Who's behind the false face

Via Retro Weirdo

Special concern:  If you were in the path of the Hurricane Sandy, I hope you're okay.  Has anyone heard from MSB after the storm? I emailed her, but haven't heard back.

1. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo starting on November 1st. The family has been warned there will be increased neglect and I'll be acting like someone with PMS for the entire month, consuming sickening quantities of leftover Halloween candy (right down to the already-opened Smarties) and overreacting to all interruptions. Plus I'll be squeezing all this fun into the hours when I'm not at work or driving to and from. Predictions:  A 50/50 chance of success with a high probability of martyr-like behavior and an outbreak of adult acne.

2.  I want to write an essay titled "Why the Constitution is an Asshole."

3.  If Mitt Romney becomes our president, I'm cancelling my plans to get my diminished hearing checked. Listening to him lie is bad enough, but if I have to go through four years of listening to him do that ghastly tongue click before he speaks, well, that will be too much to bear. It's even worse than the classical radio announcer out of Cincinnati who always sounded like he was chewing a fistful of nuts when he spoke. I could picture him spraying spittle and flecks of pistachios all over the microphone.

Via Retro Weirdo

4. I spent nearly an hour yesterday evening looking at photos of vintage Halloween costumes. The entire Eastern seaboard is in a shambles and I'm trolling for vintage Halloween photos because the bad news all around is breaking my delicate nature.

5. I'm reading a book with the most atrocious dialogue, but I want to know how it ends. I'm halfway through and want to skip ahead, scanning through the dialogue because otherwise I'm afraid I'm going to lose my damn mind. But some writer - all right, Selden Edwards - worked really hard to write this story. Does skipping and scanning make me an asshole like the Constitution?

6. MathMan and I voted on Saturday. Spiderman was standing the prescribed number of feet or yard away from the polling place holding a sign for some fellow who's running for the local school board. After watching this, I'm thinking that having Spiderman on the school board would be an improvement. Goodness knows he wouldn't be our first mutant.

What are you hoping for in your treat bag?

Shelved

You wrote.

To vent. To make sense. To find a way to explain how you could be so ridiculous? You wrote to process, to tell a story. Did that really happen?.

All those words written. Done and done. Purge, the purpose. A retching of poison, a letting of blood. Get back in that bed you made. Lie, lie, lie.

Shame and guilt, a foundation of sand. Drape them in indigo and call them humor. Self-defecating. No, that's not right.

Wasn't that story milked dry, emptied of energy anyway?

The words, left in the sun, faded on the printed pages.The files deleted - some on purpose. Others? It's not called a crash for nothing.

Tucked away now where it can't hurt you or anyone else.

Time passes. Words fade. Memories muddy. Sharp edges soften.

Then something happens. Something strange. Strange because you don't believe in signs unless they're convenient and fit your current internal narrative. Which compounds your cynicism and confirms your inability to believe. Faith is always just out of your reach. The mystical residing well beyond your pedestrian imagination.

It's just another day at the office. You're in the break room looking at the books on the swap shelves. Hoping to find something to hold your son's interest among the Harlan Cobens, Stephen Kings, Lisa Scottolinis, James Pattersons and Agathas.

You reach for a book. The Raft of the Medusa. It's a familiar title, but you don't know a thing about the story so you sit on the floor and read the dust jacket. Oh, right. It was a painting you studied in art history. By Gericault, the painter upon whose life the novel is based. You start to put the book back on the shelf. Not at all your son's type of story.

And that's when a book falls off the shelf and lands on the carpet next to you.

You look around. This is a joke, right? How is it possible that this book, this very book would be stuck among the thrillers and mysteries? But then, no one here knows that long-buried story. No one here would play that joke.

You think anew about the faded words on those dusty, ignored pages. Raw material for a story that time has made more relevant, not less. A new vein opens, begging to be mined. You pick the book up from the floor and stand. Hesitate next to the trash can wondering.

Have you learned from your mistakes? An Oscar Wilde quote tries to come back to you, but gets batted away as a colleague rounds the corner and enters the kitchen.

This is Tara, Mr. Steinbeck

Mice, men, getting laid, having plans. Schemes on rye toast.

Want to guess what did and did not happen Sunday?

You don't need to guess. You know.

MathMan suggested that my book choice is the problem. It isn't compelling enough for me. Bless his heart. That is not the problem. I am the problem. I can't make myself focus. One thing turns into another. Wiping down the kitchen counter ends with me cleaning out a closet while phoning my father to find out what year he got his first pair of roller skates.

Things derailed quickly. Sophie announced she was hungry. I referred her to my blog post.

