Author Archives: karenfinlay

Mother’s Day.

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When I was younger, I had a friend tell me that I would be a terrible mother — I was too much of a “party girl” and I was much better suited to the “Auntie Mame” role than that of Mrs. Cleaver.  She was probably right — I really was a so-called party girl, and to be honest, I’m not very good at even being an Auntie Mame.  I forget to send cards on birthdays and I tend to buy books as gifts, a guaranteed, “meh” from children.

Still, sometimes I do wonder what life would be like if I had children, especially now that I’m older.  What if I hadn’t listened to that friend?  I had always kind of assumed I’d have kids, and kept books and toys that I thought I’d pass along to my future daughter.  What if I hadn’t been such a party girl, and instead was looking to settle down?  More than being a terrible mother, I was terrible at relationship choices when I was younger.  What if I hadn’t met the love of my life later on, after he had already had two kids and that was enough?

So instead of being a mom, I’m a stepmom.  And I’m not the best at it — I am definitely in the Auntie Mame school of parenting for sure — but I’m not horrible.  But I love these kids so much, and do get great pleasure being part of this family.  I lucked out, big time.

I think Mother’s Day for stepmothers can be pretty hard, in my experience anyway.  Their mom gets the cards, the flowers, and the one time my stepdaughter gave me a card I was thrilled but confused, like, “Wait, for me?  How come?” Whenever anyone wishes me a Happy Mother’s Day, I feel like correcting them, telling them that I’m not a mom.  My job as a stepmom is far less than that of their own mother; I don’t deserve any accolades or well-wishes, though it’s nice.  If anything I feel like an impostor or an observer on this day.

So this morning I’ve been thinking of all of this, and I must admit, it does hurt a little.  My biological clock rusted a long time ago, but I do get little nags now and again.  But as I was thinking about it — REALLY thinking about it, I think I know what it is: Mother’s Day is synonymous with brunch.  And I really like Eggs Benedict.  I don’t know if I’ve cheated myself out of the joy of motherhood or cheated myself out of the joy of Hollandaise sauce.  It’s a tough call.

However, they did bring me a cinnamon roll this morning, and that was good.  And I just told my stepdaughter that her dress was too short (she’s getting tall) and that it’s cold outside so she should put some leggings on.  I can nag with the best of them, just like a “real” mom.  Ha cha!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, and that includes you stepmothers, too.

I Heart NY

Yes, I’ve missed a few days, and I’ve really wanted to write, but I’ll catch up…  I do have a good excuse — I’m in New York!  And there hasn’t been a lot of downtime.  I’m here for a conference which was last night, but now I’m off for a few days to see friends and run around.

I love New York.  In college, when going to NYC was just a distant (but determined) dream, I had this print hanging on my dorm room wall, bought from Z-Gallerie because I was, you know, so sophisticated (pffft):

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So I looked at that every day, and always thought of New York as somewhere that was a combination of that,books like Eloise and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler, movies like The Warriors, Desperately Seeking Susan, Times Square, and Annie Hall, Andy Warhol’s Factory, a lot of traffic, and snippets I saw on David Letterman when Larry “Bud” Melman would report from the street. And, of course, my fascination with Dorothy Parker and The Algonquin Round Table (which had been ingrained at a probably too early age). In other words, I thought New York was a gritty, fabulous heaven — filled with danger and excitement and glamour and interesting people.  In retrospect, I wasn’t that wrong.

I didn’t get to New York until right after 9/11, and that trip was extraordinary.  I went with a group of friends, and they knew the city so I had great guides.  I was shown all the things I wanted to see and wonderful things I didn’t even know existed.  I was so so lucky to have such a magical first trip.

And in the dozens of times I’ve been back since then, it is still magical.  I never get jaded — when I see the skyline I still get so excited, and I remember the first time driving into NYC.  We flew into Newark and when we came out of The Holland Tunnel, we all smelled something strange.  “What is that?” we asked the cab driver.  He looked at us and said, “Bodies.”  Sure enough, the WTC was still burning, and the city smelled like a giant crematorium.  That still seems unbelievable to me.  But I was so amazed by everything I was seeing — I felt like an eight-year-old.  I also had a broken toe and was limping around, so I was SUCH a goober.

