My Red Coat

On Saturday I arrived on vacation without a book to read. Any book from the stack on my kitchen counter would have done nicely, sure, but for some reason I never threw one in my carry-on. Hard to believe. I was without a book on vacation. Harder to believe.

Nothing caught my eye in the airport. Mostly “Orange Man Bad” tomes. After I landed, I popped into the local Walgreens hoping to find a light memoir, maybe a biography. Nope. Just junk-food literature. You know, stuff by Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele and Robyn Carr, who by all rights shouldn’t be able to sleep at night, and who should be arrested for the petty crime of hooking lonely women on the mindless drivel that they pump out every thirteen weeks. While writers with real talent, those of us who understand real dialogue, and how real men and women speak and act, stand firmly beside our literary morals and watch these amateurs, these half-wits, rake in the big bucks.

But I digress.

I browsed the romance novels, just for fun. Sexually suggestive titles like Long, Hot Texas Summer, Virgin River, Laid Bare, and Beasting Beauty featured scantily-clad women in mid-embrace with tan, buff pec-blessed studs, implying that maybe the women gave in to their desires, maybe they didn’t.

Who knows and who cares?

One particularly insipid title, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake made me so angry, I grabbed all five copies and placed them on a shelf in the gardening section. I hoped I at least gave someone a laugh for the day.

I have to have at least one book on vacation. I mean, when you wake up at 5:00 a.m. in someone else’s home, you’d better be able to entertain yourself for four to five hours. I’ve developed a routine here. I brew a cup of coffee from her Keurig, I pet her cat, I post on my blog, I pet her dog, I check my phone notifications, I pet her other dog, I brew another cup of coffee and then watch the desert sunrise from her back patio. Then I read. This routine has served me well.

(Wait, what do you read? You still don’t have a book!)

Oh, right. Thanks for reminding me.

When I arrived, my friend handed me a book she thought I would like, at least until she could get me to the local Barnes and Noble. It was a motivational book titled On Fire, by John O’Leary, who had been burned in a gasoline fire as a young boy. So ashamed of his deep scars, he wore long-sleeves and long pants, no matter what the weather, well into his twenties. Since his face hadn’t been burned, he did a pretty fair job at keeping his story a secret from anyone outside of his family and his close circle. He didn’t even date, in fear of being found out.

No nookie for John.

And while the story of his recovery was courageous and inspirational, it was a little too cheesy, a little too maudlin for my taste. I mean, the anecdote about the little girl with the red coat, who walks into the classroom, and throws her coat on the floor? Please.

Please pick it up, the teacher tells the little girl.

The little girl shook her head.

Pick your coat up, honey.

It’s not mine, the little girl answered.

I just saw you come in with it, the teacher answered. Please pick your red coat up off the ground and place it neatly in your cubby, the teacher admonished.

It’s not mine, the girl screamed.

We saw it, we saw it, we saw it on you, the other students screamed.

No, no, no, no, no, she screamed. It’s not mine!!!!!!!!

The point of the story?

Own it. If it’s yours, own it. You can’t just throw your shit on the ground, make everyone have to walk around it and step on it, and continue to pretend it didn’t happen. If it belongs to you, PICK YOUR SHIT UP.

Your life story, that is.

Oi, I thought, as I closed the book On Fire. Off to B&N.

After an hour of perusal, I picked up No Happy Endings by Nora McInerny. Nora’s widowed life parallels my own in that she is a widow, a writer, and a blogger. The description of her abject sorrow and frustration when a tricycle she had ordered for her young son arrives in a big box resonated with me deeply. She was so happy ordering that bike for her son. It had made her feel empowered, that she could take care of him herself, the way she had promised her husband she would. But when that box arrived, and she realized she would have to assemble it herself, she flopped down on her floor and wept. How can she do this herself? Her husband always did this stuff.

She wept as she opened the box. She wept as she read the instructions. She wept as she put the pieces together. She wept when she thought she was done, but then the handlebars fell off. But eventually you know what?

She did it. Herself. It took her eight hours, but when her son came home from school, there was a shiny blue tricycle sitting in the driveway. His joy at seeing that bike was the first time she ever thought, “Yes. I can do this myself.” And any widow can attest that this is both an empowering and sad moment. When you realize you are on your own, and you must figure things out on your own. And when you do, you feel pride. But you also feel sad that other women have men in their lives to help them with stuff. And you don’t.

(Brief pause for Pity Party……)

O.k., all done.

But something more struck me as I read Nora’s memoir.

She discusses her penchant, her attraction, to people with stories. People with miles on them, miles they wear proudly. People who have been through shit, tough shit, and who have emerged, stronger, wiser, kinder. People who have walked through the fire and come out smarter and cleaner. People who own their life stories, who wear them with pride, who…

Wait, fire? Recovery? Stories? Baggage?

Have you heard it yet? A lot like John O’Leary’s book, right? Turns out John O’Leary’s real healing didn’t start until he decided to show the world those scars. Until he started talking about the accident, his guilt, and his intense pain, he couldn’t even entertain the notion of loving or being loved. Once he owned up to his story, all good things began to happen.

Hm.

So if you will forgive my journalistic transgression of burying the lede so deeply in this post that it may be unforgivable, let me leave you to ponder the metaphor. And as I wrap up my week here, I think of O’Leary and McInerny’s messages and hope that with my blog posts, I do the best I can to own my stories. And that I wear my red coat with pride and dignity.

