the middle thing

"Majority" does not equal "morality"

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:17:58 GMT

I wonder why people don't talk more about the fact that democracy is deeply flawed. I mean, if you think about it, getting the majority opinion of a population on a certain issue isn't exactly the most fair or reasonable way to make a decision.

Recently, my town voted on whether or not to construct a truck route to reduce traffic on our Main Street and also provide an alternate route for emergency vehicles. The truck route passed by 71%. That's a very large majority, to be sure. But that still means that 29% of the people in the town did not want the truck route to be constructed.

Some of those 'no' votes certainly came from the handful of business owners whose access to their businesses would be blocked the construction--yes, the city intends to provide alternate access, but the construction can't help but damage their business. Maybe some of them were from people concerned that a truck route (the city is quite opposed to use of the term 'bypass') would reduce business on Main Street by lowering the amount of people passing through. (For such a small town in a place with such a bad economy, our Main Street is doing surprisingly well at the moment.)

There are a lot of good arguments in favor of the truck route--it'll make Main St. safer for pedestrians and drivers, it'll give emergency vehicles a way to get across the railroad tracks to the north end of town even when there's a train, etc. etc. etc. I personally think that in the long run, even with inconveniences, it's best for the city. But my point is, even with the large majority in favor, there's still a minority here that was opposed and will likely suffer somewhat as a result of the decision.

And that was a relatively straightforward decision. With more complex issues, it becomes even more complicated.

I'm sure you've all heard how the New York state senate just voted against legislation that would make gay marriage legal in the state of New York. The article I link there quotes Maggie Gallagher from the National Organization for Marriage (you may remember them for their unintentionally hilarious commercial--inexplicably, still online even with all the mockery), saying: "What you saw was the will of the people .... The culture really hasn't shifted on gay marriage."

Here's the problem: Regardless of NOM's fear-mongering, the fact of the matter is that the only people affected by legislation regarding gay marriage are gay people.

I know that's not an uncontested point. I've had the argument before, more than once, and every time, what it essentially boils down to is that gay marriage hurts people with traditional values because, to them, it would indicate that their version of morality is no longer backed by legislation--which might, conceivably, open the door to the suggestion that it's not an unalterable moral imperative.

But, the problem is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it is not the job of government to legislate morality. The government's job is to provide an organizational structure that will protect its citizens and allow them to meet their basic needs. (I wouldn't even suggest it's the government's job to meet those needs--just to create an environment in which those needs can be met.)

Because, the thing is, you can't have it both ways. You can say, "Morality derives from the will of the majority," in which case, you need to be willing to suck it up if the majority, say, decides that it's okay to kill anyone over age 70, or decides we'd be safer if you didn't have a gun. Or, you can say, "Morality is governed by universal laws that aren't subject to the whims of humanity," in which case you lose the right to claim, as Maggie Gallagher does, that your version of morality is supported by "the will of the people" or the cultural climate.

I believe that most people, especially conservatives, would claim to agree that morality is something that holds true regardless of a majority vote or cultural climate. Majority opinion 100 years ago was that women shouldn't vote, and it was completely acceptable to expect a black person to use a separate (and inferior) bathroom. Majority opinion in many countries today suggests that women should not be allowed to be educated. Majority opinion, in short, is worthless for determining what is actually right.

Knitter and blogger Stephanie Pearl-McPhee said it well on Twitter this afternoon (and, in fact, prompted me to write this post): "Dear NY Senate, It is not kind nor fair to allow a majority to make the rules for a minority. All people. All rights."

I hate that the battle for gay rights has to be fought in senate halls and courtrooms at all. It's ridiculous that civil rights groups have to be on the offense in a fight for nothing more than equality. These are issues that shouldn't be legislated at all, and they are certainly not issues that the majority is qualified to vote on. I hate that people who claim to defend 'freedom' want it to be clear that they're only defending freedom as they define it--and their definition says, "My freedom depends on restricting your freedom."

Freedom has to be universal in order for it to be freedom. Gay marriage does not take any freedom away from straight couples, or from the institution of marriage itself* (certainly it can't damage it anymore than our 50% divorce rate does). And for the love of God, just because more than 50% of people who voted think something does not make it RIGHT.

*Caveat: I do think that it should be the decision of a church to decide whether or not to solemnize a marriage as a sacrament--churches are independent organizations, and they should also definitely not be legislated--that would be hypocritical.

NaNoWriMo

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:31:30 GMT

I DID IT!

I wrote 3000 words today, and also finished most of a bottle of wine (beautiful, beautiful wine). And it's not even LATE yet.

I remember, in 2003, when I hit 50k, I was SO PSYCHED, had to take a brisk walk up the hill (wearing the very same sweater I'm wearing at the moment, now that I think of it -- weird). But then in 2004, even though I made it to 50k in time, I felt very "eh" about the whole thing. Like, eh, that's over, and eh, my ending sucks, and eh, whatever. (This is probably a byproduct of the fact that I was very much a Disillusioned Teen at that point.)

This year, instead of forcing out a terrible ending, I just kept writing until I hit 50k and stopped, mid-scene. I mean, I know I need to revamp the entire book anyway, so why bother finishing the ending? I got TO the ending, anyway, so it's not like it's a mystery.

And, I'm pretty damn happy with myself. So, I'm gonna finish this bottle of wine, and watch Lost on Netflix, and knit, and sit here being proud of myself, trying not to think about what an enormous piece of absolute shit I just produced.

NaNo: the home stretch; exhaustion

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:49:57 GMT

So, here I am. Three days of NaNo left. More like two, actually--I work until 11pm on the 30th, so it would be a REALLY good idea to have the novel done before I leave for work that day. (For some reason, validating my wordcount on the website and getting the associated goodies is actually something that matters to me, even though I think it shouldn't.)

