Category Archives: Books

The Reason For A Team Meeting

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Filed under Books, Memoir, Plays

I am not exactly a model of discipline or moderation or even a consistent laundry schedule, so the standard ‘Time To Make A Resolution’ does not hold a lot of appeal. It’s just not realistic. For starters, making resolutions involves making a list, and then keeping resolutions involves finding the damn list after immediately misplacing it, so we can all agree this is a system that is riddled with opportunities for failure. Besides, when focusing on my shortcomings, mere resolutions don’t begin to address what needs addressing. I need the kind of motivation that involves someone blowing a whistle in my face at 5AM and calling me a maggot. I am absolutely not going to let anyone do that, because anyone who does that is getting punched, and that judge told me the next time I punch someone I “risk incarceration”. I need solutions that don’t involve having to locate lost objects or put innocent drill sergeants in harm’s way.

I really do dream of getting my shit together, though, and what with resolutions being boring and/or violent, I need alternative inspiration avenues. When it comes time to make life improvements, it’s a better idea to look around to find people who are good at life. Why reinvent the wheel when you can mimic the best? I want iconic trendsetters, people who know how to get it done with style and panache. Like all my problems, I am solving this with books, and with those criteria, it was pretty easy to come up with a short list of candidates and choose my life coaches. Noël Coward and Shonda Rhimes, congratulations. You can start immediately.
You: two feels like overkill
Me: one to coach me
You: ok
Me: and one to look for my lost resolutions list

Noël Coward (1899-1973) was a brilliant playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, and cabaret performer. You know, because well-rounded. His sly wit and deft wordplay largely defined British theater in the period between the world wars. Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Design For Living-Coward’s plays are about grownups doing provocative things. In his personal life, Coward was was an enthusiastic and prolific letter writer and The Letters Of Noël Coward, edited by Barry Day, captures Coward’s correspondence in all its intimate, bitchy, blisteringly smart style. His letters are endlessly entertaining, gossipy, and loaded with Coward’s razor-sharp humor, and they give the impression that Coward was always on his way from having a great time on his way to have another great time.  In fact, he is such a good salesman that after reading this book I have a longing to be British in the 1920s. As a runner up, I would take being British in the 1890s too, but I would not want to be British in the 1980s because my hair never would have done that Princess-Diana-Simon-LeBon bang swoop that was so critical to social success.
Me: I would like to be British
England: Qualifications?
Me: I can pronounce Worchestershire sauce
England: Anything else?
Me: I’ve been drunk at Heathrow
England: pass

Shonda Rhimes creates, writes, and produces some of the most compelling television you’re probably watching. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, Private Practice—at some point listing all her shows out loud in one sentence became too exhausting for everyone so now her creative genius is collectively referred to as ShondaLand. In the middle of kicking ass all over Thursday night network TV, she published Year of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person (2015). Wildly successful in her writing and show development, Rhimes found herself retreating by inches to hide behind her work, essentially disappearing from her own life. Year of Yes describes her epiphany about her invisibility and recounts how she methodically overcomes her inhibitions. Using the word yes as her password, she completely renegotiates how she interacts with the world. The book’s rapid-fire, staccato style captures Rhimes’ joy as she opens up and finds her place in the sun. I want to be Rhimesish almost as much as I want to be British.
Me: I would like to be Rhimesish
Shondaland: Qualifications?
Me: I know how to spell anatomy
ShondaLand: Anything else?
Me: my favorite color is grey
ShondaLand: pass

duran_duran_1

The bang game is strong.

When I get right down to it, I have gravity problems. That’s right-my issues are scientific. I will dig a rut, fall into it, and whine myself into a state of slug-izontal. Random resolutions don’t have enough in the tractor beam to break me out of my self-induced inertia. My big ideas begin with figuring out how I can sleep late and end with figuring out how I can justify cheese fries for lunch. Giving myself a pep talk doesn’t get results because I can easily buy myself off with more cheese fries. What really fires my rockets?  Cadging someone else’s gumption. It’s ultimately a question of perspective. Imagining trying to justify my slothy ass to Team Coward-Rhimes, cheese fries suddenly lose their luster.
Cheese fries: was it something I said
Me: it’s not you, it’s me
Cheese fries: I can add chili
Me: I hope we can be friends

My favorite Noël Coward play is Private Lives (1930). Private Lives is a comedy of manners about Amanda Prynne and Elyot Chase, a divorced couple married to new people and struggling with infidelity. Well, the kind of infidelity that occurs when you find yourself on your honeymoon with your new spouse in a suite next door to your old spouse who is with HIS new spouse and then you realize you really still want your old spouse so you ditch the new spouses and pull a spouseappearing act. The characters are British hot messes who suffer through their collective crises impeccably dressed and with perfect comic timing.  Amanda Prynne knows there will be fallout when she re-elopes with her first hushand on her second honeymoon, but she’s going for it. Shonda Rhimes chronicles the same philosophy (non-fiction version with 100% fewer extra spouses) in Year of Yes. You don’t get an option to stop the clock, so you might as well get off the couch, fling on a classy outfit and enjoy the ride. OOOOH and speak in a British accent while you are at it.
England: NO
Me: just a little one?
England: accent appropriation not approved
Me: English alliteration is excellent

I’m not making a list of resolutions, but I am resolute. I’ll try new stuff and try to be better at my old stuff, and when I need a good shove I’ll look to my Dream Role Model Team. I’ll read Noel Coward’s letters detailing how he worked as a British intelligence agent during WWII. (Yeah—in addition to all the other stuff, he took up intelligence work. WELL-ROUNDED). When I’m working up my nerve to do something that’s a little scary, I’ll conjure my best Shonda Rhimes-making-a-speech attitude, and suddenly I’ll start tossing my hair and screaming ‘BRING IT ON’. It’s not that I want to be my role models–I just need to borrow their brilliance every once in while. I promise to return it in original pristine condition.
#teamhellyes

Action Items
Here is a round-up of all things Noël Coward, including a link to a performance of Private Lives
Here is a round-up of all the ways you can read Year of Yes

The Reason For All The Formats

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Filed under Books, Ghost Story, Mystery

If you are an author who sets your books in Victorian London and your first name is Charles, I have a special section on my bookshelf just for you. Granted, it’s a niche genre, but it’s not that crowded yet so now is the time to make your move if you’ve been considering a name change and a literary specialty. If that isn’t enough to entice you, maybe I should tell you a little bit about the company you’d be keeping. Take a close look at my cool authors shelf, population Charles Dickens and Charles Finch. (On Wednesdays, they wear pink.)

