Resolutions, 2009

No time like the present to take a gander at the resolutions I made on December 27th, 2008.  I tend to get a little resolution-crazy every December and make WAY too many resolutions – with not only a new year but a new decade ahead of us I hope to pare down the resolutions and approach the year with more focus than in the past. But this post isn’t about next year – it’s about this year!

Resolutions, 2009

1. Quit smoking, once and for all.

Hurrah, I am proud to say I finally achieved this! I officially quit smoking on September 14th of this year, which means I’ve been quit for three months. I’ve been an off and on smoker for years and have several quits behind me but throughout them I always would smoke here and there. This is the first time since college I can honestly say I haven’t had even one cigarette in three months. Even if I don’t accomplish anything else on the list I know I am entering 2010 healthier and happier than last year.

2. Develop a wardrobe Ifeel good about .

Check, check! I really don’t enjoy shopping and for the longest time we never had any money, and those two facts combined led to one of the worst working-girl wardrobes, ever. My clothes were shabby, unfashionable and made me feel terrible about myself. By shopping every weekend (yes, I know, it sucks), taking clothes to the tailor, and looking for great deals I finally feel like I have clothes. Right now I have enough work clothes for two full weeks of work and three good casual outfits. I just have to maintain this in 2010. I know it’s shallow, but it really does make all the difference in terms of one’s confidence to have a decent wardrobe.

3. Synthesize ll I’ve learned about exercise, smoking cessation, yoga and healthy eating into a lifestyle instead of further resolutions. It’s hard to determine whether I achieved this or not. In the last three months I quit smoking, and in the last two my yoga practice has picked up significantly. Thanks to the celiac diagnosis I finally feel great – I’m going to say I achieved this, actually. I definitely feel like I have a healthy lifestyle.

4. Stop all negative self-talk – Nope. I really need to work on this for next year.

5. Stop giving credence to my ongoing health fears Former hypochondriac – current celiac – turns out it WASN’T all in my head. Above and beyond the celiac diagnosis I have been very good about my healthcare this year and am happy I don’t have to put this on my list of resolutions for 2010. I see the dentist twice yearly, I get my cholesterol tested, I get my moles checked. I give myself an A+ for self care!

6. Become more fiscally responsible, developing a new financial goal each month – I was doing really well with this goal until mid-summer, when everything S. and I owned crapped out at once – from our cars to our coffee pot to our microwave to our dvd player…and on, and on, and on. I am saving the details for an essay I am writing, but suffice it to say we did a great job of continuing to paying things down (student loans, the house, car loan, etc) but a terrible job of saving – fiscal responsibility will be a big goal for the upcoming year.

7. Get back into theater – I saw a couple plays with my neighbor but did not do much else. Still thinking on the practicality of this, as well as the strength of my desire. I’ll write further about this in the new year…

8. Engage my inner academic – I don’t even know what I meant by this. I am pretty sure I didn’t do it, though.

9. Find a church – Still working on this.  Hope to have one by Easter.

10. Volunteer – Ooof. Nope.

11. Be on time for work – as long as I don’t write in the mornings, I am on time, even early. When I work on my writing, though, I tend to get caught up, determined to write just one more sentence…I could do better about this, really.

So actually, I am not heinously disappointed in my 2009 resolutions. I think I made good progress on many of them. As I noted above, I am entering a new year and a new decade healthier and happier than many other years – that’s a mark of a good year! I’m not totally sure what my resolutions for 2010 are going to be but I do hope to have fewer, more concrete, and perhaps even more fun resolutions.

Movies, 2009

When I look at the list of movies I watched in 2009, it’s almost as embarrassing as my yoga practice. Almost. My yoga practice has picked up significantly in the last month or so and really, it makes me so very happy, I don’t know why I find it such a struggle to get myself there sometimes. Um, but this post isn’t about yoga, it’s about my piss poor movie watching this year. No sense, really, though, in beating myself up over how few movies I watched – while I am a movie buff I am not manic about film like I am about reading – I don’t feel any sense of failure for NOT having watched movies, if that makes sense? Anyway. In the manner of the reading roundup, then. The categories from my 2008 movie watching that apply to movies seen this year:

Movie In Which I Wanted to Wear All the Clothes and Sleep with the Hero, even though I would look Terrible Doing Both: New In Town. I have had a crush on Harry Connick Jr. for over a decade, easily – when I think of him I think of my freshman year of college when he released his first Christmas cd – it seemed like every store in East Lansing played that cd. Renee Zellweiger had a fantastic wardrobe in this movie.

Favorite Movie of the Year: Tell No One

Best Adaptation from a Book: Tell No One, again.

