Writing Prompt

I wasn't quite sure WHAT to call this so I called it what it is - a writing prompt. :)

The artist walked in with a confidence that only those with a quirk and some degree of social ignorance could walk in with.  It was almost as if he didn't know that he was different and that's what made him confident because if he knew he was different, he would most assuredly know that he should be embarrassed by his social awkwardness.  He was dressed as you would imagine he would be dressed.  He had long, dark woolen pants - they were perfect for the New York City winters when the avenues and streets with their tall skyscrapers acted as wind tunnels.  The cold and wet snow and freezing rain would never penetrate those pants.  He was wearing black, wing tipped shoes that had recently been polished. I couldn't tell what kind of socks that he was wearing, but I would have put my money on wool argyle but not the thick wool - wool that was thin enough that they would fit into those fancy shoes of his.  He had on a genuine wool Peacoat and a scarf that made the other people that worked at the gallery wonder as to whether he was as straight as we had all heard that he was.

In his hands, he carried a very large painting. It was nearly impossible for him to carry alone and I wondered at how he managed to carry it to the gallery from wherever it was that he was coming from. It was very well protected - the elements weren't getting to that either - and people were buzzing around it and him without any qualms about showing him that he was "special."

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

There has been a lot of buzz about this book and for good reason.  For some reason, I thought that it was a work of fiction, but to my (pleasant!) surprise, it is a work of non-fiction focused on the sex lives of three very different women from different parts of the United States.  Lisa Taddeo even says that she struggled to find these women - she drove across the country six times! It takes place in the current decade. The women are different from each other - Maggie (in her 20's and working class), Sloane (upper class, lives in Newport RI and owns a business), and Lina (in her 30's and living in Indiana). Lina has rekindled a relationship with a (married) high school sweetheart after her marriage has ended.  Maggie is suffering from the fallout of a relationship with a married teacher that she had when she was in high school, including a trial and earning the hatred of a divided community. Sloane and her husband are middle aged swingers that own a restaurant in Newport. The common thread seems to be that the women are struggling to be sexual, to be desired and not to be hated.  They don't seem to have their own sexual agency and all three seem to be punished without experiencing the pleasure that they want.

I found all of the women's stories compelling - Maggie's in particular was heart wrenching.  She, by her own account, was an at risk teenager with parents who were alcoholics.  She confided in her teacher who then began to groom her and begin an inappropriate relationship with her. Maggie's story and the trial were all too real to me - it happens everyday in our criminal justice system where women like Maggie have suffered and then aren't vindicated by a guilty verdict. And she still suffers the ramifications - she drops out of college and is working a dead end job as a food service worker. She also suffers extreme depression and anxiety.

I think I was perhaps  most interested in Sloane's story because it's not something that I would ever choose for myself. Sloane and her husband were always open about their sexual lives and Sloane and he seemed to participate in this lifestyle healthily with open communication. The crux of Sloane's story was that a partner to their bed wasn't as open with his own partner (with whom he was in a long term relationship and had children) as Sloane and her husband had been led to believe. When the partner's wife finds out, the blame falls squarely on Sloane as the woman in the relationship, even though Sloane's husband was the one that encouraged her to engage in the liason.

I generally really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and interesting read, although it generally left me pessimistic about women having any degree of sexual agency that doesn't carry some blowback or punishment or shaming.  Highly recommended.

Liza

SHe was surprised that she had been invited to the mansion on the North Shore of Long Island, right outside of the city, for the party.  She wasn't normally included in the rich, flapper set that listened to the jazz that had overtaken the country or danced the Charleston that seemed to be the current craze.  But she was excited to go, if only to watch people dance, talk and imbibe too much.  And who knew?  Maybe she would meet the man, or woman, of her dreams.

Liza knew that she was an anomaly in this day and age.  She kissed both boys and girls with impunity and no one seemed to care unless it was one of those Prohibitionists left over from an earlier age or her mother.  This was why she had left her home in the country outside of Saratoga and taken the train to New York. Her mother would be suitably mortified to learn that she was living in a boarding house with other women in Brooklyn and taking the Subway into Lower Manhatten to her job as a receptionist in a large law firm.  Maybe one day, she would be promoted to legal assistant. A few of the girls were due to get married to she may actually have a chance when they left.

Liza took one last look in the full length mirror that she kept in her room at the boarding house.  All things considered, she enjoyed the styles of the 20's - the dress she wore had straps and hung loosely on her curvy frame.  When she twirled around, the hem of the dress flew around.  She liked how the waistline of the dress was close to her hips. Liza had always hated the constricting dresses that her mother had made her wear when she was living with the rest of the family. She loved the sequins on it and how the dress sparkled in the light. It gave her a sense of wonder, excitement and anticipation as to what the night may hold.

As she gazed at herself in the mirror, Liza heard a honk outside.  She glanced out the open window and saw a pale yellow convertible belonging to Nick idling at the curb, with Nick driving and her cousin, Ella, in the passenger seat.

"Come on you silly goose," yelled Ella as she leaned out of the car.  "We're already running late and you know how bad that traffic is on the Expressway!"

Liza grabbed her mink stole from the bed, burst through the door to her room and clattered down the stairs, pell mell, nearly knocking over Mrs. Tully, the proprietess, in her haste.

Why I Like the Walking Dead

So, for those of you that haven't figured it out yet, I have a penchant for dystopian fiction.  In large part, it's because I find that it's the most effective way to critique things that are going on in our society currently. And with the way certain parts of the world are going, it's eerily and scarily imaginable - not that there will be a zombie apocalypse soon (hardly - I hope. ;) ) but societies passing certain laws that make the country more of a religious then secular state.  So it shouldn't be any surprise that I enjoy The Walking Dead.

For those of you that don't know, TWD started as a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore , and which focuses on Rick Grimes, a deputy that awakes from a coma after he has been shot only to learn that his world has tremendously changed and he struggles to figure out why. AMC eventually developed an insanely popular TV show that was based on the comics - although I think that at some point it begins to diverge from the comics.  This blog post focuses on the show. 

I love the show because I think that it is a treatise on humanity and what happens to it when people are thrown into survival situations.  While there are definitely times you feel absolutely devastated that some people become what they are, ultimately there are moments of redemption in which you see how other people recognize each other as family. 

Best Book of October

In October, I read four books - eek - I usually read more but whatever and I didn't review all of them because two of the books were sequels to a book and wouldn't have provided any new insights really. Of those three, the best one that I read was, without a doubt, Zafon's The Angel's Game (my review can be found here).

I still really love Zafon's writing style and the types of books that he writes as well as the plots of the stories that he writes. The translations are masterful - they are originally written in Spanish, and one day I hope to read the books in the native language.

What is the best book you read this month? Let me know in comments, or write your own post and link up below!

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