So I'm cleaning out my closets, and this time I swear I'm going to be ruthless. It doesn't matter how cute something looks on the hanger. For once, I'm going to accept the fact that...
...I never got around to buying a top to go with these pants, and what's more, I never will.
...no matter how much I hope it won't, the red fleece sweater will always attract every dog hair within fifty miles.
...the '90s are never, ever coming back.
No rationalization. No denial. And it's working. The donation bags are getting full, my overstuffed drawers are breathing sighs of relief. Then...I get to the T-shirts.
I pull out this tank, squashed near the bottom of the drawer, and instantly I'm back in Italy. Hot blazing blue sky, turquoise water. White pebble beaches and crooked narrow streets. It was my first trip abroad. I was 22. That fall, I started...
...veterinary school, where I met...
...my sweetheart. Yellowstone was our first road trip. Every night, we had to find a hill to park on so that we could roll-start the VW van the next morning. VW vans have crappy electrical systems. On the upside, every other VW driver on the road will wave to you.
After we graduated, my sweetheart moved to Kansas, while I drove down I-5 to my first veterinary job in...
...Mariposa, just outside Yosemite National Park. I made a wonderful friend, Marybeth, and we went to the county fair and I got this tee promoting Mariposa County's Division of Alcohol and Drug Programs. I have no idea why. Anyway, the butterfly is pretty.
From thousands of miles away, my sweetheart sent me an Indigo Girls song:
"To let this love survive would be the greatest gift we could give Tell all the friends who think they're so together That these are ghosts and mirages, these thoughts of fairer weather Though it's storming out, I feel safe within the arms Of love's discovery."
Not surprisingly, soon after that we moved to Tennessee together...
...where, among other things, we went to Indigo Girls concerts. And then...
One by one, I lay the T-shirts out. They're old. Most of them I haven't worn in years. Get rid of them, the ruthless voice demands. They're just taking up space.
I smooth my hand over the worn fabric, the cracked designs. And then I fold them back up, one by one, and I nestle them back in the drawer.
Sometimes, the best memories aren't in photographs.
Memories of certain summers taste of certain books. These are the summers that held A Book so memorable, I can never think of one without the other. To reread a particular passage is to bring back the bright sweltering day I first read it. Where I was. What I was doing. The colors and flavors of that time.
Anna Karenina. I was between my first and second years of veterinary school, supporting myself as a lowly tech in a campus research lab. The work was beyond tedious--it involved counting lesions on microscopic sections of rat lung, section after section, hour after hour--and every free moment I had, I dove back into Tolstoy. I read Levin's marriage proposal to Kitty on a lunch break. I was more than captivated; I was transported. I felt for Anna, but Levin--Levin to me was real, more real than almost any other character I've ever met. I felt as though he drew breath next to me, with his passion and temper and terrible longings, and the battles he waged within himself about what it means to be a good man.
Middlemarch. Oh, Dorothea... while you were in Rome, stuck on a joyless honeymoon with that empty husk of a husband (really, darling, how could you?), we were on a road trip through the Carolinas. I broke my toe the day before we left. The doctor told me to stay off it or it wouldn't heal. Instead, I limped with my sweetheart through the Biltmore estate in Asheville and up the spiral stairs of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We swam in the Atlantic, explored Fort Sumter, walked the Battery in Charleston. We were newly in love, learning each other day by day. I felt sorry that Dorothea (and poor Lydgate) hadn't chosen as wisely as we. (A bit smug, was I. About the toe, too. The doctor was right: it never did heal.)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. My agent had sold my first novel that spring. I spent the summer working like mad on revisions. Every afternoon, I took a short break in the backyard sun and immersed myself in Susanna Clarke's incredible imagination. The world she built is so rich in detail and nuance, its characters so alive, that reading it is like a master course in fiction writing. Not to mention it's funny and heartbreaking as hell.