Now I pretend that I’m a little more savvy, and I do know my way around fairly well (well, better than I did 14 years ago), but I still feel like an eight-year-old.  I look up at The Chrysler building and want to scream with glee.  I ate in The Oyster Bar the other night for the first time in about 6 years and was still bouncing in my seat.  And don’t get me started about The sacred Algonquin — that’s another post for later.

So…  I’m off to explore glorious architecture and have a fabulous lunch and head off to Brooklyn…  I may have skipped 2 days, but living and experiencing is good, too.  Biting the big apple and all that…

Packing Anxiety

No “real” post tonight — I’ve been packing for my trip to NYC tomorrow…

I don’t know why packing fills me with such anxiety, but it does.  Maybe it’s because I can’t choose what to wear, that I’ll forget something, pack only one pair of underwear, lose my luggage…  It throws me in an absolute tizzy and I always overpack.  And for work trips it’s especially not fun, because I have to pack work clothes and none of my “fun” clothes, and I feel so bleh.  (But in reality, I’m not hip enough for New York, so it doesn’t matter anyway.)  You’d think that after over 10 years of work travel I would have gotten the hang of this by now, but no.  I think I’ve gotten worse.

This time, though, I think I did okay.  Except I had based everything around the one pair of pants I couldn’t find.  But I finally did, and even found a shirt I thought I’d lost years ago in the process, along with a bag of dry-cleaning I forgot about.  If I take it in, I have a whole new wardrobe of stuff that probably doesn’t even fit anymore.  Sigh.

All I’m missing is an umbrella, but whatever, I’ll just get wet.  I have my glasses and pajamas and an extra pair of ballerina flats and a striped tee shirt, so I’ll be JUST FINE.

Except maybe I should pack a teddy bear?  Hmmm.

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Next dispatch:  New York!

Hold On

Not much to report today…

Today at the bookstore, time was slower than however slow molasses is, I don’t know.  There were no customers, too many volunteers, and I was bored and itching to go home. I was standing near the doorway and the weather felt more like a sunny day in Los Angeles than in Oakland, and I felt transported back to my senior year in college when I was working in a bookstore on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I couldn’t wait to get out of work, out of college, and back to San Francisco. Today I felt that same longing to go and anxiety to move forward. It was like a deja vu moment, only I recognized it.  It felt like the exact same moment was being replayed 25 years later.

I haven’t thought about that job or time in my life for a long time, and to feel it so acutely today was weird.  But nice. 1990 was actually pretty gross.  The number one song of the year was “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips, fashion was atrocious, and it was the year I tried to have a perm (ahem, body wave) but it only lasted for 24 hours before it fell out.  I look back on 1990 as being a year I was lost and making pretty stupid decisions — life-wise AND hair-wise.  It wasn’t all bad — I graduated from college, had great friends, a nice but very-wrong-for-each-other boyfriend, an okay job with a nice boss, and one time Donna Summer AND Captain of Captain and Tennille came into the store AT THE SAME TIME and talked about gardening.  I mean, that was really phenomenal, like seeing Bigfoot AND a unicorn frolicking together.

So it wasn’t all bad, but I’ve always had this overall felling of “ick” when I think about it.  I wasn’t being true to myself — I went through a phase where I thought I was supposed to get my shit together and be “normal,” and that didn’t work so well.  No more pink hair, no more vintage clothes (I still lament the garbage bag full of dresses I dropped off at Buffalo Exchange in July 1990), no more me.  So no, I don’t look at the early ’90s with much fondness, but today I did.

I’ve noticed that one of the nicer things about getting older is that some of those old, icky memories have been smoothed over a bit and cancelled out by the good ones.  Even a few years ago I would have thought about 1990 and shuddered, disgusted by it all.  Now I can look back and think, “Yeah, but that year ruled because of Captain and Donna Summer, hello!”  I find that I’m much more forgiving than I used to be.  I was even emailing with a friend today, and I asked how an estranged person from my life was and thought, “I miss that guy. He was fun.”  THAT is never anything I would have even considered a few years ago, but now I feel kind of meh, like I don’t want to expend that energy.  So weird.  Maybe I’m maturing, or maybe it’s Alzheimer’s, or maybe I just don’t care anymore and can be happy as a middle-aged fuddy duddy, I don’t know.  Or maybe I’ll be back to my regular self tomorrow, seething about something that happened in 1995.

