16. The Fourth Hand

Book 16: The Fourth Hand by John Irving (A)

Yes! John Irving wins again!!! Sir, you are my novelist hero! How are you so awesome? Please, spill your secrets to me! I must know how to write like you, sir!

Irving

(If you can't tell) I love John Irving! Since the day I picked up his book The Cider House Rules, I have devoured his novels! They are unbelievable, strange, and intelligent and The Fourth Hand is no exception.
In India, a journalist named Patrick gets his left hand eaten by a lion. On the east coast, a doctor wants to be the first surgeon to perform the world's first hand transplant. In Green Bay, Michigan, a couple is desperately trying to get pregnant. Life and circumstance bring them together. The husband of the Michigan couple accidentally kills himself with his hand gun after the Packers lose the Super Bowl and his wife, who felt pity for the man whose hand was eaten by a lion, decides to give her husband's hand to Patrick. The doctor, who is trying to reconnect with his young son whose mind has been poisoned against his father by a bitter ex-wife, gets to perform the surgery. However, there's a catch: the wife wants visitation rights to the hand after the surgery! The wife falls in love with her husband's hand. Patrick falls in love with the wife. Five years pass as the three characters continue about their lives with Patrick trying to stay in the wife's life for good.
Irving, you have inspired me to be not just a novelist but a great one. My work will never stand up to yours, but I will try my hardest and use techniques I have learned through reading only your books!! Your deep description of every character, even the one who only shows up for three pages, is so beautiful and painstaking! Your detailed background that goes against the main focus of the story may seem irrelevant until that last paragraph when everything is tied together and the whole world makes sense! You sir are a freaking genius!!!

Kodak Moment: Annual Pet Bird Fair

Eurasia hawk owl

For entertainment purposes, I have been on the look out for activities or events that are either very cheap or free in Raleigh that Morgan and I can attend. I don't want our summer to be spent laying around his apartment during his time when he's not at work or his days off. I don't work like that. If I don't have something to do or something to look forward to, I can get very depressed or temperamental.
Last weekend was the Got to Be NC Fest where Morgan won my a plush Nemo. Today it was 23rd Annual Pet Bird Fair in the Kerr Scott Building at the Fairgrounds. We didn't know what to expect, but let me say... we had a great time.

My favorite

Turning its head

Macaw

Show ribbons for the parrot competition

15. The Coffee Trader

Book 15: The Coffee Trader by David Liss (C+)

The novel moved so s...l...o...w! The build-up was slow, the story didn't take off until you were halfway through the book, and the climax was short and not worth the wait. The ending was predictable, except one small part that left me with my mouth literally hanging open, and the entire novel was over my head in terms and chattering about business, money, and commerce.

Miguel, a Jew merchant in Amsterdam, has recently struck out on the Exchange when his sugar deal went bad. Now, he's back in action with a tricky business partner in the sale of coffee. The Exchange is full of enemies, and everyone seems to be after either Miguel's nonexistent money or Miguel himself, including his brother.
The book is not reader friendly as it bounces around with a bunch of different trading quips and jargon as well as 1500's Amsterdam culture that is not familiar to readers nor clearly explained. What is explained is beat into the reader's brain page after page! I found the book to be dry, annoying, and boring.
One of the few bright spots in the novel was its hilarious description of coffee and how the fruit, which was just coming into age, affected all the merchants once they tried it.
" "Beer and wine may make a man sleepy, but coffee will make him awake and clearheaded. Beer and wine may make a man amorous, but coffee will make him lose interest in the flesh. The man who drinks coffee fruit cares only for his business." She paused for another sip. "Coffee is the drink of commerce" (15)."
Reading about the merchants trying out coffee and suddenly start shouting out their bids and getting all excited was clever and entertaining. However, it could not account for the rest of this disappointing novel.

Works cited:

Liss, David. The Coffee Trader. New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2003. Print

14. The Wind in the Willows

Book 14: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (The Great Illustrated Classics version) (B-)

One person's junk is another's treasure. This was one of my favorite books growing up. My mom found it in a trash can outside of a store in perfect condition! She dusted it off and brought it home to me where I read it again and again.

However, I now find the book to be slightly annoying with Toad constantly bragging about himself and deciding to be good then bragging and sobbing again. The reason I loved the book so much as a kid is because of the mysterious character of Mr. Badger who seems to be a gruff, scary individual until the reader and the characters in the story really get to know him. Rather a friendly creature, Mr. Badger just detests society.
This book was not as good as I remember it being from when I was a kid. The second half of the book is always a drag with Toad of Toad Hall wallowing in his own self pity while stealing cars and horses. He's kind of like that rabbit in Triss that I detested so much!
Still, a good classic that should be read to kids again and again!!

