so i did nathan bransford's the best hundred novels challenge. he'd also prompted others to take the best hundred movies challenge. as you wish... the ones in bold type are the best of the best.

about time

american sniper

apollo thirteen

argo

a beautiful mind

burnt

charlotte gray
chef

cinderella man

the client

the count of monte cristo

crazy stupid love

creation

the dark knight

dead poets society

deadpool

dedication

the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood

donnie brasco

erin brockovich

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

the family stone

fear and loathing in las vegas

a few good men

the finest hours

fight club

(five hundred) days of summer

for love of the game
ford vs. ferrari
the founder

fried green tomatoes

full metal jacket

gangster squad
gifted

the great raid

good will hunting

hacksaw ridge

the help

hidden figures

the hundred foot journey

the hunt for red october

incendies

inside out

invincible

lawless

life as a house
life itself

the lincoln laywer

lion

lone survivor

the lord of the rings: fellowship of the ring

the lord of the rings: the two towers

the lord of the rings: the return of the king

the martian

memoirs of a geisha

miracle

mr. magorium's wonder emporium

murder in the first

my cousin vinny

ocean's eleven

the painted veil

patton

people like us

philadelphia

pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl

playing by heart

a river runs through it

robin hood: prince of thieves
room

saving private ryan

schindler's list

seabiscuit

the secret life of walter mitty

serenity

se7en

the shawshank redemption

the silence of the lambs

the sixth sense

sixty-one*

sleepers

sleepless in seattle

spy game

stand by me

star trek

star wars: episode iv - a new hope

star wars: episode v - the empire strikes back

star wars: episode vi - return of the jedi

star wars: episode vii - the force awakens

steel magnolias
tag

a time to kill

tombstone

twelve monkeys

walk the line

the way way back

we are marshall

we were soldiers

when harry met sally
wind river
wolf of wall street

the best hundred novels challenge

i'm procrastinating. that's got to be it. i've written twenty pages in four days which is five times more than i've written in six months. i'm on a roll. i should be writing. but yesterday was show us your books day, and i arrived late to that party, as usual. and i'd been feeling guilty for not being a better reader of others' bloggies, so i put the picky reads roll back in my sidebar in hopes that its presence might encourage me to be more social (because i'm not social. AT ALL. i'm hot. it's may in texas, and i'm hot inside my house). anyway, i was looking through my feed and came across nathan bransford's the best hundred novels challenge. and i was all: OOH! I CAN MAKE ANOTHER LIST! let me at it. so apparently the only writing i'll be doing today involves banging on the keys for this here blog. it's half past three in the afternoon, and i'm still in my jammies, yall. whatever.

the rules: there's only one. you can only name books you've actually read. so there goes a huge chunk of the literary canon. i graduated with an english degree but was never assigned anything by dickens, austen, either of the brontes, none of the russians... there was some faulkner and hemingway in there, but i never read more than a few paragraphs. the rest of the stuff held little to no appeal. unless you're teaching, an english degree's little more than a license to bullshit, and in five years of studies, i got really good at it. i did get around to reading austen at some point; ain't no way she's making this list, but god love her for paving the way. i spent freshman and sophomore year at a small women's college in the middle of nowhere. sure, we read. we read smut. and as i got older i graduated to good love stories and discovered i liked writing those as much as i enjoy reading them, so yeah... there's gonna be a lot of love on this list. it was jumbled, but the obsessive-compulsive streak my father gave me couldn't have that, so now it's alphabetized by author; if there're multiple works by an author, they're either listed by preference or series order. so of the books that i have read, these are the one that i think are the best. those in bold are the ones i can heartily recommend.

love rosie. ahern.

p.s. i love you. ahern.

thirteen reasons why. asher.

a man called ove. backman

a school for unusual girls. baldwin.
dandelion wine. bradbury.

fahrenheit 451. bradbury.

best kept secrets. brown.

french silk. brown.

the good earth. buck.

the perks of being a wallflower. chbosky.

nick and norah's infinite playlist. cohn and levithan.

more than friends. delinsky.

coast road. delinksy.

suddenly. delinsky.

for my daughters. delinsky.

our mutual friend. dickens.

the language of flowers. diffenbaugh.

if i stay. forman.

where she went. forman.

 just one day. forman.

the saving graces. gaffney.
caraval. garber.

something borrowed. giffin.

something blue. giffin.

i see you everywhere. glass.
the princess bride. goldman.

one wore blue. graham.

one wore gray. graham.

and one rode west. graham.

straight talking. jane green.

bookends. jane green.

jemima j. jane green.

the fault in our stars. john green.

the rainmaker. grisham.

the maltese falcon. hammett.

red dragon. harris.

the silence of the lambs. harris.
splintered. howard.
the duff. keplinger.

the secret life of bees. kidd.

a separate peace. knowles.

a wrinkle in time. l'engle.

a wind in the door. l'engle.

we are okay. lacour.

love only once. lindsey.

tender rebel. lindsey.

gentle rogue. lindsey.

the truth about alice. mathieu.

whitney my love. mcnaught.

once and always. mcnaught.

paradise. mcnaught.

something wonderful. mcnaught.

almost heaven. mcnaught.
gone with the wind. mitchell.

one day. nicholls.

the time traveler's wife. niffenegger.
all the bright places. niven.

