John Green, Veronica Roth, and Me

In the midst of a melancholy Friday, I decided to begin reading a young adult novel I had downloaded while in California over the holidays. Typically I don't read during the day, since I want to stay focused on the tasks at hand around the house. However, on Friday I read in between talking with the children, eating lunch at McDonald's just to get out of the house, and waiting for Caleb to come home from work.

I finished the entire book in less than 12 hours. Normally, I would be impressed with myself and brag about it to anyone who would listen. At least, that's what happened when I beat Bobby Wilson in a Goosebumps reading challenge in elementary school. 

Once I got to the end of my sad-day book, though, I couldn't push out the thoughts the story churned up in order to let the self-congratulation through. What I'd read was The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green; it's a novel following the lives of several teenagers fighting cancer, but more specifically, it's about two teens who love each other knowing there will be a tragic end. Probably not the best book to read when one's already having a gloomy day.

I decided to distract myself from the lingering feelings by starting up another book I had wanted to read. This time, Divergent by Veronica Roth; hardcore battles and self-discovery were what I thought loomed in front of me. I should have known that there was going to be a love story, but I thought it would take a backseat to all of the political dealings I'd heard populated the story. 

Divergent, Insurgent, and half of Allegiant later, I realized that I was wrong. Reading almost all of a trilogy in 48 hours is not something I have done in a long time, and I had forgotten how emotionally draining it can be. Veronica Roth did a great job of making the world of the books extremely vivid. But, I closed Allegiant midway through because I couldn't watch anymore people die. Even fictional violence sticks on my bones too much.

I tell you all of that to tell you this:

I participated in National Novel Writing Month last November, and I only made it 15,500 words into the 50,000 word challenge. Still, I was pleased with my work and decided to let it rest while I was in California. I read it today for the first time in two months, trying to get the emotions of John Green's and Veronica Roth's characters out of my head. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how well my story and characters stood up. My plot may be loose and have far fewer twists than the Divergent trilogy. My secondary cast doesn't have the zing of John Green's. But for a first time fiction writer, I didn't completely screw things up. 

Slowly but surely, I am beginning to appreciate that I have something to contribute. Maybe I'll actually live up to that something soon.

Another "Don't Do It" from the Holly Playbook—Love Poetry Edition

When I was fifteen, I was pursued by a boy for the first time ever.

After not too long, things ended the way they usually do when you are fifteen and in like.

He asked me to kiss him, and I said no; although, for years my mother thought I'd said yes.

I recall the brightly-lit desk in my English class where I happened upon what I thought was the most perfect poem for that time in his and my life. My textbook was filled with poems, but this was the one that I had wantonly opened to; at the time, I thought it was fate. And now I look back, and I am able to view it as a timely coincidence. Most of my teenagehood was both timely and coincidence.

The poem stood so boldly off the page that I almost ripped it out of the book. My mistaken visual memory of this page is essentially what an illuminated manuscript looks like behind a pane of glass—golden, shimmering, sacred. Instead of defacing school property, I chose to spend that class period copying it with pencil on college-ruled paper. I accompanied the poem with a small note for that boy which read something like, "I thought this might be useful to you since we aren't together any longer."

I'm sure I worded it much more soothingly, but the essential message was, "WE BROKE UP. I BET YOU ARE SAD." This note got to him somehow, probably through me brazenly handing it to him with nary a smile. I can't remember his reaction to it. I bet he does, however.

I look back on this time as a teaching moment for my kids when they begin to have romantic feelings for someone or try to end a relationship. Assumptions about the other person's feelings are so dangerous and tenuous that you might end up looking foolish trying to grasp at them. And trying to assuage someone's feelings of anger or hurt that you caused them can feel like a dismissive pat on the head. The things going through other people's heads are none of your business—don't White Knight something that might not be there.

The poem, by recently-exhumed poet Pablo Neruda, is still quite beautiful, though.

I Can Write

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and forgetting so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Snapshots

On my playlist: The Sound of Music soundtrack that I got from my in-laws in February. So many of those songs are resonating with me recently!

On my plate: Whatever the heck I want. I have come to the (sad) conclusion recently that I don't care what I look like anymore and I am resigned to being the stereotypical frumpy stay-at-home mom. I don't have the mental energy I would need to give myself to make big changes in my health; I am spread too thin giving that mental energy to others.

On my reading list: I am currently reading "Furious Love," a non-fiction book about the love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The passion and opulence that surrounded their relationship is fascinating to me!

On my TV: The kids and I have been watching Spiderman: The '67 Collection on Netflix Instant, but I have been wishing that I could watch So You Think You Can Dance every day and night. Such a great show!

