Author: sandybarker

Coming of Age

sandybarker

Last night I watched the film Liberal Arts, which is written and directed by and also starring Josh Radnor from How I met your mother. I am not a huge fan of the show, but it isn’t because I don’t like Radnor, and this film is about as far from the show as you can get. It is really good.

It is considered a coming of age film, which I particularly liked because the protagonist is 35. He returns to his alma mater to farewell his ‘second favorite professor’ who is reluctantly retiring after 37 years of higher education. There are many authentic and authentically awkward moments, which made me wonder how much was scripted and how much evolved organically through improvisation while the cameras were rolling. One of the characters – a Drama major – even notes that life is not scripted; it is just one long improvisation, which may be a clue. Regardless, the acting is lovely.

While studying my own Liberal Arts degree – double major of English Literature and Theater Arts, “just to make sure I was completely unemployable”, as Radnor’s Jessie says of his own education – I was never that good at improvisation. I always preferred scripted performance to the ‘be amazingly clever and witty on the spot’ school of acting. I watched in awe as many of my classmates took the stage time and time again, scriptless, and came up with improvisational gold.

Through the awe, the gnawing nerves ate away at my stomach while I waited my turn on the stage. With a script in hand I felt invincible. With a chair and an empty stage, I got stage fright. In the film, Radnor’s Jessie oscillates between distressed and uncomfortable when he is ‘off-book’. In his personal life he relies too heavily on snippets from the classics and professionally, his trite, seemingly scripted responses have no effect on the young minds he is trying to inspire. It is only when he throws the scripts away that he has any kind of real connection with people and in being authentic, he comes of age.

So, let’s get back to me, the wary improviser. How has that played out in my own life? Well, professionally I am typically a good improviser. I store a lot of information in my head, and my brain tends to know when it is connected to other stored information. If a meeting or a lesson plan or training session goes off on an unexpected tangent, I tend to excel. I can think on my feet and make quick decisions. Professionally, I have had many milestones that have been a ‘coming of age’ and I am looking ahead to the next one.

But what about my personal life? Last night, as I walked home through my neighborhood where I have lived for the past 4 years, I asked myself about my own coming of age. “When was it?” “Has it happened yet?” I have certainly experienced some significant transformations in the past 20 years of my adulthood.

In the film, an almost unrecognizable Zac Efron pontificates about the incredible feat that is a caterpillar turning itself into a butterfly. And he is right; that is amazing if you stop to think about it. At some point I did really think about it, because I have a butterfly tattoo and I chose it for its homage to the idea of transformation. As I watched the scene I reminded myself to remind myself of that fact more often. Transformation is very, very beautiful.
So, as I further ponder my own coming of age, I realize that there have been many moments that define some form of transformation, and that I want there to be many more. Those moments, those decisions, those risks that we take that shape us into a more real, more complete and more beautiful human being, those are the times when we ‘come of age’.

The very exquisite Richard Jenkins, who portrays the reluctant retiree, responds to Jessie’s question, “Do you think of this place as a prison?” with “Every place is a prison if you never leave.” That line resonated with me, because I have an internal kinetic-ness that makes me want to go, well, everywhere. In my life, many of my coming of age moments have been around departures to somewhere new. Moving to LA, moving to London, moving to Sydney, coming here to Seattle four years ago to live with Ben – all highly significant times in my life when I stretched myself, faced my fears and went for it.

These defining moments are different for everyone, however. For me, traveling and living in different places is innate to my contentment, but Jenkins’ line about every place being prison if you don’t leave is not true for everyone.

I know 8 couples who are currently expecting a baby (7 for the first time), and I cannot express how much I admire their selflessness and courage. My sister and brother-in-law became parents for the first time about 15 months ago and I am in awe of how brilliantly they parent my (clever and beautiful) nephew. Talk about a coming of age!

So, back to my questions, “When was my coming of age?” and “Has it happened yet?” The answers are, “Many, many times before,” and “Not yet.”

