I like it, and it’s been a perpetual struggle. I’ve always tried to be too many people, and I’ve always been socially awkward, and I’ve always been better at doing/saying/appearing to be one thing in my head, and it always comes out different in real life.

Aaaaanyway, I think I’m on the road to that now. I’ve definitely gotten to the point where I am comfortable with myself–I don’t care if other people like to go to clubs and I prefer drinking parties with Scrabble; I don’t feel bad about not associating with people whose politics or personalities are offensive to me; and I’m happy to be a nerd. That said, moving to Boston upset a lot of my balance, and being comfortable is different than being happy, and I’m still working on that. I’ve suffered bouts of depression and plain old bad health, and I should probably be seeing a doctor or five. For someone who has always taken good care of herself, I am not succeeding at that right now.

After a month and a half of barely working out, I started back at the gym and instantly my cloudy mood lifted significantly. The next step is to live a cleaner lifestyle, to get rid of the physical and mental clutter, and to get out of my apartment and do stuff that makes my brain happy. I say that all the time. So I need to figure out what will make me do it. But the fact that I feel starved for ideas, and at a loss for things to say, scares me enough that I just might do it this time.

So I’m glad to finally see that in a novel. I just read If I Tell by Janet Gurtler, which does a great job of presenting unconventional friendships and relationships that aren’t the normal generic YA ones of popular friend, nerd friend, love interest, goofy guy friend, etc. This is the kind of older YA I like, because it gives a picture of more social maturity than is usually assumed in fiction for teens. Also, it’s always nice when a character isn’t a clear member of a certain social clique–Jaz reminded me of myself and people I went to high school with, where social classes and cliques weren’t as easily spelled out as they are in high school movies (or in bigger high schools). (That, for me, at least, didn’t happen until college, which was essentially another three and a half years of high school.) But I digress.

If I Tell does not at all shy away from big issues relating to race, as Jaz is haunted by a memory of being forced in a pool when she could barely swim, kept away from the edges, while her classmates taunted her for being shit-colored and mixed, essentially. In what seems like a kind of podunk town, she’s sort of doubly tainted, first for not being in the white majority, and second for being an anomaly, because it’s one thing to be one of those people, but it’s another to be just plain weird and biracial. The novel also wins at not making its central plot a cliche I’m-brown-gosh-isn’t-it-hard-to-be-a-minority-in-America? type. AND it hits right on the mark how it can feel to be so almost white that sometimes people forget that they’re not supposed to be racist in front of you, i.e. “‘What?’ Tina said to her. ‘You know what they say about black guys. I’m not prejudiced.’” For more of those goodies, look for the “shit mixed people get” video on YouTube–this is the first book I’ve read that deals with that whole “Well, this is what I think about most [epithet for some kind of minority] people, but you don’t count” thing that plagues anyone mixed or anyone minority in race or ethnicity but not in socioeconomic class. But I’m still digressing.

So there’s this guy, Jackson, and Jaz has this do-I-like-him-or-do-I-not thing going on, and when she finds out he’s mixed, it’s like everything’s a bit brighter. There’s still plenty of drama, but just like I’ve seen in my real life, it’s a connection that can’t be shaken, because it’s an experience so unique and yet so universal in that people who are mixed race and identify as such are still seemingly few and far between (especially in novels, but also in life), but they share so much of the same angst, discrimination, and identity struggles that you don’t need to talk about your experiences to know that the other person gets it. Also, Jackson becomes the first mixed person in a book not about passing to pose a different conflict in mixed race identity: wanting to identify as mixed but looking too white to do it (he’s a quarter black and tells Jaz this to bond with her, and it works, because that kind of bonding ALWAYS works). This sparks various arguments and issues, with Jaz thinking Jackson acts too white guy-y and the bitchy mean girl at school asking if they’re having a little interracial romance, etc etc.

I guess this really terribly written, rambling post is just my way of saying I think this book does a great job of showing how one way to come to terms with biracial identity is to find someone else who shares it, even if the composition isn’t exactly the same.

