Mei Grows Tall

These last few weeks, I’ve dived back into a period of reading and crafting and using my hands. It feels wonderful to have a tall stack of books next to my bed, to be making things, and to feel like I’m saturating my mind with new ideas. I feel creative again. Intellectual. I can’t resist an opportunity to detail my reading queue.

1. Two crochet books from Mrs. Patetta – Crochet Patterns For Dummies and Get Hooked Again. There is this neat pattern for striped, fingerless gloves that I want to try.
2. The Chronicles Of Narnia series from Casey – after watching Prince Caspian at Daniel’s house, I’ve fallen in love with the stories. The books and the movies aren’t quite the same, but I love the children’s story feel. It reminds me of The Wizard of Oz books, which are all whimsical and told plainly.
3. The Rough Guide to the Beatles, also from Casey. He gave it to me for my birthday, and I’ve read a good bit of it. I read about their beginning, got impatient and then skipped to the parts about John Lennon and Yoko. Truthfully, I never knew anything about Yoko, other than she was married to John, was Japanese, and everybody likes to say I should be Yoko if I like the Beatles. I can’t imagine why.
4. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks from the public library. I actually only picked it up because I got an audio book, and felt strange leaving without an actual book. It was on one of the display shelves (that’s the best place to find good books without ideas) in the teen section. I liked that it had a red wax seal on the cover with large, friendly letters. The seal has a dog pressed into it, So I’m curious what the book will be about.
5. An audio book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I like to listen to it when I crochet, or when I wake up in the mornings, or when I clean. The boy talking is supposed to have Asberger’s (sp?) syndrome, but he says very profound and logical things. Only, it bothers me that he doesn’t believe in God at all and in the book, the characters are British and use the F-word a lot. I wouldn’t mind so much if I were reading the book, but since I hear it on a CD, sometimes I flinch because it’s like someone is shouting at me. ha.
6. Two new books through AP English. Crime and Punishment, and Dandelion Wine. We only had to choose one to read, and I voted for the first. Our teacher said that Crime and punishment always appears on the AP test, so it only makes sense to choose it. However, Dandelion Wine looks so lovely – it’s set in the late 1920’s, about summertime, and the cover had wonderfully bright illustrations. So borrowed that one too. I am ridiculous.

In a technical sense, I have a stack of fourteen books, either in progress or waiting. Fourteen!!! There is probably more to come, but I feel like I am having a personal rebirth of learning. This is my own Renaissance.