"I'll never be hip."

Hello there, o blog readers -- if indeed, any readers of this particular blog remain! If any do not, I seriously can't blame you. Apparently this whole committing-to-write-to-the-world-at-large-with-some-regularity thing doesn't come totally naturally to me. And yet I shall persevere anyway! If only because it gave me the opportunity to use the phrase 'I shall persevere,' which gives me a mighty thrill.

After many months (some might even say two years' worth of months) chilling out upon my bonny isle, I am back to the city for graduate school! Yes, that's right -- I finally motivated myself to apply, and as such, am kicking it once more in my most beloved English department. In addition to m'graduate studies, I'm teaching an introductory-level English course, which I'm sure will prove an adventure. I didn't faint when I had to stand at the front of the classroom on the first day; I like to think that's an auspicious beginning. I also wound up rambling at my students about Xena: Warrior Princess and the rap from Teen Witch, but I think that's good, right? Just proving I'm hip with the kids! (Yeah no don't say anything. Don't shatter my delusions.)

Speaking of the rap from Teen Witch!

So this is love ... la la la la la ...

As I told my friend yesterday, this is my new standard by which perfection is measured. And quite frankly, I dare anything -- like, an-y-thing -- to TOP THAT. A ha ha wit!

But what I'd really like to talk about (apart from the greatest rap battle ever to grace the entire world, of course) is Know Not Why! I know, I know: again, some more. I'm basically that lady that Garfunkel & Oates lambast in Pregnant Women Are Smug, only I don't even have an actual human being to rhapsodize over. But I do have a book! Full of human beings that I made up! That works, right? Sure. For the sake of this blog post, let's say that works.

My dear little paper-child -- okay, Kindle screen child, and yes, I get that my use of the word 'child' here is creepy, I promise I'll stop soon -- has been released for an entire summer now! And I am still a little bit 'pinch me, I'm dreaming!' over the whole thing; the reception of it, by and large, has been so kind and positive and I am just happy beyond measure or articulation that I could brighten up anyone's literary life with it. It is terrifying and weird to take something as personal as a novel you've been hanging out with for years and then just toss it out of the nest (now it's a baby bird? I dunno? Writing! Metaphors! Y...aaa...y...?), and you lovely readers -- assuming you're reading this -- have made it relatively painless and for that I thank you from the bottom of my Top That-lovin' heart.

Of course, the feedback hasn't been universally positive, because nothing has universal appeal (except Top That), and so to those of you who didn't like it -- assuming you're reading this ... for some reason? -- I thank you so much for giving it a try and taking a chance on it!

A few points have come up frequently in the reviews, and they struck me as really interesting, so here, let's discuss them a little bit! Because it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to, by Jove.

At first, it's just this idea.

Why, hello there, blog! Let's just say my four month silence was me being mysterious, as opposed to just lazy and uninteresting. You'll never know what manner of thrilling adventures went down in that span of time!

(Justine and I finished watching Xena at last. A moment of respectful silence, please. Okay, now you're caught up!)

This isn't my book, but it's a book! GINNY WOOLF 4 LIFE, YO.

I am back because I finally have something to talk about! Namely: books, and the fact that I have written some. This whole ebook publishing phenomenon got its hooks into me at last, because if there's one thing I love more than the idea of being a published author, it is the idea of being a published author without having to agonize over query letters and synopses and just how unfit I am, in my current state, to be endeavoring to publish anything. Oh, technology, thank goodness for you!

About a month ago, I put up some of my short stories, which are all pretty much standard Me fare -- that is to say, magic and corsets and fairytale whimsy are often involved in one way or another. I get the sense that this is probably the sort of thing that people expect to see from me. It is usually what goes on in my brain, in fact!

