literary affairs

I recently finished my second novel in 4 months in which the protagonist has an affair. In both cases, the protagonist is a middle-aged woman who has been married a while and feels stale.  She embarks on a new journey - goes home, gets a new job, whatever - and there, she meets someone.  There's instant mutual attraction, blah blah blah.  She shakes off her guilt and is madly in love with her new guy.  They start to envision a future together.  And THEN, he says something weird or she learns something important about her past, and she reverts back to being happy with her husband.

These books make me really angry.  I shake my finger at these women and urge them not to be so carefree about tossing their marriages aside.  Marriage as a commitment and a way of life and I care about my own marriage too much to be 'moved' or even entertained by a story about someone being careless with hers.

I guess you could say I'm too married.

What kinds of books do you avoid because they rile you up too much?

Weekend recap and Monday-Monday

Big things are happening at home.  This past weekend, Brian was ordained.  It's official - he is a Minister of Word and Sacrament, and more concern-worthy, I am a Minister's Wife.  I should probably take a moment to go through all my archives and remove every instance of the word 'hell' (all what, three of them?) - just in case.

After a nice dinner with Julia - the last NC friend on my list to see before we left - I drove down to Concord, NC to be with Brian and his family.  Brian had left for Colorado more than two weeks earlier, so it was a happy reunion.  Saturday was an early Thanksgiving meal with Brian's family and some very close family friends, topped off with a round of trick-or-treaters at the door.  Sunday, of course, had Brian's ordination.  We got in late last night and the general mood was one of contentedness and complete exhaustion.  Brian has a lot of things to do to get us ready to move, and I have made him several lists to help him - because that's what any good Minister's Wife would do.  Also, my mom came up last week and made a bunch of freezer meals for us, so we don't have to think about food.  Thanks, ma!

This will be my last Monday at work.  I think I am mostly done being sad about leaving - or at the very least, I am more excited than sad at this point.  I had a real cryfest last week and I've been focused on the mechanics of moving, ever since. 

Richmond, I love you, and I am sad to be leaving you.  Denver, you'd better be ready to step up.

We have begun the days-away countdown.  Five days.  I've thought about installing one of those little count down thingers on the blog, but who has the time to research those?

Lou Gehrig on night baseball

The job I have right now - for the next couple of weeks, at least - sometimes inspires me to delve into information about Lou Gehrig.  (It's Gehrig, not Gherig, by the way.)

Many months ago, I came across a fun interview that Lou did with a guy named Dwight Merriam, of KROC.  They talked about all kinds of basebally subjects, but this one comment on night baseball games struck me as odd in a funny kind of way. There was a shift in the days of the Great Depression from baseball games being played in the daytime to being played at night, made possible by electricity and made necessary by dwindling spectatorship.  Playing at night meant that folks who worked during the day could come to the evening games, and ticket sales were (as always) important.  The first night baseball game was played in 1935, but it didn't really take off until after the war.  The Chicaco Cubs were the lone daytime holdout for decades, and they didn't install lights at Wrigley until 1988.

While fans seemed to take to night baseball pretty quickly, a lot of the people IN baseball didn't like the change.  As a self-professed analog person in a digital world, I totally 'get' an innate resistance to change brought on by technology, and some of the major arguments from 80 years ago are tinged with quaint antique notions.  For example, one major worry was that players would have a hard time shifting betweein lighting conditions and that there would be more injuries during night games (per this site).

Want to know what Lou Gehrig thought?  Read this excerpt from that 1939 interview, and keep in mind that Gehrig and the Yankees lost their first night game, in Philadelphia, prior to this interview.  (Note: I've put my favorite comment in bold.)


Dwight Merriam, KROC: Lou, what's your opinion of night baseball?

Lou Gehrig: Well, night baseball is strictly a show and is strictly advantageous to the owners' pocketbook. But as far as being a true exhibition of baseball, well, I don't think I can say it is, and it's very difficult on the ballplayers themselves. Of course, we realize that the men who work in the daytime like to get out at night and really see a spectacle, and we do all in our power to give them their money's worth. But after all, it's not really baseball. Real baseball should be played in the daytime, in the sunshine.



 I love baseball.  I don't really 'follow' it, I don't know many players and I can only tell you the Phillies won the world series last year because one of my best friends is a hardcore fan.  It was a long time before I'd return to a stadium or even watch a game after the big players strick in the 90s.  But I sure do love going to stadiums, especially major league stadiums, and it doesn't take much for me to get caught up in the traditions of our national pastime.

only for you, Bill

In my job, I deal with lots of people, including people who are not necessarily tech savvy.  This can sometime cause a flurry of small problems, as one of our major fundraising events centers around heavy use of a website.

I have one one fundraising team captain who is not really interested in messing around with the website.  He's from an older generation and isn't as comfortable with the ins and outs as we youngsters are.  He's also not quite sure yet how much to trust the internet, and in particular, how much to trust credit card transactions over the internet.  He is the nicest man, though, diligent and really dedicated to the cause.

He got in touch with me the other day, asking me if it would be ok if he could call me today and give me his credit card information to process a donation.

I said, For you Bill, I would, and gladly.

Ok I didn't actually say that, but how suave would that have been?

What's the most charming thing you've said to somebody?

feelin' right this time of year

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

–Emily Brontë (1818–48)

the road trip with no predetermined destination, revisited

So I have road trips on the brain.  Back a while ago, I mentioned that I would like to go on a road trip with no predetermined destination, with the caveat that I did want to have some kind of ultimate goal or at least idea of a goal in mind for somewhere on down the line.

Brian said this made him sad, because there IS a predetermined destination. My thought was, yes ultimately you're aiming for somewhere, but that doesn't mean you have to go STRAIGHT there, hence it's an unplanned road trip! Same thing, right?

Brian said that you're supposed to just go and 'see where the road takes you.' I have no idea what that means.

No. Seriously. The concept is unfathomable. How do you decide where to turn?

Apparently, I have nary a spontaneous bone in my body.

How do you decide where to turn, when you're on a spontaneous road trip to who-knows-where?

the video of Anne Frank

I saw on CBS.com (and a number of other blogs) that footage of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who died at the hands of the Nazis and whose diary has been published and read by many, has recently been discovered.  In the video, a neighbor of Anne's is leaving to go to a wedding.  Anne is looking out her window.  It's easy to recognize her shadowed eyes and dark hair.

You can see the video here.

Of course, I got lost in a timesuck of watching Anne Frank videos and reading about her life, her family, and her legacy.  I read the Diary of Anne Frank when I was around her age, and I remember feeling so sad.  I could relate to her in many ways, but there were other things in her life that I had no way of comprehending.  Heady, heady stuff for a young teenager.  I probably would have had a breakdown in her situation.  As I often remind Brian, I have little, if any, survival instinct and I might not fare well in a do-or-die situation.

Heady, heady stuff for a Tuesday.