So, I thought I should tell this story about what happened with my mom when my books debuted on the NYT Bestseller Kids Lists. This was back when my mom was alive and everything.
First off, I should probably say for the five years or so before this my mom had been super sick with diabetes and all these horrible complications from it. She’d almost died a couple times. She’d been in the hospital a ton. And basically, that stunk.
The point is that she’d been through a lot.
And when she called me after hearing the news about the whole New York Times thing she screamed into the phone, “Oh my gosh. Ohmygosh. Oh God, Carrie. I’m hyper. I’m hyperventilating. I’m hyperventilating I’m so excited. Oh my gosh, I’m hyperventilating. I am so proud of you. Oh, I am so very very proud of you.”
Which pretty much cracked me up because it was cute!
Anyway, she had to get infusions or transfusions or something that same week.
She talked to the lab tech/nurse lady one day (the day before the NYT thing) and then the lady called back the next day after my mom had learned.
The woman who was super nice said, “Betty? What’s going on? Something happened. Your voice is different.”
At this point my mother had her prou- mom moment and told her. The woman was all excited for her. It was hard not to be excited for my mother.
My mother’s appointment was the next day and when she walked into the waiting room the receptionist said in a frantic tone, “She’s here! Betty’s here.”
Then everyone who worked at the lab came out and started applauding as my mom walked to the check-in desk.
One of them, she said, yelled, “It’s the mother of the New York Times bestselling author.”
So, I have to say three things:
1. I think the best moment in all of this totally belongs to my mom and I am so happy about that.
2. I hope all of you who are trying to be writers or have other awesome goals get a moment like that where you achieve something with someone’s support, and they get to celebrate too.
3. Even before COVID-19 healthcare workers, grocery store workers, farmers, first responders, teachers? They were making impacts. They were making a difference. They were making people like my mom feel so special. We should make them feel special too.
HEAR MY BOOK BABY (AND MORE) ON PATREON
On one of my Patreon sites I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT and now ALMOST DEAD. This is a monthly membership site (Hear the book chapters – $1/month, read them $3-month, plus goodies!). Sometimes I send people art! Art is fun.
On this, my second site, WRITE BETTER NOW, you can do a one-time purchase of a writing class or get two of my books in eBook form or just support our podcast or the dogs. It’s all part of the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
We all want to be seen and cared for. We all want to know that we have a team rooting us on–even when that team is full of strangers, it matters.
About three years before my mom officially died, she took a downward turn and I blogged about it on LiveJournal. I was on LiveJournal back then. I know! I know! It’s like admitting you were on MySpace.
Anyway, this is what I wrote:
My mom went into the hospital yesterday. She was bleeding a lot (in a gross way) and her hemoglobin was really low. Last night she threw up blood. They’re giving her an endoscopy to try to locate the bleeding source. She’s diabetic. Her diabetes gave her anemia. Her anemia gave her a heart attack awhile ago. Her diabetes also gave her (a non-drinker pretty much – like 3 drinks a year) liver disease.
She’s in ICU. Any positive energy would be great. Thanks.
And all these people posted and sent love.
The next day, I printed out all those comments and brought them into the ICU and showed my mom and I wrote about that, too:
I saw my mom yesterday and right before she went completely lost it, I showed her all of your comments (I hope you don’t mind) and she started crying and said, “All those people? They’re thinking about me?”
And I said, “Yes.”
And then she sort of clutched the paper print-outs and sniffed.
About a half hour later she seriously lost it. The hospital nurse asked me to help restrain her because they were short on orderlies. Let me tell you my little mother is one strong person when she’s lost it. Let me also tell you that my mother is not usually someone who acts like that.
When she finally (after hours of wild anger and thrashing and swearing) fell asleep she looked so sweet. I got to leave then and eat. We hadn’t eaten that day. I forgot about the whole food concept. But while I was gone, she woke up again and got worse and started punching and biting people.
They had to put big-time restraints on her. She is refusing to take medicine to help get the ammonia levels in her (This is what’s making her act like this) back down. My brother has power of attorney and nobody could reach him. I got him finally. He’s flying in. If her levels don’t go down, she could have a stroke. She could also die.
I really don’t want my mom to die. I really don’t want her to be miserable. I really don’t want her to be so sick. And I really don’t want my last memories of her to be like yesterday.
