Controversial? I just think she's patronizing.

Linda wrote a post a few days ago about banned books and censorship. Evidently Judy Blume is number two on the Author Most Likely to Have Would-Be Censors Clamoring for Her Blood list.

What prompts me to blog about this isn't what you'd think. Yeah, my hackles sat straight up and growled when I read her name, but it has nothing to do with censorship. I have no desire to either burn her books or yank them off the fire.

No, it's just that I can't stand her writing.

When I was in junior high school, lo, these many years ago, I had Judy Blume thrust in front of my oblivious nose every time I turned around.

Teacher: "You should read this! She's a great writer. She understands your age group."
Jennifer: Takes book gingerly and reluctantly, holding corner by two fingers. "Oh, wow, thanks."

I know. I am probably the only woman of my generation who doesn't just looooove Judy Blume with great big lavender hearts. Trust me, I feel the isolation.

Give me a break, though. I tried to read her books. It's just that they all seemed be the same story, and not one I found appealing. Angst-ridden teenager in a comfortable situation with a fairly decent family feels misunderstood and neglected, so he/she spends his/her time in whining and self-pity, indulging in sometimes petty, sometimes serious criminal behavior designed to get attention.

This was supposed to be a reflection of my life? This was supposed to be something I could relate to?

Now, I was as self-pitying as any other adolescent. But I just couldn't get into a story about a boy who plays peeping Tom to the poor girl next door (or was she across the street? I can't remember.) I was focused in other directions. Parents don't understand you? That's OK! Save the world and it won't matter!

I read Lord of the Rings three times in the 6th grade. Donny Osmond? Oh, he was cute (I had a poster of him hidden inside my closet door in fact, which I would kiss when I was sure I was alone - ROTFLOL at myself,) but my real love was Frodo. Now there was someone who was misunderstood, a tortured lonely soul who needed me, not Sam, by his side.

I identified with Fiver. I fell in love with the Beast. I plotted ways to escape the Dipple, struggled through the wastes of High Hallack with Gillan, dreamed of going to space with Podkayne. There was no whining in those books, just buckling down and doing what had to be done. That's what I liked about them. They inspired me to take charge of my life. Blume's books didn't inspire me. They were just depressing.

I fervently hope my daughters don't ever turn out to be Judy Blume fans. I won't snatch the books out of their hands, if they are, but I will be very disappointed. Hopefully, if I fill the house with enough fantasy and science fiction, the question will never come up.

And then he decided he didn't want it anyway.

The teen has been sick and successfully begged me to go to the bookstore to pick up a role playing guide for him today. He thinks he's very persuasive. Hah! In actuality, I wanted to pick up Lani's book. I wouldn't have made the time for myself, but given two reasons, it didn't take much to overcome my reluctance to spend money on myself.

Walking into the store I glanced over the books on display, just a quick look. After all, I wasn't in the market for them, I was going to be good and confine myself to only one book. I was jolted to realize one large display was for someone I know online. Then, as I was looking for Time Off for Good Behavior, I spotted a couple of other names I know, all members of various writing groups I belong to.

It's never hit me before, just how broad and welcoming the internet writer's community is, at least the female side of it. (I can't say I know many male writers.) I doubt if any of these women, besides Lani, would recognize my name. I tend to have brief spurts of participation divided by long periods of lurking. But I know them, and if I wrote to them through the list I would probably get a kind response and any assistance I requested. That's just so ... wow.

Hi. My name is Jennifer, and I know many talented people.

P.S. - They didn't have Time Off. The sales clerk told me the computer said it wasn't coming out until mid-October. Um, yeah. I'll just order it from Amazon, then, OK?

Seriously. You have got to read it. It's a great book.

Making Music

Driving along the freeway this morning I heard the toddler singing softly behind me:

(To the tune of Frere Jacques)

Where you sleepin'
Where you sleepin'
All the night?
All the night?
Sa-la-lay-la-tina,
Sa-la-lay-la-tina,
Ding, ding, dong
Ding, ding, dong

Isn't she just too cute for words?

