We're going to our friends' house which is right down the road. I am pretty happy to be clear of in laws. I ran into a casual friend the other night who lamented about the culture of Thanksgiving avec her MIL. She went on and on. I would not be able to deal with what she is dealing with. I would say no, but I know now, from the tiny iota of maturity I've gleaned from my almost four decades on the earth that sometimes it is just better to deal with hit in order to keep the peace. I am horrid at this.
I have the beginnings of a migraine, I think. I am in a sort of denial about it, as I do not want to purchase my medication; it is so fucking expensive.
We lost power last night. I was on my nightly walk the moment the power went out. It was scary, but mostly so fucking gorgeous. The trees heavy with too much snow. The ground perfectly white. And the air that reminded you of every sledding adventure you've ever had. I was a bit onto the woods path that is lit up with street lamps and they went dark. At first, I thought it was just the path and I just has bad luck with my timing, as this has happened on the path before. It reminded me of being at a kiddie baseball game at night, when they shut the lights off, as it is finally time to go home, and you stumble with your kid(s) and your stuff, hoping you do not step on another person or yourself.
But then, I noticed it was not just the path, as there was a flicker, the lights going back on and then, reluctantly they went off for good. I looked behind me, down into the street where the path spills. And it was dark there, too. I scurried home, using my ipod to light the way. waving it over my head somewhat when cars drove past, worrying they'd not see me with my black hat and black jacket. I looked like I was holding a lighter a t a cheesy, classic rock type concert. Here is what I loved the most, well, there are two things really. The way the star lit up the sky was intense in a way that is more organic than any recent experience I've had. Everything seemed so real, so natural. And then, as I approached our apt., I saw dim lights from the windows, people lighting up their rooms with tea candles and florescent flashlights. And I heard them: Mr. Z and the old man shuffling down the epic stairway in the dark looking for the lone, lost momma in the dark.
I loved last night. If I'd gone in the night, I think I wold have had a good last day. We played charades in the dark and Mr. Z and I acted out scenes from The Office. Life felt so sweet. and I felt like I loved and was beloved. I did miss my family though, mostly my dad. I think I will always miss my dad. It is something that will never go away; I do not want to let go of the hurt b/c it is all I have from him. It is something.
Here is what I was reading last night and this morning: Confessions of a Memory Eater by Pagan Kennedy. I'll maybe discuss it in depth later on, another day. It is an extremely fast read and she has created a work filled with beautiful sentences, amazing imagery via analogies and metaphor. I am impressed; however, there does seem to be something slightly amateurish about the overall work. I cannot put my finger on what it is that makes me feel this way. Again, I'll discuss the work in more detail later on. I need to shower, get my migraine meds, make a salad, and get my family off to our friends' house. The novel often refers to Thomas De Quincy's masterpiece, Confessions of an Opium Eater which I have never read, but, of course as a wannabe junky, want to.
Here is a blog I read often. I like the writer. She is straight-forward and cute. She reminds me of someone I'd have been friends with if I were like 100 years younger and was less edgy, I mean, um, not a fucking junky disguised as a normal mother, wannabe teacher. The blog is called "Confessions of a Book Lush." I might've talked about on here before. Her blog compelled me to read The Bitch Posse.
Here's an example of how I simply cannot just fucking say something without going on and on in this ridiculously silly, digressive way. I'e got this digression problem, and though I want it to not be a problem, I also struggle when I a not digressing. As our brilliant character sys, "That digression business really got on my nerves." There is this book called Howard's End and the book's author, E.M. Forester epigraphs (not a verb, but I think it should be...) "Only connect." Well, English majors everywhere and Mr. Forester, don't you think it should be, "Only digress." I think this quote to myself, often. But about digression as a problem, a problem that gets on our nerves:
I was saying...Ahem, I mean writing, I mean trying to get the fuck on track somehow (maybe me telling ppl. that bupes are a solution is bad advertising?? I'm worried sometimes about this!) I was on the blog, Confession of a Booklush: http://booklush.com/2011/11/15/top-ten-books-that-have-been-on-my-shelf-for-the-longest-but-ive-never-read/#comments and wanted to tell the blog's author that she should read Summer, as it has been sitting on her bookshlef for some time, unread.
Here is what I say:
Hey there. Listen, Summer is a quick, easy, fun read. I read it when I was a library director and led a book group; this was one of our books. I seriously do not think anyone disliked it. We had a great time assigning current terminology to the older text. We kept referring to one character (not to gove too much away) as the baby daddy. For some reason we could not get over that being hilarious to us. The protagonist is a librarian, so I was identifying all over the place. And the tiny town where the novel is set is a lot like the town where I worked and used to live. I definitely recommend this book to you. I have never read another book of hers, but I keep meaning to. I was going back and forth with myself about turning m blog into a book/reading blog and was counting what I read and was also trying to push myself into reading "better" books (less chick li, more classics, etc.), but it made me feel miserable, o I am reading very much like the slacker I am. The point of this is: I prolly will not get around to reading anything by her or any one else of any higher merit any time soon.
To Lorrain above, I am now 38-years-old. I have not read a SVH book in years, but am interested in reading the sequel that came out most recently. My mother used by so irritated with me complaining I should read more classics and such. She and my Reading teacher even offered to PAY me (with my mother's money, not the teacher's obviously) to read books of a high caliber. I would not. I needed to be heavily involved with Jessica, Elizabeth, boring Todd, and that awful Lila Fowler. I think Jessica had kinda a "player" type bf, too, right?
