Aliverse

It’s a JENaissance! The New York Times bestselling author of Pretty in Plaid gets her culture on.

Readers have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette classes to improve her social graces.

In Jen’s corner is a crack team of experts, including Page Six socialites, gourmet chefs, an opera aficionado, and a master sommelier. She may discover that well-regarded, high-priced stinky cheese tastes exactly as bad as it smells, and that her love for Kraft American Singles is forever. But one thing’s for certain: Eliza Doolittle’s got nothing on Jen Lancaster-and failure is an option.

I could have read all night, I could have read all night, and still have begged for more… Seriously, I loved this book.  And I did beg for more by the time I got to the end.  I loved it so much, and was so enamored with Jen Lancaster’s wit and honesty, I went and bought the rest of her books.  (Reading My Fair Lazy was my first step into Jen Lancaster’s world.)

Let me begin by saying that Jen Lancaster is someone who makes you want her to be your best friend.  She’s funny, warm, and has a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor.  She is straight-forward and often blunt.  You know she’s the kind of friend who would tell you if there was something wrong with your outfit or if you were dating a total jerk.

What makes reading her book wonderful, though, is her ability to take you with her on her adventures.  She boldly steps out of her comfort zone and sets forth on her Jenaissance!  Her goal to bring more worldly culture and less pop-culture into her life is a challenge throughout the book.  Jen makes you feel as if you are right there with her when she braves stinky cheese, molecular gastronomy, naked stage performances, and political liberals.

Read My Fair Lazy and you will want to embark upon your own personal renaissance.  You’ll want to taste new foods, read new books, and take in some naked theater. (Ok, maybe not naked, but you’ll want to take in some theater.)

This was my first official galley and my first official book review.  I could not have possibly picked a better starting point.

Buy the book when it comes out on May 4th (2010), and check out Jen’s online home at Jensylvania.

~ 5 out of 5 ~

the opening notes of “At Last” by Etta James
the crease in our daughter’s forehead when she frowns
driving in to D.C.
“Nobody Does it Better” sung by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
laughing at one of our favorite movies
strong, hot coffee; dark roast
turning the radio up and ‘dancing’ in the car with the kids in the back
contagious giggles, bubbling from our son’s belly and escaping gleefully into the universe

6,840.214 miles keep us from enjoying these things together. But sometimes, in the moment, they disappear and you’re with me again.

Maybe I’m not the best person to turn to as far as activism, but this struck a nerve with me. I recently posted about not being a mommy-blogger and I see I am not alone.

http://www.blogworldexpo.com/blog/2010/04/26/not-a-mommy-blogger-that-is/

I’m almost finished reading “My Fair Lazy” by Jen Lancaster.  I won’t spoil anything before the review, but so far things are looking great.  I think I may have a new favorite author in my top ten.

Look for the review of “My Fair Lazy” this Friday, April 30th.

But I am a mom who blogs.  Can there be a difference?  I think so, I really do.

I admit it, a huge portion of my time is taken up by my kids.  They don’t just take up my time, either, they take up a huge portion of my heart.  They suck my energy and give it back to me in the millions of little things they do each day to make me smile.  Watching my kids sleep is one of the top ten best things I can do, and just hearing one of them giggle lifts the weight of the day from my shoulders.

All of that said, there is more to me than ‘Mom’.  (Mama, Mom, Mommy)  Yes, I am a wife too, but that is only for my husband.  An audience of one.

So when I see articles, blogs, or online communities devoted to mommy-bloggers, I don’t quite feel I belong.  I don’t mean to say that I’ll never post about my kids.  I just don’t plan for them to be the main attraction.  They are the main attraction in most other parts of my life.  This part, the writing part, is mine to keep to myself.  It’s the selfish part of me that wants to create in ways that are unrelated to anyone else.

Please don’t get me wrong! I am not implying that I dislike mommy-blogs.  I don’t. I read and subscribe to plenty of them.  It’s just not what I’m here to do.

So if I say ‘fuck’ or talk about what a douchebag the driver in front of me was yesterday, please don’t let that blow your perception of me as a mom.  That’s not all I am.  I swear, I occasionally have a beer or a glass of wine, or even a whiskey on the rocks.  I listen to inappropriate music with even more inappropriate lyrics.  I love the song “Crazy Bitch” by Buckcherry.  I used to smoke pot and think it’s stupid that it’s now illegal.  (I also fully disclose that every time I have to submit an application for any sort of security clearance. )

I don’t have it all together, I’m not perfect and my house isn’t always tidy.  Laundry often gets done twice because I forget that it’s in the washer and it gets that nasty, musty smell after it’s been in there for a day.  Sometimes I take the shortcut ways to make dinner, and I miss my husband (who is in Afghanistan now) because he is the cook in the family.  I enjoy cooking when I feel like it, but I hate having to do it every day.  Sometimes, I want to eat garlic bread for dinner.

While I’m sure I’ll post about my kids now and then, that’s not what this blog is about.  There is more to me than the other people in my life.  I’m finally starting to figure some of that out, and that is why I want to write here.

