Girl Detective

For the record, Hypnobirthing by Marie Mongan was my #6 book for the year, though it seems weird to mention, since it’s obviously a situational thing. The name sounds very cheesy, and some of the assurances a little too good to be true, e.g. birth doesn’t have to hurt! But I’m doing two big things differently this time: using hypnosis as a relaxation tool, and working with a doula. When I had Drake, my water broke after a long day; I was exhausted and probably dehydrated. Then when I had tough contractions, I threw up, making things worse. I would love drug-free pain, but I’ll settle for no vomiting. Also, when I had Drake the hospital was full, and G. Grod and I were left alone for long periods of time, with me in a labor whose details were not by the book. This time we’re working with a doula, in the hope that if things go weird again, we’ll have a calmer, more experienced person with us the whole time.

#5 in my book challenge for this year is a practical read: The Not-So-Big House by Sarah Susanka. Not only does our family live in a NSB house, but with a second child on the way, a new sink in our immediate future, and a restored/renovated kitchen in our possible future, I thought it would be good to gather ideas. This is a beautiful book with lovely photography. It’s coffee-table size, though, makes for awkward reading in bed. It’s written much in the manner of a self-help book. Susanka introduces different concepts about how to live more authentically in smaller places, then reinforces her points both in the text and the photos. Unlike many self-help books, though, many of the ideas continue to resonate. One is that of an “away” room in the house–a place for quiet reading that is apart from the general traffic flow and noise of everyday life. Another is her suggestion that rooms be multi-functional. She gently denigrates the modern house staple of a formal dining room that is hardly ever used because of its singular function. Instead, she advocates the creation of a dining space that can be informal or formal depending on light and decor, or a dining space that does double duty in other ways. (Case in point: I am typing this entry on my laptop as I sit at our dining room table, which is also where our little family eats every night. Breakfast and lunch usually take place in the kitchen.) She also has an interesting suggestion for planning house changes when you have kids–ask them. Very often, they’ll have opinions, and you might save time and hassle by finding out what kind of space your kids want for their room or play space, instead of making something they will dislike and not use.

My husband G. Grod made a mix CD, and Drake can identify the newest song:

“It’s Doctor Who!”

#5 in my movie challenge for 2006 was Wuthering Heights, the adaptation from 1939 starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Olivier is a better fit for Heathcliff than for Darcy, I think. Needfully streamlining Emily Bronte’s character-rich novel, the film does an admirable job of showing the complicated push/pull between the main characters of Cathy and Heathcliff. It also underlines what interesting and complex characters the two leads are, and allows them to be unlikeable. This is a much darker film than the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, and the differences between the films mirror the contrast between Austen’s and Bronte’s novels. There is much more passion and emotion, and there are far fewer manners, in Wuthering Heights.

#4 in my movie challenge for 2006 was the 1939 film version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. While Garson looked too old to play Lizzie, she displayed enough humor that this wasn’t a serious detraction. Seriously distracting, though, were the dresses and the hats, embellished to outrageous degree in old Hollywood fashion. Olivier makes a fine, handsome, dark, and brooding Darcy, but the true standouts, as in most versions of the story, are the actors who play Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine. The screenplay was adapted by Aldous Huxley. While it’s good, I often wondered at the departure from the original material, especially the lack of its famous opening line. The lack of class conflict in this version, as well as the modification of the Lizzie/Lady Catherine confrontation at the end, make this a very light version of Austen’s book, which most would say is hardly heavyweight itself.

#4 in my book challenge for the year was Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. The essays here cover range over the past decade and cover such diverse topics as the AVN awards (like the Oscars of porn), 9/11, Kafka and Dostoyevsky. With his trademark lengthy footnotes adorning every pages, this is not a quick or easy read, though it is rewarding. I especially enjoyed “Authority and American Usage,” ostensibly a review of the new A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, but really a history and analysis of what he terms The Usage Wars. It’s hard not to feel intellectually small after reading DFW, but he counters his extreme intellectualism with a humanity that makes the essays, no matter their topic, extremely engaging. I don’t think, however, that he could ever manage to balance the humanity and the intellectualism–he’s so far gone in the latter that it can only be tempered. Equilibrium would be a long shot.

#3 in my movie challenge for the year was The Lady Eve, which I chose after enjoying director Preston Sturges’s The Palm Beach Story. Stanwyck is a card shark and femme fatale, and Henry Fonda is the rich naif who has been studying snakes in the jungle for a year. When Fonda finds out her “true” identity, he dumps her and she vows revenge. Much later, she shows up in his neighborhood pretending to be royalty. The humor, charm and stellar performances are so winning that the bumpy transitions are forgiveable.

or Pampers is messing with me. My two-year-old son Drake has shown no interest in using the toilet, so he is still in diapers. As he’s grown, I’ve had to largely ignore the weight guides on the diaper boxes, since they’re vast. Instead, I look at how the diaper is fitting him, especially around the legs. Sometime last fall, I thought, “These size 4s feel small; time to move up to size 5.”

