Look, I said it was the big story, not news. Also not news: the comments are a grab bag of upsetting, disturbing, and infuriating. But it’s still a sucker punch every time this comes up.

You know what is surprising? Finding the They’re All Dirty Liars Myth being perpetuated on a site focusing on young adult literature. In her review of a biography of Claudette Colvin, Colleen Mondor writes:

The other issue I had was with her pregnancy. The fact that Claudette became an unwed mother was a big part of why she was apparently deemed too unpredictable to be the face of the bus boycott. Her explanation of that pregnancy – that it was an older young man who took advantage of her, that she had no idea how to even get pregnant, and that he abandoned her, all read as….well, forgive me but it’s a story I have heard dozens of times. Every teenage girl I’ve known in my life who got pregnant always had a variation of the virgin rape story to share. This indeed could be what happened to Claudette but there is no corroborating interviews – no friends or relatives who say yes, she was an innocent who was taken advantage of. There is instead another round of silence. Claudette was a blameless victim yet again.

Being critical of sources in nonfiction is a valid endeavor, of course, and I have picked up what Colleen has put down –as the kids say– except in the above passage. The problem here is that stating matter of factly that every pregnant teen you’ve encountered was falsely crying rape in a book review that will likely be read by teenage ladies is irresponsible. I mean, seriously? And this doesn’t make that statement less gross: “This indeed could be what happened to Claudette but there is no corroborating interviews.” Interviews to corroborate a common situation so rarely taken seriously, and the victims scrutinized and judged so harshly –say perhaps even casually, like in book reviews of biographies of teen mothers and sexual assault victims– that even today they hesitate to come forward?

RAINN’s site states that 7% of girls in grades 5-8 and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused, sourcing a 1998 Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls. One out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime and college age women are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted; numbers that ought to be considered when blithely shaming large swaths of your audience.

So, well, that’s the first time I’ve felt really uncomfortable reading a YA book review that wasn’t written by an over privileged teenage boy who resents being tasked with reading something he wouldn’t choose for himself, or someone insisting the material be burned in a pit in some backwoods town square. (Like the exact opposites of Colleen Mondor!) It’s mostly unsettling because I truly like what she’s been doing with Chasing Ray, one of my favorite YA feeds in my reader. But then, that’s the only reason why I would even say anything.

Links that discuss false accusations:

• False Rape Accusations and Rape Culture, and
• Victims vs Sluts, Hofstra’s False Rape and the Media by Amanda Hess at The Sexist
• Don’t Just Blame the Victim; Prosecute Her and
• L&O:SVU by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville
• The MRA Mirror by Sunless Nick at Shakesville
• The Horror! by Lesley Plum at Shakesville
• This is What Rape Culture Looks Like and
• Why the Charges are Civil (and Why That Doesn’t Mean She’s a Lying Golddigger) at Yes Means Yes

Link that explains why I have trouble making friends:

• Questioning Victims by me at Surplus Cats

Yeah? Maybe? No? Well, use your imagination and we’ll get through this together and then I will go off somewhere alone and feel old.

That rabbit is me, but instead of carrots it is a stack of books and instead of wonderful it is a tortured nightmare of inner-conflict.

I needed a book about all of the lore surrounding the lives of the Bronte sisters, so I ordered The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller and while I was on the site I pre-ordered Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. I also snagged something from my wishlist that was available on their used Marketplace for an irresistibly low-low price — Futures from Nature, edited by Henry Gee.  Then, while I was waiting for them to ship I made the mistake of stopping in a BN and couldn’t help but pick up Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro.

Of course the Miller book arrived first, and I dove in, and a couple days later, Futures, arrived and after thumbing through it I started that and am almost through it. I really should lock it up and get back to the Bronte research. The Atwood pre-order was released and shipped; I haven’t even let myself open that box.

And, OK, it is wonderful but really, Elizabeth, no more books until after you move.

In obvious non-news: I am going to need a new bookcase for my next place. Do you think they’ll just let me pitch a tent in the library?

Tangentially related: Check out this piece from The Atlantic by Alyssa Rosenberg about the new crop of movies based on children’s books, Scaring Our Kids.  There’s also a lot of good stuff going on in the Newsweek interview Rosenberg links to, with Sendak, Jonez, and Eggers, like this:

What makes a good kids’ story?
Sendak: How would I know? I just write the books. But I do know that my parents were immigrants and they didn’t know that they should clean the stories up for us. So we heard horrible, horrible stories, and we loved them, we absolutely loved them. But the three of us—my sister, my brother, and myself—grew up very depressed people.

