"This is It" was finally it.

I can't believe I'm posting this.

With the grotesque media explosion that followed Michael Jackson' death in addition to all the legal controversy and money being made from every possible aspect of his passing, I was not much interested in seeing the movie. The fact that it came out so quickly did little to assuage my skepticism. Even terrible movies take years to make. How could this hastily produced film possibly be anything other than a sham tribute and a thrown-together mess? And could I really participate in what I perceived to be a we're-not-even-gonna-bother-veiling-it plan to capitalize on his death (by Halloween, lest the buzz of death fade!)?

However, Dan put it best when he said if we were willing to travel to London for the concert (as we of course planned and did …except for the concert part), we can certainly travel to Newington (20 minutes away) to see the movie.

At best I thought it would be a trashy E! True Hollywood Story deal hyped with a promise of NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE which would undoubtedly disappoint. I didn't expect to lose my breath listening to Michael Jackson sing Human Nature as I’ve never heard it before at the movie’s start. I didn't expect to be in something like pain as I saw what this concert would have been. I didn't expect to be overcome with gratitude that this footage was captured.

Rather than the ever-pervasive faux reverence and manufactured Ta-da! effect which I’ve grown to expect whenever anyone brings up MJ’s name, mercifully, the movie strips the story down. It husks and discards the thick layers of controversy surrounding his childhood and his adulthood; his life and his death. What is left is the story of a man. He is a musician, a dancer, an artist. His talent is Divine. His faith is not in art but is art itself, which enables (compels?) him to realize visions beyond the imaginable. He's taken lovers of music to this beyond. He was planning to take them there again with a 50-concert series in London during the summer of 2009. “This Is It” is only that; 40 hours of the rehearsal footage boiled down to the length of a feature film.

The movie is a look at how he does it; an artist's process. It is watching the work, the actual labor behind Michael Jackson’s brilliance. Songs like Billie Jean and Man In the Mirror weren’t just born out of him in perfect form. The movie shows him shaping his vision. It is watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. It is seeing Shakespeare, pages crumpled on the floor, scratching out the words, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

While we’ve grown accustomed to pop stars held up by teams of talented producers, musical directors, vocal coaches, and choreographers, whose output is as much these artists’ as it is mine, Michael Jackson’s work is Michael Jackson’s. There is no Michael Jackson machine---a staff of musicians who arrange everything and he need only show up. He is the machine. Though the aforementioned team of players is present, MJ is the one running the show. In fact, many of these music professionals working by MJ’s side admit that Michael knows his music better than anyone and it’s their job to keep up. He gently leads his musical director to the perfect tempo and key. When concert director Kenny Ortega (who also directed the film as well as MJ’s Dangerous and History tours) asks Jackson how, without a visual cue, he will know when to start a song that is to begin after a film introduction, Jackson says he’ll “feel it” and both Ortega and the audience has every confidence that he will. It is so evident that he is a channel; obvious that he has a clear vision but must patiently and tenderly lead his cast of dancers and musicians through its execution. He is direct, but he is also humble and polite as those around him agree.

It is exhilarating to watch him work. He beat boxes his way to a perfect arrangement. When dancers half his age are out of breath after a particularly energetic dance segment, Jackson wants to try it again. 45 years of performing under his belt and Jackson emphasizes the importance of rehearsal. (Is Britney Spears doing that?) From the look of it, the concert would have been incredible. Amazingly elaborate sets and 3-D technology. Accompanying films for Smooth Criminal and Thriller (the latter of which would have had Michael emerging on stage from the belly of a giant spider). Dancing that, even in this day of dance programming on every channel, I had never before seen. (When bits of this footage first started airing---a clip of him rehearsing “They don’t care about us” with dance steps drawn out in such a way so as to appear like MJ and his dancers are in slow motion--- I felt the deep throb of the loss of this concert I never saw.)

Michael says more than once that he is doing it “for love.” The work is all “for the love.” In an age where artistry is often second to celebrity, it is great to hear an artist of this magnitude still doing it for “the love.” Certainly reports have said that this concert series was MJ’s ticket out of financial ruin, but one need only watch this film to see that art, not money, was Michael’s driving force. Money is not fuel enough for what he was planning to do.

One of the most interesting parts of the film is watching Jackson’s transition from the shy and awkward man the world is used to into the self-assured man who becomes him when the music starts. His posture changes. His walk strengthens. He hears one note and he's in it. He can't help himself. His shoulders broaden, he grows taller. (I was shocked by how tall he seemed despite my knowing he was only around 5’10.) I’ll even say this: There is sexuality there. Like most great musicians and performers, there is passion and sensuality. There is a confidence that even I had forgotten Michael had.

Though the movie certainly depicts talent as close to magic as we’ve ever seen, I hesitate to call it a "celebration of his life," that red bow of a phrase with which exploitation is often wrapped. Did it allow me, a life-long fan, to celebrate him? Certainly. But it allowed others in the audience to snicker at his perfectionism; to laugh at the way his body contorts, how it throws him around the stage even as he only half-sings a song during rehearsal. (The power and energy that runs through him seems so strong at times that it pulses through his body causing even his wrists to buckle and his hands to flail into dance.) A less enamored eye than mine might have interpreted his “saving” his voice during run-throughs or his stopping mid-song to firmly explain how a certain pause must be held (in order for it to "sizzle,") as prima donna-esque. (I saw it as an artist’s commitment to himself, to his tool, to the music, to his fans.) In the film, Ortega is not showing a good or a bad side, just Michael Jackson at work.

I saw the movie on a night in which I was particularly consumed with doubt and it was absolutely restorative. It is nourishment for any artist or any person with a goal. With everything that has transpired in his career and life over the last 15 years, I was grateful to be able to feel what I first felt when I listened to Michael Jackson. His ballads are soul piercing and evoke a sense of togetherness and love and respect for the earth that were so much more accessible to me as a kid. Watching this movie I was transported the way I used to be while listening to him. I felt the hopefulness I used to know so well; when it all seemed as simple as talking to the man in the mirror in order to heal the world.

