Trout Nation Posts

Somehow, in the course of an argument over who is hotter, Amy Adams or Idina Menzel,

(It’s Idina Menzel)

I somehow was reminded of how much I love Mister Rogers. Let me paint a picture of my childhood for you. I was raised by my loving family, most notably my maternal grandmother, who was my primary caregiver during my early childhood. My grandma Z is wonderful person, always ready to express love and able to talk to a child on their level. Especially about their fears.

Grandma Z used to do this thing that, in hindsight, is probably the reason for my enduring night terrors. She used to go in and take her bath at night, and every time she would yell, “Help, Jenny! Help!” I would come running and find the tub was empty of water, and my grandma was missing. “Grandma, where are you?” I would yell, and she would answer, from some far off place, “I went down the drain!” I would run over to the tub to peer down the drain (and now, since you’ve never seen what my grandparent’s bathroom looked like in the 80’s, you have no concept of how scary the tub was, but the walls were crumbling and the drain was all rusty and forbidding) and then, when I was frantically yelling, “Wait, I’ll get help!” she would spring from her hiding spot and scare me.

I fell for it every time. Because I was four.

Anyway, one afternoon I was watching Mister Rogers on PBS. And he had this to share with me:

“See, Grandma!” I shouted triumphantly. “I can never go down the drain!” I can’t remember what Grandma was doing at the time, but it was the kitchen. Actually, no, I do remember. She was making donuts for her dad for his birthday. And she said, “Mister Rogers is a liar.” My aunt Mary, who was a teenager living at home at the time, said, “Mister Rogers is a pervert.”

I didn’t know what a pervert was, but I knew what a liar was. It meant I could still go down the drain.

Oddly enough, even though I had been assured that Mister Rogers had lied to me, I still loved him. And I still do. I learned about hanging chads from Mister Rogers:

I learned about being cool:

Most importantly, I learned about being kind. And for all my swearing and wishing that people would burn to death while exploding in the vacuum of space, I truly am a good person. Just the other day, when I was lamenting to my mother that my kids are missing out on Mister Rogers, she said, “I’m sure you could download it from the internet.” And I said, “I couldn’t do that. It would be stealing. Stealing from Mister Rogers. And he told me stealing was wrong.”

Basically, the best piece of advice I can give anyone is, if you’re in a situation where you don’t know what to do, think, “What would Mister Rogers do?” and then do that. And remember that you can never go down the drain. No matter what my Grandma might tell you.

See, I have a theme going. Dear Author pointed out today that RWA hasn’t really done anything about sound rogering Dorchester has given some of its authors, but back when Harlequin was going to start up Harlequin Horizons, they called an emergency meeting and removed Harlequin from their list of approved publishers.

Okay, let’s look at the facts here:

Harlequin Horizons

• Harlequin announces that they are going to offer a self-publishing model.
  
• Before the service can actually launch or generate any kind of revenue, RWA calls an emergency session and boots Harlequin.
  

Dorchester Publishing

• Dorchester decides that for the next six months, all mass-market titles will be released digitally. Books scheduled for mass-market release will have their release dates moved to some nebulous time in the future, and they will be digital only. Authors who have taken out ads and otherwise spent money promoting their book are basically told to deal with it.
  
• At this point, RWA has already smacked Dorchester’s hand for not paying authors.
  
• Dorchester reverts rights to work back to some authors, but continues selling (and making a profit on) those works that are no longer legally owned by them.
  
• RWA still hasn’t made a decision.
  

It boggles my mind that Harlequin got straight up spanked by RWA because they were going to do something that possibly would hurt authors. It was a big enough emergency that RWA national had to hold an emergency session to make a decision. But Dorchester is and has repeatedly harmed authors and it’s no big deal?

Inconsistent leadership and spotty protection for authors is one of the reasons I no longer belong to RWA. Unfortunately, there really isn’t an organization out there that compares with them in terms of helping someone become a writer. So, if you’re considering joining RWA, I would say approach it the way a person who just wants a discount on makeup approaches starting a Mary Kay business: Get in, pay for what you need, get out.

I don’t know why someone felt the need to post Maura Kelly’s address in the comments to my last post, but KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF. Maura Kelly is an idiot, but at least she’s not a fucking creepy stalker.

Recently, the enormous pile of fail that is Marie Claire magazine ran an op-ed piece by one vapid freelancer who took the opportunity to spew, like so much monkey diarrhea spraying the walls of a zoo enclosure, helpful advice for fat people.

