This Week(ish) In Books
Feb 26 - March 6, 2020, during which I read something old and blue, something new and borrowed
Image from Abe Books
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps, by Kelly Williams Brown (library ebook): One of my younger cousins graduated college in December, and he sent me a sweet thank-you note (checks or cash, people, that’s really and truly what graduates need) that ends with “If you have any advice on being an actual human adult, let me know!”
Ha. Haha, oh my sweet summer child. You are eight years younger than I am, I have full memories of riding twelve hours in my grandparent’s Nissan to see you when you were born, and I got nothing. Sorry about that.
I had the same exact questions when I was in my early … okay fine entire twenties, so like six years ago when I found Brown’s blog upon which this book is based, I binged it out. Plus she’s got cute style and lives in Portland where she defies the weather to stay twee, which was half-assedly my goal for a bit there.
According to the introduction of this updated edition of her book, she got married to her then-live-in boyfriend, then divorced, and is now married again. She doesn’t go into a lot of details here, which I get, but I really want to know the details because I’ve been reading too much blog snark about people who put *every*single*detail* of their lives on the internet. To be clear, I don’t want to snark on her, am just nosy.
But I think it did inspire the section on romantic relationships in the book, and that was one of two sections that were helpful for me as I read her tips at the ripe old age of 30.
It may say more about me than her writing that I found profundity and solace in her tip that you should remember your ex will never make you feel the way you want them to again. That you shouldn’t keep contact or try to be friends for a long time after your split. That you should give yourself as much time to grieve as you need and acknowledge all your feelings about it, because they’re going to be legion and terrifying and always changing. Those would’ve been helpful to me when I was going through the immediate process of a bad breakup a short time after I read through her blog - I did everything wrong, I tried to prove to everybody and myself that I was the “cool ex” who could totally still hang out without it completely destroying my mental health. That wasn’t true, and I didn’t realize that for a stupid amount of time. It’s only with hindsight that I can see how it kicked my BPD into a higher gear and got worse the more I tried to denied everything so I didn’t break down about it. (Spoiler alert: I still did.)
Would I have listened to a well-meaning lady on the internet about it? I dunno. But I’m trying to internalize it when I don’t need it so it’ll get ingrained by the time I do.
Anyway, the other part that was helpful was the first section, which is about how to set your mind into adulting mode. It’s basically a mini course in mindfulness and all that fun crap you have to actively work at if, like me, your emotions are basically toddlers. (To be fair, most people’s emotions are toddler-like in some form or fashion. The goal is to get them to well-behaved toddler level.)
The rest of her book, which is sectioned into parts of life like cleaning, cooking, finance etc., is fine. It’s got a few good tips I gleaned (will be bleaching my tub to get rid of the Lush bath bomb ring stains), but most are things I’ve figured out already or have realized I can bend to my own preferences at this point. (I’m never going to have the physical or mental energy to clean an entire apartment weekly. Sorry not sorry.) The money stuff is good because it’s gentle and reiterates reminders that are all over young finance advice - put money in savings first, you can probably do your own taxes, take advantage of your company’s 401(k) plan if they offer one, etc. It helps to read the same advice from multiple sources since it might finally sink in, but it’s not groundbreaking.
Overall, I enjoyed reading her blog more because it was her discovering and developing these tips within her own life, which gave her site a real-time charm that is missing from the book. The book is helpful, but it’s also got the quality of an older sibling figure telling you all this so you don’t make their same mistakes, and maybe that makes you storm out going “I’M NOT YOU!” as in a televised teen drama.
Anyway, off to buy a fireproof safe and put our passports in there instead of the manila folder marked “Important Bits of Paper” that’s chilling on a bookcase. (I know where, I promise.)
Readers’ Advisory: This is great for those who think they want to read Girl, Wash Your Face - which I will get to, oh boy, don’t worry. Also anyone looking for concrete ways on how to improve your general life preparedness. Folks newly on their own are the only ones who will really need to read it all the way through.
We Are Water, by Wally Lamb (bought paperback) (reread): Wally Lamb is a comfort read for me, because while he usually lands on happy endings, he’s not afraid to go through dark places of painful truth to get there. His sappiness seems earned, generally.
I can’t remember where I bought this copy but I do remember reading it for the first time in the Tree House (our wood-paneling-tastic converted attic walk-up with Exorcist metal stairs grafted to the side of the house), so that was about three or four years ago.
It’s about a disgraced therapist whose wife has divorced him and is marrying her female art agent. They fell in love after the wife, Annie, started making weird diorama found-art pieces to vent her frustrations about domesticity and motherhood. As Annie and her fiance Vivian get ready for their wedding, a metric shit-ton of family secrets come to light - Annie has a temper and was abusive to her three kids, most especially her son because, as it turned out, the male cousin she went to live with after her parents died in a flood molested her. All that’s been crammed inside her and explodes out of her art, but also into her discipline and discomfort at being a stay at home mom.
Lamb is really good at narrative flow. The main thrust of this story is set almost entirely in the past, but he skillfully uses the seemingly (mostly) ordinary present events to show how everything gets uncovered, whether voluntarily or not, and that emphasizes the impact of consequences that carry through all of it.
Plus, of course, Annie’s not the only one with secrets, and everyone reacts believably to what’s revealed and how. These characters enter Lamb’s menagerie of people who are trying so hard to strive past the worst of themselves that it’s actually holding them back. His novels are ultimately about pushing past or through those Gordian knots and how painful it is but how the results are actually worth it. Slightly cliched, but Lamb is great at writing in voices that make it sound like truths believably reached.
One nitpick about Water, though: too much is made of Annie being married to a dude for twenty-odd years, then falling in love and marrying a woman. There’s some kind shrugging, dismissing it as sometimes you just don’t know, it’s not a big deal, which: thank you, truly, but also: THAT HAPPENS, SHE IS BISEXUAL, THERE IS A NAME FOR IT, STOP INVALIDATING IT IN POPULAR MEDIA okay I’m done (FOR NOW).
Readers’ Advisory: For those who enjoy literary fiction but hate the pretentiousness baggage that comes with that (helloooooo). If you enjoy the family drama aspect of this one, Lamb’s She’s Come Undone has the same themes, water motif, and hopeful ending. Ann Patchett is also good at these single-incident deep dives.