Updates on the 101 in 1001 project: – Water-drinking and
Updates on the 101 in 1001 project:
- Water-drinking and food-blogging are still doing strong. My phone freaked out a couple of days ago, so I had to just post pictures of what I ate with approximate times, but it worked out. I really need to stick with that…I can tell how much more aware it’s already made me. I’m just waiting for that change in diet behaviors to kick in.
- My wedding blog has (rather amazingly) reached 95 followers, so I’m a lot closer to my goal of hitting 100 followers on one of my blogs. It’s sort of funny that the wedding blog is continuing to grow almost ten months after we got married, but I love it!
- I’ve joined a book club, so that’s one off my list. We met last Monday and I had a really good time. This one is smaller than my last (giant) book club and it has a different approach to selecting books. We’ll be reading two books from six different genres over the year and we’re voting on them now. I’m really excited about it! I also got invites to two other book clubs that I haven’t responded to yet and emails from about a dozen people who weren’t in book clubs but wanted to be. I’m kind of thinking about joining both of the other book clubs AND starting up another, since it’s not like I’m too busy to read books these days, but I don’t want to over-commit myself while I’m still working on projects and looking for work.
- I managed to swap ten books on paperbackswap.com almost immediately. I’m getting a little obsessed with this site, I have to admit. It fulfills my three awesomeness requirements of cheap, convenient, and social. I have a ton of books that I didn’t want to just donate or sell really cheaply because they were either expensive or slightly beloved, but at the same time I knew I was never going to sit down and read them again. Now all of those books are out on their way to people who will love them and I have all sorts of books that I’ve been dying to read showing up in my mailbox. LOVE!
- And finally, in book related news, I’m already up to two memoirs out of the ten I need to read for the list. The first, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
by Chelsea Handler, was wildly not worth my time. It’s a best-seller so I had high hopes for it, but both this book and Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
(her other memoir) were just plain stupid. I read her first memoir before I started the 101 project so I’m not counting it on the list and I only read the other memoir because I bought it and didn’t want to waste my money. Memo to self: try not wasting your time…I did read a really good memoir, though, and I thought I’d review it here since I bet a lot of people I know would want to read it. It’s a new book, called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir
by Elna Baker.
The book is the true story of a woman in her twenties navigating her new life in New York City as a member of the Mormon church. Thoughts about her faith and how important it is to her are intermingled with disasters in dating, including a multitude of first kisses and one unfortunately memorable trip to “second base”.
This book was just too funny. I knew I wanted to read it ever since I read an excerpt in Glamour and laughed out loud (which is huge because I hate that magazine!). Here’s part of the excerpt that sold it for me:
Everything I needed to know about sex, I learned in church. Only the lessons were never direct. Mormons love object lessons – I mean it, I grew up on them, the more obscure the better. Instead of just telling it like it is, the teacher will explain a basic concept like “forgiveness” with windshield wipers, wet naps, and an Etch a Sketch Pad.
The lesson on chastity involved food. Our young women’s teacher, Sister Nelson, walked into the classroom holding a tray of cookies that she proceeded to slam onto the table with a loud metal clank.
“Does anyone want a cookie?” She asked in an aggressive tone.
We perked up in our seats; young women’s was easier to endure when they brought food, but something was amiss. Upon further inspection I realized what it was: The cookies were half-eaten, broken, and sprinkled with dirt.
“Anyone?” she repeated, her eyes panning across the room. When no one answered, she nodded her head emphatically. “That’s right,” she said, as though we’d just proven her point for her. “No one wants a dirty half-eaten cookie.”
And that, my friends, was how I learned not to have sex.
One of the things that I love about this book is that it gives a tangible account of Mormon, mid-twenties life if you’re single and you aren’t in Utah. One of the conversations I had often with my friends in Ohio revolved around an outside belief that all Mormons our age are piously-incapable of having fun, exciting lives that don’t revolve around getting pregnant. The general idea seems to be that Mormons are as impossible to relate to as people living in colonial America and although the addition of Big Love (the HBO series) definitely has helped the Mormons seem less weird to those who know nothing about the religion beyond South Park, I feel like this real-life story is a major bridge across cultures.
That and it was super fun to read. To sum up: important cultural bridge and laughed my butt off. You should read it.
Read more here:
Updates on the 101 in 1001 project: – Water-drinking and
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