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The Other Side to the Bird by Bird School Lunch Exercise

If you've read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, then you'll be familiar with her recommendation on describing school lunches as a writing exercise. The idea is that school lunches are more than just about food but are intuitively viewed by children as expressions of motherly love and "cool factor."

I could completely relate with that--my school lunches were never prepared by my mother but by my grandmother or a maid. My grandmother might direct that leftover lasagna be packed in my lunch, which was all right though I didn't usually finish it as I didn't like it cold. A maid left to her own devices would give me an instant meal in a pouch that had been purchased by my mother. In my early grades when we had packed snacks rather than a full lunch, I'd have a small box of raisins or once, memorably, a mayonnaise sandwich. Nothing but bread and mayonnaise. I opened it to check and my seatmate and I wondered if maybe the filling had fallen out. But it was never there. Or rather, it was just mayonnaise, plain white mayonnaise.

For many years, I did not like mayonnaise except in potato salad. Or tartar sauce.

So once I started fixing school lunches, I made sure to do it well. I don't "career" it like some moms on Pinterest, making fancy bento box meals. I don't even push myself to make everything fresh and natural, just spent an hour in the middle of the night googling for school lunch packing tips so I could work out how to pack food that would taste good and not spoil. Some of my best successes are herbed rice (oregano helps prevent bacterial growth) and marble potatoes with barbecue powder (my husband's brilliant idea). Sodium and nitrates are hard to avoid, because preservatives help keep a lunch from spoiling after six hours in an insulated bag. But I figure one meal in a day of ham, bacon, fried salted fish, corned beef, or canned chili isn't going to harm my child. It's better than her not having any food at all. Ordering cafeteria lunches is uneconomical given my daughter's poor eating habits.

Right, I know that my daughter is not that interested in eating. A friend once told me I shouldn't worry about making my kids eat because no child had ever starved herself. Well, she had never tried to feed my daughter, who would rather talk, read, or daydream than eat. Who is so focused on these activities that it would never even occur to her that she could eat while doing them.

A typical conversation with her after school would have me asking if she had eaten her food. Usual answer: I had maybe two bites (or pieces, if I gave her cookies or marble potatoes). On better days, she might say she ate half. Or that she ate the ham but not the bread of her sandwich because the bread was soggy.

Still, I've been soldiering on. And when my water broke Tuesday night, I was patting myself on the back for already having her lunch ready: Half a burger (from Tropical Hut) to which I'd added ketchup, cheese and lettuce. For her snack, she had a container of chocolate pudding. I made sure my husband brought the lunchbox to my mother's where the kids were to stay.

The baby arrived the next day after she was fetched from school. So we had the usual conversation. Report on the chocolate pudding: Maybe half. The burger? "I didn't have time to eat it."

It was almost enough to send me into post-partum depression (which I have never ever had). Thankfully I had not made the effort to cook a lunch for her specially that night as I sometimes do, or I think I really would have flipped upon knowing she didn't eat it--on the one day that she had only six lines of homework to copy, and therefore couldn't use the excuse she was too busy writing her homework down to have time to eat.

So maybe some children don't intuitively view packed meals as an expression of maternal love and thoughtfulness. But I know adults view a successful packed lunch as a sign of domestic competence, and adding insult to injury, my mother expressed consternation when my daughter also didn't touch the lunches she'd provided my daughter during my two days of confinement. And her teacher purchased packed lunch for her on her first day of school after the birth even though I'd packed the usual amount. This isn't the first time a teacher has tried to feed up my underweight child--a teaching aide used to give her chocolate cereal in kindergarten. I don't think I'm being oversensitive in feeling that these well-meaning people think it's my fault for not packing food that she likes, when no other kinds of food are on my menu!

One of my favorite movies is Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. But now I question the romance between the chef and the single mom whose daughter he secretly makes school lunches for. Now I wonder if it's plausible she would be charmed by his gesture once she found out. Because I now realize that I in her place would be greatly insulted, even I was not a good cook and knew it. The fact that she prepared fresh meals for her daughter, instead of relying on instant stuff like my own working mom, shows that she made a real personal effort. She should have been insulted, even if he'd been straightforward and offered directly to take over the job of cooking for her daughter. Or at least dissolved in tears knowing her cooking would never be good enough for her daughter.

