YA Re-read: The Babysitters Club #40, Claudia and the Middle School Mystery

I'm taking this blog in a new direction with reviews of some of my favorite YA and teen fiction from the 80's and 90's. I recently got ahold of a bunch of Baby-Sitters Club books that I haven't read in 30 years! I'm curious to see how they hold up. 

The first one I'm going to re-read and review is #40, Claudia and the Middle School Mystery. I remember liking this book when I was a kid. I generally loved Claudia books because of the cool fashion that I could never achieve myself.

(Warning: these reviews may get snarky and NSFW! Adult language ahead!)

We'll start with the cover. Hodges Soileau painted most of the BSC covers and often his blonde characters looked very much alike. This one isn't Stacey or Shannon, but a side character named Shawna Riverson, who's our main antagonist in this book. She's dressed like a peppermint candy and has the smug look of someone who lets her dog shit on the neighbors' lawn. The teacher is Mr. Zorzi. He reminds me of Ben Stein. Claudia is wearing a rather dull outfit of jeans, a striped shirt, and a brown vest. Shame, because this book has some famously amazing outfits. 

The title "Claudia and the Middle School Mystery" is a bit of a letdown. When I first saw this book as a kid, I assumed the middle school would be haunted or something. Spoilers...there is no mystery in this book of that sort. Damn.

Chapter One: Claudia's genius sister Janine is helping her study for a math test that's heavy on word problems. Claud, as usual, is daydreaming. One word problem is about a girl named Gertrude measuring out chocolate for cookies, and Claudia mentally snarks that she hates Gertrude, "whoever she was." I feel bad for any Gertrudes reading this. You don't deserve that hate. 

Claudia launches into a description of herself and her family, then starts thinking about how much she misses grandmother Mimi. I think we all miss Mimi; she was so nice and gone too soon. Claudia's actually pretty nice to Janine and appreciative of her help in this chapter, which is rare. We learn that Claud's regular math teacher is out for a few weeks and Mr. Zorzi is the substitute.

Outfit description! 

"Here's what I was thinking of wearing the next day [...] I thought I'd start with my lucky earrings - the ones that look like Princess Di's. They're huge (pretend) emeralds, surrounded by thousands of tiny (phony) diamonds. Then I thought I'd work downward from there, wearing my new green-and-blue-tie-dyed T-shirt dress (the casualness of the dress would be an interesting contrast to those fancy earrings) over green leggings."

Interesting is not the word I'd choose here, but go on... 

"The only thing I hadn't figured out was the shoes - should I go with my old ballet flats, or the black leather high tops I'd just gotten? I was having a hard time deciding."

Yikes. I'm sure we'll learn the answer in a subsequent chapter. I await it with bated breath.

Chapter 2: Confession time: when I read these books as a kid, I always read the entirety of the Chapter 2s. I don't think I realized until my teens that it was ok to skip or skim parts of a book! The standard Chapter 2 stuff describes all the sitters, their families, and their personality traits. I laugh out loud when Claud describes Dawn as "mellow". I don't think Dawn really became a hosebeast until #57 Dawn Saves the Planet, but I still would never have described her as mellow.

It bothers me that Claudia says "ew" when describing how Stacey gives herself insulin injections. Several of the other girls would say this in the Chapter 2s too. I think that's pretty insensitive even if they don't say it to her face.

Chapter 3: Math test time! Based on the cover art, I'm now hearing all of Mr. Zorzi's dialogue in Ben Stein's voice. Claud panics when she first sees the test, but then takes deep breaths and does her best. She walks out of class feeling confident that she's done well.

BSC meeting time! I skim some more. Nothing eventful happens at the meeting. Not even an outfit description. I'm disappointed.

Chapter 4: Test results time! Well not quite - Mr. Zorzi waits until the end of class to hand back the tests, which is a bad move because of course Claudia's not going to be able to concentrate on today's lesson. When the tests are finally returned, Claud flips hers over to reveal a 94. That's an A- and better than any math grade I ever got! She's over the moon. But then at the end of class, Mr. Zorzi calls Claudia and Shawna Riverson to his desk. They've both gotten the same grade...because they both got the same answers wrong...in the same way. Claudia is too confused to realize DUN DUN DUNNNNN! Someone's cheated!

Gee, I wonder who. Surely not our protagonist. But Claud just stands there with her mouth open to gather flies while Shawna, the picture of innocence, claims she'd never cheat, and is immediately believed and dismissed by Mr. Zorzi. I think she must have been wearing a more revealing outfit than what's depicted on the cover. Or she took a cue from the classroom scene in Indiana Jones and had a flirty message written on her eyelids.

At any rate, Mr. Zorzi is a real piece of shit here. He firmly believes Claudia cheated, based solely on her past grades, with no evidence. She thinks this is the worst day she's ever spent in school, even worse than the first day back after Mimi died. She's about ready to cry and I don't blame her; it's awful to be accused of something you didn't do.

