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February 28, 2006

Personal Ads Worth Reading, If Not Worth Answering

I'm able to share this thanks to Juti, who gave me this link to the London Review of Books personal ads. A sample:

Last Valentine’s Day I sponsored a truck load of mitten crabs on behalf on my girlfriend. She left me not long afterwards, but the mitten crabs are thriving. I learned an important lesson as a result of all this, but I’m really not sure what it was. That’s where you come in, F to 35 with profound love of mitten crabs for evenings spent drinking home-made iron brew and plotting the migratory pattern of mitten crabs with amateur mitten crab enthusiast (M, 35, mercifully low sperm count). Box no. 04/05

I don't know about you, but if I knew or cared what mitten crabs are, was under 35, lived in England and felt like dating, I'd be really tempted to respond.

Posted by holly at 7:58 PM | Comments (3)

Good Grief, You Call That NEWS?

Here's what I found in the British press today: articles on the fact that water is our most precious commodity, and there are likely to be wars over it, especially as the world starts dealing with climate change.

What, have these dudes never read Mark Twain, who pointed out that in the American west, "Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over"?

Sheesh.

When I was in the Missionary Training Center, that bastion of moral and intellectual vapidness forsaken by god but not his minions, someone said to me, one night as all the sister missionaries prepared for bed, "I can tell you're from Arizona, because you turn the water off while you brush your teeth."

As the daughter of a Mormon Arizona lawyer who made his living representing clients like irrigation districts against legal opponents like any and all environmental groups, I've always known that A) water was incredible precious and scarce and B) people would fight over it like nobody's business--or rather, like big business. Because water isn't really nobody's business: it's something that can be commidified by those in power and sold, even down the who owns the right to take water out of a particular river on a particular day.

I guess I'm just glad that the rest of the world is waking up to something I've known my whole life. If there is ANYTHING in the world that causes me despair, it's the way the average person wastes water. I think everyone in the world should be required to read Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner, about the utter unsustainability of both agriculture and population in the entire Western half of the US.

And, for good measure, while you're surveying the news, check out this brief piece about rape victims in Lybia who are detained in protective homes for women and girls "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct," because God knows being raped is more of a crime than committing one.

Posted by holly at 4:07 AM | Comments (3)

February 24, 2006

The Source of Each Day

Posted by holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (1)

February 23, 2006

Reader, I'm Not Sure What Happened

Reese, Frankengirl, Mystic Gypsy, and all types like me, check out this plea from the BBC:

Are you an avid reader of romantic fiction? Has Mr Darcy made you leave your fiancé? Has Mr Rochester, Heathcliff or any other fictional hero changed your love life in a significant way? Does your partner want you to be more like these fictional male heroes?

Silverriver Productions are producing a series of three 60' programmes for the BBC about the history of the romantic novel. Presented by Daisy Goodwin, Reader, I Married Him! will examine the work of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Margaret Mitchell, Helen Fielding and Catherine Cookson amongst others, looking at how romantic novels have changed the female perception of the ideal man.

In the programmes we want to talk to real men and women whose love lives have been transformed by romantic fiction for better or for worse. We want to speak to the women who have never found their Mr Darcy, as well as the men who feel that they fall short of romantic literary ideals.

If you have an interesting story, please get in touch with Louisa MacInnes on 020 7580 2746 or louisa.macinnes@silverriver.tv with details of your experience and and some method of contacting you.

Posted by holly at 12:54 PM | Comments (13)

Books, Notebooks and the Latest Carnival Fun

Today I'm offering you a trio of links.

First, a link to a really cool story sent to me by my friend Spike about a program in Argetina designed to promote literacy among young children AND provide a meaningful activity for "educated women over 50,who are excluded from the labour market by fierce competition." Called "Storytelling Grandmothers," the program has been very effective and claims its "secret formula" of "affection, plus high-quality literature, equals children who read."

Second, an entry I came across at woman in comfy shoes about a notebook kept by her grandmother, and filled with old clippings of "quaint" shoes and hats. T. Comfyshoes explains that

Living where she did in the 1930s, Grandma and her friends and sisters didn't have a lot of access to shopping, so if they wanted anything nice they had to order it from a catalogue. To make sure they got everything they ordered, and nothing that they didn't, Grandma would cut out the pictures from the catalogue and glue them into a notebook. She kept notes of what they paid and what they bought them for.

As T. Comfyshoes examines the notebook, she finds stories emerging. It's a really charming, interesting entry, and it supports my argument that journals should be kept, not burned.

Finally, a link to the Ninth Carnival of Feminists, which is up at Mind the Gap! I always enjoy seeing what is included in the feminist Carnival, and this one is really good. It's particularly easy to follow. As I'm scheduled to host the 15th Carnival in May, I will be remembering how well the feminists at Mind the Gap! presented the posts they chose to highlight.

Enjoy!

Posted by holly at 1:01 AM | Comments (3)

February 22, 2006

Self-Portrait in Brief

As promised yesterday, here are some of the things I have said about myself in my Friendster profile.

I actually have several affiliations, but at this moment I feel pretty damn unaffiliated. If I lived in a different time and place, I'd grab my begging bowl and hit the road.

As an insomniac, I find sleep pretty interesting, and many of my hobbies involve efforts to help me fall and stay asleep: yoga, acupuncture, lying prone in a dark room and thinking about my toes.

When I'm awake and want to stay that way, my hobbies and interests include dancing, paisley, calligraphy, learning to knit sweaters that fit me after they've been washed, radical Mormon feminism (yes, there is such a thing), men in mascara (saves me the trouble of wearing it), proper dental hygiene, good beer, writing, and those spaces on maps where cartographers used to write "here be dragons."

I love the simple, transient pleasure of cleanliness, as in crisp, freshly laundered sheets; hair washed so recently it's still damp; the minty freshness of just-brushed teeth. I especially love going to sleep in a clean bed with just-washed hair and well-maintained teeth.

I keep detailed records of my dreams, but rarely take them literally: for instance, when I dreamed my mother told me she was an alien from a galaxy populated by giant, electric-blue dancing elephants, I didn't believe it meant that my mother really was an alien--or that a galaxy populated by giant, electric-blue dancing elephants existed anywhere in the universe. (Note: since I started blogging, I've stopped doing this. I used to get up, sit down at my computer, and write down my dreams; now I get up, sit down at my computer, and post a blog entry.)

An ideal job for me would be continuity person for a long-running television show, because I have a very precise memory and like keeping track of details. The job I really have is nothing like that.

I love to dance and I'm pretty good at it--years of hula and belly dancing lessons mean that I can do some fairly phenomenal things with my hips--but these days I can't find anyone who shares my enthusiasm for dancing, so my best option is to put something fast on the stereo (I favor 80s new wave), turn the volume up, and dance around my living room.

I studied French for a long time but never got all that good at it, and Mandarin for not so long but became fluent because of the strange circumstances under which I learned it (read: mission to Taiwan). In grad school I took two semesters of German (under duress) so I could learn to do rudimentary translations, which left me with a horror of the German system of article declension and the ability to say "was ist mit Madonna?" with reasonable conviction.

