Telling

Books for writers -- not my suggestions

2011-01-25T09:38:00.000-05:00

While perusing Facebook over a bowl of cereal, I found this link and thought it worth posting: A Writer's Booklist. The author, John Rember, suggests 5 books for writers to inspire new writing. I have to admit, I've only read Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood's horrifying dystopian novel -- only slightly more horrifying than The Handmaid's Tale -- but his reasons for listing these 5 books are sound. I may have to give Robert Pirsig and Kurt Vonnegut another try (since last picking up in high school).

In other news: I can't seem to finish the whisper-thin book Night. I read a page, grimace and put it down.
Instead, I've been slowly finishing the last Harry Potter (yes, still -- 6 pages a night before bed in an 800 page novel takes a while) and have begun Patti Smith's most amazing memoir, Just Kids. More on that to come. Just wow.

Blogging for choice - January 21, 2011

2011-01-21T09:39:00.001-05:00

Today is the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Hard to believe this important decision is younger than me (but only by a little). Also hard to believe: we're still defending this right. As of today, the Repubs have introduced two bills to restrict access to abortion services: "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," is sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, (R-NJ) and the "Protect Life Act," sponsored by Rep Joe Pitts (R-PA). Once again, women are political pawns in a cynical game. Listen, I can respect differences of opinion. You don't believe in abortion, fine. That's your prerogative. But, please don't preach smaller government and then tell me what medical services I can and cannot receive, or which services my insurance company can cover, because of your religious convictions! Isn't abortion a personal decision between a woman, her family, and her doctor? I know many women who have had to seek an abortion for medical, life-saving reasons. Sure, they would've preferred to have their babies, it just was more of a risk to continue gestating - a risk to the child and a risk to the mother. As always, poorer women who rely on insurance to defray medical costs (hell, middle class folk like me depend on insurance to defray medical costs!) will be the ones who suffer most should any of this legislation pass. I'm so tired of the hypocrisy of the smaller-government-anti-choice movement! But today I am choosing to focus on the positive. Today, I celebrate my choice to have two beautiful, healthy children, and no more. I celebrate whatever choices you make too.

Facing the demon

2010-12-22T18:32:00.000-05:00

My personal copy of the book

This is rough. Re-reading Night is not holiday fare. Children being hung in a concentration camp is not putting me in the festive spirit of the season. But I'm not doing this as entertainment. I'm facing a demon: the source of my lost faith. I have no epiphanies yet, but I have had one profound-ish thought: Elie Weisel was 12 when he learned about, but doubted the truth of the Holocaust and 15 when he was sent with his family to Auschwitz; I was 12 when I read Night for the first time and 15 when I was confirmed in Sunday School. It's coincidence, but it hit me hard. I also keep thinking how many teenagers are required to read this book in high school, which leads me to three other thoughts: 1.) this is too devastating a story to digest as a teenager, 2.) Elie Weisel was a teenager when this happened to him, and 3.) how can anyone walk away from this book unchanged?

My cheating heart

2010-12-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

I've started a new blog. There. I said it. It's nothing you've done, heavens no. I haven't grown bored with you, I promise. I just needed to see what else was out there . . . on Wordpress. It's a completely different concept: I am challenging myself to follow 12 New Years resolutions over the course of the next year and document the progress. Navel gazing? Perhaps, but I'm trying to stay accountable. If you want to read, great. If not, okay. No one is going to make you, but you will make my soul cry.

Here's the link: 12resolutions

New blog

2010-12-19T18:18:00.002-05:00

Just started a new blog, different topic, on Wordpress. More details to come soon. (I'm just farting around with an idea and new platform.)

Good Reads from Marion Winik

2010-12-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite writers has a book list on her website. I'm using it for inspiration. Thanks, Marion Winik!

Marion Winik's Reading List

Mail order

2010-12-15T20:37:00.000-05:00

Just placed an order at Better World Books! Three books in the bargain bin for $10. Whoohoo! I will blog about these, so pay attention:

1.) God Said Ha! by Julia Sweeny
2.) I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Epron
3.) American Gangster by Mark Jacobson and Richard Price (thanks, Sarah, for the recommendation)

Mark Jacobson also has a new nonfiction book called The Lampshade. It's a Holocaust mystery of macabre proportions and I plan to read it too, but since I'm reading Night right now, I'll be sure to put some distance between the two. You're welcome.

They didn't believe/We'll Never Forget: Night

2010-12-15T11:27:00.000-05:00

The village pauper warned the Jewish shtelt where Elie Weisel grew up that the Germans were exterminating people. He warned them to leave and they thought he was a madman. The Hungarian police officer who was friends with Weisel's father knocked on the boarded up window to warn them, but by the time the family pried the boards free, he was gone. The entire village lined up, placidly, cooperatively, even cheerfully at some points, for their slaughter. The innocence and disbelief may be one of the greatest tragedies of this story.

Do Not Go Softly Into That Dark Night . . .

2010-12-14T14:51:00.002-05:00

While I'm in between reads, I've been dabbling in re-reads and random reads. The random books are essay collections that I can pick up at any time and may write feedback on at some future point (Marion Winik's Above Us Only Sky and Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns From the Land of Memory; Both collections are wonderful; Winik's has that trademark snark that I love and Hampl's, oh my God, Hampl's is sumptuous prose. I'm savoring it like a box of bourbon balls.

The re-reads are an odd mix, to say the least: I just saw the latest Harry Potter movie (Deathly Hallows, Part 1) and it was so much fun I decided to re-read the book because in typical ADD fashion, I've forgotten all of the details. It's enjoyable bedtime reading and perhaps it will change my daughter's mind about letting us read the series to her. (Mommy reads it=it must be good! She's six so this is logical thinking.) The second book is a crazy juxtaposition to Harry Potter. I'm re-reading Elie Weisel's Holocaust memoir, Night. The book that forever shook my faith and has influenced my life, perhaps, more than any other book. Yeah, that book. I'm trying to access my 12-year-old mind, the mind that first opened to that fateful book, so that I can pour my bloodied thoughts into an essay. Sound like something you want to read? Yeah, me neither, but my mentor does. Plus, there's a contest over at Creative NonFiction with the writing prompt Night. Seemed like a good enough excuse to start my re-reading experiment. Oh, and Susan Orleans (The Orchid Thief) is the judge. Even if I write crap, to have Susan Orleans read over my crap would be a thrill.

To summarize: I am heading into the spiritual abyss, taking you with me, and maybe Susan Orleans too. As my dad would say: Whoopdeedoo.

(Postscript: I really want to read Just Kids Patty Smith's memoir about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe too. She just won the National Book Award for nonfiction!)

Block

2010-12-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

I am not reading much, nor writing, these days. It's holiday season, so go figure. I also have tremendous writer's block. What do I do with my free time, you ask? After I chuckle for ten minutes at the very notion, I recover and say: prowling freelance writing websites like a desperate ho'. Terrible. These sites give you listings, but most ask that you subscribe (for only $49/year) to read the full description or to apply. $49 to read a description. That's right. Am I alone in thinking this is a scam?

My mentor wants me to focus on writing. To find my muse by: taking a stroll in a park, going to the racetrack (he seriously suggested this, and I love the man, but that's just not my scene), meditating. Something to inspire. Instead, I focus on a.) publishing (I've sent out at least 3 submissions and 2 contest entries this fall), b.) the rejection I get from said publishing efforts, and c.) money. I need to pull in some money to help defray our monthly expenses and I have to have a flexible schedule and autonomy. Other moms do this. I need a money mentor. If I could secure a small salary, then I could free my brain to read and write again. Right?

Will Work For Books

2010-12-09T23:35:00.000-05:00

Five hours of standing around and waiting for customers to come to check out was tedious to say the least. The economy has done a real number on the Scholastic Book Sale. It was dead dead dead today. But . . . mission accomplished! I worked. I earned. I bought. Pretty awesome to buy $100 of books at half price and then offer a voucher for payment, I must say.

Books I found:

Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman's Bear Feels Scared (I love Bear books and so do my kids)
Jessica Seinfield's cookbook Deceptively Delicious (I'm desperate to feed my kids healthier foods and am willing to go ninja)
Matthew Van Fleet's Heads (sequel to the all-popular pull-the-tab Tails)
An illustrated picture book of Black Beauty
A Junie B. Jones paperback
Mark Teague's Firehouse (Mark Teague must be one of the best children's illustrators working today)
Doreen Cronin's Thump Quack Moo (more beloved barnyard sillies)

I know I'm leaving some out. You'll be okay. But, really, you should go to the sale. It's only in town for two more days.

Location: Zachary Taylor American Legion Post 180
Address: 4610 Shelbyville Rd
Date/Time: 12/07/2010
Tues - Fri 10 AM - 7 PM
Sat 9 AM - 2 PM

The mother of all book sales

2010-12-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

Every year I hit the Scholastic Book Fair Warehouse Sale to score books on the cheap for my kids. Technically, it's open to teachers and librarians and technically, I am a professor; however, I am not purchasing for my classroom. There. That's my confession. I also have told many friends about it and they do the same thing. Confession Numero Dos. Now, I'm blogging it for the world - or at least 8 more people - to know about.

Tomorrow, I am working the sale to earn $10/hour in books. So basically, $50 in books for a 5 hour stint will afford me around 10 books, if I'm a savvy shopper. Most books are 50% off of cover price and some are priced as marked ($1.99 in some cases). Can you feel my excitement? Many of the books are Scholastic paperback versions of books that are only available in hardback. I'm hoping to find Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny Free. My kids are big fans.

Customers throw their chosen books in a banker's box with a rope on one end (for the purpose of dragging the box around as the books start getting heavier). It looks like a poor man's dog show, all of these women pulling their boxes by a rope around and around the warehouse.

Sidenote: I haven't worked 5 hours straight in several years, so I'll either enjoy all of the grown up time or I'll whine about being tired. Either way, I'm coming home with a box of books.

Inspiration

2010-12-03T00:05:00.001-05:00

I am sans book and it's making me feel unmoored. I've reread some favs like Sedaris and Ayelet Waldman, and I even wrote critical essays about them, but I'm not driven to reread the whole collection. Saw Harry Potter 7, Pt. 1 so I have started rereading that. Fun, but not instructive. I've gone back to my idols, Marion Winik and Virginia Woolf, but the ADD, she is strong. I needs me some non-fiction manna. The last book that captured me was a novel, The Help. Oh so fine. But, alas, I write essays so I need some nonfiction that will rock the very fibers of my being, or at least help me feel anchored again.

Help!

The (Unpaid, Unread) Writing Life

2010-11-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

I've been a writing fool lately. Just finishing work on my latest packet, due next Monday, which coincidentally, is my last teaching class of the semester. Finally! I've had a great class this fall, but it has been a major distraction from my own course of study.

So, in an effort to commit more to writing I have done all of the following in the past couple of weeks:
- submitted two essays to two competitions
- submitted one essay to a literary journal (rejected, but I tried)
- contacted two friends about paying writing gigs so that Rick and I don't default on any loans in the absence of my high-paying adjunct gig -- both responded positively, so fingers crossed.
- written three very heavy essays for my "collection" and one really fun pop-culture commentary that I would love to publish. Any thoughts?
- Taught my class how to design blogs (that has been very fun).

Disappointment

2010-11-04T15:32:00.000-04:00

Wow,
I have 8 followers and I haven't written a word in 2 months! How's that for sitting on my ass? I wish I had some illuminating thoughts to share with you loyal 8 followers, but I'm swamped with teaching, writing (for my MFA), mothering, and chauffeuring my kids to various activities. That said, my MFA mentor is excited about the work I submitted and I'm anticipating his response any day now. After I receive said response, I'll let you in on what I'm writing . . . and reading. Until then I'm

Slackilly yours,
Amy

Language lesson

2010-09-24T15:45:00.000-04:00

My daughter goes to an urban, public Montessori school. In this case, urban is a euphemism for poor. My husband and I love the mix of the student population. Fiona is friends with Dylan and Sarah, Cemari and Nyai. She hugs everyone, no matter what their zip code or income tax bracket.

When we first considered sending her to this school, the neighborhood- vacant lots, Baptist churches, and housing projects- worried us. Now, a year into the experience, we are not merely pleased, I'm a VP on the bleedin' PTA. Still, nothing prepared me, not even my open liberal mind, for the two second dispute I walked into at Fiona's school during her Open House. Fiona and I stepped out of her class to walk to the art room when I saw two women, one with a dew rag on her head pulling a toddler by the hand, engaged in a loud interchange that went something like this: "Oh, and then you fucked my man!" To which the thin woman replied, "He put a ring on MY finger!"

Not the education I was hoping for my daughter. Let's hope it was an isolated Open House incident.

Songs on a school night

2010-09-23T00:56:00.000-04:00

I was out late on a school night: my kids' school, my husband's school, my school - in fact I drove right from the writing class I teach and straight to a bar for dinner and some amazing indie music. Lovely ladies and their ethereal guitars. And voices. First up: well, I'm sorry I didn't get her name and I was eating dinner in the front room, but she did play a mean fiddle with the headliner. Okay, second up: The Watson Twins. Louisville natives who, I swear, look more sophisticated and sexy at thirty-whatever than I have in my life! They have stage presence. Wow! And their voices meld and twist around one another's and their guitars. At one point, they came off of the two-inch stage and sang directly to us. I was a foot away from their broad smiles. Each song was accompanied by a story or some relaxed banter. I didn't want them to leave, but then Laura Viers would never hit the stage. Oh Laura Viers, I love you in a borderline unhealthy way. You're a pixy in glasses and pigtails. Your breathy voice transports me to the sea, the cliffs, the sky, or deep in a forgotten cave. I found myself swaying with my eyes closed for most of the show. Dreamy.

Here's a favorite Laura Viers song:

Can't find a decent Watson Twins video. Maybe they're just better live.

