I Love People and Places!

I am ridiculously excited for the next few weeks. My family is coming up to Seattle this next week and will be here Friday through Thursday. We're going to hang out and drive around the state and see beautiful things and generally be goofy in that uniquely Galvan way - I love that my whole family is kooky and we enjoy the same things and the same music. We actually like each other. Then Thursday night they're driving me to the airport where I will take off for Burbank to visit my favorite Casey who is interning at the Disney animation studio. She's actually THERE! Inside the building! Making things and meeting people! She's talked to Glen Keane. GLEN KEANE! If you liked Ariel, the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, or Tarzan, then you like Glen Keane. I'm going to visit her and tour around then we're going to DISNEYLAND!!! I haven't been to the Motherland for two years - far too long for one such as myself. Then, unfortunately, I'll have to work for a few weeks, but Labor Day weekend I'm flying to Denver to see Kara for CraftFest2010!!!! We apparently stole the idea from Kara's mother and her college friend. In order to maintain our awesomeness, we want to get together, ideally annually, to craft and hang out (and eat...and drink...) and just generally be the super sweet people we are - but together. In the same state. ROCK!!!

I also just plain love the actual travel process (except the packing). I'm sure that if I had a job where it was a part of my regular life, the shine would wear off, but there's something so....comforting? to me about travel. I don't know. On the one hand travel seems like it should be stressful, but I haven't really had many bad experiences. I tend to feel peaceful and happy (and, let's face it, grown up) when I travel because I'm doing something fun and going someplace great to see people that I love. I also like sitting in airports and people-watching, reading books, getting a drink at the airport bar, knitting, occasionally even talking to random strangers (interesting note: it's the knitting that starts most conversations). When I went to Italy and took trips from there to Sweden and Spain I somehow grew this fondness for airports and it's stuck with me. I feel so free and calm and ready-to-go when I get through security and am walking through the terminal.

I'M EXCITEEEEEEEED!!!!!

Dreams, Demons and String Cheese

I am often a restless sleeper and have trouble falling/staying asleep. I deal. Last night, however, was a crazy jam session of exhaustion and insanity. After an unusually long bout of tossing and turning I fell asleep, perhaps around 11:30 or 12....only to be suddenly wide awake, heart pounding, fully of nervy, awful energy and a dire certainty that if I didn't GET UP AND MOVE THIS INSTANT I would most likely throw up and very possibly die. My body somehow decided that wandering over and over in a tight little circle in the middle of my bedroom, very seriously counting each step under my breath would make me feel better (like counting sheep?) I made it to about 100 and wanted to keep going but thought I should try to do something less crazy. I was extremely hungry so I stood in front of my refrigerator in the dark at 2AM eating whatever was available (mostly string cheese - pulling the cheese apart was soothing even though I was doing it extremely fast and ate maybe 3 or 4 of them in under 5 minutes). I got back in bed and read for another hour and a half before (still not tired) I forced myself to turn off the light. When I finally got to sleep I kept waking up from terrible dreams. One was a recurring dream-within-a-dream: I'd hear something in my room and wake up to find that a demon had me by the ankles and was dragging me from my bed into darkness. The only way I could get away was by gnawing through his wrists until his hands came off, but he just kept coming back. It sounds funny, but it was awful - I could FEEL it. Within this dream I knew I was dreaming and was terrified that when I woke up it would turn out that I had really been biting my own wrists and I would have hurt myself, but I also couldn't stop because if the demon was real I HAD to get away from him, I couldn't risk it. I had this dream several times within my dream but finally "woke up" and my sister was there. After I told her what happened she took me to a bar to distract me, but someone was having a baby. Apparently no one had cars and we couldn't call an ambulance, so everyone was trying to MacGyver a car out of our available resources.

At least the ending was funny.

I am currently so exhausted that I feel ill. Two minutes of "thorough" internet research led me to the fact that panic attacks can indeed happen while you're sleeping. They wake you up and don't last more than a few minutes, but it can take a long time to settle down and sleep again. Awesome. Though instant, internet-based self-diagnosis is, of course, shoddy at best, it certainly felt like what you'd call a panic attack. I think I've had maybe one or two others in my life: one in the months before I made the decision to move to Seattle and the other in the spring of my junior year of college, neither of which were very pleasant periods for me. Am I stressed out about something and don't even know it? Or maybe my body just felt like being a bitch for no reason. When I get into bed this evening I better sleep the hell out of the night or I am going to be pissed.

