Kelsey Timmerman's Blog, page 45

The year of Griffin

In 2011 our house flooded, we became a stay-at-home family, I wrote a post about TOMS shoes that got me called a lot of names, I tracked down Amilcar, and my next project was announced. But I won't remember 2011 for any of these things. I'll forever remember 2011 for this one…

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from the Timmermans

The Kardashians accused of supporting sweatshops, I come to their defense

Star magazine reports (if that's what you want to call what they do) that the clothing lines of Kourtney, Khloe, Kris, and Kim Kardashian are made in sweatshops in China!

Gasp! Oh, the horror!

And they seem like such fine well-grounded young women who would think less of themselves and more about issues such as global labor rights, don't they?

Last month I watched my first and only episode of Kourtney & Kim Take New York — the latest version of their reality show. It was awful and of course I watched the entire thing – every petty fight, every naked yoga session, every marriage disintegrating in less than one NBA off-season. It was the mental equivalent of eating donuts for an hour, in that it was light, fluffy, and it took an hour off my lifespan.

So, I'm not one to jump to the defense of the Kardashians. But when you really look at these reports, the Karashian's aren't the one's being challenged, manufacturing in China is.

In bed with bad people

Charles Kerneghan, the guy who made Kathie Lee cry on TV after revealing that her products were made by children, had this to say about the allegations:

"The Kardashians are in bed with some pretty bad people. Not only are celebrities like the Kardashians taking advantage of these workers, they are holding hands with a government that spits on democracy and women's rights."

Kerneghan told TMZ that he had never been to the factory that makes the Kardashian line, but that he had been investigating factories in China for years and he's comfortable assuming the conditions are sweatshop-ish. He also said that STAR ran its story before he could fully investigate.

To recap: Kerneghan knows nothing at all specifically about the Kardashian line and the factory in which it is produced. But he does know China. Star sold a lot of magazine and made headlines on TV shows and in newspapers across the country with a report that says nothing more than that, in general, workers in China aren't treated the best.

The China Price

The allegations include: workers earning less than $1 per day, having to ask permission to use the bathroom, factories ignoring government set labor laws. (note: nowhere does it say anything about child labor, yet that's what's in all of the headlines. Child labor is the sexiest of all the sweatshop allegations.) These are all things that are no surprise to me or anyone else that has any experience with Chinese manufacturing. Factories aren't inspected by third parties. Workers aren't educated about their rights. Unions are usually run by the government or the factory. When I was in China I met workers who worked more than 100 hours per week, workers who clocked out and then went back to work, workers who earned way less than $1 per hour.

If the ideal of communism is to create a workers' paradise, China missed the mark a bit and created a factory owners' paradise.

Before you get all up and arms about the Kardashians exploiting workers, look where your shoes were made or the computer or phone you are reading this on were made. China, right? Charles Kerneghan would make the same educated assumption about your shoes or computer as he did about the Kardashian line.

The Kardashians claim to know nothing about poor working conditions in the factories that make their clothes. I 100% believe them. It's tough to know anything about factories in China.

Li Qiang the director of China Labor Watch said that the reality stars are turning a blind eye toward human rights abuses.

Show me a company producing in China or show me a consumer using made in China products and I'll show you a whole lot of blind eyes.

In the world of blind eyes, we are all bedazzled by the China price.

See Different

Take a moment to look at my site's design. See that fancy Made in Label? The hand stitching? The clothing like tabs? The tape?

I love my site.

Justin Ahrens and his team at Rule29 designed it along with a whole lot of other promotional, materials, emails, brochures, and more. Their hard work has helped me reach more people with my stories. If I had to make a list of great things that have happened as a result of having a book published, meeting Justin would be near the top.

We traveled to Africa together with Life in Abundance to work on a documentary about life in the slums. Mainly I rocked my job as the intern to second understudy of the junior assistant grip in training (I don't know anything about filming a documentary), but I had plenty of time to watch Justin's leadership, compassion, humanity, and faith in action.

He is awesome. So awesome that he just did a TEDx Talk (above). If you don't take 20 minutes from stuffing your face full of holiday treats and watch Justin talking about seeing different, I will personally drop down your chimney and steal all of your Christmas gifts, stowing them away in my mountain lair.

