Girl Detective

When I cared for Drake prior to the arrival of baby Guppy, I did as many household tasks as possible when he was around, e.g., washing dishes. When he napped, I could then do the things only possible in his absence, e.g., writing. With the birth of Guppy early last year, everything changed. I had two people in my care whose needs often conflicted with the other’s, and both of theirs with mine. Naps were never simultaneous. For Drake they soon stopped entirely. Caring for two is harder, and allows for few or no breaks from roughly from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and tends to deviate more beyond the extremes than to the middle.

My husband G. Grod was out of town last weekend for a last-minute family affair. He and I arranged before he left to have help for me at the toughest time of day, bath and bedtime. While it was a huge relief to have someone there each night to tag in and out with reading, bathing, listening, and more, it was not enough. I was still exhausted at the end of each day. From Friday evening to Monday morning I hardly had time to myself. I called upon the memory of last weekend’s solitary retreat several times.

With two children, help is necessary but it’s not enough. For me to keep going, I need quiet time each day to write, to read, to think. This past weekend, and the contrast with the weekend before, have made that abundantly clear. Now I just have to figure out how to do it, as well as how to provide the opportunity for G. Grod to get short respites as well, and not have to worry if he needs to take a longer one, too.

#24 in my 2007 movie challenge.That Romeo + Juliet came out over ten years ago surprised me. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I saw this in the theater. This is a cheeky, flamboyant adaptation by Baz Luhrmann. Danes and DiCaprio are luminous as the titular couple, but of the two, only DiCaprio acts well enough to do more than look good. This has a slow start, but builds toward its tragic, inevitable conclusion. The play is the thing here–the interpretation, the music and the sets, not so much the acting. We purchased the recently released Music Edition DVD, and it was well worth the time to watch the extras. They increased our appreciation of this odd and outrageous interpretation.

I normally avoid internet quizzes, but I found this one, What American Accent Do You Have? intriguing in a Sherlock Holmes-y way. My results? Spot on:

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Midland. The Midland (please don’t confuse with "Midwest") itself is the neutral zone between the North and South. But just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from there. Since it is considered a neutral, default, "non-regional" accent you could easily be from someplace without its own accent, like Florida, or a big city in the South like Dallas, Houston, or Atlanta.

Take this quiz now - it’s easy!

We’re going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Different Same Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different…

#16 in my 2007 book challenge was Elizabeth Gilbert’s spiritual memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Gilbert is an engaging, believable narrator, and is direct about her own foibles, an essential ingredient to a good memoir. The book is by turns funny and sad as it details her bad divorce, worse rebound relationship, and the crushing depression that spurred her to plan a year abroad, with four months apiece in Italy, India, and Indonesia. I found the segment on India the most compelling. Throughout, her transformations–emotional, physical and spiritual–are related with clear and intelligent prose.

….when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt–this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight. (115)

I have two small reservations about the book. One, Gilbert used male pronouns to refer to God; I would have preferred gender neutrality. Two, Gilbert relates that she was raised in a Christian church and chose to study and practice Eastern religion as an adult.

I think this is a little like growing up in one small state in the US, then saying the whole country is terrible, and moving to Japan. Christianity is not a monolith. Even the various sects are so complex that they vary by church, and by individuals within each church. There is a long and interesting history of physical practices, meditation, and even feminism, WITHIN the broad umbrella that is Christianity. One need not leave the country, or even one’s church or sect, to learn about and practice them.

I am by no means discounting the value of Gilbert’s spiritual choices. I loved reading about them, and they have given me much to think about; I highly recommend this book. But one need not go East in search of meaning and unexplored territory. As Gilbert herself notes in the book, there are many paths up the mountain.

#15 in my 2007 book challenge was Embroideries, another memoir by Satrapi about women’s life in Iran. This is a short but sad and entertaining book. She wrote it between the Persepolis volumes as a way of distancing herself from the many painful memories. This is a sexy, frank portrayal of a women’s tea-time get together. They discuss sex, marriage and divorce. As with the Persepolis volumes, Satrapi does a wonderful job conveying difference while also noting common truths. I enjoyed it at least as much as I did when I read it last year.

