"What do you want me to have?"
"A girl. I want you to have a girl."
"I'm having a boy."
"DANG IT!!"
Monday, June 27, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
And This Lamp. And That's All I Need.
Asher just went to bed. He didn't want his pillow, or his blanket, or his cup. He did need a Thomas the Tank Engine board book on which to rest his head. And maybe the pillow, and the blanket, and the cup, but only at the end of his crib, because all he needed was the board book.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
More and More Books
October? Really? It's been since October since I updated my book list?
All right, this is for Emily Cummings.
I read this book for Halloween, mostly because I'm not tough enough to stomach actual horror. I'm am summoning up the courage to read Devil in the White City, though. I'm keep you posted. I've heard of a lot of people who thought that the history portions of this book dragged and that it didn't focus enough on the plot. However, my profession is to read long, boring history books, or at least to teach people about long, boring history books. I never really felt that bogged down by the history and was really interested while learning about the historical Dracula. I was thoroughly engaged the whole time. I also found myself wondering if there are fewer really, really bad guys now because the interconnectedness (yes, I'm pretty sure I just made that word up) of society keeps people from amassing so much power. I mean, most of history is fully of pretty atrocious bad guys worldwide. On the other hand, maybe the interconnectedness of society gives those fewer people the means to exert badness on a larger scale. I'm not making any sense.
Bad guys are bad. That's my point.
Also, I checked this out on CD but ended up reading it while I misplaced the CDs. Which means I gave the library an obscene amount of money to replace them. You're welcome, Salt Lake County Library system. It's tough being me.
This book was fascinating. I really wish I had written about it closer to the time that I read it, but I can't remember all the parts I found fascinating. It's premise was that very little is known about the female brain, because science has spent most of its history assuming either that the female and male brain were exactly the same or that the female brain is a smaller lesser form of the male brain. But the author argues that the female brain is entirely different, in part because of the different hormones it produces and is subject too. I bought her argument hook line and sinker when she started describing toddler boys and teenage girls. For toddler boys, she explains that boy and girl babies get along very well until age three or four, when boys start taking what they want and girls start talking for what they want. They become two entities that approach things so differently that they have a very difficult time spending time together. This difference stays in place through elementary, when boys hurt each other with their hands and girls hurt each other with their words. She also described adolescence so accurately that I felt I finally felt closure on being a teenager. Boys are awash with testosterone, and spend most of adolescence feeling guilty. Girls are just subject to such a flux of hormones that they feel dramatic constantly.
Anyways, this might all seem like common sense, but she describes all the physical reasons for such changes and I guess I felt validated in being a social, emotional creature.
The other thought I had was about my testimony. Looking back in life, I think being a teenager was by far the most difficult period of my life.. I always thought that this was because I didn't have a stable worldview in place in which to center things. As I developed my testimony through my later teenage years and early twenties, I've felt much more constant. However, now I think I was just hormonal.
Don't get me wrong, though. The church is still true.
Marissa gave me this book for Christmas. She loves Ernest Hemingway, and I didn't realize until I read this book that I had never read anything by Hemingway. Hemingway writes this book fairly late in his life about the time that he spent in Paris after WWI, hobnobbing with other expatriates like Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a fascinating insight into that time and I could see why Marissa found the period so excited.
What I found most interesting, was how idealized this period became in Fitzgerald's life. It was a time of being loosing one's ground, of being part of a generation who drank for a living and was disenchanted with society and themselves. However, Fitzgerald seemed to look back on the time as a romantic period of his life, a time of being in love. He writes about his first wife in such glowing terms, that you are certain he still loves her. But the memoir ends with him cheating on her, ending his own paradise.
It was an interesting paradox. Can the groundless, listless times of life be that romantic? Is it like being a teenager? So dramatic, so rollercoaster, but when I look back, I seem so naive and circumstances seem so blessed. Is that part of growing up?
You should read this book. Even if you don't like nonfiction. Really. Even just for it's section on the history of sewage. You'll never flush with an open toilet seat again.
I'm going to read it again. Right after I steal it back from Marissa.
I still think Wallace Stegner is downright amazing. I've lost a lot of the thoughts I had on this, which is sad.
I do remember wondering why Stegner is my favorite author, when he writes so many clearly depressing books.
That's all I have to say for now.
Delightful read, one that deserves making book club circles. I found myself irritated with the social gossip in the book, just like I would be in real life. Don't get offended, people. Ever. That's my lesson for the day.
I forgot to review The Sun Also Rises here. Mental Note: do that.
I read these books a couple summers ago, but Tyler's finally getting around to listening to them, so I joined him. Very helpful when you're driving in central Utah at 3:00 in the morning. Read the books, though. The narrator is irritating beyond belief.
Ditto.
Fantastic love story. Rhett and Scarlett are well worth being the iconic couple they are. But man, the Southern idealic views on slavery sure are uncomfortable. Especially she describes the Ku Klux Klan as a gentleman's club.
We're reading Harry Potter with Talmage right now. It's really fun to read it with someone who's reading it for the first time. So I got a craving to read Book Six, which is my favorite.
Well, you can't read Book Six and not read Book Seven. Please.
On a related note, Marissa hasn't and refuses to read the entire series. Everyone send an angry email her way.
Whew! I've read a lot of brain candy lately. Time for something more meaty. Like 1776.
All right, this is for Emily Cummings.
I read this book for Halloween, mostly because I'm not tough enough to stomach actual horror. I'm am summoning up the courage to read Devil in the White City, though. I'm keep you posted. I've heard of a lot of people who thought that the history portions of this book dragged and that it didn't focus enough on the plot. However, my profession is to read long, boring history books, or at least to teach people about long, boring history books. I never really felt that bogged down by the history and was really interested while learning about the historical Dracula. I was thoroughly engaged the whole time. I also found myself wondering if there are fewer really, really bad guys now because the interconnectedness (yes, I'm pretty sure I just made that word up) of society keeps people from amassing so much power. I mean, most of history is fully of pretty atrocious bad guys worldwide. On the other hand, maybe the interconnectedness of society gives those fewer people the means to exert badness on a larger scale. I'm not making any sense.
Bad guys are bad. That's my point.
Also, I checked this out on CD but ended up reading it while I misplaced the CDs. Which means I gave the library an obscene amount of money to replace them. You're welcome, Salt Lake County Library system. It's tough being me.
This book was fascinating. I really wish I had written about it closer to the time that I read it, but I can't remember all the parts I found fascinating. It's premise was that very little is known about the female brain, because science has spent most of its history assuming either that the female and male brain were exactly the same or that the female brain is a smaller lesser form of the male brain. But the author argues that the female brain is entirely different, in part because of the different hormones it produces and is subject too. I bought her argument hook line and sinker when she started describing toddler boys and teenage girls. For toddler boys, she explains that boy and girl babies get along very well until age three or four, when boys start taking what they want and girls start talking for what they want. They become two entities that approach things so differently that they have a very difficult time spending time together. This difference stays in place through elementary, when boys hurt each other with their hands and girls hurt each other with their words. She also described adolescence so accurately that I felt I finally felt closure on being a teenager. Boys are awash with testosterone, and spend most of adolescence feeling guilty. Girls are just subject to such a flux of hormones that they feel dramatic constantly.
Anyways, this might all seem like common sense, but she describes all the physical reasons for such changes and I guess I felt validated in being a social, emotional creature.
The other thought I had was about my testimony. Looking back in life, I think being a teenager was by far the most difficult period of my life.. I always thought that this was because I didn't have a stable worldview in place in which to center things. As I developed my testimony through my later teenage years and early twenties, I've felt much more constant. However, now I think I was just hormonal.
Don't get me wrong, though. The church is still true.
Marissa gave me this book for Christmas. She loves Ernest Hemingway, and I didn't realize until I read this book that I had never read anything by Hemingway. Hemingway writes this book fairly late in his life about the time that he spent in Paris after WWI, hobnobbing with other expatriates like Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a fascinating insight into that time and I could see why Marissa found the period so excited.
What I found most interesting, was how idealized this period became in Fitzgerald's life. It was a time of being loosing one's ground, of being part of a generation who drank for a living and was disenchanted with society and themselves. However, Fitzgerald seemed to look back on the time as a romantic period of his life, a time of being in love. He writes about his first wife in such glowing terms, that you are certain he still loves her. But the memoir ends with him cheating on her, ending his own paradise.
It was an interesting paradox. Can the groundless, listless times of life be that romantic? Is it like being a teenager? So dramatic, so rollercoaster, but when I look back, I seem so naive and circumstances seem so blessed. Is that part of growing up?
You should read this book. Even if you don't like nonfiction. Really. Even just for it's section on the history of sewage. You'll never flush with an open toilet seat again.
I'm going to read it again. Right after I steal it back from Marissa.
I still think Wallace Stegner is downright amazing. I've lost a lot of the thoughts I had on this, which is sad.
I do remember wondering why Stegner is my favorite author, when he writes so many clearly depressing books.
That's all I have to say for now.
Delightful read, one that deserves making book club circles. I found myself irritated with the social gossip in the book, just like I would be in real life. Don't get offended, people. Ever. That's my lesson for the day.
I forgot to review The Sun Also Rises here. Mental Note: do that.
I read these books a couple summers ago, but Tyler's finally getting around to listening to them, so I joined him. Very helpful when you're driving in central Utah at 3:00 in the morning. Read the books, though. The narrator is irritating beyond belief.
Ditto.
Fantastic love story. Rhett and Scarlett are well worth being the iconic couple they are. But man, the Southern idealic views on slavery sure are uncomfortable. Especially she describes the Ku Klux Klan as a gentleman's club.
We're reading Harry Potter with Talmage right now. It's really fun to read it with someone who's reading it for the first time. So I got a craving to read Book Six, which is my favorite.
Well, you can't read Book Six and not read Book Seven. Please.
On a related note, Marissa hasn't and refuses to read the entire series. Everyone send an angry email her way.
Whew! I've read a lot of brain candy lately. Time for something more meaty. Like 1776.
"If You Were a Mouse, the Snowflakes Would be Pretty Big"
The title of Talmage's latest book, to be self-published in the upcoming months. Look for it on best-seller lists.
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