I am one tired puppy, let me tell you. I wish I'd remembered the pedometer, because I have no idea how much we walked. I only know it was a lot. After a yummy breakfast at Afterwords Café near Dupont Circle, we hoofed it down Connecticut Avenue to Lafayette Square, then over to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I've been to DC before, but my memories of a lot of these places are from a tour bus. How great to walk up! I only wish we could have scored tour tix, but alas, the denizens of Chez mimi do not, in themselves, constitute a school group. We'll have to settle for a Capitol tour Monday instead.
After the White House, on the Museum of American History. We took our time (First Ladies are the coolest! Julia Child is my new hero! They need more artifacts in the pop culture section!), did some experiments in the science lab, played on the Chicago streetcar, and basically wore ourselves out. Then, because we know how to prolong a good time longer than sane people, we toured monuments. All the monuments.
No tickets for the Washington Monument, so we walked and goggled, then down the Reflecting Pool. The new WWII Memorial is gorgeous, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as moving as I remember (I saw it the first year it opened), the Korean War Memorial lovely, but I wonder if there's a monument for WWI, and if so, where is it?
We spent some reflective time with Mr. Lincoln, then took a slow walk around the Tidal Basin while the sun went down. We got to see the new memorial to FDR. Let's just say that he seriously deserves his spot in the top five of all U.S. Presidents. And also that the bounds of American tackiness don't exist. I don't know what exactly to say about people who pose for pictures, grinning and clowning, in front of a line of bronze statues representing a Depression-era breadline. I'm not sure there is anything to say except go read The Grapes of Wrath and then come back and apologize. Epic American fail.
I confess, I had a total squee fangirl goosebump moment in the Jefferson Memorial. He's my all-time favorite president, and I have to say that reading the selected Jefferson quotations in the memorial and the info in the exhibit reinforced exactly why he is so awesome. Erudite and passionate, Jefferson loved life (including things that illumine life, like poetry, music, and literature) and liberty (personal liberty and the freedom to choose and learn your own path). Incredible.
Considering Lincoln, FDR, and Jefferson back to back to back really makes you wonder where today's statesmen happen to be, if there are any anymore. I'm not sure anyone walking the halls of Congress today would deserve a monument. Think they're wondering about their historical legacy in between cozying up to lobbyists and working so very, very hard to get re-elected? I doubt it. Maybe they need to spend a little time at the monuments themselves, just to remind them why they're here in the first place.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
The Bed List/The Dinner List
BED LIST: EDDIE CAHILL
We don't watch much TV at Chez mimi (not having cable will do that to you), but we're lined up and ready on Wednesday nights for CSI: NY. And let me just say it's no hardship whenever Det. Flack walks by, usually spouting some smart remark. The twinkly eyes and hard bod don't hurt, either. Yum.
DINNER LIST: SEN.-ELECT AL FRANKEN
Several years ago, I bought classroom subscriptions for The Nation and National Review to use so my students could identify political slant. Because of those, I receive lots of political mail--and one of those was a fundraising letter for Senate candidate Al Franken. The letter began, "Dear Person I'm Asking for Money." I laughed out loud. How many incumbents would be that straightforward? Now that Mr. Franken has been certified as Minnesota's Senator-elect after a loooooooooong process, it'll be interesting to see what happens when a very smart man with a very sharp sense of humor joins the stodgy house. I'd love a sneak preview of that!!
We don't watch much TV at Chez mimi (not having cable will do that to you), but we're lined up and ready on Wednesday nights for CSI: NY. And let me just say it's no hardship whenever Det. Flack walks by, usually spouting some smart remark. The twinkly eyes and hard bod don't hurt, either. Yum.
