Talk About Tuesday 252

In Which I Try To Blather

It's December 17 - one week from Christmas Eve (really, you're not expecting a Wednesdaymania on Christmas, right?) - and we just had a rainstorm and temperatures near 60℉ (15.5℃). Then it immediately fell back to about 30℉ (-1℃) and today it's 27℉ (-2.8℃). As you might be able to guess, my family is having issues adjusting to these rapidly fluctuating temperatures, so basically everyone's sick right now. Boo.

Also, my poor sinuses have no clue what's going on, and their solution is to feel dried up while simultaneously spewing mucus like there's no tomorrow.

Yay Christmas.

So what do you do when you're having your face leak and your family hacking and coughing like a children's ward in Victorian England (ooh, black lung joke!)?

You read.

And I read Jonathan Evison's Lawn Boy.

And what a wonderful book!

Lawn Boy is the story of Mike Muñoz, a young man trying to survive the world actively taking a dump on him while also struggling to find his place and learn just who exactly Mike Muñoz is. It's a journey of self-discovery, but unlike most literary explorations of someone trying to find themselves, this book is about as navel-gazing as a trip to the grocery store. There's introspection, sure - it's a first-person narrative where the narrator is constantly having the rug pulled out from under him - but it's not some twee little tale of a wealthy white blogger wandering around for 300 pages until they meet the right sexual partner and run off to Bali.

It's the story of a struggling artist who knows what art he wants to pursue in a world that just sees him as yet another Mexican to exploit (he's a born-and-bred Californian, his dad just happened to have Mexican heritage). Mike just wants to mow lawns and trim hedges for work, but his art is topiary, and the world just seems to crap all over him. Everything that could go wrong in this guy's life seems to (though thankfully it lends itself more to humor than tragedy!). His truck breaks down. One of his bosses gets arrested. His lawnmower gets stolen. His mom's tenant pulls the wrong tooth.

This isn't a book about socialites, it's a book about the guy mowing the lawn out back, so expect some snark that isn't founded on the idea that somehow people who live in big houses are the best people and that somehow the people who work hard to get things done are somehow inferior. It's not even the opposite, either. It's a book about complicated people and complex feelings...

And topiary.

And Disney.

And revolution on a very, very small scale.

And bespoke delis.

Basically, this book rocks, and if you're looking for something to remind you that the sun exists, that heat is a thing that can exist outside your house, and that dreams come in all shapes and sizes, this is definitely the book for you.

Heck, even if you don't think you'd like a story about a dirt poor guy struggling to survive in an inherently racist society, you should pick it up. At the very worst, you'll learn a thing or two about landscaping :P

So yeah, go read the Great American Landscaping novel and let me know in the comments what you thought of it, because as you might be able to tell, I loved it and I'll absolutely be reading Evison's other books! And by the way, if his name seems familiar, I've done a review of a Paul Rudd film based on one of his books! Does the title The Fundamentals of Caring ring a bell? Yeah. That's him.

So that's it for my book review this week!

Now what am I doing on this week before Christmas?

• Tomorrow we'll get our final Wednesdaymania for this month because I'll be busy opening gifts and eating good food with people I love next week.
• Thursday, I'll be doing my final Christmas Sketch!
• Friday will be about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, because I'm not going to talk about Christmas movies this year, lol.
• Saturday will be another video game, possibly one that's a fusion of Poker and Dungeons and Dragons...
• Sunday will be a very interesting noodle bowl...
• Next Monday I'll have a finished Purrmaid to show you!
• Next Tuesday, I may be a little busy, but not too busy to shoot you a quick lil message on this blog!

Thanks for hanging out with me today, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC