Cov-ember

 This post was originally meant to be all about how I rocked Nonfiction November, and I did, but of course I must mention how, on the last day of the month, COVID-19 kicked me in the ass with its hobnailed boots. And my little (!) Spawn, too!!!  So now we're in quarantine. This is difficult to write, so I'd better move along. Brain fog is real, and my fingers are not obediently flying to the proper keys.

1. Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe? - Sarah Fabiny. Nonfiction. My favorite part was when Georgia went down to Mexico to meet up with her good friend Frida Kahlo.

2. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck. Novel. Audiobook. Loved the narration. I can't think of his name, but he played the assistant principal on Boston Public.

3. Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz - Gail Crowther. Nonfiction. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Boston, 1958. Where's my time machine?

4. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt. Nonfiction. Audiobook. I'm mad at myself for sidestepping this brilliant book for -oh god- three decades! Novels are so jealous they cry because this book has got so many juicy characters, terrific atmosphere, a murder mystery and magic. Like so many people who have read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I have added visiting Savannah to my bucket list. Give it a go, if you haven't already. The audiobook version is superb.

Looks like only four books, but not really. I got 150 pages into Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and was absorbed, but had to turn it back into the library before finishing. There's a waiting list.

I'm slowly and enjoyably working my way through Heather Clark's excellent biography Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. Esquire just put out a list of 50 of the best biographies of all time. Red Comet is on it, and that's damn right.

I need to stop writing now. See you for December and the year-end wrap-up.

Mid-October, 2021: Books, Cheese and Sinuses

 Hello and Ow. I have a blog and I must write but my left cheekbone is beating with sinus pressure. It's a familiar feeling, though, synonymous with fall and abrupt temperature change. Kind of like Homecoming except there's no tiara and the marching band is doing its formations on my face. The first time this happened, I was a 10th grader, and I couldn't imagine what was going on. My reading at the time consisted heavily of novels and memoirs about teenagers who came down with fatal diseases and died (Sunshine, Eric, Death Be Not Proud, Echoes of a Summer, A Summer to Die) so naturally that's where my mind went. I, too, would be brave and stoic for my family and friends, but first I had to have some relief for my exploding cheekbone, eye socket, and upper gums. Did I go to the school nurse? No. I went into the girls' bathroom and knocked my head against the wall next to the paper towel dispenser. It actually helped for a couple of minutes. Years later, I saw an episode of House in which House breaks his hand (I think it was on a bathroom wall as well) to get his mind off the pain in his leg. These days, I just take some NyQuil.

What I read:

American Cheese - Joe Berkowitz. I finally finished this tasty tome. Speaking of tasty, have you ever noticed that tasty and nasty look like rhymes, but they aren't? Towards the end of American Cheese, the author takes a test to demonstrate exactly how proficient he's become in the language of cheese during the year he's been actively studying. The test involves tasting several cheeses that have gone off in some fashion or another, and he must explain precisely why they have turned from pleasing to punishing. A spit bucket is thoughtfully supplied, and foul descriptions festoon the next couple of paragraphs. Not suitable for lunchtime reading. I found this out the hard way. But still: Damn good book. More about my adventures in cheese below.

The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s - Andy Greene. An enjoyable labor of love for fans from a true fan. Some of the chapters seemed a little repetitive, like how everyone (especially the producers, directors and writers) got burned out during the last season. And yes, Steve Carrell is a comic genius, but how many bouquets can be thrown at him before it gets tiresome? In my own personal Office journey, I am now finished with Season 2 and ready for Season 3.

The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling. OH MY GOD, I loved this novel so much. I didn't want it to end. It's like the perfect meld of Middlemarch and Peyton Place with a hint of Dickens thrown in. Excellent audiobook. This book has inspired me to do a deep dive of novels about picture-perfect small towns with seamy undersides. 

What I DNFed:

Warhol - Blake Gopnik. Although I think of it as more of a "Not right now; see you later," rather than a flat DNF.

What I'm reading:

Inside Peyton Place - Emily Toth. It's a biography of Grace Metalious, written in the early 1980s. I'm already tired of all the references to The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. They feel stale. More about Grace! And: Toth describes all these photos of Grace, but there are no photos in my hardcover edition. Imagine my displeasure.