A few minutes later, she returned to my room sporting an expression I couldn't quite make out. Maybe it was  resolve. She was going to make pancakes. Pancakes sounded good to me, too, but without providing some level of sanitation supervision, I wouldn't want to eat them. I'd help if only to avoid taking a bite of pancake only to find a long hair in it, I told my inner control freak.

Okay, so pancakes. That was it. After that, I'd read.

But first I had to play Words with Friends with Sarah W. (she's kicking my butt!) and four other people (so are they!) because it would be rude to leave them hanging.

A great wailing from the kitchen alerted me to the absence of milk with which to douse the cereal the children would be having for three meals apparently. Such carrying on.

Okay. A trip to the grocery because we needed more than milk and no one else can be trusted to do the coupons correctly. Must make that list and remember the reusable bags.

After the store, I told myself, I'd read. There was still time.

The girls and I returned from the store. MathMan had made dinner so we had a meal together followed by a brief celebration of National Ice Cream Day. Oh, Ben & Jerry, we hardly knew ye.

I waddled upstairs, back into reaching distance of the novel. In a minute, I whispered to the stonyfaced dust jacket. I had to wash my face and apply an anti-aging mask. Oh, and tidy up my nails, fix the cuticles, file them, buff them.

And, oh for heaven's sake, can no one else ever scrub the damn toilet and sink? Better do that before my nails.

More Words with Friends, a quick check of Facebook and Twitter told me that everyone was retroactively having fun at Mitt Romney's expense and that would be Breaking Bad. See! That didn't take long. No celebrity deaths to clutter up the feeds with RIPs, no sports happening. I enjoyed a sense of smugness. I was all caught up even if I couldn't find a way to use that dang Z in my game with Sarah.

I returned to the bathroom to rinse the mask from my face. MathMan joined me upstairs. I thought he must not be feeling well. Turned out he was playing with his Atomic Fart app on his phone. Again.

I sat down with the novel and began flicking the pages. That would fix him for providing a long, squishy soundtrack to my trip to the WC. He and his phone could turn a quick tinkle into a severe gastrointestinal event.

MathMan doesn't like it when I flick the pages of any book. He says it's because it's bad for the book and the ghost of his mother the Librarian will haunt me if I don't stop. I know it's because he can't tune out the sound of it like he can tune out the sound of my voice.

He grabbed the spray bottle he keeps on hand to discourage the cats from getting onto our bed and aimed it in my direction. He is a crack shot. I stared at him hard and gave the pages a definitive flick.

This would not end well.

We called a truce. If I read now without flicking the pages, it would appear he won. If I read and flicked the pages, I was breaking the truce. I put the book on the night stand and sighed. We watched a third of an episode of Downton Abbey, one Foyle's War episode, and the new Inspector Lewis - Generation of Vipers (I have the worst crush on Sergeant Hathaway) before finally falling asleep.

Despite the fact that I read zero pages of the intended novel, the day was not wasted. I even managed to do somethings just for me. I ran an hour on the elliptical and finished off my manicure with a lovely shade of purple. I can live with that.

Taking the Scarlet O'Hara approach helps, too. It is another day. I have another chance to read to my heart's content.

I have the day off.

Are you a rifle or a shotgun?

Abdication

Dear Children:

Today I shall read a book. All day. Go ahead and laugh. You don't believe I will or can do it, but my goal is to do what my friends do - read a book in a day.

Let this serve as notice. This will be me doing something for me. All that is required of you is to entertain yourselves and leave me alone. Forbidden activities include, but are not limited to:  Finding me wherever I may be and staring at me. Screaming matches outside my closed door. Text messages and/or phone calls.

There are a limited number of reasons for which you may approach me. They are:

1. Fire that you cannot put out on your own.
2. Arterial blood.
3. Someone ringing the doorbell while holding an enlarged check with lots of zeros at the end. 


Note:  You should involve me only if your father is unavailable. Unavailable is defined as: 1) Away from the house; 2) Comatose; 3) The person gushing arterial blood or; 4) What is on fire.


If this warning is not enough, let me be clear. I don't want to hear from you. At all. I know that our views on what constitutes a legitimate need differ so here is a short list of what I do not consider worthy of my attention.


Hunger. Boredom. Exasperation with another sibling. Exasperation with your father. Exasperation with me.  Flea bites. Hungry cats. Lack of clean laundry. Lack of  "food" (read: junk food). The weather. The parsimonious thermostat setting The fact that summer is coming to a swift end and we still haven't done anything fun. The lack of money.


