I chose Him Her Him Again The End of Him by Patricia Marx. Never heard of it, never heard of her. But the spine is a houndstooth print (ARE YOU READING THIS, BOOK MARKETING FRIEND?) and I thought the title was interesting. Also, there is a blurb on the front from Steve Martin. (If I wrote a book and Steve Martin had occasion to say loud enough so that someone wrote it down, “This is a horrible, horrible book. Don’t buy it. Don’t even check it out from the library. You will get cancer and die alone if you even think about this book for very long,” I would put that in big letters on the cover and just put my name really small, maybe on the back page or something.)

I will do you like the narrator does the reader and not describe anything about it; the narrator hates descriptions, which is a clever way of skipping a bunch of stuff while writing the book. But it is funny, and if you think the passage below is funny, you’ll like the book. Maybe! I don’t want to ruin whose funeral the passage concerns, so I took his or her name out.

“Time for the eulogies, I guess. There is a pretty young thing on the podium–let’s say we don’t imagine what her connection to [person] is. She is reading a poem by Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson or Auden or Keats or Byron or Kahlil Gibran or one of those guys. Maybe you don’t feel this way, but I think it is cheating to read a poem at a funeral. Do your homework or sit down is my motto. Anyway, the girl continues reading, slowly and deliberately in that poem-reading voice people use. Something, something, death, the winds that blow, death, death, sunlight, end o’er the road, heaven above, something, doth die, something something, [person] dead, but then I don’t listen anymore” (193).

Just a note: if the phrase “doth die” didn’t make you snort a little, you may not find this book funny. What about this? “The party after the show was at the new chic place, an innovative steak house called What’s at Steak. There was no steak on the menu. That was the innovation” (117). Yes? No?

*The movie was The Kids Are All Right, which is a story for another day. Another day when I want to get angry over really dumb details. In related news, the weekend after this, Larry and I went to see Inception, and people: it is sad when the sci-fi action movie is way better than the sensitive lesbian drama.

Also the print is really small. However, squinting at the captions of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and muttering comments to myself is worth the cost of my subscription. Sign me up for life! When I’m 90, I’ll fall asleep and drool onto my latest issue with Tom Selleck on the cover which I’ll have read with a magnifying glass. (Of course, it will be a special spage-age magnifying glass which my grandchildren brought me when they took me to lunch in their flying car.)

I am passing this tip on to you out of love and respect for non-mauled peaches, friends.

He doesn’t mean that “everyday” is like Sunday. He means “every day” is like Sunday!

“Everyday” means hohum, commonplace! “Every day” means “each day.” I have tried, oh, how I have tried, to adapt the meaning of this song to make Morrissey grammatically correct. But it doesn’t work.

First off, the way he pronounces “every day” is clearly two words. He kinda stretches it into four: ev-er-ee daaaaaay.

Second, this is stupid, as “everyday” is an adjective. This means he is singing, “Hohum is like Sunday.” Wouldn’t he mean “Sunday is hohum” instead, if he KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT? It almost works with “everyday is silent and gray,” but I’m not convinced.

I feel strongly that both Keats and Yeats would disapprove.

SOMEONE IN MY WORKPLACE HAS AN ANNE MURRAY RINGTONE STOP
YES THAT’S RIGHT
I SAID AN ANNE MURRAY RINGTONE
I JUST THOUGHT YOU WOULD WANT TO KNOW STOP

ALL MY LOVE
SALLY

I like bargain shopping so much I started a blog where I posted the stuff I got for super discount (cargo pants at Banana Republic for $5.97 each? yes, please), but it bored even me, so after a few posts, I abandoned it. I now just have to bask in the memories of my discount purchases instead of having them documented. Pity!

A few weeks ago at Books-a-Million, they were having a sidewalk sale and for my [insert relative here]’s birthday, I bought a book of True Stories by People Who Engage in the Same Hobby [He/She] Does, which was my favorite price: one dollar. Bonus: it didn’t even have the black marker on the bottom that indicates “I am a remainder, and unloved.” A week later, I received a thank you note; along with the thanks, [insert relative here] included the news that [he/she] got a Kindle for [his/her] birthday. Sigh. One less person I can buy a dollar book for.

What I really wanted, anyway, were some of those Sunkist Fruit Gems. My grandparents sold individually wrapped ones at their store once upon a time, and man, those were delicious (and you could totally eat more than two without your tongue feeling like you spent several hours licking some asphalt). I haven’t seen those in a really long time, but if you see them, let me know where.

