I’ve heard about sunshine and I know about May

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

The things kids say…

I volunteer with a program that takes me to a fourth grade classroom once a week during the school year. Yesterday was my last day for this school year, and as I was saying goodbye one little girl raised her hand.

“Since it’s your last day, the boys want to know—can they have your phone number?” she asked.

I told her the age difference was insurmountable and somehow held my laughter till I got to the hallway.

————–

In recent months, I’ve made it my project at community group to win over my friends’ 3-year-old. He cracks me up, running around the house in his footed pajamas and insisting that he’s too big to be held (in his teeny, tiny little boy voice). Now, it’s become almost a ritual. When I arrive he exclaims, “You can’t get me!” and waits for me to chase him around the house.

Last night we were sitting on the couch and he was crawling all over the place. “Logan, you’re a monkey,” I said.

“I’m not a monkey! I’m a boy!” he retorted.

“No, I think you’re a monkey,” I teased him.

He paused, contemplated, and quickly issued his comeback. “You’re a ladybug!” he proclaimed.

I like it.

Come on, let’s take it easy

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Inspiration for a new week, or, words taped to my computer monitor:  

“The real thrill is composition. To be kind of down on your hands and knees with the language at really close range in the midst of a poem that is carrying you in some direction that you can’t foresee … It’s that sense of ongoing discovery that makes composition really thrilling and that’s the pleasure and that’s why I write.” –former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins 

“Your curiosity will lead you to great achievements.” –fortune cookie

It’s all good, pop the bubbly, life is lovely

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

During a recent girls’ night at Chez Fonfon, two of my friends confessed their desire to be “hood.” Now I will point out, one of these friends is a former Anthropologie employee and the other a homecoming queen, so they’ve got a long way to go. In any case, the bulk of the evening’s conversation was devoted to the pursuit of hood-ness, and their determination to find me a hood theme song.

Finally, I couldn’t resist any longer. “I’m pretty sure if you were hood, you wouldn’t be eating at Chez Fonfon,” I pointed out.

I was shot down in the ensuing discussion of bling and status. But then, what do I know? I’m so not hood.

Top 10 reasons we know I’m not so hood:

  1. I didn’t realize “you’re so hood” was a phrase…
  2. …or a song…
  3. …or that “hood” could be used as an adjective.
  4. I have precisely one song listed as rap on my iPod… and it’s the Beastie Boys, who were constantly played on the “new rock” station when I was in high school.
  5. Jamie says I’m the prissiest person she knows. I’m pretty sure you can be prissy and live in the hood, but I don’t think prissy girls can be hood.
  6. The fourth graders I volunteer with told me they liked my sunglasses because they looked like Soulja Boy’s. I thought Soulja Boy was a song, not a person.
  7. The only reason I even knew Soulja Boy as a song was because of a New Year’s Eve party and other people’s musical preferences.
  8. I listen to folk music. A lot of folk music.
  9. I consider Will Smith rap (OK, white girl rap, but still) and I’m still proud that I know every word of “Miami,” “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” “It’s All Good” and “Men in Black.”
  10. Have you ever heard me say “gettin’ jiggy wit it?” I am so not hood.

Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

My week, so far, in random pictures, especially for Sara Beth:
Sunday supper

Sunday night supper: Salsa (homemade–my first, and it was a hit), creme fraiche mashed potatoes in the oven, shortbread cookies in progress, grits on the stove. For some reason, on Sunday and Monday nights this week I decided I needed to cook three things at a time. But planning ahead’s not such a bad thing.

Lemon display

Monday night creation: Lately I find myself cooking with creme fraiche and lemons as often as possible, so I finally bought a full bag of lemons instead of two or three at a time. It seemed far too depressing to stick them in a refrigerator drawer, but I was out of big bowls–so I turned instead to this crystal vase. I like.

(I may have gotten carried away with lemons in my dinner, though. I had a lemon-thyme pork chop with linguine–made with creme fraiche and lemons, and I made fresh lemonade to drink. That’s the beauty of cooking just for myself!)

Milk with SBMilk with Jamie

Tuesday evening: I was in a weird, stressed-out mood, so instead of working late (as I probably should have) I went to a friend’s apartment. Conversation can always be a little amusing when Jamie, Sara Beth and I get together–but this time, it resulted into hugs and, well, hugging milk glasses. We may not be cool, but we are not a boring people.

Dagny dog

Tuesday night: My bed buddy. I dog sat for a friend’s German shepherd last night. I stayed up far too late writing, so I couldn’t bring myself to protest when Dagny crawled into bed with me. (I did protest when she wanted to go for a walk at 5 a.m. We almost made it until 6:30.) Just for perspective: Dag weighs about 20 pounds less than me. Not a small dog.

The end.

Time will tell you, baby, what you can’t hear now

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

(I was just showing Elisa ridiculous entries I have had saved for years–literally, years–and she decided I should post this one. “Because it’s adorable,” she says. “It so seems like Carla three years ago–more tentative and wanting so badly to be spontaneous!” So, here. This is from May 29, 2005, at 9:38 p.m.)

You know how there are certain things in life – characteristics, I guess – that just sound like something good to be?

(Or is that just me?)

I think it sounds “cool,” somehow, to be a risk taker, to be spontaneous. And as much as I’d like to paint myself as an exciting person, I just don’t think that’s me.

A friend made a bet with me the other day, a bet that required me to do something a touch daring. He was confident that the bet would pay off in my favor and I’d be $20 richer.

Though it’s a tiny example, it started me thinking. Being uptight and structured is part of my personality, and it’s deeply ingrained.

Why don’t you tell me something good?

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

We all know I’m addicted to reading, but I have to admit my addiction includes a lot of blogs–my friends’ blogs, music blogs, local blogs, other work-related blogs, news blogs, and of course, book blogs. I read these quotes today on {head}:sub/head and thought they merited repeating.

