A Map of the World

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map of the worldHamilton, Jane. A Map of the World. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

National bestseller. Oprah book. A movie. All that should tell you something. Normally, I don’t try to read reviews before I myself have read the very last page. This one was a little different. Praise for A Map of the World was on the inside cover and I couldn’t resist. One line really said it all for me, “the story of how a single mistake can forever change the lives of everyone involved.” If you read my blogs you know I am fascinated by the what could have been, fate and serendipity. The path less taken, the path not known to take at all. This is the story of a mistake, an err in judgment, and the time and effort it takes to get back to good.

Told in first person from both Alice & Howard, husband and wife. Alice begins and ends the tale with Howard interjecting in the middle. Details that overlap her story and his tie the couple and their voices together. It’s their marriage talking. Yet, their views on life are very different. There is a moment when Howard is driving by the library and he thinks of the librarian, a man with a hook for one hand. Howard remembers that his wife thinks of the librarian as Captain Hook, not only because of the hook, but because the librarian was supposedly “cranky and unhelpful” to her. Howard recalls learning from the librarian and how he “never even noticed his hand.” Walking down the road of life Alice and Howard see the scenery differently, despite being hand in hand.

Favorite lines:
“I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident” (p 3).
“She was all nerve, so energized by rage she had a hard time sorting out what she most hated” (p 291).
“It is one thing to be in a car with someone who is quiet, and another to be with someone who is silent” (p 364).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Wisconsin)” (p 25). I started reading A Map of the Worldbefore I double-checked what Pearl had to say about it. I had just finished the part about a major tragedy. I have to say it was a shock to read there was another one in store for me. I almost wished I hadn’t known that.

Sending You

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Dear Dad,
I’m in this huge office with tiny courage. You should see me. Little ole me, Head Mucky Muck, behind a gigantic desk. It’s 72″ wide. 11″ more than I am tall when I don’t slouch. How I sleep curled up I could slumber on it with room to spare. People smile when they see me here. Like I’m playing professional or something. Big desk, little girl. I’ve painted blue and green, green and blue. I seem to be drawn to ocean colors according to crayons. They don’t know the sea as well as you.
I’ve taken to talking to myself lately. Especially in early mornings when the light of day is still hours away. I pretend you are on the other end of a disconnected phone line, or only a stamp away. I still hear you in my sleep. I haven’t lost your voice but I’m starting to forget where your life left off and ours kept going.
D took this picture of this picture of us. You and Me. Me and You. Do you even know D? They have been a couple for so long I’m forgetting start and end dates. When they started being thought of as together and when you, well, when you ended. I know you don’t know my other half. I’m betting you wouldn’t have liked him at the start. I didn’t. In the end you would. He grows on you until you can’t imagine a single second without his Being being beside you. Just being. He saves my sanity. Really. He puts it away for when I need it again. Stores it up in cases of collapse and utter emergency. There have been some. You would love him once you see how wonderful I am with him. I’m behind this big, huge, honking desk because of him. Head Mucky Muck.
It’s stupid to say I miss you. Because that’s pointing out the obvious. Today, today your advice in the shape of a shell went to work with me. Pale purple and white and worn smooth from my thumb. Your words will sit in this office. Stupid stuff like, “lay off the Turbo.” Sage stuff like, “love what you do, do what you love.”

I’m working on it, dad.
Love,
me

Navigationally Lost

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I have made the decision to go home. I wasn’t going to – make the decision or go home. Neither was in my best interest until my life got beyond interesting. Let’s face it. I’m a creature of habit and my habit is to go home in the waning days of summer’s warmth. When the mornings are cool enough for a sweatshirt and the afternoon, shorts. When coffee steams hot at daybreak and ice cream cools the midday sunshine.
I need to go home become my astrocompass has lost its true anything. I need direction. I need my mother to teach me how to make MeltInYourMouth rocky road fudge complete with pockets of sticky sweet marshmallow and crunchy walnuts. In this week I’ve lost my love for the kitchen and that scares me. I sigh and slouch on the couch and say “let’s order out.” Subway for dinner should be a sin.
My magnet is more than one morning in Maine. I’m drawn to the ocean if only to drown the feeling of being directionally duped. The pull of the island is too strong to put aside. I will go. Navigate me so I can TumbleHome.

