I am truly sorry, dear readers, to tell you of the deaths of Margaret and Henry Lee. Both parents and grandparents, both endlessly fascinating, and both whose deaths were a relief. As my son said during a funeral this week, "I"m sad. I'm sad for me, but happy for him because who wants him to suffer any more?"

Right. We're sad for us. And for those who loved them so much - you're out there reading this so know I'm with ya.

In the meantime, I'll try to learn more, be a more forceful and independent woman, help my fellow man more, and attempt to be 1/10 as optimistic as our dearly departed. Amazing lessons all. Well done, good and faithful servants.

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

I heard about Miranda July via a few New York-based web sites that I visit regularly. But I'm not visiting them today or really until I finish #7. As you know. Sorry to repeat myself, but I am needing to shore up my defenses.

Anyway, she's in a Blonde Redhead video at the moment. Interestingly, we saw Blonde Redhead in concert. And that is saying something, as I've seen maybe six concerts in the last two years and four of them were classical or jazz.

I'm eager to read her stuff. Not available, by the way, at our local libraries. Nor is The Dud Avocado. But you can find 12 - 17 books about big cats, including pumas, jaguars, and cougars. Just not at the moment, because they are all here at my house.

Please, please, please don't let me see or hear about any spoilers.

The Internet: my love, my arch-nemesis.

I'm taking a bit of a break from the computer in order to exercise more anyway...but good timing as my will is weak and the information is available.

We'll be at the Colonial Williamsburg Barnes and Noble purchasing our book, maybe at midnight if the children can hang (HA HA HA who am I kidding...it will be me who will go to bed at 9). I promise no spoilers on this site for the foreseeable future. Promise.

Favorite HP casting:

Well, Alan Rickman of course. I think that was pure genius.

Helena as Bellatrix LeStrange.

God love Richard Harris.

Ralph Fiennes was amazing in HP4 - and as I believe the New Yorker has pointed out, it may be the finest performance given without a nose, ever!

I was hoping for Daniel Day Lewis for Sirius Black but Gary Oldman suffices.

And for Rita Skeeter, Miranda is fantastic but what about Jane Horrocks??? If only for the voice.

As for the children, I still think Ron is going to be a huge star, and I'm impressed at Daniel Radcliffe's, um, flexibility with his career. Emma Watson doesn't do it for me, but she's been looking really cute at all the premieres.

Who do you like? I know comments have been acting up, so if you can't comment, email me and I'll post your faves.

My youngest reader, whom I'll call Abel, has said this blog is a bit boring for his taste. In particular, he would just as soon not read about, say, grocery stores.

I feel ya. Even though you are in the bloom of youth - and about to embark on a new chapter in your life (or maybe because of that) - I respect your opinion. On to bigger and better topics.

For example, today at Reader's Corner, I wholly expected the in-store conversation to be about Descartes. And it was, for a little while. And HP, too. But then I was bombarded with tales of the poor wrestler guy, and of the hot dog eating champ. Please, people! If you are going to go to the trouble of mussing your hair that nicely, and finding those cool specs, and carrying man-bags, and hanging in a used bookstore then for God's sake talk about something else!

Re-entry to civilization successful. More or less.

The phone rang 12 times yesterday. There were 62 emails (mostly from MoveOn.org and various Democratic candidates. Honey, what sites did you visit whilst I was gone?). Book club was easy and fun and the discussion quite interesting! The society party of the year was hot and crowded but not without its charms...I was glad I didn't wear jeans (I'm talking to you, jeans girls!! You should not toy with those of us who worship at your fashion altar!)but I was mortified I had to slip out just as I was awarded a door prize. In my defense, the last sitter available in town was 12 and her bedtime approached. I saw, literally, everyone I know in town. I was reminded of how pretty my friends are, and smart, and of how much they drink. A few of their husbands are hot, and a few of their lesbian partners are entertaining, and most of them are incredibly wealthy.

I am reminded again of the movie "Friends With Money". I am the Jennifer Aniston character, but with frizzier hair and more restricted access to marijuana. I work, which is somewhat unusual in my circle, and I don't have a cleaning lady (or man. Have I ever told you about the golden days with Dust Bunny cleaning services? My dear friend Russell - what a pleasure it was to have him clean and then to sit and smoke a ciggie and dish about the Raleigh hipsters after!). We travel regularly, but that is in lieu of other delights such as buying clothes at stores that aren't Target or Kohl's, and letting our house fall into complete disrepair.

