“For the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Do all the good you can, To all the people you can, In all the ways you can, As long as ever you can.”  - Epitaph, tombstone inscription in Shrewsbury, England

I love that quote because, religious influence aside, it doesn’t ask you to try to achieve an unattainable goal or hold yourself to a standard beyond your abilities.  It’s just a reminder, a gentle push—do good, all the time, in every way possible, every chance you get.  I don’t always follow this plea, but I do try.  And there are some that try harder than others and rather than make us look bad, they make us want to try a little bit harder.

Like Liz, for example.  Liz has kept my head on straight for longer than she even realizes.  She makes me jealous with her beautiful painting and design work, makes me laugh with her emails and blog, and makes me think with her column on A Practical Wedding.  (She also makes me wish I had consulted her when I was writing it because lady is SMART.)

Liz also makes me very proud because she has joined the hundreds who pledge to shave their heads for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.  St. Baldrick’s has been benefiting children’s cancer research since 1999 and has raised over $100 million dollars since 2005.  Volunteers throughout the country raise money in support of this cause and then shave their heads, in solidarity with children with cancer who have no choice.

Now, I don’t know if you know Liz, but she has gorgeous hair.  Check it out in her post about the fundraiser.  PRETTY, right?  Those terrific tresses are going bye-bye on March 15th, with the bulk of it being donated to Locks of Love.  (Liz gets all the karma for forever and ever.)

Here’s the thing.  Liz is just $550 away from her goal of $2,000 by March 15th.   She’s already raised $1,450, which is impressive, but think how much more awesome it would be if she met or exceeded her goal.  Not that Liz cares about being impressive, but she does care about the cause.  That $2,000 makes a deep impact.  (Man, the faces in those pictures.  They just kill me…)

So here’s where I ask you to donate to Liz’s cause.  There’s no prize for her in this, although YOU can win a prize; if give $50 or more, you’ll be entered in a raffle to win this Nikon J1 2-lens kit.  But even a tiny amount gets Liz just that much  closer to her goal and helps fund incredible research.  She’s only got two days left for her pledge and then she gets shaved at 7pm in Philadelphia at Fado.  (Check it out if you’re in the Philly area, her husband is getting shaved too.  Liz’s family, FTW!!)

So think about it.  It’s okay if you don’t donate, I’m just asking you to think about it.  Sometimes it seems like people, especially on the internet, just keep ASKING for stuff.  Gimmee a Like, share this link, read my blog, support this cause, help me out, spend your money, PAY ATTENTION TO ALL THE THINGS.  If you’re tapped out, then that’s cool and we still love you.  Go get some hot cocoa, you deserve it.

But if you’re not, please donate or share Liz’s link and encourage others to do so.  Find just a little bit more good that you have to give today.

*Photo’s from the St. Baldrick’s Facebook page.  Check it out and see if their header photo doesn’t make you cry just a little bit…

  

In a fit of ambition in January, I signed up for Foodie Penpals, hosted by The Lean Green Bean.  It’s a penpal exchange program where you are matched with someone and based on a few questions, some blog-stalking and your own creativity, you send each other goody num-nums with a limit of $15.

Now, reveal day was January 31st.  HOWEVER, did you know that iPhones have a storage limit and even if you buy more space, you still can’t keep every video ever taken on there for forever, no matter how adorable your widdle stinky boo-boos is?  And it’s possible that you, in a fit of “genius”, will download everything to a flash drive and then delete it all off of your phone, but then proceed to lose said flash drive and panic madly until you realize you put it in a teeny inner pocket of your purse so you WOULDN’T lose the flash drive?

I have some problems.

But here is my reveal of the lovely lovelies that I received from Kristina, who is amazing and who gives the BEST penpals goodies, which I did not allow myself to eat (mostly) until I took photos.  Which was tough because they looked (and ended up tasting) super yummy.

**These photos are terrible, they did not look this dark when I took them .  If you are a photographer, look away.  If you care at all about anything other than finding out what I got, look away.  But if you love chocolate, continue.

 THE BOX and all it’s wonderment.

First up, Flying Cauldron Butterscotch Beer! (We all know it’s really Butter Beer.  Your copyright does not thwart us, J.K. Rowling!!!)

I am a Harry Potter nut, so I’m more excited about this than necessary.  Kristina volunteers at a co-op in Minnesota (how cool, right?!) and this is a new addition there.  I am saving it for a special occasion.  Maybe the beginning of my great Harry Potter re-read that I do every year.  Well, used to do every year.  I’ve started reading it to Tater, but he is not impressed.  Mostly because I won’t let him eat the book.

This is fuzzy, but the top item is from the co-op also, a peanut butter krispy bar!  It’s a peanut butter rice krispy bar with a layer of chocolate at the top.  It was excellent and I did not share with Jethro because I had to make sure the whole thing tasted good, all the way through.  I’m a good wife.

Right below the krispy treat is a box of Minnesota Rive Rocks!  These are from Sweet Chocolat and are REALLY good.  They are like a much better tasting M&M, the chocolate is much smoother.

