My downstairs neighbors woke up early to resume the loud argument they began last night.

My darlingest of boyfriends has told me to not, under any circumstance, wake him up early.

(My cat, however, received no such warning.)

My breakfast: half a grilled portabello sandwich from last night’s take out.

My singular task for this morning: to finish reading this book before the library closes at 2.

I think I accidentally went to an undergrad party last night.

Evidence:

• Overheard conversations regarding certain party-goers inability to purchase alcohol
• Games with beer
• A lot of standing around and walking from room to room
• The girls in the apartment were not, in aggregate, wearing enough fabric on their bottom halves to constitute a single pair of what we call “pants”

Anyway, so my lazy 26-year-old butt was parked on a couch with a grown-up pumpkin beer in hand, forcing the other two confirmed 26-year-olds in the room to converse with me. I just finished reading Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion and had begun Nancy Werlin’s Double Helix, so naturally, I wanted to talk about clones.

The clones in The House of the Scorpion are normal, functioning humans who happen to have a perfect DNA match. But because this futuristic society can’t handle the idea of two identical humans having two separate souls, they classify clones as livestock, as property, as less-than-human. Well, actually, the futuristic society probably decided that they wanted to do terrible things to clones (oh, like raising them like animals and eventually HARVESTING THEIR ORGANS) and therefore decided to classify them as livestock to make this legal. But anyway… the clones basically don’t have any human rights.

Now that I finished Double Helix, I know that the book was more about transgenics and eugenics than cloning, but the books raise similar questions. My fellow 26-year-old party-goers and I discussed some of these extremely important genetic questions:

– Do clones have freewill? Does anyone have freewill? If we both have freewill or if neither have freewill, does that make us the same or different?

– Would it be possible someday for one person to be able to control a clone with their brain? Like one computer that can run multiple systems, or networked computers?

– How much can genetic tampering really matter in the long run? Are genes a map that eliminates any concept of free will? Or are they guidelines for someone’s potential to act?

– If genes are a map, then what happens when two people have the same map? Or if people start tampering with that map?

It was all very unintelligible and speculative and really, I just wanted to kill time before I could make a hasty escape from the standing and pantslessness and the music mix that was a bit heavy on the Shaggy.

Suddenly, an undergraduate darted across the room and invited himself into our conversation. “Wait,” he said, interrupting whatever it was we were actually discussing. “Answer me this:

Do you believe in fate or chance?

Do you believe we are meant to be here, that there is some higher power?

What is our purpose on this planet if everything is random?”

Leave it to an undergraduate to bust up a perfectly innocent science fiction discussion and BOMBARD ME WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE!

Ah, youth.

I can say that because I am an old, old lady now.

(Then again, my fellow mature party-goers and I did the following on the way home:

1. Laughed at a piece of mail we found at the bus stop addressed to “He Suc Hwang”

2. Had a really heated, highly mature debate regarding the legitimacy of Beer Pong as a valuable past-time

3. Lost The Game a few dozen times, which hasn’t happened to me since…. you guessed it… undergrad)

~

Oh, P.S., can we all take a moment to wave at Kayla from Freckles in April? She linked to my post about how much I love stories out-loud and my tiny little blog has never seen so many hits. Despite my lack of interest in dressing myself properly, I have enjoyed Kayla’s blog for a number of months now. Additionally, it is possible that Kayla possesses at least one elf ear.

Exhibit A:

This means we must have some kind of kindred ear communion. Or something that sounds less weird. And perhaps I should consider dressing as a Lord of the Rings character for Halloween, which is exactly one more costume idea than the zero I had before this morning.

I had an English professor for my Senior Seminar who believed 700% in the power of reading books aloud. To your kids. To your students who are kids. To your students who are adults and sitting in their Senior Seminar class wondering why they are being read to instead of lectured at.

I found this awesome, so I took her again the following semester.

We read two books:

There is something special about being read to.

Hearing the words.

Shutting up and listening.

A bit of communion between reader, listener, and story.

~

An incomplete list of books my father read to me as a child:

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (+ other books by the author)

Mary Poppins P.L. Travers (+ sequels)

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum (+ sequels)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The Boggart by Susan Cooper

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The one I remember most?

Momo.

It is this totally bizarre German adult fantasy about a girl who rides around on the back of a giant tortoise.