Yesterday evening, I also put up my first novel, which is about a twenty-two year old guy named Howie who concocts the ingenious scheme to get a job at an arts 'n crafts store so that he will be able to get some action from his lady coworkers, but then winds up falling for his male boss instead. This is a hard one to pitch to people, and is probably why literary agents have not exactly been throwing pebbles at my window beneath my balcony at night, trying to win the hand and heart of this fair tale. I will always so vividly remember giving a plot summary to one of my very dear coworkers, and having her respond with, "Ew!" It's possible my heart wept a few heart tears at that one. So I was wary to share it with anyone I had ever actually met before in my life, because I get the sense that everyone's response is going to be 'UM YEAH OKAY WHY IS SHE WRITING ABOUT THIS' and then maybe backing away slowly.

So here is how it came about in the first place!

Me & Justine. TAKE THIS, HATERSSSS. (We dig us some Kanye.)

My dear, dear, awesome friend Justine (not the Justine previously mentioned; I am drowning in a wealth of freaking awesome best friends named Justine) and I were out at Burger King, like, years ago, having a silly conversation, as we are wont to do. It somehow circled around to the fact that one of her male coworkers had once worked in an arts 'n crafts store, and we were trying to speculate why exactly a guy would want to work there. (This premise is, of course, inherently problematic in terms of being pretty sexist, which you will get to hear more about later. Of course guys can work in arts 'n crafts stores. But what can I say? Our humor is edgy, man. Or possibly just unevolved.) We reached the conclusion that, no doubt, his motive must have been to score with the ladyfolk ... but that, in an unfortunate twist, everyone would no doubt just figure he was gay. And, as I do approximately once a day, I believe I went, "Oh my god, that would make the best romcom, THAT NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE BASED ON A BOOK THAT I WILL WRITE."

Soon after that, I busted out the first chapter as a joke-gift for Justine. I printed it out and she spilled her coffee on it -- that cherished first chapter is still hanging out somewhere, coffee-stained and beloved! By me, if no one else. She and my other glorious roomie Renata read it and laughed a lot, as did my wonderful group of online writing pals. And I was totally enjoying the somewhat rare and entirely giddy experience of hanging out in a character voice that had just appeared, fully formed and ridiculous and completely distinct and NOT TO BE SILENCED, and so I very merrily kept writing.

On, like, the day after I started writing this story, Justine and Renata and I went to see Milk. I still very distinctly remember walking out of the theatre into the frigid, too-early, wintery dark, and just feeling despairing and hopeful and discouraged and shaken to my bones. And this story could never quite be just light and funny, after that.

Know Not Why is, admittedly, many many pages of my protagonist's torment over the idea of being openly gay; in the years of grappling with this manuscript after the first draft's completion, I very often felt guilty about that. Around the time that the A Single Man film was being made, I came across a quote from ... I'm pretty sure it was the director, Tom Ford (but my memory is failing me a bit!), about how Christopher Isherwood's work is distinguished by the fact that, though it's about gay characters, their lives don't revolve around being gay and that struggle. I felt awful about contributing yet another woeful 'Alas! Gayness!' tale to a genre that deserves as much diversity as any other kind of love story. I still don't know quite how to feel about this. But I love this story, and I felt my way through this story every step of the way (like, occasionally there was probably weeping?), and I hope that shines through.

I've also come to realize, upon acquiring a bit of distance and perspective after spending so long in this thing, that it is a lamentably accurate reflection of the world we live in. Things have improved by leaps and bounds and Neil Patrick Harrises, but our culture's inherent tendency to equate male homosexuality with femininity and femininity with The Lowest You Can Get If You're A Man is so ingrained that you don't even think to see it most of the time. I watched a wonderful, soul-wrenching documentary called For The Bible Tells Me So a few months ago, and in it, one of the commentators pointed out that male homosexuality is so reviled because it apparently involves casting one of the men in the relationship in the role of a woman -- and there is nothing worse for a man, culture tells us, than to be like a woman. "You throw like a girl."  "Sissy."  "Pussy."  A certain word that starts with C that I won't bust out because this is a wholesome PG-13 rated blog. (Although the fact that that is like the most offensive on our list of swearwords is fundamentally sort of gross and stupid -- oh heavens, not lady parts!!!! I think we all just need to listen to some Medieval Baebes.)