DINNER LIST: SEN.-ELECT AL FRANKEN
Several years ago, I bought classroom subscriptions for The Nation and National Review to use so my students could identify political slant. Because of those, I receive lots of political mail--and one of those was a fundraising letter for Senate candidate Al Franken. The letter began, "Dear Person I'm Asking for Money." I laughed out loud. How many incumbents would be that straightforward? Now that Mr. Franken has been certified as Minnesota's Senator-elect after a loooooooooong process, it'll be interesting to see what happens when a very smart man with a very sharp sense of humor joins the stodgy house. I'd love a sneak preview of that!!
Thursday, July 02, 2009
#writerfail Redux
For all I adore technology, I'm not a first adopter. It took a couple of years before I finally bought a cell phone, and I was practically the last person I knew to start texting. Although I belong to several email loops, I was a Facebook holdout until recently. I'm still on the fence about Twitter. After reading Jennifer Weiner's post about Alice Hoffman and how not to use Twitter at Huffington Post today, looks like I won't purchase my tickets to the Twitterverse anytime soon.
The short version: well-known novelist Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic, Here on Earth, and many more titles) erm, disagreed with her hometown paper's review of her latest novel, The Story Sisters. Maybe disagreed isn't the word, for her response went way beyond mere disagreement. After unloading on the critic and the paper in a series of tweets, she finally tweeted the critic's name and phone number and encouraged her readers to call up Mean Ms. Critic and complain. Vociferously. Then she nuked her Twitter account and sulked off for some pasta with a chocolate chaser. (I guess. Okay, I'm projecting here. That's what I do when the mean girl hurts my feelings.)
The lesson to be learned from all this, writer friends, is that you don't have to be unpublished to suffer from a classic #writerfail. Unlike the yet-to-be-published crowd I carped about in my earlier #writerfail post, Ms. Hoffman has "made it." She's a bestselling, multi-published author. A couple of her books have been made into movies. She's allegedly reaping the glorious benefits of publication, yet her Twittersnit proves that on the inside, she's no different from the rest of us when it comes to her work. She's defensive, cranky, and willing to lash out to protect the baby.
And that's the problem, isn't it? I marvel sometimes that I, and fellow writers, get so bent out of shape when faced with conclusive proof of our lack of universal acclaim (rejection, bad review, hack-and-slash critique session, etc.). As readers, we're quick to reject and belittle writers and genres we just don't care for, so why should we, as writers, take everything so freakin' personally when faced with the fact that some reader out there just doesn't like us? We can't all be the popular girl at the dance. Right now, all the cute boys (NY publishers) are dancing with the hot goth chicks (the paranormal/urban fantasy writers) and the edgy techno boys (e-publishers) are making out with the erotica gals while we romantic comedies/chick lits/Western historicals sigh at the ceiling at the edges of the publishing gym. Our lack of dance partners doesn't make us any less wonderful, just not the flavor of the month. And seriously, people who get all cranky about getting their coffee just so don't have any business acting like spoiled brats when someone else expresses a preference.
Perhaps that kind of reaction is self-inflicted. We writers go on about how our current WIP is our "baby" and then react like tigresses when we realize someone thinks it looks like a lizard. Someone will. That's the nature of the beast. The big question is, are you writer enough to write for yourself? If so, a bad review won't be the end of the world, or the beginning of an online snit that will last into time and all eternity. If you're writer enough, you're already worrying about the next project.
So what have we learned today? Write what you know. Write what you love. Learn the Southern belle's secret weapon: the indulgent smile. Practice saying, "Bless your heart" instead of "F you." And for goodness' sake, eat the pasta and chocolate before you tweet.
The short version: well-known novelist Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic, Here on Earth, and many more titles) erm, disagreed with her hometown paper's review of her latest novel, The Story Sisters. Maybe disagreed isn't the word, for her response went way beyond mere disagreement. After unloading on the critic and the paper in a series of tweets, she finally tweeted the critic's name and phone number and encouraged her readers to call up Mean Ms. Critic and complain. Vociferously. Then she nuked her Twitter account and sulked off for some pasta with a chocolate chaser. (I guess. Okay, I'm projecting here. That's what I do when the mean girl hurts my feelings.)