Being Handed a Prize

It turns out that today was just as good as my unofficial "last day."
As you all know, May 21st was not the Rapture. That, or I was left behind and so was everyone else! However, I tried to live my May 21st like it was the Rapture and spent the entire day with my family.
First, Ma and I remembered the old times by reenacting stories, telling new tales, and basically just laughing hysterically so hard that I made her eyes sting because her mascara ran from tears of laughter. Then, we did the woman thing to do and laid out by the too-cold-to-swim-in-yet pool and basked in the sun to where Ma suddenly raised her head and shouted, "Wow! There's a lot of wildlife today!" at the squawking birds, rustling lizards, and barking dogs. Then, I dined with Kate at Panera Bread - food that is so good it's worth shelling out way too much money for! I feasted like I'm a poor college student on a whole pumpkin muffin, a crispy apple, and hot macaroni and cheese with a small orange juice.

Kate and I haven't seen each other since she was diagnosed with asthma (sorry, Ma, if you haven't told the distant relatives yet and were saving that information for a lengthy phone call in the near future. Hi, everyone!). ...My baby sister has asthma. My other sister is profoundly deaf in one ear. I have hypoglycemia (or something a lot like it). Seriously.... Seth, Morgan... RUN!! You do NOT want to breed with us!!!! We have scary DNA and it'll pass along to your future children should you marry us. RUN AWAY before you catch it, too!!!
After lunch, I watched The Fighter with Ma back at the house. Holy crap, awesome movie! If you haven't seen this film yet, go to a Redbox quick because you're missing out on cinema awesomeness! It is not just another "sports" movie where that's all that matters and the loser rises to the top. The story is so much more... even though the trailer doesn't make it look that way. And yes the crackhead former legend brother is played by Christian Bale - that same guy who growled his way through Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (also good movies, if you haven't seen those then we're no longer speaking!!)
Then it was time for dinner and my "last meal" was a big, fat piece of juicy steak and an equally fat baked potato topped with butter! Delicious!!! I didn't come up to breathe until there wasn't any meat left on the bone. I took off soon afterwards to visit with my dad where we watched bits of Cartoon Network with Anne before I hit the road.
My last hour was spent clutching my teddy bear Mr. Mars as we cruised down I-40 through Asheboro territory, home of the NC Zoo. I sent Morgan a text during saying, "Baby, I love you so much. I can't wait to hug you." 9:00 came. 9:00 went. I continued to drive down I-40.

~

Today continued to be just as amazing as yesterday. What was a trip to see the border collie sheep herding demonstration at the Got to Be NC Festival turned into your stereotypical Nicholas Sparks couples date to the state carnival trip. Morgan and I pulled up into a large field and walked across the street to the fairgrounds where we instantly headed to the Grandstand for the demonstration. Two border collies - one long-haired and one short-haired - proceeded to show us different techniques in herding sheep. It was fascinating to watch these intelligent animals work. The long-haired, Ranger, was a young and obviously inexperienced. He wanted nothing more than to get at those sheep. Morgan and I watched transfixed as the dogs herded the sheep around cones, into a pen, and over a small bridge. 

When the show ended, we walked around the entire fairgrounds then stopped at two booths to get drinks. I got a strawberry daiquiri smoothie in a long tube of a plastic cup and Morgan got lemonade and strawberry "Moose Joose Slush." We drank our beverages away from the warming sun near the coolness of a large fountain at the far end of the fairgrounds as families bustled around us with their strollers and dogs. We attended the end of the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show where we saw an ax throwing competition and a dog named Sandy beat a man at log rolling. 

Our last activity was Morgan proving he has the skill (that will never be used in real life except for that moment) of throwing a ping pong into the smallest fish bowl imaginable. To escape winning a live fish as we need no more pets in this apartment, Morgan had to throw the ping pong into just one bowl - the one on top of a pyramid of bowls that was perfectly blocked by a low hanging sign in the center of the booth. And on his third try, he landed that ping pong in the center of the red bowl!!! I was beyond thrilled and so proud of my baby!! Then, I was handed an orange plush clown fish that had been dangling over my head as I snapped pictures of Morgan proving his manly worth of winning his woman a toy from the carnival. We walked away with me cooing over my new toy and Morgan feeling pretty proud of himself. 

Remember when I was complaining about going to a carnival last summer with father...? ...And I wanted that Nicholas Sparks carnival moment so I won my own toy?? I find it ironically funny that then I won myself an inflatable clown fish that made me happy yet depressed at the same time because I was alone and heartbroken but I wasn't going to let that stop me. And now, a year later I have this amazing guy win me a plush clown fish. To whatever female pop star who says they don't need a man... getting handed a fish by the guy who just won it for me was so much better!

