Friday Boxes and Belly Aches: No Books

Well, the movers are coming for 90% of the stuff tomorrow. As of this writing, we're about 75% packed. A week spent in boxes doesn't yield much reading time so no books today.

After an excellent dinner with my friends C. and N. last night, I woke up at 3:00 this morning with the worst stomachache ever. I should say that seeing C. and N. was excellent, but the dinner itself, Pad See Ew of course, tasted a bit burnt. I'm better than I was, but still not totally recovered from the misery that is food poisoning. I'll never know if it was the culprit (my friends are fine) but sadly my Pad See Ew days are now over. My N. assured me that I will eat Thai food again and then lovingly went out at 7:30 AM to procure Coke, Ginger Ale, Tums, Saltines, and Gatorade. I'm confident that I'll be fine for the movers and going up to NH tomorrow, though. Even though he's getting a little predictable, I'm looking forward to listening to the new David Sedaris collection When You Are Engulfed In Flames during the drive.

I'll have a review of that and full recap of our moving adventures when we return to our cavernous Brooklyn apartment sometime around Tuesday. Till then, have a good weekend and feel sorry for Malice who's absolutely beside himself at our imminent departure.

Jersey Boy: Strangely A Post That's Not About Me

Congrats to N. for finishing a whopping 6 years commuting to and from New Jersey! I thought about figuring out the number of miles and hours you put in slogging from Brooklyn to central NJ but I don't want to depress you or my 4.5 readers.

For those of you who don't know, N. had a really rough commute for a less than stellar teaching environment for a less than stellar salary. And you know what? He didn't complain about it. I know, it's crazy since I've been known to complain about the hair on my left pinky toe or the texture of a piece of cheese, but N. would get up at 5:30 AM to get to Jersey by 8:00, teach a 5 hour class, have office hours, maybe have 20 minutes to scarf down a mediocre Quik Check sandwich at his desk, and then teach another 5 hour class. After that, he'd finally drive the hour-if-you're-lucky home only to spend 20 minutes looking for a parking spot. He didn't have any of the heaps of time off that other academics get either since the terms began anew every eleven weeks. Despite all this, he never complained. I know, I'm a lucky woman.

He will have to drive to work in NH but it will be a simple 30 minutes down the comparatively empty highway to a beautiful school with a real art department, traditional students, and an actual cafeteria where he might get to eat some kind of human lunch. Plus, no night classes! And no more looking for parking since our new place comes with a driveway!

Here's to a job well done, N. And here's to better schedules, less traffic, and more satisfying classes in your NH future!

Ants in My Pants

There was just, no joke, a bee flying inside my pants. It's very unnerving to hear bzz-bzz and realize that it's coming from between your thighs. Especially if you're inside your apartment. All is okay as of this writing although I did break several small mirrors with my piercing shrieks.

Anyway, you should take this time to enjoy the pants you're wearing. If you're not wearing pants, put some on. This is not the kind of blog to read pant-less. I miss pants. Specifically, I miss wearing jeans that really fit. I love jeans much to my mother's chagrin. I really like expensive jeans much to my wallet's chagrin but my brother's approval.

When you're nearly 35 weeks pregnant the thought of ever wearing your overpriced, but oh-so stylish Joe or Citizens of Humanity or Seven or Paper Cloth Denim jeans seems like a distant dream in your ill fitting maternity pants. Sure, elastic is necessary around the constantly swelling belly but I have realized why zippers, buttons, and sizes were invented. Elastic doesn't fit. It hangs low around the butt or slides down the hips. Elastic also gets stretched out so while you might have thought these aren't so bad when you first put them on the morning, by afternoon the pants are riding between low and high and it's pretty terrible.

I've had much better luck with maternity tops. As much as I hate contributing to child-labor, I have to give props to Old Navy maternity tees. Comfortable! Flattering! And of course, thanks to the blind Indonesia 8 year old making it for me, Cheap! Also, the style for many tops this seems to be flowing with odd inclusions of elastic which is exactly what the pregnant woman ordered! I've happened upon many cute, non-pregnancy tops which makes me happy.

My doc. said that most women lose between 18-20 pounds during the labor/birth. I'm not so crazy as to actually pack Seven's in the hospital bag but maybe, in the not so distant future, I can go back to looking like my old self, like this:

Friday Books: The Position

The Position by Meg Wolitzer was the second novel I read by her in about two weeks. It was good--like The Wife, it's incredibly readable and Wolitzer still captures the intimacies of human nature. Although I liked the book and would recommend it for someone who needs a good beach or plane book (it's not trashy but it's engaging and easy without being stupid) I didn't like it as much as I liked The Wife.