After a few months in the size 5s, a friend changed his diaper and asked me why I was using 5s. “They’re huge on him!” she exclaimed. I dug up a size 4, tried it on him, and she was right; it fit just fine. I tried hard not to berate myself for however long I’d been buying 5s, since larger diapers cost more because there are fewer per box. I went back to buying size 4s.

But these past few weeks I noticed that the 4s seemed awfully big on him, too. I mentioned this to a friend who produced a size 3 diaper (keep in mind these are all Pampers, so all sizing SHOULD be apples to apples), I tried it on him. AND IT FIT.

Drake isn’t shrinking–he’s finally grown too tall for some of his pants. And he can see AND reach the shelf in his closet that he previously couldn’t. He’s always been on the thin side, but lately he’s been eating well and is not worryingly skinny as he has been sometimes in the past. So I don’t get it. Did I rush him ahead not just one, but two diaper sizes? (I cringe when I think of the wasted money over these several months. Pampers are not cheap, and we are a one-income family.) Has Pampers increased the size of their diapers? Is he growing up and thinning out in the diaper area?

Whatever the reason, I bought a case of size 3s today and they seem to fit him fine. I’ll just put aside those 4s and 5s for now. Who knows? Maybe he’ll be contrary in a good way, and start using the toilet before he outgrows (again?) the size 3s.

#3 in my book challenge for 2006 was We Were the Mulvaneys. I veered from 2 quick graphic novel reads into Oates’s long, dense novel. This was the first book by Oates for adults that I have read, and I admired it. It is a family history, so thickly characterized I could almost swear the Mulvaneys were real. The Mulvaneys seem to have a charmed life until one awful, disruptive event sends them all spiralling down and out. It’s tragic, believable, and ultimately redemptive.

#2 in my movie challenge for 2006, The Palm Beach Story sat on the Tivo hard drive for a while. Once we watched it, I felt bad for having ignored it so long. It was a fun, funny movie full of charm. It was directed by Preston Sturges and starred Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert. The beginning and ending were wildly, deliberately absurd. Both my husband and I were in grumpy moods when we started the movie; neither of us were by the end. This comedy (why can’t they make movies like this anymore?) has transformative powers.

#2 in my book challenge for the year, Batman: Dark Victory, was not as interesting or complex as its predecessor Batman: The Long Halloween. It had a more defined ending, but was even less satisfying for its contrivance. My advice, contrary to most reviewers: skip Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome. Read Batman: Year One and The Long Halloween, then stop.

#1 in my book challenge for this year was Catwoman: When in Rome. This book disappointed, as have Loeb and Sale’s more recent efforts. This story takes place after the much superior Batman: The Long Halloween and before Batman: Dark Victory. This six-issue collection could probably have been a very strong single issue with a good editor. Over six issues the story was spread thin. Additionally, I find the wildly subtle and various affects of the Scarecrow’s influence to be annoyingly contrived.

#1 in my 2006 movie challenge was The Upside of Anger, starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, directed by Mike Binder. Allen’s rage at the departure of her husband, ostensibly with his Swedish secretary, is a marvel to behold. Her neck tendons are SCARY. Costner is believable and charming as an aging, has-been hero–is he playing himself? Both leads are engaging, though the characters of Allen’s four daughters are less so.

The book and movie challenges I did last year arose out of frustration that two of my favorite pastimes got short shrift in the aftermath of having a child 2+ years ago. The goals were reminders that books and movies are priorities. I enjoy them and they engage my mind. Our next child is due in the coming weeks; I’m sure this will make a dent in the time and energy I’m able to devote to books and movies. Last year’s successful challenges show me to hang in there, because things change. They also remind me that motherhood is not synonymous with intellectual stagnation or atrophy. I will again try for 50 books and 50 movies. One of each per week feels manageable, for now.

Recently burned by the less-than-completely truthful James Frey, Oprah has selected for her next book one that she foreshadowed by saying it should be mandatory reading for every person on earth. Big words. Is there any book that great? The one she picked, though, is hard to argue. It’s Night by Elie Wiesel, a book about the Holocaust that is both historic and humane.

