My Hobby Will Fatten Me Up

So help me, I’m having a love-hate relationship with Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire Mysteries.     I was alerted to them by the credits of the A&E show and plowed into them voraciously as soon as I had them downloaded.  (Once again, hooray for Kindle.  Amount of  time between ‘learning about book’s existence’ and ‘owning book’ was 30 seconds.  Took a bit longer because I had to find out which was the first in the series. )  

 

The problem is that these are the type of books where someone is always eating something delicious.   I just finished the first one and sat through biscuits and gravy, breakfast casserole, fried fish, lasagne, pasta, homemade apple pie…the list is goes on.  

It’s gotten to where I can’t read them unless I have at least a soda.  Right now I’m getting ready to go heat up my leftover taco from last night so that I can make a little progress in Book Two.   

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Why I’m Not A Christian Libertarian Anymore

Yes, I know I already wrote a post today. Oh well. Now I’ve written two.

This initially started as a blog comment over at Jill Domschot‘s but it’s something I need to go on record about anyway, so I figured I’d keep it where I keep the rest of my thoughts.

The Christian Libertarians are being invaded by far-right jingoists and authoritarians who like the sound of “libertarian” because they haven’t yet tainted that brand they way they have all but ruined Republicanism. I promise that more and more of this is going to happen the closer we get to the next election.

That’s one of the reasons I’m changing my political affiliation to just “libertarian”. I’ve called myself “Christian Libertarian” for years as an acknowledgement of my belief that while the State should not be an all-governing authority I believe that one can, and I have, voluntarily place[d] oneself directly under the authority of God through the redemption to be had via Christ Jesus.

Now however Christian Libertarian seems to mean that they don’t like the State now that they don’t have a guy in charge so they think the State should have no authority. But they’re on God’s side and God has authority. So they claim their alliance with the Ruling Faction that way. The New Christian Libertarians are about exercising authoritarianism with the left hand instead of the right.

So yes, I am a Christian. And yes, I am a libertarian. But I’m no longer a Christian Libertarian because I flat out believe that we don’t convert people using force of law and we don’t use force of law to carpet the world to our own fussy liking.

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A Novel Gestation

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that God has been directing my reading for awhile now. Sure, there are a few books that are truly leisure reading but more and more often I feel like every book I get the urge to read ends up being a sort of lesson in some aspect of crafting fiction.

Last week was one of the watershed moments of my writing life and I spent much time not writing on this blog or on Facebook because I was busy handling what had become a huge moment for me.

Ever since I was about five I have had people comparing me to fictional characters. My mom’s hairdresser started it by saying that I should read Little Women because I reminded her of Jo. From the time I was about eleven I’ve had people saying that I remind them of Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame. When I finally read those books I was more than a bit puzzled because while I see a few similarities I didn’t really care for those stories in general.

But then last week I did find my fictional counterpart in a novel in a way that was almost scary. I mean, I have a very few things in common with Jo March, mostly in the liking-to-read-and-write areas. (Most of the time I still think she was an idiot for not marrying Laurie.) And Anne Shirley has some things in common with me. But I AM Francie Nolan of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. I read that book for the first time last week and had such an emotional, gut reaction to Francie. No, I didn’t grow up impoverished in Brooklyn. I didn’t have an aunt who worked in the condom factory. But the rest of it, the being alone and loving books and not having friendships with (many) women…so many things about Francie Nolan are ME. I actually spent quite a few hours last week flat out ANGRY with my parents for not making me read that book when having read it would have been a great comfort to me–around 13 or so. Since my mom was my English teacher for several years it isn’t an entirely misplaced frustration. But I can see how this book with its frank language and talk of sex is not something that one thinks of for children.