Television has been so good these days, and I’m enjoying not feeling burdened by tons of stuff to watch. True Blood is insane and amazing, Mad Men is broody and quiet, Bethenny Getting Married? has provided me with more entertainment than I thought possible from a Real Housewives spinoff. Seriously: I have laughed aloud, I have cried tears on more than one occasion. It is weird. I have also gotten sucked into the pretty poorly written Rizzoli and Isles just because Angie Harmon, despite her Republican ways, is just so pretty. I have terrible standards. And Top Chef is good! And Project Runway just started! Television is my oyster!

My birthday was this week, and you know how on Facebook you see it’s someone’s birthday and you think about leaving a comment but then you think “oh whatever, it’s just a Facebook birthday greeting, it doesn’t matter if I say anything or not”? It turns out it was still incredibly nice to hear from randoms on the occasion of my 37th birthday. My favorite was from this boy who I COULD NOT STAND in middle school and high school, who accused me of stealing candy from him and cheating off of his tests (I did not steal his candy; I did cheat off his tests). That guy wished me a happy birthday.

I also discovered that the all-staff-signed-this-because-we-made-them birthday card at work was nice as well. Who knew? I keep opening it and laughing, thinking about some of the people who were forced to tell me happy birthday even though they probably can’t stand me.

II.
Mix has just explained how on her one train ride, she was told where to sit, which was next to one very large woman and across the aisle from the two large women the first large woman was traveling with.

Mix: They were SO ANGRY that I was sitting there, but I couldn’t help it! The conductor guy told me to sit there!
Larry: They were probably imagining you with paper shoes on your feet.
Mix: (Polite laughter) Ha ha ha (looks at me like what the faaaaack is he talking about?).
Larry: And with, like, smelly steam coming off your head.
(Pause)
(Pause)
Mix: OH, LIKE THEY WANTED TO EAT ME! LIKE A CARTOON!
Me: (cannot breathe from laughing) (sits on coffee table to keep from wetting pants)

This continued to crack me up for several days. Mix laughing when she didn’t understand Larry, his bizarrely vague descriptions of a cartoon person trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey in someone’s imagination…it’s up there with the time I read this over and over, becoming more and more hysterical with laughter with each read.

Have you ridden a train recently? If so, did it go through the Mississippi Delta? Friends, you’re missing out on a real treat. Not only can your stomach be rocked into a state of abject misery, but look out the window, if you will, at the beautiful countryside! Wait, it’s beautiful on one side, anyway, the way the land is flat for miles except for the kudzu-covered trees rising up like monsters, but what’s this on the other side? Oh. Huh. Look at that. It’s flooded and half-burned trailers. Falling down houses. Crumbly businesses with vines grown up over the doors. Old men sitting in chairs in the front yard, watching you go by. The most bowlegged child you have ever seen. If you happen to be listening to Elliott Smith, congrats! You are now filled with a desire to throw yourself in front of the train, which will delight the people on the side of the tracks, as nothing ever happens where they live.

I read this book based on the awesome cover. It was funny! And sad. And made me feel weird. Is that a good thing? I can’t tell.

I was telling a friend the other day that the algorithm for a book getting on my to-read list is this:

positive mention in the New Yorker or NYT
+
positive mention in Entertainment Weekly

This is why I am reading The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Marketing! I heard your cries! (Fine: I don’t know the difference between an algorithm and a formula, ok?)

Oh, she’s going to back up in a minute when she realizes she won’t fit, I thought.

She did not. She pulled in and turned off her engine.

I could open my door, but not by much. I had to do an attractive tip-toe sideways dance to get past her supergigantic SUV.

She was on the phone. I stared at her until she looked at me.

“Your car is too big to park there,” I said. “I could barely get out.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m only picking up an order.” Because that makes it better, you know.

I walked ahead of her, looking at her reflection in the glass doors, waiting for her to flip me off/tackle me to the ground. I could hear her on the phone still.

“Um–what was I saying. Ok, then he said, wait. What? I lost my train of thought.”

I really thought that telling her that she was a dumb parker would make me feel better, but it just made me feel like an asshole. As I stood in line to place my order, a drop of water from the air conditioning vent hit me on the head, confirming that the universe agreed.

Last week I read Ann Beattie’s Walks with Men. I don’t think I’m smart enough for Ann Beattie. There were lines that were like shiny gems, and then there was the rest of it. I’ve never read her before, so maybe that was the problem. Another person I’ve never read before is Jane Smiley, but I’m reading her latest, Private Life, now. Usually when I get books from the library, I give them a few pages to see if I’m going to like them and then I get way too excited when I get to toss one aside and never think of it again. I’m on page 104 of Private Life and still can’t decide if I’m going to read it or not. Every time I think, oh good, this is going to go in a direction I find boring, something else happens and I’m compelled to keep reading.

