Blood Test Blues Beget New Shoes -- And Also Happy Endings

I'd just read a book that left a bad taste in my mouth (I've endured many a dud that I've spared you) and was in need of something super sweet.  Enter Kerry Winfrey's Just Another Love Song.  It's about a small-town girl and the high-school-sweetheart-turned-country-music-star who got away.  They meet again fifteen years later while planning the annual summer fair, an event bursting with bake-offs and corndogs in a charming if sometimes caricatured tribute to the Midwest.  Now, it isn't the best romance I've ever read.  It's not even the best Winfrey romcom I've ever read (that would be Not Like the Movies).  But it was amusing and cheerful and soothing.  And with that other sordid story still fresh in my mind -- plus a trip to Lab Corp looming -- it was exactly what I needed.  

Indeed, as the phlebotomist prepped me, I was already buried in its pages, prompting her to ask if I was okay. "Yes," I said, still not looking up, "I've got my book friend here."  I actually uttered those words: book friend.  But I didn't care.  Because through years of trial and error, I've learned that books get me through icky stuff, however weird and antisocial it may seem to others.  So a shoutout to all the authors out there who weave worlds to take us out of ourselves -- and our less-than-ideal day-to-days.

And also a shoutout to Samantha over at PinkBopp and The Big Hair Diaries, who generously shared the Amazon link for these adorable blue flats: 

Shoes: Amazon

I know, I know.  I'm supposed to be on a buying ban.  And one month in, I still am (as recently as today, I resisted 10% Rakuten cashback from Kohl's; how strong am I?).  But for me, getting blood drawn always means getting a small prize, and I wasn't about to deny myself because of some self-imposed fashion fasting (especially because I'd had enough of actual fasting).  And these ten-dollar beauties were just the thing.  Cute and retro, they remind me of the earlier 2000s when I last had a pair, marveling at their cloud-like comfort as I crawled the mall.  Now the mall is mostly empty storefronts and subpar pizza.  Although to be fair, even in its heyday, food court pizza wasn't that great.

So that's how buying the blues -- and reading about a guy singing the blues -- made me feel anything but.  

Just Another Love Song may be just another romcom.  But to me it was a symphony.  

Navy Lady: Hue Book Value

Skirt: So, Kohl's

Bag: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Top: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

As you know, these days I've been shopping my closet instead of the stores, and so far it's been lots of fun.  Above are the three items from my last Kohl's order, which arrived about a month ago.  If the polka dot top looks familiar, then it's because I have the matching skirt.    

That said, I did get a package today.  It was from Amazon, so it was just essentials like packing tape, soap, and printer ink.  Also, books -- because they're the most essential of all.  I was so excited that I took a pic:    

 

Clearly, I misspoke when I said that I was checking out on chick lit, as here are two gems of the genre. Ironically, they're bookending Pay It Forward, which I wanted to read only after reading about it in Love & Other Words.  

It seems that chicks and their lit, pink covers and all, still have a great deal to teach me.

Stranger Flings: Writing to Mr. Right

It's not every day that a toy store saleswoman and a puppeteer fall in love.  But that's just what happens in Kerry Winfrey's Very Sincerely Yours.  Their meet-cute?  Theodora "Teddy" Phillips starts stalking local kiddie TV show host Everett St. James.  Maybe stalking is too strong a word.  After all, it isn't Teddy's fault that her dud of a doctor boyfriend dumped her instead of proposing, forcing her to seek comfort in emailing an entertainer best known for curing emotional boo-boos.  

Now may be a good time to point out that Teddy could've been tiresome.  The woman wore nothing but neutrals because her boyfriend told her to, then made him dinner post-breakup just because he texted her he was hungry.  Need I say more?  A wussy-woman-scorned-turned-needy-fangirl might've made for a soggy last straw.  But Winfrey's pitch perfect prose paints Teddy as more sympathetic than sad sack, rendering her epistolary relationship with Everett as a step forward rather than a leap back.  Because there's something about pouring your heart out to a stranger.  You can tell them things you'd never tell people you know, and writing is more cathartic than speaking.  Maybe that's why I liked Teddy and Everett better on paper than in real life.  

