Girl Detective

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.

I started off 2005 with a 50 book challenge, but upped it to 100 when I realized that my inclusion of both graphic novels and young adult novels made for a faster-moving list. At the end of the year, the tallies were spookily exact, though some books could be argued as to which category they belong in, e.g. Persepolis: graphic novel or non-fiction? I chose the former. When in doubt, I also went with where it would be shelved in a bookstore or library. So, the final numbers. Novels: 39. Non-fiction: 13. Young adult: 27. Graphic Novels: 25. That’s 52 novels and non-fiction, and 52 YA and GNs, for a grand total of 104. Apologies for no italics, inconsistent author names, and no links, but all books are linked in the “50 Book Challenge” category.

I’ll start with the bad news. There are only two books I read last year that I feel were a waste of my time: Prep by Sittenfeld and Rent Girl by Tea. Both were highly hyped and featured static, immature main characters. For me, the lack of character development far outweighed any good points of the narratives.

I’ve starred the books I found particularly good. Lying Awake by Salzman was an accidental find, which impressed me all the more because I had no expectations. Ex Machina, Y the Last Man, and Daredevil were my favorite graphic novels and ongoing comic book series of the past year. I am proud to have finally read the entire Don Quixote. Satrapi’s graphic novels were much more engaging and involving than Reading Lolita In Tehran.

I found the young-adult novels by writers who also write for adults more complex and better written than a lot of what’s out there: Godless and Invisible by Hautman, All Rivers Flow to the Sea by McGhee, Sexy and Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Oates.

Several books are starred because I flat-out enjoyed them: Case Histories by Atkinson, The Year of Secret Assignments by Moriarty, Magic or Madness by Larbalestier, and I Capture the Castle by Smith. Additionally, I re-read some old favorites, like Top Ten, Batman Year One, Speak, The Tempest, and Howl’s Moving Castle.

Finally, some of the starred books were not only good reads, but each had a “wow” factor that particularly impressed me: Briar Rose by Yolen, Empire Falls by Russo, Paradise by Kennedy, Bangkok 8 by Burdett, Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, Housekeeping and Gilead by Robinson, What I Loved by Hustvedt, The Driver’s Seat by Spark, Mothers and Other Monsters by McHugh, In a Lonely Place by Hughes, and Alias Grace by Atwood.

1. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
*2. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
3. Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas
*4. Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughn, Tony Harris et al.
*5. Y the Last Man 4 by Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra et al.
6. Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 ed. Cart & Eggers
*7. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
8. Doing It by Burgess, Melvin
9. Rush Hour 1 Sin ed. Cart, Michael
10. Rush Hour 2 Bad Boys ed. Cart, Michael
11. Girl by Nelson, Blake
12. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Mackler, Carolyn
*13. Empire Falls by Russo, Richard
14 to 17: special-topic research for novel
18. From Romance to Realism by Cart, Michael
19. What You Wear Can Change Your Life by Woodall & Constantine
*20. Lying Awake by Salzman, Mark
21. Carnet de Voyage by Thompson, Craig
22. Tender at the Bone by Reichl, Ruth
23. Saving Francesca by Marchetta, Melina
24. When the Messenger Is Hot by Crane, Elizabeth
25. Stop that Girl by McKenzie, Elizabeth
26. Fast Food Nation by Schlosser, Eric
*27. Don Quixote by Cervantes
28. All This Heavenly Glory by Crane, Elizabeth
29. Beware of God by Auslander, Shalom
*30. Daredevil: Widow by Bendis/Maleev
31. The True & Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Robinson, Elisabeth
32. Embroideries by Satrapi
33. Tomorrowland ed. Cart, M.
*34. Speak by Anderson, Laurie Halse
*35. Case Histories by Atkinson, Kate
36. Where No Gods Came by O’Connor, Sheila
37. Mysterious Skin by Heim, Scott
38. Scott Pilgrim #1 by O’Malley, Bryan Lee
*39. Paradise by Kennedy, A.L.
40. Scott Pilgrim #2 by O’Malley, Bryan Lee
41. The Fall by Mawer, Simon
42. Hulk: Gray by Loeb/Sale
43. WE3 by Morrison/Quitely
44. Daredevil V. 11: Golden Age by Bendis/Maleev
45. Family Matters by Guterson, David
46. The Wonder Spot by Banks, Melissa
*47. Persepolis 2 by Satrapi, Marjane
48. Wasteland by Block, Francesca Lia
49. Necklace of Kisses by Block, Francesca Lia
50. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
51. In the Shadow of the Law by Kermit Roosevelt
*52. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
53. Rush Hour 3: Face ed. Cart, Michael
*54. Y the Last Man v. 5: Ring of Truth by Vaughan
*55. The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
56. If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell
57. Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner
*58. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
*59. Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
60. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Smith
61. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Rowling
62. Runaways v. 1 by Vaughan
63. The Cute Manifesto by Kochalka
64. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by Rowling
65. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Nafisi
66. A Changed Man by Francine Prose
67. The Clouds Above by Jordan Crane
*68. The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
69. Other Electricities by Ander Monson
70. Tricked by Alex Robinson
*71. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
*72. Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier
73. The Queen of Everything by Deb Caletti
*74. Was it Beautiful? by Alison McGhee
75. DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
*76. Invisible by Pete Hautman
77. Snap by McGhee
78. Sweetblood by Hautman
79. The Kite Runner by Hosseini
*80. Godless by Hautman
*81. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
82. The Panic-Free Pregnancy by Broder
*83. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
*84. Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh
*85. All Rivers Flow to the Sea by McGhee
*86. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
87. The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns
*88. The Tempest by Shakespeare
*89. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
90. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
*91. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
*92. Sexy by Oates
*93. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
94. Revision by David Kaplan
95. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
96. No Limit by Hautman
97. Mr. Was by Hautman
*98. Top Ten Book 1 by Moore/Ha/Cannon
*99. Top Ten Book 2
100. Top Ten: The Forty-Niners by Moore/Ha
101. Smax by Moore/Cannon
102. Rent Girl by Tea/McCubbin
*103. Batman: Year One by Miller/Mazzuchelli
104. Batman: The Long Halloween by Loeb/Sale

