Write This Book: My Parents Didn't Steal An Elephant

One of my all-time favorite books is There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. It's the story of a fifth-grader named Bradley Chalkers, who probably started out just a little socially awkward, but who has grown increasingly alienated from his peers and is seen as a lost cause by students and teachers alike. Everything starts to change when two things happen: his school hires a new counselor and a new kid in class wants to be Bradley's friend. It's not easy but Bradley begins to make strides both socially and academically. When he says he can't do a book report because he doesn't have any books and the library won't lend him any, his counselor Carla lends him her favorite book, My Parents Didn't Steal An Elephant.

My Parents Didn't Steal and Elephant my all-time favorite book. It tells the story an unnamed narrator of unknown gender, the child of two former circus workers accused of stealing an elephant. It is smart and funny and bizarre. Sadly, it doesn't actually exist. All we have are a few precious excerpts that Bradley reads aloud to his ceramic animal collection. Seriously. How awesome is that? Anyway, this is the entire known text of Lasso's book:

I hate tomato juice.

Every morning, Aunt Ruth gives me a glass of tomato juice, and every morning I tell her I hate it. "Fine, Dumpling," she always says, "don't drink it."

She calls me Dumpling. Uncle Boris calls me Corn Flake. They're crazy. One of these days I'm afraid they're going to try and eat me.

My parents are in jail. They got arrested for stealing an elephant from the circus. Only they didn't do it. If they stole an elephant I'd know about it, wouldn't I? I mean, if your parents stole an elephant, don't you think you'd know about it?

I think the elephant just ran away. Her master was always mean to her. He whipped her and made her do stupid tricks. My parents used to complain about that a lot. That's why everyone thinks they stole her.

So, anyway, that's why I live with my crazy Aunt Ruth and Uncle Boris. If you ask me, they belong in the circus. They're crazy!

Uncle Boris always smokes a cigar. It just hangs out of the corner of his mouth. Whenever he kisses my aunt, he swings the cigar out of the way with his tongue, and kisses her out of the side of his mouth.

I bet you think Aunt Ruth doesn't like it when he kisses her that way. Wrong. She always laughs when her does it. Sometimes she smokes a cigar, too. I told you they were crazy.

Look! He even smokes his cigar while he's drinking his tomato juice.

Uncle Boris and Aunt Ruth are married. I bet you thought you already knew that, except you're not as smart as you think you are. They were my uncle and aunt even before they got married. Uncle Boris is my mother's brother and Aunt Ruth is my father's sister. They didn't even know each other until my parents got arrested for stealing an elephant. Then they both came here to take care of me. Hah! They fell in love and got married a week later. It was sickening! You're lucky you weren't here.

I've been cheated out of an aunt and uncle. If they had each married somebody else, then I'd have two aunts and two uncles. Now I only have one aunt and one uncle. I wonder what happened to the aunt and uncle I don't have. I wonder if they married each other, too.

I just met Ace. He's my parents lawyer. Guess what? He's crazier than my aunt and uncle put together.

The first thing he said to me was, "Do you like peanuts?"

"They're okay," I answered.

"Good," he said. He gave me a peanut and I ate it.

"Do you want another peanut?" he asked.

I shrugged.

So he gave me another peanut and I ate that one, too. Big deal.

"You must really like peanuts a lot," he said.

I told you he was crazy.

"I want you to remember that, he said. "If anyone asks you, you really like peanuts a lot."

"Okay, I really like peanuts a lot," I said.

Then he gave me three more peanuts! "Eat these!"

I ate them.

"You just ate three peanuts in five seconds," he said. Can you believe it? He had timed me. Tell me he isn't crazy!

So then he asked me, "Are you good at math?"

Well, I don't like to brag but math happens to be my best subject. Big deal.

"Okay, here's a math problem for you," he said. "If you can eat three peanuts in five seconds, how long would it take you to eat fifty thousand peanuts?"

I got out a pencil and paper and figured it out. "About twenty-three hours and nine minutes."

"That's less than a day, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "there are twenty-four hours in a day." He's supposed to be my parents' lawyer and he doesn't even know how many hours there are in a day!

"Remember that," he told me. "If anybody asks you, you can eat fifty thousand peanuts per day."

I laughed. "Who would ask me that?"

"The police."

That's it. That's all we have of this amazing book. A little bit more is revealed in Bradley's book report, but that is such a breathless and joyous delight that I'll leave it for you to discover when you read There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom yourself. In the end, Carla leaves the school, but things work out alright for Bradley. He has friends now, and he got a hundred percent on his math test. It's hanging on a wall in Mrs. Ebbets's class. Still, every now and then, I make a silent wish that Carla will come back and bring a copy of My Parents Didn't Steal and Elephant with her. I'd like to find out if they really did it.

Christmas is coming, I'm trying not to get fat

Today is when I allow the Christmas Season to start. Malls, radio stations, grocery stores, and catalogues may try to push its advent ever sooner, but I refuse to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel the Christmas spirit until December 1. And so, as the frenzied countdown to the greatest of all days begins, I would like to give you a gift. It's called Meet Me in St. Louis.