But now I’ve read it, at 43. And now I’ve combed through the minutiae of Betty Smith’s life looking for clues as to where I go next. Francie, after all, may have been fictional but everyone–including Smith–acknowledges that she was mostly a depiction of Smith herself and that the book is largely memoir. It’s been a great comfort to me to know that A Tree Grows In Brooklyn was written when Smith was in her late 40s. More and more often I’ve been pointed to books that turn out to have been written by folks in their mid- to late-40s. It’s a comfort to realise that many of the greatest novels to need to gestate in the author’s brain until the other impulses of creativity in a woman’s life start to taper down.

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My Hell And The Brain Doctor’s Wife

Last night something happened that I never thought I’d live to see. Hoped I’d never live to see.

Actually, that isn’t true. Saying that means that I had thought of the idea and rejected it as too horrible to even be considered. This particular idea had never even crossed my mind. My mind that has read of serial killers and the horrors of war and the Holocaust and starvation and thirst had never even pondered this hideous beast.

It was an infomercial for a diet plan…on a PBS pledge drive. Yes, that’s true. You watched two skinny people lecture you in tent revival tones on drinking their special shakes and making their special chicken tenders with Almond meal and then they stopped talking and the camera cut to a bodiless head (she must not be on the plan) who then said a few words about how the two skinny people were helping people and that’s what Public Television is all about! (Can I get an amen?) I watched for another minute to make sure that I was seeing what I saw. Sure enough, if you donate to This Local PBS Station, you will receive this book about Getting Healthy With The Brain Doctor’s Wife. Donate a little more and you get a video, yet a little more nets you a journal and exercise chart.

I wonder more and more why “helping people” and “saving people” costs so much money. The church-service tones of the infomercial were both comforting and appalling as I watched these people sell their ideas the way I’d watch others sell Jesus. It will make your life better! You will enjoy your days more! You will become bulletproof and beautiful beyond measure!

Of course, you have to pay for the books or the church building. The ideas are free but the marketing will cost you.

The food plan (The Omni Diet: Beware of Talky Video that starts automatically and has to be paused) promises to “reverse disease”. They tell you that yes, this food may be more expensive, but you can buy online and in bulk and it isn’t so bad. And besides, being sick is the most expensive thing ever.

We are entering that door I’d hoped would stay closed. That door which says “Illness is your fault. It is what you eat that makes you sick and by eating other things you will be made well.” This is a neat way to blame those who are already suffering for things that are out of their control. Of course I know that some folks are helped by a change in diet; I, for instance, am allergic to soy and feel much better if I avoid things with soy in them. But I also know that I have a condition that makes it at times impossible to eat fresh fruit, salad, raw vegetables. I’ve got my doctors telling me to eat processed foods (literally, actually “stay away from whole grains when you’re in flare”) because my gut cannot handle the other. And as many times as I’ve tried various food plans, and I’ve tried them all, I am not cured of my diseases. So I eat what I can handle (haven’t gained a pound in 8 years) avoid what I can’t.

But I’ve said all that before, I know. It’s an old soap box for me, this recoiling at the promises made by hucksters of health.

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The Fist Bump

A few days ago (again with the FB…) I posted a video of Sir Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard, wheelchair dude from X-Men) addressing a group about violence against women and post-traumatic stress for veterans. Having just been assured by two women at a writing group that it was okay for a man to shake a woman he was angry with, I felt the need to have someone else loudly proclaim that violence is never the answer and to then receive a round of applause. That video met the need handsomely. (Literally. He’s a handsome man.)

What I found more captivating than his speech, however, was the way he stood, arms crossed in front of him, one hand clenching and clawing at his sleeve. I recognise that move. Any arthritic recognises that move. Call it “The Clench”–it’s a dead give-away that the person is arthritic and not in a mild, one-finger-hurts-when-it-rains kind of way. I swore then in my FB post that he has arthritis.

This afternoon I finally got around to googling “Patrick Stewart arthritis”. Apparently he is a red-letter sufferer, public about the problem and mentioned in some arthritis groups as a sort of Pop Culture Patron Saint of Arthritics Everywhere. {As an aside, I truly do not get this need that people have to find a celebrity with their problem/issue/concern so that they can validate their problem/issue/concern. Does arthritis “count” more now that Patrick Stewart has it?} So I guess instead of being all Sherlock Holmes-y on the YouTube video I could have been more up on Patrick Stewart in general and I would have found out that way. Oh well.

