Quinn Cummings's Notes from the Underwire

(First of all, sorry, everyone, but I've had to add word verification for those of you who wish to comment due to an annoying "commenter" who keeps sending stuff that is written in Chinese -- or one of those languages that uses characters I don't recognize -- to every "Monday Music" post of mine.)

When we met up with Hobs and Dorr last month for hiking in Acadia National Park, we afterwards decided to have dinner in Bar Harbor. Dinner at Lompoc's (a nod to Hobs's California roots, although, according to our waiter, the restaurant was not named after that) included drinks from the cocktail list -- the sort of concoctions my father, in his younger days, would have referred to as "drinks for women and children." We 21st-century, food-network-trained drinkers like to think of them as "chances to expand our palate," which they most certainly did (the side effects of that being an expanded tongue that is not easy to hold). I can't even begin to tell you what was in mine. Nor do I know exactly what (I'm guessing at least vodka and blueberries?) was in the blueberry martini we stopped at a bar to have after that drink we had with dinner.

What I do know is that we should not, then (or at least I should not then) have been allowed to roam free in Sherman's Bookstore. Roam free, however, we did, commenting loudly on signs that blew down and hit us, as well as books. I'm glad we did, though. You see, this is when I discovered, as Hobs read dramatically to us from absurd cover copy and endorsements, that I am not alone when it comes to mocking cover copy and endorsements. (In fact, Hobs has me beat. Go have a fancy cocktail and a blueberry martini with him and see what I mean.)

His reading was so apropos. At the time, I was nearly finished reading Quinn Cummings's (of QC Report fame) Notes from the Underwire, and I had been so disgusted by two of the three cover endorsements. (The third, Bob Tarte, caught my eye. I must look him up. I mean, how can I not be interested in what someone who wrote a book called Enslaved by Ducks has to say?)

It's not as though the cover endorsements had any effect on me. I've been reading Quinn's blog faithfully for over two years. As soon as the book was released, I ordered it from Powell's, having no idea who'd endorsed it. I would have done so regardless of who had. But then I got my copy and began to look at it. I read the cover endorsement from Jen Lancaster, "Charming, hilarious, and just snarky enough to be ultimately satisfying."

"Jen Lancaster?" I thought. Who's she to be judging the likes of Quinn Cummings? She probably read it, seething the whole time that Quinn can write intelligent, bespectacled, subtly- wry circles around her. I finished the book and felt Quinn ought to be outraged to have this author endorsing her work, even if she does happen to be a bestseller. Really, it's like having Jackie Collins endorse Dorothy Parker or something.

Then there's the quote from USA Today on the back cover: "Erma Bombeck with an edge." I'm sorry. You could show me a portrait of Erma Bombeck painted by Picasso, all edges -- well, and a few points -- and no way in hell would I think, "Ahhh...sort of like Quinn Cummings."

Don't get me wrong. I love Erma Bombeck for what she was. But nothing Quinn writes encourages such thoughts as, "Oh, yes, green grass on that side of the septic tank." Quinn is not the typical 1960s suburban housewife trying to make something funny out of that dismal life. Quinn is leading her own, fascinating, 21st-century-female life and giving us an achingly honest and screamingly funny description of it, while letting us know how human she is and having no qualms when it comes to self deprecation or admitting that this life is often very sad.

Just like her blog, it's laugh-out-loud funny. It's annoy-your-husband-because-you're-laughing-so-hard-and he's-not-a-part-of-this-uproariously-good-time-you're-having funny. Did I mention laugh until the tears stream down your cheeks? I didn't? Shame on me!

Go on. What are you waiting for? I've been raving about Quinn ever since I discovered her blog. She's ten times funnier than I am. If you're reading me, you really ought to be reading her. Get her book. Now.

Bob and Emily Talk VI

Since tomorrow Bob and I will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary, I thought it was appropriate to post one of these today.

Emily: If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh and make fun of me?

Bob (already looking like he might begin laughing): Well...I'll try.

Emily (risking it anyway, because she so wants a vodka gimlet tonight): You see, I'm kind of afraid of the basement at night, especially that room, and I'd like to have some vodka (we store alcohol in this room down in the basement that's really quite creepy). Would you mind going down and getting it?

Bob (for some reason, he doesn't even snicker): Sure, but you're the one who is all enamored of Spooky Days (what we call the month of October in this house), and yet, you're afraid of the basement?

Emily: Yes, all the ghosts and vampire bats and cool things hang out in the attic (where she has a little area she uses as a writing nook when it is neither too hot nor too cold). Creepy, scary, human things hang out in the basement. Oh yeah, and zombies (in case you didn't know, zombies live in garages, too).

Bob goes down to the basement and comes up with the vodka.

Bob: There was a huge spider down there. It nearly killed me. (Ahhh! Now we know why he didn't snicker.)

Emily: No there wasn't. The spiders are hanging out in the attic, too. It's the creepy serial killer in the basement. He was watching you through some hole in a board the whole time you were down there.

Bob: Oh-oh-oh, the creepy serial killer.

Emily doesn't reply. She's checking to make sure the basement door is securely locked.

It's true. Basements are horrible places where serial killers set up shop or "camp out," waiting to strike families they've been stalking. Basements are where incestuous fathers build special rooms and keep their children imprisoned. They're where people hide victims' bodies. Give me the attic rafters and a few rattling chains over that any day...

BBAW Meme

One of you lovely readers of mine nominated my blog in the funniest/most amusing category for Book Bloggers Appreciation Week. Thank you, whoever you are (you can 'fess up, if you'd like, but I understand if you're shy). I was humbled on two accounts: 1. I'm not really a book blogger. I just pretend to be one and 2. I'm not nearly as funny as many of the real book bloggers out there whose blogs I know and love.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as BBAW, but what a cool thing to have (even if none of my most cherished book blogs made the short lists this year). Anyway, I visited the site and discovered that during this week (which is about to end), there were topics given everyday on which to post. I've been too busy getting back into the groove of working to be able to do something like post on other people's topics for a week, but I did (surprise! surprise!) like the meme that was supposed to be Tuesday's post (I think). Since then, I've seen two of my favorite book bloggers who should have made the short list pick up on it, Litlove and Stef, and so, I'm picking it up from them.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? "A book without food is like a day without sunshine," I always say. Not that I really mind days without sunshine (just as I don't at all mind reading a book with no food to pair with it. But if I had to do that for days and days on end, well...), you see. In fact I love a nice, rainy day, which is almost always good for curling up with tea and toast and a book. But, really, I don't have a favorite reading snack. The food I eat, like the books I read, depends on my mood.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? If they belong to me, and they are nonfiction, I will mark them. I find myself doing quite a bit of arguing in the margins, when I'm not resorting to the boring old, "So true!" I don't mark up fiction much, unless I know I'm going to be writing a blog post about it or attending a book discussion meeting.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open? Bookmarks, and I have lots and lots and lots of them, and still appreciate every single new one I get.

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? Both, but many of you have heard me say that I don't believe anything I read except fiction.

Hard copy or audiobooks? I listen to a few audiobooks every year, but I much prefer to read myself.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put down a book at any point? I stop wherever, knowing I can never plan when a phone might ring, cat might start meowing pitifully, stomach might start growling, husband might desperately need me to find a blue sock, etc. Also, I am someone who takes a book with me everywhere I go. If I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, I can't exactly say to the person behind me, "Just let me get to the end of this chapter, please, and then I'll check out."

