stumbling virtue

I Should Worry

 

Charlie Chaplin and friends in "Sunnyside" (1919).

I don't read fiction much anymore. My reasons for this are embarrassing and somewhat pathetic, but I'll admit them anyway. First, I write my own fiction and I have such a deep fear of plagiarism, that I'm worried that something I read will sink into my spongey brain, I'll put it into what I'm writing and then next thing you know, I'm sued for plagiarism and mortified for life. I've never had this happen to me, but I guess the plagiarism scandals of the past few years have become my equivalent of the tales that keep you up in the middle of the night, buried under the blankets. Ghosteys, monsters, Kaiser Soze, plagiarism lawsuits. This is what terrifies me. The other reason is that I worry that reading successful, accomplished authors--mostly contemporary ones--will discourage me so much I'll just give up. You could certainly argue that reading great fiction will make me a better writer, but I read a lot up until recently and still read the occasional author from the 19th century literary canon. And it's not like you can't find great prose in nonfiction. So instead I shrink away from those who I know have outpaced me. Yes, this does show that I am sadly insecure. Yes, I should be embarrassed. But it's the truth nonetheless.

A few years ago, though, I let my guard down. I love reading about magicians, especially in the 19th and early 20th century (this is all the fault of Jim Steinmeyer's history Hiding the Elephant), so when I saw the novel Carter Beats the Devil, a fictionalized account of a real (though somewhat obscure) magician in the 1900s, I had to give it a try. Well, it turned out to be one of those books that made me miss my train stop, which is pretty high praise indeed. I also developed an enormous crush on the book's main character (note to the world: if you are going to fall in love with someone in a book, make sure it is a fictional person; doing this with a real person can only lead to humiliation and heartbreak). I loved the book, and recommended it to a number of people who also fell for it.

As I've noted before, I'm an incredibly loyal reader. If I like one book by an author, I'll probably read everything else he or she writes. So I was, then, incredibly excited when someone mentioned to me that the author of Carter, Glen David Gold, had a new book coming out (apparently I wasn't the only one waiting--there were 27 people on the NYPL's reservation list before the book was even published). When my copy of Sunnyside became available, I rushed up to the library, took it home and read it as fast as possible. And now, here I am.

Stupid Girl

I am crushed again, so badly I can't even speak (of course I can't speak, that would interfere with me crying). I keep thinking that someday, something has to go right, but then I remember that there is no reason to believe that. I would explain but I am too upset. Really, there is no point in this post. I probably will delete it later.

I turned to Cute Overload for help and came up with this.

Cute indeed, but I still can't stop crying and just feel like I should quit everything.

Marriage Go Round

 

 

Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode prints show a young couple who was happy...with others.

I've never been married, but I suspect that there's a moment early in every marriage where one or both parties suddenly get a cold, dreadful, "I've made a mistake" feeling. In some cases, that feeling evaporates, as you realize you can get used the annoying quirk of personality or tick that prompted that thought, decide the revelation about the past doesn't matter that much, or understand there is more good than bad. In other cases, you're right, and it's already the beginning of the end. People make mistakes, and as judged by divorce statistics, marriage mistakes are unfortunately common.

It wasn't really that long ago, though, that divorce was next to impossible, and if you made a mistake, you were trapped.

Oh my gosh, I am trying to sound all serious and like I have important historical statements to make about marriage, women's rights, and divorce, when there really is no one who has less of a right to discourse on those topics. So let me start over.

Wendy Moore's Wedlock, tells the story of what was if not the world's worst marriage and divorce, then the gold standard for all others before and since.

Chilled

Finally, after six weeks of phone calls, broken promises, lies, threats, complaints to the department of housing, and many room temperature drinks, we have a new refrigerator.

Now let's see what breaks next in our hovel.

The old fridge on a happier day, when it was stuffed full of wedding cake layers waiting to be frosted and assembled.

 

 

 

 

Cultivate Your Own Garden

 

Kalmia seeds were included in some of the boxes John Bartram shipped to England from America.

The only place in my apartment that gets any light is the firescape, and that's just for an hour or two a day. I asked my dad if he could think of any plants that I could grow out there, something that wouldn't require much sun. He suggested moss. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but perhaps it's better than nothing, because I don't know how else to satisfy my wistful craving for a little garden of some sort.

I'm not the only one who feels that way, of course. Gardening is one of the most popular activities in the world--especially in England. In the introduction to her book The Brother Gardeners, Andrea Wulf describes her astonishment at the English obsession with their gardens that she found when she moved to London after living in Germany. The poor, the rich, the fashionable, the stolid, all seemed to spend hours discussing their gardens, whether they had a full blown estate filled with multitudes of plants, or a tiny patch of flowers outside a city flat. After falling for her own garden, she began to research the history of the English love of gardens, resulting in this neat little book.

Abandonment Issues

Has it really been two weeks since I wrote something here? My, time flies when you're juggling visiting relatives and a lot of work. But like a bad penny, I have turned up again. To, you know, do that thing that makes pennies bad...whatever that is.

As noted, relatives, namely my sister and nephew have been visiting. The new dog came, too. He quite enjoyed his flight, though he didn't like the airports much. I can sympathize.

  

Dougie thinks things are looking up. Or at least he is. He is blurry because he does not want to pose, he wants to be picked up.

And meanwhile, our broken fridge has not yet been replaced. Our landlord keeps saying, "It will be delivered today" and then it isn't. Threats haven't made much of an impression. That is because the company is too lazy and stupid to understand such things. Ignorance is bliss, indeed. Meanwhile, I have grown accustomed to lukewarm everything.

There is no way to put a positive spin on this. I live in semi-squalor. This is what happens when you're rent-stabilized. Your landlord lets everything rot around you in the hope that you will move. But I love my neighborhood and hate my landlord too much to give in.