And I'm on track. I broke 45k yesterday, and now I just need to keep going and get that last 10% of the novel out. I don't expect I will actually get to the end of the story, but it kind of doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter, because I realized somewhere around the 30k mark that the story I've been writing all month is only one thread out of at least three and possibly four that make up this story as a whole. In fact, I suspect almost everything I wrote this month will get thrown out as I figure out which scenes require different PoV characters, etc. etc. etc.

Oddly enough, I don't feel bad about this, even though I've worked my butt off trying to get these words written. I'm learning the shape of the story, and what it needs, and how to make it stop crying when it wakes up in the middle of the night, and which foods make it spit up, and I've got its dirty diaper schedule pretty well memorized. (Yeah, I know we use childbirth metaphors for writing a lot, but nobody ever acknowledges the dirty truth.)

So, all in all, I'm in pretty good shape! Just . . . I'm gonna whine now.

I'm tired. This month has just sort of felt like an endless barrage. Every day is hard, between trying to get the writing done, being constantly stressed out about being a tiny bit behind, and having a really hard time finding decent writing times with my work schedule being so horrible.

Between my two jobs, I don't get a lot of days off, and when I do, they're almost never together, and then Walmart has had me working nights all month, which steals my very best writing time. I'm not good with mornings. I can get up, but it takes me hours to get to peak performance, and if I start work at 2pm, that means that I go to Walmart almost exactly when I would want to start writing, and don't get back until 11pm, which is right when I'd prefer to be winding down. I've done a little morning writing, out of necessity, but it's not easy and I don't like it.

It's not that it's hard to work and write on the same day (let's face it, my job doesn't exactly drain my creative potential). It's just hard when the work schedule steals my evenings and weekends away from me. God, I miss evenings. And Fridays. I really miss Fridays.

And then . . . I push through the day, with my job and the writing, and I go to bed, and before I know it, I'm awake again, and what do you know? I have another day to try to get through, and the wordcount has reset itself and no matter how well I did the day before, I'm in for another rough day. It's relentless, and it's wearing me out.

I've been really stressed out, too. Mostly over NaNo, but it's also left me stressing about little things, so I'm really crabby and basically a big grumpypants. My family must just love that. I know it's almost over. And I will succeed, because failure isn't an option in my world. But, good Lord. I'm so ready for December.

But now, I have to go pack a lunch, and go to work, and get back at 11pm and write 2,000 words before I go to bed.

Whiiiine.

And THEN . . . I shall have my revenge . . .

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:36:01 GMT

Someday, when I'm grown and have plenty of money (hahaha), I'm going to go to a local Walmart store and pick some really obscure item and buy their entire stock (like coconut milk, or canned artichoke hearts, or something) (probably over a couple days so they don't try to stop me), and keep doing that for several weeks, so they're all like, "Geez, why can't we keep this in stock?"

And when their computer system finally decides to start sending them more to meet with demand . . . I'll stop. And then they'll be like, "Oh geez, what do we do with all these obscure items?"

Yes, my money will be going to Walmart, but it will SO be worth it for the hassle and consternation. And then my revenge will be complete. *puts fingertips together and cackles*

NaNo update!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:54:52 GMT

Not only did I get to 25k the other night, but I finished the next day slightly ahead, and today I've built up my lead so that I'm only about 500 words behind tomorrow's wordcount goal, with a wordcount of 29,537. It would actually not have been very hard to get that last 500 and get to 30k tonight, which would be pretty cool, but I'm very tired, and I think that being SO CLOSE will give me more motivation to write tomorrow before work (which is something I find difficult, on the days I work 2-11.)

I am so proud of myself for not wasting these three days I haven't been at Walmart. (I had two days totally off, and then today I worked for the newspaper, which is barely work at all. Except for the getting up at 7am part.) Basically, I'm awesome!

. . . well, not that awesome. Because, oh God, my novel is bad. It's bad, bad, bad . . . not fit for fertilizer. I'm really glad it's getting written, but God, I'm going to have some serious excavation to do to pull the very few diamonds out of this pile of stinking shit, once November is over. (I recently compared November to a month-long bowel movement. Which is a disgusting metaphor, but isn't it true, you guys?)

Now, I have to try to get myself to go outside and look at the meteors. I know if I do it, I won't regret it, but it's COLD outside, and not particularly warm in the house, so I'm worried that if I go out there, I won't be able to warm back up before bed.

Ah well. Suck it up, Emma!

NaNo: the push to 25k; PoV issues

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:49:11 GMT

Spent my day hanging out on a sheep farm! There was much knitting, and wool talk, and some sheep wrangling. (I held the clipboard to record which sheep were getting sent to slaughter. It was a little bit sobering, but I am determined to not to be a meat eater unless I'm willing to look my dinner in the face first, so . . . yeah.)

And now, it is time for NaNo! I'm hoping to hit 25k today, since it's the halfway point, and I feel like if I can reach the halfway point on time, I can reach the end on time. And I'm at the point in the story where we get the big scene that is the transition between the first and second halves of the story, which should be full of drama and hopefully easy to write.

The only pitfall I can see is that suddenly we're moving into a part of the story where the nine-year-old who's been my point of view character so far will not likely be present for many of the scenes I want to write. (I can use "In Space" to fudge a lot of stuff about this story, but I'm pretty sure that even In Space, children aren't generally present when their custody, for example, is being discussed.)

But, I also don't really want to abandon her as my PoV character, because . . . I mean, it's been pretty much 25,000 words, and that's an awfully long time to go before suddenly breaking PoV. Especially since there's no other character I'd want to commit to for the second 25k; the nine-year-old does need to come back for it. If I didn't need her later, I could see dividing the book into two parts and having a different PoV character for each.

