In order to keep the silence and my fear of zombies at bay, I download and listen to podcasts at work.  I listen to politics, history, culture....a wide variety, and that helps keep me engaged and interested in the work I am doing. 

Today I am listening to Anderson Cooper 360 podcast, and its surprisingly fun.  The stories are varied and Anderson Cooper can be counted on to crack up at an appropriate moment.  Not at an annoying moment, which always seemed to happen on SNL with JImmy Fallon, but he can crack a smile in a likeable manner about beauty queens and politicians...not in a Daily Show way, but classy.  It's not the point, but its still there.

 

I bet Anderson Cooper has a blast.  I bet he goes through those war torn areas and other isolated, remote places and has a blast.  You can tell he embraces whatever he comes across for the opportunity it offers, and I bet he gets so many girls...I mean, seriously!

 

Today Cooper was in South America with an Australian Marine Biologist, studying the Great White Shark and preparing another "Planet in Peril" series.  This is good news on a bunch of fronts.  More Planet in Peril, which was fascinating (and had cute polar bears and Anderson Cooper getting attacked by an elephant!  He said the F-Word!) and I bet Cooper got it on with the Marine Biologist.  See?  Everyone wins.

I love the Narnia books. It makes sense to me that little children would take an ax to the back of a wardrobe, trying to find Narnia like the Penseive children. Christian parable aside, Narnia is a pretty magical place I'd like to check out sometime, even if it involved the use of an ax. So I was excited about the films, and after enjoying "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," I was even more psyched for Prince Caspian.
In wardrobe, the writers had done something that I greatly appreciated. They understood the book was its own entity, and gave the characters more depth in the film. They added a short snippet to the beginning and the end, to more firmly anchor the film in time and place. This was a movie taking place in London during the blitz, after all--and that fact is referenced and it helps ground the children in a world that they leave behind, and makes sense of the adventure they are about to have.
The second movie begins when the Penseive children are on their way back to school.   However, as the camera lingers on the lion statue outside of the Strand Metro you know they won't be in their London for long.
There are four Penseive children:  Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy.  In the books, Edmund and Lucy get a lot of ink--they both confront significant issues and grow as characters.  Peter and Susan, well, they are the responsible older children who don't do much wrong.  Occasionally they fail to listen to their younger siblings but aside from that, they go through their adventures with good intentions and skill.
They also have a lack of personality, but the films change that.
The film plays around with the idea that the children had to get used to being a children again.  They rebel against just being children again.    The film starts with Peter fighting and I noted, with a disproportionate amount of glee that Edmund quickly backs up his brother while Susan and Lucy watch, disheartened. Fighting in the tube station is not becoming the King of Narnia.  Susan looks around longingly and spends a lot of time alone, brushing off those who try to befriend her.  Lucy walks around wide-eyed, as if she can't stop looking for Aslan.  Their is real joy when they frolic on the beaches of Narnia, shoes, ties and socks flying as they run towards the surf, without even pausing to question where they are.  When the centaurs hold their spears up to make a canopy for the Kings and Queens of Narnia to walk beneath, they all stride forward without question while Caspian has to pause to get used to the idea.
I always wondered about Susan.  Of the Penseive children, she was the one with the least about her.  The books were woefully thin on material on Susan--she was vaguely motherly but other than that, not very memorable.  She was the stock player, their for balance to make four instead of three.  It was sad, because she was the one I identified with the most--the oldest girl, the responsible one--but yet, so little happened to her.  She went through her adventures, dutifully waiting on the sidelines while her brothers battled. 
Prince Caspian, the film, changed all of that.  The screenwriters grew her into a wonderful, strong character who shoots a bow and arrow, is in the thick of the battles and even manages to have a Narnian romance.  She is the one saying the right thing, making the right calls and making them passionately even though she isn't always heralded.  She rides out to save the day, takes out an entire squad of Telmarine soldiers and inflicts pain with her bow and quiver in new and impressive ways.  Susan is right in the thick of it, fighting with the best of them, using her bow to rack up more than enough kills to keep up with the boys.  She leads smoothly, keeping her guys calm and ready in the face of dramatic onslaught.   It's no wonder the Prince falls for her, checking in with her and makes sure he has her back when she needs it.  And when it comes time for her to return to her world, he kisses her in a way that makes me really wish she'd be coming back. 

