The Very Cluttered Diaper Bag

The latest obsession around our house, edging out the toy vacuum cleaner that a girlfriend let us borrow, is Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Before MLM was born, people warned me that this book would be the object of pure passion, and that has certainly has been the case. I now read that book, on repeated and sweet request ['peeeeese'], about 9 times a day. DH adds another 3 or 4 readings himself. I can hear that little caterpillar munching in my sleep.

I don't mind, I really don't. In fact I'm pretty excited that my son is growing attachments to his books and our rituals of reading them together. But I'll admit that when one of the characters on Modern Family was reading his daughter a gossip magazine because he couldn't stand to read TVHC one more time, I could completely relate.

I'm starting to think in the simple meter of that story about everything. Exempli gratia:

The Very Cluttered Diaper Bag

By the light of the moon, a tired and messy mommy rubs her shoulder.

Even when the warm sun comes up on Sunday morning, she cannot find anything.

Her diaper bag is so heavy and messy. She decides to look for the bottom.

On Monday, she moves the diapers and the wipes. But she still can't see the bottom.

On Tuesday, she pulls out her sunglasses, wallet and keys. But the bag is still full.

On Wednesday she removes a crumpled diaper that's a size too small. But the bag is still cluttered.

On Thursday she takes out an empty snack container and a used juice cup. But the bag is still messy.

On Friday she pulls out a board book and a teething toy. But she still can't see the bottom of the bag.

On Saturday, she takes out.......
one cup of applesauce, one bag of Scooby snacks
   two bibs, one lollipop, 14 cheerios, one pack of yogurt snacks
        three wadded up post-it notes, 43 cents in change, one yarmulke, three baby socks,
              17 receipts, one hair band, five ear plugs, one pacifier cover, one bottle adapter,
                       two tubes of lotion,
                          one empty glasses case [odd since Mommy doesn't wear glasses],
                                 one camera battery charger, four pens and
                                             one plastic baby spoon.

That night she had a headache.

The next day was Sunday again, and she turned the bag upside down over the trash can to get out all the crumbs, 6 more cheerios, and 13 additional cents. She felt much better.

She decided to keep her bag neater from now on. This lasted for two weeks.

Then she got busy again, and did not emerge as a beautiful organized butterfly.

But she loved her little man and always had something he needed. So that was okay.

Bookshelf Curriculum

I figured it out the other day -- I'm 33 years old, and I have spent almost exactly two-thirds of my life in school (at least part time). My first reaction as I write that sentence is to question the wisdom of all that higher education, and the next one is to try not to calculate how much it has all cost me.

I was thinking of this the other night as I wandered through the bookstore, wishing that I could take time out from my busy life (and, let's be honest - I probably could take time away from my TV-watching and Pathwords-playing) to just wind my way through the stacks of books, choosing the books that I want to read most, rather than the materials and assignments prescribed by my program of study.

That got me thinking - what would my chosen "curriculum" be? What are the books I've read that have been most influential on the way I think or how I look at life? What would be next - the things I've always wanted to read but not made time for, or new stuff on the horizon?

Here are some of the books/works I've read that had the biggest impact on me, in no particular order:

- 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein
- Absolom, Absolom by William Faulkner
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
- To Life! by Harold Kushner
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Countless works of William Shakespeare
- "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
- "Evening Hawk" by Robert Penn Warren
- The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
- The Lonely Planet Guides to Europe and the U.K.
- The Stand by Stephen King
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin
- Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding (I admit it! I loved it!)

These are just a few. I'm sure I could (and will) think of many more as my workday brain defrosts and delves deeper into my academic and pleasure-reading past. I'm amazed, as I make this list, how many of these books I remember loving and being influenced by - but I have lost touch with so many of them that I'm not sure I could recall many of the particulars. Wouldn't it be great to be able to make the time to re-read all your old favorites with a new perspective and appreciation?

In addition to a long trip down memory lane, I find myself craving new reading material that isn't either a grad school requirement, a work-related book, or pregnancy guide. Here are some of things I'd like to add to my own "curriculum" in the future. (Suggestions are helpful!)

