Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I love contests. And until I accidentally subscribed to 'Marie Claire' magazine, I entered evey one I came across. Now, armed with a subscription I can't seem to get rid of, I am more cautious in this course. However, while conducting research on abc.com in preparation for Season 6 of 'Lost', a cookie popped up addressed to me personally: Lost fanatics! Enter Now to Win a Sneek Peak of Season 6! SO I entered and guess what? I won. Here is what they sent me:

A message in a bottle along with a Dharma flash drive on which was loaded a sneak peek of the Season 6 premiere. Awesome! I watched and learned and was very excited. Then I went to the ABC website and guess what was on their home page? The exact same video. Suddenly I did not feel so special. The flash drive is pretty cool, though:

And the message reads: "Nothing's Irreversible". Which I get, because that was the whole point of the bomb, right?

Tonight's the big night! I am so excited I might actually be able to stay up past 8:30, which has been my median bedtime of late. Look for my post-viewing run-down tomorrow (or the next day, if I'm being realistic about my ability to stay up until 11:00. Ugg. Why would anyone want to do that except in extreme circumstances?!?). Until then friends,

On being hungry...

I revel in every opportunity to use the word "dystopian" so here goes: Ringing with allusions to '1984', 'A Brave New World' and 'The Most Dangerous Game' Suzanne Collins' 'The Hunger Games' blew me out of the water. It is the heart-wrenching story of Katniss, a sixteen-year-old girl desperately trying to survive in this near-future post-apocalyptic dystopian society known as Panem. After a series of dictator-induced catastrophes, what used to be known as the United States is now a mass of rubble divided by industrial potential into twelve districts. District 12 (home to our tragic heroine) is the coal mining district, and its inhabitants live in constant fear of death by starvation or execution for a crime they might unwittingly commit, seeing that the laws are vague and easily interpreted to match the will of the "Peacekeepers". And that is just the exposition.

Every year the Capitol puts on a competition aimed at "inspiring" the residents of the twelve district into submission. One girl and one boy tribute from each district are chosen lottery-style to participate in the Hunger Games--a fight to the death designed to leave one victor whose prize will be a year free from the harsh possibility of starvation for all of his or her district. Katniss is not actually chosen, but volunteers after her 12-yr-old sister's name is pulled from the hat. She finds herself alongside the baker's son, traveling to the Capitol, where their adventure will lead them into the depths of internal conflict, not to mention the fact that literally millions of people are trying to kill them.

This YA book is written at a 6th grade level--accessible for young readers but entertaining and a quick read for adults. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but, I think it will make a really great movie.

It feels weird to watch '24' and not be pregnant...

It was bound to happen. After eight seasons of torture and high terror alerts, '24' writers are going green and starting to recycle brilliant plot details such as the cutting off of limbs in order to remove police tracking bracelets and suitcases holding bombs. You just can't waste that kind of stuff. It's fodder for telephiles everywhere.

In Season 2, James Badge Dale's character Chase cuts, strike that, CHOPS off his own hand to save he and Jack from a bomb about to go off in...dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, seconds. Then, saddly, we never hear from the guy again. I can't even remember if he died. Probably of something crazy like a gunshot to the neck or a lab-manufactured tropical disease.

*Not afraid to cut off hands.

This season, Renee is back, only now she's not wearing a pant suit or spouting off FBI anti-torture protocols. She has had a psychiatric break-down due to the torture Jack made her participate in, and now she is totally unstable. Which leads her to accept the offer to go back into deep cover with the Russian mob and, because it hasn't been done in six seasons, chop, strike that, GRIND off a Russian thumb in an effort to remove its previous owner's house-arrest bracelet.
*Not afraid to cut off thumbs.

And...I'm back on with '24'.

Reading While Tired

I have not felt inspired to write lately. Maybe because I am fatigued beyond belief. I don't know, I've heard it can sap your creative energy. Nevertheless, here you have a smattering of books I have read over the past month:

1. 'An Abundance of Katherines', by John Green. This book made the cut as one of our new additions to the Battle of the Books competition about to begin here at OHHS. I like it for teens for a few reasons: a. it is about being awesome at math, which you rarely see in literature aimed at young adults; b. it uses footnotes to explain certain words, phrases or historical references not necessarily pertinent to the plot of the story, but interesting nonetheless; c. there is a funny friend who has a great vocabulary. The story is that of Colin, a 17-yr-old child-prodigy who dreams of becoming a genius (the difference between the two is key to the development of the plot). By the time he graduates from high school, Colin just so happens to have dated nineteen girls named Katherine. Weird? Yes. But so is Colin. When K-19 breaks up with him before going to camp, he is devestated, love-lorn, and lonely. To cheer him up, his BFF Hassan takes him on a road trip and along the way Colin begins to develop a mathematical theorum about love, claiming that romantic relationships can be charted and graphed.