A Suitable Boy. By now, I was blogging. I wrote a whole post about this one. Picked it up by chance, read the first couple of sentences, and was hooked. A Suitable Boy remains one of my top arguments for bookstores. I'd never heard of this book; browsing shelves is the only way I would have found this sprawling, gorgeous novel. I spent that summer in the dust and heat and rain of 1950s India, following the lives of four families, dozens of characters, coming back always to Lata Mehra as her mother seeks a suitable boy for her to marry. Sheer reading joy...which I couldn't possibly keep to myself. To date, I've made Vikram Seth fans out of five friends. All of whom gasped when they saw the 1,348 pages, and all of whom loved it as much as I did. We've had some passionate debates about the boy Lata finally chooses at the end. (I still say she made the right choice, Laura, I don't care how hard you argue.)
And this year? This is the summer of fantasy series. I grew up with fantasy novels, read them all through college. And then, for some reason, I just sort of stopped. Now I'm catching up with a vengeance. I just finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and just started A Clash of Kings, second in the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin. HP and the Order of the Phoenix awaits, and then A Clash of Swords, and then... It won't stop with the books, either. Then it'll be the HP movies, and after that, Game of Thrones when it comes out on DVD... *rubbing hands in delicious anticipation*
What about you? What book is keeping you up nights this summer?
This post was inspired by Melissa over at Writing With Style, who asked, "What are you reading this summer?" Which got me thinking and writing. Thanks, Melissa!
Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of my blog. In that time, I've written fewer posts than many people do in a single year: 183, including this one. In the same five years, I've also written:
2-1/2 books, a dozen guest posts for other blogs (more or less...I'm too lazy to go back and actually count), a dozen or so interviews (ditto), a couple of recommendation letters, a few thousand emails, one or two actual snail mail letters, 259 tweets, and a really bad poem for a contest to make Bella Stander laugh.
When I started this gig, experts insisted that one had to blog EVERY DAY. They were so adamant about this, I almost expected them to hunt me down and slap my face for my impudence. I didn't mean to be naughty. But I knew I'd end up with 1) a helluva lot of crappy blog posts and 2) a very short-lived blog, because 3) all my neurons would explode from the pressure.
Just say no to detonated gray matter, that's my motto.
Which maybe is why I'm still here, writing about geeky stuff that interests me. So to everyone who stops by, thank you. (Pink, so you know it comes straight from my heart.) I truly appreciate you.
Year Six is going to be fun. Puppy adventures. And (I hope) a brand-new foray into publishing. More news on that as I get it. For now, dear and faithful reader, I leave you with this...because nothing says love like yet another goofy cat video.
The other night we caught a movie at one of our local pub theaters. We love our pub theaters, because 1) $3 admission, and 2) I've yet to see a movie that is not improved by pizza and beer. (Or if you prefer, a vegan wrap and Pinot Noir. This is Portland, after all.) One of our favorites is at the Kennedy School, which is an actual elementary school that sat empty for decades before being converted to a B&B. Guests bunk down in the former classrooms. There's an Honor Bar (no smoking) and a Detention Bar (light `em up!), and the school auditorium is now the theater. Instead of metal folding chairs, though, it's stuffed with vintage sofas, chairs, and loveseats, with little end tables for your grub and ale.
Another of our favorites is the Bagdad Theater.* The Bagdad is one of those old-timey movie palaces from back in the day, with a fabulous Mediterranean decor that has been lovingly restored.
And the movie? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Let me confess right here: I have not read any of the Harry Potter books nor seen any of the movies past The Sorcerer's Stone. Not for any snobbish or disdainful reason...I just sort of haven't gotten around to it. The main reason we picked it was because the showtime fit our evening the best. Sometimes, it's all about going with the flow.
Which goes for the movie, too. Because the last time I looked, Daniel Radcliffe was still like, twelve and had baby fat in his cheeks and he and Emma Watson had the same build. Apparently, much has changed. When you haven't seen a HP movie since little Harry was trying on the Sorting Hat, The Deathly Hallows Part 1 comes at you like a fever dream: gorgeous and incomprehensible. Sudden shifts in scene with no apparent reason...characters I couldn't place saying things I didn't understand...Ralph Fiennes without a nose. But I still had a good time. Although why Harry, Hermione and Ron spend the entire middle of the movie in a tent, moaning about how they have to find Horcruxes and a magical sword, or else all is doomed, but instead of actually searching for the damn things, they listen to the radio and get into snits with each other and then the sword coincidentally shows up like, ten feet from where they're camping...well, maybe it's explained in the book. (But hey, did I mention the scenery was gorgeous?)
