Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Time Traveler's Meme

No, I, the Queen o' Memes have not been deposed (at least, not that I know of). I've just learned to reign with a more gentle and quiet hand. Every once in a while, though, I decide that my subjects need to be put to work, especially in the fall (probably fond memories of things like that first Halloween meme I tagged myself to do years ago). It's officially fall, so the Queen is here with your orders.

Thanks to Zoe's Mom, I recently read a fun chick lit novel called The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather. The book is all about time travel, specifically, time travel in which the heroine goes back 10 years to meet her 21-year-old self. It got me thinking. First of all, ten years isn't really long enough, not for someone my age. I'm still shocked when people point out that 9/11 was nearly ten years ago. Fifteen years or twenty would be better. What would happen if 46-year-old me were to encounter 26-year-old me? I started coming up with all kinds of questions, and the next thing I knew, this meme was born.

Rules:
1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.
2. Tell us how many years back you have traveled.
3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.
4. You only have one "date" with this former self.
5. Answer the questions.


I have gone back 20 years (actually, a little further than 20 years. I'm pretending it's February, and my young self is about to celebrate her 27th birthday). We are in Stamford, CT, and we have met at her favorite bar Rory's ( a place that no longer exists). It's Monday night; she worked at the public library until 9:00; and she is here with her colleague Bill. They will walk home together once they've had a couple of drinks, because her crappy basement apartment is on the way to his place, and he usually sees her safely home. Her apartment may be crappy, but still! She is living all. by. herself, for the first time in her life.

1. Would your younger self recognize you when you first meet?
Well, according to Facebook friends who haven't seen me since high school, I haven't changed, so chances are, she'd think she'd met a long lost older sister or something.

2. Would she be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?
Very. She is in her first year of library school and is hoping to become either a school librarian or a young adult librarian in a public library.

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give her?
Do not wear oversized sweaters with leggings and chunky shoes. You have lovely legs! Show them off with high heels and short skirts while you are young enough that no one will question such choices. And you do have cleavage. Stop being so afraid to show it off a little.

4. What do you think she is most going to want to know?
She'd probably want to know about men -- what else? My guess is that she will most want to know what is going to come of this on-again-off-again relationship she's in the midst of that will go on for the next couple of years.

5. How would you answer her question?
Not to worry. To enjoy that relationship, that it is good in many ways, will help her to become the person she is meant to be and that (despite her conviction she is not going to get married), she will be married one day. I don't think I'd tell her that she has not yet met the man she will marry or how she will meet him or anything like that. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise and excitement of Bob's and my meeting.

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell her?
That she will live the next 20 years without coming down with any horrible disease. Therefore, she should stop worrying about every headache, stomach cramp, sore throat, etc.

7. What is something that you probably wouldn't tell her?
That, at age 29, she is going to break her wrist while ice skating and have to endure a very painful surgery and months and months of physical therapy. She's a worry wart and a cautious sort. If she knows that, she'll never let herself have all those fun days of ice skating, and she most definitely needs to have those.

8. What do you think will most surprise her about you?
That I am married to a minister (she's an agnostic/borderline atheist) and living in Pennsylvania. She's convinced she'll either be living in Boston, New York, or Maine by the time she's my age.

9. What do you think will least surprise her?
That I am a certified scuba diver. She's always wanted to do that, and she will be happy to hear that she will one day be able to afford such expensive hobbies.

10. At this point in your life, would you like to run into "you" from the future?
Absolutely not. What if I've been in some horrible accident and lost an arm or a leg or something? Or what if I'm crazy and homeless? I certainly wouldn't want to know that ahead of time.

Are you reading this? Then the Queen has tagged you. Get on with it.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Death Rites


(Gimenez Bartlett, Alicia. Dunne, Jonathan, tr. Death Rites. New York: Europa Editions, 2008.)

Well, this is definitely a first for me. The Connecticut mystery book club was formed three years ago, and I have never not finished a book for the club. I may not always have gotten a book read on time, but I have always finished it. However, I am in a very strange period (for me) in my life in which I am extraordinarily busy, barely have a moment to myself, and I just don't seem to be able to bring myself to devote a lot of time to reading anything that does not have me spellbound. This one didn't. (In another first, this is the second book in one week that I have decided to abandon. I'm pretty sure I have never given up on two books in one week, being someone who, for the most part, perseveres).