#14 in my 2007 book challenge was the second part of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic-novel memoir, Persepolis 2. It is aptly titled, because it’s more like the second chapter in Satrapi’s memoirs than a different book from Persepolis. Again, the stark black and white art is used to good effect to convey complex emotions and events. Satrapi ably manages to make herself sympathetic in spite of being a somewhat spoiled and selfish teenager; she communicates a believable portrait of herself that is not too flattering or too self-deprecating. This segment follows the author out of Iran to Europe for school, then back again, and finally away again. Her story effectively shows the push/pull of family and place and the counterbalances of curiosity and individual growth. This is the second time I’ve read the book, and it is a rich reading experience, as before.

Sometimes Bunty feels as if the whole world is trying to climb on her body. (17)

Bunty….is irritated….(does she actually possess any other emotion?)…., disguising her thoughts with a bright artificial smile….Bunty maintains a Madonna-like expression of serenity and silence for as long as she can before her impatience suddenly boils over and she yanks the bars of [Gillian's] tricycle to hurry it along….

Is this a good mother? (19-20), Behind the Scenes at the Museum

A good mother? Maybe not. But a flawed, normal human that I can empathize with? Yes, yes, yes.

Poor Bunty, the main character’s mother in Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum. She was abandoned by a fiance, married to a pet-shop owner who has a series of affairs, and gives birth to a gaggle of girls for whom she feels scant connection. This might seem unempathizable, until we learn about the dearth of affection Bunty received from her own mother.

Nearly every day I fight the urge to shake off one or the other of my sons, as they cling like barnacles to my legs and cry out for affection beyond what I’ve given already, and beyond what I feel I possess. Just yesterday, I took 3yo Drake out to the sidewalk to ride his tricycle. I was quickly frustrated because he didn’t want to ride it; he just pushed it back and forth. To complicate matters, 1yo Guppy also wanted to push it, so several screaming fights ensued. I’m happy to say my screams weren’t part of the chorus, though they did clamor rather loudly in my head to be let out.

I frequently berate myself that I SHOULD be playing with the children, and that I SHOULDN’T have expectations of how that play should go. One part of me, the Bunty-self, can’t believe that riding a tricycle is so fracking difficult, and wonders why Guppy can’t be distracted by bubbles, and why he insists on spilling bubble juice over my lap, and trying to drink it from the bottle. Another part, the person who is trying to be a good mother (and yet who feels the sting of consistent failure), says that my kids are doing what kids do, interested in what they’re interested in, and ready when they are, not when I want them to be. Yet another part reminds me that my kids are clothed, fed, safe, healthy, learning, and mostly happy. I can’t be failing if all these are true.

So me as mother is a messy amalgam of all these parts. Perhaps I can be as compassionate to myself as I am to the character of Bunty.

#13 in my 2007 book challenge was Marjane Satrapi’s memoir and graphic novel, Persepolis. A friend who heard Satrapi speak said the author disputes that label, and that she is a cartoonist.

Satrapi’s first volume of her memoir details her childhood in 1980s Iran. Since she and I are roughly the same age, I found it fascinating to learn the perspective of someone who lived in Iran when I was just beginning to watch the news and hear the media and adult perspectives in the United States. My perception at that time was that the Shah was a good man, unfairly ousted by the religious fanatic Khomeini; the US welcomed the Shah because that was the just thing to do. Both time, education, and Satrapi’s memoir have helped me gain a much more nuanced picture of what happened.

Satrapi manages, through her stark black/white contrasts, to convey a child’s perspective, though adult insight murmurs between the lines, both of her cartoon panels and her narration. My favorite pages may be 70 and 71, on which we learn the fate of Marji’s uncle. The art, panelling, and text combine for a bittersweet synthesis.

