The Good Girl -or- I Will Slap Your WHOLE FACE.

 

This book, man.
This… book.
Overall, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read in my life. To give the author a few points, the bones of a good plot are there, but… unfortunately, the meat is stringy and tough and utterly flavorless, and could have done with a lovely marinade or dry brine. There are some rather thick cliches here and there, the way the author addresses race and POC is, quite frankly gross, and there’s an incredibly problematic romance that’s central to the plot.

I’m going to spoil it, I’m afraid, so if you’re not ready for spoilers, this is a good jumping off point.

Alpha Male Casting Call

“It never crosses her mind that there are a million places I’d rather be than here…”
“I grip her wrist tighter and I know it hurts.”
“I back her against the wall, bumping into a lamp as I do… I hold her there. I tell her to shut up. I say it over and over again.”
“I take a step closer and hold the gun to her head.”
“I yank her into the bedroom and tell her that if I hear her so much as breathe she will never again see the light of day.”
“I saved her life. Who the h___ does she think she is to run away?”
“It’s like I’m caring for a d___ infant.”
“What pisses me off is that she talks like she got the short end of the stick. Like her life is full of hard knocks.”

Brace yourselves, lords, ladies, and jesters, because this clown is our hero.
He is the criminal with a heart of gold… a man who believes that, after kidnapping, restraining, punching, and threatening a woman, what he’s done was for her benefit, and the predicament that he created is ultimately her fault.

Let me set the stage:
After she consents to go to his apartment, he keeps her there, hours after she has repeatedly stated that she needs to go home, he then pulls a gun, forces her into a car and, instead of taking her to his (scary African… we’ll come back to this) colleague who would demand a ransom from her (terrible) father, takes her to a poorly outfitted cabin in the woods on an impulse that we’re perhaps meant to find endearing.
He terrorizes a store clerk. He repeatedly and harshly grabs and restrains Mia, being sure to let the reader know that he’s completely aware of the pain he’s inflicting. At one point, he tackles her, taking time to remind us of the difference in their respective sizes. He hits Mia. He threatens to murder a kitten to ensure Mia’s compliance. He repeatedly sexualizes his naked victim while bathing her in cold water to bring down a potentially deadly fever. He plots to get Mia a fake passport so they can run away together because, of course, she has no say in whether or not she goes home. He demeans her incessantly in his thoughts, calling her weak and stupid. However, despite it all, he seems to think that Mia should be grateful and there’s a nasty implication that he expects Mia to, in particular, be grateful because he did not rape her, or take her to the scary African (we’ll come back to this, I PROMISE), whose scary African grasp would surely mean a fate worse than death for our delicate Mia. Mia’s random nightmares about a black man with a machete are hilarious, considering that she has been kidnapped by a scruffy, cute white dude with a violent temper (but, of course, she can’t have nightmares about him, because he’s doing all this to save her from a black man, and that makes what he’s done perfectly okay, and she should love him for it).

The deeper we go into this squicky narrative, the more the victim and her kidnapper begin to open up to each other (yay) and the more he tries to shame her about her wealthy upbringing (because, you know, if your family hasn’t been on welfare, your kidnapping is justified and you should pity the predator in question). He’s excused for everything that he’s done because his father abandoned the family and they were poor.

The Pixie is Manic.

You might think that Mia (being the eponymous “Good Girl”) is the focus of this story… but you’d be wrong. Mia is nothing more than a blank page that the other characters simply project their own perceptions onto. She’s a list of characteristics with no actual personality attached, and while I hope that was intentional on the author’s part, it made for an irritating read.
For Colin, she’s a waifish, delicate, manic pixie, who enthuses at length about the colors of the sky, used to wish on airplanes because stars aren’t visible in Chicago, and blithely dismisses the very real possibility that she could have been killed by Colin, because she “would have killed him” if she had the chance.
Of course, being the victim of a BRUTAL KIDNAPPING, her act would have been JUSTIFIED, but sure, whatever.

For Eve, (Mia’s cardboard cutout mother), Mia is a shadowy reflection version of the young Eve, and one who doesn’t really become all that interesting to Eve until everyone thinks Mia might be dead. Eve barely has a relationship with her daughter prior to her kidnapping, and manages to make Mia’s ordeal into a long personal whinging session about how Eve used to be beautiful and how she married a jerk. She spends page after page obsessively longing for a daughter that she couldn’t be bothered to contact for weeks on end… and also apparently wants to see the detective’s badge and weapon, if you know what I’m getting at.
Detective Hoffman is such a cliche himself that he deserves an entire blog just about him… but we’ll just say that he wasn’t as consumed with finding Mia as he was with sniffing her mom’s perfume.

Mia is such a void that caring about her (other than in a general sense) is difficult, and considering the format of the story, you know that she is ultimately found. She’s a walking plot device.

