Book Club

My book club met tonight. I've always wanted to be in a book club, but never could find the initiative (or the right group at the right time) to start one myself. We are all adult piano students with the same teacher. It's quite a mix, six of us, all women--one retired, another retired with grandkids, two in their 40s (I think?) with teenagers, one a little younger who just got married. And me, single and in my 30s. The piano is the one thing we have in common.

We formed by chance. I was reading a library book one day while I waited for my lesson (Cartwheels in a Sari--a memoir by a woman who grew up in a cult in New York City--I recommend it). It was a miracle that I was early in the first place, and on top of that I had remembered my book. The woman with the lesson before me started asking about the book as she packed up her music, and then our teacher joined in, and before we knew it we had a book club.

This month it was The Kite Runner, which is set primarily in Afghanistan in the 1970s. It was one of those Important Books everyone was reading a year or two ago, and I can see why. I liked it, but it was sad, and then it was sadder; and then just when I thought things were looking up, it got sadder still. But yet, it was not without hope. You should probably read it, if only so you can say you've read it.

This was only our second book. Before this we read The Glass Castle, a memoir by a woman who grows up semi-homeless with her bipolar mother and alcoholic/out of touch with reality father. Cheery. Parts of it were hilarious, but honestly I couldn't believe people could be that uninterested in the welfare of their own children.

I was hoping for something happy this next month, but now we're on to Love in the Time of Cholera, which I've never read and don't really know what it's about yet, but judging by the title, I'm guessing the screenplay adaptation was not written by Mel Brooks.

After this, it's my turn to choose (alphabetically by last name--very logical of us). I've got my book picked out already. I bought it on sale at Powell's. It's piano-themed, non-fiction, and--I'm hoping--a little happier in tone.

But of course, book clubs aren't really about the book. Oh, sorry, was that a secret?

Or at least, ours isn't. A simple statement about the characters might lead to a grandchild anecdote (or two, or ten...), or various medical ailments of one's friends and relatives, or a work story, or tales of a neighbor whose kid joined a cult, or another novel that you simply must read (at which point we all take out our notebooks to write down the title), if only any of us could remember the author's name. And ten minutes later, we circle back around to the book. We drink a little wine, we eat dessert, we laugh. It's low-pressure, companionable, nice.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling irritable today, so internally I wasn't as patient as I should have been with a certain member, who is very nice and genuine and sincere and caring, but who has a prominent tendency to monologue, almost exclusively about herself. I'm hoping it wasn't obvious that I was annoyed. I know I've got an expressive face. I try to be nice. But you know how most groups/offices/families have one person where, whatever someone else is saying, it inevitably applies to them in some way, which leads to another long story? Kristen Wiig on SNL has perfected this in the character of Penelope, who compulsively one-ups everyone around her (so your dog had puppies? Penelope just gave birth to kittens! you broke your finger? Penelope lost a leg and regrew it in a week...etc.).

Like I said, I try to be nice, but I'm not feeling very tolerant today. Maybe it's the heat. I spent all last week staying with my parents, where there is glorious air-conditioning. My condo reached 80 degrees inside by Monday morning, and 100+ temperatures were predicted for the week, so I called my mother and asked if the open invitation was still good. The dog and I stayed with them until Friday, when it cooled off a little. Not a bad deal: queen-size bed, free cable TV (I watched The Daily Show every night before I went to sleep), warm showers, home-cooked dinners, and well-stocked fridge. Also, I left Sam with them during the day, so he had his own private doggy daycare for the week. I was afraid he would refuse to go home with me again, preferring to stay with the benevolent dispensers of treats and belly rubs, but fortunately dogs are loyal and he hopped right in the car to go home. He's a better person than I am, for sure.

Sam's final heartworm test is on August 15. I asked the girl how long it would take to get the results, expecting it to be a day or two--preparing myself for the long wait over the weekend. But she said, "Ten minutes." So on August 15 we'll know, after nearly a year of treatment and waiting and more than a little money, whether it worked.

Work has been a little crazy, too. A new group/team has just been formed, which I was not part of, and then I was, and then I was not, and now I am. I was moving with them to a different floor in the building, and then I wasn't, and then I was, and...well, you get the idea. There are rumors flying around the office about personnel changes, hirings, reorganization, and people are getting pretty squirrelly. I think everything will be fine once the dust settles, but in the meantime, as a lower-level worker and a "work producer" as my boss likes to call it (as opposed to the "non-work producers", aka most--though not all--managers of the world, who merely come up with ideas and pass them off to the producers for execution), I keep getting more things to do, and none of the old work is going away. It's frustrating because I feel like the quality of my work is not as high as it could be, but lately the goal has just been getting things off my desk so I can go on to the next.

I keep reminding myself that I like to be busy, but there's busy and then there's frantic, out-of-control, screaming-on-the-inside, about-to-throw-my-chair-out-a-window-if-someone-gives-me-one-more-thing-to-do-that-they-could-easily-do-themselves-in-two-minutes busy. We're somewhere between the two right now. I try to take deep breaths and not curl in a fetal position under my desk.

But I'm not complaining--I'm employed full-time, I have good benefits, and I'm definitely not bored!

So...how have you been? Thanks for the blog comments. Even though this may seem like an open therapy session/journal entry exclusively for my own benefit, I appreciate knowing you're out there. :-)

Time to go open the windows to cool the house off a little before bedtime.