Book Talk

I look forward to our big getaway every year, because we go to a place in Mexico where there are no phones, no iPads, no WiFi. It’s almost like I now NEED this in order to be able to read a book. Which is both disturbing and bizarre.

Here are the two books which made the biggest impact on me.

The Girls From Ames, by Jeffrey Zaslow

A few people including Kathy have compared “Faces of ALI” to Jeffrey Zaslow’s narrative non-fiction approach, and now that I have read him, I am seriously humbled. If I could even approach the peerless way he tells stories that matter, that describe the human condition, I would be thrilled.

The Girls From Ames describes the lifelong friendships of 11 women from Ames, Iowa over 40 + years. The premise of the book is how important female friendships are to the health and emotional well-being of women, but the sprawling narrative covers so much more than just that. We meet these women as children and watch them and their friends grow up, experiencing dating, college, marriage, careers, loss, miscarriage, infertility, parenting, cancer, joy, celebrations and divorce. In essence, The Girls From Ames is a book about life as we both know it and don’t know it.

Unfortunately, Jeffrey Zaslow passed away in a car accident in 2012. I have a feeling he planned to revisit the “girls” regularly and update their stories, and unfortunately, we won’t read the continuation of their journeys.

Zaslow writes in the introduction: “…I know there’s great power in honest stories about real people.”

Wise words.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

SPOILERS!!! SKIP IF YOU PLAN TO READ THIS BOOK!

Almost everyone I know (and many people on the plane and at the beach) is reading Gone Girl, a rare literary sensation in 2012 that was seriously considered for the big prizes but also had great popular appeal.

Gone Girl is many things: a biting indictment on everything from the death of print journalism, the economic decay of the US, the rise of avenging crime reporters like Nancy Grace to the “con” of marriage. It’s a thriller, a crime novel and a sick romantic comedy of sorts gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Set first in New York in the midst of the dying world of magazine writers, then the decaying town of Carthage, Missouri, the plot concerns the disappearance of a wife (the typical beautiful blond of the mystery stories that entrance Americans), who vanishes in the midst of the death throes of her marriage to a handsome bartender (and former journalist).

There is clever writing (the former journalist compares print journalism as an industry to “buggy whip manufacturing”), and I liked how the book talks about the pressure on women while dating to hide their true selves and instead pretend to be the “cool girl.” You know, the Cameron Diaz type: the one who’s fun and eats endless amounts of junk food while simultaneously remaining rail-thin and never brings a guy down with complaints and nagging. It’s been a while since I was single, but I remember those pressures pretty well, especially while dating my college ex. The plot is gripping and I didn’t really want to put it down.

BUT I HATED THE CHARACTERS!!!!! They were so unlikeable!!!!! Yes, I need to use that exact amount of exclamation points because they really were that disgusting.

I read the whole book in pretty much one day and I needed a palate cleanser afterward because I hated the end and hated the characters. Their oily, slimy tricks unfortunately gave me bad dreams.

So then I read a VI Warshawski novel (Body Work) and felt much better after tackling that straightforward tale of murder and mayhem.

Are you able to read books where the main characters are awful people? What did you think of Gone Girl if you read it?

The Joy of Reading, Part 2

I finished Little House on the Prairie today, and I had LOTS of questions.

So I went online and fell down several rabbit holes.

Question One:

What the heck happened with the Native Americans vs. the Settlers in the Kansas territory anyway?

Wikipedia directed me to this article. I found Wilder’s perspective pretty open-minded for its time and Pa in particular shows a lot of respect and sympathy for the Native Americans involved in the story. But I did edit my telling of the tale (never reading aloud Ma’s horrid statements) and I pointed out that the Native Americans were there first, and what happened to them was unfair in many ways and a great tragedy.

Question Two:

I wondered if Pa fought in the Civil War, which led me to this beautiful blog dedicated to Laura Ingalls Wilder. A lot of thoughtful posts and a description of a visit to the New York location where Farmer Boy takes place enriched my understanding of the books, I think.

