I’m not really sure how to start this, so I guess we’ll just start.

2023 has been an interesting year full of… Life changes? Life adjustments? Life somethings.

A few of these life somethings has been really cool, and what have made good blog posts, but maybe at the time I wasn’t sure how I wanted to talk about them, or which parts of my life I wanted to put on the Internet.

Another few of them have been less cool, including the extended period of creative burnout I went through in the middle of the year that I’m still creatively recovering from. I said creatively twice, but it’s my blog and I can do what I want. It was the most intense version of this kind of thing I think I’ve ever pulled myself through, both in its duration, and the actual physical experience of it. (Pro tip: start paying attention to your mental health before you start going to work on four hours sleep a night as like, a habit. Also, maybe setting yourself reminders to eat is either useful, or a bad sign. Jury’s still out on that one.)

The larger point here is that I’ve gotten through it, and I’m fine, all it really required was rest and sensible amount of sleep, but he did kind of throw off the schedule for every single creative endeavor I’ve ever had. For those wondering about my podcast, it’s a bit of a disaster zone, but I’m working on getting it back into working shape by the end of the year. And this is a blog post, so I’d call that an improvement.

But why is this post titled the way it is? I’m so glad you asked.

I’ve taken a hard left turn that hasn’t been quite so unexpected back into my Percy Jackson phase (as if I ever left). With the Disney+ show coming out next Wednesday, please know that I am prepared and completely ready to make this my entire personality for the next 6 to 8 weeks, or longer.

For those not in the know, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a middle grade fantasy series from the early 2000s involving kids with ADHD, swords, and Greek mythology. Also blue food and fantastic humor. I love those books to death, and they have yet to let me down. Whenever I want to read something, but nothing is really keeping my attention, I turned to those. They were useful during the Burnout Period, Deliberate Capital Letters.

Blah, blah blah, the actual point is, I’m getting very excited and making a Thing about it. Fully prepared to talk to the young kids in my life about it, because this is actually aimed at them, getting my hands on some blue sugar cookies for the premiere, and slowly converting every person I know into a Percy Jackson fan. I’ll get you eventually if I haven’t gotten you yet.

Books fully reread in preparation, blue nail polish on standby, and fan podcasts (plural) downloaded for offline listening, please know that I. Am. Ready.

Here is a bookshop.org link to a box set on which I earn commission, if you are so inclined to get your hands on the novels, and to support this blog, despite my months of inactivity.

But there’s another show here. I would apologize for this post being long, but it’s the first one in a while. This is fine.

Fantasy High: Junior Year is the third installment in an ongoing series of what might be best described as high fantasy meets The Breakfast Club seasons of a show called Dimension 20 where a bunch of improv, comedians, play Dungeons and Dragons for a living. That sounds wild, but I love it so much. It is my favorite show in the whole wide world. Any season of Dimension 20 is fantastic and amazing and each one of them is different, seeing as it is an anthology series where each story has a different vibe and genre and setting and tone-- shoutout to the noir set inside a guys head that aired during the worst of The Burnout-- but Fantasy High was the first one, and the one to get me back into playing D&D, which is how I’ve made so many friends, and so on and so forth. I love it so much.

That comes out in January, but I’ll link season 1 and season 2, which are available for free on YouTube. “Improv comedians play Dungeons and Dragons professionally,” is slightly more niche than “popular children’s series published by Disney gets turned into television show,” as far as pitches go, but know that comes January, the Bad Kids will live in my brain rent free once more. It might not make it on the blog, I will be monumentally excited.

This might not be the most structured or defined thing I’ve ever written, and it might be a little bit superfluous, but it feels good to write again. And It feels good to be excited about some shows. As I said, big wins for weird nerds.

This post also relies on having some context based in either the Dregs novels by Leigh Bardugo, and/or the Shadow and Bone adaptation on Netflix. In short, Kaz Brekker is a con man with a badly-healed broken leg and a custom, magically enhanced cane in a world where there is also flawless magic-based healing. He chooses his cane even when presented with the alternative. The whole effect is important to me personally, for reasons I will detail below.

Before we begin, I will leave you affiliate links to Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom in case the novels are of interest. Now on to it.

I mean the headline in two senses. One, that Kaz is calculating and ruthless and morally ambiguous allows space for disabled characters to be something other than perfect pure angels and guiding moral lights, which is one of two categories I see disabled characters put into so often it becomes cliché.

The other cliché, which I see more in action-heavy settings (when we make it there) is, as Ned put it in Spider-Man Homecoming, is “the guy in the chair,” no relation to the name of this blog, though I do see the irony.

This archetype is one of supporting the hero, providing information and strategy, maybe some gadgets and funny quips from home base as they get to go do the cool stuff. The only major pop culture example I can even think of with a disabled person in this role is Oracle from Batman, though perhaps I just need to read more comic books. Other more common examples might be Batman’s Alfred, Mr. Jarvis from Marvel comics, or Wade from Kim Possible. And while these support roles are obviously important, even vital to the operation in some cases, it is kind of disheartening when those are the only ones in which you ever see characters like yourself- a sentiment that I’d hazard a guess applies to more demographics than the one I’ve brought up here.

Kaz is ruthless, and mean, and kind of horrible, and I love that about him. He doesn’t have to be perfect and pure for people to care about him or find him important, and I enjoy the breathing room that creates. Also, he’s allowed to do the cool stuff.

My second, larger point, is that Kaz’s iconic cane and the mechanics of how it was brought into the world leave clear pathways to the creation of other types of mobility devices and aids. You can draw a straight line from Fabrikator-created cane to Fabrikator-created wheelchair- even the fancy one that I use that compensates for my difference in hand strength with adjustments in power assist. The magic of how it happens (literally) is never specified in the book, in part, because that’s not his area of expertise, and in part because it’s not really important. The important part is that the aid exists. It allows Kaz to do what he needs to do. How it was made in a technical sense is not relevant to how it performs its function, just that it does.

