Tragic Sandwich

Category: Books and Reading

  • I Am Somebody

    Candy Hearts: Love

    When I was young, I would see commercials for RIF: Reading Is Fundamental. The ad showed a bookmobile arriving in a neighborhood, and a child (I think a boy, but it’s been a while) would select a book with the title “I Am Somebody!”

    This weekend, I took Baguette to the mall. Toddlers need to toddle, but not outside when it’s 104 degrees in the shade. At one point, I glanced into a store filled with tween clothes and saw a t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Future Mrs. Bieber.”

    Now, I have no real issue with Justin Bieber. He seems to fit in with the same Tiger Beat/Teen Beat pop stars that I remember from my own childhood, also of great appeal to the tweener age group.

    And I believe that a good marriage is a good thing. Mr. Sandwich and I put each other first and consider our marriage to be something that we both contribute to (one of my co-workers once said, “It’s not even like they’re married. They’re a team, like Batman and Robin”–I’m not sure I’d pick that prototype, but I appreciate the sentiment).

    But that shirt just made me angry. Because what it says to me is, “I don’t need my own identity as long as I’m someone’s wife.” And that is not what I want to teach Baguette. It’s not what I want to teach anyone’s daughter.

    Mr. Sandwich and I want Baguette to love herself just as she is, and believe that she has intrinsic human value. We want her to feel confident in her own worth, not feel that she gains importance based on who decided to tolerate her presence. So the question for us is: how do we do that?

    I think we do that the way we teach her everything else: by telling her outright, and modeling behavior. For me, that means accepting and loving myself just as I am, so that as her first female role model (and as her mother, that’s exactly what I am), I present an example of love, compassion, strength, and self-confidence. I know I’m not a supermodel, but I’m far from a troll. Are there things I would change about myself and my appearance? Sure, but I don’t think that those things make me a lesser human being. I know very well that appearance is literally the surface of who we are, and I believe that character is much more–and much more important–than size or shape.

    I know a lot of women who are distressed by their stretch marks after giving birth. I have them, and while it’s not like I jumped up and down for joy when they appeared, I also have suffered not one moment of anxiety that they exist. I always expected to get them–and they’re a natural after-effect of having a child. And beyond that, they show where Baguette used to live. So while it would be nice to have a smooth, flat stomach, I absolutely would not trade the one I have.

    I hope that if I accept myself and my human imperfections, it will be easier for Baguette to do the same. Because I don’t want her to consider herself the “future Mrs. Anybody.” I’d much rather she think, “I Am Somebody!”

    Photo by SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent), via Flickr.

  • Parenting, Page by Page

    Baby & Parenting Books, Puzzles

    This is not my bookshelf.

    When I was pregnant with Baguette, I bought The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy and The Panic-Free Pregnancy. I figured that pretty much covered it, considering that I have an obstetrician who I trust.

    After Baguette was born, we started using Dr. Spock (current edition and the one my mother would have used–thank you, eBay!), as well as Your Baby’s First Year Week by Week and Your Baby Month By Month. I read them for a few weeks, and then stopped–she seemed to be on target, we have a pediatrician who we trust, and (no matter how many caveats the books included) focusing on such a detailed level seemed likely to induce anxiety. And all of us have enough of that on our own regarding parenting, don’t we?

    We’ve inherited a couple of toddler-focused books, which I think I’ve looked at once–I’ve long switched to using these books to see if I can find specific answers (how much milk should Baguette be drinking each day?) rather than reading them completely.

    Then Motherlode started a book club. So far I’ve bought each of the three books: Torn, Origins, and No Biking in the House Without a Helmet.

    I haven’t read that last one, so I’ll focus on the first two. Torn is a collection of articles, mostly written by women who work outside the home (my mom was a stay-at-home-mom, and I know that path is work, too–believe me!). As I myself am not torn about working, most of the articles didn’t reflect my own experience or feelings–but I did find them interesting. In fact, that actually made the book more interesting to me, because it gave me the chance to learn about how others are affected by their life choices. (I already know how I’m affected by mine, after all.) Origins focuses on fetal development, and while I found it interesting, I also thought that the author was too focused on bringing every issue back to that topic. I have no doubt that what happens in the womb is incredibly influential on babies, in ways that can affect us throughout our lives, but that doesn’t mean everything can be traced back to that source.

