“I wish you were still in love with him…” or Family Secrets

When I was growing up, I wanted so badly to be in so many of the books that I’ve read.  But none more than the Norma Klein books.  You have to understand how unbelievably sophisticated the teenage characters in her books seemed to me.  They lived in New York, attended prestigious high schools, had frequent sex, had very close but somehow still hands-off relationships with their parents, and they used words like ‘magnanimous’ and ‘esoteric’ in every day conversation. They were intellectual powerhouses. It was a far cry from my own small-town, lily-white, public school upbringing.

That said, even though I badly wanted to be a character in her books, I never really wanted to be a character in this book.  Because, you know, I’d never want to fuck my stepbrother.  (I don’t actually have a stepbrother, but if I did, I like to think I’d never hop in the sack with him.)

Nice shorts, Leslie.

Peter and Leslie’s families have known each other for years.  They have neighboring beach homes on Fire Island, so they have spent summers together forever.  The year before their senior years in high school, Peter and Leslie start secretly sleeping together.

Then the end of the summer brings a bombshell.  Both sets of their parents are divorcing, and Leslie’s mom is marrying Peter’s dad.  So, Peter and Leslie will officially become step-siblings.  Oops.

Peter and Leslie continue their relationship for the rest of the summer.  But when summer ends, Leslie goes back to the city to live with her mom and Nelson (Peter’s dad), while Peter goes back to the suburbs with his mom in their old house.  They don’t see each other for a few months until the actual wedding of their parents when they end up arguing.

Peter and Leslie are both overly emotional and prone to dramatics.  So while Peter is wildly pissed that his ladies-man father is divorcing his dowdy-housewifely mother, Leslie is trying to make the best of it.  And that also pisses Peter off.  And Peter’s attitude pisses Leslie off, so she dances with Peter’s older brother at the wedding.  So they go for a while without talking.

Leslie’s high school is doing a play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street.  Leslie really wants the lead, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and is super disappointed to get the role of Elizabeth’s wild older sister, Henrietta.  She’s so upset about it, she calls Peter to complain and they end up resuming their relationship.  But it’s always rocky and uneven.  They fight a lot and they seem to focus all their energy on the negative things about each other.  They’re the whiniest bunch of Norma Klein protagonists ever.

As the months go on, cracks start to appear in the new marriage between Leslie’s mother and Peter’s father.  Mostly because Peter’s father is an incurable philanderer.  Leslie and her mom have never been close, so it gets crazy uncomfortable when her mom decides that Leslie is flirting with Nelson and starts acting like she’s competition.  All because she and Nelson enter a father/daughter squash competition.  And really, just because Leslie is totally cool with shacking up with her step-brother, doesn’t mean she’d be OK with her stepfather.

Peter’s mom decides to move to Chicago to go to college, so Peter moves in with his father, Leslie and Leslie’s mother.  Awk-ward.  On a trip to Chicago for Peter to visit his mother and Leslie to interview at University of Chicago, Peter’s mom possibly catches them kissing.  (If she did, she never says anything about it, and that whole plot point is left weirdly dangling.)

Shit at home is going downhill fast between Leslie and her mom.  So Leslie moves in with her dad and tries to take Peter along.  But because Peter isn’t quite 18, he actually has to go back to his dad.  But they spend weekends together and Leslie’s dad catches on pretty quick that the two of them are…ahem…involved.  (that is to say, fucking.) He doesn’t care because he is a Norma Klein parent and they never do.

Then Peter’s dad leaves Leslie’s mom.  Then Leslie kicks all kinds of ass playing against type in her school play and she gets into Chicago.  Peter is off to Harvard.  And the relationship between Leslie and Peter becomes not such a secret anymore.  The summer before they leave for college, Leslie and Peter decide to drive cross-country and that’s where the story ends.

