You Can't Get There from Here

Much to the chagrin of nearly everyone who's related to me, I am a confirmed city gal. I grew up in a small town and will carry it in my heart forever, but the woman I am now needs a city if she wants to go on being who she is. (And she does. How did I start this paragraph in the first person and end up in the third? Settle down, brain.)

This summer has been nice to re-acquaint myself with the place I grew up, spend some time with assorted relatives, and enjoy some of the benefits of funemployment (like long bike rides at 2 PM on a weekday). But the thing I hate about being here has grown increasingly heavy to me, so that I have to either get out or be crushed:

Life here requires owning a car.

Not even an e-assist can make this
place better without a matching
designated bike lane to anywhere.

I appreciate the car as a tool. That's why I've been a member of carsharing services like car2go and Zipcar. But much like the high-powered carpet cleaner we rented to clean my grandmother's house a couple weeks ago, it's not a tool that I should be required to have at hand all the time. AAA has put the average annual cost of car ownership in the U.S. as over $8,000 for many years now, and quite frankly, I have other uses for that kind of cash. I'm not the only one.

There is neither public transit nor a decent bike route between here and Indianapolis. If I want to go to the theatre, or get on an intercity bus, or even visit a bookstore, I have to get my hands on a car. Even closer to home, if I want to go get something out of my storage unit that doesn't easily fit into my bicycle pannier, I end up begging for a lift for the two miles across town--this was a problem just last week when I needed to make a quick dash to my storage before heading out of town, and my mother had grandma's car. My queendom for a cargo bike!

(Those same cargo bikes can be used for hauling kids, by the way, and frequently are in places that have sensible bicycle policies. Don't even start about me only being able to live car-free because I'm not a parent. It's not necessarily true.)

This is a song I have sung many times, and will continue to sing until the U.S. finally catches on that people need options. Public transportation, carsharing, bikesharing (or just a local cargo bike rental), decent bicycle infrastructure--these can all put a dent in the burden of car ownership for people, in small towns and large.

And until that happens, people like me will continue rejecting the otherwise perfectly acceptable places where they grew up to find a better fit for our lifestyles.

In My Mailbox #13

Technically, this will be in someone else's mailbox, because I bought it as a gift. Whatevs.

Wreck This Journal, Keri Smith

I love these journals. For the uninitiated, they're meant to be torn up, beat up, and otherwise wrecked--the pages say things like "Rub this page on a dirty surface" or "Freeze this page" or "Make this page into a paper airplane." A precious journal to be closely guarded, this is not.

This journal is intended for "anyone who's ever had trouble starting, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook," but I don't know that many people who can't use this kind of creativity boost/permission to tear things up/stress relief in their lives. Which is why I've given tons of them as gifts. One of these days I'll keep one for myself.

What's in your mailbox this week?

Teaser Tuesday #44

Source: Goodreads.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire

Madame Morrible, for all her upper-class diction and fabulous wardrobe, seemed just a tad--oh--dangerous.

"A life without words," Elphie said, looking in her coffee and not drinking it.

Unrelated: I am finally going to see Wicked in three weeks! I mentioned to my sister-in-law that we'll be up in the balcony and might not see the actors' faces clearly, and she answered, "I'll see them just fine when you drag me to the stage door afterwards." Indeed, she will.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

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

When There Is No Hand to Hold

Lately I've been revisiting my list of "Do Not Listen" songs that I've built during this new life as a widow--songs that made getting through the day harder than necessary, so I put them aside until I was ready to listen to them again. In this process, some songs (like this one) have magically gone from "can't get past the first line" to "can't get through the day without this." Others are back on the shelf. The process has been fun for hearing a lot of music with new ears, with a brain and heart shaped by my journey to a new normal, to a somewhat changed identity.

Source: Jeffrey Spehar on
freeimages.com.

And so it was with those new ears that I heard a line from the It Shoulda Been You cast album: "If I deny part of myself, I risk the rest of me." Strong words for a life that's still trying to remember what "the rest of me" looks like.

Who am I (presuming the answer is not 24601) now? What do I like? What do I love? Most days I have no idea. Most days I'm pretty numb about a lot of things I used to care about. I often say that I haven't had a personality transplant, but 18 months later, I'm not even sure that goofy little joke is true. Maybe I do have a new personality. Have I lost enough of myself to risk the rest of me? Do I even remember what the rest of me is?

I didn't expect this road to be short. But I think I'd thought I'd be farther along it now.

Post title is from the song "Revolutionary," linked above.

Managing Stuff; or, Why I Won't Keep That Thing You Gave Me Forever

While we were packing up our Austin house to move, my sister asked, "Do you mind if I get rid of [thing I can't even remember now]?" Naturally, I said, "No. Why would I mind?" She said, "You're the one who gave it to me."

