My husband and I are in a perpetual state of trying to recalibrate our daughters’ bedtime “routine.” We have agreed that it’s lights out by 8:00 from now on, but then Phoebe asks if she can keep reading her book with a headlamp on.
“Of course,” I say. “No way,” says Jon.
Personally, I feel like learning to go to sleep is an important skill for which reading is an acceptable tactic. Do I personally often read way past the time I should be going to sleep? Absolutely. Should I encourage this habit in my daughters? Maaaaaybe not? Am I going to? By all means! If loving reading is bad, I don’t want to be right.
Jon gives up and rolls his eyes. As he’s walking away, he says something like “I don’t get it because I’m not into romance novels like you are.”
I do not read romance novels. I need to make this abundantly clear.
In the moment, I laughed, “Romance novels???”
“I mean,” he hedges, “Didn’t you just read that book about poetry? Isn’t poetry always about romance?”
. . . . . . . . . . .
I recently read Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, a very dense 1,000-page biography with tiny letters and tons of academic jargon. Jon knew I was reading this because I kept interrupting his viewing of YouTube dirtbike videos to tell him fascinating things I was learning about the patriarchy and intellectual culture of 1960s America and England.
I am not sure my husband has ever read a poem, but I can’t exactly begrudge him that. It’s arguably not his wheelhouse. He is an RN who traffics professionally in blood and guts and likes to fill his down time with activities that involve wheels, carabiners, and sharp edges that can slice through snow. Since we have been together (11 years) he has had the same book on his nightstand: Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen. He insists he has read it “several times” but I am convinced it’s a stage prop.
A recent book I read could more accurately be described as a romance novel if you really, really squint: All Fours by Miranda July. It is technically about a sort of romance, I guess, and also quite steamy! I don’t think any small bookstore owner would ever catalog July’s book in “romance,” though. It’s too weird.
. . . . . . . . . . .
I love weird. Everything Miranda July writes or imagines is pure creative gold, no matter the subject, but in this case, the unhinged lunacy of menopause theme was right on point for me at this particular juncture. There is a part in this book where the main character, slowly realizing that her nonsensical little midlife crisis miiiiiiight just be the start of menopause, decides to get ahead of it and texts every older woman she knows to find out whether menopause ultimately had any payoff for them. Having never been asked that question, so many women write her back. “I’m so glad you asked,” they say. “Yes.”
They proceed to list the things that got better, none of which I can remember off the top of my head, because, well, I am currently in perimenopause, which means I can’t remember anything, ever. But trust me, it was a good list. I’m sure it was.
The book is also very good. All Fours is definitely going on my “best of” list of novels for 2024.
