Thursday Thirteen Things About Me

1. I went on two job interviews today. I like both of the jobs very much, and I feel like I have a fair shot at them both.

2. I am afraid of fish--both the swimming kind and the kind that may land on my plate.

3. I drive a minivan. And I love it.

4. I have this idea for a knitting project: it involves strips of plastic grocery bags knit into a square base, then a grafted-on wool top for it, felted for sturdiness, witha drawstring top. It's an ecologically sound, slightly zany lunch bag! Okay, it sounds weird, but in my head, it is supremely awesome.

5. My favorite sandwich is a turkey sandwich with mustard and lettuce, followed closely by a bologna sandwich with cheese and pickles. Yes, seriously.

6. My wedding cake was chocolate, with raspberry filling and chocolate buttercream frosting. It had white roses (not the kind made of sugar, the kind that grew in the ground somewhere) on top. I would love to say that it was the greatest wedding cake ever; unfortunately, I only got the one bite that Dan fed me for the benefit of the photos. That bite, though, was delicious.

7. I loved the Beverly Cleary "Ramona" books growing up. I cannot wait until Max is old enough to read them.

8. I think Anthony Bourdain is smokin' hot. So is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Danny Masterson, Sean Lennon, and Edward Norton. Yeah, I know; I am a total freak.

9. I love Crocs. I know they're ugly. I don't care.

10. I found out recently that Sonic's Diet Cherry Limeade is nothing but Diet Sprite and sugar-free cherry syrup, with limes squeezed into it. I'm a little sad, but I can actually make it at home now. Score!

11. I have never bought my own drink in a bar. I know that sounds weird, expecially because I've never been an enormous social success, but men buy me drinks. It's inexplicable to me.

12. I don't like lima beans, tapioca, or duck.

13. I have a great idea for a bakery in Saugutuck, Michigan, called American Bake Sale. It's the kind of place that sells $4 gingerbread-flavored cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing, double fudge-peppermint brownies, and chocolate-chunk-dried-cherry chocolate cookies. I have not gotten any farther in this fantasy than the name of the restaurant and the menu.

Go read Kimberly's Thursday Thirteen.

Thursday Thirteen Things I Want in 2008

1. A great, crafty project. I have a few going on, including glass marble magnets. I've recently become an Etsy fanatic and am full of unfulfilled inspiration.

2. Another baby. For God's sake, I needn't bring it up again really.

3. A new house. We are starting to look again after last fall's fiasco.

4. Financial solvency for a certain non-profit agency doing good, important, and necessary work. Lest I get Dooced, I won't be going into it, but suffice it to say that the company has taken extraordinarily desperate measures to bolster their income, and I am extremely concerned at the nature of the measures.

5. Some time and money to do some interesting travel. Dan and I are talking about having my mother or his mother or a combination of the two come out some time in the summer, and the two of us going to Amsterdam or Helsinki for a week or so.

6. Some patience, for goodness sake. I have so very little of it, and I live with a two-and-a-half-year old.

7. A new bed. I suspect that our bed is contributing to Dan's snoring, my insomnia, and both of our unbelievably sore necks.

8. To lose weight. Dan and I are both making an effort to eat healthy and move more.

9. To make it back to Michigan in September for Trina and Gerry's wedding. We are really looking forward to it.

10. Lower car insurance. We live in a better neighborhood now--shouldn't we pay less for insurance?

11. To be a better wife, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law, and friend. I am annoyingly pragmatic in my approach to my relationships and, combined with my lack of patience and my sort of half-assed social skills, I think that I have a tendency to hurt the feelings of people I love.

12. Better TV. This writers' strike is killing me.

13. The pasta dough rollers and cutters for the KitchenAid stand mixer that I got for Christmas.

Thursday Thirteen: Things I Should Have Learned To Do

1. Play the French Horn. I like music, but it's not anything I'm particularly talented at. I can pick out a few bars on the piano here and there, and I played the flute in 6th grade but never got very good at it. But one of the first pieces of classical music I can remember hearing, and loving, was the wolf's theme from Prokofiev's "Peter And The Wolf." I would love to be able to play that.

2. Paint. I've taken...oh, dozens of art classes since childhood, including pottery, sculpture, photography, and graphic design. But anything 2-dimensional doesn't seem to be within my realm.

3. Make puff pastry from scratch. Mmmmmm, puff pastry. Making it from scratch is a skill that pastry chefs really need, and it involves a lot of butter and rolling and turning and flipping and more rolling, and I just don't have the patience for it, especially when I can just run to the store and buy a box. Still, it's one of those things I wish I'd learned to do.

4. Cartwheels. I am tall and semi-awkward and as a child I was even more awkward than I am now, and when my tiny 4'3" friends were all learning to do cartwheels in gym class, I was still trying to keep from falling off the balance beam.

