May 19, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: May 19, 2018

Here is this week’s list of poems, blog posts, volunteer opportunities, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Volunteer Bloggers Wanted at ‪MigraineMantras‬.  If you’re a writer who is living with migraines, chronic pain, chronic illnesses, and/or an invisible illness, Migraine Mantras wants to hear from you. They are currently seeking volunteer bloggers to write essays, stories, and poems for their site. Click on the links above to see what they’ve already published. Email Jorie at MigraineMantras@gmail.com for more information if this sounds like something you’re interested in.

Speaking of volunteers, Long and Short Reviews is looking for more volunteer book reviewers. You can contact them through the email address listed in the link above or read my blog post on the topic from last year. Neither of these opportunities should ever make you close a book vigorously, but today’s funny image in in honour of them.

Wrong. We need more fairy tales like this.

Can You Unplug for One Day? via JMLevinton. It would be hard for me to stay offline entirely for a day. I’d at least need a few minutes to check my messages. How do you all feel about this challenge?

Practicing Mindfulness from Dawn Until Dusk via CorinneBlogs. If you have any interest in all in mindfulness, go read this post. It was excellent.

Socialize Like An Ambivert via Fushiee_. I’m a deeply introverted person. Asking me to behave like an extrovert would be like asking me to decide to sprout a pair of wings and start flying around. Acting like an ambivert is something I can do, however! How about you?

What Stephen Hawking’s Final Paper Really Means. This was just plain interesting.

Why a Daily Habit of Reading Books Should Be Your Priority, According to Science. Yes, reading definitely is exercise for your brain. I’m always a little surprised when I meet people who never read anything at all. It’s like meeting someone who never exercises in any way (and who has no medical reasons for making that choice).

 

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May 17, 2018 · 1:00 am

My Response to Pocket Dimension

My friend, Michael, recently posted a writing prompt about pocket dimensions. I thought it would be fun to answer his questions in the form of a blog post.

Congratulations! You have your own little world. Not just your imagination – this is a physical reality, and you can step into it at will. Maybe it’s a pocket dimension, or your own private little corner of the Fay Realms. Whatever it is, it’s yours. So…

1. What does your realm look like? Is it indoors? Outdoors? A cottage on a deserted shore? A crumbling castle at the heart of a dark forest? A broad lake with a waterfall at one end and beaches around three sides? Something else entirely?

My pocket dimension is indoors. It’s located in the library of a grand, old house that is magically well-insulated. The house is cool in the summer, warm in the winter, never dusty, and always a comfortable place to visit.

The library itself has a large fireplace on one end and floor-to-ceiling windows on the other. The wood floors have been recently swept, and all of the books are arranged neatly according to the Dewey Decimal system. Many of them are about topics humans would recognize, albeit from a strictly faery perspective instead of from a human one. Let’s just say that they weren’t a fan of the Iron Age at all.

With that being said, some of the books aren’t like anything you’d find on Earth. Some of the books have mouths and will have long conversations with you if you ask them the right questions. Others teach you how to fly as you read them, share alternate histories of Earth if one key fact had changed at a particular time and place, and a few might even be portals to other places entirely if you flip to the correct page of the right story and read it’s contents aloud.

There is a washroom and well-stocked kitchen off to either side of the library for anyone who needs them while they’re visiting. I often grab a piece of fruit and cup of tea before I begin reading.

2. Do you keep it to yourself, give a few friends access to it as well, or open it to anybody?

The library is open to anyone I trust who loves knowledge and adventure. They are free to visit it with or without me at any time of the day or night.

3. Does your realm have its own inhabitants? What are they like? Do you ever bring them across to our world?

The house is owned and maintained by faeries, but you might never run into one. They’re quite shy around most humans. Even I have only met one of them, and even that was the briefest encounter you can possibly imagine. She nodded slightly at me, cracked open the door to the library, and then never showed herself again.

I wouldn’t be strong enough to bring one of the faeries back to Earth with me even if I spotted another one and wanted to show them our world. They do whatever it is they want to do, and that’s all there is to it.

4. Does entering your personal world change you? Do you dress differently, speak differently? Are you someone else when you’re there?

