Why I need purple pants

Courtesy of What I Wore

Ugh, if only the pair I tried on at Anthropologie weren’t $200. Seriously, $200 pants.

On a different note, I have been seriously delinquent with blogging. I have about five posts knocking around my head but I have had utterly no inspiration to sit down and write. Call it journalism disease.

Bath City Roller Girls on Huffington Post Detroit

Since I can’t imbed the video, you’re going to have visit this special link to > Bath City Roller Girls Rock Local Derby Scene < featured first by my Patch colleague Jenny Whalen on Macomb Patch, and then picked up by Huffington Post Detroit.

Then, you can check out this screenshot to prove I’m telling the truth:

I’m in this video, but I’m not saying where because I was wearing ridiculously short, sparkly shorts during this bout. I knew Jenny was going to post this as I talked with her at the bout, but I was so excited when this went live. It’s such great publicity for BCRG, and I hope it helps share the derby love.

Up Next: ‘Lord of Misrule’

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

• Date began: Jan. 16, 2012
• Genre: Fiction
• Project: n/a
• Reading list: National Book Award for Fiction
  
• Got it: I believe I picked up this bad boy at our library’s book sale for a cool $1. I thought it kind of strange considering it’s so new, but also a little sad since the author had just visited our library a few months ago. Clearly, someone didn’t like it very much.
• Why I picked it up: It’s a National Book Award winner, so I’m always on the lookout for that. And it’s recent, and I rarely read new books. Might as well start somewhere.
• Back of the book: Tom Hansel has a plan: run four horses, all better than they look on paper, at long odds at Indian Mound Downs, then grab the purse — or cash a bet — and get out before anyone’s the wiser. At his side is Maggie Koderer, who finds herself powerfully drawn to the gorgeous, used-up animals of the cheap track. She also lands in the crosshairs of leading trainers Joe Dale Bigg. But as news of Tommy’s plan spreads from veteran groom Medicine Ed to loan shark Two-Tie to Kidstuff the blacksmith, it’s Maggie not Tommy or the handlers of legendary stakes horse Lord of Misrule, who will find what’s valuable in a world where everything has a price.
  

Fin: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• Date finished: Jan. 15, 2012
• Genre: Fiction
• Year: 1960
• Project: Favorites Project
• Reading list: Winter 2011-12, Pulitzer Winners, BBC’s Top 100 Books, Newsweek’s Top 100 Books
• Quick thoughts upon finishing: I will go for a long while without reading To Kill a Mockingbird, but when I do, it’s like visiting with a best friend: it’s like no time has passed and I still love it harder than ever. To expound on this book’s good points is almost redundant: it’s masterful, beautifully written, tears at your heart and forces readers to come to terms with the (ugly and beautiful) reality of the human condition. Last week, I posted about the possibility of a required reading list for the entire world. While I doubt Ms. Lee would have been presumptuous enough to think her story good enough to make that list, I think this book SHOULD be required reading for every American. Every child. Every college student. Every adult, really. There’s always something you can learn from Scout, Jem, Atticus or Boo Radley.

  Now to find/borrow/buy a copy of the movie so I can enjoy that favorite as well:
  

• Grade: A++++ (it’s my blog — I make the grades!)

Awkward moment

Um, yeah. Awkward. Joel told me about this after we watched HP6 the other night, but seeing it…yeah.

First thought: Why is Rupert Grint wearing a shirt with what looks like Daniel Radcliffe on it?

Second thought: Do these guys seriously hang out together in frat basements?

Dear Pioneer Woman: can I be your friend?

I’ve said for awhile that I want to be Ina Garten’s  — of Barefoot Contessa fame — friend. Besides being slavishly addicted to her show on the Food Network, I also love that she a) makes delicious food, b) lives in a beautiful house in the Hamptons, c) does tons of freakishly nice things for her friends, like decorate their houses for Christmas or make their family a feast for no reason. Many times, I’ve contemplated a career change; is Ina in need of a new personal assistant? One that doesn’t mind eating or keeping her company while Jeffrey is away?

Now, I have to add a new BFF to my list of imaginary BFF’s: Ree Drummond, aka, the Pioneer Woman. While I have not yet stalked Ree online and learned her history, she writes a super-popular blog that covers everything from cooking, being married to the Marlboro Man, living on a ranch, eating steaks, basset hounds, photography, homeschooling and … fake eyelashes?

Anyway, I think I need to be her friend if only because she made this:

Apparently, according to Ree, if I make these spicy whiskey barbeque sliders for a New Years Eve gathering, I would be expected to have a New Years Eve gathering every year for eternity because they are THAT good. Yeah, I need to be this woman’s friend.

Required reading for … everyone?

The Book Lady posted this interesting question at Book Riot a few days ago: What if we could organize some kind of Required Reading List not just for an English class or incoming college freshmen, but for the ENTIRE WORLD.

And that’s why I think we should have a universal required reading list, a Required Reading for Humanity project. We need a place to start. If we could construct for ourselves a list of books that are remarkable not for the statements they make but for the questions they ask and the modes of thought and inquiry they suggest, perhaps we could begin finding something like a common language. Perhaps we could begin answering the big questions together. Think of it as diplomacy by literature, global unity via the Socratic seminar.

This is idealistic, I know, but let’s put thoughts about logistics and translations and practical issues aside for a moment to consider it. I’ve read a handful of books that left me thinking The world would be a better place if everyone read this. That’s what I have in mind here–not religious texts, how-to manuals, or self-help guides, which lean to the prescriptive, but books that ask big questions, challenge us to think differently, and leave us changed. It doesn’t matter if they are fiction or nonfiction, only that they spur us forward.

I particularly like how the Book Lady notes how this desire probably comes from her “I-took-a-lot-of-English-classes Stockholm syndrome.” I can’t help but agree with her and that’s EXACTLY why.

Song in my head, song in my head…

I can’t help it, even if this song is about having a one-night stand and possibly getting herpes. IT’S SO DAMN CATCHY AND I LOVE IT.

The joy of REAL books

I’m just waiting for someone to call me up and say, “Laura, we need a partner with which to open a new, independent bookstore.” Because I will be THERE.

I didn’t read yesterday, and this is why

I wanted to see what all the fuss over this Downton Abbey was about, and I’m now hooked. I watched THREE 90+ minute episodes of this yesterday/last night. THREE. Yeah, thank goodness I only need to watch two more to catch myself up because otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done.