I’m probably not going to be posting on this much more, because my proposal on this topic just got accepted to the YALSA YA Lit Symposium, so I need to work on doing more of the actual reading and good writing, rather than this. But stay tuned! Cause you never know.

I do this mostly with albums that are by bands or duos where two people are pretty much equally the lead singer. It’s especially my favorite when it’s a male and female voice because it feels really intimate, which I admit is rather heteronormative and not actually very fair, but hey, I grew up in America. Also, the Pierces go onto my list of duos I can listen to forever, and they’re sisters.

Anyway. Bands/albums I listen to way too much because I love the dual quality of the lead vocal: Jenny and Johnny’s I Am Having Fun Now, anything by the Pierces, a lot of Rilo Kiley’s Under the Blacklight (okay, I also have a Jenny Lewis fetish), most stuff by Stars, same with She & Him, and the latest album I’ve added to that list is the Civil Wars’ Barton Hollow.

I always say that I would drop out of school in a second if I could just be a bar singer, and I’m not really lying. But another thing I would drop all other things for is a really good musical partner. Because what a lot of the abovementioned groups do really well, especially the Pierces and the Civil Wars, is craft harmonies so intricate that you could never, ever turn the song into a solo, and in some, you can’t even really find a melody, because it exists through not being sung, because the other voices wrap around the melody so that it’s implied instead. And that is awesome. If that’s not the musical equivalent to really good sex, there isn’t one.

It’s not just that those are all really fabulous, interesting albums. I think it’s also the fantasy element. Maybe because I’ve never been someone with just ONE close friend (this is not a pity party post; I have lots of close friends, I was just never one to say that any one person was my one and only) and I have only not been single for four months of my 23 1/2 years, or maybe it’s that I generally prefer or tend to be slightly unhappy and wistful (makes for a better imagination and more motivation to be creative, for sure), but it’s always seemed to me that perhaps looking for this kind of soulmatemanship is more feasible and attainable than my ever tolerating anyone who also tolerates me. It would certainly be more interesting and rewarding and challenging, especially since being artistic is quite a moody process, and I like being moody, and having a really tumultuous, moody, dysfunctional but creatively fulfilling and hopefully sexy relationship with someone seems like the best I can hope for. And that’s both because I’m far from a socially normal person who is capable of interacting with someone on a date (or to get a date) (see: The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl) and because I like to be challenged and a little bit frustrated. Anyway, the idea of being totally happy fills me with terror. So when two really great voices sing about the trials and triumphs of love and shit, it fills me with that kind of wistful sadness that makes me “happy.” Or something. Whatever. Go with it. And listen to those albums.

Books Borrowed This Month
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
The Girl Sleuth: A Feminist Guide by Bobbie Ann Mason
The Deep by Helen Dunmore
An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Transformations by Anne Sexton

Books Received This Month
The Mystery of the Tolling Bell by Carolyn Keene
Barbara Benton, Editor by Helen Diehl Olds
Polly and Her Friends Abroad by Lillian Elizabeth Roy
The Sharp Time by Mary O’Connell
The Pregnancy Project by Gaby Rodriguez

Books Read This Month
The Deep by Helen Dunmore
If I Tell by Janet Gurtler
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski
The Breakup 2.0 by Ilana Gershon
The Sharp Time by Mary O’Connell
The Predicteds by Christine Seifert
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
The Pregnancy Project by Gaby Rodriguez

So I’m pretty amazed that I only bought one book this month (not counting textbooks). Also, it’s strange how much like a slacker I feel, because I read few books this month, and also a lot of them were incredibly easy and not even that good. I also didn’t follow my own resolutions as to reading less fiction, more intelligent stuff, and more books that I’ve owned for a long time and still haven’t read. Here’s to next month, though given my school and extracurricular commitments, I don’t see myself having all that much time free for sleeping, let alone happy fun things.