Also from Sweet Chocolat is this bag of Birch Bark,  (chocolate dipped pretzels, which is a treat that I’ve only recently come to appreciate)

A cut-out of Minnesota, which is tasty AND had the added bonus of letting me pretend to be a giant who was eating the actual MN — “Oh, Lake and Cook county, you are are so tasty, NOMNOMNOM!!”  (It’s okay, the baby didn’t find me funny when I did this either.)

And a dark chocolate loon.  Kristina says that everyone know someone who has a cabin up north on a lake, surrounded by birch trees and loons.  I think this sounds lovely and is MUCH better than in Dallas where everyone you know has a restaurant recommendation that is SO much better than that other guys, and OMG, do not even start on that list they published in D magazine, it’s like they don’t even LIVE HERE…

Minnesota is the clear winner.

These had to be my favorite in the bunch, chocolates from B.T. McElrath. You can see that the one in the middle, the Prairie Dog Bite, did not make it to picture day.  The Salty Dog Bite and the Dark Chocolate Caramel Bite fell soon after.  Says Kristina, “These are perfect to hide in your purse for chocolate cravings and since there is no nutiritional info, then they must be calorie and fat free!  Woo hoo!”

Kristina, I like how you think.  You are obviously one of us and should stay forever and ever.

Last, but not least, tea!  These are some of Kristina’s favorites and I’m excited to try them.  I gave up coffee even before I had Tater so I love trying new teas.  (The shy guy in the back is peppermint.  He’s intimidated by the Yogi teas, they’re a clique-ish bunch.)

In addition to all of this, I also got a recipe for Grandma Louise cookies!  They sound really yummy and I might do a post on them in the future, with Kristina’s permission, of course.

So that’s Foodie Pen Pals!  Overall, I think it’s a really fun project and a big thank you to The Lean Green Bean for hosting it every month!  I’m bowing out of February, but I think I’m going to sign up again for March.  My pen pal eat extremely well and she was a challenge, but a really fun challenge!  (Her reveal is here.)  If you’d like to join Foodie Penpals, the deadline is tomorrow, February 5th!

And a big, giant, honkin’ thanks to Kristina for sending me such awesome things!  I will never be able to think of Minnesota again without thinking it is made of chocolate.

Also, I’d apologize if I ran into you while being glued to said item, because I wasn’t raised as an entitled little shit.

Anyway, I always made time to read when I was younger, so not doing so now that I’m an old lady feels a mite depressing. Sort of like I’m losing touch with the old Alyssa…how soon before I only read Farmer’s Almanacs so I can see when to plant my crocuses? Do I need to start having breakfasts of prune juice and Cream of Wheat?? Will I suddenly walk around with a broom all the time, ready to shoo away unsuspecting kids who dare to tramp my lawn?!?

I hope not. I’ll have to go get a porch. And a better broom.

Can I just interject here – how much of a nerd am I that not having time signals the decline of my youth? I’ve been mostly fine with cutting down on drinking, quitting smoking and having a kid but not having the time to read trashy romances suddenly triggers an minor existential crisis?? Lord Almighty…

Regardless, I went on a buying binge recently in order to rectify my lack of reading situation. Well, I say buying binge, but a large part of it was funded through PaperbackSwap. PBS is a site I’ve used since 2005 where you swap your old books with others. It uses a credit system which you use to send and receive books through media mail. It is not fool-proof, but it is pretty bad-ass at keeping your collection down to a manageable minimum so your husband will stop complaining about the overflowing bookshelf. Check it out, and if you’d like to join through that link (or the one in the book recs page)I will get a credit if you become an active member. However, don’t feel obligated to do so if you do join.
Also in the spirit of transparency; please don’t think this will save you money on books. It will lead to MORE book buying because you’ll be more inclined to check out authors that you would have not taken a second glance at previously. And then you’ll fall in love with them and want to read ALL of their work but PBS won’t have it and you don’t want to wait the shipping time anyway and suddenly you’re going to Barnes and Noble at 10:30pm on a Tuesday to get a book you didn’t even know you wanted to read by an author you never heard of two weeks ago.

True story.

Before I show you my fancy new book list, I also want to let y’all know that in lieu of previously listing books using Amazon links, I’m going to list books using their Goodreads page as the title and then also link to them through Amazon and IndieBound where you can order from a indie bookstore online or find a local store in your area. I’m an affiliate of both, but don’t let that influence your book buying choices; this mostly about convenience for y’all and letting me pretend I have a fancy book blog that would merit so much linkage. Besides, if you’re anything like me, you’re just going to jot down the book on a piece of paper and lose it in your purse anyway.

Now! Onto my list, as I know you’ve been reading with bated breath. There’s a lot of speculative fiction on here, which is unintentional but pretty indicative of my tastes in general.

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (IndieBound): I don’t know about this one, I’ve heard good and bad things about it. Apparently it’s one of those books that you with love or HATE, so we’ll see.

