In honor of New Years, I’m renewing my resolutions for another year. This is a reprise post from two years ago.

“Wabi-Sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
It is a beauty of things modest and humble.
It is a beauty of things unconventional.”
–Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers Poets & Philosophers

Normally, at this time of year I’d be making all kinds of threats and promises to myself to improve my body and lose X number of pounds in the new year. Not this time. I resolve to treat myself with the respect and care that I would give a piece of art, and to learn to see my body as Wabi-Sabi — imperfect, impermanent, unconventional, and beautiful as it is, on those terms.

I hope you’ll all give yourselves that same respect.

Where do we draw the line between being child-like and childish, between being young at heart and chasing after a youth that’s long past? When is it time to start “acting my age?”

Those are questions that are heavy on my mind these days. In three weeks, my oldest daughter is getting married. In a few years, I could be a grandmother. Yet I still keep my hair in a ponytail, wear whimsical underwear aimed at preteens and only put on shoes to go to the grocery store. My favorite shirt is a tie-dyed creation I bought at the second-hand store a dozen years ago and I listen to the same music I did when I was fourteen. My character socks come from the children’s department. I play in the snow and wrestle with my dog and eat bologna sandwiches for lunch. I cling to a 20-year-old leather bomber jacket with a ripped lining and frayed cuffs instead of buying a respectable wool coat. I have rings in my bellybutton and eyebrow. I make up stories and write them down and dream of getting paid for them someday.

In most of my life I’m a responsible adult. I work (admittedly at something I love), I raise my kids to the best of my ability, I get the oil changed in my car every 3,000 miles. Yet I hang onto these little pieces of childhood. I was never a kid when I was a kid, so maybe I’m making up for it now in these ways. But staring into the jaws of a new year, I’m becoming self-conscious about it.

When is it time to put these things away?

Where does the line fall between eccentric and pathetic?

Most importantly, am I able to tell the difference?

(Looking at it spelled out like this, I think I’ve got my answer.)

I just checked my current manuscript through Gender Genie, an online test to reveal the gender of my writing. It guessed me as female, based on the last couple of pages I’ve written. Since I am female, I don’t think this is a problem, but my target market with this novel is suspense, and an editor might. In that genre, female authors are a minority, and face what I believe to be a more difficult battle in attracting male readers. I’ve found that women will read men, but not nearly as many men will read women. Editors know this.

Words: 618
(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

For what it’s worth, the passage I used was dialog between a man and a woman.

Take a look at how it breaks down my word choices.

Female: with, if, not, where, be, when, your, her, we, should, she, and, me, myself, hers, and was.
Male: around, what, more, are, as, who, below, as, is, the, a, at, it, many, said, above, and to.

It looks to me as if male is the default option here. Descriptive words (where, when) are female, as are any mention of women and the past tense, while basic articles of speech (the, a) are male, as are relative value words, such as more, below, above. Is this an example of readers’ perceptions, or a bias in the test? What does this say about both situations?

I wonder where the lush writing of my idol James Lee Burke would fall.

But my big question is: do we consider writing like a man to be a compliment?

Researchers: Baking Impacts Puget Sound

SEATTLE (AP) — Researchers at the University of Washington say all that holiday baking and eating has an environmental impact - Puget Sound is being flavored by cinnamon and vanilla. “Even something as fun as baking for the holiday season has an environmental effect,” said Rick Keil, an associate professor of chemical oceanography. “When we bake and change the way we eat, it has an impact on what the environment sees. To me it shows the connectedness.”

Keil and UW researcher Jacquelyn Neibauer’s weekly tests of treated sewage sent into the sound from the West Point treatment plant in Magnolia showed cinnamon, vanilla and artificial vanilla levels rose between Nov. 14 and Dec. 9, with the biggest spike right after Thanksgiving.

They don’t say whether that’s from cookies being run down the garbage disposal or (ahem) the after-affects of human consumption.

So far there’s no evidence suggesting that baking ingredients are harming sea life, but Keil and Neibauer speculate that the scent of the flavoring could affect fish by their sense of smell.

Keil’s findings present a light side of what scientists say is potentially a serious situation. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies have documented that antibiotics, contraceptives, perfumes, painkillers, antidepressants and other substances pass through the sewage system into waterways.

King County researchers several years took caffeine measurements to try to learn whether the city’s coffee drinking habits had any effect on the sound. Caffeine was found in more than 160 of 216 samples in water as deep as 640 feet.

Personally, I’m a lot more concerned about pesticides and industrial chemicals. But maybe that’s just me.

Happy holidays, everyone! Wishing you all peace, joy, and love, now, and every day of the year. Thanks for making my world a brighter place.

The final installment.

August 16, 1999

This last week has once again made me ashamed to admit I’m from Washington State. As I feared, the terrorist who attacked the Jewish Community Center in California was connected to the spiderweb of racist/survivalist cults which hide in our mountains, and bought his weapons at a local (unregulated) gun show. This loophole–that no background checks are required by non-registered dealers at gun shows–is one we’ve been trying to attack for several years, and it’s been exploited again, with horrific results. So once again we in the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene area grieve for what someone who claims to be one of our own has done, and bear the weight of guilt by geography.

Spokane itself is no stranger to domestic terrorism. The Order, The Phineas Priesthood, and Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations live in our shadow. Several years ago, the valley office of the Spokesman-Review had a small bomb explode just as I turned into Shopko, half a block away. The courthouse, Planned Parenthood office, several banks and other facilities have also felt the shrapnel of their presence. In the past year Coeur d’Alene has been afflicted by two “parades” of Richard Butler’s neo-nazis. The last time several weeks ago, Coeur d’ Alene issued their permit (as required by law) but banned them to marching by the old landfill. Justly–I say with distaste but respect–a judge overruled that as infringement of free speech and assembly. So they marched down the main street to the boos of country-wide crowd.

