Girl Detective

#36 in my movie challenge for the year, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill was something of a “should” watch. I’d heard only good things about it, yet I doubted I would be wowed by it, and I wasn’t. It was a well-made, sweet documentary. But some of its charm may come from the anthropomorphisation of its parrot co-stars. Watching Grizzly Man made me acutely aware of the ease of, the desire for, and the danger inherent in, anthropomorphisation. Mark Bittner, the parrot guy, is either luckier or saner than poor, dead Timothy Treadwell in that he chose animals who don’t pose a physical danger to him if he treats them like people. I found WPoTH an interesting portrait of an interesting person. Bittner comes off as a lovable weirdo. He doesn’t have a conventional job, or a means of income, yet he has managed to procure a living space, as well as supplies to help him care for a local wild parrot flock. Also interesting is the distinction some people had between native and non-native species, the latter of which many people believe should be ignored, discouraged, or eliminated. But the parrots themselves were of only passing interest to me, so I think much of the documentary’s charm was lost on me. Then again, I was one of the few people who disliked that other popular animal documentary, so perhaps these cuddly, cutesy animal movies just aren’t for me.

I’ve slowed down the pace of the movie challenge. I wanted to spend more time reading. Also, there’s just not been as much, in theaters or on new release DVDs, that has interested me. My Tivo hard drive is still full, though, and we have a large library of unwatched DVDs we own. They can wait indefinitely for me to return to movie watching.

Aren’t all bags of potato chips, no matter the size, potentially a single serving container?

Asks the woman who ate an entire bag of honey dijon Kettle chips. I feel surprisingly not guilty about it. (I did share a few with Drake, when he stopped throwing a tantrum long enough to eat them.)

“Aah!” I screamed, and clobbered my husband who was holding the remote and scrolling through the schedule. “EZ Streets! EZ Streets!” I’ve written many times before that this is one of my favorite cancelled TV series of all time, right up there with My So Called Life. Great reviews and Emmys couldn’t save it. EZ Streets was written by Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby and the director of Crash. It is being shown on the new Sleuth Channel–”Mystery. Crime. All the Time.” I’m both excited and trepidatious to revisit EZ Streets, which ran in 1996 and 1997 and had only 9 episodes. Will I still like it? And if so, will it make me angry all over again that it got cancelled? If so, perhaps I can console myself this fall with this.

#26 in my book challenge for the year, and #2 in my summer reading challenge was Sense and Sensibility by Austen. I very much enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Emma, so I was surprised by how little I liked S & S. The first few pages of the book are entirely concerned with explaining in detail why the two heroines, Elinor and Marianne, are poor. The book finished stronger than it started, but I was not at all surprised by its surprise and the characters did not engage my interest. The two heroines and their love interests are the four “best” characters in the book, but I found none of them very complex or compelling. Almost without exception, all the other characters are mean-spirited, stupid, or both. S & S was published before P & P, but parts of them were written concurrently. I think the later publication of P & P allowed Austen valuable time to develop as a writer. Like P & P, S & S is about issues of class, and public/private life. They both began as epistolary novels. But in S & S, Austen did not yet have the light touch with her non-central characters that enabled them to be interesting, sympathetic or funny even though not as well-behaved and insightful as the main characters.

One of my favorite times as a writer is when it’s my turn to hand out to my writing group. The week before I hand out is one of the most difficult, because I’m reading someone else’s pages to comment, plus working on my own pages. (Theoretically I am doing this on all weeks except my handout weeks. I’ll be honest; that’s not always the case. It has been the past several weeks, though, since I adopted my 2-page-a-day goal.) Once I hand out my pages, I have a week off. I don’t work further on my own pages, because I’ll use the group’s feedback before continuing. And I don’t have someone else’s to read either. I’m still reading and writing, of course, but during my week off, it’s all for fun.

On our walk back from the park today, I rounded the corner with the boys in the double stroller. I saw two policemen half a block ahead getting out of their car, guns drawn. I paused, then saw another police car pull behind theirs. A third policeman got out, gun drawn, and joined them as they approached a house. I crossed the street and picked up my pace for home.

We’ve had a rash of burglaries in our neighborhood. I heard two stories last week about two different busts, but I’m guessing the burglars remained at large. Perhaps they are no longer.

or, How a Toddler is like a Vampire, though only a vampire like in the X-Files episode “Bad Blood”.

