Uniformity

A few weeks ago, I posted a quote on Facebook from the book Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, which led to a lively conversation about why people can't just mind their own business on this and other hot-button life choices.

And then my wise friend Keely weighed in:

There is safety in the same...when you or your life is the same as mine you validate my life choices and therefore you are perceived as safe or good. When you are different you are unsafe. So we turn those who are different than us into "others" as we seek to validate ourselves.

Preach, sister.

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that sometimes
I'm going to be a right-side-up bird, the courage to
sometimes be an upside-down one, and the wisdom
to keep singing no matter what way I'm facing.
Image source.

I ran across a similar sentiment while reading The More of Less: "Nobody feels embarrassed for just being normal. It's when we deviate from the norm that we might become embarrassed." And so we self-police, whether or not it's the right thing for ourselves, and maybe that's why it's so easy to see someone else as an "other" to be shamed or avoided--after all, I'm putting in the work to be normal; why can't you?

How sad--and yet how everyday. It's pretty obvious from the nightly news, or even from the average Facebook news feed (if you haven't already turned that into a self-affirming echo chamber, that is; I'm trying not to, but wow, is it hard to keep reading stuff that makes me want to Gibbs-slap my nearest and dearest), how easy it is to get locked into our own ingroups and actively ridicule and avoid anything different.

We've all heard the story about the monkeys in the cage with the bananas out of reach, right? How they got sprayed with water a couple of times in the attempt to reach the bananas, and subsequently wouldn't let any other monkeys try to climb up to get the bananas? Y'all, that's no way to live.

I know; it's hard. It's scary. It's easier to just concentrate my time and energy on people who are already like me instead of putting in the harder work of understanding and accepting that other people don't all have to do what I do to be worth my time and consideration.

As we continue through this season of our world gone mad, it's never been more important to see other people, and see them as people, despite our differences and disagreements. Now is not the time to dig in deeper to our ingroups. Now is the time to open up to others, to listen, to accept that maybe our realities aren't the only ones out there. Now is the time to reject the uniform and embrace the differences. We can do this.

One Who Can Drive

Today in My Life is Basically Just a Venue for Musical Theatre References to Happen, I want to talk a little bit about cars and my beloved Next to Normal.

This Next to Normal post is not
about Aaron Tveit's character. I
just like to post pics of him. Source.

In case you've still not looked it up (spoilers! But really, this musical has been available in a whole bunch of venues since 2009. If you're still going to call this a spoiler, go to YouTube, for goodness' sakes): Next to Normal deals with the effects of Diana's mental illness on herself and her family.

Because we've built such a car-centric society, because driving in most places is the norm, because not driving is seen as different or wrong or downright harmful, this musical can twice cite Diana's non-driving as a particularly irritating side effect of her illness. Dan, her husband, goes so far as to say, "I loved a wife so alive, but now I believe I would settle for one who can drive." Geez, dude.

I usually hear colloquially that 30% of Americans don't drive (although pinning that number down has been problematic), for reasons of age, ability, or desire. That's a lot of people to leave out of our transportation system. Insisting that everyone has to either drive or stay home isolates not only people like Next to Normal's Diana, but also our ever-growing population of senior citizens, and folks who have other, more pressing uses for money that may have been spent on car ownership.

We can do better. We should do better than to just accept that some folks are being left out of participation in society because of the way we've built our transportation system. Diana may be fictional, but her mobility issues are very real.

Teaser Tuesday #43

Source: Goodreads

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, James Shapiro

The perception of Macbeth as a play defined by the supernatural--behind Middleton's early revisions and reinforced by the actors' myth of a curse--has shaped much of the play's modern stage history as well.

In his unrelenting assault on those who dared criticize the government's overreaction he unwittingly gives voice, otherwise lost, to what was being murmured at the time.




Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Teaser Tuesday #42

Source: Goodreads.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman

Had I not narrowly averted the punctuational catastrophe, they would have all cried, in chorus, "There's a superfluous apostrophe!"

He does not think me a lovable helpmeet when I wander past his computer screen and find my fingers, as if animated by an inner gremlin, inserting a second r in embarass.





Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Come Hear the Music Play

I am so far behind on sharing the shows I've loved the last few months. This is what happens when I spend time on silly things like "getting a job" or "watching Serena and Andy take Wimbledon by storm". So, a quick recap on all of them:

Motown the Musical

One thing I've done right this past year in my theatre-seeing is going to shows without knowing for sure what they're about. This one only kinda falls into that category, since the title is somewhat self-explanatory. The music was incredible (no kidding!), and Allison Semmes as Diana Ross is positively show-stopping. During the bit when she comes into the audience and picks some folks to sing with, she chose an elderly gent who announced, "I love you!"

One other funny moment: the characters were discussing what to call their special label, and someone in the audience helpfully shouted, "Motown!" Such a great show, and my last one in Austin.

My attempted selfie
with the chandelier. 

