Why I Love to Read

Anyone who has ever talked to me for more than about five minutes knows I love to read. What most people don't know is exactly how much I do it. Of course it varies depending on various factors: how much I'm working, whether I've got a project I'm working on, if my books are accessible or not (I once spent three months sleeping on a makeshift bed constructed of an air mattress and eight boxes of books; true story), all kinds of things. But at the least, I usually do two or three books a week, plus a magazine or two. I have been known, at times, to read a book a day.

And frankly, it's not really a hobby that's easy to explain to people. When I moved to Utah, my sister who lived there already found my first apartment, and she was baffled by my need to bring hundreds of books with me. I couldn't find the words to make her understand why the books go where I go.

So now, several years later, I'm living with my parents in what was supposed to be a temporary stint (and is at two years and counting.) My library is in storage at my sister's house, and I have tried various ways of filling the hole in my life. One of these is, obviously, to acquire more books, and since I work in a bookstore and have access to advanced reader copies, stripped paperbacks and a serious discount, I have certainly done my share of that. (It should also be noted here that my sister, the same one who didn't understand the need to haul several hundred books from place to place, aids and abets my addiction by giving me things like about seventy-five Sweet Valley High books she found at a garage sale. I have plans to track down the other forty-odd titles so I have a complete set. As you do).

Anyway, in January I was given a new way to cope with my deprivation when my store won a contest and every employee was given a Nook Tablet. I had never thought of purchasing one for myself, largely because I couldn't afford it, but it was nice to have. And since then I have used it in various degrees of frequency. I subscribed to a few magazines, bought (or got for free) about fifty ebooks, loaded up a bunch of music and dozens of pictures of my nieces and nephew, and added some games for them. It's a handy toy and I have affectionately named it Arthur.

Last week I was packing for a four-day family reunion in Island Park, which is across the state. Normally for a trip of that duration, I would have packed...five or six books, just to make sure. But we (my mom, my younger sister and I) were making the trip in my mother's Mustang, which meant that space was at a premium. So I brought my Nook along. And it turned out to be very useful-I listened to music, read a few magazines and played games with my niece and nephew, who are endlessly entertained by the thing. What I didn't do was much serious reading because there just wasn't time; we rented an enormous house with pool and Ping Pong tables, visited Yellowstone (including seeing Old Faithful, which was a first for me) and stayed up way later than we should have playing board games. It was a great weekend.

But in the way that all vacations are, it was exhausting, and I looked forward to nothing more than getting home and getting some much-delayed rest. Unfortunately, that was delayed by my mother's car deciding that ten miles out of Burley was an ideal location to develop an almost-flat tire and then refuse to start up again. An hour and a half of standing on a freeway in July. followed by the final two-and-a-half hours travel, and I arrived home Sunday evening tired, hot, sweaty and crumpled. And all I wanted was to go to sleep. Since my body doesn't really seem to like sleeping unless the conditions are absolutely perfect, and I couldn't find my Nook charging cable to finish the magazine I'd been reading, I opted instead to flop down on my bed and read the first book I saw, called The Meryl Streep Movie Club, an ARC I had picked up at work a while back and hadn't gotten to yet.

About two hours later, I emerged from it with a realization: I felt better. Not hot, not cranky, not filled up with thought of my vacation or going back to work or what I should get done the next day. I also discovered that, fond as I am of Arthur Nook, it isn't possible for me to have that same level of immersion in an electronic device. Reading books is an escape, a way to take myself out of my life and dive into someone else's, to come away with renewed perspective and appreciation for all my blessings, to learn things I didn't know before and get additional information about things I did.

And that, I think, is why I love to read. Because by taking a vacation from myself, I come to know that self much better. And every book I read, good or bad, enjoyable or not, changes me a little. So it is in this lifelong love affair with the written word that I have become who I am, and by disengaging from the world and from my own head, even for a short while, that I figure out who that is.

You cannot possibly be serious

Remember about a year ago, when I posted this, and in it mentioned the Titanic of a breakup I had and that I didn't know whether the guy was an utter moron or a complete jerk? Today I got some more information, and I STILL don't know. But to understand this properly, a bit of background.

The story is this: Guy (whom I am not, for reasons that baffle even me, going to call by name) was my best friend. We did lots of things together, spent lots of time together, to the point that everyone assumed we were dating. We'd talked about it a bit, but decided that we just didn't feel that way. Until I had two truly horrific almost-relationships with guys who were both utter morons and complete jerks-more on that another time-and suddenly my friend's strong dedication to the gospel and sweet temperament seemed a lot more appealing. And I found myself being interested. But I had promised after our thoroughly awkward should-we-or-shouldn't-we conversation that I wouldn't bring it up again.