1984. orwell.

wonder. palacio.

finding paris. prebel.

redeeming love. rivers.

daring to dream. roberts.

holding the dream. roberts.

finding the dream. roberts.

born in fire. roberts.

born in ice. roberts.

seaswept. roberts.

rising tides. roberts.

inner harbor. roberts.

tears of the moon. roberts.

heart of the sea. roberts.

honest illusions. roberts.

the macgregor brides. roberts.

the macgregor grooms. roberts.

the macgregors: alan and grant. roberts.

landline. rowell.

eleanor and park. rowell.

attachments. rowell.

fangirl. rowell.

harry potter and the sorcerer's stone. rowling.

harry potter and the chamber of secrets. rowling.

harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban. rowling.

harry potter and the order of the phoenix. rowling.

harry potter and the half-blood prince. rowling.

harry potter and the deathly hallows. rowling.

the lovely bones. sebold.

right before your eyes. shanman.

love is a mix tape. sheffield.

the notebook. sparks.

a walk to remember. sparks.

the gamble. spencer.

separate beds. spencer.

the help. kathryn stockett.

fear and loathing in las vegas. thompson.
the lord of the rings. tolkien.

in her shoes. weiner.

the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. wells.

refuge. williams.

the book thief. zusak.

just one damned thing after another

why i wanted to read it: because the selections i'd previously considered for the time travel category of the bonus round in the spring session of erin's book challenge (which has concluded, but i'd resolved to read them all anyway, and so i am. the next one starts in july, yall. she'll post the categories in like three weeks) were not things i could read (time between us by tamara ireland stone and the rose garden by susan kearsley -- i was a fourth of the way through the first when i found myself making fun of it and a hundred pages into the second when i realized it was fan fiction, which is not my thing). so i asked a friend for recommendations about books that deal with time travel, which is also not my thing, and she suggested this one.

what i liked: i listened to this on sunday as i trekked to lake charles and back and was grateful for the distraction. it was, for the most part, engaging and entertaining. i liked the characters. i liked that time was more crucial to the telling of the story. this isn't a book that shows characters at different ages in their lives, like the time traveler's wife, or how a character's life would be different where she to change one circumstance, like life after life. it's characters who become historians and travel through time for research. and then there's a bad guy who wants to go back in time and profit from it, and they have to stop him.

what sucked: it is just one damned thing after another, and maybe it's one thing too many because my interest in the story waned in the back half and never really recovered. also it's book one of eight, i think, in a series. and maybe i like the writing and the characters well enough, but i'm not inclined to read seven other stories (or however many i'd need to read) to learn the resolution of one of the conflicts the author established in this book. i'm all for stories that revolve around particular characters. some of my favorite books are parts of trilogies or series. harry potter, for example. here's the thing: you have to resolve all the conflicts you establish in the body of the book in that book. it has to be able to stand alone. and this one can't. not all of them. there's one pretty important detail that isn't revealed, and i'm annoyed that it wasn't.

having said that: it's not bad. i liked the main character. she's pretty cool. but enough to inspire me to read more.

the day to death's hallows... otherwise known as lake charles, louisiana (no offense to those who live there)

so lake charles is the last place my brother spent his days on this earth. for the sake of my sanity, i did not visit specific locales (nor did know what they were, though there was a brief period in my travels in which i did make an effort to do so). also for the sake of my sanity i'm limiting details, yall.

half past nine a.m. home. morning ritual: coca-cola and cards.

half past ten. leaving.

half past eleven. texas state highway 105 east. fuck if know where exactly. some intersection in the boondocks.

half past noon. beaumont. somewhere nearabouts the interchange of interstates 10 and 69, moments before i headed west instead of east. because i am an idiot.

half past one p.m. f.m. 1663, near hankamer and winnie. because i'd gotten off ten near anahuac, where my father'd grown up, thinking i should probably see that place, too, but i made myself snap back to the purpose of the day and turned around.

half past two. beaumont again, headed in the right direction.

half past three. lake charles. some road near the some of the casinos. or something like that.

half past four. traveling from prien lake park to the charpentier historic district.

half past five. leaving lake charles.

half past six. westbound highway 105.

sunset. half past seven. westbound 105.

half past eight. home.

the secret life of bees

why i wanted to read it: because erin sent me a copy of it. all the way from australia. because it was on buzzfeed's list of books read by rory on gilmore girls, which was one of the categories in erin's book challenge.

