Two

There's only one area where our spending is out of control. It's books and to a smaller extent, magazines. They're everywhere in our house, in every room including the bathroom. Mostly in the bathroom it's magazines except for two books: Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes which only shares the same title as the movie. The two are nothing alike. The other book is something new I bought this summer, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I've read both of these books, not on the crapper in fits and grunts of breath but elsewhere in comfort and often with cookies nearby. Keeping them close during the regular bathroom visit allows me to reread just about any passage in either book and hope that as I expell what needs to be gone, that I can ingest seamless sentence structure and a rhythm to my writing that makes others envious. Neither one of those gals ever talk about taking a dump in their books. I am still a work in progress.
Most of the time, that is where my Oprah Magazine is housed. I'm a big fan of LaOprah---the show and the mag. The articles are diverse and fairly lengthy. The interviews are interesting to read and the features are always engaging. I especially like the book reviews and the piece at the end, What I Know For Sure which Oprah writes giving us her grounded philosophy on a great many things despite the fact that she is richer that God. The AHA Moment feature is farmed out to guest writers, mostly entertainment celebrities where they share a moment of clarity that helped them personally. This month it was Celine Dion's AHA moment. Apparently when Renee, her husband, was diagnosed with skin cancer, Celine found the inner strength to decide things for herself (like what song to pick and how a technician should light her) and to keep his spirits up plus take care of her son. With the help of her staff of 150. I should say now that I've never been a fan and not just because her ferret-like facial features annoy me, along with that voice. It's her whole aura.
A better aha moment could have been written by a teacher friend of mine with a chronically ill son who manages to come in to work, day in and day out and do her job with such poise and grace. She has experienced a few of those aha moments and I'd like to know the source of her revelation to excavate that kind of strength. I'd like the aha moment from that woman (she was on Oprah a few years back) who managed to forgive the man who killed her son. I'd love to read about that kind of compassion, the one moment that led her to that decision.
Which leads me to believe that the next thing I write might be to O Magazine to scold them on such a lame selection for the AHA piece. Didn't know how pissed I was about it until I wrote this. Freaky.

One

Truth be told, most of the time I'm just a big old slug. A sloth of galactic proportions. I would rather sit and watch a movie than just about anything else. Why I didn't become a movie reviewer is a question that continues to baffle me. I've always heard "Do what you love," but I suspect I didn't think it applied to me until it was too late.
I am a fan of many genres, my favorite being sci-fi, but I truly adore any well written story told in an interesting way on film. But the writing always comes first. This week on the free movie cable channels I've been treated to a few of my favorites. Shakespeare In Love being one of them.
This is a movie I've seen a bazillion times and I never grow tired of it, not one scene, not one word of dialogue. I could see this every day for a lifetime and it would still be a treasure from beginning to end. Even Gywenth Paltrow who I'm not a fan of, she does a wonderful job with the lead, accent and all. In fact, everyone with a role, even the extras in the large crowd scene watching Romeo and Juliet being performed, tearful and heartbroken at the play's tragic end, even they are completely believable. As much as I love watching the landscapes and listening to the inspired and sharp dialogue (so funny in so many places), my absolute favorite thing about Shakespeare In Love is the sound that the quill makes when Joseph Fiennes's Shakespeare begins to write. That sound is glorious. And even though the lovers do not end up together, for their goodbye is heartwrenching, we are left somehow satisfied and content. How? I don't know. It's a mystery.

Pinky Swear

I blame the company I keep and the fact I was raised Catholic so the self-guilt comes easily. My blogger pals have not goaded me, they haven't chastised me, they haven't insulted me nor have they challenged me to write more. I have to give them credit because they know all of those things wouldn't have worked as well as just leaving me alone and letting my own shame and insecurity as a writer to work through the delicate web of my self-esteem. So, in keeping with my usual method of operation, that is cannon-balling in the deep end, I hereby vow to blog every day for the next thirty days barring any catastrophic event like floods, hurricanes or the rewriting of the Constitution so the Duhb can run one more time. Now the very fact that don't even have 30 blogs to my name and I started posting last April would cause the average normal person to say, "Hey, maybe I should start slower, work up to it. That would make more sense."
But I am neither average, normal and as most of my friends can attest, I have very little sense. So, there it is. I'm going to have to find something to write about every single day for the next 30 days.

A Wrinkle in Time

Just a few hours ago I was in Borders Books, browsing when I noticed a display of Madeleine L'Engle's books. The covers were all new re-designs and I smiled because even though I've read nearly all her books many times over and own them, I was tempted to buy them with the new covers. Then my eyes drifted to the sign over them: Remembering Madeleine L'Engle 1919-2007.
My heart stopped just for a moment.
I grabbed the nearest salesperson and asked, "When did she die?" The fact that he didn't flinch and wasn't puzzled by the sadness on my face comforted me. "It was earlier this week," he said. I stood there in the middle of this giant bookstore with a big hole in my heart.
For a split second I was back at St Elizabeth's in the Bronx. Sixth grade. A read aloud that first part of the year. I can't remember who my teacher was. Probably a nun. But I do remember what she read to us: A Wrinkle In Time. It was the first time a book ever made me think about good and evil in real ways, ways I could understand. That book was written for kids but it never talked down to them. A Wrinkle In Time became part of my identity and helped define how I saw my world. It gave me strength, showed me wisdom and helped me find courage when I needed it. My childhood was no walk in the park. This book helped me survive it and her other books gave me comfort and a safe place to stay when I was scared or lonely. Tomorrow when I see my 5th graders, I'll come with A Wrinkle In Time in my hand. I'll tell them about Madeleine L'Engle and then, I'll start to read.

