#ThrowbackThursday Oopsie

Author's Note: Kay, literally, I've edited this stupid post three separate times now. But life keeps getting in the way and then I don't upload it on Thursday, so then I rewrote it for "flashbackfriday" but then we went out of town so I re-rewrote it for the next thursday forgetting that we were leaving early thursday morning for the whole weekend and now I'm just so done with this dumb thing, I will not be re-writing any of it. Good luck with continuity.

Well.

We all knew this was coming.

I did well for three weeks, let's just appreciate that fact for a moment.

...

Yaaay!

Okay here's your next installment of #ThrowbackThursday

a "week late" (see? toldja, three weeks late now) technically

because I suck

and I forgot to do it last week.
The night I was supposed to do it
I was already all cuddled up in bed with my book

and very pressing matters (read: chapters) to attend to.

I have a problem.

It's called Book-Induced Insomnia Syndrome.

Apparently I'm a life-long sufferer.

Look what a pretentious baby I was though,

dat book title, yo.
The Federal Reserve blah-blah-something

Kay, just appreciate for a moment
how much effort it took for me to
get that edit uploaded.
OHMUHGUH.
Technologically impaired right hurr.
Also.
#uglytophatftw
I musta sat on it or something.

Happy Throwback Thursday!
Finally!!

Am I a Monster?

Blogging goal: do this thing. It's a cool thing. I'm gunna do the thing.

Blogging reality: Forget to do the thing. GIFS FOR DISTRACTION!

True story.

In all honesty, I had planned to access blogger from my phone to keep up on this TFiOS (The Fault in Our Stars) "feels fest" while we went camping for the weekend, because on my Top 5 Favorite Activities list "reading by the shoreline" ranks quite high, but turns out cell service doesn't extend to deep canyons hours out of civilization. Go figure.

Also my phone died. Inpermanently of course. Just...no outlets either. 

So I wrote my first feels-explosion before we left town and then the next day I found myself at the end of the book having had a grant total of zero moments where I thought to put it down and write stuff about it so now, three days later, I'll just have to make do with memory.

So!

I finished the book. 

And guys, would you believe it, I didn't shed a single tear. 

But not because I wasn't emotionally invested! Not at all because it wasn't the most beautiful love and life story I have read in a long time. Not in any way due to the fact that I'm a ruined mess on the inside because John Green made the English language seem halfway decent in expressing deep and potent human emotion.

I still don't know why I didn't cry. I've been thinking about it a lot. The simplest way I can explain it is that there wasn't time to be sad for the characters. I literally suddenly found myself flipping the last page and I was at the Q&A exclusive section at the back of the book and I kinda just sat there in a stupefied haze.

I was very quiet and enveloped in my thoughts for the rest of the evening.

I gazed pretentiously at the immense expanse of stars glittering above our campsite considering how far we were from the glow of cities and just thought about the kind of person I've let myself become.

But I never cried. 

I think I felt like crying would have been a disrespect to Hazel and/or Augustus. They didn't want my pity. They didn't need my sadness. 

Logically, I should have cried. I'm openly emotional when it comes to the media I listen to or watch. Throwing cancer (and other assorted dire maladies), animals, or military into the mix is basically just a recipe for disaster in my tear ducts.

But honestly, with The Fault in Our Stars, I only felt...uplifted.

I felt like I had a better capacity to enjoy the life I was given.

John Green talked about how he didn't want to sentimentalize or romanticize any part of the story and I full-heartedly believe he succeeded in that endeavor. I believed these were real people with real struggles having real reactions.

Their grand trip to Amsterdam was perfect, but only because they made it so.

The end for Augustus was horrific and there were no grand speeches, no death-bedside admonitions and professions of undying love, just a sick boy who desperately wanted to be more than "just sick" losing all capacity to make coherent sentences before he died.

Hazel didn't get a grand, last-minute goodbye.

And someday, that will be okay.

I don't know how to explain that those sentiments don't tug tears from my eyes but the death of Sirius Black by a magical curse and slipping into an ethereal void makes me sob like my childhood pet just got run over by a car...that I was driving. (Seriously folks, it wrecks me.)

It is the best book I've read in a long time. Please do not mistake these admissions of tearless-ness to be criticism of the novel itself. I will recommend it to any who will listen and yes you can borrow my copy (only if you sign the waiver, of course). 

#thestruggle

I honestly feel like TFiOS expanded my mind and made me a better, more intelligent and empathetic person. I am glad for people like John Green that can take their life experiences and share it in such a way that my well-being can benefit from it as well.

Huzzah for books.