I have a 12-y-o boy who is not a bog novel reader. He loves to read online statistics and sports stories, mostly about football, also baseball and hockey (and other sports, but those are more parenthetical for him). At times, I obsess about this and wish he'd read more fiction, thinking if he were more used to narrative form then he'd test better, and he' got SATs coming up (um, in like four years...) But we get along the best when I really stay out of what he reads. He has an assigned 0-30 minutes to read, nightly. But, knowing how much I hated having my reading controlled; it felt so insulting and like my mother was trying to control my thinking even. I would hate it if my son felt like this.
I wonder though if having some books frowned upon and some even *forbidden* (V.C. Andrews, other "sexy" books you'd find @ the grocer,etc.) made me feel that on some level that reading was/is a subversive act. I have a tendency to have a pull towards anything forbidden and hate to follow rules, thus, my reading always has felt a bit sinister, even if I am reading something mainstream, like Olive Kitwhatever (Pulitzer winner, recently).
I dunno. I am like a big epitome of a blogging digression. As I write, I think and as I think....
I hope readers everywhere have a super Thanksgiving and that they have a lot to read. I myself am pist @ the chick who is overdue with The Marriage Plot @ my library; bing it back already!!!!
Part of what draws me to good blog is what they look like. I am going to say some things here that might be a bit over to the top, and please understand, they have nothing to do with the aforementioned blog. There's tumblr blog referred to dot dot dot... It almost like inappropriate porn, really, but it mostly illustrates the images-within-the-mind that so many ppl., girls, women, have in their minds if they've also got a weird-o daddy complex, as I do. And for women who see themselves as much younger than they are, esp. sexually, this tumblr site nails it (no pun intended, iw.) I am not including a link to this site, as I worry about the legality of it; some of those images are too innocent. What the images do, the book by Jennifer Belle entitled Little Stalker also does; it encapsulates that pervy impulse we might have to be on the receiving end of a pedophile. It is a big, huge, unembarrassed Lolita POV. It is that weird, broken daddy issue that some of us have. I am growing fucking tired of this issue, btw.
Back to the digression: Am I deluded enough to think I am interesting enough for ppl. to read all of that shit? I am practicing concision, not IBS of the fucking digits. Shut it Violet, yer awesome and adorable, and man, sometimes you can spit out a smart sentence or conjure a lucid image, but calm down with the over wordy blathering on.
I write too much; I make sense not often enough; I make too many connection that other people fail to see b/c they do not scare my loosey-goosey brain. I feel lost in my thinking, often. I think that this blog in addition to other social media and ALSO the imagery that is not really organic the way it was pre1990's is a recipe for an utter ADD, disorganized disaster of any written thing, written by me.
It’s a funny thing, really. When I ordered your first published book of shorts stories, Use
Me for the teeny tiny library where I was director, I thought little of
it. I remember its cover, mostly
grey with red lettering. It’s
title reminded me of maybe something written by Jennifer Belle who write for a
teen putting herself through college by turning tricks. I thought your book was of this ilk,
sassy, a sort of literary series of sex tales, not erotica, but a hipper,
edgier Carrie Bradshaw.
This past summer, I was reading book reviews and noticed you
have a new book out Blueprints for a better Girl. I remembered your forgotten, shelved
book. Though I could see Use Me
on a shelf, second to the top, towards the left on a second antique mahogany
shelf, I could not check to be sure, as I had since resigned my position there.
While I waited for Blueprints, instead of checking on the copy Use Me, I
ordered your fist, published book electronically, though Amazon. Several beats after my kindle
received it from the vast cloud, I read like Gary Paulsen instructs, like a
wolf eats. I read like a lonely, homely man fucks, and I read like a teen
bathes in sunlight while she nods off next to an electric blue swimming
pool. I read like my life was
ending any moment.
I have few friends in the real world. On good days, I describe myself as
“misunderstood.” On worse days I
am indeed the stranger. And not in
a Bruce Springsteen way, the Camus way, the lame kind
This is an example of me writing while under the influence
of a sedative, too many sedatives, in fact. I am so sick of my deep, deep need to escape. Fuck it all. I have never taken a true "doll" by the way, only the major benzos they pass out these days to whatever lameasfuck chick needs 'em. Klonopin, ativan, the general eraser of all that is good. Eraser of any fucking memory ever.
Today I am withdrawn, dizzy, and feel like I will never do
anything.
I am scared. I
do not know if I am going to move back in officially with Mr. Z’s father. My home that I am renting smells of
mildew and it sucks. Mr. Z’s
father’s apartment is too small. And
I am not working. My money is
running out. And I am completely
exhausted all of the time, depression has crept back in and I fully think it is
here to stay this time.
I am looking out the slider and I am also looking at the cat looking out the slider. WE have about 65 K coming in between the two of us. Why do we live in such a slum? I love Mr. Z's cat though. Fuck, I am outta my mind today. Will I make it back to the other side?
I want to lose at least fifteen pounds. And I want to work. And I need to finish my master's degree. Bu all I can do is sit on the fucking couch. DEPRESSION.
I am not sure how to chronicle the books I've read in the distant past, the past, books I am reading currently, and the books I am thinking about reading. I have only started to take this blog seriously very recently. Though this is all a very trite, rough drafty-y, not even a rough draft-y, silly free write kinda blog, I am thinking about its actual contents more often, especially when I am walking at night. And at some point I may even want to promote it. Really, it is a journal, a journal to get the cobwebs out of my screwy brain. And most things written here are of the most cliche like, um, like ever.