Remember When

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I find it funny that after three years I’m still laughing and losing it. Marriage hasn’t changed you. Marriage hasn’t changed me. Yet, marriage has changed us. Us as who we are together. I find that funny.
I spent 74 minutes on the phone remembering September 18th, 2004. The tent, the guests, the chef, the weather (oh, the weather!) The island had a wedding exactly like ours almost on the same day. Same tent, same weather, same chef, some same guests. We made comparisons back and forth, forth and back again. Ping ponging “remember whens” at each other. “But, her sunset wasn’t as nice” my mother sniffed. She’s just giving My sunset preferential treatment because I’m her daughter, so in a weird way it was her sunset, too. I’m sure it was just as beautiful for the newly pronounced Mr. & Mrs. of September 2007, too. Everything would be remembered as utterly gorgeous on that day. Even if it wasn’t.

Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood

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Wells, Rebecca. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. New York: Penguin, 1996.Divine Secrets

This is Rebecca Well’s second novel, a follow up to Little Alters Everywhere. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood continues the story of Vivi Abbott Walker and her friends (known as the Ya-yas), this time through the eyes of her adult, engaged-to-be-married, daughter, Siddalee Walker. Siddalee is a flourishing theater director who falls victim to the ever-famous, word-twisting interview. A reporter from the New York Times gets Siddalee to open up her childhood box of memories and reveal dark secrets about her upbringing. Ultimately, her mother’s alcoholism and abuse are exposed and Siddalee must spend the rest of the book apologizing to her mother for the scandal. When Siddalee calls off her engagement the Ya-Yas brazenly step in. In an effort to make her daughter understand who she is, Vivi mails her daughter a scrapbook and we are taken into the wonderous, playful yet dark world of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
Ultimately, I identified with this story. It’s the classic yet complex struggle between mother and daughter. Secrets revealed, hearts broken, lives changed. In the end, happiness and love prevail. I know you’ve seen the movie.

BookLust Twist: Divine Secrets comes up a couple of times in Book Lust. First, on page 83 in the chapter “Family Trouble” then in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 248).

Amsterdam

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AmsterdamMcEwan, Ian. Amsterdam. New York: Anchor Books, 1999.

Another book that starts with a funeral. Of course, I’m thinking of Charming Billy. But, the comparisons stop there. How to describe Amsterdam? It is a short (193 page) novel that takes place in London, England. Two men share a bond of friendship as well as a romantic past with the same woman. Vernon is an editor of a newspaper and Clive is a modern composer. While they are friends they are not above rivalies and each, through his friendship tests the bounds of morality.

I see this story as a movie. There is one particular scene where Vernon feels dead. He is about to hit himself upside the head in order to feel pain when his secretary interrupts him, “He had raised the ruler several inches above his right ear when there was a knock on his open door and Jean, his secretary, entered and he was obliged to convert the blow into pensive scratching” (p 34). Can’t you just see it?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust. Ian McEwan has his own chapter called, “Ian McEwan: Too Good To Miss” (p 149).

Reading Lolita in Tehran

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Reading lolitaNafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. New York: Random House, 2004.

The first thing I think as I am 13 chapters into Reading Lolita in Tehran is maybe, just maybe I should have read Lolita first. Yet, it is not just about Lolita. It’s also about Gatsby, Daisy Miller and Pride & Prejudice. Those, I have read. But, these four books are not the only ones Nafisi recommends. There is a whole list of them. I am tempted to start another challenge and add them to my “must read” list.

