Monday, December 26, 2016

2016 Books I Read

Short, sometimes one sentence, reviews of books I read in 2016. The reviews go in reverse chronological order of when I read them. So, books I'm still reading are first and books from last January are at the end. 

I read forty-three books in 2016 (probably more as I re-read a lot of books that I have and check out a few physical copies of books that aren’t available for check out online for Kindle). Twenty-eight by women (I thought there would be more. Ever since I did that year of reading books written only by female authors, I’ve lean towards books written by women. I think I read 70+ books in 2015, so the decline is something to ponder.
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All I Did Was Shoot My Man: A Leonid McGill Mystery (Leonid McGill series Book 4)
Walter Mosley

Almost finished with this one. I just want to sit in a warm corner with hot cocoa and finish it whenever I’m doing something else.


·         ...
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Malcolm Gladwell

Everything from STD outbreaks, to decline in crime, to fashion trends and how they happen. Something as small as reducing medical personnel by a few people can have a disproportionate effect. Not finished, but so far, so fascinating. Makes sense since I liked Blink by the same author.


·         ...
Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
Piper Kerman

I love the series on Netflix and it was fun connecting the people in the book with the characters on the show. It was a lot more poignant than I thought. Well-written.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Summer Want Blues

It's been gray, cold, and quiet in Southern California during the month of May. Maybe one day had a hint of summer. I'm not a huge fan of endless days of 90 degree weather, but when one is used to something and it doesn't come to pass, it can put one out of sorts. That's how I've been feeling, so I wrote some haikus about summer in places I've lived and visited.

         Georgia Summer
Sunshine on my skin
Love and peaches are full ripe
Ice cream tastes better

        California Summer
Swimming delights all
Time stands still and moves quickly
Kissing is more fun

       New Orleans Summer
Holding hands with you
Gin and tonic with a lime
Scent of magnolias

       NYC Summer
Picnics in the park
Come to my rooftop party
We are young and free

       Summer Everywhere
Children laugh loudly
Strangers say hi to others
Most wonderful time

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Sluts Aren't Real

I was looking up baby names and came across a site that had people's opinions of the name. I was scrolling along when I saw that one user had referenced one of my favorite book characters, a character that had crossed my mind, but was not the reason or basis for picking the name. This "anonymous" person referred to the character as a huge slut. I was floored! I had never thought of the character that way.


Monday, May 2, 2016

Mad Max: Sad Furiosa

I saw Mad Max: Fury Road in the theaters and thought it was just okay. Maybe because it was hyped up so much, my expectations were high. It was supposed to be this brilliant feminist manifesto and George Miller demanded x, y, and that the bunjee guitar guys guitar work for real so it's super duper amazing!

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Manic Gray

I started going gray in junior high. It was just a few strands in which I took pride thinking it showed how stressed out and serious I was. Fast forwarded 15 years and I hate the gray I have all over, but mostly right in the front.

Now, covering grays is no joke. They don't absorb the color and don't hold it for too long, either. I started coloring it with liquid henna that Whole Foods and Mother's Market carry. It was fine, but a pain in the ass. I would have to shampoo my hair and let it air dry for a bit. (Side note: I have giant, Diane Ross/Slash hair. I mean there's a lot of it, it's curly, and it's huge. Wider than my shoulders huge. My nickname in junior high was actually Slash.) I'd do my best to saturate my hair, put a plastic bag on my head, and let it sit for hours while I cleaned the house. I did this every other Sunday. About a year ago, I got so tired of the effort and time suck, so I stopped and decided to let my gray streaks fly.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Books I Read in January 2016

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian, zombie novel that is detailed in the best way. No word is a waste. There are five main characters and you get to know each one of them very well. The plot moves at a great pace . It's slower in the beginning, but that reflects what the days of the characters are like at that point in time. Once the shit hits the fan, the story moves along quickly. There's military, academia, and science. The ending was a surprise and I'm rarely surprised by revelations in books. I thought it was better than World War Z and California.

Recommendation: Highly recommend if you are into post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels, even if you're not into zombies.

The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike Book 2) by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

I read the first book and loved it. It's fits into the classic noir detective genre - somewhat tortured detective with a colorful backstory. This one, however, is very dense and very detailed, but not in a good way. The story gets bogged down in a lot of spots then it seems like the climax happens in a couple of pages. Luckily, it is an interesting mystery and you want to know how it's solved.

Recommendation: If you're a fan of the Michael Connelly Bosch series or the Walter Mosley Easy Rawlins series, then I do recommend checking out this series.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

This is a coming of age story about two Latino boys living in Texas in the 1980s. I don't know whether it was intentional, but it reads like it was written by an angst-y teen. I don't have a problem reading stories from the point of view of children (Haven Kimmel's memoirs are the best), but the main character came across as so whiny, it was annoying. It's not that I don't remember being an angst-y teen. It was quite frustrating and confusing at the time, but at 35, whiny teenagers are annoying.

Recommendation: Good for teens, especially those that aren't good at talking about their feelings.

Some Luck: A novel by Jane Smiley

At first, this seems like a simple story about a farming family living in Iowa in the early 20th century and I guess it is, However, I ended up getting really attached to the members and their stories spanning across 3-4 generations. It's also a great story if you're into history. There's no political commentary and some things aren't named outright, but if you know American history, there are moments of excitement when you recognize certain events that were HUGE in retrospect. There's no real plot other than people living their everyday lives lost in their own thoughts and worlds. There are no answers, no revelations, It's simple and good like a pastoral scene in book form.

Recommendation: I liked this book a lot, but I don't know to whom I would recommend it.

