Always inside a book. I was living in D.C., riding the metro to work, was reading _Glitz_ by Elmore Leonard and didn't get off the train at my stop, can't even recall when I realized I'd missed my stop and work (not my teaching job, thank goodness, but my corporate job that sorta robbed 16 years of my life before I could leap to write!).
Isn't Elmore Leonard a treasure? Any book by John Mortimer and his Rumpole of the Bailey series. Donald Westlake is similar treasure to Elmore Leonard, just as wacky.
Hot men. Hot Pasties made in Cornwall, eaten on a hot beach. Being well (which is a bit of a rarity just now) and floating about in a boat just off Gili Air - sorry life, I am having such a good time I forgot to catch my plane home.
I'd like my kids - who are now older than I am since I am 27 and they are pushing 40, to remember me fondly as a bit of a rebel, which is often much easier to manage than when a parent is still embarrassing you in public. (Mine used to flash her knickers, absently - but we've forgiven that now)
Ghaaaaagh!!! 😂 This vision is beyond wonderful! Especially the Cornish Pasties on the beach :) And yes, here's to our kids being proud of our rebel ways! 🥂
Loved this piece! Just this week, I was lamenting to my daughter the culture of having a reason or being ill to simply not check in to the mundane of a regular work day... Why have we as a society normalized this??? Your mum was absolutely right, call in "well" and not call it a 'Mental Health Day' which by its very definition implies 'un-well'...
For me a well day is taking in a matinee movie and treating myself to lunch in a sit down restaurant with cloth napkins :) In fact, I've been inspired and will call in "well" tomorrow ;)
Now that we have PTO, rather than sick days we need to use or lose, we don't have to BS it. We can just take the day. But, before that sweet turn of fate, we'd call in for a mental health day. Or fake food poisoning. When I was in school (junior high), I'd "call in" to my mom saying I had an asthma attack, if the storyline on General Hospital was getting juicy or there was an Afterschool Special that just could not have the first 10 minutes missed! xo
An art date?? Yes please, sign me up for that one. Does it count as calling in well if I bring my laptop and work from one of the galleries at the Met? 😂
My mom would show up at school, unannounced and post separation from my dad, tell me it was a Mental Health Day! And we’d go to Ground Round and a movie or something. That was back in the late 70s... no excuse, just time for mom.
Wow. Wow. Ground Round is an epic throwback! Your mom sounds so rad! 😂 But seriously, what terrible branding chucklehead would name a restaurant after a butcher's term that connotes a raw, cheap cut of beef??? It's the LEAST appetizing thing ever. Can't you just see all the moms with their Dorothy Hammil haircuts teed up with their chardonnays and their clamorous broods going wild in the booths??? 😂
That is a totally disgusting name. And all I know is they had popcorn all over the floor and I thought it was amazing. Very dark but a kid heaven. Mom was gorgeous and looked like Farrah Fawcet when that meant something. Trying to attach a photo
If you had told me 10 years ago that I was going to ask no one for permission or even what they thought about my flying to Rome, then Madrid, and then catching the train to the seaside town of Marbella, in order to spend a small fortune on myself, I would never have believed you.
I took my sister along for the fun of it and because I knew at a point I would need support. And now, she wants to move to Spain.
We’ve been incredibly close since I was eight and she was three (not sure about those first three years). But she and I haven’t had the opportunity to spend a month together - nearly every waking moment - since I stopped pretending to be someone else whenever I was in public.
She would tell you that she came back a different, better person for the experience.
She was up close for some pretty intense stuff - a 12 hour surgery. She got to see trans joy, trans strength and trans community and it changed her. It also changed how she views me. I think she thought the trip was going to be about my transformation.
I love that she tells people that my being trans has made her a better person!
This is such an epically wonderful story of calling in "well"! 💛💛💛 I love that you two have had this incredible experience together in such a supportive environment and community. We should all be so fortunate to have family who can love as us expansively and unconditionally as she can. Your sister sounds amazing. What an honor it must be to have her along for the ride. :) Congrats on this most transformative time of hooky. Welcome home to the authentic you. 💛
First, that book sounds great. I’m going to get it.
As for playing hooky, this is so lame but I like going to the mall to walk around and have lunch, and then go to a movie. I grew up very close to the biggest mall on the east coast (at that time), and was there more than my own home as a teenager, but hardly ever go anymore. And weekday, early afternoon movies are the best.
Wait, what like... the King of Prussia Mall? Which restau? Red Lobster? Suddenly, this is feeling very "Kaylie-Hooper-from-30-Rock" 😂 Are you sure you're not a fourteen-year-old girl??? Early afternoon movies ARE the best. The floor is not sticky yet. :)
Yes, KoP! Kaylie Hooper! Amazing reference 😂 😂 😂. No Red Lobster…lunch at the mall is always at the food court, baby. Probably Chick-fil-A.
