I’ve asked about you and they told me things/ But my mind didn’t change/ And I still feel the same

In honor of NaNoWriMo, a list of some fiction that I've written over the years.

Handlers - Were I to actually complete something, it might be Handlers. It's about this young woman who is a handler for a spy; in this case, though, handlers have some sort of psychic connection to the spy. It also has what is probably my best love triangle. The problem is I couldn't decide the tone and world building. I have an ending written that basically involves the lead losing her mind.

Muse - I actually finished this one, as in there is an ending. It's a retelling of Bluebeard; this artist recruits "muses" to live with him and inspire his art. And he's super great so people go for it? I don't know. Anyway, it involves torture porn near the end. I was 17, what can I say?

Ashton/Bohmer - This is a story about two feuding high-fairy families in a world where high fairies never age past being teenagers. I feel like there is some sort of YA potential here. It's told from two characters' perspectives alternating back and forth. It has a pretty unpleasant lead female character of whom I'm rather fond.

Castle - This one was inspired by I Capture the Castle and is about this quirky family who owns a crazy run-down castle. A film crew from the States (or some place? It's not set in the real world but it is likely set in the UK) wants to film this epic LoTR style movie there. There is a love story. There is no real plot. Tone also got weird with this one. I had the character have this fight with the guy she's with that was basically me processing a fight I'd had with a guy. It's weird to re-read.

Robin and Darrin - This one is weird, and my ideas about it changed (character names even changed), so it's also inconsistent. Darrin is this prince who got angry with his family and gave it all up to wander the world. He recruits this young female apprentice, Robin, who has some trauma from something. They take on amusing odd jobs as they travel, till they accidentally wander back to his kingdom and get invited back by the family. Court intrigue ensues and they end up fleeing when the queen tries to do something terrible to Robin because Robin has this magical secret. Then I stopped writing it.

Leighton - Second to Handlers I'd take this one on. It's a murder mystery with a sort of Gosford Park flavor to it since it has a whole upstairs/downstairs thing going on. The lead is a 20 something woman who is a "memory specialist." I wasn't quite clear on what that meant, but it had something to do with recovering memories from military officials when they retired to ensure nothing wasn't collected? But the military guy gets murdered.

Grace's book - This one is also weird. It's about this group of five sisters living in this place like Venice in something sort of 17th century like but with 19th century elements too. They are part of a minority religious group that is oppressed. Their father recently died but they are lying about this so that Grace can continue his work as a Kreser (cryptographer) that no one would allow her to do as a woman. It's quite long because it also involves her working with a group from the dominant religious group as a Kreser for their team participating in this crazy competition/puzzle game as part of a summer festival, there are complicated love stories for all of the sisters, and it has no overarching plot.

For all those years I prayed that you'd go away for good/ Half the time afraid that you really would

Mission creep: this has nothing to do with reading.

I always think about street harassment in the spring and fall. This is because street harassment picks up in the spring, I guess because we're not all wearing shape disguising coats and running to escape the cold. Then I get used to it as the summer wears on. Come fall, though, I occasionally wear knee-high boots with booty shorts and fishnets.

The other day after getting some fairly graphic street harassment, I was reflecting on this. Nothing justifies street harassment, and I get crap no matter how I dress. That said, it does get noticeably worse in the fall with this outfit choice.

I didn't used to dress this way for trapeze. When I first started I wore things like this:

Not sexy!

Now, I wear things like this:

And this:

Which I realize don't look all that sexy, but with boots on the street, they come off more sexy than I intend.

So, why dress unintentionally sexy for trapeze? It's sort of ironic, actually, given what got me started with trapeze in the first place. I'm not totally sure how to explain it; I guess some is just about coming to be more comfortable with my body than I ever have been before. Coming to see my body as about what it can do and not how it looks has strangely enough led me to a place where I'm not self-conscious about wearing things like this, and I can truly just wear clothes that are pretty and make me happy while flying.

I don't like that it comes with street harassment, but living in DC does, and it is what it is. The benefit of discovering that I love flying in fishnets just like I discovered that I can regularly do something that terrifies me for the sake of the highs it gives me seems on balance worth it.