So, OK. Apparently it's time I catch up with the biggest cultural phenomenon in living memory. All you Harry Potterities, what do you advise? Read all the books first, then watch the movies? Or watch, then read? Or...?
*Not all the pub theaters in Portland are owned by the McMenamin brothers--there's also the Laurelhurst, which is fabulous--but the McMenamins have four, including Kennedy and the Bagdad. The McMenamins specialize in buying old, abandoned buildings and either restoring them to their original use (like the Crystal Ballroom, which was and is again a dance palace), or converting them (the Chapel Pub used to be a funeral home, and has an eternal flame burning outside; Edgefield used to be the county poor house, later an insane asylum, and now it's a B&B and youth hostel with taverns, a restaurant, a golf course, pub theater, glass-blowing shop, a...oh hell, you just have to go there and see.) All of them are beautifully renovated and loaded with original, custom artwork that just makes me smile. Like this.
Now, you all know I like me some Jane Austen. And I do adore cats. So this recent discovery, which I am about to impart to you, made me squee with delight. Yes, for those of us who like a little purr with their prejudice...
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
...we now have AustenCats. In the words of site founders Debbie Guyol and Pamela Jane, Chick Lit has finally met Kit Lit; in others of their words, this is where the adorable meets the absurd. Go to gawk, but don't be shy; they've set up the site so you can join in, too. If your cat is a Pride and Prejudice character reincarnated (in a higher form, naturally) you can upload and caption a photo of your own. They're even hosting a Mr. Darcy-cat Contest. If you're an Austenite or a cat fanatic, or you simply like a little preposterousness with your afternoon tea, skip on over. And may Austen Mania--in all its endless variations--continue to reign!
To everyone who stopped by and left a comment last time--thank you! I appreciated all the sweet thoughts.
One thing I've noticed, when I've got a lot going on or I've hit a rough patch, is that my reading pattern changes.
Some people eat for comfort. Me, I read for comfort. (Not that I have anything against comfort eating. In fact, best of all is a combination, with the eating portion preferably involving bacon. Or cheese popcorn.)
I'm much less likely to start new novels, even if they're by authors I know. Instead, I go to my shelves and pick down old favorites. These are novels I've read anywhere between five times and, I don't know, maybe twenty. Some are books I first read when I was a teen. As far as genre, they're all over the map, but they have one thing in common: From the first page, I feel like I've slipped into a sweet, familiar place.
In the past couple of weeks, I've reread The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord, and I'm just finishing Dragon Seed by Pearl S. Buck.
After that, I think I'll be ready to dive into new waters again. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is already on my nightstand, waiting.
How about you? Any favorite comfort reads? Or, when you have a lot on your plate, do you prefer to plunge into something brand-new?
One recent evening I was browsing Netflix, waiting for my sweetheart to come home, and I came across Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I remembered seeing bits of it on TV when I was little, although the only part I remembered clearly was when Marilyn Monroe's character, Lorelei Lee, meets the owner of a diamond mine and fantasizes a big old diamond where his head would be. I must have found that pretty funny when I was a kid, because that's all that stuck with me, other than a general impression of silliness.
I'd just finished a long and sort of bruising day at the day job. I was in the mood for silly. I zapped it to my TV and settled back. And from the opening number--"Two Little Girls from Little Rock"--I was in a state of wow.
This isn't a movie review, because I unabashedly adore this movie. Yes, the male stars are completely forgettable. Yes, the plot is entirely predictable--its main concern being the number of skin-tight outfits it can smoosh our heroines into. (Marilyn's co-star is Jane Russell, the actress for whom Howard Hughes engineered a new kind of underwire bra to achieve the exact right cleavage for his movie The Outlaw.) Yes, it has dialogue like this:
Anonymous Male Character 1: (gesturing at Marilyn and Jane)"If this ship sinks, which one would you save?"
