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7.29.2011

To tell or not to tell

I'm wondering how much is too much to share at this point, since I don't really know who my audience is (who an I kidding? I don't have an audience...yet) and I don't really know who I want it to be.

Alright, that sounds cryptic, but here's what I mean:

I'm feeling the need to get a jump on the photo-taking process, 'cuz this blog's frankly boring without it. But the sad truth is, at least until I'm ready to pull the trigger on a big purchase, I don't have a camera at my disposal. Like I mentioned in my first post, my boyfriend will be helping with the illustrations to start, but he has a big honkin' camera that's frankly no fun and rather awkward to lug around with us everywhere. I've talked him into taking it out with us tonight, but with that comes the explanations.

We're heading out to catch dinner and a show with two friends of ours who will undoubtedly wonder why we're suddenly being so snap-happy with the camera. I mean, we never bring a camera with us anywhere, and we spend a fair amount of time with this couple.

So what do we tell them when they ask? I'm not really publicizing my blog yet -- at least not until I feel a little bit more comfortable in my new skin here. But - gah - I'm not going to lie about it either, to our friends. So I'm thinking I'll have to fess up. Is it weird that I'm feeling a little self-conscious about people I know reading my new blog?

I know, I know. Some people have real problems. Welcome to the world of the overly neurotic.

But please come back to check out whatever pictures we glean from tonight's festivities! I do believe the show will involve some acrobatics, which should make for fun photo-fodder.

And P.S. In the interest of not calling him "my boyfriend" every time he's mentioned in this blog, I'd like to introduce you to Alex. But the truth is that's not actually his name. It's a shortened version of his middle name. His first name, on the other hand, is quite unique. So much so that he only one or two or maybe three other humans on the entire planet, that we know of, have the same name. It's a dead giveaway. I'm not trying to be totally anonymous here, and I do plan to show pictures of the two of us in which you can actually see our faces (unlike, ahem, the Casa Rosada shot). And my name's legit -- I am a Megan. But if I give up his name, all it would take is a quick trip to Facebook and you'd have us figured out in a second. So for now, he's Alex.

P.P.S. Here we are. I know we're faceless, but this is my favoritest picture ever of the two of us. It was taken last summer during a little camping trip we took on Martha's Vineyard, the Island where we met and used to live. It was a spectacularly beautiful night, so we grabbed some take-out Thai, some fancy cheese, and a bottle of wine and climbed up to this sandy camp-spot overlooking the ocean. Breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe this place. It was a magnificent night, and we managed to take two awesome silhouette photos that I'll treasure always. Here's the non kissy-face one. Cheers!





7.27.2011

Book report: The Help

by Kathryn Stockett, 2009

Summary:
Three different women narrate a story about the trials of the black women who essentially run white households in 1960s Mississippi. Aibileen secretly helps to instill a sense of self-worth in the white children she raises, but mourns for her own son, who died in a tragic accident as a young adult. Minny's fiery temper and sharp tongue have made her an unemployable outcast among the white families in need of household help in Jackson, until she pairs up with a bubbly employer who is herself an outcast in the same crowd. And Skeeter, the lone white narrator, is a recent college graduate with unfortunate hair and a knack for journalism. In a quest to prove herself to a publishing powerhouse in New York, she embarks on a project to help black housekeepers of Jackson to commit their stories to paper.

Opinion: I have to admit, my opinion of this book was recently clouded by a friend who said she thought the writing was pretentious that none of the stories rang true. And it got me thinking, how much could a relatively young white woman (I'm talking about the author) possibly know about the bowels of the home help industry for a black woman in the 1960s? I definitely couldn't put the book down, once I picked it up, so in that sense, I would recommend it. But I guess I'd advise you to take it with a grain of salt. Skeeter's story seemed to take up the bulk of the pages, and frankly, I found her lacking in many things, including integrity. No, she's not nearly as bigoted and idiotic as some of her chums, but that's not saying much.

