More Than Nerds: Sharks Mate for Life

Book people are the best people (yes, even better than fashion people).  So, when I started reading Emily Henry's latest, Book Lovers, I knew I was in for the kind of banter that burgeons between people who make their living in letters.

New York City publishing powerhouses Nora-named-for-Nora-Ephron Stephens and Charlie Lastra are an odd couple.  No, she's not a loveable kook whereas he's an acquired-taste curmudgeon, nor is she the straitlaced sophisticate to his irresistible man child.  Instead, both can be kindly described as stick-in-the-mud corporate sharks.  Although to be fair, only Nora is actually nicknamed The Shark.  So yeah, no Oscar, two Felixes.  In other words, these two are made for each other.

Not that they see it that way.  Or are even a couple.  Nora thinks that she's finally escaped her cold-hearted colleague when she and her sister land in rural North Carolina for some summer R&R.  But then Charlie rears his oh-so-handsome head just as Nora is hate-texting him, throwing her lazy vacay -- and her plans to snag a Hallmark hometown hottie -- for a loop.  Still, both Nora and Charlie are too prickly for most people to understand let alone tolerate, so it isn't long before they realize that they're cut from the same page proofs.  Not since Gone with the Wind has a story made such a strong case for "like goes with like."  So fine, they like each other.  But why should we like them?  (The last time I checked, people want to swim with dolphins, not sharks.)  Because they're book people.  And behind every book person is someone who's been hurt and found what she needed in fiction.  Nora puts it best:

"Daily life was unpredictable, but the bookstore was a constant.  In winter, when our apartment was too cold, or in summer, when the window unit couldn't keep up, we'd go downstairs and read in the shop's coveted window seat.  Sometimes Mom would take us to the Museum of Natural History or the Met to cool down, and I'd bring my shredded copy of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler with me and think, If we had to, we could live here like the Kincaid siblings." (225)

It's the rare book that can drop inconvenient trope truths and retain its lighthearted status, but Book Lovers does it with style.  Because although it isn't easy for everyone to accept that opposites don't always attract, not all career women are heartless, and sometimes small towns are more depressing than darling, Henry shows us the world as it is but also as we'd like it to be, through the spell of her snarky-sweet prose.

Oh Henry, you've done it again.

Vacation, All I Ever Hunted: Friends Without Benefits

When I first read about Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation on Ivy's Closet, I knew it was my kind of novel.  Ivy's Closet, by the way, is a fun and creative blog featuring original fiction, book and movie reviews, music playlists, and more.  If you enjoy pop culture and engaging writing (and who doesn't?), then I highly recommend it, along with its sister blogs Ellie and Caitlin & Megan.  So, People We Meet on Vacation.  I was instantly into it because it's about the kind of romance that everyone wants: the kind that begins as friendship.  Alex and Poppy have enough inside jokes to fill a book, accept each other's flaws (an acceptance, that is, accompanied by good-natured ribbing), and are protective of each other.  After meeting at the University of Chicago, they go on a summer vacation every year.  Henry describes these trips as flashbacks, letting us get to know Alex and Poppy slowly and through the bittersweet lens of nostalgia.  And although their living situations, jobs, and romantic statuses change, they keep at it for a decade.

Poppy is a free spirit who showers three times a week and lives in vintage jumpsuits whereas Alex is a planner who runs at dawn and prefers brand-new button-downs.  Maybe that's why they stay in the friend zone.  Yet although much is made of their Odd Couple ways, they're at their most comfortable -- and happiest -- together.  Which tracks, because they have three key things in common: 1) They're both writers, 2) They both have a stellar sense of humor (so much more important than on-the-same-page hygiene), and 3) They both come from the same small town in Ohio.  Interestingly, it's the town of their origin stories that keeps them from becoming even closer.  Haunted by being taunted in high school, Poppy dropped out of college and fled to New York City, eager to begin her globe-trotting life as a travel writer.  But Alex put down roots, building a career as an English teacher-slash-short story writer to be near his dad, who's still grieving the death of his mom.  And that works.  Because Alex and Poppy have their summer vacations, or as Poppy puts it, their "world for two."  

But sooner or later, vacations must end, even for Alex and Poppy.  As they enter their thirties, they can no longer pretend that they don't have to decide what to do with their lives -- and each other.  Can they move on from the carefree, no-strings-attached vibe of the Go-Go's "Vacation" to the let's-be-each-other's-north-star romance of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home"?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But one thing's for sure.  Sometimes, the people we meet on vacation aren't strangers, but the best versions of ourselves.

Then again, sometimes they are strangers.  But that's a different kind of book for a different kind of blog. 

P.S. Don't talk to strangers.

Top Tops: Don't Sweat the Small Scrud

Left to right: Monteau, Marshalls; Violet & Claire, Marshalls; IZ Byer, Kohl's; Fifth Sun, Target; Jennifer Lopez Collection, Kohl's; ELLE, Kohl's 

I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity clothes enthusiast, but there's something special about a top.  Even that short-lived reboot of "The Odd Couple" recognized it.  I still remember Oscar's agent complimenting Teri Hatcher on her blouse, then saying something like, "Women love their tops."  And we do!  Especially in today's Zoom corporate culture when it's the only part of our outfits that people see.  It's certainly changed the way I look at my closet.  I used to build an ensemble around a skirt, a pair of shoes, or even a particularly rad pair of tights.  Now the top has to stand on its own, which means that I reach for the splashier ones more often.  I always wear them with a denim mini and my fuzzy slippers.  I've come to think of it as my uniform, and I really like it.