what i liked: i listened to the audio because it was a bonus selection and i was trying to cram as many as i could into the last week or so (i managed to finish two books and made some decent dents in three others in a week, so i'd say i did pretty well, there). yall, the gal who reads this does a fine job. one of the best narrations ever. so listen to it. you'll be glad you did. since i did, i can't give you specific passages but let me tell you, i loved just about every single word. it's beautiful. it's one of the most beautifully-written books i've ever read. i'm a little scared to watch the movie now because i loved the book so much, and yall, i'm never scared to watch a movie after having read the book. ever. because i can almost always find something to appreciate about the cinematic version of a story. unless it's the time traveler's wife -- then just no. NO. but this one, mama said queen latifah is amazing in it, so maybe i'll give it a go. anyway, it's superb. this story is superb.

what sucked: not a damned thing.

having said that: this needs to be near, if not at the top of your to be read list.

the obsession

why i wanted to read it: because it's nora roberts, and i used to LOVE everything she wrote. i used to be able to pick up one of her books without fear that it would suck. and then they started sucking. when this book first came out, i read its beginning while waiting at heb for a prescription to be filled and loved it. i thought, hot damn, she's back to being badass! i didn't buy it then. but i had it on my to read list. so when i'd gotten through the regular round of erin's book challenge and got to make a bonus list, i chose this book for the favorite author category.

what i liked: "you put something behind you, nome, it's got eyes on your back. i'd rather keep it in front of me so i can see where it's going" (page 61).

"best pals, birth to earth. well, earth's a ways off, unless you kill me with that tire iron, but we've known each other since before we could walk. but you can call him, get my bona fides if it'll loosen the grip you've got on that thing" (page 100).

satisfaction covering his face, kevin looked around. "it's coming along."

shoulder to shoulder, xander looked around the same space. "to what?"

"you need vision, man. you just need vision" (page 104).

...its owner -- his ninth grade american history teacher -- still didn't believe he knew what he was doing. about any damn thing.

and never let him forget he'd been suspended for hooking school.

something that made no sense to him then or now. suspension for hooking was like a damn reward (page 266).

(this is just an aside... if your father's the superintendent and your mother's a retired teacher, suspension would most definitely NOT be a reward. AT ALL. EVER. IN A N Y SCENARIO. not that i ever got suspended. but i was in after-school detention a lot. i seem to recall a saturday one a time or two or three. memory's quick to remind me of my mother's expression in those instances... and i'm grateful my father worked so much so that i rarely had to see his then. i hate to think what sort of expression suspension would've created.)

work drove them both -- hers in art and imagery, capturing moments and making them speak. his in behavior, in rules, in an endless quest to find out why (page 332).

her brother agreed to stay the night, he thought, because he expected to find a body in the morning (page 358).

"i've got to ask. how serious is it with you and the mechanic?"

"you say that like he doesn't have a name."

"i'm working on it. give me some room. my vagabond hermit of a sister suddenly has a big house in the middle of rehab, has a dog, and is sleeping with a guy i just met. it's a lot in a short time" (page 359).

"sometimes people have roots so corrupted, they shouldn't try to plant them" (page 391).

what sucked: so there's that awesome beginning, right? the first three dozen pages, they've got the terror and intensity of a category five hurricane bearing down on the southeast corner of texas -- a horrible flood plane, a swamp that can never hold water. and then the storm passes, and the skies clear, and you've got beautiful, boring weather for like a month, maybe two. there'll be little squalls here and there, but that's it. this story is EXACTLY like that. the ending, which should be so much more grotesque, so much more horrific than the beginning, it's not. at ALL. it's like she got tired of writing. for three dozen pages, i was reminded of how great a storyteller nora roberts once was. and then she reverted back to her lazy self. i used to could read one of her books in a handful of hours. it took me a week to read this one.

also... and this could be because my critique group's been getting onto me for relying too much on dialogue to tell the story, but... i used to love roberts' novels because they were so heavy on dialogue. i didn't have to read page after page of narrative. her characters literally told me the story. i love dialogue. it's fun to write. i'm damned good at it. but like eighty percent of the story is dialogue. and the more i read it, the more i could hear my friends' voices in my head... you can sum all this shit up in a paragraph instead of having pages and pages of meaningless chatter.

having said that: BLAH. skip it. you wanna read nora roberts stories? shoot me an email. i'll send you a list.

fourteen things to celebrate in may: a scavenger hunt

one. may third. two different-colored shoes day. wear shoes that don't match for the entirety of your day.

two. may fourth. star wars day. may the fourth be with you. wear a star wars shirt if you've got one. share four of your favorite lines from the films.

three. may fifth. national cartoonists day. share a favored comic.

four. also may fifth. totally chipotle day. treat yourself to a burrito. (and yeah, it's cinco de mayo, too. i know. so if you wanna have a margarita with that, go right ahead.)

five. may tenth. clean up your room day. seriously. CLEAN IT. get rid of all the shit. donate the things you don't need, if you can, and trash the rest. that place should be a haven not a dump (like mine usually is).

six. may twelfth. national spouse military appreciation day. send notes to those who have husbands and wives serving in our military, whether those serving are active or not, home or abroad. thank them for what they do, too.

