Brittle and Easily Broken

After reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, a book about the year she spent trying to be happier, I made myself a list. One of the first things Rubin did was make a list of Twelve Commandments, things she really needed to remember to do in her quest for more happiness. And I figured, I need to be nicer, so why not make a list striving for that?

I made my list, written out in my favorite fountain pen, and filled it with things such as, "be kinder than necessary," "spread joy," and "don't pick fights," all useful things I tend to forget. I left the list just lying on the floor in my bedroom, because: A, there wasn't enough room on my desk, B, I was still adding to it, and C, I wanted it where I could see it. My family members generally don't snoop through my stuff (for which I am grateful) and I didn't think it was anything to hide.

Until. Until one family member not only saw it, but said something about it to me. Said something cutting about it to me. Probably the WORST THING that anyone could have told me about my list of things to do to be a nicer and better person.

"Those rules of yours seem to all come down to 'look out for Number One'."

I was shocked. Why, why would a person say something like that? Admittedly, this family member didn't know that the purpose of this list was self-improvement, but STILL... it wasn't a very nice thing to say. It wasn't constructive, and I don't know whether or not that comment came from a caring place.

It's hard to try and improve yourself, to work on being kinder and nicer and more accepting, when it feels like all anyone ever does is tell you, "That was unkind." "Please try to act your age." "Be nice, okay?" It feels like my struggles are going unnoticed, or worse, that I'm backsliding.

It doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying. But it does mean that I have built a wall around myself to keep from getting hurt. Walls aren't very conducive to open communication and general kindness; however, I don't know how much more of this knocking-down I can take without giving up niceness all together.

Goals Are Good

This year, on this blog, I am going to document every single book I finish in 2013. Since my goal is to read 104 books this year, (that's like 2 a week, which is totally doable,) I'm being super-boring and calling this my 104in2013 project.

So, keep an eye out, because this blog is about to be overrun with books.

The Post In Which I Rant

I'm ashamed to say that I never used to understand why people freaked out so much about the portrayal of disabilities in books.

Now I get it.

I would never want to be blind or deaf. But I doubt most blind or deaf people wanted that either. It's just the way their lives are. Just like I never would have chosen to be unable to read music, I wouldn't want to magically snap my fingers and suddenly be able to read it. That's not consistent with who I am.

I would be SO PISSED if a book insinuated that a person with dyscalculia was useless. I wouldn't like it if part of the happily-ever-after was that the person with dyscalculia got it magicked away. I don't have that luxury, in real life. I have dyscalculia, and that's my reality.

I think part of the problem is that people who are uneducated (as I once was) on the realities of "disabilities" think that Person A is missing something vital from her life because she can't see. Same thing with Person B and hearing. Or me and reading music. And okay, I'm missing something from my life by not being able to read music. (Just like I'm missing something by being too tall for gymnastics or being too wimpy for softball.) But I can't wallow in it.

Music and the playing of musical instruments are really important to some people. Not to me. Same thing for some people and the ability to see and hear and play sports. I would never choose to  give up my sight, or hearing, or ability to read music. I don't have a choice in the matter. though. I can either work my ass off in order to compensate and pass as "normal" or I can ask for help. (Or not do things that require me to see/hear/read/music/throw a ball.)

You might think that my sheet music-less life completely sucks. That might suck for you, but I can't tell myself that it sucks, because it's my life. I didn't choose it, and I have to accomodate my life to the hand I've been dealt.

What society needs to learn to do is accept people's differences in ability and interest, and recognize them all as different-but-still-completely-valid ways to live.

Rant over, and happy 2013.

The Cellist

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved music.

In this girl's school, all 2nd graders learned to play the violin. In 3rd grade, they could choose to continue in Orchestra, either as a violin or as another stringed instrument, or they could quit.

The girl HATED playing the violin. Due to a host of medical problems, it caused her physical pain to stand and hold the instrument under her chin and the bow upright. (It probably didn't help that she was rather tiny for her age and the violin, in comparison, was kind of huge.) However, she loved the sound it made, so in third grade she decided to switch to the cello.

Her primary reason for doing so? She could play it while sitting down.

