Under Construction

Just a quick note: this site is under construction. I've always wanted to type that. Seriously, I'm making some changes to the layout of my blog. I hope it's not too annoying. Really, I think that the current, three-column layout is pretty snazzy.

Paradise Hotel

OK, I have a confession: I've been watching season two of Paradise Hotel. Most of you have probably not heard of Paradise Hotel; if you haven't, it's probably a good sign. This has to be one of the trashiest reality programs that I've ever seen. It runs on the Fox Reality Network (channel 250 for those of you who have direct TV) at 1:00am on Monday night / Tuesday morning. I think it repeats at other times as well. But I figure that the 1:00 am (that's EST) time slot tells us something about the quality of the programming. Oh, it opens with a disclaimer that's something along these lines: "This program may contain some nudity and / or sexual situations. Viewer discretion is advised." I always figure that saying, "Viewer discretion is advised" is really a way of trying to attract a certain demographic, i.e. 17 years olds. Oh, and me. I watch it too.

The premise is something like this: a dozen or so 20-somethings are isolated at the Paradise Hotel, a kind of tropical resort. They choose "room mates" of the opposite sex. There's always one extra man or woman, and the person without a room mate is eliminated. A day or two later, a new single enters the mix.

All that said, I'm really not trying to post a review or analysis of this really terrible program. Rather, I'm interested in considering why I watch it in the first place. And I am not up and about at 1:00am; I DVR the thing, so clearly, I'm going out of my way to watch it. In general, I think that many of us, myself included, like so-called reality TV and programs like Dr. Phil because these types of programs somehow make us feel better about ourselves. I think, for me anyway, it goes something like this: "Hey, *insert name* on Paradise Hotel is a real skank. And she's dumb. I can't believe that she doesn't have more self-respect than that. What a skanky loser!" On the one hand, this is clearly a variation on the old trick of putting others down so that we can feel better about ourselves. However, I think it goes beyond this. For me anyway, it's also about realizing that maybe my situation isn't as bad or overwhelming or hopeless or whatever as it sometimes feels. I was watching Dr. Phil earlier today, and it was more like this: "Yeah, sometimes I feel bad about myself, and sometimes I feel like a failure. And yeah, I do mess things up sometimes. But I should be thankful: my situation isn't as difficult or as painful as that of the recovering Heroin addict." I don't think this is making myself feel better at someone else's expense; rather I see it as simply acknowledging and being thankful for the obstacles that I'm not facing right now. It's a way of realizing that life could be a whole lot worse.

I don't know. I readily admit that I actually enjoy watching "reality" TV that I acknowledge to be not just dumb but objectionable. But somehow, it's like I can't stop looking, like the trainwreck cliche. But it goes beyond that. And I'm having a hard time really figuring out what the attraction is. Even worse than Paradise Hotel, IMO, is The Girls Next Door, which is actually about Hugh Heffner's three live-in girlfriends. I'll spare you any further discussion of Hef and the girls. But it's so terrible on just about every conceivable level. I certainly don't DVR it, but I have to confess to tuning in on occasion.

A Recommitment to Blogging

Ok, I've decided that blogging is a good thing--it's good for me. And unlike most good-for-you things, it's not unpleasant. So I'm here and now making a formal recommitment to blogging. Here are some possible topics that I could pursue in the near future. I welcome any feedback or preferences, if any of these sound more fun than any others.

1. A review of the Sweet Valley High series of books. I really, really loved SVH when I was about 12, and recently I bought a ton of them for cheap on eBay. So if anyone's interested, I'd be happy to contribute my thoughts about SVH.

2. A review / analysis / thoughts about the British murder mysteries I've been consuming and the BBC / PBS adaptations of said mysteries. This is my new pet project.

3. A discussion of the new direction of the program formerly known as Masterpiece Theatre. It's just Masterpiece now. And they've recently run adaptations of Jane Austen, a perennial favourite. Gillian Anderson is the new host, btw.

4. Updates on my dogs, especially Baby Fenway. He couldn't be any cuter. Of course, Fenway related posts could be written in the first person, in Fenway's own voice. I'm happy to turn the laptop over to him.

5. Food

6. DVDs

I think that pretty much covers my options, at least as I see them now.

