preventing_christianity_in_your_children epitome of incomprehensibility I thought I'd be back to work today but I'm not. I'm not so sure about idle hands being given to the devil, because I was mostly looking up religious books. Not to read. To look at. I decided I would justify my book-browsing by pretending I'm doing research for my novel. Like, here is a book about Jews in the Middle Ages with pretty pictures of illuminated manuscripts. This will help me understand the character of Tamra, the narrator's grandmother, who was born in (checks notes) 1921. In Montreal. VERY Middle Ages. (In 2001-2002, the time my projected book is set, Tamra is 80. In my head I decided she died last year, age 98.) Anyway, that made me think of the Hebrew prayer book Dad had, with the embellished cover embedded with semi-precious stones. That, I thought, would be a good thing to describe Tamra having in her apartment. Carol would say the letters looked like music notes, Tamra would say it was her parents' and admit she can't read it. Oh yes, I'm at home. Not in any library. I went up to my dad's study and couldn't find the book. There are plenty of Hebrew books, many related to the Psalms, the subject of HIS projected project. But not the prayer book. What did I find instead? A book called A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. It's in an out-of-the-way place with miscellaneous items, but I still wasn't happy to see it there. Now, I'd seen it before. In fact, I mentioned it in an early draft of my Carol book, calling it "Preventing Homosexuality in Your Children" - kids saw it in the school library and joked about Carol reading a Christian romance novel called Rainbow Cottage - a title they decided was Very Gay Indeed. But I can't put in the damn novel, not just to avoid controversy about Naming Real Things but also because it was published in 2002. Who publishes a book about "preventing homosexuality" in 2002??? Intervarsity Press, apparently. And I thought they weren't that bad. I can see why many parents wouldn't want their kids to be gay: aside from religious views against it, there's also the social acceptance issue. But these people are getting it backwards. It's not self-hate leading to lack of acceptance. It's mostly the other way around. Cause and effect, people! And anti-trans types are still on the same tune: "Oh, it must be pathological because trans people have higher suicide rates." MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE YOU REJECT THEM, YOU DUMBASSES. Less rantingly, I was amused by the focus the author(s) put on not letting boys plays with dolls. Seriously. It was like, if boys play with girl toys, uh-oh, they're going to become gay. Anecdata here, but I (female) was quite feminine in my toy choices. I liked jewels and sparkly things (witness me looking for the fancy prayer book just now). I played with dolls, glitter, paint, nail polish. Also Lego and Tinkertoys, but it was less about mechanics and more about making pretty things and building societies and inventing characters. I liked stickers! Sparkly unicorn stickers! I was in many respects a girly girl. So, guess who turned out bi? Who insisted she'd marry her kindergarten friend (a boy), kissing him on the cheek, and then had a crush on her Grade 1 French teacher (a woman - about 60 years old, but I considered that the height of attractiveness, in her at least)? In fact, when I was around 14 and starting to realize what was up (from age 11-13 I just thought "gay" even though I had crushes on boys) I was afraid I was attracted to girls because I was TOO feminine. My reasoning was like, "So I like making pretty art and jewelry, but men who make that stuff have women as muses, so it's like I have a woman as a muse, which is obviously a symptom of something Not Being Right." Oh yes, and figuring that bisexuality didn't deserve to be classed amongst the evils of the world made me feel better. Oddly enough. (Of course there's my non-sexually perverse willingness to talk about this shortly after I've had my first real kiss with a male specimen of the species, but he's not important to this story.) Gah, too many adjectives and prepositions. ANYWAY (anyway is an adverb), such a book a seems like a way of Preventing Christianity in Your Children. As for my imaginary world, Tamra's parents wouldn't have approved of homosexuality either. They just wouldn't. It wouldn't make sense for their time and place, especially if they were straight themselves. Also, they might have appreciated a book called Preventing Christianity in her Children, since Tamra leaves her parents' religion to marry a Christian at age 19. I'm coming to the part in the book (January 2001, a flashback) where 12-year-old Carol and 16-year-old Mac object to being forced to go to a new school (a conservative Christian one) for the 2001-2002 school year in the wake of bad behaviour - Mac being a somewhat pathetic drug dealer, selling his ADHD meds to McGill students, and Carol hitting people and causing chaos. Their grandmother is taking care of them one evening and they complain to her, asking if something can be done about the school situation. Instead of answering directly, she launches into a story about her family history of children rebelling against parents. Her grandmother Hanna wanted her mother Adalina to marry a man she'd basically picked out; Adalina rebels, studies/works as a nurse (it's WW1, so nurses are needed) and then moves to Canada - not where her older brother lives in Toronto, but to Montreal, and gets married in 1920. Then, next generation, Tamra marries Sylvester (1940) against her parents' wishes. She doesn't regret her choice but she regrets marrying so young - she has a miserable time when her first child is stillborn and Sylvester is off fighting (WW2). They finally have two kids, Dave (1951) and Mimi (1955). Next generation! Dave is 24 when he leaves to get a job as a piano accompanist in a Presbyterian church - Sylvester is Anglican - and later becomes an ordained minister. Then quiet Mimi, who's been asking about her mother's Jewish heritage, announces she's leaving the church and joining a Reformed synagogue. Tamra, a librarian and piano teacher who doesn't have any particular faith by now - she was always more into books and music than religion - is pretty chill with all this, though her husband's bewildered. Carol, impatient: What does this have to do with us? Mac: We convert to Islam! Then our parents won't send us to [...] School! Carol: What? Mac: Or Judaism, I dunno. Doesn't matter to me, I'm already circumcised. I know because of the pictures in the puberty book. Carol (scandalized): You can't talk about things like that! You're embarrassing Grandma! Tamra (sighs): My point was that rebelling against your parents is normal. But you're probably stuck with this school for now. Like how you're stuck with me tonight, and I'm telling you to go to bed. They go to bed. Carol lies awake wondering why HER puberty book doesn't have pictures of penises. It should, for the sake of scientific completeness and fairness. Invoking Bisexuality in Your Characters! Because she also has a crush on a girl at her new school. But anyway. It was nice to use blather to outline but I need to write the thing. 200106 ... e_o_i To make the last part clearer: -Adalina comes from Austria (then Austria-Hungary). Which is why Canada is a different country. -Her parents gave her and her siblings really fancy names, so she knocks the extra "a" out of Tamara when naming her daughter. "Tamra" isn't a typo. -Dave is Carol's father, Mimi her aunt. 200106 ... e_o_i Not about religion, but I'm emailing the creative writing teacher to ask whether I should kill imaginary people or just eliminate them from existence. It makes sense in context. I'm working on another chapter, in which I'll introduce Mac and Carol's former neighbour Pranavy (Mac's semi-secret girlfriend whom Carol pushes down the stairs for unrelated reasons) as well as Carol's grade 7 attempts at writing compositions. The writing assignment will be "describe your family" and what I've planned is for Carol to describe everyone's hair and eye colour and then, when this is deemed unsatisfactory, launch into a dramatic narrative of the family's exploits, starting with Mac's father's death. Does Mac's biological father die in a plane crash? I'm not sure. Should he? The idea was to have Carol insist he's her HALF-brother whenever she's annoyed at him. Also airplanes. Airplanes are a motif. 200514 ... e_o_i Adeline, not Adalina, though. 200514 ... e_o_i I never wrote that exact scene, but a couple of the sentences in the first part of that blathe are echoed in another scene where Carol asks her brother Mac in anguished tones whether he thinks she's a lesbian. And then Mac says, nope, not if the way you chased after the boy from our old church is any indication. Also, you stole my puberty book with the pictures of penises. Carol: I did not! That's embarrassing! And then she talks about artists and muses and things. (So, I mix things up. But we have to include penises and muses. Important.) Phyllis asked me whether the novel was autobiographical (after the line where Carol says she had a crush on Osama bin Laden, of all things!) and I've finally come up with a response: it IS autobiographical, but autobiography put into a blender. (Maybe someone's already thought of that metaphor. I can go back to my metaphor bubblegum machine.) 211017 ... e_o_i attempts linkages mere_christianity carol_winter_deleted_scenes 220328 ... e_o_i Not all deleted. Remixed, rather. Tamra's story gets told in various pieces, starting in the first chapter. Mac's agnosticism isn't really a story, but it's revealed in the third. 220328 what's it to you? who go blather from