What I want to read:

Peyton Place - Grace Metalious. The Spawn told me that my library copy is on the way.

Kings Row - Henry Bellamann. An  ancestor of Peyton Place and The Casual Vacancy. Written in 1940.

Who Was A.A. Milne? - Sarah Fabiny. Please mention Eeyore, please, please, please.

What I cheesed:

I tried really hard to make friends with the goat cheese, and thought that I was getting close when I paired it with grape jelly on a cracker, but in the end, just...no. There's something about the taste and texture I just couldn't manage to like. It's like cream cheese has an ugly stepsister. Although I know I'm losing Gourmet Palate points for this, I DNFed goat cheese. So much for my late in life ambition to become a cheesemonger.

On the other end of the taste spectrum, I blew through the Steakhouse Onion Cheddar within 10 days. This called for another trip to The Cheese Store. The manager regretfully informed me that the supplier has discontinued it. Steakhouse Onion, I hardly knew ye, but you were part of one of the best grilled cheeses I've ever had in my life. I consoled myself with some of the Bourbon Maple Cheddar that I passed up last time. It's good, but it's no Steakhouse Onion.

That Time Shingles Made a Non-Reader Out of Me

You are so lucky that no photos accompany this post!

On the 18th of December, I woke up with heartburn, but it was peculiar heartburn. No matter how much soda I drank or mints I ate, I couldn't quell the unpleasant tingling in my right breast. As the day wore on, the heartburn moved around and lodged in my upper back. Oh, pulled muscle. Fair enough. I'd used my arm a lot the day before then topped it off that evening with a session at the bowling alley.

Moving into that weekend, I spent a lot of time begging friends and family to tell me the truth; tell me that my back was covered in bruises. No, Susan, No. Really, no. There's nothing there. Nothing but that tattoo. For God's sake, pull your damn shirt down.

Monday morning welcomed me with nerves jumping like frogs in the upper back with the occasional lightning strike of pain. The next day brought me a new symptom like some kind of sadistic riff on the twelve days of Christmas: my abovementioned right breast swelled up twice the size of the left one. I felt -- still feel, actually -- like the love child of Quasimodo and Dolly Parton.

Wednesday brought the tag-team of Jack in the Beanstalk's giant vowing to "grind [my] bones to make [his] bread" and Norman Bates getting busy with the knife.

Christmas Eve, I took my mom out to Denny's for a late supper, then we went to church and out to look at Christmas lights that flashed to the rhythm of the pain in my back, which seemed to have somehow gotten sunburned during this first week of winter. Or perhaps I unknowingly rolled in an anthill?

  Back home, getting out of my torturous prison of a bra, I saw a funny red patch on my back, (which has gone on to create an extended family).  It didn't take Dr. House to figure out that Santa or Baby Jesus or the three wise men had brought me gold frankincense myrrh shingles.

Yesterday, the whole symptom family gathered for Christmas and brought chills.

Today I'm nauseated and my mother told me that I smell a bit like roadkill. I'm stoically waiting around for Monday and a visit to my doctor. Well, not entirely stoic. I had a weepy interlude from 8:00-8:30 a.m.

All of the above is uncomfortable and annoying, but the thing that grates most of all is that this has been coming on for some time, and I should have figured it out because the very VERY first symptom was  a sort of malaise that manifested itself as a reading slump, which was discussed in the previous two posts. That's how I roll: Even before I know I'm sick, I develop an aversion to reading.

 I rallied briefly and read The SantaLand Diaries by David Sedaris (AKA Holidays on Ice), but it was hard work.

Since then? Nothing.  I received a much-desired copy of Carly Simon's memoir, Boys in the Trees for Christmas, but all I've done is thumb through dutifully looking at the photos. Just the idea of sitting down and reading brings on a feeling of strong distaste, akin to nausea.  This is how non-readers feel! It's unsettling. My indignation at being attacked at this level knows no bounds.

I want my back back, and I want my breast back, and my relatively sweet-smelling body back, but most importantly, I want my bookworm self back.