Just Wrong Mama

2010-09-20T10:17:00.000-04:00

Late last night I finished reading Samantha Bee's I Know I Am, But What Are You? a collection of humor essays from the Daily Show correspondent, and I'm still shaking with laughter, 12 hours later. I've always enjoyed Sam Bee. Her comic timing is strong and her accompanying facial expressions are priceless, but I was dubious about her writing. Turns out, the mom of 2 and wife of fellow Daily Show correspondent, Jason Jones, can write. But her material is wrong. I mean seriously wrong. If you think she shouldn't go there, she gallops there with tassels flying. I had moments reading Bee's essays about her dysfunctional family and crazy pet experiences wondering, should I really be reading this before bed? Will I have nightmares? Case in point, the essay "When Animals Attack." First she tells of an horrific experience in a Mexican aquarium watching two dolphins mate. Seemed to Bee more like date rape. Then a few pages later, she describes how her own kitten, her unneutered kitten Newton, tried to mate with her skull. Well, she calls it making sweet, sweet love to her skull, but you get the picture. It's painfully, grotesquely funny stuff.

Let me see if I can find a Sam Bee Daily Show moment to share.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Money Honey Bee

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

writing

2010-07-17T08:20:00.000-04:00

Wish I had a new book to rave about, but truth is, I'm reading individual essays right now. The latest essay I read is a chapter from one of my favorite books, Whoredom in Kimmage by Rosemary Mahoney. This chapter is anthologized in The Art of Fact, which I'm reading for my first MFA packet. The packets are groups of writing - both creative and critical pieces - amounting up between 35-40 pages. My first one is due Sept. 2, so I've been trying to write whenever possible (hence my absence from the blogosphere). Anyhoo, Mahoney is funny and can really describe the heck out of a person's features. There is no way I'd want to be in a room with her! She is not flattering. The chapter I read is the one where she examines what life is like for lesbians in contemporary Ireland and to do so, she visits two lesbian bars. It's very dialogue-intensive, so she captures these women very well. It's also very sad. So much loneliness and despair. The women know they are outcasts, but they are devoted to Ireland and will never leave the island that hates them. I can't say enough wonderful things about Mahoney's book. I hope it's still in print.

Serendipity

2010-07-12T21:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I browsed an online mommy magazine, one I wish would publish my work, and discovered an essay by an alum from my college. I recognized her name, followed the bio link to her website, checked the photo and sure enough, it's her. We didn't know each other; I just have a scary recall for names and faces from the past.

Today I wrote her a comment on her website and she wrote back! She didn't think I was a stalker, so I lucked out. We've started a writing conversation via email and I'm pretty psyched. Her writing is funny, smart and mom-centered. I think she could be a great guide and she has offered me her ear.

In other news, I'm writing a new essay about Santa Claus.

More from the bus tour

2010-07-09T22:17:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot about our final stops on the bus tour. Maddy took our group to the heart of the city, Plaza de Mayo (pronounced Mazha, like Zsa Zsa Gabor). Here we saw a beautiful old Catholic church, what is left of the Spanish fortress (after the revolution in the 1800s, the building slowly became dismantled) and the majestic Casa Rosada, the Pink House, former home of the Perons and current office of the President (who, we were told, flies in to work by helicopter every day from her home outside the city).

Here is Casa Rosada after it was lit for the night. On the left side of the building, pretty much center of the photo, is the famous balcony where Eva Peron addressed the crowds.

As you can see in the photo above, there is a round grassy area. This is the green at the heart of the plaza, that stretches from the Casa Rosada at one end to the Spanish fort at the other (about 2 city blocks long). In the center of the green is a monument, the Pirámide de Mayo (or May Pyramid) erected as tribute to the 1810 revolution. The pyramid is now better known as the site of protests from the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. These are the mothers whose grown children were disappeared (most likely tortured and killed) during the "dirty war" of the 1970s dictatorship when 30,000 people (students and liberals) were killed. The mothers, now in their 80s, still gather around the pyramid - a monument symbolizing democracy - every Thursday. Their organization reaches out to mothers around the world who have lost children to political malfeasance. Around the circumference of the pyramid, the government installed a stenciled tribute to the Madres, the repeated symbol of the Madres's cause and organization: a woman with a white scarf (originally, a cloth diaper) tied over her head. It sounds cheesy, but I thought of the Sting song, "They Dance Alone" and the powerful Holly Near song "Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida" when I stood at this site. Standing there and seeing the stenciled kerchiefs choked me up.

Nearby, in the plaza, veterans from the Faulklands war hold vigil, demanding compensation that they never received.

Bus ride

2010-07-09T17:35:00.001-04:00

At much prompting from my sister, I'm back. I returned from Argentina nearly a week ago and it has taken much of that week to a.) get over the travel exhaustion, b.) get over the Argentine stomach monster and c.) screw my head back on and set it to "My Life, Kentucky".

I'll recap as much as I can and include some photos of the trip to boot. I think I can categorize the experience into several sections: academic, sight-seeing, shopping. I most want to talk about the academics, but I think my sister wants to hear about the sight-seeing, so I'll start there.

A few days into the trip we went on a bus tour of the city with the very sweet expat, Maddy, as our guide. When asked why she moved to Buenos Aires, she replied, "I love B.A. like a man." Enough said. On this tour we learned that the triple-wide Avenue de Neuvos Julio (July 9th) is the widest street in the world (was it 12 lanes? I think so.), saw a gorgeous public sculpture of Don Quixote emerging from a slab of rock, visited the La Boca neighborhood (very colorful, touristy, and apparently dangerous at night) where I was shooed away from taking photos of art in a market and visited two art museums, and ended up in the penthouse of the Con Artist Artist. Laura coined that nickname. The artist and his yoga instructor girlfriend are Californians who welcomed us into their swanky home/gallery. After the wine stopped flowing and the cheese disappeared, the artist announced that all of his art was for sale, as were his t-shirts, and kept wandering back to his bedroom where we threw our coats and purses. While he was on the up-and-up, the whole scenario was odd, so we left early.

Here are some photos from this day.

La Boca

Viejo Puerto (The Old Port)

Frightening candy vendors on the port

I'm still standing, well sitting actually

2010-06-23T22:15:00.000-04:00

The day began at 7:00 and hasn't really slowed much until now, 10:30 p.m. Apparently, this is the pace of residency.

I've had a welcome session, book-in-common discussion (I spoke up!), new student orientation, two workshop hours and an hour of faculty readings. The readings were great, but at the end of our first day, many of us were so tired, we didn't give them the full attention they deserved. The screenwriting professor, Helena, is astoundingly good.

So, after a dinner of sushi with new friends representing 4 decades of age, and a rather frustrating Skyping attempt with my family, I'm easing down into my blankets.

Death by Coca Cola

2010-06-22T16:20:00.000-04:00

I knew my addiction to soda was getting a bit out of hand; what I did not consider, however, was the potential for soda to lead to an untimely demise.

Laura and I started our day with leisurely showers, much needed after a long transcontinental flight. The schedule read: lunch on your own, meet back at the hotel at 1:00 for walking tour of the city. Once we left the hotel, we walked a few blocks, found a suitable cafe and ordered lunch. Let me just say that the information I received about everyone understanding and speaking English - not entirely correct. So, we used a combination of broken Spanish, pointing and English and ended up with exactly what we ordered. I checked my phone for the time and it read 1:35. Eek! Late for the tour. Laura checked her phone: 12:35. I thought it strange that my phone wouldn't have adjusted to the local time, but went ahead and manually changed it back an hour. Once back in the hotel, we quickly discovered that no one was gathering for the tour because my phone had, in fact, been right. We missed the tour.

No worries. We each took a free map and set out to find our university building and to try to catch up with the tour group. Laura and I played a game where we pretended to call Katy with increasingly more frightening scenarios that we haplessly got ourselves into: "Katy? This is Amy and Laura again. Um, we just woke up in a bathtub of ice without one of our kidneys. Call when you get this." After much walking and more dogs wearing soccer jerseys than you might imagine, I had to buy a Coke. My feet were hurting, I was hot. Coke! I didn't read the price, so I probably got gypped, but ah, sweet nectar.

Laura and I went to the final destination of the walking tour - Plaza de San Martin, a clock tower in a green oasis in the middle of a large intersection. The group never showed. But the homeless woman did. She came over to us saying "Coke". We said, "No." She said "2.50 for hamburger" after asking where we were from, we said "No." She became more insistent about my Coke. "No, no" Next thing I know, she grabbed my can, crumpling it in the process and stood over us. We got up and walked away and I saw homeless woman drinking my soda in the park.

Laura and I didn't say much on the way back to the hotel. I didn't cry, but I do wonder if I should have handled this differently. She could've hurt me.

Buenos Dias!

2010-06-22T11:13:00.001-04:00

We arrived in Buenos Aires a few hours ago. I'm showered and semi-alert, waiting for my roommate, Laura, to shower before we explore the sites. Katy, the summer residency coordinator extraordinaire, has arranged for a walking tour to begin promptly at 1:15 in front of our hotel. I have free wifi in the hotel room, so that rocks. My only woe is that my dang charger won't charge my phone. Not that I'm planning to make a bunch of international phone calls, but it also is my only camera and I would really like to take some memorable photos while on another continent! I may be looking for a Mac store pronto.

Any Mac gurus out there? Feel free to chip in on suggestions. I'm frustrated.

That's my minor glitch. All else is peachy. Can't wait to find some cafe con leche.

The residency begins tomorrow, so book talk to come.

This is our swank accommodations

A list for my shrink, as I pack for my trip to Argentina

2010-06-17T00:28:00.000-04:00

1. I'm really going to miss my kids.
2. I feel really really really guilty about leaving.
3. If I were on a humanitarian mission to save starving kids in Haiti, I wouldn't feel quite so guilty. This feels indulgent in a parent-brain-talking kind of way (meaning: Amy, you're so impractical.).
4. My three-year-old son's manipulation works: today he said to me, "Mommy, I promise that I want you to stay." I was only heading out for two hours.
5. I worry about my kids': safety, happiness, health, routine; yes, they will be with their loving father, grandparents, and adopto-nana.
6. I am a control freak.
7. I'm really going to miss my husband. He makes everything better, funnier, calmer.
8. I'm never going to finish the reading (100 pages to go in Roy's book; 40 on the frontispiece for my workbook).
9. The good news is: I'm on every pharmaceutical in my medicine cabinet, so I will only catch Ebola at this point.
10. Ebola
11. Will my new platform pumps send me skidding into the ER after my one-and-only tango lesson?
12. How many shoes should I take? Yes, I really do worry about this.
13. How many bags should I pack? Should I check any?
14. My hair + rain=Jewfro. Should I attempt the straightening iron again? Oh, the humanity.
15. My iPhone had better work.
16. Skype had better work.
17. I better work and stop fretting.
18. And enjoy the adventure.
19. And the intellectual stimuli.
20. And write.

Don't cry for me, Argentina!

2010-06-16T10:01:00.000-04:00

Okay, never seen Evita. It would probably scorch my soul or smother it with cheese.

For those of you out of the loop . . . I am beginning my MFA in writing (creative non-fiction) at Spalding University. I have chosen to do the summer residencies, which take place in locales around the world. This summer (that is, next week), the residency is in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I'll be studying writing with groups and a mentor for two weeks in downtown BA and also traveling to an enstancia south of the city to learn about the life of gauchos.

I'll try to keep up the blog while I'm away. The hotel has wifi.

EEK! and Buenos dias.

One week from Monday . . .

2010-06-11T08:37:00.000-04:00

So I've been re-reading all of my peer essays, adding comments and end notes and last night I re-read my own work. It stands up! I'm excited to get feedback. Less than two weeks!!!

Buenos Dias!

Becoming real

2010-06-09T10:25:00.000-04:00

Just received a forwarded email from my MFA mentor, Roy Hoffman. This is beginning to feel like it's really going to happen. His email sparked the first ember of excitement in my chest. Until now, I've been anxious and the concept of the program has been abstract at best. Roy's letter to all of his mentees (is that a word), was warm, funny, encouraging and instructive.

At graduation last week, (my husband is Dean of Students at Spalding where my MFA program is housed), an MFA graduate who was being honored during the ceremony told my husband that the program was "transformative". I'm ready for a little transformation, I think.

Exhaustion

2010-06-09T08:53:00.000-04:00

I leave for Argentina in 2 weeks and to prepare for this . . . I haven't been sleeping. What am I reading? What am I not reading? Student essays (I've read through once and am supposed to read through two more times, with marginalia and end notes), 1/2 a book of essays, 80 more pages (pdf format) in my MFA workbook, and let's see, I think that's it. Know what I want to be reading? The second installment of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. But I'm saving that for the beach in July.

When will I be doing all of this reading? I don't freakin' know!

Insomnia

2010-06-02T04:12:00.000-04:00

I can't sleep. Perhaps I should say, I can't go back to sleep. I was sleeping. On the couch. Then my husband got chatty and cute and made me laugh. Then, for some reason, my guilt over a dead friend kept me thinking. Back to sleep. My son started coughing and I rushed to his room. He was asleep. Two hours later, my daughter has a bad dream and I'm in her bed, but not sleeping. The boy child awakens and needs help into my bed. Finally, I've given up. I'm on the couch listening to the pet rat rattle around her cage.

Most of this insomnia can be chalked up to anxiety over my preparedness, or lack thereof, for my summer MFA residency. I just finished reading three books for the program, have another to go, plus all of my peer worksheets (20 pages each, 8 altogether), plus another 95 pages of additional reading that my future mentor has tacked on to the worksheet. And, tomorrow is the first day of summer vacation so both kids are home. When exactly am I going to read? Now? Probably.

The first peer paper I read was well-written, a bit rambly but intelligent. However, it was a political diatribe and I just wasn't feeling it. I appreciate the writer's fairness - a Texan who has independent thought! - but his attention to the ins and outs of government spending made me want to skim.

The rat truly is nocturnal. Lots of scuffling. I may need to find my third bed for the night away from all of the racket.

One good quandry

2010-05-31T21:50:00.000-04:00

Question: should someone as given to worry as me strongly consider sending my Vita for a full-time composition position when I am just beginning my MFA in two weeks? It's not tenure-track and an acquaintance on the hiring committee said they haven't been happy with the applicants. She thinks I would stand a good chance. Normally, I'd jump at this opportunity. I LOVE teaching first-year students (call me masochist), but I also want to commit to the grad school experience.