• My internet friend Lindsey Markel was mentioned in the current editon of Bitch Magazine. And she posted an excerpt from the introduction to her upcoming book, You Are Among Friends, in her blog. I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy! Lindsey is also performing in the one-woman play My Name is Rachel Corrie in October and if you are in the Champaign-Urbana area, I hope you’ll go see it!
• Melissa over at Shakesville takes a look at “Real” Christians and Christian Privilege and goes to town on Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron all in the span of a two days. GO LISS!
• Awesome, awesome comic from Carolita Johnson in the Huffington Post, A Woman Walks Down the Street. The comments are an added kicker.
• I can’t narrow down the most enjoyable post on Tiger Beatdown. So you should just go read it all, subscribe to the feed, and thank me later (with beers).
• Do you want your blood to boil? Here: Are female students ‘a perk of the job’? And a follow-up from vice-chancellor douchebag himself. (Just in case you didn’t loathe him enough.)

My list is short this time because I am currently working on getting my resume out to as many places as possible, while playing around with my new Wacom tablet that I have pined for since 1998 when Jeff sent me a link to the site that took a million years to load via dial-up but has never left my heart for a single day in these eleven restless years. Do I like it? Yes. Does it make me feel clumsy and untalented? Well, yes. But when has that ever stopped me?

Book Bans and Challenges, 2007-2009 – Google Maps: This map is drawn from cases documented by ALA and the Kids’ Right to Read Project, which is sponsored by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Details are available in ALA’s “Books Banned and Challenged 2007-2008,” http://www.ila.org/pdf/2008banned.pdf and “Books Banned and Challenged 2008-2009” (not available online); and the “Kids’ Right to Read Project Report,” http://www.ncac.org/images/ncacimages/KR2R%202009(1).pdf.

• threadbared has been looking at standardization, street style and style blogs. This post Footpath Zeitgeist on Street Style includes links to their discussions on the subject while looking back at earlier takes on the subject from 2007.
• Too Many White Girls at Jacket Whys. Race in young adult fiction is something I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about lately. (I’m worried I’m going to get it wrong in my book.) “But the dearth of black people on the year’s mainstream book covers is pretty appalling.” –Could not agree more.
• Disquisitions on Alternate History at Westerblog. Scott Westerfeld[1. who followed me back on Twitter!] has a video up from a talk at BookExpo America he gave with other YA authors about alternate history.
• “From the Wilds of America” – Analyzing the Idea of “British Colonial America” in Steampunk [Essay] from Racialicious. — Race in steampunk culture. “As pessimistic as Melancholic Steampunk sounds, it is also a definition of steampunk that gives SoCs[2. Steampunks of Color] the opportunity to confront our histories, since we cannot afford the luxury of nostalgia for the past.”

Ok, now from the science section of my feed reader:

• Keeping an Eye on Inflation at Catalogue of Organisms. Taxonomic inflation, that is. This is fascinating.
• Fossil hunting– Digging up extinct viruses in reptilian genomes at erv. That’s “genomes” not “gnomes” and while you might not think it could get any cooler than the notion of reptilian gnomes –erv will not disappoint. Let me assure you that this is awesome.

This might seem like quite a mixed bag, but every bit of it fits into my book research.

Oh! While I’m linking to things that are cool — check out Heidi’s blogathon campaign. She’s blogging for Rainbow Pride WV.

That is until 2009.

I am absolutely certain I will be able to finish upcoming release from Quirk Books, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Furthermore I can assure you, dear reader, that I will be at Rocket Pictures film Pride and Predator on opening day.

Oh we live in such glorious times!

How many gizmos am I able to manage at once? I carry several as it is. Music isn’t really something I care about traveling with, but I do enjoy podcasts. That said, I haven’t used my Nano in over six months, and no longer bother to keep it charged because if I’m somewhere where I can listen to music I’m more than likely using my Macbook. However, I do use my phone to check my email fairly often, and it is a painful process. I’ve never responded to an email on it because I would rather stab myself repeatedly than tap out a million character changes via T9. The iPod Touch’s wifi ability would make it actually useful to me, unlike a basic mp3 player.

I hesitate though because I’m also the person who is always the last to board every gadget ship before the next big one sails. So I feel like as soon as I sign the sales slip, the iEmployees will spill out of the stockroom with a full marching band and dance routine touting the new version that will not only create wondrous works of creative fiction specifically geared to its owner’s tastes but will also emit an electronic signal that pokes and prods his or her olfactory system to emulate that beloved libraryesque dust mite and old glue scent.

No really — I got my Macbook the week before the fancy skinny metallicy one sprung from Jobs’ loins. It came with a free Nano, because no one would want one in a few days once the fancy color video ones dropped. (The one I used about eight times before it found its way into the bottom of a bag in the bottom of a box in the bottom of my closet.)

