Textually aroused

I know I made fun of memes a while back. So, naturally, I'm passing on another one now. Hypocrite? Me?

But I had to, for a few reasons. First the actual meme, as seen on Facebook and everywhere else: There's a supposed BBC-originated list of 100 books, only six of which the "BBC believes" the average person will have read. The instructions are to indicate those you've read, liked, disliked, and so on.

The only problem is, I found the list on the BBC website, and it's significantly different. Near as I can tell, someone (or someones) altered the list to make it ... I don't know, more impressive sounding? I'm not sure. I know the original list lacks the Bible, Shakespeare, Anna Karenina, Memoirs of a Geisha, and several others that now appear. Maybe I'll redo my list with the original, especially if I don't feel like working but want to feel productive. But my response to the memed one (with my own commentary) is at the end of this post. I've read 48 of the books.

Like I said, I'm responding for a couple of reasons. First, I can't resist a chance to show the world how smart and nerdy I am. Second, I feel terribly clever for knowing it's modified list, though I'm sure plenty of people have already realized that. But third, I sort of take issue with the implications of doing so and of the "list of books to read" phenomenon in general. So I'm, what, eight times more well read than most people? I don't buy that. Or perhaps what I don't buy is the hierarchy of book worthiness.

Because the thing is, I'm obsessed with reading. Obsessed. And I didn't get that way on Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby, or even on Lord of the Rings. I didn't read a lot of the books I "counted" until well into adulthood. My obsession started young and was nurtured into a love affair by junior high and early high school, by which point I had still read almost none of the books that appear on any of these kinds of lists.

I almost had to be a bookworm. My dad (whose birthday would have been today; more on that in the next post) gave new meaning to "avid reader," and sort of made it his mission to pass it on to me. He turned me on to nonfiction reading, countless novels, and comic books (Wolverine and Batman were the favorites -- you like them now that they're cool to like? Bone up on your back stories and then talk to me.) We spent nearly an entire summer reading and rereading A Wrinkle in Time, just talking about how it worked.

Add to that my grandmother, my dad’s mother. When we were growing up, she worked at a bookstore across the country. Each month, surplus books would have their covers torn off for some sort of record keeping and the books would be slated for disposal. As a kid, it always used to strike me as somehow wrong that a bookstore could destroy books, business or no. Fortunately, my grandmother couldn’t abide the idea any more easily, and she shipped the books to us. They arrived in huge brown boxes, waiting on our steps after school, wrapped about ten times over in packing tape. The tape became a running joke. She had an inexplicable attachment to the stuff, and it almost made the end result -- the challenge, the wait, the eventual revealing of the prize -- sweeter. Like a strip tease, only with books.

When finally the tape lay in a giant ball on the carpet, we’d fling open the box flaps to reveal stack upon stack of paperbacks, piled tightly together, turned sideways and slid down vertically on top of and beside the main stacks where spaces remained, to maximize the number of books per box. My brother and sister would pick books here and there, but I became nerdily determined to read every single one. It didn’t matter what the subject was -- kids’ novels and older-audience titles, poetry, nature, science, medicine, fiction as well as nonfiction. I even read an Unauthorized Guide to the Mario Brothers, though I don’t play video games. I became obsessed with stories and background information, with different ways of describing things, with characters, with facts. I read every book in The Babysitters’ Club series, and all the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. I read every book written by Madeline L’Engle and C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien save a few obscure volumes that remained perpetually on my Christmas and birthday wish lists. I knew each time a new title was due from Christopher Pike or R.L. Stine (pre-Goosebumps series). I read old and new together and mixed genres like a kid at a soda fountain mixes flavors: Rocket Ship Galileo and then Pippi Longstocking; The Wind in the Willows and then a volume ambitiously titled The Story of Mankind. I read a book on a professional painter turned marine biologist, who used his hybrid training to portray sharks in a positive light at a time when it wasn’t en vogue to do so. I read a novel chronicling the last twenty-four hours of the life of Christ. I learned words like polydactyl and metaphysics and struthiomimus. I learned how to build stilts and how to do card tricks. I learned a great many dirty jokes and some clean ones, though I was and still am terrible at delivering one effectively. I memorized “The Raven,” “Jaberwocky,” “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and “Casey at the Bat” long before I ever studied poetry in school; and even gave a go at understanding “The Hunting of the Snark,” though I wasn’t able to make much sense out of it, other than to be quite unsure how the boojum was dangerous, or what the hell it was, for that matter. I also learned from books, however, that a boojum was a rather peculiar upside-down looking tree related to the ocotillo, and let my intellectual pride take solace in this fact, unrelated to snarks though it might be.

