On slowing down and getting inked

Life has a funny way of forcing us to slow down sometimes -- usually when we most believe we can't slow down. We subscribe to this idea that we are the glue holding the universe together, and if we stop to rest, or stop to breathe, or stop to clean the bathroom or read a book or think a thought, then everything will just come crashing right down. I remember this brilliant, fever-induced moment of clarity I had in college. I had a terrible sinus infection, and I couldn't breathe and I couldn't sleep and my face just hurt and I was coughing all the time and I was exhausted and achy -- and I didn't care about anything. I stopped being stressed out about the papers I had to write and the music I had to practice; it was all drowned in a fog of Nyquil-induced apathy (with possibly a hallucination or two thrown in for good measure). I had another such moment a few years later, during my first year of teaching. I had called in sick for the first time, and after two days of lying miserably on my couch, I hauled myself back to work -- despite the fact that I felt worse, not better. I was consumed with guilt over taking any time "off," as if I didn't deserve it as a first-year teacher, as if I had to "earn" it somehow. So I went back, and by lunchtime, I had completely lost my voice. My department head kindly asked what the hell I was doing at school anyway, and I was all, "I have to be here!" And she rolled her eyes and informed me that they'd all managed to keep the school running without me before and they could surely manage for another day or two. I went back to bed for two more days. I still try to remember that little lesson every time I agonize over whether or not I should take a day when I really need to.

Of course, one of the many blessings (and curses, I suppose) of having children is that they force you to learn that kind of lesson. When one of my children is sick, I really don't have a choice about whether or not to stay home with them. Right now, my little man has been battling The Crud for a couple of weeks, and today when I went to pick him up after school, he was significantly miserable -- running a fever (which means I do have to stay home with him tomorrow) and coughing, rivers of snot pouring from his nose. We just started a new semester today and it is definitely not the most convenient time for me to stay home. However, I don't have a choice. I'm not new to this; I had to give up my attachment to "saving up" my sick days when Suzannah was this age, because obviously, my kids come first whether it's convenient or not. I realized early-on that I could either stress out about this (because we have things to cover at school! Because a sub can't teach my kids what they need to know! Because they will talk the whole time and not get anything done!) or I could just roll with it.

As much as I aspire to be a person who just rolls with it, it continues to be a struggle. I am who I am. Still, there is that moment of surrender -- the situation is what it is, and I have to deal with it. I will be home with Isaac tomorrow, and I will lose another sick day, but the world will go on, and even if my students spend the entire day talking and throwing little paper balls at each other and then complain, upon my return, that the sub was "weird" and so they somehow could not work, we'll all be okay in the end. In the meantime, I will rock my baby boy to sleep and hope his fever breaks soon, which really shoves everything else into a far less important background.

In other news: I did it! I got my tattoo! And I love, love, love it. It exceeded all of my expectations, and it's definitely so much more amazing than whatever vague ideas I had when I decided forever ago that I wanted to do this in the first place. I knew it would be good, because I've seen lots of this particular artist's work, but when she finished up on my ankle I was more than a little bit in love with her. (For the record, all credit goes to Suzy at Two Birds Tattoo. What a fantastic place.)



The pain was totally manageable. Everyone said that it would hurt more directly over the ankle bone, and they were right -- but still, not bad at all. Kyanne hung out with me while I got it, and I didn't ever have to frantically grab her hand or anything -- we just chatted for the entire time I was on the table. (This little beauty took a little over an hour-and-a-half.) Today, it feels a little like a bad sunburn, which is actually more unpleasant than the actual process itself. Which is to say, more than worth it. Worth the wait, worth the pain, worth every penny.

Today, one of my students asked if I'd had a good weekend.

"I had a great weekend," I said. "I got a tattoo."

"You're LYING!"

"Nope. I really did!"

He hesitated for a second. "I kind of want to ask where you got it," he said. "But -- I don't know, is that okay? Is it, like -- where -- where is it?"

So I rolled up my pants and showed him (because, yes, I want to show everyone. Because it is awesome). He grinned. "That is tight," he said.

And it is. And I'm maybe just the tiniest bit happy to stay home tomorrow so that I can stare at it as much as I want to.

Moments

Sunday nights can be difficult for me. Actually, Sunday night starts sometime during Sunday afternoon, when my defenses are low and my kitchen feels a little too chaotic because we left our coffee mugs and breakfast dishes strewn across the counter before we left for church and didn't have time to clean it all up before our children begin clamoring for lunch. And then I think about everything that needs to happen before we dive back into our weekday morning routines: the diapers need to be washed, the kids' clothes need to be removed from the dryer and put away, the kitchen needs to have some kind of semblance of order restored to it, groceries need to be purchased, meals need to be planned, lessons need to be planned, papers need to be graded.

