I'm probably coming a little late to this party, but today I've been listening to the controversy about Ann Romney giving her husband advice on what women are worried about and Hillary Rosen criticizing her for "never working a day in her life," and Ann Romney criticizing Hillary Rosen for criticizing stay-at-home-moms and the political pundits criticizing Rosen for giving the Romney campaign the "gift" of having women rush to Ann's defense.
Good stinkin' grief.
Let me be clear: I am not in any way criticizing stay-at-home moms. Nor do I believe that having money means that you never experience problems.
But here's the thing. Staying home with my (hypothetical) kids will never be an option for me. I don't think I'd even want it, but it will still never be an option. Having money like Ann Romney's gives you that option, and an infinite number of other options that most of us don't have. It creates a difference between the Me's of the world and the Ann Romney's that I don't think could ever be overcome. So HOW DARE she try to speak to the economic concerns of women like the Me's?
And the more I thought about what seems to me to be an insurmountable gap between myself and Mrs. Romney, I began to realize that the same difference exists in many ways between myself and Mrs. Obama. The two of them -- and Hillarys Clinton and Rosen, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and a whole host of other powerful women -- live in a world that doesn't resemble mine in the slightest. I honestly don't know what those women worry about, but I doubt they worry about paying for gas to get to work, or whether they remembered to turn on the crockpot, or finding time to exercise and do laundry both IN THE SAME DAY.
I was raised by another woman who never had the option to stay home with her kids -- my mother worked every day of her adult life, and continues to do so. And she was raised by my grandmother, who worked every day of her life. It doesn't make them any better, or any worse, than those women who can and do make a different decision. But it makes them women like me. THEY are the kind of women I can relate to.
And I can't help but think, maybe if the political pundits asked THEM what women are really worried about these days, something might actually get done around here.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
March Reading Round-up
Imagine, if you will, that you find a time machine lying around waiting to be used, and you use it to go back to March 31, 2012.
Why would you use it to go there, you ask? Because if it was March 31, 2012, I would not be eleven whole days late in posting the March reading round-up.
Gah. That should tell you something about my March reading, namely that I didn't read anything worth telling you about until it was already April, and we're going to go ahead and sneak some April stuff into the March post because . . . well, because it's my blog and I make the rules!
Okay. We'll start out with Raising Stony Mayhall, a zombie book, because, don'tcha know, zombies are the new vampires. If you like zombies, I can tentatively recommend this book, but only tentatively. In this zombie world, zombies are infected with a virus that makes them temporarily lose their sanity, but after a few days they recover, and are totally sane -- just dead and decomposing. And that just bugged the heck out of me, because everyone knows it's JUST NOT TRUE. Zombies are crazy, mindless creatures that eat brains and they shamble, they don't run, and they don't organize into groups that fight for equal rights for zombies.
You know, forget it. Don't read Raising Stony Mayhall. Read World War Z, and if you love it, I can recommend some other great zombie books.
Moving on. I was SO excited about Arcadia. Lauren Groff wrote a favorite of mine, The Monsters of Templeton, and I just knew this one would be just as good. If I hadn't expected that, I think I would have found Arcadia to be a good solid book. It's got hippies, which I like, and hippie commune people, which I LOVE. But it was kind of predictable, until there was a weird twist near the end that was unpredictable, yes, but also a lame and obvious I-ran-out-of-stuff-for-my-characters-to-do-and-the-book-is-too-short kind of twist. I wil say, though, that the characterization was great. I really did care about the main character. And the portions of the book centering on the commune were fantastic.
At the end of March, spilling over into April, I saw The Hunger Games movie (liked it), which led me to re-read the books (LOVED them), which led me to buy another trilogy which Amazon recomended for Hunger Games readers, called the Chaos Walking trilogy. First, let me say that these books read kind of like a first, or maybe even second, draft. An editor realy needed to, well, do some editing. They're too long, and I got tired of the "we're safe! But wait --there's the villian behind a tree, so we're not safe!" kind of twists.
