Adrian Zavala

Posted on January 31, 2011 by pagesofjulia

On Saturday night this past weekend (Jan. 29) the Husband and I finally went to go see our neighbor play music. We’ve been neighbors for years and friends for the same number of years, and he’s been playing music locally for less time, maybe a bit over a year? since he quit his full-time job to go back to being a professional musician. We have missed his shows many times over, because we spend a lot of time traveling and Being Very Busy, and when we’re not doing those things we like to Sit on the Couch. I feel badly that we have waited this long to see the neighbor play music, because we intend to be more supportive. We trade dog-sitting and watch each other’s homes and trade food and things; we should see him play music, too.

And now that we’ve finally seen him play music, I feel badly that we’ve waited this long, because he’s very good! I was very impressed. The Adrian Zavala Band played at Khon’s, which is a little (little!) coffee shop/bar in the Little Vietnam area of southwest downtown Houston. It was a neat little place – basic but with some good offerings ($2 Lone Star draft!), and the sense to book Adrian.

Adrian Zavala

Adrian claims to encompass “Duke Ellington meets Bad Brains”, whatever that means. I was pretty well entranced by the music. It’s a three-piece band – Adrian sings and plays guitar, along with a bassist and a drummer (um, sorry, I think I caught their names but they don’t seem to be available to me just now). I should say that I’m not a musician or a music critic; but I appreciate music, and I like to try to understand how it all comes together. Adrian’s music really spoke to me; it had me reliving old memories seemingly unrelated to the songs I was hearing. I don’t know how to explain that, but I find it obvious (to me at least) that sound is second only to smell in its mnemonic abilities – the ability to take us back in time, to tap into specific memories.

Adrian’s a pretty talented guitar player. I was trying to watch his feet to see what he was doing with the pedals; but most of what I normally think of as pedal effects he was doing with just the strings. (I cannot do this justice. See above comment re: me not being a music critic.) They performed only original music; and each song was satisfying long and complex with lots of bridges (is that right?). Guitar and bass both got to play around and show off some skills. It was fun! I would dance next time, if there were room, and if I were to be perhaps not the only person dancing??

I was musing about the comfort we find in familiarity. At one point one song diverged into a little bit of Rush, and I found myself smiling – not because it’s my favorite music (meh) but because I recognized it. But I loved the original music! I would rather hear original music (at least by Adrian; not necessarily by the next guy!) than Rush. So why smile? I think familiarity makes us comfortable; it makes us smile. I may have been imagining things, but I looked around and thought everybody else was smiling at it, too. I was thinking about the Heights mystery I finished recently, Murder on the Boulevard, which I ended up really enjoying. While not the height (ha) of literary achievement, it was a perfectly fun read; but I think it was heightened (now I’m having fun) by the familiarity of the setting. I think we all enjoy reading (or listening to, or…) things that reference our hometown, home neighborhood, etc. Familiarity is relaxing. And yet, it’s important to get out of our comfort zones, too, in the pursuit of happiness and lots of Other Things.

I’m so glad I got out of the house 🙂 AND our comfort zone, to see some live music. We don’t do enough of that. Thanks Adrian for the performance; hopefully there will be lots more, maybe even in a bigger venue that allows for me moving to the music! Although really Khon’s is a charming little place, I think this band could use more.

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book beginnings on Friday

Posted on January 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I shall optimistically post a Book Beginning today, in the hopes that I will soon be able to Begin a new Book.


I’m struggling with which of the four books on my desk to choose for my Next. Let’s see. There’s a Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, Persuader (great title for Reacher, I think!), set in Maine (this is important for the sake of the Where Are You Reading? Challenge). I like Reacher very much; this is tempting. It would be “light” after this clunker nonfiction that I’m currently involved in, hm.

Next there’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, an oft-mentioned classic (thus good for the Classics Challenge, hm) that I’ve never read and know that I Should.

