Book Club? Just who do you think you are?

I'm going to a book club, I say to my husband. He looks at me as if I've grown a third eye. I rub my forehead and explain that this happens when a group of people all read the same book for the purpose of talking about it. Together.

He knows this but didn't fancy me the book club type. Neither did I. But during a late-night public television binge, I learn that talking to strangers and trying new things keeps your brain elastic, a good thing evidently, and wards off memory loss and Alzheimer's. (So does getting a good night's sleep. I'm shooting for two out of three.) The way I see it, if I'm talking to new people about books, I double the benefits. But that's my own math.

Late-night television can change your life.

Of course, I don't share this with my husband. That's not what marriage is about. And I ignore him when he gives me The Look, which tonight means it's-the-national-league-playoffs-and-I-just-bought-a-six-pack-but-you're-going-out-to-talk-about-a book-with-a-group-of-strangers-you-silly-woman-you. He doesn't understand that I need to get my brain functioning at full, make that half capacity again after spending a handful of years home with my son. And as PBS's Dr. BrainMan didn't mention anything about beer and baseball, Book Club it is.

The selection is John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany. I like John Irving and have read several of his books. Just not this one. At least I don't think so. I owned a copy once. But the only thing I can recall is the actress Ashley Judd getting knocked upside the head with a baseball, and I believe that's from Simon Birch, the movie adaption which I also didn't finish.

By Book Club standards, I'm guessing this is the same as not having read it.

I wonder aloud if I have time to Wikipedia the book. My husband, on the couch with beer in hand, rolls his eyes, loudly. I remind myself to keep inner dialogues ... in. Don't your Phillies have a baseball game to lose? I want to say this but decide on something more marriage-friendly. Go Phillies!

I'll have to fake it. I've faked it before.

Like that time back in 1993 when I sang in front of an audience while playing the guitar even though I don't play the guitar, a small detail that escaped my overly elastic 20-something brain. Or maybe it wasn't because of my brain at all but rather the fact that I was one of only a handful of Westerners living in that remote city in the middle of China.

It's like my BFF Julia Child likes to say, "Who's going to know?"

So, meeting a group of strangers for the purpose of examining a book about which I know squat, sounds fun. A mental challenge. Also Book Club is meeting near my Washington, DC apartment on a street named, ironically, Irving. Maybe I'll use that as I introduce myself around the room. Open with a joke.

I prepare some snacks, choose a bottle of wine and tie a scarf around my neck, which is odd because just as I'm not a book club person, I'm also not a scarf person until hearing recently that knowing how to tie a scarf separates the girls from the women, a tidbit I did not pick up from public television.

I blow mom and wife kisses out the door and prepare myself for greater brain elasticity.

I walk. And walk. And walk down Irving Street, which encircles the entire back side of my neighborhood, curls up a wooded street bordered by a zoo and then winds uphill. I walk a long, looping semi-circle when Irving runs out. There's not enough street to make it to the address. I call the host.

Oh, it's not on Irving. It's on another street, the street I wrote on an index card and placed in the pocket of my blazer. I look at my own handwriting and wonder how I could have possibly written one thing and read something completely different. I feel my aging Mother Brain hardening by the minute. The situation is critical. Must. Reach. Book Club ...

But that's not all. Just as I feel my brain hardening, I also feel my feet swelling. My sexy-in-a-graduate-student-kind-of-way, high-heeled espresso boots were a perfect choice had I not taken the circuitous scenic route around the entire neighborhood. Now with each step I'm pushing my luck, not to mention the whole heel height/walking distance continuum, which is precisely why I've never been a math person.

(This picture, a visualization of a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measurement of a human brain that I found on Wikipedia, is how I imagine my new-and-improved elastic brain will look, a mohawk in cool Winter colors.)

I'm late and breathy as I walk into Book Club. With a little sleight of hand, I distract the two other Book Clubbers with snacks and wine as my friend gives me a quick tour of the funky first floor of her house that could've been torn from an issue of Dwell magazine with it's modern, mid-century stylings. We talk furniture, home decor and how to incorporate Ikea items even if you're not an Ikea person.

I'm hoping that if we keep this up, we won't have time to actually talk about the book, a technique that got me through years of piano lessons.

But I need to sit and get rid of the annoying scarf that has done nothing but irritate my chin, something the chic French woman in that YouTube video demonstrating how to tie it properly did not warn against. As I decide that I'm not a scarf person and that I'll need to distinguish myself from The Girls in some other way (arm wrestling, might work), I notice something adorning all the other women. A book. They all brought a copy of the book. Of course. Blast, my poor accessorizing!

