naivehelga

The Things I've Lost

2011-08-27T14:33:00.003-04:00

Things in this life come and go. Some are items you treasure and will never, ever lose; others are so ephemeral you hardly even noticed you had them in the first place, much less when you got rid of them. But this list is about those things that fall solidly in the middle: things I noticed when I lost them and sometimes still lament their absence but am able to carry on without.
* sapphire ring, lost 1999. I bought myself this ring shortly after my college boyfriend & I broke up - I had hoped he would propose (oh, but in retrospect, how glad I am he didn't) and when instead we parted ways, I bought myself this antique sapphire & diamond ring to make myself feel better. Small, but still sort of extravagant for me. And I LOST the fucker. Lost it inside my washing machine. Couldn't retrieve it. At least, that's where I thing it was. I'm pretty sure I put it in my pocket once when I was washing my hands or something, and didn't notice it was gone, and then washed those jeans, and poof, no more ring.

* Clinique Black Honey lip gloss, lost October 25, 2008. Oh, I know EXACTLY where this lip gloss is. I was in a wedding, and all the girls had cute matching tote bags that we got as gifts from the bride, and my lip gloss ended up in someone else's bag. AND CLINIQUE DOESN'T MAKE IT ANYMORE. I loved this lip gloss and I am so sad that some other girl has it... and probably threw it away because ew, who wants to use some random lip gloss that somebody accidentally put in your bag? (sadly, my lip gloss wasn't the only part of that marriage to not last. ouch.) I tried to get it back, but no avail. Farewell, perfect lip gloss.

* work keys, lost January 2008. It's not like I didn't get another set when I realized I lost them;I just felt like a doofus for leaving my work keys in New York when I went there for a conference. I called the hotel, they said they didn't have them, but I swear, they have to be there. Although I sometimes expect to find them in a dark corner of the basement at work...

* dolphin necklace, lost July 1994. Again, I know exactly where I left my dolphin necklace: on Trent Thompson's boat. I asked him to bring it home with him, but he forgot, and then I forgot, and now I don't have that necklace. I probably wouldn't be wearing it these days anyway, but I treasured it at the time and would like to keep it in the junk jewelry box with all the other beaded necklaces and yarn bracelets from that time.

* copies of Barrel Fever and Naked, lost September 2004. I lent these books to someone I didn't know very well, with plenty of time for her to finish them before our temporary friendship came to an end (we were in a show together - trust me, those can be very intense friendships that die immediately upon the show closing). She forgot to bring them to me on the last day of the show, but we still had strike the next day, so I said I'd get them from her then. And then I skipped strike. Completely my fault, but I'm sad I don't have those books anymore.

material loss - C- (hey, I didn't really need any of that stuff anyway, right?)

Bottoms: A Log

2011-08-25T23:21:00.003-04:00

Thursday August 25

12 AM-7:45 AM: orange & blue plaid pajama bottoms

8 AM-8:35 AM: pink running shorts (to wear whilst eating breakfast & drying hair)

8:35 AM-6:45 PM: brown striped skirt

6:45 PM-8:30 PM: pink running shorts again

8:30 PM-9:15 PM: jeans (walking the dog, to deter mosquitoes)

9:15 PM-11:15 PM: yoga pants (Pilates/TV watching)

11:15 PM and beyond: orange & blue plaid pajama bottoms

Daily total: 5 total bottoms, 6 changes

laundry - B-

Breakfast

2011-08-24T17:11:00.004-04:00

I have an anecdote: when I was in college, one Saturday morning before a football game, pre-game marching band practice was cancelled because it was raining heavily. My friend Katie & I decided to go out for breakfast, since we had extra time to kill. But we couldn't make decisions on what we wanted, 'cause everything sounded good. So we ordered EVERYTHING. Biscuits & gravy, eggs, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, pancakes, hash browns, toast... OH MY GOD, SO MUCH FOOD. It was amazing. For about 15 minutes. And then we felt sick. I don't think I've ever eaten as much food in one sitting as I did that morning at Stoby's.

Breakfast isn't just the most important meal of the day, it's also my favorite. Maybe it's because I eat the same thing 9 days out of 10 (bowl of cereal, cup of coffee), but when I get the opportunity to make a delicious breakfast selection, I have a really hard time. Savory or sweet? Is meat involved? Are eggs? Can I (or the good cook who lives with me) prepare it at home? I am usually the last person to order when it's a restaurant breakfast meal, and more often than not, I make a snap decision... uhhh, BLUEBERRY PANCAKES! And even though I never regret my decision, I always look longingly across the table at the omelette/cinnamon roll/Eggs Benedict my dining mates have selected.

Breakfast - B+

Signs of Adulthood

2011-07-20T11:26:00.003-04:00

I think I have a very grown-up refrigerator. We'll talk about the inside another time (but I'll leave you with a sneak preview: beer and Brie). Today, I'd like to talk you through the outside, and why I think it shows that I'm a grown-up. Cultural anthropology, here we come!

We'll start with the center dry erase board (and continue clockwise). If you look closely, you'll see a grocery list featuring butter and bullion cubes. Also, our rent amounts are listed, since it changes in a couple months. Although, in the spirit of full disclosure, all that stuff is old. Rent's going up again in August, and we bought that butter in April.

Moving on to the pig, chicken and lamb magnets. Those are from Alton Brown's cookbook. There's also a cow, who lives on the side of the fridge.

Baby birth announcements - a sure sign of grown-up-ness. My good friend's tot AND my niece are up there.

Please note the Barbra Streisand Hanukkah card. Babs, with angel wings and a halo, holding a menorah. And of course, the inside reads "Hello Gorgeous." Probably one of the best pieces of mail I've ever received, so on the fridge it went.

The center of the freezer also contains a graduation party announcement - if I don't put it there, I won't remember to go to that party.

Moving down to the refrigerator portion, you'll see artwork created by my two-year-old nephew... because kid art BELONGS on the fridge. Additionally, there's a copy of our Christmas card, because it was AWESOME and I like to look at it, and a coupon for Heartgard for Wash.

Moving back up to the freezer, you'll see more evidence that we own a dog: a Cairn Terrier magnet and emergency vet contact magnet are holding up a picture of Nate's friend's family. Aren't they cute?

Finally, you'll see an item I treasure: a note from Wash that appeared in my suitcase when I was walking in the Breast Cancer 3-Day a couple years ago. He's got his nose in the air, and the text reads "I NOSE YOU CAN DO IT!!!!" Wash is clever like that.

I really like my refrigerator. Somehow, it just feels right.

signs of adulthood - A-

I just made myself really sad.

2011-07-19T14:31:00.002-04:00

... by re-reading my old blog posts.

I don't think any of you are still out there. Well, maybe Meggie. And maybe Lenette, because I think you get notified whenever I add a new post? That's cool. Technology is rad.

I have gotten by by saying "I write my blog in my head every day," or "I'm too busy living my life to take the time to document it." But I really, REALLY used to enjoy writing this little blog. It wasn't an effort, it wasn't forced, and people really seemed to like it - and I never pretended like it was for me! It was for my readers! Brightening your day, making you laugh, commenting on the absurdities of my day-to-day existence. I sort of miss that.

So once again, I turn over a new leaf. Fingers crossed it sticks this time.

Once More, With Feeling - a hopeful B+

I Get These People Confused:

2010-09-15T17:57:00.004-04:00

Chazz Palminteri and Oliver Platt. Why? Why do you become the same person in my head? I saw somewhere that Chazz is playing Angie Harmon's dad in Rizzoli and Isles, and I thought, aren't they the same age? Turns out that Chazz is 20 years older than Angie, but only 8 years older than Oliver Platt... so I can't explain my confusion there. But really, these guys are totally interchangeable to me. I loved that movie The Impostors, but I couldn't tell you which one, Chazz or Oliver, was in this film (turns out it's Oliver."

This is almost as bad as Robert De Niro vs. Al Pacino.

celebrity doppelganagers - C

My Performing Arts Fix

2010-09-07T19:13:00.004-04:00

When I was a kid, there were four ways to see singing and dancing on TV: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Miss America, the Tony awards, and the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. And of the four, the telethon was my favorite (yes, more than Miss America, believe it or not, I was only rooting for Texas). It marked the end of summer, and while I loved summer vacation, I always looked forward to going back to school. It aired overnight, which meant that I got to stay up late (but not as late as my brother - I'm pretty sure he watched THE WHOLE TELETHON at least once). And the musical performances were so varied - I mean, Charo was on the telethon! And ventriloquists and plate spinners and singers and baton twirlers! I loved it. Really and truly loved it.
I remember the first time I gave money to MDA. I don't think I saved up my allowance - more likely, I asked my mom if I could give the money and she just took care of it. But I was five or six, and I called in, and somehow they misunderstood my name and I was announced on the air as Armando. I think I was pretty upset at the time.

Now, with American Idol and Glee and Dancing with the Stars and America's Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance... I can't even tell you the last time I watch the telethon. Plus, didn't it used to be on every station at once? Now it's on some crap cable channel. Sorry, Jerry.

The Jerry Lewis MDA telethon, mid-80s - B+
the telethon now - C-

Weekend Fun

2010-09-03T22:04:00.002-04:00

I know that most people use the weekend as a time to stay up late, then catch up on sleep by sleeping in on Saturday and/or Sunday morning. Well, I like to sleep in, for sure - but to me, there is no better way to spend a Friday night than crawling into bed with a good book at 9:30 and falling asleep by 10:15. I am telling you, going to bed early is my favorite part of the weekend. My bed is so comfy - and if I can pull off the perfect combination of freshly shaved legs and clean sheets, I am in heaven. Plus, the sleeping weather is PERFECT right now. It's a little chilly in the evening, about 55-60, so I can sleep with the window open but with the comforter on top of me and I don't get too sweaty.

I LOVE to sleep. And it's past my bedtime.

early to bed - A+
early to rise - D-

Emmys Recap

2010-09-02T20:42:00.004-04:00

How 'bout that Jane Lynch!? I was rooting for her, all the while thinking no one else from the cast had a prayer of winning. Turns out I was right, but Jane! She was so cute! And some other people won awards, too.

There's your Emmy recap, folks!

Jane Lynch - A+

More About Books

2010-08-31T09:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently this is not the first blog post I've written titled More About Books. Huh.

My book club decided to read 10-10-10 earlier this summer. Let me clarify: someone in the book club chose 10-10-10, and the rest of us had no choice but to read it. Well, I guess we had the choice to not read it, but that's kind of rude - and sure, some people chose to not read it and not attend book club that month. I, on the other hand, begrudginly decided to read this self-help book with a "life-transforming idea" even though I knew I couldn't attend book club. I've only read one other self-help book (Who Moved My Cheese? I'm pretty sure my dad gave it to me when I was in turmoil in college) so I figured I could give another one a shot.

And wouldn't you know it? It was OK. Not spectacular. I did like that it gave structure to making big life decisions - and even some smaller decisions - that ISN'T asking friends & family for advice, or something more elusive like "look into your heart." Suzy says that you just ask yourself "how is this going to play out ten minutes from now (immediately), 10 months from now (near future) and 10 years from now (distant future)?" And this makes total sense to me. Should I stay in my apartment or look for a house? Should I stay in my job or look for a new one? Should I eat those cookies? Etc. The framework is great - and super helpful. I've already used it a couple times.

But here's where it fails me - I can't live my life this way all the time. Those cookies I mentioned earlier? Here's how that plays out:
10 minutes from now - my mouth and my stomach will be so very happy.
10 months from now - I probably won't remember those cookies, and I might have gained a pound or two.
10 years from now - I will weigh over 200 pounds.
But I ate the cookies anyway. Because they were delicious.

The failure of the book was the examples. Suzy has a gazillion friends, all of whom have used 10-10-10 a number of times to great success. AND SHE TOLD US ABOUT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I got the point by page 50, and still had to slog through 100 more. This could have been a pamphlet instead of a book - but then, how would Suzy make any money?

10-10-10 - C+

What Does This MEAN!?

2010-08-30T18:00:00.000-04:00

There's this song I hear on my radio station once a day - it's Bonnie Raitt's Thing Called Love. And in the song are these lyrics:

"I ain't no porcupine, take off your kid gloves."

WHAT!? Are you kidding me!?

Kid gloves are made of super soft leather, from young goats or sheep (ah yes, that's where "kid" comes in). They are a symbol of elegance and wealth -

AND SHOULD NEVER BE USED TO HANDLE A PORCUPINE!

Jeesh.

bad lyrics - C+

Plants vs. Zombies

2010-08-29T21:00:00.000-04:00

You wanna know what I'm doing when I could otherwise be blogging?

PLAYING PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES.

I love this game so hard. I played on my friend's iPad one weekend, and had to have it. I think I bought it for my computer less than a week after that magical weekend of playing it non-stop on the iPad - but if I hadn't been able to find it for my PC, I was seriously considering buying a iPad. That is how much I love this game. It is also how addictive my personality is. It's a good thing I don't gamble.

PvZ is my kind of zombie game. It's cartoon-y and the plants have faces. It's the kind of zombie game you can feel good about letting your eight-year-old play, because there's no blood and gore - although limbs do fall off, and if you fail, a big screen pops up that reads:

So maybe that's not great for kids.

I am hoping that there's a second edition, because I've almost beaten the first PvZ. And I'll be jonesing before too long.

Plants vs. Zombies - A

Wow.

2010-08-29T15:14:00.002-04:00

Remember when my blog was awesome? I'm doing some redecorating in my apartment, and I thought there was a digital version of a picture I wanted somewhere on my blog (there is, in this post), so I had to go back and look. And sure enough, my blog used to be awesome. AWESOME. But I can't tell you the last time by blog was awesome - 2008, maybe? And every time I try to turn over a new leaf (another new leaf), I blow it.
And let's not pretend that asking you, my faithful readers, for suggestions helps. Because it doesn't. I've already tried that.

So hang in there. One day, I'll become inspired again, and perhaps reestablish a little bit of awesome.

The good ol' days - A
by blog's current incarnation - D

Allergies

2010-07-07T16:47:00.001-04:00

sneezing - A-

Miss Michigan

2010-06-21T08:49:00.003-04:00

Miss Michigan 2010 took place last week, and in my role as executive director of a local teen pageant, I spent the entire week in Muskegon (right on the shores of Lake Michigan) wearing dresses and sparkly jewelry and lots of mascara. LOTS of mascara.
My favorite part of Miss Michigan week is... the gossip. I can't even apologize for it. I've found an amazing group of women who have taken me under their collective wing, and after each night's show (two night of preliminaries for the teens and misses, then a night of finals each) we sat around in our hotel room and dished about unfortunate choices in talent, swimsuit and evening gown.
And even if we didn't 100% agree every time, there were some ensembles that just couldn't be supported. You're just going to have to believe me on this one, friends, there were a couple gowns that NO ONE I know could get behind.
And my girl made top ten, and I'm so proud of her. That's her, playing the piano in her INCREDIBLE talent gown. (photo courtesy Evan Witek, The Muskegon Chronicle)

And now it's back to real life, where nothing shines quite as bright. But I do love my own bed.

Miss Michigan - A-

Welcome to Summer

2010-06-11T21:32:00.000-04:00

Fuck you, Mia Michaels, how did you get to be so good? I love love love this piece. I cried while I was watching it last night.

And BIG UPS to the all stars. They feel like a reward for watching the show for the last four seasons.

the return of So You Think You Can Dance - A+

This Week on Glee!

2010-06-10T13:12:00.005-04:00

I have been remiss in writing about my new favorite scripted television show, Glee. If you know anything about Glee, you have already assumed that I love it. It's got everything I love: hysterical teenagers, singing and dancing, and Jane Lynch. I really don't think there's anything that could make this show better - unless it's the addition of an episode dedicated to the genre I like to call Lesbian Acoustic: Indigo Girls, Dar Williams, Tori Amos etc. Although I'm not sure those lend themselves well to choreography. On to the spoilers!

So this week on Glee, Mr. Schu and the kids finally got their shit together and selected their songs for regionals - remember, Glee Club's continued existence is riding on them winning or placing. But Sue was a celebrity judge (along with a local news anchor, Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban) and was set to foil the Glee-sters. Nevertheless, they KILLED and were shoo-ins to win. And Quinn's mom had a change of heart and wanted to be her mom again - good thing, too, since Quinnie went into labor right there at regionals. And if you want to see what is quite possibly the most ridiculous montage in television history, watch Quinn giving birth while Vocal Adrenaline performs Bohemian Rhapsody. Awesome... sort of? Maybe?