You cannot enter the faery library if you’re carrying anything like iron that would hurt the faeries or if you’re harbouring any thoughts about harming them, the house, or anyone else in it. Other than that, you may speak, dress, and behave as you wish.

5. Is time the same in your realm as it is out here? Is there a steady differential, like three days there pass in only an hour of our time? Or is it stranger than that?

Time is different in the faery house. A few hours of reading there generally translates into a few minutes of time in our world, but this isn’t a straightforward rule. As with everything related to faeries, they can’t be forced to follow human rules. Anyone who wishes to visit their library should remember that and prepare for the small possibility of returning much sooner or later than they were expecting.

6. How do you get to your world? Do you have to visit a specific place? Speak a certain phrase? Or is it just a matter of will and desire?

It’s a matter of will and desire. If you wish to read in a quiet, comfortable place, have no ill intentions, and have satisfied whatever nebulous criteria the faeries have for this oasis, you stand a good chance of finding a door to this place.

How would you answer these questions? What would your pocket dimension be like?

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May 14, 2018 · 1:00 am

Health and Fitness at the Dollar Store

One of the biggest misconceptions some people have about getting fit is that it requires a significant investment of money in the beginning if you’re starting out with little to no equipment.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

A few nights ago, I took a stroll around a dollar store to see what kinds of health and fitness items they had for sale there. I jotted down everything I could find that could somehow be connected to this topic, and the list was much longer than I ever would have imagined it would be.

Seriously. I was expecting to find maybe ten things there, but I ended up finding closer to a hundred of them if every category is fully expanded to include every example in them.

This is what they had for sale there:

  • T-shirts
  • Hats
  • Sandals
  • Hair ties
  • Socks
  • Sports bras
  • Ponchos
  • Support insoles for shoes
  • Sunglasses
  • Beach towels
  • Goggles
  • Bug Repellant
  • Sunscreen
  • First Aid supplies (bandaids, disinfectant, etc).
  • Plastic and metal buckets of various sizes (for transporting dirty or wet items back home)
  • Reusable plastic water bottles
  • Fishing poles
  • Headlamps
  • Small lanterns (if hiking or camping are on your to-do list)
  • Pet toys (for playing tug-of-war or fetch)
  • Pool toys
  • Toys and games for all ages/abilities (dart guns, dart boards, balls, chalk, jump ropes, etc)
  • Young children’s toys (plastic baseball bats, miniature golf clubs, etc)
  • Balloons (for water balloon fights or other similar games)
  • Beach toys (small shovels, plastic molds for making sandcastles, etc).
  • Frisbees
  • Rainbow flyers
  • Gardening tools (hand rakes, small shovels, etc).
  • Badminton rackets and balls
  • Plastic/rubber balls for other sports
  • Hula hoops
  • Sports equipment (rackets, balls, etc).
  • Yoga mats
  • Kettleballs
  • Resistance bands
  • Exercise wheels
  • Push up stands
  • Stretch bands
  • Roll out exercise wheels
  • Yoga mats
  • Yoga towels
  • Nonperishable, fairly healthy snacks (nuts, beef jerky, bottled water, canned fruit, applesauce.)
  • Many types of large reusable bags (for toting around everything on this list!)

Some of the items on this list did cost more than a dollar, but all of them were very inexpensive in general.

Whether I was planning to hike, swim, build sandcastles play any number of sports, jog, lift weights, stretch, do yoga, garden, go camping, or participate in any number of other activities, there were products for almost every type of exercise one could possibly imagine. I was seriously impressed by their selection.

Why am I recommending checking out your local dollar store if I believe in minimalism and buying quality over quantity?

There are a few reasons why this could be a smart idea under certain circumstances:

Not Everything Needs to be Well-Made in Order to be Useful

Several years ago, I bought a sun hat from the dollar store that suits my purposes perfectly when I want to exercise outdoors on a sunny day. Was it fashionable? Well, only if you’re a time traveller from 1995, but I’m not the kind of person who worries about how trendy I look when I’m working out.

Why spend $60 on something like that if you can spend $2 or $3 instead for the exact same outcome? For the kinds of activities I do, the type of hat doesn’t matter in the least. Anything that shades my face and neck from the sun will be more than adequate for my purposes.

