot of these books I have skipped over and see for myself what all the fuss is about.  Obviously it's just going to take a committed effort on my part to see each book through to the end. 

Oh, the dilemmas of a serious book worm!

On good friends and phone calls

I have to keep it short because I have a meeting that starts in exactly 20 minutes.  But I felt the urge to post something today, and given the shortness of time I'm going with something light for a Tuesday afternoon. 

Last week I had an hour long phone conversation that left me in stitches of laughter.  Honestly, my ab muscles hurt when I hung up the phone.  Really, I laugh every day, mainly because I'm easily amused but also because I hear it burns calories.  So essentially if I can somehow laugh through my entire day I'll be a fat burning machine, dropping pant sizes by the minute!  No?  Okay, no time to dwell on that right now. 

One of my lifetime BFF's and I finally had a much overdue phone chat last week and it was just what I didn't even know I needed.  Because you see, my friend Amber and I don't talk on the phone like normal people.  We don't indulge in the polite antics of conversation and play the catch up game.  Our conversations go something like a stand up comedy routine with each of us playing off the other and seeing who can get the biggest laughs.  We talk in circles.  We don't start with the whole "catching up" routine because we haven't spoken on the phone in months, we instead dive right into the heart of things and start cracking the jokes (usually at the others expense), which lead to more jokes, which lead to some of those "Remember when we did so and so...." references, which eventually lead us into talking for a couple minutes about our current lives before diving right back into the sarcastic humor.  It's fabulous. 

Let's face it.  A lot of the time we can't totally be our complete goofy selves when talking with people we barely know.  We have to be proper, polite, think about sparing feelings, all that garbage.  But with your really good friends, with those people who know you inside and out and still think you're kind of cool, we can let down our guard and totally be ourselves.....uncensored.  That's what mine and Amber's phone conversations are like, and it's so refreshing to just let loose and not worry about trying to censor anything.  I can say those nerdy things to her that would make other people write me off as a total loser and make me FEEL like a total loser.  With Amber, I say something dorky, she calls me a loser, and then we laugh hysterically about it.  

These are moments you can only have with a best friend, with someone you feel completely comfortable with.  If you are very lucky, you have someone like this in your life.  Someone you can be silly with and then the next minute completely serious.  I feel so fortunate to have good friends like Amber in my life, friends with who the relationship stays strong even if we go months without talking or seeing each other.

Okay, signing off now.  I can hardly wait to talk to Amber again and hear her make fun of this post!      

On what I'm currently reading

Normally I make a point not to write about books I am reading until I have read the entire thing cover to cover.  But in this instance I just could not wait until the last page (because there are 849 of them and I am just barely on page 200) to share my utter enthusiasm for this book. 

Obviously I'm a biased reviewer when it comes to Stephen King.  I love, love, love everything he writes (except for Christine.....still not a fan of that book) and his latest release, "11/22/63: A Novel" is no exception.  I knew a little bit of what to expect coming into the book, a guy time travels back to 1963 to prevent John Kennedy from being assassinated.  But what I didn't expect was for King to give me the surprise of a lifetime by revisiting one of my most favorite books of all time. 

It. 

For those of you who haven't read it you have probably seen the movie (which isn't nearly as good) or heard of the basic premise of the story, which is about a clown who kills children in the small, fictional town of Derry, Maine.  But the book is so much more than that, and there are layers upon layers of story that would take me ages to dissect and discuss in as much detail as they deserve.  Suffice to say, killer clown will do for our purposes. 

Okay, so back to 11/22/63.  Before our protagonist, Jake Epping, heads to Texas to interfere with Oswald's plan to kill the president, he first decides to fix the future for a janitor at the high school where he teaches.  I won't divulge too much detail about this, but it just so happens that said janitor lives in the town of Derry and the year that Jake travels back to just happens to be the fall of 1958.  This also just happens to be the same year that a group of extremely brave children in Derry faced off against Pennywise the Clown.....do you see where I'm going with this?  King put his main character smack dab in the outer ring of a previous story!  I know you probably cannot be excited about this unless you have read "It,"  but trust me, it's way cool. 