Mr. McSnotty-pants

2010-05-30T22:36:00.000-04:00

Theroux is proving to be a big snob. He actually wrote this after a fellow passenger offered him his Spanish language comic book: "Comics are for kids and illiterates." (pg. 351) Oh, and university Deans, cuz my husband has a very extensive collection.

But, then he redeemed himself a page later with a pointed commentary on Che Guevara chic. Noting that there is a high-end clothing store in London called Che Guevara, Theroux complains: "There is no faster way of destroying a man, or mocking his ideas, than making him fashionable. That Guevara succeeded in influencing dress-designers [and I might add, college t-shirt designers] was part of his tragedy." (pg. 352) Then again, that also sounds snobby.

Riding the rails

2010-05-29T08:11:00.000-04:00

Thoroughly enjoying The Old Patagonian Express. I especially like how grumpy Theroux often is. This is not an omniscient narrator: he is opinionated, wary, pleasantly surprised, humbled, and riddled with altitude sickness (did you know that the pressure from a quick change in altitude can make a tooth with a cavity explode? Me neither.). For all of his personal flaws, Theroux has a big heart. He sees the injustice of the class system in Peru and Ecuador - how poorly the Indians are treated and cared for in their local societies - and he especially mourns the fate of street urchins who are considered vermin, like rats. Reminds me of Slumdog Millionaire. Theroux, himself, connects the dots between the poverty and inhumane treatment of street kids in Calcutta. Along his journey, on many different train rides, bus rides, airplane rides, Theroux meets many interesting, some disturbing, characters and tells some fascinating stories. I'll share some next post.

I'm back. I brought a snack.

2010-05-26T20:08:00.000-04:00

Okay, that's a line from my kids' picture book A Splendid Friend, Indeed. It always makes them laugh, so we say it a lot.

If the past few weeks are any indication of what my summer looks like, I may as well have that experimental surgery that divides me in two because I'm gonna be busy! To catch up, I've: helped at my son's preschool (last day), helped with my daughter's kindergarten field day, attended kindergarten spring fling, tutored many times, had a kick-ass party (the cops busted it, no shit), entertained out-of-town guests, helped place a favorite friend pet in a new home, obsessed over the end of LOST, attended 2 writing groups and submitted an essay to Skirt magazine (fingers crossed), been elected to the PTA at my daughter's elementary school (because I smoked crack that day), celebrated my Dad's birthday/Mother's Day/my 9th wedding anniversary . . . . I'm now gearing up for camps, swim and skating lessons, the beach and oh yeah, my mother lovin' MFA in Buenos Aires (June 21-July 3, biotches!).

My reading material hasn't been blog-friendly either: Don Segundo Sombra, the most machismo-laden, picaresque story I've read. I could analyze it in detail, but why? I didn't enjoy it and am still holding out on the last 10 pages until I finish all of my other reading. Let's just leave it at: cock fights and bull castration. Done.

I'm now reading the South American section of The Old Patagonian Express, a travel narrative by Paul Theroux. So far, it's entertaining. Theroux is not an ordinary tourist. He has made a living traveling the rails and documenting the experiences. This journey begins in Boston, runs south from Chicago, into Mexico, Central America and a brief flight from Panama to Bolivia. He is equally disgusted with the American tourists as he is, often, with the local indigenous people who sell crap at the train stations. Poverty is ubiquitous. Somehow, however, Theroux manages to write with humor without sliding into pathos or sounding like an elite dick.

More to come as I chug along. Tomorrow, I hit the Scholastic Book Warehouse Sale. Oh, debit card, show some restraint.

Chatagonia

2010-05-07T17:51:00.000-04:00

Last night I participated in an online chat with my fellow MFA-ers heading to Buenos Aires. This is becoming real-ish. I'm pleased to report that I'm not the only person with trepidations and quirky senses of humor. This is going to be amazing.

Yay team

2010-05-04T12:08:00.002-04:00

I gots 3 tutoring students lined up for summer!!!

One Book, One Twitter

2010-05-03T13:34:00.001-04:00

This has nothing to do with creative non-fiction, but it does sound fun. Heard about it on Fresh Air.

http://www.crowdsourcing.com/cs/2010/04/and-the-one-book-one-twitter-winner-is-.html

Obviously, I'm a crazy person for considering this because a.) I have 3 more books to read and absorb before late June and b.) my kids are almost out of school. When exactly am I going to find extra time to read for fun and start Tweeting about it? Truth is, I've wanted to read American Gods for some time now, we already own it (of course, if you know anything about my husband - Neil Gaiman=GOD), and I like the idea of a virtual book club to discuss a potentially controversial and almost certainly dark and hilarious Gaiman novel. So, I'm in. Kind of. I haven't registered with Twitter yet, but I did start reading the book last night.

Exile in Mylodon-ville

2010-05-03T13:14:00.002-04:00

Bruce Chatwin is a curious writer. Or at least, was. He died in 1989. In Patagonia is a strange quest, a weird Goethe journey in which Chatwin's inspiration is a piece of Mylodon (or Giant Sloth) skin rather than a cookie. The skin belonged to his grandmother and most likely was a (again, strange) wedding gift from a compulsive explorer named Charley Milward. Chatwin travels to and throughout the Patagonian pampas, ostensibly to replace the Mylondon skin that he recalls from childhood hanging behind a glass cabinet. Along the way, we meet outcast after outcast - somber residents and international transplants, who fill in the stories of the region, including a long section on Charley Milward. The book is arranged in micro chapters, usually 1-4 pages at the most. Some link together to tell a complete story while some are simply vignettes or descriptions. I enjoy non-linear narratives, but In Patagonia had my ADD brain completely unsettled. I referred to the map of the region located at the frontispiece of the book, but other than that I had no key for the untranslated Spanish and no historical context for the tales of revolution and massacre. But in spite of my ignorance of the region, both culturally and geographically, I did understand that humankind is dastardly; no matter where we live or during which century, people have mistreated people for the sake of money and power. Corruption is universal.

Chatwin doesn't address his personal quest for the Mylondon skin until the final chapters. It seems so beside-the-point of his journey. Perhaps, he originally went looking for the skin and was surprised by what more there was to discover about the land and the people. Perhaps the piece of skin was a hook to draw in the reader (who wouldn't be interested in a prehistoric mammal that might still be living in the 20th century?). In the introduction to the book, biographer Nicholas Shakespeare (not making that up) suggests that Chatwin was contemplating the theme of exile.

Too good to be true?

2010-04-28T16:52:00.001-04:00

So, out of the blue an old (and considerably warped) college friend of mine sent me an email last night telling me about a writing gig. (And by warped I mean, every time this friend emails me - having never met my husband - he insists that my husb has a nasty addiction of some kind. This week it's estrogen pills.) Seems a friend of his has a new start-up and wants to hire a writer to compose short, snappy descriptions of . . . I don't know yet. He thinks I could make around $700/month off of a few hours work a week. Is this too good to be true? I'm a writing ho' so I said, put me in touch with the friend and here I am, wondering, "Do I contact her first or wait for her to email me?' I don't want to sound desperate. Fortunately, I'm too busy to worry about it until Friday.

Oh yeah, and I've made an arrangement with the Catholic school down the street to tutor on their premises 3 hours a day, 1 day a week this summer.

And . . . we're getting a nice tax refund.

I won't even utter anything positive about our finances and my writing/teaching career for fear of it smacking me in the face at a later date. I'm just going to stay optimistic, like Bruce Chatwin's ancient plumbing.

What a long, strange trip it's been (so far)

2010-04-27T22:16:00.003-04:00

Half-way through Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia. I had so looked forward to this travel narrative, but so far it's been like chewing rubber: I keep trying to digest it, but is taking a lot of work. The book is organized around micro chapters - none are more than 3 pages. For the most part, the book follows Chatwin's chronological journey into the Patagonian wilderness, circa 1974.

I've learned, thus far, that the bleakness of the southernmost tip of Argentina, was home to many unusual tenants: Welsh shepherds, German and Boer (South African) isolationists, Spanish Monarchists, Italian bar-keeps, drunken indigenous "Indians" (referred to, when servants, as "peons" - yikes), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Chatwin's own journey is meandering. It doesn't have a story arc, so I'm impatient with it. I am not altogether sure who he is or why he is there and I'm squarely in the middle of the book. The historical anecdotes that he tells and the physical descriptions of the folk who feed him and give him palates on which to crash, are pretty amazing. I say historical in the loosest possible way. There is no way of knowing if the legends are anything more than just that. He presents 3 possible endings to the story of Butch Cassidy, each with their own backing evidence. All 3 are fascinating and 1 is pretty darn gruesome. He also gives some pretty compelling evidence that Coleridge's Ancient Mariner was based on an actual 16th century, English adventurer, John Davis, who massacred a bunch of penguins and barely survived the voyage out of Argentina with 3 barrels of tainted water. That last bit gave the English major in me little goosebumps down the spine.

Here's an example of a stellar description: "The optimistic plumbing of half a century had collapsed and reeked of ammonia." And further down the same page: "He had a magnificent athlete's body, but the accordion of his forehead whined a story of immobility and repressed ambition." (p. 84) See, happy stuff.

Secret Lover

2010-04-24T20:50:00.001-04:00

I've been absent for a while due to illness (yay, spring allergies and wonky sinuses) and well, how should I put this, an old lover. Yes, I fell prey again to the wily seduction of (da da dum) fiction. The book was so good, in fact, that I can't shake it. I think about it while I bathe and sleep. And, worst upon worst, it was a thriller. I don't usually fall for serial killa thrillas, but Sieg Larsson is/was a master. Just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it was riveting: 600 pages in 5 days. That is record for me because I have kids so I usually only read before bed. Ol' Sieg had me reading in the potty, at stop lights, and while I played Sir Topham Hatt as my children raced like really useful engines up and down the sidewalk on their bikes. It was goooooood.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage)
But, now I have returned to Bruce Chatwin. I will not review/blog about the tattooed lady because that is not in the scope of my mission here. One huge difference between Chatwin and Larsson: narrative. Chatwin rambles both physically and semantically through villages in 1960s Patagonia with a veiled purpose, but little story. I hope it picks up because I have 3 more texts to read before June 21 when I fly to Buenos Aires for my first MFA residency.

(I promise not to stray again until late July on vacation when I will, by God, pick up the Larsson sequels.)

Princess for a day

2010-04-19T18:01:00.000-04:00

This is Fiona in her purple splendor before heading out to the Derby Festival Princess Tea Party. Sadly, I was too bedridden to attend. Once my mother-in-law hands over the photos from the event, I'll scan them and endure your taunting.

Achoo

2010-04-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

I know. I've been absent. Blame my nose. It's pollen season in River City and my nose seriously hates pollen. So, even though the weather has been stunning, I spent all of yesterday in bed nursing my sinusitis and praying for a bullet to hit me square between the eyes.

The good thing about being sick is that I catch up on reading. The bad thing for my blog is that I wasn't reading any creative non-fiction. Instead, I read 100 pages of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (for my book club). I'm not apologizing; it's a very intriguing read. But . . . the antibiotic is kicking in so I shall return soon with an update on Bruce Chatwin's travels through Argentina. Promise.

My week in words, thus far

2010-04-14T10:33:00.000-04:00

Okay, so Monday night was book club panel/library fundraiser. Tuesday night was writing group. I started meeting with the group a year ago, right after I was downsized out of my grant-writing job for public radio. At the time it was a diversion and a step toward committing to my personal writing. At the time, I wasn't so sure I was going to commit to the group.

Last night was the first time the group has responded to one of my essays. It was really quite helpful! The feedback was similar to feedback I've received before: they like my humor, humility, and see growth in the characters. But here's my problem: I always write 3 pages. No matter what, my internal page monitor stops my fingers from tapping at precisely 3 pages. It's weird. I took 2 pages of notes on how to expand the piece - an essay about raising a feminist daughter. The group insisted that I include observations from my upcoming weekend soiree. Oh haven't I mentioned it? This weekend I attend, I shit not, the Derby Princess Tea with my daughter (in full princess regalia) and mother-in-law. I'm tempted to wear my holy jeans and crappy Chuck Taylors with a tiara on my head, but I don't want to offend my mother-in-law or embarrass my daughter.

Tonight I tutor. It's been a writerly, readerly week.

Talking shop

2010-04-12T23:05:00.000-04:00

I sat on a panel tonight at a library fundraiser to discuss book clubs. As usual, I was completely unprepared. Fortunately, I was supported in the crowd by two friends (fellow book clubbers and high school buds). We were by far the youngest women there. And let me just say, the older gals can talk. I was on the panel, in the front of the room, and I couldn't get a word in between the rows of ladies who wanted to share their favorite book (surprisingly, they liked Middlesex). It was a nicely organized event at a stately historic home. Finger food sprawled on the table in the dining room. Plus, we raised money for the Louisville Free Public Library Foundation, which you may or may not recall is still reeling from the flood last summer. All in all, it was a nice evening.

One panelist shared a very cool thing that her book club did. After reading Banker to the Poor by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, her group actually supported a local entrepreneur with a micro-loan. I'd like our group to donate a book kit to the library or support a local literacy group, one focused on early literacy.

Here's the link to the library foundation. Give them some love:

http://www.lfplfoundation.org/

Blog parties, McLinkys, and URL codes, oh my!

2010-04-12T11:19:00.002-04:00

See this little button on the right? It means I'm experimenting. No, nothing kinky and nothing crazy. I'm participating in a "blog party" through 5 Minutes for Mom. At first I was concerned. I'm not a typical mom. I have an acerbic tongue, kooky sense of humor, and might not appeal to most mainstreamy moms, but then I found other moms like me on the site listed under "Not So Family Friendly". Awesome. That's me.

My blog is, for anyone McLinky-ing from the blog party, devoted to the books I am reading. I like to write essays and creative non-fiction and to prepare for my next adventure - my MFA in writing, beginning this summer on a 10-day residency in, I kid not, Buenos Aires, I am reading a bunch of creative nonfiction and sharing my impressions.

I have two kids, Fiona is six and Toby is three. They wear me out, but as the mom in Ian Falconer's Olivia tells her daughter, I love them anyway.

I'm always open to suggestions for books to read, so feel free to share titles. Right now, I'm beginning to read assigned titles for my graduate program, so they will be a bit Argentinian in flavor, beginning with Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia.

