Last Saturday, my friends and I decided to take the afternoon and visit the latest exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts.
The MFA, if you will.
First stop, the Chihuly.
Oh, it was just exquisite.
If you get a free afternoon and you are in the area, you should really visit.
It was truly cultural.
But we quickly devolved.
We were hungry
Statue imitiations,
and facedowns.
And then we went to Qdoba.
The end!
Fun fact about me:
I have really weird taste in Youtube videos.
Some favorite categories:
And today’s favorite:
Children With Youtube Channels
It started with this inspired video
Seriously. I could watch it all day.
And then, I became strangely impressed with The Food Reviewer and his admirable commitment to video taping himself eating every food product in his home.
I’m not sure why I am so endeared to these young videographers. However, when I chanced upon this video early this morning, it hit me.
If I had a video camera and a Youtube Account when I was 12,
I would have been recording stop-animation music videos
to Weird Al songs
with my Legos.
I am almost 100% sure of that fact.
Oh, May.
You were a treat.
I read a lot. I read a lot of books I really enjoyed. I read a lot of books that I really enjoyed and then wanted to read more.
All around, a fun month for reading!
1. Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
My last “on-syllabus” book of the semester, but also the first “on-syllabus” book of my grad school career that had me completely at hello. Maybe there are books you read that make you want to give the book a hug, or maybe, a smart, mature book might leave you wanting to marry a book, but this book made me want to eat it. And it would taste like candy.
Actually, that’s a fairly accurate description of many of the books I read in May!
But anyway, the story begins with Amy’s family dissolving. Her father died in an accident, her twin brother was shipped off to rehab, and her mother decided to take a new job in Connecticut, leaving Amy behind in California while they sell one house and buy another. When it comes time for Amy to join her mother, it also seems like a great way for Amy’s mother to be rejoined with the red Jeep she left behind.
One problem: Amy doesn’t drive. Enter romantic interest: Roger. An old family friend finishing his first year of college and spending the summer with his father in Pennsylvania, Roger needs a ride and Amy has a car that needs driving. Amy’s mother has their route calculated and hotel reservations made along the way… but of course, what kind of book would it be if Amy and Roger didn’t decide to take off on their own?
Hijinks, emotional arcs, likable side-characters, make-overs, road trip playlists, local food indulgences, and tortured flirtation ensue.
Devoured it.
Loved it.
2. Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger
This is one of those quintessentially “YA” Young Adult book. One of the original Printz Honors, I feel like this book could be voted Most Likely To Show Up On Your Children’t Lit Course Syllabus. I, therefore, have read it three or four times before, and at least once when I was an actual teenager.
If you are one of the two people on this planet who have not read this novel, it is quite good, I think, and here’s what you need to know:
John’s parents are divorced. He lives with his mom and takes the train into Boston to visit his Dad’s bachelor pad on the weekends. His father ignores him and goes on dates, his mother weeps about her divorce and doesn’t show John any affection. John has one friend who is kind of a loser and spends too much time representing a heteronormative, nerdy kind of teenaged lifestyle.
John’s life sucks, so why not recreate yourself a little? John writes a zine (aww…. how nineties is that!!) under the name “Gio,” and gets the attention of another zine-writer, Marisol, who lives in Cambridge. Marisol is gorgeous, challenging, mercurial, and a lesbian. Of course, John/Gio falls in love.
The whole “girl falls in love with gay best friend” is almost a narrative trope at this point, but I can’t say I’ve heard of a story about the reverse other than this one!
2000 Printz Honor
3. Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
I picked up this book for two reasons.
Reason #1: I used to watch Ally McBeal in high school, and I remember clearly all of the hype about the show’s actresses, including Portia de Rossi. Supposedly, the environment on the set was toxic: Calista Flockhart was clearly a too-skinny freak of nature and the show dressed her to accentuate her thinness, so the rest of the female cast felt like they needed to be gaunt to compete. I hoped that de Rossi’s memoir would be an insider account of what was going on there, in the cast of an only moderately successful television show, that seemed to formally usher in the stick-figure-body aesthetic of the late 90s and early 00s.
Reason #2: I heard it was actually a decent read, not obviously ghost-written or trashy.
I was right about #2, for sure. The back cover has blurbs from Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeanette Walls, and Augusten Burroughs for goodness sake! This is not your average celebrity memoir!
I didn’t find what I was expecting with #1, but what I found was equally interesting. This book really is not a Hollywood tell-all but a memoir. De Rossi describes her childhood in Australia, her career as a model that segued into acting, and her struggle to identify (inwardly and outwardly) as a homosexual woman.
By the time she made it onto the cast of Ally, she was already heavily into disordered eating, habits that developed when she was a young, aspiring model that her peers and parents seemed to approve of (or at least look the other way from). Hanging out with Calista Flockhart and Courtney Thorne-Smith and Lucy Liu didn’t drive de Rossi to anorexia, but the pressure of being a working actress in LA, with frequent costume fittings and sample-sized clothing, and with the means to over-exercise and seek professional help from a nutritionist, it was easier for de Rossi’s already present disorder to escalate quickly.
