Blogelstein!

My top 10 books of 2009

Inspired by Publisher’s Weekly, who have just published their list of the top 10 books of 2009, here are my own top 10 picks:

1. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

2. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

3. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

4. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

5. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

6. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

7. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

8. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

9. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

10. Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don’t Get Why Men Don’t Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein

Gosh, would you look at that? How surprising. Rest assured, of course, that I gave a fair chance to all the ‘big’ books of the year, but made them all stand on their own two feet. It disturbed me when I was done that all of the books on the list were the same one, and by me. But, naturally, I published it anyway.

On having the flu

It’s awful, but you knew that already. But I’m not sure when I last stayed in my bed for three days in a row, except perhaps when I had the flu - the Real Flu, I think this is but a pseudo-flu, a cold for anyone with a hardier constitution than mine - when I first moved to London. It must have been the second or third week that I lived here and I really couldn’t move at all for most of a week; then-boyfriend kindly ministered to me in my miniature horrible dorm room, and I lost ten pounds in a series of sweaty, feverish sleeps. (Emaciation-by-virus naturally elicited a slew of compliments from people, which was weird.)

Non-existent-boyfriend has, obviously, not been of any assistance this time, though Neighbour Jude did kindly bring me orange juice and an armful of satsumas on Wednesday, and Flatmate Ben has lifesavingly lent me his laptop (mine is still at the Genius Bar). But I have had to make my own soup and yesterday it was an utter failure; the matzo balls dissolved entirely, turning the soup into a sort of Kosher chicken porridge, and because I was hungry and ill and alone I ate it and it was awful and I felt very full of self-pity.

But this is not really about satsumas or laptops or even bad soup: what it is about is the fact that yesterday as I entered my 36th (or so) hour of lying here waiting for my immune system to prevail, the angle of my Vellux window and the phase of the moon and my view from my pillow were perfectly aligned so that I could see the latter through the former as it rose around five o’clock. Which is something I would not have seen had I not been bedridden. It didn’t make all of this gross suffering feel worthwhile, not quite. But quite a bit less bad.

Get vaccinated to help your friends.

jayparkinsonmd:

Equal rights for all races, genders, and sexual orientation. Do not litter. Don’t drink and drive. Give money to charity. Etc, etc, etc.

Why do these things? Because it’s the right thing to do as a society. The vast majority of us do these things because we care about other people. We want to help others. We don’t litter because it makes the world ugly. We don’t drink and drive because we could kill ourselves and others. We eat local and buy Priuses because it helps the environment.

There is a strong history of branding an individual problem in order to change our behavior to benefit society. The Don’t Mess With Texas campaign is credited with reducing litter on Texas highways 72% between 1986 and 1990. Smoking in public has been markedly reduced because it harms other people. Just watch Mad Men to see how society has changed. We now look at the world in a more connected way. We behave differently because, through marketing, we now know that the way we behave makes a difference in the world.

Vaccines work because of herd immunity. In diseases passed from person-to-person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune. The higher the proportion of individuals who are immune, the lower the likelihood that a susceptible person will come into contact with an infected individual.

Not getting vaccinated is therefore a social problem, like driving drunk, littering, equal rights, and smoking around children. For every person who does not get vaccinated, more people in our society are at risk of serious illness or death.

In 1904, there was a Supreme Court case called Jacobson vs. Massachusetts. Massachusetts at the time had a law mandating smallpox vaccination. Jacobson didn’t want to be vaccinated. He sued. The court ruled against Jacobson:

“in every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members, the rights of the individuals in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations as the safety of the general public may demand.”

They ruled it was in the public’s interest for the state to enforce the law. It was a top down, creepy implication that in order for the public to be protected, we should all be required to risk death as a complication of a vaccine. While I don’t agree with this top-down approach, we’re smarter today. And vaccines are much, much safer today than injecting powdered smallpox scabs. They ruled properly, but mandates aren’t the answer.

Making vaccination a social cause is the answer. Doing things for others makes us feel really good. Getting vaccinated not only protects me, but it protects the herd of awesome people around me, so none of my friends or strangers die a preventable death.

On a new kind of empathy

The trope of the trauma of trying on swimwear is something that I have never understood. It just doesn’t bother me too much: the lighting in changing rooms isn’t very nice, only supermodels look amazing on the beach, my diet and exercise regime are sufficiently healthy that I feel that I can safely conclude that size I am now, and have long been, falls short of various culturally-constructed notions of perfection, but is the natural Jean-size. So, you know, nothing worth weeping about.

But! Yesterday I went to try on new eyeglasses, and as the arms of pair after pair stretched precariously to accommodate the dimensions of my enormous skull and I became increasingly frustrated and started wondering if it was possible to adopt a diet and excercise regime that would reduce the size of my head, I felt a new kind of empathy.

On a trip to the Genius Bar

Sit on the bench, they say at the Genius Bar, even though I have an appointment, and even though it was twenty minutes ago. The bench is wooden and long and reminds me of the benches in the arrivals hall at Ellis Island that I visited with my class at the end of 8^th grade, a special treat to learn first-hand about the suffering of our ancestors.

So I sit on the bench, like my great-grandmother must have sat in Ellis Island, except that I sit between a girl in Gothic wear who is punching messages into her phone (she glares at me, as if she thinks I am reading them over her shoulder; I am; they are not interesting) and a large man who is wearing awful black loafers and surgical stockings. We are silent, and face forward, even though we are sitting in each other’s personal space and even though we have much in common, enough to converse: my laptop is broken. Your laptop is broken? I’m missing keys. My battery is dead. Yes, I like to send emails. Are you on Twitter? These geniuses don’t seem to think very fast.

I try to read some poems, because I discover that I have a book of poems in my handbag, along with my phone, an umbrella, a scarf, cold medication, a handful of raw almonds that are stuck in the ripped lining. But the harsh glare of the Apple Store lighting is not conducive to the enjoyment of lyric wit. So instead, I sit. And I watch people intently fondling plastic gadgets that will facilitate their creation of things that don’t actually exist, and there is something about it that is so bleak and empty that I suddenly think that maybe I should just abandon my broken laptop here, on the bench, and go directly to nursing school.

On great things I have consumed of late

Penned In the Margins Poetry Series at Aubin & Wills: Kennard & Dockrill

Here are some thing that I’m not that in to: West London, waxed jackets, spoken word. While I remain indifferent to the former two, the performances (at a boutique in Notting Hill against a backdrop of country-appropriate garb) of these two young British poets  were so breathtaking and electrifying that I bought both of their books immediately. You should, too.

The Cove

You like the environment, I said to Lauren. Let’s go see this film about dolphins.

Is a nature film about dolphins swimming around? she said.

No, they’re getting killed in this film, I said.

Oh, said Lauren.

By the end of this environmentalism-cum-spy thriller doc (what narrative!), I was a vegetarian.

One Lonely Degree

C Kelly Martin and I share an agent, who handed me a copy of this book when I was having a meeting with her the other day - thankfully, as I am sure I might otherwise have missed it. I don’t read a lot of YA fiction these days, being not that Y any more, but this was riveting: Martin’s ability to capture the ambiguity of adolescence is extraordinary and exact. And she is also a brilliant writer - no patronising here. I wish she was publishing books when I was 15.