May 21st

So it's all over the news that tomorrow, May 21st, is the official Christian Rapture. According to a man and his followers (who predicted once before then said their calculations were wrong), the Rapture is tomorrow due to Biblical calculations and number crunching. For someone like me, a Baptist and true believer, I find the whole thing to have lots of holes and just another frenzy of trying to predict what we do not know and what frightens us. If you've read Matthew 26:42-44, then you're in the know. Still, the craze and the hubbub over the whole thing, like December 2012, is a bit daunting and freaky! As soon as I heard about it on Facebook, I immediately hit Google News and looked up different news feeds of where this information was coming from. One website I found was quite a catch. It had 21 reasons why it couldn't be the end, including "they haven't made a movie about this date yet" and "the iPhone 5 hasn't been released yet."
While I believe the prophesy that us Christians are going to be taken tomorrow at sunset is a hoax, I sat in Raleigh wondering what would I want to be doing if it was actually the end. I sat there on Morgan's couch watching another epsisode of "Brothers & Sisters" on NetFlix and thinking... this can't seriously be how I spend "my last day on earth!!!"
So I texted my mom and told her I'd be down in Charlotte in about four hours. And now here I am... where I grew up, the home that is the love of my life, with my family and the cat I never get to see, going to lay out in the sun tomorrow and go swimming. It's where I want to be.
Now, don't get too flustered or concerned about Morgan. I didn't choose my family over him. Tomorrow, Morgan will be spending his "last day" working a 16 HOUR shift at The Angus Barn!!! Even if I had wanted to spend my hypothetical last day with him, he wouldn't have been available to hug. I would have been watching more NetFlix at his apartment bored out of my mind while he raked in the overtime pay. While I want to be with him, no, I'd rather be here surrounded by my family.
The trip down here has already been worth it. While driving on I-85 near the Concord exit, the sky lit up with white light. At first, I thought it was lightning and I was going to be driving through a storm. But no! As I rounded the bend, fireworks lit up the night sky while Adam Lambert sang "Come Home", a song about a woman singing to her husband in the army to come back to her, on my iPod. Reds, blues, greens, yellows, and purples took up the majority of my windshield as my speed slowly drifted and slowed to catch as much of the show as I could. Even if the rest of this trip is a complete bomb, at least I got that beautiful surprise!!
So what do you think? Do you think your religious family members or you yourself will be taken in the Rapture tomorrow?

But more importantly.... what do you want your "last day" to be like????

13. The Starter Wife

Book 13: The Starter Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer (B+)

I picked up this book because of the popular television mini-series based off the book that Kate and I ate up a few years ago. The show was true to the book being witty, entertaining, and having an air of exaggerated truthfulness. In Hollywood, a wife of an ok studio executive gets a call from her husband saying he wants a divorce. Now, Gracie is an ex-wife, an outcast of the major Hollywood elite society. She loses everything, except the three loyalists of friends - a gay designer, the older cynic married to an even older man for his money, and the paranoid with lots of kids friend. As her ex begins dating Britney Spears, Gracie wonders what will happen to her as her four-year-old daughter starts wearing belly shirt with faux fingernails and herself having no job to speak of. While staying at the older friend's Malibu beach mansion, Gracie finds love in a homeless man, someone so completely not Hollywood that it's the perfect match.

The book reminiscences a bit too much, one of those where the chapters are mostly a collection of Gracie's thoughts instead of actual story. I suppose this is because that most average women, the readers of this book, don't understand what goes into being what is referred to in the book as "A Wife Of" or a Hollywood elite. Still, the constant mental ramblings of Gracie are a bit of an overkill.
I enjoyed that the book, while written in third-person, the perspective changed every so often throughout the book. While we see the world through Gracie's eyes for the majority of the story, there are a few paragraphs and chapters written from the perspective of Sam, Gracie's homeless boyfriend, or Joan, the older cynic. The characters are creative and charismatic with Grazer's insight giving them great depth in the shallow streets of glittery LA. I'd like to read more of her work. 
Definitely a good summer read!

Summer Begins

For college students, summer has begun! Last week, Stuart and I packed up the majority of my belongings in Cullowhee and crammed them into his already filled apartment. I brought my TV, my DVD player, my framed poster of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” my stuffed animals, and all of Sparta’s things. We were a silly-looking caravan driving down I-40, me with a cat wandering around in my car on top of garbage bags of clothes and Stuart’s boat of a car filled to the brim with shelving units and random items.

The "new" living room

In the beginning, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of moving in with Stuart. I hate the city of Raleigh for some reason I can’t explain and I kept wondering what would happen if we broke up over the summer. I didn’t have a job, but I didn’t have one in Cullowhee either. At the end of April, I officially ended my employment at The Western Carolinian, which was just as sad as leaving The Flaming Arrow at East Gaston High School. Now, I am actually enjoying Raleigh (for the most part) and now that I have my own belongings and personal flairs, such as my Van Helsing and Adam Lambert poster, tacked up on Stuart’s walls, I feel much more at home and happy.

And, I just found out yesterday evening while Stuart was grilling steaks on the landing that I have (finally) have a new job!!! After months of filling out application after application, I turned to my roommate’s mother for help. She’s in the journalism business and helped me contact some insider people. Meanwhile, I also applied for a job as an “examiner” at Examiner.comwhere I would write about a certain topic for the local audience of Raleigh. While I’m still waiting to hear from the insider people, I got an email from Examiner that said they’re happy to welcome me to their team as the Raleigh Pet Photography Examiner. While the pay probably won’t be near what I had at The Western Carolinian, income is income. I’ll be doing something I love about a topic that I love for a few extra bucks. 

