So I rented this movie a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Then I ordered the book and I love the book even more. I read about 80% of it in one sitting: I just picked it up and couldn't put it down.
I really like the blend of journalistic technique mixed with pure storytelling and Chris McCandless is such a character, you feel his personality just leaping off the page.
Great book!
I was 18 years old and walking home to my apartment on Franklin Avenue in Boise from work as a waiter at Plush Pippin on State Street. As I zipped along the street, Eric, who was Wendy Belcher's boyfriend (my first boyfriend Jerry and I lived with her), was playing football in the field at Boise High and he saw me passing at shouted out: "The Wall fell down, maaaaaan! Those Germans are freeeeee!"
I was like: "Huh?"
So he shouted: "The Berlin Wall! It's been knocked down! It's over, maaaaaaan!"
And that's all I remember. I vaguely recall a conversation later that evening with someone much older than me who talked about how this was an historical moment and that I would remember this night. Who was that? Russ? Josh?
I did know a lot about Germany since I started studying German when I was 12 years old. But I was much more interested in German language and literature and not so much about politics. Then (I was only 18!). So I didn't quite know what an important process had started that night.
We had all these friends who lived in (what we called) "the Franklin house," a huge old mansion a few doors down from our apartment. I do remember being up in Heather and her sister's attic apartment, holding their kitten, and listening to them talk about Germany and all the changes these developments would lead to. Haha, my most vivid impression of that old house, though, is the "water wars" that were constantly going on (the water pressure was terrible and everyone had to fight to be in the shower first or there would be no pressure anywhere in the apartment) and how STDs made their rounds throughout the entire building (we called Mindy "Clamindy" and Lea "Gonnolea" haha). All these straight kids screwing each other non-stop. In our apartment, we just had our crazy roommate, Wendy (who kept a mannequin, Mona, dressed up in the living room year round: at Christmas, she'd be decked out in slutty Christmas clothes, in summer, slutty summer clothes, etc etc) and her boyfriend Eric. They'd get drunk and beat the shit out of each other (not him beating her, them beating each other). Oy. How long did Jerry and I live there? Six months?
Woops, got sidetracked wallowing in the past. The Berlin Wall. In the long run, I guess this hasn't really affected me personally very much. Or who knows, maybe the hand of history is so far reaching that its effects are impossible to truly understand on an individual level.
All I can think about now, these 20 years later, is my own life and how far I've come since that November night so long ago. It seems like I've lived 10 different lives since then, many countries, a few relationships, many friendships.
Here is the Franklin house today. It looks similar but much more upscale. When I lived there, it was full of poor young students and stoners. It was practically falling apart. Our place (just a few doors down on the other side of the street) has been torn down and replaced by an office building. Too bad, too. It was such a beautiful place: it had this sun room in the back overlooking the garden that was one of the most beautiful rooms I've ever lived in. It was my favorite place to sit with a book.
Ah, well. Time marches on. As the Chinese say, "You can't welcome the new until you get rid of the old."
Quiet days. Mildly depressed as I always seem to be every November what with a long cold winter ahead of us.
It doesn't help that nearly everyone we know is traveling or making plans to: I&C are headed to France for two weeks, M just got back from Peru, C is in Berlin (we have Mac for two weeks), JP is in Japan, and R just got back from Hawaii. Even C&J are off to Italy in the spring.
And we're stuck here for the time being, facing a cold & bleak Quebec winter. Sigh.
I shouldn't complain. We've made a lot of sacrifices the last few years and it's been well worth it. And the end is in sight: just one more winter and we will just about have it set up so that we can leave every winter from now on. Or nearly every winter.
I think this is partly just job boredom. It comes in waves and because I've been doing a new part of a project, learning a new software system, I could distract myself for the past few months. But I guess I'm over that. Anyway, it's fine, another new project starting next month so that'll get me through a chunk of winter. Hopefully.
Thank God for friends. Last night M was working, so I went over to I&C's and we hung out in their kitchen chatting until late, then ordered Indian take out and watched "Good Night and Good Luck." Then, since I had missed the last train, I decided to forgo the taxi ride and I walked home from Point-St-Charles -- it took over an hour. But it was nice, walking over the canal in the moonlight, through downtown and past the throngs of drunk McGill and Concordia students, up St-Denis and through the Plateau. What a great way to spend a Friday night.
OK to work now. I've got a full day in front of this computer to get through, then a big dinner tonight around the corner that I am not really looking forward to.
I want this life:
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
M's immigration is done! We got a letter, zipped into the office and they gave him his little stamp of approval. Whew, what a relief. Nearly two years of waiting. It'll be mid-December before he can actually LEAVE the country (we have to have his PR card in-hand first), but it's officially FINISHED and he is now a permanent resident. Thank you, Canada (and Quebec)!
It feels a bit anticlimactic after being a bit stressed about this for so long. I guess it's because we are tight money-wise now until we get all the renovations on our place done so we still can't really take any major trips in the near future.
Now I can start my paperwork to apply for Canada citizenship. It'll take a while, too, but I should be able to travel until it's done. So it won't hold us up like his application has.
Let's see. VERY busy week this week. Worked 14 hours all day every day since Monday. Why does everything come due the same week? Good news is, after Sunday, things should calm down a bit (well, in my lexicon that means I'll go back to just working 8 hour days every day!).
Shouldn't be a major weekend: dinner tomorrow with some friends and a birthday party (two, actually) on Sunday.
Reading an excellent book right now, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which everyone has been talking about the past year. I was skeptical (any book on NYT bestseller list I am usually dubious about), but I stood at the bookstore and zipped through the first chapter standing in the aisle. A good sign. Been slow going just because I'm so busy, but it's a great read so far.
Friday! We were supposed to have the baby all night but her mom called and said she was staying home tonight. So now I have an open Friday night! I could go out but I think I'm just gonna go rent a couple of movies, buy a couple of beers and chill out on my own...
of all the short stories that have been ruined by the YEARS of bad English comp papers I have read.
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
"Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams (OK, not a short story but a play).
"Hill Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
"Hill Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
I will never be able to read any of these stories and their plot structures, characters, symbols, aspects of their imagery, and tone will be seared into my brain until the day I die. If I ran my own college, I would ban all teachers from assigning all of these works to students.
The other day a student came to me with, surprise, an essay by David Sedaris that he was being asked to write about. I just about fell over dead and told myself that if I ever met that textbook writer, I would shake his hand!
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