Edgy Mama

I haven’t written about books in a while because, well, I haven’t had much time to read lately. I read daily, of course: Asheville’s newspaper, the NYT website, plus multitudinous blogs, and miscellaneous magazine articles, but my fiction time, my time with others’ created universes, has been sadly limited recently.

Before I had kids, if I went 24 hours without spending at least one of those hours immersed in a good novel, I’d feel seriously in need. I was an addict and fiction was my fix. Now, I think wistfully on those days. If I manage a chapter before falling into a deadish heap on my bed at night, I’m lucky.

Nor have I managed to keep up the booklog on my website. If you look there, it seems that I haven’t read a book since August. Which is not the case. Too many websites, too little time.

So far, 2006 has not been a banner reading year, from both time and amazing fiction perspectives. I have read several novels, but none stand out, and I don’t like to denigrate others’ work. As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve written a novel, you’ve accomplished something remarkable, regardless of whether it’s amazing or not.

But several days ago, I happened upon an amazing novel. When I’m reading a really great book, it feels a lot like falling in love. I’m obsessed. I can’t wait to get back to the book. I think about it at inappropriate moments, like when I’m chopping vegetables or driving carpool. Often, I dream about the book. I can get excited just thinking about it and when, o when, I’m going to be able to escape, just me and the book, to a quiet, private corner. Unfortunately, like love, this state is rare.

But I’m experiencing this altered state of endorphin-enhanced being this week. I’m reading Elliot Perlman’s Seven Types of Ambiguity. This novel has grabbed me, sucked me in, made me fall in love.

Thank you, Mr. Perlman, for making Seven hefty, because I’m going to be sad to finish it. It will be like ending a love affair. And even though I know I can go back, it’s never quite as exciting the second time around.

I’m typically loathe to write about novels before I’ve finished reading them, because they can peter out and disappoint in the last pages (or in the last hundred). But even if that happens with Seven, even if I lose interest or become disillusioned before the affair has run its course, I will have had a memorable ride.

I’m off to read–just me and my book, in my soft, warm bed.

How cute is that laughing baby in my Blogads? That baby makes me so happy that I think I’ll ask that advertiser to stay here forever. And keep paying for my blogging habit. What a deal, yes? Happy babies, cashola, and blogging, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

So we’re clear, though, Ashvegas is NOT easier than childbirth. Not at all. I haven’t quite figured out how to divide the two ads more distinctly. Eddo, baby, where are you? O, you’re cheering on the Mavs. Right.

Our hood Memorial Day potluck just ended, with sweaty fun had by all, as it is suddenly, inexorably, summer here in the Blue Ridge mountains. I live in one of those Norman Rockwell neighborhoods where folks come together regularly bearing food and drink, their children and dogs behind them, and then we all sit around and gossip for hours while the kids tussle and the dogs harass the cats. And we drink. Well, most of us drink.

My kids are already covered in scabs, scrapes and bruises and they’ve only been in shorts for a week. Yeah, I changed the subject. Because pnavistan-area gossip is not fodder for this blog. Not while I’m still part of the “in” crowd. If I’m ousted, all dirt is fair game. So don’t piss me off.

All of this random nattering leads me to think I should stop writing and go to bed. Though I’m still sweaty. Until another day, my pretties. Perhaps I’ll have some solid story telling or opinion reports or righteous rants for you then. But not tonight. Tonight is for sleeping and dreaming. And sweating some more.

Update: For those of you who are confused, it’s a different baby in the ad today! He’s cute, but I want the laughing baby back. I had no clue that the photo would change. Technology today.

Ashvegas photographed and blogged about a band listed their influences on their website, and, thus, inspired me to create a similar list.

