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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) tammy212 | |
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It don't rain but what it pours, am I right? nth read = the whichever number of times I’ve read it collection = all stories by one author anthology = stories/articles by different authors c = set in our current time ed(s). = editor(s) gn = graphic novel/comics h = horror hi = historical alt hi = alternate history nf = nonfiction f = fantasy sf = science fiction Mainstream—Adult Aravind Adiga, BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS; THE WHITE TIGER (c India) Martin Booth, HIROSHIMA JOE (hi) Kathleen Cambor, IN SUNLIGHT, IN A BEAUTIFUL GARDEN (hi) Barbara Cleverly: 4 hi mysteries, India, early 1920s: THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE, RAGTIME IN SIMLA, THE DAMASCENED BLADE, & THE PALACE TIGER Anita Diamant, DAY AFTER NIGHT (hi) Barbara Hambly, RAN AWAY (Benjamin January hi mystery, 1830s New Orleans) Barbara Hamilton (a pen name for Barbara Hambly), two Abigail Adams mysteries: A MARKED MAN and SUP WITH THE DEVIL Charlaine Harris, SWEET AND DEADLY (mys) Karen Maitland, COMPANY OF LIARS (hi) Sharyn McCrumb, THE DEVIL AMONG THE LAWYERS (hi mys in the Appalachians) Robin Oliveira, MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER (hi) Robert Parker, SCHOOL DAYS (c) Jodi Picoult, 19 MINUTES (xth read) Marge Piercy, SEX WARS (hi, 1890s) Erich Maria Remarque, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (hi) Kathryn Stockett, THE HELP (hi, 1960s) Indu Sundaresan, THE TWENTIETH WIFE (hi, India) Sarah Waters, AFFINITY (hi, 1880s) Farad Zama, THE MARRIAGE BUREAU FOR RICH PEOPLE (c, India) Thrillers—adult James Lee Burke, IN THE ELECTRIC MIST WITH CONFEDERATE DEAD William Diehl, PRIMAL FEAR (3rd read) Lisa Gardner, LIVE TO TELL, THE NEIGHBOR John Grisham, RUNAWAY JURY (xth read) John Hart, THE LAST CHILD Susan Hill, THE WOMAN IN BLACK (hi, ghost story to star Daniel Radcliffe) Tami Hoag, NIGHT SINS Elmore Leonard, PRONTO, RIDING THE RAP, WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE (collection)—these star Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, the main character of TV’s “Justified,” though this Raylan isn’t as handsome! Chuck Logan, AFTER THE RAIN (xth read), HOME FRONT (xth read) Robert McCammon, GOING SOUTH (c) SF&F—Adult Joe Abercrombie, BEST SERVED COLD (h) Daniel Abraham, THE DRAGON’S PATH (f) Sarah Addison Allen, GARDEN SPELLS, THE GIRL WHO CHASED THE MOON (c, f) Ilona Andrews, BAYOU MOON (f) Galen Beckett, THE MAGICIANS AND MRS. QUENT (f) Beth Bernobich, PASSION PLAY (f) Holly Black & Ellen Kushner, eds., WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN (anthology) Edgar Rice Burroughs, A PRINCESS OF MARS (sf/f) Mike Carey, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW (2nd read, f) John Connolly (I re-read all of his Charlie Parker books one week this year): BAD MEN; THE BURNING SOUL; EVERY DEAD THING; NOCTURNES; THE DARK ANGEL; THE DARK HOLLOW; THE KILLING KIND; THE UNQUIET; THE WHITE ROAD Rowena Cory Daniells, THE KING’S BASTARD, THE UNCROWNED KING, THE USURPER (f) Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds., THE COYOTE ROAD (anthology) Kate Elliot, COLD MAGIC (f) Pamela Freeman, BLOOD TIES, DEEP WATER, FULL CIRCLE (f) Neil Gaiman, AMERICAN GODS (xth reading) Barbara Hambly, BLOOD MAIDENS (h, vampire) John Horner Jacobs, SOUTHERN GODS (h) N. K. Jemisin, THE BROKEN KINGDOMS, THE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS (f) Diana Wynne Jones, DEEP SECRETS (F, 2nd read) Alma Katsu, THE TAKER (f) Stephen King, 11/22/63 (time travel), THE RUNNING MAN (sf, xth reading) Michael Koryta, THE CYPRESS HOUSE (h) Mercedes Lackey, FIRE ROSE (f) George R. R. Martin, A Song of Fire and Ice: A CLASH OF KINGS, A FEAST OF CROWS, A GAME OF THRONES, A STORM OF SWORDS (2nd read, f) Robert McCammon, BOY’S LIFE, MR. SLAUGHTER, MYSTERY WALK, THE QUEEN OF BEDLAM, SINGS THE NIGHTBIRD (f) Elizabeth Moon, KINGS OF THE NORTH (f) Rachel Neumeier, LAND OF THE BURNING SANDS, LAW OF THE BROKEN EARTH, LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS (f) Daniel Polansky, LOW TOWN (f) Michael Stackpole, TALION REVENANT (f) Mary Stanton, ANGEL’S ADVOCATE, DEFENDING ANGELS (c, ghost, f) Michelle West, THE HIDDEN CITY (f) Nonfiction, graphic novels/comics, poetry Karen Abbott, SIN IN THE SECOND CITY: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul John M. Barry, RISING TIDE: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America Holly Black, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney, Louise Hawes, Todd Mitchell; ill. By Rebecca Guay A FLIGHT OF ANGELS (graphic novel) Martin Booth, GOLDEN BOY (autobiography) Frank Cammuso, KNIGHTS OF THE LUNCH TABLE: The Battling Bands (graphic novel) Robert Graves, GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (autobiography) Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones, eds., DEAR BULLY: 70 Authors and Their Stories Eric Larson, IN THE GARDEN OF THE BEASTS: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin Deborah Lipstadt, THE EICHMANN TRIAL Lyn Macdonald, ed., ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH: Poets of the Great War Daniel P. Mannix, MEMOIRS OF A SWORD SWALLOWER (autobiography) Cameron McWhirter, RED SUMMER: the Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America Daniel Okrent, LAST CALL: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition cross-posted to my fan ljTags: crime, fantasy, graphic novels, horror, mainstream books, nonfiction, poetry, science fiction, speculative fiction
Current Location: desk, still no Sahara
Current Mood:  calm
Current Music: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, J.S. Bach
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tammy212 | |
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cross-posted from fan LJBetter late than never? Yeah, that's what I thought. The adult list follows. Books are Young Adult/Teen unless marked otherwise Series books are in alphabetical, not publication, order YR = Young Reader/Intermediate/Tween nth read = the whichever number of times I’ve read it collection = all stories by one author anthology = stories/articles by different authors b = male lead character/theme c = set in our current time ed(s). = editor(s) gn = graphic novel/comics h = horror hi = historical alt hi = alternate history nf = nonfiction p = paranormal f = fantasy sf = science fiction v = novel in verse Mainstream YA Tara Altobrando, DREAMLAND SOCIAL CLUB (c) Laurie Halse Anderson, FORGE (hi, b) Olivia Bennett, THE ALLEGRA BISCOTTI COLLECTION (c) & WHO WHAT WEAR (c)—YR (so what if they’re silly?! They’re fun and they’re about fashion!) Esther Friesner, THREADS AND FLAMES (hi) Nancy Garden, ENDGAME (3rd read, c, b) Gail Giles, DARK SONG (c) Mary Downing Hahn, STEPPING ON THE CRACKS (hi) Eva Ibbotsen, A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS (2nd read, hi) John Klassen (writer & illustrator), I WANT MY HAT BACK (picture book) Kimberly Marcus, EXPOSED (v) Kathy Ostlere, KARMA (v, c) Cheryl Rainfield, SCARS (c) Trent Reedy, WORDS IN THE DUST (c, set in Afghanistan) Todd Strasser, GIVE A BOY A GUN (3rd read, b) Mo Willems, DON’T LET THE PIGEON STAY UP LATE! (picture book) Fantasy/SF—ya Pam Bachorz, DROUGHT (sf) Paolo Bacigalupi, SHIP BREAKER (sf, b) Beth Bernobich, FOX AND PHOENIX (f) Kendare Blake, ANNE DRESSED IN BLOOD (h, ghost story!) Eric Buchanan, SMALL MAGICS (f) Meg Cabot, CODE NAME CASSANDRA & WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES (first of the 1-800-WHERE-R-U series; 2nd read) Sarah Beth Durst, DRINK, SLAY, LOVE (para); ENCHANTED IVY (f) Alison Goodman, EONA (f) James Gurney, DINOTOPIA (b) (a new release) Mary Downing Hahn, LOOK FOR ME BY MOONLIGHT (f) Jackie Morse Kessler, HUNGER and RAGE (f) Caitlin Kittredge, THE IRON THORN (f, a female engineer) Sophie Littlefield, BANISHED (thriller) Melissa Marr, THE GRAVEMINDER (c, ghost story) Melinda Metz, GIFTED TOUCH & HAUNTED (1st of the Fingertips series, 2nd reading) Mike Mullin, ASHFALL (sf, b) Sharyn November, ed., FIREBIRDS RISING (2nd read, anthology) Delia Sherman, THE FREEDOM MAZE (time travel, f) Sarah Smith, THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK (ghost) Maggie Stiefvater, THE SCORPIO RACES (f, b) Patricia Wrede, ACROSS THE GREAT BARRIER (alt hi) Moira Young, BLOOD RED ROAD (sf) Tags: books, fantasy, mainstream books, middle reader, science fiction, teen
Current Location: desk, Sahara around somewhere
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor, J.S. Bach
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matociquala | |
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The following contains discussion of fitness, health, and weight issues. If that is triggery for you, please page down now!
