New Year, New "Rules"

I have never been big on New Year's resolutions, they never stick, I don't even like the word "resolution" it sounds so dire, so serious, like a rule more than a hope for change. However, as 2008 winds down, I can't help but feel a need to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the coming one.  I had quite a lot of goals for myself last year, the most important of which I did not accomplish, so my hope is that this year will be different. 

I did start a blog this year, something I was initially against, but now can't imagine not doing. Every so often I like to read through old posts just to see what I was thinking and writing about and to see how my writing has progressed. This time next year, I will be looking back and reading this post and I hope that by then I will have accomplished three big goals: get healthy/in shape (I'm not talking about a major transformation here, I just want to feel healthier and better about myself), finish a novel (any novel), get pregnant.

This is sure to be a year of great change for the world at large, some bad and some good, but I have hope, for the first time in a long time, about the future of our country. Things look bleak now, but as they say, it is always the darkest before dawn. Wishing my readers (all two of you), friends, family and strangers a happy, healthy and hopeful New Year.

My favorite _________ of 2008.

A few of my favorite things from '08:

-New TV series: True Blood

-Sports moment: winning my office March Madness bracket

-New Food: Panera egg, bacon and cheese breakfast sandwich

-Album: this one is a threeway tie between Coldplay "Viva La Vida"; TV On The Radio "Dear Science" and Kings of Leon "Because of the Times"

-Family Guy episode: "Surfin Bird"... have you heard?

-Specialty coffee drink: Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Twist

-Pop Culture Moment: the Election results

-Guilty pleasure: the Twilight Books series

- Read: "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer (I realized this was published a few years back, but this is the year I read it and it's my list so I can do what I want)

-Concert: Coldplay at the Forum

-Movie: this one is tough because I actually haven't seen a lot of new films this year, but I am going to have to go with The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder is a close second

-New Gadget: another tie between my iPhone and Kindle

-Personal Moment: Bringing Charlie home from the shelter

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a warm and happy holiday!

Books, books, books

It’s been a weekend of books in Newton, Kansas where we are visiting the in-laws for an early Christmas celebration. We don’t have wi-fi here so I am typing all my blog posts in Word to be posted online when we get back home and I suddenly feel kind of like Doogie Howser. Polished off Twilight last night with a big sigh, wishing it didn’t have to end, but before I had a chance to start mourning I hopped on the Kindle Store and had New Moon downloaded onto the Kindle (man I frickin love this thing) faster than you can say “vampires and werewolves, oh my”. I am now half way through New Moon and anxiously awaiting what I hope is the inevitable return of Edward.

Yesterday we trekked out to Wallyworld, otherwise known as Walmart to the uninitiated, to do some last minute shopping. I was hoping to pick up a few paperbacks to stuff under the tree for my mother-in-law but was shocked and appalled to find that their book selection consisted of half of one aisle filled with Inspirational Religious fiction, Harlequin Romances and a handful of Nora Roberts titles. It’s no wonder Steve Jobs said no one reads in America anymore, how could they with a selection like that in a store that is nearly two football fields wide.

I was ready to give up on the literary future of the heartland when we stumbled onto Pages Books located on Main Street in Newton. A warm little shop tucked in between a close cousin of the former Wild Oats and a cute home furnishings store. There wasn’t an exact rhyme or reason to the book selection and it was small, only one copy of almost all the titles they carried, but oh the titles. It might as well have been a bookcase from my office, from Franz Kafka to Haruki Murakami and everything in between. I picked out two titles for my mother-in-law and felt reassured that there was hope yet.

House

We are usually subjected to about ten hours of various Food Network programming, peppered with the occasional Weather Channel report while visiting the in-laws, but tonight we broke away from Paula Deen’s drawl long enough to watch a rerun of "House" and I was surprised to find that it’s really not a bad show. I also get why it's so popular, its the perfect marriage of the procedural and emergency room dramas, two of the most successful genres on television. That combined with surprisingly decent acting, it's no wonder it's a hit. I may have to add it to my now almost barren DVR list.

Are You There God, It’s Me Sher and I’m Ready For Takeoff

I’m not a religious person. Period. I was baptized as a baby, but I haven’t set foot in a church, except as a tourist and on my wedding day, in at least ten years. I understand and appreciate that religion and God are an important part of a lot of people’s lives, but organized religion is not something I personally find any use for. I do believe in a higher being of sorts, although with each passing year I can’t help but question what that even means.