Whoever stole the sun away from Minnesota these past few weeks finally saw fit to bring it back today, and I for one couldn’t be happier. It’s not enough that the days have been cold, my toddler son Drake is firmly in the “No!” phase, I’m already feeling 7+ months pregnant awkward when I’m not trying to cram both of us into coats and boots to go outside, and I’m tired because I can’t seem to nap (heartburn) or sleep through the night (various pregnancy related discomforts, in addition to a lingering sore throat virus.) So the lack of sun for TWO WEEKS has felt like grievous insult, and has taken its toll. A friend asked how I was feeling the other day. I thought a moment. “Like punching someone.” Fortunately I was able to contain myself. Now that the sun has returned (oh, please, let it stay!) perhaps the other things will feel a bit easier to bear.

*That’s a Simpson’s joke, folks.

My two-year-old son Drake moved out of his crib and into a bed within the past few weeks. Contrary to my fears, his good sleeping habits haven’t changed. He’s climbing into bed at naptime and bedtime, and when we hear him talking we get him up after nap and in the morning. He didn’t seem to be getting out of bed in his room, and he hasn’t yet (knock wood) tried to open his door and exit the bedroom. It was with some surprise, then, that I went to get him up the other morning, opened his door, and didn’t find him in his bed. Instead, he was sitting in the rocking chair, with a book in his lap, flipping pages. He looked up at me and said simply, “I’m reading.”

I burst out laughing and responded, “Yes, yes, you are.”

Late in 2005, almost three years after I wrote the first draft, the members of my writing group told me it was time to send out my novel manuscript, already. Any further fiddling with it should be at the hands of an editor who wanted to publish it. I did a quick final polish, wrote my first query letter (like a cover letter for a resume) and sent out the first ten pages to an editor I met a few years ago at a conference. That was a few weeks ago. It might take as long as six months to get a reply, which I know from listening to experienced, published writers is likely to be a rejection. I already have the next publisher picked out so that the turnaround time should be brief. But the process has begun. I know it’s likely to be long and discouraging, and I think I’m prepared. I’ve unearthed the draft of my second novel, and it sits accusingly in my office, waiting. I’ll try not to let it gather dust.

For those of you wondering about sending straight to an editor and not using an agent, my novel is for the young adult market. Most agents are wary of taking on unpublished writers of YA novels, since the money is much less than for “adult” books. Many children’s book publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts or query letters with ten-page samples directly from authors, so that is the method I’m using for now.

I hope to do a recap of the 2005 book and movie challenges. I think they were a resounding success–I read 104 books and watched 59 movies. This year will bring new challenges; I’m not sure how I’ll be able to read and watch once I’m caring for both a two year old and a newborn. Instead of number goals this year, I want the great majority of whatever I read or watch to be something I already own. I worked in a used bookstore a few years ago, and still have a huge number of books I bought there that I haven’t read. Additionally, our Tivo is packed with films, and our cabinets with DVDs purchased back in the days of dual incomes, all unwatched. Last year I became expert at my library’s online hold system for books, movies, and music. This year, I’d like to restrain myself from throwing any book or movie I read about that catches my fancy on my request list. Especially with movies, I won’t eschew the library completely, but I would like to limit it to a small percentage (10%, perhaps?) of what I could be reading or watching that is currently lying fallow at home.