The Violets of March by Sarah Jio (Amazon/IndieBound): I’ve had this on my list for a while and I’m finally getting around to reading it. (Well, it’s in the stack TO read. That’s still progress.) I think I picked it and The Ghost Writer because I have a thing for family secrets. I blame this on too many Betty Ren Wright books as a child; there was always some secret in the attic that the heroine stumbled upon… The only thing in our attic was old luggage and Christmas decorations, but if there was a box of letters that changed everything I thought I knew about my life and my family, I would have found it. Well. I would have found it if I had been allowed in the attic, but I was not because my parents never let me do anything fun, NEVER EVER.

The Nympho and Other Maniacs: The Lives, the Loves and the Sexual Adventures of Some Scandalous and Liberated Ladies by Irving Wallace (Amazon): This is a book from the 70′s that I’m not even sure how I found out about. But the title sounds very promising and I am a huge fan of ladies who tell convention to suck it.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Amazon/IndieBound): The cover art for this drew me in when I first saw it in the bookstore and I’m just now getting to it. My favorite exercise in play-writing class (and something that I still do) is to use old photographs to generate a story, so I love that Riggs did that here and built a whole book around them. I’ll let you know if it holds up, but the reviews seem to be good.

How Did You Get This Number by Sloan Crosley (Amazon/IndieBound): I’m a sucker for creative non-fiction and essays, so I’m glad that our Dallas Hairpin ‘Pinup group picked this as our book club selection. Regadles, I have a feeling we’ll have too much fun talking at our meet-up to really discuss the book, but that’s fine. These ladies are hilarious and there will be good beer. (Our ‘Pinup is on February 12th at 6:30, email me for details if you’re in the DFW area!)

Goodbye Without Leaving by Laurie Colwin (Amazon/Indiebound): This is another I’m not sure where I found, but I’m pretty excited about. I hear nothing by good things about Laurie Colwin’s work.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (Amazon/IndieBound): WHERE am I finding these books? I think I fell down a Goodreads k-hole one night while trying to get Tater to go to sleep or something. (SERIOUSLY, child, what do you think you’re going to miss? I won’t do anything fun between the hours of 11pm and 6am, I SWEAR…)

Fourth Grave Beneath by Feet by Darynda Jones (Amazon/IndieBound): This is actually a bit misleading; this is the fourth book in a series about a private detective who is the Grim Reaper and I’m going to re-read these from the beginning before I get to this one. This series is funny, but sometimes a bit TOO funny, you know? There are only so many jokes you can make about needing coffee, having a beat-up car and being named Charley Davidson before you just go, “OKAY! You’ve sufficiently sassed my face off and the world is your straight man, we’ve got it. (Which is probably a reaction that many have to this blog, but I’m free and occasionally show cute baby pictures, so there.)

Cold Days by Jim Butcher (Amazon/IndieBound): I’ve saving this one for a day when I can laze around and read because I’m a huge fan of the Dresden Files series and I don’t want any other distractions. (Except for the baby. And only because I’ll get CPS called on me otherwise. BUT NO ONE ELSE.)

There you have it. Okay, moppets, what’s on your reading list? Is there anything I should add?

If you’re looking for something new, check out the Kind of a Mess Book Recommendations and join the Messy Reads Goodreads group to stalk your fellow readers. And if you have any books that we HAVE to read this year, let me know and I’ll add them to the master list!

Photo courtesy of ginnerobot.

***Edited because the stinkin’ link didn’t work!***

I don’t do resolutions.  Mostly because I break them and then feel terrible about myself.  My self-esteem doesn’t need the yearly hit, thank you very much.

HOWEVER.   I’m going to take on a small project for 2013 off of my updated Life List, and I think I’ll stick to it.

See, I love mail.  LOVE IT.  And I love cards and pretty paper and stationary.  LOVE THEM.  To the point that Jethro is willing to go to a mall 30 minutes out of the way, just so I don’t hit the one with a Paper Source in it.  (SWOON. I have been to heaven and it contains paper in Stardream Quartz and embossing powder…)

BUT, the thing is…I’m terrible at sending cards.  I haven’t been on time with a birthday card in years, unless it’s the one I bought on the way to the party.  I was late with my wedding thank you cards, I am STILL sending thank you notes and birth announcements five months later and just the other day I found like five Christmas cards I forgot to send out.

I suck at this.  I know that.

But 2013 is the year I’m going to get better.  Sure, I’m going to lose weight, work out more, eat better, learn something new and do something amazing.  I’m going to strive to do all that too.  BUT, at the very least, if I fail in all my other endeavors, I will be the card sending, note writing, holiday acknowledging QUEEN of two thousand and mutha-effin’ thirteen.

However, I must be held accountable.  And Jethro is not good at this because he will always err in the direction that makes me the least crazy-face.  I’m looking at YOU, my dear moppets, to keep me honest.