Connecting straps (as to secure an infant into a seat) are all securely fastened, which will require infant juggling (not a recommended activity) to undo.

Power switches are not in the position in which you left them. My husband, G. Grod, spent all Sunday morning procuring ingredients for and preparing a chili for our slow cooker. Weren’t we surprised several hours later, come dinner time, to find the switch on “auto” and not high. Pizza for dinner.

The shoelaces on your shoes (NOT the toddler’s) are unlaced.

#25 in my book challenge for the year, and #1 in my YA-centric summer reading challenge was King Dork by Frank Portman, which I first saw recommended at Blog of a Bookslut. King Dork is Tom Henderson, a sub-normal high school kid who spends a lot of his days trying to avoid getting beaten up or ridiculed. Things get complicated for him after he discovers his dead dad’s copy of The Catcher in the Rye, kisses a mystery girl at a party, and gets his own guitar. Tom and his alphabetical order friend Sam Hellerman have been talking about being in a band for years. Once they actually get guitars, they discover the real challenge:

I don’t know how real bands manage to have three or more people all play the same thing at the same time–it was clearly beyond our capabilities.

Like David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, this is a teen-boy story that at times sounds a little too knowing. But I found it so funny and likeable that I forgave the occasional lapse in voice. I was pleasantly reminded of the television show Freaks and Geeks.

A reader review that Portman links to from his blog chided the book for its sexism.

…but what of the ladies? There is not a single admirable woman or girl in this novel, not even any hint that perhaps women are more than simply things to look at. They all come across as crazy in one way or another, with very few (non-physical) redeemable qualities.

I didn’t find the female characters crazy and unredeemed. I think Portman did a good job conveying how baffled Tom was by them, which said more about Tom than them. I found the female characters complex, funny, and demanding, especially his mom, his shrink, and his younger sister. Yes, one of the things the main character obsesses about is sex with girls. But when he actually begins to be sexual with girls, they are the ones calling the shots, and demanding physical and emotional things of him, not the other way ’round. In the first sexual encounter in the book, the girl had Tom bring her to orgasm, and she did not reciprocate. There are some later blowjobs, which the previously quoted review dismisses as meaningless. I saw them as part of teenagers learning about sexuality. Additionally, while it might seem biased or gratuitous that there was fellatio but not cunnilingus, I think that’s for practical reasons–the former is usually lower on the sexual learning curve than the latter.

King Dork the book, and King Dork the character, have a lot going on. While the narrative wanders, the story and its characters are always engaging, and I frequently laughed out loud. I think my favorite character was Little Big Tom, King Dork’s stepdad. “Ramoning” and “glad all over” are hilarious and apt euphemisms. I found the ending satisfying, even while it’s not tidy, and perhaps because it isn’t.

Further reading:
The King Dork Reading List, and Discography, both with Tom Henderson commentary

I had this lovely vision of being able to read the books for my book group, the books for the online discussion of Muriel Sparks, the YA books I already owned, plus a bunch of new and classic YA books from the library. The good news is that I found a bunch of good YA books at my favorite used bookstore. The bad news is that when I made a list of all the books I thought I’d like to read for the summer, there were thirty nine, which is about half again as many books as I’ve read in the first five and a half months of this year. So I’ll limit my to-read list to those I own. The starred books are ones that have been on my shelves for a while. The others are newer purchases. Allowing for the chaos factors of library reserve queues and friend recommendations, I think a list of twenty will be plenty challenging.

King Dork by Frank Portman
*Sense and Sensibility by Austen
*Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3 by Bryan O’Malley
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks
another Sparks book
*Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Prop by Pete Hautman
*Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
*Second Helpings by McCafferty
Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier
Magic Lessons by Larbalestier
*The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky
*Satellite Down by Rob Thomas
*Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
Monkey Island by Paula Fox
Baby by Patricia Maclachlan
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
We All Fall Down by Cormier

Once Drake turned two, I needed a diaper bag less and less. I enjoyed my return to a normal purse with one or two kid essentials tucked inside. With a new baby, though, came the need for a diaper bag once again. The chaos factor for babies is less about behavior, and more about physical realities. Babies need diapers, wipes, burp cloths, changes of clothes and distracting toys. Toddlers still need these things on an occasional basis, but not nearly as often or as immediately as do babies.

