My Obsession with Young Adult Fiction

I love young adult fiction, I really do. I have always loved Harry Potter. (Does it count as young adult fiction? I mean, did the category even really exist when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published?) I read, and did not love, all 4 Twilight books, and I have a bit of an obsession with The Hunger Games.

Two years ago, when my boss's wife brought us all lunch during a busy day, we were talking about books. I admitted to having stayed up very late the night before finishing Mockingjay. And then I explained that it was a YA book in a series about kids fighting to the death. They all looked at me with blank faces. I couldn't shake the feeling that my boss, a publisher and an author himself, was judging me for reading something so childish.

But lately, YA is getting more recognition as a genre, and it's less of a childish thing we old adults (ha! I called myself an adult) should be embarrassed by. Maybe my boss would still find these books silly, but plenty of people don't.

And thanks to Bitch magazine and its accompanying blogs, I've been discovering so many more YA books! Actually, I think I discovered The Hunger Games thanks to a Bitch article comparing the strong and independent Katniss Everdeen to the whining, lackluster Kristin Stewart, I mean, Bella Swan. Victoria Law has been writing a guest blog series for the Bitch site, Girls of Color in Dystopia, exploring YA books dealing with dystopic visions of the future. More mainstream books, like The Hunger Games, tend to be pretty much whitewashed (except for Rue, and I'm still recovering from her death); Law seeks out the books with a wider range of characters and experiences.

So far, I've read one and a half books that she discussed. I read, and loved, Cinder, a retelling of Cinderella in the future with cyborgs, alien threats, and, of course, handsome young princes. (Princes, apparently, will be sticking around, even as governments rise and fall and go to war and destroy each other. Princes are the cockroaches of fictionalized dystopic worlds.) I'm currently reading, and loving, Ash, another Cinderella re-telling, this one with a lesbian twist.

I was an English major and sometimes I do feel a little embarrassed for reading books with a target audience of 15-year-olds. Shouldn't I be reading literary novels? Shouldn't I be tackling that Gloria Steinem book like there's no tomorrow? Yes and no. I should, and do, read National Book Award-winning novels like Salvage the Bones (which I highly recommend) and I do read feminist nonfiction whenever I can. But since I've been out of college and working every day with no summer break like an old adult, I've started to understand why my mom has been reading trashy romance novels for so long, and why I'm craving YA books more often.

They're easy. They sweep you up in a story that you can move through quickly. They give you the good story and the drama with simpler language. And as YA is becoming more legit, the books are getting better. Recently, I had a very heated (and I do mean heated) debate about the merits of young adult fiction, specifically Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. Some people thought it was ridiculous to count these books as literature, or even as legitimate. Some thought there was no purpose to books with "literary merit". (Some people also never explained how they might define "literary merit".)

The truth is, I don't care if these books qualify as literature. How do you qualify anyway? There are plenty of books, young adult or not, that are terrible, and plenty that are great. The fact that anyone could try to debate the quality of Harry Potter and Twilight in the same conversation is ridiculous: one is a brilliant series with a vast, detailed world, and one is...not. But The Hunger Games brings so many provocative topics to the young reader: government censorship and control, relationships, violence as entertainment. Cinder shows them the problems with discrimination and Ash asks them to think more broadly about sexuality. How is a book that gets more kids and teens to think and form opinions a bad thing? Why don't teens deserve that opportunity?

YA novels allow readers to explore big ideas in language they understand. They can get non-readers interested in reading. They can open the door to higher brow books, or to poetry, or to literary non-fiction. And they provide anyone and everyone with a story to get swept up in after a long day at work.

That's enough for me.

Moving and Clean Slates

Y'all. I am a little too excited about moving.

I love Oxford, I love my job, but it is time to live somewhere else. And now that we've decided on Seattle, and started making serious plans, I am soooo ready! Aaron found a video about all the great stuff in Seattle, thanks to Expedia, and after watching it (twice), I want to be there and do everything. So I've made Seattle my computer background.

If you hadn't already figured this out, I'm a planner. Big time. It's very frustrating to me that people don't already know which apartments will be available in August--I want to plan 2 and a half months ahead!

Yes, I have asthma, and yes, I Googled the best
cities for people with asthma.

