I was appalled when I realized that my summer to-do list didn't mention reading at all. If you know me, you know this was basically me taking for granted that there would be lots of reading. Summer reading is the best! For some reason I feel compelled to share my list, as it stands:
-The new Sookie Stackhouse novel by Charlaine Harris (I like the HBO series on which it is based a lot better, to tell the truth, but I'm a completist)
-Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan
-Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (I read a Dark Tower book every summer, this one was started last summer so I've got to finish it before I can go on)
-The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson - I've heard good good things about this one.
That's a respectable start, I suppose. There's a new Sarah Dessen to check out, I'm way behind on the Banana Yoshimoto catalog, and I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on the new Louise Rennison as I don't think it's been released in the States yet. Ooh, and I've got to get to my yearly re-reading of Summer Sisters, just because. Maybe when I go on vacation, though with a toddler running around I don't think I'll have as much time to lounge on the beach as in years past.
Over the weekend I devoured Tina Fey's Bossypants and I loved it because I love her, but also she's the real deal as a writer. Her alter-ego Liz Lemon is my actual idol, and it was so cool to get an inside peek at 30 Rock and SNL and how Ms. Fey came to be the awesome brilliant superstar she is today. It's heartening to me to see that she credits a nerdtastic adolescence for making her the woman she is today, because I myself was a late bloomer. For the most part, like she, I had a great time in my teens because I was so nerdish. Looking back I'm glad I wasn't cool like I might have wished to be at the time because I got to know the best people. It always seems to turn out that the nerds are the ones who have all the fun because they don't care what you think of them. "Embrace your nerdishness," I'm putting that on a t-shirt.
Anyway, I have been reading Sarah Silverman's The Bedwetter which I'm also really digging because she's someone I admire (have I mentioned a hundred times that one of my life ambitions is to be a comedy writer?) and it proved to be a more caustic complement to the Fey book. Seeing her experience at Saturday Night Live next to Tina's is very interesting. I recommend both books, and both women. Now if Amy Poehler would just write a book we'll be good to go.
Today's musical selection is a total cop-out and a gimme, but I can't deny its power as a song of summer. Doesn't it just make you want to have a glass of white wine and slow dance in the kitchen?
Go along little man, I think it's past your bedtime. Mitch Kramer sure showed Mel, eh?
ReplyDeleteYou know, I watched that very same Seals & Crofts video several months ago and I kept thinking, "Man, that looks like home." And then I read the credits and it said it was from family films in British Columbia, which is very close (and quite similar) to Washington. It was nostalgia times two.
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