As it is, I will just have to be creative about what I show and don't show. Fortunately, she is a pretty nosy nine-year-old. I already have her overhearing conversations and spying on things. I suppose she will continue that way. It is freaking hard to have a child as your main character, guys! Orson Scott Card got away with it in Ender's Game by making an entire society full of autonomous children, but if you're working in a world that's full of adults, there's not a lot kids can do. But my girl is determined to do it anyway.

I suspect that this is exactly the sort of thing you're not supposed to worry about during NaNo, but if I don't feel good about the story, then I don't enjoy writing it, so I need to make sure I'm comfortable enough with the format (if not the content) that I still feel it's worth carrying on.

Ways that life is good

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:34:05 GMT

I sort of love my life right now. I mean, there are parts of it that really suck, but there are also a lot of parts that are really fantastic and irreplaceable. And several of them are things that are completely unique to this particular place and time--I couldn't get them anywhere else. To wit:

A) The Doghouse Espresso, the little coffee shop on Main Street, is pretty much my favorite place in the world these days. I'm so comfortable here, and my brother makes me amazing coffee, and it's just such an unmitigated pleasure to spend my free time here.

B) My brother, period. We're living together for the first time in about five years, and it's been so wonderful developing a relationship with him now that we're both sort of adults. Honestly, it would be pretty miserable living where I do if he wasn't there. We share enough interests to be able to spend quality time together, and we're different enough that we challenge each other--it's basically exactly what you'd look for in a friend. Joe's introduced me to espresso--like, how to really appreciate good espresso, and also to good beer, and also to good music. Meanwhile, I've been lending him pretty much my entire Neil Gaiman collection and am getting him started on Diana Wynne Jones soon.

C) Beer! We have a local brewery that focuses on high quality, small batch beer that is pretty much earthshaking. I don't get up there as often as I like, but my brother does, and often brings some home to share.

D) My current Internet community. I was worried for a little while after I graduated from college that after spending so much time sort of disconnected from everything except LiveJournal, I wouldn't have much an Internet community to turn to after I was away from college. But it turns out, I'm surrounded by a rich, beautiful community of people I like, who entertain and support me. Twitter has been a huge help in that; I feel like I'm having little miniature conversations with people all day long.

E) NaNoWriMo. We're far enough into November now that NaNo has become a way of life--if I'm not working, I'm either writing, or (more likely) feeling guilty about not writing. Either way, I'm thinking about it constantly, plotting about how to find writing time (and motivation). My novel is complete tripe, but, well, at least it's getting written. (Although I'm quite behind. Sigh.)

Catchy and cheesy Youtube pop music for charity? HELLS YEAH.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:08:00 GMT

So, there are REALLY AWESOME THINGS happening on Youtube right now. And I don't mean the giant squids of anger who're always being stupid in the comments. Because, if you didn't know about it, there is a blossoming community of highly talented young musicians on Youtube! (As a matter of fact, I have been novelling to this guy's album and also his other Timelord Rock project, and it is AWESOME.)

But that's not what I wanna talk about right now. I want to talk about Chartjackers! Basically, a bunch of guys in the UK produced a single, gave it to Children in Need so that absolutely 100% of the proceeds go to the charity, and now they're trying to get it into the UK charts. Just to see if they can, and and to raise money for charity.

The best part? It is a really catchy song. Check it out:

You guys, I bought this song in the library about ten hours ago, and it is already at the top of my "25 Most Played" list in iTunes. (Granted, that probably says more about my obsessive tendencies than anything else, but hey. Also, this is a pretty new computer, so I haven't racked up lots of plays. STILL.)

Now, the thing is, if you're not in the UK, you can't help them get into the charts. But all of the money will still go to Children in Need, and you get a great song!

And I know that at least one of you actually is in the UK! thirteenthend, I know I don't know you super well, but, hey, if you wanted to pop over into iTunes and buy the song, you could be part of the extreme awesomeness that the Internet is generating!

And of course, you should all tell your friends! This is our Internet now, and we can actually make good things happen with viral videos. How freaking awesome is that?

Pwnage!

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:30:26 GMT

I'm gonna brag, guys--I totally pwned at NaNo yesterday. I woke up early and dragged my computer over into bed with me and wrote 1000 words before I'd even stepped out of bed. Wrote another 800 works between visiting the coffee shop and my lunch break at Walmart. (I'm especially proud of successfully writing about 500 words during my Walmart shift.)

I also found time to run a Peace Corps-related errand in there. And I worked until 11:30. And when I got home, our Internet wasn't working (I suspect it still isn't), so I couldn't get on and brag! Very sad.

The problem is, I have to do the same thing today. Also, I am still behind, if you're figuring things at 1667 words a day--but my spreadsheet tells me that if I write 1722 words a day, I'll be fine. And I'll give it another big push on my next day off, which is Thursday. This month is anything but a sure thing, since I'm all over the place, productivity-wise, but I'm basically too damn stubborn NOT to win.

Now my lunch break is ending. Time to get back to the proofreading!

NaNo! YAY!

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:59:40 GMT

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again! I missed it a lot while I was in college, so this is VERY EXCITING for me. Unfortunately, since I have Twitter now, it's led me to neglect the LJ (whereas, before Twitter, NaNo would have sparked Much Posting here). Ah well.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop in pat myself on the back for everything I did today. I got out of bed by 9, and I had a marathon and wrote 1000 words in an hour, which at least twice as fast as I normally write, and then I hurried down to Montrose, got a polio vaccination, and ran three other errands all in time to show up at work by 2pm. Also, I wrote a couple hundred words on my lunch break.

So, my wordcount is behind, but I don't really feel bad. It was a full day. Trouble is, tomorrow I have to get up do it again--I need to get 2000 words at least before I go to work at 2. I think I will sleep now!

Snow (blech)

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:01:34 GMT

Today was snow!

I have never understood why people get excited about snow. Really. It's pretty, yeah, so if you get to stay inside all day, it can be kind of nice, but if you have to go anywhere it's a royal pain.