Then comes By-Line: Ernest Hemingway. This is required reading for me because I’m a huge, huge fan of Hemingway, and this is one I have NOT read – I’ve read all his novels and I THINK all his short stories although it’s hard to figure out for sure considering all the various collections; but only a few of his nonfiction. This is a collection of his journalism, and the back of the book claims that “more intimately than all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man.” I need it.

And finally we have The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. This caught my eye because Eva over at A Striped Armchair was just recently extolling the author and specifically this book. It’s sort of pop-science in a series of case studies by neurologist Sacks. I’m intrigued, all the more so by Eva’s glowing praise. I’ve discovered a handful of pop-science/medical, very readable nonfiction in recent years, like My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. This one might be up next.

This is not a very successful book beginning post just yet. With which should I tease you, and me?

Let’s try this again.


Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme.

How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

From the first page of Lee Child’s Persuader:

“The cop climbed out of his car exactly four minutes before he got shot. He moved like he knew his fate in advance.”

This is so like Child. Everything is exact. I love it. What’s Reacher gotten himself into this time?

Thanks for bearing with my messy post this evening. 🙂 Have a lovely weekend and I’ll “see” you on Monday!

Filed under: book beginnings, book reviews | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

A few new books: sci fi, and a Houston Heights mystery

Posted on January 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Well! I know I’ve been a bit distant (and boring, since I’ve been reading the same book for what feels like weeks!) but I have some new tidbits to share.

Still very busy with my exciting Database Searching class and the rest of life, but I have cheated on Mr. Playboy and read a few other quick bits.

The other night I sat down and read my friend Amy Sisson’s Suicide Club, published in Sybil’s Garage No. 7, a collection of sci fi short stories. Now, you will recall that I do not consider myself a reader of sci fi. I actually really enjoyed Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, which I read for a reader’s advisory class last fall; it just didn’t strike me as what I think of as sci fi. It was a story about people, relationships, morals, and worlds; it didn’t geek me out with computer bits or robots or things like that. (I’m not up for that.) Well, this is the second of Amy’s short stories I’ve read, and both have been very accessible – no geeking out, again. Maybe I need to rethink sci fi. I’m still not up for the geeky stuff, but apparently there’s more to the genre than that. Although she did point out a collection of Star Trek stories, including one of hers, that she told me I would *not* like (and I still haven’t braved it.) Amy? Any recommendations for further reading? I enjoyed Suicide Club; it gave an interesting and yes, decidedly creepy take on our future, spinning off of Fight Club. (Kind of fun along with being creepy.) I enjoyed the other worldview. Thank you Amy! 🙂

Next I began reading a short mystery I was given a few months back. It came as one of two Houston Heights historical mysteries, and they’re by a local Heights author, Anne Sloan. (For those who aren’t local, the Heights is a neighborhood in Houston, and at the time the books are set, was a suburb. It’s an artsy, historic, trendy neighborhood marked by old families in houses for generations, but also young people, dog walkers, runners, cyclists, bars, beautiful old houses, and well-maintained historical structures in general.) I’m reading the first one, called Murder on the Boulevard; next is The Apothecary’s Demise. This book is set in the 1910’s, in a time when Houston (3 miles away from the suburb of Houston Heights) is just developing; Jesse Jones is in the process of building the 18-story Rice Hotel. Times are a-changing. Our protagonist, Flora Logan, is an adamant women’s suffragist and general feminist. She falls out permanently with her father, for example, over her opinion that she should be allowed to study and pursue a career rather than aspire to marriage as her loftiest goal. Her interest in study and career is botany, and we get some good local, historical details there, too.

Flora leaves Houston for New York City after her parental conflict, and finds a more equal environment, a college degree, and a job in the Botanical Gardens there; she is called home when her father dies suddenly, and begins investigating what looks like his murder. (Given the title, perhaps we can take that for granted.) I’m maybe 3/4 through this book, and despite early misgivings, I’m enjoying myself. It should probably be said that this book is not a feat of literary accomplishment or crime novel styling, although it does adequately well at the latter. Its greater achievement is in historical detail, which here and there is a little bit too obviously wrought, but really I think we all have a weakness for our home town/city/neighborhood in fiction… I have lived in the Heights and currently live very close (in another beautiful historic neighborhood), and anyone from inner-loop Houston could appreciate the familiarity of the landmarks described and their history. It’s very enjoyable, it’s just not… poetic. It makes me want to go look at each building again with new eyes; it makes me proud to be part of this heritage.

