I want to be Fleshy and Comfortable.

I haven't done a book review in a very long time and I probably won't get to do one, at least not one purely based on my own fancy, for a while. I *like* what I'm reading in Grad School but it's not the same as the complete euphoria I felt at getting to collect my own library and read whatever I wanted, really, for the first time ever.

I've read a lot of stuff since my last book post, but a lot of it was for my book club. Fully 50% of the people who read this blog (I imagine) are in that book club, so I'm not going to bother reviewing those books. The book club is a totally odd creation because we always go into it with such enthusiasm and try to stick with it, but without the wine and cheese and good company it sort of fizzles out (let's be honest).

This year we read, or at least attempted to read, the following books + (Three Word Review):
The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie (Not His Best)
The Witches of Eastwick, by John Updike (Movie Ends Better)
My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully (Lobotomies are Fascinating)
and
Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk (Talk Funny Terrorist)

The problem now is that I have a read a lot of books in the time since I last posted and I have a lot to choose from, but I won't overburden you with silliness. Some things will just have to go into the vault. Now, the the wheat (as opposed to the chaff).

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
First let me say that I have never read something by John Steinbeck that didn't reach into the very roots of my soul and take up residence there. With that out of the way, this book is so wonderfully American. It is the story of families and individuals in relation to the Salinas Valley in California (of course), but what's wonderful about it is the multitude of vignettes and character studies that fill the book. The overarching story of the Hamiltons and the Trasks is grand, but I absolutely love the amazing little stories he tells about the characters. The book is very fleshy and comfortable. It's serious and sad and sweet, but Steinbeck drives me completely crazy because I find myself saying, "God, that is so true. There is so much truth in this."

"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of though or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world." p. 412-413

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
This is a rediscovery. Over the Fourth of July I got into the habit of calling Tim "Huckleberry", and in Colorado I picked the book up and started reading the Modern Library Classics introduction to the text by George Saunders, which has section headings like, "The Ending, OH MY GOD, the Ending" and "Let's Burn It, Then Ban It, Then Burn It Again." To me, if you cannot laugh at Mark Twain, or with him, rather, your days must be very stressful indeed.

I highly prefer Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer (although, honestly, if I was one of them I'd probably be Tom) because Huck looks at the world the way it is and reacts to it normally. Tom lives in a book and, to the detriment of those around him, tries to squeeze the world to fit his fantasy. As a 13 year-old high school kid reading this for the first time, I didn't get any of this, and I didn't care. Ok, ok, there's a raft on the Mississippi and this crazy kid who's naked all the time, and this guy Jim, whatever... but read it again. It's so much better now.

The Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
This too, I re-read for probably the third or fourth time. I picked it up because I felt like my life was completely insane at the time and like everyone I knew was trying to throw everyone else I knew off of a cliff. After re-reading this, I'm sort of astonished and maybe proud that we hand this American middle schoolers and say, "here, process this in your wee brains." If the book was not required reading in your middle or high school, know that it is the story of an airplane full of young boys, about 4 years to 16 years old who crash land on a tropical island with no surviving adults and only Piggy to serve as their slightly tubby and asthmatic voice of reason. If I would be Tom Sawyer, I would also be Simon. Which would not work out so well for me.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
by Michael Ondaatje
This is a very short collection of poems from the author of The English Patient. The different styles and points of view, the photographs and even interviews put together a fascinatingly jumbled, but also, sometimes, deceptively crystal clear portrait of this larger-than-life figure and also of Pat Garrett--because you can't have a hero without a villain and vice versa.

It's not an easy read. The poems aren't simple or "fun." But they're intriguing. Also, I'm in love with the cover.



Blindness
by José Saramago
The very definition of "not simple, fun, or easy to read." The words are easy enough, sure (despite the fact that the style will make you feel the urgency of the story, with its almost utter lack of periods and paragraphs). But this is surely one of the most disturbing pieces of contemporary fiction I know. The premise is simple: one day, everyone in the world begins to go blind. But because the process is gradual (over the course of a few weeks, rather than instantly or over a few years), those with sight throw the rapidly increasing population of the blind into quarantine. This is mainly the story of one group, in quarantine in an abandoned mental asylum, stricken by the horrors not only of a world totally without sight, but without any sort of real provisions.

Like American Psycho, I have to say that the book is a good book. I'm fairly certain there's something about the style and concept that borders on brilliance--it won the Nobel Prize for God's sake. But there are parts of the book that are so disturbing. You will want to scrape your mind clean with a brillo pad, but unfortunately, it's very hard to unlearn something once it's been learned.

Something like normal?

So. Graduate School.

This marks the end of the first sort-of-officially-normal-week of graduate school. It's actually the third week that I've had classes, but because of labor day, and moving, and registration and all sorts of odd reasons, this is the first week that actually resembles what the next two years might feel like.

To begin with, Tim started his job on Monday, so the tables have finally turned. I'm the one who stays in bed while he gets up and goes to the office, and then I do whatever Grad Students do all day.

You would think, since I only have two classes, that means that I do a lot of Beatles Rock Band and trying to convince myself to workout, but not really. My two courses this semester are The Poetics of Diaspora (on Mondays) and The History of the Book (on Thursdays) which leaves a nice little 2-3 day wedge of time in between each class to freak out about how I'm going to read two books of poetry and four articles and create a presentation--for each class. Really though, it's exactly what I was hoping for in every way except that it takes me over an hour to commute to campus on the other side of DC.

To make things really fun, my professors this semester are named Mark McMorris and Michael Macovski, which is a continual source of confusion on my part.

