Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal Read online

  He will have asked for her hand

  He will have given her a piece of paper

  It will have been something he realized years ago

  He will have been waiting all this time to share it

  Anagram for the word anagram:

  Agra man

  Ana, I’m your Agra man.

  HISTORY

  ——— Fall 2002

  I am thinking good and hard about trying to turn my notes (what will eventually become Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life) into some kind of a novel. It seems like that is what I am supposed to do: Get serious and tackle fiction already. Why be so hopelessly fixated on the truth, always telling it exactly like I see it, like I feel it against my skin? Alas, sitting in a room with all these scattered notes, observations, and word chunks, and trying to weave them into a made-up story (what story?) gives me heart palpitations and only further amplifies my shortcomings and nonfiction predilection.

  ——— January 2003

  It occurs to me: What if I dump all the scattered notes, observations, and word chunks into the lap(top) of a fiction writer? A fiction writer with a penchant for collaborative, uncompensated experimentation. A fiction writer who would not find it tiresome or pointless to concoct an imaginary, truth-sprinkled version to live alongside the truth-truth version.

  ——— Spring 2003

  A fiction writer pal—whose debut novel is in the works and who has no clue he will soon become a colossal, international success—says yes. He swiftly pens a robust tale involving my third-grade teacher, Katie Holmes, and Birmingham, Alabama. It is like a foreign edition, only the translation in this case is from English nonfiction to English fiction.

  To read the short story, text Robust tale.

  ——— Summer 2003

  I am at a coffeehouse working on the first draft of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I write exactly what I see, how I feel it against my skin:

  There is a single purple flower a couple feet from where I am sitting. I am feeling poorly dressed and missing my long hair. I am at Café De Lucca in Bucktown, and there is a purple flower—that’s how I would define this moment. And you, your moment? Where are you at this moment? E-mail me and tell me. If you are the hundredth person to do so, I will bake you a pie and FedEx it to you. You will have to trust me on this.

  ——— Summer 2004

  Page 167 is designed.

  Click http://bit.ly/29DoNc7 to see a larger version of this text.

  ——— Early January 2005

  Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is published.

  ——— Mid-January 2005

  The hundredth email comes in. I bake and FedEx a pecan pie to a Mr. Evans of Orlando, Florida.

  ——— End of January 2005

  Mr. Evans confirms arrival and imminent consumption of pie.

  ——— Early February 2006

  The paperback edition is published and the pie offer goes into effect for the second time.

  ——— Mid-February 2006

  Ms. Hamilton submits the hundredth email. As it happens, Ms. Hamilton is also from Orlando, Florida, though no relation or connection to Mr. Evans at all.

  ——— January 2005–Present

  I read countless purple flower moments, from people of all ages, from all over the world. People write about grand things (love, loss) and wee things (it’s raining, there’s a grape on the floor). Sometimes an email dialogue sprouts, and then a friendship.

  This privileged peek into humanity brings to mind the scene in Wim Wenders’s movie Wings of Desire where the angel—in the form of a man riding the subway—scans the thoughts of his fellow passengers, tuning into their quotidian worries, existential ruminations, and simple, serene contentments.

  ——— Winter 2013

  Insights about pie seekers are summarized as a pie chart.

  ——— Summer 2015

  I gather half a dozen moments to create the following purple flower arrangement.

  Click http://bit.ly/29vMyl4 to see a larger version of these moments.

  ——— This moment now.

  Once again I must ask:

  Where are you?

  How would you describe this moment now?

  If yours is the hundredth submission,

  I will bake and FedEx you a pie.

  To submit your moment (and/or to view those from other readers), go to Purple Flower Moments at textbookamykr.com.

  There’s a spot for the pie winner front and center.

  MUSIC

  “The music is not in the notes,

  . . .

  but in the silence between.”

  (This quote has been attributed to both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Claude Debussy.)

