Friday Five

Five random thoughts on my mind for your Friday enjoyment...

1. Mockingjay... whoa. I've heard quite a few different reactions to this book so far. I have to say that I actually loved it. Was it gory? Yes. Was it heart wrenching? Yes. Did it have some plot issues that I wish had been done differently? Yes. I would elaborate, but I don't want to have any spoilers. But it was also incredible and made me feel so deeply entrenched in the world of Panem that I felt guilty for eating an orange while I was reading it. That is the power a book can have. I could say so much more, but don't want to be spoilery.

2. I should have written my Friday Five yesterday when I actually had five things I was thinking "I should write about these five things." But then I thought, naw, I'll remember all of 'em. And now I don't. I remember Mockingjay and the rest is a big blank. Such is the state of my memory. Other things I've forgotten this week? My son's goggles for swim lessons, where I put one of my favorite shirts, to make dinner last night, about ten different things at the store (causing multiple trips back), and a whole lot more. I just can't remember what else I forgot. Yeah. It's great. For someone who used to be able to memorize a name the first time I met someone, or a phone number after hearing it once, this memory loss stuff is a serious pain the butt.

3. Having children causes memory loss. I didn't believe it either until I actually had kids. And then... well, you read #2.

4. I feel guilty sometimes that I almost always wear my hair straight for family pictures. I have naturally curly hair, but it's so unreliable that I usually decide to do it straight for "important" pictures so I KNOW it will look good. (Instead of possibly going frizzy and/or collapsing into the "dead-curl-zone," wherein my curls look great upon drying them, but within an hour are totally dying and look horrendous.) But then I feel guilty that I'm not "taking advantage" of my curly hair and "being proud" of it. I worry that because I straighten it so much, my curl is starting to go away and that one day I'll wish I'd just kept wearing it curly all the time. Yes, I know I'm weird. It's okay. Why is this on my mind? We're probably doing family portraits this weekend. Bring on the good times of hair indecision.

5. Running can be like writing/revising: You have moments where you feel like you're flying and could go forever, and moments where every step kills and it's a struggle to breathe, and all you want to do is lie down and quit. But you have to keep going no matter what or you'll never reach your goal. Trying to train for a 10k and revising 2 books and continuing to do everything else on my "to-do list" and getting very little sleep for the last, um, forever contributed to this thought. It may have also contributed to #2.

Is this just me, or do any of you have days (or weeks) where you seriously can't remember anything?

What are your thoughts on this Friday?