• A little off topic, but this book reminded me of something I learned reading Savage Love.  It’s called the Westermarck Effect, which says that kids being raised together instinctively develop a sexual aversion to one another.  But when older kids are added to the mix, no such aversion develops.  So I guess step-siblings banging one out isn’t unusual.  Suddenly Greg and Marcia Brady’s relationship doesn’t seem so innocuous, does it? Also, Dan Savage is a national treasure, people.
• This is a Norma Klein book.  So all parents are totally OK with their teenagers smoking pot. They smoke pot openly in their apartments.  Not like most of us who had to hide in the park before school and then just hope none of the teachers caught on.  Or so I’ve heard.
• The word fuck can be used so many different ways.  I don’t think I’d ever heard the word ‘fuckingly’ until reading this book.  As is, “I hated him….for being so fuckingly self-satisfied.”  Fuckingly, interestingly, is not in my spell check.
• At one point,while their relationship is in the off position, Peter calls Leslie ‘jappy,’ and ugh.  I just hate that word.
• There is no bigger douchecanoe (also not in my spell check!) than Peter’s father. (Maybe douche-canoe is hyphenated?) He constantly hounds Peter about his weight.  And he constantly hounds Peter about his personality.  It means fuck all to him that his son got into Harvard early decision – the kid is fifteen pounds overweight so he’s terrible!  Peter’s older brothers, who are as fit as a couple of fucking fiddles, are constantly favorably compared to him.  Until the oldest brother at only 21 years old starts living with his 30 year old mother of three girl friend.  And here’s what he has to say about that: “I have nothing against divorced women, but most of them, till they get a replacement, are full of bitterness and rage and ready to pounce on anyone who passes by.  You may think you’re safe, just because she’s an older woman, quote unquote, but believe me, those women are dangerous. You can’t tell what might happen.”  And “…at a certain age a man wants a woman who’ll make him feel younger, not some graying, overweight dame who reminds him of his mother.”
• But just because Nelson is the worst, doesn’t mean any of the other characters are that wonderful.  Leslie’s mom has never gotten over the fact that Leslie has a really close relationship with her father, and practically blames Leslie’s “playing him up,” for her divorce.  Then when Leslie and Nelson have the audacity to play squash together, like two whole times, she accuses Leslie of doing the same thing with him.  It’s squicky and uncomfortable.
• And let’s not forget Leslie and Peter are no prize peaches either and they’re grossly mismatched.
• Here’s the thing.  I’m having some sleep/food issues with my nine month old.  So I’m incredibly grumpy.  And I’m not sure if my grumpiness is leading to me being really harsh on these characters, particularly Peter and Leslie.  But normally I’ll read  Norma Klein book and totally enjoy the sexcapades of a couple of hyper-educated, hyper-hormonal teenagers.  So maybe it isn’t Peter and Leslie who are hard to handle.  Maybe it’s me being stressed and sleep deprived.
• I should read more Norma Klein.  You wouldn’t know if from this blog, but her books played a huge part of my adolescence.

No-Go Nano

In case you haven’t heard, November is National Novel Writing Month, or, Nanowrimo.  Nanowrimo is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a first draft novel in the thirty days of November.  That’s 1,667 words per day.  I participated the last two years, managing a paltry twelve thousand words in 2009, but fifty-six thousand words in 2010.

This year though, I can’t do it.  I just don’t have the time.  And I wish I did and I wracked my brain trying to come up with some sort of system that would allow me an hour a day in November to write.  But I don’t have it. Which is so sad, because I had an idea and had even started character sketches.  But another thing I have is an infant.  And infants and writing just don’t mix.

So I’ve committed myself to being a Nano cheerleader.  If you are nanoing, and I follow your Twitter, I will cheer you anytime you post a word count.  If you are feeling like you can’t possibly write another word, I’ll tweet you some positive words.  I even joined my region’s Facebook group (Go Maryland!) so I can cheer only my fellow Marylanders.

Once I committed myself to being on the sidelines this year, I thought I was comfortable with my decision.  But as October 31st turned into November 1st, my Twitter feed was filled with Nano-related posts.  I didn’t expect to become so sad about my lack of time.  Each tweet raised my level of despondence nearly to the point of tears.  (In my defense, I was terribly PMS-y and have been suffering an extreme lack of sleep since my youngest started sprouting top teeth a week earlier.  Lack of sleep always puts me on edge, and being on edge puts me on the verge of tears 24/7.) I’m still sad about it.

Anyway, if you are Nano-ing this year, I want to wish you the best of luck.  If you want a ridiculous amount of cheering on from me, let me know your Twitter handle and I’ll follow you and send you tweets like “Great Job!  Remember November is about quantity over quality!,” and other lame shit.

And I can’t promise to try, but I promise to try to try to Nano next year.  The baby will be a toddler, the big boy will be in school for full days (he’s in half-day preschool now, a cooperative school which takes up some of my time), so I can see a possibility of it working out.

On to 2012!