The lesson to be learned from all this, writer friends, is that you don't have to be unpublished to suffer from a classic #writerfail. Unlike the yet-to-be-published crowd I carped about in my earlier #writerfail post, Ms. Hoffman has "made it." She's a bestselling, multi-published author. A couple of her books have been made into movies. She's allegedly reaping the glorious benefits of publication, yet her Twittersnit proves that on the inside, she's no different from the rest of us when it comes to her work. She's defensive, cranky, and willing to lash out to protect the baby.
And that's the problem, isn't it? I marvel sometimes that I, and fellow writers, get so bent out of shape when faced with conclusive proof of our lack of universal acclaim (rejection, bad review, hack-and-slash critique session, etc.). As readers, we're quick to reject and belittle writers and genres we just don't care for, so why should we, as writers, take everything so freakin' personally when faced with the fact that some reader out there just doesn't like us? We can't all be the popular girl at the dance. Right now, all the cute boys (NY publishers) are dancing with the hot goth chicks (the paranormal/urban fantasy writers) and the edgy techno boys (e-publishers) are making out with the erotica gals while we romantic comedies/chick lits/Western historicals sigh at the ceiling at the edges of the publishing gym. Our lack of dance partners doesn't make us any less wonderful, just not the flavor of the month. And seriously, people who get all cranky about getting their coffee just so don't have any business acting like spoiled brats when someone else expresses a preference.
Perhaps that kind of reaction is self-inflicted. We writers go on about how our current WIP is our "baby" and then react like tigresses when we realize someone thinks it looks like a lizard. Someone will. That's the nature of the beast. The big question is, are you writer enough to write for yourself? If so, a bad review won't be the end of the world, or the beginning of an online snit that will last into time and all eternity. If you're writer enough, you're already worrying about the next project.
So what have we learned today? Write what you know. Write what you love. Learn the Southern belle's secret weapon: the indulgent smile. Practice saying, "Bless your heart" instead of "F you." And for goodness' sake, eat the pasta and chocolate before you tweet.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Sinfully Tagged
"Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this Meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie."
Pride: What is your biggest contribution to the world?
I'm breathing, aren't I?Envy: What do your coworkers wish they had which is yours?
My shoe collection.Gluttony: What did you eat last night?
Coq au vin. In Paris.Lust: What really lights your fire?
Depends on the day of the week. The men just come and go. You know, "If it's Tuesday, it must be Gerard Butler."Anger: What is the last thing that really pissed you off?
The overwhelming intelligence of the American electorate. I mean, how dare they be so thoughtful?Greed: Name something you keep from others.
My solution to world conflict. I'm holding out for the best offer since I am, after all, me (see PRIDE).Sloth: What's the laziest thing you've ever done?
Convinced all the neighborhood kids to paint my house, inside and out, while I drank lemonade on the porch Tom Sawyer style.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ten This Tuesday
Ten years ago today, at precisely 6:13 am, Miss Frack arrived in the world. That means today, at precisely 6:13 am, I became the mother of two children who are now in the double digits.
She's gorgeous, and I'm not just being a proud mama. She's really objectively gorgeous--willowy, long legs, shining hair, bright smile. I wonder how many of us were gorgeous when we were ten and somehow forgot (or never believed), those of us who have been the walking wounded on the inside for years and years because we just weren't...enough. Or thought we weren't.
Women are funny creatures. We can run the world and still doubt ourselves. I know so many capable, strong, amazing women who are just as insecure about their abilities and certainly their looks (adolescence can be an evil thing) as the least strong, least capable person on earth. We raise families and think we can't manage ourselves. We raise daughters and have understanding to our mothers. We pick up our children, dust off their scrapes and kiss their boo-boos so they can recover and play while ignoring our own wounds. Let's face it. We have issues.
