Memphis stories

Having recently moved to New York from Memphis, I couldn't help but obsess over the Klan rally last week. I really like Andria Brown's take in Memphisotan: Not In My Wheelhouse

And- I haven't had a chance to read this yet, but I know it's going to be incredible and become one of those stories students pour over in journalism classes. From Marc Perrusquia, the last 32 hours of MLK's life. So excited to read: http://media.commercialappeal.com/mlk/index.html

Recent reads

I got online specifically to write a blog entry, and two hours later, here I am. It's so easy to get lost on the Internet.

I'm trying to compile a Christmas book wish list, and I could use suggestions. Right now I'm 9 percent of the way (kindle terms) into Gone Girl, and I have high hopes. Thrillers/Mysteries aren't the genre I usually turn to, but my mom suggested I pick this up and I'm excited to read more.

I just finished The Language of Flowers, and it hit me so hard I wasn't sure I would be able to make it all the way through. I recommend choosing this one only if you have enough time to yourself to have a serious, gut-wrenching cry while you flip through the pages. It was hard to follow the book's main character, Victoria, through a series of tragedies to a very deep, dark and seemingly hopeless place, but thankfully, author Vanessa Diffenbaugh finds a way to bring her out of the ashes and dust us all off by the end.

Let's see, I also recently read the Nora Roberts Three Sisters Island trilogy for fun, and it was fun. I kind of had  the feeling when I was reading that I had read the stories before, like, when I was ten. Who knows.

Oh, and in the spirit of variety and pursuit of literary edification  I read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck and tried to be "a filter, not a sponge." (I've got to see the Perks of Being a Wallflower on screen -- a quick re-read when I heard it was coming out reminded me how much I loooove that book). But back to Steinbeck, I thought Cannery Row was actually a really timely piece to pick up now, with the economy still in the pits and the story staged in a small, working-class community during the Great Depression. I also bought Sweet Thursday on my kindle as a follow up but couldn't get into it.

I might try again after Gone Girl.

Want to type race?

I've been smoking everyone in type racing competitions and bragging about it like a brat this week. But I'm nowhere near the leaders on the boards of the free site I was using to play. I want to meet and watch someone who can type 300 words per minute. Seriously.

My highest score so far is 96 wpm. Anyway, it's Friday and if you want to play for 10 seconds, here's the site I was using.

http://play.typeracer.com/

Let me know how you do!

Remembering 9/11

Last year, Cindy Wolff and I interviewed local firefighters who made the scene at the Pentagon on 9/11 with Tennessee Task Force One.  About a week before the ten year anniversary of Sept. 11, these heroes bravely worked with us to bring buried memories to the surface.

You can click on their pictures with this interactive feature and read our vignettes. This was a project with lasting power, and I'm happy to share it again today.

 http://www.commercialappeal.com/remembering-911/

In August 2001, members of Tennessee Task Force One completed training to work in collapsed buildings, information they planned to retain along with other skills they learned.
Then came September.
Four hours after the attacks, 62 men and two women raced home, grabbed their gear - backpacks, steel-toed boots, knee pads, elbow pads, breathing masks helmets, leather gloves - then boarded buses headed to the nation’s capital while other teams from around the U.S. flooded into New York.
When they arrived at the Pentagon less than 24 hours after the attack, the Memphis area team - doctors, nurses, firefighters - joined federal agencies and others already there. They worked 12 hour shifts, slept three or four hours, searching for human remains, shoring up walls, removing debris - fueled by purpose and anger.

Oh, the Horror!

After I watched The Descent, probably in 2006 or 2007, I stopped watching horror movies.
Until lately....
But I still get nightmares.
Here's some of what I've watched, and a rating on the nightmare scale.*

Paranormal Activity 3.
Nightmare scale:  7

Absentia.
Nightmare scale: 8

The Mist.
Nightmare scale: 5






The Woman in Black.
Nightmare scale: 8









The Devil Inside.
Nightmare scale: 7

Silent House.
Nightmare scale:1











*The Nightmare Scale
0: Slept like a babe
1-2: Woke up in the night, but probably not out of fear
3-5: Can't remember dreams, but they could have been scary
6-7: Scary dreams unrelated to film
8-9: Terrifying dreams, directly related to the movie
10: Descent status, will abandon horror films for at least five years after viewing
**Note: My nightmare scale has not been tested, proven, or backed in any way by evidence or science.

Books, Canada and Cats

I've read some tolerable, and some terrible books lately. But hey, at least I’m reading. Let's start from the top:

Finished Bossypants, and I'm sorry to report that I was just as disappointed as my friend who told me it was disappointing. I'm not sure that, after reading, I gained any more insight into whom Tina Fey actually is than I could have gotten from wikipedia. I didn't mind that she didn't want to go into the story of her scar, which is the apparent result of a crazed man who slashed her as a kid. What I minded was that she started out by telling me that she was most definitely NOT going to go there. And then she didn't really go anywhere after that.

I can respect her need to maintain some modicum of personal privacy, but the result was a bundle of thin pages. Some anecdotes, some jokes, a lot about her neuroses, and then the book just sort of fizzled, as if after a month or two of plugging old stories together, she finnaaally managed to meet her minimum word quota and walk away.

Sadly, I gleaned more enjoyment from a silly book about a woman who falls in love with Vlad the Impaler, and an even sillier (if possible) book about a woman who realizes she is a witch when a "fetching spell" rips her from her online grocery shopping into a magical community in Berkeley, Calif.

And about a month ago, I picked up an inspirational little book called "What I know Now: Letters to My Younger Self.” It’s a nice addition to the coffee table, and rather validating to hear from a selection of established writers and successful businesswomen who were counseling themselves at about my age. Even though I may not follow advice that I probably should--at least I'm not the only one who hasn’t. And these ladies, without listening to their own advice, are now just fine. Yeah, maybe that’s not supposed to be the takeaway from the book, but they're in there because they came out on top, right? I’m glad to know some of their struggles are my own.

Which brings me to Canada. This was a vacation where everything was going wrong. There were booking troubles, and then weather troubles, and I found myself walking around alone in the rain for two days. A month later, I'm glad I went, though. I could have canceled and counted my losses, but I didn't. Instead, I ate a juicy bison burger on the last day of the trip with my Dad, in a restaurant with a front row view of Niagara Falls. That's a memory I'll always have. 

And finally, because it has been a while since I’ve blogged, I will end with a picture of dear Seessel. I am switching him over to adult food because I think the kitten chow is encouraging his obesity, but he will always be a teacup in my heart.

Anchorwoman

This was the first, and I think only, broadcast package I put together in college. It's wonderfully embarrassing.