Tag: Hardly Knew Her

I Have a Dream

This weekend–the first in I don’t remember how long where I didn’t have a horrible deadline for a book hanging over my head–has been enormously relaxing and peaceful. The US Figure Skating Championships are going on, and so is the Australian Open, so Paul is on a total sports overload. I greatly enjoyed seeing the pictures and posts all over social media and the news about the Women’s Marches all over the world, and am extremely proud of all my friends who participated.

It gave me hope.

Ironically, having a free weekend with no book deadline has me feeling enormously guilty for doing nothing. WHY CAN’T I EVER JUST RELAX? Madness, seriously. But my kitchen is a mess, and there’s a load of laundry I need to fluff in the dryer–it’s been there since Friday morning–and I kind of would like to work on my cabinets and filing some. Seriously, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but i just am not comfortable not doing anything. I hate that.

Okay, so I took a break and cleaned out the top drawer of the filing cabinet (huzzah!), did the dishes, put yesterday’s away, and did a load of laundry, currently drying. I also curled up in my easy chair with Scooter and read Megan Abbott’s Edgar nominated short story, “Oxford Girl,” and Laura Lippman’s “Pony Girl.”

Wow.

I have been an advocate for women crime writers for a very long time, and will continue shouting to the rooftops about the amazing women writers of our time even after my voice has gone hoarse and my throat hurts. These two examples from two of the best writers of our time, bar none, regardless of genre, are pristine in their beauty and delicious in their darkness.

Megan’s story is from Mississippi Noir, edited by Tom Franklin, and is part of Akashic’s amazing City/Place Noir series. If you’re a fan of great writing and stories that will punch you in the face before reaching inside your body and squeezing your heart until you wince, you really need to check out these books.

Two a.m., you slid one of your Kappa Sig T-shirts over my head, fluorescent green XXL with a bleach stain on the right shoulder blade, soft and smelling like old sheets.

I feigned sleep, your big brother Keith snoring lustily across the room, and you, arms clutched about me until the sun started to squeak behind the Rebels pennant across the window. Watching the hump of your Adam’s apple, I tried to will you to wake up.

But I couldn’t wait forever, due for first shift at the Inn. Who else would stir those big tanks of grits for the game-weekend early arrivals, parents and grandparents, all manner of snowy-haired alumni in searing red swarming into the cafe for their continental-plus, six thirty sharp?

God, what a beginning.

This story, about an ill-fated romance between a sorority girl (Chi Omega) and a fraternity boy (Kappa Sigma), hits on every cylinder. The best writers–and Abbott definitely counts in that number–manage to layer their work with unsuspected subtleties and subtexts that may not be immediately obvious, but resonate nonetheless and continue to do so once you’ve finished reading it. Abbott takes a traditional, tired trope–pointless college hook-up that means more to the girl than the guy, turns into a relationship that means more to the girl than the girl, oops she’s pregnant–and, like the master she is, turns it inside out and makes it fresh and new again. She managed to do, in a short story, what Theodore Dreiser took a thousand pages to do with An American Tragedy, and she does it with minimal language, well-chosen words that, in combination with her other words, sing like an aria. And so real–this college noir tragedy was so real it flashed me back to my own college fraternity days, so long long ago. Wow.

Laura Lippman’s “Pony Girl” was originally published in New Orleans Noir, which Constant Reader should remember also included a story by our own Gregalicious. I read the story back when the book came out ten (!) years ago, but revisited it for Short Story Month since it was included in her collection Hardly Knew Her…and it’s just as chilling as I remembered it.

She was looking for trouble and she was definitely going to find it. What was the girl thinking when she got dressed this morning? When she decided–days, weeks maybe even months ago–that this was how she wanted to go out on Mardi Gras day? And not just out, but all the way up to the Interstate and Ernie K-Doe’s, where this kind of costume didn’t play. There were skeletons and Mardi Gras Indians and baby dolls, but it wasn’t a place where you saw a lot of people going for sexy or clever. That kind of thing was for back in the Quarter, maybe outside Cafe Brasil. It’s hard to find a line to cross on Mardi Gras day, much less cross it, but this girl had gone and done it. In all my years–I was nineteen then, but a hard nineteen–I’d seen only one more disturbing sight on a Mardi Gras day and that was a white boy who too a Magic Marker, a thick one, and stuck it through a piercing in his earlobe. Nothing more to his costume than that, a Magic Marker through his ear, street clothes, and a wild gaze. Even in the middle of a crowd, people granted him some distance, let me tell you.