Which may say more about me, an incorrigible introvert, than it does about Winfrey.  After all, I've read and loved three of her other books: Waiting for Tom Hanks, Not Like the Movies, and Love and Other Alien Experiences.  They checked all my fiction boxes, i.e., overflowed with the kind of colorful quirkiness and trigger-quick dialogue that make storytelling special.  What's more, I recently read another rom com about a couple who met through letters, and it left a much be desired.  (Can't remember that one?  That's because I never blogged about it.  Exactly -- and also, you're welcome.)  So although Very Sincerely Yours doesn't top my Winfrey list, I still sincerely enjoyed it.  And anyway, there are lots of other books in the sea.  

Like Winfrey's Just Another Love Song, which will be out in August.

A Case of Space: Reach for the Mars Bar

Alien Admirer Barrette Brooch

Everyone wonders if there's something else out there.  Like little green men on a moon made of cheese or slimy mammoths that can crush us like bugs.  But Roswell-based, seventeen-year-old Mallory Sullivan is certain that Earth isn't the only game in the solar system.  A fan of outer space and all things alien, she's a regular on a message board called We Are Not Alone, or WANA.  On it, she connects -- and argues -- with a brilliant but snarky stranger.  

"Um, okay, Tote Trove Lady," you may be thinking.  "But who the heck's Mallory, and why should I put down my Pringles to care?" 

I'll answer that question by asking another.  Remember Kerry Winfrey, author of rom com-rific novels Waiting for Tom Hanks and Not Like the Movies?  Well, her first book was a YA novel called Love and Other Alien Experiences.  It's light-hearted and colorful and bubbly.  And it's about a girl named Mallory who never, ever leaves the house.  Mallory's always been anxious.  But her agoraphobia didn't start until her dad left her, her mom, and her younger brother Linc.  Now she gets panic attacks every time she opens her front door and goes to school via Zoom.  Other than her mom and Linc, her best friend Jenni is the only person she talks to IRL.  Her mom and therapist are frustrated with her, and her mom has installed a tracker on her computer to limit her time online.  It isn't until Mallory is -- surprise! -- nominated for homecoming queen that she's forced to interact with others.  This means partnering up with school heartthrob and quarterback Brad on a physics project.  It also means spending time with Brad's stepbrother, the mysterious and arrogant Jake.  Brad is a loveable dunce; Jake is an antisocial genius.  But both are important in encouraging Mallory to begin to confront her phobia.  

Now, that's all pretty out there.  And I'm not just talking about the homecoming queen part (although Mallory does get to try on some funky thrift store dresses).  The really weird thing is that in the last book I read, Elin Hilderbrand's 28 Summers, the heroine was also named Mallory, the love interest was also named Jake (sorry not sorry; surely, you saw that one coming), and there was another Linc.  Only this time it was spelled Link and he was Mallory's son instead of her brother.  I don't know about you, but I can already hear The Twilight Zone music playing.  28 Summers, by the way, is a Nicholas Sparks-level tearjerker.  No one in it has a debilitating psychological disorder; it's a drama about star-crossed love vs. humdrum marriage.  But it's super sad and made me cry.  Love and Other Alien Experiences, on the other hand, seems like it would be as serious as an abduction but instead has a top-forty-soundtrack-neon-palette vibe.  I mean, the popular guy isn't even a jerk!  Which just goes to show that it's the tone and not the subject matter that makes or breaks a novel's gravity -- and a protagonist's spirit.  On the surface, I prefer 28 Summers.  Because I'm a grown-up.  And because it includes yet another reference to Cherries in the Snow as being someone's ideal red lipstick (even if that someone is the villain).  Yet romance and Revlon aside, it's Love and Other Alien Experiences that I'm compelled to quote here today.  This is what Mallory tells us:

"That's what I like about the Internet -- I'm allowed to be silent, to think, to just sit.  I don't have to worry about whether I have something in my teeth or if my bangs look greasy.  My awkward conversation skills don't even matter, and I can be the best version of myself on-screen." (99)

A girl who's afraid to go outside but obsessed with the wide open spaces of, well, outer space, is a closed and open book all at once.  The idea of running into the mean girls at school unnerves her, but aliens?  No big deal.  The great unknown of the galaxy is more comforting than the certain uncertainty of high school and a runaway dad.  Unlike the Mallory in 28 Summers, I've never had a forbidden romance.  But like the Mallory in Love and Other Alien Experiences, I know what it's like to be more comfortable in the virtual world than the real one.  To lean in to the luxury of being able to process and curate my thoughts instead of delivering a clever comeback with zero prep time.  Also, to fart whenever I want to.     

