A Job Has Arrived

And this--assuming my references check out (which I am confident they will)--will be my new employer:

Snapshot Book Review: The Emperor's Children

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I got "into" this book about 2/5 of the way through but by the end felt let down. I was anxious to see something happen, to get some sort of fulfillment for all of the complicated, anxiety-ridden relationships that were woven between characters, but the end was a long drawn-out wash in my opinion.

Also, this book did not even bother to capture any sense of NYC, which I find disappointing, since I now know firsthand what great fodder there is to be had.


View all my reviews.

Family Meetings

It’s funny how memories can remain hidden, boxed away in the tiniest nook and crannies of our minds and then, suddenly, jump out shedding dust bunnies and spider webs, to appear exactly like we remembered them. Amazing, really. And they do this at the most random of times.

I was in Singapore—as you must know by now, if you are at all a faithful reader—and on one of many bus rides with Angela. That’s how we got most everywhere, Angela and I: on the bus. In order to own a car in Singapore, you just first purchase a license to own the car, as cars are limited due to the size of the island. Then you may purchase the car, which you may only own for as long as the license permits. In effect, most residents use public transportation, the most convenient of which is buses. (They also have a subway system, but the island is so small, it only has two lines!)

In any case, we were on the bus. Most likely, we were discussing some comparative topic such as our families or our parents or rules we had growing up, but really, we could have been discussing mostly anything; the mind works in mysterious ways. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I remembered Family Meetings.

Family Meetings were scheduled events that my immediate family held on the first Saturday of every month while I was growing up. Gradually, the regularity of these meetings grew to be less and less, but the purpose and format of the meetings remained the same. The four of us—my mother, father, sister, and I—would sit down around our kitchen table. One of us was deemed the Holder of the Gavel and would commence the meeting by striking a red plastic hammer on the table with stern authoritativeness. Then, the Scribe—another family member; initially my mother, whose handwriting was the nicest, until I learned to write well enough and appointed myself in her place—would read through Old Business meeting notes from the last meeting. If there was any outstanding business to be taken care of, that is what we discussed first. If not, standard procedure was to move on to New Business.

New Business rarely varied from month-to-month and was usually most focused upon the negotiation/re-delegation of household chores. In return for a weekly allowance that vaguely corresponded with our age (I believe I received about two dollars by the time I was twelve, whereas my sister at that time—three-and-a-half years my junior—was still receiving a dollar twenty-five), my sister and I shared several daily and weekly household tasks. These included setting and clearing the table, vacuuming the first floor, and collecting the household trash. Because the latter two tasks were weekly and the former were daily, we further split the setting of the table into parts: silverware, plates, napkins, drinks, and condiments. We would split these as well, since each of us considered certain tasks least desirable and would barter to avoid them. Unfortunately, of course, we both considered getting the drinks the very least desirable task. This was because taking drink orders meant hunting down every member of the family, wherever they were in the house, and then knowing what beverages were available (because they would inevitably ask), and then remembering to offer ice or not (because sometimes Dad wanted ice, sometimes he didn’t; Mom almost never did). The other least desirable task was setting out condiments, and this was because no matter how hard you tried, you inevitably forgot something someone wanted and would have to get up in the middle of the meal and get it.

Alternatively, I hated clearing the table, which my sister didn’t seem to mind, so usually if I was willing to take at least one of the Least Desirable Tasks and most of the others, we could strike a bargain. The weekly chores were a bit more difficult to negotiate, as neither of us wanted to use up one extra minute of our weekend dragging the vacuum cleaner up from the basement and winding/unwinding the forever-long cord. Therefore, we alternated: one month I would take out the garbage every week and Amy would vacuum. The next month, Amy would take out the garbage and I would vacuum.

This chore alternation was dutifully recorded in our trusty Family Meeting ledger—a hard black binder filled with sheets of loose leaf paper. Additionally, when the table-setting tasks had been determined, those were also set down in writing.

Aside from chores, we didn’t often have other New Business to discuss, except in the summers. Then, we would usually also determine the specifics of our Yard Sale (who was selling what, when we would gather and price our things, the date/time of the sale, etc.), who was responsible for finding a cat-sitter for Twinkie (my cat and, therefore, almost always my responsibility) when we went on vacation, and any other concerns we, as family members, might want to raise with the rest of the family.

At the end, the Scribe would conclude by recording business left “Open” for the next meeting, if necessary. My mother then usually chose a closing song for us to sing, and the Holder of the Gavel would finally conclude our meeting with an authoritative rapping of the hollow red tool. The gavel and binder would then be stored away on one of our kitchen shelves until next month’s meeting.

Remembering these meetings makes me wonder about my childhood, but moreover, it makes me wonder where my parents came up with the idea. I would almost guarantee that no other family held monthly Family Meetings, and if they did, certainly not to the formal extent that my family did, with rigorous notes and a proper gavel-pounding, no less. Did my mother read this idea in a parenting book somewhere? Or was my father somehow creative enough to teach his children cooperation and corporate structure together by instituting this practice?