Because whatever the child might think of the lunch, the fact that it is there and in a sufficient amount and reasonably well-balanced is already a sign of maternal affection and concern. Cool factor be damned. I can acknowledge there are some mothers who are clueless about their child's likes and dislikes (though I can't be one, given how vocal my daughter is about her feelings). A school lunch could show a lack of connection with the child or the minds of other children, but never a lack of caring, so long that it does exist and is prepared without fail. If only children would realize this. I think I really would be depressed over this if my son were not the opposite, so excited over the food I pack for him, often the same as his sister's, that he asks to eat some of it on the way to school.

Everyone who tries the Anne Lamott exercise ought to also do the converse, considering the mother's point of view when she prepares the lunch. If you are a mother who packs lunch for her children, though, I guess you won't have to do it.

The Rarity of Happy Endings for Wartime Lovers

I read a lot of fiction set during wars, especially WWII. Romance is nearly always integrated into the story. The heightened emotional climate of wartime seems to intensify romance and makes many reckless romantic behaviors more acceptable (making love with no protection and stuff like that). So in many ways wartime romance is more romantic. But in fiction, rarely satisfying.

Of the many wartime novels I've read, only one permits the lovers a happy ending. Since I don't want to give spoilers, even though you're already warned that all but one of those I will discuss end with separation of the lovers, I'll list the titles but try to avoid clear identifying traits in the summaries I'll give later, which will be in no particular order.

Four of the contemporary novels I've read are YA, but no less relentless in their depiction of war: Between Shades of Gray, The Devil's Arithmetic, Number the Stars and The Book Thief, all set in WWII. I decided not to include the classic Rilla of Ingleside as its author's strong Victorian leanings keep the book from getting too gritty.

The contemporary war novels for adults I've read in recent years include two that center on WWI: Atonement and Justice Hall . The others are set in WWII: Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Charlotte Gray, and Resistance. Then there's the classic A Farewell to Arms which may very well be the model for these other books. At least where the romance is concerned. Though I understand is so biographical that I'm not sure it counts.

The degrees of romance in the books varies. In The Book Thief you have a barely acknowledged early adolescent bond, in The Devil's Arithmetic, the lovers are newlyweds who were brought to a camp on the brink of their wedding night, in all the others the lovers were brought together by wartime circumstances.

And of course the end is nearly always tragic. One or both might be bombed or shot down before the other's eyes. In two cases the lovers are separated and are unable to keep in touch afterwards. In another case, there are two loves, one that began before the war and seems quite lackluster compared to the deeper and more intense bond developed between the heroine and the man she works with during the war--but it's the less satisfactory romance that is fulfilled. In two cases both lovers survive but fail to get back together and fulfill their relationship.

In the cases where the lovers failed to get back together after the war, it's usually a tragedy of a different sort. In one case it's because of an unforgivably stupid misunderstanding. In two other cases, it seems more due to a lack of effort on the part of the lover who has returned home, because the other has remained in the same place--in one case easily found there by the wartime love's descendant.

As Ian McEwan says in Atonement, does anybody really want to hear that the lovers, having gone through so much, had less than a happy ending? And of course the reality for so many in wartime is that they didn't. The consolation we are offered in their place at times is the offspring that they leave behind, but this creates a frustration of a different sort, that there is a child who never knew his/her father.

Reality also belies, though, that all wartime loves end tragically. While reality seems unlikely to support the situation in Rilla of Ingleside where five out of six childhood sweetheart couples are reunited, the soldier-sweethearts returning from the war unscathed except for one who lost a limb, it is not all tragedy either. In Schindler's List there is a story of a couple who married in Auschwitz, the man riskily sneaking into the women's barracks at night to be with his wife. And they survived and stayed together after the war. War ought not to kill our belief in the power of true love and human willpower.

