Fine Print

I’ve been meaning to post in a nice, cogent manner for days now, but this cold is getting me down. So it’s all SNEEZE and HACK and WHINE and weird dreams in which I pick a fight with Courtney Love, but she turns out to be stronger than I’d thought, then we make up and she gives me a dress, then my mom gets pissy because I took Caleb to Courtney Love’s party because it’s not appropriate, Jenny.

Stilll with me?

--I read this book that I love, love, love. It’s a literary mystery: Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern. It came out a while ago, but it’s new to me. Plot-wise, it’s about an autistic boy who goes into the woods, something traumatic happens, and he regresses. The perspective is mostly his mother’s. But really, it’s a novel for anyone interested in mysteries, autism, motherhood, and/or the way children interact with one another, in ways both kind and terrifying.

--Caleb brought home a diorama yesterday: a winter scene with a red bird hanging from the ceiling, the floor a winter wonderland of cottonballs. He wrote an acrostic (where the first letter of every line spells something) with it.

Wow!
I think it’s cool
Live
Die

Like,
It’s hard
For life and death
Eat worms

Interesting juxtaposition of tone and content, sure. But what this makes this a ground-breaking acrostic is that the author actually considers the perspective of Life and Death—and then concludes with the unknowability of it all: Eat worms, indeed.

--

Dolly: awesome. Amy Sedaris: awesome. Lyrics: not my cup of tea. Because if I went to friend one Sunday night and was crying, and she responded by saying, “If I had a violin, I’d play” …I might suggest a place where she could put her cup of ambition.