Movie I Most Wanted To Move Into and Live There Forever: Fame. I mean, really, TERRIBLE, but terrible-awesome, you know, like, if ONLY my teenage years had been like that, except without the suicide attempts and feeling like a failure at age seventeen…

Most Surprisingly Enjoyable Movie: Amelia

Movie That Made Me Long For My Youth, and How I felt When  Watching Movies, As Though the whole entire wide world was Open to Me and it would be Full of Beauty and Light : Vickie Christina Barcelona

Six Categories from last year – not too terrible. Now, for this year:

Movie That Caused an Embarrassing Crying Jag in my Home Town Theater, Causing my Parents to think I am overworked and overtired: The Blind Side – seriously, could not stop crying during this movie. It made me want to adopt every single kid I could. I cannot stand the thought of disadvantaged children…it makes my heart hurt so much I often skip reading articles in the paper about it. I cried more during this movie than not.

Movie that Caused me to Stop Watching out of outrage at the incredible bias, and I am about as Liberal as one gets: Sicko. I think Michael Moore took it much too far in this movie, putting out a lot of misinformation and doing a disservice to the people working in health care who are trying to fix the massive fuckup that is the industry.

Best Documentary: A tie between Shut Up and Sing and Inside Deep Throat..Shut Up and Sing chronicles the fallout the Dixie Chicks exerienced after their London show where they criticized President Bush, and Inside Deep Throat chronicles the lives of the actors, producers and directors of Deep Throat, the porn movie. My friend J. recommended this to me and it is a FASCINATING look at 1970s culture.

Movie that Seems Unanimously Loved by EVERYONE but I found firstly boring and secondly, creepy: Wall-E.

Movie That Just Seemed So Freaking Weird, Compared to the Book it was Based On: Julie and Julia. Okay, I know – I know – Meryl Streep rocked this out. I AGREE, people – she was amazing. But truly, this would have been a better movie if had just been based off of Julia Child’s memoir and not included Julia Powell in any way. First of all,  they sanitized Julia Powell’s character way too much – the casting of Amy Andrews was just weird. It cracks me up that everyone is traumatized by Powell’s latest book detailing her affair because if you had read her book instead of just seen the movie you would KNOW that Powell is terribly, horribly flawed. Like all of us. Also, the Julia Child hero-worship in the movie was highly exaggerated (I think), and, well, stupid. BUT. I loved loved loved the parts with Meryl Streep. She was amazing, the setting was wonderful – is there any better actress in the world than Meryl Streep? I can’t think of one.

That’s it for movie roundup, 2009 – no resolutions in terms of movie watching for 2010. I just hope to see a lot of good films.

2009 Reading Round Up

S., Skylar and I returned early last evening from Michigan. I had a wonderful, relaxing time with my parents and was also fortunate to see many friends throughout my time there. I am, of course, keening for some sort of routine at this point, since it is so easy to sink into the retired lives of my parents, where getting oneself to the gym and perhaps accomplishing one other task before cocktail hour is considered a full day, but with S. already on a plane headed south and myself following suit on Wednesday (separate trips for work for both of us) I am instead embracing the ad hoc nature of this December. It seems like a good day for the annual 2009 Reading Round Up. I am much happier with my reading this year than I was last year – I’ve discovered so many new authors, read so many good books! I’m coming to terms with the fact that as long as I work a full-time job and write I probably won’t read as much as I would like to, and I am much more comfortable with that than I was this time last year. Since I’ve done this reading roundup for two years now, I enjoy turning to the categories I created in previous years to see if any of  the books I’ve read in 2009 fit into them, before creating new categories for this year. So, firstly – categories from this time, 2 years ago, that apply:

1. Book I lent to the most people: The Given Day, Dennis LeHane. Such a great historical novel! It takes a little getting used to if you are expecting just another Pat and Angie mystery but once you fall into this book it takes a long time to disentagle yourself from the power of the writing.

2. Scariest book: True Evil, Gregory Isles. Not a particularly good book, but for out and out scary it fits the bill – fortunately for me I read the majority of it while sitting by the pool at my hotel in Orlando while on a business trip.

3. Best book I read recommended by a fellow blogger: Stranger on a Train, Jenny Diski – thank you, Dorothy!

4. Most intriguing book: The Early Journals of Susan Sontag, edited by David Rieff.

5. Hands-down, by far, my absolute favorite book of the year: What I Loved, Suri Hustvedt (I actually reviewed this book, I loved it so much! Well, you all know how I feel about this book…)

6. Book that I didn’t enjoy in the beginning, but totally won me over by the end: The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger. Okay, okay – y’all were right. I just had to be patient. Definitely worth working past my irritation with the initial one hundred pages.

