Stuff I Read This Year – 2016 Edition – Part III

21. Inferno
Last year I was a bit obsessed Dante’s Inferno. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure what that was all about.  The obsession carried over a little into 2016, which is why I read Dan Brown’s Inferno. Here’s the plot in a nutshell (and this sums up the plot of all three Dan Brown books I’ve read): a handsome, brilliant professor gets called in by some organization to save the world from utter doom by using his knack for solving puzzles and his esoteric knowledge of symbology. After reading this novel I felt like I had just completed a course on art history. I found myself nerdishly looking up all the images of all the art that was referenced. It also felt like I’d just read a travel guide to Florence, Italy.  Embedded in between the art history course and the travel guide, there is a relatively good story, but the characters lack dimension.

22. The Brain: The Story of You

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist with a fancy academic pedigree – he was mentored by Francis Crick. Does the word “pedigree” make anyone else think about dog shows? Non sequitur. Anyway, I just discovered that The Brain: The Story of You was written as a companion book for his PBS documentary, which I haven’t seen yet. It works fine as a stand-alone book.  It touches on big picture topics like how the brain constructs reality, how it makes decisions, how it constructs a sense of self, how it does empathy, etc.  It is very well written and a good choice for the layperson interested in catching up on the latest trends in brain research.

23. Brain on Fire

This is the memoir of a reporter who was diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis following a psychotic episode that left her strapped to a hospital bed. The condition was treated, she recovered, and wrote the book. I appreciate that it gets the word out about a rare condition.  The expository aspect of the book was fairly well written, but I didn’t particularly enjoy reading the autobiographical bits where the writing had a fledgling, gratuitous quality. I think it would have worked better as a magazine article.
24. The Belly Dance Handbook

I bought the book following a workshop I took from Princess Farhana, who is a knowledgeable, generous, and just plain fun teacher.  The handbook is all about the business of being a professional belly dancer. She covers a wide-range of topics:  classes, contracts, costuming, makeup, music, stage lighting, swords, veils, zaghareets, and zills. It’s loaded with tips, tricks, and pitfalls to avoid.

25. A Dirty Job

Hapless agents of Death abound in San Francisco’s used bookstores and  thrift shops, where objects and the souls they contain are peddled to the soulless in the natural order of things until one mysterious buyer with dubious intentions arrives on the scene. We come to know and understand this strange world through the eyes of Charlie Asher, a beta-male, recent-widower,  new father, and newly-minted death merchant in a tale that is equal parts fabulous and ridiculous.

I almost never re-read books, but this one was my suggestion for the book club.  It’s been almost a decade since I read it for the first time – it was just as good the second time.

26. Second Hand Souls

This is the sequel to Dirty Jobs.  Asher’s little girl is growing up and causing a ruckus.  Goth girls, vampires, the homeless “mayor” of San Francisco, hell hounds, Buddhist monks, the squirrel people, Minty Fresh — you’ll find all the same strange characters from the first book, plus a few ghosts and new weirdos.  It’s as funny as the first one.

27. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High

Just adding more tools to the box with this one. I read it and then re-read it. Again, something I rarely do. It was a book referenced in Thanks for the Feedback (see below).

28. Thanks for the Feedback

I originally read Thanks for the Feedback in an effort to sharpen clinical and communication skills. However, the information seems widely applicable and much needed for everyone given the current political climate. Employing the techniques might help us all  find our way back to civil discourse. Stone and Heen discuss the art and science of giving and receiving feedback. They emphasize the receiving end of the interaction (i.e., listening), particularly when you would rather not listen to what’s being said (e.g., in a tough feedback conversation).  The deep listening techniques the authors describe are intended to enable you to respond productively rather than to simply react in ways that may be counterproductive. Their explanation of why it’s so hard to listen to dissenting opinions is grounded in research on the cognitive neuroscience of empathy. It’s a smart, well-written book.

29. Take the Stairs

Take the Stairs is our book club pick for the new year. It’s packed with motivational ideas like “visioneering,” which is  creating a vivid mental image of your ideal life that will inspire you to take action on a daily basis. Vaden recommends scheduling virtually every moment of day. Beyond the formal work day schedule, he suggests scheduling (in writing) additional time weekly for five basic areas of life: Faith, family, faculty (i.e., work), fitness, and finances.  His suggestion reminded me of a visit to the Clinton Museum and Presidential Library, where they have an exhibit displaying the daily schedules for Bill Clinton while he was in office. His schedules were packed with  back-to-back activities from early morning to late night.  I was exhausted just thinking about it. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good schedule. Mine is hand-written, color-coded and cross-referenced with a spreadsheet of goals/resolutions and to-do lists. But that’s my work life. I don’t want to schedule my “off” time to this extent.  Back to the book. Much of it I had read elsewhere, but one unique suggestion was to not attempt to achieve balance in the five areas of life.  Instead, Vaden, recommends using “harvest time” to get the most out of the seasonal shifts of life.

