Review: 1Q84

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



1Q84 is one of the must interesting and stimulating books I've ever read. It was a my first Murakami and I'm glad. It's a commitment, at over 1100 pages (on my Nook) it was definitely a commitment to read. I liked so much about the book its hard to figure out where to start-

A brief summary of the books would be that it's about two characters Aomame and Tengo. Both characters are approaching 30, from the same area of Japan, attended the same school for two years and were in the same class. Both live simple lives doing what they do well, Aomame is a fitness instructor and Tengo is a Math Teacher. What they are both unpaid for it what defines them Aomame is an assassin of men who beat women and Tengo is a writer who gets involved in a questionable situation. The world changes and both could potentially be in danger. The rest of the story is too good to give away but their lives become re-entwined and even though they haven't seen each other in years they must find each other. The book contains- a religious cult, re-writing a story that some wich hadn't been written at all, runaway girls, strange sex, murder, lots of food, lots of repetition and little people. (it's a 1100 page book trust me there's way more to it than this)

I liked the structure, going between different point of views it fun and keeps a book this long from getting stale. The non-linear structure is also very exciting. You never know if events are happening before or after the previous chapter. Because of this so many near-meetings of the two main characters take place.

I loved all the other literary references, cultural references and music references in the book. Half way through this book I had a conversation with everyone I know about how strange it is to me that other people around the world seem to know so much more about American society and culture than we do about theirs. Unless I seek it out I feel like I never hear about foreign politics, entertainment, music or books. In 1Q84 Murakami references Chekhov's Gun, Out of Africa, George Orwell, Proust and Dostoyevsky- also one of the process of writing novels, he retells several stories in the text, the Gilyaks, Town of Cats, the actual Air Chrysalis story- I really enjoyed these because be readying what the characters were actually reading it gave greater insight into the characters. The theme "town of cats" proceeded to follow the Tengo around and was applicable to so many situations.

The descriptions were great, though they were given over and over again. It seemed like every thing that happened had to be described three different times in very similar ways. Lots of detail on mundane things that normally aren't given as much attention.

The character of Aomame reminded me of another very strong woman who disliked men who hate women, so I often got a very Lisbeth Salandar feel from her, but she was also a lot softer and we see a lot more of her emotions and feelings than we ever saw of Lisbeth's. Tengo was sort of a mystery, I feel like we never really learned what made him tick, he was often very sad or confused. One of my favorite characters Ushikawa never got the resolution I wanted him to get, he was interesting and I felt like his motives were more than just helping Sakegake. The girl responsible for the Air Chrysalis story Fuka-Eri was just strange and weird, like a woman-child too old to act that way but too damaged to know any better.

I started this book at the end of December. I read the first chapter and put it down for a few weeks. Then read the first book and put it down for an entire month. I read the second and third books back to back. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to get lost in a world similar to our own but still very different. I think because it took place in Japan I was able to have that disassociation with it and it really drew me in. I will definitely be looking at other Murakami books in the future.



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My Married Valentine

I don't care for Valentine's Day.  It's just not a big deal to me.  I'm married to an amazingly wonderful, caring man who would love to do something sweet and special for me for Valentine's Day but I wont let him.  Yes I know I'm mean, Haley tells me all the time.  But 1) I HATE SURPRISES and 2) I don't need cut flowers that I will kill in less time than I should.

Surprises I'm pretty sure I've always hated them.  I like to have everything planned out, I like to know where I'm going and who I'm going there with.  I like schedules.  While my closet may never stay organized for more than an hour, I prefer my daily life and activities to be perfectly organized and neat.  Surprises mess up my neat life.  They call for unscheduled emotions, spotlight and attention and sometimes throw the rest of my schedule off.  I also tend to always ruin surprises.  I've made Bruce so nervous about trying to surprise me before that he's told me about it before he could actually surprise me so then I nix it- have you heard about the time he tried to surprise me with tickets to see my fave band? Luckily I didn't kill this surprise entirely we ended up going and had an amazing time, but it wasn't a surprise and I was able to schedule it way in advance.   I know girls who love surprises and that's great for them! But I'm good thanks, no surprises for me.