She barely mentions her female costars in this book, but she so clearly portrays this kind of pandemic Hollywood attitude toward women’s weight and appearance that it is easy to imagine that Flockhart and Thorne-Smith and Liu could have easily had similar personal experiences that kept them losing weight during the show’s filming… and contributing to whatever effect that had on women watching their show from home.
Anywaaaaay, super interesting read that I breezed through in an afternoon. I found myself very invested in de Rossi’s life and career and worried for her health, and I was glad to know that in Real Life, she was doing okay.
And yes, I’ve been watching Ally McBeal reruns on Netflix. It’s kind of like Grey’s Anatomy with lawyers!
4. Made for You and Me by Caitlin Shetterly
I picked this up from one of my favorite places to hear about quirky new books: NPR’s weekly “What We’re Reading” report.
And while I was reading it, I realized that when it comes to narrative non-fiction, I have a really big soft-spot for books like Shetterly’s.
I think I might call them “Memoirs by normal-ish people who have done little noteworthy other than craft their particular life experience into an interesting story.”
And this is why I don’t get mad when 20-somethings write memoirs. For me, a memoir isn’ about the destination, it’s about the journey! If you can take me on a journey, I love you.
Anyway. I loved this book. The journey Shetterly takes you on is one from New England to Los Angeles and back again. Caitlin gets married and she and her husband decide to pursue their lifelong dream of moving to LA and living as working artistic-people. However, the move is neither cheap nor smooth (as very few moves tend to be), and their savings is pretty much shot… just in time for the Great Recession to swing in to eliminate the middle-class day jobs the two were hoping to acquire to pay the rent, and for Caitlin to get pregnant…. and if that weren’t enough, she develops hyperemesis gravidarum and can’t walk across the living room much less find a job or work.
So the thirty-something couple and their new baby end up moving back to Maine… and moving in with Catilin’s mother. But that’s not really the point. The point is that Shetterly takes you on this very American journey of hope, pursuit of happiness, and the nuclear family… when she fails, you can see how thousands of other American families can so easily fail even when they are doing everything right… but also that we are all kind of in this economic rollercoaster ride together.
Her story could be anybody’s story, but in a good way.
5. Bumped by Megan McCafferty
My awesome roommate pre-ordered this book for me for my birthday in March! This is one of my favorite methods for gift receiving – I would gladly forgo a gift on my actual day of birth in exchange for an Amazon delivery on pub day! It’s a little like Christmas!
I have waxed poetic about my love of Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling oeuvre before.
I had mixed but generally positive feelings about Bumped, which is McCafferty’s first “straight” YA novel, as well as a departure into the oh-so-trendy world of futuristic dystopia.
The dystopian premise: every adult gets a disease that renders them sterile. All procreation lies on the shoulders of the teenage demographic… so of course, the whole system becomes heavily monetized, with babies being purchased, adoptions and surrogacy brokered by the powerful and rich, and the more fertile you are, the cooler, most popular, and closer to celebrity you become!
I didn’t have any problems with the story itself. The premise was interesting with lots of surprising and thought provoking details, and the main plot clever and snappy (two twins, separated at birth, meeting for the first time: one who lives in a private, religious cult that favors traditional attitudes toward procreating such as “marriage” and “don’t sell your baby,” the other a popular overachieving girl with a contract to bear a child for a high-powered couple as soon as they find a suitable sperm donor).
But I am, sadly, getting a little bored/overwhelmed with the poor, beat-int0-the-ground dystopia.
Similarly, the recent influx of built-in-trilogies. Can’t we just write longer books instead of spreading out the goods intentionally?
I’ll be excited to read book 2, though, whenever it comes out…
6. What Happened To Goodbye by Sarah Dessen
What to say about a Sarah Dessen book that hasn’t already been said?
Janssen wrote a pretty solid review a few months ago. I stand by everything she says about this novel and the whole “Sarah Dessen” aesthetic.
There’s just something comforting about her novels. Everything you want out of this book, you will get. So while some people might find her novels formulaic, I delight in finding out exactly how she plays with the formula with each successive book, and how her knack for creating likable, three-dimensional characters and rich settings (although they are always suburban?!? who can do that?), make me, the reader, seduced into her novels.
Another win for Ms. Dessen.
An aside for fellow Dessenophiles: this is the THIRD book that Jason has appeared in as a significant minor character… what is it about that boy? Do you think Sarah Dessen has a soft spot for the old nerd? Do you think he’s having some kind of multi-book storyline that will end up with him as a love interest two or three books down the road? I’m so obsessed with this…
7. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
Okay, at this point in my summer-break reading, I’m not even pretending to be a literary-type person.
Whatever.
This is chick lit! It’s been turned into a RomCom! It’s got a lot of silliness and betrayal and sex and consumerism!
I liked it.
This is probably like saying “I like eating Krispy Kreme donuts.” Of course you like eating Krispy Kreme donuts! They are deep fried in fat and covered in sugar! Your body was made to like eating Krispy Kreme donuts!