I love the Flaming Lips Song, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."  My husband and I debated using that song as wedding vows, pledging to stop the robots from eating each other.  That idea was quickly shot down by the Catholic Priest who was officiating our service, but it was good for a joke between the two of us.  Considering the monster logistics of this wedding, promising to not let the robots get each other was a surprisingly appropriate promise to make.  Metaphorically, of course.
Well, it all worked out.  I got the final notice that we are all good on the job, so I put in my notice and I am beginning the final countdown (another great song!) to begin my new work.  I am very excited about this.  I think this is going to be a nice change, even though it will require a more profesional wardrobe (yes, denim and camisole shirts are not going to cut it anymore!)  I'll have to wear high heels.  Strangely enough, this kind of makes me happy.  

So I got some good news the other day.  Wonderful news, actually, which involves me getting to leave my soul-crushing job and have a more inspiring position at a place where I may actually care if the place explodes in the middle of the night.  I didn't really expect to get the job, but I got it.  Celebrations ensued, mostly a shopping trip at the bookstore and a few clothes at the Gap (I know, go nuts, right?).   I am still waiting final confirmation.  So I wait.
I've been assured that there is no chance that I won't get the job, this final procedure is simply a rubber stamp and a formality.  But I know fate well enough to not give notice just yet.  So I can sit around and enjoy a reality where I know that I am not going to be around much longer, but no one else knows that yet.  It's wonderful perspective, at least.  It also helps me see how absolutely petty my co-workers are, but I pretty much knew that already.
It's not how I anticipated it.  It really isn't.  I thought the phone would ring, and that would be the least of my worries.  Which goes to show that you can never underestimate how difficult things are going to be, that even good news can come with negative side effects (like I have to live through the last two weeks here).  I toy with the idea of just going out in a blaze of glory, but I don't think I can do that.  I am a two weeks notice kind of person, and I'm not as ashamed of that as I used to be.  Besides, that's the kind of karma you need to store up. 

So, embarassing confession time. 
I saw an American author who was described as:  "The American JK Rowling," and that alone inspired me to pick up one of her novels.  And a few hours later, when I finished, I went and bought the sequel.  The next day, when I finished that one, I went about the sequel to it.  And now I am eagerly awaiting the fourth book. 
And it made me so happy.  Not only was I able to squeeze several trips to the bookstore into a short period of time, I was excited, almost obsessed, with something I was reading. 
The books are "Twilight,"  "New Moon" and "Eclipse" by Stephanie Meyer, and they are about to be turned into a movie and have a fan following that includes wearing costumes.  That is a fan following.  Anytime you get dressed up to celebrate the arrival of a book, well, it doesn't get any better than that.
The books revolve around Bella and Edward--Bella is immediately drawn to and in love with Edward by the end of the third chapter of the first book.  She sits next to him in Biology and when he touches her hand, it's over, it's done, she is his forevermore. 
Except he is a vampire, who has to struggle to not consume Bella when he is in her presence, especially if he is "thirsty."  Her blood sings to him, and its part of the attraction.  So the book is imbued with this sense of abstaining, which makes everything much more passionate.  It's smoldering, because it can't come out, and it captures most closely that sense of adolescent obsession and longing that you forget about when you're in your late twenties and you haven't had to obsess about anyone for quite awhile.  The books are full of questionable revelations and lots and lots of talk--sentences turning into paragraphs.  To be honest, Bella as narrator becomes old quickly, as well--but the longing, that sweet longing and wanting takes me back to a time when I would have done anything to have a certain guy's arms around me.

The other day I brought the book to loan to someone else.  Someone noticed the book, and started to laugh at me for reading something so juvenile, something so childish--and part of me was embarassed.  And then another part of me shot back, "Have you read them?"  and felt a certain amount of smugness when he had to admit he had not.  In doing so, he admitted he was the type of person who judged books based on their covers, allowed others to make his judgements for him.

And it's not that I care what people think about what I read.  I read for myself, and that has been a good policy that I wouldn't want to alter just because of some guy who judges books by their covers.