Because, most of the time, I hated it. Also because it's a teen movie you don't have to be embarrassed about liking. You can, however, be embarrassed that our society is still in a place where The Taming of the Shrew is still an acceptable, even commendable, plotline.
         Random-aside-of-proof: there is an episode of the terrible Canadian teen drama Degrassi in which the students put on scenes from The Taming of the Shrew with their own modern updates. Most of them are stupid drivel — a cheerleader tamed by a football player, etc. Only one team portrays Petruchio as an abusive lover and Katherina as his victim struggling to escape. I found the scene powerful, the interpretation apt, but as might be expected, all the other characters in the show can't imagine why they didn't think it was like totally like true love! Barf.
         (I probably should be embarrassed about having seen an episode of Degrassi, but it was years ago, when I was a dopey teenager and my friend K---, who used to read this journal in fact, was obsessed. She has, no joke, seen every episode of the show. So, in comparison, I'm in the clear.)

If you're new: "2006 in Review" ; "As it turns out, 2007 didn’t suck." ; "2008 is enough" ; "2009 Lives!" 

January
The story I'd had accepted, a wonderful accomplishment so I thought, vanished into the ether as the magazine folded.
I tried really, really hard not to judge the education majors in a class.
But it didn't matter, because after a pros and cons list of two classes, I ended up taking one of the very best classes I've had at Brown. Met my thesis advisor to boot.
I suggested the ability to "View Your Review" of Writing.com items, and The StoryMaster did it!
I wrote "Tourist Trap"  [13+]. A flash fiction! For real! Wow.
I listened to "Pills and Soap," by Elvis Costello

February
Early February: Writing.com drama town. Double barf.
We learned that support for "gay men and lesbians" outweighs support for "homosexuals." Keep it up, intelligent Americans.
I wrote "Night Blindness"  [18+], which I described as "an LDS, speculative, violent, feminist, blasphemous AND religious, long short story" that is both "pretty bizarre and kind of awesome," if I do say so myself.
I read Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prisons. On my birthday, which E--- forgot. Good times.
I listened to "Don't Get Me Wrong," by The Pretenders.

March
The mess began. You know the one I mean. The one that kept me up all night and turned me inside out and made me realize that there is only one person to care about me: me. In other words, I
broke up with E---, which led to
sleeping with A---, which I pretended to feel guilty about but just didn't, ever, at all, since I in fact
wished it would have happened a whole lot sooner, and
didn't think for a second that I should answer to anyone but myself. So I didn't.
Something I did do: learn how to say "manifest destiny" in Russian. Heh. Useful.
I wrote "Blood Oranges"  [GC]
I read This Side of Paradise, no bared paradise to be found.
I listened to "Catalyst," by Anna Nalick; I wish I would have discovered to "Leave," by Katie Todd, or "A Little Easier," by Leddra Chapman, since it would have catalyzed even sooner. But I do not count the time that was lost, the time spent profoundly unhappy, the time when I was spiraling again and didn't eat a thing; it's gone, that time, vanished, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, so I won't spend another second, after this sentence, pondering its trivialities.

April
I got over myself... or worked on reducing the word-vomit, at least. All of you were amazingly supportive. You were the reason I knew I would be okay
I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Fucking brilliant. FUCKING BRILLIANT I SAID.
I listened to "Get It Faster," by Jimmy Eat World.

May
My thesis was approved! In other words, the most amazing thing that could ever happen to me happened. I walked on air for days.
I had a rough finals period, a rough A--- period, a rough endometriosis period, a rough everything period.
I kicked ass anyway.
We learned that Facebook is now cited in a huge percentage of divorces. Yowza.
I read Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Good but thoroughly terrifying.
I listened to "All These Things That I've Done," by The Killers. At least they were done.

June
I saw him, visited him, had him over, and I was happy. Actually happy. I even made sappy laundry metaphors about it.
"Rifles"  [13+] was accepted for publication!
I read Half Life by Shelley Jackson. I can't recommend it.
I shortened up "The Cost of Living (short version)"  [GC]
I listened to "The Best Thing," by Relient K. Because he is the best thing that could be happening.

July
I went on vacation with A--- and his family, and to my surprise and delight, I had a wonderful time.
I worked to defend my claim that the novel Valley of the Dolls is proto-feminist. I think I might even have succeeded.
"Maple & Brown Sugar or Apples & Cinnamon"  [13+] was published in The Shine Journal!
I read The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis. Did nothing for me. Maybe if I were a horny 20-something boy, I would have understood it.
I listened to "Sultans of Swing," by Dire Straits.

August
Meg & Dia made me cry. Not the first time.
I wondered if I were a harridan; Melissa is fashionably late! assured me I am not.
Thesis! Thesis! Thesis!
Oh, and the introduction of the terrible Bulgarian girl. {e:shudder}
I read Provinces of Night for fun and American Federalism for the lit review. Double
I listened to "What If," by Meg & Dia.