But, back to Reading Lolita in Tehran. Where do I start? Blanketing the entire story (nonfiction) is the outrage I felt. Professor Azar Nafisi must secretly meet with seven students to study Western classics, books that are forbidden in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I don’t know how they dared. Morality squads roamed the streets, raiding homes and shops whenever they wanted, fundamentalists took over the university where Nafisi formally taught, women are arrested for not wearing the veil, being seen in public with men other than their husbands, brothers or fathers, for wearing makeup…It just reminds me I am a spoiled Westerner who can paint my eyes black as night, show the curve of my neck, and most importantly, read any book I want.
Think of a braid. One strand is politics, another literature, the last society. This is Reading Lolita in Tehran. Woven over and under and throughout is Azar Nafisi’s life. Her personal views on relationships, society and of course, the books she loves. Because it’s her point of view and hers alone we have to trust that she is telling us the truth. Her truth. Here are my favorite quotes – some with my commentary after.

“Reality has become so intolerable, she said, so bleak, that all can paint now are the colors of my dreams” (p 11).
“I think I somehow felt that as long as I was conscious, nothing bad could happen, that bad things would come in the middle of my dreams” (p 45).
“Some people take up alcohol during periods of stress. I took up Jeff” (106).
“In the midst of gunshots and chants we hugged and chatted about the almost two decades since we had last seen each other” (p 148).
“The administration wanted us to stop working and at the same time pretend that nothing has changed” (p 151). ** I’m reminded of a relationship I once had when the entrapment was the same. **
If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat” (p 170).
I became more anxious. Until then I had worried for the safety of my parents, husband, brother and friends, but my anxiety for my children overshadowed all” (170). ** I thought of my sister when I read this line. I think she would agree. **

Random comments~ I want someone to explain these things to me. How someone can be pompous and meek at the same time; how someone can speak precisely and leisurely; and how someone can murmur a defiant no. Just odd descriptors in my opinion.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 162). I would say Nafisi’s story is a chapter of a memoir; a partial snapshot of a life.

Kitchen Healing

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Yesterday was all about me. Girly and giggly, I indulged in fun and food and friends. I needed this. Needed to sip away sorrows of an anniversary long ago; needed to drown myself until I was back here, back to now, back to loving my life. Kisa took the wheel while I took to the wine. Together we sampled dips and chips, sauces and soups. Simply Tasteful something-er-rather. Someone asked me about kids, then asked my age. I don’t know why I was suprised over their shock. I see myself everyday so I should know. Later. Home. BubbleGum and Gravity, letting my favorite drummer find my heart. Find my favor.

Today, I took to the kitchen for Kisa. Breakfast was apple pancakes from scratch. Granny Smiths grated in the thick, multigrain batter, cooked slow. A topping of apple slices sauteed in small amounts of butter, brown sugar and maple syrup. Hot coffee to wash it all down. A meal to last all morning. Only blueberries could make it better.
Lunch was indulgent enough to be called dinner. Inspired by season-ready tomatillos I created a Mexican buffet:
Enchiladas – chicken, sour cream, onion (finely minced), cream cheese, Monterey cheese, tabasco, chili powder, cumin, and smoked paprika stuffed in multigrain tortillas. Baked with sauce – garlic, chipotles & tomatillos roasted and pureed. So simple, so yummy (thanks, Rick!). This has got to be one of my favorite meals.
Red beans and Rice – lime juice, red beans and brown rice (kept simple to mix up with the other dishes).
Tacos – beef, chili powder, cumin, Tabasco, cayenne pepper, onion, tomatoes, black olives, jalapenos, lettuce, cheese, salsa, avocado….
I left the kitchen looking like a tornado-torn town. My kind of cooking.

Dessert was something I picked up from Reading Lolita in Tehran: Coffee ice cream, cold coffee and pecans. Simple and sweet.

So, September is slipping away. Halfway gone. Pretty soon it will be crockpot cooking, slipper & sweater wearing, shut-the-windows weather. Something to look forward to: Tuesday!