Victorian London is a wonderfully elastic world in which to set a book- by turns atmospheric and grand, violent and sexy. The tension that results from the convergence of Industrial Age modernity and monarchical rigidity is a forceful backdrop. Plus, the wardrobes are on point.
Victorian London: what is it about me that’s so awesome
Colonial America: maybe the top hats
Victorian London: i serve steamed suet for dessert
Colonial America: it’s definitely the top hats

Charles Dickens’ poignant ghost story A Christmas Carol has Victorian London street cred. Dickens drew on his own life experience in his writing, having been a poor child who worked in a blacking factory. As a successful author, his storytelling served as a platform for him to articulate his arguments about the impact of crippling poverty, class injustice, and the need for social reform. He self-published A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the rest is past, present and future. “Bah, Humbug” entered the English language and Scrooge achieved the kind of one-word name recognition that would one day be shared by Beyoncé and Liberace.
Charles Dickens: Goals: codify the meaning of Christmas for generations in one short book
Charles Dickens: (publishes A Christmas Carol)
Charles Dickens: nailed it

Over there on the shelf, to the right of the multiple copies of A Christmas Carol, are the books in the Charles Lenox historical mystery series by Charles Finch. A Beautiful Blue Death introduces Charles Lenox, amateur gentleman detective, wealthy enough to pursue his passion as a hobby but also wealthy enough for his passion to be tolerated by his social circle. (Oh, Victorian London, you and your insufferable class snobbery.) Lenox is sharply intelligent and remarkably intuitive, and his determination and drive are the core of the appeal of the books.
Charles Finch: Goals: publish an award-nominated debut historical mystery novel
Charles Finch: (publishes A Beautiful Blue Death)
Charles Finch: nailed it

According to every car commercial aired between 12/1-12/31 and all 4,324 Christmas movies on Lifetime, the month of December guarantees joys are magnified, memories are made, and problems are solved with a quick application of some Magic Of The Season. Sometimes, that is real life, but December has a way of magnifying all the opposites too. Losses are more resonant. Endings are more heartbreaking. The boomerang between the highs and the lows tuckers me out. Inevitably, there comes a moment in December when I need to shake off all the heightened, frantic expectations and when that moment comes, I’m selecting a favorite from the Charleses shelf for a solid re-reading chill session.  I never get tired of Ebenezer Scrooge throwing off the weight of a lifetime of grief. I never get tired of Charles Lenox’s clever perserverance. I never get tired of imagining myself navigating the streets of Victorian London in a top hat.
Victorian London: seriously?
Colonial America: told you
Victorian London: what about sewage? got lots of that
Colonial America: sticking with the hats

QV in a top hat

Queen Victoria in a top hat. Aesthetic: monarch meta.

If you’ve ever asked me for book recommendation, you’ve heard me talk about the Charleses. (Charleseses? Charlesi.) Also, if you’ve ever asked me for a book recommendation, I am so sorry, and I hope you have recovered. You were unprepared to be utterly swamped by a tsunami of pure booknerd glee. I should have warned you that I am positively evangelical about books I like. If you ask me for recommendations while you are in my undecorated house, I am going to take the book I want you to read off my shelf and press it into your hands while I describe in detail why I love it so much. You poor thing. Just nod and take it; I really can’t help myself. It’s because of my lack of bibliophilic boundaries that I buy the same books over and over again. When I need to spend some time re-reading, I’ll hit up my shelf only to find that the book I want isn’t there. Buying the same books every 18-24 months will really throw off Amazon’s recommendation algorithm.
Amazon: Did you enjoy A Beautiful Blue Death
Me: Yes!
Amazon: Then we recommend A Beautiful Blue Death
Me: I’ll take it

I’ve laid in some emergency formats for the inevitable days that my shelf presents a Charleses (Charlsises. Charlers?) gap. I picked up A Christmas Carol on audiobook this year to go with my hardback illustrated special edition and paperback. I own A Beautiful Blue Death in  paperback and digital and just replaced the hardback (for the third time). When I’m ready to enjoy a favorite, I want to enjoy it however how I can in the moment I have available. Sometimes, that’s e-reading in a waiting room. Sometimes it’s a hardback on a lazy morning or an audiobook on a long drive. And sometimes, I want to enjoy it by pressing a copy into someone else’s hands.

On December days when the edges are ragged and the strings are strung tight, I am comforted by Charleses and the vision of top hats on a busy Victorian London street. Scrooge forgives the world that took his beloved sister. Charles Lenox tracks down West End thugs and Hyde Park racketeers. Souls are saved before it’s too late. There’s redemption and there’s justice. I’m reading something that has an ending I know, because all the endings I don’t know are looming a little too large. Maybe, when you asked me what you should read, I really heard you ask for a good ending. I get it. Here’s a Charles.
#chuckwagon

Action Items
Charles Finch just published the ninth book in the Lenox series, Home By Nightfall. 
Patrick Stewart’s audio version of A Christmas Carol is marvelous.

The Reason I Check Under The Bed

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Filed under Books, Fiction, Short stories

Diving into Stephen King’s world means making a lot of sacrifices. Peace of mind, a full night’s sleep, inability to walk by a sewer manhole cover without shuddering in fear—you give up all these things when you read his books. Upon reflection (and I have an actual reflection, in a mirror, because I’m not a vampire, trust me because I check all the time thanks to Salem’s Lot) it’s apparent to me that I am on permanent terror alert because Stephen King has messed with my head.

King’s body of work is rife with brilliant examples of benign takedowns: surface perfection lulls you in, seduces you, then tries to steal your soul or hijack your brain or at the very least disfigure you. He’s so good at it, and he’s scared me so many times, that I have diagnosed myself with Post-Traumatic King Disorder.  It, where an bucolic all-American small town is a front for a hungry spider. The efficient, banal government officials destroying minds and lives in Firestarter. The solid New England Victorian-house-with-a-view in Pet Sematary. King will jack with what you trust and laugh while he does it and he probably has a really creepy laugh and now I have to go make sure there’s nothing waiting to bite my legs off hiding under the table one sec BRB.

Mechanical Terror I honestly don’t know what happened to Stephen King when he was learning to drive because in the Kingverse, cars are out to get you. When I took Driver’s Ed I practiced going over railroad tracks and finding the hazard lights button on the dashboard. In Stephen King’s Driver’s Ed class, apparently he practiced cyborg mechanics and demon possession. Is that what you have to know to operate a Class I Vehicle in Maine? I haven’t trusted a car since Christine, the novel about a car who goes on a vendetta-fueled killing spree to punish her owner’s tormentors. Or  the short story “Trucks” (vehicles come to life and try to make the world a better place HAHAHAHA just kidding they drive over people for sport and turn survivors into fuel slaves). Thanks to Stephen King every car I see has a distinct air of menace. If I see headlights flicker, forget it. I need a drink and a nap to recover from the trauma. Stephen King is the reason that I lobby AAA to add a Roadside Demon Exorcism service.
AAA: hi, what is your car emergency?
Me: my Ford Focus keeps going to karaoke bars
AAA: that seems pretty harmless
Me: IT’S ALL MICHAEL BOLTON SONGS
AAA: a Lounge Demon! we’re sending a team immediately

Furry Terror In the Kingverse, there’s lots of wonderful animals who aren’t trying to eat and/or kill you. And then there’s the mutated rat kingdom in “Graveyard Shift”, which absolutely is trying to eat and/or kill you. Since reading this story, if I make eye contact with a rat I try to smile in a way that says “Please don’t come into my house, restrain me, and drag me to your underground lair so you can eat my extremities.” Thanks a lot, Stephen King. You’ve turned me into a crazy person who tries to make reassuring, non-edible eye contact with rats. My other King-induced animal trauma is a reasonable post-Cujo reaction: AVOID ST. BERNARDS. Naturally, I cancelled all my ski trips to the Swiss Alps.
Switzerland: hello, what is your Alps emergency?
Me: tell the Matterhorn I’m out
Switzerland: what if we offer you free Gruyere
Me: no deal my fondue pot is broken
Switzerland: a Cheese Demon! we’re sending a team immediately

KingMe

If you feel scared, look at this picture of stuffed animals on a pillow covered with cat pictures (NOT MADE OF ACTUAL CATS)

