Kimberly Hirsh

From “The Mermaid” by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall
                Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
                Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
        Springing alone
        With a shrill inner sound
                Over the throne
        In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

To read the whole thing, go here.  You’ll also see my favorite of John William Waterhouse’s paintings, “A Mermaid."  I’m a mermaid, you know.

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled; Not prone to overstated gushing praise Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled With overstretched opinions to rephrase; But on the other hand, not fond of fools, And thus, not fond of people, on the whole; And holding to the sound and useful rules, Not those that seek unjustified control. I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least, I think I am, and usually I'm right); And when more ostentatious types have ceased, I'm still around, and doing, still, alright. In short, I'm calm and rational and stable - Or, well, I am, as much as I am able. What Poetry Form Are You?

I was originally terza rima, but after reading it decided it was slightly too extroverted for me.  This was the quiz's second assessment of me, and it suits me better.  Plus, sonnet is my favorite kind of poetry.

Here’s what I hope to pick up on my next trip to the library: 
The Silver Child, Cliff McNish - because its sequel was a Cybils nominee 
Kristy’s Great Idea: A Graphic Novel, Ann M. Martin - Cybils 
To Dance, Siena Siegel - Cybils 
American Born Chinese, Gene Yang - Cybils 
Castle Waiting, Linda Medley - Cybils 
Dramacon Vol 1, Svetlana Chmakova - Cybils 
La Perdida, Jessica Abel - Cybils 
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama, Laura Amy Schlitz - Cybils 
Framed, Frank Cottrell Boyce - Cybils 
Heat, Mike Lupica - Cybils 
Weedflower [sound recording], Cynthia Kadohata - Cybils 
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, Carolyn Mackler - readergirlz 
Aria of the Sea, Dia Calhoun - readergirlz 
Make Lemonade, Virginia Euwer Wolff

Last trip I got 7 books, this time I hope to get 14.  I do everything in multiples of 7.

Things to get eventually but not now, due to unavailability: 
Babymouse - All of them! But I have to read them in order. It’s an OCD type thing. I read BSC in order, for goodness’ sake. (Again because of the Cybils.) 
Kiki Strike: inside the shadow city, Kirsten Miller - Cybils

 Read in 2007:
1. Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies), Justina Chen Headley
2. The Royal Diaries - Elizabeth I: The Red Rose of the House of Tudor, Kathryn Lasky
3. Millicent Min, Girl Genius, Lisa Yee
4. The Last Dragon, Silvana de Mari
5. Pucker, Melanie Gideon
6. A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, Dana Reinhardt 
7. Love in Shadow, Sonja Foust

Currently Reading:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Vol. 1: Out of the Madhouse, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
2. Virtual Mode, Piers Anthony
3. I, Claudius, Robert Graves

At this rate, I should be caught up to my 3-a-month goal by the end of Spring Break.  I can probably knock out Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Visitors tonight, and then I'll have Tithe for any other time I'm free.  I'll probably be too tired from being at Disney World over the next few days to do much reading, but I think most of Friday will involve lounging at my grandmother's house - one of my two favorite reading spots, if you'll recall.  The trip back will be a short plane ride as opposed to the longer drive down here, so I probably won't finish a whole book then.  Still, I'm on pace to take a library trip next week.

So here's my plans for upcoming reading:
Today - Read Visitors.
Next Several Days - Read Tithe.
When I Get Home - Read Peter Pan and On Pointe.
Then, visit the library.  I'm now building up a library list.  I'll post it later tonight.

A few years ago, my family and I took a trip to Roanoke Island and visited the Elizabeth II.  While browsing the gift shop I came upon Elizabeth I, Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544 (Royal Diaries) and fell in love immediately.  I love to read diaries, real or fictionalized, and I have a special affinity for stories of queens.  So I bought the book, thinking it would be one of the things I read to make the trip home pass more quickly.

Somehow, I didn’t read it then, and did not even pick it up until this year.  The book provides a unique look at what life may have been like for Elizabeth long before she was queen.  It’s easy for historical figures like Elizabeth to become so much larger than life that we forget they were real people, once.     Elizabeth I recreates the emotions and thoughts of an adolescent girl in a way that shows that even a princess feels the universal emotions of loneliness, fear, and doubt.

Elizabeth I addresses two themes especially well: a daughter’s longing for her father’s affection, and a keen political mind’s awareness of what it takes to be a successful ruler.  Despite the fact that he had her mother beheaded, Elizabeth still loves her father and lives for the moments when he shows her favor.  She is also an astute observer of the goings on in the world of royals and nobility, and early on comes to the realization that if she should become Queen, she must remain unmarried to retain her rule.

I would recommend this book to anyone who, like me, loves diaries and memoirs and takes an interest in the intricacies of queendom.

Book:  Elizabeth I, Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544 (Royal Diaries) (Affiliate Link) Author: Kathryn Lasky Publisher: Scholastic Original Publication Date: 1999 Pages: 240 Age Range: Middle Grades Source of Book: Purchased at Roanoke Island Festival Park Museum Shop

If you were a friend on my old MySpace account and got a new request from me, think nothing of it but do please add me again.  Sorry for the inconvenience; there were some privacy issues with my old account that could only be resolved by starting over completely.