Wow, six catagories from 2007 still apply today…that’s actually more than I thought would hold up when I started. Now, for categories from 2008:

7. Annual author I try because my dad recommends him, but this year (unlike previous years) I actually agreed with my father’s recommendation: Don Winslow

Okay, um, rather embarrassing to admit only only one category from last year applies…onto this year!

8. The ONLY book my dog ate for reasons unbeknownst to me that, while I was enjoying it while I was reading it, I was much too lazy to replace and finish: The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh.

9. The book that WOULD have been my favorite of the year if Hustvedt hadn’t shown up so late to the game and trumped it: Winter’s Tale, Mike Helprin. Oh my goodness, if you haven’t read this I HIGHLY recommend it for a January read, or even this month, if you are searching for something. It’s an absolutely beautiful book with some of the most amazing characters I’ve come across and spectacular settings.

10. Author everyone else has been reading for years and years that I only recently began enjoying: Annie Proulx.

11. Biggest name-dropping and possibly most sexist book of the year: Losing Mum and Pup, Christopher Buckley. Did. Not. Like.

12. Book that helped the most in clarifying my own goals for my novel: Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore. You won’t find me raving about this book like a lot of bloggers out there since it raised for me some serious questions – to begin with I had trouble believing in the narrator’s absolute isolation – but I agree it is an absolutely beautifully constructed book and if one wants to know how to write, well, read this book. Much of it is perfect.

I read a lot of good books this year, and fewer than half of them are named here, but these are the titles and authors that stood out to me in one way or another most significantly. When I was reviewing my 2008 categories I noticed I made a below-the-radar mention that I hoped to increase my reading to 25 books in 2009 – I read 26. Since such an understate goal worked well for last year, I’ll note here that I hope to read at least 30 books in 2010.  All signs point to the distinct possibility of this happening…thanks to the blogging world I have an endless “to be read” list and more authors I’ve wanted to try than ever before! Happy reading, everyone!

A six-week readers’ guide for Everythinginbetween

Tomorrow brings the first day in my two-week trek to northern Michigan to visit my parents. I’m extending my holiday visit by a week because I won’t see them during Christmas and probably not until late April, firstly because of the wicked bad weather that generally shows up between Janauary and March between Pennsylvania and Ohio and secondly because they are spending longer and longer stretches of the winter in Florida. I am feeling a bit guilty because I am going to have to pack a few files and sneak in some work here and there but I am trying to excorcize that feeling – last week was an exceptional week in terms of my workload and it put me a bit behind, deadline wise.

I actually don’t mind so terribly much having a bit of work to take since it will cause me less stress knowing I am meeting my deadlines that allowing them to whiz past me, but my parents, as much as I love them, don’t really understand my job or the kind of work I do and it will concern them if I actually work while on what is considered vacation no matter how much I assure them I won’t be claiming those hours as vacation time. No, I am going to have to work around the edges of our time together, but fortunately there is  usually quite a bit of free time.

I can’t yet tell if I am looking forward to or dreading the holiday season. I almost always look greatly forward to it – I am definitely one for the Christmas tree and the carols and the family time and etcetera – but right now the next six weeks or so feel like a great big rock wall that needs to be climbed with painstaking precision. In the face of already, too much excess holiday cheer, from the monstrously huge manger that sits in the plaza in front of one of the buildings I work in to Christmas music in the stores beginning three weeks ago to the block of Christmas parties and obligations booked on my calendar, a large part of me wants to run screaming from the season and lock myself in my house until its all over. I’ve never before understood the scrooges of this world, those who failed to embrace the spirit of the season unless it was for religious reasons, but when I weigh the obligations and expectations of the next six weeks I emphathize, a bit.

What I need to do, is take things day by day, and work on staying in the moment. I am about to embark on a trip where I will see dozens of people I love over the course of two weeks – I need to concentrate on that, and not on all the work I am missing, the life I am missing back in Pittsburgh. I will say this one last thing and then cease my moaning: as Pittsburgh becomes more and more my home, as not only my house and my friends are here but also my gym and my yoga studio and the movie theater I like and a place where I can get gluten-free burgers for dinner and my grocery stores and really, my rhythm and routine, it grows increasingly difficult to return for large chunks of time to northern Michigan, to take on the routine of my parents and my small hometown.