Despite living in Colorado my entire life, I've never driven in snow before. I almost didn't get out of the driveway, because the snow was at least seven inches deep, and more where the plow had piled it up, and my dear little Corolla couldn't handle it. Much wheel-spinning But I had learned from getting stuck in the sand at Lake Powell (the experience had a use, mizujada!) and backed the car up a good way and then picked up a little speed, and prayed no one was coming up the road, and made it out.

And on the way home, the roads were dry and the most dangerous thing I saw was a bunch of deer. And that was really good, because one of my coworkers had said that it was whiteout conditions up here, and that scared me. (The weather changes pretty quickly around here, though.)

The weird thing about this part of Colorado (especially this time of year), is that it'll snow, but the temperature won't stay down quite below freezing, so it'll snow, then melt, then snow, then melt, which makes everything very soggy and icy. (Now that I think of it, Virginia was the same way. Maybe it's just a temperate climate thing.) The icy-ness is dangerous, and the soggy-ness is just gross. Maybe that's why I don't like snow?

Well, that, and I don't ski.

(I know. What kind of Coloradan am I?)

Housesitting

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:03:30 GMT

So, I found out this morning that I need to go do some emergency housesitting for a friend of the family. (Her original sitter flaked out at the last minute.) So, that's starting tonight. They're trying to set me up with Internet from their Verizon card this time, but I'm not sure if it'll work out or not, so I may be a little scarce for the next . . . uh, three weeks.

Hopefully I'll get some writing done. Although, last time I went up there, I pretty much spent the whole time watching HBO. I think I'm gonna have to invoke a no-television rule from the very beginning to avoid that. After all, I need to get ready for NaNo, and what better way to do that than with limited Internet access?

Clinging to my will to live at Walmart

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:45:34 GMT

Walmart publishes this newsletter for its employees. There are a bunch of copies in the breakroom, and the other night, I was really bored, because the book I've been reading at work (The Gangster We Are All Looking For, by lê thi diem thúy*) was boring and pretentious. And, on the cover of this particular newsletter, there was a photograph of a store manager, standing with his hands on his hips and his head held high in a field of solar panels. The article was supposed to be about Walmart and green energy, but I didn't bother opening the newsletter to read it.

Instead, I took out a ballpoint pen (all I had) and drew big feathery wings on the guy, and added the headline, "THE X-FACTOR: Mutants among us!"** I giggled, and went back to work.

Two hours later when I came back for my break, somebody had filled in my scribblings with a Sharpie, which made them look much better. They also drew over the guy's body to give him a big muscle-y chest and glowing eyes (and horns? I don't remember), and had added the headline, "We da mutants!"

I can't even tell you how happy this made me. Seriously, it was the ONE bright point of work that evening, to see that somebody else was somewhere near my own state of mind. From now on, I'm carrying a Sharpie in my purse so that I can more effectively graffiti the asinine newsletters in the break room.

I'm also sort of playing this game where I see how long I can keep talking openly about Walmart on my blogs and Twitter before I get in trouble. It's fun!***

* Who apparently is too good for capital letters in her name. And yes, I did just copy it from Wikipedia; I don't like the book well enough to figure out how to type Vietnamese diacritical marks. Even though the software I use to type in Greek can probably do it pretty easily.

** Earlier that evening, I'd been amusing myself by trying to read the French parts of a flier about pomegranates, even though I don't know French. So, this was a step up as far as entertainment went.

*** I have lots of games I play to keep myself from going crazy at Walmart. Like, I make up sordid backstories for my customers. Also, when we change watch batteries, we set them on the base of the lamp at the changing station, and then drop them into the recycling box later. So, I wait until things are really slow to put the batteries away, and then I have to recite a line of poetry for every battery I drop into the box. (It was going to be a line of Shakespeare, but I didn't like being limited to just one poet.) Also, when things are REALLY slow, I play the alphabet game. I have to find every letter in the alphabet consecutively on signs without moving around. ("Quartz" really saves my butt in this game. Also, "Timex".)

. . . yeah, basically, it's only been a month and my job is already destroying my will to live. It's gonna be a long couple of months.

I really don't like myself some days.

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:40:47 GMT

I was going to come home and tell you guys a story about the old man from Texas I helped this afternoon, and how he wanted a small watch but his wife told him that when he wears women's watches he looks "like a homosexual", and how he also told me that he doesn't want to wear a gold band because he "sweats like a negro". And about how it's funny, because he was very clearly the sort of person who has a strong set of values--for example, I could tell he'd never have dreamed of swearing in front of me, since I'm a lady, even if he would casually drop the phrase "sweat like a negro". And about how weird it is to encounter someone whose value system is so jarringly different than mine.

I was going to, but the last hour or so at work was incredibly stressful. I had a customer who had to wait on me for the LONGEST time because first I couldn't quite help her right, so she's going to have to come back so somebody else can sort out the mess, and second, it took me FOREVER to finish taking a link out of the band of her watch (which she only bought because of the first thing I couldn't fix), and she had people waiting; and that took so long that I couldn't finish the other major project I was supposed to get done this evening, and I'm a little worried my supervisor will think I slacked off (which I didn't!), and I still had to rush to clock out in time (you get in trouble if you go over your time), and by the time I left the store, I was a big bundle of stress and run-on sentences.

Also, I yelled at my mom earlier (in public) because she said she'd go pick up my Peace Corps paperwork at my doctors for me, and didn't because she thought they wouldn't let her (because she didn't know I'd called them). Came home to find the paperwork on my desk because she went back to get it--which is a pretty significant inconvenience for her. Only, she couldn't have known but the office didn't give her the most important form, so I'm going to have to go back and get it anyway, which drives home the point that I should have just gone myself, and makes me feel like even more of a cad.