I'm also just really excited about the opportunity for a clean slate. New place to live, new people to meet, new jobs to find (and get!), and, we've decided, new furniture! It hadn't even occurred to us not to rent a U-Haul or use PODS or something to move all our stuff across the country. When talking to my Aunt Genie (yes I'm named for her) about prices, she finally stopped me and said, "Is the stuff that you have worth $1,500 or $2,000 plus the hassle? Or could you just sell it and buy new stuff when you get there?"

Honestly, her suggestion kind of blew my mind. How had this never occurred to me? Well, probably because we are all pretty attached to our stuff, and when we picture new apartments and homes, we imagine the stuff we have going into them. But we are 25, with no kids and no expensive furniture; why should we bother with the expense and difficulty of moving everything? We were all planning to leave a lot of our books in my mom's attic (because we just assume we won't have space for them and the bookcases). I'm pretty sure we can find another $90 couch. And my dresser, which I've moved to three different living locations now, is too small and has had a broken drawer all four years. It's probably easily fixed, but I sure as hell haven't fixed it. So why do I still have it at all?

So now we begin the process of cleaning everything out. For those of you who live in my area, be prepared: we'll be selling some good (and some just okay) furniture at the end of the summer. And this process is really exciting to me. For one thing, it gives me an outlet to focus my excited moving energy while I'm waiting for time to move a little faster so I can get serious about apartment hunting. Plus, it feels really good to finally let go of a lot of the stuff I've been carrying around with me for years.

Books I put aside to keep without taking,
by storing them in Mom's attic

This is a step on the way to not becoming a hoarder. That's always a good step to take.














I will, however, miss this beautiful catalpa tree from the Ole Miss campus.

I just wanted to share this awesome picture.

Defending My Time

This past weekend was the Creative Nonfiction Conference in Oxford. My company was part of the group putting it on, so I spent most of the weekend working (and fighting off a sudden allergy attack). As I watched all the attendees, panelists, and workshop leaders talking about their work, I was disappointed in myself. People were talking about waking up at 4:30 every morning to write, staying up late to write when their families have gone to bed, finding time between work and home to get that 45 minutes of writing all to themselves. What happened to my discipline about writing?

I've been amazed at how hard it's been to become disciplined about my writing, mainly because I'm disciplined in almost every other aspect of my life. I buy new groceries before the old ones have run out. My office is over-organized with folders for everything. I have no problem spending my Saturday mornings cleaning the house and doing laundry. But when it comes to finding time to write, giving myself the time to write, it's almost impossible.

This weekend, I was able to listen to one of the final panels; the topic was "Balancing Work, Life, and Writing". The writer River Jordan said something that really struck me. She said, "This may be totally sexist but I think women have a harder time carving out that time to write." She talked about offering to take care of her grandbaby on a day she knew she was supposed to be writing. Even her husband was reminding her that she was supposed to be writing, but she said, "I can do both." My first thought was, That's not sexist. That's just true.

And it is. It's true. It's a truth that stems from living in a sexist society. Women are made to feel that they can and should do everything. We are supposed to be the baby nurturers, the cleaners, the decorators, the cooks, the caretakers. We work outside the home and are still expected to manage the home. In a world where women are still largely expected to live their lives, first and foremost, for their children and families, a woman taking time for herself often feels selfish.

It's no wonder that women have a hard time giving themselves that alone time for writing. We feel guilty about it. How can I take the time to write when there is laundry to be done, dinner to be cooked, someone else's needs to be attended to? River thought, "I can do both." But she couldn't, and she knew it.

We can't do it all or have it all. No human can. We have to be protective (another word a writer on the panel used) of our writing time. We have to take it. We have to block it off in our schedules and defend our right to use it. Women writers like River and others from this weekend have found a way to do it, and I'm going to be better about doing it for myself. We owe it to ourselves. And to the world of writing. Because otherwise, all writing would be done only by men.

And wouldn't that be boring?

Bedtime for Bunny

Once I won a contest for songwriting.

I'm not joking. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, and my piano teacher offered music composition classes during the summers. To get us out of the way, my mom always signed us up for these.

