Nom de Plume

Had such a great time with Steph and Peter last night that I’ve decided to stay another day here. And I’m ignoring the fact that it’s supposed to be very rainy tomorrow.

Steve and I (and Harry) have survived Christmas with my mother and Wayne.

No small feat, let me tell you.

Actually, that’s not true. I am typing this for my mother’s benefit; she is sitting right next to me in the doctor’s office where we are waiting for her tetanus shot. She stepped on a rusty nail while trompling through the myrtle in the remnants of the ranch garden. It has been a fun trip, and we are all leaving tomorrow in a mass exodus. Then, two days on the road, stopping to see Steph and Peter on the way up.

Harry and I hit the open road Tuesday morning — and after two hard days’ drive (and a stay with at a Greek Orthodox convent), we are in Julian for the holidays.

Via Quizro:

Go to your Calendar and find the first titled entry for each month of 2005. Post the title line or first line (for those who don’t title their entries) of it in your journal, and that’s your “Year In Review.”

Okay, this took a little creative license on my part because some of my first posts are book reviews and others are lines that wouldn’t make any sense. So here’s my somewhat modified year in review.

January
I really need to get Harry Potsticker fixed.

Feburary
Check out this study done on high school kids and the First Amendment–some pretty scary findings.

March
On Sunday, we were tooling around Capitol Hill, when Steve’s Jeep clunked and he lost his power steering.

April
Took yesterday off and it’s sheer bliss.

May
Great Weekend: Although we were sucky at the surfing thing.

June
Left the house in the middle of a huge thunderstorm last night to see the latest Star Wars – two and a half hours of watching Annikin move over the the dark side.

July
Last night, we watched the fireworks from the roof.

August
We are becoming true Seattlites. The second the temperature inches past 80 degrees, we start whining about how hot it is.

September
Hurrican Katrina Relief: Say what you want about Americans – but when disaster hits, they open their wallets.

October
My mother has always been passionate about the ranch, which my grandparents bought during the Depression.

November
Ever since I got Harry, he’s been a bit unsteady on his feet.

December
New Look: Cleaner. Much cleaner. Still need to do some font/color work, but it takes me a long time because I honestly have no clue what I’m doing as I muck about in templates ….

Which is what I woke up to this morning … I DO wish it would snow. After all, if it’s going to be cold, it might as well be fun. We have a windy, twisty alley with a couple of good hills — and I’m fantasizing about buying a supersaucer, cordoning off the alley, and going sledding!

Steve howls with laughter every time he encounters David Sedaris, and so, after a spat, I bought him Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim as a conciliatory gesture. He howled. And I was done with my library pile and picked it up too.

I should say I’ve never found him as mind-numbingly funny as so many do, which I’m sure is a personal failing. But while I chuckled at times, I have to say this is the best Sedaris collection I’ve read — not for the humor, but for the slices of keen observation sandwiched between the slapstick. Recommend.

One of those books that has been getting a lot of press, I finally got The Almond from the library. Originally written and published in France, the book is a tale by the anonymous Nedjma, about sexual awakening. “An erotic tour de force,” critics have been saying. “An inside peek into the lives of Middle Eastern womanhood,” says another. “Reclaims sexuality for oppressed women,” rallies a third.

Well.

The tale centers around Badra, a woman who leaves her unhappy marriage to live with her aunt. She becomes the long-time mistress of a Western-educated doctor, who introduces her to sex. He is, frankly, insane.

It was a quick, easy read — though some of the descriptions and metaphors made me cringe with embarassment for the writer (though sympathetic to her decision to publish under a pseudonym). And really, it was about sex. Which is fine. Which is good, though a little tedious when sustained for 237 pages. Actually, it felt forced, an onslaught of sex that is neither particularly sensuous nor gratifying.

And all these claims of liberating women puzzle me: it seems to me that the novel merely upholds all our preconceptions of life — houris and harems — behind the veil.

Doing business in Seattle is a pain in the neck. First, you have to get a Washington State business license. Then you have to get a Seattle license. And although Washington doesn’t have income tax, there is a business and operating tax. It’s not huge, but even so, when I got all the forms last week, I had to laugh at the brochure that said, “We’re here for you!” Of course they are.

But it got me thinking about taxes in general. I pay my federal taxes quarterly, and there’s nothing that saddens me more than writing a check for 30% of my gross income. It’s not that I don’t believe in taxes or even that I think that we pay too much. No, what irritates me is the deductions that people get; they essentially reward a certain way of life. Buy a house, boom! Pop out the anklebiters, double boom! And then, of course, there are all the tax breaks for rich folks.

Personally, I think there needs to be a separate tax break for being female; being a woman is MUCH more expensive than being a man. It’s clear when you add up the non-negotiables (tampons, bras, annuals, and so forth) that there are things that men simply don’t need to pay for. And that’s not fair. Then there are the negotiables: makeup, smelly lotions and soaps, perfume, clothes. Sure, you don’t have to buy them — but society expects more on that front from women than it does from men. Plus, we get gouged on simple things like haircuts. Even cheap haircuts. If a man and woman get the same haircut, the woman will pay at least double — because it’s not getting your hair cut, it’s having your hair “styled.”

