CHEAP NOTEBOOKS ENJOY the singular fame of being one of only two things you need to be a memoirist. The other, of course is a pen. You can add index cards to the list, but if you go out into your daily rounds carrying little more than a pen and a notebook you can write memoir. And you know what? You don’t have to believe me. This time, I’m bringing in a reliable witness.

It’s The Pink of Perfection, and with a blog name like that, you can believe every word.

I’ve written before about the small toolbox needed to write memoir. But here, for the record, is the very best testimony I’ve seen in, well, forever. Read up, memoirists, and get to work.

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A KITCHEN RENOVATION can go only one of two ways: either to transcendent awareness or to divorce court. And our renovation was not elective. Not a bit. Ours was thrust upon us by severe acute water damage, and suddenly I found myself saying the one thing you do not ever want to say in your own kitchen.

“Rip out the floor and take the walls down to the studs.” That would be the brand-new plywood on the floor and the newly painted walls, since when the disaster occurred, it did so in the midst of a simple cosmetic upgrade.

After I heard those words come out of my mouth I went back up to my office and wept.

And then I called my sister, who said all the right things, and then told me to call Paige. That was right before Christmas, and on Boxing Day I was sitting with Chloe Smith, Paige’s mom, mapping out a whole new kitchen.

Chloe Smith of Lowe’s, this post of thanks goes out to you. And to the sisterhood, since it was the Margaret-to-Paige-to-Chloe laying on of hands that got me to a place where I can laugh, if only a little, about what all has been going on in my house.

I am one of the few people I know who has said forever and ever that I will never, under any circumstances, undergo a kitchen renovation. To me, all design leads to a death of art. What do I mean by that? That you can busy yourself forever designing the place in which to work and in doing so, put off forever getting to the work. I’ve seen this in my friends who build music studios in which to play, and offices in which to write, and it has lead me to this grand unified theory that I took awfully seriously about how this all causes a great gap in creativity.

Yeah, well, you can see here just what an ass I can be. But I was transcended out of this, I promise you, the minute I opened the first crate and ran my fingers over the creamy, clean surface of a honeysuckle-colored cabinet door; the non-pitted sink nearly made me swoon right into it,  as did the soft-closing silverware drawer. Then there is the counter top, whose color is the precise shade of the eyes of…oh well, you can see where this is going.

I’m changed. I’m grateful. And it was the Sisters in the Kitchen who got me here. Don’t know them? Meet us here, and give me some suggestions of what to cook first in my brand new kitchen.

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IN THE SUMMER of 1924, five sisters worked in Washington, and happily someone had the great good sense to snap their photo. Don’t you just love them? I found this on Flickr, and then did a little research, and found out that they are (left to right) Goldie, Jeane, Marge, Belle, and Vera, all of whom worked as secretaries for five members of Congress from various states. Here they are, having their lunch.

You know how we love our mystery sisters here at TSP, and never more than when the mystery is revealed, and we learn something of the pictured sisters’ lives. Well, these sister remind me of those gorgeous Brox sisters, also captured in our nation’s capital, and also portrayed here on TSP with the background we were able to dig up.

Know anything about the Dunn sisters? We’d sure love to know more.

Library of Congress photo via Bobster855′s photostream.

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A BIG BOOK LAUNCH IS COMING. Actually, two book launches await the Roach sisters of TSP–mine, next month, for my book on writing memoir (left), and Margaret’s for her much-anticipated drop-out memoir due next February, for which preparatory plans are already under way. And what are the sisters doing to get ready? We’re reading other writing websites like madwomen, to see who’s saying what about writing and the steps involved in publishing, and what they all make of it today. Want to read along?

How much help can writers be to one another? That’s the sisterly question I’ve been asking as I read site after site, and it helps me sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff. From what I’m seeing, there are more than several good websites that can help writers get it on the page.