Classic Post: It’s Not the End of the World

Yesterday, my five year old was asking question after question after question.  It gets a little old at times, and he stopped short when my husband and I seemed to get a little impatient.  Then I felt like the worst mother ever, and I assured him he could keep asking questions.  Because “The one who asks the questions learns the most.”  Then I remembered that I first read that little gem in this Judy Blume book.  Then I started to feel guilty about how infrequently I’ve been updating here, so I decided to do the laziest thing possible and just do a classic post.  Enjoy!

Also, I’m working hard on a snark at BSC-Snark.  I have finished two out of three parts and will post it here when I’m done.  It’s taken a little more time than I thought. 

Thanks to Goodreadsfor the image!

This isn’t the cover I have on my copy of this book. The cover I have is totally 70′s, as was the even different cover I grew up with. Actually, upon closer inspection, my copy was printed in 1981, so it’s totally early-80′s, which is practically the 70′s. God, this book was initially published in 1972! That makes it 37 years old this year! That means that if the protag was a real person, and was 12 years old in 1972, she’d be 49 years old now. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks about things like that. I’m constantly like, damn, if the BSC girls were 12 in 1986, they’d be 35 now!)

This isn’t the greatest Judy Blume book, for sure. (Obviously that is either Forever… or Tiger Eyes), but it isn’t the worst either (I’m looking at you, Blubber!) It honestly is just kind of….meh. I’m sure in 1972, at the beginning of the divorce bonanza in this country, it was probably kind of ground breaking or had more meaning or whatever. But now it’s like, “girl’s parents get divorced. She gets sad and thinks she can trick them into getting back together. Teenage brother has trouble dealing. Things work out OK in the end.”

Told from the POV of 12 year old Karen Newman. Karen is a pretty plain, average girl. She has a 14 year old brother, Jeff and a six year old sister, Amy. Her parents have been fighting a lot lately, and in fact, the book opens on a doozy. Karen is scared they’re going to get divorced. And sure enough, just a few chapters in, her parents make the big announcement. Her dad moves out. Karen has difficulties coping and major denial. Jeff becomes an out of control teenager, even running away from home at one point. Amy becomes clingy and sad.

In the middle of all this, Karen leans on her best friend, Debbie. But her dad moves to an apartment complex and he has a neighbor with a daughter Karen’s age, Val. Karen befriends Val, whose parents are also divorced. Val is a bit of a know-it-all, but seems to be a pretty big comfort to Karen.

Karen thinks she can try to get her parents back together, but obviously it doesn’t work. When Jeff runs away, her dad comes to the house, acts like a real dick to the mom, sending Karen into literal hysterics. Karen realizes they aren’t getting back together. I’d say duh, but she’s only twelve and that’s kinda mean, even for me. At the end of the book, mom says she has to sell the house and it’s up in the air where they’re going to move.

• Karen keeps a journal, where she writes a bit each day about what happened that day. Then she grades each day, from F to A+. She also assigns blame for each of her parents’ fights. If she went back and looked at how much they fought, maybe she wouldn’t have convinced herself she’d be able to get them back together.
• So, remember how in Just as Long as We’re Together, Stephanie’s parents didn’t bother to tell her that they were getting separated? Well, at least in this book, the mom told the kids right away. Sure, it should be both parents telling the kids together, but yanno, in 1972, there weren’t 1,000,000′s of studies done about the ‘correct’ way to get divorced and the best way to handle it with the kids. So I’ll give Karen’s parents a pass on this one.
• At one point, Karen is upset, and her Aunt Ruth (mom’s sister) says something like, “remember, this is harder on your mother than it is on you.” Um, Really? Fucking Ruth, you’re an idiot. Mom has probably realized for years that her marriage was falling apart. I think it’s probably worse on the kids.
• Val tells Karen it’s bad that she’s a middle child. She’ll have more problems than Jeff and Amy. *shrugs* I don’t know about that. I’m a middle (third child of five) child. I wouldn’t say that I have “problems.” But….um, yeah. Long story short. I totally sympathize with the Jan Brady syndrome.
• Mom decides to get a job and go back to school. And ZOMG, you’d think the world was coming to a fucking end. Jeff was fucking pissed off, he threatened to go live with Dad. Karen was all confused, like why would you want to do that? Aunt Ruth and her husband, Uncle Dan were all nebby about it, “The children need you at home,” and “I wish you’d rethink this. Can you handle the responsibility of running the house and keeping a job?” Wow. I mean, all I can say is fucking thank GOD I grew up when I did, and not back in those dark ages. Holy shit, how far have we come?
• Karen goes to sleep over at Val’s house. It’s such a bizarre scene, because it’s Saturday night and Val asks if she can wash Karen’s hair. Karen is all, “No, I just washed it on Monday.” Um….what? She doesn’t shower and wash her hair on at least an every-other-day basis? Am I the only one a little bit grossed out by that? Is this a generational difference? Did adolescents in the 70s really only wash their hair once a week? Cause I was probably eleven (1988) when I first read this, and I totally remember thinking that was gross even then.
• Yeah, also, Karen and Val bathe together. Which seems pretty odd to me for twelve and thirteen year old girls to be doing. Once again, generational difference? And once again, reading it as an eleven year old, I thought it was way strange.
• At the end, when mom says that they have to sell the house, she isn’t sure where they’re moving. Maybe somewhere warm, like Florida or California. Karen suggest Houston (a boy from her class moved there), and her mom is all, “Oh God, no. No Texas. No way.” Kind of insulting to Texans. (But you know, the rest of us don’t really give a shit if your state is “Bigger ‘n France.) Oh, but parenting points off for Karen’s mom for even considering such a huge change so soon after a divorce. Not to mention it would be taking them too far away from their father. And just because you hate him, doesn’t mean your kids do.
• Like I said, book was OK. Not great, not cringe-worthy. But the style was classic Blume.