Up until yesterday, I didn't think I was going to abandon it. I was pretty sure I was going to finish it and post my reactions sometime next week, even though the group is meeting to discuss it tomorrow. However, I had to go to the library today to pick up a book that was being held for me, and before I knew it, I had picked this up and brought it with me to return. I guess some part of me knew that now just wasn't the right time for this particular book.

I feel kind of sorry for it, because it isn't as though I really disliked it. I was a little annoyed by the writing style, which seemed overly fragmented and disjointed to me, but that could very easily have been the translator's fault as much as anything, and I soon found I got used to it (although I did wonder, at times, if Gimenez Bartlett was trying a little too hard to imitate the American "hard-boiled" feel and failing). The plot was definitely one that should have grabbed me (a serial rapist is on the loose in Barcelona, Spain, and two unlikely members of the police force -- one, a twice-divorced feminist lawyer-turned-police woman, and the other, a laconic, somewhat sexist -- at least, she's convinced he is -- "seasoned" cop are thrown together to solve it).

If I had stuck with it, I might have discovered that I liked it very much. Petra (the woman) was annoying at first, but she was growing on me. Garzon (the man) seemed to have a lot of surprise characteristics, and he was growing on me even more than she was.
I was interested to see how these two would end up working together. On the other hand, though, I already knew, without reading it, that she was going to come to quit judging him so harshly, to begin to see him in a new light, and to come to respect him, so why bother to continue reading to see what happened between the two of them? Well, maybe because I was interested to see exactly how she would come to see the light.

Apparently, though, not interested enough. Otherwise, I would have stuck with it. What else was and is interesting to me was the almost "in-your-face" feminism of the book. Petra is very determined to "fight the good fight" for women, no matter the consequences. This is the second European book I've read this year that has made me question some of my beliefs about European countries and their attitudes toward women (the other was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). For some reason, I have assumed that, when it comes to Western culture and countries, America lags behind in its treatment and attitudes toward women, that we have farther to go than most, especially when you compare us to all our friends across the Atlantic. Don't ask me where I got this assumption, and I will say that the world of blogging had already got me to start rethinking it before I read these two books, but these two books certainly have helped open my eyes quite wide. The world Gimenez Bartlett has given us -- at least in the first half of this book -- is truly a man's world, so much so that young women being raped might not even be as bothered by it as one might expect them to be). This was enlightening, but still.

I quit about halfway through the book. No one had yet found a dead body, but, if this mystery were true to form and followed proper procedure for the genre, one was bound to turn up sooner or later. It might have been interesting to find out who that was. Might have been, but, obviously, not quite interesting enough...

And that, in a nutshell, as I am sure you have gathered by now, was my problem. Everything was just "not quite enough." The characters were interesting but "not quite enough." The plot was interesting but "not quite enough." Bartlett Gimenez had some interesting and clever similies and metaphors and turns of phrases but "not quite enough." And I guess that, at the moment, I have just "not quite enough stamina" to keep going, with no guarantee that I will eventually find "enough." I am very intererested, though, to hear what other members of the club thought, because if they indicate that "enough" does happen, I will have to get it back out of the library and finish it.




Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Truly Book Obsessed

In the past year or so, I've come to the realization that, although I thought my life was full of friends who are as obsessed with books (and, well, you know reading them) as I am, it really isn't. With the exception of all those of you who read my blog and write about books yourselves (and who seemed to understand that book slut post of mine so well), it seems I have very few friends who share this obsession of mine to the same degree that I have it. They may be somewhat obsessed or have an obsession that somewhat resembles a book obsession but that really isn't. Probably less than a handful or so of my non-blogging friends have even half the book obsession I have. Let's take a look at some of the categories of people who have fooled me into thinking they are as book obsessed as I am but who really can't hold a candle to me:

