The things of life

Last night, I sat down with a cup of decaf coffee and read "An Honest Thief" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and "A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus. Both were excellent short stories but Dubus' was particular moving. It spoke about a man losing his identity and finding it again through a struggle to help his daughter. It was moving in its comparisons between a man's relationship with his sons versus his daughters. His daughter finds herself in an awful situation in which the father must respond. I'm paraphrasing here, but he says in essence: if it was my son, I would've called the police and watched them take on the pain and struggle as is a man's lot to overcome and taken pride in the strength of their manhood emerging. But my daughter, I could not have borne her passions. What he means is, he could not simply stand by and watch her go through this with the intensity of emotions which would crush a female soul. Anyhow, its an excellent short story about fatherhood.

I'm glad I read last night. The night before, I got sucked into watching television (yuck) and stayed up an hour past my bedtime. PBS is so addictive. I always despise myself after a night of wasted life before the television. On Saturday mornings, its different though, mainly because of this show: http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/ :-) I was given a gift certificate to Macy's for Christmas and after endless searching for clothes I liked, I got tired and ended up in the home something department (what is that section called?). I found this cookbook. Realizing it was an excellent investment for my gift card, I promptly bought it. :-] I am disheartened though, that there's no recipe for manicotti in it. In fact, manicotti recipes are scarce even on the internet. Have people stopped eating it? That would be sad in an inconsequential way. It's on the menu for this weeks family night.

My sister and I had a fight Tuesday and it's been hanging over my head all week in an exhausting way. I like to get things in the open, resolve them and move on. She needs a couple days to herself to process and think through. So I have to be patient and wait and its incredibly hard for me to do - I immensely dislike not having things resolved. It's akin to torture to sit and wait and not be communicated to: basically, to be clueless about what she's thinking and how she feels. I have to make sure my character flaw of impatience does not hinder reconciliation. But, those are the things of life.