On my wishlist: Wishing my sister Kellie a quick recovery; on her first day of her Utah vacation earlier this week, she broke her ankle in three places. Her friend Emily drove her back down to California, where Kell had a plate and seven screws put in during surgery. Whoa!

On my mind: My file folder of angsty teenage poetry that I found while I was in California; for some reason, I printed off each poem and tucked them away just in case I decided to delete them off my computer. The foresight I had back then was awesome, since I totally DID delete them and regretted it ever since. I am trying to decide how to share them with you—you will love/hate them all!

Thanks to Vanessa at Little Gray Pixel for the Snapshots idea.

Pro Tip: How to Sleep

Please don't tell my mom that I drink Diet Coke.

My mom isn't keen on caffeine, and while I am a grown-up, I love my mom and I wouldn't do anything to intentionally hurt her.

But I need to tell you that I sometimes drink Diet Coke, so you'll understand my situation.

When I can't sleep because I have had too much caffeine, I have found that only one form of relaxation works for me.

Counting sheep? No. Saying prayers? Not really. Mindlessly watching informercials? Nah.

I recount each detail of my favorite books and movies to myself.

The stories that I know backwards and forwards (Gone With the Wind, You've Got Mail, Atlas Shrugged, etc.) are extremely soothing to me. The burning of Atlanta isn't as traumatic when you encounter it for the umpteenth time, you know?

I usually lay in bed with my eyes closed, and I start at the beginning of whichever story I want. I describe the setting, the costumes, the tone—sometimes even the Technicolor gets a nod in my description. Summoning up these details does not activate my brain into alertness because all of them come so naturally to me; the benefit of seeing a movie a thousand times is that the images and words are seared into your mind.

The retelling of the particular tale goes on until I doze off. If I can't sleep for several nights in a row, I pick up where I left off the night before. 

The rise and fall of the characters' emotions, as well as the fictional situations they find themselves in, help my brain focus on something other than myself. If I am awake with worry, I can instead recall Joe Fox's hurting desire to reveal his true identity to Kathleen Kelly; even though I'm still dealing in a sad emotion, I know how his story ends. If my brain is racing with my to-do list for the next day, I instead zone out by listing all of the roadblocks between Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson in From Justin to Kelly.

Fiction is a beautiful escape, no matter what time of day it is or how much caffeine is coursing through your veins.

My parents taught me that things always look and feel worse in the middle of the night. I agree, which is why I have adopted this method of getting myself to sleep. I leave the problem-solving for the daylight hours.

We still can't agree on drinking cola, though.

You can't win 'em all.

I Love Books With Homework

My father is a public school teacher; he did his student teaching at the high school my sisters and I graduated from, and has been a fantastic mentor to kids 12-18 by teaching at the middle school and high school levels.

Anecdote:
When my dad was student teaching at Redlands High School, he was consistently harassed by hall monitors for "skipping class," due to his young-looking face and physique. His mentor teacher ending up having to give him a hall pass to carry around, just so he could get home to his pregnant-with-me wife at the end of the day.

Because I have always been surrounded by it, I have always had a soft spot for homework. In fact, while my dad was grading papers at night, I would ask my mom to give me some homework to do. She would set up writing and addition homework, and I would go to town. This continued until I actually was in school, where I received real homework.

I followed that path and worked rigorously all the way through high school, putting myself through the wringer academically and liking it. College, maybe not so rigorously, but I like to think that I'm still a smart dude. I am always pushing myself to learn and grow.

I picked up Jillian Michaels' most recent book, Unlimited at the library, and I was thrilled to see that at the end of each chapter, there were exercises to help cement the chapter's lessons. The book is not about weight loss encouragement; the main gist of the book is about pushing yourself past your limits to achieving any dream that you might have. The first part of the book even helps you decide what your dreams might be, if you aren't feeling particularly passionate about anything at the moment. I realized that I love writing, girl power, and leading people—I now have so many dreams that put all of those things together!

Another part of the book deals with discovering your personal roadblocks and overcoming them. A homework portion at the end of one chapter leads you through an exercise regarding people who make you seethe, and why their attributes anger you so much. I read this chapter when everyone else in the house was asleep, so I was alone; I was kind of going along with the exercises, when I had an epiphany that reduced me to tears. I am not going to share it as it's a tad personal, but putting together all of the pieces that Jillian parsed out has truly changed my life. I can be more tolerant of behavior I dislike because now I know why I dislike it, instead of falling back on "It just bothers me!"

Sure, I am also going to use the techniques in this book to excise myself of my body issues, but I know that these strategies goes way beyond weight loss. There is no use in making myself healthier if I am not going to spruce up my life all around. I know that my full potential includes feeling good about myself on the outside AND the inside.