This is my third English degree, so clearly I'm insane (and desperately want to publish!).

Prizes of interest to me are all gift cards:

1. USC 3 – A $50.00 Target Gift Card.
Provided by: Peggy Gorman
Follow here: velvet1116 or Visit Our Fan Page: Peggy Gorman

2. US112 – $50 Amazon Gift card
Provided by: Robyn ~ Our Homeschool Home
Follow here: RobynOHSH or Visit Our Fan Page: Robyn Our Homeschool Home

3. USC 8 – $55 E-Gift Card for Amazon.com Gift code will be emailed to the winner and can be used for purchases from Amazon.com.
Provided by: Kelly’s Lucky You
Follow here: Kelly’s Lucky You or Visit Our Fan Page: Kelly’s Lucky You

Row completed

2010-04-10T22:38:00.000-04:00

Just finished A Pearl In The Storm. I like the structure of this story. Tori decided to emphasize the row that failed rather than the second, successful row. This allowed her learn from her obstacles and grow as a person. The row becomes less about fighting inner demons and more about embracing the demons, the helplessness, that makes us all human.

It is a thrilling story. At various points I caught myself chewing on my nails with anxiety for her safety. But she has a great story that says so much: while working on the Muhammed Ali Center, Muhammed Ali himself told Tori, " You don't want to be known as the woman who almost rowed across the ocean."

My husband has a deeply dedicated, intelligent, talented, hard-working, admirable boss.

Adam and who?

2010-04-09T11:58:00.000-04:00

It's spring break and I've been trying to entertain the kiddos every day. Yesterday we went to The Speed Art Museum for the "Gallery Adventure." The "adventure" turned out to be the friendly Nicole from Art Sparks, the interactive kid's space in the basement. She was perched in front of a large, dark oil painting of "Adam Creating The Animals" in the museum atrium. In front of her she placed a dozen pillows for the kids to sit upon. "Who knows the story of Adam and Eve," Nicole asked pretty much rhetorically. All hands went up . . . except my kids. A proud moment.

I'll be writing an essay on this soon.

The last temptation of Amy

2010-04-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

Books keep trickling into my mailbox, onto my porch. So exciting!!!

Just got Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia and am struggling not to pick it up and start right away. But, I'm not good at juggling multiple books. I like to give full attention to my lovelies.

Oh Bruce, why do you tempt me so?

Failure piles in sadness bowls

2010-04-06T16:42:00.000-04:00

Oh English, how I love you. I love twisting you around on page and in my head. You bring such joy. Sure, the classic poets, the Shakespeares and Wordworths, have it all going on. And you can't beat a good Mark Twain or Edith Wharton or even, for that matter, David Rackoff for social critique delivered in a bowl of witty repartee. But lately, I have to vote Patton Oswalt, my new god of language. The comedian has an amazing skill at manipulating words, while smacking social stigmas on the behind. While I normally link to all things literary, today I link to YouTube.

It had to be done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfan5MacmsI

Hello helplessness

2010-04-06T09:41:00.000-04:00

I looked up from Pearl In A Storm yesterday and found myself on page 197. I got sucked in.

What I'm amazed with is Tori's tenacity. She finds herself square in the middle of Hurricane Danielle, she dislocates her shoulder, probably suffers from a concussion, her face is covered in blood, she can't feel her right arm, and she has a nasty lower back injury that sends sparks down her leg, but she wonders whether or not to use the international distress signal. She growls at helplessness, but eventually she decides not to commit suicide by hurricane and calls for help.

I suffer from Crohn's Disease, an ignoble intestinal autoimmune irritation. Yesterday, I felt like my innards set sail through a hurricane. I understand Tori's anger at human frailty. I kept going. I poured extra doses of prescriptions down my gullet. I had a date with my husband and damnit, I was going. Ultimately, though, the only "cure" is rest and time. Hello helplessness.

Maybe Tori and I aren't so dissimilar.

My first grand-story

2010-04-04T15:03:00.000-04:00

My daughter has just written her first story. She is six.

I love to go to school and doo work on my work plan! and I work very very very hard! I always finish my work plan I learn new work every day.

By Fiona Hud[s]on

Mama is proud.

Power must be taken

2010-04-04T14:17:00.000-04:00

Last night while falling asleep reading Tori's memoir, I had a realization: I am the polar opposite of this woman.

Tori's main premise is that she has dedicated her life to a battle against helplessness, a battle inspired by the countless attacks her developmentally disabled brother endured throughout childhood. In a very telling moment during her college years at Smith, she asked then Smith president, Jill Kerr Conway, how she could ever choose to become Catholic when women were powerless in the church and Conway replies: "Power is never given; power must be taken." And so, Tori has never rolled over and given up. If her strength, endurance, or dedication are questioned, she takes that as a challenge to prove her naysayers wrong. In high school, the guidance counselor suggested that she not apply to Harvard, Princeton and Yale. After graduation from Smith she applies to divinity school at Harvard, Princeton and Yale and is accepted at all three. At Harvard the field placement officer told Tori she wouldn't last three weeks at Boston City Hospital -- a hospital notorious for uninsured patients with gunshot wounds and the growing AIDS epidemic; she stayed a year.

How am I different? I give up easily and cry over my wounds. Endurance? What on earth is that? And if this gives you any indication, when thinking of my approaching trip to Buenos Aires, I have already started a mental list of all of the medications I will need to bring! I wouldn't have lasted an hour rowing across the ocean.

One thing Tori and I do share, aside from deep affection for my husband: we both detest cocktail parties and the small talk that is expected at them. We both lack pretense.

Porch swinging

2010-04-03T20:06:00.000-04:00

Not much to say. I've been lazy, enjoying the sunshine and temperate weather. Going to festivals and movies with the kids. I've been reading Tori's book too, but don't have anything profound to add just now. I'm so mellow.

Did buy a travel book on Buenos Aires! In it, I have found a store that sells orange rugs. Lots of huge, ethnic orange rugs. I must have.

I also received the first of my MFA books in the mail. Roy Hoffman's book. So excited that he will be on the trip as I hope he'll be my mentor at some point.

Low battery. Porch swing.

Ta.

Setting sail (oh,please make me stop with the sea metaphors)

2010-04-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

Progress! I have a.) mailed my old passport off along with $75 and some terrible new pictures so that I can receive my new passport in time to fly to Argentina, and b.) ordered all of my reading materials for my first MFA residency (all on Amazon; all used; total=$34. Whoohoo!). All of this is to say, I'm going to Buenos Aires to study creative non-fiction at the end of June and now I finally believe I'm doing it.

Progress again. I'm 80 pages into Pearl In A Storm. Slow going, much like Tori's row at the beginning. That's not to say it's slow reading; it's action-packed with sea life, storms, injuries, and tormenting memories. I'm just now committing to reading the book. It's good. It's odd, much like Tori. She's funny, but not Dan Savage funny. She's funny in a quoting Herman Melville and John Adams way. The woman is Smart. Her symbolism isn't heavy-handed and self-congratulatory like one Julie Powell, but rather thoughtful, honest, not overly-clever so that it's smug, but sincere. She is Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird and her brother is both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson.

Off to sea, warily

2010-03-28T22:36:00.000-04:00

With great trepidation I've begun reading Tori Murden McClure's Pearl In A Storm. As I said before, I know Tori. She's my husband's boss. They meet, dine, converse by phone, and laugh together regularly. I've heard many of the stories in this book through the husband, or directly from Tori. She also saw me at my most vulnerable (quite by accident) when innocently visiting me post-delivery in the maternity ward only to find me spaced out on Morphine sans baby, muttering unintelligibly about my newborn son being in the NICU with my sobbing husband. (Side note: she left my room, dashed to a bookstore, and bought a stack of Dr. Seuss along with The Little Engine That Could so that my husband could read to Toby in his incubator. She's a kind and wise soul. ) She's also a graduate of the MFA program I'm about to begin AND the pres of the university. While I doubt she'll get wind of my blog, and I doubt she cares what I write (so long as it's fair, well-written, and not chock full of expletives), I still hesitate to comment.

Knowing Tori's incredible knack for detail and professionalism, I'm not surprised at the amount of description she gives to her coffin-sized, self-made boat. Some of the detail is necessary; I'm not a rower or a sailor and am given to whining during any form of minor exertion, so her explanation of the desalination process is useful. It's also not the most interesting read. What I find most interesting and painful (and interesting because it's painful) are the passages where she paddles back into her childhood, especially her relationship with brother, Lamar. I hope there is more of this inner musing to come because it creates a rich context for her powerful determination.

My only other response thus far is this: I'm a Louisvillian and we Louivillians all know each other, so I wish she had not name-dropped so much. This, I'm quite certain, was completely unselfconscious on the author's part. But other memoirs that I've read tend to mention friends by first name only, and only if they play a recurring role. Tori has full names of Louisville celebs, one after another. They are her friends. Really, all I needed to know was that: they are her friends (maybe even in the acknowledgements). See, I feel like I'm being nit-picky and worry that I'll offend.

Maybe I'll go pull Reynold's Price off the shelf.

Growing good readers

2010-03-26T10:39:00.001-04:00

I'm so proud of my kids. Last night I went to a bi-monthly consignment sale where I usually stock up on a season's worth of clothes for my kids: great deals on brand names; MY mom would be proud. My husband likes to peruse the toys at said sale, but he couldn't go with last night. He had told my son that I might bring home some Thomas trains. Alas, I didn't find any trains, but I did find a jackpot of Thomas paperbacks for $2. When I got home with my tankard of loot, my kids descended on me before I could get through the door. Toby stuck his head all the way in the plastic storage box I was carrying and saw one Thomas book on top. This is what he squealed at first soprano decibel, "A Thomas book! You got me a Thomas book!!!!" He was thrilled. My daughter spread all of the books on the floor and began reading them with Toby. She was mostly making up the words to go with the pictures, which included rambling songs that she ad-libbed. Then, Fiona called me into the room and said, "Mommy, listen! I can read the whole book!" And she proceeded to read the entire book to me and Toby.

My little readers.

These are my $2.50 finds!

I needs some free books!

2010-03-25T12:58:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking about joining a online book swap group like Book Mooch and Swap Tree. Has anyone done that before? Checked out the local Freecycle, but I'm not sure I want 50 emails a day about free socks and Swiffer refills.

Charity Spotlight: First Book

2010-03-24T21:06:00.002-04:00

Just want to give a shout out to a good literacy charity: First Book. First Book provides new books to children in need all over the U.S. In my future life, when I'm a philanthropist, I will run a First Book chapter.

http://www.firstbook.org/

And then there's librarything

2010-03-23T23:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, just discovered Librarything and may never come out of the house again. Notice the flashy link to my right?

Crossroads

2010-03-22T22:29:00.000-04:00

What to read? What to read?

I have a loaner copy of Tori Murden McLure's book Pearl in the Storm, which I have a.) wanted to read and b.) feel compelled to read because 1.) she completed her MFA from the same university that I will be attending, 2.) she is now the new President of said university, and 3.) she's kinda my husband's boss. No pressure there (so long as she NEVER READS MY BLOG).

I also want to read Julia Sweeny's God Said Ha! super bad and have wanted to ever since I heard an hour-long This American Life devoted to her reading from the book. This goes back to the narcism problem, however. Sweeny has a falling out with religion; my own falling out with religion is the topic of a collection of essays I am working on. Sweeny is very droll; I make sloppy attempts at droll-dom.

Or, I could go back to the list and read something depressing like Reynold's Price, Tobias Wolff, or Augustin Burroughs.

Thoughts?

Symbolic logic

2010-03-22T22:17:00.000-04:00

I love trick endings and Dan Savage tricked me but good! I won't spoil it for you because you WILL read this book (and you will love it)!

The wisdom of his 6 year-old floors me: Savage and Terry debate the whole wedding idea up to the end of the book. In a cheap jewelry store in Chinatown they consider last-minute rings (they're having an "anniversary-party-pretending-to-be-a-wedding-reception"but think about driving to Canada to actually get married). Savage asks his son for jewelry advice. Six-year-old DJ is already a metal-head who owns an Iron Maiden lunchbox, so naturally he gravitates towards the skull rings. His rationale cannot be faulted; he tells his dads that they plan to be together until they die, so the skulls would remind them of this. A matrimonial memento mori. I love alliteration, I love this logic, and I may need to switch out our wedding bands for a couple of cheap skull rings.

Weddings always make me think of genocide

2010-03-21T22:08:00.000-04:00

This made me snort.

Dan Savage and his siblings abused his older brother Eddie about his second wedding ceremony for three years and here's why: it was held in Iowa; in the middle of a mosquito-infested cornfield; in the middle of July. But it wasn't the location, the bugs, or even the heat that spurred their relentless razzing; it was the ceremony itself. The year before the wedding, Eddie discovered Native American spirituality and wanted his second wedding ceremony to reflect this new-found belief. So when Savage sees his brother at the altar, this Chicago-born, Irish-Catholic, former cop is donning a long white robe covered in colorful ribbons, feathers and beads. The ceremony opened with a "ritual smudging".

And here I quote:

"Standing in a field of corn, an Indian crop, in the middle of the Great Plains, which had once been Indian land, watching a white guy marry an almost entirely white girl in a Native-American ceremony . . . well, it felt like a poltergeist moment, the kind of cultural appropriation that might cause the spirits of Native Americans to emerge from the rows of corn and scalp us all. Eddie's sincere appreciation for Native-American culture couldn't erase the sinister subtext of what we were doing. European Americans stole the continent from Native Americans, drove them from their land, herded the handful of tribes we didn't exterminate onto reservations, and finally hybridized and patented their staple crop, corn. White Americans getting married in a traditional Native-American ceremony in a cornfield in Iowa was like a couple of Germans get [sic] married under a huppah in the ruins of a Berlin synagogue in 1946. It seemed a tad insensitive." (p. 188)

What traditions did or will you use in your wedding ceremony? Think long and hard about it.

If Iowa can do it . . .