Fire (Graceling Realm Book 2) by Kristin Cashore

I read the first in the series and it was better than okay, so I thought I would give this a try. The first two books have strong, teenage, female protagonists. However, like most female protagonists in books I've read, they are hard on themselves and internally so fucking whiny (see A History of Witches series, The Mortal Instruments series, and The Hunger Games). They're these badass women and girls that have AMAZING strengths and talents that are all, "Why would anyone like me? What does anyone see in me? I just ruin everything all of the time. I'm so weak and don't know anything!"). I guess it’s a good style because everyone wants someone to discover, through all of their crap, how amazing they are. I guess . . . 

Most of the time, the women learn that their strengths are not something to hide or diminish, but, wow, it's a long, whiny road to get to that point. The Clarice Starlings and Smilla Jaspersens of literature are few and far between. 

Recommendation: If you're into fantasy worlds, I say give the series a shot. There isn't a lot of depth, but it passes the time.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The Economics of Ethnic and Feminine Names

During a second, extended stint of unemployment, I came across an article about a man having trouble finding work.[1] He realized it must be his unisex, but usually assumed to be female, name. He remedied it by adding Mr. to his resume. All of a sudden, he started receiving call backs from employers, whereas there was only silence during the previous months. I then came across a study that determined it took longer for those with ethnic or non-Anglo sounding names to find work. I have an “ethnic” name since I’m Persian and live in the U.S. It’s a unisex name, but it ends in an “a” and has a “sh” sound in it, so it sounds feminine. I felt like less of a failure, but I was pissed.

I’d been sending out resumes on and off for years to no avail. I would get jobs through friends or family. I figured the adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” to be true, but it was so limiting. So, I did my own experiment. I changed my name on my resume and set up a corresponding resume. I started receiving calls the same day I sent out those resumes, even from placement agencies. I felt victorious! The world was my oyster! I started thinking I should change my name to a unisex, Anglo name. World domination was only a few letters away.

Unfortunately, I’d underestimated the love I have for my own name and what it means to me.

I’m sitting in the waiting room of a placement agency filling out paperwork, when one of their staff comes out and starts calling for a Nicole. “Nicole? . . . Nicole? . . . Nicole?” I give the blonde girl across the room a death stare thinking, “Hello. Don’t you know your own name?” Then, I would remember and raise my hand. I ended up being placed as a temp.

The feeling of my soul caving in whenever someone called me by my chosen Anglo name was not something I had anticipated. I didn’t think I would care or that it would be a big deal. After all, most people seem to use the nickname versions of their names. I thought it would be the same thing. No, not even close. I felt invisible and resentful. I would think, “Why can’t people just suck it up a teensy, tiny, the tiniest bit and try to say my short, phonetically spelled, not-so-common name? It even has an English word in it! Why am I not worthy of a job with the beautiful name my parents gave me? An old name with meaning? I have the same credentials – all of the same experience and education. Hell, better and more. I worked so hard, but it doesn’t matter because of my name? Does it really make you that uncomfortable/nervous/self-conscious?”

I started to dread receiving a permanent placement or coming across a posting for a dream job and having to apply with one of my fake-name resumes. Luckily, my mom passed along my resume with my name to someone at a placement agency who was the same ethnicity as us. I was placed in a permanent position where I wowed my employer so much, I received a promotion and more than a 10% raise within the first year. Could I have done the same if I’d been that other girl with that other name? Probably, but I know it would’ve been more bitter than sweet.

Whenever I meet other Persians who introduce themselves as Mike, Henry, or Mo and I know their names are actually Mehrdad, Hamid, and Masood, I cringe. To each their own, but whenever we have to change something so fundamental to please a weakness in society, it is wrong. It just feeds the disease. As an immigrant woman, I come up against all kinds of powers that want to change me. I refuse as much as I can. We lose something of ourselves each time we have to change when we don’t want to. If enough of those little bits are lost, it will add up to larger and larger chunks of our culture and our history being lost. I have no quarrel with assimilation, but both sides of our identities should be acknowledged and accepted in public spaces.

I found myself back on the job hunt, in a city where I don’t know anyone, much less anyone of my ethnicity. Remembering the feeling of being called by the other name, I hesitated about which resume I need to use. I hesitated, but I know it’s about survival. Paying rent and buying food shouldn’t trump what I consider an essential part of myself. My name doesn’t do me much good sitting in my old room at my parents’ house. So, I compromised.

My new resume has an Anglo nickname in quotes between my first and last names. I posted it on Monster and started receiving inquiries from recruiters for non-sales, in-my-industry positions almost immediately. I was taken aback until I realized that a funny thing had happened on the way to globalization. Those recruiters? Outsourced employees of American companies all of whom have Indian names. This time around, I didn’t feel victorious or that the world was my oyster. I almost cried from relief at the thought of a level playing field where I was judged by the content of my resume and not the origin or perceived difficulty of my name.

Oddly enough, companies trying to benefit their bottom line may have inadvertently lessened discrimination in hiring. Studies on cost-savings and how outsourcing erodes the middle class were a regular occurrence when it first started happening. There have also been studies on how outsourcing could help developing countries. However, I haven’t come across any studies on how globalization could benefit those of us in the U.S. with unusual names, i.e. immigrants and minorities. Maybe it’s time to mine through the data.

I came across an article from 2014 about a man named Jose who dropped the “s” in his name on his resume.[2] He hadn’t had any luck finding a job and then, all of sudden, he started getting responses. Here’s hoping that the José’s and Newshas in this world will soon no longer have to become Joes and Nicoles. Our accomplishments will be enough and who we are will be enough. Working may not be a right. It may be a privilege, but it’s one we have more than earned.