Let Me Entertain You

Or not me, exactly. Mama needs a new computer, and I got some work to do. But in the meanwhile:

--Ms. Tracy Mayor has started blogging. Do you know Tracy Mayor? She's on staff at Brain, Child and has brought you hilarious things like this, and smart and well-researched things like the feature we ran on birth control for mothers. Good golly, I love her work. And really, I love just gabbing with her on the phone. Go ahead and start reading--you can say you've been there since the git-go.

--I was at the bookstore last night, trying to prove something to myself: that you can find books that you've never heard of and that they will be good. Well. I wound up with Jincy Willett's Jenny & the Jaws of Life. (I know, other, more with-it, people have actually heard of her.) Two hours later, I'm on the couch and I think the right for it is "swooning." I'm trying to read slowly. Savor it, as the positive psychology experts would say. Just read the home page of her website. I told you so.

--For my birthday, Brandon and Caleb got me the latest TMBG. To be honest, when Brandon and I went to the concert in May, I was a little annoyed that the band played so much off its new CD. I need time to learn the lyrics, so as to better shout them at the top of my lungs. But I'm loving the new album. This clip has the extra bonus of watching a man take the world's longest swallow of water.

Can I Get a What What?

So, I'm reading a little New Yorker yesterday afternoon, this great long piece about bonobos, a type of ape that used to be mistaken for chimpanzees and who are sort of mythologized as a groovy bunch of peace-loving, matriarchal, bisexual, anti-chimp creatures. Then the writer slips this in:

"Female spotted hyenas dominate male hyenas, but they have the muscle to go with the life style (and, for good measure, penises)."

I got all distracted. I'd meant to write a lovely feminist, armchair-evolutionary-biologist post on the mythologizing of women and how, I believe, women can be assholes just as men can, but with for good measure, penises comes up and...Jesus.

It's My Birthday, Too

When I turned fifteen, my friends threw a surprise birthday party for me. Fifteen is a strange age--it was for me, at least. (Although, really, I've been known to claim that nearly any age is awkward. How does a 23-year-old dress professional but not frumpy? Is 34 too old to still have yourself a good giggle at names like Richard Stiff?). I was the kind of fifteen-year-old who still had parties with streamers and cake at my mom's house, and no thoughts of trying to score alcohol or the drugs. I had a mad crush on a guy two years older named Johnny.

Johnny had taken my best friend and me to the movies to see RoboCop that summer, sort of by accident, the thing kids do in suburban Virginia. He was driving around our subdivision; we were walking around. We knew him from marching band. He had a long-term girlfriend and was well-liked by everyone. He played the bass drum. After the romance of RoboCop, well, my heart leapt just to see his car.

I got home on this fifteenth birthday, and all the guests shouted their surprises. Johnny was there, with his smile and his strawberry blond mullet. (Oh come ON, everyone had a mullet then.) He'd graduated long ago, I'm pretty sure, from parties like mine to things having sex and drinking, but he was there IN MY HOUSE, and he'd brought a present: a fishbowl with a fish for me. (It will say nothing good about my maturity when I tell you that when the fish died, I kept it in the bowl for longer than is considered "not creepy" because it had come from Johnny.)

I still have pictures from that party, including one that he and my friend Jeff had taken of themselves. Johnny's mouth is open and he's laughing. I spent the rest of the summer looking at that picture, wanting to grow up already.

That was the first birthday where I'd had an age-related epiphany. I realized, with Johnny's sudden appearance in my mom's kitchen, that he was not, alas, a realistic romantic prospect for me. He was older and popular and looked very strange among the same sort of streamers that we'd put up just a few months ago when my little sister Jill turned four. It was only later that I realized how kind Johnny was to come, to put himself in the awkward situation of being The Crush Who Totally Made The Girl's Birthday, the person she has in mind when she blows the candles out.

It's been twenty years. I'm blowing out candles tonight, and to be honest, I'm a little amazed that I can still conjure up the girl I was then. My small epiphany this year is that I have grown up, that at thirty-five, I'm more or less the person that I will ever be, that unless I'm willing to break people's hearts, this is the trajectory of my life. I'm not a heartbreaker, and more than that, I'm not especially interested in changing the trajectory. I like being a grownup and what's going down around here.