I made a decision soon after I had my son Drake that I didn’t want us rushing hither and yon on a daily basis to this class or another, no matter how edifying or enjoyable. As I learned quickly, much of the difficulty is getting out the door. Transitions are hard, as is getting dressed, shod, and provisioned. A class or playdate might be fun, but getting ready and getting there rarely is. However, I did make it a priority to get outside and get some fresh air and exercise for both of us except in the most miserable weather. Lately, with winter and advancing pregnancy, I have done this less and less. To my surprise, though, Drake isn’t bored and he isn’t getting cabin fever. Some of the days he’s been happiest have been days we’ve done the least. My husband and I had the flu a few weeks ago, and could do little more than lay about moaning and twitching like zombies. We took turns when Drake demanded attention, but for the most part he played happily on his own and near us. The number of potential activities is growing all the time as Drake gets older–music class, swim class, gymnastics, library storytime, art class, playdates, outings, and more. I try to quell the voice inside that worries that I’m depriving him by not exposing him to things he would enjoy. But I think it works out pretty well to do a little at a time–at most one class-type thing with me a week and one with my husband. This may be even more important for some one-on-one time with Drake once his little brother arrives.

When my two-year-old son Drake woke from his nap this afternoon, I heard him whimpering, with distress in his voice, “Where’s ’something unintelligible that might have been Mom’?” I rushed up to get him out of bed, and found what he was crying for was his new favorite item, the remote control.

We began to let Drake have the remote for the CD changer, and we may have created a monster. When he wakes in the morning or from his nap, he either demands the remote control or to hear his favorite song, which he calls “Hop-Hop”, more accurately The Hoppity Song by John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting, off Drake’s favorite CD For the Kids. Drake has memorized the number of each track of this CD, and has learned how to locate this CD in the changer, as long as we leave it in slot #3. If we ask him to put in a certain song, he can program it. If song number X comes up on another CD, he’ll remark sadly, “Not the X song,” meaning not that song number from For the Kids. When we read Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton the other day, not only was he naming the numbers, but he recited the name of the corresponding For the Kids song. Also, he’s picking up the names of the other artists we have in our changer, so he’ll announce excitedly with a lisp, “It’s DJ Shadow!”, “It’s Bob Mould!”, “It’s Christmas!”, or “It’s Dog Train!”, which is the new book/CD by Sandra Boynton and friends.

While this is adorable, there is one major problem. Drake does not feel compelled to listen to the entire song, and will often play a song’s first few seconds over and over. I found this particularly distressing on a Christmas mix CD from a friend. I wanted to hear Low’s Just Like Christmas. Drake, however, would only listen to the first 15 seconds before re-starting the song or switching to another one. Over and again I’d hear, “On our way from Stockholm….” and then no more. So we’re encouraging Drake to listen to the entire song, with only sporadic luck thus far.

The holiday season is winding down, and our last guests left yesterday, so it’s time to return to a regularly scheduled life. Having guests on and off, plus holidays, plus days with the grocery store closed meant a lot of food planning–what we’d eat, where we’d get it, plus any cooking and cleaning involved. Things turned out pretty well for us, though, and I will definitely do some of the things again next year.

Christmas Eve we had dinner with our neighbors, and were included in their annual food tradition of chili. Neither my husband nor I would have ever considered kalamata olives as a chili garnish, but it worked and was good. We brought salad and cupcakes, and adults and kids ate well and enjoyed.

Christmas morning I departed decisively from the tradition of my family, who always have strawberries and biscuits. It was long in coming, but I realized a few months ago that I don’t like strawberries that much. I find them sweet and insipid; give me a darker, more complex berry on anything other than a summer strawberry shortcake. So instead I went for savory rather than sweet, and we had my bacon/egg/hashbrown/cheddar scramble.

Christmas night we got take-out Chinese, though it took a bit longer than I’d anticipated to find a place that was open. Luckily Great Wall on France was there for us, and the leftovers served us for days.

In a belated Christmas dinner with family, I spent an assload* on a beef tenderloin from the Wedge, striking anxiety into my husband G. Grod, who then was responsible for grilling (and, we hoped, not ruining) the expensive cut of meat. Like last year, it turned out great–flavorful on the outside and a very tender medium rare on the inside, thanks to the detailed directions from Cook’s Illustrated. We also had salad and twice-baked potatoes with cheddar and broccoli, with leftover cupcakes for dessert.