A-hem.  So, I wanted to give you a bit of an idea of what to expect for the next six weeks, blog-wise, so you can decide whether to keep reading or just wait until the new year. Also, I am nothing if not a fan of plans and writing out a quick plan for this blog provides an odd comfort to me, reassuring that I am not abandoning it but rather just taking a hiatus or sabbatical or whatever. So, the plan. I will not be writing here between now and early December. In December, sometime between the 5th and the 24th, you can expect the usual (and much loved by me, at least) yearly blog wrap up posts…ie, books read, movies seen, progress on 2009 resolutions, resolutions for 2010, and etcetera. From about the 24th onward I will be in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana with my in-laws, since we have decided to take a family trip for the holiday, so posting will resume early in 2010, with what I hope is renewed vigor…I am planning some new categories, some new projects and a stronger focus for the blog, which excites me. I wish everyone reading who celebrates Thanksgiving a lovely, lovely day and for those of you who honor holidays during the upcoming weeks, I hope those are wonderful, as well. I’ll see you off and on over the coming weeks but look very forward to a return to stability and routine in the new year. Until then I hope we all breathe deeply and remain in the moment as much as possible!

 

The fifteen minute blog post

It is 7:15 am in the morning and while I knew *exactly* what I was going to blog about when I woke up this morning I ended up getting caught up in work first thing (tis okay, I was expecting it – if you pay close attention to cancer news this week you will understand why) so my deeper, more thought-out post will have to wait. Instead, I’m harkening back to the kind of post I used to write in just this sort of situation – the fifteen minute blog post.

So, first of all, I do promise that someday this blog will return to more in-depth commentary! I think it’s been lacking in that department because I’ve been so focused on work and, when not focused on work, focused on revising my novel – something had to suffer. That said, I love this blog and i love blogging and thanks to any of you who bear with my during this less-than-fascinating period of time for my blog – it will rebound.

Oh! The River just came on the radio! I am SO not ready for Christmas yet but I do love this song.  I’m listening to the Joni Mitchell version but my favorite is Robert Downey Jr.’s version from one of the last seasons of Ally McBeal because it was so damn romantic but you KNEW he was going to leave Ally the whole time he played it…poor Calista Flockheart – left by RDJ in Ally McBeal and now fighting stage III lymphoma in Brothers & Sisters. She’s a great actress  – I will follow her forever.

S. is still at deer camp with my dad, my brother and my uncle. He said he saw a buck, shot, and missed. He also said he’s having the most fun he’s had, like, ever. Which I find hilarious since I totally left Alpena with the intention of getting me a citified husband, one who did not, oh, say, deer hunt and instead took me to see special screenings of Precious and drink martinis. Oh well – guess I’m lucky I have my gay neighbors who like taking me places.

Ack! NOW Counting Crows are on the radio. It’s going to be a good Monday.

This timed writing is stressful. I have NO idea how those of you participating in NaNoWriMo are doing it. I am pretty sure I’d be up in bed under the covers cuddling my dog and crying if I were trying to do the same.

I only have to work six and a half more days and then I am on vacation for nearly two weeks! Woot!

I bought new jeans yesterday…NOT what I should be purchasing in my attempt to class up my wardrobe but they are super cute and I love them.  I also bought new winter boots and a new belt. Can I just say I love fall and winter clothes and also, that I don’t want to live in a world if tall boots go out of style? That said, I don’t understand the short-sleeved winter sweater look going around right now…I mean, I get it, that you are supposed to layer them over long sleeved tees but I’ve only seen two people carry this look off successfully – I would look terrible.

I want to make S. a welcome-home dinner tomorrow night but have no idea what to make. I want it to be easyish so we can enjoy some wine and catch up while it’s in the oven, but not  terribly fattening since I’m pretty sure he’s been surviving on nothing but marrow and beef jerkey since he left, but also yummy and tastes like home. Ideas?

Paul Auster! Wow!

Time is up! Seriously, thanks for sticking around while this blog does nothing more than spout off crap like this…I do forsee a future where the content doesn’t suck. Just be comforted by the fact that all my burgeoning genius is being poured into revisions…

Bullet Post Monday!

This morning is one of those mornings where I definitely have too much to say and not enough to time to say it, and so, huzzah, a bullet post Monday! Incidentally, these posts happen to be S.’s favorite kind of posts for some reason – probably because these posts are the only time in my life my thoughts come out in any sort of order, with any attention at all paid to brevity.