So quite some time goes by, and through a series of circumstances, I found myself almost devoid of friends and living in a place I could barely stand to be in. So I spent pretty much all my time at work or his house, watching movies, cooking meals, helping him with a big project he had going, thinking he was seeing me the same way. And eventually my altered feelings come out, and he basically says no thanks. Which was hard. And not long after that he apparently decided that being friends didn't really matter to him either, and said no thanks to that as well. Which was harder. And then other things happened and I moved away without saying goodbye, partly because I was angry and hoping he would suffer from that and partly because I couldn't handle it.

About six months later, I had a funny thing happen that only he would be able to understand, and I thought, "What the heck-I'm over it, right? I've moved on. I'll just be a bigger person and text him and tell him. No big deal, no demands, not trying to have any kind of contact, just here's this funny story, huzzah." So I did. And in response got...

Nothing.

WELL. That was probably what I needed to kill any hope that we could ever be even civil again. So I did what you do-I blocked him on Facebook, got a new phone number, thought a bunch of ugly things and decided he didn't deserve any more space in my life. But I have a lot of memories of him, and at the very least it's inconvenient to force myself into other thoughts every time he pops into my head. I finally managed to accept them for what they were and got to the point where I could go several days without thinking of him-and where I didn't wince every time I did.

Then I came home from work and checked my email, and SURPRISE! "I'd like to add you to my professional network" on something I've never heard of called Linkedin. And it turns out I am still REALLY ANGRY, because my initial reaction to that was, "Yes, well, I'd like to jab you repeatedly with rusty forks." I mean, OF ALL THE NERVE. I'm now trying to decide on the best response, which I'm guessing is nothing; just delete it and move on. Possibly something polite...ish, like "No thank you. Please do not contact me again." Anything more involved/angry just lengthens the contact and reinforces his (admittedly valueless) opinion of me. After all, I really don't want to look petty and mean and like I've been holding hard to this grudge for over a year and a half.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND. The guy tossed our friendship aside without so much as a "thanks for the memories" and I never got to tell him exactly what that did to me. So is this my chance? I don't know. I don't know why he sent it, I don't know what he expects and I don't know what I'm going to do in response. But I'd love some ideas.

My work just broke up with me

So yesterday I went to work and found out that the promotion I applied for, the one for which I am ideally suited and would do a positively bang-up job at, the one I have been basically doing for the last four months except for the title and the hours and the pay raise, THAT one, went to someone else.

...

I am flabbergasted by this.

While they were in the process of flabbergasting me, the powers that be made a point of telling me how absolutely fabulous I am-incredible work ethic, takes iniative, passionate about the department, the whole nine yards-in an obvious attempt to make me feel better about myself , probably so I won't go bonkers and smash in the windows or something.

I got home and called my best friend to vent about the situation. Suddenly my sister sitting in the room said, "You know what? Your work just broke up with you." And I said, "They DID. That's exactly what just happened. Right down to the 'It's not you, it's us' bit. But since I still work there, they obviously still want to be friends." And then she pointed out that what they actually want is to be friends with benefits, since they want me to continue the relationship we already have without the fuss and bother of making it official.

Those cretins.

And so yet again I am deprived of sleep by an utter moron who is too blind to see what a great thing we could have together. Only I don't even have the satisfaction of a hard thwack across the face with a dueling pistol. (What? That's how I handle all my breakups.)

In silver-lining land, I DID just type this on my phone. Which is frankly pretty freaking cool. Marvin, never break my heart, promise? (Yes, my phone's name is Marvin. No, I don't name all my possessions-just the electronics. Yes, his name is Marvin because he's an Android. No, I'm not going to explain the joke.)

"I was working with luminous fish and I thought 'Hey. Loom.'"

I'm back! Did you miss me? I have neglected you shamefully, for which I apologize. I'll try to do better.

Herein, a list of books I've read that I haven't talked about yet; also a couple of movies I've seen.

Run by Ann Patchett. An absolutely stellar book-so much so that I now recommend her as an author without having read any of her others.