5. Excel spreadsheets. There is a surprising call for me to do these in my current job, which I don't understand, given that I'm a writer/editor. I can muddle my way through one, mostly, but occasionally I am felled totally by my inability to make a column of numbers behave the way I want them to behave.

6. Get through a marketing meeting without rolling my eyes. Luckily, my boss travels most of the time and dials in from wherever she happens to be.

7. Put on eye makeup without either blinding myself with eyeliner or making myself look like someone has punched me.

8. Read a map. I mean, I can read a map, but generally speaking, I don't have a great sense of direction and I almost never know what direction I'm facing without the assistance of the little digital compass readout in my car.

9. Write like Aaron Sorkin.

10. Golf. Everyone in my family plays but me, and I swear to God, they use that time out on the golf course to talk about me behind my back.

11. Walk in high heels. I look like a drunk when I try.

12. Properly blow my hair out straight once it's grown past my shoulders. It's too long now, and I look like I gave up halfway through every time.

13. Iron. My clothes look worse when I'm done than when I started.

Thursday Thirteen Things I Want From Santa Claus

1. The entire series of "The West Wing" on DVD. Or else some good TV to watch.

2. A tutorial on Excel spreadsheets, and why exactly a journalism major is considered to be "a pro" at them, as my boss intimated this morning before delivering a doozy of one for me to work on.

3. A house. After the big burn back in October, I'm starting to get house fever again. We'll start looking again after the holidays.

4. For "Entourage" to start running again on HBO. Sort of falls under number one.

5. New jeans. For some reason, none of my jeans are fitting. The pre-baby ones are too tight, the post-baby ones are too loose, and ironically, too short at the same time.

6. Some real winter weather. Our condo has a fireplace. Now if we could just get some snow.

7. A couple more pairs of Crocs, because you can never have too many. I just bought these for Max:

8. Dinner that I don't have to make tonight.

9. A vacation to look forward to sometime in the next few months. All I've got is President's Day weekend in Ocean City or maybe Rehoboth.

10. More yarn, and more skill at using it.

11. For my boss to stop saying "eye deers" when what she really means is ideas. Drives me nuts.

12. A better, smarter president in 2008, and more of a backbone for Congress.

13. A new matress and boxspring. We bought this one cheap right after we moved here, and boy did we get what we paid for. Which is to say that we paid for stiff necks, sproingy-sounding springs, and sagging in the middle of the mattress that means that Dan and I wake up piled all over each other in the middle of the bed every morning. Merry Christmas to all, and to me, a good night.

Thursday Thirteen: Guilty Pleasures

I seldom feel a lot of guilt over things that I enjoy. I mean, if it's really that bad for me, chances are I'm avoiding it. I'm sort of practical and dull that way. But, that being said, I do have some guilty pleasures.



1. Fabulous food. I am not really that picky an eater, and in fact, I will eat just about anything as long as it's not Doritos or fish. But I love really great, fattening, decadent food, like seared diver scallops with beurre blanc or osso bucco or some $40 a pound bleu cheese with toasted walnuts and dried figs and honey and fresh fall Asian pears. I'm talking total once-in-a-blue-moon food.

2. My couch. Almost everyone hates my couch but me. It is deep, really deep, so deep that my feet don't touch the floor when I sit all the way back. It's so long I can lie on it and neither my head or my feet touch the arms. It is big, soft, a perfect curling-up-and-settling-in couch.

3. Art projects. I love being creative. I have a million knitting projects going, I have decoupage materials in a box on my bookshelves upstairs, and I have a great idea for Christmas presents that I need to get down to business with this weekend. Dan is in a mild state of despair at the state of our home as it's taken over by my creative pursuits, but even he likes the final product.

4. Bad TV. Like Trina, I don't limit myself to awful television. I like lots of good stuff, including my current obsession with "The West Wing." But I also am a big fan of "Dawson's Creek." It's such shlock, it really is. But it's the very best shlock out there.

5. Ice cream. Being diabetic, I rarely eat ice cream, and when I do, I only have a little. But oh, ice cream. I love it. All kinds.

6. Oversized sweatshirts. There is just something about snuggling into a shirt that needs its own zip code. I am such a fall person, if just for the clothes.

7. Crocs. I have a whole bunch of them, and I'm ordering more. My boss loathes them--she wears pointy-toed death stilletos from the 80's--so I ordered her a pair too.

8. Blogs. I found a new one today, called "New and Improved Stereotypes." There are so many great ideas out there. Without the internet, there is so much smart and funny and sad and beautiful I would have missed out on.