In fact, the host has an original first edition copy. This seems significant because she was hesitant to open it, let alone read it. The others comment on its beautiful spine. These people are serious. I think of my own dog-eared, water-stained, taped up books as I scan the host's gorgeous built-in book shelves. For what? A prop? I'll feel better if I have a book in my hands. Any book. Did I bring my day planner?

I have to think quickly. But I can't. That's the problem. That's why I'm here.

I was expecting to hide in the background where my occasional "hmm" and "that's a good point" wouldn't draw too much attention. Instead, I'm the fourth in a tightly knit square. No where to hide. I'll have to hold my corner. But this is good. My mind stirs, stiff from a five-year deep freeze as I psyche myself up. Speak in complete sentences. Be quick. Agile. Well, as agile as one can be while sitting, drinking wine and wearing high heel boots. T

hankfully, I remember to keep this inner dialogue where it belongs. See. Book Club is working already.

After we all share a bit about ourselves, the woman to my left, a lawyer, with book in lap and wine glass in hand, leans forward with an obvious air of Okay Let's Get Things Started and asks, "So, did anyone read the book this time?"

Well now. How very civil.

Even if it turns out that I'm not a Book Club person, these are my kind of Book Club people.

A Closet Psychotic

Every time I open my closet, I hear voices.

They are from varied eras. Some have accents. Others speak in tongues. And they are all fighting.

A vintage suit circa 1960 is disgusted hanging next to the patchwork peasant skirt with a handkerchief hemline. Dirty hippie. Get a job.

The metallic disco shirt made without one stitch of natural fibers wonders rudely from what Mongolian rock the tribal wool coat has crawled. You're itchy and stink of yak.

The menswear bullies the delicate florals. And the ridiculous pair of skin-tight spandex pants that lace up the back is rocking back and forth in a corner begging to be taken seriously, muttering over and over, "I'm more than the bottom half of a pirate costume. I'm more ..."

I mean. Really. Look at them.

Look at them!

The waist ends at the top of the rib cage. And they are so long that you need to wear four-inch heels just to keep them off the ground. How could the same person who bought this elfin disaster have also bought the fully lined Italian linen hunting jacket hanging right next to it?

Who indeed. That's my point.

So, I've decided to let them fight it out. The strongest will remain. I'm not betting on the vintage suits or the hippies. A pencil skirt is simply too tight. And everyone knows hippies can't fight. And I worry about Disco. It's going to be hard to find a new gig. But the remaining rock-n-roll, equestrian, military-inspired, 1940s USO factory worker personalities will integrate and emerge anew. Regenerated. Reinvented.

The old me, with her divergent styles requiring too much attention, too much time and too much hanger space, none of which is in surplus, will become a streamlined individual who will breeze from school drop-off to client meeting to playground to drinks without the need of a costume change.

No more will I ask, "So, who will it be today?" The multiple personality sartorial disorder that is currently my wardrobe will no longer be a constant re-run of Sybil. The ill-fitting, the ill-conceived and the ill-behaving pieces who don't go with anything will be banished. I will soon be able to reach into my closet with only minutes to spare and achieve the "Oops, I look fabulous" effect.

This won't be easy. But I'm inspired by a woman I know. Diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, I once saw her change from a frightened child to a foul mouthed bar tramp to a middle-aged male trucker in the space of one hour. That was years ago. Now her personalities are fully integrated and, when last I saw her, wonderfully accessorized to boot. So, I know this is possible.

I will miss the personalities that don't survive, though. They have accompanied me all these years and have taught me much. Things like: Don't trust hanger appeal. And, showing a little clavicle is infinitely more sexy than showing a lot of cleavage. Color choice comes first. Beige is a death knell. Browns need to be tweedy and the reds need to be bluish. Grey is my new black. But, of course, black is golden. Florals must be Asian. And patterns must work with my crazy mop of curls and glasses. It can be a lot of look. And just about any mistake can be fixed with the right coat, especially a sweeping military one; so, have plenty on hand.

Create a mantra and repeat it aloud as you're tempted to buy the Same Mistake. Talking to the clothes helps. Undefined empire waists? No thanks. I've already done the maternity thing. Fitted-waist peplum? Get your pretty self over here. Bold geometric color blocking a la Mod? No. I'm no longer That Girl. English countryside tweeds and woolen riding pants? Well. Don't you look smashing. Let's put a kettle on.

You must be willing to spend quality time together and to talk it out. As with all healthy relationships, communication is key.