Today, I just finished The Bitch Posse, by Martha O'Connor. The story was almost great. What was great: I could not put the book down. What was sort of great, but not really: It was kind of like reading Jennifer Weiner, but if Jennifer Weiner had more edge. The book and its reviews promise you that it is not chick lit, but in my opinion, it is. I've seen the book various times; however, I thought it would be boring and poorly written. Some of the writing is almost lyrical in parts. But mostly, it seems like a sort of smart teenager wrote it. And there was a lot of cliche writing in it, mostly the descriptions of the girls' thinking and feelings. But these descriptions in many ways should be cliche, as they are from a teen perspective, and I think teens often see the world in a very cliche sort of way, as their life experience cannot bring them to the lucidity a more jaded adult would own. A reading blog convinced me to read this book. Write after reading her blog, I ordered the book on the old man's kindle account. Here is the link to the blog's mini essay/review about the book, and how it shaped her life, particularly her reading life. http://booklush.com/2011/09/29/books-that-made-me-the-bitch-posse/
I am not overly in love with her blog yet, but I found an online magazine she writes for, and love this. Here is the magazine: http://literarydilettantes.com/
The book's cover is compelling:
It's author, Martha O'Connor, has another book I might want to try: http://www.amazon.com/Bitch-Goddess-Notebook-Martha-OConnor/dp/0752867393/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317834845&sr=1-3 . It is called the Bitch Goddess Notebook. It is not really chick lit, the book I have not yet read and the aforementioned novel, but teenage girl lit. Lacking depth, particularly in its desperate attempt at depth. Is a teen girl a chick yet? Maybe she is. Pre chick lit. Almost a chick lit. Almost a chick chick lit.
Here are other books I am looking forward to reading. Or, books that I might read the first chapters of, and then will make my decision about reading. I have already created a partial list several entris ago, when I chronicle my reading for 2011. I might repeat some title; I am not going to worry about overlaps. I got some of these titles while doing subject searches of psychological fiction and teen girls.
The new Jeffrey Euginides book, The Marriage Plot which comes out in about a week
The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt (I loathe westerns, but it is for the b. group, ick!)
Man Stealing for Fat Girls
The Girl from Charnelle
Normal Girl
Serious Girls (Book about two outsides in a boarding school setting)
Stop the Girl
Hello Life
Foxfire (The J.C. Oates girl gang book.)
Stone Garden (boarding school setting)
Golden Grove, Francine Prose
The Perfect Age, Heather Skyler
When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
Alice Hoffman's new book. Though I worry it is more Red Garden-y than the Red Garden itself was. I need another Story sisters novel. The Dove Keepers.
The book that I think is British that has the word flowers in it. The setting is group home. It is on my FB page, as it a recommendation.
I will add author's names later, or maybe I won't. I just can't really open a novelist account, as I still use the library password the was the library's where I got fucking fired. (Library directed equals total cunt fucking douche, btw.)
Another time, I will write about my short career as a librarian. This is obviously part of the reason my blog is called what it is called. It is also a feeling I had so often as a young girl, teen, young adult, forever hiding living at the library, and then leaving after nightfall, flooded with excitement at all the new author's I had discovered. Ready to face the word with my amazing ability to disappear, to become invisible because I knew I could read forever, my life away.
I just finished Jennifer Egan's gothic literary novel, The Keep. If I think of heaven I think of it in this way: it is always autumn there and it is the nineties. I look the same way that I did when I was nineteen, men's Levis sliding down my babyish hips, long blonde hair. The difference will be that I wear smart looking eyeliner and a bra that helps. When I am in this always autumn heaven, I am writing, and I am writing better than, but in a similar way to Ms. Egan. All I know is that I need to show and not tell. I need to stop with the modifiers. I need to get to hate point, to start where the story starts, to stop with the over explanation. and I need to fucking write. I know what good writing looks like, but I have no idea even how to imitate it. Sucks.
I do not want to get too deep into my description of the novel. I loathe book reviews. I am sitting here trying to imagine The Keep, its tower, it's windows, its edges, turrets, and all that. And I am now remembering Berto. I am the real 19 again and I am living with a creepy 42 year old due to scratch the fucked up itch that is my ever so fucked up daddy issue. He makes, in terms of money, what I make now. Mind you, today I am not even working. I get a teensy bit of cash for being a mom from the babbydaddy. Berto made about 20 grand, tops, in those days as a tutor and busker on his odious instrument. And he would exclaim, upon learning that a colleague, friend or peer made 50K or whatever that he wanted to ask them, "What, do you live in a castle?"
Berto was not the sort of boyfriend you'd bring to meet your friends, as he'd prolly already hit on them in some sort of creepy way. He had he worst titty fetish I've elver come across, which was prolly linked to not growing up. I seriously have never met such a breast obsessed dude. And for those of you who know me at all, I was not the girl for Berto. I am still so ashamed of that relationship. What I wanted then, and still want now is an adopted father, the kind who will stop my night terrors.
