emotions – Peaceful Reader

Feelings

(Inside Out from Disney is a perfect example of how I feel right now)

I’ve spent my night doing quiet activities. I took my two dogs out for a lovely walk just before the sun went completely down and was happy I didn’t have to wear a coat. I made myself a simple dinner of avocado toast with fresh eggs on top. I made myself a very small Clementine margarita and watched two quick episodes of Shitt’s Creek while I ate because I needed some laughter in my day.

I talked on the phone with my brother about all that is happening right now. I did some laundry and I had a Google Meet with Verda and Angelle. I’ve tried not looking at election results but I’ve peeked and it really only takes a glance to understand that our country is in real deep shit. While it isn’t a landslide and it is really too close to call I am literally shocked at how RED the map is and that some of the old characters like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have survived this. I’m crushed. It’s chilling to think this through. We’re raised a nation of people who are non-thinkers, of hateful followers.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to get up and I’m going to walk to school in the beautiful late Fall weather and I’m going to have a day. I’m going to try to shut out the few (but loud) young children who will be elated because they’ve been chanting Trump for weeks. I’m so very worried for this exact follow mentality. And the superior attitude. I was already tired of the trucks with flags, and the bumper stickers plastered all over cars and trucks. I don’t know what the next four years are going to look like no matter who actually wins tonight. How did we get here? Never before have we had such division unless you want to discuss the Civil War era. And more importantly how are we going to fix this?

3 amazing reads all in a row.

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood ( 1998): You enter the sterile and odd world of The Handmaid’s Tale and you get an eery feeling like you should look over your shoulder. While this seems so far removed from our world now, it feels like it would only take about 2 steps backwards to be in Atwood’s world. For those that haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale it relays the events of a woman, Offred, of child-bearing years who’s been pulled from her own life and inserted into another family in order to bear an older man’s child(ren). The change from one life to the next happens slowly but also in a blink of an eye. Imagine in your life time that you could live one moment with your husband and beautiful child; only to be repurposed in a retraining camp where you learn to surrender your will to this next family. There are so many details of this new life mixed with her memories of before. If you like dystopian or politics; this is a fantastic read. I stayed up way too late each night to read just a little more. Other days I slammed the book down in disgust. I am searching for the original movie with Natasha Richardson (it’s not on Netflix or Amazon Prime) before I start streaming the new Hulu series. Here is a great NYT article by Atwood herself discussing her novel.

2. A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman (2014): I am watching this one Amazon Prime. The book was an amazingly funny read. I laughed out loud many times and when I neared the end of this sweet tale I cried. I love a book that brings about that much emotion. Ove is a curmudgeon at best; an absolute old grump and yet we love him for it because he emerges a changed man. Even when he’s at his worst he’s an interesting character. Ove is ready to end his life, ready to join his beautiful Sonja in the afterworld. He even thinks about what he should wear so she’ll be happy when she sees him coming through the pearly gates. The unexpected happens though when a new family moves in next door and the wife pulls Ove into her own life. All the hype about this book is true.

3. This side of home by Renee Watson (2015): This is a delightful tale about two twins, Nikki and Maya, living in Portland with intellectual parents surrounding them with love. What is ever-changing though is their neighborhood which is being gentrified rapidly and their high school as well. The neighborhood, high school, friends and family all provide a wonderful backdrop to the life experience of Nikki and Maya as they learn to accept each other as more than just a reflection of each other. My one and only complaint is about the cover; neither girl has the loose hair of the girl pictured on the front. She’s brown-a good start-#weneeddiversebooks BUt it would be a reflection of the character if her hair was braided. Maya repeatedly talks about her hair in braids down her back; Nikki with pressed hair and sometimes loose and free. Neither girl is represented by the photo on the cover except by skin color. #rant

Now I’m reading Bill Browder’s Red Notice for book club. I’m not a fan of nonfiction but his tale of intrigue has me reading. I also just finished this short article about White Fragility that’s worth reading. Someone sent it to me to remind me of a conversation we had about Ta’Nehisi Coates’ book.

Ugh! I'm back.

Google, Blogger, and I have a love/hate triangle going on right now. This is the second or third time I’ve been locked out of my peacefulreader blog. I pay for a domain name and somehow about a year ago Google decided that all paying domains would be part of G-Suite and it’s been nothing but trouble for me. In other words it’s not hitting my sweet spot.

Tonight, while I do have homework and a good book to read, I felt the need to solve the problem. I’m tired but it suddenly dawned on me that somehow it was not “reading” my G-Suite admin account. I tried a few more times to log in with no luck. One of our school techie’s advice is about turning the computers off, really off. So I logged everyone off my laptop, which should NOT be a family computer but is, and shut the whole thing down. While I was logging off it seems that Groovy Girl had herself logged in on a second Google page with Netflix up as well. So even though I was logging myself in as myself and then also as an administrator it was not really logging me in. The thread of her was being pulled from another page.

Once I turned the whole system back on and logged myself back in it didn’t even ask for the admin information it just let me back in. Whew. I feel so much better, less out of touch. Speaking of being in tough, I’ve spent the last two nights watching movie with Anton.

Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Will Smith in Collateral Beauty were two very thoughtful and exciting films. We’ve been having a conversation in our house about gaming, movies, and books – different kinds of entertainment. I’m not a fan of gaming-it leaves me flat-although the one time of the year that I enjoy having a controller in my hand is at Christmas when Kaylee, Tristan, Greg, and I compete in heated games of Jeopardy. Most people that love gaming find the idea of this silly but we have so much fun.

A movie or a book can help you see a bigger picture, give you empathy, make you laugh, or think, or dream. Same with a book. Video games are only going through repetitive motions. And even streaming shows can now get to an addictive phase I still think the lure of gaming for hours on end can be harmful. Those that are avid video gamers can probably argue this with me. I’ll take a book or movie for entertainment any time.

I have a whole ‘nother post I was working on about The Handmaid’s Tale before the shut out occurred. I’ll get back to that in a day or two. We have dance recital this Saturday-that’s an all-day event. And I’m working on grading library assignments and assessments in between teaching classes and adding in new books. I was able to spend the last of my budget money on a trip to our local Barnes and Noble last night. It was incredible-especially as kids pawed through the 2 boxes today looking at treasures. Seven of the books now have sticky notes denoting who gets what first. The joy of book lovers!