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? (Well, I used to worry I was pretty anal retentive and had at least a couple of toes over the OCD line until I read this lovely question, which has convinced me that I most certainly must not.) Never, which is probably why I only vaguely know what half the words I use mean.

What are you currently reading? I'm down to these four right now: The Portable Dorothy Parker, The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift, Ill Wind by Nevada Barr, and The Village by Marghanita Laski (which means there is something terribly wrong, and I am due to pick up at least three more very soon).

What was the last book you bought? This is pathetic! I honestly can't remember. Let me think a minute and get back to you...

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time? Ummm, I think I answered that question two questions ago.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? Every hour of every minute of every day, if I could, and in any comfortable spot, but beds are almost always nice places to read.

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? Stand alones. Series are problematic for those of us who have only just discovered that we don't have those couple of toes over the OCD line, because, you know, you might think you have to start with the first one and then read all of them (in order), and it may be an old series, and some of them may be out of print and hard to get...(You know how it is, but those of us with all our body parts firmly on this side of the OCD line need not worry about such things, so perhaps we'll soon discover that we LOVE series.)

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? Unfortunately, I thrust Jack Finney's Time and Again on anyone who even whispers "New York City" to me. And, well, you know, then there's what some might call my obsession with David Sedaris.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc). I fantasize about organizing all the fiction by author's last name and all the rest by subject and title. But everyone knows that fantasy is not reality, so you will never be able to find what you're looking for on my shelves unless you ask me (for some odd reason, I usually have a vague idea of where things are, despite the fact that Charles Darwin seems to be having tea with Maureen Dowd and Jack London).

Ms. Barton and the Vicious Short Story

I am not, by nature (with the exception of ghost and horror stories, of course), a short story reader. Occasionally, I will come across something in The New Yorker that grabs my attention, but on the whole, I shy away from the genre. I chalk this up to two things:

1. High school. Some of you have heard me say that high school nearly made a non-reader out of this voracious reader and ruined lots of great literature for me by introducing it to me at an age at which I could neither understand nor appreciate it. What did we read most in high school? Short stories. And I did not have the sorts of teachers who seemed to care about making them relevant or bringing them to life for me. (God knows how I made those As in English. Must have been my ability to BS or something.)

2. A short attention span. I know that makes no sense, but hear me out here. In order to hold my attention, I need something that invites me in and asks me to stay awhile, that entices me with interesting little details and tidbits, that lets me get to know it. Most short stories are kicking me out the door by the time I decide that, why yes, I would like another cup of tea and slice of cake, and please, tell me what happened after she left you at the train station.

Things seem to have changed this year, though. First, I read The Twilight of the Gods, got to the end of it, and found myself craving more, very disappointed that it was the only published collection of stories by Richard Garnett. Then, I decided to read Richard Yates's Collected Stories (maybe it's not short stories. Maybe it's authors named "Richard" I like), each and every one of which invited me in for tea and cake. As I drew near to its end, I went browsing our bookshelves looking for more short stories (not hard to find since I'm married to a former high school English teacher. I'm sure, if I'd had him, I would have wound up loving short stories. However, I would not be married to him, because he does not believe in teachers marrying students, even former students. So I sacrificed loving the short story in order to marry the man I love).

I pulled from those shelves Viking's The Portable Dorothy Parker. I've always enjoyed Dorothy Parker (being a fan of light verse. To hell with the critics -- critics never like anything that's truly fun, do they? After all, she was a critic, so they're criticizing one of their own, and she could write circles around most calling themselves critics today), but I hadn't read too many of her short stories. I bought this book at a library sale a few years ago after watching the movie Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, and there it sat ever since, unread, until now (I highly recommend it. The poems and stories are great, but the most fun are her reviews. I'm in the midst of the section on plays from Vanity Fair and am laughing out loud at almost every one, a nice antidote for the depression caused by both her stories and Richard Yates's -- although her stories will make you laugh. His won't).

You can tell I'm reading Dorothy Parker (a Queen of Digression), because it's taken me this long to get to the point of this post, which is to post my thoughts on a movie, the aforementioned Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. Long before I knew what a blog was (maybe even before blogs existed. I'd have to check that), I started keeping book journals where I jotted down my thoughts and feelings about every book I read. One of these days, I plan to start posting some of those "from the vault" essays, but today, since I am in the midst of reading Dorothy Parker, I thought it would be fun to post from my companion journal, the one I keep for movies and plays (which I have to admit, is not as well kept as the book journals. I often go long periods forgetting -- or being too lazy to bother -- to write about movies and plays, but I never forget a book). So, here you go:

(Note: you don't know HOW badly I wanted to edit this piece. So much of it needs to be reworded, but I've left it in its original form, word-for-word for you.)

Date: April 21, 2007
Movie: Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle

Bob DVRed this one some time ago, thinking I might like it. Like it, I certainly did, but it was an extraordinarily disturbing movie. Poor Dorothy Parker comes off as an extremely unstable, distraught, and unhappy woman -- self-destructive in all the classic ways.

It's funny, because when Bob and I first started watching it, our comments to each other ran along these lines, "Man, wouldn't it have been so cool to have been part of the Algonquin Round Table?" "Can you imagine sitting around with all those people?" By the end of the movie, my thoughts were more like, "Thank God I've never been a part of something like that."

I'd like to know how true-to-life the movie actually was (as always, I'm led to wanting to read more: more by Dorothy Parker and more about her). I always find it so sad to discover that what I thought were a bunch of brilliant minds were really just a bunch of superficial egoists, drowning their depression in oceans of alcohol.

Of course, I never get away from accepting the fact that most brilliant minds are combined with an ultra-sensitivity that makes living in this world extremely difficult. These people often have to self medicate in order to survive. I've long since gotten away from wondering what they would have been like without the alcohol or the cocaine addiction, because I'm not so sure they could have produced what they did without their addictions.

What I found saddest about Dorothy Parker as portrayed in this movie was the fact that she was just such a typical woman trying so hard not to be a woman. Everyone else could see she was making mistakes in her relationships with men. Everyone else could see, despite her wry wit and less than flattering observations about love that she was dying to be madly in love with someone who was madly in love with her. Men were her downfall, and they were all both fascinated and somewhat repelled by her.

The movie was beautifully filmed. I loved the dark scenes of her little apartment life, the overcrowded Algonquin with all its dark wood, and the "Great-Gatsby-ish" garden party scene. I think the 1920s as portrayed in film are one of my favorite eras. I like the clothes both the men and women wore, the way everyone holds glasses with unidentified alcoholic beverages in them, and the way the men light cigarettes for women (oh, if only all that glamorous smoking with those long cigarette holders hadn't gone on to kill everyone, huh?). It must be really fun to get to dress up in that garb.

So, yet another bleak movie that's piqued my interest in picking up some bleak books. Let's see whether or not I do.

(The answer is "yes," 2 1/2 years later.)

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

I can't believe that it's been nearly five months since I found out that my friend Danny's twin boys had been born very prematurely. Until then I had been eagerly awaiting the announcement of their birth sometime around Aug. 10th (their original due date), so excited for Danny, because I knew this was something he'd been wanting for some time. Here it was April. Suddenly, what had been a great joy had become dismally bleak. Dear little Oliver did not live even for 24 hours, dying in his parents' arms (as Danny told us), but his brother Charlie has been hanging in there ever since, and those of us who know and love Danny have been hanging in there with Danny and his wife and "big sister" Leah through multiple surgeries and months and months of life at Cedars-Sinai Neonatal Intensive Care Unit out in California. He's made it, though, and I cannot describe how I feel every time I read the words "my son" written by Danny.