Don't you dare fucking laugh, but this is my dream relationship:
In the blog I am trying to boycott, this idiotfuck, Disclosure write of Go Go Rach, and her rightfully stressed out response to the pseudo academic MA, "Therapy is needed." I would argue to him, "Personality is needed, Douche," But it is not worth it. But, this lame as fuck response popped into my head as I posted my sick as sadness picture of the teeny bopper movie and shameless admission of this blog author's daddy complex. Um
Berto and I lived in a rural tenement; however, in my mind, its windows, the hand hewn beams, the wooden floors... All of it equaled a castle. I still believed in "the program" back then. Interestingly,
in some ways, it kind of worked...until it didn't. I realized living with Berto took more out of me than I ever had imagined possible. He was so hateful underneath what only appeared as mentally ill and partly perverted.
He had a castle sticker, a sparkling one, that he put on his throat losenger tin. I bought him this sticker after he told me how he felt about people who made a normal amount of money. I can see it there, in between by the clutch us in his used car that smelled like every kind of health food you could imagine, but mostly of garlic. I can hear the tin opening. I can see his long fingers. I can remember what it was like to feel you had a future so brilliant you could afford to emotionally mutilate yourself with a mentally ill boyfriend.
The castle of Berto's imagination would be some sort of lefty, green-as-fuck hastily put together commune compound deals. Think the commune on Lost. WACO without the guns. Maybe something that Michael Rapunzel of Western MAssachusetts would have built, with his, um, fifth thousand a year. That commune, but nicer, more nineties. The scared cult of daddy. This, below, but much, much nicer, with a mote.
Here is what I imagine the castle looking like from the Keep. I have very few fantasies of Europe. If any, I dream of going to Sweden, alone, most certainly without the boys. I would rent a clean room (think minimal, Raymond Carver, Hemingway...), and I would walk and write. I would also visit middle class family's houses so I could peer into their bookshelves and admire their castle-looking chimney.
Fuck, do I love those; and I have only seen them in Swedish design blogs, like this blog where I have spent hour after hour lusting with an intensity that seems foreign to my bod: http://dosfamily.com/all-home-tours/
I will find a castle/chimney/wood-stovey-thingy later.
As for the castle in my mind, and prolly yours, too:
I had such a terrible day today. The rain crucified me. I was running on empty. I was astounded by her--Jennifer Egan's--articulation of addiction. Though I was low and depressed all day, her articulation, her poetic ability to fucking GET IT--stayed with me all day. It seemed to punctuate--to pierce--the lowness of the day. Yesterday, Mr. Z's big day was good. He was so terrific when he came home from his day. All I could think of as I listened to his low manly voice and concentrated on the circular, unjaggedness of his Polish baby boy cheeks was the song Pink Moon. That lullaby melody, Nick Drake's perfect, harmonized sweet voice. My perfect boy on his first day of being older, going to the place where there are no more babies.
In the novel, The Keep--I have tried to get to this and I am in such a tangent spiral--the female protagonist is a meth addict, not an opiate addict, like me. However, her description made perfect sense to me. During this shitty as fuck day, I hung onto certain parts of her novel:
Egan's character is using here:
I smoked my fist pipe with Seth. I knew the stuff was bad, but I was so tired of being the cop, begging and raging at him, throwing pampers in his face when he walked in the door. I wanted to be on the same side again. So I smoked with Seth one afternoon when the girls were napping, and oh my God, I can only think about this for a minute of every part of me will turn into a mouth wanting more; the sexiness of it, fucking Seth like wild for the first time in months, going on even when the girls started to whimper an bang on the door. The looking out of the window and seeing the world shake itself to life: the heavy trees, the sky. And I was bak on top. We were going to make it, Seth and I. The voice in my head was back again, telling me to write stories, too may to write down or even tell from one another.
And she is not here:
And after all the horrors, the searches and arrests, after losing Corey and those dark blank months in the hospital, after all that I was relieved just to be alive and clean and have my children back, the two that were left to me. I moved carefully, like the world was made of glass. I got the job at the college and finished my BA and started a master's in writing.
But even with all that, which I was grateful for and knew full well I didn't deserve, I can't exactly say I was happy. Relieved yes. Lucky, yes. God yes. All that. But I thought happiness only came from getting high, and I was never dong that again, never, ever, even if it meant not being happy one more day in my life.
And she falls in love and realizes that this feeling is like being high; she is happy again:
The excitement that rocks through your body when you're a kid like lust does when you're a grown up: just pure excitement--for Christmas, for grape Kool-Aid, for playing in a treehouse--I felt all week long as my teaching night got close. I started reading again, finishing a novel every few days. On my lunch break I'd sit outside at my picnic bench and listen to traffic, those big loops of sound, and behind it I'd hear something else, barely there, so shadowy I tried not to scare it away by paying too much attention, but I knew the voice was back.
In my memory, the character talks about how teaching is like a high, but when I just went bak to my kindle, I do don't see it. But I was so outta my mind with identification while reading that I was speed reading. I am pleased and calm and confident about this: If I were still in AA, I would be thinking I "got her disease" and I'd be thinking my fucking disease knew her disease. I'd utter that it is "the blue that knows you, it knows where you live, and it is never going to forget" echoing the Kate Braverman story I read in high school straight outta The Best American Short Stories. But now I realize: She used and so did I. I get the whole feeling of being blown away that comes from getting loaded, whether your deal is meth or opiods. And I totally get her , as she is literary; she discusses her addiction and her writing voice as if they are nearly one n the same, which is so fascinating. What I am writing here, and what Egan depicts through her character seems so real it is almost tactile; I feel it viscerally. Being at a meeting, and hearing someone, even if they're literary like S.P.: it is bullshit. It is the epitome of inauthenticity. Interestingly, Braverman writes about this same inauthenticity in AA in her latest book of stories, Small Craft Warnings. I love seeing her progression as a writer and as a person in this way; I was completely impressed. I did wonder how much of my own experience I was bringing into my reading. But this is what we do as readers. We read autobiographically, or at least many of us do.
