A couple of debatably interesting things about me:

1. I think I can do pretty much anything.
2. I have rarely, if ever, actually done much of anything.

I'm speaking mostly on brave and adventurous type things, rather than general life accomplishments. I am that strange breed of person who sees anything, hears about anything, dreams up anything, and says, "Well shit. I could do that," with no real resume to back up said claim. I am, therefore and by definition, a blustery person. I have a tremendous wanderlust and an unused passport. (That’s not hyperbole, that’s true.)

The first time I questioned this -- myself, you might say -- was a few years ago, about three pages into Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. (He is best known, I think, for his book Into the Wild, which became such a successful film. Jon is, by definition, not blustery. Read: he actually walks the walk, and then talks about it. I just keep talking.) I have no idea why these kinds of adventure books are so interesting to me, but I eat them up. Somewhere in what I'm pretty sure was still the introduction of Into Thin Air, an account of a tragic and dangerous 1996 summiting of Mt. Everest, Mr. Krakauer started describing the shit -- literally, I'm not just being a potty mouth -- that was running through the streets of the town on the way to base camp. Meaning, pretty much before anything approaching adventure, really still hundreds of miles away from adventure, there was poop on the ground. I read that far and said, "I'm out." Nothing he wrote in the following pages -- nothing in the retelling of frostbite, of freezing to death where you stood, of falling thousands of feet -- convinced me that a vigorous mountain climb was in my future. Some people are just braver than me. I'm not happy to admit that, but seeing as I've only skydived (skydove?) once and that was just to impress a boy, I don't land in any annuls on the bravest people ever. But they are inexplicably fascinating to me.

So, having exhausted all of Krakauer's adventure tales (I'm starting to suspect he's just a braggart.)(No, not really, I’m just jealous. Please read them, they’re excellent.), I picked up David Grann's The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Grann is a writer for The New Yorker and got himself so fascinated by the subject of this book, a 1920s explorer who went and got himself disappeared, that he trekked off to the Amazon himself in search of answers. And probably bones.  That's cool.

I didn’t find myself as drawn in as I did with Krakauer’s books, but it’s still pretty damn exhilarating to think of some guy in 1925 climbing onto a boat in Hoboken (yay Hoboken!) and landing, over and over again, in Brazil, searching for the mythical (maybe) city of Z/El Dorado/heaven on Earth. It’s educational. It’s historical. It’s exceptionally well-researched. Telling the story from several different perspectives -- author Grann’s, subject Percy Fawcett’s, and a couple of other “Fawcett freaks” -- the book draws a very vivid picture of what this territory must’ve been like in the early part of the 20th century: completely daunting terrain, little to no method of communicating with the outside world, hostiles who are probably more confused than angry about why some really tall, really pale dude just showed up in their back yard. Fawcett is almost a caricature of an old-fashioned explorer, complete with safari hat and flouncy pants and a beard, except that he’s real. He’s probably the one who formed that “explorer” image into our heads, actually. Creating a wonderfully complete picture of his life, Grann introduces us to Fawcett’s marriage, his work relationships, his followers, his children, and his ancestors, all of whom have a unique take on the man. He seemed to me equal parts selfish, brave, foolish, driven, stubborn, and called to something higher. I kind of love a guy like that.

In other words, the kind of guy who hears about something and says, “Well, shit. I could do that.” And then actually does.

Or, perhaps more accurately:
A Particular Cautionary Tale of Making Decisions Like a Poor Person.

As you know, dear and loyal and supportive readers, I’ve been working a bit less in the past few months. Actually, lately I’ve been working a lot, I’ve just been getting paid a lot less. Ahh, experience.

And as you know as well, I’m nothing if not practical.

So, since I’m making a lot less money right now, I’m in turn making very wise and prudent and admirable decisions to spend less money. Alas, this means lifestyle changes. It means less socializing. Less shopping. I got rid of my Blackberry. Turn off the lights more often.  Those kinds of various and sundry things.