Phantom of the Opera

This show came to Indianapolis the same week I did, and as is my wont, I rounded up my entire family to go see it on Mother's Day. My father hated it, my mother loved it, my grandma was confused the whole time, and I don't know what everyone else thought. I had high hopes after weeks of stalking following the actors on Twitter, and was not disappointed. In addition to the cast being fantastic on stage, they were also a delight at stage door afterwards. This is my most-signed playbill to date, and totally worth standing in the unseasonable cold for.

My mother's playbill on the left, mine on the right.
Our favourite person at stage door was Quinto Ott-- even
my brother remembered him when I read some of his
tweets aloud at dinner a few days later.

Twelfth Night

A friend of mine is part of Hoosier Shakes, and since I live oh-so-close now, I made the quick drive up north to see Twelfth Night in Marion. First--the actors did the pre-show entertainment and the intermission entertainment. They never stopped going the whole time, and still had enough energy afterwards to chat. What a great group of super-friendly, energetic people.

Also, the entire audience laughed so hard at this that I'm still not sure what happened in this scene. In fact, I'm still kind of amazed I didn't fall off my chair laughing:

Photo blatantly swiped from the Hoosier Shakes
Facebook page. And I really, really hope this isn't
the photo Networked Blogs pulls for my post later.

Cabaret

This was my next-to-last Austin show, and I've saved it until the end here because I had so many feelings about it. First of all, the only thing I've known about this show my entire life was the song "Cabaret," so I've always thought it was a happy show. Oops.

Through most of Act I, I kept thinking, "Maybe this show doesn't have a plot," only for the plot to arrive, quite heavily, right before intermission. According to Wikipedia, 1920s Berlin really was the be-who-you-are party spot depicted in the musical right before the Nazis rose to power. Watching the characters' fear grow in Act II was heart-wrenching and horrifying, as was Fräulein Schneider's telling Cliff that he was free to leave any time, while the Germans were stuck in Germany to live with whatever came next. Timeless message, much?

Needless to say, I didn't walk out of this one uplifted and happy. It weighed on me for days while I tried to process what I'd seen. Months later, I'm still processing.

Things I tweet after I see thought-provoking musicals.
Post title is a line from Cabaret.

What's next? Well, after months of dithering, I'm headed back to NYC to see Les Misérables one more time before it closes. Much like the last time I went to New York, I chose a second show based on one actor who's in it--the actor in question this time is Josh Grisetti, who is joining the cast of Something Rotten next week, just in time for me to see him in it. Yep, I'm pretty excited. Yes, I know I'm incredibly lucky. I wish you could all come with me.

Time to Listen

There are times when the best thing to do is stop talking and listen. 

If you're white in America, and you just can't imagine that being nonwhite in America may carry with it a different set of experiences than your own, maybe right now is time to be quiet and listen.

My Facebook feed is filled with the usual "But if people would just..." and "If ____ would have (or not have) done _____, then..." Please, please stop. 

Our neighbors, our fellow Americans, our fellow human beings are crying out for us to listen and believe them when they talk about what it's like to be a POC in America. Let's do that, please? 

Here are a couple good places to start: a piece from a white adoptive mother of African-American children, and another one from an African-American former police officer. Take a few minutes to listen. Please.

(If you feel like you need to unfriend/unfollow me for asking you to listen, go ahead. No need for comment. Just go.)

Who Said It?

This is one of those things that absolutely happened before the internet, but now that we can all send poorly researched information to one another at the speed of tweets, I see it a lot more often. And it makes me very stabby.

What is it? Poor attribution.

I'm not talking about poorly cited (or nonexistent) sources, although seriously, please don't share posts with that nonsense in it. No, this is about taking a quote from a book (or movie, or whatever--I'm talking fiction here) and attributing that quote to the author who wrote it, rather than the character who said it.

I know, I know, it's an easily justified practice, and at times when you need a quote in a hurry but can't remember the character, the author may be close enough. Except that doing so is imprecise at best and misleading at worst.

Why? Because the author who wrote the good guy also wrote the villain. Because dialogue is for moving a story. Because it's fiction. And because without a definitive word from the author, pulling a random quote from her book and presenting it as her quote may not be reflective of what she really believes or thinks.

Here's my least favourite example (and it shows up on Twitter approximately 516876 times per day):

Source.

What's wrong with it? Gimli is the one who said it, in the midst of an argument with Elrond about whether or not the Fellowship should be bound by pledges to stay with Frodo until the bitter end. And Elrond says:

Source.

Another incorrectly attributed quote, but strangely enough, this one tends to show up on Twitter a lot less often. Whatever you think Tolkien was driving at in this passage, surely we can all agree that Elrond is intended to be the wiser character? And perhaps that, since his word prevails over Gimli's objections, this is a better reflection of Tolkien's true thoughts on the subject? At the very least, that attributing both quotes to him with no further explanation makes Tolkien sound a bit confused?

We have Google now. Please, please, please use it when you're quoting something and you can't remember who said it. And (gently) encourage others to follow suit. To kick us off, I made a small adjustment to the quote we started with:

Want to make one? I use quozio.com.

That Would Be Enough

I follow YA author Shannon Hale on Twitter (and you should, too; she's fantastic), and in the midst of a discussion about the relationship between writers and readers yesterday, she asked, "What does craft matter if you have nothing to say?" What, indeed.

