What we remember.

Every so often, while in the company of Emilia, I find myself thinking, “Someday, she’s going to look back on this moment and laugh, or smile, or stare wistfully out the window of her space mansion and remember Saturday mornings spent listening to Car Talk and picking dried cheese off the kitchen floor.”

But the truth is, she probably won’t. 

Not because she doesn’t want to, but because her brain is still developing and only just beginning to grasp the short-term. 

The window of time before age one is, as far as a baby’s long-term memory goes, a wash (a very awesome wash filled with milestones and my own wonderful memories, but still…). As I come to terms with the fact that these shared recollections are actually pretty one-sided, I’ve been reflecting on what my brain has held onto from the early days of my own childhood.  

This, in what may or may not be chronological order, is what I remember: 

1. Eating deodorant. It tasted like a cross between a dying houseplant and fondant. 

2. Finding myself facedown in the Ozarks’ cold, murky waters. I don’t know what the story is here. I’ve never asked, but I’m sure the reality was way less dramatic than the memory.

3. Shoving a dime into an electrical outlet. I was pretending it was a gumball machine. There were sparks. So many sparks. 

4. Bits and pieces of a few Pinwheel episodes.

 

These blurred memories have two things in common: 1) they all stem from negative and/or traumatic events (Pinwheel aside – that has more to do with a lifelong love of television), and 2) they all conclude with a harrowing rescue and the comforting reassurance of my mother. 

The memory of eating deodorant is immediately followed by the memory of my mom running in, gently removing the toxic snack from my hand, hugging me, and probably making a frantic call to poison control. She scooped me out of the water. She pulled me away from the sparking outlet. She spoke soothingly. She sat and watched Nickelodeon with me every morning. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe, hopefully, if my own recollection is any indication of a very young child’s psyche, when Emilia thinks back on those first hazy memories, I’ll make an appearance or two. It’s a reminder to make every moment as pleasant as possible. To be an unwavering source of comfort. And to teach her that, despite looking so tempting, deodorant is actually not delicious. At all.

I have been hiatusing...

and working, vacationing, blogging (for our local music festival), eating, thinking about cleaning, raising (a baby), etc. But I couldn't resist posting this picture. Enjoying the company of someone who laughs at the mostly dumb (but occasionally genius) crap you have to say is one of the best things in the entire world.

Hello, babies.

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.
-Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Monahans are, by nature, pale, impractical, too nice, and cripplingly tardy. It's kind of our thing. And I was sure this baby would inherit my wide, dragging feet, eschewing a December 15th birth to finish drying her hair, to reread an old coupon booklet, to rewatch the season premier of Kourtney and Kim Take New York. Plus my doctor more or less implied that I'd end up spending Christmas Eve on a steady drip of yuletide pitocin.

But I guess I should've realized that it was just as likely she'd take after Matt- the prompt foil to my stunted sense of timeliness. This baby wasn't just on time. She was a day early. Dad genes 1, Mom jeans genes 0.

On labor...
After six hospital-given childbirth classes, one thorough reading of Jenny McCarthy's overly honest ode to childbirth, and one viewing of "The Business of Being Born," I was left with a confused understanding of what labor would entail. Maybe it meant soft-focus 80s videos of women in overalls moaning on the arms of bewildered and mustacheod husbands. Maybe there would be screaming or laughter or complete peace or Ricki Lake. For someone who'd consumed copious amounts of information over the past nine months, I was pretty clueless... and maybe that was the best way to be.

I picked my mom up from the airport that Tuesday night, confident we'd spend the next week staring at bowls of broccoli cheddar soup, waiting for something to happen. But, as it happens, the actual wait only lasted another six hour or so. I woke up at 1:30 a.m. with dull cramps that picked up in intensity and regularity as a I sat alone in the dark downstairs, watching bits and pieces of bad movies (had I known I was in the midst of something relatively momentous, I would've splurged on a new release). That morning, I scrambled to hand off my remaining work projects via email while my mom wrapped Christmas presents. We left for my regular doctor's appointment at 1:00 but never made it that far. By the time we reached 72nd and Dodge, my contractions were four minutes apart, so I pulled into a Burger King parking lot (no, I shouldn't have been driving, but hindsight is not in labor) and called my OB while my mom ordered chicken tenders. Within five minutes, we were checked into Bergan. Matt stopped at home to shave his pregnancy beard and met us there, camera in hand.