More tough to process, it means cutting back on the little luxuries of life. Like, for example, giving up eating out and cooking for myself. My cooking has expanded from the usual Lean Pockets and Wheat Chex to include such delicacies as thin spaghetti and... other flavors of Lean Pockets. I’m practically a domestic.

And giving up my at-least-semi-regular mani/pedis. I can paint my own nails, right? Surely. I mean, I haven’t, because I don’t care that much about having painted nails and if you’re not going to have someone else massage your hands and trim your cuticles and just generally make you feel wealthy and pampered, what the hell’s the point?

And, to bring us up to point, waxing. You can already see where this is going, can’t you. You smart readers.

Yes, I decided today that I would try to combine two words that should never be found next to each other in a sentence: Self. Wax.
I bought the box. There were lots to choose from -- a surprising number, really -- and I opted for the cheapest (you’re welcome, financial advisor) that also boasted about being the least messy. I’m contacting their marketing department as soon as I’m done with this blog.
I came home, stripped down (yeah, I have my eyebrows under control... that wasn’t the area of primary concern...) and happily, nakedly, meandered over to the microwave mumbling to myself, in my best Miyagi (which, it turns out, is not very good), “ahhh.... wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off.”

I was half right.

I got exactly one and a half strips into the process before realizing I’d made a horrible, horrible decision. Some things are just meant to be done outside the home. There’s a reason people, even (sorry, sorry) uneducated foreigners with little to no command of the English language, are paid handsomely to take care of certain things.

Let me just walk you through this, so I can drill home the importance of knowing that you are never, NEVER too poor to have someone else tend to your lady bits.

STRIP ONE.
Following the directions (to a T, I might add), I spread the thoroughly heated vat of wax onto the cheap wooden tongue depressor, dripped it (odd, since it clearly and specifically says "no drip formula" right on the box for anyone to see) all the way across my sink, onto the floor and a little bit of my standing foot (foot number two being strategically propped up on the counter for maximum access; yoga is good) and managed to spread an uneven glob of it onto my thigh. Not where I was aiming, exactly, but close enough. Spreading, as instructed, in the direction of the hair growth, I was feeling pretty confident that things were going well and I was an exemplary member of the lower middle class. Then I put the tongue depressor down and grabbed for the sheet of really thick paper used for ripping. Or, that’s what I was intending to do. Unfortunately, the wooden stick was stuck to my fingers. Well shit.  But there’s no time to panic now -- just violently shake the damn thing off before the wax cools. Pull skin taut (easy, because my fingers are now stuck to my skin) and rip quickly in opposite direction of hair growth. Hmm. Rip, yes. Quickly, no. It was more of a slow, hesitant tug. Which managed to yield about four hairs. Not good odds, my friends, not good odds.

STRIP TWO.
Hard to imagine that after the Strip One story, there would be a Strip Two. I’m nothing if not persistent. So on went the next round of wax. On, again, to the counter, the towel next to me, and somehow or another, my stomach. Weird. Anyway. Just as I started to apply Strip Two to a delicate piece of property, I noticed a large, swollen, purplish blob where Strip One had just been. Hmm. Well that’s not pretty. You can’t even tell that there’s no hair there, because it looks like a boil. And I’m not going to do it again, even closer to Ground Zero. Buuuutttt.... there’s already wax there. My fingers are more or less useless because, apparently, I’ve washed them in the wax. I don’t remember doing that, but they are so covered that it seems to be the only possible explanation.  I end up having to use the other, non-waxy end of the tongue depressor to scrape off the wax. I was as thorough as possible, and yet here I am, hours later, still sticky. Everywhere. Everywhere.

Seriously, you guys.

That’s a long story, I know. Thank you for sticking with me (shit) and I hope that you can take away the very valuable lesson that I’m trying to pass along.  I'm nothing if not helpful.

Cook your own food. Paint your own nails. Leave some things to the experts, and tip them well. They’re earning it down there.

