John & Belle Have A Blog

Aviatrix!

I've been searching for the name of this amazing series of books for ages, ever since I read them in Georgetown, S.C., and at last, through the magic of the intertubes, I have found them. The Linda Carlton series, published in the early 30's, is about a girl pilot who eventually acquires her own gyrocopter, thereby becoming the most bad-ass person ever in my 11-year-old eyes. John just scored me the first three on Abe books, but the last two of the series are apparently incredibly rare, which is making me gnash my teeth over the fact that I had the fourth one at one time. Then again, that was basically when my family was at its brokest, so maybe I just checked it out of the library. My mom was working on an assembly line for a while, during which time my step-dad contributed to life by taking me and Ben to the beach on Pawley's Island, drinking beer, and having us all sing the Rolling Stones song "Factory Girl" when we picked her up after work in our 1967 convertible Camaro, white with red leather interior. That car was the bomb. (But the song really pissed her off). Later she got some office-type job, and used to steal food, like packets of Lance crackers, from the break room for us to eat at home. Other than that we mainly just ate beans and rice, box macaroni and cheese, and chicken, first roast, then as salad, then as soup. Being poor sucks. The kids at school made fun of my shoes because they were from Payless rather than being branded tennis shoes. My mom believes that my firm determination to acquire and wear the best clothes and shoes ever (a determination to which my bursting closet bears witness) was born in this merciless crucible.

Bleg for Meta Songs

If I can think of enough, I'd like to make a mix of songs that refer to themselves as songs. At the moment all I can think of are Outkast's "Rosa Parks" ("us gone bust you in the mouth with the chorus now"); Pavement's "Gold Sounds" ("and they're coming to the chorus now...advocating that word for the last word/ last words come up, all you've got to waste") and Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback" (endless amounts of "take'em to the chorus/to the bridge," etc.) I can't search because all song lyrics are likely to contain the words chorus, bridge, solo, what have you, and I can't think of any way to narrow it down such that those words appear in the song rather than as a designation of a certain part. I feel like I know some others but can't come up with them right now. Suggestions?

Noooooooooes!

My grandma's house in Savannah is for sale (my paternal grandmother Henrietta). My dad sold it for something in the low $200,000s in 2001, and it is currently going for $965,000. To be fair, they put in a lot of work and there were likely structural issues. On the other hand, they didn't put in no $700,000. I have always been heartbroken about it, but my dad reasonably asked, do you want to live there now? To which the answer was no. I wanted to fix it up and rent it, not for income, but just to keep the house in the family until some nebulous future in which I want to live there. But my dad didn't want to be in charge of expensive renovation followed by the hassles of being a small landlord---fair enough. I imagine there is some property management company that could do it for you? And we could offer a long lease? But even if we retire sometime in the dim future and move to the area we'll probably live in my dad's house or the other house we are entitled to build on the property (we got a conservation easement which entitles us to build one more house, but the rest has to stay undeveloped forever. Brilliant idea on my dad's part, and he talked quite a number of neighbors into it too, thereby preserving more of the beautiful May River.) I imagine me and my brother living there side by side as crotchety old people telling those kids to get off our darn lawn. But, it's Grandma's house. Haunted like a mofo, but I'm used to that. The precious, we wants it.

Tofutti Break!!

This letter to Slate's tedious Prudence reminded me of the classic Mr. Show skit.

Dear Prudie,
I have a question about employee recognition. At my company, when a colleague does something great—secures a new account, exceeds a goal, etc.—everyone is called into the lobby. The person's supervisor announces what she did, and she has to dance in front of everyone. I've heard that public speaking is the most common fear, and public dancing has to be up there, especially when you're the only one dancing and everyone is watching you. I've been with the company for three months, and I have been forced to dance three times. How can I let the company know that public humiliation is not a valid form of employee recognition? Let me take an afternoon off, get me a Starbucks gift card, or just give me a handwritten note. This forced dancing is encouraging me to fly under the radar and aim for mediocrity.

—Ballerina Not in Job Description

Like, what? And she has to dance? Do male employees never secure new accounts or whatever? Very dubious. Arbeit macht speil. And oh, God, I had forgotten about Jeepers Creepers!

