“Irene”

Oh, man, chocolate chip cookies, you did me right.  As some of you know, I’m always on the lookout for the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I have to say, these are definitely in the running.  I think the extra egg yolk makes a big difference.  I also added cinnamon and ground ginger and extra vanilla, my not-so-secret weapons.

Also excellent: red nail polish.  It really is like some kind of armor.  Makes me feel instantly put-together and polished (no pun intended) and just a little bit badass.  Yes.

And speaking of badass, here’s an article by comics writer Greg Rucka about why he writes ‘strong female characters’.  As someone who’s quite interested in tough, complex ladies, any writing on the subject is worthwhile, although I have to say, Rucka doesn’t tread a whole lot of new ground.  But, then, what more is there to say, really?  Amazingly, women are people, and should probably be written in a way that reflects that fact.  Just maybe.

“Going Is Song”

Happy International Women’s Day.  I guess technically it’s over now, but I’m going with it.

It’s been kind of a dodgy year so far for those of us with the old XX chromosomes, but I’m grateful and proud to know some phenomenally impressive, kick ass ladies.  One dear friend was accepted to grad school today, another is getting married soon, and two have birthdays tomorrow — and that’s just this month.  To those of you who are nearby, I’m so grateful to have you around, and to those who’re far away, I love and miss you.  ♥♥♥!

“Don’t Go”

I need to make a resolution: I will not talk about how much work I haven’t managed to get done.

On another note, I’m sure that if you’ve been following the news at all, you know all about this horrific Virginia abortion legislation, but I had to touch on it because I literally started crying in rage while listening to an NPR report in my car this afternoon.

And on a related note: I have the feeling I may have brought this up before, but what separates the anti-abortion demonstrations that go on in front of my friendly neighborhood Planned Parenthood from hate speech?  Seriously, I want to know.  The goal of that kind of demonstration isn’t to raise awareness for a cause or to call someone else’s beliefs into question.  The only goal is to shame and vilify women who dare to believe they have the right to decide what happens to their bodies, and if that’s not hate, I don’t know what is.

Let’s not end on a down note, so instead, here’s a clip from the 1961 Irene Papas version of Antigone.  Antigone wouldn’t stand up for this shit, no sir.

“Message of Love”

This afternoon I made what were, I must say, some very tasty chocolate macarons — and they actually looked about like they’re supposed to this time!  They barely lasted the night — there are two left over, which, I suspect, will be promptly devoured in the morning.

Ben came over to watch True Blood this evening, and then I proceeded to make a bunch more paper flowers and watch even more L Word.  It’s not really all that good, but it does have good parts, and good people, and it’s exactly what I need right now: a soapy drama I can half-watch while I do something else.

I think what I like the most about it (besides what a foxy fox Katherine Moennig is) is how homosocial it is, and I mean that completely divorced from the question of sexuality.  There are so many shows and movies that are absolute boys’ clubs, where women are relegated to the wife and girlfriend roles, or, worse yet, where they’re stuck playing Strangled Hooker #3.  Although I don’t really identify with much of the lesbian culture depicted in the show, I do love that it presents women’s friendships (and romantic relationships) with other women.  I don’t want to exclude men from my world by any means, but I do get sick of seeing women’s lives portrayed as if they orbit solely around men.  My social circle is made up almost entirely of women, and I know that this is true for a lot of other women, too, even those who have serious, loving relationships and strong friendships with men.  Women’s relationships are simply not something that gets any time in movies — or, at least, there aren’t many instances where it feels honest.  Now if only it weren’t only a show about lesbians that could do that.

5 Things:

Daphne on my bed, ganache, Ben carrying Jazz like a baby, phone calls, all the stuff I’m going to get done tomorrow.

“Lonely Holiday”

Well, my dad is off to Hawaii for seven — count ’em, seven — weeks, which means the house was completely empty when I came home from work this afternoon.  We’ll miss him (’cause he won’t be around), but my mom and I are going to have a very nice time all by ourselves, I think.

I read an interesting article today about the dearth of complex female characters in movies despite all the “strong female characters” that populate Hollywood films, which basically makes the point that giving a hot bombshell ninja superskills does not a well-rounded character make.  Or, put another way, just because a female character is strong (or smart, or in any other way a badass) does not make her a strong female character.  In fact, it often just means she’s even more primed for objectification.  Which, yeah.

Followed that up with an article about Winter’s Bone, which touches on the noir and feminist aspects of the film.  And while I was nodding my head through most of the article, I kind of feel like the author missed the mark on the analysis of Teardrop’s final turn.

Both articles resonated with something that I’ve been thinking about a lot in relation to my own writing of late: I’ve been realizing how important it is to me that my writing depicts complex female characters.  All too often I think women writers wind up creating male characters because that’s what sells and because there are simply very few models of realistic female protagonists in fiction.  But women’s lives are important to me, and so are the representation of those lives in fiction, and I don’t want to loose sight of that in my own writing.

