“If they had known about the book, they might have behaved.” - Memoirist Robert Rummel-Hudson

That quote is spot-on the mark for its simple truth. Writers of all stripes are natural spies, unconsciously absorbing their environment, picking up details and dialogue for a story they have yet to write. And quite often, a story is inpsired by a slice of conversation between a couple we overhear in the next restaurant booth – “This is not the time or place, Fred!” or the way someone artfully complains to a steward on an airplane – “Maybe this service goes over well at Greyhound, sweetie, but this is first class and I shouldn’t have to tell you.”

Recently, when having drink with a friend at a coffee chain, I couldn’t help watching another couple take a seat on the outside patio.

They didn’t arrive together, that was clear. She, natural and not in-your-face-pretty in a Gwyneth Paltrow kind of way, sat down first and crossed her legs. Her ram-rod straight posture against the hard, wire-framed chair suggested she felt very relaxed and confident. But her crossed leg, bobbing up and down, was the only quality that signaled unease.

He, equal to her looks in an everyman, not leading man fashion, carried a large laptop case, pulled out his chair and made to sit down – but not before his whole case came tumbling open and the contents of it, including his laptop, spread around on the pavement at his feet. Fortunate for him, it was not a windy day. He stood there for a moment looking like he’d just wet his pants on the playground in front of the popular girl. He scooped the papers and pens back into the case and shoved them under the seat. (I noticed she did not help him with this task.) Then, he sat on the edge of his seat, slightly hunched toward her, continuously running his hand through his hair. He was talking fast. Whatever he was saying, probably tinged with a healthy dose of nervous laughter, just made her more interested in her frothy drink and straw, which she was moving up and down inside the cup with the tips of her coral colored manicure. She was bored. I assigned her a bubble thought: “I think on my next polish change, I should go with Make Mine Mauve.”

His bubble thought shouted, “Idiot! Stop talking about how your new Dell laptop can withstand a drop from three and half feet.”

I felt bad for them. Well, actually, I felt bad for him. It was clear this interview-like hell date was a first and possibly last meeting.
Through the window glass, I never heard any of their exchange. Still, I could see a story play out in front of me. Would she be worn down by his nervous charm when he called her the next week and they’d go out again? Or was she counting the minutes until she could text her girlfriend about this bad date? Was he waitng for her to leave so he could sufficiently flog himself for being so clumsy, fueling the start of his future serial-killer infamy as the Manicure Maniac? Or, would this send him inside for a double-tall latte from a sweet barista who would become his next girlfriend merely because she asked, “Is that the latest Dell laptop?”

The story could go so many directions, which is the pure joy of writing. We take human observations and weave in our own “what ifs” and life experiences until an interesting scenario emerges.

So you tell me: Do you observe people and conversations? Do you sometimes fill in the blanks about what is taking place?

Karen Harrington is the author of the psychological thriller, Janeology. Visit her at www.karenharringtonbooks.com

Which came first - The writer or the mama?

In the south, it’s not uncommon to hear this expression: “Don’t you have people?” This refers to the hired help a woman might have to help keep up with her domestic bliss. Nannies. Lawn Service. Housekeeper.
I don’t have people. However, I have kids (ages 3 and 4), a house, a lawn, and dust bunnies with squatters rights. All of these things make me a better writer. I write during naptimes and after my children go to sleep. My laptop is perpetually open on the kitchen counter. Sometimes it’s ignored. Sometimes it’s there so I can capture a thought I want to work on later. I don’t have time for the muse to appear. I just write.
Joyfully, I am not the only writer/mama to employ this practice to great effect.

Here are a few more moms who discovered that if you love to write – you just might be more prolific after procreating.

JODI PICOULT, best-selling author of twelve novels and mother of three
“I would be with kids all day long and would write until ten or eleven at night. I learned how to write quickly and efficiently, and have never had writers block. Anyone who has ever been pressed to write knows you don’t have the luxury of wandering around waiting for your muse. Some days, I write pure dreck, but I can always edit that the next day. I just plough through and then go back and edit.

As soon as my kids were in school, I had daytime hours to write even though I was interrupted, taking one or the other to and from school at different times. I was writing plots on laundry tickets!