I love chocolate and ice cream and garlic and coffee and dark beer, but not all at the same time. I like eating grilled cheese sandwiches made with extra sharp white cheddar for breakfast. More favorite breakfast foods: a whole array of chocolate desserts I make from time to time, just because I can.

My favorite color is green.

My favorite deity is Shiva, Lord of the Dance and inventor of yoga.

I am old enough that I know exactly where I was when Kennedy was shot: in the womb.

I tend to call a spade a "fucking shovel." I prefer to pay the fiddler before I dance all night.

I often think and write about things other people find unseemly, i.e., God, religious despair, really gross medical procedures, broken bones, diarrhea, menstruation, the exceptional weird nasty meanness of one particular ex-boyfriend. Trust me, though: these things might be unseemly, but they're still really interesting.

OK, I know I wrote all that about myself, but the fact remains, I read these bits of description and I can't help thinking that the person being described sound downright fascinating. If I didn't already know her, I'd really want to learn more.

Posted by holly at 9:09 AM | Comments (2)

February 21, 2006

My Pre-Blogging Addiction

About two years ago, my buddy John at Mind on Fire sent me an invitation to join Friendster. It seemed kind of silly, and I was suspicious of anything that required me to upload a photo (especially since I didn't know how to do it) but I figured what the hell, and I joined.

And that was that, for a good long while. But seven or eight months later I met someone who was all about Friendster--oh, he'd met so many cool people through it! It made it so easy to keep track of people! I should definitely make more use of it. And it wasn't all that hard to scan and upload a photo; he'd show me how.

So I posted a few photos. And I set about crafting a profile I thought people might find interesting. And then I set about refining it--I only had 2000 characters, so I had to stay focused, had to keep things concise! And then I realized that I LOVED writing sharp, incisive portraits of myself in two or three quick sentences. As far as I was concerned, it was the perfect literary form.

I looked at my profile almost every day. I didn't care whether or not anyone wanted to be my friend--in fact, I got kind of snotty when people with boring or incomplete profiles sent me messages that weren't worthy of my hard work. I would leave a paragraph up for a week or two, then I'd try to write something better. Bits I really liked I transferred to a word processing file, so I wouldn't forget them.

I was addicted.

But it wasn't enough. I outgrew the fix. I wanted more, and I wanted it more often.

And then someone told me to check out his blog on Blogger, and I saw that button reading "Get Your Own Blog," and I knew my search was over.

I haven't abandoned Friendster entirely; my profile is still there. OK, I hardly ever go there, for reasons that I'll explain soon. But I still like my profile, so I'm going to post some of the highlights here--check back tomorrow!

Posted by holly at 8:31 AM | Comments (5)

February 20, 2006

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It's been cold lately where I live. Saturday afternoon I had to run some errands and it was 15 degrees F (-9 C) when I left my house. As I flexed my chilly fingers inside my gloves so they'd retain the ability to move and checked the temperature gauge of my car every few seconds to see if the engine was warm enough that I could turn the heat on, I thought to myself, "OK, I remember now: this is what it feels like when it's butt-bustingly cold!"

I've learned this about cold climes: if it's near freezing, you can still have an OK time if you must go outside: you can bundle up for a long walk, or shovel your driveway sans hat, or amble across the street without gloves to ask your neighbor if he'll babysit your cat, and it can actually be pleasant in a bracing, wouldn't-want-to-do-it-everyday-but-this-once-was-fine sort of way. But once it drops to about 25 degrees (-3 C), going outside for anything but a nano-second will suck. And when it gets below zero (-18 C), well, then it REALLY sucks. No matter how many clothes you wear, you're still going to be cold. You might not freeze to death, but you won't feel like stopping to chat with a neighbor. You also won't want to take off your gloves to root around in your pocket for your keys, so make sure you know where they are before you walk out the door. Try to pee before you go out as well, because it's disconcerting to drop your pants and discover that even though it's been covered by underwear, thermal underwear, jeans and a long coat, your ass has become downright icy.

I lived through a few spectacularly dreadful winters in Iowa. In January 1994, it was so cold that all the universities in the state--with the exception of the one I studied at--canceled class: the actual high temperature was near -20 F (-29 C); the wind chill factor made it feel like it -55 F (-48 C). To paraphrase a report I heard on the radio, when it's that cold, "You shouldn't go outside if you can possibly help it, and if you must go outside, be sure to cover every inch of you, because at these temperatures, exposed skin can freeze within 30 seconds."

Of course, classes weren't canceled, so I had to go outside. Not only that, but Iowa City is a town that requires walking: it's rare that you can just drive to some destination, park, then walk a few yards to the door of a cozily heated building. No: you have to walk all over creation, out in the elements, which are often really nasty. So (and this is where I get to lapse into my self-righteous, suffering curmudgeon mode--oh, the anticipation!) I regularly walked the mile and a half from my house to campus in temperatures below zero. (Though I also found all kinds of buildings and shops I could duck into along the way in case it was just too cold to make the trip in one straight shot.)

I would try to explain to a friend of mine, a Celsius-using Brit, how absolutely ass-achingly cold it was. I would say, "The other day the high was -10 degrees, and the low was -22," and he'd say, "Oh, really?" as blandly as if I'd informed him that the sun had risen that day or was scheduled to set at some reasonable hour.

"Yes, really," I'd say, thoroughly peeved. "It was really, truly, awfully, extremely, excruciatingly cold."

"The cold doesn't bother me much," he'd reply. "I grew up in the north of England, not southern Arizona."

So one day I got on the internet, found a temperature conversion program, then said, "The other day the high was -23 degrees C, and the low was -30 C."

To my immense satisfaction, he was suitably awed. "Oh my god!" he said. "I've never experienced anything like that. I can't even imagine how cold that is! OK, now I believe you when you say it's cold."

(Interesting fact: I was playing around with conversion charts and discovered a grand total of one temperature that is the same in both Fahrenheit and Celsius: -40. It didn't even come up as -40 F and -40.33338 or some such thing in Celsius. No, -40 is just -40. Try it yourself. Whereas 40 F equals 4.4444444 C. I find all these fours kind of cool.)

The Midwest is its own special kind of frigid--and I was even in the mid-Midwest, not someplace truly northerly like Winnipeg. Maybe the Midwest isn't as bad as the Arctic, but there are a lot more Midwesterners than Eskimos--hell, I bet there are more people in Chicago alone than there are humans who subsist on seal fat and whale blubber. So I still feel I evinced some sort of moral and physical fortitude by surviving eight Iowa winters.

It rarely gets Midwest miserable where I live now, though this place is certainly colder than Arizona. Just for comparison's sake, here are the temperatures for Saturday, February 18, 2006, for five places where I've spent the month of February, with Winnipeg (which I've never been to) thrown in for good measure:

Northwestern PA: High: 28 F (-2 C) Low: 10 F (-12 C)

Iowa City, Iowa: High: 8 F (-13 C) Low: -8 F (-22 C)

Thatcher, Arizona: High: 72 F (22 C) Low: 44 F (7 C) (God, that seems so civilized, especially since it's cold enough at night that you can layer on some blankets and sleep cuddled up and cozy)

Kaohsiung, Taiwan: High: 75 F (24 C) Low: 64 F (18 C)
(It was WAY colder than that when I was in Kaohsiung)

London, England: High: 45 F (7 C) Low: 34 F (1 C)

Winnipeg, Manitoba: High: 7 F (-14 C) Low: -15 F (-26 C)

Posted by holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (5)

February 17, 2006

Sunday 24 Feb 02 8:30 p.m.

