I am not from your tribe

I am in love with Ingrid Michaelson's song "The Way I Am." Apparently, it's in a commercial for something? I heard it on an internet broadcast of a radio concert--this fine woman was on before Brandi Carlile, and this was her last song, and she got the audience participating, and I always love that. And then Charles Wallace jumped on top of my laptop, hitting some combination of keys that made my computer just shut down, and because my computer is ancient, it takes ten minutes to fucking shut down, and because I'm an idiot, I couldn't figure out how to tell it not to, and then it took ten more minutes for me to get the internet up and running again, and by then, all that was left of Brandi's set was "Hallelujah," and I mean, her cover is lovely and powerful, but I've heard it a million times. I think it's time to put that one to bed, my love.

Thank goodness for the other Brandi freaks on the internet, though, because a beautiful human captured the internet broadcast, and then I downloaded it, and all was right with my life.

It's been snowing since, like, four-thirty yesterday afternoon, and yet I still went to work today. Unlike in the rest of the country, apparently, the world does not stop when it snows in New England. Just the schools. I always get so bitter when I get up in the morning, and my mother and my brother are fast asleep, because they don't have to go to school. Actually, my brother was up this morning when I got out of the shower, playing some loud and violent video game. At least he was not swearing at it. Yet.

Okay, so I think I've been pretty open about being a sci-fi/fantasy geek, but I'm, like, a selective sci-fi/fantasy geek. Like, I've never read Dune or Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Assimov. I didn't like Ender's Game or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't like Star Trek, and I kind of loathe Star Wars, even the alleged good movies. I don't really watch any science fictiony shows, but I did love Roswell--and Buffy if you'll consider that science fiction. I don't watch science fiction films unless they've been based upon books. I've never seen any of the Matrix movies. I won't play role playing games, real life or virtual. But. I love Ray Bradbury--I'm still trying to read everything he's ever written. My favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time, which I think is, like, perfect young adult science fiction. I love The Lord of the Rings, books and films (books better, of course. I am still sad that Tom Bombadil did not fit into the film). I've read all seven of The Chronicles of Narnia more times than I could ever count. Of course I love Harry Potter. I love the Redwall books, even if the later ones haven't quite retained the magic of the original stories, the story of Matthias taking up Martin's sword to save the Abbey and then the story of Martin--and then the story of his father, Luke. And just in case you forgot (or you're new), I can't get enough of His Dark Materials. Anyway, this whole paragraph was written as an introduction to the next one. For some reason, I felt the need to tell you the length and breadth of my sci-fi/fantasy world first.

Two summers ago, when I was reading all the Newbery Award winners, I found a new sci-fi/fantasy author who captured my heart: Robin McKinley. I know I talked about her before, when I was reading her retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story (which is so good, you guys), but I need to bring her up again, because she also wrote her own version of Sleeping Beauty, called Spindle's End, and I think it might even be better than Beauty. McKinley's princess is an utter tomboy, self-sufficient, intelligent, stubborn, brave. She despises the golden ringlets and long, luscious eyelashes bestowed upon her by her fairy godmothers and keeps her hair short and wears pants. She can also talk to animals--but like really talk to them, not the way Aurora did in the Disney movie, with the singing. Anyway, I have a feeling this girl's not going to need to be rescued by some fancy prince, so I can't wait to see what happens. Also, McKinley really knows how to tell a story, to create an utterly new place, and to flesh out her characters. I love them all--even the king and queen are a little bit more than two-dimensional stock characters. And in this story, the princess has younger brothers, a set of twins and then the youngest of the family. The narrator relates that the princes were growing up into fine young boys while their sister was in hiding, and on their eighth birthday, the twins gave their first public speeches, both saying they hoped to meet their sister soon, and then she includes this: "Terberus had added, suddenly, in his own voice, to what had obviously been a prepared speech, 'I would like a sister.'" I love details like this, and it shows how the royal family is composed of real people, too, who miss the daughter they lost/the sister they never got to meet. Everyone in McKinley's stories is human, and I love that. (I also love how the female heroes have several stereotypically masculine traits or do things the boys are supposed to do: Aerin slays dragons; Maid Marian is the real famous archer, while Robin Hood is merely competent; Rosie (our princess) dresses like a boy, suggests they bring the captive princess home to live in her adoptive village so she can be her guard, and works at horse doctoring with the village smith.)

I wish I had friends who read. I miss discussing books with other people. Huh. Who knew I secretly wanted to go back to college? That was the best thing about being an English major: half of my classes consisted of discussing literature. Even when I didn't like the books (fie on you, British novels of the 19th century!), I still loved picking them apart with others. That was also the best thing about honors civ: weekly seminars in which we discussed very important works of literature (sophomore year, anyway; I could never get into the ancient stuff we did freshman year).

Carlos and I used to refer to the 19th century as the "dark ages," because neither of us enjoyed a thing that came out of that time period. He was into medieval and ancient stuff in his art history studies, and I liked everything that came before and everything that came after the 19th century. That century, too, for some reason, was a huge gap in our knowledge of world history. I have plenty of other gaps in my knowledge of world history, but the 19th century is definitely the biggest one. The only book I enjoy that came from the 19th century is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I have still--after, like, eight years--yet to make up my mind about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But I think I'm leaning toward enjoying it.

I kind of love how at the end of "Turpentine" from Burlington, when Brandi lets us take over for the last "we're growing up," you can hear beer bottles clinking together. Nothin' like a concert in bar, y'all.