On birth...
I had resolved to make the whole epidural issue a game-time decision. I wasn't about to decide whether or not I could handle the pain until I knew what the pain was like. I ultimately went for the good stuff, and I'm glad I did. Maybe next time I won't. Who knows. But it sure was nice to be able to watch Modern Family and joke around before, as Matt later put it, shit got real.

Around 9 p.m., I was ready to push. The downside of the epidural is that I had to be told I was ready to do everything. In the movies, the woman tells you she's ready by throwing a bed pan at the TV or breathing fire or whatever. From there, everything moved quickly. And when the baby's heart rate became cause for concern, things moved really quickly- forceps quickly. Emilia Clare Kraemer was born at 9:17, wide eyed, angry and beautiful.

Matt took some amazing pictures of those first few minutes, one of which I submitted to Babble, along with my own inadequate description of what it's like to hold your brand new person for the very first time.

After Emilia had been cleaned up, evaluated and issued the standard hospital hat, and my placenta whisked away to the place where placentas go, our families were able to join us. Matt's mom and step dad had hopped in the car as I was choking down my last chicken tender, and made it to Omaha from Minneapolis mere minutes before Emilia was born. Looking back on that night, everything was so incredibly strange in the best way possible. Upstairs in our recovery room, Matt and I split my "You Just Gave Birth, Now Eat Something" box of food and stared at our progeny, careful not to get sandwich crumbs on her perfect baby eyebrows.

On Emilia...
Perhaps I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure she's completely wonderful. Her hair is wonderful. Her pout is wonderful. Her long monkey arms. Her crooked smile. The way her eyes light up when she sees Matt. The hilarious things she's so desperate to say. The ever-deepening appreciation I have for the guy I married who is now almost as into babies as he's into books. All of it. And I never, ever want to forget how lucky we are.

I've created puppets ever since I was 10 years old, but there's nothing like creating a human being. That's amazing.
-Kevin Clash, Being Elmo

Nearly 12 weeks after the Burger King contractions, as I prepare to leave our warm nest where showers are optional and the Today Show is compulsory, I'm glad to be past the first few nearly sleepless weeks, I'm mourning the loss of so much unadulterated quality time together, and I'm looking forward to things to come. We'll have a routine. We'll have warm walks through Memorial Park and our first family road trip. And then after that, we'll have a lot of other stuff I guess. I can't wait.

This is what I've been doing.

Hi. I've obviously been a bad blogger, but more on that after a story of good intentions and mouse murder.

One morning a month or so ago, as I prepared to start my day, I heard a faint squeaking coming from the corner of the garage. Because I was curious and late for work, I waded through empty flower pots and my landlord's plastic-sheathed 80s pop artwork to find a lone baby mouse. We stared at each other for a minute before parting ways. And by parting ways, I mean before I jumped in the car and left. The mouse wasn't going anywhere in an "I've eaten poison" or "I like it here behind this mildewed poster of a splatter-painted heart" sort of way.

When I returned that night, I was about to drive full-speed into the garage in the way I do where I fantasize about breaking through the brick wall and surprising the barking weimaraners that live behind us, when my headlights honed in on something small and sickly wading around in an a puddle of motor oil. Sure enough, it was the mouse. I scooted it out of my path with an old New Yorker. The next morning, it was waiting for me just behind one of my tires. And this time, it pointed a frail whisker in the direction of its brother, who was standing a few feet away, covered in cobwebs. I found myself consumed by the desire-the need-to rescue these orphan mice from a bleak future of Valvoline baths, magazine spiders and the landlord's poison traps that lurk behind every rusty shovel. So I went back inside, got a shoebox, stocked a corner of it with iceberg lettuce and cheerios, and gave them the home they'd been looking for all along- someplace warm, safe and filled with indigestible foods. Then I put the box under a tree in the backyard (it was still relatively warm outside at this point), folded down a side in case they wanted to get some exercise, and left for work with a warm heart and hands covered in bubonic plague.