Meet Me in St. Louis my favorite Christmas movie. Okay, so it's not technically a Christmas movie. Whatevs. The most pivotal moments happen at Christmas, and it gave us "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the greatest Christmas song Of All Time.*

Early on in the film, the main character, Esther Smith, played by Judy Garland, has the following exchange with her older sister while they get ready for a party they're throwing:

"I'm going to let John Truett kiss me tonight."
"Esther Smith."
"Well, if we're going to get married, I may as well start it."
"Nice girls don't let men kiss them until after they're engaged. Men don't want the bloom rubbed off."
"Personally, I think I have too much bloom. Maybe that's the trouble with me. "

That's my personal diagnosis for everything. Whatever ails me, I just say I have too much bloom. John Truett is their new neighbor, whom she has never met. She tries to lure him into kissing her after the party, but he shakes her hand instead. They do eventually kiss on Halloween, after she beats him up for being mean to her little sister. They're in love and happy, and then her father announces that the family is moving to New York just after Christmas, thereby placing a pall on the celebrations. After rejecting John's plan to drop out of school and get married so that she can stay, Esther sings the truest, most melancholy and hopeful Christmas song of all time.



So, have yourself a merry little Christmas. Here's hoping that next year all our troubles will be out of sight.

*It's also the movie that gave us Liza Minelli, as her parents met on-set.

Hey there, loveryboy

Happy Anniversary, my love. It's been a good year.

Friar Tuck: The Original Gandhi?

So, BBC One has a new production of Robin Hood, and it's incredibly absurd. I love it. Robin Hood has emo hair and refuses to kill anyone. Guy de Gisborne wears eyeliner and leather pants. Marian wears pants and sneaks out of the castle dressed as "the Nightwatchman," distributing food to the poor. She was killed by Guy in the second season finale. There's a Muslim girl named Djag in the band of Merry Men. She and Will Scarlett fall in love and get married when the whole crew takes a quick trip to the Holy Land to save King Richard. Basically there are anachronisms galore, all to appeal to modern audiences, I guess.

This fall BBC America started airing the third and final season, and they've advertised from the start that Robin Hood will die in the final episode. The penultimate episode aired Saturday, and Robin and Guy, now working together to defeat the new Sheriff, Guy's little sister Isabella, took the castle with help/hindrance from Archer, their shared half-brother, and Robin's new girl, the working-class Kate. Also, Alan of Dale was killed by the original Sheriff of Nottingham after being falsely accused of betraying the gang. Yeah. Fans of the original legends might want to avoid the series. The one thing that really made me go hmmm, though, involved Friar Tuck and Little John.

Friar Tuck arrived on the scene fresh from the Holy Lands in the third season premiere. Interestingly, in this iteration, Friar Tuck is a preternaturally wise black man, not the jolly wino of movies past. He is very serious and very focused on teaching Robin that the people need inspiration as much as they need his ill-gotten riches. In this episode, he rallied the men of Locksley to take up arms to block a supply train Isabella was sending to Prince John. Everyone marched on the castle, and Friar Tuck got them to...sit down, blocking the path of the supply train. Yeah. The world's first non-violent protest?

It's always surprising the way that we ignore history when we tell the Robin Hood legend, especially since the actual history is so fascinating. King Richard was a more inspiring king than John, perhaps, but better? He spent less than a year of his reign in England. His vast French holdings were more important to him than his English lands. The sheriffs were patrolling the forests on his behalf, not Prince John's. The massive taxes were being raised to pay his ransom after he was captured returning from the Crusades. In fact, the stories of Prince John's treachery come from his not raising enough taxes; it looked as though he was hoping to leave Richard locked up forever. John was a much weaker king, it's true, but England should be eternally grateful for his weakness. His losses in France made England the centerpiece of the Angevin empire. And never forget that he was the king who signed the Magna Carta, limiting his own power and establishing the writ of Habeas Corpus, the foundation of English common law.

Friar Tuck's tactic worked, in total defiance of the brutality that was really the order of the day. Isabella's men refused to massacre them, and Robin Hood's men took the castle, while the original sheriff began to lay siege. It looks like it'll be a tough situation next week, and I'm hoping that at least a few of the Merry Men will live to the end of the episode. Robin will die a noble death, I'm sure, although if they really wanted to be subversive, maybe the writers should turn him into a traitor, hanged by his own men, or perhaps just an ignominious death, hiding in a hole, crying and praying for it to end quickly. That would really turn the legend on its ear.

Okay, FINE! Harry Potter Is Kind of Alright

I was starting high school when the Harry Potter mania hit. And it was mania. And I was repulsed. Seriously, it was a children's book about wizards and people were going on about it like it was the Second Coming of the McDLT. It was the most creative and original book ever! It saved a generation from illiteracy! By the time a college pamphlet arrived in which a dean (a dean!) proclaimed, "J.K. Rowling is the Shakespeare of our time," I was pretty much ready to do violence on anyone who even mentioned the books to me.

After high school graduation, I went on a cruise with my grandma. The other young person at our dinner table, Nick, was incredulous at my refusal to read the accursed books. After significant badgering, I struck a deal with him: I would read the first two books. Nick was certain I would love them and continue; I was certain I would not. And guess what? I was right.

I really did try to give the books a fair shake, honestly, I did. But in like, the second paragraph, Dumbledore takes out a handy little device: it looks like a cigarette lighter but actually turns off all the streetlights. Rowling has ingeniously named this a "put-outer." I was done right then. I kept reading of course--I'd made a deal, but I'd already decided: strikingly unoriginal. As I continued reading, I found more evidence to support my claim: a great evil who was defeated but not destroyed, an unlikely young boy sharing a connection and a destiny with said evil, the never quite healing injury linked to their mindmeld thingy, and a confrontation with his parents' murderer that has an unexpected outcome. They'd all been done before.

