"i just don't dig on swine"

This SiF hysteria was getting out of hand (although it did produce this touching tribute to school nurses). Thank goodness Arlen Specter stepped out to shift media focus onto something else. My newsfeed lit up with love for Arlen moments after his announcement, and Twitter's been abuzz all day.

It seems a bit to me like a deathbed conversion. Did he suddenly realize it must have taken a blue God to put a black man in the White House? Did he want to be in good graces with that deity when his time comes? Or is he just crushing hard on Michelle, like the rest of us?

Regardless, he has my blessing. Go with guilt, Arlen! If Charlotte can be a Jew, you can be a Democrat. Don't let those spurned, angry wingnuts get you down.

I don't have the Sif; I do, however, a pretty mean cold that's left me with a voice like Bea Arthur, and two interviews over the next two days. Hopefully my prospective employers have a soft spot for the Golden Girls. Hopefully they will also view my coming in this condition as a show of dedication rather than obliviousness. Hm. Perhaps I shouldn't shake hands?

quotes quiz!

Here's a quiz that I saw on the Face and I thought it would be more fun to do it here. Below are 15 quotes from 15 of my favorite movies, and you try to guess which movie each comes from. NO GOOGLING and no using IMDB.

Whoever can guess the most wins a prize of my own devising.

1. "Remember, honey, on your wedding night, it's all right to say 'yes.'" Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

2. "I've been thinking with my gut since I was fourteen years old, and I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains." High Fidelity

3. "What ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?" Pulp Fiction

4. "Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking, but not necessarily misogynistic undertones." Clueless

5. "He owns the police!" Chinatown

6. "Is that your blood?" "Some of it, yeah." Fight Club

7. "2,000 years of glorious history from Moses to Sandy Koufax -- you're damn right I'm living in the past!" Big Lebowski

8. "Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." Empire Records

9. "You sure have a way with people." "Well, they're my species!" Harold & Maude

10. "If you hold back anything, I'll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill ya. If you forget anything, I'll kill ya. In fact, you're gonna have to work very hard to stay alive." Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels

11. "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love -- they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." The Third Man

12. "Is butter a carb?" "Yes." Mean Girls

13. "A faceless man rips off your clothes, and that's the sex fantasy you've been having since you were twelve?" "Well, sometimes I vary it a little." "Which part?" "What I'm wearing." WHMS

14. "Technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss." ESoTSM

15. "Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a roadmap?" Barton Fink

BTW, Sorry for that last post, guys. It just kind of slipped out. Maybe it was the product of one of those "runners highs" I've heard so much about.

a swelling heart

I love this illustrated essay from the NYT: "May It Please the Court."

I love the power of context to say, sometimes, what words can't:



I love having neighbors, especially ones with a roofdeck, thanks to which I have my very first suntan of the season.

I love that I live with someone who loves me more than I love me, and gives me something to strive for everyday. Also he hangs pictures. Welcome, Marilyn, to Montague Street!

I love that it's in the 80s and beautiful today, that our windows are flung open and I'm wearing a bright blue dress, that I have a new book from the library and what feels like all the time and the all the luck in the world.

It's always midnight on Montague Street

I live in the Land of the Broken Clock, under the jurisdiction of the Broken Clock, and what's supremely funny about this is that it's a fancy one-year-old "radio controlled" La Crosse we were given as a wedding present. We tried changing the batteries, which didn't work, and now it serves as a constant reminder of how imperfect even high technology can be.

Speaking of imperfection, Robin Givhan of the Washington Post argues that Susan Boyle should get a makeover. Susan Boyle, the middle-aged singing phenom who has succeeded without altering her image one jot, should, now that she's made it, stop being so damn frumpy:

Boyle has charmed millions, in part, because she comes across as unpretentious and pleasant. But she's hardly Everywoman. She's an odd duck, a bit of a loner. She's a character. And she's living out a fairy tale.

Transformation is always part of a good story. Cinderella didn't go to the ball in hand-me-downs. She went looking her best in a glorious gown and won the heart of the prince. The ugly duckling becomes a swan.

The tale of Susan Boyle will not be complete until the shy spinster blossoms. Those who have been entranced by her story so far should let Boyle's fairy godmother finish her work.