For more check out: http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/sep01/picoult.htm

MARY HIGGINS CLARK, best-selling author of twenty-four novels and mother of five

“When my children were young, I used to get up at five and write at the kitchen table until seven, when I had to get them ready for school. For me, writing is a need. It’s the degree of yearning that separates the real writer from the “would-be’s.” Those who say “I’ll write when I have time, when the kids are grown up or when I have a quiet place to work,” will probably never do it.”
For more check out: http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=352932&agid=8

J. K. ROWLING, best-selling author of the seven Harry Potter novels and mother to one

“I wasn’t a struggling single mother all the time that I was writing the first “Harry” book. It was only during the final year of writing that I found myself poorer than I’d ever been before. Obviously, continuing to write was a bit of a logistical problem: I had to make full use of all the time that my then-baby daughter slept. This meant writing in the evenings and during nap times. Nobody knows better than I do that I was very lucky — I didn’t need money to exercise the talent I had — all I needed was a Biro and some paper.”

For more check out: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/03/cov_31featureb.html

So all of the writer/moms out there, I salute you. Put down that laundry right now and go write your next sentence. Maybe it will be about laundry angst. Maybe it will be the first sentence of the next best-seller. You never know. And then drop me a line and share your writing practices and what works for you.

-

Karen Harrington is the author of the psychological thriller, JANEOLOGY. Read an excerpt at www.karenharringtonbooks.com

Overheard at a booksigning

Hello, HerCircle friends. As you might recall, my debut novel Janeology launched last month and I have been out and about promoting the book. So today, I’d like to share some of the most memorable exchanges that have taken place at my various book signings. Enjoy!

Of my books on the signing table.

“Are these complimentary?”

Of the topic of filicide.

“I can’t read this. I read The Lovely Bones and I hated it.”

Of my pitch that it’s about a man trying to understand his wife by way of understanding the family secrets and ancestors in her family.

“Oh, we all have black sheep in our family. My brother’s wife just left him and he’s now realizing it had something to do with her mother.”

Of my description of the book to a kind old man.

“Sounds good. Let me go ask my wife.”

Of my offer to sign a book for a woman.

“Oh, are you the author?”

Of my introduction to the next person who approached my table, “Hi, I’m the author Karen Harrington.”

“Hello the author Karen Harrington.”

Of the mints on my signing table.

“What are these for?”

Of the puzzle on my signing table.

“Why did you cut up your cover like that?”

Of the woman who ran over to my table with her hubby and told me her name was Jane.

Hubby: “If I read this, will I understand my wife better?”

Me: Huh Huh. Maybe. Here’s a bookmark.” (She leaves. Returns 10 mintues later.)

“OMG! My husband’s name is Tom!” (See, the couple in my book are Jane and Tom.)

Of my accidental penning “Very best pictures” (Doh! Should have written WISHES)

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry. We were talking about pictures, and, well, ha ha…well, if I become famous, one day this will be very valuable.”

INTERESTING STATS

Signings: 3

Books sold: 43

Ratio of male/female purchasers: 30%/70%

Dear Talula, a film by Lori Benson

2006, 34 minutes
Review by Nicolette Westfall

Lori Benson potently documents her abrupt transition from new mother to a patient with breast cancer. Although the work is only 34 minutes long, it is an emotionally charged film that reveals great insight into her struggle with a mastectomy and life afterwards.

Footage of peaceful time with her young daughter, Talula, is alternated with the cold reality of the sterile hospital setting, tests, chemo therapy, and doctors. She does not spare the viewer from the raw war cancer takes on her body. A surgeon notes the increased difficulty with reconstruction after the mastectomy, as opposed to a simply breast enhancement.

There is a photo shoot, baring her scar, done with integrity. Flowers go with her to the hospital. Soft lighting echoes the warmth her family and friends provide during the stressful times.

The stark, white lab coats of doctors and surgeons reveal the coldness of accepting life as it is. Benson is one of those women who inherit the grimness of higher chances of breast and ovarian cancer. Whether she will get cancer in her remaining breast is not known—all she can do is continue on with life, but the anxiety and worry is ever present. The majority of breast cancer cases are, however, random, and so, those women may live life thinking they won’t get cancer—until it hits—so live life instead of worrying over it.

Keeping strong for the camera, Benson tackles each stage in the process with as much energy as is physically possible, while taking care of her daughter. When she first comes back from the hospital, Talula is understandably distressed by the change and cannot be consoled. Cancer strikes to the core of not only the patient, but family and friends as well.