So here’s what’s going to happen.  Here is a link to Postable, an online address book and if you’d like a card from me on your birthday (or in general, because I’ll be sending surprise notes too…) put your address in there. (No worries, it is secure.  And I promise not to do anything skeevy with your address, like sign you up for incontinence newsletters or show up unannounced at your door. ) Make sure to include your birthday and you’ll get soemthing from me on (or around) that date!  It may be a proper card from the store, it may be a handmade card, it may be a crazy postcard that I picked up from the gas station, it may include stickers, who knows. But it’ll be something and, hopefully, it will be on time.

I have a special calendar set aside to send out cards and notes weekly to keep me organized and I’ll do monthly updates to keep me accountable. Let’s see if I can keep this up and accomplish something off of my Life List.

How’s everyone else’s Life List going? I’ve been putting mine up on Go Mighty, just to keep it in the forefront of my mind. Anyone else have a list on there, or a Life List on your own blog? (Or in your head?) Post it, or links, in the comments and let’s see if we can help each other out!

**Photo courtesy of jen collins of hellojenuine.

I felt surprisingly calm, which usually happens when I’m supposed to be freaking out and is a trait I hope I still have if I ever set the house on fire or something.  (Well, I hope I DON’T set the house on fire more, but if I do, that’s my second hope.)  The anesthesiologist asked if I was okay and I said, “Fine, I just wish I hadn’t watched all those “One Born Every Minute” shows because I know exactly what you’re doing back there and how big that damn needle is.” Jethro, meanwhile, was adorable in his scrubs and has his “I’m fine…I SAID, I’M FINE” face on.  He was a vet tech AND reads stuff on the internet too much, so he is silently freaking as the nurses tell me how calm he is and I should be proud.  (Totally was proud of him, but he had those ladies FOOLED.)

I don’t remember a huge amount about the surgery itself, what I do is in bits and pieces.  I remember my doula sorting through CD’s and putting in a nice jazz CD so I listened to Norah Jones as they prepped me.  I remember asking my doula about her kids and commenting on her eyelash extensions and talking about getting mine done too, like we were sitting in Starbucks having lattes together.  (A coping mechanism because I knew if I looked at Jethro I knew I’d cry from the enormity of it all.  And if I cried, he’d think I was in pain and either worry or carry me out of there over his shoulder.  A mite protective, that one…)  I remember one of my nurses being so awesome because she explained every procedure as they did it to me and laughed at everything stupid I said.  I remember one of the drugs they gave making me start to pass out slightly and I heard that same nurse explaining to Jethro why I drifted off in the middle of a sentence and being SO grateful for that.  I also remember lots of tugging and pulling and realizing WHY there was all that tugging and trying to not think about it.

And then I remember the moment that they pulled out Tater, our little fat chunk.  Who was born with Billie Holiday in the background.  Who did not cry immediately, which is a little scary but made his first scream all the more amazing.  And who turned out to be not fat at all and was in fact teeny-tiny, but who also had the cord wrapped around his neck twice.  So while my anticipated natural birth would have been awesome to have, the reality of a nuchal cord twice is not so bueno.  The cord around his neck is why he didn’t move, and also why I’m completely fine with deciding to have the c-section rather than go into labor.  Had I gone into labor, there was a chance he would have gone into distress and it would have been a true emergency.  Terrifying and something I’m NOT going to think about.

Jethro brought Tater to me, who was lovely and just a tiny bit screamy.  I didn’t get to hold him until the recovery room, but that was okay because I was on a lot of drugs and pretty much everything was okay.  And it was for the best because it was in recovery when the shivers set in; a by-product of my anesthetic and the fact that my insides were on the outside for a bit and needed to warm up.  They would come and go in almost violent waves, which sounds scary but was actually kind of funny.  When I did get to hold him, in addition to just being crazy amazed at his existence, I was shocked at how tiny and WHITE he was.

Being half-white and half-black, I knew my kid wouldn’t come out lookin’ like Wesley Snipes, but I thought he’d have SOME color.  Instead he was very pale, with light brown hair and very very dark blue eyes.  When my mom walked in, I think the first thing I said was, “Look Mom, I had a white baby!!”  (This, sadly, cannot be blamed on the drugs.)  It’s fun because when you look at his newborn photos and look at him now, it looks like I had a white baby and misplaced him so I kidnapped a small Hispanic child as a replacement.  Genetics are hilarious and awesome.

  (The monkey jacket might be a teeny bit inappropriate within the context of this conversation…)

Can we pause for a minute and talk about Tater’s head?  Seriously, in the first few months he was born, I had more older women comment on how pretty his head is than anything else.  They’re used to squishy alien-headed babies who are born naturally, so it’s not really a compliment and hard to receive.  I always had the urge to reply “You know, since they cut me open and yanked him out through a small opening in my lower abdomen, the walls of my vaginal canal didn’t have a chance squish his cranium and make it temporarily misshapen.  Thanks for noticing!”

Instead, I said thank you because you acknowledge compliments in the spirit in which they’re given.  Partially because its polite and partially because I’m the only one who finds me funny most of the time.

Anyway, we spent about three nights in the hospital and then headed home, where things got scary because I didn’t have my kind nurses to make everything better.  Which is another post for another day.

