Archives - Weekly Update

Last weekend I stayed at the W Hotel in Westwood when I was in town for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Every time I called downstairs, whoever was at the front desk would answer and say, “What’s your wish?” And every time it would just make me start laughing. I would think, WHAT should I ask for? A wakeup call sounds so very trite, though it did start with a W! They are all into W words at the hotel --- parking is “wheels,” and everything else is labeled --- “when,” “where,” “what” and “why.” When the boys were in pre-school they would have a letter of the week to study. If only the W had been around then for “W week.”

Ever had a night when it's easier to just keeping typing on the couch rather than move? I am writing this note on Thursday night when I SHOULD be packing for LA as I am flying out early Friday morning to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Instead, I am writing the newsletter opener. When I leave town, I worry that I will not have power, a battery that works or an Internet connection, and thus the newsletter will not get done. This from a woman who travels with a backup battery and a Verizon air card. Okay, okay, I always am overprepared.

Vacation feels like it was a year ago. Every once in a while I pass a mirror and see that I am tan and I think --- that’s right, I was away! Since I have been back, it’s been go go go.

I think I should live on the Outer Banks one week each month. I get more of the things I need to do --- and enjoy --- done here than I do at home. This week has been defined by the books that I read, the movies I watched, the knitting projects I worked on, the dinners I made and the time logged sitting on the deck or walking on the beach. Yes, I have answered email and worked, but there has been time to THINK as well.

Last weekend I read COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen. I thought I knew everything about Columbine as I had followed that story closely when it broke and in the months that followed. In my head two Goth-influenced kids who were part of the Trenchcoat Mafia at the high school took revenge one day on all of the jocks and others who had ostracized them over the years and shot them. That was the story I had been fed from the start. Now it seems that that was the story that fed upon itself when what happened was dramatically different. I started reading, and as the pages turned, every preconceived notion I had was unraveled. While I was ready to dismiss the book before I started it, I now thought it was one of the more powerful true crime narratives that I had read.