Mother Loves A Mariachi

This morning I was so tired that when Indy held up a pair of zip ties cut off a bike helmet and said, "Look mom," I said "Ohhh, so cute honey."

Like she had crafted those zip ties with love?

Indy watched me with a confused frown on her face as I proceeded to pour toothpaste into my coffee.

Mother's Day weekend was one of extremes. On Saturday I stayed up until midnight, which I haven't done since 2003, drinking Espolon Tequila in my quest to "know all about all the tequilas, and stuff," (education, people) and watching Supernatural after NieNie's memoir became too much for a Saturday night.

Sunday morning when my husband and daughters came with breakfast in bed, they woke me from a dream in which I was buying ALL THE BOOKS. I sat up confused, unsure if this line of people coming in to my dream state were part of a parade or a funeral procession and wherefore all the books? But they brought me Belgian Tripel Angelfood pancakes with strawberry confit. That's right. My mother's day pancakes had beer in them. Which was good, as I needed a bit hair 'o the dog, as people say and I didn't know what they meant until I looked it up.

Then Mr. V went to work and I spent the rest of the day: cleaning, plunging toilets, saying "what did you put down the toilet? Just tell me, I won't be mad, I just need to know. Is it marble sized? Baseball sized?Was it alive?", mixing Bloody Mariachis, securing Gotham, eating walnut shrimp, giving gifts, receiving Wellies and these beautiful huge orange tulips that I would like to call "Super Tulips", eating Panang curry, buying bike helmets, boldly going, rotating three loads of laundry, opening cards from my girls that made me cry, looking at bees, making Nutella silk dip, feeling guilty, packing lunches, telling my sister that I want to travel to "everywhere, except maybe Cincinnati. Maybe," and finally, eating Tahitian Vanilla Bean and Pistachio gelato before retiring to bed with a book.

And somewhere in there, my sister and I donned our Super Hero goggles, because, Moms: Finding Remedies for Onion Tears since 10,000 B.C.

Until next time, Avengers.

-V

Later, by the Ringed-Round Hill

Just last night my husband rolled his eyes at Glee, and its pretentious mourning of Whitney Houston, and I scolded him, and told him remember when Steve Irwin died? Because he knows good and well that we sat up late and cried together, watching the Crocodile Hunter's funeral. At which point Noah's adam's apple grew very jumpy, and he cleared his throat and said he didn't want to talk about it anymore, but that Steve Irwin was such a wonderful person.

So full of life.

Just last night, and then this morning I find myself crying over coffee grounds, heart sick and sad to hear that the world has lost Maurice Sendak. Through my own tears I am baffled by this, our human proclivity to mourn the deaths of people we have never met. Then I think that the human soul is like God. I believe that the Divine presence is an actual thing in our world, very real, and that because it is real, any person can feel it and know it, no matter where they are born, or what religion they are raised in.

The power of art is similar to this; invisible maybe, but real. Through a person's art we have known a bit of their soul. Because I didn't know Sendak personally I may not know which part, exactly, of his soul that I have known, but I have known it all the same. It haven't known the personality, but I have felt the touch of another soul through that soul's art, a touch just as real as coffee grounds and orange peels and Tuesday mornings and the Divine. When we mourn artists we never knew, Heath Ledger or Georgia O'Keeffe or Whitney Houston or Maurice Sendak, we mourn the part of them that reached out bright speaking through their art and named us, and knew us, and left us changed. Our spirit knows this, and so it mourns. This is why we have to keep making art, all of us, whatever our form. Because this is how we connect, this is how we know each other, when the exquisite, orgasmic friction of soul on soul is too much. Art becomes the medium that makes connection so intense it is painful, possible.

Possible for us to look into each other's eyes, and not die or turn to salt or stone.

My dad used to read it to me, Outside Over There, Ida with her wonder horn and her serious mistake, her frenzied jig that made sailors wild beneath the ocean moon. And I read it to my girls, that and Wild Things and Bumbleardy and We Are All in the Dumps With Jack and Guy. All his work so deeply rooted in the subconscious, so powerful for it. I've been told before, but I remember now, that we must write to our favorite artists and tell them what their work means to us before it is too late. We can't assume they know.

So, then, here are the lines, the ending, which always makes me cry:

I'll be home one day, and my brave, bright little Ida must watch the baby and her mama, for her papa, who loves her always.


Which is just what Ida did.