This is a touching, beautiful book, and one that gave up further rewards and insights on this beyond what I had on my first reading.

Richard III was #23 in my 2007 movie challenge. I am abashed to admit that we removed the plastic off our dvd copy that I’m fairly sure we bought new, i.e., in 2000, and two abodes ago. I wanted to watch in it preparation for Looking for Richard, a film I’d recorded on our Tivo soon after we moved to our new abode. In a spate of impulsive programming, G. Grod and I plied our DVR with too many requests, and Looking for Richard was deleted. (Yet, A Better Way to Die was not. And Looking for Richard is at none of my three libraries, and is no longer available. Oh, Irony, up yours.) But I digress.

Richard III was directed by Richard Loncraine, and starred Sir Ian McKellan.

The reasoning behind the film was to bring classical actor McKellen together with a director who has avoided the Bard; the result is a fresh, unified vision which may add lines and make cuts, but does a fine job of turning Shakespeare’s grand design into a veritable world at war.

The costumes and settings are a mythic 1930s fascist England. I had a brief moment of trepidation as the film began, and I wondered if I’d understand the language, and the story. The film, though, soon whisked me through the first demanding scene and through to the end at breakneck, exhilarating speed. The language of Shakespeare required a bit of acclimation, and the modern setting required a bit of temporal translating, but things quickly fell into place.

Dark, intense, and satisfying. Very much like a good, scary, roller-coaster ride.

I have never considered myself a good multitasker. Yet when I went on retreat this weekend and tried to cultivate mindfulness, I often often had to stop doing more than one thing at a time. I usually read when I eat. I usually listen to music while I drive, or walk. For thirty six hours, I tried to do one thing at a time. It’s much harder than it sounds.

When I searched for the quote to illustrate this, which goes, “When you’re eating, eat. When you’re walking, walk.” I could only find it in articles on mindfulness, never attributed to one person.

This morning I saw an alarming thing: the door to our laundry chute on the ground floor had popped open. The chute starts in the basement. I have more than one story’s worth of laundry!

That’s how long my peace of mind lasted after I returned from my 36-hour retreat. I sent G. Grod out to a movie with a friend, and had to call him at 5 p.m. to urge him home. Guppy and Drake’s needs were so enormous that I eventually wilted. My struggle with depression and anxiety continues, obviously. The good news is that I can be happy, rested, and balanced when I’m apart from my family, though I’ve still got a ways to go before I can do, and be, those things at home.

#22 in my 2007 movie challenge was Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan It was sometimes hilarious, and frequently cringe inducing–I often watched through a lattice of my fingers in front of my eyes. Sacha Baron Cohen has a strange, extreme sense of humor. The DVD is cleverly and thoroughly set up to look like it’s an illegal bootleg, and all extras are titled in Borat-ese. This movie was funny, but also worthwhile because it became a comedic touchstone so quickly; it’s useful to know what everyone else is referring to.

Isn’t that a fab title? Too long, but funny enough to deserve its length. #12 in my 2007 book challenge was You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing by John Scalzi.

My husband G. Grod started reading Scalzi’s blog, The Whatever, a while back, and frequently shares entries with me. Scalzi is funny (Chapter 4: Science Fiction, or, Don’t Skip This Chapter, You Damned Writing Snobs), smart, and not shy about sharing how he manages to make a decent living as a writer. (Hint: it’s not book tours and Oprah, though he is coming to a city near you very soon to promote his new novel, The Last Colony.) Scalzi is a pragmatist, not a romantic. He writes for hire, and for fun. He picked the topic of his novel, Old Man’s War, by going to the bookstore and studying which sci-fi books sold well. He lives in what I grew up calling BFE Ohio, where the cost of living is low, the politics swing right, and culture isn’t entirely absent, though I would argue that fine dining pretty much is. (Scalzi also claims that central-ish Ohio is a great place to raise a kid. He’s entitled to that opinion. I was a kid raised in Ohio. I left at 19 with a drinking problem and a decided lack of worldliness. Both of those got better once I was out of Ohio.)