Obligatory Banned Books Week post

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we’re in the middle of Banned Books Week.  I usually do a lot more for BBW, but life got in the way this year, and I don’t have a post planned.

I did just finish reading Looking for Alaska, though (DFTBA, John Green) and I understand that has been challenged a handful of times. Because we all know that no teenager in the history of teenagers has ever smoked or gotten drunk.  EVER.  And if they have, fuck ‘em.  We shouldn’t be writing books with characters they can relate to, amirite?  A challenge to this book makes zero sense.

It’s been kind of a big year for challenged books, what with the numbskull school board in Missouri voting to ban both Slaughterhouse Five and Twenty Boy Summer.  (The board members openly admitted to not having read the books.  Which raises the question, how do you make it to an adulthood where you claim to value education and have never fucking read Slaughterhouse Five? Seriously?  How the fuck does that happen?  I’m a little leary of any grownup who has never read Vonnegut, but to be a member of a school board, and have power to make educational decisions and not have read it?  Fucking assholes.)

Because Kurt Vonnegut is an American treasure, his memorial library provided copies of Slaughterhouse Five for free to any student from that district who requested it.  And they recently had Sarah Ockler (author of the other banned book) come speak for Banned Books Week.  Vonnegut is still fighting the good fight from beyond the grave.  Or, as he would say in his dry humanist way, from heaven.

By the way, the douche canoe who made the complaints against the book homeschools his kids.  And he also made past complaints about Laurie Halse Anderson’s beautiful Speak, and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  So I think I speak for everyone here when I say, Fuck You, Wesley Scroggins.

Anyway, if you want to read more Banned Books Week posts, I’d urge you to check out my BBW event from last year.

Happy reading!  Fuck censorship!

How I Paid for College: a Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

Do you have a book that you’ve read, that you love to a possibly unhealthy degree?  And for whatever reason, you try to get other people to read it and no one ever does because A) They haven’t heard a million other people talk about it, B) They haven’t heard of the author, C) There’s no movie based on it, or D) They want you to lend it to them, but about 90% of your books have been packed away into storage for the last three years.  (That last one is probably just me.)

That’s this book for me.

It’s not a YA book.  Make no mistake.  Just because it’s about kids in high school, doesn’t necessarily make it for kids in high school.  Because I’m one of those lefties who will probably never censor anything my kid wants to read, I’d let him read it as a teenager.  There’s a lot of sex, but that’s not really why it isn’t YA.  It’s not YA because the way it’s told is in this sort of making-fun-of-who-we-were sort of way that a kid might just not get yet.  Well, they may get it, but you kind of have to be an adult to enjoy it. You may remember I referenced this book in my also glowing review of The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second.  (And if you haven’t read that review – go read it and then check out that the author left me a comment!)

The year is 1983, and Edward Zanni is seventeen years old and getting ready to start his senior year of high school in suburban New Jersey.  His best friend, Paula, is one year older and getting ready to start her freshman year at Julliard as a drama major.  Edward’s big plan is to follow Paula there next year.  You see, Edward and Paula are “Play People.”  That is, they perform in their high school’s plays.  Both are considered very talented.