This Is It would be no less relevant, no less powerful, had Michael Jackson lived. Save a brief scroll of words at the movie's start, were MJ alive, the film could stand as is. It is the story of This Is It, the concert, without the tragic ending. But of course, outside the theater, the ending is tragic. The Michael Jackson principle dancers, a handful of gorgeous and exuberant young men and women who cheered at the foot of the stage during MJ’s rehearsals, lived their dream but only to a point. Dan and I never saw the concert (and gawd, did it look like it was going to be incredible). And the world never got to see Michael Jackson’s comeback.

I’m not so naïve that I’m unaware of the forces other than art that were at work in Michael’s life. A life has many influences. But it was nice for those two hours to see only his musical genius depicted because before anything else---before his death, before the drugs, before the scandals, before the Grammys, before Thriller, before Motown, before he was a five-year-old frontman for his brothers, he was art. He was born art.

I talked on the phone today with Rosie O’Donnell, who’d* you talk to?

I’ve posted this picture before and I plan to post it again whenever there is even a remote reason to do so. By the way, don't you think that guy with Ro and me should have his own morning show?

*Wrong.

Between 10 and 12 this morning, when you guys were busy with your silly little paying jobs I was on hold with Rosie Radio, Rosie O’Donnell’s new Sirius/XM radio program. (Not the whole time...but most of it.) The show doesn’t actually launch until Monday but I read on Rosie’s blog that she was doing a trial run today as she’s been doing for the last couple of weeks. So I called the number, got the busy signal and since I was just sitting at my desk doing research (dawdling around my favorite blogs) I decided to keep trying with the phone on my shoulder as I occupied myself otherwise.

Busy. Busy. Busy. Ring. I nearly hung up on the ringing out of habit.

A chipper young male voice answered the phone, “Rosie Radio! Who’s calling?”

After identifying myself (first and last name like they were going to run my credit report), the guy said that Rosie and friends (childhood pal “Weanie” and Ro’s longtime producer Janette Barber) were talking about going to the doctor and those hospital gowns with the opening in the back and also what they do to combat depression on rainy days. Did I have anything to say on those subjects?

Panic. I rambled at first---something about my hoo-hoo nurse practitioner and then mentioned that I’m one of those people who gets depressed on sunny days more than rainy ones (and also during long winters, the day before my period and high school). The screener seemed interested in my sunny day depression (it’s true---something about the pressure of a nice day and a feeling of being dried out gets me down) and asked me to hold and then he’d have me join the conversation. I was on hold for like three minutes before the happy call screener came back to tell me that they’d no longer be talking about rainy days but thanks for calling.

I returned his thank you with a (phony) chipper thank you of my own and hung up…nearly defeated.

Then I started calling again. There’s more to me than rainy days! There had to be something else they were talking about. Plus, I was sure there was more than one call screener so I knew if I just talked to someone else then that person would surely realize that not only did I have something to add to whatever conversation they were having but that they might want to invite me into the studio as a Rosie’s sidekick (or writer.) I got the busy signal a billion more times and then, much to my surprise, the same chipper young male voice answered the phone again.

I hung up on him.

After all that waiting, I choked and hung up. What am I 15? Plus, who hangs up on people in 2009 when phones aren’t even sold without caller ID anymore?

So I hung up and then felt like a jerk and then did what I always do when I make a stupid mistake…I called Dan.

“Bud, I just called Rosie’s show and I got seized up because the same guy answered and I didn’t want to be a stalker and now I’m so mad at myself and why do I always do shit like this and I don’t want to be afraid and they’re not talking about rain anymore and I’m so stupid.”

“Call back,” he said. “Lo, it’s like a 19-year-old intern answering the phones. Call back.”

So I did. Another, deeper voice picked up. (This could have very well been the same guy but I chose to believe it wasn’t.)

He told me he liked my energy (this comment is part of what makes me think it was the same guy) and asked me if I wanted to play a game. (I didn’t. I don’t love radio games.)

“Sure!” I said.

And while listening in to the show I heard Rosie play a round of “What’s That Sound?” with a lady and then decide not to go on with the game. (It was a terrible game.) Fuck, I thought. They’re going to send me away again.

The guy came back on the phone and said, “Hey Laura. They’re going to be talking about Facebook next, do you have any thoughts or stories about Facebook?”

Jack. Fucking. Pot.

Why yes I do.

He had already warned me that they didn’t want any of that “I’m such a big fan!” stuff so I knew I couldn’t spazz out (as I did when I met her). Spazzy in person can be understood. Spazzy over the phone just sounds crazy. So while on hold I worked to compose myself.

And then I heard Rosie O’Donnell, my childhood hero and adulthood sheroe say, “We’ve got Laura on the phone from New Hampshire. Laura, are you into the whole Facebook thing?”

I swallowed the crazy (though my voice was definitely higher than normal) and off I went. I admitted how in the beginning I used to go in under Dan’s account and poke around not quite ready to make the commitment. When I finally did join myself I quickly received a friend request from one of the biggest douche bags I’ve ever known. (Hint: I know him from high school.) After a few days of sitting on the decision (and this was in the beginning, before I realized just how random one’s FB friend list gets) I ignored his request. I didn’t want him all in my business, seeing my pictures, knowing my birthday. This was just about a year ago (I think to the week) and this decision still haunts me.

Let me tell you why: What if he’s not a douche bag anymore? What if the reason he was a douche bag is because something really terrible happened to him and in the 10 years since I’ve known him he’s become the type of person who teaches orphans how to knit? What does this say about me and my capacity for forgiveness? Am I an angry person? I’ve changed a lot in 10 years and he may have too. Where is my open mind? My compassion?

I know it’s crazy. I’m not under any illusions that this guy lost any sleep over it. I just feel like a jerk.

And Rosie, as expected, got it.

“Oh, you’re like me and you obsess about everything…” she said. “Let it go, Laura. Let it go.”

And she thanked me for calling, said she would send me free stuff and I was put back on the line with the screener who took my address info, etc. (This is the abbreviated version---Weanie got in on the action a bit and Rosie said I’m allowed to reject douche bags…though on the phone call we referred to him as “a bully.”)

