A letter to dyslexic children from Vice President Nelson Rockefeller

Shortly after I was diacnosed with dyslexia, my mother sat me down and read me a letter from former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to dyslexic children. I remember feeling very empowered after hearing the letter. In the middle of a very stressful and confusing time in my life, I caught a glimps of hope that maybe life didn’t have to end after getting labled dyslexic.

I’m now in the middle of writing a young adult novel staring a dyslexic teenager. In the novel, she is read an excerpt of this same letter that inspired me so much as a child. It actually took me quite a while to track down the passage. So I decided to post the full text here. I’m trusting Rockefeller will approve of me continuing to spread his message.

So without further ado: A letter to dyslexic children from Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

For I was one of the “puzzle children” myself—a dyslexic, or “reverse reader”—and I still have a hard time reading today.

But after coping with this problem for more than 60 years, I have a message of encouragement for children with learning disabilities—and their parents.

Based on my own experience, my message to dyslexic children is this:Don’t accept anyone’s verdict that you are lazy, stupid, or retarded. You may very well be smarter that most other children your age.

Just remember Woodrow Wilson, Albert Einstein, and Leonardo da Vinci also had tough problems with their reading.

You can learn to cope with your problem and turn your so called disability into a positive advantage.

Dyslexia forced me to develop powers of concentration that have been invaluable throughout my career in business, philanthropy, and public life.

And I’ve done an enormous amount of reading and public speaking, especially in political campaigns for Governor of New York and President of the United States.

No one had ever heard of dyslexia when I discovered as a boy, along about the third grade, that reading was such a difficult chore that I was in the bottom one-third of my class.

None of the educational, medical and psychological help available today for dyslexics was available in those days.

We had no special teachers or tutors, no special classes or courses, no special methods of teaching—because nobody understood our problem.

Along with an estimated three million other children, I just struggled to understand words that seemed to garble before my eyes, numbers that came our backwards, sentences that were hard to grasp.

And so I accepted the verdict of the IQ tests that I wasn’t as bright as most of the rest of my class at the Lincoln School in New York City.

Fortunately for me, the school (though it never taught me to spell) was an experimental, progressive institution with the flexibility to let you develop your own interests and follow them.More to the point, I had a wise and understanding counselor in Dr. Otis W. Caldwell, the headmaster.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “just because you’re in the lower third of the class. You’ve got the intelligence. If you just work harder and concentrate more, you can make it.”So I learned, through self-discipline, to concentrate, which in my opinion is essential for a dyslexic.

While I could speak better French than the teacher, because I’d learned it as a child, I couldn’t conjugate the verbs; I did flunk Spanish—but now can speak it fluently because I learned it by ear, later, at the Berlitz School.

My best subject was mathematics: I understood concepts well beyond my grade level. But it took only one reversed number in a column of figures to cause havoc.

When I came close to flunking out in the ninth grade—because I didn’t work very hard that year—I decided that I had better follow Dr. Caldwell’s advice if I wanted to go to college.I even told my high school girl friend that we would have to stop dating so I could spend the time studying in order to get into Dartmouth.And I made it by the skin of my teeth.

I made it simply by working harder and longer that the rest—eventually learning to concentrate sufficiently to compensate for my dyslexia in reading.

I adopted a regimen of getting up at 5 a.m. to study, and studying without fail. And thanks to my concentration and the very competitive nature I was born with, I found my academic performance gradually improving.

In my freshman year at Dartmouth, I was even admitted to a third-year physics course. And in the middle of my sophomore year, I received two A’s and three B’s for the first semester. My father’s letters were filled with joy and astonishment.

I owe a great debt to my professors and to President Ernest M. Hopkins. I had met Dr. Hopkins earlier and was so impresses that I made Dartmouth my goal. Most of all, however, I think I owe my academic improvement to my roommate, Johnny French.

Johnny and I were exact opposites. He was reticent, and had the highest IQ in the class. To me, he was that maddening type who got straight A’s with only occasional reference to books or classes. He was absolutely disgusted by my study habits—anybody who got up at 5 in the morning to hit the books was, well, peculiar.

Inevitably, Johnny made Phi Beta Kappa in our junior year, but my competitive instincts kept me going. We were both elected to senior fellowships and I made Phi Beta Kappa in my senior year.Johnny, of course, had the last word. He announced that he would never ware his PBK key again—that it had lost all meaning.

Looking back over the years, I remember vividly the pain and mortification I felt as a boy of 8, when I was assigned to read a short passage of Scripture at a community vesper service during summer vacation in Main—and did a thoroughly miserable job of it.