2010-03-19T22:03:00.000-04:00

Dan Savage's second memoir, The Commitment - not to be confused with the band from the eponymous, early 90's movie, The Commitments - is proving to be one compelling read. At first it felt a bit redundant of his first memoir, The Kid; many of the stories were retold as shorter anecdotes. My second reaction to this book was: okay, I get it, you're gay and have no interest in gay marriage even though you're in a committed relationship with an adopted child; stop complaining about your overly-supportive family nagging you to tie the knot. But somewhere in the middle of the memoir, Savage takes a serious look at marriages in his own family and delves head-first into the politics surrounding gay matrimony. This would be the middle section, "The Engagement". Here, Savage compares grandparent, parent, and sibling stories - none of which are typical love stories, or even typical marriage stories - to the right wing myth of the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Savage avoids getting all Keith Oberman, but he does make impassioned observations. In one case, his Republican father tries to explain to him that conservatives don't really have anything against the gay population. Rather, his cynical argument goes, they're just playing to the bigoted instincts of their base to get voters to the polls. Savage's partner Terry pipes into the conversation at this point to remind his dad that these same get-out-the-vote gestures are also stripping tax-paying citizens of the rights straight, married couples take for granted.

While Savage is conflicted and mostly skeptical about marriage, even going as far as applying for a marriage license with his lesbian friend Amy and throwing a sham wedding ceremony with nearly naked men dressed as winged tutti and a drag queen playing the part of sobbing mom, he believes strongly that the gay marriage movement is a civil rights movement. I already agreed with Savage's opinion before picking up the book, a book surprisingly five years old. As the debate of gay marriage continues to hit headlines and stranger-than-strange Iowa legalizes same-sex marriage just this year, I can't help but wonder why The Commitment isn't a best-seller. It is timely, funny, honest, passionate and reasonably argued. (Plus, there is a very tender moment with a birthday cake fetishist.)

I'm looking at the (wo)man in the mirror

2010-03-17T22:18:00.001-04:00

I'm really not trying to create beautiful synchronicity. For some reason, however, all of the memoirs I've been reading lately seem interconnected. At the end of The Kid, Dan Savage worries over the age old question: to circumcise or not to circumcise. Shalom Auslander fretted over the same decision at the end of Foreskin's Lament. Savage calls God out on his sadism in the following passage from The Commitment:

" . . . the moment you begin to believe you're worthy of the good things in your life - God gets all Old Testament on your ass and does something vicious, something insane, something totally uncalled for. He give you lupus or He allows Satan to slaughter your children and cattle or He deliver Ohio to George w. Bush." (p. 50)

Sound like Auslander? In the early passages of The Commitment, where I loll, Savage and his partner Terry are interrogated on family vacation by Savage's mom, step-dad, and siblings about why they don't get married. His own aversion to marriage is reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert's feelings. Both authors even do a little sociological investigation. Her book is Committed. His is The Commitment.

All of these authors are funny.

To recap: I am reading funny, irreverent, smart writers who question societal norms and customs while surrendering to them, all the while worrying. Forever worrying. Gay, straight, male, female, Orthodox Jew, Buddhist, Recovering Catholic. They're all me.

And now I'm feeling narcissistic. Time to read about a Zen athlete, a cocky stockbroker or a roller derby queen.

Clouds

2010-03-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

Maybe I'm inspired by old Joni Mitchell or maybe I just really want the sky to be blue and sunny again . . . I have spent the last hour of my day ignoring my husband AND The Daily Show to fart around with the plethora of new templates and backgrounds at Blogger Draft. I settled on clouds. Perhaps I'm channeling Magritte.

Pathos

2010-03-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

So, I was snuggling with my son last night as he fought sleep, reading the dramatic ending of Dan Savage's The Kid, when I started crying. I do get emotionally invested in books, but usually all that amounts to is screaming at them, hurling them across the room, and occasionally clutching my heart. Yes, the P & G commercials during the Olympics made me well up, but they also had string accompaniment. Rarely, do books make me cry.

It was in the chapter The Logic of Open Adoption where I lost it. The tension was mounting. Dan and Terry were going to leave the hospital with their newborn, adopted baby . . . probably. The "gutter punk" birth mom, Melissa, was growing more sullen as the impending hour drew near. She had signed the papers terminating her parental rights, but she also spent more time holding and staring at the baby. Dan and Terry were extremely sensitive to her, allowing as much time as she needed alone with the baby, but they also worried that she'd renege at the last minute, which she had every right to do in the state of Oregon. The agency social worker mediated the transition "ceremony" where the guys gave Melissa an ID bracelet that they had engraved with the baby's birth name and date, as well as a photo album of hospital pics. No one anticipated Melissa's gut-wrenching breakdown the moment the baby left the room. The guys held it together until they reached their rental car and then sobbed. Worried that the social worker's car might be parked near theirs, they hightailed it out of the hospital garage and then sobbed some more at their hotel. Savage said he was so glad that they decided to do an open adoption because now he knew that when his son questioned whether or not his birth mom loved him, he could tell him, with full honesty, that she did. Savage is a master at juxtaposing the irreverent with the poignant. It never comes across as forced or smug.

My son was almost asleep, past the book-smacking, chattery tired phase he was in when I first put him down, so he didn't see the tears rolling down my cheeks. And even though he had been an utter pain just half and hour prior, I felt very lucky to be laying there with him.

Sweet sweet manna

2010-03-12T11:26:00.001-05:00

Work just dropped in my lap. Well, potential work. Granted, it's not writing, per se, but right now, I just need to earn some money.

I had a message from the Learning Coordinator at the Catholic School up the street from my house wanting to know if I'd be interested in tutoring and could I be included in their publication of summer services. Um . . . free advertising? Sure, why not.

Not sure how I'm going to deal with child care issues, but don't care right now. Just happy that I may have up to four students/week. I love working with kids and desperately need the extra money for all of the incidentals that don't fit in the family budget. Consider this cushion money. Now, my car can break down. Whew.

Why did the pigeon cross the road?

2010-03-11T23:13:00.001-05:00

Okay, that was misleading because I don't have a punchline. My kids are really into dumb jokes and they riff on them in a way that is almost surreal: "Why did the love birds not like their name? Because it was really glove birds." But I paraphrase.

Tonight we, or I should say my daughter, was reading books to me and my son. She is six and just started reading and as a writing instructor and former literacy teacher, this is exciting stuff for me. Tonight, we/she read a favorite author, Mo Willems. For those of you unacquainted with the talent of Mo Willems, let me just point you in the direction of his first classic, Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! He now has a series of Elephant and Piggie books starring a pair of animal friends, one of whom - Gerald, the elephant - is a tad on the neurotic side. My kids cackle at these books. I cackle when my daughter hesitates on a word and my three year old yells out what the book says. I need to record these read-alouds.

So, check out Mo Willems (former writer/animator for Sesame Street) and his Elephant and Piggie early reader series, especially There Is A Bird On Your Head and I Will Surprise My Friend.

Worst Case Scenarios

2010-03-10T22:48:00.001-05:00

After finishing Foreskin's Lament, I borrowed a copy of Dan Savage's adoption saga, The Kid. My book club was reading it for last month and I needed to get caught up in time to discuss at least the first half of the book.

I love Dan Savage and have been a fan of his real sex/advice column, "Savage Love", since discovering it in my late 20s. For those who aren't familiar, Savage is openly gay and hilariously confrontational, but in a loving way. He's like your gay older brother who likes to give you the business. The Kid documents his efforts at an open adoption with his partner Terry. Savage and Terry are the only gay couple at the orientation for open adoption and they worry constantly about their chances for being picked by a birth mother to adopt her child. Turns out, they had nothing to fear; they are picked within two weeks of starting the process!

If only it were that easy. The birth mother who picks the couple is a 20-year-old "gutter punk" who has lived on the streets for two years and drank a lot of beer during the first four months of pregnancy. She also tends to talk in monosyllable responses. In an open adoption, the birth mother is involved in the child's life after adoption. She can also can the whole adoption after the baby is born. Savage is neurotic and weighs all of the unknown catastrophes that could befall him and Terry as they wait for the baby to be born: Fetal alcohol syndrome and the father ("Bacchus") showing up and claiming paternity, among other fears. They take nothing for granted and do as the adoption agency suggests: they don't buy baby clothes no matter how many trips to Baby Gap they make, they don't decorate a nursery, they don't give the baby a name (even though they really want to), and NO BABY SHOWERS. Savage considers all of the worst case scenarios, including fiery car crashes, as a type of insurance. Sort of an anti-Fields of Dream concept: if I imagine it, it will not come. In a hilarious example, Savage explains that when he witnesses a worst case scenario that he did NOT imagine, he gets very upset, such as happens in the film Titanic when the boat splits in two, flies into the air and crashes on the heads of the bobbing passengers.

I suffered a worst case scenario yesterday while in Chicago, where I've been for the past four days with the family. While the husband was at a conference from Sunday through today, I took the kids to museums: The Field, The Adler Planetarium, The Aquarium (or rather, in the parlance of my 3-year-old, the Merquarium). The first couple of times, we walked. It was long. The kids complained. I had to carry the heavy toddler because I kept forgetting the stroller. Oh yeah, and it rained. So yesterday I wised up and decided we'd take the free hotel shuttle to the planetarium and take the city bus back. Simple. I asked the concierge which bus to take, but failed to ask him which stop we'd need to get back to the hotel. I figured, the bus said Michigan Ave. on the LED screen, our hotel was on Michigan, no problem, but when we didn't turn on Michigan I worried. Okay, the bus driver is going parallel to Michigan and will circle around. My son fell asleep on my lap. My daughter sat beside me. We passed 11th Street, then 9th, the Balboa. Balboa? What happened to 8th, where our hotel sat waiting for us? I scanned the faces of passengers near us. One man listened intently to his MP3 player and everyone else spoke Chinese. I waited until a blonde woman crept back to the back of the bus and asked her for directions and she suggested we de-bus there and walk the four blocks south. The bus was not going near our hotel. So, I announced, "Kids we're getting off here," and Fiona dashed out of the back doors. I struggled with my backpack and the dead weight of my sleeping son and got to the door just as it slammed in my face! I saw my daughter looking small and alone in her winter coat and white hair bow, waiting for me on the sidewalk and started screaming and pounding on the door. The bus erupted. Everyone started screaming, "Let her off" and "Open the door!" but the jaded driver decided he'd just start heading to the next stop. I pounded and screamed louder, harder. Everyone yelled at the driver and the doors gave way. I was on the sidewalk. Fiona looked stunned, holding the hand of a stranger, a kind college student who took pity on us. When I got up to them, the student handed Fiona to me and just said, "I can't believe that, I just can't believe that." I thanked her profusely and grasped my daughter's hand. We headed South to the hotel, shaken but together.

When I list the worst case scenarios that have come to fruition in my short parenting career, the CTA fiasco ranks right near the top:

1. Dog bites my 2 year old daughter under the eye and 5 hour ER visit proceeding said bite (including the part where they taped her hands in diapers so she wouldn't touch her face and flushed out the wound).

2. 6 month old daughter slides out of car seat and hits head on floor at Mexican restaurant and following ER visit (including the part where they strap my infant on a board and thrust her through an MRI).

3. Newborn son breathes in amniotic fluid and resides in the NIC-U for the first 24 hours of life.

4. Toddler son explores recycling bin and pulls out a bloody flap of a fingertip and the 5 hour trip to the ER (including the part where they strap his arm to a board and sew 5 stitches into his tiny finger).

5. This.

Dan Savage didn't know what he was heading into after the adoption.

And Many More

2010-03-05T21:45:00.000-05:00

Some things I've learned about Shalom Auslander:

- He believes in God. This is a problem.
- He thinks God has a mean sense of humor and that he is often the punchline.
- He enjoys calling God a dick.
- He fears that God will smite him, his wife, his child, his parents, and his siblings.
- He also thinks Moses was the butt of a seriously wicked prank. (Look Moses it's the Promised Land. Psyche, you're dead.)
- He had a very messed up family, but no more messed up than most religiously, fundamentalist families.
- He paid $350/hour for a psychiatrist.
- He needed it.
- He tried very hard to be a devout Jew when he wasn't shoplifting, hoarding pornography, and smoking pot.
- He is the poster child of Jewish guilt.
- He finally found a woman who could laugh with him and love him despite his debilitating neuroses.
- And they lived happily ever after but were shunned by his crazy family.

Perhaps my most favorite part of the book is what Auslander had written on his son, Paix's first birthday cake. It reads:

Happy birthday, Paix, from Mommy, Daddy, Harley, Duke, and no one else in our families because they are bitter miseries who'd rather drag us into the morass of their bleak, tragic lives than share for a moment in our joy. And many more. (p. 306)

Shake fist at the sky and say "Whaaaaaa"

2010-03-01T22:05:00.001-05:00

March better go out like a lamb, is all I have to say.

First of the month is always a tidal wave of spending: piano lessons, bills, prescription refills, preschool tuition. This month we were also hit with the non-monthlies: ballet lessons ($202 for 1/2 semester tuition), Music Together class ($75 for 1/2 quarter tuition), and pool membership ($Pound of Flesh, which we deferred, thank you very much). But today, the First of March, 2010 I hit the motherlode of spending: dentist appointment with new insurance that doesn't cover anything - $187, check; infection in my dog's front paw + ear ointment + heartworm meds (6 month supply) + nail trimming - $197, check (and, oh yeah, bring her back on Friday); a freak swelling in my toddler son's groin (yes, I said groin) that took us to our family doctor ($25) and is leading to a pediatric surgical consultation on Thursday ($40), which could then lead to out-patient surgery ($??) - check. I'm not working, so I humbly rely on my husband during the dry spring semester. I cut my own hair. I clip coupons. I save birthday money for church tag sale bonanzas. I shake my fist in the air and bellow.

Tonight, I calmly decided that this isn't working.

So I believe it's time to start tutoring two nights a week. I've done it before and can make better money doing that a couple hours a week than I would working retail. And with my crazy schedule as chief family chauffeur, I can't work a 9-5 gig. I've done that before too, but the cost of childcare barely warrants the effort. That's why I want so desperately to make money through freelance writing, but obviously I'm growing impatient waiting to have my genius discovered.

So, yes, I'm ranting while I know perfectly well that we could be in such worse shape. My husband has a great job with excellent benefits. My kids are (relatively) healthy, although on a side note I did catch vomit in my hands tonight. We have supportive parents, friends, a nice house, a fluffy dog. Sure, we can't furnish said house, but who's counting.

