Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Probably my last post of 2007

Published
by
Sara
on December 30, 2007
in Comics, Recommended Authors, Travel and Writing
. Closed

Hey, everybody. It’s been a while.

Man.

You go away from easy Internet access for a week and somebody hacks your dang MySpace. For any of y’all who got bulletins from “me” alerting you to the latest horizontal hijinks of a young lady who I will not name, who is famous for being famous, please accept my sincere apologies. I’ve totally changed my password and reestablished ownership. I think.

It was a very bookish ambiguous winter holiday. I have just added to my obsessive LibraryThing catalog the following:

Some of them came from the several good used bookstores along US 101 between Lincoln City and Newport, one of which has this excellent poster:

livrespouretrennes.jpg

Two of them came from the Visitor Center at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, which I highly recommend. We also purchased a fine rubber octopus, learned a bit about Antarctic whale research, and I took a few pictures. Here’s one:

fishface.jpg

Some fish you don’t need to work at all to anthropomorphize.

Last but not least! The other thing I did while away from the ever-enticing Internet was to finish writing my story for the Comic Book Tattoo anthology, which a few of you may have heard about already — it’s coming out this summer from Image Comics, and all the stories are inspired by Tori Amos songs. I don’t think I’m allowed to say yet which song is mine, but I’m extremely psyched about the story and the project as a whole.

Happy end of 2007 and beginning of 2008!

Post #546

Published
by
Sara
on December 19, 2007
in Fitness, Thrifting and Trivia
. Closed

1. First I have to repost these great work-in-progress photos that Erica put up of the story we’re doing for the Snow Stories anthology.

It’s about getting lost, and getting un-lost.

2. I don’t have a gym story this week, but I have a couple of snippets:

Dude on treadmill, breathing heavily, to his trainer: “Now, I expect my stomach to be gone when I get off this thing!”

Trainer: “Uh uh, I am not responsible for what you do when you’re outside this room.”

Dude: “Well, that ain’t gonna work!”

And there was a bald guy with an eyepatch on the next weight bench over. We were resting between sets, also breathing a bit heavily. He got his breath back: “It ain’t fair we have to work so hard!”

3. I will not explain why I know this, but hey, if you ever just happen to be obsessively cleaning out your house and take a whole lot of things to Goodwill, and then you realize, possibly after someone else in your house informs you of the fact, that one of the things you donated really, really should not have been given away, there is a thing you can do. If you still have your donation slip, and it has not been very long since you have made said donation, you can go to the Manager and fill out a form called “Donation In Error.” And then, if it hasn’t been too long, and nobody’s, you know, bought the thing, then you can have it back.

4. Oh, and in case you haven’t seen it already, Free Rice is, to me at least, way more addictive than Sudoku.

Books That Built Me: Finn Family Moomintroll and other Moomin books

Published
by
Sara
on December 16, 2007
in Recommended Authors and booksthatbuiltme
. Closed

I was talking with a friend the other day, saying that writing the long sad post about my father had gotten me thinking about how I’ve been oddly shy and reticent about posting about other things here; things about which I might reasonably be expected to have a certain level of expertise and knowledge.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “like, you know…books.”

For some reason this made her laugh uncontrollably.

But it’s true. I’ve worried, ludicrously, that if I post in a substantive fashion about books, that I will:

  • Make my friends who are also authors think I hate their books if I don’t happen to write about them
  • Appear utterly biased if I write glowing praise of my friends’ books
  • Offend someone, somewhere
  • Otherwise Get It Wrong

Upon reflection, I realize that this is more or less insane. So one of my early New Year’s resolutions is to post more about books. I’m going to start by writing about some of the books that I imprinted upon, the ones that still hold up on rereading, the ones that really shaped aspects of how I see the world. Stealing a phrase from Francis Spufford, I’m calling this “series” Books That Built Me.

First up: Finn Family Moomintroll and other Moomin books by Tove Jansson.

I have owned this book for most of my life, as you can see:
finnfamilymoomintrollcover.jpg

thisbookbelongstosararyan.jpg

The link above will give you an idea of what the Moomin books are about; I’m going to tell you a few things I took from them, with supporting quotes.

An expansive definition of family and an approach to hospitality:

Moomintroll’s mother and father always welcomed all their friends in the same quiet way, just adding another bed and putting another leaf in the dining-room table. And so Moominhouse was rather full — a place where everyone did what they liked and seldom worried about to-morrow. Very often unexpected and disturbing things used to happen, but nobody ever had time to be bored, and that is always a good thing.

