made my day

yesterday after a workish cold winter day, i went go pick up tae at her school.

up on the bulletin board, all the kids had drawn pictures of things that make them happy. the teachers had written little phrases on the bottom of each picture.

tae’s said: reading books with mommy makes me happy.

mine would have said: connecting with tae over books and poetry makes me happy.

* * * * * *
speaking of which, tae has been really in to rhymes lately. sometimes she gets things that actually rhyme, sometimes she does alliteration, and sometimes she matches vowel sounds. “cat, snack, that’s a rhyme!” “toe, tae, that’s a rhyme!” “night, light, that’s a rhyme!” “poop, poop, that’s a rhyme!”

in trying to engage her in this, i’m trying to expose her to more poetry. she likes to pick up anything from dr. seuss to sylvia plath. i decided to try something new – shel silverstein. for some reason, i forgot how wacky some of his poems are.

one that seems to perplex tae the most is about how “people from mars have clothes just like ours…” it goes on to talk about how everything is the same, except for the faces are not in the same places. and there’s a picture of a guy with his head attached to his butt.

the only explanation

is that a) i have truly been driven batty by my two year old daughter or b) i have a mild case of OCD.

i’m not joking.

last night, i had some spare time. (gasp!) and as i stood in the middle of my living room, i figured out what i needed to do.

yes, i reorganized my book case. i alphabetized all of my asian american lit (the majority of my books; by author, separated into non-fiction and fiction). and i re-arranged the rest of my books so they would make sense… to me.

and when i was finished, and noticeably calmer, i looked, and i saw: i had organized my books by race.

ok, well, race and gender. i have one book case that is the white male book case: jared diamond, jrr tolkien, jack kerouac, eric schlosser, tom perrotta, nick hornby, dave eggers.

the only exceptions on that shelf are: jk rowling, one jennifer weiner book, one sophie kinsella book, “i don’t know how she does it,” and a book about online identity written by a female sociology professor at MIT.

i have one shelf devoted to asian american lit. and one shelf that is a mix of books by black and latino authors (house on mango street, alice walker, bell hooks) and women’s studies type books (the bell jar, a bridge called my back, she’s not there).

and suddenly, i felt better. anyone have book cases for me to organize?