And if you like what Justin had to say, you should check out his awesome new book Life Kerning. My review is below.

Life is an art. Turn your life into the masterpiece it should be.

Often a well-designed ad is simply a slight tweak from perfection. In "Life Kerning," Justin Ahrens drawls on his experiences as a designer and small businessperson to offer easy and concrete ways to tweak the way you work and live. As he states, "You are closer than you think."

Life Kerning is useful.

I say "yes" too much. After one sitting "Life Kerning" helped me look at opportunities in a new way: Will I have fun? Will I make money? Will I reach an audience that will help spread my message? The next day I was presented with one of those "we can't pay you what you normally get, but…" opportunities and busted out my yes/no "Life Kerning" lesson and took all the wishy out of the wishwashiness that too often invades my decision making process.

Ahrens makes the argument for establishing an advisory board — a cabinet of trusted peers who will shoot straight with you — and he presents you with steps and guidelines how to establish one of your own. Before I was done with this section, I had a list of possible people scribbled in the margins to ask to be on my board.

Life Kerning is inspiring.

So many business or self-help books require massive change. Stop checking your email! Work less! Work more! Ahrens doesn't shout at you to overhaul your life or your business. There's no lesson from "Life Kerning" that isn't doable. And the knowledge that I'm closer to being a more efficient, productive, and balanced ME, made this one of the most inspiring books I've read in the past year.

Big News! Book #2!!!

2012 is going to be a busy year. I'll be picking, catching, lugging, and sorting food all over the world. Check out the official announcement about book #2 in Publisher's Weekly!

In memory of George Whitman, legendary bookseller at Shakespeare & Co

In 2001 I visited Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. Yesterday the store's legendary owner, George Whitman, died in his apartment above the shop. When I heard the news, I couldn't help but think of what I had written about him after my visit:

The old man was nowhere in sight. I figured that when the clock struck noon he dissolved into a billion dust particles, coating many spines and pages, the star of the Twilight Zone episode that would be named the "Keeper of the Books."

Here's the full, perhaps a bit cliche, story about my 2001 visit.

The twin black towers of Notre Dame rang in the eleventh hour. The great brass voice gave life to the monstrous cathedral and called to mind the disfigured creature of fiction for which it would forever be linked. I crossed the street seeking sanctuary from the cold.

"You must be here for the Library?" The thin gray hair of the old man fluttered in the wintry breeze blowing across the Seine as he spoke with a strong English accent. He wore a neat bow tie and a dark gray suit. He unlocked the door to the bookstore with a steady hand.

"Hmmm…uhhh… I wanted to look at some books."

"I'll be open in twenty minutes. You can go upstairs until then for the…Library."

I stepped through the worn wood and glass doors and shuffled between two shelves on wheels that further narrowed the entranceway.

"The stairs to the Library are in the back." I followed his directions winding in and out of narrow aisles of books. Books bowed the shelves from floor to ceiling. The aisles were too narrow to allow bending over; to reach or browse books on the bottom shelves one would have to lay on their stomach and slither around. The top shelves required a ladder. One's height determined what shelves were available for viewing. I could view shelves four thru eight without suffering any indignities; if I jumped I could glance at eight and if I slithered those below four.

Panic and claustrophobia began to set in and reddened my cheeks as the staircase eluded me among the chaos of the books. I spun around hoping to catch a glimpse of the stairs- nothing but books. The entire room was swollen with books. One more added and surely something – the floor, the walls – would have to give.

"Over here." He put his bony hand on my shoulder and led me to a staircase camouflaged in books.

I walked up the flight of stairs to the Library. I took in a deep breath. The place reeked of dusty leather and pressed paper aged to a yellow hue. The smell of knowledge belittled me. I'm sure I was on the edge of some profound thought or revelation when I received two short pokes into the back of my shoulder.

I turned expecting to see the well-dressed clerk, instead, before me a man in pajamas stood barefoot with bed wrangled hair, and a face shaded in stubble. "What are you doing Hhhhhere?" The letter "H," when pronounced, is a powerful cannon that launches the deadly chemical weapon halitosis. And Bed Head was well armed.