I know what a dyslexic child goes through—the frustration of not being able to do what other children co easily, the humiliation of being thought not too bright when such is not the case at all.
My personal discoveries as to what is required to cope with dyslexia could be summarized in these admonitions to the individual dyslexic:
- Accept the fact that you have a problem—don’t just try to hide it.
- Refuse to feel sorry for yourself.
- Realize that you don’t have an excuse—you have a challenge.
- Face the challenge.
- Work harder and learn mental discipline—the capacity for total concentration—and
- Never Quit.

If it helps a dyslexic to know I went through the same thing…
- But can conduct press conferences today in three languages…
- And can read a speech on television (Though I may have to rehearse it six times…With my script in large type…And my sentences broken into segments like these…And long words broken into syllables)…
- And to win Congressional confirmation as Vice President of the United States…

Then I hope the telling of my story as a dyslexic child could be an inspiration to the “puzzle children”—for that’s what I really care about.

What I'm Writing

I’ve been meeting several other aspiring writers lately, usually though my other correctly spelled blog where nobody knows I’m lysdexic. I’ve been talking to one of my new writing buddies quite a bit about my current project (The latest attempt at a YA novel with a dyslexic main character). In a recent email, she said, “You seem really knowledgeable about the issue, and very sensitive about it. Are you a special ed teacher yourself?”

Instead of emailing her back with a simple NO, I’ve decided to post my full response here.


I'm not a special ed teacher, I'm dyslexic. I had a lot of suport as a kid, several hundred hours of tutoring and an endless stream of audio books, but I didn't really get to the point where I could read actual books until I was in my 20's. I still listen to ten audio books for every one book I read. I think my inability to read as a kid drove me to invent stories of my own. Even though there were years when I never really expected to ever learn how to read, I've always wanted to be a writer.

Learning disabilities never really go away. That's the main thing I want to convey in this book. Stories about dyslexia all go the same way: kid can't read, kid is diagnosed with dyslexia, everyone lives happily ever after, the end. But that's not true. I've known for a long time that I needed to write an honest story about dyslexia, but it's a hard story to tell. This book is actually my third serious attempt.

A couple years ago, I gave up and started writing other contemperary YA stories about literate characters. I learned a lot about writing and story structure in the process. Some of the stuff I wrote was crap, but the story I'd been working on up until a month ago had a lot of promise.

Then three weeks ago, it just hit me. I figured out how to tell this story in a way that will work. So I tabled my old project and have been writing like a mad woman ever since. This project is far less autobiagraphical than my earlier attempts, which works better for the overall story arch, but also makes me kind of nervious. I want to be honest and accurate, even though I'm totally making stuff up.

Dyslexia is genetic, so I have a ton of dyslexic relatives. They were pretty much my only beta readers on my earlier attempts, which is good and bad. I definately want other dyslexics to look at it and say, "yes, that's accurate." But the functionally illiterate aren't generally the best judges of effective story structure. I'm sure I'll attempt to con one or two of my relatives into looking this book over, but I'm not writing it for them. I want people that don't know anything about dyslexia to read this story and relate to the characters. Thus, I need you.

Aren't you excited. You now have a critique partner who can't spell.

Joke of the Day

Dyslexics of the world UNTIE.

Free Book Giveaway

Now that I’ve decided to start blogging here again, I have to figure out how to manage two blogs at once. Instead of posting something on both blogs everyday, I’m going to aim to have two or three blog posts per week on each site. I will try to taylor the posts so this blog focusses primarily on issues related to dyslexia, reading, spelling, and to some extent writing.

My other blog (My Life In Fiction) will focus more on book reviews and witing. When there are big happenings in the works, I’ll try to post them in both places. One “big happening” I want the readers of this blog to know about is a contest I’m having on my other blog. If you want to join, head on over and you might just win a free book.

I’m Writing Again

I never really stopped writing. I just stopped writing here.

Since it’s been a while since I’ve blogged here, let me re-introduce myself. I’m a dyslexic engineer who dreams about being ya author. I started this blog when I was working on a book about dyslexia—trying to build a platform and all that good stuff.

The thing is, dyslexia is complicated. I’m dyslexic. All my family is dyslexic. I know a lot about it. But I’m not always sure how to write about it. After a few failed attempts, I started writing about non-dyslexic characters. Then I got to the point where I was ready to start querying my books about non-dyslexic characters.

That’s when it hit me. Sreaming “I CAN’T SPELL” all over the internet might not be the best move for an aspiring writer. If an agent or editor googled me, did I really want THIS blog to be the first thing they saw? I didn’t take this blog down or anything. I mean people love dyslexia jokes, even without posting in almost a year, I’m still getting as many as fifty hits a day. I just started another blog where I actually run spell check and pretend like I’ve “read” all the audio books I listen too.

But I started writing again—a new project, about a dyslexic fifteen year old. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and I’m not just being egotistical. This story is good. I needed to write other stuff and listen to a couple hundred more audio books to figure out what I was doing. But this is MY STORY. It’s the story that I was born to tell. And I’ve finally found the words to tell it.