1. The reading obsessed. Really, there is a difference, so please hear me out. I'm becoming suspicious of my beloved husband as far as this category goes. Yes, it does seem that he would rather spend money on books than just about anything else (only CDs and pens can compete, which is why he and I are so compatible), but he is perfectly content if he finds himself with several days in a row in which he doesn't pick up a single book. As long as he can read through the local papers and can entertain himself with the likes of The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, my guess is he could go a week or more without ever cracking the spine of a book. Those who fall into the reading obsessed category do have to read and would go nuts without any reading material, but they are not book obsessed. Me? I'd be fine if all newspapers, magazines, and (maybe, even, God forbid) blogs and Facebook suddenly disappeared. Don't take my books away, though. I might last a day or two before winding up in the hospital, gasping for breath, my heart at the rate of all of two beats per minute.

2. Those who don't read specific genres. "I don't read mysteries," someone will say to me when I am rhapsodizing about how much I like John Connolly. Nothing like putting a damper on conversation, huh? You know, I am game for any good book, and I don't care at all about the genre. In fact, damn the genre. If you ask me what sorts of books I enjoy, I wouldn't be likely to say, "romances," and yet I've certainly read quite a few in my lifetime and have come, over the past few years, to really enjoy someone like Georgette Heyer. I will say that I don't think I've ever read any westerns, but if someone were to come along, waxing poetic about some western she'd read, I'd take note and seek it out next time I was at the library.

3. Those who don't read contemporary fiction. Like those who don't read specific genres, they can fool you. It isn't as though they can't talk books with someone who is book obsessed. However, again, if they put such limits on which books they will and won't read, well, then, they are mere pikers when it comes to obsession. Beware someone who disparages anything written post-1940 who will challenge you to name those authors you think will be on college reading lists in 2110 (a fun game I like to play, but a ridiculous challenge when taken seriously, no? I bet nobody predicted Charlotte Bronte would last. And, what, in 100 years, no one's going to study late 20th and 21st-century works?). Sometimes, these people prove themselves to be a little more book-obsessed than they let on, and you just might catch them reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ("Yes, but that doesn't count. It isn't literature") or Freedom ("Well, I had to see what all the fuss was about, didn't I?). Be polite, even though they have, for years, been mocking the fact that you read and love John Irving. Some just aren't quite willing to admit to and embrace their obsessions the way those of us with high self-esteem can.

4. Those who don't read nonfiction. I may argue vociferously with most of the nonfiction I read, but how can someone who is book-obsessed not read it, at least on occasion? Let's say all you read is fiction. That's fine. Maybe you're fiction obsessed, but you certainly aren't book obsessed. You see, the truly book obsessed can't read something like The Postmistress, which I just finished reading, and not find herself adding titles to her TBR list that the author lists as sources she used for research before writing the book. I became extremely interested in American radio reporting during WWII while reading this book. I don't know how anyone reads fiction about some, until then, unexplored, but fascinating, subject, without finding a desire to read a nonfiction title or two. If nothing else, doesn't fiction lead to wanting to read biographies and autobiographies of the authors who write it?

5. Those who don't buy books or have any in their homes. I'm sorry. You may be someone who reads 5 books a week, but if you never buy or own any, you are not book obsessed. Reading obsessed, yes, but not book obsessed. I don't even care if you tell me you can't afford to buy books. Those who are truly book obsessed can remember days when, even though barely squeaking by on a library assistant's salary, living in one of the most expensive places in the country to live, they decided to buy fewer groceries the week of the used book sale in order to be able to get lots of cheap books instead.

6. Those who don't have a favorite publisher. Really. Even before I worked in the publishing industry, I knew that Penguin and Algonquin were two of my favorite publishers. I also knew that I loved Knopf. Yes, I am mostly author-driven and will happily follow an author from publisher to publisher, however, if I'm looking to discover new authors I've never read? Well, I certainly know which catalogs/web sites I'm going to browse first.

7. Those who can walk into Borders with money to spend, planning to buy, and walk out empty handed. What? How the hell can you do that? I can't imagine finding nothing to read out of thousands and thousands of books. I can go into a house with one small bookcase of books, and, as long as it holds a variety of titles (I mean, I might not be able to find something on a bookcase full of engineering manuals), I can find at least ten books to read. Someone who can find nothing to buy at Borders is not book obsessed.