All I can hear is the rain draining down the side of the building, with one spot of what must be particularly enormous drops because it’s making the most obscene glopping sound as it hits the concrete deck. All of this is behind me -- I’m on the couch with my back to the wall, because that’s the way the couch faces. It’s a horribly insulated wall; I can just practically feel a slight breeze on my bare arms because there are so many cracks and poorly seamed crevices. The window air conditioner unit behind me, just over my left shoulder, might as well be a fucking fan it’s letting so much air in. And the gaping spaces around the door, especially under it -- a fucking sewer rat could probably walk right in if it was smart enough to come in out of the rain, which lucky for me most sewer rats are not. It sounds as if I’m describing some slum tenement or something. I’m not. It’s just my apartment, and really it’s rather lovely. I mean, it’s a shithole second story walk up in Hoboken, New Jersey, right above my favorite dive bar in the world, but it’s lovely. I’m feeling a little directionless right now and I’m afraid my poor, drafty apartment is taking the brunt of the negativity. I choose to sit here, though, draft be damned, because I love the view. There is a glass-paneled door in front of me that separates the tiny sitting room from the disproportionately oversized kitchen. Just to my right is the damned ill-fitting door out to our back patio, where as I’ve explained it is currently raining. Snowing, actually, but since it’s probably thirty three degrees outside it’s that huge wet snow, loud and cold. The deck door has window panes in it as well, and so I can sit on my couch, facing into the apartment, but stare outside at the same time, because the glass reflects onto itself and it becomes a way for me to look backward, facing forward. It’s not a great view; it’s other people’s balconies cluttered with illegal gas grills and bad plastic furniture and discarded children’s toys. That’s never made sense to me, why people put their trash on their back patios. If it’s trash, and you make the effort to take it outside, why wouldn’t you walk out the front, instead of the back, where your chances of getting rid of the trash increase exponentially? Certainly no one is coming for it or taking it away if it’s on your back patio. No one will even know it’s there, except for me apparently, and I’m certainly not going to get rid of it for you. I wonder what they’re all doing in there. Raising their children, neglecting them, sleeping, eating, living their lives that are probably very different from mine and also probably very, very similar. Flitting back and forth between The Paris Review and TMZ, a lover of literature and intelligence and an equally voracious consumer of popular trash. Reading other people’s blogs and writing my own, a voyeur and an exhibitionist all at once. It’s an interesting life, isn’t it? It certainly, most certainly is. I think so, anyway.

It's 11:40 on Valentine's Day night, and I have nothing interesting to say but still feel like talking.  I haven't always been super keen on this day, but to be perfectly honest, while I might talk a big game it doesn't really bother me all that much.  Really. Sure it makes me pensive sometimes, but I'm usually pensive.  And while it just might make me a little more sarcastic, a little more caustic, a little more... snarky than usual, it would hardly be noticeable to the average eye, which sees that I'm always some varying degree of those things. 
So, my observances on today, as it's almost over.  In no particular order:

**When you're single on Valentine's Day, you get a lot more love.  I got a card from my mom and texts from my friends.  And a wink from the guy at the bar downstairs who's always outside smoking when I went down to take out the trash.  Last year my gay boyfriend and his actual gay boyfriend took me to dinner and to see Naked Boys Singing, and I can't imagine that Prince Charming himself could top it.  I still have the Justin Timberlake card they gave me and the stuffed monkey souvenir, and the pride of being one of very few people in the world who can say that sentence and have it be true.

**I tried to be bitter and single and watch Down with Love, but it turned out to be so horribly, unbearably unwatchable that I watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith instead, which is surprisingly romantic, and wondered 1) if Jen's ever watched the movie, just out of curiosity and that all-too-female tendency to self-destruct, and 2) how skinny Angelina must really be, because I have the same pair of Hunter boots that she wears in the movie, only I can barely fit them over my fat calves and she's got room for her twiggy legs AND a gun.

**At some point, on any day really but probably especially this day, you will question your lot in life.  Then, if you're smart and selfish like me, you'll wash down Target brand spanikopita with a whole bottle of surprisingly nice champagne and think, "if someone else was here I would have to share.  I am lucky."

