Dreaming Out Loud

I like being married. I like my husband*. I like spending time with him. I trust him with my life. When I fill out insurance, medical, or other bureaucratic forms, I take a certain pride in checking the married box and writing his name down as my spouse.

So it pisses me off greatly that not everyone gets to enjoy the same rights and privileges that I enjoy because I happened to be lucky enough to fall in love with someone who is of the opposite gender.

I have friends, a wonderful lesbian couple, who adopted an adorable baby girl together. But they are limited in where they can live to states where they can both share custody of their child.

I have another friend who once told me that she sees herself being alone in her life, not because she is unlovable, but because she wants forever and she doesn't see how it can be forever without a marriage, a marriage she doesn't think will ever be legal.

I am not talking civil unions that still don't allow your partner to receive social security benefits if you happen to die. I am not talking civil unions that don't allow for federally mandated leave to care for your spouse. I am not talking civil unions that don't allow your partner to be listed as dependent on your medical insurances. I am not talking civil unions that aren't recognized if you accidentally cross state borders.

I am talking about marriage - a federally recognized vow of fidelity and financial entanglement.

Civil union is not an equivalent institution to marriage. Civil unions are state-level and there are many federal benefits to being married that don't come with a civil union - the right to FMLA leave, the right to file joint tax returns, the right to fucking cross a state border with your adopted child, and the right to spousal veterans benefits to name just a few.

There were joint rallies yesterday in our state capitol of St. Paul. Inside the capitol building, pro gay marriage activists held signs and chanted and outside anti gay marriage bigots held their own rallies. I am appalled that in this day and age, when we tell our children we will love them no matter what, when we tell our children (wrongly) that they can be anything they want when they grow up, we can't just allow for two people who are in love to take that vow and agree to pay the higher taxes (man, getting married did not do good things for me in terms of federal taxes). I honestly don't see the other side to this issue.

A threat to "traditional" marriage? How can allowing more people access to marriage be a threat?

It is mind boggling.







*Actually, I really like him. I think he's brilliant, hilarious, and quite handsome**, but it seems a bit coarse to brag about it all the time.

**He also has spectacularly bad taste in music, wears socks with sandals on occasion, and doesn't like bananas. It is a mystery how we stay together.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The book we read as part of our teachers professional development sequence on poverty said that the way most teachers tell a story is linearly - the story begins with setting and characters are introduced, plot is developed to a climax, and then there is a resolution. The way a lot of the children we are teaching tell a story is to reach the greatest emotional impact and involve the audience the most - starting off with the climax and then parsing the details out in small tidbits later, requiring the listener to affirm and demonstrate listening.

I started to listen to my students more as they told stories.

The way they told stories would dizzy me. Starting at the climax of whatever story a student would tell would utterly confuse me. The circling round and round to the same problem, over and over again. The unfinished sentences and necessary and important details would come out long after the original description needed clarifying

I finally started to know why they couldn't do math problems. They never understood the POINT. What was the end result? Fuck all these intermediary steps - they wanted to know the end right away! That was how they told stories.

I started to show a complete problem from the very beginning, before they had to do any work, and then list the steps to each type of problem on the board. Damn it, I was going to teach them to think linearly if it killed me. And it practically did.

This book here, this Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, it does that thing - that starting in the middle of the fucking story. It's overall in chronological order from when the narrator was young to early adulthood to adulthood, but within each of those three sections, it's in medias res all the way. He starts by giving away the ending and then eventually winding his way to an explanation. And it...drove me insane.

I'm also enjoy a plot driven book and this book...is not so much with the rapidly developing plot.

So I pretty much hated this book. Rarely have I disliked a book so much that I write an entire post devoted to why I hate it.

But I still can't not recommend it. Its writing is quite good. The premise is...not awful. The characters are...not entirely unforgettable.

I just can't wrap my head around the sloppiness of giving away the the ending. You can call it foreshadowing if you will (and my eighth grade English teacher did), but I call it ruining the ending and the making me want to hurl the book against the wall.

Read this at your own peril. You've been warned.

