March 11, 2005
Time (Croci) Wait for No Man
My favorite little trumpeters of Spring have pushed up through the layers of dead stuff that I still haven't cleared out from last Fall. I'm always surprised when I walk out this time of year and see my croci. Winter never seems to last long anymore. The warm months seem to go on and on. Am I getting older, is the planet warming, or is my sense of time just totally screwed.
So, the croci bloom, Spring Break looms, and the year is already zooming by. Don't know quite what to think, how to feel. When this year is over, I sincerely hope that school will be over also...but my boys are growing so fast and they aren't going to wait for me to catch my breath.
Posted by swift at 4:42 AM
February 1, 2005
Reading List
Asked friends and coworkers to let me know some of their favorite books. Some responded with books from their childhood. Some with books that have been life changing. Some with books that just make them feel good.
I was suprised and pleased with the results. I'm always looking for additional titles, so please feel free to add to the list.
A. J. Langguth, Patriots: The Men Who Started The American Revolution
Agatha Christie, assorted titles
Alan Paton, Cry the Beloved Country
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo/The Three Musketeers
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Andre Previn, No Minor Chords
Anita Stansfield, First Love and Forever
Ann Rice, multiple titles
Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank
Anne/Charlotte/Emily Bronte, multiple titles
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood/Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
Antoine de Saint-Exuprey, Wind, Sand and Stars
Antonia Van Loon, For Us The Living
Anya Seton, Katherine
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Ayn Rand, Anthem/Atlas Shrugged
Barbara Delinsky, no titles specified
Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees/The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Michaels (Elizabeth Peters), no titles specified
Barbara Park, Junie B. Jones
Beryl Markham, West With the Night
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn/Joy in the Morning
Brian Bates, The Real Middle Earth : Exploring the Magic and Mystery of the Middle Ages, J.R.R. Tolkien, and "The Lord of the Rings"
Brian Lumley, Necroscope series
Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One
C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia/etc.
Caleb Carr, The Alienist/The Angel of Darkness
Carl Hiassen, no titles specified
Carol Berkin, First Generations: Women in Colonial America
Carolly Erickson, Bloody Mary (about Mary Tudor)
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities/Great Expectations/etc!!!
Christine Feehan, no titles specified
Christopher Polini, Eragon
Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds
Connie Willis, Doomsday Book/To Say Nothing of the Dog
Cori Tenboom, The Hiding Place
Dan Baker, Cameron Stauth, What Happy People Know
Dan Brown, Digital Fortress/The Davinci Code/Angels and Demons
Dave Barry, multiple titles
David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
David Eddings, Belgariad/Mallorean series
David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
Dean Koontz, multiple titles
Diane Gabaldon, Outlander series
Dick Francis, Blood Sport
Dr. Phil McGraw, Self Matters
Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches
Edith Hamilton, Mythology
Edward Rutherfurd, Russka/Sarum
Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Esther Hautzig, The Endless Steppe
Frank Herbert/Brian Herbert, Dune series (including prequels)
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
G.A. McKevett, no titles specified
Gavin De Becker, The Gift of Fear
George Orwell, Animal Farm
George R. R. Martin, Song of Fire & Ice series
Gerald N. Lund, The Work and the Glory series
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Helen P. Hoyt, The Jeweled Cross
Henry Eyring, Reflections of a Scientist
Hugh Douglas, Flora McDonald, Heroine of the Highland
Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion
Iris Johansen, no titles specified
J. Belinda Yandell, Small Change: The Secret Life of Penny Benjamin
J.D. Robb, In Death series
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter series
J.R.R. Tolkien/Christopher Tolkien, The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/related books
James Clavell, Shogun
James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me
James Michener, The Source
James Patterson, Kiss the Girls
Jan Karon, Mitford series
Jane Austen, multiple titles
Janet Evanovich, no titles specified
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Jean Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear series
Jefferson Mack, Running a Ring of Spies
Jennifer Cruisie, no titles specified
Jim Butcher, Dresden Files
Joanna Lindsey, no titles specified
Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
John Grisham, A Painted House
John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany/The World According to Garp
John Jakes, Heaven & Hell/Love & War/North & South
John Saul, The Blackstone Chronicles
John Steinbeck, multiple titles
Jude Deveraux, A Knight in Shining Armor
Judy Blume, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
K.P. Yohannan, Revolution in World Missions
Karen Marie Moning, Highlander series
Ken Follett, Pillars of the Earth
Khassan Baiev, The Oath
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
Lahaye & Dinallo, Babylon Rising series
Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu, trans by Stephen Mitchell
Laura Antoniou, The Marketplace series
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Laureel K. Hamilton, Meredith Gentry series
LayHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind series
Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events series
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina/War and Peace
Leon Uris, multiple titles
Linda Howard, no titles specified
Lindsay McKenna, no titles specified
Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
Lori Foster, no titles specified
Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
Lowis Lowry, Gathering Blue
Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Magnus Magnusson, Scotland: The Story of a Nation
Mario Puzo, The Godfather
Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer/etc.