Oh, here we go

7 and 8. Reviews / discussion of the Little House on the Prairie TV series or of 7th Heaven, both of which run daily on the Hallmark channel. 7th Heaven is particularly cheezy but intriguing at the same time.

Feel free to comment or to simply take the poll at the left. I do realize that the poll isn't displaying very nicely--oh well!

Great Review of Tori Spelling's sTori Telling

As I hope you all know, Tori Spelling, has a new book out. It's called sTori Telling. Here's a really great review of it that I found on bn.com:

"I have always liked tori shes a great actress.i feel so sorry for her mother because i think tori was a great daughter her mom should be ashamed of herself for her behavior towards tori. with all the money that she has i bet shes just a miserable person.money isnt everything( it sure helps) i grew up with similar things the big house ,maids ,butlers,country clubs ,they sent me to camp every summer a home in miami beach that we just used for xmas and easter my parents were so loving my mom use to tell me how beautiful i am all the time.but i like tori always worked since i was fifteen. but they still gave me everything.my parents still to this day love me so much. they are in ther eightys they live in florida now. i can totally relate to tori i lived in a suburb of detroit had the bigest house on the block , built in pool . im also jewish and have been married times. first husband was jewish child hood sweetheart my parents hated him.he was verbal abusive and gave me a black eye. i had ahuge and expensive wedding. anyway i divorced him in 1980. single for ten yrs and had some real looser boyfriends. but i met my husband now in the 80,s hes catholic and my folks love him they told me that i better behave funny. weve been married since 1990. what a diffrence.hes so wonderful i love him so much.we have a great marriage like you and dean. tori ,dean and liam i wish you the best!!!"

I'd like to post a review of this review. You'll note that it says nothing about the book itself. In fact, it says very little about Tori. This is the kind of off-topic drivel that I seem to encounter far too often.

Hookin' Up With Ira Glass

So this morning I had the craziest dream about Ira Glass. And although I guess we didn't really hook up, it was just too weird. So I tend to sleep all night with the TV on, which, apparently, isn't supposed to be such a hot idea, especially if one has issues with sleep. And so, in the attempt to wean myself off of all Headline News, all night, I've been switching to my iPod at some point. When I woke up around 2:3o this morning, I put in my earphones and listened to NPR's This American Life, of which I'm especially fond. I finall fell asleep, still listening to This American Life and had this crazy dream that my mom had tickets to go to this weird NPR-sponsored circus. And it was in this huge venue, but only like 50 people were there and all had to sit in just one small section. And there was this mom with like a toddler and stroller and huge diaper bag taking up more than her fair share of seating. Consequently, there wasn't anywhere for me to sit. So I was like strolling around. And Ira Glass was like the ring master / announcer / MC for this weird, NPR-esque, not-quite-Prairie-Home-Companion event. He was walking through the aisles while I'm trying to get my mom to ask pushy mother with toddler paraphernalia to move over. And I walk up to him, and I'm like, "Hey, Ira. I'm Drennan. And I totally love your work. And let me tell you about me." It was all very weird but in this totally nerdy, geeky kind of way.

I've been silent, the last few weeks. Let me rephrase: I've been "virtually" silent, as in not blogging, for the last few weeks. And this virtual silence (don't you LOVE the overuse of "virtual" and all its variants?) has corresponded with a real emotional funk, if you know what I mean. I can work, and I enjoy work, but it's about all that I can get myself to do lately. That's not entirely true--outside of work, I feel like all I've been doing is eating. And it's just generally icky. And I'm so tired of feeling this way and living this way and being this way. But I just can't seem to figure out how to even start to pull myself out of it. And I'm kinda pathetic and miserable lately. I wish that I had something more profound or at least something more interesting to blog about, but I guess that I don't. But there's a part of me that believes that maybe I can somehow write my way out of it. Maybe if I blog enough and write in journals and write and write and write, I can somehow find a way out. Well, that and better living through chemistry, AKA antidepressants. But I want to feel better; I do. I just don't know how right now. And I keep thinking that if there's just one small step I could take, something I could do each day to get myself on the right track, I'd build momentum and work up to feeling better, feeling like a normal, healthy person. But just now, I don't know what that little step might be.