~

An incomplete list of books my parents tried to read to me but I made them stop:

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Bilbo Baggins lost my interest about 17 chapters into that cave. Or so I recall.

~

My boyfriend teaches music at an elementary school. He has a bit of “before school duty” that puts him in a 4th grade classroom for 5-10 minutes every morning with nothing for the kids to do.

He decided to read to them.

I made a book recommendation.

They love it.

He loves it.

I love him.

(And also: holy hotness.)

(It’s the Hot Guys Reading Effect)

(See: Ryan Gosling:

~

When I’m feeling anxious or listless or general in a bad spirit, this is one way I cheer myself up:

queue up a favorite audiobook.

Really. It’s almost medicinal.

It has to be something with a good audio recording,

something familiar,

something I’ve read or listened to before,

something I pretty much love.

Right now, I am listening to Harry Potter,

and it’s like having a talisman in my pocket,

waiting for me in case I need cheering.

You know what they say: the grass is always greener inside the book you aren’t reading!

In my case, this is true. The most recent grass on my side of the fence? A hopelessly HOPELESSLY sexist Heinlein novel written in 1964 that went FIFTEEN YEARS without being checked out from the library.

June 6 1995 – Oct 20 2010

I am lusting for greener book covers.

1. Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen – I was starting to really enjoy my little summer Dessen-a-thon, and my little row of her newer, hardback books keep catching my eye in my bedroom. I haven’t re-read this one since I was in high school! What if it’s more amazing than I remember! The world may never know… because I am too busy reading science fiction and fantasy.

2. This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson – A friend of mine bought this for me for my birthday in March, and I keep forgetting to pick it up and read it. I am ashamed, and it looks like it might perk me up a bit.

3. Pearl by Jo Knowles – I saw her speak about being a working writer at the children’s lit conference and there is just something so honest about the way she describes her books that they get stuck in my head. Plus, I think I read once that she started writing this one while working in the office one door down from where I work! Crazy!

4. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs – This one is receiving buzz and good reviews… and my friend and co-blogger Lindsey suggested I join her friend and writer Tracey for an online YA book club! I thought it sounded fun and even forked over some of my hard-earned cash to purchase a hardback (which I NEVER do, people), but I am pretty sure I am not going to finish in time. Ah, well. I will perhaps post about what I can, but no, I will not have time to actually finish this one.

5. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bordain – ANOTHER friend of mind bought this for me for CHRISTMAS… I think you know where this is heading. I REALLY want to read this one – from reading one chapter, I can tell it’s one of those books that I won’t want to put down – but ALAS, Alack, etc

6. Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson – New Jacqueline Woodson… who personally bestowed an Advanced Reading Copy upon my roommate. I feel itchy knowing it’s sitting in her bedroom, but that I can’t read it!

7. Slow Love by Dominique Browning – Janssen gave it a great review. Need I say more?

8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling – Would y’all Judgy McJudgersons keep your mouth shut right now? Thanks.

A quick way to divide the Children’s Lit People from the Not-Children’s-Lit-People?

“Where’s Papa going with that axe?”

Mean anything to you?

I’m not sure I would have been able to pass the test before I started my program, and I haven’t read the book since I was in 4th grade…

but reading it now, I have to say

Charlotte’s Web = best book.

If you disagree, I will fight you.

So, on Tuesday, I felt my first earthquake.

I’m sure you heard all about it, and even my family in Michigan felt it, so yeah, not the biggest deal. I was by myself in my 3rd floor office, so I thought I was having some kind of anxiety-related dizziness/hallucination or something, but the Internet quickly put me in my place.

Tonight, we might get some severe thunderstorms with hail. Great, just what I need on the night I have Restaurant Week reservations for dinner.

Oh, but later? Later this weekend, we might be visited by HURRICANE IRENE. As in, this Hurricane Irene may pass over Boston or Western Mass and leave us in its wake.

Oh, and sometimes, the eastern side of a hurricane (us), can create tornadoes.

!!!!!!

So I’m thinking about non-perishable dinners, buying bottled water and candles, and buying booze.

I already have 10 or 12 books from the library to read, plus THE LAST BOOK OF HARRY POTTER…

But I’m thinking that I might die anyway, because this book I read once? Gave me a mortal phobia of natural disasters. Some of you might have heard of it.

If you haven’t read Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, I would not recommend it as a “The Power is Out” read.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stock up on batteries, penicillin, and Xanax.