Alas, even though Sue had a change of heart and decided that New Directions really were the top group, they didn't win. They didn't even place. I got a little teary when Brittany was still clutching Santana's hand even after they had announced the winner. Tears all around - the kids sang To Sir With Love to Mr. Schu. For real? You had to know that this song would be sung at some point this season; it's a miracle they held off this long. But it was nice to hear Matt & Mike actually speak - and for Mike to say "I was afraid to dance outside my bedroom" was a killer, too. Seriously, TEARY-EYED.

Long story short, even though Figgins had said they had to win or place for Glee Club to continue, he gave them another year to prove themselves. So another season of Glee is guaranteed! YAY!!!

Glee season finale - A-

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

2010-05-31T20:30:00.000-04:00

Oh my God. OH MY GOD. This book was so good. I know that, practically speaking, every book is a page turner (unless you have a Kindle), but I finished this book in about 24 hours, and that includes about seven hours of sleep, during which time I WOKE UP THINKING ABOUT THIS BOOK. I contemplated getting out of bed to finish it, just so that I could know what happened. And I want to recommend it to everyone I know, and I've loaned it to my friend in New York and I'm contemplating buying an additional copy so that I can have a loaner copy and a stay-at-home copy. I only have two other books like that (and I'll send you five bucks if you can name them both).
Here's a description I found on GoodReads, which seems to be a version of the back-of-the-book description:
"In 1986, fresh out of college, Susan Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point,

China

had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit."

SEE!? Even the book jacket calls it a page turner! It was so, so good - and I finished it right before I got to select the book for my book club, so this is our July read. I'm going to be so disappointed if the ladies don't love it.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven - A+

Hacked.

2010-05-31T19:53:00.003-04:00

So I got hacked last week. While I'm not sure which came first, the Hotmail or the Facebook, it has been a ridiculous week full of frantic phone calls to the bank and credit card company and a flurry of changing usernames and passwords. Which really sucks, because my memory's not that good and I have hard time remembering which password I use for which thing, but I shouldn't use all the same password, because that's bad. And The Hubs and I have had a few tense moments because of this - the hidden scourge of hacking.

The bright side, an old friend Googled me and found me at work; concerned, she tracked me down and we ended up having a wonderful chat, and may be back to be being real friends again. And, one of my Stardoll buddies did the same. Imagine, a woman who I've never met, never spoken to on the phone, FOUND ME to check and make sure that I wasn't stranded in Wales with no money... and I'm pretty sure she was willing to help me if I was stranded. So while hackers are bad, I've determined that people are generally really, really good.

Take mey advice: change your passwords.

hackers - F

Stirring the Blood

2010-04-11T13:31:00.003-04:00

There are some episodes of television that never fail to get me pumped. And here, my friends, are some of my favorite clips:
The West Wing, Two Cathedrals

Designing Women, If You're Not In Georgia

ER, Orion in the Sky

Enjoy!

Birthday Wishes

2010-04-10T11:20:00.004-04:00

April 14, 2010 (I think he's the first pup on the left)

April 10, 2009

April 10, 2010

Happy Birthday to my best buddy.

Wash - A+

Weekend at Bernhard's

2010-04-08T12:27:00.003-04:00

So I heard this cute little story on NPR this morning (ooh, aren't I fancy?): two German women have been accused of trying to board a flight from Liverpool to Berlin -with a dead body! The widow and step-daughter of said dead body INSIST that he was alive when they got to the airport - but the airline porter is pretty sure that he was stone cold when he arrived... in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses. BBC told me that officially repatriating a dead body can cost thousands of dollars, and it sounds like these ladies were trying to sneak him back in. Maybe they thought no one would notice that he couldn't get out of his wheelchair... or wake up... or have a pulse.

Click here to read more about these zany Germans, and click here to read more about repatriation!

Incidentally, I don't know why I'm surprised that the Liverpool airport is officially called the Liverpool John Lennon Airport, but I am - but I love it. What I love even more? That the airport's tagline is Above Us Only Sky. Now that's a poetic airport!

besting Terry Kiser - B+ (points off for creepiness)

The Room

2010-04-01T08:47:00.006-04:00

There's no other way to explain it: The Room is BANANAS. The Room has achieved cult classic status by being quite possibly the best worst movie of all time. There will always be some who advocate for Manos: The Hands of Fate or Troll 2 - but trust me, they haven't seen The Room.

I first heard about The Room about a year and a half ago via this Entertainment Weekly article, and I had been on the hunt to see it since. Last weekend, my sister art house theater with sweet midnight movies decided to show it as part of the area film festival, so The Hubs and I sucked it up and not only stayed up until midnight, but left the house. Scandalous! But it was totally worth it. This is truly the worst movie I've ever seen. The specifics are so vast that I hardly know where to begin, but I'll give it a shot: the acting is terrible, the plot even more so. There are three gratuitous sex scenes in the first twenty minutes, but they're not sexy - far from it, actually. I'm cringing just remembering it. And to call them "continuity errors" is being charitable.
And then there's Tommy. Tommy Wiseau, actor/writer/producer/director, by far the star of the picture. There's genius in there somewhere, I'm sure of it - but oh. My. God. This movie is just terrible, and things happen that make no sense, and then you see his naked ass, and he's got some crazy Austrian or German accent that just make everything even funnier, and then there are SPOONS, and then Lisa's neck! Her neck!

You have to see it. You HAVE to see it. I can't do it justice, but it blew my mind.

The Room - A

One of These Things Is Not Like The Other

2010-03-21T20:13:00.012-04:00

UPDATE: THIS, my friends, is Caressa. Caressa Cameron, Miss America 2010.

And the rest? Well, the rest you can find at your local pharmacy. They are all name brands of birth control. Yep, even Diane.

Thanks for playing!

Alesse
Diane
Junel
Leena
Caressa
Linessa
Solia
Camila
Mircette
Cryselle
Mirena
Karvia

Live Blog - American Idol

2010-03-16T19:58:00.018-04:00

It's 7:58 PM. I have never live blogged before. I am secretly very nervous, but also really excited. Also, I've never watched a single of American Idol this season, so this could be awesome.

Oooh, pretty lights! Ryan Seacrest is doing his thing.
Welcome to the main event? Really? What is this, wrestling? Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuumblllllle!!!

The big stage is, in fact, big. It's the top twelve.
Showin' the judges some love! Ellen is wearing a big scarf. How cold do you think it is in that auditorium?

Time to look at the top twelve! Pretty dress on the girl in front. Some of these kids look really green. One of 'em looks like he's going to barf. Based on looks alone, I like the kid in the hipster glasses.

And it's the music of... The Stones! Seriously, I think I can only name one Rolling Stones song. No, two. I'm sorry, Pat. Apparently, they have timeless appeal. Oh, wait, three songs! Ryan says they are the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world. I think U2 might have something to say about that.

Time for Michael's back-home story: music was his savior. Pretty sure I've heard this one before. Mike has a cute wife. I thought he might be gay. Oh well. Cute baby, though!
Mike is singing Miss You, which I have never heard of. And he starts with some high notes. Sing it, brother! OK, too many high notes. His mid-range is really nice, but those high notes have to stop. Mike has a nice voice, but I think he needs a little help with his styling - big chain around the neck AND a wallet chain. Not awesome. Pretty good performance, though.
Randy speaks - "yo" count: 1, "dog" count: 1. Randy thought it was good. Ellen thought it was amazing! Kara thought he delivered...
And Simon, in a gray cashmere sweater, thought it was a little corny and a little desperate. I'm telling you, it was the high notes! Damn, Mike is a big guy. I can see the former football player.
First Ryan/Simon altercation! Wow, Ryan is getting in Simon's face. Weird. Staged or legit?

8:11 PM - first commercial break! And... it's a Kris Allen commercial for Ford.

My neighbor is bringing us Indian takeout, to help pay back The Hubs for helping her move. I'm going to feel kind of bad when she shows up and wants to hang out and I'm eating and blogging at the same time. But she reads the blog (hi, Jennifer, thanks for dinner!), so I'm hoping that she appreciates the novelty and anxiety of this project.

8:16 - we're back!
Dede's mom can't watch her perform, she gets too nervous. Is this supposed to be charming? I think Dede is creepy.
Oh, it's spelled Didi! OK, even more creepy.
And I do not like Didi's voice. Randy might call it pitchy. The low notes are especially not good. Oh, wow, a LOT of it is pitchy. And she sang some song called Playing With Fire? Again, never heard of it. She definitely messed up the lyrics.
Randy speaks - 1 yo, 1 man, 1 dude. And he liked it.
Ellen says an amazing voice.
Kara says Didi attacked with intensity... Jennifer (back with the Indian food!) says she didn't like it.
Simon agrees. Also, I think Simon has on too much eyeliner. As well as bronzer... on his chest.
Ohhh, Didi's playing the "I'm not that sweet, I live in LA" card. Really, Didi? You had to go there? Ridiculous.

Time for Casey! Oh no, child of divorce. And he had surgery a lot when he was little and had a bad reaction to something? OK, slightly more compelling than the divorce thing (what do they think this is, Intervention?). Casey would be nothing without his family.
And yet again, a song I've never heard of. Casey's cute. And he can sing! but I think he's like a harder version of Kris Allen. I don't see him winning, it's too much like last year. But never underestimate the Idol voters. Clean cut does well.

Randy speaks: 1 "dog." Casey's back!
Ellen speaks: Casey's a heartthrob, but she's gay, and she loved him, too.
Kara says Casey's a rockstar. Casey showed his soul. Wow, sound bite much?
Simon said it was like an audition performance, and not incredible. But that he's a good artist, and there needs to be more... just be a star.

Ryan Seacrest is SHORT. Shorty McShortpants made some weird comment about Ellen being a natural blond.

Commercial break: 8:29 PM.

And we're back. I missed Lacey Brown, because I was eating dinner, but long story short, she kind of sucks. And she started singing in church. Don't they all?

Andrew Garcia: you're the one I wanted to love, with your chubby face and your cute glasses, but not only do you have the most trite life story, you weren't very good. I can't even keep track of Randy's dogs, yos, mans and dudes. Ellen loved it, of course. Kara wanted more intensity (sort of like that scene in Lost in Translation). She wants to make him better. Passionate. Not angry. Kara, just stop talking. Simon bets it was better in rehearsal. Huh, Simon is actually saying constructive things.
Looks like Andrew is about as tall as Short McShortpants. www.celebheights.com says that Seacrest is 5' 7 3/4". I find that hard to believe.

Commercial break! Jennifer says "I wonder what Indians eat for breakfast. I'm so enamored of what they eat for lunch and dinner..."

8:54, and we're back! Katie (aka Pretty Dress) is on stage. She has kind of a wacky speaking voice - which bodes well for her singing. Yay! Sounds like she doesn't really know who the Stones are. Oh no, home video footage of her singing From This Moment On at a wedding when she was about eight! I feel for you, Katie. Love her necklace. She's sitting on a stool, singing some ballad... for real, what are these songs!? I have company here, I don't have the volume turned up super loud, so I can't hear what Seacrest says... oh, it's Wild Horses. OK. Nate would say too much wankery. These songs should just stand on their own, they don't need all this embellishment.
Randy speaks: 2 yos, a little pitchy. Jennifer interprets that to be a little boring.
Ellen says pitchy, but then amazing. Ellen, pick a new adjective.
Kara says it's never perfect, but that it was better than last week. Um, thanks?
Simon and his eyeliner say it was a good song choice, but that the emotion went out in the second half.

Commercial break at 9:00. One hour = six singers. So yeah, there's another hour of this shit. THIS is why I determined that I wouldn't be watching Idol this year.

OK, Nate just said "is anyone reading it?" Am I live blogging wrong? I'm going to publish this half and then just hit publish post periodically. So that it's a little more live.

Shorty is back, with another cute story. Tim is just so cute! He comes from a cute family, with cute drawings and game night and just the sweetest little face! He's singing Under My Thumb - if I had never heard of Jason Mraz, I would think this reggae-inspired versionwas adorable. But he's just a Jason Mraz wannabe! And he should smile more. It's awkward that he dropped his guitar - not literally, but he just stopped playing. Weird. I don't hate it, but it's not awesome. The judges' backs do not look enthused. Let's see what their fronts say:
Randy speaks - man, wow, he didn't get it.
Ellen didn't like it either! But in her Ellen way. She wasn't wowed. I'm just glad that she's not loving everything.
Kara is applauding him for doing something different... which is ridiculous! IT WAS JUST LIKE JASON MRAZ! Kara says he made it his own. Note: 9:10 PM is the first time all night I've heard "made it your own."
Simon says it didn't work. If only Tim weren't so CUTE, he'd totally go home, but see above mention of Casey - Idol voters LOVE clean-cut, cute boys, so I bet he's safe.

9:11 PM - commercial break...
hey, is that Phillip Banks shilling for Kaplan University? What up, Uncle Phil!? Say hi to Carlton for me!

9:15 - Siobhan Magnus from Barnstable, Mass. I LOVE her dad's accent. She has hipster glasses, too. She's singing Paint It Black. It's not bad - not perfect, maybe she's trying a little too hard, but...
OK, whoa. Crazy scream notes followed by the tones of an angel. Yowza. That was pretty sweet.
Randy said yo, and hot!
Ellen loves it, the way she looks, the way she sounds.
Kara loves it.
Simon loves it! Best interpretation of a song tonight.

OMG, 9:21 and another commercial. Stop the madness.

9:25. Six months ago, Lee was working at the paint store - AND NOW THIS. Again, Lee's a cute guy. Unless he SUCKS, he's going to make it pretty far. Lee is singing Beast of Burden. And the backing tracks sound like Muzak. For realz, I could hear this in an elevator. He does have a good voice, but those backing tracks are Aw. Ful.
Randy says dog, man, dude, and DOPE. And a yo to wrap things up.
Ellen liked it, but it was like a hospital gown: it almost came together, but not quite. That Ellen! Where does she come up with these things!?
Kara says tremendous growth.
Simon thinks Lee's personality is holding him back - he's got an incredibly good voice but he doesn't shine. Word to that, Simon. Ohhhh, this is the kid who looked like he was going to barf in the opening line-up!
Lee is only about as tall as Shorty McGee. They both have tall hair.

Commercial at 9:32. This is pretty tiresome.

Glee commercial! Tuesday April 13 after Idol! I can't wait!!! Seeing this commercial has made this whole experience worthwhile.

9:36 PM. Time for Paige Miles. Oh no, Paige's dad died when she was little, and she grew up singing in church. Paige is singing Honky Tonk Woman. A little awkward for a black girl. I'm just sayin'. But she's great! I wish she wasn't wearing leggings, but other than that, she looks good, too. I wish I had heard Paige sing something other than this...
Hold up. IS she wearing a ROMPER? Oh sweet lord, she IS. Better she gets it out of the way now, when there are definitely weaker singers, and she's not getting judged solely on her outfit. 'Cause girl, NO ONE should wear a romper.
Randy says man x2. He liked it.
Paige was struggling this week? She has laryngitis? Simon thinks she's better than this performance, but it was still pretty good. Um, Ryan is taller than page.

Next up: Aaron Kelly. Whose mother's name is Kelly. Kelly Kelly. And... stop right there. I will never be able to get past Kelly Kelly. I don't want to be cruel, and I hope Kelly Kelly never reads this - but oh, how sad. Kelly Kelly's son is adopted, so there's that. He is singing... I don't know, something with wankery. Benji? Jinji? Angie? Oh, Angie! Maybe Kelly Kelly's son needs to enunciate a little more. Nice clear voice, but I think he might be a weenie. Oh, he's young. There's going to be a voice change in Aaron's future, I think.

ARRRGH!!! I hit a button and all my comments about the judges went away. Damn. Well, they loved it. And after the break, the last singer... oh, but it's the longest break yet. How much do you think advertisers pay for a 60-second spot during the final Idol commercial break?

Hi Crystal. You look like little Jodie Foster. And your dad seems like a sweet guy. I wish you didn't have dreads. You Can't Always Get What You Want... and it is good. I can hear her singing on my favorite radio station.
Randy says: yo, oh yo! Man, he loves her, not his favorite, but he loves her.
Ellen concurs. Needs more personality. Stop thinking!
Kara concurs.
Simon says Crystal was the clear favorite, but this was the first time where she was beaten by someone, so she's gotta dig deep and KILL. Simon has been really pretty great tonight - not unkind, which is sort of a surprise.

The numbers one more time: Michael good, Didi weird, Casey good (and tall), Lacey pretty bad, Andrew uncomfortable, Katie not great, Tim cute but boring, Siobhan dramatic, Lee unexciting, Paige good, Aaron good, Crystal very good. If I were a voter, I would probably vote for Crystal and Paige.

Yikes, tomorrow will have David Cook, Orianthi AND Ke$ha? Is it a two-hour results show to kick off one person? Doesn't matter. I won't be watching. But, I will probably watch America's Next Top Model... and maybe I'll live blog it, too!