Sometime back, I decided that when Charlie finally came home, in tribute to him, I would post my favorite Wilco song on the Monday that followed, since Charlie is Jeff Tweedy's nephew. Charlie came home this past weekend. Making that decision to post a song by "Uncle Jeff" was easy. Deciding which was my favorite Wilco song was much harder. I love Wilco. Finally, I settled on the one I've chosen below, because I'm hoping that "someday soon," I will get to meet Charlie. I love this song for all kinds of other reasons, though. It's one of those songs that hit me the first time I ever heard it, with its wonderful guitar work and very optimistic sound.

Meanwhile, I don't want to forget Charlie's brother Oliver, so I am also posting a song for Oliver. This is a song that helped get me through the death of another friend of mine's 8-month-old baby (who would be thirteen now, had he lived). I still cry every single time I listen to it, but it's a beautiful song by Eddie From Ohio, on their CD "Actually Not." You know, as absolutely horrible as it is for those of us on earth who know and love them to lose children, I know that heaven (despite the fact I have no idea what it is) would not be a place I'd ever want to go if there were no children there. Now, when I listen to this song, I think of both Baby Jeremy and Baby Oliver helping to make heaven a place I'd like to be.

To Charlie (Welcome home!):

Someday Soon

by Wilco

Wind will blow and the sun will shine

On that hill where we used to climb

I look in your eyes

And you'll be mine

Someday soon.

I won't even make a scene

That will be just like a dream

Cash will flow down by the old mainstream

Someday soon, someday soon.

You don't know me but I know you

(You don't know me)

You have no idea what I do

(What I do)

Make you mine and see you swoon

Someday soon, someday soon.

Sun's gonna shine, wind's gonna blow

On that hill where we used to go

I look in your eyes and down I roll

Someday soon,

Someday, someday soon.

Someday, someday soon.

To Oliver (please forgive the Christian reference to St. Peter. One thing I do know about heaven is that there are no such religious distinctions):

In Paradise

by Eddie from Ohio

i woke up this morning went to pick up the mail a routine that I always do

probably find bills and catalogues, full of junk i'd never use

as i reached in the box, i felt a sensation

i didn't know what it could be

then i pulled out a card and looked at the postmark it said p.o. cloud 23

and i thanked the heavens for sending this letter to me

dear mommy and daddy, i asked god if he'd let me write a letter to you

he said he felt bad about all of the sad things he was permitted to do

so he took me to peter and he asked him to help me

cuz i was too young to write words

so i climbed on his lap and i leaned over to hear him

and this is what st. peter heard

don't worry, don't you cry, don't waste the energy wondering why

the reasons are clear, safer here in paradise

each morning i wake up and the sun it shines brightly

and me and the other kids play

we eat lots of pretzels and watch lots of barney and sing-along songs all the day

and at night before bedtime i go visit grandpa who reads me a story or two

then i gather my blanket and lay off to slumber and dream about daddy and you

don't worry, don't you cry, don't waste your energy wondering why

the reasons are clear, safer here in paradise

i've got to get going st. peter is calling he's gotten a job for me

he says katy you make sure the stars are all lined up

and twinkling as bright as can be

so take comfort together that i'm doing fine

just lay your tears down to rest

my spirit is there and i'll always be with you

remembering two years the best

don't worry, don't you cry, don't waste the energy wondering why

the reasons are clear, safer hear in paradise

Work: What's Old and What's New

So, I've had my first (abbreviated) week at work, which means I am now an expert and can start writing blog posts about it. Thought I'd start with the things that don't ever seem to change and then talk about the new and different stuff. Here you go:

What's Old

1. Computers and printers hate each other, would much rather not talk to each other ever, and take it out on me (I guess because I'm always trying to get them to get along). This means that I could work for any company in the world and still have days like today, in which, instead of getting any real work done, I spend six hours trying to hook up a printer/fax machine that still isn't working properly, and I am doomed always to have to resort to "work-around" solutions.

2. The people who work in IT at every company are absolute saints. This week, I met St. Skip (who is already sick of me and how ditzy and inept I am, I'm sure). St. Skip had the presence of mind to tell me that it's good to be a Luddite. We spent so much time on the phone chatting today (yes, I was chatting on the phone. See how desperate I was?) while waiting for things to load and unload that I feel like we've known each other for years (it helps that he's from Philly, although living in California now, and actually knows this area).

3. People who can't string two coherent sentences together will always think they have a great idea for a book and want someone to publish it. Most likely, they will approach a completely inappropriate publishing company (say, an academic publishing company when they've got a memoir all about the time they were abducted by aliens who took them on a roller coaster ride to their galaxy).

4. I will always think there are enough hours in the day to accomplish the twelve things I have on my to-do list, will always forget that I might have to spend 3 hours chatting with St. Skip or the author who was abducted by aliens, and will always get to the end of the day despairing that only three things have been crossed off the to-do list. (Even when I have promised, promised, promised myself that with this job things are going to be different.)

5. Every day, some email will appear in my box that might as well have been written in Chinese for all that I can understand it. Usually, it has something to do with systems and is chock-full of acronyms.

What's New:

1. A company that is truly set up for telecommuting. What? You've sent me a phone? And that phone plugs into my wireless router? And now people call me on a number with a California area code, and I never see the bill, and I never have to remember to submit said bill for reimbursement in a timely fashion to avoid having accounting people screaming for my head on a platter? How cool is that???

2. I am promptly addressing all emails, keeping them sorted and organized, immediately deleting what can be deleted, and will never again have five billion email messages hanging around with nowhere to go and no time to organize them (although I might get a wee bit behind on days that I spend urging computers and printers to get along with each other).

3. A user-friendly, intuitive, company computer system. Really. I'm supposed to get some training on it, and I suppose I will, but I've already been playing around with it and have figured out quite a lot, because it's well-designed and makes sense.

4. Already knowing so many people on my first day of the job (lots of colleagues from the company I worked prior to my last job now work for this company). It was so nice to log into my email on that first day and to have so many people welcoming me back and telling me they'd missed me.

5. Feeling like I can't wait to get to work every morning, and that what? This is a weekend? And I have to wait till Monday to contact people and pursue all these thousands of ideas I have? (Okay, this feeling won't last, I am sure, but right now, I am loving the job and am full of ideas of things I want to do.)

Important "Meme"

This is so important to pass on that I'm tagging everyone who reads my blog to please post it on yours and encourage your readers to do the same (especially those of you who have a huge readership, which I don't), and if you can relate a personal anecdote that highlights how horrible the current system is (one that touched/is touching you or someone you love), all the better. Let's stop all those idiot naysayers who have jumped on the word "socialism," having no clue whatsoever what it means, and who are so eager to embrace ridiculous soundbites, while so many in our country suffer unnecessarily. It's an embarrassment. I'm convinced that in the electronic age, we can change sentiment through passing on messages like this one, because it's all about education and putting faces on issues. So please watch and pass it on via your blog, and p.s. don't forget to let your Congressmen know how you feel. Thanks!