The night I didn’t meet Kevin Costner

sandybarker

You know those lists that couples write where they name 5 famous people that they are allowed to sleep with – without any repercussions or recrimination? As if those 5 famous people would be so flattered by being on THE LIST that they would not only jump at the chance to sleep with the person, but also make themselves available to that person so that it could actually happen?

Yeah, me too. Although I have never actually handed Ben a piece of paper and said, these are my five. I have, on occasions, mentioned, ‘he’d probably be on my list,’ but have never taken that extra step of writing down the four others who would join ‘him’. I may have actually written lists in my younger days, but I didn’t keep them, and if I did they are in storage at my mum’s house along with my certificates and Duran Duran scrapbooks (don’t judge me).

So, if I cast my mind back to my mind, say circa 1989, who would be on the list that I probably wrote and possibly gave to my first real boyfriend ever, but likely didn’t keep?

  1. Sean Connery. Yes, old enough to be my grandfather, but I was a sophisticated 19-year-old, and he was People’s Sexiest Man Alive, people!
  2. Jimmy Smits. I was a mad LA Law fan and Victor Sifuentes was just yummy.
  3. Tom Cruise.  Did you see how good he looked in that suit in Rainman???
  4. Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode. Just sex on legs, really.
  5. Kevin Costner. No way out (sexiest sex scene in a limo ever). Bull Durham (sexiest sex scene in a bathtub ever). Field of Dreams (just a lovely film, really).

Flash forward 23 years. It is February and Ben and I are in NYC, celebrating us, and the fact that I have never been to New York before. We are seated in the Eugene O’Neill Theater about to watch The Book of Mormon. To say that I am excited is an understatement. The theater is packed, having been sold out for months, and there is little room to spare. My knees almost touch the seat in front of me, which is still empty even though it is only five minutes to curtain. Ben’s seat is on the aisle and I lean over to ask him if a tall man sits in front of me, will he switch seats so I can see?

“Of course, babe,” replies my lovely date. I sit back in my chair just as a very tall man, accompanied by two beautiful women arrives and pauses in the aisle right next to us. I glance up and hope like hell that of the three of them that the tall man will not sit in front of me. And then the tall man speaks. “Honey, do you want to go first and I will sit in the middle?” The middle would be right in front of me and one half of my brain sighs heavily, while the other half registers that I know that voice.

I take another look at the tall man and my eyes widen and I grip Ben’s leg as if to telegraph my realization to him without words.  The tall man is Kevin Costner. THE Kevin Costner. And he is so tall, and so handsome, and so there!

He and his gorgeous second daughter and his gorgeous second wife (who I should add is younger than me), get settled. He is sitting less than 24 inches from my face. I turn to Ben. “Do you know who that is?” I mouth silently. He smiles at me, nods and returns a silent, “Yes.”  “I LOVE him,” I mouth in reply.

Out loud Ben says, “Do you want to swap places, babe?” Nonchalantly, I reply, “No, I’m fine thanks.”

With Kevin Costner two feet away from my face, I start to watch the show. And it is brilliant. And Kevin thinks it is brilliant. I know this because for every minute I spend watching the show, I dedicate about one and a half minutes to watching Kevin Costner watch the show.

Intermission. I am desperate to use the bathroom and so is Ben. We are half-way up the aisle before the house lights come up – he goes left and I go right. I am fourth in line for the ladies’ loo and I am very impressed with their system. There is a switchback at the bottom of the stairs and a woman in a uniform directs women to stalls like a skilled NYC traffic cop. I am in and out in moments.

Back in my seat, Ben next to me, we are painfully aware that Kevin is now on his own and we silently communicate the following conversation:

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Shrug.

“He is one of your favorite actors.”

“I don’t want to be that person. You know, all, ‘so hey, I will nonchalantly ask if you are enjoying the show, just to say I talked to you, and you are all like, ‘I hate being a famous person’.’

Shake of head and sweet smile at pathetic girlfriend.

“Plus, he is here for Whitney’s funeral. I can’t.”