In other words, why should Boyle change? Because the narrative demands it! In fact, why stop at clothes and hair and shoes? This "shy spinster" needs a prince, too. I for one will not rest until Susan Boyle gets boinked good and proper.

"Spinster," indeed. Jesus. What world are we living in? Maybe she's gay, Robin. Maybe she's not interested in sex. Who cares? Her personal life is her business, and she doesn't need the Standard Gift Basket of Our Approval ("Comes with lipstick, a Maserati, and arm candy for the red carpet!")

For the record, I'm not sure what Susan Boyle looks like or sounds like. I haven't watched the YouTube video (should I?) But I also don't care. Let the woman enjoy her moment in the spotlight. Her story doesn't have to be a fairy tale to be interesting, and even if this is her own personal fairy tale it doesn't have to conform to the Disney model.

Whither Thou Goest, I Will Go

THE FACTS:

• I am married.
  
• My husband wants to be a law clerk one level up in a District Court
  
• District Court clerkships are incredibly hard to get, especially in popular locales such as Washington, DC, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA, and their environs
  
• I have no interest in leaving Brooklyn
  
• But my husband has a dream

THE DISCUSSION:
ME: How about when we're 30? I thought we agreed that when I'm 30, you are allowed to take me from New York.
HIM: 30 is a long time from now. I would really love to apply for next year.
ME: Next year I will still be less than 30.
HIM: But now is when we are still young, still mobile, still flexible ...
ME: 30.

THE NEGOTIATION:
HIM: How about we look at where I could go and you could say if one place or another would be more enticing to you? After all, it would only be for a year.
ME: Okay. Shoot.
HIM: Bridgeport, CT.
ME: My parents did not send me to Jewish Day School for 13 years so that I could wind up in Connecticut!
HIM: But I have roots there --
ME: Anyway it's too cold. Next, please.

HIM: Concord, NH.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Burlington, VT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: New Haven, CT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Come on! We're not talking about Alaska.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Providence, RI.
ME: Maybe.
HIM: Maybe?
ME: Maybe. But probably too cold.

HIM: Okay, how about the South?
ME: Where are the clerkships there?
HIM: Nashville, TN.
ME: Too Christian. I've heard horror stories.
HIM: Shreveport, LA.
ME: The last Confederate command to surrender! Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Churches."
HIM: Roanoke, VA.
ME: Are you crazy? People disappeared in Roanoke. It could have been aliens. They could come back. Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Crime" with a subsection on "Gangs."
HIM: Yeah, but it's gone from 2nd worst city in VA to 5th.
ME: Next, please.

THE COMPROMISE
ME: How about you wait a year to apply?
HIM: That's fair. And in return, you'll be fine with my applying to ...
ME: Hawaii; San Juan; Columbia, SC; New Bern, NC; the Virgin Islands; Arlington, VA; Portland, OR; Jerusalem; and the Hague.
HIM: And maybe Memphis and New Orleans.
ME: Yes.
HIM: Thank you.

Green beans at the seder

As a hostess, my mother is conscientious, even, you might say, fastidious. Mr. Ben learned this his very first Passover with us back in 2001, an experience so scarring it is no surprise it took him six years to propose. His reaction could probably be summed up by a friend at this Passover who leaned over to me and remarked, "There are so many rules!" Uh, yeah. But what would Judaism be without rules?*

I don't mind rules. I'm used to them. Don't stack the china. Don't mix patterns. Don't fetch something out of the kitchen yourself. Don't eat dairy with the meat meal (even if you're a vegetarian). Don't break anything. My mother has her own version of Leviticus and even though it isn't written down, she thinks the rules are self-evident and she doesn't quite understand why some people don't immediately get it.

She also puts on a beautiful Seder.

This year however she made one mistake. Green beans. That's right, friends. Green beans are not technically kosher for Passover and she served them at BOTH SEDERS. Oh the shame.

Green beans fall under a category of food called "kitniyot," which are permitted for Sephardic Jews, i.e., those from Spain and the Arab world, and not for Ashenazic Jews, i.e., most of us. This is because Jews in Spain & the Arab world had more freedom under Islam than Jews in Europe did under various tight-ass Popes and Czars. So while Sephardic Jews got to throw parties, write poetry, and generally have a good time in good weather, Ashkenazic Jews were stuck in dour shtetls, looking over their shoulders for Cossacks, and inventing new laws to make life even more difficult for themselves.