For New Year’s Eve, we had friends over. I’m not sure how many hours (three? four?) it took to make the lasagna Bolognese, but six of us demolished it in about twenty minutes, and I still remember it fondly. We had salad, a New French Bakery baguette, and pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream for dessert.

For New Year’s Day, we had bratwurst and sauerkraut from Ukrainian deli and the sausage masters at Kramarczuk. This was a great, easy way to have the traditional pork and cabbage. My mother-in-law also made black-eyed peas with bacon, a southern tradition.

There was lots of cooking and lots of dishes, but also lots of good food as we experimented with what will become the family holiday food traditions for our family. We set some good precedents this year.

*That’s an homage to poor, dead, Phil Hartman from News Radio.

I put off my two-year-old son Drake’s haircut as long as I could. Playground mothers warned me, when they admired his curls, that they often disappeared at that first cut. Additionally, they added sadly about their own sons’ haircuts, “He stopped looking like my baby; he looked like a little boy.” So I ignored all pointed remarks, but eventually had to admit that Drake’s hair looked unkempt and uncute, and was in his eyes. I made an appointment at a kids’ haircuttery that a friend recommended. Mostly, he was very good, though multiple lollipops helped more than did the TV at the station. He was frightened by the razor even though the woman was very slow to introduce it, and tried to accustom him to it before she began. She cut off quite a bit of hair–almost an inch all around–and sent us home with an envelop filled with red-brown-gold curls. His hair still has some curl to it, and he still looks like my little boy to me, so I think it was all to the good.

With his sibling due in less than two months, it was also time for him to move out of his crib. We have been extraordinarily fortunate both that Drake has become a good sleeper and that he slept well in his crib. As far as I know, he never tried to climb out of it. I checked out children’s beds at Ikea, but chose a simple futon for a very good price at a local store, instead. It’s a twin bed that folds up to a chair, so it can be useful for years even if we end up getting him a different bed later, plus it’s low enough to the ground, even on the frame, that should he fall, it will be startling, but not painful. We assembled the frame first and left it in his room, then added the futon and the sheets. For a few naps and nights, we asked if he wanted to sleep in the crib or his big-boy bed. The first few times he chose the crib, but ever after he chose the bed decisively and would hop off my husband’s or my lap and charge straight for the bed and get in. We left the crib in the room for a while, then began to ask him if it was OK if we took it apart and put it away. He said yes, then no, then yes several times in a row, so we took the crib down yesterday. As with most milestones, he hardly seemed to notice. His sleeping patterns haven’t changed; he is still sleeping well. Some of this I credit to our routine and the set up of his room. In the afternoon, we have lunch, short playtime, books, then nap. At night we have dinner, short playtime, bath, books, and bed. The times vary, and sometimes we skip some of the steps like playtime or bath, but the general order remains the same so he knows what to expect. The toys he has in his room are mostly his bedtime friends, and the books are all ones that we read prior to sleep, so he associates his room with sleep, not with play.

My “baby” now has a haircut and his own bed. I suppose he’ll be asking for the car keys next.

I heard about a $25 energy audit from a friend, then read it recommended in the Star Tribune. $25 is for a standard audit, and the energy company in Minneapolis will send an auditor to your home to go through your house and evaluate your heating use and potential ways to save money. They will also tell you how efficient or not certain fixes are. For example, replacing our boiler (original to our 1917 house) would take 15 to 20 years to pay for itself, thus it’s not a priority. Yet turning down the thermostat even one degree at night is an easy way to save money. The audit takes about an hour and a half, and the auditor (an independent contractor, not a direct employee of the energy company) leaves a detailed report and a goody bag of energy saving devices such as weather strip, clear caulk, plastic window covering, foam sealant and a low-flow shower head. (The latter item is all well and good for people who have an average amount of hair. I have rather a lot when I’m not pregnant and for the next few months even more; I’d never get out of the shower if I didn’t have decent water pressure for rinsing.) There’s about an eight-week wait for an audit because it’s a good deal and there’s high demand, but if you live in the Twin Cities, I found it very worthwhile, even though it made my already lengthy to-do list has grown even longer.

You start by shopping for new appliances. You end up calling an electrician to re-wire your house.

We shopped yesterday for a new washer/dryer. Simple, right? Look at Consumer Reports, visit recommended stores, choose, buy, wait for delivery.