Personal Anecdote (Not anywhere near as tragic as many depicted in the video, but still evidence that we need to do something. I hope my sister doesn't mind that I'm using this story without her permission). My sister is an artist who, until very recently, worked for herself. She has been paying her own health insurance over the years, and last year, she wound up in the hospital with a very severe headache. Luckily, it turned out she was only suffering from migraines, but that did not keep her from being stuck with a whopping bill. In order to be able to afford her insurance, she had chosen to have an extremely high deductible, which meant that her insurance did not cover the bill. Stuck with monthly payments on the hospital bill and monthly insurance payments that didn't seem to be doing her much good, and barely able to afford both, she chose to drop her insurance, leaving her uninsured at an age at which no woman should be without affordable healthcare.

(Oh, and I can't help noting that R.E.M., who refused to let Microsoft use them to advertise its product, apparently had no problem with this one.)

Life According to Literature Meme

Dorr tagged me for this on Facebook and then brought it to the blogosphere. I thought I'd do it here first and then post it on my FB page.

Using only books you have read this year (2009), cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!

Describe Yourself: Food Matters (Mark Bittman) -- so do books, but food is very important. Food and books together? Well, nothing matters much more than that, does it?

How do you feel: Stiff (Mary Roach) -- did a new workout routine the other day

Describe where you currently live: Main Street (Sinclair Lewis) -- truly, although it's not called that, but it's the main street right in the center of town

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates) -- what it sounds like, not the dreary place it is in the book

Your favorite form of transportation: (anyway you can get me) Cross Channel (Julian Barnes)

Your best friend is: Sure of You (Armistead Maupin) -- more sure of me than I am

You and your friends are: A Long Way Gone (Ishmael Beah) -- and we like it that way

What’s the weather like: In the Fall (Jeffrey Lent) -- which means it's gorgeous

Favorite time of day: The Twilight of the Gods (Richard Garnett) -- which gives way to Gaudy Night (Dorothy Sayers)

If your life was a(n): A Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby) -- I don't really understand this one but like the idea of my life being a polysyllabic spree

What is life to you: The Discomfort Zone (Jonathan Franzen) -- just when I think I'm getting comfortable...

Your fear: The Killing Kind (John Connolly) -- don't we all fear them?

What is the best advice you have to give: Equal Rights (Terry Pratchett) -- for all, everywhere

Thought for the Day: The Black Spider (Jeremias Gotthelf) -- I love spiders, and I saw a beautiful black one spinning a web just outside our kitchen window today

How I would like to die: A High Wind in Jamaica (Richard Hughs) -- well, the Jamaica Part at least, and I wouldn't mind its being windy and maybe being out on the water, but nothing violent or painful, please

My soul’s present condition: Lud-in-the-Mist (Hope Mirrlees) -- right on the edge of Fairy Land

We Took to the Woods (with a Hobgoblin)

(Yet again), it was not a dark and stormy night, but it should have been. After all, I was meeting up with The Hobgoblin for a walk in the Maine woods. Some of you may recall what happened once before during a meeting with The Hobgoblin.

But I was completely unsuspecting. After all, this time Dorr and Bob and the ever-vigilant Muttboy were all going to be with me. That was the first mistake I made: assuming Bob and Muttboy would be with us. You see, the minute we hit the trails, Dorr and I were left far behind as the other three pretty much disappeared out of sight, whisked off under the maniacal powers of The Hobgoblin.

I have to admit that poor Muttboy did his valiant best to resist those powers, so worried was he that Dorr was in extreme danger. He was going to be sure she didn't get lost in the woods, and he seems to have a few magical charms of his own, having enough influence over The Hobgoblin that he was every so often released from The Hobgoblin's powers to rush back down the path to assure that Dorr had not fallen down a well or into a ravine or suffered some other such Lassie-like fate.

I also have to admit that I easily fell for The Hobgoblin's dastardly plan. You see, I was busy being impressed with how patient Dorr, someone who has all kinds of backpacking and hiking experience (not to mention someone who is in far better shape than I am with all her bike-race training, yoga practice, and possible-marathon training), was with my climb-up-on-my-hands-and-knees-and-slide-down-on-my-butt-if-I-have-to style of making it up and down mountains. I thought she was merely being kind as we began to lag farther and farther behind, and she chose to stick with me rather than accompanying the boys. Little did I know that we were both under The Hobgoblin's spell. She had no choice but to stick with me, as it was all part of his plan.

We went on two hikes that day, all above the Sand Beach area in Acadia National Park. I should have been on my toes. However, I wasn't. I paid no attention when halfway through the second hike, during a brief moment when Dorr and I had caught up to Bob and The Hobgoblin and Muttboy, Bob's cell phone began beeping. The Hobgoblin had obviously drained the phone's battery. He suggested we all turn off our cell phones so that we didn't all end up with dead batteries. Without questioning, Dorr and I obliged. I guess I was just way too busy discussing books and books and more books (oh yeah, and jobs and religion and hiking, and a few other things) to be on the alert.

But then, we came to a fork in the road with the familiar wooden-arrow signposts marking the trails. Bob is always ahead of me on trails (because I don't feel like jogging up and down mountains), but he never fails to stop at these forks to wait for me and to make sure I continue on the right trail. I like hiking this way with him, because it allows me to hike alone (which I love to do) while knowing that if something happens to me, someone knows where I am and isn't all that far away from me. However, he seems to have a real fear of losing me on the trail. Thus, I can only surmise that The Hobgoblin had cast a mighty strong spell, because no one was waiting for us as we approached the fork in the road.

I still didn't think anything of it. Being women, Dorr and I chose the logical path, the one with the sign that read "Sand Beach." After all, we were reaching the end of the trail, and I knew we were parked in the Sand Beach parking area.

Soon, though, Dorr began to get an eerie feeling. She was quite sure we'd already been on this path, that we were now climbing down the same trail we had ascended. We were not supposed to be doing this. The trail we had picked was a loop, because I avoid going up and down the same way whenever possible. Eventually, I too, began to get the same eerie feeling.

We met a man coming the opposite direction on the trail with a big black dog who could have been Muttboy's cousin. We asked if he'd seen two men with another black dog. He looked a bit concerned as he told us that he hadn't seen them and asked where we were headed. When I said, "The Sand Beach parking area," he said, "You're on the right trail then."

The right trail to get back to Sand Beach, but the wrong trail to find Bob and Muttboy, who were obviously being carried deep into the woods by The Hobgoblin. We couldn't call them, because Bob's cell phone battery was dead. Had he managed to escape and had found someone to lend him a cell phone (something Bob has done many a time), desperately trying to reach us, we'd have been oblivious, as both our cell phones were turned off per The Hobgoblin's instructions.

We were wise. We didn't panic. We knew where we were. We knew how to get back to the car. Dorr was the wiser of the two, though, because when I suggested we go back to the parking lot, she thought it best for us just to continue to the end of this trail, where we had begun the hike. This decision must have broken The Hobgoblin's spell (although I like to think that Muttboy's persistence, when he went off in search of us and couldn't find us, put a few cracks in the spell as well). We discovered all three at another intersection, The Hobgoblin in the midst of taking them back up the mountain and away from all civilization forever. Once the spell had been broken, The Hobgoblin and Bob (obviously still under his spell) tried to explain that we had not been hiking the Sand Beach trail. The Hobgoblin tried to sound concerned, relating how they'd frantically hiked a good ways back up both trails to try to find us (the spell lingered just a bit more late that night, after we'd all had dinner together, and Bob told me how fast The Hobgoblin had hurried up and down those trails in search of us).

I, however, at long last, was paying attention, and was not fooled. The Hobgoblin may be charming company, but I now know that's how he gets me off my guard. Who knows where he and Bob and Muttboy might be now if Dorr and I had not spoiled his plans? I'm pretty sure this little episode, had it not failed, was an experiment meant to be included in a book he's writing. It will be a transcendent book (although Dorr just might disagree with that).

