2016 Reading Challenge Review #1: A book I've owned but never read

For my first challenge this year, I went with a book I own but have never read.  It's called Haunting Experiences: Encounters with the Otherworldly and it's by Michelle Belanger.  I know I already wrote a little bit about this book, but now that I've finished it I wanted to give my final thoughts.

I would have liked this book a lot better if Ms. Belanger wasn't so concerned with making sure that the reader believed her.  She admits in the introduction and the conclusion that she has struggled her whole life with the question, What will people think?, so I can see why she would be so self-conscious.  Still, if you're writing a book about this stuff (and this was not her first book about her experiences with the Otherworldly), I feel like you should turn off that inner commentary.  In the conclusion of the book, she says she struggled against "the instinct to place qualifiers at the start of every chapter and to apologize for the extraordinary aspects of [her] claims" (p 250).  Well, she may not have placed qualifiers at the start of every chapter, but in my opinion she placed far too many of them in the middle of chapters instead.

Many of her experiences involved other people.  Many of these people were also psychics, or else they were Wiccas, or else they were simply very open to the Otherworldly.  But some of the people in her stories were devout non-belivers.  And she made a point of telling us this.  In the middle of the spooky action.  It interrupted the story every time.  Something odd is happening, and Michelle's friend turns to her -

And then we get her friend's backstory about how s/he is a devout Catholic and has never, ever believed in ghosts or hauntings.  It's as if Ms. Belanger were saying, "Okay, I know this is hard to believe, but if THIS PERSON knew that something Otherworldly was happening, you'd better believe it wasn't all in my head!"

It actually got pretty frustrating.  Why not place these qualifiers at the beginning or the end of a chapter?  If these were fictional stories, those background details would almost definitely be in the exposition rather than during the climax.  It totally interrupted not only the heat of the moment but the flow of the story.

Still, the stories were pretty interesting.  My favorite story actually made me choke up a little.  This one happened to her mother as a teenager.  Michelle's mother took violin lessons from an elderly man, and sometimes she would sit in the hall for a good 10 minutes of her lesson time just to listen to her teacher play on his own.  One day, after her teacher had been in Europe for some weeks, she sat in the hallway for almost half an hour listening to him play when the owner of the music store saw her.  He informed her that her teacher had passed away shortly after returning from Europe.  The two of them went into the music room to find it empty, save for a package that the teacher had dropped off before passing away - a violin that he'd bought for Michelle's mother.  This story truly spoke to me because of my connection to music.  I never took private lessons, but I played the viola for 11 years starting in the fifth grade.  My dad plays the violin, my sister the cello, and my other sister the violin.  Music has always been a huge part of my life, and Ms. Belanger's description of the violin's sound for those who aren't familiar with it was absolutely beautiful.  The thought of an old violin teacher's spirit playing one last song for his favorite student is not hard for me to believe.

So, anyway, my overall rating of this book is 2.5/5.  It was interesting and overall enjoyable, but the author's obsession with not sounding crazy detracted from many of the stories.  I can understand her concern, but I also wish she'd done a better job at putting a lid on her concern.  After all, most people who read this book are likely to be either firm believers themselves, or willing to suspend their disbelief for the purpose of being entertained.  The latter would have been much easier for me if she were not constantly reminding us that it were true and she were not "a nut" (her own words).  Most books leave me with a certain feeling that I can't quite put into words - slowly closing the back cover, I usually sigh and think about the beauty of the book, re-feeling many of the emotions that I felt throughout.  But when I finished this book, the only feeling I had was, "K."

I'm much looking forward to my next book in the challenge!  I'm reading Not Quite the Classics by Colin Mochrie.  This one has been on my to-read list since the moment it came out, but I haven't been able to find it in any libraries or book stores near me.  My Mom gave me an Amazon gift card for Christmas so I finally decided to order the book!

