An Ode

to a hot bath.

It's Saturday night, and like any Saturday night when I'm not going out, I'm heading upstairs to draw as hot a bath as I possibly can stand and spending the next hour reading and falling asleep in the tub. It's practically a ritual. I like my baths so hot that they are painful to step into. As the water gets cold, I let it out and draw more hot water. I know it's wasteful, but I can't help myself.

And I'll stay in the bath for at least an hour. I never wash. Baths have nothing to do with getting clean. That's what showers are for. Baths are for relaxing, normally with a glass of wine and a good book. Tonight I'm reading Oscar Wilde. I'll read for a while until the book gets heavy and then I set it on the side and let myself fall asleep. Sadly I don't have a deep enough tub where I have to worry about drowning. I can sleep peacefully in the tub and never have my face come in contact with the water.

I get my love of baths from my dad. He would regularly head for the tub after a hard day with a book and a glass of scotch. He never drank except for the bath tub. Jeff never takes baths. My mother hates them. But I can't live without them. If I go for too many weeks without my hot water fix I start to get irritable. I consider it one of my greatest indulgences. And the water is calling my name. Time for relaxation time.

Stupid Messed-up Internal Clock

To my sleep deprived brain, the clock read 6:30. That would have made me late. I hate to be rushed in the morning but I jumped out of bed and hopped in the shower. It was only after I'd rushed through my entire morning routine that I realized that the clock had actually been reading 5:30. So I'm up. Early.

I have veggies to cut for a cookout we're going to tonight. I have lunch to pack to get me through the work day. I should be playing with the cat (she's been starved for attention). So the extra hour is actually a good thing. But there was a moment this morning when I realized my mistake that I just stood and said Damn. That sleep would have been nice.

But I'll have time. I have two days of work until one of the longest vacations I've ever taken. Eleven blissful days of vacation, seven of which will take place in Indianapolis for "the best four days in gaming". I'm so freaking excited that it's been hard to focus on anything else. Of course once Gen Con comes I won't get any sleep. I know me. I have a family who are early rises. A friend who's going with us is a night owl. I know I'll burn the candle at both ends. And for once, I'm cool with that. I'll sleep sometime. It clearly wasn't today.

Guess What I'm Reading

I had the day off work and spent most of the afternoon cleaning out my back bedroom. I can now recognize that it holds a bed and even a desk. It was in pretty bad shape. While in there, I started looking over my bookcases for titles to get rid of. I do this every couple of years. I'm a bit compulsive as a book buyer. Without frequent weedings I would have no place to walk in my house. So I was looking to start a box. A huge series of books attracted my attention as possible shelf space but after glancing through them I think I'm going to keep them. They're just such fun.

Years ago my parents subscribed to the Time-Life Series of books. We would get beautiful hard bound books in the mail on every subject imaginable. My favorite then, and possibly still now, was a series called The Enchanted World. This was an illustrated collection of stories and myths broken out by subject. There are books on ogres, witches, brave knights, creation myths, christmas, and dozens of others. This 21 volume series covered every type of story imaginable. They are beautifully bound, richly illustrated, and amazingly heavy. For a fanciful child like myself, they were pure gold.

I've always loved fantasy stories and tales of the occult. I remember spending hours pouring over the book on witches and witchcraft trying to learn spells that would allow me to vanquish my enemies and make boys fall in love with me. In high school I played with tarot and palmistry, often earning me some interesting nicknames. I still love fairy tales and myths.

So I'm going back through those old stories that I may or may not have read. I started and finished The Book of Beginnings which covers creation myths and origin myths from around the world. There are Native American tales about how corn was introduced to the world. I was fascinated by the old Navajo story of the Woman Who Fell From the Sky and the Finnish story about the Princess of the Air who falls to earth and is impregnated by a clash of air and water, creating mankind. I particularly like the old Norse myths. The cover image tells an interesting tale of how animals got their tails. The section on Noah's Ark myths covered an interesting story about how cats came to be that I've never heard before.

I'm now reading Dragons. With only 150 or so pages for each book, many covered with illustrations, it shouldn't take me too read all the way through. Check out this 1985 trailer for the series. This would have come out right when I was the hungriest for stories. At nine I was desperate to still believe in magic. I wanted the world of fairies and dwarves and dragons to be real. I craved something beyond the ordinary. Funny enough I still do. These books are a treasure trove. I can't get rid of them.

With Apologies to Alan Moore

Over the weekend, Jeff and I sat down to watch the movie Watchmen. The previous weekend it had been The Dark Knight so apparently we’re on a dark superhero/supervillian kick. I’d been hesitant to watch Watchmen. I’d loved the graphic novel and movie adaptations tend to disappoint. Plus I knew that Alan Moore had been unwilling to even have his name associated with the film. So I went in with lower expectations. And I have to apologize to Alan Moore. I enjoyed the film, quite a bit.

