I finished A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts today. I picked this book up in a Borders in San Francisco. I knew I didn't need to spend the money but it seemed like just the thing I needed -- the tale of a blind man who traveled the world. It made my obstacles to world travel seem a bit trivial.
I loved this book. Travel, adventure and history all in a well-written biography of a fantastically interesting life.
There are books that pass the time, and then there are books that make you excited to be alive. This is the latter. I would say more, but I honestly would rather wait for you.
Amazon paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Sense-World-Historys-Greatest-Traveler/dp/0007161263/ref=ed_oe_p
Monday, May 4, 2009
Shimmy
I started bellydancing to get over a bad breakup. I would have taken any excuse to get out of the house and away from how sad I was. Why not pick something with a coin sash?
I felt stupid even telling anyone I was going to this class. It felt so obvious, like I was trying too hard to be sexy.
But I went. I made awkward arm motions and stumbled over my own feet. I struggled and struggled with the basics that everyone else seemed to understand intuitively. I found it nigh impossible to move both my hands and feet at the same time -- it didn't help that the finger cymbals were hitting a different beat from the rest of me. Everything I was doing was a challenge. I felt like I was using parts of my brain I never had before.
And that right there is the key -- this may be the first time in my life that I've stuck with something I'm not good at. Or even really tried.
I hate making mistakes. I hate not being perfect. Amazing how you can be 24 years old and still figuring these things out about yourself.
I am not a dancer. I'm terribly slow to pick up on choreography and the movements don't come naturally to me. You can probably watch me counting while I forget to smile -- or see me laughing when I'm just so incredibly lost. But when the class was over, I signed up for another one. And then another one. And then another one. And one day in class I finally saw it -- I was getting better. Practicing was making me better.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
This is what they mean with those million cliches -- practice makes perfect and how it's not about winning and try try again, ad infinitum. It finally finally clicked, all the things that never took hold in my stubborn little brain during basketball or ballet or softball. It hit me in a bellydance studio, while I was doing mayas to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." And I just started beaming.
I felt stupid even telling anyone I was going to this class. It felt so obvious, like I was trying too hard to be sexy.
But I went. I made awkward arm motions and stumbled over my own feet. I struggled and struggled with the basics that everyone else seemed to understand intuitively. I found it nigh impossible to move both my hands and feet at the same time -- it didn't help that the finger cymbals were hitting a different beat from the rest of me. Everything I was doing was a challenge. I felt like I was using parts of my brain I never had before.
And that right there is the key -- this may be the first time in my life that I've stuck with something I'm not good at. Or even really tried.
I hate making mistakes. I hate not being perfect. Amazing how you can be 24 years old and still figuring these things out about yourself.
I am not a dancer. I'm terribly slow to pick up on choreography and the movements don't come naturally to me. You can probably watch me counting while I forget to smile -- or see me laughing when I'm just so incredibly lost. But when the class was over, I signed up for another one. And then another one. And then another one. And one day in class I finally saw it -- I was getting better. Practicing was making me better.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
This is what they mean with those million cliches -- practice makes perfect and how it's not about winning and try try again, ad infinitum. It finally finally clicked, all the things that never took hold in my stubborn little brain during basketball or ballet or softball. It hit me in a bellydance studio, while I was doing mayas to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." And I just started beaming.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Little Things
Back in my bartending days in Athens, I was working happy hour on a hot summer day. College towns are pretty empty in the summer. You can actually get to the bar when you want to, and you can eat your meals peacefully. And cross the street without fear of a freshman in a Tahoe mowing you down.
A man came in who was actually pleasant to talk to, sometimes a rarity for a pretty bartender working the early hours of the day. That's when the horny businessmen and the career drunks come out to play. We talked books and he said I had to read Mark Twain's autobiography. He was so insistent that he brought it to me the next day while I was working.
I still have it -- at some point we were supposed to meet up and I was to give it back, but that part of the memory has disappeared. All I remember is a sunny day and being pleasantly surprised by a stranger.
I finally read the book. I felt it had to be read in sunny Southern weather, as befitting its origins in my life and also Mark Twain's general personality.