Sparta and Stuart

In other news... Sparta is doing well at his new home. He absolutely adores Stuart's place with its long hallway that he can sprint through and the large windows in the living room where he can bask in the sun every morning and watch the birds every afternoon. Yesterday, he spotted and guarded his apartment against two stray cats in the parking lot.  The other day I dragged him to PetCo in Cary. I wanted to introduce him to walking on a leash inside of a building. While everyone in the store swarmed around him with coos and pets, Sparta was beyond annoyed, and after picking out a toy for Nutmeg, we left as quickly as possible. 

Nutmeg is also doing well. She's been a wonderful addition to the family. Every night, she scampers around in her exercise ball through the apartment providing entertainment to herself, Sparta, and us humans. She goes by several names, include "hamster," "Hamtaro," and Stuart occasionally calls her "rat" which I admonish him for!

So far, she's been easy to care for while providing fun and something new to love. It was interesting to see how something as small and simple as a hamster has really strengthened mine and Stuart's relationship as we jointly care and provide for an animal that depends on us. Whether he believes this to be true or not, I find myself mentally bearing all the responsibility for Sparta. At the end of the day, Sparta is my pet that I have brought into Stuart's life. Nutmeg, we bought and decided to buy her together. Sparta is like a furry kid from a previous marriage. He was part of the package of dating me whether Stuart liked it or not. Luckily, Stuart adores Sparta and vice versa. In fact, the whole reason Stuart and I got to know each other for we started dating was because he started coming to the apartment more to see my crazy, dog-like cat that liked to play fetch and use the furniture as a jungle gym. The fact that he liked my cat was one of the characteristics I found attractive about him. 

Hamtaro

Today was a rather unlucky day (it is Friday the 13th). I am under the impression that I have strep throat and might have to go to the doctor's soon before it turns into something worse. I feel completely useless as I've slept all day or been lying about on the couch unable to focus on whatever TV I've been watching. Hopefully, I'll get better within a day or two and I continue enjoying my summer with Stuart. We have so many plans, so many adventures we want to have together.

12. Going Bovine

Book 12: Going Bovine by Libba Bray (A)

Ok, this is now one of my favorite books!! What an awesome story!!! For our six-month anniversary, Morgan bought me a gift card to my favorite bookstore City Lights. I took a chance in getting Going Bovine, which took up the entire monetary worth of the gift card, because it had a cover of a cow carrying a lawn gnome and as I scanned the first page of a boy talking I thought to myself, "I like this kid." And, I'm so glad I bought this book!! It was hilarious, awesome, exciting, unable-to-put-downable.
In modern day Texas, a boy in high school is just trying to survive being an outcast. His parents are on a rocky road to divorce, his sister is Little Miss Perfect and dating the recently-turned ultimate Christian football player, and this boy... Cameron... just wants out. Then, he founds out he has the human version of mad cow disease.

In the hospital spaced out on morphine, Cameron has a hallucination... or is she real... of a punk rocker angel named Dulcie who tells him that there's a cure. He just has to find Dr. X and save the universe from dark matter. Along with a Latino dwarf who is OCD and a hypochondriac and a lawn gnome that says he is the Norse god Balder... he travels across the lower United States in search of Dr. X, a cure, and what it means "to live."
Every page is a laugh! Every chapter has a new adventure. Every moment you fall more and more in love with these crazy, multi-layered characters. Some of my favorite moments include the gang making up their own sarcastic bumper stickers:

"My honors student sells drugs to your honors student."

"I know you're stalking me."

"Please don't tailgate: body in trunk"

"Quantum physics has a problem of major gravity" (292). 

Magazine Publishers Weekly compares the book to Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as Going Bovine is bizarre, fun, and also innocently sweet.
Says Cameron as they near the end of their journey: "We sit staring out at that vast ocean, Gonzo and I, just watching the sky colors drip into the sea like a giant percolator, making something sweet and strong, something to keep you going when all you've got left are fumes.
"Maybe there's a heaven, like they say, a place everything we've ever done is noted and recorded, weighed on the big karma scales. Maybe not. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant experiment run by aliens who find our human hijinks amusing. Or maybe we're an abandoned project started by a deity who checked out a long time ago, but we're still hardwired to believe, to try to make meaning out of the seemingly random. Maybe we're all part of the same unconscious stew, dreaming the same dreams, hoping the same hopes, needing the same connection, trying to find out, missing, trying again - each of us playing our parts in the others' plot lines, just one big ball of human yarn tangled up together. Maybe this is it...
"We've left the moment. It's gone. We're somewhere else now, and that's okay. We've still got the other moment with us somewhere, deep in our memory, seeping into our DNA. And when our cells get scattered, whenever that happens, this moment will still exist in them. Those cells might be the building block of something new. A planet or star or a sunflower, a baby. Maybe even a cockroach. Who knows? Whatever it is, it'll be a part of us, this thing right here and now, and we'll be a part of it.
"And if it's a cockroach? Well, that will be the happiest f***ing cockroach on the planet. I can tell you that" (434-346).

