 |
| I think my first read will be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.Everyone else is reading it and I think I will too |
Leading up to Thanksgiving I played the whole
leaving-the-country-for-two-years thing pretty cool. When people would ask if I
was nervous, I’d let them know, “Primarily I’m excited. My job is boring and Minnesota
Then Thanksgiving happened. Once again the Duffy Family
wowed me with their love and generosity. My Grandma, aunts, uncles, and eight
or so cousins all chipped in for the perfect Peace Corps companion, an e-reader, plus a compilation of their favorite books (it's like they knew I would need suggestions for books that don't have, "economics" in the title).
As my friend Alisa once pointed out, I’m a bad present-receiver.
My snarky, insincere voice makes it hard to show appreciation even when I
really dig a gift. So when I started sobbing on Thanksgiving, it may have been
my first-ever convincing display of gratitude.
The whole incident, while heart-warming, has been bad for my
street cred. The teary out-pouring pushed open opened my ocular flood gates and
I’ve been crying off and on ever since. I cried when we decorated the Christmas
tree, I cried when I heard the insufferable Elvis rendition of Blue Christmas, and
I sniffled a little at work today while I added dates to a 2012 calendar. Odds
are that I will cry many more times before January 8th. And the
worst part is I tell people, “Oh yeah, I’m not really a crier.”