Well, I reject this tradition of suffering for the sake of suffering. Sure, much of my lineage is based in Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement (Russia/Poland, depending on the year). But my father's family originally hailed from Turkey. The fun-loving Jews! Those are my real spiritual ancestors, and they eat rice on Passover; rice, yes, and green beans too, and soybeans, and corn. There is no end to their wild ways.

My 96-year-old maternal grandmother seems to have absorbed some of this hedonism, even though she is descended from those drab, staid Eastern Europeans. When my brother and I were arguing back and forth about whether soybeans were permissible to eat, my grandmother interrupted us. "Do you know what I ate today?" she said. "A piece of bread."

Now that left us speechless in awe.

Happy Passover everyone! Happier still: only a few days left.

----
*Christianity.

In gay news

When you're a teenager, my god, is there any issue more intense than sexuality? Love, acceptance, rebellion, identity, are you going to be an insider or an outsider, are you going to disappoint your parents ...

For me, it wasn't as simple as, Was I attracted to boys? Of course I was attracted to boys (the attractive ones, anyway, like Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jared Leto).



I was also afraid of most of them, which complicated the matter, and starting about midway through eighth grade they weren't particularly interested in me, which didn't help either. At the same time as the boys were ignoring me, I became catnip to lesbians.

Fending off anyone's advances is difficult for me, and it was even harder when I was so desperate for physical affirmation and affection. But sleepover after sleepover, I laughed off the awkwardness or said things like, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable in your bed?" In some ways, it would have been so much easier to just be like, Yes, you're right: I wear glasses and I don't wear make up, ergo, I am a dyke.

When I fell in love with a boy who loved me back my freshman year of college, I was almost as relieved as my mother. (Oh, she had her suspicions.) The longer we stayed together, the more the issue faded and I found perfect middle ground for myself. Instead of being queer, I surrounded myself with queer people. They tended to have the right politics and not care that I didn't wear make up, and the gay boys didn't scare me at all. Plus, gays and Jewish ladies are a natural constituency: we have Sondheim and Streisand in common! Not to mention intellectual snobbery.

Today I had lunch with two old friends: my oldest-and-bestest, who's now an illustrator living in a "Boston marriage" in Park Slope (or is that redundant?); and the boy who was my first kiss and seven years later my senior prom date, who's now a gay Williamsburg hipster of the first order. Both of these individuals got way more action with the opposite sex in high school than I did, in case we need a reminder of how little what we do or don't do in high school means.

I told them excitedly about today's Midwestern bombshell ("Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa"). Neither cared nearly as much as I did.

There should be a phrase that applies to this situation -- like "the zeal of the convert" but specifically meaning "the zeal of the near-miss." It's akin to survivor's guilt. Straight guilt? I can't be the only one who feels it.

Anyway, well done, corn-producing, Obama-nominating state! You get two thousand gold stars in my book.

It's here! It's here!

Forget the new address and new apartment and waking up on Montague Street for the second day in a row. The most exciting thing about today is that my April horoscope is up! These things are like farmer's almanacs in their specificity:

Venus has been in your house of fame and honors, but has been in weak retrograde orbit since March 6. Once Venus normalizes on April 17, you can more easily get help from references and high level executives whom you know and who want to help you.

Venus happens to be IN your house of career, but it RULES your house of home - so Venus retrograde has been a distraction because something involving home, property, or family seems to have tugged on you. It's very possible that you've been a bit drained by whatever was taking so much of your attention, and it may have been hard to focus on other things, such as your career.

TRANSLATION: You got an agent but since then nothing has been going your way, *and* domestic matters -- i.e., finding an apartment, securing it, packing for it, and moving into it -- have kept you harried and distracted. In a couple weeks, things will get better.

And people wonder why I find these things so reassuring.

Publishing and broadcasting industries glow for you now too, especially during the first three weeks, while Mars will brighten this area until April 22. This is a very broadening influence, and certainly you seem to be enjoying it.

One day that could be either very, very good or very, very bad is April 15 when Mars (energy or strife) conjoins Uranus (surprise developments). These two planets will meet in Pisces, a sign good for you. I would say, just don't take any chances by provoking anyone with a controversial or inflammatory remark. Those born at the end of the sign, near July 20, [ED NOTE: ME] are likely to benefit because both planets will be in the right position to send good news. Let's hope so!

