Category Archives: Books

Pencil Marks

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My husband works out every day in the mid-to-late morning, and he uses our extensive speaker system rather than headphones, which means I can frequently hear what music he’s working out to. Instead of a carefully-curated, peppy and motivating playlist like the one I use, he just has a playlist of “songs that he likes,” which can lead to what I think is an eclectic soundtrack for weight lifting. I find it amusing, for the most part; a Taylor Swift song might follow Enter Sandman, and then we could suddenly be thrown into early-2000s hip-hop, after which is Crazy Train. But the other day the song Buy Dirt came on. I went downstairs and, upon seeing my crying self, my husband turned off the music.

He had the same level of baffled bewilderment as when I talked about White Wine in the Sun, as well as when we watched a recent Joni Mitchell tribute and Both Sides Now was performed. I just don’t get why it makes you so sad, he said. It’s a song about…clouds?

My whole life, I have been very emotionally moved by music, very frequently to tears, and not always are those songs obviously wrenching to others. Some are – Landslide, for example – but others, like Is Somebody Singing or Miley Cyrus’ The Climb can destroy me emotionally because of specific memories associated with them. Usually I can hear at least a few lines or maybe an entire verse of my own personal tear-jerking songs before welling up, but I didn’t even make it to “chasing dollar” in Buy Dirt. I don’t even know if I made it to the lyrics, honestly, before dissolving.

A few days later, when he watched me emotionally decompensate just thinking about the song in our silent house, my Man of Action deleted it from his playlist. I’m sick of it anyway, he said, but I really know he just didn’t want me to accidentally hear it.

It IS a moving song, but I was much more emotionally fragile than I have been in a long while, for a few reasons. Typically every month before my period, I have a day or two of fatigue and disrupted sleep, a couple of hot flashes and an elevated resting heart rate. This month, I have had to date fourteen solid days of that with no period in sight, plus a very upsetting new symptom I had never had before: no appetite. This lasted for days. Not only did I have no appetite, but I had revulsion for food. I love food! I love to eat! I am, like Andy Sipowicz, an enthusiastic eater! But there I was, pushing my pasta around my bowl like a picky child, asking if it tasted weird to anyone else. This lack of appetite was accompanied by an intense, constant, and unquenchable thirst, to the point that I started googling am I diabetic, signs of kidney disease, and is HRT right for me?

This was reason number one for my emotional fragility: I was running on days of poor sleep, a racing heart rate, and almost no food, with a bloated and extended torso from all the water I was gulping down. Not to mention the hormones! Or, lack thereof, I guess.

But there was another reason I was fragile, and that is that my older son left on Saturday for an eight-week solo backpacking trip around Central and Eastern Europe. I am truly so happy for him; we encouraged him in this, and he planned it all so well. It’s something I really wish I had done at his age, and I think it will be such a great learning and growing experience for him. He’s seeing the world! The birdy is really flying far!

But the truth about it, it all goes by real quick. Every single month we all marvel that it’s a new month, how did that happen, time goes so fast, it’s almost May, can you believe it. My god, time really does go by real quick. My son is off seeing the world, all by himself. This feels like a whole new era, and it’s a wonderful new era, but the pages are flying off the calendar at cartoonish speeds.

I have loved every single age and stage my sons have gone through, every one of them. (Even when we were thirteen? my younger son asked. Yes. Maybe even especially then! I have so much love for the growth and expansion of those early teen years.) I am so proud of them; I can barely believe my good fortune. Sometimes I feel like I will literally explode, I love them so much. I will literally explode and all that will be left of me will be a pile of heart-shaped confetti.

When I was a kid I loved the book Jane of Lantern Hill, and I remember reading the part where Jane asks her mother if they could ever stop time. At the time, I thought that was absurd, why would anyone want to do that? I couldn’t get older fast enough. I wanted to be grown, to be autonomous, to be on to the next thing.

Well. I don’t want to stop time, but it all goes by real quick.

I have had some tests and I am confident my doctor, who is a brilliant and progressive young woman, will have some solutions for my physical self. In the meantime, the present moment is what we have, and so I will be over here, sweatily appreciating it. Thank you, body, for bringing me this far in life. Thank you for being a wonderland that is doing miraculous things as my estrogen plummets the depths of the ocean. Thank you, deodorants, for existing. Thank you, modern world, for giving me washing machines to wash my extremely sweaty jammies every day and for the clean tap water that I can gulp down to compensate for this excessive perspiration.

My son has landed safely in Europe to start his adventure. My best friend Tara (HI TARA), whose eldest daughter has travelled solo extensively, texted me with the uplifting message that we raised our children to be independent, so we shouldn’t be surprised when they are. We did! Look at them fly!

Watch their pencil marks and the grass in the yard all grow up.

Weekly Reading

Simple Abundance. My dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) had mentioned this book to me last year, and I decided to start reading the short daily essays on my birthday over the next year. It was a really lovely, uplifting experience. I think it probably would have been a bit better had I started in January as the book intends – each month builds on the months before – but it was still a wonderful reminder to look at the simple things in life and take joy in them.

Wilderness Tips. his is a reread, but it’s been a while! There are some really great stories in this collection, and in my current state of mind I was particularly moved by the last paragraphs in the last story, Hack Wednesday.