The mice were probably eaten by birds, their lettuce feast eaten by squirrels, the cardboard box eaten by the neighbor's dogs. But the point is, I'd helped them in some way... maybe. Whatever. I say whatever because a few days ago, with one quick surge of brick-breaking power, I erased all of the goodwill and good karma I'd established with mousekind. I ran one over. I'm sure it was quick and painless, but it was also messy. And until Matt finally got the hint and peeled said mouse off of the concrete with a snow shovel, it served as a gruesome twice-daily reminder of how quickly the bridges we build can be burned, or flattened, as the case may be.

In other, less vermony news, I'm almost 39 weeks pregnant and feeling crazy. But I'd like to reflect on my pregnancy before it transitions to parenthood and I forget all of the little details, big discoveries, cloying discomforts and irrational anxieties that have become my friends over the past months. I'd segue into that now, but I'm tired, and you have things to do.

P.S. Doing a Google image search for "baby mice" was the worst decision I've made all day. And that's saying a lot because I also wore pajamas to Target and tried making an eggnog milkshake.

Defeathering the nest

Last night, I watched a good chunk of the Emmys whilst sipping Crystal Light and then slogged up to bed at 9 p.m., convinced that I would be dreaming weird dreams that blend common work scenarios and rare zoo animals by 9:05. But the second my head hit the pillow, it's like my brain finally turned on after being off for hours. And I could not. stop. thinking. And I was pissed. Because these weren't big, broad, creative thoughts, or "suddenly everything clicked" thoughts. They were evil, irrational thoughts - the kind that only come home to roost when all you want to do is sleep. I am afraid that my family will forget about me. I'm afraid that, along with blood, vitamins and oxygen, this baby is siphoning off the interesting parts of me too. I will give birth to a wunderkind, and in turn become a pile of fingers and brittle hair with a growing collection of old US Weeklies. I am afraid of uncertainty and the squirrel dropping acorns from the oak tree outside our bedroom window.

But morning came and brought clarity with it, and I'm hoping for a smoother transition to slumber tonight. Until then! Some thoughts I've had on sweaters and pregnancy.

On Old Sweaters
Don't be fooled by the old sweaters in your drawers and/or closet. Don't try and convince yourself that the 16-year-old working at the fancy vintage store who wouldn't buy them from you just doesn't know how to identify a good sweater. Don't lie to yourself when you spare them, for the fifth or ninth time, from the basket of clothes you're taking to Goodwill. Don't imagine the 35-year-old version of yourself pulling them out and throwing them on, excited to show off her like-new-again merino turtleneck from the window of her flying car. Just don't. Your old sweaters are old. And gross. They're pilled and have dried icing on the sleeves. They're stretched into unnatural shapes and smell like the anxious sweat of 2005. Don't be fooled by old sweaters. Just put them in the basket (if they're decent) or the trash, and move on. (This is a note written to myself as I stare at a pile of Muppety skins that used to be sweaters and need to be disposed of.)

On Pregnancy (Five things I've learned/realized thus far)
1. Naming a person is hard work and sort of psychologically revealing. All of the grade school bullies. All of the unrequited crushes. All of it's off limits.

2. Nesting is a real thing (see sweater rant above). I suddenly feel the need to purge all of the junk mail and broken nail clippers I've been saving for years.

3. Tums are delicious.

4. Some people have cute bellies. And some people look like they ate an oblong serving platter (read: me). But comparisons are fruitless - a waste of time that could be spent standing in front of the refrigerator, eating shredded cheese.

5. I am fully aware that getting here isn't always easy. It wasn't for us. And despite the heartburn and deluge of worries, I am indescribably grateful.

I do not tumbl (is that the verb form?)... yet, but if I did, I'd tumbl this.

Onward and outward: Thoughts at 25 weeks

They (blogs, fake internet doctors, the Starbucks employees who feel sorry for you when you try to pay for your coffee* with a Blockbuster card) say that pregnancy messes with your mind, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'd actually liken it to walking around with a stomach full of person and a head full of melted ice cream.

Plus, work has been really, really busy. And... all of this is to say, I've been a bad blogger, but not for lack of trying. My account is full of half-started posts, abandoned midway through a word or sentence, left to toil until I delete them in a year.

