Here, an excerpt from my novel and work-in-progress, Monday Night Bike Club:
They built their house, officially, in the middle of nowhere.
They spent hours after work, after college classes, before breakfast and during lunch working on the house. It was his idea, a terrible one she thought.
Her dad had looked at Lainey and said, “Your Aunt Emily built her own house too.”
“Great,” she said.
“It took them 8 years,” he answered.
They were 22 and 23, so young and foolish and idealistic, she sees now what her dad was thinking. They had set about it with a $20 how-to book from the little store downtown. They dubbed it “The Bible,” the closest to religion they’d ever come. Nick had worked at a lumber store for five years by then, spent all his working hours with men building houses and garages and kitchens.
Lainey wasn’t a natural at the job and about a month into the job nailed an entire wall flat to the floor. She'd spent an hour measuring and marking the length of each board with a fat carpenter pencil, balancing the boards on the saw and cutting a smooth edge. Each time she cut she imagined a blade taking her arm off.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
GTW Editorial: Girls Night Out Imminent
Here's fair warning: A Girls Night Out is imminent. You might consider attending GTWoman's Ultimate Girls Night Out, but mostly we recommend that you attend any GNO you can get your hands on and watch the magic unfold.
While there's plenty of magic that can happen at a GNO, we mostly applaud the magic that happens outside the official agenda, the kind you can't get unless you commit to something different than your usual Friday night.
Case in point:
The Commitment: Kids, work, family, men. All fair game for your Friday night attention. But there's something entirely decadent about marking a big fat circle on your calendar and declaring out loud that you will be leaving the house, leaving your man, leaving work on a certain night... that just happens to be the same night your girlfriends are making the same noises about.
When a slight hesitation travels through the house, you'll sense your family's surprise that Momma is making a solo plan. When this happens, you will feel a shock of your own. It's then that you realize how long it's been since you've taken a night to yourself. They've forgotten you do such things, that you own heels, that you wear things in those holes in your ears.
While there's plenty of magic that can happen at a GNO, we mostly applaud the magic that happens outside the official agenda, the kind you can't get unless you commit to something different than your usual Friday night.
Case in point:
The Commitment: Kids, work, family, men. All fair game for your Friday night attention. But there's something entirely decadent about marking a big fat circle on your calendar and declaring out loud that you will be leaving the house, leaving your man, leaving work on a certain night... that just happens to be the same night your girlfriends are making the same noises about.
When a slight hesitation travels through the house, you'll sense your family's surprise that Momma is making a solo plan. When this happens, you will feel a shock of your own. It's then that you realize how long it's been since you've taken a night to yourself. They've forgotten you do such things, that you own heels, that you wear things in those holes in your ears.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Motherhood: The Yoda Song
The 1985 Yoda Song started it. If you have kids who love Star Wars, be sure to introduce them to Weird Al Yankovic's song all set to the "Lola" song. (Which is, unfortunately, catchy.) The kids played it over and over. And then they asked for more music like it. So. I've taken it one step further and started using music to send subliminal messages.
Exhibit A: Weird Al's wildly popular "Eat It" song. I suggest you put this on the CD you make them but make sure to react to it as if it was a mistake. You do not want them to think you like this song, nor that you quote it at every meal you serve them.
Exhibit A: Weird Al's wildly popular "Eat It" song. I suggest you put this on the CD you make them but make sure to react to it as if it was a mistake. You do not want them to think you like this song, nor that you quote it at every meal you serve them.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The bike ride from hell (a.k.a. Log Jumping)
So. The invite came in from the boys to go biking. Last fall I was all about running around with the boys. I was at the peak of my biking fitness (a.k.a. when I'm least addicted to peanut butter bars) and willing to chase them through the woods.
Yesterday, however, was a different story. I could smell it in the air - they were all out to kill each other.
I saw the three of them looking each other up and down, weighing the cost of their summer beer. It appeared, if I let my mind go there, that they wanted me along for one reason only: So they could take breaks no one claimed they needed while they waited for me.
I was right. I spent most of the ride chasing them, my lack of miles clocked becoming painfully obvious. I ran all summer but 30 minutes trudging up and down Reynolds Road, turns out, doesn't do jack for a 90-minute bike ride on the tight, bumpy single track they had unearthed.
Yes, they had a new trail "still under development" to show me. And yes they made it sound delicious and exclusive. And yes I was intrigued. I wanted in.
Alas.
The trail was half the width of my handlebars and shrouded in saplings and pine boughs nearly all at eye level. At some points I was far enough behind that not only couldn't I see the boys, for a few fretful moments, I couldn't see the trail either.
This is when the log jumping started. The first tree across the trail nearly made me stop. But a quick look around and I figured there was no one around and that the fall would be clean, a widening in the trail just enough for a woman on her new bike to lay down in.