Now, I don't even need to go into how this is sucky on, like, all the levels, because it goes without saying; my point is, it is this, I think, that has Howie so paralyzed. He's sort of comfortably miserable as a slacker and wants to be a totally unexceptional human being, someone whose #1 skill is slipping under the radar and being ignored and unremarkable (except for maybe in terms of having mad quipping skillz). If he agrees to openly acknowledge this part of his life, living in the world that we live in now, he will no longer be perceived as "totally ordinary," and there are always going to be people who hate him on principle. And that is why he's so stuck. And that is why, in his head, there is no greater solution to his whole existence than getting a girl. What's more manly than wanting to tap them ladies, right?

I, like my boo Howie, am blessed with so many great humans.
Here are a zany few of 'em!

With all that being said, this wasn't written to be a manifesto about the screwed up notions of gender and sexuality in our culture -- although clearly I could prattle on about that forever. In addition to all the soul-searching and anguish and introspection, this book is basically a love story, a love-your-life-and-all-the-great-humans-in-it story. Sure, there's fellas having crushy feelings at each other (and oh my heart how I love their love!), but it's also about loving your family, loving your friends -- the ones who have known you forever and the ones you meet when you're older, and all the joys and the pitfalls.

It is also (I hope) zany and silly and ridiculous, because zany silly ridiculous humor is kinda my favorite.

Having grown up quite the internet nerd, I've always been ensconced in a world where love stories transcend the canonical tales that birthed them. My first experience with this was deciding, at about 13, that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were clearly in love with each other, which turned a sad and beautiful story into an even sadder and more beautiful one. A conviction that Buffy and Faith kinda wanted to jump each other's bones followed soon after. Fandom culture follows chemistry whither it wanders, with very little regard for heterocentricism (a word that I sort of suspect I just made up; just roll with it!), and there are not words for how much I love and believe in that. Sometimes canon even follows fandom right back -- see, for example, Xena and Gabrielle, a.k.a. the most beautiful freaking love story of all time. (Finally engaged! It's about time, ladies.)

But oh, for a world where gay love stories get to be text instead of subtext! We're heading in that direction slowly but surely; I hope that it will be my generation of storytellers that really makes it mainstream. Stories are such an important reflection of our culture, and the more we see of Brittany and Santana, or Mitchell and Cam, or the thousand-thousand other couples that will follow them (at least a thousand of them near-inevitably provided by me, even if I am only telling audienceless tales to my hard drive), the more bigotry and fear will fade, because you absolutely can't deny that love stories are love stories.

And love stories are lovely, and y'all just know I am going to bombard you with roughly a million of them.

But here's one, just to start.
 

Know Not Why: A Novel (Buy it here @ Smashwords / Buy it here @ Amazon Kindle Store / Goodreads Page) - Howie gets a job at Artie Kraft's Arts 'N Crafts hoping to score with his lady coworkers. After all, girls love a sensitive guy, and what's more sensitive than dedicating your life to selling yarn and ... stuff? (Okay, so maybe it'd be a good idea to actually learn what one sells at an arts 'n crafts store.) But things don't go exactly according to plan. Coworker #1 is Cora: tiny, much-pierced, and way too fierce to screw with in any sense. Coworker #2 is Kristy: blonde, bubbly, unattainable perfection. And Coworker #3 is, well, Arthur. It goes without saying that he’s not an option. Right?

… Right?

Yeah, Howie’s life just got straight up confusing.

Pun intended.

Who doesn't need love and medieval babes, really?

I have been listening to a lot of NPR at work, figuring it will make me an all-around classier person, but instead, because I'm me, here are without a doubt the two most fantastic things I have gotten out of it over the past month or so:

1. The Mediaeval Baebes, a.k.a. All Of My Nerdy Medieval Dreams Come True, Music Style

The lyrics of this song come from a 15th century Welsh poem in celebration of female genitalia, and to quote the CD booklet, "Due to the fact that this poem is a celebration of the female genitalia it has been banned from many anthologies of Welsh verse on the grounds that it is salacious." Because I am one of those dorks who is all about the study of literary ladies (both the writers and the written-about) throughout history, and female empowerment, and not slut-shaming female sexuality, I just find the existence of this awesome. Have you ever heard a lovelier song about lady parts? Actually, since I am posing this question to the whole wide internet, maybe I should just keep it rhetorical. Don't answer that, internet! Just listen to the pretty song, and if you're curious re: specifics, go look at the youtube page, and the comments section has a transcript of the poem.