SO! There’s Tater’s birth story, five months later.  Tater is a lovely and funny little child who already giggles at his own burps and yells a lot.  Totally mine and Jethro’s spawn.  Being a mom is hard, but not scary hard like I was worried it would be.

It’s the hard you just deal with and get used to and you get used to it…and then the kid changes on you and you have to adjust all over again.  It’s starting college hard, new job hard, first year marriage hard—it’s exciting and scary and awesome and exhausting and half the time I have no idea what I’m doing.  And I’m not going to lie; when I work ten hours and am almost late to pick up Tater at daycare and I still have to hit the store before going home and Tater is screaming in his car seat because he thinks it is the devil and he wants out now, now, NOW…sometimes I start eyeing fire stations to drop him off at and pricing tickets to Greece.
But later I get to kiss wee little hands and smell a round little perfectly shaped c-section head and it’s worth it.  That may be because I have the most perfect child in the world, but its totally worth it.

Rockin’ the micro ‘hawk.

Not that I could forget.  He’s in the other room, yelling at the dog.  (Who was it that said that having a kid was like living with a tiny drunk person?  Totally true.)

So. THE BIRTH OF TATER.

Somewhere along the way in my third trimester, I started to wind down.  Little physical things got harder, like walking or carrying anything heavier than my purse.  (Which is no small feat in and of itself. I could fight off a pack of rabid hounds with my Kate Spade…)  I also developed a problem with my pelvic bone where it started to hurt if I walked for long periods or opened my legs too wide.  Even putting on my pants in the morning could cause sharp pain.  Turns out Tater turned breech (AGAIN) in between weeks 37 and 38 and then proceeded to park his fat butt right right on my pubic bone, making walking ridiculously painful.  See, babies are smart and get into the most comfortable position while in the womb.  My hips are a little off, so his head didn’t fit comfortably in the space between them.  Because of this, Tater was all “Eff this noise,” and flipped to a better position for him, which was indian style, right on top of my pubic bone.

It sucked. Many chiropractic appointments and afternoons spent lying upside down later, he refused to flip back so we tried a external cephalic version on July 20th.

Now, I’m not gonna bullshit you, the version hurts.  I can’t accurately describe how it feels, but put your hand on your stomach and push as hard as you can (without digging your fingernails in or pushing so hard you poop yourself.).  Now imagine that in a circular motion, but while trying to move one of your vital organs around.  Yeah, like that, but a little more painful.  But not so painful that I couldn’t handle it.  Okay, so there were silent tears, but I prefer to think that my body had so much bad-ass built up on the inside that they overflowed out of my eyes and down my face.

But, despite me being so incredibly hardcore, Tater would not budge.  And it wasn’t from lack of trying.  My OB and her colleague, both of who are maybe 120 soaking wet, were kneeling on my hospital bed with their hands slathered in baby oil and trying to coax this kid to flip around as hard as they could without rupturing something.  And this went on, stopping and starting, for about 15 minutes.  Nada.  I’m bad-ass, but Tater was stronger.  (For reasons that will follow…stay with me, kids.)

So Jethro and I had a decision; we could either wait for labor to start naturally and then come in for a c-section, or we could have one that night and I’d have the baby that day.  There wasn’t a big chance that Tater would flip in the womb on his own, the version probably would have worked if that was the case.  And my doctor did not deliver breech babies naturally, I knew this from the get-go and was okay with it.  I really wanted to go into labor naturally, but the only hitch was that my doctor was set to go out of town the next day and if I waited for labor to start, I would have had someone else in her practice do the surgery.  Thinking back on it now, that doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but at the time the thought made me want to bust out into heaving sobs.  It wasn’t until the version failed that I finally realized that I would not be able to give birth naturally and I was not happy.  (Little did I know that this was the first of many things that would not go the way I hoped. Oh, Life. You are SUCH a heifer…)

I was tired, emotional and the reality of having a c-section (and having to choose when) was settling into my stomach and making me want to upchuck.  And let me tell you, that is a WEIRD decision to have to make.  I’d said that I did not want a c-section unless it was medically necessary, and suddenly it was medically necessary and then they were asking me WHEN I wanted to do it.  I mean, I kill plants and always bet on the wrong horse when I play the ponies!  I should not be in charge of decisions like this!  There are hormonal advantages to going into labor naturally and then doing a c-section, but I was three days away from my due date and my OB was my security blanket.  I talked it over with Jethro and we decided to go ahead and do the c-section that night.

We told my OB our decision and then sat there for a minute going, “Welp…guess we getting a kid tonight…” when the nurse walked in and said, “Okay, we’ve got an OR ready, so we can get you in there in about 15 minutes.”

Insert Scooby-Doo noises here as we scrambled around trying to let the grandparents know and to wrap our heads around the fact that when they said today, they meant RIGHT THE HELL NOW.  Luckily my OB stepped in, talked to us for a minute to make sure we were okay with our decision and that I wasn’t scared.  Having had abdominal surgery before**, I was fine, but Jethro was quietly freaking out.  This was evidenced when I asked him to call my mom (who lives out of town).  He had to step outside to make the call since our cell phones didn’t work in the room.  (And I was covered in wire and tubes and things that went beep in ominous ways.)