I bought Lin-Manuel Miranda's book Hamilton: The Revolution a few weeks ago. Hamilton's is a story I think we've all agreed at this point was well worth telling, and of course Lin-Manuel crafts this something to say so well that getting a ticket to see it costs approximately one firstborn. (I saw a brilliant sign in BookPeople below Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton: "Tickets available for this version!") In a musical filled with heart-wrenching moments, The One for me is Eliza's "I live another 50 years. It's not enough," in "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." My reaction hasn't changed from the first time I heard it-- I still think, "Fifty years? Are you kidding me? Fifty years?" The thought of living 50 years without Chadwick is unthinkable.

I do love this. There are a bunch of these stickers
scattered around Austin, but this particular one is
at an intersection near my last house in ATX.

But maybe that's why Eliza got so much done, because as she says, she didn't "waste time on tears." She didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. Of course she didn't know at the outset how much time she would have, which I suppose helps with the whole not-wasting-time thing. And in the end, it's because she got things done that her story is so compelling, and her work is why both Hamiltons' story is still being told.

While thinking about this, I ran across Samuel Beckett's Texts for Nothing, which includes this gem:

There's my life, why not, it is one, if you like, if you must, I don't say no, this evening. There has to be one, it seems, once there is speech, no need of a story, a story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. (emphasis mine)

Do I want to live a great story that has something to say? Of course I do. Do I enjoy telling my husband's story? Very much so. But I also want to live like my life is enough. Listening to birds while reading by a little creek in a clump of trees does not a great story make. But it's not a terrible addition to a life. Nor is chocolate, or sharing a joke with my niece, or having a cup of tea with a friend, or spending a few minutes of my day catching up with people on Twitter who I care about and who make me smile, even if we never meet face to face. I'd hate to be so consumed with "YOLO" or "Go big or go home" that I forget it's these little day-to-day things that make life worth living.

Don't stop trying to live your best story. But you don't have to chase your life as a Broadway musical, either. Be you, and be enough.

Post title is a song title in the first act as well as a repeated theme of Eliza's in Hamilton.

Reading Challenge Update: June

Here's what happened in my reading challenges in June. Finally making some progress!

Since I completed my goal level for the I Love Libraries Challenge (young adult-24 books), I'm moving myself up a notch the adult level, which is 36 books.

I will probably also bump up my level for the Read it Again, Sam Challenge, but I'm holding out on that until my books and I are happily reunited. My library is currently sitting in storage.

And finally, I intended to raise my goal for the Women Challenge, but I'm already at the highest level available.

Links (and image sources) are to Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (25/36 books so far)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Read It Again, Sam (3/4 books so far)
The Bikeable Church: A Bicyclist's Guide to Church Planting, Sean Benesh
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes (Yes, I read it twice this month. That's how much I liked it.)

Woman Challenge (18/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)

Mount TBR Challenge (5/20 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole

Goodreads Challenge (33/100 books so far)
Backpacked: A Reluctant Trip Across Central America, Catherine Ryan Howard (this one was technically May, but I forgot about it in last month's update)
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day
Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes
Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, Kelly Williams Brown
The Complete Book of Les Misérables, Edward Behr
I Want It Now! a Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Julie Dawn Cole
Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, Meredith Maran (ed)
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography, Neil Patrick Harris
Robert Moses: The Master Builder of New York City, Pierre Christin, Olivier Balez (visual art)
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
Writing Is My Drink: A Writer's Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can Too), Theo Pauline Nestor
Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids, Meghan Daum (ed)
Who Could That Be at This Hour?, Lemony Snicket
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman

Being Alone

I remember the time I found out how much I like being alone.

I was--you know what, I'm not even going to share how old I was. Let's just say it was earlier than our society would find acceptable for children to be left home alone these days. But it was the 90s, I knew where the fire extinguishers and the first aid kit were, and could feed myself, so on spring break that year my parents decreed that I could stay home by myself. I never turned on the TV that week--I spent all that delicious sibling- and parent-free time writing. It's still in the top 10 best weeks of my life.

This looks kind of nice, actually.
Source: suphamongkhon arwatchanakarn
on freeimages.com.

Not long before Chadwick & I got married, I happened to have a few more days of solitude when all my roommates (and my fiancee) went home for Thanksgiving weekend. At the time, I thought, this may be the last time I have a weekend alone for the rest of my life. I expected to have a house full of kids and pets before too many more years had gone by. That future never materialized, of course, and here I am looking forward to getting my own apartment for the first time in my life. (First the job, then an apartment. Soon, please, universe!)

In my current life anthem, Next to Normal, Dan concludes the song "I've Been" by saying he could never be alone. But of course (spoiler alert!), by the end of the musical, he is alone, and the final song is the beginning of his journey to coping with his new reality. And my journey has begun, too, even during this interim time; I've grabbed books like Kate Bolick's Spinster (even though I'm not) to see how other people have walked the path of being alone. She does fascinating research on the women she calls her "awakeners," but it's this bit from her own life that has me captivated:

I could be alone again.
And then, after the sadness had passed, I saw that I'd crossed into an entirely new country.
I wasn't alone again. My life was teeming with people.