Ob. Disclaimer: I absolutely support anyone's right to live in their body as they choose, at any size they find comfortable. This is entirely about me, and my efforts to reclaim my health and strength after half a decade of abusing and neglecting my poor body.
Well, I'm wearing a pair of jeans that, based on the brand and cut, must date back to 1987 or so. They're Chic, size 14 tall, and in high school they would have been baggy on me. Now, they fit loosely except for the waist, which is a bit snug--but then, that happened when I was sixteen, too, though the jeans were size 11 then. This is because eighties jeans were cut to fit absolutely nobody except a young Brooke Shields. They do, however, still make my ass look fantastic, a characteristic generally not shared by modern lower-rise jeans, which make nobody's ass look good. Not mine, not yours. Possibly Jessica Simpson's. But they do let one bend at the middle without pinching one's ribcage on the waistband, which I suppose is a win. I guess that means I am officially back in my high school clothes, generously speaking. As I also have a black bat-winged sheath dress from Chico's that I loved in high school, and have been hanging on to for sentimental reasons. I might dust it off for an eighties party later this year. If only I had some slouchy elf boots. I suspect I will save the jeans for eighties nights at goth clubs. I think I still have one pair of slouchy socks hoarded away somewhere... ;-) This is all prelude to saying that I'm hovering somewhere around 187, and have been for about a month now with the usual ups and downs--but I'm obviously building muscle, because I seem to be shrinking. At one point a month or so ago I noticed I had obliques, there under the slack middle-aged tummy. This week, I noticed the top set of ab muscles. Also, my thighs are no longer getting in my way during most of yoga--that stopped after scott_lynch and I walked somewhere around 40 miles in three days of NYC. I can do Hero's Pose and Lightning Pose without cheating now, and my body doesn't actually interfere with my ability to do a lunge anymore. It's still getting in the way of twists, and my biceps interfere with Eagle Pose, but that's not new. I'm a solid girl. I can also wear most of my beloved old corp-goth work clothes again, justifying my hoarding tendencies. Two suits are a bit tight, but they were always on the skinny end of the rack. I had to move the buttons back on a green suit I love, that I had expanded a bit when I was gaining weight. It's a size 12. I am facing the surprising possibility of shrinking out of my wardrobe again. In any case, look for a much better-dressed Bear at conventions this summer, since I love these clothes and don't have a dayjob to wear them to anymore. Curiously, I'm about 17 pounds heavier than the last time I fit in these clothes, which tells us about the power of rock-climbing. Muscle is heavy! My current weight goal is somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 pounds. Which should make the same size, roughly, as when I was in high school and weighed 150-ish. I was on track and field then, and at my most muscular before now, but I'm pretty sure my upper body now dwarfs what I had then. (Shoulders! They're awesome!) Also, um. Boobs. Some cup sizes have come to roost since then. Ahem. So I'm less than thirty pounds from my goal, which is very pleasant. My body is behaving as it should; everything physical is so much easier than it was in 2004, when I couldn't walk a half-mile without agonizing pain (now I can run five 12-minute miles back to back); and I'm enjoying the reduction in back and joint pain and the ability to sleep comfortably on my side or back again without feeling like my own belly is crushing me. I seem to be part of a coterie of SFF writers and fans on the "get healthy the old-fashioned way; move more and eat less crap" bandwagon, which pleases me. (personally, I have been following the efforts of Scalzi, Doctorow, Lynch, Sykes, Downum, Silverstein, Connolly, Buckell, and I'm sure a few others whose names are eluding me because it's time for lunch.) It pleases me because I'd like to see a lot of these people around for a damned long time. I'm also noticing changes in appetite, which tell me my body is adapting to its new lower caloric demands. Two whole pieces of fruit is too much to eat with lunch now; I am contented with half of each (plus some protein and vegetables and brown carbs, of