Bottle It Up
April 15th, 2008
I always feel crappy after railing on something I didn’t like — I mean, certainly I meant what I said, but wow, harsh much, Jonna? Because, of course, I whine and bitch on this here website about things that, when compared with things like mass genocide and missing children, are a bit on the petty side. But meh, I didn’t like it and yes, I did want to slap her, albeit very gently. I did! And I’m sure plenty of people have wanted to slap me and I’m okay with that.
And after that tirade, it’s with great irony that I tell you that the book I am most looking forward to this year is almost out and I AM BESIDE MYSELF. And HA, guess what? It’s a memoir! ABOUT DIVORCE.
IT BURNS LIKE THE SUN.
Incidentally, I will finish “Eat, Pray, Love,” because I have this odd compulsion to finish every book I start. This actually came up in therapy once, several years ago, and my therapist was determined to make a THING of it, like it had some sort of DEEPER MEANING. I didn’t like that therapist much, because she was looking for meaning everywhere, and after a while, it was just plain exhausting. Sometimes you just want to finish a book you started so that you can say you finished the book and whatever time you put into it wouldn’t be entirely wasted. You see? Sometimes a bad mood is just a bad mood and sometimes finishing a book is just a compulsion.
Ahem. At any rate, the whole point is to recommend Suzanne Finnamore, who has another book coming out on Thursday, and it might be the first book I pick up the VERY SECOND it’s available. In fact, I pre-ordered it from my local bookstore, which is something I’ve done precisely zero times before, not even at the height of Harry Potter panic.
(Please don’t make me defend my Harry Potter habits again. I … I read them all. Gleefully.)
If you haven’t read her before, “The Zygote Chronicles” is one of the best pregnancy memoir-type books (fictionalized memoir, I’m betting), and “Otherwise Engaged,” (also a fictionalized memoir, if you ask me) is equally good, and I have a battered, dog-eared copy that I’ve had for years. Both are fantastic and razor-sharp, and I am incredibly disappointed that the family I sort of watched the formation of has obviously crumbled. She’s not everyone’s cup of tea — some find her elitist and a little out of touch with the common (wo)man — but I can’t help but adore her. Also, if it’s not obvious, what I’m recommending here is not highbrow literature or even mid-brow literature, so come back another day if that’s what you want — this is pure, puffy chick-lit, albeit in a slightly more intelligent form.
Aand I know what I’ll be doing this weekend, which means I’d better pump through “Eat, Pray, Love” before then, which is painful, as India is SO PAINFUL. So uh, woo hoo.
So! Onward! I called the dentist for a cleaning today and when I asked if the doctor was taking new patients, the secretary actually replied with, “Well, yes, the doctor is taking new patients, but you might want to have your mom and dad call and schedule for you! A grown-up needs to make those appointments, sweetie.”
A GROWN UP.
This also reminds me of a vague logistical question: say you’re trying to uh, plant a tulip, and are tentatively planning one last vacation for your fifth (FIFTH!) wedding anniversary before the tulip blooms, realizing that because of the tulip gestational period, a tulip cannot bloom before, say, August, when your anniversary is. Is there any reason why one shouldn’t go ahead and book this? I mean, aside from the sort of maybe puking and exhaustion during said vacation. And if you were wondering, this would be to a beachy type place where lying next to a puke bucket is totally acceptable, though it may be out of the country.
And further, there is no guarantee that the bulbs will even be planted, so why NOT, is kind of what I’m saying, because if I don’t, then come August, it would be very disappointing and foolish to not go on a vacation that was not scheduled because of an event that didn’t happen.
But maybe I’m wrong.
Happy Wednesday!
*Sara Bareilles
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
35 Comments Add your own
1. moo | April 15th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I am SO GLAD I read Swistle’s post earlier, otherwise I would’ve been all like, huh? tulips? has the Vermont air gone to her head?
Ahem, anyway.
Since you don’t know if said tulip will take root, I say start trying now. Even if say, you got knocked up this month, all your morning sickness should be over by then (out of the first trimester) and into that glorious time of glowing and being happy to be preggers.