Ah.

Family and friends, let me give you blanket permission, henceforth and forever, amen: You need not feel obligated to keep anything I've given you. Once it passed from me to you, it became yours to do with what you wish. Stick it in a garage sale, eBay, thrift store bag, a shelf in your garage--whatever makes you happy. It's yours, and if you can't use it, then by all means pass it on to someone who can.

Trying to keep my living space from
turning into this. Source:
  joana franca on freeimages.com.

However. (You knew this was coming, right?) I reserve the right to also not keep things forever. If that thing you gave me has come to the end of use that I can get out of it (because I'm moving, or my tastes have changed, or it turned out that my life wasn't as enhanced as I thought it would be by the presence of whatever), then away it goes. I'll try to find it a good home, but that good home may well be the Goodwill.

A few weeks ago, my grandmother was doing some furniture changes in her house that resulted in her giving away some drawer sets and a bed. She was positive that everyone she knew would be clamoring to have them. I was equally positive that everyone she knew already had their own furniture and didn't want hers. Guess who was right?

While we were navigating these surprisingly rocky waters, I ran across an article aimed at Baby Boomers about why your kids don't want your downsized stuff. And while this sort of advice has been doing the rounds for a few years, it's always amazing how many "ungrateful kids" comments that come up. It may well be lack of gratitude for a few, but it's more likely to be lack of space, or different tastes in furniture, or a completely different lifestyle. I'd love to have copies of my grandmother's photo albums when she's done with them. Her four-piece bedroom suite? Not so much. Now, if this were furniture handmade by my great-grandfather, or something... but it's not.

It's not economical and and it's not green and it's not even that healthy to hang onto things you don't want, need, or use out of a sense of obligation or guilt. Say a blessing over it, take a picture if that helps, and let it go. (Put it in storage if you must, but beware--items in storage tend to stay in storage. Rip off the band-aid if you can instead of throwing more money at it.)

So if you come to my house and don't see the thing you gave me for May Day six years ago, it doesn't mean I don't love you. It means I love our friendship too much to resent you every time I trip over that (beautiful, of course) thing. And I extend the same grace to you.

Something Rotten--Not as Terrible as it Sounds

I've probably mentioned a few times that it's for good reason I'm not a theatre critic, yes? Since I have this tendency to love every show more than anyone should, and a strong aversion to writing down anything that I didn't like? Especially if it's an actor I've already seen and liked who's obviously in the wrong part or having a bad night--I just can't bring myself to say so in public.

So, not a critic. And it's a good thing, because I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Something Rotten, currently in its second year on Broadway and now touring the U.S. (Which means, wonder of wonders, that I get to see it again when it comes to Cincinnati in a few months' time! RESULT.)

What I tweeted after I bought my ticket. They're
even better on stage than they are on Twitter,
  which is saying something.

After I bought a Les Miserables ticket last month, I knew I'd want to see at least one other show in New York, so after staring at the current list of Broadway shows for about 20 minutes I finally went with a show that has an actor I already knew I liked (Josh Grisetti). Y'all, even if it is hard to go wrong on Broadway, I have the BEST luck when it comes to choosing Broadway shows.

From the song "Will Power."
Source: Something Rotten Facebook.

The Shakespeare jokes were magnificent. The songs were brilliant. The gentle mocking of popular musicals--and musicals themselves as an art form--was fabulous. The cast was obviously having so much fun. I doubt that I heard half the jokes because I was laughing so hard from the previous one. I did hear the joke about the price of drinks in the theatre, which was doubly funny because I had just sent a horrified tweet to my sister about the cost of a cocktail right before the show started. (I didn't get one. There's no amount of adult beverage that could dull the pain of handing over that much cash.)

And the best bit... there's a long buildup to a Les Mis joke, which the audience of course knows is coming, that just gets funnier and funnier leading up to the two-part punchline. I was already giggling knowing what was coming, and when the first half of the punchline came out I couldn't hold back the enormous "HA!" that burst out of me. Then the second half hit and I laughed so hard I had tears running down my face (along with the rest of the audience).

I got two stage door selfies at this show,
 but the other one is....well, rotten.
I'm not great at holding a phone and pushing
a button one-handed. Anyway, this is Aleks Pevec, who
was on as Shakespeare the night I saw the show.

My face was hurting at the end from so much grinning and laughing. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've never laughed so hard in a theatre. If Something Rotten comes to you on tour, don't miss it. Even musical haters can have fun at this one.

Reading Challenges Update: July

Here's what happened with my reading challenges in July. I'll probably bump up the "I Love Libraries" challenge goal again, but I'm holding off on that until I land in the city that I plan to stay in for a while. (Fingers crossed that happens in the next couple of weeks.) "Read it Again, Sam" and "Mount TBR Challenge" are likewise in a holding pattern until my books and I are back in the same space. And I've completed the highest level available of the Women Challenge!