9. Christmas Eve. I vastly prefer it to Christmas.

10. Target. Target has everything, and at reasonable prices, and it is always in a convenient and accessable place.

11. My son's kisses. I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about the fact that I would, without hesitation, wake him up give him kisses, and he loves giving them almost as much as I love the fact that I created this adorable little person.

12. Hot Tubs. My parents, a few years ago, put on an addition to their deck and added a six-person hot tub. It is the one thing that is making me look forward to Christmas at their house--the thought that I can go and sit in the hot tub in the snow every night for a couple hours.

13. My car. I drive a Chrysler Town & Country minivan, after always having tiny little cars my whole life. I will never go back.. The T&C is tall and spacious and convenient. Like me.

Thursday Thirteen: Things I'm Grateful For

1. Dan. Like Kimberly and Trina, I am so grateful to the person in my life who loves me unconditionally and whole-heartedly, who wants to be next to me forever, who laughs at my jokes (and frequently laughs at me), who holds my hand in the grocery store. I am so thankful to have him for a partner.

2. Max. Dan is my partner and my best friend and the love of my life, but I am increasingly convinced that Max is the reason I was born. Grateful is exactly what I am to be raising this sweet boy.

3. Central air conditioning. Not so much now, but come August, spend a little time with me someplace without air conditioning and find out how mean I am when I'm too hot. You'll be grateful for central air conditioning too.

4. High speed internet. I don't know. I think I could live with dial-up again. I hope I won't have to.

5. Injectable insulin. Mmm, yeah. Without it, pretty much everything is a moot point for me.

6. "Friends" re-runs. The scene where Joey tries to teach Ross to talk dirty is maybe one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

7. My job. I have a great job with smart people where I have a chance to perform at the top of my game and be recognized for what I accomplish. I know not a lot of people have a chance to feel as fulfilled by their job as I do.

8. My family. Oh, they drive me crazy, but they are mine. They love me and support me and they're there when I need them. Frequently, they're there when I don't want them to see me looking stupid too, but it's okay. I'll take it all.

9. My friends. The people who have known me a long time know all my layers, and there is great security in knowing that someone knows you well, and gets it.

10. My washer and drier. To follow with Kimberly's indoor plumbing theme, I don't see myself pounding my clothes on a rock. I would have invent disposable clothing, and then I would have to be grateful for disposable clothing.

11. Williams & Sonoma. I will eventually not be poor and starved for kitchen storage space, and when I am, I am going to Williams & Sonoma and I am going to just lose my mind.

12. Talent. I have a few things I can do. I can write. I can knit. I can cook. I can do crossword puzzles. I am glad I can do them, because they allow me to make a living, create things, feed and amuse myself.

13. My home. Throughout the chaos over the last few weeks, I have become increasingly grateful for the fact that I have a roof over my head. There are a lot of people who get painted into a corner much the same as Dan and I did, and there isn't anyone to help them or any opportunities left. I am thankful that I've had that, that people have helped us, and that we're now comfortable and settled in a condo that, while not officially ours, feels like home in a way that our apartment never did.

I love NaBloPoMo! Having no excuse not to write something or at least find something interesting to show people is great for me. I can't guarantee I'll always be interesting, or relevant, or not thoroughly inappropriate, but I am really enjoying it. I'd love suggestions on what to write, or if you'd like to ask me some sort of question or something...you know.

Thursday Thirteen: Places To Go, Things To See

Evidently it was my turn to think of a Thursday Thirteen this week, and in the chaos that's been the last couple of weeks, I have had nary a thought cross my mind. My original suggestion was Thirteen Favorite Snow-Cone Flavors, but Kimberly told me she'd never had a Snow-Cone before. Never had a Snow-Cone? Kimberly, how have you reached the precipice of parenthood and never had a Snow-Cone?



Luckily, I did come up with this other idea. Once you have a baby, it gets harder to travel. For one thing, you have a lot less money. For another thing, you have to schlep all of the baby stuff with you when you do travel, which means precariously balancing your car seat on top of your stroller while balancing a crying, squirrelly toddler on your hip as you go through security at the airport. Nevertheless, I love to travel. Or think about traveling, as I don't have any money, but I have been a few places, and there's some I'd like to go back to and some that I'd still like to see.



1. Scotland. My psycho ex-roommate did her overseas year in Edinburgh, and loved it. Everything I've ever heard about traveling there sounds great, except the haggis. I will take a pass on the boiled sheep's intestines stuffed with oatmeal pudding.



2. Mexico. My parents have a timeshare, so this could conceivably happen. I know, it's not fashionable anymore to lay around on the beach until you are a leathery shade of bronze, but I love it.



3. The Pacific Northwest. Dan was stationed in Seattle in the mid-90's while he was in the army, and his brother lived in Portland for quite a while. I've seen quite a bit of the U.S., but not this area.