Anyway: this group makes my life. Tam Lin! Scarborough Fair! The Circle of the Lustful! Dringo Bell, which is another one that gets pretty darn bawdy if you check that lyrics booklet! Really, their music is seriously the best thing to happen to my secretly Celtic fae heart since Loreena McKennitt. (Which, speaking of, you go listen to The Mystic's Dream and just try not to freak out at the awesome. You just try!) One of these days, I will get a red velvet cloak and go running through the forest in artful slow motion. It's just going to happen.


AND.

Ready yourselves, all.


2. This Sensitive Folky Irish Cover Of L.L. Cool J's I Need Love, A Song Which I Had Never Heard Before But Was Utterly Won By In The 5+ Minutes Some Genius Made The Spectacular Life Decision To Play It On NPR And Change My Life.

To those of you who do not know this: my favorite song of all time is Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. There is something about extremely earnest, extremely weird, extremely dorky music from years past that just makes my heart soar and dance with delight. I just cannot handle all the greatness happening in my ears and brain. (Especially if it is a) rap- or b) Bronte-inspired, I guess! And if it involves dancing around a forest in red, doing moves that were clearly somewhat inspired by an atypically coordinated mummy? I am yours for LIFE!)

So this ... this is just very special to me. I heard it entirely out of context on that fateful day at work, and just spent that glorious five minutes picking out weird phrases and wondering ... what was this? Was it a joke? Was it serious? Why was he rapping -- but so sensitively, so Irishly? Why does he have to get so explicit about their ~romantic encounter~ a few minutes in? (This is still a question I have. My God so awkward! Of course, that just makes it even more delightful. I guess this is also a little hypocritical of me after praising ye olde Mediaeval Baebes up there.) So many questions, and beyond those questions, a certainty that this song was going to change my life.

THIS is what I unearthed on youtube:

First off are the magic words 'recorded from the album ACOUSTIC MOTORBIKE (1992)', so you know you're just not going to go wrong here. This one is not identical to the recording that so enraptured me, which has some vaguely Mummer's Dance-esque Irish drum beats (sidenote: oh my gosh, if we're gonna talk best songs ever, there has to be a Mummer's Dance reference, 'cause DAMN YES) going in the background, not to mention some SENSITIVE STRINGS that kind of play you out of the whole song. So clearly that version is the very best option. And maybe I bought the mp3 on Amazon last night. Do I have any regrets? What's a word that means 'no', but times about fifty with seventy-five exclamation points after it? I burned it to a CD. I am going to listen to that CD until I can rap this song like Luka Bloom raps this song. Maybe a little less Irish. Maybe a little more Irish. You never know with me.

So my current life project is committing that to memory. And also to watch all the live performances of this gem on youtube.

When I say things about my post-college existence not being fulfilling, obviously I do not mean all the time.

Let's play this entry out with a series of text messages that just occurred between my dear darling friend and kindred spirit Dana and myself. Sometimes I mentally compare us to Anne and Diana of Anne of Green Gables, most perfect book of my life, because 'Anne' and 'Hannah' share some letters, and you can't spell 'Diana' without 'Dana'! There's some Avonlea magic at work there, I just know it.

Anyway. Texty-texts:

Me: IF I GET MARRIED THIS SONG IS PLAYING NONSTOP THROUGH THE WHOLE WEDDING. We will choreograph a dance.
Dana: I WILL PERFORM IT IN FRONT OF THE CROWD. PROBABLY WHILE WEARING A CLOAK, JUST 'CAUSE.
Me: Oh definitely. There's some very Mummer's Dance style percussion and strings. Cloaks are way relevant.
Dana: I am youtubing this RIGHT NOW.