It all adds up to this: I really just want to take a nap. It doesn't matter how rested I am; as soon as I nurse Isaac down for his afternoon nap, all I want to do is curl up on the couch in the semi-darkness of the living room, listen to the soothing hum of the dishwasher, and take a break from my own head.

"I just want, like, a little power nap," I say to Matt.

"Which means what, exactly?" he asks.

"Wake me up in twenty minutes."

"But you really want an hour."

"Maybe thirty minutes."

"Thirty for real? Or are you going to argue with me when I come and wake you up in thirty minutes?"

"Well...I might not fall asleep right away."

"So I'll come and get you up in an hour, then."

(We have some variation of this conversation almost every time I try to take a nap. This hasn't changed in over eight years of marriage.)

I'm in a pretty good headspace today, though. Part of it is probably due to the nap, which was delicious (and more than makes up for the fact that it's been awhile since I've had a good one; I desperately wanted one last Sunday, but my children didn't cooperate, and that affected my attitude more than I wanted it to). And part of it is that I was determined to compartmentalize the things that were stressing me out -- just put them down for awhile. I left all of my grading at school, had a great and productive after-school/evening lesson-planning session with my friend Becca on Friday (with sushi!), and had a pretty peaceful weekend. Not necessarily in the sense that we weren't doing things -- yesterday we were on-the-go for most of the day -- but in the sense that I was happy to just be. Things were good.

Yesterday afternoon I headed down to Tacoma with the kiddos for a play date with Patti and our friends Kathy and Alisia and Alisia's beautiful daughter Anaiyah. Anaiyah was born about five weeks before Isaac at the Lakeside Birth Center, and Patti was Alisia's doula as well -- yet another way in which that evening in September of 2009 when we decided to have Patti at our birth continues to bless our lives; we never could have anticipated the connections and friendships that have grown up out of that moment. Anyway, the afternoon was so great -- Suzannah played hard, and Isaac and Anaiyah were adorable together, and we all laughed and talked and enjoyed a few great hours before I realized that it was getting dark and Isaac was falling asleep in Alisia's arms. I left feeling so centered, refreshed, recharged.

This morning we all slept a little late; Suzannah seemed to be feeling a little under-the-weather and I wasn't sure we'd be up for church with her or not. But she seemed cheerful and eager for Sunday School when she woke up, so we headed on in. Sometimes going to church feels a little like writing practice or working out; I often don't really feel like it, but then I do it anyway, and I am never, ever sorry. Today during communion I found myself thinking about Lauren F. Winner's memoir, Girl Meets God, her story of her conversion from Judaism to Christianity. She writes:

I have never, not once, felt anything at the Eucharist. Not a thing. I have never felt stirred, or joyful, or peaceful, or sad. I have never felt closeness. I have never felt God at the communion rail. Steven once sad that after receiving communion, he felt woozy, as if he'd drunk two bottles of magic wine, not just one tiny sip; but I have never felt woozy.

I keep hoping one day that God will give me some feeling at communion. In the meantime, I figure He is helping me become something else. He is calling me to know Him in the Eucharist even though I don't feel Him there. He is calling me to a place where He is truer than everything else, truer even than how I feel.

I don't know if I always feel something at communion, either, but it seems I'm less likely if I try to conjure it. And then sometimes I'm moved to tears, and I couldn't begin to explain exactly why. I just continue to show up, and trust that God will meet me there. Today, though, I did feel peaceful. And stirred, I suppose. Mostly, I felt the unmistakable sense that I was home, and that everything was okay.

When I was younger, I had this very generic prayer that would run through my head all the time: Please, God, just let everything be okay. It wasn't exactly the same thing as "praying without ceasing," but at a certain time in my life it was about as close as I came. And then, maybe on the flip side of that, I remember very specific moments in which I have felt that everything would, in fact, be okay. Or that I was okay in that moment, and that was enough. It was almost like hearing a whisper in my ear, the actual words: Everything is okay. It's what I felt this morning, just sitting there, just being.

I felt it again later, after my delicious afternoon nap, after I'd committed to a run, after I'd gone back and forth between I don't feel like it and Okay, fine and resigned myself to lacing up my running shoes and allowing my husband to prod me out the door: It's not that cold, it's not raining, you'll feel really good after you do it.