• Firstly, thank you all for your thoughts on the revision process. I realize I didn’t reply to each and every one of you like I do, usually, try to do, but you all did give me so much to think about. Pete asked if I’m still having fun with the process and I thought about it and thought about it and then decided I really couldn’t answer his question…fun? Is revision FUN? Certainly not the word I would use to describe it but I am still engaged and encouraged by the process – I am still committed. Cam mentioned that I honestly need to examine the reasons *why* I am not ready to share the first draft with readers, and I really thought about this, too, and I came to the conclusion it is because it’s just not a novel, yet. There is too much wandering and too many strings to follow…I am not ashamed of my writing so much as I am determined to have a well-developed narrative before passing it around. So, here is where I stand: still revising, still committed, and to all interested parties, stay tuned!
• It would have been hard for whatever book I read after What I Loved to live up to the high, high bar Hustvedt set but David Baldacci? Ick, yuck, blech. I was reading both Baldacci’s The Hour Game and a collection of essays by Barbara Kingsolver called Small Wonder and I ended up giving up on both books when I realized neither interested me enough to continue…it would probably take me months to finish them because when I hate a book I can ignore it for ages. I HATE HATE HATE giving up on books…something in my overly compulsive personality practically demands that I finish what I start, but I managed to shut the cover on the Baldacci and put both The Hour Game and another of his books my mother-in-law gave me in a pile of books to donate. I also stopped reading Kingsovler’s essays…I have loved everything she has written to date but I just couldn’t engage in this book at all…I’m not sure if it’s because of the dual authors…the switch in narrative voices really threw me off – or if because comes across as quite dated…it’s very very post 9/11 angsty, but I put that in a pile to return to A. over Thanksgiving.
• I bought a beautiful new winter coat yesterday – it’s all long and black and sort of has a swing to it. Of course, today the temperture is going to reach seventy-two degrees so I’ll be wearing a summer dress and heels instead. Who didn’t put her summer clothes away yet? This girl. Sometimes procrastination pays, people.
• I’ve lost ten pounds since meeting with the nutritionist in mid-September. I don’t know if this is from the celiac diagnosis, his program, or a combination of both…I am betting a combination of both because while I *mostly* follow his program I did have a week where I was so hungry all the time that I ended up eating cheeseburgers four, yes, count them, four times in six days (obviously bunless). I have never eaten that much fat in one week in my life,  I don’t think. I am still struggling with overwhelming hunger…it seems like no matter what I eat – whether I follow his program or if I gorge myself – I’m hungry minutes later, but this is apparently normal for celiac-in-recovery. I’m meeting with him on Wednesday so perhaps I’ll update further then.
• I am really looking forward to this week – on Wednesday I’m going to see a production of Candide with my neighbor that’s being performed in an abandoned auto dealership in my neighborhood. On Friday my hospital is having a fundraiser and I’m attending with a bunch of co-workers…there will be cocktails and good food and fun and I am very excited.
• But my excitement is offset by the fact S. is leaving for ten days…a combination of work travel and, well, deer camp in northern Michigan with my dad, brother and uncle. I am trying to look at his absence as an opportunity to finish some pre-Thanksgiving projects I have going. I’m actually not feeling too maudlin about his travels what with the play and the fundraiser and possible other events, too, but I’m sure by Thursday I’ll be rather morose.
• I think that’s all! I hope everyone has a fantastic Monday!

…and some further thoughts on revision…

The stupidest thing I ever did during this whole crafting-a-novel process is promise to send it to several readers for their thoughts and opinions once the second draft is completed. These people are now asking for drafts of the novel, wondering aloud when they might receive them, and I risk becoming a characature of a writer, the kind of writer who is always working on something that can never be shared.

I have been struggling with the revisions. Seriously struggling, enough to wonder if perhaps this was just the crappy first novel I had to “get out of the way” so I could write a real novel. I mean, after all, I did dump just about every issue I personally have into this novel. It’s more than that, though…by following the advice not only to write what you know I also tried to write a book I would want to read but instead of locating my own voice, I feel this manuscript is chapter after chapter of approximations – this chapter sounds a little bit like Pat Conroy, this other chapter models the way Jeffrey Lent crafts language. There is no consistent voice in the book and beyond that, the thought that keeps coming back to me, admittedly a rather ridiculous thought since this is a novel, is that this book lacks honesty. If it is going to be in any way successful, and by successful I mean something I can at least walk away from with some pride, then it needs a humbler, more honest approach, and I need to take it a little less seriously.

Another thing this little book, this titleless little book of mine, suffers from is the fact I tried to stuff WAY too much into it. It overflows, it runs on, with the most meaningless information imaginable. Don’t get me wrong, some of that information was very fun to write, but it no longer belongs.

I really thought about walking away. I could move on one of the dozen other writing projects floating around in my head, clammering for attention, and just chalk this manuscript up to a great first novel-writing experience. But that just doesn’t feel write…this book still feels like unfinished business, and it’s not just because I feel this dogged need to complete it, which i do – it’s because I still feel pulled in by the characters and by parts of the story. Anna and Ben and Mira and Brian are going to stay with me until I can finally, once and for all, put them away and say I did my best by them.