McQuestion, Rallison, and Stewart Meet in a Bar...

Life on Hold and Favorite by Karen McQuestion - McQuestion is one of Amazon's authors. These are two young adult novels produced exclusively for the Kindle. They are relatively inexpensive, $2.99 per book, and came to my attention when I did a search for Sarah Dessen. Both books were okay, good enough to keep my mind off the agonizing pain (another day, another explanation, another reason to want this summer to be over and done) while I sat in the ER waiting room. I don't think McQuestion is as good as Dessen - the characters aren't quite as memorable and I don't feel like I should reread either of these books - but I hope that someday McQuestion's name is mentioned when discussing popular YA authors.

My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison - This book starts with the clever premise that a fairy godmother is only mediocre at her job and this leads to various interesting and hilarious unforeseen consequences for the person whose wishes are being granted. I was amused.

Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart - This novel is not my usual style. First, with its copyright of 1958, it's a little bit less contemporary than what I normally read. Second, while the novel is a romance and mystery, it's also much less procedural than what I normally read. It took me a chapter or two to get into the rhythm of the writing, the delightful way Stewart puts together words in exactly the opposite way I would, but in a way that slides off the page into your heart. Brilliant.

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers - This is the a slightly more adult version of the Blubber story told by Judy Blume all those years ago. Girl who is a bully ends up getting bullied. I found the main character almost despicable at times, but Summers did an interesting thing by convincing me that somehow I cared about her, notably by making two of her previous victims care about her. Regina is a complicated character and our feelings about her should be conflicted, but, in the end, it's a haunting book about bullying, yes, but also regret and selfishness. Definitely a read worth reading.

System Fail: Pragmatism Must Rule

The Swiss government is refusing to extradite Roman Polanski because of a paperwork mistake.

A paperwork mistake.

I've gone back and forth on this over and over again in my head. Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse (statutory rape). He fled to France before he was formally sentenced and has been running away from these charges for 30 some years now.

Here's the deal: he probably wasn't going to serve more time anyway. He was, in all likelihood, going to be arrested and deported at his sentencing hearing, with the end result being exactly where it is today with Polanski living in Europe somewhere, probably sexually assaulting other young women.

So, yes, the stubborn, intractable person inside me screams that Polanski should be brought back to the States to deal with his legal tangles. But the other side of me is screaming that the victim, who is now a grown woman in her 40s, has the right to move on with her life. She doesn't want this to go on anymore. I think we should abide by her wishes.

In many domestic violence cases victims want charges dropped, they want to have contact with their abusers, and they want to move on with their lives. Most of the time, I disagree with the victims in these cases. There is much evidence that perpetrators of domestic violence ratchet up the level of violence when the police and judicial system are involved. No contact orders are frequently put into place in an attempt to stop this escalating violence. There is a compelling interest to stop the violence immediately.

In this case, I see no reason why the United States should continue to victimize this victim. She was let down over 30 years ago when the judge allowed Polanski to leave the country. She was let down by the French, Polish, and Swiss government who allowed Polanski to live in their countries with no penalty. She was let down by the many in the movie business who continued to work with Polanski, continued to nominate and vote for him to win awards, and continued to support his exile from the United States. It is, however, unlikely that Polanski actually represents a threat to the safety or well being of this victim now or, frankly, the state.

I am happy that I no longer have to remember the most traumatic event of my 13 year old life every day now that I am no longer in my teens. This poor woman has to be allowed to live her life without this shadow hanging over her. Today I heard someone on the radio claim that the victim in this case "wasn't innocent because she was trying to do whatever she could to break into the movie business." Guess what? She was 13. She was innocent. No 13 year old can give consent for sexual activity, especially one who has been plied with alcohol and illegal drugs.

Do I think Polanski got away with a crime? Do I think he got special privileges because he had resources and connections? Do I think that this sets a bad precedent for future court cases involving foreign nationals and extradition? Yes, yes, I do.

Do I think it's too bad Polanski's wife and unborn child were murdered in a tragic way? Yes, yes, I do. Do I think it's an excuse to take advantage of a young teenager? No, no I do not.