Sex Stories

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She came home at five years old and said with a smile “I touched a penis.” This was like lighting a match and there were only two options. The flame dies out, the incident is forgotten on a whisp of smoke, or. Or. The match flares to a flame. Becomes an inferno of hell to come.
TruthDareConsequencesPromiseOrRepeat. I chose Dare. I just like taking dares with Yes. Sent her to her room without explanation. Where did I go wrong? My Fault for years to come. Come on baby, light my fire.

She had her first older man at eight. Fire on the Mountain. Couldn’t understand why he didn’t treat her differently. Wasn’t she special (so special, he would whisper) because of the things she let him do. Let him do to her? “IWLLBGNTLE” spelled out in Scrabble pieces. No wonder she won’t play the game. She wondered if anyone of importance would ever noticed. She was certainly teased enough about it by those who mattered less. Who would say anything? Definitely not her. Where did she go wrong. Her fault for years to come.

Virginity lost at 13. I pretended to be asleep. What’s the sense of interupting when she wants it that way? Expects it that way? A walking, talking, breathing, lying (down) slut. Talk is cheap but actions are rich – they rule the game played out. She walked away. I turned my face away from his pain. Where did he go wrong? His fault to fall in love. His fault for years to come.

They caught up to her in September. Payback’s a bitch and she felt she earned it, deserved it even. Larry, Curly & Moe. Where did you go? The taste of gin, sour on your lips. The lead of Led, heavy in your ears. She’s not here. But I am.

Her fault for years to come.

Eyeliner

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eyelinerI had a dream of you. Eye of You. It’s been one of many without explanation. Can’t explain you. My sister was losing a hand, her right. An unavoidable operation. You, both of you, were wearing eyeliner and could duplicate. I was angry because I didn’t care about the hand. Not as much as the eyeliner. Or the duplicity of two of you and your blackened eyes. I knew She made you wear it and all I could mutter was, “fukcing foolish” like I knew better. Like I was supposed to care. We met for dinner but ordered lunch. My sister’s babies multiplied from two to three and it seemed all so normal. Even the hand losing part. I remembered the restaurant, been there before, but not the menu. Foreign language in a dead man’s house for it was someone’s home. I hated myself for wanting to keep you when I didn’t want you just as much. Equal parts love and hate. Ate the bread. The eyeliner still bothered me and I bitched back about it. A Clockwork Orange stupidness that couldn’t be washed off or forgotten. Since when? Silly stupidness. I woke confused, not knowing where I was.

On the drive to work I heard a song that make me think of you. If I said the one word song you would know, you is You. Everyone would know it was you and I can’t expose you like that. With or without eyeliner.

Middlesex

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MiddlesexEugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York: Picador, 2002.

First the cover. Before I even read a word it frightens me. Inky black (my cancer) smoke swirls from a cigarrette-bearing person lounging with a friend. That same smoke meets up with the smoke stack of an ocean-going vessel and encircles the skyline of a city. I instantly recoil from the seductive swirls and think, “I’m gonna hate this book.”

But I don’t. It’s long (529 pages), but I’ve enjoyed every page. I can see why it won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the story of Calliope Stephanides and the two generations that brought her into this world. It’s Greece and Germany and Grosse Point. It’s the science of genetics meeting the mother of all family secrets. Calliope is also Cal, one and the same. Girl meets Boy. Girl is Boy. Boy is Girl. Sound confusing? It isn’t. It’s poetic and sad, funny and smart. Something you just have to read for yourself. Cal will tell you the story. His story. Her story. My favorite lines:

“…German wasn’t good for conversation because you had to wait to the end of the sentence for the verb, and so couldn’t interrupt” (p 7).
“Filling her head with music, she escaped her body” (p 115).
“The only thing that roused her was her daily lineup of soap operas. She watched the cheating husbands and scheming wives as faithfully as ever, but she didn’t reprimand them anymore, as if she’d given up correcting the errors of the world” (p 271).
“…her application to join her husband in heaven was still working its was through a vast, celestial bureaucracy” (p 286).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust. Pearl mentions this book several times. First, on page 97 in the chapter “Gender Bending” then on page 141 in the chapter “Lines That Linger, Sentences That Stick.” She is referring to Middlesex‘s opening line. It’s a doozy. Finally, on page 166 in “Men Channeling Women” Middlesex is listed one last time. As you can see Jeffrey Eugenides hit a homerun with this one.

ps~ The cover makes perfect sense to me now.

Murder the Meow

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In light of what’s been going on with Michael Vick, this is going to be in bad form, but I really want to know what the penalty is for killing a cat. The cat specifically known as MY cat. She is driving me absolutely nuts lately. Absofukcinglutely crazy. It started with puking on the carpet yesterday morning when I had to be at work 3.-tres?-three! hours early. This morning, sensing someone was awake (yeah, me. I had to pee), she starts crying to be fed. Only she doesn’t stop there. She jumps on the bed, finds the nightstand (on my side) and a lamp to headbutt & nudge. When that doesn’t work she makes her way to the cedar chest and discovers crunchy tree branches to gnaw on (the rewind: for our engagement party my family made a money tree out of branches from home. I’ve kept every stick). Kisa throws a pillow at Indy. She retreats to the hall, but is determined to keep begging. She yowls louder. Kisa swings the bedroom door shut. Indy takes to “scratching” at the door, her clawless paws paddling at a furious pace. It’s kinda funny but I have a few more minutes of sleep to snatch so I’m not laughing. I’m not even smiling. When we finally feed her she takes a few bites and then races around the apartment like she’s dropped a speedball. Up and down the stairs, window to window, meowing the entire way. Like I said – Nuts.

I have a theory. A few mornings ago I looked out the window at a gruesome sight. A mourning dove lay dead, decapitated on the ground. Tiny white feathers surrounded the body, but not much else. Did Indy witness the murder? Was she just on the other side of the window, that close to being next? Is she haunted by the scene of the crime? Does she worry she’s a marked cat? Or is she jealous? Did she want in on the killing? Did she salivate at the sight of bloodshed? Hunger for the hell unleashed? Does she miss the great outdoors, hunting and having claws? We find it odd that the culprit left the entire bird body behind with only the head unaccounted for. Today, all evidence is completely and utterly gone. Not a feather exists. Maybe, just maybe Indy is pissed someone took her fantasy away.

Wedding Waddle

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Since when did I start liking cake? I’ve never liked cake. For years and years I have been the one to bypass the big layers of bad and go for the fruit whatever. I’m a pie or tart girl. When did I give up the eat smart/eat healthy routine and opt for the Bring It On attitude? Examples: when our Austrian friends got married I attacked the buffet line like a linebacker with a big bite. When our German friends got married I got my own huge plate of everything and thensome. I had a healthy belly for the beverages, too. Merlot and two sour apple martinis. In that order. When did that happen? It happened to go right to my head.
To celebrate the season finale of The Closer Kisa and I ordered pizza. We stayed true to our tradition of wheat crust. Everything else went by the wayside. We ordered two zahs: Greek goodness (feta cheese, black olives, spinach, tomatoes, double cheese)…and an Aloha (ham, bacon, pineapple and…you guessed it, double cheese). Caution to the wind, diet be damned. It was damn good.
To make matters worse, my illicit affair with the vending machine has started up again, too. In short time I’ve got my routine down to a science. I wait until no one is around, slowly sidle up to the humming, glowing love machine of sweet and whisper my own sweet nothings in the form of quarters. Mr. V gives me exactly what I want, when I want it. I steal away, tearing open the wrapper, devouring chocolate and salt as I retreat back to my office as quickly as I can. I don’t want to be caught in the act, but the evidence of my betrayal lies in the trash. I won’t lay claim to it if confronted. Yet. Yet, I’m waiting for the day when I no longer care. When that day comes I’ll flaunt my unhealthy relationship with Mr. V. and brazenly chose a Snickers or Doritos with ease. E5 and B2. I’ll blatantly leave candy bar and potato chip wrappers in my wake, not even bothering to cover the crime. That day can’t be far off.
For some reason I’m liking this throw caution to the wind consumption, this eat everything in sight daring…except when it’s time to squeeze into those professional slim-cut pants or those cut-off-the-circulation panties. It’s enough constriction to go commando. When did this happen? Where was I when the health nut decided to leave town?