The high school is performing Grease, and Edward knows he just isn’t right for the role of Danny Zuko.  So, he opts to wow everyone with the small role of Teen Angel.  Edward’s girlfriend (and former cheerleader, current play person), Kelly, is Sandy.  Danny is played by football jock and BMOC, Doug Grabowski.  Edward, for whatever reason, has decided to try and culture Doug Grabowski, get him to stop being a jock douche and become a Play Person.  Also, Paula wants to lose her virginity to Doug Grabowski before she leaves for college.

The big plan is to set up a double-date and go into the city to see A Chorus Line.  Doug doesn’t realize he’s supposed to be on this double date with Paula, so Paula’s plans are ruined when Doug brings along a sophisticated Persian beauty named Ziba, as well as Natie Nudelman, Wallingford High School’s cheesehead.  The head of the A.V. Club and sporting a horrible red Jew-fro, Natie Nudelman has been a constant companion of Edward’s thanks to their being neighbors and Natie being a total fucking sociopath.  The dude knows how to get away with shit.

This group of six (minus, quite often, Paula once she goes off to Julliard) become the focus of this novel and the most important people in Edward’s life as he faces a daunting senior year in high school. (But before high school starts, their last summer is one filled with CV – creative vandalism.)

Edward’s parents are divorced.  His mother left his father to go on a spiritual journey through Asia and South America.  Edward insists he understands, because if he was married to Al Zanni, he’d have left too.  Al is a stereotypical Italian loudmouth from Jersey (this book was published a few years before Jersey Shore, thankyouverymuch). He makes a lot of money and never fails to let you know it.  Because he’s been saddled with raising Edward (and Edward’s stoner older sister, Karen), he gets them together once a week for business dinners, where he hits on waitresses and tries his best to get Edward and Karen to understand good business.

Edward seems to get a reprieve when Al meets, and marries, Dagmar, an Austrian photographer.  Edward initially gets along with Dagmar (they are both arteests, after all) but that quickly sours.  The faster Edward’s relationship with Dagmar goes downhill, the faster his already poor relationship with Al goes downhill.  It all comes to a head when Al announces that he will only pay for college if Edward agrees to major in business.  No Julliard for Edward.

What’s a guy to do?  He goes to his best friends and they come up with a plan.  And this is Natie Nudelman’s honest-to-god list of ways Edward can pay for college. 1-Work, 2-Scholarships, 3-Theft, 4- Murder.  He does at least admit that maybe murder is a little harsh.  Need-based scholarships are out because Al makes to much money.  Edward gets a job (several, in fact) with not a lot of luck, finally ending up at the local fast-food chicken joint.  He tries to be OK with the fact that it could take a few years to get into Julliard. He also has to get legally emancipated.  Which means no support from Al, which means Edward moves out of his house and into Kelly’s (telling Kelly’s mom that he and Kelly broke up because he’s gay so that she’d let him live there), which also means Edward gets to write his own absence excuses at school.

While all this is going on, Edward remains perfectly happy with his relationship with Kelly, only to be blindsided by inadvertently falling in love with Doug Grabowski.  (Listen, that guy Edward made out with at dance camp last summer, totally doesn’t make him gay.  He did that just in case he ever has to play a gay guy, right?  Right.)  OK, so Edward has to admit his bisexuality to himself now.  And eventually and uncomfortably, to Doug.  Doug is so hell-bent on NOT becoming like his abusive father, that he’s totes cool with hanging out with, and even occasionally teasing, Edward.

On the Julliard front, Paula lets Edward know that some big-shot classical actor will be teaching at Julliard for one year only, and Edward simply must find his way in.  It’s time to return to Natie’s list.  Number 3-Theft.  Do they dare? As luck would have it, Edward and Doug are out one night, and Dough (who happens to speak German, thanks to spending his summers with his gay gymnast Uncle in Germany) overhears Dagmar speaking German to a friend.  Turns out the miserable bitch is stealing from Al.

So now they know what money they need to steal.  And this is where the book gets Ca-razy.  The little gang gets together with the help of some priest and nun costumes, some money laundering, Frank Sinatra, and an obituary of a classmate’s sister and they fucking steal this money and commit some major fraud while they’re at it.

And if that’s not bad enough, they also find a very hilarious way to blackmail a US Senator’s son for Edward’s second year tuition.

