Posts on life

Obama Wins, Obama Wins, Holy Cow!

Lisa — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:31:28 -0800

Of course, I did end up watching the election returns after all. We turned on the TV at nine o'clock and clicked back and forth among our various and sundry local channels (we've got our new digital receiver thingy, don't you know, so it's not all-snow-all-the-time anymore), waiting for those electoral vote numbers to update. And they didn't change and didn't change until suddenly, at ten, came the announcement that Obama will be our next president.

Wow. Just, wow. I'm incredibly happy about that, but I'm still waiting for it to sink in. It still doesn't feel quite real, but then, neither have the last eight years. ("Seriously? W's president? We're in all these huge messes at home and overseas? You mean that wasn't just a bad dream?")

This was my fourth presidential election, and never before did the choice seem so stark between hope and fear, between progression and stagnation, between unity and division, between something-new and same-old-crap. McCain said it well in his concession speech: "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly." We get a lot of things wrong, but never have I been so sure that we got something right.

The crowds in Grant Park were stunning, but I was very glad to be cozy at home. I scanned the faces for my brother and some other friends who were were down there, but I didn't see them. The one time I said, "Hey, is that my brother?", Joe informed me they'd just cut to McCain's Arizona event. Oops. Not so much.

One of the greatest things about the election, for me on a personal level? Looking at Facebook and LJ and Google Reader this morning and seeing the universal joy of my friends across the country, as they updated their statuses to reflect their euphoria at the outcome of the presidential race.

I'm not universally happy. I'm concerned about various local decisions that have yet to be sorted out, notably California's Prop 8. And I know Obama getting elected is not a magical fix for what ails us. But as in Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe the first step is admitting you have a problem. And in electing Obama, America has admitted it has a problem and is ready to work to make it better.

ETA, 11/5/08:
Here's a smile-maker: the dozens of elementary school kids in the school yard across the street chanting, at the tops of their lungs, "Gobama! Gobama! Gobama!" No surprise, really. Chicago's been ready to elect Obama president for years.

Adventures in Voting

Lisa — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:47:55 -0800

I waited in line over two hours to vote today, but I gotta say... totally worth it!

Yeah, it would have been nice if the voting stations had been set up at 6 AM instead of, oh, 6:45.

And if the electronic ballot machines had been working from the get-go.

And if that ancient election judge who, every election, manages to co-opt the registration books didn't take forever and a day to pull people's cards. (I wish someone would pay this guy to not be an election judge!)

But I got to have a very nice conversation with a 7th grade social studies teacher about this and that. Yesterday, the 7th graders at her school participated in a mock election. Obama beat McCain, 583 to 9. How's that for a landslide?

She was a Lisa, too, incidentally. So was the woman immediately behind me. How's that for weird?

As frustrated as everyone was by the long wait, there was a positive energy to it all. Nobody stomped off yelling, "Screw this, I'm not voting!"

How many things are so important that we're willing to put aside everything else and stand in line for as long as it takes? When we have the choice? I wouldn't wait two hours in a grocery line, or amusement park line, or anywhere else I can think of.

I'm proud of all the voters, those who braved long lines the past few weeks, who decided nothing was more important than standing in line for as long as it took to cast their vote.

I haven't decided yet whether I'll watch the returns come in. I think I might watch Heroes on Hulu instead!

I Hate DST

Lisa — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:37:53 -0800

Daylight Savings Time is throwing me for a loop. Why do we do this, again? Wikipedia makes it sound like its original rationale is obsolete. Besides, most of the world gets by just fine without dinking around with their clocks twice a year.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter. It gets dark too early here as it is.

There are many nice things about living in Chicago, but living on the far eastern edge of the Central Time Zone is not one of them. I grew up on the far western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, and in the longest days of summer didn't have to come home from the playground or my friends' house until after 9 because it stayed light so late. That was glorious.

