I just recently read a memoir that I just loved, partly because it sounded a lot like me talking.  It’s called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (NY:  Crown Publishers, 2005).  What struck me so much as I was reading was that it’s so much like many of my cards–a pastiche of this and that from lots of different parts of life, and sort of random.  I love that it’s arranged in alphabetical order, and I love that some parts are tiny (for instance, “Opinion, Fragile Foundation of a Strong,” and some parts are long musings.  I especially love the section called “Thankful,” because it’s not goopy and quasi-poetic but instead very concrete.  Who isn’t thankful for spell-check–but have you ever stopped to say you are?  I haven’t.  It’s great to stop now and then and examine some of the tiny pieces that comprise day-to-day existence, and notice how beautiful some of them are.  Or aren’t.  I try to make images out of little scraps of this and that; Amy Krouse Rosenthal makes little stories.  I wish I could resonate like she does.  Go read it–it’s quite beautiful.