In So Many Books (which should be required reading for anyone thinking about publishing, Gabriel Zaid notes:

“If not a single book were published from this moment on, it would still take 250,000 years for us to acquaint ourselves with those books already written.”

“Maybe the measure of our reading should therefore be, not the number of books we’ve read, but the state in which they leave us. . . whether the street and the clouds and the existence of others mean anything to us; whether reading makes us, physically, more alive”

The more I think about it, the more I know it’s true

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

CJ’s ridiculously upbeat “It’s spring and no one or nothing, not even the calendar, will convince me otherwise” playlist, circa Feb. 28, 2008:

 

Walken by Wilco

Broken by Tift Merritt

I Want to Tell You by The Beatles

Got to Get You Into my Life by The Beatles

I’ve been listening to these four songs on repeat all day long. Three Two One more rounds for “Walken” and it’ll pass “This Breaks My Heart of Stone,” making this mini-playlist my top played songs on my work iTunes.

But I think the list needs some expanding. Suggestions…?

So silent and peaceful in the darkness where we fell

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Further evidence that I am a dork (and that my eyesight isn’t my first priority):

 

I read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open last night—which was probably around 10:30 p.m., knowing me. I talked myself into putting the book down because I knew I would have time to read the last 50 pages before I got ready for work this morning.

Then, I lost power in the storm. No worries. I finished my book by cell phone and candlelight instead.

(If anyone wants to borrow my copy before book club next month, let me know! Non-book club members welcome–we’re bringing in the author and inviting friends and family.)

I want you so bad, it’s driving me mad

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Emma loves books

I’m not the only book lover in my house. (Emma requests that you ignore how massive she appears to be in this picture. I didn’t dare change angles for fear that she would evacuate her book fort.) 

Last week my friend Lauren sent me an email, reminding me that one of the local libraries would be holding its annual book sale over the weekend. She intended to drive down there on her lunch break Friday, and I thought I should do the same.

I completely forgot about it until I was driving to her house on Saturday night. I briefly mourned my forgetfulness, then dismissed the thought. Surely all the best stuff would be gone by Sunday, I thought.

I could not have been more wrong.

I spent Sunday afternoon with another friend, Elisa, and when I arrived at her apartment she quickly told me about all the wonderful books she bought the day before. At some point we would take a break from our day’s project, we decided, and she would take me to the library sale.

Oh my word.

The sale was divided into two levels, and we started (and in fact, ended) in the basement. There were tons of people, lots of hustle and bustle, and I’ve never talked so much (or so enthusiastically! and loudly!) in a library. I started selecting books carefully, browsing the shelves and critically thinking about how much money I would spend.

Then we realized that a brown grocery sack of books cost only $7.

Elisa grabbed a bag and I dumped my armload of books inside. And we began grabbing every must-have book we could find. If I spotted a favorite that I already owned, it went in the bag for her. She must have selected at least seven or eight books for me. By the sale’s end, the bag was brimming over, filled with plays, classics, food books, novels… and days and days of reading to come.

We left the library on a book high. I was so excited that I literally turned cartwheels. (She followed suit.) Even hours later, I literally jumped up and down while telling friends about how many books I’d acquired.

I can’t wait to get home and stare at the beautiful pile of pages on my bedroom floor.

  1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Of course I already own it. I just couldn’t abandon it there on that shelf, and I figured I could find someone who doesn’t already have a copy!)
  2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I’ve never read any Dickens!)
  3. Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom by Julia Childs
  4. Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock (I read this one last night. It’s beautiful, and now I need the rest of them.)
  5. The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton (One of many books Elisa tossed into the bag for me. I returned the favor!)
  6. Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
  7. Macbeth by Shakespeare
  8. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb (One of the first books I picked up upon arrival. This was before we realized that a bag of books was so cheap. My sister’s former roommate recommended this to me; it’s been on my list for months.)
  9. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
  10. The Chicago Manual of Style (Did I mention I’m kind of a dork?)
  11. Love’s Labour Lost by William Shakespeare (This is a beautiful edition—so pretty, in fact, that I was tempted to cram the entire set into my bag. But they wouldn’t have fit, and all of my favorite plays were already gone.)
  12. 1984 by George Orwell (I love Animal Farm.)
  13. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (When I was a substitute teacher several years ago, I was showing this movie to the AP English class. They were so precious—the kids stayed in my class during lunch so they could finish watching the movie. “We want to see how it compares to the play,” they explained. I figured if they were that curious, surely I should read it as well!)
  14. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (PS, 10 Things I Hate About You is still my favorite teen movie.)
  15. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (This is one of several books on this list that I pretended to read in high school. Please don’t tell Mrs. Robertson.)
  16. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (I actually read and loved this one in ninth grade. I had fun discussing it with my pastors’ sons at church last night!)
  17. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (I think I actually read this one, too!)
  18. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  19. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  20. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (I was lectured at work on Friday because I had never read this one. I’m very excited about it.)
  21. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (I started reading this when I lived in Tuscaloosa, but had to return it to the library before I was done.)
  22. Plainsong by Kent Haruf
  23. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  24. One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (Welty is one of my coworker’s very favorite authors. I probably should have snagged everything I saw with her name on it.)
  25. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle (I just watched a movie based on a Peter Mayle book this weekend, so this was very exciting.)
  26. French Lessons by Peter Mayle (Oh, and have I mentioned that I like to think I ought to be French?)
  27. The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden (I am super excited about this one after listening to Elisa talk about it.)
  28. In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson (I’ve never read Bryson, but I’ve been meaning to for years.)

(And yes, I realize I estimated 32 books. But Elisa also got eight, so really my estimate was over, not under.)