I finally captured pictures of the robin we’ve nicknamed Scabby (you’ll see why from the photos). The poor thing never flies very much and never very high. But he lives in our yard and in our neighbors. I see him just about every day in the front yard or in the back. I feel sorry for him, but he seems to do okay.
With the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis tomorrow, it’s final mission into space to repair the hubble, it’s odd to be hearing all the talk on the news about the Space Shuttles being retired next year. With only 9 missions left, it struck a chord with me and I decided to Google it. Indeed, the space shuttle is being retired and replaced with a new space travel program with vehicles called Ares and Orion. 
I mention this only because Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour were a huge part of my childhood growing up. I loved studying the planets in Science class and drawing models of them. My grade school even had a Young Astronauts program devoted to all things space. I remember the Challenger explosion in 1986, killing Christa McAuliffe who was to be the first teacher in space. It was the first National tragedy I can remember. And who can forget Columbia burning up during reentry back in 2003?
In 8th grade, a class member won a paper airplane throwing contest and the entire class got to visit the Space Museum in Huntsville Alabama. It was the first time I’d ever been in an I-Max theater. I remember buying up postcards just to have lots of nice pictures of the rockets and exhibits. I remember the grave of the first monkey in space there. And who can forget having a small space shuttle toy as a child and running through the house with it pretending I was in space?
So, like many things that have come and gone during my lifetime, it will just be odd to see the shuttle go.
Finally finished reading this one today. And I can’t say enough good things about it. I hate to say it only because everyone else has, and because it’s so cliche, but this is indeed the best book I’ve read all year. I came across it by chance, having never heard of it or Andrew Davidson before. I read the description about a burn victim’s affair with a mental patient. It struck my interest enough to buy it, and to pick it up and read it, and I’m very glad I did. 
The book is much more than an affair between two people that the world (or God) has been cruel to. Andrew Davidson has penned a multitude of characters and storylines that are both complex and entertaining. I like a book that has me flipping back through the pages to consult passages I’ve already read, or lying awake at night thinking about and trying to figure it out. I’m still questioning if the current people in the unnamed narrator’s lives were also people he knew in his past lives. As you may have figured out, a huge part of the book is about reincarnation and the narrator’s struggle with a higher power.
This book has a touch of everything…fine food, literature, pornography, drugs, schizophrenia, art, Victorians, Japanese legends, Vikings, Medieval times, science, medicine, religion, and lots of elaborate lists of its own…the author was obviously inspired by numerous beliefs and resources and amazingly compiled them all into a book and into a plot and made it work. As Marianne settles down with her paramour and tells him stories of how they once knew each other in another life, I too couldn’t wait to listen. The book is complex and multi-leveled and often points a finger at the reader in real life society and makes you ashamed of how you might perceive others sometimes who have been scarred physically. This is a love story of sorts, but you will soon discover that sex does not become an issue between these characters. The author has taken predictable themes out and kept the story fresh.
If you enjoy a good story that challenges you, a story that you will definitely take something away from, then I highly recommend this one. I know I will be suggesting it to others for a long time to come. I can’t wait for Davidson’s next!
These are Kodak moments (for lack of a better description) I live for from my Kitchen window.
I Know Her
48 East Main
There’s a place I know
Where I once lived
And still occasionally go
Back to my hometown
Where the leaves and neighbors change
Faces I don’t know
Nothing stays the same
But I find her there waiting
With arms open wide
I see her kind face
And it fills me with pride
I know her gentle love
And it comforts me so
I feel her warm embrace
Sometimes I don’t want to let go
This house, this woman
My hearts knows no other
Because it wouldn’t be home
Without my dear mother.
Lately, I haven’t been very loyal to my blog. It’s not for lack of thinking about it. It’s because work has been so busy lately. In the am, just about all I can think of is email and coffee. In the pm, I can’t even think. So, I thought I would start a Friday (or Saturday) post and recap my week. Most of my weeks seem to blur together so I may end up repeating myself eventually. But welcome to my weekend review!
Work is picking up, which is a good thing (job security), but we are still down three people in our department. So, that immediately increases everyone else’s workload as far as calls go. One person is out on maternity leave, and we still have not replaced two people who left. Summer is always a busy time for me and what I do anyway because back-to-school is quickly approaching.
I’m still reading The Gargoyle. It’s soooo good! There are few books that just really capture my attention and hold it like this one has. I have about 150 pages left to go. It weighs in at about 355 pages. I plan to finish it next week though. I’m still right on target for my book reading goal. Since it’s so intense, I’ll pick up some fluff next or at least a much shorter book.
This was a payweek, which means it was a coupon clipping week, which means it was a grocery shopping week. Read my 2009 Resolutions update by clicking on the tab at the top to learn more about that.