I will grant you that I encountered this book for the first time a few years after its 2015 publication, but I was 20 years old before I encountered a physically disabled person within a fantasy narrative, who was allowed not to be fixed in the end. Who chose to remain as they were, for various reasons, and never were in a situation where their disability was, either magically or technologically, made to have no actual bearing on the character or the story. Where it was actually allowed to be a feature, and an important one, of the character, rather than something to be fixed or overcome.

Kaz has his cane, yes, but it doesn’t entirely negate his disability and make it go away. It allows him more freedom and is very important to him, but it’s not an undo button. He has limits. The cane may allow them to expand, but he still has bad pain days and things like uneven terrain are difficult for him.

I’ve put off watching the new season of Shadow and Bone until I could get my thoughts sorted out, but I have high hopes for Kaz’s continued treatment in the adaptation, especially since the author is involved, and she intentionally designed him to be disabled in a similar way to herself. On top of that, Freddy Carter, who portrays Kaz, seems to be very respectful of the source material. So I have high hopes, but high expectations too. That cane is an iconic and important piece of not only the story and character, but disabled representation in fantasy media as well.

So, what's the news? After many months of owning a podcast mic and not knowing what to do with it, a plan is slowly coming together.

The current concept is one that allows me to talk about one of the things I love most- books. Based around book recommendations as a general starting point, it involves three components:

1. Me, giving recommendations based around a theme
2. Me, taking and reviewing recommendations from the Internet
3. Me and friends reading discussing a recommendation that they have kindly provided

At this point, I'm planning to add another page to this site for the podcast, since web space doesn't come cheap, where you can find episodes and their transcripts. I want to do this right, from the very beginning.

Things are still in the very early stages, but expect the tentatively-tiltled Hey, Have You Read This? to be coming to a streaming service near you sometime in January.

Over the weekend, I cooked a full meal for myself, actually following a recipe (in the video above) and it went rather well!

My two major requirements when selecting a recipe had been “vegetarian, and incredibly easy.” I also wanted to try cooking tofu. With the exclusion of ground beef, this one fit the bill. It also had a video that allowed me to actually see how things came together, which was a plus.

Chopping things and stirring them in a pan (in my case, a skillet) was easy enough, but I did learn a couple things:

1. The kind of tofu I have available needs pressed, which I only discovered after the fact. It came out fine; the texture was just different. I’ll test the difference next time
2. I also want to add more veggies and possibly a crunch factor, because I think it’s fun. There was bok choy in my version, because it was in the fridge. My other test is to go rogue and add more stuff.

Anyway, I’m quite happy with it and it makes me want to have more adventures in cooking. Here is a Bookshop affiliate link on which I earn commission, should you wish to have a written recipe.

I’ve had a Nintendo Switch for about three weeks and discovered that I really like it. I started with Animal Crossing, because it looked 1) fun, and 2) easy in terms of controls.

In the past, I’ve played games on PlayStation, Xbox and Wii, and not to any huge success. I have the most experience with the Wii, which had an easier controller to hold than the others, but not by much for someone with not-great grip strength and fine motor skills.

The systems with more “traditional” controller styles were harder to manage. In fact, I recently tested out an Xbox again, just to see what I could do, and I got about five minutes into Assassin’s Creed before my hands started to hurt.

The Switch, on the other hand, has caused me no such problems. It’s small and can be set flat on a table, which means it doesn’t necessitate grip strength, and the JoyCons can be taken off so I can swap which controls are in which hand.

All this is to say, actually being good at video games turns out to depend, for me, on what the controller is like. Who knew.

The Questions

Do I have a way to get there?

Are there stairs?

Can I navigate? Will it be crowded? Is there more difficult terrain, like grass or gravel?

Are there accessible bathrooms?

If there are none, how long is the event?

Will I have to turn down drinks?

The Explanation

My questions are grouped the way they are because the first set is made up of more obvious logistical matters that might be clear right off to an outside perspective: transportation, inside or outside, et cetera. Most people not in chairs tend to gather that stairs might be an obstacle for someone using wheels.

The second set is really just one question, followed by a series of eventualities, and it is constantly present for me as someone who can really only hope for one bathroom stall out of six to be able to work. As the number of stalls decreases, so does the chance that I will have a restroom that can work with my chair, I've found.

Hopefully, these questions provide some insight on logistical and physical barriers that can come up when planning events. This is just a personal list of broad indicators, and other wheelchair users may have additions, subtractions, or variations. It never hurts to ask what your friends need and do some recon before offering an invitation.

I've learned a lot in that time, and this little corner of the internet has evolved since it started, as I believe it should.

What started as a half-serious joke taken most of the way seriously ("What if you had a website where you could point people to get answers instead of rehashing the same explanation to every random stranger who asks? Like, hand them a card or something.") has grown from fast facts and occasional media representation analysis to encompass more aspects of my life and experience. I think that's good.

I had a journalism professor in college who liked the name The Girl in the Chair because it didn't box me in too much or really limit what I could write about. It was just a description of me, of how people tend to find me in a crowd, so I could realistically write about whatever I wanted without going "off brand," so to speak.

At the time, I stuck pretty hard to the original concept, and would try to pick post topics based on what I thought would be most helpful to a hypothetical target audience who wasn't even really reading yet.

That same professor suggested that I try to lean into more of the pop culture aspect to balance things out, and for awhile I couldn't think of how to while maintaining the original premise.

What I eventually figured out was that the premise needed to expand.

The blog has (so far) ended up being is a place to share as much of my perspective as I think will be helpful, on a variety of topics from book recommendations to professionalism and wheelchair accessibility. It doesn't have to be only answers to questions that people have asked, any perspective I can provide has the potential to be useful.

So here's to more years of answering questions and sharing perspective.

I started bullet journaling in May, after my previous (digital) planner system had started falling into disrepair. This is what I learned-- mostly about what my own brain needs to stay organized. Hopefully, this is interesting and useful for people whose brains are not mine as well.