I ate a book donut in May and it was good. I put the sequel on hold. I was a little disheartened that the book ended with the protagonist kind of “falling into” the resolution of her love-triangle, but all in all I thought the conclusion was an interesting way to end the novel. Is it too much to ask for a female romantic protagonist who isn’t either A) totally confident and outgoing and take charge or B) completely mousy and ineffective and doesn’t DO anything?
I guess I can’t eat a bunch of donuts and expect them to be better than… something that’s not just a donut.
8. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Do you ever get into a reading mood? When you just want to read a certain type of book or books about a certain topic or maybe the same book over and over again?
Maybe it’s just me.
But I hope you like books about running, because that’s what I’m in the mood for.
That being said, I really liked this book for many reasons other than the fact that it is a book about running. The author is a well-known writer of fiction in Japan, so he can craft a sentence for sure. And I loved the Not-Western-ness of some of his attitudes and of his writing style in general. Refreshing.
But above all, this is one of those kind of meandering, philosophical books that has you reaching for a pen and paper to jot down quotes that say something so perfectly, something you never thought anyone else ever thought about except for you.
For example, this quote that has nothing to do with writing but everything to do with life (and maybe YA fiction):
Sixteen is an intensely troublesome age. You worry about little things, can’t pinpoint where you are in any objective way, become really proficient at strange, pointless skills, and are held in thrall by inexplicable complexes. As you get older, though, through trial and error you learn to get what you need, and throw out what should be discarded. And you start to recognize (or be resigned to the fact) that since your faults and deficiencies are well night infinite, you’d best figure out your good points and learn to get by with what you have.”
Good stuff. The book is structured as short essay-type pieces that revolve around Murakami’s experiences a long distance runner, but yeah, it’s not all about running. Don’t worry. Try it anyway.
9. Hush by Eishes Chayil
Okay. I am pounding out a whole system of weird reading philosophies here, but bear with me. Along with reading moods, I think people have “hot topics” that they just can’t resist. Ever. Sometimes, the topics just come to you: my mother has read more books about mountain climbers than 95% of the population, but very rarely chooses to read a book just because it’s about mountain climbers. She reads them because somebody recommended the book or because it’s about something entirely other than climbing mountains but somehow is also about climbing mountains, et cetera.
Anyway. One of my hot topics for reading/documentaries/Dateline specials?
Secluded religious communities that hold onto traditional ways of life in spite of all the 21st century America happening around them.
So, basically, stories about fundamentalist Mormons, the Amish,
and Orthodox Jews!
Hush is an intense young adult novel about life for young girls in extremely Orthodox communities. The kind of child abuse that occurs in this novel is by no means unique or even prevalent to this religious community, but the religious beliefs regarding women, sex, marriage, and the pressure placed upon a family unit to be godly, to be pious, to be normal, creates a kind of strange environment in which severe child abuse gets swept under the rug. Young victims are ignored or silenced and perpetrators are never confronted and can continue to abuse other children.
It’s a vicious cycle. This book is not only an “insider’s look” at a religious community that still thrives today, slightly outside the focus of the average American, but also calls attention to this systemic problem and calls for action to be made within the communities themselves.
2011 William C. Morris Award Finalist
10. My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel
File this one under “Trying to Read Those Children’s/YA Books Everyone Has Already Assumed I’ve Read.”
Also file this one under “Weird Books That I Don’t Quite Appreciate Because I’m A Modern Reader With Modern Expectations.”
This is Zindel’s “problem novel” about abortion. I read it a few weeks ago but don’t remember much about it other than the fact that female low-self esteem was usually followed by this random older guy appearing to take the offending (and desperate) girl out on a date… where they found this guy and decided he was worth speaking to was a mystery to me: his character is basically Generic Offensive Asshole.
I guess when you are feeling down, this is what you get, ladies. A Generic Offensive Asshole to punish you for making bad decisions.
11. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
See: Reading Mood… but also see: Reading Candy! This book was awesome and I ate it right up in like, two days.
This book is…
– One part Intro to Ultramarathons. Running 50 to 100 mile races might not seem like the most interesting topic for a book, but it certainly attracts a very interesting breed of person and McDougall does a great job of capturing the many interesting characters who have found and excelled at the sport. (Spoiler: they are all kind of crazy)
– One part History of People. Running, McDougall posits, is an innately human thing to do. He gathers the data and research on primitive running cultures and examines how they run, why they run, what they eat, how they live, and talks about how those choices keep them free from injury and able to maintain superior athletic performance. I now want to run around barefoot all the time and eat chia seeds.
– One part Epic Adventure. McDougall does a story on the notoriously elusive and skilled runners, the Tarahumara. In digging into the jungles of Mexico to find them, he meets a random crazy ultramarathoning white dude who has earned the Tarahumara respect… and who also wants to bring some of America’s best ultramarathoners down to the jungle to have an epic 50 mile race. Somehow McDougall and this Crazy Guy convince some of those crazy characters to travel down into Mexico (while avoiding food poisoning, falling off cliffs, and Mexican drug cartels) and compete against the Tarahumara.
They pull it off in the end, but the path to get there is pretty ridiculous.