As I was reading along and the connection clicked home for me, I was ecstatic.  It felt kind of like reading through a de-ja-vu or something.  The town of Derry, the street names, Jake Epping even happens to meet two of the kids who fought against the clown, and you can tell that they all recognize an instant connection to each other, but are uncertain about what it is.  I just love that King is cross-referencing this town again, and the story of It.  He even writes about how Jake can tell that something isn't right about Derry or the people, how even though the murders have stopped he doesn't think the town is back to normal.....all sorts of ominous references like that and you, as the reader, know exactly what he is talking about!!  Because you (well, I) have read the previous book and know exactly what happened and know exactly why Jake is having all these spooky premonitions.  

Obviously this little side interlude in Derry is only a warm-up until we get to the real meat of the story, which is where the book is now heading.  Jake has just left Derry for good and is on his way to find Oswald and figure out how he is going to stop the assassination.  There's a lot more story left and I am sure that the connections to previous King books is over with, but I just had to exclaim my utter excitement about this and how enjoyable it has made the book thus far.  I know, I'm a huge dork.  When I was trying to explain this to my husband last night I could tell he was less than enthralled with the whole thing.  Oh well. 

This is yet another reason why I find King's books so entertaining.  He finds a way to connect his characters, his stories, to each other in ways you don't even see coming.  I for one find it exciting to come across references to previous books, to find out how two characters from two completely different stories have some kind of bond with each other.  King has not just written books, he has written an entire universe, and I for one hope it continues to grow for many, many more years. 

I'll be sure to post a review once I finally do finish the book.  I'm hoping the ending will be as strong as the first 200 pages.         

On going out

Some weeks, Friday can't get here fast enough.  Then once Friday hits, 5 p.m. can't get here fast enough.  Then once the time is right, you just can't get to the bar fast enough.  But once you have that much anticipated beverage of choice in front of you, all is magically right with the world again and the party that is the weekend can finally begin. 

But it's not like this every week, at least not for me.  Sure, there are some weekends where all I look forward to is going out on the town, socializing, and seeing what sorts of adventures the night holds.  But other weekends the thought of going out and making that effort to be a social butterfly just seems.....exhausting.

In college it seemed like every weekend was a party.  God, doesn't that statement sound like something a much older, mature person would say?  But this adult world.....frankly, it's nothing like college, which is sometimes great and sometimes awful.  Case in point, in the adult world afternoon naps do not exist, and for some reason are frowned upon at work.  In college, the afternoon nap was a staple, a given, and totally acceptable.  Has anyone else ever petitioned their workplace for required afternoon naps?  Sorry, I realize I'm off on a completely unnecessary tangent.

But really, college weekends were phenomenal.  And like a lot of other people I spent mine making the rounds from house parties, to college bars, to late night restaurants, and eventually back to my apartment so I could rest up and do it all over again the next night.  These days?  Closing down the bar is a rare occurrence and I consider myself a rock star if I manage to stay out until midnight.  Bam, suckers.    

I've reached a stage where, for the most part, I'm satisfied with an evening of going out to dinner, having a few drinks, and heading home at a respectable weekend hour to veg out on the couch until I can no longer keep my eyelids open.  And honestly, around here that's about the only "going out" option there is on a regular given weekend.  It's funny, though, because even when I don't feel like going out on the weekend part of me feels like I should be going out.  Or should at least want to go out.  Yes, I battle with that word, that feeling, of shouldness (which in fact isn't a word but still an accurate representation of my feelings).

I'm sure a little bit of this frustration has something to do with where I live.  Small town, not a lot of outside entertainment.  And while going out to the bar is usually a great time it also becomes expensive after awhile.....and why should I pay for drinks every weekend when I have my own stash at home?  But going out isn't always about practicality.  Sometimes we just want the thrill of being around other people, of being a part of the noise and excitement.

But other times, we crave the notion of just being home.  I've been something of a homebody lately which I think has kind of gotten on my husband's nerves, but for the past couple weekends the whole "going out" thing just hasn't appealed to me.  And I think this is natural for everyone.  But because it's the weekend I feel like there's this pressure to be wild and crazy even if that isn't exactly what one feels like doing.

It's times like these when I wonder how my social life would differ if I lived in a larger city.  Would I feel like going out more often since there would naturally be more activities to choose from?  Or would I become forced to stay in because I spent too much money on weekend outings?  Since I like to think I am somewhat responsible when it comes to managing funds, I think it would likely be a little of both.

Does anyone else go through this internal debate about going out?  Is my recent bout of homeward boundedness a natural thing or have I, sadly, gotten old before my time?  Please, be kind in your judgements.       

Why I Walk

On Friday, April 20th, I will join WSU students and Pullman community members on the track at the high school and I will walk.  I will keep my feet moving through the night and into the early hours of Saturday morning, losing track of the number of laps and focusing my mind on why I am there.  On why hundreds of other people are there walking around that track with me. 

We are there to remember.  We are there to celebrate.  But most importantly, we are there to fight back against cancer. 

This will be my third year participating in Relay and for me the experience has always been a positive, uplifting one.  And those can often be difficult attributes to find when you are dealing with the subject of cancer.  But Relay for Life is a true testament to just how many people in the world are committed to fighting this disease and the event itself is often extremely powerful.

Everyone who participates has their own reasons for walking.  Everyone has a story about why this event, why this fight, is so important to them.  Some are walking as survivors of cancer, others as caregivers.  Some are walking because they know someone currently battling cancer.  Others, like me, are walking because they have lost loved ones to cancer.

I was only a 5th grader when my Papa passed away after being diagnosed with cancer, and it was only a mere two years later that my Nana also died from the disease.  At the time, especially with Papa, I didn't understand a lot of things.  I didn't know what it meant to "have cancer," I didn't know about things like chemotherapy and radiation, and even when Papa got really sick, I never really thought there would come a time when he wouldn't be there anymore.  My family and I were fortunate to get another two years with Nana, but when I found out that she was sick, too, the reality of cancer truly hit home.

It steals lives.  It cuts time short.  It does not discriminate.

My first time doing Relay for Life, I walked around the track during the Luminaria Ceremony and I remembered Nana and Papa.  I thought back on my memories of them before they got sick; to family vacations at the beach, Thanksgiving holidays in Prosser, playing cards at the kitchen table, taking walks to Papa's classroom and playing pretend school.  I know that I am fortunate to at least have good memories to look back on, but I can't help the sadness and bitterness I also feel knowing that there will be no new memories to make.  Nana and Papa have been gone for 15 and 17 years, and while time has a way of healing the pain it does not take it away entirely.

This year, once again, I will walk and I will remember.  It might seem like a small gesture against a disease as big as cancer, but sometimes the smallest gesture is better than none at all.  And while walking in this event isn't going to bring my grandparents back, the money that is collected through fundraising might save the life of someone who has the disease right now, or help to advance research and medications that will save thousands of lives somewhere down the road.

Cancer has taken too much and too many away from all of us.  With more events like Relay for Life, hopefully someday soon we can take cancer away for good.


If you would like to make a donation to Relay for Life and help in the fight against cancer, please visit my personal fundraising page and make a donation online today!

On home

 

Robert Frost said that home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.  I love this sentiment and think of it often as I drive the country roads that lead me slowly but surely to the place where I grew up, and where I often long to return.  

I routinely discover that I am navigating my adult life with the principles and aspirations that developed within me as a child, when I was merely a little girl sitting up in an old farmhouse typing away on a hand-me-down typewriter.  My love of writing, my commitment to family, the enjoyment I find from exploring, discovering and learning, all the things I value and hold dear began at home.  

Home.  This word we use so casually but whose meaning, significance, all the sentiments the word encompasses are often too numerous to grasp.

For those of us who are very lucky, home is the place we can return to and find ourselves again.  Because doesn't it often feel that no matter how much time has gone by or how different our lives might be, home is exactly the way we remember it?  It is exactly the way we need it to be. 

Of course, home can be many different things and many different places, depending on who you are.  Everyone has their own idea of home and while the descriptions of houses and towns may often differ in extreme ways, the feelings about home and the comforts it evokes bring us all to a common ground. 

Home is our beginning, our history, in some cases the roots of the family we stem from.

If nothing else, home is a timeless destination.  One that in younger years we were so anxious to leave, but later on in life are desperate to once again return.  And whether we are returning to rediscover a place, or rediscover ourselves, the promise of fulfillment upon reaching our destination keeps us moving.  Keeps us forever moving.  Toward home.            