It was obvious to anyone who saw her lugging the gigantic instrument around that she loved it dearly. The cello was taller than she was, and quite heavy, but she managed it cheerfully. When she sat to play, she was good.

Her schoolteacher noticed her skills, and suggested to the girl's parents that she should get a private teacher and also audition for the local youth symphony. The girl did, and got in. Most of the other kids were older, about sixth grade, but the girl was at about their level.

However, the orchestra was much more rigorous than her music class at school, and soon the girl had so many pieces to memorize that quality suffered on all of them. For you see, the girl rarely practised outside of school and rehearsal. She just didn't, for whatever reason.

Her teachers noticed the downswing in quality. They lamented about her potential greatness, if only she would practice.

By now, the girl was in fifth grade. The stress got to be too much for her, and she quit the Youth Orchestra. For a while after that, it was easier. Still, she didn't practice. Her schoolteacher began giving the class more difficult pieces, and the girl gave up. She quit cello in October of her sixth grade year.

She missed the Christmas concert. She watched her classmates perform, and realized that she would rather be onstage than in the audience. Less than three months later, she was back. She loved the cello, but the class was sometimes a drag. She gave it one last shot. The first month of seventh grade, she couldn't take it anymore. She told her teacher she was done with the cello for good.

She didn't look back. She took an extra art class and helped in the library instead. Everyone was shocked. She was good, why did she quit? The few adults who knew she never practiced wondered why she didn't just practice more.

It wasn't until her sophomore year of high school that the girl told her mother the truth: she couldn't read music.

Sightreading, such an important part of an instrumentalist's life, was impossible for her. She was good at the cello only because she had completely memorized the finger placements and bow movements for every single song she'd ever performed. Music was a foreign language to her, despite the fact that she'd been studying it for years. It was incomprehensible, and she didn't know why.

Her mother was shocked. (Actually, she was a little more impressed by her daughter's memorization capabilities now.) She understood now why so many more pieces in such a short amount of time meant so much more stress for her daughter. However, she still didn't understand how the girl's inabillity to read music related to the fact that she never practiced. The girl couldn't explain it, and it remains a mystery.

No longer a mystery, though, is why the girl couldn't read music. The girl's parents discovered that she had a learning disability called "dyscalculia," which can manifest in an inability to read music and problems properly judging distance, among others.

As you've no doubt figured out by now, that girl is me. We discovered that I had dyscalculia only last week.

I was actually quite surprised to find out that I had this problem. I thought that my inability to read music was just a personal failure, maybe just laziness. I'm glad that it isn't my fault, but I'm also sad because I will never be able to understand it, no matter how hard I try.

It's like being told to translate a paragraph, sentence by sentence, into English. I look at the first sentence. It's German. I start translating the first few words, and look back at the paragraph to double-check. The sentence is now in Arabic. It is endlessly frustrating.

I've figured out workarounds for some of the problems dyscalculia has caused me, but some I just have to accept.

This post has gotten super-long, so the second half of this will have to wait for another time. (I'll be talking about "disabilities" and why I don't like the word.)

Crayons of Love

A couple of months ago, I boyght a pack of bathtub crayons. I bought them so that during NaNoWriMo, I could write down all of the brilliant ideas I got in the shower. Well, I never used them for NaNo purposes. Instead, I use them mostly to write reminders to myself on the countertop in the bathroom.

Whenever I forget to put them away after I've written my reminder (which happens a lot), in the morning I'll find another note or picture next to mine. My mum comes in after I do, and whenever she sees the crayons, she'll write me a sweet little note. She's started doing this with my whiteboard markers on my mirror too, and unlike a lot of kids I know, I don't find it annoying.

In fact, next year, I'll really miss it.

So, Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it, and if you don't, have a great week. Enjoy your family!

Hello NaNo!

Today is the first of November, and you know what that means to me? Today is Day 1 of the insanity that is NaNo.

What is NaNo? National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2011, we had 256,618 participants and 36,843 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists. (From http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/about)

I’ve participated in NaNo every year since eighth grade. I only won once – in tenth grade – but every year I come back to try again.