"Hmm…uhh…I'm looking at books." I was surrounded by billions of words and I found myself unable to find any. "Uhh…the man down stairs…"

"There are still people waking up," he said, cutting me off. "Shut the gate at the bottom of the stairs on your way out." His demeanor was every bit as sharp and rotten as his breath.

Unwittingly I had stumbled upon a gem of literary history. In the early twenties a young Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce frequented the original Shakespeare and Company. The store was shutdown during WWI, when Paris fell to the Germans, after the shop owner, Sylvia Beach, refused to sell to a German officer. It was Hemingway in 1944, at the front lines of the Allied forces that remembered the bookstore and officially freed it from German control.

In the fifties George Whitman, my bow tie wearing friend, opened up the Shakespeare and Company from which I had been exiled. Completely unaffiliated with the original store, Whitman's store soon took on the same charm as Beach's. On the second floor of the shop he placed several beds, which aspiring writers could stay if they read a book a day, and put in a hour of work at the shop. George estimates that over 10,000 travelers have come to spend at least one night amid the dusty shelves, most notably Allen Ginsberg and Henry Miller.

I returned an hour later to find a completely different cast of characters haunting the shop. The old man was nowhere in sight. I figured that when the clock struck noon he dissolved into a billion dust particles, coating many spines and pages, the star of the Twilight Zone episode that would be named the "Keeper of the Books."

I browsed for an hour and I was about to settle for Harry Potter when Victor Hugo grabbed my attention. On the cover of Notre-Dame of Paris was the cathedral and out the window of the bookstore was the same cathedral; it was surreal.

A young man reclined on a wooden desk chair. His long curly brown hair framed his smooth face. He was sporting a pair of glasses that must have increased his IQ by at least thirty points. He spoke with an intelligent English accent to a smartly dressed girl. She handed him a gift wrapped in newspaper. It was a bicycle pump. They laughed and used big words.

I waited patiently, unnoticed, to purchase my book. In a lull in the conversation I cleared my throat.

"Is that it for hhhuuueee?" I nodded and handed him the book. The glasses and the shave were new, but I recognized the breath. He looked at the title, shot a glance over to his friend, and chuckled to himself about my unoriginal purchase.

In the midst of stone-throwing snooty scholars and torch-carrying tormented writers I could have stayed, feigned a more handsome intellect by saying little and brooding a lot, but I felt intellectually ugly and unrefined in their company. There was no sanctuary for me among the books.

As I walked along the cold streets of Paris I felt a strong urge to stick my tongue on something metal, like any good outcast or buffoon. In the distance the Eiffel tower pierced the gray sky.

My Red Face: Overcoming Blushing

(This is what I imagine the red-faced voice in my head looks like. Photo by PHUDE-NYC )

My face still gets red

Last night I was at a meeting where there was one person who didn't know me. (It was a small meeting.) At the end of the meeting he asked me what I do for a living.

What I did was…my face got red.

It was an innocent enough question. It's not like he asked me what type of underwear I prefer — boxers or briefs. Here's the thing, though, I'll stand in front of a room of more than a thousand college students and show them my underwear and my face won't get red. I'll be on a stage and challenged by a professor and my face won't get red. I'll be on that same stage and not know something I should know and my face won't get red. I'll talk until I'm "red in the face" and my face won't get red.

In high school and even into college I blushed a lot more. It was somewhat debilitating. I was less likely to join a class discussion and more hesitant to meet new people.

Mainly it happened like this – I would meet someone I knew or didn't, or I would be talking in public and I would think to myself, "Do you know what would be really stupid, inconvenient, and socially awkward at this moment? If my face got red." And then it would.

The technical name for this is erythrophobia – the fear of blushing. Erythophobia can lead to social anxiety syndrome, social phobias, and depression. Mainly it just pissed me off.

Blushing is caused by an overactive sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the involuntary nervous system, making it hard to control or predict. Add in my light complexion – someone once asked me if I was an albino – and nature was stacked against me in the blushing department.

