No regrets!

The Collected Regrets of Clover ~ by Mikki Brammer, 2023, psychological fiction (New York), 317 pages, 10/10

I'm so glad I read this book!  No regrets, as I titled this post.  I decided to "collect" the words I singled out, the words that made me think or smile or compare to my own life.  I hope you enjoy them, too.  I need to return this book to the library today, but I want to continue thinking about the insights I tagged about Clover, a death doula in New York City.  That means she had dedicated her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process, as I posted HERE.  By the way, she was raised by her grandfather because her parents died in a freak accident was she was little. 

1.  "I stood in front of bookshelves ... three dilapidated notebooks stood out ... On the first, REGRETS, the second, ADVICE, the third, CONFESSIONS.  Aside from my pets, these were the things I'd save in a fire" (p.6).  [These were people's last words.]

2.  "When I first started working as a death doula, I'd naively tried to get people to focus on all the positive things about their life –– all the things they should be grateful for.  But when someone has spent their years angry at the world, death just feels like one final cruel blow. Eventually, I realized that it wasn't my job to help them gloss over that reality if they didn't want to; it was to sit with them, listen, and bear witness.  Even if they were unhappy right up until their final exhale, at least they weren't alone" (p. 7).

3.  "I got on the F train toward Midtown, headed to the only kind of social gathering I ever really frequented:  a death café" (p. 23).

[I had never heard of a death café, so I googled it and learned it is a scheduled non-profit get-together to talk about death over food and drink, usually tea and cake.  The idea originates with the Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz, who organized the first café mortel in 2004.  Jon Underwood, a UK web developer, was inspired by Crettaz's work, introduced the death cafe to London in 2011, and launched the Death Cafe website. They have since been held in many countries.]

4.  [Clover and Grandpa would always go out for breakfast at a diner each weekend, then to a bookstore for one book each.]  "Grandpa and I walked back to the apartment with our chosen books under our arms –– him with a thick biography of the scientist Louis Pasteur, me with a comprehensive guide to a mystical village of gnomes.  I knew exactly how we'd be spending the rest of the afternoon. Grandpa would sit in his courduroy armchair, I'd settle into a beanbag at his feet, and togehter we'd escape to different worlds in the pages of our books" (p. 43).

5.  "Have you ever wondered if we all have a specific time we're meant to die?  Kind of like a set fate?  You know when you hear those stories of people who escape death, like in a plane crash or a building collapse, and then they die in a freak accident a few months later?  It's like death has their number and they can't escape it" (p. 62).

6."If you could know the date of your death in advance, would you want to?" (p. 62).

7.  [As they sat at the diner one weekend, Grandpa said,] "Intelligence will only get you so far in life ... And the same can be said for wit and charm.  But two things will serve you better than any others. ... Infinite curiosity and a keen sense of observation" (p. 75).

8.  "If you want something you don't have," he'd said, "you have to do something you've never done" (p. 114).

9.  "The two of them, lost in a world of their own.  And me, alone in mine" (p. 198).

10.  Claudia, a dying patient, said to her:  "I've been dying to see you, Clover –– pun absolutely intended, because what's the point of being close to death if you can't make use of wordplay?" (p. 261.)

11.  "Don't let the best parts of life pass you by because you're too scared of the unknown" (p. 288).

A new word for me = oomf

On Monday afternoon, I was reading online when I ran across a new word (and then another).  Wait, let's do this one word at a time.  I found "oomf" first, HERE.  It's a word from Gen Z.  Oh, you want to know what it means?  It's supposed to be all lower-case, and it means "one of my followers."  I am already behind the times, since it has apparently been "out there" since 2015 (at least among folks a lot younger than I am).

Here's a quote from that article, and it has another word that's new to me:

Jessica Rett, a University of California, Los Angeles, professor in linguistics, said that every generation innovates language, and they do it for roughly two reasons: to obfuscate and to innovate.  "They don’t want us to know what they’re talking about," Rett said. "And it’s really just a way of sort of setting themselves apart from old people like me."  Rett explained that "one of my friends" is also a pseudo-partitive that eliminates "the possible presupposition that there’s only one friend that you’ve got," which may be particularly important for younger people to signal.

Okay, what is a "partitive"?  Wikipedia has the answer for me, HERE.  For example:

Partitive = "three of my friends"

Pseudo-partitive = "three friends of mine"

 

On a book blog, maybe I should use books as the subject (it's also the second example on Wikipedia):

Partitive = "many of those books"

Pseudo-partitive = "many books"

I'll never say "pseudo-partitive" in real life!

My notes and quotes about Lucy and Viola, the author's two grandmothers

Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers ~ by Adriana Trigiani, 2010, memoir, xiii + 204 pages, 8/10

NOTES

When I read this book, I thought, "What about singing happy birthday over a cake?"  While composing today's blog post, I happened upon this cover of the book, which is different from the version I got from the library (see other mention HERE).

