There I am, in a nutshell.
The best way for anyone to get to know me is probably by taking a look at my nightstand. Just a glimpse at it will tell a person all they really need to know about me. The stand is actually just a wooden tv tray, covered in a lovely purple throw, and topped with a doilie I crocheted.
There’s the first thing: I’m constantly trying to make my life a bit more beautiful. We find ourselves all too often surrounded by ugly old tv trays. I think it’s okay, maybe even noble, to cover those night stands in purple and give them a bit of dignity. I even cover them in handmade doilies. I actually love to make crocheted doilies. Please don’t snicker: my grandma taught me how, and crocheting keeps her close. I love the intricate stitches and patterns, the beauty of the knots. Our lives are full of knots; it’s important to appreciate their beauty. Besides, keeping my hands occupied with a crochet hook keeps me from eating pounds of Jelly Bellies while watching episodes of ‘Homeland’.
That’s the next thing: I have a weakness for Jelly Belly jelly beans. I’m not sorry. I actually think they’re really worth $7.89/lb. Try the pear ones and you’ll see: I’m totally right.
Nothing's better than a good fat magazine...
There’s a silly little doodle I made…I’m a sucker for a good pen. I could spend days in Office Depot or Hobby Lobby just playing with the pens. I love to draw, although I haven’t the skill to justify the paper I waste. It’s a frustration, but sometimes I attempt bits of doodling.
My daughter gave me the “R.” How beautiful is that?
The magazines on the bottom of that mountain of reading material are two of my other weaknesses: interior design and fashion. I could be nearly perfectly content with a Restoration Hardware catalog, the current issue of “InStyle”, and a trough of Jelly Bellies. What can I say: everyone has their fair share of shallow…
Daisy means "innocence."
The lotion: another window…I love wonderful smells and daisies are my favorite flower. This lotion by Marc Jacobs is a divine combination of both.
I suppose the best one-word descriptor for me would have to be “reader”, though, as the books attest. This small snippet of my library is the current rotation:
“Wicked” is a book I’ve started no less than five times, only to desert it for another book after about a hundred pages. It’s not that “Wicked” is…bad…(heh-that’s funny); it’s actually very good. It’s just that some other book comes on the scene (most recently, all seven Harry Potters and The Hunger Games trilogy), and I desert Elphaba again. To do right by her, I’m going to start that book again on page one, as soon as I finish the monstrous tour of the 1960′s with my tour guide, Stephen King, whose “On Writing” also occupies it’s place in my little tower of pages on the nightstand, because I refer to his advice frequently. Anyone who has an interest in writing well, the writing process, or what makes a person a writer should read King’s “On Writing“. He spends the first half of the book in a more or less autobiographical mode, and the glimpses of his life that he shares are poignant and fascinating. One of my favorite portions of the book is his book list, which has been a treasure trove of wildly variant tomes that will take me quite a while to get through. I just started “11/22/63“, and it’s not disappointed me so far: King still writes the best dialogue I’ve ever read (with the possible exception of Larry McMurtry), and he usually give about eight-hundred pages of marvelously escapist plots and fascinating characters. (Time traveling to prevent the Kennedy assassination-how fun is that?) The Ayn Rand biography I am saving: she fascinates me. I’ve read several of her novels, well, several times. Dagney Taggert is one of my favorite heroines in all of fiction.
Wisdom, wit, wisteria, and words
The poetry is a treasure: I ration it, and memorize bits I love without realizing it. If you’ve never read Billy Collins, you are depriving yourself of something special. I first heard of him in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, when he served as our nations Poet Laureate. His poem, “The Names” was perfect: reverent and gentle, but it hurts to read it almost as much as it hurt to watch the television that day.
“Jesus With Dirty Feet” makes me smile…it’s the best sort of writing (outside of the scriptures) on Christ: it’s poetic, and it concentrates on His heart. It is very simple, very gentle. It contains no doctrinal dynamite or hermenuetical gymnastics. It just whispers truths that are too precious to be shouted like “Repentance is an alternative to pretending. It is an invitation to grow. It truly is freedom.” It also says this: “Prayer is great disparity being reconciled: a ludicrous conversation becoming quite possible. Broken humans and a holy and perfect God talking.” Isn’t that the truth?
“Mockingjay” was fabulous-I finished it quickly. “The Language of Flowers” was a gift from my best friend, who knows me all too well. It is in my Top Ten, but I’m nervous I can’t limit that list to just ten, either. Maybe ten categories…yeah, you’re right, probably not.
Under the nightstand, which I will not show you (a girl’s gotta have some secrets…) lives my study bible, which is too fragile and broken to display publicly. I’m reading Genesis, studying the life of Leah, whom I intend to write about soon. Under the Bible rest about six months worth of back issues of InStyle. (You just don’t throw those away.) I think there’s also a stash of Starbursts, but don’t tell anyone.
And now, to end this in an awful I-hate-it-when-bloggers-do-this-and-gosh-I-hope-this-doesn’t-sound-like-I’m-fishing-for-comments-’cause-I-actually-really-want-to-know sort of way, what are you reading? What does your nightstand look like?