Cut flowers I kill all living green things (sadly two frogs included- wait was Jabba green?) I kill plants, ask my cousin Casey who worked so hard to try to help me get my yard in order last summer for my Housewarming party.  It died within a month, one plant died within a week! I suck at keeping green things alive when they're in dirt and soil (or mulch like the froggies).  Cut flowers are even worse! They should live a good week most of the time, I can kill them in a day.  I do everything I'm suposed to and they still die! Then once they're dead I throw them away, I used to dry them out in my room but then someone told me it was bad joojoo to keep dead flowers around.  Usually mine are so dead by the time I'd try to dry them out that they'd fall off the stems anyways but that's besides the point.  My sister loves cut flowers, her husband gets her them all the time and I think "awww that's sweet", but NEVER do I think to myself "awww I wish my husband would do that".  I'm good.

Growing up my mom would always get us cards and candy and lots of fun little goodies- V-day undies anyone? Lots of v-day socks too.  In college she even would send me a small little v-day care package.  I've always bought small little v-day cards and candy for my friends and at work I always give my students  candy and stuff.  Just small little things, like people do with Candycanes at Christmas.  On my desk at work I have a candy jar filled with heart shaped chocolates for coworkers and student visitors. This year I've received stuff back from my students and it's was so sweet!  I just prefer Valentine's Day as a day of friendship instead of a day of romance, but I think I know why.

In high school for the most part I was single.  So every year me and a girlfriend would be each others Valentine's.  We'd buy each other candy and flowers and then go out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory together or a movie and hang out.  It was soooo much fun!  Then my senior year in high school I had a real boyfriend! I was so excited.  All my friends asked me what I was going to get him and I was really trying to plan something fun.  Granted this was at the end of January when I had thought things were fine and that I'd actually have a boy Valentine for once.  THEN after the first weekend in February he pulled me aside and told me I shouldn't be planning anything special for Valentine's Day and me being the ditz I was asked "oh, why not" and then he broke up with me.  I cried and cried and asked a girlfriend to be my Valentine again.

The college Valentine's days only get worse, I had a boy in my life for each one of them and each one was more upsetting than the next.  The first one lavished me with so many gifts, candy, flowers delivered to campus, chocolates, Jewelry and a weekend getaway.  But the getaway ended up being a total disaster and afterwards he started getting really jealous of every other guy in my life, wanting me to come home every weekend and he's always ask why if I wasn't wearing the jewelry he bought.  He had wanted to send me a singing telegram but THANK GOD I was able to stop that when I spoiled the surprise by talking to his mother.  The next year I was only dating the guy but he bought me a pretty red rose and then we sat in his on-campus apartment while he and his roommates got really drunk.  The next year we were engaged and he made me a lovely home cooked meal then made me watch Sin City.  Luckily I graduated before I could have a fourth college Valentine's Day.

After college I was happily single for a while.  The first one I went out with my best friend to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and karaoking afterwards. The next year I was kinda dating someone but I told him I couldn't go out with him cause I was going out with a girlfriend which was totally true...kinda, I went to dinner with my friend then bailed on her to go back to my apartment and drink wine and watch Ally McBeal by myself.  The next year I went out with the same friend and followed through with dinner and movie with her.  Then went home and drank wine and watched Gilmore Girls.

The next year I was with Bruce and things have improved.  I told him I wanted a cat for Valentine's day and so we got our big fluffy cuddle bug Sookie the Viking Kitty.  The next year we were planning our wedding, I'd just started a new job and was finishing up grad school so I told him we didn't need to do anything special.  But he did surprise me up at UTSA with flowers and we ate lunch on campus at Chili's.  It was very sweet, that night Bruce had a karaoke show.

So this year our first Valentine's as a married couple I told Bruce he didn't need to do anything special, money as always is tight so I told him to just skip it and I was totally fine with it.  Then yesterday morning I figured I could at least make a nice dinner.  So I wrote out a simple grocery list for Bruce to get while I was at work, things like 1 whole roasting chicken, 2 lemons, head of garlic, 1 sweet onion, salad, butter and wine.  Really simple- everything else I needed I had at home and could throw together.  So he went to the store and got all the ingredients we needed.  Little did I know he didn't know you could buy whole chickens in the meat section and he got one fromt he frozen foods section, while he had set it in the sink with water earlier in the day to start thawing the inside was not thawed all the way...so I had to improvise and hack the poor thing to death into usable pieces which ended up being fine.  Dinner ended up being delayed only another 1/2 hour or so and we had a nice meal...while watching X-files.  To me it was a great Valentine's evening!  Low key, relaxed and at home.