But. The more I read, the more impressed I was by this series. It's young adult fiction, but with some REALLY adult themes. The heroes (yes, a bit too much like Katniss and Peeta) try SO hard to do the right thing, and discover that it's hard to figure out what that right thing is, and also that they can't really trust anyone else to tell them what the right thing is, and also that in trying to do that right thing they often do very, very wrong things. There's alot in here -- politics and class warfare and plain old war and prejudice and free will and truth and I'm sure alot of other themes that I'm forgetting. As a series, it's a fun read, and it will give you things to think about. And if you've already read The Hunger Games, it will help with that young-adult-dystopian jonesing.
So, that's March. Happy reading.
Why would you use it to go there, you ask? Because if it was March 31, 2012, I would not be eleven whole days late in posting the March reading round-up.
Gah. That should tell you something about my March reading, namely that I didn't read anything worth telling you about until it was already April, and we're going to go ahead and sneak some April stuff into the March post because . . . well, because it's my blog and I make the rules!
Okay. We'll start out with Raising Stony Mayhall, a zombie book, because, don'tcha know, zombies are the new vampires. If you like zombies, I can tentatively recommend this book, but only tentatively. In this zombie world, zombies are infected with a virus that makes them temporarily lose their sanity, but after a few days they recover, and are totally sane -- just dead and decomposing. And that just bugged the heck out of me, because everyone knows it's JUST NOT TRUE. Zombies are crazy, mindless creatures that eat brains and they shamble, they don't run, and they don't organize into groups that fight for equal rights for zombies.
You know, forget it. Don't read Raising Stony Mayhall. Read World War Z, and if you love it, I can recommend some other great zombie books.
Moving on. I was SO excited about Arcadia. Lauren Groff wrote a favorite of mine, The Monsters of Templeton, and I just knew this one would be just as good. If I hadn't expected that, I think I would have found Arcadia to be a good solid book. It's got hippies, which I like, and hippie commune people, which I LOVE. But it was kind of predictable, until there was a weird twist near the end that was unpredictable, yes, but also a lame and obvious I-ran-out-of-stuff-for-my-characters-to-do-and-the-book-is-too-short kind of twist. I wil say, though, that the characterization was great. I really did care about the main character. And the portions of the book centering on the commune were fantastic.
At the end of March, spilling over into April, I saw The Hunger Games movie (liked it), which led me to re-read the books (LOVED them), which led me to buy another trilogy which Amazon recomended for Hunger Games readers, called the Chaos Walking trilogy. First, let me say that these books read kind of like a first, or maybe even second, draft. An editor realy needed to, well, do some editing. They're too long, and I got tired of the "we're safe! But wait --there's the villian behind a tree, so we're not safe!" kind of twists.
But. The more I read, the more impressed I was by this series. It's young adult fiction, but with some REALLY adult themes. The heroes (yes, a bit too much like Katniss and Peeta) try SO hard to do the right thing, and discover that it's hard to figure out what that right thing is, and also that they can't really trust anyone else to tell them what the right thing is, and also that in trying to do that right thing they often do very, very wrong things. There's alot in here -- politics and class warfare and plain old war and prejudice and free will and truth and I'm sure alot of other themes that I'm forgetting. As a series, it's a fun read, and it will give you things to think about. And if you've already read The Hunger Games, it will help with that young-adult-dystopian jonesing.
So, that's March. Happy reading.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
In Which I Reach Technological Adulthood
I got a grown-up phone for my birthday. For years, I have been happily using the same phone that my ten-year-old niece has, but I have now graduated to what I understand to be called a smart phone.
Don't ask me what kind it is, because that's too much technological information for me to handle. It's some kind of Droid something-or-other. It has a touch screen and I can get on the internet on it, and I can read my Kindle books on it while I'm waiting around in court, and I finally understand how everyone's been "checking themselves in" on Facebook wherever they go.
I find it all to be very exciting. I shit you not, I tried to check myself in at the Bullitt County Jail the other day, but sadly, it didn't show up as an option and I don't know how to manually enter it. There must be a way to create your own places, though, because I see people checking in at places like "Our Porch" or "The ______ Farm" or such places. And somehow, it just seems like fun to me to check in at the Jail.
