Belben's Book Blog

2009-11-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

It's almost not entirely a coincidence that I'm writing about Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer on (or around) Veteran's Day. I would be writing about it anyway, eventually, so why not now? Even though I'm not quite done reading it, it's well worth recommending, and far more appropriate for a solemn national holiday than the other two books I just read, one entitled How Sex Works and the other a young adult novel in which the plot hinges on a scene where the narrator craps his pants.

If you're unfamiliar with the story, Pat Tillman was a professional football player who, following the 9/11 attacks, gave up his $3 million contract and joined the Army with his younger brother, Kevin. The two trained together and became members of an elite force, were sent to Afghanistan, and Pat Tillman was killed. Investigations into his death revealed that he had been accidentally shot by an American soldier and that the incident was covered up by the military.

Krakauer has a talent for delving deep into the backstory when he writes; Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven all provided thorough examinations not only of the individuals he wrote about, but the circumstances and politics surrounding their situations. His story of Pat Tillman's life and death is no different. Krakauer begins with an explanation of the conflict in Afghanistan, including the formation of the Taliban, that involved a lot of names and words that are really hard to spell and pronounce and which I will never remember. However, it did provide me with a better understanding of why the U.S. got involved.

The best parts of the book, however (and probably the reason most people will read it) are the details about Pat Tillman, his life and personality, and his almost unfathomable decision to give up his life's dream to go to war. Tillman was, as Krakauer clearly illustrates, a charismatic, intelligent and sometimes inscrutable character who doesn't fit the NFL stereotypes. Details about his life come mainly from his widow, Marie Tillman, who worked closely with Krakauer in writing the story and who continues to do work in memory of Pat Tillman.

I haven't finished reading Where Men Win Glory yet. I'm stuck on the portion about the Tillmans' relationship, their deep love for one another, and the affection that Pat Tillman wrote about regularly in letters to Marie and his own journals. The tragedy of his death is magnified by this fully realized portrait of who Pat Tillman was not just unto himself, but in the lives of those who were deeply affected by his charisma, humor, intelligence, and eventually, his death.

Short, Sweet, Easy to Eat

2009-10-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Nicholson Baker has long been one of my favorite writers, every since I read his weirdly wonderful novel The Mezzanine years ago. In his latest novel, The Anthologist, Baker's protagonist is Paul Chowder, an anthologist charged with writing the introduction to a collection of poems. Chowder, however, has a severe case of writer's block, and can't seem to manage to eke out the 10-12 pages he needs to write. Instead, he finds himself explaining poetry--what it is, how it works, why it's wonderful.

Why it's wonderful is because Nicholson Baker is writing about it, and he has a gift for language unsurpassed by any living writer, in my opinion. Even non-poetry lovers will appreciate his humor and insight, and they'll learn some things about poems in the process, and a great deal about the art of writing, too. This is one of those books where I found myself sticky-noting passages to return to later (of course, half those sticky notes fell off when I was reading in bed and got stuck in my hair while I slept, but nevertheless).

The irony, of course, in Paul Chowder's life, is that for all the time he spends explicating the art of poetry, he could have easily finished his assignment (not unlike some high school students I know who spend more time complaining than researching). Thank god he doesn't, because his observations are much more interesting. One of my favorites is his criticism of haiku, a poetic form that I've never really liked. And here it is, the reason why, perfectly articulated: "This is the kind of poetry that makes perfect, thrilling sense in Japanese, and makes no sense whatsoever in English. That's what [the teacher] should have told us. This form is completely out of step with the English language. Seven syllables, eleven syllables, five syllables? Come on, how does English poetry actually work. It doesn't work that way. I don't know Japanese, but haiku in Japanese had all kinds of interesting salt-glaze impurities going on that are stripped away in translation."

My nephew, Thomas, is just a month shy of his fourth birthday, and has become fascinated by rhymes in recent months, making Paul Chowder's commentary on rhyming especially poignant in a kind of an "a-ha! so that's why rhymes are so much fun!" kind of way. "The tongue is a rhyming fool," Baker writes. "It wants to rhyme because that's how it stores what it knows. It's got a detailed checklist for every consonant and vowel...and somewhere in there, on some neural net in your underconsciousness, stored away, all these checklists, or neuromuscular profiles, or call them sound curves, are stored away, like the parts of car bodies, or spoons, with similar shapes nested near each other...what rhyming poems do is they take all these nearby sound curves and remind you that they first existed that way in your brain..." Well, that's probably more complicated than anything Thomas understands, but it works for me. Chances are, it works for you, too.

Catchup Is Delicious

2009-09-23T13:22:00.001-07:00

I returned recently from a quick weekend trip to San Francisco, where I met up with my parents, aunts Barbara and Marjorie, cousins, and good friends Steve and Amy. The time with them really made me thankful that despite its assorted weirdnesses (Aunt Barbara's collection of seasonally attired Barbie dolls, for example, and my dad's trunk full of glow-in-the-dark ephemera), my family and its extensions have really good juju.

Besides traipsing around Chinatown, Haight, and NorthBeach, I also read a lot. On the plane, on BART during an extended tour of Oakland (I took the wrong train at one point), and at SeaTac during my three-hour layover waiting for a flight home to Bellingham (and yes, I realize I could practically walk home in that amount of time. Thanks, Horizon!) At any rate, here's a wrap-up of some of the best I've read recently:

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Quite possibly the funniest book I've read this year, Tropper's novel features a family with a little more baggage than mine. The four adult siblings gather to sit shiva for their recently dead father, and bring a load of issues, resentments, and current FUBAR life scenarios with them. Narrated by thirty-something Judd (whose wife has recently left him for his boss), this novel brims with spot-on dialogue, loads of physical comedy, a simple plot that nevertheless twists and surprises, and intelligent insights that had me folding down corners. "You can sit up here," Judd muses, "feeling above it all while knowing you're not, coming to the lonely conclusion that the only thing you can ever really know about anyone is that you don't know anything about them at all." Amen.

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan

If you're a regular reader of this blog (and who isn't, really?), you may be familiar with my appreciation for missing person stories. I love the intrigue and the tension of stories about people who've vanished, and Stewart O'Nan's latest novel, Songs for the Missing, has both, plus a whole lot more. The plot revolves around the disappearance of Kim Larsen during the summer before she's about to leave home for college. Like The Lovely Bones, the story focuses on the impact of the mystery on Kim's family and friends, and their struggle to cope with their bewilderment, grief, and (for some) sense of guilt. Could not put down. Gripping, with a satisfying ending.

Accidentally on Purpose by Mary Pols (Memoir)

Mary Pols, at 39, gets pregnant after a one-night stand with a much-younger guy, decides to write a book about it, the book gets optioned for a TV show and she probably has way more money now. As much as I liked the story and Pols' writing, I couldn't help but feel a little sad throughout, because even though her adorable and sexy baby-daddy carries through on his promise to stick around and help raise their son, he isn't a partner in every respect, and despite his love for their boy, he doesn't love Mary, and that emptiness echoes throughout the story. It's enough to make a person rush out to Fred Meyer and buy condoms.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

The protagonists of Hornby's novel, Annie and Duncan, have been together for fifteen years, but their relationship is ending, in part because of Duncan's obsession with a reclusive musician named Tucker Crowe who hasn't recorded an album in 20 years.

When Annie intercepts a recording that has been sent to Duncan by a fan of his Tucker Crowe fansite, she discovers it is a raw recording of the songs on Crowe's most famous album, Juliet. In listening to it before Duncan does, she violates his trust, angers him, and their relationship ends--not entirely to Annie's disappointent. She's grown weary of Duncan's obsession, wants to have a baby, and is ready to move on with her life. So she contacts Tucker Crowe herself, and the two strike up an email friendship...and that's when things really get interesting.

This is what planes, trains and airports are good for: getting me caught up on the towering pile of bedside table books...and now I am. Almost. Honest.

Born to Pun (Sorry)

2009-09-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Runners are in the headlines lately, what with Usain Bolt's record-setting time and the recent investigation into the sexuality of South African phenom Caster Semenya. Also, since Mayor Pike has offered Jon Stewart a key to the city, it seemed like a good time to recommend a book about running that I learned about from watching The Daily Show. (On a totally unrelated tangent, how many books do they recommend on Fox "News"?)