Having posted something about why I keep a journal, I thought I'd post an entry from my journal. This one seemed like a good choice because it was written during the previous Winter Olympic Games. I've fixed a bit of idiocyncratic punctuation and clarified a few obscure references, but this is pretty much a typical journal entry. A bit of context: I was living in Arizona near my parents, marginally employed, trying to finish my book, and hunting for a job. I was downright miserable.

I am watching the closing ceremonies of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics. I have found them really interesting and moving--there are all these great human dramas, like when Venetta Flowers, one of the bobsledders, became the first African American ever to win a gold medal at the winter games. And all kinds of drama and intrigue with figure skating.... It's been fun but after 17 days I am kind of Olympicked out. There was a pretty funny Saturday Night Live skit about the SLC games: this skier is racing down a hill, and two missionaries come up on either side of her and say, "Would you like a Book of Mormon?" But apparently the Mormons managed not to be complete jerks during the Olympics.

Friday I cried most of the day, discouraged by my prospects, upset about the way Mom is responding to my attempts to find a job, hurt by an insensitive email from a friend. And then there was Friday night--OK, this is a very old house, and I have gotten used to the idea that I will have to deal with mice, which are bad enough, but while I was watching the Olympics on Friday, I heard a trap snap but after that, a struggle ensued. Normally, mice are pretty thoroughly dead once a trap shuts on them. But here came this big rodent trailing blood across my carpet. I thought, "What is that? Is that a hamster? Because it's not a rat," and then I realized it was a gopher, a pissed-off, bleeding gopher. It ran behind this wicker trunk where I store fabric scraps, and my cat just sat there watching. I had to move all this stuff to get it out in the open, and I found so many droppings back behind the trunk that clearly the gopher had been in my house for a while. I had to sweep it out of the house--and it did not want to go--and I was just going to leave it alone to die in peace, and then I thought about all the damage gophers have done to my mulberry tree, and I fetched a shovel and beat it to death and buried it.

And that was just about the last straw as far as Friday was concerned.

So I went for a walk and saw a UFO and somehow that made me feel a little bit better.

I read a completely amazing book, Woman's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, and it was one of the most intriguing and provocative books I have ever read. It never occurred to me that someone had to invent string, had to figure out that if you twisted shorter, weaker filaments together, plying in new strands as needed, you'd end up with a longer, stronger length of cord. Apparently 17,000-year-old string has been found imbedded in the walls of ancient caves dwellings in southern France. The theory is that some Paleolithic Ariadne figured out that by running a cord from cave to cave, the inhabitants could make their way from room to room.

And as is so often the case with insights, they seem mundane when you relate them later. But as I read Barber's discussion of practices of weaving and sewing among peasant cultures of Europe, it occurred to me that the US, having worked to eradicate most of its indigenous culture and having pushed assimilation as a virtue, has no peasant culture, just people who live in poverty. That seemed really important to me. Anyway, the book was one of the most interesting works of history I have ever read, because it focused so thoroughly on the mundane and it revealed really innovative approaches to research.

P.S. I eventually figured out how the gopher got in my house: it was something the cat dragged in. I learned this one night when I saw my cat emerge through her cat door with something in her mouth. As soon as she was in the living room, she let it go. It was a bat, and it ended up in the same corner as the gopher: wounded, cowering, and damn difficult to chase outside.

Posted by holly at 8:08 AM | Comments (4)

February 16, 2006

My Dream Date with God

As I posted something a few days ago about having dinner with God, I thought I'd share this strange little thing I wrote a few years ago about a date with God.

Last night as I lay in my bed tossing about in that semi-lucid semi-dreaming state induced by illness, medication and not enough sound sleep, a question and an answer occurred to me. Here they are:

Question: Describe your dream date with God.

Answer: OK.

My dream date with God would begin with a phone call--none of this voice speaking from the whirlwind business; I want an actual phone call made from a real phone number that appears on my caller ID box. I figure it will consist entirely of of 8's (infinity symbol turned side-ways) and 0's (the nothingness God created everything out of) and 1's (after all, God is the big One). God will say, "Hey, would you like to spend the weekend at the Grand Canyon?"

"Sure," I'll say, and write it down in my planner.

So that's what I'd do on my dream date with God: go to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It has to be the North Rim; I haven't been there since 1976, the summer between seventh and eighth grade. We won't camp; we'll rent a cabin--separate rooms, of course. This isn't Leda and the Swan or Mary and the Holy Spirit or anything like that.

We'll look at the world in its magnificence and he'll try to explain the forces that molded it. He'll conjure a thunderstorm or two. He'll take apart a pine cone and tell me why it's constructed as it is.

God has nothing to do with ethics for me. Ethics exist outside of God. God is about power. I don't always understand power. This doesn't mean that I don't understand creation. I am perfectly willing to believe in a big bang that got everything going somehow. What I don't understand is how some things change and some things don't. What I don't understand is heresy today, gone tomorrow.

Posted by holly at 8:25 AM | Comments (3)

February 15, 2006

The "Sorry I Date-Raped You" Card

I just checked the stats for my blog, and discovered that someone ended up at my site while doing a search for a "'sorry I date-raped you' card."

Huh.

I know how they ended up here: I posted an entry where I mention that a guy I was dating once apologized for date-raping me. (Yes, the apology was warranted. Yes, I was young enough and stupid enough that I didn't break up with him, either after the non-consensual sex or the apology. Yes, the entire experience continues to affect my views on men, courtship, and issues of consent in sex.)

What I don't know is what the card means. It is a joke? Is it serious? Could such a card be used as an admission of guilt--and therefore evidence--against someone who had committed a date-rape?

My guess is, it's a joke--about like those awful t-shirts discussed on Shakespeare's Sister. But that raises the question: WHY is this a topic our culture finds funny?

I just got done teaching Night by Elie Wiesel in one of my courses. Of course everyone found it horrifying and upsetting. Everyone sympathized with the suffering of the narrator, and condemned the holocaust, and thought it completely fitting that Wiesel bear personal witness of what the Nazis did to the Jews.

This week we are reading Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison, in which she discusses being raped by her step-father when she was five years old. One guy said, "When I got to the part where she says, 'My step-father raped me when I was five years old,' I thought, 'Shit! Why is the professor making us read this crap?'" Another guy said, "Why do people need to talk about this? Why should we be expected to read about this?"

Um, maybe because in your life as a college-educated white American male, you're more likely to know someone who is the victim of sexual assault than someone who carries out or survives or dies because of genocide, not only because college-educated white Americans tend to be sheltered and protected from genocide, but because there are more victims of sexual violence in the world than there are victims of genocide? (Rape, after all, is a tool of genocide.) Maybe so you'll know how to react when your friend or sister gets a "Sorry I Date-Raped You" card? I assume, of course, that you'll never need to send one yourself.