On Kony 2012

The newest campaign to hit the online world this week is Stop Kony 2012, and the video accompanying this effort has made the rounds on just about every social media site and Google search.  The charity behind the video, Invisible Children, has come under a bit of fire from skeptics due to some misinformation mentioned in the video, as well as some of the questionable ways the charity handles its donations.  This is no surprise.  When we humans become enamored with any type of movement there will always be people out there who want to call it into question.  And really, that's the way it should be.  Nothing in our world should ever be taken at face value and researching all the facts is crucial to making informed decisions and ideas. 

In a nutshell, the makers of the video, who I believe are also the founders of the Invisible Children charity, are setting out to bring awareness about Ugandan guerrilla leader Joseph Kony, who has abducted and forced around 66,000 children to fight in his army (the Lord's Resistance Army) over the past two decades.  The filmmakers are urging people to keep this issue in the front of the minds of government officials so that hopefully we can send much needed assistance to the people fighting against Kony, which many are hoping will ultimately lead to his capture by the end of the year. 

A good cause, yes?  I watched the video yesterday and will admit wholeheartedly to being moved by the content and almost instantly won over to the efforts of the movement.  Today I have been doing additional research on the movement as well as the charity and will admit that there are some red flags, but I am still in support of the ultimate goal, which is to capture this man and hold him accountable for the crimes against humanity he has been committing for over twenty years.  I don't think anyone living anywhere in the world should have to live in fear that their child will one day be kidnapped, forced to fight in a rebel army, and murder their parents along with countless others along the way.  That is sickening beyond belief, and yet its exactly what has happened to thousands of children already.  

I don't really feel like I'm in the position to tell anyone whether they should or should not support this charity or the movement altogether.  That's for ya'll to figure out on your own.  What I am mostly interested and fascinated by is how this has in just a matter of days taken over the internet-sphere.  The video is being shared like crazy on Facebook, You Tube, Pinterest, and probably a dozen other sites.  Every article, opinion or otherwise, usually includes a link to the video or the charity website, and people are spreading the word like wild fire.  

This is the power of the Internet.  Of social media.  Of one click access to information.  Our social movements, while still manifesting in the streets, are also taking place online and in any number of forms.  Most people up until a few days ago had no idea who Joseph Koney was, who the Invisible Children were, or what LRA stood for.  Now they do.  It's become an overnight sensation and all over the world this has instantly become a hot topic of conversation. 

This is what fascinates me.  The speed and the directness that all these mediums provide us.  The access we have to share absolutely anything with, literally, the entire world.  This movement, this charity, this cause that seems to have motivated so many into action, is one of the most prime examples I can think of that shows how something as simple as posting a video can create such a humungous response.  Of course, as the law of gravity states that what goes up must come down, the rules of Internet sensations also follow much the same accord.  Something so visible and popular today will at some point become an afterthought.  Attention spans, unfortunately, are short, and once the bloom is off the rose it is harder to convince people to care. 

I continue on a day-to-day basis to be fascinated by this Internet world.  This seemingly endless network of information sharing and accessibility.  When I was in college I took a sociology class on social movements, on "taking it to the streets" if you will.  Perhaps current social movement classes are learning about "taking it to Facebook?"  I wonder.   

On the bathroom remodel

Dean and I are preparing to embark on yet another home improvement journey.  This one I am hoping and praying will be a bit less intensive than some of the other projects we have undertaken, mainly because we will be paying people to do the majority of the work for us.  In my mind, that is the best thing you can do when it comes time to tackle remodeling projects.  I'm just such a baby when it comes to stuff like this.....you can read more about why that is by checking out this blog post. 

This particular project, aka the upstairs bathroom, is one that I have been dying to embark on since we first came to look at the house with our real estate agent.  The room is small so in terms of configuration there isn't a whole lot that can be changed, but everything that is currently in there needs go go.  About ten years ago.  

So we have been saving our pennies and are taking the steps necessary to get this job underway.  We will hopefully be ordering tile this week, and tomorrow we are venturing down to Home Depot to purchase a new whirlpool bathtub (I am mucho grande excited about this) and a brand spanking new toilet (also excited about the toilet, but not quite as excited as for the bathtub).  A pristine new vanity is waiting for us at my parent's house, and the only other major thing to figure out is what color to paint the walls.  And the amazing thing is that all these things are happening simultaneously, making me somewhat dizzy with excitement. 

Now, we have been upgrading our house since we moved into it almost three years ago.  We have changed things about every single room in the house, but this is the first room in which we are doing to complete and total overhaul.  Everything is going and in the end everything we see will be shiny and new.  It's such a refreshing thought, and it gives me hope that we are actually making progress in turning this house into a place we're proud to call home. 