I also think that hospital orderlies are the super unsung heroes of the universe. Nurses, too. I also think that all of you guys are unsung heroes. Commenting and thinking about my mom meant a lot to her yesterday and it will always-always-ALWAYS mean a lot to me.
I firmly believe that my mom seeing that all those people cared about what happened to her made a difference and helped make her strong when everything went wrong. She got to hold onto those papers and that memory and love.
We all want to be seen and cared for. We all want to know that we have a team rooting us on–even when that team is full of strangers, it matters. Sometimes it might matter more knowing that out there are other people who are capable of rooting for you and that even when you feel horribly alone and terrified, you aren’t alone, not in spirit.
I didn’t post for a week because I suck at posting when terrible things are happening in my real life. But I did again.
Okay. I am trying to figure out how to thank everyone for all their cool thoughts/energy/calmness and comments and emails and phone calls and text messages last week when my mom was almost dying.
But I can’t.
Because the kindness that everyone did is soooooo big that I just can’t thank anyone the right way. I’m not a good enough writer.
Just know that you are all beyond awesome and totally rock.
And I really think because of you (and because my mom is so damn feisty) she did not die last week even though the doctor gave the YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT HARD DECISIONS speech and she was totally demented (sorry, Mom, you were) for a while. She opened her eyes Thursday. On Friday she was once again capable of rational thought. Yay!
She’s still in the hospital but not in the scary ICU part.
Thank you for helping her and for helping me. I am really blessed to have such amazing friends (on-line and off).
I’m not a person who has a lot of family anymore. Since I was one of those kids who came fourteen to thirty years after the other kids of my generation, my parents and grandparents (all of them) are dead as are most of my aunts and uncles. And my family situation is complicated.
But sometimes I think about how lucky I am because I get to have two families, one online and one that raised me. I had a bunch of different cultural experiences as a kid because of the aunts and uncles I had and I know they expanded who I was and what I knew about the world.
When people online come together to do something good, to comfort, to make someone’s life better or make the country or their community better? It’s a big deal. It gives me faith and hope in empathy and love. It’s easy to focus on the horror that happens, and it’s good to acknowledge that horror so that you can fix it. But it’s not all that is. Life is bigger than that. People are better than that. We can be.
I’ve seen it over and over again. We don’t have to be perfect, but we really should try to spread good things, too.
It’s so easy to close yourself off because you’re afraid of people being mean to you, of internet trolls, or maybe the negativity from your own family. When you close off your heart, when you are afraid of being vulnerable, it’s almost impossible to love your way through things. Instead, you hunker down in fear.
And if you hunker too long, your knees start to hurt.
HEAR MY BOOK BABY (AND MORE) ON PATREON
On one of my Patreon sites I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT and now ALMOST DEAD. This is a monthly membership site (Hear the book chapters – $1/month, read them $3-month, plus goodies!). Sometimes I send people art! Art is fun.
On this, my second site, WRITE BETTER NOW, you can do a one-time purchase of a writing class or get two of my books in eBook form or just support our podcast or the dogs. It’s all part of the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
Sometimes, when I am afraid of what might happen, of mistakes I’ve made, of mistakes I might make, I tell that fear that I know it’s there, but that I know I am there, too. And that’s okay. You don’t need to be fearless. You just need to be you.
Who we are is something deeper than the things that have happened to us. It’s an essence that you can feel.
There are two instances that help me describe that feeling—that soul knowledge of myself or someone else.
When our dog, Bethlehem died, she was just under two years old and a giant Komondor/Great Pyrenes mix. My husband (at the time) wouldn’t come with me to the vet for her final moments because he had to work and he said he couldn’t handle it. So I carried her 150-pound mass up these tottering wooden stairs to the vet’s office. Cars zoomed by outside. I struggled until someone pulled into the lot, ran up the stairs and helped me, taking her back legs so we can carry her inside.
I’m not the physically strongest person and I couldn’t thank him enough for helping.
“My soul wouldn’t have been able not to help,” this random man said.
I’ll always remember that.
My soul wouldn’t have been able not to help.
He didn’t even have an appointment. He just saw us struggling and came.
Bethy was our first family dog and adorable. Em, our daughter, adored her. She let us dress her fluffy self up as a ballerina, as a firefighter, she let cats sit on her back. She barked at any and all threats.