Posted by holly at 10:51 AM | Comments (5)

A Journal Worth Keeping (Whether the Angels Quote from It Or Not)

Frankengirl posted an entry about diaries and whether or not they are meant to be kept or burned. This is a topic that gets ME burning. In the December 2004 issue of Sunstone, I published an essay detailing my attitude about keeping a journal. It seems relevant, so I'm posting it here.

Although I am no longer a believing or active Mormon, I still live a lot like one. OK, I drink an occasional beer, though I have never been able to cultivate any interest in substance abuse. I don't worry about the ratings of the movies I watch, though I have enough sense to avoid films that are obviously crap. I don't go to church on Sunday, though I have tried to find a congregation where I feel at home, but I can't help noticing other meetings' short-comings when compared to a Mormon service: I hate having to stand, then sit, then kneel, then stand again; or I hate that other worshipers sing tacky devotional pop songs accompanied by guitars or recordings, like it's some group karaoke thing; or I hate that people show up in t-shirts and shorts, like it's the grocery store.

But I still write down goals. I still strive to be scrupulously honest in my business dealings and to give a good portion of my earnings to charity. I still buy groceries in bulk. I still can't throw away anything, from a scrap of fabric to a cardboard box, without asking myself, "Is there some possible use left in this thing?" I still keep a journal.

For many years I kept a journal for the same reason I flossed, made good grades and exercised: because somebody told me that when I was seventy, I'd be glad I'd done such things in my youth. In general, the journal has given me more pleasure than the flossing. I was 11 when President Kimball issued his encouragement to

Get a notebook...a journal that will last through all time, and maybe the angels will quote from it for eternity. Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. (4)

I'm now on volume 14, and I still look at old volumes from time to time. For instance, volume five, my mission journal, is almost 100,000 words long and quite hefty. I wrote in it my goings and comings, my deepest thoughts, and things like this, from June 14, 1986: "I have decided that the angels will not even flip the pages of this journal, though imperfect beings might find something of interest here."

Many people consider a journal the most private and intimate of texts. In certain ways my journal is intensely intimate, in that it contains personal details and deep yearnings and struggles. Nonetheless, I was affected very early and very thoroughly by the Mormon view that journals are documents providing personal accounts of shared experiences--an example being the diaries or journals kept by those who crossed the plains--and are in some ways intended to be shared, just like the experiences they record. I took to heart the admonition that someday, when I am dead, someone, somewhere, might come upon my journals and use them--as faith-promoting stories, as cautionary tales, or simply as historical documents. Thus I have long been acutely aware of audience--it's a concept I understood instantly when teachers tried to explain it in composition courses. And even though I began to suspect early on that the angels would not quote from my journal, filled as it was with doubt and dissent, still, I couldn't help wanting, at the very least, to entertain and edify those other potential readers, the human ones--to give them an occasional good laugh, or pose from time to time a difficult question worth pondering.

In short, I wanted to give them reasons to keep reading, and give myself reasons to keep writing. I felt an obligation to make the record of my life relevant and compelling, both for myself and for that future audience, and I don't think that sense of obligation hurt either my journal in particular or my writing in general--or my cognitive skills, for that matter. I've learned that to be a good journaler, one must develop an eye for what is interesting and meaningful in one's daily life, as well as some skill and insight into analyzing one's own behaviors, utterances, and relationships. I believe that a journal should accurately capture not merely what happened, but the mood it left you in, the effect. Anyone who has kept a journal for very long knows that a journal that does nothing but record events makes for singularly dull reading--and yes, I have resorted to that minimalist strategy from time to time when I'm feeling lazy or overwhelmed; I do it primarily to maintain my habit, not because I imagine that such entries are particularly valuable in and of themselves.

I no longer attend much to a future audience (if someone really wants to read through all those thousands of pages once I'm gone, s/he is welcome to, but I'm not planning on it); these days I write my journal mainly for myself, but I haven't lost my sense that my journal needs to be, on the whole, worth not only writing in the first place, but reading again later--even if I'm the only one ever to read it. Which raises the question: what does make my journal, for me, worth the writing and reading of it? I won't deny that I find keeping a journal a pleasant and entertaining use of my time, and that I do it in part simply because I enjoy it. But I believe that a journal can indeed perform a spiritual function, and I find that aspect extremely valuable. A journal can be written with a specifically spiritual bent, as an inventory of our efforts to live morally and behave appropriately, what Catholics call "an examination of conscience." It can be a meditation upon issues that interest us, topics that trouble us. It can be a way to pose important questions and seek answers for them--as well as a place to record those answers when they come, so that years later, we can look back and be amazed by a youthful wisdom we somehow managed to forget.

As a writing teacher, I also believe that spiritual discipline can be built into the endeavor of writing well: although my students don't always believe me, I remain convinced that good writing is carefully crafted and coherent, and makes use of things like 1) transitions, 2) support for ideas in the form of specific and apt examples, 3) musical, rhythmic prose, and 4) syntax that is lively and varied. Any account of your life will, of necessity, be molded and shaped, whether poorly or well, and the transitions you use, the examples you select, even the vocabulary you employ, can help you see a pattern to your life you might otherwise miss. I can't imagine how I would make sense of my life without the profound and useful insights that come upon me as I wrestle to bring inchoate sensations and unconnected experiences, ranging from the devastating to the delightful, under the greater order of organized prose. Sometimes these insights arrive years after I've written a journal entry, when I'm thinking about a new situation that bears some similarity to an old experience. I'll haul out an old volume, read through it, and some mental flash will suddenly illuminate both situations in remarkable and useful ways--an event I often then record in the new volume, also quoting the old passage that sparked the insight.

In her essay, "On Keeping a Notebook," Joan Didion writes, "The point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing and thinking." Instead, she says the point is to remember

How it felt to be me: that is getting closer to the truth about a notebook....I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

While I agree with Didion that it's wise to remain familiar with the people we used to be, I am, unlike her, interested in having "an accurate factual record of what I have been doing and thinking"–as the descendent of Mormon pioneers and geneaologers, how could I be otherwise? In Faithful Transgressions in the American West: Six Twentieth-Century Mormon Women's Autobiographical Acts, Laura L. Bush points out that

Mormon autobiographers pay close attention to ‘truth' and to ‘accurate' history. They often begin their narratives with recitals of their precise ancestry and exact place of birth, carefully researching and marking the progression of the story of their lives until ending the story with a formal testament of faith in God.... Mormon autobiographers' meticulous attention to testifying of God and to producing accurate historical details...follows biblical and Book of Mormon writing traditions. (9)

I confess: I've written an autobiography of sorts, a memoir of my mission, and I was not the least bit surprised to discover that my book adheres to the formula Bush describes, since I was very aware at the time of following a tradition. I wanted my book to be as accurate as I could possibly make it, especially since when I wrote it, I imagined it as the defense I would muster in my behalf at the final judgment, and God would be well aware of any conscious lie I might tell. I was trying to produce a work of art, but it was also a deadly serious moral enterprise. My first act in writing my book was to transcribe every word of my mission journal--in which I had meticulously recorded entire conversations, detailed impressions, and the dates, places and times of significant events; I had even included supporting documents such as letters, zone conference programs, and those yellow planners on which we scheduled our work.