And the mystery is developing nicely. We may have started a bit slowly with Flora’s doomed trip to the Big Thicket near Beaumont (another familiar area!) but the intrigue is fun; her characters are either likeable, or not (meaning Sloan successfully convinces us of who the villains are!), and I’m engaged in what seems to be a burgeoning romance. (Flora is an extra challenge because her feminism makes her resistant and suspicious. This is a “type” I daresay we’re all familiar with, at least in fiction, past and present.)

So with a few stumbles, I’m really liking this Houston Heights mystery. And I get to put a pin on my map for the Where Are You Reading? Challenge, too! 🙂

I’m looking forward to maybe finally finishing Mr. Playboy this weekend – I’m not bored with the book, in fact I’m still fascinated and still convinced that I was *right* that Hefner is a fascinating and contradictory guy! – but I’m a bit bored with being in one book for this long. I’m ready to move on, and I have some tasty books waiting for me in stacks on my desks (yes plural, work and home), yum. So perhaps on Monday I’ll have some new books to report on again! Til then, thanks for stopping by.

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book ideas from other bloggers (thank you!)

Posted on January 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Well! Perhaps it is taking the easy way out, but today I feel compelled to share with you no less than THREE books I found on other blogs that I want to read.

On Reading Matters I discovered A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn. Kim describes it as “a highly intelligent literary crime novel… that brims with a slow burning anger” about apartheid, set in South Africa in the 1950’s. She makes it sound beautiful and meaningful and, well, I can’t think of a better phrase to get me interested than “intelligent literary crime novel.”

Then I came across The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha at Jenn’s Bookshelves. This is the story of a family who loses a beloved son, and the mother’s coming to terms with his killer who is on death row; and there is some hint of mystery on top of what Jenn has shared in her review. It sounds captivating.


Finally, I read Raych’s review over at books i done read (which, by the way, is a hugely fun & hilarious blog I’ve recently discovered and really enjoy) of Black Juice by Margo Lanagan. This is a collection of short stories, about which Raych shows ambivalence, which in my opinion is wise. I’m not against short stories, collected or otherwise, but I’m… cautious. I like her, well, juicy description of these stories as “DARK and WEIRD and SAD AS HELL” (her caps, not mine) and I’m intrigued.

I guess it’s a bit odd that I read so many blogs (probably between 30 and 40) and pick up relatively few ideas for books I really want to read. (And considering my history, I may or may not get around to any of these three. I have to be a little bit fanatically interested before I actively seek out a book; there are just too many attractive options stacked up in my immediate vicinity.) So, I wanted to share these three.

Mr. Playboy is still entertaining me. 🙂 Have a lovely Wednesday and perhaps (fingers crossed) I’ll get to do a Book Beginnings post with you on Friday! Hope hope!

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Teaser Tuesdays

Posted on January 25, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Today I am still working on the neverending biography of Hugh Hefner. No, I’m not complaining. I still find it a fascinating story, particularly as author Watts really makes it the story of the American people, the U.S. economy and culture, and a number of general trends. I’m intrigued and I enjoy the book. But, I do look forward to being able to read some other things, too!

Your teaser today comes from page 297:

“No longer the daring trailblazer on the sexual frontier, the magazine struggled with a growing perception that time had passed it by. Ironically, the success of the sexual revolution in the Swinging Seventies made Playboy appear quaint to acolytes of sexual openness.”