People of Color = Danger

“… and as I looked around the bar, I saw that I was the only one who was white.”

“When I saw him, my throat rose up inside me and I found it hard to breathe. His eyes were black, like coal, his skin dark and rubbery, like tires.”

“He was black, like the blackest of black bears, like the rubbery skin of the killer whale, an alpha predator with no predators of their own.”

“I looked into his black serpentine eyes…”

“Nearly everyone there, except for a twentysomething waitress in jeans and a too-tight shirt, was male; all, besides me, were black.”

These gems are all from the last few pages of the book. Previously, we had just been treated to the usual reiterations of race relations from people who somehow still don’t seem to know any better… Detective Hoffman judges how safe neighborhoods are based on the ratio of white people to people of color. People born in other countries do not speak fluent English. White people (like our poor sweet Mia) do not really belong with inner city types and teaching art to those inner city types makes white people like Mia saints.
All you need to know to navigate the world is that African men have skin like rubber.

To wrap this review up, which is much longer than this book deserves, let me state the following:
Black men are not animals. That’s an ancient trope, and it’s an unacceptable one.
The presence of numerous black people in one place does not indicate danger. Again, ancient and unacceptable.
If a man thinks that hitting, restraining, and terrorizing a woman is for her own good, then he needs therapy, not a lover. This is yet another ancient trope.

I want to say something good about this book, because I really don’t like feeling as though I’ve taken a hatchet to someone’s work, even if I hated that work with the heat of a thousand suns, so…
Um…
I liked the cover art.
It’s very pretty.
Good job with that.

 

#24in48 Readathon

I’ve made a rather last minute decision to indulge in a full 24 hours of self care… because, let’s face it, the last few years weeks have been less than agreeable, and darn it, sometimes a body just needs a minute.
My retreat has come in the form of the 24in48 Readathon! The objective is to read for a solid 24 hours over the weekend, which will allow me to knock off a number of books on my Goodreads list, get ahead on my reading challenge, and finally… FINALLY… GET OUT OF OZ.
I’m so tired of Oz, you guys.

To Be Read (in this order):
The Scarecrow of Oz – L. Frank Baum
Hamilton: The Revolution – Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
Rinkitink of Oz – L. Frank Baum
In the Woods – Tana French
The Lost Princess of Oz – L. Frank Baum
The Intelligent Conversationalist – Imogen Lloyd Webber
The Tin Woodman of Oz – L. Frank Baum
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
The Magic of Oz – L. Frank Baum
Lament – Maggie Stiefvater
Glinda of Oz – L. Frank Baum
The Silmarillion – J.R.R. Tolkien

Can I plow through all of these books in 24 hours?
No.
Probably not.
I occasionally display some (unfortunate) tendencies toward ambitiousness, BUT I have lots of tea and Zebra Cakes and the remnants of an actual chocolate cake and I’m sure I have meat somewhere in this house, so there’s really no way to lose this game.

1st Update: 3 hours, 32 minutes, 3 seconds
The Scarecrow of Oz – L. Frank Baum seemed to name a few of his books after characters who would not show up until more than halfway through the book, and weren’t particularly pivotal to a positive outcome. I won’t give any spoilers, but… WHY ARE YOU HERE, SCARECROW?
Trot and Cap’n Bill are a delight… the Ork is officially my favorite thing in the entire Oz universe.

Hamilton: The Revolution – This is a book that can’t be rushed through… particularly if you’re listening to the soundtrack while reading it (pausing to read the behind the scenes sections and then carefully pouring over the lyrical footnotes). I started crying at “Blow Us All Away” and didn’t stop until the end.
Crying is terrible.

2nd Update: 5 hours, 13 minutes, 31 seconds
Rinkitink of Oz – Rinkitink is not “of Oz”, nor is he the main character (Frank, sir, why do you do this?), but I enjoyed this book immensely… much more than the other Oz books (with the exception of “The Wizard of Oz”). Oz is awkwardly shoehorned in at the end, and I found Dorothy and co. to be rather unwelcome, but Dorothy did bring a dozen eggs with her and I do love eggs, so I guess she can stay if she keeps her mouth shut.

3rd Update: 11 hours, 44 minutes, 32 seconds
In the Woods – Absorbing and brilliant. I never know with books like this one if the reader is meant to spot the critical point early on, so I spent the majority of my read wondering if I had either jumped to a wrong conclusion or if the main character was a little bit of a moron.
I won’t tell you which was correct.

Day 2!

I have less than twelve hours to go, and I’m kicking off today’s jaunt with another trip to Oz. The Lost Princess of Oz is the llth book in the series. I’m officially sending up a prayer that it’s not about Ozma.
Please.
A body can only take so much.

4th Update: 13 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds
The Lost Princess of Oz – My feelings about this book are similar to my feelings about fruit-based desserts: Fine enough, but not something that I would choose for a treat.