Does it work?  Do you think I’m gonna tell you?  Go read the friggin book. Dudes.  I barely even touched on all the crazy shenanigans in this book.  Seriously, it is so dense with characters (major and minor) and funny little asides and the tiniest perfect details.  Those details almost overshadow the main plot of thievery, fraud and blackmail.  These details?

• Oh the characters.  Paula with her nineteenth-century figure and large bosom and her very theatrical way of speaking.  Doug who is surprised as anyone to find that he’s more than a dumb jock and that he has a genuine affection for Edward. Kelly, the fucked up daughter of an alcoholic therapist and a herpes-infested physician father.  Ziba in the US after being run out of Iran by the Shah, is willing to do anything to escape the boredom of the suburbs.  And friggin Natie, who only gets more and more sociopathic as the book wears on.  (Per Edward, it’s Natie’s plan to either BE a politician one day, or to OWN a politician one day.) And Al Zanni.  For some reason, the description tragicomic makes me cringe, but it really is a perfect descriptor for Al.  Here’s a guy who is presented as a buffoon, but as the book goes on, these little human moments come out.  And for fuck’s sake.  He raised two kids by himself after his wife left him on a spiritual quest.  The fact that he’s there has got to count for something, right?
• The minor characters are just as wonderful.  Paula’s Aunt Glo, a MoP (Mother of a Priest) who is a little off her rocker.  Dagmar, the Austrian bitch.  Edward’s mother who makes a surprise appearance at the end. Mr. Lucas, Edward’s paraplegic English/Drama teacher, who lets Edward crash at his apartment one night after embarrassingly seeing each other at a gay bar in the city.  (Nothing happened.)

Other fun little details:

• Edward insists outwardly that he’s cool with his mom leaving.  But then he lets these little hints drop on occasion that he really isn’t.  When he gets sad about something, he says his chest gets tight in that “watching-my-mother-leave-for-the-last-time kind of way.” And at the end, this all comes to a head.
• The sex-capades.  These are some sexually active kids.  Edward is with Kelly.  Then he gets a crush on Doug and has trouble…ahem….performing for Kelly. Doug dates Ziba for a while. Then Kelly and Edward break up and Doug ends up with Kelly for a while.  Then Edward almost hooks up with a dude at the gay bar (before he’s rescued by Mr. Lucas).  Then Edward almost gives Doug a BJ on the roof of a hotel before being cock-blocked by Natie Nudelman and his need to blackmail a Senator’s Son.  Then Kelly and Ziba end up together.  Then Kelly and Edward again, concurrently with Kelly and Ziba. Then Paula and Doug finally end up together.
• Edward’s disdain for his suburban community, Wallingford.  He wishes the term bedroom community meant it was “…sexy…that all kinds of otherwise respectable people were having orgies behind closed doors.  But it proably just means that not much else happens in Wallingford beyond sleeping.”  Also, Edward only parks in the visitors space at school, because he thinks of himself as “someonw who is just visiting a suburban New Jersey high school, rather than someone who actually attends one.”
• Natie considers defrauding a university for Edward’s tuition money.  He justifies this by saying, “when you consider how many of them fund research that supports Reagan’s missile defense plan, fraud is really more an act of civil disobedience than a crime.”
• When Edward is drunk at the gay bar, and winds up at Mr. Lucas’ apartment, Mr. Lucas tells this story about when he first got injured he thought his life was over because his career as an actor was over.  And he wanted to kill himself, but he couldn’t because there was always more than one book that he was reading, and he can’t stand the thought of not knowing how a book ends, even if he doesn’t like the book.  So books saved his life, literally.  That is one detail that has always stuck with me about this book, because I love the idea that books can save lives.
• The reaction of the rest of the group about Edward’s bisexuality is wonderfully blase.  I think they all knew before Edward did.   Natie catches Edward nearly giving Doug a BJ on the roof of a hotel, and later when it comes time to put a Senator’s Son in a compromising position for blackmail photos, Doug is like, “Not me!  Edward’s the bisexual one.”  Then Edward tries to say Doug is joking and Natie says, “I suppose you were just helping him tie his shoes up there on the roof.”
• “Hard work may pay off in the long run, but the benefits of laziness are immediate.”  Best quote ever?  I think so.
• The book is so deliciously 1980′s.  The outfit descriptions are killer (Paula likes to wear two different colored shoes.  Edward owns skinny ties, Kelly wears her sweatshirts off the shoulder.)  Pop-culture references – A Chorus Line, Matthew Broderick in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Paula calls Madonna a flash in the pan.  Mr. Lucas asks Edward if he’s heard of AIDS.  Reagan is referenced a few times.