Anyway, I didn’t really have much to say today, but this was fun.  And here, now you, too, can be transported back to 1990 and be totally grossed out as well.

My Independent Bookstore Day Haul!

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Since I don’t want to spend a ton of time online and instead want to spend my Saturday night reading and doing laundry (my how life changes as one gets older), I’m just going to show off my Bookstore Day haul…

My first stop was the wonderful Books Inc. in Alameda, where I met up with friends and went to the Rad American Women A-Z reading.  It is an “alphabet” book of trailblazing American women from Angela Davis to Zora Neale Hurston, and a MUST HAVE for all young girls so they, too, can grow up to be role models.  I must admit I got pretty emotional, especially after Kate Schatz, the author, had her mom read the letter “X.”  I swear, I think I was a suffragette in a past life — every time I vote or hear about historical struggles of women, I cry.

But it was a GOOD cry, because the audience was filled with little girls who were enthusiastic and excited and who will be the future feminists of America.  (Hopefully they will be paid the same amount as their male counterparts, and their bodies will be their own.) It was a beautiful sight to behold.

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Continuing that theme, I picked up We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the print version of her TED Talk by the same name.  I read it as soon as I got home, and it was just fantastic.  Accessible and true, it really is a call to action for feminism, simply that women should be treated equally by everyone, and we should raise our children to be aware of that instead of perpetuating gender roles that can do potential damage to girls and boys alike.  And that you can wear lipgloss and clothes you like and love men — or not — and still be a feminist.  That’s what I love about this “new wave” of today’s feminism — it dispels earlier notions and makes so much damn sense.

After Books Inc. I headed to my local neighborhood bookstore, Walden Pond, in Oakland.  I actually had a specific book I needed: Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor.  Which is absurd — I have it in a box somewhere, and I was just at Flannery O’Connor’s house AND farm in Georgia, and I didn’t buy it.  Because I thought I had it.  And now we are reading it for a book club at work (which is going to be kind of weird), and I need it.  I love Walden Pond anyway, but one thing I especially love about it is that they have an actual Flannery O’Connor PERMANENT DISPLAY. How great is THAT?

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Alas, the ONE book they didn’t have was Wise Blood!  But I could not leave empty handed — I had to replace my copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (I loved it in high school and have been wanting to reread it), and the latest by the brilliant Lorrie Moore, Bark.

And I can justify these purchases because I have 4 flights in the next 2 weeks, and it’s my favorite time to read.  Yeah, okay, to be honest I do NOT need any more books — if I stacked up my “to read” pile it would be at least 6 feet tall, no joke — but what I do need is for independent bookstores to stick around, so I will help out in any way I can.

Besides, what I realized today is that the one place where I feel completely comfortable, other than my home, is in bookstores,  Being surrounded by books is what makes me feel at ease and comfortable — I am VERY good at being surrounded by books.  Bookstores are my temples — I have a lot of friends on those shelves, ones I know, and ones I have yet to meet.  And more than anything I love sharing my favorite books with people.  Today I got to recommend The Secret History, one of my all time favorites, to my friend Jessica.  And I just love that so much.

See?  Look how STOKED I am to be in a bookstore!

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Alas, I didn’t find Wise Blood on Bookstore Day, which means I need to keep it going.  (Maybe it’ll even come into my own little volunteer bookstore where I will be tomorrow morning.)  And believe me, I don’t mind.

Thank you to everyone who shopped at independent bookstores today, and made it such a happy celebration! Okay, off to read and do laundry now…

Independent Bookstore Day, May 2nd!