As for the Goodreads Challenge-- by my count, I have 43. They say I have 44. I'm going with their number, but wondering where I lost a book somewhere.

Links are to and images are from Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (35/36 books so far)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own, Joshua Becker
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Read It Again, Sam (3/4 books so far)


Woman Challenge CHALLENGE COMPLETED (20 books)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Mount TBR Challenge (6/20 books so far)
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

Goodreads Challenge (44/100 books so far)
Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves, E. Kristin Anderson (ed.) & Miranda Kenneally (ed.)
Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, Kate Bolick
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir, Vivian Gornick
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
Yes Please, Amy Poehler
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters, Mallory Ortberg
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own, Joshua Becker
Inside Out Girl, Tish Cohen

What are you reading this month?

Tomorrow Comes

This post was supposed to happen a week ago. I got a bit behind. So! We're just going to pretend that I have a TARDIS handy and go ahead with my planned posts like a whole bunch of cool things didn't happen to me last week. Okay? Great.

July 25, 2015 was an amazing day, and far and away my best day of 2015. My dream of 20+ years, to see Les Misérables on Broadway, finally came true--in the company of my best friend, in the middle of an amazing weekend, and only hours after I first laid eyes on the Museum of Modern Art. (We fit in some other fun stuff, too.)

Just one of the many wonders of MoMA.

I'll spare you my usual raving about Les Mis (for now). That day, when the ensemble strode onto the stage for "At the End of the Day," I wondered, "Do they know how awesome this is? Do they know the effect they're having on the audience? Do they know how badly some of us watching needed to be here today, to see this?" 

I've read enough of the casts' interviews to know that it's as emotional a show for the performers as it is for the audience. I know they do get how much this show affects its viewers and that they take that seriously. I love that about this cast. 

I hate that this beautiful show is closing, which is why I went racing to NYC to see it again. But I will never forget that one shining day in the middle of 2015, when some amazingly talented performers stood on a Broadway stage to remind me that even the darkest night will end. Some days are still dark, but I'm starting to see a sunrise around the edges.

Uniformity

A few weeks ago, I posted a quote on Facebook from the book Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, which led to a lively conversation about why people can't just mind their own business on this and other hot-button life choices.

And then my wise friend Keely weighed in:

There is safety in the same...when you or your life is the same as mine you validate my life choices and therefore you are perceived as safe or good. When you are different you are unsafe. So we turn those who are different than us into "others" as we seek to validate ourselves.

Preach, sister.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that sometimes
I'm going to be a right-side-up bird, the courage to
sometimes be an upside-down one, and the wisdom
to keep singing no matter what way I'm facing.
Image source.

I ran across a similar sentiment while reading The More of Less: "Nobody feels embarrassed for just being normal. It's when we deviate from the norm that we might become embarrassed." And so we self-police, whether or not it's the right thing for ourselves, and maybe that's why it's so easy to see someone else as an "other" to be shamed or avoided--after all, I'm putting in the work to be normal; why can't you?

How sad--and yet how everyday. It's pretty obvious from the nightly news, or even from the average Facebook news feed (if you haven't already turned that into a self-affirming echo chamber, that is; I'm trying not to, but wow, is it hard to keep reading stuff that makes me want to Gibbs-slap my nearest and dearest), how easy it is to get locked into our own ingroups and actively ridicule and avoid anything different.

We've all heard the story about the monkeys in the cage with the bananas out of reach, right? How they got sprayed with water a couple of times in the attempt to reach the bananas, and subsequently wouldn't let any other monkeys try to climb up to get the bananas? Y'all, that's no way to live.

I know; it's hard. It's scary. It's easier to just concentrate my time and energy on people who are already like me instead of putting in the harder work of understanding and accepting that other people don't all have to do what I do to be worth my time and consideration.

As we continue through this season of our world gone mad, it's never been more important to see other people, and see them as people, despite our differences and disagreements. Now is not the time to dig in deeper to our ingroups. Now is the time to open up to others, to listen, to accept that maybe our realities aren't the only ones out there. Now is the time to reject the uniform and embrace the differences. We can do this.

One Who Can Drive

Today in My Life is Basically Just a Venue for Musical Theatre References to Happen, I want to talk a little bit about cars and my beloved Next to Normal.

This Next to Normal post is not
about Aaron Tveit's character. I
just like to post pics of him. Source.

In case you've still not looked it up (spoilers! But really, this musical has been available in a whole bunch of venues since 2009. If you're still going to call this a spoiler, go to YouTube, for goodness' sakes): Next to Normal deals with the effects of Diana's mental illness on herself and her family.