If you missed Amy's Onward and Upward session, you may want to supplement with this book until the next one rolls around. Both deal with finding your life's work, your true happiness, and working hard to achieve your craziest dreams.

Tilt: A (Someday) Novel

Every November since I found out about it, I have aspired to participate in National Novel Writing Month. That makes six years of lofty goals that have flickered out into half-written "fiction" novels about whatever was going on with me that year—weight loss, adjusting to marriage, finding yourself while being a new mother. This year, I even chucked the idea of writing fiction and told myself that I was allowed to write a tiny memoir. No results.

But I had these writing dreams even before I knew about NaNoWriMo. While digging around my Love Notes folder, I found a few over-sized note cards tucked into the back flap. After checking them out, I realized that they were outlines for a novel I started writing in my freshman year of college. I had named it "Tilt: A Novel."

My whole world changed when I moved to college; my first relationship was over, I was living in a new place which I had never done before (thanks, living in the same place for my whole life!), and I was flailing around frantically academically-speaking. I thought that setting all of that in a fictional world would make it hurt less.

Each character was an amalgamation of myself and my friends; you can see in my character notes that some people are described as "Cole-esque" or "Cora-esque." I find the people in my life to be extremely inspiring, artistically, so it's no wonder that I would incorporate them in my writing. At the time, I also found everyone I knew to be incredibly complex and twisted, even if they weren't. Thus is the life of an 18-year-old.

Looking over these notes might have made me cringe at my former self, but I actually was invigorated. I think I may chase after this dream once again, even though it's mid-November and I would have no chance of finishing it in time to claim the NaNoWriMo prize.

And on a seemingly-unrelated note, I found this card with the others and think the musings are extremely cryptic. Apparently it's a list about myself.

My friend Olivia introduced a love of cheeseburgers into my life, so the first bullet point is a gimme. The others are mysterious though: what kind of art did I want to do, who was this boy, and to whom was the "starting over and over" open letter?

The final point makes the most sense, though. I am positive that wherever I wrote this card, it smelled like fart. End of discussion.

Do you consider yourself a writer?

 Is there another artistic endeavor that you've always dreamed of doing, but haven't?

The Happiness Project & Me

On a girls' night out with my friend Emily, I came across a book by Gretchen Rubin called The Happiness Project. The cover is beautiful to me, and the message seemed to be calling out to me--

Adding happiness to an already-happy life is possible. Being happier is within reach.

The whole book is incredible and accessible; Gretchen is a parent, a writer, a wife, and a friend. Her life is similar to mine, so I knew that if I tried to follow her lead, I could be successful. For a year, she utilized such devices as singing, decluttering, and socializing to make her life and the lives of those around her more positive. As someone who is constantly striving to purge herself of her nastiness (inside and out!), I swallowed this book in whole chunks--I should go back and reread it!

I know I am late to the party, since this book was on the New York Times bestseller list, but maybe you are, too. Maybe you could benefit from looking at life realistically and asking yourself how you can be happier. And maybe you would enjoy just reading a great book with an interesting heroine. I read my book on my Kindle for iPhone app, but it's also available on amazon.com.

Gretchen has many "commandments" and "truths" that guided her project, and the first is:

To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. 

In the back of her book, she suggests some thought points to get you started on your own happiness project. Here they are below; I have been pondering them for a few days and I think I am getting brave enough to give myself some answers.

1. What makes you feel good? What activities do you find fun, energizing, and satisfying?
2. What makes you feel bad? What are sources of anger, irritation, boredom, frustration, or anxiety in your life?
3. Is there any way in which you don't feel right about your life? Do you wish you could change your job, city, family situation, or other circumstances? Are you living up to your expectations for yourself? Does your life reflect your values?
4. Do you have sources of an atmosphere of growth? In what elements of your life do you find progress, learning, challenge, improvement, and increased mastery?

Does this speak to you?

Inspiration Strikes: Eight Things... Moleskine

I have been reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume One, and I have been impressed with how deeply he wanted to portray the people in his life with absolute clarity. He wanted to show the good, the bad, and the ugly--even if it meant that a bit of that bad and ugly reflected on him, too.

I tell you that to tell you this:

Last night, I dreamed that a boy I admired in high school kept a small Moleskine journal that was made for one specific purpose; he labeled each page "Eight Things About..." and added a person's name, then listed observations about that person. Because each entry was dated, it was simply a snapshot of that person at the time. There weren't any sweeping generalizations about the person's character or assumptions about their motives. His descriptions were almost tangible in how present they were; reading the eight bullet points evoked the feeling of a living, breathing environment of one specific moment in time.

