Thinning the Herd

The office is beginning to look like an office -- well, the Crimefighter's office is beginning to look like an office. I'm still one big trip to a Swedish paradise in America away from success in my own office, but this is how it is sometimes.

I carted out 24 boxes of books and put them on the shelves. I'll have to move almost all of them when I get my own space tricked out, but at least there's a lot more cardboard in the garage than in the house.

Every so often, I go through my books and decide which relationships I want to continue and which books would be happier in someone else's family. I've read all of these, but I won't bore you with my summation. It's Sunday, it's late, and this is what all those people at amazon get paid for anyway.

Same deal as last time -- if you want them, they're yours forever. I'll even send them to you. All I ask is that you feed them well and love them as I did, if only briefly.

In no particular order:

Fiction:

• The Inn at Lake Devine by Eleanor Lipman'
• Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby
• The Prada Paradox by Julie Kenner
• The Year of Disappearances (Ethical Vampire Series #2) by Susan Hubbard
• Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts
• Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
• Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman (YA)
• Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan (YA)
• The Case of the Missing Books (Mobile Library Mystery #1) by Ian Sansom
• Mr. Dixon Disappears (Mobile Library Mystery #2) by Ian Sansom

Nonfiction:

• The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte by James Tully
• Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
• The Film Club by David Gilmour

I'll give you my version of the skinny on any of them if you are interested. Catch me through email or on facebook. There will be more soon, I'm sure.

What you Should and Shouldn't be Watching -- are we there yet?

If you think the repetition of the blog content is boring, you should try being in a cast and having nothing to do BUT anticipate the next time the cable gods feel motivated to post a new show. We are, if all goes well and I mess nothing up, 9 days away from The Great Liberation of Suzanne's Ankle. Let's hope I do nothing stupid. Well, one can always hope.

This week, in creative alphabetic order:

Neighbors from Hell: This is a trippy little cartoon I stumbled upon a few weeks ago. It airs on TBS, and I was surprised that it is the only On Demand show I watch from the channel. TBS might want to look into expanding the other programs they offer on demand. I think I watch a lot of the channel. If you had asked me, I would have equated it with TNT or USA. Not true, apparently. If Neighbors from Hell is their only new programming, they might want to up the budget. The premise is one of those that sounds stupid to everyone who isn't me. I lurve subversive cartooning (having watched The Simpsons since it was filler on The Tracey Ullman Show), and Matt Groening is one of the minor deities in my Pantheon. He sits just behind and to the left of Joss Wheedon. The premise of NFH is simple: Balthasar is a regular, working-class demon in hell, just trying to get by and raise his family of two kids, a wife, and a dog while also taking care of a wacky gay uncle. He is an average working schmo who breaks one of Hell's cardinal rules -- he watches television for pleasure. Television is banned everywhere except as a form of torture because, as the Devil informs us, "that'll rot your brain. That's the truth." Caught watching television, he and his clan are exiled from hell and charged with living on Earth. Balthasar is ordered to stop the creation of a powerful drill that, eventually, will drill to the Earth's core (which is, incidentally, hell). Of course, when the demons reach the surface, we learn that they may be the nicest people around. Everyone connected to the corporation perfecting the drill is, of course, far more demonic than anyone known in hell. "Hilarity" ensues. NFH isn't terrible, but the premise is a little done. It doesn't have that subtle hand that Whedon had (when Spike battles and wins his soul on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and turns out.... exactly as he was before, well, THAT was subtle genius). This is OK. It isn't Groening or MacPharlane, but it's cute.

Parenthood: I started watching Parenthood for the most noble of reasons: it is Peter Krause's new show, and I feel the need to always support my tv boyfriend. That said, I think Parenthood is really outstanding. It stars Coach as the patriarch of a family not necessarily falling apart but definitely fraying thanks to a host of society's problems. Krause plays Adam Braverman. He has two sisters: the chick from Gilmore Girls and the chick from Swimfan. He also has a brother, played by Dax Shepard. The four Braverman children are close, but all face what I consider to be fairly realistic trials. The Gilmore Girls chick, Sarah, married the wrong guy too young and is now raising two teenagers. The other sister, Julia, is a high powered lawyer struggling to find her place as a mother. Adam and his wife have a teenage girl and a younger son diagnosed in the first episodes as autistic. The brother, Crosby, discovers he has a son from a previous relationship. Although I am not a parent and have no immediate plans to be one, I really like the acting on this show. The characters are believable; the storylines compelling. As I don't have a large immediate family, I find the patterns of communication to be interesting. The series is definitely trying to be the thirtysomething of this decade. It has only been on for one season, but it just might resonate that much. The interplay between the characters, especially the question of balancing caring for your kids and caring for your parents, draws in the viewer.

Pawn Stars: The only reality tv entry this week, and by far my favorite. Pawn Stars is Antiques Roadshow for boys. It stars Rick, owner of Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, NV (there's a picture of me and the Crimefighter out in front of it -- PRE-broken leg. Am waiting to get it), his Old Man, and his employees: his son Big Hoss, and Chumlee. I won't attempt to mimic the dialogue, but the interplay between Rick, his family, and his "friends" (appraisers) makes the show worthwhile. It was really fun to see the things I watched him purchase on tv sitting in the store. PS -- the cast ARE in the pawn shop. If you are in Vegas, stop by mornings Monday through Friday.

Rizzoli & Isles: This is a hidden treat for the summer. On TNT, Rizzoli & Isles is a standard cop drama starring Angie Harmon (who I love) and Sasha Alexander (had to look it up -- never seen her before) as a Homicide cop and medical examiner. On one level, it is just a typical cop drama bred with a little bit of "tomboy is friends with a fashionista" thrown in for good measure. That said, the relationship between the two is interesting. There are factual holes you have to ignore or look past (the medical examiner rides to the scene of the crime with the cop? Routinely? I don't think so.) but the show presents some interesting cases. They are tied to contemporary society but not so shamelessly "ripped from the headlines" as cases on Law & Order have become. No one on this show will play "Radio Shock Jock Harold Stren" and insult your intelligence like L&O can do on occasion. (I would like to interject that the L&O where the person who was supposed to be Anne Coulter met a foul end did not make me feel entirely despondant, but hey, I'm only human, unlike Anne Coulter). I would definitely recommend this one, no matter what the Crimefighter says. (His review here: "Chick show." My boy and his wordiness!)

Royal Pains: Summertime television should all be so much fun (sort of like summer itself). I adore Royal Pains! The first season got off to a sort of rocky start last year, but this show has completely hit its stride this summer. This is the story of two brothers: Hank and Evan Lawson (played so deliciously by Mark Feuerstein and Paulo Costanza). Hank is a doctor in the city when one mistake costs him his practice. Enter his financial "guru" (brother Evan) who secures them a chance to open a concierge medical practice in the Hamptons. Last season was a bit rough because there was this whole "what is going on with the crazy rich guy who hired us" thing. I believe the creators realized that the wacky overly odd residents of the Hamptons (those who bought there way in and those who were born to serve those who bought their way in) were enough. The show didn't really need a larger mystery. Why is there a shark in Boris' basement? No one cared. Now that the show has, ostensibly, dropped the more ridiculous storylines and focused on the more believable stories, it has only aged well. So, all in all, a wonderful show. If that isn't enough, did I mention it has Mark Feuerstein in the lead roll? (For those who listened to me and checked out Drop Dead Diva on Sunday.... the actress who plays Deb now has a recurring role on Royal Pains. Yea for her!)

For me, this is actually short. This is because, for all my love of television, my love of books remains stronger, and the Crimefighter took me to the library last night. I picked up 5 new ones and am almost through the first. Perhaps soon I'll have a list of what you should be reading, and all will once again be right with the world.

• Neighbors from Hell: Okay. For serious adult cartoon fans only. Not nearly as "subversive" as it believes itself to be.
• 
  Parenthood: On repeats now, but definitely worth a watch. If nothing else, you get to see my tv boyfriend.
• 
  Pawn Stars: Antiques Roadshow for boys. Cool for girls as well.
• 
  Rizzoli & Isles: A fun summer cop series. Definitely worth checking out.
• 
  Royal Pains: One of my favorite summer shows. Cable in the summer is definitely more interesting than the networks in the fall or spring.

What you Should and Shouldn't Be Watching Redux

OK, so the Richard-McCarthy's are playing host to Lovey the Labrador this weekend. As I had always suspected, having two dogs is proving easier than having one. After the first Meet-N-Greet (which, OK, did involve a little bit more humping than polite company would consider pleasant) which lasted about 10 minutes, they began to play in respectable ways while FoodGirl (that's my DogName) cleaned the kitchen. Now, they've settled into their respective corners and are snoozing peacefully in the late morning sun. I'm also thrilled that, for once, there's another lady in the house. Testosterone land has another female influence, if only for the day.