My history with smart phones

All throughout college I had crappy flip phones.  Phones that the hinges broke on and I'd have to figure out a way to super clue pieces back together so they stuck.  My dad was footing my cellphone bill back then so I didn't get new phones until I was ready for an upgrade or he switched carriers, which he did a lot while I was in college.  I think I started with Cingular, then move to T-Mobile before finally landing with Sprint, who since I've always loved.  I haven't had the horror stories with Sprint like so many I know and aside from a horribel Blackberry experience I've always loved my phones with them.

In fall 2007 I had been at my first real job for about 8 months and I was getting comfortable enough to take on my cell phone bill as my own responsibility- that and I'd just received a raise and wanted a cool phone instead of the dying flip phone I hated.  I walked into Sprint with my dad and told the guy that I wanted to transfer the line into my own name and I wanted a new phone.  The Sprint guy asked what I wanted my phone to do and I told him email, calendar and texting.  My dad then jokingly added that it should also be a phone.  What I got was this...

Within hours I was in love.  This was the best thing ever! A Palm Centro! I had never had a smart phone before and this to me was perfect.  It did everything I wanted.  I could text like no one's business, email in a snap and it kept a great calendar.  Yes the internet sucked and getting directions on it was no fun either.  But back when I was 21 and didn't use GPS to the extent I do today or search everything on my phone, it was great!  I had this phone for about a little over a year.  Christmas Eve-eve 2008 it had a very unfortunate accident involving vodka, cranberry juice and more vodka.  I was devastated. I couldn't live without my phone! It had my whole world on it! It was so dead I couldn't even pull the numbers I needed off of it.  

Everyone told me to just get another Centro since I loved this one so much they even came in Pink then, but I wanted to upgrade, I wanted something bigger and better. I wanted something that was made for email and calendar.  I thought I wanted a Blackberry!

I was so very wrong.  I hated my Blackberry cure, pretty much from the moment I turned it on I hated it.  I hated it's lack of color, I hate it's swirly little ball mouse, I hated how it gave directions! I hated trying to search for something.  The keyboard didn't feel gummy and soft, it was hard and plastic.  I hated it.  Two weeks later CES announced the Palm Pre and I knew! I'd have to wait it out with the horrible Blackberry till June so I could get my Palm Pre and be done with this awful creation Blackberry.  

I was somewhere outside of Houston for a wedding on June 6th, 2009 when the Pre was released.  I had resigned myself that I'd just wait till I got back to San Antonio to get it, but then as I sat in my hotel room that morning trying to look up directions to the church on my Blackberry, I realized it was time.  My Blackberry could not get me to the church, it kept sending me to some random parking lot with a liquor store and gas station.  I went to the front desk and asked for a map to the nearest Sprint store.  20 minutes I was there...

Look! They had balloons set out for all the smart people getting new Pres! 

I was number 31! This was the first and sad to say not the last time I paid a ridiculous amount for a new phone.  "Ma'am you contract isn't up till next January you phone will be $5,000" "What?!?!" Just kidding it wasn't $5,000 but at the time that's what it felt like.  Luckily it was totally worth it. 

Look at this beauty! Look at that Palm Pre! Loved it! Not as much as I loved my centro, but the keyboard felt completely natural.  I had every intention of keeping this bad boy for two years, but unfortunately after I started dating Bruce the darn things started breaking constantly and I started having to use my insurance to replace it.  I'm not blaming Bruce for the destruction of a lot of Pres, but I'm just saying you can't argue with timing.

Nothing ever felt wrong with the Pre, it wasn't like the Blackberry thank god, it did everything I asked it to and it did it well.  I honestly had no complaints.  Then that damn January came back and I learned about all the fancy new phones coming out in the summer and I got phone envy.  Then this happened...