Works cited from:

Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009. Print.

11. Hurricane: The Story of a Friendship

Book 11: Hurricane: The Story of a Friendship by Dorothy Whitney Ball (B)

Hurricane is one of those slow-moving stories that doesn't have a significant plot, but more of a theme. I choose it as a book to read to Morgan, knowing he'd enjoy a simple story of two boys growing up in the South. Obviously, he was able to identify with it more than I was as girls are completely absent in the book.
Two boys, one white (Davey) and one black (Luke), are the best of friends growing up in the bean-picking part of Florida during the time in America's history when racial tensions were at their highest. The two boys refuse to conform to anyone's idea of race or friendship. They stick together through the trials and tribulations of growing up, battling Davey's grandfather of allowing him to play with Luke and the town's perceptions of black people are lesser than the white majority. In the end, Davey, Pop, Luke, and his family must all come together when a hurricane threatens Florida.
Published in 1964, the book was a bit too simple for me. Morgan seemed to enjoy it and looked forward to the nights I got to read it to him. The only exciting part of the book was the last two chapters when the hurricane hit. Before that, it's just random happenstances that the boys go through that proves how "awesome" and "amazing" Luke is even though he's black (according to the thought processes of the town's white people) by having him save a neighbor's house from a wildfire and helping Pop when the old man slices open his foot with a hatchet.
I definitely missed the age group boat on this one. A good book... but not necessarily for someone who just read The Children of Men... as bad as that was.

Photo of the Day May 9

SO MANY KITTENS!!! These are two of the five kittens that are at Catman's cat rescue shelter! They are so incredibly cute!!!!!
The little tricolored black one is named Inky and the other is Leo. Under the chair I'm sitting in you can see little Gus, the shy one, on the right! Not pictured are Carrot and Chessie. Inky is definitely my favorite - she's audacious, curious, and so playful!

The Tough Romantic Questions Part 5

1. Throughout your life, what experiences do you feel contributed most to the person you have become today?
My schooling at a private Christian school from first grade to 9th.
My freshman year at Western Carolina University
My parents' divorce
Having Kate as a sister
Watching "Animal Planet" while growing up

2. Life is marked by a handful of experiences that change the direction we take. What would you say is one experience that changed the course of your life in general?
My parents' divorce. It changed who I was, what I thought "family" meant, who I thought my parents were, and how safe I felt in my home. You never get over something like that.

3. What is an example of one major decision that you have made, and how did you handle the situation?
I decided to uproot myself and live in an apartment at the beginning of August 2010. I wanted to begin the process of starting my own life and live physically independent from my family. No one understood, but I did. I needed to get out of that house. I needed to break away from the situation in which I was living in and begin my own family. That may seem silly coming from a 19-year-old, but it makes sense to me. Sparta and I... yeah, he's a cat, but we're family. And right now during this summer, Morgan, along with Sparta and our new hamster Nutmeg, and I are a family. We're weird and different, but it is the type of bonds and support I wanted to begin and discover on my own. There's no question that it was hard to leave the house I had grown up in. I can tell you a memory for every square inch of that house and yard. But, I needed a change. I needed to grow.

4. Have you had an experience that you consider to be the most embarrassing? Why was it embarrassing?
Any time I've accidentally eaten Splenda. I'm too embarrassed to explain why. I shall only say... I get very, very, very sick!

5. How do you remember your  "first love?"
I remember him fondly. I still love him, but in a different way. MK and I have a strange relationship - it's a mixture of brother-sister, best friends, and a taste of an older romantic couple. I remember us only have one fight, and I have never raised my voice at him. There's something about MK that if my life doesn't work out the way I want it to, I'd ask him to be with me for the rest of my life. We probably wouldn't marry or be intimate. We'd just share our lives together as the inseparable pair that we are. It's why it kills me so much to not be in the same city or even the same county as he is. To be apart from him is to be missing a part of myself, a part I love and cherish wholeheartedly.

6. What type of pet do you enjoy the most and why?
I've had all types: lizards, snakes, hermit crabs, dogs, cats, hamster, guinea pigs, rabbits, fish (both saltwater and freshwater).... And, I enjoy them all for different reasons.
Dogs for their loyalty.
Cats for their playfulness, curiosity, and cuddle factor.
Small mammals for being so freaking cute and interesting to watch.
In the end, I'm going to have to say a horse. Unfortunately, I've never owned a horse... but it's been the one dream I've had my entire life that still stays with me even today. One day, one day...! My dream is to own a Hanoverian... but I'd take any old thing I could ride and care for.