I was shocked to see Allison go this week on Idol, but I’m excited about the career she’ll end up having because of it. There’s only 3 Idols left. For me, that means So You Think You Can Dance will be starting soon! That’s the highlight of my summer TV watching.
Survivor is coming to a close, although I don’t really care. It just doesn’t hold my attention like it used to. Amazing Race also ends on Sunday. Still love it! I’m rooting for the Mom and Son team!
It’s been rainy all week here in St. Louis, and today it’s very foggy, but I’ve still been excited about watching the flowers and plants grow in the yard, and feeding all the birds. The Japanese irises in the front are about to bloom, so I’m anxious to photograph that. There’s also a very “ugly” robin that lives around here that I’d love to get a picture of. I say ugly very lightly, but he looks like he either has the mange or some bully robins beat the heck out of him. He hobbles around all by himself and his feathers are all messed up. He’s not pretty, but my heart goes out to him every time I see him. Starlings are also nesting again this year in the eve of our house (third year in a row). And the rabbits have enjoyed playing in the yard. All this wildlife around me makes me anxious to get back to a book I’ve been writing about birds.
J and I have had to put the fence on hold in the back. Other expenses have come up that are more important, including J’s teeth. A trip to the dentist this week for him determined he has some crown work to be done. Thank goodness his insurance covers 80%.
Mother’s Day is this weekend. I sent my mom two Lady Bank’s Yellow Rose bushes that are thornless and climb. My brother has one in his backyard and my mother always comments on it so I thought she’d enjoy having her own. I’m leaving it up to my brother and sister to buy trellises for her for the roses to climb.
And that’s been my week. As always, looking forward to the weekend!
A writer’s brain is a crowded place. It’s filled with characters and voices, places and themes. When I finish a book or a poem, I feel like I’ve let some of them out and made some space.
I’ve cleared my head, if just for a moment.
For a while, there’s been five distinct story lines going on in my head, four of which have actually been started on paper. There’s actually been quite a bit more than that but I say five because those are the ones that are reoccuring. Those five are the ones I could speak out loud as a story practically from beginning to end.
For that reason, I’m torn.
I’m eager to put them on paper, but I don’t know which one deserves more attention right now. Which one of them is destined to be my next book?
One of them is completely done on paper, for the most part. I wrote it in 2007, but since then the characters have evolved and need to be edited. For now, their lives, their story sits on a ream of 8.5 x 11 paper in the bottom of my closet like a shoebox filled with forgotten things. But I don’t feel connected to them the way I should. I don’t feel like they should be next. Maybe I’m wrong?
I’m torn.
It may be an odd way to start a Monday, but this song just makes me close my eyes and think of someplace else. Chills ride up my spine, tears well up behind my lids…
I have to give this one five stars because not since Andrew Holleran have I ever read a book where I found a piece of myself on every page. Kevin Bentley writes with the “snap your finger” attitude of Kirk Read and the “slap your face” brutal honesty of Paul Russell. 
“Coming of Age” novels are usually over-the-top or too predictable because most gay males have lived those stories and know what to expect. We can easily distinguish fact from fiction because we’ve either lived it or lied it at some point in our life. Bentley has done both.
Bentley experiments with drugs and lovers, all the while trying to discover what kind of person he wants to become. But it is these stories, these people, who end up shaping him into that person whether it’s what he wanted or not. And all to often while reading this book, I kept saying to myself, “This is me!”
Experimenting with your friends in school, hitting the bars in college, living with lovers or roommates (or both), it is the stories between the sheets and out of them that honestly make you keep reading. Bentley points out specific times and places where he was in life, but the stories also let you know what kind of person he was at the time and how the events shaped him. I could totally relate!
Near the end, he dips into the AIDS pool and explores the effects the disease has had on him and his lovers. He counts his friends, his acquaintances…the ones that are still here and the ones that are gone and how time snuck up on them. Definitely a fresh perspective on an old bell that’s been rung too many times.
One of the most provocative and absorbing “gay” anthologies I’ve read in a long time!
…and brought us Keanu Reeves. We should have known right then there’d be trouble.
Like all the other reviewers, I have to comment on the special effects of the movie. I thought they were pretty impressive, but strip them away and you aren’t really left with anything.
Keanu is his usual drab dry self. Nothing new there.
The overall “save the world” theme becomes a bit preachy after awhile. There’s even a cool scene where a trucker and his cab are consumed by the alien with huge smoke stacks in the background filling the air with pollution. I half expected to see Al Gore make a guest appearance.
On top of this, we have a female protagonist with a stubborn black stepson (Jurassic Park II, anyone?) in tow, and she’s supposed to convince Keanu to call it off. “We can change!”
Lots of lose scenes tied together, probably due to poor editing. Lots of big special effects, as I already stated. And lots of let down. Skip this one and see the original instead.