5 Things:

Why Female Armor Sucks, cookie dough, popcorn, hugs, Daphne on my arm.

“Tell You Now”

With the recent release of the new Jane Eyre movie, it seems that every single media outlet needs to comment on the apparently-unlikely-but-actually-irresistible relationship between Jane and Rochester.  I’ve written about this dynamic before, so I don’t think it should come as any surprise that, for whatever reason, I identify really strongly with Jane, and, although I can acknowledge that it’s objectively kinda creepy, I find the book’s romance very compelling.

First off, stop wondering about the appeal of this story, guys.  I’ve already answered all your questions.  Obviously.

But more importantly, can we stop talking about how nonsensical it is that Jane falls in love with Rochester even though he’s older and disfigured?  They’re both supposed to be unattractive, or at least not traditionally attractive.  Brontë actually refused to illustrate the original edition of the book because she didn’t think either of them were good-looking enough to appeal to readers. But unattractive people need love, too. Actually, I think that’s kind of the point, in a way.  Although as many critics have pointed out, Rochester has to be uglified as punishment for his misdeeds, it’s also about the fact that people don’t have to be gorgeous to get a happy ending.  Jane is no great beauty — she’s “poor, plain, obscure, and little,” after all — but what matters is not what she and Rochester look like, but what they find in one another, which is a meeting of the minds.  Their marriage is a union between equals, something very few other female literary heroes can say about their spouses.  Elizabeth Bennet and the Dashwood sisters, for instance, must still be rescued from financial peril by means of marriage, which is obviated in Jane’s case by her inheritance.  But I mean, let’s be serious — far more improbable matches get made in every contemporary sitcom and comedy ever produced, so let’s just let it go.

In other news, some miscellany: Atlantis and dolphin-induced injuries.  Also, play a game that poses the question, could you survive the Victorian era?

5 Things:

Sun through a cloudy sky.

Blended coffee drinks.

Holding hands.

My dad.

Chocolate delivery.

“Persist”

Grumble, grumble, I’m such a grump.  No time to talk about the things I want to talk about.  Have to finish prepping for tomorrow’s classes, then sleeeeeeep.

Instead, have a very unsurprising piece of trivia: girls underestimate their own intelligence.  Hard to believe, I know.  But then I just have two X chromosomes, so what would I know?

5 Things:

The epic epicness of “O Fortuna.”

Breakfast sandwich.

Reading.

Gold burrito.

Ten dollar sale skirt.

“Bells Ring”

Because I wasn’t feeling bleak enough about my literary prospects already, there’s been lots of talk in the news recently about the extreme underrepresentation of women’s voices in literary magazines.  I linked to VIDA’s study on the subject last week, and now Salon, The Sisterhood, and Bookslut, among others, have weighed in.  Shortly put: it’s not a very welcoming place for women writers.  Magazines don’t review many books by women because publishers don’t publish many books by women, despite the fact that women buy and read considerably more books than men.  And despite all the breath people spend decrying this disparity, it doesn’t ever seem to change much.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for me today.  My Latin exam went well, I think, late day at Montessori was fun (so much Lego!) and there’s some indication that the other shoe will drop on a couple more of my applications very soon, one way or another.

I’m really at the point where even bad news is better than no news, and I’m pretty close to making peace with the possibility of striking out again this year.  It’s not over yet, but if it winds up that I’m not accepted anywhere this time around, I’ve got some good things to fall back on.  As I said to Kristin the other day, it’s really not individual rejections that get me down — unlike last year, when particular schools could break my heart — but more an atmosphere of exclusion and general uncertainty.  I had a tough time in elementary school, and a lot of days I would come home in tears, asking my parents, “Why don’t they like me?”  That’s what this whole MFA thing has really been about for me: I have faith in myself, but sometimes I really struggle to understand why it seems that nobody else sees what I see in myself.  But.  People do see that, and I know it and I’m grateful to them for their constant support, and the trick is not to let others make me doubt myself.  As Michelle and I constantly remind one another: it’s their loss.

Small Things:

Commemorating (plus, my child's hands!)

 

 

“Warpath”

Well, it’s officially begun.  Two people posted on Seth Abramson’s MFA blog, The Suburban Ecstasies, that they were accepted today to one of the programs I applied to.  While it’s still possible that I’ll get a call in a day or two, or that I may be on some kind of waitlist, the reality is that I can probably cross the first school off my list.

In the meantime, there’s nothing I can do but keep busy.  All this MFA stuff is just idle fantasy until someone accepts me, and meanwhile there are real concerns right in front of me.

Although, sort of on the subject: VIDA has run the numbers on the state of women’s representation in literary magazines, and the results are very interesting, if rather disheartening.  It’s a damn sight better than the statistics for women in film that were shared around recently, but still, not a very warming figure.  [Via Jezebel]

Also on the subject of women, my onetime pantomime costar, Laurie Penny, has a thoughtful essay on the word “cunt” over at the New Statesman.