4. Southeast Asia. My boss and her husband frequently spend their vacations in Thailand. I understand that, as far as tony upscale beach vacations go, Thailand is quite the bargain. I think you all should know, however, that I just deleted a joke about 9-year-old male prostitutes that, in retrospect, was in very poor taste. I am maturing.



5. The Baltic. In 1992, I went to Finland, Russia and Estonia for two weeks. I loved everything about it. Helsinki is beautiful and clean and everything there looks like an Ikea catalogue. Moscow is grey and grim and standing in Red Square with Lenin's tomb on my right and St. Basil's cathedral in front of me gives me cold chills. St. Petersburg is full of beautiful churches and museums and great food. Tallin, Estonia, is full of the kindest, most lovely people I've ever met, in love with their country and incredibly excited to show it to you. I have beautiful memories of all of these places and I would go back in a heartbeat.



6. Italy. My father-in-law took a civilian Department of Defense post in Italy when my husband was in kindergarten, so he spent the year in southeastern Italy. I would love to do that--there are teaching posts with the DoD that my husband and I considered accepting--and I think it would be great to do so while Max is little and could pick up the accent.



7. San Diego. As a place to visit, I love San Diego. It is really just golden and full of sunshine and palm trees and fake boobs, just like San Diego should be. I could never live there, but all that great Mexican food...mmmmmm.

8. Canada. How weird is it, that, having grown up in Michigan, I have been to Canada a grand total of once?

9. South Carolina. I might just like Hilton Head Island, or I might be going to stalk Pat Conroy. Who knows?

10. Africa. I'm fascinated.

11. The Middle East. Not just now, please, but anyone who knows me knows that ancient history of all kinds is right up my alley.

12. Maine. I am attracted to writers who create a sense of place in what it is that they write, and one of the best at doing that happens to be Stephen King. In Bag of Bones, his character is living in a vacation home on a lakeshore in Eastern Maine. I could so get into that.

13. Colorado. My biological father lives there. In spite of that, it's been many years since I took a good ski vacation, the kind where you're up and waiting when the lifts start to run in the morning, so that you can catch fresh powder before the sun hits the bowls, actually having to stop to catch your breath halfway through a run because it's just so long and you've actually descended about 3500 vertical feet over the last hour and your legs are really, seriously burning, where the lifts close by four in the afternoon and by then you've had enough anyway, and parking it on a stool in one of the good local bars for a beer and a cheeseburger and a bowl of chili is really the only kind of luxury service you're interested in. I hope that there are still towns like this in Colorado, because the last time I was there, Vail looked like the kind of place where the guy who started Burger King went crazy.

There are others. Dan and I considered doing an el-cheapo vacation next spring in Europe somewhere, like Paris or Berlin or Amsterdam, all places that my ex-military husband knows well and that I've never been. All of those places still appeal, but that's my top thirteen for now.

November is NaBloPoMo, and I am going to attempt to post at least once a day for the next month. It may be just a link or something, depending on how horribly busy I am, but I will try to stay on top of it.

Thursday Thirteen Things No One Knows By Looking At Me

1. I am afraid of fish.

2. I can only sleep on my right side, because my left hip is the one that suffered a sciatic nerve injury during childbirth. I sleep on the right side of the bed too, and as a result of this, I frequently have a small bruise on my forehead from hitting it on my bedside table.

3. I no longer do any of the following things: bite my nails, smoke, or eat ice cream on a regular basis. I do still miss them all, though.

4. I love to knit, but I'm not sure how good at it I actually am.

5. I only floss for about a week right before I see the dentist, thinking that'll fool him into thinking that I floss all the time. I doubt he is impressed by my lame attempt at dental hygene.

6. I wear a bra all the time, even when I sleep.

7. The smell of Doritos is probably one of the worst smells I've ever experienced.

8. If I could only eat one kind of food for the rest of my life, it would be Mexican.

9. I don't really understand how the designated hitter rule works when the American League plays the National League.

10. I played soccer in 10th grade because I had a crush on the coach.

11. I don't think Anne Rice's books are that great.

12. I am a picky eater, but a relatively unsophisticated one.

13. I'm not pregnant, but Kimberly is!!! I am so excited I can barely stand it.

Yay for Trina joining Thursday Thirteen. This list was her suggestion.

And, oh yeah. I am going to try and do NaBloPoMo this year, so be prepared for a lot of inane stuff from me. Haiku about my laundry, that kind of thing.

Thursday Thirteen Jobs I Would Have Had

I know a secret. So there.