Spring Haze

I realized I might be in a bad way today when I found myself standing at the kitchen counter in my underwear eating cookies out of the package at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon.

I know most times I sound like Liz Lemon's real-life counterpart. In my defense, I was in my underwear because I'd just spilled coffee rather fantastically all over my laptop, my iPhone, and a brand new library book. I'm not an idiot, I didn't save the book first, and so the computer and iPhone turned out ok. The new book is ruined. I'm a tool. What other option did I have but to strip to my short clothes and eat chewy chocolate chips from the bag? It was a blessing, actually. Rarely are one's options in life so desperately clear.

The last time I remember feeling good was Sunday night. We were having drinks and delicious dinner with some parents of Ayla's classmates. Oblivious to the time change, I'd slept in that day until eleven. I had korma and naan and far too much wine. My cheeks were hot, my life was good. Then Monday came, daylight savings sucked my life force away, and everything since has been a blur. I'm in a spring haze. I feel pregnant with bees and a new book, and boy do I act like it. I wake slow-minded in golden afternoon light after writing in the hours around dawn. I pad bovine around the house, my energies all exerted from the magic of bringing into existence what did not exist before. I have pregnancy dreams, except now it's--Oh no, I've killed the bees! Or, oh no, my queen is deformed and I don't love her the way I feel I should! Or, oh no, Ryan Gosling is trying to kill me with a grenade launcher! Hey girl, I bet that's not what you meant when you asked me to make you scream. You see how deeply I'm disturbed. Our bodies and subconscious minds do work our waking brains cannot comprehend. This is how life appears out of the ether.

In a bad way: Last week I tried to explain to Noah about The Family Fang, about the two siblings who each suffer a career mishap and find themselves back with mom and dad. The brother, Buster, repeats often to himself that he is "in a bad way". We are in a bad way. As usual, I was unable to articulate in spoken word just why I loved that phrase the way Buster used it. Buster recognizes he is not his best self without any of the usual panic or flailing, the desperation to figure out why and to right himself again. I am in a bad way, states Buster, and then he just allows himself to be. He eats lunch with his sister and watches old movies on the couch. Nothing is consciously attempted to be fixed, and yet somehow at the end, everything is.

It's not that I'm actually in a bad way. The spilled coffee was a low point, but no. Spring haze, my official diagnosis. I like this dreamy phase. Half here, like new light. Golden green bursting in our shriveled winter hearts. Who knew we were capable of such bounty? It's beautiful, what we do. However you do it. Knit, write, paint, imagine, birth, boil, dream. Forgive me, I am sentimental. I believe we are all creators. I believe this is why we are here.

That's Enough, Iris

I get very emotional in spring, which leads me to conclude that, basically, I am very emotional.

But Spring Me is much better than Winter Me, who is existential and occasionally morose. Winter Me belongs in a Parisian cafe, wearing a beret, smoking a cigarette and churlishly lowering my heavily-lined eyes before the camera. (Why is there always a camera on me in my fantasies? Probably because I was brought up by circus people theater people. See? If you try hard enough, you can blame your parents for EVERYTHING.)

Spring Me either belongs in an elaborate musical number, with parasols and chiffon, or in an asylum.

Spring Me (Spring I?) is apt to do things like drive to the grocery store, take one look around the parking lot, and steer two delighted children to the ice cream store instead. Spring Me (can we call her Iris?) also tends to get teary over the fact that a) buckwheat is good for your garden soil and that b) the bees love the buckwheat and c) the bees also help the gardens, so therefore d) Oh my god, Mr. V, do you see, it's the circle of life! It's so beautiful-hul-hul! (Disclaimer: the above statements should not be taken as confirmation that I did, in fact, weep those words to Mr. V over coffee and toast with honey).

Oh, shut up Iris.

Just take a look.

What we did:

I cleaned their rooms for them, which lead to this magic moment:

A not-great picture of my beautiful top bar hive, made by a man in Boulder. The bees will draw their comb down from those top bars. The entrance is at the bottom. It's very small.

What we ate:

(Yup, again.)

What we watched:

A South Korean film directed by Joon-Ho Bong. It's won a ton of awards. It's streaming on Netflix. It was pretty amazing.

What I read:

My introduction to Jeanette Winterson. I've only just started it. I reserve judgement.

