No Modern Day Cinderella Here, I'm Afraid...

I just got to the office and I'm already to go home. It's a windy day out there, cool, crisp and sunny. I was too comfortable in my bed this morning before my alarm woke me up and though I argued with myself as to why I should go to work, I ended up losing as I usually do.

So, here I am. I currently am listening to KROQ on the computer. It's nice to be tuned in to my former L.A. radio station. I do get confused sometimes when they run local ads and for a split second, I have to remind myself that I can't drive down to Long Beach on Saturday because Long Beach is over 2000 miles away. Still, I like the music better on KROQ than the stuff they play on the radio here.

I haven't been listening to the radio on the way to work lately. I've been listening to audiobooks. I love to do that. I usually alternate between a Harry Potter book on CD and something else. No matter how many times I read the Harry Potter books, they always sound different when I listen to them. I think it's the brilliance of Jim Dale, the reader of the audiobooks. He's amazing to listen to and he brings the book to life.

At the moment, I'm listening to a fluffy chick-lit book by Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic series. This book is called Remember Me and it's about a hapless young woman who, naturally, is slightly overweight and not happy with her looks. One night she has an accident where she falls down some steps and wakes up in a hospital only to find out it's three years later than she thinks and she's apparently been living a life she cannot remember.

In this life which apparently came between falling down the steps and a car crash, she's transformed, naturally, from an ugly ducking into a swan. She has the type of perfect multi-millionaire husband who can only be found in chick lit: drop-dead good looking, polished tastes and seemingly madly in love with her.

I'm only a third of the way through. I'm sure things aren't as perfect with him as they seem. I'll find out. I just find it absolutely amazing that in the world of women's fiction, there is a seemingly endless supply of these rich men, just waiting to fall in love with an endearingly 'normal' woman. Take, for example, Bridget Jones, who really was the pioneer character in defining chick lit. Now, our Bridget was not only only the first but also the best character, in my opinion. She was the type of woman who could never lose the extra weight that she put on because she couldn't stick to a diet because she likes chocolate to much. She spills things, breaks things, says the wrong thing. She is a woman most of us can relate to, not gorgeous but...normal looking. When she landed Mark Darcy, I cheered for her because he confessed he loved her 'just the way she was'. What woman doesn't want to hear that?

Since then, chick lit has taken a dive. The heroine is far less detailed and believable. She's usually very pretty but thinks she looks bad because she hates her hair. She usually has a good job but hates it because she's not the boss. She has a circle of friends who bring her down to earth and support her in her dating perils. Then...she meets him, Mr. Perfect. He's always rich. He's always enamoured with our heroine's 'normalness', often forsaking a gaggle of polished supermodel types to spend time with her. He always ends up falling for her even though she lies constantly to try to make him think she's less 'normal' and something special.

I don't know how Remember Me will end but at the moment, it does seem to have skipped to the end already. Our heroine has landed her man, she's now a polished member of society who goes to the gym twice a day. She has the stylish home of the rich: minimalist, everything's automated and, of course, the kitchen is cold and marble.

Why is it that the rich men always have these 'cold' kitchens? Every chick lit book I've read in which the heroine goes to the rich man's house, there's a scene where she's wowed by the modernness of the place and in which she seems the granite grey, stainless steel kitchen and can't find the fridge. I think it'd be nifty to have a man who actually uses his kitchen, who has garlic on the countertop, who looks like he uses his kitchen.

Most of all, I want to know, where is this supply of rich, handsome, easily-won men? No matter where the novel is set, the heroine finds one. He's a real estate mogal, magazine owner, stockbroker...something that earns him millions of dollars a year. He's always charmed by the clumsy heroine as she blunders her way through a situation. He usually rescues her from her messy life in which her sink is broken, her apartment is drafty or her credit card bill is overdue.

I'm sure the book I'm currently listening to will attempt to have a twist. Perhaps our heroine will realize that she liked being a frizzy-haired minion rather than a sleek-haired boss because her life was normal that way and she's more comfortable with normal. Perhaps she'll find a way to bring her rich, beautiful husband down a little closer to the level of life which which she is comfortable and the two will fall in love and move to a cosy house in the country. I'm not sure. Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be happy for the heroine. After all, these are our modern day Cinderellas, aren't they?