If I don’t do that and the movie when skipping out of work, I sometimes go to this amazing deli near me for a pastrami sandwich that I have to unhinge my jaw like a snake to bite into. Either way, there’s always a long walk with my dog, reading, and hopefully a nap.
Ah, Pastrami... the meat of the Gypsies! The Romany people. :) Made from beef brisket, the raw meat was brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Like corned beef, pastrami was created as a way to preserve meat long before the invention of refrigeration. That literally IS playing meat hooky! You win the prize! 😂 😂 😂
Admittedly, my pastrami knowledge had been sorely lacking, so this was a welcome education! But faking your father’s death and fake-crying to your daughter’s school secretary is hilarious and parent-of-the-year material in my book!
Well, I used to play hookie all the time when I was young and naughty and healthy way way back in the 80s! I’d fly to London from Geneva and go clubbing, and to concerts, and sleep at my friend’s place and call the office on Monday morning to say I was sick cough cough. So i wasn’t exactly calling in well, but I was very well and very happy so I guess it counts, right?
Sometimes i didn’t even need to fly to London; my friend and I would decide we couldn’t be bothered to go to work, and went to the flea market and bought all kinds of cool stuff to paint (old glass chandeliers were a favorite!) and then lug them back to our flats (we lived opposite each other!) and just chill, telling stories and listening to Roxy Music and Level 42.
I do so love the naughtiness inherent in much of what you do and say. My mom was a world class loon who could get so f*&@king crazy and then return to the kitchen or her studio and carry on as if it was the most natural thing to shed normalcy and then resume. She would say something like, "Well, I feel better." During some hard years in carpentry and building I would grab a first rate cup of coffee and head to our library in Frederick, Maryland. I would hit the fiction section and choose a book by its cover and I was almost never disappointed. They always carried me away and I am forever grateful to those lovely books. I had to stay away from booze, never made a good decision there. Every now and again I would throw my bag and a pad in the back of my truck and head to the Shenandoah and fish the evening away. The slowly increasing sound of frogs and locusts as the evening wore on was always and every time a balm to a troubled young man. I always caught at least one decent smallmouth and turned it loose.
Your mother sounds like a seven-course feast of a person. I can practically picture her fresh off a wild adventure, reappearing in the kitchen, calmly chopping shallots while the room still vibrates with her wake. I aspire!
And yes—those balm-like moments, like the slow crescendo of frogsong at dusk or the reckless, hopeful act of choosing a book by its cover… they stitch us back together in ways the modern world sometimes can't. The peepers in Vermont lit up my midsummer nights too—tiny fairy frogs conducting symphonies for barefoot girls who were learning, little by little, how to belong to the world.
What would we do without stories to ferry us through the rough patches? They don’t always solve things, but they sure make the ride more bearable—and sometimes, even beautiful.
I mean, in summer it's just some plain-old retail therapy at a nice outdoor mall. I'm not a big buyer, I just like to walk around and immerse myself in gorgeous shops, enjoying the beautiful rows of clothes and accessories racked perfectly. Bonus if there's a high-end housewares store, where I can hold a nice Dutch oven in my hands and fantasize about becoming a one-pot cooking genius (I'm more of a sheet pan girl). I'll usually grab some herbal tea and plunk myself down by a fountain, breathing in the soothing sounds. In winter I like to bundle up for a short road trip, to a restaurant across the city, taking the long way. Or spend an entire morning at an art gallery, a big one. I had a teacher in the 6th grade who judged everyone by the same metric. He'd ask us, "Cabin in the woods or tent on the beach?" Even back then I was like, "Nice hotel in a walkable city with art galleries, cafes and good retail!"
To be more adamant after I finished the book I accosted a stranger in Starbucks who was reading and told her she had to read this book. I was soaring telling her and others. And now that I have finished it I am having a hard time picking up another book. I can't let that one go and betray it with another. My book love affair!
There were times I'd be driving the freeway to drop off my son at school and to drive into work and I'd look over at him and say, "You wanna take a mental health break day?" It felt more delicious than waking up and remembering it was a Saturday.
Always inside a book. I was living in D.C., riding the metro to work, was reading _Glitz_ by Elmore Leonard and didn't get off the train at my stop, can't even recall when I realized I'd missed my stop and work (not my teaching job, thank goodness, but my corporate job that sorta robbed 16 years of my life before I could leap to write!).
Isn't Elmore Leonard a treasure? Any book by John Mortimer and his Rumpole of the Bailey series. Donald Westlake is similar treasure to Elmore Leonard, just as wacky.
