Category: uncategorized Page 8 of 76

My Week in Books: A Study on Life

On July 31, 2014

It was with great anticipation that I approached BlogHer 2014 – both in terms of the bloggers and celebrities I would get to hear speak, as well as ten hours of in-air time I would have to read. I made my book selections carefully.You know you’ve chosen correctly when the person ringing you up reviews the books and says:

At bookstore, clerk reviews my books & says “Read this one first. It will crush you. Then this one. It will restore your faith in humanity.”
— Kate (@katespov) July 22, 2014

The first book, the one that would, and did, crush me was Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. By no measure that I would typically use to evaluate this book is it worth recommending. It us heartbreakingly sad and bleak. It shares war and poverty and the cruelty of man in such a way that I almost want to forget I’ve ever read it. But I think that is sort of the point of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena – to show us that life can be difficult and horrible, but it’s still life.

The definition of life that Marra shares is perhaps one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read.

Life: a constellation of vital [phenomena – organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.

It summarizes life perfectly. And the book. And while I could offer you a more through explanation of the book, I don’t think I could possibly do it justice, so I will just say that you should read it.

– – –

A welcome surprise was The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. When the bookstore clerk said the book would restore my faith in humanity, I was expecting a story full of grand gestures and big moments. Rather than being some macro view of humanity, Zevin takes us into one bookstore on Alice Island. A. J. Fikry is running the store to the best of his ability, but the recent loss of his wife and his general view on life, which is oppositional to running any sort of storefront, makes things difficult. Enter a small child name Maya, left in his store with a note from the birth mother reading:

I want her to grow up to be a reader. I want her to grow up in a place with books and among people who care about those kinds of things.

And so Zevin shares how one man stuck in his misery and one child seemingly plucked from thin air come together. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is a light book. A happy book. It didn’t leave me cheering and to say it restored my faith in humanity would perhaps be a little lofty of a statement. But it did remind me that there is good and love in the world.

A bookstore clerk told me that one book would crush me and that the other would restore my faith in humanity. He wasn't far off.

What have you been reading this week? I’m always looking for my next read!

The Smells That Make Me Happy

By Kate

On July 18, 2014

In uncategorized

Dough. In almost any form. Freshly cooked bread. Hot from the oven doughnuts. Toasted bread. The yeasty scent of dough as it’s rising in the kitchen.
Bee balm. The way it’s impossibly to walk out my front yard without catching a whiff of that flower.
Rice. Walking into the house and yelling, “What smells so good?” only to find out the rice cooker is on.
Anthropologie. While rarely rationalizing the prices, walking into the store is an olfactory delight.
After a rain. Walking outside and seeing worms everywhere, having viewed the rain as a sort of invitation to come out and play. I used to think it was the worms that actually smells. I now know it’s more complicated than that.
John Frieda Brilliant Brunette shampoo. The other types of that brand’s shampoo are fine, but the brunette makes me stay in the shower longer so I can just breathe in the scent.
Crayons and Play-Doh. Both contain the smells of childhood, creativity and things being easier.
Kittens. Not kittens after they’ve made a mess of themselves, which is most of the time. But kittens when they’re clean and cuddly and fit in the palm of your hand.
Fresh copies off of the mimeograph. The ink all smeary initially, but smelling great.
Freshly cut grass. The smell of summer.

Moments of Beauty: 50 Words

By Kate

On July 1, 2014

In uncategorized

She woke up and went through her daily routine. Coffee. Get dressed. Commute. Stare at computer. Go home. Work in garden. Eat dinner. Watch TV. Read. Go to bed.The monotony of it wore on her.

But occasionally, something unexpected and beautiful would happen. And then everything felt brand new.

Wild Turkey Taking Flight

By Kate

On May 27, 2014

In uncategorized

This past weekend, Wonder Boy and I went on a walk, trying to enjoy the nice weather and check out a new (to us) bar. One our way, we passed a grouping of families grilling out and the food smelled delicious. I was looking their way to see what smelled so great and wiped out. I tripped on the edge of the sidewalk and landed on an elbow and knee with my sunglasses flying off to somewhere nearby. Wonder Boy leaned in to check on me.”Are you okay?” he asked.
“Do you hear them?” I hissed, trying not to cry. “They are making fun of me!”

And they were. And that’s okay because I appreciate schadenfreude as well as the next guy, but what they were saying!

“Look at that girl drunk on Wild Turkey!”
“Oh, that drunk girl just fell right down!”
“I bet she had so much Wild Turkey!”
“She’s drunk on Jegermeister!”

I was stone. cold. sober. and trying to calmly assess my damage (mostly road rash and a bloodied knee and ankle). I stood up and dusted myself off, trying to maintain what little dignity I had left when I received sage advice.

“Don’t let a fall ruin your day,” a man from the cookout group yelled out to me. “And you tell everyone a black man told you that!” (The second half of the quote is unnecessary to include here but it was equally unnecessary to have been said, so there you go.)

…

When I was young – maybe six – I cooked my parents a fancy dinner. I made scrambled eggs – the only thing I knew how to cook – and wanted to get them glasses of wine. I tried every bottle I could reach in the liquor cabinet, looking for one I could open. (Side note: Isn’t it a little odd that I, at six, could access so much liquor?) I located a bottle with a twist-off cap and filled some wine glasses to the rim. My parents sat down to their fancy meal and couldn’t help but smell the almost overflowing glasses of liquor. “Kate, what is this?” my dad asked me. When I showed him the bottle of Wild Turkey I had used, he replied (in my memory of the event) with “If I drank all of this, I would die.”

…

That breakfast story used to be my only association with Wild Turkey. Now I know that it is not good with scrambled eggs and might cause death AND that apparently I lot of girls get drunk on it and fall flat on their faces while walking down the street, not then I’d let that ruin my day.

Walking – You’re Doing it Wrong: On Slow Walkers Everywhere

By Kate

On May 14, 2014

In uncategorized

Subtitled: Things That Don’t Really Matter But Still Bug the Heck Out of MeI don’t always walk fast. But I don’t think I ever really walk slowly. Maybe if I’m heading in to a doctor’s appointment I don’t want to experience? But no, even then I walking along at a normal clip to get things over with. It just doesn’t make sense, this walking slow. (Excepting elderly folk and people with actual physical limitations, of course.)

Walking slow especially doesn’t make sense on sidewalks, at malls or other stores, at flea markets or amusement parks. Oh, and races. Why enter a race of you’re going to be pokey about it?!?

When I’m caught behind a slow walker, and let’s be honest, they normally come in pairs… So when I’m caught behind a pair of slow walkers, I actually get anxious. I feel trapped. Why are you going so slow? And too often, walking just far enough apart from each other that people of a normal gait cannot get around you. Why is that happening?

I feel like slow walkers should be forced to walk single file. Or just not walk slowly at all. If my father ever publishes his book called The Code that he often refers too, right near the top would be this rule: “Slow walking. Don’t do it.”