What compelled me to keyboard was the fact that there was a fan account of meeting him wherein the fan waited on line for a long time and was disgruntled that Stewart wouldn’t shake his hand or even give him a fist-bump. When the fan-wrangler had to explain that Sir Patrick (he actually called him Sir Patrick…) has arthritis the fan was pretty irritated.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve had people irritated when I won’t shake their hands. In fact, it’s gotten to be so irritating to me that I no longer refuse to shake hands. I would rather put up with the slices of lightning that wrap around my fingers and shoot up my arm than to suffer under the laser glare of someone’s automatic decision that I am a bitch who is too bitchy to live.

By and large I’m glad that my disability is not visible in the way a missing limb or an eye patch would be. Folks can’t just look at me and know (unless they are a sufferer themselves and aware of the signs) what hurts, why and how bad. I’m like that commercial a few years ago for fibromyalgia where they show black animated fog superimposed over the parts of the woman’s hurting body while they told us loudly that Fibromyalgia Is Real. (No kidding…thanks for waiting for a saleable drug to get on board with that one, medical industry!) The animated fog superimposed on my joints would be red and make me look like I’d fallen in a vat of Buster Bluth’s juice*. But you’d better believe I’ll shake your hand. It’s just one more way to get by in an ableist world by faking ability.

Props to Patrick, er, Sir Patrick Stewart for drawing a line in the sand. But man, I sure would love a day when we arthritics don’t get lambasted for “impersonal” behaviour when we give in to our limitations.

(“You mean we have unlimited juice? This party is gonna be OFF THE HOOK!”)

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The Joy Of Waiting

A couple of weeks ago there was a video making the Facebook rounds, and since so many of my friends talked it up I figured I should watch it. Apparently it was the latest entry in the “tell your kids they’re going to Disney and get their reaction on video” craze.

The video begins with the little girl called Lilly sitting at a table. A woman–I assume her mother–asks Lilly if she is excited for her birthday coming in the following week and then asks if she’d like to open an early present. There are then five or so minutes while Lilly sorts through the various Disney-branded gifts packed in the purple backback with the Disney Princesses on it. Mom keeps asking leading questions such as “where do you think a good place would be to wear that t-shirt?” and “where would you like to take those videos?” (props to Lilly for saying “I want to leave them at home.”) Finally mom can stand the suspense no longer and announces to Lilly that they are indeed going to Disneyland RIGHT NOW TODAY AS SOON AS DADDY GETS HOME FROM WORK!

Lilly bursts into tears. Literal, screaming, wailing tears of confusion and uncertainty. All she knows in her little four year old world is that the order and routine she counts on is being wildly disrupted. “Are we taking Daddy?” “Is my birthday today?” The child wasn’t excited. She was petrified. Mom tried to put a spin on it, asking her if she was excited and assuming they were tears of joy. Some of them might have been, but I know there was much fear and confusion.

I’m not singling these parents out as being special examples of something awful. They clearly love their child and want to make her happy. The problem is that they made a huge mistake and spoiled what could have been a magnificent teaching opportunity.

There is joy in waiting. I’m not talking about the purity ring kind of waiting–that’s specifically for Christians and is a different thing altogether. I’m talking about basic delayed gratification coupled with the pleasures and bonding of anticipation. I use the Disney example specifically because my parents took us several times when we were children and it was always something that we were told about months in advance. A good part of the fun of the trip was the looking forward to it. As an adult who doesn’t use credit I am extremely grateful for those lessons about patience.

Frankly, I’m worried about kids not getting the message. Lilly seems like a nice little girl from the five minutes I’ve seen of her. I would hate to think that she’ll be among the masses who buy everything on credit, never learning that saving, pondering, anticipating are their own particular sort of fun.