The article is, if you want to treat your eyeballs to a feast of idiocy and self-importance heretofore unimaginable by people with souls, Should Fatties Get A Room (Even On Tv)?.

Okay, let’s just grapple with that title there. Should fatties get a room? No. No, if I have to watch people of culturally acceptable body sizes pawing over each other in the supermarket check out line because the very sight of broccoli sends their libidos into overdrive, then I am allowed to kiss my husband in public. See, it’s the “(Even on TV)?” part that gets me. It’s like she’s saying, “Of course, we all know it’s unacceptable for fat people to touch each other in public. What decent human would even question that. No, no, what we are discussing is the probability of fat sex assaulting you in your very living room!”

That is, in fact, what the article is about. Or supposed to be about:

The other day, my editor asked me, “Think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?”

Her editor was talking about Mike and Molly a sitcom that has drawn criticism for it’s portrayal of two overweight people in a relationship.

But because she can’t get over her own hatred of fat people, she can’t write an article about that. Instead, she needs to warn us all about the dangers of being fat:

Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

Now, let me address these comments one by one, because otherwise I’m going to just start screaming DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE and end by throwing my laptop on the floor and stomping it to dust with my rhino-like body weight.

First of all, you cannot say something like “And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy,” and then jump right to using fucking fashion models as an example of health. If you believe you can equate the fashion industry with healthy body image, you are high. You are high on all the drugs in the world.

Second, “No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy,” is a statement that I’m sure you, as a physician, are completely qualified to make. What? You’re a not a doctor? I’m sure I saw it in your byline… hang on…

Maura Kelly is a freelance writer who is working on a novel. She rides her vintage Raleigh as often as possible — usually wearing heels, and always wearing her helmet. (She will not be a fashion victim!) Follow her on Twitter.

Oh, that’s right. YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR. You have no idea how to evaluate the health of any individual, let alone many, many individuals throughout the world. Either you’re too busy picking out which high heels to wear on your bike or you don’t wear your helmet as often as you claim you do.

As for your claims that obesity is costing our country epic amounts of money in health care costs… where’s your data? “And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.” That’s a fine statement to make, but on October 18 of this year, USA Today reported that obesity is responsible for 17% of our national health care spending. Seventeen. Percent. The article states $168 billion. The American Cancer society cites cancer (“even cancer.”) at costing $228 billion last year. So… I’m guess you’re not a mathematician either, then, Ms. Kelly?

She goes on to say:

yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

You heard it, fat people of America. Maura Kelly and the editors of Marie Claire find it “aesthetically displeasing” to watch fat people do anything. I don’t know, I can imagine quite an aesthetically pleasing scene, almost poetic, in fact, involving a person with rolls and rolls of fat bodily shaking a clueless and rude freelance writer right out of her heels and helmet. Seriously, what kind of a fucked up, completely backward human being do you have to be to look at an expression of love between two people and decide it that it’s gross, simply because those people look different than you do? Pretty fucked up, I think. I’m just being brutally honest here.

Now, don’t go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I’m not some size-ist jerk.

Actually, “size-ist jerk” isn’t what I would call you at all. I would call you a vain, body-obsessed asshole who is far too invested in what other people do with their bodies. You didn’t give me the wrong impression when you compared me walking across a room to a stumbling drunk or a heroin addict. You gave me a very clear picture of what a pathetic person you must truly be in real life, if your own fear of fatness manifests itself in actual discomfort from having to just see a fat person walk.

But … I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It’s something they can change, if only they put their minds to it.

Perhaps some of us have better things to do with our minds, Ms. Kelly, than obsessing over everything we put in our mouths, or what the overweight maintenence man at the gym is doing about his body. This might surprise you, because I’m sure you’ve never experienced this, but the second you stop worrying about what everyone else on the planet is weighing, you start to do other things, like think and enjoy your life.

(I’m happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you’re getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more. I admit that there’s plenty that makes slimming down tough, but YOU CAN DO IT! Trust me. It will take some time, but you’ll also feel so good, physically and emotionally. A nutritionist or personal trainer will help — and if you can’t afford one, visit your local YMCA for some advice.)

Thank you so much for you completely unsolicited weightloss advice! As you are probably aware, all obese people ever eat is processed American cheese by the fistful, and we only ever get off our fat asses to lumber about distressingly in front of non-size-ist non-jerks like yourself, because we get our rocks off disgusting you.