When The Cranes Fly South. DO YOU WANT TO READ A SUPER SAD BOOK THAT WILL MAKE YOU STARE OFF INTO THE DISTANCE FOR A LONG TIME? This is the book for you! In retrospect, maybe not the best choice for this past, emotionally fragile week. Wow, it’s sad. An elderly man, whose wife is now in dementia care, lives alone with his elkhound dog, and has home care come in four times a day (this is Sweden, and such things are realities! Yay Sweden). His son, quite rationally and reasonably, thinks that the giant dog is really too much for the situation. After all, the old man sleeps most of the day, the dog gets very little exercise, and he’s worried the old man will fall when he’s taking the dog out. Very reasonable and rational. But also, the dog is the man’s main companion and great love. As the man snoozes the day away, he dreams about his long life; his loving mother and kind of awful dad, his move to Northern Sweden as a young man, meeting his best friend and his wife, and his son’s childhood. It is a very moving story about breaking cycles, new generations, love, and what matters in life. Fun fact: this is translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies, and that was the name of one of my great-grandmas!

Zero-Sum. Before he left, my older son was telling us about his Managerial Economics course, and – as my husband and I both have Masters in Economics – I was extremely interested. It sounded like Managerial Economics was similar to Industrial Economics that I took back in 1996 or 1997. In any case, game theory featured heavily, which was very exciting to me. And then, my library holds came in and Zero-Sum was one of them! It was like my very own Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Anyway, I have never before read Joyce Carol Oates, which seems like a grave omission. Every short story in this collection contains a zero-sum game, and it is absolutely fascinating and almost breathtaking in its literary creativity. The writing is just so smart, and every story is such a brilliant and interesting topic. Some of the stories were a bit dystopian/ horror based for me, but most of them were diabolically good.

I am going on my own, much less exotic adventure this week: a road trip to visit my parents. That is, if the weather-warning level spring snowstorms stop for a couple of days. Hopefully there won’t be any avalanches! In the meantime, take care of yourselves and I’ll see you next week – when it will be May. Can you believe it? xo

Spring Cleaning

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Bye Bye Birdie

Several months ago, a bird decided it had enough of this cruel world, and kamikazed into our bedroom window. At least, I think that is what happened. I was startled to see a gigantic, bird-shaped splotch on the window, complete with feathers and, how shall I put this delicately, intestinal waste. I immediately ran downstairs and outside, but alas. I could not find the corpse. Possibly the bird did NOT shuffle off this mortal coil but instead survived, but I do not see how. Another possibility is that the body ricocheted far enough away that one of the resident coyotes had a little Circle of Life snack. The one thing I do know is that Rex did not eat it, as he did not have any of his own intestinal waste issues, Rex being a sensitive-stomached big galoompa.

However, this avian disaster occurred at the very start of the cold weather, which precluded the use of the pressure washer, and try as we might with long-handled squeegees, we could not clean it off. I have assuaged my feelings about the minor splodge that is still there by cleaning all the downstairs windows that I can reach with only my outstretched arm and a two-step ladder. I cope by averting my eyes when the sun is shining in that window which, since it’s west facing and I really only use the bedroom to sleep, fold the laundry, and have sex, I don’t see that often.

You can’t see the splodge for most of the day.
But if you look close, you can see a feather.

Heating Things Up

My friend Gigi (HI GIGI) had mentioned recently that she used the self-clean function on her oven, with great results. I have used the self-clean function exactly once, probably fifteen years ago. I thought it would be a great activity on a frigid, minus-30 January day in Calgary. This was not the very worst idea I have ever had, but it is up there, Steve. I did not realize that a) the house would be filled with terrible fumes and, due to the cold I was not able to open the windows without becoming hypothermic, and b) I am terrified of fire and the fact that the oven gets SO HOT was very frightening to me. I waited for the cycle to either finish or for me to perish in the house fire that would surely happen when the oven blew up.

Since then I have mostly used Easy-Off “fumeless” sprays and what my mother calls Elbow Grease to clean my oven, but since moving here almost three years ago I tried to use the Aqua Clean function on my new oven. My mother-in-law has this function and swore it was life changing, but either my oven is inferior or I cook much messier items because I don’t think it works well at all. I think it’s probably the latter; 80% of my oven use has to do with roasting vegetables that have been tossed in oil, which makes things stickier. After almost three years with this oven and dealing with the disappointment that is the Aqua Clean function, I am back with the Easy Off and Elbow Grease method.

Dirty Floors No More (or not much)

In addition to the windows and the oven, Rex also got a spring cleaning!

This will have positive trickle-down effects to the rest of the house. The fuzzier he is, the more dirt, sand, and gravel collects in his paws, to be slowly released throughout the house post-walk every day. He also loves rolling around in the grass, and his thick fur holds onto little leaves and grassy bits, also to be deposited randomly everywhere. I vacuum, and often mop, daily because otherwise we would be living in filth. I’m hoping his haircut will extend the period between vacuuming to every 36, or maybe even 48 hours. Of course, the first thing he did after I drove him home from the groomer’s was to roll around under the grapevines, meaning that his pristine cleanliness lasted exactly 17 minutes, possibly a new record. Well, as I say to my husband when he complains of dead patches in the grass, you can have spotless floors and a perfect lawn OR you can have a dog, and I CHOOSE JOY.

For a dog who really hates being wet, Rex loves the groomer. She is a tiny woman who probably weighs less than he does; she told me that after grooming dogs for 25 years, Rex is the first that she doesn’t have to harness or physically wrangle. She merely tells him to turn, and he does. I do not know how this happens, but everyone at the dog salon refers to Rex as the groomer’s “boyfriend.” When I phone, I can hear multiple voices in the background saying that her boyfriend is coming for a visit. Hilarity ensues. Listen, I am just happy Rex enjoys being groomed, so I just smile when the groomer greets him with a “Hello there, big man.” If it works, it works.