So, just in case this is only the calm before the storm (and Gerry is out buying manythings at manystores.... I don't ask anymore), I thought I would seize the opportunity to continue my list of what you should and should not be watching. Summation to follow at the end since I'm beginning to realize I'm a wordy little girl when stuck in the house. Here goes:

Austin and Santino: OK, this wasn't a show I immediately gravitated towards. In fact, had I not fallen asleep during Project Runway and woken up to it, I might not have even been aware of its existance. In short, two designers ("well-known, internationally famous" according to the promos. Then again, if you are really well-known and internationally famous in a good way, you probably aren't doing a reality show on Lifetime. I mean, Ralph Lauren barely had time to visit his cars when they were on vacation at the Boston MFA. I don't see him driving around to film a series of shows. But I digress). They are two former winners of Project Runway, so not exactly "internationally acclaimed" so much as "reality show winners with better personalities than most." The premise is that they drive around and make gowns for deserving women who wouldn't otherwise have gowns for whatever their big occasion is. First off, I should say that this show is NOT for homophobes. These guys are definitely one of a kind, and they do have an amazing chemistry and the ability to make nice dresses in short amounts of time, but they're gay. Really really gay. Super gay. Cape wearing, jumping tall buildings in a single bound, it's-raining-men gay. If you can't handle that, then don't watch. As a favor, don't judge them. You were warned. There are a bazillion channels on cable, and plenty enough space for two gay guys to do a little show on a chick network where they make deserving women happy. Turn the channel; I'm sure someone somewhere is killing something one one of them.

The winning part of this show has got to be the dialogue. The characters wear their respective absurdity with aplomb. An example I snagged from the web:

Sadie's Dad (a rodeo clown): I wear makeup, tights, and I work at night.

Austin: Me too, sometimes.

Santino: Do you think we'll still be friends after this adventure?

Austin: I certainly hope so....

Santino: because I wish I could quit you.

"I always wanted to live in a castle; I just never thought it would be in Texas" -- Austin

"The last time I was in a castle? I don't know, White Castle?" -- Santino

All in all, an amazingly fun show, again, if it's your thing. Austin is quite unnerving. He seems to be a cross between Andy Warhol and some sort of Olympic-caliber mentalist. Santino often plays his straight man, although far from straight, but has his own emerging personality on the show. I find it very funny.

Drop Dead Diva: I'm almost embarrassed how much I like this show. Premise is that Deb, a fashion model, about to be engaged to the lawyer love of her life, is killed in a car accident. Simultaneously, Jane, a hard working, underappreciated, plus sized, very smart but shy lawyer takes a bullet for her boss who is about to be shot by a disgruntled former client. In Heaven, we learn that your Guardian Angel weighs your good deeds versus your bad deeds and the balance determines whether you go up or down. Deb turns out to be the first completely neutral person (equal good/ bad) and causes the staff of the Pearly Gates to pause and shake their heads, during which time, she hits the "reutrn" button and is sent back to Earth. Unfortunately, she returns to Jane's body. And this is the point at which you are shaking your head and saying, "Seriously? How drunk ARE you all summer?" I know. Stupid premise. That said, I like this show. I like Brooke Eliot. She's infectious as Jane.

The one thing that made me keep watching this show is that, after one or two episodes, it almost totally stopped being about weight. I was intrigued by this. I, too, am tired of the hidden messages in so many shows that present us with a fat girl who is really sweet where we are supposed to look past the fat, and everyone on the show learns a valuable lesson. The reason I hate those is because, almost universally, there's the message underlying the underlying message that while we love the fat girl, it really IS a shame she's fat, depsite all our growth. We're almost always taught to be good people and love the fat girl DESPITE her fat. That "despite" is a big one, and it's overdone and more than a little harmful. DDD has proven to be more than "skinny girls have it easier, and we need to look past the fat to the heart of gold." That's trite, and I think DDD is a little more. Deb's former fiance works in Jane's law firm, and we can see his increasing attraction to Jane. We see him warring with his feelings for her when society tells him that he needs someone who looks more like Deb did. Mostly, though, this is another idealistic lawyer show where even bad people wind up doing the right things (in the firm at least), and it has caught my attention. I think this is inherently watchable, after you choke down the incredibly stupid premise.

The Glades: I started watching The Glades simply because a friend of mine was friends in college with a guy who works on the show. I've done more stupid things for much more lame reasons, so deal with it. It's just another cop show set in Miami (what is it with Miami?.... for about three years it was THE place to set your new show -- Burn Notice, Dexter, and others. The pendulum swung to Boston this year, but we'll get into that.) Apparently, Miami was happening up until this year, tv setting wise. I would also like to point out that I would buy the fourth video wall (see: Fahrenheit 451 for the reference; it won't kill you; it's a short book) if, somehow, Dexter showed up as a cop on Burn Notice (you remember Burn Notice, right? You bought the DVDs and watched them all yesterday) or we caught an image of Michael Weston watching Dexter cut someone up. He's a spy; he could get away without Dexter noticing and go back to his show.

Anyway, I like The Glades, but I don't love it. It is exactly like every other cop drama out there, except with jeans and short sleeved shirts. Loose cannon cop gets in trouble in the big city, moved to the Everglades thinking it will be easier, finds a big string of murders (serious message to all television-city HR departments: NEVER hire someone from the big city to be a cop in yours. This is when the murders happen, people...... Stay sharp.). The murders are drug related and gang related and nothing too out there. There's a love interest, natch, and a little kid (son of the love interest) to act as non-threatening sidekick who, because he's a kid, has wisdom beyond his years. If this is your thing, you will get more of your thing. It's little else, though. Too bad. I loved when I saw the name of my friend's friend not only in the credits but also on a nametag in a scene in episode 4.

Haven: This is Steven King's hard crime novella Who Shot the Colorado Kid? made into a mini-series. FBI agent goes in for one case; things get weird; we learn that the town has a history of creep. Pretty typical King. I will say that King's writing usually does better with the time given to a mini-series rather than movies (the exception, of course, being The Shining). This is interesting, and I hope they continue it. It's a little X-Files and a little cop drama. I've heard King's book is disappointing in the end, and I think this show may improve it as they are able to do some interesting stuff visually that doesn't come through in King's book. Again, I haven't read the book, but the people I got the info from are pretty good sources. King is a concise writer, not given overmuch to description. This means that a good director can do a lot of personal things with the bones of a King story. I like Haven. The cases are interesting, and they stand alone which is nice if you miss a week. If you like creep, it really isn't bad. Plus, it features Claire's creepy boyfriend from Six Feet Under (the one into whose locker Clair put the foot??? Ack!), and I missed him. He's creeptastically wonderful, if a bit underused at this point. I don't know the name of the main actor, but he's trying really hard to be Peter Krause, and I believe this is the goal all men should have (Peter Krause formerly of Six Feet Under and Dirty, Sexy Money and now of the wonderful Parenthood which will be discussed later is my #1 TV boyfriend, FYI).

Leverage: OK. This is my must watch for this post. I LOVE Leverage (because I'm a child of the 80s, perhaps). Leverage is, essentially, a remake of The A-Team with better adjusted characters. I should admit that I started watching Leverage because it stars Timothy Hutton. Lore in my family is that Timothy Hutton's mother worked with my mother as a teacher when my Mom was first married. Mrs. H had Timothy, my Mom had Dawn, and they had playgroups together. Whether or not this is actually true, I have no idea, but my sister and I both watch anything starring him now. Sometimes, this causes us to lose hours we sort of wish we had back, but not in this case. Leverage is always time well spent. Anyway, the Huttons are not family friends or anything, but it's an interesting tidbit. Leverage features a gang of five who help the less fortunate get back at the powers that be when the powers that be wrong them. So far, the gang has taken on those "big bads" of contemporary society, and I appreciate that the "big bads" come from all ends of the political spectrum. This is a show about those in power versus those without, which I am ALL about. They've shown the evil in Big Pharma and militia groups, politicians, and others we all love to hate. The group consists of "The Hitter," "The Hacker," "The Grifter," "The Thief," and "The Brain (Hutton)." The Hitter is Christian Kane who I originally thought played The Groosalugg on Angel but, upon IMDB surfing I came to realize was actually Lindsay McDonald (a much more major character, but nowhere near as cool as being able to say "The Hitter, who you may remember as the Groosalugg....,"), but again I digress..... Anyway, the others aren't actors from my TV addicted past, but they are also funny. Who can't get behind the idea of getting back at the nameless, faceless powers in our society? Smart show to launch in a suck economy.

So, that's it for today. The babies are getting restless and the Crimefighter is home, so I'm out. To recap:

• Austin and Santino: Watch it, unless you are a homophobe. Funny as hell. You won't care about the design part at all, but the boys are a hoot and a half.
  