I do like having daylight when I get up in midsummer, but I don't really need it. I'm just writing, reading email, eating breakfast. Solitary indoor stuff. Whereas evening light means long walks, playing frisbee or catch, and keeping my eyes open past dinnertime.

Anyway, since the time change I've been waking up even earlier than usual, without the aid of an alarm clock. I'm not totally happy about that, but it makes me think of one of my favorite songs by my friend Lis Harvey, "Four-Thirty."

woke at 4:30
it was early
i went to the all-night store
for more
walked through the aisle with the
paper towels tucked in my arm
hummed to some songs i learned
by osmosis in my mother's car
i woke at 4:30
for more
for more

You can listen to "Four-Thirty" online... Happiest song about being up early ever!

Voting Prep

Lisa — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:22:01 -0700

I'm thinking about voting early. I've heard from several people who have done so, and they've all had waits of 45 minutes or more. Given how crowded my polling place was during the primary election at 6 in the morning, I'm a bit fearful of what it will be like next Tuesday. I've still got to do my research, though.

If you live in Cook County, Illinois, be sure to check out the invaluable Vote for Judges.org. See what various bar associations think of the decisions handed down by judges up for election or retention. Here's what the site says about who's behind the ratings:

The Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening is comprised of the Asian American Bar Association, Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Chicago Council of Lawyers, Cook County Bar Association, Decalogue Society of Lawyers, Hellenic Bar Association, Illinois State Bar Association, Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago, Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois, and Women’s Bar Association of Illinois working collaboratively to improve the process of screening judicial candidates in Cook County, Illinois.

Sometimes a judge will get a universally good or bad score. Most times, it's mixed, and then you can make your choice based on the values of the association that gave its thumb's-up or -down.

At the state level, the big referendum is whether Illinois should hold a constitutional convention. The Illinois Library Association has spoken against it. There's some more extensive and balanced discussion on Illinois Issues. Right now I'm leaning against it, if only for the enormous cost, but I want to do some more research before I vote.

At the national level, the Human Rights Campaign has published its 110th Congressional Scorecard. You can see how U.S. senators and representatives voted on various pieces of legislation of relevance to the GLBTQ community. Most of the decisions go along party lines, of course, but it's still worth checking out if you've got folks up for reelection in your district.

Scheming

Lisa — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:34:01 -0700

October's been a crazy-busy month for me, and it's not even close to over! Will November be different? I'm not sure. I'll be working the usual weekend days at the library. I'll be taking a trip to Michigan for my dad's retirement and my oldest friend's wedding reception. And there's that whole Thanksgiving thing.

And even though after doing National Novel Writing Month in 2006 I resolved never, ever to do it again because of how exhausting and stressful it was, in the past week I've begun to reconsider. "Wouldn't it be a marvelous way," I'm asking myself, "to jump-start this new idea I've got?" The jury is still out, but if I succumb, I'm going to reel the blogging back.

I've also been thinking for a while that I'd like to take a break from reading children's and YA lit in my free time. I'm thinking November would be a good month for that, too. A couple of months ago I bought two of my favorite "adult" books, My Name Is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, and The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan, with the intention of rereading them. And half a million people have recommended I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. And at some point I wrote down Little, Big, by John Crowley, because I heard about it somewhere. Any other grown-up books I should add to that list?

And getting waaaay ahead of myself, I've started thinking ahead to maybe road tripping through the North Central U.S. next spring. Before we got sidetracked by our trip to England (which was lovely and novel, and I absolutely don't regret it), I had my heart set on driving across North Dakota and visiting Teddy Roosevelt National Park, dipping into eastern Montana and Wyoming, and circling back through South Dakota. Or the other way around, I'm not picky. The Crazy Horse Volksmarch coincides with my birthday, which seems just too perfect to pass up. Hmmm...

Happy National Coming Out Day!

Lisa — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:46:53 -0700

Fifteen years ago this October, I started becoming aware that I was attracted to girls as well as boys. I still have my journal from that fall. The entries are rambling and melodramatic and tortured. They'd be ridiculous if they weren't so full of self-loathing.