Also, I have learned to take pictures with my grown-up phone. Talia, my good fifteen-year-old friend, showed me how while we were eating sushi the other night. I'll have to have dinner with her again soon, though, because I don't know how to upload the pictures to the blog.
My boss is trying to get me to start playing Words With Friends, but I'm a little scared. I like words, alot, actually, but I suck at word games like scrabble. The words I like never seem to be useful in word games. "Fortuitous" is one of my favorites, along with "superfluous" and "vitriol," but I'm not sure I could successfully work those into a game.
And I would like to use Pandora to listen to music I like without flipping through hundred radio stations, but I'm having trouble figuring that out, too. I tried to make a Carolina Chocolate Drops Station, but for some reason that freaked my phone out and I had to close the app let my phone explode.
So if you're trying to reach me in the near future, be patient with me. I'll be trying to respond, all grown-up like, and cussing auto-correct the whole time.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
I'm Hoping You Think This Post Is Okay . . .
I've been thinking about confidence lately. There's nothing like starting a new job to make a person feel insecure about, well, everything. I came home the other night after a looooong day in court in which everything out of my mouth sounded, to my ears, like Jessica Simpson debating herself about chicken and tuna.
Seriously, at one point I had to look at the judge and say, "Never mind." Because what I was starting to say was so stupid that it simply could not be salvaged in any way.
So I thought I'd seek a little comfort in my husband, who also happens to be the best attorney I know. I asked him, "Have you ever done something in court that was really stupid and you were embarassed?"
He said, "Oh, I'm sure I have."
Me: "So tell me about it.
Him: "Well . . . there was that one time that I lost that argument, but I was actually right. It was the judge that was stupid."
And that, my friends, was it. That was as close as he could come to an embarassing moment in court. He was shocked that this didn't make me feel better. His advice was "just be confident, and people will be more likely to think you are right."
I know he's right, but man, is that ever hard. I see people who seem to just stride through life, putting off vibes of "I am the bomb-diggity, so why don't you just do me a solid and acknowledge my superiority" and I have to wonder -- do those people really feel that way, or do they just act like it?
As a teenager, I always thought I'd magically get a big dose of self-confidence just be becoming a grown-up. What I found, though, is that being a grown-up feels remarkably like being a teenager, just with better skin and more bills. I still feel compelled to point out my mistakes, lest the world think I am too dumb to realize they are mistakes. I still care tremendously how I'm perceived. I still want to fit in and be liked, and still worry that I'm failing on both counts.
Maybe the wry self-deprecation isn't working for me. Maybe I should quit telling the world that I'm old and fat and the worst violin player ever. Maybe I should try harder to point out the things that make ME the bomb-diggity and not be so quick to point out my flaws. Maybe if I just pretend that I am one of those cool kids who never loses sleep over what the world thinks of me, I will actually BECOME one of those cool kids. Like, for real.
Or, at least, the world will THINK I'm one of those cool kids. Which is really the same thing.
Seriously, at one point I had to look at the judge and say, "Never mind." Because what I was starting to say was so stupid that it simply could not be salvaged in any way.
So I thought I'd seek a little comfort in my husband, who also happens to be the best attorney I know. I asked him, "Have you ever done something in court that was really stupid and you were embarassed?"
He said, "Oh, I'm sure I have."
Me: "So tell me about it.
Him: "Well . . . there was that one time that I lost that argument, but I was actually right. It was the judge that was stupid."
And that, my friends, was it. That was as close as he could come to an embarassing moment in court. He was shocked that this didn't make me feel better. His advice was "just be confident, and people will be more likely to think you are right."
I know he's right, but man, is that ever hard. I see people who seem to just stride through life, putting off vibes of "I am the bomb-diggity, so why don't you just do me a solid and acknowledge my superiority" and I have to wonder -- do those people really feel that way, or do they just act like it?