So, there we have it. My 7 categories of "You can't fool me. I know you aren't really book obsessed." Are there any others? Help me out, all you other book obsessives out there.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous pop songs ever written, lyrically. When it first came out, and my siblings and I saw the video on Top of the Pops, we were very disdainful of it. However, it seems the more we made fun of it, the more it grew on us, and we eventually all came to love it. I loved imitating the women singing "Pop. Pop. Pop music" and bobbing their heads.

Now, I think of it as quite a superb example of the stripped down look and sound of New Age music. 1979 was a pretty exciting time, musically, as we came out of disco and took some of the anger out of punk.

Talk about it!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

TBR Challenge Book (Book Six)


Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

(I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. I have actually read more than six books in my TBR challenge. This just happens to be the sixth one on which I am writing a post. I decided to number them by post rather than order read.)

I've decided there is something wrong with me. I just don't seem to be able to get overly excited about the books that everyone else loves (which leaves me almost in terror of reading the new Jonathan Franzen). When I don't out-and-out dislike them, I often find my reaction is "meh."

If you've read much of this blog (especially my posts for this TBR challenge), you will know that I am convinced, in part, that this has more to do with high expectations than anything else. Of course, on some levels, that refutes another claim I've made on this blog, which is that I am highly impressionable. Given that, you'd think that I would love all the books that everyone else loves. Maybe my "impression-ability" stops with "I must read this. Everyone else loves it so," never making it to the next level of, "everyone loves it, and so do I." Or maybe, as I just said, there is something not quite right with me.

I have seen this book mentioned all over the place online, mostly with nothing but effusive praise and words like "hypnotic," "beautiful," "you must read," etc. Our library book discussion group read it before I joined, and they still get glassy-eyed when you mention it, saying things like, "I just wish we could find more books like Bel Canto to read." So I put this one into the TBR challenge absolutely convinced that I was going to love it. It was maybe going to be my dessert after struggling through one of those I'd expected would be more difficult and challenging (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, for example). I couldn't wait to read it, while at the same time, also feeling the need to "save" it, which I'd been doing ever since finding a cheap hard copy of it at the 2008 library sale.

Dislike isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe this book. Ann Patchett isn't a bad writer. It's just that I am on page 220, and the only reason I am considering continuing with it is that I have already put so much time and effort into it, picking it up time and again and trying to find its magic, when all I've really wanted to do is to get back to reading one of the other books I'm reading and enjoying. If I abandon it now, I'd have to admit to myself that I wasted a lot of time (something I am loathe to do). My biggest problem with continuing to read it is that my "Oh, come on!" (nasty, judgmental creature that she is) nature has been raising her ugly head over and over again.

Please don't accuse me of not understanding the obvious (although I would love it if you would help me understand the un-obvious -- help blind, idiot me see what I must be missing). I know that this book is really a fable, that it isn't supposed to be all about reality. I know it isn't really at all about people from all over the world held captive by terrorists in some unnamed South American country. I know it is about humanity and love and beauty and all that we humans have in common and how the arts can bring us together and triumph in ways that are miraculous, most especially how music can transcend all the worst in human nature, can soften us.

Not only do I know all that, but I also hate the old "it just doesn't ring true" cliche. Nonetheless, I keep following my "Oh, come on's!" with "That just doesn't ring true." My literal self -- the same one that loves good fantasy while struggling with it, especially if it doesn't take place in a different world -- has struggled throughout this book and really wants me to quit at this point, because I can't keep that self from asking, "What makes this American writer think she can know what drives a Japanese businessman? Or a Swedish Red Cross worker? Or a Frenchman?" Yes, the underlying human-ness, what brings us together, is there, but that's the bottom layer. What about the top layer? (And isn't it a cliche that the Frenchman is the chef? That the beautiful opera singer, despite being a woman, knows nothing about the kitchen and preparing food?) It's just too much (and, honestly, the writer in me thinks a bit arrogant) to think that anyone can realistically portray all these characters and others: the Vice President of this country; the Japanese businessman's translator, who is fluent in many languages; the female terrorist, born of extreme poverty. I don't mind if you give me unrealistic situations, but I want my characters to be real.