Question Three:

That “durned” Bird’s Nest Pudding from Farmer Boy: what WAS it?

After my Mom read the post, she sent me the copy of the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook I grew up with and it does have the Bird’s Nest Pudding in it! Then, a reader linked to an article in Saveur about Little House food and I went there. The name of the author who wrote the article sounded familiar: Isabel Gillies. So I googled her and realized she had written a memoir (Happens Every Day) that I had wanted to read when it came out a few years ago. I found an excerpt and decided I wanted to read the whole thing.

Do you fall down rabbit holes on the internet? Do you think it enhances your reading experience or distracts you from it?

The Joy of Reading

I cannot read a book to save my life these days.

I have always been the “girl-with-her-nose-in-a-book” type, so this is a strange and unwelcome development.

Has my brain been fried by all of the texting and blog reading I’ve done? Do I need the back light of a screen? The back and forth between comments and commenters? The bells and whistles and rabbit holes? I don’t really know why I can’t read a book. But unless I’m on vacation/have no access to my iPad, I can’t get through a hard-bound publication. Maybe this is why I see people now featuring photos of themselves with neat, olde thyme-y vintage books in pictorials and in Kinfolk: perhaps reading a book is now an aspirational goal?

On the other hand, I can read aloud. That holds my attention properly. The twins and I have been reading the Little House books. It’s a strange thing to revisit a book that you read as a child when you are an adult. I didn’t originally notice Ma’s casual racism nor did I note how odd it was that Pa moved the family around so much. Nor did I contemplate how dangerous so many of their adventures were. But there are many things to admire, too: the stoicism of the Ingalls, the strong personality of Laura herself (she was tough as nails), Pa’s openheartedness, Ma’s formidable cheerfulness. Most of all, I admire how much they made from scratch.

Can you imagine a family moving to a wilderness area today and building their own house from nearby trees and rocks and mud? That’s what the Ingalls did in Little House on the Prairie. Or managing a full, self-sustaining farm, as the more prosperous Wilders did in Farmer Boy? Ten year old Almanzo played a crucial part in growing the family’s food. Of course, he also played a crucial part in EATING a lot of that food, too. So many of the scenes featured a famished Almanzo eating the largest array of food imaginable, including the ever-intriguing “Bird’s Nest Pudding.” (What WAS that, anyway? I still want to know.) My daughter asked me the other day, “Why don’t we make more stuff?” A good question, and something I find myself increasingly eager to do.

Have you re-read any books you loved as a child and noticed nuances and character flaws you didn’t the first time around? Do you also have difficulty concentrating while reading a “real” book?

What On Earth To Say?

If you read me regularly, you’ll know this blog has been fragmented since this summer. As fragmented as the cheap kaleidoscope lens I bought my son, which was quickly broken, then lost, as most of the twins’ toys are.

The truth is, I have no idea what to write anymore. How to write. Do I craft short, escapist posts of happiness and photos or long heart-wrenching missives pouring my heart out? I’ve had some middling success with this blog in the way I hoped: as an advocacy tool, an educational mechanism. The truth is, in some ways, my wounds of 2006-2010 (two losses and infertility) have healed. The truth is, those wounds will never really fully heal. The bell has been rung, I’m forever changed by the experiences. The truth is: I’ll face worse, because I won’t live forever and this world is destined to delight and depress people and all we can hope is that perhaps we experience more delight, but that’s not a given. The truth is I’d like to write about things other than infertility, too. The truth is, I don’t know that anyone wants to hear about those other things. And, fair enough. I started off writing for myself, but along the way, I began to write for others. Those I knew. Those I didn’t know. Those I wanted to reach. Those who needed to hear stories of others, ordinary but extraordinary tales of loss and love and resilience and brokenness.

I know that some of you have been bewildered by my meanderings (Fashion? REALLY?) and probably hurt by posts about my kids, something I refrained from doing before. I understand: my audience is a mix of different people, some in the trenches, some living childfree not by choice, some parenting, some having nothing to do with infertility.

