Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

When I was married to Olivier, I was really unhappy.  Depressed, unsure of who I was, not sure how to find out, in over my head doing things that were unsatisfying and leading to dead ends and more places I didn't want to be.  I was miserable, and only part of it had to do with Olivier.  We'd get in these fights, and he'd say, "Why can't you just be happy?"  His voice was pleading, laden with confusion and anguish.  As my husband, he thought it was his job to make me happy, and if I wasn't, then surely it was all his fault.  Our marriage was part of the problem, but it was symptom, not cause.  I had a lot to figure out. I'm much happier now.  Even when I hate my job, there's value in what I do and what I'm learning.  My family always seems to be on the brink of disaster and I often feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, like if I let the tension out, I wouldn't know how to pick everything back up again.  But I also don'...

Tonight I'm thinking of human children as small animals raised in the packs we call families who eventually grow up and set out on their own.  They seek out new territory, interact with members of strange other packs, meet potential mates, and start new packs of their own.  In this respect, I feel like I've gone feral.  I have friends and in that sense I have a pack of my own, but it's more like I have my own territory (my house) and we venture into common social areas to visit and provide emotional respite.  I forget what it's like to have people living in close proximity to me, in my territory.  I forget how satisfying it is to let your guard down, to learn and teach from each other, to provide the type of companionship that only time and familiarity make possible.  When I visit our family's territory, curl up with a pack member or two, and we take the time to lick each other's metaphorical wounds, I realize how much I miss it. Today was a great day. ...

This is to keep track of my Foodie Book Challenge.  I'm supposed to read 7-9 books. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake  - Aimee Bender

★★★★ I loved it.  Love, love, loved it.  The narrator, a girl named Rose, can taste the emotions in food.  Any book that starts with an usual idea like will have to try hard to screw it up.  Aimee Bender does the opposite.  She turns it into a tremendous story, not just of Rose, but of her entire family.  Her brother and father, who have their own strange powers, her sort of love story with her brother's best friend, her mother's affair.  The central fantastical premise becomes a lens through which the story of an otherwise normal family is told. The writing is lively, the characters are sympathetic, and the story moves at a pace fast enough to keep you interested.  I also like that you root for Rose, not because she's special, but because she's likable.   One of my favorite parts of the book was when she discovers her ability, she performs a series of experiments to find out if what she's experiencing is real.  She tests foods. ...

★★★★ I'm a sucker for any book by a Deborah (my momma's name).  Even so, I'm happy to be hooked on this series. It reminds me of the Outlander series somewhat.  There's time travel.  There's fantasy.  There's romance. The supporting characters are interesting, too.  The vampire characters have a kind of world weariness that I've always imagined people who've been alive for hundreds of years must have.  The witches are regular people, and the fact that there's a lesbian couple doesn't get any more attention than it deserves, which is refreshing. This book counts toward the 100+ Challenge , and the Chunkster Challenge .

This post is to keep track of the Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge.  I'm on the hook for 3 books. After Dark  - Haruki Murakami

★ ★ Nothing spectacular here.  It was a quick, fun, easy read.  I liked that Marcy ended up starting her own business, but that was about the only positive I could find in terms of messages about women in general.   I hated that in order for Marcy to be happy, she had to end up with a different Mr. Right.  But even so, whatever, that's fine.  The worst was that she met him, slept with him, and they broke up.  Then later she ran into him again, "but this time [she] didn't jump straight into bed with him."  I can only presume that her holding out was the secret to her relationship success this time around.  Well, okay.  See also: gross. It wasn't painful to read, but it definitely reminded me why I don't normally read this kind of stuff. This counts toward the 100+ Reading Challenge .

★ ★ ★ The first Murakami I read was A Wild Sheep Chase , and I really, really, really didn't like it.  It just seemed absolutely ridiculous to me.  I've revisited it, and it's still not my favorite.  However, I think I get more about what he's going for now.  He's used a similar technique in all the novels of his I've read: he has two worlds, one that is real and "normal" and another that is surreal and otherworldly.  The other world is not imaginary, but rather a realm that we don't usually get to see.  In After Dark , the imaginary world is one in which Eri Asai is asleep and we are somehow watching her sleep.  Well, more specifically, we are watching someone watch her sleep.  I had kind of a problem with the way he set this scene.  We're supposed to be almost like a camera on a boom, whizzing around the space, changing angles.  I think he does this to make the situation seem stranger and more foreign than it is, but to me it just...