I would never say that love stories are the end all and be all for my fiction life, but I have to confess they mean more to me than they should. Certain passages pop out at me as if they are random, yet also as if they are meant to be seen at this point in my life. I don't really believe that much in Fate or meaningful coincidences, but it does help when I read something eerily relatable at the exact time I need them.

The second in the L As In Love series is immensely better than the first one I mentioned a few weeks ago. It's far less shallow and people actually try and have meaningful relationships, even if they do mess them up.

Several different lines spoke to me, which is great right about now, since there's something very freeing and wonderfully non-isolating in knowing others (no matter how fictional they may be) would get your pain:

-A woman is presented again and again with insoluble conundrums, and she simply has to resign herself to the basic fact: things are what they are.

-Sometimes we can’t defend ourselves from our own feelings, even if we want to... even if our good sense tells us something else.




And from Side Order Of Love (it's really hard to take that title seriously, even if it is a rather sweet book):

-She couldn’t undo anything in her past now, but she could still make her own future. Or remake it into something different from the path she was on.

-She just didn’t quite know how not to act like a jerk around Grace. She liked Grace.

- Ashamed to be carrying around this private pain for a woman who didn’t love her.

Both of the above novels, despite the second one's silly title, are quite good, especially for lesfic, which tends to suffer a bit when it comes to slow building friendship, emotion and romance.



"...And first of all that face. There was that to look at. A long way off, at the end of a table...Why should the mere sight of it make my heart stand still?"-from Olivia

Olivia: A Novel is not necessarily something you'll ever want to experience again. It's a book truly painful to read at times, no matter where you're coming from personally, but particularly so if you ever had an intense crush that pretty much broke your heart.

I didn't expect the writing to be so deep and raw, so pretty and easy to connect with...a crush may not be on the full scale of mutually reciprocated mature love, but it's no less real or painful for being what it is.

Anyone who has ever felt completely gaga over someone else will get what Olivia is going through, no matter how over the top her emotions may seem at the time. ("If it depended on altering the feelings in my heart, I was no more capable of doing that than of plucking the heart out of my breast." So many wonderful quotes that just really speak to you.)

Dorothy Strachey Bussy first published this anonymously under the name Olivia and based it loosely on things that happened to her when she was a teenager away at school and fell in love with one of her teachers. This is something that has been written been many times before, but somehow here it seems fresh and just a little too much to bear at times.

Saturday selections...

Just taking a day off and reading with the windows open and a nice big cup of tea and sharing some highlights from various Saturday newspapers (plus Bon Appetit) today:

 ...Fettuccine with shitake mushrooms and asparagus recipe:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/fettuccine-with-shiitakes-and-asparagus


...I saw this letter in today's NYT and think it sums up the situation at hand perfectly:


re: “But I Want to Do Your Homework,” by Judith Newman (Sunday Review, June 22):

The difference between the so-called helicopter parent and one who is a master and teacher to a child is that while the helicopter parent might narcissistically stand in the way of the child’s self-development, the master and teacher can facilitate self-reliance and self-confidence through what is essentially an apprenticeship.
 

Why should a parent encourage an apprentice relationship with a child over homework? The simple answer is love. A child may respect a teacher, but as we have known from Plato to Freud, the most powerful foundation for learning remains love, and that can be only the parent’s province.
 

After discussing what needs to be done to solve a problem or create a project, there is nothing wrong with a parent’s showing the child how it’s done. Thus, not only is classroom teaching reinforced, but it is also improved upon. This type of learning goes on in every apprenticeship until the apprentice, too, becomes a master.
 

HOWARD SCHNEIDERMAN
Easton, Pa., June 22, 2014


...If you've never read a Jane Garham book before, you should try one. Her novels are outstanding:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/28/books/jane-gardam-on-her-books-which-capture-a-greater-britain.html?_r=0

A friend posted this link on Facebook to a mind-blowing article...so mind-blowing it can bring on a headache:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

 And speaking of science...or rather, science fiction, there's an interesting review of a biography on Robert Heinlein in today's Wall Street Journal. It refers to a novel of his I've never heard of before and just put on hold through the library:

 

 Read here:  http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-robert-a-heinlein-by-william-h-patterson-jr-1403904500?mod=asia_opinion



Listening to Patsy Cline and sipping a strawberry milkshake I just made...better than alcohol to down your sorrows any time!

