George Hodgman's Blog, page 2

The Art Institute of Chicago, such a magical day. They are rare. I am grateful.

The Art Institute of Chicago, such a magical day. They are rare. I am grateful.

Is Chicago the most beautiful city in America? I think so.

Is Chicago the most beautiful city in America? I think so.

On Sunday, I am going to be appearing at the Printer's Row Book Festival in Chic...

On Sunday, I am going to be appearing at the Printer's Row Book Festival in Chicago where I will be interviewed by the excellent critic, Elizabeth Taylor. If you happen to live in Chicago, I would love to meet you. Really looking forward to being in Chicago. Haven't been there since college. (I never forgave the city for the loss of Marshall Field!) For years I have wanted to see the new Art Institute. I am looking forward to that. When I was a kid and went with my parents, we went to the Berghoff for cheesecake and Ron of Japan. I also loved going to the top of the Hancock Center. Anyway, come if you can. Thanks!


2015 Printers Row Lit Fest
printersrowlitfest.org
Printers Row Lit Fest is the Midwests largest gathering of book lovers and runs June 6-7. It will play host to more than 200 authors and presenters in tents, stages, exhibits and indoor events stretching throughout the historic Printers Row neighborhood in the South Loop.

Betty, 2:46 pm: "Can't I have my gin and tonic early today? You're not that easy...

Betty, 2:46 pm: "Can't I have my gin and tonic early today? You're not that easy to live with."

We have a home health nurse, physical therapist, occupational therapist--everyon...

We have a home health nurse, physical therapist, occupational therapist--everyone but Jack Lalanne--coming to the house. I want a hospital that will send a cosmetic surgeon and Mario Batali.

One of my favorite photos and moments from the tour with two of my favorite repo...

One of my favorite photos and moments from the tour with two of my favorite reporters and people, Maureen Orth and Sally Bedell Smith, two great reporters. Worked with Sally on her book, In All His Glory, at Simon and at VF. Worked with Maureen at VF and on her book, The Importance of Being Famous. Terrific women, amazing reporters. If they ruled DC, where they both live, it would rock.

Party on.

Party on.

I feel very guilty. A lovely woman wrote me with kind words about the book and s...

I feel very guilty. A lovely woman wrote me with kind words about the book and said that she was emailing friends a post about it. I totally appreciate this and want to thank her, but I just cannot find the message and I'm sorry. I have lost track of your name but appreciate your campaign.If this sounds familiar, good lady, thank you and know that I am grateful. I mean to get back to everyone who has written with such kindness and support, but I do get confused sometimes about who I have written to. Best. XO

Thank you.

Thank you.


A fine memoir about a time past and a life well-loved
lgbtweekly.com
Throughout your life, your parents ignored many things. That time in high school when you snuck out to party? They knew, but they looked the other way. Same thing with wearing make-up, missing curfew and that one regrettable hair style. They often ���didn���t see��� more than you���ll ever know.

Timeline PhotosFor weeks I have been stewing about what t...

Timeline Photos
For weeks I have been stewing about what to get my mother for Mother���s Day. She is 92 and, after all the years and holidays, it is hard to come up with anything to delight her, to make her smile. Older people often want only what it is not possible to give. I get very sad when I think about what my mother really wants.

A few weeks ago, when the lilacs were really blooming, Carol���who takes amazing care of Betty���braved incarceration and irate exclamations to steal some lilacs for my mom. I always forget how much I love that smell of lilacs, but as the days passed and the fragrance drifted through our house and into my mother���s room, I asked myself, ���Why in the world would anyone not have a lilac bush? The smell is too good to go without.��� So I thought that for Mother���s Day I would get some bushes and plant them under her bedroom windows.
I am hoping she will be around to smell them blooming when she wakes up in the mornings, but next year is hard to think about because I am worried now that our luck has run out.
���Just one more year,��� I ask as I watch her, more bent over than ever, making her way down the hall. ���Just one more year.��� I am greedy. I am unrealistic. For more than fifty years I have rebelled against reality. I am not the type who can ever see death as a blessing if it visits someone I love, no matter how old. Willfully, I refuse to consider what she wants, how it feels to not feel like oneself anymore.
Is anyone ever ready to lose a mother?
Maybe Christina Crawford.

A week or so ago, Betty broke her rib and every time she leans back in her bed to go to sleep, she screams. Usually I am there, helping her, but it happens all night long when she gets up as she does, again and again. I hear her on the monitor we have installed in my room. I always run t o her and the dog looks up, wondering what is going on. When I get back in bed, Raj has always taken my spot and I heave him���heavy as a sack of large potatoes���back on his side. Usually, by the time I get him situated, she has screamed out again and I go and when I get back, the dog has moved over again. Some nights we go through this time after time. It doesn���t matter. It���s worth it. It is nice to have something to hug at night.
Sometimes my mother talks to herself all night long. I hear her. Sometimes she babbles rather happily. Sometimes, in a bad mood, she interrupts herself. ���Will you shut up?��� she asks. ���You don���t make any sense. You just don���t make any sense.���

Because I want to get the lilacs and get Betty out of the house, Carol and I plan an outing to the nursery on a beautiful day. We get Betty ready and take the dog. Betty has on a new pair of pink Capris. I tell her that on the way, we will stop and look at new cars. Betty has been dying to get a new car. She always loved to drive, to move, to know that if she didn���t feel just right she could go somewhere where she felt better. Now she seems to believe that a new car will bring it all back, that she can slip behind the wheel of a reasonably priced sedan with her favorite luxury feature (heated seats) and go back, back, back.
By the time we get to the dealer���s, it is eighty- seven degrees, but Betty lets me haul her out of the car and rides along when I test drive two Buicks. The whole thing tires her out. ���I can afford a new car,��� she keeps telling herself because she never believes she has enough money left to pay for anything. I wonder if the trunks of the cars we see are large enough to hold a wheelchair. All she cares about is the heated seats. She wants to make a purchase soon. Before time runs out. Her desire for this car is our first sign of hope in so long. I am ready to buy the Buick then and there and floor it out of that lot like we have just robbed the place.

At the nursery she stays in the car, but I bring hanging baskets for her to inspect before I purchase them. As I approach, I see that Raj has hopped up into the driver���s seat. For a year and a half now, my mother has pretended she hates the dog. She just won���t admit she cares. Raj looks up at me as if to say, ���I tried.���
I tried, too, but she doesn���t seem to be excited about the lilacs. I really wanted her to be happy about the flowers, but maybe she knows how long it takes for them to grow. Maybe she knows she will never get to inhale their fragrance.

Maybe it is not too late to find a bracelet. She still loves flashy new jewelry. In another life, I think she dated a lot of gangsters.
Two weeks ago, when some TV people came to our house for a filming, I walked into the kitchen to find her flirting with the crew. ���That one is the best looking,��� she said of the interviewer.

On the way home, we stop for Mexican food. There is a restaurant near where Carol goes to church. Her family goes there on Sundays. Hearing this, Betty looks appalled at the notion that one would follow a sermon with an order of quesadilla. It violates her sense of propriety somehow. She drinks a huge frozen Margarita, but hates everything else we have ordered.
���Well, I���ll tell you one thing,��� she says when we get back into the car, ���If that���swhat they eat, I���m sure glad I���m not a Mexican.���
That night before I go to bed I find myself hugging that dog so hard that he yelps.
Happy Mother���s Day from Bettyville. What you have to hang on to in the end, I think, is gratitude for everything that has been, things that not everyone has had the good fortune to know.
I guess I have to accept finally that no one can change the rules of this life, but maybe, if we hurry there will be time for one more car for her to ride away in.