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen grew out of an article Christopher McDougall wrote for Outside magazine about the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico. The Tarahumara, who live deep in the isolated Copper Canyons, have developed an amazing talent for running extreme distances--over a hundred miles a day, in some cases.In addition, they have escaped major diseases that afflict others in the Western world, such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Intrigued by stories of these runners, and curious about what they could teach him about running and living healthfully, McDougall ventured into the Copper Canyons to seek El Caballo Blanco, a mysterious white man rumored to live among the Tarahumara and know their secrets.

What follows is part mystery story, part adventure, part history lesson, part physiology 101, and altogether absorbing story of the Tarahumara, the history of ultramarathoning and the obscure and unusual group of people who train for and compete in these incredible tests of endurance.

What I Did This Summer by Cathy B.

2009-08-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Summer for me, is partially officially over, since I signed up to teach a three-week summer school program for incoming ninth-graders who need a little extra boost before beginning their regular high school courses. Lest you think I’ve completely lost my whole entire mind, know that 1) I’m getting paid for this gig; 2) it’s only 4 hours a day, 4 days a week; 3) it’s kinda fun, and 4) frankly, I wasn’t doing anything else anyway.

I define my existance, in large part, by how I spend my summers. Referring to “the summer I_______” helps place my life’s trajectory in a timeline. “The summer I was in L.A.,” “The summer I went to school in San Diego,” “The summer I nannied Wyatt,” these are all statements that allow me to pinpoint where/when/what I was at a given point in time. This summer, ’09, is notable for the following (and I am NOT bragging): it is, in no particular order: the summer I joined Facebook, the summer I nearly wore a dent in the chaise on my front porch, the summer I….frak. I can’t think of anything else. This summer may be notable only because it is the first summer I did typical summer stuff: laid around in the sun, slept in, avoided responsibility and read 8 billion books. Dreamlike in its simplicity and yet somehow unfulfilling. Teaching summer school is a welcome break from a life of relentless leisure. Seriously, one more nap and I was going to have to get prescription Neosporin for the bedsores.

I did manage to get a couple of projects done, and again, I’m not bragging, I’m just saying. One day I touched up all the divots in the paint around the house. Very satisfying. I washed the baseboards. I finally labeled that row of perplexing light switches in the living room. I put up towel-hooks and a bottle opener next to the hot tub. I planted lavender, basil, rosemary, and mint (only the mint died). I made serious progress on the soda-can art thingy (undefinable) I’ve been working on since 2004 and hung window frames for “privacy” in front of the hot tub. I bogarted the neighbors’ sewing machine and sewed pockets in the roommate’s sweatpants. I made a few greeting cards that also involved sewing. I did not make any more wine gift-bags from the sleeves of the shirts of a now-forgotten ex-boyfriend. I did not make any voodoo dolls. Honest.

Knowing that I'll have less time to do it later, I also spent some of my summer making some of my Christmas gifts. I got a little help from my most recent favorite craft book, The Big Ass Book of Crafts by Mark Montano. I can't tell you the specifics on the projects I completed, because you might be among the eventual recipients, but let's just say that Montano has 150+ ideas, some of which will remind you of the 1970's (think macrame and glued-on pasta), but most of them are creative, fun, and not too time-consuming. Most don't require any special tools, skill, or artistic flair, and many can be adapted for kids, which, if you're at the end of summer and you have children, will probably come as a blessed relief. Something to occupy them...and use up all those popsicle sticks. Craft on!

Stories from the Chaise...

2009-07-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

Since school’s been out, I’ve read a bunch of fiction that’s definitely worth recommending, and I’m never going to get around to writing an individual entry on each book, what with all the napping and existentialism. So here’s a summary:

Best Book for Your Book Club
I live with a houseload of outdoorsy guys who are forever hiking off into the wilderness to test the superpower capabilities of testosterone, otherwise I might forget that people can and do survive happily in the sticks and dirt. Some of them live their whole lives between backpacks of Top Ramen and Belly Timber, seemingly ignorant of wonders such as the pillow-top mattress and take-out Thai.

In My Abandonment by Peter Rock, a father and his 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, live for 4 years undetected in the Portland, Oregon’s Forest Park. Completely self-sufficient, they grow their own vegetables, forage for other food and materials to use in maintaining their hidden shelter, and exist peacefully until a chance encounter reveals their situation to the public and their lives are irreversibly altered.

As the story progresses, you’ll become slightly, almost imperceptibly suspicious of Caroline and her father, of their past and the how and why of their isolation and partnership. And that's why you'll want to read it with a friend--there are profound questions about the story, the characters, and it what it means to have a home. Based on a true story, this fascinating account of survival and escape will appeal to anyone who liked Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Best Book for Anyone Who Likes House, Grey’s Anatomy, or Any Other of the Billion Medical Dramas on TV
A writer for Salon once called Grey’s Anatomy “soft-core porn for women,” an apt description of the show that doesn’t really fit Oxygen by Carol Cassella, but I’m sitting in a bar writing book reviews and I needed a segue, so there you have it. Like Grey’s, Oxygen takes place in a Seattle hospital, but without nearly as much sex. The story revolves around a compelling ethical dilemma that’s far more serious than anything that whiny Meredith Grey has ever had to deal with.

Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist whose career is in turmoil after a child dies in her care. Accused of malpractice, Marie finds herself questioning all that she has come to believe about her abilities and role as a doctor. Legal drama, medical mysteries, and a series of unpredictable twists make this novel the perfect excuse to turn off the TV.

A Missing Person Novel That’s Not Really About a Missing Person
Really! It’s not! But I wasn’t disappointed. Precious by Sandra Novack begins with the disappearance of 10-year-old Vicki Anderson in the summer of 1978. Vicki is the daughter of single mother, Ginny, an alcoholic widow, and the classmate and of Sissy Kisch, and it's the impact of the disappearance on Sissy that forms the core of the story. Sissy's mother, Natalia, has also disappeared, although under less mysterious circumstances--she's left her husband to be with another man, and has left Sissy and her sadistic older sister, Eva, in the care of their father Frank. Eva responds to her mother's abandonment by throwing herself into an affair with a married teacher, and Sissy copes by immersing herself in a fantasy world...or is it? An absorbing story about families, couples, and being present...or not.

Best Book for People Who Like Books about Books
I pick what to read based on reviews I read in Booklist (the ALA's official book review journal), the Indie Next list, which is distributed at independent booksellers and available online; People magazine (gotta keep up with the pop!), and Entertainment Weekly (ditto). I rarely read the list of New York Times Bestsellers because I'm not interested in what's selling well--I want to know what's written well.

The Indie Next list is my favorite source, because the recommendations come directly from other booklovers and are often reviews of books that are from smaller presses or new writers--work I might not hear about otherwise. Such is the case with How I Became a Famous Novelist, by Steve Hely, a completely original and hilarious skewering of the American book publishing world and the financial engine that drives it. Hely's character, Pete, studies the trends in best-sellers and then writes his own--a book that he himself recognizes as crap, but nevertheless one likely to appeal to readers who like everything else that becomes popular. Hely's voice is unique, funny, and memorable.

It may seem as though I've spent the summer (so far) lounging on my front porch, reading and sipping cool beverages. And that's pretty much exactly right. But it's work, people, work I do for you, so you won't have to pluck a crappy paperback from the grocery store check out line in a moment of panic before you board your next flight. It's a sacrifice, and you can thank me later. Hi-ho, hi-ho.

Just Pretend It's a Swimsuit!

2009-06-11T08:27:00.001-07:00

Joseph Campbell has written that we "must be willing to give up the life we had planned, in order to have the life that is waiting for us," and it seems as though many days of my life have required that I reconcile with this bit of wisdom. Thirty years ago, Amy and I maneuvered our little plastic cars (she swallowed the white one, long story) around the board game of LIFE, landing happily on the squares that announced IT'S A BOY or IT'S TWINS. We assigned our favorite names to these tiny plastic children and somehow never even considered that having three or four children, no matter how well-considered their names, would be a crapload of work and really interefere with who we really were.