seven. also may twelfth. national limerick day. write one. YES, that's what i said. haikus are a hell of lot easier, now, right? you're wishing you'd done that one last month. limerick. write it, and then share one you love.

eight. may fifteenth. national chocolate chip cookie day. bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch...

nine. may twenty-first. national waitstaff day. ...and take the cookies to the servers at your favorite restaurant. since these things don't have to be done on their specific day, can i recommend this be done on mother's day? that is the WORST day of the year for them. if you wanna be extra awesome, give them handwritten notes to let them know how awesome and how loved they are.

ten. may twenty-third. national lucky penny day. get a roll of pennies. throughout your day, leave one here and there and everywhere, face up for others to find. give them some good luck.

eleven. may twenty-fourth. national scavenger hunt day. yeah. here's your scavenger hunt, folks. go to town. if you're not feeling this one, do one of the previous ones. ain't no law against that.

twelve. also may twenty-fourth. brothers day. if you've got one, do something nice for the idiot.

thirteen. may twenty-fifth. red nose day. get you one. i saw a passel of'm at walgreen's. wear that thing all day long and with much pride.

fourteen. also may twenty-fifth. national wine day. get a group of friends together. share a bottle.

a letter to my brother

jon kevin,

you've the best name of the three of us, you know. jon kevin, jennifer kristin and joseph keith. yours is the best. but maybe i think that because almost every time i say it, i hear mom's voice in my head, her telling of how you said it when you were a baby. someone would ask you what your name was, and you'd say don kiki gehgeh. i can't make fun of you for that. i don't get to make fun of you for anything now.

you cheated. bastard.

so next year, i don't get to spend the whole of october decorating all your shit with black crepe paper and ribbons and balloons. i don't get to harass you for being fifty.

you cheated. you will always be young. you will always be beautiful. i will always have that goddamned scene from steel magnolias playing in my head, daryl hannah's voice trying to give me consolation when what i want is to kick you in the nuts for cheating.

i asked you once if you had a death wish, but instead of answering, you turned the question on me. i don't know why. you should've known the answer to that. of course i've got a death wish. i've had it since i was eight. you can't spend every day locked inside my head, seeing the kind of shit i see and not want that to end. but your being here, that made it better. made this shit more bearable. you took away one of my reasons to stay. to suck this shit up. to take the ugliness and make it pretty.

it occurred to me earlier today that i didn't blog about your death day this year. i always blog about it. every year. if not on that day then on the one before or the one after. but for fifteen years, there's been a post.

you cheated. and now i'm ten years older than my older brother.

i spent a decade hating you. i guess this is my penance. only it won't be a decade for a decade. it'll be a decade for every year. it'll feel like that anyway.

i'm so pissed at you. you should be here. god knows there are more in this world who would miss you more than me.

you should be here so that you can get bambam laughing and show shazam how she's better than her mama. because good god that boy needs to laugh. he's angry. he's so angry. and if he's anything like you or me... he's in for a world of hurt. and that girl... she's a little too susceptible, a little too manipulative.

the boy's scared of the dark. i tell him that if he thinks on you hard enough -- cause god knows i show him as many pictures of you as i can find -- that maybe when he dreams you could find him. i tell him when the wind blows it's you giving us hugs. one time we were out at northshore park: the sun had already set; it was a friday during lent, and we'd gotten catfish dinners from one of the churches then bread from the store to go feed the ducks. the three of us, me and the twins, we're standing at the lake's edge, tossing bread in the water. he stops for a minute, holds his arms out in front of him with his fingers touching, a big circle. i asked, bam, what're you doing? the wind was blowing. he said he was giving kabuki a hug.

i keep thinking of the day of the memorial service we had here, how i was running around town getting the things mama had requested. how i'd broken on the way home, bawling like a baby. not because of you. i was still too angry with you to cry because of you. i was still hating you, though not as much as i had. i was crying because i felt like i was floating in the blackest of waters in the darkest of nights: no light, no compass, no wind. i heard your voice like you were sitting right next to me. i'll find you someone. i was twenty-nine. gullible and grieving.

maybe if you were here you could have. the boys, i can't even talk to them, jon kevin. i can't speak. the words, they're so wrong. they're so stupid. you know i can't. you know why i can't. but god i envy how it easy it was for you to talk to people. you always said the right things.

mama told me once you'd wished i could be more like one of your best friend's little sisters. i wished you could've been more like the friend. yall's humor was the same. but he had the stronger will. so how's that for nasty?

you should be here. bastard.

i'm angry that you left us. that i get to be the one dealing with all the matters regarding the parents and the house and all the shit they've amassed... not that that's happening now... but some day... the irresponsible daughter, the worst one of the three of us has to be the best one. that's not my wheelhouse. i can't even keep my car clean for a week.

i'm angry that i can't remember your laugh, and i needed to hear it today. i very much needed to hear it. 

eight things celebrated in april

number one.

number two.