So ask yourselves, dear readers: what would Dana do?

BOOTS.

When we were in high school, my best friend Justine and I decided that we were going to spend college living it up crazy college kid style, which is to say ... watching Xena: Warrior Princess. (Keep your dreams of beer pong, normal teenagers!) This originated as some sort of magnificent elaborate joke, and alas, never actually got realized during our college years, because after one year frostbittenly kicking it in Anchorage, she transferred to school in California. You know, that place with warmth in it! I stayed in Anchorage, because if there's one thing I like more than frostbite, it's never knowing quite when you are going to find yourself face-to-face with a moose. I am a thrill seeker.

My buddy & former roomie Denali & I. BEING AWARE. BEING SAFE.

The years went by, as years do, and then suddenly we were both graduated from college, ready to team up and take on the world with the powers of her Psychology degree and my English Lit degree combined! And that ... is going to happen ... one of these days. When you least expect it. Count on it. Be ready. Don't be ready. You can never be ready. For that awesomeness. Yep.

So! We both moved back here, reunited huzzah!, and decided, It's probably time for us to start our lives now. Except then I found season one of Xena at Wal-Mart for $20. Ha ha! I thought. Remember our old vow? What silly fun this shall be! And for only $20!

Listening to Yanni, ready for heroics.

Somehow -- I am not precisely sure how -- we are now the co-owners of all six out-of-print deluxe edition seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess, and have been watching it devotedly for like a year and a half. We just started season six. The end is near! I might be crying a little bit on the inside!

ANYWAY. In the opening credits, which we watch Every Time (to skip the credits would be sacrilege!), there is this shot of Xena fastening her Hardcore Warrior Boots. Then it zooms up to her, I dunno, putting on her warrior belt or something, and is basically just an excuse to show off Lucy Lawless's excellent cleavage. Not that they ever really need an excuse. I have seen the image of her puttin' on those warrior boots well over a hundred times now! And while I always had an absent Damn, that's cool appreciation for it, I never really stopped to consider the mightiness of boots.

Turns out: boots are so mighty! Up 'til now, I have always had a weird bias against buying boots. Why admit that dread winter is upon us when I can just keep wearing tennis shoes and pretending that a world without snow is just around the corner? That is how I've always rolled up until now, and it's suited me fine! (It's possible my toes are perpetually like 80% frozen, but that is neither here nor there.)

But then this summer, in an act strangely rife with symbolism, I found some furry black winter boots covered in zippers and complicated laces and even some Velcro (all that and fuzzy grey fur, too! Have boots not belonging to a warrior princess ever been so mighty?) ... and I bought them. Which was a little bittersweet, because it was, in a way, saying, Yep, I'm still going to be kicking it in Alaska come winter, and this time, my feet are going to be prepared. I don't really know where I see myself triumphantly running away to, in all these fantasies where I am no longer here (Hogwarts? Downton Abbey? New Zealand? Amphipolis? Vermont? Avonlea? Stars Hollow? I get that only two of those places are real [well, my bff Wikipedia informs me that Amphipolis was real]; I swear you don't have to worry for me. Too much), but does that stop me from having them? Heavens, no!

But here I remain, and winter has settled in -- oh God, the snow! There is so much of it! Game of Thrones can suck it -- and so I finally broke the boots out of my closet and put them on.

And now, well, good luck to the fool who tries to get me to take them off. Seriously. These things are foot heaven! I brought my sneakers with me to work today, but did I ever actually change into them? No, no I did not. (I figured this was okay, because my boss was rocking her boots all day too. Ours is a museum full of kickass Alaska ladies.) And there is just something really satisfying about tromping around in boots. If a sinister warlord had found his way into the museum, I somehow felt that I could have gone all warrior princess and defeated him soundly, thanks to the power of those boots alone!

I mean, a sinister warlord did not find his way into the museum, because business gets pret-ty slow in the winter and so nobody came in at all.

But I would have so been ready.

Warlords of this isle: take note, and think twice.

Dun dun da dun dun dunnnnnn ...