Martin Cruz Smith, Rose
Martin/Gracia Burnham, In the Presence of My Enemies
Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women
Mary Higgins Clark, no titles specified
Mary Kurlansky, Salt: A World History
Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
Micah & Nicholas Sparks, Three Weeks with My Brother
Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet On Your Way to Heaven
N. Brysson Morrison, Mary Queen of Scots
Nabakov, multiple titles
Natalie Babbitt, The Search of Delicious/Tuck Everlasting
Nelson Demille, By the Rivers of Babylon
Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice
Orson Scott Card, The Ender series
Paul Fleischman, Seedfolks
Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth series
Ray Bradbury, Collected Short Stories
Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu
Roald Dahl, The BFG/James and the Giant Peach
Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time series
Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jamie McPheeters
Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity
Robert Thurston, The Jade Phoenix series
Roberta Latow, Three Rivers
Robin Cooke, no titles specified
Ronald McNair Scott, Robert the Bruce, King of Scots
Shannon McKenna, no titles specified
Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
Sheri Dew, no titles specified
Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk
Stephan R. Donaldson, Thomas Covenant series
Stephanie Barron, Jane Austin mystery series
Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage
Stephen King, The Stand
Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Sun Tsu, The Art of War
Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Tami Hoag, no titles specified
Terry Cole-Whittaker, What You Think of Me is None of My Business
Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
Tony Hillerman, no titles specified
Trevanian, Shibumi
Ursula K. LeGui,n A Wizard of Earthsea/etc.
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
W.B. Forbush, Fox's Book of Martyrs
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone/The Woman in White
Posted by swift at 5:25 AM | Comments (1)
September 7, 2004
Folk Alley
Posted by swift at 12:50 AM
August 23, 2004
Lost Weekend
The boys spent the weekend with their cousins. I took the weekend off of work. My husband and I were alone -- in our house -- for the entire weekend!! It was blissful. We didn't do anything spectacular except spend time together. This was the second time in 9 years we've had that much time. It was good to remember some of the thing about my husband that infatuated me in the beginning. 'Twas marvelous.
Posted by swift at 5:10 AM
June 20, 2004
To Save The World or Take a Nap?
So many things running around in my head. One of my favorite things to do is explore the internet. It's the perfect activity for my randomly distracted brain. I'm intrigued by the variety of who is out there. I mean, human beings are human beings -- aren't we? We start out having the same basic needs for the same basic nourishment, body and soul. Yes, basically the same but even the day we are born we are different. Different personalities, different temperaments. Immediately we begine to diverge, shifting and growing in different ways and directions. By the time we really need to start connecting and understanding each other we have no idea who we are, let alone anyone else.
I feel the need to understand and be understood. Why? Does it mean safety to me. I was always the new kid. Understanding did mean survival and I have a "spidey sense" about people. Or do I? I like to think that I do. I don't know if this emptyness inside of me will ever be stopped up. I have an insatiable need to connect with other people, to help other people. Is this a good thing? When I watch the news and there is tragedy, I want to be there. I want to be staunching the bleeding, comforting, calming...mopping up. Have I written about the book "The Oath"? by Khassan Baiev? Will I ever live up to what I felt when I read it? I am buried deep in the breast of America. Sheltered. Living some kind of blessed existence compared with the rest of the world. When the time comes, and I know it will, will I be able to step up and out? Or, will I just roll over, pull a big pillow against my chest, and go back to sleep?
Basically what I'm asking myself is am I full of hot, airy thoughts or do I have some type of substance at my core? What am I really made of? I have great dreams but no discipline. I am soft mentally and phsycially. I am full of excuses and procrastination. The desires of my heart are young and full of energy but my body and soul are tired already. While thoughts of a future in Iraq or Chechnya dance in my head, in reality I need to buckle down and deal with the tasks at hand: nursing school, strengthening my body and spirit, raising my boys and loving my husband.
But...before I read enlightening things, before I meditate, before I pray, before I walk a few miles on the treadmill, before I hit the weights -- I'm going to go in the break room and take a nap.