Don't get me wrong--I think both Amy and I would be fabulous moms (albeit a bit bizarre--heavy on the costuming and themed parties) but for myriad reasons, that life isn't the one that we've ended up living. And while there are days that I wonder what it would be like to escort little William Benjamin Belben (Bill Ben Belben) up the street to kindergarten at Larrabee Elementary, mostly I live a satisfying life without Pull-Ups and Pirate-themed birthday parties. The arrangement here at the Nap Castle is not one I imagined even a year ago, but it's turning out to be a happy one, even if it doesn't match the plan I concocted for myself when I was eleven. There are no children here named Laurie Louise (my favorite name in 1979) or husbands, or weird floorplans involving indoor pools and grand pianos suspended from chains, a la the home designs I drew in 4th grade.

Here's what I have instead: a houseful of people whose lives have taken untraditional directions and who, through Craigslist or the Food Pavilion parking lot (long story) have ended up sharing space with me. Chris, Mark (pictured), Ethan, Phil, Amy, and Cynthia (and their accompanying friends and partners: Chris, Ashley, Julia, Joanna, Jay & Laurie, Gabe, etc.), have become, over the last 8 months, my erstwhile family. And despite the temporary nature of having people living in my extra bedrooms, on my sofa, and in my garage, I wouldn't trade their companionship, intelligence, and humor for the Other Life I might have had if I had driven my little plastic car on the road more traveled. Also, I don't have to cook dinner every night, thanks to our casually organized Community Meals, and I'd frankly rather attend a Guac-Off any night than go to Open House with a school full of intense parents.

In Waveland, Frederick Barthelme's latest novel, characters are involved in a similarly unconventional living arrangement. Following Hurricane Katrina, professor Vaughn Williams' marriage ends, and he becomes involved with his new landlady, Greta, whose own marriage ended under mysterious circumstances. Vaughn's world changes even more dramatically when his ex-wife, Gail, is abused by her boyfriend, and asks Vaughn and Greta to move into her house as protection. As absurd as the arrangement sounds, the three somehow make it work for a time, and all gain perspective into the complex nature of relationships of friends and lovers.

Like life at the Nap Castle, things at Gail's house aren't always ideal: Vaughn must confront his animosity towards his brother, Newton, who reappears and plays a pivotal role in Gail's life, and he must contend with Greta's complicated past, as well. But they make it work, somehow, which is the best we can all do, whatever our situation. Whether we have a traditional, nuclear family, or a family we've cobbled together through less conventional means, ultimately, our goal is the same: to connect, to find community, to be less alone in a huge and often scary world.

"If you were lucky in the world," according to Barthelme's protagonist, "you built yourself a new life as an adult, complete with friends, lovers, partners, rivals, enemies. You replaced the old people with new people, and your party moved along effortlessly." It might not be, as this character notes, the pleasures you'd dreamed of, or the life you'd dreamed of, nor sought, nor even imagined...but facing it, finally, you might find it is a life for which you are now well prepared.

Roadtrip Reads

2009-05-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

Of the many things I am thankful for, possibly the highest on my list is my ability to read in a moving car without puking, a gift that has saved me countless hours of boredom on long family trips and other adventures that might otherwise be mind-numbingly dull. This past weekend, I had the opportunity exercise my skill again on a 3-day journey from Bellingham to San Diego with pal Amy and her brother Steve. Once I finally convinced Amy that no, she did not need to bring a giant bag of hangers, a Chinese lantern, and a milk crate full of incense, there was actually room in the car for me to tote along a backpack of clean clothes and, of course, a few books.

Between my naps in the backseat and my management of the sing-along playlist (if I never hear "C'Mon Get Happy" again it'll be too soon), I read three books, all of which are recommendable. Let's start with The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd, which focuses on the last summer Dade Hamilton spends at home before going to college. During these three months, he contends with his parents' crumbling marriage, his abusive boyfriend, and the local mystery of a missing eight-year-old girl. He also falls in love, and that element of the story is what makes this a particularly sweet summer read. Marketed to teens, but the elegant, witty writing and intelligent insights make it a great read for anyone.

I also read Elinor Lipman's latest novel, The Family Man. Lipman is known for her humorous portrayals of family life, couplehood, and friendship. In The Family Man, Henry Archer finds his life complicated by a phone call from his distraught ex-wife, Denise, as well as the re-appearance of her grown daughter, Thalia. Henry and Thalia were close when he was married to her mother, but lost contact after the divorce. Now that she's back, she and Henry refresh their bonds and help each other navigate the odd, humorous details of their professional lives, their personal lives, and their ever-unpredictable relationship with Denise. Like all of Lipman's novels, the dialogue is phenomenal--fresh, witty, and fast--and the plot, while pretty goofy and even a tad unbelievable, nevertheless transport readers through some amusing and unique territory. A beach read with smarts.

And because a backseat isn't a backseat without a little, umm, spice, I also read essays from Behind the Bedroom Door:Getting It, Giving, Loving It, Missing It, which while about sex, was more smart than salacious, satsifying my intellectual curiosity about what other people think/feel/do/hope for/regret without being a pornographic journey into other people's lives. Which was a good thing, cuz porn+best friend+backseat of best friend's car+best friend's brother=ewww.

Finally, on the plane ride home, I mostly dozed off listening to my iPod, but during conscious moments, concentrated on trying to balance my in-flight snack pack, my Bloody Mary, and my book on the teeny-tiny table tray. The book in question was A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (if anyone knows how to pronounce that name, let me know and I will take care of your dog for free on weekends). In the novel, a young Chinese woman (she goes by the name Z) spends a year abroad in London, where she learns the language (sort of) and has a complicated relationship with a lover who is at first charmed, and later exasperated by, her naivete, innocence, and struggles to speak English.

I felt a little bit like Z in San Diego amidst the skinny surfers and tanned beach bodies. At least I had the books to distract me, not only from the perpetually youthful culture of Sunshine, but from saying good-bye to Amy. I look forward to seeing her soon. I'll be saving up some great books for the next trip south.

HAIR!

2009-05-18T12:15:00.001-07:00

Thirty-one years ago, on the squareball court at Roosevelt Elementary, Amy Baklund called me (the new kid at the school) "little girl," and shortly thereafter, became not my tormentor, but my closest friend. Over three-quarters of my life are comprised of memories of her: the summers we spent at Camp Don Bosco, the time I put her underpants in her flute case before school, the "classes" we conducted we conducted as teachers with a roomful of stuffed animals (little Ralphie the beat-up black and white teddy bear was especially badly behaved), the time she spilled her Bunsen Burner in 8^th grade science, the billion notes we wrote under our assumed identities, Wanda Teetlebound (Amy) and Elouise Latink (me), the summer days we conducted Camp Kiddie Joy in my back yard, and the many, many times we costumed ourselves, laughed uncontrollably, and seized, together, the joy and the journey of life in Bellingham and on this planet.
In January of 2005, Amy was diagnosed with Stage 1 Breast Cancer, and for a horrible, terrifying time, there was a chance that these stories, these memories, this life that we had shared, would become anecdotes that I told at gatherings with our amazing group of friends: "Remember that time when Amy...." "Remember how Amy used to...." "I wish Amy were here to..." But Amy received excellent treatment at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (in her words, "the juice bar") survived her cancer, and continues to be one of the most charismatic, vibrant, life-affirming people I am honored to know.

Amy says that one of the worst days of her cancer diagnosis was when her doctor gave her a prescription for a wig. Fortunately, she never had to fill it, because she didn't lose her hair, but lots of people with cancer aren't so lucky. And if you read, Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal by Diane Simon, you'll appreciate even more how our tresses not only frame our faces, but define who we are. As someone who has spent the past twenty years growing, caring for, wrestling with, and cleaning up after long, curly, hair, I know exactly what it means to be defined, at least in part, by the dead stuff hanging from my head.

