30 Days of Truth: Something You Hope You Will Never Have to Do

I found this meme here and here.

Six: Something You Hope You Never Have to Do

I hope I never have to out live my welcome here on this great Earth.

As I get older and things begin to not function properly, I don't want to be one of those people holding on for dear life who has signed something that has said that you can never pull the plug. I don't want to being lying in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones who, I know, have better things to do than to watch me die. I don't want to watch me die. I was reading an article (I think it was in Time magazine) about the fact that people are living longer than they used to because they just won't let go of living. They want to spend their life-savings on tubes and machines that prolong their lives; they don't really care about the quality of living just that they are there...breathing.

I don't want to be that kind of person. I want to age graceful (I think I'm doing an OK job of that) and I want to die gracefully and not afraid of what is beyond.

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 29

Last year I found this book challenge (since then I have seen many variations of it, but I like this one best!), and have been intrigued about how I would answer the questions posed. Feel free to comment with your own answer or post the challenge to your own blog.

I assume you know the following is chock full of spoilers...

Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)

Saddest character death
I have never been more surprised than when Emma Morley dies in One Day. Frankly, I was a little surprised at myself for crying at the end of the book when I read Love Story; I mean I already knew what was going to happen and, yet, there I was bawling and really getting into it. Frankly, Love Story is the only book that I've purposely read knowing someone I fall in love with is going to die. I truly avoid those kinds of books like the plague. I'll leave that kind of escapism to those who like their romances tragic.

Best/most satisfying character death
There aren't any books where I'm glad that characters die...that's kind of morbid really. I mean here's an example...Voldemort finally dies in this epic battle with Harry. All the same old rot that we see in all books of this genre...you know good vs. evil and light vs. dark and the hero must go it alone et cetera comes in to play. And, all I can think about at the end, after his death, is about all the characters that had to die to make his death possible and about how it's not really triumphant at all, is it? I mean not really...if we start from Harry's parents and end with the death of the Weasley twin (a death I am still pissed off about, actually, so much so that I don't know if I can ever watch the movies), Voldemort's death does not in any way feel satisfying at all; actually it feels very weak in comparison to all the other feelings I was having up to that point.

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

Day 02 – A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about
Day 03 – The best book you've read in the last 12 months
Day 04 – Your favorite book or series ever
Day 05 – A book or series you hate
Day 06 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise
Day 08 – A book everyone should read at least once
Day 09 – Best scene ever
Day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11– A book that disappointed you
Day 12 – A book or series of books you’ve read more than five times
Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)
Day 14 – Favorite character in a book
Day 15 – Your “comfort” book
Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry
Day 17 – Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)
Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book 
Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)
Day 20 – Favorite kiss
Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 22 – Favorite non-sexual relationship (including asexual romantic relationships)
Day 23 – Most annoying character ever 
Day 24 – Best Quote from a Novel 
Day 25 – Any five books from your "to be read" stack 
Day 26 – OMG WTF? OR most irritating/awful/annoying book ending
Day 27 – If a book contains ______, you will always read it (and a book or books that contain it)!
Day 28 – First favorite book or series obsession
Day 29 – Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)
Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

Whitney

It's really hard to write about someone you didn't know at all, but whose death has affected you. I feel that way about Whitney Houston (heck, I feel that way about Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson and Jonathan Brandis, but I didn't have a blog during those times, so I was left to my own resources of catharsis).

Whitney Houston was the first woman that my sister's and I emulated. "I Wanna Dance (With Somebody)" was the first 45rpm record that I bought with my own money (she won out against Debbie Gibson's "Out of the Blue"). We would sing all of the songs from Whitney, belting out "The Greatest Love of All", really off-key while jumping, not to hard because we didn't want the record to skip, on the bed, using hairbrushes as microphones, taking turns being the background, Solid Gold-like, dancers and the lead.

I'm sure that I am not the only woman of color who found, in Whitney Houston, a powerful role-model, in my tiny home town there seemed to be so few that I could have direct access to and I recognized in Whitney Houston strength and power.

I gotta tell you that I watched "The Bodyguard", just as much for her as Kevin Costner and, sorry Kevin, the soundtrack became a background to the last couple of years of my high school career, and it is the soundtrack that I took with me to college and it is the soundtrack that I still listen to over and over and over. 

For the record, I never saw the realty show that really made her kind of a household joke and I never saw her in concert. So, the memories I have of her are from the 80s and 90s through the lenses of my teen and pre-teen brain...I kind of like it that way.

I miss the person she was and the person she had the potential to become, as we all have room to change and grow.

I am sorry that she had whatever demons she had.

To me it doesn't matter the cause of death (of course, it's sadder when it is at their own hand or because of their own addictions), I am sorry that another one of my childhood heroes is gone. 

My heart goes out to her family and friends.