After I gave the call screener my info, I grew a pair and asked him if I could stay on the line and listen in and he let me. (I was putting laundry away…Don’t judge me!)

Had the experience ended there I would have been satisfied. I didn’t get banned from calling in and the words that (That?) came out of my mouth made sense in the order in which (Which? Shoot, I thought I had it.) they arrived. And I got through the call without screaming, “I love you Rosie!" in her ear.

But it didn’t end there.

I’m listening, listening, listening and the conversation takes a wonderful turn into a subject in which I consider myself to be, and I don’t think I’m giving myself too much credit here, a bit of an expert.

Popping zits.

(She had the founder of www.popthatzit.com on and was playing clips from the site and asking him how it all began. If you are a zit popper and have a strong stomach, do yourself a favor and check out this site. Videos and videos of people popping zits, lancing boils and stabbing cysts. Do not check it out while eating. One late night in London while Dan and I were in bed checking e-mail and reviewing the day, he and I perused this website. Sick shit but delightful if you’re into that kind of thing. In ultimate Rosie style she gave the guy, whose wife delivered their first child prematurely only days ago, a ton of baby stuff.)

Anyway, I’m listening in, folding Dan’s undies and cracking up. She’s playing audio clips of people screaming in response to these massive, spewing zits and I’m dying. One woman called in to admit she filmed one of the videos. I’m in heaven.

And then the screener comes back and says we’re talking about popping zits do you have any passionate feelings on the subject and want to come back on the line?

HOO! RA!

I’ll never forget the first time I realized my love of popping zits was out of the ordinary. I was sitting in Economics class (we’ll save for later what the fuck I was doing in an Economics class) and the kid in front of me had a mountainous, white, ready-to-burst-with-only-the-slightest-bit-of-effort pimple on the back of his neck. I actually asked him if I could pop it (what’s wrong with me?) and in response got the meanest, nastiest look I’ve ever received to this day. (And can you blame him?)

I told the screener that I live for this shit and once again I was on the phone with ROSIE O’DONNELL talking zits. I wasn’t even nervous this time around.

“I feel like these are my people,” I said of the other callers after she introduced me (again as Laura from New Hampshire).

I told the story of how the good lordy blessed me with a husband (oh Dan I’m so sorry) who has…headne. For whatever reason (and he shampoos daily) the guy gets tiny, poppable whiteheads on his head...quite often.

“On his forehead?” Rosie asked.

“No, on his scalp. Sometimes his hair will part in such a way that I see one and my eyes zero in and he says to me, ‘Look at my eyes. Stop looking at my head!’”

Sometimes at night in bed I break out the flashlight like a miner or lean in with the lamp off my bedside table to take inventory of his headne. He says it’s abuse but mostly he offers them up like gifts to me. (“You wanna pop something?” he’ll ask. Soul mates.)

I told Rosie, “When things are rough between us sometimes this is what keeps me hanging on.”

And I got a giant, classic, Rosie O’Donnell laugh.

Bliss.

She’s also a popper and we talked about having tissues or paper towels ready for the yield.

“You have to get your props ready,” I said.

Loved it. Loved every second of it.

We wrapped it up and I was back on the line with the screener. He asked for my address again and I started to say that they had already taken my information when he said, “Oh yeah, this is Laura Mellow.” I’m hoping this is indicative of my future status as a regular caller. Sort of like Howard Stern’s Wack Pack.

I mean, what else do people do between 10 and 12 every day?

We're like the Sopranos with red hair.

I finally figured out what Dan and I are going to wear while we hand out candy at Bec's this year.

I promised myself I wasn't going to even get in my car (never mind do any traveling) this weekend with all the errands and napping I need to catch up on having been away so much lately. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself heading down to RI Sunday morning with Dan to enjoy a little birthday cake (happy belated b-day, Dad) with the fam. The whole fam. We were short a brother-in-law and a couple of nieces, but really the draw was having all four of my sisters in the same place at the same time. This rarely happens. (Katie J. and Savvy J. are in town until mid-November.) I was the lone holdout for the reunion so in an effort to make it a Very Brady Sunday Dinner, Dan and I schlepped down in the morning and got back to NH at midnight. Yeah, I want an effin' pat on the back.

The 'rents are selling the house (a topic I'm not quite ready to Spew about just yet) so it may have been the last time we were all under the same roof of the home in which we grew up. It was a good day despite all the driving. My dad had a fire going in a hollowed out tree trunk in the back yard which infused the crisp air with the warm smell of burning wood. The sun shone on the fallen leaves which covered the grass in a colorful sheet down the lawn all the way to the river. We had fresh banana bread and coffee around the kitchen table and Dan and I even tossed a football around. Later in the dining room we drank wine, ate my mom's spaghetti and meatballs and had inappropriate dinner conversation just like old times. (Dirty Chirl didn't make it until the end of dinner so the conversation waited for her arrival to really take its inevitable turn.)

At one point after dessert Cherie and I were sitting at the cleared table talking (she was trying to convince me to stay 'til Tuesday which couldn't possibly happen given my craving for my bed...I mean my husband), when my mom poked her head in the room to say how cute it was to see the two of us sitting there. Having my mom observe this interaction, sitting at the "adult" table drinking red wine with Cherie (and not having her sneak it from the box of Franzia), knowing my husband was in the other room with Cherie's husband watching the Yankees gave me this feeling I've been experiencing a lot lately; a new yet somehow nastolgic feeling of a different phase of life. It's like for a second I get to see a passing of time not filled with what-ifs and unknowns, but through familiar, home-colored glasses. I can remember sitting at that same table, chin in my hands, listening while my mom and her sisters (she too has four) sat talking. All we needed was a couple of packs of Carlton 100's (Menthols for Kath...I mean Chirl) and I would have sworn it was 1987.

I'm glad I went, particularly if it was the last time we gather there. But with all the emotion that is tied to the selling of that house, I'm glad I left too.

Plus, um, I think I have a deadline coming up or something.