The Moonstone

(I read this for the Connecticut detective book discussion group. Warning: this will be a very long and fawning post.)

Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. London: Penguin, 1981. (The book was originally published in 1868.)

I read both The Moonstone and The Woman in White back when I was working at the library. I was bored one day, started browsing through The Fiction Catalog in search of old mysteries and tales of the supernatural, and came across Wilkie Collins. I remembered having read somewhere that Collins had had an influence on Stephen King and immediately headed for the shelves to find his books.

Soon, I was staying up way too late, lying in bed, reading both those books, one right after the other. I remember which apartment was the setting for those late nights, which means I read them around 1992 or so. That's seventeen years ago. It's pretty amazing I can remember that much detail about why and when I read Collins.

Why the hell, then, do I barely remember a single thing about this book, one I know I loved? I might as well have been reading it for the first time. The only thing that really stuck in my mind was the quicksand and how it came into play -- not only how it came into play, but also the fact that quicksand, which I've always associated with such exotic places as Africa and South America, could be found in England. (Yorkshire, no less. There is obviously a reason Yorkshire is one of my favorite counties.)

It makes sense that I might remember the quicksand ("shivering sand," as Collins so evocatively calls it), but what makes no sense at all is that I had no recollection of the technique Collins used to tell this story, which is one of my favorite techniques, the reason I so love the likes of Lawrence Durrell. He allowed the various characters, those who were present at this "English country manor mystery," to tell the story themselves. This is not done in the typical detective novel sort of way in which Clever Detective interviews the various witnesses, and we get all kinds of contradictory information from (mostly despicable, although often with one or two sentimentally likable) characters until Clever Detective puts it all together and presents a solution to the puzzle.

No. Here we get the clever detective, called in to try to fix what is quickly becoming a botched case. He rivals Sherlock Holmes in his ability to gain the reader's trust and marvel at his genius. However, he disappears to tend a rose garden, leaving the suspects themselves to puzzle through the mystery. Each one writes his or her accounts of the events (that have now taken place a year ago), sometimes relying on journals, each one dependent on what could be faulty memories.

Trusting memory, as Collins proves on more than one occasion, is a very tricky business. I am a prime example of that. I am convinced I've told you the truth when I relate to you how I first came to read this book, that my memory is accurate. I have enough experience with my own memory to doubt these facts, though, because I know, for instance, that I read a long biography of Agatha Christie the summer I was fifteen, and my parents and brother and I traveled up to Scotland (through Yorkshire, by the way, when the Yorkshire Ripper was busy terrorizing people) from our home in Kent. However, I recall reading it in the back of a station wagon in which my family traveled around England and France when I was eight. Did I really read Collins in the apartment in which I remember reading him? Did I really read both books at the same time? Who knows?

But back to Collins's clever literary technique. I'm someone who is fascinated by the whole concept of "two sides to every story." As someone who has managed people in the business world and who has also lived in small villages and towns (not to mention having been associated with churches), I have often been privy to both sides of a story and know that the truth of it typically lies somewhere inbetween what can, at times, be two extremes. I also know that people see and hear exactly what they want to see and hear based on pre-conceived opinions and knowledge of others. Collins did a masterful job of drawing on these two characteristics of human nature. My two-sides-to-every-story fascination did not merely feed itself on this book: it gorged itself.

I'm also someone who, since my college days, has been fascinated by the whole notion of state-dependent memory. Yet again, I find myself completely baffled as to why I didn't have even the slightest recollection that state-dependent memory figures so prominently into this mystery. Perhaps I should have been reading this book, propped up in bed alone, in a sleep-deprived state, but I wasn't. Perhaps then I would have remembered more of its brilliance.

Brilliant (in case you have not yet gathered so) it is. I love the way Collins uses both the witnesses' biases and memory lapses to his advantage. I also love the way this book is so difficult to define, and I can understand why Doestoevsky was, apparently, such a fan of Collins's. Like Crime and Punishment, which can be characterized in many ways (albeit mostly different ones from this), this book could be characterized in any number of ways. Sure, it's a detective novel, but it's also a (Gothic) romance, satire, social commentary.

The man was a genius. 21st-century wannabe mystery writers would do well to follow his example. He had all the components of what's expected of the genre today: at least one dead body, suspects with motives, a detective (a real one, not some amateur one -- so popular in contemporary novels, in which it seems the most unlikely people from chefs to strippers find themselves solving crimes -- although he had plenty of help from amateurs), and even a dash of the supernatural.

Not only did Collins write a perfect page-turner, but he also did so with grace and humor. I can't believe it's taken me this long to tell you how funny he was. From satire to melodrama to complete lack of self-awareness to moments that were almost slap-stickish, it's obvious Collins had a very wry eye on the shenanigans in his book. Take this passage, for example:

"I wish certain parts of the house to be reopened," I said, "and to be furnished, exactly as they were furnished at this time last year."

Betteredge gave his imperfectly-pointed pencil a preliminary lick with his tongue. "Name the parts, Mr. Jennings!" he said loftily.

"First, the inner hall, leading to the chief staircase."

"First, the inner hall," Betteredge wrote. "Impossible to furnish that, sir, as it was furnished last year -- to begin with."

"Why?"

"Because there was a stuffed buzzard, Mr. Jennings, in the hall last year. When the family left, the buzzard was put away -- he burst."

"We will except the buzzard, then." (p. 454)

Maybe others wouldn't find this to be so funny, but stuck in the midst of a serious investigation, I find it hilarious in that absurdly "upper-crust" sort of way. British authors seem to have the most talent when it comes to shining bright lights on absurdity at just the right moment. I mean, a burst buzzard? Not a bear's head or a lion's head, or something equally impressive, but a buzzard, and it didn't get eaten by moths or something. No, it burst. That this should be what makes it impossible to duplicate the inner hall from last year and not because some precious chest has been damaged? Not because a love seat is being reupholstered? Priceless! (Don't worry. The buzzard and its association with carnage and how it feeds off others' misfortunes is not lost on me. Still, it's hilarious, right?) We then go onto discover another problem that keeps things from being exactly what they were: a cupid statue with a broken wing, and this is all taken very seriously by Betteredge and the others hoping to recreate the scene of the crime.

This scene is only one small example of the humor found throughout the book. We also have the aforementioned Betteredge's (rightful, in my book, and I'm sure Collins's too, but he did a good job of making it funny) obsession with Robinson Crusoe. We have a woman's obsession with saving souls and everyone else's equally strong obsessions not to have her save their souls with her books and tracts. We have numerous European stereotypes embodied in one man, ready to be observed by everyone but himself. All of this and more add to the delight of reading this book.

The book is brilliant to the end. Here's what we get in the final paragraph, "So the years pass, and repeat each other, so the same events revolve in the cycles of time." (p. 526) I won't bore you with how appropriate those lines are. Suffice it to say that this book itself, read in the 21st-century, with all sorts of characters recognizable from today's streets and headlines, is evidence of their appropriateness.

But I've gushed enough. You don't have to take my word for it. Read the book yourself to find out what a genius Collins was (and weep if you have aspirations of becoming a great mystery writer, which, fortunately, I don't. This is not to say that the writer in me did not experience moments of despair when encountering his powers of description). Now, to get to work on that state-dependent memory. If I'm going to remember not only that this is a great book but also why, well, I guess I'm just going to have to move to Mt. Desert Island, ME; do a lot of hiking every day; and drink things like Dark and Stormies and blueberry martinis.