I don't have any news on how the inspection went yesterday, because there wasn't an inspection. This is a long and stupid story that I don't have the time or the interest to tell at the moment, but after the inspection (that didn't happen) I went to Sam's Club, and as I was leaving Sam's Club, I got a phone call from a person. That phone call was about a phone call that that person got, and it was good news. Great news, even. This is all a big secret right now, and it's not my secret to tell, but I am happy beyond all comprehension for this person and virtually bubbling over with the news. So, whoever-you-are, let me extend my deepest, most heartfelt public WHOO-HOOOO!!!! on your behalf.

When I was in fourth grade, I wanted to be an actress when I grew up, even though I am not particularly talented in any marketable way. At various other times, I considered other careers, but the only thing I was ever really good at was writing, and so I became a writer. If I hadn't been a writer, here are 13 other things I might have done.

1. Photographer. I started college as a photojournalism student. I would never have made a good photojournalist, because I am fundamentally sort of lazy and lack the technical skills that would make me a good photographer. But I did like the sloshing around in the photo lab and the high of having photos published.

2. Professional athlete. I skied competitively in high school, and considered it as a career option. Unfortunately, I am not all that athletic and I had a tendency to hurt myself a lot.

3. Lawyer. I have a lot of righteous indignation, and one would think that would make people a good lawyer, and probably it does, in part, but that was about as interested as I could force myself to be in a law career.

4. Ski instructor. See number two. It's a great way to spend a winter, but it doesn't pay that well and it's most often coupled with some other occupation, like bartender or phone sex operator, so as to be able to afford to live in a ski resort town.

5. Pastry chef. They have the cushiest job in a restaurant. They come in in the morning, bake a lot of profiteroles and pipe them full of creme anglaise, and leave before the kitchen becomes a teeming hellhole by 4 p.m.

6. Personal chef. This is a really swell gig. A client calls you up, fills out a survey of likes, dislikes, needs, etc., then you come up with a menu, go to their house with groceries and other implements of kitchen destruction, cook their meals, and store in the individual portions. You work when you want to and people with no time to cook get healthy, home-prepared food. Awesome.

7. Bartender. Like Kimberly, I like the idea of someone telling me all their problems while we drink tequila. If therapy were like that, I'd totally be on board.

8. Diabetic educator. I considered this career after I was diagnosed with diabetes at 25. Then I found out that diabetic educators are nurses, and...I'm not so much with the science.

9. Mobility instructor. In college, people used to ask me how Kimberly got around, and in my annoyance at not actually being paid as her official spokesperson, I liked to tell them, "She walks, mostly." The actual answer to this question is that there are people called mobility instructors who help people learn how to get from one place to another. I firmly believe that if my mother had a mobility instructor, she would not give such sucky directions. Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, where I'm from, has one of the only graduate programs for mobility instruction in the country.

10. Technical writer. They are extremely well-paid.

11. Architect. I don't think that I realized how much math was involved.

12. Domestic violence counselor. This was how my righteous indignation translated once I realized that I couldn't be a lawyer without going to law school. I quickly became quite discouraged with the fact that many people who go looking for help from a domestic violence counselor are not looking for the kind of help that a domestic violence counselor can provide.

13. Writer. I am blown away by the fact that I can do what I do for a living. I feel like I'm getting away with something every day that I get to do this. I feel like I'm getting better at what I do all the time, and helping people sort of at the same time. That's quite an endorsement for my line of work, isn't it? "Helping people sort of."

Kimberly and Trina have Thursday Thirteen's up too. Read.

Thursday Thirteen: My Favorite Reads

It was Kimberly's week to pick, but I am so down with this Thursday Thirteen. When I was little, my parents lived in South Haven and worked in Kalamazoo, which meant that we had about an hour commute each way every day. My mother hated the commute (she's always hated driving) and I was little and wanted to be entertained in the car. For obvious reasons, she couldn't read to me while she drove, so I learned to read young. Like, three. I'm still a reader.

In no particular order...

13. Beach Music, by Pat Conroy. This is an unbelievable book by an unbelivable author. It spans 80 years and two continents. Jordan Elliot is maybe one of the most conflicted, audacious, realistic characters I've ever read. I love Pat Conroy and all of his books with a sort of religious ecstacy, and the two times that I've met him, it's been all I could do to not throw my arms around him and kiss him on the mouth. I love everything he's ever written, I love to hear him talk, I love even his memoirs related to food and basketball. I think history will find that he is one of the most talented writers who's ever lived.

12. From Potter's Field, by Patricia Cornwell. Poor Patricia Cornwell. Her Kay Scarpetta novels started out so incredibly promising and with such rich characters. The last few have been such a shadow of their former selves that I didn't even finish the last one, because it seemed so...flat. Like she had a contractual obligation to write it, and couldn't have been more bored with herself. But From Potter's Field, which is about fourth or fifth in the series, was absolutely amazing, scary and gory and full of feeling and emotion.

