The Vintage Reader

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and the baby is still in the hospital, but now it's another hospital in another city, and I'm staying at the Ronald McDonald House. If you live in a city with a children's hospital, there's probably a Ronald McDonald House there; their purpose is to provide a place for out-of-town parents to stay while their children are being treated at the hospital. It's really an amazing service--volunteers provide meals and food, there are shuttles to the hospital every couple of hours, and of course, everybody here is going through the same thing, so there's a lot of peer support.

But on top of all of that, it's a veritable smorgasbord of vintage reading and watching. The first week, I read The Last Convertible, which is part of that genre of books that came out from the mid-70s to early 80s about Ivy Leaguers in the 40s and 50s. My hands-down favorite in the genre is Rona Jaffe's Class Reunion, and The Last Convertible doesn't even come close. I went looking for Class Reunion on the off chance that it would be squirreled away in one of the many bookcases that are scattered around the house, but only found Mazes and Monsters, Jaffe's novel that was loosely based on the real story of a kid who got lost in a cave playing a live-action D&D game. (I found a book about the real kid, written by the private detective who found him, at a book sale; it was awful, and I've had it up on Paperback Swap for months with no nibbles.) M&M is okay too, but as an adult I don't find it as appealing as I did when I saw the TV movie. Of course, when the movie came out I had a huge crush on Chris Makepeace (What? He was kind of the Thinking Girl's Heartthrob before John Cusack came along), so that might explain it.

I did take the opportunity to pick up a fairly recent popular chick lit novel that I've never wanted to pay for. I made it through one chapter. I keep thinking I should get off my high horse and give chick lit another chance, but every time I do I have the same reaction--I want to throw the book across the room and write a protest letter to the publisher.

In the vintage watching category, there are tapes and DVDs that you wouldn't believe. A two-tape set of Exodus, still shrink-wrapped, and...

OH MY GOD, THAT'S DINAH MANOFF! (sorry, I'm watching Ordinary People on TV. I've never seen it all the way through before. After four weeks of perusing the vintage tape selections, I'm back to watching TV--local TV, plus a couple of educational access channels and home shopping. I love the clothes in this movie because they actually look like things I was wearing in 1980.)

Anyway, this is basically a throwaway post; I'm just trying to get my blogging chops back. Mr. Vintage Reader and I are keeping a blog of our baby's progress, but that's different--I have to be all chirpy and positive all the time over there, because our families and friends and co-workers are all reading it. I don't feel the same obligation here, although this particular post is a result of my trying to find something fun and positive about being by myself in the Ronald McDonald House, six and a half hours from home, with my little guy (who I have to say is adorable, even though I'm not really what you might call a baby person) still in the hospital several blocks away, on a Saturday night.