It was with regret that I left behind my people in Austin, and I haven't started gathering my people again. I'm sure that's why the mere thought of facing the world by himself was so scary for Dan halfway through Next to Normal: he didn't have his people yet, or rather, he didn't know his people were already gathering, the people who he would interact with in the final minutes of the show.

I don't expect this time of transition to be the best thing ever or to chalk up a whole bunch of top-10 weeks right away. But that's okay. After all, the final line of Next to Normal is, "There will be light!"

Paying it Forward

Sometimes, my grandmother and I have odd conversations about modern conveniences-- like tumble dryers, for instance. I'm more of a clothesline kind of gal, at least during the summer, while grandma has had enough of clotheslines in her lifetime and will not dream of hanging up her clothes when she has a perfectly good dryer to do the job.

My grandmother's sadly neglected clothesline. I don't
even know if she still has clothespins.

She's coming around to my composting all the kitchen scraps. She's very confused about me using a bicycle when there's a (seven-passenger, for goodness' sakes, to move just me) van in the garage I have access to.

I did say to her one day, "But you've earned this stuff!" And I do believe she has--she was born during the Great Depression, and lived the first 50 or so years of her life well within the mantra I try to live by now: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." So when it comes to her twilight years, I'd argue she's earned the right to do whatever she wants--and she is, truth be told, still living very lightly upon the planet.

There's a goofy little bit of apocrypha that wanders the internet, and I shall not repeat it in full here because it annoys me, but it begins with a young person suggesting that perhaps if older folks had cared more about the environment we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. The older person responds with a list of all the earth-friendly things she did when she was young, thus absolving herself of all responsibility for any current earth-unfriendly-ness. That's all well and good.

My issue is that these skills weren't passed down, and while the generation that lived through the Depression could justifiably embrace things to make their lives easier, as a society we lost sight of a non-disposable lifestyle. I laugh when I see friends within 10 years of my own age passing along this little fable like it applies to us. We're making our way back there, with the rise of durable reusables and the positive peer pressure to take your own bags to the store or walk for short trips. Or the resurgence in at-home canning and clothesmaking. A downturn in the economy also gives an (unfortunate) boost to practices that happen to be earth-friendly as well as budget-friendly.

But still, I'm not there yet. My life will never be as light on the earth as my grandparents', partly due to my love for occasionally hopping onto airplanes to see other places. And so I'm not as willing as my grandma is to use a machine when I could use my body. After all, she's earned it. I have not.

The Educational Bus

Since I'm sitting here in no-public-transportation land (a dismal place to be, y'all), I'll indulge in some nostalgia and fond shouting out to one form of transportation I didn't use a lot in Austin: the UT shuttle system.

In the last couple years, CapMetro has made some changes to the shuttle system, notably cancelling one low-performing route and beginning to upgrade their fleet to buses that carry fareboxes, as well as having the same look and branding of the rest of the bus system fleet. Up until recently, the shuttles had all-door boarding and no payment was required (technically, non-students were supposed to pay, but that's hard to do when there's no farebox). Now, students have to swipe their student IDs and the general public has to pay to ride, just like on every other bus. While I'm sure this cuts down on lost fares, it also slows down boarding. Time will tell if that's a good trade-off.

The orange-and-white UT buses are on their way out.
Source: UT Parking & Transportation page.

Anyway, on to singing praises. Generally speaking, the shuttles are good for two things: 1) Going to campus, and 2) Going from campus to another place served by the shuttle service. Plus it's a limited-stop service, so while it's always crowded, it is also usually faster than the comparable local bus service.

A few months ago, I had to go across town in the morning, changing buses downtown, for a total trip time that was somewhere between "I could be halfway to Dallas by now" and "Are you freaking kidding me?" Then I remembered the UT shuttles. I rode one to campus, changed buses, then had a bus all to myself (since I was going opposite the direction students were going) for the second half of the trip. All in less than half the time door-to-door than a regular local bus would have taken.

I'm not necessarily encouraging that the people of Austin go out and invade the student shuttles in droves--although perhaps if they did, CapMetro would have a bit more incentive to make the regular buses as frequent and convenient as the shuttles. And that would be an even better thing that a few specifically useful routes: for every route in the CapMetro system to be as useful, frequent, and easy to ride as the UT shuttles.

Now, if my hometown would just get on board with the public transportation thing.

A Question for You

As ever, I'm happy to hear from anyone on this, although there is a particular audience that's more qualified to answer than others.

At some point, I have to go to my parents' house and deal with my other book collection-- the one that hasn't travelled with me through the years, the ones that served Kid Me and Teen Me well, but that 22-year-old me didn't have room for right away in my new life. But now that my parents are approaching senior citizenhood and I'm cruising toward middle age, it's probably time to finally get all my crap out of their house.

This was probably my
favourite of them all.
Source: Goodreads.