We then switch to audible dialogue, where I am witty and clever, comparing my life growing up Mormon with the play, secretly hoping that Kevin will find me so fascinating that he will interrupt and join in our conversation.

He does not. Instead his wife and daughter return from the bathroom to expound on the horrors of the bathroom line.

The play continues and is brilliant. At the end we stand with the others in the audience, delighted to reward the stunning cast, and Kevin is whisked away by someone in black wearing cans so he can meet the cast.

I am now the woman who was too scared to talk to Kevin Costner.

Back in the hotel room, I am typing away on my laptop when music suddenly blares and startles Ben. “Sorry,” I say as I fumble with the volume.

“What on earth is that?” asks Ben.

“Kevin Costner dot com,” I reply, feeling even more foolish. “He is only 57, you know.”

My lovely, tolerant, sweet boyfriend just hugs me and says, “Not old enough to be your father. You know if he’s on your list you totally should have talked to him. He clearly likes younger women.”

I know when I am being teased, so I close my laptop and pretend not to know what Ben is talking about. I found out later that one of the other guys ‘on my list’ was at the play that night, too. But I only like him because he reminds me of Ben.

sandybarker

A dear friend, whom I have known for 20 years, pontificates about what 40 means to a modern woman.

Reminiscences of an Olympic Volunteer

sandybarker

12 years ago I was a volunteer at the Sydney Olympics. Don’t laugh, but I worked in security. I was based at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Hall in Darling Harbour (I included the ‘u’ because that’s how we spell it in Australia.)

Two days before Day One, I showed up at an enormous warehouse just west of the city along with thousands of other volunteers and got my full uniform kit. It was the year 2000, and the uniform reminded me of something I would have thought was cool in 1986. We looked like this:

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Disclaimer: I am not in this photo

Fetching, yes?

On Day One I reported for duty along with about a hundred other people. We would work 10 hour shifts with a 30-minute meal break. We would have access to an unlimited supply of muesli (granola) bars, and I sensed that this detail was significant. If I was assigned to work at the other end of the venue (a 1/2 mile away) it could take most of the meal break to get to the cafeteria and back.

“Does anyone know how to work a walkie-talkie?” asked our leader. I thrust my hand in the air before I realized that I had never even seen one up close. My id apparently knew that this question was what would separate the next two weeks into ‘exciting and fun’ and ‘watching paint dry’. My id was right.

Along with the 8 others who raised their hands, I was taken to another room and kitted out with a roster, a clipboard and the aforementioned walkie-talkie. I was going to be a team leader. Not only a team leader, but “Gold Team Leader”. How could I not think to, “stay on target, stay on target…?”

I looked at the walkie-talkie, heavy in my hand. I sneaked some glances at my fellow team leaders while they turned theirs on and made adjustments. I did the same moves, a beat behind, and within about 90 seconds realized that pretty much anyone could have raised their hands when our boss asked the question. A piece of cake.

I met my team, we moved down to our part of the convention center – fencing that day – and I took them through their roles. Essentially, ‘security’ meant that we checked credentials at check points, which were posted between events and for anyone other than paying public to get into the venue.

I was relieved to discover that we would not have to actually enforce ‘security’, because the only move I had was to put my keys in between my fingers so as to rake them across an assailant’s face. And, I didn’t think that this was in keeping with the Olympic spirit. Besides, there was a team of paid security guards to assist the Gold Team with securing the venue.

I was disappointed, however, to see that as the days passed, fewer and fewer volunteers returned for their shifts. By the end of the 2 weeks, we were down to 1/3 of the original group. This meant longer shifts for those of us who showed up, and that many checkpoints within the venue and between events were left unattended.

Late into the games, came a highlight of my volunteer experience. I met Evander Holyfield. I was back-of-house at the Boxing, and he showed up with his entourage. They all had their Olympic credentials, but he didn’t; he had left it in the hotel. I wouldn’t let him in. To be clear, it was my job to not let him in. One of his minders asked if I knew who he was. I did not. After the 30-minutes it took one of his crew to go back to the hotel and get his credentials, I knew all about him.

