bus and blanket/book/block buddies

Over the past few weeks, we have fallen into a new routine because of the evening class that I teach. Twice a week in the afternoon, Sam and I drive downtown to meet J at his office. Then I stay downtown and teach, while J and Sam take the bus home. The bus has become the highlight of Sam's life. He talks about the "busss" (pronounce it like you have a lisp (which Sam doesn't have, but he hasn't mastered his pronunciation of "s" yet)) all day long. And we constantly have to draw pictures of buses (see sample above) that include depictions of J and Sam (and the bus ad for Brown Bear Car Wash).

All day long we talk about the raisins and goldfish crackers that Sam gets to eat while on the bus, the "Yo Gabba Gabba" show he watches on J's iPod during the bus ride, and the numbers of the different bus routes (Sam can only remember route 222 ("two-two-two")). He loves riding the bus, and I think he'll be heartbroken when my class ends in March. Maybe we'll still drive downtown sometimes, just so Sam can ride the bus home.

In addition to being bus buddies, Sam and J have developed a new game called "Blanket Monster." J hides underneath a blanket, and the blanket monster asks to be fed books and colored blocks. This is one of Sam's favorite games - he especially loves to feed the monster something that wasn't requested, and then the monster spits the object back out. Here's a clip of their little game:

adam lambert and lisa frank

I can't sleep. I keep thinking about how Adam Lambert's new album cover is completely hideous. The typeface is awful, the glistening stars on the serifs are ridiculous, and the extreme close-up of Adam's unabashedly Photoshopped-face is silly. I get what the designer was trying to do, in the sense that he wanted a throw-back aesthetic that recalls the '80s. And I know that the album cover is supposed to be campy as an homage to the past. But honestly, the florescent colors, glittering stars, airbrushed look, and even Lambert's eyeshadow just remind me of the Lisa Frank folders that I used to carry in my Trapper Keeper.

Sorry Adam. You probably weren't hoping to be associated with elementary school.

grief

For some reason, Fridays have been more difficult for me in terms of grief. Maybe it has something to do with my internal clock: my mom and I used to talk on the phone each week, and it's weird to approach the weekend without a phone call from/to her. Fridays also might be harder because I don't have an immediate distraction: I don't teach another art history lecture until the following Tuesday, so I don't need to hurry and prep. I also think Fridays are hard because my mom died on a Saturday morning, and it's easy to remember the things that I was doing on the last Friday night before mom died.

Anyhow, Fridays have been hard.

I've been thinking a lot about grief lately, and how people grieve differently. Soon after mom died, I kept wondering, "Should I be grieving more than I am? Should I be grieving less? How is one supposed to feel after a loved one dies?" I have realized, though, that everyone feels and deals with grief in different ways. Some people cry, some people dwell on past memories and experiences with the deceased, some people close off and internalize their pain.

As for me, I deal with intermittent pangs of sadness throughout the day. I don't cry a lot (except when something sets my "alarm" off). Most of the time, though, I grieve at night. I don't mean to - but I can't help it. I think about my mom and my mind races for at least an hour after I go to bed; it's hard to fall asleep. Even when I do doze off, I often have stressful dreams that often involve my mom (or the moms of my friends). It's awful. I wake up in the morning totally exhausted; I feel like I've just run a marathon.

I'm just glad that I gave my lecture on Mannerism last night. This week I've fallen asleep while thinking about this lecture (and my mom), and then my dreams are especially stressful because they're full of elongated, distorted figures from the 16th century. One night I kept dreaming about my mom with intermittent images of Giulio Romano's "Room of the Giants" (Palazzo del Te, 1530-32, see below) popping up in the dream. It's stressful to dream about collapsing columns and domes all night long, especially coupled with other scenes involving my mom.