one. april second. children's book day. donate two young adult hardback books to a junior high school library. the newer the school, the better because they're most likely in need of the donations. a friend and i hit barnes and noble's, where i picked up the book jumper and caraval, and then after we had lunch, i took them to the junior high school named for a doctor who cared for many of the players on the high school's football team and served on the district's board for many years during my father's tenure as superintendent. he was also our family doctor.

two. april sixth. national tartan day. put on a plaid shirt and wear it with pride.

number three.

three. april seventh. national beer day. if you're single, go to your favorite bar and buy a guy or gal whom you think might be awesome a beer. take the time to find out if you should've picked someone else. if you're hitched, take your better half to his or her favorite bar and buy yourselves a couple. so my favorite bar is pappadeaux's bar, but excluding today, in the times i was there i did not spot a man who interested me. today, there was a guy, and i was able to make myself sit next to the dude rather than in my usual spot, but i couldn't even make eye contact with the boy. i could, however, bitch about my plight to the bar staff and servers. apparently, in the midst of that bitching when one of them showed me a picture of himself dressed up as a heavy metal rocker (damned if i can recall who that was) and i'd commented that the pic looked more like weird al yankovic posing as said rocker, i'd made the boy laugh. had i known this, had i not run my mouth already about how annoyed i was that i had to do the thing, i might've found the courage to buy the damned beer. but alas... so the day... i went to bakers street then to bar louie, both of which were dead, then to deaux's where i ranted, then to woodson's near my house and finally to tailgator's (a place i don't like to go because that's the bar the douchebag i'd dated favored). i was sitting at the bar, and these four dudes sitting at the table behind me seemed like they were having a fine enough time. so i got my ass up, marched over, told them of my predicament (by this time it was about nine p.m., and i was ready to go home because i'm a loser who has no life and gets to bed early nowadays) and asked which of them would let me buy him a drink. the one on the right, the one that kind of reminded me of woody harrelson. he let me buy him a dos equis, no salt with a lime (just like i like it), and he shared it with his friend. the other two... one was from england, and the other, like the two pictured, was from texas. i think what had drawn me to the table was the accent i'd heard. i was kind of hoping he'd say australia. and yes, i know, i shouldn't confuse the two. whatever.

four. april thirteenth. national scrabble day. play a game. not ONLINE. no going to pogo and playing their idea of scrabble. no words with friends through facebook. an ACTUAL game with the board and tiles. with THREE others. i played with my friend rebecca, her husband and their older daughter. the younger daughter "helped" her mama. the older was helped by her daddy. it was so sweet.

five. april seventeenth. national haiku day. it was poetry month, yall. write your own haiku (three lines: five syllables on the first and third, seven on the second). share one written by another that you favor.

mine:

every sadness
is a bead, strung on a thread
from earth to pluto

my mama's

morning phone alarm

do you have a son named jon

from earth he's escaped

number six.

six. april twentieth. national high five day. give high fives to twenty strangers. this was actually MUCH easier than i thought it'd be. i did it while walking from the parking lot to the grounds of the woodlands waterway arts festival.

number eight.

seven. april twenty-sixth. hug an australian day. just for you, erin and kristen. too bad yall aren't in texas. i don't know any australians here. this didn't happen. probably because i didn't try hard enough. oh well.

eight. april twenty-seventh. babe ruth day. go watch a baseball game. NOT on television. drive your butt to the nearest park and sit there for nine innings (or however long it is) and watch those boys bat the ball around. it doesn't have to be a pro game. if you've a child who plays or have a friend whose child plays, watching that game counts. i watched the astros play the angels. i got to see a home run in person. i don't remember seeing one of those in person. i'm sure it's happened, but i can't recall it. so it was kind of neat to watch.

the jealous kind

why i wanted to read it: because a gal in my book club chose it and because it fit the story set in your city/state category in erin's book challenge (today's the last day for this round, but she'll do another in a couple of months. i hope yall join in). also my mom's read some of burke's stories and liked them.

what i liked: "you don't threaten a man. if he comes at you, you put him out of business. an evil man is not scared by threats. he's scared when you don't speak" (page 77).

for anyone else, a paper route was just a paper route. for saber, it was similar to charlemagne fighting his way up the canyons of ronceveaux pass. after he rolled 115 newspapers with string, he packed them like artillery rounds into the passenger and backseat of his heap, and set out on the route, heaving a paper over the roof through a sprinkler onto a porch when he easily could have dropped into a dry spot on the walk; smacking a leashed bulldog that attacked him while he was collecting; nailing a flowerpot of someone who was in arrears; parking just long enough to run through an entire apartment building with his canvas bag on his shoulder, stomping up and down the stairways, dropping papers in front of doorways, crashing out the back door like a deep-sea diver emerging into light (page 79).

"i think you're scared, mr. krauser."

"scared?" his forehead was strung with tiny knots. he pulled up his jersey and pointed. "that's where an ss lieutenant cut me open. i took his knife away from him and sliced off his nose. then i put a bullet through his brain. that's his helmet on my desk, his knife on the blotter. i woudn't wipe my ass with you, broussard."

it was classic krauser: the self-laudatory rhetoric, followed by the attack on the sensibilities. this time i was ready for him. i stepped closer to him, holding my breath so i wouldn't have to breathe his fog of testosterone and bo and halitosis. involuntarily, he stepped backward, as though unsure of his footing.

