no music in my head right now, just words words words

maura @ 10:10 pm

Jonathan bought us each a fun book for our week off. At first I was kind of annoyed, because they’re new (= hardcover, which is so heavy + space-sucking) and I’ve been trying to get us on the path of borrow from the library first, then buy only what we love (for money + space reasons). But I have to say, there’s nothing like opening up a pretty, fresh, tasty new book. The creamy paper, the embossed spine, the promise within. Yum, yum, yum. I couldn’t wait and started reading mine today, and it is really really good.

I’ve been fairly gorging on fiction since finishing my pop stat book* a few weeks ago. Last week I read Saturday, which was okay. I mean, he’s a good writer, and the tense bits were tense, but in the end it left me kind of eh. Which is not what I expected from a book that made all the top 10 lists last year.

* Oooh, be impressed! At least until I reveal that I skipped over the pages full of equations, that is. Then you can lose all respect for me whatsoever.

But on the other hand, Steven Millhauser, where have you been all my life? He had a story in the New Yorker a few months ago, which Jonathan ripped out for me to read (I don’t usually read the fiction in the New Yorker, having been disappointed too often). And it was fantastic, in the true sense of the world. Very much like Borges. So I casually looked him up on Amazon one day and woah, he’s written zillions of things! Right now I’m reading Little Kingdoms (SO good), and I have Martin Dressler out from the library too.

How could we have missed him? Some of his stuff seems to have come out in our post-college first-round-of-grad-school days, when all I read was anthropology and Douglas Coupland, I think. But Martin Dressler won the Pulitzer in 1997 — where the hell was I? Probably toiling too late in the early new media trenches (and partying in indiepopland), but still, that’s no excuse.

Classes start up again next week, so I’ve only got a bit longer to fatten myself up solely on inventive narrative. Chomp, chomp.

goodbye small hands

maura @ 10:41 pm

Phew, just barely coming up for air here before we jet off to the great Midwest for our 5 leisurely days with the grandparents, woo hoo! Things have been a mite crazy-busy recently, I’ve had lots of work, Jonathan’s had lots of work, and of course Gus is off school all this week. He and I have been seriously head-butting too, which doesn’t make anything easier. We are so similar, so stubborn, it’s a bit scary at times.

But never fear, for tomorrow we hit the promised land! Gus never wants a thing to do with us when the grandparents are around to attend to his every preschooler whim. Playdoh on the porch! Endless hours spraying everything with the garden hose! No pants ever! So we lounge, read, sleep, occasionally take a field trip to the playground or supermarket. It’s just lovely. I have FOUR books in the suitcase right now, AND my journal.

And, since that hotel date was so successful a few weeks ago, we think we’re going to try an overnight in Chicago while we’re out that way. I have been seriously suffering from the Chicago nostalgia recently. I read this, which I REALLY loved (even though it’s an Oprah book, o, the shame!), and of course reading Mimi Smartypants gets all the Chicago up in me, too. Our college friends we’ll be staying with told us that Demon Dogs, our favorite hot dog place (conveniently located under the El tracks), has closed, though, so who knows where we’ll eat. At least we can still have breakfast at Ann Sather. And I have this weird desire to see Millennium Park, does that make me completely uncool? Of course, if it’s 90 million degrees out we will not be spending any time outside, so I guess we need a plan B. Any ideas?

So, finishing the abovementioned book has put me in a bit of a fiction depression. I’d been on a serious, hardcore non-fiction jag, really for a few years now. But that book was so good, so dreamy, romantic, but not sappy, with all those tasty Chicago tidbits… Finishing it has left a big hole in my literary life. I know not what to read, I’m interested in nothing beyond reading MORE stuff EXACTLY like that. Sigh. Made an emergency run to the library last night to grab a few new books, so hopefully one of those will grab me. And if any of my 4 readers have any books they’re loving, let me know!

the cruelest month

maura @ 8:53 pm

Oh yes, April sure was full, and only sometimes with fun stuff. In brief (and in order):

- We visited my dad in VT
- I got a really heinous head cold
- Me + Jonathan did the dinner/silent auction fundraiser at Gus’ school, which raised a lot of dough (yay!)
- Gus got strep throat and was out of school for almost a week
- I got an AWFUL stomach flu (plus fever!) for 3 days. My mom came up to help and she + Jonathan insisted I go to to the ER, which was actually sort of a nice break from Gus, who’d been a bit feral

And that was that.