This is an ongoing list that I try to edit at least once a week. I should try to date what I 've read, when I have read it. I should also be working to keep some sort of reading journal. I need to read like a writer and write like a reader. This is something I told those fifth graders. How Ralph Fletcher o me. It is raining today (Oct. 2, 2011) and I am writing, reading, and watching Mr. Z (my middle school aged son) and the old man watch the games. They are watching, snoozing on the island coach pillows bed n the middle of the floor while I have the coach. Our cat, our adorable Miss Meow Meow is walking back and forth, trudging, on the wicker sofa, now stripped of its cushions, as they are serving to pillow, to snuggle the men. I have to pee. I am lazy. I have clothes rotting with mildew at my house. I have a borderline rapid landlord right now who I am ignoring. I have not looked at my email in nearly a week now. I am falling down into a silly tangent, a spiral of boringness. Back to my list. The world is peaceful. Here is a singular, beautiful idea, and it is a notion that allows me to survive in this world:
There is always something else to read.
Here's what I've read, online books, Internet blogs, magazines, newspapers, etc. aside. Well, this is what I can remember. Usually, I have read twice as much. I need to get offline and get back into the literary world, as I feel like I am wasting my life. But maybe this is a good thing. Perhaps reading what I want to read is better than reading at books, forcing myself through classics like I did in my twenties. Life is way too short to read dull fucking Willa Cather, and Sarah fucking Orne Jewett for fuck sake's. I do need to go to the library to see what I actually checked out this year. I just have a horrible memory in this way, I truly cannot remember what I've read. I need to become a less passive reader, as it is really all *slippping* a way..
Jennifer Weiner books of 2011: (I cannot help myself; I recognize that she is the epitome of silly chick lit. And--yes, yes!--I also realize that women are not marshmallow peeps!) Fly Away Home Goodnight Nobody The Came You The Guy Not Taken (1/3 of the book, had to put it down.. Was she serious with this shit? Wow. )
(3)
Jennifer Egan books, all of them: The Invisible Circus The Keep (Oct. 2011) Emerald City A Visit from the Goon Squad (Spring, 2011) Look at Me (Sept. 2011)
(5)
The Two Fucking Amazing Books by Elissa Schappell: Use Me (Oct. 2011) Blueprints for Better Girls (Oct. 2011)
(2)
Maybe the best book I've read thus far: Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann (Spring 2011)
(1)
Alice Hoffman, whatever she wrote this year... The Red Garden (Spring 2011)
(1)
Bossypants, Tina Fey (Tina, You're funny almost all the time, but when you're not, yuck!) (Summer)
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout (Spring, 2011)
Tiger, Tiger, Margaux Fragoso (Summer 2011)
Gossip of the Starlings, Nina De Gramont
Family History, Dani Shapiro (Winter, maybe February?)
Freedom, Franzen (Jan. 2011)
Her Last Death, Suasan
Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks
Falling in Love with Natassia, Anna Monardo
The Help, Katheryn Stockett (July 2011)
Down and Out in Murder Mile, Tony O'Neill (Winter 2011, January, February or March))
A Life Gone... , Wayne from the Internet (memoir-y book by rehab surviver...)
The Bitch Posse, Martha O'Connor (10/11)
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (10/11)
Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins(10/11)
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Plan to read tomorrow!) I actually have not read this yet (10/11)
The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt (Fall 2011) (almost all read)
Swim Back to Me, Ann Packer (October, 2011)
Josie and Jack, Kelly Braffet (October, 2011)
(20)
(Oct. 8, 2011: 32 total)
October 8, 2011: I am reading Catching Fire and The Sisters Brothers this weekend, but I am not sure that I will finish both. I have to have the latter read by the end of next week... Bt I am so much more compelled to read the first, as that series is even more amazing than ppl say it is. I am blown away that those adorable, little fifth graders were reading it! No wonder they were whipping through all their work to get to the other said... The side of freedom, when you can read what you want! At this point it looks as though I am reading 2.7 books a month. My goal is four books a month. I think my time spent online, reading blogs, short stories and the like dips into my time a great deal. Of course, if I am reading, then, this should be great, it means I am still reading, right? Bu tI like the idea of reading full novels. And I generally read literary fiction, um, Jennifer Weiner aside (though Amazon begs to differ from me on this... I dunno, depends on how liberal I am feeling about judging literature...) O get to me goal, I need o get up to forty books by the end of this month. This means I need to read thirteen books in the next three weeks and two days; this is twenty-three days. Almost one book per two days. I want to enjoy what I am reading, and I want to read less passively. Fuck, I think I might be getting migraine. i wonder if it is light, chocolate, yelling at Mike, being irritated with Mr. Z my adorable, but spoiled little dude. Fuck if I know. Maybe it is the television?
I am in the middle of my old undergrad professor's book about teaching writing, the one that focusses on digression and even discusses The Catcher in the Rye (Note: the old man and Mr. Z are planning on reading the latter together)
What I Abandoned:
The Gary Paulsen, Alaska Book (Whatever it was fucking called, Winterdance or some shit...)