They liiiiive!!!

I have not yet killed my little plants! They live! They grow! Some may even be close to thriving! (Although I can't be sure - my idea of thriving is very limited considering I find it miraculous when something I tend doesn't die straight off). I ate a leaf off of my lettuce yesterday - very lettucy! I also bought some more planters because the chard and basil finally look big enough to re-pot and I need to thin out the carrots and give the tomatoes a lot of space to grow. Whether or not my tomatoes actually produce quantities of fruit is almost secondary to the pure nostalgia of the plant. We grew tomatoes in our backyard when I was a kid and I remember helping Mom and Dad in the back yard. I loved it when Dad would pull off the tomato hornworms and let us hold them [Note: I always thought Mom and Dad just called them tomato hornworms because they didn't know what they really were - turns out everyone calls them that. I'm sorry I didn't fully credit your intelligence!]. They were huge and very soft and kind of friendly and goofy looking in a terrifying way.

Your soul is miiiine! ...To SNUGGLE!

The SMELL of tomato plants, though, that just kills me. It's such a wonderful, deep, fresh alive smell. It smells like summer and home and my family and the backyard and sun and happiness. I love watering my new tomato plants because if I even touch the leaves the smell lingers on my hands for a while.

I am very proud of myself. I like playing in the dirt!

Races and Ritters

I ran my race! I am not dead! I suppose I didn't really think I'd fail, considering I actually made an effort to train and I'd run 10 miles the previous weekend without a crisis, but it's still a major accomplishment for me of the couch-and-tv-and-food-are-my-best-friends lifestyle. 2 hours, 22 minutes and 27 seconds. If only I'd run five seconds faster, it would have been all 2s! O, wild calamity! I had a BLAST doing it. I was so jazzed at the end I yelled, "Let's do it again RIGHT NOW!" but that was just the insanity talking.

I done runned the hell out of that race!

I ran the whole way, only walking long enough to take the water they hand you along the course and drink it without throwing it in my own face and the weather was perfect. It's so much easier to run when people hand you drinks and Gu and cheer for you the entire time. I kept what I thought was a pace I could maintain the whole time, then two miles from the end realized I had SO much energy left that I basically sprinted the final mile which felt good, but oddly disappointing. Maybe part of me wanted to have a sweaty, collapsing, "I beat you, Death, I beat you! I surviiiiived!" kind of finish, but I will accept sprinting. Also, I got to litter indiscriminately (done with your water? Toss the cup on the ground! They'll rake it up for you!), AND I got to run through a tunnel and on the freeway! How often do us regular folk get to run on the FREEWAY!?

The rest of Saturday was a lot of lying down, Saturday night/Sunday afternoon I sang my final two concerts of the season then went to our end-of-season party where I had the most delicious pineapple infused vodka in existence and sat around being goofy with my fellow altos.

Sunday night Joanna took me to a Josh Ritter concert - LIFE-CHANGING AMOUNTS OF JOY!!! He was the single happiest, bounciest human being I have ever encountered. His bass player has an amazing handlebar mustache. Their music filled me with wonder and energy and joy. I smiled so much it hurt. I crippled myself for him - I was in sharp, physical pain from the kneecaps down, but it doesn't matter. If you have the chance to see him in concert, GO, for the love of God, GO!

Gogogogogo!!!

I Have A Life, Really!

I haven't updated in a while, but as my life is not generally a raging whirlwind of action and life-altering drama, I think we'll all manage to survive somehow. My time has been divided into a few categories:

Work - Currently planning 2011 education, our Fall Conference (it may be at the end of November but that doesn't mean we're not already harried and behind schedule), and working on cleaning out old files and doing some basic organization. Yeah, off-season!

Sooooo much shelf space!

Half-Marathon Training - Yes, contrary to popular belief I am physically active.

And this is what happens when you're not wearing your glasses while being physically active.

The race is on the 26th so this is my last week of hard training. I'm running 10 miles on Saturday(!!!). Liz is running it as well, and miss Joanna is flying up from CA to run it with us! (Yes, she is insane. That is why I like her.) Of course, these last two weeks of training also coincide perfectly with...

Choir - Two concert weeks in a row. This week it's Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, next week it's Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. I feel easier about the latter because I've sung it before and it's just plain fun. So I'm daily running too much, working, and then singing too much. Next week will be full of glory and exhaustion: a full week of work and rehearsals, then Saturday AM I run a half-marathon, sing a concert Saturday PM and another Sunday afternoon. I am taking Monday off so I can die in peace.