• Drop Dead Diva: Totally worth getting behind if you can get past the premise (just don't watch the Pilot, and you're golden). More than it seems at first.
  
• The Glades: If you like cop dramas, here's another. Nothing to separate it from the others.
  
• Haven: Good for the creepy set. It's not X-Files yet, but it tries. It has good bones to stand on as it springs from King, and he's always good for a shiver.
  
• Leverage: Go. Watch. Now. If I could drive, I would have the DVDs from past seasons (IMDB says it started in 2008. If that's true, I've missed a season and would love to see it.)

As you can see, we're going alphabetically (and sometimes I backtrack if I forget one or add in a new one from earlier in the letters). Unless there's a new addition (or The Great Dog Meltdown of 2010), I'll continue tomorrow with Parenthood, Pawn Stars, Neighbors From Hell, Rizzoli and Isles, and Royal Pains. Spolier: Tomorrow's list is predominantly squee with only a little WTH?

Back to the furries.....

What you should and shouldn't be watching

Every writing teacher in the history of the world tells every fresh faced writing student to write what they know. This becomes a problem with a broken leg. See, for 6-8 weeks, you know nothing new. Not easy to find inspiration when you aren't so fresh-faced anymore (did I mention that even showering is a pain in the ass in a cast?). Still, I realized that there are SOME things I'm fairly certain I know better than most.

Don't worry. I won't bore you with the various levels of itching. For one thing, I have become convinced that there is no upper limit to how bad itching can be, and to write about it as if there is just tempts fate. I passed "cry like a loony" weeks ago, and I have no desire to take it to the next level. Let's just say my insides are still safely on the inside and not popping out of me, but not for my lack of effort.

The other thing I have become expert on is summer television. When you move to a house in New Hampshire, the cable deals (at least for the first Halcyon 6 months) allow for a lot of channels for far less than the "standard rate" (although it is never quite the same amount each month, but that's a rant for another time), so, suffice it to say I have everything but Showtime and the really dirty channels. So, here's my list. If you are my target audience (people my age who are me) then you can trust my judgement. For the rest of you, there's a short justification.

American Pickers: This is a fun little show, if it's your thing. This is my Partner in Crime's car wreck. It scares the shit out of him (because of my love of yard sales and all things thrift store), but he can't stop watching it. He won't admit it, but I have the link to the AP website because he sent it to me. Premise: You know that eyesore house in the country near your town? That one where the furniture outside the house was originally intended to be inside the house? That house that looks, even from the outside, to be FULL (not cluttered, FULL)? Well, two guys go to that house/ barn/ salvage yard and pick through it looking for "treasure." I have to admit that even for me, yard sale/ thrift store lover, I wondered if there really was a market for rusted out bike frames and tattered signs from products not made in this century. Then, on a well-needed outing courtesy of The Manda, we found ourselves in a Cracker Barrel waiting for Southern food in a Northern Climate. We talked about the stuff on the walls and had an iPhone handy. Turns out, there IS a guy who buys this kind of stuff, (see www.crackerbarrel.com and click on Decor) and his name is Larry Singleton. What can I say? Two nerds with an iPhone and a long wait for ham and biscuits is a dangerous combination.

Burn Notice: Watch this show. Seriously. Go out right now and buy the DVDs and catch up. Jeffrey Donovan (from humble little Amesbury, Massachusetts) and his fellow castmates are my favorite summertime treat. This is about what happens when someone somewhere (no one knows who) screws up and the blame falls on a spy. Think McGyver in a much more attractive package with a hint of the A-Team and a big splash of Mission: Impossible (without a trace of Tom Cruise, if M:I is a movie and not a tv show to you). If you just can't swing Jeffrey Donovan's way, my Partner in Crime says Gabrielle Anwar isn't too tough to look at either. One word of warning, though: dispose of any thoughts concerning Sam Axe -- he belongs to The Manda (I don't get it either, but I don't want to start any turf wars over here. The Manda fights dirty, and she has absolutely no conscience about these things. Ask anyone.) Seriously. Watch it. Stop reading and go out right now and buy the DVDs. Maybe Hulu, if you can't drive (like me!).


OK..... Now, that you've gotten and watched those.......

The Colony: I liked Season One of The Colony. I really did. An interesting premise. We run around convinced everyone is out to get us. Washington, we are convinced, is driving to hell and carrying us along with them so they can get into the carpool lane. This show asks if, when the shit hits the fan, would we know how to survive? They isolate the cast for a week (even from each other) and then set them loose on an abandoned few acres in an area of LA (really? abandoned LA? Whatever.) and then charges them with rebuilding humanity (because 12 people, at least 5 of them over childbearing age, could do that). As I said, an interesting premise. Season One did appear to be a little scripted. I'm just not sure I believe that an out of work actor all of 23 years old from New York City would know how to filter water through charcoal and sand. I kind of knew that, but only because of growing up in a house of way too many fishtanks. Even then, I'm not sure I would have transferred the knowledge if the "experts" hadn't likened the cast's contraption to the working of a fish tank filter. Even if I HAD thought of the idea, I know what fish tank filters look like when you forget to clean them for a while, so I don't know if I would have felt good about the water. Then again, TV asks you, especially in reality programming, to suspend your concept of reality at least a little, so season one was OK. That said, Season two is rubbing me the wrong way. First of all, this season talks of a viral attack rather than something artillery/ bomb realted. This means that quaratines (12 hours) are in effect any time the cast comes up against someone outside their group. I've only seen one episode (because the channel seems to be a little stingy in getting their airings to On Demand) and it involved a lot of people standing around. Secondly, rather than a manufactured sound studio in LA, they are using a real destroyed town in Louisiana. They talk about how the town was "abandoned" and I can't help but wonder if the people who owned those homes are being compensated while the cast of this show tears down the shells of their buildings,etc. The truth is I don't know, and I don't want to label blame where none is due, but I would have liked to know just how much I'm exploiting people with my viewing. I might watch anyway, but it is less likely.

Covert Affairs: This is a new show this summer. There are things that are worse, but I'm not sure if I would have watched more than one episode if I weren't stuck in a cast. It's a pretty well-worn path, concept-wise. Girl goes to Bali and has a big huge love affair, wakes up one day to find Dreamguy gone and decides that the answer is to close off her heart forever. How do you do that? Well, you join the CIA, of course. I don't like the "everything in my life is in some way informed by my love life and no matter what I accomplish I would give it all up if Dreamguy would just get in touch with me" schtick. Like I said, it's tired. I would have loved it if she'd joined the CIA so that later she could use the facial recognition software to find said asshole and at least make him pay for the hotel bill he ran out on...... but I digress. It's an interesting spy show, I guess, but there are better ones. If you're in a cast, though, check it out. There are worse ways to spend your time and take your mind off the incessant itching.

Design Star: I admit I have a weakness for Design Shows. I got into this on Tuesdays (no classes scheduled) last semester. As with Project Runway (which we might talk about in a later post as there's no WAY I'm getting through all these in one post), I kind of glaze over during a lot of reality programming. On this show, I tune out the drama and only focus on the assignment, the reveal, and the judges reaction. This makes DS a perfect show to be in the background while I'm creating assignments or planning the following week. I don't have enough emotion about reality show contestants in general to ever have my mood altered. I mean, I have opinions, but people who seem to develop real emotions connected to reality tv actors kind of scare me. That said, this is hosted by the cool Genevieve Gorder and the fabulous Vern Yip, and anyone who has known me since my former obsession with Trading Spaces knows I like Genevieve and I LOVE Vern Yip. There is also that host of Divine Design, but she adds nothing to the show for me. I think she's kind of bitchy. I mean, they ask these people to design a whole room using only shit you buy in a Oriental grocery store and she has the nerve to say, "It doesn't really look like a finished room?" No shit it doesn't look like a finished room, but the fact that the guy dyed rice and lined it up with precision to mirror Berber carpet is worth more than your scorn! I've seen your show. Of course you do it better. You get real carpet, twelve staff helpers who never get screen time, and unlimited budgets. He had rice and food coloring! So, this is a fun show, perfect for On Demand. Don't rearrange your life and pop popcorn when it's on the network, but catch it On Demand when you are folding laundry or doing some other menial task.

Ok -- that's the first 5. The post is long, and this gives me incentive to keep it going into another day. Perhaps by the time I get through all the shows (about 20-25 at last count..... 7 weeks is a LONG time, and I still have many that didn't make it through more than 2 shows -- I won't slam something I didn't give at least 2-3 viewings).

To recap:

• American Pickers -- If the premise sounds good, watch it. If you like freaky people, you'll like it. Otherwise skip.
• Burn Notice -- You've already watched the first three seasons on DVD like I told you, so I know you're hooked
• The Colony -- Meh. Don't bother unless you believe that the world is actually ending and you want survival tips.
• Covert Affairs -- If you're in a cast, it will pass an hour..... you know, or if you really like mild misogyny
• Design Star -- On Demand, when you are doing something else and want white noise

When I am an Old Woman.....