Weekly Reading

Three very buzzy books this week – but one did NOT deliver.

Half His Age. Ninety-nine percent of this book, which follows a 17-year-old girl and her affair with her high school English teacher, is heartbreakingly sad. Against the backdrop of the affair are bigger themes, like consumerism, intergenerational trauma, and acceptance of people for who they are. The ending was hopeful and the writing is fast-paced, almost frantic, which makes for an easy and engrossing read. I did appreciate and enjoy it, but it is full of very gross and graphic details, so be warned if you are prudish or squeamish.

Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage. This memoir is a cautionary tale for all women, to make sure that they know what is going on financially in their marriage. Hoo boy. When we were travelling in Morocco, an older gentleman said to me of the people in the village, “We’re all the same the whole world round, we all just want to take care of our families, be safe, and to have a bit of fun once in a while.” He was talking about villagers who did not have a whole lot in the way of material possessions, to say the least, but I think it applies to everyone, even the very wealthy and privileged, to which social echelon the author belongs. She is the granddaughter of Babe Paley – shoutout to anyone who knows of the Swans of NYC – and was the recipient of generational wealth from both sides of her family, although the discovery of her father’s $40M debt when he died perhaps shows how inherited wealth can mean revert. Anyway, her husband of over 20 years left her a few weeks into the pandemic, in March 2020, and can we talk about all the marriages that ended during the pandemic? It was a real thing. So this man leaves her as he was having an affair, but just…leaves. No explanation. He doesn’t want access to their children. Just…nothing. The book revisits their lives together as she searches for a reason which, by the way, she never gets. She never gets a reason her husband left her, other than “I didn’t want to be married to you anymore.” I literally said, out loud, “NO DON’T DO THAT” many times reading this as she a) changed the prenup against the advice of her lawyer so that she would get NOTHING of any money accumulating throughout their marriage that wasn’t in joint names, b) doesn’t get involved in their finances, c) DRAINS HER TRUST FUNDS TO BUY THEIR APARTMENT AND SUMMER HOUSE AND PUTS IT IN BOTH THEIR NAMES. Don’t do that! Her husband accumulated millions of dollars throughout their marriage and, of course, put it all in his name so because of the prenup she was entitled to nothing. It’s easy to scoff and say that she’s so rich, she could just sell the homes once her husband leaves her with very little financially, but that’s not the point. The point is this woman was ruined emotionally and nearly ruined financially by what seems like a sociopath of a human. The book is nuanced, well-written, and poignant, and it comes to some beautiful conclusions. I couldn’t read it fast enough! I loved it. As a woman who gave up her career to take care of the children, I can really empathise with her. She trusted this man and he ruined her. ALWAYS KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE FINANCES, PEOPLE.

Judy Blume: A Life. When I heard there was a biography of Judy Blume coming out, I did something I very rarely do: I preordered the hardcover. I waited, seething with excitement. Judy Blume! I love her! Then when it arrived a friend alerted me to some controversy surrounding it, namely that Blume was NOT endorsing it. The author says that Blume offered pages and pages of notes, almost all of which he rejected. I guess for his “artistic vision?” I don’t know what specifically Blume did not like about this book, but I am going to speculate that she is not endorsing it because it’s SO BORING. OMG. I would have DNF’d it but I BOUGHT THE HARDCOVER. And it was just the dullest read. I guess this is why I prefer memoir to biography, the latter often is just a dull factual read without any emotion. I’m so annoyed that I now have this EXPENSIVE book in my collection that I will never read again. Chalk this up as one of the most highly anticipated and ultimately disappointing book in my collection.

Tomorrow is my birthday! My first year as a 50+ woman has been great, honestly, and I’m looking forward to the year ahead. I hope you are all having a beautiful week. xo

Modern Miracles

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This spring I’ve felt something akin to survivor’s guilt when I see the weather forecasts coming out of Calgary, and in the rest of Canada in general: heavy snowfall after heavy snowfall. I almost feel guilty that things are in bloom and I’ve been out in the garden for weeks! We have had a dry winter and spring, so hopefully that doesn’t spell doom when it comes to forest fire season. Well, there’s no point mentally rehearsing for bad things to happen; either they will happen or they won’t, I don’t need to dwell on it. Instead I will just focus on what’s in front of me.

Speaking of not mentally rehearsing for doom, the news continues to be objectively horrible and frankly terrifying. Recently both my friends Suz and Bijoux (HI SUZ HI BIJOUX) gently reminded me that whatever happens in 2026, our great-grandmothers had it much worse. I think there’s room for both feelings: gratitude to be living in the modern age where we have such luxuries as the vote and refrigerators, and sadness that the current masters of the universe are insane, evil clowns who value human lives just slightly more than they do mosquitoes.

But Suz and Bijoux are right; my great-grandmothers’ lives were extremely hard and full of tragedy. One of my great-grandmothers died in childbirth, and another had a number of unspeakable hardships imposed on her by the various men in her life. And the only thing worse than having oppressive, unkind men was to have no man at all – my grandma was widowed in her thirties, with no money and six kids aged twelve and under. Life was, to put it mildly, not easy for her. Two of my grandmas had babies who died, and all of these women lived through the Depression and World War II.

Meanwhile, here I am, brushing my dog’s teeth.

They also had to do laundry by hand, and if there is anything that should make us grateful to live in this moment in time, it’s the invention of the washing machine. Of all the household chores, the laundry is the absolute easiest to deal with: dirty clothes are put into one machine and then, wet clean clothes are transferred to another. It’s magical! It’s a miracle of the modern age!