At a writing conference in June 2004, I met a woman who, like me, is a scholar and writer of literary nonfiction, and who, like me, had her heart well and truly broken by a man she was ready to marry, and who, like me, suffers from insomnia. She told me that to help herself unwind, clear her mind and prepare to sleep each night, before bed she would write in a spiral notebook, usually about how upset she was with Michael, her ex, and how devastated she was that as soon as the engagement ring was on her finger, he turned into someone else, someone she couldn't marry. She wrote pages and pages, she said, about how she hated him, loved him, resented him, could never forget him although she wanted nothing more than to erase him from her memory. I sympathized, with the difficulty in falling asleep, with the heartbreak, with the confused writing. But then she mentioned that when she got to the end of each notebook, she threw it away. "You threw it away?" I repeated, dazed.

"Yeah," she said. "It was just my ranting about Michael. It's not like the world needs any of that."

"But what if there was...an insight? Or a good line? And you threw it away?" I asked slowly, attempting to resist the horror of it all.

"There wasn't," she said. And since I was having difficulty breathing, having just heard someone be so cavalier about an action absolutely inimical to my world view, I made no reply and the conversation moved on to other topics.

I tell this story to call attention to one part of keeping a journal: the keeping part. As I mentioned, my journal does contain boring, uninspired passages; I haven't deleted them and I don't intend to. For one thing, when I'm overwrought, it's kind of nice to remember times when nothing much happened; it's also good to remind myself how flat even the most exciting events can seem later if I don't render them fully. Furthermore, preserving what you produce is built into the activity: keeping a journal means you not merely write but hang on to the journal. And that keeping is also a spiritual practice: finding the discipline to make writing a habit, to live with a growing and on-going document that demonstrates who you were, who you thought you'd become, and who you actually ended up being. If you're lucky, it might also help you figure out who you want to be next, and how to achieve it.

I'll end with Job, who, if he lived at all, lived before paper was readily available:

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! Job 19:23-24

We don't have to be so desperate. If we want something written, we can write it. We've got plenty of paper, plenty of ink, and really fast computers. All of which make keeping a journal so easy that it's something of a luxury, a way of acknowledging how blessed--and I use that word advisedly--we are.

In conclusion, I bear testimony of the power of a journal to help us live with more awareness of who we are and who we want to be. I will always be grateful that I followed President Kimball's advice to keep a journal. It has enriched my life immeasurably.

Works Cited
1. Kimball, Spencer W. "The Angels May Quote from It." The New Era 5, no 10 (1975): 4-5.
2. Didion, Joan. 1968. "On Keeping a Notebook." In Slouching Toward Bethlehem. New York: Noonday Press. 131-141.
3. Bush, Laura L. Faithful Transgressions in the American West: Six Twentieth-Century Mormon Women's Autobiographical Acts. Salt Lake City: U of Utah Press, 2004.

Posted by holly at 8:45 AM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2006

Happy Valentine's Day

My three favorite dates are December 16 (my birthday), December 25 (although I'm one of those evil pagans who prefers wishing friends and strangers "Happy Holidays" to "Merry Christmas," I still dig the whole giving-and-getting-gifts part of the gig), and February 14.

I like February 14 for two reasons: One, it's Arizona Statehood Day. That's right, Arizona became the 48th state in the Union on February 14, 1912. Because it was so fashionably late to the AWESOME party thrown by the Federal Government, I am able to say that none of my grandparents were born in the United States: three were born in Arizona before it became a state; the fourth, like a good many Mormons, was born in Mexico (which is where the polygamists went to stay polygamists, until Pancho Villa came along and told them to get the hell out).

Of course, the other reason I like February 14 is that it's Valentine's Day.

This is the 43rd Valentine's Day I've spent on this planet. For, oh, 39 of those 43, I've not had a Valentine to call my own (I even had two long-term relationships where I managed to be on the outs with my sig/ot during the month of February), but the fact that any flowers I received on such days were from my mother (she never neglects me or my sisters on Valentine's Day: she sent bouquets to all four of us on Monday) and any chocolate I got, I bought myself, hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for the day.

I just like it, you know? I like construction paper and scissors and glue. I like doilies. I like crayons and markers. I like red a lot, and pink is OK. I like chocolate. I like flowers. I like hearts. I like sending big envelopes through the US mail and I like telling the people I love that I love them, even if they don't offer to take me to dinner, call me sweetheart and kiss me passionately on the 14th day of February. (I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea, I'm just saying it doesn't have to happen. I accept other gestures of affection and regard. One of my all-time favorite Valentine's Day presents is a garlic press my sister bought me in 1990 when we shared an apartment--I use it still.)

There have been years when I've made fudge for the dozen or so people closest to me. There have been years when I've baked heart-shaped cakes. There have been years when I've sent dozens of Valentines, to pretty much everyone in my address book. I'd rather do that than send Christmas cards--I mean, it's just so commonplace to send red envelopes in December to people you ignore the rest of the year, but who does it in February?

If I'd had my shit together this year, I would have fashioned a huge, elaborate heart of pink and red paper, a sincere token of my affection for all my friends and readers. I would have taken a photo of said creation, and uploaded it here. Unfortunately, however, that did not happen.

So you'll just have to accept this blog entry as my Valentine to you. If I know you well enough to love you, then believe me, I love you! And if we're still in the early stages of our friendship, then I like you every bit as much as I can without seeming pathetic, threatening and weird.

And if you like or love me too, please leave a comment and tell me so.

Posted by holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (12)

February 13, 2006

Significant Seven

Amazon.com has a list of seven "significant" questions that it likes to ask its favorite authors. Saviour Onassis asked Bored Dominatrix (my leather-wearing alter-ego--she's still me, just sassier) these questions over on Genius to Spare, and I thought I'd answer them here as well. (Because I'm still her, just more discreet.)

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Probably Winnie the Pooh, since it's the first book I liked enough to want to read it myself. (It's also the book that explained my father's psychological state to me: he's Eeyore.) Tied for second place is, I don't know, maybe Pride and Prejudice, because it made me want to write, and A History of God by Karen Armstrong, since it reassured me that I'm by no means the only one to figure out that the bearded old white guy in the sky is one mean son of a bitch.

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: I'm stranded on a desert island equipped with a functioning CD player, a DVD player and a TV? COOL! I hope there's a decent shower with plenty of hot water too....

Q: Ahem. Suspend your disbelief. Play along. Answer the freakin' question.
A: Book: An empty notebook. CD: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. It's not my favorite album in the world, but it expresses what would probably be my main sentiment. DVD: How to Build a Boat out of Coconut Trees and Escape from a Desert Island.

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: The Mormon Church is true. (See Mission archives.)

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: A great big room with wood floors and lots of windows. There's a computer AND a typewriter, and a couple of well-stocked bookshelves. There is not, however, a phone. (Note: I wrote my dissertation in a room just like this. That's how I know what I'm talking about.)

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: Here lies Holly, by golly.