Money is a bigger issue than anyone ever thinks it is, and though I shouldn't complain because I have shelter, tasty and diverse food, and entertainment galore (including the iMac, which frankly is just an indulgence and a totally fun one at that), I sometimes wonder where my true peers are. Why is it that I have surrounded myself with people wealthier than I am? We moved from our old neighborhood partially because we didn't seem to have the money of our neighbors, and now our new neighborhood is full of homes over a million dollars and people with three kids in private school and OMG the cars!! Our church, our school, even our family members (save the Kansans, who are modest to a fault and I think would live in a middle-class fashion even if they were loaded) all seem to have money, money, money. Beautiful philanthropic gestures abound in my circle, however. Most of these people are generous to a fault, it should definitely be said. But they also have televisions from this century.

Maybe everyone is in debt. And there is no doubt that I compare myself to other people far too often. But really, would I have it any other way? There is a certain lack of stress in driving a 12 year-old car. (God love Mazda! It has NEVER been in the shop!) There is a "romance in the struggle" for sure, as my husband reminds me daily. We would go to public school even if we didn't have to, I'm fairly certain. Eating at home means being together and great conversation. As for having to clean my own house.....ok, well I don't see any bright side to that at all.

There's a lot more to say on the subject, but we have four kids this weekend! That I have had this much uninterrupted time is fairly amazing (though there is a small urchin doing crunches and pushups right beside me right now). Though we are fairly broke right now, we're going to have pizza for all and a movie tonight. And I think that is a completely good use of funds, especially when you have four sweet friends and a hot summer night and a big, unkempt den with a sectional sofa and the love of your life right beside you.

Are you interested in the "Cloverfield" buzz? I so very totally am.

We're in the midst of the child-free three days. We're trying hard to get in everything we want to do/see/eat, and all the while pretending we aren't really in town. But we were found out, and we ended up meeting friends for dinner. Twice. (I would link to the restaurants but Blogger is acting up. We ate at South and Riviera.) Still, fun was had. We also enjoyed a gallery walk featuring a very clever and eye-catching installation at Designbox. Aren't we hip. We saw the charming "Once" - and I cried (once). Sweet. We had breakfast at the Morning Times with Mayor Meeker. He didn't speak, but we didn't either - we're not morning people.

The house is clean, the cupboard and fridge are bare, and my husband is very well satisfied I should think, so we will end our mini-break on a high note tomorrow when I go to fetch the urchins. I think we're ready to become full-time guardians once more. I'll be gone again for a while so be sure and read my buddies, whose web pages I have linked below left.

What to do? We'll be in another town on the night of Harry Potter 7's release. I'm going to google LOCAL BOOKSTORES IN SAID TOWN right now. Also, the movie. We've made it a tradition to see it with my brother-in-law and his wife....but can I wait? Can they wait? We might have to plan a joint viewing and text each other throughout or something. I'm very excited about seeing Helena Bonham Carter, though the Fug Girls have already noted that she dresses like a Death Eater even in real life (please do note the euphemisms used for Tim Burton's bits).

My daughter is eager to begin book 6; we are not so eager for the mostly invisible, moody-when-present reader that she becomes when engrossed in an HP book. And then there's my son, who has gleaned key information from her by noodling her, his greatest talent.

Harry Potter. Who knew this phenomenon would cause so much stress?

In the online diary spirit, I'll give you a quick recap:

OVER: June (essentially), Vacation Bible School (finally), and tennis lessons (regretfully - what fun! What a foxy, Carribean instructor the children had!)

IN JEOPARDY: one of my jobs. But I'm not really sweating it at all - though I will miss the cash, won't you, honey? Still, one door closes...whatever.

BEGINNING: a quickie family trip involving some good adventure, meetups with friends, and relaxation;
my period, and soccer(what have we gotten ourselves into).

SLIGHTLY ANNOYING: the neighbors, the heat, the drought, my boss's exotic travel plans and the jealousy they are causing, and my gums.

MOSTLY PLEASING: The Motorcycle Diaries, my current summer playlist, and singing in the choir.

TOTALLY RAD: Absurdistan,
the childrens' new pasttime of riding the stairs in their sleeping bags, and a fun apres-choir outing with my hubby and fellow choristers last night.

There is other stuff that friends are enduring, stuff almost too hard to fathom and think about, and suffice to say I am grateful that MY stuff is only slightly annoying compared to life-altering and horrifying. And - at least my cat's worse vice is butterscotch-colored diarrhea left in a fairly self-contained area.