I don’t know why I feel “better”, but it’s a fragile state I don’t take for granted. In fact, if there’s one phrase that defines 2012 for me, it’s gratitude. I feel lucky. Sometimes grouchy, sometimes angry, but always grateful. Just grateful for my husband and my beautiful twins. That gratitude was always there, under the surface, but it got lost along the way as I grieved for my children who would never be, for the star-crossed road it seems I alone was dealt amongst my charmed friends and acquaintances. But of course I was not alone. Because I had YOU.

And dear, dear readers: this brings me to my question. What would YOU like me to write?

- Would you like me to finish Faces of ALI? (I had at least two more profiles planned.) Do they matter?
- Do you want me to create a separate blog for all things fashion and lifestyle? Because the truth is the other thing that has made me happy in 2012 is rediscovering the superficial side of myself that was submerged for many years. I rediscovered my old love for everything sartorial: mostly this passion was reignited by my daughter, who has taken her interest in clothes to a new level by sewing and crafting.

A friend’s father once told her that she was two sides of the same knife, one that makes shallow cuts and one that delves deep. He’s Romanian and old world and survived the Holocaust as a young child, and I think there is great wisdom in aspiring to this. For me, I think the key for surviving this world (for the time I am given) is to be both: both perfunctory and possibly profound.

I really appreciate and look forward to your comments as always. I know I have not always pleased you, you have not always agreed with me, and I am sure that some of my posts made your eyes roll into the back of your head as you clicked out of my blog But please know: I have deeply valued your time and your comments over the last two years.

How Do We Know What is Our Story to Tell?

One of the points made over and over at BlogHer was: “Your blog is your space. Your space, your rules.”

Another mantra I heard again and again was: “But that’s not my story to tell.”

***

I guess I am a memoirist, a diarist of sorts. A writer who tells stories about my life, my experiences, my recipes, my fears, my dreams, my hopes. The lines are blurred a bit, though, because I tell other people’s tales too. I do this outright, with Faces of ALI.

But none of us live in a cork-lined flat either. (Except Proust.) We interact with others every day, sometimes only a small handful of people, but usually dozens and sometimes hundreds depending on whether we work in a city or commute, or sit in a cubicle in a skyscraper. Then there are the virtual interchanges: the Facebook updates, the blogs we read, the comments we get, the comments we make. The sometimes sharp debates and discussions we engage in. From the elevator door we hold open (or don’t) to the clueless comments we hear about “just adopting.” From the coffee barista we smile at or the customers we try to politely explain rules to. To the tweets we rush out in an attempt to be funny or relevant, which may come across to 1 or 2 or 76 of our followers as unfunny or offensive. All of these countless interactions we experience just in one day shape who we are in ways that are seen and unseen.

There’s a reason James Joyce followed Leopold Bloom through one day in that beast of a book “Ulysses.” If we truly describe all of a full day (especially an extraordinary day, as Kathy attempted in this remarkable post) we probably would have over 6,000 words essays, at least. Leopold Bloom wandered the streets of Dublin to visit a butcher and read a letter and used an outhouse and so on and so on. The internal thoughts and judgements and the niceties and the tensions of just navigating the mundane and extraordinary events of June the 16th added up to a word count of over 268,000.

So how do we separate ourselves from the interactions of others? Is that even possible?

***

Blogging is a truly strange beast. Never have so many shared their thoughts, their innermost feelings with strangers. Journaling has been around for centuries, but so has the wail: “Mama! (Fill in the blank) read my diary!”

Obviously most bloggers put up walls. I don’t share the details of a lot about my life. Most of us don’t. But I don’t know if I could tell my story WITHOUT including the insensitive comments and remarks I got. (Although I don’t attribute them to specific people.) Nor could I not express my thanks for this extraordinary community, without mentioning and praising the bloggers who inspired me.

But by doing so, I am telling a story that is not mine to tell.

