So I said I was going to talk about this new lens I got over the holidays. Other people got puppies and babies but to me, a girl falling more in love with her camera every day, this is just as important. Let’s just start by saying I only crossed over into the digital SLR world about a year ago so for the most part I really don’t know what I’m talking about. But in this year I’ve taken something like three thousand pictures and so, if nothing else, the trigger finger is well-worked.

It is hard not to go crazy once you get into this camera world. Some days I just tuck a towel under my chin, click on the link to B&H, and let the drooling commence. It doesn’t take long for me to fill my imaginary shopping cart with all sorts of things I have no idea how to use but nonetheless covet because I am nothing if not a dreamer. And I can learn, coach. I promise I can! Thankfully, I do have a couple real-life photography coaches to guide me through this maze of lens growth. My camera’s kit lens is an 18-55mm which has taken most of the photos I’ve posted on this site over the last year. I have been, as the kids say, hella happy with this lens. But there are times, I tell you, when you just can’t get close enough to something.

So I knew my next lens would be a zoom. I settled (read: I pretty much let someone choose for me) on an 18-200mm. (Note: Not even 100% sure I’m linking to the correct lens. I am Photography Genius!) This is a Nikon lens however, I think I could just as well used a lens made for Nikon (i.e. Sigma) and been just fine. The important part, as I learned, is to find what you’re comfortable with. Go and hold them and use them first. This lens, as it was explained to me and eventually I was convinced, has “very nice glass” (you can imagine the stream of jokes I came up with there—because ‘nice glass’ rhymes with what? That’s right: sea bass.) and with it being capable of what my 18-55 can do, I would have to change it less. This is good for me, because I am remarkably graceful when it comes to expensive things. Okay, not really. Unless it has bacon on it or rum in it, I’m not likely to skillfully save anything from hitting the ground and shattering.

So you see the photo above? That’s the new lens, without any zoom. But that little tree on top of that red rock there, seemingly growing from nothing and withstanding brutal Colorado winters, was cute. So I got a little closer.

And closer.

And then vertical, just for fun.

Long story short, I think I’m going to be really happy with this lens. Sure, I was happy before but it’s sort of like finding out you can have comfort and maximum hauling capability in your new truck—you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve got it. Alright, I made that up so that the two men I know who read this blog (the men I actually know in my everyday life, not you other mysterious [Daddy] bloggers and such) would maybe understand what I was trying to convey. They still won’t get it. But someone will!

Speaking of people I don’t know reading here, I guess it was the annual quarterly blog de-lurking day recently. And! And! Not only that, but January marks the second “anniversary” of this blog. Soooo… uhh, like, if you aren’t too busy and you’ve made it this far into the post, maybe you want to tell me who you are or that you’re out there. That would be fun. (Okay, that’s a little more awkward than I thought it’d be.)

I hope you say hi. That would give all those numbers I’m seeing every day a little identity of their own. Aww, how sweet. And I promise, I’m going to be celebrating, too. For tonight, my friends, I am off to beautiful places and friendly faces. I love it here, in the good ol’ CO, I really do. The skies are blue, the sun is shining… but there’s just this one thing: It won’t stop being so darn cold.

I’ll be checking in as I thaw. Thanks for reading.

A few days ago, Anne, posted a picture of her dog. The most noticeable part of this picture, to me, was her dog’s tongue. Now, it doesn’t take much for me to ooohhh and awwww over pictures of dogs, but when you catch them in action, it is almost too cute. And wow, that Ginger has got some reach. I sort of wonder if, before she decides it’s worth it to go after something, she doesn’t say “Go, go, Ginger TONGUE!” Like Gadget, but more convenient.

It wasn’t until the comments section when I learned that Ginger was licking up spilled beer. (Worth it, indeed.) This reminded me of one of the cutest dogs I know, April.

April belongs to my aunt and uncle but really, she is the family dog. Not because we all help take care of her or send her postcards while on vacation, but because April is, hands down, your Number One Fan. It does not matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen her or whether or not you need a fan club, you walk into April’s house and it’s fireworks-shooting, parade-marching, music-playing celebration. And all of this uproar happens within the confines of her cute little head. It is like a streaming consciousness welcoming.