Invisible Terror You know how sometimes you get an itchy patch and you scratch it and it turns out you’re the host for a murderous alien life form, hahaha? That is the kind of hilarity you can expect out of the short story collection Night Shift. Or the laugh riot that is The Stand, where Stephen King forces you to ponder the question “What if everyone gets the exact same virus cold thing at the exact same time and dies, torpedoing key planet infrastructure?” Y’all—I did NOT pay attention that one semester I took Home Ec. I don’t know how to can or sew or color my own hair. I don’t have any viral apocalypse grooming skills actually. Therefore, I have a mild anxiety attack every time I sneeze. Or if anyone sneezes or feels tired or behaves slightly out of character. As an alert citizen, I make sure that the authorities always know about suspicious situations.
CDC: hi, what is your disease emergency?
Me: i just saw a viral video
CDC: can’t actually make you sick
Me: IT WAS HOTLINE BLING
CDC: Drake! we’re sending a team immediately

Indiscriminate Terror This is actually a terror PSA for you. This is the seemingly harmless, but actually near-fatal scenario: You run into me at the grocery store. It’s July and you notice I’m wearing fuzzy snowflake-patterned pajama pants and an old Hootie and the Blowfish tshirt. You greet me heartily. I answer you, but you sense something is just a little off. A small, uneasy feeling takes root in your stomach. Glancing into my basket, you see barbeque potato chips, a vat of french onion dip, a 6-pack of Lima-A-Ritas and a jumbo box of Tampax.
You. Are. In. Danger. Follow your instincts. Don’t make eye contact. Back away slowly. Abandon your cart and get the hell out. Shit is about to get real in a Godzilla-Tokyo kind of way.
Godzilla: Mothra hold my earrings
Mothra: ‘Zilla why you trippin
Godzilla: I ate four cupcakes and I feel bloated and Tokyo looked at me funny
Mothra: PMS makes women so irra-
Godzilla: (eats Mothra)(burps fire)
#kingme

Action Items
Stephen King’s son Joe Hill is also very good at scaring the hell out of you. Read Heart-Shaped Box but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Reason Good Things Come In Threes

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Filed under Books, Fiction

I don’t want to shock you, but I am not a professional book reviewer. It’s hard to tell because of all the profanity and sloppy grammar. I am not sought out by respected book-centered publications to share my book-centered insights. I KNOW RIGHT? Fuckers. In truth, it’s a very good thing, because I am the last person on the planet who should review any newly published book. I have a bit of a problem, shall we say, being succinct. When I’m excited about a book, I don’t want to deliver a high-level, erudite overview.  I accelerate to Mach 10 Fangirl and no detail is too unimportant for me to exhaustively examine. It’s not that I’m trying to ruin your personal reading reveals, it’s that I have no filter combined with the blind exuberance of a Labrador. Usually, by the time I’m done, you don’t need to read the book. Like Twitter during a new episode of The Walking Dead, I am gonna spoil everything.
Me: the dish ran away with the spoon
World: wth you told me the ending?
Me: SO COOL RIGHT

The book I want badly to spoil for you today but I won’t because DISCIPLINE is Kitchens Of The Great Midwest (Viking / Pamela Dorman Books) by J. Ryan Stradal. This book is California-based Stradal’s first novel, and it’s really good, so in all likelihood it will not be his last. In about five years I am going to have to revise this post to include mentions of his two or three equally successful follow-up novels. Frankly, that’s irksome because in five years I planned to be in London on location shooting my Christmas special with guest stars Imagine Dragons and Hannah Hart but whatever. Way to jack my production schedule, J. Ryan Stradal. At any rate, Kitchens of the Great Midwest perfectly juggles a large cast of wonderfully realized characters who enter, exit, and overlap in ever-expanding and ever-shrinking concentric circles centered around Minnesota’s contemporary food culture. I loved reading it and I can’t hold back—MUST MAKE TALK ABOUT KITCHEN BOOK. I’m like Michael Myers. You can shoot me, blow me up, and set me on fire, but I keep showing back up to discuss symbolism and exposition and story structure. I’m an invincible monster not from this world. Fortunately, I am also an inventive genius, because I have hit on a way to go DEFCON 1 with enthusiasm without spoiling. (*bows, graciously accepts MacArthur Grant*)
Me: I’d like to apply for a patent
Patent office: what did you invent
Me: a way to not spoil a book
Patent office: shutting up is not an invention

Plot, point of view, and character development? Spoiler quicksand. But sentences—nice, juicy, standalone sentences-deliver the flavor and feeling of a book without giving away anything. A perfectly structured sentence gives me a case of the vapors. Those sentences that just scream “LOOK AT ME! I’M SO DAMN QUOTABLE!” Yes, you are quotable, you precious little nugget. Come here so I can watercolor you onto some stiff paper. Kitchens of the Great Midwest has lots of perfect sentences. I e-read it and I highlighted (highlit? Highlightered.) so many passages it looks like I had a lipstick fight with my Kindle. I’m sharing three of my non-spoiler favorites. Sentences are the burlesque dancers of my book review strip show—provocative while revealing nothing.

(1)Lars had also grown to become a little wizard in the kitchen, and by his unintentionally mastering the tragic hobby of lutefisk preparation, its potency was skyrocketing.
There should be a word for “being pissed about getting really good at something you never wanted to do in the first place, like making lutefisk”. Actually there probably is a word in German for that, but until we derive one in English, I nominate the phrase “tragic hobby” because it captures that feeling so aptly. I will go even further and suggest that any time I use “tragic hobby”, it should be accompanied by a sad trombone riff. Also, until reading this book, I was ignorant of how lutefisk is prepared. It was a cool thing to learn and I don’t ever want to eat it ever thanks.
Musician: I’m here for the tragic hobby auditions
Me: what are you playing today
Musician: “Walking On Sunshine”
Me: did you even read the job description

(2)They were generous in the way of people running a garage sale who give things away to the folks who come at the end.
Ah, convenient generosity. I love this line in no small part because I PERSONALLY HAVE DONE THIS. I didn’t give the stuff away because I wanted to be generous though. I was too lazy to want to move all my crap back inside. So change “generous” to “lazy” and you have summed up my character and now I am in a shame spiral.
Book: way to make that all about you
Me: I’m using contrast to highlighter the sentence genius
Book: you manufactured a shame spiral so you could drink wine
Me: (takes long sip, nods thoughtfully)

(3)In the Fellowship Hall, a skinny woman in an impertinent white summer dress—no sleeves, low neck, and a cut above the knee-threw an ivory cotton tablecloth over a folding table.
Is there ever a way to win when you’re meeting a new group for the first time? It doesn’t matter how hard you try. You thought you dressed appropriately, but it turns out you’re getting brazen hussy all over the tablecloths. It is really hard to get brazen hussy out of polyester. You have to use holy water and baking soda.
Musician:  do the sad noise now?
Me: yes that would—dude is that an accordion
Musician: yes. for extra sadness
Me: you are so hired

Kitchens of the Great Midwest is an absorbing, charming read. It’s satisfying not just for its perfect sentences, but for elements like the main character that—um, no. Okay so there’s this big dinner party that happens because….ok. Not that either. There is a hilarious skewering of hipster food culture in a…CRAP. NOPE TIME TO STAB ME AND LEAVE ME IN A CLOSET. By all means: assume I’m dead. That worked out for Jamie Lee Curtis.
#sentenced

 

lutefisk

I skipped the first step.

Action items

 

Skip the lutefisk at Thanksgiving

 

The Reason To Order The Special

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Filed under Books, Essays, Non-Fiction

I don’t like to brag, but I am really good at going to restaurants. For example, I can figure out where the bathroom is without even asking. I know to choose the side of the table that puts my back to the wall so I can immediately spot assassination attempts. If I am sitting at the bar, I order a drink that complements my outfit. I’ll stop with all these great specifics because I don’t want you to feel sad about your own inferior restaurant skills. Okay…one more. My BEST restaurant skill is that I always order the special. I’ll even order fish on a Monday because I’m brave like that. I LIKE SALMON AND I GIVE ZERO FUCKS.