Grahame's The Wind in the Willows

I am winding down a longish day at work and thought I'd indulge in a quick post about Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. First off, I should say that I am completely biased here, in that this is probably my all-time favorite book. I absolutely LOVE it. It's like good comfort reading for me. The difficulty is that my students don't seem to get into it, and I can never quite figure out what to do about it. I began discussing it just this morning with my 20th Century Children's Literature class, and I faced the problem that I've faced too often before with regards to this work. The students see it as difficult (and I suppose it's not the easiest thing, stylistically speaking on our syllabus) and boring and disjointed. And I just don't see it that way at all. Stylistically, I think it's brilliant and wonderful. And to attempt to demonstrated that, I read passages, sometimes long passages, aloud. For example, the opening paragraphs are particularly lyrical and suck us into Mole's awakening, and I so want my students to see (or hear!) it, but I am just not sure that they do.

And they cite all these apparent inconsistencies--in the passage of time, in the assumed size of the animals--inconsistencies that I think just don't matter. I mean, trying to make some sort of literal, logical sense out of it destroys the whole thing. In the end, it doesn't matter if we ever really figure out how big Toad is--it's about Toad's character. And I seem to have trouble moving my students beyond all of it.

And yet, still I love The Wind in the Willows. I love the characters, and I love Ratty's leisurely lifestyle of boating and writing poetry. I love Mole for his loyalty to Rat. I love Grahame's treatment of friendship; I think we could even call it "fellowship" in a Tolkienesque kind of way. I love Grahame's obvious love of nature and of language. And I keep feeling frustrated at my apparent inability to convey all this to my students--it's as though my own enthusiasm for the topic just isn't quite enough this time. And this concerns me. I mean, what are we coming to if college students think The Wind in the Willows is not just "boring" but "too hard." It's not "hard." And where is Spencer when we need him? They should be thankful that we're not reading The Faerie Queen or some such. Grahame isn't "hard." And I suppose that if students think it's boring, they have themselves, like Mr. Toad, succumbed to the temptations of the motor-car, the desire for speed--"here to-day--in next week tomorrow." They seem maybe incapable of slowing down and enjoying the luxuriousness of Grahame's language, just as Toad is unable to enjoy the natural world that Ratty and Mole so love. My students (maybe!) have become the products of industrialization that Grahame warns us about in the character of Toad. Alas!

Well, I didn't start out intending this to be some sort of rant, which seems to be what it's become. Maybe I needed the rant. Maybe it will be catharsis enough that I can read Grahame with pleasure!

And Finally, Alan and Drennan

OK, so this was over the summer. But I still like it.

More Photos. . .

I really, really LOVE this pic of Polly (in back) and Guinn (in the foreground). They are, of course, sitting on my bed, which isn't really allowed.

Cutest Animal on the Planet

I am always on the lookout for the cutest animal on the planet, and I'm convinced that Guinnie and Polly (and now Fenway) are in the running. But this sea otter is pretty darn cute. A. and I encountered him when we visited Morro Bay, CA a couple of weeks ago.

Here's the new little guy. We're calling him Fenway. He's only five weeks old and can't come home with me until Valentine's Day.

I talked to C. the other day, and she said something like, "I keep checking your blog, but you haven't posted anything new." But now I finally feel inspired to post. I'm doing well, I think. I started back to work this week, which has been exhausting but good--I really do enjoy it. And I feel good, because *finally* I feel like I'm making some positive changes in my life. And that makes me feel good, but I also wonder if maybe it's that I'm feeling better, less depressed, that makes me feel able to somehow take control and make positive changes. Either way, it's good. So I'm a little pressed for time at the moment, but more later.

Thursday Thirteen: Books

Yet again, I am procrastinating, putting off the grading (uggh!) that I should / could be doing. But it seems like a fun "thirteen" is thirteen favorite books / authors, or at least authors that I find particularly meaningful in some way. So, in no particular order, here e go. . .

1. C.S. Lewis. Although it's not his most widely read work, I'm convinced that Till We Have Faces is his very, very best. And I am of the opinion that everyone should read it. And it proves definitively that Lewis, so often called a misogynist, really does "get" women. Till We Have Faces absolutely changed the way that I think about relationships.