But first...

What is Bullet Journaling?

Bullet journaling is a customizable organization system created by Ryder Carroll that, at its base, is a dated list of thoughts, tasks, reminders and ideas that can be differentiated in type or progress status using different bullet symbols.

The official system also organizes things using future and monthly logs in addition to the daily lists, but the beauty of it is that you can break it to make it work for you-- add things, take them away, shuffle them around. Try things out, then adjust them on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis as you see fit.

Beyond the basics, (which you can watch a video about here) bullet journaling has developed into a fun, artistic internet hobby while still retaining its function as a planning system.

I particularly like the videos of AmandaRachLee and Plant Based Bride, two artistic bullet journalers with wildly different styles. This video by WheezyWaiter is also a fun exploration of why people enjoy the system. He also did a follow-up video four months later with the guy who created it.

So, How Do I Bullet Journal?

The short answer is, by breaking the original system to work for me, the way Ryder Carroll intended-- not really the way he teaches it.

Mine is actually most similar to the way AmandaRachLee does it: a monthly cover page, a monthly calendar and daily list spaces for every day of the month. Then add nice quotes and doodles where it feels right, and maybe some other types of lists as needed.

My other lists that I think are going to stay consistent, for example, are blog posts to make for the month and books I want to read in the month. I also had one for thank you cards to write to professors before graduation, but that's just a May thing.

A Detour into Task Lists and Checkboxes

My previous planner system that I mentioned in the beginning was an app called Pocket Schedule (that I still really like) that was geared toward students. It allowed you to put in class times and assignments, color code them, then set reminders for when things were happening. Basic, but effective.

It started to fall by the wayside towards the end of the school year, as it did during the distance learning phase of my university career. So, I returned to old reliable: weekly or daily task lists on sticky notes.

Almost exactly two years ago, on June 5, 2020, I finished reading Every Tool's A Hammer by Adam Savage. It was a shockingly useful birthday present for someone who didn't really consider themselves a "maker," as that's what it's a guide to being, but one chapter out of the whole immensely-enjoyable book came in incredibly handy:

The 14-page chapter on checkboxes.

Former Mythbuster and personal childhood hero Adam Savage uses an ingenious to-do list method that makes accomplishing tasks visual and incremental, rather than an all-or-nothing endeavor. I have discovered that this is very good for my brain and sense of productivity.

It looks like this:

The boxes for completed tasks get completely filled in, the boxes for tasks with substantial progress made get partial shading, and boxes for tasks that have yet to be started are empty.

I've found that this is incredibly useful for visualizing how much stuff I actually get done in a day, since there will be days where a bunch of bigger tasks get marked with "significant progress" as opposed to sitting there unchanged and uncrossed off, leaving me feeling unproductive.

There's also a bunch of other good stuff in the book beyond checkboxes related to the creative process (and Adam Savage's super-cool career in general) and I had a great time with it in spite of not considering myself to be in the category of people who had a creative process. Highly recommend all around-- here's an affiliate link for which I earn commission, if you're interested.

Checkbox detour now completed...

What's the Verdict?

I think bullet journaling is going to work for me for a while. (I may keep you updated.)

The flexibility of the system allows me to add what I need, for as long as I need it, and changing things around doesn't cost any extra-- except maybe some time and resisting the impulse to buy more stationery. Plus, there's the added benefit of not being distracted by having to look at my phone to figure out my next task.

It's fun as a creative outlet, too, and I think the novelty of being able to pick new colors and themes for each month will help keep it interesting. My theme for June is based off of Heartstopper, an incredibly cute coming-of-age rom-com that comes in both graphic novel-- that's an affiliate link to volume one-- and Netflix adaptation forms. The show is only four hours long for the whole eight episodes, so it won't take up too much of your time-- that is, unless you watch it six times in a row, like I did.

Cheers, and here's to the books that had more of an impact on us than we expected.

I’ll never be here in this way again. How odd.

The transition from college to after-college feels different than the move from high school to college, I think because of a bigger switch in format. High school to college was a transition from one kind of school to another. I am good at school. I know school well. School and I are great friends.

Work and I are reasonably well-acquainted, but still not good enough friends for things not to feel awkward occasionally. It will come, but in the meantime, I expect I will miss what I’m used to, like every other noticeably big change. I think it will probably be a quicker adjustment than I’m expecting, too, also like every other big change.

I weirdly have less narratively-satisfying thoughts on this than I thought I was going to, but maybe that’s because my life isn’t a movie. Here are some of the reflections I do have, that I would maybe advise my younger self on if I could:

• Figure out your boundaries, and get good at defending them.
• Eat a veggie once a week, bare minimum. You’ll feel better.
• Food is necessary for life. So is sleep. Eat a snack and rest if you need to.
• People are allowed to be complex and they can still be wrong.
• If your friends are talking about your other friends behind their backs, they’re probably also talking about you. Maybe don’t hang out with those people.
• Free Zoom lectures are all kinds of fun. Remember to check the time zone.
• Black bean burgers are pretty good, actually.
• Keeping up with friends takes actual scheduling, and it’s important.
• Delicates bags keep the laundry room wormhole from eating your socks.
• The cookies from catering freeze really well and make a good breakfast in a pinch. (Thanks for that one, Mary.)

Okay, so we’ve gotten through the weird college pre-nostalgia, the uncertainty about the future and the sappy advice-to-my-younger-self. Here are some predictions of music and podcasts I think I will permanently associate with my college experience:

Albums

• After Laughter by Paramore
• Petals For Armor by Hayley Williams
• Lover, folklore, evermore, and Red (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift
• SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo

Artists in general

• Vampire Weekend
• The Regrettes
• Harry Styles
• Florence + The Machine

Note on music: Some of this is my personal taste and some of it was what was playing around me. I’m also leaving out Broadway cast recordings, of which there are many.