P.S. Isn't that a fantastic cover? Way to go Penguin!

What I Read Over My Summer Vacation

I'm back from Maine and hoping no one has forgotten who I am, seeing as I posted not a single blog entry while I was gone. Perhaps I could have, but it was such a pain to have to go to the library for Internet access, especially when there was hiking and swimming and good eating to get done. Oh yeah, and there were books to be read, too. Thought I'd get back into this whole blogging business by sharing with you what I read.

The Collected Stories of Richard Yates

Richard Yates

My infatuation with Yates is as strong as ever, as I continue to be amazed by his descriptive ability. I've decided that if you were to visit his grave, paying close attention, you just might hear a bourbon-husky voice whispering, "Greatest generation, Mr. Brokaw? My ass!"

Do Evil in Return

Margaret Millar

I've now read two of Millars. Sadly, because I want to root for the woman/wife, especially in that era, I have to admit that she just can't hold a candle to her husband. A perfectly fine mystery writer, yes, but nowhere near the perfection of Ross Macdonald.

The Female Brain

Louann Brizendine

Fascinating. I learned quite a lot from this one, not the least of which is we still have so much to learn when it comes to the brain (male or female). Brizendine makes it all very easy to understand and provides plenty of "Ah-ha!" moments. A little too much "nature over nurture," and some gaps (like completely ignoring what might go on in the brains of women who choose not to have children), but nonfiction writers making a case often need to focus like that, and she still gave me plenty of food for thought.

A High Wind in Jamaica

Richard Hughs

A pirate adventure on the surface but really one of the most brutally honest portrayals of children -- both their tender and their savage sides -- I've ever read. Brilliant. A must read, if you've never read it.

Holly's Inbox

Holly Denham

Just what "chick lit" should be: implausible, fun, made me laugh, choked me up...And I loved the technique of a story being told through emails (an idea with which I've toyed from time to time).

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy

(Still reading.) This is a book discussion group read, one I'm very glad we chose. What can I say? It's Thomas Hardy (whom, I'm suddenly realizing, is kind of like a Victorian, British Richard Yates). It's Jude (only the most callous of hearts could not feel for Jude and the fact he's just oh-so human). It's real; it's tragic; it takes to task all that's wrong with life in Victorian England; and I love it.

The Killing Kind

John Connolly

You know, I had to read something set in Maine, didn't I? Remember how Connolly's Book of Lost Things so impressed me? Well, I'm now extremely impressed with his skills as a spooky detective novelist. I'm also impressed that this Irishman knows New York and New England so well and writes about them better than many Americans I've read. Anyway, I can't wait to read more in the Charlie Parker series.

The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins

Full blog post on this (probably tomorrow, since the Connecticut detective book club is meeting on Friday). Advance warning: I will be gushing so much, you may be tempted to build a dam.

Notes from the Underwire

Quinn Cummings

Full blog post on this one coming soon, too. Love Quinn's blog? Then you'll love this book.

So, not a bad collection of reads, huh? Feel free to agree/disagree with my assessments of any of these you've read.

Not in Maine -- Yet

So, you read yesterday's blog post and thought I was headed to Maine today. Funny thing: that's what I thought, too, but here I am, still in PA. You see we planned on going to Maine but, apparently, our car had other ideas. I guess it just wasn't up for that 11-hour drive today, didn't fancy the idea of arriving at a cottage with which it's not real familiar, on a side of Mt. Desert Island we've barely explored, around midnight -- the witching hour.

The car is sulking, so we decided the best thing to do was to drink martinis, order a pizza, let the car cry itself to sleep, and start out tomorrow morning. I must say, I wasn't very nice to it earlier, so it has every right to be upset, but really. What a time to roll over a huge nail and get a flat tire. And I mean flat.

Especially when I was so proud of myself. There Bob was, at church all morning. Here I was at home, finishing up last minute details before we left. I decided I'd surprise him by doing a superb job of loading everything in the car (something he'd fully expected to do himself). And superb it was! I even managed to carry that particularly big, heavy box full of food and other necessities out to the car by myself. I wedged everything in so that nothing could move around. It was better than a Tetris game board.

Then, it happened. I walked out the door to cross the parking lot over to the church office to make a photocopy of something we needed to mail before we left. And what did I see? A tire, glued to the pavement, in that beleaguering way that only a flat tire can do.

You would be proud of me: I didn't burst into tears (which is what twentysomething me once did when I walked out of my apartment one Saturday morning, car loaded, to head from Connecticut down to North Carolina and discovered I'd left my interior light on, and the car battery was dead). I calmly made that journey across the parking lot. I smiled and laughed and engaged in proper "pastor's wife small talk" with those who were climbing into their cars after the service. I made the photocopy. Then I announced to Bob, while he was hurrying out of his robe,

"We have a slight problem."

In a rare moment of prescience, is response was,

"What? Do we have a flat?"

Yes, we had a flat. In the Bible Belt. On Sunday. (I know. You don't think of Pennsylvania as the Bible Belt, but I promise you, it is.) Bob managed to get the spare on (with the help of one of our wonderful parishioners), ruining, of course, my brilliant packing job in order to get to the spare, and 3 1/2 hours later, from whence did he return with the tire repaired? Dare I even tell you? It was the only place around that was available for such repairs on Sunday. Still, I am so ashamed! Wal-Mart.

Stupid, stupid, stupid car! It deserves to be sulking. It deserves to be riddled with bullets and taken to the junkyard. However, if it manages to get us to Maine in one piece tomorrow, it will be forgiven. Meanwhile, I think I hear a second martini calling me...

Good News and Goodbye

I will be saying goodbye for a while, as Bob and I take off for Maine tomorrow for three weeks (where, if all goes as planned, I will get to meet up with Dorr and Hobs for a little hiking -- after all, I named Dorr after Mount Dorr in Acadia National Park -- and exploring), and I will have very limited Internet access. I may be able to sneak in a blog post or two, but don't count on it.

Meanwhile, I have some (other) good news (it's not as though going to Maine for 3 weeks isn't good news). I got a new job. I have to admit that, although quite thrilled to have got it, I'm feeling a bit guilty. I know that in this economy, there are many out there who are in desperate need of a job and who have been trying for months and months to secure one with no luck, people who have children to feed or college tuitions to pay. Meanwhile, here comes Emily, not looking for a job, not knowing what sort of job to pursue, just biding her time for a while, and a job (quite literally) falls in her lap.

What happened is a former colleague of mine recently lost one of the editors he supervises. He sent me an email telling me so and asking if I were interested in applying. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I decided to explore further and see if it did interest me. It turns out that the answer was "yes." So, I went through the whole application process, bickered a bit over salary and vacation (because I could afford to, a luxury I've never had in the past when applying for jobs, because, well, in the past, I hadn't quite learned what I've learned since being laid off this year, which has given me the chance to figure out what's important to me and what I feel my own self worth is).

I haven't signed the papers yet, so I guess it isn't really official. However, I'm assuming, given my soon-to-be-boss's reaction, that it's pretty "official." I'll be starting this new job Labor Day week, after my long, restful vacation. Perfect.

I will no longer be a supervisor, which is kind of sad (especially since, for some reason, this year, I've had four people I formerly supervised tell me I was the best boss they ever had), but I'm excited about the subject area and working with academics again. I'll be acquiring books on multicultural and minority studies. So, any of you want to write a book for me? (Hint, hint, Litlove: motherhood around the world.)

