displaced.

this week i am displaced.  while doing some renovations on my home, i've decided to stay with my bestie, bringing two of my hell hounds with me. 

fun.

parts will be fun.  like hanging out in the evenings, vegging out, and enjoying each other's company.  

parts won't be/have not been.  like chasing one of the hell hounds down the street as she tried to escape.

i hope this week goes smoothly.  only time will tell.

reminiscing.

i've recently picked up a couple of books that i've read before.  

this is certainly not some shocking statement.  i do it frequently.  i try to read fahrenheit 451 and to kill a mockingbird every year just to remind myself of why i do what i do for a living.

these books are different.

one of them, i hate.  loathe. detest. abhor.  it's gustave flaubert's madame bovary.  in a conversation with a friend i highly respect, we discussed a class we took together way back in the day:  continental european fiction.  it was a good class, filled with books i had never before read (that was something that didn't occur very often in undergrad).

when dr. spencer assigned madame bovary, i groaned.  i had read it before.  twice.  and even back then i hated it.  but, like a good little lit student, i picked it up again.  though (i'm sorry dr. spencer--please don't rescind my grade) i didn't finish it.  i stopped somewhere around the beginning of the first part.

so when discussing this class with the aforementioned friend, the subject of that book inevitably came up.  he loves the book.  for what reason, i'm still not entirely sure.  but his passion and devotion to it was enough to make me pick it up.  again.  to see if my perspective had changed.

so i did.  and at first i thought it was going to work out...maybe i might just love flaubert and not even know it.  i made it through the first part unscathed.  yes, emma was annoying, but flaubert's descriptions got to me.  then i started part two and the whole thing came to a screeching halt.  emma bovary is a whiny little twit.  i cannot tolerate her.  at all.

so i put the book down.  again.

earlier today, after i finished grading a mountain of essays, i began to peruse my bookshelf.  an old favorite called to me from the stacks:  emile zola's l'assommoir.

i first read zola in the same fiction class, but the experience was radically different.  dr. spencer prefaced our reading with "if you're on any kind of antidepressant, now is not the time to stop taking them."  i was intrigued, but worried.

so i started reading and was moved.  gervaise was just so sad.  her life was such a mess, yet through it all she held on.  as a reader, i looked forward to the few moments of pure joy the woman experienced and happily trudged through the darkest of moments to get to them.  i decided after the first chapter that this book was a new favorite.

so with the book screaming at me, i picked it up and flipped it open.  it is still just a beautifully sorrowful.

there is simply no other image, in my mind, that compares with gervaise standing at her open window sill, the sun beaming down with oppressive heat, contemplating her life--literally stuck between a hospital* and an abattoir**.

*hospitals in the time this novel was written were places of death, not healing

**an abattoir is a slaughterhouse

corresponding with a legend. part 2.

ray bradbury's agent, don congdon, died in december.  mr. congdon was aged, but not quite as old as mr. bradbury.  

"they're starting to kick off," i muttered to myself when i discovered the news article, "i better hurry up and wrap this paper up."

so i mailed mr. bradbury another letter humbly asking him for an answer to my question. i also mailed one to michael congdon, don congdon's son, who has taken over his agency.

i knew it was a long shot, but i did it anyway.  after all, tenacity is something that eventually pays off, right?

i still haven't heard anything from mr. congdon.  i assume that my letter was opened by some assistant and put into file thirteen.  who knows?

having dealt directly with mr. bradbury before, i was looking forward to checking the mail that week, expecting a package full of joy.  

i wasn't disappointed.

in addition to my letter, i sent him my 1967 edition of fahrenheit 451 and a request that he sign it for me.

boy did he.  he even drew one of his famous little face sketches.  

see that?  that first word is "brandi".  that's my name.  then "love ray bradbury", the face sketch, and "4/4/10". glee does not even begin to express...

and he signed a little memento on fahrenheit 451 from the national endowment for the arts: 

i could smell the fresh sharpie ink when i opened the package.  i think i may have swooned from delight.

while he didn't answer my question (i mean seriously, the man is in his nineties and not in the best health), i again have communicated in some small way with a hero.  and that's just cool.

compounding interest

this post’s title has absolutely nothing to do with content. i just like the title.

