on collections

20% off sale at half-price books, three locations, and $50 later here is what i came away with. SO stoked that i'm building up my library :) i can't wait to read all of this. hopefully i will put a big dent in this list in 2010.

aristotle
the politics
the nicomachean ethics

nietzsche
the birth of tragedy and the genealogy of morals

henrik ibsen
hedda gabler
a doll's house

richard brinsley sheridan
the school for scandal

george bernard shaw
heartbreak house
arms and the man
pygmalion

arthur schnitzler
hands around

jean racine
phedre

eugene o'neill
beyond the horizon

c.s. lewis
miracles: a preliminary study

aristophanes
the complete plays

saint augustine
confessions

j.m. synge
the playboy of the western world and riders to the sea

tom stoppard
travesties

voltaire
philosophical letters

william congreve
the way of the world

anton chekhov
the three sisters

euripides
medea
the bacchae

aeschylus
the oresteia trilogy (two different translations)

william shakespeare
hamlet
julius caesar
macbeth
the taming of the shrew
a midsummer night's dream
othello
the sonnets

beowulf

heroes and monsters of greek myth

homer
the odyssey

massie
augustus

petronius
the satyricon

dante alighieri
inferno

hans anderson
fairy tales and legends

tennessee williams
the glass menagerie

moliere
the misanthrophe

oscar wilde
the importance of being earnest

virgil
the aeneid

wheelock's latin (a textbook! for $5.50!)

gabriel garcia marquez
one hundred years of solitude

sophocles
oedipus the king

an anthology of greek drama

the empiricists
(including locke, berkeley, hume)

five greek tragedies
(sophocles, euripides, aeschylus)

immortal poems of the english language
(shakespeare, milton, keats, eliot, years, hopkins, donne, tennyson, whitman, frost)

eight great tragedies
(aeschylus, sophocles, euripides, shakespeare, ibsen, strindberg, yeats, o'neill)

the best american non-required reading, 2008

like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat

finished extremely loud and incredibly close a couple of days ago and loved it. i had been looking forward to reading this after finishing everything is illuminated at the beginning of fall semester. commence customary text-quoting sequence....now.

i started inventing things, and then i couldn't stop, like beavers, which i know about. people think they cut down trees so they can build dams, but in reality it's because their teeth never stop growing, and if they didn't constantly file them down by cutting through all of those trees, their teeth would start to grow into their own faces, which would kill them. that's how my brain was.

'well, if people like me are a dying breed, then what's going to happen to your business?' 'we'll become specialized,' he said, 'like a typewriter shop. we're useful now, but soon we'll be interesting.'

i needed to do something, like sharks, who die if they don't swim, which i know about.

the eyes that can't take in all of the change

was i walking up the ladder or down?

the books had been buried, so i hid this time behind a group of trees, i imagined their roots wrapped around books, pulling nourishment from the pages, i imagined rings of letters in their trunks

how could anything less deserve to be destroyed?

i understand, now, the tragedy of my childhood. it wasn't the bombing.it was that i never once liked a photograph of myself. i couldn't.

it's like new york is a miniature replica of new york, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it.

on days come and gone

between a conversation i had last night and the last hour or so of purging old emails, im a tad bit nostalgic. no, not nostalgic. i dont really look fondly upon my past...not on any of it. everything was always tainted with the reminders of what preceded it

on early mornings

i haven't blogged in a while and i'm currently doing everything in my power to stay awake, so now is as good a time as ever, right? well, honestly i'm a little wired at the moment, but i know i'm going to crash soon. hospital coffee will only last me so long before i start getting sick to my stomach. i woke up this morning really nauseous and even more unwilling to pry myself out of bed. luckily this trip to the hospital isn't because of me, but rather for billy's mom. this trip has been everything but what i expected, and i know the next 48 hours are going to be the hardest yet because my departure is imminent and the time i have with billy will be even less than the last few days.

i can't possibly have enough time with this boy, my fella, my love. he makes me say the most outrageous things and i mean every one of them, which scares me half to death. i mean, i love this boy enough to wake up an hour before sunrise to make small talk with his mom and spend the day at the hospital with her. the anthropologist in me just keeps screaming "affines, affines!" but i'm biting my tongue. i really want to like her, and she's great, but i have my moments while my misanthropic side still gets the best of me. my mind has no tolerance for redundancy, inflexibility, or illogical actions, but i'm doing my best. its hard to believe that his mom is closer in age to my grandparents than to my parents and reminding myself of that definitely makes me more fond of her. she really is a great lady but the circumstances under which im being forced to get to know her are far from ideal. here's to the worst preceding the best. i hope.

last night has left me giddy. something about being around him rejuvenates me and energizes me like no other. i was exhausted and half-asleep driving to pick him up from work, but the moment i was back in his arms, looking in his eyes, there isn't a thing in the world that can keep me from him. i'm sure as time goes on, some of the impractical aspects will fade away (i can't stay up until 3 or 4 or 5 every night and remain a functioning member of society for much longer) but i know my love for him is not fading. impossibly, it is growing stronger and i'm so glad there is no expiration date. oh, i guess that leads me to my good news. two things, one related to this train of thought and one not. i guess i'll follow the logical path first.

news bulletin! there is nothing standing in the way of my happiness any longer (at least until june). no surgery in my imminent future and biopsies that are miraculously clean. yesterday morning was the best morning i can remember and i know that waking up isn't a chore knowing that the (potentially bad) news isn't looming over me. this is the first good news about my health i have received in three years, post-surgery excluded, and it couldn't have come at a better time. no more obstacles, no more hurdles. just me, my fella, and a future brighter than my dizziest daydream. let's be honest, there weren't even daydreams. or hopes. or a future. all these delusional conceptions of dying young and never growing old seem silly now that i have him in my life. he gives me hope and meaning and a reason for a future. he is my future, and all of hesitance and misgivings that i may have seem meaningless and trivial in the shadow of the light he has brought into my life. three cheers to good health, good love, good mornings.

other good news! i managed to get a set of perfectly balanced grades. B+, B+, A-, A, A in my classes. high Bs in my translation courses are better than i could ask for, A- in faulkner (slightly disappointing, but probably deserved) and two As otherwise. never again will i deal with this silly 20 hour nonsense. two more semesters until i'm free from millsaps myself. i'm sure what exactly my future holds, but i know teaching and school will define and shape my path. all i know is that my path no longer has an end in sight and i will have someone with me every step of the way. there is nothing more a girl could ask for.

...okay, i don't really want to end my blog with a line like that. it makes me sound silly and antiquated. i never thought i would be that girl. i'm so unequivocally his, however, i don't really care how silly and demeaning it sounds. for now it is time for more coffee and (seemingly) endless hours of waiting. until next time