Girl Detective

Drake is approaching his 2nd birthday. At his 18-month checkup, my husband G. Grod and I were abashed to admit that Drake wasn’t talking much; he made a lot of noise, but little of it was words. The doctor asked how many words he had. We generously said about eight. Then the doc asked how many words Drake said that other people would recognize as words. We generously said two or three. Since then, Drake’s language has had continuous momentum. I was not surprised to feel relief. What I have been surprised to feel, though, are twinges of sadness as he barrels along developmentally.

As do many children, Drake would identify animals by their sounds, or his approximation of their sounds, rather than by their names. A cat, for instance, was a “Beow.” As a responsible, teaching parent, every time he said “beow” I said, “the cat says Meow.” I emphasized the M and made sure that he could see my mouth as I formed the word. So it was with both great excitement and sadness that one day he looked back at me and said, “Meow.” A few months after that, he said, “cat.”

So now Drake knows that a cat says “meow” and he can communicate that with his own words. He has also shifted from “bu-POHN” to “button.” These are correct, and indicate that he’s learning and growing. I never thought I would, but I will always feel a pang for those sweet, brief days when a cat was a beow.

One is that the book has almost identical elements to All This Heavenly Glory by Elizabeth Crane. Both followed a female protagonist from girlhood to adulthood and centered on family, friends, boyfriends and jobs. Both books had the protagonist in a decent job with a younger boyfriend at the end.

What was unique about The Wonder Spot, though, was that Bank did not have a page or pages for acknowledgements. I usually enjoy reading these, because they often name the author’s teachers and members of their writing group. They can be straightforward, long and self-indulgent (the most painful I have read was in The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger), and funny. But it is singular not to have one, so I found this lack in The Wonder Spot to be curious. I’m choosing to interpret it as modest and self-effacing, in line with Bank’s writing style.

I’m coming to you cordless from the relative cool (about 80) of my basement as I test drive some new hardware while Drake naps. I have a few wrinkles to iron out, but I think a new writing routine is in the works, one that doesn’t involve skulking around the too-hot upstairs study.

Technically, I’m wireless, not cordless, but then I wouldn’t have been able to quote from one of the best teen movies ever, The Sure Thing. Did you miss that 80’s gem? If so, watch it to see Anthony Edwards with hair, Nicolette Sheridan before she became a skank, John Cusack being cute and charming as always, and a funny small role by Tim Robbins.

#49 in my 50 book challenge for the year, Necklace of Kisses revisits Block’s most famous character Weetzie Bat at 40. A kind friend lent me an advance reader’s edition, as this book has not yet been released. “Where were the kisses, Weetzie Bat wondered”, as she considers her failing relationship with My Secret Agent Lover Man. In the wake of 9/11 he has shut her out, and now goes by Max. Weetzie escapes to a pink hotel. We are treated to tantalizing and too-brief chapters on the supporting characters, including Max, Witch Baby (who now goes by Lily), and Cherokee Bat. Most of the book concerns Weetzie’s magical adventures at the hotel as she encounters a surgically altered mermaid, a satyr, a sweet transvestite, fairies on the run, and more. Some of the encounters are charming, some are menacing, and all are underscored by Weetzie’s desire to meet with Zane Starling, a boy from her youth that she didn’t kiss and now wishes that she had.

Block’s prose is lyrical and well suited to her story of magical realism. Both the story and the characters are more grounded than many of Block’s previous works. It was a bold and interesting move to take the ethereal character of Weetzie and to bring her forward from 80’s LA to situate her more squarely in the harsh light of modern time. I suspect that the increased realism is informed by Block’s own relatively recent motherhood, since many of Weetzie’s meditations concern raising Witch Baby and Cherokee. There is a touching scene in which the daughters admonish Weetzie to dress her age, grow up and go home. “And now they had looked at her so coolly, as if she were only monstrous in her orange sneakers.”

Necklace of Kisses is a sequel to a well-loved and critically acclaimed teen-fiction series (collected as Dangerous Angels), yet I believe it will be marketed by publisher HarperCollins as adult fiction, or more accurately a crossover book, one that will be shelved in adult sections in libraries and bookstores, but purchased by both adults and teens.

I am hesitant to critique the book because I have such affection for the characters and their author. While I was thrilled to revisit some of my favorite characters, I’m not sure I liked them as well as I did their 80’s selves. One of the things I love about Block’s books is how she writes about food. Here, though, Weetzie is a lactose-intolerant, sugar-eschewing, teetotalling vegetarian. The descriptions of food were still good, but I found the numerous dietary restrictions distracting, and the food in this book didn’t sound as delicious as in previous books. Also, there were a few too many awkward brand name mentions. What discomfited me most, though, is the dreadful cover featuring a photo-realistic sparkly pink suitcase. (Weetzie’s suitcase in the novel is covered with tiny pink rosebuds.) I was embarrassed to be seen reading a book with that cover. I wished for a cover that was more impressionistic and ethereal, yet I wished that for the characters and the book as well. I wanted more balance between the magic and the realism, and instead Block veered too sharply between their extremes.

My dad served in the Navy during the early 70’s on a nuclear submarine. Growing up, this sounded wildly exciting. As an adult, however, I suspect the experience was much more mundane, especially given the two most common anecdotes my father cites from that time.

One, they cleaned the machinery with orange Kool-Aid. Moral of story: orange Kool-Aid is highly corrosive. (I liked grape better anyhow.)

Two, the eggs on board were not refrigerated for the entire, multi-week run. Moral of story: it’s hard to spoil an egg.

#48 in my 50 book challenge for the year. Block is one of my favorite authors. Wasteland, a teen-fiction novel, is the spare, bittersweet story of Marina, and her sorrow in the wake of her brother Lex’s death. Marina casts about for reasons, aided by her friend West. The book is narrated alternately by all three, even by Lex, seemingly from beyond the dead. The book is powerful and provocative, but I felt Block pulled her punches at the end with a soap-opera-convention plot turn. It is filled with late 70’s/early 80’s detail, and does not have much of Block’s characteristic poetic prose and magical realism, though it is nonetheless beautifully written.

You died. You were sitting on the bleachers in P.E. when Ms. Sand told you to go to the principal’s office. You were peeling the yellow rubber thing that said N.H.H.S. off of your green gym shorts and chewing your fingernails on the other hand. You could taste the bitter peel of polish. You were staring down through the slats of the bleachers to the gym floor. You were not even forcing tears back down because there weren’t any because you were dead.

You, that’s me. You called me you and I called you you. That was our name for each other. When you died I did and so it didn’t matter. (P. 19)

We bought this wheeled attachment for Drake’s car seat for Drake’s and my trip to see my family in central Ohio, where he got some good quality time with my parents and his aunts and uncles.

It adds wheels to the car seat for easy transport through the airport onto the plane and off. It allowed me not to take the stroller on the trip, and ensured that travelling with Drake by myself was much more manageable. I wish we’d had it ages ago.

Travelling went mostly well. Drake was a little scream-y, perhaps due to incoming molars. Going out, the sour-faced woman in front of me did not seem to appreciate my apology, but the kind woman with her daughter in back of me assured me that it does get easier over time. And coming back, the man at the gate went above and beyond to get Drake his own seat so I could bring the car seat on with me and not have to hold him in my lap, and our flight was smooth and early.

Drake threw an on-the-ground, kicking, screaming tantrum after the 4th of July parade, though he did enjoy seeing the fire trucks and horses. He also very much enjoyed frozen custard, a lemon shake, and french fries with ketchup and vinegar. He won’t be two for while yet, but I think he’s got some of the behaviors already, both good and challenging.

My husband and I got married and moved in together in 1998. We bought a condo in 2001. We had our son Drake in 2003. We bought a house last fall. Yet G. Grod swears that he didn’t witness true commitment on my part until last month, when I finally merged our comic book collections. For years, his Green Lanterns, Wolverines, and Uncanny X-Men have been sequestered in their own boxes. And for a while, I fiddled around with an elaborate filing system that had completed series in one place and titles I was continuing to buy in another. My friend the Big Brain rolled his eyes, and advised me that there should only be two piles–read, and unread. So I merged all our titles, filed them alphabetically, and the only ones out are the ones unread. Additionally, I put all the graphic novels together, too, filed mostly by title, though a few are by author’s last name. They are arrayed in one line above the computer as I type. It feels good to know that I am both better organized, and that my husband thinks I’ve finally committed to this relationship.