5th Update: 15 hours, 14 minutes 
The Tin Woodman of Oz – I changed my plans a bit, and decided to save “The Intelligent Conversationalist” for another day… which meant that I stayed in Oz for a bit longer than scheduled.
*sigh* This book… *sigh*
I… I just can’t.
Go read it yourself. Why should I do all the work?

Well, I’m not going to make it to a full 24 hours. I spent the morning at church, and there just aren’t enough hours left in Sunday to make it work, but I’m having a lovely time, so we’ll press on.

6th Update: 20 hours
I’ve clocked 20 hours, I’ve stayed up one hour and forty-nine minutes past my bedtime, and I turned into a pumpkin fifteen minutes ago, so I’m packing it in!

Don’t Rile the Phlegmatic

You know, I don’t feel as though I ask a lot from my books… if you’re meant to be entertaining, entertain me. If you’re meant to be informative, then I do LOVE to be informed. If you’re meant to rock my world and shake up my paradigms, then commence with the rocking and shaking, thanks.
If you manage not to do any of those things in 115 pages, then I’m just going to read you to stay on track with my Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge.
After that, you’re dead to me.
No offense.
I am in the middle of a very…
…
… well-intentioned… book that has been steadily getting on my nerves.
It can happen, of course.
It won’t when you’re reading Neil Gaiman, but it can happen.

Last night, I was treated to a few silly statements about the nature of phlegmatics that just about put me in the ground, because in addition to being phlegmatic, I’m a perfectionist, which means that I’ll still be sitting here with a dumb look on my face while I take you task… and you’ll think I’m joking…
Being a phlegmatic who doesn’t like wearing jeans, I do rather resent the first nonsensical statement that phlegmatics will wear the most casual clothes possible.
Because they’re like puddles of warm, gooey molasses, and they can barely stand up with help, let alone wear trousers and shave and apply makeup and struggle into nylons. Phlegmatics don’t have spines, you see, they have cores made entirely of Laffy Taffy, so your phlegmatic has no concept of fashion sense.
I object. One thing (temperament) has nothing to do with the other (sartorial choices).
The problem with this statement is the assumption that one’s temperament can be extrapolated to clothing preferences. I would never assume that someone with a melancholy temperament would automatically prefer the color black anymore than I would assume that a sanguine (what with all the cheeriness and bubbles and talking and what not) would prefer to be a nudist. If you know a couple of sloppily dressed phlegmatics who never shower and just sort-of ooze of out the door in the morning, clad in tatters and their own body soil, that can’t be laid at the door of their temperament, nor should phlegmatics use their unceasing calm as an excuse to be gross… any more than cholerics can rush about slapping irritating strangers, and shrugging it off with a “You’re going to get that with your cholerics.”

The second statement, upon which I closed the book gently, laid it on the table, and proceeded to go to sleep at once in an effort to preserve my poor fragile frontal lobes, implied that while every other personality type may get tired of assisting their friends through difficult times, phlegmatics won’t.
Um… generally speaking, I would say that everyone gets emotionally tired in times of prolonged distress. Emotional fatigue belongs to all of us, not just the overtly emotional. The fact that I won’t immediately tell my best friend to shut up when she has a problem does not mean that I won’t grow weary if she’s depressed for five years. Of course, I would still help her, but my assistance has no bearing on whether or not I’m tired.
Maybe a phlegmatic won’t tell you that he or she is tired but please don’t assume that fatigue isn’t present.
That’s just illogical… and perhaps a little bit insulting.
It’s like saying that people who don’t constantly eat or constantly talk about eating or constantly look ravenous are therefore never hungry.

Suffice it to say… I’m really not enjoying this book, for other reasons besides my irritation with people who use personality tests and temperament analysis to continue putting people (with years of experience, training, preferences, and personal growth) in rigid itty bitty boxes, all the better to understand them with, without actually having to talk to them… but perhaps the book’s personality commentary was the last straw. Idealistic, perhaps, but I think authors have a certain level of responsibility to not perpetuate nonsense.
Unless you’re Neil Gaiman.
If you are a writer, and you struggle to organize your thoughts, and you struggle with a tendency to say silly things that you can’t back up with data, GET AN EDITOR.

It occurred to me this morning that perhaps a little refresher course on the nature of phlegmatics might be in order. Exploring the Introvert: 14 Facts about Phlegmatics is a beautifully succinct blog post that outlines the basics.

Poor, Obscure, Plain, and Little

Last year, I read Jane Eyre for the second time.
My previous foray was in either junior high or high school, and I remember thinking that Rochester was the bees knees and that Jane was a stiff-necked idiot.
Upon re-reading it as an adult, I cried through it.
Then I listened to the audio book.
Cried.
Then I watched the 2011 film.
Cried like a hungry, wet infant.
I am not the most emotional of women, but I do have working tear ducts and, much as I am ashamed to confess it, I can be moved to tears when something is spectacularly awful or spectacularly awesome (emphasis on spectacular… the pedestrian and rudimentary will see no tears from me. I’m looking at YOU, 2013 DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL).