Restauranting (a real verb that I just made up) is something that I’ve dedicated hours and hours to perfecting, primarily because at restaurants they cook stuff for you when you ask and then they take way your dishes so you don’t have to wash them and that always seems like a good idea to me. It took a while to get good at it, and I made some training mistakes. Lucky for me I picked the right mentor, someone I looked up to, someone I wanted to be. Someone who was not just good at restaurants, but good at life-M.F.K. Fisher.

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher’s body of work chronicles an American woman’s coming of age in the first half of the 20th century: childhood in rural California, falling in love, experiencing life through two world wars, three marriages, and extensive travel. The Notorious MFK lived on her own terms. She is categorized as a food writer, and that’s (maybe) fair, because she published cookbooks, translated Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology Of Taste, and riddled her writing with recipes. For me, though, her work is a bold, sensual exploration of human desires – food, love, sex, curiosity – through the prism of eating.

I was browsing in a bookstore when I came across a collection of M.F.K. Fisher’s works, The Art Of Eating. I have the same problem in bookstores that I have in libraries, in that I’m incapable of editing the stack. If I put it on the stack, I already own it. That’s made for some regrettable, er, interesting purchases, as well as some truly startling credit card balances. I’d never heard of M.F.K. Fisher but the book was on a shelf at the end of the aisle and books merchandised on endcaps are my Kryptonite. The Art Of Eating (1954) is a compilation of essays previously published in five other books (Serve it Forth, Consider the Oyster, How to Cook a Wolf, The Gastronomical Me and An Alphabet for Gourmets.) I tore through it and my hands-down, runaway favorite was the radical, slightly perverse, and rivetingly humorous essay “Define This Word” from The Gastronomical Me (1947). It is my jam. (YAY FOOD JOKE)  In “Define This Word”, M.F.K. Fisher describes a meal that she had in 1936 in rural France while on a hot, tiring, day-long country walk. Stopping for lunch at a highly rated but deserted restaurant in the spring off-season, she is the object of the full, unsettling attention of the restaurant’s sole waitress. The waitress, recognizing in her customer a rarefied palate, colludes with the unseen but talented chef  to launch a full-out gourmet assault with an endless parade of French deliciousness that almost puts M.F.K. under. The story is a battle of wills between two strong-minded and like-minded women and in it M.F.K. demonstrates the very essence of Restaurant Confidence.

Restaurant anxiety is a real thing. All of the primary hungers intersect there, magnified by the virtue of being on display. Just ask anyone navigating a first dinner date. Who doesn’t relate to Melissa McCarthy eating the hand towels in front of Jude Law in Spy? Ok, I don’t, I’ve never eaten a hand towel in a restaurant or even in the privacy of my own home. The point is, restaurant behavior and etiquette expectations can be a trap, waiting to spring and make you look like a rube with an uncontrollable fabric fetish. I loved “Define This Word”, but it made me cringe, because there was some painful truth in there about self-possession. I saw a lot of opportunity to improve how I was going about my business. Let’s just say I had substituted confidence with narcissism, I had a PhD in self-centered hyperawareness, and had done my thesis on Me In Restaurants. It took dedication to make the food ordering process all about me but I had succeeded admirably. “How can I, too, make this otherwise neutral business transaction all about me?”, you ask? It’s simple. Through magical thinking, assign social acceptance rankings to all of the dishes on the menu. Then, obsessively try to choose the dish that aligns with your waiter’s values so that he/she LIKES YOU. Remember, if you get it wrong, you’re a bad person.
Menu: I gots some killer groceries tonight
Me: omg omg omg freaking out
Menu: What?
Me: What projects supreme likability, chicken or lamb?
Menu: Seriously? Weirdo.
Me: Not helping, menu
Menu: Order some Nobody Cares

Wanting to be liked isn’t the worst thing to want. Wanting to be liked so much you use a menu as a Magic 8 ball? Time for a get-over-yourself bat upside the head. My reaction when reading “Define This Word” was “SHE WALKED INTO A RESTAURANT ALONE TO EAT ALONE BY HERSELF ALONE IN A RESTAURANT ALONE?” It was a novel idea that there was a level of emotional maturity that elevated beyond ME being at the center of everything. Walk into a restaurant alone to eat by myself on purpose? Why not just walk naked into a math test that I forgot to study for and have to borrow a pencil from a guy I have a crush on?
Menu: Crazy, party of one, your table is ready
Me: Shut up
Menu: You know self-absorption makes you a dick, right?
Me: Does my hair look ok?
Menu: I give up

The Notorious M.F.K. did not have time for navel-gazing. She was too busy being an authentic badass to strive for inoffensive perfection. Confidence, yo. Confidence is so weird in that it makes you generous. If you aren’t busy reapplying your lipstick in the bathroom, you have time to observe your world. And you know what you are are going to see? Some weird shit. M.F.K. walked across France (alone), sat in a deserted restaurant (alone), and went toe-to-toe with a waitress whose laser focus on her customer’s dining experience made French food culture seem like a carnival funnel cake truck by comparison.

Reading “Define This Word” was a double dog dare challenge. The world around me wants to show me what it can do, not manage my neuroses. It was time to get the fuck over myself. I’m not perfect at this (yeah for example “I” is used in this post at least 15 times, so there’s some work to be done on self-focus, WHATEVER) When I am at a restaurant, I ask myself, What would M.F.K. do? And do you know what she would do? She wouldn’t worry about where her table was. She would not care if the waiter liked her. And she would order the damn special. The chefperson spent time going above and beyond to show off a particular ingredient or dish or technique and that is good enough for me. Show off, Chefperson! I’m going to be a great audience.
Menu: So there’s chicken and—
Me: Gonna have the special
Menu: I wouldn’t for real
Me: Not about me! I said the SPECIAL! Done
Menu: It’s wild boar aspic. We left the bristles on! BWAHAHAHAHAHA
Me: well played, menu

I stand corrected-I do like to brag. I am good at restauranting. While we wait for my artisanal slice of hairy boar jello, let’s sip these fresh cocktails and talk about you for a bit.
#thenotoriousmfk

Action Items
To discover your own Notorious M.F.K. work, start here, here, or head to your local library
See Melissa McCarthy in Spy

The Reason To Circumnavigate

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Filed under Books, Fiction

Due to wine, I ran a 5k in Concord, Massachussetts. Notice I did not say “5k Race”. Other participants were racing. Being neither a natural athlete or a proficient runner, I do not 5k with any designs on competition. My 5k career simply confirms that after two glasses of wine I think I’m capable of anything and am likely to say really dumb stuff like “I’ll sign up for a 5K!” or “I’m starting a blog!” Two glasses of wine is confidence. Three glasses of wine is me demanding hash browns, which goes to prove the old saying “It’s a short distance between confidence and hash browns.”

Concord is a notable location because in the middle of the 19th century, if you were an American writer destined to write Important American Literature, you probably lived here. Or wanted to live here. Or knew people who lived here. I haven’t interviewed all the dead American writers to verify this non-fact but apparently there was a very lovely swim/tennis community with reasonable HOA fees, and that was all it took to get Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott to accept attractive relocation packages and settle in Concord. The result, as everyone knows, is a comprehensive catalog of successful screen adaptations (with the exception of Ralph Waldo Emerson because apparently nobody will greenlight a buddy-cop action version of “Self-Reliance”). Concord is also closely associated with the philosophical movement American transcendentalism, which emphasized spiritual awareness through personal focus on intuition. It’s the third most popular kind of transcendentalism, behind Canadian transcendentalism and Sylvester Stallone movies. For a literary nerdfan, Concord isn’t just a mandatory juice ingredient. It’s a pilgrimage.