Take a good look at that list. You are all old enough to handle these issues. Telling me about them instead of simply dealing with them in a positive manner reminds me that I've been a failure as a mother and that is not conducive to happy reading. I will become angry at myself which will transform into angry at you which will manifest as slammed doors and shouting of things a mother should never say to a child.


Let's prevent that because it always ends in tears and I look like hell after I've cried.


If you don't think you can comply with my request, I recommend you leave the house. And no, I won't give you a ride anywhere. Look down. See those projections at the end of your legs? They're feet. Use them.


And don't forget to text your father to let him know where you've gone.


Love,
Mom

It's a lot like life

This is how this week feels. I did stuff. I ate stuff. I said some stuff. Chloe is sick, Sophie is bored, the cats are flea'd, and MathMan and Nate are baseballed.

Summer, as determined by human activities and not the calendar, is here and it's the first one since 2009 in which I won't be home with the rest of the gang. It's going to be a little strange. Good strange, as long as they don't turn the house into something fit to be featured on Hoarders.

I've banned their idea for creating a backyard demolition derby track and the scheme for the 24/7 yard sale. They can call me all the names they like. I'm not budging on these issues.

Let's just say I'll be satisfied if they're generally awake before 2pm and we don't get a visit from the PoPo, the Health Department or the Department of Family Services.

Trending! Wives. Not because we're aces at putting our needs last, but because we're THE hot book title. The Soldier's Wife. The Sniper's Wife. The Fireman's Wife. The Diplomat's Wife. The Paris Wife. The Shoemaker's Wife. The Math Teacher's Wife. Well, okay, not yet. But it could happen.

Some bits that have been lying around in my drafts waiting for a chance to embarrass themselves. Quotes heard around the house...

"You have now reached Most Favored Child status. The other two can just suck it."

"I couldn't sleep. I was buried under sixty pounds of, um.......cat. Did you hear that, sick parent? C-A-T."

"I did too take a shower.....well, I mean, I was going to take a shower......it doesn't matter, I swam yesterday."

"I figured 'why dirty a bowl?' I can eat the sherbet from this container just as easily. And look how I can balance it here on my front porch."

"You have to be pretty bored to think that taking a shower should be considered 'something to do.'"

And a bonus vignette which is a fancy word for something......

"Oh my god, you keep delivering the best lines that I can't blog because the context would be either too weird, too obscure or too embarrassing to explain."

He tossed me a glance over his shoulder.  "You're a writer. You'll figure it out."

What a wicked thing to say.

Nevertheless, he's right. Probably. But how can I set up the joke that ends with the punchline "Breast milk makes me gassy?"

Has summer started for you? What does that mean anyway? 

Tangled up

"The French called this time of day “l’heure bleue.” To the English it was “the gloaming,” the glimmer, the glisten, the glamour — carrying in its consonants the images of houses shuttering, gardens darkening, grass-lined rivers slipping through the shadows.”


“Did I believe the blue nights could last forever?”

During my commute, I'm listening to the audio version of Joan Didion's Blue Nights.

Dear lord, what was I thinking? Yes, it's beautifully written and Joan Didion is the quintessential dry-eyed sob sister, or as John Banville wrote in his review in the New York Times, a connoisseur of catastrophe. But holy gut punches. Between her daughter's death and Joan's aging, I may find the compulsion to drive the car over an embankment on Georgia Highway 61 too much to resist.

Highway 61 - See how easy it could be?

At first, the memoir irritated me with its name dropping and product placement. I almost gave up on it.

Related, but not entirely, it turns out...One of the reasons I don't read chick-lit is because I cannot stand all the references to designers. It's my own version of reverse snobbery because I don't know one designer for another. I mean, to even name a designer, except for the really ubiquitous ones, I 'd have to Google something like "Who are the hot fashion designers in 2012."

Which I fruitlessly did. So I gave up.

The point is what may impress some who enjoy hearing the details of what it's like to eat off the very special and expensive plates of some high society matron sounds like so much blah, brag, blah to me. Yes, it's cool that Joan and her husband John Gregory Dunne lived in the rarefied air they did, but if I'm trying to relate to the story of discovery and loss, etc. you're losing me, Joan. We're not connecting.

In fact, the Chanel suits, the two batiste Christening gowns (gifts both!) for the baby Quintana Roo, the bassinet from Saks, Quintana's introduction to caviar at age five, and the trips to movie sets are obstacles for me. I can't hear what you're trying to say because you keep placing all these status barriers between your story and me, the reader.

I slid the audio book under the car seat (DO NOT PUT IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT) and went back to chewing the inside of my cheek while listening to the radio and gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly.