BUT we have a gas dryer. And a gas dryer costs $50 more than an electric one. Plus, the city of Minneapolis is very strict about who can fiddle with gas lines, so stores will deliver but not connect in the city. Instead, we’d have to pay to have the current dryer disconnected, then have the new dryer delivered and the old one taken away, then pay again for someone to come and connect the dryer to code.

What a pain, we thought. Let’s just get electric. Until we looked at our electric box and realized a few things. We are at maximum capacity, and a ridiculous number of things seems to be on one breaker. So I’ve called an electrician about getting an upgrade.

That still leaves the question of gas versus electric dryer. As the energy guy noted today during the audit of our house, it doesn’t make financial or common sense to use fossil fuel to generate electricity to run an appliance that can be run on straight fossil fuel without the conversion. So–get electric and avoid the $50 cost plus the costs of de- and re-install? Or go with the “practical” choice? Also, can we get this done by the time Drake’s little brother arrives? Stay tuned. It’s an adventure.

#59 in my movie challenge for 2005 was Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, directed by John Hughes and starring Steve Martin and John Candy. Martin is a stuck-up ad guy trying to get home for Thanksgiving, and Candy is the hapless buddy he ends up with for the journey. The movie has a good heart, but felt stale and slow over its running time. I’d heard this recommended as one of the best holiday comedies, but I was disappointed.

#104 in my book challenge for 2005 was Batman: The Long Halloween, written by Loeb and illustrated by Sale. This was Loeb and Sale’s first multi-issue collaboration, and it has much to recommend it. It is rooted in the characters from Frank Miller’s Year One, but expands on them in this noir tale of mafia and corruption in Gotham City. A killer is loose and taking out members of the Falcone family business. Batman, police commissioner Jim Gordon and DA Harvey Dent are trying to catch the killer and collect enough evidence on Falcone to put him in jail. Each member of Batman’s rogues’ gallery is introduced over the course of thirteen chapters, interpreted through Sale’s distinctive and striking artistic style. There is excellent characterization here, and great chemistry between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, and their alter-egos Batman and Catwoman. The story falls flat at the end, though. When the killer is purportedly revealed in one of the penultimate chapters, it is satisfying and makes sense. Yet the book goes on to finger not just one but two other characters. It’s a surprise ending that was set up in advance, so I have no quibbles there. But it’s murky–it’s not clear who murdered whom, and this feels cheap after the earlier, more satisfying reveal.

#103 in my 2005 book challenge was Batman: Year One, two steps back from where I started, which was to read the Loeb/Sale collaboration Catwoman: When in Rome. The Catwoman story takes place after Batman: The Long Halloween, which in turn is rooted in some of the ancillary characters from Miller’s seminal Year One. So re-reading Year One was where I began, and was reminded of why it’s not only one of my favorite Batman stories, but one of my favorite graphic novels. It’s not really about Batman; this is Jim Gordon’s story. Both the art by David Mazuchelli and story by Miller are spare and impressionistic, yet so evocative that the book feels rich and complete. Batman is one of the most intriguing, complex superheroes because he is “merely” human. Year One shows the messy humanity of Batman, Catwoman, and the very fallible Gordon. It doesn’t involve a single supervillain, only corrupt civilians. The mood of this book was evident in last year’s successful film, Batman Begins, which many assumed, incorrectly, was adapted from Year One.

#102 in my book challenge for 2005 was Rent Girl by Michelle Tea, a recommendation on Blog of a Bookslut. It’s an autobiographical account of Tea’s time as a prostitute. Just because a book is about prostitution doesn’t make it edgy or interesting. I found it irritating. Tea became a prostitute after she found out her girlfriend was one, and because she had nothing better to do and the money was good. There are some occasional insights about the relations between clients and prostitutes, and Tea’s honesty about her feelings about the clients are sometimes impressively complicated and dark. Ultimately, though, this is the story of a foolish, immature girl surrounded by others like herself. She does not grow or change over the course of the narrative, and I found it hard to care much about her. The book was further diminished by numerous misspellings. Additionally, the illustrations by McCubbin, a darling of comic-book bad-boy Warren Ellis, were not only stiff and too photo-model based, but they often contradicted the text. I found this disconnection particularly annoying. Did McCubbin not read the text carefully? Was the text altered after the art was done? Whatever the reason, the text describes one woman wearing a floral dress, but a solid-color sheath is pictured. Another woman is written as wearing a conservative dress, but one with a thigh-high slit is pictured. Later, a guy in a polo shirt is drawn wearing a button down. This book’s sales and reviews likely benefit from its salacious subject, but I found the story and art merely adequate.