So I may have a mushy brain, but it's accompanied by a happy heart. And the urgent feeling that I should be doing more to prepare before this baby arrives. The room where our stationary bike and dozens of precious dust bunnies sleep needs to magically transform into a nursery. I need to end my quest for a functional yet moderately attractive glider, bite the bullet, and buy something ugly. I need to vacuum my car. We need to sign up for classes. We need to find a daycare provider/robot nanny. I'm holding tight to the belief that everything will pan out... I think it will. It kind of has to.

From now until December, I'm going to make a concerted effort to blog about the thoughts I'm having trouble forming, the goals we may or may not be reaching, and the wonderfully confusing life overhaul we're about to undergo. Right now, it's time to stare into space for a few minutes. Happy Labor Day!

*I will always tell you it's decaf, even when it's not.

You want a coke? Maybe some fries?

I'd like to start off by saying that becoming a regular at the McDonald's weekend-morning drive-thru is never a good thing, and I think that just happened to me. Truthfully, we have been going more often than we usually do, but still, this is disconcerting. When I pulled around to the first window this morning to pay, I breathed a sigh of relief to see a stranger in place of the girl who's been there the past three* times I've paid for our usual order, but when I proceeded to the second window, said girl I thought I'd avoided seeing greeted me with the kind of cheerful hello you only give out to valued customers and people you feel sorry for. That's what I've become. So we may have to back off for a while and eat normal breakfast things, like cereal and toast. I'll miss the morning drive, the anticipation, the $5 well spent on such a satisfactory, albeit unhealthy, start to the day. I'll just keep in mind the bitterness I felt today when I opened the bag to find they'd given me Spicy Buffalo Sauce for my pancakes.

This same morning, the one that's happening right now - the one when I reached platinum level status at McDonald's, I was sitting outside on our rusty veranda reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants" while Matt finished up the last of his McMuffin and flipped a page in "1861," which details the early days of the Civil War and is the exact opposite of "Bossypants." I'm just wrapping up the chapter where Tina describes the momentous day in which she taped the episode of 30 Rock with Oprah and then proceeded to tape her first ever episode of SNL as Sarah Palin, all while planning her daughter's third birthday party. She included Seth Meyers' script from the Palin sketch, and while reading it, I felt this twinge of nostalgia mixed with sadness over the font, the structure, the cross-outs and rewrites. And I realized I really miss writing sketches.

More than that, I miss having a reason to write sketches - I miss the urgency of churning out the last two pages during my lunch break at work and sneaking over to the printer to grab them before someone else does. I miss the rapture felt when your work is met with laughter, and the crickets that accompany a really sorry effort. I could keep writing sketches for my own amusement, but then again, I've never been a fan of pointlessness. Why put my clothes in a drawer when I'm going to wear them sometime in the next month or two? Why make instant oatmeal when McDonald's is just ten short blocks and a few dollars away? Exactly. That being said, if a good reason comes along, I'll jump on it. I have lots of ideas brewing... like one about Ke$ha presenting her PhD dissertation on the effect of whisky and glitter on house pets... or something.

Lastly, and speaking of Ke$ha, Dana and I went to see Ben Folds on Friday night. The 19-year-old in me - the one wearing baggy corduroys and some now-closed middle school's field day t-shirt, will always carry a torch for Ben Folds Five. I used to work at Creighton's on-campus coffee shop, and we'd wipe down the counters and steal bottles of Sobe to The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. I know every word to every song on Whatever and Ever Amen. Ben Folds sings to dorky people like Michael Buble sings to that one lady you work with. I haven't really listened to anything he's released since Songs for Silverman, so I spent a good part of the show watching moths land on the back of the guy in front of me. But when he did play the familiar stuff, it was awesome. I teared up when he sang "Still Fighting It," but maybe that's because I'm a grownup now and better understand what it's about.


How does Ke$ha figure in, you ask? This was perhaps my favorite part of the entire show (video is from PA because the Iowa version had bad sound and a guy in a Chiefs hat bobbing up and down in front of the camera).


*The low end of a very rough estimate.

Why hello.

I found this beaut in a book of sample photography that was left in a giveaway pile at work. I tore it out and taped it on a cabinet in my cube, and I've glanced at it every few minutes since then because I love it so much. That Sphynx is ready to see a movie. {Photograph by Michael Warren.}

When life gets too crazy, I'm naturally inclined to sit back and watch it all unfold from somewhere dark and comfortable. I don't talk about it a ton. I don't blog about it (hence the unplanned hiatus), which is a shame because that's when stories are at their most interesting. But hopefully this is me, standing in front of you, posting pictures of cats, turning a corner. I've started a new job, or returned to an old job really, and... the list goes on from there.