That’s the best I can do. Have a great weekend. You bet your ass I will.

Twenty Things People Have the Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again

This is in homage to my good friend the late Nora Ephron, who I have to thank for the title of this post. Her version of this list is included in her book I Remember Nothing, but the following items are mine (*these are Nora’s. They were too good to not include).

  1. People who claim to understand nutrition still refuse to eat the egg yolk.
  2. Cameron Diaz and Nicole Richie are sisters-in-law.
  3. Hollywood and its vacuous celebrities have absolutely no influence on any voter in the country.
  4. Democrats vote Democrat. Republicans vote Republican.
  5. Pornography is mainstream.
  6. Bagels contain the same amount of carbs as four pieces of toast.
  7. If you like bagels, the carbs are irrelevant.
  8. Women like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition too.
  9. *Howard Stern is nice in person.
  10. Big houses are expensive and will eventually be too big for the people living there.
  11. Men like nakedity. Period. You’re beautiful.
  12. We have never, and will never, deserve animals.
  13. We will all eventually get old, gray and lumpy, no matter how hard we fight it.
  14. *Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.
  15. The stock market and golf scoring are impossible to explain to someone who simply doesn’t care.
  16. *The Democrats are deeply disappointing.
  17. Everyone has secrets they have never told anyone, and never will.
  18. The importance of a Presidential election is always about the Supreme Court.
  19. Dietary cholesterol has nothing whatsoever to do with your cholesterol count. Enjoy the hell out of that butter.
  20. Busy used to be the new thin. Now masks are the new busy. People used to post pictures of themselves on Instagram doing various activities- travel, school events, 5Ks. Now they post pictures of themselves wearing a mask while working, cooking and playing from home. Food porn seems big, too. Big colorful pictures of jambalaya spread across Instagram with the caption, “Look what we made!” Not sure how I feel about any of it, not sure I even care, but I know this: masks don’t do shit.

Airplane Peanuts

A friend texted me to tell me she had enjoyed my blog post that day.

“Does this stuff really happen to you?” she asked me, laughing.

“Unfortunately,” I said. “If you read it, it happened.”

“But HOW?” she said.

Dunno. Maybe I’m more keyed into the human condition than the average person. Maybe my life force draws in the nonsensical. Maybe I see the ridiculousness of life easier than most. But it’s more likely that this stuff happens to everyone, I just happen to have a blog where I can write about it.

“I doubt it,” she answered. “Crazy shit like that doesn’t happen to me.”

Point taken.

So as I prepare to fly out this weekend, I feel it’s an opportune time to talk about my preference for first-class travel. Only a handful of people know this story, and now all of you will. The implication is not that first-class is so “elite” that crazy shit doesn’t happen there. No. It’s that crazy shit is less likely to happen there, and if it does, the big seats will hopefully keep it further away from me.

To begin with, my first-class trip to Iceland spoiled me. It sure did. I was in a fragile, confused, and anxious state, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, and there I was, in this luxurious spacious seat, being handed fuzzy slippers, warm cookies, champagne and soft blankets. I never felt more pampered in my life outside of a high-end spa.

I was hooked.

So if the price for a first-class ticket is reasonable, I buy it. Not for the food. Not for the drinks. Not for the status. For the comfort. Flying can be intolerable for an introvert, the close quarters of airplane seats just too close for comfort. First-class provides that little bit of extra room that affords us the privacy we need.

So the story.

Last spring, in 2019, I was planning a trip to Boston. I was taking my son and his girlfriend to look at some schools, and since I had so many frequent flier miles, we decided to fly. The flight from Philadelphia to Boston is only ninety minutes, and since my miles did not cover first-class anyway, I booked three coach tickets.

By this time, I hadn’t flown coach in two years, and it was immediately an assault on my senses and nerves. “Only ninety minutes,” I told myself, and I settled into my seat, turned on my music, and tried to relax. My son and his girlfriend had seats in the row behind me, and they quickly snuggled into their phones and each other. The seat next to me near the window was still empty, and since it was a full flight, I wondered what kind of specimen would inevitably end up next to me.

Shame on you, Mary, I thought to myself.

Finally, she arrived, late, a polyester-red panicked heavy-breathing flurry in the aisle. She was making quite a scene, so I glanced at her in my peripheral vision. Big. Sweaty. Ill-fitting business clothes. Lots and lots of bags filled with papers (my guess was she was an elementary school teacher transporting reports on the water cycle across state lines). Clutching a 72-ounce Dunkin Donuts coffee confection. You know, the cup of “coffee” that poses as coffee but is really liquefied donuts.

She turned to the flight attendant.

“Would you mind holding my coffee while I settle in?”

“Of course,” the attendant said. “Take your time.”

(Hah. Boy, did she. Take her time, that is. That flight attendant had to stand in that aisle holding that woman’s coffee for five minutes).

She excused herself to me and apologized for being late. I smiled, and politely stood to give her access to her seat. She had a lot of girth and bags and lifeforce to cram into a small space, and I felt bad for the effort it took for her to jam herself in. As I waited patiently in the aisle, I tried to catch the eye of my son and his girlfriend. When I looked, I saw that they were already staring at me and smiling, amused at the spectacle and my barely-hidden distress (is there any better feeling in the world than looking at people you love and seeing that they are already looking at you, because they know exactly what you are thinking and feeling?).