That Skeeter winds up being the only character with a big, tangible payoff at the end seems, in hindsight, totally unfair. I did like Aibileen and Minny, though, and if anyone wanted to write a follow-up novel dedicated entirely to the relationship between Minny and her birdbrained charge, I wouldn't complain. Not one bit.

Book report: Room


Summary:
Told from the perspective of a five-year-old child, this book focuses on a mother and son who have lived out his entire life in the confines of a single room. They've developed a routine that includes exercise, television, and an activity in which they both scream towards a skylight, the only window in the room. It quickly develops that Ma has been locked up in the room against her will, and gave birth to little Jack sometime after her capture.

Opinion: I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of spoilers. I like to stretch out the anticipation for as long as I can. I'm not a "flip to the last page to find out what happens in the end" kind of gal. But you've likely bumped into the story of Room on the news, the internet, or browsing through your favorite trashy tabloid. It was inspired by the even-more-horrifying true story of a woman imprisoned for some two decades. By her father. Yes, yuck. You're right. You can't stomach it. Which might make you think you can't stomach Room either. But I say it's worth a shot. This novel has so much more to offer than a voyeuristic glimpse into a young woman's nightmare. It's really an extraordinary book about the extremes a mother will go to in order to protect her child. I find myself doubting whether anyone can live through such trauma and stake out a "normal" life afterwards. The jury's still out for Ma. But thanks to her heroic efforts, there's hope yet for Jack.

Book report: Water for Elephants

I mentioned that this blog would feature a little bit of a lot of things, and I thought book reviews should be one of them. I do not read, I devour. But I can be a fussy reader. I know that I can only expect to get a good rapture experience every once in a great while, but if a book takes too long to pull me in, I'm likely to dismiss it and move on to something else.

I'm in two book clubs at present, and what with all the hot summer weather and leisurely lay-out sessions in the sun, I've had lots of time to sneak a few of my own picks in recently. So I have lots of recommendations, and they run the gamut from fiction to non, classic to contemporary. But there is one thing you should know about my taste in tomes. My favorite book of all times is To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it is perfection, pure and simple, and my lit-lover mother and I still throw Harper Lee's lines around as if we invented the words. Some people might say my best-loved book is rather generic, as it is the quintessential secondary school required reading across the country, and that its themes are now rather quaint. I would have to disagree. It is classic, poetic, and inherently good. And to steal a line from Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, no good thing ever dies.

[From here on out, the reviews will be called book reports, in honor of my father, who for a short period of time while my sisters and I were growing up tried to assign weekly out-of-school reading assignments complete with Friday book reports. Looking back, I find this laugh-out-loud hilarious, for I'm sure the goal of making us more worldly creatures was not worth the grief we gave him at the thought of another homework assignment.]



Summary
:

Tragedy sends a veterinary student on the cusp of graduation off the rails, and he ends up running away from his Ivy League education to joins the circus. It's the train-traveling kind of big top, and Jacob, the would-be vet, has animal care knowledge that makes him useful to the miserly circus owner, Uncle Al, and head animal trainer, August, who turns out to be a cruel man to all manner of species. A friendship with August seems worth forging, however, because he is married to the lovely star performer. Jacob is smitten from the start, which spells out danger for anyone in August's path.

Opinion:

I read this on a flight to and from New York City for a weekend visit with my best girlfriends, growing up. This novel had just the right amount of fantasy and intrigue to set my mind off of work and onto play. I did get slightly bored at times -- mostly while I was getting to know the supporting characters, who didn't become compelling until well into the book. But then there's Rosie, an enormous elephant who steals the show, both in terms of the circus within the story, and the book itself. I am so far beyond "animal lover" that it's become something of a clinical condition -- I'm sure I'd much prefer the company of most critters to humans -- but you'd have to be awfully grinchy not to be totally taken with Rosie. That presents itself as a problem, unfortunately, because she bears the brunt of more than one of August's rages, and it's truly painful to read. But don't you worry. Rosie gets her poetic justice, in the end. I worried that I wouldn't care much for early 20th century circus fodder, but in the end, the setting and real life-inspired stories were my favorite things about this book.