—-

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The Pern Problem: Feminism and Fictional Fighting

The Dragonriders of Pern series has been a classic of sci-fi for pretty much my entire existence. I’ve never read any of it until now, however, and after two books I’m left wondering quite a few things.

Written in the late 60s, the first novel–Dragonflight–tells the story of a young woman who unexpectedly bonds with a dragon during the twilight years of the planet Pern’s 400 year peaceful interlude. The fungal spores that rain down from a neighbouring planet soon return, however, and she must find a way to save her homeworld.

It’s a good story that would be a great story if she weren’t so annoying. It’s a good story that would be a fantastic barn-burner of a novel if a good third of it weren’t devoted to her abusive conflicts with her mate. Nothing says “good leisure reading time” like a man shaking a woman violently when angered by her refusal to obey him.

Yes, you read that right. A man shaking a woman violently when angered by her refusal to obey him.

But here’s the problem I have as both a reader and a writer.

As distasteful as these scenes of domestic violence are, as uncomfortable as I am reading them I think they are accurate. Strong-willed men used to dominating a culture and being feted for their prowess often DO conflict with women of equally strong will and smart mouth.

At first I was horrifed, thinking “that’s just not something I need to read about”. Then I realised that as much as we speculative fiction readers carry on about worldbuilding, do we dare complain when the worldbuilding describes the characters in that world accurately? Unlike Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Dragonflight never fetishizes the abuse or makes it seem cute and kind of sexy in a “ravish me, big fella” way. It’s an uncomfortable situation portrayed uncomfortably. As objectionably squicky as it is to read, it does have resolution and doesn’t continue past the middle third of the book.

I’ve read a lot of reviews of this novel, most of them slagging off on the book and declaiming it as anti-feminist trash.

Feminists get abused. Believe it or not, there is more than one feminist out there who has been slapped, punched, kicked, shaken and worse. The point of feminism isn’t to pretend that this doesn’t happen but to point out how wrong it is when it does. I think that Dragonflight did that successfully, actually.

I’m on the verge of thinking that perhaps we as readers in the 21st century have gotten too much political correctness that then stands in the way of our willingness to watch characters develop. I’m not sure if I’m going to commit to that theory all the way, though, because I’ve read too many novels lately where the woman is raped for no other reason that to have a shocking, prurient thing happen. We’re also the culture that lauded the Millenium Trilogy to the rafters and made that trilogy of meaningless torture porn a bestselling icon of publishing. So I don’t think I’m ready to say we need to stop being so guarded against violence and exploitation in fiction.

I do think, though, when the violence serves a purpose and is ultimately dealt with we need to admit that a purpose was, indeed, served.

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Be Not Ashamed Of Your Testes From God

Oh, John Piper! Why do you insist upon having such a limited, perverse view of men?

I can only assume that you must, because you are objecting to women having any influence over men in a position where you and other men are aware of our femininity.

I’m married to a man; I have two brothers and a sister who were all raised alongside me by a man and a woman together. Until his death I had a treasured grandpa who let me sit with him on the tractor, who let me stand beside him while he slopped his hogs and who greeted me with such effusive hugs that he insisted he’d “squeeze [me] till [my] tongue stuck out.” I have dear uncles who practice medicine, healing the bodies of the sick–both male and female bodies. Those uncles see a lot of naked women in the course of their work.

None of the men I know are rapists or sex-mad fiends who are unable to control their sexual impulses in the presence of women. None of the men I’ve befriended over the last few years as a writer have sent me emails overflowing with their inability to continue speaking to me unless I sexed them up.

I wonder why it is that you think men are so very unable to control their sexual urges. Why is it that you think I need to stick to writing, to sitting behind a desk, to lurking in the shadows. Are my breasts that ripe and wonderful? Is the mere suggestion of my vagina, lurking down there somewhere under my panties and blue jeans and Disneyworld T-Shirt, so completely enthralling? Surely not. If you’ve met me you know I inspire more thoughts of things like pie and thick novels about dragons than I do sex.

