Note to Self about Happiness
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Books

I had a long chat with Tad last night during which he reminded me that I need to read Anna Karenina (and then told me how it ends!  I promised him I would forget by today, but, unfortunately, I still remember...) and Proust.  As always, our conversation was mostly about happiness and best selves and true selves and mindfulness and right work.  Tad said that Proust believed in segmentation of the self, that the person who found happiness was not the same person who had sought that particular happiness and so couldn't truly enjoy it (I think...any misrepresentations of Proust--or of Tad--are completely my own). 

My current feeling is that I'm about an inch away from getting all the things I've outlined for myself as my true objectives, but in order for me to move that one inch, I am going to have to completely transform myself.  If I can't, then I will remain here, an inch away from my true work, spinning in circles and throwing energy out into the universe in every direction but not moving.  And when I say completely transform, I really mean completely transform.  Basically, I need to gain organization of my physical space, figure out how to motivate myself to do the daily work that moves big projects--aside from creating a crisis situation that I have to manage, and live in cooperation with my body rather than neglecting or punishing it.  It's only three things.  Shouldn't be that hard, right? ;)

He Said, She Said
Topic: Books
I just saw this book by Ken and Jasmyn Klarfeld profiled in ForeWord Magazine. The authors are father and daughter, and the book recounts their separate experiences as smart, funny Jasmyn suddenly became an "out-of-control" teenager: smoking, drinking, doing drugs, running away from home, surviving rape.... The two wrote their parallel stories separately, allowing readers to experience the events through the mind of a parent and the mind of a teen.

I haven't read the book, and can't speak to its quality, but I admire the authors' goal of helping families navigate the treacherous teen years. The book was self-published through iUniverse (something else I, as someone who manages the day-to-day operation of a small press, admire) and is available through Barnes and Noble.

You can read a minimal description of the book and an excerpt at: www.buyhesaidshesaid.com

Or, you can read the ForeWord Magazine interview with the authors at: www.forewordmagazine.net

Thoughts captured by Kristine at 1:43 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, April 6, 2006 2:07 PM EDT

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Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Topic: Books
I started reading the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell over the weekend. It's a fascinating, fun, fast read that I just can't seem to put down once I've allowed myself to pick it up. It's about rapid cognition - the unconscious thinking that goes on in the first two seconds when a person is introduced to something new, such as an idea, a person, or a piece of art - and about when that unconscious thinking is valuable and when it might be leading us in the wrong direction.

The first thing that surprised me about it is that, among many other things, it discusses speed-dating and marriage. I spent most of Saturday night wondering if Hans was my Getty Museum kouros - something I immediately thought was not right (for me), but that I convinced myself was right (in spite of evidence that my first instinct might have been correct), and most of Sunday convinced that John Gottman's Four Horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling had consumed my marriage and that Hans and I were inevitably spiraling toward divorce. (Unfortunately, the fear that this was true actually made me that much more unpleasant to be around, and, whenever I wasn't reading, I was making it difficult for Hans to like me. I can be such a joy!) At this point you're wondering why I would call a book that tolls the bell for my marriage fun and fascinating, I'm sure.

With a little distance, I realized that if John Gottman could tell whether a couple was headed for divorce within three minutes of listening to them discuss a contentious aspect of their marriage, he probably had also found ways to help people change the course they were on. And, in fact, this is true. Not only does Dr. Gottman have two books written on the subject - both of which I have ordered as my gift to me and Hans for our marriage anniversary next week - but he also has video tapes and weekend seminars in Seattle that we can avail ourselves of if the books don't help. And still a little more distance helped me realize that Hans and I are already working on repairing our relationship and that my suddenly seeing us through Gottman's paradigm didn't make that any less true. So I've relaxed a little about all of that, and am just enjoying the book. I have one chapter left and I'm trying to use the privilege of reading that as my reward for getting my new filing cabinet installed in my home office and getting the boxes of papers I've been collecting finally filed. I don't get to turn on the t.v. tonight (which means no Gilmore Girls) or pick up the book until after every piece of paper is filed. (Which probably means I also won't get to pick up the book or turn on the t.v. tomorrow night either!)

The book has made me want to try some personal experiments with priming and with environmental manipulation as a means of influencing behavior and productivity. Plus, it has made me reconsider my feelings about being judged by other people and whether I might actually want to put more effort into making a good first impression in all aspects of my life, and not just my professional life. (I can't say that's going to happen, just that I'm thinking about it. As a person struggling to learn to live by internal motivation rather than external, I might want to hold onto my ability to go out of the house with no make up and wet hair without concern for what anyone else is going to think.)