So, I went to Vegas, and on Night one.....

A week later, I went to a real doctor (one who KNEW that New Hampshire was part of the US, unlike some of my new best friends at University Medical Center in Las Vegas):

Which brings us to why I'm not out frolicking in the sunshine, getting back into shape at Gold's Gym, setting up my lovely new office furniture and fixing up the rest of my shiny new house, or the hundred other things I planned to do over my summer break. The good news is that it appears that I will have at least a few weeks to smush all that stuff in after my purple cast comes off.

There are things you can do when you are in a cast. Mainly, I read and work on the Fall Semester (more on that later), but if you ever find yourself in a leg cast, make sure you get your wobbly self down to the local WalMart and ride on of their electric shopping carts. You know you want to, and if you aren't in a cast, well, you still can do it, but you're kind of a douche.

Many of you may wonder why I was even in the WalMart. I should point out that I am still morally opposed to the WalMart and all that it stands for. That said, I don't really navigate the electric shopping cart well, and I care too much for my fellow shoppers at Target to learn in their hallowed aisles. Plus, I hate WalMart, but I hate hobbling around on my bum wheel more, so forgive my abandonment of morals. If it bothers you that much, you can drive to New Hampshire, and I'll give you a shopping list and a budget.

So, if you want to try it out but you don't want to break your own leg or be a douche, I'm saving this cast. Feel free to borrow it. It's an opportunity everyone should have. There are some hazards when you are cast-ified, though.

Rules of the road:

• Old people don't care. Anyone over 60 in the WalMart has the right of way. Do not try to dispute this. They will hit you, and then they will sue you.
• Little Kids high on Mountain Dew can't stop for you, even though they know they should.
• Parents who give their children Mountain Dew, even though they know that's the first stop on the Expressway to no teeth? Well, they will sacrifice their children to get in front of you in line.
• The grungy, vaguely scary looking guys who might just might be in a gang? They will hold the door open for you and ask if they can help you. Mark my words: if you have to choose between Grandma Moses and a clan of Biker Dudes, bank left and head for the leather. It's your only hope.
• Teenage girls? Forget about it. They suck when you are mobile, and they suck when you are injured. Feel free to point out to them that while you may be in a chair right now, one day you won't be. They'll still be buying seconds at WalMart and following around an unemployed poser in a fake leather chain who won't pay attention to them even after the Mountain Dew has taken his teeth and given him a pot belly. (This may or may not be true, but are you going to be in the WalMart when it all hits the fan? I hope not.)

So, motor on, motorheads. It'll be the ride of your life.

Back on the Chain Gang

It is a fallacy well-tended by those outside of academia that teachers and professors get summers off. Well, OK, I did get last summer off, but that only occurred through careful planning (and a good deal of Ramen noodling during the school year). You know a humanities professor is gunning for a summer off when they start to get excited about staff and faculty meetings, volunteering for them and the like. We aren't actually having a curriculum planning renaissance; instead, we just know that there's free food.

Anyway, while summers off are a myth or the result of sleight-of-hand, professoring does bring one absolute joy -- big long, Christmas breaks. If my friends and family dug a little deeper, they might realize that my passion for Christmas is not a reindeer obsession or for the little lump that forms in my throat when Linus reads from the Book of Luke. Instead, it's the thrill of having four full weeks with, literally, nothing to do. It's downright European, and they have the right of it.

The problem with four whole weeks off is that is seems so long at the outset (and you convince yourself that finals were so damn harrowing that you deserve a little time to yourself) that we inevitably come to the second week in January when we realize what we conveniently forgot, between Fa-la-las and realizing we have 12 hours before the last four quarts of Egg Nog go really bad (what's a girl to do? Salut!) -- that we have 3 business days in which to plan the next four months of our life. When the next four months of your life involve being surrounded by late-stage adolescents, you begin to wish you had gone into Economics like your parents wanted you to.

My peeps who work in public education on the K-12 level are rolling their eyes now. The Manda is searching every corner of her brain to try and remember if she ever saw a single official lesson plan in the decade we shared the space under a rock in Brighton. The answer sounds as full of shit as the excuses I'll begin to accrue the day my first set of assignments come due -- I'm not really a planner. I usually teach by the seat of my pants, and I've spent almost two decades doing that really successfully. But, things change. As my butt is no longer the right size for the kinds of clothes I like to wear (iwillnotwearmomjeans....iwillnotwearmomjeans.....iwillnotwearmomjeans), my teaching style, I have discovered, no longer fits the training my students have come to expect.

I always enjoyed being the weird one in many of my classes at Wake. Lest I give false impressions, I was a Democrat even then, so I was destined for the role. Shaving my head wasn't exactly necessary for being different at a school where few people wore Polos outside of the approved color spectrum. This isn't a diss on my peers; they all make a lot more money than I, so maybe I should have shut up and stuck to pastels. That's all I'm saying.

My "being weird" in classes just meant trying new things. I tried to break out of the mold of traditional literature discourse. When you are taught Shakespeare by a guy who could have been one of the Bard's friends, you sort of give up the delusion you are gonna wow him along the traditional paths of enquiry and try new things.

Like many of my students today, I tried really really hard to get my professors to give up what they really thought about the issues, books, and authors we studied in class. My students take this information and use it to write me technically strong papers agreeing with my thoughts. I never think of my students as dumb, but I have to ask, "How dumb is that?" I always took the position polar opposite to my professor. With the exception of that Southern Lit dipshit (Bill? Ben? Who the hell was he?), this worked very well.

See, most people like it when people suck up to them. They like people around them to be deferential and accommodating. Not so much the typical 21st century American academic. We like discussing things in the abstract, and when everyone agrees, it's not a discussion; it's a rally (which we also like, but only when we are apart from it, on the sidelines, being superior and snarky. Don't judge -- many of us gave up health care benefits to do this job; let us have something here). So, when students mirror my thoughts back to me, they are essentially telling me what I already know, and they are saying it in a way I find inferior to how I would say it (because, you know, it isn't me saying it).

When they disagree with me, on the other hand, it makes me think. It clicks on something in my head that starts the engines turning and the pulse racing. It reminds me why I got into this gig in the first place (other than the four whole weeks off at Christmas, of course). It's the Academy's version of street fighting, and it's why professors gave up the idea of world domination and ever getting an office larger than a half bath or with any sort of view at all in the first place.

But, I'm beginning to believe that all the fighters are already on this side of the desk. Students believe the fight is about the grade, not the topic. They want to challenge the result, not the process. I'm not willing to give up hope that the tide will turn back towards the life of the mind, but I'm preparing to hunker down until that happens.

So, until that day, I'm doing what I never wanted to do. I'm cheating on my idealism.

I'm making checklist rubrics.

Reading Journal (as promised):

I checked two items off my list. The first is the YA novel Hacking Harvard. While fairly easy in terms of vocabulary and style, this does clock in at 321 pages, so it wasn't exactly a one shot, before-bed feat. I'm fascinated by the culture of college admissions, by the look of superiority on the faces of my incoming freshmen every fall. They seem to feel as if the hard work is over. They have proven their mettle by gaining admission. Wasserman details this process quite admirably. Although it's not in the book, he seems to imply just what I discover -- my students have spent, literally, 12 or more years preparing to be admitted to the university of their choosing, but they have absolutely not been given any sort of road map concerning what to do once they get there. I picture them, acceptance letter in hand, standing at the top of Everest. What they haven't been told is that, goal achieved, the descent can be as fraught with pitfalls as the ascent was. To make matters worse, their "permanent record" is just now becoming truly permanent.

I often ask my students to avoid summarizing books as a whole and pick out one particular passage to reflect on (this is easier if you write WHILE reading rather than just summarizing, but hey, it's a YA novel and I do read 125 pages a week rather than 25, so it's a challenge). Here's the passage I picked:

Back when we were kids, Harvard Square had all these little stores and restaurants that were famous just for being in Harvard Square -- greasy diners and skanky bars and funky thrift shops. Then the rent rose too high, they went bankrupt, and got replaced by B&N, Starbucks, Baskin-Robbins, and Abercrombie. I guess some people have this idea of Harvard Square as a quaint little college town, because that's the way to make it look at movies -- but these days, in real life, it's more like Disney World.
You know how Disney World has that fake main street? On the outside, the buildings look all old-fashioned, like Ye Olde Chocolate Shoppe and Smitty's Apothecary -- but then you go inside and they're all selling the same crappy Donald Duck dolls and Mickey Mouse ice-cream bars? Well, just substitute tacky crimson sweatshirts and Starbucks lattes, and you'll have a pretty good grasp on Harvard Square.

