April 17, 2008

Who's your John Steinbeck?

Innernets! I get to meet Her Royal Bossiness this weekend as she cruises through Kansas City on her Bossy's Excellent Road Trip national event. I cannot wait to meet her and get bossed around and hear her speak in bolds and italics while she flings around commands and edicts - for she is The Bossy One, no? Personally, I am hoping she demands that I eat my weight in chips and salsa washed down with a margarita.

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I would like to thank Heza Hekele for her honesty in yesterday's comments on my post about co-sleeping. Her comment disagreed wholeheartedly (and heatedly!) with my post, but she wrote her points in a respectful manner. I do not mind comments that disagree with me! There is way too much groupthink in the blogosphere and folks are way too scared of being branded a troll. As long as folks refrain from calling me some sort of negative adjective, I welcome thoughtful comments even when they differ from my beliefs.

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There are some things that I just do not "get". John Steinbeck, for example. I have read 4 or 5 of his books (the most recent being Cannery Row. BLEH). Every time I read a Steinbeck, I want to apply somewhere to get a literary refund of those hours of my life back because I feel cheated.

While I am confessing my Cultural Sins here, I might as well admit that I do not "get" the Beatles or Elvis, either. Oh sure, their songs are okay, but I do not understand the rabid fanship. And television? Count me lost on Lost, clubfooted on Dancing with the Stars, not hungry for the Biggest Loser and totally tone deaf for American Idol. I don't "get" those, either.

Might as well go long: I do not regularly read Dooce. While I have a tremendous respect for Heather Armstrong and was very! impressed! with what I saw and heard about her at BlogHer 05 and 06, I just had a hard time following her story and gave up, even though I do enjoy her writing style. I have seen her daily style thingie, which I do like, but could not figure out how to just get that feed only instead of everything else including the dog snaps (which I do not "get", either. I guess I am more of a cat person).

So, who's your John Steinbeck? Can we still be friends?

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I had an eye appointment this week and boy, is my optometrist a cutie. Not that I get to bask in any of that glory because I am a -9.0 in my left eye and -9.5 in my right. I spend most of the appointment without any sort of corrective lens helping my crippled peepers. *sob* I did ask him about my blue eyed girl being the fruit of my brown-eyed South Indian's loins. Dr. C said there must be some blue-eyed person in X's family. Perhaps, there is an Englishman in the woodpile after all.

My Left Retina


That bright white spot is my optic nerve. It's bigger than your average optic nerve because I am so flippin' BLIND. The nerve!

14 comments:

Erin said...

I don't think Dooce has a story so much anymore as a well-oiled machine. If you've ever been to a Target, you already get the style feed. I wouldn't sweat it.

I also don't get Lost, but I think that's true for any soap opera you don't watch from the beginning. Once three of my friends lured me to the local and I showed up and they were watching their Story, which they conveniently forgot to mention. Treachery! I had a drink with them anyway.

caro said...

Looking at the top 1/4 of that shot, I totally thought "pregnant belly with navel". Retina, though. Wow! Beautiful!

Anonymous said...

I don't get Ernest Hemingway, American Idol, Surviver and their ilk. And while I love to watch Jane Austen movies, I do not like to read her books.

Diana said...

William Faulkner, 'American Idol', plug in perfume-y air fresheners to name a few.

I do like 'Lost', but this is likely because I Netflix it and eat a whole season in a week or two. Makes me less lost.

Really not much of a Steinbeck fan, either; although I can see his brilliance, I just don't care for it.

Anonymous said...

Still snickering at the comment above: "If you've ever been to a Target, you already get the style feed." That's a riot. I'm not particularly impressed, either.

I found myself wondering if you read Grapes of Wrath. I found it incredible. I've not read many of his others, though, but my mother was a huge fan.

As for me, I don't "get" Quentin Tarantino. His work, in my opinion, is overrated garbage, pure and simple.

MLE said...

The worst book I ever read was a Steinbeck - The Red Pony. I had to read it in 8th grade and I still want those two hours back. Sucked.