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: God, Jehovah, the Ancient of Days--whatever you want to call the old bastard. That MF has some SERIOUS ‘splaining to do. I wouldn't back off, either, like Job did, when God started in on his "where were you when I did this and this" routine. AND I'd expect him to pick up the tab.

Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: Telepathy. And the mind I'd most want to read would be God's. Who wouldn't want to know the mind of God?

Posted by holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (5)

February 12, 2006

Women Who Won't Blame the Patriarchy or Anybody Else

Here are a couple of basic spiritual truths I've learned in my life:

1. You gotta leave the garden. You can't truly learn and grow while you stay within the confines of a system designed to protect you and keep you innocent.

2. She who will save her life shall lose it, and she who is willing to lose her life, will save it. If you stay inside the garden because you're afraid you'll perish in the lone and dreary world, well, here's some news! You're going to perish anyway, but you'll never know the potential, growth and possibility you could have experienced in the outside world. But if you venture out, you just might discover the means of not merely surviving, but thriving.

3. The Mormon church is one of the most pernicious "gardens" out there: yeah, there's plenty of produce, but it's thoroughly tainted with pesticides, fungicides and fertilizer. You can eat it, but it will give you cancer of the soul. You're better off applying the lesson of the fall and expelling yourself from the garden.

Because I am still technically a Mormon woman (they haven't excommunicated me yet, and I promised my mother I wouldn't ask the big boys to do it for me), and because I became a feminist partly because I was once a Mormon woman, and because I am occasionally an idiot, I sometimes find myself drawn into conversations with devout Mormon women about feminism.

I should know better. Because no woman will ever truly espouse the cause of feminism while she's still a devout Mormon. No human being will ever truly espouse the cause of justice while she's still a devout Mormon. No human being will ever truly espouse freedom of mind or plain good sense while she's still a devout Mormon. She'll do the best she can, and that's all the rest of us can ask. But devout Mormon women are still, fundamentally, stunted, because they insist on a diet of that horrible tainted fruit--and then spend all this time saying, "Oh there's nothing wrong with this fruit! There's nothing wrong with the garden! There's nothing wrong with anything--except maybe a few of the other gardeners, but that's not really important! Let's all just be nice and good, and then everything will work out--because God says so!"

To which I say, Yada yada fucking la-di-da. Grow the hell up.

And if I ever again start participating in forums for Mormon feminists who still support the patriarchy, will someone who's not in that benighted category remind me of this post?

Posted by holly at 2:50 PM | Comments (12)

February 11, 2006

Why Hang Up?

People say you know you've found a special friend when you can enjoy a comfortable silence with him--the absence of speech doesn't herald awkwardness and anxiety. My friendship with Wayne must be pretty damn special because we can enjoy a comfortable silence together--on the phone. I called him Saturday afternoon and of course the conversation wandered eventually to blogging, an activity we share. We sat at our respective computers, he in Southern California, I in Northern Pennsylvania, and we blogged. We collaborated on three new entries (see them here, here and here), working in silent contentment, listening to the other breathe and mutter in the background but not speaking unless it became necessary, because we're THAT comfortable with each other, and besides, we both have free cell phone minutes on the weekend, so why hang up just because we don't have something to share right this second? In another 20 minutes or so, one of us will surely think up something to say.

Posted by holly at 8:36 PM | Comments (4)

February 10, 2006

Outer and Upper Vagina

As evidence for my argument that we need to use words like vulva and cunt instead of vagina when we mean vulva or cunt instead of vagina, I offer this example.

The other day I found a flyer for NuvaRing contraceptive in my campus ladies' room. It features a photo of a woman walking along a sidewalk, a photo of a woman taking a surfboard onto the beach in the company of a guy who also has a surfboard, and a photo of a woman holding a menu as she sits in an outdoor café with a female companion. (Maybe it's just me, but these have never been activities for which I required contraceptives.)

The flyer also lists some frequently asked questions and their answers. My favorite:

"Will I feel NuvaRing?"

The response:

"Most women don't because, while the nerve endings of the outer vagina are very sensitive, the ones in the upper vagina are not."

Outer vagina? The vagina is an internal passageway. Outer vagina? That makes about as much sense as "outer esophagus" or "outer vas deferens" or "outer urethra"--unless, of course, you think "vagina" is the term that, like a nice pink thong from Victoria's Secret, covers ALL the relevant bits of female genitalia.

Apparently, a lot of people do. For although I found no reference to the "outer vagina" in any of the anatomy or medical books I own (it's so much easier to be a hypochondriac with your very own copy of The Merck Manual--the real one, not the dumbed-down version for lay people), I found plenty about it when I googled the term, as in "Honestly, if you look at Playboy, those women, on the outer vagina area, the vulva is very aesthetically appealing, the vulva is rounded."

The thing is, a lot of the time we can get along fine with imprecise language, but at some point, we're still going to need more precise terminology. I admit that we need a precise term for "the outer vagina area." But we've already got several, vulva being one, cunt being another, both being easier, more precise and more concise than "outer vagina."

By the way, at Saviour Onassis's suggestion, I recently watched Whoopi Goldberg's HBO special Back to Broadway (available on Netflix), and now I'm recommending it to you. Whoopi devotes about half an hour to discussing the evolution of menstrual sanitary products (I'm old enough to remember seeing my sister use those awful belts, but thank god the adhesive maxi-pads you just stuck to your underwear were invented before I fell off the roof) and menopause. Her account of the latter has really given me something to look forward to.... But aside from the frankness, one thing I appreciated was that she generally used an appropriate term for the space women have "down there": she uses the term pudenda. It's not my favorite term, but at least it's accurate.

Posted by holly at 9:59 AM | Comments (3)

February 9, 2006

I Heart Wegmans

In an entry last week I mentioned something about checking the frozen foods section of my favorite grocery store. I wanted to write simply, "Every time I go to Wegmans I check to see if Ben and Jerry's has brought back my favorite flavors," but I couldn't, because not everyone knows what Wegmans is.

And I have decided to do something about that.

As I hope I've made abundantly clear, I prefer the southwest part of the US to the northeast part. But one thing that makes the northeast superior to the rest of the country is the presence of Wegmans, the best grocery store I've ever shopped at. It's even better than the New Pioneer Food Co-op in Iowa City, and that was a pretty damn good grocery store. (Though New Pi had better bread--they had this chocolate cherry bread that was AMAZING.)

I'd be proud to appear in a Wegmans ad, pushing my cart through the spacious aisles and merrily singing some jingle as I pull high-quality food items from the well-stocked shelves. But I'm not the only one willing to sing the company's praises: last year Wegmans ranked first in FORTUNE Magazine's list of the top 100 companies to work for; this year it ranks second. According to a company press release, "this marks the ninth consecutive year Wegmans has appeared on the annual list and its fourth year ranked among the top 10."

I realize I sound as enthusiastic as a paid spokesperson, but part of what I like best about shopping at Wegmans is the fact that the employees don't seem to resent doing the jobs they're paid to do. They're not surly--in fact, they're usually pretty cheery. They know where stuff is. When you ask them for help, they try to provide it.