Oscar Re-cap

2010-03-13T20:58:00.003-05:00

Yet again, 18 out of 24. Why can't I break this? I do my research, yet I take risks... and yet, I have NEVER done better than 18 out of 24. Sigh.
But those results were good enough for two ties and a win! I tied Charlie this year, and I also tied at a co-worker's office party, which netted me $20. Holla! And I beat my two other co-workers, and already collected by free lunch. FYI, the lunch buffet at Cottage Inn is superb.
Alas, trivia on Monday didn't go so well. We finished out of the money this year, even though we knew all sorts of obscure answers. Better luck next year, Cornados.

Pictured above is my least favorite dress from Oscar night. Really, Zoe Saldana? You look like you're wearing bathmats.

Oscar results - B+

Where My Girlz At!?

2010-03-09T19:32:00.002-05:00

I think I know a lot of ladies who'll be able to relate to this post:

Allow time for it to fully load, it'll be worth the wait.

orange scarves - A+

Oscar Watch: My Final Predictions

2010-03-07T16:30:00.001-05:00

(thanks to AwardsDaily, where I got this sweet composite of all the best picture nominees)

OK, kids, you know you've been waiting to see this. Here they are, my 2010 Oscar predictions.

Best Picture - The Hurt Locker
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges
Best Actress - Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique
Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Best Original Screenplay - The Hurt Locker
Best Adapted Screenplay - Up in the Air
Best Animated Feature - Up
Best Art Direction -Avatar
Best Cinematography - Avatar
Best Costume Design - The Young Victoria
Best Documentary Feature - The Cove
Best Documentary Short - China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Best Film Editing - Avatar
Best Foreign Language Film - The White Ribbon
Best Make-up - Star Trek
Best Original Score - Up
Best Original Song - "The Weary Kind," Crazy Heart
Best Animated Short Film - A Matter of Loaf & Death
Best Live Action Short Film - The Door
Best Sound Editing - The Hurt Locker
Best Sound Mixing - The Hurt Locker
Best Visual Effects - Avatar

For those who have been keeping track since this blog started, my former boyfriend Chargenda and I have had an Oscar bet since 2001. Boy, it game down to the wire that year, with Charlie and I tied for most correct predictions until the final category of Best Picture. We both really wanted Gosford Park, but he picked The Lord of the Rings. I picked A Beautiful Mind. Sweet victory! You can see the recaps from 2006, 2007, 2008 (I won that year), and 2009. This year, the contest will come down to the following four categories: documentary short, film editing, live action short and sound mixing. I guarantee you that they'll be nailbiters! Loser is supposed to buy dinner for the winner. I also have a lunch bet with my co-workers BriBri and Jjack. Last year I was the ultimate winner, so I look to retain my title of superiority again this year. Jjack no longer works with us, but I bet we can still get lunch out of her if she's the ultimate loser.

Stay tuned!

Oscar predictions - check back tomorrow for the final grade

Road Trip!

2010-03-03T14:55:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, I took a wee road trip down to Nashville to visit my good buddy Jjack, her husband Ejack, my second-favorite dog of all time Sloane (all you other dogs gotta step up your game to beat the Sloanester), and Wee-Jack, j and E's baby-to-be. And basically, it was AWESOME. I went to a fabulous stationery store, ate probably the best breakfast of my life, played Guitar Hero, watched Olympic hockey, shopped some more, ate some more, and pretty much just kicked back and relaxed with my buddies, including two college friends that I hadn't seen in over seven years. I also got to see the largest replica of the Parthenon. That's what you see here.

I've been reminiscing a lot this year, mostly thinking about things that happened 15 years ago or ten years ago - new decades will do that to you. So here's my list of my top three road trips taken as an adult. Please note that a complex equation of longest distance and most absurd destination or travel plan qualified these trips as tops.
3 - Memphis, summer 2001. Ashlee and I drove from Russellville to Memphis on Friday night, checked out Graceland and riverboat gambling in Mississippi on Saturday, and went to Al Green's church Sunday morning before heading back to Russ Vegas. The phrase "Handi-Snack communion" stemmed from this trip. Only 4 hours each way.

2 - South Padre Island, spring break 2000. Twelve of us drove from Russellville to Padre and spent the week drinking, tanning and making out. What? It was college. 17 hours each way.

1 - Atlanta, September 2001. Dustin, Paul, Ashley and I left Saginaw on Friday at 11 PM, arrived in Atlanta around 1 PM on Saturday, checked into our hotel, went to the park for a little bit, went back to the hotel to spruce up, then went to the Atlanta Ballet featuring a live performance by Indigo Girls - one of the most amazing concert experiences of my life. Back to the hotel for beer and sleep, then Krispy Kreme Sunday morning, back on the road by noon, and back in Saginaw at 2 AM and off to work Monday morning. 14 hours each way, meaning more time was spent in the car than actually at our destination. Also, this blog entry might be the first time that my dad has heard that I took this trip.

trip to Nashville - A (probably could have been an A+, but I don't like that I had to make the trip in the first place - when are you Jacks moving back here!?)

Oscar Watch: the Final Countdown

2010-03-02T17:44:00.004-05:00

With the Oscars only six days away, I thought I'd take this week to share some of my thoughts on the 2010 Oscar-nominated films I've seen this year. 'Cause who doesn't want to know my thoughts?

Here at my little movie theater, we've embarked on a campaign to educate ourselves about the films we're showing... makes sense,right? but since there are only so many hours in the day, we've taken to watching the trailers at our staff meetings, and giving FIVE-WORD DESCRIPTIONS of the films. That's it, five words! So I present to you five-word descriptions of the 10 Best Picture nominees:

Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino shows Nazi-killin' fun, accents
Up in the Air - Clooney travels 'cause he's lonely
Precious - obese, illiterate, abused - with redemption!
District 9 - apartheid allegory with extraterrestrial refugees
An Education - he's too old for you
Up - adorable animated old guy adventure
The Blind Side - white family fosters homeless footballer
A Serious Man - Jewish dramatization of Job story
The Hurt Locker - don't cut the red wire!
Avatar - technological phenomenon, re-telling of Pocahontas

There you have it - now you don't even need to see them!

five-word descriptions - clever, not meaty enough, B+

A Lesson on Chew

2010-02-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

Good afternoon, class. Today I'm going to go over the guidelines for using chewing tobacco in a public place. Clearly, NOT using chewing tobacco in a public place is preferable, but sometimes needs must be met, so please take note of the proper way.

1 - find a containment device (henceforth known as a "spitter") with a lid. Your best option is a plastic bottle with a lid - juice bottle, soda bottle, water bottle, as long as it has a lid, you can use it! If you are not able to procure a bottle with a lid, obtain an empty cup with a lid. You can generally find both beverage bottles and cups at your concession stand.
(I've heard that, if you're using a cup, you should put some napkins in the cup. As I suggest that you use the plastic bottle option, I won't focus on the napkin aspect.)
NOTE: a wide-mouth cup without a lid, such as a popcorn tub, is not an acceptable spitter. Please, ask your concessionaire for an empty cup with a lid. Which leads to...

2 - USE YOUR SPITTER! Don't spit on the floor! Even if you are at an outdoor concert, rules of propriety state that you spit into your spitter.

3 - when you are done with your spitter, replace the lid or cap (see? just a friendly reminder about the plastic bottle!) and throw your spitter away. This part is crucial. Those that must pick up trash are appreciative that you replaced the cap, but really, they would prefer to not pick up your use spitter in the first place. If you are at an arena, coliseum, or stadium, where 90% of the crowd leaves their trash behind, then at least replace the cap. However, if you are in a fully restored historic art house cinema and yet still feel the need to chew, throw your own trash away.

Next week's lesson: how to flush a toilet in a public restroom!

filthy patrons - D-

Sundance - Part 2

2010-02-18T21:15:00.000-05:00

I left off a little bit of day one that's integral to the story of day two, so here goes: while I was sitting in Life 2.0, waiting for the film to start, I heard this woman behind me say "I guess I'll just go down to the shows a little early and try to sell these tickets at the door." You know me, gregarious 'n' shit, so I turned around and said "What are you selling?" She had three tickets to unload to three different programs, since she had also purchased a series package and already had all the tickets she needed to everything she wanted to see (must be nice). The first two were for screenings taking place after I'd be back at home - but the third was for Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut, PREMIERING the very next night! "I'LL TAKE IT!" That's the beauty of Sundance - everything ticket is $15, and they like you to pay cash, so I handed over my money and presto, I was going to PHS's film on Saturday night. Good times!

Even though I had my industry pass on Saturday, I used tickets that one of my colleagues purchased for me to attend the documentary shorts program. I was SUPER GEEKED about the doc shorts for one reason: DRUNK HISTORY. If you're not familiar with Drunk History, click this link: this is my most favorite episode of Drunk History, for me, the one that started at all. And from a filmmaking standpoint, it takes the meaning of "documentary" and twists it a little. Oh it's a documentary, all right, but a real fucked-up one. So in the doc shorts program, there was a NEW episode of Drunk History: Tesla & Edison! With Crispin Glover as Thomas Edison and John C. Reilly as Nikola Tesla! It was hysterical, and those five minutes were probably the highlight of my trip...
Next to seeing THIS guy! Alan Tudyk played Wash on Firefly. Yes, Wash, the character for whom I named my dog. For me, seeing Alan on the street (I was on the bus, no, I didn't speak to him) was better than seeing Robert Redford.
Anyway, back to the doc shorts. There were seven films, ranging from 5 minutes to 28 minutes, and they were all pretty good. I loved Drunk History, of course, and I loved Born Sweet and Wagah, too - expecting to see them nominated for Oscars one of these days.

After the docs, it was back to the industry screening theater for Teenage Paparazzo. This film had gotten some buzz - here's a little description from the Sundance website:
"When precocious 13-year-old paparazzo Austin Visschedyk snapped a photo of celebrity Adrian Grenier (HBO's Entourage), little did he know his life was about to change. Turning the tables on the juvenile paparazzo, Grenier stepped on the other side of the lens in an attempt to mentor a teenager obsessed with the lure of the Hollywood lifestyle. Grenier develops a meaningful relationship with his camera-clicking young friend as he attempts to reconcile their mutual exploitation. Indeed, Grenier puts himself on the line here, trying to make sense of his own recently acquired fame."
By all means, if you're into celebrity culture OR documentaries, you should check this out when it comes to your local theater. It was simultaneously off-putting and compelling - I was definitely one of those people saying "I would NEVER let my kid do that."
OK, then I saw Armless, which I don't need to talk too much about because it wasn't awesome. It's a narrative film (not a documentary) about a guy who has body image dysmorphic disorder, who feels that he will be perfect if he could only cut off his arms - hence the title. Janel Moloney from The West Wing was in it, and she was great, but I didn't love this movie. And you'll probably never see it anywhere, so don't even worry about it.

AND THEN, I saw Jack Goes Boating, Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut. In the audience that night: Adrien Brody and Tom Arnold! Not together (but wouldn't it be sweet if they were friends?). Here's the Sundance description for this one:
"Jack Goes Boating is a tale of love, betrayal, and friendship set against the backdrop of working-class New York City life. Jack and Connie are two single people who on their own might continue to recede into the anonymous background of the city, but in each other begin to find the courage and desire to pursue their budding relationship. In contrast, the couple who brought them together, Clyde and Lucy, are confronting the unresolved issues in their rocky marriage. The multifaceted Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial debut demonstrating an assured style and grace, both behind the camera and in front of it. He leads a skilled cast, who waltz through their group scenes in perfect counterpoint, each getting what he or she needs from the other. The writing is fiercely authentic as are the performances. Lyrical and lovely, Jack Goes Boating is an offbeat love story that almost forgets to happen."
My take? PSH is an incredible actor, so I wanted him to be an incredible director and this to be an incredible film. And it was really good - but it wasn't incredible. And the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The acting was outstanding, the cinematography was superb, the story was great, the script was great, basically, everything taken individually was great. But as a whole, it was just really good. And that was the most disappointing thing about the film - it didn't meet my expectations. Maybe that's the big lesson to take away from Sundance: have no expectations. I loved the first movie that I saw, and I barely knew what it was about. JGB was good, and for all you movie fans, you should add this to your "to watch" lists.

Overall, attending the Sundance Film Festival was really cool, and certainly made even cooler by the fact that it was a work trip - can you say per diem?

Sundance day two - B+
Sundance overall - A-

Sundance - Part 1

2010-02-16T18:37:00.007-05:00

OK, OK. I know some of you want to know what Sundance was like. I wrote about one film, but then I lost steam. So now, the official NaiveHelga Sundance recap!

Day 1 - got into Park City about 5 PM, after three 1/2 days at a conference about 45 minutes away. (note: I never saw the Salt Lake Temple, which was kind of a bummer) If you haven't been to Utah, I highly recommend it. It is really beautiful. Lots of mountains, lots of snow, horses grazing in pastures, that sort of thing. As soon as we dropped our bags off at the condo (thank you, Nice Board Member Lady, for letting us stay for free - more about NBML in a little bit), we headed for the main box office so I could buy some tickets.

OK, I can see that I need to back up. Here's the scoop: I went to Sundance for work, and three of my colleagues plus NBML had industry passes, which has its own merits and drawbacks. The way I see it, the merit is you're basically guaranteed a seat at any industry screening you choose to attend. They're held in smallish (250 seats) theaters, all in the same building, so even if you do get shut out of one, there's another screening starting in no more than a half-hour. The drawback is no celebrities, and no Q&As. But if you're there to see movies, then no Q&A isn't so bad - you can certainly see more movies in a day if you don't have to listen to the director or produce talk about his vision. I digress. When I arrived, I didn't have an industry pass, so I embraced that and just decided to take whatever was offered to me: if I could get in, I was going.

And that's how I wound up at Bran Nue Dae, the best Australian indigenous musical I've ever seen! When I arrived at the box office, they only had tickets for this, so I bought two, gave one to one of my art house buddies, and said I'd see her at 8:30 AM the next day. And am I ever lucky I got tickets to Bran Nue Dae. I LOVED it! It was campy, it was predictable, it was sunny and colorful and happy and I loved every single second of it. How can you go wrong with a song including the lyrics "There's nothing I would rather be, than an Aborigine, and to watch you take my sacred land away!?" For realz, if you get a chance to see this, whether at your local fancy movie theater or via Netflix (fingers crossed), take it. You probably won't love it as much as I did, but you'll love it.

When Bran Nue Dae was over, I hopped on the bus (free ALL YEAR ROUND!) and headed back to the box office, where I picked up tickets for Life 2.0, probably one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. Life 2.0 is a documentary about Second Life, an online virtual world that allows users to interact with each other through avatars, which are sort of like... replicas of the real people? Only, some people have avatars that look like them and some people have avatars that look like they want to look? And you can buy stuff and sell stuff for real money, and build things, and on one level it's all about computer programming but on another level it's about building relationships with people you'll maybe never meet who become your best friends... and that's enough. It was weird, y'all. The movie itself was fine, but the subject matter was really disconcerting. In fact, I don't even really want to talk about it. Just take my word for it, it's bizarre and made me feel really uncomfortable.

So then, I met up with my boss and my art house cronies and... got an industry pass! Probably not totally ethical, but hey, NBML was only there for a half-day, so I took her pass for the rest of the evening. I saw His & Hers, an Irish documentary "which chronicles a ninety-year-old love story, through the collective voice of seventy ladies" thank you, IMDb). H&H stars with this Irish proverb: "A man loves his wife the most, his girlfriend the best, but his mother the longest," and features about 88 minutes of 90-second clips of girls and women talking about their fathers, boyfriends, husbands and sons. It was nice, and I'm sure it will do well at my theater, but I had enough after about twenty minutes. Snooze.

And then I saw Hesher. You all know what I thought of that.

And that was just the first day! I saw four more screenings after that! I'll tell you about those tomorrow.

Sundance, part 1 - A-

In It To Win It

2010-02-15T18:01:00.002-05:00

Hi readers. I've hit a wall.

I don't really have anything to blog about. I'm still reading books, watching TV and movies, playing with my puppy, going to work, and trying to find a little time to see my man in between. But there's no SPARK to anything I'm doing. It's all day-to-day stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's real life. But where does that leave this little corner of the blogosphere? I'm not planning a wedding, I'm not having a baby, I'm not embarking on a quest to read an insane amount in a set period of time. I have nothing to write about.