It’s a Low-Cost Way to Try New Activities

For example, I like the idea of playing badminton. Every so often, I toy around with the thought of playing that sport as part of my fitness routine.

As mentioned above, the dollar store carries badminton equipment. While it isn’t made from high quality materials, it would be the perfect thing for me to play around with if I ever decide to finally add this sport to my list of preferred activities.

Spending a few dollars wouldn’t break the bank, and I could  go to a secondhand store or a regular store to find much sturdier equipment if I decided that this was something I wanted to play more than occasionally and my original racket broke.

Speaking of broken items….

Losing or Breaking A New Item Won’t Be So Disappointing

I’m very protective of the few possessions I have that are top-notch. Anyone who wants to borrow them has to earn my trust first, and I’d be horribly disappointed if they were damaged, lost, or destroyed in an accident or through someone else’s carelessness. There are certain places that I really wouldn’t want to take those items to due to the risks of them being exposed to the water, dirt, or sand that could ruin them.

The nice thing about dollar store purchases is that you don’t stand to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars if they’re accidentally broken or lost. I wouldn’t hesitate to lend out something like a hula hoop or a pool toy I bought from the dollar store to a friend or relative.

If that item was later returned to me in pristine condition, great! If not, I’ve only lost a few dollars at most. Replacing it won’t hurt my bottom line at all, so I don’t have a problem lending it out or taking it places where the risks of something happening are higher than usual.

What’s At Your Local Dollar Store?

Assuming you live in a part of the world that has dollar stores (or pound shops/variety stores, as they’re sometimes called), what kinds of health and fitness items have you spotted there?

I’d love to compare my list with yours!

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May 12, 2018 · 1:05 am

Saturday Seven: Characters Who Would Have Made Great Moms

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

 

Happy Mother’s Day! In honour of this holiday, today I wanted to talk about characters who never got the chance to be mothers but who would have done an excellent job at it if they did.

Some characters are childless or childfree because that’s what they genuinely wanted out of life, and I completely respect that. There have been other characters, though, that ended up not having kids for a variety of reasons that could have changed if the plot had turned out to have a slightly different arc to it.

A couple of the people on this list died far too early in life to become parents. Others simply had other things going on for them during their childbearing years. If I wrote fanfics, I’d tweak those endings so I could see what their lives would have been like if this wasn’t the case. Every person on this list would have been a loving parent if she’d had the chance to do so.

 

1. Prof. Mcgonagall from the Harry Potter series.

I’d like to think that her potential children would have been much less mischievous than all of the Weasley boys she had to deal with as a professor. Even if her kids did turn out to be rambunctious, at least she would have known how to react to them thanks to the many years of practice she had keeping the Weasleys from hurting themselves too badly during their adventures at school.

2. Beth March from Little Women.

Beth was a quiet and often painfully shy girl who had a heart of gold. I can’t think of any character more generous or loving than she was. Her sisters amused me in this story, but Beth was the one who truly touched my heart. There was an earnestness about her that made me wish she could have had a long and happy life.

She would have made a doting mother, especially for a child who might have developed the same kind of severe anxiety issues that Beth had to deal with.

3. Helen Burns from Jane Eyre.

Helen was a sweet, patient orphan-friend of Jane’s who died from tuberculosis when they were young. She kept such a calm and hopeful demeanour no matter what was happening around her.

I was so upset when this character died. She was honestly someone I thought might live to see radical improvements in the way orphans – and especially chronically ill orphans –  were treated in the 1800s.

4. Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus series.

She handled her sometimes-rowdy class so beautifully that I have no doubt she would have been wonderful at raising a much smaller number of children full-time.

5. Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager.

Fair Use Rationale: This image is being used as a visual identification of Captain Janeway.

Yes, I know this is a TV show, but there are hundreds of Star Trek novels that have been written about this universe. Some of them are specifically about this ship and captain, so I’ve decided that Janeway counts for the purposes of this list. LOL.

One of the things I liked the most about her was how much serious effort she put into making the right decision for her crew even if it wasn’t the easiest decision for Janeway herself. It takes a strong person to make that choice over and over again, but protecting people who count on you is exactly what being a parent is all about.