***

I know that I have offended people sometimes with my posts. Usually, because I mentioned them or wrote about them without asking. I try not to do this anymore. (Although it occurs to me now that I didn’t run my story about Bodega’s shower past any of the writers mentioned, including Bodega. Were they offended? I don’t know.) I don’t run my writing past my parents or my brother unless they are copy reading specific, important posts. Are they offended? I meant to be funny about my brother the grammarian but maybe my story hurt his feelings? I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I probably should have. Darcy has a rule that he won’t read my posts. I talk about him, but not a lot.

***

But what about those you don’t mention by name, or you imply, or they simply gather that you are writing about them? (Even if you are not.) Many fiction authors have offended friends and family who assumed that a character was based on them. And those were made-up stories! Here, we are supposed to be writing our story. Readers often DEMAND authenticity. (Not you guys. I’m thinking of criticisms I have seen about the big bloggers.)

Writing my story, my experience, has mostly been a mission of education for me: I wanted people to know what it was like to go through infertility and loss. The ins, the outs. I heard on NPR the other day that only by telling stories can we change someone’s mind. That studies don’t matter: people remember the anecdotes, the well-told personal tales. Hearing stories makes others more empathetic to someone’s plight. And God, do we need empathy for this community.

***

Of course, we are a community here too. We jostle, we joke, we commiserate, we cry with each other. We learn, we open our hearts and minds to those we might not ever know IRL. And conflict is probably inevitable. Conflict seems to be a part of the human condition. There’s been an argument that women tear other women down, and I think that’s true to a certain extent. But, yes, I am reading Ulysses and it strikes me that humans tear each other down. We are in groups, communities, but those little safe havens, whether SF’s Chinatown or NYC’s Lower East Side around the turn of the century or Leopold Bloom, marching through the streets of Dublin: we are bound to come into contact with others.

***

The ALI world has become my safe haven, but it’s not a utopia of course. Just like there is no utopia anywhere nor will there ever be. But I gather strength from it. It feels like a home to me, a comfy one where sometimes people bicker over the remote, but where, on rare occasion, the very walls seem to crack. (Although they seem to heal with time.) Sometimes there’s even a scary troll from without our walls, trying to hurt us.

***

I haven’t answered the question I raised in my title. And that is because, of course I don’t know the answer. I can speculate, I can try to apply rules to myself, I can frown internally if I think those rules have been broken and I can (and do) feel shame if I break my rules.

My blog, my rules.

But what are your rules? How do you know what is your story to tell?

UPDATED: I thought this was a fascinating post and wanted to share it.

BlogHer 12: Life at Hogwarts

I read Mel’s post today and I realized that BlogHer ’12 was sort of my Hogwarts experience.

As a blogger, I often feel different. Not better or worse than anyone else, just different.

BlogHer ’12 was my entry into a magical world of unicorn cake, absurdity (toilet paper photos), incredible opportunities (President Obama, Martha Stewart and Katie Couric spoke to US!) and meeting other “wizards” from all over. At one point, Momo Fali introduced us to a blogger from Sudan, Maha El-Sanosi, who had just barely made it out of her country to attend the conference.

Instead of owls, we had Twitter.

And like Hogwarts, life was not perfect. I ran into my own Draco Malfoy.

But then I also had my own incredible community, my Gryffindors, at my back. Justine, my roomie, who was an Energizer bunny, crackling with life (she got up every morning to run at 5 AM!!) full of wry observations and down-to-earth advice. Lori, who was a calming and soothing and thought-provoking presence: just hanging out with her was like meditating, even in a room of 5,000 people. Kathy, who was so much fun and so articulate and sweet: like the longtime friend you always wanted but never had. Kristin, who moved me to tears as she told me the stories of generosity formed between her blogging friends. Emily: who was smart and sweet and lovely. Kir: hilarious, glamorous, sharp as a tack and kind. After reading her whole blog, I thought she would be like Meg Ryan but in person she reminds me of Tina Fey. And last but not least Mel, whose kindness, humor and advice I will never forget. She made me laugh and provided much-needed context to the publishing world.