2. Susan | April 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
An August vacation should be fine, no matter what stage of bloom your tulip is at. Good luck gardening!
3. Danell | April 15th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
My husband and I spent a week in Hawaii when I was about six weeks pregnant…not the ideal time to be sporting a bathing suit, but still, it was tolerable and I wouldn’t have traded being pregnant for looking better in a bikini! (My husband, on the other hand, might have felt differently considering I was INSANE while I was pregnant…).
And please do be telling the rest of the conversation with the receptionist? Was she sufficiently mortified when you corrected her?
4. Miss Cee | April 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I’m gonna ignore the question re tulips, because I have no experience and no advice. But thank you for wanting to slap Elizabeth Gilbert – it made me very glad I’ve never read the book, and created a pile of hilarious comments. Oooh, and thank you for the recommendation of Suzanne Finnamore – never heard of her, but my library has both of her earlier books – I’m going to go and try her out
5. Maggy | April 15th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
My husband and I had planned a trip to Cancun with a bunch of people. Then we got pregnant (planned, though more swiftly than we though it would), so I had to call my friends and say we were out. As it happened, no one else could go, anyway. I vote for planning the trip and having fun. Wear sunscreen!
6. jonniker | April 15th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Danell, I handled it with my usual awkward aplomb. I laughed and replied, “Um, I AM a grown up?” and she sort of moved on awkwardly without apology.
“Right, okay, when would you like to come in?”
7. TwoBusy | April 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Why settle for a single tulip when you can have a bouquet?
8. Melissa | April 15th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Schedule it! Tulips be damned!
There has only been one book in recent memory I threw aside and deliberately stopped reading (Ben Okri’s The Famished Road – and I know some people loved it, but I had to stop 3/4 of the way through), but if I were more in the habit of doing that, Eat, Pray, and Love would have been lying on the heap along with it. I continued because a girlfriend recommended it, but boy do I wish I had that time back. For napping. Or weeding. Or a root canal. It was really really not for me. (Again, I know some people swear by it, but I ended up reading with one eye closed for a buffer.)
9. Carla Hinkle | April 15th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Definitely plan the trip.
If the tulip takes root immediately, hooray! The vacation will feel like the last big hurrah.
If the tulip doesn’t take root by then … how lovely to have a nice vacation to take your mind off things.
10. Desha | April 15th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
You’ve written a BOOK? And you ask MY advice? Ah am…humbled.
The thought of a Jonniker-hued tulip brings a large, foolish grin to my face and a veritable froth of “go! yeah! plant the tulip! stuff to my lips. For some reason, I keep imagining a pinkish-haired baby. GO on the trip, maybe practice planting the tulip and, erm, see what pops up? Or..takes root?
Either way, go, you’ll have a great time.
PS. NO pressure.
PPS. Tu-lip, tu-lip (smacks self in face)
11. jonniker | April 16th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Oh Desha, I haven’t actually FINISHED it, so dear God, do not be too impressed. And even then, it’s probably not any good and the only reader of it will be me.
12. Tessie | April 16th, 2008 at 5:42 am
I cannot let that receptionist thing lie, because that happens to me ALL THE TIME. And then I get to say “ACTUALLY, I’m THIRTY”, which is totally rounding up, but I can’t resist. Usually the offender has the good sense to act embarassed, though.
I think you should definitely book the vacation. I wish we would have done it.
13. Lawyerish | April 16th, 2008 at 6:09 am
GO. GO ON YOUR TRIP.
Every time I’ve been on a beachy vacation in recent memory, there have been, ah, tulip-bearing women present, having a little, erm, tulip-moon with their husbands.
Alternatively, should the timeline be somewhat different, such trips are frequently — how shall we say — prime tulip-planting times in and of themselves.
14. Style Bard | April 16th, 2008 at 6:13 am
I wouldn’t have been able to resist some snarky leg-pulling on that phone call, but that’s just the type of person I am.
With zero expertise I say: plan the vacation, regret nothing. (although: really? a sunny beach locale? LIKE FLORIDA? jk, jk…don’t block me)
I, too, feel compelled to finish every single book,movie, etc. which is why I somehow clawed my way through Devil Wears Prada, and why I will someday finish watching Babel, despite the first 20 minutes which I could have sworn was 45.