 

I love strawberry milkshakes a lot and like, Walter Bishop on Fringe, have often tried different recipes for them. But really I think the best I've ever made (which isn't necessarily saying much :) ) are the ones with nothing but very fresh, very vibrant red strawberries, whole organic milk and Breyer's ice cream...very fattening, but oh so good!

A nice blender helps, too! I still have a Kenmore one from ages ago and it's held up so well and is so old school it works wonders with shakes.

.....................................


A beautiful song by Bill Fay, "Be At Peace With Yourself," shuffled into my ears at just the right time and it's just so beautiful I had to share. You can listen to it here and also read the lyrics:

At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk
In your shoes
Quite the way
You do
So be at Peace with yourself
And keep a spring in your heel
And keep climbing that hill
And be at Peace
With yourself
In the cold winter chill
When the wind blows like hell
Theres a way
Where theres a will
Dont cry over
Milk that spilt
At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk in your shoes
Quite the way that you do
So be at Peace with yourself
And keep a spring in your heel
And keep climbing that hill
And be at Peace with yourself
(At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk in your shoes
Quite the way that you do
So be at Peace with yourself
Keep a spring in your heel
Keep climbing that hill



One of my absolute favorite poems is "Miniver Cheevy," which suits how much I wish I could just slip away from this era...though not necessarily into the middle ages and with not quite the downtrodden spirit this poor fellow has. For me, my ideal time period would be the Jazz Age.

Ideally...a happy place

I am really searching for my happy place today. I just keep remembering Emily Dickinson's "to shut your eyes is to travel" line and I feel a little calmer.

Plus, I just opened a box of tea and took out a Yogi bag and this was attached...I love their messages so much.

If you're struggling for peace tonight, may you find it as well! :)



And even though "tomorrow" is nowhere near as scary as pink robots, it's every bit as hard to battle on occasion...this song helps sometimes:

Her name is Yoshimi - she's a black belt in karate
Working for the city - she has to discipline her body -
Cause she knows that it's demanding to defeat these
Evil machines - I know she can beat them -

Oh Yoshimi
They don't believe me
But you won't let those
Robots defeat me
Oh Yoshimi
They don't believe me
But you won't let those
Robots eat me

Those evil natured robots - they're programmed to
Destroy us - She's gotta be strong to fight them -
So she's taking lots of vitamins - cause she knows that
It'd be tragic if those evil robots win - I know
She can beat them -

from the awesome album of the same name by The Flaming Lips:

This is probably the best article I've ever read about Karen Carpenter's singing...

photo source: not found

The Stuff Of Dreams: Karen Carpenter's Voice
by Chris Jones for the Chicago Tribune 

The other frigid night, I sat alone on the snowy street outside my house listening to Karen Carpenter sing "I'll be Home for Christmas" on my car radio.

I love that voice.

It hit notes with such surety. Its evocative lower register had a richness that no female pop singer ever has matched. But most important of all, it was such a guileless instrument.

AdChoices

 

Carpenter sang without attitude -- but also without excessive sentiment. In other words, her voice was at once incredibly beautiful and strikingly neutral.

Even when her brother's oft-cheesy arrangements and harmonizing fought hard against her honesty, Carpenter's singing always allowed for the transference of longing and desire.

And that's exactly what "I'll be Home for Christmas," my favorite song from this time of year, requires. First recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, the lyrics first were intended as a kind of war-time fantasy, as if dreamed by a soldier stuck overseas and dreaming of home and hearth. The ultimate line of the song, after all, is a sad one: "If only in my dreams."

As with her other Christmas recordings, Carpenter's version was infinitely more complex.

Listen to her sing this Christmas ballad and you can hear a weary business traveler shoving past delays at O'Hare. You can sense a mother rushing back to her kids who count on her. And you can detect a lover desperate for a warm bed with someone in it.

All at once.

And although it's been nearly 25 years since Carpenter's death (at the age of 32), the recording will forever come with a certain sadness. Sometimes, it can feel like she's singing about a home where someone is missing for good.

Frankly, the impact of the song all depends on one's mood of the moment -- and at what point the listener is in their life. That was Carpenter's brilliance -- that coupling of certitude and pliability, that unique combination of eroticism and maternal comfort.

