Tomboy Take

In Margaret Atwood’s book about writing, Negotiating with the Dead, she writes:

I was now faced with real life, in the form of other little girls – their prudery and snobbery, their Byzantine social life based on whispering and vicious gossip, and an inability to pick up earthworms witout wriggling all over and making mewing noises like a kitten. I was more familiar with the forthright mindset of boys: the rope burn on the wrist and the dead-finger trick were familiar to me – but little girls were almost an alien speciaes. I was very curious about them, and remain so.

It’s always nice to read reports on growing up a girl from other tomboys, although I’m not sure she’d call herself that. She was a girl with an older brother who had parents who followed insect migrations.

She also, by the way, does not drive, so I consider myself in excellent company.