I smiled back at them and nodded.

Yes, I said to them subliminally. She is mine. All mine. They shook their heads and began to laugh silently as if to say, “Sucks for you,” and went back to their phones and their worlds.

Once she was finally settled, she thanked me, and we waited for takeoff. Our departure time came and went, and through the Mozart playing softly in my ear buds, I heard an announcement that our takeoff was slightly delayed due to the queue on the runway.

Great, I thought, and I tried to think of pleasant things. Grey Goose martinis. Puppies. Seared scallops. Boat rides. Boston Common. I smiled and began to drift into that zone where things are soft and fluid. Not sleep. Just contentment. It was then that I was jarred out of my nirvana by the frenetic energy of my seatmate.

It wasn’t just frenetic. Or nervous. It was something I had never seen before. She re-arranged her bags. She played with her phone. She fixed her hair. She dug in her purse. She removed her coffee lid and snapped it back on. She touched the window. Pulled down the screen. Pulled it back up. I was able to watch this entertainment not just in my peripheral vision, but by looking straight at her, because her body was turned completely to the outside. She was turned full-on towards the window, her back to me.

Her bizarre behavior continued. She wouldn’t stop. I wondered if she had done crack before she boarded, or if she was on her third or fourth 72-ounce jug of coffee. Maybe she is afraid of flying, I thought, but that didn’t explain why she was turned and staring at the tarmac. Not my problem, I thought, and I decided to mind my business and give her the privacy she so obviously wanted. At least she’s not trying to talk to me, I said to myself. I shut my eyes and blocked her out.

Fifteen minutes became thirty, and we were still sitting on the tarmac. Ugh, my son texted me. I know, I answered. Finally, after an hour wait, the plane began to taxi. As we ascended, I felt a shift in energy, and Miss Coffee Confection changed strategy. It is at this moment that the story really begins.

(If you would like to look up the term “dermatophagia,” you would be well-advised to do it at this time. I apologize for the following paragraphs, but it happened. I’ll try to make it quick).

She began to drag her nails over her face, through her hair, and over her skin. Then she would raise her nails to her mouth, and suck. This went on for the entire 90-minute flight. Scratch, suck scratch, suck. I know she was doing it because as I said, she was turned completely to the window, and couldn’t even see that I was watching her. I don’t think. Anyway, who would blame me?

My horror and disgust cannot be described with the written word.

I squeezed my eyes shut to get the image of her out of my mind, and it occurred to me how much Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King would like to write about this. How sad, I thought, to be so bat-shit crazy. Suddenly, my constant hair-twirling seemed cute and innocuous. I dug deep, deep down in that place inside, where I go for complete peace. I intoned. Om. Om. Ooooooom. Ooooommmm.

She refused the bag of airplane peanuts. Go figure.

When we landed, I was the Asshole Who Stands Up in the Aisle Even Though There is Nowhere to Go. When I caught the eye of my son, he told me later that he could tell I was frazzled, but thought I was traumatized because of the sixty-minute delay in takeoff.

Ah, naïve youth.

I practically ran off that plane. While walking through the terminal, I was in such obvious distress that the kids peppered me with questions.

What happened, they asked?

I’m not ready, I answered.

I didn’t even share the story until a few days later, when I was well into my second martini at dinner. The kids insisted on hearing it, then yelled at me for telling them such a disgusting story right before they ate.

But you made me! I rebutted.

After the flight, in the terminal, while I waited for the two of them to use the lavatories, the Skin Eater emerged from the ladies’ room, gave me a big smile and said, “Have a great day!”

“You, too,” I answered, shell-shocked, and as I watched her walk away, I wondered if she would have lunch, or if she was full. And I vowed to never fly coach again.

“Only you,” my friend said, when I told her this story. “Only to you could this happen.”

Yeah. Tell me about it.

i’m actually smiling

On Sunday I was at Target scanning my items in self-checkout when I surreptitiously glanced up at the security camera. You know, the one where you can see yourself? I’m always tempted to look, but I try not to. Besides being vain, the act of a woman my age deliberately checking herself out on a video camera is just inviting self-criticism. I work out, I eat well, I hydrate, I still look good in a bathing suit, let’s leave it at that, I figure. What are we trying to be, the skinniest corpses in the cemetery?

Good luck with that. I choose life.

But on Sunday, I looked, and I looked again. I looked good. Youngish. I turned this way and that, pleased with my reflection. Left side, check, right side, check. As I inserted a twenty-dollar bill into the slot, I gave my best glamour pose. It was early on Sunday, and no one else was there, I figured I might never have another chance again to preen in front of a video camera.

(“Ma’am. Ma’am?

Still checking myself out.

“Excuse me, ma’am?

I turn away from my own fabulous reflection towards the Target employee.

“Yes?”

“This is a credit-only line.”

Drat.)

As I loaded my bags into my car, I wondered about my pleasing appearance on the Target video camera. Was it the mask? Do I actually look younger with half my face covered? Wah. Ever read Nora Ephron’s book I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman?

Yeah, Nora, now I feel bad about mine, too.

I was annoyed that I had to give my mask credit for something. I hate wearing a mask. I am no sooner walking out of a store and I am ripping it off my face. Friends have told me to “have fun with it. Buy pretty colors, pretty patterns, match your mask to your outfit.”

