I'd Rather Be Reading

One of the many benefits of working in a library is the quick access to free (for three weeks, at least) books.  Not only can I easily request a book I see mentioned in a blog post or magazine article, but I can also read this book on work time.  When it's late in the day, the branch is very slow, and all my other tasks are completed, I can actually read books and get paid for it!

But I don't do it often.  Even when we're extremely slow, there is constant interruption.  The phone rings.  Someone is checking out at the desk.  Anything that requires me to look up from my book takes me out of the story; and the current one I'm reading is a good one.  "The Twelve Tribes of Hattie" by Ayana Mathis is one of those books I can tell is great just by the first few pages.  Hattie is just seventeen when we meet her.   From page 5:

A grainy dawn misted up from the bottom of the sky.  Hattie closed her eyes and remembered the sunrises of her childhood--these visions were forever tugging at her; her memories of Georgia grew more urgent and pressing with each day she lived in Philadelphia.

Immediately engrossing with a narrative voice that's almost epic, this is the kind of book I want to disappear with for a day.  When I'm finished, I'll write a longer review.

Resolutions

If 2012 was a time of changes--going full-time at the library, writing a first draft of a novel, becoming engaged--2013 will be a year of finishing what I started.

I intend to improve my skills at the library by either starting an MLS program or completing an internal program within our system.  Either would make me better at my job as well as a more valuable employee.

I intend to finish revisions and query the novel to agents.  I'm excited about the changes I'm making and hope they result in a successful book.   By "successful" I mean read by more than my friends and family.

Finally, and most importantly, I intend to become a good wife.  I want to be unselfish without losing sight of my individual aspirations.

If I was a Poor White Woman

A fifteen-year-old conversation with my grandmother recently nudged itself to the front of my consciousness.  We had been in her car, and the man on the radio was discussing the lack of funding for a midnight basketball program.  

"They need the funding," I said, after we got out of the car. "A lot of teens and young men could use somewhere to go.  Somewhere safe.  This could reduce crime." 

"Isn't that blackmail?" she replied. "If this isn't provided, they're going to commit crimes?"

I'd been sixteen or seventeen and didn't have a nuanced perspective or good response to her rhetorical questions.  All I thought was that it made more sense to have the program than to not have it.  That as a society, we should do what we can to help people succeed.

That memory bubbled up this morning when I was thinking about an argument I had with a friend last night about a woman from Idaho who'd illegally taken an abortion drug and was arrested and prosecuted.  As described in the latest issue of The New Republic, Jennie Linn McCormack was fourteen when she had her first baby in 1993 ("The Rise of DIY Abortions").  She and her mom had gone to an adoption agency, but McCormack decided she wanted to keep the baby.  She got pregnant again to a different man whom she had married at the age of eighteen; the two divorced a few years later.  In 2009, she had a son by a man who was "not a long-term relationship," and three months after that baby was born, she got pregnant again by a different man.

As a single mother of three--including a seventeen-year-old boy with college aspirations--and only a couple hundred dollars of income each month from child support, McCormack sought an abortion.  The would-be father took her to the nearest clinic, over 140 miles away in Salt Lake City, Utah, and paid for the abortion.  When she discovered she was pregnant by him again, he was in jail.  She couldn't afford the abortion nor the 72 hour waiting period that was mandatory in Utah.  

McCormack's sister researched and ordered abortion pills online; they were much cheaper and easier to get than anything legal in Idaho.  By the time McCormack took the pills (it took about two months to get them), she had thought she was about  fourteen weeks along.  But the fetus that came out "was much bigger than she had expected.  It was about a foot long, clearly female, with identifiable features and hair." Not knowing what else to do, McCormack put it in a bag and then a box under her bed.  When the smell got to be too bad, she moved the remains to her back porch.  McCormack told a friend, who told his sister, who called the police.

McCormack was charged "under 1973's Idaho Code 18-606, which makes it a felony for a woman to have an abortion in a manner not sanctioned by the state and carries a possible prison sentence of up to five years."

McCormack obtained a lawyer, and in September 2012 was vindicated, as a ninth circuit judge ruled that "the difficulty poor women experience in obtaining an abortion in Idaho....essentially outlawed the procedure for them."  In other words, "since it was so hard for McCormack to obtain a legal abortion, it was unjust to charge her for having an illegal one."


The rest of the article describes the widespread availability of these powerful and potentially dangerous abortion drugs on the internet, a consequence of restricting access to safe and affordable abortions.  Pro choice groups had largely stayed away from McCormack's case, because she is not a sympathetic figure.  She appears careless and irresponsible, not the kind of woman you want as the face of a movement.  

Which brings me back to the argument I had with my friend.  I read this article and was horrified by what this woman went through.  Pregnant as a young teen by a boy who said she couldn't get pregnant her first time.  Pregnant again and again by men who disappeared from her life.  What must this woman have gone through, I thought, and what can we do, as a society, to help?