I remember being in music class at school, sitting 2 to a keyboard, and the teacher asked us to come up with a note or a short tune that sounded like an animal to us. I reached out and quickly hit a black key followed by the white key directly to the right of it, a half-step up. I repeated this a couple of notes higher, then again a little higher. I said it was like a bunny rabbit hopping.

In my summer composition class, I must have remembered my bunny sounds, because they ended up being the basis for the song I worked on. I called it "Bedtime for Bunny" and said it was about a mama bunny trying to calm down her hopping baby at bedtime. (The mama was played with the same type of tune, but going down a half-step instead of up, and in a lower octave.)

My piano teacher had fancy computer technology (for the time) just for these composition classes. We could play something on her keyboard (actually, I believe it was a harpsichord) and the computer picked it up and wrote it out for us. We could fiddle with the notes, the timing, the tempo, and the computer would play it back to us. To me, this was a really cool toy. What it meant, though, was that I finished the class with a composition, written by me, that I'd never actually played all the way through with my own two hands.

My teacher got permission from our mother to enter out compositions in a contest. Before we knew it, my sister and I had both won awards (I'm guessing there weren't many entries in this competition). I thought it was cool that I had won something. Then my mother told me that the winners had to play at a recital.

That's when it hit me. I had to get up in front of a crowd and play my song. A song I had supposedly written. A song I'd never really played.

I know I probably had moments of anxiety earlier in my 8 years of life, but this is the first one that I remember so clearly. I can still feel it the panic and fear. My mother tried to work with me, sitting at the piano to practice my song. The music sat in front of me, with my name printed on it, and I felt like a fraud. You can't have written a song if you can't play it!

My memory of the concert is in flashes. I remember the drive, I remember what the location looked like, I remember the immense relief when it was over. But I don't remember how I played. I know that I did. I even sort of remember the view of the audience from the piano. But I don't know how I played. Did I pull it together and play the song well? Did I flop, destroying my own composition? I truly don't know.

But I know that I didn't cry or scream or run away. I know that I didn't fake sick and skip the whole concert (something Leslie girls have done on an occcasion or seven). I know that I got up in front of the crowd, sat down at the piano, and played something. I guess that's all that mattered.

A Constant Struggle

Thirty seconds. Twenty-eight.

I hate running. I hate this.

You can do it.

Fifteen seconds.

Ugggghhh!!! I'm so tired!! Even my inner voice is capable of whining like a 5-year-old when I'm tired enough.

Ten seconds.

I can hear Amber in my head. "You can do anything for ten seconds!"

Time! I push the down button the treadmill's--what is it? Dashboard? Control panel? I feel the belt slowing and I am walking again. Finally.


Why do I put myself through this?

I say it's all in the name of health, that I want to still be exercising when I'm 90, like my grandmother was. I don't have a body image problem, after all; I'm one of those smart girls who knows how absurd the beauty standards of our culture are. I know it's all but impossible for me to get six-pack abs. I know that, unless I manage to grow another 7 inches, I'll never look like a Victoria's Secret model. And I know that I am a perfectly healthy and average weight.

But there I am on the scale, just about every morning. There I am on Sunday afternoon, feeling grumpy and seeking comfort in food, then feeling guilty about it later.

It's not about intelligence, or being a smart girl, or being aware of the impossible standards. It's not about how many gender studies classes I've taken, how many magazine ads I've looked at and analyzed. It's not about understanding what is or is not a healthy weight for my height.

It's about what I've been told, over and over and over, since I was a little girl. And I've been told, in ways subtle and not, that my body, my appearance, my attractiveness as decided by men is what makes me worthwhile. And then I've been told that I'll never be enough, that I'll always need another product, another diet, a new exercise, in order to be perfect. And that's what I should want, and strive for. To be perfect. Perfectly attractive as defined by someone else.

I'm not saying that I want to stop exercising. I actually enjoy it, most of the time. I do want to be healthy and I like feeling strong. I want to be able to spend a day outdoors, moving and playing, and not be exhausted immediately. I do want to still be exercising when I'm 90. And if nothing else, I want to be able to run away from a murderer, or fight back against one, should I ever need to. I don't believe that exercising is inherently bad, or anti-woman, or anti-feminist, and it doesn't mean that I have an eating disorder.