And that's where you come in. I am SERIOUSLY taking requests. Want me to watch a show and write about it? OK! Want me to test a product or a recipe or a restaurant and give you the lowdown? Sold. I'm not done writing, I just need inspiration. So help me.

a new beginning - I, but with a chance to upgrade

Hesher

2010-01-26T15:34:00.004-05:00

I think I'm supposed to indicate that I paid money to see this, due to some FCC rules or somethin'. (do I only have to indicate if I got in free?)

Also, spoilers.

There was a lot of pre-Sundance buzz about Hesher - well, at least in my circle. Lots of people asked me if I was going to see this one - and since I'm nothing if not a slave to buzz, I said "Well, I'll try."

Here's the synopsis from the Sundance website:

Hesher is the story of a family struggling to deal with loss and the anarchist who helps them do it—in a very unexpected way.
TJ is 13 years old. Two months ago, his mom was killed in an accident, leaving TJ and his grieving dad to move in with grandma to pick up the pieces. Hesher is a loner. He hates the world—and everyone in it. He has long, greasy hair and homemade tattoos. He likes fire and blowing things up. He lives in his van—until he meets TJ.
Hesher is that rare film that manages to be a completely original vision, a thoroughly entertaining story, and a provocative metaphor. Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings the character of Hesher to life with anger and angst, and Devin Brochu makes quite a splash as the young boy dealing with both the loss of his mother and an unwanted houseguest. Cowriter/director Spencer Susser crafts a multidimensional, darkly humorous film that exhibits an immensely talented storyteller at work.

Except here's the problem: "completely original vision?" Not so much. It seemed like the entirety of this story was something I had seen before. Kid with a dead mom? Check. Bearded dad dealing with his emotions through sleep and pills? Check. Frumpy, sonsy grandma who takes the path of least resistance? Check? Long-haird weirdo who drives a black van? Check. Awkward girl with a dead-end job and unfortunate glasses? Check. Do you want me to keep going? 'Cause I could. The acting was quite good, particularly the little guy who plays TJ, but I think all the cast did a remarkable job with what they were given - which was incredibly trite, overly formulaic, and spelled out like the audience was full of dummies. Another example: if you have any sense of cinematic storytelling, you knew that the dad was responsible for the mom's death, and that the kid was there when it happened. So why, WHY did they director/screenwriter feel the need to show us in a flashback? Ridiculous.

You know who's going to love this movie? People who don't have a lot of imagination.

Hesher - C-

Sundance Update

2010-01-23T16:24:00.005-05:00

Here's another reason why the world is so amazing: I am sitting in a theater RIGHT NOW, waiting for my next film to start. Wireless technology is awesome!
So I'm at the Sundance Film Festival. Nestled in the Wasatch Valley in Park City, Utah, Sundance is the grandfather of independent film festivals. OK, probably not. This is only the 26th year. Maybe it's the glorious winner of independent film festivals. Everyone knows about it, and everyone thinks they know what's going on. Well, I'm here to tell you that Sundance is basically a game, a game you can only win by packing appropriate footwear and bringing a stopwatch. My buddy from another theater says that seeing five films in a day means you win, and seeing six films in a day means you're a superhero. I assure you that I'll only see up to four in a day.

Gotta run!

Sundance so far - B+

Shut. Up. SHUT UP!

2010-01-20T19:42:00.005-05:00

If I were good at photo shop, I would have added Dr. Horrible to this picture - because word on the street is, Neil Patrick Harris is going to appear in an episode of Glee... directed by Joss Whedon!

OMG!!!!!1!!

Seriously, I'm super excited. It's slated to air during sweeps week in May. NPH could sing three notes and I'd be happy. Squeee!

NPH and Glee - A+

(and here's a bonus pic for you Dr. Horrible fans:)

In Utah

2010-01-19T16:48:00.002-05:00

Technology is awesome. I took this picture (well, had this picture taken of me) yesterday, and look! Here it is on the Internet already!

I'm in Utah right now. I'm acting as the conference manager at the Art House Convergence - the boss at my real job is the conference chair, so he brought me along to register people, make sure all the tech needs are taken care, fix any small problems that crop up along the way... basically, do my regular job, but in Utah. So that's fun! I've never been to Utah before. Then, I'm going to a few days of the Sundance Film Festival. If I see anything truly awesome, I'll let you know.

In this picture, you'll see a crazy ice hose sculpture castle. I don't know what to call it, exactly, but you can see more truly incredible pictures here. It's out of this world - and totally worth the $2 admission!

Utah - A-

Viva Pinata

2010-01-11T09:05:00.003-05:00

Holy crap. This game is AWESOME! When my friend tried to explain it to me, I really didn't get it, so I don't expect you to get it, either, but here goes: you get this garden, and based on what's in your garden (good soil, oak tree, daisies), different pinatas are attracted to your garden and come to visit. And if they really like your garden, they move in. When you get two of the same kind of pinata, you can romance them, and then they'll make more pinatas. Sometimes, bigger pinatas will eat smaller pinatas (last night, a Syrupent ate a Mousemallow), and sometimes, evil pinatas will drop bad candy and pinatas will get sick. If a pinata is 100% happy, it can go to a party, which is ultimately what all pinatas want... yay!
OK, you don't get it, do you? You'll just have to trust me that this game is super cute and stupid fun. So sorry if you don't see me around for the next few days - I'm getting my pinata on.

Viva Pinata - A

Point/Counterpoint

2010-01-06T22:02:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the latest feature of NaiveHelga: Point/Counterpoint. Each week, my friend Jjack and I will blog about the same subject and discuss our differing opinions on said subject. In a perfect world, we'll watch the same movie or TV show, read the same book or listen to the same album - we don't have all the deets worked out yet, but I have a vision that I'll pick one one week, she'll pick the next week, and so on. Also, it could probably more accurately be called Point/Point - we tend to think alike. And I'm hoping Jjack comes up with a sweet graphic we can use for each Point/Counterpoint topic. Good luck, J.

First up: bowling! Who doesn't love bowling!? Nate doesn't, that's who. We've never been bowling together. Bowling in and of itself isn't that great. The balls are heavy, the shoes possibly filled with fungus. But the sports within the sport are awesome. Drinking cheap beer out of plastic cups is always a good time. Selecting crappy tunes from the jukeobox is also fun. But best of all is the people watching. The last time I went bowling, I watched the mating rituals of twelve-year-olds. Basically, White Shirt was trying to put the moves on Red Polo, but Antlers (it was during the holiday season, not a girl with actual antlers) totally keopt cock-blocking her. Plus, Sweater was trying to mack on White Shirt when Red Polo was up to bowl. Not to mention the Ethiopians bowling in the lane right next to us. They were funny.

Bowling - B+; head on over to The Jackson Update to see what Jjack has to say!

Movie Madness: Star Trek

2010-01-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

Finally got around to watching Star Trek the other night. It probably would have been better on the big screen, or at least a bigger at-home screen... with surround-sound. Anybody want to get me a 50" flat screen?

I really liked this version of Star Trek - I'm a sucker for origination stories. And Chris Pine and Zach Quinto were great as Kirk and Spock! Maybe too much sexual tension... and I really liked that there was some plot to this movie. It was an action-driven story, to be sure, but there was in fact a story. Good times!

Star Trek - A-

Cannonball Read - One Last Post

2010-01-02T12:38:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick recap of the best books of my year:

World War Z by Max Brooks
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
The Gates by John Connolly
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

Add them to your reading lists!

Cannonball Read: From One Who Almost Made It

2010-01-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

The age old question goes like this: how do you measure a year? Some believe you can measure in sunsets or cups of coffee; me, I think a year is best measured in books.

On January 1, 2009, I embarked on a major undertaking: read 100 books in a year (for you non-math majors, that averages out to two books a week). And for a while, I was right on track. The first quarter was the easiest - I finished 22 books in three months, just a tiny bit behind. But then I started to slip. By October, I had only read 75 books - leaving me two months to read 25 books, when the most I had read in any given month was nine. But I wouldn't quit - and I wouldn't change my self-imposed rules. I almost punched my husband in the face this weekend when he said I wasn't "in it to win it." He clarified by saying that, if all I wanted to do was read 100 books in a year, I would have chosen ALL young-adult books, or ALL books that barely cracked the 200-page minimum, or I would have re-read some of my favorites so that I could skim. So he was right - I wasn't just in it to win it, I was in it challenge myself, to STOP reading some of my perennial favorites, and to read things I had always wanted to, no matter the length (case in point: Middlesex, one of my favorite books of the year, coming in at 544 pages; in fact, my best-reviewed books of the year were all over 400 pages). But as recently as December 28, I thought I might make it. 8 books in 4 days? I could do it... but I didn't. And that's OK. It was about the journey, and the awesome books I read this year. I will wrap up 2009 having read 94 books - not too shabby.

I'll probably never get to get up onstage and thank a bunch of people for helping me along the way, so allow me this indulgence:
- Shannon, Mark and Sarah; Charlie and Kevin; Pat, Nat and Elliott (twice!); Bill & Justina, for living far away and allowing me a visit - those train and plane trips made for lots of uninterrupted free time to read
- Brian Prisco and AlabamaPink, the original Cannonball Readers - you inspired me
- all the 2009 Cannonball Readers, particularly the lovely Mrs. Figgy Lockwood-Figueroa - a little healthy competition never hurt anybody

- the Ann Arbor District Library - word up!

- anyone who loaned a book, gave a book as a gift, or recommended a book - I couldn't have done it without you

- the Natester - for all the uninterrupted time on the couch, and for not talking to me during dinner

What did I learn from this challenge? Reading is AWESOME. Seriously. You should read more! I've also learned that I need quantity isn't as important as quality. Some of these books I gobbled down; I didn't get to savor nearly enough of them, and I plowed through some excellent books just to have time to read some not-so-great books . So for my final six books of the challenge, in 2010, I'm going to go back and re-read some of my all time favorites, as well as the three A+s that I gave this year.

Cannonball Read - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 94

2009-12-31T20:21:00.004-05:00

What a way to end the year. This book was ridiculous! Trite, overly religious, maudlin. I had hoped to recommend it to my book club, but no. Not at all.

Friendship Cake - C-

Cannonball Read - Book 93

2009-12-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

This book wasn't really good enough to merit a long description or review. Here's what's I'll tell you: Josie is turning 16. It's February 29. And every chapter is split in two, with part A told from Josie's perspective and part B told from the third-person omniscient perspective of every other character who crosses her path throughout the day. It's a clever literary device, I'll admit - you get the inner thoughts of a lot of "unimportant" characters that really flesh out the story, and I did enjoy the part B sections about the teachers at the school, Josie's parents, and a few of the other high schoolers.

But overall? MAN, is this book lame. First of all, it's set in Orlando. This gives the author plenty of opportunities to use Disneyworld as a location. Awesome? Not really. Also, no high school anywhere in the world has a much fun as the high school in this book. Josie gets to leave school during third period to take her drivers' test. A girl goes into labor at lunch. It's the day of auditions for Romeo and Juliet. It's also the day of the annual sophomore scavenger (more time at Disneyworld!) and the first day of Senior Dart Gun Wars. And later, Josie's buddies take her down to the lake for some traditional initiation (although she's the first one to turn 16, so how can they know what to do?). Thankfully, she doesn't get the guy, nor the part in the play she wanted (oooh, should I have told you there would be spoilers?), but she does go through a big change where she takes time to ponder her dreams and accept life as it happens.

One more thing: Josie feels that since she was born on Leap Day, there's absolutely no way she would die on Leap Day, too, so she's basically invincible one day every four years. But there's all this ominous stuff in the book that leads... NOWHERE. Here's an example: in one of the part B sections, Josie's friend's brother contemplates telling the girls that they shouldn't take up smoking - which leads to sentence like "Turns out he'd never have to." Now, maybe I'm just morbid, but coupled with all the references to Josie not dying on February 29, this little gem led me to think that she'd get in a car accident and die on her way home from the lake tonight. But no! The friend just takes a puff of a cig and chokes and sputters and decides on her own to never smoke! Pretty weak, if you ask me.

Thank goodness this was in the bargain bin at Borders - I only paid $1.99 for it.

Leap Day - C-

Cannonball Read - Book 92

2009-12-29T15:42:00.004-05:00

After the success of Beat the Reaper, Dad took it upon himself to send me another one his favorites from this year, Rain Gods by James Lee Burke. For those of you who are practicing your Monte impressions, it went a little something like this: "You're gonna read it and say 'Dad's two for two!'"

Well, not quite. Rain Gods was good, but nowhere near as good as Beat the Reaper. Rain Gods is the story of Hack Holland, a Texas sheriff, investigating a heinous crime, and the vast cast of characters who played a role in the events surrounding the crime. There's drugs, and guns, and Jewish matron who might be a queen, and above all, there's thick, rich Texas landscape. I could SEE this book played out as a movie. In fact, sometimes I felt like I was reading a screenplay (although without all those pesky acronyms and action lines) - the language was lush and descriptive, and the words "spoken" by the characters felt like lines of dialogue. Rain Gods totally needs to be optioned into a movie... although Tommy Lee Jones has already played one of JLB's other characters, Dave Robicheaux. And if you can't get TLJ to play a creaky alcoholic small-town Texas sheriff, who CAN you get?

In the interest of time, I slammed through the last 40-ish pages of this last night, and didn't really absorb everything that happened. Bad guys died, good guys got absolved, but the final showdown was a little contrived for my tastes. And the epilogue was LAME. But come to think of it, aren't all epiloguies lame? I call it the 19 Years Later Syndrome. I'm a sap, but I don't need everything to be wrapped up in a pretty package at the end. Leave some loose ends for the curious of the readership!

Rain Gods - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 91

2009-12-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

I got this book for the Natester for Christmas, but really that's just because I wanted to read it. Here's the back-of-the-book description for Dog Man:
"This is the story of Morie Sawataishi, who lived a radically unconventional life, particularly in ultramodern and blatantlly conformist Japan. He was a man most of us would never have the chance to meet, but from whom we have much to learn.

"After World War II, there were only a handful of Akita dogs left in Japan - the iconic dogs had been donated to the war effort, either eaten or their pelts used for coats. Morie became obsessed with the magificent, fiercely loyal dogs and single-handedly revived the four-thousand-year-old breed and saved it from extinction. He lived his life for the dogs, and he did it in a very un-Japanese way: defying convention, breaking the law, giving up the opportunity to live a fancy life in the city with a prestigious job. Instead, he moved to the isolated, rural snow country of Japan in the midst of the war, and never left, accompanied reluctantly by his wife, Kitako - a sheltered sophisticate from Tokyo. Due in large part to Morie's perseverance and passion, the Akita breed has become wildly popular, sometimes selling for millions of yen. Dog Man tells the story of Morie's unique and soulful path, and at each stage incorproates the special dog that came to define the period for him. From Three Good Lucks to One Hundred Tigers, Victory Princess to Shiro, the dogs and their kisho, or Akita spirit, spring from the page, as does Morie himself, who would become a revered figure in the snow country - a peaceful man, a mountain man, a dog man."

Sigh. This was a lovely book. The description tells you everything you need to know, but let me reiterate: this guy gave up "the good life" in pursuit of SAVING A BREED OF A DOG THAT WAS ABOUT TO BE EXTINCT. Can you imagine? Of course, the good life came to him in a different way, considering he's a now in the Akita Preservation Society Hall of Fame (who knew there was such a thing?), and his life was enriched by hundreds of dogs. He alienated his wife and children, and drank too much, and probably lost thousands of dollars by never selling a single puppy, but he came out in top - in his soul. Dog Man's first chapter and last chapter were pretty trite, but the meat in the middle were great.

Ever loved a dog? Read this book.

Dog Man - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 90

2009-12-26T15:18:00.002-05:00

I bet a lot of you have heard of Holes, or have already read it, but for those who haven't, here's my quick overview: wrongfully accused Stanley gets sent to reform "camp" in the middle of the Texas desert, where he and the rest of his bad-kid group are made to dig gigantic holes every day after day to "build character." But there's more to Stanley, the camp, the holes, and the other kids than meets the eye, and Stanley's will and wiles prevail against the big bad Warden, the harsh elements and his family curse. Stanley Yelnats for the win!

This book is really well written, cute but not simpery, and I really liked that the worst of the bad guys was actually a lady. I could say more, but why? Just read it!

Holes -A-

Cannonball Read - Book 89

2009-12-25T14:13:00.003-05:00

I love it when my MIL hands off books to me that just barely make the 200-page minimum... short equals quick! I started La's Orchestra Saves the World at about 9 PM last night and was finished with it by 1:30 PM today(and that includes a break to open presents). Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, of which I have only read the first book - and I didn't love it. It's been quite a while since I read it, though, and now I can't remember why I didn't like it - and the MIL assured me that this was a quick, good read.