No. Never. I will never normalize it. Ever. I will wear it. But no amount of pressure will ever get me to normalize it. I have one ugly mask I have been using since this started in March. One. I will not spend one penny on buying more.

Since the subject of masks is so contentious, know that I am not an “anti-masker.” I don’t even know what that means. I wear a mask because I’m asked to. I wear a mask so I can have peace in my life. I wear a mask so I am not yelled at and subsequently arrested. It has recently come to my attention that I live my life right on the brink of just not quite getting arrested.

It’s quite something to be me.

The fact that my mask made me look ten years younger on video camera led me to think of other possible benefits there are to mask-wearing. Fighting COVID? Yeah, no. See yesterday’s post. Statistics say I have a better chance of getting charged by a hippopotamus than contracting COVID. Yeah, go ahead, look it up, see if I care.

I Follow the Science.

So in the spirit of generosity, let us give credit where credit is deserved. My mask:

  • Hides my chin and makes me look ten years younger (as stated earlier).
  • Provides me with the freedom to chew and snap my gum without looking and sounding like an 18-year old cashier in the Bronx wrapping muzzarel in an Italian market. I had a lot of fun with this in Target. I was chewing and snapping, chewing and snapping. Just delightful.
  • Makes it easy to talk to myself. I wandered through Target in full self-dissertation, and no one batted an eye:
    • To leopard print jeggings: “Yeah, like I would wear that.”
    • To Target Starbucks: “I miss the old Target snack bar, the popcorn was banging.
    • To cosmetic case: “How is it possible that Burts Bees tinted lip balm is SOLD OUT?”
    • To seasonal aisle: “Back away from the Halloween decorations, Mary, you don’t need any more Halloween decorations.”
  • Gives me license to sing. I was shamefully belting out “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” from The Lion King. Sir Elton would have been proud.
  • Gives me freedom from having to smile at people all the time. It can get exhausting.
  • Keeps me from buying Monster Mix and chowing it down while I shop. This bagged treat tries to pass itself off as trail mix, but it’s really chocolate and caramel candy with two nuts and one raisin thrown in. Monstrously caloric.
  • Prevents me from feeling the need to apply Burts Bees lip balm every 8 minutes, which is per usual for me. When your face and lips are hidden behind a mask, a mask that just wipes it off anyway, who cares?

Remember, the great Nora Ephron once said, “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth.”

Edible Distancing

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

-Charles Bukowski

On October 15th, Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey announced that indoor events “are increasingly becoming the starting points for outbreaks.” He was referring to holiday gatherings, of course, (read Thanksgiving), and he comments that “sadly, we’re seeing more and more family gatherings” as being problematic.

I’ll rephrase that.

He feels that it is unfortunate that we feel compelled to get together with family, because we could all be infecting each other with a virus that we don’t have, that we probably won’t get, and that has a ridiculously high survival rate. Let me provide some statistics. These come courtesy of Fox News, but before you libs get your panties in a wad, you can find the same statistics on CDC.gov, or the WHO website. Of course the latter two outlets won’t just blurt out these statistics. You’ll have to wade through a phenomenal amount of rhetoric and science-speak BS before you reach these same numbers. Without further ado, here are Covid survival rates:

0-19 years of age: 99.997%

20-49 years of age: 99.98%

50-69 years of age: 99.5%

70+ years of age: 94.6%

I like these odds. I like them for a test score. I trust them for a weather report. I respect them for an admittance rate into a program. But then again, I’m a glass half-full kind of gal.

Let me change tack by discussing air travel. Elite Runway says, and I quote, that “the probability of your plane going down is so slim it’s almost pointless to quantify.” But for the sake of argument, please know that the odds of dying as a plane passenger are 1 in 11 million. To put that in perspective, you have a 1 in two million chance of dying when you fall out of bed. A 1 in 4,050 chance of dying when you hop on your bike. Oh, and when you get in your car? You have a 1 in 102 chance of a one-way ticket to the Pearly Gates.

You scared of your Jetta?

If the idea of hovering 35,000 feet in the air unnerves you, maybe it would help to know that the deadliest plane crash in history happened in 1977, when two planes collided on the runway, killing 583 people.

Terra firma’ll get ya every time.

This is a jolly good time, so I’m going to keep going. Without even mentioning cancer or heart disease, here are things more likely to kill you than an airplane crash:

  • Food poisoning: 1 in 3 million
  • Death by ladder: 1 in 2.3 million
  • Having your flesh eaten by flesh-eating bacteria: 1 in one million
  • Hit by a meteorite: 1 in 700,000

I have a million of these. But brevity is the soul of wit, as Polonius says.

The following statistical jewels come courtesy of medRxiv, and although the website states these findings should not be reported since they have not been “peer-reviewed,” this site is sponsored by the very snobby, the very prudent, the very liberal Yale University (statistics change slightly when it comes to the elderly and those with co-morbidities. But only slightly):

Say you live in a normal size city, not too big, not too small- the chances that you will get infected by COVID is one in 40,500. As in, to even have the chance of getting exposed, you would probably have to come in contact with 40,500 people.

That’s like, two-thousand trips to Starbucks. Or one Eagles game with two beer runs.