As a teenager, I always thought I'd magically get a big dose of self-confidence just be becoming a grown-up. What I found, though, is that being a grown-up feels remarkably like being a teenager, just with better skin and more bills. I still feel compelled to point out my mistakes, lest the world think I am too dumb to realize they are mistakes. I still care tremendously how I'm perceived. I still want to fit in and be liked, and still worry that I'm failing on both counts.
Maybe the wry self-deprecation isn't working for me. Maybe I should quit telling the world that I'm old and fat and the worst violin player ever. Maybe I should try harder to point out the things that make ME the bomb-diggity and not be so quick to point out my flaws. Maybe if I just pretend that I am one of those cool kids who never loses sleep over what the world thinks of me, I will actually BECOME one of those cool kids. Like, for real.
Or, at least, the world will THINK I'm one of those cool kids. Which is really the same thing.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Stuff I've Been Doing
I don't know what in the holy heck happened, but I just turned 'round and it had been AGES since I wrote anything on the poor neglected blog.
Here's what's been happening:
1. Penny went for one of her unauthorized races around the neighborhood and got herself smooshed by a car. There were a few days there that were pretty rough, but she's finally back to her normal, actin'-a-fool self. She's now the most expensive rescue dog ever. I suspect that she might actually be bionic.
2. I turned 39. Let's never speak of this again 'mkay?
3. I briefly considered dropping out of the newly-formed community orchestra I play in because the music is SO BLASTED HARD. However, I decided on a new strategy. I play the first note of each measure, aim for the last note, and do a bunch of swirly-bow-arm moves in between. It seems to be going better now.
4. I saw the season finales of Glee, The Walking Dead, and Pretty Little Liars. I'm available at any time if you want to discuss whether Quinn will survive, who the freaky chick was with the armless zombies, and if Mona acted alone.
5. I had my first new-job case involving illicit drugs up someone's butt. I feel like full-fledged public defender again.
I now you're terribly afraid of missing out on such excitement again, so I will be sure to post more regularly from here on out.
Here's what's been happening:
1. Penny went for one of her unauthorized races around the neighborhood and got herself smooshed by a car. There were a few days there that were pretty rough, but she's finally back to her normal, actin'-a-fool self. She's now the most expensive rescue dog ever. I suspect that she might actually be bionic.
2. I turned 39. Let's never speak of this again 'mkay?
3. I briefly considered dropping out of the newly-formed community orchestra I play in because the music is SO BLASTED HARD. However, I decided on a new strategy. I play the first note of each measure, aim for the last note, and do a bunch of swirly-bow-arm moves in between. It seems to be going better now.
4. I saw the season finales of Glee, The Walking Dead, and Pretty Little Liars. I'm available at any time if you want to discuss whether Quinn will survive, who the freaky chick was with the armless zombies, and if Mona acted alone.
5. I had my first new-job case involving illicit drugs up someone's butt. I feel like full-fledged public defender again.
I now you're terribly afraid of missing out on such excitement again, so I will be sure to post more regularly from here on out.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
February Reading Round-up
Friends, I'm here to tell you that as reading months go, February 2012 was not very good. I was going to say it was a total bust, but then I remembered the one really, really, I mean really good book that I actually started at the end of January but finished in the beginning of February, and I decided that based on that one book alone, I could raise February up from a total bust to just not very good -- or maybe even not that bad.
But before I tell you about that book (I know, the anticipation is killing you), let me tell you about the books that were SO horribly, horribly, bad that I couldn't even FINISH the darn things. And I HATE not finishing books. I thought about telling you why each one was so bad, but really? Why waste the time? I'll just list 'em for you, and if you have an uncontrollable urge to read one, send me a message and I'll talk you you out of it, okay?
Our Lady of the Forest, The Ghost Rider, Ghost: A Novel, Angel Time, Alias Grace. Sucky, sucky books, every one of them.
Now, the category of decent books. The Diviner's Tale was a mystery about a woman whose family legacy is "divining" water with one of those stick thingys. I liked it. The mystery is more about whether a crime actually happened than it is about who did the crime. It had some surprisingly sad and touching moments.