Here, for your delectation, in no particular order, are a few of my influences: Alice in Wonderland, grandparents (mine and yours), dark chocolate, magnolia trees, Michael Chabon, the Blue Ridge mountains, REM, Shakespeare, Cyprus, men with nice grins, micro-brewed beer, John Irving, fear, turkey feathers, Eleanor Roosevelt, carpe diem, fast rivers, my kids, the national anthem, Kurt Cobain, joy, French impressionism, the American Civil War, Stephen King, comic books, the New York Times, Dr. McAlexander (college English teacher), my parents, Ansel Adams, cats (particularly orange tabbies), cute guys, Thai food, bloggers (too many to name–you know who your are), William Butler Yeats, yoga, girlfriends, nachos (okay, ANY Mexican food), bluegrass music, love.

Yours?

If you are interested in old building renovation and cool design, check out this story I wrote for today’s paper.

Did I mention that E-spouse and I heard Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (Daily Kos) and Jerome Armstrong (My DD) speak at Malaprop’s a couple weeks back (and you think I have a long name? I only have five syllables).

The boys were promoting their book: Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, which I somehow did not buy. Although I will. Because, hell, these guys are geeky blogger dudes and now they have a book deal. Hurrah! In fact, you know you’ve made it as a blogger when you get to travel around promoting your book while paying someone else to write your blog for you. THAT. IS. THE. LIFE.

So, Screwy finally e-mailed me this photo of me and Markos. Markos said it would make his wife jealous. Though it’s not one of my better photos. Which is good as I don’t want to make his wife too jealous because she has a cool blog called Mother Talkers, and while I tend to bristle at the label “Mommy blogger,” I do like a bit of Mom dish sprinkled in my daily reads. And Mother Talkers has a nice mix of parenting news, opinion, and rant.

Markos is a cutie though, isn’t he?

From the mouth of my four-year-old: “Mommy, did you know that the kids at school today thought it was raining, but it really wasn’t. It was turtles, up in the sky, tinkling. Because that’s what turtles do when you hold them up. They tinkle. Like rain falling down.”

As we’re walking down the sidewalk, he points to a flower bed and says:
“Mommy, mommy. Look. We have that at home!”
Me: “That plant?”
Him: “No, no. Look. That brown stuff!”
Me: “The mulch?”
Him: “Yeah. The mulch. We have that at our house!”

Snuggling in bed with him this morning, he looks at my chest and says:
“Mommy, what’s that hole?”
Me: “What hole? Is it a mole? Is there a hole in my jammies?”
I try to examine my chest from his perspective.
Him: “No. That hole between your nursies.”
Me: “Oh. That hole is called cleavage.”
Him, laughing: “Cleavage?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “Mommy, cleavage is so beautiful.”

Someone–whom I will not name at this time, though I might spill its name under duress or in exchange for a back rub–someone said I had better post something sexier than what’s on my desk (see below).

So, here are my anemones:

The Believer Magazine, a funky, fun, overly-literate, literary zine, often asks writers to describe their desks. It’s a bit like asking someone to describe their refridgerator, which I used to do, for fun, while conducting job interviews.

Quick, describe your refridgerator. Do you focus on the outside or the inside? The shape or the contents? The color or the artwork? I tend to move from the obvious to the less so–my refrigerator is black with a bottom freezer. It’s littered with photos - mostly of children, artwork - mostly by children, funky magnets, and the phone numbers of six different pizza restaurants. A pig-shaped bowl made of lava sits on top of my refridgerator.

I have no idea what, psychologically, this says about me. But it’s intriguing, for some reason.

My desk is more interesting than my fridge. My desk represents, to me, the one small bit of space in the house that is truly mine, besides my underwear drawer.

My desk is a small, old-fashioned wooden one with a drop-down desktop. My grandparents gave it to me for my 12th birthday. It sits in the corner of my living room, next to the front window. Out of the window, I can see two large dogwood trees, lots of liriope, a pink peony, and my Honda hybrid. And, today, the neighbor’s recycling bins.

On the top part of my desk is a lamp, also gifted me by my grandparents. The lamp consists of a pillared gold base upon which sits the bronze statue of a child, draped in a toga. The child holds an open book in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Above my desk is a framed silkscreen print from Sri Lanka of an elephant. It was a wedding gift from a friend of Enviro-spouse’s who married a Sri Lankan woman.