Melliterary Spew

I Mellittered all day Friday which is why I didn't get a chance to Spew. I also had today (and have tomorrow) off from Molly duty so it's been such a treat to put in full days of work. (I never thought such a sentence would ever issue forth from my finger tips.) I've been getting to the desk before 9am and losing the hours until darkness. Friday I had to reluctantly pull myself away to head out to dinner in Portsmouth to celebrate Dan getting a raise. (Congrats again bud...I found out that he got the raise when I was still in Memphis and the news may or may not have been greeted with a joke about him getting 'Raise Head' upon my return home.)

(I just asked Dan if it was inappropriate for me to write about 'Raise Head' and he was more uncomfortable with my reporting his raise.)

(Is the dirty talk gratuitous?)

(This is really how my brain works.)

(One more thing---At Dan's celebratory dinner I had a Moroccan cous cous with tomatoes and shallots, nuts, and butternut squash all spiced up and served with the most tender leg of lamb I've ever eaten. I haven't stop thinking about it since.)

Anyway all the writing time has really helped move the Bookish along. I can't say that it has a clear spine yet or even a clear direction but I can say, and I don't think this is giving too much away, that there are many, many pages of it. (Pretty sure 'many, many pages of it' is how Virginia Woolf would have described Mrs. Dalloway---holla atcha VH---in its early stages.)

A few more days like this and the December 1 deadline will seem less terrible and horrible and awful (which isn't to say that the result won't be a hot mess because it most certainly will). Lately it's been more about organizing and scraping together pieces and bits of writing from the last couple of years that are scattered all over the place. I didn't realize how much I had written until I started doing this. Nothing is finished and I hate most of it, but every now and then there's a line that I like which is all I could hope for from a rough draft.

I'm still here at 9:15pm, writing now with a glass of wine. My vision of being a writer has always included evenings at the computer (in an upstairs and away from the world office overlooking^* the ocean) with a glass of wine, though I think this has happened maybe twice. A more accurate picture would be me in pajama bottoms at noon with no bra on underneath the t-shirt I wore to bed with a wool hat on covering a web of straggly red hair.

Part of the reason I'm still here (and not in fetal position on the spoffice floor sucking my thumb after so many hours at my desk) is because I snuck in a walk today shortly after 3 o'clock. This is my favorite time to take a walk in the fall. The sun is still warm but lower in the sky and everything takes on that golden hue of afternoon sun. If wisdom could show itself, I think it would look like afternoon sun.

If the product of horny hippies could show itself, it would look like this:

(Missing from photo: Bec and Jeff's teenagers, Sammy and Alex.)

*For my grammar club: I was going to have this sentence say 'an office which overlooks the ocean' but I wasn't sure whether it was 'an office which overlooks' or 'an office that overlooks' so I just avoided it altogether. I looked it up as I have many, many times before and it has to do with some business about a restrictive clause versus a nonrestrictive clause and it hurt my brain and I am still unsure. Any insight? If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know. (I'm pretty sure a restrictive clause is when Santa uses the belt and a nonrestrictive clause is when he lets the elves drink in the basement where, since they're gonna do it anyway, at least he knows they'll be safe.)

You'll never guess whom I ran into in Memphis...

Friend and lover Justin Timberlake is a Memphis native. A Memphian is the term they use. (Also the name of the mysterious sea creature who wanders the Mississippi and sticks his neck up from time to time or so it sounds.)

One last note on this picture: OH MY GAWD, THE HANDS! It almost made me lose my crush. JT's fingers are Gollum-esque (or Memphibious) and seem like they have some sort of vampirish/Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt fingernails going on. (Creepier still is Jessica Biel's, I mean my...fe fi fo fum giant hand.) Still we shared quite a night.

One other thing, the title of this blog: "You'll never guess whom..." Whom? Who? Normally when faced with such a conundrum I would look it up avoid the word completely (the alternative post title was "He's from Memphis and I love him") but I wanted to go for it. Anyone want to weigh in? I am the subject of the sentence (as I did the running into)and my lovah Justin is the object (to whom I ran...and gave head---pretty sure that's the example they use in the grammar textbooks) so I think it should be whom. But, I've never seen nor heard someone say, "You'll never guess whom I ran into." (Or is it that you are the subject as you're the one never guessing and Justin's the object?) What say you? (Yous?)

It was a week of nieces pieces. Had a wonderful few days with Mollusk (Molly, who has infinite nicknames including Maldred, Molly Moo, Lou, Louie, Fally Molly and Dan's latest creation: Cerebral Malsy) last week while Bec was away. We made apple pie and banana bread, laughed our tired faces off, and when she asked to sleep in my bed at night I, of course, said yes. She had a pretty hacking cough going on and one night at 4:30am I had to set up a makeshift pillow-bed and have her camp out in the bathroom with me while I ran a hot shower in an attempt to loosen up her cough. It worked and it felt good to have some sense that after six years of watching this kid, I know what I'm doing.

Then there was Savvy J. whom (other than being completely ineffective as a food source) I felt pretty capable of managing. (I would have her on my lap facing me and the kid would go from a wide gummy smile to staring like a locked laser gun at my chest. Then she would execute a slow and controlled---she's got abs for a near four-month-old---descent to my jugs into which she would smoosh her face and eventually cry. Not the first tears of disappointment my rack has absorbed.) But I was able to walk her to sleep in my arms, and had her listening to her first notes of a musical, Carol Burnett's "Little Girls" off the Annie soundtrack and logged some rocking chair time with her in front of a fire. Effing bliss.

All this QT with the nieces gave me a little baby buzz. The same ol' thoughts and questions start creeping in: Should we? Could we? Would drinking through a pregnancy cause that much harm? Knowing that my age and circumstances are somewhat conducive to baby-making (married, health insurance, a bathroom I could lock myself in), the idea is a little exciting at times. It's interesting to feel adult enough that a surprise pregnancy is no longer at the top of my things-to-be-avoided list. (The wet spot Bikinis have taken that honor.) We could do this if we wanted to. (Well, I've learned that's not actually a given but I choose to still think somewhat positively.)