My husband’s grandmother, in whose house we now reside, worked for a time at the laundry in the hospital, and if there is a more physically taxing, miserable job than that, I don’t know what it is. Just think of all those heavy soiled sheets and blankets and towels, being washed by hand on a scrub board, and then wrung out and hung to dry. Imagine the state of your hands. Just doing laundry for a household would be difficult enough, what with the hauling and heating of water, and the misery that would be diapers. But working as a laundress in a hospital setting? I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Adjacent to the daily appreciation I feel for my washing machine – “He worked hard, Grandpa.” “So do washing machines.” – is the immense gratitude I have for running water. Isn’t it amazing that we have it? So many things have to happen in order for us to have clean, running water: scientists work to ensure that it is safe to drink and workers put that science into action, infrastructure is conceived, built, and maintained to transport that water to our homes, which are plumbed and equipped with heaters so that, with the merest touch of a finger, we are served with water whenever we want it and at the exact temperature we desire. It’s truly a daily miracle. For so many centuries, this was not the usual thing. For so many centuries, a simple bath was an enormous undertaking.

My life is soft and luxurious by any standard, but in comparison to my ancestresses, I might as well be the Princess of Wales.

What was good about them? my mother-in-law once said in response to someone’s pining for the good old days. She’s not wrong. There have been rapid technological changes not just in my lifetime, but also in that of my children’s, who were born before smartphones, streaming, and the maps feature in the car. I remember the wild feeling of being able to pause live television, and the idea that if I like a song, I can simply listen to it on my phone. But just think of the advancements that came into being in our grandmothers’ lives. For one thing: indoor plumbing. Imagine the enormous quality-of-life boost that our grandmothers had when they went from outhouses to indoor bathrooms. I am not sure where this fits on the scale of running water to washing machines, but it’s up there, Steve. A few years ago, I checked the website for the campground at which my family reunion was to be held, and I noticed that they proudly advertised modern flush toilets. It was honestly a selling point to me. Who wants to live without modern flush toilets? Not me. Now it’s become a family joke; whenever my husband books accommodation for a trip, he lets me know that there are modern flush toilets.

I am an optimist by nature, but I do need to take care not to veer into toxic positivity. Earlier this week I wondered if we were indeed going to see a nuclear war, and at least we have toilets was not as cheering as one might think it would be. If my obsessive listening to The Rest Is History has taught me anything, it’s that there have always been despots and atrocities, there have always been men in power who behave terribly, and everything passes. Everything passes, and hopefully we learn and grow, globally. I listened to three episodes on Operation Barbarossa and the Battle of Stalingrad, and all I could think of was Stalin versus Hitler. Stalin versus Hitler! I need say no more, we can all draw our own parallels. I will leave it there and go pour myself a glass of water from the miracle that is my kitchen tap.

Weekly Reading

Stay With Me. This book was a wild ride, and I was here for it. Set in Nigeria against the backdrop of political instability and military coups and resulting dictatorships, it is the story of a couple who have been unable to have a baby. The man’s family decides it’s time for him to have a new wife, and pressures him into a polygamous marriage. The only way for this polygamous marriage to be dissolved is for the first wife to become pregnant – which she does, in kind of a shocking twist. The shocking twist gets stranger as the book goes on. I liked this book a lot but it’s definitely a twisted story. I read a surprising number of books that are set in Nigeria, and every time, I feel grateful to be in Canada.

Any Other Family. I picked this book up on a whim and I’m glad I did. The premise is a bit complicated: a young and incredibly fertile woman has four children who she has chosen to put up for adoption, due to her youth. The four children are adopted among three sets of parents, and the birth mother is involved. It’s all like a big extended family. While the three families are on vacation, the birth mother calls to tell them that she is, once again, pregnant, and will also be giving this one up for adoption. The story is about how the three adoptive mothers cope with the news and with the newly expanding family; it is a triple POV story. Despite the confusing and somewhat unbelievable premise, I was immersed immediately and very invested in the outcome. I kind of wish we could have seen the birth mother’s POV, but maybe that could be a follow-up book. This was really well written and completely engrossing.

The spring air really does give me a feeling of hope and optimism; my little arugula seeds are sprouting, and flowers are popping up everywhere. Now, will I be devastated from opening my news app as soon as I publish this? Maybe! But at least we have washing machines. xo

Crazy Plant Lady

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Early in January of this year, I found myself looking thoughtfully at a Costco display of two-packs of jade plants. I was soon joined by my husband who, since retirement, likes to accompany me on my semi-monthly Costco trips. He asked suspiciously why I was looking at the plants, adding, not unreasonably, that we really didn’t have space for any more in the house.

I had something in mind that I had been pondering about for months, but there is something you must know about my husband: he is a Man of Action. I tell him nothing until I am ready for Things To Move, if you know what I am saying. Some examples of things that I spoke about casually and that materialized fairly rapidly are the Peloton and our home gym, a trip to Morocco, more closet space, a new house, every small appliance in our kitchen, and garden beds. I had only to say I really like raised garden beds and then, like a cartoon character leaving a pile of dust in its wake, my husband was out sawing and hammering and shovelling soil into the resulting six beds that he made with his own hands, erecting fencing material around it to keep out the deer.

