Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

Something From Yesterday

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Advantage for the Taking

Someone unexpected lifted me out of my self-imposed anger today. I had been walking about with this you done me Wrong attitude and she turned it into a Right. Not only unexpected but downright heart stopping shocking. I had written her off a long time ago. Suddenly, I am seeing the faint lines of forgiveness coming through the hate. Am I mad?
I hate being lied to and this lie was self-indulgent and stupid. I could have handled the truth but something chose to make it worse by putting my heart in the mix. The smokescreen was as ridiculous as the lie. Could I not see through it? I couldn’t help but vent. After all, I am allergic to smoke. A sort of blood letting for the hurt, so to speak. The kicker is that I chose to spew my frustration to someone who used to produce just as much irritation as I was trying to release. I couldn’t help it and to make matters worse, there was no stopping me once I got going…you know how it is.
Surprise of all surprises, my rant was met with calm. Understanding. Even a solution of sorts. I couldn’t help but laugh, feel a litte silly. Just how old am I anyway? So, there we are: the barnacle, the newbee, the about face and me. Go figure.

Carry On, Jeeves

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Wodehouse, P.G. Carry On, Jeeves. New York: A.L. Burt, 1927.

This book just feels good in my hands. Published 10 years before my father was even born, it even looks its age. I guess I just like old books.

Carry on, Jeeves is a series of stories about how Jeeves acts as man-servant while repeatedly saving the day for Bertram Wooster. Each chapter sets up a different dilemma “Bertie” and/or his friends face and how Jeeves cleverly resolves every one of those dilemmas. There is a formula to these moments of crisis: someone is usually misleading a family member (usually an aunt) to think he is wealthy, in another part of the country, worth marrying, not worth marrying, etc. Jeeves’s solution is to mislead the “aunt” with a lie or two.  The lie is the smallest of gestures and usually something humorous happens – like the plan backfiring. While the general plot seems repetitious, Wodehouse’s style of writing is very funny. Side note: Bertie and Jeeves always seem to get into curious arguments about fashion.

Lines I liked: “I strained the old bean to meet this emergency” (p 47).
“I’m never much of a lad till I’ve engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee (p 89).
“If this was going to be a fish-story, I needed stimulants” (p 167).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “P.G. Wodehouse: Too Good To Miss” (p 235). What I find hysterical about Pearl’s entry is her first sentence: “If you can ignore his somewhat rummy behavior…” (p 235). “Rummy” is a word Wodehouse uses over and over and over in Carry On, Jeeves.

October Is…

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October is Halloween! For anyone who knows me, Halloween starts on October 1st and runs for 31 days. This is the way it should be. I have a whole big box of Halloween stuff and every October 1st out it comes. Okay, so this year it was a little early. I bought a tiny skull completely off timeline, too! The skeltons, black cats, bats, witches, goblins, and of course, my fave – jack-o-laterns!
October is also another chance to slip away to Monhegan for a handful of days. Home Sweet Autumn Home. For music it’s Sean, of course. There are other trips, I’m sure. Just ask Joe.

For reading, here’s how it stacks up. For the Book Lust Challenge:

  • Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler ~ in honor of Anne’s birth month
  • Artimis Fowl by Eoin Colfer ~ in honor of National Fantasy Month
  • Big If by Mark Costello ~ October is the best time to visit New England
  • Carry On Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse ~ in honor of Wodehouse’s birth month
  • Crime Novels: American Noir of the 30’s and 40’s by Horace ~ in honor of Crime Novel month

That’s about it. Pumpkin Fest later. Big charity walk for breast cancer on the 26th. Natalie’s birthday…

Any Given Doomsday

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Handeland, Lori. Any Given Doomsday. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008.

Any Given Sunday was a football movie. Any Given Thursday was a John Mayer dvd. Any Given Doomsday is my latest Early Review book for LibraryThing. I have to start off by saying this book was out of my comfort zone. On purpose. I don’t read traditional “chick lit” and I steer away from “fantasy” genre. Any Given Doomsday s eemed to be both. But, like with the Book Lust Challenge (which is teaching me to appreciate all styles of writing), I wanted to give this book, and myself, a chance. I’m sorry that I did.

