Just for Writing’s Sake

It’s been a while since I’ve just posted shite, isn’t it?  Just to write for writing’s sake.  Let’s say we give this a try.

Work since Christmas has been unbelievably busy.  Partially because the first quarter of each calendar year is the end of our fiscal year and partially because I’ve had more temporary support staff through here than can possibly be healthy.  I’ve had four temps in the last six months.  I think the mail room staff and human resources are starting to wonder if I beat them.  One was here a week, told me she didn’t like filing, left one day for lunch and had her agency call and tell me she wasn’t coming back.  She left two desk drawers full of work left undone and an expensive Starbucks’ ceramic travel mug. I did her work and I kept her mug.

Spoils of combat.  I figured it was an even trade.

Got one in now that’s good!  Here’s hoping she sticks!

Holy Week!  Indeed, it’s Holy Thursday.  I haven’t posted much about my lent.  For the first time ever, I gave up meat.  You know, it was tough the first week.  When Sunday came (one doesn’t fast on Sundays) all I could think of was meat.  Meat meat MEAT!  Went out and bought steaks that Sunday for my daughter and I.  The sacrifice got easier after that.  It’s amazing what you can find to eat that is meatless. 

Both Campbell’s Healthy Choice Tomato Soup and their Vegetarian Vegetable Soup are really good.  Canned salmon is kind of gross.  My macaroni and cheese isn’t as good as it used to be.  I can fill up on a lot of celery.  I still like peanut butter and tunafish.  Vietnamese delis make a tuna on a hoagie roll that’s pretty tasty.  I’m a little sick of McDonald’s fish filets.  I also learned I make a really good seafood salad. 

It wasn’t just the meat I gave up.  I also gave up reading anything that wasn’t spiritual (this really = no J.D. Robb “…In Death” books).  For years, I’ve been trying to finish Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s book “The Life of Christ”.  I start it each Lent and never get through the whole thing.  I did well this year - I have 100 pages to go and it looks like I’ll finish it right around Easter day, if not a little sooner.  A really wonderful work and highly recommended.  I found it easier to read a chapter at a time and let it soak in.  It’s filled with lyric descriptions and classic Sheen analogies that bring Our Lord to life. 

I’ll admit that I was less faithful to my commitment to stay off the computer after 8:00 pm.  I was on it less to be sure, and since the PC is heaving from a some sort of spyware rash, perhaps the Lord is punishing me because of my faithlessness.  I don’t really believe that, but I can’t get on it at all now.  It begs the question of the vengeful punitive God and how much involvement He had in my technological breakdown.

Overall, it’s been a good Lent; one of my most spiritually fruitful I think.  Will attend services on Good Friday, do some spring cleaning on Saturday, attend mass and enjoy the company of family and friends on Sunday. 

*Sigh.  Thanks for letting me write.  Felt good.  Missed you.

The Hakawati – by Rabih Alameddine

I bought “The Hakawati” two months ago after reading a write up on it in The Wall Street Journal. I read it during my lunch hour at work and it has been an enjoyable two months ~ I’m going to miss this book.

A hakawati is a middle eastern story teller and oh, what tales we are told! The foundation of the book is the story of Osama al-Kharrat and his struggle to come to terms with in relationship with his father before his father passes away. We learn about Osama’s siblings, parents and antecedents. Peppered in between Osama’s struggle are stories of old. We are treated to stories of Fatima and her battle with the jinn Afreet-Jehanam and their subsequent and passionate love affair, of Fatima’s son Shams and the son of the emir Layl, of Baybars, of Taboush, of Abraham, and my two favorites Othman and his beautiful, strong, wise and crafty wife Layla.

I’m slowly gaining a little insight into the Korean culture through all those k-dramas I watch. The Korean culture is different and charming and sweet. “The Hakawati” offered me, after “The Red Tent” and “The Kite Runner”, some tiny insight into the Middle Eastern culture; one that is magical and real and lusty. Some of it was a little weird for me, but it didn't ruin in the telling.

I barely even realized that a tapestry that was being woven around me. I got confused trying to remember all of Osama’s family, who fathered whom, which wife was feuding with which other one’s aunt. It was told in sort of a conversational style that pulled me right in, felt real and kept me invested. But by the end, after all the magical tales were told, I realized that through the stories I grew to love, alongside the characters for whom I supported and ached, the thread of the hakawati continued through the ages. The thread uniting grandfathers and fathers and sons and nephews and cousins and sisters and mothers and aunts and grandmothers. The thread bringing life to their stories and richness to ours. Osama realizes it too, he understands in the end that he really does know his father and he will enjoy telling the story of his father for many years to come.

I liked it, a little weird, but yeah, I liked it. I think I will read it again; high marks. It is recommended.

The Book Whore

Bee Gees Song of the Day: Surrender

This is my life story, I've been lost and found
In the final hour, turn my life around

And I surrender. take me for all time
Love as warm as wine, and I surrender

I’d been emailing a good friend this weekend and among the many things we discussed, we talked briefly about bookstores.

I may have told you before that I am a book whore. I love books. I love to read them and I love to own them. I’ll wear a ratty old corduroy jacket until my friends make fun of me and my kids take it and burn it without my knowledge, but if there is one thing I will buy; it's books. I like to go to the library book sales and buy lots of books for $10. It makes me ridiculously happy. A Barnes and Noble a few miles away sounds like nirvana; I can spend hours there smelling books and reading books and loving books. I don’t know if that’s part of my geek-y nature, but there you go.

The book whore in me has this fantasy of a library in her house with shelves up to the ceiling filled with books she has read or wants to read or thinks she should read or that she has collected. In a special little place in this room is a first edition "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. The book whore sneaks into the room sometimes just to look at the book. She would never touch it because it cost upwards of $210,000. She also has a book written by Agatha Christie signed by the author and one by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, similarly annotated.

The book whore next moves over to the shelf with a set of 10 Colliers Childrens' Books. These are on the bottom shelf so that she has to sit on the floor to reach them. She likes to pull those off and look at those occasionally. When she was three years old, she taught herself to read these books. She would hide in a corner of a room upstairs, losing herself in the words and pictures. And if she couldn’t see anyone, no one could see her. No one would bother her. The world disappeared behind pictures of teddy bears skipping, children sleeping, five Chinese brothers smiling, Scottish Terriers named Angus chasing cats, scary witch pictures, lost little girls looking for their mamas. While the book whore sits in this room, she is three years old again and no one can see her.

Never in my wildest dreams would I expect this to be fulfilled, but it is a happy place for me. A room with no echo, that feels heavily laden, that smells safe and makes me smile.