I feel the need to mention that while I have a gym membership, I've found that running outside is so, so much better -- and that's where I run these days, unless it is raining or icy or otherwise really awful. Running inside, on a treadmill in a row of treadmills in a windowless room, conjures up creepy mental images for me: A hidden video camera, perhaps, and someone taking notes like, Subject A kept a steady pace for the first mile but began to falter halfway through mile 2. I probably run faster, because when I run inside I'm all about improving my 5k time, but I just get so bored and antsy. When I hit the 3.1-mile mark sometimes I force myself to run a little longer, but mostly I can't wait to be done. When I'm outside, breathing fresh air, smelling the sweet damp earth, crunching through pine needles and leaves, smiling at people walking their dogs and sort of just -- enjoying being a part of this great pulsing world, sometimes I feel like I could just keep running forever. I almost always do at least three-and-a-half miles; sometimes I do more. I get into my zone pretty quickly when I'm running outside, but I don't always experience the kind of peace I experienced this morning. Sometimes when I'm running I'm working things out in my head, or indulging in my usual delusional fantasies in which I'm amazing. This afternoon, though, I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just moving, just breathing the sweet rain-scented air. Everything was okay. And I'm not even sure it had anything to do with the fresh air, or the way the evening light was fading, or the way I felt as I approached my street at the end of my run.

I can never explain these moments, nor can I will them to appear. They merely happen, like little gifts of undeserved grace.

How the Winslows almost saw Picasso...

Me: I will totes birth your babies.
Kyanne: Right. Like I'm gonna have kids after this!
--From a Friday-night text exchange, 9:28 p.m.

Matt and I had planned to see the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum yesterday. Kyanne very graciously offered to stay with the kids when we were pondering this idea last weekend; we almost decided, last Saturday, to take the kids and go while we were in Seattle for my tattoo consult, but then we realized: Oh. Right. That would be insane. Paying forty-six dollars for tickets to an exhibit at an art museum, braving the crowds to see it, and believing that, somehow, our children would cooperate is a sure way to guarantee that we'd have maybe ten minutes to get our money's worth before the kids were done. I mean, we know this, but sometimes we are so stupidly optimistic. It's part of our charm.

So anyway, Kyanne offered to stay at our house on Friday night so I could just head up and meet Matt after work, and we could go by ourselves. Matt planned to walk over to the museum early yesterday and buy tickets for that evening; because it's such a hot exhibit, the only way to actually get tickets is to buy them on-site for the day you want to visit. Unfortunately, the line was apparently obscene, so Matt had to bail in order to go to work. (According to someone on the SAM blog, the wait yesterday morning was something like two-and-a-half hours.) When he went back after work to try again, all the tickets had been sold out through midnight.

"I guess we were just meant to see this in Paris," Matt said. (Which we actually did, back in 2000 when we were there for our May Seminar in college. We just really wanted to see it again, and Matt has actually never even been through the SAM.) We felt momentarily dejected until we realized that hey! We're in Seattle by ourselves! Surely, we could take advantage of the time. I checked my phone. No frantic messages from Kyanne -- only one that said, "Currently engaged in dinner negotiations & feeding your son peas the way you feed a goat at a petting zoo."

We landed at the Elysian Brewing Company, where we sat at a small corner table (we don't get those anymore!) and ate a pretty fantastic dinner. And it just so happens that the Elysian Brewing Company is conveniently located near the Elliott Bay Book Company, to which I have a gift card, which was conveniently tucked into my bag. And then we decided to get some dessert at Café Presse, where I ordered the only thing I've ever gotten there: chocolat chaud, the thickest, most fabulous hot chocolate in the world. It comes in this little cup with a huge saucer of whipping cream on the side, and it's so rich I can't ever finish it. We almost skipped dessert because Isaac was apparently really irritated by the fact that Kyanne couldn't spontaneously lactate and was having a hard time settling. (By contrast, we fully expected Suzannah to come creeping out of her room as soon as we entered the house, but she was in her bed at nine o'clock.) However, they worked it out, and by 9:16 Isaac was "snoring like a pug." ("Go have dessert!" Kyanne said, which prompted a handful of love proclamations that were not wholly inspired by the wine I enjoyed with my black bean burger.)

We didn't see Picasso, but we had a really great night.

We were home before eleven, which felt more like one-thirty to me. When did I become elderly? Suzannah came sneaking into our bed at about 5:30 this morning, and after a few minutes I graciously offered to go sleep in her bed with her. I was doing this quite often for awhile; when she stays in bed with us, she's so busy "being cozy" that none of us really sleep, but when the two of us snuggle into her bed, she usually drops off pretty quickly. And I love snuggling with her, so I don't actually have a problem with this. But this morning she declined my offer, so I ended up slipping into her bed by myself, figuring that if she refused to move, there was a better chance of everyone sleeping if things weren't so crowded. Of course, as soon as she noticed I was gone, she followed me -- and Matt ended up in the big bed by himself. Figures. (And then! Just as I was about to drift peacefully to sleep in Suzannah's bed, she kicked me out. She really did.)