My particular Wegmans, it should be noted, is not as vast and grand as some. A couple of my friends live in Ithaca, NY, and their Wegmans is truly impressive, boasting a better deli and restaurant section and a much better liquor selection than the branch I shop at. (That last bit isn't hard, since I live in Pennsylvania, and PA's laws governing the sale of alcohol are even stupider and more complicated than Utah's, with the upshot being that you can't buy booze at grocery stores in PA.)

But I still love my smaller Wegmans, even after being introduced to a truly magnificent version. Believe it or not, Wegmans is the only place in town to get decent sushi. The olive bar is nice too, and I'm fairly happy with the cheese selection. (It is the US, of course, so ain't no cheese section going to be as good as you'd find in, say, France.) They stock a lot of local produce; it's very fresh and reasonably priced, and the organic stuff is reasonable too. They have a really nice tableware and kitchenware section, with merchandise that changes frequently--cool seasonal place settings and ideas for entertaining. I admit I wish they had a better selection of Mexican food products, but no place is perfect.

Anyway, in the future, instead of writing "I went to the grocery store," I'll just write, "I went to Wegmans," and you'll all know what I mean.

Posted by holly at 9:10 AM | Comments (5)

February 8, 2006

Social Realism

Posted by holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

February 7, 2006

Is Feminism a Woman-Only Movement?

John at Mind on Fire has posted the following set of questions on his blog:

In practical terms, is feminism a woman-only movement? Are feminist forums essentially female forums? Is it possible to discuss feminism as a female and male issue, as a joint concern of both men and women? Is there a place for men in feminism?

I posted a response to John's questions on his blog, and I'm going to include my response here as well. Here goes:

First, I believe that men should identify themselves as feminists, and work to improve the lives of women, advance the cause of women's rights, and fight sexism; that white people must fight racism and work to improve the lives of people of color; that straight people need to fight homophobia and support gay rights; that rich people need to care about poor people; that human beings need to work for the humane treatment of animals, and so on. Everyone needs to be on the side of justice. No righteous cause (and I use that term advisedly) ever truly succeeds until even those who benefit from an unjust system begin to work to overthrow it. Slavery would still exist were it not for the efforts of those who were NOT slaves.

Re: doing feminist theory in academia--there are plenty of male academics who work on feminism and gender theory. I think you're probably going to face an uphill battle, just as white people who do race theory face some suspicion. I don't, however, think that's a reason not to do it. I realize I am not in your department, and I have only heard a little of the work you've done on feminism, but I take you pretty seriously: I appreciate your academic work on and your personal commitment to feminism, and as you will (I hope) attest, I have encouraged and defended both.

As was recently discussed in the comments on Mellencamp, the Game here on SPA, I feel grief and pain when men I consider enlightened and humane refuse to identify themselves as feminists. And as you and I have discussed, and as I have discussed on my blog, I heartily applaud the decision by any man (but especially Mormon men and men I like) to embrace the cause of feminism. I hope people will go to my blog and check out the archives for the things I've written about Mormon male feminists--there's quite a bit. I was delighted to see the panel on the topic at Sunstone last August, and hope that it will be a recurring panel. And I am grateful for the efforts of men in the past who worked for women's rights--the world is a better place for women not only because of Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan, but John Stewart Mill (see in particular his essay The Subjection of Women.)

But since your entry here arises in part from comments I made on another blog, let me create an analogy that I hope illustrates why I objected when a married man asked a question in a feminist forum about whether or not Mormon men who are single suffer as much from their single status as Mormon women who are single--and then answered his own question in the affirmative, though he did acknowledge that although men's pain was as great as women's, there seemed to be more women who had the problem--i.e., there are more old maids in the Mormon church than old bachelors. And let me also explain why I was disappointed when several women rushed to support him.

Let's say there's a forum devoted primarily to discussing the concerns of black people in the US, although people of any race are welcome to participate. And a discussion arises about poverty. And a comfortably situated white person comes along and asks, "Do you think white people suffer as much as black people under the conditions of poverty? I know both black and white people who've really struggled, so I think it's the same emotionally, though I admit there are more poor black people than poor white people."

Well, gee! I have an adequate grasp of the obvious, and I'm pretty sure it sucks to be poor, no matter what color your skin is. But the fact of the matter is, I've never been truly poor; moreover I've never been black and poor, never felt several centuries of cultural oppression that have conspired to make poverty particularly acute in the black community, never faced a particular sort of hopelessness in terms of dealing with the problem of basic subsistence.

And let's imagine that in this forum, once this question has been posed, several of the black people immediately rush to say, "Wow, I bet poverty IS really bad for white people!" instead of, "Yeah, it's bad for white people too, but, uh, why are you bringing it up here, and why are you bringing it up in this particular way?" At that point, I would have to question not only the motives of the person who posed the question, but the motives of the people who responded as well--it would seem to me that ultimately, this group was more about placating white people, reassuring them that their egos need not be threatened by this little racially oriented forum, than about doing what it had actually stated as its mission.

And perhaps if I were truly wise, I'd just leave these people to their foolishness--god knows I've seen this situation before, and god knows I've seen so little change in the past when I've done this--but somehow, I actually still care about both feminism and Mormonism, and I just can't stop myself from saying, "Um, uh, not to be rude or anything, but, you know, this sounds like complete and utter bullshit to me."

Because the fact of the matter is, I have neither patience nor respect for such things. I say to men who claim they want to talk about feminism, TALK ABOUT FEMINISM! The point is this: men as a collective are the recipients and wielders of privilege and power, and if that's going to change and we're going to achieve gender equality, you've got to be willing to give up some of that privilege and power, so START NOW. Set aside some of your concerns in the short term, and be willing to relinquish some of your privilege for eternity. Because that's what has to happen for gender equality to happen: those with power have to give some of it up.

And for god's sake, don't expect a pat on the back just because you hang out with women who call themselves feminists. Put your money where your mouth is--which in some cases, means shutting the hell up about your masculine concerns.

Posted by holly at 10:01 AM

February 5, 2006

My New Favorite Literary Mag

I recently mentioned a rejection letter that didn't entirely suck, so I thought I'd discuss what's usually the best part of the publication process: actually seeing the work in print.

A few days ago my got my contributor's copies of Poetry International, and it has become my new favorite literary journal. First of all, it's simply gorgeous. The production values are impressive: good-quality paper, nice graphics that don't overwhelm the content of the text, an attractive cover (even if it is mostly earthtones). The journal is also a little bigger than usual: 9.75 inches by 6.75 inches (as opposed to 9" x 6"), with 208 pages before the ads start.

More importantly, the poems in the journal are GOOD. I haven't, by any means, read everything in the 2006 issue (it's a yearly, not a quarterly), but everything I've read I like--the poems are about things that matter--or at least, about the things I think matter, like suffering and truth and pain, which I guess is one reason they were willing to print my work.

And a more personal satisfaction: my poem is on page 30, and on page 31 is a poem by Billy Collins. It's the first time I've been published in such close proximity to a poet laureate of the United States.

So get online a buy a subscription, or rush out to the periodical section of your large university or independent bookstore, and read Poetry International.