7. What is your opinion when it comes to marriage?
I used to think, "Nope I'm never going to marry." My friends all referred to me as the "future cat lady," and I had completely accepted this. I was going to live as busy journalist woman with my house of cats to come home to... and maybe a few dogs, and a horse! I didn't want to be married. I didn't and really still don't want to have kids. When I thought about my future, all I saw was a reasonably-sized house with a good chunk of land. That was where my happiness lied.
Then I met Morgan... and as our relationship grew and strengthened, my thoughts of marriage changed. My opinion now is that I just want him. If he were to walk over here right now from the kitchen table in his red gym shorts and plopped down on one knees with just as much as a knotted stem from my dying roses from Valentine's Day and asked me to be the future Mrs. Morgan... I'd say "yes."
...We would then celebrate a very long engagement!

"Morgan" sleeping with Morgan the bear

Kodak Moment: A Moment with Ma

In celebration of Mother's Day, I will post a few pix of Ma and I. I don't think she'll mind. Everyone in a 20 mile radius of Mount Holly knows who she is. You might say that living with the most popular high school science teacher in the county is like living with a local celebrity. You could probably get more people to come to your event if you get her to come to your event as a judge or MC. She has the same power as my high school journalism/English teacher who was not only popular but also young and hot! I say that carefree because he doesn't have a Facebook and probably isn't aware of my blog... Everyone knows it. Am I right, Warriors?
But back to Ma...

Lighting my birthday candles on a cake she went and got specially made

Riding the waves in the Outer Banks

At Catman's. Ma was the one who encouraged my love for animals

She drove all the way to Cullowhee to see me dance for five minutes

Shopping at Kohl's

Photo of the Day May 8

This was taken after we got most of the stuff moved into Morgan's apartment. My summer in a town other than Mount Holly starts now!!
As of right now, my summer has consisted of unpacking and reading while Morgan's at work. We arrived in Raleigh just in time for Mother's Day where The Angus Barn prepares a gigantic buffet for all the mothers and their children who take them there and then let the father pay. By the way - the Angus Barn is FREAKING HUGE (!!!!) and hey, Ma!! I hope you're having a good Mother's Day. Make sure Kate treats you right!

10. The Children of Men

Book 10: The Children of Men by P.D. James (C+)

AAHHHHHH!!!!! This book!!! I'm going to throw it across the room!!! Let me just say that whether you enjoyed the movie based off the book or not... the movie is so much better!
After the reading the book, I would say that the movie that followed is based off the idea of the book! In the year 2021, the human perception of being invincible is shattered as every male on earth is infertile and the last group of children are now in their mid-20's. A British man "enjoying" a boring life filled with regrets and ponderings about the world is thrown into more craziness than just an infertile world when a woman approaches him to ask his cousin, the Warden and unspoken ruler of England, to amend his corrupt government, which include state-owned porn shops to stimulate desire and carnal relations between the sexes and mass formal suicides for elderly people. When that fails, the woman returns to our main character, Theo, and tells him she is carrying the world's only child.
Here's the dumb thing about the book... In the movie, the woman who comes to Theo for help is not pregnant and is his ex-wife. In that, there is incentive for him to be curious and help her. They've known each other for a long time. They have a history. In the book, the woman who comes forward is the pregnant woman and has no relation to Theo at all. In fact, none of her friends do either. So besides the obvious connection for them to tap him as he's the cousin to the Warden.... why the (expletive word of your choice) does he help THEM?

Clive Owen and Julianne Moore in the film adaptation

The bizarre and the confusing continue from there as the entire first half of the book is a slow melodrama of Theo talking about life in the 1990's... a life I have and most people who will read the book have experienced. So, why do you need to write about it?? Page after useless and pointless page continues from there with some detailed and confusing discussion about the relationship between Theo and his ex-wife, whose only role in the book is to point out Theo's many faults as a husband before the great disaster of infertility and to also show how women have flipped out and started using kittens or life-like dolls as a supplement for the now nonexistent children. 
The book is dry and strikes me as a brilliant idea without any drive behind it. Many argue that the movie isn't great, but at least Hollywood took a genius idea of "what is a world like without children" and gave it some depth. This could have been a wonderful book if the author had turned it into a nonfiction speal just about a world without children instead of a involving a cast of characters with less personality then the driest of high school history or math teachers. Bursts of brilliance include the paragraphs describing the 2021 idea of sex now that getting pregnant is no longer an option:
"Sex has become among the least important of man's sensory pleasures. One might have imagined that with the fear of pregnancy permanently removed, the unerotic paraphernalia of pills, rubber and ovulation arthimetic no longer necessary, sex would be freed for new and imaginative delights. The opposite has happened. Even those men and women who would normally have no wish to breed apparently need the assurance that they could have a child if they wished. Sex totally divorced from procreation has become almost meaninglessly acrobatic. Women complain increasingly of what they describe as painful orgasms: the spasm acheived but not the pleasure. Pages are devoted to this common phenomenon in the women's magazines. Women, increasingly critical and intolerant of men throughout the 1980's and 1990's, have at last an overwhelming justification for the pent-up resentment of centuries. We who can no longer give them a child cannot even give them pleasure. Sex can till be a mutual comfort; it is seldom a mutual ecstasy. The government-sponsored porn shops, the increasingly explicit literature, all the devices to stimulate desire-none as worked...(116)"