All right, I confess, I didn’t pick this teaser randomly. I thought it was a neat capture of an interesting irony: that the magazine and the institution that was Playboy had sort of done such a good job of making itself relevant, that it was no longer quite so relevant. Hefner made girly magazines so acceptable that he ended up with competition. It’s a good lesson in any kind of competition, too: don’t rest easy! Being the best last month or even yesterday is rarely enough to carry you through this month, or today.

I’m afraid I’m getting a bit busy with the class I’m taking this semester on top of the usual work, extracurricular fun & family and the bike riding I need to do more of before a few things happen, like the spring race series and especially YIKES the Ouachita Challenge. Whew. I really want to still read lots and post more-or-less daily. That’s what I mean when I say I look forward to moving on from Mr. Playboy; I’m enjoying it but I’m accustomed to reading through books a little faster than this. So, I look forward to the next book in my life. 🙂 No, don’t ask me what that will be.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: | 3 Comments »

Trail work debrief

Posted on January 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Unrelated-to-books PSA of the Day.

Yesterday I was part of a group – man, there must have been 15-20 of us out there! – doing trail work/repair/maintenance on the mountain bike trails out at Memorial Park. This is a volunteer activity I find to be very important for a variety of reasons, the basic one being that those of us who USE trails – mountain bike, hike, run, walk dogs, etc. – have a responsibility to keep them in good shape. There’s also the political fact that cities, counties, private landowners, or a variety of governmental bodies that house our trails are MUCH more likely to allow us to continue, and maybe even give us new trails, if we’re respectful, responsible users. It’s just a basic concept that you should clean up after yourself, and trail usage necessitates trail maintenance. (I’ve written more on this topic here.)

Yesterday, we were involved in quite a big project, armoring some 20 feet of trail that has been a constant mudpit since Hurricane Ike. It was hard work and involved heavy lifting and extensive digging. It was really GREAT to be part of such a large group; the small turnout I’m more accustomed to just wouldn’t have done it. I’m glad to be a part of these things and don’t regret the sweat (or occasionally the blood) I leave behind. It makes me feel good to be doing my part.

But I was disappointed to hear that several of my friends/riding buddies/fellow racers were out there yesterday riding the trails which were CLOSED due to conditions. When trails are wet and we ride or run or walk them anyway, we do further damage, thus necessitating more of my, and my cohorts’, sweat and blood. It’s a very simple concept, and especially the serious rider-racers I have in mind definitely do know better.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, friends.

PLEASE DON’T

RIDE CLOSED

TRAILS.

(the Husband's portrait of me on break)

Thank you. 🙂

Now get out there and enjoy your outdoor world!

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

still enjoying Mr. Playboy

Posted on January 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

It’s a bit odd to not have a new book to tell you about for this long, but Mr. Playboy is such a long one, and I’ve been fairly busy. It was fun to get some engaged responses to Saturday’s post; I was wondering if I might alarm anybody by discussing sex and gender 🙂 but you seem to be a tough bunch. (Or, the offended ones have departed quietly.) Today’s reading proceeded with the battle between Hefner/Playboy and the feminist/women’s lib movement. Watts more or less concludes that Hefner’s camp and the more extreme of the feminists were both a bit far-out in their positions; that nude pictures aren’t as significant a cause for good or evil as was claimed. I don’t know; I think pictures of naked women can be pretty degrading, but I don’t think Playboy does it in a terribly degrading manner. (By which I mean, they go for “pretty” over sordid, and include biographical details, and at least throw a bone towards the idea of these being People, not just bodies.) And most importantly, all the parties involved are consenting adults, and no one is forced to pose OR to look at the stupid pictures, so who cares?