Of course, one might argue that some of these wartime romances were not true love, but simply an attempt to seek some kind of comfort or relief under dramatic circumstances, that these people were overcome with the kind of insanity that afflicted the grieving women in the movies Summer of '44 and Pearl Harbor. Certainly a sort of circumstantial bond may not necessarily be appropriate for everyday life when the lovers will no longer be watching each other's backs while hiding from the enemy. On the other hand, a bond built by being in extreme circumstances together ought to be stronger. I can understand people just wanting to have normal lives after the war, but it is hard to accept that a person will make no effort to reconnect with someone who has been so important to him or her. I find the resolution in the movie version of one of these books more believable because the woman who had grown and changed due to her wartime experiences easily let go of her first love which was based on physical attraction and sought out the second with whom she had shared intense moments and deeper thoughts.

I do think there ought to be more of a balance in the depiction of wartime relationships, more of a range. While some find wartime love more romantic because of the Romeo-and-Juliet hopelessness of the situation, I'm more of a mind with Marilla in Anne of Green Gables: "Romantic, fiddlesticks! It would be far more romantic if they survived and lived happily ever after." It's no coincidence that the one book where the lovers do that just that is one of my favorites.

The Rarity of Happy Endings for Wartime Lovers

I read a lot of fiction set during wars, especially WWII. Romance is nearly always integrated into the story. The heightened emotional climate of wartime seems to intensify romance and makes many reckless romantic behaviors more acceptable (making love with no protection and stuff like that). So in many ways wartime romance is more romantic. But in fiction, rarely satisfying.

Of the many wartime novels I've read, only one permits the lovers a happy ending. Since I don't want to give spoilers, even though you're already warned that all but one of those I will discuss end with separation of the lovers, I'll list the titles but try to avoid clear identifying traits in the summaries I'll give later, which will be in no particular order.

Four of the contemporary novels I've read are YA, but no less relentless in their depiction of war: Between Shades of Gray, The Devil's Arithmetic, Number the Stars and The Book Thief, all set in WWII. I decided not to include the classic Rilla of Ingleside as its author's strong Victorian leanings keep the book from getting too gritty.

The contemporary war novels for adults I've read in recent years include two that are set in WWI: Atonement, Justice Hall and Charlotte Gray. The others are set in WWII: Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Resistance. Then there's the classic A Farewell to Arms which may very well be the model for these other books. At least where the romance is concerned. Though I understand is so biographical that I'm not sure it counts.

The degrees of romance in the books varies. In The Book Thief you have a barely acknowledged early adolescent bond, in The Devil's Arithmetic, the lovers are newlyweds who were brought to a camp on the brink of their wedding night, in all the others the lovers were brought together by wartime circumstances.

And of course the end is nearly always tragic. One or both might be bombed or shot down before the other's eyes. In two cases the lovers are separated and are unable to keep in touch afterwards. In another case, there are two loves, one that began before the war and seems quite lackluster compared to the deeper and more intense bond developed between the heroine and the man she works with during the war--but it's the less satisfactory romance that is fulfilled. In two cases both lovers survive but fail to get back together and fulfill their relationship.

In the cases where the lovers failed to get back together after the war, it's usually a tragedy of a different sort. In one case it's because of an unforgivably stupid misunderstanding. In two other cases, it seems more due to a lack of effort on the part of the lover who has returned home, because the other has remained in the same place--in one case easily found there by the wartime love's descendant.

As Ian McEwan says in Atonement, does anybody really want to hear that the lovers, having gone through so much, had less than a happy ending? And of course the reality for so many in wartime is that they didn't. The consolation we are offered in their place at times is the offspring that they leave behind, but this creates a frustration of a different sort, that there is a child who never knew his/her father.

Reality also belies, though, that all wartime loves end tragically. While reality seems unlikely to support the situation in Rilla of Ingleside where four out of five childhood sweetheart couples are reunited, the soldier-sweethearts returning from the war unscathed except for one who lost a limb, it is not all tragedy either. In Schindler's List there is a story of a couple who married in Auschwitz, the man riskily sneaking into the women's barracks at night to be with his wife. And they survived and stayed together after the war. War ought not to kill our belief in the power of true love and human willpower.