QUOTES

"My grandmother went to the library weekly, and took her children along, which is where my mom's addiction to books began; eventually she and her twin sister Irma became librarians." ~ p. 33

"I asked Viola on her eighty-fifth birthday, which birthday she dreaded the most.  'Stupid question," she said.  'I only know it's downhill after eighty-five.'" ~ p. 107

"As I write this book, the U.S. government just released a report that 41 percet of the babies born in our country in 2008 were born to single mothers." ~ p. 125

"Self-respect is the most important respect of all." ~ p. 125

"They both posessed the take-charge attitude of the firstborn, and both worked all their lives as diligent businesswomen, who never officially retired.  They both had an uncanny ability to lead large families, to end arguments, and to encourage good behavior." ~ page 150

"Lucy went to the library regularly, until she could no longer walk there." ~ p. 168

"When you can, walk." ~ p. 169

"When I visited her, she wanted me to get out and do things.  She didn't want me to sit around with her — she wanted me to go and see things and come back and tell her about them.  When I did, she would light up, relishing in every detail of my day.  In a broader sense, this is what it has meant to be a writer.  I go out, experience the world through characters and conversation, hopefully fetching the good stuff, the details that surprise and bind us, then bring all of it to the page.  Lucy encouraged me to do the same for her." ~ p. 17r

"This is my first work of nonfiction." ~ p. 199

Listen to the music!

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession ~ by Daniel J. Levitin, 2007, music and science, 322 pages

This is an eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.  Neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music — its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it — and the human brain.  Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin says that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language.  Drawing on research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals:

• How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world.

• Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre.

• That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise.

• How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head.

Writing a novel ~ what a novel idea!

No Plot? No Problem! ~ by Chris Baty, 2006, writing, 44 pages

I was given a novel-writing kit by someone who no longer wanted it, and inside is this little book by Chris Baty.  Hey, I remember that name!  He's the one who came up with National Novel Writing Month, better known by using the first syllable of each word:  NaNoWriMo.  I also remember that November is NaNoWriMo month, so I suggested it as an activity for Crown Center residents.

The last time I took part in NaNoWriMo was a few years ago, but I decided to look at my notes to myself.  I'm not bashful, so I'm sure you already know my notes are also posted online for all to see (first posted HERE)

My novel

Here's what I've come up with:  Betsy and Diane are a couple of book bloggers who go on a road trip together, after Betsy retired.  The two had met in a group of people who discussed books online.  Their little group had started calling itself Book Buddies.  Driving to visit a few of their book friends in other states, they laughed at the idea that people once thought it's dangerous to meet with strangers you have only "met" online.  You know, that stranger could be an axe murderer!  At least, that's what people thought a quarter of a century ago.  (See illustration.)

They laughed at the absurdity, since each of them thought the other seemed absolutely okay.  They'd known each other a couple of years online, but had just met in person yesterday, when Diane traveled to Betsy's town so they could go on this adventure together in one car.  The book's title could be:  Happenstance: The Case of the Axe Murderer.

What the two didn't notice as they drove along was that they were being followed by a man one was involved with, a man who was still very afraid of strangers met online.  When the man saw them pull off the road and get out of the car with one of them holding ... gasp! ... an axe, he pulled up behind the car, sprang into action, shoved the two apart, and wrestled the axe away from the "would-be murderer."  The other woman fell and hit her head on a rock.

Ironically, the one who fell was his girlfriend.  She wound up in a coma, in the hospital and totally unaware for most of the novel.  And that means, she was not able to say, "Wait a minute!  That's not the way it was at all!"  Now, which woman is in a coma, and who is on trial for attempted murder?  And why did one of them have an axe in the car in the first place?  I guess that means I need to decide whose car they were driving on this trip to visit their online friends.

That's the background, leading up to a trial for attempted murder.  The novel itself could be told through documents, like emails and instant messages and newspaper articles about the case.

You know you are a bookie ... if bookstore owners smile

when they see you come in the door.

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. Monday was MLK Day, HERE.
2. On TWOsday, I posted about Adam's first wife (and eating pizzas), HERE.
3. Irregular verbs were the words I discussed on my Wednesday Words post, HERE.
4. Thursday Thoughts were about a novel about slaves in the American South, HERE.
5. I shared the beginning lines of an Ann Patchett book, HERE.
6. On Saturday, I played Bingo and wrote about it, HERE.

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Today was games

Bingo scorecards have 25 randomly numbered squares on them, with the word "BINGO" written across the top.   Your goal is to cover 5 of those squares in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row.  In standard Bingo, there are 75 different letter-number combinations.

Why am I telling you this?  I haven't played Bingo since I was a child.  Well, maybe not since I taught my children how to play when they were little.  But today, my friend Jane came to the Crown Center, and we played with they group here that regularly does this on Saturday mornings.

One person said she plays Bingo to keep her mind active.  My way of using my mind, though, is by playing with words by blogging or playing Bananagrams or doing crossword puzzles.  As I tell people, I'm a wordsmith.

Beginning ~ sounds like a cliché to me

Beginning

A girl walked into the bar.  I was hunched over, trying to open a box of Dewar's without my knife.

Taft ~ by Ann Patchett, 1994, literary fiction (Tennessee), 273 pages

When John Nickel's lover takes away his son, Nickel is left only with his Beale Street bar in Memphis.  He hires a young waitress named Fay Taft, who brings with her a desperate, dangerous brother, Carl, and the possibility of new intimacy.  Nickel finds himself consumed with Fay and Carl's dead father — Taft — obsessing over and reconstructing the life of a man he never met.  This story reminds us that our deepest instinct is to protect the people we love.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.