And I loved it. It was so funny and just so full of a life. Not in the way a biography is -- Mark was born, he did these things in this order and then he died. It's full of anecdotes and skips around and swoops from dark wit to poignant moments from chapter to chapter. It genuinely did make me laugh and cry. I laughed the most at the beginning. I cried when his daughter died, and then when his wife did. You could feel how bereft he was to lose them, and his descriptions of them, especially of Suzy, made me feel like I knew them -- the perfect small details and snatches of conversation that make a good portrait.
I wish he had talked more about his other daughters. But there was no way to make a whole picture of himself, I think. Just the chance to offer up handfuls of what he had in his mind at the time.
The introduction is engrossing me now. I'd never thought much about the philosophy of autobiography -- how you start, how you end, what you choose to keep, what you choose to leave out. How you tell it.
I don't want to start with my earliest memory, because it's about a failure to get to the bathroom on time.
The book: http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Mark-Twain-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060955422
A man came in who was actually pleasant to talk to, sometimes a rarity for a pretty bartender working the early hours of the day. That's when the horny businessmen and the career drunks come out to play. We talked books and he said I had to read Mark Twain's autobiography. He was so insistent that he brought it to me the next day while I was working.
I still have it -- at some point we were supposed to meet up and I was to give it back, but that part of the memory has disappeared. All I remember is a sunny day and being pleasantly surprised by a stranger.
I finally read the book. I felt it had to be read in sunny Southern weather, as befitting its origins in my life and also Mark Twain's general personality.
And I loved it. It was so funny and just so full of a life. Not in the way a biography is -- Mark was born, he did these things in this order and then he died. It's full of anecdotes and skips around and swoops from dark wit to poignant moments from chapter to chapter. It genuinely did make me laugh and cry. I laughed the most at the beginning. I cried when his daughter died, and then when his wife did. You could feel how bereft he was to lose them, and his descriptions of them, especially of Suzy, made me feel like I knew them -- the perfect small details and snatches of conversation that make a good portrait.
I wish he had talked more about his other daughters. But there was no way to make a whole picture of himself, I think. Just the chance to offer up handfuls of what he had in his mind at the time.
The introduction is engrossing me now. I'd never thought much about the philosophy of autobiography -- how you start, how you end, what you choose to keep, what you choose to leave out. How you tell it.
I don't want to start with my earliest memory, because it's about a failure to get to the bathroom on time.
The book: http://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Mark-Twain-Perennial-Classics/dp/0060955422
Etiquette
When a boy asks you out on Facebook and you don't want to go, what is the proper response?
This was Candace's. It is much better than anything I came up with.
Hi, So-and-So. I’m awfully fabulous, and along with that comes being awfully busy. How about we meet up near my apartment, and you can buy me at least two cocktails? It’ll be super-convenient for me and super-lucky for you.
This was Candace's. It is much better than anything I came up with.
Hi, So-and-So. I’m awfully fabulous, and along with that comes being awfully busy. How about we meet up near my apartment, and you can buy me at least two cocktails? It’ll be super-convenient for me and super-lucky for you.
Hulking Out
Today I saw "I Love You, Man." This is the takeaway, courtesy of Wikipedia, a reliable source for such matters:
A blood choke or carotid restraint, also known as the sleeper hold, specifically refers to a chokehold that compresses one or both carotid arteries and/or the jugular veins without compressing the airway, hence causing cerebral ischemia and a temporary hypoxic condition in the brain.[3] Regardless of who the opponent is, a well applied blood choke leads to unconsciousness in 3-5 seconds, while a poorly applied choke can take upwards of thirty seconds to render the opponent unconscious. If released, the subject usually regains consciousness in double the time the choke was applied after he had blacked out. Compared to traditional manual strangulation, properly applied blood chokes require little physical strength, and can be applied successfully by a comparatively weak person.[4]
A blood choke or carotid restraint, also known as the sleeper hold, specifically refers to a chokehold that compresses one or both carotid arteries and/or the jugular veins without compressing the airway, hence causing cerebral ischemia and a temporary hypoxic condition in the brain.[3] Regardless of who the opponent is, a well applied blood choke leads to unconsciousness in 3-5 seconds, while a poorly applied choke can take upwards of thirty seconds to render the opponent unconscious. If released, the subject usually regains consciousness in double the time the choke was applied after he had blacked out. Compared to traditional manual strangulation, properly applied blood chokes require little physical strength, and can be applied successfully by a comparatively weak person.[4]
Not a Sunday
"Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life. All it needs from you is that you take care not to trample on it."
- from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
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