So having a “platform” might not be such a bad thing now. Having a popular “dyslexia blog” is probably really good, if I’m going to be querying a “dyslexia book” soon. Not to soon though. There is a lot of revising and editing in my future. But there will also be a lot of thinking about dyslexia in my future. So I might as well write about it here.

Joke of the Day

What do you get when you cross a dyslexic, an insominac, and an ignostic?

Someone who stays up all night wondering if there's a DOG.

ADD And Loving It

Last night, I watched a documentery on PBS called “ADD and Loving It”. It was about the symptoms and treatments for Adult ADD. The largest myth the program tried to debunk was the idea that all people have a little ADD and that ADD isn’t really a condition at all. While I know these are “myths”, deep down I still kind of believe them. Not because I don’t think people have ADD, but because I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to not have ADD.

I am sevierly dyslexic. I was diacnosed when I was very young and have had the benifits of extensive treatment/support my entire life. I have managed to lead a successful life dispite my dyslexia. But I still know that dyslexia isn’t a “good” thing. I can imagine a world where letters have meaning, and I’m more than a little envious of it. There have been many times in my life that I’ve wished I didn’t have dyslexia. But I’ve never wished I didn’t have ADD.

I don’t think of ADD as a condition, but a personality type. Pretty much all my relatives have ADD, as do many of my friends. So I think of it as normal. But more than that, I think of it as solely a positive. Dyslexia has its downsides. In general knowing how to read is always better than not knowing how to read. But what’s wrong with being completely incapable of turning off your brain? What’s wrong with always thinking about at least three things at any given time? What’s wrong with having a tendancy to get so focussed on one topic that you loose track of everything else? And come on, a little compulsive figiting never hurt anyone.

Yes, I am a textbook example of ADD. And yes, I’ve known what ADD is and that I obviously have it since I was very young. I just don’t think it’s bad. I’ve never thought it was bad. The list of “succesful people” with ADD is ten-million miles long for a reason. Once properly channelled, the so called symptoms of ADD make success easier—not harder.

I’ve never taken ridalin. When I was a kid, it was obvious ridalin wasn’t going to teach me how to read. So my parents chose to focus all their attention and money on fighting my dyslexia and they just ignored the whole ADD thing. In fact, many of my ADD symptoms were major assets in helping me compensate for my dyslexia. Now that I’m relatively literate and dyslexia is no longer significantly disrupting my life, do I want to start taking ridalin? Of course not! I like my ADD. And I really can’t imagine what it would be like to live without it. Can the brain actually slow down? Why would anyone want that to happen? I just don’t get it.

Joke of the Day

On last nights documentery there were several questions about ADD that were addressed.
While holding up a sign that read “Does ADD increase the likelihood of Dyslexia?” the host asked “Does ADD increase the likelihood of diareah?”
I’m still laughing about that one.

Spellwright

Last night I went to a book reading/signing with Blake Charlton, author of the fantacy novel “Spellwright”. “Spellwright” is an adult fantacy novel, it’s crazy I know. But adults who love fantacy don’t have to settle for Harry Potter and Bella Swan, there are actually some fantacy books written with adult characters. “Spellwright” is one of them.

I haven’t read this book yet, but based upon what I learned at last nights reading, the character of Nicodemus has dyslexia. Nicodemus is a wizard who lives in a world driven by words. Spells and incantations have controll over every aspect of the universe. If Nicodemus can’t spell these words correctly, he can through the universe into chaos.

This is not the first dyslexic character in a fantacy series. Percy Jackson is also dyslexic. But Percy’s disability has little impact on the story and feels more like a shout out to the learning disabled then a potent comentary on the effect of words and language.

“Spellwright’s” author, Blake Charlton, is also dyslexic. He drew upon both his experiences in special ed growing up and college at Yale to create the character of Nicodemus. In addition to being an author, Charlton is also currently in medical school at Stanford. His understanding of human phisology and cognative developement have effected both his portrayol of Nicodemus, and his creation of the Spellwright world.

I look forward to reading this novel and want to champion the accomplishments of Blake Charlton. A successful and brilliant man, who is proving to the world that he can do many things, even if he can’t correctly spell his spells.

Joke of the Day

What do you get when you cross a dyslexic, an agnostic, and an insomniac?

Someone who stays up all night wondeirng if there is a dog.

A few Mispelled Words

I started a new blog over at http://katherinescott.blogspot.com last week. It’s going strong, so if you haven’t checked it out yet please do so now. And if you aren’t following it yet, but you are following me here, then definately start following me over there.

Content wize my new blog is pretty much exactly the same as this blog. Meaning it is filled with book reviews and random musings and bad jokes and other fun stuff. The only difference is that I’m running spell check on my new blog. My spelling isn’t that bad, so if felt like false advertising to have this entire blog be focussed on bad spelling.

