3. Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Well. Ok. Blue Nights. I don't think I have any thing to say about Blue Nights that wasn't said by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic. Or any thing to say about Caitlin Flanagan said that wasn't said by Heather Havrilesky on Book Forum.

It's hard to agree with Caitlin Flanagan. But she is so on point with her comments about the Didion cliché style in this book: "her sentences and her rhythms and her tics are clichés because we know them so well" (that's me quoting Flanagan quoting Katie Roiphe.) And it is now that I come to the big reveal... I didn't know that this cliché method of writing was Joan Didion. Exactly what I was writing about with Marieke Hardy, that statacco rhythm imbuing everyday objects and actions with expansive meaning, that's Didion. She invented that. In the sixties. I can't believe I didn't recognise that before. One of her best known quotes is from The White Album, which was published in 1979 and demonstrates this perfectly "“The music was not 1968 rock but the kind of jazz people used to have on their record players when everyone who believed in the Family of Man bought Scandinavian stainless steel flatware and voted for Adlai Stevenson".

The style that was driving me crazy so much in You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead, was driving me so crazy because it's a style that has has been repeated and weakened for 45 years now. Everyone does it. Especially women writers. And the point is to demonstrate that insight that into the everyday that makes people special. Marike Hardy is nothing but a Bi-Lo version of Joan Didion. And I'm pretty sure that when a past winner of Miss Country NSW on ABC 702 this weekend described the moment of her win by remembering the weight of the crown upon her head, it's because Joan Didion "remembered the cool of the crystals on her neck" at her eighth grade graduation.

I'm sorry, Joan Didion, that I ascribed your formidable and original style to "fashion blogs". And I'm sorry that to me it was a cliché before it was an inspiration. I do love what you do and I am going to read more Didion books this year.

Hey, guess what showed up on page 4 of The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer, which is next on my list? A sex scene, described as "all bone and tendon and indifference and regret". Joan, girl, you are everywhere.

My uppance has come

Can you see me shopping in this weather? Or driving?

I cannot have been more stupid about this snow storm.

Up front, let me say, it's totally gorgeous and wintry and Christmassy and fun and I am in no way being a Debbie Downer about the actual snow. It looks like tomorrow is going to be heaps of fun playing in the snow with snowballs and snowmen and sledding.

It's just that our family did not in any way prepare for this. Oops.

I am the only one who could go outside today because I was the only one who had boots. Not good boots, mind, the cheap shitty ones I mentioned here. So I had to be the one to go outside, with my shitty back from falling down the stairs, and trek to the supermarket to buy milk and cereal and noodles and carry it all home in a heavy backpack and canvas bags becoming increasingly soaked with ice. I had to do this walking in the three feet of snow and more coming down because all yesterday I had mocked the fools who were stocking up and I had assumed I would go do the grocery shopping on Saturday like I do every weekend.

Squirmy has no snowboots, no snowpants, no ski coat, no waterproof mittens, and no hat that doesn't cause her to throw a mind-meltingly intense tantrum.

Boogs has nothing warmer than his everyday uniform of tracky daks, sneakers, and t-shirts and jumpers that advertise an alcoholic beverage/sporting team/college event (bonus points if it's all three *cough Bruce Hall 1997 Inward Bound Powered by Bundy Rum cough*).

We have no snow shovel to clear our front path or dig out our car from its snowbank. Even if we got to our car, we have no ice scraper or brush to clear the ice off the car. Even if we had all this the roads are totally impassable, and we have no way of driving on them to the shops to buy snow clothes or any of the ice implements we so badly need. Even if we could get there, the shops are probably closed.

Also the metro is not running.

So our options are-
:Check in with the Metro again tomorrow to see if they have opened. Maybe I can get to the mall in the morning. I can get clothes there but not the shovel etc.
: Reinvestigate driving conditions in the morning. Maybe I can drive to the Potomac Yards shops where they have a Target and and Old Navy. Between them I could probably get all the clothes and shovelling devices I need, unless they are sold out, a distinct possibility.
:Wait until 12pm when the Gap Outlet on King St opens. I can walk there. They'll probably have clothes and boots for Squirms. Outside chance of boots for Boogs.
: I can ask a neighbour with an unburied 4-Wheel Drive to take me to the shops.

Seriously though, this is the second DC winter I have experienced, and it seems like every two weeks the whole city area loses its collective mind about a potential snowstorm that never materialises. Or its like 2 inches of slop and they still close the schools. Even OBAMA said this city was totally wussmo about snow. Can you blame me for skepticism?

However, indeed my uppance has come. Biggest snow storm since 1922. Biggest snow dump in December of all time.

I mostly feel bad for Squirms, who's going to have to wait until I can scour some clothes for her to wear before she can play outside. That's likely to not be until the afternoon. All the other kids in the neighbourhood will be playing outside from daybreak. Boo me.

Oh yeah...

Earlier this week I Twittered about how I fell down the stairs, and nearly killed myself. This resulted in much laughing, much worry for my well-being, the diagnosis of cracked ribs via Facebook, and frantic international concern from my mother and sister urging me to get x-rays and/or Percocet post-haste. I blamed the fall on a combination of comfortable footwear and good housekeeping. What I didn't mention was that I was standing at the top of my freshly mopped stairs in my fuzzy slippers LEANING OVER DEMONSTRATING TO BOOGS HOW SQUIRMY LOOKS WHEN SHE SLEEPS RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF HER BED AND NEARLY FALLS OUT ONTO THE FLOOR.

Thank you. I will now gladly accept my Almost Darwin Award. Let's call it the Alfred Russel Wallace Award.