course). (I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, about ten servings most days; I've finally figured out how to reach my RDA minimum of potassium, and it goes like this: a cup of fortified cereal in the morning (Special K protein plus, since I can't find Total Protein around here anymore), half an orange, a small banana, eight ounces of green coconut water, and half a sweet potato. Some strawberries or mango don't hurt either, or some beans.)) For those who are curious about how I did it (my doctor was, and she laughed out loud when I said, "Counting calories, restricting sweets and saturated fat, and getting off my ass!" She then replied, "So doing all the boring shit we tell people to do, huh?"), here's my plan, fondly called The Discipline: It's a refined version of the Hacker Diet, which relies on good old thermodynamics to make things happen. I'm keeping my caloric intake around 1700-1900 calories a day, exercising for about an hour a day on average, drinking lots of water and not too much caffeine, avoiding refined carbs (mostly: I get 100-200 calories of "treat" a day, which could be a glass of wine or a beer, or a brownie, or... PRO TIP: Guinness is lower in calories than most "lite" beers, and tastes a fuckload better. Now you know.), eating roughly twice as many vegetables as the FDA suggests, and trying to keep my protein intake around 20% and my fat intake around 25%--and also trying to keep my protein intake above 100g a day without too much reliance on red meat, or meat at all. (I do use protein supplements--whey and soy, mostly.) I eat a lot of high-protein dairy (skyr!) and I try to limit myself to 100-200 calories a day from refined sugar, which is roughly 20-40 grams. Or, well, half a can of non-diet Coke. Managing sodium intake is a killer. But I'm working on it. Sleeping eight hours a night also pisses me off, but it seems to be necessary. I got six last night, and noticed the difference on my run this morning--I kept having to walk up hills I normally cruise up in second or third gear. I also exercise six days a week--usually two days of climbing (with a little yoga); three days of running; one day of yoga. I also try to get in some vigorous outdoor time when possible--kayaking, hiking, walking the dog. Walking to the store. Picking up my jump rope for five minutes on an otherwise sedentary day. As I said, one of the most successful weeks of the Discipline recently was when Scott and I were on Manhattan, eating every goddamned thing in sight. But we also made a point of walking two-thirds the length of the island at least once (Riverside to Chinatown, with side trips), and we walked as much as time permitted, otherwise. I know it sounds like my fitness routine is crushing, and seven or eight years ago, it would have crushed me. (Hell, I had the pleasant experience recently of putting in a Rodney Yee video that, in 2006, I could do maybe fifteen minutes of, and having the full hour workout be only just pleasantly challenging.) But remember, when I started out, I weighed 285-290 pounds and could not walk a half mile. One good habit builds on another, it turns out--and I find myself drinking more green and herbal tea because black tea doesn't taste good after the first mug, and I find myself not hungry for seconds unless the food is exceptionally good, and even then not always. There's not actually a lot of privation; I just want more of what's healthy for me. It's okay if I have a measured ounce of cheese on my beans and rice, instead of as much as I can fit in the bowl. It still tastes just as good! Better, since it's as easy to afford small quantities of really delicious food as it is large quantities of sort of icky food. And far more satisfying. Who knew? Which is so different from all my old pathological ways of dealing with food and drink that it's a little croggling. Most of this, of course, is just basic health maintenance stuff, and not too hard once you get the hang of it. And it's not like I don't give myself days off: I will in fact have two or three drinks on a night out, for example. I'm fully planning on onion rings after archery tonight when I get dinner with the Thursday Night Shooters. Just... not too damned often. And budget for it. It's not the extremes that set one's level of health; it's the baseline. Tags: project: less-of-me, project: valkyrie, pudge report, the discipline
Current Mood:  relaxed
Current Music: the sound of the sound of lawnmowers must never stop!