Me: (as Jethro comes back in) What’d she say?

Jethro: She’s headed our way.

Me: Lord, I hope she doesn’t speed. The traffic shouldn’t be bad though…wait, did you tell her it wasn’t an emergency?

Jethro: Huh?

Me: My mom. Did you tell her that the c-section wasn’t an emergency?

Jethro: ….yes.

Me: Yes??

Jethro: …maybe???

Me: MAYBE?!? You MAYBE MIGHT HAVE told MY MOTHER that her DAUGHTER was having a c-section and that it’s NOT an emergency?!?

Jethro: THIS IS VERY STRESSFUL RIGHT NOW AND I’M TRYING NOT TO POOP MY PANTS, OKAY?!?

To his credit, he did tell her that it wasn’t an emergency.  Also, he did not poop his pants.

I should be nicer to that man.

{{continued in Part Two because this is HELLA long…}}

**Y’ALL. Remind me to tell you about my splenectomy adventure with Gavin, the Not-a-Tumor.  It’s good times.

And to keep you reading, I bribe you with baby pictures.

THIS teeny weenie….

…has turned into this fat chunkalunk.

Who gives excellent side-eye.

And yells at things for no reason. (Kinda like his mama.)

We like him and think we’ll keep him.  Stay tuned for the story of how he was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d* and various and sundry updates on what a genius he is.  And then, more posts on songs to jam to, things to stuff your face with and tales about stupid things I’ve done recently, like getting busted singing NKOTB by cops on bikes and seeing people have sex on the highway at 9am on Thanksgiving.  (True story.  Hand to God.)

*Get some culture, ya heathens.

Except…that’s crap.

You ever REALLY try to make a grilled cheese sandwich?  Grilled cheese is almost perfect in its simplicity.   Bread, cheese, butter and a little heat turn into melty, gooey goodness.  Yet, those bad boys are not easy; mess up one part of the few steps and they’ll burn, the cheese won’t melt, the bread will too crunchy and you’ll tear up the roof of your mouth.  And it’s not just lack of culinary skill that can jack up a grilled cheese sandwich.  Try to get a gastronome to make you a grilled cheese and they’ll make you a masterpiece, with pear slices and ricotta or goat cheese and pesto calabrese.  You’ll get something, but it won’t be a true grilled cheese—simple, genuine, straightforward.

This extended (and fairly tenuous) metaphor is to say that I think that, outside of literary circles and bibliophiles, short stories get a bum rap.  These beauties are hard to craft and craft WELL; they either never come together or are dressed up lavishly to hide its shortcomings.  Sometimes you’ll find a collection that contains writing so tight and basic, with stories that are easy and simple, you overlook how amazing they are.  Moppets, meet Married Love: And Other Stories by Tessa Hadley.

From the publisher: Married Love is a masterful collection of short fiction from one of today’s most accomplished storytellers. These tales showcase the qualities for which Tessa Hadley has long been praised: her humor, warmth, and psychological acuity; her powerful, precise, and emotionally dense prose; her unflinching examinations of family relationships. Here are stories that range widely across generations and classes, exploring the private and public lives of unforgettable characters: a young girl who haunts the edges of her parents’ party; a wife released by the sudden death of her film-director husband; an eighteen-year-old who insists on marrying her music professor, only to find herself shut out from his secrets. In this stunning collection, Hadley evokes worlds that expand in the imagination far beyond the pages, capturing domestic dramas, generational sagas, wrenching love affairs and epiphanies, and distilling them to remarkable effect.

Married Love is full of those lovely slice of life stories that get under your skin and linger longer than you think they might.  Hadley’s writing is very tight, you get the feeling that every word is carefully chosen because it’s the best one, not just because it shows off her MA.  No wayward sentences or careless metaphors about grilled cheese here, no sir.  The effect gives more weight to each story; a description of the way a young girl lies on the chest of a prospective suitor is integral to the plot, whereas in other collections it might be a throwaway paragraph.  Haldey also only lets you in on a sliver of her character’s lives and these small moments say so much about the characters, in ways that a larger story wouldn’t.  Nearly every piece of writing advice I’d read has some variation on Faulkner’s “Kill your darlings,” but Hadley doesn’t really do this.  It’s as if she respects her darlings and only shows just as much as you need to know, never revealing more than is relevant. (Ah, so polite and so English, I love it…)

Hadley’s stories range in time period (she’s as comfortable in 1920 as she is in in modern day) and are set in Britain, which made my little Anglophile heart swoon at every mention of things such as vicars and Action Man.  If you need things to HAPPEN in your stories, Married Love is probably not for you.  There’s rarely a twist or major resolution in the end of the stories, but it’s the lack of full completion that makes these tales hang around in your mind long after you’ve put down the book.  Did they get married after all?  Did her son come back?  Did they divorce, or continue on?  These aren’t cliffhangers, but more like expansions on people-watching; you know part of the story, but not all.  And that’s enough, because somehow you know WHO these people are, if not what happens to them.