So here’s to a special “Are you female?” question on the 1040. Then you can add $2,500 to your standard deduction.

This must be a joke. I think.

Tampon Crafts via Boing Boing.

To Halt Abuses, U.S. Will Inspect Jails Run by Iraq

Of course I went. Of course I was expecting to hate it. And of course I was surprised by how GOOD it was. The cast was all fabulous — and I adore Tilda Swinton. She was FABULOUS.

Touted as a novel in stories, The Bride Wore Red is a series of stories about the cultural clash between India and America. Sally and her Sikh husband Deshi navigate the differences between what family means in the East and the West, just as Deshi’s cousins also marry American women. Families descend for months, straining marriages — sometimes irrevocably. Sethi has an ear finely attuned to difference, and she conveys it well.

I first encountered Ron Carlson in an anthology called New Writers of the Purple Sage a few years ago, and I think he’s one of the most underrated short story writers of our time. And his book of shorts At the Jim Bridger does not disappoint. From a genius trying to fit in with his wife’s crowd to a story about the consequences of saving another man while caught in a snowstorm, these are wry and heartbreaking stories that capture the eternal in our daily actions.

I’m finally making a dent in my summer remaindered book order from Edward R. Hamilton. Remaindered books are a funny lot; many sadden you that they are not better known and in the discount bin while others are a complete and total waste of paper. And then there are some, such as Edwardo Jackson’s Neva Hafta, that make one actively reconsider the benefits of book burning.

Nick has an MBA (as we are told several times) who leaves a $70,000 jobs (as we are told even more times) to move to L.A. to become an actor. He learns that his mother is dying of breast cancer, and instead of spending time with her, decides that he needs to get married so she will die happy. Meanwhile, his editor friend says he’ll pay him to write a weekly column about his quest for Ms. Right. Which is crap. Just like the book. Seriously, I don’t know what made me buy this; at $1.99, I feel completely ripped off.

Bright, sunny, and cold … perfect long walk weather. Elizabeth and I headed over to Kubota Gardens for a nice Friday midday break. Harry was in heaven. He wants to go back.

I hate them. You know, the “Abortion stops a beating heart” bumper stickers. Or anything about politics. But I’m an equal opportunity hater too; if I see another Volvo with “Pro-child, pro-choice” displayed on the back, I’ll scream.

Yesterday, on my way back from a Trader Joe’s run, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “God was my co-pilot but we crashed in the mountains and I ate him.” And all I could think about was that this person is NO BETTER than all the “God is my co-pilot” people. I mean, come on. Talk about disrespectful.

Daily headline juxtaposition on Yahoo:

Air Marshal Kills Passenger, Citing Threat
FEMA Official Warned About Unprepared Teams

I am starting to look forward to driving down to Julian for Christmas. Steve thinks I’m insane to drive, but I want to be able to take Harry, and also bring some things up here … so it makes sense. Also, I realized the other night when Elizabeth and I were walking, that I’ve never done a road trip completely on my own. And while I love traveling with Steve, he never wants to stop and see people; it means he has to be social.

Mom knows an Archbishop for the Greek Orthodox Church (she calls him the ArchB); they have a monastery/convent in Northern California. Harry and I are stopping overnight there on the way down. Which should be fun and very interesting. On the way back up, I want to see Steph. I should probably call her and ask if she’s going to be around.

Mike Hurley is in town for a conference, and I’ve invited him over to dinner.

Which, alas, means that my housework strike is at an end. Not that anyone has even noticed that I’m on strike. And not that I’m bitter or anything.

“You have to read this book,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “There were some sections that totally reminded me of you.”

Then she proceeded to read me one of the sections in question:

Being a writer guarantees that you will spend too much time alone — and that as a result, your mind will begin to warp. If you are in a small workspace, your brain will begin breathing and contracting like the sets in Dr. Caligari. You may begin showing signs of schizophrenia — like you’ll stare at the word schizophrenia for so long that it will start to look wrong and you won’t be able to find it in the dictionary and you’ll start to think you made it up, and then you’ll notice a tiny mouth sore, one of those tiny canker sores that your tongue can’t keep away from, that feels like a wound the size of a marble, but when you go to study it in the mirror, you see that it is a white spot roughly as big as a pinhead. Still, the next thing you know — because you are spending too much time alone – you are convinced that you have mouth cancer, just like good old Sigmund, and you know instantly that doctors will have to cut away half of your jaw, trying to save your miserable obsessive-compulsive head from being cannibalized by the cancer, and you’ll hav to go around wearing a hood over your entire face, and no one will ever want to kiss you again, not that they ever really did.

Frankly, I didn’t know whether to hug Elizabeth for proving that I’m not alone in my hypochondria or to smack her for giving me yet another thing to worry about.

I did, however, buy the book, and it’s filled with little pearls of wisdom that inspire one to plunk down consistently and work on one’s own stuff. Highly recommend for all writers out there who love the idea of the writing life and hate the actual writing …