I appreciate all the notes of concern and/or encouragement re: my last post -- you guys are sweet and say all the right things. Thank you.
Onto my current indulgence: books. (and Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, but maybe that's for another blog...) Now that my boys are almost FIVE (how did this happen?), I sometimes actually have time to read again. And not just children's books and the occasional magazine article. Sometimes I find myself reading entire chapters of books before I hear my boys fighting over whose turn it is to do whatever. It's amazing.
So I thought I'd share two book recommendations:
I just finished reading "Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock 'n' Roll" by Evelyn McDonnell. She's a riot grrl rock critic turned mama in Miami. I actually found much of the book difficult to get through partially because of her ego and partially because of mine...as in, I wish I could say I had been the music editor at the Village Voice and that I'd hung out with Throwing Muses back in the day. Still, it's a decent momoir (is that what they call those?) in the end.
The thing I hadn't expected is that she actually married a guy with two kids, thus becoming a stepmom to teenagers -- difficult teenagers, too. She doesn't spend a ton of the book on that particular subject, but I still found her perspective interesting - especially this paragraph, in which she's talking about one of her stepdaughters when she was failing out of high school:
"I wish I could have reached her when she was in that dark place. I wish I hadn't said and done things that probably deepened the chasm between us. I think there are some things a parent can't fix; all you can do is stay on the ride and hope you come through the tunnel and out the other side." Let's all breathe a little sigh of relief for that.
I am now reading Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential." I know it's old, but I just finally got around to it after Tivoing his show forever. I LOVE it! I don't want to do anything but read it! In fact, I'm going to end this blog soon so that I can go back to reading it. It's great.
And thus concludes Reading Time with the mama/reality-TV-addict/wanna-be-chef. Who knows what I might read next?
5 comments:
Thanks for writing about Mamarama! Sorry about my ego, but I think I've needed it to survive two decades as a rock critic. Sounds like we're on similar paths; hang on for the ride, eh?
I read Kitchen Confidential when i was still running a kitchen and I have often wondered if my unabashed and overwhelming love for it was just based in that "brotherhood" connection. Good to know a big pro like you enjoys it as well.
Evelyn,
You are fully entitled to your ego. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
you have to have a certain amount of ego to think your life story should be listened to in the first place, only difference between a blog and a book is better marketing and maybe a little more ego.
so i don't know that "ego" denotes such a negative thing as people think and more of us should have more of it.
It definitely takes some ego to write a memoir. Then putting your "baby" out there in the world to be taken apart, on the other hand, is a very humbling experience!
And as a blogger, KK is obviously doing better than I am, judging by the health of these comments here. My blog response pales in comparison -- though you might like my post today on FUPAs and MILFs: http://www.moli.com/p/moliview/0_201476/article.
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