Look guys, it’s late and I’m tired.  I want you to read this book.  It really is a novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater, as the subtitle suggests.   But really strong on the sex and friendship, two themes which make for awesome writing.

“No harnesses until absolutely necessary!” Or Middle School Blues

Whew, sorry that image sucks.

This is one of those books that I had completely forgotten about until I found it at a used book store.  I saw the cover and immediately remembered it, practically word for word.  I don’t know how I had forgotten it, I must have read it dozens of times as a kid.

Cindy Cunningham is twelve years old and getting ready to start middle school (seventh grade in her district).  Cindy has two older sisters, the tall blond genius Ellen and the tall blond cheerleader Grace.  Cindy is neither tall nor blond, nor a genius nor the cheerleader type.  What is she?  The shortest girl in the class, brown hair, clumsy, sarcastic and smart but a little lazy about her grades.  Who cares though.  Ellen and Grace are both college students, so Cindy only has to see them over the summer.

The summer before seventh grade is especially boring for Cindy.  Her parents are busy dealing with the older sisters having to leave for college and her two best friends, Jeff and Becca are away all summer.  All Cindy has been doing is reading, going to the pool and playing her saxophone.  (Ah to be twelve and complain about a summertime like that again…) Jeff, Becca and Cindy have grown up together and called themselves the Three Mosquitoes.  Jeff is the son of a former Washington Redskin, who wants all of his four sons to be athletes.  Jeff just wants to read comic books and tinker with computers.  (Remember this.  That fact will be important later.)

But first!  On to day one of middle school.  It doesn’t turn out so well. Five elementary schools matriculate into one middle school. Cindy doesn’t have a single class with Becca or Jeff.  But she does meet Margo, who is sweet and chubby, and Andrea, the tall black athlete.  She also has a run-in with the most popular girl in school, whose ridiculous moniker is Brandy Wine.  (Her parents are rich, so I assume they don’t want her to grow up to be a porn star.  But really.  Brandy Wine?)

Cindy also manages to make another unfortunate enemy in Ms. Kilper, the math teacher.  Math is Cindy’s worst subject and when Kilper accuses her of not handing in a paper, Cindy refuses to re-do it because she fucking did it already.  (We’re led to believe that Brandy stole Cindy’s paper to get in trouble.)

That Brandy is really out to get Cindy.  Brandy has a party and invites Becca, but not Cindy.  Things get a little tense between Cindy and Becca, though there’s never an out and out fight. Cindy becomes closer to Margo.  Jeff starts to pull away from both of them a little bit.  This sort of friendship fluctuation makes Cindy mad.

Cindy likes to do two things.  Play the sax and write.  So she joins band, only to discover that there are too many people in band and there will be tryouts for a varsity band and a junior varsity. (Because everyone knows how popular band is!  That’s why they’re called Band Cool-Kids, as opposed to Band Geeks* or something like that) Only six (out of ten) saxophonists will make varsity.  Cindy works hard and manages to make sixth chair in varsity band.  Just ahead of Brandy’s best friend, Elicia.  Which only ticks Brandy off even more.  Oh, and first chair in the saxes is a ninth grader named Garth who is kinda cute and seems super-extra-friendly toward Cindy.

As far as writing goes, Cindy wants to write for the school paper. There is only one spot available for a seventh grader.  And of course she’s up against Brandy for the spot.  Cindy turns in an article that is so well written, she’s sure it’s in the bag.  When the announcement is made it turns out that neither she nor Brandy got the position.  Super sadness.

But it wouldn’t be juvenile fiction if Brandy didn’t get her comeuppance courtesy of Cindy.  So she does, but not so Cindy doesn’t learn a very valuable lesson about A-Jumping to conclusions and B-Talking about people behind their backs.

Cindy takes these lessons to heart when Jeff goes missing.  He’s gone for a few days, when Cindy has a brainstorm and believes she knows where he is.  She overheard Jeff’s parents tell her own parents that they’d given up a second honeymoon and decided to spend the money on some fancy-ass sports camp for the kids.  Cindy realizes Jeff ran away, and she’s sure he went to his Grandfather’s old lake house.  But because of the lessons learned, she decides to break into her piggy bank and take the bus there herself rather than burden anyone with the info.