So, in the end, I think that I have come to the conclusion that we should, in this case, let the matter of Polanski rest. And if he ever sets foot in the United States again, he should never be allowed to leave jail.

Pressed Between the Pages of My Mind

Entering the store, I quickly locate my four produce items (two red peppers, a zucchini, a head of romaine lettuce, and some bing cherries) and I'm heading across the store to find dental floss when I see her. She's smiling at me in the puzzled manner of someone who thinks she knows me, but isn't really sure. She looks vaguely familiar to me, too, so I smile as I walk past her and say hello.

I get the floss and get into line. She is in front of me. Crap. I don't remember her name.

"Hey NGS. What happened to you?"

I look down at myself. I don't look great and I'm sweaty and the bike helmet hanging from my belt loop should explain why, but what kind of question is that?!

"Uhhh..." Great. Now I'm stuttering.

I'm still trying to place this woman. How do I know her?

She proceeds to hold an entire conversation where I have little to do besides nod and smile and grunt. I am relieved when the slow cashier finally gets to her and unknown woman starts bagging her items and leaves me alone. She checks out, tells me it was good to see me, and leaves. I check out ($15 even!).

I put my bag in the basket on my bike and start to pedal away.

Lauren. Her name was Lauren. I knew her in my grad school days. She has lovely hair and wears skirts about six inches too long to be flattering. We don't share subfields, friends, or interests, but she's kind and polite and blandly nice.

I begin to wonder about all those people out there, people who remember me, people who have wrinkles in their brains devoted to memories of me, but people I just don't remember. I regularly get Facebook requests from people that I clearly went to high school with, but I just don't/won't/can't remember. (Yes, I deny those requests.) I feel incredible guilt about those people. They think I'm important enough to think about, but I just cut them out of my mind and move on. Should I feel guilt? Should I be flabbergasted at the clearly inferior quality of my own memory? Should I just forget this topic altogether?

Lauren. Her name is Lauren.

Happy Things

We're running again. Between the running and biking, I'm trying to get some muscle definition back in my legs. We'll see. But it certainly is giving me more energy - enough energy that it's after midnight and I'm still awake!!

When we were in NYC, Bestest Friend and I purchased awesome peace sign bracelets in Chinatown. I wear mine every day and it always makes me happy when I look down and see it. (These are our actual hands. Bestest Friend has on awesome nail polish. I barely remember to file my nails, so I'm pretty sure you can figure out who is who here!)


I have an ongoing love affair with Sock Guys socks. They are so comfortable and conform right to your feet in the coziest of ways. So what this means is that the boy keeps buying me these socks because he gets them discounted through his part time job. Moisture wicking and whatever, these puppies are adorable!! (I do have these socks in purple, thank you very much.)
Does anyone else get crazy obsessed with summer fruit? The melons, berries, cherries, nectarines, and plums? Is it just me? Breakfast: one mini bagel with peanut butter, a glass of cranberry juice, and a huge bowl filled with cherries, cantaloupe, and blueberries. Late morning snack: nectarine. Lunch: salad with strawberries and bananas. I just can't stop. I keep eating the fruit!!


And there you have it. My life in a nutshell. There are other minor major happenings going on and all seems to be falling into place.

What is making you happy today?

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

At approximately eleven o'clock the night before I was to pack all my belongings into a silver Chevy Silverado and drive to college, my father called our house, and let out a relieved sigh when I answered the phone.

"Whew. I thought for sure your mother would answer."

Hmmm. Well, I thought, she's still at work. Even more sarcastically, in my head, I was pondering the ridiculousness of him not knowing her schedule. I actually rolled my eyes and answered, "Nope. She's still at work. So is my sister."

"Great. I had a little too much to drink and I need to you pick me up at the D&W parking lot in Startown."