So, this bathroom will be taking over my life for the next few weeks.....depending of course on how quickly we can get people over here to hook everything up for us.  Depending on how quickly we can get our tile ordered we could be starting on the demo as early as next week.  Hooray for home improvement!

P.S.  I am not feeling especially insightful today, so the upcoming bathroom remodel was the best I could do for a topic.  I'm hoping to pen something a tad more enlightening for tomorrow.....bear with me.   

On what you want to do

My sister posed an interesting question today.  She is working part-time at the moment and is still hunting around for a full-time job, so she does more than her fair share of filling out and submitting job applications for all kinds of different positions.  Because she is in job hunt mode, she often hears the following question from people:  What do you want to do?  

Her answer gave me pause because this is something of a loaded question.  The two of us talked about it and essentially came down to the following conclusion.  If getting a job was as easy as figuring out what you want to do and then just doing it, that would make for one easy transition.  However, it's not that easy (as my sister can verify) and most of the time we end up taking jobs that are far from being "what we want to do," but are instead necessary just so we can get our professional career started (and also pay the bills). 

I'll admit, I was extremely lucky when it came to landing my first job out of college, which just so happens to be the same job I hold today.  I started as an intern and about a month before my graduation a position became available that one of my supervisors thought I would be a good fit for.  She encouraged me to apply, I was interviewed a few days later, and hired about 20 minutes after that.  Super easy and definitely NOT the normal process that most people have to go through.  So when it comes to job hunting and interviewing I actually don't have all that much experience.  I've learned about the whole process more so through my job (and my sister) than I have from actual experience.  So when my sister asked me what I would have done had I not had this job waiting for me after graduation, I had to stop and reflect because frankly I'd never given that question much thought. 

What would I have done?  What would I have wanted to do?  I imagine I would have continued to look for a job with the university or another business in Pullman, since my husband already had a full-time job and we weren't planning on moving right away.  If that hadn't panned out I probably would have extended my search to the University of Idaho just eight miles across the border, and if that hadn't worked I probably would have......well, I'm not quite sure.  It's hard to look back and know what you would have done, especially when you're not entirely the same person with the same amount of knowledge and experience (or better yet, lack of) you were/had back then. 

But I do wonder what I would have done if I didn't have this job.  Would I have seriously pursued a career in writing?  Would I have worked hard at making that my full-time career, rather than just a fantasy I continue to harbor on a day-to-day basis?

I know for a fact that I use my job as an excuse for why I don't write as often or as much as I want to.  I spout the same lines out lout and in my head all the time, "I'm tired from work so I don't think I'll write tonight;" "I have so much going on at work I just don't have time to write;" "I'm so stressed right now so it's too hard to clear my mind and focus on my story;" and so on, and so on.  I justify that if I didn't have a job to go to every day I could use some of those eight hours to actually sit at my computer and write to my heart's content.  And it's partly true.  If I could use some of the hours I spend at my job and put them towards writing I would get more done and would get it done more often.  In a perfect world this would be my life.....but it's not.  The fact is I have to work.  We have bills (too many of them), a mortgage, two dogs that are spoiled rotten, and a house that we are constantly remodeling.  We also like to take vacations, and most of the time vacations don't come cheap.  For us, surviving on solely one income just wouldn't cut it.

The struggle I and I'm sure many others face, is being able to do what you love in the midst of the things you have to do.  I don't want my tiredness or my stress from work to be the reason I go sometimes weeks at a time without writing.  I don't want the fact that I spend more hours at work during the day than I do at home to be the reason I don't go down to my office and write when I have the chance.  I have to stop letting myself slack off to wait until things are less busy or for when I have more time.  Honestly, does that ever really happen?

While I don't have a definite answer to my sister's question about what I would have done without a job after graduation, I know I have to stop viewing my necessity to work as an obstacle to my writing.  The fact that I know what I want to do in a perfect world doesn't mean I can't still work toward it just because conditions aren't "perfect" right now.  Am I not just bursting with inspirational/motivational speak right now?

Thank you, Katrina, for a much needed food for thought question, and for helping me get myself re-motivated to tackle the challenge of putting words on a page......or in this instance, a computer screen.