Reading Any Given Doomsday was like trying to enjoy a decent omelet only to have it occasionally spoiled by the jarring crunch of a careless eggshell. The overall plot, monsters are going to take over the world, was thrilling but what was so unsettling was my dislike for the main character, Elizabeth Phoenix. There wasn’t enough character depth to make me appreciate her tough-as-nails attitude. Her strength definitely was a necessity to her position in life (seer, psychic, etc), but I tired quickly of her horny, yet angry mood swings. She was attracted to a few different monster/characters and for every sexy thought she had an equally violent one (clenching fists etc). When she finally “gave in” to having sex with that “must I?” attitude the seductions were weak and the sex was gratuitous and predictable because of Lizzie’s libido. Of course, the transfer of supernatural powers through intercourse made the graphic scenes easy to include.
All in all I thought Any Given Doomsday tried too hard to be over the top dramatic use of religion as an explanation for the plot, the use of sex as a vehicle for smut, and the shallow character development made

I’m not a big fan of stupid characters. Here’s a great example. Liz is raped by her exboyfriend turned monster. Afterwards he tells her she is to be his sex slave for life: never wear clothes and “give it to him” whenever and wherever he wants. She leaves to take a shower and is somehow shocked and offended to find her clothes missing when she gets out. Duh? She’s outraged despite the fact “the rules” were laid out for her. Insert eye roll here.

Completely off topic: the chick on the cover, who I am assuming is Elizabeth Phoenix, reminds me of a member of the Nashville, TN band called Jypsie. As a result, I kept wanting to put a Southern drawl in Liz’s mouth!

September Was…

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September started with a heat wave and the ache of leaving home. School is back in session and I feel like I am trying to rein in wild horses. Here’s what I managed to read in this crazy, crazy month.

  • World’s Fair by E.L. Doctorow ~ yeah, yeah. Not on the original September list. So sue me.
  • The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh ~ really wild book. I discovered tow movies I want to see thanks to this book.
  • A Good Enough Parent by Bruno Bettelheim ~ indepth psychobabble (good for all those parents who realllly want to analyze their kids).
  • Far Side of Paradise: a Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Arthur Mizner ~ fascinating and funny.
  • The Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing ~ this one tricked me because when I first picked it up I thought it was going to be biographical nonfiction!
  • The Nowhere City by Alison Lurie ~ this should be a movie!
  • Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell ~ technically I didn’t finish this one in time so it will be on the list again!

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program:

  • Emily Post by Laura Claridge ~ I have to admit, I wasn’t into this as much as I thought I would be.
  • Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland ~ I’m still struggling with the review for this one!
  • The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories by Pagan Kennedy ~ Having forgot my last September challenge book, I tore through this one. My original plan was to save it for October but I couldn’t…it was that good.

For the hell of it:

  •  What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: a memoir by Haruki Murakami ~ totally off my Challenge radar, but I had to read it. It came highly, highly recommended so I jumped off the Challenge train and read about running. Totally worth it.
  • Under the Neon ~ a crazy book about the homeless who live in the storm drains underneath Vegas.
  • The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch ~ another book that came highly recommended. Sad, though!

Other than the books, it was a month for seeing good, good friends. Two friends from Colorado (haven’t seen them in four years!), a Rebecca Correia show (and 4.8 mi run with her!), the Big E with Jypsie and traffic, a good long conversation with one of my oldest and bestest friends in the whole wide world, and, and, and, a visit from my elusive, always on the go, friend SPB. I even got to have dinner with him! How lucky am I?
**personal note: thanks to everyone who helped me through this month. I’m out of the woods.

Beneath the Neon

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O’Brien, Matthew. Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Huntington Press, 2007.

This was not a Challenge book. This wasn’t an Early Review selection. This was a morbid curiosity about how someone I know lives. Homeless in Las Vegas. I didn’t know O’Brien’s book existed until talking to someone about my June trip to Vegas. What I talked about happened on the strip, above ground. “Yes, but did you know about the tunnels?” someone asked of me. Errr…no.

There is a whole society beneath the streets of Vegas and Matthew O’Brien painstaking draws this community out. Drain by drain, dark tunnel by tunnel he explores their world and shares their stories with the likes of us. From the moment I spied the words “drooling algae” on the first page (p 1), I was hooked. The trip Matthew takes us on is creepy, dark, violent, sexy, artistic, tragic, ill, romantic, pitiful, dangerous and sweet. Everyone in the drains has a story: running away from drugs, running to them. Gambling. Hiding. Healing. Living. Dying. Some say they are saving to “get out”, others know they will die where they sleep. Some are moved to tears, others could care less. Sleep to dream, sleep to die. It makes no difference in the tunnels under the Vegas Strip.

