Monthly Archives: August 2009

Do you know how certain books come to you precisely when they should? When you need them, or, at any rate, when you’re ready for them?

My parents now both attend the Auntie’s Bookstore Tuesday Morning Book Group that I used to lead, and this… Read more

I haven’t written a word in the third manuscript this entire month. Excuses: broken finger, new job, last month of summer for 4-year-old, blah fucking blah. Mostly I’m terrified to go back through it, to sit, staring at the white page, knowing I have no… Read more

Most of my nightmares involve sharks and crocodiles.  I’m often required, in the dream, to cross a marshy body of water, or jump from lilypad to lilypad.  I am always young.  Usually it seems to be some sort of expedition, and I’m responsible for the… Read more

Do you know those books so heavy that once you’ve finished reading, you can’t bear to have them in the house because they might crush everything in sight?   Books of anguish.  Books of beauty distilled, pointed and wise.  You hold your breath while you read. … Read more

You have finished reading stories.  David, in trouble again, and the pig eating pancakes, and Harold drawing the world with his purple crayon. You have sung about ten bears in bed—the littlest, finally, lonely.  And the black sheep.

In the socket by the mirror, the… Read more

For the last several months, I’ve started and abandoned dozens of books.  Of the few I’ve managed to finish, only a couple haven’t been re-reads.  Partly, that’s fine.  The summer is for wandering, isn’t it?  But I have piles of books stacked about the place,… Read more

Gavin and I have created a number of characters, and his favorite is named, simply, Cat.  Cat is of dubious Eastern European extraction—and has a sketchy accent midway between Dracula and Mr. Bobinsky (Coraline’s upstairs neighbor in the film).  Cat likes to pee on flowers,… Read more

In my day job, I’m an accountant.  Two weeks ago, I went to work for industrial injury attorneys, and they told me my nightmare day would be once a month, for pension day when 190 checks came in, and had to be processed, reissued, deposited,… Read more

For the last three years, I’ve slept on a mattress with a pool in the center.  At night, I’d wake midway between the dip, and the raised edge, and feel as though I were scaling a rock face.  Discomfort isn’t word enough.  We turned it,… Read more

I thoroughly enjoyed Julie & Julia — the movie, as well as the book.  This past winter, I read through Julie Powell’s year of cooking dangerously, and Julia Child’s My Life in France, and dreamed of food.  The movie tones down Julie Powell’s outrageousness, but lets Julia… Read more