Sometimes, Melissa runs her legs. Sometimes, she runs her mouth.

Tag: facebook

Ten books that have stuck with me.

This is a meme on Facebook that has been going around the “interwebs.” I am choosing to answer it here so I can fully explain my answers. ALso, I just love talking about books. The actual challenge was listed as such:

” list 10 books that have stayed with me in some way and to tag 10 friends to do the same. [Don’t try to think too hard. They do not have to be great works of literature or the “right” books. They just need to have affected you in some way.] ”

MY Books

1. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

I first read this book as a junior in high school. It had the distinction of being a book that was so “difficult” that the Cliff notes were also part of the lesson plan. It was the first first person stream of consciousness story I had ever read. For people who haven’t read it, this book tells the story of Candance Compson as told from the view point of four different people. It shows how a person’s personality and intellect affect the way they view the world and hence, their own reality. It brings up the issue of whether there is an objective reality can even be observed by human beings. I also remember the slut shaming inherent in the book itself as well as the slut shaming by my high school English teacher. Caddy is just a whore. Yep, that is exactly what she said over and over again. Then she would read critiques by others of the story which gave a more nuanced view of the story.

2. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The language in this book is beautiful. I contemplated composing music so that the opening paragraphs could be sung. (I composed my first piano piece when I was 10 and started college as a music major). The story is told by an unreliable narrator. It’s a tale of how childhood actions can affect adulthood. Delores Haze’s behavior is consistent with the behavior or a sexually abused child, which makes the whole thing even creepier. I discover something new in it every time I read it.

3. Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

I suffer from depression. My first depressive episode started in college. This book spoke to me personally. I was not alone.

4. Making Faces by Kevin Aucoin

This book showed me the transformative power of makeup and also showed me how to apply the stuff. Aucoin has a tone that says “you are beautiful but play with this and be even more fabulous than you already are.” It has before and after pictures of every makeover.

5. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I love epic family sagas ad this is one of the best. It’s a tale of two brothers: one is “good” and one isn’t. It’s a cautionary tale about labeling people. It’s about imperfect people. Oh I can’t talk about it without spoiling it but WOW. It’s a classic but it’s as titilating as any soap opera.

6. Marathon by Jeff Galloway

This book introduced me to the Galloway method: the practice of including walk breaks in your long dHilistance runs. It taught me that I didn’t have to run the entire distance. This gave me the confidence to sign up for a half marathon. I have since finished 4 half marathons, a couple of 10ks, and a bunch of 5ks. I wouldn’t have gotten into running hardcore without this book. Through running, I have met a lot of wonderful people.

7. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

This nonfiction book about a murder case in Savannah, Georgia, might be the most accurate depiction of the modern day South as anything I have ever read. Not a false note anywhere. It’s also a rip roaring tale that is simultaneously funny and drop dead serious.

8. Promiscuity by Naomi Wolf

This discusses the idiosyncratic way that American society treats the sexuality of girls and young women. The entire damned if they do, damned if they don’t scenario. Wolf also talks with friends and associates to have them tell their own stories about their sexuality.

9. The complete stories of Flannery O’Connor

Hilarious, sassy, religious overtones, Southern. I still chuckle every time I think about them.

10. The Harry Potter series

Okay everyone and their Mama has read these books. Rowling’s world building ability is unparallelled. There are so many life lessons hidden in this book and yet it doesn’t preach.

The Thomas Reed Affair part 2: the end

Well as I wrote here, there’s this Thomas Reed guy who friended me on facebook. His info said that he went to my college and graduated from my class. I thought he looked familiar and friended him. Someone wrote me and said they couldn’t remember him and checked the four yearbooks and couldn’t find him. As I thought about it, I couldn’t definitely remember him at all –not one single memory.

I wrote some other friends and they didn’t remember him either.

Well I finally wrote a blog entry about it and then put a status update on facebook that said this.

Who is Thomas Reed? Does anybody from Hendrix College circa 1995 remember him? I don’t and it’s bugging me. If you graduated Central High School around 1991 and remember him, let me know.

Well I got several comments from people who didn’t remember him. Another person made a joke that he was the “Hendrix stalker” because that person had also went around asking and no one could remember him either.

I did email him and the conversation went like this.

Me: Dude How do I know you. It’s bugging me.

Thomas Reed: How would we know each other…. Read More

About 30 seconds later, without me responding.

Thomas Reed: I was just online and looking at friends of friends

ME: I graduated from Hendrix College in 1995.

Thomas Reed: I didn’t finish until 98

ME: Then why did you list yourself as graduating in 1995. (look at your own info). And if it’s friends of friend, who is the original friend?

Thomas REED: Well.. I’m sorry. I had a friend of mine set up my account. I am not sure how I ended up with you in my friends list. Im sorry I bothered you.

And apparently after that message, he defriended me.

So even though his info says he graduated in 1995. He’s now claiming he finished in 1998 but it doesn’t appear that he’s friending anyone from the year 1998.

One of my friends commented that he was being sensitive but that my questions were very pointed. Well, I don’t know about that. The whole thing is weird. Hendrix was a fairly friendly place and most classmates would have no problem saying “I lived in such and such dorm and hung out with so and so most of the time. That’s how you would know me.” This isn’t New York where random questions like that are greeted with suspicion.

But he has proven himself on some point to be partially dishonest. Why did the friend who set up the account put 95 if he finished in 1998? Did he mislead that friend? Did that friend just have a brainfart and assume since he was 36?

Someone sent me a message privately asking if it was possible that this guy was just that gosh darn forgettable. That somehow he did indeed manage to slide under the radar for most students.

I don’t know.

The other weird thing is that his friends are mostly people from undergrad and hardly anyone else. For someone who is 36, that seems weird.

I do know that working as an investigator in criminal law for a while has warped my outlook or made me extremely cynical, depending on whom you ask. Based on my investigative background, I am aware of the information that can be gleened from someone’s facebook account.

Maybe I’m being cynical. I don’t know.

I am a woman who likes answers and I am coming to the conclusion that I am not going to get the ones I want from Thomas Reed.

So that’s all.

I still have no idea who he is,l He doesn’t seem that forthcoming and seems to resent questions.

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