- A fresh, inspiring biography
- A (somewhat objective) history of politics and violence in the Middle East
- A science fiction series anywhere close to as well-written and textured as LOTR
- An intrigue escape-type novel that's not too masculine, too feminine or too hokey
- A light, fun read, a la Bridget Jones, that is actually well written and innovative
- Anything that makes me want to set aside my current life and take one more stab at being a professional writer!!

I would love to hear what is on everyone else's "Bookshelf Curriculum."

The Crest of the Wave

You know, I almost didn't want to do a blog this week, partly because - as always seems the case when I sit down to write - I worry that I have nothing whatsoever to say. The more positive reason, however, is that last week's entry elicited so many fabulous responses from everyone. I didn't want to disrupt the flow.

Well, life and blog-life move on, so keep the haikus and rhyming tributes to your jobs coming, and in the meantime, we'll keep on truckin'...

So yesterday afternoon, I was running some errands, thinking it was time for a blog entry, and wondering what the heck I would talk about this week. There's nothing really going on. Well, actually, there's a whole crapload going on, it's just that none of it is all that interesting to the casual reader. It's just the daily ins and outs of my pleasantly-hectic life, and while I love living it, even I get bored talking about it.

As I'm sitting in my car, listening to an audiobook on my ipod, I noticed that I had been completely and utterly sucked in by it. The engine was off, the aforementioned errand 100 yards away just begging to be run, and Little Miss "Waste No Time" (that's me - see efficiency blog) is sitting in a parking lot staring at the wheel, totally engrossed by Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War. Even after I forced myself to get out of the car and run my errand, I took the long way home just to get a little more of the story, and at home I put in the earphones and did a little uncharacteristic Tuesday housecleaning as an excuse to keep listening.

Fortunately for all of us, most especially Mark Helprin, this is not a review of his book. The book is pretty good, but that's not the point. This is part of my pattern with all books, audiobooks especially. It starts out with a slow build -- I usually listen only while I'm working out or driving a long distance alone. So I'll hear an hour or two a week; and if I miss a week or two because I run with a friend or opt for music instead, I don't give it a second thought.

Sometimes I tune out for long descriptions and have to back up because I realize I've missed something important. It's sort of a casual flirtation at that point, and it can continue like that for several weeks or even months at a time.

But there's some point in every book -- at least, every book worth reading -- where that all changes. The author has slowly, intentionally (we hope) drawn you into the story and the characters almost without your notice. Then there's a turn in the plot, a change in character, some key moment -- and you realize that you are standing on a precipice with a tremendous momentum pushing you forward.

You have become part of the story, for better or worse, and it is a part of you. And even if 100 pages or 3 audio hours ago, you may have considered setting the book aside entirely, it's now too late. The momentum of the story has you in its grip and it becomes all-consuming. You find yourself staying up all night to finish it, reading half-paragraphs at traffic lights against your better judgment, finding excuses for downtime during the day so you can follow the story a little further. You develop a mini-obsession, and when you are finished, you might feel a little sad for a few days that you no longer have the anticipation, the compulsion, the passion. Until the next title catches your eye, and the slow build begins again.

It's a lot like falling in love, actually. You look around and suddenly, there you are, your best laid plans and intentions cast aside and your total focus is only on moving forward, riding the wave to whatever end it will take you.

I love, love, LOVE that part of a book. And just generally, I love those moments in life.

All my life, I have wanted to be a part of that process. I have wanted to lead myself and others to that point where momentum takes over, and the only possible result is inspiration, passion, and beautifully strange, totally compelling energy. Of course, if you look at my history, and especially my resume, you can see that I've ridden many such passionate waves to shore, some with better results than others. Sometimes it's glorious and thrilling, and other times, well, you get sand in your suit.

My goal is to incorporate that momentum and passion into everything I do, and to be aware of it even during those "slow build" moments where it's tempting to give up. The longer I work at it, the more I learn from my mistakes, and the closer I get.