YNFA is a collection of his blog entries. Check out the archives at The Whatever. If you like what you read, you’ll like YNFA. Why buy it if the individual entries are available for free? One, you’ll contribute to the decent living that one writer makes. If you’re a writer aspiring to make money and be published, that’s gotta help to slough some karma. Two, the edition, by Subterranean Press, is very nice. It’s cloth bound with good typefaces. My quibbles? Page 271 has a typeface goof, and there are a sprinkling of errors throughout the text that a more careful editing should have caught.

Heartening, humbling, and fun to read.

P.S. YNFA sold out of its initial print run! If you’re interested, feedback to Subterranean Press might encourage a second printing.

I woke Friday morning with a severe spike in my already considerable irritability. It was not long before I was angry and cursing aloud in front of the kids, which I’ve learned is a sign of rising anxiety for me. I sent off a quick email to a retreat center to see if they had any space. We have a babysitter helping us with childcare for now, so I left soon after she arrived, and went first to a yoga class, then to my regularly scheduled therapy appointment. I returned home better, though not feeling calm, and had almost forgotten about my inquiry to the retreat center. When I checked email at home, they’d replied and had a last minute cancellation at the hermitage, their private cabin for a solitary retreat. Figuring that the universe seemed to be answering my request, I said yes, then sent off a few emails and made some calls to alert friends that G. Grod would be on his own for the next 36 hours and could use some help with the boys.

My friend Becca recommended the ARC retreat center to me, and I will thank her forever for it. I’ve now gone twice, and it is a haven. The hermitage cabin has just what it needs and no more. Since I tend to anxious overdoing, I took way too much with me, but sorted things out when I got there.

Once I could think clearly, I realized what I did and didn’t need.

Did need: book, journal, fiction notebook.

Didn’t need: laptop, City Pages, two Entertainment Weekly’s, five books to review for the blog.

I also probably didn’t need any toiletries other than sunscreen, toothpaste and toothbrush. (And I would’ve liked to have fluoride-free toothpaste, since the cabin doesn’t have running water.)

The staff at ARC is wonderfully supportive, and the food they make is vegetarian, hearty, sustaining AND delicious. There was fresh bread at almost every meal, some wonderful gingered beets from a recipe in Sundays at Moosewood. I had a restorative 36 hours. During that time, I tried and succeeded at doing only one thing at a time; I didn’t multitask. I didn’t read while I ate (or in the outhouse). I also tried, and mostly succeeded, at not making a to-do list. I did one thing at a time, and allowed myself just one, “and then”. This worked surprisingly well, probably because I was in a tiny cabin in the woods by myself and chose to limit my options to: eating, sleeping, reading, journalling, novelling, and walking.

I have a huge crush on the book I took with me, that I finished this morning in between my first breakfast (yogurt with strawberry rhubarb sauce and granola, bread and butter, coffee with almond biscotti) and second breakfast (egg scramble with cheddar cheese and hummos). It’s Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

READ THIS BOOK. It’s funny, sad, honest and intelligent and it’s got some GREAT stuff on religion and spirituality. Gilbert is instantly accessible and empathetic. My only quibble (oh, I always have one, don’t I?) is Gilbert’s overuse of male pronouns for God. A little equal opportunity time for goddesses would have been lovely.

I came back this morning rested and with some little reserve that helped me to handle the boys screaming and poking and crying that has sporadically filled the day. I really needed to get away, and I’m so thankful and fortunate that I could do so. Thanks, G. Grod. Thanks, friends who helped G. Grod. Thanks again, Becca. Thanks, ARC staff. Thanks, whoever cancelled your hermitage reservation. Thanks, Liz Gilbert for writing an awesome spiritual memoir. Everybody rocks.