The press has speculated that the LA shooting was designed as revenge against the Jewish activists who came to protest that last march. Rightly or wrongly, I don’t know. The workings of such a hate filled mind are beyond me.

Here is where I step out on a limb, and prepare to have it sawed off behind me. Bear in mind that I have the greatest respect for those who have made it their life’s work to fight anti-Semitism and racism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. I applaud them, and support them in my prayers. BUT…

I wish they would not come to Coeur d’ Alene when Butler’s Bigots make their publicity bids. Not because they bring media attention with them. Not because they tend to tar us all with the same brush. Not because I fear the guaranteed ensuing violence. Not even because I fear for their safety, which I do.

Because they grab a headline and then go home, letting the locals off the hook.

Given a chance to speak with them, this is what’ I’d say. How can we keep building the fight when the responsibility to fight is taken out of our hands? Why should locals show up to protest and make things difficult when it’s already been publicized that outsiders will be here to do it for us? They do this full time, so they must be better at it — more effective than we could possibly be, right? So the community fades into the background to become just another piece of the scenery, and an assumed part of the problem. And when the Big Guys go home, our problems remain, compounded by a new dose of guilt and impotence.

Fighting for justice is, of necessity, a grassroots struggle. It goes on quietly, day by day, within local churches and community organizations, person to person. The network is growing and becoming stronger with each fight. This isn’t about being “upstaged” by those from around the country, but about being given the wrong kind of help, irregardless of how good the intentions are. Send us representatives to serve on our human rights councils. Fly in to attend planning meetings and to host workshops. Give us the benefit of your experience gained over decades of work in the trenches and support us as we deal with it every day of the year, not just at major events.

But please don’t assume that we are passively approving bystanders who will roll over quietly and pretend it’s not happening. We are not, and will not. This is our fight–one we MUST fight–and it is a part of our daily lives. As long as someone else steps in, we don’t have to, and without that imperative, too many are allowed to keep it at a distance.

End of lecture for the day.

(Note 2006: Richard Butler is now dead and his hateful organization broken and scattered. Likewise The Order and Phineas Priesthood. But racism lives on in more covert ways and the battle continues.)

North Carolina congressman Robin Hayes has the answer to the Iraq quagmire. Just convert ‘em.

From the Charlotte Observer:

A weekly newspaper in Concord, Hayes’ hometown, quoted the congressman this week as saying that stability in Iraq ultimately depends on “spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men.” Hayes was speaking to the Concord Rotary Club.

“Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the savior,” Hayes added, according to the Concord Standard and Mount Pleasant Times.

Maybe soldiers should spend their off hours proselytizing. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Just look how well it worked in the Crusades.

Via BlueNC

From The World As I See It by Albert Einstein:

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

Read the whole thing.

This one is for Burrow.

Everything I Needed To Know About Writing, I Learned In Physics Class

(originally posted March 1998)

• Chaos is the natural state of the universe. Deal with it.
• Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Control your temper, because the world kicks back.
• Once you get the ball rolling, inertia can be a Good Thing.
• When push comes to shove, it doesn’t matter whether you’re Big or Little–you’ll hit the ground in the same amount time either way. But Big will splatter farther.
• When a forceful deadline is applied to an object, it accelerates.
• The deeper the rut, the more force is necessary to move you out of it.
• When you’re hot, you radiate energy.
• In a closed system, the total amount of energy is constant. To get more energy, open your system, but beware of things that drain you.
• Ideas travel at the speed of light. You can’t. Chase them the best you can anyway, and the closer you get, the more massive you become.
• The deeper you are into a speeding idea, the more time contracts.
• You can’t know everything. If you know where your character is, you can’t be sure of what he’s doing. Speculate. A lot.
• The Cat is either dead or alive. You won’t know until you open the box.
• Other atoms are attracted to those who are willing to share. Be a positive ion.
• Frame of reference is everything.

September 4, 1999

History Of The World, part 212….

One of my obligations as a parent is to see my children educated on music. In light of the current retro fad, I think I’ve given them an advantage. One of games we’ve always played is Name That Tune/Artist-Band. I’m proud to say that all of them recognize Jimmy, Janis, Grace, Heart, The Guess Who, etc, before the vocals start. But since music needs the anchor of history, I always tell them the year and how old I was when the songs came out. Today’s case in point is the timeless classic, Takin’ Care Of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

I bought that album as soon as it hit the record store in 1973, with my 2nd official paycheck. (The first one paid for a guitar.) Within weeks all the garage bands were playing it and I’d dance til I collapsed each time they banged it out at the junior high dance. Not too long ago, the song came on the radio, courtesy of my favorite Classic Rock station. Naturally I had to dance.

The kids laughed, of course. (I think it’s in their contract.) I’m used to being considered cheap entertainment, so I ignored the insults and tried to tell them about “way back when.” I mentioned how it was my favorite song in 7th grade, and how I’d dance to it — shimmying into a backbend and bouncing until my hair dragged on the floor.

Meredith looked at me, then the floor and its great distance from my head. “No way,” she said.

I assured her it was so, telling her my hair was much longer then.

“How long?” The kid was born a skeptic.

“Down to my butt,” I told her.

She considered this. “Yeah. But your butt was higher then, too.”

(insert rim-shot)

How old was I then, oh so long ago? The same age Meredith is now. 13.