Only Book Club With People You Love

So you joined a book club.  And it's your turn to pick.  Your ideal title?  One that's not too serious but not too light, right in the sweet spot of what you'd enjoy and what you think others would enjoy too.  You search and search, but it isn't easy.  You've read this one, the others wouldn't like that one, and this one is about aliens.  Wait, what's this?  A New York Times bestseller and, oh look, the 2021 book club pick of the summer!  Plus, it's by an author you already know and love.  You click Add to Cart, feeling virtuous and even a little smug about what a good choice you've made.  But then again, you know books.  You've been a reader all your life.  You brought books to the playground, you majored in English.  You've got this.

And then one of the other book club members starts reading the book and tells you that there's something in it that'll upset another member.  And you're suddenly feeling all of the things, none of them good.  Your confidence in your ability to recognize quality literature has been shaken.  What's more, now you know how the others felt when you were so put off by The Guest List that you couldn't even finish it.  

Obviously, the "you" in this story is me, and the person who couldn't read my book was my mom or sister.  I'm not going to tell you which, nor will I reveal the title of my bad apple pick.  Partly because I don't want to open that door, but mostly because I protect the privacy of my nearest and dearest better than my own.  When I told the husband what happened, he said that 1) (without any prompting) I know good books (I knew I married him for a reason!), and 2) unless all we read is comics, this is going to keep happening.  He is, of course, right.  As was I when I said that reading is a very personal thing in last year's hard-hitting My Book Club, My Boyfriend.  

Nevertheless, this experience has forced me to grow.  There was a time when I'd cringe even after picking a movie that the other person didn't like.  So if nothing else, then being in a book club has ripped the Band-Aid right off that nonsense.  It also reminds me that other people have nonnegotiables and triggers too, and that we all need to be sensitive to each other's needs.  Still, I don't think I could be in a book club with anyone who isn't family.  Because although my mom and sister and I may sometimes disagree, there's no malice under it.  They're a safe space because they're my people.  And if I'm going to discuss books -- and all the baggage and emotions that come with that -- then I want to do it with people I love.        

That said, I'll still read my slush pile selection.  

I'll just keep it between me, myself, and I -- a.k.a. my book club of one.    

Christmas Lights, Camera, Action

"This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife" isn't just a lyric from a Talking Heads song.  It's what's going on in this picture.  (Well, okay, except for the wife part.)  This lights lollapalooza of a house isn't mine.  But it was the most striking house I saw with the husband and my parents when we drove around looking at Christmas décor over the weekend.  (My mom found it on a Facebook self-guided tour list, so hopefully the very talented homeowners won't mind that I posted a pic.)  It's as dazzling as the Griswald residence.  Only better, because it has a castle.  

Speaking of Christmas Vacation, there's nothing that eases 'tis the season tension like a crazy Christmas comedy.  So when I saw a commercial for the Comedy Central original movie A Clusterfunke Christmas, I had to check it out.  Written by Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, it's a rom com spoof of those so-bad-they're-good Hallmark holiday features.  Holly Jenkins (Mr. Mayor's Vella Lovell) isn't looking for love when she descends upon a Christmas-themed village.  She's looking to buy a heap of an inn run by eccentric spinster sisters Hildy (Gasteyer) and Marga (Dratch) Clusterfunke.  What follows is a walking, talking Christmas card complete with all the, ahem, hallmarks of a made-for-TV-movie.  You know.  The struggling mom and pop (or should I say sister and sister?) business.  The cookie cutter townspeople.  And, of course, the sophisticated, stressed-out businesswoman and hunky local yokel (Call Me Kat's Cheyenne Jackson) who despise each other on sight but must-have-each-other-now although they barely lock lips.

It was fun to watch a Christmas movie that put a new (i.e. snarky) spin on things.  Not that I don't enjoy the odd Hallmark flick while I'm crafting or wrapping a last-minute gift.  But after stringing my third necklace, I sometimes find the stories too saccharine to keep my interest.  No spurned suitor ever even so much as tosses a mug of hot chocolate in his lady love's Botoxed face.  And that's just not normal.  

Nevertheless, even as A Clusterfunke Christmas satirizes the genre of holiday romance, it's an (albeit tongue in cheek) homage to it.  Which is to say that it takes the best parts of a merry meet cute and then -- bam! -- spikes that sugary eggnog.  Because a little sarcasm never hurt anyone.

And you always hurt the ones you love.