I really just want to buy this book for people. I don’t know why, but I do.
12. Bossypants by Tina Fey
I read this book from start to finish last Wednesday while I sat in various airports for various lengths of time!
I’m not sure I have much to say about it, though. This book is getting a lot of good press and for good reason. Everyone wants Tina Fey to be their best friend, and here she is, telling you about her life and making you laugh.
My favorite part is when she writes about 30 Rock, and how she wanted to write a really popular, accessible sitcom that would make a lot of money… but for some reason, 30 Rock just wouldn’t have it. It just became weirder and weirder.
That just makes me smile.
13. Good Eggs by Phoebe Potts
When I was planning out books to bring with me for my trip to Michigan, I had this feeling that I would find at least one good book lying around my house. Probably a book I hadn’t heard of, or maybe one I’d been meaning to read that would just appear on a kitchen counter…
This was that book! And it was really good!
Remember how I like “Memoirs by normal-ish people who have done little noteworthy other than craft their particular life experience into an interesting story?” Here’s another one! AND it’s a graphic novel!! Best day ever!!!
This actually did kind of remind me of Made for You and Me, but in reverse. Where Caitlin is an artistic New England girl struggling to find a place in the world after she gets married and becomes unexpectedly pregnant, Pheobe Potts is an artistic New England girl struggling to find a place in the world after she gets married and becomes unexpectedly infertile.
I’m glad I spotted this book hiding on the bottom level of the end table sitting next to the chair in my parents’ family room.
(you overachiever, you!)
Good Gravy! All I wanted was to fly to and from Michigan with little or no difficulty! I wanted to spend yesterday tip-tapping at my laptop, writing up my monthly review of books I read, finish reading The Last American Man, and eventually end up in Boston.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.
Despite consistent prayers to the Gods of Transportation, on my way out to Michigan I was delayed in the Baltimore airport for four extra hours. When they first delayed, I had been at the airport for three full hours on a layover, I was dropped off at the Boston airport for my first flight almost three hours before take-off.
I didn’t get to my parents’ house until after 10 p.m. that night. I was groggy, woke up groggy the next day and therefore let my hairdresser leave me practically bald!
Okay, that picture gives it away. I did make it home at the end of this story. But hold on. Rewind. I spent almost 8 hours at the Baltimore airport on Wednesday, May 25th. I revisited BWI yesterday at about 3:40. I boarded my connection at 4:25…
… and after weather, air traffic issues, a medical emergency, more weather, and something about how pilots aren’t supposed to work for more than 12 hours a day or whatever, we deplaned at 8:30 p.m. and my flight was cancelled.
aweoirjaoiejgoanto2i3423ijradfa23443@#$3ifnasd
Ugh. I can’t tell this story anymore. If I did, it would contain the following plot points:
and, yes, eventually landing in Boston this morning at 8 a.m. after a perfect flight, to be picked up by my boyfriend who was home on a “Tornado Day.”
I’m back. I survived. The Lord of the Flights has seriously got it out for me.
I will blog about books on the morrow.
Michigan was fun, but it feels good to be back with two feet on the ground.
Those Books I Should Really Get Around to Reading
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
Books By Authors coming to Summer Institute
The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Sarah Dessen Books I Want to Re-read
That Summer by Sarah Dessen
Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
Adult Non-fiction Titles
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert
That New YA Everyone’s Talking About That I Didn’t Have Time to Read
Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Now that I Have an iPod… Some Audio Books
Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
The Pigman and Me by Paul Zindel
Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt
I have a love thing and a hate thing with the 16 week schedule, this academic undercurrent that pulls me from month to month.
I’ve definitely had worse semesters, but their endings never felt this triumphant. I worked on my last paper until shortly after 3:30 on Monday, walked with my roommate to Starbucks for Frappuccino Happy Hour. From there, a small celebration for our comrades graduating with MAss and MFAs. Three glasses of champagne, then straight to the bar, a mess of us, delirious and drunk, squeezed into a hallway together and happy happy happy on a Monday night.
I had to work in the morning, but you’re only young and finishing a semester of school once, right?
Surely I felt this relaxed last December, last August, last May, but this feeling – relief, contentedness, respite – feels foreign. I probably use this particular metaphor too much but it feels like I’ve just crawled out of a cave. The sun is too bright, my bones a little achy, everything looks weird and I don’t know where to go next, what to do.
What DO I do when there is no school to do?
It’s been more than two years since I was 100% sure of myself,
since I started to leave one life and enter another.
This is only a temporary respite – a few weeks of work, then a trip home. A few weeks back to work some more, then add classes to the mix. Then it’s August, then it’s the fall.
I’m just now starting to feel like things will be okay. That my life will still be there, even when things get crazy, that I will still be there. That I can find a meaningful, enjoyable existence no matter what life throws at me.
Is there a stable me left behind this graduate student to fall back on?
I feel like there is, but I don’t know who she is yet, what she looks like.
And since the anxiety of moving/adjusting/constantly-going-going-going is starting to pass,
for the first time in over two years,
I am kind of excited to meet her.
