Time for The Lesbrarian's rundown of books read in 2006. I'm afraid this will be a post that I, and only I, will care about.

("Um, Jessica? We hate to tell you this, but all your other posts? Guess what?")

Oh shut up why don't you.

I read 130 books, which averages out to one every 67 hours, or 2.8 days. Would have been more but I slowed down significantly in the latter fourth of the year. This is because I moved from Franklin to Wilhelmsplatz, where there are things to see and people to do.

When I say I read 130 books, I mean exactly that. I didn't skim them, or partially read them, or start and then fail to finish.

Some interesting (to me, anyway) notes about the 130 books (numbers might not equal 130 because some titles fall in several categories):

Authors

• 87 authors (89, if you consider that two titles had two authors), including one corporate author, CNN
• Most-read author: Terry Pratchett, with 11 Discworld titles

Levels

• 111 Adult level books
• 2 Children's books
• 17 YA books

Forms

• 12 Graphic Novels
• 28 Nonfiction titles
• 1 novella
• 1 collection of novellas
• 88 novels

Motivation

• I read 83 titles exclusively for the sake of pleasure
• I read 47 titles our of a sense of duty ("I should read more NF/Christian/Romance/etc. to be a better librarian" and/or "I should read these books for my NoveList articles")
• 27 of those 47 dutiful titles turned out to be pleasurable

Nonfiction Genres

• 1 Biography
• 1 canonical (that'd be Kurt Vonnegut's Man Without a Country)
• 5 humor
• 2 on comics (thanks, Scott McCloud!)
• 2 crime
• 1 criticism
• 1 current events
• 4 historical
• 3 instructional
• 8 memoir
• 2 political
• 5 generic popular
• 4 social science
• 1 travel

Fiction Genres

• 1 alternate history (you suck, Eric Flint. I don't care what anyone says.)
• 4 canonical
• 1 chick lit. Blegh.
• 10 Christian
• 17 humor
• 1 crime
• 4 erotica (Yeech Zane yeeeeech)
• 1 fairy tale
• 20 fantasy
• 1 historical
• 9 horror
• 3 mystery
• 22 generic mainstream and/or literary fiction, which is a gay term. I hesitate to use "gay" derogatively (I am half-gay, after all), but really. It's gay.
• 8 romance. They all sucked, except for Hannibal.
• 5 science fiction
• 1 superhero
• 27 suspense and/or thriller
• 2 Westerns

Miscellaneous

• My annual Fat Russian Novel: Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak
• 1 set in Africa; 1 in Britain; 1 in Japan; 1 in Portugal; 2 in Russia
• 11 aimed at African-American audiences; 1 at Chicano audiences
• 1 commedia dell'arte
• 2 dystopias
• 7 gay books
• 2 on grammar
• 7 featuring vampires

Best and Worst

• Best NF: The Committment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family, by Dan Savage
• Worst NF: Flag: An American Biography, by Marc Leepson (dull, dull, dull)
• Best Adult Fiction: Portuguese Irregular Verbs, by Alexander McCall Smith
• Worst Adult Fiction: Gettin' Buck Wild, by Zane
• Best YA: The Burn Journals, by Brent Runyon
• Worst YA: Things Change, by Patrick Jones (I love Patrick Jones the man and the librarian, but I was underwhelmed by his novel. NB, however, that it was merely mediocre, and not actually all that bad.)
• Best NF Graphic Novel (tie): Making Comics, by Scott McCloud --- Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
• Best Fiction Graphic Novel: V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore
• Worst Graphic Novel: The Hedge Knight, by George R. R. Martin. It's a prequel to his Fire and Ice series, and while it was okay, the novels proper are much better.

Melvil and I were discussing my blog today. He was curious to know how I felt so comfortable talking about personal things in a forum that absolutely anyone can read.

I’ve been thinking about it, and best I can tell, it’s because I don’t discuss anything personal. Or to be more accurate, I don’t discuss anything private.

“But, um,” you stutter, “um. What about the. You know. The bit where you talk about…”

My sexual orientation?

“Yes, that’s it,” you say, relieved.

Thanks for asking! I am dimly aware that most folks aren’t happy talking about sex, sexuality, or orientation, unless it’s to spout the One Man/One Woman mantra, and honestly, that grates after a bit. Come on, folks, the one:one ratio thing is old news. Move on.