We all loved her so much.
She grew a cancerous mass the size of a football on her leg. It took two weeks to go from nothing to something massive, something that the vet said had already invaded her system. She faded so quickly.
We had no choice, they said.
So I made the appointment and after that man helped us up the stairs, I sat on the floor with her, holding her head as she stayed still on the floor, sideways. I cried silently. The vet’s assistant started to weep. The vet teared up.
And the moment Bethy was gone, the entire room filled with peace. It was as if Bethy’s soul had taken up the entire space.
I will always remember that feeling and cling to it when I doubt about things like souls and essences and life after your body is no longer useful.
The other instance is a bit more chill. You know how sometimes you are only barely awake and you turn to the person you’re sharing a bed with and your brain can’t even form their name yet or you can’t even remember who they exactly are or look like, but you just recognize them there in the dark next to you?
It’s like that.
That’s what our souls are like.
They are an essence, a recognition, a comfort, a realization. They can fill up an entire room and also speak to half-asleep brains in the dark.
Sometimes, when I am afraid of what might happen, of mistakes I’ve made, of mistakes I might make, I tell that fear that I know it’s there, but that I know I am there, too. And that’s okay. You don’t need to be fearless. You just need to be you.
Fear can protect us from actual dangers (like running into the woods at night when you hear a predator) or stepping in front of a bus. But it also can keep us from taking some more lovely chances and opportunities.
And sometimes people in power use that fear to twist us into hating other people.
Fear has got a lot going on.
But love has got a lot going on, too. And that’s what you’ve got to cling to–the love part–even when the fear is calling to you to sink into its hollow. You’ve got to go for the love and the light and cling to it whenever you can.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
Compassion and empathy makes you stronger. You don’t need to walk through this world with a big stick, scream from a bully pulpit or sermonize with fear. Empathy and kindness for even those who hurt you—or those who try to hurt you—only makes you stronger.
It’s really easy to get all wrapped up in status and ambition, to fall into the syndrome where you think the grass is always greener everywhere except your lawn, to be jealous at other people’s accolades or family’s or looks or luck.
Shakespeare said that comparisons are odious. And that long-dead white guy was right.
Comparisons make you feel like poop.
I know that a lot of people try to make themselves feel better by comparing themself to others and find the others lesser.
I’ve had people do it to me all my life. I bet you have, too.
My husband before Shaun was a hospital CEO in a small, local hospital. I was volunteering to decorate for one of the hospital’s two annual fundraisers. I was up on a ladder wearing my favorite Snoopy shoes and jeans, hardly hospital CEO wife clothes, but good stuff for climbing ladders, hauling tables and putting out poinsettias.
My hair was its natural color and in a lopsided ponytail. I had no make-up on.
I’ll never forget these two wealthy ladies about two decades older than me loudly saying, “What does he see in her?”
I tottered on the ladder a bit and the person helping me knew that I heard. It would have been impossible not to hear.
“Don’t listen to them. They have miserable small lives and they’re jealous. Just jealous shrews,” the helper said.
She might have been right, but it didn’t matter right that second.
I heard their words and for a moment they hurt me, but then I just felt so sad for them. How lonely their lives must be if they had to say that about me. How sad.
All I could do was love them when I thought about the hurt that they must have had inside of their hearts.
Neither of those women probably even remember that moment, but I do, and I also remember that I made a choice.
I could have luxuriated in that hurt instead of acknowledging it, seeing it, and then letting it pass through me.
I could have lashed out at them and matched their pettiness with my own.
But instead I chose empathy. I had the luxury and safety of doing that because I’m secretly pretty secure in who I am. I love myself even when I suck. I chose to love them when they sucked, too.
A translation of Dhammapada verse 223 makes it so that Buddha once roughly said, “Silence the angry man with love. Silence the ill-natured man with kindness. Silence the miser with generosity. Silence the liar with truth.”
Some translations use ‘overpower’ rather than ‘silence.’
Overpower the angry man with love.
Love your way through it.
Compassion and empathy makes you stronger. You don’t need to walk through this world with a big stick, scream from a bully pulpit or sermonize with fear. Empathy and kindness for even those who hurt you—or those who try to hurt you—only makes you stronger.
On the first day of an awful year, it can be hard to feel hope, to be brave, and that’s okay.
You’re okay.