Of course, one might argue that some of these wartime romances were not true love, but simply an attempt to seek some kind of comfort or relief under dramatic circumstances, that these people were overcome with the kind of insanity that afflicted the grieving women in the movies Summer of '44 and Pearl Harbor. Certainly a sort of circumstantial bond may not necessarily be appropriate for everyday life when the lovers will no longer be watching each other's backs while hiding from the enemy. On the other hand, a bond built by being in extreme circumstances together ought to be stronger. I can understand people just wanting to have normal lives after the war, but it is hard to accept that a person will make no effort to reconnect with someone who has been so important to him or her. I find the resolution in the movie version of one of these books more believable because the woman who had grown and changed due to her wartime experiences easily let go of her first love which was based on physical attraction and sought out the second with whom she had shared intense moments and deeper thoughts.

I do think there ought to be more of a balance in the depiction of wartime relationships, more of a range. While some find wartime love more romantic because of the Romeo-and-Juliet hopelessness of the situation, I'm more of a mind with Marilla in Anne of Green Gables: "Romantic, fiddlesticks! It would be far more romantic if they survived and lived happily ever after." It's no coincidence that the one book where the lovers do that just that is one of my favorites.

Selecting Books for an Advanced Child Reader

As the past week was National Children's Book Week, I'm focusing on children's books today. I'll focus on a personal concern, which is choosing books for an advanced child reader. My daughter, to be exact.

She has just turned seven and is in second grade, but since last year has been reading books at a fourth grade level, or books labeled for 8-12 years. This causes some problems in choosing reading material for her.

The first concern is that she still prefers, quite naturally, books with illustrations, which most fourth-grade level books don't have, though for books she finds really fascinating, this matters less. In particular, she has read Judy Blume's Fudge-a-Mania and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and Wilma Tenderfoot: the Case of the Frozen Hearts,which have no pictures whatsoever. But she will only do this if the subject is of especial interest for her. She likes the first because it is about a naughty little boy near her brother's age, the second because she relates so much to the fussy, fearful main character, and the third because she loves mysteries.

Print size is another important concern for me. Although she could have already read the Tutubi Patrol books last year, I held back from buying them for her because of the small print size. With myopia running in both sides of the family, I am determined to spare her eyes as much as possible. Hence also my hesitation to give her any of Nick Joaquín's Pop Stories for Groovy Kids, which I read at nine. The Tutubi Patrol books only passed this year because the stories were short enough, and because of her current craze for making up animal stories.

I cannot get her interested in reading Charlotte's Web, though. Maybe because she watched the movie and knows what happened to Charlotte. Which brings me to the next difficulty: Choosing books that have appropriate themes. She is very sensitive and cannot bear unhappy endings. She does not like most stories with pitiful characters like orphans. She only likes books with bumbling main characters if those characters are boys. She is such a perfectionist that I think she identifies so strongly with the struggles of girl characters her own age that reading about these makes her anxious. That's my theory, anyway, because she has never explained to me why she doesn't want to read the Ramona books. With Sheila the Great, I think despite the main character being a girl she is at ease because of the character's tough, spunky tone in the face of her fears. After all, my daughter doesn't care for books that express intense emotion. I do think touchy-feely books would help her in learning to understand and express her feelings, but she has always steered away from anything the slightest bit emotional. That's how sensitive she is. Still unable to handle her strong emotions, she finds it upsetting to read about others' especially in school and domestic situations that are very close to hers.

So this leaves us with girl adventure books, which for some reason are few and mostly quite slim. I could try Harry Potter on her but it fulfills too few of her requirements. I've given her Pippi Longstocking, but refuses to read it. Maybe because Pippi is a little girl who lives all alone and has to fend for herself. Main characters for my daughter need warm, loving families or steadfast guardians.

I could of course just give her books for her age, regardless of her advanced reading level. Certainly she still likes the shorter Geronimo Stilton books as well as the longer ones. But the way she breezes through chapter books, I know she needs something more substantial and yet deals with issues that she can handle and are appropriate for her age and interests. No romances and crushes, which just mystify her No horrifying events. Death, evil, and parental abandonment are only permitted in fantasy, never realistic settings. It's not so much that I want to sanitize what she reads as that I know she doesn't like reading about these. As I said, she still can't handle intense emotion. And if I am to help her maintain her sophisticated level of reading, then I must make sure she appreciates and understands what she reads.