A few people’s voices inspire in me a strong, visceral negative reaction; I can’t get beyond the sound to what they are saying. My antipathy to their voices is immediate, and causes me to leap across rooms or lunge into front seats to change the CD or the radio station. I am thankful that these aren’t frequent.

1. The Sugarcubes/Bjork. A boss of mine used to play this when we had to go on business road trips. She also liked the Sundays, and both bands plus Bjork got jumbled together into one unhappy sound memory.

2. Joey Lauren Adams in Chasing Amy. I liked the movie. I hated that Adams, who was dating director Kevin Smith at the time, was given ridiculously long, talk-y speeches. Her voice should be used sparingly, not in Smith-ish talkfests. May she never do a Tarantino movie.

3. Garrison Keillor. I call him the bad man. His creepy baritone scares me.

4. Mazzy Star, Fade into Me. Unfortunately, this is one of those 90’s hits that gets replayed all the time. The drawn out music plus the whiny vocals are like fingernails down a chalkboard.

I think 1yo Guppy may be a hobbit. He is short, yet round. He demands second breakfast. Unlike the other three of us, he is sweet and good-natured; he laughs and smiles often. He also has a straightforward demeanor. It’s usually simple to figure out his wants and needs, or what’s bothering him if he’s crying or screaming.

While he doesn’t have furry feet, he did arrive covered in lanugo, since he was born two weeks before his due date. Maybe hobbits are better at disguising themselves and insinuating themselves into human families these days. In any case, Guppy is pretty fun to have around.

One of the skills I’ve acquired as a parent is the quick scan my environment for the most distracting and least harmful object to give my child(ren). Last week, my kind sister Sydney arranged for someone to clean our house. In a frenzy of pre-cleaning prep, I somehow found myself re-organizing G. Grod’s closet.

Why, yes, I do have anxiety issues. Thanks for noticing.

Both 3yo Drake and 1yo Guppy were trying to insinuate themselves into the not-that-large closet with me, making things crowded, metaphorically weird, and fraught with danger. Each by himself has considerable mess-making power. When Drake and Guppy join forces, though, the destructive power doesn’t just increase or double, I think it squares. In other words, it’s not incremental or arithmetic, it’s GEOMETRIC. The whole is WAY bigger than the sum of the parts.

With the Entropy Brothers approaching, my recon produced a talking Simpson’s watch, which I think was a Burger King giveaway, still in the original box. I gave the box to Guppy, and the talking watch to Drake. The noise button is Homer’s voice saying, “Mmm, burger,” but with two problems. One, the watch was a freebie, so it wasn’t that high quality and good an imitation to begin with. Two, it was old. The battery was dying, so the already poor sound was slowed down and gravelly.

My distractions worked, though. Drake backed out of the closet with the watch, pressing the noise button over and over. Guppy backed out and dismantled then chewed on the cardboard box. I finished re-arranging the closet. It just took that few minutes, though, for Drake to perfect his imitation of the watch’s “Mmm, burger.” I was astonished, impressed and disturbed that Drake’s imitation was spot on–Homer’s voice, filtered through a cheap watch, with a dying battery. It was uncanny.

[Isn't this post rather like a Simpsons episode itself; it starts out with me talking about one thing, then ends somewhere very different?]

Three more things, which I feel are distinct enough to merit their own postscript, rather than me cramming them retroactively into yesterday’s post on Stephen King and Fieldwork.

One: M., who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, is also a fan of Entertainment Weekly. She is erudite, but not elitist. She, too, liked the essay by King.

Two: I forgot one of the reasons I was so attracted to Gilead when I first saw it in hardcover. Not only was it physically beautiful to look at, but it also felt good in the hand. It was a good size and weight; its slight heft bespoke substance, not the overwhelming weight of pretension. And the cover was textured, so the weathered pastels felt as good as they looked.

