I don’t care about your band

Some of you, those who don’t know me personally, may not know this, but I have the worst track record when it comes to relationships. Or, more aptly, non-relationships.

I often wonder where this failure comes from, since I grew up surrounded by loving relationships and I’m quite good at friendships. But I suck at relationships.

In my defense, some of the objects of these relationships have been less than deserving.

Of course, I chose them, right?

I don’t care about your band by Julie Klausner is one of the most surprisingly good books I’ve read in a long time. I read the first few pages standing in a bookstore in Toronto waiting for a friend to meet me, and I was hooked. Julie Klausner is a hilarious writer. The surprising part, however, is that I don’t normally like non-fiction. And especially not self help… which, to be honest, this book is bordering on. Technically it’s the autobiography of Julie Klausner’s romantic attempts.. and failures. But it’s presented in a very “self help” type way.

But that might just be because I identified so much with it. Honestly, it might as well have been the biography of my own love life. Just a switch of a few names and she might as well have been talking about my life.

It was refreshing.

Refreshing to see that other intelligent, capable women make similarly awful choices when it comes to men. Refreshing to see that one can survive a series of bad non-relationships and still emerge as a relatively functional person.

Because I am largely surrounded by people who are good at being in relationships. Good girlfriends and good boyfriends, people who are always in relationships. Or people who have even less experience with relationships than I, largely because they make better decisions than I when it comes to getting involved with someone who, logically, is just not worth their time.

“There are two kinds of girls who drift toward the more unsavory characters in the dating pool. There are, first of all, the kind of girls who’ve been ignored, abandoned, or otherwise treated ambivalently by their dads, and look to creeps as a means or replicating the treatment to which they’ve grown accustomed…. The other kind of girls who wallow in the Valley of the Dipsticks are the ones who know they deserve better. These are the girls with the great dads; the ones who had their decks stacked from the outset, who knew it couldn’t get any better in the guy department than the one who taught her how to ride her bike… This category of girls, in which I include myself, has a tendency to exceed her allotted bullshit quota for boys she likes, if only because her stubborn mind will not reconcile the notion of wonderful things ever coming to an end.”

“And there are so many guys. I remember the first time a friend referred to a guy I liked as a ‘man’ and I made a face like I was asking Willis what he was talkin’ ’bout. A man is hard to find, good or otherwise, but guys are everywhere now. That’s why women go nuts for Don Draper on Mad Men. If that show was called Mad Guys, it might star Joe Pesci, and nobody wants to see that. Meanwhile, I know way more women than girls. There’s a whole generation of us who rode on the wings of feminism’s entitlement like it was a Pegasus with cornrows, knowing how smart we were and how we could be anything. The problem is that we ended up at the mercy of a generation of guys who don’t quite seem to know what’s expected of them, whether it’s earning a double income or texting someone after she blows you. There are no more traditions or standards, and manners are like cleft chins or curly hair  - they only run in some families.”

The book made me laugh. It made me cringe. It also made me think a lot about the kind of behaviour that I accept from “guys” that I like. Behaviour I would never accept from a friend or even a colleague.

Anyway, it’s a great book. Read it! Well… if you’re a girl.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

After reading a variety of fluffy romance type novels while I worked on my dissertation (see: the first 8 books on this year’s list of 50), I finally read something substantial this past week. Something I’ve been meaning for years to read. In fact, I think I bought the book about 5 years ago.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I know, it’s surprising that I haven’t read it before now. In fact, I could even talk about it before I did read it, since my Dad loves it and I know what it’s about (and I saw the movie, of course).

My love for sci-fi is a fickle thing. I was a Trekkie as a kid. I had a phaser toy and figurines of the characters. I had a t-shirt that said Property of Starfleet Academy. I had a huge crush on Wil Wheaton, aka Wesley Crusher. In fact, I still remember a dream I had when I was kid of Wesley Crusher saving all the kids in my swimming class.

This being said, I’m picky about my sci-fi. This is mostly because science makes no sense to me. All the talk of physics and mechanics and time space type things hurts my head. However, I love the prominent dystopia theme in science fiction.

So, some of my favourite books are sci-fi: 1984, Brave New World, Breakfast of Champions. Last year I developed a love for Stargate and watched all ten seasons of SG-1 and five of Atlantis in about two months. Last month I watched the entire series of Firefly. And I really love them.

When I finally sat down to read Hitchhiker’s, I knew I was going to like it before reading even the first word. I loved the movie, even though many people seem to hate it (I have no taste in movies, this is a well-known fact). What I didn’t anticipate was how much I would enjoy it. And in what way.

Hitchhiker’s is a really intelligent book. It seems random at times, but it is so smart. The entire time I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think he’s so much smarter than me! The vocabulary is great. Douglas Adams knows how to use language in every possible way and take it to it’s limits. It’s what other writers only wish they could do.

The plot wasn’t as interesting as I would’ve liked, probably because I’d seen the movie already. But I kept reading for the style. It was so entertaining. Funny, random and thoughtful.

The copy I have includes all four books in the trilogy, so I’ll have to read the others soon as well.

Theseus: completed

Last Friday, after many glitches and a great deal of emotional stress, I printed out my dissertation and handed it in.

I am happy with it. I am confident that I did everything I could to make it perfect, and there is nothing I would change. That’s all one can ask for, right?

Now it only remains to be seen what other people (namely my supervisor and two other markers) think about it and if I get a decent grade.

It was my life for an entire month. When it was done I was both immensely relieved and strangely empty. I had no idea what to do with my time anymore.

Luckily, packing came along to keep me busy. That and Firefly.

I’m proud of myself. For finishing this and for getting this far. This is the physical manifestation of all of the work I have done in the last 5 years, and everything I have learned.

And, believe it or not, I think I finally found my niche. Yes, I could talk about pots, myths and political myth making forever.

A matter of time

On Monday I heard Jeanette Winterson speak at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She talked about how we all exist in three different times at once, that we are used to walking around made up of the past, the present and the future. And that this is what art does, it allows us to touch our inner selves, the ones that live in all of these times at once. The ones beyond the calendars and clocks. Clocks and calendars are human constructs with which to regulate the world, when really our lives are not linear. We can relive the past and change it, in our minds. We can affect the present while we think about the future and, essentially, affect that as well.

And it’s interesting, to think of one’s self as non-linear. There’s something comforting in knowing that one hour leads to a next, that Wednesday follows Tuesday and March follows February.

But there’s a reason why Jeanette Winterson’s books speak to me, and I think she touched on it with this. While consciously I have trouble being non-linear, my inner self recognizes something about how the past, present and future are not fixed but simultaneous, are non-linear. Because, when it comes down to it, each moment we live is affected by our past experiences and our hopes or worries of the future just as much as it is affected by our present situation.

It gave me a lot to think about. And a lot of insight into Jeanette Winterson’s unique writing style.

At least I beat last year’s…

So, June 26th marked the end of my 50 Books in a Year attempt for this year.

I read 34 books this year. It’s not 50, but it’s one more than last year’s 33.

And I think that 34 books is pretty good when you consider that for each essay I wrote (6), I read an average of 10 books, so that’s 60. Plus at least one a week for my Roman Archaeology class last semester, that’s another 12.

But the 50 Books in a Year isn’t about academic reading. It’s about making time for myself amid essays and seminars and reading requirements.

Maybe next year will be the year I make it to 50. Because it will be the first year in 20 that I haven’t been in school. I’ll (hopefully) have a real job and a life outside of work. And freedom from academic guilt!

Also, this year I want to get back into the habit of blogging about all the books I read, because I sort of failed at that.