Rube-y, Rube-y, Rube-y, Rube-y!

Sing it like the Kaiser Chiefs, but know I mean it like I'm spelling it: I think I got taken yesterday (no--not over the pending house purchase--don't even think that!). The building I work in is on the edge of a university campus, right across the street from a hospital. Depending on where I need to go upon leaving work, sometimes I cut though the hospital's facilities to make my way home. I did that yesterday, and happened to catch the eye of a man who was rounding the corner as I was waiting at a red light.

He approached me, confessed to being terribly embarrassed, and said he'd run out of gas for the first time in his life. He'd walked to the nearest gas station to find that they didn't have gas cans for sale, and wouldn't loan him one without a $20 deposit, which he didn't have. It was probably a load of crap, but I gave him the $7 I had on me without much hesitation. Why? Because he was nice, polite, and really did appear to need help. I thought about it as I drove home, and decided I was okay about having been taken advantage of, if that were the case. Someone asked me for help and I gave it, because that's what people are supposed to do, right? I wouldn't have given him a ride if he'd asked for one (because I am kind but not willing to jeopardize my safety), but I would have given him the money anyway, and called him a cab.

So maybe I'm a fool, but I'm okay with it if I am.

I'm still in House Limbo, by the way. The inspection was Wednesday, and went as I'd expected. The house desperately needs a new roof, which I knew when I made an offer that was significantly lower than the asking price. There are some other things the sellers have to take care of if the sale is going to move forward, and I'm hoping that won't be too much of a problem. Please cross your fingers for me.

I'll leave you with this, which was a wonderfully pleasant surprise for me. The Boy wanted me to knit a hat for him, which I did despite the fact that he probably hasn't kept a hat on his head for more than a single hour--TOTAL--in his nearly thirteen years. But it turns out that he LOVES his new hat (I credit the super-softness of the Malabrigo wool), and only takes it off while he's at school. How gratifying is that, I ask you? The simple little hat is now my favorite knitting accomplishment!

Not That You Asked, But

C once accused me of hating two things everyone else loves, the Olympics and Halloween. He was partially wrong about on both counts. I don't hate the Olympics, but I don't really enjoy them, either. And I don't hate Halloween, but I do hate one of its biggest components: I hate, hate, hate trick-or-treat, and I always have.

I grew up in the sticks--houses acres apart, with no sidewalks in sight--and had to be driven around to t-o-t. Ugh. Nothing ruins a costume like having to freaking drag its huge headpiece or hoop skirt or other enormous prop in and out of the car, where people would sit on you and step over you and bend/crush/stain/wrinkle everything. And then I hated that people would pretend not to know who we were, when we saw them every day and our parents were RIGHT behind us! And I hated the idea of going to the homes of people I didn't know and having them perfunctorily hand me a stupid snack that I probably wouldn't like anyway. Popcorn balls, Bit-o-Honey, Wacky Wafers, those stupid McDonald's gift certificate things . . . GAH! Plus, I always felt really super guilty when certain lonely old lady neighbors would give us little baggies of terrible candy that they had CLEARLY spent lots of time lovingly assembling. I remember feeling like crying at one particular old lady's door, when I could smell her farty dinner smells wafting out from behind her while her TV blared and her hands shook as she dropped bags of chalky candy into our stupid plastic pumpkin heads. I felt so bad for demanding anything from her. I felt bad that I thought she would probably love some company that I absolutely DID NOT want to give her. Shudder.

Now I resent having to spend money on candy for kids I neither know nor care about. I hate having to play nice with them and their stupid parents, who mostly stand carelessly on the street, talking on cell phones while their kids demand candy from me. I hate the high school kids who don't even go to the trouble of putting on a costume, but expect me to put candy in their damn pillowcases anyway.

I am not at all against dressing in costume, Halloween parties, jack-o-lanterns, or black cats. The Boy spent several happy Octobers working with C on some fantastic costumes, and loved it, and that thrilled me. I liked going to his school's Halloween parades and parties, and I'm so glad he's got those wonderful memories. I love seeing my nephew and my friends' kids enjoy their own costumes, and I love seeing what costumes C and his friends come up with year after year for their annual Halloween party.

