The Memory Keeper’s Coat

Okay, I lied. There was no graphic post coming. I don’t have permission yet. But you know, keep tuned to this station, or something like that. I have seen my new covers (there’s a new one for the paperback of Secret Society Girl as well as one for Under the Rose) and they are very cool. They’re going to pop from the shelves. It’s also amazing to me, because, as I’ve said before, I’m a complete disaster when it comes to art, so I’m overwhelmed to discover that they’ve actually incorporated one of my designs into the covers. I love it! There might be a new design of the blog coming along with it, but that remains to be seen.

I was so amused by yesterday’s comments thread where everyone was coming up with their pop star name. Sailor Boy (whose pop star name is AWESOME, by the way) told me that most of us were being too limited, except for Miss M-to-the-G. For instance, sometimes Lindsay Lohan is called LiLo, or all of the celebrity couples who go by mixes of their names: Brangelina, Bennifer, etc. My celebrity couple name, btw, rocks, and if SB weren’t so under-the-radar around here, I could share it. Suffice to say it involves mathematical symbols. (Man, could I be keeping any more secrets on this blog today?) So anyway, I need to think of a better pop star nickname for myself. But DiPe doesn’t work. At. All. Yuck. I’ll be considering this further.

While we’re on the subject of popstars, you know how everyone makes fun of Madonna for co-opting a British accent? I think I would totally do that if I lived in Great Britain. You just start talking like the people around you. You absorb it, because, wow, go figure, your brain was meant to absorb languages and adapt. This is usually considered a good thing. They actually send students of foreign languages overseas to work on their accents. But Madonna is labeled a poser. I’m giving her a break because I know I’d be the same way. It’s not, “Hey, British accents are cool, I’m getting me one of those!” (Though they are cool.)

Though I never did co-opt an Aussie accent. In fact, I don’t even think I could fake one. I did however, pick up a few choice Aussie phrases, such as “she’ll be right,” “chockers,” “How are you going?” and my favorite, “full on.” Ah, Australia! Land of such happy vernacular!

(Okay, fine, here’s a graphic for you…proving once again that SB has nothing on me when it comes to taking pictures. The one of him in front of the Sydney Opera House has no hair in his face at all… though, it might be because his was short.)

On the subject of speech patterns (and I know Robin likes to talk about this), I find that whenever I go through a particularly intense period of writing, I take on the characteristics and yes, even the speech (and writing) patterns, of my protagonists. For instance, in this post, I’m talking like Amy. I’ve caught myself using several Amyesque turns of phrase. Interesting, no?

And, for my brother, who wants more “personal” stuff in my blog: So you know how I went to Connecticut and brought back stuff I’ve had in storage since the year I graduated from college? I haven’t really unpacked it at all yet. It’s just sitting in my living room. But I did open one box, and inside were all my winter coats. Since it’s gotten freezing here in DC, I threw one on tonight when I went out to pick up food. It’s a knee-length gray wool toggle coat with a detachable hood, one of those LL Beanjobs with the quilted lining and the “temperature rating” down to such-and-such degrees. (I do not trust that temp rating however, seeing as how I wore that coat every day for several months out of the year for four years, and I have weak Florida blood besides.) Anyway, I was wearing it and walking around my neighborhood with my hands in my pockets and my fingers naturally gravitated back to that one loose string, that one frayed edge, as if it hadn’t been about six years since my hand was inside that pocket. And though this coat was my usual go-to winter coat, and I wore it all the time in college, and even in NYC the year after college, and therefore I should have a ton of memories about that coat, there was only one that came to the surface of my mind.

Seven years ago on Saturday, I wore this coat. I wore it even though it wasn’t quite cold enough in New Haven for me to usually pull out the big gray winter coat. That night, I wasn’t wearing much underneath. It was the weekend of Halloween, and I was in a pair of sparkly jeans (which, trust me, were totally the height of popularity in 2000) and a gun-metal gray cropped tank, and it was probably the most conservative outfit I’d had on all night (long story involving Tim Curry) and I was standing in the suite of a boy I barely knew. I was looking at my reflection in the mirror and zipping up my coat and he was teasing me. I could see him smiling at me over the shoulder of my reflection. His hair was pretty curly, and very blonde still, from the summer he’d spent teaching sailing in the Caribbean, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how crazy I’d been to kiss him. It wasn’t me. And yet, there I was, standing in his suite, in my coat, having kissed him quite a lot.

And here I am now, in my apartment, thinking very seriously about going over and kissing him again. See ya.