Gladwell is an excellent writer - even though he does give his reader a little too much credit for being able to keep all of his various researchers and experts and characters straight - and I'm thinking that now I will have to check out his first book, The Tipping Point, as well, especially since its subject - the conditions under which social change occurs - is so close to my heart.

Jennifer Weiner's BFF
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Books
I'm sooo out of the loop with all the text messaging lingo and new acronyms...does BFF stand for Best Friend Forever? No, I don't have anything better to occupy my mind at the moment.

Living Vicariously
Mood:  silly
Topic: Books
I know I've written about Jennifer Weiner before, but here's a link to her blog http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/. I read her blog regularly (although I'm taking a break from her books after Good in Bed and In Her Shoes because there are only so many neatly happy endings I can take in close proximity), and her most recent post describes probably just about every 30-something female writer's dream.

Savannah Blue is Bilingual and Available Online!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Books
Here is the link to information about the new book from Winged Willow Press, Savannah Blue's Activity Book/Libro de Actividades de Savannah Azul! This is the first bilingual book we've published, and also the first activity book for children. Check it out!!

Savannah Blue's Activity Book is here!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Books
We received 4,000 copies of Savannah Blue's Activity Book from the printer on Wednesday. They look fabulous! We sold our first copy, without trying, that very day!

This is the first book project Sudie and I have completed together, and it is very exciting. My first assignment when I started working for Sudie was to find a bilingual editor, and then a translator. That involved a very steep learning curve, since I don't read, write, or speak Spanish, as did trying to figure out how to communicate regularly and inexpensively with an editor who lives and works in the Southern Hemisphere! Oh, and, of course, we can't forget having to untangle all of the details of the ISBN number--apparently, the U.S. has decided to join the rest of the world in using a 13-digit ISBN by 2007, which is a change from the 10-digit we currently use. This sounds fairly straightforward, except that no one in the industry really knows the transition is happening or how to deal with it. (Except maybe Bowker and us, finally.)

I spent most of yesterday creating a map that covers Sudie's whole kitchen table outlining our domestic and international marketing plan, so she could see all the pieces. She asked me when it would all be accomplished! She should know as well as I do that, as long as you have product, marketing is never finished. This is especially true when she wakes up at 3:00 a.m. and starts scribbling notes about needing to break into foreign markets that I find on my desk when I get in in the morning. Right now I'm working with our graphic design geniuses on a new ad campaign, and with our web designer to get an announcement up on Sudie's website. I'll post a link to the new book as soon as it's in place!

Good in Bed
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Books
In all my whining about needing a break, I have failed to mention the mini-break I took to read Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. I thought I had familiarized myself pretty well with all the books in Sudie's bookcases, but last Wednesday I came across this attention-getting title and had to take it off the shelf. The fact that Sudie kept the book once she was done with it told me she thought it was pretty good, since she gives away books regularly. The quote on the front cover said it was the ultimate "beach book" which would generally cause me to put the book back down, but instead I flipped it over and saw the author's picture--about my age, great smile--and the picture of her dog, Wendell--a rat terrier that looks like Kaija but with hair. Turned out the book was about a Philadelphia journalist who finds out her ex-boyfriend has written a column about her, entitled "Loving a Larger Woman," in a major national women's magazine. And, that the book was Jennifer Weiner's first published novel and that it had been translated into fourteen different languages (now 15) and was an "international bestseller."

I was hooked immediately. The book could be considered Chick Lit, if you buy into that title, and I hadn't really read any chick lit before, unless Pam Houston's Cowboys Are My Weakness counts, and then I would be guilty of reading and rereading and rereading a single piece of chick lit. Plus, I have so little time for reading, that I generally read only books that have come to me with some major recommendation--they were a pulitzer prize winner or nominee, they won a national book award, or Gretchen, my mother-in-law bookseller-of-twenty-years and book-lover-extraordinaire, has sent it to me and said I must read it. I decided I deserved a little emotional and mental escape, however, and borrowed the book and began reading it that very night. (I ended up glued to the couch with the book in my hands until late into the night Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so for all my whining, I really did get something of a mini-vacation.)

I'm so glad I brought this book home! At the beginning it was like reading an excellent journal or a very well written memoir--the main character, Cannie (Candace) Shapiro, was so well written and so realistic, it was hard to remember that the book was fiction. If I had girlfriends, I would want Cannie to be first among them. She's twenty-eight or -nine in the book, single, overweight, and trying to make her first screenplay sale when she's not writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer and submitting queries and stories to other magazines. There comes a point in the story when you begin to realize that Jennifer is veering away from her own life in creating Cannie's and that we are entering the "what if" portion of the book, but by then, I was so in love with Cannie that I went gladly along with the rest. It's something of a fairytale, if fairytales can include becoming pregnant unexpectedly and deciding to keep the baby even though the father is offering no support of any kind, and has a happy ending that Jennifer says she promised herself because she wasn't sure her own life would have a happy ending.

I'm behind the times in reading the book because Jennifer has since written and published two more and is probably in publication on her fourth. Check out Jennifer's website at www.jenniferweiner.com to learn more about this book, the novels that follow it, and the movies that they have spawned.

As for me, I'm glad I waited until after I read the book to visit her website because extreme jealousy may have kept me from being able to so fully absorb myself in the story. Jennifer is my cohort--born within months of me--and has definitely had the writing life I would have chosen for myself if only I could have CHOSEN rather than letting fear of rejection, fear of success, and fear of letting go of other avenues and ideas of myself keep me completely immobilized for whole decades. She's on a roll, and definitely someone to watch!

Quotes from Anne Lamott
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Books
Two quotes from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird:

Now, if you ask me, what's going on is that we're all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. p. 97

To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass--seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one. p. 102

Kaija, Devouring Pam Houston's Sight Hound, and a Wish
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Books
I'm actually feeling quiet and small, and not really the "lazy" I chose above, but tripod doesn't offer quiet or small icons, and I like the idea of swingin' in a hammock under a blue sky today, so that's the best I could do. Kaija had her canine hysterectomy on Friday and is still recovering and a bit sad from that, so she and I are just hangin' out and being still today. I slept in later than usual because Hans brought her upstairs this morning before he left for work and she was in the mood to cuddle. I'm feeling guilt over getting her spayed, but she's two and Hans and I aren't in any situation to handle breeding her right now. Plus, I would have felt even guiltier if I'd let her have puppies and hadn't let her keep any of them. So I'm hoping she'll forgive me, heal quickly, and get back to her rambunctious, wiggle-butt self pretty soon.

To visit Kaija's web page, go to: Woodland Manor Kennel

Friday night was the only night Hans and I have spent without Kaija since we got her, and Hans said he didn't mind if I stayed up late because Kaija wouldn't keep him awake waiting for me to come to bed. So, I stayed up to start reading Pam Houston's new book, Sight Hound, and I did not savor it as I had planned to do. I devoured it. I try very hard with books by Pam Houston or Barbara Kingsolver to read slowly, in small, measured chunks. But, I ended up reading 170 pages on Friday night, and I've read another 70 pages since. The book is flying by altogether too quickly!

Hans read the book first, at my request, and it's interesting how different his take on it was than mine. He loved the portions written by the cat (as did I), but overall said the book was too whiney (which is also the major criticism he has of my Your Mileage May Vary manuscript), which I'm not getting at all. When I asked him about it yesterday, he said maybe "whiney" was the wrong word, but he didn't offer another one. The major female character, Rae, claims to barely be a woman, and Hans felt that her husband, Howard, is barely a man, and I pointed out that that could also describe me and Hans, which Hans didn't disagree with. He also suggested that his being harder on the book and Pam/Rae than I was is also typical of us.

All I know is that I'm loving it. I love that it's written in so many different voices--even though much of the information being passed along is actually about Rae--and that it gives glimpses into so many different lives. And some of the characters enter quite late in the story. I'm particularly intrigued by Jodi, a woman who married a man 27 years older than her and who is now living on a ranch raising bison and protecting an aquifer that exists just under her and her husband's land. I'm going to be sad when the book is done.

I keep playing with the idea of taking one of Pam Houston's writing workshops, and I finally found the PERFECT one. It's happening in September. Instead of meeting in a classroom, however, or at her ranch in Colorado, it's a women's wilderness canoe trip down the Green River in Utah's canyonlands! Class 1 water with paddling in the mornings, writing or hiking in the afternoons, and discussion in the evenings. I SO want to go! It's not far from where Chad is living in Colorado, so for an extra $60 I could get a van to drop me off nearby and I could get in a visit with him and Latoya and see the house they're fixing up. The cost is very reasonable--only $875--which includes everything except transportation, and Hans agrees I should go. The only thing is I'm trying to figure out how to go to Disney World with my sister's family and my parents that same month, and I have the US Marine Corps Marathon the next month, so finances are really tight. Maybe when I know more about Hans's new job and when/whether we're moving to Greensboro, I'll be able to make a decision. I need to find a way to bring in more income, and this might be a good motivator. Plus, I haven't had a good adventure since Danskin Triathlon Camp in 2001. I'm due. When I was younger, I used to be able to write in my journal what I wanted to happen, and those things would happen, as though my guardian angel had been reading over my shoulder. So I'm sending this little wish into the Universe and, maybe, if it's meant to happen, my angels will help me figure out how.

To read more about Pam or Sight Hound, visit: www.pamhouston.net