Then the third movie came out, and it was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, a director I really admire. And I surprised my self by wanting to see it. And I did see it (on TV), and I kind of liked it. Just a little. Then I caught the fourth, which was even better. And the fifth. And then this summer I saw the sixth and decided I wanted to read the book. I wanted to learn about Voldemort's backstory, and people said it was covered better in the book. So I read it, and I liked it and read the fifth, then the fourth, and finally the seventh. In a week.

I kind of loved them. Yes, they were derivative. A lot of it was the same old sci-fi fantasy cliches repackaged into an English boarding school experience. And I will never believe that anyone would join a group called the Death-Eaters and follow someone called the Dark Lord. But I found the connection between Voldemort and Harry and their wands really interesting, and I liked the imaginary lore of the magic world.

The thing I liked most though, is that in the end Harry wins because he is kind and always tries to do the right thing. Dobby gives his life for Harry and Kreacher switches sides because Harry treats them humanely. Narcissa Malfoy betrays Voldemort because Harry didn't kill her son. Harry's greatest personal crisis comes when he discovers that his father was kind of a jackass in school. And when Harry believes that Dumbledore was manipulating him into dying to defeat Voldemort, he goes, terrified, into certain death to save his friends.

On tv and in books and movies we are constantly barraged with precocious smart-alecky kids always looking for an angle. It's really nice to see a kid get ahead by being, well, nice.

Princess Leia Still Kicks Ass

Ok, so I know I've been promising a new post for a thousand years now, and it's kind of lame to just repost something someone else wrote, but here's the thing: I'm SO sick of everyone feeling like they have the right and apparently even the responsibility to constantly comment on every woman's body*. You don't. Or, I mean, I guess it's technically your right to comment on anything you want to but constantly commenting on every woman's body makes you an asshole. I don't care if you're a man or a woman, body-snarking is mean, unfair, and ultimately, Boring. Yes, I did capitalize it for emphasis. It's Boring. Saying "she's fat" adds absolutely nothing to the public discourse. If you don't have anything interesting or substantive to say, just don't say anything. Please. For the love of all things holy.

Anyway, Carrie Fisher recently made the mistake of googling herself and found that a blogger had written that she used to be attractive but now looks like Elton John. I found her response hilarious:

You see, I was hot when most people are hot—- in my fucking 20’s & part of my 30’s……THEN, in an effort to imitate humans, I had a child &, to further maintain my life like disguise, I took medications for about 9 thousand years, &, despite all my efforts, I continued to get older & older——inadvertently, I assure you———-I tried to arrest my development physically as WELL as emotionally, but unfortunately without as much success. I also must confess that I ate food. I’m sorry….. I realize that I promised never to eat anything but lettuce & sun flower seeds, but tragically, I was unable to keep my promise.

Yes, I realize…..I KNOW that I vowed to exercise for 3 hours a day—-aerobics, pilates AND yoga, but alas, I admit with a large quota of shame, that I failed to fulfill this other important commitment.
NO, I shouldn’t look as if 30 years have passed. I understand completely if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me for looking like 3 decades have passed…….Of COURSE you should mock & belittle me for being so large!! What else could you POSSIBLY do?????!? I’ve let you down by treating my body as though it were just some giant sad sack that I use to haul my personality around. You have every right to compare me to Yoda or Elton or Kirstie…….I’ve brought it on myself.

Carrie Fisher is an accomplished actress and writer. She has battled drug addiction. She has chosen to be very public about her mental illness (bipolar disorder), helping to lessen the stigma for fellow sufferers. She is the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds(!) and the stepdaughter of Elizabeth Taylor(!!!). She was Princess Leia. Her appearance is literally the least interesting thing about her. Please, please, please just shut up about it.

*I'm saying woman because most body snark seems to be directed towards women. Body-snarking men is just as inane.

Free Rice!

Ok, I swear I'll have a real post up here sometime soon, but for now I'm just going to plug FreeRice. It's a really simple concept: answer a multiple choice question correctly and they donate ten grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. I first came across it a couple years ago and quickly became obsessed. Back then it was a simple vocabulary test, and you moved up a level for every three you got right and down a level for every one you missed. Now in addition to English vocabulary, you can test yourself in English grammar, Italian, French, German, Spanish, pre-Algebra, multiplication, world capitals, geography, chemistry, and famous paintings.

So check it out. It's the perfect time-waster at work: addictive, fun, and educational. Plus, when your boss inevitably catches you playing it he can't get too mad: it's all to end world hunger.

Fortune Cookie FTW/WTF

So I went out for Chinese the other night. It was good. We got Shrimp with Candied Walnuts and Honeydew and Orange Peel Beef and Seared Mushrooms. It was sweet and spicy and tangy and delicious. We had a nice time. Then the really unfriendly waitress brought the bill and our fortune cookies. I eagerly cracked mine open, hoping it said something about adventure or romance or my bright future. Here's what it said:

"You shouldn't overspend at the moment. Frugality is important."