“Jane Eyre” is spectacular in all possible senses so, therefore, I reacted both as if glass was being driven into my nail beds and as if someone had proposed to me by quoting the wooing scene from Shakespeare’s “Henry V” word for word, with exquisite diction and crisp pronunciation.
To be quite clear, I love this book with a ferocity that is surprising.

From the moment I cracked the seal on the first chapter, I felt a strange sort of affinity with Jane. No, I am not an orphan, nor was I abused by a psychotic cousin, cast off by a cold and distant aunt, or boarded at a school both owned by and riddled with diseases, but I still connected with her. Perhaps it was the description of her own countenance and demeanor, and how she was considered unlovable because she was too quiet and bookish with a tiny forbidding expression. Her feeling of being utterly unconnected to those around her and her childish flashes of temper resonated with me to the point where I was so angered and upset by her treatment that I had to put the book down for a bit and breathe.

All, right, fine. By “breathe”, I meant “cry.”

Whatever.

Jane just felt so familiar to me… feeling as though one must stand at the back in the shadows, and having the depth of one’s being consistently underestimated because of one’s silence and outward serenity. It wasn’t that she didn’t have thoughts or feelings. They just didn’t live on her top layer of skin. She didn’t feel everything… every discomfort or slight didn’t produce boiling rage, nor was she wildly ecstatic over a nice, balanced breakfast… but what she did feel was felt so deeply that it could have killed her. When she cried, she had such good reasons that I cried with her, and when she was happy, it was at such long last and so well deserved that I still cried, but not in the same way that one would at the end of “The Terminator.”

I’m not kidding, that was so SAD!

I think what I love about Jane is that she was not a saint. Sure, she was young and blushed easily and was a very good sort of person, but not because she couldn’t have been any other way. Jane chose her path deliberately, fully realized and self-aware, and the reader is privy to long passages in which Jane reins herself in.
Jane chose to excel at Lowood. She got angry, but didn’t leap on people the way she had as a child with young idiot Reed. She was discontent, but didn’t sit around bemoaning the fact… she simply acknowledged that she wanted more than she had, and then went back to her work. She chose to forgive her aunt and her living cousins at Gateshead. At no point did Jane follow Blanch Ingram down a dark hallway, knock her the ground, and kick her in the throat. She kept her feelings for Rochester until control, and even when driven to the point of confession, she still kept her own terms. She didn’t cease to want Rochester when she discovered his secret, but when presented with a temptation that I dare say most of us would have seriously considered (I’ll be honest… I at LEAST would have made out a pros and cons list), Jane pulled one of my favorite heroine stunts of all time: she got the heck out of Dodge (I’ve always been partial to runners, myself… there’s great good sense is recognizing that a dash for the hills is in order).
I’ll admit wanting to throw rocks and chew glass when Jane submitted for a time to Saint John Rivers’ peculiar brand of emotional abuse, but even in that case, she only allowed things to go so far, and then she dug in her heels and told him to step off.

Not in those precise words, of course.

Jane had what appeared to be a very clear picture of who she was… specifically, “poor, obscure, plain, and little,” and she didn’t spend any time at all wishing or plotting or trying to be anything else, but she also had a brilliant view of her own self-worth… “I have an inward treasure born with me“. She didn’t pat herself on the back indulgently and tell herself that she was beautiful, she didn’t believe that she was the best and brightest of all things, she even seemed to be a bit suspicious of other people’s compliments, but ultimately Jane knew that whatever she was, that would do quite well.
It seemed that Jane’s own self-respect went farther in securing her own happiness than anything else could, so she guarded that self-respect with quiet tooth and claw. This makes her the most approachable of heroines, the most magnificent of feminists, and the most concise of theologians, because she simply accepted how God had made her and wouldn’t let anyone mangle or redefine her.
And, spoilers… she wins in the end.
You can’t beat that with a stick.

 

Quotes:

“Do you think I am an automaton? A machine without feelings, and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are!”

“I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

“I am not an angel,’ I asserted; ‘and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me – for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.”

“Weekends are Jerks” Friday

Oh, weekend.
You took your own sweet time getting here, didn’t you?
Weekends are really jerks, in their own way… ignore a body all week long, show up late, and expect a party. Every. Single. Time.
Ugh, weekends… I would quit you if I could.
But I can’t and I’m secretly glad you’re here and don’t ever leave me again please I love you.

