Weblog 17
March 12, 2006~ 7:30pm
I hibernated this weekend. Literally. I had 18 hours sleep from Friday evening through Saturday afternoon at 4:00-- and another 8 1/2 last night. Must have needed it. I was a bit stressed after visiting my poor daughter on Thurday night and carrying around the heavy feeling I took from that visit. It just sat on my chest like the rocks on poor Giles Corey of Salem who defiantly spat out, "More weight!"-- I think I was sleeping for her.
She's showing signs of 'young mother burn out' in this bleak time, at the end of winter with the house all closed up- an almost 3 year old who talks incessantly and will not nap, who's oppostional about everything, including toilet training- and a 6 month old baby girl she's still nursing, Holly's feeling the stress of what her expectations are for the mother she's to be- and what she is very humanly and understandably feeling: bone tire- all the time, and with a sense of having lost herself in some fundamental way.
In our society, which quite artificially glorifies parenthood and mothers in particular, and has devised all sorts of commercialization of parenthood via advertising, magazines, TV shows, books- and the little organized groups in neighborhoods like appointments for 'playdates' etc.- whose real purpose is to make mothering a competitive sport- in this atmosphere, it takes brave souls to eek out a phrase like, "this is killing me."
I am of a school that believes honesty makes EVERYONE healthier- and by God any mother who's brave enough to tell the truth will say that kids are the very pits at times; that it's normal and perfectly alright to feel that way. God, I do wish I weren't a middle-aged working female. I'd LOVE to be home every day for her to just drop the hellions with me....
LOL! We'd read- I'd whack a few butts- then plant them quite sensibly in front of the TV to go quietly comatose while I get the things done that I have to, no guilt whatsoever. Hey, I've been through that stage a long time ago and see how silly it is to hold back on feelings that are honestly produced through hard work, too little appreciation, and no end in sight.
I hope she at least partly believes me when I tell her, "It's hell"- but it's a common hell- even if the 'perfect' bitches out there won't admit it. And it passes. Just gripe your head off to me, I understand my dear, and we're not all 'Mommy Dearests'- just ordinary moms who've been hauling ass without any respite. (And whoever came up with "theme birthday parties" for toddlers with everything coordinated down to the damn toilet paper-- ought to be taken out and shot! ) That's my 2 cents.
March 13, 2006~ 8:15pm
Sometimes, those we become forged with through friendship and similar interests or other bonds of commonality, are linked to us with golden loops like rings of good fortune. And some days bring unexpected sheaves- to nourish in ways that could not have been predicted.
I've been writing with a fellow poet at my site for the past 14 months; he's been a loyal visitor and poster and I've appreciated his constant presence; considered it gift enough. But my buddy Al Ferber, who publishes a good deal of his verse, asked me to contribute 15 poems for a new compilation he was putting together called 'Unbearable Lyric'. In my mailbox today was a beautiful copy fresh off the presses.
The happiness when things like that happen cannot be calculated. They tickle, they delight, and are long remembered as gestures of kindness life has brought your way to cast a little light where perhaps there'd been too much shadow. Thank you, Al. Here is the link to "Unbearable Lyric", just published by XLibris Press, 377 pages, and an absolutely beautiful volume.
March 15, 2006~ 8:45pm
The Ides. March 15th...usually a pretty unlucky day for me (to say nothing of what it was like for poor Julius!), but thus far today has cruised along pretty nicely. I am up to the last 25 pages of a book I wish would last through summer for me. The best read I've had in a while, magnificently written, about one of the most intriguing subjects- at least to me- "Dracula"...
I confess, I am a vampire-philiac: I love all tales of the undead, their dark mystery and legends. Ever since I scared myself silly at age 12 reading the original Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', I have been smitten.
(And yes. I still sleep with a nightlight- honest injun.) The literary beauty of that book is far and away one of the draws for reading the original, but the book I'm just finishing....savoring...can give Mr. Stoker
a run for his money.
Elizabeth Kostova is a phenomenal novelist. Her descriptive powers are impeccable- the richness of detail and character and just plain 'creepiness' -are equal to the original in their breadth and depth. The character of Vlad Tepes is so vividly drawn he easily inhabits the room with you- and unlike the original story, this one is a mystery that unravels so tantalizingly, you'll want to be teased forever with the ending dangling just out of reach. I am at that point now...
and I do dread its close: this book has been a rich, rich journey. I recommend it as highly as one can recommend a novel to fellow readers. I've read 'mixed reviews' of this, and wonder, honestly, 'what were they THINKING' not to pronounce this one of the finest books of the year- (guess there's not enough sex or flash to please some) but for those of you who love to be transported as completely as possible back into time- to travel all of central Europe in all it's splendor and cultural lavishness- who want to meet a Vlad as real as a person you'd sit next to on a bus- and be scared out of your wits- do yourself a favor and either buy a copy, or borrow one from the library. Oh....the name of the book? The Historian. Simply.....magnificent.
March 17, 2006~ 7:00am
Happy, Evil St. Paddy's Day! LOL....(I just love those wicked 'Leprechaun' movies.) No 'wearin o' the green' here, except in some green included in the oversized, flannel plaid LUMBERJACK shirt I am wearing today on 'casual Friday'. I finished 'The Historian'....oh 'tis a sad day indeed. Where will I escape to now? What mysterious worlds have closed their doors to me? That's just the way turning over the last page felt to me. I'm including a review from Amazon here, because this young lady gives a better feel than I did below, for the intrigue of this marvelous book.
"If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.
As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight--one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland--sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.
Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read--even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen--its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling "a large family," she tried to forget the words: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth." The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words. --Regina Marler"
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
I hibernated this weekend. Literally. I had 18 hours sleep from Friday evening through Saturday afternoon at 4:00-- and another 8 1/2 last night. Must have needed it. I was a bit stressed after visiting my poor daughter on Thurday night and carrying around the heavy feeling I took from that visit. It just sat on my chest like the rocks on poor Giles Corey of Salem who defiantly spat out, "More weight!"-- I think I was sleeping for her.
She's showing signs of 'young mother burn out' in this bleak time, at the end of winter with the house all closed up- an almost 3 year old who talks incessantly and will not nap, who's oppostional about everything, including toilet training- and a 6 month old baby girl she's still nursing, Holly's feeling the stress of what her expectations are for the mother she's to be- and what she is very humanly and understandably feeling: bone tire- all the time, and with a sense of having lost herself in some fundamental way.
In our society, which quite artificially glorifies parenthood and mothers in particular, and has devised all sorts of commercialization of parenthood via advertising, magazines, TV shows, books- and the little organized groups in neighborhoods like appointments for 'playdates' etc.- whose real purpose is to make mothering a competitive sport- in this atmosphere, it takes brave souls to eek out a phrase like, "this is killing me."
I am of a school that believes honesty makes EVERYONE healthier- and by God any mother who's brave enough to tell the truth will say that kids are the very pits at times; that it's normal and perfectly alright to feel that way. God, I do wish I weren't a middle-aged working female. I'd LOVE to be home every day for her to just drop the hellions with me....
LOL! We'd read- I'd whack a few butts- then plant them quite sensibly in front of the TV to go quietly comatose while I get the things done that I have to, no guilt whatsoever. Hey, I've been through that stage a long time ago and see how silly it is to hold back on feelings that are honestly produced through hard work, too little appreciation, and no end in sight.
I hope she at least partly believes me when I tell her, "It's hell"- but it's a common hell- even if the 'perfect' bitches out there won't admit it. And it passes. Just gripe your head off to me, I understand my dear, and we're not all 'Mommy Dearests'- just ordinary moms who've been hauling ass without any respite. (And whoever came up with "theme birthday parties" for toddlers with everything coordinated down to the damn toilet paper-- ought to be taken out and shot! ) That's my 2 cents.
March 13, 2006~ 8:15pm
Sometimes, those we become forged with through friendship and similar interests or other bonds of commonality, are linked to us with golden loops like rings of good fortune. And some days bring unexpected sheaves- to nourish in ways that could not have been predicted.
I've been writing with a fellow poet at my site for the past 14 months; he's been a loyal visitor and poster and I've appreciated his constant presence; considered it gift enough. But my buddy Al Ferber, who publishes a good deal of his verse, asked me to contribute 15 poems for a new compilation he was putting together called 'Unbearable Lyric'. In my mailbox today was a beautiful copy fresh off the presses.
The happiness when things like that happen cannot be calculated. They tickle, they delight, and are long remembered as gestures of kindness life has brought your way to cast a little light where perhaps there'd been too much shadow. Thank you, Al. Here is the link to "Unbearable Lyric", just published by XLibris Press, 377 pages, and an absolutely beautiful volume.
March 15, 2006~ 8:45pm
The Ides. March 15th...usually a pretty unlucky day for me (to say nothing of what it was like for poor Julius!), but thus far today has cruised along pretty nicely. I am up to the last 25 pages of a book I wish would last through summer for me. The best read I've had in a while, magnificently written, about one of the most intriguing subjects- at least to me- "Dracula"...
I confess, I am a vampire-philiac: I love all tales of the undead, their dark mystery and legends. Ever since I scared myself silly at age 12 reading the original Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', I have been smitten.
(And yes. I still sleep with a nightlight- honest injun.) The literary beauty of that book is far and away one of the draws for reading the original, but the book I'm just finishing....savoring...can give Mr. Stoker
a run for his money.Elizabeth Kostova is a phenomenal novelist. Her descriptive powers are impeccable- the richness of detail and character and just plain 'creepiness' -are equal to the original in their breadth and depth. The character of Vlad Tepes is so vividly drawn he easily inhabits the room with you- and unlike the original story, this one is a mystery that unravels so tantalizingly, you'll want to be teased forever with the ending dangling just out of reach. I am at that point now...
and I do dread its close: this book has been a rich, rich journey. I recommend it as highly as one can recommend a novel to fellow readers. I've read 'mixed reviews' of this, and wonder, honestly, 'what were they THINKING' not to pronounce this one of the finest books of the year- (guess there's not enough sex or flash to please some) but for those of you who love to be transported as completely as possible back into time- to travel all of central Europe in all it's splendor and cultural lavishness- who want to meet a Vlad as real as a person you'd sit next to on a bus- and be scared out of your wits- do yourself a favor and either buy a copy, or borrow one from the library. Oh....the name of the book? The Historian. Simply.....magnificent.
March 17, 2006~ 7:00am
Happy, Evil St. Paddy's Day! LOL....(I just love those wicked 'Leprechaun' movies.) No 'wearin o' the green' here, except in some green included in the oversized, flannel plaid LUMBERJACK shirt I am wearing today on 'casual Friday'. I finished 'The Historian'....oh 'tis a sad day indeed. Where will I escape to now? What mysterious worlds have closed their doors to me? That's just the way turning over the last page felt to me. I'm including a review from Amazon here, because this young lady gives a better feel than I did below, for the intrigue of this marvelous book."If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.
As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight--one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland--sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union.
Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read--even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen--its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling "a large family," she tried to forget the words: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth." The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words. --Regina Marler"
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