The 5k run I found myself “running” is an annual event that benefits The Orchard House, the home where Bronson Alcott settled his family and where his daughter Louisa resided when she wrote her classic of classics, Little Women. Inspired by her own experience, Alcott’s novel chronicles a family’s sacrifices, faith, and devotion to each other as four daughters come of age during the Civil War. It’s charming, moving, and a sweet picture of domestic life. Louisa May Alcott was already a published, prolific author who didn’t really want to write Little Women, but in the way of all things, she is known for Little Women because people are unpredictable jerks who don’t remember you for the stuff you want them to remember you for. The March sisters are beloved by generations of American readers (is there a Buzzfeed “Which March Sister Are You?” quiz? There should be) and Little Women is somewhat of a trancendentalist handbook, stressing self-improvement through good works and self-sacrifice. All that was lost on me, though, because I’ll always know this book (NSFW) as my introduction to house porn. Let’s call it gateway real estate.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. RATED MA-FLOORPLAN.

Little Women makes a strong case for family relying on each other to grow, change, and survive in trying circumstances. Whatever! I first read this book when I was in fourth grade and was completely intoxicated by the descriptions of the houses that made up the Little Women world. I sped through the boring “people talking to each other-plot-exposition blah blah” passages and constantly flipped pages to get to the X-rated parts. You know, where Alcott describes in lurid and explicit detail the layout of a garden. Or a comfortable sofa in front of the fireplace. There was a roomy kitchen from which pies emerged regularly, everpresent kittens, and long, long staircases. Alcott’s New England practically glowed with quaint awesomeness and I wanted to roll around in that glow and get alllll dirty.
Book: I have morals you know
Me: tell the part about Laurie’s foyer again
Book: you are really missing the point here

The March sisters did not have a boring, plain old attic. They had a GARRET. The girls and their friends, in various configurations, frequently retreated to the garret to sulk, cry, analyze the works of Charles Dickens, and engage in other puberty-inspired behaviors. As a child of the suburbs, I felt keenly my drab, non-Federalist-style dwelling. The suburbs didn’t hold geographical inspiration, at least not until John Hughes got ahold of them. I grieved for my lack of opportunity to retreat to a garret to contemplate life’s larger questions. If I wanted to retreat somewhere, the best I could do was close both doors on the Jack-and-Jill bathroom. How was I supposed to suffer life’s larger questions in a Jack-and-Jill bathroom?

Like all beautiful houses, the March house only hung out with beautiful other houses. It was part of the infamous Concord Block Posse, and it included the sprawling mansions of both Aunt March and Laurie Laurence. They rolled like posses do: buying designer sunglasses in bulk, spa days, apple picking parties. The March sisters’ New England country life, with its poverty, chores, and day-to-day routines, was grounded and concrete, but with a slightly surreal, idealized edge. Handy wealthy neighbors, for example, who conveniently cover pesky financial needs whenever emergencies arise. Much like a fairy tale, where everything looks just like the real world – until the mirrors start talking.
Mirror: loved your book
Louisa: thanks
Mirror: when those kids go through the wardrobe to Narnia-wow
Louisa: looks like i’m about to have seven years of bad luck

That pristine, model Little Women domicile lived in my imagination for a long time and became my idea of The Perfect House. I gave unsolicited advice to ranch houses: “You’d be so pretty if you just converted the crawlspace over your garage. I know a guy who does great work, looks totally natural. You’ll never be able to tell you got anything done”. I considered subscribing to House Beautiful (just for the articles).  Going to Concord in person for the first time, I was struck by how much the town resembled my imaginary Little Women world. The route for the run winds through beautiful residential sections and people stood in their yards, cheering on the runners and handing out water. The run begins and ends at Alcott Elementary School and goes past The Orchard House. Louisa May Alcott started her story with her view from her window. She took her intimate sphere and threw it wide, making a universe where her readers could dwell too. It made me appreciate how personal geography shapes what anyone ultimately offers the world, whether it’s a book or a philosophical movement. The March sisters inhabit all of the Alcott sisters’ favorite spaces. New England nurtured transcendentalists. (Trancendentalism would never have begun in Florida, because you can’t make a hard left turn there without hitting an alligator and sinking into a swamp. There are zombie roaches there. It’s difficult to embrace the divinity of the individual when the roach you just thought you killed with a rock is now holding the rock and coming back at you.)
Roach: shit just got real
Me: can’t we hug this out
Roach: you want to hug a roach? ick

Running (OKAY, TRUDGING, I GET IT I’M A BAD RUNNER WHY ARE YOU SO STUCK ON THIS) past Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house, I paused to take a quick break. Looking over the solid squareness of the house, I realized: this is probably exactly where Louisa May Alcott stood to take a break when SHE ran 5ks. It gave me goosebumps. I felt positively transcendental.
#straightouttaconcord

Action items: Run a 5k at Orchard House

The Reason To Let It Snow

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Filed under Books, Non-Fiction

The most underutilized feature in my house is the mantel. Once a year, I will use it to lose something. It does not matter what it is–if I put it on the mantel, I am not going to find it until months later. (BTW it’s kind of awkward when you do this with a cat.) It’s because a lot of the time I forget I even have a mantel. There are lots of things I could be doing with my mantel that I’m not, such as:
-Propping one elbow on the mantel whilst contemplating
I never use my mantel to contemplate because I’d have to take up smoking a pipe and I don’t have time for new hobbies.
-Propping one elbow on the mantel while burning mysterious letters in the fireplace
I’d have to go to all the trouble of building a fire when it’s so much easier to turn on the Fireplace Channel. Also I don’t get mysterious letters since it’s not 1848.
-Propping one elbow on the mantel while I gaze at the portrait over the fireplace
There isn’t a portrait on that wall. Or anywhere. I live in a portrait-free zone.

Truth be told, I don’t think about the mantel at all unless it’s August, because August is when the holidays arrive in my mailbox. August is when the lifestyle book of all lifestyle books is delivered, personally, to me: Christmas with Southern Living. It’s a holiday-centered entertaining/decorating/cookbook that has been produced annually by Southern Living magazine since 1981.  Lushly staged and lovingly photographed, this book solves all the holiday problems I didn’t know I had. The covers alone make me swoon–the signature Southern Living cake headshots (“Look at the camera, gorgeous! Now show me buttercream!”) with mathematically precise slices removed to showcase dreamy multi-colored layers. Because of this book, my Holiday Badass Level is Ninja. SANTA NINJA. I am fully prepared to host a post-tree-trimming hot chocolate party, a New Year’s midnight dessert buffet open house, and a day-after-Thanksgiving pre-shopping breakfast. I can cook for, decorate for, and thematically execute on any kind of holiday mood—Dickensian classic, North Pole merry, or Winter Wonderland frolicking forest. In August, when the new book is delivered, I retreat to spend an hour just flipping through the pages to see what is the latest in turkey basting technique and ornament crafts, but the very FIRST thing I look at is the mantels section.
You: have you ever HAD a hot chocolate party?
Me: hmmmm?
You: tell me about the last turkey you basted
Me: well, it was, um, turkey shaped
You: your halls are decked with boughs of bullshit

Busted. I am not, by any definition, a homey-crafty-decoratey person. My decorating efforts are an endless Pinterest fail. And I don’t even have a Pinterest account. People visiting my house for the first time ask “Did you just move in?” Yup. Eight years ago. Don’t rush me. I’m still basking in the glow of having managed to unpack all the boxes. I don’t want to harsh my buzz by going shopping for stuff like furniture or curtains or dishes. I did procure a new couch recently, having been forced into it because the one I had would shed nails (or bolts or whatever holds a couch together) every time someone sat down on it. It had disintegrated to the point that you could only sit on one half of one cushion right in the middle, and you could only sit upright. NO LEANING BACK. I have a vague sense that legit adults don’t live this way and it is my sincere wish that those legit adults invite me over to their houses so I can spend time with responsible people whose decorating ethic has evolved past Dorm Room 101. Also, if I am not in my own house, I don’t have to worry about decorating it. But when Christmas with Southern Living arrives, I’m flush with the potential to deck the crap out of my halls.