Every year at my school, a cancer-awareness week is followed by an assembly in which students buy raffle tickets to shave the head of a dozen or so teachers. Many students also volunteer to have their heads shaved to show solidarity to those fighting cancer, and the funds raised are donated to Children's Hospital. This year, I joined in, following the example set last year by my principal Beth, my friend Laural, and a half-dozen courageous students who chopped their locks. This past Friday, Amy came to the assembly at BEHS to cut my hair. I shared her story with the students and then she carefully sheared off my two 8-inch ponytails, which I sent to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths, an organization that makes and donates wigs to women who’ve lost their hair due to cancer treatment. Later that afternoon, my other buddy Jill accompanied me for a touch-up haircut, which my regular stylist, Heather, donated to the cause.

I’d tell you that I went home, looked in the mirror at the curly cupcake that is now my head, and broke into tears. But the truth is, as much as I love having long hair, I love having Amy in my life more. Every day that I spend waiting for my hair to grow out is a day that I might not have spent with her, had her treatment not been successful, and I'd rather be completely bald than imagine a single day without her humor, spunk, intelligence, and friendship. I am so thankful, every morning, when I wake up, that her zest for adventure, our shared history, and a future of fun await. No amount of hair on earth would ever be an adequate exchange for that. When you see me, and my not-so-Carrie-Bradshaw-mushroom-head, I hope you'll agree.

The Best Missing Person Novel Yet

2009-05-11T11:09:00.001-07:00

Just when it seemed impossible to read yet another story about a missing person, I found another one. And it's excellent. In The Local News by Miriam Gershow, fifteen-year-old Lydia Pasternak deals with the disappearance of her older brother, Danny, who despite his popularity at school and many friends, wasn't the ideal brother. He teased, bullied, insulted, and ignored Lydia, making it difficult for her to miss him much.

Nevertheless, she becomes obsessed with his vanishing and with the investigation into his whereabouts. When her parents--both of whom are too overcome with misery to be much comfort to Lydia--hire a private detective to find their son, Lydia also begins looking for clues.

But the story isn't so much of a murder mystery as it is a coming-of-age story with a twist. Lydia's life is profoundly impacted by her missing brother--her parents are hazy and uninvolved, her schoolmates and teachers remember a Danny that Lydia didn't know or care for, and strangers write to them regularly with bewildering clues, ominous "visions" and false leads. Lydia encounters all of the regular teenage issues: pressure from her best friend, her changing relationship with her best guy friend, her attraction to one of Danny's friends, but all of the normal challenges of being a teenager are exacerbated by the circumstances surrounding her brother's disappearance her parents' odd withdrawal from her care and attention.

The Local News is incredibly well-written; Gershow maintains a sense of tension and suspense that while related to the mystery at hand, also permeates the relationships in her characters' lives, lending depth and insight to what might otherwise be just another ripped-from-the-headlines story. If it weren't for the effect of the disappearance on Lydia's coming-of-age, this novel would have been just as excellent without it, and I would have appreciated the author's humor, intelligence, and wordsmanship just as much.

What We Learn from Make Believe

2009-04-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Why read stories about tragedies--deaths, disappearances, and the assorted harms that humans can inflict on one another--when there's already so much ugliness in the world? Why replicate the pain of loss in made-up stories, package and promote it? Doesn't this just contribute to the already staggering amount of sadness that exists in reality?

I like to believe that fictional stories about crime and loss offer us some salvation from the true miseries that dominate headlines. For one, novels and stories, even (and especially, perhaps) those that tackle the most difficult topics, transform tragedy into art, somehow endowing the unexplainable with redeeming qualities. News stories rarely delve into the true depth of the players involved, focusing instead on the sorrow of survivors, the detestability of the perpetrators, and whatever au-courant commentary a given crime purportedly offers on modern society.

Talented, sensitive storytellers create worlds inhabited by three-dimensional characters who, unlike their real-life CNN doppelgangers, can offer explanations. We learn their backgrounds, their complications, their motivations, and we can understand why they acted as they did. Empathizing with villains isn't necessarily the outcome: gaining a deeper understanding of human psychology is.

Laura Lippman is a multi-award-winning mystery author whose novels features dynamic, complex characters whose actions are carefully dissected and whose backstories are fully explored, creating multi-dimensional novels that address the how and why of human behavior. In her new novel, Life Sentences, protagonist Cassandra Fallows aims to follow the success of her two memoirs with a true-crime book that examines the mysterious case of her childhood acquaintance, Calliope Jenkins, who spent 7 years in jail after refusing to reveal the whereabouts of her missing infant son.

In investigating Calliope's story, Cassandra is forced to confront her own past: her broken friendships with three women she wrote about in her memoirs; her philandering father, her wounded mother, and her own failed relationships and mistakes. As she unravels the mystery of Calliope's missing child and the reason for her silence, she learns as much about herself as she does the other woman. And possibly, we'll do the same as we read: understand more about ourselves and the people we are surrounded by.

If You're Not Laughing, You're Not Doing it Right

2009-03-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

"It is a happy talent to know how to play."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Yesterday concluded my week of spring vacation, and despite the incessant rain and the fact that I was trapped inside for days on end, it was nevertheless great having free time. Nine days--216 hours--which I didn't completely waste on naps.

I managed, despite being housebound, to spend some quality time playing. In my world, this meant doing craft projects, painting furniture I bought off Craigslist, reading,goofing around with Frida, and riding my bike before the rubber on the tires decays from lack of use.

The good news is that time spent playing is not squandered, according to researchers. In Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Stuart Brown, M.D. shares a plethora of anecdotal and scientific research indicating that not only is play important, it is absolutely vital for the health and development of the brain. And the data applies not just to children, but to adults as well. "Play...seems to continue the process of neural evolution...it promotes the creation of new connections that didn't exist before...play seems to be one of the most advanced methods nature has invented to allow a complex brain to create itself." Even if you're not interested in getting any smarter, you might be inclined to play for the health benefits. "People who continue to play games are less likely to get heart disease and other afflictions that seem to have nothing to do with the brain," Brown writes.
He devotes a significant portion of the book to the play we're most familiar with--the stuff kids do when their parents tell them to go outside. Unfortunately, he notes, unstructured playtime has become more rare, usurped by scheduled playdates, organized sports teams, assorted lessons, and other activities planned by adults. The quest for improved standardized test scores in schools also forces cut-backs in the arts, P.E., and music, something Brown says is "the wrong approach" for many reasons. "Play isn't the enemy of learning," Brown writes. "It's learning's partner. Play is like fertilizer for brain growth. It's crazy not to use it." In addition, today's students will face a work world required more ingenuity and creativity than ever before--thinking skills best developed in unstructured, imaginative play and exploratory music and art classes.

Adults, too, have to give themselves permission to play. We've been led to believe that playing or goofing off is a waste of time, but the opposite is true--in all arenas. Not only do studies show that adults who play stave off dementia and other health issues, they're also happier (duh) and better employees. "Employees who have engaged in play throughout their lives outside of work and bring that emotion to the office are able to do well at work-related tasks that might seem to have no connection to work at all," Brown says. "Respecting our biological need for play can bring back excitement and newness to the job. Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process...work does not work without play." So all the practical jokes we execute at work? Not just harmess pranks. They're brain builders. Remember that the next time someone covers your car windows with Post-it notes.

Despite the weather (which is beautiful, of course, now that I'm back at work), I played as much as I could last week: hung with my aging buddy Kosha, took Frida to the dog park, biked with Laural and my roommate, played Scrabbled, hot-tubbed, and watched another 47 (or so) episodes of Rescue Me; I did some yardening, read, napped, visited my nephew, family, and friends, went on the Downtown Gallery Walk, made it to the gym a few times, and basically pursued my usualness with freedom and frivolity. Yes, the weather sucks a lot of the time, chores have to be done, and therenever seems to be enough energy/money/time. But whatever you do, if If you're laughing, you're playing. And I don't know what's any better than that.

This Is Your Brain on Books. Also, Another Death Book.

2009-03-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

One of the ways I try to convince my students to read is by sharing with them the irrefutable data that reading regularly changes their brains. Actual, physical activities happen upstairs when the cells are activated by the introductions of letters, words, and the ideas and stories resulting from their combinations. "Think of me as a P.E. teacher, only for your brain," I tell them. "It's my job to motivate you to exercise and strengthen those brain cells by reading, just the way your P.E. teacher tries to help you develop a strong body by making you play badminton and go power-walking."