Anonymous Male Character 2: "Those girls couldn't drown!"
And yes, Marilyn does get stuck climbing through a porthole.
It's that kind of movie. Dumb. Cynical. (Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"?) And silly beyond all belief.
And yet. Love, love, love. Jane Russell is at her wisecracking best. Marilyn's Lorelei Lee is absolute perfection. If it's true that it takes a smart actor to play a dumb character, Marilyn must have been a freaking genius.
Before this, I've never seen an entire Marilyn Monroe movie. For some reason, I had the impression that mostly she stood around and looked...well, like Marilyn. Before this, whenever I thought about Marilyn Monroe, I mostly thought about drugs and Kennedys and tragic death. But when she launched into...
"A kiss on the hand may be quite continental..."
...I literally got goosebumps. There's a reason that performance is iconic, and it's not because of the dress, or the platinum hair, but because Marilyn was just insanely talented.
I realize everyone else in the world is probably already aware of this. I'm embarrassed to admit it was a revelation to me.
I'm a newfound Marilyn fan. And if you see me driving around, singing in my car, it'll either be "Two Little Girls From Little Rock" or "Ain't Anyone Here for Love" (which, BTW, if you thought beefcake was a recent invention, think again), or "Bye Bye Baby," or the queen of them all, "Diamonds."
A friend of mine sent this to me and I loved it. Maybe because, amid all this politicized, polarized health care debate, it's good to be reminded that health care is people. People dedicated to helping other people beat disease.
Not to mention...dancing with pink gloves.
The guy with the mop is my favorite.
One of the many things I'm thankful for is that I live in the same town as these dedicated, professional, pink-gloved goofballs. Love ya, P-town!
There’s the kind of dream vacation you think about for years, cutting out pictures of pink beaches and pinning them on your bulletin board, sighing, One of these days…
And then there’s the other kind of dream vacation. As in, Never in a million years would I have dreamed anyone could talk me into this.
Well, gentlemen (and ladies): Start your engines. This last weekend my sweetie and I flew more than halfway across the country to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a place I’ve never in my life thought about for more than four consecutive seconds. Why?
MotoGP is motorcycle racing. The GP stands for Grand Prix. The riders compete against each other at races all over the world for the annual MotoGP championship. (Three days at Indianapolis, and those are pretty much all the hard facts I know.)
My sweetie was concerned that before the weekend was half over, I’d liquefy into a festering puddle of boredom. (Like the two women we saw sleeping in chairs underneath the stands, behind the Indy Dog vendor.) But this is the thing about that other kind of dream vacation: discovering stuff you never knew existed. The T-shirts alone are another whole subculture. Lots of black, lots of old English font, lots and lots of skulls. The T-shirts supplied information…
Hell yes it’s fast (Dumbass)
…philosophy…
Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music
…advice…
Ride it like you stole it
…and often, a powerful simplicity: Your bike sucks
And then there are the brolly girls. Brolly girls hold umbrellas over the riders so that they don’t get hot/rained on/otherwise inconvenienced. Here’s a brolly girl practicing:
If you’re imagining four men to every woman at MotoGP (including the brolly girls), you’re about spot-on.
But if you’re also picturing bad mullets, chrome studs, and leather fringe, a la a Harley Davidson rally...nope. If Harley Davidson is the pit bull, MotoGP is the greyhound. Sleek. Stripped down. MotoGP isn’t about chrome. It’s about speed, baby.
Sunday—Race Day—dawns. After nodding off during the qualifying runs and practice laps the day before, I’m taking no chances. My satchel is crammed with a netbook computer, two novels, a magazine, and a newspaper crossword.
The thing is, I’ve never understood motor races. Horse races, yes. Horse racing is spirit and muscle and power and skill and immeasurable, limitless heart. In comparison, motor races always seemed so…well, mechanical. And loud. And endlessly repetitive, with all that going around and around and around. Yawn.