Until next time, here are some Sunday afternoon suggestions:

- Watch "The Killing" on AMC. Ever since "Mad Men" wrapped me in its smoky, polyester embrace, I'm inclined to think AMC can do no wrong. They could pay a birthday party clown to write knock-knock jokes in lipstick on a bathroom mirror for two hours straight, and I'd watch it and love it and probably buy the DVDs. But my low standards aside, "The Killing" will reel you in. You'll get annoyed with it quite often, but only mildly. Stick with it. The season finale is tonight, and I'm counting down the minutes. In lipstick. On the bathroom mirror.

- Download "All Eternals Deck" by The Mountain Goats. It came out in March, so you can tell I'm not exactly on the ball. Maybe you've already heard it. Maybe you hate it. But not me - John Darnielle's voice is like a punch in the air on a crap day. He makes me want to run until my lungs hurt (which isn't far for me, but you get the picture).



- Tell your dad happy Father's Day. Call him if you're far away. Hug him if you're close by. Not to be all, "I would if I could," but it's true. I would. Not being able to stinks. It never gets less stinky.

That being said, happy Father's Day to all the dads I know - the newbies, the vets and the soon-to-bes!

Zebra Cakes

Yesterday morning, I ran over a box of Zebra Cakes. It was lying in the street outside the elementary school by our house, and running it over was an accident. In that I thought the box was empty, and I love running over trash with my car. But when I looked in the rearview mirror to see the fruits of my harmless destruction, I instead saw icing, wrappers, a flattened box and one intact package of cakes lying a few feet from its fallen comrades. There were cars behind me; I panicked and drove on. But all day, and all night, and today too, I've been overcome with guilt. Crazy, constant, perhaps disroportionate guilt. Yesterday was the last day of school, and those Zebra Cakes were bought by a parent to celebrate the start of summer. The close of another successful year. And I flattened it all. Kind of on purpose. There's nothing I can do, short of leaving a replacement box in the street, so for now I'll live with sadness in my heart and striped icing on my hands. Whoever you are, (irresponsible) kid who dropped your snacks in the middle of 52nd street, I'm really, genuinely sorry.

..................

After my family was here for Easter, I found a small pocket notebook in our dining room - the spiral-bound kind that detectives use. I remembered my brother using it to take notes on the combination of sauces and seasonings he used to smoke our Easter ribs (classy tradition est. 2011), and I texted him, saying I'd drop it in the mail. He told me not to bother; it wasn't worth the postage. "You should look at the quote in the front though." So of course I didn't. I left the notebook in a catch-all bowl in the kitchen, with Trident wrappers, bobbypins and brown bananas. But I found it again tonight and finally read the quote.

"The texture of our universe is one where there is no question at all but that good and laughter and justice will prevail." -Desmond Tutu

Thanks, Joe.

If I split like light refracted

I've been listening to this song a lot lately. It wound up on a mix I have in my car... reminds me of life before contact lenses.



Off to run errands and see "Bridesmaids" old-person style (early, in time for a 4:30 dinner), but more to come. I composed a post in my head while I was falling asleep last night.

[From that kind of woman]

Go broke at the library... with me.

It turns out my upcoming weekend visit to Chicago coincides with Lauren’s book club meeting, so I’ve been asked to attend. And I’m honored. It turns out the book they’re clubbing is "Sleepwalk with Me" by Mike Birbiglia, which I’ve been wanting to read anyway, and which will come as a breath of fresh, nonpoisonous air after reading
Methland (which I enjoyed, and I recommend).

I ordered “Sleepwalk with Me” from Amazon Marketplace – a dumb move because I need to read it before next Friday, and Marketplace is like Russian Roulette, only the gun shoots damaged garage sale books and it shoots them on a really unreliable timetable. I’m guessing the book will show up in time for Christmas. Maybe.

To ensure a decent start on the book, I tracked it down at the library and put it on hold. I like to think of myself as a library person, so I strode in casually toward the front desk, library card in hand.

