If It Hadn't Been for Books

"Running for home" stitches, that's what I've been doing. But that's about to change.

Whenever my Mom saw really long stitches on a hem, she'd tsk-tsk and say that her mother always called those "running for home" stitches because it was clear that the seamstress was just trying to finish.

I've been trying to finish up countless things since before the holidays blazed through, giving up nights out to write and squeezing in interviews any day or time. Finally this afternoon, my hired mouth and I (with the able and willing assistance of Lady G) made our final visit to the restaurant for a review lunch so I could finish writing it up.

It's hard for me to believe but I have only to push "send" and my work to-do list is history. For the time being anyway.

Now comes the fun part: deciding what books and clothes need to be packed for the adventure ahead. I've been making lists and piles intermittently for a week now, but without much of an inclination to edit myself. That's all well and good during the pre-packing phase, but once you're down to the final countdown, decisions have to be made.

I was pretty much committed to the books I'd selected from my pile, all ferreted out at the main library's big book sale a couple months ago. In making my  selections for the trip, I'd tried to keep it to a reasonable number.

I mean, if I have a reason to read it, it should come, right?

After having reread Marilyn French's iconic feminist treatise "The Women's Room" a couple years ago, I'm eager to dive into her 1996 novel, "My Summer with George." Knowing how different I was in 1996 from my 1977 self, I expect we'll have some life discoveries in common.

What sucked me into choosing "Kafka was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir" by Anatole Broyard was the back cover blurb saying it was about life in the late 1940s, a time when "if it hadn't been for books, we would have been completely at the mercy of sex." Lack of birth control aside, you can't tell me that's not a vacation read.

But I'm not completely shallow, so when I need obscure cultural history (as I am inclined to when I have days to read), I'll pick up "A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books" and learn something. Surely no one's really surprised I'm a fan of publishing sagas.

Once I knock off a novel, a memoir and a history, I just might allow myself to simply wallow in more self-penned tomes, like "The Tender Bar: A Memoir," not because it was a New York Times bestseller but because it piqued my interest when it came out 13 years ago. Then, just in case, I'm bringing along Sting's "Broken Music" from 2003, because, let's be honest, Sting was the thinking woman's crumpet long before Benedict Cumberbatch was a gleam in his Daddy's eye.

Adding to the book's charm is that it's inscribed to Michael from Shirley & Don: "No matter how far away you are, our best thoughts and wishes are for you. Merry Christmas."

I know, I know, it's a lot of books. But how to decide how much is plenty without being unrealistic and toting heavy non-necessities in my suitcase? Mind you, the half-read, worn book with the full Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1980 is already in my laptop bag, but that could be polished off on the plane, like a bag of those tiny pretzels they give you.

On top of all that, only this afternoon Lady G had handed me Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" a novelization of the Henry VIII/Thomas Cromwell tug-of-war, but also winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Dare I bring anything else to read?

Choosing clothes requires less agonizing because I take the stance that it's better to bring too much than want for something I left at home. Dresses, shorts and t-shirts get rolled up and squirreled away into any available space. My hat, some wraps, cute shoes and walking shoes. It's tedious, but progress is obvious as piles disappear and the suitcase sits nearly full.

As for why I'm packing in the first place, well, that goes back to an innocuous conversation at a NOLA-themed evening at Metzger's bar last July. Don't talk to me about wanting to get away to some place warm when it's cold in Richmond if you don't want to get my complete and utter support of the idea.

And, no, that wasn't the absinthe frappe talking. Fact is, I have enthusiasm to spare when it comes to brilliant travel ideas. So, lucky me, I'm off.

But never fear, Richmond, because no matter how far away you are, my best thoughts and wishes are for you.

P.S. I'll be sure to send a postcard.

Into the Great Wide Open

The things you miss when you have a social life every night.

There's the luxury of listening to country songwriter Brent Cobb who, I learn, hails from Ellaville, Georgia ("There's 1609 people where I'm from") on the radio telling his life story between singing songs from his new album.

The fact that I'd never heard of Brent only made hearing all this the more satisfying.

His life includes admitted worship of Shooter Jennings' attitude and Tom Petty's songwriting chops ("His songs seem simple because it's so conversational, because Tom Petty sings it like he says it") and makes for pretty entertaining listening as I putter about doing further trip preparation minutiae that will allow me to cross things off one of my many lists.

Like watering plants, choosing books and locating accessories. In what girlfriends would expect to be the unlikeliest of scenarios, I fashion a necklace out of one I'd created a couple years ago for a disco-themed party. Tonight, it lost the '70s flower and returned to its initial funky charm, albeit with some lengthening for a different look.

But all gainful activity pauses when Ray Charles' instrumental version of "One Mint Julep" comes on, not because I'd ever heard it before but because between its oh-so-'60s rhythms and beatnik-cool horn section, it is aural perfection that obliterates my capacity to do anything but wish I could samba or cha cha cha around sleek mid-century modern furniture in a Manhattan apartment.

As I'm grooving by the front windows, I glance down when I hear wailing. The Dad and sister of one of my young downstairs neighbors has kindly come to help the recent graduate move out, the mistake being that Dad left the driving and thus the parking to daughter, who has managed to park only after adding a fresh pole-shaped dent to the trunk and bumper.

It's a nice deep dent, too.

Standing next to the pole that managed to jump out at the back of the car, she whines, "I don't know how I did that!" to which I think, clearly there's much you don't know since the parking space could have accommodated a Chrysler as big as a whale and you struggled with your little entry-level Hyundai.

She tries the trunk, which no longer opens with the new pole imprint folding it into itself. Dad, meanwhile, is apoplectic, exchanging with her heated words in Spanish about her egregious error in judgement.

A simple trip to pick up your brother and look what you've done, his rapid-fire words and fierce scowl seem to say. Brother and friends come out and much excitable conversation unfolds. Clearly we have a situation on Clay Street.

Who knew there was so much drama right in front of my house on a Wednesday night? Certainly not me since I'm gone every night.

Later, when I come downstairs to go to the basement, I find a smiling man on the front porch, eager to introduce himself as Levar Stoney, former Commonwealth's secretary and recent addition to the mayoral race, the fourth I've met so far. Levar clarifies that he is the first in his family to graduate high school, much less college.

That's bootstraps right there.

So on a sunny summer evening at a time when I'd usually be out and about, we stand - he on the porch, me on the sidewalk - chatting genially about the next mayor addressing the deplorable school situation so we will stop losing families to the 'burbs once their tykes are school age.

Levar apologizes for his relative youth - 35 - but I point out that one need only be 35 to be President, so if it's apparently not too young for that job...

The funny part is, as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I think about this fact for the first time probably since Civics class and wonder holy hell, why would we even consider putting a 35-year old in charge of the free world?

I mean, 35 was old when the Constitution was written, so the age represented a far more evolved person than would be likely today.

For heaven's sake, it recently made news that for the first time in 130 years, Americans 18-34 are more likely to live with Mom and Dad than in any other living situation. Come on, millennials, what happened to good old-fashioned living in sin, or better yet, in a group house with other minimum wage lifelong students and artist types?

Really, Mom and Dad were the only choice?

I'm inclined to think that theoretically there should be more years between moving out of your parents' basement and into the White House than one. Let's say a minimum of ten and if we have to adjust the preamble to allow for delayed adolescence/arrested development, I say do it.

For that matter, are we even producing 35-year olds capable of running a country? Seems doubtful.

But that will have to be a discussion for another day since between phone conversations, hemming dresses and attempting to pack lightly, I have bigger fish to fry. Preferably a nice skate wing in brown butter with capers.

For now, a simple bon voyage will do.