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=91.7) bookslut | |
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http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_05.php#018993 Okay, so this is what I want: I want, when someone changes their mind about something, for them not to go ideologically swinging to the far other side. I was reading some reviews of Mark Simpson's Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity, and there are some of former feminists writing about it. And when I say "former" I mean "anti." We're taking PhDs in women's studies who have suddenly realized men are people, too, and they are also oppressed by our patriarchal structure, and so that means we have to wipe out decades of feminist thought, because obviously the two cannot coexist.
Someone can explain to me why this is later, I have tickets to the opera tonight and I have a feeling it's going to take a while. In the meantime, I have a Smart Set column up about Male Impersonators, Ken Corbett's Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?. (Bookslut reviewed Sycamore last issue.) It's all about masculinity in crisis, why I prefer a genderly liquid gentleman, the pathologization (totally a word, spellcheck; I think) of male femininity, and why the comments sections at Men's Advocacy Groups scare the shit out of me.
Alan, in the documentary, complains about the duties of masculinity — the providing, the sacrifice, the achieving, the marriage and fathering of children. He has decided life should be more fun, that men should have other options. If you start spending some time on the websites of men’s advocacy groups, things can quickly turn anti-women, with men calling their ex-wives bitches, railing against women’s cold hearted natures, ranting about how “the system” is stacked against them and in favor of women. Simpson says to Alan, “Many all-male communities that get together and talk about common interests, activities — whether that’s fucking or surfing — is based on a kind of exaltation, a kind of worship, of the masculine and a denigration of the feminine, whether that’s the feminine embodied in women, or whether that’s the feminine embodied in so-called ‘effeminate’ men, men who, either in terms of where they put their dicks or how they dress or cut their hair, don’t conform to that masculine ideal.”
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margaretchoblog | |
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http://www.margaretcho.com/2012/05/17/ralph-3/ http://www.margaretcho.com/?p=3076 You were and have been and still are love of my life, even though you are to the rest of the world nothing but a dead dog. Isn’t that funny that my soul mate turned out to be an animal? It makes sense. I am just an animal too. Frankly, I think you got the short end of the soulmate stick. You could have done much better than me, although you wouldn’t have found anyone who could have loved you more. I loved you more than anything. I love you still. More than words can express.
I wanted to say hello to you, and let you know that three years on after your death, I think of you always. You reside in my mind, where there is a window in my soul, the sun of my heart shining into it, and you lay right in the warmest spot, your long body stretching in the heat, no pain in your hips.
I look for you in the morning, every day, my hand reaching instinctively over on the side of the bed, where you once lay beside me, knowing I couldn’t leave the bed without waking you, why you selected that spot when you first came and stayed there for your entire dog life. Of course, you’re never there, and its been three years but I forget, and every morning I reach for nothing, my futile reach. If only my arms were long enough to reach you where you are now. I will continue reach for you, morningtime groggy grabbing at nothing, until finally in death I will find you once more. There will come a morning where I will not wake, and that is the day we will meet again.
Bronwyn and Gudrun, your dog siblings, do well in your absence. I can’t tell if they miss you, but my grief clouds everything. All I do is miss you. Yesterday Bronwyn got down to that space under the house where you kept all your secret toys, your beloved tennis balls, your big bitey rubber tire. I hadn’t been down there since your death. Your daddy and I couldn’t go down there. It hurt too badly to clean it out. It hurt too much to admit you were not returning to us. We left it. we pretended it didn’t exist, then pretended silently that you were coming back. That was the only way to cope with your loss, to tell lies to ourselves. The inestimable loss of you, it took nearly all of what we had inside to get by, to get through it. You were our son. You will always be.