Yesterday I spent two hours reworking the first to paragraphs of the novel. I wrote and erased and wrote and rewrote and searched the first draft for the moment where the story really begins, which is NOT the first chapter I originally wrote, and at the end of the two hours I think I at least settled on the beginning. Now it’s just a matter of all the rest of it – of approaching the book as honestly and openly as I can, without aspiring to write like anyone else but me, and without trying to create a book like others I’ve read and instead make sure this is a book only I could write.

 

What I Loved

I completed Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved yesterday and I don’t think I can say enough about this book – it is definitely in the running for my favorite book of 2009. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book that so well balances beauty, structure, character and plot before – it is the kind of book that makes me want to give up writing altogether because no matter what I will never be able to create a book as gripping and stunning as this one.

I started this book late last week, and over the course of the six or so days it took me to read it I developed a mild sinus infection – not so terrible as to keep me bedridden but just awful enough that I worked half days, spending the hours after lunch first napping and then reading this book long into the evening. Apart from short walks with S. and the dog I had the energy for little else, and so reading What I Loved was an interesting reading experience – I rarely have the opportunity to remain still for hours at a time, and this luxury allowed me to fully sink into the story, to become immersed in the world of Leo, Erica, Bill, Violet, Lucille, Matt and Mark for long stretches.

The book centers around the friendship between two couples – art history professor Leo Hertzberg and his wife, a professor of English, Erica, and artist Bill Wechsler, his first wife, Lucille, a poet, and his second wife, Violet, an academic. Leo purchases a painting from Bill early in Bill’s career, and this purchase launches a life-long friendship between the two men. In one way, this book is about that friendship and the toll only time can take on two people. What Hustvedt does so beautifully, though, is immerse us totally in the lives of these two men – we meet their wives, their siblings, their parents, and we attend parties with all of these people in the same room.  (Bit of a spoiler alert coming up, just fyi) – We sigh in relief when Bill leaves the awkward and uncomfortable Lucille for the passionate and much more likable Violet, his artistic muse. We meet the sons of both men and, as the reader, we become apart of the very intimate, messy world that plays out between two families tied together by the friendship of first, the two men and later, by their wives, their sons.

The book, though, is also about art – it’s filled with pages and pages of description about the art Bill creates and it is written is such a lovely yet accessible way that I at once found myself fascinated by the work Bill created and determined to learn more about the history of art, myself. It’s also about art criticism, and the roles of the art historian, the art critic, who determines what art IS, the inherent value of art. At one point Leo points out that art, by its very nature, is useless, but that doesn’t make it unimportant.

All of this is well and good – intriguing, complex characters and long discussions about art, but those two elements alone wouldn’t have left me so haunted and impressed. From the first page of the novel, you realize you are reading a mystery. I don’t want to write too much about here because I really want to encourage everyone to run out and buy this book, but you understand, as the reader, that life was once one way for Leo, the narrator, and now it’s extraordinarily different, and the book is going to tell you why, and the journey is not going to be an easy one. One of the blurbs on the back refers to this book as psychological thriller and it absolutely is – and that is what keeps you turning the page as opposed to setting the book down and meditating on various thoughts of the artist and art.

Oh, I just loved this book so much! I loved this book because I’ve met characters like the ones in this book – I’ve met women like Erica and Violet, who throw themselves fully into life, all passion and no reserve, and I’ve met people like Lucille, who never manage to say the right thing or make people comfortable in their presence, and are maligned for this inability; and I’ve read about artists like the shock-artist Teddy Giles. And I loved this book for the way Hustvedt created New York City – not once does she spend long paragraphs describing the city and yet I never doubt for a moment where I am – she writes about the New York City I dreamed of living in as a child, full of artists and actors and poets, the New York my drama teacher told me when I was twelve years old didn’t exist anymore.

Have I raved enough? This is the kind of book that makes an aspiring writer both rejoice and despair – rejoice at the discovery of a new-to-her author with awe-inducing talent, and despair because I do not have the natural talent to write like this.

I am going to leave you with one of the more light-hearted paragraphs from the book, a paragraph that does nothing to give away the plot but gives a small taste of Hustvedt’s writing:

Birth is violent, bloody, and painful, and all the rhetoric to the contrary will not convince me that I am wrong.  I have heard the stories of women squatting in the fields, snapping umbilical cords with their teeth, strapping their newborns onto their backs, and picking up the scythe,but I wasn’t married to one of those women. I was married to Erica. We went to Lamaze classes toether and listened attentively to Jean Romber’s breathing advice. A storcky woman in beruda shorts and thick-soled sneakers, Jean referred to birth as “the great adventure” and to the members of her class as “mom” and “coaches.”