The movie had the same gritty feeling as the novel and that’s what I liked. The characters were perfect, particularly The Comedian and Rorschach. It is exactly how I imagined they would sound. In fact, I thought most of the characters were pitch perfect. The plot had some significant changes from the graphic novel including cutting out an entire storyline. But many people thought the novel was unfilmable so I know that they had to make some big choices on what to include and what to cut out. Like most action films of the current day, this was bloody and violent. But the graphic novel was as well and I think I can almost say that the film-makers downplayed some of the violence of the story by leaving out the secondary storyline. The ending was very different. But this is one of those rare, rare times when I will say that the movie might have improved on the book. The ending to the novel was a bit out there, a bit far-fetched. The ending to the film made total sense. It tied the entire Dr. Manhattan plotlines together.

The visuals were fantastic. Like many others have said before, the opening credits were just amazing. I don’t know how they shot those but I want to learn. The darkness and grime of the city was perfectly captured. The movie still kept a bit of a comic book feel to it though. The fight sequences were a bit over the top though. These are mortals who donned masks to play vigilantes, not superheroes. Some of the fight sequences would have been better served with a touch more realism. Over all I was really impressed by the film. I enjoyed the endings and the overall story. I enjoyed the characters and the visuals. It was a fun film that I was not disappointed with.

Plus it was nice to watch a movie that had more male nudity than female nudity. A rarity in Hollywood. J

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

I've finally managed to do it. I broke a bookcase. I knew it was just a matter of time. I'm nice to my books, hard on my cases.

I have five bookcases in my library: one for books I still have to read, one and a half for fiction, one and a half for nonfiction, and one for children's books. My children's book bookcase decided that it had had enough this past week. The second shelf, which holds picture books, broke and dropped its contents to the floor. Jeff was watching TV on Friday when he heard a loud crash and the cat come running down the stairs. He went upstairs to find my books all over the floor.

Here you can see where the shelf had been

He piled my books up on the bed we have in the library and called me. So now I have to go out and find a new bookcase. My idea is that this next one will be a quality case. Something that will move with me from house to house. Something I can show off. Not the cheap plyboard ones I bought from Target years ago. They've held up, but my bookcases have to be strong. I finally pushed one to the breaking point. Who knows how long the others will last. Particularly with this load.

Poetry Friday

It's been a long time since I posted a poem to the blog. I've been missing Poetry Fridays. And since my last post was so rambling and incoherent, I figured I would share a very beautiful and sparse little poem that touches me every time I read it. I read poetry and books and discover the secret on a regular basis. But I always forget.

The Secret
by Denise Levertov

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes
for that
most of all.

Wanderlust

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls--Anais Nin

I need a vacation. I actually have one coming up. I'm going to Gen Con in August. It's a gaming convention in Indianapolis. I'm so incredibly excited that I've started a countdown. And of course time slowed down. I realized today that it's been an entire year (almost to the day) since my last real vacation. And for a traveler like myself, that's a long time. I'm not really a gypsy but I have an odd wanderlust. I don't like to stay in one place too long.

I have lived in my house for six years. That is way too long by my standards. I'm not a nester. I once told my boss that I'd prefer to move every year. Not just because I like the change, but because I'm more likely to live simply that way. I've worked at my job for five years and I find myself longing for something new. I once read a writer say that she wrote so that she could live many lives. That's how I am. I tell myself stories so that I can live multiple lives.

When I found the quote from Anais Nin, it just struck me. This is why I travel. This is why I tell stories. This is why I move. I'm searching. I'd say that I hope I find what I'm searching for but I don't really want. It's the search that draws me. To borrow another quote from another brilliant (and feisty) writer: The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity--Dorothy Parker.

Bumper Cars

Murphy's Law seems to say that the better your self-confidence is, the more likely you are to have something bring you back down to earth. I've been having a good week. A great week really. So of course Murphy decided to remind me that I'm only human. With the most bone-headed move in the history of bone-headed-ness.

I hit a gravel pile. Not only did I somehow manage to not see a 3 foot high pile of gravel but I ran into it hard enough to put a significant dent in my bumper. I was driving over to Wild Birds Unlimited this afternoon to pick up some seed. Traffic had been slow on the way there and I was a bit nervous after watching the person in front of me swerve repeatedly into the next lane. So I should have been ultra-cautious. Instead, I was so relieved to get away from them. I turned into the parking lot which was having work done. I drove around a gravel truck that was almost too far into the intersection to let me in. I was still thinking about my brush with the truck, when my car stopped. Okay well first there was a loud bang, then I stopped.

My first reaction was that I'd found the deepest pothole imaginable. That's when I realized that my front drivers side tire was up higher than the others. And right in front of me was a gigantic pile of gravel. In my defense it was the same color as the pavement. But I should have seen it. I should have been able to easily avoid it. But I didn't. I'm not proud of this fact. I'm just saying.