This is a song that revolves around a promise. And Carpenter's voice had the unmistakable sound of one who always kept her promises.

When I was single and lonely, this singer and this Christmas song evoked the home I wanted and the person I wanted in it with me. Now she -- and it -- make me think about the nature of my home and its place in my priorities. The world of the song is both a confirmation of what we have, and yet, given the frantic way life goes at this time of year, also an elusive dream.
----------

 

"Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."-Cat's Cradle

 

 

I agree that there is tons of love in the world, I do. Despite what we hear in the news and see day to day, there is still more love to be found than hate; there is. And I also believe that people can find if it they just look. They can find it within themselves and for others, but whether they find love that is mutual is a different story.

 

It used to be one of my 'harmless untruths' believing someday love would happen for me. It was only after I stopped deluding myself and made peace with the fact it may never, probably never will, happen that I actually grew less sad, not more so. I'd like to think it's okay to love someone no matter what, as long as we keep things in perspective and understand what is real versus what is not.

I totally get what Kurt Vonnegut means in Cat's Cradle when he talks about 'the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.' But if holding on to something that's not true (no matter how harmless it may be to keep clutching at it) is making you miserable, it's time to let go.



 

Timeless, despite being representative of one of my favorite genres (time travel romance), did not really impress me that much. The novel has a clinical touch, rather than an emotional one, and the narrator comes across as a know-it-all, which may relate to the plot (it's hard not to seem like a smarty pants in high school when you're 30 and trapped in a teenager's body) but still is grating.

I did come away with some great quotes that I can definitely relate to in my life:

“Being attracted to someone unexpected doesn’t have to be the end of the world.”


“I won’t run from anything, but some days I do wonder what it would feel like to run toward something or someone.”

Because you unravel me. Because you affect me in ways no book ever has. Because you override my fear and compel me to speak truth through my pain and confusion.

And then I read this passage from Cassandra Clare's wonderful book Clockwork Angel:

“It's all right to love someone who doesn't love you back, as long as they're worth you loving them. As long as they deserve it.”

On certain days, I struggle a lot with trying to be and feel "normal" emotionally and on those days I try to avoid any kind of passionate music. Certain types of music feed my weirdness and my angst, while books calm them and make me see things at least a little bit more rationally.

I tried "Googling" 'guilt and liking someone you shouldn't', but I can't find any information so far. I did find a more general article on guilt, though:

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/the-ten-most-common-causes-of-guilt-758506

Odds and ends, again...

I saw the above picture on Pinterest last night and immediately felt its truth...because what you know and what you feel are often two vastly different things and can cause lots of inner turmoil.

You might know very well, for example, that someone in your life doesn't like you, yet you still have feelings for them anyway, feelings that you can't seem to get past. You want to make peace with this person and if that doesn't work, conquer your own emotions, the things that are making this your problem and no one else's.

Is it even possible to change how someone sees you? Sometimes, I think the more you want someone to like you, the more you try...the worse it gets. I also think if someone has made up their mind not to like, there's no changing the situation. But I don't see any harm in trying, as long any attempts made are with reason and restraint...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2012/09/16/how-to-win-over-someone-who-doesnt-like-you/

 "I mean, don't you ever get sick of yourself?" he asked Claire. "Doesn't it sometimes seem ridiculous that we have to live our entire lives in one consciousness, and there's no escape? Even when we dream, we dream about ourselves. Doesn't that just seem outrageous?"

I think of this quote, which perhaps because of its stark honesty has always stayed in my mind, whenever I want to escape from my own thinking.

That's why books and music and people are so important in this world. Even though reading or listening to music can be solitary activities, they still can get you to leave your own mind and venture out into a much less scary world than what's in your head.

As Joseph Conrad once wrote in an essay about Henry James:

...the demand of the individual to the artist is, in effect, the cry, "Take me out of myself!"

I couldn't agree more!