Anyway, it was interesting that as all these thoughts whirled about, I realized I was a few days late. So yesterday I bought a box of pregnancy tests (picked up with a prescription medicine which felt ironic and then concerning and then bad before inspiring its own line of questioning and angst) and I took the test this morning. Always a strange experience, as any woman who has ever taken one knows. It's a feminine rite of passage, taking a pregnancy test. Some women do it with a friend, one person to be there for support. Some, I imagine, do it with their significant other. I've always done it alone. Whether or not I'm taking on a tenant is something I prefer to process by myself. It's all so commonplace and casual for such a momentous change. This little plastic stick that looks like a urine paintbrush makes all the big decisions. It's like a fortune cookie with really high stakes. Some women look right away. Some endure the two-minute wait period. I like to watch as the urine passes over the indication windows and the stripes, plus signs or minus signs surface like images on a Polaroid picture.

I'm not pregnant. NOT pregnant. And I have to admit that before relief washed over me, I felt a faint disappointment. I was surprised by this. Maybe it's possibility in its purest form that is so intoxicating and the drabness of certainty that comes with one line (rather than two life-affirming ones) that is such a buzzkill. Maybe I just sorta wanted to be pregnant in some far off place in my brain. Still, disappointment turned to relief pretty quickly.

Last night as Dan and I lay (were laying? Lain? got laid?) on the couch, we talked about what would come from whatever results this morning's test showed. We both agreed that the timing was not ideal. We both agreed that timing is rarely, if ever, ideal. (Though this would probably measure as the lowest level of ideal if I was making a bar graph. I just met Justin...) Still, if it happened, we'd have to do some serious thinking.

But it didn't happen (as far as the test shows) so we're off the serious-thinking-hook for a minute. We can resist full-blown maturity for a while longer. Thank gawd because right this minute, I don't think I have it in me.

That's what she said.

See?

Okay, hear me out...

Eh...

After spending Monday through Thursday of last week at my sister Becky's house, I hopped a plane Friday morning and found myself in Memphis, TN. In a plan that was conceived and born in less than 48 hours, Katie's fiancee (the ever-generous Gary) bought me a plane ticket so I could keep my sister and the little chub-nugget Savvy J. company while he piloted a last-minute international flight that took him away for a few days. Busy and important as ever, I was able to clear my schedule.

Most Notable meal: Gus' famous spicy fried chicken with baked beans and slaw. Also, fried pickles and fried green tomatoes. Coconut pie for dessert. (Shocking that I lived to write this entry.)

Most Notable Bonding Moment With Niece: After two days of baby back-up, Savvy chose to have epic baby blow-out while in my arms as I was rocking her to sleep. Did you know that stuff goes right up the back and through their onesies (and on to innocent aunties)?

Second Most Notable Bonding Moment: Going on a walk in the Memphis sun (no snow here!) with Savvy strapped to me via modern ergonomic papoose and having her fall asleep with her little faced nuzzled into my belly while I stroked her soft hair. (Could almost...almost...make me want one. This, despite getting the aforementioned blow-out on my hands.)

The trip has been fab and I head back to NH and to my own bed (!) tomorrow. (The crazies have started acting up---maybe due to lack of sleep---and I found myself up half the night worrying about the mere 30 minutes I have to catch the plane from Detroit---where I stop---to Manchester. I so don't want to miss this flight. Plus, Katie told me once about having to stay in Detroit and how she was put up in a hotel room full of roaches. I'd prefer an airport bathroom floor, thank you very much.)

As far as the Melliterary Spew goes:

I haven't worked on The Bookish one bit since last Monday. Let's hope December 1 comes late this year.

Ribs today!

Lovers and their loving love

Battle scars.

I’m having a bad day. Nobody (besides Joe Lantana) is dying, I’m not getting evicted, and my car (cross your goddamned fingers!) is running, often dependably. Still a bad day. When Dan left for work this morning we were in a fight. No phones were thrown (this time), we weren’t evening yelling, but there was an unhappiness that sat between us even as we hugged goodbye. The uneasiness about this is only compounded by the fact that I am sleeping away from home for the next three nights. (Religious retreat.) (Not really.) With Bec and husband Jeff away in California for work, I am playing the role of responsible adult and will be getting Molly fed, bathed and to and from school until Thursday night when they get home. (I stay there versus having her at my place because they’re 45 minutes away and I question my ability to get Molly to school on time---or at all---from here.) So it’s not like there’s really time to make up if you know what I’m saying. (Really I just mean make up, the non-italicized way.)

I won’t get into the specifics of the fight (except to say that I was right) and I am confident that the whole to-do will be to-done by lunchtime. In fact, I already called him to say, I love you and let’s move on. Can you say bigger (GIANTER , MAMMOUTHIER) person? But despite having made peace for the sake of making peace, I’m still a bit troubled by the whole thing.

The only reason I write about it here is because, well, I’m thinking about it. I arrived here today wondering if I would talk about how I’m being brainwashed by The Secret, or my love for all things Suze Orman, or how yesterday I listened to the Yankees game on the radio with Dan while playing John Madden (whom I kept calling Steve Madden) football on X-Box and think I should be nominated for some type of best wife award, or about how Dan and I replaced my windshield wipers and now I’m feeling ready to open our own garage, or that the winter clothes are officially unpacked and hanging in the closet, or how I’m wondering about getting an IUD, or about how I’m falling off the gluten-free wagon and gained three pounds in one weekend, or how I’m wondering how to nonchalantly slip the IUD thing into conversation on this blog.

I arrived here thinking I would just Spew some randomness in an effort to post something (the creative process of the world’s finest artists, I’m sure) but I’m not feeling like being all tangent-y. I’m in a bad mood and I’m pouting and that’s all I’m capable of on this particular Monday morning.

Usually I would leave this stuff out. I’ve depicted plenty of lovely, tender moments Dan and I have shared because they really happen and it’s nice to capture them. But it seems a bit false to portray a seemingly perfect union when the truth is that sometimes Dan is a douche and I am a (GIANTER, MAMMOUTHIER) bitch. That’s what I was thinking about when I sat down to write this morning. I readied myself to feign insightfulness or humor or irreverence when really all I had to offer was cranky. I can’t get in the habit of faking it. (So. Many. Jokes: 1) That’s what she said 2) Like I did with Dan all weekend or 3) I guess there weren’t that many.) Really though, I can’t write about being all honest, blah, blah, blah, and then skip the hard parts. I didn’t want to write a screw-the-gas-bill-I’m-turning-on-the-heat filler piece. I wasn’t ready to move on from my state of general crappiness.