This year, I’m trying something new. In years past, each of my stories has been some variation on a quest narrative, with some sort of grandiose magic and talking animals and kings and queens and bizarre religions. This year, I’m trying my hand at a contemporary story, and I almost have a plan for it, which is not usual. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish by the end of the month, because that’s always my goal: a completed story.

I’ve never met my goal, not even on my “winning” year. That 51k monstrosity is just an outline. An OUTLINE. It has contradictions and characters who randomly pop into existence and sentence structure that is in French.

It’s weird.

As I sail off again into NaNoLand, I wish all of you undertaking this journey with me luck, and to those of you staying behind, please, have mercy.

On Slutshaming, High School and Why People Are Mean

This post was originally written as a comment for Brenna Yovanoff’s post entitled “The One About How Girls Treat Each Other (Sort Of).” If you want to better understand the story I reference in the 18^th paragraph, read Brenna’s post first.

Paragraphs in italics are the questions asked by Brenna at the end of her post.

Have you or your friends ever run up against bullying or harassment? Did you feel like you didn’t know what to do? Or did you just do the first thing that came to mind? Did you do nothing? Something calculating? Mean? Something you wish you had done differently?

There was a near-fight in my Homeroom on Wednesday morning. This white kid – he’s probably a druggie, but in the very least, he’s meaner than a snake – came into homeroom this morning almost raging. He was terrifying. He’s a scary kid anyway, but this was truly frightening. (We’ll call him A.) Then a slacker-jock-disrespectful black boy came in the room (we’ll call him J) and A went BALLISTIC. He started bitching at J that the administration was being racist because while he, A, got detention for calling J a swearword, J, who did the same, got off scot-free because he’s black.

J started yelling (he has no volume other than yelling) at A across the room that he, J, didn’t get in trouble because he just called A a “bitch” after A called him a [insert the n-word here. Yes, he actually said it].

Our usually rowdy homeroom got really really scarily quiet. Our homeroom teacher, a really sweet, energetic, close-to-retirement-but-not-uncaring English teacher, who was on the phone, quickly hung up and tried to reason with the boys as they stalked towards each other. She’s had problems controlling both of them before, and she tried to talk to them for maybe ten seconds before she ran next door to get the coach who teaches History.

Thank God he came in when he did, because J and A were almost nose to nose, and I think they were about to slug it out. Coach came in and pulled the two out into the hall to hear their stories, and all of us in the room still breathed a collective sigh of relief.

It was very very scary.

~

I have run into bullying many times, but only realized it in retrospect. I have the wonderful combination of poor hearing, lack of understanding of sarcasm, and a thick thick skin, so if I’m bullied, I rarely notice. I notice when people are needlessly picking on others, and I try to stop them, but sometimes, I’m just stuck.

Like in my Economics class, there’s a boy, D, who I have known through Sunday School since kindergarten. I have never liked him because he’s cocky and annoying. However, a group of boys tease him mercilessly in this class. (About stupid things, but mostly about the fact that D’s family has lots of money, and D went to a private school before coming to our public HS. (These kids teasing him aren’t poor, for the most part. We live in a ridiculously, annoyingly affluent area.))

They also take his backpack, and either hide it or turtle it. (Do you know what turtling is? It’s where they flip your whole backpack inside out and then zip it back up with your stuff inside.) I don’t like D, but he just wants to belong, and the others torture him for it. Sometimes my sense of justice wins out and I tell them to stop, but I’m “just a girl” – and their leader’s enemy since fourth grade, to boot. Then their teasing focuses on me until I stare their a**hole leader dead in the eyes until he’s so uncomfortable that he walks away. But I can’t always come to D’s rescue. He’s eighteen freaking years old; he should know how to defend himself. And always being the rescuer – of everyone – is KILLING me. I can’t handle the stress here.

Also, anyone who has any thoughts about the unsettling tendency for girls to attack each other in ways that revolve around the having or not-having of sex, please feel free to share in the comments, because these thoughts—I want to hear them.

Obviously you’re aware of this, but it bears repeating: Teen girls are mean. I try not to judge people (and I definitely don’t torture them) about whether or not they’ve done stuff, just because *I* don’t want to be judged for that either. And most of the time, out loud, I succeed. But in my head, oh God in my head I’m so mean about this. Probably this is due to the fact that my friend group is comprised mostly of brilliant, slightly (read: really) off-the-wall girls who aren’t exactly what most boys want in high school. So we don’t generally get dates, let alone have sex.