Posted by swift at 4:43 AM | Comments (2)
June 16, 2004
My Top Ten Reasons Not To Commit Suicide
So, here are Swift's top ten reasons why she has never offed herself (though elaborate plans have sometimes been made):
1. Don't think it would improve my life or anyone else's. Especially the people that would really, really, really, really miss me if I OD'd. There aren't many, but I know they are out there somewhere.
2. I've just got to see what happens next because the last 45 years have been absolutely hysterical (or was I just hysterical?? I can't remember.).
3. A life well lived is the best revenge -- and baby there are some people I want to revenge myself on.
4. Sheer, unadulturated, unabashed, onery, mule-headed, bald-faced stubborness.
5. Don't want to have to admit to God that I am a chicken shit.
6. I need to see Troy at least twelve more times so I can enjoy Brad Pitt's naked body over and over again. Don't know that I would be able to enjoy that in the Great Beyond.
7. I just can't bear to throw in the towel. Pride? Arrogance? That stubborn thing again?? I just don't know. All I know is that I refuse (REFUSE DAMMIT!!!) to let anyone or anything permanently get the best of me.
8. Karma, karma, and karma.
9. I haven't learned how to speak Spanish yet. I must do this before I die.
10. The spouse would get to remarry a wonderful, remarkable, gorgeous, wealthy, sexy, talented, BUFF woman. Now how fun would that be for me??
Posted by swift at 5:33 AM | Comments (1)
June 14, 2004
Stepping Off Another Cliff
Gave the credit card over to the husband this week. (sigh) Hard to admit that, despite my best intentions, I'm not able to sort out what I should and shouldn't buy. Granted, I wasn't out there buying grand pianos and haute-coutre clothing. I was nickle and diming us to death. My skin used to crawl at the thought of shopping at Wal-Mart. Rue the day that they opened up a shiny new store 60 seconds from my house. I can walk in there for a can of soup and walk out a hundred bucks lighter. Sad part is that it's all stuff that I'm convinced that we "need".
I'm not completely cut off from my beloved credit card. I can get it back if needed, but there is now a moat between it and me. It will be interesting to see how much of a difference this will make in our finances. If it makes a big difference then egg on my face. It will be just one more link in my realization of how truly shallow and immature I am. I am the Empress and I need new clothes. When will I have a true concept of my nakedness?
Posted by swift at 5:07 AM
April 28, 2004
How I know it's time for a long vacation, #1
Subtitled: It's final's week next week and I'm working overtime!?
I know it's time for a long vacation when I start having my sandwich fantasies again. These fantasies consist of me in a bed. The most wondrous bed I can imagine; a giant bed with fluffy clean sheets and blankets that never wrinkle and never get dirty. There are dozens of pillows in every shape and size, in every firmness, that will fit every nook and divot my body might have, from my head to my little toe.
In my wonderful bed I lay in between two wonderful gorgeous, sexy, amazing, intelligent, sensitive, romantic, compassionate, talented, healthy men that have impeccable hygiene and that appreciate a woman of experience, wisdom, substance, decreased muscle tone, and exhaustion such as myself. They are the bread and I am the filling. (NOTE: Identities of men change at my whim.)
However, in this bed there is no foreplay. There is no mad, passionate sex. There is no swinging from the ceiling. There are no randy pillow fights. There is no ménage. There is no trois. There is no moaning. There is no groaning. There is only soft...gentle...snoring. For in this bed I am sleeping, yes sleeping deeply - as if cursed (or was that blessed?). In fact, I have been sleeping for many, many hours.
Are the men sleeping deeply? Do they stir? Do they toss fitfully, somehow disturbed by my stillness? Do they waken and gaze upon my form in loving wonder? Do they wish I would awaken so they could take turns ravishing me? Do they anxiously await my rising to query my thoughts on the Three Pillars of Zen? Do they want to poke me in the ribs so I will leap lightly out of my wonderful bed and make them breakfast?? Are they out of clean underwear? Perhaps. I will never know because, in my sandwich fantasies they are not allowed to wake me, AND I do not have to wake up either. In fact, it is their job to guard me against all wakers, whomever or whatever they may be. For these men worship me sleeping in my wonderous bed of pillows and clean sheets. They honor and praise the height and depth and stillness of it all. They feel blessed just to be able to lie next to me as I snuffle and snuggle down in between them. They are content to be my buffers against all who would disturb me. For I am their Goddess of Sleep. My renewal is their joy.
Uh huh. Yeah. Whatever.
Right now I could just close my eyes and feel myself snuggled down in a perfect burrow of cotton, down, pillows and warm, clean flesh. I just want to go to sleep. I am so very, very tired. Sigh.