7.26.2011

Taking the long way


I thought I'd start with the business of introducing myself.

I was born in upstate New York and kept my feet fairly firmly planted there until I was 17.

That's when I left home for my first of five (five!) colleges. I was never one for the well-worn path, I suppose. Sarah Lawrence was college number one, and represents my shortest undergraduate stretch. I lasted there only one semester.

I was back in my hometown for the next eight-ish months and took courses at a local community college, which I followed up with two years at a state school about two hours away. I spent many weekends back home. To say I didn't find my niche in college is a drastic understatement. I was not a comfy co-ed. I was mostly wanting to get out.

I dropped out of college altogether after my third year. Moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, got a job tending bar, and had the time of my life. It was a work hard, play hard kind of lifestyle, with emphasis on the play. But I made friends I'll never forget. I was lucky enough to make a return visit this spring to see two of them marry. Each other. I'm not going to lie, there may have been a tear or two shed at that ceremony.

After Charlotte I followed a boy up to Washington D.C., after a slight detour back home. I re-enrolled in school, at the teeny tiny women's college that would eventually (finally!!) grant me my Bachelor's degree. But I figured my college career wouldn't be complete without at least one more university under my belt, so I spent my final undergraduate semester at Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

That itty bitty girl is me, in front of the Casa Rosada (The Pink House), which is like the Argentinian equivalent of the White House:




The picture quality leaves a lot to be desired, but the camera was a klunker and never took great photos. So that's what I've got.

Moving on. After Argentina came another stint in my hometown, followed by a brief late-winter recess living on Cape Cod with my grandmother. Then it was a hop, skip, and a jump across the pond to Martha's Vineyard, where I was offered an editorial internship (yes, internship. 1.5 years after graduating from college. Bless the recession's little heart.) But it all turned out well in the end, because the summer internship turned into a sweet full-time job as a staff reporter for a 200-year-old newspaper. It's been around that long for a reason. I've never been so proud to see my byline displayed in smudgy black ink across the front page.

My journey winds up with a move to Chicago, where I've been perched for just shy of a year. But the world is large, folks. There are adventures yet to be had, I dare say.


A blog is born

So I sent my mom a copy of my first blog post to review. Basically, she said I was trying too hard.


And also, that I need some kind of hook.


But I don’t have a hook. And waiting for that inspiration to hit me will pretty much guarantee this blog is never born.


I considered movie reviews. That was the subject of my first blog, launched in 2009. It’s still up, but the URL includes my full name, and since I’ve decided to stay relatively anonymous with this blog, I think I’ll keep it to myself for the time being. But maybe I’ll revisit the later and you can take a peek.


So anyway, I don’t have time to watch a movie a day, and I don’t have the money to catch all the new releases.


I thought about a style blog, which is the kind I read most often myself (i.e. obsessively), but only because I’m sort of wardrobally challenged. I have a ton of stuff and not a clue how to put any of it together. Plus, I’m kind of a boring dresser. I usually end up in some variation of a tee-shirt or sweater and jeans, depending on the season. And that’s no fun for you.


Then I considered a) a blog about learning to cook, which I’m doing, slowly but surely. Or b) a blog about decorating my apartment, which I’m doing, slowly but surely. But the slowly part’s the problem. I don’t cook a meal every night, because I’m not home every night. And I have pretty limited freedom to redecorate my little bitty rental apartment. I mean, it’s not like I can pull out the kitchen cabinets and start from scratch. So both of these options would rule out regular updates and fresh material.


So in the end, I decided to write a little bit of all of the above. I’m doing it mostly for me, and hoping you’ll find something for you here too.


I’ll write about anything my little heart desires. And I’m determined to decorate this blog with fantastic photography, even though I don’t know the first thing about taking pictures. For the time being, the art will be a combination of my amateur effort and my boyfriend’s bona-fide artwork. He’s an actual, trained photographer and I think his work is pretty amazing. And thanks to a little strong-arming he’s agreed to help with the visuals while I get this thing going.


This blog has been months in the making, and I can’t wait to get started. I hope you'll join me!