the books of my life

last week, the ethereal beauty that is amber blue bird graced me with a sweet award, the honest scrap, with a challenge to write five facts about myself.

amber's blog is one of my daily reads. i swear the girl could wear a burlap sack and i would wonder which agricultural feed and seed store she got it from. she's just that pretty, and just that stylish.

i'm supposed to list five facts about myself, so i'm compiling my five favorite books of all time. because honestly, a person's favorite book choice speaks volumes, and mine will tell you more about me than my favorite color or restaurant, hands down.

they are:

1. the Bible: because it's a map, and for someone terrible with directions, it's a daily necessity. and because it's the most tangible connection i have to my Father, and like an old pocket watch handed down generations, it has meaning and history to me that is deep and personal.

2. of mice and men: john steinbeck. the first book that made me cry. i sympathize with lennie so much. with loving something so tightly, so feverishly and so overwhelmingly that you crush it. and squeeze it. that steinbeck, his words get me every time.

3. love in the time of cholera: gabriel garcia marquez. the movie was an utter disappointment, but this novel is breathtaking. i've highlighted and underlined almost every paragraph in my worn copy. i lost it for about six months when robert and i moved into our little cottage, and my heart broke. imagine my great joy when i found it in the basement! that taught me a valuable lesson: take care of the books you love. yes, you can get a new copy from any barnes and noble. but your original copy, the one held between your fingers as you read the words for the first time-that is special and sacred and irreplaceable.

4. the way the crow flies: ann-marie macdonald. this is a lengthy, thick, doozy of a book. one that should take whole months. but i read it on a long train ride to visit a friend. it was that engrossing. a beautiful study on how children interpret their environments. how the little intricacies weave together with the big events to play on and manipulate their psyche. heartbreaking and honest, and holds all adults accountable.

5. love is a mix tape: rob sheffield. never before has love transcended pages so deeply. and the funny thing is, rob doesn't get mushy or romantic in this book. but the way he describes the way he met, courted and lost the love of his life is as tender as it gets.

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these books are my heartbeat, and to share them is special. cherish reading. savor it. because life is life. but sometimes, we can escape into an adventure. and who doesn't love that?

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p.s.

i'm passing this fun award to:

1. shalyn of laugh until your cheeks hurt
2. melissa of perfect peace
3. becca of adorable optimism
4. kristin of kristin in america
5. jenni of jenni austria germany

friday favorite: chickens don't have nuggets

i have a strange complex with meat. i am by no means vegetarian (hello chicken and biscuits in the crockpot). but i had an experience once. an experience that scarred me from eating meat in restaurants for quite a while. it was nothing dramatic like food poisoning, but it was still utterly terrible. i was in college, eating a chicken stromboli at a place near campus. it began deliciously. the pasta sauce was deep and hearty. the stromboli was doughy and perfect.

then it happened. i bit down on it. gristle. isn't that an awful word? the onomatopoeia aspect of it its terrible. it just sounds miserable to say. i got so confused and anxious. do i spit it out? keep chewing? i think i did a little of both and didn't touch the rest of my food. for a good two years after that, i inspected every piece of meat i ate, especially chunks of chicken.

but i knew i couldn't keep on living my life this way. chicken was nothing to fear! i remembered the chicken nuggets of my childhood. at my elementary school, at a very young age, i was introduced to the best combination ever. chicken nuggets with honey. i was one of those rare birds who loved school food. i looked forward to chicken pie tuesday and lasagna thursday. there, among those stark white walls and long tables, i would gingerly dip my chicken nugget into the little plastic cup of honey, careful to ration myself, lest i run out. 

so after enough time had passed from the stromboli experience, i decided to try again. if i were ever going to love chicken again, it had to be in my favorite form-with honey. it was then and there that i discovered it. wendy's spicy chicken nuggets with honey. the nuggets were perfect. crispy on the outside, lean in the middle, with just the perfect amount of kick. pair these bad boys with some honey sauce, and you've got the perfect combination of hot and sweet. of course i prefer to take it a step further and add a frosty to balance out my meal.

i had my favorite fast food meal this wednesday. and i meant to document it. you see, i'm a new blogger and i'm still getting used to capturing my life on film. so i started in on the nuggets. i kept thinking to myself, courtney take a picture of these beauties. show your new friends this awesomeness!  but i kept shoveling them into my mouth. i.could.not.stop. not for one second. by the time i was able to pull my salivating jaw away from that tender goodness, i saw this pitiful sight:

 

which made me make this face:

the end of the honey sauce was reached. i obviously forgot my elementary school rationing techniques.

salt-rose or topaz

"in the gardens of exile"

this is one of my favorite pictures of all time. awkward hand placement on nymph statue aside, this image stirs in me such delight and happiness. on the left is gabriel garcia marquez, author of such life-changing reads as one hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera (though my favorite work by him is the much shorter, poignant short story "no one writes to the colonel.") then. there on the right. with his beret tipped just so, is pablo neruda. i was first introduced to neruda in my senior year of high school. nestled between passages from lord of the flies and the joy luck club in my world lit textbook was his sonnet xvii, which begins with this unforgettable killer of an opening line:

i do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrows of carnations the fire shoots off.

i love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

with that, i was hooked. volumes upon volumes of neruda poetry line my bookshelves at home. each different translation seems to bring out another side of his intellect, his wit and, of course, his incredibly amorous spirit. 

and i could talk about marquez for days. i affectionately refer to him as gabo, as do his close friends. and shakira. behold this delicious tidbit from love in the time of cholera:

to him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as distracted as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. he had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.

gorgeous, no? and now,-this black and white, tiny print. these two were friends! perhaps not best friends, but close enough to take a picture with a nymph, which says a lot. i love the idea that my two favorite authors not only knew each other, but spent time in each other's company. isn't that the making of any great friendship? that learning from and growing with each other that only strengthens the other person? 

it is with this introduction i present to you, 

our dog, pablo myers, named after neruda. 

not quite as fluent in spanish, but i assure you--every bit as handsome. and sexy.