couldn't finish it...

i'm beginning to wonder if it's my status as an only child that makes me crave books about friends and big families... mayhaps. but i picked up the girls from ames by jeffrey zaslow and just couldn't read it. it depressed me, do people, especially women stay friends? for forty years? when each takes a different path? some school and careers... some marriage and families right out of college... and some doing it all at once? where does the petty competition come to play?

i'm so jaded. part of the problem for me probably came from the fact that i picked it up during the weekends between my class reunions. reunions? yep, i went to two highschools--public school for 3 semesters, and private school for 3 semesters and that's where i graduated from. when you change schools in the middle of your junior year, it makes for a weird limbo.

when i looked {on facebook, of course} of pictures from the highschool days, i wasn't in any... not one. it's then i started to fall into this chasm of feeling like i was non-existent for 3 years of my life. looking back 20 years later, it's one of those things that would/could tend to push one into making sure one's children don't look back with regret...

what?! what am i rambling on about? certainly, i'm not talking about books and that's what this little thing is all about. so let's move onward and upward and talk about an audio book that came highly recommended by the author author! because she and i are friends... at least on facebook... heh heh!

one day, rebecca wells posted that she was really proud of the fact that she recorded an audio version of the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. you know, i just ranted about how often author's ruin their books by trying to read them... and i hate abridgements... quelle surprise!! {read that in a creole french accent, dah-lin'} it was great! rebecca wells did a perfect job reading the book and abridging the book to keep the mother-daughter relationship neatly intertwined with the ya-yas. but did i expect any less? mais non!

if you are looking for a good listen, you should go over to audible.com and give it a try...

happy reading/listening!

btw: i don't work for audible or anything, but i do have a membership with them, and i'm not sure if this download is available other places

as seen on facebook: cap'n bloodsnatch

go ahead... be grossed out...

but why?

this is my new-found freedom I've found from reading flow: the cultural history of menstruation by elissa stein. occasionally, I read non-fiction, and this book was recommended by one of my more “interesting” patrons. this patron handed me this book, and in a voice heavy in conspiracy said, “you’ve been lied to.” a little weird yeah.

but this book was so interesting in the fact that MEN have made us embarrassed by this thing our body does for no specific reason that anyone knows… a thing that has been understudied, misunderstood and corrupted by the femcare industry and pharmaceutical companies.

stop! I love men. I’m not a man hater… but this book is one of those books that makes you rethink everything you’ve ever thought about your period because it’s men who have convinced us that we’re crazy, depressed, practically abnormal and should be shunned.

shunned? sequestered? hmm… a little red tent time? I could handle that far better than charlotte perkins gilman’s story the yellow wallpaper. the story stemmed from her seeking help for mild depression from a doctor renown for sending men with depression west to journal their experiences. however, for women, the good doctor recommended rest… read the story. Go back to are you there God, it's me margaret... and dig out that memory of nervous excitement of being caught in between being first and being last to get it..

flow is an easy read… maybe not so much for the people in your life who are a bit squeamish, because it’s one of those books where you are compelled to read parts out loud in disgust, anger or in laughter.

happy reading!