With Drake, G. Grod and I used a Timbuk2 messenger bag. After two years of diaper duty, it was the worse for wear. I debated what type of bag to get as a replacement. Another messenger? An actual diaper bag? A purse that was roomy enough to hold diaper-like essentials?

I came to similar conclusions as I did years ago. Actual diaper bags charged a premium for things like usefulness and fashion. They were very expensive because they were very specialized, with things like a built-in changing pad and insulated sections for bottles. See an example here. I found the special sections not very helpful. Either I could buy them cheaper and include them in any bag I wanted (the changing pad) or I never needed it (insulated section.) Plus, once you were done with babyhood, you’d be done with the bag.

I found opposite issues with subsituting a conventional purse for a diaper bag. See example here. Most bags were just not sturdy enough to stand up to the abuse that a diaper bag has to endure, and the fashionable ones were expensive enough to warrant more careful treatment.

So I returned to my middle ground of a messenger bag, though this time I opted for the more ergonomically correct backpack, since it distributes weight across both shoulders. It’s sturdy, it’s not ugly, it’s reasonably priced, and it will be useful once Guppy moves into toddlerhood when we can once again, and finally, give up the big bag. And I can always opt for using one of my existing purses in those rare instances in which I need a bag that’s fashionable and fabulous, rather than utilitarian.

Before I had Drake, I read some birth and baby books, some parenting articles, and took some classes. Once labor began, I quickly determined that most of that stuff was utter crap. That feeling continued through Drake’s babyhood. I was bewildered by the chasm between reality and what I’d been led to expect.

The books said Drake would have intense sucking needs that a pacifier would help. He never kept one in his mouth. They said when he made mouth movements he was hungry. He made mouth movements all the time, and only a few of them resulted in feedings. The books also said that Drake would sleep a lot at first. This was just not true. Guppy, though, barely opened his eyes for his first several weeks, and still sleeps away a good portion of the day. Guppy has also progressed to a six hour interval at night. (Don’t congratulate me; it starts at 8 p.m.) Early on with Guppy, I noticed periods where he’d be still and wide eyed. “That’s ‘quiet-alert’, I thought, remembering it from our birth class. I never saw Drake in that mode.

Guppy is the baby I was expecting when I had Drake. All the books and resources weren’t full of shit, but they weren’t useful the first time around. And I’m not sure they’re much more useful this time. What was useful was learning to ignore them and try to figure it out myself. That gave me at least some occasional insight into Drake, and has meant I’m continually appreciative of Guppy, the laid-back Buddha baby.

A couple weeks ago I had some friends over. Looking at our wedding picture, one woman gushed that I was so lucky to have a husband who was so much in love with me.

I paused. “Huh,” I said. “That makes me feel really guilty for how enraged I got at him this morning for not stacking the measuring cups when he put them away.”

When we travelled the other week, Drake refused to sit in his wheeled car seat, and instead insisted on pushing it himself. It was hard for him to steer, so he made very slow progress. Drake and G. Grod were the last people off the plane, and I’d been waiting, with Guppy in the sling and a heavy backpack, for some time. Both G. Grod and I were grouchy and tired, and Drake had screamed for a lot of the flight. But a guy standing next to me while I waited looked down the tunnel, and saw Drake coming up pushing his own car seat. “That’s so awesome,” he laughed. My mindset suddenly shifted. “You’re right,” I agreed.

I saw my husband and my kid through other people’s eyes. It didn’t make me a better, more aware person. But the occasional reminder helps prevent me from becoming a worse one.

Amanda’s Weekly Zen, (whose site I found via Pages Turned) put out a summer reading challenge. It’s too late to sign up (I missed it, too) but there’s a forum to talk about summer reading challenges. You set your own challenge, and then post about what you’re reading and what progress you’re making.

Initially, I thought I wasn’t interested in a summer challenge, since I already have my fifty book goal for the year, of which I want at least 25% to be books I’ve owned for over a year but haven’t yet read. (Is that as overly complicated to understand as it was to write?) But when I thought about what I WANTED to read, I was able to clarify a reading project that’s been bubbling for a while, but which I’ve tried to dismiss, since it would involve way more library books than sitting-on-the-shelf-at-home books. Once it broke into my consciousnes, though, I could no longer deny it. I want to do a young-adult centered reading program for the summer. I want to read some of the classics that I missed the first time ’round. As both a fan and a writer of YA fiction, I think it’s remiss of me not to have read The Chocolate War, for example. I also want to read some of the more recently released YA titles that I’ve put off this year in my attempt to be less of a slave to the libarary reserve system when I have so many deserving books that I’ve purchased but not yet read.