Whatever you’re feeling and doing. You’re okay.
My friend, Lisa Wolfson aka L.K. Madigan was a beautiful human and author and she died of cancer before 2020.
She was a tremendous, kind, funny, supportive light in this world.
Her book? It’s a beautiful book. Her soul? It is a beautiful soul.
Her incredibly kind and thoughtful husband sent me a box of one of her book for our Little Free LibraryLittle Free Libraries that our local Rotary International club (Bar Harbor/MDI Rotary Club) installed on MDI.
I’ve been quietly putting those books in there, one after the other after another, thinking of the MDI kids who find them and read them, spreading Lisa’s light and heart and love throughout this island.
But I couldn’t post about it because it just…it made me cry. It made me remember that Lisa isn’t here anymore, that so many of my friends and relatives are gone and they deserve to be here and it made me think of everyone else I know (and don’t know) who has gone through so much loss and worry and pain.
Lisa’s books though? They give me hope. Her husband gave me hope because it is proof that people’s light and influence? It lives on.
It is hard to be brave when there is so much loss, but it’s important to be brave so that we can keep spreading other people’s lights and our own.
I hope your year is full of light and heart and love.
Thank you for being here, for reading this, for being my friend and for spreading goodness. We’ve got this, okay? Let’s be brave together in 2021.
*Apologies for the image tilt. It was cold!
The drop off!
I’ll be back to talking about characters on Monday!
May you have a lovely, safe, and healthy 2021.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
My husband Shaun just showed me a video he took of me when we were in Belize on a wheelchair project with Rotary International a few years ago. It was during an absolutely terrible time in my life.
But on the video, I’m swimming with some sharks in the warm water, thrilled. In another one, I’m at a restaurant laughing at the amazingly beautiful dessert I’m about to eat.
I’m happy.
“This time sucked for you,” Shaun said as hunkered over the laptop screen, watching. “But look at how happy you are.”
“I’m pretty resilient,” I said.
The reason I’m resilient is because I know exactly who I am.
My daughter Em said on Thanksgiving, “Last summer was a bad time for you. I was a little worried.”
“It was. But I bounced back,” I told her.
Litany of Terrible Things Paragraph
Like a lot of other people, some terrible things have happened to me in my life and I’m not the most prime physical specimen. I have to wear knee braces to hike or run. I have no depth perception, epilepsy caused from a virus that a rapist gave me, constant shoulder pain. I’ve seen a lot of people die in person. I have no parents or grandparents left.
Enough of That
But there’s a reason I bounce back and can usually find my happy place again. It isn’t because I’m awesome or special in any way that is different from anyone else.
Why Do I Always Find My Happy Again?
It’s because I know who I am. My values and beliefs? They are so strong that they can be pretty damn annoying, honestly.
Let me rephrase that: I can be pretty damn annoying, honestly.
No Pretending
I don’t know how to be who I’m not. I don’t pretend on social media and I don’t pretend in real life.
Live In The Moment
I live in the moment, every single moment, and occasionally worry obsessively about money or the health of the people I love or the state of the world, but when I do? It’s always a worry consistent with my values and beliefs.
That’s the secret.
We can’t wait for something huge to happen and shake us out of the monotony of our lives or our selves, to make us evolve into someone who will behave in a way that actually reflects their values.
We have to put in the work every day.
And sometimes (Okay, a lot of the times) I screw up and when I do?
I get sad and disappointed in myself.
And sometimes the people I love screw up and when they do?
I get sad and a little disappointed but then I forgive them.
Why? Because that’s one of my values: forgiveness.
And that forgiveness that we give to other people? It has to extend to ourselves.
Your Values And Actions And Happiness Are Connected
Your values have to dictate your actions if you’re going to be happy. That’s going to annoy some people in your family or your coworkers or your friends. But there’s no other way. To be happy, you have to live the way you think matters, you have to hold onto your integrity.
It matters.
You matter.
And so does your happiness.
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
This blog speaks about a violent event in my community where a kid was badly hurt.
A few years ago, I was a newspaper editor, working out at the local gym, when my phone went off.
Before COVID-19, the school system my daughter went to had a dress-up costume day.
This is what happened one time.
I’m sharing it again because:
It’s important to remember.
I was a reporter and editor then and it’s important to remember that despite everyone’s hate and rantings, reporters are people to and a part of your community.