Podcasts

• Dear Hank and John
• Ologies with Alie Ward
• Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
• Witch, Please
• Pod and Prejudice
• The Newest Olympian
• Seaweed Brain

Note on chronology: Albums and podcasts are in attempted chronological order. Artists in general are not.

This isn’t the end-of-college post I was expecting to make, but it’s the one my brain provided. At the very least, it will be interesting to look back on. To borrow a line from a song cut from The Lightning Thief Musical, “it’s weird, but a good weird.” A musical had to make its way in here somehow, and this one has been soundtracking the past two weeks.

Alright, that’s it. I’ve got a final in the morning. G’night.

There's a great many things I could have made this post about in earnest, but I don't really have it in me to go that in depth on any of them. Mask mandates at my university have been loosened to a degree that is frankly quite unnerving, Russia has invaded Ukraine, and my post-graduation plans are completely up in the air.

And that's just from the last week or so. We'll try not to take the Merriam-Webster word of the day as an omen. (Fester, verb: to become worse as time passes.)

So, in an attempt to counteract some of the awful and uncertainty, I'm going to talk about some of the good things that have happened in my life recently. We should obviously pay attention to the bad things going on, and I recommend referring to reliable news sources and verifying stories before you share them. It's just that positivity can also be useful.

I won awards for my writing

The student newspaper for which I write came home with six awards in early February from the Iowa College Media Association, as much as the phrase "came home" can be applied to a virtual ceremony.

My name is attached to two of those awards— First Place Staff Editorials and Second Place Blog or Vlog. (I was eventually persuaded to put that second one on the new landing page of this site, and I think it looks good there.)

Regarding the staff editorials, the judges were impressed by our coverage of the pandemic, something I have also been very proud of.

I participated in the Project for Awesome again

Last year was the first year I was able to donate to the Project for Awesome, the annual 48-hour charity livestream held by Hank and John Green that donates money to community-chosen causes. I was especially grateful to be able to do so again, since this year's P4A took place over the weekend that news about Ukraine had just started breaking.

During the first 24 hours, money gets split between Save the Children and Partners in Health. The former organization works to provide safe spaces for kids in times of war and is currently doing work in Ukraine. The latter organization provides healthcare in undersupported areas. The second 24 hours is where community voting for causes comes in.

I was glad to donate during both portions, and to see a bunch of people doing silly things in the name of charity. Every time P4A comes around, it's good to be reminded that people can come together to do good in the world— this year, over 3 million dollars of good— and get a stitch in my side from laughing.

If you'd like, here's a recap of this year's goings-on, and a short summary of the project overall.

I changed my perspective on space photos

This past Monday, I logged in to the end of the Zoom awards celebration for a high school science fair in another state. It was so I could hear Phil Plait speak. Plait worked on the Hubble Space Telescope in the 90s and hosted Crash Course Astronomy in 2015, which was my introduction to his science communication work.

He talked about telescopes and the technological advancements it's taken to get us to whee we are in regards to space photos and the knowledge that accompanies them.

Here is the part where I cringe at myself a little.

See, I didn't realize it until partway through this talk that I was a person who grew up surrounded by pictures of space, and that I somehow became desensitized to photos like those of the Hubble Deep Field, pictured below:

I was blase about that. The result of hurling a feat of engineering into space and pointing it at an empty-looking patch of space, then waiting to see what happened.

Apparently, it took someone with excellent science communication skills reminding me how much effort this all takes for me to properly appreciate it. Then again, that is an effect of good science communication, getting you to care about things you'd never given a second thought.

Let's all just sit and appreciate how cool that image is for a moment.

Introduction and Data Analysis

The StoryGraph is an independently owned reading tracker, in contrast to Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon. It beautifully visualizes your stats and has an actually functional recommendations feature, along with allowing you to keep up with what people you follow are reading.

One of the stats tracked is pages read. You can of course filter by year, or all time, or a specific month within a specific year. This leads us to the January Pages Challenge. This, quite simply, is a challenge to read at least one page (or at least one percent of an audiobook) every day in January.

Let’s look at my pages graph for January and break it down:

There’s a little blip on the first day of the month where I read 17 pages of a physical book, followed by two days of a completely flat line where my reading was entirely audio based, but still counting towards the challenge. Then the line rises again as I consistently read physical textbooks for my winter term class.

The massive spike near the middle of the month is from a 678-page anthology that we read selections from for that class. I knew we weren’t going to be reading the whole thing, and not in order, so I didn’t bother to track my progress using the little progress bar, meaning the day I marked the book as “finished,“ every single one of those pages got added to the graph.

What I Learned

This section is brought to you in list form, because we are on the Internet, and the Internet loves a list.

1. There’s something weirdly motivating you about a good old-fashioned progress bar.

This challenge, like all StoryGraph challenges, included a progress bar of how many days reading. This progress bar is no longer available to me now that the challenge is over, but I can show you the one for my books read goal:

(About half of this is textbooks, so books I would be reading anyway, and approximately another third is audiobooks, which read faster than print. I’ll probably slow down a bit until summer, but for all I know, I might have to adjust my reading goal.)

2. My best reading time is before bed (with the exception of textbooks).

I discovered midway through the challenge that I really liked reading before bed. The practice caused my brain to slow down a little bit, and already being in bed eliminated the feeling that I needed to be working on other things instead of reading.

To facilitate this, I got a $16 book light that clips to my bed so that I could read without having to get up to turn off the lights, and I started going to bed a little bit earlier to make sure I had a reading time before I went to sleep.

As the non-owner bedside table, the books I read in bed stayed in my bed. I would read about a chapter before going to sleep each night (unless I was really tired) it was also really useful for times when I couldn’t fall asleep, Since reading a book prevented me from blasting my eyes with blue phone light in the middle of the night.

Conclusion

I don’t really think any of this is particularly groundbreaking, but I found it fun to reflect on what I actually gained from this challenge, besides a book light.

