Food for Thought

I tend to spend somewhere between 40-60 hours a week listening to audio books (or occationally reading). This means that a lot of the things I think about are inspired by the things that I read or listen to. A lot of my past blog posts have been poorly descized book reviews that have really just been my opinions on what I ever I most recently read/heard. I’ve decided that I enjoy this format and am going to keep it up.

So let’s talk about “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. In other words, let’s talk about food, where it comes from and why we eat it. In “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”, Barbara Kingsolver encourages readers to figure out where their food comes from and to eat more locally grown food. The story actually begins with her moving from Arizona (the land of giant cities and zero food production) to a small farm in Verginia.

I live in Oregon, a traditionally agricultural state. Portland is a very rainy city. That doesn’t mean that we get a huge annual rainfall, because down pours are very rare. Instead it starts drizzling every October and doesn’t stop until June. It is always gray, and the sky is constantly spitting on people. It is basically spring 9 months of the year, so things grow really well and everything is green all the time. The people are green too, meaning everyone recycles, more people bike communte than in any other US city, and the local food movement isn’t a new conversation topic.

I like vegetables and I’m not affraid to eat organic. My favorite resteraunt is Seasons and Regions (which serves only seasonal regionally grown food, and it’s always delicious). I also subscribe to Organics to You, a local home delivery organic food service. But this stems mainly from my wanting to eat a variety of produce and often being to lazy to go to the grocery store.

But the biggest step in the local food movement is the grow it yourself step, and honestly that is the part that just makes me roll my eyes. You see, my husband is a little bit OCD when it comes to food production. He loves to generate eatables on a massive scale, and spending a Saturday baking 30 pies to then stick in the freezer is just good clean fun as far as he is concerned.

So this is what I am currently living with: Two barrels of wheat that my husband threshed at an antique farming exobition last summer – we still have get it milled before we can bake our own bread with our own wheat. A freezer full of fish, mainly salmon, halibut, stergion, rock fish, crab, and clams – catching your own food may sound very economical but I know how much he spends on gas for the boat and promise you that it is a lot cheaper to buy fish at the grocery store. 75 bottle of wine needing to be bottled and another 75 bottles just starting to ferment – that’s right grapes are one of the primary crops grown in the willamette valley, we have a grape vine in our yard, and have been making 75 bottles of wine a year for the past five years, even though we drink at most 20 bottles of wine a year, and the stuff doesn’t taste very good so we never give it away to friends. About 100 tomatos rotting in my yard – we have a garden every year but the only things that we can get to grow are tomatos and green beans so we end up with way to much of both of those and nothing else. We did freeze about 20 pounds of green beens this year but the uneaten tomatos were just left to rot.

So we might not be as self sustaining as the Kingsolver family, but we aren’t bad. It is common for us to eat a meal in the summer where none of the food every touched a grocery store shelf – fish we caught and produce we grew. Who cares if we have three freezers all full and a wine rack with about 400 bottles of homemade wine on it none of which will ever be drunk. If the appocolips comes, at least we wont starve.

I enjoyed reading “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral” and would recomend it to anyone interested in where their food comes from. But I still feel a little bit fearful of the slow food movement. My brother just told me he plans to make his own butter and bring it to my house for Thanksgiving, and did I mension that I am currently living with two barrels full of wheat.

Joke of the Day

Found on the seal of a bag of bagles:

NEW

IMPROVED
Made the old fashioned way

Boy Books / Girl Books

There are pleanty of girls in this world that read "Harry Potter" but not all that many boys who would admit that they read "Gossip Girl". The break down of girl books and boy books is something that parents and teachers like to deny, but it still exists. I read a lot of girl books. Most of the YA that I read is clearly geared towards teenage girls, and most of the adult books that I read would be classified as womans fiction or chick lit. This of course makes me wonder, what are all the boys reading? Steven King? Science Fiction? Comics?

I recently picked up the book "Ordinary Ghosts" by Eireann Corrigan primarily because it was a YA novel with a boy protagonist and I honestly couldn't remember the last time I read a boy book. In many ways it was very similar to the YA novels written for girls that I read. It's about a 16 year old boy whose mom just died and his brother ran away from home - a typically happy teen adventure. But here is the huge difference. In girl books, the girls spend endless hours talking to their friends. Feelings are over shared - how else would the story move forward? But in "Ordinary Ghosts" the troubled teen regularely refers to his best friend as a duche bag and keeps all of his emotions locked tight inside.

Are girls and boys really that different? Or are writers simply enforcing steriotypes? I've always been a tom boy. I don't think there has ever been a time in my life when I had significantly more female friends than male. As a teen I didn't call my male friends duche bags, but maybe they were only willing to stay up half the night talking about their feelings with me cause I was a girl. Oh wait we weren't discussing our feelings, I was beating them at video games. Shoot.

