Night ramblings

It's only 1030 here, but I"m having trouble getting to sleep. There are a few things that I've been wanting to post about, so while it is quiet, I'm typing.

First of all, I'm in my 2nd week of an online class using The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I"ve had the book for years and have tried to do the 12 week course on my own and with a friend but never finished. When a friend of mine and fellow artist let me know that she was hosting this class, I jumped at it. And for only 100 bucks too. There are about 4 more women in the class and so far, I've really enjoyed the online format. This is my first class that I've taken this way.

Part of the course involves writing 3 pages of stream of consciousness writing every morning. Let me tell ya, they have been difficult for me in the past. But this time around, instead of doing them longhand like the author says to, I made up a new section of my blog that is only open to me. I've been writing away. This has been a success.

In week 4, I think that we are assigned to do a reading deprivation exercise. So, during that week, I'll be MIA from reading your blogs, or writing comments, but I'll still be posting here. Just wanted to warn you that you will be being neglected for about a week sometime soon. It also includes email. It's going to be rough on me that's for sure. Can you tell that I'm already a little bit anxious?

Next, I wanted to share some books that I finished this week. The first is called "Alternadad" by Neal Pollack. I raced through this. I loved it. If you love Ariel Gore's Hip Mama, you'll also love Alternadad. It's about Pollack's coming to terms with losing his coolness after having his son. It so struck a chord with me, as I've been feeling like this from time to time. I actually don't know why either. Being a mom hasn't taken away any of the coolness that I had before. Maybe I just overestimated the prebaby amount. I read parts out loud to Chris. We saw some of ourselves in the pages.

The other book is a collection of essays called, "Women In The Wild" which is from Travelers' Tales Guides. Many times in this blog, I have mentioned my loathing of travel in real life. But did I ever mention that I love reading about other people's travels? This book was a treasure for me in that aspect and I ended up thinking about things that I hadn't thought before. I have little flags sticking out of the pages.

Last week I finished listening to "Peter Pan" and I thought that it was so so, but not a waste of time. I also listened to a book called "Innocence" which was trippy. I really got into it. It's funny because I don't think that I would have liked reading it, but I loved listening to it. I can't think of the author's name right now but I have read stuff by her before and struggled. She writes in a poetic, dreamy style that I love but it is hard to keep the thread of the book intact in my mind when I read this style. So listening proved beneficial in this case.

I'll put up some quotes this weekend from both books when I get a chance.