Oh, and let me add this little baby: to even be sick enough to require HOSPITALIZATION, an adult aged 50-64 would have to have engaged in a 1 in 709,000 person contact experience. So adults aged 50-64 have a better chance to die by a falling meteorite than to be hospitalized due to COVID. You gonna give up grandmom’s stuffing for THOSE ODDS?

Well, shit.

Before you send me hate mail, I will state the obvious. This is not a political blog. I am not a scientist. I am not a doctor. I am simply sane. I am rational. I hear over and over on the news, “Follow the science.”

Isn’t that science speaking in the above statistics?

Of course we want to keep our loved ones safe. Of course we don’t want to expose and endanger our elderly or compromised. Of course if you invite family from out-of-state, a COVID-test could put everyone’s minds at ease. Of course (if it’s a real concern in your family), you can have guests arrive early and quarantine for two weeks.

But regarding Governor Murphy’s advice: Mom has a better chance of dying by falling off the pantry ladder while reaching for the canned yams than she does dying of COVID. Uncle Jim and Aunt Alice have a better chance of perishing on the highway. Little Billy has a better chance of getting sick from underdone turkey. The twins have a better chance of getting injured playing around on the bunk beds upstairs.

It’s just math.

And you know the spirited game of touch football everyone enjoys before dessert? What are the odds that cousin Ralphie will die of a bee sting? (one in 79,842). Isn’t it fair to say that when you go home and draw yourself a nice relaxing bubble bath before bed, you have a better chance of drowning in the tub (one in 685,000) than dying of COVID?

I’m sorry for the gallows humor and sobering statistics. They are what they are. Anyway, Governor Murphy started it. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

Everyone has to do what they feel it’s safe to do. I, for one, Governor Murphy, am going to drive safely to my brother’s house, hug my family, talk without a mask, stuff my face, enjoy my nieces and nephews, and drive home. Further, this coming weekend I’m going to hop on my plane and enjoy my flight, because I am a sane and rational person who knows how safe air travel really is.

The odds are in my favor.

Fright Reads

You think it’s tough to write funny? Try writing scary.

I was always a Stephen King fan growing up, and Pet Sematary affected me appropriately, as did the chilling short story “Gray Matter” in his book Night Shift (his best book, in my opinion). But for the most part, scary words made into scary paragraphs made into scary books don’t really do it for me.

So you can imagine my skepticism last year when a friend sent me a “Books Sure to Freeze the Blood in Your Veins” link and there was nary a Stephen King book to be found. Curiosity roused, I impulsively ordered all ten. I will discuss only eight, because I can’t find the other two.

Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: The placement of this book on this list comes as no surprise to me, as we are old friends. Published in 1959, this book scared me as a wee tike. Stephen King was even quoted once as saying it was only one of two great supernatural novels written in the last century. There is a part where the protagonist Eleanor believes she is holding hands with a friend, then turns in bed to find that she is actually alone- this is a scene so vivid in its horror that it drove me to seek comfort in my parent’s bedroom many a night. It has been made into more than one movie, and my son said the series is now streaming on Netflix.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote: Those three words that encapsulate the title of this true story have been parodied, punned and punchlined, but still retain the freezing horror that is the murder of the Clutter family in 1959 by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. It retains its tone of journalistic integrity through objective reporting, so it is all the more mind-boggling that Capote could have produced such a bone-chilling masterpiece. My dog-eared copy of In Cold Blood sits in my select bedroom library, and I refer to it often for questions on syntax and diction.

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates: “Quentin P. is the most believable and thoroughly terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever to be brought to life in fiction.” Indeed. Imagine getting your hands on a first-person stream-of-consciousness journal written by a combination John Wayne Gacy-Ted Bundy-Jeffrey Dahmer type. Mind-numbingly terrifying.

Come Closer by Sara Gran: It starts by giving you a checklist in answer to the question “Are You Possessed by a Demon?” By chapter one, it is apparent that the protagonist Amanda definitely is. By chapter two, you start to think you are. Come Closer is “Yellow Wallpaper” meets “Rosemary’s Baby” (I didn’t write that last line, just can’t remember who did). Watching (reading) Amanda’s descent into madness and possession just hits different, and at a slim 166 pages, it just packs a horror wallop. I still think about it when I’m alone at night and hear a strange noise.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid: This gripped me from the first page to the last. I never put it down. I’m pretty sure I blew off a meeting for it. While it appears to be the story of a young couple traveling to have dinner with his parents in a remote location, it turns into so much more. There are so many warning signs that the poor young girl is toast, and the reader groans inwardly, knowing there is no chance for her to escape. She never had a prayer. Just gripping gripping stuff by Reid.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan: The parents are dead, so the children are stranded and in charge. Sound like Lord of the Flies? That’s child-play compared to this slim novel written in such an offhand manner that the blasphemy barely taps you on the shoulder for your attention. But be careful when you turn around, you will face the unspeakable.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks: Nothing good ever came out of any book in which the narrator is hanging around “the Sacrifice Pole” the day his brother “escapes,” and it doesn’t matter anyway- he already knew his brother escaped because “the Factory told him.” Yikes. Meet Frank Cauldhame, sixteen years old, who is convinced he is simply going through a “phase.” Marone.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk: I deliberately saved this one for last, because it sat ignored on my counter for so long. The cover depicts a blurry haunted face, much like “The Scream” by Munch. I don’t know why I avoided reading it- maybe because I thought it was a series of short stories, maybe because the cover looked juvenile, I don’t know. Then one day I picked it up and turned it over and read on the back cover this quote from The Miami Herald:

“Reading a Palahniuk novel is like getting zipped inside a boxer’s heavy bag while the author goes to work on you, pounding you until there is nothing left but a big bag of bones and blood and pain.”

