catching up

i have strategized a number of ways to get this post toastie written without going to excessive lengths or spending more time organizing than writing. i have given up and am just going to write until sylvia wakes up. you have been warned.
( part 1 )

*WHAAA* more later.

book review

commitment hour by james alan gardner

this book takes place in a small village is hinted to be new england long after earth has become a bit of a backwater. i'd say this was a post apocalyptic novel, but the apocalypse seems to have been primarily economic and everyone's more or less adapted to the current technology level. it was refreshing that the current inhabitants of tober cove do know that there was once higher technology and do not view it as magic. i did a quick scan of the back cover in the bookstore and thought to myself, 'ah yes, another sci-fi novel about picking a career. i like the author, let me see what he does with it.' i was slightly incorrect. commitment hour is about picking your gender. every summer, after the first, all of the children travel from mother lake and when they return they have switched genders. not only that, but the 18th or 19th year, every female is impregnated so they will have had the experience of pregnancy and motherhood in order to make an informed decision. while this sounds like a good idea in theory, my pro-choice soul had a problem with the practice. however, the entire novel was thought provoking from beginning to end. it is still unclear what parts of our personality are formed by our gender and i could not help but question myself. if i had been both genders, would female be the most natural seeming to me? the boys and girls in this novel were male and female from the dna up. there were no sync problems between hormones and hardware. while there are many practical questions about how this would be done, they are all answered by the end of the novel in a cohesive and believable manner. there is pain in this novel as well. i don't want to give anything of the ending away, but there are parts that will hurt. i would still recommend that anyone read it.

seeing the relatives

more on our trip to wyandotte:

one of the major expeditions was to the cemetary to visit some relatives who had passed on. i forget the name of this place, it was something like michigan municipal or some oddly bureaucratic name like that, but this place was beautiful. the parts of michigan we saw were all flat as a pancake. imagine a lake with a swan (her mate had passed on, very sad) and a gently rolling lawn with many small trees. the cemetary allows relatives to place windchimes and birdhouses in the trees. the day was sunny and bright but not too hot. this is michigan after all. i'm not going to get into all of the graves we visited because there were a lot and i don't feel like making a graph. i will say that even though these are relatives i never met, it was nice to go and pay respects. i felt like i had gained relations. i am constantly adding to my list of odd places to feed sylvia and nursing under a tree in this cemetary will be one of my nicer memories. again, we were traveling with elaine and kay who are - wait for it - h_postmortemus's mom's sister's daughters. so, i think these are second cousins in law or some such, but nice people. i'm not sure if i mentioned it, but this place was huge. we spent a vast amount of time searching for grandpa mercer and after that set out in the van as the other relatives to visit were not in walking distance. i'm sure arlington is bigger, but i can't think of any other cemetaries that might be. it wasn't all sunshine and roses, but i felt it was a morning well spent. afterwards we went to eat at a place called 'big bear' or some such which specializes in unusual meats and really big portions. i had a buffalo meatloaf which was far too massive for my system, and split a s'more cheesecake with jeff's mom.