Having spent the better part of my first year in Boston "trying to soak up the charm" of all the major neighborhoods, and having a big brother who lived in Cambridge, I spent a fair amount of time around Harvard Square, and this section made me laugh out loud. Harvard has sold out to all the major brands. I hit this part, ironically enough, at about the same time I was watching House Hunters on HGTV when a guy moving to Boston almost wet himself to find out he qualified for Boston's "affordable Housing project" and was going to get a "steal" on a shitty one bedroom condo four or five non-elevatored flights up near Harvard Square -- all for the bargain price of about $350,000. Thanks, Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick. Glad to know you guys remember the little people and still have our backs.

I also finished Scrabble. Well, I as finished it as I'm going to. I give my students the authority to reject books when they have outgrown their welcome, so I finally resorted to giving myself permission to skip out on the last 60 pages or so. Nothing Fatsis could conclude was anything I really cared about hearing at this point. That doesn't mean I'm not copying chapter two as an example of profile when we get to that point in AWD. The book DOES start off strong. It just becomes epic, and it is, in the end, about Scrabble. The battle, I will concede, may BE epic, but the writing about them need not be.

Post Holiday Wrap-Up

One of the great mistakes one can make is to put themselves in a position of vulnerability. When you are a writing professor, the ultimate position of vulnerability is letting anyone stumble across your blog of writing and reading.

I made such a mistake, and then promptly got caught up in a Fall semester of way too much moving and packing, just the right amount of frenzied reading, and all the other detritus that comes from getting sucked into books and keeping the magic all for myself rather than thinking about it on paper in addition to in my head.

Every semester, I give my students one hugely general assignment -- they have to read. It isn't a lot (well, they think it is, but I hold it isn't) -- 25 pages a week of something, anything. It has to be a book and it has to be in English. Other than that, they are free to choose anything they find interesting.

To my new students, or any from last semester who called me on my lack of posts, students who have completed my classes at Mount Ida have come to me to tell me how not overwhelmed they are by the reading requirements of their literature classes. Ah! Proof of the goal behind such torture. If you are a new student reading this, it DOES get better.

I promise, on the other hand, to read 25 pages a week from something, anything, PER class I teach (6). This means that while they "suffer" through 25 pages, I "force" myself to get through 125 pages a week. No, I don't stop for holidays.

This semester, I will do my best to keep track of my own readings, much as I do theirs. I'll start with "What I Read over Summer Vacation" and go from there.

Christmas holidays means a nice long break from grading and the like, but it also means a 16+ hour drive from the tundra to the Ponderosa in SC. During the semester, I commute over an hour each way. This means that in addition to my reading reading, from which my 125 pages a week is entirely composed, there is also an audio component to these entries.

So here's the list since December 21st:

Audio (mostly on the trip down and back, but since as well):

City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau -- Wicked awesome. Fun YA novel.
City of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau -- Sequel to City of Ember -- also cool. Will check out the rest of the series from the library when it is in.
Hissy Fit by Mark Kay Andrews -- it killed time on the drive. I won't be expanding on her writing until the next 16+ hour drive.
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell -- Hours of my life I will never get back. Skip it and see the movie, unless the movie sucks too

Books (in the order I put them into FB, not necessarily the order in which I finished, or heaven help me, started them):

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi -- Fantabulous. Student Fair Warning -- this is now a part of my curriculum if I have to change my curriculum to make it fit.
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart -- I thought it was cute. The puzzles were fun. A little too young to interest my students. I gave it to my neice with hopeful expectations.
Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix -- I waited a LONG time for this one to come out in paperback. I adore MPH. I finished it, and my nephew scooped it up the very next day and had it almost finished by Christmas. Good stuff.
The Angel Experiment by James Patterson -- My first free download to my kindle. Worth free.
School's Out Forever by James Patterson -- 2nd in the series and the third is hurtling toward my local library as we speak
Already Dead by Charlie Huston -- another free Kindle download. Worth free, and maybe a little more. Nice Vampire/ turf war kind of thing.
Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent -- free kindle download. Maybe I need to start paying for downloads. This kind of bit, but it didn't take long to get through.

Currently Reading:

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession Among Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis -- this is my albatross. I am forcing myself to read at least some every day until I finally damn finish it. It started great and then I lost my taste for it. I just stopped caring, and I don't know why.
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan -- I'm loving it so far. A colleague lent it to me. The only problem that keeps me from being cuddled up right now with it is that she loaned me one with a slightly torn cover and I have to handle it gently to avoid harming it further. It's always on my mind when I'm reading it. Otherwise, highly delightful and will download or get the rest from the library. Long, for those for whom that matters (not me!).
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell -- Terrific, but one I'm reading in spurts which is funny since it has no chapters (the main reason why I didn't assign it as group read this semester).
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson -- why have I not read this before? Bill is totally my boy.
Hacking Harvard by Robin Wasserman -- my current YA of Choice. Good so far -- nice description of Harvard Sqaure as Disneyland made me laugh out loud.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations by Clay Shirky -- If Scrabble is my albatross, this is my Everest. I've read almost all of this but keep getting turned around by other more interesting things. That said, I actually use the second chapter in my AWD classes. My goal is to kill this one and Scrabble by Valentine's Day.
Life After Genius by M. Anne Jacoby -- started at Christmas and working my way through. It's too soon to tell, but it's looking good so far.

I'll leave the list of what's on the shelf for when it gets off the shelf, but I have to finish something before I get into all that.

So, there you have it. A Christmas spent in the service of reading. Not a bad way to spend a month under the snow. There will be more soon, let's hope.

I have created life

OK, calm down. I'm related to that side of the family, but I don't share their need to have enough babies to warrant having them in a box under the stairs rather than in a hospital.

And, for once, I'm not talking about my cichlids either. (Insert to add that the offer still stands..... free juvenile fish to a good home)

No, the life I have created is in the handy dandy urban vegetable garden (read: a container garden) on my back porch. I am currently the proud creator of cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. The jury is still out on the peas, but things are looking good.

For many, the thought of growing vegetables is no big deal. For others, the thought of growing vegetables holds little appeal. I've been in both categories during my life. I never got excited over Dad's harvests, and I certainly never thought to have my own until this year (see earlier posts on Barbara Kingsolver) Still, seeing those little beginnings (like puppies and kittens, baby vegetables actually ARE cuter than the adult versions) that used to be seeds in a pouch and a bag of dirt thrills me beyond measure.

The Crimefighter is out of town today, so he didn't get to witness the joy. Since a day on my own means I don't feel the need to look busy because the Crimefighter is working, I was able to spend countless hours celebrating my success. Now, night has fallen, and I finally remembered some of my friends might require photographic proof. So witness the pepper:

Shout out to the tomato:

And behold the mighty cucumber:

I'll also update an earlier post since I have my camera out and all. I posted pictures on facebook of tiny Danny, the frye my nephew discovered and then promptly named after himself. I had reservations about this because cichlids battle to the death over the safety of their eggs (or any eggs for that matter), and the moment the babies hatch, they forget they have them and, usually, allow all their young to be eaten. I love my fish, but I find this practice very..... Republican of them. This is why I wanted the frye to be called George. That way, when he became a midnight snack, I would get a good story out of it. Then again, sometimes even Republicans surprise you. Here's "little Danny Frye" today (big white one on the top in the middle. He used to be the size of the new frye in white down on the bottom):

• Because all these new wonderful things are coming into my house, I thought it only fair to keep (at least in spirit) the promise I made to my partner in Crime concerning the stack of books. The read ones are stacked on the floor and now reach the top of the desk so here is a list, if anyone wants one. Remember: free shipping, just buy me a beer the next time I'm in town. Or send me one of your old good ones back. That works too.
  
  Yours to Have, if you Want them:
  
• Briggs, Patricia. dRaGoN bLoOd -- I like Patricia Briggs. I keep her Mercy Thompson books myself. This is an earlier series. I probably have dRaGoN bOnEs (that first one) somewhere.
  
• Brown, Sandra. The Devil's Own. Dear God, take it. This book sucked. I'm not a fan of Sandra's early work. My sister tells me she got better, but this one was clearly low-budget, rent-is-due time for her.
  
• Coyle, Cleo. On What Grounds and Through the Grinder. These are the first two in the coffeehouse mystery series. I liked them, but I found these at a yard sale, and I'll look there for the others. I will give her this -- this is less formulaic than most mysteries. Just because someone was a big thing in one book does NOT mean they won't take two between the eyes later.
  
• George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain. A children's classic. I loved it, even though I never read it as a kid. Good for middle schoolers.
  
• Knight, E. E. Way of the Wolf. First in the Vampire Earth series. I'll probably read the rest, but I'm in no rush. Nice rethinking of Vampire mythology. Do not read at bedtime if you are prone to bad dreams where things swoop down on you.
  