I went down to help Bronwyn climb back up, as she’s not nearly as nimble as you were, and can’t come up on her own. I saw all your precious tennis balls you had stored down there, muddy little green treasures, packed into the crawl space as if it were your tomb, as if you were a grand Egyptian king, your pleasures neatly laid out for you alongside your sarcophagus, so you might have them in the afterlife. I think I might move your ashes down there, to reunite you with your things, but that would mean I would have to move them from your old bed, and I can’t bear to part with them. Not yet my love. Not yet my Ralph.
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bookslut | |
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http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_05.php#018992 Kate Summerscale writes about Eleanor Marx, sister of Karl and the original translator of Madame Bovary into English. (You can still find her translation in print.)
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/24d99c36-92dc-11e1-b6e2-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1v2jfx9ri
The literary critic George Steiner later argued that Eleanor’s decision to translate the novel was driven by her political convictions: “Eleanor Marx was principally inspired by what she took to be the radical posture of Flaubert’s book. Here was a statement of the condition of women under the suffocating regime of bourgeois hypocrisy and mercantile ideals.” Yet Eleanor was moved as much by Emma Bovary’s inner compulsions as her outer constraints. “The tragedy of Flaubert’s characters,” she wrote, “lies ... in the fact that they act as they do because they must. It may be immoral, contrary even to their own personal interests, to act thus or thus; but it must be – it is inevitable.” Emma ends her life by taking arsenic, having betrayed her husband and run up debts in his name. She “is foolish, even vile”, wrote Eleanor, “but there is a certain nobleness about her too ... Emma Bovary is in search of an ideal ... It is part of the irony of her fate that she is punished for her virtues as much as for her vices.”
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margaretchoblog | |
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http://www.margaretcho.com/2012/05/16/swim/ http://www.margaretcho.com/?p=2856 The hour that gives me the most difficulty is 2pm.
I am good in the mornings. The sunrise is ever hopeful, the strange way you can tell light is new, the way it comes at you, shy through the trees. Yes I love mornings, because it’s another chance, you get another stab at it, whatever it is. Nothing bad has occurred really in the early hours to scar me forever or make me hate mornings, not yet anyway. I usually have slept well and I am prepared. I look forward to the coming day, and maybe fondly backward at the night before. The day begins and there’s an optimism that I associate with waking, a half full glass I anticipate and drink down all the way in one gulp like freshly squeezed orange juice with some sparkling water mixed in. AM is citrusy and bubbly and just squirted from the fruit and that is glorious and makes my mouth water. It’s the best, the opening credits of the movie. Nothing has happened yet and I am ready for it to. I am glad for it to.
The only time this isn’t true is when I have stayed up all night, which is rare, I mean, I can count the times I have done this in my relatively long lifetime on one hand. That is terrible, to stay up all night, and this I have never done without some type of drug, an upper, which gives you a burst of good feeling right at the beginning, and then pays you back bad feeling with interest, robbing you of maybe a week’s worth of joy and patience and the accepting of things and peace and reason and that unnamed force that gets you out of bed to put on makeup and dress up in something nice and listen to music and dance and sing and think that anything is possible and a good day is coming on. All that for about 15 minutes of shaky bliss at the start, I don’t think it’s a fair exchange.
There’s also a guilt there too, if you haven’t been to bed, and you are looking at everyone who has, and you watch them with your bloodshot eyes as they are getting up and getting their coffee and going to work with big white cups with brown recycled paper rings to keep them from burning their hands and their clothes look just put on and they have the morning face that you wish you had, one that had gotten to bed at a decent hour and dreamed and woke untroubled and now is in front of you, and the sanity of it is mocking the insanity of yours. The streets get more and more crowded and you feel more and more alone and even though you may be surrounded it’s like an island or a raft is surrounded by water and there’s not a drop to drink.