But it turns out that a motorcycle flashing past at nearly two hundred mph is…well, it’s like this:
Wow. Okay.
I got the crossword partly done. And then I couldn't help it. The motorcycles hooked me in.
Three laps into the race. The cyclist in the lead, a Spaniard named Dani Pedrosa, crashes his bike. Long skid over the grass, but he gets up. Whew. Then he gets back on the bike and rejoins the race. From the lead he's now dead last, by an enormous margin.
A few laps later, the next guy in the lead, Valentino Rossi, also crashes. Also rejoins the race, but his bike is too damaged, and he drops out for good.
That leaves one rider, Jorge Lorenzo, waaaay in front. Unless he crashes, too, it’s now a race for second place.
Bikes flash past. Zoom. Zoom. Last of all, Dani Pedrosa on his orange Honda Repsol. He’s by himself on the track, the rest of the field literally a mile ahead, but he’s flying. He has no hope of finishing anything but last, he’s already crashed once, and yet he’s not letting up one iota. Even a rank amateur like me can tell.
The field comes around again. A mile back, Dani Pedrosa. I squint. Look at the field. Then back at Dani. “You know," I say, "I think Pedrosa is catching up.”
“No way,” says my sweetheart. Another lap. “Damn, you’re right," he says. "He is catching up.”
Now we’re not watching the battle for second. Everyone's watching the battle for last. Every time Pedrosa flies past—gaining, always gaining—the crowd cheers. When he catches the rider in front of him and passes, the stands erupt in roars. I’m whooping right along with them.
Twenty-eight laps. The checkered flag comes down. Jorge Lorenzo wins. Good on ya, Jorge.
And Dani Pedrosa? Tenth, in a field of fifteen. Crashed his bike, ended up more than a mile back from the field, and still passed five other riders.
Yeah. That’s heart. From this out-of-left-field vacation, I found a new hero. And something to remember the next time things get tough.
No matter what, keep on flying.
I ought to put that on a T-shirt.
For some of the action, click here...I tried to embed it, but MotoGP won't let me. But it's a great video. And if you're dying to find out about engines and highsides and lowsides and what all the flags mean...then this is for you.
Many, many thanks to my brother, who invited us out for the MotoGP, and to all their family for putting us up... especially my nephew Michael, who bunked with his brother Ryan so we could have his room. You guys are the best!
Channel surfing today. Saw an ad for vitamins. For teens. More specifically, one version of the vitamin for teen boys: “For healthy muscles!” and another version for teen girls: “For healthy skin!”
Maybe the heat is clogging my brain. But…
…do not girls also need muscles?
…do not boys also need skin?
…does anyone in the year 2009 really think this crap will fly?
Where, oh where, is Don Draper* when you need him?
*Mad Men. MadMenMadMenMadMen. Loooooove Mad Men. This vitamin ad campaign, it needs some Mad Men. There would still be outdated, blatant sex stereotypes—but they would be subtle. They would whisper. Because Don Draper, he understands how to wake the fears and wants of our subconscious in a way that higher brain functions can’t decipher. That is advertising genius. Vitamin people, pay attention. Or, better yet, join us in the 21st century. It’s true—girls have muscles here. But we’re not scary. Much.
P.S. Speaking of stereotypes…the best stereotype-busting, genre-crossing, hilarious irreverence of a book I’ve come across in lo these many months is…
Spring. Still cold, gloomy and raining (this is the Pacific Northwest) but at our house, spring means that sometime between the fading of daffodils and the blooming of tulips, the raised beds are gonna get planted.
The beds were here when we moved in. Four big rectangles set in a corner of the yard. We replaced sagging boards, shored up the sides, and amended the daylights out of the clay topsoil they were filled with. (We still occasionally have to take a pickax to particularly stubborn deposits.) The beds have grown everything from corn to catnip, eggplant to peppers, basil to zucchini. Every spring I look forward to planting them, and I say this not as a chlorophyll-addled health nut but as a lifelong vegetable hater. Yes, you heard me: I hate vegetables. On the other hand, I love anything deep fried, high in nitrites, or full of saturated fat. Preferably all three. As far as I’m concerned, the perfect food is bacon. Fried crisp, hot, and lots of it. Mmmm.