His name meant very little to me, but when he said that Mike Tyson had bitten off part of his ear, I finally put two and two together. He was carrying an armful of stuffed toys (Olympic mascots), which he said were for his kids. I teased him, “Sure they are,” and he laughed a big laugh with his head thrown back. “It must look a little weird, huh?”

He was being very good-natured the hold-up preventing him from seeing the boxing. Finally his minder returned with his credentials, and he shook my hand and said it was a pleasure to talk to me. When I got back to where I was staying, I looked him up. He was a much bigger deal than I had thought.

I also met ‘Aussie Joe’ Bugner, the Australian boxer-turned-actor, who lost to Ali in 1975. He is a bit of a legend in Australia, so I knew who he was, and he came and hugged me at the conclusion of the boxing to thank me for my volunteer work during the games. Nice.

By the end of the games, I was working an average of 14 hours a day. I rarely got time to all the way to the cafeteria so the muesli bars were my main source of sustenance. I got to use my limited French a few times, but my very limited Spanish made a Spanish official laugh out loud. Apparently, instead of, “I don’t speak Spanish,” I told him that he didn’t.

As a volunteer I was given tickets to see Cathy Freeman’s victory at Olympic Stadium and to attend the Closing Ceremonies, not to mention all the bouts of boxing, wrestling, fencing, judo and weightlifting I saw. I met medalists, dignitaries, athletes and travelers from all over the world. It was brilliant.

At the London Olympics my good friend, Dawn Denton, is volunteering with the South African team. You can follow her adventures here. How privileged we are.

Paris Lite

sandybarker

Note to self: do not get the flu the day you are going to Paris.

I have been to Paris nine times. I realize that this is an obnoxious comment, but it is true.

A long time ago, in a galaxy that seems far, far away, I was a Tour Manager for a company who specialized in European tours for 18-35 year olds and we began each tour in Paris.

The most recent trip to Paris was going to be different. Mainly because I would not have 50 people following me around. And also because we would be staying at a hotel in the city, and not a campsite outside the Periphique.

Ben and I had planned a trip to Paris for four nights, five days, arriving on a Monday at Gare du Nord via the Eurostar. It was going to be grand.

As luck would have it, however, I came down with the flu the day before we arrived and it hit me full-force for the first three days of our trip. In my delirium I struggled to answer the question, “how do we salvage this?” Then I cried a little, out of frustration, and then I slept.

For the first two days, I stayed in bed, while my intrepid love traveled the depth and breadth of the city, seeing some of its most prestigious sites. In the afternoons, after at least a dozen hours of sleep, I made myself presentable and headed out to meet him.

The weather was glorious. 80F/27C and sunshine. Loads and loads of sunshine. How could I not feel better?

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Although Paris is a city to walk, much like NYC, we availed ourselves of other forms of transportation when the walking got too much for me. Quick hops on the Paris Metro allowed us to traverse the city and hit the highlights, and a Batobus ticket gave us unlimited passage up and down the Seine for one day.

We even participated in the sweet, but increasingly cliched practiced of affixing a lock with our names on it to a bridge.

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We had seen this before while walking the Cinque Terre in Italy, and this time we couldn’t resist joining in. We paid our four Euros to an enterprising young man on the bridge, carved our initials and wrote over them in permanent marker, and then locked our lock into place. We threw a key into the Seine and sealed the whole deal with a kiss. Cheesy? Maybe. Romantic? Definitely.

By day four, I was feeling well enough to venture out with Ben in the morning, and we headed to the southern part of the city to visit the catacombs. In all my previous trips to Paris, I had never been to the catacombs. There was a wait of about 90 minutes, but we passed it in good spirits and soon enough we were inside.

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The tour is an interesting mixture of geology, history and spirituality. There was something fascinating about the way the bones were stacked, but I concede that the tour would not be for everyone. I joked that they would have us exit through the gift-shop, until we emerged into the brightness only to find that directly across the street from the exit, was in fact, a gift shop. We bought fridge magnets. How could we not?