I can't share this with the person I wish I could, so I'll share it here...it is such a lovely poem, one I know well by now, but only first discovered when I heard it read by Ron Perlman years ago on the Beauty and the Beast (tv show, CBS, 1989):

E. E. Cummings

(1894 - 1962)
American

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
 

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

The soundtrack to this wonderful tv show has long been out of print, but if you can manage to track down a seller, you should get a copy...it mixes poetry readings with beautiful songs and is the best Christmas present my sister ever gave me, way back in the 80s! :)

Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Beast-Of-Love-Hope/dp/B000BLI3BG

And you can hear the song "The First Time I Loved Forever," mixed with e.e. Cummings...it's absolutely stunning, but not at all safe to listen to if you're in an emotionally vulnerable state right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI4UBk0ICGc

There's a new biography on author Rebecca West that a review in the Washington Post has inspired me to read. It mentions how good she was at keeping a mask on even as she worried terribly and had deep insecurities as her “worth as a sexual being.” I completely forgot I own two unread books by her, which I dug out out recently and gobbled up quickly.

Lorna Gibb tells us, in this sensible and readable biography of the great Rebecca West, that once at lunch with various luminaries including the Aga Khan, Odette Keun, H.G. Wells’s mistress of the moment, “turned to the Aga Khan, asking him to back up her opinion that the English were prudish in public but ‘lubricious in private.’ ” The remark seems to have embarrassed most (if not all) at the table, but surely truer words have rarely been spoken. If friendships and rivalries are dominant themes of British literary life, sex in all its various manifestations runs them a close second, and rarely more so than in the life of Cicely Isabel Fairfield, born in 1892, who changed her name to Rebecca West in 1911 and proceeded to cut an exceedingly strange swath through the bedrooms of the literati.

For me of this review read here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-the-extraordinary-life-of-rebecca-west-b-y-lorna-gibb/2014/05/28/5f6c7c3c-df52-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html

 

Even though I'd like to think I'm mostly a happy person, or at least more happy than sad, I've always been drawn to sad music more than upbeat. This old article from the New York Times is rather interesting:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/why-we-like-sad-music.html?_r=0

 

 

And if you love vinyl, you'll probably love this article from Slate: 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2014/06/18/eilon_paz_photographs_record_collectors_in_his_book_dust_grooves_adventures.html

This is for all the lonely people...

I've been listening to lots of music and most of it has been great for elevating my mood, but then my iTunes shuffle hit "Lonely People" by America, which is actually supposed to be uplifting, but sounds so damn sad you can fall into a funk if you're not careful.

"Lonely People"

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinking that love has left them dry
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

Well, I'm on my way
Yes, I'm back to stay
Well, I'm on my way back home (Hit it)

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup
And never take you down or never give you up
You never know until you try

My antidote for the bluesy blahs this inspired is to put on "A Horse With No Name;" it's so deceptively vague and lazy in description ("there were plants and birds and rocks and things," "the heat was hot" and "the ground was dry") it's almost funny, plus I just like the song a lot so I'm already feeling better with all those "la la la la la"s and "don't harsh my mellow" vibes.

I love to see people try and figure out what it's about:

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1310

And, of course, "Sister Golden Hair" is so pretty and nice to sing along to, that's another non-bummer.

Meanwhile, I'm still reading Married Love by Dr. Marie Stopes and her theory on how two people come together goes something like this:

To use a homely simile – one might compare two human beings to two wires through which pass electric currents. Isolated from each other the electric forces within them pass uninterrupted along their length, but if these wires come into the right juxtaposition, the force is transmuted, and a spark, a glow of burning light arises between them. Such is love.

I don't know that I necessarily believe it's true, but it kind of sounds scientifically romantic.

“The human heart: its expansions and contractions, its electrics and hydraulics, the warm tides that move and fill it. For years Art had studied it from a safe distance from many perspectives..."


I love Faith by Jennifer Haigh. It's beautifully written with a lot of things to say on everything from its title topic (faith) to what is true about someone versus how they are perceived by others to the difference between celibacy and chastity.

Maybe because I made a conscious decision (a promise, not a vow, as one of the characters in Faith would say) decades ago to be celibate my entire life (this is probably too much oversharing, I'm sorry!) I am fascinated with Haigh's examination of what it means to be both celibate and chaste.

The first is easy if you've always believed in waiting for marriage and love (and neither ever happened to you). Chastity (pure in mind _and_ body) is a little harder, especially if you're prone to daydreaming and wonder if you're missing out on something that everyone else on earth seems to have experienced.

It doesn't matter if a person's gay or straight, if he or she believes that sex is absolutely meaningless without love, commitment and (ideally) marriage, then hook-ups have no appeal whatsoever, not even for a nanosecond.