There are other books that might be recommended so highly, but two in particular came to my mind: Beloved by Toni Morrison, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

For further reading related to Holocaust, I recommend a few other books. Art Spiegelman’s now-classic graphic novels Maus and Maus II, and Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose. The latter is a re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty myth interwoven with the Holocaust. It could so easily have been slight, or overdetermined, or both, but instead it is a powerfully moving interpretation that underscores how difficult truths can sometimes be better told in fiction than in non-. (A lesson that Frey might be aware of, now.)

Finally, for more Wiesel, I recommend reading The Town Beyond the Wall in conjunction with Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha–seemingly disparate, but very alike.

I watched 62 movies in 2005, fifteen of them on film in theaters. Given that I’ve got a toddler, I think that the averages of more than one movie a week, and more than one in theaters a month are good; I doubt my ability to keep up those stats once I have two little ones to watch over, at least at first. But the discouraging percent is that I’d only highly recommend three of those movies I saw in theaters, and one was a revival–On the Waterfront at the Oak Street Cinema. That’s only 20%. Of the remaining dozen, there was only one–March of the Penguins–that I actively disliked. The other eleven ranged from good to very good, but not quite good enough to recommend highly. I’d like to have a greater percent of highly recommended films this year among those that I do manage to see in the theater.

I often have trouble explaining where I grew up. When I mention Ohio, most people guess Cincinnati or Cleveland. “It’s outside Columbus,” I explain. “A little town called Granville, where Denison University is.” Sometimes people have heard of Denison. This week, though, Granville has made the major papers and the blogosphere. I may not have trouble explaining where Granville is for quite a while.

As I’m sure you probably know by now, the accuracy of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, the supposedly non-fiction book and Oprah’s first foray back into living authors, has been exhaustively questioned at The Smoking Gun. In one of the key conflicts in the book, Frey says he drove up on the sidewalk outside Granvilla Pizza, struck a cop and there was a kerfuffle. Granville PD records show no evidence of said kerfuffle.

Believe me, if there had been such a kerfuffle, it would have made the front page of both town newspapers. And my parents would have called.

When I lived there, the population was about 4K, half of which was the student population of Denison University. There were more churches (six) than traffic lights (four). While there are now more people and more stop lights, it’s still a lovely little town, more reminiscent of New England than central Ohio. And while Granvilla Pizza has changed hands, it still makes some of my favorite pizza ever.

I had to laugh at the idea of Granville as the site of Frey’s supposedly severe drug and alcohol debauchery. Peccadilloes and misdemeanors, perhaps. Many years ago when I was sixteen, a fourteen year old friend of mine got a few of the guys at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity Frey would join several years later, to buy a case of beer for us. Friends and I used fake IDs to buy beer at Granvilla, or in the nearby city of Newark. We knew to carefully obey traffic laws in town, though, so we stayed out of trouble. Frey wasn’t so cautious. He got busted, though hardly in the spectacular way he describes in his book.

The Smoking Gun backs up this small-town persona. When they called to ask for arrest records, they found themselves talking to the arresting officer himself. And since there are only a couple hundred arrests each year in Granville, there were still records back to Frey’s 1992 arrest. As the Granville chief of police noted, they’re not pressed for storage space.

I tallied up the movies I watched from 2005, and forgot to list two on the site: Shattered Glass (Peter Sarsgard is great; Hayden Christensen can act, in spite of what it seems from watching the Star Wars movies) and Bride and Prejudice, which was fun, but fluffy. The Bollywood aesthetic didn’t really move me. Also, while the girl playing the Lizzie role is beautiful, the guy playing the Darcy role was a terrible actor, and I much prefer Saveen Andrews in a dark, complicated role as on Lost rather than in the nicey-nice role of Mr. Bingham. The guy playing the Mr. Collins role was outstanding.

I must have messed up with the numbering somewhere along the line because I thought I was at 59, 61 with Shattered Glass and Bride and Prejudice , but this says 62. In any case, I beat my goal of 50 handily. Most of what I saw was at home, either on Tivo or on DVD rented from the library. Some of the films I saw in theater were disappointing. I hope to be able to get back in the habit of seeing good stuff in the theater, but I doubt that will be happening soon, with a newborn on the way.

I’ve starred those titles that I liked especially. Watching About Schmidt make me like Sideways less. With regard to other films from last year’s Academy Awards, I find Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hotel Rwanda and Collateral stood out over Million Dollar Baby, and far above Finding Neverland. George Clooney’s little-seen Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was not only entertaining but a skillfully made film. Crash had some breathtaking performances. It and Million Dollar Baby had me openly weeping in the theater. I really did not like March of the Penguins, and am still bitter about it.

I saw a lot of comedies. With the exception of The Big Lebowski, I found none of them outstanding, but rather merely good. Why is it so hard to make a comedy that is also a quality film?

Apologies (again) for no italics, or details on the films beyond their title. All are linked in the 50 Movie Challenge category to the right.