So I didn’t immediately tell him what I was thinking, which was that Noelle, my beloved but non-blooming Christmas cactus, was at the end of her life, along with her sister and shelf-mate, Stella the star plant, who never really recovered from her move here in 2023. Some of you may be thinking so what, plants die but you are not seeing the depths of my feelings on this subject. Noelle is symbolic of many things: my friendship with Denise, who gifted her to me when she moved out of the country (HI DENISE), my relationship with my younger son, who is the same age as Noelle, and my entire life prior to moving here. You might be thinking that this is a lot to put on a houseplant, and you might be right.

In any case, I knew. I knew the way you know about a good melon, but in this case it was the way you know that a part of you has changed forever and life must, as it does, go on.

And so I bought the two-pack of jade plants, after telling my husband that It Was Time. To his credit, he did not express the glee I’m sure he felt at not having to see the slowly-dying plants every day. He asked me several times if I was sure, was I ABSOLUTELY SURE that I was ready, and I was. He took them out to the shed, never to be seen again.

Shortly after, my younger son came home from work, to find me silent and trembling in the kitchen, chopping vegetables in a deeply sorrowful way. Tears sprang to my eyes and my voice cracked as I told him the fate of Noelle and Stella. He nodded very seriously and then said, so gently, the way you might speak to a very sad child, Those new plants look nice. Are they twins or just sisters? Twins, I shakily told him. Do they have names? Jane and Jennifer, I said. Those are nice names, he said, while I burst into tears at the thought of Noelle and Stella, alone at the bottom of the compost.

The twins are beautiful, as are the rest of my plants, of which I have probably pathologically intense attachment to.

Alice, the aloe, was given to me as a mere sprig from Aunty C (HI AUNTY C) and has since grown into a happy monster. She resides on the kitchen windowsill beside Eva, the snake plant.

The other, much larger, snake plant is Sabrina, who enjoys her spot by the piano, and the gnomes who live with her.

Christy, the unknown plant given to me at Christmas from my friend Darlene (HI DARLENE) was covered with tiny white flowers when she arrived. A few months later, she shed her flowers and started to establish a lot of new growth, so much so that I think she’s going to need a new pot.

Beside her is Pippa, the pepperpot plant, who is a recent and much-loved addition to our home. My friend Tara (HI TARA) brought her as a hostess gift only a couple of weeks ago.

Finally, Anna the amaryllis was given to me by my friend Sandi (HI SANDI). After she bloomed I cut her back, and now she’s all leafy again. I’m going to try to get her to rebloom next year and will hopefully not have some kind of breakdown if she dies.

There is no Becoming. I Have Become a Crazy Plant Lady. I refer to the plants collectively as The Girls, unless I’m talking to one of my sons, in which case I refer to them as Your Sisters. Even for me, this seems unhinged, yet I am not willing to make any changes to make myself seem more sane. There are worse things than being a Crazy Plant Lady, and, in any case, gardening season has begun and I have started planting a few rows of seeds in the aforementioned handmade garden beds. In other words, Crazy Plant Lady is taking her show outside.

Weekly Reading

I devoured this book that follows an Australian woman living in London over a ten year period. If you know me, you know that “the extraordinariness of ordinary life” is my favourite kind of book, and that is this – relationships and motherhood and finding oneself across the political backdrop of the UK from 2013-2023. There is a truly incredible cast of characters, and the book is hilariously funny and also incredibly moving, all at the same time. I doubled over crying laughing a few times, only to have my breath taken away by the emotional depth a few pages later. I loved this so much.

“It’s not a whorehouse. It’s a whorehome.” 

Workhorse. I am mixed. The author worked at Vogue for seven years in the early 2000s, which is exactly the time period of this book about an absolutely atrocious slob of a young woman with zero moral compass and questionable personal hygiene who – despite those things and also her complete inability to converse like a normal, non-cringey person – lands and keeps a job at a high-prestige magazine (i.e., Vogue). On the plus side, there are a lot of juicy inside-baseball details about magazine culture during that time, in which I am genuinely interested. On the minus, OMG this is long. It is WAY too long. At 552 pages, it could have been cut in half and been a snappy, exciting book. The plot is good! The ending is good! If it was cut back, it would be very good! As it is, it is a “tell, not show” book, a writing style which I do not admire, and it is all a little on the nose. Also, in addition to the immense, unneeded length, there are a lot of weird little editing misses: girls referred to by their hair colour, which changed from one paragraph to the next, someone graduating from Columbia when the paragraph before says that person went to UPenn, that kind of thing. Disbelief must be suspended as the main character not only does not look the part (i.e., not only is she a cheaply-dressed hot mess, she is a size six, which in Vogue world is just not acceptable), but she lies on her resume and although there is a hint that there might be repercussions, that thread never gets picked up. No matter. If you’re into juicy details about early 2000s magazine culture, and if you want to settle in with a doorstop of a book, this is for you! Like I said, the plot IS good and I liked the ending.

Wherever You Go, There They Are. This was published in 2017, and as I read it I recalled that the 2010s were a really hot time for books of essays written by B-and-C list celebrities. You don’t see them much anymore, or at least, I don’t. Probably they all have podcasts instead. Anyway, many of these essays were a big dull to me, but there was an absolutely killer one about MLMs, which is another thing that was hit in the 2010s and I don’t see much of these days. Thankfully! I haven’t had a “hey girl” message on Facebook from an old schoolmate for a long while. I admit I picked up this book about the author’s dysfunctional family thinking “I’ll see you and I’ll raise you” but no. She wins.

Have a beautiful week, friends! xo

Fear of Flying, and Rats

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I was walking with Rex along the greenway, looking around me at the scenery. Rex stopped to sniff and I took that opportunity to really embrace the zen of the moment, noticing the swelling buds on the tree, the rushing of the creek, the beauty and glory of nature. After a moment, I realized we had been standing there for longer than a normal sniff. I glanced down at Rex to see him smelling a large dead rat.