BLAME MARIE, who would probably tether a maiden to a rock to be offered to a sea monster if she wasn't so busy eating Triscuits and being great

So, my delightful friend and coworker Marie does this thing where generally at least once per conversation, some weird wonky thing I say inspires her to exclaim, with all this conviction and earnestness and vocal italicizing, "Hannah, you have to start a blog!" (Well, okay, maybe it is not quite that emphatic, but I said the thing about 'vocal italicizing' and then I felt like I had to commit. That is not how Marie actually talks. But I'm sure she would pull it off with swagger and aplomb if she did!) This has been going on for like a year now, and while once upon a time it was a suggestion voiced so sweetly that little bluebirds would land on its pointer finger if it were a fairytale princess instead of a suggestion, now it tends to go more like, "Oh my God, Hannah, START. YOUR FRIGGIN'. BLOG." She even had a knife today. I mean, it's because she was cutting up cheese to put on Triscuits, but. I have decided to err on the side of caution. Someone has been murdered in that kitchen before, and it could so easily become a tradition. (The fun thing about working in a building that's been around since like 1808? It's got such history in its walls! Including the MURDER KITCHEN. You don't want to mess with disgruntled 1860s fur trappers. But I'm sure you knew that already.)

So here, Marie. You win! It's on! It is happening! This spot is now doomed to become a virtual cesspool of dorky literary references and dorkier television references, and other thrilling (?) chronicles (?) of my fascinating (?) existence (????).

Thanks to my current propensity toward spending hours reading about Greek myths on Wikipedia -- mostly to fact check their accuracy against episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, which is of course the definitive authority on Greek myths, all myths, and how to be awesome -- this blog gets a title as nerdy and pretentious as I am! I am, for the record, the English major that just won't die. You can beat this horse all you like, and I will still find a way to work a Gilbert & Gubar reference into everyday conversation. I graduated, with profoundest sadness, back in 2010, but that was not enough to stop me! That was not enough to motivate me to go to grad school, either, but shhh. ONE DAY.

I do this all the time.

Basically: I live on an Alaskan rock in the sea, and God help me, I just cannot seem to move. It's almost as if ... as if I was chained there, much like mythological damsel in distress Princess Andromeda, who got offered to a sea monster as a sacrifice because her mom was being bitchy! (Greek moms often are. God, it's fabulous. See also: Medea, Clytemnestra, and Procne, who is a particular favorite of mine. Such devoted sisterhood!) So, basically, they chained Andromeda to a rock to get eaten by a sea monster, but of course Perseus shows up at the last minute and sorts that out, once he's done chopping the heads off defenseless ugly snake-haired ladies. This is clearly applicable to my current life situation -- except for the Perseus part -- wherein the rock is this island, I am Andromeda, and the sea monster is the vast looming hulk of a future that I just cannot quite seem to plan out!

Well, no, not really, I just like the name Andromeda and I really like alliteration.

Further References For the Andromeda Myth:
1. Wikipedia. Always Wikipedia.
2. That recent Clash of the Titans movie, which featured a pretty badass if rarely seen Andromeda played by that awesome chick from season four of Angel who had magic electricity powers and a very flattering red leather outfit. (Okay, her name was Gwen, but let's pretend I'm one of those people who doesn't know the name of every single character on every single television show she passionately loves, of which there are approximately six thousand. Uh! You know! That electricity chick!) I don't think anyone actually liked this movie, but it was pretty and HORSES FLEW and LOVELY ENGLISH ROSE GEMMA ARTERTON WAS THERE and THERE WAS A BIG SEA MONSTER WHO TURNED TO STONE and I'm just easy like that. Anyway, I think that Andromeda needs her own spinoff movie.
3. The critically lauded British series Downton Abbey, where a pair of distantly related, arch and attractive English cousins kick off their love-hate relationship via an exquisitely pointed round of banter over the Andromeda myth. This is pretty much the Masterpiece Classic equivalent of, say, this song.

Basically: if you want a high culture blog-reading experience, look no further, bros. This, oh this, is the blog for you.

Thank Marie.