It isn't that I don't think an American writer could, say, take one of these characters (or even two of them), like the young girl who is a South American terrorist and make her real. Talented writers have been known to make very interesting connections and to give us amazing, believable characters whose top layers don't resemble their own top layers at all (Kazuo Ishiguro springs to mind), but to try to tackle so many in one book is just too much. It gets my questioning, doubtful mind spinning out of control.

I appreciate the fact I've given it a try. I'm glad I did, despite my disappointment. But is it worth continuing to anger all those multiple personalities of mine (Ms. "Oh Come On", Ms. Literalist, and Ms. Writer)? Anyone? Should I?




Monday, September 13, 2010

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

It's fall. Boots are everywhere. I love fall and boots, so I thought it would be a good idea to combine my love of boots with a favorite song. This one I've loved basically all my life (I was only two when it was released). Even as a child, I was impressed with this tough woman in her boots who wasn't going to take any mistreatment and, one of these days, would "walk all over you."

There is a more demure video of this song, but this particular one is fantastic -- so sixties/early seventies. Needless to say, the boots are great, and I love Nancy Sinatra's sparkly romper. However, what on earth are those dancers wearing? It looks like they've pulled sweaters on over bathing suits. With boots? Come on, choreographer and costumer, you could have put them in some really cool mini skirts (or rompers similar to Nancy's) and still shown plenty of that leg you wanted to show. (I've never understood why no one ever consults me about such matters.) They do all have very nice, boot-worthy legs, though, don't they?

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Vanishing Judgment: A Blog Post

Blogger wonders if she should refer to herself as Author or Reader.

More sense. This blog post might make if you have read Markson, David. Vanishing Point. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004.

(Or if you have read any of Markson's experimental works, Reader imagines.)

Lectio Divina is Latin for divine reading, spiritual reading, or "holy reading" and represents a traditional practice of prayer and scriptural reading intended to promote communion with God and to increase in the knowledge of God's word. Says Wikipedia.

We have a collection of fragments here, although fragments of what is unclear. How Litlove described Markson's Reader's Block.

Reader counted something like 1500 fragments in Vanishing Point.

Author desires to tell a story but has become hung up on telling the truth.

Trivial Pursuit, playing. Probably not something to do with David Markson, unless he is on your team.

It's impossible to read these fragments and not to try and do something about them, search for patterns and significance. Litlove said, again, about Reader's Block.

As I think you may know, this sort of stuff is not normally my cup of tea. So Reader commented on Stefanie's blog.

Wikipedia goes on to say that Lectio Divina is a way of praying with Scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen, and, finally, pray and rejoice from God's word within the soul.

"...from God's word within the soul?" Did Author get that right?

Most of the book consists of book, art, and music trivia. What Stefanie said about Reader's Block.

Author could write story after story from these collected fragments. No wonder Markson's "Author" is so exhausted.
Merely counting all the fragments was exhausting.

Vanishing Point is the only one of Markson's experimental works that the Lancaster County, PA library system owns.
Categorized as FIC.
Subtitle: A Novel.

Novel: an invented prose narrative that is usu. long and complex and deals esp. with human experience through a usu. connected sequence of events. So says the Tenth Edition of Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

But is it really a novel? You think not? Well who died and made you queen of novel demarcation? Goodreads.com reviewer Vegantrav demands to know after reading Vanishing Point.

Lectio Divina has been likened to "feasting on the word." Many write down the words that speak out to them when they are reading scripture.

Author has written down Markson's words "to tell the truth."

The pretense of thinking one knows anything about a book one has not read.

Reader wonders about the truth of what Markson writes.
She stops caring when she realizes how much fun she is having.

"Playful" and "fun" were bullied and kicked about and nearly lost consciousness. "Fun" is for Raymond Chandler...not something like this.
So Reader said in response to Litlove's quote from Reader's Block.

Writers are liars -- unquote. From Erasmus Fry in conversation, 6 May, 1986 (or, at least, so notes the first page of Neil Gaiman's Dream Country).

Reader wouldn't want to be given the task of fact checking Markson.

I thought the book was smart, beautiful, unique, and, at times, moving. At times, I found it dull -- unquote. Dorr on Wittgenstein's Mistress.