“Can I help you?” the girl at the desk asked.

“Yeah, you guys have a book on hold for me. I think it’s that one right there.” I pointed to the book, propped up behind the counter and smiled with smug satisfaction. Obviously, I’m an awesome library patron if they hold books for me. I don’t even have to find them myself. Because I come here so often. Because I read so many library books.

She picked it up and asked for my card.

“I might have a fine,” I said nonchalantly, the way I tell the Blockbuster people I might have a fine, even when I know I don’t. It’s always cooler to pretend you might have one and not owe anything than to assume you’re fine-free and then get slapped with a $7 fee for keeping “Edge of Darkness” under the couch for two months.

“Actually, yes, you do have a fine And your card is expired. I’ll need to see your driver's license so I can renew it.”

Gah. Obviously I haven’t been a library person for some time now. Probably close to a year. And since I still don’t have a Nebraska license, I was almost out of luck. However, my purse is full of junk mail (not sure why, just one of those things), and I was able to produce something with our current Omaha address.

“Alright, great. I just need to collect $36.50 and then you’ll be good to go.”

I almost cut and run at that point. $36 can buy a lot of things – it can buy books from a bookstore, or gas, or a DVD from Blockbuster, or a few months of Netflix. But then I remembered driving around with our roadtrip audiobooks flopping around in the backseat for $36 worth of weeks after we’d returned home... last August. And the least I could do was square things up with the public library. So I paid the fine. And I took my book, feeling very exposed for the library person I am not.

Going forward, I’ll return my books on time, starting with this one. And when the Amazon copy of “Sleepwalk with Me” finally leaves the chamber and shows up in the mail later this year, I’ll it set aside and give it to you for Christmas.


And in unrelated and more important news, happy, happy birthday, Matt. No surprise party this year, but I hope the day was just as good.

Female Writers in Late Night by the Numbers

Crappy, but not super surprising.



(click on title for link to source)

Test Pattern

When I was little, I used to get up early in the morning, sit on the floor in front of our 13-inch TV and watch the test pattern on Channel 9 until the shows started. This ritual could last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

I've been in a creative no man's land for the past week or so, but will return shortly, severely nearsighted, in love with television and stripes, and infinitely patient.

A day of firsts

Today was the first really warm day this spring. I walked around the Old Market for a bit after my haircut, letting the Vitamin D chisel its way through my sallow mole person skin and leaving my fingerprints on expensive knicknacks.

First time I watched "Willow" (not disappointed).


Matt enjoyed his first KFC Double Down, a year after it splattered onto the fast food scene, turning our napkins clear and making our hearts work three times as hard. When asked if he'll ever eat one again, he examined the leftover mystery sauce on his fingers and replied, "Yes, but I don't know when." My guess is someday. Maybe the next time we sit inside and watch Willow on the first really warm day of spring.

Three Things

1.
I’ve recently discovered a whole trove of Tumblrs that have since served to distract me to a crippling degree. If left to my own devices, I could scroll through street style photos, rustic interiors and artful closeups of expensive desserts for minutes upon minutes upon minutes. This is the same part of me that can flip through the Summer 2010 Anthropologie catalog over and over until nothing is purchased but everything is softened, folded and covered in sneezes.

A few:
That Kind of Woman
Cali Vintage
Modern Hepburn

2.
Happy April Fools! The other day I was listening to my favorite morning show (sorry Morning Edition – this is local, and funnier) and the morning show people were lamenting the fact that no one does anything for April Fools anymore – the occasional fake news article notwithstanding. And I believe this to be true. My parents really embraced April 1st, and maybe my mom still does; I’m just not around to find plastic French fries on my lunch bag or gasp at the fake spilled wine on the dining room table. My dad used to tell his Intro to Sociology class they’d be watching some video on some African tribe or something, and instead he’d pop in Toonces the Driving Cat, lovingly rented from our local library, year after year. I was always jealous of the kids in that class.



3.
It’s always good to save the best for last, so… Congratulations to Libby and Patrick on the birth of their son, Charles Ellis! My heart swells and my eyes get teary when I think how happy I am for two such lovely, deserving, destined-to-be-fantastic new parents. Libby, I’ve known, ever since the day I met you (10 years ago!), that you were going to be an amazing mother. Your humor, grace and signature warmth have gotten me through some of the all-out crappiest times. You’ve shared it with your friends, your family, your Patrick, your patients, and now you get to share it with the most important person – your Charlie.

