Blah-Ditty-Blahzer-Blah and Hole Still Rocks

I finished the stoopid western novel.  Wasta time.  Feeling kinda guily, as friend picked it out.  Ick, though.  I am now reading Green Angel by Alice Hoffman.  I have been spending hours looking at this blog: http://www.thestylerookie.com  I am completely in love.  I had forgotten about her.  I have a whisper of a preface of a migraine.  Book group later.  Here above is an from the above metioned blog image that made me almost crazy as it excited me.that doll parts part of me,  made me feel like I do when I eat vanilla, kinda stale birthday cake after awhile of eating wholesome, wannabe middle class food.  Low borw junk, girl culture, chick lit, fall days when the last glimmer of summer is gone, just like that. The above image is a Hole shrine created by Tavi.  She is the writer of the blog discussed.    It cracks me up, but mostly impresses me, that I am so fucking inspired by this precocious 13-y-o chick.

One really really big issue of mine right now is my weight.  There is no getting around the truth:  I  have kinda given up on finding a job.  My like is a dull, joyless molasses slumber punctuated only by the pink moon happy of my little guy.  I know that this semi-veggie state will not last forever, but while it is going on, my body, and its thirty some odd years of pror now gone skinny this and that is hiding from me.  My body is now chubby.  I am unfamiliar with it.  I miss looking like a teenager.  When I get nostalgic and look at the doc marten culture of decades past, my chubbiness really gets to me.  That whole: look, I am a waif, and I think Woody Allen might even think pervy stuff about me because of it is gone.  I look like a real woman now.  Fuck it all; it fucking sucks.  Looking at this kid's shrine to Hole highlights my none kid status, but it also assuages the harsh feeling of this reality...

I am desperately awaiting the third Hunger Games book.  Waiting with baited breathe.
Later, but first, my mind: "When I wake up, in my make-up...Doll Parts...I am the girl with the most cake...Some day, you will ache like I ache...I'm all I wanna be. "

On Not Writing

As you can see, or read, I am still not really writing.  I am getting migraines a lot now.  It truly fucking sucks, as I simply cannot afford the med.s to deal with the pain.  I can only afford to take care of the nausea. I need to hurry the fuck up and get certified already.

The last time I was in my fave. used bookstore, the owner recommended The Woman Warrior.  I have been skeptical about this book for like ever, but for some reason I just looked it up again, I think after perusing some archived college syllabi.  And for once, it looks interesting to me.  I love the book's opening line: "You must not tell anyone," my mother said, "what I am about to tell you.  In China, your father had a sister who killed herself."  I think I will eventually give this book a shot.  It is considered creative non fiction, as it cannot really be 100 percent memoir, as the author, Maxine Hong Kingston dabbles (wrong word, prolly) with myth and the like.  


From the syllabus where I saw this book, there were others.  The syllabus is from Columbia and it is from an undergrad. course: 


Flannery O'Connor, selected short stories

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

John Updike, Rabbit, Run

Saul Bellow, Herzog

Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night

Donald Barthelme, selections from Sixty Stories

Grace Paley, selected short stories


I fucking adore Grace Paley, and never had to read her an an undergrad (um, or as a certification program student in this nit wit education program I am currently in...) But I adore her.  I have even seen her read/speak.  She had an amazing story about a woman running through the projects which a former AA/ English professor recommended... Interesting, I do not remember her dying, but it looks as though she dies with all of them:  David Foster Wallace, Madeline L'Engle, Mr. JD Salinger, etc. 

Raymond Carver, selections from Where I'm Calling From






I have always wanted to write my own story, or personal essay about working in a call center and I wanted to title it "WhereI'm Calling from, or at least include some of Carver's text in the essay.  

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

Don DeLillo, White Noise

Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold




I hate that I am even posting this stupid blog and that I would even think stoopid Columbia University could help me come up with an idea of what to read.  Reading works for me, b/c I see it as a subversive act.  Reading for school or for anyone is fucking stupid.


