*waves* Hiya!

It appears that it took me an extra month to get to my typical October "whew, that was fun, thank god it's over."

So, a quickie October recap: The Humans Won (I'm sure you're all relieved). The game of Community Tag went very, very, very well. Almost too well. It got huge, and I ended up with gangs of middle and high schoolers (and some adults and elementary school kids) wearing yellow bands and wandering around town in search of zombies to nerf and humans to eat. The few negative comments came at me very indirectly. Apparently the attention I had garnered from the student population annoyed several teachers who made comments that the game was 'out of hand' (all comments delivered to me by someone else who overheard it - as no criticism was ever said to me directly). A few teachers complained that they didn't know the library was doing this (despite me putting the rules in the office and the library at the middle school a month before the game started, some of the teachers signing up, kids talking and planning it, newspaper articles, and an announcement on the school announcements that the game was starting), but hey what can I do? Anyway, almost no socks were found about town and the marshmallows quickly disappeared if any were left.

Who knows maybe next year we'll do Pirates Vs. Ninjas.

Meanwhile, the library put on a series on Death & Dying that went incredibly well. I admit, I really couldn't be involved too much with that, I just can't take the death and dying thing in the public setting.

In early November we had the most amazing program fall in our laps! Greg Mortenson, author of '3 Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time' arranged with us to come to Bellows Falls and speak as a benefit to the library. We ended up moving it from the library to the middle school auditorium, which was perfect for hosting the 400-ish people that came to hear him speak. He was amazing, too. He presented a Powerpoint and spoke about how his sister's death, a failed mountain climb, and a wrong turn led him on the path to building schools and prioritizing education for girls in areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Once again, I did NaNoWriMo this past November. I didn't get more than a few chapters into a story, but I am quite pleased with what I managed to get out.

Now that winter is nearly here I've officially lost my voice for the rest of the winter >_< this Chronic Laryngitis is getting old.

All in all, most things have been really good.

So enjoy a few fun things:

I ordered Crowley and War and told Jay he could wrap them and take credit.

The best half-time show ever - after Pong when they broke into the Tetris theme, I was in stitches!


I admit, I've had many of these recordings on vinyl, cassette, and cd, and so this amused me.


What I'm Reading:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie - (I want to switch his first and last name *every* time I say or type it) This one must be mentioned first as one of the best young adult books I've read this year.

Race and poverty aren't subjects Americans like to talk about. They're too loaded, too uncomfortable. But they are also too important to brush under the rug at a time when immigration issues loom large and there is greater disparity than ever between rich and poor.

It takes a master's hand to transform sociological issues into a page turner.

"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," Alexie's first novel for young-adult readers, draws on his own experiences growing up poor on an Indian reservation near Spokane, WA to tell a single year in the life of 14-year-old Arnold Spirit (aka Junior).

Arnold is the second child of parents who "came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people. Adam and Eve covered their privates with fig leaves; the first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands."

Arnold's dad is an alcoholic who, given the chance, would have been a musician. His mom is a recovering alcoholic who, given the chance, would have gone to college. But there is no chance for reservation Indians to realize their dreams, Alexie writes from Arnold's first-person point of view.

Arnold wants to be an artist. He's constantly drawing comics about his life on crumpled scraps of paper, which the reader sees every few pages. These black-and-white drawings are by Seattle-based cartoonist Ellen Forney, who, through a mix of rough sketches and more artfully done images, captures the frustrated Arnold's isolation, anger and humor as well as the situations that are driving him to put pen to paper.

One of those situations involves a textbook so old that his mother's name is inscribed inside the front cover. When Arnold angrily throws the book in protest, it hits his teacher, which results in a broken nose for the teacher and a school suspension for Arnold.

That turns out to be a good thing. Mr. P, as the teacher is known, visits Arnold to tell him that he's the smartest kid in class but that he needs to leave the reservation's Wellpinit school if he's going to amount to anything. That means attending Reardan High in a farming town so far away and so unwelcoming to Native Americans that a bus isn't available; Arnold sometimes walks or hitchhikes when his dad can't afford the gas because he's spent the money on drink.

Distance-wise, Reardan is just 22 miles from the "rez," but culturally and spiritually, it feels like a million. At Reardan the only other Indian is the school mascot.

The high-school misfit is a familiar young-adult-story template, but Alexie makes it fresh because this particular misfit is one who doesn't often appear in print. As a poor Native American, Arnold's issues are different. He's called "Chief" and "Squaw Boy" (by the kids at school) and Apple (by fellow Indians on the rez, who say he's red on the outside and white on the inside).

Caught between two worlds -- a rez that considers him a traitor for trying to better his life and a well-to-do community that can't see beyond the color of his skin -- Arnold must earn their respect. At school, he starts by punching the star athlete. That morphs into a mutual respect, then an invite to join the basketball team, a friendship with the school genius and dates with Reardan's most popular girl.

On the rez, Arnold earns respect through homage to his culture, even if that culture seems to revolve around alcohol and death. His life is drenched in alcohol-induced violence. He's already been to more than 40 funerals in his life -- three of them while he's attending Reardan High. His grandmother is run over and killed by a drunk driver. His dad's best friend is shot in the face and killed over the last sip from a wine bottle. His sister dies in a trailer fire, too drunk to realize what is going on and save herself.

These sorts of tragedies are far removed from the lives of his peers at school, but they affect Arnold in a way that isn't defined in black and white, or as Indian versus non-Indian. As Arnold learns, the world isn't divided by color but by actions. You either step up, or you don't.

I don't know if I'm able to convey what this book left me with. This is a slice of life that I've never experienced except through print and art, but Alexie definitely made an impression on me with it.

Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel by Heather Mcelhatton - Remember those Choose-Your-Own Adventure novels? Well, this one is for the grown-ups. Yes, this is totally chick-lit, and yes, it's fun. Much like the old books though, somehow I always end up on the 'bad' endings, so far I've ended up addicted to meth, blown up, and as a waitress at Denny's. Also like the old books, I'm finding the ending I like and reading backwards to find out how to get there.

What I'm Watching:
I loved Enchanted - really, it hit the right note between ironic, charming, and satire for me. Finally a Disney princess flick I can live with seeing again.

Beowulf just pissed me off. Seriously. I've read Beowulf - several adaptations of it, in fact. This was not Beowful. I love Neil Gaiman and I know he was behind part of the writing, but OH MY GOD this just blew chunks, like monkey-ass-chunks. Seriously, what the hell did they think with all these kings having sex with Grendel's mother!? Plus, there is a seriously Austen Powers-ish segment in the beginning where they strategically hide the penis with suggestive props. I was so disappointed. It was a joke, and they blew it. I know I'm being a bit of a purist here, but really, they should have just changed the names, changed the title, and stuck Beowulf somewhere in the end of the credits as a source.

Stephen King's The Mist - Overall, I liked this one....mostly. Watching the people unwind and switch allegiances as a supernatural mist with bizarre creatures takes over was fascinating. The survival aspect of the plot was done well, even if this wasn't a jump out and BOOO!! GoTCHA horror film, it was entertaining. But the ending....oh that ending....they wanted to get a certain feeling from the audience and what they did was just too forced and manipulative and I felt like they had cheated.