I’m not bitter or anything. I have no love loss for my Macbook. I named it Steve McQueen when I first started it up, and it remains classically cool. There’s not a single thing I dislike about it. I bought him a snazzy metallic silver vinyl cover for the wrist area and around the keyboard, and a gray and black padded case that doesn’t scream “Laptop! Easy pickin’s!” when I carry ‘im around. We pretty much go everywhere together, and I’m positive Don is mildly jealous of our close bond. It is purely a working relationship though. McQueen is my writing partner and my project manager. A sort of techie version of that big purse your mother would carry around that always had tissues and bandaids and pens. Only instead it’s like directions, and a calendar and jpegs of toilet-trained cats. (Don’t judge. I see the crazyass search queries that bring you people here.)

Back to the digital book reading device, I will probably give up and just buy a bigger laptop case that will also hold a real book or two. Or a hard case for McQueen so I can just use almost any old bag. Or maybe I should find a telecommute job and just never have to take anything anywhere rendering this whole dilemma moot. See, this is how I end up being the last person to get onboard.

I did just order a book, I Saw You … Missed Connection Comics. It’s a collection of comic about those ridiculous Craigslist ads. Right, I know, exactly not the sort of reading that would work on an ereader — but, I mostly read non-fiction and novels. This is an odd exception. How could I pass it up though? Those ads! This was book was inevitable and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

On a Saturday morning in the middle of summer I returned Orwell’s 1984 and you said, “That’s some heavy reading for an eleven year old.” I said, “Maybe.” You asked what was next and when I shrugged you said, “I’ve got something for you,” handed me Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and changed my life.

This gratitude is 18 years overdue, but I want to say it anyway. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Elizabeth.

I would like more reading time this year and there are some large purchases that I would prefer to not put off any longer. Don and I both need new equipment for our creative endeavors (individual and mutual). It would be lovely to have one of those combination washing machines that also dries the load in the same compartment sort of like a dishwasher. The time saved not going to the laundromat could then go to reading and non-specific projects involving aforementioned equipment. This is intentionally vague as a smart resolution ought to be.

But instead I will participate in the other New Years blogging tradition — compiling lists.

Things I enjoyed in 2008

Doctor Who series 4, up until the last episode which made me die a little inside.

Royal Bitch Reserve Pinot Noir

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (pleasantly surprising!)

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

Drinking Skeptically, Steel City Skeptics, & the Pgh Chapter of the Center for Inquiry — making new friends

our metal Chuck Brown Christmas tree

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, by Neil Shubin

Seeing my Vermont relatives over Thanksgiving holiday and old friends right after Christmas

conquering my fear of driving after an 8 year hiatus and finally being comfortable behind the wheel several hours into our nightmare drive across upstate NY in a snowstorm

unpacking my books — doesn’t feel like home until the books are freed, y’know?

Google Reader + the 90 or so feeds I follow nearly daily. Would have to take up smoking to get through a day at the office without them.

And last but not least –

Don’s homemade pizzas

All in all, not too shabby for a transition-y type of year full of moves and catching my breath. I’m so ready for a new year! Bring it!

Since I made the wise decision to clean everything before we left we came home to a relaxed weekend with nothing to do but restock at the grocery store. I’ve started cooking again this week and it’s wonderful not having anywhere I have to be after work and being able to make things the way I want them and not as prepared by grumpy greasy spoon cooks. Monday night I made stuffed red peppers, and last night I made my signature meatloaf. I wasn’t entirely pleased with how it turned out last night (I forgot to account for sausage shrinkage – ahem), but I must say that it made for a darned fine sandwich for lunch today. I’m proud enough of it that I will provide some actual content here by way of my recipe:

Eliza’s Extra-Hot Meatloaf

Mix ground beef and ground hot Italian sausage (in whatever combination you like, keep in mind that the sausage will shrink up more though) with:

• Diced red onion
• eggs
• Sriracha
• Packet of onion and mushroom soup mix
• Your favorite crushed pepper blend

Add to this mixture enough breadcrumbs (I like the Italian blend crumbs) to make it all stick together in a pre-cooked meatloaf-esue form. Shape into loaf in a baking dish. I usually go with a duck or a cat shape for the shock value, but do whatever feels right. Mom makes heart shaped “meatloves”. Cover and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes. Uncover for the last ten or until nice and dark on the top.

You see I haven’t included measurements. This is due to having to adjust for different numbers of servings and learning how to just tell by how it feels when mixing. Last night I made enough for 2 +leftover sandwiches and I used 2 eggs and not all of the beef was defrosted so I put some back in the fridge to use for something tonight. Not very professional. My point is though that this meatloaf has flavor, or as D put it, “doesn’t taste like bread” so I don’t think you can really go wrong with any combination of these ingredients.

And make enough for sandwiches!

Today I’ve found myself in one of those awesome dilemmas that one really oughtn’t complain about: My signed (!!!) copy of Dr. Phil Plait’s Death from the Skies! arrived just in time for my Netflix’d Doctor Who Series 4 discs to show up.  Something tells me that Dr. Plait would understand perfectly if I delved right into some Whovian goodness with my sweetie and got those most sought after discs back in rotation for all the other fans too. Widely overlapping circles and all!