Or the short paragraph on divorce... This has nothing to do with infertility or the future. It's just an amazing description of the pain that two adults go through with this kind of permanent separation that makes me wonder just how brilliant this writer could be!
"A failed marriage is the most humiliating confirmation of the transitory seduction of the flesh. Lovers can explore every line, every curve and hollow, of the beloved's body, can together reach the height of inexpressible ecstasy; yet how little it matters when love or lust at last dies and we are left with disputed possessions, lawyers' bills, the sad detritus of the lumber-room, when the house chosen, furnished, possessed with enthusiasm and hope has become a prison, when faces are set in lines of peevish resentment and bodies no longer desired are observed in all their imperfections with a dispassionate and disenchanted eye" (115).
The book brings to light a concept most of us have never considered - what would happen in a world without children? The schools have closed. There are no more teachers, babysitters, pediatricians, or midwives. The world of youth with its new trends, new music is gone. There are no more baby clothes, no more youthful laughter. Even still, some, although few, are glad it's gone.
One of Theo's Oxford professors explained his opinion as: "On the whole I'm glad; you can't mourn for unborn grandchildren when there never was a hope of them. This planet is doomed anyway. Eventually the sun will explode or cool and one small insignificant particle of the universe will disappear with only a tremble. If man is doomed to perish, then universal infertility is as painless a way as any. And there are, after all, personal compensations. For the last sixty years we have sycophantically pandered to the most ignorant, the most criminal and the most selfish section of society. Now, for the rest of our lives, we're going to be spared the intrusive barbarism of the young, the noise, their pounding, repetitive, computer-produced so-called music, their violence, their egotism disguised as idealism. My God, we might even succeed in getting rid of Christmas, the annual celebration of parental guilt and juvenile greed..." (45). 
Those few moments of genius writing, however, were not enough to save the book. I suggest that if you want to witness a view of an infertile world... rent the movie. At least, you get to stare a Clive Owen for a couple of hours!!

Works cited from:

James, P.D. The Children of Men. New York: Vintage Books, May 2006. Print.

Photo of the Day May 5

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone!!!!

Today's picture is of Remington. Remember that kitten I brought home for Ma one day? This is him!!! And, he grew up! He is an insane little kitty and ultimately fluffy (just like Ma wanted). He loves to bite while playing and will eat and eat and eat and eat!

An Open Letter to The Viking

Hey,
 How are you?
The last time we spoke to each other was a year ago today. So much has changed, so much hasn't. I wish all of this could be in person. I wish you'd actually be able to see this. I miss you.

I've been thinking about what I'd say to you here for weeks. It changes every day. I'm sure when I look back at this tomorrow I'll think of something I should have said and run it through my mind a thousand times wishing I had written it instead of something else or added a line or two, that all of my feelings were completely conveyed in what I'm about to write. Just another regret.
How are you and her? I heard you told her everything. I wish I had been there afterward to tell you both how sorry I am for everything that happened. It's not completely my fault, but some days, I take all the blame. That's all I want - to tell especially her how sorry I am to her face and not over an impersonal Facebook message through her roommate's account. I tried, I tried so hard to get her to talk to me. You did your best to make sure I didn't, and then you two together made sure we'd never speak again. I was never so hurt, shocked, and lost in my entire life. I won't tell you how low I sunk after that moment because I don't want you to have the satisfaction. But, it hurt. You knew how to hurt me the worst.
Maybe you weren't even thinking about me when you did it. But there had to be a part of you that knew how badly I'd feel when I learned from some stranger I could never talk to you again. Looking back, I told you "never to contact me again," but did I really mean it? No, not in the long run.
I'm transferring at the end of this semester. I'm going far across the state where there aren't any mountains or piles of snow. And yes, I'm running away from you and her and everything that happened. There's not a place on campus that doesn't remind me of you or her. I have to get out of here. I hate walking into a room and immediately scanning the room for red hair and my skin jumping when I see someone who looks like you. I can't stay here anymore, and I think you'd like to know that I'm leaving. Now you don't have worry about me anymore either.