Isaac slept until eight-thirty this morning. Suzannah woke up sometime before that, but instead of crawling back into our bed, she decided to entertain herself in the family room. ("I was sleeping out there," she explained. I'm pretty sure that's a lie.)

By nine o'clock, Matt had fired up the waffle iron and made coffee. By nine-thirty, Suzannah had made another beaded necklace from the kit her auntie Morgan gave her for Christmas, and Matt is now wearing that. By ten o'clock, both of our kids had consumed more waffles than me. It's wet and gray but not cold outside, and I'm having a hard time thinking of a reason to wear anything but pajamas today. I hope this is an indication of how the rest of our weekend will go, because right now, life feels pretty sweet.

2010 Reading List

(Most of these reviews were originally written over on my Goodreads account. I'm not including books I read for the second time, such as Oryx and Crake, or books I read for the millionth time, like Heart of Darkness.)

The Plague of Doves -- Louise Erdrich
This is pretty much Louise Erdrich at her finest. That's all.

Too Much Happiness -- Alice Munro
I don't think Alice Munro could write a bad story if she tried. And this collection is exactly why I think she's one of the best writers writing today.

Terrorist -- John Updike
John Updike's writing pretty much always deserves five stars, I think. I'm giving this book four because, unlike the Rabbit novels, I don't think I'll return to it again and again -- and I'm not totally sure how I feel about the ending yet.

I have yet to meet an Updike character I really like, but I think I have yet to find one I hate, too. The truth in his novels is uncomfortable and it's almost easy to hate them for it; they're not uplifting by any means, but there's something so undeniably familiar in all of them. And God, could this man write perfect sentences.

Anyway, Terrorist is incredibly interesting and thought-provoking and it's clear to me that Updike stretched himself a bit for this one, which is commendable near the end of such a long and laudable writing career. It's one I'd love to actually talk about with people.

Winslow in Love -- Kevin Canty
I'm not sure whether I was drawn to this because of the protagonist's obviously awesome name (hah!) or the Montana setting...actually, it was a gift and it looked like a quick read. Since I just finished rereading Oryx and Crake before I read The Year of the Flood and that did NOT go quickly (although I still really enjoy it) I really wanted something I could blow through quickly. And this book was definitely quick. To be honest, I liked it more than I thought I would. It wasn't the most original story in the world (depressed college professor who drinks too much, ends up falling for angsty twenty-year-old, they talk a lot about LIFE and TRUTH and what is REAL and share a lot of scotch) but Richard Winslow somehow still seems real to me. And Canty gets some things right -- some of his descriptions about fishing, and about writing, for instance. This book didn't change my life, but it was a more satisfying read than I thought it would be. (I also think Canty wrote himself into a better story than he started with; the writing was definitely better near the end than it was at the beginning.)

The Girl Who Played With Fire -- Stieg Larsson
Okay, I loved this book. I loved it more than The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, although I wonder if I'd like that one more if I went back and read it again (or read it at a time other than when I was about to give birth? I don't know).

I read this on a whirlwind road trip to Montana, and it was perfect road trip reading. (I think it would also be perfect plane reading, especially if you're like me and desperately need such distractions to drown out the ANXIETY.) I could not put it down, except that I have a preschooler and a baby so I HAD TO PUT IT DOWN quite often, and that drove me insane. (My husband took the wheel for a few hours so that I could read the last 150 pages or so, probably sensing that I was just not going to be great company until I finished it.) It was perfectly plotted, and while there were plenty of references to Dragon Tattoo, they're explained well enough so that this book stands on its own just fine.

I don't really want to say anything more about it, because it's one of those books that wouldn't be improved by a plot summary. I'll just say this: God, I love Lisbeth Salander.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson -- John Green and David Levithan
I really enjoy John Green, and I thought both writers did a great job of integrating their stories and characters. (I loved the characters, even though John Green pretty much always writes the same character.) I laughed out loud a lot. Other parts made my heart hurt.

But the end is what really made me love this book. That and the fact that every now and then, both Green and Levithan would write something that just went straight to my core with how true it was.

Love this book. It is completely, completely fabulous.

The Lacuna -- Barbara Kingsolver
I think this could actually be a 5-star book for me. Kingsolver can write. My biggest problem with her is one many people have, and it's that sometimes her Message (with a capital M) gets in the way of her storytelling. I didn't enjoy The Prodigal Summer for this reason, and even The Poisonwood Bible, which I love, got a bit heavy-handed at the end -- as though she doesn't quite trust the reader to get it unless she uses a big, unsubtle bat to DRIVE IT HOME.

