Marilyn Monroe and the Camera

Marilyn Monroe and the Camera
2000
Weight: 3 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

Marilyn Monroe reminds me of my first love as a teenager.  Marilyn's movies were also one of the first things that my stepmother and I bonded over in the early years of her relationship with my dad--to my mother's dismay.  I can now see why your daughter beginning to idolize Marilyn Monroe after you took such care to teach her about Boudica, Joan of Arc, and Anne Frank might be a little worrisome.

Mostly it was Heather M.'s fault.  She wanted to be Marilyn despite always coloring her hair a copper red color and keeping it super short in a way that was not yet popular at our school.  Her grandmother said she looked like a "polished penny."  When I think of Marilyn I think of diamonds, flirting, Jane Russell, ridiculous men, Jane and Marilyn singing about coming from the wrong side of the tracks, Harry Winston, medication, Kennedy, insecurity, youth, beauty, Heather, and my step mother.  When I think of Heather I think of how amazing and horrendous first love is, eating disorders, doc martins, red hair, a light purple room in a trailer, a bizarre and unhealthy family, lots of sex, letters upon letters, the viciousness of teenagers, the cruelty of teachers and guidance counselors, flirting, coming from the wrong side of the tracks, ridiculous men, insecurity, youth, and beauty.  It is weird how much I cannot and do not remember now, but how I have such vivid images of the ages 13-16 years.

So, sometimes, when I look at Marilyn I just think about excitement and happiness.  I do not necessarily go into the intricate details.  I just smile and don't really know why or think about it much--like I am now.  And so, though many would argue she is my antithesis, I still really like Marilyn Monroe.  I am still really sad for her and all the insecure girls and women desperately seeking out attention even when it ends in their own demise.  So much like Heather at 13 and like first love.

Romantic Fiction

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
2012

See Me by Nicholas Sparks
2015

Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Lending Library in Tucker

I believe these came to me via my grandmother.  I am not big on romance or romantic fiction.  I am going to give these away without reading them--that is hard for me, but I have so many others to read that I enjoy and so little time after work. I do, however, like the idea of my grandmother liking romance novels...

North and South

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
1996
Weight: 15.2 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating to AKS

This was a gift from Harriet's mother on a recent trip to the states and so I, of course, started reading it the day she left for England.  True to what I have read by other classic British women authors there was a love story between two people who absolutely misunderstood each other, talked past each other, made mistake after mistake, and the tension just grew and grew until you were about to throw the book across the room if they didn't just admit that they loved each other!  It was much more than that though.  There was an examination of class, business, labor struggle, management, strong women, human weakness, compassion, and friendship.  I found myself deeply invested and having empathy to all the characters, even the ones I initially had disdain for.  Also interesting to think about the North and South divide then and now.  I hope someone else enjoys this book as much as I did!  Thank you, Sarah!

All About Love

All About Love: New Visions  by Bell Hooks
2001
Weight: 8.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Gave to my friend, Jasmin

I decided to re-read All About Love a few months back.  Bell Hooks is a favorite, for me and many of my feminist peers, but I have not read anything of hers in years.  I will confess that when I first picked this book up, I was under impressed.  It wasn't bad, but I did not feel like I was learning anything, and I thought it was very hetrerosexual-focused.  It all seemed so basic.  My dear friend told me at the time that it would be a good thing if it was.  It was written so that people could understand it.\

I kept reading it.  I was blown away by the last half, and I never wanted to start another relationship without having the other person read it--whether that was a romantic relationship or a purely a platonic one. 

I loved that Hooks did not undermine the value of the love of a friend. 

She writes, "Most of us are raised to believe we will either find love in our first family (our family of origin) or, if not there, in the second family we are expected to form through committed romantic couplings, particularly those that lead to marriage and/or lifelong bondings.  Many of us learn as children that friendship should never be seen as just important as family ties.  However, friendship is the place where a great majority of us have our first glimpse of redemptive love and caring community(134)."

I have always been interested in the love of friends, as I have always found so much of what I need in those relationships and am always caught off-guard when a person I have just started dating cannot understand their role in my life.  I have some very intense, passionate friendships that test the boundaries I was taught about by a couple-focused/family-focused society.

