The Latest GoodReads

So last spring my friend invited me to join GoodReads.com, and although I had no time to really explore it at the time, I joined and created a little profile. Now that we have our BOOK CLUB (wahoo!), I can't wait to spend more and more hours perusing everyone's brilliant suggestions and reviews.

My latest list of to-reads:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Kingsolver)
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Rotten English (thank you, Carly)
The is NOT Chick Lit (thank you, Kels)
The End of the Affair
Heat (Buford)
Dark Alphabet (Jennifer Maier)

WHICH REMINDS ME! My dear friend and professor, the poet Jennifer Maier, was featured on none other than The Writer's Almanac last Friday, September 14. As if I needed another reason to idolize such a sassafras, The Venerable Garrison Keillor spoke her poem with such velvety charisma I nearly had to lie down.

Without further ado...

Love at First Sight

You always hear about it-
a waitress serves a man two eggs
over easy and she says to the cashier,
That is the man I'm going to marry,
and she does. Or a man spies a woman
at a baseball game; she is blond
and wearing a blue headband,
and, being a man, he doesn't say this
or even think it, but his heart is a homing bird
winging to her perch, and next thing you know
they're building birdhouses in the garage.
How do they know, these auspicious lovers?
They are like passengers on a yellow
bus painted with the dreams
of innumerable lifetimes, a packet
of sepia postcards in their pocket.
And who's to say they haven't traveled
backward for centuries through borderless
lands, only to arrive at this roadside attraction
where Chance meets Necessity and says,
What time do you get off?

by Jennifer Maier from Dark Alphabet

let's be poets in our next life together, okay?

The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week--
Three fine houses sold to deserving families--
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

Carl Dennis, Practical Gods

jumble jumble whoa

I've got a flurry of things to think and spew right onto my delicate little macbook keys. Not sure there will be much a thread here.

First of all...I just got an email from my super-hip friend who happens to be an SPU art professor. And we're going for drinks. I'm so thrilled. Not just because I'm getting to know this savvy, warm, likable person, but because it feels good to meet for drinks with another adult.

Speaking of adulthood, my job is still relatively banal. (Correct usage, anyone? Where's Grammar Girl when you need her?) The Squawk hung up on someone four times in a row yesterday, I learned that internet surfing leads to 3-day suspensions, and Christmas vacation is but a state institution's collapse away. Observation: these women need to leave their cubicles for more than coffee. These women need to find some hobbies. Pronto.

Wedding plans are on the up and up! Woot! We picked our photographer, and he's laid-back and the epitome of chill (I don't think I'm able to pull that off, but it's a blog, right?)...Speaking of, the picture up there is my current wedding inspiration--the photo credits belong to Michele M. Waite, what a fun feel!

ALSO, the book club is about to begin. Three SPU English majors are joining with in what promises to be a raucous exploration of elevated beach reads. Okay, we'll try and get past the "Devil Wears Fill-in-the-Blank" most of the time, but we'll still gobble those ones up when we can. Our first pick is Carly's suggestion: Rotten English. How appropriate, since most of us have succumbed to the reality that all those jerks who suspected English majors wouldn't find cool jobs, well, they were right. At least for the moment.

Tomorrow I'm going to write about my sweet idea for post-bac education in the form of a single website. It might make me a millionaire.

thirty years of her life

So this new job... I'll head into Day 5 on Monday, and I have already spent a significant amount of time and energy brainstorming reasons I might necessarily resign. Among them, I have contemplated "health difficulties," meaning that if I have to file one more packing slip for Human DNA or 300 lab mice (to be injected and poked, eww), I may lose my sanity=health difficulties. Also, an opportunity that "I just can't pass up" sounds feasible, which might translate as a flashback to my former life as a playground supervisor, aka Nanny Extraordinaire.

On Friday, The Squawk held a part-time researcher captive in her cubicle for approximately 30 minutes. All of this harassment stemmed from his lavish decision to take seven hours of vacation time, when he, as a part-time employee, is only entitled to four. According to our grand state, the one named after the first president, the one who fought for...liberty, the said researcher may only take four hours vacation time, and therefore he must pay. No lunch for YOU, said The Squawk.

new bloginnings

I suppose to be a real writer, I better be a real blogger too. Welcome to the blog world, Holly Elizabeth. It's been far too long. :)