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Girl Reader

From an article in the December 2008 Atlantic Monthly about why teen girls love vampires:

The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life – one that she slips inot during her sulks and silences, during her endless hours alone in her room, or even just when she’s gazing out the classroom window while all of Modern European History, or the niceties of the passé composé, sluice pasat her. This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs – to be undisturbed while she works out the big quetions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others – are met precisely by the act of reading.

I don’t agree with the gendered conclusion she comes to, but I thought it was a nice description of reading, especially of reading novels, especially when you’re a child or young teenager. At least it described me somewhat, right down to the passé composé (which I did manage to pick up, eventually).

I remember reading a theory once that young female readers figure out how to masturbate sooner than their peers, exactly because they’re used to & look forward to time alone.

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Happy Chanukah

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah: peace to all of my Jewish friends who will light that first meaningful candle tonight. Chanukah lasts 8 nights, which means this year it will last past the 12 days of Christmas, up until the 29th. (That’s for those of you who aren’t Jewish/don’t live in New York.)

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Nobody Says It Better

Rachel Maddow on the Rick Warren decision:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Ready for WI

So I’m crazy, apparently, full on. Today it snowed and sleeted and hailed in Brooklyn, but mostly it started as snow, & it was beautiful to wake up with our trees – out the front window & the back – outlined so beautifully with the stuff. I really do love the snow.

I had an appointment to get my haircut, which meant I had to go out in it, too, so I put on my new winter boots (and coat, and hat, and scarf, and gloves) and walked to my appointment about a half a mile (10 blocks) away. The one thing I noticed is that I’m not so gingerly on the icy snow anymore; I walked in it so much last winter, in WI, and I find it funny to see my fellow NYers moving along very, very slowly.

The boots held up well, & Betty says I look like Wheeler, now, so I’m ready to go. I really do love the snow and the cold, love it. It makes me feel alive in a way that’s pretty astounding.

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Party with MHB

Some of the lovely folks at the MHB forums went out tonight for a little holiday gathering – dinner & conversation followed by drinks at a bar on 14th Street – and it was truly lovely.

Thank you all for coming. Because of Betty’s ongoing dental surgeries, and her broken foot, we haven’t been out in a long time, so it felt really great to be out & about, chatting with folks we knew & some we got to meet tonight.

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Tomboys

How exciting is this? A book called Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History.

Random page quotes:

“The link between childhood tomboyism and adult homosexuality might seem to have eradicated this code of conduct from American literature and culture, but the late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s actually witness the release of a considerable number of tomboy-themed novels and films.”

I suppose this is what makes me a freak, but I’m going to devour this one. Yay! Tomboys!

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Holiday Angst

There is something about the Christmas season that makes you think about life in sad ways.

I had a friend visiting not too long ago who had just heard that a friend of hers had decided to have a baby despite the fact that she didn’t have a husband. She kept repeating how sorry she felt for her, not to have had a husband and father, and all I could think was that she did have her child, who was healthy, and she had a good job to be a single parent – she’s a teacher – and that life comes with a lot of goddamn compromises.

I think about my lovely set of friends from high school and so many have had unfortunate surprises in their lives: babies born with serious medical conditions, boyfriends in near-fatal accidents, people who wanted children & didn’t have them (yet), people who didn’t and who did. There are so many ways things can go a little awry, or a lot awry, but I found myself feeling a little angry at the pity my friend was expressing, maybe because I’ve felt that kind of pity directed at me, although not from her, because I married someone trans.

So I’ve been thinking this winter about how to make room in my life for other people’s decisions in a way that really is fair to them. I’m tired of feeling like everyone’s a control freak, as if we all know better than others about what they need or should have. I’m not sure what the answer is but as we all get ready to see old friends and family I thought it might be something to think about.

Life is not easy, but it’s definitely that much harder when you can feel someone’s judgement on the back of your head.