In summary, then, I don't hate Halloween; I hate trick-or-treat. I hate things that are forced and contrived, meaningless, awkward, and uncomfortable, and that's what t-o-t has always been to me.

I'm a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

What?

My potential leap into owning my own home continues apace. The Boy and I are meeting the realtor at the house this evening to make an offer, and we'll see what happens. I'm excited, but very nervous, too. I mean, I've never owned a house All By Myself. It's daunting to think about dealing with property and repairs and improvements without a partner to share the stress with. What if I can't do it? What if I'm not up to the challenge, and I end up with a yard with no grass, weeds growing through cracks in the driveway and sidewalks, holes in the roof, clogged pipes, termites, rats, cat hair all over everything, stacks of unpaid bills, empty cupboards, and overflowing litter boxes?

Oy. Breathe. Okay. It may not even happen. The last time I made an offer on a house, the guy who did my home inspection all but begged me not to buy the place, as it was going to fall down. Maybe there will be a similar hitch this time--there are lots of things that can go wrong between making an offer and actually closing on a house. But if it does happen to work out, and I can indeed handle all of the hazards of owning my own place All By Myself, the benefits will be great. I may close in time to get the tax credit. The mortgage payment will be significantly less than what I pay in rent. I will be able to retire--or at least potentially switch to part-time work once The Boy gets through college. And I will have something to leave The Boy when I die.

All good things. So please cross your fingers for me.

Some things seem to be going my way. I just spent an hour outside in this lovely weather

knitting this kick-ass hat for The Boy

Talk about peace and happiness!

And I'm reading a pretty cute book, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life, a memoir by a guy who moved with his boyfriend to rural Michigan, in hopes of creating their own version of Walden and finding, well, peace and happiness, like I mentioned above. It gets a little twee at times, but I like the writer's voice, and he's achingly sincere, which goes a long way. He's funny too, and there are many things to laugh aloud over. The only thing that troubles me, though, is that the writer comes off as a little . . . "Just Jack," and it makes me worry that he's trying to be the kind of gay fella straight people like.

Remember him from Will & Grace? He was funny, of course, and I liked him well enough--at least from what I saw of the first season or two that I watched of the show, but . . . he seemed pretty contrived, in a way that would make exuberantly gay men seem like nonthreatening pets that straight people could show off to their friends.

And gay people--even my ultra-flaming friend who collects Barbies and paid me to sew him a Size 24 bridal gown "with velvet, and satin, and yards and yards of tulle" one Halloween aren't as Sanitized for Straights' Protection like Just Jack. You know?

Now maybe Wade Rouse, the author, really is just like he portrays himself in the book. And if he is, that's obviously fine--good for him. But if he's altering himself to make him seem more appealing to straight folks (in exactly the opposite way, mind you, that he tried to make himself appealing to straights in high school by hanging posters of Farrah Fawcett on his wall and trying out for the football team), then . . . it's kind of sad.

It's a fun and funny book, though, worthwhile and tender. I'm going to request Rouse's other books to see if I get a better sense of who he really is.

How in the Hell Did it Get to be the MIddle of October?

October used to creak and groan along even though it was filled with homework and midterms and football games, but now that I'm old, it's like time is on fast-forward. I swear the days go by without my noticing them, and if that's not something an old lady would say, I don't know what is.

I have absolutely nothing exciting to report, which is why I haven't posted in nearly two weeks. What's to say? Okay, well, I could tell you that I might buy a house. It's a tiny little thing, but built in 1950 and so solid as a bomb shelter. I'm having trouble getting a mortgage, as I make pitifully little money as a public radio lackey and have a mountain of student loans (for that MLIS, which has so far turned out to be useless, but I'm not bitter AT ALL), so my debt-to-income ration is crap. I'm still working on it, though, and am cautiously optimistic. I'll certainly be posting a lot more about that if it works out.