Black and White, Dani Shapiro (I hate her writing voice and feel that if I met her, she'd own Talbots clothing and treat me like I was poor white trash. She irritates me. Whatever.)
What I Started and Think I May Return To: Crazy Town: Money, Marriage, Meth The Leftovers, Tom Perotta Twilight of the Superheroes, D. Eisenberg The Collected Short Stories of Deborah Eisenberg The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through... Gone with the Wind Tender is the Night
Miss Peregrine's Home for...
I also read countless short stories that are the free samples from acclaimed literary magazines, like Tin House. Sometimes I read not so acclaimed lit mags, some of which are online only, like that silly noir shit that I do not even like, it just interests me for some reason. This time seems wasted, as it is only a way to deaden my senses; it is not a way to actively figure the world out in any way.
Here is what is in "the pile": Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt That Was Then, This is Now, S.E Hinton The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton The Room, Emma Donahue Abandoned. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender Abandoned, boring... Peyton Place and A Return to Peyton Place, Grace Metalious (check spelling)
What I am looking forward to...
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugines
The New Alice Hoffman novel
The new book of short stories (9/11) by Melanie Rae Thon--On second though, she is almost too lyrical for my current taste.
I feel like I read constantly, as in: all. the. time. It is weird then, that I seem to be averaging less than three books monthly. Part of this is that I watch way, way too much television. Also, I read many , many short stories that are soon forgotten. I need to start tracking these, too. Perhaps I should just list them by author, as I often read several by the same author and then get stuffed with tht author. My list would look like: SHORT STORIES BY AUTHOR: Eagan, Schappell, Boggs,m whoever, yep, her him, etc. I dunno. How do I account for the articles, too? For example, I am trying to find everything that Elissa Scappell has written, and some of her stuff is true; it is an essay or article. This would not count. I should track it all, right? Again, dunno.
Here we go. Here are the short stories found online:
Boggs chick who teaches English at the fancy (?) private school
Find the many, many others, like the story written by the amateur about h e TA who disappears
The Alaskan writer, Melinda Moustakis (found in the Alaskan Quarterly and in Storyglossia)
Also, I should try to include an entry on each piece that has affected me. For example, for the Egan novel, the Goon book, I should include the letter/email I never sent to my stepfather. Maybe I should include the letter Mom sent me after ignoring me for weeks about how she identified with the shame memories. However, the shame memories, what she said, that could have been from just reading the reviews. My mother is too stupid to really read anything unless it is for her book group, filled with teachers who are the anti intellectual, or a western or some fucking thing. I read so many more books before the Internet. But I will say this: I read a lot of stupid books back then, too. Now that I get my stupid fix from the Internet, maybe the quality of book I read is better? I dunno. Really, who am I kidding? I read amazing stuff in college, Bahktin, Rabelais (well, I pretended to read Rabelais, whatever. I read lit fiction now, but nothing that is too challenging. I should challenge myself more, read more Virginia Woolf or read at least one thing by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I have never, ever read a fucking thing by him. What does that even say about me?
I have spent countless hours thinking about my
addiction, AA, Alanon, sometimes GFD Coda (yeah, I went their outta decided
loneliness in my early twenties, pathetic, much?), and the like.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I think I need to fix my
thinking elsewhere. Plus, I have been spending much of my time on a
blog--that used to be linked here. I am really creeped out by its some of its members right now and one of it s moderators. -http://stinkin-thinkin.com/.
This blog is a place for ppl to meet up to discuss the dangers and stupidity of the 12 step ideology. A few
weeks ago I was pretty frustrated with several community members over there, one in particular. I decided to leave the blog, but then went back in a sort of obsessive, without my own permission kind of way.
My other irritation over at ST was this: an obviously mentally ill woman was on there trying to get some suport. She seemed kinda borderline, nuts really. But I could relate to being in that state. I felt like some women over on the blog were kinda shitty about it. And then she got kicked off the blog. Though I love ftg I do not always agree with her and her inability to undermine the rigidity of the other moderator.
I do think spending my energy there takes up
energy. I need my energy to parent, find a teaching job, and deal with
the mess that is my life. And I want to get back to writing. All I am doing now is commenting on blogs, FBing like a moron, and writing these stoopid stream of consciousness journal type entries. Snoozefest. But I do not wanna put myself down too much here. Right now I still have to pass a teaching test.
Then I need to present my work to the dean of my college. Fuck.
I just wanna curl up in a ball and read the books I want to read. I
am very low functioning right now. And also, to make things super fucking stressful, my relationship is so on the rocks that i feel like I am having PTSD panic episodes all the time.