I think I've been in love before, though never with someone who loved me back. I felt strong romantic emotions, plus the kind that just made me want to know them more as a person and someone to go out and do things with while also having conversations that made us each think.

When you get older and then older you start to think it would have happened by now, somebody would have loved you at some point. And, instead of getting bitter about not finding your soul mate, you wonder if maybe that's just how it is and you look at your friends and all the things that interest you and get you excited about life and you realize...things are going to be okay...friends and good books and music and a job you truly enjoy are more than enough.

I still think about Fringe, probably my favorite sci fi show of all time, whose ending almost breaks the tv side of my heart. 

In the midst of re-watching season 5 I'm feeling the dystopian edge even more than I did when it first aired on Fox in early 2013. I like dystopian (and apocalyptic) fiction for the survival aspects and (quite selfishly, and even irrationally, I suppose) because bleakness in a made-up world is my mental comfort food.

I have re-watched Fringe more times than I should admit. The cast, especially John Noble as "Walter," was the draw for me, right from the beginning. How can you not love a man who loves cows?

Season 5 is so different than the previous four seasons that it almost feels like a reboot of the series if not for how carefully seemingly small things eventually tie in.


I'm not sure if it's neat or scary to discover there are over 3,400 stories on fanfiction.net's website:

https://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Fringe/

Pulp's more than paper

Today, for the first time in ages, I did not feel a relapse coming on when I was around X, but a stronger resolution, one I think is finally going to stick.

Nothing quite helps you in your determination to get over the way you feel about someone as knowing she would most likely despise you if she knew you had feelings for her. It's not that this person is mean, but that it's a burden to be on the receiving end of an unwanted crush. I don't know for sure she knows, but I worry she does.

I'm not sure I can keep make up for my past moody and moony behavior, but I think I can be better than I have been from now on...it takes a lot for me to get past something this stubborn, but knowing I make someone else uncomfortable is not something I can live with on this day or any day. 

So in trying to ground myself once and for all, trying to get past this silliness (because isn't a crush basically silly when it persists despite your age and reality's daily intervention?) As usual, it's a book that's helping, a book that's over fifty years old and archaic enough in attitude to be downright insulting.

I absolutely hate the cover to Queer Patterns, though it's rather typical of the time period it was first published. Lesbian pulp fiction covers often portray gay women as either "predators" or "weaklings" who are totally led astray and "mistaken" in their emotional "attachments."

Lesbian pulp fiction I read for a weird combination of comfort and punishment, with a little bit of reinforcement thrown in; lesfic romance I read for pleasure and when I dare to believe it's okay to be gay...the former is no friend to the modern gay girl, even if there is sometimes a surprising amount of sympathy found within the pages of pulp. 

The bulk of modern lesbian romance is astonishingly and blissfully (even for these modern times) unaware of homophobia...on days I need to pretend I head for the romance. I mean, come on, the main character always accidentally "meets cute" with a woman who just happens to live in the same small town and also likes women, even though there's a one in ten chance a woman is actually gay (though that figure itself may be too high) in real life.

As much as I find the pulp fiction variety despicable for its treatment of women (gay or straight) I unabashedly love the writing style and rare and useful (unintentional) advice I can use in my personal life. I don't really think of it as advice, it's just that I relate to the pulps far far more than modern lesfic because it's more realistic and applicable to how I see things.

In Queer Patterns, one of the ladies has decided she's not going to give in to her feelings (which can happen in modern romances, too, but for completely different reasons):

The magnetism of this lovely being gripped Nicoli, making her remember the years she had fought to keep in check the side of her nature that she was determined to control--to sublimate--forcing herself to lead a loveless existence that she might adhere to a principle. 

She would need that principle now as never before, because she knew that in Sheila was a woman whose lightest touch could forever destroy her staunchest resolutions.

Perhaps it would be best, she told herself, not to assign the role to her. How could she hope to stand the weeks of anguish which close proximity to Sheila would cause her?

I don't get Nicoli's exact sentiments as much as I do her desperate need to fight her true nature.

Which leads me to this op-ed piece I read yesterday that made me try and see things from a different viewpoint. It is a sympathetic and insightful article on the difference between being gay and "acting on" one's gayness, two completely separate things. I wouldn't say I'm ready to agree with Rick Perry, but I can say where the writer is coming from, at least a little bit.

