A Statement of Understanding

Bill is going on a date tonight.

At first, I could not understand why this hurt me so much. After all, I have known that our marriage was over for more than three years now. I have told Bill, many times, that I am OK with him dating while we are getting ready to file for divorce, and I meant it. I have gone through the stages of grief, I have made my peace with the situation, so why this emotional response?

I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, and finally realized that deep down inside I never believed I am worthy of being loved, because even I don’t like myself, so how can anybody else? And yet a part of me had always hoped that I was wrong. I wasn’t, and that’s why it hurts so much.

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The Things I Miss, Two Years Later

Two years ago, I wrote a list of the things I miss. Back then, I was on the beginning rungs of the Stages of Grief ladder, alternating between denial and anger. Now, I am somewhere in the middle, acceptance mixed with depression. Perhaps two years from now I will be at the end – older, wiser, better, happier. But today

– I still miss being held.
– I still miss knowing that I am loved.
– I still miss snuggling.
– I still miss the security of having a partner.

I feel so alone. I feel like I don’t matter at all. And then I feel like a really selfish bitch because so many people I know are going through shit that’s so much worse…

Amazon’s 100 Young Adult Books to Read in a Lifetime

Oh look, another list 🙂 I am actually surprised how few of the YA books on it I have read, or want to read.

READ

1. The 5th Wave, by Rick Yancey
2. The Call Of The Wild, by Jack London
3. Carrie, by Stephen King
4. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
5. City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
6. Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein
7. Daughter of Smoke & Bone, by Laini Taylor
8. Divergent, by Veronica Roth
9. Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell
10. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
11. Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
12. A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
13. Harry Potter Series, by J. K. Rowling
14. His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman
15. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
16. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
17. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
18. The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness
19. Legend, by Marie Lu
20. Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
21. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
22. Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
23. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
24. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
25. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
26. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
27. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
28. The Sandman Vol. 1, by Neil Gaiman
29. The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

TBR

30. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
31. American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang
32. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
33. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
34. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
35. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
36. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
37. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
38. Maus I, by Art Spiegelman
39. The Maze Runner, by James Dashner
40. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
41. The Old Man and The Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
42. Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
43. Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas
44. We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

DNF

45. Cinder, by Marissa Meyer
46. Dune, by Frank Herbert
47. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
48. Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld

MAYBE SOMEDAY

49. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
50. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
51. Anne of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery
52. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X
53. The Basketball Diaries, by Jim Carroll
54. Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys
55. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
56. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne
57. The Cider House Rules, by John Irving
58. The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau
59. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
60. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
61. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
62. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
63. Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
64. Every Day, by David Levithan
65. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
66. Feed, by M.T. Anderson
67. Forever…, by Judy Blume
68. Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen
69. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
70. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
71. Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
72. Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos
73. The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer
74. The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
75. I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
76. I Know What You Did Last Summer, by Lois Duncan
77. I’ll Give You the Sun, by Jandy Nelson
78. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
79. Luna, by Julie Anne Peters
80. Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk
81. Monster, by Walter Dean Myers
82. My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
83. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
84. The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton
85. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
86. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
87. Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo
88. She’s Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
89. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares
90. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
91. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
92. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
93. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
94. This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff
95. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
96. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
97. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi
98. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
99. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
100. Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher

Amazon’s 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime

These lists are like catnip to me. So, of course, I am going to inflict it on you, poor souls who still check this blog. All two of you. 🙂

READ

1. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
2. Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb
3. The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett
4. The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper
6. Daughter of the Blood, by Anne Bishop
7. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
8. The Dragonbone Chair, by Tad Williams
9. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
10. The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan
11. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
12. A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin
13. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
14. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
15. Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
16. Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton
17. The Gunslinger, by Stephen King
18. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
19. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
20. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
21. The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien
22. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
23. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
24. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
25. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey
26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
27. The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
28. The Martian, by Andy Weir
29. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
30. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
31. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
32. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
33. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
34. Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey
35. Red Rising, by Pierce Brown
36. The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley
37. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
38. The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks
39. The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
40. The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
41. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne
42. Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
43. World War Z, by Max Brooks
44. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

TBR

45. 1984, by George Orwell
46. Among Others, by Jo Walton
47. Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie
48. Foreigner, by C. J. Cherryh
49. The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker
50. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
51. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
52. The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
53. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
54. The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon
55. Wool, by Hugh Howey

DNF

56. Dune, by Frank Herbert
57. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
58. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
59. Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler
60. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
61. Sabriel, by Garth Nix
62. Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
63. Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld

MAYBE SOME DAY

64. 2001: a Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick
65. Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
66. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
67. Blood Music, by Greg Bear
68. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
69. A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
70. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
71. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
72. Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany
73. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
74. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
75. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
76. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
77. Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
78. Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper
79. H. P. Lovecraft: Tales, by H. P. Lovecraft
80. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu
81. Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
82. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
83. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
84. Lord Foul’s Bane, by Stephen R. Donaldson
85. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
86. Nights at the Circus, by Angela Carter
87. Pawn of Prophecy, by David Eddings
88. Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
89. Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
90. Riddle-Master, by Patricia A. McKillip
91. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
92. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
93. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
94. Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
95. The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
96. The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
97. Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang
98. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
99. The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
100. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Truth Hurts

Years ago, one of our mutual friends told Bill that he could not imagine WHY anybody would want to be married to me.

Truth hurts.