I really hate when other people at work start singing at their desk.  Thank L. Ron for the iPod.  I do not need to hear somebody else sing out of tune.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some 4-Non-Blondes to listen to…

So I’ve avoided posting for a while because all I’ve had to comment on was bitchy.  But then I thought, well, maybe I should just post it.  I mean, really, it’s not like I can hide this side of me forever.  I can’t totally avoid nasty comments, if anyone ever decides to read my blog.  So I might as well just put it all out there.

So I’m going to bitch a little.

First of all, I hate traveling by plane with my kids.  Let there be no mistake, I absolutely adore my children.  They make my days.  I can’t wait to see them at the end of a long day at work, and they make me smile all the time.  But traveling with them isn’t easy and being alone and traveling with them sucks.  My husband is in Afghanistan now, and this past weekend I visited my folks in Indianapolis.  It was just me and the kids. (ages 4 and 16 months)  Because I’m tired of paying stupid fees, I decided against checking my bag.  After all, we were only staying one night, so I might as well just go ahead and carry it on.  So there I was, pushing my daughter in her stroller, with two bags in the basket underneath, pulling my small-ish suitcase behind me, carrying a Vera Bradley bag on my shoulder, and constantly checking to be sure my son was keeping up.  (my son, who also carried twice his weight on his back in the form of a small backpack filled with Matchbox cars)

Doing all of this alone is exhausting.  Dealing with bitchy people on the way makes it suck so much worse.  The lady who was off in la-la-land, ignoring the line and then finally cutting me off at the last-minute, decided to give me attitude when I took longer than 30 seconds to move my bin with our shoes in it.  The security people at the airport in Indy were incredibly rude, which surprised me because customer service in Indianapolis is fantastic.  The guy looking at our passports was an asshole, and had the balls to yell at my son, who did nothing wrong, to tell him to stay with me.  My son hadn’t wandered off.  He had simply turned to look at something and I had to get his attention to let him know we were moving forward in the line.  It took all of 5 seconds and this douchebag goes and yells at him.  Nice.  Feels good to bully a 4-year-old, doesn’t it?

Both my kids wear medical bracelets.  The lady at the x-ray tells me they should take them off because it’ll set off the alarm.  I tell her that in the past 4 years they have never set off an alarm.  Her response sounds similar to a teenager answering their ‘idiot’ parent.  My children go through, medical bracelets still on, without a single alarm going off.  Natch.

I’m grateful to the people on the plane, both to and from Indy.  Everyone was kind and nobody gave me the nasty looks I’ve come to expect when people see I have little children with me.   Both kids were well-behaved and nobody screamed, so I think the kindness was well deserved.

So, yeah, back to the bitching.  I get irritated when people don’t seem to pay attention to what the hell I’m saying.  Especially when it’s clear that everyone else in the conversation ‘gets it’.  When I say, over and over, that I wish Ken’s made their Golden Italian dressing in bottles so I could get it at the grocery store, that does not mean I want to order the individual packets in bulk.  In fact, I have mentioned at least a dozen times that I have found plenty of places where I could order individual packets if I so desired.  But that isn’t my beef.  I want a bottle of the stuff.  I’m not angry that I can’t get it, just disappointed.  But don’t try to then show me all the ways I can get the packets and then act like you were doing me a favor when I tell you I’m not interested.

One last thing, and then I’ll shut up.  At this point I realize that I’m rambling.  I think it’s sad when you find that one of the writers you look up to is kind of a  jerk.  It obviously doesn’t detract from their writing ability or anything, but it certainly changes the way I read them.  Today that happened to me.  I just hit the point where I went ‘really?  Are you that shallow?’   It was disappointing and discouraging.

On a non-bitchy note, soon I’ll be reviewing the upcoming book “My Fair Lazy” by Jen Lancaster.  I can’t wait, and that is nothing to be bitchy about.

Update!

I have completely sucked on my update duties today.  I blame most of it on being sick and some of it on not reading as much as I wanted.  What I did wrong was choose a book that was sort of hard to get through to start with.  Not that it was boring or dry or anything.  I’m reading The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig M. Mullaney.  It’s a well-written account of this man’s passage from boyhood as a West Point plebe to adulthood as an Army Ranger who became a Captain and led troops in Afghanistan.

The problem is, the subject matter is heavy.  I keep reading and re-reading passages.  Every so often I’ll refer to the pictures in the middle of the book.  They’re pictures of when he was in West Point, pictures of friends, pictures of his wedding, etc.  This baby-faced ‘kid’ is a grown adult who led others into battle.  As I was reading one section about his experience with Ranger training, I tried to imagine this rather thin guy putting his own dislocated shoulder back into place.  I admit I’m having a difficult time with this.  He just doesn’t seem to be the tough type.  Even so, I have no reason to doubt even a single sentence that he’s written.  He has been nothing if not forthright.  Tough does not begin to describe him.  Unrelenting is more like it.

It’s an excellent book and a good read.  Just not something you can easily plow through during a 24-hour read-a-thon.

I’m going to take a break now and try something a little shorter and more light-hearted.  Possibly “Why We Suck” by Dennis Leary.