Hey, long time no blog! But here I am. Did you miss me? Probably you're too worked up about mid-terms to be checking for possible Ms. Wallace blogs. Good luck on mid-terms! At least it's a four-day week and half-days every day. . .

Things here have been a little crazy. Hannah had her bone marrow transplant last Friday. Olivia had her surgery to collect the bone marrow - she was REALLY sore for a few days, but she is back to her same old full of beans self now and feeling like QUITE the celebrity. Big sister Emma was SOOOOOOOOO nice to her while she wasn't feeling well. I believe that novelty has worn off and it's back to sibling rivalry like usual. Hannah is really feeling awful. If you've been checking her care page, you know she hasn't been updating (although her dad has been acting as her mouthpiece). She hasn't done ANYTHING since before Friday. All the chemo and drugs and transplant have taken everything out of her. Hopefully, she'll start to feel a bit better in the next week or two.

I've been reading (big surprise). Some good stuff, too. I read one book that was VERY inappropriate - so much so that I can't even tell you its name. . . For some reason, I didn't realize its "content" until I got it home . . . Then I became hugely embarrassed that the checkout girl saw me buy it. Oh, well. I'm far from home. She doesn't know me. And this is a big city. And THEY'RE the ones selling this . . . um. . . dirty stuff.

Then I read a book called Stick Figures by Lori Gottlieb which is a memoir of this 11-year old girl. Well, she's not 11 now. She was 11 in 1977 or 1978. (Me, too.) It was based on her 11-year-old self's diary of anorexia. Pretty intense but good. I am a big sucker for anorexia books - always have been. If I had read that book when I was 11 or 12 or 13, I probably would have tried all of her dieting strategies. Luckily, now I know how dangerous and horrible that is. It's really disturbing how a person's mind can trick them into doing crazy things like eating NOTHING and still feeling fat. Minds are so interesting. . .

Next was Marley and Me by John Grogan. It's the one about the family with a CRAZY yellow lab and their lives together. Even though I'm not really a dog person, I enjoyed this book. The author is not only telling a story of a dog but of the growing up of a family. He has sort of a journalistic style - like someone who writes editorials or magazine articles. (He should; that's his profession.) But the style makes you feel like it's a friend talking to you - very comfortable to read. And I think everyone knows a dog like his (crazy) - We used to have a crazy dog like this. Her name was Dixie. She ate linoleum, a doorjamb (sp?), every expensive pair of shoes I owned, a winter coat (mine), cd cases (and cds), dictionaries, hard-cover books, soft-cover books, board games . . . you get the idea. I could relate. Other people I know apparently sobbed their way through the end of this book. Um . . . not me. Maybe I'm hard-hearted. Maybe they're lily-livered. Maybe it's just not sad. (Magic 3!!!) It was good, though.

Finally, I read Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. So good. Every chapter starts off with a cassette tape cover listing all of the songs on a mix tape he or his wife or a friend made. That's cool enough. Then the author (who is a dj, writes for Rolling Stone, etc.) tells his life and the meaning he makes from it with the help of the songs. His wife died after they were only married five years - she was only 30. He's devastated and is telling the story of him, of her, of them through the music they loved or hated. The beginning and the end are sort of sappy, Hallmark love story - a little too much for hard-hearted me. But the middle is compelling and beautiful and makes you think. To me, it's interesting to learn about the life of someone for whom music is so important - it defines his life and different times in his life. I like music, but it's not like that for me. I guess books are like that for me. There was my Sweet Valley High period and my memoir era and my goofy romance epoch and . . .

And I've been watching the series House on DVD. So good. Gory and sarcastic and shocking and I love that Hugh Laurie! I recommend.

Well, perhaps I've rambled enough. And I need to go get the laundry. So see ya later, alligators.