• Lavender, Will. Obedience. It's OK -- If I ever taught a fiction writing class, I would assign all but the last chapter and make my students write an ending. Big overture, sucky show.
  
• Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera. I hear the Andrew Lloyd Webber thing is done terribly well. This book, not so much. I get what Leroux is trying to do, and he does it well. It's just that... well..... I don't like authors who write like that.
  
• Moore, Perry. Hero: A novel. I thought it was really good. The superhero in question IS super, but he's also the gay son of a disgraced superhero and a mom who disappeared, which can mean a lot of different things if you are a superhero.
  
• Nevins, Thomas. The Age of Conglomerates. Dystopian life is so.... fun! I liked it.
  
• Nimmo, Jenny. Midnight for Charlie Bone. Harry Potter rip off. Then again, if you have kids who like Harry Potter..... maybe. I also have the second one in the series somewhere.
  
• Picoult, Jodi. Keeping Faith. I loved it. Not as much as Plain Truth, but it's interesting, specially if you like Jodi.
  
• Pierce, Tamora. Alanna: The First Adventure. I loved it and got the rest of the quartet from the library. AWESOME writer for younger girl readers. This is Song of the Lioness, Book One.
  
• Roberts, Nora. Daring to Dream, Holding the Dream, and Finding the Dream. I have the whole trio. They're typical, and I liked them. Early Nora stuff.
  
• Robillard, G. Xavier. Captain Freedom: A Superhero's quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity he so Richly Deserves. Freaking hilarious, to a dork like me.
  
• Tropper, Jonathan. The Book of Joe. October Road the book. It's OK.
  
• Young, Wm. Paul. The Shack. Someone recommended it to me. Um.... it's sort of The Gnostic Gospels, as your preacher interprets them. If you like Joel Osteen, you'll eat this up.

Books you can Borrow. but I want them back:

• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. If you haven't read it, you should.
  
• Moore, Christopher. Fool. Not his best; still better than most you'll read. Moore's take on Lear. Because "there's always a bloody raven" and "there's always a bloody ghost."
  
• Jones, Abigail and Miley, Marissa. Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School. Sad statement about what the disembowelment of the women's movement at the hands of Conservatives have done to decimate out girls. Oh, and methinks the kids of Milton Prep overestimate their worth on the larger college market. Just saying...... it isn't like it's Exeter.
  
• Roose, Kevin. The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner at America's Holiest University. A freshman at Brown does his "semester abroad" at Liberty University (the "school" that Falwell built) and it is one of the most surprising and uplifting books I've read in a while. Not a hatchet job but a serious look at Fundamentalism pre and post Falwell. Would be my recommended read of the summer.
  

As and they shall be yours.

Trash Day

Today was trash day. I like trash day, and not just because it means I can stash Boogie's "offerings" in someone else's to-be-picked-up trash instead of hauling it all the way home to befoul my refuse either (although I do walk him extra early for specifically this purpose as trash pickup is at 8 or so).

I haven't had a neighborhood neighborhood since I moved from the south. People here stay local in terms of friends, even if they move. If you didn't play pee wee hockey with them, it's seemingly pointless to even try. Still, people fascinate me and trash day is a little voyeuristic glimpse into the lives of people who are probably more interesting than they even know.

These are the things I discovered just today:

• The people who live next door to Old Mrs. Hurvitz (the second) either lost a hamster this week (the cage was in the trash, not the hamster) or upgraded one to better digs. I find this funny because they are the one house that complains when Boogie poops on their lawn (I ALWAYS pick up -- it's the law, and it's conscientious). Seriously? You have a rodent living IN YOUR HOME, and my dog's poop for a split second on your lawn is gross? Whatever.....
  
• The old threesome who lives at the end of Union St. has not died. They do not have a car, and I worry about them. I haven't seen trash since the summer began, and I wondered. Today, finally, they had one bag.
  
• The people who live just before the trashless old people on Union street (who are very nice and have the funniest looking terrier mix I have ever encountered -- and I'm the sister of a vet who collects and passes on the motliest of the motley dogs you can imagine) must have either a much more vivid social life than the Crimefighter and I, or else they are RAGING alcoholics. They had 2 recycling tubs filled with half gallon whiskey bottles. Then again, the economy is harsh right now, and sometimes drinking at home is the most one can afford. My suspicion is the former.
  
• The old guy who plays his banjo on his porch on summer nights (and reminds me of my grandfather who often did the same thing playing the same songs) buys Vienna Sausages in bulk. I do have to wonder what kind of person does that.
  
• The kid on the corner of West and Union (the one with the swing set I have to drag Boogie by quickly for hygienic reasons) has graduated from diapers to pull-ups. Yea for you, little man.
  
• The Crimefighter and I are not the only ones in the neighborhood who produce more recyclables than trash. With the exception of my delusional neighbor, almost everyone on all 5 streets Boogieman and I traverse had at least twice the amount of recycling containers as trash containers.

Which begs the question..... why the hell aren't our taxes going down?

Kiddie Lit and a Rainy Tuesday

The calendar says it is June 9th, but apparently someone forgot to tell the weathermen in New England because I'm still in my old Crossroads for Kids sweatshirt which now seems to be my summer uniform and wondering just what that third pot of coffee (The Crimefighter was home for a time this morning, so I can't take credit for more than half the first pot. The second pot, however....) will do to a girl my age.

It's also raining and is scheduled to be just that way from now until forever, so I'm trapped inside with just me, my books, and two quite stir crazy animals. Not as much fun as it sounds. The Crimefighter is also on hiatus from the office for a few hours, and this always throws my schedule for a loop. I know I waxed all poetic about taking it easy this summer, but it's still hard to look at a man who really is busting his ass from over the top of a book I don't have to be reading. I'm escaping to my office for a time. I love my penniless freedom, but flaunting it during working hours seems a flavor of ass-hattery I wouldn't enjoy being on the receiving end of, so there you have it.

I've reached a reading lull this week. My brain feels sort of fried from all the stuff I'm trying to force into it (Book by Book by Michael Dirda and The Foie Gras Wars by Mark Caro) and all the stuff I'm trying to let seep out (The Devil's Own by Sandra Brown -- whoever recommended that one to me.... really? What did I do to offend you?).

I have a plan in place for when this happens though -- kiddie lit!

Note: I also retreat to kiddie lit when I'm feeling especially put upon by the process of being an adult. Bill paying days and health insurance calls always send me scampering for a little Tamora Pierce, Louis Sachar, or, in happier days, J.K. Rowling. There are others, but these are the names I can read from where I perch at this moment.

I have not only an obsessive history with books, but also a long one. I'm the child of a PhD in Reading who professed (professored?) during the heyday of the emerging young adult market. Unlike most kids, I all but shoved my mom out the door on "business trips" because, unlike my Dad's business trips back to Connecticut which only meant the family was eating out every night he was gone (we'll save the story of my mother's relationship to the kitchen for another, significantly shorter, entry), when my mom returned from her conferences in children's lit, I got swag.

My absolute fondest memories of my childhood would be when my mother returned from those trips. See, this was a different world. I have a cousin who is a children's book author now, and she views conferences as ways to increase sales. They are the literary version of movie press junkets. She sets up a booth and judges her success by the sounds of the cash register and how sore her hand is from signing copies.

In he 70s and even the early 80s, the children's book market was a different animal entirely. My mother returned from these semi-annual jaunts absolutely loaded down with editor's copies and pre-releases of all the greats, most of which she received gratis. Some of my earliest deities, the men and women who would help shape the woman I have become as surely and completely as my folks or any teacher (for good or for ill), would be in attendance. When you have a big old dork for a daughter, as my mother did (and does), shooting the shit with Betsy Byars, Judy Blume (yes.... THE Judy.... I KNOW!!!!) , or Paula Danziger can produce more awe than going up on the space shuttle.

She would arrive home with bags upon bags of books, and I would dump them all over my bedroom floor. Hours would be spent ranking them and piling them into stacks in order of necessity. My parents knew that for the next weeks, no amount of calling would bring me to the dinner table any faster and that it was probably a good idea to put the oldest sheets on my little twin bed because odds were that I was going to burn a hole in them with my flashlight.

These were the days when kids were expected to read and were considered as wide and diverse a market as their adult contemporaries. We had all the types of lit that our parents and teachers had at their fingertips -- from the very very good (yes, I received a first edition of Forever by Judy Blume -- the one with the locket on the front -- at age 8. That might explain some things.) to the very very not so good (Harlequin put out Caprice classics, a line of formulaic romance novels, and Silhouette had a junior readers romance line as well -- in the end, the girl got her boy and her first kiss, thus becoming a woman). I even know that the very first Silhouette series romance was called P.S. I love you and featured a girl vacationing in Palm Springs who gets the bumper sticker (p.s. meaning Palm Springs) but has a romance with a guy named Paul Something-that-starts-with-an-S who gets cancer or something and dies, but she'll always remember him..... there was a sequel too where she meets someone new and falls in love again, but that didn't happen for many many books.

