A tease in rising temps last week; the sun on my face. On this gray day, I am dreaming of more.
Remington Roundup: #Love, #Truth, & a #VeryLargeCat
March brings new snow to Wisconsin, a driveway to be shoveled, and (so) a reason for me to get out there in boots and exercise. To warm us up during this final stretch of winter, the March Roundup brings links to love, truth, and a very large cat.
Meow.
#Love
For years, the New York Times has been running a wonderful column on the “joys and tribulations of love.” Now, you can hear actors read chosen essays from the column in a weekly podcast series of Modern Love.
“I have always loved falling.”
~Natalie Lindeman
Here’s a link to the podcast episode of Dakota Fanning reading “The Plunge” by Natalie Lindeman (who, by the way, was seventeen when she was published in Modern Love!).
#Truth
Ellen Urbani, author of LANDFALL (read her Q&A here), has an amazing essay on The Rumpus, “There Is No Such Thing as a True Story,” in which she says “Perspective is a fickle beast, and memory is an unreliable traveling companion through the years.”
“So tell me the truth,” he says. “The whole truth! Don’t leave anything out.”
“Why do you want to know this truth?” I ask.
“Because knowing the truth is the only way to figure out who is lying.”
She writes about the two sides to a story and the strange workings of memory. Go read this if you and someone you know have very different perspectives on a shared experience.
A #VeryLargeCat
I’m cheating here a little with this part of the March roundup, as I’m highlighting a book in print rather than an essay or article online. But if you have kids or you’ve read Katherine Applegate’s THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN (or if you’re keen on cats), you’ll love Applegate’s newest book, CRENSHAW. Crenshaw is a cat. A very big cat. And that’s not the only odd bit about him.
I noticed several weird things about the surfboarding cat. Thing number one: He was a surfboarding cat. Thing number two: He was wearing a T-shirt. It said CAT’S RULE, DOGS DROOL. Thing number three: He was holding a closed umbrella, like he was worried about getting wet. Which, when you think about it, is kind of not the point of surfing.
The cover alone draws me in, and the story is so sweet. I’m reading it with my daughter right now and had to stop myself from turning pages the other evening, it being a school night and all, but I could have swallowed it up in one sitting.
What are you loving this month?
Send Me Back
For various reasons, you push your pen aside, bury your manuscript under the mail. One kid or both get sick. You get sick. That rejection letter hits your inbox. You find another gray hair. Those tiny vials of serum you bought aren’t doing a thing to reduce your wrinkles. Your favorite socks have the F-word printed on them and while you’re charged wearing them, you feel guilty every time you drop them in the laundry. What if the kids find out? Can you pair up your socks in hiding? You’re never really alone. Not even when folding clothes. Except now when you have ten minutes between work and the end of school. So you garbage up on a bowl of cereal. Sneak a forbidden snack. Clear away the evidence. Just in time, too. The door opens and there they are: the kids. You ask them about their day, their homework. How was lunch? Science? Tell me about recess. Tell me everything. Tell me anything. Tell me your stories. Send me back to the page.