Now it’s May and things are better. Finally it’s mostly warm out — Gus and I hit the botanic gardens yesterday after school with our neighbors to play in the pink snow (what he calls the piles of fallen cherry blossoms) and smell the lilacs (purple smell better than white, says he [and I agree]). This weekend our whole building is having a stoop sale which makes me very happy: I get to get rid of our old stuff, make a few bucks, and hang out with the neighbors for a few hours, fun!

I also got four (4!) books out of the library last week, so the great nonfiction drought is over. Powered through the Mamaphonic book* and am really enjoying Unconditional Parenting a lot, much more than I expected, actually. Of course, the problem with any book espousing a parenting philosophy is that what sounds good on paper is often hard to put into practice in the field, when your 3.5 yr old is throwing his shoes down the hall steps rather than bringing them into the house, for example. But I’m game if he is.

*Man I am a SUCKA for the mothering essays. A stone cold sucka. Maybe it’s because they sustained me during that very tough first year with Gus, the no-sleeping-painful-breastfeeding-fussy-baby year. Maybe it’s because I worry that my brain is completely atrophying, and want to reassure myself that other moms feel this way too. Anyway, I at least have stopped buying them — they’re the ultimate literary candy for me and it’s just way more economical to get them from the library.

And anyway, it’s not totally Gus’ fault my brain is mushy. That started before he was born. I’d planned to tell you all about it, but Lost and Alias are almost finished taping and I have a date with 2 weeks worth of unfolded laundry, so I’ll catch you later.

time, but no mind

maura @ 10:38 pm

Our bags are packed + ready to go, the alarm is set for 6am tomorrow (oof!), and the car to the airport is reserved for our trip to visit one of our 4 grandparental households, which means that I actually have time to write here. I write spazzy little blog entries every freaking minute in my head, it seems, so why can’t I think of anything to say?

I’ve gotten sucked into reading the (mostly parental) blogiverse lately. It’s so easy to bounce from place to place, read about everyone’s kids and the adorable + infuriating things that they do. Let’s add something from my own day to the mix, shall we?

ADORABLE: Gus woke up from his nap today by saying, “I’m ready to wake up now because I’m not tired anymore”, ran out, Ringo Starr bedhead flying, into the living room, and plopped immediately down to play with his fire truck, as if he’d been thinking about it the whole time he was napping, that he Just Couldn’t Wait to get up and play with it again.

INFURIATING: So then our friends S (mom) and E (daughter) called and I invited them to come over to play, and suddenly he fell into a post-nap grump and said he didn’t want E to come over, which bummed me since we haven’t seen them in a while (and, since I worked at home today, I hadn’t seen another grownup all day besides Jonathan). So S and I chatted on the phone for a while, then suddenly Gus said “I do want E to come play with me,” by which point E had fallen into an accidental nap. Grrr. I believe the spirited kids book calls it “negative first reaction” + “slow adaptibility”.

Also, I am out of things to read (at least nonfiction things, which are my chosen things lately), which is my grownup infuriating thing of the day. Still waiting for a few requests to come in at the library, as well as being pissed off that I can’t get the Mimi Smartypants book or the most recent Ayun Halliday books there (a necessity since our puny leisure budget is pretty much all spent visiting child-friendly restaurants with playdates these days, for sanity’s sake [grownups to talk to, plus beer!]). If I had a laptop or miniPC-type thing I could read the blogiverse while Away From My Desk, but I’d rather hunch over a good juicy Why-America-Doesn’t-Support-Families or Anti-Consumerism tome these days. These are the kinds of books I’ve been into recently (minus the homeschooling stuff, I just can’t get behind that, but maybe that’s because Gus is such a huge spaz). Yes, I’m a humorless hippie, you can stop reading right now.