With that lovely image, I'll bid you all a vaya con dios - and gallop away!

Damn you Katie and Posh! Curly hair's reign was so short! Is the Side-Swept Bob going to dominate this year?

My last pedicure was May 23. I love a friend with a detailed calendar who can remind you of such things. Seeing as I have kept my toes on constant display ever since, I think it is high time to get them done again. What color? I think my current color may be "I Only Drink Champagne" or something more silvery. You know I want something black...check out what you like on this OPI Night Brights Review and get back to me.

And you kids wonder why I lurve Spoon. The first paragraph of Sasha Frere-Jones' review of the new album in the "The New Yorker" goes like this:

"The Texas singer-songwriter Britt Daniel has recorded only two songs that are more than five minutes long. He hardly ever plays guitar solos, is a terse interview subject, and would never be photographed wearing an untucked T-shirt."

The new album is out July 10. That, along with Kelly Clarkson and "Icky Thump", have me pretty excited for the summer's prospects.

Angelina Jolie keeps talking about how she lives a bold life. Do I?

I rarely spend my time doing what I want to do, but often spend my time doing what I feel obligated to do.

I am also really, very negligent in reading up on the Democratic candidates or anything about the election.

Maybe that will be my assignment as I go under the knife for my troubled gums tomorrow. I'm scared, but I have a little friend to hold my hand throughout.

Starbucks to Release Sonic Youth Celebrity Compilation. What do you think? I was a little shocked. Kind of like if Bob Dylan did a Victoria's Secret ad or something.

We are back from the cool, cool mountains. I am hungover. And today we are going to the skating rink. Hello, summer.

There was hope that this was a free weekend with nothing to do. But now, we are seeing friends from Kuwait who are visiting, friends from South Carolina who are visiting, going to a global warming speech at church, fixing my car's hydraulic lifts struts thingys, going to soccer practice, going to a dinner party, and hosting a few little girls for my daughter's birthday.

That's just how I roll.

In the meantime, summer started off in fine form. I'm sleeping great thanks to the night guard (I think) and I've been able to sleep in a bit despite the blinding sun now streaming through the windows, unfiltered by the now-absent trees my neighbors stole from our planet. We had some bickering at the house, but then everyone seemed to fall into the groove of not doing much. We went to the bookstore and signed up for the reading program (free book in Sept.!), ate lunch out, shopped for Daddy, and then all collapsed in heaps with our magazines and library books.

I'll be computerless for a few days next week, and I think that is a good thing, though I will miss the radar desperately.

In the meantime, I encourage you to read, rest, and reflect on the good things that summer brings.

Whilst I am generally beloved, I have, throughout history, encountered some real haters. I remember their faces, but try as I might, I can barely remember their names! Well, I remember one or two, but I really seem to have blocked most of them. Healthy, right?

More than usual, I am experiencing a high level of enemies right now. Whether it is because I know more people than I ever have (since college maybe) or because I don't have time for this shit (due to jobs and end-of-year) or because I am truly a rebel I just don't know. I know that people don't like me because they are jealous, or they can't get close to me, and I'm not being vain when I say that. Well, I am, but I'm trying to be honest. I sometimes have no clue what I have done to offend. Which is an affliction for 99% of the populace, I'm sure.

In the case of the Room Mom Who Hated Me, I can trace the dislike back to a certain instance where I was wrong. But guess what people? I apologized. Twice. And to her husband, too. And what I did was not that bad, really (I recommended a movie to her daughter...one she didn't think her daughter was ready to see). One other mom suggested that the Room Mom and I were just were not destined to click. Thanks for that advice, babe, but in my case, if you can't get along with me then it is because I either hate YOU or you're not trying...because I really know how to get along with people.

With the exception of my extended family, but I guess that is another post for another day.

Anyway, the year has ended and I don't have to deal with the RMWHM anymore. Or not for two full months and change. And that, my friends, is why I am not a fan of year-round schools: sometimes a girl needs a break from the hate.

We chose, in a fit of penny-pinching, to see a movie on date night instead of having a gourmet restaurant meal. At Mission Valley we get free popcorn because we GO TO A GYM. Is that funny or what? I got extra butter.

We saw "Knocked Up", and for all my current personal hoopla over "Dreamgirls" (I cried three times - the three times I watched Jennifer Hudson sing "And I Am Telling You"), Judd Apatow's movie is my new favorite for this year and last.