There's no telling what I'll find among my book collection. It may be that 22-year-old me was correct and my former library will make a one-way trip to the local Goodwill. However, there's one set of books that I know for sure awaits me: Sweet Valley Twins.

This isn't Sweet Valley High, where the girls did things like sleep around and murder people; these books are set when they were in middle school, younger and relatively innocent. I collected a whole bunch of them in 5th-6th grade, as did many of my classmates. They don't have a lot of redeeming qualities in terms of literary merit, although occasionally the twins did learn from their mistakes (but usually everything just worked out exactly liked they wanted it to, so not a lot of learning opportunity). I'm thinking of taking them to one of the many Little Free Libraries in town, and that brings me to my question:

If you saw these books in the wild, would you cover your children's eyes and run away screaming? 

Obviously, the folks most qualified to answer this are anyone who was in the right age group to read these when they were popular--middle schoolish in the late 80s and early 90s--and who also have children who might be affected by Sweet Valley exposure, but as I said, I'm happy to hear from anyone. After all, there's part of me that wants to use these books for kindling rather than let any young eyes near them. But maybe I'm missing something. What say you?

Book-Shaped Life

When I was young, free library cards at our local library were restricted to people who lived within the city proper. While that policy has since changed, I discovered last week that the same local library carries not a single book by Richard Florida. It's like they're making up ways to interfere with my reading life.

I kid. This library was my second home starting from about age 9, and it's rapidly becoming so again as a happy place where I can get a lot of work done sans distraction (and without having to hand over cash, like I do at Starbucks).

So, my first library:

I simultaneously barely remember it but also remember it very, very well. My love of books may not have been born here--that's a hard spot to pinpoint--but I will give them heaps of credit for helping it along. It's definitely my earliest memory of being surrounded by bookshelves crammed with books, with the sacred scent of pages heavy in the air. By the time I came along, it was obvious that this building was inadequate to house the books a growing community needed, but that didn't stop me from weeping and gnashing my teeth when it was announced a new library was coming.

Incidentally, this building was a Carnegie Library, and it opened in 1909, next door to the then-high school. These days it's a restaurant.

Library #2 opened when I was in second grade (at least, that's what the library history page says. I would have guessed a year or two later), next door to the current high school. Also just a few blocks from my elementary school. I've presumed for most of my life that every elementary student in town got the same tour that my class did, but I really don't know. I certainly hope so. Anyway, when it was ready to go but not quite open, we walked to the library one afternoon for a tour and instructions on how to use the card catalog and the microfiche. I thought it was a palace. (I still do, truth be told.)

Once I reached an age when my parents thought I could be trusted to walk to the library after school without getting run over or wandering off, that's what I did, at least twice a week. On the library history page, there's this gem from much later on: "Library Director Susan Waggoner writes in the Daily Reporter that over 2,500 items for the month had been read 'in-house,' many by non-residents who chose not to pay for fee cards which would allow them to check out materials." I'm pretty sure a huge chunk of that was from me (in fact, I'd like to believe that my departure brought those numbers down a bit) until my parents decided they'd better get us all cards when I was headed into high school.

This building has housed a church for a few years, and now is undergoing renovation to be an alternative school setting for students who struggle in a traditional classroom.

Library #3 has never been "my" library, until now, kinda, even though I've been in it a few times on other visits home. To a brain shaped by two other libraries, walking into this one is a bit like coming home to find out your parents have moved.

However, it is a gorgeous building, a hub of all the community activity worth going to (IMO), and it has a very cool automated sorter when you return your books. Someone had the foresight to build a multiuse path up to in from three different directions (you're on your own if you live west of the library, it seems), so the trip there and the time spent there are both enjoyable.

Having one library as the library is taking some getting used to, since I've lived my entire adult life in cities that have multiple branches to visit. But that's a small thing when the only library available is still excellent, despite the lack of Richard Florida books.

What's your library like?

Searching

I'm hesitant to write about the job search process, just because all the advice for jobseekers points to it being a terrible idea to ever admit online that you're looking, and even terribler to say that you're frustrated. But I am, both of those things, and I know I'm hardly the only one who's doing this right now. Writing it down is a fast way to find out just how much worse it can get, methinks.

Source: ssva on freeimages.com.

There's the initial step-- this job description sounds good,. Then researching the company--yeah, okay, this sounds like a place I can spend 45+ hours of my week. Refine the resume for this company, agonize over the cover letter (except we're supposed to be writing Pain Letters now), read both backwards to find any sneaky typos, hit send. Fix a drink, lie down for a few, rinse and repeat.

And then wait.

I don't do HR for a living, so I have no idea what the percentages are on how many of my resumes are likely to make it past the initial screening, or how many of those pique anyone's interest enough to go into the possible-interview pool. I'm guessing the odds are not technically in anyone's favor. And then there's the interview process itself--don't say anything dumb, try not to fall down, don't fidget, make eye contact but not too much eye contact, and even if you get all that right, the interviewer(s) still may not like you just because of something goofy that's outside your control.

Fix another drink.

