Last summer I beta read a novel for a colleague’s spouse—I provided feedback as best I could, but the novel was pretty awful overall. (Which means, interjects IP, that this person is sure to get published! Boom!) That depressing parenthetical aside, I kind of figured it was over with and brushed my hands of it. However, the spouse apparently thought that this was the beginning of an editorial relationship wherein I kept on beta reading for them for free and they could send their subsequent revisions and new manuscripts to me any old time they wanted. Yeah, no.
When they floated their latest ideas to me, I claimed ignorance of the genre (which was true) and pointed them to some online writing communities they might want to explore. Did that help? No. They kept on sending me novel synopses, book suggestions, CCing me on correspondence to author they liked, etc. It was embarrassing. I would write back and say I no longer had time to do beta reads or give feedback on new ideas, but that didn’t stop them. They even friended me on Facebook, and then defriended me when I ignored their exhortations to read The Hunger Games trilogy (which I do plan on reading, at least the first book, but I didn’t decide to do so until I got feedback from readers that I actually trusted). I thought the defriending meant it was over! But no!
How many “no’s” do I have to write here? Too many.
Anyway, the latest in this series of unfortunate events was an email I received from the writer’s (and I use that term loosely) spouse who is my colleague. They sent me the final manuscript of last year’s beta read and suggested I might want to read it during a long plane ride I’m no longer taking. I was like LOL QUE?
Original artwork by `ursulav
I mean, first of all, I’ve made it clear to this person’s spouse that I’m not interested in reading their stuff anymore; the first beta read was fine (if painful), but when you want subsequent beta reads? You ask. You don’t just send the manuscripts and say “Let me know your thoughts.” No. (There we go again.) That’s rude. You ask if they might possibly have time to beta read for you again, understanding if they don’t. You don’t CC them on embarrassing emails to published authors; you don’t send them synopses and then email them again when the person doesn’t respond in a timely fashion (like, one day allowance given). You don’t keep them abreast of your efforts to get published, especially when the person has expressed absolutely no interest in your endeavors. You don’t continue to send your stuff when the person has said they have no time. Accept the initial feedback, then back off—if the person doesn’t want to be involved, don’t try to force it.
Second of all, way to presume that I want to read your spouse’s novel on eleven flights. I bring my books, music and movies (hey, my backpack is a veritable Borders! Except not bankrupt) for a reason, and that’s because I want to keep myself entertained in my own way. You can kindly suggest that I consider reading something, but not in a situation where a) you’re going to be on the same flight, 2) your spouse is going to be on the same flight, watching me reading their novel (which I did not like, not one bit!), and III) I’ve already said I’m not doing any further work on their writing. Like, fuck no!
I’ve gotten to the point where I ignore the writer’s emails. I’ve already said, multiple times, that I no longer have time to beta read. I’m fortunately not traveling with these people this summer after all. I hope it ends now!
What else do I need to do to make this go away?
First I was all 
and 
.
Then I was all 
and then 
.
Then, because of my grad school, I was all 
. But then, because I can overcome their stupidity, I was all .
And then I got all 
and then 
and then 
because I didn’t get to 
. I seriously needed lots of 
.
And then, when finally did happen, I told myself to get 
and 
again, damnit.
So I did. For a while.
Then I went from 
, am approaching this 
and might go to this 
again because I feel like 
is running out.
I would like to know when I finally get to leave all that behind, get permanently back to and and then get to 
with IP.
The end.
For now.
I’m gonna hang my body from the highest tree. Why don’t you write me?
Well, not really on the hanging my body from the highest tree part. But the woe is me? Totes, dudes, totes, even if it is Friday (we so excited? OMG, I just sullied a Simon and Garfunkel-related post with reference to Rebecca Black’s “Friday”—revoke my fan card now!).
Ahem.
On this first Friday of June 2011, I have in mind Simon and Garfunkel’s “Why Don’t You Write Me” from their wonderful last album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. It popped into my head last night because, damn it, I need someone to write me!
Well, more specifically, I need a call and then I need someone to write me with the details of that call. Hopefully soon. Fingers crossed.
Remember that muy, muy awesome news I’m dying to share? Well, I still can’t share it and it’s driving me bonkers. Absolutely bonkers because I was expecting to have shared it by now. Once the news can be shared, so many things will be set into motion, but I’m stuck, still revving my engine but unable to depress the accelerator (which brings to mind “Baby Driver,” also from the Bridge Over Troubled Water album—except I don’t wonder how your engines feel, peeps; I love you and all, but not like that).
Anyway.
I’m anxious and flustered and wishing I had news and wishing I could get the ball rolling. But I can’t, because no one’s (phoning and) writing me. So, in conclusion, join me in my misery with a jaunty little tune:
P.S. Before I wrote this post, IP told me to write a post about this and a half-dozen other topics, but I dismissed them all. But then I remember “Why Don’t You Write Me” and it was too perfect to pass up, you know? So, here’s me saying that IP was right with his first post idea suggestion. Love you, honey! Mwah!
Well, hello. An actual book list review!
In the time since my last review (of Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love), I’ve read an additional eleven books and am going through the twelfth book as we, uh, type. It’s now time to get back into the swing of reviewing things. Ready?