That afternoon we also visited Musee d’Orsay, which I would name as my favorite museum. Period. They have significantly changed the Impressionists’ wing, but it still holds some of the most exquisite paintings I have ever seen.

And I loved this:

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Another place I had never been to was the Rodin Museum, so we made an effort to get there on one of the sunny afternoons I met up with Ben. There are two admission prices, one for the museum (his former home) and garden, and it is only one Euro to access the garden only.

I imagine that if I lived close by, I would pay the one Euro quite frequently just to sit in the beautiful garden.

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I was taken with many of his pieces, especially this one:

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By the last evening I was starting to feel better, but as luck would have it again, Ben was struck with food poisoning. This curtailed our plans to go up the Eiffel Tower the next morning, but we remind ourselves that this was only our first trip to Paris together. There will surely be another.

And despite everything we managed to hit the highlights.

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Ah, Paris…’til next time.

French Women Don’t Get Fat (???)

sandybarker

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A few years ago I read a break-through book by Mireille Guliano, who purported that French women (typically) do not get fat, because – and this is especially true for Parisian women – they walk everywhere, and eat small portions of all foods. They do not subscribe to the notion that there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, and as they do not deprive themselves of a small taste of any food they like, they do not binge. And, they do not get fat.

I would like to offer forth an additional chapter to the book.

Chapter One: Take Up Smoking

I just spent a week in Paris – with the flu. I was particularly sensitive to cigarette smoke, being that my lungs were already on fire and I had great difficulty breathing. Cigarette smoke is pervasive in Paris.

The law must dictate only that one must be ‘al fresco’ to smoke. This can mean smoking in a doorway, a conservatory, a porch, a doorstep, a veranda and a patio are all acceptable. And this of course means that the affixed indoor venue fills with smoke.

Many, if not most, of the offenders I saw were women. Thin French women. ‘Nough said.

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Half-way there

sandybarker

As I start writing this, Gwen Stefani is demanding to know ‘what I am waiting for’. Perhaps her bleats from the radio are rhetorical, but I can’t help asking myself the same thing. What am I waiting for? Anything in particular, or is it all good, right now? Good bloody question, Gwen!

In a few days I turn 43. Let’s say, all else going well, I live to enjoy 85 (I plan to live longer, and to be a spectacular octogenarian, but I am picking a good number to aim for). If 85 is my magic number, then I am now more than half way through my life.

There are many reason to be happy about 43. Firstly, I don’t feel it. I know, lucky me, but I don’t. I just feel like a much smarter, less-likely-to-take-any-crap, more financially-savvy version of my 28 year old self. Those are all other reasons to be happy about 43.

In my 20s I thought I knew it all, and in my 30s I realized that I didn’t. The first few years of my 40s has been about realizing that it’s okay that I don’t know it all.

This means I am less inclined to labor a point ’til my love ones want to stab me in the eye with a cheese knife (the one with the sharp little fork on the end).

It also means I can rely on others to know the stuff that I just don’t care to know about – like how to set up the router and how to make martini. It also makes me very grateful when someone else takes on these things that I don’t care to know about.

And, when Ben corrects my pronunciation of a word I have been saying wrong since I learned it from a book 20 years ago, I can just shrug and say, “Huh, how about that. All these years. Thanks, babe.”

The best thing about being 43, though, is that I laugh at myself a lot more than I ever did at 28, or 38 for that matter. I think at this rate I will find myself completely hilarious by the time I am 60, and bloody hysterical at 80. At 85, I will be that funny, laughing lady who still rides her motorcycle. Note to self: learn to ride a motorcycle.

But seriously…

As the lovely wishes of ‘happy birthday’ start to arrive – in person, online, on the phone and in the mail, I feel very blessed to have a beautiful person to share my life and laughter with, a wonderful family, and friends who have become family over the years.

And, Gwen, I am not really waiting for anything.

Standing By You

sandybarker

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A few weeks ago Ben and I went to the local cinema with some friends to see Stand By Me. It was the first time in more than 25 years I had seen it on the big screen, although I do not exaggerate to say that I have seen it at least 40 times since it came out in 1986.