Etc. - My spare time lately has consisted of reading (a lot of fantasy, actually), watching FAR too many episodes of Bones on Netflix instant watch while knitting and I've also been trying my hand at container gardening. I thought I'd add it to the knitting/cooking mix to form a trifecta of domesticity. I've got some alyssum and two geraniums (looking kind of bedraggled right now), Liz brought me some chives that a co-worker gave away and I even started some vegetables from seed - chard, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes and basil.

I'm particularly fond of these little guys because I got them for donating to KUOW, the local public radio station - am I a double nerd?

I'm amazed at how terrified I am of killing these little guys. I haven't lost one yet, but if I do I'll probably be wracked with guilt. We went to visit Liz's family over Memorial Day weekend and I cannot tell you how fearful I was of leaving them alone for three and a half days.

And that is my life. I'm enjoying myself, but I'm also excited for July when I'll have more free time. I'm hoping that by the time I'm freed up the weather will have gotten better and we can start hiking! Oh, summer, I look forward to you.

Things I Read 'N' Things I Thought 2010: Part 1

I seem to have read at a swifter pace in 2010, so I thought I'd take a look back at my readings with a mid-year update. Looks like a lot of fantasy books. I guess I'm on a kick.

1. Beastly by Alex Flinn - Affably bland and unnecessary "Beauty & the Beast". Wish I could travel back in time and see what I'd think of YA books like this if I were an actual teenager.
2. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander - I highly enjoy Eilonwy's constant use of analogies.
3. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire - He seems less unwieldy and enamored of his own writing style, meaning I can understand him. Tentative thumbs up.
4. A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce - Not at all crappy retelling of Rumplestiltskin. Don't know why I read it because Rumplestiltskin has always disturbed me. Witness this other terrifying illustrated version.
5. The Dark Divine by Bree Despain - He's a werewolf, we know, just spit it out.
6. The Dream-Maker's Magic by Sharon Shinn - More of a "follow these characters through life" story than an "I have a story to tell" story and I don't think I mean that in a good way (it makes sense).
7. Fables (Vols. 1-11) by Bill Willingham - Fairy tale characters are real. And immortal. And living in New York. Not life-changing, but pretty damned amusing.
8. The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl - Glory.
9. The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury - Did you know that when man gave up fiction in the name of science that the ghosts of authors and their stories went to another planet and now man is flying in spaceships to that planet and Edgar Allen Poe wants to make a glorious last stand but Charles Dickens is having no part of it?
10. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - So long, so good, so exactly like the movie. Scarlet is hilarious, hateful and sympathetic all at once.
11. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik - Dragons are branch of the British military during the Napoleonic Wars. Go. Read it now.
12. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - Wish I were this British girl. I don't talk nearly well enough.
13. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - It will never be anything other than spectacular.
14. Just an Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson - Not as mind-blowing as The Lottery, but Shirley is always entertaining.
15. Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I want to go barefoot on the prairie and spend my days knitting and cooking. I'll skip the malaria and blizzards and locusts and possible starvation.
16. Lisey's Story by Stephen King - Lisey. Her slightly crazy sister. Her husband's horrible life. Inter-dimensional travel. A good read.
17. Matilda by Roald Dahl - She likes book and has psychic powers and she's British? Done.
18. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis - You know what the problem of pain is? We don't like it.
19. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede - Magic and spellcasting are logical and fairly matter of fact. A less rage-enducing retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red" [see: Tender Morsels]
20. The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman - Unending drama. If I didn't love her use of language and delicate, soul-clutching magical realism so dearly I don't think her stories would interest me all that much.
21. The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan - Vampires are disgusting. Vampires are parasites. Watch out! your blood will turn white.
22. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan - I try not to think about this book because it fills me with rage and confusion and wild disappointment and frustration and unbearable sadness. I will never recommend this to anyone. I desperately wish she'd left out 70% of this book and stuck with the 30% that had such amazing, heart-wrenching, human potential.
23. The Walking Dead (Vols. 10-11) by Robert Kirkman, et al. - Zombiiiiies! Human dramaaaaaa!
24. Watchers by Dean Koontz - One of my all time favorite books of ever anywhere.
25. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier - 12 Dancing Princesses meets Frog Prince set in Transylvania. Quite enjoyable! Gogu just about broke my heart.
26. The Witches by Roald Dahl - Do not accept chocolates from women in wigs.
27. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs - Yea, for he hath grown a mighty beard and did make me both laugh and think, even unto the end of the book.
    

