If you’re a Reader, there might be times that you’ll get a big kick out of someone walking into your house then seeing their eyes go wide at the wall-to-wall bookshelves and piles of books everywhere. It’s your proof, your badge that you’re an intellectual. Or at least a bookworm, right? People know you’re a part of The Club the instant you walk into the house. Or maybe, if you’re a female Reader, you’ve spent most of your life choosing purses based on the book-carrying capacity. If you’re out and about, you’d use the downtime to read a bit, the cover of the book proclaiming your literary tastes.

My house did used to look like that – shelves and shelves of books. I also did choose purses based on being able to carry a couple of standard paperbacks.

You wouldn’t know it if you looked in my house now. Oh yeah, I have three of the old billy IKEA bookshelves. You know the ones –six and a half feet tall, holds loads of books. Yeah, they’re stuffed to bursting, but that’s hardly an amazingly large book collection. They’re also upstairs in a hallway. I don’t show this off in the living room. I also don’t have the teetering piles of the books I’m currently reading piled on side tables or anything even close to that. If you were a guest in my home and were not invited upstairs, there would be very little indication that I am a Reader. In fact, you’d be more likely to think I’m a major television addict due to a large and heavy entertainment center.

I’m not a TV addict, though I like the occasional movie. I am still a Reader. I read mostly using electrons these days – my Kindle, my phone, my computer. There’s no immediate badge any more. Shoot, I can fit a library in my pocket.

However, like many a bookworm, there is a sense of identity you derive from it. No, you weren’t one of the Cool Kids, but dammit, you were well-read. It was something that could make you feel good about yourself. The comments about, “Wow, what a lot of books!” were a small and sometimes rather needed ego-boo.

I wonder if this is what drives the popularity social media sites like Goodreads. You can still show that yes, you are a Reader, even if books are no longer shoving you out of the house, and that discrete little device means that there’s no real way to tell that yes, you’re reading your way through five books at once.

Someone whose journal I read was commenting with frustration upon shopping for a Star Wars birthday card for his daughter.

I genuinely don’t know how much my parents thought about how gendered my presents were as a child.  I expect what they were really thinking was, “What would Noël really like?”

Sometimes that did mean something girly.  For my seventh birthday, I got a doll. I was never a major doll fan, but I did enjoy them.  This doll, however, was made of awesome.  Holly Hobby was incredibly popular at the time, but I got something even better.  My doll, who I did name Holly in memory of the Christmas season, was hand-made.  No-one in the whole world had that doll because it was made specifically for me.  How much did I love that doll?  Well this picture was taken ten minutes ago in my living room.  That’s how much.  I think I also got my Holly Hobby oven (which I adored) that year as well.

But I remember another gift that I loved just as much, and in sober truth spent a lot more time playing with.  I think I was nine or ten when I got it.  But yes, my parents gave their little girl who loved wearing dresses an electronics kit as a present.  I made an AM radio, a battery tester and a bunch of other things with it, and had the best time for hours on that thing.  I also got a microscope one year, and a computer the another.

I never got Star Wars toys.  No, it’s not because my parents wouldn’t get them for me.  I was never an action figure person.  To this day, I don’t understand my husband’s fondness for them, but merely accept that’s what he likes and keep it in my thoughts for gifts.  But I got plenty of books that weren’t necessarily “girly”.  (Other than Nancy Drew.  I loved Nancy Drew, and my collection is a large one).  I did get Star Wars books and loved them.  Loved Leia. Loved, loved, loved that character.

But I’m pointing this out to show that even in the 70s and early 80s, my parents did think more about my tastes than whether or not they were gender-appropriate.

And my friend is right, Hallmark needs to get on the damn BALL!

Times are rough.  I don’t think this is a secret to anyone.  So, what do people do in tough times?  Try to survive, sure.  And yes, one should.  However, if you’re in any sort of position at all to do something positive, and try to make a good difference in the world, that’s what people should do, right?

If you have your charity thing, awesome.  Keep doing it and thanks for contributing to something positive in this world.

If you don’t and are moved to do some good, I’d like to suggest donating to food banks.  It’s my household’s thing as it’s our preference to do good at the local level as we often see need right in front of us.  It doesn’t take much time, since most of us grocery shop on a regular basis and filling a few bags to drop off at the food bank is ridiculously simple. If all you can spare the price of a boxed meal or a can of soup a week, it’s still something, and can be a big help.

I’m making this specific plea now not only because we’re coming up on the holidays as a traditional time for charitable giving, but because when we dropped off some groceries this morning, my husband commented that he saw some bare shelves this time around. I live in a small community, but last year alone our food bank provided a week’s worth of food for over 1100 households.  That’s like over 45,000 meals for the year, friends.  Between a bad local flood and the economy, the pantry seems to be having a hard time keeping up this year.

So, what’s good to give to a food pantry?

Think non-perishable and think simple.  Not everyone in need has access to full working kitchen facilities.  They may not have the crock pot and the Kitchen-Aid you rely on to prepare delicious, inexpensive meals.

• Boxed meals are good, especially when you don’t have to add an extra ingredient to make a meal.  Betty Crocker has a complete meals version of their “Helper” product line.  A few boxes of that can be useful.  There’s a company that has a line of beans and rice type dishes that I’ve tried when camping.  They’re tasty.
• Hearty canned soups are also an excellent choice, especially when the can has a pull top rather than needs a a can opener.
• Canned fruits and vegetables aren’t as awesome as fresh, sure.  But they’re shelf-stable and getting a variety that’s not just starch is a welcome change in a tedious diet.
• Peanut butter is also a good shelf-stable standby.
• Canned meats can also be a good choice.  Since a lot of protein isn’t shelf-stable, this is a big issue for food banks.
• Powered or canned milk is also popular.  Many powered milk products can be mixed up a serving at a time, so you don’t have to sweat whether or not you have good refrigeration available.

