true quote of the day...(kinda)

"He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke."
— Cormac McCarthy (The Road)

I don't know how to express the toll this book is taking on my emotions. It is utter hopelessness and despair, yet the purest picture of love possible. It's a brilliant, brilliant novel. And my spirit is ragged from it.

I feel like the more you read, the more it affects you, the more you feel the words inside you and you take them as part of you. I think that's a good thing, though I'm not always sure. It's why I try to read detached, analytically. And yet, sometimes it's impossible. That's okay too.

Now, on to read something with more joy, with more hope and sunshine. Literally, more sunshine. Any sunshine would do. Any color. Sherlock, perhaps. Or the Murray twins. Or even Laura Ingalls Wilder herself.

I'll come back to you, Man and Boy, later. When I can handle it again.

SG(B)A May 7, 2011 - Newark

Newark didn't seem so bad from the four hours I spent in terminal A. All I really knew about New Jersey was Jersey Shore and the jokes made about the state on any show set in New York. Not exactly a well-rounded perspective. Sure, the airport was a little dingy and the employees were brusque and you could see New York City over yonder, like a gleaming, cramped beacon of wonder and excitement, but hey, Newark seemed okay.

There was something about leaving Newark. I mean, Portland to Newark was fine. It was still domestic, within the continental United States. I could pretend like I was going home to Canada - just a really crappy layover situation where I went five hours in the wrong direction. I am extremely good at lying to myself and not dealing with things until I absolutely have to. So, for four hours, I wandered around terminal A, making laps down each of the hallways over and over and over again. Until it was time to get on the plane.

Somehow it seemed easier to stop this whole crazy trip from Newark because people still spoke American there. I could just give it up right there. In fact, for a brief moment, I thought - hey! I could just spend two weeks here, not go to Great Britain, and then fly back home. And nobody would know! Except for my friends waiting for me in Great Britain, and the lovely employees of terminal A, and everyone else when all of my photos are of vending machines and runways.

I had set a goal for myself before leaving Portland: not to cry in a foreign country alone. I could cry domestically (Canada counted as domestic). I could cry abroad if I was with a friend. And I could cry by myself abroad if the situation warranted it (i.e. mugging, missed late-night bus, extreme injury), but only for an amount of time that was to be determined during the situation.

I was still within my parameters when I almost burst out crying on the airplane, still sitting at the Newark tarmac. The situation related to my seat. I needed an aisle seat. I had specifically picked out an aisle seat. An aisle seat for an overnight flight would make me feel secure. And when I got to my aisle seat, I found a man sitting in it, next to a woman and a small child. My heart dropped. He grinned sheepishly at me, "Is this your seat? Soooo, here's the situation..." Of course, he was the father, separated from his wife and child. Would I switch seats with him? His eyes, her eyes, the baby's eyes all pleaded with me.

Like I was going to be the beeyotch that said no? And like I was crazy enough to want to sit next to a one-year old on a cross-Atlantic flight? So of course, I said, sure. And of course, his seat was next to the window. I pushed past the young Indian couple sitting in seats 6B and 6C, and the woman - who was in the middle - said sympathetically to me, "Sitting next to the window is no fun." Thank you, kind woman, for pushing me over the edge. Tears started seeping out of the corner of my eyes.

But this was a new day. A new experience. A new me. And whereas I would have been sheepish and shy previously, just suffering silently, I couldn't do that anymore. If no one else was there to stick up for me and to suggest completely obvious common sense solutions that I could not think of because I was too busy being devastated about the loss of my perfect seat, then I'd have to switch off the emotion, dig down deep for that tiny shred of common sense I owned, and be brave.

So, I asked the flight attendant if there were any aisle seats available on the packed flight. Sure, it sounds like the most obvious thing to do now, but it took guts for little quiet, makin'-no-waves Sara to use her voice. She said she'd look around.

Lo and behold, there was one open aisle seat. It was only three rows back from the front of the cheap seats. It was next to the only open seat in the entire cabin. And - AND - it was next to a crazy old man who was convinced there was a draft (I think he was right - or his craziness spread), and so he wore a blanket over his head like a veil for part of the flight. This was the best of all possible airplane-worlds.

And so, this is the story of how I left Newark with only a few small tears shed, already being brave and not turning back. If I had turned back, if I had let myself cry, if I had stayed quiet, I would have missed out. And not just on that crazy guy. Let me tell you - he was worth the bravery. So was everything else.

5/7/11 (Day 1) - Newark, New Jersey, United States of America

Sara's Great (Britain) Adventure - SG(B)A

All right. I am finally starting my record of my trip. Now, the purpose of these posts (there will be 14 or 15 in all) is not to give you a chronicle of every thing I did on my trip. That is BORING reading. My mom barely wants to read that (Hi, Mom!). No, instead I'll give you a snapshot of a moment or an event or an experience. Some of the days it'll be challenging to pick out one that is significant; most other days it'll be torture to pick just one. Maybe I'll cheat... NO. Can't start out already planning to cheat.

Anyway, I hope it'll be fun and interesting. For one of us, it will be. Be sure to leave your comments/questions/love on the posts, and I'll follow them up with some love of my own. Or hatred, as the case may be.