Yeah, I pretty much thought I was the shit. I must have been a royal pain.

And now David reads all those same books. The exact same ones, many missing covers, others read so many times that pieces of the covers have permanent creases or purple unicorn "Belongs to Kim" stickers that themselves have been worn thin.

Now, I know what a lot of people think at this point. Because, except for a few, there aren't many books or subjects I've just listed that would appear on any "best" list. So the common response is, well, it's still great, because at least you were reading something. At least David's reading something now. That's probably why you went on to read 48 books on that list.

I hate the attitude of "At least they're reading something."

Who needs a caste system of books? Really? "At least?" "At least" is the opposite of why I've read 48 of those books. Conditioning myself to read, and then "discovering" the "real" stuff, has nothing to do with it. I learned to read because my dad and others taught me it was fun. Those boxes were treasure boxes. It's the same reason David reads today. Reading is exciting. We've all learned to read for purely recreational purposes.

Now I'm not saying that lists don't have their place. A list of books college bound students should read, fine. A list of the most educational and accessible books in some field or other, great. I think they're infinitely helpful. But I take issue with the general "these are the best books" list. You know the book that made me a passionate reader? This one:

It contained such scholarly tidbits as the "Cyclops girl," a man who painted with his tongue, a guy who held his arm outstretched for ten years, two women who each gave birth to 69 children, and a temple where "thousands were hurled to their deaths."

The thing was, I read all 332 pages of this book. At eight years old. My neck would get stiff and the carpet would make indentations in my knees, from sitting and reading. The morning light would turn brighter and harsher, and only then would I rise from murderous tyrants and 20-foot-tall flowers to eat a late lunch. I had to read it.

In my mind, some of the only books on the list that would have given me that gotta-keep-reading feeling would be the Harry Potter volumes, and it's not because the writing's that great. It's not, technically. For one thing, Rowling's overuse of adverbs makes me want to barf after two or so pages. But her storytelling rocks. Her dialogue is excellent; the characters tell the story for her. The point is, for whatever reason, these kinds of books fly by for me. They're easy in a good way and accessible and I'm actually a little disappointed when I can't "live" in their worlds anymore. We'd be severely deprived if this was the only kind of book out there, but it's what turns readers on.

Today, David's engrossed in a book about the universe. Catcher in the Rye can't be far behind. But I know it won't precede severed toes and The Hearse Song. We're in the middle of The Goblet of Fire, and I have to pry him away from it each night. He'll never have to have a book assigned to him in his life. He reads anything.

The books in both lists are good stuff, no doubt. And yeah, if you take my Lord of the Rings or Mockingbird, we might have to have words. But even those, I can put down. Whatever combination of good writing and storytelling and one's own point in life makes it happen,
it's a rare book that makes you almost wet your pants because you can't put it down.

Or maybe that's "rare" for me and "never" for sane people. Whatever. Here's my list. (You can stop reading here now if you're totally tired of these things. The list is ugly. I would have put it in the comments, but the spacing was all weird there.)

The instructions, for the uninitiated, were to:
1. Look at the list and put and (X) after those you have read
2. Add a (+) to the ones you LOVE
3. Add a (-) to books you didn't like.
3. Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4. Slash (/) those you don't plan on reading.
5. Tally your total at the bottom

1. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen):X
2. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien): X
3. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte): /
4. Harry Potter series (JK Rowling): X+
5. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee): X+
6. The Bible: X
7. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte): X
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell): X
9. His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman):X (would have been X+ if I'd read it as a kid; still almost + for ideas if not writing)
10. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens): X
11. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott): X
12. Tess of the D'Ubervilles (Thomas Hardy): /
13. Catch 22 (Joseph Heller): X (And there should be a hyphen, list writer. Also, I award my own "+" to anyone who actually uses the term "Catch-22" PROPERLY)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare: X+
15. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier): /
16. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien): X+
17. Birdsong (Sebastian Faulk): /
18. Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger): X+
19. The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger): /
20. Middlemarch (George Elliot): X
21. Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell): /
22. The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald): *
23. Bleak House (Charles Dickens): /
24. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy): /
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams): x+
26. Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh):/
27. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky): X
28. Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck): X
29. Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): X+
30. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame): x+
31. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy): /
32. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens): x
33. Chronicles of Narnia (CS Lewis): x (can I say "+" on some readings and "-" on others?)
34. Emma (Jane Austen): /
35. Persuasion (Jane Austen): /
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (CS Lewis): X (Um, this IS part of Chronicles of Narnia, idiotic list-maker person)
37. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini): X (It was OK, but I feel like I must be missing something.)
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Louis De Bernieres): *
39. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden): *
40. Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne): X
41. Animal Farm (George Orwell): X (In 9th grade, I'd have said "X++++," because I thought I was SO smart for "getting it.")
42. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown): sorta * (Meh. Maybe.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez): *
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney (John Irving): *
45. The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins): / (Don't recognize this one.)
46. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery): /
47. Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy):/
48. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood): X+
49. Lord of the Flies (William Golding): X+ (mainly because my dad and I spent a month reading and re-reading it and discussing it.)
50. Atonement (Ian McEwan): * (maybe)
51. Life of Pi (Yann Martel): X+ (Just go along for the ride. Suspend incredulity. It makes it better.)
52. Dune (Frank Herbert): X+ (and also Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune, The Butlerian Jihad, and The Machine Crusade. I'm working on the rest. Yes, I do have a life. Why do you ask?)
53. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons):/
54. Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen): /
55. A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth): (Don't recognize.)
56. The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon): * (I have it. I think I picked it up solely on the merit of its title.)
57. A Tale of Two Citites (Charles Dickens): X
58. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley): X (Again, boy did I feel clever for getting it. I must have been a pain in the ass in junior high and high school.)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon): / (what's the deal with this one? It's supposed to be some big deal, right?)
60. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez): * (maybe)
61. Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck): X
62. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov): X
63. The Secret History (Donna Tartt): *
64. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold): *
65. Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas): X
66. On the Road (Jack Kerouac): X
67. Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy): (Don't know this one either.)
68. Bridget Jones's Diary (Helen Fielding): /
69. Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie): X
70. Moby Dick (Herman Melville): X (I hated it in high school; it was alright the second time.)
71. Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens): /
72. Dracula (Bram Stoker): X
73. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett): X
74. Notes From a Small Island (Bill Bryson): X+
75. Ulysses (James Joyce): X
76. The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath): *
77. Swallows and Amazon (Arthur Ransome): *
78. Germinal (Emile Zola): (Don't recognize.)
79. Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray): /
80. Possession (AS Byatt): (Don't recognize.)
81. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens): X
82. Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell): /
83. The Color Purple (Alice Walker): /
84. The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro):/
85. Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert): /
86. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry): *
87. Charlotte's Web (EB White): X+ (I loved this book when I was 8 or so.)
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom): /
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle): X
90. The Faraway Tree Collection (Enid Blyton): *
91. Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad): *
92. The Little Prince (Antoine De Saint-Exupery): / (Started it; didn't like it.)
93. The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks): *
94. Watership Down (Richard Adams): /
95. A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole): /
96. A Town Like Alice (Nevile Shute): /
97. The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas): X (Only after my friend and I saw the movie, because we hearted Chris O'Donnell.)
98. Hamlet (William Shakespeare): X+ (Saw the play too! One of the only formal events I ever attended. DOn't miss that boyfriend, but I loved that.)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Ronald Dahl): X
100. Le Miserables (Victor Hugo): /

I've read 48.

Snapshots from Monday morning

Me: David, you know I don't like when you grab my butt.
David: But you let DAD do it!