But now that my new blog is up and running I’m getting some comments that people miss the bad spelling. So for all of you longing for errors, here is a list of words that I often have a hard time spelling correctly.

tommorrow

yesturday

committy

perentious

definate

akward

sincerily

stabalize


Ok, I can’t think of any other hard words. See, my spelling is practically perfect so you should just go read my properly spelled new blog.

Joke of the Day

A boy asked his teacher, "How do you spell ichael?"
"Do you mean Michael?" the teacher asked."No, I already have the M down."

I’m Moving

It’s time to admit the truth. This blog is supposed to be about spelling, and it’s just playing not. Only 8 out of 150 posts have had anything to do with spelling. What was I thinking when I tried to start a blog about spelling? I’m not even good at spelling.

I’ve done a little better at blogging about dyslexia. 31 of my 150 posts have been about dyslexia. But 20% isn’t a very strong showing. And coming up with that many dyslexia related posts hasn’t been easy. So I’ve decided it’s time to move. I am starting a new blog, that is officially not about spelling. When I come up with a spelling (or dyslexia) related post, I’ll put it hear. Given my past track record that will happen maybe once every couple of weeks. But all my other non-spelling related posts will be appearing on my new blog http://katherinescott.blogspot.com. Currently this new blog has zero followers. It’s taken me a while to get the 45 followers I have here. So please jump over and start following my new blog. PLEASE!

If you didn’t catch it the first time, that’s http://katherinescott.blogspot.com.

In case you are wondering, I do plan to run spell check on my new blog. So the “where’s waldo” for spelling errors is over. Sorry if you loved reading bad spelling. Don’t feel to bad, even running spell check, I’ll probably still let a hominim or two slip through the cracks. I will be keeping the joke of the day going on my new blog, so if you are a fan of bad jokes, you can still get your daily fix. Since it’s a new blog, I may (will) be repeating some of the jokes that have previously appeared on this blog. Do you realize how hard it is to come up with a new joke everyday?

So please stop reading this blog right now and jump over to http://katherinescott.blogspot.com and start following me there asap.

Joke of the Day

I’m moving to mars, so if you have any boxes…

The Cool Kids

I recently read “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult. It’s a courtroom drama about the aftermath of a school shooting. Naturally popularity and bullying were both major themes in the novel. I also tend to read a lot of YA, and based upon these books it’s easy to assume that every single teen in the world desprately wants to be popular. And if you’re not popular, well then you probably hate yourself enough to contimplate things like mass murder.

But now, thinking back, I can’t even remember who the popular kids at my high school were. And I certainly never wanted to be friends with them. I do remember in junior high one of the super cool boys asking me out in the middle of class. I was an uber dork and it was probably supposed to be some sort of prank. But when I turned him down, I was being honest. I really didn’t want anything to do with that guy. In fact, I spent a lot of my teen years actively trying to be unpopular.

I was a “smart kid”. I took all honors and AP classes and participated in enough extra caricular activities to ensure a properly well rounded college application. All of my friends were equally achedmically motivated, many of them going on to Ivy League schools. My cluster of friends didn’t include many cheerleaders or football players, but I did sit at the same lunch table as the student body president and the yearbook editor.

I had a fairly large group of friends, but I didn’t really like all that many of them. The constant pressure to succeed combined with standard teen angst made most of my friends extreamly shallow and superficial. They all seemed so fake, it drove me crazy. Now looking back, I guess it’s possible that I may have really enjoyed getting to know some of the other kids at my high school. But at the time, I assumed everyone else was worse. My friends were the “smart kids” the “nerds”. Surely the jocks and cheerleaders would be infinitely more caddy, right?

Now that I’m an adult, I like my friends. I’ve always been a social person, and have a lot of friends that I hang out with on a regular basis. They were all dorks in high school who grew up to be well educated successful adults. But they aren’t shallow and superficial anymore, they’re just people with interesting thoughts whom I enjoy talking to. I recently took an informal pole of my adult friends. Very few of them have anything more than a vague memory of who the “cool kids” were at their high schools. Most of them assume they were teased or bullied a little, but nobody had any memories scaring enough to stick.

So maybe the old addage is true. The nerds do grow up to be happy adults, and the popular kids grow up to long for their high school days of success. So where does that put YA literature? Peer pressure, angsiety about fitting in, and bullying are all real issues that teens deal with. So completely removing them from fictional media would be disingenuous. But not every teen wants to be popular, I never did. And none of my current friends ever did either.

So what about you? Can you remember who the cool kids were at your high school? If one of them talked to you in the halls, would it have made your day? Or would you have hidden in fear? Or would you have simply not cared?

Joke of the Day

A dyslexic kid asked his mom if he could go to McDonalds for dinner. His mom said, “Sure, but you have to spell in before we go.”