Now I am.

Melliterary Spew:

I got stuck in six-hours of Columbus Day Weekend traffic on Friday, that’s why I’m late. I’m still working on The Bookish, that’s wazzup. I missed some writing days last week due to a two-day visit (and a three-day hangover) with GBFFE Mattie and sister Dirty Chirl, but it was worth it.

Also notable is that Dan and I saw Steve Martin play the banjo with The Steep Canyon Rangers in Boston last week. (Hoping to write more on this.) The neat part for me was that writer Dave Barry opened up the show. As a kid, I used to seek out his syndicated humor column in the Providence Journal every Sunday morning. I would grab the newspaper off the porch (the Issues and Ideas section, was it?) and sit next to the heater on the kitchen floor where I’d drink my coffee (if the in utero consumption doesn’t count, I’ve been on the stuff since about 11-years-old) and laugh my face off. The real treat though was when my family would travel to my grandmother’s house in Miami and I could read his column in the actual newspaper (I think his picture was in color!) for which he wrote, The Miami Herald. I loved his writing, still do, but more than that I couldn’t believe that this was his job; that this was a job. Funny essays? Once a week? Tiny picture next to it which could not possibly show my thighs? Sold. I used to try to emulate his writing style and, thinking about it now, I realize what an effect the guy had on my writing. (Sorry, Dave.)

Even though his opening ended up being mostly a funny question and answer period with Steve Martin, it was a neat surprise to see him in the flesh. (I had no idea until the day of the show that he would be there.)

I can’t help but think it fits into all the hero talk I’ve been doing lately. That's Melliteray Motivation.

Maybe I can self-publish The Bookish too.

I wrote the article which follows on the Joyce Maynard reading last week. Normally when one wants to pitch an article to a newspaper, it should be done prior to the event. I wasn't sure if I wanted to live the experience or write about it, so I decided not to pitch it beforehand. During the discussion I took a few notes and a couple of pictures and knew I could throw something together. Then, two days after the reading, I pitched it. This is not how someone gets something published in a daily newspaper. Based on my timing, I knew it wouldn't sell but I decided to write and finish the article anyway, just to keep the skill honed.

I have to thank Mrs. Meyer, my 12th grade Journalism teacher, for teaching me enough to carry me through a freelance gig at a newspaper. Her teachings were basic: Tell the entire truth, be objective, and tell the entire truth. This, coupled with an ability to replicate the tone of newspaper writing, got me my first steady paycheck for writing. The editor I worked for gave me enough news to keep me busy and paid and I delivered and, gasp, never missed a deadline. (I only miss my own personal deadlines.) My work was clean, he said, and I realized I knew more than I thought about this type of writing. (Thanks again, Mrs. Meyer.)

I quit writing for the newspaper almost two years ago because I realized that if I covered another town meeting (where the steady freelance money seemed to be) I would be sprinkling Parmesan cheese and freshly grated pepper on my soul for the devil's enjoyment. Even when I started working mainly on features, I was so turned off by the whole experience that it was easy to walk away.

Now I'm thinking of going back. When I sent the late pitch to the editor whom I had written for before, he said to let him know if I was interested in doing any more freelance work. Besides being pretty validating (I had felt I did a good job and left on a high note and this confirmed that), the offer is tempting. Being paid to write, even adding another gig to my writing life, would ultimately be good for me. It would boost my self esteem and probably help me with time management. If I want to make a living writing, I need to take advantage of opportunities to be paid to write. The thing is, I am making a living watching Molly, so money isn't my motivation right now; the work is. So, I would potentially be taking time away from my own work to do work that pays, in addition to being otherwise employed.

Then again, I like writing features and always have. There is something pretty awesome about going to a cool event (like a play, concert or book signing) and then being paid to write about it. It's sort of the dream. Plus, all my favorite writers have some background in either newspaper or magazine writing. It can only help me as long as I set good healthy boundaries. One of these would be no more straight news stories. I lacked boundaries last time I held the newspaper gig. Since it was my first writing job and I had very little experience, I thought it my duty to say yes to every event sent my way, feeling I was lucky to have been offered the various beats. I have never given anything less than my best at any job I've ever worked and for me that included saying no very little. In the end, I had no time for my own work. Now I realize the point of being a freelance writer is to be free. I can take as much or as little work on as I want. If, in the end, they don't need me for features work or don't need me because I'm not willing to write 5-10 articles a week as I was before, then that's okay.

So, I'm thinking about it.

One of the last conversation I remember having with this former editor had him explaining to me, as best he could without going against his fiscal responsibilities at the newspaper, how to negotiate for higher pay. He said he wanted a story (a story I had that could have yielded several articles) and that I should "wave the carrot" in front of him to receive greater compensation. The whole thing made me uncomfortable. Can't you just give me what you think I deserve (and pour my drink like you hate your boss)? I did the best I could but I'm not the negotiating type. I'd have to work on that if I were to go back.

Lots of life lessons in this little freelance gig. Boundaries, fear, opportunity. Rich stuff.

Anyway, here's the article that never ran. And, let's be clear, there is definitely a little bias in this article. (Sorry Patsi.)


Local author returns 'home' for reading of new, NH-based novel



If Dan Brown is the face of current New Hampshire authors, Joyce Maynard is the heart. On Tuesday night, Maynard, a best-selling author who grew up in Durham and later raised her own family in Keene, greeted the standing-room-only crowd which showed up at the RiverRun Bookstore for a reading of her latest work, Labor Day, like she was talking to old friends as, in many cases, she was.

The evening, which included a reading followed by a question and answer period and book signing, was the last stop on Maynard’s New England book tour.

“I can’t think of a nicer way than to end it with you all,” said Maynard, who splits her time now between California and Guatemala.