These books are endlessly gorgeous, picture after picture of beautifully styled, inviting rooms, expertly plated food, and homemade placecards. I have the same reaction to these pictures that I have when I see a masterpiece on a museum wall–it’s beautiful, but it’s unattainable beauty, not meant for mortals like me to create. I am perpetually in awe of people with decorating talent. How on earth does someone look at a branch, pine cones, and an ice bucket and come up with “charming centerpiece”? My brain is not wired that way. I have an ice bucket. It’s in a cabinet and the last time I touched it was to move it out of the way to get to a bag of Fritos that had fallen behind it. Christmas with Southern Living gives me hope that one day I’ll gain the ability to use a glue gun without ending up in the emergency room. Well, not “ability” so much as “interest in making an effort”.
Glue gun: wrong end
Me: what? not listening
Glue gun: I know that’s why—
Me: MY FINGERS

As great as everything looks in these books, my absolute favorite are the decorated mantels. There are garlands (fresh greenery, ornaments, homemade stockings) and candlesticks (add beads! Or more greenery! Or ribbon!) and mercury glass. There are shiny abstract tall objects artfully placed next to shorter shiny abstract objects, interspersed with lush branches. There are stocking hooks shaped like letters spelling out cheery holiday words. These mantels radiate a ‘seasonal hospitality’ vibe, which would be a nice change from my mantel’s usual ‘deserted prison parking lot’ vibe. I get excited and sometimes even go so far as to mark a page in the book that has a swagged-out mantel that I particularly like. Then, because it’s August and I am fucking hot, I put the book on the shelf with all the other Christmas with Southern Living books and go turn up the air conditioning. Do you know how much stuff I would have to get to make a magical holiday mantel? I’d have to cash in my 401k just to lay in a base inventory of floral foam.
Book: but adult goals!
Me: can’t, complaining about the heat
Book: look I’m so inspiring
Me: shhhh busy not maturing

Mantel

This mantel looks great. That’s how you know it’s not mine.

Like I do with all my other problems, I am solving this dilemma with books. I am absolutely, positively going full holiday on my own ass. I am getting all my Christmas with Southern Living books off their designated shelf and lining them up on the mantel, right after I move that 4-month-old pile of mail and the Sharpie that I lost last spring. In December, when you come over, I’ll invite you to go through them and find your favorite mantel. Victorian splendor or atomic age retro? Be bold! We’ll prop the book open to your chosen picture, sit down on my functional sofa, and soak up all that silver bells atmosphere. I will even pour you a cup of freshly made wassail. HAHAHAHAHA I don’t have any wassail. Let’s just go out.

#icebucketandfritocenterpiece

Action Items
Take down the Christmas tree before Easter

The Reason I Told The Truth

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Filed under Books, Fiction

In a rare moment of remarkable restraint, I recently answered a question in a single sentence. A short sentence. Nobody was more shocked than I was. Okay maybe EVERYONE who has ever asked me a question was as shocked as I was and to all of you I say, bite me. Miracles are real. Send your thank-you note to J.K. Rowling.

If you have never heard of J.K. Rowling I really don’t know what to say except, when you bought your house under that rock, did the listing say “1BR 1B 0windows”? Harry Potter rules pop culture, and J.K. Rowling made him up. 10 points for Gryffindor! This brilliant woman took the basic arc of puberty and reimagined it as terrifying marches through spider-infested woods, trolls hiding in school bathrooms, and battling evil wizards for world domination. Real adolescence is actually worse than that but nonetheless it’s a thrilling and incredibly relatable story. Harry has besties, stresses over homework, endures a gross cousin, and basically just feels all our feels for seven amazing books.

I was a recovering adolescent when Harry made his debut. It took me a while to discover the books—I think there were three of them by the time they came across my grownup radar. I spent a pleasant solo weekend catching up with what everyone else already knew bingereading all three. It got CRAZY up in there. I had a straight up reading buzz.
Car keys: What are our hot Saturday night plans
Me: READING
Car keys: FFS
Me: Turnt down for books

Harry Potter went rapidly from book series to world domination. Today, you can cosplay in awesome wizard robes, go to a Hogwarts theme park, or eat ear wax-flavored candy. It’s an immersive, escapist experience, the way the best entertainment truly is. It’s a lovely thing to know that your favorite book is something that you can bury yourself in, surround yourself with, and exult in with a huge community of like-minded fans. Harry Potter is so ubiquitous now that for a while I forgot that there was a day, a Saturday on a bingereading weekend, when I finished the first book  and thought, “Well, hell. THAT got all kinds of things right.” I was so engrossed I hadn’t moved in several hours.
Book: Don’t you have to pee?
Me: So bad but first let me compliment you
Book: Not worth a UTI
Me: Book two next! I’m ordering pizza!
Book: Party. Animal.

Young Adult is a tricky genre, mostly because it’s defined by Old Adults. Old Adults can’t stop themselves from telling current Young Adults how to be Young Adult. We got rules. We got advice. We got teachable moments. We got anecdotes and most of them start with “Well when I was your age” and don’t end for several hours. It’s a sincere desire to spare younguns pain and disappointment, I suppose, but it’s hard to remember that there’s a time when people really want to make their own mistakes and have new life experiences. Maybe as a result of this, the kid’s section has a lot of have-a-bad-experience-but-learn-a-great-lesson-and-we-all-get-ice-cream kind of books. They’re a little misleading, because there are a lot of life situations that take more than 100 pages to resolve. Sometimes, for example, it can take seven books.

J.K. Rowling refuses to talk down to her audience. Life in Harry’s world is black and white, sure—there are good wizards, and bad wizards, and they are easy to tell apart because bad wizards tend to announce themselves by saying stuff like “I’M HERE TO MESS UP YOUR HAIR AND THE HAIR OF EVERYONE YOU CARE ABOUT”. But life is also gray and purple and squiggly. And squiggly isn’t even a color. J.K. Rowling isn’t lying to anyone about any of it. So, yes, you win (you get to go to a great wizard academy with goblin-guaranteed trust fund) but wins aren’t tidy (because your parents are dead and the dude that killed them considers you unfinished business). It’s truth in all its messy and emotional iterations, and beautiful things happen and terrible things happen and embracing all these things unflinchingly is courage, even when you’re knock-kneed with fear.

I know what you are thinking: I am clearly a superenlightened Old Adult who is a renowned Young Adult Whisperer!
Everyone: Yes, we think that
Me: *blushes modestly*
Everyone: ON OPPOSITE DAY
Me: not cool, everyone
I am just as in love with the sound of my own voice and just as convinced that my life wisdom is superior as anyone. In other words, I am full of shit. It’s not that I set out to be a boring blowhard, it’s just that it comes so naturally and we should all use our gifts. (In my defense I’m overtalky and boring with other Old Adults too because consistency is important.)But against all odds, I managed to get out of my own way recently. Here’s how it went down.

