Tracy M.

Dreaming in French

2012-02-28T12:45:00.001-08:00

I started taking French in 7th grade, continuing through my senior year of high school. I then took 2 years of French at a highly academic Catholic college. In a city with a high French-speaking population. With a French PBS channel. One would think I could speak French. I cannot.

At least, not until now. In preparation for my trip to Paris, I searched through the filing cabinet in my brain and, way in the back, found the French file: Le Dossier de Francais. It's slowly coming back to me. I can read it. I can speak some. Give me a French verb and I conjugate the crap out of it. But the biggest challenge for me is understanding it. People talk so fast when they're not speaking your language. Ce qui est?

When we were engaged, my husband took me to Montreal and Quebec City, thinking he was bringing along a girl who could whip out some serious French articulation. Pas tants. I took a lot of heat for that pour un longtemps. I got along better in Quebec City for some reason. I don't know if they spoke slower or if they just used more of the phrases that I learned in French class. In Montreal, there are plenty of English speakers so it probably didn't force me to try.

Does this mean that taking a language in school is a completely useless endeavor? Je ne pense pas. Even if you never utter another foreign language syllable the experience of learning a language is wonderful. To appreciate other cultures and colloquialisms, to engage your brain in a completely different way is tres importante. And it will always be filed away somewhere and can be accessed with a bit of work.

I have a family member who speaks Russian, Spanish, and English. He once said that you know a language when you begin thinking in that language, when you don't have to stop and translate just to think the thought. He said he would dream in Russian, in Spanish, back and forth. This is the point I want to get to. I want to dream in French. A rever en Francais!

So I'm immersing. The trouble is finding people who speak fluent French. Hard to come by in the middle of the United States. Voila the web! BBC Languages has a great site that I've been working through. For practice in listening to French people I'm listening to French radio stations online. Man, they talk fast. Mon Dieu. Repetez, s'il vous plait. Comment with your favorite online French tutors.

And I figure if I listen to French right before drifting off to sleep, maybe, just maybe, I'll have a French dream.

Sunday Inspiration

2012-02-26T11:52:00.001-08:00

I finally got off of Pinterest long enough to create something that inspired me on Pinterest.

These frames had been collecting dust in a box for years, waiting for the day when I would drag them out and give them new life. They belonged to my great grandmother and contained some Italian-esque religious prints of the Virgin Mary, which I have stashed for perhaps another project. I regret not knowing where my grandmother got them, but I remember they were hanging in her bedroom when I was a child. They may have been passed down from her mother, or more likely, she got them at a garage sale, as perusing the weekly garage sales was one of her favorite pastimes. And that was back before it was hip.

My original thought was to paint the frames, but when I released them from their storage prison, I realized just how much character they have as they are. Authentic shabby chic, which is hard to come by these days.

I picked out some favorite scrapbook paper recently purchased from Hobby Lobby, cut to fit, and Voila!

Here they are on the wall next to my Fleur de Lis key holder.

This frame was much too heavy to hang on the wall.

Eternal Travel

2012-02-23T12:21:00.002-08:00

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

When people discover my husband and I are planning a trip to London and Paris, I typically get get one of two reactions. The first is from those who find it a perfectly normal, yet obviously exciting thing to do. They're the ones who are genuinely happy for me. The second reaction encompasses such a look of consternation as if I've just informed them I'm chartering a private jet to Pamplona to participate in the running of the bulls followed by a jaunt over to Nepal where I've hired my own Sherpas to take me up Mt. Everest. I fight the urge to justify our decision, to downplay the extravagance to those who find it just that- too extravagant. Regardless, I have found myself saying, "It's really not as expensive as you think." Or, "We haven't been on vacation without the kids in a long time." Or, "We've been saving for a vacation". Or, "We're celebrating our 20th anniversary so... you know".

And while all those things are true, the real truth is that I have been enchanted by Paris since I discovered its' existence when I was just une petite fille. So one sunny afternoon last summer when my husband and I were enjoying a rare bicycle ride together, we stopped for a break and he said to me, "I think we should go to Paris for our 20th anniversary." In response to my stunned silence he continued with, "because if we don't do it now when will we do it." Good point. Einstein said all his best ideas came while riding his bicycle.

Perhaps it's the magic of Paris that causes others to be taken aback by the notion of actually going there, when if you'd said you were going to New York City or the Caribbean for a week, they wouldn't blink an eye. As if to say, well, you can't go there. It's a mystical place. Like Narnia or Camelot. Hmm... then how does Paris manage to continually take the top position in most visited cities in the world? I'm just ecstatic to say that this year I'll be counted as one of those illustrious visitors.

