Week in Review

What I Read: I tore through Sarah Addison Allen's latest, The Lost Lake, in a few hours, but it was The Grapes of Wrath that took most of my attention and time over the last seven days, and rightly so. I wouldn't call it THE Great American Novel, but it is certainly a Great American Novel. Reading it was less of an action and more of an experience--almost as though I witnessed the Great Depression myself. Every American needs to read this book; it is part of our history and heritage, and reading it left me feeling humbled and yet, oddly, honored.

What I Watched: Sharknado was the feature film of Awful Movie Night. This was also the first Awful Movie Night that I managed to be sober for. And do you know, I still have a hard time remembering the godawful jokes we made. All I can say is this: Tara Reid and Ian Ziering, I'm so happy to see that you've kept your acting skills so fresh. No other actors could have pulled off the performance that you guys gave when the hurricane of hammerheads tore through downtown Los Angeles.

What I Thought About: Friends, and how goddamned hard it is for me to make them. Seems like every time I befriend someone in my age range, they turn around and leave the Desert. And because I spend so much time at work, I just seem to want to focus on and enrich my relationships there. Is that normal?

The Good: At long last, I resurrected The Book Maven on Facebook. She went quiet during the whole holidays-my-mom-is-dead-I-sold-my-soul-to-work whirlwind of November, December, and January, but truly, if there is something I like more than books and reading, it's talking about books and reading.

The Sad: One of our presenters died, suddenly, in January. It was an exceptional loss; this man was funny and friendly and entertaining and undemanding and just a delight to work with. So on Monday I attended the memorial for him. The last remembrance came from the youngest person in the room--an art student from his classes, who gave a raw and almost incoherently tearful speech about him. It was the most unpolished remembrance--and the most affecting, not just because of the man we were remembering, but for the honest emotions of youth that, for better or for worse, we smother as we age.

The Ugly: Realizing that things like Awful Movie Night and ABCF Club are, in fact, more enjoyable with a few gallons of wine flowing. Two weeks left of Dry Month!

The Pretty: Seeing the Happy Birthday wish on the monument sign, glowing in the deepening desert twilight on the night before our Director's birthday; listening to the wind blowing through the windchimes on the back patio; and burrowing deeper under the blankets on a chilly Sunday morning. Doesn't matter if I live in Florida or Indiana or California; when a morning is cold enough, your bed is always the coziest place to be.