Fall's Here, Back to School, Time to Learn Something.

I did it! I am now, once again, a college student. History of Photography. I will also be registering soon for a class through the city parks and rec., Acting for Adults. I sure felt young and cool walking around the college campus with my green parking permit! I spent some time in the bookstore, and realized how much I want a thesaurus. I feel a constant need to confuse-I mean, add to the vocabularies of-my readers. I have some strict qualifications for a thesaurus. It must have the words "sesquipedalian", "superfluous", "quixotic" and "wag." My man has been reading about blogging, so I have found a renewed inspiration. Like Mark Twain said in his preface to Roughing It, I'll either implode or explode if I try to bottle up the factual information I know--like an overinflated balloon. One of my favorite facts is that Pat Benatar has the widest vocal range in pop music, as she was operatically trained. Also, I never miss a chance to tell somebody that Henry Winkler and I share the same birthday. I think it's fair to say that I enjoy learning. I love books and words, but I also enjoy learning by living; by just being out in the world and seeing other people interact. Yesterday, I learned at the grocery store just how manipulative kids can be. I was looking at cookies, and a little girl excitedly ran over and asked her mom if she could get some. Mom said no. She said they already had some at home. The cute little girl didn't know that I heard her mom deny her request, so, reaching for the cookies, she tugged on my shorts, and said very cutely and politely, "Excuse me, could you . . .?" Mom interrupted and told the little girl that I would not get the cookies for her, since I had heard her mom say, "No." Sneaky, sneaky little girl!
For those interested, I am currently reading Roughing It by Mark Twain, and I am loving it, especially his vivid descriptions of his frontier travels, which I'm sure will influence my own writing. In fact, here's an example: I have an organ-pipe cactus that is currently in bloom. The flowers are huge, and grow perpendicular to the cactus on long, strong, hollow stems that are attached to the cactus at the base of the stems. The stems appear to be perforated at the base, so when the flowers die, they don't fall to the ground, they just break mostly off the base and dangle there. What I've found fascinating is that there is a life-line, an umbilical cord if you will, that comes out through the cactus itself and goes through the flower's hollow stem. This may be the stamen of the flower, I don't know. But you pull the dead flower off the cactus, and this cord is left dangling. You can see the photos on my Flickr page.
Back to my reading, I am also currently reading Village School by Miss Read. This is about a small country school in damp England, so I read it mostly during the day when the heat is full blast here in SoCal, and pretend I'm among the cool mists and rolling hills of England. Roughing It is a good evening read, as I sit out on the patio enjoying my cactus/desert landscape as Mark Twain describes his travels through the desert.
I am also studying Italian and brushing up on Spanish at the same time, and I've been studying the human brain by coloring its many parts and functions.
I am just reading Roughing It and Village School as I wait anxiously for my copy of The Great Divorce to come in the mail. That is a book by C.S. Lewis about a bus tour through Heaven and Hell. I'll tell you all about it once it comes and I start reading it.

Praise be to our good God, my dear friend had a scan that detected no cancer! God is so good to have answered this prayer.