The film still holds up. The performances of the four young leads are terrific – both laugh-out-loud funny and teary-eyed poignant. And the story is simple and elegant.

It is no wonder that this was a film that resonated deeply with me and my fellow generation X-ers. Even though it was set in the 1950s, it was a nostalgic homage to an era that was coming to a close.

I grew up with parents who encouraged me – no, required me – to ‘go outside and play’. And I did. My best friends when I was in single digits were usually boys. When I was in first grade my besties were Greg and Rodney. After hours of playing on abandoned farm equipment, or making mud pies, or building cubbies in the bushland behind our houses, their respective mothers would clean me up and send me home in their son’s clothes with a note pinned to my chest, “Sandra got too dirty to send home. I will wash her clothes and bring them over tomorrow.”

When I moved into double digits, I could be found making miniature houses out of moss, gravel and sticks. The tiny families never moved in, because the fun for me was in the building, but I was always filthy by the end of a long day ‘playing outside’. I would sometimes come inside with sand in my pockets. There was a time when I loved my namesake.

At 11, my family lived next to an abandoned rodeo. Talk about the coolest clubhouse ever! My friends and I commandeered the announcers tower, which could only be accessed by a very dodgy ladder. When we got bored with the rodeo, we would play exhausting, involved game of cops and robbers. There were a dozen of us, and we would play – gun-sticks in hand – for hours, ducking between trailers and forming alliances. We were the cliched neighborhood kids; we only came in for dinner when our mothers shouted that it was dark and to get inside. Now!

As recently as three years ago I taught 11 year-olds. Most of them had cell phones and some sort of fashion sense. I can’t imagine that many of them played cops and robbers with their friends until after dark.

Back to 1986.

1986 was a big year for me. I turned 17 and was given a car for my birthday, and I graduated from high school. I saw Top Gun for the first time in a cinema filled with crew from the U.S.S. Enterprise, which was docked in Fremantle harbor. My girlfriends and I swooned over Tom Cruise while the sailors around us roared with laughter at the wanky way Tom and Val strutted about the deck of the Enterprise. It was an interesting lesson in truth versus reality.

And I saw Stand By Me.

I immediately fell in love with River Phoenix. Okay, I know I was 17 and he was a boy of 14 when he made the film, but I could already see the young man he would become in his subtle, skilled performance. And, as a side note, he did grow into that sexy teenaged smile. What a beautiful young man – and, so talented!

In October of ’93, my dad came into my study and announced his death, “That Phoenix River guy you like died.” I actually cried out, and pushed past my dad to the living room, where the television showed grainy images of the street outside Hollywood’s Viper Room. He had died before I had a chance to meet him. It sucked.

I watched Stand By Me again just after his death, and in the scene where Chris says, “Not if I see you first,” and walks into the sunset, fading away to nothing, I choked out a sob. Chris Chambers had died, and so had the boy who had brought him to life.

But again, I digress.

The film resonated with the seventeen-year-old me on a very deep level. I loved my ‘go outside and play’ adventures from my childhood. In fact, even though my friends and I were getting our driver’s licenses and our first – horridly cheap and run down – cars, once in a while we still got on our bikes and rode for miles, spending whole Saturdays having adventures in neighboring suburbs. And there was the ubiquitous bushland near home, where we would still wander on occasion, jumping the creek and walking along fallen trees, talking about all the things that were important to us at the time.

Is it a little weird that even in our late teens we did this stuff? Maybe…we were older than the boys depicted in the film, but the film’s themes rang true for us.

Stand By Me is about friendship, and adventure, and fear and laughter, and growing up. I cannot see it without remembering the friends who experienced the end of that era with me – Stace, Tara, Kerry, Jode, Tonia, Danielle…

Thanks, girls. It was fun.

When I grow up…

sandybarker

I want to be an author. A published one. Who writes for a living. Books, in case you were wondering.