My friend agrees that abortion should be safe and accessible and that we need to increase educational resources.  He also argues that again and again, McCormack refused to take responsibility for herself.  As someone with limited resources, McCormack should have been extra careful.  It's hard for me to disagree with this.  But it also calls to mind something Forbes contributor Gene Marks wrote last December:

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn't care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you're severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.

Marks is a middle-aged white guy who grew up firmly in the middle class, and his arguments do have some logic.  One of my favorite writer/bloggers, Ta-Nahesi Coates, responds by talking about his days as a student taking courses on slavery at Howard University:

Whenever we discussed the back-breaking conditions, the labor, the sale of family members, etc., there was always someone who asserted, roughly, "I couldn't been no slave. They'd a had to kill me!" I occasionally see a similar response here where someone will assert, with less ego, "Why didn't the slaves rebel?" More commonly you get people presiding from on high insisting that if they had lived in the antebellum South, they would have freed all of their slaves.

What all these responses have in common is a benevolent, and surely unintentional, self-aggrandizement. These are not bad people (much as I am sure Mr. Marks isn't a bad person), but they are people speaking from a gut feeling, a kind of revulsion at a situation that offends our modern morals. In the case of the observer of slavery, it is the chaining and marketing of human flesh. In the case of Mr. Marks, it's the astonishingly high levels of black poverty.

It is comforting to believe that we, through our sheer will, could transcend these bindings -- to believe that if we were slaves, our indomitable courage would have made us Frederick Douglass, or if we were slave masters, our keen morality would have made us Bobby Carter. We flatter ourselves, not out of malice, but out of instinct. 

Still, we are, in the main, ordinary people living in plush times. We are smart enough to get by, responsible enough to raise a couple of kids, thrifty to sock away for a vacation, and industrious enough to keep the lights on. We like our cars. We love a good cheeseburger. We'd die without air-conditioning. In the great mass of humanity that's ever lived, we are distinguished only by our creature comforts, and we are, on the whole, mediocre.  

That mediocrity is oft-exemplified by the claim that though we are unremarkable in this easy world, something about enslavement, degradation and poverty would make us exemplary. We can barely throw a left hook--but surely we would have beaten Mike Tyson.

[...] 

It would not be enough to consider slavery, for instance, when claiming "If I was a slave I'd rebel." One would have to consider, for instance, family left behind to bear the wrath of those one would seek to rebel against. In other words, one would have to assume that for the vast majority of slaves rebellion made no sense. And then instead of declaration ("I would do..."), one would be forced into a question ("Why wouldn't I?"). 

This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this--You are not extraordinary. It's all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't have and then ask, "Why?" 

I'd add poor white women, as Jennie Linn McCormack is, to Coates' list.  It's easy for me to think, were I in McCormack's position, I would have made different choices.  I wouldn't have gotten pregnant at 14 and 19, and I wouldn't have gotten pregnant three more times by two different men.  But it's harder and more interesting for me to imagine the alternative.  What circumstances might have existed that would lead me down that path?  

Four Christmases

I've always thought of myself as having a small but mighty family.  There's me, two brothers, a dad, a mom and her husband, and two living grandparents.  My dad doesn't have any siblings while my mom had two (her older sister passed away earlier this year, and her brother lives out of state).  Holidays were only complicated in that Christmas Eve was at my mom's while Christmas day was at my grandmother's with my dad.  Otherwise, they were comfortable.  I was surrounded by people I'd known most or all of my life.

This past Christmas was my last as an unmarried woman, but I've already reaped the benefits of my growing family.  I had not one, not two, not three but four Christmas celebrations in four days, with presents to give and presents to receive at each.  The first, Saturday, we went to Andrew's dad and stepmom's house.  She scheduled it three days before Christmas so everyone (nine of us in all) would be able to visit our other families on Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  I was extremely grateful for that, and also for the thoughtful gift I received: a new coffee machine that makes an excellent brew.

The next day, we had his mom and stepfather over for brunch.  I cooked!  I followed a recipe and didn't burn anything!  We exchanged gifts, including a necklace and ornament for his mom that I picked up at Ten Thousand Villages, a lovely shop that sells fair-trade crafts from around the world.  I received a really cool pair of moonstone earrings as well as tickets to an upcoming musical.  Afterward we watched the Bengals beat the Steelers to clinch a playoff spot, and played Blokus, an awesome game that involves laying colored tiles of varying shapes and sizes onto a board.

On Christmas Eve, we went to my mom's house for dinner.  My 97-year-old grandfather was there, as well as my two brothers and my youngest brother's girlfriend.  We ate dinner, opened way too many presents, and then played Scategories.  Few people can make me laugh like my brothers can (they're the ones too cool to smile in the picture below, ha).

Finally, Christmas Day, we went to my grandma's house.  My dad had just returned from Kenya a couple days earlier, bringing his young Kenyan friend, Benson.  Ben, 31 years old and from the Turkana region of Kenya, is currently working at the American Embassy in Nairobi.  But it is a temporary, low-paying internship.  He hopes to get a better, more permanent job, whether in Kenya, the United States, or even Canada.  He has a master's degree, having written his thesis on the environmental impact of refugee camps.  Turkana is not far from the Kakuma U.N. refugee camp, which draws people from nearby Somalia, Uganda, and parts of Kenya.

