Book 'em

I like books, and I like to talk about books with others who like books. So why aren't I in a book club?

I've decided that I don't believe in them.

Before all 5 of my readers hyperventilate, let me make this clear: Book clubs are fine activities. They foster love of reading, expose readers to new authors and new ideas and encourage critical thinking.

But I can do all that by myself, and I prefer to.

For me, reading is one of the few solitary, silent pleasures in a noisy, crowd-sourced world. I read to get away from people, not to engage with them. And when I read, I imagine how things are in the book - how Hercule Poirot speaks, what Lord Peter Wimsey looks like, the dresses Laura Ingalls wore. And I like them that way. Characters and the books they inhabit are my friends...some of them, like Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" and Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" are friends I turn to again and again. Taking them out and introducing them to a crowd would make them turn and run down the rabbit hole, and I'd never see them again.

And I like to pick out my own books, thank you very much, not books that Amazon thinks fit in with a study guide. I have pretty wide-ranging interests. I read a LOT of stuff, weird, normal and in-between. I don't need to be told what's fashionable or what's important to read.

I know people enjoy all that. They like to share what they read, and what it meant, and if/how that book or character changed their lives. And that's perfectly fine. If Jane Eyre is your BFF, good! Eat some cookies, share your feelings. But that's another snag for me. Many of my heroes are solitary, and they don't share. Phillip Marlowe would no more walk into a book club than a bishop into a brothel. Lord Peter has a club, thankyouverymuch. Bertie Wooster likes his parties, but he's happy to stay home with Jeeves. Sherlock Holmes abhors socializing.

I have my own book club. I invite who I want and I get to be president. That's the best kind of club of all.

Cat-astrophe

Those of you who know about cats know that many of them cannot resist a closed door. NoNo is one of those cats. No matter how many times she goes in a room and sees that it's empty, she is still convinced that, once the door is closed, Something Very Exciting Is Happening In There. Birds! Tuna steaks! Cold fusion! Anything could be happening in that closed-off room. The room's allure can get her into trouble. And this is exactly what happened on Sunday.

Jim went into our miniature Library of Alexandria/storage room downstairs to get a book. NoNo was asleep upstairs in the back room. Somehow, she sensed the secret room was opening. Now was her chance! She zipped downstairs and slipped in...and her stealthiness was her undoing. Jim didn't know she was there, and closed the door again, and NoNo spent the night in solitary.

Now that she's older, these things don't sit well with her. She gave him an earful when he let her out, and after drinking some water, she started in on him again. Sorry, kitty. Curiosity trapped the cat.

Clo(thes)ure

The (*&$#@ moths got to my camel-hair coat and I should get rid of it. But I LOVE this coat. I know, people and experiences are more important than material things, but .... I LOVE this coat.

It literally came to my rescue: We were in London (pretentiousness alert) on a cold evening, just having rushed through the National Gallery, when I spied a street market. I was catching a cold and felt in need of a warmer coat. And there was a lovely coat, hanging at the front of a rack of coats, in plain sight, practically with me written all over it. The vendor was trying to close, so she accepted my haggling, happy to make one more sale. I was happy every time I wore it. Now it has little chew marks all over it (did I mention the *&^%$ moths?) and I really should get rid of it.

But when I get ready to toss out my coat, I am reminded of the other favorite wardrobe items that went to the Great Beyond, that I still miss. Seriously.

--The alligator-patterned patent-leather shoes. Eventually discarded because the pointy toes were excruciatingly painful for dancing, which is precisely the activity for which I like to wear them.

--The flat slingbacks, embossed to look like ostrich. Eventually discarded because I wore the tips off the pointy toes and also because they were excruciatingly painful.

--The red Liz Claiborne pencil skirt, which was worn to great effect in the early 1990s but which eventually wore out, and would be excruciatingly painful to try to get on now.

Maybe I could just wear my coat at night? Yeah, that'd do it.

Book Ended

Yet another co-worker at The Times is getting a book published. That makes at least 7 people -- that I am aware of -- who are published authors in the newsroom. Two of the reporters I supervise have been published, which makes me feel like a slacker.

Lots of people like to say, "I have a book in me." Do I? Don't know. I have digested enough books by now, surely, to have the equivalent of at least one book lurking inside. But what would it be about? Fiction seems dicey. If I follow the advice of "write what you know," I'm doomed to write about A) cats B) small newspapers C) Thomas the Train D) failed gardening....you get the picture. I suppose I could write a fictional account of a newsroom. Then I'd be tempted to thinly disguise all the people I didn't like over the past 20 years as victims of horrible crimes and I guess that'd be wrong. Wouldn't it? "Oh, did you think that person was YOU? Who got pushed down the stairs after telling her editor she wasn't any good at her job? How so?"

Nonfiction could be a safer route.

Date of the Union

I love, love, love, the plan for folks from either side of the aisle in Washington to mix it up, seating-wise, for the State of the Union speech.

First, the serious, grownup reasons:

--We elected you to go to do the NATION'S business. That means a bunch of people from across the nation, working together. The least you can do is sit together. This isn't the Civil War.

--You're perpetrating a seating arrangement from an acrimonious period in American history that is now considered quaint. The Whigs are no more. We have BlackBerries and we let women vote and stuff. Let's get with the times.

--You are "officials" now. We hold you to a wee bit of a higher standard than other people. (See Watergate, Rangell, et al) Every day, Americans go to work with people they don't particularly like. From the chicken factory to the newsroom, we all sit down each day with people we don't agree with. But you know what? I still get the damn paper out. And chickens turn up in the grocery store. You can do the same.

Now, the fun reasons:

--OMG, Gillebrand and Thune (shown here with a soldier just returned from the Middle East) are going to sit together. The Prom Queen and King of Washington. How fun is that?

--Much more guesswork as to what seatmates are talking about.

--Much more sport in comparing outfits from either party. Who has the nicest tie in Florida? Who has the best outfit in California? This kind of armchair quarterbacking is going to be easier with the bipartisan seating arrangement.

--It is ticking off a particularly snooty lawmaker, whose SPOKESMAN had to comment on the issue, because he couldn't be bothered. When asked who this particular lawmaker would sit by, the SPOKESMAN said, "whoever sits next to him." Oooo, I bet YOU'RE fun at parties.

Lost in Any Sort of Translation

It's a bad idea to start using fancy words if you don't know how they're pronounced. Not wanting to appear foolish, like those Easterners who say "WILL-a MET-tee" or "OR-e-GONE" in public, I for years have kept words to myself, waiting eagerly for the day when someone else will volunteer the word first, and I can copy it.

For some words, this is a long time coming. Debussy (the composer is shown here, with his dogs), espalier, 'Pelleas et Melisande,' 'Les Regiment du Filles' ...these don't come up a lot. Sometimes you get desperate and just spit one out, hoping you're playing to a friendly room. Or you never, ever say them aloud. Like substituting "The Scottish Play" for "Macbeth," as superstitious actors used to do. But you can't say "Debussy's opera" instead of "Pelleas" if you can't pronounce "Debussy." You see the issue, especially for a classical music-opera editor. In some circles I am actually regarded as a quiet, retiring type.

I recently discovered that I had been mentally/verbally pronouncing the Venice Biennale incorrectly. For like, years. I was inserting an extra vowel there - Bienn-i-ale, rather than BYE-en-NAHL. Ugh. Horrifying. One ticket to rubeville, please. But now I can sail forth, saying it correctly, if the moment ever occurs. The inside of my head is a much better -- and better-sounding -- place. This year, I resolve to bring my pronunciations up to date.