He gets women

For the longest time, I believed the majority of male authors simply didn't get women. I mean, I'm sure they got women - hello, women think writers/arty types are sexy...all that connection to their feeeelings - but I mean get = understand.

And it isn't their fault. Women are tricky. And ever-changing. And volatile. And probably a long list of other scary/awesome attributes that makes capturing us sincerely on the page all the more illusive.

So when the madre brought me a book last night and preempted it by saying the author gets women I was like OMG YES, hello holy grail.

After reading Devil in the White City I need something emotionally sad, not disturbingly sad. I need to feel awww relationships...they are intricate, not hmmmm is my creepy downstairs neighbor actually an evil genius serial killer using his lonely, not socially aware exterior as a guise...

The later feelings don't promote sleeping though the night. So I say goodbye to DITWC. You were a great read, but I prefer not having creepy nightmares that make me wake up sweating, thank you.

On to feelings. I have just started Breakable You, by Brian Morton. I am in love with the title alone. Three chapters in, and I am already hooked.

Stay tuned...

"...puzzled by how comfortable it felt to walk beside him...during most of their years together, she'd felt secure with him; she'd felt blessedly safe. Since they'd been apart, she'd come to realize that in return for this feeling of safety she'd given up some of the things that were most important to her. And yet she still had an instinctive nostalgia for the old feeling."
Brian Morton

The Road

Due to my wanting to escape library fines, I have had to up my reading even during this busy time because I just had to take out 5 books at once...I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Similar to I am Legend, it is what I would consider 'boy' fiction. And I loved it. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, TR is a tale of a man and his son traveling across the country. Spoiler, this book is not a happy one. But the solitary form both the writing and dialogue take is both haunting and beautiful. The man and his son 'carry the fire' through a world of violence and ash.

Time for quotes:

"The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all."

: (

But there are happy moments too...

"He rose and walked out and stood barefoot in the sand and watched the pale surf appear all down the shore and roll and crash and darken again. When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he wold have made the world just so and no different."

I highly recommend it. At times your like, how can this be good, it is about a man and his son walking down a road...but it is.

"He picked up one of the books and thumbed through the heavy bloated pages. He'd not have thought the value of the smallest thing predicated on a world to come...That the space which these things occupied was itself an expectation. he let the book fall and took a last look around and made his way out into the cold gray light."
Cormac McCarthy

The opposite of love isn't hate it's indifference

Love (romantic, familial, friend-love). It can be wonderful and it can be horrible. It can raise us up and knock us right back down. It can be easy and natural and the most difficult thing to maintain. Other cliched depictions? I'm out.

Came across a great song (SATC fans might recognize) on the topic. Listen to it. It makes me happy. Because it reminds me that no matter what happens in my love life, my friends' love lives, regular life, life after tragedy, etc - we all have something integral that remains - our love for ourselves.

I've witnessed some praying lately. And I'm not going to pray via this blog, but I am going to dedicate this song to all my friends and fam who might need a little something extra, a little reminder.

Because this song makes me want to walk (strut) down the middle of the street knowing I am awesome and everything else is frosting on the delicious cupcake.

Maybe it will do the same for you...

"You've got the love I need to see me through."
The Source feat. Candi Station

I was told there'd be cake

The Madre was right. Again.

I Was Told There'd be Cake.

Great read.

And it isn't just because she writes how I think I would write if I ever womaned up and thought about writing some serious essays.

I read this book so fast it didn't even make it on my currently reading list. It had to go straight into the books I have read list. Sunday night I read 3/4 of it. I literally had to rip it out of my hands because it was way past my bedtime.

And the quippy quotes. I love them.

"It's a trip down Memory Lane, which, if you don't turn off at the right exit, merges straight into the Masochistic Nostalgia highway."

Come on. First of all, we know how I feel about the metaphor. Second of all, we all have that envelope/shoebox/drawer for all those things that remind us how much someone used to care about us. And - I mean I'm not saying I have done this - sometimes we maybe would take it out and sit on the floor and read past love cards/notes/poems and try that ring on one more time and then cry clichedly into our Merlot while slow jams played in the background...

And, my absolute favory favorite...

"The real proof that I have tried to love and that people have tried to love me back was never going to fit in a kitchen drawer."
Sloane Crosley