But even so, how is a man’s inability to control himself my problem, John Piper? Let me explain.

I love cheese. When I see cheese it makes me want to bury my face in the joyousness that is fermented milk and rennet. Yet I have never once in my life called up the manager of Kroger and said “please make sure that you drape black cloth over all the cheese displays. I’m coming to market today and that cheese better not be visible or I will steal some. It’s your fault if I put cheese in my purse without paying, your fault if I have a frenzied meltdown in the deli and down and entire tub of cinnamon goat cheese in an instant.” No. You see, Mr. Piper, I have learned that if I want the cheese I pay for it. I take it home and eat it politely. The cheese I don’t choose gets to live free and unmolested. If I steal cheese, that’s MY fault. If I have a cheese-centered meltdown, that’s either my fault or a fault I share with my ineffective psychiatrist. Not that I have a psychiatrist, but if I were 43 years old and unable to shop for cheese without a frenzy I should think I would have crossed paths with a psychiatrist eventually.

Your problem is not with women, Mr. Piper. Your problem is that you have a far lower opinion of men than pretty much anybody else.

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Sundays With The Bookworm–The Meltdown Edition

/book-review-the-sword-and-the-dragon-by-m-r-mathias/” target=”_blank”>How one man’s meltdown ruined an otherwise okay story.

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The Baffled King Composing

Periodically I’ll get in myself a yearning to listen to one song over and over so that I can explore the ways it moves me and why. Writing about music is not the wisest thing, they say, because you can’t capture the essence of what music is and does in mere words. Patrick Rothfuss put a disdain for all poets in his character Kvothe; poets are half-empty. It’s the actual music that moves.

As much as I love some poets–Eliot, Donne, Hunter–they just are half moving without song. Poor Eliot got put to music finally, but the music was showtunes. Still and all, you can’t say that certain of the tunes from CATS don’t leave you humming them now and forever. Hunter is the case that proves my point. As much as I love his poetry, it’s much more moving with the music written for it. Don’t believe me? Read “Ripple” and then listen to Ripple. One makes you think “that’s awesome”. The other will make you cry, smile, remember and hope.

Today the song that I got in my head to listen to repeatedly was perhaps my all-time favourite of all songs.
Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

This is a poet’s heart put in music. It’s also one of the most beautiful pieces of music–words and song–put together. Of course that’s probably because the religious imagery, the battle between faith and doubt, the artful combination of sexuality and worship all combine in one perfect five minutes.

I need to go on record as having loved this song to pieces before it started showing up in every movie and TV show. You know this is true because I was an English major with a stereo in the 80s. Leonard Cohen was IT. The song first showed up in 84 but I truthfully didn’t know of it until 1987. From then on I was addicted to it, even though I listen to it sparingly. It’s not a song that you can hear once and say “okay, that was nice. Where’s the pie?” It’s a song that you hear and you think “that is what the word ‘Hallelujah’ means. That mournful joy where you are humbled before God yet joyous with the warmth of love.”

A few weeks ago I found out that there is an entire book about the song and I snatched that puppy right up. If you have a Kindle you too can buy it for $2.99 this month. I’m tickled that it was on sale for my birthday month. That right there is a tangible sign of a Beyond and a More.

Since I’m drattedly superstitious about my birthday* I figured I’d start the day with a binge on Cohen. That was how I spent my devotions today, praising God through this piece of music that found it’s way to me via the public library and scratchy vinyl.

It truly doesn’t matter which you heard or which you utter. The holy or the broken–those are both versions of self–you stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on your tongue but Hallelujah. The word is Hebrew for “Praise God”. And no matter how broken you are, just deliver that praise from deep inside your own bafflement.

*I have a belief that how you spend your birthday portends the way you will spend the coming year. So I try to focus on joy and kindness and love and reading and writing.

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