Sometimes you can erase that horror show of being up all night with breakfast, trick yourself with the hot black medicine of strong coffee and the crisp, butter comfort of toast, but it’s only while you’re eating and maybe a very, very short time after. The healing power of omelettes and pancakes and waffles only lasts for as long as its on the table. After it’s in you it doesn’t do much good. I don’t stay up all night anymore. I can’t take it. This is not for me.
I love the morning too much to sully it. it’s important to me to feel like there’s a newness and a comeuppance and a day that hasn’t happened yet that is gonna happen and you never know, you never know. I get excited about the morning like I am a puppy, jumping and batting my paws all for nothing and for no reason other than I get to go around the sun yet once more.
The night is also the same way, as the night dawns much like the day. the sun goes away to reveal the moon herself and there is much delight as she is bright and sometimes a sliver, sometimes full and round, much like me, changing and growing and shrinking and different always and every shape of her has a name and distinct attributes.
The night is often when my workday begins, comedians and musicians and waiters and bartenders and chefs and emergency room doctors and nurses and drug dealers even and police and firemen and all of us on the graveyard shift who ensure the nourishment and care and protection, physical and otherwise, of the majority of the working people who make the world turn day after day.
I feel safe in the velvet cloak of night and I come alive when I go to work and see my friends and play in clubs and it’s always been exciting to welcome dusk and the rites of dinner and drinks that go along with it and that moment when you can let go of the day, stop white knuckling the afternoon and know that everything is going to be fine, and even if it isn’t soon it will all be over and the bed is a delicious promise that is always kept (unless you happen to do those bad drugs).
The night is good to me and good for me and I feel safe and dangerous at once. I am a night person and a morning person and then that leaves the afternoon which is a problem.
2pm is the fearsome middle I struggle with.
I’m a strong swimmer, having been on swim teams as a child, always smelling a little of chlorine, with dry tight skin and choppy braids that dried into hard gel waves. There was also an issue of mold in my locker. My existence was mostly wet and then you mix that with dark, you get mold. It’s a fact.
I can’t say I loved swimming but I did it because it was the right thing at the time and I was fairly good at it and there was a simple kind of reward involved because I grew up in a cold climate and the water of the pool was often slightly warmer than the air even though it seemed like it would be colder and you didn’t want go in initially as the threat of being colder even still was almost too much to bear but if you actually did it and jumped right in and braved the bracing shock of ice in your life, in a moment you’d be fine and warm and swimming and the fear would melt with the cold and you’d be alright. I swam for that small victory as well as other minor wins like having a place to go in an important somewhat distracted hurry right after school. “I can’t. I have practice. Yeah sorry, I can’t.” which to me kind of meant, “I belong somewhere. I belong to something. I belong.”
I remember that Culture Club video where beautiful Boy George is singing and climbing up the ladder out of the pool and I thought that he and I were the same and that song played in my head from beginning to end as I swam and at the point when he would come out of the pool I would come out of the pool to encourage our sameness.
I did have to stop going to the pool when my body started to change, and grownups in the shallow end would give me looks and then more. One old man, who was teaching a tiny girl to swim, she was maybe 4 or 5, just a baby really and too young to be in the big adult pool with the serious and sporty thick black lines painted on the bottom to guide the face down butterfly stroke swimmers in their lanes and rope and floating Styrofoam borders that were supposed to keep everyone not on the swim team out – crossed into illegal pool territory and actually grabbed me between my legs as I crawled my continuous laps that my allegiance to the swim team claimed as its due and lifted me whole out of the water struggling and flopping, exclaiming “I caught a fish! I caught a fish!” and the little new swimmer laughed and clapped as the man rudely and unashamedly shoved his fingers inside me. If he did this to me, a small stranger, I don’t want to think about what he did to that little girl. I don’t want to think of it.
I swam maybe one or two or three times after that but I eventually quit the team, because it never felt right to go back in the pool. It felt scary and ugly and I started to really notice when people would spit in the porcelain rim around the perimeter of the blue tile and see the spidery clots of hair that would collect in the filters and on the wet ground and I suddenly got fed up with the chlorine and the mucus of others and athlete’s foot and the child molesters that all these foul things represented and I refused to go and took up cigarettes instead.
