books

I am honestly surprised and frustrated with myself. I haven't said a word about the election, which is TODAY! The polls close here in Ohio in about half an hour, and I'm itching to see which way this historically red state will vote.

Voting.

Show me the justice in this scenario: a teenager who has been active in a wide variety of political organizations since the age of 12, and has volunteered many hours for various campaigns, and is, honestly, better informed on many of the issues being voted on today in Ohio than many of her peers with whom she has discussed politics with, cannot vote because she is 17.

Since my posts lately have been more political than personal (Earth Day and race/nation/something-ism), I've decided to post about something very personal. School.

My grades were all Bs (70%+) once upon a time. That once upon a time being Grade Six, First Term. Since then, they've been all... ew.

Things just got worse for me in terms of grades. I went from missing a fair chunk of school and barely pulling off b-s and c+s to staying at school, but getting 60%-70% because of unwillingness to work. Then I got put in a behavioural program for five months which was living hell and didn't give us report cards.

"The yacht was like a white streak of motion, a sensitive body strained agaisnt the curb of stillness. Dominique looked at the golden letters - I Do- on the delicate white bow.
"What does it mean?" She asked.
"It's an answer," said Wynand. "to people long since dead. Though perhaps they are the only immortal ones. You see, the sentence I heard most often in my childhood was 'You don't run things around here.'"
-Ayn Rand, 'The Fountainhead'

I recently (last week) got the books Heather sent me on feminist Wicca. Let me first state that although I am Pagan, I am not Wiccan-but I like studying it, as I tend to extract certain things from certain cultures.

At the same time, a friend let me borrow three books on traditional Wicca/Witchcraft. I've been reading through them, and I have some thoughts and comparisons...

Dianic Wicca contains only the Goddess of A Thousand Names, as I like to say. (A thousand personalities, too). It is all-female circles, and it has no male gods.

Traditional Wicca, on the other hand, has the 'Lord and Lady', or Goddess and God. It has both-gendered circles, and has male and female deities.

This summer I have spent most of my days working with children and their often more annoying parents.

I direct children's activities at resort in Myrtle Beach. Me and my co-workers have a room in which we paint, colour, play games and make complete fools of ourselves for the entertainment of our clients.

A lot of times parents come in and the room is sheer chaos. Sand is all over the floor, balls are being kicked up to the ceiling, and kids are racing around the too-small room, screaming at the top of their lungs and tripping over chairs.

Often a parent will come in and see their son trying to hit another kid over the head with a shovel and smile. "Boys." They say and hurry back out to the poolside bar.

Today I walked around the Teen section of Barnes and Noble with my girlfriend and best friend. We lamented the vapidity of some of the books, revisited and happily summarized our old favorites for one another, and checked to see if there were any new books about queer youth. There were. Unfortunately, they involved the typical: various levels of coming out angst at a suburban high school we couldn't relate to, with the optional happy ending of the main character finding love.

Many of the "realistic fiction" books about straight characters were similarly one-sided. The romance in them was as flat and unrealistic as a fairy tale, only with more stereotyping of young women as only interested in fashion and makeup. While there were many books about sexuality--finding a boyfriend, making out--there were few that bothered to portray main characters discussing, let alone having, sex with their partners. In general, I was presented with a saccharine, cutesy, distorted fairy tale about what my life is like.

I've noticed that there seems to be a lack of Feminist media-when I look on the right, I see the same books over and over again. There's not that much of what we see as 'feminist' literature. So I wanted to open your eyes, and talk about why I became a writer.

My original inspiration was-unfortunately-one JK Rowlings, a single mom who struck it rich, straight into the top 25 richest people list, with Harry Potter. A series of books which I used to adore. Now I could care less, but I'm still a writer thanks to her. I carried on with my inspiration-it had become a part of who I am.

Then there was Silver Birch club. A reading club-an excellent idea. If you EVER hear about Silver Birch, or it's companions, I would seriously encourage siblings/cousins/neighbours to look into it for kids in grades 4-6.

Just ripping a cd of mashups that a friend from the club made me this week- crazy stuff- "Pray for Pop" is a mashup of Duran Duran, Prince, Madonna, and MC Hammer!

Got me thinking. We are all literally immersed in pop culture. As feminists, how do you handle it?

For example, there's a lot of music out there that I love, and a lot that I hate; some of it's even offensive to me. Yet, I admit, sometimes I love to dance to a song when I know I probably wouldn't like the group if I ever met them.

What goes for music goes for tv shows, movies, and books, too.

I find it interesting that I've never been very excited by "feminist" media: Mists of Avalon does little for me, Ani & her ilk can be incredible singers, but I don't own the cds and haven't seen a show since 97, etc.