Ummm

“I’m the kind of person who would rather get my hopes up really high and watch them get dashed to pieces than wisely keep my expectations at bay and hope they are exceeded.” Truth.

16.14 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

I am not a big fan of memoirs, - and if I do give you my reading time you better have done something pretty nasty to the Nazis – in general I’m not big on non-fiction, but this is why I joined a book club - forced expanding of my horizons.

I was excited for this book, it has been a long, hot summer and I was looking forward to some laughs. Unfortunately, I didn’t find them. While I’m truly trying to expand, I am a bit of a stickler about one thing in my reading: It should have purpose. Simply put, I didn’t find any here. There was barely a structure. A few of the essays were cute and might have gone somewhere but most seemed like starts without ends, and honestly seemed a bit like first drafts.

Mindy is most famous for her work on The Office, a show I enjoy, yet all that I learned from her writing of her experience was that she liked her co-writers and stole office supplies from set - these seem like no brainers as opposed to revelations to me. I don't work in show business, nor am I a comedy writer, so maybe the insight was lost on me... And as for the rest, I think I may just be too old.  In high school I worried what people were doing without me as well, but 20 years after the fact, not so much.

A Very Sad Story

“Every day I feel a change in my perception.” Truth.

2.13 A Kiss Before You Go

I didn’t know this would be my second book of 2013.  I didn’t set out to read it today.  In fact, I didn’t even own it an hour ago…

It is profound.  Profoundly sad.  Profoundly beautiful; its words and its pictures.  Profoundly hopeful. 

Danny lost his wife.  His son lost his mother.  Through pictures and words he shares his grief as he learns to live this new life that will never be the same.  The things he has to learn how to do, the things he needs to teach his son, the life left behind that he needs to both honor and leave behind.  It is a very sad story that is also beautiful.  It reminds us again that you just never know, so love the ones you’re with.

Write Me Well

“I immersed myself in books and rock ’n’ roll, the adolescent salvation.” Truth.

1.13 Just Kids

“Write me well.” are the final words Viola speaks to Shakespeare in the movie Shakespeare in Love.  They are the most romantic words.  To trust every bit of the truth of yourself to the person you love and ask them to write your story. To write the whole truth about you… Takes such an amazing amount of trust.  And that is what Robert Mapplethorpe asked of Patti Smith.  He asked her to love him, and stay with him, inspire him, and, eventually, write him.  And my goodness, did she write him well.

I adored every page of this book.  This is a love story that is really about friendship.  It isn’t overtly romantic or passionate.  It is instead honest and trusting.  Two people who needed and depended on one another as they changed and turned into other people.  Do I think she left out some of the dirty details in order to reinforce her poetic existence?  Absolutely.  And I do not care one little bit.  I think we could use a bit less of dragging up the ugly details of days gone by in favor of thanking those people who have touched our lives in some way.

I always wanted to be an artist.  I longed to be able to sketch out all of my feelings, or paint a scene that only existed in my mind. I have countless art supplies: paints, papers, tools. Sadly, I don’t have the chops.  This book has made me see that art isn’t about having the chops, or feeling you were born to do something, it is about living and creating until you find yourself where you are supposed to be.  In the next few weeks I vow to pick up some of those pencils and paper and see what happens.

Gratitude

"All is well." Truth.

47.12 Your Voice In My Head

I found this memoir fascinating in an absolutely voyeuristic way. It is part testimonial and confession about depression and suicide, and part thank you to the man who brought her back.  Dr. R sounds like a wonderful man and her gratitude for having known him is palpable.  He dies suddenly and the loss is profoundly sad for everyone who knew him.  I actually felt like it was a real breakthrough for her to recognize that she wouldn’t be the only one to feel his loss with such intensity. She tells of her many relationships with men who all seem to be somewhat famous, the most significant being with a well known actor. I am a bit uncomfortable with the fact that she uses this as a major plot point, but it also is what it is.  That particular relationship was intense for her regardless of who he was, but I also couldn’t shake the slight feeling that maybe is was a bit of a way to get sales.  It is a stream of consciousness that at times may try a bit too hard, but also made me feel connected to her crazy and yet more normal at the same time.