(sidenote: i’ve always had a thing for a good title. for instance, one of my most influential lit profs in college was obsessed with the title “affairs of state” and all of the wonderful double-entendre-ness of it when discussing early modern english monarchies. thinking of that title still inspires me. and makes me giggle.)

this year has been tough. my family can’t seem to catch a break and it’s beginning to wear on me. that wearing is demonstrating itself through a general lack on contentment with everything. nothing is enough fun right now. nothing is beautiful enough right now. nothing is good and i am unsettled.

a few weeks ago i started thinking about zest. lemon zest, to be exact. (i was making a pie). while wrist deep in dough, it occurred to me that people are a lot like lemons (or limes, or oranges, or any other citrus fruit). we have thick skins that keep the bad things out (most of the time) and are juicy and interesting inside. but the real heart and soul of a person—the part that makes them who they truly are—is their zest. it adds flavor and complexity to their life. without it, they are dull, lacking that little something that makes them complete.

i’ve been zestless for awhile now.

the parts of me that make me feel whole have fallen away, leaving nothing but bitter pith.

it’s as if all the time and energy i’ve expended in the last few months dealing with hardship have only acted as a microplane, slowly grating away my flavor.

i decided then and there that i’m tired of being zestless. i want flavor. i want spice. i want to be the person i think i once was. so i’ve been trying to enjoy more things—to see the fun, beauty, and goodness. and i think it’s working. i’ve had more fun, despite the bad, in the past few weeks than i’ve had in quite awhile.


of course, like all good things in life, i will have to keep trying.

i don’t want to be zestless forever.

urban. dictionary.

urban dictionary rules:

   1. go to urbandictionary.com and type in your answers to the following questions.
   2. post the first definition it gives you.


1. your name: brandi

an all around awesome kind of girl. when girls are jealous of brandis, they often express hostility because they are not up to par. the thing about brandi is that she still keeps her cool and is pretty fun to be with.

i wish i was drinking some brandy with brandi right now.


2. your age: 27
the age all rockstars die at:
jimi hendrix
jim morrison
janis joplin
kurt cobain
alexander the great
james dean
river phoenix
brad nowell (lead singer to sublime) died at the age of 28 years and 2 days (2 days from joining the club)


3. one of your friends: erin
erin is a female who has the body of a goddess and the brain of a genius. men are drawn to her good looks and her awsome sense of humour. out of all the females in the world its the erins who rule.


4. what should you be doing: cleaning
(v) the act of shoving everything in a closet and calling it decent.

5. favorite color: aqua
an european dance pop group of keyboardists søren rasted and claus norreen, and rapper rené dif from denmark, and singer lené nystrøm rasted from norway. they had huge hits like "lollipop (candyman)," "doctor jones," "turn back time," "cartoon heroes," and of course, "barbie girl." they released two albums, "aquarium" and "aquarius." their songs are infectiously catchy, so that you know it's bad pop music, but you can't help but listen to it and secretly like the dance grooves. their characteristic electronic sound features the girlish vocals of lené clashing with the rather interesting low male voice of rené.

7. month of your birth: november
the month in which the most babies are born. and which, by chance, is exactly nine months after february.

8. last person you talked to (in person): mom
the person who might have raised you, normally a woman

9. one of your nicknames: chica
a name for a girl, preferably an extremely hot latin girl, that you find pride in just knowing her.

feliz cumpleaños!

my dear sweet blog is two years old today.

happy birthday, dear blog; may there be many more!

help.

i just stumbled across an opportunity to assist a fellow grad student in her research for her thesis.  

 she's writing about internet folklore and blogging and needs the assistance of fellow bloggers.  

check her site out, answer her questionnaire, and help a girl get her degree.

the king and i