America's Favorite Past Time

Baseball season is once again in full swing. And I am planning to catch a couple of games this summer. Being in DC offers both good and bad elements to baseball season.

Bad: The Nats are a terrible team. I don't plan on attending any games they will win or even come close to winning.

Good: Tickets are dirt cheap. When you already know the outcome of the game, not many people are willing to pay in excess of ten bucks for a ticket.

Bad: The Sox are in the American League while the Nats are in the National League. This means I won't be able to see the Sox play this summer as I won't be going to Chicago until Labor Day when ticket prices will be well out of my range.

Good: My neighbors have the MLB channel and have promised I can actually watch games. They think my obsession with the Sox is highly entertaining, so they will more than likely spend most of the game watching me watch the game.

Bad: I won't be able to watch the games with my dad, sister or brother.

Good: I will have plenty of excuses to call my dad, sister and brother to discuss plays, stats and standings.

The life of a baseball fanatic has its ups and downs, but mostly it's just about the love of the game.

For every-day girls with every-day issues

My Big Nose & Other Natural Disasters by Sydney-Louise Salter Husseman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I approached this book a little differently as I read it aloud with my roommate, and I can't imagine having read it any other way. It was so much fun to read this book with a friend and be able to share our own stories of poor self-image, lousy boy experiences and horrific summer jobs. We could totally relate to this book, and not because we had experienced some trauma that had a profound effect on our lives, but because we are every-day girls who deal with every-day life.

Jory Michaels has a problem, and it's as plain as the nose on her face, mostly because it is the nose on her face. Her two best friends have emerged from their ugly-duckling phases and are now beautiful, confident young women ready to take senior year by storm. Her little brother Finn is a soccer star two years her junior who managed to score a date to senior prom when he was still a freshman. Her mom is perfectly proportioned, her dad is a workaholic and everyone around her knows where they are going in life. If only Jory's massive shnoz and perpetual virginity would stop getting in her way.

Her summer plan includes finding summer employment to pay for a nose job, discovering a passion and having sex. But it won't be that easy when she is a horrible driver and the only job she can find is delivering cakes. Not to mention that when water skiing, yoga, soccer, reading and classical music fail to perk Jory's interest, she begins to run out of things to become passionate about. Then her best friend starts hanging out with the guy she has been crushing on for twelve months, six days and however many hours, and the only boy who seems to be taking any notice of Jory is a juvenile delinquent with a super-snout of his own.

Sure there are times when I wished Jory would shut up about her nose and get more supportive friends, and don't even get me started on her superficial mother. But isn't that how life is? We get fixated on something so securely that we can't see past it and we let it rule our lives--that is part of human nature.

At a time when YA fiction has been flooded with books about beautiful, aloof, perfect girls, Sydney Salter has written a heartwarming books about an ordinary girl with ordinary problems yet managed to make an extraordinary novel. Full for laugh-out-loud funny moments, hide-under-the-covers embarrassing moments and call-your-mom-to-tell-her-you-love-her moments, My Big Nose stands out from the crowd.

View all my reviews.

Bridges and books—the prefect combination

I didn’t think I looked like a New Yorker—I don’t have the posh stylings of a Manhatten diva, nor do I have the big hair of a flashy girl from Queens. But I must have some look that screams “City Girl!” because, despite the iPod that was permanently embedded in my ear and my horrible hair thanks to the hair dryer I left sitting on my bathroom counter at home, four people stopped me to ask for directions. Yes, four. In two days. Maybe I just look approachable? Or maybe I walk with confidence? Really, I only knew where I was going because I was constantly referencing my new cell phone’s GPS feature—God bless you Verizon!

My trip to New York City this weekend was all about books. Traveling alone meant I could actually sit in cafes and parks and write whenever I wanted, and I think I filled half a pocket notebook with the most random story ideas and research notes. I wanted some me-time to read a few of the books that have taken over my desk as well as make a quick (ha!) trip to my book Mecca—The Strand—because their book bags are the perfect size with the perfect give, but after four years of constant use and abuse, my old bag deserves a long, quiet retirement. Check out all the loot I got.