What I do have is a constant fight. And I think many women these days do. I have to fight with myself and all the inner voices every day. I fight over how much exercise I need to maintain my healthy weight and how much exercise I need to look "hot". One voice tells me I've gained a pound since yesterday, or three since last week, and I need to watch out, while the other one tells me I'm fine and I'm healthy and fuck looking hot, those french fries last night were delicious!

I have to fight to remind myself that it's my life, that I can, that I should, look how I want and spend my time how I want. I have to fight to remember that, no matter what the magazines say, I'm not working out for a bikini body. I'm working out so that I can live a long and healthy life. I'm working out so that sitting at a desk doesn't ruin my body's ability to function. I'm working out so that I can live an active life (hopefully, more active than my current one). I'm working out so I can have time to myself when I can think and not have to talk.

It's a struggle, but ultimately, I'm fighting to define who I am in a world that wants to tell me who I should be. And even when it's hard, or I lose sight of it for a minute, I'm getting there.

Organization = Sanity, Part II

So remember when I wrote about loving organization, and wanting to carry all my things with me always? Well, I've taken this to a new level.

I decided to invest in a good backpack. This is because, as much as I love tote bags and shoulder bags and messenger bags and all their semi-professional looking cuteness, I have started having back, shoulder, and neck pain in the past year. I'm sure this is not solely due to carrying my computer and other things on one shoulder (I also sit at a desk all day, then go home and mostly sit, and I don't think the way I sleep is ideal for my neck) but it can't be helping. Plus, I will be moving to a bigger city soon, and might need to carry my stuff not just to the car and into the office, but walking several blocks to the bus stop or, if I get over my fear of other cars, maybe even while biking.

I'm also kind of sick of carrying a purse, especially when I have to carry a purse along with my computer bag. Feminspire, one of my new favorite sites, has a great article about women, purses, the social pressure to carry a purse, and the lack of legitimate pockets in clothing designed for us. When examining my purse, there's really a small amount of things that I absolutely need all the time (debit card, driver's license, cash, insurance cards, phone, keys, inhaler), a few things I need some of the time (tampons, checkbook) and the other things in my purse are occasional use/no use items (hairbrush, notebook for writing, iPod, sunglasses, etc.). I decided that I can carry a small wallet that also holds my phone, and can be tossed in the backpack or used on its own, and everything else can just live in the backpack.

Plenty of reason to invest in a backpack.

But the real reason I'm super excited about this purchase? The real reason I can't wait for my package to arrive today?

COMPARTMENTS!!

This backpack is the epitome of organization. 

So. 

Many. 

Pockets. 

And. 

Compartments!

It has a specific computer compartment. An iPad compartment. Pockets for cords. Pockets for little notebooks and pens. A key chain. A pocket for your phone. Probably a compartment just for extra pockets.

I'm way too excited about this purchase. I've already gotten my little phone/wallet (it's called a wristlet, which is a weird term) and took it out to dinner last night. And when my backpack comes in, I'll toss it into the specific wristlet pocket (I'm sure this exists) and go! Of course, with my luck, once I move I'll probably work somewhere with a designated work computer and I'll never need to carry things with me again. I hope not.

So, here's to my latest attempt at over-organization!

Watching Through My Fingers

Maybe I should stop watching horror movies.

I used to love them. I still do, I guess, but when I was 13 or 14 or 15, we would see a preview for a horror movie and my dad would say "That's a Genie movie." Actually, he still says this, but he hasn't seen me watch one in a long time.

I have perfected the art of peering at the screen through my fingers (which also means that I'm turning into my mother). I'm not covering the screen (usually) but rather, I'm blocking out my peripheral vision so that I see nothing but the screen. I think this is the visual equivalent of hiding under the covers. If I can't see anything around me, I can't be scared by a movement out of the corner of my eye, or by Aaron trying to make a face and freak me out. I can feel as if I've put myself into a safe little hole. Plus, my fingers are right by my eyes, just in case I do need to cover them completely.

I get more scared watching these movies now than I did when I was 14. What's that all about? When I was younger, I loved the feeling of being scared. Now, as soon as the first scary moment starts to happen, I inevitably say, "Why are we watching this? Why do I do this to myself?"