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I don’t remember the first time I went into a bookstore.  I mean, it would make a great story — the awe I felt as I looked up at all the shelves and shelves of books, clutching my favorite with fat fingers, the anxious car ride home, hardly being able to wait to read my new book…  No, I don’t have a memory like that.  I remember the first books I ever learned to read (My Toys and Bunny Blue) and the first book I ever bought for myself (a Bugs Bunny book — it was the first thing I ever went up to a counter and paid for — I was 5), but I don’t remember my first trip to a bookstore.

I don’t think it’s because my memory is shot; I think it’s because I’ve been going to bookstores for longer than I can remember.  I learned to read when I was really little — only 3 — and my mother learned that the best way to get any peace was to make sure I had a book in my filthy little hands.  So we went to the library all the time, and if I had been especially good, it was a trip to the bookstore to buy a book for my very own.

The bookstore was always the special place I went with my dad.  If I got an A on my report card, or he was home on the weekend instead of traveling for work, we’d go to the little local bookstore (Rakestraw) and buy me a book.  And not just any book — a fancy, hardcover one!  And then he would inscribe it, and to this day, the ones I have left are some of my most treasured possessions.  I even carried a photocopied inscription from one of those books folded and tucked in my wedding bouquet, to make it feel as if he were there with me. weddingbouquet

Those little bookstore trips of my childhood are some of my most cherished memories, and I’m grateful to my parents for nurturing my love of reading.  I was so lucky.

Though I can’t remember my first trip to a bookstore, I do know that at some point my parents took me, and I kept going back.  But there are kids today who can’t remember their first trip, because they haven’t had taken them.  There could be a lot of reasons for that, but the one that concerns me most is that there aren’t as many bookstores around anymore.  Thanks to online shopping, small, independent booksellers can’t really compete with that big website named for a large river.  Some have had to close, but others are still going today — many of them thriving.

One of the reasons for this is because they have come up with ingenious plans — they have excellent selections of books (and other merchandise), fantastic staffs who get to know their customers and can recommend joy (aka books they will like), events that draw customers, and they build a strong community in their neighborhoods.  They are invaluable.

And one of the most ingenious plans they have cooked up is “Independent Bookstore Day,” happening Saturday, May 2nd.  Taking a nod from Record Store Day, it started off “small” (just in California to test it out) and was such a huge success last year that it grew to become a nationwide “holiday!” Bookstores all over the US will be hosting events, authors, selling limited edition books and posters (I heard Green Apple has a special exclusive John Waters poster!!!), storytimes, bands, serving refreshments…  SO much cool stuff is going on, and all to celebrate independent bookstores.  How great is that?  The Bay Area even has a little passport you can print out and you can get it stamped and get prizes for how many stores you visit.  I love it!  I’ll be heading over to Books Inc in Alameda this year for their Rad Women from A-Z by Kate Schatz event.  I am so excited — a rad book about rad women at a rad bookstore on a rad day?  YES, PLEASE.

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But there are tons of events all over the country at over 400 bookstores — check with your local bookseller to see what they’ve got going on.  (Type “independent bookstore day” in the search on Facebook — SO MANY show up!  I wish I could go to all of them…)  Here’s the Facebook page for some information, but look up your favorite bookstore’s page as well.

I don’t want to live in a world without bookstores, and the only way we can assure that bookstores can keep going is to shop there and support them and celebrate them.  That goes for every day, but be sure to celebrate them May 2nd especially. So go and buy yourself a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, or any old favorite for a friend or a new treat for yourself. Parents, take you kids, and daddies — if you have a daughter, buy her a special book and inscribe it for her.  It could become one of her most valuable treasures she’ll keep for the rest of her life.

So go out there and buy some books and keep culture and your heart and mind alive. Long live bookstores, and long live Independent Bookstore Day!

Throwback Thursday and Twenty-Five!

Okay, I have seven minutes to write and post this to get this in for my TWENTY-FIFTH DAY of The Hundred Day Project!  I am so proud of myself — I’ve posted about 25 times more than I did all last year.  Huzzah!

I was going to be clever and write something poignant about how much this project has meant to me, and how motivating it has been, but I’m not that clever and I only have five minutes now. So in honor of Day 25 AND Throwback Thursday, here’s me at 25, probably on my way to The Deluxe.  (And yes, this is a “better” photo of me at 25.  It wasn’t my best year, but better than 22-24.).