We All Grow Up and Skunk Love

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Went to a wedding this weekend. A weekend wedding no one thought would work out. Skeptical? Cynical? Neither. Just didn’t think they were the piece of paper legal kind. I’m glad they did it, though. Now they don’t have to answer to When. Now the other when? question can start – right where the last when? left off.
We all grow up. Instead of lamenting over lost Duran Duran posters we are talking about house hunting and wills and probate. We are worrying about divorces that should have happened years ago and marriages that should be. We discuss full time opportunities and changes of addresses, age differences and interview questions. Someday I might tell you, you were my very first interview. Someday I will tell you, you were my very first hire. I hope I never have a first fire.
Last night I sat on the steps to my apartment in the cooling hours of streetlight dark, a cell phone craddled on my shoulder. Amid cricket songs, distant cars and crackling connection I talked with a friend. A scurrying, hurrying shadow ran over my outstretched feet on its way to deeper darkness. It didn’t stop to acknowledge or even notice me. Once I realized it was a skunk I was left stunned and silenced. For a second I swore halucination…until the inky black eyes stared at me from under kisa’s truck. Chaneling Corwin and Crock Hunter I bade my phone friend goodnight and carefully crept inside. I thought back to when I was seven or eight years old and fell in love with a skunk pelt. I carried it everywhere with me, draped over my shoulder I petted it constantly. Did my nocturnal friend know this? Could he sense that at one time I worshiped his kin? I’ll never know. In the morning he was gone without a trace. I’ll miss him.
I grew up but some things haven’t changed.

Quit Yer Bitchin’

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new shoesSo I finally took someone’s advice from a few months ago. Went to Zappos and went shoe crazy. With fantasies of fun footwear I searched and selected. For days I played with the variables: height of heel, size, width, color, price and style. After awhile a 2″ inch heel looked the same as a 4″ inch heel and I couldn’t really tell the different between beige, taupe and tan. It was time to buy. If you are curious I selected Clarks Divine (pictured here), rsvp Sally, N.Y.L.A. Zahara and Charles by Charles David Justice. I sent all but the Divines back. Sally was just silly and the other two were the wrong size (go figure). The good thing is, I now know Clarks’s 5 is not N.Y.L.A.’s 5.

But, it’s not just about the shoes. This was the first time in my life I bought something with no intention of keeping it. I wasn’t about to spend $400 in shoes. I just wanted to do a little research, find the brands and sizes that appealled to me the most, and send them back with the knowledge that when I do want shoes like them, I know exactly what to get. I’ve never had the courage to return things. Remember the pedometer that counts steps if I got something out of my pocket? I should have returned it. Instead I buried it in a dresser drawer. I have it still.
Funny. I can complain about mayonnaise on my sandwich, a receipt in my salad, a piece of wire in my pulled pork, no creamers for my coffee, but I can’t kick up a fuss about anything else I buy. This experience with Zappos has taught me that it’s okay to look. It’s okay to buy. It’s even okay to return. Never mind that someone had to go through the trouble of packaging and shipping all those boxes. Never mind that they have to repackage my returns. That’s their job. The very fact that I can return shoes without hassle has made me a customer for life. In fact, I’ve quit bitching about shoes all together and ordered more.