#deanapprovesthismessage

TFiOS Feels

I have an opportunity here.
One that will likely be unpopular considering the amount of blathering the entire world has already dumped into the internet and beyond dealing with this book.
But I just started it for the first time.
And because I'm a nerd and my favorite subject in school was always English (and Art(s), tied) I cannot vanquish the need to write about the literature I read.
So prepare ye for random updates on the feels that I feel during this reading venture. And just be glad that I don't do this for every book I read because I could write novels [no comment as to the quality of said 'novels'] about The Stormlight Series that Mark and I are on right now I'm legitimately obsessed. In a bad way. And by 'bad' I really mean 'glorious'.

Oh, and like, **Spoilers**. DUH.

Chapter Five, Page 64

Feels Already Felt; I'm pretty sure I never stopped smiling (except for Isaac's meltdown) (except not really because HOW EFFING REALISTIC with Augustus encouraging him and making lighthearted jokes about it but keeping it real but UGGGGHHH so fabulous). I've already laughed out loud multiple times, looking a right fool I'm sure.
And oh my gosh, the thinkings. The thoughts circling my head already. Oblivion, perspective, human tendency, John Green I can't even with you right now.

Also, struggling hardcore with the fact that I want to mark the CRAP out of this book but no way in heaven am I defacing my brand new, fancy "exclusive collector's edition". (Which has zero meaning to me cuz I don't know what qualifies it as "collectible", like, maybe the pretty silver jacket?)* I just feel like I need a double set of every book I own. One to stay in beautiful, pristine, paper-smelling condition and the other to draw in and highlight and scribble notes in and cry on.
Bookworm problems. The struggle is so very real.
Didn't someone come up with translucent post-it notes or something? I need that. I need translucent post-its the size of the book I'm reading cuz lesbihonest, dat shiz is brilliant.

So uhhh, yeah that's how I feel about it so far.
I also need my lunch break to be like, at least two hours longer. Possibly more like seven. Until I'm done basically. Actually, you know what, can I just go home? #todayismyFriday

Effect(s): I already want to be a more optimistic person. Which is bizarre because Hazel is far from optimistic and Augustus is just...I don't know, an optimesstic?
In the other book I'm reading (Words of Radiance) there are also two lead characters, male and female, who go through a buttload of crap, and one embodies pessimism while the other deals through, not necessarily optimism, but cheerfulness. And her cheerfulness makes me feel guilty.
Hazel's realistic views and Augustus' propensity towards bolstering others just really lifts my spirits. Not in a "If they can do it, I can do it" way and more of a "Man the sun is so awesome, look at that sunshine go, driving is fun" way.

64 pages??

I'm also on a book high. I'm keeping a list of the books I'm reading this year and giving quick reviews of them in another blog post that I'll publish at the end of the year but let's just say I'm way over being able to count all of them on my fingers. Aided by the fact that I read the Harry Potter series and finished it before March. So, granted, all the credit may not be reserved for TFiOS. Vague disclaimer, ftw.

*I looked up what makes the Collector's Edition so special. And I was half right. It's partly the fancy cover (which I am all for more steely gray in my life) as well as a nifty Q&A section in the back. And pretty much any words out of John Green's mouth are words I want to hear.

Getting Ahead of Myself...

I've got babies on my mind. With two close friends already on their second kid (and due by the end of summer) and one friend on the brink of mommyhood (so excited to meet you #babybell!!) I'm thinking a lot about my own future children and how I shall fare with my own Mommy mantle.

This is a list of books that my mom read to me that I will read to my children to compensate for the unfortunate "distressed damsel" psychosis brought upon by the majority of Disney movies because, lezbihonest, I'll enjoy brainwashing watching those just as much as the kids. (Okay, but maybe not the 15th time in a row since 8am, I'm not a sociopath.) I'm not saying that any and every kid raised on Disney movies or the like will grow up to be a whimpering pansy waiting for their Shining Knight (Mulan, Pocahontas, Merida, Tiana, helloooo) but I am saying these books are fab.

--Little House on the Prairie series

• I often feel guilty still when I think about how hard they had to work to live and be good people. Pa and Ma are saints and I just hope to be able to raise my children half as well as the Ingalls' did.
• It isn't until "These Happy, Golden Years" that romance even enters the picture. She's a normal girl having epic adventures wherever she can manage.
• She gets a job extremely young and is incredibly honest about the pros and cons of it. Instilling good work ethic? Yaaaas plzzz.
• The beautiful frienemy-ship Laura has with her siblings. So good.