So many complications in choosing books for my child. What's a mom to do?

What Makes Love Work

Romance is an important part of YA novel I'm currently working on, and part of the difficulty in workshopping is how differently people, even in my small group, perceive love. I think it's an especially important concern in YA to present not just a thrilling but healthy love relationship. I personally wouldn't find a relationship romantic if it wasn't healthy. But then, while reading comments on Youtube excerpts from the Gilmore Girls (a show whose dialog is inspiring}, I find many people don't think the same. I mean, there are people who ship each of Rory's boyfriends. Frankly, none of them was actually right or good for her--one did not connect with her intellectually, the others deliberately challenged her moral and ethical sense. Sorry, but that seemed to be how the character was conceived, a smart girl who was dumb at relationships. I was so disappointed in Rory for ending up with Logan rather than her sweet friend Marty that I abandoned the series thereafter. You'd think she'd have learned after Jess.

I think of the romance novels of my grandmother's I used to dip into, Mills & Boone and period novels, and when I think about it, a lot of those relationships weren't healthy. The female characters are often drawn to mysterious domineering men they don't really know and end up in bed with them. Luckily, the man ends up to be a decent guy after all through some miracle. Or if he's actually villainous, he ends up dead and some sweet guy previously friendzoned will step in to look after the girl and the child the creep fathered.

It's disturbing when you think about it that the domineering male-submissive female dynamic is seen by so many as romantic. Reading an Ebert review comparing the Dirty Dancing movies, I was intrigued by the fact that he found the relationship in the second movie lacking in steam compared to the first. Thinking about it, he was right, yet I felt more comfortable with the Katie and Javier than with the Johnny and Baby coupling. There was always something off about Johnny and Baby for me despite how hot Patrick Swayze was. Now I realize it's because of the dynamic of the relationship. Baby was too worshipful and willing. Even if he shows he respects her in the end, it seems too much like he's taking advantage of her innocence and obvious crush on him in the beginning. Katie and Javier, on the other hand, began as friends (as Ebert says, "It just isn't believable when they kiss"). And in fact they focus on building that friendship and proper Katie is shocked rather than swept away by the sensuality of his dance moves. "Nobody would put this Baby in a corner," as Ebert says, and for me the fact that she makes a conscious choice to be with him, after getting to know him and seeing what a man of character he is, is all the more romantic.

Sensible, too, and some, including Ebert, would moan that makes it unromantic. I will admit that when rational thought and good sense dominate too much romance is lost. I've complained that the romances in Donna Jo Napoli's books are not believable. She is a terrific YA historical writer and she always seems to include romance in her books, but I am just never swept up by the relationships no matter how I like the characters. The lack of heat and sensuality that Ebert complained about is glaring here. Yes, there should be an intellectual and emotional connection, and Napoli makes sure of that. But it's also necessary to have moments when the characters are drawn to each other physically.

That element of physical attraction is where so much of the mystery of love lies. Sometimes it seems the end result of a strong intellectual and emotional connection. The sparks that flew between real-life couples Pierre and Marie Curie and Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe seemed to have followed this pattern. And my husband and myself, at least on my part. I always tell people I wasn't attracted to him until I saw how good he looked in long sleeves and tie. I am not proud of this but that element of physical attraction is something you can't control.

For many people, especially men, it seems this is what comes first and the whole dating ritual takes off from there to find other points of connection. It's important to note that with most sensible individual's sizing up someone with their eyes isn't just about judging looks. Assessments are also made regarding character: Is she demure or confident, does he remind me of somebody?