I know part of my problem is a fear of the unknown. Last night, watching Sinister, I finally said, "I'm ready for the big stuff to happen." Once the little ghost children started appearing, I was somewhat better, more able to watch the movie. The reveal is never as scary as you think it will be. It's the creeping down hallways, the hearing little unknown noises, the shadows in which you can't tell if something is in the corner or not--that's what's horrifying to me.

Honestly, I might still be sort of afraid of the dark. It's not that I'm afraid every time I'm in the dark, or that I leave a light on when I sleep. But there have been times when I've tried to go to sleep and thought, what if? What if I opened my eyes and there were a man with a knife staring back at me? What if I felt pressure on the end of the bed, like someone were sitting there, but I looked and saw nothing? What if someone is creeping down the hallway right now? And no matter what, no matter how many times I make sure the front door was locked before bed, no matter how much I don't believe in ghosts (and I really don't), that little voice plants just a little doubt. I feel like one of those people who doesn't believe in God but decides to pray before they die, just in case. I don't believe in ghosts, I don't believe the dark is going to get me...but shouldn't I be prepared in case I'm wrong?


Just about any horror movie can scare me. It doesn't have to be good. I love psychological thrillers, movies with more suspense than shock, but the ones that get my heart rate up are the cheesy ones, the ones with a demon/ghost, who's been haunting since the medieval times, who appears with a red face. The ones where the demon's face appears in the final seconds before the credits. These are the ones that terrify me. The unexpected image that makes you jump, the person or ghost or event that you weren't expecting suddenly appearing right in front of you--these are the fears that keep me up at night.

Time (You Ain't No Friend of Mine)

I worry about running out of time.

I am an organized person. I have no problem scheduling my day. My alarm is already set for 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, my second alarm for 6:15. The plan is to work out, shower, eat breakfast. I hope I'll have time for writing before work but I'm not positive. After work, I plan to spend about 2 hours on freelance work. Then I want to read my fantasy novel, play Mario Galaxy 2 on the Wii, catch up on my magazines, watch an episode of The Following, eat dinner, blog, and spend time with Aaron. But I'll never accomplish all that tomorrow, even if I wake up exactly on time (I won't) and don't nap after work (I will).

One of the saddest things I ever read was "I'll never be able to read all the books I want to read." When I read this, I felt like I'd been slapped in the face. This had never even occurred to me! Even if I made it through my entire list of books I want to read, by the time I finished, sooo many more books would have been published. And I would want to read them! And that's not even mentioning the magazines, and the blogs, and the newspapers. It's impossible.

But recently, Aaron said something even more terrifying. He said, "My nightmare: waiting until too late in life to start something, like writing a book, and not being able to finish." Aaahhhh! Another thing to worry about!

I want to have time to live my life the way that I want. But what do I want? I want to live somewhere cool, working any job and not caring about a career, just enjoying my place and time in the world. But I want to have a full career doing something I love and that I'm good at. I want to raise children and love them, but I also want to live a long, childless life, full of travel and free from worries about school systems and the effect of technology on developing brains and rocks stuck inside little noses.

Maybe I'm so afraid of running out of time because I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want to live in one place, or have the opportunity to move around. I don't know if I want children. I don't know if I'd prefer to have a long-time career path or not. I don't know what my life should be, and I don't want to miss out on it while I'm trying to decide.

But I do know that I want enough time to read all the books.

Less is More: Walking the Line

A move is in my near-ish future and I'm getting excited. OK, maybe I don't know where I'm going, and maybe I don't have a job to go to, but still, I'm excited. This is my first big move away from Oxford (other than a semester and a half at a college in Tennessee) so it's a big deal. And I am really interested in living in a big city, for both the professional and social opportunities.

There are plenty of reasons to live in a city: more places to apply for jobs, more people to hang out with, more stuff to see. But one reason I'm excited about a city is the possibility of going without a car.

I may not actually sell my car if I move. It will depend on the city. But even if I take it, I'm hoping for a place where I can walk and/or take public transportation to most, or all, the places I need to go.

When I was in college, I lived in a couple of places close to town and campus that allowed me to walk around. And thanks to campus parking craziness, I could actually leave my house later on days I was walking than on the days I was driving. I loved walking to class! My route took me through the Oxford Square, down a very pretty street with a mix of old and new houses, and in the spring, beautiful green trees and bright flowers. Since my classes were in the morning so that I could work in the afternoons and evenings, my walks were often in the cool early morning air, with the sun still working its way up in the sky and the streets not yet full of cars.

