2001-12-22
Home for the Holidays, posted at 10:29 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I'm back home in Michigan.Instead of leaving at 6am in the morning on Saturday, Jason and I got to cleaning on Friday night and cleaned the house from top to bottom. There was an unspoken agreement sometime during the night that we were just going to clean and then leave - after all, it didn't make sense to sleep for two or three hours and then leave, right? We left at 3am. I dropped him off at his place at 1:30pm, and I arrived at my house at 2:30pm. That's a long time to be in a car, but still better than Thanksgiving.
Our car was packed. With Jake and Anne's bike stroller gift, tons of other wrapped presents for my family, and since-Thanksgiving laundry from both Jason and I, it was a load. Poor Holden - the world's most patient dog - only had a tiny cramped area for him to be in on the trip. The poor guy had to roll himself into a tight ball and rest his head on a box or perpendicular on the back of the seat to get comfortable. He's so good, though. He handle it so well. Right now, he's getting along famously with Molly (my parents' dog, partially mine - she worships the ground I walk on), and I'm sure he'll do great on the trip tomorrow to see Grandma. (Last time, my Alzheimers-suffering Grandma hugged him, hung on him, called him on her bed and nearly forcefed him a banana. He tolerated it all with a wag of the tail. Grandma enjoyed him so much that I'm bringing him along tomorrow.)
The trip from Maryland to Michigan was okay. It's a lot better during the daytime than during the night. I was exhausted while it was still dark out - even having a couple of those moments while driving where you feel like you fall asleep for two seconds - but during the day it got better. Jason actually drove a lot more than usual. Usually, I can't handle being a passenger very well, but I was so tired that it didn't matter. There was even a stretch of about thirty minutes when I took five-minute naps before getting woken up during a lane change or something. We probably split the drive time equally.
The rest of the time, I took to reading Jonathon Franzen's novel The Corrections, the first book I've read for pleasure in some time. My goal is to finish it before Christmas. I'm now on page 150 or so, and there's 400 more to go. It's phenomenal. I was intrigued by the little squabble the guy had with Oprah Winfrey (If you haven't heard, she chose the book for her book club. He then expressed his conflicted emotions over the selection in an interview, saying that he was worried that the selection would turn male readers off and that he was uncomfortable with the corporate insignia on the cover, since he was an independent-minded writer.) So that's how it got my attention at first (by the way, I'm on Oprah's side on this one... Franzen is evidently something of a pompous ass, for not wanting his book to be read by as many folks as possible. Oprah has done more for book readership in this country than any other single person, and doesn't deserve that crap).
Then, a number of publications, including Time and Baltimore's City Paper put the book on "Best Of" end-of-year lists. The description of the book - a funny, sad look at a dysfunctional family - sounded good, as I love character-driven stories.
Anyhow, I was going to wait for it on paperback, but saw it on hardback for a good price at Target the other day. I got it for a friend as a Christmas present (Nate, who I don't think reads this often enough to ruin his surprise).
Here's where I display my occasionally questionable ethics: Since I wanted to be able to recommend it (see how I justify it to myself...), I decided to start reading it. I wasn't going to necessarily read the whole thing, just the first part of it, so I can say, "Yeah, it's a good book" and be able to hold a conversation about it. So, yeah, I was planning on reading the gift before giving it to him.
But I'm totally engrossed. Any thoughts of giving this copy to Nate now have trailed off - I've even dog-eared pages to hold my spot. I'll buy another copy of it this weekend sometime for him. The book is awesome - the characters seem alive to me, with their vividly unhappy lives... yet I've already laughed aloud many times while reading. I've devoured 150 pages in two days, and part of that was in the car today on no sleep. I'm having a hard time putting it down, in fact. It's going to be tough to go back and finish Great Gatsby and The Chosen for school if I've got this one going, so I will need to finish it as quickly as I can. Shouldn't be a problem with as good as it is.
Tomorrow, my sister and I are heading out before the crack of dawn to drive to Detroit to see Grandma (the one with Alzheimers). Also during the trip, we've got to drop off Jake's bike stroller gift with his parents in Jackson, pick up a wreath to put on Grandpa's grave in Detroit with Grandma, pick up a couple of last minute parent gifts at much-missed Meijer's, stop off to see Aunt Kathy and Victoria, and see Aunt Tonja that night. The latter - our hippie, pot-smoking, not-biological aunt (mother's best friend since childhood) who is currently feuding with my parents for reasons I only half understand and don't care to know the rest - wants us to party with her and spend the night. Hopefully I can beg out of it because I'll be tired. We may go to Rum Runners, though - my sister, now that she's turned 21, probably deserves a trip there. It's gonna be a long day, though, that's for sure. From South Haven to Jackson to Detroit to Lansing and back to South Haven - that's two days in a row of tons and tons of driving. Then, it'll be three days straight at home, with only finishing my books and grading my huge stack of papers as my worries.
PS - If you missed it, I posted pictures yesterday, the first fruits of my just-purchased gold membership. The images to the left will be fixed soon.