The kid thought about it for a minute before replying, “I changed my mind. Can we go to KFC instead.”

Modern Tragity

If you read my query letter that I posted yesturday, you know that I recently wrote a "very loose" adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. When I finished it, I thought about trying to do a series of other Shakespeare adaptations. One of the first plays I looked into was Othello. I quickly decided that Othello was way to depressing, and I just started writing non-Shakespeare inspired stories.

But I went and saw a production of Othello over at Portland's Artist Reportory theater earlier this week, and it made me think again about how this classic tale could resinate in modern society. I like to believe that American's aren't all that racist anymore. I'm sure there are still bigots hiding out, but society at large attempts to be color blind. We have an African American president, so a mixxed race love story wouldn't have to be tragic.

But what if Othello was muslum? In the post-911 American there is a lot of aprehension towards people of middle-eastern discent. And given the recent Arizona law, it seems like even a Hispanic ethicity could inspire tragity. It seems that Shakespeares works really are timeless. In the past 400 years have we made any progress at all? Or will we always be ready to accuse that which we don't understand?

Joke of the Day

Why were the early days of history called the dark ages?

Because there were so many knights.

Query Letter

So I've gotten to the point where I need to send out my next round of query letters. I think that my letter is pretty good. But getting feedback from other writers can't hurt. So here it is. After reading this letter, would you request a manuscrip? If not, what should I do to improve these 264 words of pleading?


Dear Agent,

CAMP LIFE is 58,000 word YA novel. It is a loose adaptation of ROMEO AND JULIET set at a high school summer camp.

Jocelyn Davis is an insecure young woman who is cast as Juliet in the camp play, even though the only part she wants to play is popular. Hunter Richman is a fervently worshiped athlete who spontaneously decides to cast away his jersey for the part of Romeo simply because he thinks the girl playing Juliet is cute. Jocelyn and Hunter developed a close friendship on stage, which complicates their lives off stage.

As Hunter and Jocelyn begin to enter one another’s worlds, Jocelyn befriends the camps mean girls, and Hunter forms an unlikely friendship with Bradley, an openly gay teenager playing the part of Fryer Laurence. When one of Hunter’s old friends starts picking on Bradley, Hunter comes to Bradley’s defense. As a result, Hunter is both physically assaulted and publicly humiliated. In order to extinguish rumors regarding his sexual orientation, Hunter starts dating Jocelyn.

Being Hunter’s girlfriend elevates Jocelyn to the top of the social totem pole. When Jocelyn realizes one of her new friends has a serious eating disorder, she begins to question her values and realizes sometimes it’s important to stop acting. But what tragedy exists in a reality where teenagers admit their real feelings? When the final curtain falls, can Hunter and Jocelyn ever hope for a happily ever after?

CAMP LIFE is my first novel. I hope you will be able to work with me to bring it to publication.

Sincerely,
Katherine Elliott Scott

Joke of the Day

How do you know if there's an elephant in your refrigerator?

There are footprints in the jello.

A Little Oregon History

I’m now in the research faze of book one of a time-traveling MG series I’m planning to write. I’m planning on having the first book by set 800 years back in time among the Ancestrial Puebloans, around the four corners area. Unfortunately, I live in Oregon, not Colorado. And I wont be able to head to the Southwest until June. So in the mean time, I’m entertaining myself by traveling around Oregon.

Last weekend I went camping at Champoeg State Park. While the park does have several miles of bike paths, and a tranquil oak grove next to the river, it’s primary function is historical landmark. In case you didn’t grow up in Oregon, and didn’t learn about Champoeg in 3rd grade, I’ll fill you in on the details.

On May 2nd, 1843, 102 men (approximately 50% of all adult white males living in the Oregon Territory at the time) gathered in Champoeg. At this gathering, the men discussed the need for a more unified government. Many fir traders were settling and taking up farming, and families were beginning to move into the area. Some semblance of law needed to govern these early settlers.

So the men voted. Should they stay under the gerisdiction of the Hudson Bay Company, and the British crown, or should they form a new provincial government and become a territory of the United States of America. The vote was 52 to 50 in favor of joining the US. After the vote, a deligation was sent to bring word of the decision to Washington. Three years later, on June 15, 1846, the US signed the Oregon Treaty with the UK officially making the Oregon Territory a part of the United States.

I’m not currently planning to expand the Champoeg story out into a full volume in my time traveling series. Still I can’t help but revel in the reality that if just two men had voted differently at that gathering 167 years ago, I may now be Canadian. Isn’t history fasinating.

Joke of the Day

What do Alexander the Great and Kermit the Frog have in common?

The same middle name.

The Great Outside

I don’t particularely enjoy doing yard work. But I do love spending time outdoors. There is something about being in nature that revitalizes me the way nothing else can. Maybe a part of my body remembers my hunter/gatherer ruits. Because I always feel the most human when I’m surrounded by wilderness.