Sixkill by Robert B. Parker. His last Spenser novel (Parker died in January of last year) has, because of this, a rather melancholy feel, and the sense of something missing or left undone. It's a fine book, a perfectly adequate episode in the Spenser series, but I can't help wondering what the end of the series would have felt like if the author had known it would end. Hawk's absence, in particular, made me wish for something more.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman. Another author whose books I've started recommending based on only one title. This book is breathtaking-also fairly intense, so fair warning-and evokes, for me, the feeling of Mary Higgins Clark's finest work-although Lippman tends to feel more...immediate, I'd say, probably the result of being from a younger generation.

Dolci di Love and House of Daughters by Sarah-Kate Lynch. These are perfectly fine books, but not life-altering. Dolci is, I think, the better book-House just had too much that I was unwilling to believe. Interesting thoughts about families and what we do for love.

And now for two movies. Something Borrowed...Okay, even by generous "chick-flick" standards this movie is appalling. The respective actors do their best with what they're given-Kate Hudson is alarmingly convincing as the self-absorbed prima donna, and John Krasinksi has to be counting his blessings that he got to play the only sane role in the whole horrifying mess-but this movie is just too awful for words.

Fortunately, Water for Elephants is lovely. And it's nice to see that Robert Pattinson CAN actually act-after the Twilight movies, I have been unconvinced of that. At heart, this is a simple love-triangle story, but one with layers and meaning and depth.

I have several books on my to-do list (including both the books on which these movies were based-in the case of Something Borrowed, I just have to know!) More to come when that's finished.

"Leo. Yeoman Fitzwallace."

Sometimes I despair of human beings.

Tonight at work the customers were being exceptionally delightful (meaning I spent most of the evening wishing I could stab most of them in the eyes with barbecue forks) and to top it all off, I had this winner of an experience:

A couple was looking for books with audio CDs for their children-in particular they wanted "Pirates of the Caribbean" books. After being told we didn't have (and couldn't get) any, the man wanted to know if there were any non-children's audiobooks of "Pirates of the Caribbean". I tried to explain that movies don't usually come in audiobook format, but he was unconvinced. So to shut him up, I did a search on the computer.

Me: No, I'm sorry, there isn't anything available. The closest I could come would be an audiobook of "Treasure Island".
Him: "Treasure Island"...is that a pirate book?

"I believe I would eat this book rather than read it."

Just finished another book in Sue Grafton's alphabet series. I've read most of them, but in rather cattywampus fashion. I like these books-they're reliably interesting, quite often funny and usually a surprise at the end. Eventually I will get them all, but while my books are in storage I can't remember what I have for sure.

In addition to discussing books I've read, I have decided to add movies I've seen recently. Last night I went to Country Strong, and boy howdy, is that movie bad. The music was fun, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw handled their parts ably, and Garrett Hedlund is ridiculously good-looking (in addition to singing well) but the movie is just AWFUL. Poorly written, confusingly edited and badly thought out-wait for the dollar theater if you see it at all. (I'm trying to avoid ruining the story, so if you want to hear a more detailed review, come talk to me. Believe me, I have my reasons.)

Finally, two titles that amused me today:
I Am Not A Serial Killer (which I find comforting)
Darker Shades of Dead (which is what I assume happens after you've been buried. Yes? No?)

"You prefer the lyrics. I don't trust you."

(Post title for my other sister, just because.)

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but my everyday life keeps intruding, as it so often does. I have recently become aware of some things in my life that I take for granted, and I wanted to get them listed so I would (perhaps) be more aware of my extraordinary blessings.

• The ability to stand, sit, lay down, walk and change position without pain in my back (after I somehow injured it, doing any of these things caused an amazing amount of pain for about a month-hurrah for that being over!)
• Having a job
• Getting more hours at my job
• Receiving a calling that I love and have always wanted
• The realization that sometimes Heavenly Father does give us exactly what we want and it is exactly what we hoped it would be

Also, today's installment of "What I've Read Recently":

The Teashop Girls by Laura Schaefer. I don't drink tea and I still found the various tea facts interesting. The story is amusing, the characters are nice enough (if a bit two-dimensional) and it is occasionally very funny. First book by this author, so maybe she just needs some more...any word I think of here sounds condescending. She just needs MORE. Of something.

Xenocide; Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card. Okay, I love Ender's Game. I love Ender's Shadow and all its sequels. I love Card's Women of Genesis series. And reading the Ender series in its entirety was absolutely a good idea, because I had a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas, and I didn't come away HATING them the way I did the first time. However. I still don't love these books, and it is, of course, partly because I am not a huge sci-fi fan. Partly it is because these books generally feel overwritten and overwrought: the foreign languages, the philosophical references, the huge cast of characters making it virtually impossible for their voices to remain consistent, etc. But mostly I feel Orson Scott Card is at his best when he isn't trying to show off how smart he is, and his pomposity makes it hard to focus on his genius. This is never clearer than in the afterword to Children of the Mind, where I wanted to sit him down and say, "Look. You're brilliant. You've written a ton of bestsellers and won a bunch of awards and proved that you know your way around a book, okay? We GET it. Now, would you please, just BE great and stop TALKING about it so much? Thanks."