2016 Reading Challenge: A book I've owned but never read

Derek and I went to Jamaica for a friend's wedding in January.  I brought three books with me for the long plane rides, figuring I'd want some variety in my entertainment: a book I've owned but never read, a book I've read before, and a book I can read in a day.  Well, on the flight there, I ended up crocheting the whole time (I needed a cute little phone cozy to match my dress for the wedding!), and on the way home I was so exhausted and half-sick that I slept the whole way.  I read about 10 pages of the first book on my list, but I didn't have the energy to keep my eyes open.

When we got back, I admit I procrastinated with reading for a while.  But now I'm already almost halfway done with my first book of the challenge!

The book I chose is one of only two or three books that I own and have never read.  My Mom got it for me who knows when - she used to work at Borders and would come home with books all the time.  (In her words, she was like an alcoholic working at a liquor store.  In my words, she was the worst kind of -holic because she brought her habit home to her kids.) :)

Haunting Experiences: Encounters with the Otherworldly by Michelle Belanger is proving to be a great book to ease myself back in to reading.  One of the reasons that I've put it off so much in recent years is because I used to binge an entire book in a day - we're talking books like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a full 734 pages which were not intended to be read in just one day.  But Haunting Experiences is a collection of short stories, each of which are only about 10-15 pages long, so it's very easy for me to read a chapter or two and put it down.  No cliffhangers keeping me sucked in and making me forget about cooking dinner!

The book is supposedly all true.  Ms. Belanger is a psychic and she has had many experiences with hauntings - ghosts, negative energies, poltergeists, etc.  As much as I've always been a firm believer in faeries and certain kinds of magic, I just have a hard time with the word "psychic."  I can't help but to associate the word with the type of person who was at my high school graduation party, who told me such shocking things as "many big changes are coming" and "big things are headed your way."  Wow!  These things were in my future the night I graduated high school?!

Anyway, whether you believe that the stories are true or not, it's an entertaining book.  Sometimes I feel like Lucy Ricardo when she is so engrossed in reading The Mockingbird Mystery that she accidentally eats her cold cream, and then gets such a scare when Ricky calls to her that she throws her book out the window!  The stories are just scary enough to keep me turning the page without being so scary that I can't sleep at night.  But, because each story is only 10-15 pages long, the suspense never builds up so long that I forget to do anything important!

I'm very happy with my first selection for the 2016 reading challenge.  And I can't wait for my next eleven books!

2016 Reading Challenge: Challenge Accepted!

I used to read a lot, but then I stopped.  I wrote out a detailed post about how much I used to read and all of the excuses that I made for not reading so much anymore, but it turned out to be pretty depressing.  To sum it up: college, work, and new hobbies took up so much of my time that I allowed them to almost completely replace leisurely reading.  In 2014 I re-read the Harry Potter series and Mockingjay - the most books I'd read for pleasure in one year in a long time.  Last year started off strong - I read four books in less than two months, none of which I'd ever read before - but then more excuses came along and I didn't read for the rest of the year.

Towards the end of the year, I started seeing the 2016 reading challenge floating around on Facebook:

A lot of my friends, who are avid readers, were pretty excited about it.  I was interested as well, but nervous because it had been so long since I actually read 12 books in one year.  (Not counting the semester I took two classes on Classical mythology, wherein I read at least 15 books and plays.)  But my friend Elizabeth told me not to worry about last year, and I realized that she was totally right!  Last year is last year, and this year is going to be this year.

In order to encourage myself to read more, I bought a bookshelf from IKEA and strategically placed it next to my TV.  Hopefully, seeing the shelf full of welcoming books will help me to keep myself from binge-watching shows and do some reading instead.

I haven't quite chosen all 12 books yet, but I will blog about the challenge as I go along!  Will you challenge yourself this year, too?

Spontaneous, happy nostalgia.

Many eons ago (somewhere around my junior year of high school), I was given a copy of Wreck This Journal.  It's an awesome book that encourages creativity and destruction.  Each page has a suggestion of how to destroy it.  I recently found it, and as I go through each page and read every doodle, it's bringing back so many memories.  I wanted to share some of the thoughts and memories.