But I know girls who have, and I don’t really treat them differently. I just think of them differently. I wonder, were they prepared for it? Do they think it was worth it? And, the question I never ask, because it’s shameful: Was it fun? (Also, I’m such a nosy-butt pragmatist that I want to ask technical questions, like, who bought the condoms, how did you hide that from your parents, where did you do it, WHEN did you do it, etc. etc.)(I also do this to people when I find out they’ve been kissed for the first time by their Significant Other. “I’m CURIOUS,” I tell them. “Is that really such a crime?” I want to know as many different takes on the same thing as possible. If I’m going to write, I need to know what it’s like to date in high school, because it’s looking like that will never happen for me.)(Also, I just want to know EVERYTHING, just to know it.)

Girls attack each other out of jealousy and out of fear. People won’t attack you if you can redirect them to a new target. Also, there’s this worrying trend of addressing people by slurs and renaming it as a term of endearment. I got called a slut and a whore in art today, not in malice. It’s just how one of my classmates (female) talks. We, as girls, are told by our parents to be responsible about having sex. We are told by our school that having sex in high school and before marriage is immoral (I live in Alabama). My Health class didn’t even COVER sex or STDs. All we talked about was stalking and schizophrenia. And we are told by the characters on TV that having sex at our age is normal. If you aren’t having sex, well then, you’re behind.

But in the halls… oh, in the halls, if you’re a girl and you’ve had sex without being in a super-long relationship – and sometimes even then! – you are dirty. You are worthless. You are Going to Hell. If you’re a boy and you’ve done the same, you’re awesome, you’re cool, you’re expected to move on. The double standard is ridiculous, and sad. Sex is normal and natural, and who the hell cares as long as you and your partner are responsible about it and prepared for it?

Also, this pervasive idea that the boy should (will?) save the girl—what is that? Because believe me, Delilah needed very little saving, but it still took Eerie wandering over to defuse the situation, which even now gives me this very frustrated feeling about who is allowed to be In Charge of Things.

Evolutionarily, males are wired to protect their harem. And if it’s a rogue female stirring up trouble, it’s her male’s job to get her under control. If she doesn’t have a male, she needs one as protection from being absorbed into a harem controlled by a male who wants to punish her for her transgressions.

Ugh, just TYPING that makes me sick.

Both genders, all people, want to be in control of their lives. It’s a struggle all people must go through. And part of that is control (of some sort) over your partner. Whether that manifests itself as a protective instinct, possessiveness, trust, or whatever depends on the people involved. If your partner is attacked, that is, by an extension, an attack on you, and you want to make sure that you and your partner are not attacked again. A singleton attack is far more dangerous than a partnered attack, because then the two will want to protect each other. The appearance of Eerie in Brenna’s story showed Jackal and Twitch that SOMEONE valued Delilah, and if they hurt her, they would have to deal with Eerie and his cohort as well, which presumably was a more threatening gang than Brenna, Little Sister Yovanoff, Delilah, and Gypsy were.

And also, I want to believe that none of what I just described in this post ever even happens anymore, but I don’t really think that’s true. So, I want to hear from you guys. About all of it.

When it’s you, you don’t want to say anything for fear of being labeled a bitch. But if you say nothing, you’re a wimp (or worse words). There is truly no way to win. People will judge you whatever you say or do, and you just have to go on your way.

(Many thanks to Emily for proofing this post for me.)

Why Trilogies Are Not My Favorite

You guys, I really don't like trilogies. I make an effort to finish every series I start, but if it's a trilogy, odds are, I'll never finish all three.I can finish five-book series, even if I have to wait each year for a new one. I can finish duets, sextets, septologies, but not trilogies.

Recently, I was trying to figure out why this is true, and though I didn't come to a definitive answer, I think it has something to do with the fact that trilogies are very formulaic. I don't like reading a series when I can already peg the twist while reading book 1. I read to be surprised, and trilogies rarely surprise me, often because they're set up for maximum delivery of punches and execution of archetypes.