I have a couple YA titles on my home shelves, both unread and to re-read, so I think this can fit into my overall challenge for the year. I’ll have to detour a few times since I belong to a book group, but overall, I’d like to make my summer challenge YA-centric.

Also, a reading group hosted by Bookworm (also found at Pages Turned) caught my interest. There’s going to be a discussion of the late Muriel Sparks’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the end of this month, as well as discussion of her other works. I very much enjoyed The Driver’s Seat last year, so I may add this to the summer list as well.

Though I enjoyed neither, I’m harking back to high-school gym class and baseball to help me manage my to-read list. I distrust myself to commit to any more than three books at a time (I doubt I can even be held to those), but I think this model will help me keep me on track a little better, especially because it includes a fudge factor.

At Bat: What I’m currently reading
On Deck: The very next book to be read
In the Hole: The book after that
Pinch Hitter: The book that jumps in the queue, for some very good reason or other

Current lineup is

At Bat: King Dork by Frank Portman
On Deck: Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
In the Hole: Sense and Sensibility by Austen
Pinch Hitter: Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3 by Bryan O’Malley

I am remiss in that it has taken me so long to write a follow up to my original post on Grups, or grown ups who have kids and dress and act young.

My friend Blogenheimer astutely pointed out that New York magazine has a habit of running articles that purport to detail a trend, but that are actually just vague, and whose only references are friends of the author’s. His wife Queenie pointed out, also astutely, that most of the people in the Grups article didn’t sound very nice.

I was quick to identify with the article, but think that Mr. and Mrs. Blogenheimer’s points are well-taken. In fact, the urge to identify with the article reminded me of the gazillion online quizzes that will tell you what book you are, what personality your blog is, and on and on. These things, as the Grups article was, are entertaining. They are not meant, though, to stand in for the complex totality of a person, and should not be mistaken for anything scientific or even very meaningful. I want to apologize, then for jumping on the Grups bandwagon. I’m off it now.

Some friends started a CD of the month club–each month, one family makes a mix CD and sends it to the other members. My 20th year high school reunion is this summer, so for our mix I decided I wanted songs from 1982 to 1986. I soon realized we didn’t have our favorite 80s albums on CD. We had them on vinyl or cassette; or we had a greatest hits CD, which often didn’t include the less popular tracks.

I began to doubt. Was there a need for an 80s mix CD? Between VH1 and radio, the 80s have been flogged to death. Can there be nostalgia for music that’s played all the time? How should I limit the songs? Did I want stuff I listened to then, or stuff I learned to like later?

I obsessed as nerdishly as I could with a new baby, but as our month wore on (and on, and ended) decisions had to be made. I used CDs we owned or could borrow quickly, started with songs I listened to then that I’m not ashamed to listen to now, and picked tracks not in heavy rotation now. G. Grod decided to forgo (or at least delay) a CD of songs I learned to like later. Here was the final tracklist. My sister Sydney helped with some of the track selections; I also took some inspiration from my friend Rock Hack’s birthday list.

1. 1999 - Prince [1999] (1983)

2. Would I Lie to You? - Eurythmics [Be Yourself Tonight] (1985)

3. Stay Up Late - Talking Heads. [Little Creatures] (1983)

4. Black Coffee in Bed - Squeeze [Sweets from a Stranger] (1982)

5. Twisting by the Pool - Dire Straits [ExtendedancEP] (1982)

6. Driver 8 - R.E.M. [Fables of the Reconstruction] (1985)

7. Kiss Off - Violent Femmes [Violent Femmes] (1982)

8. Borderline - Madonna [Madonna] (1983)

9. King of Pain - The Police [Synchronicity] (1983)

10. Foolin’ - Def Leppard [Pyromania] (1983)

11. Don’t Change - INXS [Shabooh Shoobah] (1982)

12. More Than This - Roxy Music [Avalon] (1982)

13. Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry [Boys and Girls] (1985)