. . . so, basically, I'm ending the day feeling like a pretty horrible person. It's a terrible way to be going to bed.

Lack of Attentiveness: Why American food sucks so much

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:43:56 GMT

When I was in Vietnam two summers ago, I kicked around a little with this Chinese girl who was dating somebody else in our group. We sort of shared the experience of being the only non-Vietnamese people in the group (though apart from that, our experience couldn't have been much different). Anyway, at one point, she confided in me that she really missed Chinese food. "You must miss American food to," she said.

And I said, "No, not really. American food kind of sucks."

And I'm sorry, but it's true. I just stumbled across this fascinating photo essay from MSN about what families around the world consume in a week (thanks, sparrow1029!), and it really drove the point home for me. I've been meaning to make a post about food all summer, so I guess this is my chance.

America--especially suburban, and, to a lesser extent, small-town, America--is a convenience culture. The American family in that slideshow is one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. 90% of the food in it is prepackaged, convenience food. Even the applesauce is packaged in individual cups. We're looking at the Hamburger Helper brand of cooking--empty the box into a pan (or straight into the microwave) and walk away.

When I rant about this, my mom is quick to point out that if both parents are working all day--a necessity for many families in the U.S.--nobody has time to cook real food, from scratch. But . . . I'm still not convinced. With a little planning, and more importantly, a little knowledge, even working people can cook.

Ever since I got home from college, I've been working on an aggressive campaign to start making things from scratch. I started with noodles for chicken noodle soup, then bread (that no-knead stuff that's been going around; easy enough to work into a busy schedule if you time it right). Slowly, we've been weeding out expensive stir-fry and spaghetti sauces, replacing them with homemade versions that taste better. I finally went straight for two of the holdouts of prepackaged food in our house--refried beans and flour tortillas.

Now, granted, my refried bean process requires attention on three separate days (soaking, slow-cooking, and finishing), but the actual time spent in the kitchen is only around thirty minutes, thanks to the wonder of crock pots. The tortillas are sort of labor-intensive, but they are a) much better-tasting than the ones from the store, and b) cost literally a fraction of what store-bought tortillas do. (Tortillas around here run about $3 for twelve. I can make 16 for about 75 cents, not counting the energy to cook them.)

Around here, cost is the primary factor that's making me press the from-scratch style of cooking. But the benefits go far beyond that. Cooking things myself allows me to control the amounts of fat and sodium that go into my food. Sodium is an especially important one--prepackaged foods are lousy with it, and it's really so simple to make delicious foods with entirely reasonable amounts of salt. Canned soup is an especially bad offender, and soup is so easy to make! Ditto for broths--I routinely make chicken broth, and I save all my veggie scraps to put together a delicious vegetable broth, which I use in soups and whatnot--all much lower sodium than what you'd get in a can. (As a bonus, the veggie broth is essentially free!)

(Digression! One other thing about our diet, which isn't so much tied to the from-scratch ethic as it is to the "living below the poverty line" ethic is that our meals are very heavy on dried beans and rice. Dried pinto beans, for example, are pretty much the cheapest form of protein you'll come across. I picked up a 25 lb. bag of pintos at Safeway for $14--and that's without going to any sort of bulk food supplier! In addition to protein, beans are also packed with fiber and vitamins, and can be cooked in a bazillion different ways. This summer, I was heavy on vegetarian curries and chilis, but as winter approaches, I'm moving more towards refried beans and casseroles with green chili sauces that contain more animal fat--which I process myself by cooking whole chickens and making broth from the carcass, rather than buying bags of breasts. If you HAVE to eat meat, at least use every bit of it.)

The other thing that depresses me so much about the American food photo is the appalling shortage of fresh foods in the photo. I see one little bag of grapes, and a few tomatoes, and a couple bags of salad greens. (Yes, even our GREENS are prepackaged!) Compare that to the photos from India, Mexico, and Turkey, which are just packed with fresh fruits and veggies. I mean, even the U.K., birthplace of toad in the hole, for God's sake, has more fresh food in the photo than we do! Is it any wonder we're fat? God.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you can trace almost all of the problems with America's diet back to a fundamental lack of involvement with our food. When you're cooking for yourself--especially under budget constraints--you naturally pay more attention to things like fat and sodium, because you can control them. (You may also learn, as I did, that it is possible to make dishes that are utter powerhouses of flavor without using very much fat, and often no animal products at all.) We're simultaneously busy and lazy, and between those two, we just don't pay attention to our food.

It's not easy. Sometimes, it means giving up a little bit of precious spare time; my days off turn into cooking days, and often the first thing I do when I get home from work is throw together some tortillas or set some beans to soak. But it's worth it. My family is eating healthier, for less money, and producing less waste (environmental bonus!). Win, win, win!

can you talk

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:33:10 GMT

Thesis: Customers are assholes.

Evidence: This afternoon, I was concentrating on some inventory task, when a very fat man in one of those motorized carts whistled at me to get my attention. (This already flustered and irritated me: I am not a dog.) I asked if I could help him, and he started gesturing, making a squeezing motion with his hands, then pointing at his ears and shaking his head.

At first I assumed he couldn't speak English (he was dark enough to be Hispanic), but it gradually dawned on me that he must be deaf, and I grew steadily more flustered as I tried to understand his sign language. I even asked him if he could fingerspell, since I have sort of an understanding of the ASL alphabet. He just kept pointing at his ears and gesturing.

Finally, he mimed writing. Lightbulb! I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and watched, very earnestly attentive, as he painstakingly began to write--veeeery sloooowly. "C a n . . . y o u . . . t a l k."

"Uh . . . yes, I can talk." He points at his ears. Maybe he needs to find hearing aid batteries? Louder--and more confused--I say, "Yes, I can talk!"

And then he bursts out laughing. "So can I! I was just kidding with ya." And he continued to ask me where he might find a ketchup squeeze bottle.