That said, this book doesn't do so much of that (although some reviewers disagree with me). I think this is more ambitious than Poisonwood, and it works. I'm not generally a huge fan of stories told exclusively through diaries and letters, which might account for my four-star rating right now, but Kingsolver writes well enough for me to be okay with it here.

I love that Frida Kahlo is a central character in the novel, which is one of the reasons I wanted to read this in the first place. I think there are obviously risks and limitations in using "real" people as characters in a work of fiction, but Kingsolver has done her research, and I think she pulled it off pretty brilliantly.

I did a lot of underlining and jotting notes in the margins -- this is a book that will stick with me for quite some time. I taught The Poisonwood Bible one year, but I think I'd like to teach this one even more at some point.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest -- Stieg Larsson
I AM SO PISSED THAT STIEG LARSSON DIED.

Thankfully, there is a sense of closure after TGWKTHN; if he'd left it with a huge cliff-hanger (like at the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire) and then died...WELL. Still, I'm definitely left with the feeling that there are more stories to tell about Lisbeth Salander and the rest of the characters, and NOW I WILL NEVER GET TO READ THOSE STORIES.

Still, maybe it's okay that the series ended with this trilogy -- it's still really, really good. Would the stories be so awesome after ten books? WE WILL NEVER KNOW. Waaahhh.

Anyway, okay, no spoilers -- it was just awesome. Lisbeth Salander continues to be very, very badass. There was a little less hardcore action (I mean, our heroine was stuck in a hospital room for almost the entire book), but still, lots of suspense, lots of surprises. I read this almost straight through (as much as that's possible with two small children) with the same breathlessness as TGWPWF, and it was just about as satisfying.

Now that I've read all three books, I think I have a lot more appreciation for the first one. Also, while I didn't give any of them five stars by themselves (they're not, like, life-changing books, or ones I underlined compulsively, or ones that I'd take to a desert island) the trilogy as a whole might be worth five stars to me. If that even makes any sense. I think Larsson was an incredible storyteller, and these are possibly the most well-plotted mysteries -- with the best characters -- that I've ever read.

Shadow Tag -- Louise Erdrich
I would probably have enjoyed this more if I hadn't read several of her other books. It is well-written, no doubt, but it lacked the storytelling power of her others. It was dark and spare and seemed totally different from anything else she's written, which isn't necessarily a criticism, but I'm looking forward to picking up The Beet Queen next and returning to everything I love about Louise Erdrich.

The Angel's Game -- Carlos Ruis Zafón
I really, really struggled with giving this book three stars, because sometimes I LOVED it. And I still think that anyone who loved The Shadow of the Wind will enjoy this. I loved the storytelling, as over-the-top as the story actually was. I'm a sucker for shadows and dark rainy streets and fog and any story in which a.) a creepy old house and b.) a bookshop actually function as characters as much as the humans. And I loved some of the characters. The dialogue is fan-freaking-tastic. In short, it was a great vacation read, and I couldn't put it down. When I had to put it down, I felt kind of grumpy about it.

That said, I couldn't give this one five stars. I almost gave it four, but the problems in this book frustrated me because I really loved SOTW. I don't want to give anything away, because I'm glad I didn't know anything about either this or SOTW before I began reading them, so I'll just say this: There are a lot of loose ends in this story. Sometimes that works; I'm not one who needs her stories all perfectly resolved at the end. However, in this case, I'm not sure it worked all that well. There are still things in the story that I don't really get -- and I think a lot of that is intentional on the part of the author, but some of it just seemed like clutter. Some of the secondary characters seemed important for awhile, but then we never really understood why and their roles were never really made clear. I'm still confused and a little frustrated by the ending. I think it'd be fun to hash it out with other people who've read the book, though.

I'm conflicted, though. I don't feel like a mere three-star rating conveys how much I actually enjoyed the reading experience, but when I think about this book in comparison to SOTW, I'm not sure I can quite give it four.

The Little Stranger -- Sarah Waters
I loved this book. Reading it, I wasn't always sure I would, but reflecting on it now as a whole I can easily see how well-crafted it is. It's so subtle; it's certainly not horror or suspense in the conventional sense, I suppose, but Sarah Waters is a master of atmosphere and characterization. And on the heels of The Angel's Game, another novel in which a house functions as a character, I really enjoyed this. (Of course, Sarah Waters is subtle and Carlos Ruiz Zafón is over-the-top -- both have their place.)

Anyway, Waters writes novels that I really think one should read without preconceptions, so I won't spoil anything. I will say that I found myself chilled at several points, and I thought the ending was perfect (even though it apparently frustrated others, from the looks of the reviews).

I kind of think I should have waited until October to read this for maximum enjoyment -- it's the kind of book that would go well with dark, rainy nights -- but I've already waited over a year, so.

The Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins
This book took over my life until I finished it, so it's a good thing it's a short, fast, intense, one-day read. I loved it. I would love to teach it, actually -- there's so much in this book that I would love to talk about with a class of fifteen-year-olds.

There are some parts that left me wanting more, though, and I wish I knew more about the history of Panem and more about the Games and the Gamemakers. I've heard the second book fleshes this out a bit, so that's good. I admit that the "love triangle" aspect of the second book already makes me nervous, though -- perhaps I'm just a bit too burned out on all the TEAM EDWARD! and TEAM JACOB! nonsense spattered all over my Facebook friends list. (It won't be anything like that, right?)

Let the Great World Spin -- Colum McCann
I LOVED this book. It captures everything I believe about why we read and write at all -- it's one of those books that reminds us of our humanity. I love the sentences. I love the structure. I love the way Colum McCann took one event -- Phillipe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the twin towers -- and uses that thread to pull together the lives of several people in New York City. Their lives collide in ways they don't even necessarily see -- but WE do, and we see that this IS the world in all its beauty and eccentricity and grit and love and ugliness and motion.

I think what I love about it is that it doesn't ever really end. Because, of course, people don't. Our stories continue; the end of the page, the end of a chapter -- stories don't stop there. ("The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.")

It's as close to perfect as a novel can get, I think.

Catching Fire -- Suzanne Collins
I read this in one day while I battled a sinus infection. Maybe it's just that I kept myself mostly confined to the couch all day anyway, but I found this book just as compelling as the first one (after expecting to find it disappointing, since some reviewers did). I might have even enjoyed it more, since I learned a little more about the Gamemakers and the "behind-the-scenes" stuff -- things I really wanted to know as I read the first book.

Little Bee -- Chris Cleave
The premise: two women meet on a beach in Nigeria on a single, fateful day with unimaginable and far-reaching consequences. Two years later, they meet again -- which is where the book begins.

This really is an incredible book. I didn't give it five stars because a.) the gimmick kind of annoyed me and b.) there were a few places and one section in particular where I didn't feel that Chris Cleave did justice to Sarah's character -- there were scenes between her and her lover that just fell a little flat.

That said:

On the whole, despite the gimmicks, despite my skepticism that a man could write in the voices of two different women, the book was -- well, pretty shattering. And I think the book is shattering in a way that the world needs; sometimes we need to be violently shaken from our comfort zones. And yet we're reminded we're privileged enough to be able to close the book on the horror in the world, when so many people don't have that option; they can't leave the movie theater or put down the book. Cleave doesn't shy away from the unspeakable things human beings do to each other or the choices we have to make, and there were things that were tough for me to read -- but ultimately, he laces the stories with enough redemption -- and even humor (although the book is not "funny" like some reviewers claim) -- that we're left with more hope than despair.

Also: lots of just plain gorgeous writing, which makes up for the sections I found problematic.

Ethan Frome -- Edith Wharton
This is well-written, but a really bleak little book. I had to teach it this year, so I read it only for that. It's a nice way to teach literary devices to high school students, I guess, because it's the least subtle book in the world. Nothing life-changing, although I actually enjoyed it more than this review would suggest, and now I think I should maybe read The House of Mirth, which has been sitting on my shelf for about a decade now.

In the Woods -- Tana French
I don't even know how to rate this book.

I LOVED IT.

AND I HATED IT.

The characterization was fantastic; the writing was solid; there was just -- lots of good stuff in this book. I shouldn't have chosen the first week of school to read it, because I couldn't give it as much undivided attention as I wanted to.

The ending made me CRAZY. CAH-RAZY. I'm definitely NOT one who needs all of her books tied up with a big pretty bow at the end because life isn't like that, but I cared so, SO much more about the mystery that doesn't get solved than the one that does. I loved the experience of reading this book, but that made me want to throw it across the room.

WHHHYYYYYYY.

(I am definitely reading her other books, though. She's good.)

Mockingjay -- Suzanne Collins
While there was some good stuff in this book, the reading experience was nowhere near what it was for the first two books -- the writing was clunky, I had issues with the plot, and I thought Collins was a bit too heavy-handed with both her exposition and her MESSAGE. Surprisingly, though, I didn't have issues with the way she ended the novel (well, and the trilogy); that actually worked for me (though I didn't necessarily like it).

The Year of the Flood -- Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood has no interest in keeping her readers comfortable, that's for sure.

My liking of the book swung between 3 and 5 stars throughout the entire thing. Generally, this isn't my favorite genre. However, I'd also happily read Atwood's grocery lists. ANYWAY, this is horrifying and disturbing and laced with dark humor, and, as always, not completely devoid of hope no matter how bleak things seem.