**I am lucky.  In love, and other places.  Night now, loves.

1. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
2. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
4. The Shack by William Paul Young

Yeah, I read it.  So?  So I am a literary snob who lists F. Scott Fitzgerald as her favorite author and plans to name her daughter Harper someday.  So I read a John Grisham book.  Correction: I read another John Grisham book.  It went something like this: I finished The Shack while sitting at the Virginia Beach Airport.  I needed something quick and brain-cleansing to read, something I could be nearly entirely confident had nothing to do with small children being violently ripped away from their families.  I happen to find comfort from time to time in formulaic, completely plot-driven stories that are at least grammatically correct if not Pulitzer worthy.

In lieu of an actual review, please see every other John Grisham review ever written, about every other John Grisham book ever written, as this one does not stray in the least from any of the twenty plus law/crime dramas that precede it.  And that's just the way I wanted it.

1. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
2. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld
3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

(I promise I'm nearly caught up and will soon have other things to report on, discuss, and generally whine about than books I'm reading this year.) (Okay, I don't promise that, but I promise to try.)

I'm not particularly sure what it says about my current mental state or general ability to choose an upbeat topic to immerse myself in, but, to follow up with my previous reading of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, I chose The Shack.  Yep, a second story that aims to tell about a father tormented by the untimely and brutal death of his young daughter.

That's about where the similarities end, however.  Author William P. Young's book is unabashedly "Christian" in its approach.  I've read quite a few faith-centric books (Max Lucado is a big favorite of mine; I readily admit to taking in more than my fair share of Chicken Soup) and Mr. Young's book ranks up there with those -- both in earnestness and cheesiness.  The description on the back cover of the novel describes the author as "raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents... He suffered a great loss as a child and young adult, and now enjoys wastefulness of grace' with his family..."  Well.  There you go.  I'm actually happy I didn't catch any of that until after I'd read the book, or I'm afraid my eyes might have rolled back in my head so far that I wouldn't have been able to read at all.  Sorry about that if you've not read it.  I volunteer to smack the backs of anyone whose rolling eyes have stuck.

I poke fun at an entire genre (hey, it's my blog...) but I really don't mean to belittle.  As I said, I have oftentimes sought out Christian books when I feel like I'm far away from my faith, when I need a little pick-me-up, or when, as is pretty regularly the case, I'm just feeling a little lost.  This one, sitting on the best sellers' shelf in my beloved Hoboken Barnes & Noble, grabbed my attention for all those reasons.  All teasing aside, it didn't disappoint.

Several years after unspeakable tragedy strikes his family, our narrator finds a note in his mailbox, presumably and inexplicably from God, inviting him to return to the very shack where his young daughter was snatched and presumed murdered by a serial child killer.  The following 90% of the book takes place over the course of that weekend, and it's an interesting, if predictable, progression of tale.  But after all, don't we choose these books because of that very predictability?  You can't get annoyed when follows the exact course it never claims to wander from.  That's like going to see Legally Blond and getting annoyed that you didn't come away with a Harvard education.

The Shack, therefore, follows in a long line of religion-based books, and feels much like a prolonged fable for adults.  It's chock full of messages, lessons, and morals.  What drew me in, however, was Young's ability to tell such a familiar, predictable story in a rather refreshing way.  He manages to keep from leaning too far into the preachy, evangelical world of so many like him; he avoids the pitfalls and cliches that so many of his fellow Christian writers haven fallen prey to, thereby alienating any reader who actually cares about the quality of the text.  

I was a little confused by the forward, which explains to readers that the actual narrator is a friend of the protagonist father at the center of the story.  He gives a detailed explanation of the narrator's point of view, and then never seems to become a pertinent piece of information again.  I don't really get what it lent to the story and I certainly could have done without it -- I kept waiting for it to matter and it never did.

But after this rocky start Mr. Young falls readily and easily into his story, and it's enjoyable to follow along.  Again, it's a bit jarring to use the word "enjoy" when reading such a truly traumatic account, but much like with Ms. Sebold's version, he handles the delicate topic with such grace and respect that he allows his readers permission to smile.

The Shack ends happily, if predictably, and I wouldn't have been satisfied with any other kind of ending.

1. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
2. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld

(I told you I was backed up. Two in one day. Can you handle it?)