2. Margaret Atwood. I've been rereading The Handmaid's Tale for a class I'm teaching. And it strikes me that Atwood is such a skilled, intentional writer. Her work feels so very well crafted.

3. J.R.R. Tolkien.

4. Beatrix Potter

5. Harper Lee. I'm convinced that if there is a single great American novel, then To Kill a Mockingbird is it.

6. Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway has changed me forever.

7. Chaucer (but not Shakespeare!)

8. Nathaniel Hawthorne. I adore "The Minister's Black Veil."

9. E.B. White. I love this line from Charlotte: You have been my friend. . .That in itself is a tremendous thing. . .After all, what's a life anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. . .By helping you, perhaps I was trying to life up my life a trifle.

10. Beowulf

11. Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor is hard to deal with, hard to even talk about. But she rocks my world. Seriously.

12. Colin Dexter / G.K. Chesterton / PD James. Ok, I LOVE the British murder mystery, particularly the character-driven, "cozy" mystery. I'm convinced that these writers have this deep understanding of the complexities and beauties and horrors of the human condition.

13. P.G Wodehouse. I came to Jeeves and Wooster via Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. But I've discovered that Wodehouse is every bit as funny and clever and smart as Laurie's and Fry's representations of his characters. It's truly, truly laugh-out-loud stuff. And when I need something light, this is my go-to guy.


Ok, conspicuously absent are Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea is like my literary nemesis) and JK Rowling.

Thursday Thirteen, Project Runway Edition

Yes, it's only Wednesday. But I've been vegging out, watching Bravo's Project Runway for the last couple of hours. And Project Runway is probably the least objectionable of the "reality" TV that I indulge in. So as I've been watching and sipping red wine (love the Coppola red blend!) and browsing magazines, I've felt inspired to post a quickie "thirteen." So here it is for your edification.

I want to be someone who wears

1. Hats. I want more hats in my day-to-day existence. I'm particularly fond of winter hats.

2. Jackets. This season, J Crew has the cutest, hippest jackets. I want jackets in fun colors and funky textures. I especially want jackets with 3/4 sleeves, so that I can layer them with fun colors.

3. Sunglasses, preferably with pink lenses

4. Fun, funky, campy tee shirts. I have a pink tee that says "Wild Thing." And there's a picture of one of Sendak's creatures. What's better than that?

5. Knee socks. I'm particularly fond of argyles and stripes. I'm particularly partial to pink.

6. Scarves. Wooly scarves, crocheted scarves, silk scarves, scarves for the ski slopes, scarves reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn: I LOVE them all. And it seems worth making the concerted effort to incorporate more scarves into my daily look.

7. Interesting tights. I love tights with interesting colors and textures. Recently my mom sent me this great pair of black and grey argyle tights. What could be finer?

8. Dresses. I've decided that I want more dresses in my wardrobe. I wear skirts, usually A-lines, with sweaters and tights often. But I want more dresses, particularly in corduroy and in wool blends.

9. Boots. I so enjoy wearing boots, especially with skirts or dresses. Boots make me happy and confident in a way that's completely irrational and wonderful.

10. Belts. I've not been wearing belts the past few years. And yet, I want to try. I want to make the effort to attempt belts. Maybe my heavier body can't handle belts--I don't know. But it seems worth a go.

11. Glittery make-up. I know that some would say I'm too old for it, but I absolutely LOVE fun cosmetics. Glitter eyeshadow just makes me happy. Ditto for frosted blue eyeshadow, the kind we wore in the late 80s. I know it's silly, even campy, but I adore it all.

12. Tattoos. I have one and only one. But I want at least two more.

13. Clothing and accessories of my own creation. I love wearing items that I've designed or made or remade. It gives me this sense of accomplishment and power.

Some of these things, like boots, I do wear frequently. Others I'd like to incorporate. But they make me happy. Not very long ago, I was someone who displayed a definite sense of style. I want to feel like that woman again.