And finally, if this benign memory was lost to me for so long, what other childhood memories might I be able to coax out of the catacombs of my brain?

Why I am a Ghetto Girl

I received several responses to my September 5, 2008 posting, particularly concerning my reference to myself as a “ghetto girl.” I don’t think that, at the time of writing that post, I meant the reference in terms of an oft-presumed “she said what?” attitude and outrageous “bling” sense. Rather, I meant to imply that I tend to live in conditions that I know many others would find unacceptable or even preposterous. I consider it creative, practical living, but in a sense, it is very “ghetto.” Below, I will offer some examples.

When I was living in Brighton, there were no hooks anywhere in my room. Moreover, shelving space was tremendously limited. Therefore, in order to keep my hair accessories (i.e. bandanas and hair ties) up and out of the way, I devised some simple, self-made hooks: I taped twisty-ties to the wall.

I did not start ironing my clothing until about 3 months ago, when I began interning for Time Inc. At that time (no pun intended), I used my suitemate’s iron and ironing board and suffered through a good many overly saturated clothes as I tried to get out the wrinkles with the various iron settings. I have since purchased my own iron, and my ironing board now consists of a very sturdy white end table that I originally bought to elevate my dorm-sized refrigerator.

My rescued-from-the-trash black wire shelving unit currently serves not only as a simple shelving unit (for my books, papers, etc.), but also as a desk (for my stationary, stapler/glue/tape/post-its/etc./lamp), bureau (for my face wash/brush/lotion/etc.), and towel rack.

I don’t keep my belongings in drawers anymore, I keep them in Miller Lite and Office Depot Copy Paper boxes.

My Rolodex is a cardboard box with scrap cardboard tab dividers.

If you offered me a diamond bracelet or a hoodie, I would, in all seriousness, most likely take the hoodie. (This is assuming, however, that there is no receipt included with the gift. If there is, I’m taking the bracelet. Then I can return it and buy twenty hoodies!)

What I have done with my days off

Continued to indulge my library addiction: I am now a member of both the Queens and the NY Public library systems. The list of recently completed books has included

• Alias Grace (good but slowly paced; historical-type fiction in an epistolary and vacillating first-person narrative form) and Oryx and Crake (very good futuristic/dystopia fiction; similar to the idea of what would happen were Brave New World to fall apart and then crash into Lord of the Flies) by Margaret Atwood
  
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (terrible, unless you are interested in a dressed-up Harlequin romance novel; Sparks didn’t even bother to research his audience and wrote the sex scene with the woman acting out his own “take me now” fantasies)
  
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (a fun but substantial pop fiction read; well researched and therefore convincing look at circus drama)
  
• Girl Meets God by Laurn Winer (thought-provoking memoir; introspective look at how to reconcile Judaic beliefs and habits with Christian faith)
  
• Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides (cross-generational style fiction; tells the stories of family members leading up to the birth of the narrator, a transgender man)
  
• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (strikingly simple prose; a memoir about a boy-soldier in Sierra Leone)
  

Tried out the NY bus system. I have a monthly unlimited pass, so I scouted routes between hospitals and libraries one day, when I was doing health insurance research. Personally, I prefer walking if the distance is under 20 blocks. It makes me feel in control of my own transportation and as if I am accomplishing something with my time rather than sitting in pointlessly congested traffic. However, there are advantages, as I took the M60 all the way from Harlem to the LaGuardia airport, and I never could have walked that.

Found grocery stores. When visitors come, I may not know where to take them out to eat, but I will certainly know where to buy anything they might like to cook for dinner!

Played volleyball with a group of Russians. I went to Coney Island last Sunday, for my last “summer hurrah,” and when I first arrived, I saw a group of volleyball players setting up a net. The sports addict in me was ravenous to play, but I felt uncomfortable approaching them, as they were already playing 4-on-4 and I would have made their numbers uneven. I went and sat on the beach for a couple hours, reading and swimming alternately, and when I finally decided to leave, I paused again on my way out. Now there were 3 different nets set up and a variety of people milling about. I stood watching a game for several minutes until one man came up to me and asked, in a very thick accent, me whether I had a team. Laughingly, I replied that I didn’t, and then his partner came up and said, “You do now!” Then I guess he rethought his invitation, because he remembered to ask, “Do you play?” And so I spent the next two hours playing pick-up volleyball games with what turned out to be the Russian volleyball community. I had no idea what they were saying, most of the time, but luckily, if you know how to play a sport, that’s all the language you need.

Bought a basil plant. I really hope I can keep this one alive. I am paranoid already that its leaves are turning white, like the ones on the basil I was plant-sitting for my cousin did, but I’m crossing my fingers, looking up every single piece of advice on herb gardening available, and murmuring encouraging words to it at bedtime!