Probably doesn't count. The carnation post.

Before I lost my concentration to the third trimester of this pregnancy, I was doing a nice side-by-side comparison of The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone and Il Gigante by Anton Gill, both about the life of Michelangelo. Agony is historical fiction (and nicely researched at that), and Gigante is historical, period. My comparison was short-lived, but interesting, and I read about half of Agony (Does it drive anyone crazy that I sometimes critique books that I only read part of?). The part I read is good. You can skip the love scene if you are into censoring what you read---you'll see it coming. I need to go back someday when I can concentrate academically and give these two books a solid read. I know very little about Michelangelo and Italy during this time, and these books are well-written and worth the time.

What I was in the mood for, however, was a re-read of These is My Words by Nancy Turner, and a "I've lost count how many times I've read this" read of Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith. Both were just about my speed during this "Where is my brain? Oh, it's making a baby" last few months before girl baby arrives.

I need to find more books that give much and don't require much intelligent analysis on my part.

Since I don't have anything new to recommend, does it count if tell you what I've been thinking about lately? Probably not, but here you go . . . if I were in a creative writing class and had to write a personal essay, I would write it about my latest realizations about carnations. You know, the flower.

Last Sunday, I was wandering the church during the last hour because it's too uncomfortable for me to sit for three hours anymore. The Braxton Hicks hit and I have to get up and move. So as I was roving, I passed a lovely spray of flowers, left from a funeral the day before. Since I didn't know the person who died, I could be objective, and not sentimental, about the flowers. I was looking at the roses (lovely), the irises (beautiful), etc. What stuck out where the carnations.

I realized that I don't now, nor have I ever, liked carnations at all (aside from when I was six years old and carried them when I was flower girl for my Aunt Kit). Carnations have no personality---they just look like a flower sneezed and a carnation grew there. Achoo! Florists use them to fill space. Boring. So carnations are a boring sneeze flower. Which CAN be used if you are a gangster and need a red one for your lapel---but other than that, I can't think of a good use for them. It's no surprise to me, in hindsight, that I married a man who never once gave me carnations. Eric is a roses man. He was so clever about that, even from the start. No wonder he won.

When I die (in sixty years), please find something else to have at my funeral. If you want inexpensive, try daisies. Or better, yet, don't have flowers at my funeral at all. If you are looking for a symbol of life and beauty, just leave bouquets of books and books and books around my coffin. Slip a copy of something I haven't read into my hand before you close the lid. If I like it, you can think of me smiling from the great beyond.

If I don't like what you choose, I'll come back and let you know why. You'll see me in a dream and I'll have my reading glasses on my nose and your book in my hand. I will have flowers in my hair---lilacs perhaps, or maybe honeysuckle. But no carnations.

Here's What Santa Brought Me For Christmas

Books. Santa brought me books. Santa reads my blog so he knows which books I adore, but don't own copies of. He brought me:

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston
Through the Children's Gate by Gopnik
Essays of EB White by EB White
These is my Words by Turner
Griffin and Sabine by Bantock

Santa brought me that last book because I do like the book, and I do like name Sabine. If I were pregnant with a girl, "Sabine" would be on the list for a girls name. Not as in "Sabine" as in "Sabine women/passive/captured/exploited" but "Sabine" as in reminds me of the verb "saber" as in "She who knows with conviction/understands/comprehends."

Wait! Since I am pregnant with a girl, I can put Sabine on my list. TADA!

That Santa. The longer I live, the more clever I think Santa is.

P.S. My children also punctuate things they say with "TADA!" Ah, the sweet echoes of linguistic Deborah quirks.