So I hauled my ass into clothes, got into that silver Chevy truck, and went down to Startown, a half hour away, to pick up my drunk father. I'd seen him drunk only a handful of times. He was a hilarious drunk, so different from the angry man I knew as a teenager. In retrospect, it was probably one of the only times he wasn't in agonizing pain so he could be himself for a brief period, but at the time, it was embarrassing/entertaining/compelling to hang out with my inebriated father.

The most direct route between Startown and my hometown had been, for the vast majority of that summer, that last summer before I left town never to return to reside there again, closed due to some construction. On the way to pick up my father, I realized, with no small amount of glee, that it had been reopened again, saving me a ten minute detour each way.

He was passed out in the his own pickup truck, a black Ford Ranger. His head was lolling against the window when I pulled up next to it. I started knocking on the window, trying to get him to wake up. He just kept sleeping. A Startown police car came creeping up. "You need some help?"

I didn't want him to get in trouble. I mean, he had been drinking and driving. I just shrugged and kept pounding on the window. Eventually he woke up and rolled down the window. The cops drove off, much to my relief.

On the way home, light summer sprinkles were falling down and my wipers were on the very lowest setting. His head would bob back and forth each time they moved. He seemed mesmerized by the movement. Eventually the rain picked up and so did the movements of the wipers. In a moment I can picture just like yesterday, he almost threw his back out trying to keep up with the motion of those blades.

He repeatedly told me that the road was closed. I kept reassuring him that it was open on my drive down and it must have just opened in the last day or two. He'd drowse for a second and then wake up with a jerk and tell me that the road was closed.

When we got home, he told me to set my alarm really early so we could drive back to Startown and get his truck before we had to leave, before my mother could realize that his truck was missing, before the cops started to notice the car was in the parking lot way longer than it should have been.

Sometimes, when I forget to be angry with my father for the mess he has wrought, I think of that night. His head bobbing back and forth, his insistence that I not drive through the construction zone, his general mirth that he was getting away with something my mother would never find out about. I think of that night and I laugh. He was funny at times. He was an asshole, a mean old goat, but he was also my father, capable of great silliness and joviality, the man who painstakingly taught me how to tie my shoes, the man who has had the greatest impact on my relationships with people.

Today I heard a story on the radio about how some scholar thinks Emily Dickinson had epilepsy and I picked up the phone to call me father and ask him if he'd heard it. I wanted to know his opinion on the whole thing. I wanted to hear his voice telling me I am stupid for believing everything I hear. I desperately wanted to hear him berate me. I really did.

I want to talk to him one last time. I really do. I want to tell him how angry I am, how disappointed I am, but I really want to tell him how much I loved him. He did the best he could with me. I was not an easy child, an easy teenager - fuck it, I am not an easy adult - but he did what he could with his limited education, finances, and social skills.

This isn't a love letter. It's too complicated for that. But it is a good-bye in the only way I can say good-bye since that fucker up and died before his time. See ya, Pops. I love you.

And Then Niecy Nash Helped Me

It's like I've stepped into a reality show that is a cross between Clean Sweep and Hoarders when I enter my mother's house. There are paths to walk, but barely room to set down or bags or walk by each other in the hall. The kitchen and the bathroom are the rooms in the sorriest shape - stacks of stuff everywhere on every conceivable surface. My husband and I eat out of a cooler we bring with us, filled with food we purchased before we leave town. We feel grimier than ever when we get out of the shower, not sure if we've made things better or worse in terms of sanitation.

This is how I grew up. I know how it feels to be too embarrassed by the mess to invite anyone over. I know how it is to go without a meal because you are concerned about the cleanliness of the cooking apparatus used. I know how it is to be the one who cleans and cleans and cleans to find the mess has returned when you get home from work.

When I got back to Minneapolis after visiting my mother and sister, I immediately set forth with the "CLEAN HOUSE NOW" mission. Nothing was sacred. Why, my dear husband, do you have two copies of Aristotle's Politics? I don't want to hear your excuses about one copy with your notes and one clean copy for making photocopies for your classes - one must go. Why do we have three cupcake pans? We only need one. Clothes in the donate pile. Books, DVDs, everything was on the chopping block. Six boxes of files from graduate school whittled down to three (goodbye anything written by Adam Przeworski, but must hold on to McCubbins and Schwartz for mysterious reasons). Years of back issues of National Geographic donated to a local school.