11. The Tess Monaghan series, by Laura Lippman. Nothing says great writing to me like an author who can truly create a sense of place and time, and nowhere on earth has an inherant sense of place like the city of Baltimore. Washington D.C. is, in so many ways, just another anonymous big city, except for the government stuff and the monuments, but Baltimore, which is less than an hour away, seems to avoid that effortlessly by being dirty and working-class and colorfully eccentric. Laura Lippman's character Tess Monaghan is a former journalist turned private investigator, and Lippman's writing and sense of place in all of these books capture this strange, totally un-city-like city so beautifully.

10. Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I loved this whole series growing up. I just look at the cover, and I'm 11 years old and it's July and I'm lying on the swim float at my grandparents' cottage and reading all day without interruption, until I'm totally sunburned. I would almost want to have a daughter, just so that she could discover these books for herself.

9. Bag of Bones, by Stephen King. I am not a huge fan of a lot of his stuff, I think a lot of it is gratuitously violent and gory, but I will be the first to sing the praises of Stephen King's talent. He does what he does better than really almost anybody except for maybe Edgar Allen Poe. There are elements of his work very well represented here, especially The Telltale Heart. Bag of Bones is probably the best ghost story I've ever read.

8. Anything by Beverly Cleary. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT until Max is old enough to meet Ramona, Beezus, Henry Huggins, Ribsy, Ralph S. Mouse, Mitch and Amy, and everyone else. These were my best friends in childhood. I was much less puzzled by these kids than other kids around me every day, whose behavior was totally unpredictable and therefore kind of terrifying to me.

7. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I went a small, fairly progressive non-parochial private school for elementary and junior high school, but in the public schools in our community at that point, there was a real move to get rid of a lot of "questionable" literature. My wonderful genius of an English teacher, the late Rosalie Blanks, was extremely disturbed by this movement, and since she realized most, if not all of us, would be entering public schools and what we would be exposed to would be limited by the short-sighted nature of who was designing the public school curricula at the time, she exposed us to a lot of this questionable literature. I was in the seventh grade when I read To Kill A Mockingbird, and thanks to Mrs. Blanks, I fell in love with these rich, amazing characters, this almost gothic deep-south, and the theme of dignity and self-respect in dark and unexpected places.

6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. I think that the Harry Potter series will eventually be regarded as more than just fantasy, but as important in the coming-of-age genre of literature as Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, and Empire of the Sun. This is by far my favorite in the series. I've read it twice since it came out in July, and it's moving and sweet and suspenseful and just takes you away like not many books can do. I am so sad that the series is over. What an achievement this series is.

5. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I am no fan of Oprah or her book club (Oh Oprah, thank you so much for introducing the ignorant, nose-picking morons of the world to literature. I actually read BEFORE you made it cool, but whatever. You're the coolest.) but I loved Barbara Kingsolver as soon as Taylor Greer assumed responsibility for an abused, molested toddler who was abandoned like an unwanted kitten, and then fought to keep her, in The Bean Trees. The Poisonwood Bible is just lovely--it takes place in the Congo, and beautifully symbolizes the imbalance of power in relationships between people and the marks that it leaves.

4. Waltzing The Cat by Pam Houston. I am a little bit in awe of how incredibly cool Pam Houston and her characters are. We're talking about whitewater river guides, professional photographers, and hunting guides. She writes mostly short stories, with a book of essays and a novel thrown in. I love Waltzing the Cat, because there's a fantasy at the end of the book where the main character, a photographer, meets herself as a child, and the child-her shows the grownup-her a bunch of photos of herself at formative moments throughout her childhood, and tells her what the "real" story behind the photos is. This is only one brilliant moment in this overwhelmingly brilliant book.

3. White Oleander by Janet Fitch. More Oprah and her book club. Gorgeous writing in a heartbreaking story. I just ached through this entire book--for poor, unloved Astrid, for insecure Claire wearing all her feelings on the outside of her skin, for Paul, who is so normal and unscraped-away-at despite everything, and in the end, when Ingrid finally shows some real love for Astrid and allows her to break away, it's like the sun finally breaking through the clouds.

2. Running With Sicssors by Augusten Burrows. I never thought that I could laugh so hard at anything as awful and sad as this book is. It's a memoir of how a kid is abandoned by his thoroughly batshit mother to live with her psychiatrist and his family, and the incredibly high level of dysfunction that passes for normal in their house, including his sexual relationship with a gay pedophile, and how he finally breaks away. The family of the psychiatrist evidently recently settled a lawsuit with Burrows in regards to his portrayal of his experiences with them, according to his blog. I also highly recommend Burrows' followup, Dry, in which he is nearly fired from his six-figure job at an advertising agency due to raging alcoholism and drug abuse, goes to rehab, falls in love with a crack addict, relapses, loses his best friend to AIDS, and recovers again. Again, how could this POSSIBLY be funny? I don't know, but it is.

