Circus Peanuts

Admittedly, my blog has been starving lately. Underfed. Malnourished. And neglected like the mangy mutts down the alley licking the underbellies of pizza boxes. It’s not healthy for “it” or for me. So, tonight I write to feed and remind myself to keep throwing out the occasional bone.

When I was around ten or eleven, my mom used to pile Amy, Blake, and I into the minivan and dodge the potholes down Harlem Ave en route to the North Riverside Mall. It became a family routine most Friday nights and our visits incorporated two major objectives – books and candy. The mall wasn’t as seedy back then, although our jackets always stunk faintly of Orange Chicken and sesame oil when we got home since you had to cut through the mega food court to reach Walden’s and Mr. Bulky’s. The two stores lined up at the end of the mall, side by side like the complimentary halves of a ham and cheese sandwich.

We’d hit up Mr. Bulky’s first, our eyes glistening with sugar crystals and artificial food coloring. We’d gaze upon endless rows of teeming plastic bins, revealing sleeping delicacies of gooey Laffy Taffy, fruity Ring Pops, and gelatinous ice cream cones with real wafer tips, coaxing our saliva glands into drool as if we were teething infants.

“Only one kind,” My mom would warn us, reverting us back to the task at hand as she assisted my brother with scooping the bright blue shark gummies into a plastic bag. Four year-old boys were terribly predictable. I prided myself on variation – sometimes going “Swedish” while on other visits surrendering to the puckering tang of the Sour Patch Kids. Alternatively, I adored hearing the satisfying crunch of Ferrara Pan’s mini Jawbreakers against my molars or savoring the oddly addictive banana flavor from the chewy Circus Peanuts. But only if they weren’t stale. It was necessary to sample one to be sure or at least squish a few with the scooper if the store clerk had his eye on me. I don’t think enough kids liked them because it always seemed a tough order to find a fresh batch.

After we bundled, twist-tied, weighed and paid for our loot, we’d file next door to Walden’s Books. Mom would confiscate the candy in her purse after a quick sample so that we wouldn’t get the books all sticky. Walden’s was my haven. I knew the store as intimately as my own bedroom. As Amy and Blake would scamper back to the kid’s section with the red Clifford stools, mom would retreat to the Romance Row where men with long dark hair and bare chests embraced women with billowing blouses on the jacket covers.

The bestsellers prominently framed the front of the store within tall regal white shelves. That is where I would roam, gazing admiringly at the proud hard covers with titles in cursive and names in bold. I’d flip to the backs and stare at the authors’ photographs, perched at their desks or poised in their rose gardens. I’d nod in concurrence, utterly assured that I would be there someday. My very own book. My photograph. My name in bold. It was an absolute certainty that I would be among them in the towering bookshelves with the pretty covers. I just had to wait my turn and become a grown-up. And only then, when I was satisfied I had adequately interacted with my predecessors, did I mosey on back to pick up a new Nancy Drew.

I don’t recall when exactly that absolute assuredness began to waver, when perusing the bestsellers began to feel precarious or elicit that slight twinge of doubt. I know at some point I began to focus on the ages listed in the bios. I was appeased when I saw the author was forty-five or fifty-two or had gone to graduate school or was married or had two sons a daughter and a dog. They were older. That was what it required. Of course, they had arrived. After all, I was only nineteen. Twenty-three. Twenty-five. And over time, the jealousy - the haunting spirals of ineptitude began to cloud like moisture on a mirror.

We stopped going to Mr. Bulky’s and Walden’s when I hit high school. I think they both wound up closing and some awful frilly accessory store where teenage punks pierce ears at card tables likely filled their place. In those years since, my spirit has noticeably waned. When I was twenty-three, I got seriously burned. I was in Borders one Sunday sipping chai, when I picked up copy of The Devil Wears Prada and flipped it over to the back. There she was staring back at me with venom in her eyes - Lauren Weisberger - a young fresh face with blonde hair and high cheekbones. She was twenty-five. I had to put my cup down and read the bio twice. Born March 28, 1977 in Scranton, PA. Cornell graduate, contributor to various prestigious magazines, and now best-selling author. I counted it up. She had me beat. Even if I started that night, working tirelessly on some ethereal and hypothetical manuscript and submitted it to every possible literary publication and chiseled it down to its perfect state, and by some miracle found someone who adored it, I could never compete with her timeline. Lauren Weisberger was living my dream.

After that, I stopped browsing through bookstores as much to avoid the pinpricks and obvious reminders of my perpetuating stalemate. I stopped envisioning my title or jacket cover or clever font. I had always longed to be in this extremely select club and the reality was - the odds were bleak.

Just this past week, I attended the Virginia Festival of the Book, rather by coincidence and consequence of visiting my friend, Nikki in Charlottesville. “I think this was meant to be, Em,” she insisted, always having been a fan of my “voice” as she calls it. “I just know you are supposed to be here with all these writers.”

Throughout the weekend, I wandered through the conference, ate at the local restaurants, and dawdled through the downtown mall, absorbing the others around me – many hopeful paupers in tweed, some local editors, and a sprinkling of literary stars. All of them, struggling with their own doubts, burdens, inadequacies, and failures. All wanting the same dream. I stood in obedient lines with panting fans, anxious to get novels signed by the “Recognizables” – the ones who had made it and thus, sat patiently, scrawling autographs on the title pages of their very own Labor of Loves. I wondered if the repetitiveness of it all had desensitized their fame. I wondered as countless hands reached up, waving gluts of their paperback clones if they remembered a time when they strolled the bookshelves.

The festival did spur a reflection on my summer before the seventh grade and the three months I spent furiously writing cliché poetry. I was relentless in my craft, composing with an insane furor most twelve year olds were channeling toward papering their closet doors with magazine cutouts of the Backstreet Boys. I ventured to the library and checked out every possible book on publishing poetry. After that, I stuffed all my babysitting money in a horrid purple LeSportsac and pedaled over to the local bookstore to pick up some newer editions. I scribbled down list after list, noting genres, editor names and addresses, highlighting the ones I thought looked promising. I spent the summer submitting my poems in giant yellow manila folders, making sure to secure the envelopes with proper postage and duck tape so that nothing could mistakenly tumble out.

I only received one acceptance that summer and it was from the Book of American Poetry that required an upfront payment of $65, but you would receive your very own special copy of the bound Anthology right at your doorstep. All 434 pages. Of course, I leapt at the chance and I still have that thick wad of sucker poems in my bookshelf, not so much as joke, but to remind myself how hard I worked that summer. How much I believed in myself. Sadly, I doubt I have given that much gusto to my writing since.


This fall, I will turn 30. It will be an inconsequential occasion, except for the fact that it will inevitably mark a time in my life when I no longer have anyone or any circumstance to blame for my lack of pursuing fairy tales. As I enter my third decade, I realize I could use a dose of that slight, tow-headed, Nancy Drew sleuth who saw her name in print. I could use some of that zeal because I don’t want to enter my fourth decade, admitting I have yet to even reach up to see if there is a spot on the shelf.

When I returned from my trip out east, I lumbered off the train and toted my luggage behind me back to my new apartment. When I rounded the corner, I remembered with a smile that there happens to be an old-fashioned candy store at the end of my street. Mary Janes, Necco Wafers, bubblegum cigarettes – the whole bit. Books and candy. It might be time to renew the old Friday night ritual. After all, I’m sure I can dig up some stale Circus Peanuts if I need some familiar inspiration. I may even be able to sneak a taste in the store if no one is looking.