Really, fortune cookie? I hadn't realized that going on five months of unemployment with three dollars to my name, I shouldn't blow it all on a mink stole. I'll have to cancel my order.

Maybe I should cut the fortune cookie some slack. During these tough times, with the housing crisis, the credit crunch, massive unemployment, our banking system in shambles, the cookie probably figured that's solid advice that could apply to any number of people, even the gainfully employed. I'll try not to take it so personally. Let's see what the boyfriend got.

"Your financial outlook is excellent."

Oh, screw you, fortune cookie.

Looking On The Bright Side

From Carolyn Hax's live chat today:

Somewhere, USA: Realtime crisis. I had an affair four years ago with a woman I met at my wife's office. The woman pushed and pushed for a more serious commitment, but I decided to focus that attention on my marriage and backed out of the affair. I never told my wife--I don't believe any good would have come of doing so.

Now it's now. My wife had several lateral moves throughout the year and as of this Monday will be reporting directly to that woman, to whom she refers as "the one you liked from that party." Because they were in different offices for those four years, the woman never interacted with my wife, which is the only reason my wife never found out how much the woman hates her.

I have two fears now that my wife and the woman will be in the same workspace every day: (1) that it will affect my wife's career negatively (her number one enemy is in power over her) and (2) that somehow my wife will find out what happened four years ago. Is now the best or worst possible time to come clean? Or is there anything I can do to prevent damage?

Carolyn Hax: Can I just say,

Wow.

I don't want all the responsibility for this one on me, so I'm urging everyone out there to weigh in if you have something constructive to say. But the only answer I can see here is that you tell your wife what happened. You can't send an unwitting victim into shark-infested waters, especially not when you're the only reason she's a victim in the first place.

Okay everyone, have at it.

Carolyn Hax: Mr. Somewhere, USA, your new nickname is "Chum."

At least I'm not that guy.

Seriously, William Carlos Williams?

When I was a senior in high school, my friend Greg (whom I called Gregor after Gregor Mendel) and I formulated a plan to defraud the Art world. He would be an "artist" and make pretentious abstract crap. I would be an art critic and bang the drum loudly for his work. We would split the proceeds of the sale of his work and on our deathbeds confess everything. The plan was inspired by our study of William Carlos Williams.

William Carlos Williams was an American poet and pediatrician born in New Jersey in 1883. He was involved in the early modernist movement in New York and was friends with many of its leaders, including Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Although he wrote many pieces, including novels, short stories, essays, and criticism, he is mostly known for his poems. These are what led us to hatch our plan. I am not suggesting that WCW was a swindler (my preferred job title). I'm just saying that as we sat in class listening to the dreaded Ms. Cho (she hated us) rhapsodize over his poetry, we came to the conclusion that he was either a genius or a total fraud.

Perhaps his most famous poem is "XXII, " more commonly referred to as "The Red Wheelbarrow":

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

See? That's a really lovely sentence. It's simple and almost terse but creates a practically tangible image and is beautiful to read aloud. It succeeds as an attempt to create an American image. It succeeds in breaking away from British stress patterns. Is it also "real, not just "realism," but reality itself?" I suppose the image is, so well done, you. Here's the part where I jump out of the boat: What exactly depends upon a little red wheelbarrow? What is this "so much" you refer to? The answer, my friends, is nothing. Nothing "depends upon a little red wheelbarrow." And that's why although I believe that WCW is a master of the English language, I ultimately think he's full of it. Read through his work, and you can project anything you want onto it. Is it sad? hopeful? forlorn? resolute? Who the hell knows?

However, if you can stop yourself from thinking about anything beyond the loveliness of his words and imagery, he's quite good. This is one of my favorites:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Maybe Read This Book: Inglorious

Inglorious, by Joanna Kavenna (I love love LOVE rhyming names, don't you?), is about Rosa Lane. When the book begins, Rosa, thrown by the recent death of her mother, resigns from her job. When she gets home, her partner of ten years, Liam, breaks up with her and very quickly gets engaged to her closest friend. Rosa then falls into a deep depression. With no job, no money, and nowhere to live, she sponges off friends whose sympathy quickly turns to disgust. Everyday she pretends that this will be the day she gets it together, and everyday she writes some variation of the following list:

Things to do, Monday
Get a job.
Wash your clothes.
Clean the kitchen.
Phone Liam and ask about the furniture.
Buy some tuna and spaghetti.
Go to the bank and beg for an extension--more money, more time to pay back the rest of your debt.
Read the comedies of Shakespeare, the works of Proust, the plays of Racine and Corneille and The Man Without Qualities.
Read The Golden Bough, the Nag Hammadi gospels, the Upanishads, the Koran, The Bible, the Tao, the complete works of E.A. Wallis Budge.
Read Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhaur, Kierkegaarde, Nietzche, and the rest.
Hoover the living room.
Clean the toilet.
Distinguish the various philosophies of the way.
Clean the bath.

And everyday none of it gets done.

Joanna Kavenna (oh my gosh, I love the cadence of that name) wrote this book beautifully. The reader is inside Rosa's mind, and it's lyrical and poetic and biting and funny in a way that the standard depressive's mind is not. However, the reader is still inside a depressive's mind, and it is dark and close and oppressive. If you have never suffered clinical depression, this book will make you understand what it feels when you're trying to pull yourself out of the gutter of a disordered mind far better than any textbook. If you have been depressed, this book will be like a war flashback.

