When The Dangerous Book for Boys was released, there was a great hue and cry because A BOOK FOR BOYS IS EXCLUSIONARY! AND SEXIST! AND WE SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE BOYS TO DO DANGEROUS THINGS!
Insert eye roll here.
Once upon a time, about a month ago, I decided that it would be really fun to take my children to St. Louis for a long weekend, to see my brother and his family. And so I bought plane tickets and my sister-in-law cleaned her guest bathroom and we arrived last night after a completely uneventful direct flight.
We ate a late dinner, watched a Backyardigans episode, and plopped the boys into sleeping bags in the basement. They went IMMEDIATELY to sleep, without a single incident of playing or poking each other.
And I let my guard down.
I wrote a million words today, but the only ones you can read are over here. The rest were e-mails, or contractually mandated pieces for various other places; all of the latter are now in the limbo of published-but-not-yet-live.
Tomorrow I will be everywhere; tonight, I am barely even here.
I went to the eye doctor yesterday, which I don’t mind, really (I mean it’s the EYE DOCTOR, I don’t have to take my clothes off or put my feet in stirrups or … you get the idea). I am nearly out of contact lenses (I wear the daily disposable, which rock) and my ten-year-old glasses are all mangled and bent (why don’t I get new glasses? you ask, and I say, because my prescription never changes and there is always something else to spend the money on).
Plus good eye health is important. For everyone.
So I go to the eye doctor, wearing my L’Oreal Lash Out (top lashes ONLY, of course) because I think THIS will be the Ultimate Road Test: could the Lash Out survive the basic eye exam, complete with TWO kinds of eye drops (one to dilate my eyes and one for something else that I have no idea about because I am an idiot and I don’t ask enough questions at the doctor’s office) or would it smear all over the place?
Hmmm.
Once upon a time, before I was a mom, I taught English literature, specifically eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature. My real love is the novel, because I am a nerd and I am fascinated by the structure of literary narrative and the self-reflexive nature of a really well-written novel. In other words, I like stories that are self-consciously about narrative — novels that are about novels.
I told you I was a nerd.
Diane Setterfield’s debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale, is a novel about novels. But before you cross it off your list as too smart or too hard, let me tell you that “The Thirteenth Tale” is also a ghost story, scary enough to keep you awake at night, which is fine because the story is so compelling that you won’t want to put it down for something as silly as sleeping. (more…)
I have a short attention span, particularly for things like makeup. I want the Perfect Product, right now, and then I want to get on with my life.
Thank GOD the L’Oreal mascara worked. Because I am ALL DONE worrying about it.
I promise, no more gigantic pictures of my head. Because whoa!
(more…)
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