"you're cruel because you wake up scared every day of your life, mr. krauser. i know this because i used to be like you. now i'm not. so i owe you a debt. you're the model for what none of us ever want to become" (page86).

"don't talk stupid. people don't change," she said. "they grow into what they've always been. they just stop pretending, that's all... 

some people are the jealous kind," she said. "they don't love themselves, so they can't love or trust anyone else. there's no way to fix them (page 90).

"worry robs us of happiness and gives power to the forces of darkness."

"you learned that in a log-house church in san angelo. i'd leave it there."

"i learned it in 1931, picking cotton from cain't-see to cain't-see. if you have enough to eat for the day, the next day will take care of itself."

my mother's prison was her mind, and she took its dark potential with her wherever she went (page 91).

"every word you utter to an evil man either degrades you or empowers him. evil men fear solitude because they have to hear their own thoughts (page 119).

"what were you fixing to say to mr. bledsoe?"

"that his conduct is dishonorable."

"why didn't you?"

"he's an uneducated and poor man. we won't make him a better one by criticizing him" (page 121).

he was the butt of everyone's jokes, homely and awkward and gullible if someone showed him a teaspoon of kindness (page 169).

i could see the confusion and fear in krauser's eyes. but something else was at work in his psyche or metabolism that was far worse. i was too young to understand how mortality can steal away without apparent cause into the life of a man who should have been in his prime. his skin was gray and beginning to sag; hair grew from his ears and nose; he had buttoned his shirt crookedly. he looked like he had gone through the long night of the soul (page 173).

"what's an idealogue?"

"someone who brings religious passion to political abstraction only cretins could think up," he said. "when you meet one, flee his presence at all costs. he'll incinerate half the planet to save the other half and never understand his own motivations" (page 206).

"i can smell a killer. men kill other men but that doesn't make them killers. a killer comes out of the womb with a stink on him that never goes away" (page 211).

i had to remind myself of all these things about the private world of saber; otherwise, i would forget the vulnerable and innocent boy who had been my best friend since elementary school. even though he was hanging with bad guys, i knew saber would eat a bayonet for me. when you have a friend like that, you never let go of him, no matter what he does (page 214).

the cavalier expression left his face. for just a second i saw the old saber looking at me, the false exterior pared away (page 215).

no one had to convince me about the reality of hell. it wasn't a fiery pit. it lived and thrived in the human breast and consumed its host from night to morning (page 221).

in the darwinian world of american high school culture, i had learned only one lesson: the lights of love and pity often died early, and many friendships were based on necessity and emotional dependency and nothing else (page 232).

"if we ignore other people's faults, we don't have to be defensive about our own" (page 243).

my mother's greatest fear was that someone would look at her and see an impoverished little girl standing barefoot by herself in front of a house that was hardly more than a shack (page 307).

what sucked: oh my god, reading this was like pulling teeth without dental instruments. i was BORED. OUT. OF. MY. MIND.

having said that: it's not a bad story. it's really not. and as shown above, there's parts that are fairly well-crafted. but the voice... the way the story's told... it's a tale of teenagers plagued by the mafia in fifties' era houston and galveston. it should be RIVETING. i wanted the kid to be telling me the story, not the kid as a grown man recounting the tale as though he's talking to news reporters. it'd probably make for a good television movie. there's good conflict that gets watered down in CRAPPY narration.

cross to bear

right now i'm sitting on my bed with my mac on my lap. it's been a long day and not really a pleasant one, which bums me a bit because it was gorgeous outside and while traveling to and fro, i've been listening to jenna lamia read the secret life of bees by sue monk kidd to me (which i'm loving, by the way. this is one of the best narrated books i've heard). i've had good company today.

but certain events in the day have caused me to think of the mild case of cerebral palsy doctors diagnosed at my birth, of how that's affected me. of how my thoughts rush out of my mouth too quickly, of how clumsy with my thoughts and actions i can be, of how i'm too quick to anger, too easily wounded. of how my body aches. all the time.

i was seeing a chiropractor once a week to try to alleviate the pain in my back, but you know what that did? you lessen the pain in one place, and you're too aware of the pain you have in others, of how great that pain is. i don't want to know what hurts and where. i'd rather go through my days thinking it's just my neck and shoulders, or just my knees and ankles. or just the right side of my face. because if you lessen the pain in those places, if you give them some relief, it somehow calls attention to pain in other places, pain i hadn't realized was there. like the middle of my back. granted i only saw him a half a dozen times, but in those times, he could never crack the middle of my back. my neck? i'd hear that thing pop seven different ways. my lower back, too. my muscles are so tense in my body, so contracted, so bent out of shape that the middle of my back, my spine can't be put back to normal.

