Becoming

[thisnewday]

This morning, I've been reading Michelle Obama's Becoming--our monthly book club selection--while prepping myself for an MRI this afternoon. As unlikely as it seems, the two are thankfully linked.

I expected my BP to be off the charts when I took my readings this AM. After years spent servicing stuck elevators and HVAC ducts, I've recently developed such an aversion to confined spaces that I barely endured a sonogram which enclosed only the upper part of my body and was otherwise completely open.

And yet this morning, reading Michelle's book, I recorded the best aggregate BPs and heart rates that I've had the entire time I've been doing it--which is more than a year.

I guess maybe it takes me back to the time, just a few years ago, when we had people of genuine intelligence and moral integrity occupying the White House, people living exemplary lives that lent credibility to the image we once had of ourselves as a nation.

If only for the moment, her book has allayed a growing fear that Donald Trump has, in fact, managed to show us who and what we truly are--heartless, mindless, corrupt exploiters of our presumed place in this world...

LPK
Dreamwidth
1.29.2020 

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

I surprised myself by actually liking Michelle O's Becoming! 😃

[thisnewday]

Yeah, I'm only a hundred-and-a-half into it, but really liking it...

[bluecatartist]

Not been active online but thinking of you and wishing you the best. Hope the MRI went okay.

I have been intrigued by Michelle's book and now after your review I want to read it.

[thisnewday]

Thanks for your kind thoughts and, yes, the MRI went well although it did confirm the need for the biopsy. But at least now I'll be doing that with some assurance that it's truly necessary.

And it appears they've scaled back a bit on the type of antibiotic they want me to take before and after the procedure. That was actually the deal-breaker the last time around.

Regarding Michelle Obama's "Beginnings," I was about 150-200 pages into it--and loving it--when I read a statement, vaguely attributed to her husband, that she'd had the help of a ghost writer.

That set me back a minute because, aside from the very compelling narrative, I'd been quite taken with her voice as a writer. There was such a plain-spoken directness to it that it came across like a person-to-person conversation with this genuinely likable First Lady.

And I still haven't totally sorted that out--whether it's simply my naivete about the nature of celebrity autobiographies, another pot-shot taken by a partisan, racist or sexist critic, or maybe a marginally legitimate concern based in my own preferences--but I'm now 400-plus pages into it and still feel that it's a monumentally important read for the times we're now living in.

Anyway, I hope you do read it and experience the same sense of connection to this extraordinary woman and her family as I have. Because, like I said, these days we all need more of that...

[bluecatartist]

Glad the MRI is over and while good you know a biopsy is absolutely warranted, also daunting bc you _need_ a biopsy. :( Do you know when the biopsy will be done?

There gets to be so much... criticisms and such about certain books, and Michelle O is certainly one that is going to draw negative attention and hoopla. *sigh I hope you still enjoy the book and can sort out the confusion. I have no insight to it myself, fatigue often makes me just read on surface - but usually don't read books on the depth and level of Michelle's book.

I do want to read the book but not sure when I'll be motivated to do so. The local library in our little 'burb has the book but I'll have to check the size of type to know if I can read it or not unless it's also available in large print. Usually large print editions are found most often in the city library.

Over the weekend I read Todd Fisher's book MY GIRLS on E-reader and I'm still processing it. Reading about Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher via a front row seat... their struggles revealed in a different way than they presented. They were both tough broads and strong women although Todd talks of the vulnerabilities and heart breaks. Debbie and Carrie talked of them but w. humor and detachment. It's made me so sad! I _knew_ on some level they suffered and struggled as most everyone does (although most aren't in the celebrity fishbowl w. no privacy), but to read his account of the more personal side and how he experienced it was ... heartbreaking.

[thisnewday]

The biopsy will be in a little over a week so I'm gonna put off getting worked up over it as long as possible.

I agree that Michelle O. has been and will be taken as a target of opportunity and it's clear she knows that as well. It's just totally shameful, the way that they've been treated.

And it is generally difficult to read these accounts of celebrity lives given, as you say, the awful indignity of public scrutiny...