Because we've built such a car-centric society, because driving in most places is the norm, because not driving is seen as different or wrong or downright harmful, this musical can twice cite Diana's non-driving as a particularly irritating side effect of her illness. Dan, her husband, goes so far as to say, "I loved a wife so alive, but now I believe I would settle for one who can drive." Geez, dude.

I usually hear colloquially that 30% of Americans don't drive (although pinning that number down has been problematic), for reasons of age, ability, or desire. That's a lot of people to leave out of our transportation system. Insisting that everyone has to either drive or stay home isolates not only people like Next to Normal's Diana, but also our ever-growing population of senior citizens, and folks who have other, more pressing uses for money that may have been spent on car ownership.

We can do better. We should do better than to just accept that some folks are being left out of participation in society because of the way we've built our transportation system. Diana may be fictional, but her mobility issues are very real.

Teaser Tuesday #43

Source: Goodreads

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, James Shapiro

The perception of Macbeth as a play defined by the supernatural--behind Middleton's early revisions and reinforced by the actors' myth of a curse--has shaped much of the play's modern stage history as well.

In his unrelenting assault on those who dared criticize the government's overreaction he unwittingly gives voice, otherwise lost, to what was being murmured at the time.




Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

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

Teaser Tuesday #42

Source: Goodreads.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman

Had I not narrowly averted the punctuational catastrophe, they would have all cried, in chorus, "There's a superfluous apostrophe!"

He does not think me a lovable helpmeet when I wander past his computer screen and find my fingers, as if animated by an inner gremlin, inserting a second r in embarass.





Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

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

Come Hear the Music Play

I am so far behind on sharing the shows I've loved the last few months. This is what happens when I spend time on silly things like "getting a job" or "watching Serena and Andy take Wimbledon by storm". So, a quick recap on all of them:

Motown the Musical

One thing I've done right this past year in my theatre-seeing is going to shows without knowing for sure what they're about. This one only kinda falls into that category, since the title is somewhat self-explanatory. The music was incredible (no kidding!), and Allison Semmes as Diana Ross is positively show-stopping. During the bit when she comes into the audience and picks some folks to sing with, she chose an elderly gent who announced, "I love you!"

One other funny moment: the characters were discussing what to call their special label, and someone in the audience helpfully shouted, "Motown!" Such a great show, and my last one in Austin.

My attempted selfie
with the chandelier. 

Phantom of the Opera

This show came to Indianapolis the same week I did, and as is my wont, I rounded up my entire family to go see it on Mother's Day. My father hated it, my mother loved it, my grandma was confused the whole time, and I don't know what everyone else thought. I had high hopes after weeks of stalking following the actors on Twitter, and was not disappointed. In addition to the cast being fantastic on stage, they were also a delight at stage door afterwards. This is my most-signed playbill to date, and totally worth standing in the unseasonable cold for.

My mother's playbill on the left, mine on the right.
Our favourite person at stage door was Quinto Ott-- even
my brother remembered him when I read some of his
tweets aloud at dinner a few days later.

Twelfth Night

A friend of mine is part of Hoosier Shakes, and since I live oh-so-close now, I made the quick drive up north to see Twelfth Night in Marion. First--the actors did the pre-show entertainment and the intermission entertainment. They never stopped going the whole time, and still had enough energy afterwards to chat. What a great group of super-friendly, energetic people.

Also, the entire audience laughed so hard at this that I'm still not sure what happened in this scene. In fact, I'm still kind of amazed I didn't fall off my chair laughing:

Photo blatantly swiped from the Hoosier Shakes
Facebook page. And I really, really hope this isn't
the photo Networked Blogs pulls for my post later.

Cabaret

This was my next-to-last Austin show, and I've saved it until the end here because I had so many feelings about it. First of all, the only thing I've known about this show my entire life was the song "Cabaret," so I've always thought it was a happy show. Oops.

Through most of Act I, I kept thinking, "Maybe this show doesn't have a plot," only for the plot to arrive, quite heavily, right before intermission. According to Wikipedia, 1920s Berlin really was the be-who-you-are party spot depicted in the musical right before the Nazis rose to power. Watching the characters' fear grow in Act II was heart-wrenching and horrifying, as was Fräulein Schneider's telling Cliff that he was free to leave any time, while the Germans were stuck in Germany to live with whatever came next. Timeless message, much?

Needless to say, I didn't walk out of this one uplifted and happy. It weighed on me for days while I tried to process what I'd seen. Months later, I'm still processing.

Things I tweet after I see thought-provoking musicals.
Post title is a line from Cabaret.

What's next? Well, after months of dithering, I'm headed back to NYC to see Les Misérables one more time before it closes. Much like the last time I went to New York, I chose a second show based on one actor who's in it--the actor in question this time is Josh Grisetti, who is joining the cast of Something Rotten next week, just in time for me to see him in it. Yep, I'm pretty excited. Yes, I know I'm incredibly lucky. I wish you could all come with me.