I guess it's not trilogies that I don't like, just the ones I've read recently. I want more books out there to be maximum-impact standalones. (I'll talk about this more on Thursday.)

I don't like it when I can guess the twists. I need to be kept intrigued and off-guard the whole time I'm reading, otherwise I'll become incredibly bored. I need a book that takes the tropes and twists them so ingeniously that the hints are there -- they're just so well-hidden as to be unnoticeable.

Five Things I Should Already Know, But Don't

1.How to properly manage my time. Basically this boils down to prioritising. I know 
logically what I should be doing (my math homework) instead of what I am doing 
(reading or messing about online) but I can't seem to make myself do the right 
thing. All it does is cause me more pain in the long run. Have I learned this 
over the nearly thirteen years I've been in school? Logically, yes. 
Realistically, no. 

2. How to focus and tune out distractions. My school gave all the students their 

own laptop computers this year, and although it seems like a fantastic tool (according 

to administrators) it has been a pain in the ass for my teachers to navigate. It's an 

endless source of distraction for me, even when I just have my book website up. 

Yes, I am distracted that easily! I get distracted STARING at my screensaver. 

3.  How to be nice. Isn't this something everyone's supposed to learn in kindergarten?

Obviously I was absent that day or something, because I have a major meanness

problem. Most of the time, I'm mean whenI'm attempting to be funny. (Note to self: 

stop trying to be funny.)  I just don't know where to draw the line. This inability to judge

how polite my statements are is wreaking havoc in my friend group and in my relationships

with my family members.  

4. How to understand when someone is kidding. Closely related to my "being mean 

instead of funny" problem. I seriously cannot take a joke. If someone tries to kid with

me, I usually end up blankly and awkwardly staring at them until one of us looks away.

Also, I laugh at things that aren't meant to be funny, and don't laugh at anything my supposedly

"hilarious" friend says. 

5. How to do something I don't want to do. (Especially in a timely manner.) I waffled 

over whether or not this should be lumped in with numbers 1 and 2, but I ultimately decided

that this is a totally separate issue. If I don't want to do something, I don't do it. It doesn't matter

 if it's a homework assignment or practicing a cello piece for composition, if I don't want to do it,

 it doesn't get done. My mom constantly tells me that it is this fault that is my fatal one. She says 

that I'll never survive in the real world if I only do what I want to do. My argument back is that all 

I have to do is figure out my own intrinsic motivation in order to do unwanted things. But I know 

that that is pretty close to being a lost cause. The sooner I figure this one out, the better.

I'm almost eighteen, and I still have a lot of life ahead of me in which to

learn these things. But at the same time, it's very frustrating that I don't 
already know them. I'm hoping that by admitting to myself that I have

a problem, I'm on my way to solving it.  

ETA: This formatting is KILLING me. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix it?

Trying to Find My Blogging Style

Some people -- some wonderfully blessed people -- are full of good ideas.

 They're the first person you go to when spitballing for an event, when trying

 to come up with a good essay hook, when you have no idea what to buy for

 your new closet. My sister is one of these people (when she's in a good mood).

I, however, am not really one of these lucky few. I am so much better at

adapting existing ideas than I am creating new ones. (This, I think, is my main

failing when trying to finish a story.)

When it comes to blogging, this problem of mine is why I don't post as often as

I'd like. I would love to be the kind of blogger whose every post isn't about

why she sucks at blogging, but that appears to be what I'm doing. I try to come

up with clever little stories, but they usually end up falling flat. I've tried

imitating the other bloggers I follow, but that format obviously isn't working

for me. I have to figure out my own way of blogging, but it needs to be a way that doesn't just

consist of a post every three weeks labelled with the tag "why I sometimes suck

at blogging".

I had this weird learning curve when I joined twitter last year, too. For a

while, I tried overly hard to be witty and retweetable. That made being on

twitter not too much fun. (Also, it meant I didn't have a lot of followers or people who would talk to me.) When I stopped trying to be Maureen Johnson, and just

started being me, twitter became more fun for me. It also meant I started

posting a lot... Which, depending on who you ask, may not be a good thing. But

more posts here WOULD be a good thing, right?

Let's hope.

ETA: Sorry for the wonky formatting. Not sure why that happened...?