August 2009 – April 2011
I love it when the New York Times publishes articles on children’s literature.
No, really! I do!
Most of the time, these articles are somewhat… um… problematic. Booksellers, librarians, teachers, bloggers and other Children’s Literature People threw themselves into a tizzy when the NYT talked about the death of picturebooks. When the mainstream media gets a hold of OUR literature, the claws always come out: something is always misrepresented, there is always some commentary to be made.
But normal, non-Children’s Literature People step in the fray, as well. I just wrote a rousing really awful paper on Julie Just’s 2009 article, “The Problem with Parents in YA.” Again, the article was problematic in and of itself – I spent almost 2,000 words examining those intricate problems two weeks ago – but what I found fascinating was the COMMENTS section. In case you don’t feel like clicking links, I’ll share with you the top comment on this article
I’m an old, old, person. And I don’t read young adult novels. To me, little can be more boring than a story designed for a child. Love the sinner, hate the sin.
And that right there is why I love when the New York Times publishes articles on children’s literature, and why I love studying it and am glad I am in this program and not some random other English MA program:
There is something about children’s literature, specifically, that gets under everyone’s skin,
and inspires EVERYONE to share their unexamined comments, opinions, prejudices, and random opinions.
Even if their response to a thoughtful, albeit slightly misguided article is the ever-useful, unapologetic observation that
“those books are boring.”
That is just a fascinating impulse to me. Compare these articles and responses to, say, a random book review for a new “literary” adult title by any unnamed author, or perhaps an article talking about classic literature. Nobody feels a need to jump into the conversation – they leave the literary discussion to the experts. Everyone assumes that the author of said article knows more about that kind of literature than they do. If the NYT posts an article about War and Peace, most people haven’t read it, or read it under duress, and aren’t interested enough to speak up. There’s also an unspoken understanding that just because you’ve READ War and Peace does not make you an expert on Russian Literature. You haven’t read War and Peace enough, read it in the right way, read enough other Russian Literature to speak about it.
There is something about children’s literature that makes EVERYONE feel like they are an expert.
This has various implications for the legitimacy or the perception of the study of children’s literature, but I love it. I love it! It is so INTERESTING to see these conversations going on in a public forum, and it’s a helluva nerdy-good-time watching everyone reveal themselves when they open their mouths.
The flavor of the NYT week is Lisa Belkin’s review of two new young adult novels about teen dating abuse.
Ms. Belkin opens her article with this little doozy:
Which, even reading it for the third or fourth time now incites the same reaction in me:
There is so much going on, even in that first line, that is just ASKING for the Children’s Literature People to rally their forces. I really like Ms. Belkin’s Parenting Blog – I think it’s smart and relevant. But this goes to show – there is something about children’s literature that makes even smart, relevant people make unexamined, unsupported statements IN THE OPENING LINES OF AN ESSAY.
Can you imagine an article talking about Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan’s new works opening with “The purpose of adult literature is often twofold: to tell a story, and to send a message?”
First of all, nobody ASSUMES that adult literature needs to HAVE a purpose, eh?
And, NOBODY would assume that even if there was a purpose, it would be to “send a message,” unless it’s some kind of religious or political propaganda, right?
Assumptions.
The article rolls out, assumption after assumption after assumption. In the first three paragraphs alone, Ms. Belkin seems to believe that:
Correct me if I’m off base, but I think Ms. Belkin’s central thesis is that YA lit requires both STORY and MESSAGE, but that somehow, these two novels she examines (Stay by Deb Caletti and Bitter End by Jennifer Brown) fail to do either well because the story gets in the way of a clear message and the message gets in the way of good characters and plot.
Two of the more popular responses to this article are from other young adult authors – Sarah Ockler and Bennett Madison – although I’m sure other Children’s Literature People will get their own 2 cents in soon enough.
Ockler and Madison’s beef is the assumption that young adult literature must have a MESSAGE.
Literature should be literature. Stories just stories. Nobody should try to impose a moral meaning on a text, nobody should expect there to be one, nobody should examine a book in terms of its “message” or judge a book on the quality of said message.
But I find even THAT to be another ASSUMPTION.
Perhaps slightly more examined than Belkin’s rampant assumptions (oh, that first line… you were just ASKING for it, Lisa!), but still an assumption.
I counter your arguments, Belkin, and your counter-arguments, Ockler and Madison with this genius piece by the one-and-only M. T. Anderson…
who surely needs his assumptions to be examined as well.
The central thesis of this post?
This is a never ending cycle and it will never cease to engage me.
There is something about children’s literature that gets everyone involved.
And I’d like to figure out what that something is.
Among my nastier personality predilections is the terrible combination of being both
and
So basically, it’s a chronic case of
Life sucks but I don’t want to do anything about it because nothing would help anyway.
(I am being dramatic. My personality is not that terrible. In fact, the above statement is not often true: usually I vacillate wildly between being ecstatic about my life and being despondent. Which is another sort of unpleasant, but I’m not walking around with a storm cloud over my head 24/7.)