I've asked to teach two courses in the fall while I start my MFA. I just can't bear the thought of living so close to the bone again.

How does any of this relate to the genre of memoir or Auslander? It doesn't. I just needed to rant.

Sexy synchronicity

2010-02-27T22:27:00.000-05:00

Don't you just love when life and art seamlessly collide? Having just finished reading Lit, I made my way back into Shalom Auslander's memoir, Foreskin's Lament; I went from Karr's sin-to-redemption story to Auslander's depraved Orthodox Jew spectacle all on the same day that I attended my very first Passion Party. Don't see the connection? Let me explain.

Karr's newfound spirituality is quaint compared to Auslander's childhood Orthodoxy. He is probably about my age - a child of the 70s and 80s - who grew up in the repressive world of East Coast Orthodox Judaism. He sees the modern world around him, even visits it with his mom in weekly trips to the mall (where he wants to live), but his routine is strictly Eighteenth Century. He dons the knitted yarmulke, tallis, dark suits and ties. He sits hours on end repeating Hebrew prayers in shul. He waits bored at the dining room table waiting for Shabbos to end. But, because he is a child of the modern world, he is tempted by modern seductions: porn magazines (found hidden in the woods behind his house), beef jerky, hair styling mousse. Like any good Jew, modern or ancient, Auslander succumbs to each temptation with the nagging anxiety that God will smite him. In order to win favor with God, 10 year-old Auslander finds every smutty magazine his hypocritical family hides under mattresses and washing machines, even unearthing his devout mother's box of sex aides from between the mattresses of her bed, and . . . sets all of them ablaze. And so I found it wildly amusing that I finished reading this Philip Rothian passage on my way to taste "Nipple Nibblers" and compare vibrator frequencies.

Ah, kismet.

And . . . done

2010-02-25T22:44:00.000-05:00

I finished Lit (again) last night and have come to the same conclusion I did the first go-round: it's so well written, beautiful in parts, but it's also choppy and exhausting. What I guiltily enjoy most about Karr's writing is her long passages about her mother (moreso in The Liar's Club and Cherry). This is when she is most outrageous and hilarious, but also poignant. In Lit, Charley sobers up and cooks briskets and while she's still saucy and inappropriate, she's more mature (at age 80). In short, it's a let down. I felt the same way after hungrily reading all of Ruth Reichl's memoirs. Reichl's mother, like Charley, tends toward the insane and inappropriate, but in her latest memoir, Not Becoming My Mother, Reichl makes peace with her mom's bi-polarism. It's not the raucous ride of botulism we find in her first memoir, Tender At The Bone and while I'm happy for Reichl, it's just not as much fun.

Does that make me a voyeur of the reality show mentality? Or borrowing a headline from NPR (about Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette): is this the "fine line between empathy and voyeurism"? http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/02/joannie_rochette_the_fine_line.html

Truth is, healthy relationships rarely make interesting literature, but whack-ass, drunken, sociopathic families are hi-lar-ious.

Ohm

2010-02-23T22:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I was being a bit compelling by saying Karr "betrayed me." Truth is, I knew well in advance that she would have a religious conversion experience. She even has a parenthetical disclaimer after one chapter title warning: praying ahead. For those who don't know, I am one of the god-less heathens who somehow still leads a moral life (whatever that means). I don't ascribe to any form of theism and spirituality does not sit well with me. My husband has suggested at times, correctly I must add, that I have no Zen. While reading about Karr the cynic who attended AA meetings for guidance toward sobriety, not the "let go and let God" message, I found a kindred spirit. Then she goes "God shopping" with her son, a year-long exercise that takes her in and out of temples and churches of all denominations. The end result: Catholicism. Granted, she finds a church on the more social justice end of the Catholic spectrum - a more accepting and less judgmental group, in general - so her slow conversation really isn't a betrayal. And yet, I started my journey with Karr on a spiritually level ground; now close to the end of our journey together, she is healthier and I am alone. Yes, I'm leaving out the whole she got sober and stayed dry with the help of prayer and confession bit. And fortunately, I am not and never have been an alcoholic, so I'm not in serious need of a spiritual mantra to get me through each day, at least not in the same way that Karr did. Strangely, I did wonder what might happen if I prayed or meditated, focusing my thoughts and energy towards positive goals. Karr never claims to believe in miracles or answered prayers, yet she prays and a fat grant that was written FOR (not by) her is dropped in her lap. Or an agent begs her to write a memoir and agrees to publish it. Or the only literary critic she admires gives her book a favorable review. Or she's in desperate need of a car and a colleague loans her one while she's on sabbatical. And so on. Maybe an "Ohm" or two could lead me to publication, a paid writing gig, or a better attitude, who knows.

Yin and Yang

2010-02-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

An auspicious week draws near: First off, as of today I am done with birthday parties for another year (I'm celebrating with a delicious bag of barbecue chips); secondly, on Monday, I will attend the Sarabande literary series where the head of the Spalding MFA program, Kathleen Driskell, will be reading her poetry; then on to Friday for my first ever "fantasy" (or drinks with dildos) party. The latter is a practice run event for a friend/rookie fantasy party host; just friends under no obligation to purchase.

On a completely other note, I read this the other night in Lit:

"In my life, I sometimes knew pleasure or excitement but rarely joy. Now a wide sky-span of quiet holds us. My head's actually gone quiet. Some sluggishness is sloughed off. I am upright all of a sudden, inside a self I find quasi-acceptable, even as I'm incarcerated. Maybe this giant time-out has given me rest I sorely needed. Basically, some fist pounding on the center of my chest has unclasped itself. I've let go." (p. 283)

At this point in the book, Karr has checked herself into a mental institution for suicidal ideation (she actually had the plan, the gear and had written the note). Almost a year into recovery, she feels more miserable than ever. Two weeks into her stay, she has the above epiphany. In the margins I wrote, does it take incarcerating oneself in the loony bin to achieve this kind of peace? That inner pounding is background noise that I've always taken for granted, no matter how positively irritating. It ratchets up with sleeplessness and hormonal fluctuations and cranky-ass children drawing and quartering me daily. I'd love to know what it's like to just let go. But, this is the point of the book where Karr peels away her spiritual cynicism and starts praying, the point where I felt betrayed.

New Yorker: But Enough About Me

2010-02-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

topic_books: newyorker.com

This is the aforementioned New Yorker article.

Thoughts?

What it is

2010-02-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

My friend Sarah, one of my followers, sent me a link to a New Yorker article arguing the pros and cons of contemporary memoirs. (I'll post it, but not immediately. Must let it simmer a little longer.) This got me thinking about why I read and write personal essays and all forms of life writing. The article talks about what the author considers the worst of the genre - woe-is-me writing and fictionalized memoirs - and considers the historical evolution of the genre. I don't have strong opinions about fictionalized accounts that weave their way into memoirs. No one's memory is 20/20 and most memoirists include a disclaimer somewhere in their texts about changing names and doing their best to recall what actually happened, James Fry be damned. As for woe-is-me writing, I, personally, don't read life writing to wallow in someone else's misery (although the saying does go "misery loves company"). Along the same lines, however, I do read and write about real life for, well, company.

My husband, the psychologist, has talked to me before about the value of "narrative therapy" - telling stories to resolve trauma and crises - and I do see the value in that; however, I am not typically drawn to authors who complain about the wreck of their lives. Rather, I'm interested in the survivors; the ones who laugh through the apocalypse, or even just the mild inconveniences. They are the everyman heroes who help me laugh at my own neurotic tendencies. They are my group therapy and man do we have some good times. That is why I love Gilbert and Karr and Winnik, Woody Allen and David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell and David Rakoff. Granted, Karr's spiral into alcoholism, despair, and suicidal tendencies do not produce a million yucks, but she has enough distance from her past to reflect with dark (dark, dark) humor. Reminds me of Wordworth's "emotion recollected in tranquility."

So, my own forays into life writing are similarly motivated: I long for community. As the last child born in a family of four kids - I being the afterthought by eleven years - and the daughter of a repressively depressed mother, I know a thing or two about loneliness. Add to that my natural egg-headed, sensitive, geeky tendencies and you get a good picture of my childhood. But oh I can work a jigsaw puzzle! When I write about my life I am shouting into the chasm hoping to find a response other than my own echo (hint: comments, I love comments people!). I am the annoying person who runs between email on my iPhone, Facebook on my laptop, and voicemail on the land line (my poor kids will be in therapy talking about me one day). I live for community. The idea of community was a central ingredient of my wedding ceremony. Maybe that's why I'm so engrossed in "Lost" ("live together; die alone"). I may be co-dependent on my circle of family and friends, but I live for feedback. I also see the value in Winnik's exhibitionist tendencies. Confessions lead to absolution. They also can bond people together. Why do you think AA has such loyal followers? When I published my essay on miscarriage, my first goal was therapeutic. Writing helped me cope (narrative therapy). My second goal was to bring voice to the silenced. So many women stepped forward to tell me their own miscarriage stories, that I realized I was far from alone. These stories were whispered to me by friends who, in many cases, had never discussed their experiences. I wanted to break the taboo and show the value in publicly acknowledging that miscarriage happens pretty frequently, so more women don't suffer in silence, alone.

In my angsty 20s I read Lynda Barry's cartoon "Ernie Pook's Comique," an autobiographically warped look at Barry's awkward child/teenhood. One comic was titled "Riding on a Bummer," which I cut out and put in my journal. Barry became my best friend. I cut out the title of another comic, "What It Is," and glued it above my college graduation photo in my graduation photo album. "What It Is" is also the name of Barry's memoir/guide to writing/clusterfuck scrapbook.

Going Off-list

2010-02-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

After multiple depressing reads, I've decided that I'm trashing my list of memoirs in favor of whatever makes me happy at the moment. Literary hedonism, I know. So, after Auslander (well, after I survive Lit then Auslander), I'm reading something funny and happy. My book club is reading Dan Savage so I plan to blog about that (can't wait, actually). After that, I may read my husband's boss, Tori Murden-McClure's memoir, Pearl In The Storm. Happy. Maybe Susan Orleans's The Orchid Thief. Strange, fascinating, not unhappy. A friend told me her new mantra for 2010, as she laid for the second time in six months in a hospital bed, "more awesome, less suck". Yes.

Shpilkes

2010-02-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

I am my father's daughter. For my entire life, I've heard that Dad had a bad case of the shpilkes (sha-pil-kees), meaning "ants in his pants" or, if you like, ADD from hell. Now, I get it. My kids take forever eating their dinners and I can't stay at the table waiting for their forks to set down. My eyes scan the computer or cell phone or both every few minutes, hoping for entertaining news. Skip the previews and get to the movie already!

All of this is to say, I did it again. More than halfway through Lit I have grown impatient (she's about to land in the loony bin and start praying), so I picked up Shalom Auslander's book and have read the first two chapters (or essays). Pathetic. Not Auslander who is warped. Me. Oddly, I stayed committed to Liz Gilbert's Committed. What does that say?

The second essay in Auslander's book, The Foreskin's Lament (best title ever), is an essay I have heard on This American Life at least two times. Auslander reads it in a dry, deadpan manner, off-setting the child abuse, alcoholism, and crazy prayer/sin cycle on which his eight-year-old self embarks. Hoping that the sins of the child will kill his horrible father, Auslander finds himself simultaneously practicing for a prayer competition (at his Orthodox Jewish day school) and touching himself while swearing "shit," "fuck," "ass," "bitch." It's hilarious and sad.

Why am I drawn to so many memoirs based on abusive childhoods? The worst I suffered was a bad case of the shpilkes.

Wowed

2010-02-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

Just when I was given the gift of an hour to write and had nothing to say I discovered my friend Laura's new blog and am floored by the writing. Floored. She snuck in as a follower of my blog, by first name only. Never mentioned she was writing a blog too, mind you. But, ah, I'm a detective by nature and I figured out a.) who she was (you sneaky, sneaky devil) and 2.) found her freakin' awesome and hilarious blog about the freelance life. (With permission, I will link to it.)

Laura, watch some Morgan Spurlock cuz you are in good company. (I believe both seasons of "30 Days" are rentable. And, of course, "Supersize Me".) I'm jealous, really. What a genius bloggy idea.

Cool Way to Support Literacy

2010-02-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

If The National Center for Family Literacy wins this grant (they're in 41st place), they will distribute one million books to disadvantaged children throughout the US by traveling in a biodiesel van. The Center is located here in Louisville and does great things to promote family literacy.

Check out the link and vote often. Voting ends at the end of February.
Pepsi Refresh Project

Waking up

2010-02-08T12:08:00.000-05:00

I'm halfway through Lit (for the second time). Midway through birthday season (my son's birthday was last week; my daughter's is next week), I've been distracted away from the task I've assigned myself on this blog - to read, write, and write about reading. But, I'm back now baby! And as I speed my way through the middle of Mary Karr's tumble into alcoholism, I realize that I wasn't just overcome by family priorities, I was also procrastinating from reliving the middle of this book, the section entitled "Self Help."

This section is painful. There is no other way to describe it. I read as a helpless bystander, unable to prevent her descent into drunken stupor, horrified that she drove her child around with two beers tucked in her coat and another sidled next to a juice box in her purse. But as I re-read this section something that Sarah said as a response to a previous post screamed in my head: yes, Karr is naval-gazing and self-involved . . . because she's an alcoholic. Not until we reach Chapter 21 ("The Grinning Skull"), when Karr attends her first AA meeting, does she have any form of self-awareness and humility. Not that she spends the first half of the book gafawing about her drunken exploits. Quite the opposite. She seems embarrassed and apologetic that she was such a terrible insert noun (mother, wife, teacher, writer, etc.). In Chapter 21 she actually talks about a light coming on (an allusion to the title, perhaps) while she listens to other alcoholics talk about their disease at the church basement meeting.

We're asleep most of the time, I once heard the writer George Saunders say, but we can wake up. In that instant, for no reason I can discern, I wake up (p. 190).