Signing out with this picture of Indy, who cut the tops and tips off old stockings to make arm warmers for Dr. Seuss Day, and felt all awesome about it:

xoxo

Iris V

What To Do

I texted Blood Sister A.

"Do you ever wish some wise being would just drop into your life and tell you what to do?", I texted.

"All the time," she texted back.

I can't claim to be a wise being.

And I can't weigh in on life's mysteries.

But in the mean time, it's the week between Christmas and New Year's.

I plan to write about our trip once I am recovered from it, but I thought that maybe

just maybe

until then

you would let me tell you

what to do.

1) Rent Hanna.

It was fantastic. So unexpectedly delightful. So fully entertaining. This movie had it all--script, cinematography, set design. Hanna is a young girl who has been trained as an assassin by her father. If that doesn't hook you, I don't know if we can be friends. I don't want to give away too much, I'll just say the movie was more than I thought. It had both more depth and more levity than I anticipated. Saorsie Ronan is one hell of an actress. Just watch it. It's one of my favorite movies I've seen in a long time. This is the kind of thing you wish you had written. Or at least, I do.

2) Rent Midnight in Paris.

What? It's cold outside. You're tired. You're recovering from too much food, too much drink, too much socializing and elbowing with the relatives. You deserve to sit in front of the tv for five evenings straight, might as well have fun while you're at it. While you're having fun, you might as well escape to the City of Light. Mr. V and I just finished this one moments ago. It had me at hello--opening with a long montage of shot after shot of Paris, City of my Heart. I could watch this all night, I thought to myself. Pleasant music, pleasant Seine's (get it?) So clever. So delightful. Ten minutes in, I'm thinking to meself, "I am in love with this movie". The glow didn't fade. (Don't worry, I didn't get all the literary/artistic/cinematic references. Just gives you something to google later).

3) Rent Far North.

Ok, seriously? Yes. It's unlike anything you've ever seen. The story felt different, off somehow, until I realized it wasn't modern cinema. It's a fairy tale. A grim fairy tale (pun intended). Not for the faint of heart. Not for the squeamish. It takes its time, don't go in expecting 27 Dresses or whatever the hell the masses are watching these days. Oh boy. Just rent it.

4) If you haven't seen any of these, see them: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (watch Heath Ledger act the pants off Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell), Let The Right One In (do not, under any circumstances, watch the American version), and the Swedish version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Swedish Title? Men Who Hate Women. Awesome. Let us always call a spade a spade, dear Swedish ancestors).

5) Read The Hunger Games.

It's possible you haven't already, and you know what? It's time.

It. Is. Time.

What the world needs now, is Katniss, sweet Katniss.

I'm for real, guys. You won't regret.

When you're done, go watch the trailer for the movie and see if it makes you cry like I did.

6) Read Mindy Kaling and Tina Fey's books.

Again, if you haven't?

It's time.

Bossypants made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants. I only read a few pages of Kaling's before I had to return it back to the library, but I'd bet on it being every bit as good. I read an article of her's in the New Yorker that still makes me chuckle, sitting here in my cold, cold house, dark and all alone. (Strep vs Yeast Infection. Ha!)

7) Prepare yourself to watch Supernatural on Netflix instant queue.

It hits instant watch in January. You're going to need these few days to prepare. Act like you're having a baby, and don't pinch me, I ain't jokin'. Clean your house. Make and freeze plenty of casseroles, cookies, and soups. You might even consider asking friends to drop off meals and neighbors to pick up your mail and shovel your sidewalks. We are talking 126 hours here of pure silver screen bliss. I am telling you to prepare for this 126 hour marathon (once you start, you will not stop) like it's one of the biggest events in your life because IT'S GOING TO BE. Stock up on cozy socks and hot cocoa, and get ready to have your world rocked.

You know why Dean fell out of bed? He just watched the first episode of his own show.

8) Make this flourless orange almond cake.

Someone served this at a dinner party we went to. She was off gluten for her nursing baby and boy am I glad that sweet baby was having gastro-intestinal upset! Otherwise I might never have had this cake. Incredibly moist and flavorful, it was served to us with big spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt on top. Yum. Yum.

Now things are gonna get weird. Numbers 9 and 10 are going to be items that I haven't actually read or seen myself but I'm hearing really good things about. So procede, but procede with caution, you feel me?

9) Introduce yourself to something new and read Habibi.

