March Musings and Reading Recommendations

Capturing the text from my Website before I update it with new information...

March Musings:
I'm a little late, but perhaps St. Patty's day is a good day to post for March, anyway. We took a week's vacation in Mexico, and that left a bunch of work and writing commitments which beat out updating pages and blogging for the last month or so.

I'm getting kind of tired of this always being political, and I've noticed that when I see almost any headline these days my eyes just want to slide over it...even though that is, of course, the least responsible option possible. This morning, it's a war hawk being appointed to run the World Bank (and why the heck does the US get to appoint the head of the World Bank anyway, or did my eyes have too much trouble sticking to that story to pick out that particular detail. Drilling in ANWR. Could we get a little less responsible if we tried? Gee, we've affected most of the Earth already, greedy little beings that we are, how about we just make sure we don't miss any pristine corners, okay?

A regular mystery in my life (a good writerly puzzle) is how come we all seem like really decent human beings on the one by one by one level? I like almost everyone I know. In the city I work for (Kirkland, WA., USA) almost all of our politicians and staff really care about the environment and human dignity and health. Even the ones for whom that is not the first priority aren't irresponsible with either issue.

Is it really as simple as the more power you have, the more corrupt you are?

Reading Recommendations:

Sue Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees is a very magical little book, very empowering. I had a fun experience with this - I was reading it on one leg of our vacation - I think on the way home, and no fewer than five people saw me with the book and made sure to tell me it was a great read.

Nicola Griffith's With Her Body is equally wonderful. Nicola's strong feminist science fiction is rich with setting and imagery, every page a delight. This book is part of the series "Conversation Pieces" published by Aqueduct Press. This is the second month it's been up here, but you know, it's that good, and it inspired me to write a Mayan story.