Yes. Take those words literally and to heart. The premise of the novel is that a group of people have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat, and they each tell a personal story in anticipation of their retreat one day being made into a reality show. Sounds funny? No. Stop laughing right now. I will never get the visual image of “Guts” out of my head, and I will never look at a pool filter the same way. And “Post-Production” will hit you in a place you never knew existed. I still don’t know what to do with what Palahniuk did to me. Only his brain could have produced such a disturbing book. Bravo.

So there’s my list. I know people don’t read anymore. I know you all love your social media and phones and television and Netflix. Trust me, I know. But sometimes it helps to take life back to the basics. I will be discussing basics tomorrow.

Fright Flicks

For the first time in my memory, I don’t see a placard on the local back roads announcing the annual “Terror in the Junkyard.”

“Terror in the Junkyard” (or locally referred to simply as “Scullville”) is terrific fun every Halloween. Visitors can take a stellar haunted tractor ride or walk through a haunted maze, even play laser tag if they’re not up for the scares. Ozzy’s vocals blare throughout the grounds, screams of terror and delight peal through the night air, and the smell of spiced cider, candy apples, homemade chili and pizza slices permeate whatever senses are left. This event has provided some of the best Halloween memories my family has, and people around here wait for it all year.

But not this year. My heart is broken.

Therefore, I posit that since Halloween is destined to be the next victim of 2020, it behooves us to make our own Halloweens! Screw Covid, or whatever the hell it’s called. I mean, Halloween is mask season, isn’t it? Let’s use it to our advantage! No government official can cancel the spirit of Halloween, it lives on in our hearts and minds and souls.

And I just saw this guy on the news who is making a candy-dispensing robot.

Oy vey.

Besides parades and pumpkin patches and haunted houses, Halloween season is also horror movie season. When I was young it was the one month of the year when I could flip through tv listings and find the movie “Halloween” on channel 6. And remember being a kid in the 80’s, watching MTV all day just for the chance to see Michael Jackson’s “Thriller?” That’s still me with horror movies. If I’m home and not watching the news, you can find me surfing channels hoping to find “The Exorcist.” No taping, no renting, no DVR for me. If it’s not on, I don’t get to see it. Same with Christmas movies. I will not rent “Christmas Carol.” It must be showing on regular television.

But I digress. Yet again.

As a pure horror genre buff, it occurs to me that horror movie directors must find it challenging to constantly come up with new concepts that share the shit out of people. Scary little girls in blue dresses, maniacal dolls, witch covens, home invasions, demon-infested houses, all done to death.

But every so often, a horror movie is done just right and smacks you straight in the gob, where your greatest fears lay. Like “Hereditary” for me.

I will never get over “Hereditary.” Never. I haven’t watched it since, and I don’t know if I can ever watch it again. I watched it alone {like an idiot} and for weeks afterward I was so disturbed that I had to actively force my brain to not think about it when I was alone in bed. It may not have frightened you, and you might think I’m crazy. My own brother thought it was “dumb.” But it hit me deep in my subconscious.

I’m pretty sure it gave me internal bleeding.

Spoiler alert!!!

It wasn’t just the witch-and-possession thing that terrified me. I can take that. This movie had a more insidious intent. I may be a writer, but I must bow to Deanna Janes, who wrote this description of Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” for Harper’s Bazaar:

Ari Aster may claim that his traumatizing directorial debut is more “domestic melodrama” than supernatural nightmare, but hear this: Minutes into this deeply effective drama about a grieving family in crisis, the hairs on the back of your neck won’t even bother standing up—they will turn and run in the opposite direction. And Toni Collette at the root of the family tree, bravo.

If I was responsible for writing the tagline for “Hereditary” a few I would have suggested would be:

“When things go wrong. Very, very wrong. And keep going wrong.”

“Keep your arms and legs and appendages inside the car at all times, thank you.”

“Hey mom, Granny stopped by for a visit.”

“Dad’s barbequing tonight.”

Enough of that.

Every horror flick fan has a different idea of what makes a scary movie truly good. There was so much hype around “Human Centipede” that despite my sons warning me of its disturbing nature, I ended up laughing right through it. I gave “The Ring” more than one chance to prove itself, but it has disappointed me each time. And the “Insidious” franchise? Posh. It offends my creep sensibilities.

So here it is. “Oves’ Top Ten Scariest Movies list.” What a great thing a blog is. I have always wanted to give someone my top ten favorite horror movie list. Please note this list was not formed easily, and comes from forty years of devoted viewing, and hours upon hours of discussion with friends, fellow horror buffs, students and most importantly, my sons, who are my partners-in-crime, and the most astute of horror movie lovers.

To be on my list, a movie must make me uneasy even before I watch it. If I am flipping through the channels and see “Blair Witch Project,” or “The Exorcist,” or any of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise flicks, I immediately become uncomfortable, and assess the conditions. Is it night or day? Am I alone or are the boys around? Am I feeling fragile or strong, mentally?