but you know what? that pain's the easiest with which to cope. i've gotten so used to it i don't even feel it anymore. at least not unless you make that shift, bring that relief. so i stopped going.  i'd rather not think of how the pain in my knees and ankles is making my legs and thighs hurt, too. or how the pain in my back's probably the reason why there's pain in my neck. it doesn't do me any good to think about that, anyway. it's probably better that i don't, actually.

i've gotten used to it.

just like i've gotten used to people being unkind to me. it pisses me off when it happens, yes. but that's the normal for me. i'm not like the others, and so i don't expect to be treated like them. i've gotten so tired of being too sensitive that i do my damnedest to ignore it, to carry on despite it. we are all equally incapable of kindness and unkindness. i've resigned myself to the notion that i'll see more unkindness than not. so be it. i don't look like my body is broken, but my limitations make my behavior odd, and the words that come out of my mouth sometimes are so bizarre that... people have treated me like i'm a freak since i was in grade school. i've come to expect it. so. be. it.

i try to be respectful of others. but i fall short. all the time.

i've had to suck up so much in my life that it bothers me when others can't.

people get so upset by so many things these days. i can't help but think that if sue monk kidd tried to get that beautiful story published today, she'd have a hard time. if harper lee tried to get to kill a mockingbird published she wouldn't be able to do so because so many would be up in arms over the language, the story. same with twain's the adventures of tom sawyer and huckleberry finn.

maybe it's just that people are getting so fed up with having to suck this shit up that they can't stomach it anymore. and some of these people who are crying out, they're not in pain themselves. they're bitching because they're incensed by what they see on tv, by the stories others have told them. sometimes, sometimes i just want to scream because all this seems so stupid to me.

i'm in pain right now. i'll be in pain an hour from now, a day, a week, a month, a year... but that's my life. this is never gonna go away. ever. in fact, even though cerebral palsy's not a degenerative disability, i think my body will just become more and more tired and in more and more pain because of it.

we all have our crosses to bear. this is mine. it's not in my nature to bitch to my friends when i'm hurting. in fact, i hardly ever do it. i'll tell my parents when my head hurts, but even that's infrequent because they can't understand the pain. their answer is to ask whether i took some pain reliever for it. sometimes i don't want to have to take the stuff. sometimes having to take the stuff makes me angry. sometimes i just want to be normal. and i've been living with this shit for four decades and then some. i have to remind myself that this is normal. it's my normal.

i'm in a bible study on the gospel of john, and one of the things we keep marveling at is how jesus acted with such grace. that he suffered in silence, and how we should strive to do the same.

i wrote that post this morning, and part of the reason i think i did so is because i'm tired of people calling attention to other people's crosses. that's what body shaming is to me. i'm tired of people preaching to others that they should be more respectful; my asking that people stop wasn't the intent of that post. i just want people to worry about themselves, their own lives. i want them to be the best possible versions of themselves. you're not gonna get someone to behave more graciously by belittling or berating them. but if you set an example, if you lead rather than lecture, then maybe you can make that change. you don't have to be a crusader for those who don't have a voice or are unwilling to use theirs. it took me decades to raise my voice. i don't think i really used mine until about ten years ago; it wasn't because people said i should but because i saw what could happen if i didn't. you don't have to get on twitter and facebook and preach to the public about the good you've done or that others should do. words can be meaningless and forgettable. it's true that people don't remember what you tell them, but they remember how you make them feel. when i encounter those from my childhood who were incredibly cruel to me, showing kindness is a great challenge for me, one i cannot always meet. when i can't, i almost always regret it later. that goes with the cross i bear. be an encouragement, not an adversary. the best way to encourage someone to be better is to show them how, not tell.

i'm in pain right now. but we all are. we all have something that hurts. and crying out about it, calling attention to it, telling someone to basically take a pain reliever isn't necessarily going to make the pain go away. i want us to be stronger. i want us to be able to take the hits, to live with the pain. i've been doing it my whole life. and my disability? god knows there are people who have it a hundred times worse, whose pain is a thousandfold mine. god knows their crosses damned near break them. i knew a boy who had cerebral palsy. he went to my church. his case crippled him so much he couldn't walk or talk. the muscles in his hands and fingers were so spastic, so bent that he could not straighten them. the pain he was in must've been horrid. but oh my god, his smile was miraculous. i always marveled at its brightness and beauty. always. and his eyes... they had such light. as he got older, that light diminished and the smile all but disappeared. he's gone now. the good lord finally gave him peace. but the memory of that smile he bestowed upon us in his youth, it lives in my heart, and there it will stay. i know another man who's confined to a wheelchair. i've never once heard him complain. and his smile's gorgeous, too. he shares it so frequently, so easily. he's a wonder to me.

that's how we should be.

you need a radio, takes the pressure off everyone feeling they have to talk so much

in the past twenty-four hours, i've seen in my twitter and facebook feeds people posting pictures of heavyset women wearing unflattering clothing and videos poking fun of others having difficulty at atm machines. this morning i read an article about pepsi's failed attempt to create an advertisement encouraging cultural diversity and how heineken created one that succeeded.