September
I called out a book banner, and I would do it again.
I criticized CNN for (a) twitter and (b) misplaced modifiers. I'd do that again, too, although it's less vital than exposing book banners for what they really are.
I got a new prescription, which really seemed to help with the pain and the problems, even if it did come just short of the endo diagnosis.
I started classes. I wrote my thesis. It kind of kicked ass, team.
I read Courtroom 302 by Steve Bogira
I listened to "The Other Side of the World," by KT Tunstall

October + November: The Lost Mono Months
I slept.
Then I slept some more.
I then slept even more.
Among all the sleeping and sleeping and sleeping, "Constellation"  [13+] and "Blood Oranges"  [GC] were accepted for publication.
Upon hearing this, I probably slept some more.

December
I awakened from the haze to find the world had changed...not too much at all.
I came back slowly, seeking out things to read and rewrite, working to remind everybody who I am
Just as I was ready to be back full-force, my computer's hard drive gave up the ghost.
I read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. if you like Detroit or middling race/class analysis; if you don't.
I listened to the new album Kaleidoscope Heart, by Sara Bareilles. It is amazing. I love it.
 

Computer = fixed. That means tomorrow is year in review. I already picked out a name for it and everything

Have a great evening!
 

         I've just finished The Hour Between by Sebastian Stuart. It was amazing. I read the entire thing in under 24 hours; I hardly wanted to put it down for bed last night. It is absolutely beautifully written, so compelling, so engaging. The characters are so broken and real, and I had to know what happened to them, had to know Katrina's secret, had to know what Arthur would do. It is the sort of book that bridges adulthood and childhood perfectly, which is hard to do, in my opinion; I critique books for failing at this all the time, so it's such a special treat to read one that rings true in every way.
         It's been quite a while since I read a book that struck me this way. I think part of is that, in the first quarter or so, I was certain that this would be a mirror image of a novel idea I had back in high school, and have thought about doing for NaNo several times, but never have. The latter three-quarters proved this wrong (luckily!) but I was already predisposed to love it, and Stuart delivered. He writes very beautifully, but it's a straightforward type of beautiful: no flowery-for-the-sake-of-flowers, no metaphors screaming "pick me for a Pulitzer," no lost paragraphs of nothing. There are flowers, and there are metaphors, and there is stunningly-written darkness, but it is all necessary. It is all a part of the whole. The novel is accessible and compact and, honestly, everything I want in fiction of the human experience. It was a great way to start the year. (Let's pretend this the first book I read in 2011, shall we? It rings much better that way.)
         I had this book on my reading list for weeks, months, years, who knows how long -- long enough that I don't remember where I heard about it. Too bad. I'd like to thank whoever recommended it to me.
         If it was you: thanks.
 

         A year in review is coming, but possibly not until my computer gets fixed. Until then, I need suggestions: my cousin, age 10, got a hamster, and she's having trouble naming it.
         I suggested Abrahamster Lincoln and Peter Frhamster. (Say it aloud -- you'll get it, Robert Waltz .)
 

         My laptop is broken.
         Not "broken," exactly, but dying. It gives me about five minutes of usage time before going into the Kernel Error Restart Faster Pussycat Kill Kill screen. It started this morning with some weird error in Word, and what I thought was just an incidental kernel error, but then it happened again, and again, and...you get the picture. More computer-savvy minds than I think it's an irreparable hard drive error, one that will mean buying a new hard drive and OS to fix. Baaaaaaarf. I won't be able to do anything until next week, unfortunately.
         There are other computers in the house, so I won't be completely MIA, but there will certainly be a slowdown on the writing and reviewing fronts.
         To be honest, I suppose I shouldn't complain too much. I am on my first hard drive, still, after three and a half years of near-constant use, and I haven't had a single problem with it. I've never even been to an Apple Store But I'm driving down to one next week. Here's hoping I can get something done between now and then, laptopless.
 

I almost forgot to tell you of my publishing news!

While I was sick, two stories were accepted and published! Eeeeek! Exciting!

The first was "Constellation"  [13+], which many of you have read and no doubt remember. (It was the first story I wrote as a teenager that didn't just totally suck. Holds a special place in my heart for that, sniff sniff.) "Constellation" can be found in the now-available My First Time anthology, published by SoftCopy Publishing. The anthology can be downloaded for iPad, Kindle, etc., or as a PDF. I recommend it

The second was "Blood Oranges"  [GC], which for some inexplicable reason is one of my favorite stories of my own. (This is a blog post of its own, I think: why do some stories just speak to us so much more than others?) It was published by Crossed Genres for their 'zine edition of "Science Fiction/Fantasy and Characters of Color." Check it out: http://crossedgenres.com/archives/024-charactersofcolor/blood-oranges-by-audrey-...

Cool huh?
 

