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March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

In which I almost made like the pope

The husband and I had a very nice time in St. Louis this weekend, although all I saw of the place was the Westin and the convention center. (Had a VERY yummy lunch at Kitchen K, so if you're in the vicinity, I recommend the fried chicken.) Anyway, the weather was uncooperative at best, but we always have fun together and the work event we were attending for him was forty kinds of bizarre which means we had LOTS to talk about. But the longer we were in St. Louis, the stranger it seemed there. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a very nice city. Perhaps TOO nice...in fact, by Sunday morning I had developed a theory. I don't think there are any human folks in St. Louis at all. I think it's some sort of extraterrestrial experiment where entities from another galaxy are emulating humans and testing the waters before they invade Manhattan. You think I'm kidding? I give you the following exhibits:

*the cabdriver who drove us across downtown and waved off the fare when my husband wanted to pay with his corporate card saying, "Oh, that's alright, just catch me another time. It's too much trouble to run the machine."

*the waitress who wouldn't charge me for my tea because she only had plain black tea and no Earl Grey and "couldn't possibly charge for something that wasn't first choice".

*the other cabdriver who gave my husband back part of his tip because it was too much money.

*the waitress who wouldn't let me order off the breakfast menu but insisted I use the buffet at the Westin because a la carte oatmeal was too expensive and then worried that I didn't get enough Greek yogurt.

*the TSA agent at the airport who helped take all of my things out of the four assorted gray plastic bins after they had been scanned and smiled while he was doing it as his colleague was helping my husband unpack his electronics

There is a pattern there of a distinctly Stepfordian bent. Added to that is the fact that the entire time we were there, we saw NOT ONE SINGLE pedestrian downtown. Granted, the weather wasn't great, but there were some patches of clear and still not a single living soul ventured onto the city sidewalks. Say what you like, that is just not normal. I was getting extremely nervous until we had lunch in the airport and the waitress helped herself to the coins from my lunch change. (Clearly the advance efforts for alien colonization missed one. Either that, or they are getting MUCH better at emulating human behavior.)

Now lest you think I am being critical of St. Louis, let me say that the people are extremely friendly, and I don't think I have ever seen a major sports facility as nicely done as Busch Stadium. I mean, honestly, it's all red brick and black iron and it just looks like someone actually THOUGHT about what it would look like when they were finished instead of pouring a mess of concrete and calling it a day. It reminds me of an old-fashioned ballpark, and I am genuinely sorry to have visited out of season and missed my chance to see the Cardinals play there.

But my pope reference has nothing to do with St. Louis itself. It was the flight home that had me mentally reviewing my Last Will and Testament, updated just last year--by a very nice man who informed me that I apparently now have a "literary estate" and who seemed rather tickled at having to dispose of it for me. Anyway, my husband and I amused ourselves at the Philadelphia airport by watching what looked like the cast of "Saved by the Bell" service our teeny-tiny twin-prop plane, but it did not seem at ALL funny an hour later when we hit a hailstorm and got bounced around like whiffle balls. We dropped so far and so hard I came up out of my seat more than once, and only avoided concussion because I had my seatbelt strapped so tightly I could feel it in my liver. I sincerely hoped that Screech had done everything he needed to in order to make sure that little plane didn't shake itself apart, and bless him, he apparently did because it all held together. (I was not at all comforted by the fact that we had changed seats at the last minute to get exit row leg room since the exit door was rattling like a set of maracas and seemed entirely capable of just popping off entirely.)

But there was an off-duty pilot in the row behind us, and I kept telling myself that if he wasn't nervous, neither was I, but let's be honest here, I was about five minutes away from the mother of all conniption fits, and I was EXTREMELY grateful when we emerged on the other side of that storm intact. I wasn't sure whether to kiss the pilot or kick him, but when he popped out of the cockpit, GRINNING, and said, "Little bumpy back there?" I gave serious consideration to pitchforks and baling wire, but I just didn't have the energy left in my poor white knuckles to hold the torch. And when did they start letting twelve-year olds fly commercial airliners? I KNOW he wasn't old enough to shave yet, and I strongly suspect he stole his daddy's pilot's license. Someone ought to look into it...
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Monday, March 30, 2009

In which we talk glamour

This blog entry was originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go on November 25, 2007--a general musing on what elements it takes to achieve glamour.

