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All the poetry has gone out of my study. By which I do not mean that I'm disenchanted with my work space, but rather that today I put the last straggling volume of poetry into a box. At this point, the only books in my study that aren't in boxes are (1) borrowed books I need to return to libraries and friends, (2) books I'm using for my trial run of homeschooling with Gareth this summer, and (3) books about best practices for moving, moving with children, or moving to the DC area. I figure my Nook and the internet will have to balance my reading diet until I settle into a new habitat.
A friend who's a fine artist by trade came over to help me prep all the pictures for transit. My great uncle the minor Cubist apparently should have primed his canvases better, because a couple of them are going to need restoration, assuming they survive the trip. You know, most entities that have to shell out the bucks for art restoration have wealthy patrons to help out. Looks like I'll be advertising for students as soon as I have somewhere to live. Oh, Uncle Earl, I love that yellow abstract that looks like Cubism-Goes-Keith-Haring, but I may need you to intervene from the beyond to hold it together.
My sons are so excited about moving closer to their cousins, they're trying to speed the packing process by dumping things that don't belong to them into the Donate to Charity boxes. Gareth decided his little brother didn't need any of the books he himself is too old for, so in they all went, and I had to fish them back out. Conrad went after my clothes. Winter clothes that go to storage get folded; winter clothes that go to charity get flung. Flinging is faster and more fun, I will concede the point.
Oh, the noise in the background is my professional community arguing about how much sexism counts as too much to put up with. The short version: there's a trade organization for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and the past three issues of the organization's bulletin featured some big gaffes, each of which alone might have been shrugged off, but all of which together provoked a lot of protest, and a variety of other responses. There's been an official apology. I've blown what would otherwise have been my writing time for the week, small sliver though that is, catching up on the controversy, because it's all everybody in my writing life wants to talk about. And here is my conclusion:
Those old coots who shot their mouths off in the 202nd issue of the SFWA Bulletin don't get to hijack one more minute of my energy and attention with their sexist crap. I am too busy embarking on the next chapter of my excellent life to spend an evening writing a blow-by-blow critique of blunders that have been amply critiqued by others. I am too busy writing a short story about a real woman warrior who goes into peril with the gear she needs--far, far too busy--to spend an evening explaining why the chain-mail-bikini-chick on the cover of the Bulletin's 200th issue annoys me. I am also too busy to spend an evening explaining why I am merely annoyed, and not outraged, by such cover art. I am too busy raising my sons to be excellent men to waste more than this sentence on the columnist in the 201st Bulletin issue who admonished women writers to emulate Barbie, who allegedly owes her enduring appeal to having "quiet dignity," as all women allegedly should. May my sons, when they are grown, be mensches, like the guy who wrote this blog post. Decades after my demise, when the only men in my field who remember meeting me in person are themselves old coots who were young enough to have been among my last students, I hope my professional community will have finished shedding its clinging scraps of misogyny. If it hasn't, well, nobody will be reminiscing about how I looked in a bathing suit. That's fine. I didn't come here to be ornamental. I came here to be awesome. And now I'm getting back to work on that.
A friend who's a fine artist by trade came over to help me prep all the pictures for transit. My great uncle the minor Cubist apparently should have primed his canvases better, because a couple of them are going to need restoration, assuming they survive the trip. You know, most entities that have to shell out the bucks for art restoration have wealthy patrons to help out. Looks like I'll be advertising for students as soon as I have somewhere to live. Oh, Uncle Earl, I love that yellow abstract that looks like Cubism-Goes-Keith-Haring, but I may need you to intervene from the beyond to hold it together.
My sons are so excited about moving closer to their cousins, they're trying to speed the packing process by dumping things that don't belong to them into the Donate to Charity boxes. Gareth decided his little brother didn't need any of the books he himself is too old for, so in they all went, and I had to fish them back out. Conrad went after my clothes. Winter clothes that go to storage get folded; winter clothes that go to charity get flung. Flinging is faster and more fun, I will concede the point.
Oh, the noise in the background is my professional community arguing about how much sexism counts as too much to put up with. The short version: there's a trade organization for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and the past three issues of the organization's bulletin featured some big gaffes, each of which alone might have been shrugged off, but all of which together provoked a lot of protest, and a variety of other responses. There's been an official apology. I've blown what would otherwise have been my writing time for the week, small sliver though that is, catching up on the controversy, because it's all everybody in my writing life wants to talk about. And here is my conclusion:
Those old coots who shot their mouths off in the 202nd issue of the SFWA Bulletin don't get to hijack one more minute of my energy and attention with their sexist crap. I am too busy embarking on the next chapter of my excellent life to spend an evening writing a blow-by-blow critique of blunders that have been amply critiqued by others. I am too busy writing a short story about a real woman warrior who goes into peril with the gear she needs--far, far too busy--to spend an evening explaining why the chain-mail-bikini-chick on the cover of the Bulletin's 200th issue annoys me. I am also too busy to spend an evening explaining why I am merely annoyed, and not outraged, by such cover art. I am too busy raising my sons to be excellent men to waste more than this sentence on the columnist in the 201st Bulletin issue who admonished women writers to emulate Barbie, who allegedly owes her enduring appeal to having "quiet dignity," as all women allegedly should. May my sons, when they are grown, be mensches, like the guy who wrote this blog post. Decades after my demise, when the only men in my field who remember meeting me in person are themselves old coots who were young enough to have been among my last students, I hope my professional community will have finished shedding its clinging scraps of misogyny. If it hasn't, well, nobody will be reminiscing about how I looked in a bathing suit. That's fine. I didn't come here to be ornamental. I came here to be awesome. And now I'm getting back to work on that.
