Author: Elaine

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59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute

59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute
author: Richard Wiseman
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2011/08/10
date added: 2017/03/06
shelves: ebook, non-fiction, own, psychology, read-again, self-help, favorites
review:
Started reading in ebook, and enjoyed it so much that I actually bought a copy. (At Borders in downtown Seattle at 30% off, FWIW.) Condenses lots and lots of psychology research that I’ve read elsewhere combined with plenty that was new to me. For the practical person, includes exercises, quizzes, tips…which was why I wanted a copy, since those bits were tough to read on my phone, and I wanted to write in the margins! A quick read in an engaging tone. Each chapter covers a different area of human psychology (motivation, relationships, happiness, etc), looks at the most current research on what works and doesn’t, and then makes specific recommendations for how to use that research in your own life. Liked it a lot, planning to reread it, probably fairly regularly.

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Salt: A World History

Salt: A World History
author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: non-fiction, history, science, read-again, didnt-finish
review:

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Salt: A World History

Salt: A World History
author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: non-fiction, history, science, read-again, didnt-finish
review:

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Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Debt: The First 5,000 Years
author: David Graeber
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: didnt-finish, read-again
review:

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Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Debt: The First 5,000 Years
author: David Graeber
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: didnt-finish, read-again
review:

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On protest

I was in 11th grade when the first Iraq war happened. There was a protest at my high school. And I didn’t protest. I don’t remember exactly why; what I remember is standing next to my crabby af American history teacher. He had protested a bunch back in the 60s, dealt with addiction and alcoholism, and gotten clean & sober. And he had the most skeptical view of…well…everything. So what I remember is him saying that protesting didn’t really make a difference, that it was basically pointless. Nothing changes.

It’s a very white middle class “go along to get along” viewpoint and I think on some level it meshed with other messages I was getting at home, in the culture, what I felt from my own introversion/social anxiety.

So I’ve really only protested publicly twice. When I was in college, I was involved in queer and women’s groups, which were working with other groups on campus to improve diversity and equity. I wasn’t as vocal as some, but I was involved in a sit-in outside the Dean of Students’ office circa 1995.

In 2006, my neighborhood grocery store publicly said they weren’t going to stock Plan B in their pharmacy, and that felt like a very specific local thing to get vocal about. It took almost a decade for anything to actually happen, because courts move slowly, although in any case it was frustrating to shout and shout and having nothing happen. (The Supreme Court told them to get bent last summer.)

On Saturday I’m going to the Women’s March in Olympia, though. I don’t think my walking around with a sign is going to change anything. (And wow there’s a ton of Issues with the organizers. Leaving Hillary off the list of honorees? Maybe accidentally including an anti-abortion group? A mish-mash of statements around sex worker rights? Heavy sigh.)

But I kinda don’t care. It feels important to simply say where I stand and what I believe. I’m pretty sure that my sign is going to say I JUST CAN’T EVEN because, I mean, really. But if not that, quite likely it’ll say I believe in the common good.

Which having to say out loud something so basic and in my mind so unremarkable reminds me of a sign from those Plan B protests of 2006:

no kidding.

And boy howdy is it disheartening!

On the other hand, I’m seeing my people, I’m seeing how many feel the same way. Not just my “pocket friends” from the internet, but the people all around me. Mentioning that I’m going and being asked for more information, hearing that so-and-so will be there, etc., etc. I feel less frightened because I feel less alone. And because I’m less frightened, I have the emotional strength to do the other things. I’ve been calling legislators! Which given my level of phone anxiety, is nothing short of a miracle.

Which is what my American history teacher* was missing talking about protesting, what I was missing about protesting all these years? Maybe so.

* Unrelated: within a few months he would be dead from pancreatic cancer. We spent the rest of the school year with a rotating cast of subs, watching a lot of movies. I sort of wish he’d been with us to talk about 20th C. American history.