AMA's 2009

50 Books in a Year: Book #53 Twenty Boy Summer

34 years ago my brother died in a car accident, I was  a little over a year old, he was three. I don't remember much about him, save one strange memory of him standing outside the car entertaining me while my mom pumps and pays for gas. I recall the car, the sun sparkling off of the metal on the window and the smell of the summer day mingling with the smell of the gasoline. And, of course, I have the stories, of how he called me Finnie Shell for Stephanie Michelle, how he would chase me around the house, how he could make me laugh...it hurts that I only have these stories and not their memories.

2 years ago I gave birth to a tiny person, I was a little over 33 years old, she was a surprise. I remember everything about the night I found out I was pregnant, everything about the day the doctor confirmed it, showing us the ultrasound of our little girl already 5 months in the making and every moment anxiously awaiting her arrival. And, of course, I have the stories, of how she calls me Mommy and Mom and sometimes Mommy Stephanie, how she comes to school with me on Saturday Publication work days, how she makes me laugh...it hurts to realize I used to think my life was complete without her.

It's these two people, the brother I never knew and the person I didn't know who could make me, well, a better me, that I think about when I think about Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler.

From Goodreads:
"Don’t worry, Anna. I’ll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it." "Okay." "Promise me? Promise you won’t say anything?" "Don’t worry.” I laughed. “It’s our secret, right?"  

According to Anna’s best friend, Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy every day, there’s a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there’s something she hasn’t told Frankie–she’s already had her romance, and it was with Frankie’s older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago. 
TWENTY BOY SUMMER explores what it truly means to love someone, what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every beautiful moment life has to offer.

This book has so much in it and it speaks honestly about love, friendship, family and what it means to grieve the loss of a loved one.

I am more than willing to believe that when you are still grieving the loss of someone you truly love that having sex for the first time helps to heal the wound, that blocking it out and drinking and pretending to have sexual exploits makes it a little easier to be alive and that when your child dies a piece of you dies and living doesn't even seem possible. I believe that each of the characters in this book acts how people act when their hearts hurt so much they can't feel it.

I like that the parents and other grown-ups in this book are ancillary to the true narrative. I do not mind that the girls sneak out of the house to hang out with boys, go to a party by lying and making up imaginary girl friends. I believe that grieving parents who are just as lost as their still alive children, in this case the very lost Frankie, don't know how to act or how to feel, I believe they ignore and believe what they want to believe. Here's what I don't like, here's the part that makes me sad and here's the part that I hope makes me a better parent...neither of the girls talk to their parents about how they feel and I believe Anna's parents, would listen and trying to help. While I don't need to know everything that my daughter is doing or will do I hope that she knows that she can always talk to me and she can always share her most personal thoughts with me. I hope that she knows that I love her no matter what.

Everything in this book is real and honest and tender and I wouldn't change a single word of it.

My niece is reading this book right now and I know that I'm going to make sure this book finds its way into the hands of my daughter and then we can have a talk about love and friendship and when it's appropriate to have sex and I hope that while I am not her peer she sees me as someone to go to when she needs to do so.

While I write this my daughter is singing "Happy Birthday to Mommy", it isn't my birthday until next May, but it sure feels like a celebration.



5 Stars

This book has now become part of my foundation and is an extension of the very essence of me...I laughed, I cried [or some other emotion] and am sad this reading is over...gush, gush, gush...

50 Books in a Year: Book #45 Love Story

You know a book is good when you know the ending and when you get there you still cry like your favorite person in the world just died anyway.

You know a book is good when you've grown up hearing about it, you know a movie exist about it, you know the soundtrack and the characters and the ending and it can still make you cry.

That's how I feel about Love Story by Erich Segal.

I love this book.

I even went into the book trying not to love it. I mean what girl doesn't love Love Story? I didn't want to be one of those girls. I didn't expect to like the characters so much. Ollie sounds like a great guy, a little young and, because of this, irrational, but loving and earnest. Jenny sounds like the most perfect girl. I'm sure that she and I could have been friends. I love her parents and his parents and they're friends.

The words are so sparing.

And, the plot so fast-paced.

He meets her, they move in together, she is the perfect wife, she get leukemia and dies. I'm not giving anything away here, the book opens with Ollie talking about her death, and well if you didn't know she died, you've lived in a dark cave for the last 30-plus years.

Along the way, Ollie gets into a huge fight with his father, Ollie and Jennifer get into a huge fight and we learn that "Love means never having to say your sorry." Until I read this book, I thought line was the dumbest line in a book ever. I thought that love always meant having to say your sorry, that good-hearted people don't mind apologizing...hmmm...I also thought the ending of this book would not get to me. I did not think that I would be sniffling on the corner of the couch.

I still haven't seen the movie, I doubt I could like it more than the book.


"What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me."

Yeah, that's the opener, but I promise you'll want to read on.