Post-election Day Clean-up. Who Let That Fly In?

The primaries in Washington, DC are over and life is returning to normal. Well. Relatively speaking.

Elections make for tight living in an apartment when your work-from-home husband is a political consultant. My love of organization is often theoretical, but not after election day. Win or lose, all the glossy, paid-for-by-the-candidate campaign promises are promptly thrown out of my home. I figure I lost about 10 square feet of precious real estate to political literature and posters alone. And let’s not even talk about the two large political banners hanging from the roof blocking two of our son’s bedroom windows.

Okay. Let's talk about them.

The color scheme of one candidate is red and casts a bordello-like glow throughout my son's bedroom. This I like. But their eerie flapping haunts my son's sleep and gives him nightmares. Sometimes you have to take one for the team, I explain. I have. I love my upstairs views that are now blocked by the waving blues and reds of two carefully conceived political colors. Not unlike gangs, actually.

And I’m more than a bit concerned that my husband plans to leave the banners up until November. He reminds me that legally we don’t have to take them down until after the general election. Who said anything about violating municipal regulations? I'm talking about aesthetics. Feng shui. Did I accidently speak to him in Chinese? Is that the root of this misunderstanding?

I wish it were that simple.

But we're different animals. If possible, he would live in 77-degree, climate-controlled, muffled, shaded Man Cave. Not I. (Well, unless it's 98 degrees and humid. Then suddenly I'm banging at the Man Cave door.) Mostly though, I like living with the windows unobscured so that sites, sounds and smells of the city … er, let's just make that the sites and sounds ... fill the apartment. The iron fire escapes. The grinding gears of buses. The blue neon of Heller’s Bakery bouncing off the walls once evening comes. Over-modulated Latino music. Couples fighting in the alley. Drunks. Drunk couples. All of it. And on this beautiful late-summer, post-election day I open all the windows, which unfortunately, lets in a fly. Not good. My husband hates flies. When he sees one, his eyes go black. Like a shark. He says drastic things like, "I won't live like this," which only confuse me.

But I'm not without my own domestic idiosyncrasies. If my husband were allowed to comment here, he may speak of my my habit of taking the vacuum out of the living room closet only to abandon it in the middle of the room for a couple days before actually using it. Or not.

It's the type of vacuum that has a squat body from which grows a long, spiraling hose ending in a series of interchangeable attachments, an appendage used to ensnare anyone attempting to walk by. (I show my disdain of vacuuming by purposefully not knowing the specific model I own. Kind of like pretending to not know who Snooky is. Or is it Snookie?)

For a couple of days it sits by my dining room desk like a deprogrammed Japanese robot pet. The vacuum, I mean. Not Snooky/Snookie. If I were the psychoanalyzing type, I could possibly connect this behavior with procrastination and fear of completion. But I'm not. I'm the type that doesn't like to vacuum.

So, after a couple days of Vacuum silently tripping my family, I hear it whirr to life. The sound traveling into the kitchen is shocking. Whatthehellwasthat?? Then it dawns on me what has happened. My husband has plugged it in and has turned it on. “Wow,” I think. “With all his post-election work to do, he’s vacuuming? Probably needs to clear his head with a little physical work.” I’m smiling, nearly giddy, at this life development when suddenly it goes quiet and he yells from the living room, “Well, that’s one less fly in the world.”

Oh no he didn't.

After a few comic beats, I yell back, "You know ... in addition to hunting, that thing is also good for sucking up dirt! From that thing on the floor called a carpet!"

"Yes. I've heard that!" He parries with equal comic timing.

Then quiet.

Men.

Actually, I can't say, “men" here. After sharing this incident on Facebook, two women bragged about how many invertebrates they've spinelessly killed remotely at the end of a vacuum attachment. But as these women are both related to my husband, I blame genetics. Although, truth be told, their mechanical approach does seem much more effective than mine, which is to load my son’s Galactic Grabber with a wad of about twenty paper towels, close my eyes and punch aimlessly until the home invader disappears into a corner.

Still. I can’t imagine plugging in a vacuum for the purpose of sucking up a fly. It starts me wondering. Did he use an attachment? And if so, which one? The angled corner? Or perhaps the rounded brush? Did he wait as if perched in a deer stand? Or charge boldly with the hose flailing behind him? Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that one. Well. No. Not a fly on the wall. Let's make that a dust bunny in a corner because obviously they weren't in danger of death by vacuum. They all survived unscathed.

