Kissing the Crisis: Field Notes on Foul-Mouthed Babies, Disenchanted Women, and Careening into Middle Age

by Kara Martinez Bachman

Overview

You're going on a journey to a strange new country where you will look different, act different, even feel different. It's like you're becoming a whole new person, and that person is your mother. Your new homeland is middle age, and you need a native guide to teach you how to survive here, or at least to show you where the good bars are.

Written for every woman who knows that turning 40 is no reason to become respectable, Kissing the Crisis is the field guide you need to blaze your own unconventional trail through the jungle of middle age. Humorist Kara Martinez Bachman reports from the front lines of the battle to stay awake after 9 p.m., and her adventures will make you scream with laughter, cringe with embarrassment, and vow to tackle your own midlife crisis with a can-do attitude and a tasty cocktail.

Whether she's searching for a child-friendly bar for a parents' drinking session, starting the world's best ukelele/harp gothic rock band, coping with a baby cursing like a sailor in the grocery store, or conquering her fear of a terrifying death during Hurricane Katrina, Bachman shows that life doesn't end at 40 ... it just gets weirder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610352901
Publisher:	Linden Publishing
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Pages:	145
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

A New Orleans native, author, journalist and editor, Kara Martinez Bachman has read her work for national broadcast on NPR radio and her writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, websites and literary journals, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, NOLA.com, The Writer, Funny Times, Humorwriters.org of the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop at University of Dayton, the Ellipsis literary journal of University of New Orleans, Literary Mama, and a number of websites related to parenting and/or midlife, such as Sammiches and Psych Meds and Rocking Over 40.

Table of Contents

The Intoxicating Glint of Ben Gay
How I Turned Down Brad Pitt
A Midlife Renaissance
Ukulele-Harp Gothic Pop Rock Trio
Big Ass Beers and Sports Freaks
Gunshoot Jamboree
Wonder Bread for a Frenchman
The Bar and Grill Loophole
Chicken Soup for the Obsessive-Compulsive Soul
Suburban Tango
Pancho Villa and the Mexican Boat People
This Aint No Boogie Wonderland
Screwed by the Warranty
SuperGirl in a Kayak
Middle Aged Mano-A-Mano
The Future Mrs. Two Cakes
The Principle of It
Midlife Ripe
Ten-Point Cabbage
Ground Floor Life
The Good Fortune of Cosmetic Damages
An Eternal Sunshine of the Midlife Mind

Interviews

"Kara Martinez Bachman is hip and funny as hell. If I didn't already have a mother—and if I wasn't nearing middle-age myself—I would ask her to adopt me. I still might ask her." —Andrew Shaffer, New York Times bestselling author

Editorial Reviews

"Bachman's observations set this collection apart and make it a worthy read ... Some experiences are universal, and laughing as we graciously age is definitely one of them." —LEGENDS Magazine

"Kara Bachman has fast become the woman I want living next door to me. With her razor-blade wit, tell-it-like-it-is essays on navigating middle age (while tending children), she is exploring new turf, and the grass is super green and fertile. Readers will love her style, humor and stories that will make you guffaw and snort in public while reading. Middle age never felt so good." —Susan Reinhardt, author of Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle and Not Tonight Honey, Wait 'til I'm a Size 6

"This book made me laugh plenty, but it also made me think, something I usually try to avoid. Bachman's hysterical take on approaching middle age will resonate with every mama in the carpool line, but it's her ability to weave profundity into the mix that sets her apart. —Celia Rivenbark, New York Times bestselling author of You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl

From the Publisher