Hey all! It's Tuesday night and time for the DIDS, short for "Damn, I Did Something." It's a chance for all of us to offer up the cool and awesome things we have DONE in the past week.
I haven't made an appearance here for quite some time (I'll blame full-time school-teaching plus full-time momhood for that), but tonight the task of DIDSing up some stuff that's been done falls to me.
On my mind: The Nobel Prizes. All last week, I'd hear the prizes being announced as I drove to work. Each morning, as I turned off Eastfield Drive onto Alexanderana, I'd hear NPR announce another recent Laureate. I enjoyed the daily dose of accomplishment, even though I'd never heard of any of the various scientists and thinkers being acknowledged. I liked hearing of their discoveries and advances and theories--it makes me feel smart and a smidge more informed to learn about what's going on in the labs and university offices of the world.
As an English teacher and an avid reader, I always take particular interest in the literature award. The day the Nobel Prize in Literature was to be announced, NPR reported on the possible front runners--including Philip Roth and Margaret Roth--both strong contenders, in my mind. "I bet it will be Philip Roth," I thought as I got out of the car.
However, there was no mention on NPR of the actual winner, who was announced later in the day--Doris Lessing!
I was in the middle of the teaching day, when CSK sent me an email informing me of Lessing's victory. (He knows me well! Lessing has long been one of my favorite authors).
Anyways, the rest of the day, I walked around in a "my favorite author won the prize" glow and read all the news stories I could about Lessing, her reaction to the prize, etc.
Today, I finally had a moment to go dig out one of her most famous works "The Golden Notebook"--I'm about to go re-read it and remind myself why I read almost nothing BUT Doris Lessing from 1992-1994.
So, today I will raise a glass to a life time of pretty amazing DIDS from Doris Lessing.