Which is, of course, one of the many reasons that I love crafting (the solitude, that is, not the farting).  Crafting, like reading and writing, is a party for one that runs on my own timetable.  I made this Alien Admirer Barrette Brooch before I read Love and Other Alien Experiences.  But the book had been hiding, Jedi-style, in the recesses of my Amazon shopping list.  So maybe it did influence the idea for this disembodied green head floating amid the flowers.    

Tank: Say What?, JCPenney

The husband says that the alien and steer skull eyes in my felt work are the same.  Which is kind of funny because both aliens and steer skulls can be found in the desert -- the desert of Roswell.  Here's one of my much-posted desert scapes for comparison: 

Fabulous Felt Desert Barrette

This felt phenomenon is my kind of eerie; no Fire in the Sky for me!  But I like that Mallory likes aliens.  Because they, and the other people who like them, make her feel like she's less alone.  I'm glad that one of them turned out to be her person.  

And that she didn't wear that bloodstained dress to the prom.

Life Imitates Heart: Putting the Moves on Movies

Not Like the Movies is like the movies because it's a novel that's rom com gold.  Kerry Winfrey's (and no, she's not related to Oprah) sequel to Waiting for Tom Hanks has it all: romance, snappy dialogue, and baked goods for days, and it picks up right where Tom Hanks left off.  Big things are happening for Annie Cassidy.  Her first screenwriting coup, Coffee Girl, is about to debut, and she's tying the knot with her very own Tom Hanks, actor Drew Danforth.  But in Not Like the Movies, the spotlight is turned on her bestie, Chloe Sanderson.  Wise-cracking, colorful inside and out, and with a life that's in shambles, Chloe is every inch the quirky, chick flick sidekick.  She struggles to look after and financially support her father, who has early-onset Alzheimer's, while slogging away at a coffee shop and finishing her degree online.  Her only bright spots are the unusual pies she bakes (whiskey apple, anyone?) and the rainbow-rific clothes she wears, both of which help her avoid the mini breakdowns that she refers to as "Five-Minute Cries."  (There's a whole sequence where she mocks marketing her time-limited tears strategy in an infomerical.  Hilarious.)  But as it turns out, Chloe's troubles are only beginning.  Because Annie's movie is all about her and the will-they-won't-they thing she's got going with her boss, Nick.  Chloe doesn't want anything to do with Nick.  He's crotchety and set in his ways, a reluctant coffee shop owner who's thirty going on sixty.  He likes his broody indie rock, thank you very much, a passion he gamely defends to yacht rock-loving Chloe on a daily basis.  He's like Ray from "Girls."  Only cute and not a sad sack.

Unlike Annie, Chloe isn't a disciple of rom coms.  Actually, she hates them (true crime is her thing) and is intent on avoiding love -- making her, as Annie is quick to point out, just the sort of woman-who-has-no-time-for-love about and for whom rom coms are made.  But the thing is, Chloe's likable.  And it's fun -- if sometimes sad -- to join her on her journey of getting knocked down and back up again.  Even when she tries to distract herself from Nick by glomming on to a dense but affable stoner named Mickey Danger.   

Sounds like everything else you've read, right?  Some of it is -- which is what makes it comfy.  But some of it's not, which is what makes it clever.  The real beauty of Winfrey's writing is that she (lovingly, reverently) lampoons rom coms even as she celebrates them.  She's a smart, funny woman who owns her adoration for all things girly -- so, a goddess.  She doesn't take herself too seriously and in doing so (not doing so?), shows us that rom coms are -- wait for it -- not always the stuff of fantasies but sometimes the stuff of real life.  And there's no better heroine to deliver this message than Chloe.  She's believable because she's so against it.  Kind of like someone who hates marshmallows (not that I imagine such a freak of nature exists) but then is force-fed a bunch and admits they're delicious.  

Which brings us to the point in the book report post where I share my favorite parts.  Or, as I like to call them, passages, because it makes them sound like secret passageways.  Only they're not so secret because I'm telling you.  