Book number three: the widely read and highly touted The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. I know, I know -- I'm a bit behind the times on this one. As is often the case, it took the movie coming out for me to get around to reading it. I wish desperately that I had nothing to do but read; if that was the case as soon as a book garnered any attention, and certainly by the time it was optioned, I would have my nose buried in it. But unfortunately (and contrary to popular opinion), I do have other things to do. Today, for example, I had to watch approximately ten hours of ESPNU, in honor of National Signing Day. (Ohio State fared okay. Eh. I'm so sick of Florida, and I loathe Lane Kiffin.) Mainly the reason I hate not reading a book before the film is announced is that then I have the actors in my head, rather than letting my imagination create and define the characters, as written. (If I'd had to read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts in my head, for example, I would not have been happy.) (Although in this particular case Mark Wahlberg was just too bizarre a casting choice for me to envision as this girl's father, and I love me some Mark Wahlberg.)

I won't beat a dead horse with this one - chances are if you've not read The Lovely Bones at this point you're either not going to or illiterate. Or, you're just even more backlogged than me. It's a beautiful story, which is always a strange thing to say about an ugly story. Young Susie is murdered (I don't think I'm giving anything away at this point), rather brutally, and the tale is told from her perspective, both earthbound and otherworldly, as she watches over her mourning, broken family and her tormented, mentally disturbed killer. The most predominant storyline is that of young Susie's relationship with her loving and distraught father, and his unwillingness to let go and leave his daughter's death unsolved. It is touching; it is difficult; it is oftentimes funny and almost ordinary. Sebold's Susie is such a normal, giddy young woman. Even in heaven she experiences things true to a girl coming of age. Sebold never wavers from her narrator's voice; it is steady and so very readable. My only criticism, if you can even call it that, is the seemingly abrupt ending. The entire novel has a feeling of being spread out -- not dragging, just slowly paced -- even as years worth of activities and emotions are laid out for us. So the actual conclusion, which happens really in just a few pages, is a bit jarring in its lack of detail. It's almost an afterthought.

I don't know a tremendous amount about Alice Sebold, but I'm aware that she was a rape victim and has woven that theme into much of her writing. (Her memoir, Lucky, tells her personal story. I would like to read it; that's perhaps the best review I can give an author -- wanting to read more of what he or she has written. Especially when it's about rape, which is not a topic I generally want much to do with.) I compliment her ability to bring realism and authenticity to her story, without delving into such a dark place that her readers are unable or unwilling to follow her.

1. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Okay, it's February third and I'm already all off track.  This is why I don't ever write series of things, because I'm too damn disjointed and lazy to maintain any kind of thread.  But I've been doing the reading, and I committed to logging every book I read, and I'm determined not to slack off only thirty two days into the year.  Dammit.

Book review number two is The Man of My Dreams(no comments from the peanut gallery, please - whatever snide comment you're thinking of, I've already thought it too) by Curtis Sittenfeld, a young author I have a total girl-on-girl-writer crush on.  This was actually her second of three books, but I've read both of her others already.  Her first was Prep, and immediately garnered her a lot of attention from the literati.  Most recently she published American Wife, a sort-of made up biography of Laura Bush.  Hard to imagine that could be riveting reading, but it so is. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I think a great deal of my obsession over Ms. Sittenfeld (yes, her name is Curtis, and yes, she's a she) comes from completely coveting her career.  She's a graduate of theIowa Writers' Workshop, sort of the holy land for creative writers.  Businessfolk have Harvard, lawyers have Yale, musicians have Juilliard, and writers have Iowa.  I personally don't think that's really fair, no offense to Iowa, but whatever.  She is spoken of in almost deferential tones from the likes of The New York Times Book Review and fellow authors like Alice Munro.  She's from southern Ohio, she's about my age, and she writes exceptionally, exquisitely well.  That would be Stone 2, Sittenfeld 3, for anyone keeping score up to this point.