It's a graphic novel. I checked it out from the library before Christmas, sat down with it for about ten minutes today, and my gosh, is it beautiful. The art work and the story are so splendidly suited for one another. I'ma borrow amazon's review here: "Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them". There you have it.

10) Watch Shameless.

I stole this recommend from Mindy Kaling's blog, which is fabulous. She loved it and I can't wait to check it out. What I'm saying is if you don't like it, blame Kaling. Apparently the show is about a widowed father and lots of siblings? And the oldest sister, at only 19, has become the family matriarch? I don't know. The Brits did it first. Don't get all a flutter, it's happened before.

Got something for me to do? Post your recommends in the comments.

That is all, and

I love you.

Reality Is

Good morning sunshine.

Today is Ayla's birthday party and I am stressed to the nines. Hosting any kind of party is torture for me. Hell for this blogger would be a cultureless suburb in which I am forced to spend all my time planning and throwing parties.

So that's where we're at today and did I mention that I've got a spot of a cold?

We got back Tuesday from a trip to Santa Fe and Taos and I really didn't want to come back. As if wanting to move to New Mexico weren't enough, I also want things like "to wake up in a hotel room every day" and "to eat out for every meal".

I know. Who doesn't, right? Who doesn't want to live on vacation? Some people actually do up and move to their favorite vacation spots. They find that life and work are waiting for them all the same, in Palm Desert or Boca Raton or even in Bali, I suppose.

But would you really complain about going to work? If you were waking up in Bali?

These are the questions I've pondered all week. These and whether or not Kate Middleton is actually pregnant with twins. Did she actually have a brawl with the Queen? Were they both on roller blades when it happened? Were obscenities shouted at Camilla over a dinner of caviar and bone marrow? As usual when it comes to Kate, I am confused as to what is real.

But Kate is real, right? Kate and Dean Winchester?

:::

Like an alcoholic, I have a confession to make. Well, I suppose it's more of a boast to make other addicts feel weak and hopeless and drive them back to the substance that got them here:

I went to a book fair yesterday and walked away without yelling at anybody. If I had a sponsor, she'd be all wise, benevolent, and proud.

Those of you who know me best (we're talking my sister and my husband here) know that I am not, in general, an angry person and I am definitely not the sort of person who makes public scenes.

Unless some kind of book fair is involved.

I am baffled by my proclivities as much as you are. (I think). I started out small--a library book sale in which I was told that I could not bring my stroller into the tent and left in a massive huff. In one of my classier moments, I went home to call librarians "a bunch of red beret wearing fascists" on facebook and was only kind of joking.

Then I lost a library dvd, was charged $40 dollars for an item that costs under ten on amazon, and wrote such an emotionally appealing letter to the director of the library that I never have to pay fines at that library again. Ever.

FOR LIFE.

Next came the episode which I will not repeat but let me just say it may or may not have involved roller derby, the f-bomb, and caviar.

Also Kate and the paparazzi may have been there but I am a lady and am not going to say.

(They were totally there).

But yesterday, I walked into the AAUW book fair and found the aisles so crowded with people crawling on the floor to get at the understock, towing boxes and bags and bins behind them, that they were completely unmaneuverable. But somehow I managed to select an old paperback edition of "To The Lighthouse", a retrograde fantasy by an author I've never heard of that had praising blurbs by Tolkein and Lewis on the back, a PowerPuff girls 8 x 8 for my girls to fight over, and made it out of there without cussing at anyone.

I didn't even huff.

Ok maybe I huffed in my spirit but it was completely inaudible.

By inaudible I mean that I disguised my huff as a sneeze.

But you will notice that not once have I referred to anyone as a fascist or a communist or a wearer of red berets, so you see?

Progress.

Insufferably yours,
V

Three for Fall

Autumn is my favorite time of year to read. Well, autumn and summer. And also January. Ok, maybe every time of year is my favorite time to read, but you know there is something extra alluring about sitting down with a chai and a great book on these smoky, dusky days. Here are three books I'll always wish I could read for the first time. Again.

The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson




When I can't find a good book, it feels like I can't breathe. I'd been trying a variety of things--classics, popular fantasy, new releases--and nothing would take. Then along came The Family Fang and saved my life.