The author is best known for her 1999 memoir At Home In The World and the controversy it stirred up due to her admission of an affair with famous author and notorious recluse J.D. Salinger when he was 53 and Maynard was just 18.

“I never wrote a book about J.D. Salinger. I wrote a book about me,” Maynard said of the memoir which spans her entire life, from her early struggles with an eating disorder and an alcoholic parent to adulthood and her painful divorce from the father of her three children.

Maynard said she still considers the Granite State home and credits small-town NH life with providing much creative material. This is further evidenced by the fact that Labor Day, the intriguing story of events that befall a 13-year-boy and his single-mother when a stranger comes to stay with them over a life-changing Labor Day weekend in 1987, is set in the fictitious town of Holton Mills, NH.

Maynard said it was the fear of having three driving teenagers out on the winter roads of NH that ultimately pushed her west; a worry any NH parent could understand. And Maynard, despite successes such as being first published in the New York Times Magazine at age 18, having had a novel, To Die For, made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman, and a best-selling memoir under her belt, is still a warm and relatable NH parent.

Fitting then, that Labor Day was conceived and born at the MacDowell Colony, an artist residency program, located in Peterborough, NH. Having taken six weeks of the two-month residency to write another as yet unpublished memoir, Maynard was not sure how she would spend the last 12 days of the program. Not wanting to waste the opportunity and such an ideal writing environment, the author explained how she said a prayer for a story to come, went to bed, and woke up with the voice of Henry, Labor Day’s 13-year-old narrator, in her head as well as the idea for the story. She finished the novel in 10 days.

“I wrote it fast because I couldn't wait to see how the story was going to turn out,” Maynard said, adding that the book was a gift New Hampshire gave to her.

Though Adele, the narrator’s mother in the novel, and Maynard have similarities including, as the author explained, being a single parent in a small NH town, a mother of sons, an incurable romantic, and someone who does not always follow the rules, Maynard said the character is not a self-portrait. A comfort to hear considering the novel is based around Adele’s decision to house an escaped convict over the long holiday weekend. Maynard also explained that though the premise may sound like a thriller of the blood and guts variety, it is actually more of a love story.

“It’s probably the most hopeful book I ever wrote,” she said.

Someone with less tenacity than Maynard might have lost her own hope when it came time to get the Labor Day published. Despite having five novels and four nonfiction works to her credit, Maynard had difficulty getting the publishing world to take on this latest work.

Maynard said “the literary world was not waiting with bated breath” for her next book since in the 10 years since At Home In The World came out, Maynard wrote two novels which were unable to garner encouraging sales figures. The question of whether these poor sales had to do with the quality of the work or the huge backlash she received in response to At Home In The World is something the author herself seems unsure of, though she expressed pride in both works of fiction as well as her memoir.

Many criticized the author for writing her account of what seemed a painful and emotionally abusive relationship with Salinger, whose writing and iconic status is somewhat revered in the literary world. There was more than one head shaking in Maynard’s audience when the writer told the story of getting up to speak at a literary event and having the entire front row of famous male authors walk out.

But the author said it was her daughter’s turning 18, the same age she was when her affair with Salinger began, which compelled her to break the silence she had maintained at her own expense out of misguided sense of obligation. She wanted to speak to the subjects of secret-keeping and shame and the responses and letters she received from readers afterwards affirmed this goal. Though she admits it made her career decidedly harder.

“It was pretty widely condemned,” Maynard said of her memoir. “My name was mud in certain circles.”

This, in addition to the weak sales figures from her last two novels led to rejection when she initially sought publication for Labor Day. After being advised to do so by someone who liked the novel but feared that Maynard’s name would get in the way, the author was pushed to submit the novel to publishers anonymously. Maynard admitted that it was hard advice to hear at age 54, having been writing and building professional credibility since the age of 18, though it ultimately proved to be an extremely validating experience.

“It actually became a very hot property,” Maynard said, explaining how a gossip column in a New York City paper was abuzz with news about a new and mysterious young male author to whom they were giving credit for Labor Day.

Maynard said at some point a rumor was circulating that actor James Franco had written this new novel that everyone was talking about. She said that it came as a surprise to many when she turned out to be the writer behind the voice of her young male narrator.

“But it was too late. They admitted that they liked it,” Maynard laughingly said, adding that she ended up being paid more for Labor Day than any of her previous works.

The novel, which was released in late July, has already been optioned for the movies. Oscar nominated Director Jason Reitman, known for mega-hit “Juno” and the soon-to-be released “Up In The Air” starring George Clooney, has already taken on the project of writing the screenplay and directing a big-screen version of Labor Day.

This must be particularly gratifying for Maynard who took the long way to this success and whose character was attacked along the way as a cost for her honesty and personal and artistic integrity.

“I don’t mind telling you that it came out of some sort of dark times,” Maynard said of her novel.

As At Home in the World recounts and Maynard reiterated during the book discussion, in telling her truth, she has moved into the light. Seeing Maynard’s comfort and lightheartedness with the audience at the reading, there seemed to be no trace of that darkness or the shame she held onto most of her life.

As the author read from a segment of Labor Day dealing with 13-year-old Henry’s discomfort with certain anatomical conversations with his mother, the crowd erupted in laughter.

“I’m so glad you laugh,” she told the audience, to whom she was visibly endeared. “Some crowds don’t understand.”

Indeed, Maynard knows something about being misunderstood.

What was I going to write about?

Oh, now I remember.

I've had many oh-I-should-blog-about-that moments this week, though as I sit down now to write I'm having trouble coming up with even one.

I'll have to ramble for a while.

First of all, I'm cold. I'm sitting here in sweatpants (cropped 'cuz that's hot), a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, one of those puffy vests, a wool hat, socks and slippers and still my nose and fingertips are like ice. My favorite thing to do when my hands are like this, as they always are, is to sneak them up Dan's shirt and press them against his skin like I am branding him with my coldness. (He doesn't totally love this and there is a possibility that I could get punched some day, but it's worth it.) I'm being stubborn about turning the heat on. I did it for a minute this morning but I'm just not sure that I'm ready to embrace the season of $200 gas bills. I don't feeeeel like it. But I won't last too much longer in a 65 degree apartment.