My walks allowed me to rediscover parts of this town I've lived almost my whole life in. One morning, as I passed the same yard that I passed every day, I realized there was a pony in the yard! This wasn't a farmhouse out in the country. This was a regular house, on a regular street, right in the center of town, with a pony in the yard. I started seeing the pony regularly. It's gone now, and I don't know who lived there, or why they had a pony in the middle of town, but I enjoyed seeing it on my walks.

I love walking to get places. I relish that time to myself to look around, think, and mentally prepare for wherever I'm headed. I like having a closer view of everything that I can't get in my car. I like the slower pace of walking, allowing plenty of time to get to my destination, and not getting the rushed or flustered feeling that traffic can bring.

This is how I want to explore my new city. I want to spend a lot of time walking around, both simply for pleasure and in order to get places. I can't plan on going without a car, at least not yet, since I have no idea where I will live or work or if those places will be close to each other or close to anything else. But maybe I can get there, park my car, and use it sparingly.

Here's hoping that I can discover my new city the way I've rediscovered my current one: one step at a time.

Organization, Routine, Writing = Sanity

Does anyone else covet organizational office supplies? I do.

The other day, I was in a meeting at the office, and two of my co-workers had these big hold-all folio type folders, and I wanted one. One of them had a legal pad, pen, business cards, iPad Mini, looseleaf paper, and other things all organized and in their own places. The other had pretty much the same, but instead of the iPad mini she had a calculator (with its own pocket) and a little hand-held calendar to write her appointments in. I immediately decided that I needed something like this.

Now let's look at the facts. I work for a small publishing company. Out of everyone at the office, I probably spend the most time at my desk and the least time in meetings. I don't meet many new or potential clients; I rarely hand out business cards. Most of my work is done directly on my computer. I barely leave the office for anything other than lunch or a post office run. I don't need something to carry everything with me.

But that doesn't stop me from wanting it.

I love being organized. As I've written before, keeping things clean, putting things in a proper place, and alphabetizing anything have always been a part of my life (the title of this post was inspired by a Pinterest board of mine). And routine is comforting. I don't want every little thing to be planned out, and I definitely don't want every day to be exactly the same. But routines help me to know what to expect and when to expect it.

Lately (read: the past two days) I've been trying to organize and routine my writing. I know people's opinions on this differ: some say sit down at the same time every day to write, others say write when inspiration hits and don't force it when it doesn't. I don't want to stifle any creativity, and I certainly don't want to keep myself from writing when it's not my set writing time, but so far I like having a time that I know I will be writing.

My morning setup

For the past two days, I've gotten up an hour earlier than usual in order to shower, eat, and then have writing time before I have to go to work. One hour is not a ton of time to really sit down and get thoughts in focus, but until I get used to waking up earlier, I've got to take baby steps. Yesterday, after eating and fixing my cup of coffee (yikes! I just realized I haven't even fixed my coffee yet!...OK problem solved. Back to work), I spent a little time reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It's a simple book, really; just a writer, and writing teacher, talking about writing. I particularly love reading about all her anxieties, all the voices that go through her head telling her she can't write, or inspiration will never strike again, or she should be making the grocery list instead; it's nice to know other people go through this process too.

I am also trying to keep writing a little more present in my daily life, by carrying a bigger purse—see? I want to need to carry everything with me!—with Bird by Bird, my notebook, my iPad, and pens, along with my wallet and normal purse items. I don't know if I'll keep this up; it's a little heavy, and at least yesterday, it resulted in me carrying a bunch of stuff to lunch with me that I didn't need just because I needed my wallet.

I don't know if I'll ever be a true morning person, but right now, I'm happy with getting up at 6:30, giving myself that one hour to have my own time and do my own work before the day gets going with work, obligations, and everything that I can't control. My time after work always seems so disorganized: needing to go to the grocery store, having to make or find something for dinner, realizing the car needs gas, or just being too tired to focus on anything but watching a new episode of The Following. Mornings are calmer, quieter, and less likely to get interrupted. I'm going to do my best to keep them that way.