It took Herculean strength for me to finish this book; I dreaded opening it and felt claustrophobic while reading it. I have been Rosa. I have made that list in my head every morning and gone to sleep every night a failure. The first thing on my list was usually Put on Pants. Then, Get a job. Call your professors. Write Danny a check. Take out the trash. Clean up the sunflower seeds you spilled. Learn Portugese. Move to Brazil. Read the entire Western Canon. Write the Great American Novel. The thing is, and what the book brilliantly drives home, is that when you're depressed, everything on that list is equally likely. When you can barely get out of bed, taking out the trash is just as daunting a task as "distinguish[ing] the philosophies of the way." I was lucky; I had better friends and stronger support than Rosa did. I had enough people caring about me that one day I believed in myself enough to wake up and put on pants. I got healthier, little by little, inch by inch.

So should you read this book? Maybe. It's no fun, and it can be a hard slog through its two hundred odd pages. Rosa's woes are repetitive and unrelenting. But if you have friends or family members whose inability to just get over it and pull themselves together tries your patience, I think you should. It may help you realize that they would love to pick themselves up and dust themselves off, they just can't remember how.

Why Dear Abby Sucks

I have an obsession with advice columns. I read them voraciously. Carolyn Hax, Ask Amy, Annie's Mailbox, Dear Prudence, Dear Margo, Miss Manners, Classic Ann Landers, and Dear Abby. I try to hold off reading any for a few days or a week and then read them all at once in a massive advice binge. It was this habit of mine, of reading seven or eight columns at once, that first alerted me to the fact that Dear Abby is the worst advice columnist in the history of the world.

A little history, because the column hasn't always been this bad: The original "Abigail Van Buren" was Pauline Esther Friedman Philips, the identical twin sister of "Ann Landers," Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, and they feuded for much of their adult lives over their warring columns. (There's a really good biopic starring Wendy Malik.) While Ann Landers was always the superior column, Dear Abby held her own quite nicely until 1995, when Pauline Philips was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her daughter, Jeanne Philips, took over advice-giving duties.

The first thing you'll notice when you read a Dear Abby column immediately after, say, Ask Amy, is that Jeanne Philips is not a very good writer. If you read her column after you've read Miss Manners or Dear Prudence, you'll discover that she's not funny, even when she tries really hard. After a Carolyn Hax column, you'll realize that Dear Abby's counsel is superficial and trite, when not completely wrong-headed. This is the biggest problem. Her advice is really bad. Let's look at some recent examples:

To a young woman whose coworkers disrupted her reading in the break room:

Another thought: Place a Do Not Disturb sign with large lettering next to you if you think it will help them get the hint.

Really, Abby? Putting a sign up telling her friendly coworkers to leave her alone is going to foster a harmonious work environment? Good call. Or how about this one? A professional pianist is having difficulty. He plays in stores, restaurants, and lounges and his patrons often ask him questions midsong. Because he cannot play and talk at the same time, he has to either stop playing or ignore them until he finishes. What to do? Abby starts off with,

I have it on good authority, as well as personal experience in piano bars years ago, that many pianists can not only play and talk, but also play and sing.

You guys, Dear Abby is kind of a bitch. Maybe many pianists can, but this guy can't, and he's the one asking for help. Also, I think playing and singing is called self-accompaniment and is different than carrying on a conversation that has no relation to the music you're performing. This one's the worst in the last month. A woman sought counsel when the son she gave up for adoption in her youth found her. Her husband has threatened to leave her if she tells their adult children about this son or has any contact with him. Here's what Abby says:

From the tone of your letter your husband is the dominant partner in your marriage. If that's the case, and you really think he would leave you after all these years because you leveled with your children about the fact that they have a half-brother, then keep the secret.

However, if your relationship with your husband is anything approaching a partnership, then stand up for yourself and make it clear that you are the sum total of all your experiences -- both the joyful and the painful -- and you need to see your son, thank his family for the love and care they have given him, and let your adult children make up their own minds about whether they want to be contacted.

So if your husband is domineering, just keep your mouth shut, because it's better for you to lie to your children and ignore the son searching for his history than to be without your controlling spouse. Implicit in this advice is the idea that by marrying someone controlling she has given up the right to make her own choices. It also seems to say that her domineering husband is right to be ashamed of her and her past choices. The second paragraph--suggesting the exact opposite course of action, but only if her marriage is a partnership--makes clear that remaining silent and kowtowing to her husband's every whim for the rest of her life is her punishment for choosing such a poor mate. Apparently no one can change their circumstances or correct their mistakes in Abigail Van Buren's world. And that's a world I don't want to live in.

Torpor

Noun
Middle English, from Latin, from torpere
1a. a state of mental and motor inactivity with partial or total insensibility
2. APATHY, DULLNESS, LETHARGY

I have a few posts partially complete, but I just can't seem to make myself do anything these days. Maybe tomorrow.

I Heart Modcloth: An Investigation

Sometime in the spring of 2007 I happened upon a lovely little online clothing store called ModCloth. They sell funky vintage clothes and cute clothes by young independent designers. I've gotten a lot of my favorite pieces there, the ones I go to when I have to look great. In fact, I just picked out a dress to wear to my boyfriend's brother's wedding. I've been looking for one for weeks. (No, I'm not going to tell you which dress. I don't have the funds at the moment and don't want you, my imaginary readers, to buy them out before I save up.) One of the best things is that if you buy it on ModCloth you're unlikely to see anyone else wearing it.