Goblins, Ghouls, Ghosts, Oh My!

Emily tagged me for her spooktacular new Halloween meme II. I thought about putting off filling it out until Friday or Saturday but then realized with my current blogging pace of about one post a week I might not get it up before the cobwebs are swept away and the creak in the stairs is nothing more than that, a creak, instead of ghost footsteps, and pumpkins are turned into pies while the last of the leaves fall from the trees. I am super excited for Halloween this year since I learned we get quite a few trick-or-treaters. S. will be out of town visiting his father so Skylar and I will be left to protect the house from tricks. Do you think this face could carry off a witch hat?

I am not going to tag thirteen separate people for this meme…if you are reading this, please consider yourself tagged! I’d love to see this everywhere this week.
Rules:

1. Answer the questions on your own blog.

2. Tag 13 others to answer the questions on their blogs and link to them.

1). Which urban legend ghost scared the bejeezus out of you when you were a kid?

I can’t think of a specific urban legend, but I was always very freaked out the idea that if you went into the bathroom, looked in mirror, and said …what was it…red rum? Bloody Mary? Murder? I don’t remember what you had to say but you said it three times and then Bloody Mary would appear in the mirror. I always found the temptation to do this almost overwhelming, but I never did it.

2). Which horror movie has the best premise?

I have to admit I haven’t seen a ton of horror movies but some movies that scared me include Arachnid, Cape Fear and Silence of the Lambs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slasher type horror movie.

3). What is the most disappointing “treat” to receive in your bag on Halloween night?

Apples or popcorn balls, because they could hide razor blades. Come to think of it, are razor blades in apples an urban legend? Did this actually ever happen to anyone?

4). What’s the best non-candy item to receive?

gift certificates to McDonalds or Burger King. I wasn’t allowed to eat fast food when I was little and I LOVED that I could go get a burger or a shake with one of those gift certificates.

5). Did a monster live in your closet when you were a child?

No. He lived in the radiator and in the toy box. I have no idea why. I was an odd child.

6). Which supernatural creature sent chills up your spine when you were ten and still does?

Zombies. God, is there anything scarier than a zombie?

7). Which supernatural creature makes you yawn?

Frankenstein the Monster (right? We call the tv version of Frankentstein Frankenstein and not Adam, right? Well, Adam, Frankentein’s monster makes me very sad, but Frankenstein with the green head and the screws and etc. makes me yawn)

8). What’s your favorite Halloween decoration?

Carved pumpkins with candles inside. My neighbors also have a pretty cool collection of witches happening next door.

9). If you could be anywhere on Halloween night, where would you be?

At my mom and dad’s house, handing out candy and drinking martinis like we have for the past few years, Warren Zevon on the stereo. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be this year.
10). What’s the scariest book you’ve read so far this year?

True Evil, Gregory Isles

11). Haunted houses or haunted hayrides?

Haunted hayrides! I used to go on these with my youth group in high school. Delicious.

12). Which Stephen King novel/movie would you least like to find yourself trapped in?

The Shining.

13). Which are creepiest: evil dolls, evil pets, or evil children?

Evil dolls. Sheesh, those things are scary. In fact, one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen was on Alfred Hitchcock presents when I was younger. It was about a girl who had an evil doll and the evil doll did lots of bad things but those things kept getting blamed on the girl until one day her parents, who did NOT believe her, found HER, their daughter, IN THE DOLL BOX and the doll alive!! OMG. I have been trying to track this movie down for awhile now so if it sounds familiar do let me know because as it stands I have every season of Alfred Hitchcock presents in my blockbuster cue in an attempt to find it.

Happy Halloween week, everyone!

C is for Celiac Disease (I guess)

It’s been less than a month since my Celiac diagnosis, so it feels sort of strange to write about it in this format, as though it’s already part of my history, but when I think about it I believe this…this, what? This disease – although it doesn’t feel so much like a disease – has formed a significant portion of who I am. For those of you unfamiliar with celiac disease, it’s an autoimmune disease wherein your body doesn’t recognize, or, perhaps a better way to put it, is your body really really hates gluten, the protein found in wheat, rye and barley, which gives things like bread their elasticity. Its symptoms can’t really be characterized because there are just so damn many of them, some of which I’m going to write about here but if you are interested in learning more you can go to celiac.com, which is a stunning wealth of information.

For most of my life I think it is fair to say I could be characterized as a somewhat anxious, high-strung person. I am more prone to worry than most people I know, and while much of that worry comes, I think, from my rather stereotypical first child, desire-to-please personality, a good portion of that worry has always been focused on my body and how it is, or is not functioning, to the point where other people viewed me as and I felt like a true hypochondriac. Some people move through this life with bodies rather impervious to the various mechanations the environment can wreak on it – but I am not one of those people. Examples:

If leaves are falling from a tree a mile away, I will break out in a rash from the one mold spore that caught a breeze and landed on my doorstep.