How the rat shuffled off this mortal coil was a mystery, as it did not seem injured in any way, other than being dead, and how it came to be lying in the middle of a very wide walkway was also a significant unknown. Prior to my reverie about the wonder of the natural world, I had been listening to a podcast episode about the book 1984. The hosts had just gotten to the part about Winston and the cage full of rats, and I did wonder, absently, if I had somehow caused this dead rat to materialize with my own thoughts. Am I manifesting dead animals now? Am I moving them onto the walking path with my mind?

In addition to the horror and the question about manifestation, I also had gratitude, as I hurried Rex away, for two things: a) that Rex isn’t Barkley, who would have surely eaten the rat, and b) that this didn’t happen earlier in the week, when we had a leash mishap.

On Monday – Rex’s fifth birthday – we had an incident which was much less psychologically traumatizing, but significantly more painful physically. We were walking along when I saw approaching us a gentleman I have seen many times before, accompanied by his very reactive dog. Rex is generally either friendly or disinterested when we encounter another dog, unless that dog is reactive, at which point he becomes Giant Angry Rex.

So I brought him in close to me. I use a waist leash, so I can really put my body weight into controlling 102 fuzzy pounds. I started speaking softly to him as we started to pass, and probably it would have been fine had the other dog not suddenly lunged towards us, snarling and snapping. Rex lunged back and at that moment, the clasp of his leash broke, and the sudden release caused me to catapult backwards, not unlike a cartoon character. I landed, full force, on my right sitz bone, halfway down the slope off of the walking path.

It was kind of a disaster. The man called out Sorry! Are you okay? but couldn’t help me, because his dog was going bananas, and now Rex was loose. Fortunately, the man hurried away and Rex realized I was down for the count. He sat beside me, Lassie-like, until I could get back on my feet. If I had landed slightly differently, I likely would have fractured my tailbone, but as it was, I just bruised myself. It reminded me of the strength-training adage thick thighs save lives in terms of staving off osteoporosis, but in this case it was juicy booty to the rescue. Since it happened so quickly, I didn’t try to break my fall, which was fortunate, as in breaking my fall I would have probably broken, or at least sprained, my wrist.

Another issue now arose. The clasp, which was probably slowly wearing out over time, was completely broken on Rex’s leash, and now we were halfway through a 5km loop. I couldn’t really have him unleashed, so I had to jerry-rig his leash around his harness and hope for the best. If he had pulled – or encountered any kind of dead animal, rat or similar – my tenuous hold on him would probably have, like hell, broken loose.

Of course I immediately purchased a new leash the moment we got home.

Between a flare of plantar fasciitis in my right foot and an extremely sore right sitz bone, it’s been a bit of a painful week. The seated part of my yoga practice has been tricky, to say the least! But it’s a vindication for strength training, which I hate, but do grudgingly for my bone health. I guess I’ll keep at it, grimly lifting and lunging and doing all those boring things, just in case I end up flying through the air again.

Weekly Reading

After rereading The Age of Innocence, I realized that I had never read The House of Mirth! I think it is the best Wharton – it follows Lily Bart, a woman whose face is truly her fortune, and who keeps trying to punch above her weight, socially-speaking. It’s a brilliant illustration of the plight of the woman without independent means, and how marriage was, ultimately, an economic decision. I really loved this dramatic depiction of the downfalls associated with not marrying wealth while young and beautiful, and how Lily’s worth was, ultimately, tied up in her appearance and social standing.

I went to get the mail this weekend, and what awaited me there could have knocked me over with a tiny feather quill.

My dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) had sent me her Jane Austen figurine! And because such a lady cannot travel unaccompanied, she was escorted by these two fellows:

I don’t actually feel worthy of such generosity, but I will take care of her – and the gnomes – with all my heart. Thank you, Michelle! What a lovely, unexpected joy!

I can hardly believe that we are at the end of March – I hope it’s lamb-like for all of you. Take care, friends. xo

A Big Celebratory Day

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I was at the library the other day, and the woman at the checkout very warmly thanked me for “bringing in my library card today.” My “you’re welcome?” must have sounded exactly the way I felt, and so she started to explain that not everyone brings their cards in, and pointed me to a little sign, heretofore unperceived by me. The sign gave numerous helpful hints as to how to remember to bring your library card to the library, such as putting your card with other important items, like a credit card or house keys. I tried to imagine a scenario in which I strong-arm the librarians into lending me books without a card. It’s one of those problems that I never would have guessed was a problem.

I met a former sex worker while in line at Superstore. I have many interesting conversations while grocery shopping, but this was the most fascinating. The woman was about my age, with shortish light brown hair, large glasses, a stoutish figure, and a fairly plain face. She was wearing a long down vest overtop a hoodie. In other words, she looked just like anyone you might see shopping at Superstore, and the only difference was she had a very fancy-looking bag made out of fur. She informed me it was from a fur coat given to her by a client when she was eighteen, but it didn’t fit her anymore, so she had part of it turned into a purse. It was a reminder to her to be grateful that she could pay for groceries without turning tricks anymore. Actually, her exact words were It used to be $125 for a suck and a fuck, but things are more expensive now. I’d have to do a lot more to pay for this! Grocery costs, am I right? Honestly, it was kind of inspiring. She wasn’t ashamed of her past, she did what she had to do to support her children, and now she had moved on in life.

