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Showing posts with the label Lucy Knisley

67 Maplewood

 If you're a gay semi-employed dad during COVID, then you make friends with the (rare) visitors. They are: (1) The handyman. He often seems to be high on pot, and he may or may not arrive for a given appointment. He studies you in a hazy way, and he says, "You know, we have a gay couple at my church.... " And you consider offering your congratulations. Or you could say: "More of ME??? I'll be there on Sunday!" But, instead, a complex silence follows. (2) The plumber. This man meets your husband, then finds you. "I met your friend!" he says. And how can you reply? "My friend, yes. The one with the wedding ring. We live here in chaste bliss, sharing a brew, raising a child together." Give this man his check. Do not call him again. (3) The barber. She is your favorite. She came from Eastern Europe, and she has seen things. If you consider complaining about your privileged life--your occasional boredom, a sense of narrow horizons--then your b...

Go to Sleep (I Miss You)

One book that excites me right now is "Go To Sleep (I Miss You)" -- a graphic memoir about parenthood. If you're writing about your own life, you have to make yourself a weird, dynamic character; you have to recognize at least some of the absurdity in your own behavior. Lucy Knisley knows this, and she does the work very well. She recalls worrying--while pregnant--that having a kid would derail her important comic-book art. (We see an image of this art, a lady farting, in an upper corner.) Knisley mocks her own self-importance: "Charles Dickens said each baby born is better than the last. But....seriously, though....Mine is the best...." Knisley finds a vein called parental ambivalence/lunacy: how a new parent will urge, and urge, and urge the stormy baby to go to sleep....THANK GOD!!! .....and then, within moments, discover that she misses that stormy baby....How new parents--after they put the kid to sleep--will spend several minutes looking a...