6. Aunt Josephine from the Anne of Green Gables series.

Honestly, the world needs more parents – and adults in general –  who remember what it felt like to be a misunderstood kid. One of my favorite things about Aunt Josephine in this series was how easy it was for her to recall life when she was Anne Shirley’s age. Being around two playful preteens made this character revisit her own childhood in the best possible way. In a different timeline, Aunt Josephine would have had the opportunity to do the same thing with her own children.

7. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Scout was such a compassionate girl. She would have been an excellent role model if she’d had children when she grew up.

Which of your favourite characters do you wish could have been mothers?

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· 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: May 12, 2018

Happy Mother’s Day! I choose to believe that today’s picture is of a mother rabbit and her baby. Here is this week’s list of poems, blog posts, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Gay Dads on Mother’s Day via thegayadopter. This family adopted their children through foster care. I thought it was fascinating to see how they  handle the topic of Mother’s Day since the children no longer live with their biological mom and have two dads instead.

The Invisible Unmarried Mothers of Ireland. Fair warning: this link is a heartbreaking one.

My Mother, My Best Friend via ShilpaGupte1. What a beautiful tribute.

Mom – A Performance Review via MStenDeut. This was a very important list of questions for moms to ask themselves. If you’re my mom, know that you did an amazing job with your kids.

My MomZ via theotherblair. I’ve never met this blogger, but her relationship with her mom sounds so sweet.

Two Moms, One Ill Baby, and the Best Care. Fair warning: this one’s a tearjerker. (No, for anyone who is worried, the baby doesn’t die). I loved the final paragraph, though.

From Mother’s Day:

I passed through the narrow hills
of my mother’s hips one cold morning
and never looked back, until now, clipping
her tough toenails, sitting on the bed’s edge

 

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May 10, 2018 · 1:00 am

Anything But Books Tag

Thank you to Stephanie from Adventures Thru Wonderland for tagging me in this. To the best of my knowledge, this tag was originally started by ReadorRot. 

  • Name a cartoon that you love

Futurama.

I should warn you all that this isn’t the kind of cartoon that was meant for children. The jokes in it are adult-oriented and occasionally pretty dark.

But I loved the writers’ intelligent sense of humour in this show. They knew exactly how to take a current social issue, stretch it a thousand years in the future, and show how the characters in that time period would react to that idea in their society.

 

  • What is your favourite song right now?

Sia’s “The Greatest.”

I love the message in it about the importance of persistence no matter what you’re trying to accomplish. The beat is catchy, too.

 

  • What could you do for hours that isn’t reading?

Go swimming.

I took swimming lessons so early in life that I barely remember anything about them or what it’s like to not be able to swim. I’m not particularly fast in the water, but I do enjoy this kind of exercise quite a bit. There’s nothing like feeling your body glide through a still, cool body of water or flipping over to float and stare up at the clouds (or ceiling, if you’re indoors).

  • What is something you love to do that your followers would be surprised at?

Organize small things like coins, rubber bands, buttons, paper clips, etc.

I find it soothing to stack everything up neatly and maybe even arrange it by some pre-determined system. For example: colour; the year it was printed (for coins); how often one can expect to use it.

 

 

  • What is your favourite, unnecessarily specific thing to learn about?

The symptoms of vaccine-preventable diseases that are either rare or unheard of in Canada.

No, it’s not an anxiety thing. I’ve only had one vaccine-preventable disease in my entire life. Since I caught it a year or two before the vaccine for it became available, it technically wasn’t even vaccine-preventable when it made me sick.

I simply find it interesting to see how quickly someone could become dangerously ill back before vaccines were invented for diphtheria, smallpox, and other horrors of previous generations.

Although I totally reserve the right to tell mildly alarming stories about life in the twentieth century to impressionable children when I’m old and more of these diseases have hopefully been eradicated for good.

  • What is something unusual you know how to do?

Befriend pets who are normally quite afraid of new people.

It’s not something I consciously try to do at all. I’m allergic to a lot of common animals, so I try to avoid contact with them when I’m out and about. Wheezing and sneezing are not my idea of a good time!