But before all that, I was a strong swimmer, as our coach used to say, whistle and stopwatch hanging from his neck, looking down at me. I forgot his name, which I cannot believe now, because it was so important then. From the ages of 8 to 12, my schoolbag always contained a large plastic ziplock containing a cold and damp athletic orange swimming suit and an old rubber cap that squeezed my temples into a lifelong tendency toward migraine when it was on me, and stuck to itself and stank unreasonably when it was off. I swim good for a long while but then I get tired, unexpected and instant, a wore down feeling that is inescapable as water and it usually happens when I am right in the middle of the pool, where I am surrounded by the wore down and the water and the only thing left to do is drown.
That is what 2pm feels like to me.
It’s not the beginning. It’s nowhere near the end. What can I do? The sunlight that seemed charmed and uplifting in the hours before now seems ordinary and relentless. Time stretches out before me and behind me and I can’t make sense of it and I wonder what I can do until night falls to make me whole again. There’s no running from the middle of the day. The broad daylight offers no escape. You can’t start drinking or indulging in anything then because then that would mean you have a PROBLEM and I would do anything to avoid having a PROBLEM so I just suffer mid-days as if it is my cross to bear. I wait to be resurrected and it always happens and that’s not the concern, it’s the waiting that bothers me. It’s the waiting that is the cruelty of crucifixion. It takes so goddamned long to die.
I have the worst time of this midday malady in hotel rooms, as usually if I am working somewhere on the road, my day is far emptier, even more than if I am at home. Hotel rooms are bad places in my opinion, as most of my friends who have died thus far have done it in those temporary spaces that are meant to contain us only for a day or two. They have checked into hotels and never checked out and that seems like the worst thing to me, to have to die there and essentially stay there forever. That’s hell.
At 2pm in a hotel room I am lost and I don’t know where to turn or what to do. The hour oppresses me and there’s no escaping from it. The only way out is through, and through means minutes and then hours and the sky can’t darken soon enough to save me. I haven’t found a solution to this other than to complain and allow the existential dread to overwhelm me and crash over me like a wave and at times I can write and possibly describe the desolation and desperation I feel which helps because when I put words to a thing, it helps me own the thing and understand the thing. It’s like I am eating the thing or making love to the thing, letting the thing inside me and have its way and become a part of me.
At 2pm, perhaps I should go swimming. Most hotels have pools. I don’t think this is just by chance. I think the pools must be there for me.
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bookslut | |
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http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2012_05.php#018990 Oh, thank god, someone has something reasonable to say about the "serious book publishing is dead" argument that keeps re-appearing. "Argument" is probably fancying up what is really just whining, but whatever.
I do my own fair share of whining, too. But whenever someone starts talking about how "serious" books are under threat because of [enter whatever factor you like here: ebooks/declining sales/Amazon/the end of the large advance/texting], they're ignoring the fact that serious books have always been under threat. Read the publishing adventures of James Joyce, trying to get Ulysses into the world, and how a bunch of women, independent publishers all of them, were the only ones brave enough to take on the censors. Joyce did not have a huge amount of money thrown at his head, publishers were not begging him to write his bizarro land books, they'd take care of his family and expenses.
People right now are using the example of Caro's multi-volume LBJ biography and how obviously this could never be recreated ever again. Because of texting or whatever. Dean points out what others have left out of the conversation:
Caro actually went broke writing the first of his biographies, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. Caro had to sell his house, and take a job teaching, to support himself and his family in the seven years it took him to finish the book. Plus: his wife worked. When I saw Caro speak at an event in Tribeca, recently, he was asked what kind of advice he’d give to aspiring biographers. “Become independently wealthy,” he said. And that’s from one of the biggest names in the “serious” business, who grew up as a writer in publishing’s alleged golden years.
From generation to generation there are always pressures. And some will fold. Some will do whatever the publishers ask them to do, cranking out two books a year because there's a "demand." Others will take the hit to their reputations and their bank accounts and do the work they feel has integrity. As it ever was and ever shall be, amen.
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mostly quite pleased, really![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=91.7){kind=small}
This volume contains the first half of Season 1. Volume 2 should be available in about a month, with other volumes to follow.