The April issue of readergirlz is now online.  This month’s book is On Pointe (Affiliate Link) by Lorie Ann Grover, a verse novel about a ballet dancer who finds herself getting too tall for her passion.  As April is National Poetry Month, a verse novel is an especially appropriate choice.  My local library system has only one copy of On Pointe, and that copy is on hold for someone distinctly not me.  That’s good; it means it’s getting read!  None of the local bookstores have it, either; I just ordered it from Amazon, and expect to have it read by mid-month.

This month’s issue of readergirlz includes a playlist, community challenge, slideshow, party ideas, discussion questions, author interview, and recommended reads.  The first song on the playlist, “Video” (Affiliate Link) by India Arie, is one of my favorite songs in recent years.

For more books about dancers, take a look at Little Willow’s I Am a Dancer booklist.  To read about real-life dance experiences, read her article Dance Dreams.

Over at Jen Robinson's Book Page I found this meme:

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot?

I do most of my reading while in motion.  When I go for walks is when I read the most.  Otherwise, it’s a toss up between the couch and bed.  The couch on which I read is big, hideously mustard-colored, and comfy.  It’s one of those weird segmented couches, with a corner pieces, two pieces with only one side to them, and one piece with no side at all.  (When I say side I really mean arm, I guess.)  We’ve pushed these together to create a vaguely bed-shaped thing.  When I read in bed, I use the Bedrest Pillow my boyfriend discarded due to its non-working circuitry.  He got a new one and I got his old one.  It doesn’t have the massage/light/heat functionality, since it’s broken, but it does let me sit up in bed.

I can think of two favorite spots to read.  One is on my grandmother’s patio, in Florida.  When the weather is just right, around Christmastime, it’s a lovely 70ish degrees Fahrenheit and a breeze is blowing.  I sit and I read and no one disturbs me.  The other spot is the porch of my boyfriend’s family’s beach condo.  I’ve only been there twice, but my ritual was to wake up every morning and go sit on the porch and just read until he woke up.  The sound of the waves and the smell of saltwater serve as a perfect backdrop for a good book.

From Emily Dickinson:

I ’M nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! 5 How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

…here’s thoughts of health for Little Willow’s cat Hollywood!

This may be the longest I’ve gone between posts since back when I started this blog. I’m going to address a few topics all at once.

Thing One: I’ve a lot of things I want to say, but not a lot of time. I’ve been doing a lot of catching up at work, and it’s used most of my energy. I’m still reading, so here’s my currentlies:

1. Virtual Mode by Piers Anthony; this is a re-read. Due to recent events in life I’ve set it aside for a bit, as it brings up some emotional issues I’m not quite ready to handle.
2. I, Claudius by Robert Graves; this is my read-at-work book but it has been displaced by others for now. About one week a month I have to perform lunch duty, which usually consists of sitting in a chair, watching students go by, and checking hall passes. That’s a good twenty minutes a day I can devote to reading when I’m not checking the passes. It looks good to be a Latin teacher reading I, Claudius, and I, Claudius is a book I’ve always wanted to read. Most recently, though, I have been reading my other books during this time.
3. The Last Dragon by Silva de Mari; reading this because it was a Cybils nominee, and enjoying it thoroughly. It doesn’t go as quickly as many YA or children’s books do, though.
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Gatekeeper Trilogy: Out of the Madhouse by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder. I also walk for twenty minutes a day and I like to read while I do this. I saw one of my favorite professors doing it on campus once. I thought it looked charmingly academic, so I took it up myself. Don’t worry; I’m very careful not to run into or in front of things. Reading this has been a fun flashback and, combined with a recent re-watching of Buffy Season 4, provoked new thoughts about the show’s themes, what I did and did not like about it, and why. As a rule, I love Buffy, in case you were wondering.

Thing Two: A colleague and I were talking about YA fiction a couple of weeks ago and agreed that especially for us as teachers, it’s exactly the right thing. You can read a book with substance to it, but usually YA books don’t bog you down so much as books for an adult audience would. You get through the books quickly but still feel like you’ve really read something. So we’ve decided to start recommending and swapping YA books. I only own two, so I’ll be loaning those to her: Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Dyan Sheldon. These are my two recent favorites, which is why I own them. Because of the aforementioned rapidity of reading, I generally get my YA books from the library. I’m looking forward to seeing what she has for me. I told her that even though I don’t have a lot of books, I can provide her with plenty of lists. Maybe I’ll even tell her that I get most of my YA recommendations from Little Willow at Bildungsroman.

Thing Three: I love the feel of books. At Costco they set the books out in stacks on tables. I touched all of them, and felt that even though I hadn’t read them, the books were part of me. It was a good feeling.

Thing Four: Content I hope to provide soon:

• Elizabeth I review
• Millicent Min review
• The Last Dragon review
• Love in Shadow review

Thing Five: Spring break starts Friday! I will be traveling to Florida for most of it, but hope to find time in the car and at my lodgings for reading.

That is all.