2. 'Flight', by Sherman Alexie. Sherman Alexie can be my boyfriend, if he wants. Lord knows I have spent enough time defending his honor to my work parents lately.* I read 'Flight' in a few hours on Christmas Eve, and maybe because of this and the fact that I read partly by the light of the Christmas tree, I found it to be ripe with Dickens-esque ghosts and visions. As per usual for Alexie, we find ourselves confronted with a hero who is himself extremely fragmented. In this case, he is fifteen, half-American Indian and half-Irish, a victim of the corrupt foster system, and beset with one of the worst cases of adolescent acne imaginable. Thus the self-esteem-boosting nickname "Zits" with which our young protagonist has been saddled. Zits is tired of the cruelty he has encountered in his life and eventually turns to violence. At the very moment he is about to commit an extreme act, he is somehow transported into the past and begins skipping around time, occupying the bodies of people who have been victims of and participants in horrific acts of violence. Through it all, Zits sees how he has had a role in the destruction of his own life and finds himself begging to be returned to the present, where he can boldly accept the judgement for the act he thinks has already occurred. Powerful take on redemption and grace. And, like I said, a few good nods at Scrooge.

3. 'The Last Song' by Nicholas Sparks. This was our book-club pick for January and reads like a Disney Channel Original movie. Which I enjoy, actually. But mostly when I can watch it while folding laundry and not as much when I have to read it. The movie is coming out soon too, I think, and features Hannah Montana. What did I like about it? The setting: North Carolina beach town and lots of nights spent looking at the stars while gaurding turtle eggs. You don't see that every day.

*For months I have, along with the support of some of my dear colleagues, been working on a book adoption for Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. We have faced, for lack of better description, challenges. However, I see success on the horizon...

Love and Marriage

I've spent the day discussing adolescent viewpoints on love and marriage, in a prelude to our beginning to read Romeo and Juliet tomorrow. The day has been full of wonderful, wonderful irony. The kind of stuff sitcoms are made of. Here is just a taste:

1. A student passionately shared his feelings that people can fall in love at any age and should be able to get married as young as they want. "It just depends on maturity, not a number," said he. And then his super-sized toy skateboard fell out of his pocket.

2. Another student said, "I definitely think children are the worst idea ever. They like, ruin marriage. At least that's what my dad said. But he stole my PS3, so I guess, what does he know?"*

3. A love-lorn young lady: "Well, you should be allowed to get married when you've got it all figured out..." Oh boy.

"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

Illusions in the Night

The New Year is upon me and I am exhausted! My three-year-old has, of late, become disenchanted by false perceptions of scary things in his bedroom. And, for some reason, his natural instinct in these moments of extreme fear, is to come into our bedroom. And turn on the light. It is not easy to be patient and kind with the child at 3:24 am when the overhead bulb is blazing daggers into my sunken eyeballs.

As I am learning with excruciating pain, false perceptions are not easy to break. I have, a few times lately, laid down with him until he has fallen asleep. Which is a terrible idea for the record, since I end up falling asleep myself. Then, when I wake up to move to my own bed, suddenly find myself unable to sleep at all. Which may be due to the nap I just took from 7:30-9:00 pm. The other night I read an entire autobiography by a woman who escaped a polygamous cult. And it wasn't all that well-written.

It makes me think about what false perceptions have defined me--those things I have operated under or have been owned by. What monsters (or in J's case, dinosaurs) live in my closet? Probably most of them have to do with body dis morphia and the base value of monetary goods. My value as a wife or mother, based on my engagement with my children or the fact that I work outside of the home. I'm more confident at 30 than I was at 25, or even 27 when James was born. I love my job, but feel pressured at times to make the absolute most of the time I have with my kids, be it evenings or weekends. I wonder what it is that I do to overcompensate for these insecurities...and how the illusion of "what it should be like" will look when I am 40.