Tragic Sandwich

Tag: Sex and the City

  • Book Talk: Books I Do Not Like

    Book Talk: Books I Do Not Like

    I read a lot. I’ve always read a lot. Over the course of the pandemic, one of the few things about myself I’ve been able to hold onto was reading. I’ve become a heavy user of the public library over the past three years, and I don’t see any reason for that to change. I’ll write more about that later, but for now, here are some books I don’t like.

    Wuthering Heights
    I resisted reading it because I hate every adaptation I’ve seen. These are not people I want to spend time with. Then someone suggested reading it not as a romance, but as a horror story. I still hated it. Also, I don’t read or watch horror, so that probably didn’t help the way that person thought it would. (I recently read an updated version by Alice Hoffman. Much as I love her work — she’s one of my favorite authors — I hated her take on the story, too.)

    Wide Sargasso Sea
    I have read this book twice. I still have no idea what happens. Jane Eyre has been a favorite of mine since 4th grade, and during a re-read several years ago, I was surprised to realize that I cannot stand Rochester; in fact, I vastly prefer the parts of the book that do not include him. But I just don’t get Rhys’s book at all.

    Play It as It Lays
    I want to write a post about my somewhat complicated feelings about Joan Didion’s work, but I’ll start here, with this book. I first read it in college and didn’t like it. The characters seemed incomprehensible to me. I have read it at least twice since then, on the grounds that my perspective may have changed. It has not. I still find the characters incomprehensible. (All of this also applies to Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City, except that I was long out of college by the time that was written.)

    Wicked
    Mr. Sandwich and I saw the musical about 10 years ago. I liked it so much, I bought the CD at intermission. At a book swap, I picked up a copy of the novel. One of the other women said, making a face, “It’s really different from the play.” I thought I was okay with that. Turns out I was not. Oz was a weird place, but this world is mean and nasty. There are scenes that I just found gross, and completely unnecessary. There are long stretches in time that are hard to follow. The characters I found compelling on stage are flat in the book. I’m really, really sorry I let this book in my head.

    What books are you sorry you read, and why? Share away.

  • Of Shoes, and Ships, and . . . No, Just Shoes

    Jill Pinnella Corso of Back Home Blog has a post that strikes a chord with me. It’s about shoes.

    When I was in my 20s and 30s, I wore a lot of heels. And by that, I mean that I wore heels as a grad student. I was really overdressed for a grad student.

    I continued to wear heels, although thanks to the influence of Sex and the City, I gratefully stopped wearing nylons in my early 30s. Seriously, those things are a blight on humanity–they’re hot, they’re uncomfortable, they snag and rip and make you look sloppy with no warning at all. (Kate Middleton, I don’t care how much you love them. You are wrong.)

    But the heels continued. When I was dating Mr. Sandwich, I had a collection of cute heels. I kept wearing them until after we were married. Then, one day, as I was walking to the corner, a neighbor in our building said, “I don’t see how you walk in those. They would make my feet hurt!”

    That neighbor had some sort of magic powers, because Presto! Change-o! I could no longer wear those shoes. They made my feet hurt.

    Then I got a new job, and I started commuting by bus. Which means that I stood a lot, and I discovered very quickly that I didn’t like standing on the bus in heels. It dramatically increased my odds of turning my ankle, and who enjoys that? Not me, anyhow.

    For a while, I wore running shoes and brought a dressier option to change into at the office; I even bought a shoe rack so that I could leave shoes at the office rather than lugging them back and forth every day. But I often found that I would have to go straight into a meeting, without the opportunity to upgrade my footwear.

    (Then I got pregnant and my shoe options continued to narrow–ironically–until my feet were so swollen that I could only wear Mr. Sandwich’s running shoes.)

    When I came back to work, I decided that I needed commuter shoes–something that would be comfortable for the days I had to stand on the bus ride, but that would still look presentable if I had to join a meeting.

    black Mary Jane flats for commuting

    Over time, I stopped changing into the heels. The commuter shoes (similar, although I don’t remember paying that much) were just so . . . comfortable.

    And while I’ve tried a few pairs of wedges recently, they’re just not as easy to wear as flats.

    Plus, really, I don’t need to be taller. I think my height is somewhere around average, but I’m as tall as I need to be.

    So I’m done (barring the occasional exception, I suppose) with heels.

    Now I just need some new flats.

  • Baby Names

    141/365

    Mr. Sandwich and I started talking about baby names pretty early in the pregnancy, just a few weeks after we found out that we were expecting a girl (which was quite early, because we did CVS testing).

    Here were our criteria:

    1. Her name had to be a name. No fruits, constellations, or mixed drinks.
    2. Her name had to sound traditional, but not old-fashioned
    3. Her name could not end with the letter that begins our last name.
    4. Her name could not be alliterative.
    5. Her name could not be one of the top 10 baby names for the past few years.
    6. Her name could not be the same as any of the main characters on Sex and the City.

    That eliminated a number of my favorite names, including Lily, Ava, Sophia, Miranda, and Charlotte (it especially eliminated Charlotte, who is Mr. Sandwich’s least favorite SATC character). But it still left us with a world of names, because we were looking for a name that was familiar, but not so popular that three other girls in her class would have it.

    I read baby name books for meanings and origins, and checked the Social Security lists and NameVoyager on Baby Name Wizard to see how the popularity of specific names has changed over time.

    We wound up with a list of names–some were clearly first names, and some we liked as middle names. Periodically we’d revisit the list; some names would come off, and another might go on. But we weren’t able to settle on one that we were sure would be right for our baby.

    Finally, I said, “Let’s commit to waiting until she’s born.” And we did. After Baguette was born, we held her up, looked at her, and said the names aloud. One of them was just right. It met all the criteria, it reflected family names, it honored a historical figure we both admire, and it just seemed to suit her.

    She thinks so, too–I can tell from the way she uses it. And ultimately, that’s what we wanted.

    Photo by ladybugbkt, via Flickr.