1. Empire Falls by Richard Russo. I am so late to the party with this, but I don't care. This was a fabulous story, told brilliantly, with such sympathetic and richly-drawn and complicated characters. I also saw the HBO miniseries, and it only really helped cement Phillip Seymour Hoffman's spot on my Celebrity Hump Island.

Thursday Thirteen: Songs I Can't Get Out Of My Head

I realized that I've been listening to the same playlist on my IPod for about three weeks. Interestingly, all of these are women, which is not to say that all I listen to are women. Although I guess in this case, they are all women. In honor of that, here's my Thursday Thirteen.

1. "Strange Thing" by Sophie B. Hawkins. There's something haunting about her voice, which can be either hauntingly sweet or brutal. I think she's a perfectly lovely and often overlooked artist.

2. "Get Out The Map" by The Indigo Girls. I am almost always listening to at least one song by the Indigo Girls. My friend Ryan was in town this last weekend--I think I may have mentioned that--and this song always makes me think of him.

3. "Get Ur Freak On" by Missy Elliot. I walk to my office from the Metro with this song playing. It's bouncy.

4. "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" by Kylie Minogue. Ibid from number 3. It's good walking-fast music.

5. "True Believer" by Mary Beth Maziarz. Two friends of mine got engaged last weekend, and so I've been thinking about weddings, and marriage, and that actually probably explains the sappy, soppy nature of my last few posts.

6. "Fidelity" by Regina Spektor. I'm liking her more than I did when I bought the CD, which took me a little time to warm up to.

7. "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. A good way to start a day as a writer / editor.

8. "You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse. I listen to the remix with Ghostface Killa in the bridge. I don't know whether to cry in my sambuca or shoot whitey.

9. "Uncle John's Band" by the Indigo Girls, again. This is an old Grateful Dead song that never fails to remind me of good weather, beers, and seeing a concert in a condition that will almost certainly lead to mindless consumption of a large quantity of guacamole at some point.

10. "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell. It reminds me of that otherwise completely lame movie "You've Got Mail," where Tom Hanks asks Meg Ryan, "'It's clouds' illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.' What does that mean? Is she taking flying lessons?"

11. "Army of Me" by Bjork. I love Bjork. She's such a weirdo.

12. "Roads" by Portishead. This whole album was great, but for some reason, I only have this song on my Ipod.

13. "Sleep to Dream" by Fiona Apple. Same thing as Portishead--great album, most of it mysteriously absent.

Hey, Washington D.C.! I'm gonna be on the news! Talking about foreclosure like I just walked in here off the street, when really I talk about foreclosure for a living! I think I used the word disadventagious twice in my interview, whereas I only referred to subprime lenders as "jackals" once. BOY am I awesome at my job!!

Thursday Thirteen: Baby Names I'd Consider

Gee, it's been all of maybe a week since I mentioned the fact that I'm not pregnant yet. You guys thought maybe you were off the hook, right? Sorry.



I spend a lot of time thinking about hypothetical names for babies I might have. It started back when my stepbrother and his wife had their second child, a boy, and gave him the middle name Mars. When my mother told me that, I said, "Mars?"



"Yes," she said. "Like the God of War."



"Or like the candy bar," I said.



This was my thought: you've got nine whole months to be thinking ahead. Why would you be put on the spot at the very end and name your kid after a candy bar? Trina seems to have infected me with her angst about asinine spellings of names, usually names that should never have been considered to begin with. Mykayla Trynyty, and all.



So, in honor of not being pregnant and Thursday Thirteen, I present Thirteen Baby Names I'd Consider.



1. Tyler. Old English, means "Tiler of roofs." Whatever. I'm not that hung up on the meaning. The website I consulted says that this is a unisex name, but I don't see naming a girl Tyler.



2. Camille. Latin, means "Attendant at a Religious Service." I think this is a cute, very feminine name for a girl.



3. Evan. Welsh, a shortened form of John. Reminds me of a guy I had a crush on in high school. Dreamy, with beautiful eyes.



4. Allison. Old German, means "noble, truth." I love the Elvis Costello song called "Allison." I'm not sure if that's a good reason to name a baby Allison, but I was always sad as a kid that there was never anything with my name on it. This lucky kid gets her own song.



5. Jackson. Here's the problem with it though: it is so ridiculously trendy now, I would kick myself forever for naming a baby Jackson, and ensuring that he would be one of about eleven Jacksons in his preschool class. It works with our last name though.



6. Lucy. One of my favorite names forever, since Lucy Van Pelt in "Peanuts." There's a character named Lucy in a series of books that I used to like a lot but has gone downhill a lot in past years.