Google+, a new social networking site that’s in theory still in beta, is having a serious issues amongst its users.

You see, Google+ wants to insist that people use their legal names on their social networking site. If you’re using a name that appears “fake” by various criteria, you stand to have the account axed.

Okay, does this affect me? Personally, not so much. I use my “real” name online and have for creeping up on two decades.

Oh, wait… No, I didn’t for a long time. For the first decade and a bit, I used my maiden name – not my legal name. When I got married, I actually took my husband’s last name. I used it to apply for jobs and sign checks. Socially? I tended to introduce myself with my maiden name. When I went online, I used my NoelFigart as my handle, typically. It wasn’t particularly a conscious decision. It’s my name. It’s unique, and I like my name a lot, so hey…

Notice how I phrased that “it’s my name”. It most certainly was not my legal name. It was the name I most identified with. It was my mental default that I used. I had to think about it a little when I was signing checks or in formal situations where I was addressed as Mrs. <HusbandName>. Oh sure like many a traditionally-reared girl who is engaged, I did practice the “Married name signature” and played with it. I’m just saying that in my case, it didn’t stick much.

I changed it back to my maiden name about six years ago. There were a lot of driving reasons, but the most serious one for me was that my son, if asked what his mother’s name was, would say Noël Figart. The last time I heard him do it when before I changed my name back to my maiden name, this scene from the Bring on the Night movie floated through my mind:

Reporter: Well, Gordon…

Sting: My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting. Who is this Gordon¹ character?

I figured that when even my son used Figart instead of my married name, it was time to embrace it and have my legal name be the name I actually use.

If I had not changed my name, would Google+ have decided to kick me out if they’d discovered I wasn’t using my legal name? Or is a maiden name “legitimate” because there’s social precedent for a woman using her maiden name either professionally or socially.

However, what about pen names? I have one. One of my blogs is written under a sobriquet. I would (and do) answer to it as readily as Noël. I consider it one of my names. When we’re talking marketing and brand, it’s most certainly identified with me, even if many people who know it know my “real” name as well. In my case, it’s no big secret. It’s also a name that is so obviously “fake” that it would get me kicked off Google+ pretty quickly – never mind that it’s a legitimate identity that I am really, no kidding, known by. And in fact, my Google+ circles are more likely to contain people who know me in that context than as Noël.

I consider myself probably one of the simpler examples of the fluidity of name. So, I think that Google needs to think more carefully about the whole legal, Western-based “Firstname” “Lastname” requirement for its social circles. I get that it is trying to create a culture of transparency in the hopes that it will promote a friendlier environment and better behavior amongst its denizen.

I just think that they’re using a ball-peen hammer for a situation that might call for a scapel. Just sayin’.

_________________________

¹ Sting was born Gordon Matthew Sumner.

I’ve had it with “Mom” being used as a prefix or descriptive for something backward, unattractive, technophobic or unfashionable. I wanna know since when was being a mother something shameful and backward?

The roots of this, I think are even worse than it looks on the surface. Mom, in general, also means “older woman”. And we all know older women are valueless, right? Women are worthwhile and tolerable when you wanna bang ‘em, but otherwise? Feh! Don’t clutter up the landscape!

While I’m enough of a child of my generation that I don’t think being a mother is the be-all and end-all of female accomplishment, it is a part of what I do and how I spend my days. All the moms reading this know it’s a tough job, and frankly, I’d like a little credit and respect for it. We may not be spending our lives trying to be all hot and hip, but part of that is because we’re trying against almost impossible societal odds to bring up the next generation of decent human beings. Sorry if that’s not cool enough for you, but I assure you that you would not want to live in a world where the difficult job of mother isn’t taken seriously by at least some of us.

Do I do other things? Yep. In fact everything I do requires me to learn and study new things on a very regular basis. So you can drop dead with that backward crap.

As far as being technologically hip?¹ That’s my job, thanks, so that whole backward thing when it comes to being a mom doesn’t wash at my business. In fact, a good 80% of my students are middle-aged women (moms) and this cultural view of older women being technophobic –that it’s expected for them to be so, isn’t something I let ‘em get away with. You know what? After a few weeks with me, most of them walk away just as eager to learn and discover on their own as any hip twenty-something.

So, as far as being a “Mom”? Fine, try and brush me aside as middle-aged and not worth too much.

Just don’t get in my goddamned way, because I have shit to do and I will run you over in the process.

¹ And my mother’s Google-Fu is awesome and scary. So, this isn’t as generational as all that.

I taught a class today through a company that serves lunch as part of the class day. We go to a local place that serves pizza, sandwiches and salads.

There were four of us who went – me and three men.

Now when I go I always order a BLT because I love BLTs and this is my chance to have one. I don’t know why particularly that I don’t make them at home, but I don’t.

Now, the company I teach through puts in the order before we get there to give us more time to enjoy our meal. It’s rather nice, and the restaurant knows us by now. So, we just come in and sit down, then have our meals served.

Today the order included three sandwiches and a salad. Remember the demographic of the group? Three men and a woman?

The waitress, without asking who ordered it, put the salad in front of me.

I think it was more about the fact I am female than being not slender, but I did roll my eyes internally at ingrained cultural ideas.