And yet I also love the raised beds. It’s primeval magic: plant a seed or shoot, water, watch grow and bear fruit. All in one season’s time, which also satisfies my need for instant gratification, and why I don’t plant asparagus, because it takes two years until harvest which is one year and nine months longer than my gardening attention span.
There have been lots of media stories in the past year about how more and more people are raising their own backyard vegetables. Which warms my vintage heart no end, because it’s like the victory gardens of WWII all over again. Only back then, it was the government urging Americans to get busy with shovels and seeds. Canned fruits and veggies were needed for the military, so the idea was to get citizens to raise and preserve their own food. It worked: during the course of the war, 20 million backyard gardens produced 8 million tons of food…almost half the fruits and vegetables consumed nationwide. Even city dwellers with no land of their own got in the act. Neighbors banded together, cleaned up vacant lots and planted their own community gardens. Grow More in `44!
I love the idea of the modern, grassroots-driven victory garden. Some people are getting into it to save money on groceries; some, because they’re inspired by the local/fresh/seasonal food movement. Here we have organizations like the Portland Fruit Tree Project, which helps people harvest fruit from their trees and also teaches them the arts of canning and preserving—skills that most of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew, and hardly any of us today do. (We once helped friends harvest apples from their half-dozen trees and make hard cider from them. Pressing, fermenting, and months of aging later, we held the ceremonial tasting. As hard cider, it was awful. But if you closed your eyes and pretended it was a strange, dry sort of Chardonnay—possibly from another planet—it almost worked. Hey, at least we tried).
So in the midst of all this newfangled victory gardening, what about the vegetable-haters, like me? Is it possible to turn us to the light side of the Force?
I’ll admit it: I have learned to adore a homegrown tomato. My favorites are the little yellow pear tomatoes, just picked, cute as buttons and still warm from the sun. And have you ever noticed how good a tomato plant smells? Like summer itself: green and fresh and delicious. And artichokes! Have I mentioned artichokes? Yummy in their own right but really—simply to do them justice, you understand—much better eaten with loads of melted butter. Mmmmm.
Baby steps. That's all I'm sayin'.
And what about you? Anything you're planning to plant this spring?
Who hasn't watched birds, and wondered what it would be like to fly? Me, I always figured skydiving would be as close as a human could get.
I was so wrong.
I love how the first guy comments that jumping out away from the cliff got boring. Which I can totally see, because yeah, having all that space around you as you streak through the air at 100 mph would be so dull. As opposed to streaking through the air at 100 mph an arm's length from solidrock.
Anthropologists argue about what separates us from the animals. Language? Music? (It isn't tool-making or self-awareness; those got shot down a while back.)
You know what I think it is? Whatever thought process it is that leads somone to say, I want to fly. I can't fly. How do I fly? I know: I'll invent a wingsuit and then I'll put it on and jump off a cliff. Maybe I'll fly, maybe I'll crash. Let's find out.
It's just so like a human being. Reckless and creative and visionary and stupid, and from the safety of my couch, it warms my geeky heart. Crazy people, fly on!
What about you? Do you see this and say, Man, I wish I could do that! Do you think it's cool but you'll just sit back and watch, thank you very much? Do you think people who do stuff like this are certifiable?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow up in a famous family? What privileges and riches you might have, and—more ominously—what expectations you’d have to live up to?
What if you were born to one of the most famous families in history? What if your grandfather was Mark Antony…your step-grandfather, Augustus Caesar…your uncle, Tiberius Caesar. Yeah, no pressure there. Not to mention your father, brother, cousins, and even nephews, all of `em busy morning til night trouncing Germans on the battlefield, being appointed to high office, and generally running the whole damn Roman Empire. While you…oh, my. How to put this gently?
You’re the family idiot. Your own mother treats you as an embarrassment. In a family of massive overachievers, you stammer, your head twitches uncontrollably, you have a congenital limp, and you can’t enter a room without breaking or tripping over something. Your uncle Tiberius quips you could wreck the empire simply by strolling through it.