Thinking about gender rolls in childrens literature also makes me think about gender rolls in our society in general. I am a female engineer, which isn't all that common. A few years ago I actually worked at a company where I was the only female engineer in the entire office. There are two big factors that have enabled me to become a female engineer.

First, I'm dyslexic, which means while I am a smart person who is good at math and science - I have always sucked at reading. Many smart girls are encouraged to go to law school where they can read and talk a lot. Or to become doctors where they can heal people. Only the smart girls who don't know how to read are encouraged to go hang out with the geeky boys and take things apart.

Second, I'm a tom boy. I have always had female friends. But I've always had male friends too. In elementry school when I was the only girl invited to a boys birthday party it didn't bother me. I enjoyed climbing trees with the boys as a kid and beating them at video games as a teen. So when I got to college and realized I was the only girl in my mechanics of meterials class, I didn't freak out. I expect a lot of smart girls walk into engineering classes full of geeky boys and then say, hey maybe I should just be a doctor instead.

Now that I have read a boy book that basically encouraged boys to repress all their feelings, I'm wondering what type of reverse descrimination boys are being faced with. Given todays economy, nursing is the most stable job market. There will always be sick people and you can't outsorce medical care. So it makes sence for more boys to go into nursing than manufacturing. But nurses actually talk to their patience, while factory workers get to play with giant mechines and they don't have to talk to anyone. Maybe that is why there are now more wemon working in the US then men.

Joke of the Day

A beautiful blond walks into a casino and bets $20,000 on one roll at the craps table. She then tells the men running the table that she always feels more comfortable betting naked. She strips off all her clothes and rolls the dice. As soon as the dice lands on the table she screams with delight and starts jumping up and down, hugging the men opperating the table. She then picks up her winnings and her clothes and walks away. After she leaves one of the men says to the other, "So what did she roll?"

"I thought you were watching the table," the other man replies.

PG Personality

Since I have taken up the hobby of writing Young Adult novels, I have been reading a lot of YA. From emersing myself in the world of books written for teens, I've noticed a basic theme. Making mistakes is a part of growing up. Breaking away from the ties of parents and teachers and forging out on ones own is an important write of passage that is critical to every coming of age story. But how true is that to real life?

I was what you could call a "good kid". More honestly, I was often teased as a teen for having a PG peronality. One of my friends went so fars as to call me "every parents wet dream". My parents were good about allowing me to grow up. Once I past the "no running in the street" stage they simply "trusted me to make smart and healthy choices for myself." Oddly, I did. I never felt even remotely tempted to do anything reclouse or illigal. I don't want to do drugs or hang out with a bunch of drunk idiots now, and I didn't want to in high school either.

That doesn't mean my life was perfect. I still had to deal with mean girls, boys, and the whole not knowing how to read thing. I just navigated though it all by acting responsible and generally trying to survive high school while placing myself in as little harm as possible. And now, 15 years later, I'm reading books about teenagers who spent months flowndering before minding their footing and finguring out how to grow up. I really like a lot of these books, heck I even write them, but I have to wonder how well I would have related to them back when I was a teen.

I just read, "Someone Like You" by Sarah Dessen. I have recently fallen in love with Sarah Dessen's writing and have been gobbling up all of her novels. While the plot is fairly complex, "Someone Like You" is basically about a 16 year old girl who breaks out of the clutches of her overly clingy parents and makes a few mistakes as she learns to think for and take care of herself. The story has a belivably happy ending, and while the main character flounders a bit, she never does anything so reclouse that she completely destroys her life. I really enjoyed reading "Someone Like You", but when I was a teenager I didn't like the movie.

"How to Deal" staring Mandy Moore is the movie adaptation of "Someone Like You". It came out several years ago. I watched it then and didn't like it all that much. I haven't rewatched it yet, so I don't know how well in mirors the book. But I do remember as a teenager, thinking that the characters in the movie were stupid. I couldn't understand why acting like an idiot was such an important part of growing up. Why couldn't teens simply use their heads and take care of themselves? Why was being recless and stupid such an important part of every teens DNA? Why couldn't the media admit that a lot of teenagers have PG personalities, and they are more than capable of serviving on their own.

There are some really great YA books out there that star "good kids" who deal with realistic teenage delemas without feeling the need to turn to a life of crime. And there are also a lot of reckless teenagers that wouldn't be able to relate to a story staring every parents wet dream. I really enjoy Sarah Dessen's writing and enjoyed reading "Someone Like You" at age 30. But back when I was 15 and my favorite authors were Chiam Potok and Mark Twain, I'm sure I would have been able to relate to any of the characters.

Joke of the Day

An engineer is out walking and he comes across a frog. The forg says, "I'm a beuitiful princess, if you kiss me I'll turn back into a princess and love you unconditionally."