The point is that while many of these books were bad (oh, so bad, and taking up space still in my crowded head), it didn't matter. They were new adventures. I had a lot of advantages as a kid, but my most treasured possessions are my autographed copies of The Cat Ate my Gymsuit and There's a Bat in Bunk Five (which actually says, "Suzy, I'm so glad you liked Cat. Hope you like this one too -- Love, Paula" .... if you just got jealous..... I KNOW!!!)

The closest I can come to that kind of brush with people I admire is a ten minute chat with Pat Conroy (contents of said chat are unmemorable) when my Mom took me to a professor thing when he came to speak at her school when I was in high school -- neither of us impressed the other since his glory days, I even knew then, were over, and I was, you know, a high school kid. He'd written all the weird out of himself, and I knew it even then. There was also my cringe-worthy gushing when I met Greg Mortenson at Northeastern last fall. I think I might have scared him a little -- but then again he was kind of wearing that look whenever he talked to anyone in the room, not just me. I think he wanted all of us to stop talking, take out our checkbooks, and send him the hell back to Pakistan so he could build another school.

Anyway, these were the magicians of my childhood. Danziger taught me to accept my flaws (and to care about others as much as myself, at least some of the time) and Blume taught me what it meant to be a strong woman. The truth about Forever.... is that it doesn't last forever, and you have to be able to look at the girl in the mirror when Forever is over.

I've read some older children's lit and some written recently and tried to see what has changed. Turns out, a lot. A lot of people complain that books today treat children like adults, but I've come to realize that isn't the problem. Books today DO place children in very adult situations and claim to be "writing what the kids live," but books of the past come far closer to treating children like ACTUAL adults, and they are, often, stronger for it.

First I should say that I'm not talking about the best children's books out there. The best have literary merit all their own, and I believe they will hold up and speak to future generations. What I'm talking about is the mediocre books of this generation versus the mediocre books of my generation. This is where comes the great imbalance. The crap of today is truly crappier than the crap of my youth.

So, if a kid reads the best, they will have the same advantages as the kid who read the best of any successive, or probably future, generation. The problem with the top of the heap is that it is, always, a loosely populated area. Not too many books get to live in the poshest literary zip codes.

The ones who suffer are this generation's kiddie dorks, much like myself a few decades ago. We cannot live on a half dozen books a year. We might as well try to live on a few breaths a day.

Perhaps there is a place for the gritty realism found in much of contemporary mediocre fiction. The formula for today's mediocre books seems to be the poorest of the poor neighborhoods or the richest of the rich. I guess that's always true, a popular literary device for children, but the Deus ex Machina always present in the formulaic doesn't seem to work when the starting place is so dire or exclusive. There's a disconnect I'm still trying to piece through (so bear with me -- I concede I'm still trying to grasp it).

Let's take the ever popular arena of boarding school -- popular throughout time for it's reliance on the classic Home - Away - Home Again tool. By necessity, much of children's lit must take the child out of direct supervision of the adult world in order for him or her to come into their own. Becoming an adult most often occurs away from the eyes of actual adults.

The Boarding School (Mediocre) fiction of my youth may be seen in The Girls of Canby Hall series, while today's is in the Upper Class, It Girls, or Private series. In the eighties, the boarding school device was solely to separate children from their parents (how do we relate to each other when there is no adult to set the rules? How do we make decisions that are good when we won't get busted for making bad ones? Do we do the thing that is right or the thing that is easy?). Today, the focus is on the financial meaning of boarding school (I am in boarding school which means I have money and power, and I don't have to be nice. Let's talk about how hard it is to be so rich.) Sure, in the 80' boarding school addressed the issue of money -- we met the scholarship girl, and we learned that good people like people for who they are rather than what they have. Then we moved on to the next installment which might feature a girl who parties too hard who either learns her lesson or suffers. Then, we moved on to something else. The issues of money, drugs, and sex are the ONLY things boarding school books today focus on. Over and over with the same issues interspersed with shopping trips and girl-on-girl backstabbing.

I'm not saying there weren't problems with Canby Hall and other series of my youth. Mediocre books of my youth were always overly moralistic, for one thing. Good girls didn't have sex because sex always had negative consequences (one of the reasons girls of my generation passed around copies of Forever until the damn glue came off the binding). Good girls never drank or they would automatically be shunned for their destructive behavior. They were also a little bit too Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm at times -- once the three girls became friends at Canby Hall, they never had to question each other. Best friendship was a vow that equalled the call of the convent. We all knew that smelled a bit like old fish.

That said, the pendulum has swung WAY too far in the other direction. In today's boarding school books, your best friend is, dollars to doughnuts, going to be your worst enemy at least once before it's through. Best friendship vows are now ALWAYS trumped by a cute boy. The lessons of feminism have, to say the least been taken out to the woodchipper never to be heard from again.

In Canby Hall and others of that ilk, the bitch got hers, and you cheered when she did. By the end of the book, you could rest assured that karma would out. Then, you lay back on your Strawberry Shortcake sheets, grabbed your Cabbage Patch Doll, and tried to figure out how you could be the nicest person you could be because SHE was the one good things happened to.

Today, the winner is simply the one who gets the stud. You COULD try to be the nicest girl in the bunch, but the more efficient route is just to go to the gym and beauty parlor. You know, and then put out.

I just finished the memoir Restless Virgins about the oral sex scandal at Milton Academy in 2005. It reads kind of the same. I don't think that's a coincidence. I haven't read nearly enough to determine whether it correlation or causality, but I know, for darn sure, it isn't happenstance.

So, our books were mediocre, and today's books are mediocre, which leaves us to ask which kind of crap is preferable. I gotta hang on to the well-aged crap. Maybe it sent me out into the real world with an overly sunny view of what I was going to encounter, but it didn't turn me into the kind of girl, like those of Milton Academy 2005, who believed that bad behavior towards your best friend was just the way things were, and that giving 5 boys blowjobs at the same time was just their due, "part of the social contract" (the authors' words, and they went to Milton).

I could care less about the behavior of the girl at Milton Academy. If you want to give 5 blowjobs to 5 guys, more power to you, but the culture that says boys determine your place in the social soup line is ludicrous. I may have had to learn the painful lesson that no boy on the planet was going to be as sweet and perfect as the boys in my books, but no one ever had to sit me down and tell me that boys didn't necessarily deserve to get whatever they wanted from me simply because they had a penis, and the penis ruled the world.

Know what? Boys in the books of my adulthood are still better than the boys I know in real life (yes, even the Crimefighter, sad to say, although he's closer than most). That's why I read! If I wanted a thoroughly normal type of good boy, I'd hang out with one of my many really awesome male friends or spend time cuddled up to the Crimefighter. When I want more than that (and more than I could ever expect) I open up my books and meet once again Roarke or Daemon or Heathcliff on the moors. I don't expect real men to be the men in novels, as they are the epitome of what could be. Experience shows us what is possible and what is fiction, but starting high and always keeping an eye on that ideal means somewhere in our heads, we always know we DESERVE the ideal, and settle for the close.

That's not available if your formative romantic heroes are those found in today's teen mediocre boarding school literature. There seems to be a desensitivity to what girls deserve. If the prevailing ideology they learn is not to aim for the stars (yes, only to be crushed when they realize no man is Rochester, even Rochester himself) but simply to embrace the popular, what can they hope to wind up with?

The unavailable types of boys of my teenage books grew up to be the unavailable types of men in my adult books. THAT is why the juvenile lit of my youth, even the stuff that was just average, treated me more like an adult than the average young adult novels of today.

There will be more later, I'm sure, but right now there seems to be a ruckus downstairs...... so I bid ado to Mr. Darcy and go see what the hell has the Crimefighter using bowling words in the house......

Consequential Endeavors

It's smack in the middle of the day on June 4, and I'm wearing a sweatshirt and drinking from my second pot of coffee because it's too chilly to drink anything cold and too early to be mixing a drink, even for me. There's something unholy about that, but I won't complain. I believe there's a limit to the amount of complaints the world can hold in a given day, and I seem to be the source of so many that I'm afraid what adding one more will do to the planet.

When I embarked on my little quest to be the housewife from the 50's (with a boyfriend playing the role of "husband" while not actually supporting me and a Boston terrier, Siamese cat and a parade of fish in the role of "the children," mind you) this summer, I expected there to be a good bit of ribbing. That's sort of the role I play in a lot of my relationships, and I'm good at taking it on the chin (or, more often, tuning it completely out).