I shouldn't complain, this is my favorite time of year. Yesterday Dan and I went to the Farmer's Market that runs along a little street beside a river here in Exeter. It's as quaint and beautiful as it sounds especially now with the reds and oranges of the trees reflecting on the river. We bought cider doughnuts (there's no gluten in those, right?), end-of-season tomatoes, poblano and chili peppers, shallots, scallions and garlic, and even some Indian food---Chicken tikka masala and another spicier cashew dish---from a restaurant stand set up to advertise its opening. We also picked up a couple of acorn squashes and were planning to mix it into risotto tonight along with some pancetta, pine nuts and maybe some scallions or leeks but opted instead for pizza because neither of us feels like working that hard. (In fact, when I started that sentence I wrote "we are planning" but then decided that we aren't.) I have the feeling my coldness and sore throat are related so rather than get hijacked by illness I'm going to opt to relax tonight and avoid the work of cooking (and the drinking it requires).

I'm hoping to decorate for Halloween this weekend. That and 750 other things before GBFFE comes up to visit on Monday. Mattie hasn't been up to NH in years. The last time must have been when I first started dating Dan (eight years ago---really?) because I seem to remember Dan expressing some reservations about my sharing a bed with with this guy I called a best friend.

Lord I was born a ramblin' man.

Let's just get onto the Melliterary Spew so I can meet a goddamn deadline for once in my life and take a nap (or watch the new MTV Real World Challenge).

Melliterary Spew:

I met Joyce Maynard. 'Nuff said. Maynard is a favorite writer of mine whose memoir, At Home In The World, affected me so intensely that I felt compelled to write her a letter to thank her. I've never written to an author before. I've never seen a woman write more bravely or honestly (in her memoir and in other essays of hers that I've read) and my appreciation for her openness and her advocacy of a woman's right to tell her story is boundless. She tells the truth; her whole story, flaws and all. I know she cheated on her ex-husband and that he cheated on her as well. I know that she had breast enhancment surgery. I know that she had an abortion while married and a miscarriage after her divorce. I know that her shame was so deep that she's lucky to have found it and named it.

"I have come to believe that my greatest protection comes in self-disclosure," Maynard wrote in At Home In The World.

Her memoir was the first book I read that showed me, the first time I truly saw, the power of honesty. It tells the story of her entire life (up until 1999 when it was published) from her childhood in Durham, NH to the raising of her children in Keene, NH and her eventual move to California. It tells of her experience growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother so overbearing she once read her Joyce's diary and responded with a note she tucked into its pages. It tells of eating disorders that lasted from childhood into adulthood. It tells of a life built around pleasing others with her body and her words or by whatever resources she could draw upon. In later chapters it tells of a hard and love-weak marriage and an eventual divorce.

The main thing one would hear about the memoir though, is that it tells of her relationship with writer J.D. Salinger. Indeed, this was a significant part of Maynard's life. Any woman who had dropped out of college at age 18 to move in with a 53-year-old man would no doubt include this in her memoir as a significant event because no doubt such a thing would leave a mark on a life. The fact that it was J.D. Salinger only intensifies that mark, particularly since he is a famous man; particularly since Maynard is a writer. The relationship was emotionally abusive, if not sexually, and its effects were far-reaching and long-lasting. It is pertinent to her life story. Yet, Maynard was criticized and slammed at every turn for exploiting the great J.D. Salinger. Her reputation and character were accosted because in telling her own truth, she told the truth about a powerful and revered man.

She knew this was going to happen and she did it anyway. I dig that. She demonstrated the danger of secrets and shame. I dig that too.

I was first introduced to Joyce Maynard in 1999 but didn't remember or realize it until 2008. In January of 2008 I experienced a very long and painful miscarriage that pretty much changed me from the inside out (and might be a part of The Bookish). During that time I sought solace in a compilation of essays called About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing and Hope which was born from editor Jessica Berger Gross. (The book was an incredible comfort to me and I now buy it for any friends or loved ones who are enduring this type of loss. If you've experienced a miscarriage, if you just want to understand the subject better, I recommend reading this book.)

One of the featured writers, the author of an essay which particularly resonated with me, was Joyce Maynard. Looking for more of her stuff online I came across her website and the At Home In The World Afterword. It was then that I realized I had heard of this writer before. I was a senior in high school in 1999 when Maynard's memoir came out. I remember having a discussion in my English class about whether this woman who had written a book about J.D. Salinger was exploiting the famous recluse. We talked about whether or not she had the right to disclose the contents of letters that Salinger wrote to her (when he first sought her out when she was a freshman at Yale, I later learned). I remember the words "kiss and tell" coming up. I don't remember hearing that she was only 18-years-old when the year-long affair began. I don't remember hearing how more stories of Salinger's relationships with much younger women were surfacing. I do remember that Salinger wrote about innocence and "phonies."

It was interesting to realize that this essayist I had just been introduced to and the author I heard about when I was only 18 myself were the same person. I was forced to reexamine the situation just as I've had to reevaluate many of the values I held and opinions I formed at that age. Reading her memoir, knowing what I do now about powerful men, I do not question Maynard's story in the least.

So I wrote Maynard a letter thanking her for writing such a book because really I am so very grateful. I heard back from her a week later. Then, a couple of weeks ago she e-mailed me to say that she remembered I live in Exeter and would be in Portsmouth, NH for a reading of her new novel, Labor Day (also wonderful, though completely different), and would be interested in meeting. So I listened to this beautiful woman read from her novel. I listened to her warmly and honestly answers people's questions about her books and life. And when we met during the signing she was gracious and kind to me as well. I told her again what At Home in the World meant to me. We talked about writing, truth, women. She wrote a lovely and insightful inscription in my copy of her memoir. We took a picture together and yet another one of those amazing moments in a life happened.

Dan said to me, "You draw your heroes into your life."

I think it was a strange coincidence, her promoting a new book in Portsmouth, NH so soon after I wrote. But coincidence or not, these are the affirming events in a life that let you know you're on the right track.

Now we're facebook friends if you can believe it. I think that's pretty good progress for one week.