So, I ask you, Livejournal: Where does confusing and embarrassing someone who is trying to help you, and wasting her time and energy, get funny? I was humiliated, and furious, and frustrated, and when he showed up later to pay for his damn ketchup bottle, I wanted to refuse to speak to him.

He pissed me off so much, I thought it would be worth the time to write a LJ post about it before collapsing into bed after an unexpected 16 hour workday. (Not Walmart's fault, for the record.)

Find your name, and buried treasure

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:15:30 GMT

I changed the quotes in my LJ profile. It's always weird to change my LJ profile. Every time I turn around, I realize the person it describes isn't the person I am anymore. It's very nearly to the point where I'd like to do away with it altogether, but I do like sharing a couple quotes that describe my state of mind at this point in my life. (Apparently, my state of mind post-college has a lot to do with children's books.)

I also took out a bunch of really dated interests, and added new ones. I actually really like that 'interests' feature on LJ. Interest lists make such an interesting collage of a person, you know? They're always the first thing I look at when I look at someone's LJ profile.

Anyway, there's that. LJ is a sort of weird place, these days, isn't it? You have all these big name social networking sites out there, and what with Facebook and MySpace and Twitter getting so huge, LJ has sort of fallen back into the shadows a little bit. I was talking to mizujada about it once, and we concluded it has something to do with the fact that LJ is aimed at relatively long-form posts, not the little snippets employed by Twitter and Facebook. It takes a lot more energy to write up a LJ post than to drop something in Twitter. Also, now that I have a Twitter (middlemuse, if anyone's forgotten), I feel like my LJ posts have to actually have substance, because if I just want to whine about work, or gush about some link I found, isn't that what Twitter's for?

(Oddly enough, back when I first started blogging, when I was a teenager, I used my blog as an outlet for anything I thought might be too tedious to share with my friends on instant messenger. As blogging philosophies go, this one is not a winner. Just sayin'.)

Don't you want to be like us?

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:46:09 GMT

In honor of Banned Book Week, I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye at work this week. I wasn't forced to read it in high school the way a lot of people my age were, and now that I'm out of college, I'm sort of trying to catch up on some of the important works of fiction that I somehow missed during my formal education.

Anyway, today one of the men who works in maintenance told me that after I read it, I can go shoot somebody, because loads of assassins have been obsessed with it. "The guy who killed Kennedy was really into it, and the guy who killed Lennon was really into it, and . . ."

. . . sigh. I was hoping that by reading it in the break room, I could explain to people about Banned Book Week and the importance of avoiding censorship . . . but he was too interested in what he had to say about the association between the book and murderers to hear anything I said about censorship.

Ah well.

Actually, I guess I'm not much better. I associate The Catcher in the Rye with the Five Iron Frenzy song "Superpowers" (which has the line, "I sometimes feel like Holden Caulfield").*

* This song has even more complex associations, because a month or two ago, I was in Goodwill, and was shocked to hear it on the radio. Usually the Goodwill radio plays oldies--lots of Beach Boys and Elvis, that sort of thing. So, it was really damned weird to hear FIF in there. REALLY.

Dead tired.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:43:54 GMT

Last night I went to bed at 8:00, and got up at 6:00, and I was STILL exhausted. Family drama REALLY takes it out of you. I hope I feel better rested tomorrow, but if I don't, at least I know it's my last Walmart day until Thursday.

I'm going to try drinking green tea at work tomorrow instead of coffee. We'll see how THAT works out. Possibly it's an experiment that's not well suited to my fifth consecutive day of work, but, eh.

Work!

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:04:34 GMT

Walmart finally has me working again. This is good, because I need the money very badly, and because I was kind of getting bored and crabby sitting at home with nothing do do*. This is bad, because . . . well, when was the last time YOU spent eight hours inside a Walmart?

It's led to a strange realization, though: even though I traditionally hate getting up early, I would much rather work the 7-4 opening shift than the 2-11 closing shift. Sure, I have to get up at six in the morning, but I get home by dinner time and I can spend the evening doing whatever I want. If I started work at 2, I wouldn't really be able to relax the same way. There would certainly be less wine involved.

* My definition of 'nothing' includes: learning how to sew; failing TWICE at making meringues; cooking shitloads of meals, including the world's best refried beans and some homemade tortillas; plus the usual knitting, spinning, and reading. I do not do 'idle' very well.

Writing Meme!

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:10:17 GMT

Stolen from deadvole!

Give me the title of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it, and I will tell you any of: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, or something else that I want readers to know.

My life at present

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:54:44 GMT

I'm not very good about posting here anymore, am I? You should probably blame my awesome friends, who hear most of the ideas and stories I have to tell via instant messenger, which means I'm not left with a strong urge to write about them here on my LJ. Also, when I'm not stressed out, I have less to process here.

Anyway, I feel like I should record the information that I am now officially a Sales Associate at Walmart in the Jewelry Department. I have . . . mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I need the money very badly. (Living on $200 a month all summer was . . . interesting.) And my coworkers in the Jewelry Department are all quite pleasant and fun. In fact, the work atmosphere is surprisingly pleasant, at least on the human end.

But then, you've got the corporate end. And that's not so fun. I've had to sit through hours and hours of what they call CBLs (computer-based learning)--it's basically a Powerpoint slide narrated by a very bored voice actor, with a quiz at the end. Some of them are to convey important information (like how to pierce ears or operate a cash register), but a lot of them are just corporate policies for convincing the employees that Walmart cares about them. For example, they REQUIRED me to go in and work up a 'career plan' for my time at Walmart. Sam Walton said, "You don't have to leave Walmart to change careers." . . . seriously, the rest of my life at Walmart? I would rather stab my eyes out.

Then there's the obvious downsides, like spending eight hours inside of a Walmart. Brr.