I get pink eye if I even look at a public pool where children have played.

For years, any sort of cold or flu or crud that was going around, I caught, and caught massively – while other people would shrug off the virus I would be out of work for a week. I do have to admit, though, that working in hospitals for so long has strengthened me in that regard…I don’t want to jinx it but I haven’t been that kind of sick since moving to Pittsburgh.

Food, reliably and regularly, has made me sick, all different sorts of sick – from classic upset stomachs to brain fog so thick I couldn’t add two plus two to heartburn that felt something akin to a chemical spill, and none of this even touches upon the overwhelming anxiety I so often experience.

In the last eight years (I believe my most upsetting symptoms began in 2001 while we were living in Wheeling, West Virginia) I have gone to the doctor for chest pain, stomach pain, rib cage pain, persistant, pushy rashes, general malaise and the just general feeling that something was wrong. I came away from the doctor with diagnoses of general anxiety disorder, panic attacks and just generally existing as a highly-strung individual. I also came away with lots of prescriptions for drugs to help with all of the above, most of which I never filled because I was convinced that if I just struck on the right combination of eating, exercise and relaxation I would be able to control the anxiety beast.

At one point, one of my doctors diagnosed me with a soy allergy, and I avoided studiously and fastidiously anything with soy. My nutritionist thinks I will be able, now, to eat soy just fine once I am properly healed.

Here is the thing, I guess. I remember going to slumber parties as a teenager with my closest girlfriends. We would gorge ourselves on pizza and breadsticks and brownies before moving on to whatever the hell it was we talked about – boys mostly, undoubtedly, but somewhere in between the festivities and falling asleep I would have these just awful panic attacks – panic attacks that included nausea so debilitating I couldn’t move. Sometimes I would share these attacks with my best friend, M, who would bring me wet wash clothes and talk to me until I fell asleep, and we both assumed (I think) that these attacks were just my nervous personality, showcasing itself in new and exciting ways.

I could continue listing a hundred different examples…how during graduate school I suffered the worst insomnia of my life and would literally stare out the window of our apartment for hours, fixated on seeing the sun rise over the horizon because then, at least, I didn’t have to pretend to sleep; how I never fully embraced trips with S. because at some point I was guaranteed to feel unwell, which I now realize is because of the cookies or pasta or beer I was enjoying and not because I am some nervous homebody who can’t stand to leave her nest; how even when doctors promised me I was just experiencing anxiety and stress I could never see that diagnosis within myself…I never felt that diagnosis was accurate, for me.

Over the course of the last decade, there were moments difficult enough that I considered not even attempting to try having children, because no child deserves a mother who thinks she is dying every month or so.  At times, I thought about leaving S. not because he was unsupportive – he was more supportive than anyone has a right to expect but, as we all know, he rocks the free world, but because I was sure he deserved a wife who felt well, physically and emotionally.

But, you know what? A lot of that is over, now. Oh, I will still get pink eye if I share a public pool and I have no doubt cheap jewelry will always make me break out in hives, but even in the first few weeks of eating gluten-free, I can feel such a difference…a difference that avoiding soy or dairy never gave me. It’s going to sound stupid, but I feel happy – and it’s not like I’ve felt unhappy before, but what I feel is stabilized…if someone at work doesn’t like my writing, it isn’t the end of the world; if a song comes on the radio I particularly love, I turn it up and dance (hence the continous re-watching of the Beyonce seen in Glee a few weeks ago). The overwhelming sense of urgency I felt for so long has slipped away and in its place is a feeling I can only describe as mellowness, patience. Gladness. I am sleeping for long stretches…eight or nine hours at a time. When I told this to my mom she said “Well, honey, that’s a normal amount of sleep. What’s so special about that?” I had to explain to her how I rarely, if ever, got a full night’s sleep before now.

Right now I feel like I’m going through a period of healing. As I mentioned, I’m sleeping more than I ever have. I’m learning what I can and can’t eat and, equally as important, I am trying to teach myself new behaviors – a headache is not a brain tumor, a cramp in my leg is not a blood clot. I am learning to not overreact to every little thing. I’m looking at what is left of 2009 and looking at it as a time of recovery, not just recovering from the physical aspects of celiac but from the emotional ones as well, and I am looking extraordinarily forward to 2010, when I hope to be much less defined how I feel and much more so by what I accomplish.

And that is C, which is for Celiac.