Many Years of Poems

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I let myself get buried in books for a few days and went all Luddite on the world.

I re-read the entire Earth's Children series, plus Jennifer Government, which Nicholas had been nagging me to read. It's quite good, sort of a latter-day, fast-paced 1984. It was quite easy to read, yet thought-provoking.

I may or may not stay on the Lamictal. I had started to develop a rash last night, small red itchy bumps on my feet, ankles, hands, and wrists. I took a couple of Benadryl and went to bed, and didn't take the Lamictal today. I called my ARNP and she said she wants to see me tomorrow to look at the rash and make a decision about the meds. The rash seems to have faded, between the Benadryl and not having taken the Lamictal today.

Nicholas' hair is still a work in progress. He took out what I had done because we didn't get around to finishing within the next day or so, and it's best to do the entire head at once or as close to it as can be arranged. So we sat up together and watched movies and I did his entire head, but he fell asleep while I was doing it, and when he examined it, he said that some of the baby dreads-to-be are too thick and others aren't coiled tightly enough or waxed heavily enough so I have to work on it some more. I'm perfectly willing to work on it until I get it right. I just haven't spent much time working on African textured hair, and what I have worked on was relaxed. He has worn dreadlocks before, so he knows how it should be; it's just hard to do on yourself, apparently. I can understand that. You can't see the back of your own head, after all.

Dixie and Nancy are talking about moving out. It would be nice to have the extra space and privacy, but it means we'll lose some income because Dixie pitches in to help cover household expenses. I think I'll also miss having them around for the help around the house they both give. Dixie does some cooking and makes most of the iced tea. Nancy does a bit of cooking and most of the cleaning, which was Cliff's idea since she's almost 22 years old and has no job, so therefore does not pitch in toward household expenses. Before they move out, I've got to get Dixie to teach me to make meatballs and meatloaf, both of which she does exceptionally well and I can't do worth shit. On the other hand, if I want to come out of my bedroom naked, I would be able to do so if the household was just me, Cliff, Nicholas, and Aysha, because goddess knows I've got nothing the three of them haven't seen. We shall see, I suppose.

I almost got into an argument with Nancy's friend Jon (the only one of her friends who doesn't drive me completely batshit) over abortion last night. He is militantly Catholic and therefore pro-life to the point of believing that not even rape victims should be allowed to terminate a pregnancy caused by the rape (not that this situation occurs that often in the real world anyway, and more and more rapists are using condoms these days to avoid leaving their DNA with their victims). The only reason it didn't turn into a loud and vociferous debate (at the very least) was that I cut it short with the excuse that Cliff was trying to sleep and would not appreciate said debate/argument. I really wanted to tear him a new one, though. Pro-life men drive me even crazier than pro-lifers in general; men are not the ones who have to carry a pregnancy. They have no clue what it's like, especially not someone Jon's age (early 20s). And yes, I know men can be raped and I have every sympathy in the world for any victim of any sort of assault, but the plain fact is, women are hurt in that way much more often than men. Jon's argument (re: pregnancy as a result of rape) was that the unborn is not responsible for the crime of its father. Mine is that rape is not just a physical and sexual crime; it is deeply emotional. Pregnancy is also a deeply emotional experience, and I don't think that a woman who is trying to recover from a rape should have to carry the child of her rapist. She can if she wants to, but she shouldn't be forced to. It comes down to this. The needs of a living woman are more important, to my way of thinking, than the needs of a cluster of cells, albeit a cluster of cells that will one day become a human being. We count life from the date of birth, not the date of conception, which can't usually be nailed down anyway. There are just too many situations in which abortion is a viable--and in some cases, the best--option. What about a pregnancy that endangers the mother's life? Why should a 12-year-old incest victim have to bear her stepfather's child? I used to know someone who had been in that situation. It is not healthy to carry a pregnancy so young, and her body paid for it in later years. And when you really get down to it, why should any woman have to bear a child she does not want or cannot afford?

Off my soapbox now.

Because I haven't posted about books in a while... :)

I just re-read Kushiel's Dart for about the third time; it gets better with re-reads. Now I can hardly believe I found it tough going in the first half on the first reading. Jen is the one who made me read it. She even told me to keep at it through the information-dense first half of the book.

I've been trying to get Nicholas to read Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, and he said a friend of his recommended the Kushiel books to him. The Earth's Children books are also rather information-dense but worth it. I finally retired my extremely battered paperback copies of The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses in favor of used-but-still-nice hardcover copies, so I'm willing to let other people read them again. I wouldn't let anybody read those for years purely due to my copies literally falling apart.

Speaking of books I love so much my copy is falling apart, I need to get another copy of Anya Seton's Katherine, about Lady Katherine (de Roet) Swynford (Plantagenet), commonly known as Katherine Swynford (which is the name she bore for most of her life; de Roet was her maiden name, and Plantagenet her second married name). My favorite time and place in history, mid 1300's England, and the historical personage I named my SCA persona for. (I also took Katherine as my SCA name in honor of Katherine Kurtz of Deryni, Adept, and Templar fame.) But Katherine, originally published in 1952, has recently been republished, and I need to get one of the republication copies. It holds the honor of being the only romance novel I found because of a college professor. My Shakespeare professor pointed us toward it, and I found a battered copy in the 50-cent bin at the used book shop.