1) Reading Nooks!
I strongly suspect that if I had a reading nook at work, my productivity would increase tenfold.
I would be a veritable blizzard of productivity.
I would produce the heck out of things.
I don’t think my boss reads my blog…
Here is my favorite:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn’t this just scream PRODUCTIVITY?!?! I mean, if you were my boss, and for some reason you happened to be reading my blog, wouldn’t you think, “Boy Howdy, wouldn’t Jessica be insanely productive if she worked here?”
You WOULD think that, sir… and you would be correct.

2) I have been yipping about starting a Sherlockian group for months.
Literally yipping.
I have been barking in a tiny voice about starting a Sherlockian group.
Now, if you’re an introvert, you understand that trying to move a large group of introverts in a direction that they haven’t chosen for themselves is a bit like trying to push molasses uphill… in January… in Wisconsin… but this downloadable PDF outlining the appropriate way to start a Sherlockian group might help.

3) Noah
I’m not a huge fan of Russell Crowe.
I like him well enough, I suppose, but generally speaking, his name is not a sufficient impetus to get me to a theater.
However, his name, plus HERMIONE and SIR JOHN TALBOT and a Biblical flood?
That’s an embarrassment of riches.

This film looks crazy (75% crazy-in-a-positive-way, and 25% mildly psychotic).

4) The Return of the Ultimate Sass.
I think we all know how I feel about Paul McGann.
Other than his general exquisiteness (exquisitivity? exquisitude?), his Eighth Doctor has grown into one of my favorites, thanks to his Big Finish audio adventures. All of those factors combined to produce a bit of weeping (quite a large bit, really) during the brilliant “The Night of the Doctor” short.
We all watched that, didn’t we?
We didn’t?
Well, here!!!
WATCH!!!!

Chills, and weeping, and chills…
NOW I am excited about the 50th again.
See?
I’m really very easily pleased.
Throw a smidge of Paul McGann, and I’ll buy into anything.

“Pretend This is Yelp” Friday

It is Friday, isn’t it?
I’m afraid my internal calendar has gone all wonky.
Yesterday was one of those days that felt three weeks long… not because good things didn’t happen, but because they happened all at once, intermixed with a rather sudden family crisis, with a sprinkling of exhaustion (both mental and muscle) and with a little sheep’s blood thrown in for seasoning.

The only thing I’ve been able to focus on this week that was not work or Bible related was the hotel that I’m staying in, and “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”… I could, of course, talk about Sherlock Holmes ALL DAY LONG, but endless gushing is rather grating on the ear.
I had the thought yesterday that the only thing that I wanted to do was talk to Sherlock Holmes… but he’s dead.
Technically, he’s a fictional character, but being not real is rather similar to being dead, no?
Has anyone written a pastiche around the Netherland-Sumatra Company case?
Could someone get on that?
Please and thank you.

I am going to give the tiniest stamp of approval for The Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando. Let me just say… this place is lovely.
Why, you ask?
I shall tell you (if you would calm down and stop interrupting me… you just can’t let me talk, can you?!).
A: It’s clean!
You don’t know how many supposedly high-end hotels I’ve been in (for business purposes… I am NOT made of money) and I’ve found grime and blood stains… yes, BLOOD STAINS.
Twice, I have found BLOOD STAINS in my hotel room.
I felt like I was in a CSI episode.
CSI: Miami, unfortunately, not New York.
I would have committed the murder myself to be on CSI: New York.
But this place looks like it’s properly scrubbed on the regular and, considering that you never knew who came before you and licked all the surfaces, I do appreciate a proper scrubbing.

B: The Rosen has free WiFi, and not the dinky “I can’t even send a text message” wifi… it’s better than the Wifi I have at home (which, admittedly, is questionable).

C: The staff is very nice. Not Bates Motel “Can-I-help-you-unpack-I-have-cameras-behind-the-mirror-in-the-bathroom-we-only-have-six-disappearances-every-year-it’-s-not-that-bad” nice… they’re very polite and non-creepy and helpful.
Well, we did have that one waiter who started to get annoyed when my dinner companion kept asking questions, but they WERE questions about the food.It’s not like she was asking about the tomb of the unknown solider, or how many miles to Bethlehem. At one point, he said, “Just order. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring your something else.” which felt a little snarky to me.
I guess he didn’t really have to be nice… they added an 18% gratuity on the check.

D: The decor is nice… all granite and some sort-of wood that might be cherry, but I’m not really up on my trees, so don’t quote me.

All in all, I quite prefer this place to any other hotel I’ve stayed in.
It beats that one hotel in NYC with a stick.

Silence in the Library

*cue Ray Lamontagne’s “Trouble”*

This year has been rather a year of new discoveries so far, as I’ve slowly immersed myself in geek/nerd culture online (as a spectator only). I’ve learned new things, and developed new obsessions (I use the term loosely), found new causes to be excited about, and also discovered that even in a group of super smart kids, we still can’t agree (or agree to disagree) on certain… issues.
I don’t know, I suppose I thought that people who had memorized every line from the original Star Trek series wouldn’t really have problems with sexism and racism.
Beneath my tough walnutty exterior, I am a soft, squishy idealist, I suppose.
So much for nerd utopia.

