the year of the increase of reading

(Incidentally, until I put up the posts I wrote on my laptop while I was on vacation, this is my 1001st post on Coffee Spoons!  It's not a great average over ten years, haha, but milestones are milestones.)

The other night I finished Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (which I had started the night before).  I almost hate writing about literature anymore because I feel obligated to have some kind of deeply insightful academic criticism, and I'm so far out of the habit of thinking like a critic that any attempts would just be silly.  But it was a lovely book.  The only other Gaiman work that I've read is American Gods, which, like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, still haunts me in really beautiful ways.  Gaiman weaves some kind of imaginative magic that draws you in and holds you.  It's beautiful.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a short novel, and it's just about perfect.  I just wish there were more of it.

It got me thinking.  I used to be a risk-taking, curious reader.  As a kid I would grab up any book I could get my hands on and dive right in it, happily, hungrily spending most of my time in other people's worlds.  I was a weird, lonely, unhappy, imaginative, passionate child.  Books were my friends.  They weren't just my escape; they were my teachers, my mentors; the protagonists and I conquered the conflicts together; I came away from a story both longing to go back and better equipped for the life I returned to.  I couldn't learn enough.

That adventurousness sort of evaporated in college.  Majoring in English kind of killed my love of free reading for awhile; reading three novels a week will do that.  But it was more than that; the hesitancy to embark on a new bookish journey has continued to the present, and has only seemed to have grown stronger in the last three years.  If anyone were to ask what I'm reading it's always a book I've already read a dozen times.  Something familiar and comfortable.  Something safe.

I used to be braver.  More curious.  I think I'm shy about being moved.  Since coming back to Erie almost seven years ago (seven years!), I've had to deal with some tough, all-too-real things.  One of my experiences hurt and drained me so badly that I lost the ability to feel any sense of connection with anyone, myself included, for a year.  Recovering from that left me...missing something.  I don't stare at the stars much anymore, or notice the little daily flashes of beauty all around me.  I don't waste random minutes throughout the day playing with Simon and losing myself in his adorableness.  I don't spend countless hours -- or any hours -- spinning my own fiction in my head, delighted in the power of imagining.  I don't write much, don't give myself over to the creative process.  I don't listen to new music.  I don't read new books.

No wonder I feel so stagnated.  I miss the vitality I used to live in.  I think I've become afraid of opening myself up, or used to closing myself in.  When it comes to connecting, I still feel tired.  Reaching through the pages of a book and touching a character will cost me something -- pain, sympathy, loss of self.

But I want that courage, that curiosity back.  That willingness to slip into another self, see from another person's perspective, feel another person's joy and heartache, live another person's experience.  I want to feel alive again.

So I'm going to read more.  Taking a cue from Meg, I want to always be reading something new.  Not something necessarily profound or great.  Just stories.  Fiction.  There's lots of it out there.  And lots of it on my bookshelves in my own home.  Time to stop using my books to line the cases.  Time to open them up and let them take me outside myself.

what i think your personal email domain says about you (i am a horrible person) (for meg)

Gmail:  You're savvy, probably a bit bookish/nerdy/artsy/geeky, and there's a strong chance that we can be friends.

Hotmail:  You are an aging partier who thinks Coors Lime is classy and you wear fashions three decades too young for you, thinking that the frozen faces of the people you pass in the street are complimentary.

Yahoo:  You try but you should know better.  We couldn't speak even if I wanted to because all of my emails in your inbox are drowned out by spam.  That's fine because your discussions of the news are usually focused on celebrity gossip thanks to Yahoo's homepage.

AOL:  You are retired and call your children and grandchildren when your computer isn't working because you forgot to turn it on.  I'd send you an email but your server will take a month to download it.  Every time I visit and you check your email on your huge desktop I'll be looking around for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan on TV because everyone stopped using AOL twenty years ago and dated rom-coms are the only realistic source for the nostalgia besides your living room.