The only problem?  The bus only runs to and from the town once a day, so once Cindy gets there, she’s stuck.  She does manage to find Jeff and they get into an argument, where Cindy calls him cowardly for just not telling his parents he’d rather go to computer camp than sports camp.  They make up and decide to call their parents to pick them up.  All ends up well with Jeff’s family.

Meanwhile, Cindy has been suffering writer’s block for a creative writing competition.  The night she gets back from finding Jeff, she manages to write an essay quickly, and is embarrassed to hand in her hand-written entry, when Brandy’s has been professionally typed. The last day of school looms, and the band is playing for and end of year assembly.  Cindy wins the creative writing contest on her essay about finding Jeff.  Then she goes out for an ice cream with Garth and he kisses her!  And he tells her he’s sure she’ll be first chair sax next year.  Say it with me.  Awwww….

• Cindy inherits a desk from her dead Grandmother.  It’s a Duncan Phyfe.  Once when I was like twelve, I was watching Jeopardy! with my parents and there was a question about a 19th century furniture maker, and I guessed Duncan Phyfe and my parents thought I was a fucking GENIUS when it was right.  I think it was the fictional Sookie Stackhouse who admitted she obtained most of her knowledge from reading genre fiction.  Me too.
• So at the end, Cindy and Becca are back to being besties.  But they’ve also added Margo and Becca’s new friend Helen to their group.
• Unlike Margaret Simon, Cindy resists all attempts to get her into a bra.
• When Cindy is trying out for band, Andrea gives her some shoe polish.  She tells Cindy that black people have more rhythm, then she laughs heartily.  And I’m like, shouldn’t a black character….I don’t know….not encourage white people to perform in blackface?
• Oh, also Brandy is racist.  Brandy and Andrea are the seventh grade Homecoming princesses and Brandy tells Andrea that being a princess is good for “her people.”
• And for real, Brandy Wine.  WTF.

*I was a Band Geek.  Go clarinets!

Good things happen in threes

It’s my three year blogiversary!  Happy birthday, blog.

It’s kind of a big deal, because I tend to start things and not finish them.  I get sick of things pretty quickly.  This list includes, but is not limited to:

• Learning yoga
• Learning Spanish
• Learning to sew
• Two novels (writing, not reading)

So you see, working on this blog for a full three years is huge for me.  And I know, the last six months, my attendance here has been spotty.  I blame the children.  My baby won’t nap regularly and my four year old wants actual attention from his mother (how dare he!).  The bigger kid starts morning preschool in a couple weeks…..so it’s possible my output will increase then.  No promises.

Anyway.  To celebrate the big oh-three, I’m doing lists of threes.

Three favorite books I’ve re-read

• Silver
• Beloved Benjamin is Waiting
• Maniac Magee

My three favorite posts that I’ve written.  I really brought my A game on these:

• Annie on my Mind
• The Wind Blows Backward
• The Ghost at Dawn’s House

The three worst books I’ve had to slog through.  (There are so many!  It’s hard to choose just three!)

• Sweet Valley Twins, Teacher’s Pet.  (Though this is the book that gave birth to the cunt log.  So I can’t complain too much.)
• Taffy Sinclair, Queen of the Soaps
• The Great Mom Swap.  Easily the worst book I’ve ever read.

Three books I’m definitely saving for my kids’ library:

• Space Station Seventh Grade / Jason & Marceline
• Maniac Magee
• Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub

Three book reviews that are coming up soon.

• Middle School Blues, Lou Kassem
• The Chicken Pox Papers, Susan Terris
• How I Paid for College; A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater, Marc Acito

My three favorite things about this blog:

• Everyone who comments!  I like you guys a whole lot.
• Working out some kinks in my writing skillz.  Yes, with a Z.
• I loved getting a mention and being interviewed for Entertainment Weekly.  

Three insane search terms used to find my blog and which make me seriously reconsider the things I write:

• Teen boys share underwear on a sleepover
• Young babysitter girl father hookup
• Bill Henrickson’s White Trash Parents.  (Seriously.  Have I ever even mentioned Big Love on  here?)

Three random things that I’ve done in the last three years:

• Had a baby
• Quit my job
• Bought a….sigh….minivan…..sigh.  SIGH.

Aren't you sad for me?

I don’t know guys…..can I keep this shit up for another three years????