Posts (page 2)
Finished Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, edited by Smith Magazine.
This book obviously focused on the good and bad of love and relationships.
My favorite good ones: "In his eyes I saw forever" and "May I have the last dance?"
My favorite bad ones: "Happiness is a bed to myself" and "Love makes the world go stupid."
I love this series. :) There's one more in print currently and another one is coming out in January.
I got this from Viral Bloggers and it's very interesting so far.
I don't want to gulp these essays down, so I'm going to say a little now and then whenever I finish, I'll discuss it in more depth.
The general gist is that working for justice is one of the most important things a Christian can do, but that a lot of times that gets bogged down with other things.
My favorite line so far: "It's stories that give meaning to the reams of data in our lives, and it's ultimatly stories that provoke us to action."
The essays are more intellectual than emotional--that's not a bad thing, necessarily, but I do get moved more by stories.
Finished Whip It by Shauna Cross. (Apparently formerly called Derby Girl.)
This is now the movie with Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore. It's pretty appropriate that Ellen Page plays Bliss (narrator and main character) because she's basically Juno on speed.
Bliss lives with her parents and four-year-old sister in a small town in Texas. Her mom's uber-crazy about pageants and insists that Bliss and her sister participate. The sister (Shania) keeps winning, but the most Bliss attains are the certificates that everyone gets for entering.
And then she finds a roller derby league in Austin and immediately falls in love. She tries out and makes the team, but she has to keep it a secret (because no way would her parents approve).
Fun story about a girl finding herself. :) And now I really want to see the movie.
Finished I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb.
I bought this for the title and for the fact that Jon Stewart and Judd Apatow gave blurbs for it.
In case you need more--Oliver Watson is in middle school. All of his classmates think he's probably borderline retarded. His dad thinks he's a disappointment and his mom is smothering to the point of being ridiculous.
But really, Oliver's a genius. He's the third richest person in the world and uses this to his advantage. He has developed a chemical that makes people who would pick on him suddenly get very tired. If they continue to harass him...well, it's just not a good idea. We'll leave it at that.
Here are the first two paragraphs.
"Someday you will beg for the honor of licking my feet. You will get down on your stupid, worthless knees and beg, `Please, sir! Please! Let me lick the disease dog dung from between your toes!' (I will be standing barefoot in the dung of diseased dogs--just to make it grosser for you.) And if I am in a good mood and am not too disgusted by your stupid, wormy tears or your stupid, scrunched-up face, I will allow you the signal honor of licking my feet clean. Even though you don't deserve it.
But that's all in the future. At the moment, I'm in the seventh grade."
I just saw Paranormal Activity. I do think it's been over-hyped as far as the "one of the scariest movies ever" thing goes. Most of the movie is pretty slow (not to be confused with boring, because it isn't), but the last three or four scenes? Holy crap, terrifying.
I saw it with Kim, Shannon and Debbie. Shannon didn't realize it was a horror movie and spent those last few scenes with her eyes closed. At the very, very end, Kim and Debbie screamed. And I'm pretty sure my heart possibly actually stopped for a second.
After Jen saw it (over the weekend), we were discussing where she'd put it on the Scaremeter (where 1 is Phantom of the Mall and 10 is The Exorcist). She said it was a seven, maybe a high six.
I was thinking I'd probably rate it a six, but the end alone pushes it up to a high seven.
Maybe eight.
In case you're curious, here's an example of my Scaremeter:
1) Phantom of the Mall
2) Prom Night
3) Friday the 13th
4) The Hitcher
5) Nightmare on Elm Street
6) Night of the Living Dead (original)
7) The Strangers
8) Halloween
9) The Blair Witch Project
10) The Exorcist
Finished Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon. (It comes out Tuesday.)
This is nonfiction, a sort of memoir of a family.
Suzan is pretty used to hard times--her family, she says, has worried about money on and off for something like a hundred years. She and her husband have been doing pretty well, but after she gets laid off, she starts cooking more. Her grandmother saved a folder of recipes, and some of those find their way into the book.
In between the recipies are stories--some of Suzan and her husband, Nathan (who seems like the world's most perfect husband), but also of her childhood, growing up with her (single) mom, Carolyn. And, of course, there are a lot of stories of her grandmother, Matilda, who was the family's sole wage-earner during the Great Depression. (And she was a teenager at the time, getting by on half a corn muffin for breakfast, the other half for lunch and a can of soup for dinner.)
This is such a fantastic book, very comforting and compelling. (You may think that it'd be depressing, reading about people who are worried about money. You'd be wrong.)
Finished Splendor, the last book in the Luxe series.
I'm sad it's the last one, although I think Anna Godbersen did a really good job wrapping everything up.
The only two problems I had: it's about 50 pages shorter than the others. Also (vague spoiler) I spent the entire series hoping one character would get what was coming to her. I waited in vain.
Still, though, if you're looking for a series that is nothing but a guilty pleasure, definitely check these books out.
You'd need a werewolf costume plus a yarmulke, plus maybe one of those Jewish prayer garments, the one with the fringe/prayer tassels.
Know what you'd be?
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah! (Spooky! Scary! Boys becoming men; men becoming wolves.)
I feel like I'm complaining a lot these days. I'm ready for a change but nobody's hiring. I'm tired, even after a vacation where I didn't do much.
(I think I need a week where I stay here and don't do anything. Next year, I'm going to schedule that.)
But today--well, today is awesome.
I'm seeing Paranormal Activity on Thursday with Kim and/or Jenny. Awesome! (That was actually planned yesterday, but still.) I also found a coupon for AMC theaters that said if I bought a large soda, I could get a large popcorn for free!
And I was debating staying to see the Stepfather remake, but I didn't see a way to swing that financially (movies are expensive).
But today, I got an email from Amazon. I bought a horror movie from them yesterday (for $6) and apparently that means that they're sending me a coupon to go see The Stepfather for free. :) I'll have to go to the theater in Hunt Valley to see it, because that's the closest Regal theater (AMC apparently doesn't honor those coupons), but still! Movies in the theater two weeks in a row! It's like the old days!
But wait! There's more!
I checked my email and I won a raffle for a free VI Warshawski t-shirt. :)
It's not like these are super big things, but it's totally enough to turn this drizzly day around. :)
Finished I Can't Keep My Own Secrets: Six Word Memoirs By Teens Famous + Obscure, edited by Smith Magazine.
Okay, LOVE. I bought this from Amazon on a whim, because it reminded me of PostSecret. It's hard to distill your life into six words (so far, the best I can do is: "It has to get better. Right?").
Here are my favorites from the book:
"I regret sleeping with my teacher."
"Aspiration: Colonize Mars. You're not invited."
"God has him. I miss him."
"Always forgetting to bring an umbrella."
"Afraid I'm crazy, Bell Jar style."
And there are a ton more amazing ones, so if you see it, buy it. (Or borrow it from the library--or just stand there and read it. It's a little over 180 pages, but it's not like a bunch of six-word memoirs take long to read.)