Unless you buy this dress:



I tried this dress on in Urban Outfitters a couple months ago when I was looking for a dress to wear to The Phantom of the Opera. It was adorable, but the straps needed to be shortened and I thought it was just too young and cutesy for a night out. It wasn't what I needed at the time, but I've secretly been coveting it for awhile. It's near the top of my Things to Buy When I Get a Job list.

And then the other day I headed over to ModCloth and saw it priced almost twenty dollars below Urban. And I got really happy and came over here to write a post entitled "An Ode to ModCloth." But when I went over to Urban to double check their price, I noticed something interesting.

It's not the same dress.








This is the dress Urban Outfitters is selling:


It's very similar. Weirdly similar. Like, beyond coincidence. In fact, I spent awhile clicking back and forth between two browser windows to make sure it wasn't a trick of the lighting. (Yes, I still use IE6, what of it?) But the straps are clearly not the same. And the bodice of the Urban dress is more of a royal purple than ModCloth's violet. And if you look at the back, the bows appear to be different colors as well.

Urban Outfitters seems to have a long history of plagiarizing young designers' work, so I set out to investigate. It was long and arduous and mostly consisted of emailing Alicia at ModCloth and asking her annoying questions about who designed the dress and how I could contact them and what the style number of the dress is. She was lovely and gracious enough to promptly respond to all of my inquiries. The dress is by Staccato, and they say that although they do sometimes sell to Urban UK, this dress was only sold to boutiques and specialty stores. I was unable to contact Urban Outfitters.

I don't want to accuse Urban Outfitters of stealing the design outright, but they're practically identical. The color changes are the equivalent of the accent and chewed fingernails distinguishing Susan from Sharon in The Parent Trap. This goes beyond the "on the wind" situation in which two comedians tell similar jokes about a current event or two designers make similar pleated skirts in the hot color of the season. These dresses are distinctive and someone spent a long time making sure the cut and colors and proportions were just right, and someone else spent a few minutes copying it. That's a shame.

Whatever happened, check out ModCloth. It's full of sassy clothes that will make you look super stylish, and they don't plagiarize.

My Geek Tyranny

Okay, so I'm more of a nerd than a geek, but the boys over at Geek Tyrant let me contribute to their lovely site from time to time. Today I reviewed the new Guillermo Del Toro book, The Strain, for them. You can read it here.

Read this book! Scarlett Thomas Edition

I was at a bridal shower on Saturday, trying to be unobtrusive while the bride opened her gifts, when my boyfriend's aunt started grilling me on what I wanted to do with my life and what's wrong with me to make me such a loser, ending with a lecture on how if I just listened to her I could be a Success! Anyway, in the midst of this harangue, she asked me who my favorite writers were, and I started telling her about Scarlett Thomas, whom I adore. I got all excited and happy talking about her, as well as my other favorite authors, and then she suggested her own since mine clearly weren't up to snuff. And yes, Aunty, I did pick up the not so subtle insinuation in your suggestion that I read A Light in August because it's the easiest Faulkner.

Possible future in-laws aside, the whole experience reminded me that I should blog about the awesomeness of Scarlett Thomas. She's a writer from the New Puritan school, which is all about telling a story as simply as possible. I've read two of her books, and I loved them so much I gave them away. That's the highest praise possible from me because I hoard books. I keep them and read them over and over and over again and get mad when people touch them. So for me to give a book away I have to feel strongly that everyone in the world should read it.

The first book I read is Popco. It's about a cryptanalyst/toy designer who solves a seemingly unbreakable code and finds a hidden pirate treasure. The End of Mr. Y, cover adorned with the tantalizing tagline, Would you read this book if you knew it was cursed? is about a graduate student who finds an extremely rare book holding the secret to linking into the consciousness of, well, everyone. Both books are suspenseful and dramatic and funny and touching and chock full of information. Everything I know about homeopathy, cryptanalysis, pirates, toy and puzzle design, and thought experiments I learned from Scarlett Thomas. I read an interview with her on Bookslut, like, a year ago, and she said that when she sets out to write a book she makes a list of everything she wants to learn about and then comes up with a plot that connects them. Luckily, she only wants to learn about really interesting things, and she passes it all on to the reader.

So buy her books if you're too lazy to read encyclopedias and tedious technical manuals but still want to learn cool stuff while engrossed in a compelling plot.

An Ode to Up

Way back in November I saw Bolt. I wasn't really interested in seeing the movie, but I was very interested in the boy that invited me. It was a sweet, entertaining movie, but what really piqued my interest was the trailer I saw for the movie Up. I thought it seemed like a really fun, creative concept, and it was Pixar, so I knew it would be good. What I didn't know was that it would be among the most beautiful love stories I've seen on film.

The movie opens with an old timey newsreel telling the story of an adventurer exploring South America, while an enthusiastic young boy we'll come to know as Carl bops in his seat. On his way home from the theater, he hears the sound of a fellow adventurer coming from a dilapidated old Victorian house. It's Ellie, the most kickass girl I've seen in a theater this year. They become friends, and Ellie shows Carl her scrapbook, the first few pages filled with her plans to move to South America, the rest of the pages blank, waiting for mementos of adventures to come.