15. Erin | April 16th, 2008 at 6:42 am
The receptionist thing…don’t feel too badly about it because that kind of thing happens to me all the time IN PERSON. And I’ll be thirty in June! And I get children’s menus at restaurants, and whenever I shop in a department store, I get asked “does your Mom or Dad have a card with us?”
Go on vacation! You’ve had a stressful year already and it is only March!
(also? eeee! tulip!)
16. Christine | April 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am
I have the same thing about finishing a book myself. The only book that I could NOT make myself finish was Lolita. And I felt bad! I did! And I know people who LOVE that book and yet it came to the middle and I just got sick of the characters and Whatever-his-name-was, was blabbering on and on about his past and about some girl on a beach and about being on the run and I just wanted to die. So I put the book down. I still feel mild guilt about not finishing it because I’m a weirdo. So there you go.
17. Swistle | April 16th, 2008 at 6:54 am
OMG YOU LIKE SUZANNE FINNAMORE TOO!!!?? I have both her books in HARDCOVER. I love them so much, my heart actually literally pounds faster when I’m reading them, like I’m in love.
And I had no idea she had another book coming out, so speaking of heart pounding faster! AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!
Sorry. I will try to calm down.
The receptionist thing. HA HA HA HA HA!!! How could she possibly have been so confident that you were a child? It seems like children would NEVER call to make a dentist appointment, and if they DID call they would NEVER know to ask if the dentist was accepting new patients.
I would DEFINITELY book it. I think even if you’re barfing, lying in the sun might be just the thing for it.
18. Swistle | April 16th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Okay, I just went and pre-ordered Split from Amazon. I have Prime shipping, so I’ll get it pretty quick, though not as quick as you.
19. H | April 16th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I tried to read Paradise (Toni Morrison) and Daughter of Fortune (Isabelle Allende) and, despite my burning desire to finish everything I start, I could not finish those books. I usually read just before I go to sleep and every night, as I was brushing my teeth, I’d start to think OH SHIT, I have to read that damn book again. Finally, I decided this was likely not the reaction the authors hoped their readers would be feeling and it was OK to stop.
20. ie | April 16th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I used to have the same compulsion. I finally realized that I was plodding along, gritting my teeth, forcing myself to finish something I wasn’t enjoying.
ENOUGH! Life is too short to read bad books.
I now generally will give a book 100 pages to grab me, if not, it’s on to the next. I will admit to a few guilty pangs along the way, but I get over it.
Go for the vacation!
21. jonniker | April 16th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Swistle, YES! And it makes PERFECT sense that you love her TOOOO. Your writing, in fact, has very similar qualities to hers.
I’ve read both of her books at least twenty times. I’m ah, not really exaggerating. And I picked up “Otherwise Engaged” right before I got married and was SO MAD that I hadn’t read it THE WHOLE TIME I was engaged, for it mirrored my experience almost exactly (I was a neurotic mess TOOOOO.) I love the books so very much. I love that she marries a neurotic Middle-aged Jewish Male (MAJM) who is afraid to be in the car with tomatoes, lest they grow salmonella and I LOVE the reference to the invitations with the meat hooks! BAH! The whole thing, it’s brilliant.
And now Eve and Michael or Suzanne and Mark or WHOEVER, have BROKEN UP and I am crushed. I hope he didn’t leave her for the hair model. (See? AM NUTS.) And I am DYING to know which friend told her she was thrilled that he left her (I’m betting on the one with the little girl who lives in New Mexico — Diana? Lara? WHOEVER. She appeared in both books.)
I have to stop. I must stop.
Also, Christine, do you know that I hated Lolita too? Do you remember that?
22. Jules | April 16th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I have the same book-finishing compulsion. The most excruciating example I can think of is when I went through a Stephen King phase in middle school. I was about 300 pages into It when I realized that, no, It was never going to get any better. And proceeded to KEPT READING until the bitter end, which I felt was over a thousand pages so I just double-checked on Amazon to make sure — 1104 pages, and I could just DIE now thinking of the wasted time. Luckily, the Stephen King phase didn’t stick.