The first restless wanderer I encountered in fiction:

“You talked of plans,” Moomintroll went on. “Have you got any yourself?”

“Yes,” said Snufkin. “I have a plan. But it’s a lonely one, you know.”

Moomintroll looked at him for a long time, and then he said: “You’re thinking of going away.”

Snufkin nodded, and they sat for a while swinging their legs over the water, without speaking, while the river flowed on and on beneath them to all the strange places that Snufkin longed for and would go to quite alone.

And the first obsessive collector:

At last the Hemulen burst out: “How hopeless it all is!” And after another pause he added: “What’s the use? You can have my stamp collection for the next paper-chase.”

“But Hemulen!” said the Snork Maiden, horrified, “that would be awful! Your stamp collection is the finest in the world!”

“That’s just it,” said the Hemulen in despair. “It’s finished. There isn’t a stamp, or an error that I haven’t collected. Not one. What shall I do now?”

And the first sufferer of panic attacks and nameless dread:

fillyjonkexcerpt.mp3

A short excerpt of me reading from one of my favorite short stories, “The Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters.” Click and you’ll see why I wanted to read it out loud.

At this point I should remind everyone that yes, these are children’s books.

“Every children’s book should have a path in it where the writer stops and the child goes on,” Jansson said. “A threat or a delight that can never be explained. A face never completely revealed.”

What I love about these books, and what stays with me: the combination of coziness and bleakness, the characters that apparently were sometimes based on family and friends,  the warm house full of comfort and conversation, the wide world full of adventure and danger just outside.

Gym story

Published
by
Sara
on December 13, 2007
in Fitness and Music
. Closed

There was one of those guys at the gym this morning.

One of those guys for whom every rep of every set must be accompanied by a long, high-volume groan.

The sort that typically goes along with…other types of activities.

Now, lots of people, including me, find that some kind of forceful exhaling when you’re lifting weights is helpful. And usually, the music — the radio’s always going in the gym — is loud enough to mask it.

But let me reiterate: this guy was REALLY. REALLY. LOUD.

He groaned his way through “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “Buttons,” and “Baby Got Back.” (The station calls itself something like “your feel-good connection.” Um. Yeah.)

Finally one of the other folks in the gym kind of looked over his way, chuckled, and said, “Damn, boy!”

“What?” the guy demanded. “You mean I’m supposed to be SILENT through my set?”

The other gentleman shook his head cheerfully and said, “Nah, nah, nah, bro. You make your noises.”

“Yeah, well,” the guy said, “it helps, you know — sometimes it SCARES ‘em into movin’ — UUUUNNNHHHH!!”

I believe the “‘em” referred to was the guy’s muscles.

For a little while, things got quieter. There were some commercials on the radio, people talked quietly about holiday plans.

Then the music returned: “Life is a mys-ter-y, everyone must stand a-lone, I hear you call my name, and it feeeeels like ho-ome.”

I realized that there was another voice singing along with Ms. Ciccone.

I looked around to see who it was.

Sure enough, it was Groaning Guy, who, it turns out, is possessed of a totally awesome falsetto.


(N.B.: Not Groaning Guy.)

This, that

Published
by
Sara
on December 11, 2007
in Fitness and Portland
. Closed

1. An item in support of that new career path I posted about.

2. Thanks, runners, for all your wise advice. I’ve been doing the “add a minute each time at the faster pace” and so far I am up to fourteen whole minutes at the 10 minute/mile pace, and then I try to run at least another mile at my slower jog pace. I am heeding folks’ cautions about allowing for adequate recovery time as well.

3. In a related note, man alive, when you go to the gym in the early afternoon, it is silent as the grave. When I unpacked my stuff in the locker room, I took up, like, the whole entire bench without a qualm. (Have you noticed that even if there’s only one other person in the locker room, inevitably they have picked the locker next to yours, so you get in each other’s way regardless?)

4. Saddest sight — well, I guess not saddest per se, but the most indicative-of-neighborhood-change — that I’ve seen since returning to Portland: the ex-Clown House yard, put into service as a Christmas tree lot. Sigh.

There ought to be a name

Published
by
Sara
on December 10, 2007
in Blog
. Closed

…for the particular feeling you get when you’re back home after a substantial time away: simultaneously as though you were gone even longer than you actually were, and as though you never really left.

Is there?

If the writing, librarianship and cartooning don’t work out

Published
by
Sara
on December 7, 2007
in Travel
. Closed

Steve and I may have a new career with great prospects.

checktirepressure.jpg
You probably can’t read that, but it says “Check Left Front Tire Pressure.”