The third page (or so) had me laughing harder than the latest Chelsea Handler book--and I love Chelsea Handler. The Family Fang is so approachable, so witty and deeply entertaining. It is the story of Annie and Buster Fang, known in the art world as Child A and Child B. Their parents are performance artists who have been incorporating Annie and Buster into their oddball public stunts since they were babies. The book plays with some serious themes--as adults, Annie and Buster have trouble determining which events in their lives are real and which are for entertainment. But mostly it's just a great time when Child A and Child B each suffer a career mishap and land themselves back at home with their famous, crazy parents. I loved every page of this book. I read it slowly. Part of me wanted to stay with the family Fang forever, I was so wrapped up in their lives and having such a fantastic, hilarious, thought-provoking time there. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time.


The Rules of Civility, Amor Towles



It's kind of like if you took really good writing, the good kind of good writing, not the stuffy kind. Then you add all the romantic Manhattan sets from Gossip Girl, only if Gossip Girl was set in in the 1930's so it's even better. Ice cold dirty Martini's, extra olives, instead of fluorescent pink Cosmopolitans and your grandmother's pearls replacing Juicy Couture. Stockings drying on the radiator instead of hair dye and spray tans. Ok? And then you took a little bit of Great Gatsby--not the parts you're supposed to value as the Great American Novel, but the parts you might have actually liked if you weren't constantly having it's greatness shoved down your throat--the ambiance, the intrigue, the ingenue. Dress it up in the sleek, stylish working-girl story lines of Mad Men. Add a sharp-tongued heroine and fantastic rat-a-tat banter of a black and white starring Bette Davis--and you've got yourself a novel to fall into and fall in love with. I loved every minute I spent in this book, bashing around New York, New York with working-class Katey Kontent and her high society friends and lovers. If I developed a freak memory loss, where every day I woke up not remembering anything from the day before, it would all be ok as long as someone would hand me this book every morning, and I could read it anew. Maybe that's a weird thing to say but love makes you crazy.

Now you know, October is coming. Every October I get pretensions about myself and think I'm going to read Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker.

I never have.

But that's ok, because there is an author whom I'd much rather spend October with. Her books are deliciously spooky, overwhelmingly absorbing. They crawl under my skin and don't leave me for months. They haunt me. I was lucky enough to get to write a review of her latest one over here on Blogher.

My title over there is better this time, and you know why? Because they changed it.

Feel like buying a book? Maybe you will want to head over to your local Barnes and Noble or independent bookstore. Did you know that even used book stores often stock new releases? I mention it because I'm hoping to avoid more of this:


I loved you, Borders Longmont.

Happy reading, friends and lovers.

Two Gems

I have read a whole shelf-full of books lately that I found severely unimpressive. But I've developed a superstition that it's bad karma for me to say negative things about authors in writing. This is the same reason that I don't make fun of rich people. Because one day I hope to be one.

So I won't write the negative reviews here, but if you will ask me in person I will tell you the truth. Because I believe in truth. It's a wonky moral code, I know, but the best I can do is to abide by it. What sort of people are we if we can't abide by our own morals? Either improve your behavior or lower your standards. That's all I'm saying.




TRUE GRIT, Charles Portis

A serious gem. I am so thankful to the Cohen brothers for making the movie I still want to see. If they hadn't done that, I can guarantee I never would have read the book. And I'm so glad I did. Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn are heroes for the ages. The book was funny, which surprised me--really funny--and the storytelling straightforward and deceptively simple. I've seen the young woman paired with old man deal before (Heidi, Annie, The Professional, The Reapers are the Angels, I know there are more) but this was the most enjoyable rendition of that particular character match-up I've found to date. Mattie is prim, unflinching, and she means business. Rooster is a drunken old cowboy with curious morals. LaBeouf, the old charmer! A satisfyingly scandalous Texas ranger. I really, really loved this book. I plan to buy me a copy. Right quick.

It might interest you to know that Roald Dahl loved it too. Or maybe it won't. I couldn't say.




A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, Jennifer Egan

The most enjoyable Pulitzer winner I have ever read. I particularly enjoyed the section that was a power-point journal entry from an eleven-year-old girl. Egan is playing with the form of the novel here, and the result is fantastic. Every book I've tried to read since has struck me as unbearably old-fashioned. Except, of course, for True Grit. Which was marvelous.


I am Vesuvius and I have had little luck with YA dystopians these days. And I shall tempt fate no further.