Meanwhile, do not worry. I will continue to make my novel my #1 priority (I'll be working to live not living to work). Besides, I can't help but do so. My characters absolutely wouldn't let me.

Have a great three weeks, everyone! If you think of me, think of me high atop a mountain somewhere eating delicious, fresh-picked blueberries.

You've GOT to Read This III: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Yates, Richard. Revolutionary Road. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2008. (This book was originally published in 1961.)

When I first started this mini-series of "You've GOT to Read This," I promise you, I did not expect to be bombarding you with titles every other week. I still don't expect to do so, but who knows? I also didn't expect that two out of the first three books I featured would both be recommended to me by the same person. (Maybe I need to start having a few expectations?) Here I am, though, with the second book that Bob (whose post on same you can read here) has recommended to me. Here's what his email that inspired me to read the book sooner rather than later said:

"Get thee to a book store for a copy of Revolutionary Road, post haste. This you will want to keep, so no foolin' around with library copies. Sensed it was a good book when I first read it, but never really realized how good until rereading. Should be required reading for all aspiring writers because it is crafted so well."

Here was my reply, after I obediently did as he said:

"Damn you, yet again...I went to pick up Revolutionary Road, a book I did not intend to read just yet, because I'm in the midst of about four other books that need to be finished. I was hooked, hooked (as in line, sinker, and all) by page two. I'm now on page 30, and it looks like all other books will have to wait. Man, this one is good (and will be good for my own writing, too, I can tell). I suppose I really ought to be thanking you...Nah!"

After spending a good deal of my summer with fantasies and mysteries and the supernatural, it was definitely time for some realism. Real this book most certainly is, especially for someone who spent 20 years living in Fairfield County, CT where the book is set. Granted, it was Fairfield County 1955, but no matter. 1955 or 2005, this is Fairfield County,

Anyone could see they were a better than average crowd, in terms of education and employment and health... (p. 7)

So is this,

...a part of Western Connecticut where three swollen villages had lately been merged by a wide and clamorous highway called Route 12 (p. 4)...she might have to breathe the exhaust fumes and absorb the desoluation of Route 12, with its supermarkets and pizza joints and frozen custard stands...(p. 162)

(Granted, in 2005, those custard stands are Starbuckses, but still.) So real is the book that I could reach out and touch these characters. They sat around my parents' Thanksgiving table when I was fifteen. They sat around the Thanksgiving tables at houses to which I was invited when I was 25. They sit around, elderly now, at the Thanksgiving tables to which Bob and I are invited these days.

This is a book about marriage. Specifically, it is a book about marriage and my parents' generation. This couple is a little older than my parents. It's 1955, and they already have a six-year-old and a four-year-old. In 1955, my father was still married to his first wife, who would not die until 1957. My mother and he would marry in 1959, she practically an "old maid" for that era, being (gasp!) 27 years old. My parents were a little bit different. They'd both lived quite a bit before they got married. Still, they were engaged a mere three months after they started dating and married a mere three months after that.

Bob's parents were even more similar to the couples in this book. His father (as had the men in this book) had fought in WWII (a subject, maybe, for another blog post. I am convinced that all WWII vets suffered from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression, unacknowledged, because they were all "heroes" in a "just war"). They met and married in the 1950s, too. Stories vary, but it seems they were married within three months of having met each other.

Those of us who grew up in an era in which we discussed with our friends such things as "date at least a year [some of my friends had a "three-year rule"] before even considering marriage" or even "live with each other for at least a year before even considering marriage" find these "instant marriages" almost impossible to believe. (Okay, maybe no one else does, but I certainly do.) These days, I would lean more towards the three-year marker, if you are under the age of 25. No wonder once divorce became more acceptable in society (the 1960s and 1970s) it became prevalent enough that I was actually a minority on my hall in my dorm in college because my parents were still married to each other.

None of the marriages in this book is a "good" one. The characters certainly try, but males and females seem to be unable to communicate on a level at which they could ever hope to understand each other. They fantasize about how their conversations are going to go, how they're going to do the right thing, but time and again, they screw it up. A huge contributing factor to the problem is that they do not know or understand themselves. Occasionally, they have brief glimpses -- snapshots -- of who and what they really are. But they don't tend to stare, to linger over them. They quickly flip through the scrapbook to judge the photos of others, to note who is standing awkwardly and why or how that person never smiles.

This is a bleak, bleak book -- a tragedy in the making from the opening scene. By today's standards, every character is an alcoholic (those depressed WWII vets and the women who lived with them had to self-medicate somehow), and it's no wonder. I can't imagine anyone living with such misery without feeling the need to numb themselves.

However, despite its sadness, this book is an extraordinarily compelling read. Yates may have painted an extremely depressing portrait, but he did it oh-so-beautifully. You want to know, "How did he manage that shade of blue?" I found myself wanting to mark up almost every single page of the book, but that would have gotten monotonous after a while with merely one "brilliant!" after another.

What's interesting to me about Yates is that he could serve up such tragedy with no comic relief (and, really, I found none), and I could handle it. That's not like me. I typically want a little humor a la Richard Russo to soften the blows in my realistic fiction. I'll even take a little absurd surrealism with that humor a la John Irving to pad my falls. This book gave me none of that, and yet I am still compelled to sing its praises, to read more Yates, to learn from him as I write my own novel, despite the fact that I'm the complete opposite. Humor is the name of my game.

And learn from him, I most certainly can. For instance, I want to be able to include this sort of detail to bring a scene to life:

...one man kept telling his wife, who chewed her lips and nodded, seeing what he meant... (p. 7)

I want to remember how effective it can be to frame a scene. That just before a couple has a horrific fight, an author might note:

On their right, in a black marsh, the spring peepers were in full and desperate song. (p. 27)

And then draw that fight to an end with:

When he was finished, the shrill, liquid chant of the peepers was the only sound for miles. (p. 29)

And I want to remind myself, being a huge fan of simile, that this is what good, workable simile is:

[Frank, the main character is reading the funnies to his two young children.] He felt as if he were sinking helplessly into the cushions and the papers and the bodies of his children like a man in quicksand. (p. 59)

Reading Yates is reminiscent of reading Sinclair Lewis, except that Yates's characters (at least in this book) seem to have done a better job of convincing themselves that they are, somehow, above it all. Yes, here they are, living in the suburbs, drinking cocktails, raising their children, keeping their lawns mowed...yet, that isn't really what they are. They engage in intellectual debate; they are "strangers in a strange land"; the "American Dream" with its nice homes and lawn ornaments is not theirs.

But, oh, look what happens to those who conform without conforming. The only one who seems honestly to be able to tell them what they are doing, who they really are, is the one they've all labeled "insane." That one, who's had all his shock treatments, is frightening, yes, and he needs to be hushed up.

If they hadn't hushed him up and locked him away, he could have told them, though. What would he have had to say? That when tragedy finally hits, within six short months, everything goes back to the way it was. Well, it's the way it was except that they all have this interesting new "gossipy" tale to tell at their cocktail parties, with a hindsight-enriched spin on how everyone really did see it coming given the couple in question. Meanwhile, the newest "Bright, Young Things" are embraced to embark on their own journey down suburbia's road.

Brilliant stuff. I'm passing on the command: "get thee to a bookstore posthaste."