         Last night, I finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. The novel had been recommended to me by a handful of people over the past couple years, about half of whose opinions on literature I respect, and about half of whom... not so much. It won a Pulitzer Prize, which is a pretty solid endorsement on top of word-of-mouth, so I've had it on my list for some time. (Shockingly, I work through this list very slowly, due to a lack of free time.) At long last I picked it up at the library when I got home last week, and this weekend read it.
         I wish I could give Middlesex a glowing endorsement. I really, really wanted to like it. The idea of an intersex narrator alone packs so much promise that I couldn't wait to get into the story. A bit of that was there. But that wasn't the point of the book. Cal, the narrator, wasn't the point of the book; he was more like its tour guide than its narrator. The main character of the book is Detroit, and unfortunately, I just do not care about Detroit.
         Not to offend Detroit or Detroiters, but I simply don't find it interesting. My family is from the Midwest; I was born in Milwaukee and have family in Michigan. I know what Detroit is like. I know its sad story. I have read better accounts of its decline through the same lenses (economic, racial, political) that Eugenides uses.
         It is undeniable that the book is well-written; so many of the descriptions and the ponderous internal dialogue is flowing and long and ravishing, and I really enjoyed it. It is gorgeous in that self-aware way (that the author pointedly writes gorgeous paragraphs solely for their gorgeous nature, as opposed to accidental gorgeous writing, like Daphne duMaurier's; but this is hardly something you can fault Eugenides for, since it is what every modern literary fiction writer does, and it's the way you win a Pulitzer in the 21st century). There are flowers and fire in appropriate places, chapters spanning the globe from Greece and Germany to middle America. But it is done on purpose. You can tell that Eugenides took Lit Arts classes at Brown. (Really, he did!) The novel is heavy with, if not pretense, than affectation about the sort of book it ought to be.
         Because it does this, the voice of the novel does not always ring true. Often it does, but sometimes it's just... off. In certain scenes it becomes painfully clear that Eugenides was never a preteen girl. I would like to attribute this to the intersex nature of the narrator, but Eugenides is very explicit about how not-different Cal feels as a girl up until finding out about his XY chromosome status. Cal is, socially, internally, a girl until that point.
         I am far from an expert, but I have read extensively, fiction and non, about intersex conditions and transsexual experience. I find it fascinating. I wanted Middlesex to be that way. But it was too much about Cal's grandparents, too much about family, way too much about Detroit. I came in expecting the fascinating tale of a Greek-American hermaphrodite with stunning prose — in other words, I wanted the novel that all the reviews promised. It was not that. Only in the last quarter of the book is Cal (the character, not the narrator) even aware of being different! I could stand for more of that sooner.
         I heard, when reading the recent New Yorker short story by Eugenides about Brown students ("avowal" ), that a sequel to Middlesex is in the works. I don't think I will read it. I want to; oh, I want to. I really desperately wanted to love Middlesex the way others do. But I didn't.
         I suppose what it boils down to is this: I like beautiful prose, and I like the immigrant experience in literature, and I love insights into the complexities of life in literary fiction. Eugenides is no slouch, but... Jhumpa Lahiri does it better.
 

         Christine O'Donnell pulls a Palin, but worse: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43590.html

         I'm going to offer political candidates a super-awesome piece of campaigning advice: Learn a Supreme Court case. Just one. (Roe v. Wade doesn't count...although O'Donnell couldn't name that one either, putting her a step below Palin.) Then, whenever somebody asks you which SCOTUS decision you disagree with, you whip out a prepared mini-speech on that particular case. Problem solved.
         Chris Coons, running against O'Donnell, clearly understood this. He disagrees with Citizens United v. FEC. They discussed it earlier in the debate. It's possible that Coons doesn't know a single other Court decision, but that doesn't matter. In soundbyte debates, you only have to know one.
         A suggestion? Well, for crazy social conservatives pretending not to be quite so crazy, I'd recommend Kelo v. New London. Most Republicans and quite a few Democrats think this case, regarding eminent domain, was wrongly decided. (I do.) Just don't mention that Ms. Kelo is a Wiccan*, and you should be fine.
         If you do want to inject a little crazy, try Jacobellis v. Ohio. This is the infamous "I know it when I see it" Court decision on pornography and obscenity laws. In this decision, SCOTUS decided that a movie theater manager could not be imprisoned for possessing an "obscene" film. Lots of social conservatives think the government should outlaw pornography. O'Donnell does. This case sums all that up.
         If that isn't crazy enough for you, there's always Griswold v. Connecticut, or, as known in extreme social conservative circles, The Case That Caused America's Downward Spiral. Why? Because those crazy socialist Supreme Court justices legislated from the bench and declared that states couldn't prohibit married couples from using contraception if they so chose. "Right to marital privacy"? Sounds like a commie plot to me. But there are plenty of others to pick from, too.
         Sigh. Too bad remembering court cases is hard. But when Wolf Blitzer asks, you really only have to name one.


*Not that it matters. Contrary to other past O'Donnell statements, people of all religions, and no religion, get equal Constitutional rights.
 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/26/inam.lee.black.church/index.html?hpt=...

I was going to read this today, but then there was a misplaced modifier in the very first sentence. Barf. Instant headache.

I should know better than to ever look at CNN anymore. It's now always, "Here's a two-sentence synopsis of a potential news story. Let's go to Twitter and see what you think!" Please. You think I care what twitterers think about issues? Wrong. I want investigative journalism. And also no misplaced modifiers.