I just wanted to share with you a quotation on this subject, from Joyce Carol Oates. Apparently she was asked by NOW (the National Organization for Women) to avoid boycott publishing in the magazine, which she had done a number of times. This is a somewhat lengthy quote but so professionally done I really do want to share. From page 248-9 of Mr. Playboy by Steven Watts:

I cannot claim to have much interest in the pictorial aspect of PLAYBOY, but I see no reason to focus upon certain pages and deliberately to neglect the very real presence of others. PLAYBOY has published exceptionally fine interviews in recent years (one of them with [feminist] Germaine Greer, who was allowed to be as frank and insulting and critical of PLAYBOY as she pleased), some important articles, and … some very interesting fiction. The stories of mine that appeared in PLAYBOY dealt with male/female conflicts – and in nearly every case, I dramatized the continuing cruelty of the myth of male superiority in such a way that any reader, male or whatever, should have felt some sympathy and understanding for women…

I have never published anything in any magazine on the basis of my agreeing, entirely, with every page of that magazine. In a democratic society, there must by avenues of communication in publications that appeal to a wide variety of people, otherwise writers with certain beliefs will be read only by people with those same beliefs, and change of growth would come to an end. PLAYBOY is astonishingly liberal, and even revolutionary in certain respects…

My personal belief is that worship of youth, flesh, and beauty of a limited nature is typically American and is fairly innocuous … [Y]our anger over PLAYBOY and its hedonistic philosophy is possibly misdirected.

Isn’t she classy? What a great rebuttal, in my opinion. I especially liked her point that diverse publications might get us all reading things that we DON’T agree with, gasp, and what a good idea that is. I’m certainly guilty of reading what I agree with, and I figure we mostly all are. I mean, obviously, what appeals to me is… what appeals to me. But reading the opponents’ position is generally a good idea – maybe you’ll learn something, maybe your mind will be expanded, maybe your mind will be changed ever so slightly, and if not, your own debate points will be strengthened by a familiarity with the opposition’s argument. I think a willingness to read different viewpoints shows intelligence and a comfort with one’s own views. That said, I’m not sure I do a lot of it. :-/ Do you? Do you read ideologies that you disagree with? Could be painful, but it might be brave.

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A complicated Saturday of Database Searching and Gender Politics

Posted on January 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia

My word, I don’t know where to begin. It’s been an eventful day.

First the announcement that I am a GEEK. I had the most FABULOUS time today at my first meeting of my Database Searching class today.

(geek)

This is a grad school class I’m taking through my MLS (Master’s of Library Science) alma mater, just for continuing education’s sake. I admit I had some stress about it (and its future impact on my life and free time) this week, but it was a really great way to spend a Saturday morning! I’m excited about the implications of database searching: its logic, the binary nature (of the computerized databases) and creative nature (of the human side: at indexing, and at searching), and our impact, as information professionals, on What The People In General Know. The two instructors in this course (who are both colleagues of mine, lucky me) are remarkable as a teaching team, which is a large part of what makes this course special. They have a really fun rapport: teasing, informal, bantering, intelligent, and expert in the fields of searching and librarianship as well as education. I don’t think I’ve ever seen team teaching done so effectively.

Then I spent several hours with my mother, who hemmed some pants for me (thanks mom, no I still don’t want my own sewing machine, you do a great job). We can never get enough time to catch up. I love you.

Then I came home and the Husband fried some chicken and I read a good bit in Mr. Playboy. (I’m sorry if you’ve been following this blog and waiting for me to move on to a new book. It’s almost 500 pages and I’m now halfway through.)

I still find Hugh Hefner a fascinating and contradictory figure. He’s obviously conflicted within himself; he rebelled against the norms of his youth, and thought he was doing everyone (including women) a great service in liberation. He really DID (I think) do some great services to a number of causes, including (fairly decisively) civil rights, as well as consumerism/materialism (questionable, but the US seems to have accepted this as a Good so who am I to argue), and abortion, divorce, and birth control – perhaps in service of Men Having Sex Freely, but I think he has a point that he’s liberated women somewhat as well. His assistance of women’s lib or women’s rights is a complicated question, though.

I might get a little personal here. Warning.