I’ve kept up my streak of reading a little bit every day as February has started, as the challenge intended. One option I think would be good to add to the site is a pages every day goal for every month, even if it doesn’t involve the prize raffle that January one does. Again, progress bars are useful, and it might help carry the momentum over the rest of the year.

If you want to follow my reading on StoryGraph, you can do so here. Happy reading and stay well.

Also, as of 2022, I am now a Bookshop.org affiliate! What this means is that I earn a commission on books purchased through my link. Bookshop supports independent bookstores, which is excellent, and totally my thing. I’ve put all of these books on a nice little shelf for your browsing pleasure. Now, on to the list!

Lab Girl, Hope Jahren

Consistently cited throughout the year as quite possibly my favorite nonfiction book of all time, Lab Girl follows the structure of a plant, from seed on up, along Jahren’s path from kid hanging around her father’s chemistry lab to trained geobiologist. I loved this book so much I had to buy a physical copy just to annotate. You can read my more detailed thoughts on Lab Girl here, and as I say in that post, I don’t think you have to know science to like it or gain something from it. It’s potential all-time favorite material, and only time will tell.

Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo

This is the first full-fledged fantasy novel I’ve fallen in love with in a long time. It’s got solidly complicated characters, wonderfully unconfusing music system, and since that was one-liners. The characters come from diverse backgrounds, and have very different perspectives, meaning they disagree like real people.

One of these characters uses a cane, and never once is it suggested that anything about him be “fixed,” by magic or anything else. Kaz Brekker has flaws, and his disabilities are never framed by the narrative to fall in that category.

It was such a refreshing change for me to see a disabled character in a fantasy setting who wasn’t expected to use magic as a “solution,“ that I was still feeling residual joy the next evening, enough that I felt compelled to tweet about it. If you want an immersive fantasy story where a loveable cast of characters do morally questionable things, Leigh Bardugo has your back.

One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston

A fabulous rom-com with a bisexual protagonist and an excellent soundtrack, One Last Stop can bring the fun summer beach read vibes any day of the year. It centers on August Landry, who's just moved to New York for college, plus her new gang of quirky friends and the mysterious, attractive stranger on the subway who only listens to 70s music.

There is a mystery to the plot with a little bit of a magical component and just a twist of time travel, so it’s not a straight romance story (pun not intended, but fully acknowledged). These elements of the book, aside from lending to the sense of adventure, provide the ability to learn a little bit of queer history along the way that I really appreciated.

This was also the first book I ever reviewed for a print publication, so I am attached to it for that reason as well. I read it in the space of 24 hours, with only three breaks over the course of it, itching to get back to the story each time, so the fact that I reviewed it didn’t affect its rating. It’s just a good book.

The Black Flamingo, Dean Atta

The Black Flamingo is by far the shortest book on this list, clocking in at three hours and 40 minutes. (I’m using duration here rather than page number because I listened to this one in audio, an experience I highly recommend.) This novel in verse is narrated fantastically by the author, which assisted my brain in wrapping its way around the poetry.

It is the coming-of-age story of a Black drag queen, beautifully told and capable of swaying even the most steadfast “poetry’s not really for me,” opinion— and that’s speaking from experience.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

This book is about Henrietta Lacks, the Black woman whose cancer cells were stolen by doctors for research purposes in the 1940s. HeLa cells have been used in research for all kinds of incredibly useful medical technology, but the ethics of the cells and therefore how the technology came to be is questionable at best. Skloot delves into the life of Henrietta Lacks and her family, as well as the legal and ethical ramifications of HeLa.

The narrative of Skloot’s discoveries is told incredibly well and at some points made me cry, which I consider to be a mark of success on the book's part. I came to this book knowing that it was an extremely well respected piece of science communication, and came away knowing that there is a reason for that. I also think that you don’t have to be “into science'' to understand or care about the story and the woman central to it.

Narratives, Nerdfighters, and New Media, Jennifer Burek Pierce

This one might seem strange in its spot here, since it’s an academic work in a field I don’t study. Narratives, Nerdfighters, and New Media is a thesis about the intersection of narrative (stories) nerdfighters (the fan community surrounding the works of Hank and John Green) and new media, which I took to mean any form of media that is not radio, print, or television. I may be wrong on that point.

This one gets points less for the achievement of “I’ve learned things, and now have a full understanding of this topic,“ — because I don’t, and won’t pretend to— and more because it succeeded in producing an emotional reaction to me other than frustration or relief directed at an academic text.

This thing made me nostalgic for middle school, of all things, which is certainly a feat. This is mainly due to the fact that this is the time when I discovered Nerdfighteria, or rather was led into it by a very helpful school librarian. It made me nostalgic for the friends I had who shared the same interests but I no longer see, and made me sentimental for the fact that I am also part of the larger narrative and community being discussed in an academic text. My fan community is worthy of study. Study in a friendly, caring, “I’m one of these people“ kind of way. Burek Pierce has participated in the same community events that I have, and discusses their importance in her work. This book is simultaneously a critical study of, and love letter to, a community that has meant so much to so many people, and the stories that bind it together.

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Deborah Blum

This one isn’t my usual style either, seeing as I have yet to become a true crime girl. Sometimes you just have to scroll the faculty pages of potential grad programs and write down which titles look interesting. According to the lady at the bookshop, people come in asking for this one all the time, even if they’re not like me and constantly living in the science section.

The Poisoner’s Handbook tells the story of the birth of forensic medicine in jazz age New York, as it says, organized by poison and following the work of chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler as they try to prevent murderers from walking free and innocent people from being punished. It’s atmospheric and a little grisly, but nothing too unmanageable. It’s also a fun one to read in public, as people don’t tend to interrupt you.

Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, Beth Hoffman

This one does exactly what it says on the tin, explaining the financial realities of farming versus the American myth of the hardworking, independent farmer living the simple life. The book is written in understandable terms for the unfamiliar, with definitions resurfacing just when you need them. It also includes the occasional figure to better demonstrate a point, and has a whole 19 pages of sources, all while telling the compelling story of the switch to restorative agriculture on Whippoorwill Creek Farm.