I think I'm pretty good at taking minor criticism in the form of snubs. When friends from high school give me the sad eyes filled with pity because the Crimefighter and I aren't married, a mutual decision arrived at by two people who set their stock in the path of least resistance, I let them think what they will. When a family member who needn't be mentioned by name feels the necessity to qualify a reference to Ernest Hemingway with "you know, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises" despite the fact that I've had pretty near close to a quarter of a million dollars worth of literature education pass through if not become lodged in my head over the years, I say nothing. There's a modicum of resentment, yes, but I fight the battles that can be won, most of the time, and this is a field I abandoned years ago.

Still, what I didn't expect to find about my self-imposed/ self-selected hiatus from the working world is the anger it would inspire. I truly get the feeling that an awful lot of people find it personally and morally reprehensible that I've chosen to explore, for a limited time, the me aside from the me that punches a time clock (well, OK, not literally) during the school year.

First off, I should say that I don't consider myself entitled to this summer off. Most people in my profession have summer things they do. The fortunate have summer things to do that aren't demeaning and degrading. For two summers, I hauled my butt out of bed five and sometimes six days a week at 5 or sometimes 6 to drive the reverse commute (still a drag) down I-93 to the South Shore and the Cape to register little kiddies into summer camp so they wouldn't be stuck in the hood all summer starting fires, joining gangs, or being glued to the television set. I did it with a song in my heart because I felt there was a purpose. It helped others at the same time that it kept me in Iced Coffees and other niceties.

That came to an end as the economy ground to a halt, and I no longer had a summer thing I felt made a contribution to my state or my world. I don't think I could muster the same commitment to getting people fries with that. I'm not too good to wait tables, but I'm also not good at it.

I also realize I am fortunate in that I have a certain situation that allows me a financial freedom most people don't have. I gave up an $850 a month (my half, mind you) crappy flat in the city and hauled my cookies to the burbs for the sole purpose of not contributing thousands of dollars a year to the conglomerate of Nordblom management who seemed intent on using my money to turn my apartment into a bat sanctuary. (I know the bats might have been an endangered species, and I don't care. Maybe they BECAME endangered because they refused to roost in a place they were wanted. At the risk of sounding all 1979 Camaro, ass, grass, or cash, no one stays for free.)

And, no, I don't pay The Crimefighter rent at this time. The reason is not because I'm a freeloader. The reason is because smart women do not move in with men they are not married to and then become financially dependent on them. I needed a few more years to become truly free and clear, debt-wise, as private education and graduate education is never free, even when you are on full graduate assistantships (which I was), at least not in the Humanities. Timing didn't allow me to wait, and our agreement was that I would break the rules and use what would be rent to get to my position of financial independence that much faster. That and I would take full responsibility for cleaning the tub, cause DAMN.

I won't even bring up that The Crimefighter owes me and the Manda a solid from a time way before this when he needed digs in Boston and didn't have to pay for a hotel room for three months. I will also not bring up the fact that I donated way more than he would have charged me for two years of rent in his name when I moved here. I had, what some might call an obsessive amount of stuff. The Manda gets her ceiling fans installed, and I get to claw my way out of debt.

I think there are some parts of his life that are better now that I'm here. He had the typical bachelor's food stores when I moved in, and he hated going to the grocery store. He no longer has to do that. One of the things I've discovered over the year and am trying to hone now is a love of cooking. I'm a little more experimental than he cares for, so sometimes my dinners hit the metaphorical wall like Mr. Magoo playing Jai Alai, but for the most part he has a meat and some vegetables waiting for him when he comes home from work. This is a far cry from the steady diet of granola bars and goldfish crackers he used to subsist on.

The tub looks better. A LOT better.

The dog only rarely spends the whole day in the bucket, and usually gets a walk and a dog park visit every day, so he isn't a little freakazoid when Daddy gets home.

The fish get fed so steady that they are breeding. REALLY breeding. Seriously. Anyone want a cichlid?

But as usual, I digress.

What I never expected was to make people angry when they ask me what I'm doing, and I say I'm not working. I wonder if stay-at-home moms get this too. I bet I'm an even bigger sinner in the eyes of the workforce, because a Boston Terrier and a Siamese cat really don't need my constant presence to survive.

Still, it isn't like I sacrificed a virgin to the Underworld to be able to take the summer off, and it isn't like I'm living off Gerry. I did it the old fashioned way. I spent nine months asking myself every time I was in a store whether I wanted whatever it was I wanted more than I wanted the summer off. For the most part, I always wanted the summer more. Now, I have it, and I'm a pariah to some.

I still buy all the food for the house. I do conserve it a lot more and use leftovers when I can, but aren't you supposed to do that all the time? I have more time, so I shop at farmer's markets and rely on fruits and vegetables rather than meat, which also lowers my bill. To me, it's a matter of choices and priorities. I made these, and I don't know why that infuriates a few folks.

It's opened up a whole way of looking at my life, by making me defend the choices that most people say they would make "if only they had the time." I HAVE the time, I made the choices, and I must say I'm happy so far with the outcome.

Here's what I get to do:

• I spend a lot of time with my pets. The dog was expensive, and when I'm working, I never get to just hang out with him other than on the weekends. He's a better pet for my troubles. The cat was free, but he's getting up there in years (I lost his sister in March), so I'm happy to have time enjoying his company. He's on a dog cushion just by my right shoulder at the moment. A little writing, a little nuzzling my cat. That is what life should be.
  
• I'm growing vegetables for the first time in my life. It's thrilling to watch my tiny little seeds become tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and peas. So far, I'm really thrilled I don't suck at it.
  
• I write. This is something I used to do all the time, and it got lost along the way. Getting back into writing, just for myself, will actually make me better at my job; at least I hope so. My plan is to do a NANOWRIMO (50,000 words in 30 days) month in July. Maybe I'll do June 15th through July 15th. I kind of have an idea now. It's the same feeling as having a crush on someone you think might like you back. You walk around all day thinking about it and smiling.
  
• I clean my house. It really isn't that bad if you only do it a little bit a day (and refuse to let the Crimefighter into the rooms you just cleaned -- pretty soon, he'll be relegated to the half bath downstairs!). The house, right now, looks pretty damn good.
  
• I give myself projects and force myself to do them. I'm in the process of digitizing my past, and it is fascinating! My family is really cool. I know that now in ways I didn't before.
  
• I go to yard sales every Saturday morning. Gives the Crimefighter and I time to miss each other, and sometimes I get something cool for a dollar. I also do a little volunteering in the process. My aunt works as part of a Historical Society that raises money through a Christmas bazaar every year. They take donations of people's used Christmas stuff and sell it. I collect it from people who don't want to haul it back into their attics or basements when it doesn't sell at the yard sale.
  
• I teach an online class to 6 students. It doesn't even feel like work. I have time to help each and every one of them the way I wish I had time during the school year. These folks can write some business memos -- and their resumes will be phenomenal. It reminds me what teaching could be if it weren't a business.
  
• I read. This one I actually do a lot of during the year too, but I'm averaging more than a book every two days. It amazes me that people tell me they don't have time to read. Yes.... you do. I will concede that children and jobs may mean you can't take your dog to the dog park every day or grow vegetables in your backyard, but you CAN find time to read. The Crimefighter works ridiculous hours, and he still manages to get through a little Clive Cussler (ew... yuck... I know! But what are you gonna do?) every night before bed.

I guess my larger question is why I even feel the need to justify this? I've gathered a real appreciation for the things we could do if we let ourselves while I'm out of the rat race this summer. It probably does take a hiatus from a job to be able to do everything I get to do (and I do feel fortunate), but every person could find time to do one of these things, if they wanted to. Even after I go back to school in the Fall, I know I'll keep reading, if slower. I hope I'll keep writing. Gardens and Yard sales die with the snows, but the dog walks can continue, if I force myself.

It isn't laziness. It's a realization that your self-worth should not be judged by how much you contribute to the gross national product. I'm made far better by my learning to have patience with my dog than I would be getting someone a drink before dinner. I'm made a much better person by reading Charlotte Bronte (or Nora Roberts for that matter) than I would be ringing up sales in some store somewhere.

We seem to collectively think that our worth is determined not by our productivity but by our financial productivity. I no longer think that is the case. There may be something noble in working, but that work needn't be something others can see.

And I do think we could all do this. How will I be able to take my dog for a daily walk during the school year? By getting up 30 minutes earlier, foregoing checking my email in the morning, or (most likely) by giving up one television program a week. In some ways, DVR is the greatest gift to man since..... the invention of television.

So, I'm done apologizing. I love my summer life. I miss my students a bit, but I know that, come September 9th, I'll be in a better place to help them than I would be without this summer. I fully intend to spend the next three months doing nothing of "consequence," and I think it might just be the most consequential thing I could do.