    If you’re looking for something lighter, you might try Jay Mohr’s No Wonder My Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-Up Dad. I don’t find Mohr’s stand-up particularly funny, but I could relate to an awful lot of this book–and I found him much more likeable as a person after reading it.

    So what are you reading?

    Photo by SierraTierra, via Flickr.

  • Go, Dog, Go!

    Go Dog Go!

    Baguette loves books, but she won’t let me read to her. She grabs the book out of my hand and goes through the pages in whatever order makes sense to her, pointing and chattering about what’s on the page.

    At least, that’s what happened until Monday morning. On Monday, as I was getting her ready for day care and me ready for work, she picked up the board book version of P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog, Go! and handed it to me to read. When I asked her if she wanted to read it herself, she pushed it at me. So I read it to her, and then read it to her a second time. And I realized that now I have to build reading time into our morning.

    This is tricky. In order to have time with Baguette in the evening, I have to leave work no later than 5:00. That means I have to be at work by 8:00 a.m., which means (with my commute) that I drop her off at day care at 7:00. This works as long as she’s up between 6:00 and 6:15. In order to get my morning stuff done before she’s awake, I get up at 5:30. And that’s already earlier than I want to have either of us wake up. So squeezing book time into that morning is not easy.

    But she also wants me to read it to her at night. Last night, as we were trying to get her to wind down for the evening (and that is no simple task–Baguette hates to go to sleep), she had me read the book. And then read it again. And again. And again. I think I read it at least eight times, always in the slow, soothing delivery I’d normally give to something like Goodnight, Moon. Seriously, you have never known so many fast-moving dogs to travel at such a measured pace.

    But as I look at the book–which I’m now a little crazy about, myself–I am struck by the illustrations in a way I haven’t been before. They really do have an energy and an excitement, and I’m starting to wonder if Dr. Seuss and the Eastmans (and possibly the Berenstains) haven’t done all of us a disservice.

    Because real life just doesn’t measure up to these books.

    Look at that first page, where the dogs jump out of an enormous bed. Isn’t that bed huge? Doesn’t it look like a great place to sleep? Are you that energized when you get out of your bed in the morning? I know I’m not. I don’t think I ever have been.

    And the dogs who travel “by boat.” I want to hang out on that boat. It’s got a doghouse with a diving board. It’s the most awesome dog houseboat imaginable. Look how enthusiastic the swan-diving dog is!

    Mostly, though, it’s the last page (spoiler alert!). Have you ever been to a party as much fun as the dog party? No, I didn’t think so. None of us have, and we probably never will. Parties are fun, but the dog party surpasses them all.

    Real life. It’s just not like board books. And that’s a sad realization.

    Photo by Creative Nickie, via Flickr.

  • Melancholy

    Recently I bought the Kindle edition all of Thomas Hardy‘s novels for something like 89 cents. Now that’s a literary bargain.

    The only problem? Thomas Hardy is insanely depressing. I am further convinced that Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a brilliant novel, but, wow. And if you really want to be hit over the head with a series of sad relationships, follow Tess up with the short-story collection Life’s Little Ironies. After that, there was no way I could tackle Jude the Obscure.

    At the moment I’m reading Desperate Remedies, and although I want to know how it turns out, I’m also ready for it to be over. Plus, I do not know how to pronounce the name “Cytherea.”

    I guess all of that’s balanced out, though, by the fact that Hardy gave us the cliffhanger–both the concept and the word. And where would series television be without that?

  • The Written Word

    I continue to work on The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. In the meantime, I also finished Emma by Jane Austen and read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. That last one, by the way, was the weakest of its trilogy.

    I’m more pleased with my discovery of Tana French. So far I’ve read In the Woods and The Likeness. While the “reveal” in each has not been much of a surprise to me, I have enjoyed the characters she created and the way in which she writes about them. Book #3 (I’ve forgotten its title) is on the way, courtesy of Amazon.com.