I'd like to say that the difference in attitude toward travel comes down to regional differences. It seems to me that my friends here in the Midwest view traveling to foreign lands as more of a "big deal" than my friends back east. It may seem to others that midwesterners tend to lean toward canned entertainment. My kids' friends think it strange that we've never been to Branson. Wait. Don't send me hate comments just yet, because most of the people I know who have actually been to Europe are from the Midwest. So there goes that theory.

Does it merely come down to the different ways in which one would answer the question: what is the purpose of traveling? For this trip. For myself. For my husband. For my marriage. Our purpose in traveling is to grow deeper in our marriage, to take time away from our daily to grind to connect on a different level not only with each other, but with our Creator. I hope to gain a new respect for the people who we share this planet with and for the people who came before us. I also hope to conquer some of my own fears: fear of communicating in another language, my intense fear of heights as I make my way to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and the fear of leaving my children for the longest time ever. I want lessons learned, knowledge gained and memories that last long past the return date. Does this sound like a lot of pressure for one vacation to take on? I don't think so, because as long as we travel in a spirit of perception and sensibility, then the rewards will naturally follow. Even in those traveling mishaps, there is much to learn.

And as Audrey Hepburn said, Paris is always a good idea. Paris does not need a defense.

I realize I didn't have much to say about London, but we are arriving there first for our Tale of Two Cities Tour. More on this to come as I will be posting about the planning process of our trip. In the meantime, I leave you with this thought:

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

Waxing Thoreau

2010-11-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

One misconception of Henry David Thoreau is that he lived like a hermit. Sauntering daily around his town of Concord, MA, he visited with his many friends, including of course Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Ellery Channing, and mentoring aspiring writers, such as a young woman by the name of Louisa May Alcott. Even during his stint at Walden Pond when he lived in his hand-built cabin for 2 years and 2 months, he welcomed visitors into his one room abode, friends from town as well as passersby such as railroad workers, young hikers, even runaway slaves. He writes:

I had three chairs; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.

Quite a soiree happening down at the Thoreau residence. Sure will make you think twice about your house being too small to host Thanksgiving dinner. As a matter of fact, Thoreau comments on this:

Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants.

Yea, tell that to Teresa. Today's modern hostess needs her space. You never know when a table will require flipping.

If there was one guy I'd like to have dinner with, it would be HDT. Wouldn't you love to hear his opinion on all that's happened in the last 148 years. Methinks he'd not be pleased. And playing video games at the library would probably send him right over the edge.

So what would Mr. Thoreau think of Facebook? Well, he'd probably prefer we communicate in person and I'm quite certain he'd be disturbed by the general disregard of basic spelling and grammar. However, I think he'd pleased to learn that as of November 13, 2010 he has 17,593 Facebook friends. I enjoyed this article at Galleycat, but was disappointed that Thoreau didn't make the top twenty. Neither did Steinbeck or Hemingway. Or Ray Bradbury.

Well, since dinner with Thoreau is just a pondering reserved for gatherings whilst enjoying babka, I'll be satisfied curling up with my worn copy of Walden.

So come one Thoreau fans- Give the over-consumption of the 21st century a good dose of Thoreauisms. Facebook him. Read his blog. Spread the word.

I've been pondering this one since yesterday:

I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

-HDT

Hellooooo Writahs!!!!!

2010-11-08T07:32:00.000-08:00

Things that upset me:
-Publishers who give book deals to people who think lover is spelled "lovah" and add letters to ends of words as in, Gud Morningggg or Hiiiii and have completely discarded the use of a period at the end of a sentence in favor of the much more effective exclamation point.

Tyra Banks' new book series called Modelland (pronounced "Model Land")- and her new division of "Bankable Books"- with characters who are "drop-dead beautiful, kick-butt fierce", you know something the kids can really relate to. !!!

Or how about this for a ~~moron~~ oxymoron:

"Author" Snooki Polizzi

!!!!!!!

Things that make it all better:

Happy Birthday Ms. Plath

2010-10-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

On this day in literary history, the tortured Sylvia Plath, most famous for The Bell Jar, was born in 1932. Her suicide by gas oven at the age of 31 helped catapult her to poetic rockstar status. Nonetheless, her poetry stands the test of time and speaks to a new generation.

She has one of my favorite quotes on writing that I keep nearby when I need a good kick in the butt:

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Ah, Sylvia, if only you took your own advice.

Here's a great review from a long ago NY Times article.

Yet Another Post About The Kindle vs. Real Books

2010-10-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

I've gone back and forth and back again in my thoughts about if I really want an e-reader or not. For a while, yes, I wanted one. After all, a e-reader is about books and I love anything that has anything to do with books. So of course I should want one, right? Except that I don't. That's right. I am an Anti-Kindlite. I want to want one. Amazon wants me to want one. But I have my reasons and, surprisingly, one of them is not the trite and overused "You can't curl up with an electronic device." Oh, please. Actually, ummm.... yes, you can. Besides, I'm not exactly curling up with my Jonathan Franzen right now. That monster keeps poking me in the gut.