The Girl Who Chased the Moon was just such a pleasant, entertaining little book -- a small town story with some magical elements thrown in -- and I enjoyed it so much, that I immediately read another book by the same author, Garden Spells. And I enjoyed it immensely, too. You wanna know why? Because they're the SAME DAMN BOOK. Seriously, such a disappointment, because she's written others, and I was looking forward to reading them. But not if they're all the same book.
Ready Player One is hard to describe. Let me just say this: if you grew up in the 80s, and you played any video games at all, you should probably read it. You'll like it. It won't change your life, and I recommend reading it FAST, because otherwise you'll get bored near the end, but go ahead and read it. Just for fun. (I especially loved the description of how schools are run in the dystopian near-future.)
And finally, if anyone is still reading this oh-so-long post -- the one book that nearly redeems the entire month: Doc.
Mary Doria Russell, who wrote my veryfavoritestwonderfulbookofalltime, The Sparrow, is the writer I would most like to have dinner with. I'd like to have her for my bestie, my BFF, or whatever the cool kids say these days. Granted, she also has written some notveryfavoritebooks, but Doc brings her back up to idol status for me. It's a novel based on the life of Doc Holliday and the summer he spent with the Earp brothers leading up to the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral.
I am not a fan of westerns, usually, but you guys, this book was just marvelous. Russell is so fantastic at characterization -- you will feel like you know Doc Holliday, and if you're into guys, you're going to wish you could have dated him. And you'll be mad as hell that nobody found a cure for tuberculosis for him. This book has everything -- humor, historical insight, sadness, exciting moments -- trust me, even if you don't think it sounds like your kind of thing, you need to give it a try.
I spent at least two full weeks after reading Doc obsessively looking him up on the internet, finding out everything I could about him. I even watched Tombstone, and I can tell you, Val Kilmer NAILED Doc Holliday. (In an ACTING way, get your mind out of the gutter.) And I can tell you that nearly a month after finishing it, I still find myself daydreaming about Doc and the Earps and all their adventures.
The best news? There's going to be a sequel.
So. The take-away from February is this: read Doc. Even if it's the only book you read in a whole month, it will still be a decent month.
But before I tell you about that book (I know, the anticipation is killing you), let me tell you about the books that were SO horribly, horribly, bad that I couldn't even FINISH the darn things. And I HATE not finishing books. I thought about telling you why each one was so bad, but really? Why waste the time? I'll just list 'em for you, and if you have an uncontrollable urge to read one, send me a message and I'll talk you you out of it, okay?
Our Lady of the Forest, The Ghost Rider, Ghost: A Novel, Angel Time, Alias Grace. Sucky, sucky books, every one of them.
Now, the category of decent books. The Diviner's Tale was a mystery about a woman whose family legacy is "divining" water with one of those stick thingys. I liked it. The mystery is more about whether a crime actually happened than it is about who did the crime. It had some surprisingly sad and touching moments.
The Girl Who Chased the Moon was just such a pleasant, entertaining little book -- a small town story with some magical elements thrown in -- and I enjoyed it so much, that I immediately read another book by the same author, Garden Spells. And I enjoyed it immensely, too. You wanna know why? Because they're the SAME DAMN BOOK. Seriously, such a disappointment, because she's written others, and I was looking forward to reading them. But not if they're all the same book.
Ready Player One is hard to describe. Let me just say this: if you grew up in the 80s, and you played any video games at all, you should probably read it. You'll like it. It won't change your life, and I recommend reading it FAST, because otherwise you'll get bored near the end, but go ahead and read it. Just for fun. (I especially loved the description of how schools are run in the dystopian near-future.)
And finally, if anyone is still reading this oh-so-long post -- the one book that nearly redeems the entire month: Doc.
Mary Doria Russell, who wrote my veryfavoritestwonderfulbookofalltime, The Sparrow, is the writer I would most like to have dinner with. I'd like to have her for my bestie, my BFF, or whatever the cool kids say these days. Granted, she also has written some notveryfavoritebooks, but Doc brings her back up to idol status for me. It's a novel based on the life of Doc Holliday and the summer he spent with the Earp brothers leading up to the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral.