*Age. A woman needs to be at least thirty before she can achieve glamour, and even that is a stretch. With age comes confidence and the ability to be comfortable in one's own skin, as the French say. It takes a few decades for a woman to make friends with her idiosyncrasies. (I refuse to call them flaws.) That confidence is utterly essential for a woman to be truly captivating. She has developed a personal style. She knows what haircut flatters her bone structure, what fragrance suits her own natural scent. She has made a study of herself and understands the importance of her walk and her voice. She has an entire arsenal of weapons at her disposal, and wields them all with grace and enthusiasm.

*Discipline. For a woman to be truly glamorous, she must be groomed. Ragged nails, torn cuticles, drooping hems, worn heels, limp hair, battered handbags, chapped lips--these are the hallmarks of a woman who places a higher priority on everything else in her life besides her appearance. Walk into any grocery store in the country and you will see exactly what I'm talking about. There will be women, a LOT of them, sporting bedheads and wearing their husbands' sweatshirts. If that's how they choose to present themselves to the world, well, bless their hearts. They are going to be comfortable, but they won't be remotely fabulous. (And I am darkly suspicious of any woman who claims that rolling out of bed and going in public without the slightest swipe of makeup, wearing unflattering clothes and mandals, is truly comfortable.) It takes effort to put your best foot forward, and that foot should be decently shod. Personally, I take half an hour to get ready, and that includes the time it takes me to dress, a perfectly respectable investment for the day, I think.

*Mystery. You have to leave something to the imagination to be glamorous. I am beyond tired of the "crotch-watch" shots being taken of every young starlet in Hollywood. Never mind the fact that their mothers should have taught them how to get in and out of a car without flashing their nethers. Someone should have handed them a copy of Forever Amber and sat on them until they read it. There is one pivotal scene during which Amber, trying to retrieve the attentions of the king, puts on a flamboyant and faintly obscene display of flesh in public. Too late, she realizes that by flaunting herself she has permitted herself to be judged and found wanting by anyone and everyone. She has offered herself as a public commodity, and cheapens herself irretrievably. (Sound familiar?) In our show and tell culture, we know FAR too much about celebrities these days, and most of it is seriously distasteful. (They should also be given a copy of The Lingerie Handbook and forcibly restrained from going out in public until they can write an essay on the importance of underclothing. If nothing else, they should be taught that undergarments themselves can be devastatingly glamorous.)

*A sense of humor. A woman with eyes like a dead fish--serious and cold--will never be glamorous. Women like Constance Bennet and Carole Lombard were beautiful, yes, but they were also funny and engaging and able to appreciate the absurdity of life. Nothing is as alluring as a person who is having fun. Fun is seductive, and a plain woman who knows how to enjoy herself will always score over a dull beauty.

*Intelligence. A plain woman can achieve glamour with a great deal of effort. A stupid woman never can because she lacks the imagination to conjure a better version of herself. She will never cast herself as the heroine of her own story because she has no story.

*Self-awareness. A glamorous woman is aware of the effect she has, and she uses it quite deliberately. Glamour is never an accident. It is purposefully reaching out to draw others into the warmth of your charmed circle. A glamorous woman knows precisely how to make you feel comfortable and is genuinely interested in enjoying your company. She understands that when she smiles at you, she can leave you dazzled. She loves to turn on her full charm and watch you fall under her spell--a glamoury is an enchantment, remember. She knows that she is not always the most beautiful woman in the room, but she is always the woman who has put the most thought into herself and into you. She knows that simply by holding herself like a beautiful woman, by walking like a beautiful woman, by using a beautiful woman's gestures, she will be perceived as beautiful. And since glamour is an illusory quality, isn't that all that matters?