And that's why I love books. They're real. Tangible. Reading is a sensual experience for me. I can caress a book like a familiar lover. I can flip the pages. I can smell it. If Barnes & Noble made a bookstore scented candle, I'd have one in every room. There's nothing like coming home after a trip from the bookstore and relishing in your purchases, gazing at the covers, pondering on which one to read first. It's this experience that you can't get by pressing a button on a keyboard. Perhaps I'm a curmudgeon. I do make an effort in my daily life to embrace simplicity. But I do it gladly. I often find myself thinking, would Thoreau want a Kindle? I don't know, he wasn't a fan of technology, but then again, he wasn't a fan of dusting either, and books do collect dust. He did say that "men have become the tools of their tools" so I think that he would not wish to be a slave to the latest gadget. Yet here comes Amazon attempting to entice the lover of simplicity with this picture:

Sorry. Doesn't do anything for me. My eyes immediately go to the stack of books. I want to hold them. I want to put them on my bookshelf. You may say I'm a ~~freak~~ dreamer. But, alas, I'm not the only one. I love, love, love this article by Emma Silvers on Salon.com.

Jacob Lambert points out in his article that bookstores could go the way of music stores. (I miss Tower Records too!) The ebook phenomena has been compared to downloading music, pointing out that people first railed against that and eventually accepted it. But it's a completely different media. I can download my CDs onto my iPod. I couldn't put my existing books onto an e-reading device. Nor could I buy a paper copy of a book and turn it digital. I can still purchase a CD from my favorite artist and have the pleasure of listening to it on my iPod. Music, by its essence, needs to be portable. Remember the days when kids would walk down the street sporting those colossal boomboxes on their shoulders? Those days had to go. But books, being by their nature books, are already portable.

Plus, books can be works of art. Visual art.
Like this:

Or this:

Okay, one more:

Gorgeous.

I'm not saying that the Kindle is evil, though at times it does smack of George Orwell's 1984. And if Ray Bradbury isn't a fan, well, then I'm listening. After all, he predicted long ago that one day we'd all be mesmerized by giant screens hanging on our living room walls.

Perhaps someday I'll own an e-reader. I do hope I have lots of options to choose from. But for now I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and singing la, la, la. By the way, if you're looking for ideas, all of the above books I would gladly accept as a Christmas gift. Especially those Fitzgeralds. Yum.

October 22

2010-10-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

October 22 is the day of the year I've come to dread. I'm glad it's over. Yesterday was worse than usual for some reason, if I can call this day of the year usual. October 22 is the day of the year my third child was born. She came 2 and a half months early. Because she was already gone. Died in the womb. Born still. I don't know why yesterday was any worse than the others. It's been seven years. In the beginning I wore my grief like a favorite wool sweater. I wrapped it around me. I wallowed in it.

The first couple of.... birthdays? Can you call it a birthday? Anniversary? Anyway, the first couple of October 22nds, I anticipated it with relish. I couldn't wait to drag that sweater out again and curl up with it. It was like every day that went by, she got further away from me and on that day I could be in 'that place' again. The grief place. I felt closer to her. Those first few months after a tragedy, when you're in that debilitating grief, where it's actually physically painful, you think you just want it to go away. I remember I didn't want to be alone in the first few weeks. To be alone was just about the scariest thing.

But eventually you have to be alone. And eventually the physcial pain goes away. And eventually people just get tired of checking on you and they want you to be normal again. And then what are you left with. What's surprising to learn is that the grief or pain or scars or whatever you want to call it, never truly leaves you. Because you don't "get over it". I think the thing is now that I've created a place for my grief to live. It's taken up a permanent residence though it generally keeps to itself. I have a few moments everyday when I think about it. I think about her. Not with sadness, but with a joy that I am blessed to have had this experience and this child living in Heaven. So now when October 22 comes around, the pain, as if it's decided it's time to party, escapes the home I've created for it.

Perhaps some people would be surprised that I think about her a lot. But why wouldn't I? Wouldn't it be more unnatural for a mother to never think about her child? It's quite a strange phenomena for others when you lose a child that never actually took a breath. Unless it's happened to you, you can't truly understand. It's like a membership to a very exclusive club that you never wanted to be a part of. They wonder, well how can you miss someone who you never knew? They give you platitudes like, "Just think how much worse it would be to lose a living child." Or "At least you didn't get attached." Or "There was probably something wrong with the baby. It was God's way of sparing you." These are the statements that haunt me. As if grief can be measured on a scale. But I know it's because they don't get it. They weren't there when my husband and I were preparing for her arrival, discussing baby names, planning for a new life. They weren't there when I held my dead baby in my arms, counted her 10 perfect fingers, her 10 perfect toes, felt the fuzz that was already atop her head. There was nothing wrong with her.