She wants to know whether her daughter will suffer the same tragedy. At one point, her father speaks about losing another family member to breast cancer. It is hard on men too. Life in Manhattan, however, goes on, much like the yellow taxis that stream along the streets, taking her back and forth to the hospital.

Recognizing that her own reaction to the situation is paramount to her recovery, she infuses the filming with humour. Jokes about her weight after her chemo therapy—a pound for her jeans—help everyone (including the viewer) cope with the process.

The end of the piece shows Benson swinging Talula around in a park, where there are no stainless steal scalpels or hospital gowns or IVs. They are, for the moment, safe from cancer.

My Happy Life: The Disturbingly Sane

by Nicolette Westfall

In My Happy Life, Lydia Millet takes the view that the members of society that do not fit in are insane to various degrees and turns it on its head. The main character, an unnamed woman, narrates her story from a room in an abandoned mental health building. She traces her life from the beginning, as an orphan, through extremely physically abusive school years and onto life being held captive and tortured by a wealthy man.

While presenting her story, she shows such love and humour, despite the atrocities that are committed continually against her mind and body. She experiences too many horrors that would make a “normal” person crack. In the end, she starves to death.

In clever writing, Millet is able to present society as the disturbed, insane landscape that it is. At almost every turn, regular people and children take advantage of the character’s innocence and acceptance of others. Trusting and patient, she loves and forgives. Despite her inability to differentiate between good and bad people, and the injuries her person receives, I can’t argue that she is insane—it is the perpetrators out there that abuse her which are disturbed.

While at first glance, the comparison between her and Britney Spears appears far-fetched, a closer look reveals that it really is we, the mass consumers, who are rather deranged. We are the ones that read sites like perezhilton and tmz and buy People magazine for the latest gossip on the pop wreck. There would be no millions if we did not buy into her over-sexed image and the post-fallout.

There is debate over how much influence the pressures of celebrity life and the hordes of photographers have had on Spears’ mental health. Even if Spears is in on the photography frenzy, the pressure of catering to the paparazzi is increasing in Hollywood. Celebs like George Clooney argue safety must come first, not photos.

Regardless of which came first, pre-disposed mental issues or the spotlight of fame, it is absolutely morbid that celebrities, especially Spears, are flanked by hordes of photographers wherever she goes, with masses of mindless consumers shilling out money for trivial tidbits instead of putting that money towards mental health research—just as it is quite disturbing that Millet’s character faces abuser after abuser until she is finally left behind to face a cruel death alone. While the contexts and factors involved in each woman’s mental instability are very complex and differ accordingly, both women display the damaging consequences of the predator in human nature.

A Good Death

by Grace Andreacchi

Enough about the writer’s life, let’s think about the writer’s death for a change. It’s sure to come, after all, for of all things nothing is more certain than death. A big subject, and arguably the starting point for much if not all of the world’s literature. Without death we would have no Wuthering Heights, no Death Be Not Proud, we would have neither metaphysical sonnets, nor lamentations, nor elegies, nor grief and certainly no Sylvia Plath with her poor little head in the oven. Without death it’s questionable whether we’d have any literature at all, as it is perhaps the knowledge of oblivion that tempts us to leave a record, to say – this was my life, this was my time, this my vision, my world. Remember me when I am gone/Gone far away into the silent land…

Is there such a thing as a good, a particularly appropriate and satisfying death for a writer? Without trespassing upon delicate ground of individual conscience and belief, I would suggest there is. Who does not admire the dash of Lord Byron, casting his young life away heedlessly in a Grecian swamp? Who is not moved by the terrifying double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and the mortally ill Henriette Vogel? Before he died Kleist sat down and wrote eloquent letters to just about everybody he knew, and they make exciting reading. So this to his cousin and close friend Marie von Kleist:
‘Your letter broke my heart, my dearest Marie, and I promise you, if it were in my power, I’d give up this idea I’ve got of dying. But I swear to you, it’s completely impossible for me to live any longer; my soul is so wounded that, I might even say, if I go and press my nose against the windowpane, the very daylight that glimmers there is enough to cause me pain.’ He shot Henriette and then himself on the shores of the Wannsee near Berlin. He was only thirty-four.