(I'm thinking Cate Blanchett might be our best role model as a glamorous woman. She is a consummate professional, usually beautifully turned out, extremely gracious, and I have never seen anything bared above her knees.)

Saturday, March 28, 2009

In which I am out of town

Spending the weekend with my darling husband in a secret-squirrel location somewhere in the midwest...anyway, I'm no longer blogging when I travel, but we're still trying to pull over blog entries from the Blog A Go-Go archive, so here is one of my favorites from November 26, 2007. It's all about words--add your favorites!

Years ago I read a study which published the most popular words, chosen by sound only, not meaning. I've tried to compile a similar list for myself, although I'm sure a word or two has crept in there by virtue of its pleasant connotations rather than its euphonia.

Violet, leopard, thrust, deceiver, whisper, buttery, crescent, scandalous, bashful, sumptuous, cuttlefish, translucent, pastoral, tale, camellia, moose, bliss, perfume, mystery, embrocation, scarlet, bodice, luscious, ribbon, lascivious, silken, punish, mollusk, bivouac, implode, incantation, slipper, wistful, plum, glisten, nacreous, willow, shiver, eviscerate, feather, tumble, incense, velvet, mellifluous, limber, moon, invocation, stormy, mirage, blush, regime, tantalize, cassowary, plume, thistle, marshmallow, revenant, enthralled, benediction, creamy, pillow, vivacious, seduction, mist, ruminant, thunder, cupcake, moss, luminous, serpent, wander, stocking, fig, honeysuckle, sibilant, teacup, gossamer, salamander, invidious, supper, tumescent, pleasure, shimmer, enchant, odalisque, rapture, conjure, silver, hither, relucent, plangent, capture, plaintive, destrier, tempest, ocelot, aqua, fallow, mermaid, serendipitous, ponder, pluperfect, veil, siege, trebuchet, tarantella, glassine, savage, puffin, ossuary, hoplite, incandescent, bumblebee, marionette, nascent, illuminate, madrigal, lilypad, pearlescent, toadstool, escarpment, autumn, madeira, tassel, tuffet, pomander, quicksilver, epistle, parasol, picaresque, epaulette, fable, tulle, salsify, seraphim, illuminate, myth, tortoise, galleon, fortuitous, galleon, feverfew, gust, corsair, forbidden, sacred, smoky, caravan, amaranth, rosary, lush, basque, leather, mystique, voluptuous, paisley, glamour, wisteria, russet, ellipsis, glissade, chrysalis, pellucid, lucifer, invidious, oubliette, statuesque, inviting, hermitage, escapade, desire, glorious, champagne, voluminous, turret, soliloquy, violin, dulcet, phantom, alchemy, castanet, scriptorium, palanquin, wolfish, bellicose, vicious, cygnet, whimsical, whisker, capricious, mulberry, lashing, lilac, fenestration, forthright, testament, melancholy, calypso, gloved, malicious, weep, lust, lubricious, sparkle, sympathy, ensorcel, woebegone, nautilus, vicarious, pessary, flutter, dolorous, rampant, phantasmagorical, sylvan, passementerie, ambrosia, villainess.

It occurs to me that this could be the vocabulary list for a very interesting tale.

Friday, March 27, 2009

In which I am book purging

The very hardest kind of purging, don't you know? Parting with books is like parting with friends, or at least acquaintances, and shoving them into grocery bags for the trip to the library donation rack is like deliberately avoiding someone on the street to whom you really OUGHT to say hello. (I can't even tell you which books I purged because it feels like gossiping. That's not normal, right?) I'm purging from the "novels I love" shelves, from the "research" shelves, and sadly, from the "to be read" shelves. Some of those books I've had for years and honestly, if I haven't read them yet, I'm really not going to. Some were purchased when I planned to improve myself; some were given to me at trade shows, but all represent a moment when I thought I would commit the hours to read that particular book and cutting them loose feels a bit like shutting the door on a stray puppy. (I am going to the BookExpo this year with an iron resolve not to bring home ANYTHING unless it's something I would have happily paid enormous sums of money for retail. That should cut down my usual 30 pounds to something like 28...)