Maura Kelly, you should be ashamed. But you won’t be. I’m sure you’ll look at yourself in the mirror and pick over your every flaw, just like you picked over the flaws of so many anonymous fat people in your article. You’ll surround yourself with beautiful people who are similarly repelled by the very existence of fat people like me, and you’ll all live in fear until the very day you die that someday, you might wake up fat. It won’t happen, but you’ll always be afraid of it. So, I feel sorry for you. Because all the advice you “helpfully” try to dispense, all the times you go to the gym, all the times you you hang out with your “plump” friends to try and feel better about your own weight, that will never alleviate the hatred you have for your own body.

Don’t pity me, I’ll just keep on pitying you.

Years ago, I worked at Meijer, which is like Walmart but bigger and Michigan based. I worked on the “cheese wall” which meant I spent my entire shift putting cheese products up in the big refrigerated case near the grocery section.

One day, a guy from the grocery department approached me. We occasionally said hello to each other, but cheese mongering is a lonely road, so it’s not like we were BFFs. He came up to me and said, “Hey. I have something I want to tell you. I’m gay.”

We were in the middle of a huge Kraft sale, and I was really busy. So I said, “So?”

He explained to me then that I was the first person he had ever come out to. He wanted to practice before telling his parents that night. He was twenty-one years old. Imagine that for twenty-one years, you knew that there was something about you that people didn’t like. And that in order to make everyone happy, you just had to deny that this part of you existed.

National Coming Out Day is a wonderful idea, but it’s a sad one, as well. It’s sad that every day isn’t a good day to come out. It’s sad that kids are still being mocked for their sexuality, resulting in the tragic consequences of the past weeks.

No kid should ever have to worry that their parents will stop loving them for being who they are. No one should ever be bullied into suicide over the way they were born or the way they weren’t born, in the case of Transgendered individuals.

If you are a closeted gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queergendered individual reading this, I hope that one day the world changes enough that you don’t have to hide anymore.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0R8D6WTIlA&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Happy birthday, John Lennon. The world will love you forever.

Today, gentle readers, I am cleaning out my laundry room. I’m sure many of you are aware that writers are not renown for their housekeeping skills. You know that scene in that horrible Stepford Wives remake where they all go to Bette Midler’s house and she’s a writer and the entire place is like a trash heap? That’s what my house is like. I know several authors will own up to that level of filth, as well. And if someone is a writer and their house is perfectly clean, they’ve either got outside help or a low word count. I’m sticking to that.

Anyway, my laundry room has gotten… out of hand. I’m going to show it to you now. I advise anyone with heart trouble or a nervous condition not look at the following picture:

Yup. That is what my laziness has wrought. A solid mass of dirty clothing at least two feet deep. I have to be straight up with you, there are clothes in there my kids have worn once and grown out of in the time since I last did a massive laundry room cleaning. It comes down the landry shoot chute (I are a writer) and straight into the pile, ne’er to be seen again.

So, today I’m sitting down here, perched atop the deep freezer, alternating between working on edits for Abigail’s January book (IN THE BLOOD, Samhain publishing, January 2011) and feeding the machines their due. I’ve got appropriately morose music playing (Tori Amos’s utterly depressing Boys for Pele) and a two litre of Diet Coke to see me through. I just have to be sure to appease the Old Gods of laundry, so as not to be consumed by the pile myself.

If I don’t return, be sure to buy up all my backlist so that I look more successful than I actually was.

When I was in 8th grade, and later, when I was a sophomore in high school, I kept these journals. They were Mead brand, one-subject “neatbooks”, the kind that didn’t have any wire or anything, just perforated pages. I filled these with pointless, free-form thoughts for the entire school year. In hindsight, I wish I had done this every year of school.

The reason I’m remembering them now is that my son has started keeping a journal in a notebook. I dug through all my old crap and unearthed these relics of the past because I thought he might be interested in knowing what his mother was like in her childhood years.

He said, “Wow, those are really old,” and went back to his own journal. Jerk.

Anyway, I thought, “Maybe people who read my blog would be interested.” So, if you’re not interested in meeting Jenny at thirteen and fifteen, then get interested, friend.

I named these veritable tomes “Everything I Think In Chronological Order,” and “Everything I Think In Chronological Order II: Birth of An Alternateen”. Really. That is what I called them.