For instance, every day I go to these sites for these reasons, among my many digital travels:

• Grammar Girl, to get it right the first time;
• Advice to Writers, to get a kick-ass quote to urge me on;
• Writing Roads, because she’s damn good at what she does;
• Word Strumpet, because I love the name, and she lives up to it; and,
• Poewar, because it’s like going to a really good career counselor.

And you? Where do you go for encouragement and inspiration, to get all that you need to write on?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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THE LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY will bring the Full Snow Moon, rising at the eleventh hour and 38^th minute of the day. As with all full moons, the name comes from the Native American tradition. This name is fairly self-explanatory, though among some Native American people, February’s full moon was known as the Full Hunger Moon since winter conditions can make hunting very difficult. How do I know this? I write and record the daily almanac piece entitled The Naturalist’s Datebook, heard exclusively on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157. Listen up. And see my other TSP almanac pieces here, including a recent piece on how I change my diet at the full moon, as well as at the new moon, each month.

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I WAS ON AMERICAN IDOL. Did you know? Did you catch me? No? Well, I recorded it for you. I think you’ll be really proud of me, sisters. It went really, really well, like this:

Marion: “You sent your new book–your fourth–to the printer. All corrections made. All edits done. It looks great.”

The other Marion: “But you gained five pounds.”

Marion: “Your daughter has completed a lovely, intelligent, application for a potential new school, on deadline, without your help.”

The other Marion: “But you haven’t started your Amaryllis bulbs yet.”

Marion: “Your husband is healthy, on a great diet, and fit, owing to taking your example seriously, and going to the gym twice a week.”

The other Marion: “But you never wrote those thank-you notes to those two people who now are dead; dead a good ten years, both of them.”

Simon: “All the italics sentences, step forward. Sorry. You didn’t make it. Go home.”

Ah. I love this show. Does it play on your favorite network, too?

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AS SOMEONE WHO HAS PREVIOUSLY purchased Aristotle, you might like…” Thus began a recent email from Amazon.com. I’m thinking of printing it out and pinning it to my dress to wear while I watch The Simpsons, the combo of the two influences really kind of summing me up. Or does it? I’m not sure. Who am I, again? (Singalong now: “Who are you? Who, who, who who?”) Shall I ask Google, or ?

I think we can agree that life used to be simpler. You were a Democrat or a Republican, a city or country mouse, or, as I once sagely opined in my best Aristotelian noggin, either a burger or a burrito. These days, as we used to say in Queens: Fuggedaboutit. Online, offline, pin number-ed or not, keyworded, passworded, multi-tasking at a whiplash pace, we are so many more women than our mothers were, aren’t we?

I mean who are you? Have you looked recently? Since Google is the contemporary mirror through which we see all things, I thought I’d search for myself there, and can only now say conclusively that:

• I am not married to him.
• I did not publish this book.
• I am not on MySpace.

Adding to the confusion of who am not is the fact that I have two last names, so that when I go by my legal name, Marion Roach Smith, I am someone who serves as a trustee to my university, and is a mother. Under this name, I teach and chair a board. Oh yeah, and spend my life with someone else, which is how I got this last name in the first place.

Early in my marriage, while my husband was the editor of our city’s newspaper, and in an attempt to be the ever dutiful help-mate to that man, I went into the local historical society to volunteer. Weeks later, I overheard someone proudly whisper to someone else, “Oh, well, we have the editor’s wife on our committee,” and I laughed like hell and wondered if they knew that I once spent my days—or more specifically, my nights—at Studio 54.

No, I thought I wouldn’t mention it. Nor the other clubs I frequented, nor lives I’ve lived. Nope, I had remade myself, you see. Which anyone can do, simply by starting a Facebook page. Oh, the sins that are washed away when you simply choose to tell what you choose to tell the world. A near occasion to absolution, that Facebook page. Look at all those pasts wiped clean. I love that.

That is, until an old acquaintance shows up with a friend request, and there is that chilling moment of what might be revealed.