Yes, let's. Because I'm tired of stress. I had my first panic attack in several months last night and for no clear reason. The day was spent surrounded by boxes, true, but also with friends, and I managed to apply to a couple exciting-looking jobs.

I guess the anxiety stems from the fact that I am over-identifying with this apartment, having put in so much energy to attain it. And though it has it charming points (it is spacious, classy, well-lit, full of storage, and well-located) it also has its pitfalls (a narrow kitchen full of appliances that date from 1983) and then its just-plain-weird points (a mirror right next to the toilet, in case you were ever interested in getting a close-up side view of your seated ass).

My guess is that an elderly woman lived here for decades, not cooking more than an egg every once in a while on the cramped, tilted range, and stocking lots of dry goods to give away to her children and grandchildren in the pantry. Soon, so I can more easily blame things like the padded toilet seat on her, I will give her a name. Shirley, maybe. It is because of Shirley that the pipes hit a high note after the hot water goes off. The fact that one long wall of the living room curves inwards? Shirley just loved that; it reminded her of her 60s commune days.

We will become accustomed to, or develop workarounds for, everything. I have confidence in our creativity. Still, part of me still misses the old place with our garden, our fridge, our stove, our heat that didn't hiss, our brand-new laundry machines.

Buck up, Ester! There is sunshine here! There are ceiling fans! I try, I swear. I try, if only because:

A sensational day awaits you: April 22.

I'm just going to push through til then.

Post #1400

Wow. That number is either impressive or depressing; I can't decide. That's how I feel about most things these days. Some mornings I wake up in a cold sweat imagining that I'll have to arrive at my Swarthmore five year reunion with nothing to show for myself but a ring on my finger.

I'll have stories to tell, God knows, some of which will appear in my upcoming book Never Marry a Short Woman: Narratives by ester, featuring the one where the priest died at the wedding, the one about being left in a coffee shop in Amsterdam at closing time with no money to pay the bill, and the one about how I lost my first job in New York because I was taken to the ER with a kidney infection.

Ha ha ha!, everyone will say. What delightful anecdotes you have, you pointless but amusing little sprite who got married at 25 (isn't that sweet). Have you heard about my advanced degrees and how I am living in a third-world country making my own tofu and biking around digging wells to provide indigenous people with safe drinking water?

They will present me with a copy of their prize-winning thesis and I will bow my head in submission before retiring to a hidden spot under one of the many labeled trees to read it, weep tears of envy, and shield my inferiority from their eyes.

"You know, you don't have to go," my mother pointed out. "The people who attend are a self-selected group of those who have something they want to brag about." True, O king, but to *not* go out of fear would be the real failure. The coward dies a thousand times before his death; the valiant only ever tastes of death but once, or so said some guy I once met at a bar.

Better to face up to my accomplishments, or lack thereof, with good humor. Also it would be good to stop comparing myself to other people, like my brother, who was sworn into the NY State bar yesterday, and my dearfriend Tamar who "matched" this week into her first-choice for residency, and the myriad other successful folks I feel I am surrounded by. Excelsior, my lovelies! Onwards and upwards! Don't worry about me; I'll always have Jesus.

My mother the brigadier general was here for three days to organize our initial packing-and-moving effort into the new place. Paid movers will be coming next weekend but we got a huge amount done in advance with the help of a small volunteer army. Maybe once I'm done being obsessed with boxes'n'bins and bubble wrap and tape I'll feel better about everything, because stability really does tend to help.

It would also help if some publisher realized that my poor little novel is NOT a satire. If it needs a label, call it a koala, okay? Publish it and put it in the koala section and I will kiss your feet.

Open wide ...

Off I go, in mere minutes now, to the Why to do what I call my slut exercises. No, I don't mean "yoga," although I challenge you to get on a mat with a rope and a couple soft blocks and not let your imagination get the better of you. I mean actual exercises.

As required by the contract I signed when I joined the Why in January, I met with my large, buff trainer again. Frankly I'd been kind of jazzed -- he had told me I had to go run on a treadmill or similar three times a week and dammit, I had done so, and I was proud. But he didn't even inquire after my progress. No, he had one simple question for me:

Upper body or lower body?