Additionally, Friday is Wear Red Day, so be a lady in red tomorrow to raise awareness about heart disease, the number one killer of women in the country.

5 Things:

“Maryland, a way of life.”

Mocha meringues.

Sales!

Dalton as Rochester. Not as good as Toby Stephens, but better than William Hurt.

Hope springs eternal.

“Off the Hook”

This morning, I begged my dad to drive me to work because there was snow on the ground and driving in inclement weather stresses me out like nobody’s business.  He very kindly agreed and so we trundled off to the college, only to discover that the college had delayed opening until ten.  I’d been so wrapped up in trying to deal with the snow that I completely forgot to check the school closings. I was very embarrassed, but the upside was that we both got to go back to bed for a while.

I was supposed to go over to the daycare this afternoon — one of the women there had some kind of emergency, so they asked me to fill in as a kind of trial run before they make their final decision.  However, when I got up from my nap, I discovered that they were also closed due to the weather, so I spent most of the afternoon lying in bed catching up on my TV viewing and obsessively checking the weather.  I also did a tiny little bit of writing on something not “Persephone”, which was nice, because I haven’t been doing a lot of that recently.

After several false-alarm winter storm warnings, we’re finally getting our first real snowstorm of the season.  We’re supposed to get four to seven inches, which isn’t exactly the whopping two feet we got last year, but, still, it’s nothing to scoff at.  I’m kind of hoping my classes will be canceled tomorrow, so that I can sit around drinking hot cocoa and writing (and avoid driving in this mess), but I can’t really bank on that, alas.

In other news, here’s some irate rambling about literary classics:

Sebastian Faulks recently wrote an article comparing Jane Eyre and Becky Sharp, in which he claims, “Jane Eyre is a heroine; Becky Sharp, the main character of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847-48), is a hero.”

A hero, Faulks says, “may well have a lover; the chase and the affair give opportunities for displaying qualities of romance and constancy. Ultimately, though, a hero can be disappointed or defeated in love and it will not matter, because pairing off is not the goal or completion of the heroic trajectory. The hero imprints his or her qualities on society and by doing so overcomes false or smothering social restrictions.”

Uh, sorry, but has Faulks even read Jane Eyre?  The entire book is a vitriolic critique of false and smothering social restrictions.  Faulks argues that Jane cannot be a hero because “her happiness, and her psychological “completion”, seem to depend on her securing the love and companionship of another, Mr Rochester.” But Jane Eyre isn’t about finding love.  It’s about finding someone who treats you as an equal.  What’s so awesome, to me, about Jane and Rochester is that they’re intellectual equals.  Rochester tries to treat her as an inferior — lying to her, manipulating her — but it doesn’t work, any more than it works when St. John Rivers tries to treat Jane as an inferior by asking her to conform to traditional gender roles.  The conclusion I draw from Jane Eyre is that being forced to conform to those traditional gender roles will make you crazy.  That’s what happens to Bertha Mason, and it’s what would have happened to Jane if she’d compromised her values and done what others expected her to do.

Faulks is right to complain that “most women in fiction cling at some stage to their feelings for a man as a fixed point or priority.”  This is something Michelle and I have been talking about a lot recently.  Both of us find most contemporary stories abut women to be completely unrelatable because, at this stage in our lives (and perhaps always), our goals — our criteria for “psychological completion” as Faulks puts it — have absolutely nothing to do with finding a love match and settling down, as most narratives about women seem to suggest should be the case.

But it troubles me that Faulks conflates the fact that Jane marries for love with some kind of “stage of surrender” in which women define their self-worth solely in relation to men.  Yes, Jane does wind up happily married, but she holds out until she can do it on her terms, which, if you ask me, is pretty badass.  At least she doesn’t use her sexuality to manipulate others for her personal gain, like Beck Sharp does, a quality which Faulks seems to find strangely laudable.

Seriously, when will we learn that the flip-side of being a romantic doormat is not necessarily rampant sexual manipulation? When will it occur to us as a society that, for many women, fulfillment and accomplishment do not need to go hand-in-hand with marriage and baby-making, or sex of any kind? Our biographies as artists, innovators, pioneers, need not be intercut with romantic subplots. This is the exactly kind of wrong-headed misogyny that leads to nonsense like Becoming Jane, in which a totally spurious romance is inserted into a Jane Austen biopic, because apparently a woman cannot possibly grow and mature as an artist without falling in love.

Thankfully, I’m not alone in my reaction to this article.  For another take on the issue, check out Laura Miller’s typically thoughtful critique of Faulks’ argument over at Salon.

And now, to cleanse your palate, read this story about a piano that mysteriously appeared on a sandbar in Miami.

Small Things:

Snowy trees, January 2011