My wish for my daughter today is that she doesn't have those days (or as many of them) as I seem to have had. Let her long-legged, bright-smiling self be the one she counts on as she turns eleven and eighteen and forty-'leven. For today, let me love my little girl for exactly who she is, and in the process, love the little girl inside me, too.
She's gorgeous, and I'm not just being a proud mama. She's really objectively gorgeous--willowy, long legs, shining hair, bright smile. I wonder how many of us were gorgeous when we were ten and somehow forgot (or never believed), those of us who have been the walking wounded on the inside for years and years because we just weren't...enough. Or thought we weren't.
Women are funny creatures. We can run the world and still doubt ourselves. I know so many capable, strong, amazing women who are just as insecure about their abilities and certainly their looks (adolescence can be an evil thing) as the least strong, least capable person on earth. We raise families and think we can't manage ourselves. We raise daughters and have understanding to our mothers. We pick up our children, dust off their scrapes and kiss their boo-boos so they can recover and play while ignoring our own wounds. Let's face it. We have issues.
My wish for my daughter today is that she doesn't have those days (or as many of them) as I seem to have had. Let her long-legged, bright-smiling self be the one she counts on as she turns eleven and eighteen and forty-'leven. For today, let me love my little girl for exactly who she is, and in the process, love the little girl inside me, too.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Reading Lists: 100 Greatest?
Every once in a while, something pops up that just demands to be blogged. I ran across this listing of Time magazine's 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. Lists like this are always up for debate, but I thought it would be interesting to see how I fared. Of their 100 choices, I've read these:
Check out the list for yourself here. How many titles have you read?
All the King's Men - Robert Penn WarrenI don't know what it says about me that I've read Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret but no Virginia Woolf. I get some cool points for Watchmen, but I should probably be ashamed that I've never read William Burroughs. Or Styron, Pynchon, or Roth, for that matter. In my defense, I started Catch-22 and The French Lieutenant's Woman but just couldn't make myself finish them. I've also read titles by Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Thornton Wilder, Graham Greene, Robert Stone, James Baldwin, and Zadie Smith, just not the ones selected for this list. I have to say it does my heart good to see two of Faulkner's novels on the list, but only one Hemingway (his short stories are better). Twenty-eight titles out of 100 is an okay showing (technically thirty, since The Lord of the Rings is one work in three volumes), but I guess I have some grownup reading to do once I finish all those Newbery books!
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Deliverance - James Dickey
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Light in August - William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Native Son - Richard Wright
1984 - George Orwell
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Check out the list for yourself here. How many titles have you read?
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Bed List/The Dinner List
BED LIST: SHEMAR MOORE
Shemar Moore first caught my attention as the intense profiler with the sentimental streak in Criminal Minds, but he's been swoon-worthy for a while. Check out his strong turn in the Tyler Perry film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Girlfriend was crazy to hold out so long! Dayum!
DINNER LIST: TYLER PERRY
Speaking of Tyler Perry...this man is a brilliant businessman and an absolutely fearless comic. His multiple successes with the Madea franchise show his intimate knowledge of his Atlanta hometown and his target market. That, and he's not afraid to dress in drag and go for the laugh. Tyler Perry is a mogul, folks.
Shemar Moore first caught my attention as the intense profiler with the sentimental streak in Criminal Minds, but he's been swoon-worthy for a while. Check out his strong turn in the Tyler Perry film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Girlfriend was crazy to hold out so long! Dayum!
DINNER LIST: TYLER PERRY
Speaking of Tyler Perry...this man is a brilliant businessman and an absolutely fearless comic. His multiple successes with the Madea franchise show his intimate knowledge of his Atlanta hometown and his target market. That, and he's not afraid to dress in drag and go for the laugh. Tyler Perry is a mogul, folks.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Threes
I guess today I can officially close the book on my youth. First Ed McMahon (how many years have I heard that voice?), then Farrah Fawcett (all the girls wanted her hair, all the boys just wanted her), then Michael Jackson ("'cause this is THRILLER...thriller night!"). Michael Jackson's taking the most effort to process, though. He's not that much older than me! Of course, we all watched him grow up, from being the high sweet voice of the Jackson Five, to the disco phenomenon of Off the Wall, to the self-styled King of Pop. Is there anyone my age who didn't adore the "Thriller" scene in 13 Going on 30 because we'd all practiced that routine over and over and over?