The only Steinbeck I ever enjoyed was East of Eden.

My Steinbeck? 24, Survivor, American Idol, Robert Jordan (big SF author)

And for some reason, the only thing I *like* about dooce are the dog photos.

Enjoy your Mexican and margs with Bossy!

Anonymous said...

And I thought I was blind but you beat me by long shot :) although I do have a cone shaped cornea that can't be fixed and will eventually cause me to go blind in my left eye, at least that is what they are telling me right now.

There are a lot of things I don't get either but off the top of my head I can't come up with any am too sleep deprived right now.

Anonymous said...

I don't get Ayn Rand. I struggled through 500 pages of Atlas Shrugged and had to leave it completely disgruntled. I see so many lists of the "greatest" books and she's always included, but I was completely unimpressed. Hemingway's blatant misogyny was always a turn off for me.

Monkey McWearingChaps said...

happy birthday!!!

Heza Hekele said...

I was scratching my head over why I was getting so much traffic from your site, and then I finally bothered to come have a lookie! I made it into a post along side dooce? What are the odds?

I don't get the deal with the dog pics either...

And yes, I am adamently opposed to co-sleeping with under-one-year-olds (not older toddlers/children), and it's not just based on the loss of my brother's friend's kid...infant death and suffocation in an adult bed has touched my family MANY times, and I did well over 100 hrs of research into it while preggy, and probably another 100 since...the only chance a parent ever has is if they have a "heads-up" within a minute of their infant refraining from breathing...and the only monitor on the market that does that will not work if it's picking up more than just the baby's breathing movements.

That said, I am glad my comments came across without any offence. The proper way to bring up a child is ALWAYS the way the PARENT(S) feel is CORRECT. (provided the parents are sane...no need to mention a certain Texas cult here...) Was not my intent to offend anyone, just to provide an alternate view.

On the vision note: During the child(ren)'s annual eye exam, I booked myself in too, since I hadn't seen an eye doc in 10 yrs. It cost me $80 to learn I still had 20/20 vision. Oy.

However! All three kids walked away with perfect (for age) vision too! Including the 15-mos-old-bacterial-meningitis-survivor! The little dude who spent part of his third month on life support, in an induced coma, with a brain infection, while fighting off gangreen (sp?) has not only survived, but has NO lasting side effects! None! Even his eyes were uneffected!

Walked away from the optometrist counting blessings!

Anonymous said...

Happy (belated) birthday!

You have the honor of being the one person I've ever met (well, you know what I mean) with worse eyesight than me! :-) I have -7.5 in my right and -7.0 in my left. FYI, one thing that has slowed down my deteriorating eyesight immensely, given all the reading and computer time I spend at work, is getting "reading glasses." Essentially, they counteract my super-strong contact lenses to make the overall prescription weaker. Apparently, because my eyesight is so bad, when I have my contacts in my eyes have to work extra hard to see things at reading distance. My eyedoctor swears by the "glass over contacts" approach, and my eyesight has remained constant ever since I started it, even though I spend more time reading and on the computer than ever.

Yank In Texas said...

Wow. Someone with eyes about as bad as mine! Yay! I'm a -9.5 in my right and a -10 in my left. Sigh. I feel the pain. I also wear reading glasses so my eyes don't get worse. So glad to find company.
My Steinbeck? The Lord of the Rings for sure. Just couldn't do it.

elizasmom said...

I think you may have inadvertently started a meme with your "Do not get" topic — I did one on my blog and another blogger posted one at her site. Oh, and you're apparently not alone r.e. Dooce, although I actually happen to like her most of the time.

Anonymous said...

Late to comment, but... Apart from Steinbeck, who I love reading, I agree with all your "don't gets". And I thought I was alone on Lost, Biggest Loser, the Idol shows and all the others (here in Australia we are cursed with the Australian AND the American versions of that Idol show). And for me, Dooce is like a train wreck - I keep going back now and then to see what she says, but am always disappointed - at what she writes, and at myself for going there in the first place.

Blind or not, that's a great picture of your retina!!