As she laughs at the horror stories of her new peers - a woman in a Chanel suit admits drinking straight from the carcass of a frozen turkey where she had hidden a whiskey bottle, a man tells the meandering tale of two botched suicide attempts, one of which exploded him into a neighbor's yard, singeing off his eyebrows - Karr realizes that she is laughing in good company at "the specter of human frailty" (p. 192). This is significant because she is for the first time not wallowing alone in self-pity and hatred, and also because she is able to laugh about mistakes. It's the first step in her recovery, despite her resistance to the spiritual nature of the meetings and her mistrust of the group's kindness to her, a virtual stranger. I believe Karr was self-pitying to a degree, but she is telling the story of who she was and who she was was a messy narcissist. If I remember correctly, she continues to make mistakes and feel like a wreck for a good part of this section of the book, but simultaneously, she attempts to make real, lasting changes. By the end of the book, I believe she is truly humbled by her journey and her success.

As a side note: when I saw Karr read from this manuscript in 2003, she was a model of humility. I was drawn to her scathing wit and her unpretentious attitude about her successes. She spoke to the small auditorium filled to bursting with students and professors like we were hanging at the coffee shop, or bar for that matter, trading stories and one-upping each other. There was no scholarly jargon, no haughty air of superiority, and a whole lot of laughter. When she signed my book she wrote, "To Amy: Kick ass and take names."

I am quoted in this article on Elizabeth Gilbert

2010-02-07T12:09:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth Gilbert article in Courier Journal

I thought I sounded slightly more intelligent while having the phone interview, but what can I do.

iPad, youPad, we all Pad for iPad

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with my husband last night that bears consideration. He is a techno-geek so he lusts after the latest computer gadgetry introduced by Apple the way most men lust after women in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. I guess I'm lucky. When the iPad, which I still thinks sounds like a feminine hygiene product, was introduced he began waxing philosophical about it. It will change everything, according to my husband. It will revolutionize the classroom. This is his Dean of Students and Professor side talking. And, I don't doubt he's right on this front. Yesterday a bunch of text book publishers signed on with iPad. Goodbye hefty textbooks that weigh down college students' backpacks and bank accounts. I have no love lost for this idea, as both a professor and soon-to-be grad student. What I did take issue with was his claim that bookstores would be a thing of the past. What?!

Now, I'm no Luddite. I love me some Apple technology. I am glued to my Mac Book or iPhone most minutes of any hour, but I will never stop reading books. You know, books. Made of paper, ink and glue. I don't think I'm alone here either. My husband got defensive and said that he wasn't calling for the end of all paperbacks, he is simply acting as oracle. Look at the DVD and the CD. Look at the disappearance of chain record stores. Even our own legendary music store here in Louisville, Ear X Tacy, which has been around since I was a teenager, is cutting back it's stock. Of course my husband has a point, but I do think book lovers are a tenacious group. We love our books so much we will be buried with them. Going to a bookstore and browsing through the stacks is as close to a religious experience that I'm going to get, and that's after working in one for six years. I love the feel and smell of books. I love turning the pages. I can't imagine reading to my kids on an iPad. It's just not the same thing, despite all of the technological advantages (links, uploads/downloads, videos, games, etc. etc.). There is something intimate about holding a book. It's a personal relationship between the reader and the text that I feel is lost on the screen. Because this is an emotional topic for me, I cannot deny my husband's foresight, but I can resist it.

Falling behind

2010-02-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

I'm not posting this to excuse my procrastination, just to explain it. I am way the hell behind on my reading. Perhaps, I'm thinkin', I should ditch the whole Memoir Project and just call this Amy Reads Books Whenever The Hell She Can and Then She'll Write About Them. Or something catchy like that.

Truth is, I'm in birthday season. It's not summertime, when the living is easy. It's February, when my kids demand birthday parties and I bake Thomas the Tank Engine cakes. So I'm one birthday down (Happy B-day, little man) and one to go. Little Mr. T also has been sick and home from school and now I, too, have a raging sinus infection. This means my normal reading time in the morning has been cancelled due to a sick child and my normal evening reading time (post children's bedtime) has seen me crashing in bed myself.

There you have it. I don't mean to be a slacker, really. Help me perfect this whine for grad school when I'll need to sound pitiful for my professors and mentors.

MFA-bound!

2010-02-03T15:15:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note to say . . . I have been accepted to Spalding University's low-residency MFA program in Creative Writing! I begin in late May.

The Loaded Metaphor

2010-01-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

I'm moving slowly through my re-reading of Lit, so I may not make my memoir/week goal. My pacing isn't due to the drudgery of re-reading a book (which I rarely do, despite the number of books on my shelves), but rather to the careful attention I am giving to Karr's words. She isn't a word smith, but a word master, word queen, word empress. Can I share an example or three?

"Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air, a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody's head off." (p. 59)

or this one . . .

"Writers had heretofore been mythical to me as griffins - winged, otherworldly creatures you had to conjure from the hard-to-find pages they left behind. That was partly why I'd not tried too hard to become one: it was like deciding to be a cowgirl or a maenad." (p. 49)

or my favorite . . .

". . . I was seventeen thin and maleable as coat hanger wire, and Mother was the silky shadow stitched to my feet that I nonetheless believed I could outrun." (p. 33)

But, Karr has to be this poetic. Never mind that, yes, she is a published poet. Karr's life is so full of potholes that she has to use language to smooth over the trauma: oft-psychotic mother, alcoholic father, repeated sexual abuse, poverty, as well as her own tangos with alcoholism, mental breakdowns, and divorce. What is lovely about Karr, in Lit no more-so than in The Liar's Club and Cherry, is that she balances her hardships not only with gorgeous words, but with hard-ass words too. Upon entering her future husband's family estate for the first time she notes her effort to repress a ghetto "Damn!" She can hurl expletives with the surliest drunkard in the bar (pun intended).

While I haven't reached this part of the book yet, I feel I must amend my earlier explication of the title. Karr departs mid-way through the book on an unlikely spiritual quest. The self-avowed atheist reluctantly begins twelve-stepping, but stumbles mightily over all of the God-talk. At her young son, Dev's, simultaneous request to attend church, Karr samples religions like a blue plate smorgasbord. I believe that the third meaning of the title could refer to the spiritual light that flipped on during Karr's sojourn. It could be the light of epiphany, the gift of sobriety. Or it could just mean books, who knows.

The first quarter of the book begins where Cherry left off in late adolescence and we accompany Karr through her college, grad school ("poetry camp") and black-out drunken episodes. She finds a father-figure mentor, Walt, a psychology professor at her Minnesota liberal arts school who helps her find work and therapy and a poetry mentor, Eldridge Knight, who helps her writing improve from cliched and unintelligible to published. Summarizing the content feels cheap. Read the book! Read along with me and share comments. I'll comment next on the middle section, Karr's marriage, motherhood, and crazy alcoholism.

Here's a nice interview Karr did with Terry Gross about writing Lit.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120020266

Gonna sit right down and write myself a blog post

2010-01-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

I'm going to mess around with the memoir list . . . again. I do this to my students too, by the way, when I change my mind on assignments and rewrite the syllabus repeatedly. They love it, really they do. I picked up The Lonely Days Were Sundays (essays on being Southern and Jewish), but it's very academic and historical, not as warm and fuzzy as I'm used to. I just couldn't acclimate and coming off of Elizabeth Gilbert, I need a kindred spirit. Instead, I'm turning my attention to Mary Karr's Lit. Although I just finished reading Lit a month ago (and rather enjoyed it), it is getting a lot of positive press and may be up for a National Book Award. It's a timely book to re-read and comment upon for that reason, but Karr (as many people who know me well will attest to) is a literary idol for me. In this weird age of instant virtual connections, I am actually able to interact with her (although I choose not to) on her Facebook page (that's how I know she's a National Book Award contender). As I re-read and respond to Lit, I'll keep an eye on Karr's FB page and see what awards stack up in her corner. Should be interesting.

Lit is the third installment of Karr's memoir trilogy. (The Liar's Club and Cherry were the first two books, the former garnering Karr many critical accolades. Both of these books are worth reading. The Liar's Club ranks as one of my favorite reads and re-reads.) It follows Karr through college, grad school, early teaching, marriage, motherhood, publishing, and most of all alcoholism and recovery. Lit is a raw-ass book that does not paint a pretty picture of addiction; but, that's Karr's thing. She makes the reader squirm with painful details and memories then rallies with a salty sense of humor. The title is a double entendre for her publishing successes and her years spent blotto with a tumbler of whiskey on her balcony.

So, that's the plan. After Lit, I should have Shalom Auslander in my sweaty little paws ready to devour. And yes, it's not on The List (but it should've been).

Onward and Upward

2010-01-23T23:32:00.000-05:00

Finished Committed tonight. Elizabeth Gilbert is a modest and generous writer. She managed to weave her own fretful story in between the stories of friends, family, strangers she met in Southeast Asia, and historical figures. She dispels myths and enriches the meaning of matrimony with great humor. In the end, she decides that, despite her own fears and trepidations (as well as those of Felipe's), marriage is an act of subversion because in the end no church, despot, government or repressive regime has been able to control what happens in the privacy of one's bedroom and cannot prevent the bond that two people in love have for one another. As Gilbert says, slave owners in pre-Civil War America forbade slavery, but slaves invented jumping the broom as a commitment ceremony, just as today, gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. celebrate their weddings without state approval. She ends the book with her own simple ceremony, in her new home, surrounded by family and friends. I threw rice.

And now a word from our sponsors . . .

2010-01-23T10:11:00.001-05:00

Oh, I wish. But I will plug two things (for lack of better descriptor) of which I am currently enamored: The PBS cartoon "Word Girl" and Better World Books.

Word Girl is my nearly-6-year-old daughter's new obsession, so I sat down to watch with her this morning. What I discovered was that I was laughing more than she was. The plot is catchy enough: 8-10 year-old girl, Becky, tries to help bumbling dad along with, of course, her pet monkey, Bob; but, Becky gets distracted and called away by very silly villains. At this point, she turns into Word Girl, complete with mask, costume and cape (the monkey turns superhero too). The villains Word Girl must contend with are grammar and spelling-challenged. Case in point: The Butcher was trying to rob a store when Word Girl interrupted; The Butcher (whose power is throwing heaps of raw meat and kielbasas at his enemies) calls Word Girl his nemenesiss, attempting the word "nemesis," to which WG slaps her forehead and just mutters, "It hurts." The show is witty, snarky, original and charming, plus it teaches words like nemesis, contrary, and exquisite. My daughter will start talking like a thesaurus any day. Oh yeah, and the theme song starts like this: "Word up it's Word Girl." C'mon, that's awesome!

Word Girl: Earth Day Girl

http://pbskids.org/wordgirl/

Up next, Better World Books. BWB is a great online resource for inexpensive, new and used books. All proceeds from sales go to fund a global literacy organization. The company works with libraries to rescue scrapped books from the landfill and also buys books from online customers. They donate the proceeds from these sales to partner organizations, such as Lousiville's own The National Council for Family Literacy and Invisible Children, to help with global literacy initiatives. All books are shipped FREE OF CHARGE and all packaging uses carbon offset methods, so the environmental mission of the company stays intact. Check them out. I just bought Shalom Auslander's memoir The Foreskin's Lament for $6.00 total. Hardback! The only hitch is that it will take up to two weeks to arrive, but I'm in no hurry. I have other books on the list waiting on my shelves.

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/

Blogging for Choice

2010-01-22T10:01:00.000-05:00

Today marks the 37th anniversary of the landmark abortion rights Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. In honor of this day, and in honor of the life of Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas physician who was shot at point blank range while ushering at his church, I and many other bloggers have joined the NARAL campaign to blog for choice. Tiller wore a button that simply read "Trust Women". His assassin has admitted to killing Tiller, who performed late-term abortions in addition to administering to the other health care needs of women in Wichita; however, his lawyers are presenting his case as voluntary manslaughter, in light of his belief that he was saving the lives of hundreds of unborn children by killing Tiller. This is outrageous! NARAL has asked bloggers to consider what Tiller's button means, so I will forego my frustration at the murder trial, and focus more on the positive. You can read more about the case here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122626278

Since my blog is a running book review of various memoirs that I am reading, and since I am reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Committed, I thought I'd turn to her to help answer the question: What does trusting women mean? Strangely, eerily, Gilbert and I were psychically linked for this exercise because last night I finished her chapter entitled "Marriage & Women." This chapter is precisely about the societal choices women have gained over the last century. Gilbert looks at her own family for examples. Her grandmother, Maude, was born with a cleft palette that left her face disfigured (although it was repaired as best as it could be in 1920s rural Minnesota). Her parents never thought she'd marry because of her facial scars, so they let her pursue education and a career. But love found her and Maude gave up her career to marry a farmer. They moved back to his farm and she cared for him, his brother and father, then bore 7 children! Gilbert's mother was one of the oldest children, who married in 1966 at the beginnings of the New Wave of feminism. In the early 1970s she began to work for the fledgeling Planned Parenthood in central Connecticut, where her nursing skills came in handy. This career was very fulfilling for Gilbert's mom, but it was unfortunately cut short when her two daughters both fell ill in the same week. Her mom asked her father to take off of work to watch the girls, but he refused. Her mom felt she had a choice to make: career or family. So, she quit her job and stayed home permanently with the kids. Gilbert asks her mom in a phone conversation about this decision: were there regrets? Of course! She was irate with her husband and she sorely missed the work she was doing, but she felt that she had made the best decision she could at the time for the health of her family and marriage. The fact that Gilbert's mom believed she HAD a choice is significant. She didn't have to be the sole bread-winner and she wasn't being forced to stay home by her husband. She was free to make this decision, no matter how painful. That is trusting women!

Gilbert goes on to talk more historically about the connection between marriage and motherhood. "We all know the refrain, right? First comes love, then comes marriage, then come baby in the baby carriage? Even the very word 'matrimony' comes to us from the Latin word for mother. We don't call marriage 'patrimony.' Matrimony carries an intrinsic assumption of motherhood, as though it is the babies themselves who make the marriage . . . " (p. 185) She goes on to detail her own lack of biological clock-ticking like a tale-tell heart in her chest and proves that historically speaking, every culture throughout history has seen at least 10% of women in that population not bearing children. This was due to many historical factors: infertility, infant mortality/miscarriages, spinsterhood, disease, and lack of available men. But, women in these populations also CHOSE not to have children, whether they avoided sex with men or used "what the Victorian ladies once called 'the precautionary arts.'" So, she concludes, childlessness is not so modern a concept or practice and choosing to not bear children is equally not a 20th Century construct. (p. 191) Gilbert calls this group of women the "Auntie Brigade," a league she proudly joined after the collapse of her first marriage, and which enlisted the distinguished ranks of Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen.