In my writing group, we try to have a credo of no apologies, with the assumption that we are all busy people, not sitting around on chaises eating bon bons. Unfortunately, I find it very hard not to apologize sometimes. I haven’t posted much this week, and won’t be posting next week, either, so please check back week after next.

Among other things, I’ve been working on my novel. I took my favorite chapter, which was 5 pages. I wrote a revision from memory, which was 13 pages. Then I edited down the revised chapter to 6 pages, and am really pleased with the result. So pleased that I actually submitted it for a publication. Without having anyone else read it.

If I think too much about this, it terrifies me.

#47 in my 50 book challenge for the year. This graphic novel picks up where Persepolis left off, with the teenaged Marji sent to Europe to escape war-torn Iran. Abroad she finds a universal truth–at home she felt repressed, but abroad she feels alienated, so neither can give her comfort. My favorite section was the visit from her mother, and the affection conveyed between them. Satrapi returns to Iran to find it both changed and the same. The simple art evokes the story and emotions well. Like Persepolis before it, I found it easy to engage with the story of a woman whose life is very different from mine, and think this is both an excellent story as well as good insight into a different culture.

#46 in my 50 book challenge for the year. Though not labelled as such, this is a novel in stories. We meet Sophie Applebaum with her family at her cousin’s bat mitzvah, and re-visit them periodically through the next two decades of life changes. The book could be read simplistically, and wrongly, as Sophie’s quest to find a man. Instead, I found Bank created a tapestried life for Sophie that also included her evolution in self-awareness, jobs, friendships and family relations. Bank’s writing is deceptive. Her style is spare yet razor sharp. She is able to convey characters and nuances in relationships with very few words. Her characters are recognizable without being cliches. I loved the charming but unreliable crush in “Teen Romance” and the should-be-right-but-isn’t guy of “The One After You.” The book is both funny and sad. It ends with Sophie getting the best of an old boyfriend at a party in Brooklyn as she leaves with a new one, and in a job that she isn’t embarrassed to admit. It wasn’t so much a happily-ever-after ending, as much as the highest, happiest point she had yet reached, one that she might yet go beyond.

On our second cigarette break, he offered me his jacket, and I took it without a word. He said, “So, what line of work are you in, Applebaum?”

When I told him I wrote advertising copy, he asked if he’d seen any of my ads.

“Live live live girls girls girls?” I said. “That’s mine.”

He seemed to know that I’d made this joke before; he went right by it. (P. 214)

Drake has been off his feed for the past couple weeks, and he’s never been a very portly toddler. So lately when he looks up at me with those huge, hazel eyes, and says, “Buh, mom?” I silence my conscience and cut off a little sliver of butter and hand it to him. He gobbles it down.

There are worse things.

Right?

I am very much enjoying Frito Lay’s Natural Doritos and Lay’s potato chips. I know that Doritos and Natural seem like an oxymoron. Perhaps they are, but I have a hard time closing the bag.

As for the Lay’s, I showed it to Drake and said, “Look, it’s the yellow bag of happiness.” I didn’t plan on saying that. It just popped out.

I think I might have a snack food problem.

Yet another great graphic novel collaboration for Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev. Strong story, strong art, and book #45 in my 50 book challenge for the year. This story jumps between three main points in time. Each part of the story is drawn in a different style, suited to the comics history of the time. The flashbacks are seamless, and both story and art lend to good characterization. We are also introduced to a new superhero. This could be a standalone graphic novel, but I recommend you go back and start with Volume 4: Underboss, and keep reading. Daredevil is a great character, and this team has put together a series of really good books.

A friend of mine, complaining about the general crappiness of most comics, wondered, “Why can’t Grant Morrison write all the comics?”

Well, because some of them have to be non-ultra-violent, and more than token-ish-ly redemptive.

Which is somewhat unfair, because WE3 is a very good graphic novel, and was book 44 in my 50 book challenge for the year. I just wish I’d been warned about how extremely violent it was–ahem, G. Grod, Blogenheimer–and that said violence involved animals. Morrison’s story is, as usual, dark, violent, clever and insightful. Quitely’s art is, as usual, exquisitely detailed. The story concerns a dog, cat and rabbit who have been conscripted by the US military and upgraded with robotics for killing purposes. Then they get loose, and it’s rather like Homeward Bound meets the Terminator, or any of a jillion other comparisons–this one probably isn’t original, but I’m sure you get the idea. This is a sad, sad story that even the ending can’t redeem completely. If you have a soft heart for small creatures, you might want to skip this. It’s quite wrenching.