To my surprise and statistical upset, I cleared it. Then, a second log appeared in the trail, slightly smaller than the first. SO I braved it. Rather, I marched all over that bad boy. I hooped in joy. Of course, none of the boys witnessed my miracle on wheels.
But the third and final log came near the end when I was weak and scratched and trying, bravely, to pretend that I still liked them all. It was also when one of the boys decided he would fall in line behind me, hang in the back with the log jumper. Imagine my surprise to find that this third log was resistant to my attempts.
It seemed, geometrically, that I had the height and speed to clear it. Both cosine and tangent angles showed it to be true. But a good-sized log only needs an eyewitness to have a little fun.
And so it was that the log calmly grabbed the front tire of my bike and stopped it. In that second it ejected me up off my seat, forward, over the handlebars.
... But just when I thought it was all over, my bike came shooting back under me and proceeded down the trail as if nothing had happened. The cry of fear (disbelief? joy?) sounding from my riding partner behind me proved, however, that plenty had happened.
For starters, I wasn't sure if I was coming or going. One minute I was eating a log, the next I was pepping along handily at 8 or 9 mph with tree branches slapping my face.
As I carried on, a few other things became clear: My shoes had not unclipped, therefore elongating all the muscles in the front of my ankle (their existence news to me) to a snapping point. It was also then that I realized an adrenaline rush can and will cloud your vision, during which you will hook a tree root with your pedal and get a second taste of death in quick succession. And, finally, I realized the debacle had taken the greatest thing of all: my newly minted log jumping attitude.
It wasn't long after that that I convinced (begged) these killers to head back, save their damsel in distress and call it a day. And when they did, I was never so thankful to see a smooth dirt road in all my life, to hit a nice cruising speed for the ride home, a little cool down in order.
Note to self: Never will a group of three men concede to a cruising speed. If the trail opens up wider than their handlebars, they will see to it that they down each other as often as possible the entire length.
Yesterday, however, was a different story. I could smell it in the air - they were all out to kill each other.
I saw the three of them looking each other up and down, weighing the cost of their summer beer. It appeared, if I let my mind go there, that they wanted me along for one reason only: So they could take breaks no one claimed they needed while they waited for me.
I was right. I spent most of the ride chasing them, my lack of miles clocked becoming painfully obvious. I ran all summer but 30 minutes trudging up and down Reynolds Road, turns out, doesn't do jack for a 90-minute bike ride on the tight, bumpy single track they had unearthed.
Yes, they had a new trail "still under development" to show me. And yes they made it sound delicious and exclusive. And yes I was intrigued. I wanted in.
Alas.
The trail was half the width of my handlebars and shrouded in saplings and pine boughs nearly all at eye level. At some points I was far enough behind that not only couldn't I see the boys, for a few fretful moments, I couldn't see the trail either.
This is when the log jumping started. The first tree across the trail nearly made me stop. But a quick look around and I figured there was no one around and that the fall would be clean, a widening in the trail just enough for a woman on her new bike to lay down in.
To my surprise and statistical upset, I cleared it. Then, a second log appeared in the trail, slightly smaller than the first. SO I braved it. Rather, I marched all over that bad boy. I hooped in joy. Of course, none of the boys witnessed my miracle on wheels.
But the third and final log came near the end when I was weak and scratched and trying, bravely, to pretend that I still liked them all. It was also when one of the boys decided he would fall in line behind me, hang in the back with the log jumper. Imagine my surprise to find that this third log was resistant to my attempts.
It seemed, geometrically, that I had the height and speed to clear it. Both cosine and tangent angles showed it to be true. But a good-sized log only needs an eyewitness to have a little fun.
And so it was that the log calmly grabbed the front tire of my bike and stopped it. In that second it ejected me up off my seat, forward, over the handlebars.
... But just when I thought it was all over, my bike came shooting back under me and proceeded down the trail as if nothing had happened. The cry of fear (disbelief? joy?) sounding from my riding partner behind me proved, however, that plenty had happened.
For starters, I wasn't sure if I was coming or going. One minute I was eating a log, the next I was pepping along handily at 8 or 9 mph with tree branches slapping my face.
As I carried on, a few other things became clear: My shoes had not unclipped, therefore elongating all the muscles in the front of my ankle (their existence news to me) to a snapping point. It was also then that I realized an adrenaline rush can and will cloud your vision, during which you will hook a tree root with your pedal and get a second taste of death in quick succession. And, finally, I realized the debacle had taken the greatest thing of all: my newly minted log jumping attitude.
It wasn't long after that that I convinced (begged) these killers to head back, save their damsel in distress and call it a day. And when they did, I was never so thankful to see a smooth dirt road in all my life, to hit a nice cruising speed for the ride home, a little cool down in order.
Note to self: Never will a group of three men concede to a cruising speed. If the trail opens up wider than their handlebars, they will see to it that they down each other as often as possible the entire length.
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