The Brooklyn Nine by Alan M. Gatz. There is a really terrific book in here somewhere, but this isn't it. A family in nine generations told through the history of baseball, its main problem is that it was written for the wrong audience. As a middle-reader, it simply does not have the space it needs to reach its potential, and each "inning" feels truncated, when it doesn't feel totally superfluous. Rewritten as a real saga, with another couple hundred pages of story, I might really enjoy it.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I do not have the words I need to describe this utterly breathtaking book. Suffice it to say that it is one of the few times in my adult life where a book lived up to the hype. And then I found out that The Help is Kathryn Stockett's first book, and she did it exactly right.

Also a new feature: I have a two-and-a-half-year-old niece, who is so delightfully funny that I thought I should share. When she was smaller I called her "Tanker" because of her ability to eat like you would not believe, so that is how I shall refer to her here. Anyway, she was brought to her mother (my sister) toward the end of Relief Society the other day because she claimed she needed to go potty.

My sister: Do you need to go potty?
Tanker: Nope. I'm just done with nursery.

PS I did finish that Charlaine Harris book, and I still think what I thunk before.

Happy New Year!

("Oh, don't do that.")

I am thoroughly lousy at keeping up at something like this. However, new year, new start, so here we are.

I've decided that I will start talking about the books I am reading. I tried to keep a book journal once, which (like any other kind of journal I try to keep) was unsuccessful. So I thought this might be a good format to list what I've read and what I thought.

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb. I was drawn to this mostly because of the title, which is one of the best I've seen recently. It's also very funny, very well-written and interestingly thought-provoking.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. This was my second time through and I enjoyed it much more this time around (also true of Great Expectations and Jane Austen's entire oeuvre; NOT true of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, no matter what Naomi thinks.) Still not my favorite book ever, but it didn't remind me nearly so much of Lord of the Flies this time, so that's good.

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't list this since I never finished it, but I never finished it because it's lousy. Apparently there's also a TV show about these books? I say enough with the paranormal stories already!

Also, here are some book titles I saw today that amused me greatly:
How to Be Happy, Dammit!
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
Breaking the Death Habit: a Guide to Eternal Life
 

Things to ponder

A few more questions I have before I go to bed (which I should have done hours ago) and while I wait for this stupid video to load (which is taking roughly eight hundred years, so I'll most likely be dead before it's done.)

• Why is it that the light of my cell phone screen illuminates everything EXCEPT what I really need it to illuminate, which is the part where I plug in the charger?
• How come infomercials always have the world's biggest moron performing whatever task they are trying to make easier for you with their latest Whiz-o-Gadget? (Seriously, you watch these people trying to make spaghetti or give themselves a manicure and think, "Well, yeah, obviously this is hard for them, because these people get confused by revolving doors.")
• Why does Facebook think its own name is a spelling error?
• How is it that a childproof cap can come off the bottle of its own accord, as long as the bottle is in my purse?
• Why is a device that only allows you to get ONE NAPKIN AT A TIME called an XPRESSNAP? WHAT IS EXPRESS ABOUT THAT?!

So, you know, just some everyday thoughts. I have no answers, except that I suppose we must allow for the possibility that "xpress" when spelled without the initial "e" is an ancient German word meaning "No soup for you! One year!" I mean, it's only fair.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fireside

Yesterday the Institute choir had what they called a "friends and family fireside", which I am pretty sure means "one which we want to have early in the year to get our first-performance jitters out of the way so we will invite people we know well because they will still like us if we are a bit rough around the edges". Or something. My sister is in her second year of singing with this group and had to be there early to rehearse, and I came along.

So I'm sitting there in the chapel, trying to make some headway on a (ridiculously ambitious and probably needing some rethinking) scripture-reading program, when the director says my name. He knows me well because I sang in this choir myself for four years, and he wants me to go listen to this duet to make sure it's okay for the program. I say okay sure, and off we go down the hall. (Meanwhile reassuring the girls, whose names I do not know, that I am both a very kind person and a very musical one, so they need not worry about my judgment in either sense.)