Posted by swift at 12:37 AM
April 3, 2004
Fruit and Cheese
Good to be here with Tiny Pineapple. Closer to Le Monde de Kate du Fromage and Dantrums and my new (yet unmet) friend Sir Grettir of the Pineapples. Here I can be me. Strange and stupid, large and wonderous, small and fuzzy brained, brilliant and cruel, and so on and so on. Thanks to Kate for steering me here. Thanks to Grettir for making space. Thanks to Dan for hating plastic storage containers.
Posted by swift at 4:38 AM
January 26, 2004
Momentary Sanity
Craziness and insanity. Did my usual post-holiday crash and burn. There is no joy in Whoville. Just stress that starts about Labor Day and gradually builds until 12/26. The family dynamics, the spending and all the other garbage. It's just a three and a half month stress response - still haven't figured out whether I should fight or fly.
Seem to have snapped out of my months of living in my own fantasy world. I don't know what precipitated the snap. I've started praying again, going to church regularly. I'm trying to stop running away from reality and deal with what is going on at the moment. It is very difficult and exhaustion. Withdrawing into that fantasy world gives my brain and psyche a rest, but it is so damn unproductive. Time seems to move 10 times as fast when I've withdrawn. I can lie down for a few minutes and those few minutes are suddenly 45 minutes. Anyway, I'm trying to once again be a responsible adult.
Was accepted to nursing school at the last minute. Great opportunity as my company is picking up the cost of tuition and books. However, I a completely freaked. What in the hell am I thinking? How am I going to make it all fit? When I finally have my RN and have doubled my current salary, I am going to take a break: weekly massage, mini-vacation weekends, reading just for the fun of it. That is, if I don't spontaneously combust before then.
Posted by swift at 8:03 PM
November 27, 2003
Humble Holiday Pie
Thanksgiving Eve into Thanksgiving Day. Long, tired night. Busy. ODs. Pneumonia. Broken this. Septic that. Modern healthcare is a wonderful thing but what in the hell are we keeping ourselves alive for? Why are we spending all this money? Why are we putting ourselves or our loved ones through all these horrible things? For what? Why are human beings the only creatures on this planet that can't fulfill the measure of their creation, their potential? What a pathetic waste most of us are - self included. Yet we struggle and fight and beg to live just a few more moments.
And a wrap your fist around a drumstick, fa la la la la.
At the end of this past July I went to visit a best friend in Phoenix. I had a chance to take an aunt to Tucson so we could have lunch with her two sisters. We chatted pleasantly on the way up and back. This aunt is in her 60s, as is her husband. Neither is in good health and their prospects for getting any better are zero. They are going to die by inches. She spent a good part of the drive talking about the land they owned in Montana and how they were going to retire and build their own cabin there (by hand of course). I'm smiling. I'm nodding. I'm thinking, "Yeah, WHATEVER! It's never going to happen." I felt so superior. So smug. So "better than."
I've thought of that drive several times over the last five months. I've continued to feel smug and better than -- until this week. Suddenly I realize that she's just being human and I'm just as human and I can just get over my damned self. The last five months I've talked off and on about moving to New Zealand, after getting my RN and working off my contract. I have all these plans in my head for getting my Masters in Public Health with a combined certificate in Health Care Administration and Cultural Anthropology. Then I would pack up the man and children and hie off to the South Pacific to purify drinking water and combat low birth weight infants. People are smiling. They're nodding. They're thinking, "Yeah, WHATEVER! It's never going to happen." I have no idea what they're feeling or thinking because they're much to kind to punch my wolf ticket. When I'm making these plans for myself I feel so full of life, so on fire! I want to take it on and burn it up.
I realize that this (what may be) pie in the sky planning give us hope when we are faced with the hopelessness or drudgery or blackness of our lives. It may happen. It may not. That cabin in Montana may get built. I may arrive in a canoe in the Seychelles with a bottle of Clorox. Who the hell can say? But, please, don't ever let me feel smug again. Don't ever let me feel better than someone else again because they're trying to have some hope in the midst of their hopelessness.
Posted by swift at 6:54 AM
November 23, 2003
Why a Blog?
Why a blog? My brain just goes and goes and goes, especially when all the meds are clicking just right. Sometimes I think things that seem profound and brilliant to my withered self. Sometimes I frighten myself. Sometimes I just want to get it down because I know I'll forget it and I want to remember it. I used to journal off and on. Haven't done that for years. There have been so many changes and they are all lost, or just locked away in my brain. I'll never get them back. Want a record for myself. Want to express myself to the air. Want to say this is me and not care if anyone listens. It's just me and the tree in the forest.
Posted by swift at 12:15 AM