At first I didn't think I'd like it as well as I liked Oryx and Crake (which is solid but not my favorite Atwood). However, by the time I reached the end, I decided it's actually the superior of the two. It's not really a sequel; both novels stand alone just fine. However, I think I appreciated this one more deeply having read Oryx and Crake (and reread it fairly recently).

And now I want to go and reread The Blind Assassin...

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University -- Kevin Roose
This is the author's account of the semester he went undercover as a student at Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell. Going from Brown University to one of the nation's most conservative schools proved to be an interesting educational experience, to say the least, and I found it fascinating. I was impressed that the author was only nineteen when he embarked on this journey; he writes with grace and maturity. So many parts of this book had me cringing -- not because of the book itself, but because of what he writes about -- but at the same time, I appreciated his depth and his honesty. No one in this book is one-dimensional, and he finds some rather surprising common ground with the friends he ended up making there. It would be so easy merely to mock the religious right, but had Roose resorted to that, the book would have fallen flat.

Freedom -- Jonathan Franzen
Sometimes I wasn't sure this would live up to The Corrections, which is one of my favorite books, and sometimes I thought it would end up being a little too much like it -- but in the end, it's better. It really is that good.

My Reading Life -- Pat Conroy
Loved it. It was the perfect book to read before I go back to school after a two-week break, simply because Pat Conroy reveres English teachers and reminds me why I love teaching English. And any time I read anything by Pat Conroy, I just want to write him a love letter and thank him for existing.

As always, Conroy had me laughing out loud and fighting back tears, often within the span of a few paragraphs. Also, this is the second time I've read his praise for War and Peace and I think I might have to read it now -- maybe this summer.

Because I'm not afraid of commitment

Two days ago, I made two appointments: one for a haircut, which was completely spontaneous, and one for a consult at Two Birds Tattoo. A new haircut and a new tattoo (the latter of which is a Christmas gift from my husband!) seemed like an appropriate way to begin the new year. I haven't actually gotten my tattoo yet, but having an appointment to go over the work I want done finally makes this a concrete thing, instead of something I've just been talking about for two years. I am unimaginably excited.

I also decided it's finally time to write about it, which will hopefully answer the baffled "But...why?" I keep getting. I actually wrote this several months ago, but I didn't want to post it until my tattoo became a more immediate reality. I don't actually have it yet, but that will change sometime in the next couple of weeks (my consult is next weekend).

Our bodies tell our stories. Some parts are beyond our control -- the stretch marks on my belly, for instance, the permanent reminders of my journey through pregnancy and into motherhood. Or the scars from childhood mishaps: a small one on my chin from the time I ran sobbingly away from first grade and slipped on the ice on my way home, and a slightly more obvious, thicker scar on my knee, the result of a fall from my bike. I have a scar on my left wrist, left by a minor surgery to remove a weird and kind of gross ganglion cyst when I was sixteen.

The stories aren't all pretty ones. They might not even be interesting ones. But they're mine.

Two years ago, I decided that getting a tattoo was something I was absolutely going to do. I didn't do it right away, because I wanted to have another baby first; also, I wasn't sure what kind of tattoo I wanted. I suppose I also wasn't ready to deal with the inevitable range of reactions and judgments my tattoo might elicit from people whose opinions matter to me -- I wasn't quite ready to defend it, I suppose. Nice girls don't get tattoos, after all. The kinds of people who get tattoos are biker chicks and drug addicts and also they are unfeminine! And how do I think I'll feel when I'm a wrinkly old woman and I've got this ridiculous tattoo?

I suspect I'll feel just fine. My tattoo will be a part of my autobiography as much as my stretch marks and scars are. It's interesting to me that people seem so horrified by the permanence of it, or that they're so sure I'll regret it someday. Some of these people participate in their own forms of body modification -- piercing their ears, for instance -- but that's much more acceptable. Tiny holes in one's ears don't attract much attention, and one can always let them close up -- or at least choose not to wear earrings. But what if I kept my toenails brightly painted all the time? I doubt anyone would bat an eye. Right now, my toenails are a dark red, and each big toenail also sports a little painted flower (my first "fancy" pedicure!). The same people who disapprove of tattoos find this perfectly lovely. Why is it somehow less acceptable, or less feminine, to "paint" my skin? Is it simply that the art on my toenails can be wiped away? That if I change my mind, I can erase that part of myself?

I don't think a tattoo always needs to have some deep, symbolic meaning. People choose their designs for all sorts of reasons; maybe a particular image is just aesthetically pleasing to its wearer. (My flowered toenails are the product of a whim, but I'm sure enjoying them!) Some of them do, of course; lately, I've been into reading stories women have written about their tattoos, and many of them are inspiring or thought-provoking. But just as often as not, the women simply like the way they look, and that's a perfectly acceptable reason to get one. In fact, maybe it's my favorite reason. Because I think almost anyone can appreciate a good story or forgive something they might otherwise judge if it is somehow laced with significant meaning. But why shouldn't it be good enough for a woman to decorate her own body simply because she wants to? Because she likes the way it looks in the mirror?