But wouldn't it have been amazing to have an English major from a badass school like COlumbia, Fuck. 

Too lazy to fix the font issue.  Who fucking gives a gives a?!?!

Undermining Mother

Here is an insane rant:

There is nothing in this of any merit, but I am keeping it up.  I am intrigued by how ppl get over dealing with narcissism in their family life.  I think it poisons us.  And I think we find narcissistic spouses and such. It seems to never really leave.

I really cannot write coherently about my family, particularly my mother.  I hate them all so fucking much.  I would have been better of in a foster home.  Better off there than with my twisted, creepy family in our wannabe, but lame as fuck little college town.

At two years from forty, I recognize that my decided anger felt towards my mother--the narcissistic, pretend pretty bag of douche who abandoned me when I was in high school, only to hang on tight to me as a prop, should be settled, at least in some way.  This woman, this emotional leach, this narcissistic sociopath deserves about two moments of time an acknowledgement and then, a deep abiding forgetting.  The mistake I made was hanging on to her desperately when I should have been letting go, when I gave birth to Mr. Z.  I pray now, for a certain closure when she dies.

I think a lot about her fake writing life.  Her memoir classes really, Mom, memoir writing.  I do not know whom or what forces are encouraging her, but they are so ridiculous, that I do not even think they should be stopped.

The problem I have here is her inability to see who she really is. She has a great ability to finesse people, to make them like her.  Thus, yeah, I betcha a pool of unsophisticated, half stupid insecure dim wits will sign up for her hobby-ish classes in her retirement community.  Her experience, is, well, yep, from her classes in teaching interns how to teach elementary school kids.  Her reading life consists of one or two bestsellers a year, and whatever the spiritual book group is reading.  The woman is a lecherous fucking idiot.  My issue is that she somehow believes that she is more talented than me, smarter.  Listen you cunt, you're a manipulator.  Without this tool.  If you went through lie not manipulating and acted as you are--like so many of us do--ppl would see you for what you truly are: an almost attractive bore who has nothing going on except a rich husband.  Your fucking children do not even like you.  You spent yer child support money on Talbots clothing, yer fucking Talbots raincoat, and you could not even buy me a prom dress.  TWATFUCK.


  

What sucks is the memories I have of the undermining shit she pulled when I was young and vulnerable.  How *many* Woolf book did you read, Little Miss Spoiled's Cornell calls it deconstructionism, what does your university call it?  At least I did not have to drop out of my physical education major b/c they gave me the ugly bathing suit for awkward, tall flat-chested uglies, right?    Listen Twatfuck, Twat's mother did not abandon her.  She is not from a fake middle class background.  Her only harm in life is that her classy, cool dad married a gold digging slut, you.  When your breast cancer comes back, do you understand that I will be happy?  You're a cunt.  You have never been anything else.

You're an ugly, idiot who had to get an ABD to keep up with the conversations around you.  Do you think people do not realize this?  Nobody actually gives a shit about you.  My son is a sweet heart; that is why it seems like he cares.  You steal from people.

I do not have the energy to have a one - sided conversation with a half retarded, douche cunt about her former teaching career.  Get it:  nobody ever really liked you.  Only your vulnerable daughters.  You're a cunt.  I will be glad when you're gone.

Mommy Dearest in the metal hanger scene.

Erica Jong on Writing

I've never read Erica Jog, but always wanted to.  A.N.  and K.F.S. told me to read Fear of Flying.  My mother had it in our house growing up in our boing little college town.  This book, along with Summerhill and The Beans of Egypt Maine seemed to make an impression on her.  I was never encouraged to read it.  By the time I could have been seen reading it around the house without getting in trouble, I figured it was second wave feminist crap.  I am not sure if I still feel this way now.  I feel like women younger than me, hip women in their twenties are reading this.  Maybe it is making a come back?  I should read something by her.  Here is some writing advice that I've just pirated from her first chapter of  Seducing the De, mon:

1. Have faith-- not cynicism.
2. Take your mind off of publication. 
3. Dare to dream.
4. Write for joy.
5. Get the reader to turn the page.
6. Forget politics (let your real politics shine through.)
7. Forget intellect.
8. Forget ego.
9. Be a beginner.
10. Accept change.
11. Don't think your mind needs altering.
12. Don't expect approval for telling the truth.