 This one was fun.  I remember doing this pretty clearly.  I had a lighter in my room for candles and incense.  I went to the bathroom sink because I was afraid.  First I cautiously burned the bottom right corner and blew the flame out - cool!  Then I burned the top right corner, blew it out, and gained confidence.  Then I decided to be cool and burned the center of the page.  It spread quickly and freaked me out.  So I threw the book in the sink and turned on the water, and then I decided to never set fire to anything else ever again.  Besides candles and incense.

 I made a Star of David out of tape and pieces of my hair, because why the heck not?

"my name is kate and I have an electric blue soul!"
"It kind of looks like Ben Duchan wrote this which is sad on his part" (Ben was my best friend. His handwriting was atrocious."
"let's see... douglebutt Swagglebutt poopadoop finklebutt" (these were words that Ben used randomly.  Swagglebutt, as many of you know, is now my internet persona.)
"Hi Kate <3 Merritt" (Merritt wrote that.)
"poopadoop" (again? okay, high school Kate, okay.)
"When I write w/ my Left hand I BUSCUITS" (written by Allison, upside-down for some reason.)

 I remember this day pretty clearly as well.  We were all sitting around the Drama Hall waiting for our director, because we THOUGHT there was rehearsal for our play, but the director never showed up.
"You suck! (not you, Kate) *cries* It has been an hour and 15 min since JFlo was supposed to be here.  He said he thought we wouldn't show up if he didn't post anything on the board.  STUPID DIRECTOR! *cries* *cries*"
I'm pretty sure Merritt wrote that page.  It looks an awful lot like her handwriting.

Out of everything, this one is probably my favorite.  I didn't bother to write much on this page, but what I did write, I love very much. 
"It's Christmas Day 2008 and I love everybody =D then I got some chocolate <3"
"Wall-E is teh b3st movie EVARR! ^_^"
"I <3 Nickie :)"
Okay, that last one isn't really accurate anymore, as Nickie was my high school boyfriend.  But it's still just such a nice little page.  Such nice thoughts.

 "well it mostly smells like burning, but I tried using Dragon's Blood incense." - 1/5/09
"cherry hemp lotion!" -1/8/09
Sadly, five years later, neither scent has stuck.  The page just smells like paper.  This page is sliced because a previous page says to cut through several layers of the book.

 This is from the same day as the Negative Thoughts page. 
"24 minutes since Jody was supposed to be here.  Freshmen doing Jumping Jacks.  Now Jody is 31 minutes late... Merritt trying to find his number"
"now he's 47 minutes late.  Merritt is going to sew my book." (there is a page that says "Sew this page!")
"45 minutes late. he's not coming."
"53 minutes late! we're waiting for our parents to get us."
"now it's been 91 minutes and I'm home and Jody sucks."
It's worth noting that this means we Drama Kids sat around in the school for an hour after school ended, waiting for rehearsal.  Because we were all so committed to theater that waiting around for AN HOUR when we could be home snacking, doing homework, or watching TV was totally acceptable.

 The title page.  (Sorry that these pictures are so out of order.)  Allison drew a little dude shouting "I'M A PURPLE!"  And she drew the little farting guy.  I'm pretty sure I did the rest on this page. 

The first instructions page.  It's pretty hectic, but allow me to guide you through the chaos.
First drawing you have is a red toaster with a piece of toast in it, then in blue it says "there's a button on the side if it pops up too soon push down again MAKE TOAST!"  It's from a song that some radio DJs make up or something.  I was pretty obsessed with it for a while in high school.
There's a giant piece of toast with melty orange butter in the middle.  Not sure why, probably because of the YEAH TOAST thing.
A little green cucumber thing, it's from Family Guy when Peter Griffin tries to create a dancing cucumber toy that's basically a vibrating dildo.
Along the side is a kitty that Merritt drew.
Someone - maybe Allison? - wrote "sparta!"
Several different types of smiley faces.
and at the bottom, I drew a Star of David, wrote yay, and filled in a few of the letters.