I LOVED reading about community, society, and love.  I dwelled a lot on Capitalism/consumerism being anti-love after reading her section on greed.  She writes,

"Materialism creates a world of narcissism in which the focus of life is solely on acquisition and consumption.  A culture of narcissism is not a place where love can flourish (105)."

If we live in a world where people are harmed by our very purchasing of clothes (sweatshops), coffee (how much are the grower's being paid/are rainforests being cut down), our mardi gras beads (sweatshops), the soda we drink (worker's rights/labor unions), on and on, then how will we find a true way to love and connect with others?  If money and instant gratification are the goals then how will we learn the patience and dedication needed to maintain our self-care and our love of others?

Everyone I know has a lot to learn about self-love, myself included.  Hooks is being open and honest with us when she says, "One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming of receiving from others.  There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that.  Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am.  It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself (67-68)."

She writes, "The confusion arises because most people who think they are not lovable have this perception because at some point in their lives they were socialized to see themselves as unlovable by forces outside their control.  We are not born knowing how to love anyone, either ourselves or someone else.  However, we are born able to respond to care (53)."

At the very start of the book, she talks about how it is not useful to see love as something you cannot define or describe, something that just happens to you.  You know it when you feel it and all that nonsense.  She argues that, "When we intervene on mystifying assumptions that love cannot be defined by offering workable, useful definitions, we are already creating a context where love can begin to flourish (13)."

I want love to flourish, in all avenues of my life, in my friend's lives, and in the lives of those I will never meet.

Okay, I will leave you with that.  You should read the book.

James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach  Roald Dahl
1961
Weight: 4 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Book Lending Box

Does anyone understand dreaming and magic like Roald Dahl?  It is difficult to get rid of any of his books because of the way that just thinking about them makes me feel.  So many childhoods have been influenced and changed by his books and the movies created because of them, mine included.  Unfortunately, I cannot only get rid of books I hate.  If I do that, I will still have hundreds and my goal will never be achieved.

Lately, I am prone to daydreaming and feel like I am living in a reality that is slightly askew and slightly magical.  The pleasure is so intense it creates a tinge of pain.  The kind that is best mates with longing.  How could I be so lucky?  The kind of luck that might get you killed.  I am driving in my car, living in a dream, and have no idea, when I get to Point B, what happened to the time I spent getting away from Point A.  The kind of luck that makes you forget to open a door before you walk through it.  My memories are interlaced with my fantasies.  My perception of time has no bearing on man made clocks.  I can no longer find myself in words.  Modern dance seems to be the only working mirror I can find.  I watch, slack jawed, while others move through this ethereal place.  I don't know how to dance.  Just dream.  This is what it feels like to be smitten.

Marisa Bundle

Rita Mae Brown—Rubyfruit Jungle (1988)

                                ---Venus Envy (1994)

Julie Kistler---Just a Little Fling (Harlequin Temptation: The Wrong Bed, 2000)

Jenniser LaBrecque and Sandra Paul---Kids + Cops = Chaos and Moonstruck (Harlequin Duets: 2 Romantic Comedies, 2001)

Debra Webb---A Soldier’s Oath (Harlequin Intrigue, 2007)

Weight: 1 lb 12 oz

Method of Disposal: Donating to AKS

I had Saturday brunch (as usual) with my dear friends, Marisa and Daniel, today.  Marisa might be able to make me laugh more than anyone else in the world.  She is so quick with her wit and banter.  I use to think I was good, but I feel like a beginner next to her.  She does these strange and wonderful things that make me so happy.  A few years back she would bring me awkward romance novels.  I use to get so frustrated to be shelving a book with a fireman holding a baby.  There would be a terrible title like Getting Knocked Up.  I was like, really?  This is what they think women find erotic?  Marisa brought to my attention the truly awkward “Wrong Bed” romance genre where a woman is accidentally ravished by the wrong man—often a partner’s family member. 

I added the Rita Mae brown books because many years ago, when I was 15, she introduced me to her.  She never warned me that she also wrote cat mysteries from the voice of Sneaky Pie Brown and left me open to ridicule for years to come.  This is my shout out to the fantastic woman that makes my cheeks hurt from smiling and my tummy hurt from laughing constantly.  Love you!