The three of us arrive at the Primary room, where we find a boy I do not know, who appears to be girl-I-do-not-know-#1's boyfriend, and a woman I do not know, who (it turns out) is girl-I-do-not-know-#2's mother. I explain what I am doing there and sit down to listen, and MIDNK asks me if by any chance I play the piano. I tell her that as a matter of fact I do, although I have never played this particular song ("For Good" from the musical "Wicked".) She starts playing, they sing, and it's fine, and I tell them so. Then MIDNK asks if perhaps I would like to try playing the song for them, as she is not entirely comfortable with accompanying them in public. I say okay sure again, and we go through it once. It is a trifle awkward, since the song is a little unpredictable and has two key changes. When we get through, they talk about it some and tell me if I am okay with it, they are okay with having me play for them. So GsIDNK take BIDNK and MIDNK and leave me to go through the song a few times.

I join the choir in the Relief Society room about half an hour later, in time to hear their before-performance devotional and prayer. While the prayer is going on, I am thinking to myself, "Please let me play this as well as possible." Playing the piano in public still makes me nervous, and my hands tend to shake, so I added, "Please steady my hands and prevent me from screwing this up." Then we go into the chapel, and the program commences. (And for the record, it was a little rough in places, but boy, when they get past that, they are REALLY something.) The duet is toward the end of the program, and as I am playing, I notice a rather odd phenomenon. I am nervous, and I can't hear GsIDNK very well (by which I mean really at all), so that is making me more nervous, and I can feel myself shaking...but only in my arms, not in my hands. They blithely go about their business without seeming to notice the state the rest of me is in.

Over the past several years, I have spent some time thinking about prayers. I know that we are supposed to ask for what we want, and I know that sometimes we get it and sometimes we don't. I also know that sometimes getting what we want turns out poorly, and not getting it turns out to be a blessing. I have had prayers answered with "Yes", "Yes, but not now", "No", and occasionally with silence, which I interpret as meaning I need to think about what I'm asking for some more. But I don't know that I have ever had a prayer answered quite so...specifically. What I asked for was to play as well as possible, to have my hands steadied and to not screw up the performance. And what I got was EXACTLY that.

This is what I learned anew from last night's experience: God is real. He hears and answers prayers. And (I am pretty sure, anyway) He has a terrific sense of humor.

"What's the matter with these scissors?"

(Today's post title is in honor of my sister, who had a bad day today; it's a favorite of hers.)

The setup for this metaphor is a bit convoluted-bear with me.

I am currently sharing a bedroom with my youngest sister, and she likes to have movies on while she goes to sleep. I can sometimes sleep with the TV on, but not always. So tonight I was awake when the movie got over and I was trying to turn things off with the remotes. And no matter how many times I pressed "stop", the darn thing just kept playing.

Now keep in mind it had been a long day, it was dark and I am (as previously mentioned) horrifically nearsighted. Also be aware that on this particular remote control, the "stop" and "play" buttons are the same shape and size. So it took me perhaps thirty seconds to check my remote orientation and realize I was holding it upside down; the entire time I thought I was pressing "stop", I was in fact pressing "play".

(That's IT for the setup, promise; on to the actual metaphor now. Still with me? Good.) Here is the point: how many things in my life am I trying to do by pressing the wrong button? And how many wrong buttons am I pushing because I am unaware that I am holding the remote upside down?

I don't wish to whine, so I will just say my life hasn't exactly turned out the way I thought it would. I spend a lot of time thinking about this-where did I go wrong, what do I need to change, is this some kind of test, if so is there EVER any end to it so I can just get the blasted grade and have done with it already, etc. The last six months have been especially question-filled, as I 1) went through the Titanic of relationship-endings, 2) lost my job, and 3) at the age of almost-thirty, moved back to my home state and in with my parents.

Not to say that any of this has been bad for me. That guy turned out to be either a complete moron or an unbelievable jerk or some combination of the two (the jury's still out on that); I found a job I love, rather than one I thought I should; and living with my parents has been actually really great, so what could have been unbearably traumatic turned out for the best-as things usually do. But I still can't see, as Anne Shirley would say, past the bend in the road. And so I wonder if maybe there are things that I am doing facing the wrong direction, or if the method I am using is the wrong one.

I am trying, as I said a few days ago, not to dwell on the past. It is what it is and no amount of wishing or regret will make it any different. But what about the future? Is there something I can make different by changing something I am not seeing? And how can I find what I can't see if I don't know where to look?

"Look what I can do!"