And yet there are occasions that, for whatever reason, I feel the need to pray to God. I was reminded of this as I sat on an airplane today, taxing towards the runway and was compelled to repeat a ritualized mantra asking God for safe passage through the skies. I have done this every time I’ve gotten on an airplane for as long as I can remember. My father is a pilot, I have grown up around airplanes and been flying probably since before I could even walk so I don’t fear planes or travel and yet every time I board one I go against everything I believe in and say a little prayer.

Why do I do this, when I otherwise find no place for religion in my life? What compels me to mumble incoherently under my breath as I watch the runway disappear and shrink beneath us? If not out of fear and not out of true belief, then what? Perhaps I just find comfort in the ritual, or maybe I'm more of a believer than I think.

W.

I watched W. yesterday (yay for screeners) and was shocked and appalled that the film left me kind of feeling sorry for old Junior. The film was a decent Oliver Stone version of a biopic, brilliant acting by Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks, a few questionable performances (the woman playing Condi was ridiculously charicatured) and some weird dream sequences. Of course it's hard to know how much that goes on in the film is imagined versus based in fact (considering it's Stone, more likely the former), and yet I couldn't help but sympathize with the character of GW just a little bit.

Then to add insult to injury, this morning I turned on the tube to find GW being pummeled by flying shoes and I just flat out felt sorry for the guy. I can't explain it, ordinarily I think I might have had some smug satisfaction in seeing him insulted and embarrassed, I mean I still hate him, but suddenly I find it hard not to pity him too.

Bail Out ...the Writers?

A witty piece in this weekend's NY Times arguing for a government bailout of writers.

Vampire Madness

After much curiosity and some pestering from friends that are avid fans I finally broke down and picked up a copy of Twilight (or rather I clicked a button and had it zapped to my Kindle, man I love this thing, but more on that later).

I am only one chapter in but already I'm hooked. It has every element that attracted me to this kind of book when I was of the age appropriate for reading it: lonely, new-to-town protagonist; small, coastal town location, mysterious hot boy. What more could a fourteen year old girl want out of a good read? Just as with Harry Potter, had this book been around when I was a wee lass, man would it have been good and dog-eared by now.

I can't help but wonder though, what it is about vampires that makes them so irresistibly fascinating even though this is the thousandth incarnation of the bloodsuckers to cross my path in my lifetime, let alone the second this year. I can't even begin to fully list all of the vampire lore I've obsessed over, most recently True Blood, then there was The Historian, (which if you haven't read and are even remotely a fan of vampires you should drop everything and pickup a copy right now) and of course who could forget Anne Rice's epic series. What is it about these night-walking, bloodsucking undead we find so fascinating that they continue to permeate every facet of media year after year?

My Kindle is beckoning me, but more on this when I finish.

Recession= Return of the Bush

No not that one. This one.

When is a drunken breast grope just a drunken breast grope?

Obama's speechwriter caught groping Hillary's cardboard "breast."

Yes maybe the guy should show a little better judgement now that he is under the scrutiny of such a public position, but isn't it ever okay to just file this under what it really is: a stupid drunken moment and not have to analyze each square inch of this photo-op for the sexist symbolism contained within.

Besides this is probably the most action Hillary --cardboard or otherwise-- has seen in years.

15 years without sex is 15 years too long.

Came across this piece on Salon by a woman who has not had sex in a decade and a half and found it quite sad. Not so much for the fact that she literally has not had sex in a decade and a half (which is just plain depressing) but more so because she seems to justify her choice with the comfort of such ridiculous cliches as  never having the toilet seat left up or remote relinquished. 

It would be one thing if she simply had no want of male companionship, some women don't, but clearly as her therapist points out, the yearning is there. She tries so hard to separate sex from intimacy but as Broadsheet points out in response to this piece, "sex isn't just the ends, it's also the means." I'm not saying single women should go out and sleep with every man with a penis in hopes feeling a semblance of intimacy, but to cut yourself off entirely from the possibility of sex simply for fear of feeling vulnerable is just plain sad.

Hello, my name is Sher and I am a cyberchondriac.

Cyberchondriac n. --Someone who needlessly fears the worst after using the Internet to self-diagnose an ailment.  usage: "Health information online is breeding a generation of cyberchondriacs."

