Still here.

I've been busily buzzing around. In some ways, I feel like I've never been better, and in others, I don't know when it has been worse. I finally got my hands on Where the Wild Things Are and I was watching it - Catherine Keener is a superb actress. She is on the phone being told that she has messed up something with her work, and when she gets off the phone, she seriously does this noise that is somewhere between an exhale and a groan and it is the reality of life choking all of the air out of her. It was so real. It made my throat tighten just to watch - and then I realized how much life has been choking the air out of me lately. Bewilderingly much.

So here is a song for the last few weeks.

Midlake - Bring Down

Dilemma

Reading A Brief History of Time, and trying to picture space-time. I did have a strange moment this morning when I was thinking about it and it was like my brain just clicked to nothing for an instant, but as soon as I realized that my brain had clicked to nothing, there something was again.

I got up and downloaded this one this morning. Amazon had another Low track, Monkey, for free, and I got that one too, but in checking out the album this one just grabbed me.

Low - Sliver Rider

Ending Banned Books Week

Dismay! What is it with these states where I have lived?

You know, not every book is perfect for kids. One of my favorites, The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, really isn't one I feel like I must recommend to young people. And I don't run around shoving Anne Frank into young people's hands: fortunately, it has never been my role to have to read something so horrifying with children. But should people read The Hakawati? If they respect tight storytelling, yes. Nor would I rip it out of a young person's hands.

It is incredible to me that the extremists who want government to tell us what to read come from the same contingency that does not want government ensuring that every citizen have access to healthcare.

Yeah.

The Magnetic Fields - The Book of Love

And for Good Measure:

Nataly Dawn - The Book of Love

Open Letter

Dear Frank,

You are brilliant on both sides of the camera. You are a creative genius and you bring that out in the rest of us. And you are fun. And I am terribly lucky to know you.

♥Melissa