We all know that each child differs from the next and that their academic needs are best met when we take these differences seriously. We also know that schools have enormous difficulties in this regard and are openly desperate to do better. Two pillars of the current education debate–tracking of students and class size–are intimately connected to this larger question of individualizing education. Yet the novel approaches and creative solutions thus far conjured by educators have not altered the primary design flaw of schools: They are mass institutions and thus by definition ill suited to the academic needs of individuals.

Homeschooling parents have a distinct advantage over public-school teachers when it comes to individualizing education. (P. 20)

Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson, was book #43 in my 50 book challenge for the year. I’ve already received some flak because I’m considering home school for my child. (I’m considering public school as well, but no one gives me sh!t about that, do they?) But Guterson, a high school teacher who is also the father of three home-schooled children, makes a compelling case for it. Beyond the point I quote above, which I think is a very strong one, he also continuously emphasizes that parents should be actively involved in their children’s education, whether it is in a school or at home.

A reminder that the FX series Rescue Me has just begun its second season. The first episode, “Voice Mail” aired on Tuesday, but will be re-run several times. Rescue Me stars Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin, a drunk, foul-mouthed fireman who has been psychologically crumbling ever since he lost his cousin and best friend on 9/11. Much of it is set in the firehouse, and the sexism and the rampant testosterone are jaw-dropping, entertaining, and scarily believable. Leary’s hair always looks a little too yellow, a little too long and like it’s got a little too much product in it. In spite of the odd hair, it’s a good show. Dark, but not without redemption. The writing is fast and sharp, and I find it exhilarating to see a show built around such a deeply flawed character. And I don’t mind watching Daniel Sunjata, who plays a fireman named Franco, once a week, either.

The weather here is hot, humid and miserable. I haven’t even yet bothered to venture outside today. Yes, the sun is shining, but it will still be shining after 5 p.m., and I hope it will be slightly cooler. It seems a shame to keep Drake and me cooped up inside, but I find extremes of hot are just as bad as extremes of cold. Yes, one needs less clothing but there’s still hats and sunscreens, so it’s just cover-up of a different type.

I am reminded, though, that the season brings new beauty needs. No longer do I need a rich body lotion. Instead, I use Neutrogena’s body oil, which has a faint, very pleasant sesame scent, and a light, non-greasy texture. To wash off the sunscreen at the end of the day, I take a tepid shower and use Dove’s Cool Moisture body wash. It has a cooling texture and light scent. (I’m also loving the new print ads for Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.) Finally, to un-toughen winter feet, there are two department-store creams that do a great job, Philosophy Soul Owner and Fresh Rice Foot Cream. The Foot File takes care of rough skin on heels in a jif.

Writing has never been the strong point of the Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale collaborations. Loeb’s story is usually workman-like and dependable, while Sale’s art is striking and distinctive. I found the writing in Hulk: Gray, book #42 in my 50 book challenge for the year, quite disappointing. The framing conceit is that Bruce Banner has called a psychiatrist friend of his in the middle of the night. The eventual conclusions of the book rest on psychological implications for the characters, all of which are interesting and valid. I think the same conclusions could have been done with a less forced method. There are several scenes in which Bruce isn’t present. While it’s possible that one of the characters there could have told him later, it is exactly this kind of question–how did he know what happened if he wasn’t there–that weakens the entire book. And while there aren’t many characters in the book, none of them feels much more than two-dimensional. Perhaps if the reader brought a prior knowledge of these characters to the book then the flimsy characterization wouldn’t be such a problem. These graphic novels, though, are meant to stand alone and not rest on intimate knowledge of Marvel Universe continuity. Sale’s art is the best thing about this book, but is not enough for me to recommend it.

Was anyone else struck by how many references there were to over-the-counter, brand-name medicines in Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories? I seemed like once a chapter a character was taking this or that. Was I sensitive to this because the brand names were English and thus not what Americans would use? Or was there some significance to all the “drug” use in the book?