But more specifically, I'm a little obsessed with the fact that CS always seems to be writing to/about me.  Yes, that can be said about a lot of authors.  In fact, you could argue that if it can't be said about you, you're probably not a very good author in the first place.  After all, what audience cares about people they can't relate to?  We see bits and pieces of ourselves in even the most out there, outrageous characters.  The interesting thing about Sittenfeld's characters -- Hannah, for example, our subject in MoMD -- is that they are so very different from me, and yet so very in tune with me.  Hannah, much like Prep's Lee, is a bit... out of sorts, let's say.  Her story begins at age 14.  Her parents are divorcing.  She's got big boobs.  By the time she's a twenty year old college junior, she's a near loner, with crushes but no real connections.  We get no real perspective from any other characters on how she is perceived by her peers. We watch her relationship with her sister twist and turn, her relationships with men, her parents, and her coworkers do the same. And that's about as dramatic as it gets. So how on earth does Sittenfeld manage to completely enthrall me?

All of the author's protagonists are blissfully, boringly normal.  Just like the rest of us, really.  And that is the magic of this book, like the others -- there is something so very comforting and reassuring in reading that the small, sometimes really wonderful, often really painful moments that make up our lives are important enough to work their way into print.  She writes so subtly that her characters' neuroses drift along on the pages almost invisibly, even as you read page after descriptive page.  And that is her gift: universal appeal.  She sneaks up on you.  Her books are character- rather than plot-driven, and her readers are afforded the chance to catch a glimpse of their own lives -- their own ordinaryness -- because there is tremendous ease in not being alone in either your craziness or your plainness.  I'm not the kind of girl people write about.  You're probably not either.  I'm not eccentric.  Or beautiful.  I'm not (all the way) crazy, or gifted, or evil or bilingual.  I live my pretty boring life; and I am simply, happily, a Curtis Sittenfeld novel waiting to happen.

Read her for her beautiful, almost melancholy use of language.  Read her for her ability to describe something in poignant (a word chronically overused in her reviews) detail without ever indulging in flowery excessiveness.  Read her and tell me what you think, because someday I really hope to be her, so I really hope you like her too.

It doesn't take very long to forget.  To move on.  To get wrapped up in what Tiger is doing, or Leno, or our kids or our friends or our exes, and blessedly fall back into the habits that make up our day-to-day lives.
I remember, just a few short weeks after watching the 9/11 attacks from a block away and then seeing those two symbolic, people-filled buildings succumb to the evil that had ripped into them, realizing that life goes on.  It was important, that realization.  A relief I suppose, but somehow sort of unbelievable. People were going back to work, back to school, back to the malls, even as those of us in lower Manhattan were still cocooned, still inundated by the smell, the taste, the very aura of fear and death.  And then, before too long, even we were back to work.  Back to the business of living.  That's good. That's healthy.  That's life.
From an emotional standpoint, September 11th, 2001 will always be the worst thing I will ever experience.  But to know that just a couple hundred miles away from where my beautiful best friend lives is devastation on a scale that makes Ground Zero look paltry is almost too big for me to take in.  It's not the same for me.  But it's the same for them.  They're not watching Madonna sing, or hearing Halle Berry ask for help on their behalf.  And tonight, because I'm lucky enough to have this outlet where a tiny little group of people actually tune in from time to time to hear what I have to say, I'm making my own plea for their help.
Give what you can. 
I'm guessing your cell phone is probably somewhere within ten feet or so of you, no?  Have you taken the mere seconds to text a message that will help?
We live in a country where one of our biggest problems is obesity.
We have an entire network devoted to food.
I have no shortage of complaints, y'all know that.  I don't work very much, so I'm always broke.  But I'm lucky enough to have a loving, supportive family who think it's mostly fantastic that I write instead of having a real job.  I get my heart broken on a weirdly regular basis.  I just decided to not eat anything for eight days, because I was tired of not having cheekbones and because I could squeeze a happy face into my stomach if I was sitting at the right angle.  These are real problems.  But sometimes a little perspective comes into our lives.  It's a humbling perspective.  A demanding one.
I have ten dollars.  I gave.
If you have ten dollars, give.
If you have a job, give.
If you have somewhere to go should you lose your job, give.
If you have a child, give.
If you are someone's child, give.
If you took a shower today, give.
If you ran to the grocery store this week, give.
If you'll take a vacation this year, give.
If you'll rest your head on a pillow tonight, give.
If you are healthy, give.
If you are home, give.
I don't want to sound bossy. I don't mean to be preachy. But please, please my sweet readers, my generous friends, give what you can.
Spread the word.  Spread the love.

