Reads and Tunes

One of my favorite feelings in life is being finished with something. Scratching a to-do item off the list. Throwing away an empty Body Shop coconut milk shower gel bottle. Scraping the end of the strawberry preserves from the bottom of the jar and tossing it into the recycling bin. Turning the last page of a book and being able to move it from my night stand to the downstairs bookcase. I just love the untangled relief and delicious accomplishment that comes with being done.


I finished a great book while I was on vacation called The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Junot Diaz is an author I read in my creative writing classes in college who I absolutely fell in love with. His first book is a collection of short stories called Drown. Short stories are my favorite writing medium (I say medium because instead of a genre, it feels to me like more of a tool an author artist can use). Short stories require an author to be particularly succinct. You have to say what you're going to say very quickly. And my favorite thing -- your characters have to be enormously complicated and often very bizarre and quirky. The short stories in Drown have recurring characters in the different episodes. The setting bounces back and forth between New York and the Dominican Republic and serves as a teaching tool for the readers who have no previous exposure to DR history and culture. It's beautiful. One thing that is so uniquely Diaz is his use of Spanish in all of his stories. Foreign language is a tricky add-on because there is an inclination to qualify the word with the English translation, which usually winds up slapping your readers in the face. So then you try to make the word make sense contextually, but insulting your readers intelligence is not a good idea either. Diaz unapologetically adds Spanish words and phrases into his writing and makes no attempt at explaining them. You either get it or you don't. It makes me think about all the times he must have heard peer reviewers and editors tell him he should explain the meanings... and how he has had to stick to his guns and refuse to do so. Such confidence.



The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has similar themes and style as Drown. It's an immigrant family's story. It crosses generations and countries and characters. The full story and family history pieces together as each chapter tells the story from a different character's perspective. The footnotes are laugh out loud funny. It's nice to invest in a story that has been carefully parented by its author.



So now I'm on to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. I have admittedly been a little nervous to start it and get stuck in it. Garcia Marquez novels cannot be messed around with! I read Love in the Time of Cholera last August - and LOVED it, don't get me wrong - but it was very dense and requires captive reading! I'm about 1/2 way through One Hundred Years of Solitude and am not quite as captivated with it as I was with Love in the Time of Cholera. But I do like it. And I love how Garcia Marquez's style comes through so strongly. There is always kind of a fantastical element to his writing. One of the characters can't stop eating earth and chips of paint off the garden wall. The man who appeared to be the central character at the beginning of the book ends up being tied by a rope to a chestnut tree in the backyard and lives the remainder of his days there and everyone acts like it's normal and acceptable. What? Garcia Marquez plays with time a lot.. and premonitions. Characters know what is going to happen before it does. Patrick and I had a laugh when I was trying to get the book started - he was like yeah I couldn't get past the family tree on page one. No joke, I had literally picked up the book and tried to start it but got totally stopped on the family tree and put it down for another 24 hours before attempting it again. Each character's name shows up in like 3-5 other characters in the book! UGH! It's so confusing!

I'm trying to listen to new music lately. Thank god for Pandora. I typed in Martin Sexton and came up with a bunch of new songs I love from Colin Hay and Joshua Radin. Waiting for My Real Life to Begin by Colin Hay is one of my favorites - download it if you can. Also I re-discovered Bonnie Raitt's version of Angel from Montgomery. Ugh. It's great. I'd like to see her in concert!



The song I have on repeat the most right now is Find You Waiting by Decemberadio. I've never heard of these guys before, but I really like the lead singer's voice. Reminds me a little of Ronnie Van Zant. I found a neat tribute to our troops with the song in the background. Click here for the video.

I'm not a preacher and I'm not a hero
My life has never been that kind
But there is one thing that I hold on to
I am yours... and Lord, you are mine

Recap

When I got back, Ben asked me if I wished I was still in Tahoe. I said I ALWAYS wish I was in Tahoe! We had a great week - a lot of days lounging by the pool and a lot of nights eating on the patio. All the kids are at such fun ages which makes it especially fun. They're always scrounging for treats! Jacob and I did a doughnut run one morning and of course s'mores over the fire. I went on a hike up to a lookout of the whole lake and spent a good hour sitting up there looking at it. I couldn't make myself leave and was trying to decide if there is anything more beautiful in the world than those mountains and that lake. I've seen beautiful places... I would put Capri, Manuel Antonio, Stellenbosch, Lucerne, Hayman Island and Zanzibar on the top of my list of most beautiful places I've been. I really don't think any of those are as majestic as Tahoe.

Psalm 97 says that mountains will melt like wax before the Lord of all the earth. Can you imagine?

I got back last weekend to a broken air conditioner. Yuck. Last weekend I spent most of my time with the boys - I'm trying to get as much Patrick time in as possible before he leaves for Chicago! Boooooo.

Monday-Wednesday I was in El Paso, TX and Las Cruces, NM for work. Unfortunately the trip ended up getting cancelled for my boss so Erin and I came home early. Kind of a bummer but it was fun while it lasted - we ate a LOT of Mexican food and took advantage of the "Texas Twister" water slide at our hotel. Apparently it's the longest water slide at any hotel in Texas. How 'bout THAT!?

This weekend is another in towner. I went to QB's housewarming last night which was fun - he found an awesome house on the Hill. I had to laugh though because I totally showed up in jeans and a tank top and all the other girls were in cute little sun dresses and the dudes were wearing their pink pants and powder blue oxfords. I was like WHOOPS I totally forgot this is a southern folk party! They're all soooo nice though - I really like QB's friends. A little part of me was meant to be southern I think :)

One more week of August left! I can't believe it.

Off to Texas and New Mexico!

Back from a great vacation in Tahoe... now off to Texas and New Mexico for work! Be back with updates then. Have a good week!

Off to Tahoe!

Going to Tahoe for some R&R at the cabin with the fam... be back in a week!

August in DC looks like this...

Ha. August in DC. Very conflicted about August in DC actually. It comes and the entire city breathes out this huge sigh of relief. Bosses gone! Normal people hours! Legitimate lunch breaks! Then by mid-August it's like... bah. It's hot. I'm bored. I want things to happen again.

Right now I am in YAY IT'S AUGUST mode for sure. Flip flops at work ALL day (instead of just when the boss is gone). I had a sit down lunch today at Elephant and Castle! And it's 4:15pm which means only 45 minutes left of work. Loving life.

take these broken wings and learn to fly

Screen on the Green

Every Monday in mid-late summer, HBO sponsors "Screen on the Green" on the Mall at sunset. Everyone comes out after work, brings blankets and pillows and picnics, and hangs out until it gets dark enough for the projection on the screen to show up. They start with a Looney Tunes Cartoon followed by an old movie.


Last Monday, Shane, Sweeting, Bobby, and I saw Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. What a funny little movie! I remember watching it when I was little at one point -- or maybe I saw the play version. Anyway, it was an absolutely gorgeous night (and I should note it has been a remarkably great summer so far weather-wise) and it's just really a fun summer public event. Yay DC for having cool (and free!) stuff like this.