Key: *=highly recommended. F=saw it on film. D=saw it on DVD. T=saw it on Tivo.

1. (F) In Good Company
2. (F) Million Dollar Baby
3. (D) *The Long Goodbye
4. (F) *On the Waterfront
5. (T) Real Women Have Curves
6. (F) Sideways
7. (T) Punch Drunk Love
8. (T) Auto Focus
9. (T) *Tully
10. (T) Bad Santa
11. (T) *Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
12. (D) Mean Girls
13. (T) *Destry Rides Again
14. (T) Second Sight
15. (F) Sin City
16. (T) Second Sight 2
17. (T) About Schmidt
18. (D) *The Big Lebowski
19. (F) The Interpreter
20. (D) Army of Darkness
21. (T) Laurel Canyon
22. (D) *The Iron Giant
23. (D) *Night of the Hunter
24. (T) *Master and Commander
25. (T) Lost in La Mancha
26. (T) *Lone Star
27. (D) Closer
28. (D) 10 Things I Hate About You
29. (F) *Batman Begins
30. (D) Shattered Glass
31. (F) *Crash
32. (F) Mr. & Mrs. Smith
33. (D) The Bourne Supremacy
34. (F) Howl’s Moving Castle
35. (D) Bowling for Columbine
36. (D) Zoolander
37. (D) Starsky & Hutch
38. (D) *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
39. (D) *Collateral
40. (F) The Man With the Screaming Brain
41. (T) *Key Largo
42. (D) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
43. (T) The Thin Man
44. (T) *To Have and Have Not
45. (D) *Vanity Fair
46. (F) March of the Penguins
47. (D) Finding Neverland
48. (D) House of Flying Daggers
49. (D) I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
50. (F) Serenity
51. (D) *Hotel Rwanda
52. (T) Speak
53. (D) American Splendor
54. (D) Shaun of the Dead
55. (D) Layer Cake
56. (D) *The Big Sleep
57. (D) Undertow
58. (D) I Capture the Castle
59. (F) A History of Violence
60. (F) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
61. (D) Planes, Trains and Automobiles
62. (D) Bride and Prejudice

The pediatrician warned us, “Don’t just feed him foods he likes. Offer him what you’re eating, and if he doesn’t eat it, let him be. Don’t keep offering him things until he eats something.”

It was sound, reasonable advice. But for a long time, Drake was so thin that it didn’t feel right to let him escape from a meal without eating. Now that he’s put a little weight on, though, we have–Surprise!–a toddler with bad eating habits. His diet consists mostly of yogurt, toast, hot dogs, and mac and cheese. He never will eat what we eat for dinner. If it’s all we offer, he starts shouting “Down!” with increasingly volume and frequency until either we let him down, or we offer him something more to his taste.

Last night was the night we decided to make the change. We offered him what we had. He refused. We tried to get him just to try it, invoking Green Eggs and Ham, and Bread and Jam for Frances. No dice. “Down! Down! DOWN!” So we let him down without eating, and decided that offering something new should be done at lunch, which is usually his biggest meal.

I tried again at lunch today. “Just try it. If you try it I’ll let you have something else.” He wouldn’t even try it. So down he got, having had no lunch after no dinner last night and a scant breakfast this morning.

A firm change is best. I know–in theory at least–that he won’t starve, and he’ll eat when he’s hungry. I must not cave before that happens.

My mood this morning, in spite of outside sunshine, was pretty grim. I decided to embark upon laundry. Not in the spirit of “perhaps this good, hard work will make me feel better” but rather “if I’m going to be in a bad mood then I might as well have several loads of clean laundry to show for it.”

Over the years, I’ve tried to simplify my life. This included simplifying my wardrobe. This meant getting rid of almost all dry-clean-only items, and keeping those that could reasonably survive in a delicates bag in the washing machine. So into today’s last and largest load of darks went a black chenille maternity sweater labelled “dry clean only”.

I thought I’d washed it before. I thought it was safe.

I brazenly didn’t put it in the delicates bag. Now everything in that load (including the neutral, not-so-dark stuff) is coated in wads of black chenille fuzz. I shook about 2 handfuls out of the offending sweater, and the laundry room floor is dotted with black. Additionally, I’d just taken a load of whites out of the dryer, and some black fuzz got onto that as well. I was able to pick most of it out.

I set the fuzz-generating sweater aside, though I might as well throw it away. It was a very nice sweater, and I regret that I won’t be able to wear it again. Most of my other maternity things aren’t as nice as it was. I have split the rest of that laundry load in half, putting each half through a rinse and spin again to see if I can get more of the fuzz off before merging both halves in the dryer.

My mood has not improved.