Anyway. Some life events that have happened in the last week led me to a few days of deep thinking. I was thinking about ANOTHER annoying personality duality that I possess, one that is definitely related to the first:
1) I am a creature of habit.
I’d always suspected this of myself, but it became glaringly obvious when my Lance and I moved in together last fall. Take, for instance, a random Sunday. It’s time to do some grocery shopping…. but Lance doesn’t want to go. “I’m too tired.” “Maybe this afternoon.” “In an hour.” That kind of thing. I want to go because I am hungry and want to have time to cook something that evening, but mostly I just want to know that it is Sunday at xxx o’clock and that is when we buy food.
And I’m sure Lance remembers fondly one afternoon when he pulled out of his parallel parking spot and went straight through Bynner and Huntington rather than turning right… I probably screamed. He thought we could just go to the Stop and Shop in JP rather than truck it out to the Trader Joe’s, but failed to inform me that what I thought was a carefully laid routine was about to crumble.
Ahem.
2) I am a constant self-evaluator, lifestyle-manipulator, dreamy-dreamer.
I want a lot of things for myself, for my life, and I spend a lot of time trying to make them happen.
However, here lies the conflict:
I know, this is such a White Girl Problem, but it’s getting to the point of silliness.
Let’s say I read an article saying that eating a giant bowl of oatmeal is the Best Breakfast.
I like oatmeal. I can make oatmeal. I would like to eat the Best Breakfast.
But I probably won’t do it because if I ate oatmeal for breakfast, then I wouldn’t be able to eat any eggs for breakfast. And I love my breakfast eggs.
I love them so much, in fact, I’ve been eating eggs for breakfast practically every day for a year and a half.
I can’t even change what I eat for breakfast because I am such a mother$#&^ing STICK IN THE MUD!
It makes me kind of mad at myself.
But then, yesterday, while I was tidying up my kitchen, I had one of those still, small voice moments, when my best self – the self who is immune to personality dualities and other terrifying deficiencies – said to me:
You keep thinking that you will wake up one day and be changed, that it will suddenly be easy to be the person you want to be, to do the things you want to do, to make those hard decisions. You’ve got it backwards, my friend. If you just do the things you want to do, the doing will change you. The discipline gained, the results observed… the change will be your new routine.
Whenever I’m mired in that state of Life-Sucks-and-I-Can’t-Do-Anything pessimism, I feel like I’m waiting for a cognitive leap, for something to click in my mind that will make me understand my situation and what I need to do.
But I’m not sure I’ve ever received one, until now.
So my first battle,
Take a look at this cake.
I MADE that cake!
But I don’t need to be a SLAVE to that cake.
I’ve taken notice of how excessive sugar effects my mood and physical well-being for quite some time now, but some of my “routines” have been standing in my way to making any significant changes.
Then I read this article about how sugar is, apparently, going to kill me.
This may or may not be true, but I am still a hopeless slave and would like to be released from my shackles.
So here’s my game plan to, over time, shift away from these routines and maintain a more-or-less sugar-free lifestyle.
~
It’s my favorite meal of the day. I’m attached to my eggs… but I’m also attached to something sugary:
cereal, honey, preserves, maple syrup, that cinnamon-raisin bread from Trader Joe’s that’s so good it makes my teeth hurt.
I’ll even munch on a cookie or a leftover dessert. If I have to.
Changes:
– Appeasing morning sweet tooth with fruit. This morning, I had a half a banana with a little peanut butter for protein and flair. It was completely satisfactory
– Sticking to natural sugars, like honey, if they are absolutely needed. Honey is still as sugary as white/brown sugar or maple syrup of my favorite raspberry preserves, but if I limit myself, then I’ll have have less opportunities to sweeten things up. Plus, it’s easy to drizzle just a little bit over something I would otherwise not want to eat, like boring old peanut butter.
– Increase non-sugar breakfast foods to make up for lost calories. I’m not trying to diet here, and cutting out my bowl of yogurt (with jam and honey and fruit) is going to create a serious calorie deficit. I don’t want to fall prey to the perpetual box of cookies in my office because I didn’t eat hearty enough in the a.m. So where I was eating 2 fried eggs with cheese for the past few weeks, I am now eating an egg sandwich – three scrambled eggs, cheese, and two slices of sprouted whole grain toast.
This isn’t so much of a routine as a condition… but my techniques for feeding myself during the day often falls back on sugar, sugar, SUGAR.
Changes:
– Evaluate those “healthy” snack bars you are always eating. I can eat 2-4 “health bars” a week, depending on how busy I am. I like to toss them in my bag in case of a low-blood-sugar emergency in class or on my long days at work. However,
I noticed last week that my Odwalla Bar had a first ingredient of ORGANIC CANE JUICE and had too many grams of sugar for comfort. I will be trying not to rely so heavily on these guys for regular sustenance and making sure that the ones I choose are natural and fairly sugar-free.
– Resist the Siren Call of the Diet Coke (or, who are we kidding, The Afternoon Energy Drink). I’ve been getting tired lately around 2 or 3 p.m. This is unfortunate, since three days a week, I have either class or 7 more hours of work ahead of me at that time of day. I need to stop indulging my urges. Energy Drinks – especially those emergency cans of high-fructose-corn-syrupy Monster – are not necessary, and Diet Coke supposedly makes you crave sugar more. Plus aspartame is bad for me/makes me feel kind of crappy, and Lance is worried it might kill me.
