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Friday, December 4, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Race Rant
Okay, so a kid whose a lot older than me brought up that a person is treated how they are viewed, ergo I should not be upset that I am mistaken for a white person even though I am Latina. So, basically, because I'm a fair-skinned Latina, I am treated the same as Caucasians.
Race rant... begin!
For one thing, my main objection to being seen as white versus Latina is that I personally identify MYSELF as a Latina. That is to say I was raised mostly by my mom, who is from Chile, and I feel like I am culturally Latina. I'm not just identifying it as my race, but my culture. And if I have to have labels, which it seems like I must, I want to make them myself.
Plus.... I'm continuing this tomorrow. Just that much wiped me out. Hrml.
Nanowrimo- I Won!
I don't think I've gotten a single congratulation yet, so I'm posting it here that I did in fact write 50,000 words toward a novel in the month of November (actually wrote 60,000). I didn't actually finish the book (three chaps left) but that's not the real point. I'm happy anyway. And I got a lot of words written- phew! So, that's why it says winner over there on the left. I'll take it down in January on account of bragging all year is a little silly.
Anywho, the novel was called The (Mostly) True Story of Ms. Bertha P. Collins, Grandmother, Showman, and Sometimes Usurper, as Told By the Terribly Unfortunate, Blister-Thumbed, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, Volume 1. Yes, it is rather silly.
Here is the summary:
The biography of Miss Bertha "Bertie" Prudence Collins as recollected by her greatest enemy, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez. Miss Collins is best known for the unfortunate watercolor incident, by which she entered the land of Tyzkule and sparked a revolution. But that part really isn't interesting at all, is it? What readers really will want to know is, does she find love?
Here is the preface, which is by my fictional narrator, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez. It is unedited, so be kind:
Greetings from Hortensia Higgory Hernandez. Yes, it is true, despite my immeasurable fame and uncountable wealth, I have been drawn in to the not-so-noble art of biography writing. I may as well tell you, as it will certainly appear in the latest tunes of the gossip troubadours and besmeared upon the walls of even the humblest of courtyards, that I have been forced to undertake this task- yes, compelled against my very will!- to compose this, the first volume documenting the life of one Miss Bertha P. Collins, grandmother, showman, and sometimes usurper.
How have I, Hortensia Higgory Hernandez, the greatest thumb wrestling champion this world has ever seen, been strong armed into such a dreadful position, you ask. Well, dear friend, come closer, and I shall whisper it in your ear.
It was all that no-good Bertie Collins’ fault! Though my brief interlude in this the first section of this rather too long work does, in fact, spoil the very ending of this text if read as a narrative tale by revealing to you that, yes, the accursed Miss Collins does yet live, I promise you that the suspense has not been relieved at all! For, I will tell you here, on risk of once again becoming imprisoned on a stinking naval ship, that I have every intent of destroying the Collins woman’s very existence before my pen scribbles the final letters, final punctuation marks, final spaces, if one can write such things, within this ridiculous book.
Hear me well! And by “hear” I mean “read, and understand in the very core of your miserable being!” Come along with me and see the terrible creature that is Bertie Collins, for though my pro-Collinsian editor has ruined, I tell you, RUINED the essence of my work by omitting many truths as to the nature of Collins’ wicked existence, I have very cleverly managed to include subtextual references to her true character.
Be not fooled by the propaganda or the kind words of her silly friends and family. It is on account of Collins that I now sit here with blistered thumbs and cracky knuckles. How, after such an ordeal, can I ever defeat even the weakest foe in a tournament of skill, true skill, of the thumb martial art?
You have been warned.
-Hortensia Higgory Hernandez
Now then, I am waiting for your congratulations. Impatiently. :( BTW, this is my third successful year in a row- yayz!
Okay, More Puzzle Pirates.
By popular demand! Or not... anyway, I got another limited edition item, and one that you can only get as a gift. Which means I did something good. So I got it somehow. Make sense? No? Not to me either...
The color is WINE and it is limited edition. Oh, and I checked, and I got it on account of I renewed my subscription. Yes, I do pay $50 per year to play this game with all the features. It is totally worth it because sometimes the only thing that can kill stress is a good video game. Ahhh!