Since I've been a librarian, I'm forever on the look-out for information supporting the connection between reading and brain power. Luckily, there is a lot of it. And none that I've found (so far) that says any kind of reading is harmful to brain cells, unless you're lounging around with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a crack pipe while trying to read the instructions on a rocket launcher. The research is pretty conclusive: read more=strengthen the connections between neurons=solve problems more effectively=kick your roommates' butts on crossword puzzles=live happily ever after.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor University whose first book of fiction, Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlife, is a stunning collection of forty short stories--all addressing the question, "What, if anything, happens when we die?" Eagleman has impressively imagined some possibilities in language so clear and yet so artful that it reads like poetry. He obviously not only understands the brain, but has one of his own that is adept at orchestrating some amazing unions between words and ideas.

In the opening story, "Sum," the dead experience their lives over again--except this time, all like activities are grouped together and occur in a clump before the next event happens: two weeks are spent counting money, 18 days staring into the fridge, seven months having sex, etc. "In this afterlife, you imagine something analogous to your Earthly life, and the thought is blissful: a life where episodes are split into tiny, swallowable pieces, where moments do not endure, where one experiences the joy of jumping from one event to the next like a child hopping from spot to spot on the burning sand."

In "Mary," the dead discover that Mary Shelley sits on a throne, protected by angels, because God's favorite book is Frankenstein. Having created humans and watched them destroy each other, God now "locks Himself in His room, and at night sneaks out onto the roof with Frankenstein, reading again and again how Dr. Victor Frankenstein is taunted by his merciless monster...and God consoles Himself with the thought that all creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought."

Although generally serious in tone, throughout Sum there is an undercurrent of intelligent humor--not mocking, exactly, but a sly questioning of assorted systems of belief and their corresponding visions of the afterlife: we live forever, we are punished, we celebrate, we are reunited, we are remembered, we remember, we are completely forgotten, we forget everything we ever knew; we are exactly the way we were on earth, only better. Or worse.

In examining our perceptions about death, Eagleman creates a remarkably insightful dissection of how we live, and in particular, how we think about ourselves. We are gargantuan and meaningful or infintismally inconsequential. We are everything, or we are nothing.

The Person Your Dog Knows You Are

2009-03-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

"It's just like magic. When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are gone," says humorist Merrill Markoe, and I couldn't agree more, especially now that I have three roommates, and I'm suddenly aware that some of the stuff I could get away with when I lived alone is no longer acceptable, like leaving the dryer full of unmentionables and neglecting the cat box for a week at a time. Having roommates has made me more conscientious, although I'm a little paranoid after reading Matt Haig's novel, The Labrador Pact, that I have always been under another set of watchful eyes...

Prince is a black Labrador who oversees the well-being of the Hunter family--parents Adam and Kate and teenagers Charlotte and Hal--as part of an age old pact created by Labradors in which they vow allegiance to their humans. "Duty above all" is their mantra.

Unbeknownst to humans, dogs are able to communicate with one another, and they can understand people when they talk. This makes them witness to the most private moments of their masters and families. Because dogs are also keenly aware of smells and subtler nuances, Prince informs us, they are able to predict human's emotions before the people themselves show any signs that they're happy, worried, depressed, or whatever.

As the story begins, Prince informs us that he is on his way to the vet to be euthanizied; knowing he's going to die, he takes us back through the series of experiences leading up to his execution day--events which were mandated by his adherence to the Labrador Pact.

When he senses his family falling apart, Prince collaborates with his best canine friends, Henry and Falstaff, to set about saving the Hunters from themselves. Adam and Kate are both acting suspicious and prickly, hovering on the verge of adultery and divorce, the teenage daughter Charlotte is dating a creep, and older son Hal is partying and defying his folks. Worse, an old friend of Adam's from the past, Simon, re-enters their lives, and Prince is immediately alerted to the threat he poses, and knows it is his duty to protect his people from this intruder. Unfortunately, the steps he must take require him to violate the Pact and sacrifice himself for the safety of the Hunter family.

"Humans don't realise it," we are told, "but the speed of our wag directly impacts their own happiness. Our tails dictate the rhythm of Family life..." Unfortunately, Prince isn't able to save Adam, Kate, Charlotte, and Hal with simple tail-wagging. But his narration --his wry observations of family life, his commitment to the Hunters' happiness, and his earnest, loving, and ultimately doomed attempt to make all right in their world--is absorbing and endearing. I can only hope that Frida, despite the many unseemly things she may have witnessed (and I'm only implicating myself here, not roommates Cynthia, Chris, and Mark), shares Prince's feelings of duty and devotion...or least, my sense of the same for her.

I Promise: Next Week, I Won't Write about Death

2009-03-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article for BUST magazine about my decision to donate my body to the University of Tennessee's Anthropological Research Facility, a.k.a. The Body Farm. Besides the whole recycling aspect of donation, and my qualms about the funeral industry (see Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death for complete details), I like the idea that my remains might solve crimes.

I have always been intrigued by mysteries, and especially real-life stories of disappearances and murders. It isn't the grisliness that appeals to me, it's the psychology behind the stories that I am gripped by--the why rather than the what or the how. For that reason, I'm pretty finicky about the "true crime" that I read--see the sidebar for a list of my all-time favorites--they have to have some unique quality or focus that distinguishes them from the dozens of grocery-store paperbacks that appear on the shelves. They have to reveal something new about behavior and life, something that helps.

Kathryn Harrison's book While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family, fit my criteria. Ostensibly about Billy Gilley's 1984 murder of his parents and sister in Medford, Oregon, it's really about the psychology of family; the impact of violence, and the possibility and process of healing in the aftermath of horror. Because Gilley spared his older sister, Jody, Harrison has access to the only person besides the murderer who can offer insight into the crimes, and much of the research she did for While They Slept involved meeting with Jody again and again to find out what happened in her family prior to its destruction and how, in the twenty years since, she has created a successful, happy life despite her shocking history.

Harrison carefully examines the pathology of the Gilley family, exposing the Gilleys as abusive parents who failed to nurture their son; the child protection services that failed to investigate claims of abuse in the home, and the mentality of the man whose rage and warped sense of justice made him a killer. She juxtaposes Billy Gilley's psyche with that of the sister he spared--a woman who, growing up, retreated from the violence and mistreatment in the home by surrounding herself with books, and one who ultimately has repaired the damage that was done before and after her parents were killed.

Harrison is a gifted writer, able to pull together the many complex elements of this story and the lives of each member of the Gilley family to create an account that is certain to be compared to In Cold Blood for both its literary quality and its insightful and unique approach to the analysis of tragedy.

You Learn Something Everyday, Whether You Want to or Not

2009-03-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

My friend Dorothy passed away recently at the age of 79. We didn't know each other long--that's us on our first outing, the annual Seniors' Picnic at Hovander Park last August--but even in our brief friendship, I gleaned a lot about living from her stories.

Now that I don't have Dorothy to learn from, I try to connect with other older people and steal their smarts. I'm not going to name names here, but let's just say that a) there are a lot of people older than me and b) there are even more who are smarter. I'm not even smart enough to have come up with the idea of getting smarter by listening to what old people have to say about life. Someone else thought of it, wrote a book about it, and is now probably not selling his stuff on Craigslist to pay the mortgage.

Henry Alford recently published How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth),an entertaining exploration of what older people have to teach us about life. Rather than a collection of pithy anecdotes or sweet stories, the book is a memoir of Alford’s visits with numerous elders who have experienced great achievements, sorrow, fame, or simply, ordinariness. Among his subjects are Ram Dass, Phyllis Diller, Harold Bloom, Edward Albee, Ashleigh Brilliant, and his own mother—whose life is profoundly affected by her son’s quest for information.