I've actually put quite a bit of thought into what I want my first tattoo to be. It doesn't necessarily represent a single, defining moment of my life or tell one particular story. Rather, I hope it embodies the essence of who I want to be: someone who embraces joy, who notices beauty in ordinary things, who savors each fleeting moment as it comes.

I'm going to have a hummingbird tattooed on my ankle. When I decided this, I wasn't even thinking about the fact that my friends decided ages ago that a hummingbird is sort of like my personal totem already; when I remembered, I burst out laughing and realized it seemed all the more appropriate. I knew I wanted a bird, and after exploring a few different ideas, I landed on the hummingbird and felt such a sure "click" in my mind that I've never wavered. It's going on my ankle because that seems like an appropriate place for my first tattoo, I suppose; I can see it without contorting my body or using a mirror, and I can either display it or cover it up with relative ease. That said, I also want at least one tattoo on my shoulder, and I started thinking about that one almost as soon as I decided on the first (the one I haven't even gotten yet). I admit that I used to believe, on some level, that this was somehow distasteful. Unfeminine. Who wants to see that above a formal dress, right? I don't feel that anymore, though. I'm not entirely sure what caused me to change my mind. It might have been seeing my friend Sarah's tattoos -- a bird on each shoulder. They seemed so hopeful, somehow -- simply beautiful. The story I saw in them might not be the same story she was telling, but that's often the case with any other form of artistic expression -- a poem, or a painting, or a song. There's a certain beauty in that, too. I saw them, and I was both inspired and changed. More recently, my friend Dori had a half-sleeve tattooed on her right arm. Not long ago I would have been among those who thought that was a bit much, to say the least, and it would certainly never be something I would consider myself. But when I saw hers, I was completely in awe of how gorgeous it was. It's one of the best tattoos I've ever seen. I'm not sure I see myself running out to get one, but a few years ago I wouldn't have considered tattooing my shoulders or upper arms, either, and now it's well within the realm of possibility.

It's interesting to me how many people, upon learning that I was planning to get a tattoo, asked me what on earth my husband has to say about it. When that's the first response -- instead of asking me why, or what kind of work I want to have done -- I feel admittedly snarky and defensive. I don't actually need my husband's permission, I want to tell them. It's important to me. I want to do this for me. That probably makes me selfish and A Bad Wife, except that I don't actually believe that. Matt and I have had many great, productive, probing discussions about this. The truth? He was honestly never really head-over-heels in love with the idea of my getting a tattoo. He has no desire to mark up his own skin (even though I think he'd look pretty sexy with one, but no one will accuse him of not caring how I feel if he doesn't go out and get one) and doesn't really understand my "need" to do so. However, he is also a feminist and respects me enough to be supportive, especially after we'd talked about my reasons for wanting to do this (and after deconstructing some of his issues with it). Matt isn't so stubborn that he shuts down when his beliefs or opinions are challenged. I wish I could say the same for people who refuse to even consider the possibility that their distaste of tattoos -- especially tattoos on women -- might be rooted in something a little more insidious than, say, personal taste. It's a fact that tattooed women face more discrimination than tattooed men -- what does this say about the way we view womanhood and femininity? I don't think everyone has to want to mark up their skin to prove that they're enlightened (and that's silly, anyway, and definitely not why I'm doing it), and I don't think everyone has to like or appreciate tattoos (or at least not all of them), but I do wish we could have more conversations about why there seems to be such judgment and distaste for women who choose to get them.

The bottom line is that my husband understands that I am a storyteller, and stories are not always limited to written or spoken words. He might not love tattoos himself, but he cares that I like them. These days, my husband pays more attention to people's tattoos in general. Interestingly enough, he's beginning to find them intriguing -- if not attractive. Today he described a tattoo he saw on a woman's shoulder while he and Suzannah were at the park. "It was actually kind of neat," he said. Right now, Matt has at least come to terms with the idea of my getting one (and possibly more), even if he doesn't understand it. I hope -- and even believe -- that someday he'll just see it as a part of me and love it for that. (He must believe it too, or he probably wouldn't have made the gesture of writing in a great little Christmas card, "This card is good for one ankle tattoo.")

My hummingbird will be another piece of a story that is uniquely mine. It would be wonderful if everyone could appreciate it for what it represents to me, but I no longer need anyone else's validation. I think that, at thirty-one, it's time for me to be comfortable in my own skin.