“Oh my gosh so good to see you welcome to the house can I take your coat get you something to drink and by the way have you eaten and oh my gosh let me lick you and jump up and down because oh my gosh you are great and boy do I mean great like the best thing ever and wow you smell like dog treats and speaking of treats have you seen my new ball and let’s go outside and throw it around and run in cirlces and after that I will lay down and keep your feet warm, okay?!”

When April was a puppy, she was curious and sweet. She rarely got into trouble. (Then again, she wasn’t living in my house.) What she lacked in life experience she made up for in heart-melting head tilts and purely innocent pleads to have some food off your plate.

The curiosity with puppies, of course, is natural. The way they use their little innocent puppy eyes to look into your soul and simultaneously forgive you for every wrong you’ve ever done and lay a thick layer of guilt over you for not sharing your cheeseburger is, to me, one of the simplest joys in life. You cannot help but love them and make them part of the family. And share a little of your cheeseburger.

Once, though, at a family bar-b-cue when April was a puppy, I feel like we stole her innocence a little. And not by sharing cheeseburgers or telling her there was no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, but worse. We accidentally exposed her to adult life far too soon.

Of course, it was not intentional. Because who would knock over a beer intentionally? But it was still bad. Because after seeing the beer spilled, we looked around at each other for what I consider now to have been way too long. I can imagine the thoughts in our heads: Well, it’s just a little beer. But she’s a puppy! It probably won’t hurt. But she’s too young! Should we take it away? Wait, let me take a picture first! (Obviously that last thought was just me.)

And so we ruined April. Now, in her formative teen-aged years, she has already seen too much. She is not going to learn about beer in college like other kids. While all the others go out and get their new ID’s on their twenty-first birthday, April will walk around rolling her eyes saying, “been there, done that.” It’s really a good thing she’s still so cute or she might not have a future at all.

I mentioned last week that I wanted to run another marathon this year. I still do, and no, I am not sure where yet. I know, January is ticking away. Yeah yeah. What I didn’t mention, though, is that I sort of don’t much care for the whole running thing right now. I feel like my head is not in the game. I have all these goals like getting my speed back up, increasing my distance, and oh, here’s a novel one, feel good and yet, I’m not actually making a huge effort to get there.

When I’m sitting at work or at dinner or where ever, it all seems very doable. When I step onto the treadmill (thank you, snow) at 4:00 in the morning, it even seems possible. But then I get a mile or so in and instead of feeling better, which is usually how I feel after mile two, I start talking myself out of it. Oh, what the heck, just walk fast. Oh, who cares, just do some intervals. Sixty minutes is sixty minutes, right? Well we all know that’s not true. Sure, it is all better than doing nothing but for me, right now, that is not going to get me anywhere.

There are other obstacles, too. In 2007, I managed to lose the weight I’d put on the previous year during all my injury fun. What I didn’t pay much attention to, though, is the weight that was there before that. It is probably just a few pounds, but I can’t say for sure. Up until now I thought losing what I already have would do the trick but let me tell you, it is a bummer of a day when you can lose all the weight you gained and say “well, hmm, that’s not quite the difference I thought it’d be.” It’s fine, of course it is better than not, but it’s also another hill to climb. One that, after already losing, will either seem easier or (more likely) like the most impossible thing ever. We’ll see.

Another hill is, in fact, my knee injuries. Because here’s the funny thing about losing cartilage in your knee: It packs up it’s crap and leaves your butt high and dry to keep paying the running rent without it. And there’s nothing you can do, because that jerk is never coming back. This injury, like so many others, is now forever and always a part of me. I’m going to be maintaining it forever. That is the reality. The End. After much nagging from running friends, though, I am finally trying the Glucosamine route. I was all hesitant and afraid because I was worried about my cholesterol (not high to begin with) and other traumatic side effects induced by TAKING THE SAME MEDICATION AS MY EIGHTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER. But I got over that, because if I want to run around like I’m twenty, then maybe I ought to use my head like a grown woman and give it a try. I started taking it three weeks ago; you’re supposed to give it about six to eight. We’ll see.