I would be tickled if even the most hardened of homophobic people could understand just how separate the two states are...how one is intrinsic and the other is voluntary, even if the cost of not really being who you are can hurt one's heart terribly and be wearing on the soul:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140615-gays-focus-on-perrys-alcoholism-reference-misses-real-debate.ece

Of particular interest and help for me is this link, which rather nicely captures what I've always believed...that you can't "turn" straight (no matter how much "ex-gay therapy" you engage in), but just "refrain" from being gay, if that makes sense:

  http://www.christiananswers.net/q-cross/cross-gaychange.html

 

I swear books "fall" into my lap just when I need them the most. Feeling a bit down one day last week after earlier overhearing an acquaintance use a very harsh anti-gay word, I stumbled onto Love Devours:Tales Of Monstrous Affection by Sarah Diemer and immediately downloaded it to my iBooks app.

 

Authors such as Ms. Dimer actually have the power to save lives

...and I am perfectly serious here, saying something anyone who grew up knowing he or she was gay and not having a soul to talk about it with will understand.

 

The most vital part of Love Devours is the introduction where Ms. Diemer writes:

 

I was born a monster.
 

That’s what the protesters at the Pride Parade told me, anyway, bellowing into a megaphone while they held up a sign that announced "all gays go to hell."

 

I was born gay. This is considered, by many, to be monstrous, which is, of course, the opposite of truth. But from the very beginning, I knew I was strange, different, so it’s no surprise, of course, that I turned to the monsters of myth, of legend, of fairy tale, devouring their stories as their stories devoured me.

 

Explaining quite eloquently a bit more why monsters so appeal to her Ms. Diemer adds:

 

This book is for every girl and boy who has ever been called a monster. Every woman and man deemed monstrous for being different.

 You are wild. You are strong. You are fierce and free.

 

If there had been books like this around when I was younger, I might have had a whole different way of seeing things and not believed through most of my teens and early 20s I was doomed to eternity in Hell, no matter that I desperately tried to ignore who I was inside.

For authors like Sarah Diemer I am grateful, especially because there are kids living in today's world (gay friendly society or not) who still desperately need to hear what she has to say.

 



Of all the books I've ever tried to read Ulysses is the hardest and most ghastly. My experience with reading it in college definitely did not leave me with favorable impressions nor did a more recent attempt. It may be nearly incomprehensible to some of us, but one thing the novel is not is boring.

 

Between seeing the above picture of David Foster Wallace's notes on Joyce's infamous behemoth or having recently started a copy of Kevin Birmingham's fascinating The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle ForJames Joyce's Ulysses, I can't stop thinking about the book I love to hate.

 

In mentioning other titles that caused lots of trouble in the early 20th century, Mr. Birmingham refers to Married Love by Dr. Marie Stopes. I downloaded it through Google Play and am finding it fascinating...particularly because it's so ahead of its time.

 

You can find a free copy here:

 

full text

 

more about Married Love here

 

 

And speaking of books, Buzzfeed posted this awesome article:

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/bookstores-that-will-literally-change-your-life



So I finished Ghosts Of Winter, a book I mentioned the other day, and I wish I could roll my eyes at all the romance and angsty feelings inside it, but I can't...even if it is ridiculous to want something two characters share in a book, movie or tv show, even if most romance is just a fairy tale.

I know it's ridiculous, but I also know what is real and what is not and that, for the time I'm reading a book, I borrow the love.

The funny thing is, though, what the two people share in this story seems totally feasible to me. They face emotional warts, worries, battles and love and it feels real, so real. As Rebecca S. Book explains she sees the "importance of fiction for representing the human experience."

At the heart of Ros and Anna's situation is the uncertainty of whether two emotionally insecure people (one obviously so and the other hiding her fears behind extreme detachment) can make a go of it. Ros thinks about Anna:
                 

I’m awful at making it clear how I feel, so perhaps it was my fault that she’d not understood me.

Not too long after that, Anna confesses:

"Because you handle life so well. I don’t really know why you think I have anything for you. It’s not about what you can give me, Ros. It’s just about you. You’re beautiful, you’re witty, you’re perceptive and sensitive, you’re brave, and you’re a bloody good kisser."

Ghosts Of Winter is one of the best love stories I've read in ages because it rings more real than most from its genre do and because the two women are so likable, if in need of some enlightenment about each other.

