Reading

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Posted on by Beth Hull

As I mentioned yesterday, I was reading The Hunger Games and LOVING it.

Scene at home on a lazy Sunday. Beth in sweats (like every day of the week) curled up reading (again, like every day of the week). Husband looking good as always, covered in toddler (like every minute that he is home and she’s awake–huge case of Daddy-worship).

Husband: Hey, Beth. (struggles to set Z down; unsuccessful)

Beth: (engrossed in book) Hmm?

Husband: There’s a huge pile of gourmet chocolate in the kitchen just waiting for you. (dances around room with Z)

Beth: Mmm-hmm.

Husband: An editor from a big-time publishing company called and wants to publish Savage Autumn. Million-dollar advance. (beckons parade of elephants through house for Z’s entertainment)

Beth: Mmm-hmm. I’m reading now, can we talk about this later?

Okay, so that’s not a real conversation. What Husband did say when he came in was, “Wow, it’s so weird to see you smile while you read.”

I usually scowl. It’s not on purpose, and usually not at all related to whatever I’m reading. Maybe I have bad eyesight, or my pensive face is more of a pissed-off look. Maybe the scowl is a defense mechanism developed over years of me wanting people to leave me alone while I read.  Whatever the reason for my usual scowl, The Hunger Games was so well-written, with such an intense and interesting plot, that I couldn’t help but smile.  I hope someday to write a novel that good–even if it never gets published, I would be thrilled. I would read it over and over again, applauding myself on an excellent selection of point-of-view character (Katniss is perfect), supporting cast, description (the sci-fi/future element isn’t in-your-face, but conveyed through very subtle clues in larger scenes). And the plot! Did Collins dream this up? It is so far out. Her imagination is incredible.

I don’t want to say more, because one of my friends hates spoilers, and I think she should be able to read it without any expectations (other than the expectation that it’s a freaky-amazing book).

Anyway, a thank-you to my friends Megan and Neda for suggesting I read it.

Haiku-oscope

Posted on by Beth Hull

a new week begins

thousand petals pushed to sky

the crocus blossoms

***

I was going to write something really cool here, but frankly, I’m reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (finally) and really can’t be bothered by anything. Don’t bother me until I’m done with this book. That goes for you too, Z. I think I’ll have to hire a babysitter when I read the second book in the trilogy. SO GOOD. I can’t even handle it. Suzanne Collins is my new hero.

Mood Enhancers that Do Not Come in Capsule Form

Posted on by Beth Hull

1. ice cream–the ultimate comfort food

2. learning that my mother is bffs with an editor at a big-time publishing company (I can’t speak from experience here, but I know this would cheer me up)

3. Clarkie, my cat

4. Sarah Dessen’s novels This Lullaby and The Truth About Forever

5. Pride and Prejudice on film (the BBC version…but when do I have 5 spare hours?) OR, you know, the book is okay, too

6. movie Blue Crush (I love sporty girl movies–the inspiration comes in handy for after I indulge in #1 above)

7. Louise Rennison’s book Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging

8.  movie Bend It Like Beckham (see #6 above)

9. a walk (again necessary to counteract negative effects of #1)

10. watching Z dance

11. an empty kitchen sink–no dirty dishes!

12. reading Abridged Scripts from The Editing Room

13. perusing paint swatches (see post Baby, Let’s Paint the Town Coral Expression)

14. gardening (unless there are slugs)

15. circling everything I want in the IKEA catalog

16. NAPS–mine and Z’s

17. chocolate never hurts

18. new pens and/or new diary books

19. emails from the library telling me a book I’ve been waiting for has arrived

20. having prettily-painted toenails

There are so, so many more, but rather than list them all, I think I’ll head out and enjoy some of them.

Great Expectorations

Posted on by Beth Hull

Here is my list of ten classic works adapted for parents of small children.

1. Great Expectorations, in which young Estella, instead of being coached to break the hearts of men, is trained to spit up all over them.

2. “The Lullaby of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Highlights: “I have measured my life in baby food jars,” “I have heard my parents singing, each to each / No, you go pick her up / I am asleep,” and “In the room mommies come and go / hoping their nursing bras don’t show.”

3. The White Badge of Courage, in which heroic parents are lauded for the spit-up stains on their shirts.

4. War and Pacifiers, featuring a number of babies with misleading nicknames who battle and philosophize over a long stretch of snow-covered binkies.

5. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Nap.” The speaker, a toddler, advises a younger sibling to rage, rage against the efforts of the mom.

6. As I Lay Diapering, in which a mother attempts to sleep while changing a diaper in the middle of the night.

7. Blubbering Heights. Two parents moan and cry for each other across the expanse of their bed, held apart by the kicking arms and legs of their young child.

8. One Day in the Life of Mama Denisovich chronicles a day in the life of a stay-at-home mom tethered to her child in a setting eerily similar to that of a Siberian prison camp. No bon-bons or soap operas included.

9. The (Rude) Awakening. A frustrated mother sets out to leave her family, then realizes she will surely starve without her husband because she doesn’t know how to cook. Returns home.

10. Babywulf. A colicky infant terrorizes a medieval household.

Kitchen ‘Capades

Posted on by Beth Hull

This morning I was greeted in the kitchen by the Mt. Everest of dishes, looming precipitously above me and sucking up all the oxygen with their stench. Didn’t I JUST do these? I wondered. Hasn’t there been enough kitchen cleaning for one week? Does it never end? I know I’m not the first stay-at-homie to ponder these philosophical quandaries. With my easy solution, perhaps I’ll be the last.

For those of you interested in my ground-breaking solution, here it is: stop eating. No food means no dishes. I know I can certainly survive until the Fourth of July off of my stomach fat alone, not even needing to use up the fat stores from other parts until much later. Z can survive off the handouts she gets at playdates. Seriously, the kid walks into a stranger’s house and starts begging. I try to convince the other moms that she does eat at home, but they don’t believe me. So I may as well stop feeding her and make the rounds to the other toddlers’ houses. And Husband? He barely eats anyway, somehow getting through an entire day on three cookies. In fact, he doesn’t even have to eat those cookies. He takes them to work, then brings them home; he magically absorbs whatever calories he needs just from carrying them. I magically absorb whatever calories I don’t need just by looking at air.

But this isn’t an article intended to poke fun at my weight, as easy as that is right now. I’m mystified by the kitchen, and the dishes inside it, and how they seem to dirty themselves through the very virtue of being dishes. Perhaps I don’t get it because I don’t cook. So when I see the dishes it’s magical in an Oh-No-Voldemort-Just-Apparated-In-My-Kitchen sort of way.

When I do finally tackle the mess, usually in the morning (I mean really, who wants to waste Z’s precious bedtime hours cleaning?), I vow to never again let it get this bad. “Never,” I say, scrubbing a chunk of enchilada off the rim of a plate. All good intentions are lost as soon as Z looks “thoughtful” and needs a new diaper. My child protects me from doing too much work because after the diaper change she wants a story. And in the face of all those dishes, reading Rosemary Wells’s Bunny Planet trilogy forty-six times sounds like nirvana.