Visit HopeForHaitiNow.org.
Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5, and visit Wyclef's Yele Haiti site for updates and more ways to help.
Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, directly on your cell phone bill.
Help Habitat for Humanity rebuild Haiti's shelters and homes.
Support the children of Haiti by donating any amount to UNICEF.
Download songs from the Hope for Haiti Now event at iTunes.com/Haiti.
Or simply go to Google, search for a cause that means something special to you, and contribute in the way that is most meaningful to you.

Yanick, wherever you are, I'm praying for you and your family. 

My first book of 2010 is a "creative non-fiction" piece written by first-time author Nancy Horan.  In essence, she learns all the facts she can about the lives, times, and surroundings of her main characters -- in this case, famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney -- and then fills in the holes with color and imagination and good guessing.
Given to me as a Christmas gift, Loving Frank is probably not something that I would have pulled off the shelf myself.  I'm familiar with Mr. Wright of course, but not overly enraptured with the principles of architecture or the idea of trying to decide, as I read, what is real and what is make-believe.
It was a lovely, unexpectedly enjoyable surprise.  (Thank you, Cindy, and by extension Barb Vogel, for the recommendation and the gift.)
Loving Frank tells the story of a young (by today's standards, although decidedly middle-aged in her time) and married mother, Mrs. Cheney, and how her decision, if you want to call it that, to share her life with also-married father Frank Wright impacted a multitude of lives.
It took a few pages, a few chapters perhaps, before I fell into the slow rhythm of author Horan's narrative.  But it was impossible not to get drawn into the exceptional woman she brings to her readers.  Mamah, by all accounts, defied every expectation of her.  And not in a good way, many would probably say.  She married rather late (after 30), was highly educated (a Master's degree and mastery of several languages) and a suffragist, and ultimately left her home, her husband, and her children to follow her heart to Europe after beginning an affair with the not-yet legendary neighbor and designer of her family's home.  I found myself, more and more, wanting to have a drink with her.
We meet Mr. Wright as Mrs. Cheney does, in early 1903, already itching to be a bigger presence in the world than life in Oak Park, Illinois will allow.  Both unhappy with their marriages and enthralled by what they see in one another, the affair flourishes quickly and deeply.
The decisions they make from that point forward have a rippling effect on everyone in their lives, not only their heartbroken spouses and nine (yep, nine) children but their extended families, the scandalized neighbors, and the co-workers eager to be a part of the emerging fame but hesitant to get drawn in to the surrounding hailstorm. Yet their conviction to one another, to their principles and beliefs, and perhaps most importantly to themselves, drives them forward and binds them all the more tightly together.
He can't have been an easy person to love.  She can't have been as pious and pleasing as she is romanticized by her biographer.  But they are charming and passionate, accessible and relatable, and unmistakably in love.  And that makes it easy for readers to feel empathy for them, to feel ourselves in their place perhaps.
And it makes the conclusion of the story all that much more jarring when it hits, in the final pages of Horan's novel.  I knew nothing of the history.  If you're unaware and planning to read the book, I recommend not doing any research first, if only to get the full impact of the reading experience.  It's wrenching and totally unexpected, the kind of unexpected that makes you re-read paragraphs because the facts are upon you before you can really process them.  (I had to get up out of bed and Google the situation tomake sure Ms. Horan wasn't faking me out for shock factor.  She, horribly, was not.) 
I genuinely recommend exploring this relatively undocumented piece of American history. 
(If you're like me and like to be able to picture what the author is describing (when it's real, of course), visit here for a photographic tour of Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Frank built for Mamah.) (And if you're not like me and you just have to know the full story before, well, before you read the story, here's some info on Mamah. Don't do it, I'm telling you. Wait for it.)