Also, my son is now in middle school. I have not truly melted down
over this as of yet; however, I feel struck. I feel like a deer in the
headlights. Heartbroken. Like it is a sort of crisis. The
world is moving by, passing me by, too quickly. I feel like everything
will end soon. I feel like if I ignore my life and do not strive for joy,
I will also not feel the pain that is inevitable. The raising is hard,
but the letting go is impossible. I feel like mothering has been the most
astounding thing I will ever do. It is why I am here. But I also
feel like it is the hardest thing. And I feel like it is one hell of a
lonely job. Moms often compete, we same to rarely cooperate or support. I was told by the mother of some chubby kids this week to give my son a protein shake. As I write this, the anger is returning. Man, who did she think she was doing this? I do not wanna get into what I said, but man, it threw me. I know my kid is perfect; I was not worried about that. But I was concerned I was putting out a vibe that ppl can treat me like shit. And this woman is so fucking ridiculously housebound in her overly controlled relationship. She has a permanent, metaphoric, ugly as fuck diaper bag slug over her shoulder. I would rather not talk to anyone right now, anyone that is in the tiny, boring as fuck , little town. I hate its conservatism, its reliance on football for entertainment, and its general nit-wit-ism. I hate the Lands End way ppl dress. And mostly, fuckitall, And the mom community, well fuck... I am so sick of it, as this mentioned aspect of the mom
community where I live seems so rampant with this diaper bag douche baggedness.
I have never had a ton of friends, other than that time in middle school when I was popular for a tiny spell. Oh, and there was that time in fourth grade when the mean girls demanded everyone vote for class president and I won. I was one of the only authentically nice kids. I get bored and lonely in my isolation at times. Sometimes I think that if I hated reading I may not be alive.
Here is another list.
1. Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O’Neil
This is a book about “Baby” and her junky (junkie) father, Jules. Reading this book was like reading Seventeen magazine and instead of seeing cheesy girls buying lame prom dresses, you see these smart, street girls learning how to score heroin, become prostitutes and then, transcend this bad scene and escape into an almost fairy tale ending. This book created my obsession with the idea of an alphabet book for street kids. And it gave me a literary father.
2. Flowers in the Attic, VC Andrews
This is not a joke. If it weren’t for Catherine, Christopher, and the creepy savior of a doctor who wants to “have his way” w/ Catherine while she’s still in high school, I’m not sure I would have developed a reading addiction. These books, and others of their ilk, were all I read during middle school.
2. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
This was the first book I ever read (at age seventeen) that made/helped me believe in a God of my own understanding. Later, I realized that "believing in a God of my own undrstanding" was a term created by the 12 step cult, AA. I will say now that this is the first book that truly modeled for me how one can beleive in God, but that it does not have to be the creepy Jesus type God that never appealed to me.
3. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
I read this while I was doped out on painkillers after having my son. I still gain great comfort from the notion of a sisterhood/coven of mothers giving babies bottles filled with Dr. Pepper.
4. Squandering the Blue, Kate Braverman
These short stories taught me that the best fiction writers are also poets. One story about a single mother struggling with alcoholism gave me these lines (about her addiction) which I have remembered for almost twenty years: “It is the blue that knows you. It knows where you live. And it is never going to forget.” Interestingly, though I still love these lines, I know now that this characer was stuck in the AA cult and did not know it, nor did the author who created her. Later, the auther described in anther book, Small Craft Warnings, the inauthenticity of people the AA.
5. The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
“Stay gold, Ponyboy.” I think I used to say this in middle school. I should start saying it again.
6. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
I believe that this world is divided into two parts: those who have read and loved this book with their whole hearts, and then the other people. The idea of that poem-covered baseball glove still astounds me.
7. Let Evening Come, Jane Kenyon
This book made me realize that poetry is often the same thing as prayer.
8. The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Carolyn Chute
This was the first book I remembering my parents talking about in an in depth way. I snuck parts of it. Reading it later inspired a summer long research project funded by UNH on rural poverty and its depictions in literature. I heart Ruben Bean.
9. Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
A book that helped me understand that not all mothers are willing to take a bullet for their daughter; Allison helped me out of this scary emotional isolation.
10. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
This whole story—and the very notion of “tesseracting”--is astronomically cool. However, here is why I love this book: whenever I feel grouchy about having small boobs, or being kinda mousy, blah blah blah, I remember that Meg Murphy was not popular or pretty. Yet, she totally rocked and she rocked hard.
11. A-Z Picture Book, Gyo Fujikawa
There are so many alphabet books; this is the best one. And I am almost certain that this was the book that ushered me into the world of reading.
12. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
…Because every time I reread why it is a sin to kill a mocking bird, I still cry.
13. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
I love that all Oskar wanted to do was take a sad song and make it better, even though he just did not know how.
14. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
This book blew my mind. “Caddy held me…she smelled like trees.”
15. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
This book made me think that my freak-showish-ness was somehow cool which is always a super great feeling.
16. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
As a young girl, I escaped from an afternoon filled with mean girls, went home, sat on my bed, and read this book cover to cover. I still feel like Margaret is my literary twin, as her birthday, like mine, is March 8th.
Some people know that I am in a relationship/friends with benefits/ best friend situation with my son’s father, my ex husband.The Baby Daddy Mommy Drama here in rural New Hampshire is never dull. I am rarely lonely these days.However, this was certainly not always the case. When I lived with my son in a farmhouse with friends (another story, another day), some days were pretty horrific.Loneliness seemed insurmountable at times back then.This loneliness propelled me into the mostly sad, but sometimes-hopeful world of Internet dating.
Here was my story back then:
“She Thinks She’s the Passionate One”
She has known people who could speak, at length, to their horrific encounters while using this site. Other friends swear by it, saying, straight-faced, “How else would you meet somebody?” She knows people who have met their current, live-in significant or spouse on this site. She thinks online dating success is a combination of: luck, attitude, timing, social skills, looks, chemistry, and how badly one wants to “find somebody.”