(Tangent: I was just stricken with a fit of curiosity. Does anyone know what kinds of beds are used by polyamorous lovers? Do they buy the biggest damn king size bed on the market? Who gets to sleep in the middle? The one who pees the least, so that he/she doesn’t wake up someone else in the middle of the night? Google couldn’t tell me, but a search for “polyamorous bed” gave me some interesting results.)

“Uh, Jess,” you venture, “I don’t think the marriage amendment was about polyamory. It was more of a gay thing.”

Oh. Oh, you’re probably right. Doesn’t matter anyway. Fucking amendment passed. Now none of us can have any fun.

Where was I?

Sexual orientation, that was it. Like I was saying, I realize that some people are shy about sex and all that, but not me. I’ve said nothing here I wouldn’t want my own mother to read—fortunate, considering she does read it. Hi, Mom!

My sexual orientation (briefly: a queer sort of bi) is part of my identity. Everyone knows I’m a librarian, and everyone knows I’m a drop-dead gorgeous white female (the adjectives may vary, but we’re all pretty much agreed on the white female bit), and everyone knows I have liberal politics. So why shouldn’t everyone know I’m a queer?

Lest you think I’m willing to discuss anything on this blog, you should bear in mind that part I said about privacy. There are plenty of things in my life I don’t discuss here. (Ask Mom. She’ll tell you.) I would never talk about who I’m sleeping with, except for Johnny Depp. I would never talk about who I’d like to be sleeping with, or at most it would be oblique, i.e., “I saw a Johnny Depp movie.”

Wait, that was a lie. I do talk about who I’d like to be sleeping with, but mainly that’s limited to fictional characters, who are unlikely to jump off the page and complain about violated privacy. Generally this is good, though it also means they’re unlikely to jump off the page and ravish me. Life is all about trade-offs.

Before you conclude that I’m keeping silent about a glorious, super-secret sex life, consider that “personal” encompasses much more than sex. (I mean—conclude away. If you want to think I engage in fantastic passions each evening, and morning and day while we’re at it, I am not the woman to stop you. Just be aware that it’s not true.) When I say I don’t write about personal things on this blog, I’m talking about a whole host of issues. I don’t write about times when I get depressed or times when I’m angry at myself or times when a coworker pisses me off. There are places for discussing those things, but this blog is not one of them.

Sexual orientation, though? And my affair with Johnny Depp? Fair game. The only reason I don’t write more about Johnny is because I don’t want the rest of you to be jealous.

It’s funny. Last week I became furious after someone made a lewd comment about my breasts. It was wildly inappropriate, but it was only six words long, and it was, after all, just words. The asshole didn’t attempt to touch me or anything like that. All it took was one degrading statement and I flew off the handle, didn’t calm down for two days.

So there I am the next day at the Girl Parts doctor and the nurse is all concerned because I’m scheduled with a male doctor.

“It’s fine,” I tell her. “Not a problem.”

“But he’s a… are you sure?”

Doctor-who-happens-to-have-a-penis proceeds to check my breasts for weird stuff and check my reproductive organs for more weird stuff, using a creepy medieval instrument of torture, i.e. the speculum, and it doesn’t bother me a bit. I’m lying there on my back in a skimpy paper gown and not much else, and I’m not the least bit nervous. Doesn’t faze me a bit, because the guy is a doctor. It’s his job.

It’s all about context. Doctor felt me up six ways till Sunday and that was fine. I expected him to. I expect lovers to feel me up six ways till Sunday, preferably eight, and in fact I get upset if they don’t. I laugh it off if coworkers at a bar say off-color things about me. They’re people I know, and it’s a bar, ferChrissakes. But a stranger in a library? He’s got no rights. None. Not to touch, not to comment, not to ogle. None of the above—and he managed to sneak in “comment” and “ogle” before I told him off.

I’m proud of the way I responded to him. I am not going to reveal details because this is a public blog, but trust me on this, it was a fine feminist moment.

The sad thing is, I only managed my firm, deliberate sounding-off because I’ve had so much practice at deflecting unwanted attention. I’ve got pitifully little practice in dealing with wanted attention, but the uninvited kind? Hoo boy. I started wearing a bra in third grade. I have double-going-on-triple-D breasts. Except for those days when I wear my 3x heavy men’s parka, I know I’m subjecting myself to potential sexual harassment.

The situation is especially grim when you realize I don’t own a 3x heavy men’s parka. I do not own a parka AT ALL. But it was 70-odd degrees today in mid-December. You understand.