I eventually reconsidered and extracted the audio book from beneath the seat. But note, I was doing this selfishly. The truth is, I couldn't listen to one more political story, my favorite music station was playing too much Sting and the old time radio classics station was airing westerns which I just couldn't appreciate as I creeped along in traffic that a horse-drawn wagon could lap. Plus I had a serious need to pee.

I'm glad I retrieved the book from car interior oblivion because whether it was my mood or a shift in the story arc, I was able to eventually find connection, to let myself be pulled into the words unraveling the very human endeavors of growing old and losing loved ones.

The dying part was particularly hard because I cannot, will not imagine that one of my children could die before I do.

Ah. The truth making itself known whether I want to acknowledge it or not.

Perhaps I was looking for an excuse to not listen to Blue Nights. Maybe I didn't want to be exposed to such heartbreak. I was afraid of experiencing secondhand Joan's pain, no matter how beautifully written.

My own weakness laid bare in a 1995 Toyota Celica. Not pretty.

“When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.”

Of all the things I fear - the death of my children is the thing I fear most. That's not a badge of honor, a sign of my devotion, a measure of my depth of love for those three human beings who are part me, part MathMan and mostly inconvenient and expensive. Rather, it's because I'm a big pussy who does not ever want to have confirmed just how weak she is when it comes to her children.

What other kinds of things do I shield my fragile bits, the raw nerves from? My disdain for status statements is easy to discern if I give it a moment's thought. I hate status issues because they force me to admit my failures. According to the Laws of Capitalism, I am a spectacular failure. This is something I'm keenly aware of, again in relation to my children and what I haven't been able to do for them.

My inability to achieve financial security and success is a noose with which I hang myself often. For all the things I could offer my children, financial security seems to be the most valued by our society. If you can't provide it, you are punished in oh so many ways. Which means your children are punished, as well. That knowledge tends to negate many of the good things that don't come with a price tag.

It's cold comfort, but what I'm finding in Joan's story is that even when you are in the position to give your children everything and more, you still will not be able to protect them from everything. Real security cannot be purchased, cannot be banished by privilege, connections or a healthy bank account. The best healthcare money can buy remains useless in the face of certain death.

Yesterday evening, MathMan and I drove home after having dinner out. A rare moment of quiet, contentment, no conversation needed. The light over the hills and across the open fields was blue. Blue night. Blue nights.

I noticed it, broke the comfortable silence to remark on it, realized I'd always noticed it.

My Funny Valentine

MathMan and I are not Valentines Day people. Rebels against most pop culture, we're too busy lamenting the crumbling of our culture as evidenced by Toddlers and Tiaras and Dance Moms to concern ourselves with the hearts and flowers pushed from every angle during the lead up to that special day. We have no use for forced sentimentality. No candlelit dinners. No reenactments of gauzy images from the engagement planning Pinterest boards of single, young women who haven't been scoured clean of romantic notions by reality.

The most romantic Valentines Day we ever shared we didn't actually share. It was 1990. I sat in a Bennigan's on Michigan Avenue drinking beer and sharing mozzarella cheese sticks with a co-worker while Mathman drove three hours through a raging blizzard from the Northwest Side of Chicago to downtown. It may have actually been four hours. Or six. I can't remember because the number grows with every telling of the story. He plowed on through, creeping past abandoned cars and stranded drivers. 

That's love. Intrepid. Determined.Who knew the chains I clamped to his heart were better than snow tires? When he finally arrived in the sparkling fairyland of a snow smothered downtown Chicago, I threw my arms around him and hollered something like "Oh, Pa! You made it through the storm and you brought me some calico, too!" 

He clicked his tongue at the pair of snow-caked horses and turned the wagon toward Lincoln Avenue so we could get home before daylight.

This year, however, I'm going to surprise MathMan by making a big deal out of Valentine's Day. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm probably even going to shower.

Little does he know, he's doing his part, too. He's buying me this book.  In it there's an essay by Suzy who has this post about the book. This is one of my favorite posts by her because it gives you a sense of how she developed her sense of humor and great comedic timing.

And since I'm going to be so happy to get this book as my Valentine's Day gift, you can be assured that MathMan's gift is going to be one that leaves a smile on his face, too.

What's your favorite Valentines Day memory?

It's not a message written in the dark or some truth that no one sees

This is the book I'm reading right now and the description from the author's website:

Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery O’Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia.  Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the wedding of a family friend.

Cookie Himmel embodies every facet of Southern womanhood that Flannery lacks: she is revered for her beauty and grace; she is at the helm of every ladies’ organization in town; and she has returned from her time in Manhattan with a rich fiancée, Melvin Whiteson. 