I am taking a class with two published authors, who also worked in publishing. They have authored 40 books between them – and they are my age. They know stuff, and in one lesson I learned more than I have taught myself by reading at least a dozen books about how to get published. I have three more classes, and by the end of the month, I will have the tools and know-how to pen the perfect book proposal.

Self publishing and e-books are the way into the industry for many authors. But, I am going to do this old-school. With an agent, or an editor, and I am going to author a hold-it-in-your-hands-and-turn-the-pages book. And then I am going author 3 more – to start, that is. The stories are already in my head.

My heroine is Sarah.

She is currently 27 and it is 1996. She is Australian and lives in London. Her relationship with her boyfriend of 5 years has ended – they broke up in Paris – and she is spinning in the aftermath. If she were Dorothy, this would be the part of her life where a tornado picks her up and dumps her in a queer, but magical world. Dorothy has Oz; Sarah has Europe.

I started the book as an autobiography – years ago – and am now novelizing it. Re-writing it as fiction has been surprisingly satisfying, because as interesting as my past is (and it is pretty interesting), fiction is funner. There is still truth in the words, because I write from a place of knowing, but Sarah can be smarter, funnier and more self-aware than I was when I was alone and broke in Europe after the collapse of a five-year relationship. Sarah is Sandy 2.0.

Non-sequitur: Today I went into a bookstore. This is rare, because I have owned a Kindle for one year, four months and one week. Browsing for new books has become an online activity, like catching up with friends, shopping for shoes and writing to my mother. But today was special. For a start, it is sunny here in Seattle, and when it is sunny, you leave the house. Period. You just do.

Also, I had homework to do. My task by next class is to research books like mine and identify my competing titles. This is so I can paint a clear picture for agents and editors of what my book will be like. They will not only want to know which books mine is like, but what will make mine distinctive from these books. And, what will my book look like on the shelf as it is nestled among these competing titles? I have some work to do, and this type of work is best done in a bookstore.

And the last reason I went to a bookstore today is that sadly, my Kindle carked it (it doesn’t work anymore) last night. You would think that with something that has been a part of my life for the past year, four months and one week, I would have a period of mourning longer than 13 hours. But no. It was surprisingly easy to get back into my bookstore groove.

Bookstore visits are best accompanied by a good coffee, so I stopped for one of those first, and with more anticipation that I could have, well anticipated, I stepped inside the small bookstore at the top of Queen Anne hill. It is aptly named Queen Anne Books in case you want to stop by. It really is a lovely store. I immediately gravitated towards a Valentine’s Day display, where I read through a couple of picture books, and then picked up, “Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn? Timeless lessons on love, power and style.”

The cover was kick-ass. And don’t listen to that nonsense about not judging a book by its cover. That is B.S. perpetuated by authors of books with crappy covers. Of course you should take the cover into consideration when choosing a book. If you don’t like the cover, how on earth are you going to convince yourself to spend hours reading what’s on the inside? It would be like trying to convince yourself to eat a bowl of great-tasting sludge. And if covers weren’t important, all book covers would look the same. I digress.

I flicked through the chapters, and I liked the lay-out. The text is interspersed with clever comics and quizzes. If I am going to read non-fiction, I like it to have an angle. Quirky, funny, smart, or otherwise engaging non-fiction for me. Pages and pages of paragraphs put me off. I have the attention span of a gnat; I need to be stimulated.

I moved on to the final selection criteria: The first page test. I read it and the tone and pace spoke to me, so I took the book to the counter. I told the store owner I was still browsing. I had yet to do my homework. “Do you have a section of what I would call ‘chick-lit?” She visibly flinched. I guess she doesn’t really consider that a genre, although all my girlfriends would know exactly what I meant.

She pointed me towards the Romance section. I stared down at every book Diana Gabaldon has ever written. “Uh, I guess I mean something more contemporary, like Nick Hornby for women.” This seemed to bamboozle her further. She started scouring the shelves for books and pointed to Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. This is one of my favorite books, but nothing like what I am writing.