Speaking of gratitude, today is a very special day! It is not only our 24th wedding anniversary, but it is also our older son’s 22nd birthday. It’s also Rex’s fifth birthday, and honestly, that is a lot of things in one day. Since Mondays are our son’s busiest day, we celebrated yesterday with a dinner out and, of course, cake.

What a joy to have this spiky-haired fellow in my life, what a gift he gave me when he made me a mom.

My husband and I have never really celebrated our anniversary on the actual day – this is a result of spending one’s second anniversary on the labour and delivery floor. That said, we have many exciting plans for this, our twenty-fifth year of marriage. My friend Laura (HI LAURA) recently discussed the unique features of long marriages, saying growing old with the love of your life is both an honor and marathon of patience, and there is a beauty in it that you never expected, and I agree.

I read The Five People You Meet In Heaven in 2003, and even though we had been married only a year at that time, a paragraph stood out and stayed with me. Marguerite said something about the bikini bathing suits the young girls were wearing and how she would never have the nerve to wear such a thing. Eddie said the girls were lucky, because if she did the men would not look at anyone else. And even though by this point Marguerite was in her mid-40s and her hips and thickened and a web of small lines had formed around her eyes, she thanked Eddie gratefully and looked at his crooked nose and wide jaw. The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet.

It’s one of the simplest, but most touchingly beautiful paragraphs about marriage I have come across.

Of course, I know many of you will wonder how we celebrated Rex, and I will merely reiterate what I say at Christmas: every day is Christmas for Rex, except actual Christmas. He is a creature who revels in sameness and predictability, and is much less happy when his daily schedule is disrupted. For such a big galoompa, he has an incredibly delicate digestive system, and he is also a fussy eater with a long memory. In other words, should we give him a very special treat, even if he can eat it without resulting in my grimly cleaning up after him and regretting all my choices, he will expect it every single day from here on out, and is likely to hunger strike when given his regular food. So we celebrate Rex by giving him the love and regular treats he gets every day. Every day is his birthday! Except his birthday.

Weekly Reading

If last week’s reading theme was Straight White Men, then this week’s is Grief. I am grieving that I actually read the entirety of one of the books, let me tell you. I should have DNF’d it.

The Unexpected Journey. In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I picked this up thinking it was a memoir. It is NOT. It is a prescriptive manual on caretaking for individuals with various forms of dementia, and I believe that there would be good takeaways for anyone caring for terminally or chronically ill people. There are some very sobering statistics regarding the toll this takes on caregivers’ health, and some very encouraging words about accepting help and caring for oneself while caring for others. It’s an easy-to-read book, very simply and clearly laid out, and I can see this being a very good resource for anyone who is a caregiver, particularly of a person with cognitive decline. It wasn’t right for me, but it could be very useful for someone else.

How To Lose Your Mother. I read Fear of Flying years ago and I remember exactly two things from it: a lot of chlamydia, and the “zipless fuck.” The author of this book asks us to imagine being the only child of Erica Jong, the woman who brought us the concept of the zipless fuck, where two strangers just come together and fuck, no strings, and almost no words. The author also says that she has no compunction – none! – in writing about her mother, since her mother wrote about her for her entire life. And this is where I have a problem, not with the tit-for-tatness of this book, but because the author states that she loves her mother MORE than a daughter has EVER loved a mother, and that the two of them are closer than ANYONE could EVER be. Those statements are followed by what is quite honestly a grim and disturbing account of life with a dementia-addled narcissist. I don’t blame her for her resentment and bitterness; by all accounts Jong-Fast had a very unhappy childhood with a neglectful and distant mother, one more interested in exploiting all her relationships than having loving ones. But the details of her mother now – SHE IS STILL ALIVE – are awful. Jong-Fast writes about her mother losing control of her bowels in bed, never showering, and drinking all day long. The best-case scenario that I can think of is that Jong-Fast needed money to keep her mother in what she calls The Most Expensive Nursing Home In The World, and so she wrote this gross and mean memoir to get some cold hard cash. The worst part about this book is the writing. It is very poorly written. It reads like a collection of unedited Morning Pages. The sentences are jerky and abrupt, the story, such as it is, is disjointed, and it is SO repetitive and full of name-drops. If we had a drink every time she wrote “since I got sober” or dropped a big name, we would all be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning before the second chapter. The is an affront to every aspiring author out there who is struggling to get published. This is the problem! Nepotism is the problem! AND I CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PROBLEM BY READING THIS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. Well, I did it, so you don’t have to.

Promise Me Sunshine. I needed a palate cleanser after the last book, and this delivered! This was such a sweet and heartwarming read; a romance between two people who are learning to live again after the loss of loved ones. It is a truly lovely musing on the nature of grief, and how we can lose someone beloved but also keep their memory in our hearts. The characters were charming and well-written, and the whole book was – despite, or maybe because of the sadness – delightful and warm.

I have a exciting and social week ahead of me, friends, including a visit tonight from one of my dearest friends! I hope you have a beautiful week, and I hope spring is springing for you. xo

Dissociation

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History, Repeating

I seem to be dissociating from current events and the world at large, and this dissociation is manifesting in strange ways. I have entirely eschewed my old self-care and beauty podcasts in favour of either Sweet Valley High recaps OR extremely detailed historical analysis of terrible world events. My downloads are unhinged. An episode of Elizabeth’s desire to go to boarding school in Switzerland is followed by a graphic explanation on the mechanics of crucifixion, both of which are topics I have thought about since I was a child. A four-part series on the causes, effects, and economic impacts of the American Civil War is followed by deep dive into the book Secret Admirer, when a prank personal ad in the Sweet Valley Oracle, which leads to some awkward encounters and hurt feelings. I honestly don’t know if I’m losing my mind or saving my sanity.