Another great opening! The story itself, which seems simple on its face, a girl dressed incredibly provocatively on Fat Tuesday and going into a bar with a friend which puts her in danger of being sexually assaulting, and calling attention to herself over and over again, is yet filled with twists and turns and surprises. As the story begins and gains momentum, there is a very strong undercurrent of slut-shaming to it, which kind of surprised me, coming from Lippman; but then again, she is also telling the story from the point of view of a nineteen year old male…so in order for the voice to work he has to be real. And as the story gets going, as the ‘uh oh, she’s going to get raped or assaulted or something’–she masterfully flips the script and the story takes a turn for the macabre. Genius.

And in honor of this terrific Mardi Gras story, here are some hot guys on Fat Tuesday.

Super Trouper

I was rather tired yesterday, and as such didn’t get to read a story for today. My apologies, Constant Reader; I shall try to make it up to you by reading two for today. (One of them will be Megan Abbott’s Edgar nominated “Oxford Girl,” from Mississippi Noir, and I may read another Laura Lippman short story. I feel the need for comfort reading today, and there is nothing so comforting than reading brilliant authors at the top of their form.)

I am starting to recover from the hangover of having finished a book, coupled with the stress of buying a new car. I still haven’t quite settled into the car yet; one of the goals for this weekend is to read the owner’s manual and see how everything in the car works. It rides lovely, though, and I swing from exhilarated to stressed about it by the moment. But this is the first weekend in months where I don’t have book-writing stress to worry about, and can fully relax and let myself readjust to what passes for normal around the Lost Apartment. I’m also going to reorganize the kitchen cabinets this weekend, and try to get my filing cabinet cleared out; there’s stuff in there I no longer need, duplicate files, etc., and it’s NOT ALPHABETIZED. I also have an essay to work on, which I am struggling with, but now that I can actually devote myself to it fully, the words should flow.

And week after next, I’m on vacation–going to visit my parents before driving back down to Birmingham for the Murder in the Magic City event–and then it’s Carnival time. Fat Tuesday is late this year; February 28th, which means the weather should be lovely.

I’ve managed to drop about five pounds since the new year began, simply by exercising healthier eating choices more regularly (I’ve reluctantly given up on my beloved Cheese Puffs and chips) and that has already made a difference. Getting to the gym twice more a week rather than the once I am already doing should also be helpful, and now that the book is done and the car is bought, I am hoping to start making that a thing beginning this weekend. A little bit of cardio, a little bit of weights, and a whole lot of stretching. I also am going to start getting massages, at least one a month with a goal being twice–it really does make a difference; the massage I got in Las Vegas last spring made me feel better for almost an entire month. Self-care is going to become a priority for me this year. I’m getting too old NOT to care, anymore.

And with that, I will say adieu for the day. Here’s a hunk to get your weekend off to a good start:

Mamma Mia

I got my brake tag Tuesday afternoon (FINALLY) and so now my car is at long last legal; six days after I bought it and drove it home from the dealership. Woo-hoo! I also bought one for two years, which I didn’t think you could do. Ah, well. There you go. I’ve also had a few almost panic-attacks over the last few days: a new car? Financing? What were you thinking how the hell are you going to pay for this what happens if this happens or this happens and how are you going to handle this and what if someone hits it/scratches it/steals it/vandalizes it and so on. I also panic when I am stopped at a traffic light and I see a car coming up very fast behind me.

Sigh. It ain’t easy being a Gregalicious.

So, I rewarded myself after getting my brake tag by curling up in my easy chair with the delightful Laura Lippman’s short story collection, Hardly Knew Her, and read the first story, “The Crack Cocaine Diet.” Originally published in The Cocaine Chronicles, in 2005, this is a wonderful wonderful story.

I had just broken up with Brandon and Molly had just broken up with Keith, so we needed new dresses to go to this party where we both knew they were going to be. But before we could buy the dresses, we needed to lose weight because we had to look fabulous, kiss-my-ass-fuck-you fabulous. Kiss-my-ass-fuck-you-and-your-dick-is-really-tiny fabulous. Because, after all, Brandon and Keith were going to be at this party, and if we couldn’t get new boyfriends in less than eight days, we could at least go down a dress size and look so good that Brandon and Keith and everybody else in the immediate vicinity would wonder how they ever let us go. I mean, yes, technically, they broke up with yes, but we had been thinking about it, weighing the pros and cons. (Pro: they spent money on us. Con: they were childish. Pro: we had them. Con: tiny dicks, see above.) See, we were being methodical and they were just all impulsive, the way guys are. That would be another con–poor impulse control. Me, I never do anything without thinking it through very carefully. Anyway, I’m not sure what went down with Molly and Keith, but Brandon said if he wanted to be nagged all the time, he’d move back in with his mother, and I said, “Well, given that she still does your laundry and makes you food, it’s not as if you really moved out,” and that was that. No big loss.