It was weird to read about the places I frequented. There is a whole art wall underneath Caesar’s Palace. I never knew. While I was there the city was careful to disguise its poverty, hide its ugly. At the time, standing in the water gardens of the Flamingo I wouldn’t have believed the story of the drains. Now, it makes perfect sense.

A few favorite phrases: “There’s more stuff in our dumpsters than there is in all the houses and closets of Third World countries” (p 79).
“..but the heat was stealing my soul” (p 192).

In case this fascinates you like it did me…read the book then visit these links:
For the photography of Danny Mollohan go here.
For the Beneath The Neon website go here.

Epilogue ~ I choked on my words when I accidentally found this blog again. For the person who started this review in the first place, my homeless someone in Vegas, is now dead. I have never been more sick of my own words than I am right now.

Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex

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Kennedy, Pagan. The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories. Santa Fe: Santa Fe Writers Project, 2008.

When I requested this book from LibraryThing’s Early Review program I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Sure, I had read the paragraph and *thought* I knew. It’s like when you think you know the way, and so for awhile you think you are going in the right direction, until you’re not. Then you realize you didn’t know the way and and still don’t; suddenly, there you aren’t. You are lost.

Pagan Kennedy’s Dangerous Joy is a series of nonfiction essays with two central themes: invention and humanity. You could call them short stories, mini biographies because each chapter focuses on the life of someone creative – ranging from Alex Comfort to Pagan’s own mother. As readers we are drawn into not only the science behind their inventions, but the personality behind the answer to why they did what they did. Every story is peppered with humor and science – an unlikely combination that works.
Kennedy’s first story is about Alex Comfort, the man behind The Joy of Sex. Who knew that Alex was a British biologist hell bent on reinventing orgies as the norm for sex? His story is compelling and completely tragic. Kennedy goes on to introduce us to Amy Smith, recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s Genius award; Dr Irene Pepperberg, trainer of a brilliant African Grey parrot named Alex; Cheryl Haworth, Olympic weight lifter; and Conor Oberst, a tormented musician…just to name a few.

Road Trip(s)

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We have decided to take one last musical road trip.

  • Sean Rowe October 3rd, 2008. New York. Stay tuned for further information!

MORE info: the gig is in Philmont, NY – a little over 90 minutes away. Anyone wanting to carpool with me can meet at my place at 6:45p or “the lot” at 7:15pm. Email me if the lot has you scratching your head or if you need further details.

Hopefully, we will also make these (unmusical) trips:

  • Monhegan ~ Columbus Day weekend
  • Keene Pumpkin Fest on October 25th, 2008.
  • High Hopes sugar shack (weekends all during the month of October)

Pushing September Out

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I decided to push September out the door a little earlier than any calendar would suggest. Yeah, yeah. I have three more days, but who’s counting? Certainly not me. It’s been a hard month.

Truth be known I am always itching for October 1st. My Halloween has 31 days. My thrill time lasts all month. Better than Christmas. Don’t ask me why. I think it started when I was a kid. Mom would make these outrageous costumes (extremely elaborate, creative, funky…but on a frayed shoestring budget – we’re talking tinfoil and spray paint). My all-time favorite was a gigantic pumpkin made out of coat hangers, a bed sheet and lots of paint. I barely fit through doors, couldn’t sit down all that well and my face itched for days on end, but man! it was a cool costume. Another time sis and I were Miss Piggy and Kermit the frog. I remember being embarrassed by the ginormous breasts and blue eye shadow. We were a sight to see! Us kids would pile into the back of a pickup truck and bounce all over the island looking for treats while the older boys played tricks. Scary all the time they were worse on Halloween. Dusk brought eerie shadows to our faces as we tried to peer into plastic bags for goodies. Whoopie pies spilled from my mother’s kitchen as big as your fist. Apple cider simmering on the wood stove.

These days I don’t run around wearing orange and green paint pretending to be a vegetable from the patch. If I’m lucky I will get my kisa to take a walk among the trick or treaters so I can count the goblins. Every year someone on my block plays Nightmare Before Christmas on the side of his house. Candles glow from jack-o-lanterns on every stoop. Leaves crunch beneath our feet. There is some sort of magic in the air. I can’t really explain it. The sugar shacks start up their boils and put on breakfast feasts.
What I need to do now is find my way to the basement, locate the big box marked “Halloween”, drag it up to the living room, and unpack my spooky friends. Who cares if it’s still September? Who cares if I’m in the wrong month. It’s time to get back to the right state of mind.