Melvin has come to Milledgeville to begin a new chapter in his life, but it is not until he meets Flannery that he starts to take a good, hard look at the choices he has made.  Despite the limitations of her disease, Flannery seems to be more alive than other people, and Melvin is drawn to her like a moth to a candle flame.

Melvin is not the only person in Milledgeville who starts to feel that life is passing him by.  Lona Waters, the dutiful wife of a local policeman, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home.  As Lona spends her days sewing curtains, she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to truly live, and she seizes it with both hands

Heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human, these ordinary and extraordinary people chart their own courses in life. In the aftermath of one tragic afternoon, they are all forced to look at themselves and face up to Flannery’s observation that the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

Some lines that I would highlight were this not a library book:

 Melvin liked the idea that something he told Flannery might appear in a book. His life was a messy compilation of moments that didn't fit together. If Flannery wove them into a narrative, they would have cohesion and significance. He would be able to read about himself and all that was inexplicable in real life would be explained.

The music that has my attention this morning.

 

What does one have to do with the other?

Please feel free to discuss. There are no right or wrong answers.

30 Day Photography Challenge - 13 Things

First I took a photo of myself with thirteen books that meant something to me.

Okay now that I got that out of the way, here's one where you can actually see the books and not simply the narcissist with the camera and a mad penchant for photo editing.

1. Steven King's On Writing given to me by Lola Sharp.

2. The 3 a.m. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley, a gift from Kirie.

3. Trouble De Ville by Steve Denton who has also published the graphic novel Hip Deep Mountain High.

4. Do Not Disturb - Hotel Sex Stories, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. My friend Lillian Ann Slugocki has a deliciously erotic story included.

5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. One of my favorite stories ever.

6. The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. Writer's crush does not even begin to describe it.

7. Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees. This book and Betsy's blog opened up a whole new world of friends to me and I'm forever grateful.

8. The Pat Hobby Stories by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I can still see myself reading these as I munched a turkey on rye with lettuce, tomato and mayo in the cafeteria of the Rotary International building in Evanston, Illinois. Back then it never would have occurred to me that I would take an active interest in the writing of screenplays and scripts.

9. Elizabeth Berg's Say When. It's the first of Berg's books I read. I have quite the collection now. 

10. The Art of Table Dancing by DC Stanfa. Pee your pants funny. DC does things I only wish I had the gonads to do.

11. The Preacher's Bride by Jody Hedlund. As a sore-headed agnostic, I am clearly not the target market for this book, but I was lucky enough to win this from Jody's blog and by page three, was a fan. Between topnotch research and wonderful prose, Jody writes the kind of historical fiction that has broad appeal.

12. The New Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie. It's full of detail about the novels and the movies. And Christie's relationship with her characters.

13. Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I love Roth's novels. This one knocked my sandals off.

And then I had an email exchange with Randal who gave me an idea. He asked if I'd be photographed with thirteen bags of kitty litter? While that would have mass appeal, I'm sure, I don't have thirteen bags of litter hanging around. (I wish!) I thought about other items I could photograph myself with, but ended up dismissing them mostly because I didn't have 13 of this or that.

1. Thirteen cats. (We're six short and I intend to keep it that way.)
2. Thirteen sex toys. (Where would I hide that many?)
3. Thirteen clean towels. (It is to dream.)
4. Thirteen whistles. (I wish I had thirteen whistles!)
5. Thirteen vintage cars. (Alas I am not Jay Leno.)
6. Thirteen jars of olives. (Not even on my best stockpiling trips did I snag that many jars of olives!)
7. A baker's dozen of donuts. (Come one, like they'd survive past the first photo intact?)

Having hit all those brick walls, I went with this which I fondly call The Writer's Life. The sound I was making was like a cross between the yowling the cats make when I don't feed them fast enough and Fran Drescher's laugh.

Geoffrey makes glorious sounds. Please go and tell him that his butt looks fine.
Summer offers swoon worthy sunsets. SWOONWORTHY.

Care and Feeding

Photo: Lisa Golden

Thanks to those of you who have donated toward the care and feeding of Kitty Noir. You're wonderful. So far KN has no new home, but he has found a place on top of the antique radio where he likes to sleep. His presences is still causing a stir, but we've been through this before. Eventually, everyone settles into a timeshare routine and we move on.

I'm taking the day off from writing here so that I can work on my manuscript and catch up on some reading. Now I have to decide which book to read today because I've started two at the same time. Bad habit, I know.

Source

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury or The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff.

Source

What are you reading?