Three: one more thing urged me to buy and read Gilead, but I felt it was too long to add to yesterday’s already long post. My writing instructor told this story, which I hope is true, of an editor at Farrar, Straus, Giroux who appeared at the door of another editor, holding an unremarkable box in his hand.

“Guess what I’m holding?” editor #1 asked, holding the box aloft.

He paused dramatically; he knew editor #2 had no idea.

He continued, his voice reverent and excited. “The manuscript for Marilynne Robinson’s second novel.”

How could I not want to read the book that inspired such a reaction?

I am an unapologetic reader of Entertainment Weekly. For all the swearing off of magazines I’ve done, there are a few that rise above the crowd to earn my attention. EW is one of those. I find it smart, funny, and a good, quick review of many things important to me: books, movies, tv and music. Sneer if you must, but in this case I’m no snob. I like EW because it embraces popular culture, though whether it’s high, medium or low is anyone’s call.

Stephen King is a columnist for EW. I haven’t read a King novel in many years, but I enjoy his “The Pop of King” and his sense of humor. In April 6, 2007’s “How to Bury a Book,” he accuses publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux of dropping the ball with its treatment of the new novel Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski. King takes issue with the cover and the title. He feels they tell nothing about, and therefore don’t sell, the book. King picked Fieldwork up on impulse, in spite of the cover and title, and was pleasantly surprised. He says that FSG has burdened the book with a smeary image and vague title because they’re afraid to market a literary novel overtly:

Hey, guys, why not put the heroine on the jacket….why not actually sell this baby a little?

I found it interesting that King also took issue with the cover and title of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, also from FSG, because I clearly remember the first time I saw that book in a store. I had to sternly restrain myself from buying Gilead in hardcover. Oh, how I wanted that book. The cover was a lovely wash of bleached-out color. It looked like the door of an old church. That plus the title told me it would be a book about religion and spirituality. I didn’t buy the book, because I managed to adhere to whatever “if I’m not about to read it next I can’t buy it, and I certainly can’t buy it in hardcover because by the time I read it, not only will it be out in paperback, it will probably have gone through a trade paperback printing into a mass market printing and I’ll have spent $25+ on a book that’s harder to read because of its lack of portability, and I’ll long for the lighter weight, and smaller pocketbook dent, of a paperback” vow I had taken at the time. I continued to visit that hardcover on subsequent bookstore trips, even after I borrowed Gilead from the library. I bought it as soon as it came out in trade paperback.

I went to amazon.com to check out Fieldwork after I read King’s column. Based on the description of the book, the cover and King’s endorsement, I would get this book, in spite of the mixed editorial reviews at amazon. (I don’t take the editorial reviews as gospel, and I pretty much ignore the personal reviews–too little signal to noise. But the ed. reviews usually point me in the right direction: check it out/meh/avoid.) I might not buy Fieldwork in hardcover (see para. above). But I would certainly reserve it from the library, which notifies them that the book is in demand, and encourages them to purchase more copies. The smudgey cover and title, along with the book description, point to a messy tale about anthropologists. The image and title both appeal to me, and make sense.

I find King’s complaints interesting. He may have a point that publishers are afraid to market literary fiction. Yet his argument sounds to me like he’s taking his opinion–that the cover and title should be more obvious in order to better sell the book–and universalizing it. Given that King is mostly a writer in the horror genre, and genre books tend to have more representative and less impressionistic covers and titles, I think he has a bias for what he likes that may not be as true for “ordinary readers,” as he believes.

Let me be clear. He is Stephen Freakin’ King, the bestselling author, many of whose books I’ve read and bought over the years. I am merely the author of this little weblog, and mostly unpublished. His opinion counts for more than mine. But since I consider myself one of the “ordinary readers” whom he validates, I wanted to voice my difference of opinion.

In the end, it feels unfair to quibble with King. He’s using the considerable power of his good opinion to support Fieldwork. In fact, his closing words are so good they should be repeated:

Under the drab title and drab cover, there’s a story that cooks like a mother. It’s called Fieldwork.