But validation can come when and where you least expect it. A few months after "it" happened, I felt the need to meet with other people my club. I felt I had preyed on my friends enough with my neediness. So I went to a support group for miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. My "peeps". There was a couple there who were there for the first time too and we both had to introduce ourselves and tell a bit about "our story". You know, like an AA meeting. They went first and told this heartbreaking story about how their daughter was born with a heart defect that couldn't be fixed. They gave her days to live. She lived for 2 weeks. She was in the hospital the whole time. She never got to come home. The couple hardly left her side. They took lots of pictures, many with their son who was 3. She died in the mother's arms. I thought, my God, what am I doing here? My daughter didn't live. I didn't get to see the color in her eyes. I didn't get to see my other 2 children hold her. Their story is so much worse! Aha... the grief scale. But I stayed and told my story and listened to others and then at the end of the meeting, after I thanked the facilitator and was about to bolt out of there, the husband of the couple I had been in awe of stopped me.

He thanked me for sharing my story, said that he was so sorry, and wondered how much worse it must be for me than for him. Huh!?! He said he realized how grateful he was for the time he had with his daughter. He said he wouldn't have given up those 2 weeks for anything. He said he would forever cherish the memories and the photographs he has, ESPECIALLY the ones with his son. How sad, he said, that I didn't have that. He wished I had that. He thanked me for giving him that perspective. I was speechless. He squeezed my arm and walked out the door. And I never saw him again. But I think of him often. This stranger who gave me what I so desperately needed at the time. Validation. Isn't that what every one is ultimately looking for? I wish I had said something to him. I wish I could tell him now what he did for me. But I have a feeling that maybe he knew.

A headstone in Ireland reads: Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

Though it was brief, I had a child and I loved her. No one can take that away. No one can measure it on a scale.

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare

I Want My MTV

2010-10-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about raising kids is seeing the differences in generational pop culture, especially music. The ways in which young people have access to and learn about music has defined each generation since the roaring 20s. I remember sifting through my mother's case of 45s thinking, man, you listen to one song, then you have to get up and turn it over?!? Wow, that sucks. Of course I listened to records, but the big ones. I had some of the greats- The Monkees, Sonny and Cher, the Bee Gees... Hey, I was 8 and what I listened to was largely influenced by A. my parents and B. my parents. But then the 80s hit and with it, the greatest music revolution of our time. That's right, music on television. (Cue singing cherubs). I tell my kids now, "you know, they used to play videos on MTV. All. The. Time." They're not impressed. "Yeah, mom" they say, "so does YouTube."

Okay, so they don't get it. But I was there August 1, 1981. The build-up. The possibilities. The rapture. Bask in it:

And with that I was gone. I didn't move from the couch until sometime in March, 1987. Many a Saturday was spent watching video after video. Even if it was a video I hated, I'd suffer through it, because, well what if the next one was the one I'd been waiting for. I have to know! And I'd suffer through the commercials convincing myself, okay, one more block of videos then I'll get up, only to do it again. And again. But eventually outside forces would intervene upon my slackfest. Usually my mother.

Thanks to the wonder that is VH1 Classics, I recently made a visit to my past, and spent a morning (I couldn't do the whole day. I wanted to, oh how I wanted to, but I just couldn't) embedded into the couch, glued to video after glorious video. I got to see some of the greats in video making- Van Halen, Tom Petty, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, even the Scorpions and (gulp!) Ratt! I was in cheesy 80s video heaven.

But, alas, Thomas Wolfe was right after all. You can't go home again. Well, you can, it's just that you better be prepared for things to be really f'd up. For instance, all your friends have moved on. There was no Mark Goodman. No Martha Quinn. No (sigh) Alan Hunter. And everything looks weird. For instance, I'm watching Def Leppard's Rock of Ages and.... ummm, I have some questions. Lots of questions. Ones that I apparently didn't have in 1983. Like who's playing chess and why? What's with the owl? Who are the monks and why are they so sinister? Are they the ones who chained up that woman? Why did they smash that perfectly fine looking goblet of wine? Why is Joe Elliot yielding a giant sword that he pulled out of a rock? Is he King Arthur? Is he going to save the woman from the monks? It doesn't appear so at first, because while she's struggling the band's having a grand ol' time in the background rockin' out in there ridiculously tight pants. Well, except the drummer who was always wearing those equally ridiculous shorts. But I digress,

*spoiler alert*

Thankfully, everything works out in the end. The sword turns into a guitar, which lead guitarist Phil Collen uses for his guitar solo that is so powerful, it shatters the handcuffs holding the woman and she's free. The wine glass, through the magic of rock n' roll is put back together, and the chess game is able to continue. But wait, do I smell a sequel? Because the monk returns at the end. Laughing.