And I've Never Had to Face a Day Without Her At My Side/ Now I'm Strolling Right Beside Her As the Blackhole Opens Wide

I think that this is a pretty important milestone to celebrate. I have finally (finally, finally, finally, finally, finally) finished all the Philip Roth novels on the list! Why is this such a big deal? Because I literally hate everything by him that I have ever read. The degree varies but the sentiment remains. One of the sad consequences of the list project is definitely Roth (another is definitely Coetzee, though I do at least like one of his novels; but the ones of his I hate I may hate more than the Roth ones, so kind of a toss-up here).

Now, I realize that my related musing here is not quite fair given Roth's background, but I think that this still largely applies to him: I'm getting tired of reading books by white, heterosexual, economically privileged, cis-gendered men. It's actually incredibly ironic that part of why I came to the list project is because of the multicultural literature course that I took in college, given how dominated this project is by male voices of the Western canon as it were.

It's not that I don't love white, heterosexual men (well, I love a handful of specific white, heterosexual men), but seriously, I'm ready to read something by a woman of color already. Ideally an American Indian/Alaskan Native woman, actually, since I'm not sure that there are any books like that on the list. Depressing.

And I know it's long gone/ And that magic's not here no more/ And I might be okay/ But I'm not fine at all

So, this happened:

 

Don't look down/ It's a long long way to fall

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the DC public library system. I've primarily (solely?) written during relationship upswings, so you would be forgiven for thinking that it's just a love/love relationship. And don't get me wrong, I definitely appreciate  public libraries in theory, but in practice they can leave quite a bit to be desired. Here are my top gripes:

First, let's talk about their website, because it's kind of the worst. It's incredibly hard to search, which is kind of unfortunate since that's its main purpose. Over the years I've gotten a bit better at using it (pro-tip: exact search is not your friend), but I'm still amazed when books don't appear at all when I search one way but do when I search another. This would be less irritating if it weren't for point two, because I'd at least know it was wroth trying all the variations to find a book. Additionally, the site has a tendency to freeze up after  doing just a few searches.

Second, let's talk about the selection. For a large city, the selection is woefully inadequate. Admittedly I don't always want super popular books, but only a small handful are that obscure to justify their absence in the library system. I still have more than 350 to go, and I'm already resorting to creative means to get some of these. Why doesn't DC have an interlibrary loan system? I ask myself this nearly every day.

Third, let's talk about the size of the libraries. There are a ton of neighborhood libraries and they are all itty-bitty and strangely full of DVDs (haven't y'all heard of streaming? Does anyone still borrow DVDs from the library anymore?). As a result, I have to rely on putting books on hold for all my borrowing needs; I never can walk into the library and just find books that I want. Now, I could go to the main library branch, but trust me, it's not better. It just has even more DVDs.

Now, it's not all bad. I know I'm not their real target audience, and they have done some pretty innovative things like hiring a social worker to work with homeless patrons. Still, I worry about relying on the library as the books get harder and harder to find.

I am the one who knows you/ I am the one you fear/ I am the one who's always been here

Time to take stock as we head into Q4. But first, how is this possible? What happened to 2014? How am I this old? What am I doing with my life?

Actually, as I was cheerfully getting in the elevator today with my lunch of falafel and hummus (today was yummy vegan day if you squint a bit and ignore the skim milk in my tea this morning), one of my elevator companions asked that very question of another elevator companion. "What am I doing with my life?" I hadn't intended for this post to be existential. After all, the answer is pretty obvious: working at my human rights NGO and working on my cutaway and taking expensive spin classes and getting ready to move in with Drew and surviving yoga. And, of course, trying to read a lot.

Anyway, we ended Q3 all right I guess. But I literally finished book 75 on the 29th of a 30 day month, so it's not like I'm ahead at all. I guess that's not a huge deal, except to the extent that Q4 is often a rough month for reading. It also means that I've not tried to tackle any of the long ones for awhile and I probably won't now this year if I want to stay numerically on track (even if that means I am setting myself up for pain in the long run).

Sadly, there are many non-fiction books that I want to read right now. Maybe I should just give up on sleeping.