Alford's subjects have plenty of wisdom to offer him and his readers, bu Edward Albee may have stated it best in his play Three Tall Women, when a character says she's wise because she's given up her illusions about the past and future and settled in the present. "Enough shit gone through to have a sense of the shit that's ahead, but way past sitting and playing in it," she says. And that, quite possibly, is the sum of the wisdom Alford gathers from all of his interviewees: getting old means growing wise not because you've collected facts, but because you've collected experiences, which translate into perspective. Alford says this kind of wisdom is "hard-won, forged as it is in the crucible of failure," and cites researcher Ekhonon Goldberg, who says wisdom is a product of the accumulation of cognitive templates--basically, we get increasingly better at recognizing patters, whether they be in economics, relationships, work situations, or whatever.

In addition to talking to actual old people, author Alford spoke with theorists specializing in wisdom--what it is, how people get it, how you can snag some of your own--and found (unsurprisingly) a lot of variation. The best answer came from psychologist Robert Sternberg, who identifies four components of wisdom: using knowledge and skills for the common good; balancing interpersonal and extrapersonal goals, balancing short-term and long-term interests, and "dialogical thinking"--i.e. the ability to see other people's points of view. I might add that the wisest older people I know personally (pictured here are three of them: Aunts Marge and Barbara and Uncle Herb) are those that keep on keepin' on: they take up painting at 68 or still referee soccer games at 69, or continue working at jobs they love until they're 84, like Aunt Barbara.

Alford ends the book by seeking out aphorisms from numerous old people; basically, he's looking for their lives' wisdom summed up in a single phrase. And he finds a lot of it, most notably from Ashleigh Brilliant, the most-quoted writer in history, who is known for his some 10,000 copyrighted epigrams, quips that are generally clever and sometimes corny. Old people like to talk--Dorothy told some fantastic stories about growing up in small-town Idaho, but the end of this book seems to suggest that all of what we learn in life can be boiled down to simple bits of truth. Wisdom, it turns out, isn't necessarily about knowing a lot, but about knowing what matters.

This Blog is Free. Thank God.

2009-02-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

Since I’m too broke to travel, I’ve been spending most of my free time hanging out at the Nap Castle, attending to money-saving tasks like posting stuff on Craigslist and taking naps and accompanying Frida on arm-stretching tug-o-walks around the ‘hood. My one indulgence this month was the Northwest Comedy Festival at the Mount Baker Theater, which was a gigantic break from worrying about money and picking up dog crap. I was also introduced to the absolutely hilarious troup Sidecar, now my three favorite people on the planet.

I’ve been low-budget-finishing my Anne Frank Room, the 10x20 space above my garage that with one more coat of paint, some carpet, and a heater, will be my new writing studio. Before James drywalled it, the room looked like it does above. It's looking more finished (and smelling a little fumey) now that I've painted it. Stay tuned...the next blog post should feature the "after" photo!

I figure that I've painted about 80,000 square feet of wall space in my home-owning life, and every job has been made easier by David Sedaris--I've listened to all of his books, some more than once, while painting. Besides the fact that laughing out loud is free and it makes jobs go faster, another advantage is that I've come to associate painting with humor and specifically with Sedaris, making painting something I now dread at least 37% less than emptying the cat box.

This is probably the first post I've written specifically endorsing an audio book, but if you're going to enjoy David Sedaris, the very best way to do it is to listen to him read his own work. Writers who read their own stuff--especially humor--always sound so much better to me than audio books read by actors. Writers know their own words, the places to emphasize ideas or phrases, and best of all, their comic timing is perfect. Actors reading other people's books always sound like they're trying too hard to be dramatic or entertaining.

In the Anne Frank Room this weekend, I listened to Sedaris's latest collection, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and it eased the tedium and helped me ignore the lack of heat.I've spent so many hours hearing about him and his family that it feels like I'm being kept company by a a cast of friends while I work. Every Sedaris collection, and this one is no exception, features self-deprecating tales of his past and current life. The best thing about his writing is his ability to transform universal scenarios with such fine, personal details--his parents leaving him and his siblings in the care of an eccentric babysitter for a week, for example, in "The Understudy." I know I've had a weird babysitter before. Hell, I've probably been the weird babysitter.

One of my other favorites is "This Old House," about Sedaris's time as a tenant in the boarding house of an eccentric "antiques" collector, a woman who also rented to a schizophrenic man and shared Sedaris's love of the past. Since I'm now sharing my own home with renters (neither of whom is schizo, as far as I can tell), I can see myself as my roommates might--or as they might someday, if I continue sharing my space until I'm as old and crusty as Sedaris's landlady. Since my current housemates are awesome, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Given the current economic struggles many are facing, it's a good time for therapeutic projects: scrubbing out the refrigerator, yardening (I recent ripped out some ivy and scrub encroaching on my lawn...it felt fantastic) and maybe, if you can afford it, brightening a gloomy space with a fresh coat of paint. If you don't have the energy or inclination for those, reading is free...and fun.. and your three-year-old nephew will love it!

Enjoy Yourself. It's Later than You Think.

2009-02-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

It may seem like a weird time to think about road-tripping, given that the weather is still unpredictable, the roads are in wintery disrepair, and most of us are still months away from anything resembling a vacation. And yet, what better conditions for fantasizing of a get-away? Before I built the Nap Castle, I owned (moment of silent remembrance) the Vanbulance, a fully-equipped Volkswagen camper van; a dream-on-wheels that was going to take me across the country during the summer of 2007. I had a map in my office stick-pinned with destinations, a book about natural hot springs I planned to visit, and a list of people I hoped to see and books I wanted to read along the way. Very little of it came to fruition--I lived in the van for a week during construction and spent a night at a campground where my next door neighbor and his buddy peed on their campfire to put it out. I now must live vicariously through the road-trips of others.

In Michael Zadoorian's new novel, The Leisure Seeker, John and Ella Robina, a long-married couple, take off in their aging motor home to travel Route 66 from Detroit to Disneyland. But this trip, unlike many others they've endeavored is unique: it is positively the last one they will take together. In their 80's, the Robinas are both suffering the cruel effects of old age. John is in the middle stages of Alzheimers, experiencing fewer lucid moments each day, and Ella is stricken with rapidly progressing cancer.

Against the wishes of their children and their doctors, Ella and John kidnap themselves from their hospital beds, forgo further treatment for their ailments, and traverse onward to live out their last days together on the road.

What follows is more than the travelogue of a trip--it's a scrapbook of marriage and family, and a very funny one at that. As they journey westward, the Robinas encounter typical vacation woes: mechanical problems, criminals, bad road conditions, and crummy food (John has a penchant for McDonalds). But their trip is far from usual; in addition to the usual discomforts, both are increasingly ill abnd forgetful.

But the hazards of the road, their illnesses, and their children's worry don't stop the Robinas from continuing their journey and they definitely don't stop them from maintaining the status quo of their marriage: some bickering, a lot of humor, and a deep affection for each other and their shared history.

While I don't necessarily want to travel the country in a 1970's camper van with a crabby old man who wets the bed, I do want to grow old like the Robinas do: with a sense of independence and adventure, and a goal to make the most of the last of my life.

Way More 80's Crap Than I Care to Reveal...

2009-01-27T08:59:00.001-08:00

A long time ago, in a place that might as well be a galaxy far away, I did some writing about a high school detective named Veronica. There was a lot of down-time on that job, and I spent some of it doing research that might help my character solve her mysteries more easily. I read about tarot, psychic readings, Catholic symbolism (long story, but the dish of Saint Christopher medals in episode 202, Driver Ed, was my idea), STDs, and a bunch of other stuff that sometimes turned out to be useful, but mostly not.

One thing that would’ve helped me help Veronica is Sam Gosling’s book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You, but it wasn’t published until 2008, and by that time, I was back here, helping high school kids learn important skills such as including a “Table of Contents” at the beginning of their papers instead of a “Table of Context.”[1]

In Snoop Gosling delves into the science behind the messages that our stuff—and the things of others—says about who we are. How does the arrangement of our books reveal our personalities? What do we give away about our innermost selves in the geegaws and knickknackery displayed in our homes, offices, classrooms, and cars? How can we “read” others by looking at their surroundings? What does it mean that I have a set of South Park finger puppets and a unicorn-on-a-stick in my office at school?