Good Enough Parent

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Bettelheim, Bruno. A Good Enough Parent. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

It’s funny that this was written in the year I graduated from high school and went onto college. I consider 1987 one of the biggest “brink” years – standing on the brink of something bigger. However, reading this 21 years later reminds me of something else: homework!

Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids (and the fact I’ll never have kids) that I didn’t find A Good Enough Parent all that interesting. Instead it was rather dry and psychological. Nancy Pearl says this book is a must for any new parent. I honestly do not know when any new parent would have the time! Pearl also goes on to say, “Be forewarned: Bettelheim’s perspective is very psychoanalytical” (Book Lust p 30). He does make the text a little easier (interesting) by including personal anecdotes and compelling stories to punctuate his point.

Lines I like: “None of this holds true for what happens between a parent and child. Anything that occurs in their relationship is heir to a long and complicated history” (p 5).
“I feel that a parent’s most important task is to get a feeling for what things may mean to his child” (p 14).
“Parental anxiety makes life very difficult for parent and child, since the child responds to the anxiety of the parents with even more severe anxiety” (p 41).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Babies: A Readers Guide” (p 30).

The Bug and the Butt

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I have a bug up my azz. I will admit it. I won’t sugarcoat it. I won’t play nice. If you read my “about me” page you know you have been forewarned, I won’t shirk from the truth as I see it. This truth is about work ethic and being an adult and having a little consideration. Bottom line: the fact that some people do not understand the word “responsibility” is the current bug making a beeline up my behind.

To the people who consistently refuse to go above and beyond: Your work ethic sux. You do the bare minimum of work and then have the gaul to ask, “what’s in it for me?” You watch the clock like it owes you something. Like it would kill you to work two minutes over your eight hour shift. I have a strong desire to put you on a time clock to see just how many hours a week you do work. For real.

To the people who don’t understand the word busy. You spend all day on the computer. You write 100 emails and get mad at me when I can’t answer every single one directed at me. Chill out. Despite the fact I don’t have children, I do consider myself in a family. I have two jobs. I love my friends but I’m a loner by nature. I don’t need your “Are You Dead?” emails to remind me that I haven’t answer the last 50 messages you sent.

I could go on, but I won’t. Obviously I am having some issues with people wanting too much from me right now. No. I take that back. They don’t understand what it means to negotiate life. Someone calls out sick – someone else has to cover the shift. Plans change. I can’t stop cancer from taking the people I love so I’m not going to bitch about their “bad timing” of a relapse. Remission is just another word for wait. Life is one big swirling mess and I just pray to the powers that be that people chill out. Give me a break.

Last Lecture

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Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture. New York: Hyperion, 2008

This was not on any Book Lust or More Book Lust list. That isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be. Indeed, if Nancy Pearl ever sets up to write a third volume of Lust, I would hope she would include The Last Lecture. When I first heard of it I was reminded of Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom To crudely sum up Tuesdays, Mitch’s college professor, Morrie Schwartz was dying of Lou Gerhig’s disease. Upon hearing this, Mitch set out to rekindle his Tuesday meetings with Morrie. What came of those meetings was a great book and a heart warming movie.

Imagine Morrie writing his own book. He knows he is dying and is desperate to leave the world with a gift; the gift of inspiration. This is how I think Randy Pausch saw The Last Lecture. Dying of terminal cancer and given only months to live, Randy saw an opportunity to leave his words of wisdom on the minds of former students and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon. His message “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” went beyond academia – it went much deeper than that. It was his meaning of life and he wanted to share these thoughts with family and friends as well. The lecture, delivered in September 2007 was peppered with outrageous stories, touching photographs and a wry sense of humor about his illness. It was a huge success. It led to the book The Last Lecture (which became a national best seller). 

Favorite quotes: “There’s a formality on academia that can’t be ignored, even if a man is busy with other things, like trying not to die” (p 4). So, right off the bat you know Randy Pausch views his cancer as something “to deal with” and not get bogged down by. This, to me, set the tone for the entire book.
“Open the encyclopedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind” (p 22). While the previous quote may have set the tone for the book, this quote summed up who Randy Pausch was from the time he was a child until he last breath. He was a man who never wanted to stop learning. That comes across very clearly throughout The Last Lecture.

I strongly urge you to pick up the book, check out the website, even watch the dvd of the actual lecture. It may change how you view your world around you…it may even change your life.