Anyway. This summer, when I was teaching high schoolers, I noticed how much makeup they were wearing. And I came to the realization that at 22 (now 23), I have reached the point where it really is important to kind of bow to society’s demands and wear a little makeup and present myself in a way that will not hinder my ability to get job interviews, be taken seriously, be seen as my age (I got carded for buying a lottery ticket on New Year’s Eve and was told I didn’t just look under 21; I looked under 18). Also, my body seems to have gotten confused about when you’re supposed to have acne, and instead of giving it to me when you’re supposed to get it, when your life already sucks as a teenager, I have it now. Anyway, I’ve now gotten mostly used to being a little more primpy on a somewhat regular basis. My eyebrows are always at some level of plucked, which is good, because I actually like the way they look now. I also wash my face at night before bed. In summary, I do all kinds of things that normal American girls have been doing since they were 12, except I started when I was 22.

I used to find makeup-ing and hairdoing and shaving a hassle. To be honest, I still forget to shave for, like, two weeks at a time, and by saying that I now have a primping “routine,” I mean that I wear makeup at least once a week, and I take better care of my skin and hair daily. But I’m now getting more and more used to it, and I keep things like lipstick and mascara in my purse rather than hope that I’ll remember to pull them out of my Caboodle (yes, I still have a Caboodle) in the morning while I’m getting ready.

I can’t believe I found it all so difficult before. And I can’t believe how just a small amount of girliness (I believe I’m still far from the point of needing to have makeup on to leave the house, or of thinking that it’s fair that I will be judged on, say, my ability to do my job based slightly on how I look, but that’s life) actually has improved my moods. Having that small amount of routine in the morning and evening helps me feel in control, and, like exercising regularly, makes me feel like I am doing things that will ensure a happy, healthy future–is that weird?

Right before I left Tucson, I got a smoothing treatment that ended up totally straightening my hair. I (and the hairdresser) expected wavy, because I just wanted a slight change and longer hair, but now it’s totally straight. I didn’t mind, partly because it was already done, so there was nothing I could do, but also because it means I’ll stand out a lot less in my very white area of Boston. But now that it’s been nearly two weeks with this hair, I’m still not quite sure how to deal with it. How do people live without putting tons of product in their hair every morning? Also, now I don’t get compliments on my hair. Which, of course, was the point, not to be noticed, but now I’m thoroughly confused. I wanted long, wavy hair because that’s what I felt like inside, but now I can’t tell if this new hair is me.

In the fall I deleted Facebook from my bookmarks, and it remains gone. That makes me visit it a lot less often than I used to, and aside from article-link-posting binges, I don’t really do anything on Facebook except play Words With Friends (I love/hate you for that, Zoraida!). I don’t plan on quitting, but it’s no longer a place that works for the way I want to use media and mediation to send messages or create the virtual costume of myself. I don’t like who I am when I spend hours on Facebook, wistfully clicking through pictures of guys I used to like or girls who used to make fun of me, nor do I like how my profile page looks like, littered with shit I find interesting and want other people to find interesting about me. I don’t know why I held out on Twitter for so long, because it’s more my thing.

Expressing yourself adequately through media doesn’t just depend on how hard you work to create the right image, use the right language, and appear to be the type of person you are (or want to appear to be). It also depends on how other people use their media, because their attitudes and expectations of different media (Facebook, text, IM, etc) will color their view of how yours looks/appears. The way each person understands and approaches media is called their media ideology, and I just read a fascinating book on how relationships and breakups are mediated. The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media by Ilana Gershon details the beginnings, (dys)functioning, and endings of 21st century relationships (mostly in college-aged and young adults) and how they can be complicated by different media.

I was super excited about this book as soon as I heard about it, and it took me until now to read it. A very readable and fun sociology book, Gershon’s study is based on interviews with tons of college students, who candidly told her their stories of being broken up with over text message, of obsessing about current boyfriends’ photos on Facebook, and more. What’s fascinating is probably how interesting I found it even though it’s totally a no brainer. This book is clearly for teachers of sociology looking for a pop text, or for adults who find the current generation interesting. But even though I don’t need the term “Facebook stalking” defined for me, I found the book rather interesting (if a bit repetitive–it didn’t need to be as long as it was with the narrow scope it had, and its topic probably would have been more interesting if it included platonic relationships and their function through media as well). And I was actually a bit surprised by how many people with seemingly “normal” relationships (I say normal because I’m never in a relationship, and instead I obsess about crushes or FWBs who are barely even Fs and never go on dates because I find them insufferable) have serious conversations (the “We need to talk” kind) about whether or not to share Facebook passwords, about whether it’s okay to take photos with members of the opposite sex at parties, and about what constitutes flirting on a wall post. And apparently it is really, really common to build Facebook profiles in order to spy on exes’ new girlfriends and stuff.