Anyway, here my character is in her new slutty outfit, because I got the shirt as a gift, and it's slutty, so the rest had to match, didn't it? Seems an awfully dumb outfit to wear on a pirate ship, but the pants just looked silly, as did the boots, with such a scandalous top.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Well, the reviews just won't happen
I've been reading, I promise, but I can't seem to get even brief reviews done for all that I read. On account of that great, miserable, unfortunate, deplorable failing, I will in this thread list all the books I've read since September 10th 2009 and to September 10th, 2010. As you may recall, I think waiting 'til New Years' to make a resolution is lame. It's just a procrastinatory measure. Oh, spell check is unhappy...
Anywho, here is the list. I will include the reviews if I've written them. Unless I get bored. Am worst blogger in history. Then again, they're pretty new, so really I haven't got much to be put against have I? Anyway, it's newest finished closest to the top. And, by the by, I do not include books I'm rereading on this list, though I reread a lot, so be impressed, punk.
12/1/09 Summary- Thirteen books! Be amazed! I'm a grad student, after all, so this is in addition to course readings. Okay, so... (am mathing in another place) about twelve weeks have passed since I started. Twelve times one is twelve (yes, I really did just think that out- see how I love you, I update when I am exhausted.). Which means I'm one book ahead! And I'll probably finish Five Children and It before the real twelve weeks hits (Thursday). Feeling good! Plus, I plan to read pretty much the whole Series of Unfortunate event series (redundant much?) after the quarter ends. Yay! Optimism!
Five Children and It- Nesbit
The Afterlife- Soto
A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the Third: The Wide Window- Lemony Snicket
Crossing the Wire- Hobbs
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days- Kinney
Slaughter-house Five- Vonnegut
Esperanza Rising- Munoz Ryan
Push- Sapphire
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Barrows and Shaffer
Peter and the Shadow Thieves- Barry and Pearson
Elsewhere- Zevin
Border Crossing- Cruz
It's nice to find a book out there dealing with the experiences of multiracial children, but this book was only decently written. Sometimes, it felt more like a lecture than an illustrated lesson, and the coincidences were a little too far-fetched to be believable. Plus, there was a pretty noticeable typo regarding which country San Diego was in- at one point the narrator gets off the bus in San Diego and is suddenly in Mexico. Overall, though, the novel covers themes not expressed at all or at all effectively elsewhere and fills a gap with mediocre skill.
Love That Dog- Creech
Told through the poem's enclosed in a boy's school journal, Love That Dog is a story of loss, healing, and artistic awakening. One of the most original children's stories I've ever read and uniquely beautiful among Creech's plethora of gorgeous works. A wonderful book to introduce to young artists not yet mature enough to take on Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet.
Let Me In- Lindqvist
While many literary critics quickly associate the voice of John Ajvide Lindqvist with other more well-known writers of the horror genre, Lindqvist should be noted as a young artist noteworthy for his particular distinctness of story-telling and narrative. In an era that has seen the violent vampire myth turned into a romantic topic of teen angst, Lindqvist imagines vampirism in its darkest hours, weaving a tale of murder, sadism, and everyday suffering, in which it is not so much the vampires as the humans who are the monsters.
Lindqvist's take on the necessities for the modern vampire's survival is innovative and disturbing; the vampire-girl Eli lives in the body of a 12-year-old and thus depends on a middle-aged pedophile to support her need for blood. She is too young for work but cannot survive in a modern world without financial assets, and so takes money from her victims. As a vampire or vampire-like creature, she does not kill for pleasure but purely to survive, and the author clearly illustrates for readers that most people-turned-vampire cannot make the choice to kill, and instead commit suicide.
While the story primarily focuses on the extended life of Eli and her new friend Oskar, a viciously bullied 12-year-old boy, it also shows how their situations affect those around them. Vampirism is treated as an epidemic that Eli attempts to contain but which somehow continues to spread throughout the novel, creating on particularly terrifying character both in appearance and mannerism. The town of Blackeberg itself becomes a character, treated as the Transylvania of the Bram Stoker novel.
Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam
Yes, it is true, I am posting another academicish writing. And by "academicish" I mean, pertaining directly to what I study at school. Alright, now ignore this intro and pretend I've been professional the whole time.
In the introduction of her book entitled Female Masculinity, Judith Halberstam includes a section on what she refers to as "the bathroom problem" (20), essentially the problem that people of ambiguous genders face when using public restrooms. Halberstam recounts her own experiences having security called on her while trying to use the women's room, as well as those of Leslie Feinberg in Stone Butch Blues and the character Remedios in Nice Rodriguez's "Every Full Moon." Usually, these people, women in each of these cases, are either confronted by other women in the restrooms or by security guards, forcing them into the uncomfortable situation of having to prove their womanness.