Better Than Being a Crocodile

Exercise and I are not the best of friends. As a matter of fact, if reincarnation is possible, I wonder what I must have been in my previous lives to have been cursed as a human in this life, one of those creatures for whom exercise is quite necessary unless one relishes the idea of being bedridden for years, plastic tubes sticking out of veins, while being cared for by strangers who take all meaning from the word "dignity." Why couldn't I have been something like a crocodile, which, as far as I can tell, seems to get to lie around in shallow water all day, with a mouth so big and wide that merely opening it pretty much guarantees that some sort of dinner is going to float right into it? A crocodile barely has to think to get food, and if its prey does put up a fight, well, those steel-trap jaws sure are handy. In fact, one particularly lucky crocodile I had the pleasure of observing in Belize merely had to come hang out at the dock where our dive hotel was, and it would get fed things like spaghetti and cookies (no matter how many signs and warnings were posted not to feed it). There's some reason they can move (and believe me, they can. I've seen one do it, and you don't want to be there if one starts moving towards you like that), but I'll be damned if I can figure out why, because it's not as though they have tons of predators to out-maneuver.

I guarantee you crocodiles don't need a combination of aerobic exercise, strength training, and stretching in order to live long, healthy lives. I wish I'd been lucky enough to be a crocodile. Then again, I suppose it could be worse. I suppose I could have ended up an antelope constantly having to run to escape any number of predators' dinner plates. (Watch: that's what I'll be in my next life.) Still, no one ever sees antelopes with dumbbells. What is it about human bodies that we seem to need all this extra stuff? Why can't we just sit around on chaise longues all day and be fine?

Oh well, I suppose there's no use pining over the fact that I am not a crocodile: human I am. Not only am I human, but I also happen to be the sort of human who does not feel well without exercise. I get headaches. I sleep poorly. I don't think as well.  Sad to say, I am stuck with having to engage in some form of physical movement every day, and that's where things get a little tricky: it's not easy hating exercise as much as I do while living in a body that insists on having it. It means I've had to spend a good deal of time figuring out which means of exercise are the least tortuous.

I have two categories for that: "not too excruciating" and "sometimes even fun." Swimming falls into the former category. The problem with swimming is the need to breathe, something I've never really mastered all that well. I can do it, but it isn't fun. And then, there's also the need for a pool, which usually means swimming some place where others might see me. If I could swim laps with a mask and snorkel without looking like a fool, swimming might move into the latter category. Then again, blond hair and chlorine don't go together too well.

That means I have my choice of three forms of aerobic exercise that I can mention in the same sentence with the word "enjoy" (there is no such thing as a strength-training exercise that can show up anywhere near the word "enjoy." Needless to say, I don't do much strength-training. I'll probably regret this when I'm walking around a bent and crooked old hag in 30 years, but right now, osteoporosis seems preferable to lifting weights): walking, hiking, and biking. 

I've been doing plenty of walking and hiking since moving to Pennsylvania, but I hadn't been doing much biking until recently. That's because I didn't have a working bike. Now I do (thanks to a friend of ours who came over to fix our bikes one evening). I don't actually have my own bike to ride, because, of course, my bike is the one with stripped gears that need to be replaced. I have to wait for Bob to take it over to the bike shop our friend recommended to see how much they'll charge us to fix it. If it's going to be too much, we'll order the parts online, and our friend will come back and fix it. This means my bike will be fixed maybe sometime next year.

You may, very rightly, be wondering why I have to wait for Bob to take my bike to the shop to get an estimate. Did I not mention the fact that the evening of "bike fixing" also involved margarita-drinking? Well, and you know what can happen when you mix tequila with testosterone. You end up with a boy who has to prove to his friend that he can fix a bike just as well as his friend can, or at least, he could, if he'd also spent his summers and weekends as a kid taking bicycles apart and putting them back together, instead of perfecting his pitching arm for his oh-so-realistic future with the Yankees. Add to that mix a pesky girl with all her dumb questions, and well, I don't think I need say anymore. It means I'm stuck riding the "freebie" bike that was left by former tenants at our apartment in New York. It's a tad bit big for me, but it's still a great bike. (And don't worry. If it goes on too long, the pesky girl will put her foot down and take the bike over to the bike shop herself, maybe even fork over a lot of money to get it fixed, just to make a point.)

Anyway, all this is to say that I am so enjoying being on a bike again. I'd forgotten how much fun it can be and what a fantastic way it is to burn off excess energy. Especially fun is riding around here, where there is almost no traffic (I'm more likely to encounter horses and buggies than cars) on the back roads, and where the terrain is relatively flat. I'm amused by those Lancastrians who complain about the "hills" around here, noting that they don't tend to ride bikes unless they're at the shore, where it's flat. These hills are nothing, far preferable to the "hills" that turn into "mountains" in Connecticut the minute you mount a bicycle and try to climb one. The only problem these days is the heat, which is limiting me to either very early morning rides or rides at dusk, but that's a small price to pay for pedaling along idyllic roads either lined with towering corn on both sides or offering up stunning views of rolling green hills and old farm houses. Oh yeah, and saying "hello" to a few cows, sheep, and chickens along the way, other creatures who don't seem to need to get much exercise in order to be perfectly healthy. I wouldn't want to be one, though. They don't get to ride bicycles, which I suppose means being human is also better than being a crocodile.

An Interesting Turn of Events for The Writer

Today, one of the characters in my novel announced that she wants to go to boarding school in Massachusetts. Where the heck did that come from? Is this what parenting is like?

She's not supposed to go to boarding school; she's not even supposed to be thinking about going to boarding school. Nowhere in my outline for the book does it say, "Edie announces she wants to go to boarding school." Nor does it say, "Edie goes off to boarding school." Of course, that very vague, "Will meets with Edie," doesn't exactly say what she's planning on doing, and she's had quite a traumatic year, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.

But I don't want her to go. I was a nanny for a summer in 1985 and carted around the sorts of kids who go to boarding school. They were all excited that summer because it was the year everyone would be going off to various schools in NY and MA and CT. You know what their criteria was for the best schools? The ones with the best drugs (information they'd all gathered from older brothers and sisters or their friends' older brothers and sisters). Those going to such schools couldn't wait to get there. I'm not kidding. 

This poor kid's already been through much more than any fifteen-year-old should have to endure. She doesn't need to go off to a place that's going to screw her up even more. Doing drugs isn't necessarily going to ruin her, of course, but it could. She's got a fragile ego; she's ripe for addiction. The idea of sending her off to such a place scares me.

But she's clever. She proceeded to give Will (a former boarding school teacher himself) all kinds of convincing arguments that clearly show this not to be just some passing whimsy. She didn't read all the Harry Potter books and come away from them thinking boarding school life is all fun and games, a thought that crossed his mind. She's done her research, and Will's having a hard time arguing with her. Yes, to some degree, she's running away, but she's running away with a purpose. She's proving herself to be quite mature and strong-willed. Oh, and in case that doesn't work, she's already gone and got her grandmother to back her. With Gran on her side, do her parents really stand a chance?

I suppose I'm going to have to let her go. Maybe things have changed since 1985, or maybe this school is different. After all, it's one that centers around horseback riding. She's going to be busy cleaning stables and learning to jump. Maybe it'll do her some good to get away from her small town. Oh, who am I kidding? I guarantee you, though, Gran is going to have the final say (and she's the one with all the money), so I might as well just go ahead and roll over now. I just hope that Edie turns out to be as strong as I think she is and keeps her head on her shoulders.