Since I can only ever live in the era and generation I am in, I don’t know what all of this relationship-building looked like pre-Internet, aside from a few glimpses when Gershon interviews middle aged people to get their perspective, but I am curious to see if there was as much nefarious stalking and such a high amount of sheer self doubt before we lived in a world that socially required us to put ourselves on display. Is there a book about The Breakup 1950-1990? Because what would make this book more enlightening would be more comparison to what things used to be like. But maybe I think that because I’m not Gershon’s target audience so much as I am her subject.

As far as the writing goes, the book treads a fine line of being straightforward and easy and thinking you are really, really out of touch with technology. I also highly recommend you do NOT read this one on Kindle, as the figures and interviews get a little wonked up in ebook form. All things considered, though, it’s a good work of nonfiction, not a textbook, that weaves in stories and explanation and interviews in a way that you feel as if you are reading for pleasure, not to get a meaty quote for a sociology 101 paper.

Oh, and I just remembered that I, too, have been dumped by text message. If I was even in a relationship with the person. Has that “in a relationship” status always been so hard to define, or did Facebook invent that uncertainty? That’s a question I’d really like Gershon to answer.

Buy it here.

I feel so entrenched in critical and literary theory that I don’t know how or what makes something “good” anymore, but if it has something to do with being full of things that you can point out as funny or astute or literary or apt, or if you can think of a thesis statement for an interesting analysis of the film/book/whatever, that must be a good start, right?

I have only read Maureen Johnson’s HuffPo review of “Young Adult,” and she and I think many of the same things, so I have no idea of the kind of press or critical reception or mainstream reception the film is getting. But I hope it’s positive. That said, I have little faith in that, just because it’s the kind of movie that could appear to be very silly, and since most people in America don’t care to develop critical skills, I feel like “Young Adult” might end up shoved in a category with silly movies when it is anything but.

It’s uncanny how good this movie is at capturing current YA trends, from adults being interested in them to the inter-influence of reality television and YA lit, to the way that current culture and economy makes us young adults for much longer than just adolescence, to the fact that major series are written by ghostwriters–AND it manages to get a vampire joke in there. It’s full of product placement (I’m not sure if it’s real product placement or just made to look like it since it takes place in Products Galore, Minneapolis) and often shows shots of reality television, reminding us how our lives revolve around comparing our lives to real but fake lives on TV. Unlike “Sex and the City” and every other chick flick about “writers,” this one actually shows that they don’t live wealthy, crazy lifestyles, and instead portrays the challenges of being a creative person alongside the challenge of stifled emotional and age-appropriate development and presents what I think is a very real depiction of depression+mental illness+binge drinking which is a real issue these days with Gen Y and goes largely un-talked about, because “it’s just college.” Clearly it’s not. And yes, Charlize Theron’s character in this movie is 37, so she’s not exactly Gen Y, but that’s another thing that our current era is doing is prolonging adolescent issues like binge drinking and refusal of responsibility. Right on, Diablo Cody, right on.

Also, three cheers for an ending that keeps the bitchy girl being a bitch, and without anything (too) unrealistic happening. No wedding at the end. No apologizing for being evil. No realizing that it’s not okay to treat people like crap. If what makes things literary is keeping them unhappy, again, this movie wins because it’s more like real life, in that people can change or be changed, but no change is completely instant and all-encompassing. You get the sense that Mavis, the protagonist, is changed somewhat by her experiences, but that a depressive alcoholic is also what she is, and also, her mistakes are what keep her writing. A sad but true part of being a creative type is that you have maintain some level of disrepair in some aspect of your life, I think, in order to be in the mindset to create. I dare you to prove me wrong.