Of course, his portrait of me described how in love with me he was in high school, blah blah blah. Dream stuff, you know.

But, I think Ima get me a pocket-sized Moleskine and start doing some small writing-portraits of the people I know. In real life. Don't be afraid of becoming a target of intense scrutiny if you know me. If anything, be afraid of alien invasion.

Pop Culture Loves

There have been a plethora of great things about having a newborn baby, but one of the best things has been my rekindled love of my Pop Culture time. Because I'm now splitting time between two, tiny, needy individuals, the time I have to check out my favorite TV shows, websites, and YouTube clips has been upgraded to official unwinding status.

Not having anyone to hang out with me at the hospital for most of my recovery time, I was able to delve into a few treasures I'd been saving up for a few months.

The first was Kanye West's new album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (edited, of course!). Though it may seem that I'm a little fanatical when I say this, I was determined to listen to the entire album all the way through on the first time.

My favorite songs were "Power" and "Monster," though I thought the whole thing was fantastic. I'd like to say that there was definitely a benefit to enjoying the album as it was put together, but maybe I was a bit maniacal in waiting so long to enjoy this CD.

I also plowed through a pop culture podcast called Extra Hot Great, which covers the gamut of television, movies, music, and other cultural ephemera with a twist -- these people actually know what they're talking about. Tara Ariano, David Cole, and Joe Reid work for or formerly worked for Television Without Pity and I was looking for a way to reconnect with their smarts and snark. My favorite podcast out of the bunch featured Mark Blankenship, of one of my favorite websites The Critical Condition, waxing poetic about the best music of 2010. This podcast makes me wish that I had a commute to a non-existent job every day, so I could focus on one thing for an hour. Instead, I guess I'll have to wait until I'm checked into a hospital again for delivering another baby or some flesh-eating bacteria.

And since I've been home from the hospital, I've been ingesting my pop culture in small bites, which is why I've been digging on blogs that give me a lot of bang for my few seconds of time.

I have been lucky to know so many talented people in my life, not the least of which is my favorite Josh of all Joshes, Josh Lehrman. Not only is he involved in the movie/TV industry, he is a stand-up comedian in the southern California area. He is going to incredibly detest that I'm linking to his (curse-laden) website, but It's True Because It's Funny is perfect for late-night feedings: entertaining, reads well on an iPod Touch, and makes me remember all of the times I wished I was as funny and smart as my friend Josh. And seriously, the cursing on this site is not for the faint of heart.

Though I do not consider myself creative in any way, I still like to dream that, if given an unlimited budget, I'd be able to give my home a makeover of epic proportions. Apartment Therapy helps me to live vicariously through the home decor-minded people who are featured there. This photo to the left portrays an attic that I have oogled and drooled over more times than I'd like to admit. I wish I had the smarts when I downloaded the picture to grab a link to the actual house it's from, but I don't. Getting sources is definitely a goal on my to-do list.

On a nerdy note, when the Autobiography of Mark Twain was announced for publication, I geeked out and dreamed of reading it all in one sitting. On Christmas morning, my father opened a box that contained that book and I realized that my dream was futile. That book is not kidding around -- it's huge! I'm hoping that when I get my hands on it someday, I'll be able to a) pick it up with my feeble muscles, b) finish it, and c) not embarrass myself by dropping constant Twain quotations in everyday conversations.

And I couldn't forgive myself if I let my mom miss this YouTube clip of her favorite Josh, Josh Groban, satirizing her least favorite celebrity, Kanye West, and his Twitter account. Come on, Mom, if Josh Groban can have a sense of humor about Kanye, you can at least give him a shot, right? No? Oh, well, then....

I'm so Gangster, You're so Thug

Sometimes I circle and circle around the internet, trying to find something new to read. This happens at night, usually, as I have perused all of my daily website haunts throughout the day. When I was younger, this usually resulted in me picking up a good book and turning off the dial-up. But now, after having a child, I find that books are quite daunting to me.

My favorite cousin Cari let me borrow her Beatles biography on Sunday. I didn't realize how gargantuan it was until I plopped it into my lap on Monday evening. If I'm intimidated by the wonderful book written by my favorite contemporary author Pamela Ribon, which is substantially smaller than the tome about the boys from Liverpool, then I must be hiding under my bed at the sight of this book. You see, it's hard to focus on long projects knowing that at any moment, a cry could arise from the adjoining room and the reading flow you were cruising with must take a back seat. Again. I hope I'm not the only parent that thinks this.

If I could get more writing by the two people who I have linked above, then I wouldn't have to face my fears and touch eyes to paper. I love the internet.

(P.S. I still love books, too!)