Hoffman was a journalist and professor before she was a farmer, and she knows how to keep an audience engaged. The book was approachable enough that I could understand it while on winter break without taking any notes, though I don’t think a reread would hurt.

If you want to keep up with what I’m reading, feel free to follow me on The StoryGraph, an independent alternative to Goodreads. I read 37 books in 2021, and hope to read 40 this year. We’ll see how that goes.

Instead, I’m going to talk about some interesting coincidences that occurred in the course of my reading this book. (I listened to it on audio from my library, but it’s still reading. The 12.5 hours went by much faster than you would think 12.5 hours goes by.)

The first, and perhaps biggest, of these is that two days before I finished the book, various publications reported on a lawsuit by the Lacks family against Thermo Fisher Scientific, revolving around control of and profits from the HeLa cells.

The second (semi) coincidence is that I was— let’s face it, still am— working on personal statements for grad school, many of which ask about recent reading as it relates to science. This is why it’s only kind of coincidental, I kind of planned that one. But not that these two things would relate through Johns Hopkins.

I didn’t know which medical establishment was involved until I read the book, and I didn’t know that science writing was a thing you could go to school for until last semester, let alone which schools offered it.

The fact that we were covering intellectual property law in one of my journalism classes, and the fact that I had to know genetics are (currently) patentable? Happenstance on the part of the syllabus.

But perhaps the oddest quirk of my reading experience has to do with the fact that I decided to pick up the audiobook instead of the physical copy a few feet away on my dresser.

At the end of the audiobook, there’s an author interview wherein Rebecca Skloot essentially recaps why I want to be a science writer. She hits all the points. To quote directly from the interview (with minor edits for clarity) there is:

“… an inability of scientists to explain things on a level that’s basic enough for the general public to understand them, and also a lack of education enough to really understand some of the science.”

That’s one important part of the disconnect, but she goes on to briefly address the fact that some people are scared off by science, don’t feel like it’s for them, and the importance of making science accessible, since it affects so much of our lives.

If there’s anything the past year and a half has reaffirmed for me, it’s that. And the fact that keeping hand sanitizer on my person is a good idea. But mostly that.

Hearing my own reasons for wanting to go into this line of work rephrased by a published human in the field, who wrote the book on Henrietta Lacks, made something I already knew kind of click.

That is a valid reason for wanting to do this work, not just some change the world, change the culture kind of ideal. And it is something you can do.

Had a lot of weight for being the last thirty seconds of an audiobook author interview, huh? Wasn’t expecting that.

Anyway, I highly recommend that you read this book, whether you’re interested in science or journalism or ethics or none of those things. Maybe you’ll also find yourself in the midst of just enough little things lining up to start thinking maybe it’s Henrietta, maybe it’s a sign (something you have literally never ever been inclined to think ever) as you explain it to people.

If anything, I read it in short order during midterms, and of my own free will, which should be a sign of its quality. I keep talking about it and it wasn’t even assigned to me for discussion.

I am far from the first person to bring up the improvements in access and other pleasant things implemented during the pandemic, and likewise not the first person to mourn their (largely) being taken away in the overall attempt to “return to normal,” but it bears repeating.

One of the things that stick out to me are of course hybrid style classes— where half of the time is spent in person and half is spent virtually— which were incredibly useful to many of the commuters and nontraditional I talked to last school year, as well as to those of us who respect the value of a good night’s sleep, and/or occasionally forget to set our alarms.

Another is the takeout dining option that existed for the first time in my school’s nearly 100-year history. I and many other students hope it gets to stay, for a variety of reasons— classes during the lunch hour, classes immediately after dining opens for dinner, wanting to study in silence while you eat, et cetera. Should this option stay, I also hope that the boxes and cutlery will be switched to something more sustainable than Styrofoam and plastic.

But there’s seemingly smaller things, too, and they’re not all related to school.

For instance, there is the common presence of a bottle of hand sanitizer inside the doors of public spaces. I have a particular fondness for them, as someone who is now acutely aware of the sheer number of things that take up residence on my wheelchair wheels (and that I therefore touch) after swabbing my handrims for a Genetics class lab. I also like to wipe down my phone with it after seeing the Petri dishes belonging to some of my classmates.

There is also the observation that occurred during a conversation with one of my friends while we were waiting for our lunch orders to be called. Will food service workers continue to wear masks? It seems like a good idea, as far as sanitation goes, both in terms of the food, as well as the people making and eating it.

I still find it unsettling to eat in a restaurant, or in large crowds of people— one reason I wonder about the dining hall situation at school . (I know I did it that one time in April; I was deeply nervous that I had messed up for a good while afterwards, and even beforehand part of me thought it might be a bad idea, seeing as I was only halfway vaccinated.) Now, with all the changing information about variants and vaccines’ resistance to them, I’ve decided that it’s best not to risk it unnecessarily. Takeout exists.

The final thing that I value from this period that I hope (but I do not expect) will stick around is the existence of the free online event. The beauty of the free online event is that it opens up a huge range of possibilities for how to spend your time. It essentially boils down to the sheer number and variety of things you have access to, with the caveats of availability and quality of captioning, and due consideration of time zones— I mention the former because it is a minimum barrier to entry for a great many people that is not always provided, and the latter because it is a very easy mistake to make on the part of the attendee. (I may or may not be speaking from personal experience.)

I very highly recommend scrolling through your event ticket platform of choice (for me, Eventbrite) with the location set to Online and the price set to Free, and see what catches your attention. Another method is to peruse Twitter with a watchful eye toward registration links. This is how I found myself attending a talk located a significant distance away about queer neurodivergent wizards in literature— I clearly know how to spend a Friday evening.

With that, I leave you to whatever “normal” is going to be. Stay well.