Hot men. Hot Pasties made in Cornwall, eaten on a hot beach. Being well (which is a bit of a rarity just now) and floating about in a boat just off Gili Air - sorry life, I am having such a good time I forgot to catch my plane home.
I'd like my kids - who are now older than I am since I am 27 and they are pushing 40, to remember me fondly as a bit of a rebel, which is often much easier to manage than when a parent is still embarrassing you in public. (Mine used to flash her knickers, absently - but we've forgiven that now)
Ghaaaaagh!!! 😂 This vision is beyond wonderful! Especially the Cornish Pasties on the beach :) And yes, here's to our kids being proud of our rebel ways! 🥂
Loved this piece! Just this week, I was lamenting to my daughter the culture of having a reason or being ill to simply not check in to the mundane of a regular work day... Why have we as a society normalized this??? Your mum was absolutely right, call in "well" and not call it a 'Mental Health Day' which by its very definition implies 'un-well'...
For me a well day is taking in a matinee movie and treating myself to lunch in a sit down restaurant with cloth napkins :) In fact, I've been inspired and will call in "well" tomorrow ;)
Vive la Resistance!
Oh... Cloth napkins are a delight!!! I hope you have the best "well" day tomorrow! 💛 Vive la Resistance!
Now that we have PTO, rather than sick days we need to use or lose, we don't have to BS it. We can just take the day. But, before that sweet turn of fate, we'd call in for a mental health day. Or fake food poisoning. When I was in school (junior high), I'd "call in" to my mom saying I had an asthma attack, if the storyline on General Hospital was getting juicy or there was an Afterschool Special that just could not have the first 10 minutes missed! xo
An art date?? Yes please, sign me up for that one. Does it count as calling in well if I bring my laptop and work from one of the galleries at the Met? 😂
These days… I’d totally bring mine too. It’s the only way I’d probably be able to relax 😂
My mom would show up at school, unannounced and post separation from my dad, tell me it was a Mental Health Day! And we’d go to Ground Round and a movie or something. That was back in the late 70s... no excuse, just time for mom.
Wow. Wow. Ground Round is an epic throwback! Your mom sounds so rad! 😂 But seriously, what terrible branding chucklehead would name a restaurant after a butcher's term that connotes a raw, cheap cut of beef??? It's the LEAST appetizing thing ever. Can't you just see all the moms with their Dorothy Hammil haircuts teed up with their chardonnays and their clamorous broods going wild in the booths??? 😂
One photo of still married mom and my Dad and wee me.
Ohhhh, adorbs!
That is a totally disgusting name. And all I know is they had popcorn all over the floor and I thought it was amazing. Very dark but a kid heaven. Mom was gorgeous and looked like Farrah Fawcet when that meant something. Trying to attach a photo
Wonderful!!!
If you had told me 10 years ago that I was going to ask no one for permission or even what they thought about my flying to Rome, then Madrid, and then catching the train to the seaside town of Marbella, in order to spend a small fortune on myself, I would never have believed you.
I took my sister along for the fun of it and because I knew at a point I would need support. And now, she wants to move to Spain.
We’ve been incredibly close since I was eight and she was three (not sure about those first three years). But she and I haven’t had the opportunity to spend a month together - nearly every waking moment - since I stopped pretending to be someone else whenever I was in public.
She would tell you that she came back a different, better person for the experience.
She was up close for some pretty intense stuff - a 12 hour surgery. She got to see trans joy, trans strength and trans community and it changed her. It also changed how she views me. I think she thought the trip was going to be about my transformation.
I love that she tells people that my being trans has made her a better person!
Thanks Sis!
This is such an epically wonderful story of calling in "well"! 💛💛💛 I love that you two have had this incredible experience together in such a supportive environment and community. We should all be so fortunate to have family who can love as us expansively and unconditionally as she can. Your sister sounds amazing. What an honor it must be to have her along for the ride. :) Congrats on this most transformative time of hooky. Welcome home to the authentic you. 💛
Thank you!🙏
First, that book sounds great. I’m going to get it.
As for playing hooky, this is so lame but I like going to the mall to walk around and have lunch, and then go to a movie. I grew up very close to the biggest mall on the east coast (at that time), and was there more than my own home as a teenager, but hardly ever go anymore. And weekday, early afternoon movies are the best.
Wait, what like... the King of Prussia Mall? Which restau? Red Lobster? Suddenly, this is feeling very "Kaylie-Hooper-from-30-Rock" 😂 Are you sure you're not a fourteen-year-old girl??? Early afternoon movies ARE the best. The floor is not sticky yet. :)
Yes, KoP! Kaylie Hooper! Amazing reference 😂 😂 😂. No Red Lobster…lunch at the mall is always at the food court, baby. Probably Chick-fil-A.
