"All the Afternoons in the World"

There's something about packing up, or maybe just the end of the year, that's a little ... sad. Someone just came by and bought my couch & coffeetables, and while that's totally awesome, it was also kind of strange to watch this girl come in, try them out, look bright-eyed at her boyfriend and murmur that they would fit the "new place." She had that "I'm doing something new and starting fresh and it's exciting!" look, and it just reminded me of when I first came to this city. Even though I was scared shitless and already had (presciently) bad feelings about my job, still the whole of New York (which is the world) was laid open before me like a new book, all white sheets and clean edges and possibilities. Now it is five years on and it is somehow different. I will be leaving in six or seven or eight months, and I am downsizing, compressing my life into fewer boxes, ridding myself of kitchen implements and toasters and pretty but useless things I've not worn in years. I am preparing to move somewhere that I like and that I think will be fine, but it is still someone else's home, and in six or seven or eight months I will be doing the packing-compressing-ridding whirl again, and loading my suitcases into some rented van and taking the BQE out of the city for good. And even if I come back to this city someday, even to live, I do not think I will ever have the look that girl had on her face again. Well. I'm glad that my little sofa and coffee tables and pillows and pictures are going to start fresh somewhere else.

Something to be excited about?

There's a post up on Jez right now about how this one woman was trying to find some kids' books that teach feminist gender-roles for her two little kids, and how basically the books that she found that are expressly meant for that purpose were horribly boring and not kid-friendly. The post itself isn't all that (the message is: you can't teach kids any messages at all if the material sucks, so just focus on finding books with cool heroines instead of indoctrination), but the comments below are full of these awesome book suggestions from Jez readers. I realized that one thing I'm REALLY looking forward to for having kids of my own is ... inculcating a love of reading in them!! I started thinking about books I want my little girls to know and love: The Little House on the Prairie series (my heart for this is well-documented) The Harry Potter series (likewise) The Enchanted Forest series (featuring as main characters a sassy princess who has no interest in the usual princessy things, and a female dragon who ends up ruling the kingdom) The Hero & the Crown The Blue Sword A Wrinkle in Time (Meg! Glasses! Nerdy! Saves the world!) Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler (Claudia was just cool) The Anne of Green Gables series (they are old and can seem stiff, but Anne has some awesome moments and she's so spunky and smart) Matilda (she can move things with her MIND, though Ms Honeywell is a bit of a Mary Sue) My Side of the Mountain (OK, this has a male lead, but it's basically gender-neutral because it's all about this kid surviving in the wild and making acorn flour, etc) Jacob Have I Loved Summer of My German Soldier Tuck Everlasting Bridge to Terebithia Julie of the Wolves (Oh yeah! Here's a wilderness-survival story that features a girl! Julie is so badass in this) The Taran Wanderer/Pig-Keeper series (Eilonwy can be a bit of a wash sometimes, but she puts Taran and a number of other people in their places when they try to tell her what she should or shouldn't be feeling/doing ... and I like that she IS girly and princessy, because that's OK too) Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee This is a strangely cobbled-together and very incomplete list (the age groups are all over and some of these are way stronger than others), but I really loved some of these books and I still have super-vivid memories of them (I can recall specific passages from some). The Jez commenters also seemed to have some cool suggestions for books for really young girls (The Paperbag Princess, Jane and the Dragon) that made me even excited for having little ones. AND there are some pretty great comments about the idea of helping children learn about feminism/equality: "You know what I just realized was more important than reading all of these great books as a kid? Having a dad that read them with me. He made the protaganists relevant to my life and instilled the belief in me from a young age that I could and should attempt to conquer anything I desired." Yes! This will be a requirement, Future Husband. You will help our daughters and sons learn that they are equally awesome and should feel equally capable of acheiving anything they want to. And then there's this exchange: "HM: I think it's definitely important to seek out books with central female characters, not only for girls, but for boys, so they don't grow up to be the men who think the male viewpoint is universal, and the female viewpoint is niche. Representation matters, even if what the kid articulates about it is "boats" he or she has just enjoyed a book in which being female is a normal thing. P: Yes! And there doesn't even have to be a message (beyond the usual kids stuff – sharing, caring, looking both ways). Just the idea that girls and women are people and the heroes in their own lives." And that made me excited to read this stuff not just to my little girls, but to my little boys! Which is stupid because I should have known better anyway and realized that it's not only the little girls who need to know these things, etc etc etc., and probably those of you who teach for a living are like DUH. But anyway. The gist of this is: I love books. I ... tolerate kids. But I'm really looking forward to encouraging MY kids to love books! I think this is the first thing I've really been enthused about when thinking of having children of my own, haha.

I'm a Craigslist Elitist

Although I have to find an apartment with fairly specific criteria on a fairly low budget in essentially the next 16 days, I am unable to stop myself from being a Craigslist elitist. Here are some things for which I have mentally rejected CL ads in the last few weeks: (Reasonable) 1. Lack of price in listing (... idiots) 2. Unreasonable utilities costs; wrong timeframe; too much $ for too small of a room 3. Super-stringent rules regarding friends and/or overnight company 4. Smoker, or too much perceived 420 enthusiasm 5. The Dude Who Did Not Own a Microwave or TV and Preferred to Keep It That Way (Possibly Reasonable) 6. Saying weird stuff ("your home is your peaceful white castle of sleep," wtf?) 7. Sounds too-OCD about cleaning duties 8. Sounds too desperately in need of a BFF 9. "Strict shower timing observed" (wtf? x2) 10. AD WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS 11. Too much talk about peace, serenity, zen, harmony, spirituality, etc. (Possibly Unreasonable) 12. More than one use of "lol", or ANY use of "lulz" 13. Any use of "keke" 14. Frequent appearances of multiple continuous exclamation points ("!!!!" and "!!!") 15. Lack of punctuation, or use of comma in place of all other punctuation including ellipses ("close to every thing close to everyone,,,,roomfor rent,,, big!!!" <-- shoot me now) 16. Misspelling more than 10% of words in post. Actually, make that 5%. Actually, I just rejected one for spelling December as "dicimber" and ad as "add" so maybe make that 1%. Basically this is a sample of what I'm seeing: $950 - awesome room w awesome roomates in BEST ASTORIA Reply to: housingxxxxx@craigslist.org room 4 $950,,,,internt/tv/elec not included,,,cozy/HUGE ruom 7x8 in 3 bed aprtment starting dicimber 1. looking 4 nice, friendly girl or guy who only uses shower btwn 4-4:15 am,,,,we have 4 cats who love being 420-friendly with us!!!! u must love them to. harmonious place to live w/vegitarians, no meat here lol but wearingleather is ok lol! close to everyone close to everything! great deal wont last!!! if ur interested in this add and R an interesting person call us at 5555555. peace! I might be homeless come January 1, but DO YOU BLAME ME?