I’m not a fan of giving away much about short story collections, so I won’t try to describe each story.  However, I will say that my favorite is “Trojan Prince;” even though it doesn’t give much hint of being so, it turns out to be an incredibly romantic tale from a male perspective.  There’s no harm in reading this in one sitting; sometimes short story collections are best read in spurts, but I think the stories vary so widely here that you won’t get bored.  However, it’s perfect for the train or a car ride, each one is fairly succinct and well-paced.

I definitely recommend Married Love by Tessa Hadley and I plan on checking out her other books also.  Being English, these should be read with a proper tea, but I don’t think she’ll mind if you chomp on a grilled cheese sandwich when doing it.  (WHAT?  I had to tie it together, you know you’d be disappointed in me if I didn’t.)

A big thank you, as always, to TLC Book Tours.  Think you’d make a better reviewer than I?  (Probably.)   Check out the other reviews of Married Love and read about hosting your own awesome book tour!

I was about two pages into Because You Have To: A Writing Life by Joan Frank when the following three sentences gave me pause-

A teaching mentor during a MFA program once wrote to me, in calm response to my own bewildered longing for time:

“One has plenty of opportunities during the day to write.”

I wondered, at the time, what on God’s green earth he was talking about.

This lady is my people.  I would have uttered the same words…well, mine would have probably included cuss words, but Frank is classier than I am.

Though I read them, I am not a huge fan of books on writing.  They tend to fall into two categories-ones that I cannot relate to and ones that make me feel dumb.

Some books on writing are startlingly beautiful; they capture the art and process so succinctly that your fingers just ache to get to a keyboard or a pen and write something, ANYTHING.  It’s just when you get to that paper or laptop that you realize you don’t have that kind of talent.  Not that you don’t have talent at all, but you don’t have that author’s talent.  Their tales of sitting on a dock, surrounded by the raw beauty of a quiet lakeside, scribbling out the words that live in the spaces between their heartbeat…well, that’s lovely, but I’m in my living room with a basket of laundry that I’ve been meaning to do for six hours now to my left and to my right is a bored baby in a bouncy chair who is only going to be distracted for five more minutes by the bib I let him gnaw on.  And even if I had the lake setting, the tales that live in-between my heartbeats are snarky and sprinkled lovingly with f-bombs. Those books may inspire others, but they mostly depress me and remind me of my inadequacy.

The other type contains books that boil writing down to a formula or a simple process.  Get on the stick, women, just WRITE!  It’s SO easy, you should be doing it, stop whining, those who cannot do just complain about it, OMG, STOP SUCKING AND JUST DO IT.  Those books give me hives.  They may motivate, but something in there smacks of dishonesty.  I mean, really?  You’ve been writing for 30 years, you’ve written two novels and you’re going to tell me that writing is EASY?  It might be easy for you, but you’ve been doing it for a lot longer, mister, so ease up, huh?

Then there are the emails I get from writing websites that scream at me thrice daily: Do THIS, and you will create.  Have THAT program and this books over HERE and you’ll knock out a novel in no time!  Go to this retreat, join that group, enter this contest and how’s about you buy tickets to this conference AND this eighteen volume set of how-to books plus the bonus DVD?!?  It makes me feel dirty, these groups that treat writing with the same marketing zeal that is given to a Slap-Chop, but I still don’t unsubscribe… (What if they offer up the magic solution and I don’t have my $79.95 ready?!?)

Because You Have To lives in a happy little place in between the two types of writing books and avoids the skids of shrill marketing.  It is  real enough to be helpful, but not so glib that you can’t take it seriously.  I think this might be one of the few books on writing that not only inspired me, but also motivated me.

The synopsis:

Part memoir, part handbook, part survey of the contemporary literary scene, Because You Have To: A Writing Life is a collection of essays that, taken together, provide a walking tour of the writing life.

Original, witty, and practical, Because You Have To ably steers us through the journey of Frank’s own life as a writer, as well as through the careers and work of other writers. Subjects range from the “boot camp” conditioning of marketing work to squaring off with rejection and envy; from sustaining belief in art’s necessity to the baffling subjectivity of literary perception—and the magical books that nourish writers.

Frank not only covers writing but also reading, marketing, rejection; all with a thoughtful yet practical tone.  Her tale of scrambling to find time to write hit home, especially when she talks of working front desks and frantically hiding her writing when tell-tale footsteps echo down the hall.  (Hello, me in 2004-2007.)  Her essay, “The More We Typed, the Better We Felt,” might be my favorite; a tale of the folly of letting self-righteousness take over reason—anyone who’s ever shaken their fist at this type of injustice will relate.

