Dreams of Many Colored Glass - excerpt

Einstein was right. A reference book existed for reference. You didn’t need to read it, because in case you ever needed it, the book was on the shelf. Your job in life was to make sure you didn’t need it, so it could stay in its home – preferably in a library. Fritz believed the more books you were familiar with, the better chance you had to find things you wanted, to know how to get wherever the things were when you wanted, and the much better chance you had to pay the best price for the things you wanted. Since I was being paid to look at the reference books, I would drift to the beat of Metallica and let my attention wander while I was leafing over pages.
Some days we browsed and some days we researched. I liked it less when we researched. Usually, when we researched, I complained. “This is not 2004. So why do I need to check what a lamp sold for in 2004? It’s not on the market. Here, for example you’ve got a leaf and berry lamp, which doesn’t look much leaf and berry to me…looks to me more like dishpan with a sieve on the bottom setting on top of a restaurant thermal coffee pot painted with black Rust-o-leum.”
“That’s pyramidal,” said Fritz without looking up. “We want to calculate change in value.”
“Why don’t we just go out and buy the lamp, and find out?”
“It’s not for sale.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“If you don’t calculate changes in value, then you’re going to be fleeced by one of your agents. Additionally, you won’t know what your own collection is worth.”
“Green, red, yellow, blue, purple, striated and rippled,” I continued reading, “Cripes, who’d want something like this, with fake Queen Anne’s lace pierced metal. I can’t believe the combinations he used; it must be gosh-awful ugly.”
“Check on the upstairs landing. See for yourself.”
“Two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars…what?”
“Plus commission.”
There was silence before I tiptoed to the upstairs landing and stood at a respectful distance. “Don’t breathe on it,” Fritz called after me.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering.

Romance

I am skimming the book 1001 Ways to be Romantic, for my Women’s Lit class. Yes, Women’s Lit-ers are romantic and no, we are not male bashers. Also no, we do not burn our bras, though in the early years of “the movement” women did discard their aprons, a much more appropriate emblem of what they were rebelling against. [That bra burning was a plant of deliberately erroneous information. One of the protestors said it would be unsafe to burn the items women had thrown into the trash can at that Atlantic City protest; moms are concerned about safety.] Why do I plan to bring this particular book to class for enrichment? It’s another in the collection of pictures, opinions, histories, and essays that enrich our discussions. Some of us will agree with the advice, and some of us will point out parallels in our required textbook readings. Some of us will disagree with the advice, which is great because in WoLit we listen to everyone's opinion.

Inside or outside the class, Romance is what many of us want more of, apparently, especially if it’s tied to understanding. One of 1001’s suggestions is to sit “your” wife in front of the refrigerator, blindfold her, and use your fingers to feed her small and luscious bits of food: a piece of chocolate, a fresh raspberry, and so forth. Two people, one refrigerator of food, one blindfold, and sensuality: romance. [Does the tub of 50 mini éclairs count?]

What we practice in Women’s Lit, is that no matter what the topic (or question) there are many ways we can consider it. There’s the immediate reaction: Oh good, food! There’s the consequences: do I look like one of Reubens’ women, much as they are adored? Are the raspberries that you’re feeding me fresh, or are they the ones with the grey mold on the bottom? What do I need to see, in order to remain safe? In our house, there’s the safety issue: no one approaches the refrigerator unattended. The dogs are there first, waiting for the magic door to open, jostling for position, and ready to walk or crawl over anyone who is blindfolded (and therefore incapable of defending the food that’s being handed out). They are not un-romantic; they simply believe that in situations involving food there’s one adjective: mine.

So how do we keep romance in the house, and fur out of the food? Eat from the countertops; find a cheap restaurant where we can gaze into each other’s eyes, take a sip of coffee without ingesting hair, and be as romantic as it’s possible to be amid crackling burger paper and Formica countertops. Go back to Women’s Lit, where “mine” becomes “ours”: our ongoing discussion about romance, life, and how we relate the genders in our lives (without physical blindfolds, realizing we often wear emotional ones). Tell students that Women’s Lit is not about male bashing; it’s about humanism, and the rule that is enforced in this section of Women’s Lit is: You cannot bash men. We’re all in life together.

Nobody Ever Died of Terminal Weirdness - excerpt

This is an excerpt from a novel.