The guy is a genius, and not just for the seriously raunchy sex talk and bodily function humor in his movies. He loves women, and I'm so grateful. He even seems to find the genius in his own wife - who performed one of my all-time favorite drunk scenes. She's equally funny and talented in this film.

Somehow, he takes intense subjects, life dilemmas, and bad people, and makes them sweet, funny, and sad, sometimes at the same time. He imitates, in his films, the way life seems to be every single day for me. I think I need to Netflix "Freaks and Geeks" to get more of his viewpoint.

I'm no movie reviewer, but I know what I like. And I wasn't alone in our (newly refurbished with sparkly curtain!) theatre last night in liking "Knocked Up" a LOT.

NOON by Louise Glück



They're not grown up - more like a boy and girl, really.
School's over. It's the best part of the summer, when it's still beginning -
the sun's shining, but the heat isn't intense yet.
And freedom hasn't gotten boring.

So you can spend the whole day, all of it, wandering in the meadow.
The meadow goes on indefinitely, and the village keeps getting more and
more faint -

It seems a strange position, being very young.
They have this thing everyone wants and they don't want-
but they want to keep it anyway; it's all they can trade on.

When they're by themselves like this, these are the things they talk about.
How time for them doesn't race.
It's like the reel breaking at the movie theater. They stay anyway -
mainly, they just don't want to leave. But till the reel is fixed
the old one just gets popped back in,
and all of a sudden you're back to long ago in the movie -
the hero hasn't even met the heroine. He's still at the factory,
he hasn't begun to go bad. And she's wandering around the docks, already bad.
But she never meant it to happen. She was good, then it happened to her,
like a bag pulled over her head.

The sky's completely blue, so the grass is dry.
They'll be able to sit with no trouble.
They sit, they talk about everything - then they eat their picnic.
They put the food on the blanket, so it stays clean.
They've always done it this way; they take the grass themselves.

The rest - how two people can lie down on the blanket -
they know about it but they're not ready for it.
They know people who've done it, as a kind of game or trial-
then you say no, wrong time, I think I'll just keep being a child.
But your body doesn't listen. It knows everything now,
it says you're not a child, you haven't been a child for a long time.

Their thinking is, stay away from change. It's an avalanche -
all the rocks sliding down the mountain, and the child standing underneath
just gets killed.

They sit in the best place, under the poplars.
And they talk - it must be hours now, the sun's in a different place.
About school, about people they both know,
about being adult, about how you knew what your dreams were.

They used to play games, but that's stopped now- too much touching.
They only touch each other when they fold the blanket.

They know this in each other.
That's why it isn't talked about.
Before they do anything like that, they'll need to know more -
in fact, everything that can happen. Until then, they'll just watch
and stay children.

Today she's folding the blanket alone, to be safe.
And he looks away-he pretends too lost in thought to help out.

They know that at some point you stop being children, and at that point
you become strangers. It seems unbearably lonely.

When they get home to the village, it's nearly twilight.
It's been a perfect day; they talk about this,
about when they'll have a chance to have a picnic again.

They walk through the summer dusk,
not holding hands but telling each other everything.

Wal-Mart is in Brazil. But this week, the employees are in Bentonville, AR. I know, because I heard them stomping, clapping, and chanting a Wal-Mart cheer in the Northwest Arkansas airport the other day. The entire facility shook with the raw force of the Wal-Martness of it all.

Fayetteville, AR is very pretty. There were indigo buntings all about. There were nice bookshops. My son really, really wants a Razorbacks t-shirt. Leave it to that boy to find some sort of retail need, even in the heart of the Ozarks.

In other news, I got glasses today. I don't know if they are sexy-secretary enough for my husband, but I'll soon find out. They are not what I expected to get, but they were certainly the first choice of everyone in the store. They are, however, BIFOCALS! But those are now called "progressive lenses." Come on, call them what they are. I can take it.

In other news...

Have you tried the Buffalo Chicken Wings-flavor Goldfish? I can't find any reference to them on the Internet. Did I dream it up? The intense, spicy flavor? The lick-your-fingers saltiness?

Also, I bought some deodorant and won't use yours anymore honey. I got some kind of Kuka Coconut scent. The web site says that my "scent expression" is as addictive as Caribbean folk music (what is Caribbean folk music? is it not politically correct to use the word reggae?). I was just excited to have a pina colada party in my pits.