Driving to Utah

WyDOT doesn't plow well. (Neither does the city.) Below are some photos from my journey to my mom's. I drove on the day of Christmas Eve.

This would be Interstate 25, about 30 miles north of Casper. One lane is plowed. And the shoulder is plowed.

Pulitzer-winning photos

At the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Mont., there was an exhibition of Pulitzer Prize photography from the feature and spot news categories. The weekend before Christmas, I drove three hours north and took in the images.

Among some of the most striking...

The boy in the back is 15. He has a gun and hostage. Shot by the Boston Traveler, a long-lost

Snow tires

I got an early Christmas gift. (Thanks, Dad!)

Fifty Russian Winters: An American Woman's Life in the Soviet Union by Margaret Wettlin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I wanted to like this book, I did.

It was poorly written and edited. The woman had an incredible story as an American school teacher who went to the USSR in the 1930s on a teacher exchange, fell in love, married, had children, had her passport confiscated, endured World War II in Russia and stayed for 50 years until

Welcome back to Wyoming

Last night I drove into Gillette, land of no toilet seat covers.

Who knew such a flimsy paper could carry such heft?

The presence of toilet seat covers have become in my mind the symbol of

The Year of Magical Thinking

Four of five stars.
"The Year of Magical Thinking," by Joan Didion.
This book is about mourning. It's also about the writer's life, which is fascinating. I loved it.

Love

Love is so complicated because I may want a someone who wants someone else.

And I suppose, there are times when someone may want me, but I don't want him.

The Happiness Project

by Gretchen Rubin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Maybe I'll change it to five stars some day. For now, it's a four-star book. (Although, part of me wants to buy a copy -- I borrowed it from the library -- so I can have all the ideas close at hand.)
To me, Gretchen Rubin is an admirable, over-achieving big sister: I want to be more like her, then part of me realizes I'lll never be like her and so I hate her. Just a little.
The Yale law school graduate/former Sandra Day O'Connor law clerk/best-selling author/upper East Side Manhattan resident/wife of investment banker/daughter-in-law of a former U.S. Secretary of Treasury/mother who has a nanny

The Weather, Part 1,367

Today, Dec. 4 at 4:17 p.m., it is 12 degrees.
But with 25 mph winds, it feels like negative 7.
Yay.

More

"Happy Xmas" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The video is sad, the song conjures up happy feelings. 

"Christmastime is Here"

At my work Christmas party last night, a colleague said that Charlie Brown is the most morbid character in cartoon television history. I'd have to agree, although I feel some kinship with his oh-so-serious, weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders attitude.

If Charlie Brown's parents were alive today, he'd be on a cocktail of anti-depressants.

Lo! How a Rose e'er Blooming

True, I like the holiday songs that sort of make fun of the faux emotion associated with people who go to church twice a year.

Although I do like some traditional Christmas music.

I don't really like "Jingle Bells." Well, "Jingle Bells" is an okay song, but when I think about the Christmas songs I really like, I seek ones that aren't really popular. I've always been attracted to the obscure and unusual.

Such as "Lo! How a Rose..." I really enjoy the Sufjan Stevens interpretation. Much slower than how I play it on the piano and less methodical. I don't know if "methodical" is the correct word, but what I'm trying to say is that he counts notes and rests differently than what I've heard before.

A delightful, insightful Facebook exchange with friends

I just finished reading a book on happiness, which got me thinking.

I have so many questions about how people work happiness into their lives (or don't.)

I posed just one question to my friends on Facebook:

Laura

Survey time: What are your instant pick-ups when you're trying to alter your mood?

· · Thursday at 8:48pm

And I received the following responses...

Some girls: My life in a harem

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jillian Lauren, although she's not very likable, has a fascinating story about being a girlfriend in the harem of Prince Jefri in Brunei, on the Malaysian island of Borneo.

She was one of the first Westerners invited to the harem, back in the 1990s and before most of the world was aware that there was a harem in the tiny south Asian country, and she rose to the status of No. 2 girlfriend, which came with privileges as well as pressures.

The reason why I gave it five stars is because I read the entire book during a rainy afternoon in the summer of 2010. I lent it to my sister, who I think did the same. She lent it to a friend, who I hope enjoyed it.

View all my reviews

Television in Gillette

Obviously, there is no television news station in Gillette.

There are ABC and NBC affiliates in Casper. I've only seen the NBC affiliate's truck in Gillette once or twice.

Even though it's the state capital, Cheyenne has only one station, a CBS affiliate that covers Cheyenne, Wyo.-Scottsbluff, Neb. market. The Casper stations do a better job doing statewide journalism than the Cheyenne station.

I honestly could not have identified any Wyoming stations had I not looked them up on the web for this blog post.

Ditto, probably, with my editors.