Eventually, I know this will turn around and I'll land the right job (or one of the right jobs--I'm not looking for my soulmate, here). I can't wait to have somewhere to go every day, and more importantly, my own space to come home to at the end of the day. I appreciated beyond measure relatives who are willing to let me crash on the cheap, but I have got to get my own rooms with no other people in them. And some local public transportation, for goodness' sakes--that's the worst part of being stuck in my hometown.

And those things are pretty good motivation to keep searching and end this interlude as quickly as possible.

How long was your last job search?

Just Ducky

I caught a glimpse of my former self yesterday. I ran a 5K; just a small local race (about 100 participants) for a good cause, with an entry fee that was reasonable, and the promise of a free t-shirt and chip timing. It was my fastest 5K in years--but that's partly because I don't often run 5K.

And I got a medal.

We did an out-and-back along the local rail-trail, starting and finishing at the courthouse. And along the trail, I ran into me. The runner who used to live for race days and worked hard in between to shave just a couple more seconds off her fastest times. The runner who relied on her daily runs to provide good mental health along with the fitness and other good stuff that goes with running. The runner who never let her goals for a race get in the way of having fun and enjoying the camaraderie of the local running club. That runner. She was back, if only for 30 minutes on a Saturday morning.

I liked being her. I'd like to be her again--maybe a slower version, one whose mental health doesn't bounce back after a run as easily as it used to, one who might not (yet) like to devote another six months of her life to getting ready for one big race like it's the Olympics. Maybe one who uses running to make new friends in a new place. Maybe one who just wants to go fast enough to keep the pounds from creeping on but doesn't fret over a few seconds' worth of pace here and there.

What else am I missing out on by fretting?

Teaser Tuesday #41

Wow, it's been a while since I've done one of these!

Source: Goodreads.

Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature, ed. Meredith Maran

"A novel will be a deep archaeological work."

"Anyone you'd ever want to be friends with has had a tremendous amount of wounding in their past."

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers

Making New Dirt

Have I mentioned seventeen or eighteen times that my staying with my grandmother has forced a few lifestyle changes on her--changes that she probably would have liked to live without, at the age of 83? No? Well, add another one to the tally.

My whole life, my grandma has put veggie peelings and other potentially smelly trash into an old bread bag that lives in the freezer until trash day. (Sometimes she also puts them down her disposal, but either way: trash.) The day I arrived, I put an empty plant pot outside, dumped some dirt in the bottom, and started throwing in veggie peels and eggshells. She got used to this in a hurry and now saves her own eggshells and veggie clippings for me to toss into the pot. Easy peasey, y'all.

This was a tomato plant growing in my compost
last summer. Those giant, non-tomato plant leaves?
Volunteer squash. I was on my way out to run one
morning when I saw it growing, thought "I'll pull that
out when I get back," and then forgot about it until it was
this size. It ended up giving up pretty quickly without
the tomato suffering any ill effects. But this is what
happens when you grow things in compost--volunteer
plants appear like magic.

(My old compost, by the way, the stuff I've been accumulating for planting season, went to a friend in Austin. The other day she posted a pic on Instagram of a volunteer something that sprung up from the compost. It's nice to know I'm not the only one that happens to. The term for those surprise plants is "volunteer" because they just show up without getting paid.)

Yes, I know I blog about composting a lot, but that's because it's something that seems a lot harder than it really is. Anyone can do it, but the thought of starting is pretty overwhelming. Here's all you need to do:

1. Get a container. Outside? Get a plant pot with drainage, or a trash can with a lid and bang some nails in the bottom for drainage before you start using it. (Take the nails out. You just want the holes.) If you go the plant pot route, plan to regularly cover it with dirt so your eggshells don't blow away due to lack of something to hold them down. Inside? Get a good-sized container with a tight-fitting lid. I can't over-emphasize this: if your compost is sharing your living space, keep it covered to deter fruit flies and keep any smells from getting out of hand.
2. Plan to regularly add either dead leaves or shredded paper. (Not the slick ads that come in your mail! Keep it un-slick. Regular newspaper works.) This keeps it from getting too heavy in nitrogen. You need a mix of carbon and nitrogen for everything to break down nicely without smelling horrible. Compost too smelly? Add more leaves.
3. Start throwing things in. Potato peels? Yep. Strawberry tops? Absolutely. Seeds from your green peppers? That's how I get volunteer plants, y'all. Throw it in there. See a nice long list of compostable things here.
4. Wait a bit. Soon it will break down and be nice and crumbly, ready to plant stuff in. FYI: I often plant stuff in the compost while there are still visible veggie peelings hanging out. It continues to break down, the new plant gets the benefit of the old stuff's nutrients, and I don't have to wait as long. Win-win-win.

What to do with the compost once it's composted? I plant things in it, to avoid trips to Home Depot for giant bags of potting soil. You can spread it directly on your outdoor garden, if container gardening isn't your thing. Give it to friends who garden but didn't have the foresight to compost their own veggies. Or sell it by the pound on Craigslist. Turning your old veggies into new cash-- now that's magic.