My favorite form of exercise is anything dance fitness because it’s a legit way to be a jackass in public. I walked into one of my regular classes a few weeks ago and greeted the instructor, a personal friend. She in turn introduced me to her 11-year-old niece, who was visiting from out of town. My friend asked her niece if she wanted to take the class and I invited her to come stand by me. NOPE. I tried to encourage her with allll the words, but NOPE NOPE NOPE. Not that I blamed her. Booty shake with a room full of strange adults? In the words of Sigmund Freud, “Hell naw”.

Dance fitness is lively-there’s lots of whooping and silliness and Pitbull. It’s hard to resist and about four songs in, I looked up to see my friend’s niece signaling me over. Thinking she was ready to dance, I made some room, but she shook her head. She had a question. Glancing at the sweaty crowd on the floor behind me gleefully doing the pony and airspanking, she looked at me and said:
“Aren’t you SHY?”
It stopped me. Cold. My first thought was “Damn, how did she know?” She was clearly self-conscious and anxious about looking like a fool in front of a lot of people. She needed to hear it would be okay to take a chance. It’s hard to be shy. I opened my mouth and took the big breath in so I could give her the 2 minute answer about how it didn’t matter if I was shy, and it’s fun, and you get used to it, and overcome adversity, and then High School Musical happens when you just try! Then..in that pause, I reminded myself that I’d been asked a question. And I just needed to fucking answer it. So I did.
“Yes, I am-but I do this anyway.”

workout

A well-stocked workout bag includes water, extra socks, and emotional intelligence.

That was it. There were no follow-up questions. She came out on the floor with me and I had an awesome little partner for the rest of the class. I had truth and she had courage, and that made us wizards. It was fun on the shy side of the room. Sometimes, the angel on your shoulder looks just like J.K. Rowling, and then you do the Nae Nae.
Sofa: you read two books, what now
Me: gonna read another one
Sofa: yay! I got your ass groove ready
Me: be right with you
Car keys: y’all are LAME
#bingereading

Action Items:
Check out J.K. Rowling’s marvelous crime fiction, published under the name Robert Galbraith.

The Reasons You Know You’re As Amazing As Tobias Menzies Probably Is

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The reason you know that you, without any doubt at all, are amazing is because I am ignoring you. I’ll prove it—right now, look at me. See? I won’t make eye contact with you. In fact I am planning my exit because your sheer fabulousness is overwhelming. Don’t feel badly about it, because I will do that exact same thing to Tobias Menzies when and if I ever cross paths with him and don’t you feel special being in the same boat as Tobias Menzies? When is the last time you could ever say, “I was treated exactly the way Tobias is treated”? Now you can. You’re fucking WELCOME.

Speaking on behalf of the functionally shy: interacting with people makes us nervous. Not as nervous as tree full of machete-wielding spiders, but absolutely not remotely as relaxing as a baby sloth holding a winning lottery ticket. I am a hot mess at any gathering of two or more people. My inability to navigate social situations with grace and my tendency to confuse charming with loud guarantee that I leave a lot of people wondering “WTF? Was I talking to a T-Rex wearing false eyelashes? How the hell does a T-Rex even put ON false eyelashes?” It’s not entirely my fault. I have to talk that loudly to hear myself over my inner monologue. “Is this how people talk to each other? Did I say that correctly? Have I already told this story? OMG SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU ARE SCARING PEOPLE. I wonder if I have food on my boobs. How can I check without looking like I’m checking for food on my boobs?*” Needless to say, maintaining narcissism at this advanced level takes dedication and training, and you should not attempt it without stretching first and consulting with a stunt coordinator. I’m a professional. Ignoring you is just easier. For both of us.
*For the record there is no way to check for food on your boobs without looking exactly like you are checking for food on your boobs. Doing this brings everyone’s attention to the fact that you’re the kind of person who cannot get through a meal without getting food on her boobs. I don’t really mind boob attention, but not the attention where people are wondering “Is that a chunk of fish or is she wearing a nametag? I can’t tell.” It’s likely a fish chunk, particularly if the special was mahi.

What I’m saying is, I’m ignoring you because I have a complicated relationship with one of my favorite books, A Wrinkle In Time. “It was a dark and stormy night.” With that borrowed, sly sentence, Madeline L’Engle busts out a mindbender of a book that I first read when I was six and have read since then (according to math) a whole bunch of times. The story introduces the adventures of the extraordinary Murry family. The Murry parents are brilliant scientists, and the father’s experiments in physics have imprisoned him on a hostile planet. Sister and brother dream team Meg Murry and Charles Wallace Murry -along with their friend Calvin- work to save him and the Earth from evil forces while establishing interplanetary diplomatic relationships and learning to time travel. And they get their homework done and make it back in time for dinner. It was all stuff that looked great on their college applications.
Me: I’m here about the Murry family opening?
Recruiter: Great! Skillset is assertive, bold, and confident
Me: Butterflies startle me
Recruiter: Thanks for coming in

As much as I wanted to be, I just wasn’t Team Murry material. The core competencies I brought to the table were ‘awkward’, ‘jumpy’, and ‘big vocabulary’, but damned if Madeline L’Engle hadn’t covered that too. Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit are the book’s friendly space warrior versions of MacBeth’s three witches. Non-Earthling veterans of the ongoing war against darkness, they manifest in absurd physical personas to recruit the intrepid Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin into battle. The ladies are depicted as having as great fun choosing their human characteristics-wacky clothes, crazy hats. I had a particular affinity for the bookish, quiet Mrs. Who. She prefers hanging back from the crowd, carefully observing the people around her, and communicates in quotations because she finds it a challenge to articulate her thoughts. YUP. You go, gurl. More accurately, shrink into the background and never directly approach people you really want to get to know but can’t bring yourself to talk to, gurl.
Me: Do you have any other openings?
Recruiter: Are you good at math?
Me: (tap dances)
Recruiter: I hate this job

I’d never read a book that legitimizes quirky characters the way A Wrinkle In Time does. Madeline L’Engle is incredibly nurturing of eccentricities. Mrs. Who isn’t flashy, and she isn’t spunky, the way most of the female protagonists I was familiar with from kid’s books were. Nancy Drew? I’m looking at you with your shiny convertible and your hair that was always perfect EVEN THOUGH YOU DROVE A FUCKING CONVERTIBLE. Laura Ingalls Wilder, I’m looking at you too. Way to conquer the frontier and all but if you’d dropped me on the prairie with nothing more than a wagon and a calico apron I’d be dead in a week. Mrs Who doesn’t fit the mold, any mold. She’s very much her own being, but it’s her insight and advice-and that classic smart nerd accessory, her gleaming, glinting spectacles-that allow Meg to retrieve her father from his prison on the evil planet Camazotz. She makes her contribution because of who (GET IT) she is, not in spite of it. (DID YOU SEE THAT SUBTLE PRONOUN JOKE)
Me: I can make pronoun jokes
Recruiter: Um, thanks
Me: I do observational humor on all parts of speech
Recruiter: We’ll keep your resume on file

As a now fully formed adult introvert, I recognize that 1. I don’t have alien time-travel powers that allow escape from social interactions and 2. Cave dwelling as a hermit isn’t a good option for me because I prefer indoor plumbing and indirect rock lighting does not flatter my complexion. Therefore, I occasionally have to do an impression of a person with good social skills. I do my best, but usually I end up in a corner, propping up a wall like a well-accessorized load-bearing column, watching all the people I’d love to meet and talk to in conversation circles that appear both Alqonquin-y and Round Table-y. Trying to keep it cool makes me a little twitchy, and I know I’m prone to conversational blunders. I’m just trying to figure out the rules on this planet. It takes me a while to work up my nerve. When that happens, I’m likely to appear in front of you, quote something obscure, hand you something shiny, and leave before you have chance to respond. Honestly, it’s all I can manage. It means you’re totally fucking amazing.