You may wonder why I read these books even though they seem to irk me. Truth is, sometimes, it's nice to be irked. Rather like Bridget Jones on a diet who cannot resist the pull of a Kit-Kat, I'm like that with chick lit. I know I should be reading more meaningful literature, something that has some bearing on real life. Yet, every now and again, I want to let my brain melt a little and not have to think. I like chick-lit, it's my version of cheating on a diet. I know the stories are silly and will never happen in real life but much like with a bedtime story that we heard as a child, it's nice to dream once in a while.

It doesn't mean that I'm not going to complain while I'm listening to the book. Our heroine's first question about her husband when she discovered she was married but had yet to meet her spouse in Remember Me was, "is he good looking"? Me, it'd probably be more like, "wow, how'd that happen?!" The fact that I'd found a husband would be so shocking, I wouldn't be thinking about how he looked, I'd be more flabbergasted that I'd finally managed to commit to someone and I couldn't even remember who he was. I'd probably be beating my head against the wall than admiring my beautiful teeth in a mirror like Lexi in Remember Me because it would be so typical that I'd finally managed to get my life in gear and I couldn't remember a damn thing about it. I wouldn't be entranced with the 'perfectness' of my 'new' life, I'd be too busy trying to find out when the pod-people had come and taken the real me away and what they'd done in that three years I couldn't remember. Then I'd be paranoid about my family and demand to see each of them to make sure they were alright. Then I'd find out if I'd written any new novels in that three years. Then find out who won "Top Chef: Las Vegas" and "The Next Iron Chef". Also, if there was a new Green Day album out. Also, if there was any new Sookie Stackhouse books. Then, when my husband came in and looked like a supermodel mannequin, I'd probably stare at him in shock and ask why the heck he'd married me and if we still lived in my little house. If he said no, I'd probably be very sad because of all that damn cranberry wall painting I'd done and I'd get upset and kick him out so I could think about it. Then I'd call one of my good friends and ask what the heck had been going on for three years. Then I'd want to see Sausage.

This is probably why I don't write chick-lit.

Happy Monday.

In Defense of Chick Lit...

Today, I was going to write this blog about romantic comedies and the annoying art of the 'chick flick'. I was going to muse aloud at how those movies always have actresses playing 'normal' girls when the actresses never, for one moment, ever look unattractive in the film. Even when they're supposed to look bad, they still end up looking as good as most of us normal folk do on a good day. I was going to also muse about how, in these movies, someone always goes to the grocery store and emerges with one of the brown grocery sacks packed beautifully with the fresh veggies sticking out on the top with a perfectly placed baguette sticking out of the bag. Have you ever tried to get a loaf of bread to really do that? I have. I've tried. It's all about stuffing the bag so much that the baguette can't move and it still wobbles over, catching on things so that you wonder if it's still edible. Yet in these films, the bag only contains a few items and the bread stands perfectly up, all on its own.

I also wondered who really runs around a corner to punch the air in excitement when she's about to have sex with a good looking man. Also, where are these brilliant, beautiful, broody men who seem to be waiting for the right misfit girl to come around the corner and fall in love with them?

Then I realized that I was just musing about romantic comedies, I was also musing about chick lit books. If you haven't read any of them, you may be unfamiliar with the genre. Yet think of books like Bridget Jones' Diary, or Confessions of a Shopaholic, or any book you see in a bookstore with hot pink on the cover or a pair of legs with fabulous shoes on the feet or a pretty girl obscured in some fancy modern art way. They're usually books about single women seeking their prince charming. I confess, I enjoy reading these books sometimes. Some of the authors are actually very good writers: Marian Keyes and Jennifer Weiner come to mind. Both of those authors manage to take what could be a fluffy story but deepen it, make it more real, wound it a little and give it scars.

Yet not all of the books do. Most of them follow a certain formula. Basically an slightly-insecure woman (with or without a few extra pounds) who is struggling to find herself (usually by working in a magazine or a public relations firm)* meets a man, obstacles arise, misunderstandings happen and, yet, always our insecure heroine lands Mr. Perfect and wrestles him from the arms of someone stunningly sexy and beautiful.