I feel like I had a pretty mild case of the "red face." It didn't hold me back much, but I've heard about others who've suffered from much more chronic cases of blushing and I can only imagine how much it has held them back. Heck, there's a pill for blushing. It costs $50 per month. Yes, to some folks not blushing is as valuable as a month's worth of internet service! (note: I have no idea if this pill works, but in my experience this is a mind over matter issue not one a pill should fix.)

Overcoming Blushing

I'll go a year without thinking about my red face these days. Working retail helped. If your face doesn't get red when an impatient, angry customer looms over you while you are changing the paper out of the credit card machine, you're pretty much good to go on the "red face" front. Public speaking helped too. First I delivered dive boat briefings to tourists in Key West, and then I started to talk about my travels and writings at universities across the country. Once I decided that even if my face got red I was going to ignore it, it just stopped happening.

Once I decided that my red face wasn't going to hold me back, it didn't.

2 tips for overcoming blushing:

Be more engaged in conversations. This is the big one. Once I began to listen intently to what others were saying, I no longer heard the voice in my head talking about how stupid I'd look if my face got red.
Be more proactively social. Purposely put yourself in situations in which your face would get red and practice tip #1.

Once a blusher always a blusher

Still, yesterday. A room of six. One simple question from someone I just met and bam! Red face, we meet again.

I think part of the problem in this instance is that my "job" is unbelievable. I can't believe I get to do what I do and make a living doing it. When I tell people (my exact words last night were), "I'm a freelance troublemaker. I'm a writer and speaker," I imagine that they don't believe me. That they think, "Yeah right, buddy. You're unemployed aren't you?" It's awkward for me. I don't want to validate my career by listing accomplishments. I don't want to be that guy.

How do you tell someone that you are a successful-enough author/speaker without looking like that guy? I haven't figured that out yet.

Also, I had disengaged from the conversation a bit. I was thinking that I needed to get home and help put the kids to bed. My mind was wandering. I was in my own head – where that stupid "red face" voice exists – and not in the conversation.

If you suffer from blushing, don't let it stop you and it won't. You'll likely overcome it or grow out of it, but once a blusher always a blusher.

I'm Kelsey a 32-year-old author and public speaker and my face still gets red sometimes.

Don't be shy. When was the last time your face got red?

Build 2 libraries, win a HTC smartphone & a literary agent's critique of your masterpiece

Donate $10 through Passports With Purpose and you will be entered to win a HTC 7 Surround smartphone and 50-page manuscript or proposal critique and a follow-up phone call with literary agent Jon Sternfeld of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.
Books Matter

I have 30 books in one arm and my two-year-old daughter, who is wearing her princess frog pajamas, in the other.

This is our morning routine. We get up. We read. She'll "read" to herself and then she'll have Annie or myself read to her. She must read 40 books a day.

A 2010 study published in "Research in Social Stratification and Mobility journal" highlighted the importance of books in the home:

Growing up in a home with 500 or more books offers a child the same advantage as "having university-educated rather than unschooled parents, and twice the advantage of having a professional rather than an unskilled father." Even with as few as 25 books in the home, a child, on average, will complete two more years of education than a child growing up in a home with no books. (Via Today's Zaman)

We have books coming out of our books. We also visit the library a few times per month. And while our little reader-in-training will likely be reading on her own in the next year or two, many children around the world aren't so lucky.

In Zambia 46% of women will never learn to read or write.

Room to Read is helping change that. Room to Read has opened 12,000 libraries around the world. That's five times more libraries than philanthropist Andrew Carnegie opened. Room to Read just doesn't build libraries and fill them with books. They also find local talent to translate and illustrate books. They give people jobs and skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.

From Nicholas Kristof's recent column on Room to Read:

"There are no books for kids in some languages, so we had to become a self-publisher," [John] Wood [founder of Room to Read] explains. "We're trying to find the Dr. Seuss of Cambodia." Room to Read has, so far, published 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.

I'm thrilled to announce that I'm participating in Passports with Purpose's efforts to raise $80,000 for Room to Read to build two libraries in Zambia.