7. Luke. Greek, means "From Luciana," which our kid clearly would not be. Luke is the name of one of my favorite characters in all of literature, Luke Wingo from "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy. Max came dangerously close to being Luke, and when I met Pat Conroy at a book signing a couple of years ago and he was goo-gooing my son, I told him that. He told me that he hears that a lot, that and Savannah, who is Luke's sister in the book.



8. Ella. Speaking of things that Max almost was, if he'd been a girl, he would have been Ella instead of Maxwell. My grandmother, who died just after I found out I was pregnant, was named Luella, which is just a little too much name for a baby. If we had a girl, this is probably what we'd go with.



9. Beckett. Dan is not down with Beckett. He thinks it sounds San Francisco Post-Modernist Asshole. I don't personally think there's anything wrong with San Francisco Post-Modernist Asshole, but, as he points out, it's not really who we are. Nevertheless, I am currently obsessed with Beckett.



10. Megan. Greek, means "pearl." Again, this is not one that Dan is on board with. He knew a Megan when he was in college and thought she was a big S&M freak. I guess she's a real estate agent now, though, which just goes to show that you can raise a big S&M freak and she'll eventually turn out okay.



11. Owen. Welsh, means "well born." I am not sure why I like this name, but I think it goes well with our last name and it just sounds like a good little-brother name.



12. Kate. This is so old-fashioned and simple, and still so girly-sounding. Kate is the girl who always has her hair in a ponytail and multi-tasks well. Everyone likes that about Kate.



13. Wyatt. Nobody thinks this is a good name but me. I think it is a total rock star of a name.



Make sure you go check out Kimberly's Thursday Thirteen. Next week is her turn to choose.

Thursday Thirteen: Fall

Kimberly, also known as God(ess)mama, at least to me, must have gotten up good and early to write this blog this morning. I love it, though, and I would consider making "Thursday Thirteen" lists a regular feature in conjunction with Kimberly. This is something we'd talked about in the past--a blogging partnership of sorts. I'm up for it if she is.

Thirteen things I love about fall

1. Turning off the air conditioner. Being a quarter Dutch, I am cheap, and the arrival of the electric bills from May until September generally leaves me in tears.

2. The changing leaves. In Michigan, fall tended to be gray and drizzly, and as a result, not that appealing. Here, we get lots of bright autumn leaves against blue skies.

3. Halloween. This year, we're dressing Max up as a dragon, and he's almost as cute as last year, when we dressed him as a cow, or the year before, when he was a lobster.

4. Fall clothes. Hoodies, scarves, big thick socks (only in neutral colors, please; I hate few things more than I hate colored socks), and sweaters all come out of hibernation.

5. Fall farmer's markets. One of the vendors at Eastern Market sells hot apple cider on the weekends in the fall. I shouldn't have it, it's LOADED with sugar and I always have to take some extra insulin with it, but it's so worth it. I also am a big fan of the market in St. Mary's County. This particular one is weird enough to be the topic of its own blog.

6. Out with the Pinot Grigio, in with the Barolo. Somehow big, oaky red wines just aren't that appealing when it's 106 degrees outside.

7. High school football games. My husband's school happens to be the State Champion in their division.

8. The World Series. The Nationals are a million miles out of it, but the Cubs are playing pretty well, so this could be a good year. Last year, when Detroit was winning, was pretty great too.

9. God(ess)mama and God(ess)dad are coming! Later this month for her twice-a-year check-out at the NIH. Is it true they x-rayed your head and found nothing, Kimberly? Ho ho ho. Also coming in the next month: my mother, who will do all our laundry and get up with Max every morning, feed us, and make a lot of unnecessary impulse purchases on our behalf; my friend Ryan and his person, Jamie (what do I call him? Partner? Boyfriend? Lover? Husband? Ten years with a gay friend and I still am not sure what won't make everybody totally uncomfortable); and my in-laws, who...well, they'll probably drive me crazy, but whatever.

11. Fall cooking. Chili, Belgian beef stew with onions and beer, mushroom soup, chicken and homemade noodles...time to fire up the crock pot.

12. Tourist season is almost over. I have become such a Washingtonian; I am just filled with rage when I hear some boob from Kenosha telling her kids, "Look! There's the Lincoln Memorial. That's where Lincoln was shot!" It used to be funny, now I just wish they'd get out of my way.

13. There is just something about knowing that the hottest, most uncomfortable, most inconvenient season of the year is over, and things like Christmas, my birthday, and New Year's are coming. There's not a whole lot of anticipation for me in the spring, knowing it's about to get hot and uncomfortable and everything is about to be a whole lot more hassle. I am just a October-through-April kind of girl, I guess.

That's my Thursday Thirteen. Feel free to do your own, and link to me, or send me a link, or leave a link in the comments. Peace out.