I learned from her and Dr R that we all need help.  We need to have someone to talk to freely.  We need to forgive others and ourselves. We all lose people and have regrets. We will all be lost to someone else. This to me is not sad or bad it is hopeful. The whole book felt hopeful.

And then she gave me this:

            “I am not being hopeful about this when I say my last thoughts will be of love. I remember it.  If you have ever lost someone the way I tried to go, I can assure you to the best of my experience that as despairing as they were, the hell they were in, whatever caused them to swallow the pills or tie the noose, to fill their pockets with rocks and step into the water, before going under, their final thoughts are of love.”

I will be forever grateful.

Not So Wild

“I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I’ve always been someone’s daughter or mother or wife.  I’ve never just been me.” Truth.

34.12 Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

The first part of the book describing the loss of her mother was almost impossible for me to read. I can’t do it. I can’t survive it and I am almost twice her age.  I can’t understand her intense anger, but I don’t need to because it is her’s not mine. The rest of the fallout in her life though seems wildly out of proportion and completely her fault. Why has she lost contact with her siblings?  Why did she make strangers more important than her husband? Why so many places in so little time?  I thought we would at least see her try to figure these things out but we didn’t.

Honestly, it didn’t really feel like much growth happened at all and that is fine except now you have written a book and the title states you went from Lost to Found so readers expect something. I was so glad she made it but I didn’t feel at all confident that she ended up better off than she was.  I mean, you just spent 50 odd days hiking thousands of miles and you are worried that a man is going to see the marks left by your backpack and be grossed out? I realize you are 26, but come on. And if you are really that worried about it, how about you change from your usual habit and not go home with him?

I read Cheryl’s Sugar column and missed the humor she uses there. There were a few funny things here and there but she was so focused in on herself during the hike that it became boring and repetitive. It was about her pack (always too heavy), and her shoes (too small and falling apart), and how great it is to shower and eat; not very much about the passing miles and landscape.  Some history of the trail was added in, some random brushes with animals, and a few details about the people she met (mostly that the boys were cute), but it just seems there should have been more. I also hope she is getting endorsement fees from REI and Snapple!

This is a well-written book, readable and relateable. But I didn’t come away wanting to know any more about her, just more about the people and things she didn’t really pay much attention to or learn from.

Oddly Delightful!

14.12 – It’s So Easy, and other lies

At 17, I was a huge Guns and Roses fan; I guess I still am although much of my connection to the music has moved to the periphery.  The boys I ran with liked Guns but they loved Motley Crue, Metallica, Joe Satriani…  But there was something about GNR that made them my favorite.  In many ways it was the lyrics, somehow a young girl from Boulder, CO could relate to the anger and issues of five punks from LA.  But more than that it was the music.  That rhythm of the bass line.  It is still what I love about any song.  It is what makes me move.  It is what still gives me goosebumps when I hear a GNR song, not so much the angry lyrics anymore.

This is Duff’s story, he never uses it to gossip about or take anyone else down, and because he was the bass player in the band he had always been my favorite.  There are wonderful tidbits here that made me smile: Duff having business cards that said “Duff McKagan, Pastry Chef” prior to giving up the business to play music full time, Slash’s mom being all up in their business when they started out, Duff’s daughter finally picking up a guitar but only because she loved Taylor Swift.  Things that made me sad: The breakdown of the bands’ friendships, the loss of his friends, the loss of his mother.  Things that made me shake my head:  Basically things were good for GNR for a very short period of time, they lived essentially separate lives, and everyone sat by and let Axl’s personality kill it. Like I said, I was a big GNR fan but the only time I saw them live was during a co-headline tour with Metallica.  I went to the show a Guns fan, but after Axl showed up late and walked off the stage, I left a Metallica fan.

Quite honestly, this book was a delight for me to read.  To go back to that place and remember how I felt about the band and who I was then, to remember how I imagined their life to be and to see who they really were.  In fact, oddly, I feel like I had a lot of similar experiences to Duff and it makes me wonder if that is in fact why I was such a fan.