I was raised by two ardent feminists and children of the 70’s, and COMMUNISTS (omg) among other things. I’m proud of my father for being, still, the greatest male feminist I’ve ever known. My mother, though married (legally, not in a church) still carries her maiden name, as does my secular “god”-mother and two of my three aunts. I support them. When I married, I took the Husband’s name, not because I’m *not* a feminist, but because my path was paved by Karen, Susan, Janet, Laura, and countless of their contemporaries. Through their rebellion, they’ve freed my path to change my last name without feeling that I’ve given up my identity to this Man. (Who was, by the way, surprised that I wanted his name at all.) If I were married in the 1970’s I would have kept my name, I think. My mother and so many other role models have allowed me to complacently take my husband’s name and retain my Self.

So, I read about Gloria Steinem’s exposé in Show magazine of the Playboy clubs. I knew of this in a pop-culture sense: the famous feminist took an undercover position as a Bunny at the NYC club with the purpose of observing and reporting on the objectification of women there. Beware of coming in with a preconceived conclusion: as my Brother Gerber warns me about Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, the conclusions are tarnished by the author’s preconceptions. (I LOVED this book and agree with its conclusions, but I share Gerber’s concerns about its mass appeal.) Steinem is an admirable figure. But (says Mr. Playboy by Steven Watts, page 238 and thereabouts) her fellow Bunnies argued that they were liberated, and empowered, by their employment. If sex is power, they were paid to exercise their power, in their own ways. They made money and felt that they chose their own destinies.

I once worked at a local beer bar – which will remain nameless, but my local friends will recognize it. I’m a serious beer enthusiast and have held several beer-expert jobs, and once wrote a local column on the subject. When I served beer at this bar, I wore a plaid miniskirt, knee-high socks, and Mary Janes (later Doc Martens which were also appreciated), and I was told by a manager that “We Sell Sex” which I found very offensive (I am not a prostitute!) but was true in a way. As a tomboy, this was an interesting experience.

(or maybe more like this. librarian style?)

I think I can understand a little bit what the Bunnies meant. In a way, I felt empowered, and excited, by dressing up this way and playing a role. I made some damn good money. I got to talk about beer, over the heads of the men I served. They were impressed. It was fun and profitable and empowering. I also moved on, putting on more clothes by the time I was 24 and finding a professional career well before 30. And, I did this in the 20-oughts (what are we calling those years? 2000-2010), with all the benefits earned by my mother and her contemporaries. We still experienced, and experience, sexual harassment and objectification, but our lives today are easier than my mother’s was in ways I know I can’t imagine.

I think gender politics are extraordinarily complicated. I consider myself one of the easier women I know to understand. I will tell you what I think if you ask. I don’t play any games like saying “nothing” if you ask what’s wrong, when I’m really angry; I don’t encourage the Husband to compliment women I’m jealous of and then punish him for it; I don’t make him guess. (You poor heterosexual men; I think hetero women can be cruelly complicated.) But I’m still complicated: I want to be one of the guys (and I AM a tomboy) and I mostly keep up when we play, but don’t leave me behind and defenseless either, and I want to be a Princess sometimes, too… what’s a poor guy to do? I think that I still sympathize with Hefner. I think he did a lot of good for a number of causes. I think he objectified women, and especially in his private/personal life was rather deplorable in his relationships with women. But a lot of our admirable *public* figures were not admirable private figures; he’s one of these, but not spectacularly so. (I’m a huge admirer of Hemingway. Need I say more?) His impact on Women In Society is very complicated, and that’s all I’m willing to commit to at this time.

(I am not in this picture. It's a concept representation)


I award you a prize if you’ve made it through this post. Sorry for being long-winded! But I found I had a lot to say today.

I’m off to work on our local trails tomorrow. I’ll be putting on gloves and lifting chunks of sidewalk and I still want to be sexy, and the Husband loves me and will be working alongside. Chew on that. 🙂 Enjoy your Sunday.

Filed under: book reviews, musings | Tagged: , , , | 6 Comments »

busy busy.