On Chloe walking down the lackluster hallways of her dad's assisted living facility:

"But that's why I'm dressed in one of my favorite outfits.  A red skirt that flares out to my knees, and a shirt with red and purple flowers, topped with a bright yellow cardigan.  Some may call it "kindergarten teacher chic," but I know what it is to me: a slight pop of color in a world full of beige." (96)

On the outfit Chloe wears to Annie's premiere:

"I chose a sexy/funky dress, one that shows off my body while still mixing patterns, with stripes on top and a green-and-purple floral pattern on the bottom.  It says, Yes, I'm quirky, but also, boobs.  It's kind of like if ModCloth and some skanky store at the mall had a baby." (214)

Yes, both of these "passages" are about clothes.  So no, ahem, secret there.  But they're also about so much more.  Because clothes make the woman.  And this woman's a winner.    

That said, Not Like the Movies is as magical as an outfit montage.  Buoyed by a supporting cast of returning characters such as trips-over-his-own-feet barista Tobin, Wookie-suit-wearing Uncle Don, and ferret-obsessed shop regular Gary, it's weird in the most warm-hearted way.  Will Chloe sail toward true love or end up alone like that classic yacht rock heroine Brandy?  I'd say you have to read the book to find out, but let's be honest: rom coms aren't about the world's Brandys.  They're about happy endings, life's pie a la mode. 

And that, of course, is why we love them.

Silver Screen Dream: Reel Romance

Fabulous Felt Filmstrip Barrettes

Top: Candie's, Kohl's

Cami: Macy's

Skirt: Delia's, Dolls Kill

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Wallet: Betsey Johnson

Belt: Wet Seal

Necklace: The Tote Trove

Last week, I read a novel by a new (to me) author, which is always exciting.  It's called Waiting for Tom Hanks, and it's by Kerry Winfrey.  The main character is Annie, a Midwestern rom-com-obsessed aspiring screenwriter who's waiting for Mr. Right -- which, to her, means a guy like Tom Hanks.  (Quick aside.  Annie's fixation isn't as weird as it may seem.  I remember reading a Glamour article that said when women say they want Tom Cruise, what they really mean is they want Tom Hanks.  Of course, this was back before I gave up on magazines.  And before Tom Cruise jumped on that couch.)  But when Annie scores a gig as an assistant on a movie set, she collides, coffee cup in hand, with alpha actor Drew Danforth (meet cute, check!), causing her to rethink her plans for landing a self-deprecating copilot.  Sure, Annie has misgivings of the classic rom-com heroine's but-this-wasn't-the-plan! variety.  But she also has the classic feisty BFF who Will.  Not.  Let.  Her.  Squander this opportunity.  So, she and Drew strike up a friendship that turns into more.  Their rapport is surprisingly easy, which I didn't quite trust, as Hollywood is reputed to be something of a dream-crushing shark tank.  But I banished my inner cynic, choosing to believe that love could bloom between a girl who lives with her Dungeons and Dragons-playing uncle and a guy who gets paid to French models.  Drew encourages Annie in her screenwriting endeavor, going as far as to talk her up to the director.  It's sweet and nice and something that you wish could happen.  Still, their romance isn't without problems.  For one, there's the ever-present paparazzi (so pesky!), and for another, Annie discovers a secret about her dead mother's past (somehow, these things always surface).  It forces her to shake her fantasy -- i.e. all those things she thought she wanted -- to get to her reality.  Which, this being a rom-com, ends up being a lot like her fantasy anyway.

Waiting for Tom Hanks is breezy and quirky and has lots of heart.  And something Annie said stuck with me.  She loves rom-coms in general and Nora Ephron rom-coms in particular because they're not about everything being sewed up at the end.  They're about women finding a partner to help them weather life's storms.  It's not that the guy is the be-all-end-all.  It's that having someone along for the ride makes the ride easier.  And I think that's something that everyone - whether they watch rom-coms or sci fi or anime -- can agree on.

And now for a walk-on from my Fabulous Felt Filmstrip barrettes!  Black and yellow and solidly square, they represent any movie anyone wants to see.  I like that they have that old-fashioned, outdated tech look, like, say, a rotary phone or boombox.  I mean, no one wants a cute little likeness of an iPhone or Alexa, right?  Unless maybe it's a barrette of what Alexa's face looks like.   

I'll tell my people to get on it.