So far I like them both, but History of the Book is my favorite. It's one of those classes where everything makes perfect sense and a) talks about things you think about every day and b) answers questions you've had all your life. The only problem is that it's one of those classes that's on the cusp between English and Communications, which, as usual, is where I find my interests so I keep thinking "Ohhhhh crap... maybe I should have been in the Communications department."

I have too much interest in art and technology to be happy with mere English. Gah. Traitor. The Comm people would never let me read enough novels.

Anyway, the apartment still isn't entirely unpacked. We haven't put a single piece of artwork on the walls, if you can believe it (unless you count the take-out menu holder that Karma Rinpoche gave me in TsoPema). My office is really the only thing that looks like anything, probably because that's where I hang out all day (and it's the room with the most sunlight).

The apartment is pretty incredible though. And more incredible is the park across the street that is, at all times, filled with happy, running, playing dogs. THEY ARE WONDERFUL. I can't go study in the park because all I do is watch the dogs going, "hey guys, hey guys, hey guys, BALL!!!"

I swear we'll be done unpacking soon. And when we are, we'll post pictures. And you can come and stay.

Little White Feet

Frank and Walter were in love...

There's a certain majesty about someone who drools in your hair at 4:00 a.m. and bites your ankles to herd into the kitchen, where he has deposited a bleeding snake for your pleasure. Walter was particularly fond of sitting just far enough away from you that you knew he was there, in the window of the barn, at the top of a tree, behind a plant, with a look of contentment on his face as though he had forgotten that he was the one who had been rescued. He was certain that he was the rescuer. The saggy-bellied knight of his country castle.

It took a monumental amount of effort to get Walter (and Wiley) Home. Carly found them in 2004, huddled by the back tire of a truck in the parking lot of a restaurant in Shreveport and brought them to me when they were small enough that I could fit both of them in the palm of one hand. Not thinking I'd be able to keep them, I called them "brown cat" and "white cat" even though everyone I knew was determined to give them names. Tim and I took them to a "No-Kill" shelter when they were old enough to open their eyes, feed, and bathe themselves a little, and the woman behind the counter said, "sure, we can put them to sleep by the end of the day." I was horrified and she said simply, "No one wants plain striped cats."

So I took them back.

They lived with me (and Zack and Jonathan) in Shreveport, on Merrick St. for a number of months while I got ready to go to France, and are really the only pets I've every had that were just mine.

White Cat became Walter and Brown Cat became Wiley when it became clear that I couldn't do anything with them but "keep" them, which meant taking them to Mom's. But first, they moved to Tim's parents' house in Plano and lived in the bathroom for a bit before we drove all the way to Colorado with them.

My mom thinks I'm a shithead for always bringing her cats, but she obliged them (and me) by buying them a piece of sheepskin to cuddle at night... like they had at home, and when Walter began his crusade to build a nest in her hair every night I think her initial annoyance developed into something like eternal and undying love.

Within a few months of moving to Crawford, my Great Grandmother died and my mom moved into her house and shortly afterward, Wiley was hit by car. It is a hazard of living in the country, where animals live indoors and out, and people swerve to hit them on purpose.

Four years later, Walter is gone as well.

It probably seems ridiculous to care so much about one cat. We have eight others for God's sake. But honestly, if the others were to wander into kitty Shangri-la and not come back, it would be no tragedy.

There was something very whole, and solid, and comforting and yes, human, about Walter. His death was more horrifying in that he tried to come home, even after he was hit.

There are some perfect animals, who have no flaws. Whose minds and attitudes are finely tuned into our own so that they are, in a way, better friends to us than any person could ever be. Even when they are forcing the bathroom door open while we shower so they can drink from the faucet, dropping half-dead voles in the laundry basket, "helping" us pack, or knit, or eat, or tie our shoes, peeing--yes, peeing--in our hair, or making us chase them through the tall grass with a flashlight at 11:30 at night because, please God, we don't want them to get hit by a car...

It probably seems dramatic to you, but my world is not as nice of a place. And I'm hurting for my Mom because I know she's hurting.


"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans" ~ James Herriot

Short and Sweet

I'm supposed to be packing so I'll keep this brief.

• Tim and I are moving to our new apartment tomorrow. We're both so excited and a little bit nervous. Excited because the apartment is amazing. Nervous because everyone who was going to help us went out of town for Labor Day weekend except Saint Alsn, who can only help us until she has to go to work.
• I started graduate school on Monday. More precisely, I had orientation and registered on Monday, my classes started on Wednesday, and meanwhile I've been packing all week. I still haven't gotten any of my loan money from the school (learning to deal with the Georgetown Administration should qualify people for some kind of award), so there's been ZERO income on my part for weeeeeeeeeks. Pasta it is!
• The best, the best, the BEST news of all, the head of the Graduate Department asked me to come and see him yesterday because he had some good news... it turned out that the news was a full tuition scholarship for the full two years that I'm at Georgetown. He was so sort of funny and nonchalant about telling me (though he was obviously happy) that I'm not sure I reacted with the proper level of freaking out. My life actually CHANGED yesterday. This really and truly changes everything for years and years to come.
• Wheeeeeew. (That's the sound of a sigh of relief, in relation to the post above.)
• Our trip to Colorado was amazing and wonderful and I really, really, truly and absolutely do want to move home. But right now, now that I'm actually on the path I'm supposed to be on again, instead of just dumping my days into a job for no reason, I feel much better about being here and I hate the city a lot less.