After sitting on my to-read list for at least a year, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren can be marked down both as completed and as one of the best books (if not the best book) I have read so far this year.

And it is here important to note that what follows is less a review, and more an assortment of thoughts on how this book connects to my own life as a disabled woman in science.

That being said, I have mentioned in my many recommendations of this book that the prose is frequently lyrical, always accessible, and infinitely highlightable. In fact, I am debating buying a physical edition to copy down my annotations. (I checked out an ebook version from my public library using Libby.)

When I say that the science is written in a way that is easy to understand, I mean it; I only had to pull out the dictionary maybe once while reading, and I consider myself to be more a chemist than a biologist, so I don’t exactly have a background in geobiology. Even if soil patterns and plant structures aren’t your thing, I still recommend giving Lab Girl a shot. Like any plant, there’s more to it than there might first appear.

Lab Girl is equal parts science and memoir, so thoroughly and organically mixed that it would be counterintuitive to try and separate them. After all, the scientist is always a part of an experiment, even if we don’t always acknowledge it.

Specifically, this book covers the author’s journey from small hopeful science child to full fledged academic researcher. Dr. Jahren navigates many ups and downs, (which I shall not spoil) as one might expect, and she does not do so alone, as one might also expect. Classic adventure setup.

While I’ve experienced different twists and turns on my own, slightly different career path, (upon which I am only just embarking) Lab Girl made me have a lot of thoughts about my own experience as a woman in science, specifically, as a wheelchair user.

With that in mind, this post is for the time the one guy assumed I chose my major because I couldn’t “do real science”. For every joke I’ve made at my own expense about doing “supervisory chemistry” to distract from the feeling of being inherently unhelpful at practical lab work. (It is generally considered unsafe to carry containers of potentially hazardous chemicals in one’s lap, the main way I have of carrying things. It is at the very least tempting fate, which is unwise in a laboratory setting.)

If there’s one thing I’m up against that I didn’t expect, it’s the idea that a real scientist works in a lab or in the field, that my career path of communicating science to a wider audience is— by some people— seen as less valuable, or less important, or less science.

I often explain what I want to do in my career using the work of Complexly and the Green brothers. A professor told me once in reference to this that I “want to do Hank things with a John background.” I laughed, because at the time, I was in a lot of communications classes, so it sure looked that way— that I was a writer more than a scientist.

But I was also taking Analytical Chemistry, and doing the required 3-hour labs once a week. But science is half of my degree. It’s in the name. First word.

Is the science half of my degree not registering with people? The fact that I have taken at least one science class every semester of my college career thus far? The fact that I’ve stressed over homework problems and lab papers with the best of them?

Part 2: Questions For Further Study, or: Why don’t people think I’m a real scientist?

I’d wager it’s 1 part unintentional misogyny to at least 1.5 parts unexamined ableism, topped off with the fact that I don’t want to go into lab or field work, the parts of science that people automatically think of. But that’s just a hypothesis based on my own experience and observation of others. And I haven’t thought of a good way to test it.

I really don’t know what to make of this, or how to even approach it, but hey, it’s called “questions for future study” for a reason. I’ll let you know if I figure anything out. I hope that this was useful in some way, whether your situation is in any way similar to mine or not.

If you’re interested in reading this book, I recommend checking your local library’s collection in whatever format you like, or using Bookshop.org to support independent bookstores. (This link is only here to make things easier on you; I am not affiliated in any way.) Happy reading!

I’ve gotten Twitter, something I once swore I would never do.

I’ve started admitting that I unironically enjoy pop music, something a younger Gwen would’ve hated.

I at some point stopped repeating the “young people are basically unaffected” argument, because it’s flimsy and dangerous, and at this point clearly not true.

I have continued to buy books online from independent bookstores, and have on multiple nights kept refreshing the Lego website in hopes that some of the more complicated sets would somehow magically shift into a price range that I could justify.

I’ve pretty consistently worn a mask throughout this whole thing, and in the new year, started wearing two. I could do without the being called paranoid or overdramatic, but if you must, you must. I would rather be overly cautious and avoid getting someone sick (or worse) than be too relaxed and end up feeling guilty.

I’m halfway vaccinated at this point, and get my second dose on Tuesday. This wasn’t even an option this time last year. Win for science!

So while my birthday celebration wasn’t big, or occurring in anything like what we generally thought the world would look like at this point, it was good. In true hobbit fashion, I ate good food until I couldn’t eat anymore, and enjoyed the whole experience as best I could. One Gross of people at a party was never my style anyway.

And yes, Mr. Frodo, in the dark times, there will also be singing— even if it is off-key, alone, to whatever Taylor Swift has released that week.

The episode in question was Witch, Please Book 2, Episode 7 Chamber of Secrets Wrap-Up. This podcast discusses the world of the Harry Potter novels using different literary theories and critical lenses. It is hosted by Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor, and the whole thing is frankly excellent.

Disability was never brought into this particular recorded conversation, but the beauty of this fortnightly podcast hosted by two lady scholars is that it is meant to be an ongoing discussion where learning is happening on all sides, even on the part of the hosts.

So? Where does that leave us? What on earth do I have to say about it?

Well, professional dress is a thing I'm not sure about yet as it applies to me. In the segment of the episode where this topic was discussed, it was brought up that besides not knowing and/or not knowing how to read) the different social cues or expectations of professional dress (like not wearing brown shoes with black dress pants) or not being able to physically access certain types of clothing for an assortment of reasons, the more othered a person's body is, the more they are expected to follow these expectations to a higher standard to be seen as professional.

The two othered body types discussed were those of fat women and women of color. While I am neither, I am visibly disabled, which comes with its own wardrobe complicatednesss and appearance pressure.