The premise of the book is certainly compelling. The Mellow children discover a sex manual that their parents have written complete with illustrations of them screwing in different positions. Aren't you glad your parents weren't on the forefront of the sexual revolution? And if they were, that they didn't write a book about it? The book follows the children and the parents from the moment after the discovery of the book. Each chapter is about a different character and they're all pretty interesting and screwed up.

I know I'm not explaining myself particularly eloquently here but I guess my issue with the book is that I wasn't sure what world it fit into. Like, the whole conceit of the the position (it's called Electric Forgiveness) and the kids finding the book is, I think, inherently funny in a 1970's kind of way. But the following chapters, the lives characters go on the lead are pretty sad and in some cases, downright depressing. I'm not saying that a book can't be both funny and depressing---probably the best books are, but somehow the world Wolitzer creates in The Position felt off kilter. I wasn't sure where I was to put it simply.

So, I'm going to take a mini breather from Wolitzer but I will read The Ten Year Nap sooner rather than later. This week I might try to read a comic that N. thinks is the bomb.

Boxing It All and Moving On Up

So we got the beautiful apartment with the small closets on School Street! We even got movers to move 90% of our stuff up in a week and a half! I'm hoping I feel good enough to spend a few days there and make some sense of the place. The more we do at the end of June, the better it will be when we return with the Bean.

We need to pack! Do you know the secret to good packing? Good boxes. And having a lot of good boxes. With 11,000 points, I am the undisputed box queen. N. merely showed scratched the surface with his slightly better than paltry contribution to the box situation.

Admittedly, I got a little box crazed. You see, while rule # 1 is good boxes = good packing, rule #2 is: never pay for boxes when you live in a world that spilling over with them. Colleges have so many excellent boxes. When you have no work at work, you can spend loads of time hunting for the excellent Domtar boxes. I've been stashing them in my office for the last few weeks. When N. picked me up on Monday to collect the boxes, he practically threw up with the sheer number I had managed to get. There were too many to fit in our car. Never fear. I'm able to neatly bring home 3 at a time on the subway.

For being the undisputed box queen and 8.5 months pregnant, N. gets to make me an ice cream sundae. He gets one too, but no sprinkles on his. That seems fair, right?

TWO! Friday Books: Julie and Julia and The Wife

What do you know, kids? I read myself 2.5 books this week. It might have something to do with the fact that I've had about 7 minutes of work for the past week and half.

I really enjoyed The Wife. I never read Meg Wolitzer before but now she's on my A list. I'm currently 100 pages into The Position and took out her most recent novel The Ten Year Nap. The Wife is funny and serious at the same time. In many ways it's a spoof of writers and marriage. The basic plot is that the narrator marries her creative writing instructor just before he becomes a writing star. Her own life is completely built around him and their family and at age 64 she decides she's had enough. I've been told spoilers are not fun so I'm keeping it a little vague. The book is funny in the sense that you can easily imagine the egotistical writer (Jonathan Franzen comes to mind) and the woman who has to live with that/him. The main character in the novel is really likeable and smart; Wolitzer is a terrific writer, especially when it comes to nailing the details of marriage and human interaction.

I also read Julie and Julia because my high school English teacher recommended it when I was in a serious lack of reading. The premise of J and J is that Julie Powell is about to turn 30, might have trouble conceiving a child, is stuck in a secretarial job, and has a miserable commute to a crappy apartment in Queens. Her big idea is to cook all five million recipes in Julia Child's seminal Mastering The Art of French Cooking in a year.

I was curious as to how Powell would go from blog to a book. Unlike her blog, which I didn't read, I assumed she couldn't go detail every recipe every day. In the book she picks and chooses the recipes by using chapters with specific days. What I liked was how she didn't only write about the cooking; there's also her marriage, crazy friends, and Texas family, and her terrible day job working for a government agency that makes her miserable since it's filled to the gills with Republicans. Her humor is what I most enjoyed. What I didn't like and what I skipped were the intermittent fictionalized sections where she imagines life between Paul and Julia Child. I found this boring and unnecessary and after the first two I didn't even feel bad about not reading them.

It's hard not to be jealous of the success Powell got. Not only did she get a book deal from her blog (hey! I could do that!) but it sold really well and got optioned with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in the role of Julia and Julie respectively. The movie is supposed to come out in 2009. Not too bad. But because she's funny and seems nice you don't want to hate Powell too much.

So yeah. Two books. Other than this highly literary post, what are you reading?

Who's The Boss?

Boy, is it hot! Recording-breaking stupetifying humid nastiness. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday! There's nothing like a heatwave to kick it in that you really are 8 (!) months pregnant. I don't want to do anything. The problem is that doing nothing--just sitting on my butt---starts to hurt my lower back. What's a girl to do?