So there you have it, some highlights from my copy of Wreck This Journal.  It was a really fun journey down memory lane looking through the pages of this book.  And there are enough empty, undamaged pages left for me to make more memories!

Commercials targeting women suck. A lot.

Recently I saw this Upworthy post about tampon ads.  The tampon ad they show is pretty great - it's about a little girl who gets her period at a summer camp, and she's the only one with pads and tampons so she gives them out to every girl who gets her period.  But then, the other girls start receiving products from Hello Flo, which is apparently a tampon delivery service. 

But the part that made me think was the text that the poster wrote.  Tampon and pad ads completely obscure periods.  They show happy women going for a jog or a swim, and they drip blue liquid onto pads.  It totally stigmatizes periods.

And then I started thinking.  Just about every ad for women's "issues" completely ignores the real issue, avoids the topic, and therefore stigmatizes things that women experience.

Hair removal ads suck.  The legs that they shave to demonstrate the product are already perfectly smooth.  How are you supposed to know how well a razor or shaving cream works if they don't actually show it working?  More importantly, why can't they show a woman with at least stubbly, if not hairy, legs on TV?  What's so terrifying about that?  It's not like it's a dirty thing that kids shouldn't know about.  Obscuring meds for erectile dysfunction makes sense because people don't want kids asking questions.  But leg hair is totally natural and not harmful or sexual.

As a young teen with no thoughts about sex outside of "I hope I'll never hear my parents doing it," I saw a commercial for the birth control patch.  But of course I had no idea what it was.  They never used the words "birth control" or "pregnant."  All I remember about it is stuff like "don't worry about it falling off" and "it goes on your hip so it's very discrete!"  I assumed it was a quit smoking patch that was for women.  It was actually years before I learned about the birth control patch and connected the dots.  That one is a little more understandable, because like ED meds, birth control is a topic that most parents don't want to discuss with young kids or preteens who are curious.  But still.  Why is there such a stigma around women's concerns?

The only commercials involving products for women that never dances around the issue is makeup and skincare.  "YOUR SKIN SUCKS, DOESN'T IT?  BUY OUR PRODUCT TO MAKE YOU BEAUTIFUL!"  "HOLY CRAP YOU'RE GETTING WRINKLES?  ABOMINATION!  BUY OUR PRODUCT!"  "LIPS TOO SMALL?  BUY OUR LIPSTICK THAT MAKES YOUR LIPS SWELL UP."  "HAIR GRAYING?  BUY OUR PRODUCT!"

Moral of the story: society thinks anything natural is gross.  Society wants women to feel ashamed for having leg hair and periods.  But don't buy into it.  Remember that periods, leg hair, wrinkles, gray hair, and various skin imperfections are natural.  You don't have to like any of those things (I don't, except for my leg hair), but for your own sake, accept them as part of being human and consider not being as insecure about yourself as commercials and TV want you to be.

I'm coming out as a woman with hairy legs.

Like most girls in our society, I started shaving my legs around the time I started puberty.  For me, it was sparked by a certain important person in my life, who is older than I, seeing me in shorts and saying, "Katie [because I was Katie then], you should start shaving your legs!"  I recall a certain other important person in my life telling the former that I'd start shaving my legs when I was ready to, and that I didn't need anyone telling me when to start.

Since then, I have shaved my legs.  All. the. time.  Every other day during shorts season.  In middle and high school, I'd even shave my legs every other day during the winter, because I had to change my pants in the locker room, and I didn't want anyone seeing me with hairy legs.  In college, I felt the freedom to go about a week between shaves during the winter.

And I've never liked shaving.  I don't exactly enjoy most of my hygienic routine, but it's definitely satisfying to wash my hair, brush my teeth, and wash my body.  I feel better after doing so.  But shaving my legs has never felt that way to me.  Touching my freshly-shaved legs is nice, but it doesn't last long enough to really feel worth the effort.  And I'm super pale.  My hair is super dark.  So even minutes after shaving, my legs still looked a little stubbly.  Shaving over my knees gives them horrible razor burn, even once a week.  About halfway through the summer, every year, my knees hurt just from gentle touches because the razor burn gets so bad.  I usually develop ingrown hairs that form even more painful bumps on my knees in the summer, too.