The good news, and probably the most important element of this whole thing, is that I’m sickeningly happy. I mean, crazy happy. People are telling me enough, already, stub your toe and curse or something just so we know you’re human. I can’t help it, and I don’t know why. Which is good because it is about time that I look at challenges as challenges, that I was gentle enough with myself to work hard and not feel bad about the times I don’t, and that I remembered to treat this like I do everything else, like it’s all going to work out. My head might just get in the game yet.

“Do we know him?”

“Who?”

“Um, that guy… um, four o’clock.”

“Your four o’clock or my four o’clock?”

“What!?”

“Well we’re facing each other, I wasn’t sure. Okay, so where is he?”

“Forget it.  He left.”

Are you ever just standing some where, waiting or watching or browsing, and someone starts talking to you? This is my life, all the time. And one of the reasons I think I’d make a great bartender, by the way.

Yesterday, while waiting in line to buy dog food, a tall woman who I’d guess was in her mid-forties, with perfect hair and a New York accent straight out of central casting started talking to me. She and her husband own a house here but are only here part time. I couldn’t help but adore how friendly she was. She was on her way home from shopping with a friend and, thinking much like I was, decided to stop and get dog food because “Whaaaatt? This weather. Ya just neva know what it’s going do to, am I right?”

I agreed. “You know, it was a day a lot like today,” she went on. The day she and her husband met. Apparently, she in her father’s 1978 Ford and he in “the most beautiful truck you have ever seen” were just turning off “The Bridge” when the snow and the ice and the fog were just too much and somehow, some way, without either of them “touching so much as a fender of another vehicle” ran directly into each other. Both, “thank the good Lord [crosses self] above,” were uninjured.

After thanking the good Lord and composing herself, she then tied her scarf around her head, exited her vehicle, traipsed through the snow and began screaming at the man that ran into her. He could not get a word in, even asking if she was alright was out of the question. Before they knew it, they were surrounded. “Caring drivers in New Jersey, can you imagine?” Soon, reportedly because it was early in the storm, a police officer joined them. It was unclear who was at fault and the pair, neither willing to tell the entire story, were both cited for reckless driving and were each sent on their way with a ticket and a court date.

A month later, refusing to be at fault, she walked into that court house fuming just as much as on that cold winter evening. Coming around the corner, looking down to adjust her skirt, she crashed right into him again. This time, she didn’t yell at him. She just smiled and “took the sign.”

“Our first date was coffee after appearing in court. So romantic, right?” Yes. I’d have to say, pretty much, yes.

Sure, nothing is perfect. It could be exaggerated or romanticized. I could have just been in the mood for a good story. But none of that really matters. What matters is now I’ve heard it and I know something like that happened. I can’t unhear it. So when people ask me why I think the way I do, why I believe things that might seem silly to some— that’s why.

Am I right?

So I’m driving home from work the other night and my friend calls me. There is a gas station selling gas for $2.09 per gallon right now and I needed to go there immediately, regardless of the current fullness of my gas tank, and buy it. “Two-oh-nine, how could you pass that up?” So I tell my her that I’ll stop and hang up the phone and drive ahead and boy howdy, what do you know? There is the mall. And I think I need to go to the mall. Who needs cheap gas when there’s a Semi-Annual Sale going on?

But you didn’t know this about me, did you? Well not yet, anyway. Not until a week later. And if it hadn’t been for the several emails in the past week asking how I can “reveal so much” on my blog, you probably wouldn’t have known this. Which, as I read it myself, I’m sure is just fine with you. But people asked and me not answering a question asked several times over would be like not scratching a mosquito bite. IT ITCHES! Or, maybe more like putting a cheesecake on the counter and saying “Never eat this.” Then the only thing you’re thinking about is that cheesecake. And sure, there are so many other things going on: the blizzard outside, your new table being delivered, the delivery men being inexplicably hot with their Irish accents* and offering to mix you a drink, but still, there is that cheesecake on the counter. Cheesecake. Cheesecake. Cheesecake. Do you see what I mean?

