"I wish." Two of the most useless words in the universe. I wish...I wish I had had a better grasp on my emotions and hadn't spent so much time acting like a cartoon character around someone I like so much. I wish my silliness and inability to form complete sentences didn't give me away and that whenever I sense she knows I didn't have the urge to say, "Believe it or not, this is me trying my very hardest not to be such an idiot around you."

The only thing that has pulled me out of it lately has been that family things have been pretty intense and my niece has been staying with me. I think it's better and much nicer to have another person to look out for, care for, to get your mind out of yourself. 

Some people thrive in their singlehood (something I used to do until I hit my 40s) and others sink back into it like a bean bag chair they can't get out of, struggling to find that missing part of themselves.

My life plan has derailed so badly I doubt it will ever get back on track, but the one thing I hope it's not too late for is to truly conquer my emotions and not react so obviously (and sometimes so badly) to things and people.

I can't recommend Invisible Ellen by Shari Shattuck enough. I just have to share a few things about this wonderfully heartfelt (it can be sad yet also comforting) novel. 

from Booklist magazine:

Ellen Homes lives a quiet life, working nights as a custodian at the local Costco and spending days holed up inside her small apartment. Overweight, socially stunted, and burdened with a facial scar received during childhood at the hands of her abusive mother, Ellen is comfortable letting the world go by without her. But when she witnesses an attempted mugging, she discovers hidden strengths when she single-handedly chases away the perpetrator. The result is an unexpected relationship with the victim, a young blind woman, Temerity, and her brother, Justice. The women become fast friends and find their experiences with crime have inspired a greater need to help the underserved. The two become involved in a variety of escapades, including helping Ellen’s pregnant neighbor connect with her relatives, solving the attempted murder of a local drug dealer, and uncovering an international crime ring at Costco. In her seventh novel, Shattuck (Lethal, 2005) delivers strong, well-balanced characters and clever dialogue, making this both a fun read and a satisfying story of personal transformation. --Carol Gladstein

Praise for Invisible Ellen
“A sweet comedy about a lonely young woman who discovers she has a talent for righting wrongs.” —Good Housekeeping

“An upbeat, entertaining survival story about the souls of lost human beings often ignored by society. With her well-drawn characterizations and distinctive protagonists, she shows how lives can be profoundly transformed through unlikely human connections.”
—Shelf Awareness

“Shattuck delivers strong, well-balanced characters and clever dialogue, making this both a fun read and a satisfying story of personal transformation.”
—Booklist

"Invisible Ellen is a heartfelt and moving portrait of life on the sidelines.  It is a book for anyone who has ever felt they didn't count.  And who hasn't felt that way at least once?  A lovely, compelling novel about a woman you won't soon forget."
—Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Fly Away

“Look out world, a new dynamic duo is in town!  Ellen and Temerity sparkle on the page in this tale of unlikely friendships, heartbreak, paying it forward and taking a stand!”
—Gena Showalter, author of Beauty Awakened

“Ellen is the most unique, well crafted heroine I have ever had the pleasure of taking a journey with. Every character jumps out at you in full bright color and is utterly unique. It moves me to think about how many "invisible" people this book will touch and make stronger.”
—Claudia Christian, actress on Babylon 5

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