I've really been itching to write, but I spent Saturday at a twelve-hour wedding that was lovely but wore me the fuck out. Then this morning we drove to the suburbs to meet out-of-town friends at a blazing hot mega-playground where one hundred white children scrambled up and down four stories of ladders and chutes and their mamas sat on park benches under umbrellas reading books like Transforming the Difficult Child and YOU: Staying Young.
This afternoon I had a blessed one-hour break from all action and walked to the neighborhood coffee shop, where I sat reading a fascinating book about creativity by someone with a long name that begins with Csik and ends with alhyi (I think). It's one of a stack of nearly overdue fascinating books on my coffee table that I haven't gotten more than 20 pages into. Including The Master Butcher's Singing Club, which I'm supposed to be reading for my neighborhood book club but am balking about, probably just because it has the air of being an assignment. And four poetry books, including John Ashbery, whom I think I hate (sorry, Emmie) and Naomi Shihab Nye, and then also Siblings Without Rivalry, which I should probably just rip out page by page and tape to the fridge. And Rodale's Vegetable Garden Problem Solver, whose drawings of bugs are dismayingly black-and-white and don't make it easy enough to identify the orangey red bugs that are everywhere and may or may not be devouring the broccoli leaves, not that the broccoli plants appear to be ready to brocc anytime soon anyway. Oh, and Robert Olen Butler's From Where You Dream, which is the basis for a writing class I'm going to take this week where the teacher says we will go into a trance to think of writing ideas. I can hardly wait. Reviving Ophelia is in there too. (Subtitle: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls), which I haven't even opened and is, I believe, overdue already, despite my best intentions to turn over a new leaf. Thankfully, I believe I have at least six to eight years before adolescence comes on, so maybe I'll return that one without even bothering to renew it.
Oh, and in my spare time I've been moving my blog to Wordpress. It is so, so much more beautiful over there. And I have a new name idea. Because pants? Buying pants? What has that got to do with anything? So, this will all be unveiled soon, as soon as I've put the finishing touches on it and slept a few times on the question of whether I want this to be some sort of cosmic-level makeover where subject matter and anonymity level change a lot, or just a cosmetic and ease-of-use thing.
In the meantime, speaking of beauty or lack thereof, please check out Your Logo Makes Me Barf, which, as a part-time unofficial design nerd, I find to be about the funniest thing since Cakewrecks.
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Ooh, I want to move to Wordpress too, mostly so I can take advantage of password-protected posts. Then I could stop worrying that a family member will find my blog. Do you have to get the paid account to move over your blog, or can you do it on the free one?
ReplyDeleteYour description of the park made me laugh. How about transforming your difficult child by playing with him/her? (Perhaps this is just sour grapes because there is no way I could read a book at the park with my kids!)
Early this spring, it may have still been a warm day in the winter, I took Vivien to a park in our old neighborhood. I was overwhelmed by the bench sitters that watched their children from afar while gossiping about a poor acquaintance of theirs that they felt was lucky to have gotten the attention of a friend of theirs even though he was ugly.
ReplyDeleteBut the swingers were the ones who irked me the most. The group of parents that stuck their kids on the 3 available toddler swings so they could chat it up while their poor kids swayed back and forth, longingly looking at the other kids running around.
Not to add to your stack of unread books, but a friend recommended the following: People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Melissa - you can import everything from Blogger using the free version of Wordpress, and it's super easy. I expected a major headache, but basically everything moved over with a couple of clicks - posts, comments, images, & even labels/categories!
ReplyDeleteAna - I don't have any problem with bench sitting in theory - I'll take any chance I can get for a little break. I just thought the book titles in this case were kinda funny. Catty gossip, though...that, I can get snarky about!
Sounds like you have a lot of good books on the go! The one about creativity - is it "Flow"? It always irked me because I rarely get into flow...so easily distractable. Pottery this winter changed that and I'm starting to understand. Every time I walk in the door of the studio 3 hours flies by.
ReplyDeleteReviving Ophelia terrified me and I saw my earlier years through a different lens. Some days I can't believe I have daughters.