Also, now that college is over and the rest of my life is beginning, I'm trying to write again. I'm find it very difficult to write every day, even though I have this conviction that I should. I'm trying not to stress too much about it, because I was stressing about it, and that made me even less productive. Instead, I'm setting a few goals. My writing plans for the rest of this year are pretty non-demanding. I have two projects:

1) I plan to submit a story based on the Bacchae to this anthology. Several of my college friends are also submitting. The rough draft of that story needs to be done by October 31.

2) I'm doing NaNoWriMo again! I know what novel I'll be writing--it's one that's been lurking in my mind for . . . gosh, something like seven years now. It's time to get it OUT of there. So, November will be devoted to that novel, which is codenamed Project Cassie, although none of the characters are named Cassie.

I also have a few fiber-related goals and deadlines for the rest of the year:

1) Baby blanket for afghans for Afghans, which I hope to send off by the end of October.

2) Gloves for bootheeling (Leslie, would you like to drop me an e-mail? I'm museofastronomy on gmail. I'd like to get the yarn ordered!)

3) Spinning for and knitting a sweater for my mom by Christmas. (I have about a quarter of the spinning done at this point, so I may be stretching to meet this deadline, but . . . it's going to be a really nice sweater, anyway.)

4) Small Christmas presents for my brother and dad (only immediate family members are getting knitted presents this year)

5) Need to keep my Etsy store stocked, especially as the holidays draw nearer (see, if you're a knitter, basically everything after August is time to worry about Christmas)

I'm also working on a sweater for myself, but it's not really high on my priority list right now. It'll get done when it gets done.

Other things I have going on:

1) Volunteering with Meth Free Delta County (although I'm still in training)

2) Still proofreading the local newspaper one day a week; I appreciate the job all the more now that I'm also working at Walmart.

3) Still working on my Peace Corps application. I have dentist and doctor appointments right now to get my medical clearance started. (I had to wait until I had a job, or I wouldn't be able to pay. No insurance.) I also need to get in touch with the counselor at Sweet Briar, because I said on my application I'd seen a therapist, so now I have to go through all this rigamorole to prove I'm not crazy or disturbed or anything. They're making me write an essay, no joke. Grumble.

4) Occasionally trying to drop in and proofread a few pages at Distributed Proofreaders. It's such a low-stress way to volunteer, and I'm good at proofreading.

Five books I loved this summer

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:26:21 GMT

Despite the fact that I was very intellectually exhausted after that honors degree of mine, this summer's reading efforts were actually fairly productive. I don't read as fast as most people in my peer group (intelligent young nerds), and I'm very bad about rereading things instead of finding new books. (I've read Ender's Game and all the sequels about eight times since I discovered them early in high school. And that's a lot of sequels.)

So, all things considered, the fact that I have five books to share with you guys at the end of the summer is doing pretty well. I read a few other things, including a reread of the last three Harry Potter books, but here's the good stuff. Since I'm in the process of refining my worldview, and since I'm falling back into my homeschooler habits (reading to edify as much as to entertain) now that college is over, I'm going to try to give a sense of what I got from each book, as well as just offering my recommendation.

(Books are in the order I read them.)

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Probably most of you have already read this one, but if you haven't, you're really missing out. It's a masterpiece. (There's a reason it's won a Newbery, a Hugo, and is up for several other awards.) This book is exactly everything I love about children's literature; it's imaginative and engaging, but it also makes you think, and it culminates in one of the most beautiful embodiments of what Pullman calls the Republic of Heaven that I've ever seen.

Bod said, "I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want," he said, and then he paused and he thought. "I want everything."

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery

I've already made a very lengthy post on this one, so all I'll say is that I'm glad I sat through it to the end, and it's also going on my list of literary works that helped me refine my understanding of how I want to look at the world as I move through it. This book is a reminder that happy people are the ones who glory in the simplicity and complexity of every facet of the world around them, people who can find, "Beauty, in this world."

Paper Towns, by John Green

I spent far too many hours when I should have been working on my Honors Thesis watching the Green bros. videos on Youtube (any other Nerdfighters on my friendslist?), but this is the first of John Green's books I've ever read. I read it in one long sitting one beautiful August afternoon, and since I'm such a slow reader, that's very unusual for me. It's all about the power of our perceptions, and how we can create things and people that don't exist just by thinking about them existing. It also convinced me to start reading Walt Whitman (but he doesn't make it onto my summer reading list because I'm still working on him).

The Anvil of the World, by Kage Baker

I read this, and thought, "Why have I never heard of this woman before? She's freaking awesome!" The book wasn't a big life-changing moment for me, but not every book can be. It was mercilessly clever and irreverent. Kage Baker writes very much in the spirit of Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland. This book is everything I want in a fantasy book. I loved it. I'll be tracking down more of her books for sure.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman

Scraping into the "summer reading" category by just a hair is this book I finished the other day, and the fact that I happily read a full nonfiction book should prove that I'm already recovering from college, I think. The book is about a young Hmong girl with severe epilepsy, and the cultural conflict between her family and her American doctors. Fadiman's goal in the book is to try to explain how the conflict arose by exploring the cultural background and assumptions on both sides. She alternates chapters telling the story about the individual family with chapters that tell the story of the Hmong as a people, and since I knew very little about the Hmong or their history, this was really wonderful for me.

One of the most important things she does is try to get her English-speaking readers to understand that the American doctors should be viewed as bringing their own idiosyncratic set of beliefs to the table, just as much as their Hmong patients; readers need to put away the idea that American doctors are inherently 'right' (anyone who's talked to me about rationality versus religious reasoning should know that I love this sort of thing). Fadiman challenges readers to see the Hmong beliefs as a legitimate worldview, rather than a set of crazy and occasionally dangerous superstitions. I recommend this book for anyone who's interested in multiculturalism.