30.Top Secret Twenty-One

My sister and I joined a mystery reader’s book club in the 90s and that is where we first read Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money. Maybe that’s why I experience a bit of nostalgia every time I step into a Stephanie Plum mystery. It’s like returning home to catch up with family and old friends (minus the dead bodies and exploding cars, of course).  The series is formulaic, thus predictable, and it still makes me laugh.

Advertisement

…and you’re not gonna reach my telephone

It all started almost five years ago when I was gearing up to move to Tulsa for a 9-month teaching gig. I traded in my gigantic 1990’s mobile phone for a ridiculously expensive upgrade to a new super sexy iPhone, which for some reason I named Matilda. I carried Matilda around in the box she came in for several days, much to the amusement of a certain relative (COUGH*Elitest Jerk*COUGH), who teased me so mercilessly about it that I finally let Matilda out into the cruel, tamasic world. Less than a week later – my first weekend in Tulsa actually – I dropped poor Matilda on the concrete floor of Bill & Ruth’s Subs.  Her screen shattered upon impact. Fearing a total meltdown, The Devil rushed us to the nearest Apple Store where a Genius told me that he was very sorry, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to save her.  I would have to buy a new one. I stood stone still in complete shock blinking at him.

BLINK-BLINK.  BLINK-BLINK.

Lip twitch.

BLINK-BLINK. BLINK-BLINK.

Something in my near catatonic expression must have caused him to reconsider this position because he furtively took my phone, disappeared behind a door into the mysterious Genius Lair, and then promptly returned with a pristinely-screened Matilda (or at least a reasonable facsimile).  Thereafter, Matilda was dropped all over the place, including one unfortunate time into the toilet.  Despite all this, she managed to survive the years intact and working like a champ.

That is until last week.

Last week I was walking to my car while doing at least 5 other things simultaneously. I’m sure I was heading off to go do something that was terribly important since…ya know…I’m such a busy person with so many important things to do. If I recall correctly, my Indentured Servant was doing one of her running commentary comedic routines that accompany these outings.  Nilla Bean (aka Donkey), who has definitely left behind the so-fluffy-I-could-die phase of her puppyhood for the lanky, moose-like ‘tween phase, was prancing around, all tongue and tail, like a complete maniac.  Add to this chaotic scene, the new neighbor’s oversized work truck, which is backed into a parking space causing the long metal rods in the truck’s bed to extend out dangerously beyond the tailgate to threaten the people of the sidewalk.

I have no idea how it happened, but quite suddenly Matilda went flying out of my hand and crashed face first onto the sidewalk. I was mid-step when this happened and somehow the toe of my sandal connected with her right at the moment of impact with the ground.  Thus sending poor Matilda skidding across the sidewalk like hockey puck.  With my history of falling, it’s nothing short of a miracle that I managed to stay upright and unharmed.  Matilda didn’t fare as well.  Her face was again shattered.

I found a place that does screen repairs. The two fellas in the shop seemed right out of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The “Bill” of the pair opened up the phone and asked me when I got the phone wet because it was all corroded inside.  He was surprised it even worked and he couldn’t guarantee that it would continue to after he put a new screen on.

It turned out that Matilda worked just fine once she was patched up.  But then the day before yesterday she fell out of bed and bumped her head. And now she doesn’t work anymore. Well, her screen works, so I can see when people call or text but the screen won’t swipe so I can’t get in to actually read my texts or hear voicemail or call out.

Please understand that nobody ever calls me.  Except the Devil. And Senior Citizen Church Lady. Or at least they didn’t until yesterday when people started blowin’ up my phone with calls and texts.  I’ve had more calls and texts the past two days than I have in the previous 2 years.

And that’s the end of the story.  Long story short: I’m not ignoring calls/texts.  My phone is just broke!  You may email me or reach me on the Devil’s line.

I leave you with a video of the song the Indentured Servant and I listened to to commemorate the demise of Matilda along with select snippets of her philosophical musings of the lyrics.

Why don’t they just silence the mofo?

…..or you know…maybe put it on vibrate?

‘Cause that’s what I would do…

….This is a disaster??? Seriously?!

….This song is clearly not meant to be thought about.