Last weekend I went camping. It was a totally last minute plan, and I ended up just heading to a state park 30 miles away from my house. Even if the local wasn’t very exotic, I still slipped into a tranquil state the second I stepped into the woods.

The more time I spend outside, the less I want to live inside. Everytime I go camping, I find myself yerning to stay there forever and simply write off city life completely. The funny thing is that, once upon a time I did live out of a backpack. My first job out of college was “wilderness guild”. There were a lot of things about that job that I loved, and that I’ve missed every day since I quit.

But I did quit that job. Seven months of life in a tent was all I could handle, then I moved back to the city and returned to school to become a civil engineer. I went from living with the trees and animals to designing and building cities. I remember feeling really lonely when I spent all my time hidden in the mountains. And I do have a lot of friends in my city life. I guess I’ll just have to be content with the knowledge that next weekend can bring with it another journey outside.

Joke of the Day

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. After a plesent day of hiking in the woods, they settled down in their sleeping bags. Holmes woke in the night and nudged his friend awake. “Watson, look up and tell me what you see.”

Watson blinked awake. “I see a fantastic panorama of coutless stars.”

“And what does that tell you?” Holmes asked.

Watson pondered for a moment. “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tommorow.”

“That may all be true,” said Holmes. “But it also tells us that someone stole our tent.”

Plugged In or Tuned Out

I’m not a ludite. I have a blog, obviously I use the internet. Still I’m shocked at how plugged in our society has become. I have a cell phone, that can make and recieve calls. That’s pretty much the only thing it can do. Having an iPhone or a blackberry might be nice, but cell coverage that includes internet is really expensive. I can’t bring myself to pay an additional $70 per month just so I can check facebook on my phone.

I do have a facebook account. But since it isn’t on my phone, I only check in once every week or two. I also have three email accounts. I check all of those anywhere from 2-5 times per day. One of them is gmail, so everytime I check that account I also open my g-reader to catch up on all the blogs that I follow. I spend anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes of each day reading emails, blogs, and occationally facebook.

This seems like enough for me. The other 23 hours of each day, I’m just out living my life. Maybe if I lived in a very remote area and depended upon the internet to provide all my human contact, I’d spend more time plugged in. But I’d probably want a real life of my own there too.

Maybe I am behind the times, because I can’t even begin to comprehend why people would want to spend 10 hours per day on twitter. Still I always find it sad when I hear people say they are going to unplug for a day or worse an hour. Seriously people, there is a whole wide amazing world out there. And disconnecting long enough to go see it shouldn’t feel like a chore.

Joke of the Day

You know technology has taken over your life, if you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

An Example of How to Make Bad Art

Last night I saw “Mike’s Incredable Indian Adventure” at Portland Center Stage. I normally don’t like to give bad reviews, but to be completely honest, the play wasn’t great. Even if I didn’t love the production, I did empathise with the story.

Here is the basic premise. A wannabe actor/director/producer grew up with a silver spoon shoved up his ass and never made any meaningful art for himself. He didn’t even manage to make any unmeaningful art. He basically just wasted a lot of time. Then he was invited to direct a Neil Simon musical in India. The producer was sleezy and it was obvious that the show would be horrible. So the guy agreed to direct the play and then hired a friend to film the entire thing, thinking he’d make a documentary fill about putting on a really bad play in India.

The play in India was really bad, but when he got home and watched the footage, he realized that the film footage was even worse. There was no theme to the documentary, no point at all really, just a lot of craptastic footage. So he started interviewing people and trying to learn about the rolls of America and India in the new global economy and frame his story somehow that way. That just gave him lots more footage, but still no real point. Then after 10 years of failing to pull a documentary out of all his footage, he decided to make a play. The play that I watched last night.

It was a play about a film about a play. And it really had absolutely no point. I felt like I wasted an evening watching it. But much more than that, I feel like this guy wasted a decade making it. I may not be a wannabe actor/director/producer, but I am a wannabe writer. I understand the way people can get caught up in an idea and stay caught up in it long after the project has lost its potential. So please, fellow writers and creative types, don’t be like Mike. If you have a craptastic idea, give yourself a couple of months to try and make it into something. But if it continually spirals further and further into pointlessness, learn to say goodbye and get yourself a new idea.

Joke of the Day

How do you shoot a purple elephant?

With a purple elephant gun.

How do you shoot a white elephant?

Hold it's trunk until it turns purple, then shoot it with a purple elephant gun.

Why Censorship is Bad

The debate of what is appropriate in childrens and YA novels started the day the first child picked up a book and it will likely never end. Everyone has their own opinion of what is acceptable for kids and what isn’t. But what happens to the kids that are subjected to censorship? What kind of worrped view of reality to they develope?