Outlook:  You don't know your own email address and couldn't find your password if you tried.  You have better things to do like catch up on all those new reality shows.

(The Oatmeal has his own awesome version here.)

more stuff

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED.
 
I'm completely fucking exhausted, but since I've been doing about as well with this "daily post" thing as I've expected, I figured I'd better get an update out there before I lose all resolve and fizzle into silence like I have for the last seven years.

So I passed all the necessary exams for my teaching job, which I just found out on Friday.  I've been waiting for the results for a month; I honestly wasn't sure what to expect, since the exams were a lot harder than I'd anticipated, and I haven't done high school math in like eighteen years.  The only real studying I did was a crash review in probability and statistics and trig with Chris over Google chat a few days before the tests.  (And you guys, my boyfriend is an amazing teacher and science/math communicator.)  I left the testing site a month ago shaking, weak and demoralized, certain that I'd have to retake all the tests (at about $150 a pop, so I was looking at another $300-400 if I needed to retake them all).

Of course everyone I know is spectacularly unsurprised.  It's both touching and a bit deflating.  I've been losing sleep over this for a month (omg, what if I failed and I fail the retests, then I won't be able to participate in the summer program and I'll never get a job, etc.), and when I got the passing scores I was like OMIGOD WAHOOOOOOOO and my friends and family are all like, "Yeah, and the sun came up today too."

I guess the real moral of the story is that I need to have the confidence in myself that everyone else has in me.  There's plenty of other shit to agonize over besides things that are probably ridiculous, like the notion that I might have failed a standardized test.

Also I found a roommate!  I'm still not really thrilled about needing a roommate - I LOVE living on my own - but I just can't afford it.  So, roommate it is.  She seems nice, and cool.  She likes cats and is a more quiet-preferring homebody who wants to be more adventurous, so that's a good place to start.  Also she uses Gmail, which automatically sets a higher baseline opinion of people as far as I'm concerned.

Now we just need to find an apartment.

vacation high

Goddammit, I keep meaning to post before I'm on the verge of falling asleep but I'm so tired that I completely forget until I go to shut down my computer and see the Blogger icon in my browser tabs.  (How's that for a run-on sentence.)

Man, a good vacation is exhausting.  The cruise was fantastic, and now I'm just all punch-drunk on post-vacation bliss and having a hard time focusing on anything.  (Also the tired thing.)

And then tonight Chris posted most of our vacation photos to Facebook, and clicking through them has made me all moony and happy and daydreamy.

I feel like my writing lately is totally crappy, but whatever, at least I'm doing it.  Getting in the habit is something for a start.

Oh and I want to go back to Chichen Itza.  Desperately.  That was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

gearing up for winding down

Well, getting back from vacation isn't as soul-killing this time around because I only have two and a half weeks of work left.  (Ohmyjesusgod.)  And the closer it comes, the more excited I get.  Also I pee my pants in fear a little because I hate taking the risk of going without income.  Arrrrgh.  

But still.  I'm ecstatically excited for the change.  I can't wait to teach.  I can't wait to move.  And once I finish with my current job, I'll have the time I need to tackle the upcoming tasks.

Short post today; I'm happy-but-exhausted from the trip and have a lot on my plate.  But the vacation was like the best thing ever.  It was so good we're already planning our next one.  It was just what we needed, and I feel a bone-deep, suffusive sense of goodness and peace.

fort lauderdale

The Fort Lauderdale Airport is mean.

We arrived, tired and sweaty, after two hours in the exit line from the cruise ship, dulled by the swarm of other tired, sweaty people, misplaced luggage, customs, finding cash for the porter, climbing into a taxi.  The twelve feet from the taxicab to the airport door smelled like Florida: hot saltwater air and cigarettes.  I reflected fondly on the many vacation-associated memories dredged up by that smell as we dragged our (well, mostly my) luggage into the airport.