Still, wearing more clothes (clothes, that is, other than pjs) means washing more clothes.  Just as hanging at home means investigating domestic annoyances I'd usually ignore.  For example, for the last year or so, I've been noticing small, greenish-brown, plasticky pieces adhering to my freshly washed laundry.  They weren't stains because I was able to pick them off.  And for that I was grateful.  Nevertheless, the whole thing bothered me.  I mean, my clothes are like my kids.  And you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath -- or, in this case, laundry -- water.  Sometimes I'd toss everything back into the washer.  Yet at the end of each cycle, I again spied the offending debris.  I'd indulge in an eye roll but then move on.  Until recently.  After finding one remnant too many, I couldn't deny that I should get to the bottom of it.  My friend the Internet would have the answer, even if it was one I didn't like.

It turns out that my mystery marks are what is known as "scrud."  A combination of "soap" and "crud," the word scrud refers to a mixture of detergent residue and mildew that brews beneath your washing machine's drum.  When you run a cycle, the scrud sheet or roll or whatever breaks off into little pieces and lands on your clothes.  I was flummoxed.  The washer was supposed to get my clothes cleaner, not spray them with mold's answer to dandruff.  So, I went on Amazon, determined to find a scrud-buster.  I came up with a product called Affresh and ordered it.  All I had to do was drop a tablet in the washer and turn it on hot for the longest cycle.  The package said that I "might see residue" afterwards, but when I opened the lid, I was unprepared for the Pollack painting of strange, spinach-like strips clinging to the white spinny thing.  I was mesmerized yet disgusted, disgusted yet mesmerized.  Per the package (that dubious guide), if I had a particularly filthy and/or smelly machine, then I could run as many as four cycles.  I ignored that and used up the whole box, all the while hearing TLC's "Scrubs" on a loop in my head:  

"No, I don't want no scrub

A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me

Hangin' out the passenger side

Of his best friend's ride (oh)

Trying to holla at me."

As TLC says, "a scrub is a guy who thinks he's fine."  Much like scrud, which tries to pass itself off as mere recycled soap.  Um, yeah, recycled soap scum -- and dirt.  Is pond scum copacetic because swans used to glide across its once pristine surface?  I think not.   

Anyway, I've (almost) made peace with the fact that scrud will be my unwelcome houseguest for awhile.  It'll dissipate after many cycles, the towels and other workaday items thankfully sanitized by the dryer's vigilante lint trap.  In the meantime, I'm resigned to picking the pieces off my drip dry dress clothes.  To that end, here's a happy band of ROYGBIV blouses (even if the blue one is clearly a tee shirt).  I'm proud to report that all are scrud free.  

If only I could say the same about my scalp and dandruff.  

Bikini, You're the Bomb(shell) and Beach Blanket Blingo

Folksy Fruit Necklace

Bikini: Venus

Hat: Sea Star, Brigantine

Towel: JCPenney

 Circle Time Necklace

Bikini: Venus

Hat: Candie's, Kohl's

Scarf: A.C. Moore

 Retro Resort Necklace

Bikini: Venus

Hat: Candie's, Kohl's

Striped scarf: A.C. Moore

Floral scarf: Nordstrom

"It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini 

That she wore for the first time today.
An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini, 

So in the locker she wanted to stay."

If you're a woman, then you can probably relate to this timeless tune about the self-consciousness that comes with baring one's bod in a bikini.  We've all felt the sudden security blanket appeal of the cover-up, made the excuses (Aunt Flo's come early, and me without my tampon!), and longed for the cocoon-like comfort of Old Man Winter.  Even if you love how you look, there's something slightly nerve-racking about busting out on the beach in what amounts to neon underwear.  Thank goodness I have Tammy (the Torso) to do the honors for this (and every) post.  Ever intrepid, she has no such qualms about modeling a few scraps of well-padded Lycra.  (Also, she never got over coming in second in a Miss Hawaiian Tropic contest, so I knew she'd be game.)  Better her than me, and also better for the baubles.  Because less clothing means more real estate to show off statement necklaces to their best advantage.  The bikinis may be tiny, but everything else about these looks is super-sized: the colors, the hats, and even, for about a millisecond, the rafts.  

Ah, yes, the rafts.  We met on a routine trip to Michaels (where all such liaisons take place), me cracking down to take them home in my typical let-me-mull-it-over-first fashion a full two weeks later.  So, it was with much anticipation and excitement that I finally carted the inflatable watermelon, doughnut, and pizza into the house, my newly purchased dollar store air pump dutifully in tow.  The husband was amused by the rafts but skeptical about the pump.  "I don't think that'll work," he said, watching me struggle to attach the flimsy apparatus to the pizza's pungent (smells-like-a-new-doll!) plastic.  So he stepped in and blew it up the old-fashioned way, and for one glorious moment it reigned as fat and happy as any boardwalk come-on.  It turned out to be too big for my photography purposes, which should have been my first clue that I'd embarked on a fool's errand.  Because soon enough it began to shrink and sputter, air escaping from a cluster of pinprick holes that I'd accidentally made with the pump.  The husband gallantly patched it and reinforced it with air, and I took a bunch of pictures before safely (or so I thought) sequestering it in our spare bedroom.  The next morning the husband greeted me wearing the deflated pizza on his head, good-naturedly asking, "What happened here?"

Damn you, Felix Ungar, for making photography look so glam and easy.  Disappointed, I left the doughnut and watermelon untouched in their boxes, earmarked for my sister who has a pool.  This was nearly the last staging straw.  There was nothing for it but to buy a new prop, namely the straw hat pictured with my own (nearly) yellow polka dot bikini.  Prettily retro, it provides plenty of coverage and as such will be starring in my own (undocumented) beach adventures.

I think our little locker girl would have liked that.