A book I was eagerly looking forward to was Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes. I’m a great fan of Sarah Vowell and love most of her prior work (the one I couldn’t get into: Radio On, and I attributed the failure of that book to resonate with me to her youth as a writer and my unwillingness to believe that Kurt Cobain’s suicide CHANGED EVERYTHING). I was happy to see Vowell would be releasing a new book, and twice as happy to see that her subject would be the annexation of Hawaii. Having been there multiple times and having had the privilege to travel to places beyond Hawaii’s shores that have experienced much of what Hawaii experienced, I was interested in Vowell’s take on Hawaii’s history. Her last book, The Wordy Shipmates, was a clever rumination on the Massachusetts Bay Colony—I was hoping for more of the same with Unfamiliar Fishes.
I was, alas, disappointed. Hawaii is a complicated mosaic of a state, and many of the issues surrounding its annexation in 1898 still remain very much alive today. While Vowell’s style is to be an observer rather than a historian, Hawaii’s treatment left me feeling, well, uninformed, and I know a lot about the place. Although Vowell seemed to take great care to bring to life the historical figures from The Wordy Shipmates, all players in Hawaii—from missionaries to royalty to planters—fall flat, unable to be distinguished from one another as Vowell rushes from one incident to the next in recounting Hawaii’s fall into statehood.
Culturally, Hawaii is a rich nation, but its intricacies seemed to be pushed aside in order to make way for discussions on the lives of missionaries who sought to Christianize the islands. While I can be fair and say that the accounts of missionaries are probably some of the best primary sources Vowell could have, her dive into Hawaiian culture didn’t even break the surface—her description of the plate lunch, a rather nice introduction, seems to be as complex as the book gets. While I recognized that Hawaii’s strange diversity stems from the arrival of the missionaries in the 1820s and the types of industry and immigration it led to, what’s missing is what’s firmly Hawaiian—too little is made of the Hawaiian players who fought or embraced the Americanization of the islands, and not enough of Native Hawaiian beliefs, society, or history is discussed. In discussing the Americanization of Hawaii, which I was eager to learn about, Vowell fails to address what was and still is truly Hawaiian, at least in a cohesive, comprehensive way that matches the exploration of the Americans (and like I mentioned, even they’re painted with broad strokes). While about Hawaii, the narrative seems to be missing Hawaii.
In trying to condense the annexation of Hawaii into what amounts to a traveler’s 236-page narrative, Vowell loses the complexity of the islands, especially when she locates herself in the narrative. This is something that I’ve always known Vowell to do, but it stood out in Unfamiliar Fishes in a way it hadn’t before; because of the already existing weak links, Vowell’s own appearances in the book seemed that much more jarring.
So I’m a tad disappointed, but it’s nice to see part of my work in the spotlight. Perhaps a more casual reader, less versed in Hawaiian history (and its current role as big brother to the U.S.-affiliated Pacific territories), will find it enlightening and lead to greater exploration of the 50th state.
Onto the book list:
Finished:
1) Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
2) Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn and Ada Calhoun
3) Beneath the Lion’s Gaze: A Novel by Maaza Mengiste
4) Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
5) Destiny and Desire: A Novel by Carlos Fuentes; Translated by Edith Grossman
6) The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
7) Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
8) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
9) The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir
10) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
11) The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
12) Empire Falls by Richard Russo
13) Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
14) The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
15) The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
16) The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen
17) The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman
18) Between Parent and Child by Dr. Haim G. Ginott
19) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
20) The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
21) The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
22) Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
23) Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal
24) A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
25) One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde
26) Different Seasons by Stephen King
Re-read:
1) Threads by Nell Gavin
Currently Reading:
1) Unpublished Novel
Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):
1) Next by James Hynes
2) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
3) Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
4) The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips
5) Paradise Park by Allegra Goodman
6) Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
7) The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig M. Mullaney
Free association post because I have no ideas for topics. Whee!
And now I’m blanking on even the most mundane of topics. Hmm.
Ah, here we go.
The heat has returned to D.C. After some rainy periods that were on the cooler side, now we have occasional stormy weather with high temperatures. Lovely. I for one do not enjoy summer in D.C., and would rather that it pass quickly. However, given that we’re already hitting the high 80s in May, I think we’re in for another screwing this year. On Friday night, as a storm rolled through our area, our power flickered but managed to stay on. I’m warning you, PEPCO: you’d better have made improvements and you’d better be well prepared for this summer. (I have a feeling, though, that they’re not.)
Last week was my birthday, and I enjoyed it by hitting up a good restaurant and the Paul frickin’ Simon concert. What can I say? He was awesome. The Baltimore Sun has a great review here which I’d say is pretty spot-on. As geeky as this is going to sound, I felt breathless throughout the entire concert—it was just such a great feeling to be in that audience, enjoying the music that I’ve been loving for the past 20 years of my life. And Simon played “Rewrite,” which is my current favorite off of his latest album, So Beautiful or So What?. Since I’m doing some life rewriting of my own lately (can’t really share at the moment, but it’s all good), and I’m trying to some more literal rewriting (of a short story), I feel it pretty apt right now and I lurve the song. And I just loved that concert to high heaven. And did I mention I also loved my slice of red velvet cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side?