I'm taking a break from grading, grading, grading. Arggh! How much grading can one Professor be reasonably expected to complete. OK, to be fair, I was the one who assigned all this stuff, so by rights, I should be the one who has to grade it. But there are moments when it becomes mind-numbing. Oops--is this turning into one of those posts that's going to come back to haunt me someday if /when I'm on the job market? And more to the point, really, will there come a day when I am back on the job market? But what I really wanted to say is that for the past four days or so, it's just been cold. I don't think it got to much about 20 today (and that's 20 Fahrenheit, I'll have you know!) And, already, I'm tired of being cold. I'm tired of sloshing through snow. I'm tired of having to worry about slipping and falling in the parking lot. It's somehow all way more complicated than, as a Californian, I would have imagined. And yet it's somehow magical too. I cannot the way that I feel as I sit before a toasty-warm fire and watch the snow fall. I cannot convey the comfort of the long nights, seemingly custom made for reading long novels. I cannot explain the sheer joy of picking just the right scarf and hat and actually layering clothing. Wearing sweaters and jackets and wooly tights and socks is such fun in that J. Crew, non-SoCal kind of way. Maybe I'm just trying to make my peace with winter here--I'm not sure. But somehow the discomforts of winter are, at least a little bit, offset by the sense of coziness. This, I suppose, is winter in New England.

Thursday Thirteen: Words, words, words

I think a fun "13" is 13 expressions that I really enjoy. I don't incorporate these into my everyday speech as much as I'd like, but they are fun ones!

1. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.

2. Don't know shit from shinola / Don't know his ass from a hole in the ground. For those of you with a less rednecky background than I have, this one refers to someone who isn't too bright (the lights are on, but no one's home), doesn't get it, or maybe is just generally dumb.

3. No great shakes. I also like "two shakes," as in, "I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Really, anything with "shakes" works for me.

4. Different points to be made. So that's a David Brent one.

5. But I am COLD. That's a Guinnie one, and as such it maybe doesn't qualify as an expression. But it's fun all the same.

6. Take off you hoser.

7. Rudesby.

8. "You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me." That's a Merle Haggard one.

9. It's a long ol' road that don't turn. Apparently, this means the same thing as "What goes around, comes around." I never quite get it, but for entirely personal reasons, I like it.

10. "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." If you don't know where that one's from, then I'm not going to tell you. But in a very simplistic way, I think it sums up my life's philosophy.

11. "If I fake it, I don't really have it. . . same with cardiac arrest." Also memorable are, "baby steps" and "There are two types of people in this world, those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't." Oh and then there's "Your death therapy saved me, you genius!"

12. "Hi, you've reached Drennan. I'm emotionally unavaliable right now, but if you leave a message. . . "

AND (drum roll)

13. Context is all / context is everything / context is king.

Oh, a couple of post-scripts:

A. "Well, there's always beer"
B. "It's five o'clock somewhere"
C. I don't drink candy-ass-girly drinks.

Odd, isn't it, that those are all alcohol themed?

If you feel so inclined, please contribute your own in the comments section!

Tamra Barney

I have real reservations about posting this. And I'm going to type, but I may end up not putting it out there for the world to see, not that soooooo many people actually read this. But Tamra Barney is the most infuriating person that I've never met. And I know it's catty of me to slander her via the internet, but by pursuing a gig in reality TV, isn't she opening herself up for public comment? Here's the thing that gets to me: in the Housewives of Orange County, at least so far, Tamra is all hung up about the fact that she's nearly 40; additionally, she makes it clear that how she looks is one of the most important things in her life. She says, in fact, that one of her biggest goals right now is looking as good as she can. And, yeah, she looks good. She's exceptionally well groomed; she has a great body; I guess she dresses cute, although her style is a bit skanky for my taste. But I think it's sad that this seems to be what she lives for, that how she looks is such an important thing to her. I mean, what she'll have to discover some day is that, like all of her, she's lost her looks. It happens to all of us; I certainly struggle with my looks and my weight and trying to figure out how much of my identity is tied to how I look. But the bottom line is that I know that how I look is not nearly as important as what I believe and how I treat others and who I love and what I think. And it seems so sad to me when people put their looks ahead of all that other stuff.