And speaking of BookExpo, I've been invited to sign in the ABA Lounge on Friday afternoon from 2-2:30 (May 29), so if you're in the Javits Center and the Saturday signings don't work for you, come by then! I have no idea what it takes to get into the ABA Lounge, but it sounds very exclusive, doesn't it? As if there would be bootleg cocktails and girls in fringed costumes selling cigarettes while Marlene Dietrich sings something sad. I suspect I may be romanticizing a tad. If this year is anything like 2007, we will all be gently melting into a pool of our own perspiration. I would not mind at ALL if it turns out to be 70 degrees and overcast in NYC this year!
Thursday, March 26, 2009

In which we try to be green

Le sigh. After years of including prepaid mailers to recycle used inkjet cartridges in each new cartridge, Hewlett-Packard has replaced them with some pointless brochure. Honestly, it's enough to make my eye twitch. I get that it costs HP money to do this, but it's a painless way for consumers to help the environment, and since manufacturing computers is probably the very MOST eco-friendly activity, it's a good chance for HP to help out. By taking those little envelopes out of the package, consumers are left with piles of inkjet rubbish, and I'm sure a nice sturdy percentage of those people are NOT going to haul them all to the office supply store just to chuck them in the recycling bin. I'm sure lots of people DO, but there are plenty of folks like me who almost never set foot in the office supply store and it's not very green to make a special trip JUST to recycle, is it? Also, studies have shown over and over again that if you want a higher rate of participation in a particular activity, you have to force people to opt OUT rather than opt IN. (This is how the very clever French managed to sign almost everybody up for their organ donor program. Unlike in the States, where you have to take the trouble to check the little box in order to give, in France you have to fill out a form NOT to donate. The French are gambling on the indolence of the average person, and they are right to do so. Genius.)

Anyway, at the same time that I was trying to figure out what to do with my burgeoning collection of ink cartridges, I also had a BlackBerry and a cell phone of my daughter's to get rid of. Enter Petsmart! Near the exit is a display of prepaid mailers for cartridges AND cell phones! Just pop them in, seal them up, and drop them in the mailbox. Petsmart supports their animal charities with the proceeds from the recycling--AND, unlike HP mailers, the Petsmart mailers will hold at least 6 inkject cartridges, which will cut down massively on how many of those suckers I mail out. So I get to be a little lazier, help the environment, AND the animals. What's not to love?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

In which I am purging

It's sunny and almost warm here; the daffodils and pear trees are blooming, so that means it's time to THROW STUFF OUT. I did a major clean-out in December--it was my coping mechanism for dealing with the loss of Emma the Yellow Wonder Dog--so there isn't that much to purge. I'm down to the last bastions of clutter, the things you think you miiiiiiiight need so you hang onto them with a kung-fu grip that would make GI Joe proud. This week I cleared out the memorabilia boxes--three bins of cards, letters, photos, certificates, baby bracelets, etc. We have HALF of a bin left, and we've gotten rid of enough old greeting cards to wallpaper a house. HONESTLY. Looking at that pile and adding up what we've spent over the years on pieces of thick paper embossed with glitter and sticky with sentiment was embarrassing. At the very least I could have scored a pair of good shoes out of the deal. I mean REALLY good shoes--we are a card-happy people. But since greeting cards have climbed upward in price, it's gotten to be more of a nuisance to buy them and more of a guilt-ridden activity to throw them out.