But this summer, I'm not going to shave my legs.

I got really lazy this winter, and I was also really cold.  I knew that if I shaved my week-old leg hairs, they'd be noticeably colder when I went outside, and I didn't want any of that.  I also knew that the longer I waited to shave, the longer it would take to shave.  And every time I thought about shaving my legs, I just felt such an overwhelming desire to get out of the shower.  So I did.

And now, the more I stare at my hairy legs, the more I like them.  I mean, it is a little weird.  The hairs on my shins are a lot longer than the hairs on the backs of my calves.  A trim would be nice.   

When I first considered keeping my leg hair, I thought about the stigma behind it.  Let's face it.  Most women with hairy legs are looked at as either dirty hippies, dirty hipsters, lesbians, or transgender female-to-male.  Even if they're not any of those things.  It's stupid, but I was afraid that showing off my hairy legs would make people think that I was dirty.  Even though I know that I'm not!  I bathe regularly.  Just because I don't shave my legs doesn't mean I don't wash them.

I tested how I felt in public by going to the grocery store in shorts.  I haven't made any friends in my new state, and I work with only one person who lives 11 miles away, so I knew I wouldn't run into anyone I know.  Driving there felt weird.  With my windows down, I could feel my leg hairs billowing in the wind.  I've gotten used to that walking around at home, but to feel it in the car was a new experience.

Walking around the store felt so unbelievably liberating.  I looked at people's faces as I passed them, and most of them didn't even look down at my legs.  Granted, at the grocery store people tend to be buried in their shopping lists and the shelves in front of them.  But still, to walk around in public and not feel those dirty looks I expected was awesome.

I might shave my legs for special occasions, but I also might not.  I've spent my entire post-puberty life making sure to shave my legs for special occasions that take place during dress/shorts season.  I've only spent three months (or something) as someone who can't be bothered to shave her legs, and it's only been one month since I decided to be someone who doesn't even care to shave her legs again.  Will the societal pressures in my family lead me to shave my legs before my nephew's upcoming first birthday celebration?  Nah.  If anyone in my family actually cares, I'll have some carefully chosen words for them.  Will the societal pressures in the world lead me to shave my legs for a job interview if I wear a skirt to it?  Maybe.  Hopefully not.  If the person interviewing me is going to judge me for having hairy legs, I don't want to work for them.  Will I want smooth legs for my wedding?  Right now, yes, I think I will.  But I'm not even engaged right now.  Maybe, hopefully, by the time I get married, I'll be so used to my leg hairs that I won't feel less princess-bride-like with them.

I want to love the HIMYM finale, but here's why I can't

I know that everybody and their brother has written about why they did or did not like the series finale of How I Met Your Mother.  It's been talked to death, but now it's time for me to put in my two cents. 

It goes without saying that this post has a buttload of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the finale and you've managed to not find out what happened, please don't read on.

So, Ted and Robin end up together.  It's supposed to be gooey and romantic, and Voiceover Ted talks about how his whole life has been a long journey that led him to where he is now and he wouldn't change any of it.  That's a really sweet sentiment and I generally like that kind of thing in a TV show.

But I HATE that Ted ends up with Robin.

This whole show - NINE YEARS - that's over two THIRDS of my life - Voiceover Ted has been telling his kids and the TV audience that his life was a journey that led him to The Mother.  He starts the story with where he met Robin because he felt like that was where his Journey began.  "Dad, it feels like you've been going on about this for a year!  Why hasn't mom come in yet?"  "Because, this is about the journey to her."  And because the show had to last for more than one season.  That's awesome.