The rest of their story is told quickly and mostly silently. They get married and move into the Victorian house where they met, fixing it up and dreaming of their future. When Ellie is devastated to learn that children aren't possible, Carl cheers her up by reminding her of her childhood dream. They start saving for South America, but life continually intervenes. Ellie dies before they can go.

The bulk of the movie is made up of Carl's decision to fly their house to Paradise Falls to fulfill Ellie's dream and his experiences on the way there, and it's lively and fun and entertaining and full of twists and turns. But the best moment in the movie is when, discouraged, Carl flips through Ellie's scrapbook, and for the first time sees that Ellie didn't leave the pages blank; she's filled them with pictures of her life with Carl. That's the adventure she had.

I get restless in my life. I know there's so much to do and see in this world that I'm unlikely to see and do it all before I die and that fills me with wanderlust. It's nice to go to a children's movie on a Saturday expecting a fun and silly two hours and leave full of hope that if you do it right, everyday is an adventure, even if it's just a picnic with someone you love.

Herstory: Eleanor of Acquitaine

Awhile ago while I was on a Peter O'Toole kick I watched The Lion in Winter and developed an Eleanor of Acquitaine obsession, which led to some research. She was an amazing and accomplished woman. Here are some highlights:

• Wealthiest and most beautiful woman in Europe in the 12th century
• Educated in the cultural center of Europe
• Duchess of Acquitaine and Countess of Poitiers in her own right
• Married King Louis VII of France
• Went on Crusade and dressed herself and her women as Amazons
• Had several affairs, including with her uncle and her future father-in-law
• Divorced King Louis VII on grounds of consanguinity
• Immediately proposed to Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, and heir to the throne of England, 12 years her junior and a closer relative than Louis
• Alongside Henry II, built the Angevin empire while bearing 8 children
• Became estranged from Henry and aided her sons in rebellion against him, after which she was imprisoned for 16 years
• Ruled England while her son King Richard the Lionheart was on crusade and in prison
• Implemented the jury system in England
• Travelled to Germany to negotiate his ransom
• Continued to advise her son King John into her old age
• Took the veil at Fountrevault

The really frustrating thing about her is that in the Middle Ages women didn't matter, so there are few surviving records. The chroniclers seldom mention her, although Bernard of Clairvaux did call her a whore a bunch of times. Reading biographies of her there are very clear descriptions of what her husbands or sons were doing, followed by sentences like, It would appear that at this time Eleanor was... or, We can assume that Eleanor... or, Historians believe Eleanor... We know that she was beautiful, but we have no specifics of her appearance. Historians believe she had red hair. They also think that she was tall and thin and not too curvy based on the fact that she was able to disguise herself as a man when she was 51. Meanwhile there are several precise descriptions of Henry II. The Courtly Love tradition began at her court in Poitiers, but Henry and the church destroyed all its records. It is believed the forerunner of the jury system began there, which would be important, but only if she were a man.

This woman was the Queen of France and England and held Acquitaine and Poitiers in her own right. If her life is so undocumented, what about the lives of the women around her, the ladies, nuns, and peasants who led less extraordinary lives? If a queen and crusader deserves so little ink, what did they think those women deserved? And is the intense scrutiny given to powerful women today a step up or just a lateral move? Would you rather have no records of your appearance, or miles of newsprint describing your cankles and pantsuits? And why are anonymity and scrutiny our only options?

Raining Diamonds

My boyfriend just showed me an old Wired story about using manufactured diamonds as semiconductors for computer chips. Basically chip speed is hitting a wall because silicon can't handle any more heat without melting. Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of any substance known to man. Which means that it would be ideal to replace silicon in computer manufacturing. You may be able to guess the problem with this: A diamond large enough to build a chip on would be massively expensive. So a couple of enterprising companies have developed processes to create synthetic diamonds. Not cubic zirconia, diamonds. Grown in a lab but indistinguishable from natural diamonds produced by massive heat and pressure in the earth's crust.

The diamond industry is controlled by De Beers Diamond Trading Company. They've held this monopoly for 115 years, and they've done a lot of nasty things to keep it. Their favorite trick these days is hoarding diamonds to create artificial scarcity, driving up the price of diamonds. They also coined the phrase A Diamond Is Forever to keep people from passing engagement rings from generation to generation. If your grandmother was buried in hers, you have De Beers to thank. They are terrified of the synthetic stones. De Beers is developing expensive tests to detect synthetic stones and sending the equipment to jewelers around the world, free of charge. The companies that produce the stones are higly secretive and take extensive security measures. They expect De Beers to cause problems.

I hate De Beers. I also love diamonds. One of my greatest dreams is to pull off a heist in the De Beers vaults, steal all the diamonds they're holding in reserve, and flood the market with them. I wouldn't even sell them. I'd just give them away: fling them off rooftops, leave them on car windshields, offer them free with purchase of a Big Mac. Until every man, woman, and child had one of their very own. The bottom would drop out of the diamond market, De Beers would go bankrupt, and several African civil wars might end.

But for all of that, when I get engaged, I want a "real" diamond. There's something almost magical about the natural formation of a diamond, about the fact that nature can accidentally produce these brilliant and indestructible gems. I'll foil De Beers by getting a vintage ring, making sure they don't get a cut of my happiness, but it will still have been mined. It will still have been owned by De Beers at some point. Be better than me. Don't buy into the advertising that I must have bought into. Get your cultured diamond from Gemesis or Apollo. Your stone will be better than mine. Mine will have inclusions. It may not be perfectly white. Your stone will be flawless.

