"...and it was still hot."

So...I gave in to curiosity and read 50 Shades of Grey. (More on that another time) (maybe)

ANYWAY...I read it, now I see it everywhere. Which is, mostly, not terrible- usually it's kind of giggle inducing (the most wonderful sound on earth, right? Yeah, you read it, too, I can tell).

Every time I take a sip of wine, I think,"it's crisp and sweet".

If I have to kneel on the floor for something (like to clean out under the sofa), I stop, put my hands on my thighs, lower my head and then I giggle because I am alone and look like an idiot.

When I'm doing the laundry, and get to my delicates, I almost hurl thinking of someone sniffing them. On purpose. Gigglehurl.

I giggle because I am immature like that.

Today, with the passing of Maurice Sendak, I took out my copy of Where the Wild Things Are.

The copy that I own was the copy that my mother read to my brothers and me as kids. When I moved out of my folks house as an adult, I swiped it along with a couple of other beloved children's book - Trumpet of the Swan, Charlotte's Web, Peter Pan, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (don't judge). When I had children of my own many years later, these are the copies that I shared with them (and will lock up when they move out of the house- Nuts. Tree. Fall.)

I took out the thin book with the sleeping Beast and the tiny sailboat on the cover, and marveled that it had survived all these years. It may be a first edition, I can't tell, but it was written the year I was born and Mom was really into books. I could see her getting it as soon as she heard about it. The edges are a little worn, but no pages are ripped. It's a miracle, really. Six childhoods, almost 50 years and no ripped pages?

I sat down to read it, thinking about what a gift this story was. How Max getting into trouble, being sent to his room  for being naughty,and escaping via his imagination mirrored many a night in my own early life.

How Mom still loved him when he returned.

I read the book this morning and got misty imagining Mr. Sendak writing the story. I looked at the illustration detail of the Wild Things, and smiled at the innovation for the times.

And then I read the last sentence and cursed myself for reading 50 Shades of Grey. There are so many good books out there, and this is what I chose to spend my reading time on? I chose to put the details of 50 Shades into my brain along with such cherished memories like the ones surrounding all my childhood favorite literary memories?

I really am an idiot.


So today I am filling it with good things that have already been written, spoken, filmed. And then I will let my brain speak to me through my fingers and see what happens. My only hope is that there is more good in there than not.