Andrew Roe

“Daddy, why is Mommy so pretty?”

Wow, check this out. Makes me want to do a library tour of the world. (Via The Elegant Variation.)

Here’s a link to a moving essay by Colum McCann.

Toward the end, he writes:

“This is the function of books — we learn how to live even if we weren’t there. Fiction gives us access to a very real history. Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.“

1. Up early, as usual. Much coffee, also as usual. Heard part of “This American Life” while feeding Henry and Celia. It was a segment about fathers. Hearing sad stories of shitty and neglectful fathers made me realize that maybe I’m doing a halfway decent job after all.

2. Ethan started swimming lessons. “Brutal” is the word Maria used to describe it. Initially it was very, very hard for him. But he did get in the water, and once he was in, he did okay. I really dropped the ball on the whole swimming thing. Now it’s an issue. Parental guilt. Kind of canceled out last sentence of #1.

3. Mowed and trimmed the lawns. Pulled weeds. Swept. Sweated. Henry and Celia watched from the living room window, smiling and laughing every time I looked at them and waved.

4. Found a dead lizard in the backyard. “That lizard’s dead,” said Ethan. “He’s dead.”

5. Took Henry and Celia to the bank. Go somewhere with twins and you’ll get comments, stares, smiles. “Are they identical?” someone asked. Uh, no.

6. Feeling pretty okay about a short thing I wrote on Thursday night after rereading Borges’ story “Borges and I.” It’s supposed to be funny. I hope it is.

7. Ethan is very interested in outer space. He wanted to write a letter to an astronaut. “Dear Astronaut,” he dictated. “We would like to go into space soon enough.” He’s also a self-proclaimed expert on the subject: “I already know about space. I know about astronauts. I know about aliens. Are there bad aliens in space?”

8. Took the twins on a stroller ride around the block. A neighbor (who I don’t know and who likes to watch TV in his garage) called out: “Twins?” “Yeah,” I replied, “boy and a girl.” “Good job!” he yelled back. Was this some kind of lame comment about male virility or something (a la G. Costanza: “My boys can swim!”)? Weird. And funny. Because, as Maria pointed out after I told her this, conceiving twins has nothing to do with the dude side of things.

9. Went to Trader Joe’s after putting the twins and Ethan to sleep. Driving home heard “Shake Your Rump” by the Beasties. That song always makes me smile, especially the line about Sam the Butcher giving Alice the… well, you know.

10. California Pizza Kitchen makes a pretty damn good red velvet cake.

BookFox has a funny post about dead writers who have been miraculously resurrected via Twitter.

You can now read literary tweets from the likes of Hemingway, Melville, Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Flannery O’Connor.

My favorite is the Twitter page for Jorge Luis Borges.

Sample Borgesian tweet:

“Woke up this morning and found myself lying next to me. I look so peaceful when I sleep.”

Sadly, though, Mr. Borges (Twitter name: BorgesKnowsBest) has only seven followers.