My Papa

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Before my father passed away – like right before (eight days to the day) – we had this talk. I asked him if he wanted to become a grandfather. I mean, was it something he was really looking forward to? I’m not sure why I asked. At least, not at that moment. He cocked his head to one side and started to remind me how he already had grandkids. Like I had forgotten or something. He smiled like it was a joke. Ever his impatient, serious, can’t relax daughter I rudely interrupted, “daaad…you know what I mean….” My voice trailed off, pathetic. It was then I think he realized the weight of my question for his answer came slowly and metaphorically. Like all good conversations it meandered away from the hypothetical and soon settled on here and now more important things. I was leaving home in a few days. We ended up talking about so many different things.

I never did get a solid yes or no out of him. That wasn’t his way. He spoke like a Sage, mixing words with wisdom and allowing me to sort it all out. He didn’t like to do all the talking so he showed guidance by asking a lot of questions. Take away what I needed to take. Making me answer myself. Making me think. He always made me think about things from a different side, from the other side. From not my side, no matter which side I was on, or thought I was on.

To this day I haven’t forgotten that conversation. Not because it brought me closer to adulthood. Not because it brought my closer to my father. Those things happened after the fact. I remember that conversation because it’s the last lecture. The last good talk I would ever have.

“But what I do know is this. When people die, what we regret is, not having talked to them enough” (Lessing, Doris. The Diaries of Jane Somers. New York: Vintage, 1984. p 62).

“I quote my father to people almost every day…Of course, when he have someone like my dad in your back pocket, you can’t help yourself” (Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture. New York: Hyperion, 2008. p 23).

Far Side of Paradise

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Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: a Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951.

This was my third nonfiction read for the month of September. I don’t know what got me on this reality kick (as opposed to fiction). But, I’m glad I did. Far Side of Paradise was a very interesting read.

Originally written in 1941, Mizener takes great care to weave an analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work into the details of his life. The result is a well balanced biography, bringing “Scott” as he is referred to throughout the book, alive on many different levels. Mizener put a great deal of research into writing Far Side but his style is not dry, nor overly academic. The entire biography is peppered with humor and an easy conversational style. “Meanwhile he [Fitzgerald] had begun to write and had become St. Paul Academy’s star debater (no one had found means to shut him up)” (p 18) is just an example of the humor embedded in Mizener’s biography. The only thing I really found missing were pictures. I would have enjoyed seeing the styles of the 1920s and 30s. The stories of the parties the Fitzgeralds used to have are hysterical.

Another favorite line (a quote from Zelda, Fitzgerald’s own wife): “‘It seems to me that on one page I recognize a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which…sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr Fitzgerald – I believe that is how he spells his name – seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home” (p 125).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 145). Pearl calls Mizener’s biography of Fitzgerald “one of the best” and while I haven’t read that many, I definitely agree this was a great book.

Strange How the Mind Works

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I was silent all day yesterday because the mind was in overdrive. Funny how that is. There are some days that are stickier than others. Why is that? Why do I remember everything, every little detail, like it was yesterday? The details are stuck like flies on the fly strips of my mind. Twisting and turning, but never completely shaking loose. I can remember the color of your shirt. The way your boots were left untied. The stillness of the room when it was all over. The heavy door closing with a quiet click. The leaving.

There are four days in September that replay like a movie in my head. Anniversaries of a different kind. They pull me down, wear me out. Curiously, each year my reaction to them is a little different. Some years they are as insane as a Stanley Kubrick film – images and memories too bizarre to handle calmly. I succumb to fits of crying, fits of rage. Other years I am dispassionate and objective, surveying the scenes with a cool eye and a cold heart. It’s not that I don’t care or that I’ve forgotten what these scenes mean to me. I’m just able to turn my head from them a little easier. They can’t touch me.
This year I surrounded myself with distraction. Little Miss Socializer. The Big E with all of its glutinous overloads. Greasy food. Flashing lights. Throngs of people. Crazy carnival music. IM’ing for the first time in three years. TalkTalkTalking on the phone. Sitting down to do nothing. Still, the scenes played out – like a movie half ignored. Something flickering in the background. Even when my past came to visit me I couldn’t admit to the memories. I played dumb and talked about the breakwater, ever repeating ‘you were the only one.’ Because that was what mattered then. Matters still.

Now it’s the day after. The clouds have all blown away. Someone has removed the fly strip, thrown it away for another year. There are other memories to come, but those will be met with predictable ease. I will look them in the eye, recognition comes with a nod and then, then I move on. Strange how the mind works.