6AM on June 4th, 2010 I found myself in line at the Quarry Sprint store!  What happened?  There were no balloons, I was first in line out like maybe 15-20 other people.  The kick stand it totally wat intrigued me at first.  This phone is awesome, I really like it.  Again another step better then my previous phone.  It does everything I need it to (except sync to my UTSA calendar, but there's an app for that so it's cool).  Bruce had total phone envy and after he'd broken his 4th Pre, I'd honestly lost count he eventually upgraded to a cool new Android phone too.

Now it's 2012, no cool CES phone caught my eye.  I'm satisfied with my Evo, it does what I ask I never have problems with it.  But come June what am I going to do? I don't think I'll want another Evo, but none of the other Android phones out right now are piquing my interest.  I go back an forth daily about wanting an iPhone, can I disable Siri if I get an iPhone? Cause that shit scares me.  Are there are new Androids coming along down the pipes?  Where is the next Centro? I loved my Centro, I will always consider it my favorite phone.  Maybe because it was my first, maybe because it was Red, maybe because I don't have a good reason, but for now the Evo will do, maybe I'll hang on to it till something new and cool comes out and just save up my new phone credit.  Who knows...

Year of the Nook

I got my first nook in January 2010.  I initially bought it for use as pictured, for the cruise and for the first vacation I was taking in 3 years.  Between grad school and a job that took up a ridiculous amount of time I barely had time to read for fun.  My first generation nook was a close to $300 investment I was willing to make in order to get back to one of my favorite pastimes reading.

It Sucked and Then I Cried  was the first nook book I read.  I followed it up with Never Let Me Go, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Shit My Dad Says on the cruise.  The rest of the year I read more bubble-gum books The Facebook book, all the Chelsea Handler books and Kristen Chenowith's bio.  I was instantly in love with my nook.  I loved that I could switch reading a book instantly and not have to carry 5 books with me constantly in case I got bored with whichever one I was currently reading.

In 2011 I read 21 books.  I didn't ready the entire first half of the year.  I was finishing my masters, getting married and buying a house, there wasn't a lot of time for anything extra.  But in July I hit the ground running. In August I read all 7 Harry Potter Books.  I hadn't read them before because I started watching the movies first and didn't want to read the books before I finished all the movies- yes I knows it's usually the other way around, but I like my way better- it also prevented me from having to wait.  Throughout the fall I read the first two Sookie Stackhouse books but didn't get into them so I didn't read the next 5 till December when I had a lot of time of my hand.  Earlier in the summer I read Theatre Geek about theatre camp in the Catskills, it made me super nostalgic for high school.  In mid fall I reread The Hunger Games trilogy for the 3rd or 4th time I've lost count.  Before Breaking Dawn part one I thought it'd be fun to reread the Twilight books...man was I wrong.  I only made it half way through New Moon before giving up because I just couldn't inflict it on myself anymore.  It had been a good couple of years since I'd read them and now I wonder why.  I read a free nook book called Garden Spells that was cute, but nothing too special.  Then in November on a trip to El Paso I read Robopocalypse and decided that the robots were going to come kill me in my sleep if I ever bought an iPhone or drove a car that could drive itself.  OMG it was the scariest book I'd read since I read House of Leaves that one summer at camp. I followed up the scary with the beautifully visual The Night Circus.  This was a sweet book, I loved living inside the circus and could perfectly see everything described.  Before Christmas my fabulous husband Bruce got me a new nook, the nook Simple Touch.  I love it! The first book I read on it was Ready Player One, it was a totally fun read full of 80s pop culture and insight into the gaming world that I know nothing about.  I ended the year reading Sookie Stackhouse Novels and started the new year continuing to read them.

