I read a book

Don't be shocked.
I'm FINE.



I love Ms. Ephron, and her sister too.
When I read her sister's books, for reasons unknown to me now, I thought they were my private treasures and that I was the only person in the world who read them and understood them.
Now, while reading this, I was older and wiser -
I believe Ms. Ephron is channeling MY thoughts.
Not that we've ever met or anything.
I'm SURE of it.
She was totally writing about me when she wrote Heartburn.
True, I've never lived in Washington, was never married to a cad, and I never was a divorced writer living in New York City.
None of that was my life.
There was only one tiny moment of my life in that film - it was the scene where they are having the baby and she is heartbreakingly sad, but they are having a baby....
Happily for us, it wasn't about our marriage, but Nora touched me then, or Meryl Streep did, I suppose, capturing awful heartbreak at a time when things should be wonderful.

ANYWAY, I read a damn book and you should all stand on your chairs (right NOW) and say woot.
Because I don't read.
I don't have the patience, unless I'm on vacation, to read a tome when I can just clickclickclick around and see what you are all up to.

Nora and I (and, yes, I CAN call her Nora) agree completely regarding handbags:

This is for women whose purses are a morass of loose Tic Tacs, solitary Advils, lipsticks without tops, ChapSticks of unknown vintage, little bits of tobacco even though there has been no smoking going on for at least ten years, tampons that have come loose from their wrappings, English coins from a trip to London last October...Kleenexes that either have or have not been used but there's no way to be sure...

I have a whole post in my head about the tampon which has come loose from it's wrapping and how I need to re-thread it while hovering over a rest-stop toilet.
(There, now you know the punch line.)

She is speaking with my voice (and I'm sure she's not pleased at the sound of it) when she writes about Parenting In Three Stages...
...Suddenly, one day, there was this thing called parenting. Parenting was serious, parenting was fierce. Parenting was solemn. Parenting was a participle, like going and doing and crusading and worrying; it was active and energetic, it was unrelenting. Parenting meant playing Mozart CD's while you were pregnant, doing without the epidural, and breast-feeding your child until it was old enough to unbutton your blouse...

She wrote so vividly about her apartment that the night I read it I dreamed about our first apartment. Of course K and I didn't pay ten thousand dollars a month for our apartment, but it was old and quirky and had wonderful space.

What I Wish I’d Known

People have only one way to be.

Buy, don’t rent.

Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.

Don’t cover a couch with anything that isn’t more or less beige.

Don’t buy anything that is 100 percent wool even if it seems to be very soft and not particularly itchy when you try it on in the store.

You can’t be friends with people who call after 11 p.m.

Block everyone on your instant mail.

The world’s greatest babysitter burns out after two and a half years.

You never know.

The last four years of psychoanalysis are a waste of money.

The plane is not going to crash.

Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of thirty-five you will be nostalgic for at the age of forty- five.

At the age of fifty-five you will get a saggy roll just above your waist even if you are painfully thin.

This saggy roll just above your waist will be especially visible from the back and will force you to reevaluate half the clothes in your closet, especially the white shirts.

Write everything down.

Keep a journal.

Take more pictures.

The empty nest is underrated.

You can order more than one dessert.

You can’t own too many black turtleneck sweaters.

If the shoe doesn’t fit in the shoe store, it’s never going to fit.

When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.

Back up your files.

Overinsure everything.

Whenever someone says the words “Our friendship is more important than this,” watch out, because it almost never is.

There’s no point in making pie crust from scratch.

The reason you’re waking up in the middle of the night is the second glass of wine.

The minute you decide to get divorced, go see a lawyer and file the papers.

Overtip.

Never let them know.

If only one third of your clothes are mistakes, you’re ahead of the game.

If friends ask you to be their child’s guardian in case they die in a plane crash, you can say no.

There are no secrets.

It's one of the best lists I've ever read and I agree with every single one.
Except, maybe, the part about the dog.