At the same time, though, I've been a little sad to acknowledge the dimming of that feeling that anything was possible, the sky wide open with the potential of anything, from my becoming a doctor, the president, a lawyer, right on down to being able to parlay a platonic viewing of RoboCop into a splashy love affair.

This morning, though, my grandparents called me to sing Happy Birthday, which is the absolute highlight of every birthday. "Thirty five," my grandma said. "I wish I were thirty-five."

"Thirty-five is the best time in your life," my grandpap said. "After that, things could get better...or not. But thirty-five, you have everything you need."

I'd planned on wishing for something that rhymes with schmestseller. But now, I'm thinking that maybe it's time to switch gears, to stop yearning for The Next Big Thing. Basically, to celebrate.

Rising Third Graders Tackle Philosophy

I swear to God, I did not set this up. I was reading a room away from Caleb and his best friend yesterday when I overheard this. (It was following a discussion about a classmate whom Caleb's best friend claimed was 96% perfect.)

Best Friend: If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice?
Caleb [in cranky old man voice]: What?
Best Friend: I said, if practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice?
Caleb: Practice also makes better.
[Silence for a moment.]
Best Friend: Let's ask the Magic Eight Ball if [name redacted] picks his nose.
Caleb: Okay!

Better Now

As it turns out, reading did the trick. I'm not quite done with it yet, but if you like yourself a literary mystery, may I recommend Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand? The jacket flap: "Patricia Highsmith meets Patti Smith when a down-and-out photographer and relic of the '70s NYC punk scene travels to an island off Maine in search of a reclusive and iconic artist." It's gritty and it is good.

Speaking of gritty--or kind of raspy and adenoidal, as the case may be--yours truly has been on the radio for Practically Perfect. Both Debbie Mandel and Deborah Harper have these fascinating shows. Have a listen, if you're so inclined, here, and here.

Note to Self

This morning, I was on the back porch when I heard a woman calling, kind of frantically, "Jenny! Jenny!" Hardly anyone calls me Jenny anymore (just my family and old friends), but my heart sped up and my face got hot and I leaned over the porch.

"YES?!" I yelled out. I am here! Please identify yourself and your emergency! And also why you're being so familiar with me!

Turns out, our neighbor was calling for her German Shepard, named Jenny. It's been a full day like that, what I call the twisted-glove feeling in the book. I'm twitchy, ready to ignite with adrenaline at a moment's notice. No good reason.

I've tried to do a little meditation. I've tried to live in the moment, enjoying my lunch with Brandon and Caleb. I'm going to dig into one of my books that I bought on the trip down South. Mostly, though, I'm trying to just be okay with it. Inexplicably crappy days happen. They also end. Preferably, in this case, with a nice, cold drink.

Carolina on My Mind

I went to Charlotte because my sister Krissy, whom you might know from Chapter 3, lives there. I love Krissy for many reasons, but one is that I know that I will have a good time around her just because she's Krissy. Here is a picture of her looking sassy:

We stayed at Krissy's and her husband John's house; Caleb and I were in the room that had the Wii (which was exciting for Caleb) and the bed with the pink pillow on it (which Caleb requested be removed, and sooner rather than later).

I think, maybe, that Charlotte must be some kind of mecca for excellent people. I read at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and Jamie, the event coordinator? Excellent. The discussion at the bookstore? Excellent. Krissy's posse of ladies? Excellent.

And Jody Mace? Who's a frequent contributor to Brain, Child and who I always thought ran a damn fun house? Excellent. I got to meet Jody and her family. I've been reading about her kids since they were little, and it was strange (in a good way) to meet them in person. The whole family's charming--and Kyla has this thick, gorgeous hair I'd kill for.

Thanks to everyone who made this book tour all that I'd hoped it would be. As a wise duo of men once said, you make-a my dreams come true.

And Krissy? For now, we'll go on living ... separate lives.