I am having to talk myself off the Ledge of Annoyances lately and remind myself that other people’s dumbness should not adversely affect my mood. One of my pet peeves is when someone pulls out in front of me dangerously close (even though there are NO cars behind me and they only would’ve had to wait for 15 additional seconds for me to pass by) and I honk at them and then they get all bent out of shape for pointing out that they are driving stupid, so then they gesture wildly in their cars, getting angrier and angrier, like HOW DARE YOU MASH YOUR CAR’S NOISE-MAKING IMPLEMENT! DON’T YOU KNOW I AM ABOVE SUCH REPROACH? Once I honked at someone on the highway for trying to kill me and 20 miles later, they passed me and all the children in the car were hollering and waving their arms around at me. That’s like 20 whole minutes of continuing to be angry because their mama can’t drive.

But besides drivers, I am having to actively write notes to myself as reminders to not be affected by other people’s negativity and complaininess, which makes me feel like a hippie and/or my high school English teacher, who writes stuff on her Facebook page about the beauty of the moon and how the trees are whispering and stuff.

I don’t believe you ever stop loving anyone you ever really loved. You have them there like money in the bank just because you loved them and held them in your arms or dreamed you did. You can forget a lot of things in life, but not that honey to end all honeys.

OH ELLEN GILCHRIST! I still love you.

Since Larry was miffed, he was 0% interested in going through the boxes with me, and thus missed out on my existential nightmares as I opened each box. It was beyond depressing to open a box and find all the cards my parents’ friends sent them when I was born. What in the HALE am I supposed to do with those? Giving them to me places the burden on me. I wouldn’t have cared if my mother threw them away, but now they’re MINE and oh, hell, I kept them.

Things that were easier to get rid of: a blue duffel bag (that I won for selling eight zillion Girl Scout cookies in 1982) filled with Cabbage Patch Kid clothes and the matching shoes, which never fit well anyway, and were kind of melted and greasy. I will admit that I saved one outfit for the Cabbage Patch Kid that Spike plays with/tolerates. The duffel bag lingered in the keep pile before I decided it was stupid to keep it since I forgot it existed until five minutes ago. It smelled exactly like 1982.

As a child, I used to buy super-clearance baby clothes at Marshalls and TJ Maxx for my dolls, and man, am I glad I did, because today I am the proud owner of the most hideous striped velour shirt for a 6-month old in all creation. I am only sorry that I didn’t find it when it would’ve fit Spike (but if you have an infant you would like to torture, you are welcome to borrow it).

In unrelated news, I bought a new bottle of nail polish this weekend, and it brought me more joy than I imagined possible. Apparently all my other polish is also from my 1982 duffel bag, and painting my nails has been a laborous struggle. This new bottle, however, is like a dream! Thanks, $4 nail polish, for restoring my faith in…nail polish.

GORJUS, STOP READING NOW. YOU’LL THANK ME LATER.

Something that did not restore my faith in anything was reading Beth Ann Fennelly’s poetry collection, Tender Hooks. I wanted what the book flap promised: that Fennelly would be “fearless in delineating the joys, absorptions, and yes, jealousies of new motherhood.” Awesome! Sign me up! I love joy, absoprtions, and yes, jealousies! Oh, God. For every interesting or beautiful observation, there was an asshole. A literal asshole! The book is full of assholes. This particular line, from “Telling the Gospel Truth,” which imagines Mary giving birth to Jesus and the animals all around her, sent me over the edge: “Let the puckered stars of their assholes flex and soft wads of shit fall to the hay” (69). I just don’t think the poem would’ve been harmed by a kindly editor quietly suggesting a different turn of phrase for that.

I’ve been thinking about my reaction to this book all weekend. People, I love a good poop story (btw: Spike pooped in the tub the other night for the first time! HORRIBLE), but “soft wads of shit” doesn’t contain striking language or imagery. It’s just a soft wad of shit falling next to Mary’s head. Also: “wad.” Why is it there? Was Fennelly’s intention to make me say “OH GOD” and write a blog post about it? If so, well done, madame! I think the real reason is to say: “childbirth and motherhood is a dirty, nasty business — and I can prove it. Also, do not lump me in with Emily Dickinson!”

P.S. I have many feelings about last night’s True Blood, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.