Category: Solely for my own amusement

I’ve Never Read Gone With the Wind

On our drive home from work the other night, I was talking with CC about a book I’m reading, Cinders by Michelle Davidson Argyle (which is great).

Me: It starts in the Happily Ever After part of Cinderella, only it isn’t.

CC: Isn’t Cinderella?

Me: Isn’t happy. Anyway-

CC: What, like she turns into a man instead of a pumpkin?

Me: {sigh} That was the coach.

CC: She played softball?

Me: You’re not funny. Cinderella never turned into a pumpkin. The coach turned into a pumpkin.

CC: She played softball with pumpkins?

Me: Are you finished?

CC: {smirks in silence}

Me: Anyway there are these peasant uprisings and there’s this whole thing about how love is a choice, and a bunch of stuff happens. . .

CC: That’s pretty profound.

Me: How love is a choice?

He ignores my implications.

CC: No, “a bunch of stuff happens”.

Me: {sigh}

CC: You know what’s an excellent book? Gone With the Wind. You should really read that.

He reminds me, every time we talk about books, which is often, that I’ve never read Gone With The Wind. I’ve also never read Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, or War and Peace (or any Tolstoi to completion, for that matter) but he never mentions those.

Me: Yeah, yeah. Gone With the Wind. It’s on my list.

CC: You know her daughter dies.

Me: That’s sad. Wait, she was married?

CC: If you read the book, you’d know.

Me: It’s on my list, I swear.

CC: She’s married three times in the course of the book.

Me: Three times! I didn’t know you were allowed to get divorced even once back then. Did she marry the I-don’t-give-a-damn-guy?

CC: You know it won the Pulitzer prize.

Me: Wait is that where that, “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies!” comes from, one of her marriages?

CC: No.

Me: I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies either.

CC: That line is regarding Melanie.

Me: Seems like after three times she’d know though.

CC: {sigh}

Me: Wait, who the hell is Melanie? I thought her name was Scarlett. As in Letter.

CC: You should read it. We have it downstairs.

Me: C’mon, that was funny. Scarlett. As in Letter. It’s like, literary, even.

CC: Did I mention it won the Pulitzer?

Me: Did she have to get married three times, if you know what I mean?

CC: If you just read the damn book, you’d know.

Me: That sounds like something the I-don’t-give-a-damn-guy would say.

CC: I can’t believe with all your women’s lit that you’re always going on about you’ve never read Gone With The Wind.

I’m plowing my way through the Norton Anthology of Literature By Women. I often make him listen to my thoughts on this, too, when we drive home.

Me: I didn’t know a woman wrote it!

CC: You didn’t know that Margaret Mitchell is a woman?

Me: Margaret Mitchell?

CC: Yeah, the most popular female author of the twentieth century until J.K. Rowling came along?

Me: I love J.K. Rowling. She’s like, magic.

CC: Don’t you have something to do now?

Me: No, we’re still driving home. You’re trapped with me.

CC: {mumbles something incoherent but I’m pretty sure I pick out the words “window” and “pavement”}

Me: Hey, I think I’ve heard of Margaret Mitchell. Didn’t she write Gone With The Wind?

CC: I am going to bang my head on something pointy now.

Me: I heard that was a good book. Have you ever read it?

Have you? What haven’t you read?

Yours, Mine, and Ours

I’m lucky enough to belong to two great writing groups, one of which meets in New York every week.

We meet in a Public Space near Julliard close to Lincoln Center. I had never heard of a Public Space- spoken of in capital letters- before I met these excellent people. A Public Space is a place where you have the right, just by being a member of the public, to be there. Seems like a no-brainer, but it’s something of a big deal here. They don’t kick you out because you’re taking too long to finish your cappuccino or someone else wants your table; they only kick you out for being seriously annoying and/or dangerous, in which case the cops do the kicking. Not that I would know about that.

At the Public Space in which we meet there is a Public Restroom. These are rare and highly valued in New York. One of the reasons I’m not revealing the exact location is so that you don’t show up and I have to wait to use the restroom because you got there ahead of me. I live in Jersey. We don’t play nice.

There are actually two public restrooms in this Space, but one of them has no door handle and while you would think you would just be able to push the door open and go in, you can’t. I have no idea how to open the door. I’m not writing about that one.

I’m writing about the other one.

I had to be sneaky to get these pictures. Every corner of this building is under surveillance, and authorities here don’t take too kindly to people taking pictures of the insides of buildings.

A Unisex bathroom. I’m down with that. Except. . . it has multiple stalls. Huh.

 

 

Even though the door goes all the way to the floor, it’s weird.

 

 

for girls

Because girls go here…

 

 

you are totally allowed to leave the seat up

And so do boys.

It got me thinking. Somehow there’s a very European feel to this restroom. I base that on absolutely nothing, because the only two places I’ve ever been to in Europe are London and Berlin. While I did have a unique restroom experience in Berlin which you can read about here, that restroom looked nothing like this restroom, with its instructions on how to flush:

 

And how to panic:

(Here’s the panic button. You can’t miss it)

 

My natural inclination, upon walking out of a stall and running into a member of the opposite sex in a public restroom, is to panic. However, to date, I have restrained myself from hitting the panic button. It’s poor form.

Have you ever run across multi-stall unisex restrooms? If so, where? Is it weird, or is that just me?

Second Cousins and Redheaded Stepmothers

Okay, I’m not redheaded. I’m an enhanced blond. But “enhanced blond” didn’t have the same rhythm to it.

I’m thinking about words today. More precisely, the right words. One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is, “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

I love expanding my vocabulary, but I totally suck at crossword puzzles and have a hard time remembering exactly what it was that caused me to walk into the kitchen and open the pantry door. New words slip out of memory like a greased weasel if I don’t use them repeatedly to an annoying level.

I think that’s why I love made-up words so much. Here are a few:

Franzenfreude:  frustration with literary critics’ apparent preference for works by white male authors, such as Jonathan Franzen.

Sheening: to behave like Charlie Sheen.

Caranoid: Paranoid, but correct.

Gargonzola: the cheese that is simply too hard to carve and too ugly to eat.

Lately I’ve been thinking to myself, in regards to certain situations, there ought to be a word for that! If I’ve learned anything  during my short time blogging, it is that there are some fantastically witty people lurking about. I’d love to see your take on words for any of the following definitions:

  1. The drips of condensation from apartment window air conditioning units that land on you as you walk on the city sidewalks under them.
  2. The act of scalding someone in the shower because you flushed the toilet.
  3. The attempt of a child to answer a question without moving his lips, in erroneous belief that if his lips don’t move, he won’t get in trouble, no matter what he says.
  4. The lure of the silent late night hours that keep you up way past when you should be sleeping, simply because no one is bothering you.

If you don’t have a word for one of these, tell me, what’s your favorite made-up word?