Books, like travel, can change your life forever. Both can take you to distant realms, forgotten times, and introduce you to a new way of seeing the world and yourself.

Readers and travelers give sh!t!

The Goods

Each year Passports with Purpose gathers travel bloggers to raise money for a cause. Donors give $10 to be entered into a raffle to win a host of prizes, including trips, gadgets, and gift cards. The more you enter the better your chances are. And if you don't win, at least you gave to a great cause.

Bing Travel has provided me with an ultra-sweet prize to give away – a HTC 7 Surround smartphone. Remember those boom boxes that break dancers shouldered back in the day?  The HTC 7 Surround is like that except it fits in your pocket. Finally a phone with real external speakers!

But wait, there's more!!!

I also want to give all of you writers out there a good reason to put your shiny new phone to use, and I can't think of a better way to do that than for you to talk with a literary agent about your in-progress masterpiece.  My agent Jon Sternfeld will read 50 pages of your manuscript or proposal, give feedback, and then chat with you about it.

The Phone

The HTC 7 Surround retails for $499. The winner will be responsible for all charges related to activation with AT&T, carrier contract and data services. (US only).

The Agent

[image error]Jon Sternfeld is a voracious reader and admitted book nut. He is looking for literary fiction (including well-researched dramas and historical thrillers) and narrative non-fiction that deals with historical, social, or cultural issues a la Erik Larsen, Mary Roach or Eric Weiner. He has a particular interest in fiction that has a large, ambitious canvas (exploring a time, place, or culture) and non-fiction that does the same.

A former creative writing and literature teacher, Jon Sternfeld is a book lover, first and foremost; he views agenting as an extension of this passion. Always up for an adventure, Jon once canoed the entire length of the Mississippi River and sold a new author for a hefty six figures–but not in the same week.

Enter now! Enter often!

Who I Think of Each World AIDS Day

(I posted this last World AIDS Day, but when I hear AIDS I think Susan so I wanted to share it again.)

Meet Susan.

Susan is a single mother of six. I met her this past spring in Kampala, Uganda. She lost her husband to AIDS and later tested positive herself. Because of funding cuts at her clinic, she doesn't receive the proper ARV treatment and no longer receives food for her and her children. She's 1 of 35 million living with AIDS.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Porn + wedding rings = Christian Porn

A while back I was trying to think of a name for a Christian porn magazine.  I know; it's a weird way to spend a Sunday.

I was making fun of myself for starting a pitch to a Christian magazine with this sentence: "I slept with the prophetess." (I actually just spent the night at her house.) At the time I hadn't heard back from the magazine and figured that the opening would have probably been better suited for a Christian porn magazine.  That's why my mind went there.  As it turns out, they published the story I pitched a few months later.

I eventually settled on Porn-Again Christian as the title for my fake magazine, but not before stumbling upon some sites advocating for Christian porn. Apparently it exists.  I did a post mocking Christian porn and, as of today, 12,808 people have searched for "christian porn" and found my site.

Lord, held me.

To me christian porn (porn with married couples with wedding rings visible) seems pretty hypocritical and shouldn't be blended together. I joked in the original post: "What do Christians and Larry Flint have in common? They are both offended by Christian Porn."

The consensus among the commenters of the post seemed to be that Christian porn kinda went against the whole "covet thy neighbor's wife" and lust is a deadly sin things. A few commenters have left interesting comments, defending Christian sex, but not defending Christian porn. (Note: I wasn't attacking Christians having of the sex and I'm sorry if that was inferred.) But few of them actually came to the defense of porn.

Until this week when the post received this comment:

I can not believe their is no christian porn. People need it in context of marriage instead of watching the trash from the secular community. Me and my husband like to watch each other on a video and would like to watch other detailed video of other people. There has to be a place for this. This is just not right. I fully believe that Jesus died for me and that is enough. I do not have to live in sexual immorality to watch some porn. All things are ok to do to those who walk in faith but to do but some things are not beneficial. Porn is very beneficial to me and my husband as a christian.

One question…

Should I delete all of my Christian Porn posts including this one? I like generating traffic and pulling new people into my conversations around here, but not all visitors are created equal.