Here’s the May 21, 1996 entry from “Everything I Think In Chronological Order II”:
I have to go see Margret today. (ed.– Margret was my counselor. You’ll see why I needed one as you keep reading) I’m stressed out. I hate how people always eat during class. It’s like they think they are totally different and don’t have to follow the rules. That makes me angry.
Niki Davenport moved to Grand Haven. She’s going to be a paramedic.
I found this book, R.E.M. REMarks. It has cool pictures in it of Michael Stipe before he was in the band, like, when he was in high school. He was gorgeous. He still is cute, but he’s old now.(ed.– Michael Stipe was like, thirty-six at the time.) Oh well. You know, I have no idea how old Dave Matthews is.
There was a poster of a guy parachuting on the bulletin board by the office that said, “A mind is like a parachute; it works best when opened.” And Jill took a big black magic marker and wrote, “Hopefully certain facist members of the administration will come to realize this,” and drew an arrow and the next day they took it down and put up a “Happy Graduation” bulletin board.
I hunted all over hell and high water last night for the May 3 Entertainment Weekly because it has a thing about the new Dave Matthews album. I want that album. It’s like, cool that he can dance around all crazy and play the guitar at the same time.
The beginning of this book is like, an REM concert journal. Thanks for reading through it. It’s like, somedays I think, “Wait a minute, who’s going to want to read what I wrote?” And I get very upset. But then I think, “Wait, lots of people are interested in what other people wrote.”
One of these days I’m going to be saying something bad about Natalie Merchant, and she’s going to be right behind me and I’ll feel really stoopid [sic]. Wait, what if she reads this? What if Tori Amos reads this? I’M SORRY, TORI! I LOVE YOU! I WISH I HADN’T CALLED YOU A TALENTLESS SLUT!
Now that I prostrated myself at her feet, I feel better. Hey, maybe Michael Stipe will read this. Whoa, maybe Christian Slater will read this. Hey, Christian Slater, my number is [ommitted] Dial (616) first. Michael, Tori, Dave M. and Courtney (Love, not Cox) can all call me. Hell, if anyone wants to call me they can. I’m cool. Especially when I went through the ice. Bad joke.
REM rules. Maybe one day my kids will say, “Mom, REM is so old,” and I will say, “Shut up, asswipes, REM rules.”
Maybe when this gets published, I’ll have them put in scratch n’ sniff pages.
I’m in driver’s training @ Sears. My teacher is such a nut.
Writing on your hands is cool. I like writing on my hands.
I’m directing a short film with the girl scouts from St. Monica’s, and this little girl reminds me of Julia Ormond. She’s from England and has long hair like Julia Ormond had in Legends of The Fall.
I have auditions for Lil’ Abner tonight @ Comstock. I was in Kiss Me, Kate last year. It was cool. I really want to be in Lil’ Abner. It would rock more than two thousand popscicles.
I wish the bell would ring.

The weird thing is, I don’t remember actually wanting to be a writer, but it’s clear from these journals that I planned on getting long, repetitious thoughts about REM published some day.

The unfortunate downside of being dyslexic is that I have a really hard time keeping things like dates and days in order. This lead to me being trapped at the Newark New Jersey airport for twenty-four hours this weekend.

Realizing that you are trapped in an airport comes in stages. After spending several good hours on the phone with Delta airlines customer “service”, I finally gave up and headed the airport to try and speak with someone in person. The mistake I made was in assuming that airline ticket counter representatives are human beings with souls aren’t constantly beset upon by weary, excuse laden travelers. And thus, our odyssey of grief begins…

Stage One: Denial Though my hotel had very graciously offered to let me stay in the room until 2pm and then hold my bags until late that night so that I could go into the city to do some sight-seeing or something, I was pretty sure that I didn’t need to take them up on that offer. Because how hard could it possibly be to get standby on a last minute flight out of New Jersey?

Stage Two: Bargaining Okay, so it’s pretty difficult to get a last minute flight out of New Jersey. But there has to be something that can be done. No, I don’t have $287.00 for a new ticket. I’m sure we can work something out for a lesser price. Hey, I could push the drink cart!

Stage Three: Anger You know what? FUCK YOU, DELTA. If I get stabbed in my sleep, it’s going to be all your fault.

Stage Four: Depression Actual transcript of conversation I had with my husband on payphone in concourse B: “I’m just so lonely and it’s so nice to hear your voice. Stay on the phone with me until you go to work, okay? Promise?”

Stage Five: Acceptance I’m going to live at this airport forever. I will never go home. The airport is my home now. Let’s make the best of it by building a tend with the ballgown from the masquerade party and barricade the door of the handicapped stall with luggage and a sweatshirt used as a rope so I don’t get raped.

Now that I’m home, I’m actually afraid that I’m going to suddenly wake up and be back at the airport, like John Cusack in that movie where he’s trapped in the haunted hotel room.