Break in Review

Okay, so I managed to do two of twenty-one days of blogging. I'm going to make myself start over every time I miss a day--otherwise I'll never get twenty-one consecutive days, and my "experiment" will be inaccurate.

Over break I *finally* around to finishing/reading Janice Erlbaum's memoir, Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir. It's the type of fast-paced read that I couldn't put down, but even with the speed with which I read it, her life really came alive for me, leaping off the pages so that I too was was in that chaotic, (sometimes) dark whirling cloud that was her teenage years (and/or NYC in the 80s). The book left me feeing strangely dissatisfied with my own life--in part because my own life suddenly seemed so boring, but also because I so enjoyed reading a book that I picked out, that wasn't on an exam list, that I wanted to read just for FUN. Reading Girlbomb made me resent being in a PhD program and made me want to be able to read for FUN all of the time. It also made me want to write. Oh yes. When she sits up in bed after just having sex with one of the "boyses", and she gets her cigarette and her journal and gets down to writing--I want to get back to that (well minus the boyses and the cigarette part). Alright, all in all, it simply made me sick of academic-ese and made me want my own language back.

As for movies, we saw the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut up and Sing, and I must say that it was one of the most moving movie experiences I've had in about twenty years. I remember in the "old days" when folks would clap at the end of movies or react strongly during the movie--that was part of the movie-going experience--sharing that viewing with other people. But now we seem to be all closed off, keeping our emotions to ourselves. But during this film, the audience reacted during the movie--actually clapping in the middle of the movie and then again at the end.

We also saw Charlotte's Web. Joel Siegel absolutely loved this movie, nominating it as one of his top ten picks of 2006. I'm not sure that it was that good, but it was really fun to see one of my childhood favorites brought to life in such a visually pleasing way.