First Lines

2010-10-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe you can't judge a book by it's cover (except that you can), but you can judge a book by it's first line. Which may be the real reason writers turn to the bottle. How do you create that perfect first line? Especially when it seems like every great first line there is to be written has already been done so. American Book Review created their list of 100 Best First Lines from Novels. I was pleased to see some more recent books on the list, like one of my favorites from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Of course, I always love the simplicity of the classics.

Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby Dick
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984
This is the saddest story I have ever heard. —Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

But my all-time favorite and the one that inspires me as a writer is from Mr. J.D. Salinger in Cather in the Rye:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

That's perfection. Hemingway's advice was to "write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." Aahhh.. so simple. Right? The reason why all the first lines made it onto this list is because they fit this criteria. Of course, with every list there's always something that you would add. The first line from John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany would be in my top ten.

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice – not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

A great writing exercise is to come up with a bunch of first lines. Just free write and see what pops out. Like this:
The cows were the first to feel the rumbling in the earth.
The big yellow bus swallowed her and that was the last I saw of her.
I arrived at the wedding dressed in black.

Okay, you can probably do better.

Pic of the day:
I want this!
via Bookshelfporn

How The New Yorker Ruffled My 39 Year Old Feathers

2010-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

As many of you know my 40th birthday is looming ahead, and I'm perilously walking that fine line between saying "Forty Schmorty- Who cares?" as I chuckle a little too loudly and just completely FREAKING OUT. So imagine my horror as I came across this article in the New York Times, explaining how the New Yorker has made it's pick of the top 20 fiction writers to watch. Oh, yeah, and the list stipulates that they are under 40. The top 20 under 40. Under. 40.

I'm walking the line.

On the bright side, most of the writers on the list are in their 30s and Chris Adrian just slipped in at 39. Dave Eggers, however, did not make it. Too old. So why 40 New Yorker? Does our writing not get better with age? Or are we too set in our ways? Have we lost the hunger? The passion? The vision? C'mon we're the Gen Xers! We embraced Kurt Cobain when we realized the shallowness of hair bands. We supported Quentin Tarantino and gave up our equally shallow 80s movies. Are we now too being phased out?

No, I won't allow it. Raymond Chandler published his first short story at the age of 45. Anthony Burgess, who wrote the brilliant A Clockwork Orange in his 40s, was first published at 39. And, hello!, one of the most beloved children's writers of all time, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was in her 60s when she published the Little House series.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a firm believer that young writers should be encouraged. Aspiring writers who are, say, in their teens, must overcome being looked down upon with comments like "I'm sure you'll get published someday sweetie, you know, when you've lived life a bit." So is there some unspoken rule that your best writing can only be done in your 20s and 30s? Why all the emphasis on age? Does it matter to the average reader what the age of his favorite author is?

So yes, New Yorker, I will pick up my copy of the fiction issue on Monday, but I will not shed tears into it. I will continue to put my pen to paper. And walk the line.

That Guy's Wife

2010-06-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Eric from Pimp My Novel had a great post today on what trends in novel writing not to attempt. So there goes my Great Gatsby mash-up novel about a girl who drags Gatsby from his pool only to realize he's still breathing because he's really a vampire. They fall in love, get married, and he bites her. They spend the rest of the 20th century throwing lavish cocktail parties, (turns out they're the ones who are really responsible for the success of the cosmopolitan cocktail in the 90s, not Carrie Bradshaw) until the fun is interrupted by a group of disgruntled werewolves who plan to destroy the earth in 2012. Now Gatsby and his wife must gather their own army to save the earth from destruction. And of course it was going to be brilliantly titled....... wait for it.....

The Vampire's Wife.

Oh c'mon!

The Blank's Husband hasn't taken off though. I guess it doesn't have the same ring to it as The Blank's Wife. However, The Girl with (fill in the blank) or The Girl Who..... is another trend I've noticed, with the success of The Girl with Dragon Tattoo.

While I will heed Eric's advice and stay far far away from these trends, it is hard to come up with a title. There's so much pressure to pick the perfect one. And haven't all the great ones been taken? Grapes of Wrath, War and Peace, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing. Okay, scratch that last one.

GQNASC4TF7BM

A Time to Write

2010-05-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, kids are bouncing around like pop rocks swimming in a pool of Pepsi, Alice Cooper is belting out his battle cry to kids everywhere, summer plans are falling into place, and as the sun screams into my window at an ever-alarming time of the morning, I'm beginning to panic. Of course I enjoy my kids immensely and I'm looking forward to all the fab things we've got going on over the next 3 months, yet I'm also wondering what will happen to my sanity, er.... I mean my writing time. Not to mention my riding time.