Last year, I remember watching the Twitter stream of people writing about BlogHer ’11 and feeling left out. This year, I spent a lot of time feeling guilty about my fellow wizards who weren’t there. It tempered the joy with sorrow.

When I left and hugged everyone goodbye, I was holding back tears. It felt as if I was going back to the Muggle world. I love my friends and family and my awesome husband, and I missed them terribly. And I have wizard friends here. I am so lucky to have that. But it was as if this invisible, parallel world created by the stroke of a like-minded wand was closing, maybe never to return.

This month, along with R. Sativus, I will be doing a Commentathon. I want to read as many blogs as I can and just soak up the summer days. If you want to join me, please let me know. Also, am I reading your blog? I want to! Please let me know if you are a new reader and what your blog URL is.

REJECTED!

I have mostly avoided exposure to rejection. I suspected my heart wasn’t tough enough to hear the phrase: “You’re not right for us.” And so, I usually stopped short of pursuing anything of interest where the word “no” would be used repeatedly.

See: ballet, modeling, acting, academics and applying to law school.

I don’t regret not going after these things, in the end.

But, writing. I do love it. Is it the community or the writing or the community or the writing? In the end, I’m not sure. What I do know to be true is blogging is FILLED with rejection.

I entered several blogging contests lately. The form rejection letters have all officially arrived. Is this a surprise? No. It really, really is not. What would be more surprising is if I actually did win anything. Lord knows I won’t win any grammar contests anytime soon.

But I guess I have infertility to “thank” for pursuing writing, something I was always afraid to try.

Infertility was a reminder to me that sometimes, rejection is not a choice: it’s an answer. Things we all assume will happen for us, things virtually guaranteed in our Constitution (for is not the American Dream the house/family equation?) are not, in fact, possible for some of us.

One thing I love about Silicon Valley is that failure is often respected. VCs are willing to bet on losers. These entrepreneurs may not win the next time, but the experience of failing can lead them to win, eventually.

And so, today I failed. Tomorrow I will fail. I will fail a lot more than I will win, whether in parenting or writing.

But, I’m tougher now. I’m more willing to fail.

Are you afraid to fail? Has it kept you from doing things you want to do?

Girls and the Lure of Bohemia

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits. In this context, Bohemians can be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds. Per Wikipedia.

Bohemia, the garrets, art. I touched on this in the last post, and thanks for the very thoughtful responses. I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole subject of “lady bloggers.” My end takeaway right now is: we need the blogging niches for the community and the term “lady” is offensive for all sorts of reasons: I agree with you all about that. But I am still convinced that there have been some great pieces of writing about many subjects other than ALI on ALI blogs which, if the author agreed to share them to the world at large, (and this point is a MAJOR IF, I feel you on not wanting something to go viral because of the privacy of your blogs) deserve greater circulation.

Maybe there IS a blogging platform out there that allows these pieces to have greater viewing and I am missing it. BlogHer is a syndication platform with curated content, and actually those two pieces I mentioned were “Voices of the Year,” which is how they went viral.

SOOOO, “Girls.” I have had a whiplash of emotions around the series. First, jealousy that the creator was 24 when she landed an HBO show contract!! Irritation that Judd “nerdy guys should only date hot girls” Apatow was involved. Hesitation about the way four women would once again be stereotyped by four specific characters. Concern that twenty-something women were calling themselves “Girls.”

I have thoroughly enjoyed the show. And am totally bummed out it’s over.

The character of Hannah, the creation of the story’s main actress and writer Lena Dunham, is someone I haven’t seen before on film. And it’s not just her body type or the way she’s painfully out there in ALL scenes.

She’s a real female Bohemian. And I can’t say that I have seen this sort of portrayal previously. I HAVE seen the romantic, tragic beautiful muse character of Bohemia-land. (See Mimi in La Boheme or her modern counterpart Mimi Marquez in Rent or even Jessa, Hannah’s BFF.) But a female whose art is the most important facet of her life, whose main goal is to live a fascinating life so she can write about it?