Surprisingly, the messages you intend to send when you arrange your tchotchkes aren’t always the ones your observers pick up on, and you can’t always trust what you see when you make guesses about others’ lives based on their stuff. But you can learn some useful tools for understanding people and their personalities, and Gosling’s research and entertaining presentation shows you how.

But his book isn’t just (or really) about snooping on a subversive level. If you want to rummage through your acquaintances’ bedside tables and bathroom cabinets, be my guest, but there are some easier and more valuable things you can learn just by looking and listening to the indicators they display right out in public. And I’m not talking about the friends who have the Vietnamese Love Swing[2] in their rec room or whatever.

Everyday, ordinary, preferences tell us more about people than do the things they hide. Studies have shown, for example, that “music consistently trumps books, clothing, food, movies, and television shows in helping people get to know each other.” Keep that in mind when you’re snooping: you can learn more from the CD collection than the bookshelf.

___________________________________________
[1] Honest to God, someone really wrote that.
[2]Just for the record, I have no idea what a Vietnamese Love Swing is, nor do I know anyone who has one. I don’t think.

Are George and Lennie Mice?

2009-01-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

The best thing about working in a library is that you can tell people to be quiet anytime you want and it's completely legitimate. Even if you just want them to shut up because you can't hear your Pandora, no one questions you. People have preconceptions about libraries that lend themselves perfectly to my desire not to listen to them talk about their lives.

Unfortunately, people also have other notions about libraries that are guaranteed to make me ponder hari-kari. Chief among these annoyances is the belief that libraries are places where one person talks to another person in a fearful whisper. I absolutely loathe whisperers, mainly because I can't hear what they're saying, but also because their timidity seems to imply that they must tiptoe around and be careful not to disturb me, lest I go berserk and poke their eyes out with a bone folder. Which I've only done like once, and that was on a day when I was even crabbier than I am right now.

Every profession has its annoyances, and my theory is that they stem not from the actual acts committed by the annoyers, but by the sheer repetition of those acts. How many times do kids have to walk through the alarm system and simulate its "beep beep beep" noise before I've legally earned a paid mental health leave of up to one year? And when I tell someone they have an overdue book and they say, "I've never even heard of that book," shouldn't it be permissable--in fact, required--that I throw something at or near their head? My job, as delightful and rewarding as it is, requires me to answer and/or respond to a wide array of asinine questions. I've detailed them here.

Turns out that my job, as a high school librarian, is, in part anyway, to train the people who will leave this institution and go into the Real World to torment the underpaid and overworked employees of the nation's public libraries. At least that's what I've discerned from reading Scott Douglas's memoir, Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian. You do not have to be a librarian to appreciate his story, just an appreciator of workplace humors. Seriously, if you like The Office, you'll appreciate the interactions Douglas has with the quirky cast of personalities who work with him at the small Anaheim library where most of his story takes place.

Weird patrons, finicky co-workers, and bizarre requests and problems are all a part of being a public librarian, and Scott Douglas makes hilarious work of his daily duties, which include not just answering stupid questions and chasing away misbehaving teenagers, but also fetching people who've fallen asleep in the bathroom, confiscating contraband, and requesting that masturbators take their um, handiwork, elsewhere. These are all things I've had to do in my own job (in addition to asking students to please not ninja-kick each other) so I'm obviously training the students well for their future library lives. Either way, this is a highly recommended read--one of the funniest books I've read this year.

When I'm Sixty-Four

2009-01-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

I've been in Mexico four days and somehow can't seem to get Beatles songs out of my head. The cars and bars blast musica latina, 80s tunes, and a crapload of Air Supply, but Amy and I keep singing about returning to Puerto Vallarta to retire. We've modified the lyrics of "When I'm Sixty-Four" to accomodate our optimism about being nonegenarians at Playa de Los Muertos, and I keep humming "Paperback Writer." Hmmm.

If one IS a writer of paperbacks, there is a good chance that your work will end up in a cafe like Una Pagina del Sol, where travelers can trade used and/or crap books for credit towards purchases on other used and/or crap books traded in by other vacationers. Pagina (which just for the record, is pronounced pah-hee-nuh, NOT pa-JI-nuh) is located at 299 Olas Altas, on a busy corner in the Zona Romantica, ideal for watching tourists and just steps from Los Arcos, a large, clean hotel with easily accessible banos. "Going to Los Arcos" has become code for "the coffee just kicked in, and I'm going to appreciate the privacy of a clean bathroom."

The cafe/bookstore is frequented mainly by local ex-patriates and tourists, but not the kind wearing fluourescent bracelets who arrive on gigantic air-conditioned buses. We sat and watched as a terrified trio of these visitors huddled on the corner, waiting 25 minutes for the bus to return them to their hotel in Nuevo Vallarta, the land of Costco, Walmart, and gated security. 25 minutes! "Waiting for the tour bus" is our new synonym for wasting precious time in the midst of a beautiful life. It is the opposite of Saying Yes.

At Pagina, my personal shopper Amy helped me select books that allowed me to utilize my 30 peso credit as well as rid myself of another burdensome $70 pesos. Pagina has delicious coffee, superior licuados, and an unforgettable tres leches cake, but many of the books are of the yellow-paged, spine-cracked Grisham/Steel variety. However, we did find a copy of Deborah Rodriguez's memoir Kabul Beauty School and a 1978 paperback entitled How to Ask a Man by Judi Miller.

Miller's book, published at the height of women's lib, is intended for women who "wish not to be trapped by an old-fashioned dating sytem" and hope to "learn to approach a man--the RIGHT man!" by "bringing dating out of the dark ages!" It has provided quite a lot of poolside entertainment. Besides advising women to ask to see a prospective date's divorce papers, Miller also suggests that women cook for their man-of-interest. "Everyone has her own special recipe to use when a man comes to dinner. Whether it's Beef Stroganoff or Veal Scallopini, make sure you have three or four can't-miss recipes in your repertoire!" Other chapters include "Stopping That Macho Before It Becomes Too Mucho" and "Go Ahead! Pick Him Up!"

Kabul Beauty School, interestingly enough, is also about women's issues; Rodriguez went to Afghanistan in 2001 on a relief mission, and ended up returning there to live when she discovered that Afghan women were in need of professional haircare and that there were many women interested in running their own salons. Because of strict Islamic regulations requiring the separation of women and men for such personal services as hair care, waxing, and make-up, as well as the need for professionals to perform elaborate pre-wedding-ceremony hairstyling and removal rituals, Rodriguez recognized that women in Kabul needed each other, and she opened a school to help train a cadre of beauty professionals. Her story of friendship and love in an unlikely place is absorbing and uplifting, proof that we can all get by with a little help from our friends.

A Postcard from PV

2009-01-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

A brief blog from the sunnier section: I'm on a sabbatical from the snow and rain, reading my way around Puerto Vallarta, where it's a surreal 80 degrees. I'm working on an article for the spring edition of Village Books' Chuckanut Reader, so I assume that all of my expenses on this trip are write-off-able, even if I am writing nothing about Mexico.

The topic for my upcoming piece in the CR is "light reads for dark times" and I'm focusing on smart humor to uplift and entertain us through economic hard times and other crap that sucks the fun out of life. So far, I haven't been able to add anything new to my list, but have been actively eliminating potential suggestions. For example, I didn't even have to read I Hope There's Beer in Hell by Tucker Max, because one of my travelmates (who asked not to be named so as not to be associated with the book) hated the book so much that he even refused to trade it in for credit at La Pagina del Sol, the favorite cafe/bookstore of the trio.

Apparently, Max writes proudly, exclusively, and in exhaustingly disgusting detail about his excessive drinking, mistreatment of women (including his "standards" regarding who he'll date), and his obnoxious attitudes about sex and just about everything else. One of those books that seems like a fun idea when you buy it at the airport, and then later just feels like a huge embarrassment. Perfect for chopping up and making some sort of craft project out of. Or something.

