BRILLIANT . . .

David Crowder is genius. If you're a believer, check him out and give him a chance. He ain't your typical praise, but then God ain't your typical God. If you're not a believer, check him out anyway. Love the music, love the madness, and who knows where you might end up? See you in heaven, maybe? I hope?

(Sun, your girls might like rocking out to his latest CD!)

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MONEY . . .

Alright, it's time to buckle down. I need income. But I also need -- not just "want," but need -- the perfect job, and my soul is willing to wait, even if my checkbook isn't. So ... do I bite the bullet and get a part-time job somewhere just for an income (and part-time, so I can continue my Perfect Job Search)? Or does six months at Borders Bookstores not look that great on a resume? (C'mon! Think of the discounts I can get on books! JUST THINK!)

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BOOKISH . . .

Thanks to Sandra, et al. for blog fodder ... we introduce 15 Things About Books, a totally open-ended list of, well, bookish things. JKA, TinyCricket, and Sun, my fellow book-lovers, y'all should get on this too ...

1. Amazon.com is God's gift to me, personally. Oh yes, I could easily blow (if I haven't already this year) hundreds of dollars on books here, and the prices make it totally worth it. Yum.

2. I am currently reading: Atonement, by Ian McEwan, 1776, by David McCullough (and yes, Hooch, it's as gripping as you said it would be), The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (yes, still; it's a damn long book), and Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I don't know what it is in me that won't let me read just one book at a time.

3. The Little House on the Prairie series was a formative experience for me, in conjunction with the television series. In fact, dare I say that I was a bit disappointed in the television show, because it didn't follow the books word for word? I wanted to see Silver Lake and the winter cutter rides that Laura took with Almanzo and the Brewsters' cold and unloving boarding house. Alas, I had to settle for Mary waking up in the middle of the night, crying out, "Pa! Pa! I can't see!" (Nevertheless a gripping dramatic moment.)

4. I used to read a lot of women's fiction -- Jodi Picoult, Beth Gutcheon, books like that. Recently, though, I've gotten into the classics -- trying to remember everything I didn't pay attention to in high school and college -- and non-fiction books. John Adams and Truman were recent favorites, and I love immersing myself in the lush writing of old folks. People just don't write like they used to, you know?

5. Shopping for gifts for Sun's girls recently, I rediscovered some true favorites from my childhood: the Harry the Dirty Dog books, and the Corduroy books. Dang, they are so good, and the Harry the Dirty Dog illustrations are so breath-taking in their simple intricacy.

6. Browsing in a bookstore makes me need to poo also. There must be something scientific about this, because so many people I know experience the same sensation. I ascribe it to the feeling of complete comfort and relaxation that comes over me because of two things: (1) the order and cleanliness of most bookstores: everything is shelved, everything is in its place, and the order this creates is comforting to my type-A, obsessively alphabetizing personality; and (2) I feel at home among books for they have always been my refuge and the things that I turn to in order to escape and to be myself. Plus, I no longer have trouble pooing in public, so stopping into the 'loo at a commercial store is not an issue for me.

7. I hoard books like a madwoman. Cleaning my old room out before I moved into my own place was like cutting off all of my limbs without tourniquets handy. I believe I wept. Only recently have I developed the ability to lend books to friends, even. (Of course, I write my name prominently in them, and keep a list of who has what, so that I can be sure to ask for them back after a reasonable time has passed.) I know that this is very selfish of me; after all, books are meant to be shared and consumed by as many as possible, and I advocate reading as a means of saving the human race from itself. But still. I love my books, and especially the hardcover ones!

8. As a child, Omma or Appa would take me to the library once a week, with two duffel bags. At that time, the library had no restrictions on the number of books one could borrow at a time, so we would just start at one end of the children's books bookshelf, and fill the duffel bags to capacity. It honestly would only take me (or me and my parents) a week to get through all those books, and the next Saturday, we'd go back to the library and repeat the process. It was only after we went through the library's entire children's book inventory that my parents started buying me books. An addiction from which I am destined to never recover ...

9. Until I was old enough to drive myself places, I read in the car, even under the dire threat of "you're going to go bliiiiinnnndddd!" I would also read in bed, with a flashlight, waaaaay after my prescribed bedtime, and many was the night that one or the other parent would come into the bedroom to confiscate both book and flashlight. I don't think they were too mad about it, though, because I always managed to find the flashlight, back in the toolbox, the next day. It was just too easy.

10. I took a break from reading during law school -- the saddest years of my life. I just couldn't -- my brain and eyes were too worn out from reading law books. (But, I confess, even reading those sort of thrilled me. What a nerd.)

11. During my high school years, I would sit at my desk in our family's study, and perch a textbook on the desk top, as if I was reading it. However, my wily self was holding a novel inside the large textbook, hidden from view of the doorway, in case Omma walked by and decided to check to make sure I was doing my homework. I always did my homework at school before coming home, so that at home, I could just read with abandon. Omma never caught on, and to this day, I can't figure out why I didn't just say to her, "Look, I'm reading a book. You should be happy that I'm reading a book when the rest of my friends are lounging and wasting away in front of the television."

12. It took me the reading of three Danielle Steele novels in my early high school days before I realized that they are (1) not quality reading, (2) not that interesting, and (3) all the same. I regret the time I spent on those three books -- a few hours of my life that I'll never, ever get back.

13. Movies made from books ... what a dilemma they pose for me. Do I watch the movie based upon a book I've read, knowing that, if I really enjoyed the book, I may not really enjoy the movie as much? What if I didn't like the book -- do I then watch the movie in an effort to redeem the book in my mind, or at least have made its unenjoyable reading worth it? What about movies based on books that I have not yet read? Do I quickly rush out and read the book first (which only leads me back to the first two dilemmas), or do I forego the book entirely, knowing that by the time I finish it, the film version may not still be in theaters? Eh. But I just watched "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe." A B- for directorship, a solid B+ for the film overall; A+ for story content and of course the perfect source material, thank you very much C.S. Lewis, we are forever indebted to you; and a screaming A+ for the little girl who plays Lucy Pevensey. When I have a daughter, I want her to come out of my womb all precocious and adorable and clever and charming and lisping in an English accent, just like Lucy.

14. I just read a headline that said that 11 million people in this country can't read. Ugh, that makes me so sad. It makes me want to go on a nationwide crusade and teaching engagement to teach folks how to read, and how to love it. It makes me want to go back to school and get a teaching degree so I can specialize in reading, like JKA, and she and I can travel the world bringing the wonder of books to all. That's not too idealistic, now, is it?

15. Alright, in the span of the couple of days that I have been coming in and out of this post, I have finished Atonement, and have moved on to The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. God bless Costco for cheap, current books. Totally non-fiction; totally gripping. I have noticed that I am on a reading kick lately. Sometimes I can go a couple of weeks without picking up a book, and this is often tied to my attention span during that time. But right now, my attention is able to focus on quiet, still things, and I've been reading much more, totally dropping into the books, the stories, the lives depicted by the words in front of me. I love when that happens ...