"I need a new purse," Mother said abruptly, staring at the green beans on her fork.
"So get one," Dad answered. Dad believes in solving problems.
"You don't understand. 'Getting' a purse is not something you do everyday."
"It's something I don't do at all," I offered. "I think there are perceptions about people carrying purses."
Mother ignored me. "A purse is something you have with you all the time."
"Like a husband," Dad suggested helpfully.
"More so."
"How can anything be more so than a husband?"
Mother sighed. "I ask myself that sometimes. But I need a purse."
"How can anything be more so than a husband?" Dad asked himself. While he considered that conundrum, he tendered a solution to Mother's, "So go to the store and get one."
"What if I can't find exactly what I want?"
"Tell the clerk to find you a purse. What's so hard about a purse? You use it to carry things."
"You will never know what's waiting for you if you don't try," I added.
We considered pursing as a sport. Mother stirred her vegetable with a fork; Dad hummed a tune to himself; I tried rehearsing what I would say if anyone asked me if I planned to carry a purse. Then I thought of all the girls I had seen and what purses they carried. Mostly they had miniscule packets on long strings, or, if they were athletes, backpacks. Maybe purses were a by-product of girls turning into mothers.
"And it has to be the right color."
"Why is color important? My mother used to have fifty purses; one for every pair of shoes she owned. If she had fifty, you can have two. So buy two."
"I can't. That would be like double-dating. When I swear allegiance, I mean what I say."
"You're not marrying the sack; you're using it to haul things around."
"We need a strong connection," Mother continued, staring past Dad. "A purse means something."
"It means there better be enough money in it to pay bills."
"Just like wallets. Can wallets be black? Oh, no. Wallets are brown."
Dad and I stared at each other across the tablecloth.
"Funny," Dad observed. "I saw black wallets the last time I was in the leather goods department. In fact I think I even may have a black wallet here." He squirmed sideways in his chair and from his pants pocket produced a black wallet curved into a half moon shape, which rocked gently on his palm.
"Wallets are brown," Mother continued, staring past the half-cylinder held before her. "And purses, generally. Black purses block the flow of energy."
"They block what? What are you talking about?" Dad looked at his wallet, looked at me ("Black," I mouthed), and shoveled his wallet back into his rear pocket. He excavated his fork from his spaghetti, and analyzed it carefully.
"Once I had a black purse, and the top came off. My father fixed it by screwing in a brass bar across the top of the whole purse. 'It will never come off again,' he promised me. It didn't, but the purse was awfully heavy, especially for a shoulder purse. For six months I leant to one side and had one very strong shoulder."
"I promise I won't put metal into your purse," Dad held up one hand. "Especially round metal objects with pictures stamped on them."
"Although it's generally not possible to know what the right purse should be before you see it. There are certain requirements."
"Like what? Although I know I shouldn't be asking."
"It needs to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. Like an onion."
"Or a report card," I added.
"Like a report card," Mother repeated. "It keeps track of things."
"Big sack," Dad agreed. "We've got plenty of grocery bags underneath the sink if you want something brown and large."
"Waterproof," said Mother firmly. "Grocery bags aren't waterproof."
"I'll say. Did I ever tell you time I was carrying groceries out of the store for one of my mother’s parties? It was raining, and the bottom fell out. Artichokes bouncing along the parking lot, that funny lettuce that looks like the weeds in the lawn just lying on the asphalt, limp and flat."
"What did you do?"
"Picked up the stuff. Of course I lost one artichoke in the sewer, and got yelled at by my mother for not buying enough."
"Did she ever know?"
"Nope. I told her there was a freeze in Chile, and the price of artichokes almost doubled in a week; I didn't have enough to get all she put on the list."
"But you really just packed up the groceries and took them home?"
"Yup. The people at her dinner party never knew the difference. I remember watching them eat their salads, thinking of the parking lot, the rain, and where the car tires had been." Dad cleared his throat. "Same thing with a purse. If you need a purse, just go out and get one. Make sure it's big enough to hold all the stuff you want to carry around, and you're set. I'll even go with you. It shouldn't take more than five minutes."

Dreams of Many Colored Glass - excerpt

This entry is especially for the reader in the television industry who enjoyed last week's description. Thank you, Jan.

For three months I spent most of my time there, sitting on a chair in a corner of the dim gallery, not watching the red hatted women on their luncheon tours, not listening to the people with squinty eyes discuss how much a particular item would bring. It became easy to block most of them out. The people I remember were the ones who came around the stone corridor, stopped, and gasped at their first view of the lamps, glowing with color against the dark walls.
They got their money’s worth. Gold, red, orange, blue, green: all the colors in the world. The poppy lamp could have been garish, with its red and green coloring, but it wasn’t: it was a garden of poppies in the sun. The sugar cube lamp was clear blocks, layer on layer like an Aztec pyramid of clear glass, gold glass, and bronze. If you stared at it straight on, sometimes you didn’t see the sugar cube lumps , you just fell into their quartz spaces, rimmed with a border that looked like someone was braiding lines of gold and bronze. Then you looked at the size of the lamp, and you could see the cubes, marching up the side of the lamp, evenly spaced and descending in size. There were multiple dragonfly lamps, depending on how you liked them colored, but the one I looked at when I felt cold inside was bugs at the bottom of the shade, facing down, wearing red wings with that filigree, long green bodies, and bulging red eyes, like aviators with goggles – and above them the lampshade formed of scales in flame colored orange, set with a border of glass jewels. The 18 light lily lamp looked like an orchestra section turned pearl, but one of my favorites was the pond lily, because I could imagine myself sitting on the side of a pond, waiting for the goldfish to pop the surface. White petals with enough yellow to look like the sun was shining on them, platter leaves in striped green, and the glass between looked like water in sunlight. The base on that one wasn’t bad either: a stalk twisted of old bronze.