April Challenge -- Day 4

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10 Interesting Things About Yourself.

Are these interesting? You be the judge.

1) Classic Arizona Birkenstocks (the two buckle style) are the best shoe for me because the heel well provides essential support after my plantar fascitis and the strap covers my bunion. (That sentence made me feel so old.)

2) I am age obsessed. Every once in a while, apropos of nothing, I find myself thinking, "Shit! I'm 60!"

3) I never cried when my mother died. I don't know why. I certainly do miss her.

4) I wonder if I would like me if I met me.

5)  Between November and April, my back itches soooooo much! I think it's because the heat in my home is so drying. Every morning, when I get out of the shower, I reach for the Vaseline Moisturizing Spray. I live in terror that Vaseline with discontinue it, and I will spend all next winter rubbing my back up against door frames. 

6) The Way We Were is my favorite movie, and here's my favorite line: "Wouldn't it be lovely if we were old? If we'd survived all this?" When times are tough, I often imagine myself looking back on them.

7) Again with the movies: Every day I try to be a little more Melly and a little less Scarlett.

8) There's a lot about baseball I love, but near the top of the list is this: no sudden death overtime. Just extra innings. Everyone gets the same number of outs. Baseball is so symmetrical, so fair. Life should be more like baseball.

9) Whenever I go outside during daylight hours, I look at the sky. Even on rainy days. The sky comes in so many colors and I love them all.
 

10) I wish I didn't get so disappointed in my friends. I wonder if the fault isn't mine. Maybe I expect too much and I'm not fair.

If you're interested in seeing the April Challenge prompts and joining in, click here.

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

1. What are you currently reading? American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping,Crimes and Trials of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin. I have never known what to make of Patty Hearst. After she was kidnapped, did she willingly join her captors and engage in domestic terrorism? They say she did. Or was she frightened for her life during their entire 19 months together? She says she was.

Jeffrey Toobin is familiar to me for his work as a CNN legal analyst. He writes well. The book is told chronologically, including many details about the long ago 1970s that put the kidnapping in context. Post-Watergate, pre-internet America was such a different place than it is now. Our attitudes and concerns were so different, so was the way we processed information. So far, Toobin is effective at setting the scene and establishing the cast of characters of this incredible real-life drama.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin. I wish I could recommend this book. Giffin writes well and gave me some moments that were so compelling I felt like I was right there with our heroine, Ellen, as she tried to decide between her husband, Andy, and that ex she just can't forget, Leo.

Yet I ultimately found the book annoying because of the characters. It literally took Ellen pages to think of something about her celebrity photo shoot that occurred to me almost instantly, and I'm not that bright. Neither of the men is very well drawn: Andy is simply too good (and a little too simple) to be true, Leo is a rather obvious "bad boy." 

In short, I enjoyed it while I was reading it -- the dialog and the descriptive passages are that good -- but then later, when I thought about what I just read, I thought, "What the hell?"

3.  What will you read next? Maybe another biography? Or a mystery. My TBR pile is stacked dauntingly high with both.  

 

A man died on this date

Sometimes when men become martyrs, we forget that they were once men. Last Christmas, when I was changing planes in ATL, I discovered an exhibit devoted to Dr. Martin Luther King. It was this collection of everyday items that most touched my heart: The 60's-era transistor radio he carried, the wristwatch he wore, and his reading glasses.

I'll let smarter people say more eloquent things about Dr. King on the 50th anniversary of his death. I just want anyone who sees this today to remember that 50 years ago today, a man was gunned down on a balcony. And that was a tragedy.