Sometimes when you start a new group experience (a class, a committee, a...anything else that could possibly start with C that I can't think of in this moment), the person in charge will have you introduce yourself. And usually it's with just a few pieces of information. For instance, in a college class, you might be asked to say your name, where you're from, and your major. Almost inevitably, you will also be asked to share either A) your most embarrassing moment or 2) something unusual about you.

Frankly, I hate these experiences. I have no problem sharing my name or where I'm from or any information like that, but embarrassing moments and unusual things are hard for me, because I never have any. I don't get embarrassed easily and I'm really quite boring, so I never know what to say. Also, for all my verbal ability, it's the first thing to go under stress, and being the center of attention is always stressful for me.

Ergo, a while back when I seemed to encounter lots of these sorts of situations, I decided I needed to make a mental list of things to say, so I would be prepared. In no particular order, here are some random facts/skills/quirks about my person:

• I am horrifically near-sighted (without correction, my range of vision is about eight inches.)
• I have no feeling on the inside of the big toe on my left foot.
• I dislike talking on the phone, even if I am talking to someone I am fond of.
• I can read almost anything in a Latin-based language-at least enough to get the general idea.
• I don't like wearing shoes, and really don't like wearing socks.
• I am driven to near-homicidal rages by thoroughly stupid things.
• I frequently feel pain, taste food and read in dreams.
• I can put on makeup with either hand and without a mirror. (Recently discovered skill, this one!)
• I give excellent gifts.
• I read about 750 words a minute, depending on the material, and I read every word, but five or six at a time.
• I can put an entire cupcake in my mouth at once. (Also various other foodstuffs: a muffin, a piece of cake, a slice of pie or pizza, an apple fritter, and probably some other things I have yet to attempt.)
• I have never had a cast, been hospitalized, had surgery or worn braces.
• I also have my tonsils, my appendix and all four of my wisdom teeth.
• I like almost all vegetables but not many fruits.
• I tear up easily but I don't cry much.
• I hate (as in positively refuse to eat) black licorice, Canadian bacon, pretty much all fruit-flavored candies and absolutely LOATHE peaches.

What Might Have Been

April 14th, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln, tired after a long day of meetings (and after a long four years of war and strife) told his wife that he would rather not go to the theater that night. His wife encouraged him to stay home, but he replied that it had been reported that they would attend the production and he would hate to disappoint people.

Much like Paul Harvey, I enjoy "the rest of the story", but what I tend to wonder about is "the rest of the story" that never was. What if President Lincoln had stayed home that night, as he wanted to? John Wilkes Booth would not have had his opportunity, and (given the simultaneous attacks planned for Vice-President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward, one of which was at least somewhat successful) could very possibly have been arrested. With her husband still alive, Mary Todd Lincoln would perhaps not have given in to her demons (depression and paranoia, not to mention some physical burdens) and could have lived a happier, healthier life. And of course, Reconstruction under President Lincoln would have been a very different experience, maybe leading to better relations for the Northern and Southern states, and avoiding (among other things) the formation of such societies as the Ku Klux Klan.

It is not usually possible to know, in the moment, when small decisions are going to have enormous consequences. It is not even usually possible to know when small decisions are going to have small consequences. And yet I spend a fair portion of my life thinking, "If only I hadn't said..." or "I wish I had done..." (fill in the blank; trust me, I especially have a lot of things I wish I hadn't said!) What in my life would be different if I had only made a different choice, I will never know.

But I am the person I am today because of the decisions I have made. And although there are things I would do over, given the option, I am happy with that person. So what I choose today is to ignore the shadowy allure of what might have been.

No time like the present

I have started a couple of different blogs in the past, and frankly I am no good at them at all. But I think I have identified the problem-that being I was convinced I had to have some sort of format, some kind of gimmick, and who can keep that up? The whole point of this thing, as I see it, is to get my thoughts out of my head and give them some space to roam around in (it's really quite crowded in here). So we'll see how it goes.

Today, just some things I am wondering about:

Why is it easier to sleep after you turn off the alarm than when you go to bed?
Why, no matter how much you insist they don't, do other people's opinions matter so much?
How in the world do some books get published? Didn't anybody, you know, read them beforehand? Other than the author?
Why do my hands currently smell like pencils?
Why has Hugh Laurie STILL not won an Emmy?
How many licks DOES it take to get to the Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie-Pop? (I don't feel like the commercial answers this question satisfactorily.)

If you have any answers, definitive or otherwise, feel free to share them. Or add any questions of your own!