David: I wish I was an X-Man. I would be Nightcrawler, and I'd teleport to Chuck E. Cheese! Or, I'd have pizza power, where I could turn everything into pizza. Except I'd turn off the pizza power in my lips, so I could kiss you. And my butt, so the toilet isn't pizza. Maybe I could make a butt glove like Rogue has for her hands.

David: Mom, why do my eyes water after I hit myself in the head with the baseball bat? And when I hit the chair really hard with my face?

David: [Obnoxious bullcrap.]
Me: You need to cut it out right now. And don't make that ugly face at me!
David: BwaaaughWHAAA! You called me ugly!
Me: No, of course I didn't! I would never! I meant your attitude. I think you know that.
David: No, I don't! What attitude?
Me: I mean, you were sneering and growling and rolling your eyes and scrunching up your face pretending to cry. You were acting in an ugly fashion.
David: Like ugly clothes? Like that black shirt and pajama shorts you drop me off at school in?

David: [Different obnoxious bullcrap.]
Me: Would you please.
David: [Continues crapulous attitude.]
Me: You need to knock it off right now.
David: No thanks!
Me: Excuse me?
David: No thanks, please, Mom?

Then I dropped him off this morning. He sprinted back to me because he "forgot a couple of hugs and kisses," bellowed goodbye, and ran back to be mobbed by his friends. Loving Mom and being the popular class clown/smart kid. He's got it all down.

Also, butts are always funny. He's just sayin'.

25 things

So I've been tagged a bazillion times for the "25 things" meme, and posted one on Facebook, but I've been tagged several times since then, via Facebook, MySpace (to which I forgot I still even belonged) and e-mail. So, if you really can't get enough random, useless facts about me, here is a cheater post because I'm to lazy to write a complete blog entry the list from Facebook, with only minor edits.

25 Freakin' things about me:

1. I like the idea for this list, which is the only reason I'm doing it. I hate memes, as a rule. I know you've tagged me, and will continue tagging me, and want me to tag others. Bah humbug. I'm not tagging. Besides, I'm out of friends to tag.

2. Also, I don't mind doing this because it allows me to procrastinate. I procrastinate pathologically. (Below, one of the products of said procrastination. Real useful.)

3. I also multitask obsessively. It actually makes me much less productive.

4. I have three book/manuscript ideas in progress right now. I think they're all winners. None are near completion.

5. I'm changing the subject because my inability to be productive depresses me, so I'm going to avoid it now. I do that.

6. I never wear makeup. Ever. I really don't know how to apply makeup.

7. You know that dream where you realize you're in class with no pants on? I really did that. Yes, folks, I forgot to wear pants.

8. I'm having a hard time writing this list, as I discover there are very few things I don't share about myself. Perhaps this item would be that I overshare?

9. But that seems so weird to me, because in demeanor I am an extremely private person.

10. I guess it's that I'm blunt and straight-forward. I actually see brutal bluntness as a positive trait, and am proud of it in myself.

11. My husband does not share my opinion of blunt, brutal honesty.

12. No. 11 keeps our marriage interesting, to say the least.

13. I didn't see Star Wars until 6th or 7th grade, but I pretended to know all about it before then because a guy I liked loved it. (I love it now.)

14. I once sneaked onto a construction site to use the portable toilet. (14b: I'm ridiculously proud that I know to say "sneaked" and not "snuck.")

15. I trim the skin around my nails compulsively. I've already done it twice today.

16. I worry for a big part of every day that I'm really a total failure, and just managing to fool everyone. Sometimes I worry that I'm not fooling anyone and they're just being nice.

17. If I had a superpower, it would be the power to freeze time. I've actually had extensive conversations about this.

18. I just talked to an old friend to congratulate him on a milestone. I used to have this huge unrequited crush on the guy, and unlike other crushes, told no one. He's still hot, but there's nothing now.

19. I used to be Republican, but I'm not anymore.

20. I used to get my nails done, but I don't anymore.

21. I have a gym membership, but I don't really go anymore.

22. I love carbonated drinks. If I could buy carbonated milk, I would.

23. At one point in my life, I said I'd never want kids. I literally can't put myself back in that mindset. It's like trying to remember not being able to read. I just can't conjure it.

