Under the Skin

I spent 6 years in LDS Youth Programs.  It's a formative time, and the Church doesn't like to let the teenagers loose.  I don't blame them.  I think I was one of the more logical, less rebellious teenagers, and I was still a raging ball of hormones.  But I'm going to be honest.  I didn't enjoy Young Women's.  It was kind of just the thing I did out of duty, but I never related very well to other women, and I still don't.  I didn't want to do the same activities, and I really didn't want to talk about marriage every single day.  I liked the idea of seminary, but the disrespect shown for the entire program by many other youth always made me frustrated.  However, it was in seminary, and not Young Women's that I learned the thing that most stuck.  And it was about being a woman. I share this a lot with people, because it impacted me so heavily.  So, I may have told this to you already.  If so, bear with me, or don't read at all....

All right everyone, it's time for me to be extremely controversial.  However, after an experience today at work, I have once again decided the following:  to not vaccinate your child is irresponsible and stupid.  All those against vaccination have so far failed to show me any evidence that vaccination is dangerous.  Vaccination does not cause autism.  Not even close.  That study has been disproved multiple times and then rescinded.  The authors of that study falsified data and had invalid experimental/control groups.  The experimental group was not random.  In fact, the experimental group had family members with autism.  Which is a huge no-no.  Anyway, I have seen anecdotal evidence.  But most of the anecdotal evidence can't even actually be linked to the vaccines.  And those that can, here is my response:  I know that there are children who have been vaccinated and then had seizures and died.  And that is trag...

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.” -- The Giver "Take pride in your pain.  You are stronger than those who have none."-- Gathering Blue "We're the ones who fill in the blank spaces.  Maybe we can make it better."-- Gathering Blue “He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.” -- The Messenger “It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.”-- Son   Did you know that the children's book everyone knows, The Giver , has sequels?  Three of them?  Well, it does.  And I have now just finished the fourth book of the "Quartet" (as Lois Lowry calls them).  The quartet consists of The Giver , Gathering Blue , The Messenger , and Son.  I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed with the sequels, and I'll tell you why.  They were good books as stand alones.  But as follow-ups to one of the best middle...

Sometimes, authors really grasp for that repetitive phrase that is supposed to be an "ahh" moment.  Or, sometimes they're not repetitive, but they become a phrase that people put in their forum avatars.  These include things like, "Real or not real?" from The Hunger Games , or "I can steal anything" from The Queen's Thief , or "He is not a tame lion," from Chronicles of Narnia .  Sometimes they are adorable, or funny or cute.  Sometimes, they are just dumb.  A lot of the time, they don't mean anything.  One of the ones that is dumb and doesn't mean anything is " Always."  Unfortunately, this occurs in two major book series in the world today.  And it is stupid in both of them.  The first is Harry Potter.  Dumbledore asks Snape if he's loved Lily all these years and he just [romantically] says "Always."  And when Harry asks his parents to stay with him until he "dies," they respond, "Always....

Every morning, I wake up with another spider bite.  At least.  I live in a basement at the moment.  When I got here at the end of June, the spiders had made their home.  I issued an eviction notice to each spider, gave them twenty-four hours (I'm even meaner than in Fiddler on the Roof --at least the people in Anatevka get three days, but in my defense, the spiders have no Torah to pack, and no finale to sing), and then, the next day, kindly escorted those who chose not to leave outside on pieces of paper.  All homes (webs) were then razed by vacuum cleaner.  I have been very kind in my dealings with the natives.  We really do have a nice reservation system (outside), and those who live inside have been experiencing a fair amount of salutary neglect. However, there has been a Charles De Gaulle amongst them, and they are now expressing dislike of my occupation of their home.  They have been crying, "Vive le resistance!" as they crawl into bed wit...

I have a funny thing where each of my nephews has a song. Two of them are name-based.  One isn't. This mostly started with Henry.  I have a song for him.  Henry VIII by Herman's Hermits.  It's obvious why I chose this song.  But this is Henry's song. Also, Henry knows what he wants, and so did Henry VIII. Then, I felt that David needed a song, too.  So, here we have: I know that it isn't the right last name, but I still think it's a great song for him.  He is an adventurous little fellow, and he doesn't know when to stop exploring. Then, the last song, Adam's song, has nothing to do with his name.  But it is still perfect for him.  You probably don't know this song, but it's the song in the credits of The Russians are Coming .  I think it's a music-genius song, where they blended Yankee Doodle and Meadowlands into one song.  And Adam is a little Russian-American blend, so this is the perfect song for ...

I am not calling this a book review, because I already reviewed the Percy Jackson series as a whole.  However, I have to add kudos as I read more of the series.   I admit it, I am a pure fan. I usually get somewhat disappointed as a series that becomes popular continues.  The intrigue and the quality of story usually decreases. I have not noticed that such is true with this.  Beth feels that the editing quality goes down, which it probably does.  I hadn't noticed that, but she's an editor, and I'm not.  However, I feel it doesn't go down in the Harry-Potter way.  The Harry Potter books, as they go on, start to need editing in the "This has nothing to do with the story" way, and Percy Jackson probably does have more incident of typo or word order editing problem, but they don't have story-quality editing problems.  In my new-library-to-explore euphoria, I discovered "The Demigod Diaries," a short story collection about the characters that Rick Rio...