Strange how passages make us think more about our realities. Tonight, though, let's celebrate the talent of three people who made us laugh, dance, and dream.
Strange how passages make us think more about our realities. Tonight, though, let's celebrate the talent of three people who made us laugh, dance, and dream.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
IB Pissed
I don't know about you, but sometimes professional conferences are a pain in my considerable behind. Today's is no exception. I'm at a gorgeous beach resort--no complaints there--with nice food and a room that's about a hundred feet from the Gulf of Mexico. Fine. Dandy.
What's not fine, or even approaching dandy, is the veritable avalanche of paper I got this morning, all badly organized and comb-bound, which makes it impossible to reorganize. Top that all off with a room full of people from rank beginners (moi) to twenty-year-plus veterans, and you have a recipe for a very confused room. Especially in my seat.
The situation: I'll be teaching the first year of an IB course this fall. I come to get teaching strategies and make sure I'm on the right path to help my students do well. Within the first half hour, I'm unsure I'm in the right place, thanks to the aforementioned mix in the room, and then I discover that the syllabus I submitted, which I thought had been vetted and approved, was wrong. As in "violates the rules and would disqualify my students' scores" wrong. How the hell did it pass muster, then??
Let's just say I'm never--never--the dumbest girl in the room. This morning, though, I sure felt like it. And I was. Not. Happy. At. All. Pitch a fit not happy and embarrass myself in front of everyone, which made me even less happy. This is the kind of thing that gives teachers chronic headaches. Good thing I have the beach to stare at.
What's not fine, or even approaching dandy, is the veritable avalanche of paper I got this morning, all badly organized and comb-bound, which makes it impossible to reorganize. Top that all off with a room full of people from rank beginners (moi) to twenty-year-plus veterans, and you have a recipe for a very confused room. Especially in my seat.
The situation: I'll be teaching the first year of an IB course this fall. I come to get teaching strategies and make sure I'm on the right path to help my students do well. Within the first half hour, I'm unsure I'm in the right place, thanks to the aforementioned mix in the room, and then I discover that the syllabus I submitted, which I thought had been vetted and approved, was wrong. As in "violates the rules and would disqualify my students' scores" wrong. How the hell did it pass muster, then??
Let's just say I'm never--never--the dumbest girl in the room. This morning, though, I sure felt like it. And I was. Not. Happy. At. All. Pitch a fit not happy and embarrass myself in front of everyone, which made me even less happy. This is the kind of thing that gives teachers chronic headaches. Good thing I have the beach to stare at.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Bed List/The Dinner List
BED LIST: SIMON BAKER
Simon Baker's Australian, though you'd never know it from his best-known role, Patrick Jane in The Mentalist. Those eyes! That grin! Those dimples! Don't know about you, but he's welcome to observe me up close anytime.
DINNER LIST: ARNE DUNCAN
Behold our new Secretary of Education. I'm sure you can guess why I'd want to have dinner with him. Somebody with some sense needs to talk with the Washington policy wonks!! He's kinda cute, too, so it wouldn't be a hardship.
Simon Baker's Australian, though you'd never know it from his best-known role, Patrick Jane in The Mentalist. Those eyes! That grin! Those dimples! Don't know about you, but he's welcome to observe me up close anytime.
DINNER LIST: ARNE DUNCAN
Behold our new Secretary of Education. I'm sure you can guess why I'd want to have dinner with him. Somebody with some sense needs to talk with the Washington policy wonks!! He's kinda cute, too, so it wouldn't be a hardship.
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