It's not enough for them to like each other's looks and find something in common. They also have to be a good match for each other in terms of character. But maybe not too much so. If I remember right, Fr. Galdon said in The mustard seed: reflections for daily living that it might also not be good for a couple to be too compatible. They also have to challenge each other at some points to make each other and their love grow. I think this is healthy for relationships to a certain degree, and for book relationships it certainly makes for the tension needed to keep the readers hooked. All the Anne of Green Gables books become bland after Anne and Gilbert get together, except for Anne's House of DreamsAnne's House of Dreams. Would Anne and Gilbert's relationship have remained compelling if they did not have that one serious quarrel, not over something everyday and petty (as in the dull Anne of Ingleside) but a serious matter of principle? And it's the constant effort to win each other's approval that gives life to the relationship of Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter Boxset.


Of course, too many incompatibilities will destroy a relationship, as with Katniss and Gale. It's balancing all the elements, I think, that make for a healthy love relationship. And what makes romance more difficult to write than it seems.

A Little Shocking Historical Detail

I've been reading A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, recommended to me by a historian friend. I was finding it dull and tedious, when I came upon a paragraph giving the statistics for how many women in Martha's Puritan town had conceived their children out of wedlock. It was 38%--a shocking number, considering all we've been told about this period in American history. These being only the ones reported, there were probably more in actuality. And there would also have been a few other dalliances that did not end in pregnancy. So actual numbers might be more like 40%.

Just this one little detail has changed my image of eighteenth-century New England. We tend to see life there, as Kit in The Witch of Blackbird Pond did, restrictive, dull, and prudish. While most young women would have been as innocent and demure as the stereotypical Puritan girl, I imagine quite a few having a tumble with their sweetheart in a hayloft or the woods.

There's a lot numbers don't tell you, and one thing is how it happened. One woman testified at a fornication hearing that she and her young man had done it in a friend's "chamber." There would certainly be some scheming done given that in a small community, it is not easy to find privacy. Though Martha's own daughter and son each conceived a child before marriage, she is silent about how this occurred. It is doubtful she ever knew the details, anyway. For most young women, it may well have been as it was for Tess of the D'Urbervilles--consent without fully understanding what was going to happen to them. The patriarchal nature of society may have worked against them, as they would have been in the habit of deferring to men. But seeing as many continued to keep company with the men in the months after, before the pregnancy was detectable, it's not terribly likely that it happened only once in most cases.

This behavior is a little mystifying given the known propriety of old New England and their documented strict laws on sexual sins and crimes (this was called fornication). It becomes even more mystifying since these young people were of an age to marry, and most did upon learning of the pregnancy. Why didn't they do things "the proper way" from the start? Did some young people not feel ready to settle down yet? This may have been the case for those like Martha's son, who waited till his child was 4 months before marrying the mother. Did some young men propose but were set conditions they could not currently fulfill?

Of course there were those who were just carried away by their feelings, but remember that in a small, conservative town, it is not so easy for a couple to find a place to be alone together. It might be easy enough to steal a kiss behind a tree, but for something more intimate, a time and place would have to be arranged.

I don't think Puritan New England will ever become a popular setting for bodice-ripping romance. But the questions brought about by such details on the social climate of the period can lead to many stories. There are other juicy details in Martha's diary like a clergyman's wife accusing the town judge of rape after she gave birth to a daughter that she seemed to fear was his. As tedious as I find much of this historical text, I'll probably continue to skim through it for shocking tidbits. Yes, I'm a chismosa, enticed by lurid gossip. But I also feel that such details give us a clearer picture of what people were really like in the past. Which is not so different really.

Young Adults and New Adults May Need More Healthy Realism

I just read a blog about a girl who planned a trip to a big city where she didn't know anyone very well. She didn't have enough money for lodgings so she accepted an invitation from an online friend to stay at his place, where he had three male roommates.

He joked she could sleep in her bed. She told him she'd bring a sleeping bag, and figured he'd pick up the hint. Why she would assume such maturity from someone insensitive and ungallant enough to make such a joke to a girl he hadn't known long is beyond me.

Long and short of it was, she didn't want to hurt his feelings, so she ended up sleeping in his bed, and eventually let him have sex with her and never thought of carrying her sleeping bag out to the living room--though given the three male roommates, that might not have been safe either.

I pity her, sure, but she wasn't too smart. She shouldn't have planned a trip if she couldn't find proper accommodations in the first place. She could at least have enlisted a friend to go with her. But what puzzles me most is why she kept assuming the best of this guy even after he tried to have sex with her the first night. How horribly naive.