Time to Listen

There are times when the best thing to do is stop talking and listen. 

If you're white in America, and you just can't imagine that being nonwhite in America may carry with it a different set of experiences than your own, maybe right now is time to be quiet and listen.

My Facebook feed is filled with the usual "But if people would just..." and "If ____ would have (or not have) done _____, then..." Please, please stop. 

Our neighbors, our fellow Americans, our fellow human beings are crying out for us to listen and believe them when they talk about what it's like to be a POC in America. Let's do that, please? 

Here are a couple good places to start: a piece from a white adoptive mother of African-American children, and another one from an African-American former police officer. Take a few minutes to listen. Please.

(If you feel like you need to unfriend/unfollow me for asking you to listen, go ahead. No need for comment. Just go.)

Who Said It?

This is one of those things that absolutely happened before the internet, but now that we can all send poorly researched information to one another at the speed of tweets, I see it a lot more often. And it makes me very stabby.

What is it? Poor attribution.

I'm not talking about poorly cited (or nonexistent) sources, although seriously, please don't share posts with that nonsense in it. No, this is about taking a quote from a book (or movie, or whatever--I'm talking fiction here) and attributing that quote to the author who wrote it, rather than the character who said it.

I know, I know, it's an easily justified practice, and at times when you need a quote in a hurry but can't remember the character, the author may be close enough. Except that doing so is imprecise at best and misleading at worst.

Why? Because the author who wrote the good guy also wrote the villain. Because dialogue is for moving a story. Because it's fiction. And because without a definitive word from the author, pulling a random quote from her book and presenting it as her quote may not be reflective of what she really believes or thinks.

Here's my least favourite example (and it shows up on Twitter approximately 516876 times per day):

Source.

What's wrong with it? Gimli is the one who said it, in the midst of an argument with Elrond about whether or not the Fellowship should be bound by pledges to stay with Frodo until the bitter end. And Elrond says:

Source.

Another incorrectly attributed quote, but strangely enough, this one tends to show up on Twitter a lot less often. Whatever you think Tolkien was driving at in this passage, surely we can all agree that Elrond is intended to be the wiser character? And perhaps that, since his word prevails over Gimli's objections, this is a better reflection of Tolkien's true thoughts on the subject? At the very least, that attributing both quotes to him with no further explanation makes Tolkien sound a bit confused?

We have Google now. Please, please, please use it when you're quoting something and you can't remember who said it. And (gently) encourage others to follow suit. To kick us off, I made a small adjustment to the quote we started with:

Want to make one? I use quozio.com.

That Would Be Enough

I follow YA author Shannon Hale on Twitter (and you should, too; she's fantastic), and in the midst of a discussion about the relationship between writers and readers yesterday, she asked, "What does craft matter if you have nothing to say?" What, indeed.

I bought Lin-Manuel Miranda's book Hamilton: The Revolution a few weeks ago. Hamilton's is a story I think we've all agreed at this point was well worth telling, and of course Lin-Manuel crafts this something to say so well that getting a ticket to see it costs approximately one firstborn. (I saw a brilliant sign in BookPeople below Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton: "Tickets available for this version!") In a musical filled with heart-wrenching moments, The One for me is Eliza's "I live another 50 years. It's not enough," in "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." My reaction hasn't changed from the first time I heard it-- I still think, "Fifty years? Are you kidding me? Fifty years?" The thought of living 50 years without Chadwick is unthinkable.

I do love this. There are a bunch of these stickers
scattered around Austin, but this particular one is
at an intersection near my last house in ATX.

But maybe that's why Eliza got so much done, because as she says, she didn't "waste time on tears." She didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. Of course she didn't know at the outset how much time she would have, which I suppose helps with the whole not-wasting-time thing. And in the end, it's because she got things done that her story is so compelling, and her work is why both Hamiltons' story is still being told.

While thinking about this, I ran across Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing, which includes this gem:

There's my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. (emphasis mine)

Do I want to live a great story that has something to say? Of course I do. Do I enjoy telling my husband's story? Very much so. But I also want to live like my life is enough. Listening to birds while reading by a little creek in a clump of trees does not a great story make. But it's not a terrible addition to a life. Nor is chocolate, or sharing a joke with my niece, or having a cup of tea with a friend, or spending a few minutes of my day catching up with people on Twitter who I care about and who make me smile, even if we never meet face to face. I'd hate to be so consumed with "YOLO" or "Go big or go home" that I forget it's these little day-to-day things that make life worth living.

Don't stop trying to live your best story. But you don't have to chase your life as a Broadway musical, either. Be you, and be enough.

Post title is a song title in the first act as well as a repeated theme of Eliza's in Hamilton.