I've been indulging my trashier self and listening to Outlander, the 28-CD audio book that's the first in Diana Gabaldon's series of the same name. The book is generally a lot of fun, but it's a bodice-ripper of the type I haven't paid much attention to since high school. I got the idea from Knitting Outside the Lines, wherein either Ann or Kay suggests that listening to the series could get one through quite a bit of knitting. That's an understatement! No one mentioned, though, that I might have a terrible problem with wanting to speak in a Scottish accent, though, after listening to Davina Porter's reading of all the Highlanders. Och!

I got some awesome yarns last weekend when one of my local stores was having a pre-inventory sale, and promptly made a hat for The Boy out of some beautiful (but still cool enough for him) Malabrigo, but I keep casting on too many stitches and making the damned thing too big. I've ripped it out twice, and am hoping the third time will be the charm. Otherwise I'm going to accept that fact that the yarn is some kind of magical, cursed, GROWING yarn, and use it to knit a skirt that will grow along with my ass. Sigh.

Oh, speaking of sighs (and curses and shouts, but that's just me and my anger), have a look at this Salon article about Courtney Cox's new show if you have a chance. I haven't watched the show, but reading the article filled me with a lovely Red Rage of Righteousness, which should pretty much carry me through the day. Why so angry? Well, because the show is just as patronizing and insulting as its stupid Cougar Town title indicates. Here's the beginning of the article, by regular Salon writer Heather Havrilesky:

"If aliens learned about our culture by watching our newest television shows, they might assume that planet Earth was terrorized by predatory middle-aged women with hairless, bony bodies and the same blank expression on their overly Botoxed faces, a look of creepy awe at the joys of 20-something tenderloin.

"They're addicted to those botulism injections, which make them jittery and sick," the aliens might hypothesize after watching shows like "Cougar Town" and "Eastwick" and "Accidentally on Purpose." "Their lives are so addled by substance abuse that they pace and second-guess themselves with their googly-eyed, like-minded friends, then giggle and high-five like schoolgirls at the sight of some well-defined abdominal muscles, which are apparently a sign of inner purity."

"Why don't the other humans just snuff them out?" some young alien would interject, but no one would answer him because in the galaxy of Zoron, young men are seen as hopelessly naive and confused and are generally ignored until they hit 35. Besides, all of the older aliens would already recognize that these "cougars" clearly serve as some sort of cautionary tale for female humans, a moralistic narrative that humans refer to, strangely enough, as a "guilty pleasure" -- "guilty" in this case meaning "it makes you want to stick your head in the oven" and "pleasure" referring to the feeling humans get from having their fingernails ripped off one by one."

Sweet Jesus! It makes me absolutely livid to think that this show's writers (two men) are taking the opportunity to further the idea of grown women having sex into a cartoonish joke. It's a cruel bait and switch: A show about a 40-something woman who is confident about her sexuality! She's into younger guys! It's about time the tables are turned, when older men have been praised for scoring young chicks for generations! No, though. That's not how it is. Really, women who want to sleep with hot guys are sad, desperate, frantic, and laughable. It makes me sad. And mad.

The weird thing, though, is that I don't think most men feel this way. I think most men want woman who's relaxed and happy about sex and her own skin . . . right? Real, actual, run of the mill men who live outside of NYC and LA don't want a woman who's Botoxed and Brazilian-ed and starved/exercised into a tense, tight version of herself in high school. Right? That's just a trope, isn't it? If that's the case, who keeps supporting it? Is it really commerce that's doing it? Are the corporations who sell make-up and hair-dye and diet pills and Spanx and gym memberships and Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers and manicures and pedicures and waxing and anti-wrinkle cream so vested in our collective fear of aging and insecurities about our appearance that THEY are the ones with the power? Has The Patriarchy been replaced with . . . what? The Market? If so, that's going from bad to worse, because it means women are more complicit in their suppression that they ever were.

Okay. Enough. Sorry. It just . . . chafes a little it all.

I have to get back to work.

A Loop is a Loop is a Loop . . .