For some reason, this makes shy dogs and cats in general much more interested in getting close to me . Maybe it’s because they sense that I won’t reach down to pet them or otherwise invade their personal space?

  • Name something you have made in the last year.

Stories.

I’ve started so many of them, but I’m having trouble finishing them. I really need to work my editing and rewriting of them this summer.

 

  • What is your most recent personal project?

Figuring out when to throw out old, stained clothes and replace them.

You see, I’m frugal, minimalistic, and an ardent disliker of shopping in general. If I can get a few more months or years out of a piece of clothing, I’ll gladly do that instead of look for a replacement for it.

For now I have more than enough clothing, but I can also see certain pieces of my current wardrobe steadily wearing out past the point of overlooking it. I suspect I’ll need to start paring my options down and replacing them with new stuff at some point this year.

This process always irritates me a little, but I get even more annoyed when I put it off so long that I have to buy many pieces of clothing at once. So I’m trying to decide if it’s less vexing to do several shorter shopping trips over the next six months or one or two big ones.

I suspect I’ll pick the former option, but I’m also guessing that I’ll wait until something actually wears out before I start this process. 

 

  • Tell us something that you think of often

What other people think about when they’re doing something mundane like waiting in line, tying their shoes, or combing their hair in a public washroom. Some people wear their emotions on their sleeves in those situations, but others are hard to read.

I wish it were possible to hear the thoughts of people in that situation.

 

  • Tell us something that is your favourite but make it oddly specific. 

I have an affinity for trees. They’re beautiful, and I find it soothing to listen to their leaves rustle during the warm parts of the year.

The temperature difference between standing in direct sunlight a large, mature tree can be huge during the summer.  I’m always grateful for that shade and shelter from the sun when the weather warms up.

None of this is oddly specific so far, but that’s about to change.

You see, I’m literally a tree hugger. It makes me so happy to finally see green leaves after the long, cold winters we have in Ontario that I’ve occasionally been known to hug trees whose leaves pop out early in the season.

 

Instead of choosing specific people to tag to keep this meme going, I’m going to leave it open-ended. I believe it’s better to give people the freedom to opt-in than it is to potentially make them feel weird about opting-out.

Consider yourself tagged if you want to play along. Do leave a link to your post or let me know in some other way that you’re playing along, though. I’d love to know how you answer these questions.

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May 7, 2018 · 1:00 am

Science Fiction and Fantasy Rules That Shouldn’t Be Broken

Last spring I wrote a post for this site called Scifi and Fantasy Rules That Should Be Broken. You don’t have to read that post in order to understand this one, although I do recommend checking it out if you have a few extra minutes today.

It’s high time I wrote about the rules in these genres that shouldn’t be broken.

Read this list with a smile on your face. I’m being slightly tongue-in-cheek with some of these points, although I do think they are excellent rules to follow for anyone who isn’t an expert at blending genres or breaking the audience’s expectations in general.

Foreshadowing Should Always Pay Off

If the main character finds a gun in the first act and shudders violently at the thought of it being used to hurt someone, I expect that gun to be fired by the end of the final scene.

There was a series of novels I read years ago that did an excellent job of foreshadowing things that never ended up happening. I could have excused it once or twice, but it happened so often that I ended up being pretty disappointed with the real ending. It was nothing at all like what had been hinted at earlier on, and I was saddened by all of the loose ends that were left dangling in the plot.

Yes, this happens in other genres, too, but I’ve seen the scifi and fantasy genres receive more than their fair share of foreshadowing that fizzles out before the grand finale. I have no idea why this happens, but I’d sure like to see it stop.

There’s Science in the Science Fiction

Let me remove my tongue from my cheek before I talk about this point.

One of my biggest pet peeves in the sci-fi genre happens when characters don’t have any interest at all in figuring out what’s going on with the strange parts of the plot from a scientific point of view.

It’s especially annoying with characters who are not currently in any danger and who otherwise seem to be intelligent, curious, and at least moderately educated.

I’d give a pass to someone to stumbled across something dangerous in the first scene and has to run away before he or she is killed or badly injured. At some point, though, I would expect them to show interest in figuring out whatever it was that they’d stumbled across that was so out of the ordinary.