So they linger, behind refrigerator magnets and tucked into calendars, until someone furtively slips them into the garbage or recycling bin. It's enough to make a girl lose her ever-lovin' mind. The most beautiful of the cards I cut down into bookmarks, then I purged my bookmarks. Remember when Amazon used to give a free bookmark or two in every order? Yeah, I had DOZENS of those suckers. Now I have a collection of gorgeous bookmarks, most of which are fragments of famous paintings and have a snippet of a loved one's handwriting on the back. And best of all, I had enough space left over in the living room closet to put THREE LINEAR FEET of coats in there. Do you know what this means for my own closet? It can breathe again. I swear I heard my dresses sigh in relief when I pulled those coats out.

Living with coats is a new phenomenon for us. In South Texas, you have one coat and it usually isn't even lined. You wear it three days out of the year, complain LOUDLY about the bitter cold coming down the plains, blame the Oklahomans for it, and then put it back in the closet until the next twenty-minute cold snap the following February. Here in Virginia, you need coats for the following conditions: cool, cool and rainy, cold, cold and rainy, VERY COLD, and cold but turning warmer. And then you need multiples of some of those because there are few things more unpleasant than pulling on a damp coat. (Unpleasant on a scale of "things you'd rather not do on a cold morning", not unpleasant in the way that war or famine is unpleasant, of course.)

Anyway, the memorabilia is purged down to just the very best stuff, the coats have a place to live, the dresses can breathe again, and I'm looking around for what to tackle next...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

In which we are SO ready for spring

Aren't we? In spite of not getting a proper snowfall until March, I am pretty much done with winter. I feel sluggish and dull and I need a nice dose of warm sunshine and some brisk breezes to blow out the cobwebs. It's time to dust off my spring books, some E.M. Delafield (the Provincial Lady series is FABULOUS) or Raphaella Barker (I would buy her books for the charming clip-art covers alone, but I happen to adore her Venetia books.)

And it's definitely time to shed the winter woolens and banish the tights to the back of the drawer. Last weekend I found this dress at Old Navy. It looks like nothing in the picture, but it is adorable on--even the color is infinitely nicer in person. (I don't know why much of the Old Navy website fails so spectacularly at providing accurate and flattering pictures of the clothes, but there it is.) The website also doesn't tell you that the dress is available in white or the most extraordinary flame orange, but it is. It FURTHER doesn't mention that in the store, it's only $25 dollars. My store was picked over in my size, but I did manage to snag the very last one in turquoise. Maybe you'll have better luck!

Finally, I'm hanging out all this week over at eHarlequin, answering questions about research, so come by and let's visit!
Monday, March 23, 2009

In which we talk literary role models

This entry was originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go on November 28, 2007.

One of the great pleasures of reading, particularly when you're a child, is the chance to find inspiration, role models who demonstrate how to live with courage and verve and style. Here are a few of my favorite heroines from literature:

*Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet, and Scout Finch. Little Women, Pride & Prejudice, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm grouping these three together because they are pretty much universal. I have never known a girl from the South who didn't want to be Scout, nor have I ever met a woman who wanted to be any other March or Bennet sister.

*Scarlett O'Hara and Amber St. Clair, Gone With the Wind and Forever Amber. Alright, I know these two are a little unconventional for role models, but hear me out. They both manage to give the impression of being much more beautiful than they really are. They both struggle to create lives during tumultuous times, parlaying their attractions into assets. They are bright, street smart, clever, and courageous, and they are above all, survivors. (It's no accident that at the end of both books, we don't know precisely what happens to either heroine. We don't have to. After all the twists and turns, we have perfect faith that they will land on their little cat feet.)

*Jane Eyre. She was not a role model the first time I read the book, or even the second. She was too mealy-mouthed and meek for my taste. But after years elapsed, I read the book again and was astonished to find that Jane Eyre is feisty. She stands up for herself and scraps with anyone who tries to put her down or make her less than she is. She holds tightly to her moral convictions, and yet when she realizes she has a chance at happiness, she seizes it with both hands in a bold move worthy of Scarlett herself.