Well, anyway, this reading got me thinking about locker rooms. No, I'm not going to go off on how much the above situations could be worsened in the context of a locker room. I could, because I imagine these scenarios are much less pleasant, if that's at all possible, with nudity involved. I could especially because, while there are "family" bathrooms which can be utilized but the unloveds of society (physically disabled, gender ambiguous, breast-feeding women... it isn't quite so humorous as it was aloud and in my head- you'll have to imagine the tone of sass), there aren't any "family" locker rooms that provide one-person changing facilities. True, there are single-occupancy, draped showers and changing rooms, but one must travel through a locker room, past the naked ladies, to reach them. The "family" changing room, at least at my local YMCA, is multi-family oriented- which means anyone can walk in on you at any point and really offers zero privacy. I'm not entirely sure what the point is exactly anyway.
But, at any rate, I'm not going to go off on that line of thinking except as a result of over-caffeination. I was going to instead go off on an even tangentier tangent to talk about the awkwardness of same-sex sexual attraction in the locker room.
(At this point, and for the sake of avoiding awkwardness, I advice my dearest mother (aka mi mamacita fantástica) to discontinue her perusal of my always riveting text and instead go buy herself a lovely double latte. Cheers.)
Below is an excerpt from my (unpublished- sigh!) book for Nanowrimo last year, entitled Dedication. I shall attempt to actually get the darn thing italicized or indented or something to make it more readable and separate from the rest of the text.
“So, tell me about yourself. Any terrible disappointments? Daddy rape you? Mommy hit you?”
“No, nothing like that.” I blushed lightly, and tried to come up with something slightly unpleasant and far less private than what she was assuredly asking for. Of course there was an obvious thing I might have said.
I’d grown up almost when things had turned bad. I was probably fifteen, radiant perhaps, and young and awakening, when everything turned sour quite suddenly.
I’d begun training at the local gym to try to thin out my wide latina thighs and rear-end a little bit, hoping to look at least something like the girls my age that somehow made it onto television and into magazines. Every morning I went running until I thought for sure my muscles would burst out of my legs and abandon their sadistic mistress, and later made sure to take a shower before school.
Of course, showers tend to be where these sorts of things happen, these sudden inspirations. One of the other women cleaning herself must have been a trainer herself or something, or at least someone who exercised a rather lot, and had toned her body like a perfect sculpture. Her skin was as dark as a baby grand and shined beautifully beneath the shower water, which must have been cold too chill her work out heat away, for her nipples were wonderfully erect, like a pair of Hershey’s kisses. Her eyes were closed in ecstasy as the water washed over her, pouring from her hair and catching at her crotch before dripping into the drain. Her legs were parted ever so slightly, probably for balance in the slippery shower room, and she leaned back against the wall for support. Her face wore an enormous smile, and she sighed contentedly from time to time.
I just stood and stared, and I knew. I could feel myself suddenly come to womanhood in that moment, and I didn’t even try to fight the way I felt, however wrong it might be with my parents or God or whomever (5).
The trouble is, apart from a few cheap thrills, which, honestly, if you don't know, feel really cheap, it can be awfully awkward to have to avert your eyes from every nude person you come across. I must continuously avoid catching the merest glimpse of a naked lady, one to whom I am attracted or not, for fear of falling into self-loathing as an after effect.
I promise you, I am no prude. I enjoy pornography and erotica and "adult" materials immensely. Looking at a beautiful naked woman who has not undressed herself for your pleasure (or money, I suppose) is entirely different, however, for she is simply, in this context, going about her business cleaning herself. She is meant to feel safe in the company of woman, and I feel myself coming to shame at betraying her trust. Then, I feel like a pervert.
Now, this just isn't fair.
I really oughtn't feel like a pervert, right? It isn't my fault that I'm attracted to her and that I haven't been successful in my efforts to prevent her from entering into my view. I feel right awful for feeling perverted, because the further implication is that homosexuality is perverted, which, of course, I do not believe.
I'll look in to see what cleverer folks have written on this subject when I've got the time. In the meanwhile, please comment, because I know a number of you all are reading, and you never ever post. Shame!
Works Cited
Halberstam, Judith. "An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity without Men." Female Masculinity. Durham and London: Duke U P, 1998. 1-43.
Martin, Amanda. Dedication. Unpublished.
P.S. I will take you to court so fast you lose your socks if you try to take a piece of my erotica. Seriously, it took a lot of gumption to get myself to write that piece in the book. I'll be terribly miffed.
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