Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Happy International Women's Day to all who celebrate. I was thinking about my journey of feminism and how even not so long ago (within the last 10 years), I was still reluctant to call myself a feminist. And in the early 2000s, I would swear up and down that I would never vote for a woman to be President of the United States. (I hadn't had the Donald Trump experience at that point, so it was easy for me to believe that.) But the older I've gotten, the more progressive I've become and the less apt I am to see things the way I saw them previously. Feminism is no longer a label I shun. It's one I embrace. And the more I hear from men and men's opinions, the more I want to see what women could do if they ran the world. That's not to say there aren't women who are assholes and racists and homophobes and predators, but if we're looking for a gentler world, I'm not sure men in charge is the answer.

We had an absolutely beautiful day today. I went to the bookstore and picked up two books- "Play You For It" by Samantha Saldiver, a Sapphic basketball romance between a coach and a journalist, and "Vampires of El Norte" by Isabel Canas, which was recommended during the Snowflake Challenge a couple of years ago (because woman cannot live on Sapphic romance novels alone). And then I sat outside for a half an hour and read the first chapters of both books. It was lovely.

That's all I've got for now. See you tomorrow!

A category-3 tornado ripped through my city last Friday. Fortunately, our apartment wasn't in the path of it. I went out to the north side of the city yesterday to drop off some donations and the devastation was incredible. I got lost on the way to the donation site and was driving around a park in the area and it was just tree after tree that had been uprooted in the storm. The other amazing thing was all of the people who came out to help- there were people on street corners handing out meals and water and the line of cars heading to drop off items at the donation site was quite long. There were already roofers up at the community center making repairs. It was great to see so many people working to make things a little easier. They were asking for donations of tarps today as it is raining here tonight with the possibility of another tornado as well.

In all my years in the Midwest, I have been around my share of tornado warnings, but I can't remember a storm like this in my lifetime. It was a beautiful day until around 2pm, then it started to get dark and grey and the wind picked up. It blew the power out at my office and the wind would rattle the doors and windows. The building the office is in is like a storefront and the front wall is mostly big windows, so not ideal to be sitting there when the wind picks up like that. There were no sirens, the cell phone warning never went off, and even the radio didn't have a tornado alert. That's how fast it happened, and it was over just as quickly.

Everything else is going okay. I haven't written much of anything. I've been reading a lot. I'm now working on "The Ministry of Time" by Kaliane Bradley. It's not too bad. I'm a little miffed that there only seems to be one team worth cheering for left in the NHL playoffs. My favorite team, the Ottawa Charge, has made the PWHL finals and I'm thrilled about that. It'll be nice to watch that for the next week.

That's all I've got for now. Hope you all are doing well.

I'm currently surrounded by boxes as I'm in the midst of my annual room clean & purge. I've got a bag of clothes, a box of miscellaneous stuff and a couple of boxes of books and DVDs that I'm going to be donating. It's a little after 10 now so I doubt I'm going to finish tonight- still have the filing cabinet and a couple other shelving units to go.
( writing/reading/goals/hockey )
That's all I've got for the moment. I'd like to say that I'll update about my personal life more regularly, but it always seems to start out ok and then I'll go from March to August without anything. So, we'll see.

Here's to a terrific 2021!

I managed to finish another book during my time away. Actually, I started it as soon as I finished "Noumenon" and I got through it surprisingly quickly.

"The Rule of One" by Ashley and Leslie Saunders is set in the future where the government in the United States has established a One House/One Child law. The story opens with identical twin sisters Mira and Ava as Ava gets dressed to spend the day at school and Mira is left behind. Points of view alternate between the twins from chapter to chapter as their secret unfolds. Eventually, they get caught and have to flee the city. Their father is apprehended by the government and arrested (he is the Minister of Family Planning), but he has set the plans for their escape into motion long before it became a reality. It's a fun book. The pacing is good and the characters are ones you would root for.

The one thing that I didn't like about it is that it didn't quite tie everything up. This is another book I picked up and then discovered there is a sequel. I will probably read the sequel somewhere down the line, but I am beginning to wonder if anyone finishes anything anymore.

Went to see the movie "Carol" today. I'm a big Todd Haynes fan, so I might be a little biased, but it was very good. The acting was dead on, the story didn't drag too hard into sentimentality, and the cinematography was beautiful.

( slight spoiler here )

I also was able to get my library card renewed, so I'm not going to be spending a fortune on books and DVD rentals for a while. First up is binge-watching season one of "Orange is the New Black" which I have been meaning to see, but haven't got around to it yet. I really wish my library had copies of "The Wire" but maybe I can find it elsewhere and get it transferred over. I also picked up a book called "The Incarnations" which is about soulmates across time and sounded like fun.

Hockey game tonight. Blues and Nashville. Can't wait.