We'll Miss You, Viggo!

So, I do this thing sometimes. It's a little embarrassing, and without the anonymity of the internet I would never admit to it. When I'm watching late night talk shows (mostly Conan), I imagine that I'm a guest on the show. Seriously. I'm not quite sure why I'm there because I have no aspirations that would lead to Late Night notoriety, but I practice my banter and humorous anecdotes and witty asides to the other guests.

Chatting with the other guests is where I really shine. Obviously I tailor my specific behavior to the specific guests. If it's someone ridiculous, like Paris Hilton or Heidi What's Her Face, I freeze them cold while occasionally throwing out remarks that on the surface seem innocuous, but in actuality cut them to the core, sending them into a shame spiral, leading them to abandon their famewhorish ways and devote themselves to a life of service in some far off place with no cameras. I flirt and tease and just genuinely charm everyone else. Well, everyone else except Viggo Mortensen.

This is a little bit strange, because imaginary talk show me is a pretty cool cucumber. I keep my head with mega movie stars and world leaders. Clooney and Cameron are just fine. I got into a level-headed policy debate with Obama. But one night I was watching Conan or some such show and Viggo Mortensen was the guest and imaginary me was all blush and giggles. I literally could not talk except to say over and over, "Oh my gosh, that's Viggo Mortensen. He was Aragorn. I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd react like this." I even held my hand up to my face so that I didn't have to look at him because I was so in awe. He is the one celebrity imaginary me is too intimidated to face. And, really, can you blame me? In addition to his Lord of the Rings awesomeness, he's an amazing actor, poet, photographer, artist, and musician. In interviews he comes off as a kind, humble, principled human being.

So I was sad when I read that he told the Times of London that he might be done acting. "No more movies. I haven't said yes to one in over a year. If it all dries up now, I've had a good run." Yes sir, you have had a good run, and I'd really like to see it continue. But if you aren't passionate about the projects coming your way, then I wish you well in your creative endeavors. I'm sure they'll by amazing and awe-inspiring.

Japanese Poetry Is All About Hair

So just before Christmas I bought a book of Japanese love poems. I had this idea of using them to decorate a picture frame for my boyfriend. Unfortunately, I got the idea, like, two days before Christmas and so nothing ever came of it; my boyfriend had to settle for an unadorned picture frame. Lately though I've been reading through it. I really like the simplicity. I love the way small details express huge thoughts. I also love the way they're always talking about their crazy messy hair.

I have masses of hair that's a little bit wavy and cannot be controlled. My hair is in the middle of a guerrilla war against me. I'm not sure why as I've always been really nice to my hair. I think it's still mad that I let my friend Brittany cut it when I was four. Or there was the time that I got a bad cut and it was kind of a mullet while I was growing it out; I'm still upset about that one. Anyway, whatever the reason, I am constantly battling to keep my hair in place. You know those hair bands that have the rubber snaking around it? My hair is cunning enough to sneak out of that in like, ten minutes. So I like this poem because I identify completely:

Will he always love me?
I cannot read his heart.
This morning my thoughts
Are as disordered
As my black hair.
-Lady Horikawa

That is a disordered mind. If my thoughts were as disordered as my hair I'd be wearing, like, a shoe on my ear. Or something really stupid, like a toe ring. These next two were written by a husband and wife. I like that he remembers her uncontrollable hair fondly instead of complaining that it always gets in his mouth when they're making out. Or that he has to sweep his bathroom floor three times a week.

Bound up it always
Came undone.
Unbound it was so long.
Now that I have not
Been with you for days
Is your hair all done up?
-Mikata Shami

Everybody tells me
My hair is too long
I leave it
As you saw it last
Dishevelled by your hands.
-Lady Sono no Omi Ikura

I'm totes using this as an excuse the next time my hair looks a fright:

This morning I will not
Comb my hair.
It has lain
Pillowed on the hand of my lover.
-Kakinomoto No Hitomaro

Seriously, Read This Book

So, I just finished Proust Was A Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer, and I'm telling you, you have to read this book. It's all about artists who intuited the way the brain worked before science could explain it. And it's fascinating. Lehrer expertly analyzes the work of the writers, poets, painters, musicians, and chefs (yes, even chefs) and then explains fairly complex neuroscience in terms that even I can understand. So you read this book and you learn about art and science and totally get smarter.

Plus, Lehrer also helpfully provides you with all kinds of smart-sounding scientific anecdotes that you can whip out at parties. It'll go something like this: "Of course, the most daring experiment proving the plasticity of the brain was when Dr. Sur successfully rewired the mind of a ferret so that his retina was attached to his auditory cortex. The ferret could totally still see! And his auditory cortex reorganized itself to resemble a viual cortex." Other people at the party:"Oh my gosh, that is the smartest person I've ever met." "I totally dig that hot nerd vibe." "I just fell in love."

See? Read the book. It'll make strangers at parties love you.

Dorothy Parker Rocks My World

Dorothy Parker was once asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence. Her response?

'You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.'

One more time with feeling...

I'm trying the blog thing again. No one cares probably, because I've never actually told anyone this blog exists.