Well, count on a German for a good, romantic Liebestod, but the letters are a touch. Surely only a writer feels the desire, nay, the compunction, to sit down and knock off a few choice paragraphs before the big exit. What really was getting Kleist down was the absolute failure of his written work to make the slightest impression on the world. God forbid any of us should take the inevitable rejection letters that much to heart! Better, perhaps, to follow the example of Jean Rhys, hiding out in a cottage in soggy Devonshire, drunk and disorderly, and brandishing against the dying of the light only her best book ever.

Grace Andreacchi was born and raised in New York City but has lived on the far side of the great ocean for many years - sometimes in Paris, sometimes Berlin, and nowadays in London. Works include the novels Give my Heart Ease, which received the New American Writing Award, and Music for Glass Orchestra, and the play Vegetable Medley (New York and Boston). Stories and poetry appear in both on-line and print journals.Her work can be viewed at http://graceandreacchi.com.

Virginia Woolf and the Insanity of Criticism in Mrs. Dalloway

Initially, I intended to discuss the complexities of oppression and insanity, looking at both the Great War veteran, Septimus Warren Smith and Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, comparing the pressures of war and violence to suffering the transition of going from Clarissa to Mrs. Richard Dalloway, arguing that it is those that work continually to conform that are insane. Taking a humanist approach would have eclipsed the underlying feminist theme that women are criticized into behaving and, even then, aren’t taken seriously.

Men are given some validity to fall back on. Although Smith commits suicide, he is given credit for his effort on the war front. Mrs. Dalloway receives no such praise. She is seen by even the man who obsessively loves her, Peter Walsh, as a woman who wastes her time holding frivolous parties.

As Mrs. R. Dalloway, she busies herself maintaining the upper crust lifestyle. When reflecting on others and how they perceive her, she is Clarissa, and she recognizes that Peter criticizes her. All he has to do is look at her and she can feel it. There is a bit of her identity underneath the wedding ring and bourgeois façade. She silently stands by her interest in throwing society parties—it’s what she likes to do, and it’s something that gives her purpose.

The same cannot be said for Smith’s wife, Lucrezia. She has trouble separating herself from her husband’s plight, arguing that although Smith can be content without her, she can’t say the same for herself. Her view is odd, especially when considering how difficult it is for her to deal with his shell shock (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). He is unbearable to live with, but she has conformed to the role of wife by suffering by his side, which drowns out her own identity.

Criticism comes from many angles in our lives; parents who want to see us financially off, lovers who worry about our life choices, friends who want what’s best for us—but we learn from Mrs. Dalloway that the best reaction to such pressures is to preserve the self. Mrs. Dalloway is still clearly Clarissa, because she holds the party despite Peter’s criticisms. Her old friend, Sally Seton, although considered a radical in her youth, does not hold up to her true nature; she folds and eventually chalks her contribution to society as a mother of five sons, yes, five sons, she had five sons.

For women, one of the best contemporary arguments to stand strong against pressures to conform to others and their standards comes from Paulo Coelho and his work, The Witch of Portobello. Although he is a male writer, he, like Virginia Woolf, provides space for the central female character to continue being true to herself. Although party planning is stressful, Clarissa validates herself. Coelho’s character Athena faces the reality of teaching others without any prior preparation and does it despite serious threats from the established religious institutions. In the end, things work out for both women because they do not listen to others.

As women, we need to listen to ourselves and ignore both external and internal negatives which hamper our own growth. Men also face doubts and pressures which steer them away from their own dreams, but women face the double obstacle of the societal fear of the feminine. Coelho acknowledges that women through the ages have developed an intuition that men do not usually posses—so listen to it, use it, and deal with life accordingly. To do so is to preserve self validation, whether it is through throwing upper crust parties or getting people to set aside their fears and live the way they want to.

An American Writer in Paris

by Grace Andreacchi

Things are different in Paris. The food is exquisite, the apartment buildings, even in the slums, are high, elegant and decorated like wedding cakes, the light is pale lavender all day long, and writers are, quite simply, gods. It makes no difference if you’re published or unpublished, famous or totally unknown, just to be a writer is to be a god. To one accustomed to the usual American response to the shy and unwilling revelation, ‘I’m a writer’, the French response is nothing short of astonishing. People take a step back, overcome with admiration. People say things like, ‘A writer, c’est formidable!’ (They really talk this way in France.) People do not tell you they’re planning to write a novel soon themselves, or their cousin’s written a novel and can you help get it published, or they know this really great story that happened to a friend of theirs and they could write a novel about it but really haven’t got the time, would you like to hear it and then maybe you can use it for your next book? No, you will never hear any of these things cross the rapid-fire lips of the French. People respect you. It’s unaccustomed, and heady stuff.