Uh. Excuse me? Can we leave my body alone please? It doesn't like to be looked at, used, or, worst of all, "toned."

With the grimace that always accompanies picking the lesser of two evils, I said, "Lower body." And the trainer led me through a humiliating series of "exercises," several of which necessitated spreading my legs. I tried to tell him ladies don't do that -- ladies should be able to hold a dime between their knees at all times, in fact -- but he was too busy using words like "abductor" and "adductor" to hear me.

One word, however, he could not remember. "Facing the mirror, you take this medicine ball and you ... what's that ballet thing?" I looked at him like he was crazy: do I look like the sort of girl who was interested in dipping gracefully while holding a medicine ball? "Plie," I said. "Right!" he said. "I gotta write that down."

And so, face aflame, off I go to the Why three times a week to "plie" through these tortures, at the end of which I can only hope my thighs with be strong enough to support my fragile and wounded spirit.

And to think that I saw it on Montague Street

I'm pretty broken up about Bristol and Levi but not as broken up as they are. Zing!

Yes, I know I already Twittered that. But I wanted to keep it around for posterity. Speaking of Twitter, I am loving this #fuckitlist thing, wherein people list things they will never do (this is as opposed to composing a "bucket list," where you make a list of things to do before you die or before you make two hours of inane, waste-of-celluloid-and-talent Christmastime pap).

Choice samples from the Twitterati's #fuckitlist:

#Fuckitlist - Learn to speak French. I mean, really, what's the point? A few well mangled words out of a phrase book and they speak English.”

“Upon my death I will have never seen all of the avante guarde films of Andy Warhol nor ever have volunteered for the Rose Parade #fuckitlist”

“#fuckitlist Eat turducken”

“#fuckitlist: learn ballet.”

“#fuckitlist Saving for retirement. I'll just shoot myself at 45.”

“#fuckitlist getting tickets to Jimmy Fallon”

“#fuckitlist Make a turducken.”

“#fuckitlist: give country music a chance.”

“#fuckitlist pay off all my debt, get arrested in Mexico, oh yeah, join a dance troup or the circus”

“#fuckitlist Read Twilight or Harry Potter, pay for cable, drink beer, eat raw meat, become a sumo wrestler”

“#fuckitlist Getting tickets to The Price is Right”

“Watch The Godfather #fuckitlist”

The hostility cheers me right up somehow. Things are basically better, anyway, as always happens: darkest before dawn, right? I mean, not in Darfur, where it's darker before the dark continues and it's like fucking Narnia over there -- always winter and never Christmas -- but here in America, for us privileged folks.

Darkest before dawn! Only hours after writing that last post about broker-monsters, I met a kind, funny, and helpful guy who found me a large one-bedroom on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights in my price range with high ceilings and laundry in the apartment. Then he convinced the owner to pay the broker's fee and didn't ask for any money for either the application or the credit check. Basically he did everything but secure me a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Mr. Ben and I are very grateful and we should be signing the lease in the next day or so.

Take that, broker-monsters!

Still no job, though.

Pro-PRO-active

There's a line between being active and proactive (good) and trying to control things you can't control (bad) and trying to make things happen just to shift the weight off your goddamn shoulders already (crazy). I'm straddling that line and it feels like a permanent wedgie. Help me, lord.

Actually this is one of those moments I wish I did believe in a higher, guiding, benevolent force in the universe. Then maybe I could lay back and think:

- the fact that I have not yet secured us an April 1 rental, despite spending every day shuttling from one middling apartment to another is all part of the plan

- the fact that, after a month, the bank has still not rubber-stamped our pre-approval so that we could forward with our potential purchase is all part of the plan

- the fact that brokers keep chipping away at my self-esteem and self-confidence is all part of the plan. Viz:

ME: My husband and I ...
BROKER: No. No! You're a BABY!


ME: I'm not sure this is quite right for us.
BROKER 2: Well, what is it you want, anyway? How many apartments have you seen? Shouldn't you know by now? Shouldn't you just commit?


ME, DIFFERENT APARTMENT: I'm not sure this is what we're looking for.
BROKER 2: (Shouts in Hebrew on her cell phone for a long time)


ME: I'd like an application, please.
BROKER 3: Mm, sorry. I really don't like giving wives applications without their husbands present.


