It's Weird What I Hold Onto

Who here has read The Reader by Bernhard Schlink?

If you don't have your hand raised, you should. Because there's a portion of this book that just haunts me.

I thought the book was good when I read it, but I didn't think it was life changing or anything. But now it's 2 years later and sometimes I think about one of the characters and she breaks my heart.

Her name is Hanna. The whole book is about her trying to hide a secret. And how this one secret, this one shame, dictates her whole life.

I think the story culminates with this passage, when the main character Michael figures her out and the details of her life click into place.

He says:

She was not pursuing her own interests, but fighting for her own truth, her own justice... It was a pitiful truth and pitiful justice, but it was hers, and the struggle for it was her struggle.

She must have been completely exhausted... She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn't do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats."

And I just love this. Because, I don't know, I just do. It just resonates with me. I pity her and understand her at the same time. And I realize that this is precisely why I want to live my life as authentically as possible. And that this is precisely why that is so damn hard.

On a completely unrelated note, I can't stop listening to Adele's new album. I love it.

Song of the Day: Turning Tables by Adele

Bonus Song of the Day: Rolling in the Deep by Adele

I Was a Liar

Since I was about 18, I've claimed to love NPR.

For like 5 years, that was a total lie.

It just was, OK. I'm admitting it now. I was a liar. I didn't like talk radio. I listened to BXR. Non-stop. (Side note: I still believe BXR is the best radio station ever. I don't know what it's like now, but when I was in college it was non-stop awesome. And I miss it.)

I just couldn't do talk radio. I had the attention span of a gnat. It wasn't going to happen. But I thought it sounded cool to like it so I went with it.

However, now that I'm officially a grown-up (I guess), I actually do love NPR. And all kinds of talk radio and podcasts.

I'm no longer a liar. I think it's like in high school when I pretended I liked beer. I did not. But I kept drinking it and eventually, I did. (And still do. Moderately, I promise.)

It has taken me longer to hop on the audiobook bandwagon. I'm still not really there. (I like to read books, people. On paper.) But in my quest to continually evolve, I finally used my This American Life Audible.com credit to download a free audiobook of my choice.

I chose Bossypants by Tina Fey. Because I'd heard great things about the book and I already loved Tina and think she's hilarious. And she reads the audiobook and I figured this would be one case where having the author actually read the book to you would be a benefit.

It totally was.

Internet, get this book. It's awesome. Tina's awesome. Everything involving Tina and this book is awesome.

(Sometimes I get carried away, but seriously it was good.)

She's funny and real and sometimes sort of vulgar (all of which I love). And she speaks about being a woman, being in charge, trying to find humor in 70 hour work weeks, what [jerks] some people are determined to be, and how to live a life doing what you love and not feeling like you should feel guilty about it. But she speaks about all of these things with grace and without seeming like a crazy or bitter which is hard to do. (I know, I've tried.)

She's just authentic. And again, really funny.

I want to be sort of like her when I grow up. (Well, really more like me but with her authenticity, humor, completely realistic view of herself, and unapologetic success.)

Order it in print here on Amazon or the audiobook here on Audible.

Also, watch this TED talk. Another thing I pretended to love and didn't really. It's about how happiness leads to success not the other way around. Real good.

Video streaming by Ustream

I Forget Things but I'm a Good Sharer

About 3 times a week, I open up the notes on my iPhone and I write down ideas for future blog posts. They are normally really great ideas and would be either deeply moving or riotously hilarious.

Unfortunately for us all, by the time I actually go to write the posts, I have literally no idea what my notes mean. I'm not sure what this says about me, but it can't be good. It's enough of a problem that I even think about it when I'm making the notes now and try to add more detail. Doesn't help.

But looking at my notes from last week, I came across this sentence:

I just found something beautiful stuck on a crowded plane in Miami...

And that note made me smile. Because, true to form, I don't remember what that something beautiful was. (Could I have been more vague?) But I do remember the feeling.

The feeling of being in a place that I should have been frustrated in. An overly-warm, overly-crowded plane stuck on a tarmack in Miami. Waiting to start a 5-hour flight west. Tired and a little sad to be leaving my vacation behind.

I should've been mad.

But I found something beautiful instead. I had a moment where I saw how funny and sweet and just plain pretty life is. I looked at the people around me and didn't see weary travelers, but fellow humans.

It was important enough that I wrote it down so I would share it with you.

And then promptly forgot it.

So now I write it down again. Because even though I don't remember what I saw or why I thought it was so beautiful, I do remember that I wanted to share joy, hope, love, and peace.

And that can't ever be a bad thing.

Song of the Day: Santeria by Sublime (This came up on shuffle today and I found myself singing very loudly along with every single word. It's a classic.)