So Shall It Be Written, So Shall It Be Read

I like "reviewing" books when I am confused by or dislike or am disappointed by them...

I am on a continuing quest to find good retellings of fairy tales. A long, non-consecutive and somewhat haphazard quest, but a quest nonetheless. Combined with my love of movie trailers, this lead me to read Beastly, a modern Beauty and the Beast retelling by Alex Flinn. I heard about a movie a while back and last night saw the trailer with that girl from High School Musical (playing one of those super attractive losers with impossibly perfect hair - you know, like those ones in your high school? uh....) and one of the Olsen twins (I am strangely fascinated by them) and some dude I've never heard of. I did a lot of eye-rolling and so of course I thought I'd give the book a whirl (bless you, digital library books).

I'd have to categorize it as "superfluous". I'm not opposed to retellings that hew close to the original and don't take risks and turn the story on its ear. Fairy tales are usually so slightly written that you can expand rather than alter and that's great. Go ahead and stick to the basics, but you have to give me SOMETHING - use new and interesting language, give us a deeper look into the characters, make us care more somehow. Flinn's writing was technically proficient, I suppose -- I understood her sentences and what she was trying to convey (and there were no grossly overwrought sentences a la Twilight) but I didn't identify with any descriptions or feel moved, amused or impressed by any of her phrases or images. Nothing struck me as beautiful or true or right. As for the characters, I'll give them a solid "meh". I didn't find anyone becoming an interesting, well-developed person that I cared about -- even the beast narrating from first person couldn't interest me much. The witch who cursed him was the most intriguing one I encountered but she barely featured so it just left me wanting more.

The biggest "superfluous" point against it is its setting. She placed the story in modern New York where apparently cool, 15-year old guys still say "Duh" and doctors encountering a strange unknown "disease" would rather just tell a rich boy "Well golly, we're stumped, you'll never be cured so just go home," than continue to work on his case and delve into something brand friggin' new (doctors aren't into that shit). It doesn't suffer for being modern it's just...pointless. I'm honestly not sure why she bothered to knock it forward a few centuries other than she could. She doesn't make much use of even the most obvious modern science/skepticism vs. magic bit (most characters think, "Whoa! Magic? Okay" and are never bothered by it again). The trimming is all modern but it felt heartless -- if she hadn't decorated with a cell phone or a Wii every few pages you'd never even notice it had a specified time period (product placement as literary device?). Extending from this, the one thing that rang completely, frustratingly false in this book was a series of chat transcripts from an online support group for people who have been transformed. The screen names were all cutesy, face-kickingly blatant fairy tale names for the Beast, the Little Mermaid, the Frog Price, and the Bear from Snow White and Rose Red. And the group is moderated by Chris Anderson (LOL...?). [Side note: I will accept the Frog Prince's explanation that he "sneaks up to the castle" to use the internet and the Bear's that there's wireless everywhere these days, "even in the woods", but tell me: where does a mermaid (PRE-humanity switch, mind you) get a computer underwater? Back to the time-period griping.] Supposedly the chat transcripts range from the beast joining the group near the start of his curse to the happy ending and this is the "opportunity" for him to tell the other participants his story -- the bulk of the book. I think the author was aiming for an interesting framework, but to me it was just an obnoxiously cute "hip" way of screaming, "Hey! LOOK! Its modern! R U totally impressed w my cul2ral relevnz?" Rather than making use of modern technology and socialization in the story itself she slapped (in my estimation) some modern trim on and called it current. I actually found the "sassy" chat transcripts so jarring from the beast's otherwise gentle narration and so unecessary that I just skipped them as I went along.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this book - I wouldn't NOT recommend it, though. Let's just say that while I didn't get much out of it, I won't be filing a complaint with the universe to get back those few hours of my life.

If you want to read Beauty and the Beast from his point of view I would much rather recommend Beast by Donna Jo Napoli - now THAT lady has a knack for keeping the basic plot while giving it a swift kick to make it feel shiny new, completely steeped in its time-period and emotionally relevant. (While you're at it, go ahead and also read The Magic Circle, her lovely and utterly heart-breaking version of Hansel and Gretel. Yes, Hansel and Gretel.)