Notice that many of my choices are more of the modern bent. I could barely take the pillow away from my face during “The Taking of Deborah Logan,” and I finished neither “Midsommar” nor “The Witch” all the way through. I had to watch the endings in the light of day, or I knew I wouldn’t sleep.

And “Hereditary?” Less said about it the better, except that Toni Collette is a genius.

Happy Halloween! These are in no specific order and all scare the bejeesus out of me for different reasons.

  1. Blair Witch Project- Sometimes in life, it’s what you can’t see that is truly terrifying.
  2. The Exorcist- Besides the obvious pea-soup exposition, it’s a truly beautiful cinematic experience.
  3. Halloween (1978)- I’m not a slasher film fan, but this movie contains the sounds of my childhood Halloweens. A classic.
  4. Hereditary- can’t even…..
  5. Paranormal Activity (1-3)- These often appear all at once in a marathon capacity, and it’s tradition for me to watch all three at least once a season.
  6. The Taking of Deborah Logan- Aged dementia taken a step further.
  7. Midsommar- The last scene just so monumentally disturbing. The whole movie so disturbing, and breaks so many social norms.
  8. The Witch- The black goat.
  9. The Exorcism of Emily Rose- The actors filming the barn scene admitted in interviews that they were truly frightened during the scene.
  10. The Babadook- Family dysfunction taken to new heights.
  11. The Conjuring- I still close my eyes so I don’t have to see the thing on top of the dresser. Want to play “Hide-and-Clap?”

Ok that’s 11. There’s no wiggle room here.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about some horror novels, and not by Stephen King.

Miscellania

My Halloween movie post is not ready, so here are a few things you might find interesting but which do not rate an entire post:

Yesterday I was caught up on the laundry for 32 minutes. Then my son walked in the door. Remember, that’s what you can accomplish when your children leave home. Never let go of the dream.

Fairbanks, Alaska received the most votes on low-humidity places to visit in September. Thanks to all respondents. But get this: at the time of this writing, while Fairbanks is 38 degrees, humidity is a whopping 87 percent. It is 51 degrees here with 66 percent humidity. I dunno.

The Container Store has a chip clip in the form of a pig that squeals four times when you press it. The implication is clear. I bought it. I had no choice.

There are twenty different ways to wear a Breton shirt, according to the email I just received. Twenty. Including wearing the shirt on your head as a mask. Those people in London have way too much time on their hands.

The Metropolitan streams free live opera, and last night I watched a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro. Just wow. Too late for that performance now, but others are streamed regularly.

My yard squirrels are spoiled. One in particular is now comfortable enough to walk into my foyer and stare at me with his little hands clasped together adorably in front of him as if to say, “Yo, bitch. Peanuts?”

Things to ban right now: the heart-shape people make with their hands which they then post on social media, plus the terms “new normal,” “unprecedented times” and “uncertain times.” This will never be normal. It is not unprecedented nor uncertain. Read a history textbook. And if anything has ever been made right by posting a heart with your hands through the sunrise, please let me know. I’ll be right on it.

A murder hornet was recently captured alive in the U.S. for the first time. An entomologist snagged him in a net. He remains free on bond and despite appearances, is not considered a flight risk.

Something I am loving right now is the Modern Citizen clothing brand, but I must say to them: your models are six-feet tall and your dresses and skirts still come down to their mid-calf. You must know that short women like myself cannot buy your clothes without looking like an Olsen twin. Bummer.

While driving to Philly today the same strange-looking airplane kept flying low overhead. It passed me one way, then another, then another. I wish I knew enough about aircraft to know what kind it was. It was some kind of strange hybrid, like that new Jeep pickup, or one of those camelback crickets, which actually resembles some kind of terrifying mutant spider.  And I also couldn’t help but think that if the plane crashed on top of me it would make a great blog.

Just saw on Instagram that there are supposedly workers in the Edinburg zoo whose job it is just to pick up penguins who topple over. Turns out the zoo is close to the airport, so when the penguins stare up at the planes, they topple over. I want this job. I need this job.

Spikka Dolphin?

In 2016 I was at a viewing for a friend’s mother, and inevitably, the subject of the election was raised. My outspoken conservative views hardly a secret, a friend put me on the spot after I voiced my intense distaste for Hillary Clinton.

“I’m surprised at you, Mary,” she said, her hostility barely concealed. “You’re such an intelligent, accomplished woman. Why don’t you want an intelligent, accomplished woman as president?”

“I do,” I replied. “But it has to be the right woman.”

I liked my answer. I still like it. But judging from the way she stalked off, I think it’s fair to assume she didn’t. I was surprised, because I had heard that it would be a non-partisan funeral, so I had worn my best non-partisan outfit.  

A waste of perfectly good black rayon.

Talking politics nowadays with anyone outside your own party line is at best, contentious. Bi-partisan debate is like an American trying to order creamed chipped beef on toast from a French waiter off of a French menu. Like a morning person trying to explain the quiet delights of waking at dawn to a night owl. Like a human trying to explain the Kardashians to an alien.

I try not to broach politics with liberal friends, because I literally have no idea what they are talking about. None. I don’t understand the words coming out of their mouths, or why they are putting those words in the order they have chosen (I know, I know, it’s because Republicans are so illiterate and stupid, we don’t understand the simplest of concepts, right? I’ve heard them all, trust me). When I talk to a liberal, I feel like Tom Hanks in the movie “Splash,” waiting for the beautiful Darryl Hannah to speak, and then just hearing dolphin noises. On the rare occasion that politics does come up with a liberal friend, I say very little and keep my side brief and to the point. All they hear are dolphin noises too, so why bother?

I try to stay informed. I am devoted to Fox News, but I watch CNN and MSNBC when I can, hoping partial immersion might help with my confusion, and that I might begin to at least understand some of their dolphin language. Much of the buzz recently has come from their intense dislike of Amy Coney Barrett.

Shocker.

Amy Coney Barrett will most likely be nominated tomorrow to fill the vacancy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court. Trump wants to fill the seat left vacant by a woman with a woman, understandably, and I’m left with the question:

Is she the right woman?

My research was rudimentary, but today I offer you ten fun facts about ACB, hoping it will help you begin to decide for yourself if she is the right person, the right woman, for such a prestigious appointment:

  1. Summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School
  2. Clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia
  3. Nicknamed “The Conenator” by other law clerks, for the ability to destroy flimsy legal arguments.
  4. Married to Jesse Barrett, a prosecutor with a private practice
  5. Mother to seven children, one with Down’s Syndrome, two adopted from Haiti.
  6. Federal judge for three years
  7. If nominated, will be the sixth Catholic Justice
  8. Is an “Originalist” or a “Textualist”- meaning she applies the original intention of the writers of the Constitution or the statute at hand
  9. Once said to Dianne Feinstein: “If you’re asking me whether I take my Catholic faith seriously, I do, though I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge.”
  10. Member of conservative Christian faith group called People of Praise- this group teaches that husbands should assume authority as the head of a household.

I like her. I’m honored to say I will be part of the beginning of her lifelong appointment.

The nomination interviews should be fairly brutal. Liberals don’t want her and will vet her to within an inch of her life. But remember, she was already thoroughly vetted by Democrats in 2018, so unless she has taken to crack-pipe smoking or animal abuse in the last twenty-four months, my guess is?

She’s in.

Taking the weekend off to work on content, see you Monday.

Dog-Eared Book Club

If you’re hoping for a post dripping with sex and sarcasm, today is not the day. Today is the first post from the “Dog-Eared Book Club.” Reading is as big a part of me as sex, happiness and travel, so here we go.

I didn’t retire from teaching because my husband passed away. His death just rushed the process. I retired because I grew weary of trying to persuade technology-addicted teenagers to read the books on my syllabus. Any English teacher can tell you that it’s the kiss of death when you no longer care if your students just look up the summaries online, and that’s where I was in 2017, my thirtieth and final year of high school English teaching.

“Why do we have to read?” they would ask. Gee, I don’t know, why do you have to breathe, eat, drink, and move? Early in my career I knew how to answer that question. By 2017, I had nothing.

“I’m not reading this,” a student would say.

“So, don’t,” I would answer. “Marinate in your ignorance.”

Yikes. Time to go.

Rather than wax on about how reading defined my childhood, my high school and college years, my professional writing career and beyond, perhaps I will let that trickle into my posts gradually. I will simply start at the beginning. The books that molded me into the reader, writer, student, teacher, mother, and human being that I am. I managed to whittle it down to ten, and it wasn’t easy. All ten books sit in exalted positions in my personal bedroom library, a very small and select collection. These books are never more than an arms-length away from my heart:

  1. Eric by Doris Lund
  2. Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther
  3. David’s Story by Marie Rothenberg
  4. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
  5. Mrs. Mike by Benedict and Nancy Freedman
  6. Watership Down by Richard Adams
  7. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
  8. Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
  9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  10. Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly

The first three deal with sick or injured children who overcame great odds: Eric Lund, who died of leukemia, Johnny Gunther, who battled a brain tumor and David Rothenberg, who in 1983 when he was six years old suffered burns over 90 percent of his body when his father burned him alive in a hotel room (David recently passed in 2018 at the age of 42, a very advanced age for such a severe burn victim).

Maybe I was a little morbid as a young girl, but the inspiration I gleaned from these stories lives on today, as charities such as St. Jude’s, the Children’s Burn Foundation and March of Dimes continue to be organizations I stridently and aggressively support.

Charlotte’s Web and Watership Down are not books to me, they are family tomes, and characters like Charlotte, Fern, Templeton, Wilbur, Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig, and Blackberry are not abstract literary characters, but close friends. I revisit them often, just to say hello.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume showed me how stream-of-consciousness dialogue can connect you to a character, a plot and a setting like nothing else. This book is one of my best friends, and made me want to be a writer.

The romance books: Mrs. Mike, the love story of Boston girl Mary O’Fallon and Mike Flannigan, a sergeant in the Canadian Mounties, and the life they built together in such a harsh, unforgiving land defined to me what it means to sacrifice for love. And the sweet, pure, ethereally-beautiful love story in Seventeenth Summer, the falling in love of Angie Duluth and Jack Morrow was (is) for me the apex, the pinnacle, of what it means to fall in love. I still get chills when I re-read the chapter when Jack begs Angie not to go away to college, because he can’t bear to be without her.

Sigh.

I re-read Jane Eyre every year. Jane and Rochester. My God. And Velveteen Rabbit? I read it every Easter, and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

So that’s the list, for now.

Sex and sarcasm tomorrow, I promise.