Introducing ...

Well, I just finished building the BlogGarage for my art cars. You can now go to http://www.bien50artcars.blogspot.com/ to see all of them. I have a website (http://www.bien50.com/), but I'm not in charge of it. I still have to add cars #9 and #10 to that site. That's how I got the idea to just use a blog as a website for the cars. Now I can add a car whenever I need to. I like that better than preparing packages for John to do it, including captions, and making sure that the caption names match the photo names.

As a graphic artist, though, I admit that it's hard to stand by and see that I don't know how to change the green background to, say, blue for the art car blog. The blog is called Car'toos -- as in tattoos. I think you can click on my profile on this page and get to Car'toos from there.

Anyway, check it out. Coming soon (or not) will be a sort of miscellaneous or etc. blog where I'll keep pix of my mailboxes and other things. Yep. That makes more sense than running to John every time I need something.

I'm about to get a new computer, so if anyone has any big fat opinions they want to offer, now's the time.

I am once again behind in my book reports, so let's get to it.

I read American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. It was about a plain ol' woman who accidentally married the man -- something of an idiot -- who became President of the United States. She married this guy, knowing that their political views were opposing views but she didn't think it much mattered. The Resources list at the back included biographies of Laura Bush. It was sort of interesting and sort of boring. Perhaps it went on for too long. I know that I didn't like feeling okay about her husband for even the teeniest moment. That is, of course, I didn't like having one jot of sympathy for Bush. But then I let myself relax. It was a novel, after all, and hate really hurts the hater more than the hated.

Before we move on, though, let me say that Curtis is not a woman's name. Surely Ms. Sittenfeld isn't trying to seem male -- in this year of your lord two thousand and nine -- a la George Sand, so we'll assume her parents named her that. That's fine. What the heck. We've got women using men's names all the time, but isn't it time to switch that around, too? I'd like a baby boy named after me: Barbara. Why not? If we can have a Jamie who's female, then why not a male Stephanie?

Marge Piercy solved all that nonsense in Woman on the Edge of Time, one of my all-time favorite books. Our heroine, Connie, moves from an insane asylum (where of course she doesn't belong) in modern times to nice friendships in the far future. In that future, the gender-specific names disappear. They're replaced with names -- chosen by the person her/himself (despite my recent blog) after a, um, Trial by Fire! -- like Luciente and Green Fire, Box Turtle and Jackrabbit. Sometimes we have to read for a couple of pages before we know whether a person is a man or a woman. Instead of being confusing, it's intriguing.

Then I read Lottery by Patricia Wood. What a great story this is! Its opening sentence is great: My name is Perry L. Crandall and I am not retarded. And he isn't, but he's close, and it's a wonderful book. You've met most of the characters in the book sometime in your life -- maybe in your own house.

It's Patricia Wood's first novel. I have a friend of a friend who prefers to read first novels. I'll have to find out more about that. I generally find them less than satisfying. This, however, was perfect.

And today I finished another book I'll read again: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It's a powerful book written with poetry. Two women -- one from Nigeria, one from England -- are narrating it in alternate chapters, in the first person, but of course it's still Chris[topher] Cleave talking. It used to be that only Stephen King could write believably from a woman's viewpoint. Now there are quite a few men who can do that. I wonder what's happening with that? My god. Do you think men are understanding women better? Or did the Earth's axis slip?

Anyway, I heartily recommend Little Bee.

And now I must go play in the papier-mache.

Don't forget to look at my other blog. I wonder if it will show up on this page? It's all still a mystery to me.