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I wish I still had that dress, but I’m glad I’m not 25 anymore.

I did it!  Just under the wire!  VICTORY IS MINE.

Rest in Peace, Jean Nidetch.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I noticed that my jeans were a leeeetle tight.  Okay, not a little — buttoning them took some serious effort in physics.  “They’re just out of the dryer,” I told myself as I sucked in my gut and strained to get them on.  “They’ll stretch out in a little bit.”

But my subconscious and I both knew that was a big lie.  All day at work I thought about unbuttoning my top button but I wouldn’t let myself, instead counting the seconds until I could get home and put on something with a nice, comfy elastic waistband. They didn’t get any looser; in fact, after lunch they were cutting me in half.  It was confirmed: my skinny jeans are now my “too tight” jeans, and those “skinny jeans” were already my go-to “fat pants.”   I don’t have a muffin top; I’m like a volcano spilling over.

While driving home and daydreaming about how as soon as I got home from the grocery store and fed the cats I was going to put on my cozy pajama bottoms, I was listening to the radio when the story came on that Jean Nidetch had died at age 91.  My first thought was, “I wonder if she was still at her goal weight?”

Jean Nidetch was the famous (and fabulous) founder of Weight Watchers. She started it because one day she was in the grocery store and ran into a friend, who congratulated her and asked her when she was due.  She wasn’t pregnant.  Whoops.  Apparently she went to clinical weight loss classes but they weren’t any fun, so she invited her overweight friends over so they could lose weight as a group.  (I think I would have mixed feelings about that invitation — on one hand, “Thanks for inviting me!” and on the other, “Wait, are you calling me fat?”)  Well, obviously it was a huge success — she and her friends lost all their weight — and she built it into an empire.  There are something like 40,000 Weight Watchers meetings every week all around the world.

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And trust me, it works.  I know — I’ve done it three times.  (Ha. Ha.)  Yeah, I’m a “Lifetime” member of Weight Watchers, meaning the first time I joined I lost to my goal weight and, well, quit.  And then I joined again and lost weight, but, well, quit.  And then the last time, I rejoined and lost the weight for my wedding and, well, quit, and now my jeans don’t fit.  Again.  I’m a total statistic — I am one of those that go, has success, quits, and gains it all back.  And then lies to myself about dryer-tight jeans and stomps around all cranky in uncomfortable clothes, and then rejoins and feels sheepish and sorta out of place because everyone is so earnest and I know damn well all my points will be spent on bagels and alcohol.

I’m not saying it doesn’t work — it does!  And there are some really great guidelines and recipes.  There are a few recipes I make all the time that are absolutely delicious…  The only problem is that they are SO good I have about 3 helpings, so about 5000 points.  (I’m not very good at portion control, they whole key to this thing.)  Weight Watchers has come a long way since the old days, when the food was much more disgusting (but much more glamorous:

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I mean seriously, can you imagine?  Fluffy mackerel pudding?  No wonder WW was a huge success in the 1970s; that crap was inedible.  My mom did WW when I was little and I think all she ate from 1972 to 1977 was grapefruit and cottage cheese with canned peaches and those Ayds candy appetite suppressants, which I found out the hard way you shouldn’t gobble by the handful.  However, that Frankfurter Spectacular IS spectacular, and someday I WILL MAKE IT.  (But probably won’t eat it.)

So I was a little sad as I listened to newscaster talk about Jean Nidetch passing away, even though to be honest, I didn’t know she was still alive. I’ve always suspected I would like her — she looks like a hoot — and I do admire her because she really has helped so many people lose weight and feel better physically and mentally.  And hello, I love women who start successful empires!  I think it’s a good organization that does support people — there’s no fat shaming, just a lot of empathy and support.  My favorite anecdote I heard today was that Jean used to share a story that she’d hide Mallomars in the laundry basket, and her favorite saying was, “Honey, if I can do it, you can do it.” And, by the way, when she died she still was at her goal weight.