The fantasy genre isn’t always set in times or places where people could describe the life cycle of a dragon is in relatively believable detail or conduct tests to see what that mystery substance is that keeps appearing after the monster runs away. My expectations for these types of stories are a little more flexible because of that, but I’d still strongly prefer to meet characters who react to these events by trying to figure out how they work unless the plot was specifically written to be about someone who isn’t curious about the world around them.

Every Book Should Be a Standalone Work

To be clear, some of my favourite sci-fi and fantasy stories have been parts of long series. I’m not anti-series in the least, I simply believe that there’s something to be said for writing tales whose plots basically make sense if you accidentally start with book #2 in the series instead of the first one.

This doesn’t mean that I expect book #6 in a series to summarize everything that happened in the first five instalments in detail before moving on to whatever challenges the characters are currently facing. A brief introduction to the main characters and their major conflicts at some point during the first chapter is more than enough. I’d simply rather not read something that’s going to make me feel completely lost by the time I finish the first page.

Mixing Genres Is Okay

I’ll probably always prefer science fiction and fantasy that doesn’t have any other genres mixed into them, but I’m not a purist when it comes to my reading material. There have been multiple examples of mixed-genre books that I thought were incredibly well-written. I will continue to read and enjoy them as I find them.

While the SFF elements of a story are definitely what catch my attention first when I stumble across a new author or title, I don’t mind seeing some mystery, romance, horror, or other genres mixed into the plot if that’s what the characters or the storyline require.

When genre mixing is done correctly, it can be a fantastic tool for drawing in new audiences and introducing one’s current audience to a genre they might not have considered reading before.

However…

All Genres Should Be Labelled Correctly

Those of you who have been around for a while might remember this post from last year: We Need Less Romance in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Genres.

I still stand by everything I said in that post. There’s a huge differences between writing a sci-fi or fantasy story that has a subplot about two characters falling in love and marketing a romance novel as science fiction or fantasy because it happens to be set in space or near a dragon’s lair.

There have been multiple times now when I’ve started reading what I thought was a regular science fiction book – for lack of a better term –  only to see the characters spend a massive amount of the plot falling in and out of love. Kudos to everyone who enjoys being surprised by sex or romance when they were expecting something else entirely, but it does irritate me to see the same exact labels used for books that are 90% romance as are used for books that are all about fighting zombies, exploring faraway planets, or asking tough questions about what life will be like when robots take over human society.

Since I wrote the original rant I linked to above, I have begun to see a few publishers differentiate between romantic science fiction and regular science fiction. (We really need a better term for it).  I love the fact that these two sub-genres are finally being separated out from each other, but this still hasn’t become something common enough that I can count on it when I’m deciding what to read next.

What science fiction and fantasy rules do you never want to see broken?

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May 5, 2018 · 1:00 am

Saturday Seven: What to Read Next If You Loved The Handmaid’s Tale

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

As those of you who follow me on social media have no doubt already noticed, I’m a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale.   I first read this Margaret Atwood book when I was in high school, and I loved it from the opening sentence:

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Offred’s descriptions of what it was like to live in an abandoned school and why a group of young, fertile women had been enslaved in the first place captured my imagination. There was grief, loneliness, and pain etched into every thought this protagonist had even before I had any idea what was going on with the characters or setting.

The writers for the TV show based on this novel have done a superb job of fleshing out the storyline so far. While I’m waiting to see the next episode of this show, I’ve been thinking about books that have similar social justice themes and writing styles to this one. If you enjoyedThe Handmaid’s Tale, you might like these titles as well.

1. The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence.

I’m tentatively planning to talk about Margaret Laurence’s work again this summer in a Canadian-themed Saturday Seven post, but I had to include her in this list as well. The main character of this book was someone whose choices in life were severely limited due to abuse, poverty, and being born into a society that had pretty limited empathy or help available for women who found themselves in difficult circumstances.

I should warn you that Hagar wasn’t an easy character to like at times. Her harsh life had shaped her into someone who could be abrasive under certain circumstances, but I still saw glimpses of the young, hopeful girl she’d once been no matter how difficult she was to love at the end of her life.

2. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist.