It's bad and getting worse, my addiction to WebMD that is. Thinking about starting C.A.: cyberchondriacs anonymous. I used to think it was great to have so much information at the click of a button, but when I end up spending more time online "researching" than say, I dunno, working, then I've got a problem. At first it was just a useful tool to look to when I got the occasional cough or pain in my knee, but since my husband and I set off on the bumpy road called trying to conceive it's become a lot more than that.

The fact is, as a relatively educated person, I realize that online medical information must be taken with a HUGE grain of salt and that the majority of it is just plain wrong or better yet, too vague to actually tell me anything, but for some reason I can't stop myself from reading every message board in hopes of finding answers and explanations to every ridiculous question and symptom that crosses my mind. I guess regardless of whether or not the information is helpful, I find some level of comfort in knowing that the information is out there because I am not the only one going through this and while I may not be able to properly diagnose anything, I can at least self-medicate through the shared experience.

Blogging from the couch

We got a brand new MacBook Pro this week, but today is the first day I've had a chance to really mess with it and so far I love it. I use an older model MacBook at work but at home we have been a desktop family since my neon orange clam shell Mac crashed several years ago. I am loving the freedom of being able to surf the net from anywhere in the house, although now our office is seeming more and more like a storage space/dumping ground.

On a separate note, I watched Tropic Thunder last night which I thought was great. Although I can see why they had a hard time marketing it. I would basically categorize it as an intelligent spoof. The premise was great, but what really made it were the fantastic performances from all involved, the standouts being Robert Downey Jr. and of course Tom Cruise. Speaking of which, I just watched Risky Business for the first time last week, not what I expected but also a great film. Tom maybe a little nutty (okay a lot nutty) but between those two flicks the guy has got some sweet dance moves.

Stay the hell out of my womb W

Just when I was getting comfortable with the lame duck status of George W, his administration rolls out plans to enact a "right of conscience" rule which could significantly affect women's access not only to birth control and abortion but also to sperm donation and artificial insemination. Why the hell won't he just go quietly into the night like everybody wants?

What makes a book young adult?

After a lively debate at the office this morning about what makes a book fall into the category of Young Adult, I Googled the topic and found this interesting NY Times article which I had actually read before. The question posed in our debate, however, was, beyond the marketing choices of the publisher, what criteria specifically makes a book more suited towards kids than adults? My boss suggested that it was the simplicity of the prose that made a book Y.A., but there are many youth-geared books that are written in a more sophisticated style. I argued that it simply required a youth protagonist and to have been written specifically for a youth audience, style not being a criteria. However, there are a lot of titles that fall into a grey area of being universally read by both youth and adults. Harry Potter, for the most obvious example is marketed as Y.A. but more adults I know than kids have read and loved it. And then there is the even more undefinable coming-of-age fiction, which often times portrays youth but is geared towards adults (think Catcher in the Rye). So what really makes a book Y.A.? I'm not sure there is an answer beyond being shelved in the kids section at Barnes and Noble.

The Big Reunion

This past weekend was the big 10 year high school reunion. I'm not sure what I had expected really, but it wasn't quite as I imagined. I had been to my husband's a few years ago, in his small hometown in Kansas where they had taken polls on things like who had traveled the furthest to be there (us) who had the oldest kids (an 11-year old at a 10 year reunion), who had the most tattoos (the only two single girls attending). They played music of the era and everyone kind of mingled evenly throughout the evening. Mine on the other hand was a little more casual, no fun polls and nostalgic tunes and as the evening progressed I couldn't help but notice that the old high school cliques had reformed as if we had just graduated yesterday. It was stunning really to see that nothing much had changed in that sense. I made a point of saying hello to a girl who I knew in school, but had always seemed to dislike me for some reason, and was pretty much given the brush off. I guess I expected a little more maturity. Maybe in another 10 years.

There were some plusses however, I reconnected with one of my best friends that I hadn't seen in, well, 10 years, as we had grown apart towards the end, and am hoping we will now stay in closer contact. There were a handful of people it was nice to catch up with but, all in all, it was a surreal experience just being in a room full of so many familiar faces yet feeling as if I had nothing to say to them beyond "and what do you do?"

Nano Update

Once again Nanowrimo has come to a close and once again I have failed to reach the 50,000 word count. Not even close. And no I didn't manage my lesser goal of 30,000 either, I didn't even manage to beat last years best count, barely squeaking out 7,000 words. Sigh. I was really hoping this year would be the year, mostly because this means I will now have to attempt it again next year. I do, however, like what I started so I have made a new goal of finishing a first draft by the end of the year. Fingers are crossed.