I put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas lightly. Nothing. I could hear my wheels spinning but no traction. I rocked the car and hit reverse. I was just about to get out and call Jeff when two of the construction workers working on the parking lot came over. They pushed the car off the pile and checked out the damage. The plastic front bumper had been pushed in at least a foot. There was gravel in every nook and cranny. I offered the guys money, got back in the car, called Jeff, and immediately broke into tears. I drove home without bird seed and we took the car in for an estimate. Luckily the mechanic was able to pull it back mostly into shape. We're still getting a new bumper but at least I'm not constantly reminded of the disaster. Thanks Murphy. Now I'm back to normal.

Where No Man Has Gone Before

I have to admit that I always thought that NASA would have a shuttle program. I took the launches for granted having grown up well after a man had walked on the moon. We sent up astronauts. On a regular basis. That is just what we did.

So yesterday feels a bit like an end of an era. With the last launch of a space shuttle for the foreseeable future, I feel a strange sense of loss. Like the future that Science Fiction writers have predicted for decades just won't be coming true. When SciFi writers in the 50s started writing about space travel it was because it was becoming a possibility. When writers talked about long distance space travel or space station living, it was because those things were on the horizon. In a way this end of the program, induced by budget cuts, feels like the end of those dreams. What will we shoot for now?

I know that budgets are finite. I know that cuts have to be made or taxes raised (I'm all for taxes by the way). What I wonder is why we make the cuts we do. I know that NASA's program seemed less immediately necessary. But I still can't help but lament the death of dreams. Will children still grow up wanting to be astronauts? Will we still look to the stars and hope to reach one? Will we ever find the cold still expanses of space? I know I'm being melodramatic. But space made me dream. I grew up on the words of Bradbury and Niven and Roddenberry. I grew up with dreams of new life and new civilizations. And today the universe feels a little more closed off.

Happy Fourth of July

It's Independence Day and you know what that means. We get to blow things up. I love fireworks. I become about four every time I go to a fireworks display. I giggle and ooohh and ahhh. I'm normally standing there with my mouth open. So here's to fireworks and the fourth. Happy Birthday America.

PS. I'm not sure how but I don't have a single fireworks photo in my iPhoto. I'll have to check the other computer. Trust me, there will be a photo. Until then, stay safe and have a great holiday.

Weltanschauung

Generally if I don't know what a word means I'll read it in context and see if I can figure it out from there. I'm not a huge "let's go to the dictionary" person, although that would certainly increase my vocabulary. I can sometimes figure out the latin roots of a word and that will help me understand it, but I'm not likely to spend a ton of time digging. English would be a far easier language if I learned Latin.

But this past week a German word sent me to the dictionary. Weltanschauung appeared in a book I was reading and I marked it with a book dart to research. See even then I don't go to the dictionary right away. I did after I finished the book though. Weltanschauung translates to "world wide view". It is the fundamental way that we view everything that happens in the world. For the last couple days I've been trying to figure out my weltanschauung. I suspect I'm a glass half empty kind of person but I'm not sure I want to see myself that way.

Publicly I tend to be a very optimistic person. I've had people tell me that I'm one of the more positive people they've met. And most of the time I do believe that things will work out for the best. But privately I'm a worrier (I get that from my mother). I waste a significant amount of time worrying about things that most likely will never happen. And in those moments I'm certainly not "the glass is half-full" type.

The author I was reading mentioned that his weltanschauung was that people were essentially good and that each day had a chance to be amazing. I will agree that I believe each day has the possibility to be great. The dawn offers a chance to change my life and change the world. But somewhere deep there is a worry. I appreciate all of the kindness I see around me. I believe that many people are like me, wanting to do good. I believe that there is more human goodness than badness. But there is still a part of me that watches and sees a breakdown of civility. Or a general indifference that nags at me. I can't read the news without testing my faith in human goodness. And when it comes to the animal issues that I'm so passionate about I become a complete pessimist.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying a very complex weltanschauung. I do believe in human goodness. And most of the time I believe that we are heading in the right direction. I see little random acts of kindness all around me. I see friends who have other's best interests at heart. I believe that it is possible to make a difference (most days, don't catch me on my bad days). And when it comes down to it I don't know if anyone could say that they have a straight forward weltanschauung. We all have little half-empty, half-full sides of ourselves. Or maybe that's just me. And that's okay too.

Ear Worms

I've had a song stuck in my head since May. It's actually starting to drive me crazy. When I start to sing anything, it's always this song. I can't even think of a different one. And I sing all the time. I mean all the time. I sing in the shower. I sing while I'm doing dishes. I sing as I walk down the street. I even sing at work. I'm sure I drive my coworkers insane. Not loud. Just singing under my breath. And for the last month it's been this one song. So in an attempt to rid myself of it, I'm posting it here. Nothing else is working. It's a great song but...really...a month!

Damn you Joe Purdy for writing such fantastic lyrics!

Joe Purdy's The Pretenders (the link is just set to the album. You'll have to select the song.