We did. At which point we noted the furious, tea-kettle-esque hissing sound of air rapidly escaping.

Note that this was an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT RENTAL CAR than the one we had last weekend.

stevechangingtiretaketwo.jpg

sarachangingtiretaketwo.jpg

Another kind of coming out

Published
by
Sara
on December 6, 2007
in Family and alzheimers
. Closed

I was looking over my last several months’ worth of entries, and found myself more struck by what I wasn’t saying than what I was.

I have a lot of what Garret recently called “breathless blogging type entries” and far fewer longer, more thoughtful posts. Most notably, I’ve never talked about one of the defining facts of my current life, the reason Steve and I spend a month out of the year in Ohio.

My father, who just turned seventy-seven, has Alzheimers. He’s had the diagnosis for several years. Predictably, he is worse every time we visit. When we come, we cook, clean, assist with what caregiving guides euphemistically call “the activities of daily living,” and, in general, try our best to give my mother a respite. When we’re not here, she is his sole caregiver. By choice.

When we’re here (and when we’re not), the TV is on all the time. It’s the only thing he can focus on. He’ll still look at the newspapers in the morning, but who knows what he gets out of them.

Their house is full of the books he collected and can no longer read. He was a rare books and special collections librarian, and also an occasional antiquarian book dealer. When I was growing up, both my parents read to me, but Dad was the one who read to me nearly every night until I had too much homework.

When I explore the basement or his study and turn up artifacts of our family history, they are often accompanied by labels in his careful handwriting, often on discarded catalog cards. Most of the things I’ve found, I’ve never seen before. He kept, organized, categorized so many things, but at the same time, he was always very private. He would show me family photos — he was the family genealogist — but the objects, like the scrapbooks I found this trip, or my great-grandfather’s handkerchief box that I found the time before — stayed in their boxes.

To my eternal regret, I didn’t start snooping around until it was too late for him to answer my questions. Even my mother doesn’t know the details about a lot of what he saved. I know that I’m extraordinarily lucky to have his notes. But when I look at them, and then look at him, it underscores how much is lost.

Please understand that I’m not writing this because I’m looking for sympathy. I’m writing this because I’m tired of avoiding all mentions of the long goodbye I’ve been saying, and am still saying, every time we come to Ohio. I’m writing this because I love my parents and I hate what this disease has done to their lives.

In my fiction, I strive to show life in all its messiness and complexity. Yes, I want to be funny, and yes, I want my characters to have fun sometimes. But I also try — I don’t always succeed, but I try — to not flinch from writing about things that are sad and difficult. Increasingly, the stories I most respect and appreciate in all formats are the ones that pull no punches.

I’m going to try to stop pulling my punches here.

Wire prequels

Published
by
Sara
on December 5, 2007
in Wire
. Closed

Anyone who’s been reading this a while knows of my extreme devotion to The Wire. I finally went ahead and made a Wire category, since with the fifth and final season fast approaching, I suspect I’ll be posting about it even more often. (I still suck at categorizing posts, though. Matt, maybe I should hire you as a consulting taxonomist…)

Anyway: found via the comments thread on Matthew Yglesias’s site, here are three very short ‘prequels.’  Warning: they won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen the show before. If you haven’t, of course, I urge you with evangelical zeal to get seasons 1-4 on DVD.

Bunk and McNulty (2000, Baltimore, Maryland)

Young Prop Joe (1962, Baltimore, Maryland)

Young Omar (1985, Baltimore, Maryland)

Bunk and McNulty is fun, the uniforms at Prop Joe’s school are a nice touch, but the Omar one is my favorite. It feels like a real character-forming moment, not just fanservice.

Right, then.

Published
by
Sara
on December 3, 2007
in Travel
. Closed

Out of idle curiosity I totaled up the number of days this year I’ve been (or will be; there’s more to come before the end of the year) traveling, according to my calendar.

86.

A month of that is parental visiting (split into two two-week chunks, once in spring, once in fall, as longtime readers will perhaps recall). Then there are the library conventions, the comics conventions, the writing retreats, the author appearances, and oh, yeah, the part where you just go someplace because you want to hang out there, you know, with friends, and maybe experience culture or something.

All told, a little under 25 percent of 2007.

It feels like more.

How much of this year have y’all traveled? Moving counts as travel; it’s like traveling cubed, because you don’t go home, or rather you do, but it isn’t home yet, you have to make it home.