“Uh, something lighter than that. I just read Bond Girl, which was more like what I am looking for.” She pulled three more books from the shelf and left me to look them over. They weren’t right for my competing titles list, but the good news is that in my attempts to identify what sort of book I was looking for I remembered Jennifer Weiner and Jane Green as two authors who write books like the one I am writing. I was pleased that I had made some progress on my homework.

And although I didn’t find any other books to buy, I am happy with my first post-Kindle purchase. Perhaps I will stick with ‘real’ books for a while.

A Guide to Staying at an All-inclusive Resort

sandybarker

I distinguish myself as a traveler, rather than a tourist. Ben has adopted this mantle too. The difference? How each handles differences. A traveler embraces, while the tourist compares. “This place/meal/person is amazing,” “Or, it is better back home.” So, does a traveler travel, while a tourist ‘vacations’? Not necessarily. Most of the time we travel, but on occasion we ‘vacation’, so what do we call ourselves when we stay at an all-inclusive resort? Lucky buggers.

We have now done two all-inclusive trips, both to Mexico. This past Christmas/New Year we went to the SolMar in Cabo, where we had a view of the Pacific and the pool. The weather just happened to be a prefect 78F every day, and we had a brilliant 8 days, 8 nights. So, how can one make the most of an all-inclusive resort, without becoming a whiny tourist? Read on…

One: Be nice to the staff.

You’re going to see a lot of them, especially because in Mexican resorts most of the staff work very long hours. The person who serves you your breakfast may also bring your your nightcap. So, smile. Learn names. Thank them. Ask for things politely. And tidy up your room before housekeeping comes. Your mum doesn’t work at the resort and no one wants to pick up your dirty knickers.

Two: Work your way through the menu.

On day one, the 12 choices on the breakfast menu will seem like a lot. By day 5 you will be missing your Cheerios. Variety is the key to enjoying a week of cooked resort breakfasts.

Three: Eat out.

Just because your stay includes 3 squares a day (plus snacks and drinks), it doesn’t mean you must eat every meal at the resort. You are on vacation, so don’t worry about getting your money’s worth by restricting yourself to the one menu. Find the little out-of-the-way cafe or restaurant where the locals eat. These places can be gems, especially in Mexico. We ate here on New Years’ Eve and it was amazing: Los Tres Gallos.

Four: Eat in.

Take advantage of the fact that you have already paid for your meals at the resort, so plan for some dinners in. And splurge for a nice bottle of wine, if only house wine is included with your dinner.

Five: Plan some adventures.

Step away from the cabana and the sun lounger and the all-you-can drink Margaritas, and plan a cool day trip or two. Ben and I decided the best way to do this, is have an adventure sandwich. relaxing morning, adventure activity in the afternoon, and back to the resort for a relaxing evening. And if you skip this step, you may get ‘resort fever’ which is very much like cabin fever, even if you are outside by the pool. Mix it up. Get out there, especially if you are somewhere you have never been before. A lot of people claim to have gone to Hawaii, or Mexico, or the Caribbean, or Fiji, when all they have really done is sit by a pool that happens to be in one of those places. This is the behavior of a tourist.

Six: Plan some lounging time.

You are on vacation. It cannot all be, ‘go, go, go.’ Plan some time to sit by the pool or beach and read, sip cocktails, and talk at length with your spouse, lover, or both. This part of the trip is muy, muy, importanto and part of the reason you booked a stay at a resort. Recharge. Relax.

Seven: Do not be the drunk, obnoxious asshole who talks too loudly and treats the staff like crap.

If this is you, do everyone else a favor and stay home.

Eight: Beware time share.

If you are offered an unbelievable deal on excursions with the proviso that you attend a meeting/breakfast/tour/party that is only 90 minutes, don’t do it. Time share sales people will suck your soul along with your time.

Nine: Learn the local language.

If you are leaving the country, at least learn the basics. Hello. Good bye. Please, thank you, and good night will get you a long way. People appreciate the effort even if your accent is atrocious.

Ten: Have a brilliant time.

We did.