la.petite.figue

i am just not a bestselling novel kind of a girl

i haven’t cracked the faulkner yet, but of the 5 books i read during my trip, 4 of them were short stories and/or humorous, and those were the 4 i liked.

both the david sedaris and bill bryson made me audibly snort laugh…and considering i did the bulk of reading those books in public, i probably looked like a lunatic, but oh well.  i knew i would like unexpected earth — i love short fiction, and i think jhumpa lahiri is especially clean and tight with her words. 84, charing cross road defies categorization, but its brevity and humor keeps it within the parameters.  i wanted to like the history of love, especially since i shelled out $13.95 for it (stupid me), but, despite the loveable main character, i wasn’t moved at all. it’s not that it was bad; it’s just not what i like. i can’t remember the last time i enjoyed a modern novel … probably not since the secret life of bees, and even that was not something i can imagine rereading (and i reread everything i love).

funny, but come to think of it, there are few 20th or 21st century books that i really, really like that aren’t either short story collections or humorous travel novels.  i guess i was born in the wrong century.

there is a peculiar soul down here. the entire coastal south seems shrouded in desperation and langorous desire. i can’t pinpoint exactly from where it originates, perhaps in the weight of the air, perhaps in the abundance of spanish moss that, at once, looks both lacy and like hair curling on a sweaty nape, perhaps in the sheer mystery of strings of tiny towns, towns that barely seem to exist, where no one is walking around, where it is hard to imagine how people go about their lives, so impervious to the ways of the world these places appear. sometimes, i think the south is like brigadoon, that it disappears the moment it ceases to be viewed.

titles

so, it’s official.  books i am bringing on the train:

• unaccustomed earth  
• 84, charing cross road
• neither here nor there
• me talk pretty one day
• the history of love

yay!

a pinenut-sized image on a sonogram is instantly loved, and all our hopes are fixed upon the fact that it exists, that it is real, that it is ours, that there is a miracle come to fruition

i just found out that both of my sisters in law are expecting … i am stunned and thrilled and amazed, simultaneously ecstatic and nervous for both of them (and their husbands). the due dates are mere weeks apart!

i am not wont to disclose much on here, but it’s 1:28 a.m., and I am in too much of a tizzy to keep still or silent. i cannot express my emotions in a way that has not yet been expressed, many times over by those far more eloquent than i, but at the same time, i find it difficult contain my grateful elation.

attempting to articulate this is not possible. i am bumbling and clodhopping my way around the issue, and i know my words are messy and insufficient, and that’s ok, that’s good. my chest feels full of a mixture of humid air and sea water and my fingers and toes are ceaseless in their motion, and being able to convey anything else would be to cheapen this whole entire thing. so let’s just say that it was a brilliant night, and goodness knows how and when i will ever get to sleep.