But what's NOT awesome is to tell us for NINE. YEARS. that this whole story, the whole show, Ted's whole life, was leading him to The Mother and then, in the last 20 minutes of the show, turn it into a journey that led him to Robin.  Fuck that.  I'm sorry, but really.  You're going to spend nine years giving us hints about The Mother, showing us her ankle, giving Ted her umbrella, having Ted date her roommate, having her show up in a class that he thought he was supposed to teach, only to have him end up with the woman who, for the last seven years, has proven to be not only not The Mother, but not even a good match for Ted?  Make it seem like The Mother was just a pit stop on Ted's way to Robin?

And there's another thing.  We just spent the last nine months, the whole last season, at Barney and Robin's wedding.  And in the first 20 minutes of the finale, you tell us that they got a divorce.  Thanks for punching us in the face right before you punch us in the gut.  Yeah, it's cool that Barney says "It's not a failed marriage, it's an awesome marriage that ended."  In fact I really liked that.  But COME ON.  A whole season at a wedding just to have the marriage end 20 minutes later (three years in the timeline of the show).

And then, there's the reason for their divorce.  Robin was traveling too much.  She wasn't ready to settle down anywhere.  That's part of why she drifted out of the gang's life.  So we're just supposed to assume that, at the very end of the show, she's magically decided to settle down and that's why she and Ted are finally right for each other?  Bull shit.  I mean, sure, she has an apartment and five dogs again, so maybe she really has settled down.  But there are some things that you need to TELL the viewer.  Have Robin say somewhere before Ted goes over there with the blue French Horn, "All that traveling was getting to me so I finally decided to take a job that will keep me in New York."  Just to make it more clear that Robin and Ted are finally at the right place at the right time.

It just feels like the writers didn't even care about the viewers in the last episode.  Apparently, a lot of the story was inspired by the writers' actual lives, so that's cool.  But some of us don't WANT a more realistic ending.  Some of us don't CARE that maybe something similar to this happened to an actual person.  Some of us just spent nine years wondering who The Mother was and we didn't WANT her to be dead (although that has been a theory since about halfway through season one).  And lots of us - me included - did NOT want Ted and Robin to end up together simply because they knew that they were not right for each other by the end of season two.

There were a lot of awesome moments, though.  Lots of things I did like about the finale.

Ted's goodbye to Lily made me cry.  It was so silly and Alyson Hannigan looked so sad - I imagined that maybe that was the last scene they filmed with Alyson, so maybe those tears were real because this was the last time the cast and crew would be together.  (I like to imagine this kind of thing because I want to work in sitcom.)

The Captain Ahab/White Whale costumes.  Oh my god, amazing.  But why the HELL was Ted wearing the Hanging Chad costume?!  He wore that to try to find the Slutty Pumpkin.  He found her.  He didn't like her.  He should have done an awesome couples costume with The Mother, but no, he was in a costume that he wore in order to search for some other woman.  dafuq.

Barney seeing his daughter for the first time.  Oh god, all the feels.  I pictured NPH seeing his babies for the first time, and imagined that he was channeling that feeling.  Tears.

Ted finally talking to The Mother for the first time.  Super adorable.  I actually expected them to kiss because there had already been so many scenes of them together.

Ted bringing Robin the blue French horn was really sweet.  As much as I hate that they're together, I do like that he brought her the horn again.  It's like they're starting over, rather than picking up where they left off.  Which is good, because they technically left off with Robin being a terrible friend and abandoning everybody, even for all of their Big Moments.

The clips of everybody from way back in season one made me start to cry so hard that I actually had to get up and walk away, thinking "I can't handle this."  Partly because I'm ridiculously emotional.  Partly because I was watching it with Derek (my boyfriend), and he always teases me for crying at shows and that just makes me feel silly for crying which, of course, makes me cry harder.  But mostly, because it brought me back to season one.  Back to 13 year old me, in the ninth grade, excitedly watching this new show with Willow from Buffy.  It made me feel like a kid again, and that hit me with so many emotions that I'm getting choked up just writing about it.

So, if you want to know my opinion overall, whether or not I liked the finale for How I Met Your Mother.... I'm generally okay with it.  It was a good episode, a solid ending to the show... it just didn't end the way I wanted it to.

In any case, it was 500 times better than the ending to Dexter.