It started out pleasantly enough.  I honed in like a shorthair pointer on the luggage scale and made a beeline for it to fuss over the weight distribution of my suitcases (I wound up paying an extra hundred dollars on the trip down for heavy luggage, ugh).  That accomplished, we checked in, checked our bags, traded cruise-travel banter with the white Jamaican attendant (years of trying to cultivate my own awareness of racial privilege and I'm still an idiot at it), and got wearily in line for the security check.  My bags dragged my spine into a curve never intended by nature.  My back hurt. My hair wisped wildly around my shiny, bare, vacation-blurred face. I just wanted to sit down.

I hate getting bullied by airports.  The staff barked out orders suited to wayward, stupid dogs, rolling their eyes at the slow responders.  "Shoes off.  OFF.  OFF.  YOU DO NOT NEED that bin for that bag.  Sweatshirt off.  Over here.  Keep moving.  Laptop BY ITSELF.  SHOES OFF."  The line of people scurried to obey, looking harassed and cuffed and cowed.

I think the airport personnel would have pushed us if they'd been allowed.  I can imagine what a shit job that must be, but I also know from experience that shit jobs are made less shitty by exchanging kindness with people.

Now they're informing us that the full flights are very full and we will not be allowed to take our standard one carry-on and one personal item; larger carry-ons will be taken and checked.

Chris and I are finally in seats near the only strip of wall outlets in the terminal, half of which don't work.  We infiltrated the seats like Stoogish spies, hauling our carry-ons nearer and nearer to the bench until finally a seat opened up and I fell over my bare feet to throw my shoes into the seat.  Chris lurked nearby until the seat next to me opened up.

We've been here since 10:00 and our flight doesn't board until 5:45 - another two hours.

Thank all the gods and angels for technology.  I look around, now that the terminal has mostly emptied out, and see bored people engaged in the first world's primary occupation of passing the time, a pursuit made easier by laptops and e-readers and tablets and cell phones.  On the way to the bathroom you can see people contorted into awkward sitting positions on the floor, chained to the walls by the electrical umbilical cords feeding their entertainment devices.  The pizza is good but costs too much.  The day outside would be beautiful if we were anywhere but at an airport.  Angry babies grizzle hollowly over their parents' defeated attempts at pacification.  The most common sound is someone's tired sigh.

So we block out the soul-stripping nothingness of the terminal and pass the time.  Chris is playing Civilization V.  I've read the remaining 60% of Charlie LeDuff's Detroit: An American Autopsy -- extra reading for the training program that we'll book club at some point this week -- a fascinating, devastating account of noir journalism that has left me feeling sad and small and determined to try to do something for the city I'm moving to.

And now I really have to pee.  I hope Chris can save my seat.

polarized

Went on a last-minute shopping trip this evening for little incidentals for the cruise. Primarily I wanted (and found) a smaller shoulder bag than the primordial monster I usually carry around with me; the thing works great as a spine dislocator (if you don't already have scoliosis but always wanted it I'll let you borrow my purse)  but I'd rather travel a little more lightly for prowling around beaches and resort towns. 

Secondly, and even more, I wanted a pair of sunglasses. This might sound like an easy quest. Unfortunately, my beglassesed state of being makes the quest rather more like trying to reach the portal cake. I can't wear contacts (the only time I tried, I wound up with blisters on the insides of my eyelids), so normal sunglasses are out; and I can't afford prescription sunglasses; so for years I've subsisted on clip-ons. They've served adequately, but as I've prepared for the cruise, a sullen flame of rebellion began a slow burn. Dammit, I want sunglasses. I want big silly sunglasses like everybody else wears, that make me look like a space insect. 

Yesterday Mom told me about a kiosk in the mall that she'd heard sells sunglasses that go over your regular glasses. Pessimistic but hopeful, I headed to the mall after work. And I came away with two big, beautiful pairs of slide-over sunglasses that look just like regular sunglasses except they fit completely over my prescription glasses.

I could weep for joy. I wish I could wear them to bed.