I toyed with the idea of writing a few blogs on those topics… but I don’t think I’m ready to expose those parts of my soft underbelly to the light of day and to opinions from other people who never mean any harm (but somehow manage to cause a bit everywhere they go). I might, eventually, delve into it, but now doesn’t particularly seem like a good time, what with the heat and state of current affairs and whatnot.

So, I thought to myself (you know, in those rare moments when I don’t think to other people… seriously, who comes up with these phrases?), “I’m not going to go there. I’ll go to the library instead. Libraries are friendly and neutral. Libraries don’t have any particular opinion on your femininity or skin color and libraries never ask you if you prefer to be called African American.”
Answer: No.
American will do.
I am not African.
If you must attach a color-based descriptor, black is fine and not at all offensive.

The folks over at Mental Floss have put together a list of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries, and I was quite proud to see one of my favorites:
The Trinity College Library in Dublin (which often serves as my desktop background, so I can imagine that I’m working there… in silence… and a deliciously warm green sweater.

I did notice that some of the massive libraries on the list have tile flooring, which seems a bit counter intuitive, since people (myself included) like to wear clicky shoes, and libraries are supposed to be QUIET… but then, in my latest visit to my local library, I encountered people talking at the top of their voices, a man taking several business calls on his cell phone, and a beautiful, but noisy clock that chimed the hour… because people in a library love nothing more than to be jerked out of their reverie by the sound of many bells.
I don’t know, maybe we don’t have to be quiet in libraries anymore.
Was there a law passed about it? I don’t recall voting. Can we vote on this? I object.

I love the idea of libraries (except the noisy ones, of course) because libraries contain vast compendiums of knowledge, and yet, at the same time, are known as being places of peace and serenity. Imagine it… books with differing opinions and mindsets and agendas, standing side by side in peace… perhaps never agreeing, but never arguing either.

I wonder what would happen if humans could do that… learn and understand the “opposite” viewpoint, and clearly, calmly, and objectively state their viewpoint, and proceed on a basis of actual mutual understanding, rather than allowing the discussion to deteriorate into arguments and insults. I would love for there to be open frank discussions about issues, with the purpose of finding middle ground to stand on. We’re not at that place yet, even after all this time, and I suppose that the older I get, the more disillusioned I become with society that would rather be right and on top and at war.

Libraries are one of the few places where two opposing forces are together in a confined space and no one ever fires a shot. Again, it’s idealistic of me, but I would hope that we could learn something from that.

“Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture”

I finished “Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture” yesterday.
You know that moment when you’re reading a good book, and you write down several quotes so you can eat them later?
You know, like a squirrel.
Or an ant.
Well, I do not have any quotes written down from “Introverts in the Church”… because I would have had to copy the entire book line by line, and while that would undoubtedly be a worthwhile endeavor, it’s mighty time consuming.
I don’t have that kind of time, because I have a JOB, and libraries get awfully sensitive about people that don’t return their property in a timely fashion.

I shall be buying this book as soon as humanly (or financially… whichever) possible, because it’s the first book that has succinctly described my experiences as an introvert navigating the evangelical church atmosphere, but instead of this book being that friend who simply commiserates and never encourages, “Introverts in the Church” left me with a sense of hope for the future of an integrated church that reflects the extroverted and introverted nature of Jesus. Adam S. McHugh has a gift for both writing as that friend who’s been there and a mentor who won’t let you stay there, and this book is a literally pirate ship of treasures.
I don’t know why I went with pirate ship… let’s just say that it probably has something to do with Captain Hook and leave it at that, shall we?

The point of the book was not extrovert bashing (“Be kind, O introvert, to your knuckle dragging, loquacious, incessantly upbeat extrovert neighbor… the poor dumb things just can’t help it”) nor was it all introvert back scratching (“You are an uncut gem, though your worth remains unrecognized. You are a FLOWER! You a SNOWFLAKE! You are a SPARKLY, SPARKLY DIAMOND!!!”).
Sidebar: The one thing that will make my frontal lobes constrict is when a person ruthlessly mixes metaphors. Take care with your metaphors, people. Don’t wield them like a megalomaniac with a doomsday button.
The point was to learn about how churches can reach (and learn from) an untapped portion of their congregations… the ones who sit solitary in crowded sanctuaries, who avoid picnics and potlucks, who tend to blink owlishly when confronted with unexpected questions, and can be depended on to conclude a small talk session with, “Um. Well, then. Okay.”
As introverts, we can learn to lift our gazes from our own navels (despite the fact that, let’s just be honest, our navels are FASCINATING), and extroverts can learn to recognize the ability and strength buried beneath an introvert’s desire for solitude and reflection, and in combination, the Church can progress.