Update: Plans

Well, folks, I'm back but I'm just as lazy as ever, apparently. Granted, life has not slowed down much since my trip, though I find it extremely hard to believe that I have been back for 5 weeks now. It goes by quickly.

I also haven't written at all about my lovely experience, so new plan: I will be writing a short post about every day on my trip. Hopefully they will be interesting, and perhaps morph into something more. Maybe I will actually take the leap and work on getting some things published.

I have a few other blog posts that have been mulling around in my brain. I'm terrible at getting them onto paper (text? computer screens?), but today is a new day! It's always a new day. I always have new things to work on.

Speaking of publishing, I have an academic project that will be taking up quite a bit of my time over the next two months. Also, I have some studying to do for the GRE (blegh!), and a roommate to get wed! Add to all of that my desire to keep my 4-a-month reading goal, and somehow find the time to go running, and I find little time to do much else. But writing needs to be there - for my own sanity!

Keep checking out my Diary - I've been keeping on top of it since returning from my trip.

Happy nearly July! I'll post again tomorrow - this time I won't break my promise. I promise.

What I'm Reading - Austen (again), Shakespeare, Fey

May, the month I failed. Or, to look at it a different way, the month during which I was too busy to read.

I do this every time I go on a trip. I bring about 5 different books, thinking that I'm going to have SO much time and ALL I'm going to do is read and I NEED all of these different options. That's what happened on my Great (Britain) Adventure - I thought, buses! Buses are boring! I'm going to read on the bus EVERY day and completely run out of reading material. Due to weight restraints, I had to limit myself to three books, and I was actually stressed about running out of things to read.

Um, I didn't read on the bus. I talked to my friend, I journaled every day, and I looked out the window. I never read.

And so, I only read three books in May instead of the four that my resolution called for. BUT here's how I justify it:
1) I read 6 books in April, so one of those can count for May.
2) The majority - about 300 pages - of one of May's books was read in a day, which I find impressive. (Yes, I find myself impressive at time. Someone's got to.)
3) Another new year's resolution is to give myself a break and not be so hard on myself. This should be easy, but I'm really bad at it. So, IT DOESN'T MATTER. I'm still a great person who read some great books last month. AND NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

Here are those great books:

Much Ado About Nothing : This is the one book that I read on my trip. I bought it in Edinburgh at this discount shop called The Works where all books are 1.99 pounds - which of course made me desperate to buy every book I saw. I restrained. I bought Much Ado, because I was going to see it in London, and I wanted to laugh at all of the right jokes like a cultured individual (turns out, it didn't matter - no one else got the jokes, and so I didn't laugh because I felt dumb. How does that work?).

Anyway, the whole introduction is a defense of the play as a work of art, which I didn't realize was so hotly contested. When I read the play again, it make sense - there are some gaping holes in the plot, and it's not very - shall we say - friendly to the female characters. Basically, Claudio is a dolt. I hate him. And Hero is poorly treated, and the priest gives terrible advice. But it all ends happily this time, and the sparring couple at the center of the story ends up together, as do the dolt and his stupid bride. It's a fun play, if you focus on Benedick and Beatrice (best names ever). Sure, they're deceived into falling in love, but does it really matter? They let their guards down and it works out.

Bossypants : This book sold a lot of copies. I want to write a book that sells a lot of copies. But people bought it because every woman feels like she is Liz Lemon, and every man likes a funny girl... if any men read it; it's kind of about being a girl.

Anyway, it's by Tina Fey, of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock fame. She writes just like she speaks, especially as Liz on 30 Rock, which makes sense because she writes... nevermind, it just got confusing. Nonetheless, the book is written in her tone, with her pauses, and her cultural humor. Or at least what I assume to be all three - I don't know her personally. I am currently listening to the audiobook, which is narrated by her, and let me tell you - it is worth it just to hear her Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan impressions. Trust me.

She has a lot of good things to say about her life and how it's really stressful. She's self-deprecating but honest about what it's like to be a woman in a man's world. Her musings on her childhood are classic, and so much like my life that it's funny. Her 23-year-old virgin self is pretty similar to another 23-year-old virgin I know...extremely well. It's a fun read, though, if you're offended by a smattering of f-bombs, you probably don't know who Tina Fey is and also do not read this book.

Mansfield Park : Jane Austen once again. I don't know why I'm on such an Austen kick. It just feels right. Anyway, another lesser-known Austen. It's a larger tome, and slow as all get-out. That's not to say I didn't like it - I just didn't like it as much as say, Northanger Abbey or the classics.

I feel like a lot of it has to do with the protagonist, Fanny Price. She's weak, subservient, anxious to please, fearful - the polar opposite of self-assured and proud Elizabeth Bennett. Fanny made me angry, because I wanted her to be stronger. I know I reacted so strongly because of two things: 1) I am viewing this novel with 21st century eyes, in which women are allowed to be strong, and 2) I saw too much of myself in her for comfort.

It impresses me that Austen could write a character like Fanny and one like Elizabeth. And while the conclusion made me a bit uncomfortable (those 21st century eyes again), it was a good read. But let's be honest, it's mostly one I'm going to brag about.


There you have it. Slow to post, but I read these books. I'm behind for June again too - yikes. This whole resolution thing is wayyy harder than I thought. Maybe I can fudge the numbers again...