OK, the other thing that bugs me about Tamra (and she, in my mind, is simply the stand-in for this larger tendency) is that she seems to think getting drunk is sooooo cute. I certainly imbibe on occasion. And yes, there have been times when I've drunk a little too much. But I don't think it's cute or cool or fun. And I certainly don't walk around saying, "Woo hoo! I'm gonna get drunk this weekend, and it's gonna be sooooo great!" I don't get it. I mean, I understand 20 year olds who have that attitude, but shouldn't we have outgrown it by the time we reach 40? I guess Tamra missed that memo. Or maybe her development was somehow arrested when she got preggers at 18. Getting drunk is not funny, Tamra. Nor does anyone think you are cool because of the way you party.

I know that all of this is mean and catty and probably unwarranted. I realize that my attitude here is fairly unbecoming. And yet, it's just hard to let these things slide. My mother pointed out earlier that no one's making me watch The Real Housewives. And she's right. No one makes me TiVo (I love that we can use TiVo as a verb!) it and watch it at my convenience. No one makes me stop and rewind all the really juicy parts. No one makes me get all self-righteous, and I realize that, at least partly, that's what it is.

Thursday Thirteen, Thanksgiving Style!

Yes, it's Thanksgiving, and it seems apt to list the things for which I am thankful, especially on this day. And as I sit here, already mentally putting together my list, it strikes me that I so often whine, complain, feel put upon, and am generally depressed; focusing on what I'm truly, truly thankful for seems therapeutic, something I should do more frequently. So here goes. . .

1. My brothers: I cannot imagine my life or even myself without Jake and John. They, probably more than anyone else, have taught me to see life from a variety of perspectives. By simply being who they are, they've helped me to think in new ways. And I'm convinced that without the two of them, I'd be a different, less happy, less interesting person.

2. My parents: I guess they aren't prefect, but they are pretty darn great, as far as mothers and fathers go. I'm convinced that I'm annoying and demanding of attention as a daughter, even as an adult. And yet, they never treat me like I'm all those things. And I miss them and all my family today, because even more so than Christmas, Thanksgiving, when I was a child, was a the time that we spent together as an extended family.

3. My extended family: This one's huge. First, I'm thankful that I've been blessed with wonderful, interesting, supportive grandparents. I'm thankful that, even at 32, all my grandparents are still alive and are a part of my life. Even now, when I phone my grandfather, he makes me feel like the most wonderful, important person in the world. I'm also thankful, especially today, for my cousins J. and M. Thanksgiving was always a time that I spent with them, sometimes, as we got older, the only time of year that I could count on spending with them. And I have all these great memories associated with J. and M. and Thanksgiving, all kinds of inside jokes. And I miss them especially today.

4. Guinnie and Polly: I'd be so, so, so lonely without dogs to come home to. I'm convinced that a dog's love may be the only truly unconditional love that we experience. And in humans, a doggy love would seem kinda pathetic, maybe even neurotic. But it dogs it's just delightful.

5. Literacy: Seriously, I'm daily, daily thankful for the ability to read and write. I cannot imagine existence without reading.

6. Friends: I'm thinking here of all of you whom I can call for no reason at all. And you know who you are. I'm thinking of the kinds of friends that I might not talk with for months, and yet we can always pick right up where we left off. I'm thinking of the kinds of friends who've seen me at my worst and love me anyway, probably see good in me anyway.

7. Creativity: Maybe "creativity" isn't the best term for what I mean, but I don't know what else to term it. I'm thankful for imagination, the ability to create and engage in creative activities. When I'm really down, this is one thing that makes me feel half-human again.

8. Food: Is it bad that food is something I'm thankful for? I don't just mean that, unlike so much of the world, I have enough to eat. I mean that I'm really thankful that I can think about food and plan meals and cook and enjoy eating and sharing food with friends. And, yes, I do have the whole emotional eating problem; there's no doubt about it. Food becomes a solace when I'm anxious or lonely. And this, I know, isn't so healthy. But in a way that I'm totally OK with, food is this fabulous, interesting part of life.

9. A House: Yes, I'm thankful to have shelter. But I have more than just shelter in mind here. I'm thankful for a warm, cozy house that feels like home. Living in my own house, rather than a rental, feels so grown up. And it's not a huge home, but it's absolutely perfect for me. As Goldilocks would say, it's just right.

10. Being born in the United States: It feels somehow cheezy to say it. But I'm thankful to have been born into a society where women have options and freedoms not afforded them elsewhere. I would say that I'm not a particularly patriotic person, but I am thankful for all the privileges that I enjoy, simply by virtue of having been born into a particular place at a particular time.