I want to comment on this advice, but I have a migraine earlier today.  Thus, I am totally fucking beat.  I am also unable to put down the second Suzanne Collins novel for any longer than ten minutes.  

To Read, To Read, To Read

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.  

Thinking about Writing Stories (Instead of Really Writing Them)

Remembering the moose who came to visit out Modern Government class with J. teaching.  It was Spring.  It as a perfect day, dry and bright, everything emerald.  It was maybe the third time I'd seen a moose on the property of the school.  The way is was exciting was so much like the way I was excited to leave high school and go to college.  The last moose is the one I remember, though there were others.  It seemed to come up so close to our classroom, as though it wanted us to stick our arms and hands out the window to greet it or to even pet its face.

What kind of story couldI ever write about my father?  One juxtaposing our relationship today with the one we had when I was a kid, when I would ski in between his skis?  Seeing his face as I fell off the chairlift, or when I skied into the woods?

Something something about the boy, Mr. Z.  I do not know if I can write about him, but if not now, when?

I have been trying to read like a writer and have been zeroing in on some short stories.  For example, I just reread a Marissa Silver short story from her collection Babe in Paradise.  But the story made me sad in away that felt shitty, like lonely sad, as the character, an older man was lonely.  I could not really pay attention to the craft of the story because of this; it was distracting, how I felt.

Ideas for Stories

I am constantly writing short stories in my head.  I am never writing them into journals, pieces of paper, walls of bathrooms, or even onto my computer.

A story about a girl named Hazel who has pretty blue eyes.

A story about a girl with a mentally ill boyfriend who is her father's age who collects castle pictures.

A story about a girl whose father lives in a trailer, one with a sprawling apple tree in its front yard.

A story about a stripper who lives in a hotel with her boyfriend.  The boyfriend loves an ugly, fat, pale girl.  The stripper is a junky who has lost her son.  Though the stripper is borderline illiterate, she is obsessed with a certain wrier, poet maybe.  I am not sure who this obsession could be with, Rilke?  Prolly not, how trite and cliche does Rilke get to be after awhile? But really, a stripper would prolly be obsessed with a trite poet, right?

A story about a girl whose mother sews all of her clothes, including her Halloween costume which is a Pterodactyl.  Her mother sews her father a matching costume.  Both parents are junkies and all three people in this family live in a triple decker in Massachusetts. The floors are wide pine with holes that the tend to trip over.  The floors are anything but plumb, thus they are perfect for roller skating, which the daughter discovers early on and does often.

A story about a girl who is fifteen who moved into her thirty-five year-old boyfriend's old new englander into a rural poverty situation.  She realizes staying safe at home, in her role as the black sheep and un-beloved might have been a better choice in her college town. A better choice from being stuck in the cycle of poverty with a borderline pedophile who she calls PA.  They sleep in a half redone attic bedroom and the house is decorated with castle paintings and drawings.  There are also wooden castle that resemble doll houses punctuating the house's space, it rooms.  Their bed's headboard is rough cut plywood in the shape of a castle's wall.

A story about a poor girl who wins a scholarship to an alternative boarding school and who learns her poor friends from the inbred town where she lived her whole life were smarter, kinder, and better.

A story about a skinny, petite, blond girl who tries to embrace wicca to deal with PTSD only to find this outlet is worse than dealing with night terrors without the wicca.  She learns to trust herself, literature, and the institution of education instead.  She is not cured, but she comes to bear life without constant, psychic pain.