When I first moved into my apartment on the rue Montcalm in Montmarte I was stopped on the stairs by a curious-looking little man in a state of great agitation. ‘Madame,’ he began, pulling nervously at his hairnet. ‘You walk around the whole night long. You are rolling a ball about in the night, just above my head! Madame, it is impossible for me to sleep!’ I thought for a minute and realised the ‘ball’ he was hearing must be the wheels under my chair. I apologised profusely and explained about the chair, explained that I was a writer and kept strange hours, but would be most careful to walk on tiptoe and not to move the chair. But the little man was no longer interested in his sleep problems – I was a writer! That was something completely different! God forbid his petty complaints should interfere with the functioning of the muse! Could I tell him about my books?

I was turned down in both London and New York for a bank account – not enough reliable income. But in Paris when I asked for a bank account the branch manager asked me shyly for an autographed copy of my latest novel. When I was obliged to seek help from the gendarmerie over a lost passport, the Capitaine showed up in person at my door – I thought he’d come to arrest me on charges unknown, but he’d come with a bottle of Bordeaux grand cru, to chat about literature. ‘It’s always been my dream to talk to a writer,’ he confided. ‘I love watching them on the télé.’ Like I said, things are different. The only problem is, it can go to your head like champagne.

Grace Andreacchi was born and raised in New York City but has lived on the far side of the great ocean for many years - sometimes in Paris, sometimes Berlin, and nowadays in London. Works include the novels Give my Heart Ease, which received the New American Writing Award, and Music for Glass Orchestra, and the play Vegetable Medley (New York and Boston). Stories and poetry appear in both on-line and print journals.Her work can be viewed at http://graceandreacchi.com.

Is All Fair

by Grace Andreacchi

I recently heard an interview with the writer Orhan Pamuk in which he was asked - had it changed his life much, winning the Nobel Prize? I’m a little bit in love with Pamuk these days (those big brown eyes, those labyrinthine torture gardens of the mind…), and listened eagerly for what he would say. Oh, dear Orhan, please don’t be a schmuck, please don’t tell us how great it is to be totally famous. ‘I thought it wouldn’t change my life at all’ he said, ‘but I was wrong, it did. My family started speaking to me again.’ If you’ve read his ravishing Istanbul: Memories and the City then you know the many reasons the Pamuk clan had to take umbrage. And yet this deeply honest, self-searching, wildly sensitive account of le petit Orhan and the people and places that helped make him is one of the best things I’ve ever read in the genre ‘portrait of the artist as a young monster’. Pamuk spares neither himself, nor his mother, nor his father, nor his big brother (who claims most of it’s made up anyway), he shows a little bit of reserve towards a former girlfriend, which I find rather gallant of him. Is it fair to treat people like this? And, if it isn’t fair, what on earth are we to write? How are we to write?

It’s a question of genuine moral import, and every writer must wrestle that angel on her own. I make it a rule not to say anything in print I wouldn’t say to a person’s face, at least if I had the gumption to face them. It’s of some comfort to know that when you do ‘put’ people into books, they often don’t recognise themselves, but of course others may, and draw their attention to it. Then there are those who insist on seeing themselves where they are not. And those who do recognise themselves may call you on it. I’d say as a general rule that ex-lovers are fairly safe territory, as long as they’re firmly ex. They’re unlikely to risk a painful rendezvous merely to complain that it didn’t happen like that and you’re telling it all wrong. But a neat vivisection of the writer’s Christmases Past is sure to bring the roof down around one’s ears. Of course, if, like me, you already enjoy a relationship with your family on the outermost edge of the deeply estranged and totally dysfunctional then by all means go for it. What have you got to lose? You might even win the Nobel Prize.

Grace Andreacchi was born and raised in New York City but has lived on the far side of the great ocean for many years - sometimes in Paris, sometimes Berlin, and nowadays in London. Works include the novels Give my Heart Ease, which received the New American Writing Award, and Music for Glass Orchestra, and the play Vegetable Medley (New York and Boston). Stories and poetry appear in both on-line and print journals.Her work can be viewed at http://graceandreacchi.com.