14. Blue Jean - David Bowie [Tonight] (1984)

15. Love My Way - The Psychedelic Furs [Forever Now] (1982)

16. Save it for Later - English Beat [Special Beat Service] (1983)

17. Bad - U2 [The Unforgettable Fire] (1984)

18. The Chauffeur - Duran Duran [Rio] (1982)

I read a recommendation for the cookbook Sunday Suppers at Lucques that emphasized its menus based on seasonal produce, so I reserved it from the library. I find cookbooks some of the best things to check out of a library, since they make poor impulse buys at the bookstore. I don’t know if a cookbook’s any good till I’ve tried a few recipes, and by that time it’s usually spattered and unreturnable.

Sunday Suppers is a heavy, gorgeous book with lots of photos, and delicious sounding menus. But if I’d bothered to research the book even a little, I would have discovered how completely wrong it is for me right now.

Read through the recipe to find out what needs to be done before you begin cooking. Often there are onions to be chopped, spices to be toasted and ground, garlic to be minced, flour to be measured, and herbs to be picked.

This book is for someone who wants to devote time to the process of cooking. I’m all for the type of seasonal, local, organic ingredients it recommends. The food sounds wonderful, but it’s way down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from where I am with two small kids.

Cutting baby finger and toe nails is hard. I have to wait till Guppy is asleep, and not care if I wake him, which is hardly ever the case. But I just trimmed his nails on Friday, and I used the regular scissors, not even the safety ones. So why does he look like he’s been in a monkey knife fight today?

#24 in my book challenge for the year was The Memory Artists by Jeffrey Moore. This is not an easy book to summarize succinctly. The main character is Noel, a synesthete and hypermnesiac. His mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, and three friends are the other neurological misfits who surround him. The entire story is supposedly written by a third party (Moore) and edited by a fictional neurologist, Emile Vorta, whose self-congratulatory views are related through an often hilarious set of endnotes. The narrative switches between first-person diary entries and third person. The font switches to emphasize this, though I don’t think the visual cue is necessary, except in the few instances that it happens within one chapter. One chapter is a discussion between Noel and another character about the details of synesthesia. The information is necessary, but I find dialogue an awkward way to convey a lot of factual information. The neurological conditions are fascinating, as are the insights into Noel’s kaleidoscopic mindworks. The humor is clever and dark. The structure of the book is complex but serves the story. The mother’s decline, told by Noel and though her own diary, is tragic. I found all the characters engaging, but I felt the males were more thickly characterized than the females. But the strength of this novel lies most in the emotional interactions of its characters. The characters all cared about, and for, each other. That made it easy to care about them, and their fascinating stories.

We took our first plane trip as a family of four last weekend. I took 3-month-old Guppy in the sling, while my husband G. Grod took nearly three-year-old Drake in his car seat on wheels. It had been several months since Drake flew. A few things had changed. One, he didn’t want to remain in the wheeled car seat, and he wanted to steer it himself through the airport. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t make swift progress that way. Two, he was very excited to be on the plane, though he looked somewhat frightened as we left the ground the first time. Once we were airborne, though, he was very excited, laughing and saying “whee!” with great delight, even for our descent through lightning clouds and turbulence that had me giving him a rictus grin and clutching my arm rest. The flight home was less felicitous. Not only did we have the delays as Drake navigated his own seat to our gate, but he melted down in the middle of the flight, screaming so loud and continuously that people halfway up the plane kept turning around with WTF looks on their faces. I couldn’t help, because Guppy and I were not even in the same row, but G. Grod (and some of the Tylenol I produced from my well-stocked new diaper bag) got Drake somewhat calmed until the descent, when the screaming re-commenced until landing. Everyone was the worse for wear after that flight. Guppy was his usual, Buddha-like self. I nursed him discreetly in the sling, for takeoff and descent, to help his ears. He cried a little on the flight out, and not at all on the flight home.

I’m taking both boys on a flight by myself in a few weeks. I’ll avail myself of some of the tips from this helpful article. Even though G. Grod and I ran a man-to-man defense this trip, we still had difficulty. By myself, I’m going to have to go to zone. I only hope Drake has a good day. I will also not hesitate to rely on, ask for, or perhaps even demand, some kindness of strangers.

Also, as un-PC as it is, I think it might be helpful to get this.