Baby Love

I spent some time today holding LMJ, watching her face roll through a cascade of expressions while dreaming that would have made Marlon Brando proud. She has this Taxi-Driver, "you-talkin'-to-me?" look, and there's also this face of absolute sweet peace borrowed from napping Golden Retriever puppies. There's this expression of profound puzzlement, as if she were calculating pi. She also has this look of relief, the kind most of us have in the morning after a satisfying bowel movement (hey, don't make that face, you know what I'm talking about) during which I'm sure she having a most gratifying poop.
Then, there's the signature smirk, half smile, half lips pursed ready to say, "you putz", genetically remastered from her father. That's my favorite.
Most strong women have a smirk (LMJ's dad, I'm sure, got it from his mother, a fierce and powerful goddess I adore). Xena, Warrior Princess, wore a perpetual one, suggesting to sword wielding gangs to "run for your miserable lives," a line I would kill to use at one of the many unpleasant IEP meetings in my career. Siguorney Weaver had one all during Alien Resurrection as the cloned Ripley straddling the line between human and alien, flame-throwing her way past all manner of monsters. All the women of Battlestar Galactica have big frakkin' smirks. Judabear has one when she describes the relentless exploits of her cat, Hansel, an animal who's part Ninja and part Pepe LePew.
So LMJ resides in good company wearing Papa's smirk, one of her many dreamy faces, as she sleeps through her baby days.

Wednesday

I love being home, it's true, I am an ubber-homebody and happy to admit it. When school is in session, being at home takes on a Ground Hog Day quality. It's a lot of the same same on schedule. In the summer, though, schedules are spanked and put in the corner, to-do lists wait patiently for my moods and lots of wallowing in nothingness becomes the order of the day.
So, this is some of what I did on Wednesday.
In the early afternoon, I napped for 45 minutes while the musical stylings of Soundscapes (channel 835 on Comcast) played in the background. Harps. Sounds of the rainforest. Some birdcalls. Eerily melancholy flute melodies. If heaven has a waiting room, this is the music that's piped in.
Later, I watched VH-1's 100 One Hit Wonders hosted by William Shatner. I'll watch anything hosted by Shatner but the guilty pleasure intoxication was amplified by knowing that I had five great books on my night stand just waiting to opened and there I was watching the Safety Dance video by Men Without Hats. If I would have had some S'mores in one hand and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia in the other, it's decadence even Lindsey Lohan would have appreciated.
In between all of this, there were long periods of time where I stared appreciatively at my toes.
I'll explain.
The day before, I joined my pal Andrea, her husband Mike and her 16 year old daughter Kenna for a family pedicure at a local nail joint. The pedicure was a necessary antidote for having spent most of the day with my animal control guy, Jeff, plotting the ultimate demise of the opposums who recently made my attic their permanent address. After hours of hearing about assorted animal feces and the fatal diseases that spring from their molecular tango and the infestation history of the invincible Norweigan Wharf Rat in Jacksonville Beach, I felt a little pampering was needed. An hour of scraping, scrubbing and firm massaging left my feet feeling softer than Scooter Libby's conviction and when the dust cleared, my toenails emerged a Wicked Witch Apple Red. Glorious.
Yeah, summertime. It's all good.

Kingman, Arizona

I spent most of last week in Kingman, Arizona with Judy and her family. Kingman was a work detour on the Goulds on the Run Pacific America Tour '07. Judy and I spent three days with the teachers of the Kingman Learning Academy in a bit of writing training. There's a remarkable mix of energies that churns during these three days. I tell ya, it's not work when you have teachers like these who were open and engaged during all our sessions. When you're a teacher who just finished the school year and you agree to three full days of training at the start of your vacation, that's dedication that should garner more print space than a spoiled hotel socialite going to jail.
These teachers were cool.
We wrote, we laughed and we cried and I'm talking the good cry not the "oh-mah-ghad-I'm-listening-to-Michael-Bolton-accompanied-by-Kenny-G" cry. My favorite thing about writing training, besides marveling at the silky smooth delivery of one Judy Gould, is discovering the layers of lives of our attendees. You want to talk family values? Then you should listen to the way these teachers talk about their children and their wives and husbands, words wrung from memories, sacred, fragile and affirming.
We heard about triumph and loss. We heard the truth come out in verse and song and priceless prose in alliterative anthems. We heard about backyards and porches and new borns and books yearned for and enemies defeated. There were people who approached author's chair the way most of us look at jumping out of a plane with a parachute. As they read, I hope they felt like they were floating because that's how a spirit learns to soar, with acts of bravery, in a room full of people who have their arms extended to catch them.