--Matilda

• Comedic, whimsical, delightful, and traumatizing all in one bizarre little book. I kid you not I made my mom read this book with me probably 3 times a year until I was 10. My saintly mother. We would cuddle up in bed and drink hot cocoa just like Matilda liked to do. After we were finished I would sit on the foot of my bed and strain my eyes till I got a headache trying to produce a facsimile of Matilda's amazing powers. I'm fairly certain my awful eyesight is the fruition of those efforts.
• The amount of questionable mini-lessons like, "encourage anarchy in your school" and "revolt against any and all teachers that don't smother you with kindness" may not be superb, but I dunno I turned out okay. I wasn't rushing to dust my teacher's boxers with itching powder or consistently rebel and get myself stuck in a torture box of horror. But enduring to the end? Family is what/who you make of it? Quirkiness is not to be ashamed of? All are lessons I'd be proud to bestow upon my kids.

--Basically everything Roald Dahl

• That book about the Tortoise....Esio Trot? cuz it's tortoise backwards? I haven't thought about that book in forever but gosh, I loved it. It's like Dr. Seuss level ridiculous but somehow still has actual plot and meaning to it.
• The mind that brought us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach; if you threw Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss in a blender and baked it in the oven out would come the perfect Roald Dahl pie. (Sorry, I went a little Sweeney Todd there...random)

--Speaking of Dr. Seuss...

• My previous "diss" was less of a "diss" and more of an admission that I'm not smart enough for Seuss-speak. I LOVE the books and will definitely utilize them in building up speech, but when I get to the end of Green Eggs and Ham I'm just hungry. I don't remember feeling like I should be a better human after reading Seuss but it DID whet my creative appetite.
• If I was to obtain only one fault as a parent (HA!) it would be that I will probably just breed creativity. I honestly worry about having carpet in the house because I will want to paint, and sculpt, and glue, and sparkle, and constantly be creating with my kids. Which is obviously not a bad thing, per se. "All things in moderation," right?

--The Secret Garden

• Good golly I hated Mary Lennox. This is another book I wanted to read over, and over, and over. I loved everything about the moor and the manor and the gardens and whats-his-face with all his animal friends. But the whining children spewing their arrogance and entitlement all over everything and everyone is probably what made me determined to actually be a decent human growing up.
  "I will not be like Mary Lennox, I will not be a brat, I won't!"
• Not everybody will always want to share their story with you and you just gotta be nice and let them work it out. You don't know their life, you don't know their circumstances, kill their grump with kindness. You can't go wrong with being nice.
• Gardens. GARDENS. 

--The Poky Little Puppy

• And all those little books with the gold binding? Help me, google!
• Oh, literally, "Little Golden Books". lolz
• These were some of the first I ever started reading aloud and I loved it.

*Honorable Mentions: To be encouraged for personal reading

--Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Boxcar Children

--Brian Jacques' Redwall Series

--Series of Unfortunate Events

--Artemis Fowl

--Harry fracking Potter duh.

(Update: 6/24/14)
--Chronicles of Narnia (how could I forget?!)

I'm quickly realizing that this is basically an outline of my evil plan to mold my children into bookworms. And I don't even feel bad.

Because I will read whatever my little human shoves in my lap whether it's Dr. Seuss, Laura Ingalls Wilder, or a knockoff Disney reproduction that includes bogus ending lines such as "Flynn will always love Rapunzel's crown" and then I will pencil in my own ending about love and respect and disregard for material objects because WUT?? (actual quote from a coloring book I bought) (for myself)

And like I said, I will encourage those books but it's not gonna be, like, a required reading list to qualify for Dinner Rights. If they want "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" they can read that (not bashing it! Just have never read them myself so I can't say either way...). If they want comics, they can have comics. What's an appropriate comic book reading age? Like, people get murdered in alleyways, is that really okay for a third grader? I dunno.

This is quickly sliding down the rabbit-hole of "omg am I gonna be an okay parent? Will my children live? How am I going to do this??"

Basically, our house will be littered with books and I hope I can instill a love of reading in my children and help cultivate their imaginations rather than letting t.v. do the job for me. It's so hard to type stuff like this and not worry about someone on the reading end getting offended because they think I'm calling them out as a bad parent.

Literally, if your kid is alive and breathing and is nice to people, that's all the criteria I need to think you're being a good parent. And like, you aren't abusing them. Obvy.

But this is what I mean about "getting ahead of myself". Children are still a ways off; corporate still has to announce the official date for when they're closing down our office.
"Hope! Why don't you just quit now if you're so ready for kids? Motherhood is the most important always."
I know. I was going to quit in May after my anniversary date so I could sell back my vacation hours but then they announced our office was closing and there would be a nice chunk of severance but you have to stay till the close date. Which is currently projected for September. But it's "flexible" so who knows really.
So nobody get their drawers in a twist. This is not an announcement (or rather just an announcement of my battle plans) and we are not expecting.