Did she overdose on Victorian romance novels where all men respectfully hold back after being told off by the feisty heroine? I can't be sure, but it does seem to me her perceptions of men were quite unrealistic.

I can't say exactly why I am now writing more realistic fiction after starting out with spec fic. But I feel maybe I'm doing what is needed now. The past decade, spec fic has grown dominant in literature and media. Are there still any more sitcoms or dramas showing normal, everyday people? It seems to have ended with the Gilmore Girls and HIMYM. And for some time there've been none for children. I grew up with family programs like Punky Brewster and the Cosby Show, and wacky as they were, they were connected enough to reality to help me understand actual people and how to deal with them.

I've been hearing a lot of stories about teens in high school and college who seem to have poor grasp of reality, the most dramatic story being of a girl who texted a male professor that if he didn't return her affections she would report him for stalking her both to the admin and the police. Honestly, what is the world coming to? How can anyone imagine you can make someone love you that way?

Adolescence, an age where daydreaming predominates and hero-worship is still strong,we now know to persist into the early twenties. At that time, I remember daydreaming about a handsome young athlete I often saw from a distance. I began to assume I knew his character from his pleasant smile and discipline in training. I was never the sort bold enough to go to someone and declare my love. Would I have done so if I were? I don't think so. Deep inside, I knew it was a fantasy I had built just because he was my physical ideal.

For someone to act out fantasies, however, shows a weak grasp of reality. I don't blame fantasy literature for this, even paranormal romance, which I'm not into. I think people will only be consumed with fantasy if they don't have healthy real relationships, starting with their parents.

Still, I remember that realistic fiction has helped me greatly in learning to assess the world I live in and understand the workings of real people's minds. Jacob Have I Loved constantly reminded me of the need to set goals and create one's own opportunities rather than waiting for them to be handed to you. Circle of Friends helped me develop a healthy wariness towards the enticement of good looks and charm in choosing friends and romantic partners. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant helped me to unravel how people's actions were spurred by their family relationships.

While these qualities can be found in spec fic as well, it is easier to make the real-life connection when the setting is realistic.

In my YA and NA, do my characters all learn to reassess their unrealistic notions of how life works? Ning of Woman in a Frame chooses to balance fear of going into a field where it is difficult to succeed, with confidence in her talent and ability to deal with the expected challenges, Arden and Rob of Love Among the Geeks sift through misconceptions to understand what the basis of a healthy romantic relationship is, and Audrey of Always Online realizes how her passivity and naive faith in marriage as a fairy tale ending played a role in her relationship issues.

All learn to give up the fantasy of how things "should" be. Sure, we should be so brilliantly talented as to make our career choice obvious and get us supported by wealthy patrons. We should have jobs that allow us to travel yet stay close to our family and have a spouse who can help us in our career. We should not lose the interest of the man of our dreams after we've won him. But we have to accept we don't live in an ideal world and learn the smarts we need to get by successfully in it. I hope I'm achieving this in my YA and NA works. Read them and judge.

The Museums in my Works

October being museum month, it's made me reflect on the institutions I've loved. I realize I've mentioned quite a few in my writing.

I've been going to museums since I was five, and not just the ones for children. I went on a trip to Amsterdam and the US at that age and though most of the places we went to were for kids, we still had to accompany the grown-ups on a few museum jaunts. I don't remember those too well, except for Ripley's museum. But I do have a number of early museum memories--running down a red-carpeted gallery in the Cultural Center of the Philippines under the gaze of Juan Luna's wife and discovering the place's various nooks and crannies. Wandering by myself through the Exploratorium (which I mention in Always Online) and being asked by a lady to pose for a picture making rainbow shadows when I was eight.

I had to mention the Cultural Center in one of my first stories, "Virtual Center" as it had figured in the dream that inspired the story. The futuristic appearance of it as viewed from the LRT was what triggered my imaginings of a futuristic Philippines, little though the actual institution figured in my story.