I mean, really. What stopped him from attacking the warren of dust bunnies living only a foot from where he bagged his fly? Why not simply bend at the waist and suck up those crumbs from the night before? What? What am I missing? Single-mindedness? That alpha-male quality of not deviating from the task at hand? (I guess I am the type to psychoanalyze. The couch pictured below is Freud's. Not mine.)

And am I a typical multi-tasking female because while playing Go Fish or doing yoga, I also pick at the carpet like some over-attentive mother ape grooming her young? It's not easy holding a balanced Triangle Pose while scraping dried bits of yogurt off the carpet, something the instructional dvd would likely advise against. But I seem to manage.

Perhaps I'm over-thinking this. Maybe it has nothing do with the male and female brain and everything to do with my mother. (Now we're really getting our psychoanalytic dollar's worth.) After all, she was the one who invented Pick-A-Lint, a game where she unleashed her brood of seven on the floors giving a prize to the one who picked up the most detritus. Brilliant, really.

So many questions. But for now, Vacuum will go back into the closet. Yet again unused.

Unless you ask my husband.

Goodbye. Have fun. Please come back soon.

School started this week for Washington, DC's public schools. And as my only child takes his first taste of formal education, I’m split between sharing his cautious excitement and my desire to be alone. “Yes, Love, you’ll have fun at school and make lots of friends. Yes, of course, I'll miss you terribly ... er, but right now I have an office space to organize."

Very split indeed.

I was expecting this. With the exception of the occasional play group, a few concerts, one wedding and a four-day solo vacation in Miami, I’ve been with him continuously for nearly five years. (My lovely mother who had seven children and stayed home with all of us always laughs at this.) Even during my weekend gig at a neighborhood farmer's market, I'm often corralling him or sharing a homemade gourmet popsicles. He's been my museum-hopping buddy. My co-conspirator in all things silly. At times, perhaps my nemesis.

Excepting chocolate morsels, the start of school is what the term bittersweet was made for. Memories of nursing, first steps and first words wash over me as I return to my apartment without him by side. It's quiet. A little too quiet, as he likes to say. He's really funny, I realize. The tears come easily. And then they go. I have a list of projects as long as my arm. On his first day of school I redecorate the dining/office space, upending bookcases, moving furniture.

The second day, I exercise. A lot. On the third I write. I write uninterrupted. This is amazing. I can do whatever I want.

And I don't have to feign excitement over Candy Land or negotiate to play some other game. Any other game. Connect Four? Chutes and Ladders? Trouble? Anything but his beloved Candy Land. I hate Candy Land.

Don’t say the word “hate” mommy, he would remind me if he were here. My moral compass.

For those without children, just imagine the first morning after finishing an all-consuming five-year project. Or for my theater friends, imagine saying goodbye at the closing night party. How much time do you use to decompress? Or do you just jump right into something new? I guess everyone's different. I haven't written for my blog in months and selfishly blame my son even though I could've woken up at 5 am to write like J.K. Rowlings did while penning her way into Richer Than God status. I'll have time when he's at school, I reasoned. Well, now he's there. Here I go. No more excuses. Any minute. I wonder what he's doing right now. 8:45 am to 3:15 pm certainly is a long day. He's not even five.

I need some time to focus and get a new routine going. That's it. A routine. Brilliant. Armed with one of those I'll be able to regain my Chinese fluency which will decidedly be a part of my "real job" again someday. A real job. I'll use this newly-acquired time to reshape my career. Most people, parents or not, hit that point. For this I don't need a Life Coach. I need a time-out. A very long time-out. When my son was home, I would try to commit enough Bad Decisions, usually cursing, to get a lengthy time-out. But he always granted me clemency not because he's forgiving but because a time-out for me, albeit amusing, only meant playing by himself. So, now is my chance. For reflection, I mean. Not for cursing like a sailor although that would be fun too. I could also do yoga without someone crawling under my Downward Dog. I could curse while doing yoga to really confuse the Universe.

I could blare Queen and tap dance which will, luckily, not disturb my work-from-husband in the least as he is extremely tolerant and is also slightly hearing-impaired from 400 loud rock-n-roll concerts. Speaking of my husband, he keeps reminding me that now during the day we'll both be home. Alone.

He must miss playing Scrabble as much as I.

But there's no time for board games when I have a SteamPunk corset to design. It's to be versatile enough to wear with skirts or jeans, functional enough to hold money and a cell phone and forgiving enough to not require the removal of a rib or damage internal organs making it a hit with women from all walks of life worldwide.

Or maybe I’ll just clean my office. And as I'm doing that I'll think about what fun game I can play with my son when he gets home. Anything but Candy Land.