  MATH

  September 16th is the most common birthday in the world

  +

  On average, a baby’s first word is spoken at 12 months of age

  =

  Click for answer

  (patience + silence) × coffee =

  Click for answer

  (patience + silence) × beer =

  Click for answer

  I am filling up at the gas station

  +

  My sons are in the backseat listening to music

  +

  My daughter runs inside to get cough drops

  =

  Click for answer

  10 toes

 

  1 pair of sandals revealing the first two toes on each foot

  =

  Click for answer

  Click for answer

  8/08/08 + 9/09/09 + 10/10/10 + 11/11/11 + 12/12/12 =

  Click for answer

  +

  turn page upside down

  =

  Click for answer

  son + onions =

  Click for answer

  1 bag frozen peas, cooked

 

  Small bunch of cilantro

 

  3 Tbs tahini

 

  2 cloves garlic

 

  Touch of olive oil

 

  Salt to taste

  ÷

  Cuisinart

  =

  Click for answer

  Backpack at feet

 

  Notebook in lap

  +

  Sugar wrappers on tray table

  +

  Fingertips prickly with the salt of mixed nuts

  +

  Music pouring through headphones

  +

  A magnificent, wide-awake sun bursting through a too-small window

  =

  Click for answer

  radiant

 

  redolent

 

  gorgeous

 

  melancholy

 

  patina

 

  rhapsody

 

  calm

  =

  Click for answer

  Nothing >

  Click for answer

  LANGUAGE ARTS

  I kept a vocabulary journal when I was 23. It was the year I moved to San Francisco for my first job. I filled the journal with the (many) words I came across in books and in the workplace that I either needed clarity on or just flat out did not know. I walked to work almost every day that year—it was 30 minutes from my tiny studio apartment to the office—and I used that time to study the definitions. I found it to be an enjoyable and rewarding routine, tackling what felt to me like big words and big hills. Just as each word had its own definition, each hill had its own thing: Atop one was the park where older Chinese women in slow motion and loose clothing practiced Tai Chi; one was the “walk up backwar
d” hill, something I forced myself to do, heeding the advice of an opinionated, physically fit friend. I’d arrive at work each morning flushed, a tad breathy, and armed with a new word or two to take out for a spin if I was feeling conversationally brave. Many of the people I spent time with that year are forever equated with the vocabulary word they taught me just by using it in my presence. Coworker Peter = sprightly. Boss Jeff = time-honored. Coworker Betsy = industrious. Over the years, the pages of the journal have aged and softened along with me.

  For a 7-minute audio recording of me reading words and definitions verbatim from the journal, text Vocabulary.

  Perhaps you will study these words on the way to your office too.

  The I fell off the sign on the storefront stoop. It now spelled NO SITTING ON STA RS. But dang, wouldn’t that be the best place of all to sit?

  I dreamt I was at an exhibit where all the art was hung close to the ground. We were instructed to move through the gallery on our knees. Not only was this the most natural way to view the art (continuously bending down would be uncomfortable), but—and this was really the whole point—being on our knees dictated the pace. The show was called Low and Slow.

  The same five letters can be rearranged to express my daily sense of—and relationship to—time. First from the viewpoint of childhood, then young adulthood, and now, the present.

  ACRES of it

  CARES about it

  RACES against it

  In 2001, I recorded the poet Kenneth Koch in his Upper East Side apartment reading his poem (one of my all-time favorites) “You Want a Social Life, With Friends.” I used my trusty, turn-of-the-century RadioShack tape recorder, which explains the sound quality, but I actually like the crackling and soundprooflessness. He was an impeccable, flawless reader, and we finished in two or three takes. Though he had been reluctant to agree to our session, once under way, he was a gracious, charismatic host. He had set up a tray for us with glasses of grapefruit juice. Fitting, because our encounter proved to be bittersweet; Mr. Koch died a year later. The recording is one of his very last.

  Click http://bit.ly/29PWLXA to see a larger version of this text.

  Text Koch to hear his one-minute recording.

  YOU GRATE

  YOU GREAT

  WE ARE ALONE

  WE ARE ALL ONE

  WRITING

  WRITHING

  For the first decade of my life, I could not fathom what it would be like to have anything to say to people. I could not imagine ever speaking in (what I would later learn were called) declarative sentences. Adults—everyone in those days was an adult, even teenagers—seemed to “get” life. This rendered them wondrously skilled at stitching together non-interrogative utterances. They were able to offer comments, opinions, and explanations. I was chronically baffled, a cascade of questions spilling out of me at every turn:

  Why is that lady doing that?

  Where do towels come from?

  Who actually makes towels?

  What is going on in that tall building over there?

  What is the man on the news even saying?

  What happens if I shake this?

  My plight (forever, I was certain) was to just figure out what the heck was going on with everyone everything everywhere.

  I was texting with someone who had just lost her father. I was about to send the words my phone is dying but caught myself. This typically innocuous phrase suddenly felt jarring, sharp, insensitive. Choosing clunky over colloquial, I texted her power running out!