Prep School Jewels and a Few Funny Flicks

 Mr. Mushroom Necklace

Sweater: So, Kohl's

Skirt: Marilyn Monroe, Macy's

Shoes: Christian Siriano for Payless

Bag: Marshalls

Jacket: Gap Outlet

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

 Heart Hodgepodge Necklace

Sweater: Arizona Jeans, JCPenney

Skirt: Ellen Tracy, JCPenney

Shoes: Candie's, Kohl's

Bag: Bisou Bisou, JCPenney

Jacket: Gap Outlet

Sunglasses: Relic, Kohl's

 Hits the Spot Teapot Necklace

Sweater: Macy's

Skirt: Stoosh, Macy's

Shoes: Rocket Dog, DSW

Bag: Princess Vera, Kohl's

Jacket: Mossimo, Target

Belt: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: JCPenney

 Start My Heart Necklace

Dress: Macy's

Shoes: Payless

Bag: Marshalls

Coat: Candie's, Kohl's

Belt: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

Nothing says back to school like a big old mess of plaid. Even if September is long gone and my Moon Dreamers lunchbox is decorating a landfill. Still, January is as good a time as any to "Schoolhouse Rock" your style (whether you're angling for the honor roll, a social security check, or something in between), especially in this, the first month (and post!) of the year. And few things say schoolgirl like hearts. You know. Dotting i's in passed notes and notebooks, dominating drugstore-issue valentines, and popping up on post-study sesh pendants.

Ah, pendants. And barrettes. And Koosh balls. And, at least before they were banned, those snappy neon slap bracelets. When I was a kid, I lived to spend my allowance on all this and more at Afterthoughts and Claire's Boutique. Truth be told, I still have some of it! (Not the slap bracelets, though; safety first, people.)

Which is just one of the reasons I so enjoyed the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler extravaganza Sisters, an homage to 1980s kitsch -- and house parties -- as told through the story of the sisters Ellis. Fey plays freewheeling beautician and single-mom Kate to Poehler's divorced do-gooder nurse Maura, and the results are hilarious. When we meet Fey, she's giving Chris Parnell a heinous eyebrow wax; when we meet Poehler, she's giving sunscreen to a hobo who turns out to be a construction worker. Yet they're forced to put aside their differences when they find out that their parents (Dianne Wiest and Josh Brolin, just like on CBS's "Life in Pieces"!) are -- sigh -- selling their childhood home. They promptly meet up in Orlando and embark upon an epic bedroom-cleaning sequence that highlights Kate's wild child and Maura's geek girl personas in an awesome outpouring of lava lamps, trolls, feather boas, headbands, scrunchies, colorblock sweatshirts, and, that star of all such montages, diaries. (Kate's chronicles X-rated escapades whereas Maura's recounts episodes in rock tumbling. Nuff said.) Like many a repressed heroine before her, Maura is desperate to, as she puts it, "let her freak flag fly," and Kate conspires to help her by throwing a kick-ass rager cleverly coined Ellis Island Revamped, where she can chat up nice guy neighbor James (Ike Barinholtz, a.k.a. kooky nurse Morgan on "The Mindy Project"). Never mind that a stuck-up couple (the wife's wardrobe is 70% dry clean only, a sure barometer of yuppie-dom if ever there was one) has already purchased the house. Kate will stay sober so Maura can party, and everything will be okay.

Which is how movies work out never.

Before long the Brady Bunch-esque Ellis homestead is overrun with high school friends and frenemies under the influence. So, comedians abound. Maya Rudolph! Bobby Moynihan! Rachel Dratch! Kate McKinnon! Samantha Bee! Things are said, stuff is defaced, and a ballerina music box ends up somewhere it shouldn't. Kate and Maura fight, then pick up the literal and metaphorical pieces in a way that avoids being sappy. Although their personalities are at odds with each other, they have a few of those simpatico bonding moments that happen only to siblings. Which is to say, underneath the layers of Aquanet and eyeliner, Sisters keeps it real.

That having been said, Sisters is something of a foil for Daddy's Home (Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg) which I saw a week before and feel compelled to bring up partly because 1) both are raucous comedies headlined by SNL powerhouses and 2) both feature John Cena, a hulk of a man that I didn't know existed until seeing him in Trainwreck (yet another raucous comedy costarring an SNL favorite). Both were good, delivering on the promise of holiday hijinks, but my takeaway was this: Daddy's Home had a more cohesive plot, but I learned more from Sisters. Probably because I'm a sister. As opposed to a daddy.

Who says comedies can't be deep?