This is a true story of a conversataion I once had with a kid I used to babysit. The kid was ten years old, was home schooled, and was not alloud to read Harry Potter for religious reasons. His entire life was censored.

One day I was babysitting said kid and he saw a group of totally harmless perfectly normal teenagers. He then turned to me and said, “Those are really bad kids. I heard them say bad words. It’s a slippery slope and that type of behavior leads to things like watching R rated movies. If my friend was here, I’d get my bb-gun and teach those kids a lesson.”

Yes that’s right. This extreamly sheltered kid thought that watching R rated movies was the worst activity imaginable, but shooting people that’s just good clean fun. Seriously people, just let your kids read Harry Potter. A well rounded view of the world has to be better than staulking kids with bb-guns just cause they were over heard saying sh*#?t.

Joke of the Day

What's black and white with 16 wheels?

A zebra on rollerskates.

Dreaming of Tomorrow

I LOVE planning things that will never happen. Many of the stories that I write have at least one character a lot like me. This is because most stories in my head begin as daydreams about my own future. I did this a lot as a kid. When I was a teenager, I would daydream about my own kids and what they would act like as teenagers.

When I was seriously dating my now husband, but not yet engaged, I planned about a million different weddings. Our actually wedding was awsome, and almost completely organized in my head by the time he bothered to get me a ring. Right now I’m daydreaming about two things. One that will happen, and one that wont.

I’m dreaming about winning the Powerball, cause it’s now over $200,000. I love that it only costs $1 to dream. And in all honesty, dreaming about finding ways to spend $200,000 is probably a lot more fun than actually winning. Sure getting up and going to work everyday isn’t “fun” it’s “work”. But being that rich would probably make a person feel very isolated and alone.

I’m also dreaming about going on vaccation. I’m thinking about all the kick ass vaccations I would take if I did win Powerball. But I’m also thinking about the vaccation I am planning for this summer. I’m going on a three week, six thousand mile, road trip. My husbands college reunion is in NY, and we live in OR. So we decided we are going to drive there. AWESOME. There are so many national parks between OR and NY, which ones should we stop at? Where is the worlds largest ball of twine? Can we visit that too?

Planning this vaccation isn’t a new hobby for me. I’ve planned a lot of vaccations that I’ve never been on. In some ways I think I enjoy planning vaccations even more than being on vaccation. Sometimes I’ll even start reading guild books and plotting non-existant travels in my mind while I’m on vaccation. I’m crazy, I know, but all these plans have made me very good at geography.

Joke of the Day

Two men got out of their cars after they collided at an intersection. One took a flask from his pocket and said to the other, "Here, maybe you'd like a nip to calm your nerves." "Thanks," he said, and took a long pull from the container. "Here, you have one, too," he added, handing back the whiskey. "Well, I'd rather not," said the first. "At least not until after the police have been here."

Listen Up - Part 5

This week is all things audio. I’ve already talked about my early ruse to memorize books in order to trick people into thinking I could read. I’ve talked about my discovery of audiobooks and how they completely redefined my childhood. I’ve talked about how I listened to my text books on fast forward during college. And I’ve talked about my eight year audio book fast after I graduated from college during which time I forced myself to learn to read.

But onto the present. I really hate silence. That’s not true, sometimes when it’s really truly quiet I love it. I love getting lost in my own head and inventing new worlds to entertain myself. I love making up stories and filling the silence in my head with my own words. What I hate is white noise. I’m so used to listening to everything around me, that things like buzzing lights and whirring fans often make me wonder if I might be a little bit autistic on top of being a lot dyslexic.

I have a very very hard time focusing on “life” without something in my ears. So I’m plugged into my iPod about 12 hours a day. I listen on the way to work. I listen while I’m at work. I listen on the way home. I listen while at home. There are about 5000 songs on my iPod, and lot of the time I listen to those. But I also listen to audiobooks.

People have a hard time believing me when I tell them that I comprehend audiobooks while also dealing with every other detail of my life. But I do. I remember listening to books-on-tape before bed as a kid and memorizing the last word I heard before I fell asleep. I would rewind the next day and find the exact word where I fell asleep so I’d know where to restart the tape. I’m just a good listener. So yeah. In the past year, I’ve listened to about 150 books. I don’t think I could recite any of them back to you. I gave up on the whole memorizing books thing shortly after getting diaconosed with dyslexia. But I could definitely tell you all the minor details of the plots.

I concider myself very lucky. I was introduced to audiobooks very young. And I was never alloud to believe that being dyslexic would stop me from achieving all my goals. I have had nothing but achedemic success. As an adult, I have succeeded in my carrer, developing a reputation as having a strong attention to detail and the ability to keep large amounts of data organized in my head.