Bonus Gem: How could I have forgotten Bossypants? I died laughing. Tina Fey is my idol. Her personality reminds me a lot of mine. For instance: we both dislike cruises and agree on the importance of being the first in line at the infirmary. Other uncanny coincidences: chin acne. Daughters who want to be saved by princes,despite our attempts at feminism. Neither one of us, in Tina's words here, chose to love our children enough to breast feed them for more than two days. Familiarity with the movie 'Baby's Day Out'.

Seriously, I laughed so hard I died. I'm in heaven now. Here comes Jensen Ackles with the cakepops. Later, nerds.

Best Books of 2010

Here's the deal: These are the best books I read in 2010, not the best books published in 2010. I feel like I didn't read much this year, but the truth is I just didn't read much that was very good. There are only a few knock-your-socks-off books out there, you know? Whenever I hand people a copy of Time Traveler's Wife or The Book Thief or The Road, I warn them: I will not be able to recommend you other books as good as these. Because there just aren't any. Many.

Full disclosure: I may or may not have actually read these books in 2010.

In no particular order:

The Reapers Are the Angels, Alden Bell.

This title just wormed its way into my brain and wouldn't leave. I was right ticked that someone else had come up with this beautiful, haunting phrase and not me. I wanted to write a book just to fit this title. Then one night I was reading about angels on wikipedia. And I clicked on a link to a parable. And it turns out, Alden Bell didn't coin this phrase. Jesus did. So at least I don't have to feel too bad for not being as good as, you know. Jesus.

If Cormac McCarthy and Joss Wedon teamed up to write a book about zombies, this would be that book. I'm always up for a good yarn about an apocalypse.

You know you are a Joss Whedon fan when: You refer to it as AN apocalypse, not THE apocalypse.

The Book Thief, Mark Zusak



Another book that found me. Death observes humanity during the terrors of World War II. Observes us with deep tenderness and awe. Liesel restores your faith in humanity. Papa was like an accordion. This book might change you.

The Jacqueline Carey Kushiel Novels.

I loved them. I don't recommend them to most of you who read this blog. They are very sensual. The first fantasy I have ever read that was written directly for the female eye, if you get my drift. Phedre kicks ass and takes names. Joscelin (a dude with an unfortunate moniker) challenges Waldemar Skelig to the holmgang and I had one of my 'spells'.

(If you read these books, and enjoy them, you're going to be too embarrassed to ask for more like them. Anne Bishop is the closest thing I've found, though hers are considerably darker. You're on your own from there.)

The Painted Drum, Louise Erdrich

I think this is Erdrich's most approchable novel, if you will forgive me for using that term on my blog. Her writing is so thoughtful and tender. My dad didn't like it, but he's only into lad lit these days. (Yes I do call DeLillo and McGuane lad lit, dad. Bite me.)


Faithful Place, Tana French

This was my favorite book of the year. It's technically a 'mystery', don't let that scare you off. I don't suffer Patterson, either. One seriously dysfunctional Irish family has a dark secret or two. Tana French's characters are so real to me. For weeks after reading this book I'd be chopping carrots and find myself wondering why Frank never comes round for dinner anymore.

Frank is the main character in the book.

Delicate, Edible Birds, Lauren Groff

I absolutely did not read this book in 2010. Lauren Groff's words are delicate and edible. Like birds. I'm a motherfraking lyrical genius. Motherfriggin wordsmith.



When The Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd, and Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor. Good old Sue's approach to Christianity just works for me. One day last spring I was wondering around a bookstore feeling lost and empty. When The Heart Waits literally fell off the shelf and landed in front of me. It was exactly what I needed. Traveling With Pomegranates is a mother-daughter memoir about several trips they took to visit sacred sites around the world. Sue Monk Kidd delights me because she is so darn different from me. She is deeply introspective and contemplative and is capable of finding deep meaning out of things like glass pomegranates in a window display or a bee on her shoulder. Some of my happiest moments this year were spent reading this book and considering things deeply the way Sue and her daughter do. Also commendable for its frank look at depression and the complications of mother-daughter relationships. I recommend this one highly. (Sidenote: I couldn't finish The Secret Life of Bees. Just in case you couldn't either.)

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins. The world needs much more Katniss and much less Bella. If you haven't read them, you are a sorry sonofabitch. Apologies. I'm feeling feisty today.

Books I'm most looking forward to reading in 2011:


1) The Reapers are The Angels (I just can't stop saying it). Temple is my favorite character since Buffy. Who was my favorite character since Starbuck. Who was my favorite character since Katniss. It all started for me in about 1989 with a feisty redhead named Anne. With the 'e'.