When it came to partying, drinking, and drugs, Duff had a sense to not go to far.  An invisible line of how much you could do while still knowing who you were. I was the same way when it came to partying. I didn’t ever want to lose control.  That doesn’t mean I never did, but it was some sort of self-control I believed I had.  Duff thought he had it all under control too, until his pancreas exploded.  It is nice to think we have it all figured out right?  Then to get all he wanted, have it not turn out to be exactly what he expected, and see it all fall apart. To feel totally alone and secluded as a result.  Then turn to literature and for that to become the way to realize that his shared experiences were normal. So like me.  Then to go back to school once you knew what it was you wanted to achieve and do really well in all of those traditional ways. So like me. 

You can tell Duff has prior experience writing because he moves back and fourth in time instead of writing a time line narrative. But you can also tell it is journalism writing; I feel like you could mix up all the chapters again and it would still work because they are self-contained. This isn't a bad thing.  It was in many ways not at all what I was expecting and yet at the same time exactly what it would have to be, the story of a normal guy trying to find his way.

Do you Downton?

6.12 The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family

I missed out on Downton Abbey the first time it showed on PBS; I had just watched the Upstairs/Downstairs reboot and wasn’t interested in watching, what felt like, the same show.  Then PBS showed repeats during Christmas and I loved tucking in on those cold Sunday nights to watch Carson and Mrs. Hughes continually try to be hard asses, to watch Mary be insufferably annoying, and, of course, to watch Mr. Bates – my god, Mr. Bates.  Plus, the Dowager – seriously she is the best. I have even sucked Chris into watching the second season, which I like but am not wild about.  Frankly, there are just too many people to keep track of.  Anyway, I have come across many, “What to read if you like Downton Abbey” lists and The Sisters turned up on one.  My mom’s lovely friend gave it to her, she then lent it to me, only to have in languish on my huge TBR pile.

I am glad that it languishes no more!  And my god these Mitford girls! Wow.  How great to read about women who did exactly as they wanted without for one moment fretting over not being treated as equals (granted they were rich so that helped).  Quite refreshing really, even though some clearly should have stepped back a bit.  They are writers and lovers, divorcees and mistresses.  Fascists and Nazis, mothers and aunties.  But mostly they are family and even though they disagree with each other, hate each other, and are quite awful to each other, they are always family.

But I must digress for a moment over the nicknames, my god the nicknames!  Why are there not more nicknames on Downton?

Nicknames:

            David – Farve

            Sydney – Muv

            Nancy – Susan

            Pamela – Woman

            Thomas –

            Diana – Honks, Cord

            Unity – Bobo, Boud

            Jessica – Decca, Hen, Susan (again)

            Deborah – Debo, Little D

*Um, why did Tom get left out of the fun? And poor Pam, poor poor Pam... 

Of all the girls I identified most with Debo, the current Duchess of Devonshire, who as the youngest and kind of missed out on the glory days of her family’s togetherness and instead watched as it all fell apart.  It is hard to watch as older siblings leave home and branch out in to their own belief systems that often include damning their way of growing up.  I am the youngest of six, but also feel very much like an only child.  It has always been an odd place for me to be and has very much shaped who I am and how I treat people.  I approach almost everything with a sense of doom instead of wonder.

War - Really, What Is It Good For?

32. In The Garden of Beasts

Once again we see that really war is about male ego and one upping each other.  One day one guy likes another guy, then they hate them and are hell bent on taking power away from them.  Only in retrospect does anyone give anyone else any credit.  Dodd could have never been successful because no one wanted him to be.  Hitler was successful because instead of just gossiping about people and bad mouthing them he had them killed.  It is all so ridiculous, they say they have the good of the country and its people at heart but they don't.  They have their own interests at heart and their own desire to be right is paramount.

I read a comment on Facebook TODAY that said that people who voted against saying the Pledge of Allegiance before the Eugene City Council meetings should be taken out and beaten as traitors to the flag.  I wonder if this man would see the direct correlation to his words and Hitler's actions if he read this book.  Doubtful, I am sure he would just say that what he thinks is right.  It makes me ill.  And shameful.  And scared.

As for the book itself, I was really looking forward to it but found myself disappointed because it felt boring. It was certainly well researched and well written but I have heard a lot of it before.  Plus, it is about a man going to Germany to stop a war that we all know proceeded to happened and was more atrocious than anyone ever could have imagined, so the ending was clear from the beginning.