The newscast ended right as I pulled into the grocery store parking lot.  I’d like to say that I was motivated, and I bought only salad and healthy things for dinner, but no. I totally bought ice cream.  Though in honor of Jean, it was “light.”

Rest in peace, Jean Nidetch.  Thanks for being awesome.

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Holy Trinity Birthday

Today was a pretty major birthday for three of the most major influential women in my life:

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In 1930, Nancy Drew was “born,” with the release of The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and The Bungalow Mystery.  Fifty years later I was at Robin Noble’s house for a sleepover and saw that she had a book that looked interesting, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, on her bookshelf.  The cover captivated me: two ghostly girls with white dresses and glowing bracelets, one blonde, one brunette.  I opened it and began to read, and started my life long love and obsession, really, with the intrepid titian-haired teen detective.  Nancy was smart, capable, modest, and kind, and when I found out that “titian” meant pretty much red-headed, I felt validated for my own maligned haircolor.  That book took me to a whole different world — much more than the Narnia books ever did — and I wanted so badly to be a part of it and to own each and every one. (I do, in several different editions. I guess it opened up the world of collecting, too.)  And I think I can trace back my love of vintage clothes and aesthetics to Nancy — after all, I loved those books and covers and illustrations so much, and wanted to drive a roadster and eat in smart tea-rooms and wear pretty frocks.  I learned more from her than anyone else, and feminist theorists can write whatever they want about her, but I don’t care.  I will always love her and she will always be my best friend, and I will always admire her unwavering sense of justice, and carry an emergency $5 in my pocketbook and avoid getting drugged with chloroform, all thanks to her.

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Nelle Harper Lee was born a few years before Nancy, but like the fictional heroine, her father was a lawyer and she was smart and feisty, too, and probably the literary queen of social justice (whether she likes that or not).  And like the Nancy Drew books I gobbled up a few years before I was assigned To Kill a Mockingbird in ninth grade, Harper Lee opened another world and obsession for me: Southern literature.  When my English class was reading it, I had to go to Chicago with my parents, so I had to read it on the airplane and do little synopses on every chapter to prove that I was following along.  And boy, did I.  I loved that book so much that I didn’t just do little summaries — I did an entire journal, writing the things that I would never have the nerve to say in class.  I poured my heart out to my teacher, Mrs. Pellom, about how much it affected me, and how much it made me cry, and how unfair the world was. It made me realize that times may have changed in the twenty years since the book was written and since the setting of the 1930s, but things were still far from okay –I suppose it was my first political and sociological awakening.  But I also discovered what a perfectly written book was.  To this day it is still my absolute favorite, and I still cry, and I still thank Mrs. Pellom for assigning it to us in Freshman English.

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And now for someone completely different: Ann-Margret.  Well, I first knew her as Ann Margrock on The Flintstones, of course, and then as Kim in Bye Bye Birdie, which I thought was so colorful and glamorous and weird and wonderful.  (Again with the whole early 1960s thing…)  And then, my God, with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas, aka most epic first date of ALL TIME.  They do more stuff on that date (except, you know, it) than I do in a year. They do couple song and dance numbers, water ski, ride mopeds, take a helicopter over the Hoover Dam, go to a nightclub…  It makes me tired just thinking about it.  And Kitten with a Whip which I just found slightly confusing and bizarre when I was young, but melodramatically silly and great, too.  I loved her and wanted to be her — sexy but sweet, multi-talented but charming, nice but kind of, well, odd.  (Hello, Tommy and all the crazy ’70s and ’80s stuff.)  A good and bad girl. I was never really any of those things, but there were two things in common we did share — red hair and being Swedish.  She was my ideal, and I still wish I could be as fabulous as she is.  (I tried.  It didn’t really work so well.)

So it’s pretty crazy that three strong women influences share the same birthday — all that are missing are Dorothy Parker, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Judy Blume, and Neely O’Hara.  But thinking about it…  If these are the women I put on a pedestal and have tried to emulate nearly my whole life, that kind of does explain a lot.  Huh.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Nancy, Nelle, and Ann-Margret!  I’m so glad you were born!  All three of you have made this world a much better place.