What happened? Please, explain to me what happened! How did someone I share secrets with and let so far into myself now be unable to look me in the eye when we pass each other in the dining hall? Do you hate me? Does anger boil over inside every time you see me? Because it doesn't for me! I just feel an overwhelming sense of loss and an aching void. Is that sad and pathetic to still feel a year later?
Do you remember the good times we had? Watching a concert on DVD in your room the day before we left for Christmas Break as I helped you with a button on your shirt after we had unbunked your beds. Running up to you after I had finished my last exam and you swinging me up into a hug. Carrying me back to Walker after my sugar dropped when we were at Wal-Mart. Trying to convince me to skip class and stay with you for the afternoon in your room. Watching "Spongebob" one night and you tried to tickle my feet. Staring at each other in horror in my dorm room after Miles told her what he thought he knew. Did you trick me then... did you make me lie for you because you knew I'd do whatever it took to make you happy?
Part of me wonders if you were ever the person I thought you were. In some ways you have to be. Lisa told me about the person you were in high school, the same person that I thought I knew. Now it seems I've probably created and fabricated personality quirks about you that either don't exist or aren't to that extreme. Sometimes, I get the character you play in my novel mixed up with who you actually are. The person you are... are you a coward for not confronting me yourself and getting someone else to say the "bad" things for you? Are you brave and protective for "saving" your girlfriend from me? Or are you a vindictive, son of a bitch for what we did to her? Because you can bend the truth all you want, lovely, but that doesn't make what we did go away.
I'm glad she knows. When Lisa told me what happened, I was so relieved. Finally, I thought! Finally, that poor girl knows the truth and I can stop hoping and wondering and praying for the relationship that she was caught in. No one should have to live in someone else's lie. I wish I knew why you told her, where the light bulb came from. In the end, it doesn't matter. Thank you for doing it - for whatever reason you did - thank you.
You asked me once if I hated you. I never did. I've missed you and have cared about you since we were first together in November of 2009. I occasionally ask Cory how you are, if you're alright. If anything ever happened to you...well, I'd probably break every rule and I'd be there to make sure you were ok. I never hated you. I just miss your company. What I do hate is what happened between us. We both could have handled things better.
After all that's happened though, it's time to move on. You're never going to seek me out and apologize in person. I'm not allowed to. I have to accept that. I want you to know that as sad as this letter sounds I am happy. You might not care, I think you might, but I am happy. My life isn't perfect, but it's better than it was. There's this great guy who takes such good care of me. He's been so patient while I've been dealing with all of this. You two have similar music tastes to a certain extent. I think you'd like that about him. I'm very happy for you. I'm so happy, sincerely happy, that you and her are still together, that you've gotten through all of this and have stayed together... as long as it's for the right reasons. I hope you two last and I wish only the best for you both.
Now, it's time for good bye. I really do hope I hear from you again.  I do. In my dreams or my nightmares, we're good friends again. But for now, this is good bye. I hope you have a great summer and you find whatever you're looking for in this life.

Until then,

Lex

The End of the Catamount Era

Thursday was my last day of college classes as a Western Carolina University student. This week is just a lot of exams!!

Twister Night

A sadness overwhelmed me on Thursday, to look around and know it was the end. No one could understand. When I texted Morgan that it was my last day, he sent back "Wohoo!" But that wasn't what I was feeling at all. So much has happened in the last two years, so many amazing or horrendous things. I guess you could say they were all amazing in either a good or bad way. Honestly, I couldn't tell you exactly if there was more good than bad or vice versa. I think it was an close equal dose of both.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not regretting my decision to transfer at all! No, I'd never regret that... unless I got to Greensboro and it's a holy disaster, but I'm confident that won't be the case.
But I am sad that I'm leaving behind good friends, a good job, and a beautiful view of the mountains. I wish I could take them with me, except the mountains (at least for Little Honda's benefit).
The following was written for The Western Carolinian in my column "Off Campus Living 101:"

Climbing a tree

"Catamounts, this is not only the last "Off Campus Living 101" article, it is also my last editorial column working for The Western Carolinian.
"I am saddended that for the fall semester I will not be returning to Western Carolina University. Instead, I am transferring to finish out my college career in a place that I hope will bring me new opportunities, new networks, and new experiences. In August, Sparta and I will be moving out of our Cullowhee apartment into a rented house in a quiet suburb to be near one of the UNC mid-state college campuses. It will be a big adjustment for both of us - me to be living in a house and the work that goes into that and Sparta adjusting to living with a Labrador retriever and another cat. It should be interesting!

Honors College Formal

"I wanted to take the time to thank everyone at The Western Carolinian for supporting me and helping me shape and strengthen my writing. When I started as a contributing writer in the Arts and Entertainment section working for free, I never thought I would become News Editor, at least not in the span of less than two years! Also, I would like to thank the readers who would randomly come up to me if they realized who I was to share their excitement about Sparta or my rain boot fiasco last year. You guys were the reason I asked Justin Caudell if I could start "The Freshman Fifteen" and writing that column and this has been my favorite part of my job.

Birthday dinner

"My two years at Western have been nothing less than exciting and dramatic. I have learned so much and grown as a person. College was nothing like what I expected and certainly attending college in the little town of Cullowhee is not for the faint-hearted. The incoming freshman class of 2009 and I have faced being snowed-in over Christmas break, endless rain, power outages, losing a chancellor and gaining a new one, and the invasion of zombies! The experiences I have had and the people I have met will never leave my memory, and I hope to visit on occasion for shows at FPAC, Mountain Heritage Day, and other events that can be found only at Western Carolina..."
In response to my hard work and dedication, I received this award from Justin and The Western Carolinian. I was shocked, thrilled, proud, and sad simultaneously. Thank you to everyone there. This is will always hang on one of my walls: