Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

I was skimming through my FB feed and found this "article" that recommended 101 books to read besides "50 Shades of Grey." First of all, I applaud any effort to redirect people from that particular book. It is, without a doubt, one of the worst books of all time . (It is right up there with the Twilight series and now that I'm considering it, it in fact may have surpassed Twilight  in its utter dreadfulness. At least Twilight  had a plot, however lame.) I mean, just no. If you want some readable erotica, there's this woman named Anais Nin you may have heard of (and if you haven't heard of her, well, there's your summer reading list for hot, sleepless nights - get through that and you can move on to Henry Miller - ooh, la la)...or at the very least, you can read Catherine Millet's somewhat shocking memoir . Anyway. I digress. (Get used to that, because it happens sorta often. I also overuse parentheticals. Don't judge me.) The article, ins...

I'm getting my groove back. I can feel it. I stay awake all day (well, most days). I've been organizing up a storm. I'm enjoying cooking and baking again. The hideous acne/rash I had as a result of one of my chemo drugs is almost gone - I've actually left the house without cover-up on and not scared people. Yay for summer! Yay for recovery! Let's drink to that! June 2013, at the mountain house. God, I miss my hair. But wait. I don't have the energy I want. And I get terrible edema if I have drinks. One or two glasses of wine seems to be okay, sorta. But if I decide to have a vodka and soda, or if I have, over the course of an evening, more than two drinks, then I wake up the next morning having gained - and this is not a lie - at least 4-6 pounds. It's water weight. So then I start taking my edema drugs, which make me pee every 45 minutes all day long, for about three days. Then I am back to my regular weight, and then, sooner or later, the edema ...

It's official - we're headed to Disneyland in August! Anyone have any tips for cheap tickets? We are lucky enough to be staying with relatives but wow. Disneyland ain't for the empty-pocketed among us. I don't suppose those $100 a day tickets include free souvenirs, do they? They should give you a set of ears with your name on the second you walk in the gates at those prices. Sheesh.   We're also going to head to the beach for a day while we're on the West Coast; I'm so excited to show the kids the Pacific Ocean! They have been to the Gulf several times but there's something special about the Pacific...so majestic, and the waves are startling and enormous and blue. I love the mountains but sometimes I wouldn't mind having a little bit of ocean nearby. Speaking of California, I just read a book set there. Appropriately, it's called California .  Huh. Now that I look closely at the cover, it's pretty freaky .  Here's the t...

I turned around this morning and suddenly August - filled with fun trips and family visits and - holy schmoly, SCHOOL STARTING! - is staring me in the face! How can this be? I seem to remember long, gloriously boring summers full of sprinklers and swing sets and, now that I consider it, probably being locked out of doors from morning til night. I did, in fact, eat dog kibble one time. But it wasn't because I was going hungry - I was just in that "Why the hell not? Let's give it a whirl!" sort of summer attitude. (And it wasn't too bad, if you want to know the truth.) But around here, it's all insane. My seven year old turned to me last week and said, "You know, I think I'm ready for school to start." I thought it was just the heat, but no, she keeps saying it. (My son, meanwhile, is keeping quiet - likely because he doesn't like to be up and at 'em when it's school days. He saves his early rising for the weekends. Such a sweetheart. ...

Just finished reading a very satisfying book: Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple: Oh, no! Don't be over! You know it's an instant favorite when you're blindsided by its end, and then you want to cry.  This book, to put it simply, rocked. It was just what I wanted and needed to read, right here and right now. Semple tells the story of a family - father Elgie, wife Bernadette, and daughter Bee - that is, like the home in which they live, falling apart at the seams. Bernadette, of course, is the star of the show, but only just - Bee won't let you forget about her, and she's instantly lovable (not in that cutesy way, thank God). Here's the bare bones of it: Elgie and Bernadette moved from LA to Seattle and wound up having baby Bee, who was sicker than sick when she was born and had to make it through God knows how many surgeries so that she could keep on keeping on. But she does! She makes it, and winds up at Galer Street School, where...

Our July has been a beautiful patchwork of Denver and Granby (Granby is where we bought our mountain house back in May).  The kids are enjoying mountain life - hiking, bike riding, looking for bugs, cursing mosquitos - you know, the good stuff! They've even had a few days at YMCA camp - can you get more wholesome than that? In the three days that they've gone, they've tye-died, canoed, played mini-golf, gone swimming, made crafts...the list goes on and on. It's like a real, down to earth camp experience (not that I ever went to one of those camps - I just read a lot of books about them). They seem to be loving it! Meanwhile, Nick and I have actually been working up here in the mountains - me on the online course I'm teaching and prepping for fall, and Nick for his job. Our days of peace and quiet have been really nice. This afternoon, I realized that life today and yesterday (camp days) were sort of like life before we had kids. It was very disconcerting and, frank...

Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader just charmed the socks off of me. Here's my Goodreads review: What's not to like in this adorable and thoughtful little (seriously, it's a novella and weighs in at only 120 pages) paean to books? Author Alan Bennett imagines a world in which HRH, whilst chasing her corgis, stumbles onto a mobile library out back the kitchens and, having gone inside the van, feels compelled to choose a book. Thus begins the Queen's love affair with the written word. Her stiff upper lip attitude begins to soften a tiny bit as she is swept away on a tide of Proust, Trollope, Dickens, Munro...the list goes on. Before you know it, her habits change, she begins reflecting on the meaning of reading, and then she begins to even *gasp!* write, first transcribing passages from her latest read and then, tentatively, adding her own ideas and insights.  It's the story of a woman - and thus, her office - transformed. Funny, endearing, insightf...

I read Kimberly Elkins's What Is Visible over the holiday weekend. Review is on Goodreads but it's also right here! Kimberly Elkins attempts to bring to life (but takes great liberties with the historical record) Laura Bridgman, the blind/deaf-mute who enchanted the world and inspired Helen Keller's mother to contact her school, the Perkins Institution, for instruction.  The result of her effort, as one who has long been interested in the lives of both Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman, is quite successful. Elkins creates a rich yet plausible interior world for Laura, revealing a woman who has the ferocious spirit of a tiger with the affectionate inclinations of a kitten, to paraphase Elkins's Julia Ward Howe. What makes this book particularly satisfying is that Elkins nestles her Laura quite neatly within the actual historical backdrop against which her life took place, and does so without lecturing or losing focus. It helps, of course, that Laura was surround...

First, some background if you're just meeting me: I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer (with metastasis to the liver and possibly the lungs) in April of 2013. I was 38 at the time - I mean, really. WTF? I don't even sit around eating hamburgers. I was a pescatarian and former yoga instructor. So, lucky me, I just happened to win the really shitty cancer lottery. Anyway, my husband and I assembled a kick-ass medical team and they swung into action quickly: colon surgery in May, chemo in June and early July, a month off to recover from that, and then a liver resection. They removed a little over half of my liver...but don't worry, it grows back. There were some complications there, the main being that the surgeon accidentally stapled shut my IVC  - twice! - while they were closing up my liver. My kidneys sort of shut down and I gained 40 pounds of water weight within 5 days after surgery, but they sent me home anyway and it took them three weeks to figure out what ha...

Had a couple of hours set aside for summer reading this morning - I know, I know, I'm spoiled, but the reality is that I'm so far behind on my reading that I can't even see the top of the stack. I read almost nothing all of last year, between surgeries, chemo sessions, general panic attacks, and then the fuzz-brain that goes along with all of the above. Plus, I literally couldn't stay awake. But I'm back baby, with a vengeance! Anyhoo...I read The Fever : Disturbing and sexy cover, no? Here's my review , but if that link doesn't work (and will someone tell me if it works for you or not, please?!), here's the review in its entirety. I try not to write spoilers, so don't worry: The fever around this book from just about every mainstream critic and "great summer reads" recommendation article forced me to buy it. Forced me, I tell you! It was engaging. I'd never read Megan Abbott before, but she's worth the time. A stor...

There are so many "must read for summer!" book lists out. Give me another week or two, and I'll give you my own, complete with book reviews. But in the meantime, I found some good suggestions just this morning (and a number of books that I've read this summer already) here: Flipboard's 2014 Beach Reads Oh! What's on my Summer Reading List, you ask? Well, it changes all the time, and there are really two lists: a school related list, and a just for fun list. But right now, the lists look something like this: Just for Fun Reading: (top ten) The Fever by Megan Abbott (reading now) What is Visible by Kimberly Elkins  (reading now) The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenstrom  The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert BLECH The Noble Hustle by Colson Whitehead Shining Through by Susan Isaacs The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan Where...

This is me. At least, the me in my head. Right now I have short hair but I'm willing it to grow fast and return to me. Come on, baby...It's high time I had a blog of my own, isn't it? Yes. Now I can stop sharing my witticisms with Facebook and just dump them here. Cut out the middle man. No bureaucracy. Why am I here? Well, this is a place for me to muse - about myself, about books, about life, and so on. I will probably talk about cancer a fair amount. But not excessively. I'll probably talk about "Friends" episodes at least as often.  So, get ready to be wowed by insight...or at least come away with a good book recommendation from time to time. Welcome!