Fertile women in The Handmaid’s Tale were forced to bear children for powerful infertile couples. Characters in The Unit were forced to donate their organs to strangers even if doing so lead to their immediate deaths. Both groups of people were simultaneously shunned for “sinning” against the impossibly-strict rules of their societies while also being told their suffering was worth it for the greater good of humanity.

3. The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper.

If you can only read one book from this list, make it this one. Fertility was controlled in The Gate to Women’s Country just as strictly as it was in The Handmaid’s Tale. The difference between the two lies in how well women are treated otherwise, who raises the children they conceive, and how (un)aware they are of what is really happening to their bodies.

4. The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence.

I read this so long ago that I’ve forgotten a lot of it. I feel compelled to reread it again soon. What I remember the most about it was the fact that two people could remember the same event so differently. There’s no doubt in my mind that Offred’s account of what happened to her wouldn’t be the same as the men who drafted the laws that made all sorts of human rights violations legal or the wives of the high-ranking members of The Republic of Gilead who ignored the abuse of women like Offred because of how much they stood to gain from the arrangement.

This isn’t to say that any of the supporting characters in The Fire-Dwellers are violent like the ones in The Handmaid’s Tale, only that empathy isn’t a skill everyone develops in life. Such a lack of empathy can show up in both small and profoundly serious ways.

5. Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler.

Honestly, I could have listed many of Ms. Butler’s books here. The things she had to say about prejudice, how power can be horribly misused, and what happens when one group of people oppresses another over a long period of time fit in beautifully with the themes in The Handmaid’s Tale.

6. He, She, It by Marge Piercy.

This book didn’t arrive from the library in time for me to read it before this post went live, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the main character handles a custody dispute that’s mentioned in the blurb. It reminded me of how Offred pined for her daughter after they were ripped away from each other.

7. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields.

Once again, this book hasn’t arrived from the library yet. I like the idea of a female character telling stories about her life that are typically the sorts of things someone wouldn’t talk about. While this narrator had a much happier and safer life than Offred did, there were still parts of it she regretted at the end. I think there’s something to be said for talking about those things openly sometimes instead of hiding them.

How many of my readers are fans of The Handmaid’s Tale? Do you enjoy books about social justice in general?

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· 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: May 5, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips, blog posts, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day! via ‪FloBarnett1‬. If not for my allergies (and the animal allergies of many of my loved ones), I’d sure like to have a dog or cat. The second best thing to actually getting to go to the shelter and pick out your own new pet is to read about how other people have chosen theirs.

Look Stupid, Ask for Help. I haven’t been good at this in the past, but I’m sure trying to change that. How about you?

The Five Stages of Small Talk. If you’ve ever found small talk perplexing or irritating, this comic strip is for you.

Kindfulness, the New Mindfulness via littlelegsfit‬. Have you ever thought about the connection between being kind and being mindful before?

What I’ve Learned in Six Months from Two Backpacks and a Suitcase via NomadicThunker. I’m not the sort of person who enjoys traveling very often, but this post was a very interesting take on the subject from someone who loves it.

France Seizes France.com from Man Who’s Had It Since ‘94, so He Sues. This is just plain odd. I hope this man receives a lot of money for the theft of his site, if not the return of it entirely.

Why I Hate Talking on the Telephone. I have the same reasons for avoiding phone calls. Maybe it’s an introvert thing?

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May 3, 2018 · 1:00 am

10 Quotes I Like About Mindfulness and Meditation

This year I’ve slowly gotten into the habit of collecting quotes about mindfulness and meditation that speak to me. Here are ten of my favourite ones so far. Most of them are serious. One is downright snarky in a funny, not cruel, sort of way.

A few of them might appear to contradict each other at first, but they will end up in the same place if you give yourself a chance to think about what they’re saying.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh,

 

“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things – that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.”
― Walter Isaacson

 

“Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

 

“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

 

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.”
― Sharon Salzberg

 

“Sitting still is a pain in the ass.”
― Noah Levine

 

“Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.”
― Elizabeth Lesser

 

“You cannot control the results, only your actions.”
― Allan Lokos

 

“Mindfulness meditation doesn’t change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart’s capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.”
― Sylvia Boorstein

 

If you have a favourite quote on this topic, I’d love to hear it!

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