Now that lecture is over, though, I'm hoping that my nights will be a little more peaceful. I sure hope so, at least. I don't anticipate the grief going away, but I really hope the insomnia can stop. I'm so tired of it (in every sense of the word!).

teaching catholics

Tomorrow I'm supposed to teach my students about the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Should be a piece of cake, right? I hope so, but I'm a little bit worried. This is my first time teaching at a Catholic university, and I'm not quite sure how Catholics feel about the Reformation. I obviously want to be respectful of both Protestant and Catholic views, and I don't want anyone to feel defensive.

It's interesting to be in this situation, since I studied the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation at a Mormon school. I think that Mormons feel comfortable talking about Protestantism and Catholicism (and the theological debate between the two religions) since the LDS faith didn't exist in the 16th and 17th centuries. In that way, I think Mormons feel like they can be more objective in their discussion.

My little quandary has made me wonder: how to Catholics feel about the Reformation? And how do they feel about their historical past in general? My guess is that Catholics don't get as defensive about their history as Mormons. For example, I think most Mormons feel defensive/uneasy when the subject of polygamy is mentioned, but I get the sense that Catholics don't take things as personally. If that is the case, maybe Catholics don't get worked-up because their history is so longstanding and complex - they've had many centuries to get used to their past.

Anyhow, I'm just glad that I don't have to teach about the Crusades this quarter. That seems like it would be a much stickier subject to teach than Martin Luther.

almanzo wilder

I haven't quite figured out how to style my hair. The important thing, though, is that I try and do something with it. If I just blow-dry my hair, it always looks exactly like this:

It makes me chuckle. Good thing for hair product and hair straighteners, or I would belong in an episode of "Little House on the Prairie."

new hair for a new year

Out with the old tresses, and in with the new...

We have already done some eventful things for 2010, including the new haircut I got on New Year's Day. I think this is the shortest that my hair has been since I was little. The only time I can remember shorter hair was when was six and I cut my hair myself (and then my hair was subsequently cut four other times to try and make me look presentable).

On the night of the 1st we went to a botanical garden near our house. Every year the garden is decorated with a bunch of Christmas lights, with most of them in the shape of different plants and flowers. It's fun to visit a garden in the middle of winter, even if the flowers aren't real.



How did you celebrate the New Year?

2009 = 35 books

I've anticipated this post for a long time. I realize, though, that this post is more for me than for anyone who reads this blog - sorry.

About half-way through this year, I thought it would be fun to read 52 books during 2009 - then I would average one book per week. If I had made the goal earlier in the year, I think I could have attained it. I'm still really pleased that I was able to read 35 books this year. That number may seem high or low to you, gentle reader, but it's a pretty sizable amount of reading for me. Here's the list (in somewhat chronological order) of my 2009 reads:

1) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susana Clarke
2) The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susana Clarke
3) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
4) Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
5) The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser
6) The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick
7) The Murder Room by P. D. James
8) Lilith by George MacDonald
9) Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien
10) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
11) Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling
12) When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
13) L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz by Katharine M. Rogers
14) Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
15) The Man Who Made Vermeers by Jonathan Lopez
16) The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
17) The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
18) Silas Marner by George Eliot
19) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
20) Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces by Robert Clark
21) The Changing Status of the Artist, edited by Emma Barker, Nick Webb, and Kim Woods
22) The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, edited by Paul Wood
23) A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
24) FDR's Unfinished Portrait: A Memoir by Elizabeth Shoumatoff
25) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
26) Faraway Child by Amy Maida Wadsworth
27) House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
28) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
29) The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries by Jan Bondeson
30) The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari
31) The Father Christmas Letters by J. R. R. Tolkein
32) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engel
33) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein
34) The Life of Our Lord: Written Especially for His Children by Charles Dickens
35) Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

How many books did you read this year? Did you meet your reading expectations? Do you have any must-read recommendations for my 2010 reading list?

By the way, don't you love the photograph at the top of this post? J took this photo a few years ago, when we visited a used bookstore in Rio de Janeiro. This was the front-window display of the store. Pretty awesome, huh?

Happy New Year with lots of happy reading!