I slept in this morning--I think I went to bed without setting my alarm. I wasn't following my normal pattern, because I was all wrapped up in giving myself a pedicure before going to bed. I soaked my feet in the tub, did the scraper/buffer thing, and then took the lotion into my room to slather on my feet before putting on socks. I was so enchanted by my lovely soft feet, and the fact that I could snuggle into the comforter with a game of Scrabble on my phone, that I guess I forgot all about the clock.

I woke up a full hour later than normal, and only then because I heard car horns blowing outside, ten minutes after the time I usually make the Thursday morning pick-up of The Boy, who sleeps at his dad’s on Wednesday nights. I gathered my wits about me and made The Boy walk the mile to my house--he'd have been late for school if he'd waited for me to shower and get ready, and then drive up there, because the traffic snarl is terrible near C’s house at that time of the morning. Driving the mile through our neighborhoods takes five minutes normally, but after about 7:10, forget it—it takes forever.

So The Boy walked, and the timing was perfect: He came into the alley as I was pulling out of the garage. Granted, we were both, as SpongeBob once said, “Late for bein’ early,” which means The Boy missed out on his time playing football in the gym before school, and I missed my morning leisure time (I usually pack or pick up breakfast, which I eat in my car or office before work while I read or knit and listen to an audio book in lovely peace), but we were both on time for what counted, and I guess that’s all that matters.

I have very little to report in the way of anything else. I did some much-needed clothes shopping last weekend, but as it was much-needed, the purchases themselves were unremarkable: I replaced some faded and/or worn out standards with some brand new standards, so I can go to work without look like the Poor Little Match Girl. I’m in the process of hemming the pants, though, which is kind of . . . not exciting at all, is it? See? I have nothing. I haven’t finished any knitting projects (Christmas shawl for my mom and Christmas scarf for C) lately, and . . . oh! Wait! Books!

I just read How I Became a Famous Novelist, and it was an odd and interesting reading experience. Reading about reading is always fun, but reading about reading and writing is the kind of meta that makes me want to write about reading, and then the whole thing becomes a Mobius Strip in my head and makes me feel like I should dedicate myself to doing some kind of important, culture-saving work. Yikes. Allow me to calm down and back up for a minute.

The book is about a smart young guy (I pictured the main character as Chuck Klosterman, whose books I enjoy both despite and because of his similarities to HIBAFN’s main character. I wonder how he would feel about that?) who breezes his way through school and college and finds himself an overeducated English major with little in the way of employable skills and no desire to go to law school like the so-called love of his life who abandoned him, and at whose upcoming wedding he is dying to extract revenge. He fumbles around for a while until he comes across an article about a best-selling writer who’s depicted in a sort of Robert James Waller, Bridges of Madison County vein. I think. The fictional author who gathers our protagonist’s interest is salt-of-the-earthier, but Waller popped into my head right away.

Anyway, this author’s incredible success in what the main character sees as posing and fooling readers sparks an, “If HE can do it, why can’t I,” moment. He wanders around a Barnes & Noble, noting titles and collecting ideas, persuades his med-school roommate to give him samples of a Ridalin-like drug to focus his attention, and then sits down and bangs out a novel—The Tornado Ashes Club—using every trope and affectation he can think of, often to hilarious effect. He really and truly nails it, and Steve Hely, who wrote HIBAFN, includes passages from the first novel and aborted attempts, the bulleted lists, excerpts from others’ novels in the Dan Brown, Robert Patterson, etc. ilk, an AWESOME fictional version of the NYT Best Sellers list, and other tidbits that make the whole thing even more fun to read.

Then again, the total package of the novel makes you wonder. It makes you wonder (not for the first time—admit it) if you could become a famous novelist. If you’re as cynical as the main character. If you know what’s good. If it matters what you read, or even that you read at all.

It’s a fast, easy read, and definitely worth checking out.

And . . . I guess I had more to say than I thought. Next time I’ll talk about the book I’m reading now, Lev Grossman’s cool and fun The Magicians.