A Reprise

Today I finished reading Mary , by Mary Wollstonecraft. To be honest I found it lacking. The ending was poignant but the whole novel felt somehow incomplete. I understand its significance in terms of the Age of Reason school of thought giving way to the Romantic, in which emotions take prevalence over order. I recall reading that it as well as other works by Wollstonecraft were true propaganda, and this would account for the lack of depth I sensed. I spent an hour trying to find my place in Shirley , by Charlotte Bronte. I decided to read it with Stanza instead of listening to the Librivox podcast any longer. I felt like I was missing details by listening. I am picking up at The School-feast, since that is the last event I remember, though I feel like I was much further along. I am enjoying Shirley , but it is almost too intense. I end up acting like the heroine (reference my "smothered at the first cry" reading note) if I read it too many days in a row, and I get to feelin...

When I wrote so cavalierly earlier I did not guess the event today would hold. What a blistering, abusive tirade. How diffcult to hear when I feel already I have lost my identity to this job. I cannot even imagine how to feel happy at work tomorrow. I wish I were faster to figure things out, but I am grateful for the events that will lead me to make a long-needed change. Three years is too long to have resisted such a change. Even as I wait for a possibility, I will begin to put myself and my things together in anticipation for the something better that may be. Thank you, says Hedgewitch. Always a blessing. Smile. Thank you. Smile. I am grateful for these lessons. Thank you. I am grateful for this new opportunity.

Let me not omit that from my life again, especially in January. Reading "Prisoner of the Stone Tower" by Sarah Ash. I am truly enjoying it as I have not enjoyed a book in a while. Last night reading was the main event for me. It is such a comfort to have something good and long that I feel like reading on cold, dark winter evenings. I am anxious to finish the others I am reading so I can move on. I really want to start on Emma  and Cranford . I have really been struggling with everything about myself. Who I am, what I look like, what I enjoy doing. I am clueless about all of the above. I am going to put it down and just start reading. Those other things don't really matter.

Five minutes is all that I have as I release the old and welcome the new. Which is what 2011 has consisted of so far for me. I think, I organize, I release. I list on eBay, I read and take notes. I am tired, but it will only be for a little while. What can I tell you? Last night my dog woke me up in the middle of the night crying out in his sleep. I think he was having a nightmare, which has sort of cast a pall over my day because I feel responsible if he is disturbed. For one thing, he was distressed while I was watching Dark Shadows because of the noise, and for another I was not as nice as I should have been earlier in the ice when I was trying to get him to go. I can't wait to be home with him today and sit quietly with him for a while. It may be true that poodles understand not just words but whole sentences. I have been trying it on for size, no longer speaking in puppy-talk to him. "Chevre," I said. "I'm going to be in here a while. Why not go ge...