The engineer puts the frog in his pocket and continues on his way. The frog crys from his pocket, "I'm a trapped princess. Give me a kiss and as thanks for freeing me I'll shower you with love and affection."

The engineer takes the frog out of his pocket and looks at it for a minute before putting it back. "Please, I'm a beautiful princess. Why won't you kiss me?"

"Look," said the engineer. "I'm kind of busy right now and I don't have time for a relationship. But a talking frog is kind of cool."

There is nothing wrong with my vission!

Well that isn’t entirely true. I am near sighted, and I’ve caught my eyes on fire twice now. But besides things being blurry when they are far away, I see exactly the same as you. I don’t see things upside down, or backwards, or anything crazy like that. As far as I know, no dyslexics see things upside down or backwards.

I’m not sure who started this nasty – dyslexics see things backwards rumer, but it has blown way out of perportion. I remember in the early 90’s there were people trying to get dyslexics to wear multi-colored glasses in order to fix their non-existant vission problem. Who came up with this crap? And why did people waist their money on it?

Most of the official research on dyslexia in the last decade or two has been grounded on actual facts and not a made up vission problem, but this seeing things backwards rumer doesn’t want to die. Why are people so willing to believe this myths?

The most logical reason for this misconseption is that sometimes dyslexics mess up their letters and accedentally write one backwards. In case you haven’t noticed this, almost all preschool and kindergarten children make the exact same mistakes. Writing letters backwards isn’t the result of a vission problem, it is the result of being an early reader that doesn’t fully know the alphabet yet. Dyslexics are just more apt to stay at this level for years as oposed to weeks.

The thing that I find the saddest about this massive misconseption is that it is leading to misdiacnosis. Recently I was talking to a friend and it came up that I am dyslexic. She then went on to say that she thought she was probably dyslexic too. As she elaborated on her achedemic problems and her continued inability to read above a third grade reading level (even though she is now in her late 30’s) it became overwellmingly clear to me that this woman had dyslexia. Then she went on to say, “But I don’t see things backwards or anything, so maybe I’m not dyslexic, I’m just slow.”

Granted this woman was in school at the peak of the seeing things backwards hox, but I sertainly hope that modern children aren’t falling into this same trap. If your kid has normal eyes, but is unable to comprehend the symbolic representation of sound, guess what – they are dyslexic. If they do see things backwards, they have some freeky vision problem and should probably see an optomotrist.

So in conclution, let me say one final time. Dyslexics do not see things backwards. Dyslexia is not a vission problem, it is a comprehension of the symbolic representation of sound problem. Not the same thing.

Joke of the Day

A dyslexic walked into a bra.

Naming

Names are very important, which is whyI blogged last week about my need to name myself. But it's even more important to think about the names we give others. Parents, don't destroy your childrens lives by misspelling their name on the birth cirtificate. And authors, don't piss off your readers by misnaming your characters.

A name says a lot about a person in a single word. The girls names of Ethal, Shaniqua, Jennifer, Lakshmi, and Maria probably conjur very different images in your mind. Names can add diversity to a story or help enforce a time and place.

The worst thing a writer can do is give all their characters the same name. I haven't seen this in any recent novels, but it's very common in the classics. A grandfather, father, and son all named John. This may have been a common occurance back in the day, but it seriously adds to the confusion factor when a reader constinantly has to stop and ask, okay which John is this again?

While coming up with different names for all your characters is uber important, lately a lot of authors have been taking this to the weird zone. We live in crazy times, and just like parents are giving their kids names like Tuesday and Moonshine, authors are expressing thier creativity on the titles they give their characters. I recently read a book with a protagonist named Ever. I was constantly having to stop and figure out context. Every time the word Ever appeared in the text, I had to figure out if it represented a name or an adverb.

It can be confusing to give characters to similar of names (Taylor and Tyler or David and Davis) but it's also a bad idea to give a character a name similar to a common word. I just read a book with a character named Sumner. In and of itself that is not a bad name, except that he was regularly referend to in sentance that read "the summer I spent with Sumner." The word summer was used so often in the story that I found myself stopping to clarify almost as much as I did while reading about Ever.

I've also noticed a trend of authors using the same obsure names. In the last two months, I've read three books with a teenage character named Haven. Granted in the year 2008 there were 481 girls in the United states named Haven, making it the 631st most common girls name, just beating out Irene and Maeve. So while this name is uncommon, it does exist. But in the early ninties when all these teenage characters named Haven were soposidly being born, the name was nowhere near the top 1000 names. But 193 girls were named Isamar in 1992, so why aren't I reading about any of them?