On the flight, I read most of Shauna Reid's memoir Adventures of Diet Girl because 1) I'd read a review of it thta made it sound funny and similar to Wendy McClure's weight-loss memoir, I'm Not the New Me; 2) like McClure's book, Reid's began as a blog about her amazing weight loss, and 3) I liked the cover. Reid's story is uplifting and fun, and her accomplishment is worthy of commendation, but the book feels too much like it was lifted directly from the blog without any further embellishment--no real subplots or suspense, and frankly, the writing is average and not particularly unuique. However, if your New Year's resolution includes shedding some excess flesh, consider this one as part of the overall motivational package. I certainly do, although for now, I'm off for some chilequiles. The workouts will have to wait...Adios y feliz ano nuevo!

Snow and Strippers

2008-12-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

Snowbound for days, you would reasonably assume that I did nothing but read pile after pile of books, gleefully thankful that my mini-van was undriveable, work unaccessible, and the outside world an unreachable, distant memory. Not so much.

During my houseboundness, I spent way too much time napping, a solid amount of hours watching DVDs (season 4 of LOST) and only a limited number of minutes churning through the tower of books that threatens to fall from my bedside table and crush me in the wee hours of the night before Frida has a chance to wake me up for her ass-crack-of-dawn pee.

When I wasn't sleeping or watching Matthew Fox (!!!), I read one highly recommendable work of fiction, The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III. A few years back, I risked alienating some of you by enthusiastically promoting Dubus's novel House of Sand and Fog, a book which, apparently, has the ability to really piss a lot of people off and provoke arguments among otherwise peaceable friends.

Good news! The Garden of Last Days threatens to do the exact same thing, and I know most of you will read it anyway. Like House of Sand and Fog, Dubus's new novel revolves around a circle of loosely connected characters whose fates intertwine by chance. Just as in the earlier novel, readers will love and hate these people, peeking through their fingers to watch as they repeatedly take steps to insure that their lives will be hopelessly screwed up. Yet even as we watch their lives devolve in a series of bad decisions, their stories are impossible to abandon.

The action takes place in Florida, in the three days preceding the 9/11/2001 attacks. A single mother struggling to save for a home and stuck without her usual babysitter must bring her three-year-old daughter to work with her at The Puma Club for Men, arranging for another of the dancers to watch her daughter. At the club that night is Bassam, a Muslim man preparing to sacrifice his life for his religion. Also in the audience is AJ, a young father whose wife has recently kicked him out of the house. The unlikely confluence of these individuals at this place on this night makes for an unforgettable, gripping read.

It's unlikely that many readers would expect to sympathize with a stripper, a wife-beater, and a 9/11 conspirator, and yet Dubus so completely realizes these characters' lives, their hopes, dreams, doubts, and passions, that it is impossible not to understand what motivates them and moves them to live as they do. Certain to inspire much discussion and thought, this is one of the most powerful novels I've read.

Yes, Indeed

2008-12-08T09:17:00.000-08:00

It's a common misconception about librarians that we are hyper-organized, and while it's true that I organize my clothes by color (that's just practical!), I don't think of myself as being omniorganized. The best thing about getting older is the realization that there are some things that you can organize and some things that you either can't control, or that aren't worth it or would be spoiled by the effort.

If, for example, you have to move an 8-person hot tub to your house (insert smiley face here), it doesn't work to show up and figure it out as you go. You have to prepare: rent a huge flatbed, recruit a posse of manly-men who'd probably rather be doing just about anything else on a rainy Saturday afternoon, arrange a time and place to meet, and prepare some sort of grati-snack to thank them.

On the other hand, if you're cleaning out your closet and you find some dress shirts that your ex-boyfriend left behind to be mended while he was off cheating on you, it's best not to waste time enumerating the pros and cons of returning them versus donating them to the Goodwill or using them to clean up dog doo in the garage, but to just go ahead and slice the arms off with a sharp scissors. It's very satisfying, and if you sew up the bottoms of the sleeves, they make neat little wine bottle bags.

In Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up, Patricia Ryan Madson advocates the sleeve-slicing approach to life--not violence and vengeance, but spontaneous acts of thinking-on-your-feet that prohibit the blocks that arise when we try too hard to arrange the little pieces of our lives too carefully. I read Madson's book recently as a part of my training in improvisational theater and realized her ideas are applicable anywhere, not just on stage.

Throughout this short book, Madson offers numerous examples and strategies for adopting a more improvisational attitude to life. Showing up, paying attention, giving yourself permission to be average, and taking care of others are among the improvisational maxims that she introduces and promotes. My favorite is "make mistakes" since I'm already pretty good at it. "99.9 percent of the time, a mistake is just an unanticipated outcome giving us information. While we may bemoan a blunder, the real question to ask afterward is not, 'How on earth did I do that?' but rather, 'What comes next? What can I make of this?'" I can't think of a happier way to respond.

People often think that improv is about being funny, and while it often ends up being hilarious, the goal of improvisational actors is not to get laughs, but to think fast, forget inhibitions, support others, and most of all, to say yes to what is offered, whether it's on stage, at work, or in our personal lives. "Say yes to everything," Madson writes. "Saying yes is an act of courage and optimism. Accept all offers...when the answer to all questions is yes, you enter a new world, a world of action, possibility, and adventure...Humans long to connect," she writes. "Yes glues us together." And so do hot tubs! Come on over!

Commando in the Reading Room

2008-12-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, I recently celebrated the anniversary of my birth, and with it, the expiration of a drivers' license that still had me living on H Street. You know, at my ex-husband's house.
I work in a library. I own hundreds of books. And yet on the one occasion when I most needed reading material, I forgot to bring any. That's right, ladies and gentlemen: I went to the DMV without a book. If you've ever been there, you know just how dire this situation was. However, you also know that once you've arrived and plucked your ticket from the Take-A-Number machine, there is no turning back. Because the only thing worse than going to the DMV is going to the DMV again.

With a 20-25 minute wait ahead of me, a hard plastic seat under me, and 10 days of driving on an expired license behind me, I was trapped in the austere hell that is the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is nothing to do there except text-message your friends (mine were all at work), read the imminent-death-warning posters on the walls (hydroplaning! sleepiness! unsecured loads!), and judge the clothes/children/mental health (hideous! stupid! bipolar!) of the other unfortunates around you.

If you've ever sat next to me in the theater or at a faculty meeting, you know that I have some "issues" with sitting still; i.e. I find it virtually impossible. I don't do "calm." It's one of the reasons I didn't love being a TV writer--even though I was sitting at table with brilliant, funny, naughty people, I was SITTING AT A TABLE for six or seven hours a day. It was my own little Guantanamo. I'm not trying to one-up anyone on the whole shitty-day-at-the-DMV scenario. I just want to offer some backstory to explain what happened next.

Before I approached the counter where the crabby woman (they're all crabby, but, ok, I get it) yelled at me for reading the wrong line on the eye test and then told me that the address of my brand new home does not exist, I did this: I got up. I took a look around in desperation. And then I did it. I took a Driver Guide from the pile and returned to my butt-numbing plastic chair. And I read The Guide. Page. By. Tedious. Page.

Unless you are insomniac or 15 1/2, I don't recommend this. It's as boring as reading the instruction manual for your new dishwasher, only a thousand times more boringer. Also, it will scare the crap out of you (39,000 bicyclists die annually! cough medicine can impair your thinking! there is no Patron Saint of Subarus!)

However, if you started driving 25 years ago, like some people I know, it is refreshing to learn of the changes in road law that have occurred since th 80s. For example, there is now a phenomenon called "graduated licensing." It involves a complex series of ages, times, dates, and familial relations intended to prevent today's 16 year olds from driving a carload of their friends to a kegger off Chuckanut Drive in the family's Pinto station wagon. For example.

Also, modern inventions such as text-messaging and roundabouts make an appearance. Apparently, you're not supposed to look at a teeny-tiny keyboard and type with your thumbs while operating a motor vehicle. Whatever. The old regulations are still there--the stuff about yielding to pedestrians and checking your blind spot and not letting your three-year-old grandson drive your car (see photo)--so it's still the same old fun-crushing crapload of rules. But it got me through 20 minutes. And it might do the same for you.

On the bright side, according to my driver's license, I now weigh 125 again.