Unloved by all but a few, the butt of every family joke, and the least likely person anyone can imagine ever ascending the imperial throne, you are Claudius…the fourth emperor of Rome.
Never heard of him? Neither had I, until the first time I saw the BBC miniseries I, Claudius on DVD. I loved it so much, I immediately 1) bought the DVD set for myself, and 2) read the novels on which the series is based: I, Claudiusand Claudius the God, by Robert Graves.
Imagined as an autobiography, Claudius tells the story of his family and his own role in it. And what a story! He begins before his birth with Augustus Caesar and his wife, Livia. You think Scarlett O’Hara was sassy? You think Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington was a bitch? Claudius’s grandmother Livia could eat both of them for lunch and not break a sweat. Sweet grandma she was not. Oh, she’d bake you cookies, all right…and then cry convincingly at your funeral. Her one goal: to have her son, Tiberius, succeed his stepfather Augustus as emperor. Here is Tiberius belittling her grand plans: Tiberius: Anyway, where does all this get us? There's not only Marcellus, there's Agrippa too. And Augustus prefers both of them to me.
Julia, Marcellus’s wife: [Screams off stage] No, noooo!!
Tiberius: Ye gods, what's that?
Livia [calmly serene]: It sounds as though there is now only Agrippa.
And that’s just the first episode. I, Claudius is packed with intrigue, betrayal, passion, and a galaxy of unforgettable characters—the most compelling, Claudius himself*. His only goal is to survive his murderous family and live quietly as a scholar. (Hard to do when one of your nephews grows up to be the infamous Caligula). Not only does Claudius not want the throne, he’s opposed to the very idea of the monarchy. He longs for the vanished days of the Roman republic, when the people ruled themselves, free of king or emperor. How he ends up exactly where he doesn’t want to be—and what happens when he gets there—makes for 10 hours of some of the best television ever made.
Senator: You're not fit to be Emperor.
Claudius: I agree. But nor was my nephew [Caligula].
Senator: Then what difference is there between you?
Claudius: He would not have agreed. And by now, your head would be on that floor for saying so.
Having seen it now approximately eleventy-three times (I’m watching it again as we speak) I can tell you with authority: I, Claudius is a gem you cannot miss.
*Claudius is played by the amazing Derek Jacobi (before he was a Sir). And yes, that is Patrick Stewart—Captain Picard himself—in one of his early roles, the ambitious and dastardly Sejanus. If I ran the universe, though, the biggest award ever made would go to Sian Phillips. Her Livia is a masterpiece: pure ruthlessness seething under a façade of grace, modesty, and impeccable moral rectitude. Livia insists everything she does is for the good of Rome. She truly believes she is right…and that, somehow, makes for the most heart-chilling evil of all.
I'm a veterinarian who started writing and never stopped. I've published two young adult novels: Ten Cents a Dance, which was named a Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and Tallulah Falls, which was named a 2007 Book for the Teen Age by the New York Public Library. I practice veterinary medicine part-time; the rest of the time, I'm up in my office, clacking away at the keyboard.
Life is discovery. Sometimes, I think the stuff I’ve discovered is so cool, I have to share it. Feel free to roll your eyes, it won’t bother me. I’m a geek…I know it.
I pull out this tank, squashed near the bottom of the drawer, and instantly I'm back in Italy. Hot blazing blue sky, turquoise water. White pebble beaches and crooked narrow streets. It was my first trip abroad. I was 22. That fall, I started...
...veterinary school, where I met...
...my sweetheart. Yellowstone was our first road trip. Every night, we had to find a hill to park on so that we could roll-start the VW van the next morning. VW vans have crappy electrical systems. On the upside, every other VW driver on the road will wave to you.
...Mariposa, just outside Yosemite National Park. I made a wonderful friend, Marybeth, and we went to the county fair and I got this tee promoting Mariposa County's Division of Alcohol and Drug Programs. I have no idea why. Anyway, the butterfly is pretty.
...where, among other things, we went to Indigo Girls concerts. And then...