11. My job: I know, I often complain about it. And my complaints are mostly about my salary. But the job itself, what I do each day is wonderful and fulfilling and what I believe I am meant to be doing, at least for now.

12. Health: I'm thankful for my physical and emotional health. And although I have occasional, minor health problems--depression, allergies, migraines--I'm generally healthy. Health seems to me to be something that we take for granted until we are laid up by the flu (or something worse!) for 48 hours, or so, and then, suddenly, we realize the miracle of health.

13. Boots!: Ok, in the grand scheme of things, I know that footwear isn't maybe such a big deal, unless one doesn't have footwear. But I just love, love, love boots. And when I wear them, they truly bring me great satisfaction and even joy.

I could add to this list, surely. And I should state that these are in no particular order, so don't be offended if you are a friend and you were listed after the dogs and literacy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

TUESDAY 13--13 Things I Love / Hate About Vermont

I've been thinking and thinking about why it is I'm staying in Vermont. I know how I ended up here, but I'm not sure how long I want to stay. And in the process, I've been considering what it is I really like about Vermont and what really kinda bothers me. I don't know if I'll get to 13, but here goes. . .

1. Hate: Winter. I'm just not cut out for North-East winters, of that I'm certain. It snowed today, the first snow that's stuck. And the roads were slick. And I wasn't able to go to work. And it's just really inconvenient and really cold. And I'm not sure I want to deal with four or five more months of this.

2. Hate: the Vermonter style. It's like everyone dresses in jeans and sweaters from LL Bean. And I think that LL Bean is great for lots of things. But I can feel myself slowing slipping into a Vermonter kind of style. And I don't like that. I want to feel comfortable wearing cute, fun, funky fashion. And it somehow doesn't seem to work for me in Vermont. And I'm tired of jeans and boring, although functional, sweaters.

3. Hate: Missing friends and family. I've made only a very few friends since I moved here, over three years ago. And it's increasingly distressing and discouraging. It's icky to feel like I have so few people in my life who care about me.

4. Hate: No Target. Seriously, the shopping here sucks. When I first moved here, there was at least a Gap. And that felt like my shopping salvation. However, nearly two years ago, it closed, while an Old Navy opened. I've tried, but I just can't get with Old Navy, not really. But the worst part is that there's no Target, not in the whole darn state.

5. Hate: No real coffee house. I didn't realize how much I'd miss the little, funky local coffee shop where I could hang out, read, grade papers, whatever. I'd even settle for a Starbucks. But alas--the nearest is like an hour's drive away.

6. Hate: No Borders / Barnes and Noble. These normally contain a coffee lounge--see number 5 above. But the mega-bookstore, possibly my favorite thing about corporate America and globalization and all those things that we're supposed to hate and fear, is nonexistent in R-town. And although there are rumors that a B and N is supposed to open (along with a Taco Bell, yummo!), I am doubtful. It feels like living in the Hinterland, without the conveniences of civilization.

7. Love: The winters. Ok, so I know that winter was a "hate" above. And it's a "hate" and a "love" all at the same time. You see, there's something about winter that makes me want to nest and make soup and read during those long, long nights. And that's positively divine. And, I don't know, the nesting and being all cozy indoors makes me want to pursue creative things. When I'm creating regularly, I think I'm more content with all aspects of my life.

8. Hate: Feeling detached, especially from a church. Ok, I get that this is, partly, my own decision and a result of my own behavior and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Vermont, per say. (Side note: Because it seems funny, I'm trying to work "per say" into my conversation more frequently.) Still, the sense of being an "unjoined person" plagues me. And I'm longing for connection to something larger than myself while being ashamed of my failure to find a church. But part of the problem is that there's no church in the immediate area that is right for me. And so instead of driving far each Sunday or settling for a "good enough," I just avoid the whole question. And it just bothers me.

Ok, so I only got to 8, but that's OK. And significantly, there are more "hates" than "loves." That's food for thought, as they say.

One More Thing. . .

Ok, so sometimes, I just want to say that boys suck. And I don't know--this public forum probably isn't the place to name names. But they just make me mad.