2012- I read the rest of the currently published Sookie Stackhouse books those first two weeks of the new year.  They're addictive, seriously.  I enjoyed the total bubble-gumness of them.  You didn't have to think while you read them you could just enjoy the absurdity of it and the continued stupidity of women when they love vampires.  It's great.  After I finished the 11th book I still wanted more.  I read of a book of short stories about the same characters and the companion book that had a short novella in it.  I was desperate for more Stackhouse universe! It was sad.  I seriously almost freaked out on Bruce when we could find a digital copy of the most recent one.  Yes I have an ebook problem.  Then I read The Thirteenth Tale I frequently describe this book as a good read for people who like good books.  There are a lot of literary references and its a fun mystery.  By the time I finished Thirteenth I was eagerly anticipating the release of a new Orson Scott Card book that was supposed to be an addition to the Ender's Shadow series.  Shadows in Flight was supposed to be released on January 17th, both book and ebook editions.  THE EBOOK WASN'T RELEASED.  It seriously ruined my day.  I was angry.  Everyone knew I was angry and I needed wine.  The ebook will eventually be released, but not in it's entirety till 2013.  To say I'm pissed would be a HUGE understatement.  When I have an extra $15 I'll pay for the first edition hardback, which is fine I have all the other shadow books in first edition hardback anyways, but I wanted to be able to instantly read it everywhere I went and I couldn't.  And it ruined the world.  OK- over exaggerations over. I wanted to read something familiar.  My go to book sight GoodReads has an ebook section you can download books from and it was there I found the James Potter series- yes I know it's fan fiction and can never truly live up to JKs originals, but it was getting really good reviews.  So I read the first James Potter book (you can read it online for free too) and it was really good.  Not great or amazing but really good.  It felt very natural and fit back into the HP world with ease.  I totally cried thinking about all the original characters but I really enjoyed it. I didn't want to read the next one right away I wanted some time to sit so I read Mindy Kaling's adorable book.  It was light and fun and more good bubble gum.

So I'm currently addicted to Goodreads.  It's a great place to keep track of the books you've read, the books you're currently reading and then the books you can't to read.  And beyond that you can categorize the books you have too- I only have two categories right now, favorites and bubble gum. Based on these lists it recommends books to you, it also lets you interact with friends, join book groups and fan authors.  You can comment on what your friends are reading, look at their book lists and more. It's great.

One feature I'm really fond of is the currently reading section.  It lets you track your progress.  Mine is very telling.  I have been reading Sophie's World since I was 15.  I bought in paperback at Half Price Books and kept in my first 4 cars.  Whenever I had a little extra time I'd pick it up and read a little.  Its a cool book about the history of philosophy and I always really enjoy it while I'm reading it, but never enough to keep me wanting to read it as my main book.  I found a digital copy of it so I have it on my phone in case the inspiration to read more of it ever strikes...it hasn't yet.  I started 1Q84 this year and since I only have it in ebook I didn't know how massive it was.  I read the first two chapters and was like wow this is pretty interesting and I went to update Goodreads about my progress and that's when I found out that it had over 900 pages.  I'll come back to that one.  I started the second James Potter book and so far it's good except at the beginning a very beloved character dies and it made me sad.  Loose Girl is a really interesting book so far about all the reason why this woman thinks she became promiscuous at a certain time in her life.  It's really interesting.

I like the reading challenge part.  You get to set a goal for yourself and then work towards it.  Last year my goal was 25 which I missed by 4 books.  This year my goal is 55 but I'm already ahead of where I need to be.  Eventually I'm sure I'll go through my phases where I'll be watching more TV than reading or get distracted and wont be able to find the book I really want to read.  But by the end of January I'm hoping to have at least two more books to that list and I'll have made a pretty good start.

I love to read. I unfortunately sometimes ignore Bruce cause I'm reading so much, but I just get so lost in my books.  I love to completely submerge myself in books.  In middle school I used to drag all my blankets and pillows into the bathroom and pile them all inside my bathtub so I could just lock myself away for the weekend with my books and cd player.  I could stay in there all day reading feeling all nestled in and allow myself to be completely taken over by the world inside my books.

I love Christmas, but I kinda wish it would go away already

I just can't get into the Christmas spirit this year.  I just can't do it! I've tried, really I have.  I watched "Love Actually" with Bruce while decorating our tree and living room.  We watched "Hook" because he said it was a Christmas movie.  I watched "Mean Girls" while steaming my couches cause hey there's a Christmas scene in it.  I just haven't felt Christmasy.

Usually by Thanksgiving evening I turn my radio to the San Antonio Christmas Station and listen to nothing else to Christmas Day.  But this year I kept getting so annoyed with it and switched back to Garbage on my iPod, or Drive-By Truckers.  I just couldn't do it!  At work I was sometimes able to listen to the Pandora Christmas station, mostly because they played a lot of Michael Buble Christmas music and I do love me some Buble. I compromised and listened to Rent- totally a Christmas musical- but had to keep turning it down so my office neighbors wouldn't hear the lyrics.

