January rain

Okay, okay. It’s May. May rain. But January rain sounds so much better. I’m nestled all snug in a quiet library in a tall swivel chair, occasionally surveying my domain of recent periodicals and reference materials, and I’m making this post. It’s raining off and on, thundering off and on, and the entire building is wrapped in this great rainy evening hush.

Right now I’m reading a book called Emma’s War by Deborah Scoggins. If you follow that link (opens in a new window, of course), you’ll see that the book is about Emma McCune, an aid worker in Sudan who married the leader of a guerilla faction. I did a Google search the other night and read some reviews of the book, even though I’m nearly halfway through it. Most people complained that Scoggins writes a lot about herself and it’s true, but I don’t mind. Her personal experiences are just as moving as her retelling of Emma’s experiences.

I want to be Emma. Only without the insanity. She was scandalous and brave and up-front, all things I am not. But I admire her tenacity and her ideas and her passion for the Sudanese. Every time I pick up the book, all of the discouragement I’ve been experiencing lately melts away and I am renewed, ready to forge onward. Tonight I’m studying forced marriages among adolescent and pre-adolescent girls, with a focus on forced marriage by kidnapping in Ethiopia. It’s for a side project Miss Fabulous and I started, one that I hope will benefit me when I go back to school.

I’m discouraged. I keep typing up posts and saving them, only to later delete them because my mind goes astray or I can’t wrap my mind around what it is I’d like to say. I don’t want to go back to that whole “they’re judging me! they’re judging me!” place I found myself in when my old domain name expired. But I’m pretty close. If I say A, I’ll piss off this person. If I say B, then I’ll piss off this person. If I say C, then they’ll all get pissed off and never come back. Which I guess, in reality, would solve my problems.

Is there anything you’d like to know about me? Ask away. I’ll probably give you an answer in a post, unless the question is too embarrassing or too personal, in which case I might email you the answer.

Tomorrow’s Friday, which means tonight is my usual no-sleep-til-Brooklyn night. Why is it that I can’t sleep on Thursday nights? It’s really frustrating.