Now I'm thirty, happily married to a man, comfortable with my attraction to both sexes, and, unfortunately, assumed straight by the average person on the street. I'm not whining; I'm well aware of the preferential treatment society and the law give me simply because my partner is a man, not a woman. I don't even have to come out.

But being bisexual is part of my identity. I've made peace with it, and I want people to be aware of it. Because my connection to my husband is so visible, so obvious, so easy, I've found it hard to combat the assumption that I'm straight. I worry that it's irrelevant. I worry that I won't be taken seriously.

This week, I found this personal essay on the Human Rights Campaign website, " Coming Out as a Happily Married Bisexual." Jesse Liberty, a bisexual man, writes:

In my mid-20s, I married a woman, and now, 21 years later, we are still monogamous and happy. The people we meet assume I am straight. This has always bothered me, but until recently I couldn’t see how it was anything but my own private business. Without really thinking about it, the closet closed around me.

Wow, I thought. That's totally me.

I'm not as brave as Jesse, to come out as universally and overtly as he describes. But for those who read this blog, I hope this post will help explain why I'll talk about my husband one moment and launch into GLBTQ issues the next, and why I'm so invested in writing books with queer main characters. (Not that there aren't straight supporters out there who do the same, e.g. the marvelous author Ellen Wittlinger. Thank you, straight supporters!)

So there you have it. I'm a writer, I'm a librarian, I'm bisexual. Happy National Coming Out Day!

I encourage you to check out the HRC's NCOD materials as well as Lee Wind's coming out links. There's tons of stuff on Lee's site, so do a find-in-page for "Coming Out?" to zero in on it. Author Brent Hartinger's personal essay is especially worth reading.

Politicarama

Lisa — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:49:12 -0700

As anyone who's been following YA lit blogs this week knows, last week YA author Maureen Johnson launched a social networking site, YA for Obama. And I've been trying all week to decide how I feel about it.

Political attitudes and beliefs are not born in a vacuum. We're influenced by our families and friends, by the media, by our education (worldly and academic), by our personal experiences. Ultimately, a person's vote may legally be personal and private, but there's no reason for us to keep our mouths shut about our personal political stances and let other people do all the talking for us. Not if we don't want to.

TadMack prompted a fascinating discussion over at Finding Wonderland regarding the YA for Obama site. She worries that it might constitute "undue influence" for YA authors to team up and urge their young readers into supporting a candidate simply because it's the "cool" thing to do. Colleen adds her thoughts on the matter over at Chasing Ray. The comments on both posts, and on both sides of the issue, are well worth reading.

My feeling is that YA authors taking a political stand does not constitute undue influence; I don’t see an imbalance of power in the author-reader relationship that constitutes anything resembling coercion. Authors, as any person or institution, should feel permitted to act as role models in the political or personal realm. Teens are of an age that they can sift through the opinions flying at them from every direction and come to their own conclusions. They do all the time.

And I’m glad that more authors, especially Democratically-aligned authors, are becoming vocal about this election. In the past ten years, the Dems have invited the characterization of being quiet and wussy, letting themselves be out-shouted by the Republicans. We need voices on both sides. I’m biased, of course, but I feel like sites like YA for Obama are lending balance to, rather than skewing, the discussion this election year. Impassioned and articulate articles by such YA authors as Judy Blume and John Green are worth the consideration of any person struggling with this presidential election.

I do have two main reservations. First is that YA for Obama was started by YA authors, and while people of all ages and political stances are invited to participate, YAs are not the driving force behind the site (as the name suggests). Maybe I’d feel more comfortable if the site were called YA Authors for Obama.

Second—and this was mentioned in the comments of the above-linked posts—there’s too much misinformation and vitriol flying around in the forum for my taste. I feel sick to my stomach when I read misinformation coming from either campaign. Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I believe that information not only wants to be free but accurate. When either side spreads lies about the other side, the integrity of the election suffers; everyone suffers.