Because You Have To is equal parts thoughtful and practical; Frank respectful to the art of writing but also admits that this sh*t is hard, rejection is tough, the writing life can be lonely and dammit, yet we still write.  If the lofty book on writing is an expensive writer’s salon with wine and a guest speaker — and the quick-fix tome on being an author is a loud happy hour in a bar with that guy who keeps telling you exactly how to do what you’re already doing—Because You Have To is a three hour conversation over coffee and pastries that you bring notepad and pen to take notes on, but never write down a word.  The book is best read in spurts, but mostly so that you can let Frank’s words settle into your mind and see what they inspire.  I highly recommend the book, and I’d even lend you my copy if I hadn’t already written in it and dog-eared the pages.

Yet again, a big thank you to TLC Book Tours.  Like to read books and give opinions?  (Who doesn’t?!?)  Check out the other reviews of Because You Have To and read about hosting your own awesome book tour!

My apologies to the people at TLC Book Tour and anyone who came over from there looking for the review; however, my regular readers won’t be surprised I made such a doofus move…

Be sure to check out the other reviews, but especially Picky Girl’s; not only because it’s her review day that I’m horning in on, but because she has some AWESOME reviews in general.  I think I just found a new favorite blog.
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One of my favorite movies is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Not just for the story or the acting (or Mark Ruffalo being Mark Ruffalo and therefore adorable and one of my fake boyfriends,) but for the realism it manages to convey. One of the best scenes is the one that a lot of people who hated the movie cite, where Joel and Clementine are smothering each other with a pillow. That scene is great because it shows the weird, wacky parts of being in a relationship and reminds us of the strangeness that happens when no one is looking in on us. It’s really hard to capture that realness and truth, but that scene does it. I got that same feeling of truth while reading Love, in Theory by E.J. Levy; a collection of short stories about love and romance through modern eyes.

As usual, the book’s description says it best:

In this funny, brainy, thoroughly engaging debut collection, an award-winning writer looks at romance through the lens of scholarly theories to illuminate love in the information age.

In ten captivating and tender stories, E. J. Levy takes readers through the surprisingly erotic terrain of the intellect, offering a smart and modern take on the age-old theme of love—whether between a man and woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or a mother and a child—drawing readers into tales of passion, adultery, and heartbreak. A disheartened English professor’s life changes when she goes rock climbing and falls for an outdoorsman. A gay oncologist attending his sister’s second wedding ponders dark matter in the universe and the ties that bind us. Three psychiatric patients, each convinced that he is Christ, give rise to a love affair in a small Minnesota town. A Brooklyn woman is thrown out of an ashram for choosing earthly love over enlightenment. A lesbian student of film learns theories of dramatic action the hard way—by falling for a married male professor. Incorporating theories from physics to film to philosophy, from Rational Choice to Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, these stories movingly explore the heart and mind—shooting cupid’s arrow toward a target that may never be reached.

The winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, Love, in Theory intrigued me, but I was slightly wary. Short stories seem like they should be easy, but they are notoriously difficult to write and write well. You don’t have the luxury of wasting words and time on phrases that don’t serve purpose—every flaw in a writer’s ability will be glaringly obvious like grass stains on a church dress. The only stains I noticed with Levy’s stories were that they had the same voice throughout, as if I could feel Levy reading them to me. This is great because it made me feel like I could really sense the author through the whole collection; but then again, when read in one sitting the stories began to blend.

Levy does a great job of drawing you into her characters, but never too far in. That’s the beauty of a short story and the detriment of the book overall. It’s a wonderful thing to just touch on a character’s life and be privy to a part of them, it’s almost more telling and satisfying than an entire book about the character or situation. However, there’s a coolness to these people that Levy has written about that seems at odds with the topic. You’d think a book about love should be full of passion, and while it is, it’s a sort of detached passion. I’m fine with detached passion, but I want some real straight up passion thrown in the mix for funsies.

My problem may be that I compare most contemporary short story collections to my favorite, Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff. That collection has characters that vary in background, race, education and socioeconomic background, and you really feel it in each and every story. Love, in Theory has the same variances, but I feel the characters are all still connected in personality or worldview. The collection seems like it’d be most effective if read in spurts, one story at a time. It’s like watching an entire season of House or C.S.I. at once; on their own, each episode is fine but when you gulp the entire work down, you start seeing a bit of the formula.

I started to talk about the individual stories, but we all know I am no good at being succinct and I don’t want to ruin the collection for anyone interested in reading it. Because it really is a great read, my previous comments aside. Levy picks up on that honesty that I first talked about, the reality of living and falling in love. There were paragraphs and sentences that brought up my own experiences and had me thinking even after I finished the story. Like, when recalling an offer that was made and could have started a love affair, the character says, years later, “I said I would think about it. And I have.” It’s small sentences like that where Levy shines, the small paragraphs that make you want to highlight them or show the person sitting next to you.

I definitely recommend Love, in Theory. It’s not perfect, but very good and leans into great more than a few times. It’s a great read, and perfect for a commute. If you do read it on the bus or train, however, make sure that you don’t miss your stop—I found myself staring off after finishing a story more than a few times, just thinking. Which, in and of itself, is a huge recommendation right there.

A big thank you, as always, to TLC Book Tours! I cannot tell you how fun being on a tour is, so go check out the other reviews of Love, in Theory and think about hosting your own!