As of Monday I had yet to buy a single Christmas gift.  I had barely given it a thought! I just couldn't figure out what to get everyone! I started going out on my lunch breaks and knocked out some of the family members on my list but still it felt like I was just getting it out of the way.

I just don't feel Christmasy!!!  Maybe it's because it's my first Christmas since I left SAC, maybe it's because money has been tight this year, maybe it's because mama almost died earlier this year, maybe it's because I haven't sang Christmas Karaoke ONCE this year! maybe it's because Haley has a baby and everything will forever be different, maybe it's because I bought a house this year, maybe it's because in the next few years we may have a baby, maybe it's because I don't have a chimney, maybe it's because I'm afraid my puppies will eat my Christmas tree and it's behind a baby gate, maybe it's because we're all getting older and we'll all forever be different.

Maybe it's because I didn't watch Ally McBeal. Usually this time of year I re-watch Ally McBeal and see all the fabulous Christmas episodes.  The one with the Christmas Unicorn, the one where Elaine finds a baby in Jesus' spot in a manger.  The one where Elaine tries to sing with Taye Diggs pissing off Renee.  But Ally McBeal always makes me super emotional and Haley says I can't watch it unless I'm in a different frame of mind (she says that in her way).

I don't know, I'm just in a Christmas funk.  I haven't wanted to watch "Prancer" or "Little Women" or "Meet Me In St. Louis" either.

I did at least discover a new Christmas song that I am in love with and whenever I hear it this year it does make me happy.

I hate scary movies...I'm scared

I hate scary movies.  I get scared looking at my backyard with the porch light off.  I get scared when AC kicks on suddenly after its been quiet for a few minutes. I can scare myself, I really don't need my movies help with that.  I can scare  myself to sleeplessness just thinking about scary movies I haven't even seen.  I'm a wimp, I know it and I'm fine with it.

When I was a kid my dad really liked scary movies and would often watch them in the bedroom where I would casually walk in and get an eye full of Chucky (From Child's Play) burning in a fire and then coming back to life with a glowing red eye.  I would then procede to run screaming from the bedroom and out the front door of the house all together.  In later years I would running screaming from the room when daddy watched Predator, Alien, the Omen, or Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  So it's only fitting that my father would take me to see scary movies in theaters when I got old enough.  It's not just horror films, busy scary Sci-Fi really gets me too.  With my father I saw Jurassic Park (ran and hid outside of the theatre during the Raptor scenes), Blair Witch Project, Event Horizon and Signs.  He really should have known better, after the Blair Witch Project I slept with the light on for weeks.  We saw Jurassic Park in the theater 6 times and every time I ended up in the theater lobby waiting for the man in the outhouse to get eaten by the T-Rex and the kids to be safe from the Raptors in the kitchen.

There were some scary movies I could deal with, I never found Poltergeist too traumatizing, I'm not one of those peoples who finds clowns scary.  I could watch Carrie and the Shining no problem.  In high school I thought I was getting better, I wanted to be brave and thought maybe I had outgrown my fear.  My senior year I saw the Ring with some friends and remembering clawing my escort through his leather jacket so hard his harm was bruised afterwards.  My friends had extra fun teasing me a few weeks later when at a lock-in at the Magic Children's Theatre they pointed out a cabinet that had what looked like the Ring tree etched into it.  One of them hid inside it to jump out at me while I screamed my head off to their laughter.  Apparently I didn't learn my lesson that time cause at the end of my senior year I went to the movies with the same group to see 28 Days Later and slept with my lights on till I left for college that August.

Throughout college I successfully avoided scary movies till my last semester, unless you consider Harry Potter scary, which sometimes it totally is.  I took a group of residents when I was an RA to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and one girl told me when a scary part was coming and I still managed to scream and startle the half of the theatre that didn't find the final maze particularly creepy.  My last semester at TLU I decided to take a Film Studies class just for fun.  It ended up being a difficult class but what was worse was I saw on the syllabus later in the semester one of our in class viewings was going to be Alien.  OMG are you serious? I was going to have to watch Alien in class with my professor and peers.  I warned my professor that I tend to scream during scary movies and then rush out of the room quickly so I don't die.  He told me that I could scream all I want but that I had to stay and watch the whole movie.  I tried to surround myself with students who had seen it before and asked them to warn me of the scary parts.  But apparently they were all taking notes when the scary things happened and I ended up screaming every 20 minutes whether things were scary or not.