*(side note: I have always wondered why these women only ever work for magazines or do P.R. I mean, there are other jobs out there. Then again these are the jobs that require women to dress up, go to fancy functions and be exposed to a glamourous world, I suppose. Still, I'm very bored with those worlds now, thank you).

As I've said, I do enjoy these books. To me, they're like going to the grocery store after a bad day at work. You skip the good, healthy foods and, instead, grab a frozen pizza, ice-cream, wine, salt and vinegar potato chips and a jar of maraschino cherries just because they're good to eat straight from the jar. Then you go home, put in an old-but-cherished movie, and slowly work through your buyings. When you're done, you feel full. You feel guilty because now you're probably going to have to exercise to get rid of the badness you just ingested. Yet while you're eating all of that crap, it tastes perfect. It's not food for your body, it's food to soothe your poor bruised soul that just needs to be loved a little.

Chick lit and chick flicks are just like that pile of badness you buy from the grocery store. You know they're not good literature or cinematic works of art and yet they have their place in the world.

As a writer, you'd think I'd resent these books particularly at the volume they're getting published. Every time I go to Borders, there are more, piled on a table, the bright, vivid perkiness of the fonts on the covers screaming their genre without me really needing to read the back cover. If you go to the library, the spines of the books jump out from the more somber works that surround them, their vivacity calling out to be read, to be that binge you secretly crave.

Yet I don't resent them at all. In fact, I think they're necessary. They're good beach books. They're excellent airplane books. It's hard to read on a plane anyway. There are always babies crying, flight attendants bustling by, rummaging in the overhead. There's always the person in the row behind you who grabs the back of your seat as they stand up to go to the bathroom and you suddenly feel your head being jerked back and forth. Fluffy books are easy to read. If you lose your place, it's easy to find again. Little brain power is necessary to comprehend the words that are written on the page in front of you.

For you, it may not be a chick lit book that serves this purpose. I know that men have thier own brand of 'male lit' (known by the cruder term of 'dick lit'). It's a lot more masculine than a woman seeking her perfect evening gown and usually involves guns and explosions. Then there are the Louis L'Amour westerns, tales of rugged cowboys fighting for their survival, their women, their land on the great American frontier. And yes, actually, I have read some Louis L'Amour, thank you very much. My father is a big fan and it was hard to grow up and not be politely coerced to read some of them.

As a writer, I've thought about writing a chick lit book. I don't think it would be too hard. Yet the market for them is flooded and there's a lot of competition. They're not as easy to write as you'd think, anyway. As I've mentioned before, my attempt at a light romance turned into a dark and twisty tale with elements of abuse and the pain of a broken heart. So I think I'll leave it to the Sophie Kinsella's of the world, the Helen Fieldings, the Jane Green's. They're good at what they do. I may try again someday. I think the problem is that although I'd love my life to be a romantic comedy complete with the perfectly packed bag of groceries, the baguette sticking out on top, I know that life isn't really like that. In real life, the grocery bag would split, the bread tumbling out on the filthy street, no longer edible or, just as bad, the store doesn't carry baguettes, just soft, floppy old loaves of bread that just don't look as glamourous.

I do sometimes wish I did live in a chick lit book. I'd love to meet my Mr. Right, to banter with him wittily instead of blurting out sillyness, bordering on a stutter. I'd love to go to glamourous functions and somehow be able to afford a $500 pair of shoes (although, knowing me, I'd probably go to TJ Maxx for the shoes and use the rest of the money for bills). I'd love to just know he's Mr. Right and not mind that he might be a workaholic and that he has an ex-wife who looks like Cindy Crawford. I'd like to not mind that he has flaws and be able to ignore them because otherwise he's perfect, the way he is in the books.

Unfortunately, life isn't like that. It's probably better that way, it makes it more interesting even if the polished finish isn't so glamourous and shiny. Granted, at heart, I think most women wish that Prince Charming existed but it's probably better that he doesn't. It's better that we can live out our fantasies on paper because in real life, they're never as simple. So I will continue to sporadically escape into the world of Shopaholics, Commitmentphobes, neurotic women who supposedly represent me because somehow, when I start reading about them, they kind of do.

Happy Thursday.