Love is important.
Em (my daughter) is wise.
Community is important too, and that’s a good thing to remember right now in these scary-weird times.
We’ve got to remember we can bounce back and love each other and make something better. Sometimes story helps us remember that.
The Call
“You have to get to the high school quick,” Bobbi, my office manager at the Ellsworth Weekly said. “Something horrible’s happened.”
I’d been working out at the Y. The high school was down the road a bit and across a main route through our town.
Bobbi sounded worried. Bobbi never sounded worried.
I ran over in my gym clothes. It was about 40 degrees out, but the sky was clear and blue and beautiful.
The alarms were screaming off in the school and students, crying students, were streaming out of the building.
Teachers hollered at them, “Get into the parking lots. Keep moving. Keep moving.”
Some of the teachers were crying, too.
Everything inside of me fell. I hated being a newspaper person because I hated these kind of stories, the tragedy stories.
“He was on fire,” one guy who played soccer told me.
I didn’t ask him. I didn’t ask anyone anything because they were in pain. I just waited.
The boy crumpled. He pressed his hands to his face. “Jesus. He was on fire.”
I hugged him. Then his friends, mostly other jocks, came and hugged him, too.
It wasn’t the only group hug going on. The kids huddled together. Some paced. Others cried, squatted down, stood up. One girl was praying.
The fire trucks arrived, an ambulance, a TV news crew, more newspaper people, a Lifeflight helicopter.
We waited and stared at the high school’s blank, brick facade. We waited and waited and the TV news people started putting microphones in students’ faces. The school superintendent came out. He was crying. He looked at me and cried some more. He was a chubby, jokey guy with ruddy, Irish cheeks. He wore a maroon Ellsworth-lettermen jacket.
He shook his head at me. I didn’t ask him any questions. I could tell by his face that he didn’t know the answers.
I started turning blue from the cold. A TV camera guy gave me his jacket.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said. I shook my head. “Me either.”
What Happened
That day, Donny, a boy I knew a bit, a boy who hung out with one of my best friend’s sons, had gone to school in costume for their Halloween celebration. He had made the costume himself with some help from his family. It was a sniper outfit with leaves and camouflage stuff. The boy sitting behind him during assembly allegedly kept flicking his lighter. People told him to cut it out.
The guy with the flame supposedly said something threatening like, “I’ll bet you’ll burn.”
The boy allegedly flicked the lighter up one more time and lit the edge of Donny’s costume on fire.
It was flammable.
Donny ran down the bleachers. Somehow people got him to drop and roll in the middle of the gym floor. Others screamed. Others thought it was a stunt. Others didn’t know what was going on. It’s the same gym where graduation happens. It’s the same gym where all the basketball games are played. It’s a place of community, a place people get together. A place of celebration and connection.
But not then.
The school nurse saved his life. So did the assistant principal. Everyone agrees about that. Donny was Lifeflighted to Boston. He missed months and months of school. He had terrible, terrible burns. When he finally came home, there were parades and balloons and articles. He rode in a limo. He could barely walk out of it and get to his house, but he did.
Donny is a hero for surviving. So is the community.
And we’ll survive again and again, no matter what the universe throws at us. No matter what we throw at each other.
That’s because we’ll hug each other in parking lots, put out the fires burning in each other’s bodies, sob together, and work hard to make things right even (and especially when) we don’t know how.
We will argue over rainbow sidewalks in town and then make them on school property. We will protest and then make cookies for the people who support the opposite politicians that we do. We will go to local Facebook groups and create communities within community where we will bring food to people quarantining because of COVID, read library stories together, share jokes, share possibilities.
After that incident at the high school, a lot of kids had nightmares, a lot of kids’ lives were affected, especially Donny’s, especially the boy who set Donny’s costume on fire. But gradually, that gym has lost its horror feel, and pre COVID-19, we walked in there for events and games and every time something good happens, our community gets a little tighter, a little stronger.
The gym isn’t being used now because of COVID.
That’s okay. Because it will eventually be used again, reclaimed one more time by a community that evolves, hopes, and persists.
Three years after Donny was burned, my daughter, Em, was dressed up as a penguin for Halloween. Her middle school is having that same costume day, the celebration. So was the high school. If you bring in a can of food you get to wear a costume to school, which was cool.