Author wishes to avoid dull.
Are lies more dull than truth? Is truth more dull than lies?

Reviewer Richard Flynn at Goodreads.com concluded that Vanishing Point is a great novel, unless you are in the mood to read a novel.

Original or striking, esp. in conception or style. So Webster's also defines novel.

Reader is reconsidering her aversions to/fear of Ulysses and The Magic Mountain.

A hat might taste okay cooked up Tex Mex style. Or maybe it should be stir fried.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Someone once said.

Markson's words: "to tell the truth."

Distinguishing between imitation and mockery.

And they lived happily ever after (Author is not mocking -- or lying -- she promises).
Reader, write your own story (truth or lie).

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

4-Day Weekend By the Numbers

At this point, the four-day weekend seems like a distant memory, but I thought I'd try to keep it alive a little while longer. To that end:


hours spent at the library: 3 (pretty good, considering it was closed on Sunday and Monday)

books checked out: 8

Nick Bantock books read: 3 (2 at the library and one at home. Yes, I've gone a little crazy over Nick Bantock, but how can you not read all six of the Griffin and Sabine books at once?)

Books checked out that are graphic novels: 4 (or maybe 5. Would you categorize Nick Bantock as "graphic"? He's filed in regular fiction at my library)

(non Nick Bantock) books finished: 2 (David Markson's Vanishing Point and Alexandra Potter's The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather. A very nice balance)

books started (because, yes, I am a read-multiple-books-at-a-time kinda gal): 3 (The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, Death Rites by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, and Dream Country by Neil Gaiman)

All right, there was (much) more to the weekend than my book obsession:

chamber music concerts attended: 1 (at the lovely Mt. Gretna Playhouse. We missed out on the ice cream at The Jigger Shop, though. Lines were too long before the show, and it was closed afterwards. That means we'll have to go back next summer)

alcoholic beverages consumed: 8 (which is a lot for me in four days. I know: I'm a wimp)

nights out with "the girls": 1 (that helps account for the number of drinks)

picnics attended: 2 (that helps account for more of those drinks)

hotdogs eaten: 1 (shouldn't there have been more, since I went to two picnics? Obviously, I was being very good)

dishes of ice cream: 2 (well, not that good...)

calories consumed: oh, maybe about 9000? (okay, not the least bit good)

long walks: 1

meals cooked: 2

laughs: countless

Tell me again why we don't have 4-day weekends every weekend.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

Although the kids in my school district started back last Monday in 90+ degree heat that made it seem not the least bit like fall, today is the day I think of as the true end of summer. By the end of this week, all kids all over the country will be back in school. And today, it feels like the end of summer. This weekend, we've had absolutely beautiful fall-like weather -- breezy, sunny, highs in the seventies, lows in the fifties. I was at a Labor Day party last night dressed in jeans for the first time since I was up in Maine in early July, and I had to borrow a sweatshirt from my hostess to enjoy sitting out on the patio.

What song to choose for the "new year"? Despite the fact I haven't had to go back to school since 1993, I still think of this time of year as a time for new beginnings. For instance, it's time to stop being so neglectful of this blog. It's time to stop being so neglectful of my pen pals (some of whom have not heard from me in months). It's time for me to organize my closets and to clean out the basement, which looks like a bomb has struck it.

But not today. Today, let's have a little fun reminiscing about high school and those "summer nights." Grease came out in theaters the summer I was fourteen. That was the perfect time for this movie to come out. I was just about to start high school myself. I would soon be moving to England, where my girlfriends would love the fact that I could sing all the songs with a "real" American accent and where we danced to the sound tract at slumber parties just as I had with my American girlfriends.

I still remember my reaction the first time I saw this number, which I would go on to see five more times that summer. Yes, my friends and I went to see this movie six times (we did things like that back in the days when we thought we had all the time in the world). I watched it and thought, "I don't want this movie to end. Ever." Most of the time, I have absolutely no desire to be fourteen years old again, but occasionally, I wish I had that young passion back and could experience such scenes the way I know I once did.

These days, I watch it and just think, "What fun!" Hope you think it' s fun, too.