If I don’t do that and the movie when skipping out of work, I sometimes go to this amazing deli near me for a pastrami sandwich that I have to unhinge my jaw like a snake to bite into. Either way, there’s always a long walk with my dog, reading, and hopefully a nap.
Ah, Pastrami... the meat of the Gypsies! The Romany people. :) Made from beef brisket, the raw meat was brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Like corned beef, pastrami was created as a way to preserve meat long before the invention of refrigeration. That literally IS playing meat hooky! You win the prize! 😂 😂 😂
Admittedly, my pastrami knowledge had been sorely lacking, so this was a welcome education! But faking your father’s death and fake-crying to your daughter’s school secretary is hilarious and parent-of-the-year material in my book!
Well, I used to play hookie all the time when I was young and naughty and healthy way way back in the 80s! I’d fly to London from Geneva and go clubbing, and to concerts, and sleep at my friend’s place and call the office on Monday morning to say I was sick cough cough. So i wasn’t exactly calling in well, but I was very well and very happy so I guess it counts, right?
Sometimes i didn’t even need to fly to London; my friend and I would decide we couldn’t be bothered to go to work, and went to the flea market and bought all kinds of cool stuff to paint (old glass chandeliers were a favorite!) and then lug them back to our flats (we lived opposite each other!) and just chill, telling stories and listening to Roxy Music and Level 42.
And then I married my boss 😂😂
You are just too much fun! 😂
Haha! The guys I worked for didn’t think so when I didn’t show. Maybe that’s why Cedric married me - to make sure he saw me everyday😂⭐️✨
I do so love the naughtiness inherent in much of what you do and say. My mom was a world class loon who could get so f*&@king crazy and then return to the kitchen or her studio and carry on as if it was the most natural thing to shed normalcy and then resume. She would say something like, "Well, I feel better." During some hard years in carpentry and building I would grab a first rate cup of coffee and head to our library in Frederick, Maryland. I would hit the fiction section and choose a book by its cover and I was almost never disappointed. They always carried me away and I am forever grateful to those lovely books. I had to stay away from booze, never made a good decision there. Every now and again I would throw my bag and a pad in the back of my truck and head to the Shenandoah and fish the evening away. The slowly increasing sound of frogs and locusts as the evening wore on was always and every time a balm to a troubled young man. I always caught at least one decent smallmouth and turned it loose.
Your mother sounds like a seven-course feast of a person. I can practically picture her fresh off a wild adventure, reappearing in the kitchen, calmly chopping shallots while the room still vibrates with her wake. I aspire!
And yes—those balm-like moments, like the slow crescendo of frogsong at dusk or the reckless, hopeful act of choosing a book by its cover… they stitch us back together in ways the modern world sometimes can't. The peepers in Vermont lit up my midsummer nights too—tiny fairy frogs conducting symphonies for barefoot girls who were learning, little by little, how to belong to the world.
What would we do without stories to ferry us through the rough patches? They don’t always solve things, but they sure make the ride more bearable—and sometimes, even beautiful.
This is why we love Substack, for replies like this, thank Alisa. Mom, wherever she is, would get a kick out of you.
I mean, in summer it's just some plain-old retail therapy at a nice outdoor mall. I'm not a big buyer, I just like to walk around and immerse myself in gorgeous shops, enjoying the beautiful rows of clothes and accessories racked perfectly. Bonus if there's a high-end housewares store, where I can hold a nice Dutch oven in my hands and fantasize about becoming a one-pot cooking genius (I'm more of a sheet pan girl). I'll usually grab some herbal tea and plunk myself down by a fountain, breathing in the soothing sounds. In winter I like to bundle up for a short road trip, to a restaurant across the city, taking the long way. Or spend an entire morning at an art gallery, a big one. I had a teacher in the 6th grade who judged everyone by the same metric. He'd ask us, "Cabin in the woods or tent on the beach?" Even back then I was like, "Nice hotel in a walkable city with art galleries, cafes and good retail!"
I love this seasonal approach to hooky AND that even in 6th grade, you were already a little city-sophisticate! 😂
To be more adamant after I finished the book I accosted a stranger in Starbucks who was reading and told her she had to read this book. I was soaring telling her and others. And now that I have finished it I am having a hard time picking up another book. I can't let that one go and betray it with another. My book love affair!
read this book! it hits every emotion . you will love love love it
There were times I'd be driving the freeway to drop off my son at school and to drive into work and I'd look over at him and say, "You wanna take a mental health break day?" It felt more delicious than waking up and remembering it was a Saturday.
So sweet. 💛