In honor of her recent birthday and the baby's upcoming transition to official toddlerhood, I'm going be changing the toddler's designation to preschooler. Henceforth you will be hearing about the preschooler and the baby (to avoid confusion I won't start calling the baby the toddler for a few months.)

(OK, fine. I just don't want to stop calling her my baby. So there. Pppbbttt.)

Look! Posting three days in a row! Whatever is the world coming to?

Creativity

Years ago a roommate, and my best friend, found a book in the library which contained nothing but various types of personality/intelligence tests. Specifically, it claimed to offer ways for you to measure all the different types of intelligence you had, not just IQ, but things like organizational, mechanical, emotional, or creative intelligence.

C. is an artist. Naturally she took the creativity test first. As I recall, one part of it was that you were supposed to come up with a list of ways to use a pictured item - a pipe or some such thing. C. came up with 98. When I took the same test I came up with something like 5.

C. claimed that it showed that I wasn't creative, and said that she agreed with it. That really upset me. I've always regarded myself as a creative person. I've always wanted to be a writer, loved doing creative things, been praised for being a creative person. That was just who I was. Jennifer the Creative. Jennifer the Writer. Telling me I was the creative equivalent of a concrete wall struck at one of the foundation supports of my identity. We had quite a fight about it.

It was relatively easy to dismiss that test. I mean, really, a test from an old library book? I know how real psychological testing works, and that isn't how you come up with a reliable result. Unfortunately that opinion was echoed by C., my best friend, the person who knew me better than anyone else. So it's been there in the back of my head ever since, a lingering question that I've never been able to resolve.

So that's the background. Lately, I've been thinking that maybe C. was right. I look at myself, at what I've tried to accomplish, and I see ... nothing.

When I little I never could figure out what to do with Legos. My little brother would create these amazing structures, spaceships usually. They were beautiful, expansive, airy - a cross between machine and bird.

I made houses. Small, clunky, square houses.

I'm good at homemaking. I'm really good at it. I sew, bake bread, craft with the toddler, preserve jams, vegetables, fruit and meat. I'm lousy at cleaning, but good at knitting, embroidery and crochet. We've got everything we need to survive a hurricane, blizzard or terrorist attack, and enough to help out our neighbors, too.

I'm good at writing - as long as it's non-fiction. I've won a couple of awards for my essays and editorials, and I can pull together an excellent newspaper or magazine article in no time flat.

Recently, I've been exploring photography, and I like to think I'm rather good at it. A couple of people have said nice things about my photos at any rate.

In other words, all my creativity seems to be based solidly on the concrete. If I can see it, touch it, feel it, I can photograph it or describe it. I can put the concrete together in a pleasing way. But, I can't tell a story to save my life.

I can feel the creativity inside me. It's there, like a banked fire that flares into life every now and then. I've tried to bring it out, but completely without success. It's like it's locked up, just out of reach and I can't find the key.

I can't help but write fiction. What I write is truly lousy, but I can't help it. I have to try. It's a compulsion, something I could no more stop doing than I could stop breathing. I think though, that maybe it's time to give up on the dream of being published. I don't think it's there in me. Hard work may be 90% of the equation, but without that 10% of talent, it just isn't going to happen.

I'll keep trying though. Like I said, I can't seem to stop myself.

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things - -
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - - fold, fallow and plow;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Cinderella is differently-abled.

The toddler got a Cinderella doll for her birthday. She saw it in the grocery store a week before the big day and immediately glommed onto it. We were in the baby aisle; I was deciding which was cheapest - brand-name diapers with doubled coupon or store-brand diapers with no coupon. Having decided in favor of the store-brand, I turned to see my little one, stacking boxes of Disney princess dolls in the middle of the aisle. (Diabolical store, to place the toys next to the diapers!) It was an impressive stack, almost as tall as her, and she's extremely tall for her age. Unfortunately, although I was pleased with her stacking prowess, I had visions of the pile crashing down and having to pay for every one of the $10 dolls.