And it was! Set in England during World War II, La's Orchestra Saves the World is tale of suspicion, redemption, love, work, friendship, loss, all those things that make for a captivating and quick read (no sentences about tetrodotoxins in this one). Like so many books I've like a lot this year, LOStW makes you care about the characters and their circumstances, even the ones you aren't supposed to like very much. Not liking doesn't mean not caring, you know? La, the protagonist, survives as she can after personal hardship; lonely and intelligent, she struggles to find her place in her countryside community, and starts up a village orchestra to "boost morale" during a dark time. The healing power of music (or art or dance) may be a bit of a literary cliche at this point, but McCall Smith doesn't hit you over the head with it; it's subtle but powerful.

La's Orchestra Saves the World - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 88

2009-12-24T21:17:00.002-05:00

I've read a few books about zombies this year, but this was the first I've ever read about zombis. What's the difference, you ask (other than a missing 'e'?) Zombis actually exist. Here's the back-of-the-book description of The Serpent and the Rainbow:

"In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis - people had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis pentrated the voudoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti - from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti's countryside.
"The Serpent and the Raibow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans."

Except for one problem: TSatR illuminated NOTHING! This was one of the most complex, convoluted and confusing books I've ever read. My tiny brain could barely keep up with all the Creole words, much less the scientific names of all kinds of crazy plants. Here's just one sentence from the chapter titled In Summer the Pilgrims Walk: "Puffer fish grown in culture, for example, do not develop tetrodotoxins, and it is possible that the puffer fish, in addition to sythesizing tetrodotoxins, may serve as transvectors of either tetrodotoxin or ciguatoxin, a different chemical that originates in a dinoflagellate and causes paralytic shellfish poisonings." And thank God for the glossary, which I referenced about every eight pages to explain this spirit or that priest.

Not that it wasn't interesting. The sections on the history of Haitian slave revolt were fascinating (and some of the easiest passages to understand). And like most Americans, I know very little about Haitian culture and religion, so yes, it was illumniating. But it was like what I imagine reading a dissertation would be like: at times compelling, at others way over my head.

The Serpent and the Rainbow - B

Cannonball Read - Book 87

2009-12-20T16:33:00.004-05:00

I don't even know how this book got onto my bookshelf - I think maybe my MIL brought it to us, but I wasn't aware of such a thing and it doesn't look like she's read it lately, so I guess it will remain a mystery.

"Married for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts—running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed. She is overwhelmed by grief, and her property and rights are now legally in the hands of her nearest male relative: her daughter's overbearing husband, whom Lyddie cannot abide. Lyddie decides to challenge both law and custom for control of her destiny, but she soon discovers the price of her bold "war" for personal freedom to be heartbreakingly dear."

As someone who likes female-centered historical fiction, it should come as no surprise that I quite enjoyed this book. Massachusetts in the 1760s is not a time period I'm very familiar with, so any liberties Sally Gunning took were lost on me, and I was fully immersed in the time period, the story, the language and the characters. It was only tedious in that many of Lyddie's days were full of mundane chores: milking the cow, building up the fire, making 200 candles, that sort of thing. But I imagine that the life of a whaler's wife was often tedious, driven by necessity instead of luxury (didn't chop enough wood this autumn? too bad, no fires for you this winter), so in this case, repetitive doesn't equal boring. Plus, Lyddie is a badass. She stops going to church AND she has wanton sex with an Indian. How sweet is that?

The Widow's War - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 86

2009-12-19T22:30:00.001-05:00

For my book club's holiday party, we did a book exchange. Awesome, right? Why give candles and tchotchkes when you can give someone a book that you read and liked but don't need to hold onto? (for the record, I gave away this) I received The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer, and I really enjoyed it, but I'll be damned if I couldn't get past the similarities to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Which makes me feel bad: Andrew Greer, the author, has written an excellent "defense" of his book, which you can read here, but that doesn't change that I saw Benjamin Button before I read Max Tivoli and couldn't help comparing.

Ultimately, The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a better book than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a movie, so it's not all bad that I saw the movie first, but you gotta believe me, once you've seen the movie, it's next to impossible to read the book without feeling that it borrowed heavily from the movie. Which it didn't. (really, you should read Greer's defense) Argh, I'm talking in circles! Long story short, pretty good, not awesome, kept seeing Brad Pitt in my head.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli - B

Cannonball Read - Book 85

2009-12-16T15:00:00.001-05:00

Maybe a spoiler or two in this one...

Here's a quick description of The Gates by John Connolly:

"Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween, which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe, a gap through which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out...
"Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith and love to save the world as we know it?
"Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy, who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power.
"In this wonderfully strange and brilliant novel, John Connolly manages to re-create a the magical and scary world of childhood that we've all left behind but so love to visit. And for those of you who thought you knew everything you could about particle physics and the universe, think again. This novel makes anything seem possible."

Here's what I don't love about that book jacket description: the use of the world "impossible." Really? It was possible to put the book down. It wasn't covered in SuperGlue.

On to my review! This book was really, really good. It had a YA feel to it - and you all know how much I love YA. The characters were really likeable, even the unlikeable ones (you know, like the Devil and his minions, and while I figured that the little boy would win in the end, I was rooting for him nonetheless. You know how sometimes you don't root for the hero because he's, well, the hero, and whether you root for him or not, he's going to win? Not so with The Gates. Maybe the book jacket has it right: Samuel is impossible not to love. And hello!? There's a dog! And he's a thinking, feeling dog, but a dog nonetheless. John Connolly mentions what the dog smells, from the dog's point-of-view, but the dog never talks. Good job, JC. However, I could think of a better breed than a dachshund for Samuel's four-legged friend. Someday I'll tell you about my granddad's evil doxies...

One last thing: I really liked that Samuel has friends. Too often in books like this, the protagonist is all alone in the cold, cold world: an orphan, or an only child, and certainly with no buddies. But Samuel has AWESOME friends, Tom and Maria, as well as a mother who loves him(and Boswell, of course). And rather than alienate me by bucking the formula, the friends drew me in even further.

This 293-page book sure felt a lot shorter. Because I LOVED it.

The Gates - A

Cannonball Read - Book 84

2009-12-10T12:38:00.005-05:00

Entertainment Weekly told me I should read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and since I usually listen to what they tell me, I picked it up earlier this summer (and in the spirit of full disclosure, I must confess that I bought it at Urban Outfitters). But it didn't hold my interest then, so I let my dad borrow it. It didn't hold his interest, either. I decided to give it another go in the the waning weeks of Cannonball Read, just to see what the fuss was all about.

Even though the title pretty much says it all, I think my readers deserve the book jacket description:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers - and even more violent sparring and the blood-soaked battlefield. Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read."

So. I've never read Pride and Prejudice - and P&P&Z doesn't make me want to read it. I'm intrigued to see if there are passages that are word-for-word the same, but other than that, I'm sure that the characters are the same and the major plot points are the same, so really, adding the zombies probably didn't detract from the original. But boy oh boy, was this book ridiculous. Gruesome and funny, sure, and I suppose it held my interest once I got into it, but really, I don't think it was very good. This was one of those "great in theory, awful in execution" concepts. Zombies are hot right now, so let's throw some into a great piece of literature and see what we come up with - right on! But sadly, I didn't love it. And as you recall, sometimes I really, really love zombies. P&P&Z was a big let-down. I think that part of this is the original's fault. Elizabeth Bennet seemed silly to me from the get-go, as did her entire family, as did all of Darcy's buddies. Darcy was the only one I really liked, but I'm still not entirely sure how Elizabeth went from abhorring him to loving him. He was an ass, right?

Ugh. I don't know. No more Jane Austen for me, in any form.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - C-

Cannonball Read - Book 83

2009-12-06T12:15:00.001-05:00

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Crowned by Julie Linker was recommended to me - more like, my teen titleholder was reading it, so it caught my attention. Miss Teen didn't have much to say about it, other than that each chapter opens with an interview question - questions like How do you handle people not liking you? and If you were on a TV talk show and could get one message across to viewers, what subject would you choose? These questions frame each chapter, so if you're into that sort of thing, it's a nice concept. And if you're preparing for a pageant, they might be good practice questions.
Crowned is pretty formulaic - teen girl with amazing best friend and popular boyfriend gets dumped by said boyfriend, tries to distract herself by the next big event coming up (in this case, the Miss Teen State pageant), and falls for an even better guy along the way. Of course, they can't get together too easily, and another girl does everything in her power to keep the heroine down. But good prevails, and the better guy comes to his senses and all is well. Yay!
Some parts of Crowned were awfully familiar to me - like, personally familiar. Turns out that Julie Linker is from Arkansas, where I had my short-lived yet triumphant pageant career. Good on you, Julie, way to expose Arkansas' dirty little secrets.
Easy, silly, fun, but not anything anyone other than a current or recovering pageant girl needs to read.

Crowned - B-

Cannonball Read - Book 82

2009-12-02T14:08:00.003-05:00

Book 82 is Now You See Him by Eli Gottleib. My friend Timmy foisted this on me at a party one night (he also gave me Book 81) when I was complaining about running out of books - more accurately, running out of books I want to read, since there's only about a bajillion books at my house but I can't face any of them. Now You See Him is the story of Nick, coping with the murder-suicide of Rob, his childhood best friend, and Rob's girlfriend; his lingering feelings for Rob's sister; the strained relationship with his aging parents; and the dissolution of his marriage. It's tough material - and there are twists!

I'm not one to shy away from dark novels, but holy cow, this one was a doozy. And twists are well and good, but one top of another tends to take me away from the plot - if at all possible, I like to forget I'm reading a story. And this was another book where the author seemed to be using big words and poetic devices just for the sake of using big words and poetic devices. Do you ever get the feeling that some people are just so proud to be authors?

Now You See Him - C+

Cannonball Read - Book 81

2009-11-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

Book 81 was The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I think this was the first translation I've read this year - originally published in French, TEotH is the tale of Renee, an apartment concierge (sort of like a building super, only less maintenance-y) who acts the part of slightly stupid matron while secretly appreciates the finest of fine things, particularly philosophy, Dutch painting and Japanese film; and Paloma, a precocious 12-year-old in Renee's building who has determined that life is not worth living and plans to kill herself on her 13th birthday unless she can find something beautiful in this world, be it movement or art. When Mr. Ozu, a Japanese aesthete, moves into their building, both Renee and Paloma have new worlds opened to them, and while the ending isn't exactly what a reader hopes for, both women realize the joy in their lives.

So, it was good, but I struggled. In fact, I'm pretty sure I outright skipped a couple pages. I'm sure the sections on philosophy furthered the plot, but I'll be damned if they didn't lose me from time to time. I'm no dummy, but even three pages of theory can remove me from the story.

Please, send me something fluffy that I can read in one sitting! Don't forget, at least two hundred pages...

The Elegance of the Hedgehog - B

Pigeonhole

2009-11-18T21:43:00.004-05:00

People seem to fit into neat little boxes. You get to know someone one way, and that's where they stay. But then, you find something out, and that pigeonhole is just blown wide open.

Here's what happened: I worked with these two nice young ladies (I'd say they're both in their early 30s, a tiny bit older than me but not much) who were performing in and presenting a show where I work. I saw both of them dance, and they are beautiful dancers. I didn't have their careers figured out, but I knew they did something other than dance for a living. And then I read the program notes. These ladies are both PROFESSORS OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY. Are you kidding me!? You're insanely talented dancers and smarty-pants scientists!? I was beyond impressed. Good on you, gals.

Then I thought about myself. People are often incredibly surprised when they learn I was in a sorority in college (actually, two, but we can talk about that another time). It's not just that they have a vision of a stereotypical "sorority girl," but that I'm not it. And then, they find out I'm a former pageant queen who's the director of a local pageant. And usually, jaws drop. Again, it goes beyond the broad stereotype to the actual person. I fit in a box of theater employee, dog mom, TV watcher, crazy reader, girly girl, but not a pageant girl. And I'm OK with that.

I'm not calling anybody out for stereotyping. I'm just looking to open the pigeonholes.

Incidentally, doves and pigeons are the same. Those pigeons in big cities are feral pigeons. Creepy.

pigeonholes - B

Love Is In The Air

2009-11-15T10:40:00.003-05:00

Two of my coworkers and another young friend of mine have all gotten engaged in the past three weeks. And just about three years ago, the hubs and I got engaged. I have two people using the marquee at work to propose in the next six weeks (and here's an article about another one that took place over the summer), and I've had three or four inquiries from recently engaged couples thinking about getting married at the theater.
Seems like love is in the air in the fall. Why is that? Does crisp weather make you feel like canoodling? Are people trying to give that big gift before the holidays - or start the wedding planning over the holidays when the families are together?
Whatever the reason, I like it. Good game, all of you.

love - A

Cannonball Read - Book 80

2009-11-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

So, Vendela Vida, the author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, is married to Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and founder of McSweeney's publishing house. And I don't really like Dave Eggers (we get it, you're literary, now back off). But someone in my book club recommended LtNLEYN, and let me borrow it, so here we are.

I think my biggest problem with this book is it was trying too hard. I finished it, but I never got into it - too much darkness, too many twists. Clarissa, the protagonist, wasn't sympathetic at all, and the family drama (where's her mother? who's her father?) didn't really move me. It seems to me that Vida was trying to write this little gem of a tragic family tale, and instead ended up with junk jewelry: an imitation of a gem.

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name - C+

Cannonball Read - Book 79

2009-11-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

Book 79 was City of Thieves by David Benioff. Here's the book jacket description:

"Stumped by a magazine assignment to write about this own uneventful life, a man visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. Reluctantly, his grandfather commences a story that will take him almost a week to tell: an odyssey of two young men determined to survive, against desperate odds, a mission in which cold, hunger, and the Russian authorities prove as dangerous as the invading Wehrmacht.

"Two young men meeting for the first time in a jail cell await summary execution for crimes of dubious legitimacy. At seventeen, Lev Beniov considers himself 'built for deprivation.' Small, smart, insecure about his virginity, he's terrified about the sentence that awaits him and his cellmate, the charismatic and grandiose Kolya, a handsome young solider charged with desertion. However, instead of a bullet in the back of the head, the pair is given an outrageous assignment: In a besieged city cut off from all supplies, secure a dozen eggs from a powerful colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake. Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt to find the impossible in five days' time, a quest that propels them from the lawless streets of Leningrad to the devastated countryside behind German lines. As they encounter murderous city dwellers, guerrilla partisans, and finally the German army itself, an unlikely bond forms between this earnest teenager and his unpredictable companion, a lothario who maddening, and endearing, bravura will either advance their cause or get them killed."

It was great. Totally engrossing, and incredibly realistic. And now I need to go do research on the siege of Leningrad - and I love it when historical fiction makes me feel like doing research. Seriously.

City of Thieves - A-

Hence the Title

2009-11-08T19:14:00.000-05:00

Good times.

people in movies saying the title of the movie - A+

Oooooh, I Just Love You!

2009-11-05T16:48:00.002-05:00

Many of you may have seen this already, but I can't stop watching and I show it to everyone I know.
This, my friends, is a slow loris:

AND I WANT ONE. They are, alas, illegal to keep as pets in the United States. So I guess I'll be moving.

slow loris - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 78

2009-11-04T22:30:00.001-05:00

Here's the book jacket description for The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein:

"Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the worods of his master, Denny Swift, and up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't about simply going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life's ordeals.

"On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through: the sacrifices Denny has made to succeed professionally; the unexpected loss of Eve, Denny's wife; the three-year battle over their daughter, Zoe, whose maternal grandparents pulled every string to gain custody. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with Zoe at his side. Having learned what it takes to be a compassionate and successful person, the wise canine can barely wait until his next lifetime, when he is sure he will return as a man.

"A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look and the wonders and absurdities of human life... as only a dog could tell it."

I don't think I can write a review for TAoRitR - at least, not without reliving the book and CRYING ALL OVER MYSELF again. It was beautiful, and really, really sad.

Don't tell anybody, but I think I'm a dog person. Or maybe a Formula One person. Or maybe... both?

The Art of Racing in the Rain - A

Cannonball Read - Book 77

2009-11-03T08:45:00.000-05:00

I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe is another one of those books that's been out for quite a while that I've always wanted to read, but just sort of overlooked every time I went to purchase a new book. For one thing, it's long - the hardback version I read was over 650 pages (can't that count as two books?). For another, it's the Tom Wolfe version of a tale as old as time: brilliant country bumpkin heads off for an Ivy League university and is shocked at what she finds - drinking, sex, revealing clothing, frivolous spending, more drinking, a fixation on sports, more sex, vulgar music, bitchy girls, more drinking, more sex. I've read books like it before (my neighbor observed that I have a "prep school thing going"). In Wolfe's hands, the subject matter is familiar, yet removed - after all, he was 73 years old when he wrote it and hasn't been an undergrad himself in over fifty years. He relied on research conducted by students at five universities - and you can tell when you read the descriptions of quarters, fraternity houses, and common usages of the words "shit" and "fuck" that current college students helped him. I've lived in a college town since 2005, and some of this stuff was spot-on. But as I mentioned earlier, I've read books with similar subject matter before, and I knew certain things were going to happen. Of course Charlotte would have a bitchy roommate. Of course Charlotte would meet up with two other misfit girls - and of course they would betray her. Of course the fraternity guy would invite her to his formal - what else would he do? Rich, lush, startlingly accurate - but a little stale.

