(from a Russian book called Princess Rosa and Her Friend, Poop from the Toilet)
Yes, I think poop is funny. Don’t you?
Here’s my #2 excerpt from Sarah Silverman’s memoir The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee:
Posts under ‘Overbooked’
Sarah Silverman doesn’t wanna see your poop
Sarah Silverman on keeping a diary
I recently read Sarah Silverman’s memoir The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee. The controversial comedian (I don’t use comedienne, and I never will) was a bedwetter until high school. She’s one of four sisters. She struggled with crippling depression as a teenager.
The book never gets weepy or self-indulgent, and I like that Silverman actually spent a few chapters just talking about her life and not trying to be funny. My critique of the book’s ending is that she was so focused on being funny that she bombed. I wanted to learn more about her, not read what could pass for the script of her TV show.
Anyway, I appreciate Silverman’s work a lot more now. Also, the book is still pretty funny in some parts:
Gretchen Rubin on making happiness work
Awhile back, I read The Happiness Project Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin.
Long title, I know. Focus on the first words - The Happiness Project. Rubin went through books of scientific research, tips, and theories and tested them out. It changed her life.
It’s hard to schedule interviews, but I had to give it a shot for I Am A Super Woman. I was elated when Rubin emailed me back right away and said, “Call me at five.” She was so smart and approachable. One of the best interviews ever!
Here’s an excerpt:
IAAS: The thing I’ve been thinking about most since reading your blog and book is the concept of drift. Some people call it angst or a quarter- or mid-life crisis, but it’s not always so dramatic. Drift is when you have some expectation of what you’re supposed to do with your life. Maybe you accomplish these goals, but when you get there, you realize you’re not happy.
Gretchen Rubin: I got a huge response when I wrote about drift. Even emails from people saying, “I’m finishing my Ph.D, and I’m in drift.” The idea that drift is an easy solution isn’t true. People are accomplishing really difficult things they could be proud of, but finding that they’re in drift. They’re not happy.
I think people go into drift, because they haven’t asked “What do I want? What am I good at?” For a lot of people, it’s difficult and painful to acknowledge what it is they really want to do. One of the reasons people do things like go to law school is that it postpones that kind of confrontation and soul searching. They think they’ll pursue school, have more options and figure it out later. It doesn’t work like that.
Is life a mystery or a puzzle?
I’ve been trying to read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, with little success. I find it to be a collection of some of Gladwell’s least interesting articles.
Also, I cleverly worked the public library system by requesting a large print edition that wouldn’t be in much demand.
The result?
A 661-page would-be tome. In hardcover.
It’s not only painful to lug around. I feel special, err differently-abled when I try to read the thing on the subway.
Because it’s always okay to jump into bed with a book
A good book is a good friend. Some books - the really special kind - are lifelong loves.
But even if you have a briefly entertaining fling, it’s all good. Books don’t start immediately sleeping with trashy girls from Craigslist once you turn that last page.
Well, maybe some library books do.
A summer in Sag Harbor with Colson Whitehead
My to-read list looks something like the paper queue for NYC’s elite prep schools. It’s the stuff of reams.
One of the books I most wanted to read last year was Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, a novel based on the author’s teenage years in the 1980’s. Whitehead comes from an upwardly mobile black family in NYC that summered (yep, I’m using that as a verb all pretentious-like) at their beach house in the Hamptons.
And that’s the premise of Sag Harbor. The 15-year-old protagonist, Benji, and his brother, Reggie, are left to fend for themselves during the week. Their parents work in the city and join the boys on weekends.
So you’ve got teenage boys + the 1980’s + no supervision. It makes for an easy story full of magical coming-of-age first times and potential drownings. The thing is, the book is really funny and intelligent and more sly than that.
Whitehead is the first to admit the book isn’t heavy on plot, but when you’re a kid, most summers aren’t either. You hope they’ll be, but they’re usually not.
The playfulness of your heart
My fiction instructor has compared my writing voice to those of others. She’s implored me to study them, so I can figure out how to work deeper and harder with my own characters and stories.
I’m exploring Amy Hempel now. These are the last two paragraphs of her story “In A Tub”:
Falling in love and falling apart
I’ve been going through some old blog drafts written at various points in the past. Sometimes I’ll save something that tickles me, even if it’s apropos of nothing.
Or sometimes it’s too painfully apropos. For awhile, anyway.
This is from “A Dog Is No Reason to Stay Together” by Damian Kulash, Jr. as featured in Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me, edited by Ben Karlin:
You must’ve said something cruel
Sandra Cisneros is one of my favorite writers. She’s written one novel titled Caramelo, but I love her poetry more.
This poem, “No Mercy” from the incredible collection My Wicked, Wicked Ways, has been on my mind all week:
The closest thing to love
Next Thursday, I have yet another hunk of writing due for my fiction workshop. I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up to turn in so much writing two weeks after the last batch.
I know! Probably that I’d be able to get Junot Diaz to ghostwrite.
In exactly two days, I’m going to freak out and be unable to consume any media - it’ll be all about pooping it out. So I’m trying to get some reading in tonight. The following dialogue from Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge grabbed me.