I thought I could do it all but I'm starting to wonder. Moving in what looks like to be 2-2 1/2 weeks is starting to seem a bit daunting. Especially if it's this hot and my back aches. I guess I'll just have to continue the new bossiness approach.

Things N, now does because I can't: tie my shoes, plant the basil, empty the a.c. (it's portable and fills up after about 4 hours), make the bed, walk much slower.

I wonder what else the Bean and I can add to the list in the upcoming weeks.

Friday Books 3.0:I Was Told There'd Be Cake

Yes, it's been a while but I'm reading again. I read two stories in this week's fiction themed The New Yorker. The Mary Gaitskill one because she's a literary hero of mine and the Annie Proulx one because "Tits-Up In A Ditch" is possibly one of the greatest titles of all time. Man, Proulx's story is really depressing. They're both worth reading but don't expect to laugh much.

A less depressing read was Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake collection of essays.

I don't have a ton to say about the book except that it was a fun, quick, easy, readable read. N. will tell you that I'm a big user of the adjective readable. But I think it fits a purpose. When I describe something as readable, I put it in category of being somewhat light, not great, but not something you need to put down on page 30 either. As a writer, I aim to write a readble book (before a great one) just because it seems like mostly you'd want your book to be read. Duh. I think there's a time and a place for the readable as opposed to the great work of literature. Airplanes, beaches, times in your life when there's a lot going on (like babies and moves).

IWTTBC was a good book to somewhat impulsively buy at the Borders in NH last week. I was able to get into the essays about life in NYC, moving, her family, camp, relationships, bad bosses right away.

I read and enjoyed the book but halfway through I decided that when I finished it I'd give it to a friend who's jetting off to Europe this week. Like, I said, a good read when you're 30,000 feet above sea level. After that, you can pass it on rather than make room on your overcrowded shelf.

Crosley is the kind of person you might want to hate because she's less than 30 and according to the Internet everyone loves her. But she's a good enough, funny enough writer that I didn't really hate her. Plus, I heard from a source that she's kind of a spaz in real life. And you just can't hate the spaz. Or cake. Isn't cake wonderful?

Two Artists Walk Into A Dingy Texas Bar One Sultry Night

And four years, two armadillos, seventeen cats, 8,000 veggie burgers, 9,000 rum and cokes later, they decide to get hitched!!

Whoo, hooo! A and W!
A marriage couldn't have happened to two more awesome, creative, thoughtful, stylish and generally cool people!
Now, we know you haven't set a date yet and you want to enjoy the engagement. But really. Living up in NH, me and the Bean are going to need something to look forward to. Yeah, I guess your engagement is really about me. But I'm really happy for you so that's about you!

Another thing about A is that her solo NYC show is this Thursday. Not only should you really consider suicide if you don't see it, you should buy lots of her fantaboulous paintings so she can have herself a weddin'!

Back From NH

N. and I left Wednesday to look at places to live in NH. We saw a total of 13 places in about a day and a half. Some places we could have easily skipped since it's clear that I can't live in a place that's miles away from civilization. Some people are happy driving 8 miles down their dirt road. I am not one of them.

We mostly looked in the town of Lebanon. It's a small--2 restaurants (not including the Chinese Buffet and Pizza Parlor, which we have yet to sample) but at least it's a town. I like the idea of being able to walk to the library, post office, etc. I know once the Bean and winter arrives I'll be driving but I like the possibility of not having to. I'm really going to miss walking around Prospect Park with N. but at least living in a town we can take walks around the 'hood or down to the green.

You know what's annoying? You think N. and I would feel totally rich being five hours out of the city but we don't. The place we have hopefully (cross your fingers, lurkers) found is a little more than we'd like to pay and we have to pay for heat, which is no fraking joke what with New England winters, oil prices, and a Bean who needs to live in a 70 degree abode. You'd also think that moving out of the city would increase our space exponentially but it won't. It's one of these places that's really nice looking but deceiving small and kind of awkward. Don't even get me started on the closets! But it is pretty and there's a dishwasher! and washer/dryer! which is exciting. N. and I figured that doing our own laundry instead of sending it out to the place up the street will save us an average of $4,000 a year, which should easily cover our heating bills.

You know what Lebanon, NH needs? A coffee shop. Although I can easily blog at home, I often need to do my "real" work in a coffee shop. Yes, I'm one of those annoying people with my snotty-assed XL lattes on my Mac Air. There's no place in town that comes remotely close this and even Hanover, which is where Dartmouth is, I don't think superior looking Mac users taking up the coffee shop to write their great American novels, are really part of the culture.

There might not be a coffee shop but there is a really fab looking pool in this enormous rec center thing in Lebanon. And, there's baby sitting for $2.75/hr for members. Now, that's a deal you just couldn't find in Bklyn.