Jonniker, I can back you up on the Harry Potter appreciation. But not on the Lolita. I loved that. I think I like really drawn-out entertainment sometimes. Like Lost in Translation. Loved that, too.
That receptionist story slew me, for reals.
23. Kristin H | April 16th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Totally, totally go on the vacation. Even if the tulips are making you gag. I so hope there are tulips in your future!
24. Moose | April 16th, 2008 at 9:42 am
“You might want to have your mom and dad call and schedule for you! A grown-up needs to make those appointments, sweetie.”
Was it wrong of me to laugh? Outloud? (It’s only my boss’s pursed lips that prevent her yelling “YES!” to that particular question.)
I sound exactly like my mother on the phone – have since I was 10. I got some very interesting gossip that way. I even met someone (a rather cute someone) once after doing a phone interview for work and he looked at me in surprise and said, “Oh! I assumed you were a middle-age woman.”
I’m trying to decide which is worse. Being mistaken by a hot guy for a 60-year-old woman, or being condescended to by an unwitting receptionist.
25. Desha | April 16th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Re: The Book: its a whole lot closer to being done than any of mine (don’t let’s talk about my semi-aborted current blog….) and I would loooooove to read it. In any form.
About the phone thing: Your “voice” in my head is sort of a low, ironic tone with a little panic thrown in at times (perhap while mentioning tulip planting vs. vacation, for example). I don’t think of you of having a “little” voice, you know? In fact, it sounds quite nice, maybe a little like Tina Fey. On the other hand, I know someone who DOES sound like a child, to the point where people would ask her, “Is your mommy or dad there?” and be concerned when she said No. In short,I think the receptionist just needed a cup of coffee.
And now that I’ve told you what you “sound” like in my head….please don’t think I’m crazy. I do this with books, too. My Book of not being able to finish shame, while we’re all listing them; has been eluding me since age ten: War and Peace. I can’t get past the first hundred pages without being profoundly….asleep. Oh the shame.
26. Shelly | April 16th, 2008 at 10:02 am
My mother once received a phone call where the caller asked “can I speak to your Mother?”….whereas my mom proceeded to reply “I AM my Mother”.
27. Leah | April 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am
PLAN THE VACATION. I can’t emphasize that strongly enough.
28. Raven | April 16th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I have a love/hate relationship with having the voice of a child.
Love: it gets me out of all sales calls
Hate: making appointments and phone interviews are difficult. see also creepy old men LOVING to talk to me.
I say plan the trip, the tulips will come along as they want.
29. jonniker | April 16th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Leah, you’re acting like it’s TOO LATE FOR YOU. Dude, you’re like 11 minutes pregnant. IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO PLAN A TRIP. TAKE YOUR OWN ADVICE.
30. electriclady | April 16th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Book the trip. Definitely. Absolute worst that happens (and this is highly unlikely) is that you have to cancel the trip because of tulip complications, but having your bulb planted (…heh) will make up for it. I’m assuming you’re not planning to go to, like Equatorial New Guinea, or someplace where the air or food or bugs are not conducive to tulip growth.
31. Amanda (Shamelessly Sassy) | April 16th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I share the same book finishing compulsion. I have to finish it–even if it’s so terrible it is burning my eyes out. Eat , Pray, Love was one of those. I couldn’t believe so many people enjoyed it and told me that I should read it.
32. metalia | April 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Go on your vacation. DO IT.
(And dude. I share your compulsion in that I MUST finish books I start, no matter how godawful.)
33. Maggy | April 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
“A bad book is a thief of time.” I read that in a book, which, ironically, sucked, so I stopped reading it shortly after that sentence. I figured it was a sign from the universe.
I once complained about a bad book to my sister, and she said, “So stop reading it.” That option had not even occurred to me.
34. Jonniker. » Nicest &hellip | May 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
[...] And then I got tired and also star-struck because if you missed it, I got a nice e-mail(s!) from Suzanne Finnamore. Now if you would, please go read her books. Because, as it turns out, she is [...]
35. Books Harry Potter Books &hellip | June 26th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Books Harry Potter Books Pc Magazine…
I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…
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