Rules for Saying Goodbye

So, I've taken a brief hiatus from blogging.  I could say it was because of the holidays, but that's not really true.  I think that I've just been a bit uninspired.  After all the excitement and new experiences in France, I came back to New York to sit in my apartment, search for a new job all day, and a few nights a week, walk downstairs to work at the same bar... with the same customers... that I've been working at since I was a Junior in college.  Sigh.  It's been kind of boring around here.

But... the upside to having a lot of free time is that I've been reading a lot.  Latest read: Rules for Saying Goodbye, by Katherine Taylor.  It was recommended to me by a friend who said the protagonist reminded her of me.  I read it and decided that in many ways, I agree.  That's both a good and bad thing.

"We worried about holding on to our rent-controlled apartments even though the hot water worked only occasionally and the doormen stole our packages and the landlords constantly tried to evict us.  We worried about how all the crying would give us wrinkles and we worried about the price of cigarettes we would have sent up from the grocer downstairs.  We worried about explosions on the subway and whether or not our insignificant boyfriends were alive when they failed to phone.  We worried about taxi accidents and making enough tips to cover the weekend's activities and we worried that we drank too much or that our careers would never speed up, at least never as fast as everyone else's careers seemed to go.  We worried that we had the wrong friends, or not enough friends, friends with not enough money or too much obvious money; we worried about who we knew and who they knew..."

The book follows Katherine Taylor as a pre-teen who ships off to a well-to-do New England boarding school, and then on to her college life and ten or so post-graduate years of living in New York as a bartender, with brief stints (and boyfriends) in Brussels, London and Rome.  Split into four parts according to four major life changes, all including a "break-up" of sorts, I related most to her mid-twenties-self, a voice that was a tad selfish and superficial but very confused and exasperated all at once.  Basically, take a look at the excerpt above.  I get that.  I'm there.  And I think a lot of us are right now.

Another reason my friend thought of me for this book is because, obviously, I am a bartender.  It was my method of paying rent throughout college and my fallback money-maker while the economy is tough and I'm stuck doing the never-ending job search.  This book follows almost too well the instability that comes with the turf of being a bartender.  It's fun, but definitely not always fun.  The money is amazing, but occasionally you barely make ends meet.  People tell you that you're gorgeous all the time, but it's not the people you want to hear it from.  You have all of your days free, but can't seem to get out of bed at reasonable hours or do anything productive with them.  I think you get my point.

Another reason to read this book: although it centers around a coming-of-age woman and her hook-ups and break-ups and ups and downs of life in New York ... it is not a Sex & the City wannabe.  Sex & the City is wonderful, but should be saved for only Sex & the City.  Katherine Taylor has a different way of writing about these events of life.  This novel sways in and out of periods of her life like a running memory.  It's full of sarcasm, understated humor and at times, a bit sad.  Making up for the depressing moments are sharp one-liners and an uplifting ending.

I leave you with a few of my fav lines from the novel.  Enjoy.

"'I have got to get out of there' is the most famous refrain of bar employees, but no one ever gets out of a well-paying bar, no matter how underworld the whole situation may be."

"He used the phrase 'make love.' ...I have never known a girl who could stomach the phrase.  It's a mystery to all of the women I know how it remains in the language, when simple natural selection should have removed it."

(speaking about a neighbor who constantly threatens her)

 "... but in New York, giving up a rent-controlled apartment to save your life is as ridiculous as living in Queens." (ha!  ouch... poor Queens, we always get a bad rep)

(speaking to his mother, who really does mean well)

"My brother has told her, 'People like us do not get up before eleven a.m.'"

"Unemployed people?"

"Bartenders, Mother."

Rules for Saying Goodbye available on Amazon.com