  Word Frequency in My Text Messages

  Because I also write children’s books, there is a curious thing that transpires when people ask me about my work. I am often clarifying that I also write for adults, but saying adult books makes it sound like I write lewd porn-y stuff. The only viable solution so far seems to be saying I write grown-up books. But even that sounds wrong, and somehow infantilizing, like calling underwear big-girl underpants.

  Free to Be, or Not to Be

  The Bar Bar Graph

  The Bracket Bracket

  Text which bracket you deem the winner,

  Curly or Straight.

  Results regularly updated at textbookamykr.com.

  Really, what punctuation is one supposed to use?

  _____ died.

  _____ died!

  _____ died . . .

  Death demands its own designated punctuation mark.

  Maybe:

  _____ died /

  It is a dividing line / everything on this side is different.

  I opened the kitchen drawer and announced, We sure do have a plethora of ramekins! It struck me as a peculiar yet accurate cluster of words. It hung in the air . . . like mini, domestic skywriting. I wondered how it would sound in other languages.

  Click http://bit.ly/29JghWN to see a larger version of this table.

  Textbook rental,

  Same-day delivery

  Would you like me to show up at your door by day’s end?

  Perhaps you need a sous chef for your dinner party.

  Or you’d like me to be the tail in your citywide bunny hop.

  Send an idea that would prompt me to run upstairs, pack my bags, and race to the airport.

  I’ve always wanted to do something dramatic like this.

  First, text Amy rental.

  writer

  1. I did not always know I wanted to be a writer. But I have always loved words. I have always loved the alphabet. When Justin was four, he asked, What does it mean to be a writer? I gave him a long, rambling answer. He thought about it for a moment and said, So basically, you try to use all the letters?

  2. The word literature enters the room with its nose in the air. But get it in a corner, ask the right questions, and it will reluctantly fess up to its humble origins. It hails from the Latin litterae, you whisper in your date’s ear. It puts on a big act, but it literally just means “things made of letters.”

  3. I was enamored of typing from the moment it was first introduced to us in junior high. The act of typing is a happy, comfortable thing for me. My fingers feel at home on a keyboard, left hand resting atop a-s-d-f, right hand on j-k-l-semicolon. I like the cursor blinking, the coffee drinking, the sitting thinking.

  4. I think it is a strength, feeling tenderly about the nuts and bolts and tools of one’s trade. But maybe it’s not so much a strength, more like an indicator—strength implies that I had some role in it, and I don’t believe I did; I was simply born with a fondness for letters and language, and was predisposed to enjoy playing around with them and it. There is this anecdote from Annie Dillard: A painter was asked why he became a painter. He replied, Because I love the smell of paint.

  5. As far as job titles go, wordsmith sounds nice to me—plain and simple and straightforward, yet still alluding to a mastered craft. It harkens back to other livelihood labels like blacksmith and metalsmith, smudgy-hand tinkerers us all.

  6. I like that my first name happens to be the most symmetric name in the English language—first letter of the alphabet, exact middle letter of the alphabet, second-to-last letter of the alphabet. As far as I know, there is no such name as Amz.

  7. I am an alphabetical-order junkie. Love using it, love spotting it. I was pleased to notice, decades after the fact, that my siblings and I were named (not consciously) in a very spot-on kind of alphabetical order: close-in-age Amy and Beth, then a four-year gap, then close-in-age Joe and Katie. And now that I think about it, there is alphabetical precision to the names of my own offspring as well: exactly two years and two letters between each child: Justin, Miles, Paris.

  8. It can neither be concealed nor overstated: These types of things genuinely interest and delight me. One small wordplay discovery—say, figuring out that an anagram for maker is me, AKR—will make my whole day.

  9. Apparently the rules are that a sentence can’t c
ome right out and tell its writer what it is or wants to be, so the sentence gives the writer little clues, charade-style. The writer just keeps churning/blurting things out, groping at the answer, trying out every possible assemblage. It’s a sentence about a man! It’s a sentence about a woman! About a house? It’s a long sentence. It’s a short sentence? It’s a sentence connected to another sentence by an ellipsis! Three syllables, first syllable starts with L. Um . . . luminous! Oh, second syllable starts with an L. Alacrity? The sentence is elegant and light! The sentence has something to do with a pear? Forget it, I have no idea. Start over.