Anyone who's taken Intro to Psychology knows a fact can take a moment to learn but a lifetime to “unlearn.” Once you’ve heard, “X is true!”—even if it’s followed by a thousand well-reasoned contradictions—even if the speaker turns around and says, “Actually, I was wrong, X is not true after all”—people will have, stuck in the backs of their minds, the impression that X is true. No matter how smart you are, it’s true what they say about first impressions. Damage has been done.

So, while I hate hearing Republican lies about—for example—Obama’s (nonexistent) ties to the Chicago Machine, I also hate hearing the misrepresentation of Sarah Palin’s so-called book-banning crusade repeated again and again by Democrats. She didn’t ban books, she “tested” whether a librarian’s loyalty lay with her mayor or with the First Amendment of the Constitution (a/k/a our nation's fundamental freedom). Isn’t that at least as loathsome as the lie—and all the more powerful because it's the truth?

I’d like to say I’m done discussing politics for the rest of the fall (I get way too upset about it, and I prefer to keep my blog’s focus on libraries, books, and writing), but I make no promises. I’d like to close this post on a lighter note, with a quote about the presidential election from fantasy author Justine Larbalestier:

Seriously if I had made up a tenth of what’s been going on and put it in a novel no one would credit it. They’d be all, “The characters keep changing! They don’t make any sense. And one of them seems to be a malfunctioning robot! Also there’s a zombie! I thought this was meant to be realism. What the hell?”

I think that sums it up pretty well!

ETA 9/27/08:
There's been a lot of discussion and soul-searching in the Kitlitosphere, actually, about whether to address personal politics in blogs dealing primarily with children's literature. Different bloggers have decided on different approaches. Two posts I particularly enjoyed:

Laurel Snyder decided she couldn't keep politics out of her blog while staying true to herself.
Liz B. of A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy decided to keep politics out so as not to alienate or prompt division among her readers.

Therapy Dog

Lisa — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:08:28 -0700

Just writing that last post made me so depressed I had to look at some cute dog pictures to make myself feel better. Here's a photo of my dog, Carly, feeling comfortable and loved.

Book Burning Never Goes Out of Style

Lisa — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:33:12 -0700

Political statement or apathetic housekeeping? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

(Observed in our building's basement. Thanks to Joe for the photo!)

Taking the Cake Out of Strawberry Shortcake

Lisa — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:04:48 -0700

In 2005, Cookie Monster shocked (or rocked, depending on your point of view) the nation with his revelation that "cookies are a sometimes food." The latest fictional character to jump on the nutritional bandwagon? None other than Strawberry Shortcake.

Yes, Strawberry Shortcake. As in, "Strawberry Shortcake with her jam and bread, you can make a strawberry pie with her head." (So sang my cousins, anyway.) The New York Times reveals that, among other 21st century changes, from now on Strawberry Shortcake will be "fruit-forward."

In fact, American Greetings has given the character a total makeover. No more freckles, red hair, and chubby cheeks. In fact, they've managed to completely excise any red from her wardrobe. Which is a little strange since, um, strawberries are RED. The new S.S. has lustrous pink hair, a barely visible smattering of freckles, a pink wardrobe, and a cell phone. What's become of her cat, Custard, is unclear.

The article also discusses the slimming of Angelina Ballerina for television, the potential gothify-ing of Tweety Bird, and—incredibly—skinny Care Bears.

I'm all in favor of promoting healthy eating among the young, but correct me if I'm wrong that parents have a WHOLE lot more influence on preschool children's eating habits than a bunch of cartoon characters (many of them animals). I mean, did any child honestly look at the old Strawberry Shortcake and think, "I want to look just like her?" I thought it was the Olsen twins we had to worry about.

On the other hand, maybe the reason no one wanted to look like the old Strawberry Shortcake was because she looked a saccharine-sweet dork. Don't get me wrong, I liked her well enough when I was in preschool. But that hat? Those bloomers?! Oh, honey...

(Via the Monkey Speaks.)