The choice of whether or not to have children became more transformative in the latter half of the 20th century when women had access to safe and legal contraceptives. That is why Gilbert's grandmother had 7 children and her own mother had only 2. The reason Gilbert's mother went to work for Planned Parenthood revolved around the sexual hypocrisies she saw growing up in rural Minnesota: girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were forced to get married or sent away; they lived with the shame forever. What about the boy who got the girl pregnant? "He was generally allowed to be seen as an innocent or sometimes even as the victim of seduction or entrapment." (p. 179) Gilbert's mom was disturbed by this reoccurring scenario and believed that something had to be done to ensure "societal sexual fairness," so she began working for Planned Parenthood. Sadly, I believe, the question of sexual fairness still lingers in the 21st century. Women have gained the legal right to an abortion, yet individual states chip away at this 37 year-old Supreme Court ruling. There are even abortion restriction clauses in both the House and Senate Health Care bills. Women are harassed as they enter clinics for this legal, medical procedure. New laws are put in place, state-by-state, insisting that women receive counseling, watch films about fetal development, make multiple trips to clinics before being allowed the procedure, thus making the procedure riskier as the time ticks by throughout the trimester and harder to procure for poor and working class women. Women have always found ways to end unwanted pregnancies. Before the dawning of post-Roe v. Wade era, women used coat hangers, knitting needles, splayed themselves on kitchen tables for unlicensed, opportunists to dig around their uteruses. Many of these women died hemorrhaging on those kitchen tables or later with staph infections. I find it ironic that 21st century Western women have so many choices open to us now in terms of career, education, marriage/partnership, and health, but fanatics still want to take away choices about the most personal decisions we could possibly make, decisions that should only be discussed with our doctors and our partners. These same fanatics argue for smaller government, yet they want Big Brother laying between the sheets in our bedrooms.

Gilbert doesn't linger on politics. Her opinion about the choice of motherhood is clear, but she subtly understands the contradictions every woman must wrestle with in making the decision to have or not to have children. Her mother told her that she didn't regret quitting her job and staying home with her kids, but she also confesses that she wasn't truly happy until the girls moved out to go to college. I, too, struggle with this contradiction. I never thought I'd get married or have children and here I am married, with 2 kids, and a stay-at-home-mom to boot! Sometimes I look around me and wonder what the hell happened! But I chose my husband. I chose to have kids. I chose to stay home with them. I trusted myself. And . . . I had the luxury to choose not have children earlier in my life when I couldn't have supported them financially or emotionally. And I'm also lucky that my birth control always worked. Some women aren't so lucky, but they still deserve the right to choose their own course.

Long live Dr. Tiller's legacy. Trust women.

The Humble One

2010-01-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

Coming back to Elizabeth Gilbert after forcing myself to finish Cleaving is like taking a long, hot, sudsy bath after trekking through mud puddles. Ahhhh. Gilbert's voice is soothing after so much self-involved blathering. She is mature, wise, self-deprecating, humble. She roots herself in historical, sociological, sometimes even biological, context. Her own marriage stories are peripheral to the story of the institution. One hundred pages in I have learned much about the constantly changing historical reasons for marriage. And opposed to Julie Powell's example of foreign travel, where she thrusts herself into the most foreign of foreign experiences (hunting with the Masai in Tanzania) only to ponder about how cute she is and then make out with one of the English-speaking guides, Gilbert pays deep respect to the heritage and customs of the lands where she travels. For instance, she and her exiled lover, "Felipe," land in Vietnam and she questions the women of a Laotian village about their experiences of marriage. She asks if they are happy. In response, they laugh! The women do not base their lives around the pursuit of happiness, like most Westerners; they just live. They marry because that is what they are supposed to do. And Gilbert respects this enormous difference by researching it.

I love that Gilbert is politically liberal, but doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve. The purpose of the book isn't to sway opinions about gay marriage (although, she clearly states that she supports the idea) or bash conservative hypocrisy. The purpose is to show how marriage has evolved throughout time and changed depending upon culture. But in so doing, she can't help to editorialize a wee bit: "So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are absolutely correct, but in only one respect - only if they happen to be talking about Judaism." (58) How awesome is that?

Committed (by Amy)

2010-01-15T11:29:00.000-05:00

I keep trying to write from my phone, but all I can publish is my title. Stupid Blogger (it's not my iPhone. That will never be stupid.).

Today (trumpets please) I dropped off my grad school application in person. Kathleen, the head of the MFA program said, off the record, she's sure they'll admit me. I'm scared and excited, but just want the confirmation in my hand before I announce anything to anyone. Even my father doesn't know what I'm planning. Of course, god love him, he'd either not hear me or forget if I told him.

The semester begins May 20 and then I hope to fly to Buenos Aires for "residency only" which basically means auditing abroad.

"Where Narcissism and Insecurity Converge"

2010-01-14T13:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Lord, I finally finished Cleaving! I have been way-laid with my MFA graduate application during my free time this week (apparently, the deadline is tomorrow, not - as it was written on the application form - Feb. 1!), so I stayed up until 1:00 A.M. getting all of my application forms and essays printed, collated, stapled and neatly stacked for delivery and then I stayed up until 2:00 A.M. finishing the Powell's grisly mo-fo.

And unsatisfying it was. Surprise, I didn't like it. Didn't see that coming, did you?

Powell doesn't talk about her marriage until the book is 2/3 finished. Up until that point it is all meat and adultery. Now, I'm not a prude and I don't care if she had an affair, nor do I care about sexual description. But something about the way Powell writes about her lover and her obsessive behavior after their split left me cringing. (Did I need to know that her wrist cramped from masturbating to his image in her mind? NO!) Also cringe-worthy are her revolting details of dripping fluids from severed joints, skinned goats, and several full-on livestock killings. Oh, and drinking blood gleaned straight from a live cow in Africa. And, and, and her notion that all men are staring at her lasciviously at all times.

So, when she finally discusses her husband, Eric, it is completely confusing. They are soul mates who finish each others' sentences, fall asleep watch Buffy and tirelessly propping each other up. Why does he put up with her? Why does she keep him hanging on? There is no resolution at the end of this mess except that they no longer shout at each other in the middle of the night and they consider couples therapy!

I think what drives me the craziest about this book, versus Julie and Julia, is Powell's smugness. Sure she reveals the ugliness of her actions, but I couldn't help but feel the entire length of the book that she was smirking about it all. It's glib. Her metaphors between butchery and love/sex are obvious. She is overly self-conscious and whiny. When she was exhausted in Julie and Julia from 8 hours of office work paired with 5 hours of food prep, I understood, even empathized. But when she's exhausted from obsessively checking her Blackberry and taking her sexual frustration out on a side of beef, I just feel irritated. The title of this post is a quote from an Amazon.com review. I'm not alone in my disgust.

My copy of Cleaved is clean, free of marks and food stains. The binding is sound and I still have my receipt of sale. I'm well within the 30 days of purchase. I have NEVER returned a book before, but Powell has inspired me.

The List: New, Improved and in 3D

2010-01-12T14:06:00.000-05:00

(Okay "3D" was stolen from "The Simpsons" documentary.)

I've deleted a few and added others, but I think this is my final list.

1. Cleaving by Julie Powell

2. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

3. The Lonely Days Were Sundays by Eli Evans

4. Fun House by Alison Bechdel (graphic novel)

5. Lit by Mary Karr (previously read)

6. This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

7. What is the What by Dave Eggers

8. Running With Scissors by Augustin Burroughs

9. Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman (previously read)

10. Journal of Solitude by May Sarton

11. Road to Coorain by Jill Kerr Conway

12. A Whole New Life by Reynolds Price (Previously started, but not finished)

13. Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

14. Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (or maybe, This Writer's Life)

15. First Comes Love by Marion Winik

16. Crazy Sexy Cancer by Kris Carr

And if I finish early or have

an extra week because I haven't

looked at the dates correctly

(very possible), I will include

Beryl Markum's West With The Night.

Responsibilityuns

2010-01-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

Did you ever see that Onion cover story (from at least 10 years back), "Funyuns Still Outselling Responsibilityuns"? So true, so true. The latest Onion headline hits home along the same lines: "Man Gets Life In Order For 36 Minutes." Today, I took the afternoon (thank you, dear husband) to look over my MFA application and begin filling out the paperwork. I also made a list of things I need to do before sending the application package. I also just balanced my checkbook for the first time in probably 8 years. I need a bag of Funyuns.

I'm slightly daunted by the grad application essay. I've written the two required essays, even rewrote one completely, but I'm dissatisfied with the results of the Why-the-hell-are-you-applying-for-this-degree? essay. Both drafts. I meet with a friend, former workshop director, published writer and grad school recommender this week to discuss this onerous essay. Humble. That's how I feel.

So, in light of being responsible, I picked Cleaving back up again when I reached an impasse with university forms. I am determined to finish it by Monday and continue on my merry way to Committed. More to come on my utter annoyance with Julie Powell's second memoir. In the mean time, here are a few other memoirs I'm considering: Jill Kerr Conway's Road to Coorain (I've owned this one for 15 years and still haven't read it, but it looks so good) and Shalom Auslander's Foreskin's Lament (because, how could I NOT read this?). Once I have my definitive list, I will post it in all of it's glory.

True Confessions

2010-01-08T15:29:00.000-05:00

I am easily impressed, so I often question my critical thinking and initial responses to what I see, hear, and yes, read. My emotions can be twisted and wrung most by what I hear, thus my life-long love affair with story-telling and NPR. So yesterday I was driving through the falling snow on my way to Target with my two-year-old, Toby, in the back seat. We braved the weather to go to his soccer practice (really, just an excuse to run around and squeal) and I needed to buy him pull-ups and a new Dora Potty Chart (it's working!). Turning on the radio to calm my slushy- weather-driving nerves, I hesitated on the Diane Rehm Show. Typically, Diane's warbling voice grates on my nerves after a few minutes, but this time I stayed tuned. Diane's guest was Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best seller Eat, Pray, Love, a book, I have discovered, you either adore or despise. There is no middle ground on this. I fall in the adoration category (blame my impressionability), so I listened to Gilbert discuss her new memoir, Committed, part-memoir about her marriage to "Felipe", the man she meets at the end of her previous book, and part-sociological inquiry into the institution of matrimony. Within an hour, I found the book on Target's display shelves and bought the book. Gilbert's voice is warm, compassionate, and funny. I hadn't planned to purchase this book, nor add it to my memoir list, but here I am on page 65 after a late night reading.

Did I mention that I haven't finished Cleaving? I blame my migraine. Yesterday, after a day of braving the weather, toting my toddler all over town, picking up my daughter from school, I finally succumbed to the throbbing in my my sinuses caused by a.) PMS and b.) a drop in barometric pressure. On my last dose of Excedrin for 24 hours, I felt slightly better, but was hopped up on caffeine at midnight. I listened to my husband snort softly beside me and turned on the reading light. A quick assessment: could I bear another chapter of Julie Powell's self-indulgent whining about her fucked-up marriage and the gross-out descriptions of pig innards?

The nausea from my migraine was still too fresh in my memory. I reached for Gilbert, and yes, I realized the irony of my literary indiscretion against the adulterous butcher. Trust me, I feel no guilt for this decision.

I will finish Cleaving, because I said I would, but it has become a grueling process as I have become physically revolted by Powell. I cannot wait to return to Gilbert, however. Gilbert, who in the first chapter describes the exile of her lover by the Department of Homeland Security after returning from travels to the U.S. She has two minutes to say goodbye to him, not knowing whether or not they will be reunited, knowing the only way to fulfill their dream of living together forever was to sacrifice their vow never to marry (after messy, traumatic divorces, neither could stomach the idea). In stark contrast to Powell's moaning, Gilbert leaves Felipe resolved to solve this problem and reunite with him as soon as possible. She never complains and even reflects on how kind the Homeland Security officer had been to her and her lover. The immediate tone of the book is inviting, like an intimate conversation with a new friend in a cozy coffee shop. I'm impressionable. I'm hooked.

A NY Times article about Gilbert and Committed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/books/20book.html

And one about Powell:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/09/julie-powell-gets-negativ_n_386365.html

Cleaving

2010-01-05T17:31:00.000-05:00

I have been defending Julie Powell against criticism for a week now. On Thursday, I shopped the mall dry with gift cards and holiday money only to run out when I went to the crappy mall bookshop to purchase her new memoir, Cleaving. So, I spent my own money - money, that I need to be saving for my daughter's ballet lessons or that stack of medical bills I ignored through Chanucka and Christmas - to purchase the book. I had to have it before I finished Julie & Julia so I could transition without a hiccup between books. Now, four chapters into Cleaving I'm ready to take a butcher knife to her!

The book follows Powell's obsession to find a butcher willing to apprentice her as she learns the art of cutting livestock into meat. I'm no longer a vegetarian, but I do eschew red meat and most pork products (having grown up Kosher), unless we're talking salty meat. I can't resist a good salami, pepperoni, or even, my bubbie is shaking her finger from the grave as I write this, a keilbasa. I am fascinated, albeit disgusted, by Powell's descriptive hatchet work on a side of beef or pig rump; it's her personal life that is making me want to commit violence. I knew ahead of time that she had an affair and wrote about it in the book. I emphatically did not know that she tortured her husband with her not so illicit affair through college and then 9 years into their marriage, with the same man (known only as "D"). I feel no pity for her, for her husband, Eric, who spinelessly allows the cheating to happen and only responds by spending the night with a series of nameless women. I have read on to discover how a grown woman could ricochet between two men without remorse, but four chapters in I haven't learned much. At least the last sentence I read before turning out the light last night was, "I just need to get over myself." Amen to that, lady!

Here's hoping the book improves, as does Powell's common sense and sense of decency towards her marriage. I still stand by my comments about Julie & Julia.