2)The Orange Eats Creeps, Grace Krilanovich. It's about vampires. I was over vampires before they began. I read Anne Rice in 1991, ok? But someone on NPR's book reviews said "the book feels written in a fever. It is breathless, scary, and like nothing I've ever read before. As critic Steve Erickson wrote, 'If a new literature is at hand then it might as well begin here'. Krilanovich's work will make you believe that new ways of storytelling are still emerging from the margins." Sold.

3)
My Mother, She Killed Me, My Father, He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales. Francine Prose, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates all have entries here. I'm into new-spun fairy tales right now. If the title didn't sell you, I don't want to be your friend.

4) Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, Alissa Nutting. I think it's another sort of dark magic-realism deal. On the cover is a naked woman holding a fish.



5)Temperance, Cathy Malkasian. This was from some other list on NPR. It's a graphic novel and I have yet to finish a graphic novel. I'm not highly visual. I get the characters confused.

6) YA lit. It's a brave new world. In YA, if you don't write like 2010's Hemingway, it's a-ok. I dig the elbow room.


Final thoughts on books of 2010: I don't like anything by Kate Morton, but for some reason I wish I did. When will Oprah pick a book written by a woman? Freedom was just not up my alley. Martha Beck, I like your style. You sly, sly minx. I've started Kingsolver's The Lacuna three times now but haven't finished. J.V. Jones, please get your groove back. Jordan/Sanderson, foot-stamping and braid-pulling does not a character make. That's enough, World War II books. The Book Thief is the only one anyone needs to read. How many days 'til Tana French has a new book?

Spiritual Journeys Undertaken In Red Carts

We just returned from Mom Mecca (otherwise known as Target), where the goblins humiliated me so badly I almost cried.

They can be so naughty and I needed to shop for sunglasses and I couldn't--because of the screaming and the kicking and the stroller tipping over backwards. And everyone else staring. Sorry. I realize that my children are the first children to ever have a tantrum in a grocery store. I know it's truly an original sight, and terribly fascinating. But maybe for the sake of the poor mother you could just. . . avert your eyes? Just for a minute? And not stare at the breaking down mother the way you stare at a car accident? Because you and my girls are embarrassing me more than I was embarrassed during my Most Embarrassing Moment--the one that occurred in college speech class and involved a naive parochial-school raised me and a sex toy. (No I am not at all joking about that). (No, I will not tell you the rest of that story. Still embarrassed.)

I walked home glaring into the sun. And onto the heads of my misbegotten offspring.

I have been looking into books involving spirituality and motherhood, but they all read to me something like this:

Are you the perfect mother? No? What is wrong with you? Try to be the perfect mother. Feeling better yet?


I wondered aimlessly through Barnes and Noble on Saturday, feeling unmoored and empty and then I found this book by Sue Monk Kidd. So I ordered me an iced mocha and sat down and read the book and after an hour I felt like a brand new person.

Seriously. I felt like sunshine. I felt so good that when I went to meet back up with Mr.V I knew he was absolutely going to see my inner radiance beaming like El Dorado and fall to his knees praising my beauty and asking me to bestow my newly gained wisdom upon him.

And when he saw me coming he said "Hey. What do you want for dinner?" Which you may not know is IN FACT man's way of saying "Oh ye embodiment of every goddess of wisdom, oh ye who art beauty incarnate, allow me to worship at the altar of you and bring you offerings of goodly iced mochas and the richest red wine, which still is not richer than thou wisdom and beauty ."

It's true.

Now if only SMK (as I like to call her) would write a book on finding some zen when your children go all zany in public areas and not reaching down into the depths of your humiliated soul and finding your inner devil mommy that screams things like "STOP WHINING OR I AM SELLING YOU TO THE GYPSIES!" or "STOP THAT KICKING OR I SWEAR TO GOD I SHALL UNHINGE MY JAWS AND SWALLOW YOU WHOLE".

Did you get that, Sue? Could you manage?


Stop by tomorrow. (You, that is. Not Sue.) I would like to tell you about something I once wanted, and did not get, and have since become very grateful that I didn't get what I thought I wanted..

And no, it's not about wanting this.

I'm So Excited

I'm so excited! I'm so. . . well you know the rest.