ME: Well, for $2000, we'd like a large one-bedroom in a building with laundry and an elevator.
BROKER 4: You'll never find it.


- the fact that Mr. Ben doesn't know what he wants to / will be able to do once he leaves his clerkship in September is all part of the plan

- the fact that I keep applying fruitlessly to the sprinkling of available jobs is all part of the plan

- the fact that my father is sick and spends his days calculating the value of his library is all part of the plan

That would have to be one serious plan, that's for sure. And it could be. I just wish I had the faith.

Wonder

If you'd asked me, I would have said that there weren't people whiter than Mormons, but what do you know -- I would have been wrong. Know who's whiter than Mormons?

Seriously, guess. Guess and be wrong, like me. It's fun, almost as much fun as sitting in my living room in pajamas watching a foot of snow accumulate in my backyard. The weight of it is pushing a neighbor's tree over our fence and building higher and higher on our patio table and I'm taking bets on whether by the end of the day the two will touch.

Jews. Jews are whiter than Mormons; they are whiter than anyone in America, in fact. And the most racially diverse people in America are Muslims. This is historically relevant because it puts Jews and Muslims at loggerheads for the very first time.

But seriously, well done Muslims and well done Islam. There is virtue to being diverse. It is apparently not the virtue the lord intended for his so-called chosen people, but we will have to make do with what we have, I guess. Which reminds me of a funny story. A friend of mine recently confided that when she was young she liked watching and rewatching Yentl.

"You had a thing for Barbara Streisand?" I asked. She shrugged: "I like big noses."

We do have something in common though, you will be relieved to hear.

"The report also reveals that Muslim American women are one of the most highly educated female religious groups in the United States, second only to Jewish American women."

There. That's nice, isn't it? Those wacky Jewish American women also make more money than their female counterparts of other religions, and Jews overall are most likely of anyone to say they're thriving in America (56% -- the Mormons come in second at 51%, presumably because they have to cope with the backlash to Mitt Romney).

Yet Jews come in dead last when asked how important their religion is to their daily lives. Nope, not that important, thanks for asking. Somehow religion is a distinguishing characteristic -- generally in a good way, though I wouldn't call being the whitest people in America a positive -- and yet considered relatively unimportant. It's a fascinating cultural conundrum and I'm not sure what to make of it.

The 8th Deadly Sin (for women)

Just in time to dovetail with my musings on the propriety of lady writers having ambition, a friend of mine sent me this review of Elaine Showalter's new book. Her thesis is a variation of what you'd either call a myth or a truism, depending on your point of view: men are interested in Things while women are interested in People; and when it comes to literary prizes and recognition, Things win out every time:

She has insisted that themes central to women's lives -- marriage, motherhood, the tension between family and individual aspirations -- constitute subject matter as "serious" and significant as traditionally masculine motifs like war and travel.

Then, of course, there are those insidious doubts to contend with:

The majority of the women writers whose lives and work Showalter chronicles wrestled with the nagging feeling that they were going against nature as well as country in pursuing what was rightfully a man's work.

Which is not to say that lasses lack ambition; rather that what of it we have, we fear -- if not the drive itself, then the possible repercussions. And it's true! What's less ladylike than ambition, for god's sake? The word itself trembles with connotations of greed, heartlessness, and selfishness, none of which are laid out in the "Eyshes Hayl," a Jewish Friday night prayer extolling the virtues of the fairer sex. "Eyshes Hayl, mi yimstah?" King Solomon once asked, and we repeat: a righteous woman, who can find? No one looking through the aisles of Barnes and Nobles or the op-ed pages, that's for sure.

Her worth is above rubies. Why? Because she keeps her husband happy, her home clean, the candles lit, and there's a bunch of stuff in there about wool and flax and whatever. The point is, what wife and mother doing all that would have time to write a grand sweeping novel about the Napoleonic era?

Even now that many of us have rooms of our own and can outsource the spinning and weaving, it feels unseemly to step forward and say, "I, yes I, have written a book! Though I know the proper thing to do would be to bury it in a drawer, though I know I should be modest and afraid of outshining any current or potential reproductive mates, those I am exposing myself to ridicule for trying, I am putting this book out there for you to judge."

