music and march

New favorite music: Greg Laswell

Heard of him via Collin via Will Clark. I'm listening to his album "Three Flights from Alto Nido." Good driving music and lightly reflective lyrics.

Also, Mat Kearney. Loooove him.

March should be exciting. Staying with some of Hannah's friends (they're my favorites) because their parents are gone.

Then the weekend afterwards is Sigma Chi formal in Grand Rapids. So excited! Not only do I get to see Collin, but I love spending time with him and his friends. A few of them have really become like brothers to me. Especially Dylan and Kirk. And Jerbear will join us to pre-party! Grand Rapids is the best city in the wooooorld.

After that is INDY! With Kristen, Karen, Babs, Courtney, and a very pregnant Jen. Sigh. I was just talking to Courtney tonight and I got even more excited. I do miss them a lot and wish we were closer. My heart is in the Midwest right now.

And the weather has been gorgeous. Such a provision.

So thank you, God, for March and its wonderful beginning.

another important discovery

A few days ago, I learned that Julie Powell is not the person I imagined her to be. After reading her real blog and reviews of her book "Cleaving," I can't help but be disgusted with her.

Please take my opinion with a grain of salt. A huge grain. Notice, I said that I read a "review" of her book. Also, I have not read Julie and Julia. All I knew of Julie was from the movie. And I am embarrassed to even admit this because of how hard I took the true knowledge of her.

More deeply, I hate my temptation to judge her (and others I don't know) for mistakes that anyone of us could succumb to and it is also not my job to "forgive" her. So I don't even like that these are my feelings on the subject.

The thing is, I had so much hope and delight invested in the phantom, onscreen depiction of her. And so my important discovery lies in the fact that I fantasize other people's lives and get really disappointed when reality hits. Disappointed or bitter, and at my worst self-justified. My sorrow is very self-centered. So many things wrong with this tendency.

Some other things I learned:

My tolerance for snarkiness and foul language is limited to people I already know and love. Babs or Willbaer can drop the f-bomb as much as they like and I will love them forever. Random blogs or characters in books, not so much.

Finally, I cannot give up my enchantment with the film "Julie and Julia" and so I've allowed myself a modicum of denial. From now on, when I watch it, I will pretend (knowing full well that I am wrong) that Julie Powell is actually Amy Adams.

And instead of reading the novel "Julie and Julia" (or the follow-up "Cleaving" for that matter), I will read Julia Child's "My Life in France." Maybe someone more resilient than I could pick up Julie Powell's books and remain unscathed, but I don't think I'm mature enough. If you are not convinced, you didn't read this post carefully enough.