Reading Challenge Update: June

Here's what happened in my reading challenges in June. Finally making some progress!

Since I completed my goal level for the I Love Libraries Challenge (young adult-24 books), I'm moving myself up a notch the adult level, which is 36 books.

I will probably also bump up my level for the Read it Again, Sam Challenge, but I'm holding out on that until my books and I are happily reunited. My library is currently sitting in storage.

And finally, I intended to raise my goal for the Women Challenge, but I'm already at the highest level available.

Links (and image sources) are to Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (25/36 books so far)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Read It Again, Sam (3/4 books so far)
The Bikeable Church: A Bicyclist's Guide to Church Planting, Sean Benesh
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes (Yes, I read it twice this month. That's how much I liked it.)

Woman Challenge (18/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)

Mount TBR Challenge (5/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole

Goodreads Challenge (33/100 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard (this one was technically May, but I forgot about it in last month's update)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Being Alone

I remember the time I found out how much I like being alone.

I was--you know what, I'm not even going to share how old I was. Let's just say it was earlier than our society would find acceptable for children to be left home alone these days. But it was the 90s, I knew where the fire extinguishers and the first aid kit were, and could feed myself, so on spring break that year my parents decreed that I could stay home by myself. I never turned on the TV that week--I spent all that delicious sibling- and parent-free time writing. It's still in the top 10 best weeks of my life.

This looks kind of nice, actually.
Source: suphamongkhon arwatchanakarn
on freeimages.com.

Not long before Chadwick & I got married, I happened to have a few more days of solitude when all my roommates (and my fiancee) went home for Thanksgiving weekend. At the time, I thought, this may be the last time I have a weekend alone for the rest of my life. I expected to have a house full of kids and pets before too many more years had gone by. That future never materialized, of course, and here I am looking forward to getting my own apartment for the first time in my life. (First the job, then an apartment. Soon, please, universe!)

In my current life anthem, Next to Normal, Dan concludes the song "I've Been" by saying he could never be alone. But of course (spoiler alert!), by the end of the musical, he is alone, and the final song is the beginning of his journey to coping with his new reality. And my journey has begun, too, even during this interim time; I've grabbed books like Kate Bolick's Spinster (even though I'm not) to see how other people have walked the path of being alone. She does fascinating research on the women she calls her "awakeners," but it's this bit from her own life that has me captivated:

I could be alone again.
And then, after the sadness had passed, I saw that I'd crossed into an entirely new country.
I wasn't alone again. My life was teeming with people.

It was with regret that I left behind my people in Austin, and I haven't started gathering my people again. I'm sure that's why the mere thought of facing the world by himself was so scary for Dan halfway through Next to Normal: he didn't have his people yet, or rather, he didn't know his people were already gathering, the people who he would interact with in the final minutes of the show.

I don't expect this time of transition to be the best thing ever or to chalk up a whole bunch of top-10 weeks right away. But that's okay. After all, the final line of Next to Normal is, "There will be light!"

Paying it Forward

Sometimes, my grandmother and I have odd conversations about modern conveniences-- like tumble dryers, for instance. I'm more of a clothesline kind of gal, at least during the summer, while grandma has had enough of clotheslines in her lifetime and will not dream of hanging up her clothes when she has a perfectly good dryer to do the job.

My grandmother's sadly neglected clothesline. I don't
even know if she still has clothespins.

She's coming around to my composting all the kitchen scraps. She's very confused about me using a bicycle when there's a (seven-passenger, for goodness' sakes, to move just me) van in the garage I have access to.

I did say to her one day, "But you've earned this stuff!" And I do believe she has--she was born during the Great Depression, and lived the first 50 or so years of her life well within the mantra I try to live by now: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." So when it comes to her twilight years, I'd argue she's earned the right to do whatever she wants--and she is, truth be told, still living very lightly upon the planet.

There's a goofy little bit of apocrypha that wanders the internet, and I shall not repeat it in full here because it annoys me, but it begins with a young person suggesting that perhaps if older folks had cared more about the environment we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. The older person responds with a list of all the earth-friendly things she did when she was young, thus absolving herself of all responsibility for any current earth-unfriendly-ness. That's all well and good.

My issue is that these skills weren't passed down, and while the generation that lived through the Depression could justifiably embrace things to make their lives easier, as a society we lost sight of a non-disposable lifestyle. I laugh when I see friends within 10 years of my own age passing along this little fable like it applies to us. We're making our way back there, with the rise of durable reusables and the positive peer pressure to take your own bags to the store or walk for short trips. Or the resurgence in at-home canning and clothesmaking. A downturn in the economy also gives an (unfortunate) boost to practices that happen to be earth-friendly as well as budget-friendly.