24. I just thought of a couple of things not everyone knows about me, but they're not going out to the Internet at large. Sorry.

25. I haven't eaten a proper meal all day. I tend not to when I'm alone, but I'm obsessed with cooking/eating proper meals as a family.

26. (Bonus thing): I promise (you, myself) my next blog entry will not be a list. I'm swearing them off for at least two weeks.

There. You officially all know way too much about me. Like I said, I ain't tagging. But if you've shared yours, post a link. I'm kind of addicted to reading the lists.

Our life: A very shot play in one and a half acts

Act I: Yesterday afternoon

(Scene: Car, filled with dozens of empty pop bottles, sticks and leaves gathered from the entire state of Arizona, various Nickelodeon paraphernalia, one six-year-old and two adults trying to make the most of the few minutes this week during which they might actually converse. Silly them.)

Me: So there was this online discussion about circumcision that was getting kind of out of hand.
Aaron: Well, I really don't see the big deal, I mean, to each their own, right?
Me: Some people were comparing it to female genital mutilation, you know, the total removal of the (I glance to the back seat, see the child who won't listen to 90 percent of what I say paying rapt attention) ... of the C-L-I...
Aaron: (Clearing his throat in embarrassment, cutting me off): Yeah, OK, I know what you mean. But it's not like that at all.
Me: That's what I think. Then too, some people are worried about sons looking like their fathers, the whole locker-room issue...
Aaron: So, what? Like he and I are going to line up in front of the mirror and compare notes?
David: Compare notes on what, Dad?
Aaron: Hairstyles, David. (To me): Besides, it's not like if they [makes the snip-snip motion with his fingers] when they're first born...
David: Why are you making scissors?
Aaron: No reason, David. (To me): So, if they, um, skin the snake...
David: What?!
Aaron: Nothing! It's just a silly phrase!
David: Well, I don't like that phrase. Poor snake!
Me: Yeah, Dad. Poor snake.
Aaron: (Shoots me the death glare; addresses David): I don't like it either. Sorry, David. (To me): So if they, er, remove a particular portion, it's not like they're any worse off or are even going to know the difference.
Me: Some folks are worried about loss of sensitivity.
Aaron: But it's kind of subjective, isn't it? I mean, each P-E-N-I-S...
Me: You do know he's been able to spell that for ages.
David: PENIS! You spelled PENIS! Bwahaha!
Aaron: Yes, I spelled penis. Tee hee.
Me: Hey, David, look at that horse! (Son distracted, I address Aaron): I can see your point, though. It's not like they could conduct a scientific study on that. It couldn't really be objective.
Aaron: Right. What, like, "OK subjects, every time you're H-O-R-N-Y, clock your speed of arousal, your partner's arousal, and how good it was for you?"
Me: Ha. Yeah.
(Conversation moves on to Harry Potter, pasta, and my son's new microscope.)
(Night ends peacefully, full of pasta and free from genital-themed discussions.)

Act II: Very, very early this morning

(Scene: The inside of my eyelids. Or possibly the first floor of a house on a mercilessly bright Arizona morning.)

David: Mom, what's H-O-R-N-Y spell? Could it be like for an animal with horns?
Me: Yeah, I guess it could! Let's just say they have cool horns, though, OK?
David (shrugging): OK, Mom.
David: Oh, and Mom? Don't use the hand towel in the downstairs bathroom. I blew my nose into it.
(He exits stage right in search of Pop Tarts.)
(I exit stage left in search of products with which to scour my face.)

The End.

20 things I still haven't learned

1. That some people will never agree with me.
2. That an increase in volume will not make them agree with me.
   
3. That telling someone "I never watch television" or "I read mostly nonfiction," however true, will not win you any friends.
4. How to make prodigious use of the Internet without losing untold hours and days to its distractions.
5. That hot surfaces are hot.
6. That jumping spiders jump.
7. That knives are sharp.
8. That solid surfaces are solid, and hurt upon collision with one's person.
   
9. How to navigate predominantly via map directions.
10. That "ponytail" is not a hairstyle.
11. That "whatever's clean" is not a clothing style.
    
