IrenicEmbers

In the three short weeks that I’ve been taking the bus, I’ve become a voracious reader again. Partly because it gives me something to do and partly because listening to my music player tunes out too much. I feel like I should be always prepared for a random crazy on public transport or while walking to the car.

I park in this rather big park n ride and because of how late I come home, my car’s usually one of the few remaining in the lot. Which means, that when I’ve got my headphones in, it pretty much tunes everything out. Too much so for my paranoiac tendencies.

Anyway, one book that I read in like two sittings was Cane River by Lalita Tademy.  I didn’t notice that it was an Oprah book club pick until after I’d completed it. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the story. Every review that mentions that you wouldn’t want to put it down is true. I was never one for African American historical fiction and to be honest, I didn’t even read the insert before I bought it. It was on sale.

The story is the author’s fictionization of her family’s history. She spent years researching and pouring over documents tracing her family line back.

To be honest, that’s something that I was mildly obsessed with at one point. Right before we left NY, Nick and I visited Ellis Island and to trace his family roots was pretty amazing. He knows the names of the towns his grandparents were born in. That’s incredible to me.

All I know about my history is that my paternal great grandfather came over from India. From the Bihar region. But that’s such an empty history.  I have long since stopped focusing on those aspects of the past but every once in a while, I wonder.

I guess it’s not so much where you are from but where you are going. Isn’t that what everyone says?

Anyway, I started reading Anita Shreve’s A Wedding in December today and I can’t say that it’s held my interest as rabidly as Cane River did but this is more literary.  I’ll write what I think when I’m finished with it later this week.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. Almost ever since I started taking the bus to work and started reading for the half an hour trip. The bus has taken over the hour long commute wherein I was largely gritting my teeth and doing anything but think.

But I digress.

I was thinking, for some odd reason of my very first NY bagel. Probably because a co-worker was telling me about her trip to NY during our lunch. But as I was sitting there, willing the older gentleman next to me to not inch closer, I thought about the first time I had a bagel.

It was about 11am and I had spent the night at my aunt’s place. She lived in a studio apartment on Queens Blvd (the Blvd of Death as it’s now known) and Yellowstone Blvd. That morning, we needed breakfast and true to tradition, couldn’t make breakfast. None of my aunts really know how to cook. So off we went to the bagel place, I may have been 11 or 12.

She ordered it with a thick slab of cream cheese spread around and lightly toasted. I still remember how that bagel tasted.

It’s crazy where your mind wanders off to sometimes. I think I just may be missing some things.

So, I let the domain name expire. I knew it was coming, but my crazy, hectic schedule at work practically forced it. I decided to renew it because in typical Andrea fashion, in deciding to do away with the domain, I didn’t change email addresses. I have about ten email addresses at this point but my “main” has always been andrea @ irenic embers . org.

In thinking about it, I realized that I didn’t want to do away with the email address and since I’ve been using it so long, it would be *impossible* to change it. I’ve just started registering my other email address for sites that I need to.

That didn’t make any sense.

It’s been a long arse month, work’s crazy. I went between thinking, every day, that I was going to be laid off, to working my ass off. This week, there’s some respite because they’re bringing some of the temps back to work. By default, I cannot be laid off … yet. The others will go first. Working without health insurance since February has been difficult.

Tomorrow marks a month since we’ve been married. I have most of my paperwork legally changed to Andrea M_ _ _ _ _ _ _. I haven’t changed the passport yet. I’m not sure why.

There is so many things that I need to do, one of which is look for a new place. The apartment we live in serves Nick’s purposes but it’s too large and too expensive. We have so much we need to pay off for the wedding, it’s stupid to keep living here. Nick’s resisting but he lives in a dream world a lot of the time.

I registered another domain for the wedding and I think I’ll start using that. I’ll put up some pictures of the wedding over there in a few days and turn it into a photoblog. Bekah sent me some and I haven’t even opened the envelope yet.  Like I said, busy!