– Be adequately prepared for the day. The days I’m sneaking cookies from the box or Riesens from the basket (that is currently 2 feet from my head… yuumm) are the days I forgot my lunch, didn’t pack enough food, or don’t want to eat the food I packed. Try to avoid the office-sugar-pitfalls by packing that lunchbox full of tastier, healthier options.
This has been the big problem keeping me from quitting sugar altogether. I have a major caffeine addiction, fueled entirely by Starbucks mochas, Doubleshots in a can, and the occasional fruit-juice based (but still hella sugary) energy drink from Whole Foods.
I haven’t felt prepared to battle two major addictions at once.
But I’m trusting that the doing will make me change my mind about my worries, and maybe I’ll find a compromise along the way.
Changes:
– Learn to love the latte. Today, I skipped my usual mocha and ordered a double-shot latte. I sprinkled it with cinnamon for flavor and grabbed a Sugar in the Raw packet in case it was totally undrinkable. It wasn’t… but I’m still working on it, two hours later. Not delicious, but not totally disgusting.
– Mix it up. I also bought a Doubleshot. I will drink it tomorrow. I don’t want to rock the boat too hard. I will probably alternate these two for a few weeks, then maybe try making coffee myself at home.
– Get more sleep… drink more water, eat healthier, etc. Basically, consider kicking the caffeine habit to the curb. Maybe I’ll try after finals are over, and I have a month or so without academic pressures. Although we’ll see how this goes as I will also be spending a week with my Caffeine-Fueled-Family in May…
~
So cheers to readjusting your baseline,
building new routines,
and cognitive leaps.
I’ll be posting about this more in the coming weeks.
Even though I have a week off for Spring Break, March is usually a fairly light reading month for me. Maybe because a week off from school means a week off from my syllabus? But heck, who am I kidding, I am having trouble even attending to my obligatory 2-novels-a-week quota.
Ah, well. Some months are lean, some have books of plenty, their reading cups runneth over, et cetera. Take it easy, Jessica, it will all get read, in time.
1. Alice in Charge by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
I read my first Alice book in 5th grade, when Alice was a year ahead of me. Now, 10 years later, Alice is finally a Senior in high school, and Lester – her epically older, working on his Masters since I was in middle school, brother – just turned 24.
I am now the most epically old person alive.
Anyway, this year, Alice is going on (underplanned, heavily misguided) college visits, helping a friend report unsavory teacher-student relations, and investigating an undercover hate group that has targeted her friend, a refugee from Sudan.
But, most importantly, she’s pining over Patrick, who has started college a year early (what an idiot). Ah, sigh, Alice and Patrick, Patrick and Alice. Some things just don’t change in 10 years.
2. Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart
I wrote about how much I enjoyed reading this book, but I didn’t go into much detail as to why.
Here’s the quick and dirty: E. Lockhart’s books, without fail, remind me of the sheer complexity of attempting to maintain a romantic relationship with another human being, the triumphs, the pain, the importance of keeping at it. They might be considered “romantic comedies,” but they never sell a single character or interaction short.
These books make me want to hug them. Like, actually hug.
3. Split by Swati Avasthi
Return of the Syllabus… but I really enjoyed this book. The novel begins with Jace knocking on the door of his older brother, who he hasn’t seen in a number of years and who isn’t expecting him for a visit, much less to move in and stay awhile. Christian is miffed, but he understands, since he ran away from the same home years before to escape the domestic abuse of their father… who is a District Judge. The story focuses on Jace adapting to a new life while trying to reach out to the mother he left behind, trying to relate to a similarly emotionally damaged brother, and dealing with a bit of a secret past that could come back to haunt him.
I found this to be one of those books that zips right along, the pages flying by for a few days and when you are done, you don’t feel floored (or prone to book-hugging) but just satisfied.
2010 Cybils Winner – Young Adult Fiction
4. The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
We read this book for class alongside Split, which turned this class period into a Domestic Abuse Extravaganza!! (These books are pretty much all super depressing this semester)
This time around, we have a crazy, occasionally violent mother. Nikki has three kids from two different fathers, and this novel is a letter written from the oldest (Matthew) to the youngest (Emmy). Matthew and his sister Callie have done a great job of keeping Emmy safe from Nikki’s crazy outbursts and drunken rages, but Matthew still secretly hopes that somebody – a Knight in Shining Armor – will show up and save them all, even though he’s not sure that Nikki is really “all that bad.” Matt and Callie see a strong, kindly stranger in their neighborhood and decide that he is the One, and they hunt him down and find his name and address. However, Nikki finds Murdoch first and seduces him, and when their romantic relationship fizzles, Nikki turns her rage towards him.