It’s a unique perspective for me, the person who lived and grew up with parents who were writers, because I firmly rejected that path due to the (relative) financial hardships that accompanied that life. I determined that I wanted a life of monetary ease, and quickly set about achieving that through my career and by working hard and pursuing the usual goals: love, marriage, house, kids.

The writers and artists I encountered when I lived and worked in London and San Francisco mostly fit into the category of Trustafarians. They didn’t need to worry about their financial concerns, so they could choose a life pursuing painting, fashion or music. A few of them repelled me with their rejection of the “American Dream”: it’s so easy to put down the “dorks” who work hard as lawyers or PR people or accountants when you don’t have to worry about paying rent…

That’s why Hannah is so compelling to me: her parents cut her off financially in the first episode and she has to scramble to finance her dream of being a writer. She gets fired from her salary-free internship at a publishing house when she dares to ask to be paid. (Her boss explains he gets hundreds of requests to work for him for free everyday.) So we see her flail through a series of crappy jobs in her attempt to, well, support herself.

Most striking of all: SPOILER!!!
She basically terminates her relationship with the guy she chases the whole season because it gets “too serious.” Because it might interfere with her attempts to live in this authentic way.

I found myself cheering her on, now, as a 39 year old, in the final wordless scene as she sits on a beach and calmly eats a piece of cake, even after her life has sort of imploded by everyone’s standards. I am proud of her, in that scene. That she has remained true to herself. I know that had I watched that scene as a 24 year old, I would have been appalled and scared for her future.

Have you watched “Girls?” Did you enjoy it? Does living a life dedicated to pursuing your artistic dreams appeal to you? Or does it scare you?

The Problem With Being a “Lady Blogger”

Shall we all retire to our garrets and come out only to discuss ART (and, not Assisted Reproductive Technology) like Flaubert and Proust?

I recently ran into a discussion about how some prominent online women writers loathe the term “lady blogger.”

I must admit I’d never heard the phrase.

Apparently, there is a theory out there (happy to email you guys a link to the article but I don’t want to put it up here for a variety of reasons) that women writers are becoming segregated into a kind of world where the only major issues being discussed are related to “Aunt Flo,” weight, appearance, style, children (or lack thereof) and reproductive politics.

This was interesting to me. I suspect (although I am not sure) that a lot of Adoption/Loss/Infertility bloggers also write OTHER blogs. The ALI world clearly is a place where there is a unique community aspect to our writing: we share information about our own journeys and write where we are in our battle to have children, live childless/childfree or parent after infertility. So, yes: we write about mostly this stuff, the reproductive details of our lives.

But most of us vary it up somewhat. I have seen a wide variety of brilliant, general interest posts over the years on many ALI blogs about many different things: religion, politics, science, truly great non-fiction and of course, humor.

The posts I have highlighted I honestly believe could be published as articles in print media, or on a broader online platform like Huffington Post or even in a literary journal like the New Yorker. To prove my point, one of my best writer buddies HAS been published in a print magazine, about her budgeting project blog.

I guess the theory is, by mostly writing about ONE topic and getting stuck in a niche, do we miss the opportunity to gain a wider audience? Or, do you believe that great, universal posts go viral and gain the acceptance they deserve?

I have to say that while I have seen a few posts that resonated deeply go viral, I have also seen a bunch that also shot me straight in the heart not go viral and I think that is a shame. I guess being a writer means that rejection is the main defining feature of our lives (as my dad always says) but I do have to ask the question:

By writing in one category, do outstanding writers miss larger opportunities for their words to be read? I know most of my readers are very modest, but all of you have written a truly great post. Just like everyone has one book in them, I truly believe that each blogger has at least one truly great post in them. I’ve read too many to dispute that theory…

Guest Post Today at Dragondreamer’s Lair

I wrote a guest post for the awesome Kristin, aka the Fertile Infertile, today.

Please go visit!