Reading: something or other

Moving: walked to work (2.7 miles)

House: uh, painted? unpacked? something useful, I am sure

See that date down there? I cannot remember what happened over a week ago.

6 June 2000: Book Group

Okay. Taking a breather. I usually jot a note or two throughout the day, or at least that's my usual pretense. Lately I haven't been able to do that at work, and at home I do nothing but paint and scrape. Court and sparkle. That's not even the same cadence; why does one phrase evoke the other. Why do I have Joni Mitchell only on tapes that are ten years old?

Finding a new diary that I like makes me so happy. Dora found me through a link of Melissa's, and I found her just about simultaneously through the Diarist Award nominations. And Jessie and Melissa and Cara and Dora and I should all go off into a corner and read children's books together.

What else. Someone at Dot Org came up with the bright idea of having a book group at work. Our first book is The Hours, which I've been meaning to read but I think I should reread Mrs. Dalloway first. As we debated what to read first, someone threw onto the table two authors she hadn't read but had heard of: Anne Lamott and A.S. Byatt.

Well. I find that pairing pretty damn insulting as far as my buddy Antonia Susan goes.

I made some sort of gagging noise at Lamott and explained myself. I said that Bird by Bird is a great writing book because someone who writes because she must write wrote it. I said that Lamott's columns in Salon.com were pretty good. I also said that Hard Laughter was a bad autobiographical novel, with a happy ending instead of the real-life sad one and handled poorly enough (especially if you knew the truth of the matter) totally unbelievable. I said Operating Instructions struck me as self-indulgent tripe. I said that it is through her writing life that Lamott wrote Bird by Bird, and it is true and passionate and therefore good, but that just because she has the passion to write doesn't mean her usual stuff is any good. But that I haven't read Tender Mercies or Crooked Little Heart so maybe she's improved.

Someone else said, "So why don't you tell us what you really think?"

This is why I don't socialize with people at work. At work I wear a mask, a transparent one that's nearly invisible with steady contact, so that my own department knows me at face value, but one that I try to maintain otherwise.

This is a book group. At work, but not during work, it does not call for restraint. I'm the only one at the table who'd read Lamott (three books and weekly columns), I have an informed opinion, and if we cannot speak our opinions why are we in a book group?

Coworkers Minnesota and Louisiana, both in my department, and I had all read ASB. Minne couldn't read Possession, which she wanted to after enjoying Babel Tower, but Lou and I both love it. I said, "Minne doesn't like it, but she's wrong." She is in my department, she knows my angular sharp bits, and we talk about books regularly. She was not offended by what I said, but I could feel others' hackles rise.