Posted on January 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Oh dear. I failed to check any of my favorite blogs today and it’s going to be a dreadfully busy weekend. I’m just stopping in to say… thanks for bearing with me. I’m still reading, and still enjoying, Mr. Playboy, and hopefully will find some time for him this weekend. But it’s going to be difficult. I have a class tomorrow, all day, and am doing some trail work on Sunday, half day. I sincerely hope, on Monday, to catch up with a) work, which was thrown off all week because of being closed on Monday (but it was so nice!), b) homework, to get ahead for when we go on vacation in February (so nice!), c) reading other people’s blogs, which inspires me and which I look forward to every day, and d) finally, giving you a decent blog post about READING. Which hopefully I will find time to do, too. 🙂

Enjoy your fabulous weekend! Be busy, in a fun way! And I’ll check back in on Monday. Thanks again for your patience!

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Daily blog helpers, and bravery.

Posted on January 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This morning I discovered, from WordPress, two blogs that offer us help when we’re stumped for a daily post. This is not often my problem, as you may have noticed I sometimes post multiple times in one day… I’m sorry if this is against the rules… I just post when I feel it. Of course, the other side of the coin is, I sometimes don’t post on the weekends or on holidays. I often just have too much going on, involving too much moving around, to sit down in front of the computer! You’re so kind to be patient with me.

For this reason I don’t feel the need to sign up for the Daily Post Challenge, although it’s a nice idea. I do, however, appreciate their starter topics everyday. If a blogger were to have writer’s block, then, there’s a blog for that! I liked a recent topic I found and will respond to it shortly.

First, though, I wanted to tell you about the next daily blog helper. This one is called A Daily Challenge, and the challenges offered are not reading challenges (whew! daily?!) but more like life challenges. Trying one of these tip-of-the-day style challenges would give one something to blog about, is the idea. I’ll hold that one in reserve.

At A Daily Post I found this topic interesting. It asks us to “describe a time when you witnessed bravery: a) in your profession b) with your own eyes c) in someone you admire.” An answer to option a) immediately came to mind. I remember telling the Husband and later parents and who knows who else this story, because it touched me.

I work in a cancer hospital, and I see all sorts of things go on, many of which are not pretty. I see a lot of inspiration and bravery and helpfulness; I see people do good. I also see people behaving in silly, inconsiderate, rude, or nonsensical ways. (I work at forgiving or understanding these behaviors, because gosh knows what people are going through. I do hope we could all maintain enough humanity to be kind to our fellow humans when we’re sick, but who am I to judge? never having been through something this painful.) I see a certain amount of disfigurement and physical unwellness; it took a little practice at first not to blink. I confess that the first time I saw a woman with obviously only one breast, it startled me. (The use of prostheses clearly saves us bystanders from a certain amount of embarrassment; but I think it was brave of that woman to walk around in her body without apologizing.) So, I see a lot of things, happy and sad, loving, brave, and sordid. I try not to judge and I mostly succeed in not bringing it home with me.

However, I saw something, oh, several months ago that sticks with me. I was walking down a hallway, headed to lunch. A youngish couple was walking down the hall, the father pushing their teenage daughter in a wheelchair. (Old enough to have a teenage daughter, but still quite young by cancer-hospital standards.) The girl was hunched over the vomit tray in her lap, with a towel pressed to her mouth. I couldn’t see her face in this position, but something about the set of her shoulders told me she was in pain. Her parents were chatting cheerfully about what the rest of their day held.

This moment in time took my breath away. Such a simple thing. Was it the patient’s youth? I don’t think it was; I do see young patients (much younger than this one) and it’s very sad, but that’s not what made her family special. I think it was her parents’ cheerfulness, their pretense that things were normal and okay. The impression I got from their demeanor was of such bravery. This couple is presumably having their lives torn apart by what’s happening to their daughter and the extreme pain she appeared to be in. And their response was to normalize it and be cheerful. I imagine that this is a special service they’re doing for their daughter. It might be easier to cry and moan and descry the unfairness of it all; but this is the last thing their daughter needs from them. To me, this was a moment of extraordinary bravery and unselfishness, a favor done for a child by her parents. I’m doing a lot of interpreting here; but I saw what I saw. This is what the vignette spoke of to me.

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