First Day

Today is my sister's birthday.  She appreciates my fun side more than most, and that always surprises me.  We're not close, but I think - in a way - we are.  

Everyone is making plans for the New Year today. It made me think of my friend LJB who is fighting brain cancer.  Does he have a year?  Maybe so - it's happened before.  But, maybe not - it's what the doctors expect.  He just wants to live this day, week, month. I'm going to visit him today.  I'll get a better feel for how he feels then.  He's got the power.

I read a chapter from the book "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave last night.  It was a good chapter; the first chapter.  Here are two things I liked:

How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety, and we are free to watch it go. This the human triumph.  This called, globalization.  A girl like me gets stopped at immigration, but a pound can leap the turnstiles, and dodge the tackles of those big men with their uniform caps, and jump straight into a waiting airport taxi.  Where to, sir?  Western Civilization, my good man, and make it snappy.

xxx 

Outside, the fresh air smelled of wet grass. It blew in my face. The smell made me panic. For two years I had smelled only bleach, and my nail varnish, and the other detainees' cigarettes. Nothing natural. Nothing like this. I felt that if I took one step forward, the earth itself would rise up and reject me. There was nothing natural about me now. I stood there in my heavy boots with my breasts strapped down, neither a woman nor a girl, a creature who had forgotten her language and learned yours, whose past had crumbled to dust.

 Have a great day!