    Additionally, I’m reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. It’s based on a true story to which I have the most tenuous of connections, and I’ll discuss it in a later post. Also, I haven’t finished it yet.

    After that, I’ll move on to books by Robert Crais and Linwood Barclay, both of whom are new to me. The opening pages, however, seem promising.

  • Repeat Offender

    I could read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon over and over. I know because that’s what I’m doing. I’ve read it front to back twice, and the triple storyline makes it easy to dip in and out of a particular plot.

    Why Cryptonomicon? I’m not sure. There are virtually no female characters–then again, that’s never been a requirement for my reading. Is it the World War II setting? The other World War II setting? The contemporary (well, as of when it was written) treasure-hunting? One thing is certain: it’s not the math. I may have taken calculus in high school, but I am not a mathematician. It’s not that I’m bad at it, but I do lack confidence. Also interest. As I’ve learned a little more about math, I see why other people love it–but the real-world applications of higher-level math were not emphasized in the classes I took, possibly because some of those applications didn’t exist then.

    But back to Cryptonomicon: while it is full of math, that’s not essential to the story (well, it is, but you can understand the story without understanding the math). It’s a rollicking good time, full of adventure, excitement, profanity, lust, good, evil, and so on. And I can’t stop reading it.

  • The Girl Who Read a Lot of Books

    I haven’t posted much about books lately, which isn’t surprising–I don’t have the time to read that I once did. But I am enjoying Stieg Larsson’s books; I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before Baguette was born, and now I’m reading The Girl Who Played With Fire.

    It took me a while to get into the first one; the language is a bit stilted (I suspect this is a function of translation, if not of Swedish itself), and the male protagonist is somewhat passive. There’s also a lot of exposition, which sometimes gets clumsy. But once the story gets going, it really gets going–and the female protagonist (the eponymous Girl) is a compelling character. Don’t ask me how Larsson decided to write “Pippi Longstocking gone wrong,” but these books are making me think about re-reading Pippi Longstocking.

    That probably won’t happen any time soon, though. I’ve been working my way through the collected works of Jane Austen (99 cents for the Kindle!) since long before I stopped work at the end of February, and am only part of the way through Emma. And Sandwich Pere keeps sending me books that he enjoys; the most recent was Lost to the West, Lars Brownworth’s galloping overview of the Byzantine Empire (quite good, although I’d have liked a little more cultural discussion to go with the politics and wars). Add to that the half dozen or so Georgette Heyer novels that I re-read in the first few weeks after bringing Baguette home (lovely to re-discover some old favorites and others that I read decades ago but didn’t have clear memories of) and I guess it’s not that I haven’t had time to read.

    It’s just that I haven’t had time to post.

  • Adieu, Gourmet

    Alas, the nearly 70-year-old Gourmet magazine is folding. Conde Nast announced the decision on Monday, and although the recipes will still be available at Epicurious.com, there will be no more of those rich, wonderful articles arriving in my mailbox.

    I didn’t do a lot of cooking from Gourmet–although I have designs on a recent cheese-crust apple pie recipe–but you could tell that the magazine was written and produced by people who truly loved food. I know it’s a sign of the times, and part of a larger trend, but it’s still a loss.

  • Misplaced

    Lately I’ve been losing my library books. First it was Debra Winger’s Undiscovered, her odd but interesting memoir about her career and personal life. To make matters worse, it’s overdue. I looked at home, in the car, and at work. At least I finished it before losing it.

    Then on Saturday, at the salon, I started reading Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons. I used to love her books (most of them) and at some point decided that her writing was overly descriptive and her characters unrealistically tormented (also she reuses names between books, which I find annoying when one of those names is Sibley) (plus she used “okie-like” in both a novel and her book of nonfiction, which made me put down the latter before finishing it).

    But in spite of that I’m halfway through, and I want to read it, and I can’t find it anywhere. I’m starting to think I left it at the salon. And I’m also starting to wonder what’s up with me and losing library books.

    And then today I took one more look through my basket at work, and solved at least half of the problem. Debra Winger, you are officially Discovered.