Joke of the Day

Some other names to aviod giving your children or characters:

Anita Bath

Ben Dover

Cody Pendant

Denny Juan Heredatt

Frank N. Stein

Huang Annsaw

Ima Hogg

Jaqueline Hyde

Joe King

Patty O'Furniture

Pete Zaria

Phil Landers

Rita Book

Stu Pitt

Tyrone Shoes

Warren Peace

What to Read

There are a lot of reasons why I love Portland, and one of them is Wordstock. This past weekend the Oregon Convension Center was taken over by a gient book fair, with ten stages and more than 200 authors giving readings. I wasn't able to make it on Saturday, but I did listen to 10 authors speak on Sunday. Simply being at an event that was so boustarously celebrating books was invigorating.

Oddly the event left me thinking about what I read, and how it relates to who I listened to speak. More than half of the authors who's talks I attended where people whose books I had already read. Some of them were even people that I personally know. Most of the authors who I haven't read yet, were writing in a genere that I read prolifically - so chances are high that I would make my way to their titles eventually.

But I only bought one book at Wordstock, and it was in a genre I never read. It was a graphic novel. It was also awsome! Masterpiece Comics is a compliation of classic literature parities told in the form of classic comics. Adam and Eve is told in a Blondy Comic Strip, Withering Hights is told as Tales of the Cript, Candeed is Ziggy, ect. The author was very personable, I found his presentation funny, and I enjoyed chatting with him afterward when I had him sign my book.

But if an author whose books I already know and love had been speaking on a different stage at the same time, I probably would have skipped Masterpiece Comics. This has made me wonder what else am I missing. What great gems of literature am I passing buy simply because they are housed on an isle of the bookstore I never walk down.

So I need your help. Please recomend 5 books in 5 different genres, so I can do a better job of rounding out my reading list.

Here are my 5 books for you:

Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak - Graphic Novel

Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison - Memoir

Beneath the Marble Sky by John Shors - Historical Fiction

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time India by Sherman Alexie - Young Adult

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos - Women's Fiction

Joke of the Day

A chicken walks into a library and goes up to the circulation desk. He says, "book, bok, bok, boook." The librarian hands the chicken a book. He tucks it under his wing and runs out. A while later, the chicken runs back in throws the first book into the return bin and again says, "book, bok, bok, book, bok." Again the librarian give the chicken a book, and the chicken runs out. Within a few minutes, the chicken is back and the librarian gives him a third book. But this time as the chicken is running out the door, she follows it. The chicken runs down teh street, through the park and down to the riverbank. There, sitting on a lily pad is a big, green frog. THe chicken holds up the book and shows it to the frog, saying "book, bok, bok, book." THe frong blinks and croaks, "read-it, read-it, read-it."

Servival Skills

A fellow dyslexic blogger over at Teh Dyslexic Storytellers Blog had a post today about the rules of faking it. Basically what a dyslexic child has to do to pass as literate. I am a big fan of coping skills, but have employed different tactics and thus feel the need to add my own list.

1. Listen carefully - If you don't have an autographic memory, practice your listening skills as much as you can and do everything possible to commit everything you hear to memory. Listening is the most powerful tool a non-reader has, never forget that.

2. Memorize lots of books - Once you have mastered your listening skills, start memorizing every book that is ever read aloud to you. Any dyslexic child should be able to resite a minimum of 100 books, turning the pages at the right time. This skill will be invaluable when forced to do book reports or read aloud in class.

3. Find something else you are good at - For me it was math. It is a lot easier to do metal math that mental spelling, so I forced myself to excell in math as a child. If you are performing above grade level in one subject it is easier for people to overlook the fact that you are underpreforming in another subject.

4. Embrace the audio book - I still listen to lots of audio books and don't see any reason why any dyslexic shouldn't be listening to audio books. Public librarys have lots of audio books available. Audio bookworm is a netflix for books on CD type service that is great. And RFB&D (recordings for the blind and dyslexic) is just playing fabuolous. If you don't know how to read, you probably aren't reading this blog, but you should belong to RFB&D - because text books on tape is a gift sent straight from heven.

5. Problem solve - When given a situation that seems impossible, find a new solution. If your keyboarding teacher expects you to type faster than you can read, don't read while you are typing. If you are required to write an inclass essay study spelling words related to the topic instead of the facts associated with it. You are the one who knows what problems you're facing, and you are the one who can find the solution. Never expect it to be the solution that your teacher gives you. Just accept that you know yourself better than anyone else and only you can determine what it will take for you to servive.

6. Stay confodent - Many dyslexic people have gone on to achieve greatness, and there is no reason why you can't be one of them. If your dream in life is to be a secretary - you will never achieve your goals. So just be the boss instead, and hire a secretary to correct your spelling for you. If you can't be average - be exceptional instead.

7. Learn how to read - If you are severly dyslexic, this is quite possibly the hardest thing you will ever do in your life. But do it anyway. Get help for any sorce you can, and find a way to crack the code that is your own mind. If you can do this one impossible thing, then you truly can do anything. Don't let yourself stand between you and the rest of your dreams.

Joke of the Day

Dyslexics of the world UNTIE