meghan rose allen

I read the following books:

• Far From The Tree by Andrew Solomon: One, why do people have to put themselves into nonfiction pieces? The weakest parts of this book were Solomon discussing his homosexuality and trying to tie it to severe autism or deafness, etc. Secondly, what was with constantly prefacing POC with their race, i.e. African-American parents Name1 and Name2 but never saying Caucasian parents Name1 and Name2? The science was interesting, but there is some privilege that needs to be addressed in this book.
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Man Who Sold Prayers by Margaret Creal: The initial and namesake story was really good, the sort of good that maybe should be read in schools. But it has a Christian bent – in high school, my almost-retired OAC English teacher complained that they couldn’t teach “Christian” stories unless they made a point of also teaching Jewish fiction, Muslim fiction, Hindu fiction, etc. He was incensed at how political correctness (his term) had overtaken literature. His impressionable youth were supposed to agree, but all I could think (although as a timid student didn’t say) was why don’t we include lots of fiction from lots of different points of view in English rather than sticking with Shakespeare and nothing else? I think it would be awesome to read in school books that aren’t all by white men. In my high school, we read one book by a woman (To Kill A Mockingbird), only two books by Canadians, irrespective of us being Canadian (Shoeless Joe and Fifth Business), nothing by POC, nothing by outwardly non-heteronormative folk, etc. Sometimes I talk to Geoff about becoming a subversive high school English teacher and slipping in lots of great non-standard stories, to which he reminds me that I’d be fired very quickly for violating the school board rules of what I was supposed to be teaching.
• The Interpreter by Suzanne Glass
• From the Angry to the Sublime by Earl T. Roske
• The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits
• Tenth of December by George Saunders: Already had a diatribe here.
• Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust: I am proving to Geoff that I will read all of Remembrance of Things Past.
• Superdad by Christopher Shulgan: I like to read books about parents who are subjectively worse parents than me.

Best book: The Bean Trees. A friend lent this to me for reading material while I was waiting around. I have to send it back to her in the mail with a note on how much I really needed to read a book like this.

I watched:

• Jiro Dreams of Sushi
• Parks and Recreation
• Community
• Mad Men: I don’t really like this show, but I keep going out of stubbornness. I read to take it as character studies rather than plot. I’m still not getting the hate on Betty. I hate self-centered, arrogant, smug Don way more than I hate Betty, trapped in a system where her only value is beauty and demureness.
• The Awakening
• Game of Thrones: I also hate this. I watch it because it is popular and I need to not be as snobby as I am, but I am angry all the time. I love Meghan Murphy’s (and yay for spelling her name my way) article Just Because You Like It Doesn’t Make It Feminist: On Game of Thrones imagined feminism. I think there’s a lot of people justifying why Game of Thrones is good because they like it and ignoring all of the problematic bits.
• White Teeth: I found this on Netflix. I’d watched it way back in 2003 when it was broadcast on W. I actually think I watched the miniseries before I read the book, and it’s been driving me crazy that I can’t remember if that’s true. I know I bought White Teeth (the book) at Old Goat Books, but I know I learned about White Teeth from reading an article in the TV guide about the miniseries and then deciding to watch. I can’t handle my memory not being perfect. So there are a lot of famous people in this miniseries (Russell Brand, James McEvoy, the guy from Life on Mars, etc.). I appreciate of Irie’s sense of agency sending out invites to ruin Marcus’ event, which I don’t recall happens in the book. But, of course, the book is better.
• Cabin in the Woods: What a dumb movie. Maybe the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
• Ponyo: With Tesfa.
• Kiki’s Delivery Service: Again with Tesfa.
• Totoro: Still with Tesfa. When it rains, which it does all the time living by the ocean, we watch Miyazaki movies.
• How I Met Your Mother: In an episode I watched, Barney talks about how ashamed of themselves women look in the morning after sleeping with Barney. I know that look. It’s the same look I get after watching HIMYM. This show is every single fucking thing that is wrong with society: the heternormativeness, the erasure of POC, the ridiculing of anyone who leaves strict gender roles, Barney as the epitome of rape culture. I had it on in the background with exercising and it makes me sick, except, I really like Marshall. He seems like such a decent guy. I have no idea why he’s hanging out with such horrible people all the time. Maybe, all his friends being assholes, maybe Marshall is an asshole too and I’m just not seeing it. I do hope that in the final episode, Marshall tells them all to fuck themselves and leaves for greener, more loving pastures.
• Arrested Development: New eps. Going through slowly. Sort of happy, but sort of unhappy so far with what’s there.
• Baby Mama: I would really love it if Amy Poehler would be my best friend. I love you Amy.
• Sandbaggers: Again, another show I’ve seen before. But now, after my old job, I watch it and yell at the television WHY ARE YOU DISCUSSING TOP SECRET WALKING AROUND IN A PARK RATHER THAN IN A SECURE FACILITY? and Geoff tells me to shut up and calm down because he can’t hear what Burnside is talking about.
• Dinosaur Train
• SuperWhy: One can guess these last two are also Tesfa related.

I wrote: I finished a short story called BFF. I finished the big first proof-read of Come From Away. Geoff read it and declared it A-OK, best thing I’ve written. I’m head-working (i.e. having written anything down yet) on a story about going to a laundromat. I spent hours submitting stories to journals, contests, websites, etc.

And, big news, I got into the September 2013 start of Humber College’s Creative Writing by Correspondence Course, whose goal is to work on a book-length manuscript. I have my mentor assigned and everything. So, starting in September, I’ll be talking a lot about that.