Posted by holly at 7:24 PM

February 3, 2006

Five Things Meme

Yes, this is my very first meme (what the hell is the origin of that word, anyway?). Thanks to Frankengirl for tagging me.

Instructions: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1. Kiss My Mike
2. Ultimate Writer
3. Golgotha_Tramp
4. FrankenGirl
5. Holly at Self-Portrait as

Next select five people to tag:
1. Major Steel at Out of the Mist
2. Jana at Pilgrimgirl
3. Heo Cwaeth
4. John at Mind on Fire.
5. Bored Dominatrix (yeah, OK, so that's just one of my personas--but she's got different answers--better answers, actually--and she's going to tag people who might not tag anyone else)
6. Mary Ellen at Rio Grande Valley Girl (Yes, I know, I'm cheating TWICE now, but I found out a day after tagging the first five bloggers that Mary Ellen has started a blog, and I want to support her)

What were you doing 20 years ago?
Riding a bike around Kaohsiung, the nasty port city in the south of Taiwan, trying to convert Buddhists to Christianity

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Finishing up my third year of course work in a PhD program in English lit

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Pretty much the same things I'm doing now

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. chocolate chocolate chip cookies
2. a bunch of Ben & Jerry's limited edition flavors that no longer exist, but every so often I check the frozen food section of my favorite grocery store, just in case
3. Carr's Ginger Lemon Creme English tea cookies
4. chips and salsa
5. extra sharp white cheddar

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. "My Favorite Things" (and every other song from The Sound of Music, as well as most of the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre)
2. "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" from The Queen is Dead by (of course) the Smiths
3. The Soundtrack to "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (all right, I know MOST of the lyrics)
4. "Young Americans" from Young Americans by David Bowie
5. When I was in high school, someone at church taught us to sing all the books of the Old Testament, in order, to the tune of "Praise to the Man Who Communed with Jehovah" (i.e. Joseph Smith). I can still sing it, and I find it really useful when I want to remember if Psalms is before or after Proverbs.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. buy a house in Tucson
2. pay off all my debt
3. quit my day job and devote myself to writing
4. start doing yoga again regularly and become certified as a yoga instructor
5. give money more often and more generously to causes I support

Five bad habits:
1. not exercising as much as I should
2. buying candy almost every time I go to the grocery store
3. becoming so lost in my thoughts as I go for a walk that I start gesturing to myself, so that strangers sometimes ask me who I'm talking to
4. buying clothes I don't need when I already have more clothes than I can wear
5. not being more aggressive about submitting my work for publication

Five--no, six--things you like doing:
1. writing
2. reading
3. hanging out with old friends
4. meeting new people
5. visiting exotic places
6. staying home

Five things you would never wear again:
1. turtlenecks
2. a button-down shirt (not that I've worn many in my life--the preppy thing never worked for me)
3. anything with a sports mascot on it
4. Um, for over a decade, I almost never wore a bra, but then I got a job teaching high school, and it just seemed like a good idea to wear one some days
5. I don't really find jeans comfortable (denim is such a heavy fabric--who wants something made of it surrounding one's nether parts?) but it would be unrealistic to say I'll never wear them again

Five things that scare you: (yeah, I added this one)
1. Republicans (including my family)
2. religious extremism
3. environmental degradation, including but not limited to global warming, pollution, and destruction of rain forests
4. never being famous
5. deep water

Five favorite toys:
1. my own body. This is not an allusion to sex. This is mostly about the fact that I like yoga and dancing. I like lying in bed and listening to my toes. I like noticing sensations in my knees and my neck. I like having acupuncture and feeling energy gather and release. I like paying attention to what it feels like to be me, as I move through the world.
2. my cell phone
3. my computer
4. my sewing machine
5. the great ineffable mystery of the universe? I don't know. I just like to think about things. I want to get smarter as I age.

Posted by holly at 8:44 AM

February 2, 2006

Balderdash and Piffle

Monday, my friend Matthew the Brit who lives in Brussels left a comment on my entry written In Praise of the C Word, suggesting that we Americans check out this British show Balderdash and Piffle, because it was cool and because Germaine Greer had done a really cool bit on the c word itself. I believed him, but I didn't have time to check it out right away.

Later that day, on campus, I went to consult the Oxford English Dictionary on the etymology of a particular word. (While I really love the multi-volume hard copy, it's much more convenient to use the on-line version--I am lucky to work at an institution that has a subscription to the OED on-line.) And instead of the standard home page, I got something telling me that until February 13, 2006, ANYONE can use the OED, because it's available in conjunction with Balderdash and Piffle.

If you've never looked something up in the OED, do. It's really cool--OK, it's really cool if you're a language geek, but what writer isn't? The entries tell you not only the current meaning, but every meaning a word has ever had, and it lists occurrences of the word throughout history. Part of the mission of the OED is to document a word's first written usage, and to that end, they enlist the help of anyone who reads, to provide them with citations and occurrences.

On the B&P site is a list of words the OED people want help with. The site states:

We're particuarly interested to hear from you on the origins of the following words as no one has yet managed beat the dictionary.

* bog-standard [1983]
* bonk (sexual intercourse) [1975]
* bouncy castle [1986]
* minger [1995]
* moony, moonie [1990]
* mullet* (hairstyle) [1994]
* nerd* [1951]
* phwoar [1980]
* pick'n'mix [1959]
* pop one's clogs [1977]

Or perhaps you can find even earlier evidence on the following list than other Wordhunters have come up with so far?

* Beeb [1967]
* boffin* [1941]
* bomber jacket [1973]
* codswallop* [previously thought to be 1963; antedated to 1959 thanks to Wordhunt]
* Crimble [1963]
* cyberspace [1982]
* cyborg [1960]
* ditsy* [1978]
* dosh* [1953]
* full monty [previously thought to be 1985; updated etymology and evidence from 1982 thanks to Wordhunt]
* gas mark [1963]
* gay (homosexual sense) [1935]
* handbags (at dawn) [1987]
* her indoors [1979]
* jaffa* (cricketing term)
* muller* [1993]
* mushy peas [1975]
* naff* [1966]
* nip and tuck [previously thought to be 1980; antedated to 1977 thanks to Wordhunt]
* nit nurse [previously thought to be 1985; antedated to 1942 thanks to Wordhunt]
* nutmeg* (football use) [1979]
* Old Bill (police) [1958]
* on the pull [1988]
* pass the parcel [previously thought to be 1967; antedated to 1954 thanks to Wordhunt]
* pear-shaped [1983]
* porky [1985]
* posh* [1915]
* ska [1964; updated etymology thanks to Wordhunt]
* snazzy* [previously thought to be 1932; antedated to 1931 thanks to Wordhunt]

OK, the list is pretty thoroughly British--I doubt many Americans know the origins of cricketing terms. But who wouldn't like credit for finding the earliest usage of "mullet"? (Though when I had one such haircut long about 1981 or so, we called it "a bi-level.")

The BBC site also provides links allowing you to (among other things) check out the family tree of the Indo-European language, hear what Anglo-Saxon sounded like, write a poem, play an etymology game, and listen to various regional dialects.

Have fun!

Posted by holly at 9:55 AM