Carleen and Mike

I finally finished reading the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath last weekend. I had to take a break so I could finish the Da Vinci Code, which was fascinating for its content but rather anticlimactic (sp?). Anyway, The Bell Jar was wonderful, however deeply disturbing. I read the whole thing without knowing exactly what a bell jar was which was stupid because things would have made a hell of a lot more sense if I did know. For those of you who don’t know a bell jar is “a cylindrical glass vessel with a rounded top and an open base, used to protect and display fragile objects or to establish a vacuum or a controlled atmosphere in scientific experiments.” Specifically, the book mentions fetus in bell jars when the main character, Esther, visits a hospital with her med-school student boyfriend. I think the title is supposed to be a metaphor, feelings of confinement and suffocation that Esther felt from having to endure all the societal pressures and conventional expectations (marriage, kids vs. career, becoming a poet) of her time. It was a great book! Her poetry is wonderful too. I’ve included one at the end of this entry. There’s supposed to be a movie out based on her life, staring Gwyneth Paltrow. Apparently, Plath’s daughter is very upset that they’ve made the movie and feels like they are trying to glamorize her suicide (which was highly unusual, she stuck her head in an oven and gased herself to death). I’ll watch it for Paltrow’s acting. Speaking of which I just heard that Paltrow and her Cold Play boyfriend just got hitched and are expecting a baby in the summer. Yay for them!

Mad Girl’s Love Song

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

~Sylvia Plath

We had some snow fall last night, our first for the season. Mike and I decided to go to Lowes this morning to buy our Christmas tree. It was crisp and cool and the snow crunched under our shoes, making it such a wonderful Christmasy event. The workman who attended us was very helpful, however, he had this huge frozen booger hanging off his nose. I don’t mean to sound gross or offensive but it just made talking to him extremely difficult. I thought about politely telling him but I was torn between doing what was right and having to watch him wipe it off. I had this horrible vision that it was going to pull something even larger and more gross out of his nose (you know the kind of boogers I’m talking about. We all get them). What an awkward situation.
Anyway, for those of you who are wondering, I did get to meet Mike’s little admirer at the cash register. She was very cute and he has my approval. At least he has good taste (obviously, he married me didn’t he?).
I’m definitely feeling the stress of the season. I still have gifts to buy and there’s till much to be done at the house. My brother arrives on Monday. I’m hoping to have everything done by then so I can spend as much time with my family during the holiday. Thankfully, I’ve been given Christmas Eve off which is the big day for my side of the family to celebrate. I realize now how much nicer it was celebrating Christmas as a child. I will always love Christmas but I actually have to think about being excited about it rather than it just happening the way it did when I was little. All of a sudden it was Christmas and everything was wonderful. Mike helps keep me in check. He’s a Peter Pan in many ways. He made Christmas cookies this morning and was all giddy through the whole process. He’s such a monkey.

For a long time I’ve felt the need to be creative. I’ve never felt such a tremendous desire for something like this and I’ve noticed that Mike has been feeling in a similar way recently. I checked out some books on candlemaking a few weeks ago and as soon as things settle after the Christmas Holidays, were hoping to begin making this a joint hobby. We even started to fantasize about starting our own business after we move to New York, renting a small cabin somewhere where we can sell our candles.

I also recently discovered (actually, re-discovered because an intern at my college used to do this) something called altered books, where you take an altered book and change it by collaging, stamping, painting, cutting, writing. You basically use the book like a canvas. Sites below show some examples.

Art-e-zine
Jennys art space

Mike gave me a card yesterday that was so sweet. I feel compelled to share it:

A Promise of Love

With my lips,
I will kiss away
the teardrops that never should have been.

With my ears,
I will hear the things
you can’t always say
and listen when you don’t have the words.

With my eyes,
I will see the parts of you
that no one else has ever seen before
and tell you how beautiful you are
so that you can see it, too

With my arms,
I will hold you close to me
and make up for all the times
you should have been held.

With my heart
and my soul,
I promise I will love you
just as you were meant to be loved.

In order to save money to help pay back their debt of 7.5 million dollars, the board of Clark Atlanta University has decided to close their School of Library and Information Studies. This happens to be the only library program in the state of Georgia. Ironically and rather infuriating, despite their monstrous deficit, the university board finds it necessary to maintain their 2.4 million dollar athletic budget.

On a more positive note, the Tulsa City-County Library has been named the first-ever Federal Depository Library of the Year by the U.S. Government Printing Office’s Federal Depository Library Program.
“It has been cited for its forward-thinking, superior customer service and Internet savvy, as well as providing excellent public access to government information.”

Yaaay for Tulsa!