We try to cushion the blow by making the books either memoirs or memoirs masquerading as fiction (the literary equivalent of an "I" statement) or easy to ghettoize as "genre" (mystery, young adult, sci fi/fantasy).

This all boils down to the following summary: women write small, modest books about relationships, while men write large-scale epics about stuff, and when John Updike died half of the next New Yorker issue was dedicated to him, with another piece in the end about Ian McEwan. The only woman who could command a similar level of attention is Toni Morrison, and thank heavens she's around, if only for symbolism's sake.

Because I am an orderly person who likes charts and measures of things, I have created a handy-dandy scale for authors, ranging from 1 to 16.

1 = You really think you'd be good at this writing stuff! You read things and think, Pssssh I could do better than that in my sleep. You even have a weblog for when you will fulfill your potential and start having a go at it, at which point you will knock everyone's socks off.

16 = classics who get serious obits when they die; who are taught in graduate school; who have won at least one major international prize. 16s include Martin Amis, V.S. Naipaul, Rushdie, Coetze, Pynchon, Melville, Dickens, Nabokov, Elliot, Austen, Woolf, Orwell, Joyce, Faulkner, Tolstoy, James, Wharton, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Marquez, Kundera, Steinbeck, Morrison, and their ilk. The majority of 16s are already dead. Almost all are male, serious, and at least occasionally unreadable. Frankly, I'm not sure even Twain makes the cut, though David Foster Wallace's untimely death might push him over the edge.

In between is everyone else, from the eager blogger with several beginnings of short stories and an outline for a novel on his computer (3) to the 26-year-old with a completed manuscript who just got an agent (9).

Anyone published is an automatic 10. Whether they continue to rise from there depends on whether anyone buys/reads/respects their book (11), writes a couple other books and has moderate name recognition, at least within certain circles (12), sees an adaptation make it to movie theaters and/or wins a prize and/or appears on a major radio or TV show (13), achieves name recognition and status to the degree that s/he can write whatever s/he wants (14), and is considered Great (15).

15s: Roth, Updike, Irving, DeLillo, McEwan, Ishiguru, Chabon
14s: Haruki Murakami, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Russo, and popular authors whose gold makes the rules like JK Rowling, John Grisham, Amy Tan, & Dan Brown
13s: Donna Tartt, Alice Sebold, Myla Goldberg, Yann Martel, Jeffrey Eugenides, Nick Hornby, Curtis Sittenfeld
12s: Nicholson Baker, Audrey Niffenegger, Caleb Carr

I aspire to be a 12, if I'm very lucky a 13. But even admitting that much ambition is difficult.

Mark your calendars

On March 20th, you will hear from me as to whether I have good news to share. If I have bad news, you will find me beating myself to death with one of Mr. Ben's African drums, or perhaps trying to slide behind the refrigerator to die unnoticed like my hamster did when I was little.

My book, my crazy beloved stab at a book, is going out to editors at 13 publishing houses today. This means, I am told, its fate will be decided in a month, if not before then. I can't tell you which houses, in case I'm not allowed to, but YOU'VE HEARD OF THEM. Oh mercy. Perhaps I will fall apart at the joints while I wait. Today I'll lose a foot; tomorrow the tip of an index finger.

Sometimes my brain rushes ahead of me and I can picture the New Yorker's short, disdainful blurb in its May 2010 edition: "Although this young author's premise shows some originality and imagination, ultimately the book fails to live up to the expectations generated by the idea. Not mean enough to be satire or absurd enough to be farce, A,AoG lingers in a kind of limbo of its own making."

This is for real!

I will try to remember to put on pants today. Let's see if I can do it.

Into the Lions' Den

Here I go! Wish me luck, folks.

While I'm off doing something that makes me quake in the boots I've already vomited on once, if you feel like helping me up my day's earnings -- they're at $1.20 so far, but the sky's the limit! -- feel free to check out my posts as the NY Unemployment Examiner.

ETA: Oh, wow. That went really really well. My novel about a Very Important Talent Agency has now been picked up by a real Very Important Talent Agency. If I could eat ice cream I would go through a whole pint, and if I could drink I'd got sloppy, gushingly drunk. But all I can do is send text messages and glow.

Fingersmith

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Into every life, a little queer historical erotica must fall. This book is like Wilkie Collins, only with more smut!