A more private version of this fear can occur on email, as it did to me when just yesterday I received a message whose salutation read, “Dear Brenda,” the name by which I am known in my hometown of Douglaston, Queens. A former newspaper person, a redhead, the connection to Brenda Starr was obvious, but having been gone from The New York Times for more than 25 years, it amazes me that the name has stuck. Brenda I am, however, not to anyone where I now live.

Neither am I Red, which is what I was when living in Manhattan. I was Red to pretty much every construction worker, telephone line maintenance guy, cop and any other man on the street. Red, a nickname owned by all redheads. I like being Red.

And so it seems that some of the women we are are those we grow into, some we grow out of, and some we simply leave behind when we move. And you can get away from all of them, I suppose, but only if you are better at cleaning your closet than I am. I run into the old me(s) there among the shoes and the no-longer–worn miniskirts. Sigh.

Gee.  A woman could get frantic with this.

Or not.

When I get a little nuts with all the women I am trying to be, I ask myself if there is any one role, one identifier I can always depend on being–that one thing I have been since the day I was born? There is, and thinking of it calms me.

Who am I?

Her sister.

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DANCING ON TABLETOPS? And why not? On February 5, 1959 Marilyn Monroe, Karen Blixen, and Carson McCullers had lunch. Oh yeah, Arthur Miller was there, too. Taking place in Nyack, New York, the event was hosted by McCullers in honor of the great Karen Blixen, whose pen name, of course, is Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa). The menu consisted of soufflé, oysters, grapes and champagne. After lunch there was dancing. On the table top. On the solid marble table top, to be specific. Or so I’ve read. And I love every word.

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THERE ARE TWO QUESTIONS no husband or partner should ask a woman, and both begin with “How many?” Both inquiries are gasoline on the fire that is a woman’s soul, and while neither question should ever be either asked or answered, I’m sure you’ll agree on which of the two is far more deeply private, far more tied up in secrecy, and way more important to the ongoing health of any relationship. That’s right, sister: it’s the question that ends in the word “shoes.”

Ain’t nobody’s business if you shoe. Nope. No way, though the other day, after almost buying boots, I asked myself the question, “Marion, dear, how many pair of boots do you own?” I had no idea. I only knew that I did not have this particular pair, and it got me thinking about what they represented to me at that moment. Not much, perhaps given the economy–or nothing at all, as it now seems days after the non-purchase.

Back home, I went into my closet and began to tally up a shoe or two and suddenly, blessedly, was transported to a whole new line of thinking. It was not one of shame, not guilt—or even embarrassment. It was one of story. Every single item in my closet, I realized, had a story attached.

We’ve talked about this before, when I wrote about how my sister’s closet is not my own. But this is not that. This is memoir. And is this crazy economy, when everything seems like too much, all of us are going into our pantries and attics and making do. Me, too. I’m discovering pantry ingredients I tucked into shelves that I am now, finally, learning how to cook.

TSP Sister Paige has been attacking boxes in her basement, and, as a result, had the brilliant idea to initiate a cookbook swap that is absolutely right on in these mid-winter/mid-recession doldrums. For the price of a mere blog comment you’ll get a surprise in the mail in the form of a free cookbook. Cool. And while we cannot do such a blind swap with our clothes—there’s that whole size thing to consider—we can turn our closet contents into story.

I’m calling it “What Was I Thinking?” And it begins with this shirt.

Though I have owned it for nine years, I have worn it exactly once. Yes, that is glitter that outlines the flower design. And those are pearlized sequins sewn into the fabric. Uh-huh. If you know me, you know I wear black a lot and other than that, my closet is mostly jeans and man-tailored shirts, and that dressing up means something on sale from Eileen Fisher. In other words, this is my only glitter moment. And you know what? It’s not going anywhere, since simply having it in my closet makes me feel like I shine. What was I thinking? I was thinking that I’ll need this one day, and on the day I wore it, I really did.

You? What were you thinking–and about what suspect garment that now hangs in your closet?

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