Charlie, I used to drive around with your mom in her pearl blue 80s spaceship car, smoking Camel Lights and listening to Bleed American at full volume until it got dark and we had to get back to campus for important things like grilled cheese in the cafeteria and Zimas in the mini fridge. Those were good times. I just thought you should know. Oh, and welcome to life outside the womb. I think you’ll like it here.

"Baby chickens. Diamond forks. Brand-name soda."

Chang's idea of a fancy restaurant. My favorite line from last night's episode of Community.

"Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories." - Jean-Dominique Bauby

Gah. Today’s been one of those days where I never actually woke up, like that internal mechanism that tells you you’re awake, and need to function as so, never clicked. It could be the erratic weather (is it spring? Or winter? Or some weird hybrid conjured up by the parka and flip flop people?), or the fact that I’ve finally started getting to those 5:30 a.m. spin classes I vowed to attend back in January. Whatever it is, I’m hoping it wears off. Can’t keep running into walls much longer.

While we’re all sitting around, waiting for spring to unleash its torrent of bunnies, perennials and vitamin D, here are a few book recommendations. I’ve been on a roll lately as far as finding good reading material goes. Of the four books I’ve read in 2011 (do with that information what you will), I’d only give one – "The White Album" by Joan Didion – less than two thumbs up. But I love Joan Didion, so I’d give it one thumb up and one thumb to thumb through the book to find the essays truly worth reading.

But here, in chronological order, are the books I’d recommend. I’ll spare you the lengthy reviews (and leave that to my more literate half), but just rest assured that I think they’re good. Really, that’s all you need to know.


"Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street" by Michael Davis
If you’re into Muppets and the early days of public television, this is for you. You really have to be interested in children’s television too though, because the first third of the book goes into some serious detail about Howdy Doody and Bob Keeshan and the like. Riddled with fun facts and poignant remembrances.


"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death" by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Having watched the film adaptation of Bauby’s memoir (very) soon after my dad died, I kind of locked this away for a while, dreading whatever effect it may have. But my sister thoughtfully gave me the book for my birthday, and I figured it was time to give it a go. It’s super short, and I couldn’t put it down (which is weird for me, since once I know the “story,” as it were, I’m less inclined to read on). Anyway, you will probably laugh, most likely cry – and inevitably be moved by this book. Seriously, if you’re not moved, you are made of stone, and I want nothing to do with you. You soulless freak.



"The Good Wife" by Stewart O’Nan
During my heady, spendthrift days in Chicago, I used to frequent the bargain book section at Unabridged in Lakeview. One of my finds was a little hardcover edition of "Last Night at the Lobster" by Stewart O’Nan. I didn’t know anything about the author, but I liked eating at Red Lobster and figured I could spend $3 on something I may never read. Ended up loving the book. At the same time, a few hundred miles away, Matt bought, read and loved the book too, and proceeded to purchase O’Nan’s other works. "The Good Wife" is only the second one I’ve read, but it’s even better. An endearing, enduring testament to the lengths (in distance and in time) people will go to for love.

[Sidenote: Matt recently wrote a great review, which you can find here.]

So there you go! Get reading while the sky is still gray and you can stay inside. Because those bunnies bring sunshine, and sunshine brings guilt.

On a totally unrelated note, because I don’t blog regularly (we all know it – it’s time someone said it), I didn’t say anything about Japan last week, and instead decided to focus on incredibly trivial things like my hair. So now, very, very belatedly, I’d like to mention that my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan as they pick up the pieces of all they’ve lost. I don’t know why, but I’ve always felt a particularly strong pull toward the elderly, and that’s one of the hardest things for me to fathom about this disaster. Twenty percent of Japan’s population is over the age of 65 – a figure that jumps to more than 35% in rural areas (with many people in their 80s and 90s). Those that were spry enough to survive the earthquake and tsunami are homeless and residing in emergency shelters, less likely than their younger counterparts to ask for things they need, like blankets and food. Anyway, I’m not sure where I’m going with this. If you’re looking for a worthy place to send a donation, ShelterBox is an amazing organization.