stop telling others how they should live, goddammit. YOU DO YOU.

of course, saying this puts me in the same category, and i know how incendiary that is, but please, yall. that woman put that clothing on because she liked it. she LIKED IT. who gives a shit if it doesn't make her look good? she felt good wearing it. but you're gonna post the picture to your twitter account with your snark so you can feel good? how does that make you feel good? how? it didn't make me feel good seeing that in my feed. and a friend of mine did that. i was ashamed to see it, ashamed that she'd done it. and what the fuck does it matter what she's wearing? WHAT? do you know how many times i've looked back on pictures and wondered what made me think that was okay? (there's some really good examples in this post.) but AT THE TIME, i liked that clothing. plus, my mama picked it out for me.

if someone's having trouble with something, don't fucking record a video and post it to your facebook wall so others can laugh at that person's ineptitude. get out of your car, walk over and ask, can i help you? if the person's rude to you then, so be it. but maybe they'd appreciate the kindness? if you can't be kind enough to ask, then at least be considerate enough to shut up and keep your camera in your bag.

all this does is make someone's day uglier. and maybe their day was already ugly to begin with. no, they can't see your twitter and your facebook, but if you think they don't know that people are mocking them, you're STUPID.

put some music on. think on different things. SHUT UP.

(by the way... because it's no longer sitting well with me... that mismatch post on monday is the last of the batch.)

the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood

why i wanted to read it: because i love the movie and it was on buzzfeed's list of books read by rory on the gilmore girls, one of the categories for erin's book challenge (i just typed categorie's... so all you people who think i write well, please know my typing is shit). i did the audio on this one, too, so i can't mark specific pages, but...

what i liked: the author reads this one, which i love, and she reads it well. having seen the movie first and because the actors accents and tone are similar to the way wells reads it, i could picture the performers, which i loved. it's a VERY well-cast film, by the way; i'd always thought so, but listening to wells read it really drives that idea home. it's been so long since i've seen the movie that i couldn't recall whether a particular scene was included in the screenplay; i don't it was, and i felt it was crucial to the plot: not long after her sixteenth birthday, vivi is enrolled in a catholic school, which results in some traumatic experiences for her (i won't say what). i loved knowing this part of her history, and my heart, which broke for her in the film, cracked even more because of this bit of plot. there's also a spot that includes letters sidda wrote vivi in her childhood. i loved knowing of them, and i don't remember them being in the film.

what sucked: there's a sex scene that i didn't think was necessary. and, having seen the film first, there are parts that differ, and the difference makes the film much better than the book. it doesn't pack quite the punch in the more dire moments that the film does, and i really wanted those conflicts to be as crucial in the book as they were in the film.

having said that: watch the movie, yall. it's really, really good. the book's alright.

by the way...

SWEET JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH
I FINISHED THE CHALLENGE!!!

this has NEVER happened,
and i'm SO, SO stoked that i knocked this fucker out. YEE!!

on to the bonus round, which i WON'T finish come month's end, but i AM going to read all the books i picked for it.

everything everything

why i wanted to read it: because i'd just finished reading crap like life after life and the shack. i wanted something easy. also i've friends who refuse to read it, which only made me curiouser and curiouser.

what i liked: i keep thinking about the summer i turned eight. i spent so many days with my forehead pressed against my glass window, bruising myself with my futile wanting. at first i just wanted to look out the window. but then i wanted to go outside. and then i wanted to play with the neighborhood kids, to play with all the kids everywhere, to be normal for just an afternoon, a day, a lifetime...

wanting just leads to more wanting (page 83).

"so you told him not to write to you and then he didn't write to you. is that what you're telling me?"

"well, i didn't say don't write in big, bold letters or anything. i just said i was busy." i think she's going to make fun of me, but she doesn't.

"why didn't you write to him?"

"because of what we talked about. i like him, carla. a lot. too much."

the look on her face says is that all? "do you really want to lose the only friend you've ever had over a little bit of heartache?"

i've read many, many books involving heartache. not one has ever described it as little. soul-shattering and world-destroying, yes. little, no (page 86).

i want to say something, not just something but the perfect thing to comfort him, to make him forget his family for a few minutes, but i can't think of it. this is why people touch. sometimes words are just not enough (page 105).

if my life were a book and you read it backward, nothing would change. today is the same as yesterday. in the book of maddy, all the chapters would be the same (page 162).

ever since olly came into my life there've been two maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn't want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it. the second maddy... she's like a god -- impervious to cold, famine, disease, natural and man-made disasters. she's impervious to heartbreak. 

the second maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living (page 167).

you're not living if you're not regretting (page 186).

hope spreads through me like a virus (page 186).

what sucked: the writing's not remarkable. it's not. there are a number of instances where the conflict, the characters' reactions and emotions could've been really heightened but aren't.

having said all that: the writing's not awful, either. it's another fast read, which i love, and the ending's unexpected, which really impressed me. i like maddy and olly. they're pretty cool kids.