When one first embarks upon being a writer, there is this ultra-specific vision one has of sitting at a fully equipped writing desk, uninterrupted, for an insurmountable chunk of time. The words flow, the creative juices... juice. It's the dream, the fantasy, the way we picture Hemingway sitting at his desk in Key West, devoting his life to his passion.

Just look! There are no children milling about wanting their lunch made. (The nerve!) There's no 4 year old sitting in his lap. There's no Dora in the background demanding for the 153rd time "Say Map! Say Map!". There's no barrage of inane questions ranging from "Do worms bleed?" to "Where's that school project I did like 3 years ago?". No, look at him there, deep in thought, creating masterpieces, being.... creative.

Or maybe not. He did have his own obstacles on his road to becoming the Great American Writer, and now that I think of it, I wouldn't trade obstacles with him for all the perfect sentences in the world. No, maybe if I were given my fantasy of all the time and silence in the world to write it might turn out more like Jack Torrance in The Shining, though I hear he has had some success with his novel.

So my plan for the summer is to write when I can. If I can grab 15 minutes here or there, that's 15 minutes worth of work I wouldn't have otherwise had, and those minutes will add up, sentences will turn to paragraphs, and paragraphs will turn to pages and pages to, well you get the idea. And I'll get inspiration from other writer moms. I will set aside my romantic fantasy of the illusive perfect writing conditions. Two words: Stephenie Meyer- a stay-at-home mom who used to spend her days doing countless loads of laundry, is now spending her days wondering what to do with all her money.

And finally, I will listen to wise words of Mr. Stephen King: You can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will.

Film Friday

2010-05-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting experiment to try. Revisit your beloved 80s movies with your kids. There are many benefits to this. One, of course, is that you get to spend quality time with your offspring. Another is that you get to pick the movie. I can't take another lame movie about an ex-action star suddenly, through some crazy twist of fate, must take care of his sister's kids for a week. Hilarity inevitably ensues.

Now there are some risks involved with inviting your kids into your 80s film world. You want to be sure you remember correctly exactly what was in the movie that could potentially damage your innocent child for life. For example, I recently watched The Breakfast Club with my 11 year old. Oops, forgot about the swearing, the pot smoking, and the parent-bashing. And my daughter seemed to really connect with the Ally Sheedy character. I guess she was the coolest one. At the end of this post I'll share a previous post I did on my other blog about almost watching Grease with her.

Another risk is that you'll no longer look back fondly on those movies you've held dear to your heart. More likely, you'll realize 80s flicks, for the most part, sucked, and you'll begin to question your judgment. (80s music, however, is totally different) Has anyone seen Footloose lately? This was another one I watched with my daughter and about a third of the way through I looked at her and she was looking at me the way I used to look at my great-grandfather when he made me watch Lawrence Welk with him. My heart sank. I said, "Yea, this movie really isn't that good." I guess Kevin Bacon flipping around a rural farming community doesn't cross generations.

Perhaps the brain wizards in Hollywood should try this experiment, then they'll see that this barrage of 80s movies remakes is just a desperate attempt to cash in on all the 40-something parents ready to head down memory lane with their kids looking at them in admiration, "Wow, you grew up in the 80s? You're so cool." Please. It's not going to take us long to realize this isn't going to happen. Just let it go. Maybe I should try Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Sixteen Candles? Well, I know they'd love Back to the Future.

As promised- Grease Revisited, So Long to Danny and Sandy

Flipping through the channels with MJ last night, we came across one of my all-time favorite movies, Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Don't judge me. I know it's no Casablanca. But it is one of those movies that helps define a generation and perhaps only those of us born in the 70s truly get it. Kind of like only kids of the 60s get the film, American Graffiti. What was that movie about?

Anyway, I remember when Grease came out and being only 8, I was not permitted to see it. But when I was 10, my good friend Sara had some sort of movie theater that her parents had set up in her basement and her dad somehow got her a copy of Grease. mmm... Can't recall now how that could be since this was pre-VCR tapes. Regardless, she had it and I was going to see it. Don't tell my parents, because I was still forbidden from seeing the movie, which of course made it all that more intriguing. So at a carefully constructed sleepover (Yea, Mom, we're just gonna hang out and watch Benji or something) I watched Sandy and Danny get together, break up, get together again, break up again, and even after Sandy tries her hand at dating the star football player (played by a young Lorenzo Lamas) they finally realize they are the ones that they want, all while singing and dancing in a plethora of petticoats and leather. Magnificent. I was hopelessly devoted to Sandy and Danny.