But still, I'm not there yet. My life will never be as light on the earth as my grandparents', partly due to my love for occasionally hopping onto airplanes to see other places. And so I'm not as willing as my grandma is to use a machine when I could use my body. After all, she's earned it. I have not.

The Educational Bus

Since I'm sitting here in no-public-transportation land (a dismal place to be, y'all), I'll indulge in some nostalgia and fond shouting out to one form of transportation I didn't use a lot in Austin: the UT shuttle system.

In the last couple years, CapMetro has made some changes to the shuttle system, notably cancelling one low-performing route and beginning to upgrade their fleet to buses that carry fareboxes, as well as having the same look and branding of the rest of the bus system fleet. Up until recently, the shuttles had all-door boarding and no payment was required (technically, non-students were supposed to pay, but that's hard to do when there's no farebox). Now, students have to swipe their student IDs and the general public has to pay to ride, just like on every other bus. While I'm sure this cuts down on lost fares, it also slows down boarding. Time will tell if that's a good trade-off.

The orange-and-white UT buses are on their way out.
Source: UT Parking & Transportation page.

Anyway, on to singing praises. Generally speaking, the shuttles are good for two things: 1) Going to campus, and 2) Going from campus to another place served by the shuttle service. Plus it's a limited-stop service, so while it's always crowded, it is also usually faster than the comparable local bus service.

A few months ago, I had to go across town in the morning, changing buses downtown, for a total trip time that was somewhere between "I could be halfway to Dallas by now" and "Are you freaking kidding me?" Then I remembered the UT shuttles. I rode one to campus, changed buses, then had a bus all to myself (since I was going opposite the direction students were going) for the second half of the trip. All in less than half the time door-to-door than a regular local bus would have taken.

I'm not necessarily encouraging that the people of Austin go out and invade the student shuttles in droves--although perhaps if they did, CapMetro would have a bit more incentive to make the regular buses as frequent and convenient as the shuttles. And that would be an even better thing that a few specifically useful routes: for every route in the CapMetro system to be as useful, frequent, and easy to ride as the UT shuttles.

Now, if my hometown would just get on board with the public transportation thing.

A Question for You

As ever, I'm happy to hear from anyone on this, although there is a particular audience that's more qualified to answer than others.

At some point, I have to go to my parents' house and deal with my other book collection-- the one that hasn't travelled with me through the years, the ones that served Kid Me and Teen Me well, but that 22-year-old me didn't have room for right away in my new life. But now that my parents are approaching senior citizenhood and I'm cruising toward middle age, it's probably time to finally get all my crap out of their house.

This was probably my
favourite of them all.
Source: Goodreads.

There's no telling what I'll find among my book collection. It may be that 22-year-old me was correct and my former library will make a one-way trip to the local Goodwill. However, there's one set of books that I know for sure awaits me: Sweet Valley Twins.

This isn't Sweet Valley High, where the girls did things like sleep around and murder people; these books are set when they were in middle school, younger and relatively innocent. I collected a whole bunch of them in 5th-6th grade, as did many of my classmates. They don't have a lot of redeeming qualities in terms of literary merit, although occasionally the twins did learn from their mistakes (but usually everything just worked out exactly liked they wanted it to, so not a lot of learning opportunity). I'm thinking of taking them to one of the many Little Free Libraries in town, and that brings me to my question:

If you saw these books in the wild, would you cover your children's eyes and run away screaming? 

Obviously, the folks most qualified to answer this are anyone who was in the right age group to read these when they were popular--middle schoolish in the late 80s and early 90s--and who also have children who might be affected by Sweet Valley exposure, but as I said, I'm happy to hear from anyone. After all, there's part of me that wants to use these books for kindling rather than let any young eyes near them. But maybe I'm missing something. What say you?

Book-Shaped Life

When I was young, free library cards at our local library were restricted to people who lived within the city proper. While that policy has since changed, I discovered last week that the same local library carries not a single book by Richard Florida. It's like they're making up ways to interfere with my reading life.

I kid. This library was my second home starting from about age 9, and it's rapidly becoming so again as a happy place where I can get a lot of work done sans distraction (and without having to hand over cash, like I do at Starbucks).

So, my first library:

I simultaneously barely remember it but also remember it very, very well. My love of books may not have been born here--that's a hard spot to pinpoint--but I will give them heaps of credit for helping it along. It's definitely my earliest memory of being surrounded by bookshelves crammed with books, with the sacred scent of pages heavy in the air. By the time I came along, it was obvious that this building was inadequate to house the books a growing community needed, but that didn't stop me from weeping and gnashing my teeth when it was announced a new library was coming.

Incidentally, this building was a Carnegie Library, and it opened in 1909, next door to the then-high school. These days it's a restaurant.