It’s weird, but my one, tiny experience on a student film has really put me in a totally different mindset when I watch movies. I’m constantly thinking about shots and takes and angles, and considering what the director’s ideas might have been, and I’m even more interested in trying some screenwriting. After all, I adored writing plays and skits for drama class when I was young, and my strength in all fiction workshops is always dialogue. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about in watching these movies. This is why I was at all able to get through “The Devil Inside” (well, that and the cute guy at the movie with me), and that’s why I loved every second of “Young Adult” but also really wanted it to be over so that I could come home and think and write about it. Yeah, I’m a dork. And yeah, you should see this movie.

But I got it from the library in Tucson, which means I have to finish reading it by Tuesday night, as I leave Wednesday morning. I had trouble getting it from the Boston library. It’s quite interesting so far–somewhat fiction, somewhat like a diary, rather than just “Hi, let me teach you some shit about acting.” I think writers’ guides could take a note from that approach. But now that I’ve trained myself to be critical about fucking everything ever, I’m having trouble getting through it, and so I’m only on page 10.

This is partly because, at least for the kind of reader and thinker I am, this is a book that demands to be read with a notebook at your side for jotting down quotes you want to remember, activities you want to try, or ideas you come up with. It is not a book for bathtub reading, which is what I thought when I decided to Blanche DuBois out and take a bath this morning. My bigger problem, though, is that this book puts me in the position of deciding whether it is worth it to read a good book and just ignore its problematic parts (lots of racism going on already for 10 pages), or if I should read it, love it, and then go back and criticize it on a different level, or throw it away in a fit of rage already.

I can tell I’m going to really enjoy this book as a riff on the creative process. Take, for example, this:

Many of these movements I felt to be in a high degree successful. I had worked almost five hours without noticing the passage of time. To me this seemed to show that my inspiration was real.1

Or

When I worked at home today I still went over the old ground without finding anything new. Why do I keep on repeating the same scenes and methods? Why is my acting of yesterday so exactly like today’s and tomorrow’s? Has my imagination dried up, or have I no reserves of material? Why did my work in the beginning move along so swiftly, and then stop at one spot? As I was thinking things over, some people in the next room gathered for tea. In order not to attract attention to myself, I had to move my activities to a different part of my room, and to speak my lines as softly as possible, so as not to be overheard.

To my surprise, by these little changes, my mood was transformed. I had discovered a secret–not to remain too long at one point, for ever repeating the too familiar.2

See? Good stuff. I’m going to love it. But already, the narrator’s first project is to embody the character of Othello. First, that reminds me that I need to read that play. Second, though, the blackfacing and method acting techniques–”my general aspect was modern and civilized, whereas Othello was African in origin and must have something suggestive of primitive life, perhaps a tiger, in him”3–are obviously outdated (or not? that could be what’s scary). They reflect none of the things I find necessary to intellectual discussion–i.e. abandonment of offensive tropes and stereotypes in favor of recognizing privileged positions and being fair in descriptions of PoC; identification of the actor’s own background, identity, and physical description to qualify why these accoutrements or changes are considered necessary, or, hell, even basic political correctness would be a start.

So do I keep reading? I’m quite sure that this book is about much more than deciding how to be a white dude playing a Moor, but now I’ve been trained to look twice at these things. But how do I move on from there? Am I allowed to still love the book? (Years ago, in junior English, I wrote a paper defending the word “nigger” in Huckleberry Finn, but I’m sure that was weak and it was pre-me reading Racialicious and taking ethnic studies classes in college.) Can I chalk the racism up to context, make sure I acknowledge it, but still appreciate the other merits of the book? Also, how can I identify with the ideas presented in the books when it clearly presents a worldview and intellectual position that presupposes that I and anyone like me is incapable of or at least uninvited to taking part in its ideas and practices?

I feel like somewhere in me I know the answer, but I can’t figure out how I am supposed to approach my continuation of reading. But I think I will really find the book valuable. Still, though. Generally, I feel like the more education and training I receive in reading and criticism and media and art, the more I want to explore and think and try and continue learning. But also, the more skills I get in criticism, the more confused I get as to how I apply them. Help.

All footnotes, obvi:
Stanislavski, Constantin. An Actor Prepares New York: Routledge, 2003.

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