There have been times in the past where I did not respond well to sexual harassment. If it’s a comment from a passerby on the sidewalk, such as “Hey there, hooters!” (I actually got that once) I tend to duck my head and scurry along, when instead I should be delivering a lecture on women and respect. The time this asshole I worked with tried to get me in bed, all I did was blush and politely decline.

(Though, for the record, when I filed a formal complaint, the investigators determined that “he seems like a nice guy” and that my story “didn’t ring true” and that I should seek psychological help for my “problems.” Excessive quote marks used derisively, albeit accurately.)

Ideally, I would respond to sexual harassment with acerbic comebacks and scathing, humiliating putdowns. I would further respond by kicking out with my thigh-high, lace-up shiny black leather boots, and my cape would twirl glamorously, and my fishnets wouldn’t tear, and I’d kick the badguy into the next county.

Only one problem with this plan: I don’t have any thigh-high, lace-up shiny black boots. I will be sure to purchase some next time I’m in a thift and/or sex store, along with a parka. (Do they sell parkas at Priscilla’s?)

Too bad I've vowed not to talk about patrons here. I'd really like to vent about this jerk I dealt with today, but I can't give details. There's a miniscule chance that the jerk would discover this page and then sue the library or something. Don't wanna lose my job.

But if you know me and you want to hear about a particularly abhorrent encounter, shoot me an email or find me in person.

On the bright side, this incident reminds me why I'm a feminist. Wasn't really in danger of forgetting, but a little feminist ire can be a good thing.

I'm going to go find something strong to drink.

Human rights groups and fashion watchdogs alike are going wild over Jessica Kennedy-Rockefeller’s shopping spree yesterday. Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller, with her stunning assistant Kharma, reinvigorated the fashion world in a move that rescued hundreds, if not thousands, of children from human bondage.

“We haven’t seen progressive action like this since the Kyoto Protocol,” says Kofi Annan, departing Secretary General of the United Nations. “Though we’d like to take this opportunity to point out, again, that the United States, and the Bush Administration particularly, remains opposed to the Kyoto Protocol. Don’t blame me when the earth melts into a puddle of lava. Even the cockroaches will be lucky to survive.”

It is well known that Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller, though far richer than you will ever be, lives a humble existence.

“It is a moral obligation, an ethical imperative,” she explains in her cultured voice. It is refreshing to hear multisyllabic words from a woman as attractive as Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller.

“That is why I drive the cheapest car that was on the lot at the dealership,” she says. “And that is why I don’t employ a maid. After intensive soul-searching, I have concluded that vacuuming up the cat litter on the carpet is less important than devoting myself to the impoverished peoples of the world. Besides, I think the vacuum is broken.”

Because of Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller’s selfless lifestyle, she decided last night to shop at two thrift stores. In so doing, she galvanized the fashion industry and saved the lives of countless toddlers in distant lands.

“She is an example to us all,” said a spokesperson for Amnesty International. “She… she…” At this point, unfortunately, the spokesperson broke down crying.

By purchasing second-, or quite possibly third- or fourth-, hand clothes from the CHKD last night, Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller failed to purchase all-new clothes—clothes that, undoubtedly, would have been sewn by infants in sweatshops.

And what fabulous clothes they were! Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller chanced upon two plaid skirts that will look damn sexy with those little black knee-highs with the bows, if she can figure out how to wear them so the tear doesn’t show.

“She’s the new It Girl,” declared the cover of Time Magazine.

“How DID you find such good clothes in a thrift store?” asked the editor of Vogue, in an exclusive interview.

“It’s hard,” admitted Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller. “Few women are lucky enough to have my size. There were plenty of clothing choices in size six, in size eight, but as for me? My physique is so uncommon that it’s nearly impossible to find clothes. Of course, the uncommon physique is part of my allure.

[Aside from thelesbrarian: Marilyn Goddam Monroe was a size 14. I’m in good company. Leave me the fuck alone.]

“And what about your assistant?” asked the interviewer from Cosmo. “What about Kharma?”

“It’s hard to get her out of the jeans rut,” confessed Ms. K.-R. “But I spotted a fabulous orange skirt for her. Or rather she spotted it. But I approved of it, and that sealed the deal.”

For further reading on Ms. Kennedy-Rockefeller’s humanitarian thrift store adventure, see the cover of any major magazine issued this week. Chances are the cover of any major magazine for the next few months will work, too. Start clipping now!