(By the way, fishlanterns, if you didn't get it, my answer to your reservations about this book is that you have nothing to worry about; it's nothing like that one review on Amazon.)

What's the best book that each of you read this summer?

Clouds

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:47:18 GMT

Plato was a fool.

Today, I spent my afternoon reading Paper Towns, by John Green (it was excellent). At some point, I moved out into the front yard and laid down on the grass. I read half the book that way, on the cool grass, with the breeze and the shade. It was beautiful.

At one point, I rolled over, and caught a glimpse of the clouds up in the sky, and I had to stop and stare, even though the sky was so bright it dazzled my eyes. It was so perfect, with the wispy, fluffy white clouds moving slowly against the blue, blue sky, behind the dead branches of a cottonwood tree that our neighbors should have trimmed. They looked like towers of a castle on a hill.

As I kept watching, some large bird made a dark shape very high up, and I watched as it grew smaller and smaller, a little black speck against the white of the clouds, until it disappeared behind the leaves of an elm tree.

And I thought, Plato was a fool.

Every one of those clouds was perfect, all on its own. They weren't echoes of some perfect Form of 'Cloud'. The very concept of such a Form is an insult to real clouds. There's no such thing as a bad cloud, or an imperfect cloud; every cloud functions exactly the way that it should. They don't need to aspire to an idea, they just exist. They're just being clouds.

I feel the same way about almost everything. I looked up into the branches of the cottonwood tree, and it was perfect, too, it was being a cottonwood, and doing the cottonwoodiest job of it that it could. Don't try to tell me there's a perfect Idea Cottonwood that this cottonwood is a mere shadow of; it's your Idea that's a shadow.

And it's the same with beauty. Lying there on the grass and listening to the wind in the trees, and watching the birds fly past, and smelling the grass--that is Beauty. Not a reflection of something transcendent; Beauty itself, literally in the flesh, right there in my front yard. What a tragedy to experience something beautiful and think, "Well, that was a nice glimpse of something I will never truly experience until I manage to transcend this mortal realm."

Stop looking for the forest when you're already surrounded by the trees!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the Republic of Heaven

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:24:10 GMT

Today, I finished reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, on the (very enthusiastic) recommendation of kaykopelli. I find I have a lot to say about it, mostly reading it was very much a journey.

Here's the thing: I was rather wary going into it. Despite everything that kaykopelli said about what an amazing--essentially life-changing--book it was, I was a little put off by my initial impression. The book is the story of a concierge in an upscale Paris apartment building, who hides how well-read and intelligent she is, in order to seem like an ordinary concierge, and an intelligent twelve year old girl (one of the tenants), who has decided to commit suicide, because the world is such an ugly place.

I couldn't get it. I kept asking things like, "Why does the concierge have to hide who she is?" and, "Is this little girl utterly blind not to see the beauty of the world?" In fact, I spend the first half of the book wanting to smack them both. But, when I finally lowered my defenses and let the book talk, I realized that it is a book about the beauty of the world. And that is something I can certainly get behind.

I don't believe I've ever posted about it, but I spent a lot of time in college developing my worldview and articulating my beliefs about the way the world works. And I discovered that one of the cornerstones of my thinking is that the world is a beautiful, magnificent place, and that the beauty--and the duty--of being human is to glory in it.

It was Philip Pullman's essay, The Republic of Heaven, that made all the difference. The realization that this world counts, that the physical world isn't an ugly thing, it's the only thing, and we need to love it and live in it. I mean really live, not move through it as if we're on the way to someplace else all the time--always thinking about the next world, and what will come after, instead of experiencing the world right here and now, in all its physical splendour.

That essay is the closest thing to a religious experience I've had in my adult life, because it gave me that sense of truth that, I think, religious people experience--when you read something, or hear it, and know that you believe it, not because of the person who said it, but because it was down deep in your heart the whole time, waiting to be articulated.

And now, I try to live that way--rejoicing in the glory of living in the physical world, in the squishy feeling of a ball of wool yarn, or lying on the grass in the shade reading a book. Or peaches! In my opinion, any world that has peaches in it is worth living in for that simple fact alone.

And that, at its heart, is the subject of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. This is a book that will dwell for pages about the beauty of a rosebud falling onto the counter, or the taste of sushi, or tea. So, I finally realized that when I wanted to shake the little girl and tell her what a fool she was being for thinking the world wasn't worth living in, I was meant to feel that way.

The book's last line is about as perfect a statement of the idea of the Republic of Heaven as you could hope to find. It says, "Beauty, in this world." Yes, yes, yes.

This is the first time in a while that I've actually been challenged by a book. It challenged me because my initial impression was that here was a book that was going to try too hard to be Deep and Meaningful and it will Take Itself Seriously. And that presumption very nearly kept me from getting at the heart of the book.

I mean . . . (forgive me, Kayla) . . . it is a little pretentious. It is trying to be Deep and Meaningful. But it doesn't--as I initially thought--sacrifice character development for that. It's all incorporated. I am wary of any book that self-consciously sets out to attain soaring prose and deep thoughts, even though I think that good books should have both. And yet, there is something of real value there in what Muriel Barbery is trying to say, and by the end of the book, you're deeply attached to these two characters (I nearly cried for them), which is far more important than any philosophizing.

So, it's a good book. A great one? I don't know; perhaps it's too soon to say. Not as great, I think, as Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which is another beautifully Republican work, and accomplishes something very similar to The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but with simplicity and not a trace of pretentiousness. But certainly a good book, and a valuable one.

In fact, I would rather like to learn French so that I could read it in the original language--I get the distinct impression that a lot of the discussion of grammatical morsels is lost in translation, and you all know how dearly I love grammar. And, after all, if I read it in French, I could skip the more tedious bits that dwell on things like the nature of the human race, and jump straight to the good parts about pastries and camellias.