I’d read this book a few years ago and I definitely enjoyed the re-read, but unlike say, Split, the end of the book felt a little scrapped together, a little disconcerting. Well, the whole book was a bit disconcerting, but I didn’t close the novel feeling resolved – I left feeling a little lost, a little confused… and all the more glad that I have a pair of mentally balanced parents.
2006 National Book Award Finalist
5. Stolen by Lucy Christopher
I’ll say this first – this book has me all sorts of riled up, for a number of reasons.
I feel like I don’t want to spoil much, but I’m going to anyway. In chapter one, the narrator – Gemma – is drugged and abducted at the airport and flown against her will and her knowledge to the remote deserts of Australia where her captor has spent years building a little homestead for the two of them to live.
The novel has two storylines, then:
1) Gemma tries to escape
2) Gemma falls in love with her captor
The second story line bothered me, but it mostly bothered me because it was really obvious that the story line was SUPPOSED to bother me.
I don’t like feeling manipulated…
but I suppose it DID make me think, right? And also we talked about Colonialism in class – Stockholm Syndrome = the oppressors tricking the oppressed into wanting to be oppressed – which I thought was crazy-interesting.
So I’m torn.
2011 Printz Honor
6. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
It was a BPL miracle: this book was getting a lot of hype in the media/blogosphere, I went to put a hold on it, I WAS NUMBER FOUR IN LINE.
Anyway, last week when I was recovering from my terrible illness, I missed out on 12 hours of work on Thursday and thought I would go onto campus and do a little extra on Friday. But first, I had to walk to the library to drop off my overdues and pick up my holds.
The bags were really heavy, though, and I forgot my caffeine in my fridge, and walking a mile was a little exhausting. I did not make it to work on Friday – I made it back onto the couch and read through this book in the span of an afternoon.
I found the book to be not much at all like the media portrayed it – it wasn’t a parenting polemic, it was a memoir. It wasn’t a “This is How You Should Raise Your Kids,” this is “This is How I Raised My Kids and It Kind of Worked and Kind of Didn’t.”
The book revolves around her two daughter’s music lessons and skills – they are both highly advanced musicians because Ms. Chua lorded over their hours-a-day practicing and arranged for them the best lessons available – so I naturally handed this one off to my boyfriend.
However, I didn’t expect him to eat it up like he currently is…
more about THAT later…
Talking about teens and technology in a room full of library students is a trip.
Most of my classmates are in their mid-twenties, with a bit of distribution higher or lower, which means most of us have used computers since elementary school, the Internet since middle school, Facebook since college, et cetera. We are pretty digitally savvy/integrated although we aren’t quite as “digitally native” as the teen patrons we hope to someday serve.
By the way, if I hear or say the term “digital native” one. single. more. time, I am really going to shoot myself in the eye. Seriously.
Anyway, even though we are online-type people, we still, as a group, have quite a few hang-ups regarding teen use and Internet use in general.
What really got me thinking was our chats about Facebook. The class was open to the idea of Internet as an addiction, as if the existence of technology creates a need to use said technology that was not there before. On a personal level, I completely agree, and I constantly assess the way technology affects my life and my choices and whatever. I try to control the amount of time I spend on the fun Internet things, the number of subscriptions and memberships and tools I use and subscribe to.
But at what point does something “cool” become something “essential?”
The class example was Facebook. Most people in the room, I’m assuming, use Facebook socially. The conversation turned to the weirdness of teens having hundreds of friends on Facebook they didn’t know (“Why is that necessary?”), the weirdness of needing to check Facebook constantly (“I quit for a year, voluntarily, and I found other things to do”), the weirdness of people spreading information “inappropriately” through Facebook (“I found out my friend was PREGNANT! On FACEBOOK. WHAT THE HELL?!” “Somebody posted that they ate a SANDWICH? On FACEBOOK? WHAT THE HELL!?!”), and why do we all NEED to be online so much anyway? (“I barely use Facebook, gawd, you guys are all addicted).
And I started to balk.
So people are checking Facebook too much, and people are putting more and more information out there and the rules of “conduct” for spreading information online is changing.
How can you ask people – especially – teens to “opt out” of technology because you think the whole thing is WEIRD and OBSESSIVE?
Like I said, I’ve thought about this in my own life, about whether I’m “addicted” to checking my email and my Facebook.
And yeah, I probably am addicted to the process, to the clicking and the reading and the feeding boredom perpetually without pausing to think.
But there’s nothing about FACEBOOK itself that is inherently bad.
It’s just the place where my friends are, the place where people “hang out” on the Internet, the place where we exchange information – important and not. I feel connected to my friends and family that live far away by reading a stupid status telling me they are tired because they had to work late, and they feel connected to me. If I didn’t have Facebook chat, I wouldn’t be able to talk to one of my best friends who is stationed overseas, or see pictures of her new baby. If a friend from college was visiting or moving to Boston, I would have no idea, we wouldn’t meet up for lunch or a cup of coffee even though I would probably like to.
If I decided to go the Puritanical route and give up Facebook for good, it would be like closing my bedroom door to the weird community of people in my life, past and present.
Facebook isn’t just a random url, a time-suck, a dirty habit.
It’s a tool.
Well played, Mark Zuckerberg.