The Birthdays of Carson McCullers, Amy Tan, and Other Tuesday Tidbits

If you are hoping for a single essay that supports a thesis of importance, I won't be writing that kind of blog post today.  I feel the scatteredness of my brain.  Too much to do this morning to be meditative:  boot camp exercise class, dentist, a bit of grocery shopping.  But I have some time off at the end of this week, and I'm looking forward to it.

--Today is the birthday of Carson McCullers.  How I loved her in high school.  Some days I feel I will never outgrow my inner Frankieness:  that feeling of being apart from all the others, that longing to be part of a larger unit, that dissatisfaction with the relationships that I have, that wanting something more.

--For a more cohesive essay on Carson McCullers, see this blog post that I wrote in 2010.  How time zooms along.  I assumed that I wrote that essay last year; I remember it so clearly.  But it's been 3 years.  My.

--It's also Amy Tan's birthday.  I read her in grad school for a class on family issues in novels written by 20th century American women.  We read The Joy Luck Club, which fit well with the theme.  What tortured mother-daughter relations.  I wanted to like that book, but I did not.

--Could I not relate to that book because I'm not an immigrant, not the daughter of an immigrant?  Perhaps.  Is it because I'm western, and thus not used to the round-about ways that the Chinese mothers in the book communicated?  Probably.  I just hated all the characters in a variety of ways, and that made the reading tough.

--My poem a day Lenten discipline continues going well.  Today I think I will write a list poem:  things you find in a parking garage.  One of the items:  Richard III!  Or should I say the bones of a dead monarch?  Or the bones of a monarch dead for many centuries?

--My early morning boot camp class will probably go to the top of the parking garage today.  The morning boot camp class has revolving instructors, and we're back to the instructor who likes to take us outside.

--I'm always the one who says, "Look at that sunrise!"  or "Look at that sunset!"  Last night's sunset was gorgeous, the sun a huge, orange egg yolk sinking west--but only for a minute, and then it was gone.

--I wish I didn't have to go to the dentist.  The dentist is my least favorite kind of body upkeep.

--At least I have dental insurance.

--Time to think about going out into the cold:  off to the gym!

--It's been cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace.  What a treat, and one we don't get very often.  For the past few days I've been taking delight in seeing people in their winter clothes.  We don't get to wear our sweaters and boots too often.  Some days, of course, my office is chilly enough that I wish I had worn my winter clothes, but I can't count on that, and besides, I'd still have to go outside at some point.

--Speaking of going outside . . .  off I go.