I can also add that, in addition to a fabulous evening with IP, Paul Simon, and that lovely red velvet cake you see in that picture, I made out like a bandit. Not only do I have an amazing husband, but I have a pretty damn amazing family who showered me with gifts. IP’s parents participated in the gift-giving, and I now have some more books to read (booooooks!). I am also the recipient of another gift that I can’t mention just yet, but hopefully can soon. It’s good, it’s great, it’s muy muy awesome. And I’ve been sitting on it for a while now and it’s not getting any easier to keep it from you, interwebs, but it must be done. Alas!
And that’s all I got for you right now. Maybe some writing inspiration will come later.
At the end of Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell, she contrasts two songs by the artist Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole—his cover of “Over the Rainbow” and “Hawaii ‘78.” This cover of “Over the Rainbow” is ridiculously well known, and Vowell is right when she writes that “anyone who has been to any of the islands for more than fifteen minutes and hasn’t heard Iz’s cover of ‘Over the Rainbow’ at least fives times is not paying attention.” Vowell’s contrast is this: the cover of “Over the Rainbow” somehow communicates that you’re actually in that perfect place while in Hawaii (and not just longing for it as the song says); “Hawaii ‘78” mourns what Hawaii actually is now. As Vowell puts it, “Hawaii ‘78′” is the bizarro B side of “Over the Rainbow.”
But you hear it everywhere, that cover of “Over the Rainbow.” Case in point: I heard it at around 5pm on Friday night, laying on the beach in Cancún, watching the staff of our resort set up for a sunset wedding. I listened to the song, remembering what I had read earlier in the week, on the same beach, and thought to myself: I’ve been to Hawaii. I’ve heard this song a million times there. I’ve been to places beyond Hawaii’s shores that are incredibly beautiful and are experiencing the fight for culture that Hawaii is in ‘Hawaii ‘78’ and have heard the cover a million times there. I’ve heard the cover used in TV commercials. I hadn’t heard the cover in Cancún, though.
And Cancún was where I liked it best.
When I say Cancún, a lot of people think back to their own days down there, stuffed eight to a room and getting sick on the beach at night, having wild spring breaks where probably too much was lost and not enough was learned.
The Cancún that IP and I go to is different. Very different.
It’s about going home, in a sense. It’s about appreciating the vast knowledge and beauty that was once the purview of the Mayans. It’s about recognizing that there’s a deeper story to Cancún than what the tourists bring; it’s about learning and wanting to know more about the history behind this relatively young tourist destination. It’s about spending a week with wonderful people who are funny as hell and great to talk to—and I’m not talking about my fellow tourists. It’s about spending a week reconnecting with each other and with the inner peace that seems to fly away so easily in Washington, D.C.
It’s about serenity, and the quiet little resort that we’ve grown to love, tucked away from the general chaos of the hotel zone, offers us peace in spades. We’re apart from the world, yes, but sometimes it’s needed.
We needed it this year. Badly. And we’ll need it again.
At least now we know how to find what’s over the rainbow.
See you in about a year, Cancún.
So the week ends with a reminiscence about the first time IP and I met. Here we are, nine years later, still going strong and still loving the moments we spend together. It seems like yesterday we first laid eyes on each other, though—time really does fly when you’re having fun. Which probably means that the time we’ve spent in Cancún this past week has flown by entirely too fast and I’ll be back on Monday with (possibly) new material.
March 31, 2011: Nine Years Ago Today
I’m not going to lie: IP is all sorts of awesome. He tells me he thinks that I’m sorts of awesome, too. Aww, shucks. But anyway: there are times when I just have to express it on this blog. IP is one of the most understanding, wonderful, loving and amazing people I know, and I don’t hesitate to share that with the general public. We work hard to be what we are together, so why not celebrate it from time to time?
Or celebrate each other in order to help ease a tough week? This post was written as a way to get my husband to smile during a week when there wasn’t much to smile about. Those things were nifty then and they’re nifty now.
June 15, 2010: Nifty Things about My Husband
A test of our engagement—can it survive IP’s hate of Vernors ginger ale? Well, yes, but it’s still a damn funny post because of IP’s crazy hyperbole when referring to the color of Vernors. And you have to realize: this is IP all the time. I love it!
Mathgeek has told me that this is one his all-time favorite posts here at Sonnet 87. I have to admit: I have a soft spot for it, too.
June 2, 2009: IP’s Ginger Ail
Weddings are fraught with the tension between tradition and the desires of the couple. While the end result was awesome (IP and I are married! Huzzah!), getting there was no joke thanks to the expectations set by tradition. And even on the day of, when you’re trying to let go and relax a little bit since the planning is over (and just go with the flow, really), there’s still some tradition that tries to weasel its way into your day. But we weren’t having it.
We’ve always been proud of going our own way, and wedding planning and day-of behavior was no exception. If we hated a tradition and didn’t want to do it or turn it on its head, we did, as illustrated in this response to the damn wine glass clinking at weddings.
October 3, 2009: I Don’t Kiss on Command