I read New Yorker fiction #2: “The Rise and Rise of Annie Clark” by John L’Heureux (10/8/18)

Summary: In 1950, a woman seeks confirmation of her devout Catholic values.

Lines that will stick with me:  “She nags God for a private miracle – something cozy just between the two of them …”

My take: I did make it to the end; in fact, I read the ending twice, to make sure I’d read it correctly. (I had.) I didn’t find the main character very likeable to start, and still wasn’t exactly fond of her at the end – though I did have more sympathy for her.  All that being said I have to admit that it was an honest-to-gosh story and, for me, one that in the end came this close to crossing the line between literary and speculative fiction – which, in the end, probably made me like it a bit more than I otherwise might have.

(Fair disclosure – Though I was fairly religious when I was much younger, I’m not now. Also, I was once married into a Catholic family, and I’m also not now.)

I read New Yorker fiction #1: “When We Were Happy We Had Other Names” by Yiyun Li (10/1/2018)

Summary: A woman works through grief after the death of her teenage son by entering into a spreadsheet the birth and death year of everyone she has known who is no longer alive.

Line that will stick with me: “Memory was a haystack. Search for any one story and you’d get a hundred stories, none of them complete.”

My take: I made it to the end – and wasn’t sorry. Though it has a “plot” line that intrinsically takes the story all over the place, the story was ultimately satisfying due to the engaging nature of the woman’s exploration of her acquaintance with death and grief, the changes in which are recognized by her – and is the point of the actual ending.

(Fair disclosure – my spouse works for a funeral home, which may make me more open to stories about how people deal with grief.  That being said, the reasons I actually liked the story did not depend on this.)

I read New Yorker fiction

I’ve been a voracious reader most of my life, a wannabe fiction writer since grade school.  I’m unapologetically a fan of SFF and mystery/crime fiction – and have been known to categorize a certain sort of story – ultra-literary, barely distinguishable plot and/or character arc, endings that feel like the last paragraph was deleted — as “New Yorker fiction.”

And yet the New Yorker has come into my home every week for years. I try to read the fiction; sometimes it’s quite good, and others it’s, well, New Yorker fiction.  I’ll be trying to read New Yorker fiction – all the way through to the potential non-end– and record my take on it here.

Hello, it’s me.

I haven’t posted anything in this blog for a year and 9 months, and have toyed with the idea of simply deleting it.  But I’ve made my way through the depression evident in those post-election haiku, through the anger and into action — and sometimes back again.  The situation, political and otherwise (but mostly political) has gotten both worse and more ridiculous, but lately I feel the need to write again.  So I’ve decided to give the blog one more try.

Even if I’m the only one who knows it’s here.

Words for Woeful Wednesday, #5 & #6

#5, for 12/21/16

At Winter’s Solstice

Darkness gives way to the light.

This year, it lingers.

 

 #6, for 12/28/16

Not yet New Year’s Day:

My resolutions were made

On Election Eve.

Words for a Woeful Wednesday #4

Done

What we know is:

He did it.

We know how

(The rope, the ceiling)

Not why life’s center

Slipped beyond his grasp

Responsibility:

Did he leave with it on his shoulders,

Or  on the backs of others?

Words for a Woeful Wednesday #3

About last Wednesday

I had ideas —

Lots of them,

In flight and vicious:

Vultures,

Pterodactyls,

Vampire bats,

Green bottle flies.

Flapping their wings

Buzzing, hissing

Snapping at each other.

Even at the end

As they sank into the darkness

Too exhausted to fly,

Their malice was not so spent

As to recommend a close encounter

I had ideas,

But no words for last Wednesday

Words for Woeful Wednesday #2 — 11/23/16

There is something going on in my dreams

Last night I drifted on a sparkling green-glass sea: my sails unfurled, catching the wind — I grabbed a rope and maneuvered the boat into a bay clogged with sunbathers on inflatable rafts, belly up like frogs on lily pads pinned out for dissection. I sailed through, around some, over a few, until someone shouted, “You don’t know what you’re doing!” and I answered, “No, but I am doing it.”

The night before, I’d danced, silently and for myself, slowly turning round and round in a grey taffeta dress trimmed in rickrack — rows of red, orange and yellow — the sheen of the fabric, the bright lines of color coming out of the darkness and into view briefly before disappearing back into the shadows.

 

Words for Woeful Wednesday #1 — 11/16/16

Last night I broke my reading glasses

I heard them drop to the floor with a crack, but I hoped for the best. That’s what I do when things don’t go my way — which is to say, what I’ve been lately doing quite a bit. When I picked them up my finger went through the empty space where the left lens used to be and I was annoyed with myself for letting it happen. (They were peacock blue and recent favorites.) But as I slipped them into the waste bin my anger retreated, disappearing into the grey cloud cover of numbness that has been in my life for days, yet another broken thing that seems beyond my power to mend.

 

 

New Year, (another) New Start

My introverted side has been in control for a while, but I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m ready to share things again. It’s not like I haven’t been doing anything

My Cossack Poncho

The “Cossack” refers to the yarn –Sirdar, and free-to-me via someone else’s de-stashing. It’s a dark, blackish-blue with strands of pale turquoise and flecks of copper — great with jeans and got a lot wear in the last few months.

2015 Handmade Gift Extravaganza

This year, everyone on my list got one of these cowls.”Only” twelve in these pics — I made a total of 15, and all done (and blocked!) before they needed to be wrapped on the 24th. (pretty sure that’s a first for me…)

And last — but definitely not least — my new Schacht Flip Loom, a much hinted-for but still unexpected birthday gift from JayZee.

A close up of the on-loom project, a scarf in self-striping sock yarn warp with weft of solid blue fine fingering yarn. It’s done and off the loom now, waiting for me to get up the nerve to full it.