Library #2 opened when I was in second grade (at least, that's what the library history page says. I would have guessed a year or two later), next door to the current high school. Also just a few blocks from my elementary school. I've presumed for most of my life that every elementary student in town got the same tour that my class did, but I really don't know. I certainly hope so. Anyway, when it was ready to go but not quite open, we walked to the library one afternoon for a tour and instructions on how to use the card catalog and the microfiche. I thought it was a palace. (I still do, truth be told.)

Once I reached an age when my parents thought I could be trusted to walk to the library after school without getting run over or wandering off, that's what I did, at least twice a week. On the library history page, there's this gem from much later on: "Library Director Susan Waggoner writes in the Daily Reporter that over 2,500 items for the month had been read 'in-house,' many by non-residents who chose not to pay for fee cards which would allow them to check out materials." I'm pretty sure a huge chunk of that was from me (in fact, I'd like to believe that my departure brought those numbers down a bit) until my parents decided they'd better get us all cards when I was headed into high school.

This building has housed a church for a few years, and now is undergoing renovation to be an alternative school setting for students who struggle in a traditional classroom.

Library #3 has never been "my" library, until now, kinda, even though I've been in it a few times on other visits home. To a brain shaped by two other libraries, walking into this one is a bit like coming home to find out your parents have moved.

However, it is a gorgeous building, a hub of all the community activity worth going to (IMO), and it has a very cool automated sorter when you return your books. Someone had the foresight to build a multiuse path up to in from three different directions (you're on your own if you live west of the library, it seems), so the trip there and the time spent there are both enjoyable.

Having one library as the library is taking some getting used to, since I've lived my entire adult life in cities that have multiple branches to visit. But that's a small thing when the only library available is still excellent, despite the lack of Richard Florida books.

What's your library like?

Searching

I'm hesitant to write about the job search process, just because all the advice for jobseekers points to it being a terrible idea to ever admit online that you're looking, and even terribler to say that you're frustrated. But I am, both of those things, and I know I'm hardly the only one who's doing this right now. Writing it down is a fast way to find out just how much worse it can get, methinks.

Source: ssva on freeimages.com.

There's the initial step-- this job description sounds good,. Then researching the company--yeah, okay, this sounds like a place I can spend 45+ hours of my week. Refine the resume for this company, agonize over the cover letter (except we're supposed to be writing Pain Letters now), read both backwards to find any sneaky typos, hit send. Fix a drink, lie down for a few, rinse and repeat.

And then wait.

I don't do HR for a living, so I have no idea what the percentages are on how many of my resumes are likely to make it past the initial screening, or how many of those pique anyone's interest enough to go into the possible-interview pool. I'm guessing the odds are not technically in anyone's favor. And then there's the interview process itself--don't say anything dumb, try not to fall down, don't fidget, make eye contact but not too much eye contact, and even if you get all that right, the interviewer(s) still may not like you just because of something goofy that's outside your control.

Fix another drink.

Eventually, I know this will turn around and I'll land the right job (or one of the right jobs--I'm not looking for my soulmate, here). I can't wait to have somewhere to go every day, and more importantly, my own space to come home to at the end of the day. I appreciated beyond measure relatives who are willing to let me crash on the cheap, but I have got to get my own rooms with no other people in them. And some local public transportation, for goodness' sakes--that's the worst part of being stuck in my hometown.

And those things are pretty good motivation to keep searching and end this interlude as quickly as possible.

How long was your last job search?

Just Ducky

I caught a glimpse of my former self yesterday. I ran a 5K; just a small local race (about 100 participants) for a good cause, with an entry fee that was reasonable, and the promise of a free t-shirt and chip timing. It was my fastest 5K in years--but that's partly because I don't often run 5K.

And I got a medal.

We did an out-and-back along the local rail-trail, starting and finishing at the courthouse. And along the trail, I ran into me. The runner who used to live for race days and worked hard in between to shave just a couple more seconds off her fastest times. The runner who relied on her daily runs to provide good mental health along with the fitness and other good stuff that goes with running. The runner who never let her goals for a race get in the way of having fun and enjoying the camaraderie of the local running club. That runner. She was back, if only for 30 minutes on a Saturday morning.

I liked being her. I'd like to be her again--maybe a slower version, one whose mental health doesn't bounce back after a run as easily as it used to, one who might not (yet) like to devote another six months of her life to getting ready for one big race like it's the Olympics. Maybe one who uses running to make new friends in a new place. Maybe one who just wants to go fast enough to keep the pounds from creeping on but doesn't fret over a few seconds' worth of pace here and there.

What else am I missing out on by fretting?

Teaser Tuesday #41

Wow, it's been a while since I've done one of these!

Source: Goodreads.

Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, ed. Meredith Maran

"A novel will be a deep archaeological work."

"Anyone you'd ever want to be friends with has had a tremendous amount of wounding in their past."

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

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