I was twenty or so, just a cub. Having ferreted away my virginity until the ripe old age of 19, twenty was prime time for sophisticated explorations. A friend gave me a copy of The Firmata. So naughty and new for a small town, small time, but not averse to under the table blow jobs woman, and nearly silly in the right light, but a twenty year old can’t be told these things. Titillating.
Almost sixteen years later, a child, a failing marriage, and just about complete death of erotic possibilities--certainly a complete lack of intimacy--neatly tucked away under my belt, I reencountered my good friend, Mr. Baker. The House of Holes, it was. A lovely, tingly little book that neither demands a willing suspension of disbelief or absolute privacy in order to be enjoyed. Just comical enough to mimic real life in a fantastically optimistic sort of way. I happily marched back down memory lane, remembering with a kind of raspberry lambic flavored nostalgia all the things I thought I had learned along the way and offered a hazy salute to the past and lost “innocence." I even made a trip to Victoria’s Secret. That was fun. Things seem to have gotten a little racier in the last decade and a half; or I’ve become more staid. Either way, I was able to remember the anticipation of possibilities. I traded my hair shirt for hot pants, for a moment (and mind you, I’m not too shabby for a thirty six year old woman, even after all of the following). It almost worked, and except for the years of lies and manipulation and disappointment, it probably would have. Anyway, at least we both got laid after a long, long, long time. So I’m getting divorced and Nicholson Baker still has “it.”
(Also, his non-fiction is very engaging stuff.)