Here is an awesome, albeit somewhat more scathing, review.

I Am Charlotte Simmons - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 76

2009-11-03T07:46:00.003-05:00

I went to visit my in-laws this weekend. When I walked in the door, my MIL gestured to the sideboard and said "I read that book the library and saved it for you." No pressure, QueenB! You know those things have due dates, right!? But she assured me that Notes from the Underwire was a quick read - and that at times, it reminded her of me. How could I pass it up?

A quick read deserves a quick review: Cummings is a former child actor (although that's not the only way she wants to be known) with a long-time boyfriend and daughter, trying to be hip and maintain some sanity living in LA; she's worked as a talent agent and now has a popular blog (and apparently, a book deal). She also invented this thing. So Quinnie's been busy. But she hasn't lost her humor - or her snarkiness. I've read lots of books like this one, memoirs/essays with a mother's touch, and this one was pretty good. Best book I've ever read? No. Entertaining during a long weekend? Sure. She might have been trying too hard, but I chuckled out loud a few times.

Notes from the Underwire - B

Cannonball Read - Book 75

2009-10-30T08:27:00.006-04:00

Possible spoilers!

Dead Until Dark is the first in the series of Sookie Stackhouse novels, the basis for the HBO series True Blood. Since I don't have HBO, and since the book is always better than the movie (or TV show, I'd assume), I thought I'd check this one out. Here's the description:

"Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of 'disability.' She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark and handsome - and Sookie can't hear a workd he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting for all here life...
"But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire with a bad reputation. He hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of - big surprise - murder. And when one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next..."

Here's the problem: I've already read the Twilight series. I couldn't get past the good vampire vs. the bad vampires, and the bar owner having his own supernatural secret... well, it was just too much like the Cullens versus the baddies and little Jacob being a werewolf. Are there no more original ideas?

I enjoyed this book. It think it's more accessible than Twilight. It's more down-home, and if possible in a vampire book, more realistic. Yes, Bill the vampire glows, just like Edward Cullen, but it sseems natural and not over-blown. And there are honest-to-goodness sex scenes! None of the longing crap (or the written version of a fade-to-black) - no, Bill takes Sookie and makes her a woman. Good times.

It's also a murder mystery - who killed all the slightly trashy girls? Was it Bill? Some other bad vampire? Sookie's brother Jason? I didn't see the answer coming.

I would read more of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but probably only in a pinch, like if I'd left my real book behind and was at the airport.

I could have done without the subtle product placement (isn't Nike a brand name?)

Dead Until Dark - B

Cannonball Read - YEAR TWO

2009-10-27T18:14:00.003-04:00

To all my friends and loved ones:

You know you've been impressed with all the reading that I've been doing this year. You should be - I'm awesome! And maybe you've been saying to yourself, You know, I wish I had joined in on that, but gosh, 100 books in a year is an awful lot.

Well, friends, I'm here to tell you about Cannonball Read 2: Electric Bookaloo. The rules have changed. Books still need to be over 200 pages long, no graphic novels, short story or essay collections must contain at least six stories/essays. But this year, the book total has dropped to 52 books. That's one book a week. So join in the fun!

One other requirement: you've gotta have a blog, and you've gotta post reviews. Oh no, you cry! I don't know how! Just ask me, I'll help you.

Literacy, people!

Officially, Cannonball Read Year 2 begins Sunday, November 1 (click here for all the official info). But since I started on January 1, 2009, I'm starting year 2 on January 1, 2010. So that means, to keep up with the rest of the gang, I have to read my 52 books in nine months. Challenge!

Cannonball Read - A+

Cannonball Read - Book 74

2009-10-27T12:25:00.000-04:00

Thank goodness for the Cannonball Read. I am reading all sorts of books that I've seen for years and have thought, "Oh, I really should read that," but something more compelling always came along. But now, with my trusty library card in hand and a goal almost within reach, I'm finally getting around to it.
Book 74 is Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff (which came out in 2004). Sheff is a writer by trade, so it's a good book - but not a very good story. Perhaps it's the nature of the story being told: an addicted kid mayb be compelling, but it's certainly not uplifting. And here's the part where I'm going to sound hateful: it was really repetitive. Nic, the son, relapses a couple times. OK, that's sad. But how many ways can the dad say "I was in agony. I worried. I wanted him to get better. He called me and he was high?" It was a pageturner, but not in a good way - I was just waiting for the next new thing, instead of the next description of the agony or the high phone call.

Beautiful Boy - B-

Cannonball Read - Book 73

2009-10-24T11:47:00.005-04:00

Wendy Wasserstein wrote one of my favorite plays, The Heidi Chronicles; I didn't know she had written this novel, Elements of Style, but I saw it at the library and grabbed it. Here's the book jacket description:

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of the essay collection Shiksa Goddess ("Utterly delicious" - Judith Thurman), a dazzling debut novel, a comedy about New York's urban gentry living in a post-0/11 world - the arbiters of fashion and the doyennes of charity balls; about the rich and the nouveau rich(er), the glamorous and the desperate to be.
"We meet Francesca Weissman, the Upper East Side pediatrician rated number one by Manhattan magazine, who takes us into the upper strata of privilege and aspiration (she's originally from Queens with a father in hosiery; life on the fringes of glittering New York is fine with her)... Samantha Acton, thoroughbred descendant of the Van Rensselaers and the Carnegies, who defines the social order in the great tradition of Mrs. Astor and Babe Paley... Judy Tremont from Modesto, California, daughter of a cop - her life's work, her obsession, is New York society and its richest families... Barry Santorini, Republican, moviemaker, winner of twelve Oscars, and his wife, the Italian supermarket heiress and former media rep for Giorgio Armani... and many more.
"As Elements of Style opens out, we see a madcap mosaic of the social lives and mores of twenty-first-century Manhattan - of romance, work, family, and friendship. Satiric, fierce, touching - and deliciously Wasserstein."

First, let's talk about that last phrase: deliciously Wasserstein. I think that's going to be the name of my next band.

Next, the book cover. OMG! Doesn't it make you want to read it? I judge books by their covers all the time - and you do, too, so don't deny it! It looks like a fancy purse is inside that box, and I for one want to open and see it.

The inside is just as good as the outside. I imagine that Elements of Style is like a grown-up version of the Clique series. Better yet: a fictional version of the Real Housewives of New York City. Except, these characters seem more real that those crazy ladies on that show. It's satire, to be sure, and many elements are over the top (there's a party scene set in an old pantyhose factory, and you should see what these ladies are wearing), but where I don't care about the Real Housewives' struggles to get their kids to the right nursery school or pediatrician, or if they have this season's Birkin bag, I did care about those same trials and tribulations with the characters in this book. And couple of somewhat tragic things happen, but they seem like a sad part of life instead of a complete derailment of a perfect existence.

It's good.

Elements of Style - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 72

2009-10-23T15:45:00.000-04:00

Here's the back-of-the-book description for The Bridesmaid by Hailey Abbott:

"After years of watching couples come to blows over ice sculptures, Abby wants no part of the family wedding planning business. She'd rather spend weekends kicking a soccer ball or antagonizing Noah, the cute son of a famous pastry chef - not doing the Electric Slide. Then Abby's barely legal sistr, Carol, does the unthinkable - she announces she's getting married and wants Abby to be her maid of honor. Clearly, Carol has lost her mind. Will Abby soon lose hers?
"So what if Carol turns into Bridezilla? So what if the dresses are hideous? So what if the invitations get messed up? So what if Noah looks extra hot with frosting in his hair? Abby can handle it. After all, it's just one day, right?"

So really, what else do I need to tell you? Jock girl, cute boy she's known since she was a kid, awesome sister turned psycho by wedding planning, slightly sketchy fiance of said sister, and every wedding cliche you can think of - and more than that, every "this is why weddings are bad" cliche you can think of. Yes, we all know you should put the Macarena on your "do not play" list. Yes, we all know that you should not commission a local artisan to create wooden figures of the bride and groom to use as cake toppers. And yes, we all know that most bridesmaids' dresses are unattractive. Do you really need to it us over the head with this, Hailey Abbott?

To be fair, I picked this up from the young adult section at the library yesterday. I think that teenage girls want to read about weddings, warts and all, and I bet a fourteen-year-old would love this.

The Bridesmaid - C

Cannonball Read - Book 71

2009-10-21T08:51:00.004-04:00

My dad recommended Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell to me. Not only that, he sent it to me. I was skeptical. My dad's tastes run more towards Louis L'Amour then, say, Augusten Burroughs or Michael Chabon. But it's hard to be choosy when you're thirty books short of your goal with less than three months to finish, so I picked it up a couple days ago and gave it a shot.

Here's the book jacket description:

"Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital. He has a talent for medicine, a shift from hell, and a past he'd prefer to keep hidden. Whether it's a blocked circumflex artery or a plan to launch a massive malpractice suit, he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.
"Pietro 'Bearclaw' Brnwa is a hit man for the mob, with a genius for violence, a well-earned fear of sharks, and an overly close relationship with the Witness Protection Program. More likely to leave a trail of dead gangsters than a molecule of evidence, he's the last person you want to see in your hospital room.
"Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Jimmy Squillante, is Dr. Brown's new patient, with three months to live and a very strange idea: that Peter Brown and Pietro Brnwa might - just might - be the same person...
"Now with the mob, the government, and death itself descending on the hospital, Peter has to buy time and do whatever it takes to keep his patients, himself, and his last shot at redemption alive. To get through the next eight hours - and somehow beat the Reaper."

Don't you just love book jacket descriptions? I remained skeptical. It seemed like Beat the Reaper would be just another former-Mob-guy-on-the-run trashy novel, only set in a hospital. Quick and easy, but nothing special.

Sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have doubted you. This book was. Off. The. Chain! For one thing, there are footnotes. Hilarious footnotes. And Peter's voice is over the top, for sure, but completely believable as the hardened doctor trying to do the right thing but save his ass at the same time. The action flips back and forth from the present-day hospital to snapshots of Peter's past (I won't give it away...), which really helped keep me engaged. It's action-packed, to be sure. Some violence takes place within the first, oh, two pages, and it's compelling and funny a little gross, but voyeuristic. And did I mention the footnotes?

Shit gets real around the last ten pages. I've read lots of books that have made my lady parts tense up for one reason or another. But no lie, I was in the fetal position, cringing, while I read the big finale. I could see it. I could feel it. And it wasn't pretty. But it was awesome.

Moral of the story? Listen to your dad.

Beat the Reaper - A

Cannonball Read - Book 70

2009-10-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

Short back-of-the-book description for Stiff:

"Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers - some willingly, some unwittingly - have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them."

This. Book. Was. AWESOME. Seriously bad-ass. Funny and gross and totally respectful of the dead - although at times, not so much of the living. But that's what makes it even more awesome. You can't really help what happens to you once you die - but you can control what you do to dead people. Does that make sense? I mean, science has benefited greatly from cadavers, but did you have to go and grave-rob, people of the 18th- and 19th-centuries?

I could probably write a better review, but who needs to read that? Just read the book! Probably one of my top ten favorite non-fiction books of all time, and certainly one of the best this year.

Stiff - A

Cannonball Read - Book 69

2009-10-19T18:34:00.001-04:00

Did I tell you I joined a book club? I did. Aside from the social aspects of being in a group of women, drinking booze and eating party snacks, I like the book club because I don't have to pick ALL the books I'm reading this year. No, I can let someone else pick a book from time to time.

Which leads me to One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus. Here's the basic premise: an Indian asks President Grant for one thousand white women (hence the title) in exchange for one thousand horses - and Grant agrees. Ladies looking for a way out of their current bad situation are given the opportunity to join the group traveling to the Indians as the first wave of the trade. Enter May Dodd, formerly locked away in a mental asylum due to her promiscuity. May signs on to travel to Indian Territory, and befriends some outrageous characters along the way. There's Daisy, the scorned Southern belle; Gretchen, the homely, burly Swiss; Susie and Meggie, the swindling Irish twins; Sara, young, lovely and mute; and Phemie, the escaped slave (so not exactly a "white" woman, but you get the idea). These ladies travel by train, then by wagon, out to Indian Territory, where they meet their future husbands and fathers of their children. May is paired with Little Wolf, Sweet Medicine Chief of the tribe, and her life carries on with equal measures of joy and hardship. But maybe May is promiscuous. Did I mention John Bourke, the rugged Army captain May meets at Fort Laramie, on the way out west. May and Bourke have one steamy night that May must revisit only in memory; she grows to love Little Wolf, but her heart often returns to her time with Bourke.

I've gotten carried away. You don't want to know everything, do you? Of course not. You want to read the book. Maybe. It's not a classic, it won't stick with you for weeks on end, but as far as "fluffy" books go, it's solid. Fergus has written some great characters, particulary the supporting characters. May's fellow white women, as well as Little Wolf's other wives, are well thought-out and often quite funny. It did get tedious at times - weather, tipis, peeing outside, etc. I think I'm done with alternative history for a while. But if you're looking for a book for your book club (or reading group, which sounds more illustrious), this is a good pick.

One Thousand White Women - B

Cannonball Read - Book 68

2009-10-15T22:26:00.004-04:00

I found this synopsis at Books On Board:

"Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, disappeared 40 years ago... and her octogenarian uncle is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.

"Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, is hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance... and Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age — and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it — assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism... and an unexpected connection between themselves.

"A contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives."

Throughout my Cannonball Read quest, I've been taking a lot of recommendations. Some of them paid off. Others, not so much. Maybe it's that I trust too deeply, or maybe that I want to believe my friends or relatives and I have the same taste in books when really we don't. Or maybe, it's that I end up not buying into the hype. And The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo falls into the latter category.

Don't get me wrong. It's good. REALLY good. Sandwiched between an overly wordy first 40 pages and an interminable final twenty pages is an incredible story about family, revenge, violence, finance, and IKEA. It's a pageturner, folks, and I stayed up way past my bedtime to read one more chapter, or sometimes just one more paragraph. The family at the center of the story is simultaneously twisted and lovable, and the protagonists, Mikael and Lisbeth, were incredibly well-written, to the point that at times, the book seemed like true crime rather than fiction.

But with all that said, it's not as good as people make it out to be. I can't tell you how many people I know have said (or written) to me "Oh my God, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is awesome. Go get it now! Add it to the top of the list!" etc. And yeah, it was good. I just didn't think it was incredible.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 67

2009-10-07T08:58:00.005-04:00

Here's the book-jacket synopsis for A Ship Made of Paper by Scott Spencer:

"Daniel Emerson lives with Kate Ellis and is like a father to her daughter, Ruby. But he cannot control his desire for Iris Davenport, the African-American woman whose son is Ruby's best friend. During a freak October blizzard, Daniel is stranded at Iris' house and they begin a sexual liaison that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's well-being, their own race-blindness, and their view of themselves as essentially good people. A Ship Made of Paper captures all the drama, nuance, and helpless intensity of sexual and romantic yearning, and it bears witness to the age-old conflict between the order of the human community and the disorder of desire."

Here's my synopsis: yearning, yearning, yearning. Consummation! Angst, angst, angst. Yawn. But then, an event so shocking that I gasped aloud while I was reading. Which doesn't happen that often. Followed by a "come on, that's the best you could do?" And then yawns until the end.

This was one of those books where I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - and when it did, it dropped hard. Gruesome (without being graphic) and terrible. But then I just went back to waiting - is Daniel going to choose Kate or Iris? Which one? WHICH ONE!? But instead of being left with a sense of anxiety about it, I just wanted him to hurry up and make up his mind already. And as I mentioned above, there's one more big deal moment near the end, but it's so over the top that it completely removed me from my reading experience. I may have even snorted in derision.

A Ship Made of Paper - B (would have been a B- but I'm telling you, the shocking moment is really shocking)

Cannonball Read - Book 66

2009-09-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm trying, I'm trying so hard to keep on track with my reading, but I'm falling further and further (farther and farther?) behind. The last two books I've read have been re-reads, in the hopes that I can skim the parts that I remember. And I'm trying to choose short-ish ones, but that only gets me so far when "short-ish" is still 300+ pages. And I spent three hours last night reading - thank you, TV, for nothing good on Tuesdays - but am only about 2/3 of the way through book 67. I'm trying, I'm trying so hard, and I'm not giving up. Can't someone arrange for me to have a three-day weekend where my husband and dog go out of town and leave me here, and I don't have to work, and drop off four 220-page books?

On to Storm Front:

"Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the 'everyday' world is actually full of strange and magical things - and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a - well, whatever.

"There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when they police bring him in to consult on a grislu double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And that now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting."

To me, Storm Front is the best of all possible worlds for nerdy boys. There's sex, murder, a hard-ass in a long black duster, and lots and lots of magic. It's like Louis L'amour books for sci-fi nerds. It's not amazing: the magic parts are great, but the murder and crime stuff are sort of weak. But it's fun, and it's funny, and dorks of all ages will eat this shit up.

Storm Front - B-

Cannonball Read - Book 65

2009-09-29T09:06:00.002-04:00

Here's a little description for you:

In one of the most acclaimed and original novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

It's tough for me to write a review of this one, because it's really good, and I want people to read it, but basically anything I write will be one big spoiler. It is haunting, for sure, and I've been thinking about it for days. In fact, I read it once before, and couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterwards then, too. And it's creepy. I like to think of this as sci-fi literature, heavy on the -fi and not so much sci-.

My copy has this quote from the Sunday Times on the cover: "A clear frontrunner to be the year's most extraordinary novel." I quite agree.

Never Let Me Go - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 65

2009-09-22T09:12:00.004-04:00

I sure wish I'd known about The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter during the last Cannonball Read 5K, when I was supposed to read book set in places that I've lived. The Feast of Love takes place in my current town, and I get a little charge out of reading descriptions of places that I pass every day. It makes me feel part of the in-crowd.

I could pick many adjectives to describe The Feast of Love. Here are a few: Luminous. Lush. Realistic, yet unbelievable. Deep. Sumptuous. Did I mention lush? There's an economy to Baxter's writing, but he doesn't shy away from using big words. I like to think that writers have perfect words at their disposal, and sometimes they use the perfect word, and sometimes they use imperfect words to make the same point, leaving the writing either clunky or overblown. Not Baxter. He makes perfect choices, every time. It's a book about love, that's for sure, but sometimes love isn't awesome. Sometimes it hurts real bad - and that's where The Feast of Love comes in. Good days, bad months, they're all here, and it feels right.

The Feast of Love - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 64

2009-09-18T08:34:00.005-04:00

My guess is, a lot of you haven't read The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, so here's the book jacket synopsis:

"It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family's polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

"Soon after Ann Eliza's story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds - a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father's death. And as Ann Eliza's narrative intertwines with that of Jordan's search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith."

Have you ever read Carrie by Stephen King? You know how it pulls from "sources" like courtroom transcripts, letters, academic journals and first-person accounts? The 19th Wife is just like that. It uses different types of writing (letters, academic papers, some IM messages, a Wikipedia entry, along with the narrator's voice) to tell the story. But the big difference between Carrie and The 19th Wife is this:

Carrie is good.

Seriously, The 19th Wife is just not good. It's not written well, partly because of all those literary devices, but mainly because it's just not a good story. It's a morality tale disguised as a murder mystery... but I didn't really care whodunit. And Jordan, the protagonist, isn't really that sympathetic a character. He's gay, which is fine, but he's got this faggy best friend. I mean, really. Why does every "normal" gay man need a faggy best friend who calls everybody Sweetie and Miss Thing? And he's got a dog, too. Now come on. The unconditional love from the dog who rides along in the van (a van, too!) bit is kind of stale. The sections written by Ann Eliza, Brigham's wife, are better - actual historical fiction that feels real. Which, I suppose, is the point of historical fiction. But the tie-in between the historical segments and the current, murder-driven segments never really came together, and overall, the badness outweighed the sort-of goodness.

I could go on - but why? Read Under the Banner of Heaven instead.

The 19th Wife - C-

Cannonball Read - Book 63

2009-09-15T09:06:00.004-04:00

I'd only read Water for Elephants once before, so I read it again! Hooray for the re-read.

Water for Elephants is a circus story. You got your midgets, you got your bearded ladies, you got your big tents, you got love triangle between horse boss, sparkly horse rider, and circus vet. Sorry, I'm not really into writing this review. But I do really like the book.

That's all.

Water for Elephants - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 62

2009-09-10T16:15:00.001-04:00

The Lightning Thief is the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (am I the only one that thinks Percy Jackson and the Olympians sounds like a boy band from the '60s? "Here, with their smash hit "Burnin' Me Up," it's Percy Jackson and the Olympians!") Percy is a young lad who just happens to be a demi-god: one human parent, one parent who's a Greek god. When Percy finds out he's a demi-god, and shit goes pear-shaped, he goes to a summer camp called Half-Blood Hill, where he learns some god skills and sets off on a quest with his two buddies.

Sound familiar?

Percy Jackson certainly feels like the poor man's Harry Potter at times. There's fancy weaponry, and rival cabins, and good guys who betray, and lots of creepy monsters. But unlike the world that J.K. Rowling created, Percy's world is grounded in history - you can go to a reference book and look up Dionysus and Poseidon and Athena, and you'll find things that Rick Riordan has folded into his book. But still. Another boy wonder, the best anyone's seen in a long time, proving his worth but facing gigantic obstacles along the way? It's all been done before.

The Lightning Thief - B-

Cannonball Read - Book 61

2009-09-10T15:20:00.000-04:00

I am falling further and further behind in my quest to read one hundred books this year, particularly since I had two three-hour flights this weekend when I could have cranked out two or three books. Instead, I read just one.

But it was so worth it.

Middlesex was fantastic. I mean, seriously awesome. This story of a hermaphroditic Greek-American and his family's struggles and intracacies was wholly engrossing from the first page. And the moment I was done with it, I wanted to start it over, to see what I had missed the first time around. It was funny and painful and shocking and just... just... look, I'm no Jeffrey Eugenides. I can't explain it any better than this: it was outstanding.

Middlesex - A+

Cannonball Read - Book 60

2009-09-03T08:50:00.000-04:00

I had never heard of Mount Misery by Samuel Shem, but EJack was giving it away in his moving "sale," and who am I to turn down a free book?
I found this review/synopsis from the School Library Journal at Amazon:
Roy Basch, protagonist of House of God (Dell, 1981), has survived his internship and now begins his three-year training at the aptly named Mount Misery, a posh New England psychiatric hospital. Things get off to an ominous start when his mentor, a renowned therapist in the field of depressive disorders, kills himself. This is just the beginning of a year filled with disaster. Employing gallows humor, Basch and his fellow residents confront bureaucratic nonsense in a manner reminiscent of Richard Hooker's MASH. The tone then becomes more like that of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as patients are assaulted by the cruel words and manipulations of the powerful attendings. Shem's novel confronts some powerful themes - sexual abuse, psychosis, greed, depression, suicide - and counters them with examples of the very best the human spirit has to offer. The field of psychiatry is unflinchingly held under a microscope and its failings, limitations, and successes are relentlessly catalogued. With such ferocious intensity, this lengthy novel will not appeal to all teens, but those who persevere will find that Mount Misery's "Laws" and characters will live on in their imaginations for some time to come.

First of all: if you read that synopsis, and you have a teenager, DON'T LET YOUR KID READ THIS BOOK. Seriously, it is not for kids, not even high schoolers.

Now, on to the rest of my thoughts: I really hope I never have to go to therapy again. No, that's not true. What I mean is, I hope I never have to go to therapy with any of these jokers. So Mount Misery is a satire, right? So probably the characters needed to be over the top, more like caricatures of psychiatrists than real psychiatrists. Well, they were, all of them, even the ones I was supposed to like. I basically couldn't stand the protagonist, Roy, even though I'm sure I was supposed to feel his pain, be with him in the trenches as his patients failed and then failed some more. But I didn't give two shits about this guy. He was a sucker. He took on every problem that his patients had. Working on the depressive wing? He got majorly depressed. Drug and alcohol wing? Developed a leetle problem with phenobarbitol. As a reader, I didn't find this compelling; I found it annoying.

The sex scenes weren't that great, either. And every time the author threw in a naughty word, it felt like it was for shock value, not in a way that someone would actually use said naughty word.

And then... and then... the ending! It got all preachy and enlightened. To that, I say bah. When your protagonist, his wife, and their adopted Chinese baby daughter go to Arizona and he starts working with drunks on the res and she starts taking care of their preschoolers... I mean, are we supposed to believe that in the course of one year, this guy changed so dramastically (that's dramatically and drastically, for those of you paying attention) that now he's all one with the universe? NO.

Mount Misery is out of print. Just an FYI.

Mount Misery - D+

Cannonball Read - Book 59

2009-09-02T08:52:00.001-04:00

Remember the Jungle Book? Remember the story of Mowgli, the lost baby who is raised by wolves and a host of other creatures who live in the jungle?

This book is JUST LIKE THAT. Except, instead of a jungle, it's a graveyard.

Here's a synopsis:
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs neither to the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy - an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, the he will come under attack from the man Jack - who has already killed Bod's family...

Neil Gaiman's book is certainly geared toward a younger reader... but a good story's a good story. And this, my friends, is a GREAT story. Gaiman is an incredibly gifted writer, and with the Graveyard Book he's created a fantasy world that's completely believable. It's suspenseful - there's bad people (and non-people) out there, trying to get at Bod. It's funny - Bod, after all, is a little boy, and he gets into little boy mischief (and revenge). It's sad, too - I was surprised to feel tears in my eyes as I wrapped up the last chapter, but they were real tears. I cared about Bod, and about his family, and all the characters in the graveyard.

Rumor has it this is not the last we'll see of Bod, that Gaiman is writing another collection of his stories (much like Kipling did with his second collection of Jungle Book stories). I can't wait.

The Graveyard Book - A

Close Up Shop

2009-09-01T16:46:00.003-04:00

Hey, Michelle Duggar? Sweetie, I think it's time for you to take a little break. I worry for you. 18 kids, and you're having another? Listen, I respect you - you obviously love children, and that's awesome. But you know what? God would probably be just as happy if you ADOPTED a kid and let your hoo-ha rest for a little bit.

And Jim Bob? Dude. Get off of her. Literally. Take her out to dinner, maybe a nice G-rated movie, enjoy some time together without knocking her up.

Read more about it here.

Duggar 19 - C (an average grade, people)

Cannonball Read - Book 58

2009-08-27T21:54:00.005-04:00

"Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive and ambitious father. As the former Mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children, all his children, safe.
"Set over a period of 24 hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her best selling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children."

Patchett is not at the top of her game with Run. That distinction belongs to her novel Bel Canto. If you haven't read it... what are you doing reading this? GO GET THE BOOK AND READ IT NOW. But that's not to say that Run isn't excellent. Because it is. It is rich, and sad, and funny, and readable. It's been a long time since I've read a book in only six hours, but that's just what I did with Run. It drew me in. I wanted to be done reading it so that I could know how it all turned out, but I didn't want it to be over, because I wanted to know everything about this family. And like so many of the wonderful books I've read this year, it was just heartbreaking. Why does so much bad stuff happen? Probably because it's fiction, and it wouldn't be so readable if it were mundane and generally happy. But it was just so sad. Sigh.

A truly great book.

Run - A

Cannonball Read - Book 57

2009-08-25T09:22:00.004-04:00

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser exposes the deep, dark truth about the fast food industry, from its humble beginnings in California to the global giant intent on taking over the universe that it is today. FFN offers up startling evidence on the meatpacking and slaughterhouse industries, on-the-job injuries, wages, marketing to children, government control (or lack thereof) of food, disease, and just why those fried taste so good (anwer: beef tallow!). With Food, Inc. and The Omnivore's Dilemma and the other "where's my food coming from?" stuff out there these days, Fast Food Nations stands as one of the first to really take a hard look at what we eat, and how, and why.

This book is pretty disturbing. It's not just the chapters on what the cattle are fed and how much E.coli can kill you that get me, though. What was most horrifying to me was learning that brand identification and loyalty can form before a child is two years old. Two years old! All those toddlers are asking for McDonald's by name. Also, Schlosser writes that 90% of all American children eat at McDonald's at least once a month. Scary.

Fast Food Nation - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 56

2009-08-23T15:14:00.002-04:00

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer... defies description. How's that for a reviewer's copout? Seriously, EII is like nothing I've ever read. It's fiction, yes, and multiple stories are told at once by multiple narrators, and some parts are set in the present and some set in the past. But it's more than the sum of its parts. The language is rich and complex, the characters are compelling and fully realized, the action is devastating and really real. It's a page turner, for about the last fifty pages, and the first 250ish pages just lead up to that - lots and lots of exposition, not such a bad thing when you realize what it was all building up to. My jaw dropped once or twice while I was reading those last 50 pages, just in horror at what was taking place and being revealed (illuminated, you might say).

But.

But the book is a little pretentious. As brilliant as it, it knows it - at least, you get the feeling that Foer knows how good he is, how masterful at language and bending it to his will, shaping this work so that it's like nothing else out there. And that's OK, I guess, but I wanted to come away from EII thinking, Wow, that was incredible, and instead I came away thinking, Wow, that would have been incredible if it hadn't been just a little TOO "incredible."

Everything is Illuminated - A-

Everyone Deserves a Lifetime

2009-08-22T11:53:00.028-04:00

Several people asked me if I was going to write a recap of my experience walking in the Breast Cancer 3-Day. I've been putting it off, because it's going to be virtually impossible to sum up such an incredible event in a few words. But I can't let down my legion of adoring fans, so here goes:
Day One started bright and early... the day before. I like to think there was a Day Zero. I picked up Little Sister Meggie from the airport (and almost got hit by a bus in the process) and went straight to Target to purchase a fine selection of travel size toiletries. They're so wee! Meg and I had a delicious protein-and-carb filled dinner at the Melting Pot, then went home and finished packing. The 3-Day tries to limit the amount of stuff you bring with you: no bags over 35 pounds, including your sleeping bag (more about the sleeping bag later). Meggie and I worked out a deal: I'd carry the sleeping bags and a few other things in my gigantic duffel bag, and she'd carry the majority of the clothes and toiletries. I love it when a plan comes together.
Day One really started at 3:45 AM Friday, when Meg and I woke up, slammed down breakfast, and got in OUR LIMO! One of my training walk buddies set up a limo to drive us to opening ceremonies so that we could leave our cars very close to the closing ceremonies. This, too, was a brilliant plan - bravo, Spencer. We ate our second breakfast on the limo and arrived at opening in style. We met up with the rest of our team, the Bodacious Tatas, resplendent in our bright purple shirts, and braced ourselves for the onslaught of emotions that accompanies opening. Let me tell you, the 3-Day is not for the emotionally weak or unevolved. There are LOTS of tears. The opening ceremony is really beautiful, and it gets the walkers very pumped for the task at hand - 60 miles is no easy feat.
Day One continued through the mean streets of Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, with a multitude of pit stops and a lovely lunch break at a big park. Meggie and I did all the right things in terms of stretching, hydrating and foot care - but I still ended up with two gigantic blisters on my heels (more on those blisters later, too). We arrived at camp on Day One after walking 19.9 miles, and only about two miles of Meggie complaining about needing to pee. The wonderful young men of the Romeo High School football team helped us carry our luggage and set up... our tents! That's right, tents - cute little pink tents, but tents they were. You walk 20 miles a day, then collapse to sleepo on the ground (hence the sleeping bags). But we came prepared with a tarp to help keep out ground water, so we were good.
What else happened on Day One? Well, kids, I competed in the 3-Day Rockstar competition. Yee-haw! When I walked in 2006, they had the first ever 3-Day Rockstar, but it wasn't a competition, it was basically a karaoke night, and I was too mentally and physically drained to even fathom singing. But not this year! I'd been PRACTICING! So I got on the stage, did my little shtick with host Janae, and sang my little heart out... and the crowd went wild! But there were six other very good entrants in the contest, so I thought my chances of making the top three and competing in the final the next day were limited.
So imagine my glee when I got this:

I was a finalist! YAY!!!