I hustled back to her and hurriedly started to put the dolls away. Naturally, she protested. Loudly. Very loudly. We finally compromised by letting her carry a Cinderella doll around the store while I finished our shopping. Then I spent several minutes explaining how Cinderella lived in the store and couldn't possibly go home with us. That's when I made my fatal mistake. I told her if she was very good and left Cinderella there without any tantrums, then maybe Cinderella would come to live with us on the toddler's birthday.

I thought she'd forget about it. She didn't. Every morning she'd wake up talking about Cinderella and birthday presents. She told Daddy, she told big brother, she told her friends at church and the little boy next door. She even told Grandma all about Cinderella and birthdays. What else could I do? I got her Cinderella.

Of course, Cinderella came with various accessories. A bracelet, three charms, removable clothing, long gloves and two clear-with-silver-glitter plastic shoes. Inevitably, the shoes wouldn't stay on. No problem. Neither did anything else. I redressed Cinderella about once every 5 minutes the first day we had her. At least her hair was styled with some kind of plastic substance that made the hair impossible to brush, wash or cut. (Yes, all things I did to my own Barbies at one point or another.)

One day, Cinderella disappeared. The toddler didn't say anything or even seem to notice Cinderella was missing. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved she hadn't made an outcry, or peeved that the doll had gotten old so fast. I decided to be relieved. I had a bad feeling about where that doll might be.

Sure enough, I found Cinderella today, when I was moving the living room furniture to clean out the toys underneath them. The dog had gotten to her. Her face was intact, which was a relief, but alas, she was not unscathed. He'd amputated her left arm, gnawing it off just below the elbow.

I tried to hide it, but the toddler caught a glimpse of that blue dress and got all excited. At first I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about, but in the end, I had to return Cinderella to my darling daughter.

There was a shriek of horror, then ...

Nothing.

I was turned away, too cowardly to face the grief I anticipated, but I turned back around at this. The toddler wasn't standing there in shock, she was heading for her bedroom to play with Cinderella. In no time at all, Cinderella had stripped and was being walked down the hall in all her bizarrely-dimensioned glory.

The toddler knows Cinderella is damaged and she understands that the dog did it. She just doesn't care. The husband wants to get her a new Cinderella; The armless doll creeps him out just a little. Since the dog chewed up the shoes, too, we need to at least get those. I don't know that we need a new doll, though.

The toddler has a port wine stain on her cheek. It covers her ear, down her neck to the top of her shoulder, then up to the middle of her jaw, up to her cheek, and over in a straight line to her ear again. At the best of times it's pale pink; when she's throwing a tantrum or is outside in the cold it turns dark purple. She doesn't know yet that she has it, but she's reached an age now where she soon will start to realize she's different from the other kids. I hope the people she meets won't care anymore than she cares about Cinderella's arm. Since that won't happen, I mostly hope that I can teach her not to care about the cruel words, and to know her own value.

Steadily Losing My Mind

I'm a happy helper
I like helping others
Yes, I'm a happy helper

I couldn't get this Barney song out of my mind this morning, so what did I do to finally exorcise it? I started singing the Dora theme song.

Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer!
Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer!

That's what I get for letting the toddler rot her brain with TV all day while she's been sick.

Some people could make a zucchini feel homicidal.

My little brother is just two years younger than me. When he was little he liked to watch Godzilla movies. He looked just like our cousin and everyone used to think they were twins, two tow-headed little boys watching Godzilla movies and pretending to shoot each other. They watched Emergency and wanted to be firemen when they grew up; then they would watch Adam-12 and decide they wanted to be policemen when they grew up.

(I wanted to be a policeman or a fireman, too, but I was confused by the words. Fireman. Policeman. Obviously not something a girl could grow up to do. It made me sad. I use that as an example of the power of language whenever the husband starts ranting about the awkwardness of gender neutral words. Then I ask him, sweetly, if he really wants his two daughters to grow up feeling disenfranchised? I know. Not fair. But it makes him think.)