As talented as I am at making up shit to worry about, I’m not worried that I will ever have to avoid Tobias Menzies in person. He doesn’t follow me on Twitter, we live in different countries, and he’s not invited to Thanksgiving at my sister’s this year. Frankly, it’s a relief. He’s clearly smart, funny, and British, and that is too much for me to process coherently in public. But I swear, if by chance I ever sit next to him on a plane, I am going to ignore him. I am going to ignore him so hard.
#teammrswho

 

 

menzies

Puppybait me all  you want, I’m not making eye contact

 

 

Action Items
Explore the ways Tobias Menzies can entertain you here.

The Reason I’m Annoyed

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Elevator Repair Service is an experimental theater company based out of New York City. Recently, they annoyed me. They likely weren’t trying to annoy me. Probably. But they did, and then they insulted my injury by being incredibly original and talented and entertaining. OMG JERKS.

I am going to go into exhausting detail about my hurt feelings, but first, do you have a few moments to talk about Ernest Hemingway? Let’s sit down with a large glass of straight rum lemonade and I’ll give you some tracts. Like many Earthlings, I first read Hemingway in high school. It was that time in a young woman’s life where she does what it takes to make her a woman. That’s right-I was studying the short story in an American Lit class. It was marvelous. Short stories are juicy, intense, concentrated—everything that makes reading fun but on steroids. Minimal time investment, maximum wallop.

I read Poe, and Hawthorne, and the sublime Flannery O’Connor. It was fun! “Isn’t this fun?” I said to absolutely no one because even I knew there were limits to the amount of literary nerdiness I could externalize without being scary. “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Dayum, y’all. It was good stuff. Then the day came when the textbook served up Hemingway.
Textbook: Here—”The Snows Of Kilimanjaro”. Go.
Me: What the hell, textbook? What WAS that?
Textbook: A classic by an American literary giant. Why?
Me: WTAF. Stahp.
Textbook: Hmm. Not your thing? Try “Hills Like White Elephants”. Everybody loves elephants!
Me: UGH I HATE THESE CHARACTERS AND NOW I HATE ELEPHANTS WHYYYYY

We read two Hemingway stories, the two that are often considered his best – “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “Hills Like White Elephants”. I had not made it halfway through “The Snows Of Kilimanjaro” when I realized the fun story party was over because HEMINGWAY. Apparently, Papa was not aware that he owed me a good time. My immediate reaction to both stories was strong and definite and it boiled down to one non-judgmental reaction: These characters are a bunch of douchebags. When it came time to discuss these stories in class, I folded my arms, exuded annoyance, and maintained radio silence. The sooner we moved past it, the better.

In “Snows of Kilimanjaro”, narrator Harry is trapped in a tent in Africa, reflecting upon the meaning of his life while dying from self-inflicted gangrene. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, a man puts all his glib charm behind an effort to manipulate his reluctant girlfriend into thinking that not only does she really want the abortion she’s on her way to have, it’s a risk-free operation that is really her idea. I rolled my eyes so much through both of these stories I lost eyelashes. They could not take the pressure and popped off like tiny champagne corks.

The people in these stories made me want to throatpunch kittens. I had not lived enough life to acknowledge grey areas, and the nuances of a confronting crisis in a less-than-solid relationship, and making the least awful choice out of an array of awful choices. Accordingly, the subtlety and subtext that are the structure and strength of these stories was lost on me. I wanted these drips* to have behavioral insight…and they didn’t. (*flagged as potentially judgmental)These stories were an incredibly frustrating reading experience that seemed rooted in passivity and indirectness. I just wanted someone to do something other than drink. Or talk about drinking. Or drink while talking. Or die slowly from gangrene. GAH.

Given my vast knowledge of everything about life and of course knowing that I was always right about everything always but most especially matters literary, I tossed Hemingway over my shoulder into the pile of Book Laundry That I Will Never Get Around To Washing. If a Hemingway book came up on a recommended list, I shrugged my shoulder in dismissal. If someone mentioned Hemingway as a personal favorite author, I sneered. (I mean, I was self-important AND smug.) (AND SMUG, you say? PLEASE COME OVER HERE AND MAKE OUT WITH ME. Stand down. I’m in the middle of something.)

In the meantime, I read other stuff. It’s not that hard to avoid Hemingway, if you have a good alarm system and take some basic self-defense training. I geeked out on popular crime novels. I comfortably read comfortable history and comfortable contemporary fiction and, God forgive me, The Bridges Of Madison County. I only read stuff I knew I would like and I was very happy thank you very much. Put brutally? I was a boring reader.

The universe, or possibly Hemingway’s ghost, was looking for a chance to knock me off my tower of Books That I Know Are Better and the perfect opportunity presented in 2012. I had to go to New York on business and realized that my trip would overlap during a time that Elevator Repair Service was appearing at The Public Theater. I was thrilled that I could adjust my trip to include seeing one of their productions. I barely paid attention to what the show was when I bought the tickets. “It doesn’t matter!” I said to myself. “I’d go see them read the phone book! And it would be brilliant! It literally DOES NOT MATTER WHAT THE SHOW IS! Also nobody makes phone books any more!” (I talk to myself in simple declarative sentences mostly.) About a month before the show, getting my calendar together, I pulled out my ticket to check what I was going to see. The show was entitled “The Select (The Sun Also Rises)”.
Me: Wait, what?
Ticket: YOU are going to see a Hemingway show.
Me: Are you fucking kidding me?
Ticket: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Me: This is not funny.
Ticket: No, it really is. You’re the worst.
Me: That was way harsh, ticket.

So, there I was, ticket in hand, cussing an innocent performance ensemble. The show had a running time of 3.5 hours or so. Clearly, I would benefit as an audience member if I had some familiarity with the source material. I was going to have to read this shit. “Let me recap this!” I said to myself. “I am going to go see a Hemingway show THAT IS GIVING ME HOMEWORK!” I reluctantly cracked open the book, resigned to suffering through an overrated classic. I was going to read it, but I wasn’t going to like it. Poor me.
Here is what happened when I read The Sun Also Rises:
1. I could not put it down
2. I was moved to tears
3. I made a list of my reactions

The Sun Also Rises is both breathtakingly original and utterly familiar. Hemingway’s spare, direct style is devastatingly precise. Nick and Brett are unflinchingly human. Their struggles, their disconnectedness, their isolation, are raw and real. While their story arcs are informed by the Continental post-Great War vacantness, their flaws and foibles make them timeless. This book is the DNA for so much modern American literature. Hemingway built a better mousetrap. It was so good.
I could not believe I had to put up with this crap.

It had been so easy, too easy, to build a reading world that reflected back to me exactly what I wanted to have reflected. In my complacency, I had forgotten what it was like to be challenged and to work through narratives, or ideas, or styles, that made me a little uncomfortable. The Sun Also Rises reminded me that “well-read” isn’t the same thing as “reading”. This kind of literary bitch-slap is henceforth dubbed ‘being Hemingwayed’.
Thank you, Elevator Repair Service. Point taken. I’m trying to ensure that my natural tendency to the opinionated (ahem, cough) does not prevent me from missing amazing things. Since I read The Sun Also Rises, I’ve pulled in some extraordinary reading because I went looking for it. It’s more demanding, and it’s sometimes uncomfortable, and I hope it’s made my world bigger and me less insufferable.

And for those of you wondering, yes, the show was incredible. If you ever get the chance to see it – or anything staged by this wonderful group – I can’t recommend it enough. The bullfight scene was the bomb.
I still hate being wrong though.
#shutupandreadit

Action Items
If you’d like to go see Elevator Repair Service, start here.