In addition to my dad and Ben, my grandma's nephew and his girlfriend came for Christmas.  Dave is from San Francisco, where my grandma grew up, and he relocated to Kentucky a couple years ago for work. He and his girlfriend have been so kind to my grandma, taking her out to dinner or the casino, or just calling with regularity.  With them, me and Andrew, my brothers, my brother's girlfriend, and Nana, we had a full house.  Ben, a tall, intelligent, and soft-spoken young man, told me that it must be nice having such a large family.

So I guess we're no longer small but mighty; rather, we continue to grow.  How lucky can a person get?

(I had just hit the self-timer on the camera and had to run across the room!)

Blokus Photo from NewBeginningGames.com

Discipline!

In June, my *boyfriend and I began a training programs to reach two hundred consecutive sit-ups.  After an initial test (I could do ten; he, twenty-five), we slowly increased the number of sit-ups we attempted according to a very regimented plan.  Week one, day one, I did five sets of 3, 4, 3, 3, and 5 sit-ups, resting for 60 seconds between each set.  Week one, day two, I did 5, 6, 3, 5, and 6.  By the end of the third week, I was doing sets of 17, 20, 14, 14, and 20 push ups.

I'm repeating week 6 (the final week) for the third time.  I'd previously repeated weeks 4 and 5 because I was still struggling quite a bit by the final set, taking frequent rests.  Andrew, on the other hand, has conquered the final test -- two hundred consecutive sit-ups -- many times.  It isn't easy: I sit on his feet, counting, as he pushes through pain and exhaustion to get to 200 before collapsing.

We added another training program in late August, this one to get to one hundred consecutive push ups.  You should have seen me that first day, performing the initial test: I could barely do two push ups.  Week one, day one, I did five sets of 2, 3, 2, 2, and 3 push ups, resting for 60 seconds between each set.  By the end of that first week, 3 push ups weren't a struggle for me.  I'm repeating week 4, now, as its third day requires me to do 16, 18, 13, 13, and 20 push ups, with 120 seconds of rest between sets.  It's hard!  Between sets I curl up in the fetal position on the floor, asking why I put myself through such torture!

But more than reaching a specific goal--200 sit-ups, 100 push ups, 10,000 words, 1 chapter--I'm practicing discipline.  I'm making myself do something I might rather skip or put off to another day.  I'm taking another step or two in that proverbial journey of a thousand miles.  And anyway, my triceps are looking awesome!

* Was boyfriend in June, fiancé in August.

Another Excuse

I've started listing to an audiobook, "The End of Your Life Bookclub," by Will Schwalbe.  It's the author's account of his mother's last two years of life, as she battles pancreatic cancer (caught too late) and the two share and discuss books.  Just as Schwalbe's mom always read the last chapter in a book first, the author starts at the end and then goes back to her diagnosis and the beginning of their bookclub. Reading together helps change them from a sick person and a well person back into a mother and a son.  I've only listened to the first couple chapters, but I already love and am sad for these real people.

I'm a bit tearie, lately, and I mostly blame the season.  I always seem to get a little sad and tearie (you know, not actually crying, but tears hang out in the corners of my eyes) this time of year, even if life is otherwise pretty good.  Sundays I go to my grandma's house, and lately I've been thinking about how lucky I am to have been able to spend this time with her.  Usually it's just me and her--sometimes my brothers are there, sometimes my fiancé comes, sometimes my dad is home--but mostly it's just me and her.  We talk about sports, politics and religion (the latter two subjects, I mostly listen).  In small pieces, she's told me about her childhood and her marriage.  I've come to understand and admire her so much more through these quiet Sunday afternoons where we mostly sit and watch the Reds or Bengals, and she asks me to wait to fold my laundry until after she returns from the bathroom because she likes to see what I've worn throughout the week.  I think about how much this time has meant to me.  And thinking about that makes me cry harder, because I don't know how many more Sundays we'll have together because a) she's ninety, and b) I'm getting married.  It won't make sense for me to go there every week and do laundry as a married woman.  I'll have to find another excuse.

* * *

This evening I had a great meeting with my writing/critique partner.  Not only do I get detailed and helpful feedback on my own work, but tonight I also got to read the start of a new project of hers.  I'm impressed and inspired by her ability to create new stories and characters.  These meetings help me refocus on myself as a writer--most days, lately, I haven't thought of myself as one.  I have to stop waiting for inspiration and just do it.  Push through the tedious hard stuff of fixing my manuscript.

I love my job

A young man came into the library today, soon after we opened, and asked for his card number in order to use one of our computers.  While I was looking up his number, he pumped out a gigantic glob of hand sanitizer (which we keep it on our desk) and smeared it all over his hands.  It was dripping.  He then proceeded to smear the clear goo all over his face as well as the top, sides, and back of his head.

Later, I helped him change his Facebook profile picture.

People are fascinating.