Are there any new ideas?
I ordered Battle Royale today online, the 1999 young adult novel by Japanese author Koushun Takami, just to figure it all out for myself. You know, the big controversy? That The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins “ripped off” the story hook, line and sinker from Takami’s cult classic?
Nine pillow fights * Nine incomprehensible Knock-Knock jokes * Nine bike rides through the mud * Nine growth spurts that make trousers and best-loved t-shirts too short * Nine hugs for teachers
I was not embarrassed by my mother often. Most of the time, her existence didn’t collide with mine at all. But with each rare incident, I remember feeling that her words or actions somehow reflected poorly on me, that she lacked decorum or diplomacy on some level.
Today, on entertainment news, I heard that the singer Beyoncé recently presented her husband, rapper Jay-Z, with a gigantic sapphire pinkie ring upon the birth of their first child January 7. The commentator laughed and said that “push presents” usually go to the mother, not the father!
Push presents? I wish this concept had been known 18 years ago, when I started having babies. Someone owes me three. Can they be awarded retroactively?
Once I start reading a book, I forget everything else. A new book to me is a bit like the chocolate cake on the counter. If it were possible, I would eat the whole thing, all at once. I don’t know when to stop.
Do you have at least one special Christmas memory? Was it a gift you really wanted, or a memorable activity, or a visit by someone special? The year you got stuck in the snow on the way to visit relatives, the year you got a pair of skates or took a hayride, or received tickets to a rock concert?
I was sitting on my bedroom sofa this morning, as is my daily writing ritual: pad and paper in hand, coffee mug perched on the windowsill.
So I’ve come to the end of my running odyssey, and I find it ironic that at the end of this program, I find myself running 10K alone—on my treadmill—just the way I started.
A young guy, dressed all in black (with a piercing in an unusual place), walked up to my book signing table at a local store tonight to say hello. He picked up my book and turned it over.
I read once in a beginning runner’s handbook that one shouldn’t try to increase distance and speed at the same time, but I appear to have broken that rule.
