Girls Who Read


I am not a poetry fan. Of all the visually digestible words there are, poetry ranks least in my favor and so, it is the rare poem that moves me from cool glance to lukewarm* interest. But this poem is an exception to my disinterest:

And okay, I will admit that a man with an accent from just about anywhere in the UK has me at “hello” in terms of my attention at any rate, but this poem speaks to my young self. The girl who whiled away whole weekends with her nose in a book. Any book. Who made projects out of hunting down everything written on every person, time period or historical event that caught her fancy and held it for more than the time required to breathe in and out.

And it speaks to the “girl” I am now, who can still be swept away by a fictional vista that only the author really can see for sure.

It’s not often that a work of fiction moves me to invest anymore. I am over reading the classics for literature’s sake. Literary narrative reminds me too much of university and I refuse to bow down to the notion that Jonathan Franzen isn’t long-winded, rather pretentious and not particularly original.

I like print wherever it’s printed. I’ll take my words carved neat with sharp points or wildly pontificating or with heart dotted i’s and j’s. As long as they sing arias that intrigue, inspire or infuriate me to thoughts I wouldn’t have otherwise had – I am good.

Women in my youth, but today as well, are not loved for our words – the ones we read or the ones we write. Still it’s mostly about our shapes. The size. The firmness. And the age. So a man who comes to appreciate the package because of what’s inside and not the other way around is a rare find, worthy of note and further study.

To all you girls who read then, take heart. There are indeed those who find the trait attractive, and rightly so.

*I prefer my world lukewarm for the most part to perhaps a shade about room temperature. Even tea is better “just right” unless I am nursing an asthma ravaged set of lungs or a sore throat, but even that has temperature limits.

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Winter Is Coming


Winter Is Coming

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been reading George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, known more popularly as Game of Thrones. One of it’s often repeated lines is “Winter is coming.” It’s the family motto of the Stark family, who has ruled in the North forever and a day at as the story begins and it is meant to remind them that the season is more than just cold, snow and ice. Its application is deeper than simply the superficial preparations that are important for survival in the frigid northern terrain. It’s about vigilance, internal fortitude and looking beyound the obvious to see what is really coming.

Late February, even in a mild winter such as the one we are enjoying, is the time when winter feels as though it has always been. Green, leafy and blooming is forgotten as though it never happened last year at all, and in some respects it didn’t thanks to the endless rainy spring that drowned much of June and July.

In our neck of Alberta, “winter is coming” could almost be read “winter is” and be done with it.

Regardless of when the snow falls, at the end of February, we are still a good two and a half months from the outer limits of winter and snow can fall as easily in July and August as it can in January. It requires a special kind of endurance to live with winter hanging over one’s head all the time, taunting and sure of itself.

It snowed over the weekend and again this morning. We haven’t had snow if a while, but even with the oddly warm temperature, snow and ice cling stubbornly to the ground.

No matter how optimistically I begin, the Iowa girl in me misses March’s first promise of spring. As the time approaches for either lion or lamb to enter the building, I begin to feel as though I am living in Martin’s vision of an endless winter without even the promise of dragons or magical swords to subdue it.

 

More? Seriously?


(Chart by the hilarious Allie Brosh.)

Over the weekend, it was suggested to me that I should join the board of the local indoor soccer league if I felt that things could be done better.

“We are only volunteers, you know,” she said.

Implication being that simply the act of volunteering was sufficient and whether anything is actually accomplished by said volunteering is way beside the point.

But it’s a good point. Much of what we do is by choice when working to pay the bills and all that maintainance work involved with personal survival and parenting stuff is factored out. We take on everything else pretty much on a volunteer basis. Relationships. Hobbies. Sports. Exercise. Excessive grooming. Image maintaining. We volunteer what remains of our time each week to all these things.

So, deciding to coach your kid’s team or serve on a board or be surf the various media selections from your easy chair – all volunteer work – and being such, requires you to know how much extra time and energy you really have to devote to it. Those factors determining whether or not you can say that said volunteerism is productive or not. It also decides whether you can promote yourself as a saint, martyr or a well-rounded person, who just happens to have a bit of free time that many of us can’t seem to lay even a pinkie finger on.

Knowing your personal load capacity matters.

The sad fact (for others) of my life is that the time I have available for over-extending myself is during the day when they are all at work. Responsibilities for me are slotted in micro-shifts and aside from the book-ending of child, wife and housely stuff, my midday’s are as flexible as Gumby. If you want my assistance, you need to need it during the day. Expecting me to show up in person in the evening simply isn’t going to happen.

From Monday to Thursday, I am moving at an impressive rate of speed from 4 P.M. on til bedtime. Trying to shoehorn anything in on the fly takes considerable advanced planning and often isn’t feasible. While I am quick to point out my daytime availability, there are few who find this helpful in their quest to off-load those things that they took on by choice and now find cumbersome or don’t add to the world’s perception of them in a manner for which they hoped to become accustomed.

Let’s face it, We were designed to live in Eden that awesome carefree botanical garden/petting zoo and not built at all for a life of hard labour with too many distracting choices masquerading as obligations.