A few years later again wishing I had outgrown the scary I saw I Am Legend on a date.  Horrible, horrible idea.  At the time I lived by myself on the third floor in my apartment complex.  I liked it cause it was quiet, well that was why I usually liked it, but after watching that movie I was convinced the scary vampire zombies were going to skip the bottom floors and break down my door to eat me.  Lights stayed on in the entire apartment for a week.

When I started dating Bruce a few years later to my inner-chicken's nightmare he turned out to like scary movies.  Although he had some serious delusions on what actually was scary versus what was really scary. Zombieland is not funny, it is scary and you will suffer for making me watch it.  Sean of the Dead is NOT funny, it's scary and I will sleep with the lights on cause you made me watch it.  No I will not see Paranormal Activity 1, 2, or 3 with you cause they are scary.  I don't care how campy the scary movie may be, or if it's a parody of other scary movies, I don't do Zombies and if scary things happen in Space I will probably die, while I can appreciate that Event Horizon  was a cool movie, it still scares me and the fact that Sam Neil was also in Jurassic Park means that he'll forever be uber scary to me. I think by now Bruce has come to terms with the fact that I don't do scary movies and I like to think that it is one of the last things I can blame on my dad.  Maybe if I hadn't seen Chucky rise out of the ashes of that fireplace with a knife as a 5 year old all would have been fine.

What made me think of this the day after Halloween? I've seen a surprising amount of these movies on io9's list. 

My Sister is Making me an Aunt

A month from today my little nephew is scheduled to make his highly anticipated debut.  November 22nd, 2011 is a day I have been waiting for since Haley got married.  My sister, my best friend and future mother of my nephew is having a baby! This act along with my marriage, my home, Master's Degree and my new job round out 2011 as one of the best years I've ever had.  I'll never forget the day she told me besides my wedding day and I'm sure the day Isaac Archer Swift enters the world, the day she told me she was becoming a mother was one of the best days ever.

The spring was so busy with my new job, internship and preparation for the wedding I didn't really want to do anything special for my birthday.  So the Friday of my birthday week I met mom, Haley and Greg for lunch.  We went to Yardhouse at LaCantera and had a big booth in a mostly open dining room.  Mama ordered appetizers and a bloody mary, I couldn't have one cause I had to go back to work.  When Haley and Greg got there we ordered and then they told me I should open presents even though I had previously said I didn't want any.  Mama gave me vodka :) thanks mom it was delicious.  And Haley's gift was in a bag with a box that said Coach a card and a folded piece of paper.  I went straight for the Coach box but Haley scolded me saying there was a card in there first.  When I open the card and the folded piece a paper there's a sonogram in there.  I screamed.  I screamed like in the movies and the other 5 diners in the restaurant turned to look at me, mom asked what's wrong and I announced to the room "sorry, my sister just told me she's having a baby".  Like in the movies people clapped and then I started to cry buckets.  I hugged my beautiful sister and greg and stared and stared at my future nephew.  

Since that moment at lunch I've been so excited.  I still get misty eyed when I think of Haley telling me and I think about her becoming a mother.  Throughout her pregnancy I've done research with her on numerous baby products, read customer reviews, mommy blogs and shopped in the baby sections.  I've talked to her after all her doctors appointments and asked about the baby every time we speak.  I've worried with her if she thought something was wrong and screamed for joy when everything goes as it's supposed to.  I can't wait for November and the joys it'll bring.

Haley is my best friend and my sister and that's the best combination because it's a relationship that cannot be broken.  While we may fight and argue ALL THE TIME, we never stop loving each other.  Once Mr. Isaac gets here our worlds will change forever, our relationship will change forever but it'll all be for the love of a child which makes it okay.  I love Haley and Greg and Isaac more and more everyday.  I'm so excited to be an Aunt and so excited to be the sister and best friend of the woman having this baby.