A to Z Challenge: Links to All My Theatre Posts

Y'all, how great were the Tony Awards on Sunday? My favourite of all the awards shows, and now it's a long wait until next year.

Anyway! Below are links to all of my posts to my theatrically themed 2016 A to Z Challenge, in one convenient location. Need to know what I think about Doubt or Fiddler or Wicked? It's all right here. Enjoy! (Plays are noted with a *. Musicals are unmarked.)

Annie
Billy Elliott
*Cyrano de Bergerac
*Doubt
Evita
Fiddler on the Roof
Grease
Hamilton
*The Importance of Being Earnest
Jersey Boys
Kinky Boots
Les Miserables
*Much Ado About Nothing
Next to Normal
*Our Town
Phantom of the Opera
Avenue Q
Rent
Shoulda Been You / Sound of Music
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Urinetown
Victor/Victoria
Wicked
Xanadu
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
Zorro

Bicycles & My Hometown

I have to give lots of kudos to my hometown for being a good place for biking and walking. First of all, it's flat (okay, the city shouldn't really get congrats for that), and since the city was built before cars were invented, neighborhood streets are small, have sidewalks, and people drive at (mostly) reasonable speeds through most of town.

Even the two highways that connect through town aren't terrible for riding, although I much prefer using the sidewalks if I have to ride there. The city being built pre-cars works two ways here: there is no space to install any more infrastructure on the two main arterials, because the buildings are built right at the sidewalk. So, the city can't put in a protected bike lane, but neither can they widen the road to encourage more high-speed traffic.

The crown jewel of the good things here for active transportation: we have a gorgeous rail-trail right through the middle of town, and a couple more multi-use paths near schools and the library.

Bicycle facilities in Greenfield, Indiana, according to
Google maps.

So while I was strolling along one day last week, I wondered, What would I do next? Be warned that these thoughts do not come from a professional city planner or engineer--they're just next steps that I would love for the city to take.

First, obviously, the multi-use path on Broadway should connect to the east-west rail trail at the bottom of the image. And really, it almost does. There's a sidewalk that picks up on the south side of the high school and continues down to the trail that works great. Similarly, by all rights the connective bit between the two north-south multi-use paths along McKenzie Street in front of the library should be dark green as well--it's the same path. So, what's lacking?

1. That connective bit of sidewalk directly in front of the high school (instead of routing folks into the parking lot); 
2. An ADA ramp on the bit of sidewalk that leads from the street to the trail at the far south end of the street--and whatever engineer didn't do that to begin with probably needs a Gibbs-slap; 
3. Signage indicating that this is a bike/ped path, preferably with wayfinding elements like how many minutes' walk it is to the high school, or the library, or the trail.

Next, I would put in a multi-use path the length of 200 N/New Road, to help build up the network and to increase access to employment centers and the junior high school. Right now, there's nothing, which is a gross disservice to the folks who live and work there, and it's something that should have been installed when developers started building in that part of town.

After that, the city should begin designating bike routes (more signage!) and looking after sidewalks on the other north-south streets. Obviously this city was not well planned, since there are so few through streets in town, but on the upside that leaves neighborhood streets very quiet and easy to bike or walk on. This is a huge advantage that should be played upon for active transportation.

And finally, all those goofy little subdivisions that don't connect to each other? Stick in some bike/ped paths connecting them to give people more access to easy walking and biking spaces, but without increasing car traffic in neighborhoods.

That's what my non-engineer, non-city-planning self would do if it were up to me. What would you do in your hometown?

Reading Challenge Update: March-April-May 2016

I was in the library a couple of days ago, trying really hard to remember where I am on my reading challenges for 2016 and indeed, which challenges I even signed up for. So it's lucky for me that I write (almost) everything down for posterity, yes?

Well. I only wrote down one book in those three months. I started a bunch, some of which I've now finished, so my June post should be a lot more interesting. Still, here's the update (I've pulled forward the ones that I don't have an update for, just so I'm on track for next month).

Image source: Goodreads

I Love Libraries Challenge (12/24 books so far)

Read It Again, Sam (1/4 books so far)

I really need to start writing the update post at the beginning of every month so I can write these down as I go along. It seems unlikely that I read only one book in three months--I mean, re-reading to de-stress is one of the reasons I keep all my old books around, for those times when I can't give a new book the attention it needs. But since I don't record re-reads on Goodreads, they remain unrecorded and lost in the slushy mess that is my brain.

Woman Challenge (7/20 books so far)

Mount TBR Challenge (3/20 books so far)

A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

Goodreads Challenge (15/100 books so far)

A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

What are you reading right now? What am I missing out on?

Words That Reach

Edit: I wrote this before I heard the horrible news in Orlando. My heart breaks for the lives that have been shattered, and for a nation where we allow this kind of violence to continue. I thought about holding off on publishing this, but while no amount of words will solve this, no amount of silence will, either. This messy world we live in can use all the words we can find, even the lighthearted and silly ones that are my specialty.

My grandmother has been widowed for nearly nine years, so in this as well as every other thing in life she has a great deal more experience than I do. My grandmother also believes that it's possible for one to be widowed and swear-free.