Perhaps being only 10 I didn't get all the dirty parts- like when Rizzo jumps in the convertible with Kinickie and the T-birds and tells them to beat it, asking, "What is this, a gang bang?" Thankfully, completely over my head. Which is why, coming across the movie as a mom watching with a 10 year old of my own, I see the movie with a completely different set of eyes. Never mind the barrage of questions that would arise-

Mom, what's a gang bang?

Mom, what's a hickey?

Mom, why did Rizzo still have sex in the back of the car with Kinickie even though his condom broke and they're not married and what is a condom anyway and how did it break?

And have you ever really listened to the lyrics in Greased Lightning? Oh my.... and I saw this movie when I was 10. My poor mother.

So even if you watch Grease on TV with all the bad words edited out, the message it sends is just about the worst we can give to our tween-age daughters and sons, and for the first time I really saw it. Okay so here's this teen-aged girl and she dresses nice and gets good grades and doesn't drink or smoke or even rat her hair, the perfect daughter right? But she meets the bad boy and doesn't fit in with his crowd and that makes her sad, so she asks her friend Frenchie, the beauty school drop out, to slut her up. And, TaDa! she gets her man. No wonder why us Gen-Xers are so messed up.

I started wondering what happened to Danny and Sandy once their happily ever after really began. She probably got knocked up, they had a shotgun wedding, and one day years later while cooking dinner for Danny, who would be home from working at the auto shop any minute, there's a knock on the door. She sighs, brushes her haphazardly pinned-up hair out of her eyes, steps over the minefield of Matchbox cars scattered through the hall that her 3 uncontrollable boys left in their wake, to answer the door of their 2 bedroom, rent-controlled apartment. And standing there at her doorstep is a vision to behold.......it's (gulp!) Lorenzo Lamas. He's tall, dark, and handsome, having outgrown that last bit of baby fat he seemed to carry in high school. He tells her, "Come with me. I'll take you away from all this.. to California. My grandmother owns a vineyard there and it will be our playground. It's called Falcon Crest." Sandy swoons, "Yes," she says, "It should have been you all along." And they ride off in his Bentley into the California sunset.

Meanwhile, back on the couch with MJ, I say, "Let's save this movie for another time and see who's getting kicked off American Idol instead." Hmmm.... interesting, it was a guy named Danny.

My Betty's For Sale

2010-05-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

A very exciting thing is happening to me this weekend. I'm getting my first brand new road bike. I clarify road bike, because I do still have my Trek mountain bike I got brand spanking new when I was in my 20s. Of course that was when I lived in New Hampshire and I could actually go mountain biking on actual mountains as opposed to here in the Midwest, where it should be called small hill biking. Alas, I've turned to road biking. I've been riding an old Peugeot Mixte, which has a lot of character. This is the term real estate agents use for fixer-uppers.

If you'd like to buy my mixte you can do so. It's a hip bike. And Mixtes have made a comeback in a passionate way. If you don't believe me, check out these testimonies. Peugeot's are one of the most coveted of the Mixte breed because they're the ones that started it all, plus they're French, so you can say my bicycle was made in France, you know where they have the Tour de FRANCE. I never got around to naming mine as others are inspired to do. But if I could name her now I think it would be Betty White, who is also hip and making a passionate comeback, but I don't think she was made in France.

So, as enamored as I am with my french bicyclette, I'm ready to trade it in for something a little more.... made in this century. I've decided on the Specialized Dolce in the compact sport edition. It was a tough decision as I was also looking at the Fuji Finest, but the tougher decision was what color to get it in, because as I learned from the Fat Cyclist, your bike color says everything about you.

So these were my choices:

At the risk of being boring, I'm going with the white. Besides, white handlebar tape means you're fast AND cool. And that's very important for someone about to turn 40. By the way, this is a 40th birthday present from my dear husband. Hey, it was either that or a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Did I make the right choice?

A Short, Short Story by my 8 Year Old -who does not like to write, but who I think may have some talent

2010-05-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Max and the Race Car Driver

One day, or could I say one race, I got in 3rd place. I went and took a rest.

On Saturday, I raced Max, but he was falling down the cliff. I took a legal U-turn. I saved him.

Max is my son. Max said, "I want to be a race car driver". And one day he was. Just like his dad.

Seriously, this story has just about all the essential elements. A great opening. Suspense. Character development- obviously the narrator has integrity, as he took a "legal" u-turn. The plot twist- Max is his son! I did not see that coming. And a satisfying ending. Bravo!