So I have to answer the question. And the answer, it is a good one. I don’t really think I reveal that much. Deep, I know. But really, like the story about choosing low-priced underwear over low-priced gas, so many things happen in a life every day and not all of it can/will/should make it into a blog post. This may be a result of an over-active mind but I feel like on any given day, we’re probably talking about 2% of everything that we’re living or thinking on that day. Maybe less. (Now you all just happily ignore this when I spill my soul here later in the week, okay?)

Above that, though, I write because I like it. I write for silly and serious reasons, and the fact that someone reads it still really floors me. Like smack-me-and-call-me-Sally floors me. And I don’t know about you, but that connection with people is something I can’t seem to get over. It’s like your first taste of something you like, you know that once you’ve had it you can’t see not having it. I imagine that’s what live performers might feel like. You’re taking a risk, however calculated, putting yourself out there and hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’ll get something back. And then you get it back, and you feel like you aren’t crazy. You feel like maybe you’ve got something here that means something, with people that start to mean something to you, and it is really great. And because you’re human, and wanting more of a good thing is natural for you, you want more. You want to keep it going and make it better and get better at it because that’s what it’s all about: people. You, others, connections, relating- that is good stuff. To some I know this sounds weird, but to me it just makes a lot of sense.

_______________________

* Okay, that part didn’t really happen but I saw P.S. I Love You yesterday and right about now anyone could come along speaking in an Irish accent and I’d marry them on the spot. I’m such a sucker.

A few weeks ago, AuthorsOnTheWeb.com asked me if I’d be willing to review a memoir called The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan, on this site. Feeling like it was some sort of odd coincidence that I was both on break from school and looking for new reading, I agreed. While this is definitely something new around here and me, well I’m merely a student and a writer-in-training at best, I have always been a reader. And what better time to do something brand new, to read something brand new, than during the short, cold days of winter. My lack of talent in the arena of brevity, however, does mean that this is more of a discussion than a review though, which I’m fine with. Here’s hoping everyone else is, too.

I began reading The Middle Place the same day it arrived in the mailbox. I finished reading it two days later, while sitting in the drive-thru line at the bank, because this is the kind of book you want to take with you. In her descriptions of her life as the younger sister of two brothers growing up in a Philadelphia suburb, of becoming a wife and mother, of being diagnosed with breast cancer, and, in the resounding theme of the entire story, being her father’s daughter, Kelly Corrigan takes you along for the ride. She tells her story with an uncommon openness, as if you might be the person sitting across from her at a late afternoon lunch, talking as if you’ve known each other for years.

Having worked with breast cancer patients in the past, I was able to identify with many of the instances Corrigan recalls. She writes honestly about the experience of cancer, the moments of hope and joy and dread. But that is just a part of this book, the vehicle that takes the reader on the journey. This book is really about relationships with the people in our lives. Those we’re stuck with, and those we choose. It’s about how those people that shape us from the beginning become the foundation of every tangent we end up on, the lights on the paths that lead us back, and the reassurance that comes in an adult child’s life that no matter how far you go, no matter how much you’re forced to change, there is a place you return to, as someone’s child.

This is, I think, what struck me the most while reading The Middle Place. The thought that we are—whether because of it or in spite of it— simply a product of the people in our lives. The bond Corrigan describes with her father evokes one of two thoughts: I want that or I have that. It is because of the way she humorously, yet carefully, crafts the story of this relationship, along with all the others in her writing, that I recommend this book. By the end, not only was I feeling that this book came into my life at the right time and that it was no coincidence after all, but that maybe the same could apply to you. As a reviewer, I was impressed. As a reader, I was touched. I’m not sure which is right or more important, but it was important that I share it with you.

The Middle Place is available on January 8.
KellyCorrigan.com
EveryWomansVoice.com

I’d like to thank Authors On The Web and Every Woman’s Voice for the opportunity to play the role of reviewer today.

_____________________________

But oh, no, the fun does not end there!

Speaking of books coming into our lives, what are you reading?

I often forget that while I love to browse Amazon.com while at work the shelves of my local book stores, sometimes I forget about the value in a recommendation. And, let’s be honest, I’ve only got a few more weeks until school starts again and reading a book I know someone else loved sounds like one of the better ways to spend that time.

I’m open to all suggestions— let’s hear ‘em!