Julie & Julia.

I didn't read Julie & Julia, but I did see the movie.

I love anything related to blogging, and setting a personal goal for oneself. The cooking part was great fun for me, too! As I understand it, had I read the book, I'd have been grossly -- in all senses of the word -- disappointed in the graphic, grody details of the book, yet the movie was just right for this particular chiquita banana.

A couple of takeaway quotes for me from the movie were:

• It's 10:30 in the morning, and I'm already running behind. This is hardly unusual, but it pisses me off every single time.
• It's a good thing there's always another disaster to poke a hole in the old self-esteem before it gets dangerously inflated.

Committed.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, recently published a follow-up book: Committed.

I wasn't sure I'd love it -- especially since the content didn't really apply to me as a content, unmarried person. To be honest, it wasn't my favorite. But as it turned out, my brain was so thirsty for her enchantingly refreshing writing style that I just drank that whole book up in spite of myself.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book are:

• When you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture, it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It's the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.

• The happier twin sister of loneliness is privacy.

• Lebensneid - life envy, the certainty that somebody else is much luckier than you.

• When you have only one path set before you, you can generally feel confident that it was the correct path to have taken.

• Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.

• I need him because I happen to adore him, because his company brings me gladness & comfort, and because, as a friend's grandfather once put it, "Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone."

• The emergency that always gets you in the end is the one you didn't prepare for.

• There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, almost despite themselves.

• At some point in our lives we must stop beating ourselves up over bygone blunders -- even blunders that seem so painfully obvious to us in retrospect -- and we must move on with our lives.

Eat, Pray, Love (no spoilers)

I love to be entertained.

Books, movies, stories, plays, travel -- you name it.

And although I love movies like there's no tomorrow and prove that via Netflix each month, there have been very few times I can remember a movie following its precursor book closely enough to satisfy my cinematic expectations.

"Eat, Pray, Love," however, was spot on.

If you liked the book, I think you'll like the movie. If you didn't like the book, chances are you won't like the movie. If you didn't read the book, I still think you'd like the movie. If you are not okay with the premise of the whole thing, you probably won't like either.

See? No spoilers. :-)

eBay.

I have a good friend who is constantly "winning" things on eBay. I've been picking on her for years about this -- reminding her that just because she calls it winning doesn't mean she's not having to pay for the items. :-)

I listed my first set of items on eBay this week: a plethora of books.

I have no idea what I'm doing, or if the prices I listed make any sense.

I just hope someone wins them all.

5th Element.

Five things I'm thankful for today are:

1. Bosses who listen when you say you need help.

2. Modern medicine.

3. Hair that allows for variety. (Curly, straight, ponytail, down, up, pigtails, etc.)

4. Friends in ALL places.

5. Books.

Five is Enough.

I originally started posting "Five things I'm thankful for" as an idea my friend Liz got from Oprah. It's come to be something I rely on, and that when I neglect, I really miss.

Five things I'm thankful for lately are:

1. Being an American. It's really something I try not to take lightly ever, but it's especially impossible not to be grateful when world news points to poverty-stricken countries, and how natural disasters further devastate their lives.

2. The things I've left behind. It's nice to know that things I've put in the past really are in my past, and that they don't have to be in my present unless I allow them to be.

3. Good books. I love to read -- that actually might be an understatement -- so I'm really glad there are so many great books out there to fill my insatiable need to be reading something every chance I get!

4. The elimination of long-distance. Remember that? I'm grateful for cell phones, and anytime minutes, and free nights and weekends, and the fact that I can call friends and family anywhere in the country and not have to worry about how long we take to catch up.

5. Technology. I'm hooked. I don't know when I'll start grumbling about things changing, and why things can't just stay the same, but I'm sure it'll come soon enough. So for now, I'm glad I like new technology. :-)

On the Nightstand: In The Sanctuary of Outcasts

I recently finished one of the most stellar, well-written, and compelling non-fiction books I've come across in at least two years.

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, a memoir by Mississippi-born and bred and former Louisiana resident Neil White, is a detailed account of one man's drive for success, his mistakes, and his payment for those errors. Not only is the writing ridiculously captivating and page-turning for any reader, but the entire novel is set in Mississippi (mainly Oxford and the Gulf Coast), and Louisiana (New Orleans, the Baton Rouge area, and Carville).

Ok. I'm going to stop trying to summarize this work myself and just quote the author's own website:

Daddy is going to camp. That’s what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like prison and jail conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained.



But it wasn’t camp.

Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, wanted the best for those he loved—nice cars, beautiful homes, luxurious clothing. He loaned money to family and friends, gave generously to his church, and invested in his community—but his bank account couldn’t keep up. Soon Neil began moving money from one account to another to avoid bouncing checks. His world fell apart when the FBI discovered his scheme and a judge sentenced him to eighteen months in federal prison.

But it was no ordinary prison. The isolated, beautiful colony in Carville, Louisiana was also home to the last people in the continental United States disfigured by leprosy. Hidden away for decades, this small circle of outcasts forged a tenacious, clandestine community, a fortress to repel the cruelty of the outside world. It is here, in a place rich with history, where the Mississippi River briefly runs north, amidst an unlikely mix of leprosy patients, nuns, and criminals, that Neil’s strange and compelling journey begins. He finds a new best friend in Ella Bounds, an eighty-year-old, African-American, double-amputee who had contracted leprosy as a child. She and the other secret people, along with a wacky troop of inmates, help Neil re-discover the value of simplicity, friendship and gratitude.

Funny and poignant, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is an uplifting memoir that reminds us all what matters most.

I really do highly recommend this read for anyone who likes great writing, interesting non-fiction, sheer honesty, and other people's views of the South.

Also, if any of you hear of a book signing with this guy anywhere in Louisiana or Mississippi, please let me know. I'd really like to meet him.

And finally, thanks a billion to Angela Long, who recommended it to me! Best read in a while, by far.

The Fifth Element.

It's been a while since I've posted 5 things I'm thankful for... Today, here's what I've got:

1. New beginnings, and the opportunity and freedom to initiate those when it's time. (Like August of 2007, and October of 2008.)

2. Friends who freely give and accept love. It's great to know you have peeps who are there for you, and equally wonderful to know you can help them when your turn comes around. It really is more blessed to give than to receive!

3. My love for reading. Some probably view this as an issue of mine (not that I care at this point), but I LOOOOOOVE to read. So much. I mean, I'll probably be blind by 40. But you know what? I enjoy it. It helps make me who I am. And there's a whole world out there in the library. Yep, I'm a geek. And I'm proud of it. Bring on the books. :-)

4. The South. It's great to be where mostly, the weather is warm, but we also get some fall breezes and winter gusts. Lord knows I'm not cut out for real winter or too much snow, though I do love snow skiing, sweater weather, scarves, gloves, boots and hats. :-)

5. A safe downtown. One of my favorite things about Baton Rouge is how safe downtown is. I've heard from many locals that this did not come to the Red Stick easily, but I still appreciate it -- possibly more than most? -- having come from Jackson, Miss., where a girl could feel really sketchy downtown in the day, much less at nighttime. So yay for a fun, accessible, safe and pretty downtown. :-) And may Jackson get there quickly, too!