View all my reviews.

The Why

Roughly a month after joining the Brooklyn YMCA I finally made it down there for my first of four free sessions with a trainer, O., a tall muscular black guy who was clearly wasted on me.

"First off, can you fill out this form?" he said, handing me a clipboard.

I got through providing my name, age, and address okay. (International money laundering scam alert!! Hopefully the YMCA keeps the documents in a vault.) Then I hit my first snag.

"Um, when it says 'Activities You Enjoy,' does it mean physical activities?"

"Yes," said O.

I crossed out "Reading, Writing," and left "Walking."

"Walking's good," he said encouragingly. That gave me the strength to continue. Twice the form provided me with the option of saying I was interested in weight loss; twice I refused to check the box. Take that, societal expectations of women!

The last section mandated that I list three obstacles to my success. I wrote down two and then paused. "Is 'inertia' the same thing as 'laziness'?" I asked.

O. shrugged. "One time I had a guy here who was like 300 pounds," he said. "And he wrote down, 'Too many women.'"

"That's good!" I said. "I'm totally going to steal that."

I signed the form, agreeing to commit to exercising 30 minutes 3 times a week, which is really something for me. I think exercise is like parenthood: something responsible people do, sure, mostly when forced, but which sensible folks avoid as long as possible. Of course I have friends who exercise; on this topic, just like parents, they become gushing Patty Hearst types. Perhaps I too will become an endorphin junkie, but I'm skeptical.

Bourne's Got Nothing on Me

[RINGING]
VOICE: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi, um, I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE: Please hold.

[HOLD MUSIC]

VOICE #2: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi -- I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE #2: Please hold.

[HOLD MUSIC]

VOICE #3: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi -- I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE #3: Ah yes. Email or Craigslist?
ME: Craigslist. I answered an ad requesting a tutor for a six year old girl and the next thing I knew I was getting a check via Fed Ex for $3,200.00.
VOICE #3: And you're supposed to wire that money to a third party?
ME: Yes, sir.
VOICE #3: Yup, this is an international money laundering scheme run by Nigerians.
ME: I knew it! Or I hoped it was Somali pirates.
VOICE #3: Yeah, they're still mostly boat-focused.
ME: That makes sense.

On the FBI agent's advice, I had to inform all the credit bureaus to flag my account in case some tricksy African tries to steal my identity from abroad and I had to put the whole story in writing on an internet fraud website. When I was done, it offered me a link to the helpful site Lookstoogoodtobetrue.com in order to make me feel even stupider than I already did.

At least I didn't lose any money. And hey, not everyone has a $3,200 check sitting on their desk, albeit one that they can't cash.

Aside from dealing with the feds, I've landed two PT blogging gigs, applied to a gazillion more positions, checked out several apartments, speed-read Monsters of Templeton and Free Food for Millionaires, books about other over-educated twenty-somethings who don't know what to do with their lives, and attended a rousing session of Powerpoint Karaoke. I've also had two mini-breakdowns and a migraine. Come on, 2009. Enough playing around. Let's let the good times roll, shall we?

The new Gray Album!

It really is too bad. Once upon a time, I liked Christian Bale. Newsies, anyone? ("Santa Fe? Are you there? Do you swear you won't forget me? If I found you would you let me come and stay ... I ain't getting any younger and before my dying day, I want space! Not just air! Let 'em laugh in my face, I don't care! Save a place ... I'll be there ... in Santa Fe." This is from memory, folks.)

He's the cutest singing street-urchin this side of Aladdin but he wins out in a head-to-head because Aladdin chooses a chick with a waist the size of my wrist, whereas Jack "Cowboy" Kelly marries into a nice Jewish family.

Not to mention the brilliant American Psycho where he almost kills Reese Witherspoon.


Look at that picture and tell me you're not cheering him on.

I hope he bounces back from this, in short. Russell Crowe and Jude Law, both once-loved, pretty decent actors currently in the doghouse, don't seem to have redeemed themselves yet for their public sins (throwing a phone and bonking the nanny, respectively, in case your memory needs jogging). Are we more forgiving of idiot women? Britney Spears does stupid shit all the time and still goes platinum, and let's not even get started on Lilo.

Follow up / unrelated question: If medicine is expired, do you take more because it's weaker or less because it's poison?