Anyway. Getting back on topic. Living here in the East, I haven't seen my brother in years, although we talk on the phone frequently. I got a letter from him the other day, an e-mail. He's been activated and is going to Iraq.

My bipolar brother, my obsessively stubborn brother, my brother who could irritate a saint into wanting to kick him in the head, my paranoid brother who sees insults behind every wisp of wind and thinks he has to immediately confront them, is going to a place where there are many, many people with guns. Oh dear.

I'm not worried about him getting hurt. I'm worried about him getting hurt by a member of his own unit.

My brother has my hands. I noticed that several years ago before either of us was married, when we were both still college students. I looked over at him and realized his hands were just like mine, only the masculine version. Same fingers, same ratio of finger length to palm width, same bone structure.

No-one else in the world has my hands. No-one else knows what it's like to be the child of our parents when they were young. No-one knows the things about me that he does, or can ever really understand some elements of my personality the way he can. Oh, I do hope he can stay out of trouble.

Frying pan or fire? Fire or frying pan?

I've been fighting depression for somewhere around 18 months now. There was a break for a few weeks just before the baby was born, which lasted until she was a few days old.

I keep holding out, waiting for this to reach its natural end. When I was pregnant, it was the end of the pregnancy that was supposed to bring me relief. When I lost the dice roll after she was born and wound up with a second act it was supposed to fade away after a few months, as the pregnancy hormones worked their way out of my system.

If all had gone well, it might have worked out that way. Unfortunately, circumstances haven't been so great, which means that, in addition to the physical factors underlying the depression, there have been more than enough environmental factors to make anyone depressed.

I'm thinking I need to go see someone. I had the opportunity during the pregnancy and then again afterward, but avoided it. I don't really know why I didn't want to go. I didn't know at the time. I just couldn't bring myself to make that appointment, and when they made one for me (after the baby was born,) I called to cancel it.

I can hazard some guesses. After all these months of navel-gazing I should have some idea. For one thing it's never easy to do anything with small children, much less make it to regular doctor appointments. Being depressed, the last thing I was could handle was all the stress of trying to find someone to watch a toddler and a newborn for a couple of hours every week (visit time, travel time, etc.) I didn't think a therapist would be too happy to see me with two active little ones in every session.

I also have that BA in psychology, not to mention a great deal of practical experience in dealing with the psychological community. When you have as many mentally ill family members as I do you pick up a few things. Wanna know a secret? We don't know that much about mental illness. We have drugs that can help, sure, but no-one's really sure exactly how they work and when they're going to work. In other words, there's a remarkable similarity between the modern psychiatrist and the primitive witch doctor.

If I go to a therapist, the first thing any reputable, informed, educated, competent provider is going to want to do is get me a prescription. But wait! We don't know exactly what causes depression. There are no tests that can diagnose depression, no reliable way of knowing what medicine is going to fix the problem. We know more about viruses than we do about brain chemistry and how it effects the way we feel and the way we see the world.

Post-partum depression, situational depression, incipient bipolar disorder - after all these months, who knows how all this is interacting in my head and my body? I don't know if I want to offer myself up for musical chemistry, taking first this and then that for a couple of weeks at a time, enduring various side effects until we find just the right pill or combination of pills to lift me out of this.

And of course, ultimately, I'm scared. I don't want to find out the family illness has finally caught up with me. Denial is so much better than that reality. Being mentally ill means losing your friends, losing your family, losing your ability to support yourself, losing your life. As hard as it is to watch my loved ones going through this, I am selfish enough to prefer watching it to living it.

But I'm so tired right now and I just don't see how I can keep on coping. If only there was some test they could do that would tell them exactly what medication would take care of this, some kind of psychotropic drug that worked like a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

Failing that, I guess I'll just have to wait until the cure doesn't seem like a worse bet than the illness anymore