In the last two weeks, I have attended two… er, gatherings.
The lights remained low, the music remained slow, with powerful lyrics and the occasional violin (God bless the violin)… the speaker didn’t scream, bang on anything, or demand that anyone clap, shout, or embrace newcomers. At the end of the message, there was a time of quiet, individual worship, and following the conclusion, those present were invited to a restaurant or a party.
It occurred to me, as I was reading “Introverts in the Church”, that both the extrovert need for companionship and conversation and the introvert need for depth and low stimulation were available in such a setting. One of either could leave feeling a connection to the community without being ruthlessly pushed out of their boundaries of what their personality could tolerate.* It occurred to me that as long as churches are fixated on reaching those whom it believes are normal (high energy, high volume, high stimulation level Christians), those who are “abnormal” won’t have a place… but if the Church is deliberate is carving out spaces for both extroverts and introverts and giving both groups opportunities to contribute and lead, the community would not collapse in on itself for lack of outreach, nor would it pop like an overfilled balloon for lack of sober restraint and reflection.

All in all, I may be that annoying person who buys this book for anyone that I have regular conversation with, regardless of temperament, because we, as a Church, need to ingest this.

*Granted, I’ve only gone twice, and it could be that next month is “Screamo” month, followedby “Metal Machine” month, followed by “Mosh Pit and Hug Your Neighbor” month.

Grumpity Grump Friday

You know those days when you’re just…
I mean, you’re fine, but…
You’re really…
You’re… you’re kind-of wound, and…
You…
You’re all…
*sigh* Drat.
Let’s just say that it’s been a rough week, and the way I feel today, I could chop down a tree by myself… using my teeth like a beaver.
We’ll just leave it at that.

1) I’m not even going to be embarrassed about the fact that I have, thanks to Hulu Plus, consumed two seasons of Teen Wolf in one week.
I probably should be… but no.
Not today.
Embarrassed not am I.
But before anyone takes that statement as an official endorsement of the show, I’m just going to say that if I was a teenager, this show would have killed me, so personally, I think it’s best for adults, who can sift through the messages, discard that which isn’t useful, and simply enjoy the action.
Oh, and werewolves.
Oh, and STILES.
STILES.
*falls to knees and wails at the heavens, shaking clenched fists*

2) I am rather picky about my music, I’m afraid… particularly when it comes to worship music, because there are definitely songs that are irritatingly repetitive and inane, and yet have wormed their way into our collective worship consciousness. It doesn’t mean that you can’t worship to them, but it requires a certain level of mental (and occasionally physical) gymnastics…
My problem is that we’re talking about something (Someone, really) that should affect you on such a deep level that your words should naturally have more power and feeling than something that could have been slapped together with a rhyming dictionary.
Personally, I would love to see an entire Gungor worship set, but I’ve been vetoed on that score approximately one hundred times…
The song below is a recent favorite of mine (Closer – Bethel Live). It’s very simple, but the sentiment behind it is more profound than some of the more popular tunes at the moment.

3) I finally got my copy of Adam McHugh‘s “Introverts in the Church” from the library (Ahh… library)… which means that I will now start a full scale rebellion at church (fair warning to the PTB).
I’m going to start yelling during the meet and greet, “NO!! GOD HAS CREATED ME TO BE A WELL OF UNTOLD DEPTHS AND AS SUCH, I REQUIRE DEEP, MEANINGFUL AND INFREQUENT CONVERSATION WITH PEOPLE WHOSE PASSION AND INTELLIGENCE SHARPEN MY INTELLECT AND SPEAK TO MY SOUL!!! I AM NOT A BUTTERFLY!!!! I DO NOT WISH TO DISCUSS THE WEATHER OR MY DATING LIFE (OR LACK THEREOF)!!!!! I WILL NOT BOW TO YOUR EXTROVERT IDEAL!!!!!! INTROVERTS IN THE CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!” Of course, there are one or two ushers that I’m pretty sure could wrestle me to the ground and inject sleeping juice into my back of my neck, but I don’t mind taking one for the team.
Everything I do… I do it for you.

4) I’ve been listening to Iron and Wine over the past few days, and the only thing that has kept me from stretching out on the floor with eyes closed and occasionally sobbing brokenly like my kitten has just died is the fact that I’ve been listening at work, and employers are not at all shy about casting aspersions on one’s mental health.
Sidebar: My employers and coworkers are lovely people who would not call me crazy if I curled under my desk in the fetal position wearing headphones… they would probably start trying to coax me out with various treats, like one might offer nuts to a shy squirrel.
There’s something about that music that just…
It’s gets… all tangled up…
You…
…
You know what? Words are stupid.