My grandmother is mistaken.

I mean, she isn't really. It's working out for her to go through life alone and with pristine language, probably because she had pristine language before she had to take on the world by herself. I, on the other hand, realised some time in my teen years that the occasional swear word makes this planet a lot more bearable to be on, and if I have to be on this planet by myself, I'm bringing along whatever four-letter words I darned well please.

(Not in grandma's house, though. Not even I am that rude.)

Source: Goodreads.

Anyway. All this to say I just finished Nora McInerny Purmort's book It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), which is her memoir about losing her husband to brain cancer. Nora founded the Hot Young Widows Club, a group for which I am daily thankful, because they're awesome, we all get it, we can talk about the realities of what this phase of life is like when it arrives about 30 years earlier than usual.

And it's a space where it's okay to use whatever language seems appropriate to what we're feeling on any given day. Much like Nora's book (don't read it if you're going to be offended by the language. She doesn't pull punches), which had me giggling, crying, and nodding along.

Here's a bit that I couldn't resist tweeting, just because it's fairly universal in grief, but easy to forget when someone else is the one struggling. Nora is talking about spending some time with her siblings, and why that has changed:

It was a comfort to have them, but grief is not a set weight to be distributed equally. It cannot be portioned and divided.

It's hard for me to be around my family...and this is why. Grief is lonely, no matter how many other people feel it. They are different, each one, because we've lost different people, different versions of the same men. We are each carrying our own load, and is is ours alone to bear.

The people at the center of this grief, by the way? We get that you don't know what to say. I've been doing this for 1.25 years, and I don't know what to say to other people, either. I have a long list of what not to say, but my list of what to say is still inadequate. There are moments that the words don't reach, indeed. So if you hear me using words that you find a bit shocking, know that I'm doing it because those are the words that reach the farthest into how I'm feeling.

It's Electrifyin'

The last couple of months I lived in Austin, I borrowed an electric bike from work for commuting and other longer trips and left my own bikes at home for neighborhood-based trips. And it was very cool.

This bike, which still has no name.

First of all, a definition: an electric bike is one with a battery and a small motor to assist the pedaling action. Most state laws (and the industry standard) limit the assist to 20 mph; once you hit that speed, the motor cuts off and it's up to your own legs to keep you going that fast (I can't). The motor generally can only be activated if you're pedaling-- if you stop to coast, so does the motor. And finally, most bikes have levels of assist from just low enough to offset the weight of the bike, to fast enough to feel like you're flying.

So the first few days I kept the assist relatively low, maybe bumping it up a notch for some help going up hills, but still low enough to feel like I was doing some work. And then one day I thought, "Why not see what this thing can do?" and I got home in about 25 minutes. (That's faster than the same car trip would take, by the way, and about three times faster than the bus.) It's times like these that singing "Defying Gravity" while riding is especially appropriate.

By the way, an electric bike is also a good solution to the problem of riding to work without getting sweaty, or carrying kids, or having aging muscles--it takes some of the strain off of you as the rider, even while you're still burning calories and having fun. Obviously, this is not a bike for training for the Tour de France (or the tour de anything).

After about a month of flying over the hills of Austin as fast as I could, I remembered that I was going to have to hand that thing back over when it was time to move, so I brought the assist back down a few notches so I could remember what it's like to out some effort into riding a bike. Still pretty awesome, though, and I think my next bike may be a cargo bike with e-assist.

Would you try an electric bike?

Indy Mini: It's About Dang Time

We took my grandma
along to the race expo.
She learned how
much running shoes
cost and posed with
this car.

This race was on my bucket list for 19 years. 19 years. I'm like the Aaron Burr of recreational running.

When I was 19, I watched coverage of the Indy Mini for the first time. I was sitting in my parents' house channel flipping, and when I saw the crowds of runners, I thought, "I want to do that." Little did I know I'd double my age before life and I finally got on the same page about me doing that, but this year was finally the year.

2016 was the hundredth running of the Indy 500 and the 40th running of the Indy Mini, so they went all-out, up to and including Meb Keflezighi starting from the back of the pack so that as many people as possible could run with him. He passed me right at the three-mile mark.

Not everybody gets one of the personal thank
yous from kids who participated in the 500
Education Program. I got one at packet
pickup because I'd come from so far away.
Isn't it great?

Was this race everything I'd hoped? Indeed it was. Crowd support was great, organization was fantastic, running on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was absolutely brilliant (yes, I kissed the bricks-- if you're gonna run this race, better go all-in), finishers medal is spectacular. And the volunteer put it on me, which was really cool.

My family came along, even though I warned them they would be bored, but it seems they don't mind standing around downtown Indianapolis with thousands of other people for four hours. The start times were staggered, so that after they saw me cross the start line they didn't have long to wait until the race winners came in.

I already registered for next year. Who's with me?

The race includes one lap around the Speedway. I grew up 30 miles from here
and this was my first time ever visiting the Speedway. The yard of bricks is
straight ahead of me, in front of the pagoda.
(I don't know why there's a pagoda at the IMS.
I'm sure there was a reason when they built it.)