I'm a Swabbie

One of the things I did in Atlanta was become a swabbie. Suzanne Brockmann had talked about a SEAL named Justin who is in need of bone marrow. (Click here for the full scoop.) Unfortunately, his relatives are not matches.

I used to donate blood. Then they went and changed the rules so that people who had been in Europe in the 1990's (as I have) became ineligible. (There is no test for CJS, the human version of what they call mad cow.) For me, giving blood had been a relatively easy way to help others. Well, the military has a similar program, but they have different restrictions. As one person pointed out, a lot of service people were in Europe in the 1990's also. I have no idea if that is why they don't have that restriction. They have these packets with big Q-tip-like things - you know, swabbies. You swab the four corners of your mouth, seal it up and you're done.

Of particular need, are people who are of monority or multiple racial or ethnic backgrounds. People's tissue types are inherited and can contain certain markers that occur most often in people of similar racial or ethnic groups. Please consider putting yourself on the registry. Even if you aren't a match for Justin, there are plenty of other people who are in need of blood, marrow or other products. There is also a civilian bone marrow donation program, if you feel like going crazy - the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.

License to (Insert Joke Here)

I am amused by the whole idea that people call in to their local DMV to report obscene license plates. I recall a while back two Virginia women had "2 DYKES" on their plate and were reported and asked to turn in their plate for something not obscene. The women were lesbians and felt they were claiming the term rather than using it in an obscene or derogatory way.

Well a grandmother in Ohio has had her vanity plate for ten years. (Aside here: it's interesting that people feel the need to refer to her as a grandmother, since her progeny status has nothing to do with the story. I guess we are supposed to believe that all grandmothers are sweet and inoffensive. I have no reason to believe this woman is not, but anyway.) It is the initials of the farm she and her late husband had owned - Northwood Tree Farm - NWTF. She was reported by someone who took the letters to represent "Now What The Fuck". Her plates have been returned to her.

As Ms. Niple pointed out, "You can't take any letter of the alphabet and make something out of it. I don't think we need to give in to obscenity or derogatory things." And she has a point. After all, if her name had been Wilhemina Theresa Farmer, I think everyone would agree it is okay for her to have her initials on her plate, regardless of the fact that WTF now has an alternate meaning.

As DC moves through the alphabet with the new letter plates I am fascinated by the fun to be had. (DC plates used to be all numbers. They now have two letters followed by four numbers.) They started with AA plates, which made one visitor ask me if DC was identifying drunk drivers with special plates. Then they got to the B's, and there was BJ and BM. As far I know, no one has suggested that these are obscene.

Coolest Fans

The Toledo Blade has earned my appreciation with this wonderful review of Veronica Mars. (There are a number of lovely reviews. A fairly random process led me to spotlight this one.)

Veronica Mars fans donate DVDs to libraries across the country.

Reading is Fun

Bookseller Chick has a great entry talking about how culturally we have lower expectations when it comes to boys and reading. While I don't want to write a treatise on gender expectations, it got me thinking. I have a sister who is close in age to me and a brother who is quite a bit younger. When my sister and I were little, my mother didn't work. My mother had all sorts of things that were relatively inexpensive to entertain us - going to museums (free in DC), the zoo, and the library. She also read to us many nights while we ate dinner. So reading was something I experienced as fun, long before I reached school where reading was assigned.

This is not to say that I think there isn't value in reading something as a class, in looking for patterns and hidden meanings. There is. But I wonder if you first big exposure to reading occurs in this type of format, if you wouldn't view reading as something you get through, much like homework. I like to learn knew things all the time, and yet, since leaving school I have never once whipped out a math problem for fun. (This is not to say that I don't use math, because of course I do, this is to say, I do not create fun for myself with math).

This weekend as I was driving back from a youth event with three teens in my car, the subject of summer reading came up. As they discussed their progress (or lack thereof), I asked what they had to read. One of the books was by Hemingway. I myself had to read A Farewell to Arms for school. And I didn't like it. When I shared this there was a moment of silence (now we were all tired so I may be over dramatizing a bit here). But I think they were surprised to hear an adult admit to not liking Hemingway. And here's the thing - I don't have to like Hemingway. Reading (and writing for that matter) is - as with all art - subjective. My taste is nothing for me to worry about or apologize for. I read plenty. Shakespeare was in it's day the equivalent of a soap opera. That doesn't mean it isn't wonderfully constructed, but it is mostly the fact that we don't talk like that anymore that leads people to believe it is high art now. Who knows what works today will be the ones that several hundred years from now school children will be dissecting.