She was bringing in extra cans in case any of her friends forget.
I asked her why.
And she said, “Because when people need help you give it to them. I like to be prepared.”
Right now, as we face divisiveness, elections and COVID-19, it’s a time when choosing to promote kindness, community, and simple steps like wearing a mask are easy ways to be prepared, to help the people who need it.
Much love to all of you.
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HEY! I LIKE YOU! LET’S HANG OUT!
LET’S HANG OUT!
HEY! DO YOU WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME TOGETHER?
MAYBE TAKE A COURSE, CHILL ON SOCIAL MEDIA, BUY ART OR A BOOK, OR LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST?
The Dude Goodfeather Series – YA mystery by NYT bestseller Carrie Jones
TO TELL US YOUR BRAVE STORY JUST EMAIL BELOW.
HEAR MY BOOK BABY (AND MORE) ON PATREON
On one of my Patreon sites I read and print chapters of unpublished YA novels. THE LAST GODS and SAINT and now ALMOST DEAD. This is a monthly membership site (Hear the book chapters – $1/month, read them $3-month, plus goodies!). Sometimes I send people art! Art is fun.
On this, my second site, WRITE BETTER NOW, you can do a one-time purchase of a writing class or get two of my books in eBook form or just support our podcast or the dogs. It’s all part of the WRITING CLASS OF AWESOME.
It’s a super fun place to hang out, learn, read, and see my weirdness in its true form.
I posted this back in 2006 when maybe fifteen people were reading my blog and I knew them all in person, I think. But I thought it might be good for this week, too.
The official Banned Books Week is Coming Up! Are you ready?
Sparty Dog Approves These Tips
TIPS ON SURVIVING BANNED BOOKS WEEK
1. Remember, it’s okay to get ridiculously mad that people ban George by Alex Gino or Captain Underpants or Judy Blume’s Forever or Brent Hartinger’s Geography Club or The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas or anything by Carrie Jones (Okay. I added this last one in.)
2. Remember, it’s okay to think that it’s stupid for people to think kids (and adults) are so weak of mind that reading about a boy being a wizard will make them become Satan worshipers or that ready about potty mouths will make them about potty mouth and etc…
3. Wonder if you’ve ever met a satan worshiper. You know you’ve met a potty mouth.
4. Decide to google (YOUR STATE) Satan worshipers. Then decide not to, because it’s too freaky.
5. Go back to being angry about Banned Books.
6. Why do this? So you can be intelligent while you’re angry read: Kathi Appelt’s exceptional essay about the interplay of fear and banned books. If you can’t find it (Okay. I can’t right now), read someone else’s.
7. Tell your friends about the essays you’ve read.
8. Argue with someone who thinks it’s okay to ban books. Try not to swear at them and to not go all potty mouthed. It may be hard. Try not to lose your temper. That may be harder.
9. Think about how my favorite line from Kathi Appelt’s essay is “Fear, of course, has a twin: hatred.” Then go all fan girl over Kathi Appelt.
10. Go check out the always the important and insightful American Library Association’s banned and challenged book news and information.
11. Read a banned book. Do better than that. Read three. Buy one. That’ll show them. Who is them? The book banners. That’s who.
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Seriously, the entire United States is geared towards you and now that the school year (remote learning version thanks to COVID-19) has started, I’ve decided that I just have had enough!
In case you doubt, let me list what heinous crimes you have committed:
1. Made it so school starts at 7:55 a.m.
Yes, that is AM as in AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHFREAKINGAIT’SM-MORNING.
2. Made it so in order to get to school on time, or to get your little people to school on time you must wake up at 6 a.m. (at least)
3. Made it so banks open at 7 and close at 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4. Give all the dinner specials to EARLY BIRDS!
That is so wrong. It is us late night people who eat up all the leftover food. The early birds already get the fresh stuff.
Those early birds also get the cool graphics that are kind of schmarmy.
They also get the worm. Let me say, I think all worms out there should joinme in my revolt against these Morning People/Early Birds.
Listen up worms! The early birds aren’t just getting you! THEY ARE EATING YOU! It is time to revolt! Leave those tequila bottles and gather up arms!
Oh, wait. You are worms. You don’t have arms. Do you have any fighting abilities whatsoever? What? Oh, you can burrow away. No. That’s not much help, really.