On my desk are more gifts, including: a basket packed full of monogrammed note paper, two small leaf-covered journals bound with twine, a silver and glass, flower-shaped vase stuffed with turkey feathers, clay figures of a bird and of a cheetah with a baby cheetah on its back (I only know that’s what it is because my daughter made it), a lucky three-legged Chilean pig, a clay nest containing five clay eggs (made by my son), a pig-shaped frame which holds a photo of my kids.

The non-gifts on my desk include: a tray of writing implements, a bowl of paper clips, several reporter’s notebooks, a digital camera, and various piles of to-dos, notes, and ideas. And, of course, my laptop.

Next to my desk, on the floor, are piles of papers, files, newspapers, a basket full of business cards and contact numbers, and a printer. I’m sitting on a glorious, but dilapidated, dining room chair, part of a set that was in my grandparents’ home. The stuffing is coming out of the seat. I often find large wads of cotton stuck to my backside.

I have no idea what’s in my desk drawers.

This is my corner.

Yours?

1. Alcohol. There’s a reason it’s called social lubrication.

2. Stir the pot. If your spouse has told you any juicy stories, spill them to the appropriate people:”Hi Heather, I remember hearing about you. You were John’s girlfriend on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Who was Mondays and Wednesdays again?”

3. Make up stories: “The movie rights to my novel were just optioned by Spielberg;” or, “You didn’t know I met E when he was a traveling male stripper?”

4. Be the designated photographer. At the end of the night, mention that you have a blog that gets 10,000 hits a day and that all photos will be posted by the next night. Including the ones of the guy who left his wife behind with the kids and spent all night dancing with his high school girlfriend, and the ones of all the “social” smokers hanging behind the tent.

5. Flirt. With the cutest guys from your spouse’s class. e.g.: “Hi Joe, I just heard that you have an amazing tongue. Can I see it?” If that isn’t lively enough, make a pass at your spouse’s high school girlfriend. When she’s surprised, say: “He never told you we were bi?” If she’s not surprised, have fun.

Caveat: I am not in any way saying that I did any of the above at E-spouse’s high school reunion. Oh no. Not me. Okay, maybe a little of number one and number five. But I did enjoy standing in a corner thinking about all of this. And more.

E-spouse and I are heading off to the wilds of Ohio for his 20th high school reunion tomorrow. We’re leaving the kids behind with their grandparents.

Ahhhhhh, three nights of uninterrupted sleep (E-spouse, are you reading this? Focus on that word: UNINTERRUPTED. No hallucinations. Please, please, please).

Also, three days of no cooking, no cleaning, no picking up toys, no breaking up fights.

But, no warm kid snuggles, no silly uncontrollable giggle fits, no chocolate-smeared faces, no illogical, creative, random kid conversations.

But it’s all good. After all, they are so damn cute when I’ve been away from them. And I’m a better parent for the break.

I’m not taking my laptop. I know. Try not to faint dead away from the shock. But the time we have is pretty booked up already, and the time that isn’t booked with friends and former classmates, I want to spend reading, walking, and being.

My Mother’s Day present was a gift certificate to Asheville’s cool indie bookstore, Malaprop’s, so yesterday I browsed there, searching for the perfect airport companions. I first settled on Elliot Perlman’s Seven Types of Ambiguity. I wouldn’t typically chose this book, given the hoity title, but I vaguely remember reading something amazing about it. Also, it seems like it might be exactly my kind of read–a literate, edgy, psychological thriller. Oh, and it’s about obsessive love. Who doesn’t want to read about obsessive love? Haven’t we all been there?

The second book I chose is a collection of short stories called Bottoms Up: Writing about Sex. I’ve been writing some short erotica lately, but I realized that I haven’t read much. I chose this collection because it features a couple writers I know and like: Michelle Tea and Robert Gluck. Also it was published by Soft Skull Press. I have no idea who they are, but I like their name.

So, that’s what I’m going to do when I’m not talking to various members of the class of ‘86. Read about obsessive love and sex. Walk around Cleveland in the rain. Maybe take a few notes, on paper, for next week’s rocking blog posts.

Happy weekend, all.