Within the “Profile” there is “The Dating Headline” which for her is: “She thinks she’s the passionate one…” This is not an indicator that she is indeed the passionate one, but is actually an illustration of her immature taste in music. The girl is a hardcore Beastie Boys fan because, really, she has the mentality of an eleven-year-old boy. This, right here, could be why she is on an Internet dating site in the first place. Other women, she considers of a more mature, sophisticated ilk, might meet men at a ballet, opera, or at Whole Foods.
Then, there is the body of her “Profile.” Some of the site’s members write a mere sentence or two. More often, members write several paragraphs. Often, the writing is overly general. “I love to watch movies,” some people will write. Well, who doesn’t? She has met only one person in her thirty-five years of life who truly does not enjoy watching movies. This is her housemate who has adult ADHD, and claims, “There is no way I could sit for that long in one chair in one room.” Another thing she reads is, “I like dining out, but it is nice to stay in and get a pizza.” Huh. Interesting. So, this means the writer is human and that he can drive a car and/or knows how to dial and speak into a telephone. She guesses it could also mean that, thankfully, one does not have aggravated agoraphobia because at least sometimes this writer does not want to stay at home.
The girl’s profile is unlike these aforementioned profiles. It is not general. In fact, it seems overly specific, too long, and is honestly a bit rude. However, in real life, the girl tends to be slightly high maintenance, verbose, and like many girls in their thirties, a bit bitchy. Thus, the profile is a true depiction. However, she admits, reluctantly, some of the bitchiness could be a wall to protect her from this sad fact: it is hard to find love.
Recently, she added a “PS” to her profile, noting what is entirely unacceptable. She has encountered some of her very own horror stories due to dating through this site. However, she does remain positive, hopeful, and in good humor. At times, she considers adding a parenthetic (“also looking for a friend with benefits—if you’re hot”) note to the profile, but this is just a fleeting consideration. And really, it is just a joke.
The profile:
I believe whole-heartedly and entirely in the pleasures of reading. I am able to stay awake and half sane while I go to school, work, string together some sort of social life, and have adventures with my ten-year-old boy.
I am in love with: my dirty finger nailed son, anything library related; butterflies; the unexpected when it is a treat and sometimes when it is not; storms of all kinds; everything in the forest; taking pictures; walking forever and all day long; figuring out who I am; understanding what God is--for me; the culture of addiction in nonfiction and fiction; the notion of nostalgia; and sometimes crocheting.
Favorite Things: MUSIC: "Avenging Annie"--the Andy Pratt version--is actually my theme song. Also: MGMT, Hellen Reddy (no joke), The Beastie Boys, Ani DiFranco, Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Michelle Shocked, P.J. Harvey, Shawn Colvin, and the Edgar Broughton Band.
TELEVISION: Lost, The Office, Welcome Back Kotter (I am still attracted to Gabe, really),Six Feet Under, Big Love, Seinfeld, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
MOVIES: Big Fish, The Sound of Music, The Color Purple, Drugstore Cowboy, Jesus Son, Requiem for a Dream, Almost Famous, Annie Hall, Radio Days, Thirteen, Mean Girls, and Me, You and Everyone We Know.
BOOKS/AUTHORS: Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O'Neill; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safron Foer; The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Chute; In Case We're Separated, Alice Mattison; The Book Borrower, Alice Mattison; Squandering the Blue, Kate Braverman; The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton; Anything by: Lorrie Moore, Mary Gaitskill, Amy Hempel, Annie Proulx, JD Salinger, and Alice Hoffman.
About moi: I am living my life without losing faith, killing someone, injuring myself, shooting my mouth off at the wrong time, robbing a pharmacy, running away with a bearded criminal, or staying in bed with the covers drawn tightly around me...So far, so good.
I have a BA in Honors English from years ago. Now I am in a Post Bac program to get a dual certification in Special and Elementary Education. I work as a Special Education Assistant and love it on most days. In my former life, I was a Librarian. Though I loved this, it made reading less interesting for me, which was heartbreaking.
On good day, it feels a bit like I am a favorite character in a most beloved novel of all times. And I would love to meet somebody who could be this particular protagonist's “man.” He would need to keep up. He would have good goals and if not a great education, then a deep respect for education. I would describe myself as "almost pretty," but hopefully this man character will be deluded into thinking I am of super model quality. And mostly, he will be a person who finally feels like home.
P.S. Be well, do good work, but do not keep in touch if you: watch Fox News in a serious way; mention ex girl friends who look like lingerie models on a date (am I supposed to be impressed?); have large snots in your mustache upon meeting somebody for the first time; mention your daughter's rack; have an obsession with an ex that is so intense your voice gets cracked up upon mentioning her existence (therapy, not match.com, just a thought); joblessness/unemployment; asking, "are you a friend of Bill W.?"; you broke up with your significant like, last week, holy yikes!; and finally, have an inability to understand that if I have ignored eight of your consecutive emails, then chances are, I am not interested...
The girl truly understands that she has high standards, is overly discerning, and also notes she lives in a rough area of the state to meet single men who are even remotely educated (“Educated, no. Stupid, yep. And when I say stupid, I mean stupid fresh” –The Beastie Boys), under sixty, and have teeth. She also understands that it is not her writing, rewriting, and then rewriting yet again--obsessively to avoid her American Nation in Education homework--that will eventually beckon Mr. Right into her life. But she has not figured out yet what this could be. Until this time, “she’s walking high and mighty like she’s number one because she thinks she’s the passionate one.”