Isn’t that opening extraordinary?

Laura Lippman has long been one of my favorite writers, and every novel/short story I read from her is a revelation; every time I read something from her, I am always amazed. Reading her work is humbling for me, and yet also inspires me and pushes me to work harder, be more creative and to think differently about my own work. The way she can juggle an incredible, long-running series with powerful, creative and smart stand-alones is really a master class in how to build a successful career as an author.

This story, though.

When I wrote my first noir story years ago, the anthology editor’s instructions were simply to come up with my own definition of noir and write a story that fits that definition. For me, the definition was ‘the endless nightmare–someone innocuously makes a bad decision and things just keep getting worse, and the decisions made also get worse–as the choices are between bad and bad.” That story was “Annunciation Shotgun” (one of my favorites), but years later I heard Laura on a panel define noir as “dreamers become schemers,” which is a better definition. And boy does this story fit both definitions. Our main character and her friend made a bad decision–‘hey, we need to look hot at this part our exes will be at, so let’s do a lot of coke and lose weight’–which then leads them down a path that gets darker and darker and darker. The stakes continue to rise with each decision, with each new situation, and the surprises and twists come like machine gunfire. God, what a story. And I sure as hell didn’t see that ending coming.

Bravo!

Here’s a hottie for the day:

Take a Chance on Me

And it’s done. I turned the manuscript of The Book That Would Never Be Finished last night in to my editor, and now all I have to do is write an essay due by the end of the month whilst I wait on edits on three, count ’em, three, manuscripts. Huzzah! I cannot even begin to express to you, Constant Reader, how absolutely delightful it is to be finished with that. I am torn as to whether it is any good or not–like I am whenever I turn in a manuscript–maybe someday that sense of being an absolute phony who’s managed to fool people into thinking I am a writer will go away…and yet, over thirty books in print later, not so much.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Someday. I keep telling myself that someday I will be more confident about my writing.

Heavy heaving sigh.

I did finish reading Harlan Ellison’s “Grail” last night, and enjoyed it. It’s a very good story; I don’t think it has the emotional impact of his best stories–then again, maybe if I’d had the time to read it all the way through in one sitting, it might have–but it’s quite enjoyable.

Years later, when he was well into young adulthood, Christopher Caperton write about it in the journal he had begun to keep when he turned twenty-one. The entry had everything to do with the incident, though he had totally forgotten it.

What he wrote was this: The great tragedy of my life is that in my search for the Holy Grail everyone calls True Love, I see myself as Zorro, a romantic and mysterious highwayman–and the women I desire see me as Porky Pig.

The incident lost to memory that informed his observation had taken place fourteen years earlier, in 1953 when he was thirteen years old.

During a Halloween party from which chaperoning adults had been banished, it was suggested that the boys and girls play a kissing game called “flashlight.” All the lights were turned off, everyone paired up, and one couple held a flashlight. If you were caught kissing when the flashlight was turned on you, then it became your turn to hold and flash while others had free rein to neck and fondle in the dark.

Aside: does anyone still say ‘neck/necking’ in reference to making out?

“Grail” is just that; Christopher spends the rest of his life looking for the holiest of Holy Grails, True Love–which isn’t, as one might think, about finding the right person, but is actually a thing, an object; he traces it and spends his entire life on the quest for it. It’s an allegory of sorts, but as always, Ellison’s writing and characterization is superb. I do recommend this story; it’s in his collection Stalking the Nightmare.

I also realized last night, in my excited frenzy about finishing the book, that I actually have Laura Lippman’s short story collection, Hardly Knew Her, and even better, I have not read it (although I’ve read some of the stories already, in other collections), and I literally rubbed my hands together in glee. I will be reading one of those stories today, to discuss tomorrow.

Life is good.

And in honor of the quest for True Love depicted in “Grail”, here’s a sexy Cupid for you.