Proof that I am not a morning person:
1. When I woke up this morning my right eye went on strike and refused to open for a half hour, which meant I had to walk around the house using only one eye.
My left eye behaves. She has no gumption and has never gone on strike. I don’t think she’s actually related to me.
2. I fell up the stairs.
3. When I walked the dog, I thought a tree was a person and said hello.
This can kind of be blamed on my right eye.
4. When I went to put my cell phone into my shorts pocket, I actually put in the deodorant!
This means I walked around with deodorant in my shorts.
5. It just took me twenty minutes to remember how to spell deodorant.
And when I just wrote it right there? I spelled it wrong again! Darn it. DEODORANT! You are on NOTICE!
Secret: Oh, no! I am so scared.
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When my super cool daughter Em, was in sixth or seventh grade she was in the newspaper for doing this logrolling day with Timber Tina at the Great Maine Lumberjack Show.
This place is where she studied logrolling all summer and is where she battled seven boys, trying to knock them off logs by fancy footwork and all that. Timber Tina (she was on Survivorfor one show and then went back for a reunion show, too and is amaze-balls)is a professional world-class lumber jill. The log rolling day was in honor of her son Charlie, this absolutely amazing guy who died that same summer. He was really young, still in his teens.
The picture was hilarious because of the boys in the background staring after she’s knocked off one of their own.
That night the issue came out, Em plopped on her bed, nuzzled under the covers and said, “I can’t believe I’m in the paper.”
I smiled. “It’s great. You should be proud.”
She hugged her stuffed kitty (appropriately named Kitty Kitty) to her chest. “I bet I’m the only cheerleading logroller.”
“At least in Ellsworth, Maine,” I added. “And don’t forget you’re also a stunt girl.”
She as named Stunt Girl at a Stunt Camp in California. It’s this big stunt camp honor. The stunt camp was all about jumping off buildings and stuff. All of this mattered because when people looked at Em, they didn’t think Brave Girl or Logrolling Girl or Stunt Girl. They tended to think Smart Girl, Brilliant Girl, Very Polite Girl, Artistic Girl, Pretty Girl.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I defy stereotypes?” she asked that night, holding out her arms for a hug.
I hugged her back. “You already know.”
The Emster.
Why This Matters And Isn’t Just A Braggy Mom Post
And as I remember all this, thanks to some pretty good written records, I’m sort of struck by how brave Em has always been to defy the expectations of what people think small, brainy, artistic girls are going to be doing. She was a cheerleader and a log roller. She jumped off buildings. She got into Harvard and Dartmouth all on her own. No mommys and daddys buying buildings here folks. She was a field artillery officer in the Army. She studied Krav Maga in Israel, volunteered in Costa Rica, studied film for a tiny bit in high school in New York all by herself. All these random things. How cool is that?
It’s pretty damn cool.
Somehow Em usually never lets other people’s expectations define her.
I wish that we could all be that brave, that we could have the opportunity and empowerment to be that brave, that we could all become who we want to become, define ourselves instead of others or society defining us. How shiny the world would be then, wouldn’t it?
A LOT OF IT COMES FROM YOUR FAMILY
In my family, my sister was the good one. Another sibling was the handsome, successful one. I was the quirky smart one. Another sibling was the angry one.
Those labels are who we were expected to be.
But the thing is that my sister? She’s smart. She’s successful.
That angry sibling? He did some amazing things before he died. Things that make him stunningly successful in my eyes.
And I’m quirky, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the smartest of us.
But those are the expectations, the roles, the labels and those scripts our family’s right for us (both good and bad) can really stick.
How Do You Defy Expectations
Think of who you want to be.
Think of what you want to try.
Think of why you haven’t yet.
If it isn’t about money and resources and you can, give whatever it is a try. Do the thing that people don’t expect you to do (Try not to go to jail though. Legal things are usually a better choice.) and see how it feels. See how you feel.
Do people expect you to be quiet? To be loud? Do they expect you to be an activist? A peace-maker? Think of how you can be the opposite of expectations if you feel like those expectations are holding you back. The first step is to imagine being what it is that YOU want to be, not what your teachers, family, friends, coworkers, employees, bosses want you to be. YOU.
Is there something you always wanted to do, to be, and people scoffed. Show them how wrong they are. Blow their minds. Blow your own mind, too.