Another terrific thing about the book is how every so often there are chapters featuring other lovelorn couples who have lived in Winter Manor throughout the centuries. These couples aren't so lucky in love, though, with one from the 1920s especially doomed to silently love each other instead of getting together and living happily ever after:

"Do you know, Edith, I think love can exist, even when it’s not acted upon,” Evadne said, daring to express what lay in her heart.

I don't know why, exactly, but that's my favorite line in the book.

The best article I've seen about Casey Kasem so far:

 

 

read here

 

 

 

 

 

I loved listening to him on the radio when I was a teenager in the 80s and enjoyed so much the way he'd give back story to so many of the hits he played.



Sunday newspapers...this and that



Spending the morning reading weekend and Sunday newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, I find this to be the most interesting and useful article so far:

"Good Manners for Nice People"

It's a terrific piece, with an emphasis on how technology has truly changed how we treat each other, even if basic human behavior (or misbehavior) is still behind all rudeness. As Ms. Alkon writes in her book:

the essence of manners is empathy. "The missing link in our understanding of conflict is our failure to realize how vulnerable humans are to being treated as if they didn't matter."

Her biting passages are no less insightful because they border on the hysterical: "If you're going to invite someone to dinner and ignore them, at least have the decency to get married and build up years of bitterness and resentment." 

Moira Hogson's review definitely makes me want to read this book!

Also related to manners is this article, with lots to say about our misuse of cellphones in public places. I don't agree with everything Mr. Lazebnik writes, but most of the time he's right on target:

"Keep Your Cellphone Out Of My Starbucks"

 

I thought by now Ladyhawke would be a household name — maybe not as big as that other singer whose name begins with Lady, but still…big. Ladyhawke's self-titled album is amazing, a perfect blend of 80s synth with modern-day heartfelt lyrics and some highly addictive dance numbers to help lift your spirits in between the sad songs.

Jon O’Brien writes on allmusic.com: "Not afraid to plunder both her cool and distinctly uncool record collection, Ladyhawke, aka Pip Brown, has crafted 13 instantly accessible songs, each of which sounds like a potential hit single."

Some of the highlights off her album include "Back of the Van" which is a bit reminiscent of Van Halen’s "Jump." "My Delirium" brings to mind what you’d get if you crossed the Bangles with The Go-Gos. The dreamy sounds of "Crazy World" could have come straight out of "Pretty in Pink" with its Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark aspirations. "Paris is Burning" is an irresistible number that makes you long to get out on the dance floor and move.

Whether she’s pining for her true love and imagining they’re together in "Morning Dreams" or she’s plagued by monsters (real or imaginary?) in "Dusk Till Dawn," Ladyhawke’s penchant for retro sounds is surprisingly fresh when so many other musicians going for the 80s sound just a little stale.

Sometimes, I like to clip op-ed pieces from various newspapers that remind me there are people of religious background who don't want to keep gay people from being able to marry the person he or she loves. It really helps me on trying nights, even though I know in my heart (gay or not) true love is not cut out for me and I can live a relatively happy life without it. The above was published in a recent edition of the Baltimore Sun.

I believe, aside from the back-and-forth morality issues I struggle with related to being a lesbian, that I would be single no matter what my orientation. I also believe that a painful past experience can also be a helpful teaching one in the present and that if I hadn't learned it's best to keep your feelings to yourself no matter who the person you like is, I wouldn't know that I should, could and would never let the person I like now ever have a clue, inappropriate nature or not.

Nothing sticks in your mind forever like the look of horror on someone's face when they realize you like them..it's painful for you, of course, but the discomfort it inflicts on the other person and the friendship you lose is much much worse.

Today, I had a major setback (internally) with how I deal with my feelings. It feels like a personal failure and something that externally came across as rude and immature.

I realized I have to find a careful balance between better hiding my feelings for and from someone I like and not becoming cold or distant. In other words: "be normal" as many advice columns would say.

Little did I figure that when I Googled "how to hide your feelings for someone" so much would turn up in the search. There's the always trusty Wiki How (even if it's geared towards younger people) with this and then eHow with How To Hide That You Like Someone. There's even stuff about it on Yahoo Answers.

I think what horrifies me the most about what I found is that all the links are meant for teenagers in high school, which only adds to my guilt that I'm a grown woman feeling this way.