I’ve never thought of myself as stupid. And I know learning disabilities don’t have anything to do with intelligence. But I really don’t think I’m all that “smart” either. I’m just a really good listener. If I’d learned how to read in first grade like a normal person, maybe I’d be better at zoning out and selective listening. But I’ve never been normal, and I probably never will be. In the long run, dyslexia hasn’t been much of a disability at all. Cause I can read now. Even my spelling is improving. And you probably can’t listen nearly as well as I can.

Joke of the Day

What's another word for syninim?

Listen Up - Part 4

This week is all things audio. I’ve already talked about my early ruse to memorize books in order to trick people into thinking I could read. I’ve talked about my discovery of audiobooks and how they completely redefined my childhood. And I’ve talked about how I listened to my text books on fast forward during college. So what happened when I graduated from college? Shockingly, I quit RFB&D. I decided to stop listening.

I went totally cold turkey. No audio books period. I didn’t have proffessors expecting me to read 100 pages by tommorrow. If I wanted to read a book for fun, I could suck it up and read it. I’m glad that I forced myself to do this. By the time I graduated from college I’d listened to thousands of audio books and had a very deep seeded love of literature. So I finally bit the bullet and truly forced myself to learn how to read.

But what were my ears supposed to do while I was reading. I’d been plugged into audio books for my entire life. I’d trained myself to not simple hear, but actually memorize texts rattled off on fast forward. I couldn’t just turn my ears off. They were to keyed into everything around me.

The first thing I did was find NPR. I needed to hear words, to dedicate a section of my brain to memorizing facts at the same time as I was busy doing differential equations. Oh yeah, did I mension that one year after I graduate from college I went back to college. My first degree was in anthropology. My second was in civil engineering. I didn’t have RFB&D to help me out in engineering school, so I didn’t bother reading any of those text books. I just listened in class and flipped through my text books for example problems while doing my homework.

On top of considering all things, I also started listening to a lot more music. There are currently 5000 songs on my iPod. It’s not like I hated music before that. I had a couple hundred CD’s back before MP3s became the rage. But once the audio books went dead, I found the silence overwellming. So I filled it with any sound I could find.

Eventually I gave up. Just over a year ago I put an end to my audio books ban. I haven’t re-upped my RFB&D membership. Instead I’ve found Library’s 2 Go. Library audiobooks downloaded directly to my iPod. Can someone say awesome. Yeah, there is a reason I’ve listened to about 150 books in the past year. But I’ll talk more about that tommorow.

Joke of the Day

What does Santa call his wife on his tax return?

A Dependent Clause.

Listen Up - Part 3

This week I’m talking about all things audio. I’ve already talked about my early ruse to memorize books in order to trick people into thinking I could read. And I’ve talked about my discovery of audiobooks and how they completely redefined my childhood. But the audio world didn’t really open up for me until I found RFB&D (Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic). I’m not sure exactly when the decition was made to lump dyslexic people in with blind people in the world of audio books for the disabled, but I love whoever made that decree.

The thing that separates RFB&D from other audio book distributors is textbooks. As a member of RFB&D, I was able to get any book with and ISBN # on tape, including text books. So I guess I should go back and talk about text books before I found RFB&D.

When I was a kid, my mom’s reading rule was pretty simple. She would read absolutely anything alloud to my brother or I that we asked. This consisted of all our textbooks (elementary school, junior high, and high school). Since she wasn’t in class with us, she would fain confusion at all the complicated parts and ask us to explain the text to her. Somehow she managed to always ask about the topics that later showed up on tests and quizzes. Did I mension my mom was a teacher?

But there was one catch. My mom cut us off at the end of junior year. She wouldn’t be going with us to college, so for senior year we had to be on our own. Somehow, my brother survived this edict. He read all his text books during his senior year, then he managed to read all his text books in college while double majoring in philosophy and poli-sci. He didn’t break down and join RFB&D until the reading in law school became to much for him to handle.

Not me. I joined RFB&D during my sophomore year of high school (when my brother was a senior). Just watching him try to read his own history book gave me heart palpitations. I definately needed an audio alternative. And it was revolutionary. The audio textbooks didn’t talk back like my mom. And the special RFB&D tape recorder had variying speeds so I could listen to my AP Physicis book at Alvin & the Chipmonks speed. And I could do fun things like play video games at the same time.

Obviously, by the time I made it to college, I could perfectly comprehend text books on fast forward while simoltaniously beating Super Mario Brothers. I may have been a good listener back in elementary school. But high speed text books elevated my listening skills to a whole new level. I’m sure I learned things in my actual classes, but I think above everything else, the sharpest skill I came away with was my ability to listen. Memorizing lectures without taking notes was a piece of cake after all those Nintendo enhanced homework sessions.

When I graduated and stepped out into the literate adult world, my piss pour reading skills were such an afterthought they didn’t even matter. I could listen better than anybody! But I’ll wait until tomorrow to tell you about that.

Joke of the Day

How many letters are there in the alphabet?

24, because E.T. went home.