Day Two also dawned bright and early. Meggie and I checked in at the medical tent to work on those blisters (and for Meg to get her subluxed patellas wrapped) before we hit the route. I covered both heels with Second Skin (a gel pad with the consistency of a Jell-o Jiggler) and moleskin, and felt good about how the day would shape up. But alas, those effin' blisters got the better of me. Meggie and I walked very slowly all morning and arrived at lunch only half-an-hour before it closed. See, along the 3-Day route, pit stops and lunch only stay open for a certain length of time. If you don't make it to the stop before it closes, or if you're still there when it closes, you get "swept," 3-Day lingo for taking a van to the next stop or back to camp. I really, really didn't want to get swept this year, since in 2006 I had to shave off about 7 miles and head back to camp early on Day Two, but when I took off my shoes at lunch and saw that the blisters were visible through my socks (as in, pushing my socks out away from by body), I knew I needed to get medical attention. Like I said, we were really behind in our timing, so I gulped down my chicken caesar wrap and limped over to medical... ten minutes before they closed. They didn't turn me away right away, but at 11:55 and lunch closing in five minutes, it was suggested that I get swept to the next pit stop, only 1.8 miles away. I sucked it up and said OK, bid Meggie farewell, and flagged down a sweep van. I thought that I could just get the blisters lanced and be on my merry way, down less than two miles in total 3-Day mileage; but again, not the case. When the very nice nurse lanced just one of my blisters, she left me with these words: "If you can't walk on it without limping, don't walk." Limping to take pressure off my heel would very easily have resulted in hurting my back, knees and hips, putting my out of commission for the rest of the walk or the rest of the week. Right about that time, Meggie showed up at the pit stop, needing some attention to those knees, so we stayed at medical a little bit longer. I finally re-latched my fanny pack and tried to set off for the last 11 miles - and that first step I took was a limping step. I was done for the day. I don't think there's anything I could have done to prevent those blisters, and it won't do me any good to think about those socks I shouldn't have worn, or the Bodyglide I should have used more frequently on my feet... I got on the bus back to camp, accepted my "sagged and proud" pin with grace, and headed back to camp. Yes, I was feeling low, so I thought I'd stop at the 3-Day post office to see if anyone had sent me any mail. And, WOW. I didn't count, because that would be tacky, but I must have gotten close to twenty cards and letters, from as far away as Nashville and Sacramento and as nearby as the office across the hall. I think my dad and Nate's mom must have had an unofficial contest to see who could shower me with more cards. To tell the truth, I only scanned some of them, because I was CRYING. I love my people.
And I also love my dog. Check out what he left for me in my suitcase (no, it's not poop):
I went back to the medical tent to get the other, now bigger, blister lanced, and was so pleased to be seen by the Marquise de Sade. Seriously, this lady should not be allowed to work at the 3-Day again. OK, OK, I have to cut her a little slack. These doctors and nurses and sports trainers probably see people with REAL injuries all the time, and then volunteer to take care of people walking on this amazing journey and get stuck lancing blisters. I'm sure they LOOOVE that.

But she was a little mean, and very terse, and then she injected my blister holes (both of 'em, 'cause she re-lanced the first one) with zinc oxide. Again, benefit of the doubt: she's the professional, and the outcome was really positive, because the blisters didn't get infected and were almost totally better by Sunday. But it would have been nice if she had told me that it would HURT. Like, a LOT. I would be happy to never have her touch my feet again.
Day Two ended a lot like Day One: nice cool shower, hearty dinner, back on stage singing in the 3-Day Rockstar competition. I didn't say before that the prelim round had three judges - so now you know. The final round was judged by audience applause, so I tried to get all my teammates and training walk buddies riled up before I sang. I did get lots of applause - the most applause, in fact - but I think that the host was maybe trying to not hurt anyone's feelings, because it ended up a three-way tie. But seriously, I'm pretty sure I won. That's me all the way to the right, in the purple shirt, tearing it up.

I told you I couldn't do it in a few words, right? Everybody hangin' in there? Anyone need a snack? Stay with me.

Day Three began with a bus ride to Ann Arbor - good times. There was more walking, lunch in beautiful Burns Park, lots of pretty neighborhoods and rolling hills. Oh yeah, we also walked right by my place of employment. I'll pause to let you all pat me on the back for this sweet marquee message. But it was a scorcher, and people were dropping like flies. Meggie and I played lots of fun celebrity games while we walked, and managed to keep our spirits up for the first twelve miles (this was just a 15 mile day, since all the walkers needed to be at the closing ceremonies). We got a little loopy around mile 12, though:

Did I mention it was ungodly hot?

We made it to closing with about forty-five minutes to spare, plenty of time to take of our shoes and give each other little footrubs, which ended up being a little slice of heaven. We met up with the rest of our team and walked into closing together, proud, tired, emotionally raw, but holding our heads high at what we accomplished.

And that, my friends, is my story of the 3-Day.

The Breast Cancer 3-Day - A- (c'mon, I had to take points off for the blisters)

Project Runway Recap

2009-08-21T07:55:00.007-04:00

It seems like FOREVER since Project Runway has been on TV. And maybe it has been a really long time. With the legal battle between Bravo and the Weinstein Co. waging for months, and the lead-up to the new season airing on Lifetime, I don't think there have been any re-runs on Bravo - and you could always count on at least one marathon a month. So it was with open arms and an open heart that I welcomed Project Runway back into my life last night.

The evening started with the All-Star Challenge - and kudos (would it be tacky to say bravo?) to whichever genius thought it up, because I'm sure it drew legions of loyal fans over to Lifetime. I'd watch little Daniel Vosovic every day of the week! But I think that Jeff Sebelia hit the nail on the head when he said that Mychael wasn't an all-star (I love you, Mychael, I'm not actually talking about you). I would think that "all-star" would mean top three. How did Sweet P sneak in there but there was no Laura Bennett? Maybe she was too busy having another baby... At any rate, it was a delightful two hours and I'm thrilled that Daniel won. He's always been one of my favorites. In fact, I think Season 2 was my most favorite. Daniel, Nick, Santino, Andrae (where's Andrae?), and Grace, my second-favorite PR model of all time. I'll send you a present if you can name my all-time favorite PR model.

After the all-star challenge, it was time to get down to it - season six begins! It's almost like they knew that there was going to be a long hiatus between season five and season 6, because they started with a red carpet challenge. Yee-haw! Season 6 isn't messing around (although I'm sure the conceptual stuff will come later). There were some beautiful gowns, and some total wack shit. I don't see this week's challenge winner winning the whole thing; at this point, it's hard to say who I think will come out on top, but my early favorites are Epperson, Carol Hannah and Ra'Mon.

I had concerns that PR on Lifetime would be too different from PR on Bravo. But really, it was the exact same show. Same set, same graphics (are those Heidi's legs walking across the screen before each commercial break?), same intense music before the contestant is auf'd. Only the commercials are different. I will miss seeing promos for Real Housewives or Top Chef, but I think I can manage.

As an aside, I think there's going to be a lot of TV in my life this fall. Project Runway, So You Think You Can Dance, Glee, Intervention, Grey's Anatomy... maybe I'll need to set a goal of watching 100 shows?

Project Runway - A-

What The...!?

2009-08-10T09:44:00.003-04:00

Book 55 in my Cannonball Read challenge is Devil May Care by Sheri McInnis. Quick description: down-on-her-luck actress Sally meets a network executive, Jack, who changes her life. Before she was losing parts to a less-talented actress whom she resembled, with a sad part-time job, a tragic family background, and a lackluster boyfriend; with Jack, she's winning parts, dressing well, and having the time of her life. But her deep religious streak as well as a series of events too creepy to be coincidence convince her that this powerful man is the Devil. Not just a devil, but THE Devil. Is Sally crazy, or is Jack more than he seems?

So yeah, I read the book, and it was OK - fluffy, predictable, but still engaging. But here's the part I don't get: I read to page 248, then got very confused when the punctuation didn't match. Turns out the book was missing 32 pages, jumping from 248 to 281. Then, I read until 312, and it jumped back to 281. So pages 249-280 are missing, but pages 281-312 were printed twice. SO weird. I don't think I missed much - something about a nun - but I wonder how that happened. I also wonder if the friends who lent me the book ever read it...

Devil May Care - C+

Cannonball Read - Book 54

2009-08-09T20:59:00.004-04:00

Here's your overview:

"In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, an “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s written a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on the fan and compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together they endure the agony of footbinding and reflect upon their arranged marriages, their loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace in their friendship, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their relationship suddenly threatens to tear apart."

Here's the deal: I love historical fiction, particularly HF that centers around women. You can see that from checking out some of the other books I've liked this year, and three of my top ten of all time are FFHF (that's female-friendly historical fiction). But SFatSF was just overdone. Maybe it's that I don't really care about China. Or maybe it's just that it wasn't as good as Memoirs of a Geisha - yes, that's Japan in the '30s and '40s, this is China in the 1820s, but there were certain similarities that I couldn't get past and the comparison to MoaG was inevitable. Or maybe it's that, after reading this book, I felt compelled to learn more about footbinding and just saw a picture so disturbing that I almost barfed, right here at the computer. Whatever the reason, SFatSF just didn't live up to its potential.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - B-

Cannonball Read - Book 53

2009-08-09T20:43:00.004-04:00

The Widows' Adventures by Charles Dickinson (yes, that's his real name) is one of the best books you've never heard of. Here's a quick synopsis:
"Widows Ina and Helene, sisters from Chicago, set off on a drive to Los Angeles. There’s one problem: Only Helene can drive, and she’s blind. Beer-swigging Ina acts as her eyes. On back roads in the dead of night they travel across an America they never knew."
But there's a lot more to it than that. Strained familial relationships, violence, murder, adultery, lots of laughs, a few tears, lesbians, and a really compelling story. Helene and Ina are full, three-dimensional characters, and Dickinson's got a way with words - the language is very accessible, but has a few poetic moments thrown in. You can't help but like this one.

Dickinson's a newspaperman from Chicago, with a few books and short stories under his belt. He's also the dad of one of my co-workers. True story.

The Widows' Adventures - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 52

2009-08-04T21:44:00.001-04:00

David Sedaris is pretty much a genius. I didn't like this as much as liked Me Talk Pretty One Day, but I loved Me Talk Pretty One Day - it would be hard to beat. And Sedaris' material is starting to get a little stale - I get it: you live in Europe, you smoke, you travel the world giving lectures/reading, you have a boyfriend, you're socially awkward. But one reader's stale is another reader's refinement, and Sedaris has certainly honed his skills and is a captivating storyteller. Good times all around.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 51

2009-08-01T19:17:00.006-04:00

Welcome to August. I am currently six books behind my goal - should have finished 58 by July 31, only finished 52. Please note that books read and books blogged aren't the same thing. I read faster than I type.

On to the review: The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker falls somewhere between true crime and self-help. De Becker is a violence specialist (not like Nate is a violence specialist) whose firm protects famous and not-so-famous clients from stalkers and other violent types, and he had a wicked home life as a kid, so he's got expertise on both sides. His mission in writing this book was to inform the masses that real fear is good, and unnecessary fear is bad. Simple enough, right? De Becker says that too many people are fearful when they have no reason to be, but then deny their intuition when something to be really fearful of is present. He says that if we could just pay attention to our intuition, we could probably prevent most violent crimes - heed the warning signs, but don't see signs that aren't there. The example that resonated with me was the woman who clutches her keys in her hand as she walks down the street at night, broadcasting her fear, even when there's nothing around to cause fear. De Becker also says that unnecessary fear can mask true feelings of loss, like loss of identity - there was a great example of a woman who was afraid to leave her office building at night because she was always the last one working, but after digging a little deeper, De Becker determined that being the last one out of the building was a critical part of this woman's sense of self, and if she left any earlier which, theoretically, would mean leaving at a "safer" time, she'd be construed as a slacker - so she put herself in "danger" in order to save face with her colleagues. De Becker cited lots of real cases of stalking and violent behavior (including a shark attack story!), which were very compelling and re-told the information in a practical manner, so instead of just reading about what you should and you shouldn't do, you saw first-hand how doing the right or wrong thing impacted a real person.

This book was great, and I learned a lot, and it certainly opened my eyes to some inappropriate fear behaviors of my own. My only beef was that it was super repetitive - I don't think I needed 14 chapters on listening to my intuition, but maybe De Becker knows best, and knows that breaking people of denying their intuition requires hammering the idea into their heads.

The Gift of Fear - A-

Cannonball Read - Book 50

2009-07-28T09:28:00.005-04:00

I read this book with my ears. I don't usually do books on tape (or mp3, as the case may be), but the hubs and I started this one on a long car trip a couple weeks ago and just finished it up last night. The reader, David Aaron Baker, was awesome, and the book itself was really compelling (more on that later), but most nights as we lay listening, I fell asleep, so I feel like I "read" about two-thirds of the book - the part we heard in the car - but skimmed the last third, the part we listened to before bed each night. It got to the point where I had to leave the lights and my glasses on, to at least preserve the illusion that I was reading.

About the book: Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology doctoral student at the University of Chicago, wanted to investigate life in the projects among the black and poor. He intended to start his research with a standard questionnaire, but as he approached the Robert Taylor homes, he was sort of taken hostage by a gang, the Black Kings. J,T., the gang leader, told Sudhir that he'd never learn anything by asking questions from a questionnaire, that the only way he'd learn what it was like to be black and poor in the projects was to "hang out." So Sudhir did. For SEVEN YEARS. And the shit he saw was intense: drugs, hustling, drive-by shootings, crazy ladies screaming at convenience store clerks, and so, so much more. He lived it - but not entirely, because at the end of the day, he went back to his nice apartment near the university and took notes on his experience. Ultimately, J.T. let Sudhir be gang leader for a day (hence the title). And if you think that you could be a gang leader, because all they do is drive around in fancy cars and glad-hand other gang leaders, you would be sorely mistaken. Like I said, intense.

This was really, really good. I can't say if I would have loved it if I'd read it, but listening to it was great. David Aaron Baker did an excellent job, although for some reason they had Sudhir red the last chapter. It definitely broke up the continuity.

Gang Leader for a Day - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 49

2009-07-25T09:30:00.001-04:00

Here's what the book jacket has to say about Coffee and Kung Fu by Karen Brichoux:

Twenty-six-year-old Nicci Bradford doesn't exactly love her job fixing the grammar in company brochures, or living in Boston, or going on awkward fix-ups with men she barely knows. What she does love is Kung Fu movies...especially the ones starring Jackie Chan. Their timeless and inspired wisdom offers her a philosophy of life. The problem is she doesn't have much of a life to philosophize about. But Jackie Chan is also a pretty good action hero. And when opportunity-and risk-present themselves in unexpected ways, it's up to Nicci to follow her hero's example, focus on her goal, and strike...

See, here's the problem with this description: it basically tells you nothing about the book! There are lots of characters, and little sub-plots, and quite a bit of romance (including a couple racy scenes - hubba, hubba). Nicci is a complex character - well, as complex as a character in what's basically chick-lit can be - with a solid backstory, but you hardly get any of that in the book description. Which is unfortunate, because this is a pretty fun little book. It's got some poignant moments, and some grrrl power kick-ass moments, and overall it's a solid but quick read. I'm afraid that no one will know that, though, just based on this description.

So here's MY description: A sassy yet sad-sack heroine with a dead-end job and pathetic love life, Nicci seeks to discover her inner kung fu movie - enlightenment and fulfillment, not to mention a few ass-kicking moves. And when she meets Grinning Boy, it seems as if life could take a turn for the better. But even the kung fu train can jump the tracks, and Rob just might prove to be the antagonist to Nicci's hero. Can one little lady find love AND a fulfilling career, and never drop her chopsticks?

Or something like that.

Coffee and Kung Fu - B+

Cannonball Read - Book 48

2009-07-22T08:53:00.003-04:00

I do not like Bill Bryson.

OK, that's not fair. I just don't like too much Bill Bryson. I found A Walk in the Woods quite entertaining, and certain passages of I'm A Stranger Here Myself were enjoyable. But The Lost Continent was just too much. Bryson's a sassier Garrison Keillor - he's folksy and homespun, but he likes to use the f-word. And while I fully condone the f-word, I am starting to feel that I can't abide by folksy and homespun. It boils down to this: I didn't grow up in a kinder, gentler time in a kinder, gentler place. I am not searching for small town America. In fact, I kinda think that small town America is boring. And I don't like baseball (apple pie is delicious, though). So Bryson's books don't really speak to me. 297 pages of folksy, homespun, small town America were about 287 pages too much.

The Lost Continent - C

Cannonball Read - Book 47

2009-07-21T20:44:00.003-04:00

I was really, really looking forward to reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Not only did Pajiba rank it as the #3 book of our generation (or something like that, maybe #3 of all books ever read by Pajiba readers?), my librarian friend told me it was excellent, and a whole bunch of other people, too. So I thought I would love it - people whose opinions I value said it was really, really good.

And it was - but it didn't live up to the hype. I was expecting it to be SPECTACUALAR, and while it was very good, it wasn't amazingly wonderful. I liked the characters, I like the story, I liked the sci-fi aspect... but it just wasn't AWESOME.

I don't know what else to say.

The Time Traveler's Wife - B