What I've Read Lately

2010-05-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson- 4 stars
Best title award.
Once you get into this book, which it does take a good hundred pages to get into, but then it grabs you by the hair and takes you on one wild ride. A surprisingly dark tale of espionage, murder, mystery, crime, and yes, romance. The characters came to life, especially Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. I just fell in love with her, in a motherly sort of way. The only reason I wouldn't give it 5 stars is because there are long passages that could be eliminated completely. For instance there is an entire page explaining the laptop options available for Salander to purchase after her own was smashed. I didn't really need to know. And some of the explanations of Scandinavian finance were tough to get through, but those were small prices to pay to get to the real heart of the story. I will most likely pick up the next book to see what Salander and Blomkvist are up to.

Joy School by Elizabeth Berg- 5 stars
The 2nd book following the story of Katie, (Durable Goods was the first) a 12 year old girl trying to find her way in the absence of her mother. Elizabeth Berg never disappoints. Every sentence is perfection, so beautifully written, that it makes you say, oh I wish I had written that. It doesn't matter how old you are, Berg has the ability to bring you right back to that awkward time of being 13, so that you remember it with a complex mixture of horror and tenderness.

Left in His Closet by Mary Krome- 2 stars
I won a first reads copy of this for feedback review, which I was thrilled about- But. I'm afraid this read more like a case study written by a psychologist than a novel. The characters just never came to life for me. The dialogue throughout the book felt forced and unbelievable. The plot seemed to be there, and I was intrigued by it and wanted to like it, but it never took off for me. There were quite a few proofreading errors as well, which as a former proofreader I probably pick up on more than others, but it really just frosts me. I was also turned off by the political references. I think the subject matter could be handled in a more compassionate way without mentioning politicians. I read to escape from all that. Ultimately, this book needs more chiseling. I appreciate the opportunity to be a first reader for this book, but sorry it didn't work for me.

Quote for the day:
"When it's new and important, you have to rest in between times. And anyway, even when I like a person there is a weariness that comes. I can be with someone and everything is fine and then all of a sudden it can wash over me like a sickness, that I need the quiet of my own self. I need to unload my head and look at what I've got in there so far. See it. Think what it means. I always need to come back to being alone for a while." -Elizabeth Berg, Joy School

ALA's Most Challenged Books of 2009

2010-05-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

Top Ten:

1. ttyl, ttfn, l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs

2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality

3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide

4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee
Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence

8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Now I have not read all of these so I will only comment on the ones I have. First, yes, I'm a Twilight fan. Don't judge me. But I think I'm going to go back and re-read my copy, because I must have missed all the sex and religion. Oh, maybe because after you read it you want to have sex. That must be it.

One of my all-time faves, To Kill A Mockingbird, really? And because of racism? THAT'S WHAT IT'S ABOUT! Sorry didn't mean to shout.

Cather in the Rye, I read it in my late teens I think, and I liked it. Not sure what age group they are saying it's unsuited to, but if you're talking 2nd graders, then yes, I agree. As a fan of straightforward, Hemingwayesque writing, there are some great passages of literature in this book,

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

Or:

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

And one of my faves:

Mothers are all slightly insane.

Okay one more:

And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.

And the Jodi Picoult one, yowza, that one took a lot of hits didn't it. I've read a few of her books and this was not one of my favorites. I certainly wouldn't ban it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it either, for the sheer depression factor. Read The Pact instead.

Now, I will bash a book that I have not read and that's the ttyl series. How do you pronounce that? Can I buy a vowel? A punctuation mark? Oh! They're texting. Right. Okay, maybe I'm jealous I didn't think to write a novel completely in text. But if one of my kids was reading this, I wouldn't add it to their required reading minutes for school. That's not reading.

So tell me your thoughts.

No. 1

2010-05-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. You may have visited me at my old blog, The Tween Whisperer, but I've decided to put that one into it's much needed final resting place as I have not posted on there in quite some time. It got to the point that everything I could think to write about my kids would KILL me for or at least shoot me with those hate daggers which protrude from their eyes when they're mad at me and are quite effective I might add, at making one feel like the worst mom ever. I know writing about your kids much heated debate in the cutthroat world of mommy blogging. A debate of which I don't wish to take sides on, I just don't need the hassle of wondering if my kids aren't telling me things because they're afraid I'll write about it. Sure I could write anonymously, but all my writer blogging friends tell me that I need to have a blog and hopefully a following before I even plan on sending out my novel manuscript to publishers, so.... anonymous doesn't really work if you're trying to promote a book. Besides the whole anonymous blogging doesn't work long term. Eventually, everyone has to come out of the blogging closet. Just ask The Waiter or the Bikesnob who both unveiled in order to sell books.

So here I intend to share things that turn my head- books, writings, dead writers, living writers, bikes, Patrick Dempsey, 80s movies, 80s movies starring Patrick Dempsey, and yes, occasionally I may wax poetic about the mystery that is the tween.