*Cathy Earnshaw. Wuthering Heights. I concede, Cathy made a bad end. Haunting a cold, windy moor is not precisely how most of us would like to wind up, but I would like to make the point that Cathy is at all times herself. She is one of the most authentic and self-aware characters in literature. She is not nice, and she knows it. She advertises it in fact, and makes no apologies. (And her speech about loving Heathcliff because "he's more myself than I am" gets me every time.)

*Lucy Eyelesbarrow. 4:50 from Paddington. I know it seems odd to include an Agatha Christie character here, but I am smitten with the idea of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. She is the paragon who took a first in mathematics at Oxford, but decided to become an outrageously overpriced domestic. There is nothing she can't do, and her cool competence is unshaken even in the face of murder. And it drives me MAD that we don't know which marriage proposal she accepts in the end.

*Nancy Drew. Well, of course. She meddles and snoops remorselessly, but she has a convertible and a charge card and she travels a LOT.

*Cassandra Mortmain. I Capture the Castle. I love her for the same reasons I love Jo March. She is always scribbling and always trying to fix her family. Another nebulous ending, but somehow you know everything will come right for Cassandra because she deserves a happily ever after.

*Flora Poste. Cold Comfort Farm. Ah, Robert Poste's child! I adore Flora's sense of adventure, her absolute certainty that she knows best and ought to be allowed to get on with tidying everything up. She reminds me of Emma Woodhouse, but vastly less annoying.

*The nameless heroine of Rebecca. Yes, I despised her at first for her diffidence, but after the discovery of the sunken boat, when she discovers the truth about Maxim and Rebecca's relationship, she becomes assertive and cool, certain of herself in a way she could never have been had she continued to live in Rebecca's shadow.


Saturday, March 21, 2009

In which we're adding a feature

When we left the Blog A Go-Go, we left behind a rather sizable archive. It's still there for now--there are still loads of folks dropping by and I hate to just yank it away. But it does cost a wee bit to keep it hosted, and at some point I will be closing it and taking down the archive. Alas, that means the entire Blog A Go-Go would be lost, and there is no easy way to import the archive although there are a number of entries I would like to see archived here. So, starting on the 23rd of this month, every Monday will be our day to revisit an entry originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go! I haven't poked through the archive in quite a while, so I'm excited to go see what we can go dig up.

Also, if you currently link to my blog on your own blog or website, would you please take a moment to update your link to this blog if you haven't already done so? I am HUGELY appreciative of the folks who have linked me, but once the Blog A Go-Go disappears, those links will be broken and I'm still getting oodles of visitors over there on your referrals because you just rock that hard.

And something to SQUEEEE about--tomorrow night at 9pm Eastern I have a live chat at Writerspace. (Writerspace are the fabulous folks who performed the technical hocus-pocus to create my website after the delightful Jeanne designed it, and they are also handling my mailing list, newsletters, and website updates, so they are my tech gurus!) We'll be giving away a full set of the Julia Grey series, so drop by and let's visit!
Friday, March 20, 2009

In which we talk Edith Wharton again

A week or two ago, I flogged Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome as the perfect late winter read. (Don't forget--"Ghost Hunters" will be at The Mount next week.) A day or so later I was cleaning out some clippings and ran across this quote by Edith Wharton, which I absolutely love: If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time. And since I am a fervent advocate of doing LESS as often as possible, I heartily agree.

Also, a few frugal and fun reads I came across recently: The Thrift Book by India Knight and Kath Kelly's How I Lived On A Pound A Day. (She's not kidding. She actually lived on a pound a day for a year, and that includes everything but rent. I deeply admire the spirit behind her experiment, although I'm going to respectfully decline to undertake such a thing myself. For starters, hitchhiking in my neck of the woods would probably get you arrested before it would get you where you want to go...but I digress.) Knight's book has some great ideas for families on a budget and how to cut corners without cutting out the fun stuff. They are both British books and available on the UK version of Amazon.

And I have succumbed to the lure of the Twitter. If you want to follow, I'm deannaraybourn.