12. How to read without skipping all over the page or screen.
13. That it's not a good idea to smell your hand to check out the nature of that carpet moisture.
14. That it's not a good idea to smell socks or undergarments to ascertain their before-laundry or after-laundry status. (But if you really have to, undergarments are still better than socks. Oy.)
15. How to stay on task.
16. That upholstery will get wet if the car is left in the rain with the windows wide open. And that sitting on said upholstery and then picking up a first-grader is sure to provoke much jollity. ("Mom! You look like you wet your pants!")
17. How to be funny.
18. That bananas really hate me. The love is unrequited.
19. How to make friends as easily as my son.
20. How to pound out blog posts in less than an hour without resorting to cheaterly lists.

Happy New Year, and things I've learned

We don't traditionally make a huge deal of New Year's in the Hosey/Wilson/affiliated clans. We recognize it. And today I'm going over to spend the day at my mom's for a relaxed excuse to eat ourselves silly visit. And I try to "ring it in," somehow, every year. Ever since I was 8, I'd creep back out of bed (I am decidedly NOT a morning/waking-up person, but can "program" my body to wake up when I choose). I'd pretend I'd been awake the whole time, and tiptoe to the living room, which everyone had vacated but my dad, who would pretend he'd been awake the whole time. I'd stretch the nightgown, the scratchy one that caught on my elbows but that I loved anyway, over my knees and sit beside him and watch the ball drop on the television. And it was plenty.

And I've had memorable New Year's moments since then. There was the New Year's Eve that I learned that Jell-O shooters are not equal to Jell-O Jigglers, the New Year's Day I discovered that neither tequila nor smooth talkers are anyone's friends, the New Year my husband (then my secret boyfriend) and I rang in with a kiss in the movie theater parking lot, when no one knew we were "back together" yet (except, I eventually discovered, my mom, who always knows such things).

Last night, we took my son to see a movie, and cuddled, all of us, in the back of the theater. We went out to eat, put him to bed (after reading the couple of pages I promised ten pages twelve pages a whole chapter of Prisoner of Azkaban.) My husband and I sat on the couch. We fell asleep and woke back up at exactly midnight to ring it in. And it was plenty.

But in the name of taking stock, it occurs to me that there are a few things I learned in 2008. Not much, really. But I did learn:

• That my son's capacity for wonder, curiosity and tenderness knows no limit.
  
• That it is possible for a child to be obsessed with a single body part for an entire year, and that I will get so used to it/fed up with it that I will shout things like "I don't want to be poked in the butt, slapped on the butt, hear about your butt, hear about my own butt, hear about any butts, hear words that mean butt, or hear the poop song EVER AGAIN, and I mean it!" in the middle of Target and not think there is anything odd about the sentence until I notice weird looks from fellow customers.
• How much I'd missed seeing the stars, really seeing them. And how clear the night sky is from our new house.
  
• A whole heck of a lot about mortgage rates, credit scores and loans; as well as how to bitch just enough at the Realtor and loan guy to get things moving, but not so much that they hate me.
• That my ex-landlord sucks big bovine gonads.
• That the view from our house totally rocks.
  
• How to fold killer paper airplanes, ones that stay in the air for at least 15 seconds.
• That, until very recently, my husband did not know about my webbed toes or my ADD. (Though, on the latter, he seems to think a lot of things "make more sense" now.)
• That my marriage still needs some work.
• That, generally, my marriage is pretty darn awesome.
• The meaning of the word "apropos." And that I'm the only smart person I know who didn't know the meaning of the word "apropos."
  
• How to work a Chinese yo-yo. Sort of.
• Did I mention I'm happy with the new house and its view?
  
• How to pack an apartment's worth of stuff in record time.
• That most of my family reads this blog, and that's a good thing.
  
• A whole lot about crickets, astronomy, child psychology, the education system, Nickelodeon cartoons, paleontology, eyeless albino millipedes, politics and economics (but probably not enough about any of those things).
• How to take waaay better pictures than I did in 2007.
  