50 Books in a Year: Book #30 One Day

Please be warned this blog post contains SPOILERS for the following books: One Day, Message in a Bottle, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Lord of the Rings, The Way We Were, A Walk to Remember, Atonement, Bridges of Madison County, The Time Travelers Wife, The English Patient

Here's what I posted on GoodReads just mere minutes after finishing this book:

This is the first book that is so beautiful that I want to quote it and keep it with me, and, yet I hate it...I mean seriously hate it! I am sorry I read it, if I hadn't bought it on the Nook I'd burn it. I don't want to read anymore books by this author just incase he tricks me again! I want to...I am crying...shame on David Nicholls...*insert cuss-words here* And, no I WILL NOT be watching the movie...seriously! Yes, I hated the ending that much, not since Atonement have I felt this emotionally cheated.

Emma Morley dies and no, I,  in know way, saw that coming. Why didn't I see that coming because this book One Day by David Nicholls (a name that will be seared in my brain so I don't slip up and buy one of this books) was not advertised as a book in the same vain as Message in a Bottle. See, the thing is I hate when books have needless death and dying. I hate books that intentionally kill off characters you love (think the Weasley twin in HP7) to make you cry, not to propel the plot along. And, in this book, after reading about 360 pages of a wonderfully tormented friendship on the verge of something more I was relating to the characters, to the places (I mean Emma has a flat in Earl's Court, really, Earl's Court) and I was relating to the hurt and desire of wanting your best friend...hmm...I was relating soooo much, that when Emma died I felt like a friend died and my breathing became erratic and my world darkened. Frankly, if I'd known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have read the book as I do not read such books. And, that's just it...I feel that Mr. Nicholls had Emma die towards the end (because yes, there's still like 30ish pages after her death...I don't know why...I suppose so you can short out your Nook crying while reading) because that was the ending no one expected. This is what I feel Nicholas Sparks, who is on my banned book list did with Message in a Bottle and what I feel Ian McEwan did in Atonement (what a shame the ending of that was!) and what I feel The Time Travelers Wife was, I mean that book doesn't even adhere to the science of time-travel or the science it creates in the story (if you can...um...er...'meet' yourself, you can also 'save' yourself...I mean he even knew what was over there in the forest...gah!). I'm not into gimmicks and I am not into tricks while reading. I don't have to guess the ending and I don't have to see it coming, but I do have to feel, at the end, that the book and its characters led to the conclusion.

I have for many years read books that use to death or separation to propel the plot. I was a little sad that Boromir died in Lord of the Rings, I was a little sad when Jaimie died in A Walk to Remember, and, I cried like someone died at the end of Bridges of Madison County (you know the part where all she has to do is get out of the truck and leave her whole life behind to be with the one she loves and she's there grabbing at the handle and you know she isn't going to do it, but you want her to, you really want her to), I don't mind that The English Patient dies, I don't mind that Hubbell and Katie never get together in The Way We Were. I understand weakness and I understand death when it is used in a proper way to drive home the major themes and symbols of a book or movie. Nicholls used Emma's death to do neither.

I read a review on GoodReads (I read many reviews looking for closure and answers) that talked about how David Nicholls wrote a book that didn't really address any audience and therefore made a certain type of audience incredibly upset. This is true, maybe he didn't understand his audience. I know I'm all for learning about relationship mistakes in a work of fiction, I just don't need characters to die to do that. I also know that there are people who love this book, just like there are people who can't get enough of Nicholas Sparks.

I have had enough of both.

2 Stars

30 Day Song Challenge: Day Twenty-four

Day Twenty-Four: A Song that you want to play at your funeral

          What a morbid thought! So, I'm not going to dwell on it very long, and I'm definitely not going to make a playlist! But, here are two songs that I'd want played at my funeral "Victory in Jesus", as I taught myself how to play this on the organ and I've loved this song my whole life and it would be sooooo true, and To Where You Are by Josh Groban...powerful song about love and dying and faith. And, just incase you were wondering, yes I did watch Josh Groban perform it on the Ally McBeal episode where Billy dies and, yes, just incase you were wondering I did cry like I'd lost my first and only love...it was that unexpected and powerful. No I am not ashamed of that fact!

Feel free to join in by commenting below (I really do love comments, on fb or here), or doing this challenge on your own blog.

The 30 Day Song Challenge

Day 01 – Your favorite song

Day 02 -- Your least favorite song

Day 03 -- A song that makes you happy

Day 04 -- A song that makes you sad

Day 06 -- A song that reminds you of someone

Day 06 -- A song that reminds you of somewhere

Day 07 -- A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 -- A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 -- A song that you can dance to

Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 – A song from your favorite band
Day 12 – A song from a band you hate
Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 – A song that no one would expect you to love

Day 15 --A song that describes you

Day 16 --A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 --A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 --A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 --A song from your favorite album
Day 20 --A song that you listen to when you're angry
Day 21 -- A song that you listen to when you're happy
Day 22 -- A song that you listen to when you're sad
Day 23 -- A song that you want to play at your wedding

Day 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral

Day 25 – A song that makes you laugh

Day 26 – A song that you can play on an instrument

Day 27 – A song that you wish you could play

Day 28 – A song that makes you feel guilty

Day 29 – A song from your childhood

Day 30 – Your favorite song at this time last year