Since many of us have been so enjoying The Time Traveler's Wife, I thought you might like to know that Audrey Niffenegger's next book, HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, will be released next month. September 29, to be exact.

You might be interested to know that like virtually everyone in the literary world, Niffenegger is friends with Neil Gaiman. She did a large amount of research into graveyards for HFS, and so when Neil Himself needed to learn about graveyards for his Newberry award winning novel THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, Audrey, in a moment of fearful synergy, showed him around London's Highgate Cemetery, and, we can only assume, displayed to him her fearful savvy.

Sorry.

While we are on the subject of books:



THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is the first book from Swedish author Steig Larsson. I picked it up after hearing it reviewed positively on NPR. It is a crime novel.

Yes, that was hard to admit.

Crime novels and mysteries are not usually my cup of joe. But after reading Tana French's incredible IN THE WOODS and her eerie follow up, THE LIKENESS, my mind was softened toward the genre. Let me tell you, if you don't read certain books because they are considered genre novels, you're only hurting yourself. You are sparing yourself from some truly wonderful writing simply because you are a bit of a snob. Take a deep breath and get comfy with your snobbery. Then try admitting that someone who writes "fantasy" (like Tolkien, LeGuin, Gaiman?) or "mystery" (Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe?) could conceivably be. . . a decent writer.

Dragon Tattoo author Steig Larsson died after turning in the manuscripts for three books. The books have since been hugely successful. He was a journalist and an activist, exposing racism and sexism in Swedish government, and because of his views received many death threats during his life.

The book is very intelligent. It deals with government and politics and Swedish culture, while at the same time unravelling a great mystery. Many mysteries seem to get a bit of a kick out of killing off young women in all sorts of horrendous ways. Larsson uses the death of or violence against women in his novels as a way of saying, Look. See what is being done.

Mainly I enjoyed it because the main character spends a lot of time driving around Sweden downing latte after espresso after coffee after latte. I enjoyed the book taking me to snowy Sweden, eating strange Swedish sandwiches (egg, cheese, caviar) and bacon pancakes. And downing all that coffee.

Off to have a latte and dream of snowy climes.

Things We've Lost in the Twilight Zone

Isn't it funny how memory works? Yesterday it was so warm, the girls and I went out to the front yard. On the porch was a huge splat of white goop. It looked like paint. But how could white paint have ended up on our front porch?

I think it had to be bird poop. Don't worry, I told the girls not to touch it.

I mentioned it to Noah, as we were dozing off in bed and my mind was in that soft, malleable state where thoughts and memories and ideas drift in and out and you jot something down--some sentence or title or idea--and wake up in the morning and read it.

And think, what was I thinking?

Anyway, he said he thought it was poop too. Which led me to mention how I almost--ALMOST--got pooped on in New York. Which led Noah to mention how he did get pooped on in high school. Which led me to mention that so did I.

Which made me remember this:



Starring Sally J. Freedman, As Herself.

How could I have forgotten?

Judy Blume was one of the most important writers for me, growing up. I read this one when I was in about 4th grade, I think. I read alot of her other ones too. Freckle Juice, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great, Superfudge, and of course, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Judy Blume has drawn some heat because she never talks down to her readers. She writes for children, but she doesn't try to protect them from truths about their own lives. I don't remember ever being shocked or disturbed by anything in Blume's books. I just remember I loved them.

Sally J Freedman is about a little girl living in America after WWII. Sally had cousins that died in the Holocaust. She dreams about them often.

She is given to spinning off flights of incredible fancy (that's why I loved her).

In one, she meets Hitler. She bravely refuses to succumb to him as he badgers her for answers. The tone here is fantastical and fanciful. It's not dark to you, as a child. Looking back as an adult, it sort of is.

Sally is sent down to Miami beach to spend the summer with her buhbeh (sounds like babi, if you're Czech)while her older brother recovers from an infection.

Sally is convinced her neighbor is Hitler in disguise.

Sally J Freedman gets pooped on. Bubeh says it is good luck.

Sally is in love with Peter Hornstien. With a name like that, you know he is gorgeous.

Honestly, that's about all I remember. I have a hankering to re-read it now, but I haven't read it since I was about 9 (I looked up the boys name. No, I did not just recall it). But I know I loved it back then. I loved all things Judy Blume.

If you haven't read her yet, you might want to get around to it.

More Things We've Lost in the Twilight Zone books to come.

What were some of your favorite books as a child or teen?