"Scientologists are more Catholic than the Catholics"

I am reading The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and it is indeed very Hardy-like. Tess of the d'Urbervilles-Hardy. I like it. However, as is often my habit, before finishing one book, I picked up and began another, called A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman, by Joan Anderson. A while back I read a book about marriage sabbaticals. The Marriage Sabbatical: The Journey That Brings You Home was a true revelation to me at the time. Dan and I have had our ups and downs, as has any married couple, but one of the things we realized really works for us is to give each other more space and time alone than you might expect from your average married couple. I think naturally we felt a little funny about it, but then I read this book and thought, “We are not the only couple who needs vacations from each other, who need time to be by ourselves, and regroup and grow as individuals.” I know that as far as I am concerned, our marriage is stronger and more stable now than it ever has been, and it is because of this strategy. I bought A Year by the Sea around the same time I read the marriage sabbatical book.

When her husband takes a new job out-of-state, Joan Anderson goes to Cape Cod to live by herself in their summer cottage - to regroup, to assess, to grow. This book is the result of that year. In some senses, I feel that she can be immature and selfish, and she is decidedly of a different generation, but mostly I find this book enlightening and empowering. The process she undergoes, of relearning how to be happy with herself, getting to know herself, and allowing herself to develop, is a heartening one. At this point of the book, she and her husband are tentatively finding their way back to each other, both better for having been apart. I see by the author bio that she now lives with her husband in Cape Cod; she has also published a sequel called An Unfinished Marriage. I am eager to read this as well. This is decidedly NOT a self-help book. It is a thoughtful exploration of an intense and personal journey that Anderson has chosen to share competently and sensitively with her readers.

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I know I am a geek...my new favorite thing to do at work? Look up authors I love (Robertson Davies, AS Byatt, Margaret Atwood) in the dissertations database. I even ILLed an article the other day comparing Davies and John Irving. I still can't believe it took me how many years to figure out that I should become a librarian??

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Why don’t maternity clothes have pockets? Are people afraid they'll make them look FAT?

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The list of blogs I check to read grows each day. So everyone, just quit being so damn entertaining, I don’t have time for this! Unless I get a laptop, in which case I can then sit on the back porch policing the mud-boys *and* read my email.

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Two of the boys’ cousins were over today. I filled up the wading pool and gave them ice cream sandwiches and set them loose. About an hour later, they asked me to fill up the wading pool again. Not particularly caring about the mud pond that was the center of my backyard, I did so. I am fairly certain these two cousins have NEVER been this filthy in their young lives (whereas my scruffy urchins get that dirty every day and sometimes twice a day!) Dan seemed to think it was a BAD thing that the cousins will remember us as Mudland; I have no trouble with this. When you’re a little boy, you’re *supposed* to be muddy and have dirt in your ears and ice cream trails down your stomach and sunscreen in your hair. Just as your mother is*supposed* to have to hose you off outside before giving you a daily scrub in the bathtub and reveling in the yummy-smelling mango shampoo you favor. Is there a better smell in all the world than little-boy hair washed with mango shampoo, with lingering traces of Waterbabies sunscreen? If there is, I don’t know it.