After a crazy June, July is shaping up to be oh-so pleasant. The kids are tucked away at camp. I’m humming along merrily on some work during my morning free time. My tomato plants and basil are sky high.
And everywhere I turn, I’m finding warm and fuzzy things to read.
Loved this post by Sam who is softy like myself about relationships and love. He mentions a fascinating study by Duke researchers who found that Americans are increasingly isolated from their community, but may be more attached to their spouses.
Tim Burke writes a lovely post about suburbia, which I will have to expand on next week. Tim writes, “My bookshelf and my birdhouses feel just as satisfying to me at this point as working on scholarship, the sense of ownership over our home and yard is a warming comfort, the relative sense of safety and room for raising a child is a load off my mind, and in that, I think I’ve become a Suburban Dad just like any other.”
And David Brooks writes about my second favorite city, Chicago. “Twenty-five years ago when I was in Chicago beginning my career, I used to go to the Billy Goat Tavern to drink like a reporter. The Billy Goat — half relic, half tourist trap — was under Michigan Avenue between The Tribune and The Sun-Times. It had laminated articles, half-forgotten bylines, and pictures of dead reporters tacked all over the walls. I could sit and imagine I was breathing the same air that had been inhaled by George Ade, Nelson Algren, Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene Field and Mike Royko.”
Three good links about home and family and place.
Apt. 11d 
A few weeks ago I read a book called A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity, which fits into the women’s fiction tradition (the author herself used to write romance novels, which is how I’m familiar with her). The novel is about an opting-out mother (lawyer who gave up career to be full-time mom), but the thing that really struck me is how she felt so much more in tune with her 3 female friends than her husband. In fact, one of the key moments is when her friend’s mother points out that the women are better friends with each other than with their husbands, and they have to learn to let their husbands be their friends.
Now, I consider my husband my best friend, and I read the book with a feeling of envy for people who had such close female friends (we’ve moved 5 times in 7 years; I have many online friends, but fewer real-life friends). I felt I was out of the ordinary, and now the NY Times “Lonely American” article is telling me I am closer to the norm. I just found that kind of ironic.
Anyway, I recommend the book as a light but thought-provoking read.
LikeLike
Here let me give the link for that Lonely American article.
No, you’re not alone, WendyW. Close ties to spouse, less with others is the growing norm. I have my best buddies that I’ve been close with for twenty years and even a few buddies from way back in sixth grade, but, as I grow older, it is has been harder to make the effort with new people who live close by. It’s just laziness on my part.
LikeLike
Chicago — my goodness! When I was a copy girl on the old Chicago Sun (in the then Daily News building), one reporter had me regularly go across the street to Kappy’s Bar & Grill to get his whiskey in a paper coffee cup!
LikeLike