• That, generally, my pictures still need a lot of work.
• To prioritize.
• That I should never, ever, no exceptions (I mean it this time, self) eat beef products after 8 p.m.
• That I don't listen to myself. Neither does anyone else. I must learn how to be stricter with us all.
• How to bake a number of really awesome casserole dishes, cakes, and breads.
• How to clean up in twenty-one minutes when six out-of-town family members are on their way and I only JUST THEN find out, and we've just moved in and just had Christmas and there's not one clean spot in the house. (Hint: Cupboard space, garage = your friends.)
• That I'm pretty down with the suburban existence.
• How to come to terms with my totally receding chin and those line-things on either side of my face.
• That sometimes, I just screw up with the parenting thing -- but usually, I'm pretty OK.
• That, as of last night, my son still wants to sit in my lap. And that I still get choked up about it, and that my husband still rolls his eyes about it (but secretly seems pretty happy when I lean over and we all end up in a cheesy, hokey pile of family).
• How to identify major constellations by season.
• To document, document, document everything. (Unfortunately, this lesson was learned by experience.)
• How to use teacher strategies to get my kid to listen to me.
• That I will not be excommunicated from my family for voting against the familial party (and that I should have known better, anyway).
• That worrying about things does not count as working toward their resolution.
• That I'm addicted to the show Lost (and Battlestar Galactica when it finally returns), but other than those shows, if the television disappeared I wouldn't notice.
• That traffic cops do not care if you're "very sorry."
• How to take chances on things that may not work, and what to do when they do (and when they don't).
• That I'm better than I think I am at some of the things I try to do.
• That I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am.
• How to let things go, and which things those should be.
• How to love a year, love the lessons learned, and hold my people so darn close I squish them -- but move the hell on from the crappy stuff, and tackle my life. I've got some plans for 2009.

Have a joyous, safe New Year and a better 2009 than 2008, whether your 2008 sucked or rocked. Happy New Year, everyone.

Search me

According to How to Blog gurus, good bloggers don't say "Sorry for the lack of posts lately." So, I guess this is sorry for the lack of posts lately, and sorry for not being a good blogger.

As I've mentioned, we just bought a house, and in between moving in, unpacking, searching for just about everything I thought we'd put in a convenient place so we wouldn't have to search for it, clogged toilets and fountaining poop water, being covered in cat vomit, and miscellaneous moving tasks, I haven't had much time or opportunity for blogging (I only just re-got the Internet). Also, my son has winter break, and has the annoying habit of wanting me to actually spend time with him.

I kid, of course. I have as much fun as he does.

I did make time for Christmas decoration, but most of the house is in various states of mess, so you just get to see a corner. (Who am I kidding? It's just an excuse to show off a kid Christmas picture.)


And in the meantime, until I have more meaty posts, I'll leave you with a smattering of search terms that result in this blog. It leaves me wondering, sometimes:

Arizonawriter: Woo! People are searching for me! Or, at least, a writer in Arizona. I'll choose to believe the former.

I just made you say underwear: Well, my son made me say "I'd better see those underpants where they belong and not on your head, in thirty seconds!"

A-Z of dirty words: Um, not that kind of blog. Sorry.

Dirty words A-Z: Really, it's not!

Surprised dirty words: As in, WTF?!

Half clothed: It's not that kind of blog either.

Stupid husband: I feel your pain, anonymous searcher.

Love husband: See, it's not all bad, right?

A-Z dirtywords: Back on that, I see.

Every single word in the universe A-Z: OK, even I'm not that ambitious. Even if I was trying to find all the dirty ones.

Shorts 1892 butt: Susan B. Anthony? Clara Barton? Calamity Jane? Grover Cleveland? Seriously, I'm curious whose 1892 butt you were hoping to see.

Nothing is as boring as a writer: Thanks a lot.

Poop: Heh, heh. You said poop.

Tahmoh Penikett is HOT: Oh, yeah.

Pink puke: I hope you're not searching out of necessity, kind reader. Because my experience with pink puke was not made any more savory by the pleasing pastel shade of the projectile, lemme tell you.

I love you: Aww, thanks. Now does that love come with a comment? A link, perhaps?

I will be back tonight probably. Until then, I'm sure I'll see you all soon, dear readers, since every person in existence will be in the mall parking lot.