My point is that, going back to what Nick Hornby talked about, and Tess Gerritsen blogged about, reading is the point. Within a school setting, we read the same things to facilitate group discussions. It is okay to not like the things they ask you to read. You can still learn about foreshadowing and plot progression in a book you didn't enjoy. But, I wonder if by not allowing people to understand that it's okay not to like what they are reading, that they then think that reading must not be for them.

I mentioned before that my brother was younger. When he joined us, my mother had started working as a teacher. She took a partial semester off and then returned to work. My brother spent a big part of his day with a babysitter. As far as I know, none of the babysitters read to him. My mother got home, went to the grocery store, cooked dinner (she insisted), and then pretty quickly was asleep. I know he did get read to sometimes, but probably not with the frequency that my sister and I had. He is still in college, so we will see what happens when so much of his reading is not assigned. But I wonder.

I say this not to blame my parents - or anyone's parents for that matter. But my sister and I both read for fun. I worry a bit that we are teaching people to think of reading as work, instead of fun.

When To Stop Reading

There are many posts and articles out there about how long to give a book before you give up. I personally used to always try to read the whole thing. Then when my friend had a closet-full of Harlequins, I amended that since many of the Harlequins were formulaic (and not in a good way) so several of those I read the first few chapters, skipped ahead a bit, read a little more, and then skipped to the last few chapters. This way I could give the stack back at the end of the sleepover. Occaisonally I liked one of them enough to read without skipping.

At some point I realized that not only is not every book for me, but not all the books I think are for me are going to turn out to be for me. (In other words, sometimes I will bake a bad purchase.) So, I made the hundred page rule. If I wasn't feeling it after one hundred pages, I was giving up. Over time this has morphed into more of a sixty page rule. It is not that I am more impatient. It is that I feel I better understand myself. If it hasn't appealed to me yet, then the chances that it will are extremely slim. And there are plenty of other books out there that I will enjoy without trying. So many, that it is likely I will never be able to read them all. (But I am going to try.)

But there are a few indicators that I have noticed:
Use of italics to indicate flashbacks or thoughts. I recognize sometimes this is a publisher or editor decision, not an author decision. But nonetheless, if font is needed to help me figure out what is going on, I consider it a bad sign.
Use of a ridiculous stereotype. This varies for different people. I personally am tired of the girls don't like sports one. (Yet another reason I adore Nora Roberts). I know that some girls don't like sports. I don't insist that all female (or male) characters like sports. But don't chalk it up to gender.
Use of a child as a plot device. Characters that are children should act in a way that is consistent with their age. They should not appear only when they can ask an eye-opening or uncomfortable question and then disappear or fall silent for the rest of the scene. In other words, if you are going to include children, they should be realistic and three dimensional.
Use of the phrase "over and out". Here's the thing. In radio-speak, over means, "Your turn to talk". Out means, "I'm disconnecting" or hanging up or whatever. So to say over and out is contradictory. Anyone with any training in that would know that. This is something that is very easy to find out. I realize I'm picking on a small thing but it it representative of the whole. If there are glaring inaccuracies, that it appears to me could have been cleared up by some basic research, my patience nears it's end even more quickly.
Use of inappropraite regional references. This is very similar to the above, although it only applies when I have familiarity with the area in which the book takes place. I love Luanne Rice books in part because so many of them take place along the Connecticut shoreline, an area I am very familiar with. As is she, so while she has created a fictitious place in the shoreline, her descriptions of the region have special resonance for me. By contrast I just finished Julie Garwood's Killjoy and the characters use road references that we don't use here. (Overlooking the fact that she doesn't tell us which FBI office they're in until the book is two thirds done.) Again, some research or a local reader could have helped that out. It's not a huge thing, and certainly wasn't my biggest issue with the book, but it pulled me out of the story.
Use of caricatures. If the character isn't fleshed out beyond the broad strokes - oh look, she's crazy, oh look he's gay - I don't want to waste my time.
Use of unnecessary stupidity. Often in suspense there are things that we the reader know, or can figure out, before the main characters. Sometimes that is simply due to us knowing basic rules - someone is after them, it's probably someone we've been introduced to, and so on. But there reaches a point where there have been so many clues, that the only reason for one of the mains to have not figured it out, is because it would screw up the plot. Which means the plot is the problem here.
I'm sure you've come up with your own lists and reason, but those top mine.