Of course my art history novel Woman in a Frame had a museum. I based this on the one I knew most intimately--the Metropolitan Museum of Manila where I once volunteered. The fact that it exhibits mostly contemporary art yet retains strong links to the past by displaying much older works owned by the Central Bank, with which it is allied, made it both symbolically and practically the perfect setting.

My fascination with its ancient gold and pottery connection as well as my volunteer experience there I drew upon in writing Love Among the Geeks although I chose the Ayala Museum instead as Arden's museum for volunteering in, mainly because the presentation of its gold collection is more impressive. I knew the hi-tech aspects would appeal to Rob. This, by the way is a long overdue payment of a debt, since four years ago my book club, Flippers, was given a free tour of the museum and we were requested to plug about it in our blogs. Oh, well, at least I've done it doubly now. I don't mention the name of the museum in my book, but if you know Makati at all you'll recognize it. I even mention the Greenbelt Park I love so well leading up to it, its attached cafe that has a brunch buffet (with the champagne used to toast the newly engaged couple) and a jazz band on Sunday.

The National Museum also figures in this book, because of its archaeological studies division. My friend tells me you can actually volunteer to assist on their digs. But if roughing it doesn't appeal to you as it does to contrary Arden, you can just go see their collection--free every day in October, and always on Sundays. The Museum of the Filipino People is fascinating and may get you as hooked on our early history as Arden was.

Another museum Arden had to have visited in the course of the novel is Bahay Tsinoy, which has a large collection of ancient Chinese pottery, and a pretty cool near life-size diorama showing Chinese-Filipino history.

These are among my favorite museums in the Philippines. I don't actually name most of them in the stories and books. I suppose it would be helpful if I did. Certainly reading about museums like the Field Museum in The Time Traveler's Wife made me want to visit them, but I tend to feel constrained when I identify a particular setting, like I have to make sure the details are accurate. I hope to get over that feeling eventually after writing often enough that locations are "used fictionally."

There are other museums which I don't actually feature in my stories and novels but still have helped me in writing. I'll feature them in a later post.

My Fave Geek Romances from Literature

A conversation with my friend Lorie, who's teaching a class in romance lit, led me to reminiscences of our absolute favorite romance books. And of course our favorite heroes and couples. Among this was one we tagged as the original geek lover, from Louisa May Alcott. No, it's not Prof. Bhaer. Though he was totally "adorkable" in Rep Philippines' production of Little Women a few years back--slightly awkward, with a strong German accent and so sweet and enthusiastic, which must have been just how Louisa May envisioned him. If you didn't see it, what a pity. You'll have to be satisfied with this montage from Youtube

There aren't a lot of geek romances in books, precisely because these types of people go against the romantic ideals of most. But when two of the right type get together, eccentric and awkward though they be, it's just beautiful. That is what romance is about after all. So here are my favorites from least to most beloved:

5.Robbie and Cecilia from Atonement - Two honor grads from Oxford. Robbie is preparing for medical school, Cecilia frustrated with the lack of direction of her life when they fall in love. I have to say I'm not sure they were really in love at first, but circumstances drove them to devotion to each other and to write love letters referring to literary characters as a code. The means by which they maintain their connection is what grabs me.

4. Stargirl and Leo - an openly eccentric girl and a shy would-be film director. They grow close over explorations in the desert and making up stories about people they see.

3. Adam and Vicky from A Ring of Endless Light - Adam is a young marine biology major and shy poet Vicky has a crush on him from the start. They even experience an extrasensory connection. I'd include Meg and Calvin from A Wrinkle in Time too except I can't rightly say that popular Calvin is a geek.

2. Russell and Holmes, whose romance begins in A Monstrous Regiment of Women, second book of the Mary Russell series. Russell is a scholar of history and theology and Holmes is, well, Sherlock Holmes. How they got together and their relationship through the whole series is just amazing.

1. Rose and Mac - Rose of Rose in Bloom, though she enjoys the social life of girls of her class in the 19th century, is different from them as she is a high-minded philanthropist. Mac is a medical student who bonds with Rose over philosophical discussions. This book's what sold me on the geek lover in the first place and yes, it's what my friend and I were gushing over!

Those are the ones I remember and love from books. Do share others with me.