It's as if I can clean my mind of the guilt, the unease, and the sadness that weighs upon my mind when I think of recent events by cleaning and purging the unnecessary clutter in our home. It's as if I can reassure my husband that I am part of my family, sure, but I am unlike my family in some very key elements, including my ability to clean and organize. It's as if I can keep myself busy enough that I won't notice that moving takes more energy than I actually have and going through the motions is the only thing I have left.

June Books

Uglies, Pretties, and Specials by Scott Westerfeld - I read the entire trilogy right in a row. The first two books were awesome and the third was disappointing. Apparently there's a fourth book in the series (Extras) but I find myself not particularly excited to read it. The premise of Westerfeld's world is interesting and I was riveted to watch the consequences of that premise early in the series. Do read at least the first two.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson - The third book in a trilogy. This one picked up right where the second one ended and was unbelievably awesome. I've recently read some criticism of this series (too violent, too slow, too many unrelated tangents) and while I agree with all the criticisms to some extent, after the first two hundred pages of the first novel, I have been riveted and unable to put the books down. This trilogy ended excellently.

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman - So the narrator of the story commits a drug crime and is sent to a women's prison. I was interested in what it was like in the prison - the relationships she formed, the routine of the prison, the difficulties of living life in such an institution - but the narrator herself? I could have strangled her. In a comment left on someone else's site, I kind of went off on Piper Kerman:

Really? You thought the character in Orange is the New Black attempted to sound repentant? Because I thought she just sounded like she was sad she was an idiot, but, hey, drugs aren’t that big a deal. I think she was genuinely upset at what she put her family through, but in terms of the crime itself – I think she thinks the laws are dumb and she’s above them. But maybe I read too much into it. (I found the parts in the prison supremely interesting, but it took half the book of her justifying her idiocy before we got there…some editor had an epic fail.)

Just One Wish by Janette Rallison - I read this at JFK airport waiting for my plane. I remember none of it, so I guess it wasn't a great book.

The Midnighters Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld - Amazon recommended this to me over and over and over again after I completed the Uglies trilogy. These were interesting, but I would again claim that the first two books are strong and the third...is not. So, hey, Westerfeld, can you work on making me happier with your endings? I think this author has an amazing sense of setting and the worlds he creates are vivid and fascinating and I bet he has a difficult time sleeping at night.

Critical Care by Candace Calvert - This was a free Kindle download on Amazon and of course, it was Christian fiction. I will never learn to read between the lines. It wasn't too preachy, but it was preachy, so don't read it. (Bottom line in all these books - religion and god are the answers. While I don't have a problem if you believe that, I don't believe that, and I'm mostly annoyed when proselytizing gets thrown in my face.)

Violet Dawn by Brandilynn Collins - I had to go look at this one again before I could remember it. Woman with mysterious past finds dead body in her backyard and hijinks, mystery, and terror ensue. Eh. I say you can skip it and your life will be fine.

Shakespeare's Trollop and Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris - These are books #4 and #5 in Harris's Lily Bard series. I know I said I was done with Lily Bard, but I lied. I read more. I was equally disenchanted with the main character in these books, but what can I say? The way Harris writes dialogue (one character says, "she died and I was heartbroken" and the other character says, "did you just say heartbroken? who uses the word heartbroken?") makes me want to read her books despite the annoying Lily and the even more annoying Jack.

Eternal Hunter by Cynthia Eden - Free Kindle download. Girl has special powers and her boyfriend turns out to be a shapeshifting white lion. Fuck me, is this a Sookie Stackhouse novel? Just. No. Come up with your own ideas.

Nightwalker by Heather Graham - I had fun with this book. The main character sees ghosts, but so do other people (not everyone, just some). It was fun and dynamic. The opening chapter is boring as hell, so if you do a free preview, you can just skip the prologue and move right into the real plot of the novel.