Really, this trip was just a poorly veiled excuse to meet my online book buddy Lisa McMann. While there were tons of people at the Books of Wonder event, I did have a chance to actually talk to Lisa for a while. We’ve been exchanging book recommendations for years now (I can’t believe it’s actually been years), so I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet her in person. But after a couple weeks on tour, Lisa had been smiling so much it looked like it actually hurt. When I asked if we could get a picture, I told her smiling was not necessary. It’s too bad the first picture was so blurry, because we looked fierce.


Only I’m not such a good actress, and I totally lost it for the second picture and ended up with crazy eyes.


I also wanted to spend some time in Brooklyn on this trip. It is no secret that I’ve had a preoccupation with that borough since reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in high school. But my previous trips to NYC have been with people who don't share my odd little obsession. I have now eaten, shopped and explored a couple little corners of Brooklyn, complete with a hike across the Brooklyn Bridge.


I am a happy tourist, I mean, just look at that bridge-blown hair and squinty eyes. Can't you just tell that I have wanted to walk across that bridge for ten years? I am such a nerd.

Mini parking spaces and summer concerts

Part 1: Mini parking spaces

I am a city driver. Growing up in the Chicagoland area has made me kind of an aggressive driver who knows how to get in and out of tight spaces. So when a few friends from Utah came to visit this past week, they got to see my city driving skills in a whole new light. They experienced Beltway traffic and the parking lot that is I-66. They white-knuckled it as I merged using 10-foot ramps and whipped around city streets. But the thing that made one friend truly horrified was the parking. And Tammy, being Tammy, took pictures of some of my parking jobs.

Tammy was just about ready to have a heart-attach when she saw me back into these teeny-tiny spaces, and the one of the left wasn't even all that bad as I only had a raised walkway on one side. She also couldn't believe I was willing to attempt parking between two concert posts like the one on the right. (Don't ask what Misheal and I are doing in this picture, because I have no idea, but it was hysterical at the time.) And that doesn't even touch all the parallel parking I had to do. I guess in a city where real-estate is such a hot commodity, you don't waste it on parking garages, a truism a country-bread girl from Idaho fond intriguing.

Part 2: Summer concerts

There is noting that says summer so much as music. I got my tickets to the NIN and Jane's Addiction tour, and I'm still hoping to find a group who wants to see Crue Fest 2 so I don't have to spend a fortune on tickets but can get the group rate. (I have to admit, I'm not so much a fan of Motley Crue as I am obsessed with Theory of a Deadman.)

Least you think I'm a total heathen and my mother didn't raise me to enjoy polite society, I'm also seeing Ragtime for the second time, and I'm hoping to catch a play at the newly remodeled Ford's Theatre. Then there's also Screen on the Green to look forward to, where the city puts up a jumbotron in front of the Capitol and people come to watch old movies on Monday nights. And of course my mom and sister are coming for the 4th of July concert as well.

I'm so excited for all the activities what will be going on this summer! I just hope I don't put myself into the poorhouse trying to do them all.

I love spending time with my little brother.

I guess my little brother really isn't all that little anymore. He's taller than me, probably smarter than I am, and has been able to take me in a tickle fight for about ten years now. But he's still my baby brother.

Michael's been talking about coming to visit since I moved to Washington, but because he's stationed on a Navy sub, that's easier said than done. He finally had a weekend off, and then I got sick. So he came down anyway. A nine-and-a-half-hour drive to spend two days with a mucussy, coughy mess of a sister--now that is love.

I haven't been the life of the party this weekend (in fact, he's downtown with friends right now, and I came home to sleep), but it's been nice to spend time with him. We talked late into the night after he got here, and then we went out to brunch and talked some more. We went and saw a movie, and then he hung out at my place while I took a nap. That was followed by more talking and dinner.

So here's to spending time with family. Though we may live far away from each other and have become very different people with different goals and ideals, we have a common bond that cannot fade with time or distance or experience. Call me sentimental, but that's what family really is.

P.S. We are finally getting nice weather again. The snow is all gone and the sun is shining.