If you’re wondering, the exact cause of death from crucifixion is a combination of dehydration, exhaustion, and suffocation. Also, birds had a field day with the eyes and genitals of the crucified. On that gruesome note, which may or may not be appropriate for Lent, I will move on.

Let Us Be Elegant Or Die

Speaking of the American Civil War, my son gave me this puzzle for Christmas.

The border is made up of quotes from the book, and it has one of my all-time favourite quote, one that I have thought of lo these forty plus years since I first read Little Women.

The full quote is dear me, let us be elegant or die and I think about that at least once a week while getting dressed.

Another quote that has been burned on my brain since childhood comes from Anne of Ingleside, which is one of my least-favourite Anne books but contains one of the funniest scenes of all time. Here’s the setup: Gilbert’s aunt, Mary Maria, comes for a visit, and ends up staying for months. Seasons pass, and this houseguest – who is passive-aggressive, rearranges the furniture, and dramatically takes to her bed with the slightest provocation – is STILL THERE. Anne, with her usual determinedly joyful outlook, decides to throw Aunt Mary Maria a surprise party for her birthday, which is NOT well received by the birthday girl, who is incensed that now everyone knows her advanced age, which is fifty-five. Fifty-five! Anyway, she leaves in a huff, to the relief of everyone. But the quote I have thought of all these years comes when Susan, the housekeeper, has made four cakes. She says “When we give a party, we give a party.” I think of this literally any time we have people over. We give a party. If only I had four cakes!

In that book and the previous one, Anne’s House of Dreams, we are introduced to one of the greatest character in all of children’s fiction. Her signature quote, “Isn’t that just like a man?” is something I think of every day of my life.

Long Island Compromise?

My friend Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) was writing about workouts and the feeling that it is a constant cycle of hard work and exhaustion with no clear end game. I have mentioned before my downward trajectory, where fitness is concerned; it can be very disheartening. But on the other hand, practicing non-attachment and having zero goals when it comes to fitness can be very freeing. I suppose that’s an inaccurate statement; I don’t have ZERO goals. My goal is to continue to be mobile, ambulatory, and to heft my own carryon into the overhead compartment on a plane. If I ask one of the guys to empty Rex’s 35 pound bag of dog food into the lidded container, it’s because I’m lazy, not because I can’t do it. All of these things are a bit nebulous, and they lack the urgency of a specific outcome by a specific time.

The nebulous goals and non-attachment are working well for me, so that I can just enjoy the time I spend walking, practicing yoga, or on the Peloton. A few weeks ago there was a woman on the leaderboard with the name McKinzieWithAnI, and I read that as McKinzie With Anal. Wow, I thought, That’s really advertising your preferences until I realized that it was a spelling thing.

It must be fairly common these days to go through life with that particular verbal tic of spelling one’s name immediately after divulging it. Back in the Sweet Valley High days, it would be mostly confined to Sara(h)s and C(K)atherines, with the occasional C(S)heryl, although I have had to specify the no H spelling in my own name a few times in my fifty years. I also automatically say “That’s M-A-C” immediately after divulging my last name. I would assume that automatic spellings would be the norm now: is it Jaxon or Jackson? Cailen or Kaelin or Kaylyn or Kaelynn? Ciaran or Kieran? Ashley or Ashlee or Ashleigh? Madeleine or Madelyn or Madilynn? McKenzie or MacKenzie or McKinzie? With an I!

Weekly Reading

The world is upside down. Let the record show that this week I read – and enjoyed – not one, not two, but THREE books penned by male authors. And not just male authors: heterosexual white male authors. I know what you’re thinking. Finally, FINALLY, someone is giving straight white men a moment in the sun! Let’s hear it for the boys!

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon. A holiday romance in March? The heart wants what it wants, or, more accurately, the library holds come in when they come in. Let me tell you, this book is an absolute delight. It was just pure happiness, this story about two widowed people who, dreading the first holiday seasons without their respective spouses, strike up a friendship by watching holiday movies together. OBVIOUSLY the friendship becomes more than that, but this book is more than that too – it’s about love and loss and grief and how no marriage is perfect. Plus there is a dog named Harry Styles. How can you resist? Yes, I know it’s March, but this holiday romance is perfect any time of the year. It’s delightful, no notes.

Abundance. Did I follow a holiday romance with a non-fiction book about unaffordability and the climate crisis? Yes. This is an excellent, well-researched read about some big issues facing the US, namely the housing crisis, climate change, and shortages of all kinds. It delves into the economics of progress and the failures of institutions to focus on forward movement. It’s well-written and accessible. Also I learned that cement production is responsible for 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions. 8%!!! I had no idea.

Brideshead Revisited. I confess I would have never picked up this book about a disillusioned army man who comes across the estate of a large country house during World War II, and finds himself reminiscing about his complicated and extensive relationships with the former inhabitants of that same estate, had I not heard it mentioned on The Rest is History. Evelyn Waugh (ROUGH name for a man, I am sorry to say) wrote this while on medical leave from the army, and so it feels rather like auto-fiction. Which perhaps shows that Waugh was not quite as straight as one might imagine, given the storylines. Also, he had married a woman named Evelyn, which would lead to some awkwardness, I would think. Anyway, the book itself is quite entertaining, if you’re interested in English country life in the 1920s and 30s, which I am.

Wow, I do not know if I could have gotten three more different books this week!

How are you coping with things, friends? I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves. xo