Can't Resist

Family photos...so compelling...to me. Sorry, the rest of y'all non-fascinated people.

Nannie and my Grandfather playing backgammon.

Me, Nan, and mom at 3316 Reservoir Rd, in D.C.

Mom, Ben, Nan and me, somewhere on Hilton Head, You can't fully see how amazing Nannie's pants were. Damn, I want those pants right now! I had to console myself with orange, red, brown, and yellow shorts from Beijaflor.

WWNW: What Would Nannie Wear?

Typepad has an ad on the dashboard wondering why I was giving away the milk for free...when I could be having blog ads? I find the idea vaguely insulting. It's like--why are you slutting up the blogosphere like that, when you should settle down and get gay married to You Suck At Craigslist?

Looking through some old family photos from my grandmother Nan Wainwright, my business partner Cheu kept saying--hey, you wear that now! Indeed, roughly 60% of my clothes are consciously Nan-style. That's why this summer, I'll be rocking the Tretorns, with socks that have little pink pom poms on them. Impossibly high-waisted vintage Lily Pulitzer pants, a full arm of (tasteful) gold bracelets, a dome-shaped cocktail ring and a killer tan: check, check, and check.

Nannie on the beach, back in the day.

At my aunt Laura's HS (?) graduation.

Nannie was big on brooches, and scarves.

And bourbon, Nannie was real big on that too. She made a good Chex mix. And do you know what's so annoying, on the side of the Chex box they have the recipe for "original" Chex mix, and it calls for mini-bagel chips. What kind of historical revisionism is that?

Violet Naiad

Today Violet learned to put her head totally under the surface of the water for the first time. She was wearing goggles and holding her nose, but we all have to start somewhere. I showed her the thrill of the "underwater tea party", in which one pours and consumes imaginary tea--underwater! I don't know that she'll quite be ready for the surf at the Wainscott beach by July, but she may surprise us. John and I have been very lazy in teaching our kids to swim; I suppose I was imagining they'd just figure it out on their own at some point. It was interesting when I had the fence put up around the pool; the Singaporean contractors were mystified as to why I would want to, and totally unable to supply me with a self-closing latch, though I did eventually get them to put a spring on the gate. I'm going to have to buy one in a U.S. hardware store and bring it back.

Me, my bro and my cousin Bobby at my G-dad's pool.

Me and my sister in G-dad's pool.

Me, Mia, my grandmother Nannie, and my mom.

Looking out from our current kitchen towards the pool.

Like That One

Sooo, Belle, you're wondering, why so much with the not blogging? What are you up to anyway? Short answer: reading blogs and lying by the pool. No, wait, I have a business! Called Like That One. We've moved on from our early teething stages and have a real-ish store (it's in a light industry building, and we do work on the premises, so technically we have open studio hours Saturday and Sunday 1-7 and Wednesday 1-8.) If you check out the flickr site you can see we even have a legit signboard, made for us in China via the courtesy of our friend Kirby. Plus, I have a cool new house, which is awesome.
Relaxing!


Stairway of our black and white house
 
Kitchen.

I Think He Should Be Statelier and Plumper.

But should he be wearing pants? Eh, whatever.

Bigelow

My brother's (now former) employer, rocking the space entrepreneurship. Long-time readers know he spent many months in a former Soviet missile base overseeing the launch of the 1/3-scale test modules, eating dubious meatballs which cycled through the Platonic solids. He was laid off in a cost-cutting move, but he had achieved his dream of space-lawyerin' and was finding he wanted more responsibility. His brains were being somewhat wasted on repetitive work, I think. Since we all know that living well is the best revenge, he has been working on getting his pilot's licence and is traveling around the world with his girlfriend. They are currently in some Scottish islands or other. Yes, it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. I'm not sure if they're coming back to the states for one last summer in my Grandad's place or just continuing on till they eventually reach Singapore, using our place as a base from which to travel in SE Asia. Why more of my relatives don't take advantage of this scheme is beyond me, I must say. Confidential to my dad: they have fully flat beds in SQ business class now! We considered getting business class tickets to go to the states this year--or rather, I considered it but since the price differential for all four of us would be SGD$20,000, John refused to entertain the idea for a second. Since he was totally right, it was hard to argue about.