5) Today is the first day of summer.
Do you know what that means?
We’re that much closer…
… to summer…
… BEING OVER.
END!!!! END FASTER!!!!
YOU AND YOUR RIDICULOUS HEAT AND YOUR NUDITY AND YOUR DISGUSTING WATERMELON!!!
GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!!

Parents Don’t Let Princesses Eat Kids

When I was a child, I loved Disney’s “Cinderella.”
I loved the songs and the mice… I didn’t particularly love the Prince, because he didn’t seem to have a face.
I remember watching it repeatedly (for my parents, probably to the point of nausea), but I do not remember having any Cinderella toys.
I don’t remember wanting Cinderella toys.
I didn’t necessarily want to be Cinderella, I just liked the movie.

When I was a bit older, I absolutely fell in love with “Beauty and the Beast.” Okay, technically, I was in love with the Beast, but Belle remains one of my favorite “princesses.” She read books, she set off into the wolf-infested woods to retrieve her father, she refused to be courted by a man she knew to be empty-headed, and she argued with a creature big enough (and surly enough) to literally eat her face. Belle effectively saved everyone that mattered to her.
I had the Belle Barbie doll, and I ruined her hair within days (seriously, though, who knew you couldn’t get her hair wet?!), and while I loved her, I found myself mildly frustrated that having the doll did not mean having the life. Holding a small molded piece of plastic with intricately stitched gowns and bad hair did not make me feel as though I was Belle. I was still the same girl who read whenever I wasn’t supposed to (this was the reason why all of my chores took me two hours), was taller than all of my friends, did not and COULD NOT do gymnastics, and never had a boyfriend, unless we counted that kid from church that I hit over the head with a block and kissed on the cheek when I found out that he was moving away. No matter how much I loved Belle and loved the story and loved the doll, I never transformed myself into her.

I’m precisely in the middle of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture” by Peggy Orenstein, and I’m finding myself almost annoyed with how scandalized Orenstein is about Disney Princesses who, at least in my opinion, do not necessarily represent dangerous anti-feminist trends. Orenstein takes a trek through today’s “girl culture” in an attempt to uncover what’s healthy and what isn’t… and while it’s a fascinating and terrifying tumble down the rabbit hole, I’m beginning to wonder two things:
1) What is her point? Is any of this really a surprise to us? What is her solution?
2) How are the parents influencing these girls? The examples she uses are of privileged girls whose parents seem to have handed over their checkbooks and thrown up their hands.

My mother, who was ever-present when the TV was on, never hesitated to correct a viewpoint that she disagreed with. She was the first person to point out how perfectly useless Princess Buttercup (not a Disney, not even really a princess, but let’s go with it for a moment) was in “The Princess Bride.” I distinctly recall a number of wry comments during my Disney days that allowed me to ingest the princess culture but still take it with a grain chunk of salt. Certain shows were barred, certain films were never seen, and there was no discussion about it.

I also recall that my parents never allowed the sort of materialism that Orenstein’s daughter is facing. I have, to this day, never been inside a Toys-R-Us. I never made a Christmas list as a child, and when I asked about making one I would get the “Mom face” and the “I am not a shopping mall… you don’t get to just hand me a list of all the things that you want” speech. If memory serves, my Belle doll was a one-off, and I did not go on to have the Belle Halloween costume, the Belle car (she did not drive a car in the movie, so why did this exist), the Belle toothbrush, or the Belle bedding. Looking back, I believe this taught me that whatever I wanted to be had to start on the inside. I was not going to become a heroine simply by donning a gown and sleeping under sheets with a face stamped on them. Life is more complicated than that.

What has occurred to me in the first 171 pages of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” is that parents are are forced to play offense or defense where their children are concerned. My parents got out in front and blocked what they didn’t want to come through. What did come through was always coupled with parental perspective. Because of the level of control they had, they actually raised children, instead of just housing tiny strangers with poor logic who learned all of their lessons from TV, marketing departments, and equally tiny friends with as yet undeveloped frontal lobes.

I don’t have children.
Ideally, I will one day… five of them… all wearing tiny berets and sweater vests and Harry Potter glasses… and I imagine that I will have to wrestle with the culture for the minds of my kids… staving off the blatantly unhealthy with one hand, and sorting through the rest with the other, trying to find the value and chucking the dross. I think the issue here is that the culture is not, and never will be, responsible for my children, whether they are responsible members of society, violent hooligans, or over-sexualized tweens. Everything that they see, hear, and touch should be vigorously screened by me, and anything that’s not solid gold should be stamped with a mommy disclaimer (“Yes, Buttercup is very pretty, but she’s pretty much letting that rat EAT poor Wesley”).

I could be wrong (it seems those with children are always very quick to inform the childless that we’re morons), but I think that’s that’s why the parents are there… to train children to think beyond what their eyes and see and their ears can hear, and train them to impact the culture, not the other way around. If we want to change the trends, raise children that won’t succumb, buy in, or endorse what is unhealthy.