As someone who personally finds buttons difficult and has no clue how one can manage to tuck in a shirt while sitting down, I honestly don't know how I will manage the stereotypical corporate dress code. High heels are also a no-go for me, since my feet don't flex in that particular direction and the footplates on my wheelchair can't go any lower. For reference, I typically exist in a pair of jeans, a T shirt or long sleeve, and one or the other of my pairs of slip-on Converse. That's what we’ve got. My hair doesn't change much. It's either down, or in the world's messiest ponytail. In short, I wear clothes that I can easily put on in a reasonable amount of time. Something that dress clothes, generally, are not.

One answer would be to find a job how is a less formal dress code, but you can't exactly pick your place of work based on how you're allowed to dress. At least, I don't think you can. My understanding is that a job is a job, and you're expected to fit yourself into the workplace culture, not the workplace culture around you. Or if I end up in academia, we're back at square one.

This is another one of those situations where I know that this is a thing people have done before— people with experiences similar to mine— but I just haven't found the right information yet. It's an interesting thing to think about, though. The fact that expectations of dress that allow someone to be seen as polished, or professional, or smart and academic, are formed in such a way that different groups of (generally marginalized) people don't necessarily have access to them seems so small, but still manages to keep a certain type of people in positions of power. Though perhaps it's too late at night for in depth discussion about the structured unfairness of society. On the other hand, maybe not. Someone let me know what the acceptable timeframe for big, nuanced philosophical discussions is.

To borrow from the show, by way of sign off…

Later, witches!

In trying to figure out what I want to do immediately after undergrad, I’ve been doing research on different grad programs and which U.S. cities are the most wheelchair accessible.

Which leads us to the problem:

The cities that are most accessible to me are also more expensive, considering that ideally I would live in a place with sidewalks and efficient public transportation. That means a large, Metropolitan area.

But that's not all, oh no. if I end up going to grad school, the campus will also need to be accessible, and in one of those cities. So no matter if I really like a program, it won't mean anything unless I can get to it.

And then, there are apartments. Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places, but generally when you filter for wheelchair access, it appears to mean, “can I get a wheelchair in this space,” not, “can someone in a wheelchair live in this space?” So that's fun.

On the bright side, I recently found out that there is such a thing as #DisabilityTwitter, as well as #DisabledinSTEM, both tags full of helpful stories and advice. I am clearly not the first person to have done this, which means I have proof that it can be done.

I just have to say, I am not a fan of this feeling of not knowing. not knowing exactly what my plans or where I will end up is a little bit stressful, but I've been told it works out. The thing is, since I don't know for sure where I will be going or what I will be doing (in terms of going straight to work or to grad school) my tendency to plan ahead is thrown a bit off kilter.

We'll see. I realize this might be less helpful than usual, but it is something to think about. Eventually, when I hit the mysterious advice jackpot, I'll be sure to share it.

In closing, since I have no brilliant advice on the topic, I leave you with this incredibly versatile jingle from the wonderful folks at FilmJoy, that can be used in almost any situation:

That thinking has revolved around my broken camera. The thing about using a wheelchair (or presumably any other very visible marker of disability) is that sometimes people will see you and their preconceptions will fill in their impression of you before they even notice. The beauty of a nonfunctional camera is that you get around this. The danger of a nonfunctional camera is that, depending on the professor, you may or may not be counted for attendance. What I mean by the beauty of the camera is that if you are in a class with people who have never met you before, and they cannot see you, you get a chance to make an impression based solely on the thoughts you present to the class without the interference of people's biases based on your appearance.

I should clarify and say that not everyone's reaction to the chair is bad; in fact, most people’s aren't, it's just that unconscious bias is weird sometimes. Additionally, sometimes the thoughts you share with the class are related to your disability-- for instance, in my diversity studies class, my perspective as a physically disabled person frequently came in handy during discussion. It does kind of blow your cover, to use spy movie terms, but the point isn't about deceiving your esteemed colleagues in the pursuit of knowledge acquisition, it's about helping them uncover these automatic knee-jerk reactions so that they can pick them apart and figure out why they're there, and if they're useful.

So, you casually mention the chair when it becomes relevant to the conversation. You say, “Sorry for the beeping, my wheelchair is just turning off to save power,” or, “So, for context, I use a wheelchair,” and then make your point. And then you observe.

Sometimes, a few people’s faces quirk in surprise at this new piece of information they weren’t necessarily expecting-- something about the non-visual impression you have made doesn't line up with the ideas they already have about disability. Sometimes, the faces of your friends quirk in amusement because they know you're watching. They've heard you talk about this before. Mostly, people are kind of neutral, and add this fact in to their idea of you without much fuss. This one is nice. I like that this facet of my existence isn't necessarily earth-shattering for people. It is kind of satisfying to see people have that realization though, that their existing concept of disability doesn't line up exactly with this new information, (or the other way around) because you know they're going to go home and do some reevaluating. But it is also satisfying knowing that for the most part, it isn't a big deal. People can absorb this fact and continue on without a big perspective shift. That isn't what this Zoom class is for, you're here to learn chemistry or something. Acknowledging unconscious biases you didn't know you had is just a bonus.

I suppose my self-satisfied lurking will come to an end once I get a working webcam, but this whole experiment raises questions about the concept of the supposed privilege of passing for able-bodied that I will tackle another time.

Disability:

I'm not your inspiration, thank you very much | Stella Young

How to ADHD

Why Stimulants Help ADHD- SciShow

My wife is not an angel- Jessica Kellgren-Fozard

Can you tell if a disabled person is faking?- Jessica Kellgren-Fozard

Books:

Bookshop.org

Libby

The StoryGraph

Laughs:

Watch This If You Want To Smile- vlogbrothers

The Truth about None Pizza with Left Beef- vlogbrothers

Motivation:

An Open Letter to Students Returning to School- vlogbrothers

re: be a lady- Karolina Żebrowska

Other:

Bridging the gap between the job you want and where you are | Justin McElroy

Anthropocene Reviewed, Auld Lang Syne

Anthropocene Reviewed, Cave Paintings

No One Knows What They're Doing- FilmJoy