I just like making lists.

Books then Rants then Yams

Sooooooooooo...that one awesome time your husband came home randomly and sheepishly held up the bag from Barnes & Noble but you weren't even mad because, c'mon, nobody's mad when you buy more books.
And that following ironic time when you and your husband started reading said books and his starts out with an angsty elvish princess with a forbidden love and a plan to run away with said forbidden love and he has to read through the resulting "diary" entries, but comparatively your book starts out in the aftermath of a battle scene with corpses and gore strewn everywhere and mysterious sword legends and assassins and freaking awesome "magical" abilities.
And then that awkward moment when you blog about it because you think it's funny that he got the "girl" book and you got the "boy" book and consequently realize how completely immature you sound.

But anyway. Here's to unintentionally blasting gender norms in the face.

Sorry guys. I go beyond Harry Potter level nerdy. I'm a Brandon Sanderson kinda girl and I really, really love it. Sci-fi fantasy is my mug o' butterbeer. And like, when I say "sorry" I mean "deal".

Here, I'll let John Barrowman tell my thoughts better. Take it away Cap'n.

I edited out the end there because I am sensitive to the fact that I claim to be a generally "family friendly" blog. Also name-calling is never okay.
But even missing his intended naughty word, the point still stands. No one should feel like they have to apologize for who they are or the things they like. Except maybe if you're a murderer...then you should probably apologize because that's just plain rude. Sorry Hannibal.
You be you and don't let anybody else determine how you feel about it.
If you're into a lot of words, I'll give you another famous internet speech by none other than Wesley Crusher (of Star Trek: Next Gen) himself because this cannot be shared enough times. And in my mind, it's not just applicable to nerds. If you have a passion for anything, this belongs to you as well.
But if you want to skip the totally inspiring words (tsk tsk) I kind of sum it up at the end anyway so just scroll on...

"You find the things that you love and you love them the most that you can."

We of the blogging community are really good at this. Whether it be cooking, crafting, photographing, parenting, or just living, we really like to share that passion. It's the whole point of a blog. Sharing the moments that bring us the most joy, the most pain, the most opportunity to learn.
I'm so glad to live in an era when being enthusiastic is celebrated and the realm of acceptable enthusiasm is expanding rapidly.

Also, how adorable are those superhero tutu costumes? I die.

This got super deep and weird and I didn't mean to, but I yam what I yam and I yam a rambling rambler.

yams

Take me to Sylvia Beach

So many fabulous things exist in this world. They're like special secrets you have to either be told about or just chance to trip over.
I was just introduced to one of these such things by happenstance on Facebook this morning and am now severely geeking out.

[via]

There is a hotel on the coast of Oregon that is so beautifully quaint and cozy and wonderful but there is one little fact that has me weak in the knees and fluttery in the tummy.
It is catered to book lovers.
The rooms are all named after famous authors and designed to quietly exude that writer's style (or quite loudly in some cases).
There is an upper floor Library with sofas and chairs and cushions and lamps and puzzles and board games with an abundance of wide, clear windows to let in the light and view the ocean.
They do family style dinner with seating similar to cruiselines where you make reservations and are seated with strangers, a perfect "getting-to-know-you" opportunity with fellow bookworms. Imagine the stories! I've taken a glance at their menu and the food is so decadent and fancy.
They're within walking distance of a few neighborhood parks, the Oregon Coast Aquarium is just down the road, the beach practically washes right to the hotel doors....
There's a house cat for crying out loud. She sometimes visits the rooms or frequents the library and may pick your lap to snooze in and I really just can't.
I cannot even.
I need to be there.
I need to live there.
I am having quite near an existential crisis trying to decide between the Mark Twain and Jane Austen rooms.

[via]

[via]

Oh, oh, or F. Scott Fitzgerald!

[via]

They have old vintage books just set out waiting for you to pick 'em up and dive right in, and it's nearly constantly rainy and oh, my heart is fit to burst.

[via]

"The library/reading area takes up the whole west side of the 3rd floor of the hotel. The temperment [sic] of the area depends on how it is being used at the time....quiet for reading, napping and writing [...]

It is a great place to hang out when the weather gets stormy or to watch a sunset or look for whale spouts."

Everything about that sounds like the best thing ever.

There are no TV's, radios, landlines, or wi-fi. No elevator. No pets. No smoking. Young children discouraged. (I am all for children, gaiz, don't get upset. There's a time and a place. Time and place.)

And plus, it's priced for double occupancy so you can even feel like you're getting a good deal by going alone. Which isn't sad at all, it's awesome.

I may just make this a yearly retreat.

That's normal, right?