I am not a fan of westerns, usually, but you guys, this book was just marvelous. Russell is so fantastic at characterization -- you will feel like you know Doc Holliday, and if you're into guys, you're going to wish you could have dated him. And you'll be mad as hell that nobody found a cure for tuberculosis for him. This book has everything -- humor, historical insight, sadness, exciting moments -- trust me, even if you don't think it sounds like your kind of thing, you need to give it a try.
I spent at least two full weeks after reading Doc obsessively looking him up on the internet, finding out everything I could about him. I even watched Tombstone, and I can tell you, Val Kilmer NAILED Doc Holliday. (In an ACTING way, get your mind out of the gutter.) And I can tell you that nearly a month after finishing it, I still find myself daydreaming about Doc and the Earps and all their adventures.
The best news? There's going to be a sequel.
So. The take-away from February is this: read Doc. Even if it's the only book you read in a whole month, it will still be a decent month.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mornings With Ballerinas
I'm trying to get started out on the right foot with this whole job business, to stay on top of things and get my life in order. I admit that my house is an unholy mess, and there may or may not have been a little snafu with the water bill this week, but that's okay! Because I've gone to the YMCA to work out EVERY MORNING this week before work.
It works out pretty well for me -- the downtown Louisville Y is right around the corner from my on-ramp, they have excellent water pressure in the locker room showers, and their hair dryers are better than the one I have at home.
There's just one problem: ballerinas.
The place has a morning ballerina infestation. As in, actual, real live dancers with the Louisville Ballet. Coming to MY Y and clogging up the elliptical machines with their hair in cute little buns, and their perfect posture, and their ballerina gossip.
I have nothing against the ballet, mind you. I don't even hold a grudge for how mean Baryshnikov was to Carrie on Sex and the City. But at 7:00 a.m.? When I'm trudging along on an elliptical? Looking how I look in sweatpants, no makeup, and slept-on hair? It's all just a little hard to take.
I have to admit, though, I find them FASCINATING. Apparently, they report to all day rehearsals of different types, and eat lunch together, and a certain number of them cry every day. And I don't mean to gossip, but there is a certain male dancer who doesn't have the arm strength to do lifts correctly, and he should really work on his hand position, and holding the girl he is attempting to lift closer to his body so he can use technique to balance out his lack of strength for the lift. Someone should really tell him before he ruins EVERYTHING.
I don't think they ever eat.
I'm going to tough it out for awhile, but seriously -- if anyone knows how to handle a ballerina infestation, please, for the love of all that is holy, let me know.
It works out pretty well for me -- the downtown Louisville Y is right around the corner from my on-ramp, they have excellent water pressure in the locker room showers, and their hair dryers are better than the one I have at home.
There's just one problem: ballerinas.
The place has a morning ballerina infestation. As in, actual, real live dancers with the Louisville Ballet. Coming to MY Y and clogging up the elliptical machines with their hair in cute little buns, and their perfect posture, and their ballerina gossip.
I have nothing against the ballet, mind you. I don't even hold a grudge for how mean Baryshnikov was to Carrie on Sex and the City. But at 7:00 a.m.? When I'm trudging along on an elliptical? Looking how I look in sweatpants, no makeup, and slept-on hair? It's all just a little hard to take.
I have to admit, though, I find them FASCINATING. Apparently, they report to all day rehearsals of different types, and eat lunch together, and a certain number of them cry every day. And I don't mean to gossip, but there is a certain male dancer who doesn't have the arm strength to do lifts correctly, and he should really work on his hand position, and holding the girl he is attempting to lift closer to his body so he can use technique to balance out his lack of strength for the lift. Someone should really tell him before he ruins EVERYTHING.
I don't think they ever eat.
I'm going to tough it out for awhile, but seriously -- if anyone knows how to handle a ballerina infestation, please, for the love of all that is holy, let me know.
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