Honey, Your Man Doesn’t Care about Martha Stewart: Confessions of a Slacker Housewife

by Nicolette Westfall

I wasn’t attracted to the book initially, because it has a yellow and pink cover, with ironing board, pearls, and a woman’s high heel, but something must have drawn me to it, because I picked it up, bought it, and read it within hours. Essentially, Muffy Mead-Ferro’s argument is that women don’t really need to put on the Martha Stewart or the extreme anti-bacterial war stance that contemporary advertising assists in brainwashing them into.

Personally, I’m not the type to crochet fancy clothes or buy instruction books on how to make fancy dinner napkins—a card table in the kitchen and a couple torn chairs does us fine, thanks. My unashamed spare furnishings and lack of ornamentation, to The Gentleman’s credit, never bothered him. It really is as Muffy suggests—women choose to waste precious time on unnecessary domestic frivolities.

When a man has his buddies over, they tend to eat out of chip bags and use paper towel napkins, not the latest in fine linen clothes. Although Muffy and her women folk have the urge to just go out and buy chips and dip, they choose instead to slave away for hours upon days in their kitchens, experimenting on creating the perfect dinner menus for guests that they just don’t have time to socialize with.

Muffy’s husband is somewhat more supportive then many other men—he’s actually changed a diaper or two (just pretend the other 4,000 changes don’t exist). He also understands that she juggles both a career and raising the wee tots. He just doesn’t get it that she puts energy into things like dusting things people can’t see, like the tops of light fixtures.

One oddity I found was her coverage of their sex life. She admitted to being tired from the dual duty of mom-career woman and treating sex like it was just another chore on the list. Completely in tune with Muffy, her husband patiently waited it out—there is no mention of porn at all (unless I missed it), implying that he isn’t into it. She also brings up her brief experimentation with toys, and notes that she has no need for self-satisfaction, preferring only him.

When I was with The Gentleman, I continued to live on my own and was solely responsible for rent, household cleaning, my schooling, etc… and yet I still found that I had sexual energy. The only damper was the fact that The Gentleman tended to wander, and so, he was the root cause of much dissatisfaction. He also took part in the common male habit of downloading gigs upon gigs of pirated porn on one of his hard drives. Alas, Muffy’s relationship with her man is quite different, as he is clearly stronger and more patient than most men when it comes to denial of their physical needs.

Beyond her commentary on intimacy, Muffy’s attempt to humorously enlighten women really is an important memoir-manual. Whether we like it or not, we exist in a sexist society, one in which men do not women seriously—yes, Muffy’s husband does ask her where the bread was, expecting her to keep the groceries stocked—in my household, all family members (ok, there’s just two of us, but still…) are expected to take part in weekly grocery shopping and the prep of family meals.

While her hubby recognizes and validates her as a career woman (lucky for her, because many men, like The Gentleman, don’t), he has trouble validating her domestic work, especially the more frivolous things. These hobbies that take up so much of some women’s time don’t concern men at all. These time wasters as distractions from the real issues at hand; men are still in power and as a result, women are often treated as sex objects that get tossed to the curb once their expiry date hits. While men become more respected as they age, women are seen as obsolete with their first wrinkles. She uses the example of female anchormen, who don’t last long, while their male counterparts carry on for decades.

Her book certainly won’t convince the die-hard Martha Stewarts that all the hand made, colour coordinated ribbons and bows for the dinner party aren’t necessary, but it will show others out there that dust bunnies are ok and that yes, the children can wear the same pants more than once before they are tossed into the wash.

Now, if she can just pick up on the idea that her hubby needs to do his own laundry. Even The Gentleman did his own laundry when he was still living at home with mommy and daddy! The offspring here does his laundry as well—I didn’t dirty his clothes and he isn’t 3 anymore. Upon discussing this book with other women, I was absolutely shocked to find out that they too, do their partners’ and teen children’s laundry. Other members of the household won’t appreciate your hard work if they don’t experience it for themselves.

Oh, and one more thing, as written in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Minister’s Wooing, if you don’t tell your male partner about how much hard work went into your domestic presentation, he’ll never know. The man needs to know that it took you 4 hours to prepare and bake that layered strawberries and cream cheesecake, with strawberries you grew in your own organic backyard garden. He may think you’re a little crazy for spending two weeks searching out the appropriate new recipe, instead of using your mother’s time-honoured version, but at least he’ll know why you fell asleep before the foreplay started.

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