I'm still not sure what the "mystery" of this book was supposed to be. We know what happened and who did it. Shawna cheated; Claudia has to clear her name. 

Wait. We never found out what shoes Claud decided to wear that day! The ballet flats or the high tops?! Tonight, on Unsolved Mysteries!

Chapter 5: Ugh. A Pike sitting chapter. Honestly, I hated the Pike kids more than I hated Karen. They're 37 flavors of obnoxious. This time, Stacey's only sitting for the triplets and Claire while Mrs. Pike takes the others shopping. The triplets break a window playing baseball and refuse to fess up to whose fault it was. This is one of those sitting chapters that parallels the main story so the sitters can solve the kids' problem(s) along with solving their own. But I don't care and you probably don't either. None of us actually read these books for the baby-sitting chapters. We wanted the outfits, the boyfriend drama, and a shopping montage!

Chapter 6: Claudia's in her room, dreading the phone call her parents are going to receive from the principal. She's just sitting and staring, not making art or reading Nancy Drew or eating the Cheetos she has hidden in her sock drawer. No, really, that's described in the book. The sitters always comment "ew" when describing Stacey's insulin injections, but I always comment "ew" on the state of Claudia's presumably ant- and roach-infested room.

Claud's planning to hide in her room forever, but it's Taco Night at the Kishi house and she can't resist the lure of yummy Mexican food. She's about to take a big bite when Mrs. Kishi announces that the principal called. Claud's parents don't believe her at first. Janine has to convince them that she's innocent, and I think it's sad that even her parents don't have faith in her.

They offer to go to the school and talk to the principal, but Claudia says she wants to handle this on her own. WHAT? NO! She doesn't even give us a coherent answer why. She just thinks things will become "even worse" somehow if her parents get involved. What? How would that make things worse?! Bizarrely, the Kishi parents acquiesce to this and don't insist that they WILL go to the school, like my parents would. I guess if they did we'd have no book.

Oh, hey! We finally learn which shoes Claudia wore that day - the ballet flats! I can sleep easy now.

We also learn what the mystery in this book is supposed to be. Not the fact that Shawna cheated, but why she cheated. Claudia's determined to find out. Again, why? Who cares why Shawna cheated? That's Shawna's problem, not Claud's.

Chapter 7: Another BSC meeting. The girls are supportive but Mary Anne suggests that if Claudia did cheat, she should confess and they'd still love her anyway. Everyone gasps and MA bursts into tears because that's her personality trait.

Kristy agrees that Claud's parents shouldn't talk to the principal: "I think it's best if we handle this ourselves." WTF?! What message is this sending kids? Yes, it's important to teach independence and self-reliance, but there are some times when parents do need to be involved. This is one of them. I'm fairly certain that even when I read this as a kid I thought it was bizarre. Claudia says that if she fails math (which she will, if she doesn't clear her name) she'll have to quit the BSC. So...have your parents talk to the principal! Ask to re-take the test! IT'S SO SIMPLE.

Instead, the girls come up with an idiotic plan to collect evidence that Shawna cheated. Shawna and her friends have been acting "strange" and passing notes. Dawn knows Shawna's locker combination because there was a mixup and they had each other's lockers at the beginning of the school year. (Apparently at SMS, lockers are assigned, and the locks are permanently attached to them. At my middle and high schools, we got to choose our lockers and we had to provide our own locks.) She suggests rifling through Shawna's locker to look for evidence. This is stupid, but we've got to fill 15 chapters and 135 pages to meet the Scholastic contract requirements for a BSC book, so off we go.

Chapter 8: Oh lord. Another Pike sitting chapter that opens with one of those "conversational" notebook entries between two sitters. One of whom is Jessi and I refuse to read her handwriting.

The triplets are still grounded because they haven't fessed up to who broke the window. Mal and Jessi are sitting for them and although I never thought about it as a kid, no 10-year-old would consider an 11-year-old an authority figure. At that age I think I only had a sitter if my parents were going to be out past midnight. Otherwise, I was on my own.

The triplets speak Pig Latin, Jessi teaches them Op-talk, and they still refuse to say who broke the window. Yawn.

Chapter 9: At school, Claud sees Shawna and her giggling gregarious gaggle of gossips go into the bathroom, so she sneaks in to spy on them. Because you know all the good shit goes down in the girls' room, pun intended. As expected, Shawna and her friends openly brag about her crime in great detail to each other. Shawna cheated because she was too busy to study, and she knew Janine the Genius was helping Claudia study, so she copied Claudia's test knowing that Claud's reputation as a bad student would work in her (Shawna's) favor. Alas, this being 1991, Claudia doesn't have any handy device to record this confession. After they leave, she races out of the bathroom and hightails it to the cafeteria to share this intel with the BSC.

Dawn says: "So Claud has solved the mystery of who really cheated -- and why," and my eye twitches because there was no mystery of who cheated! And the 'why' should only be important to Shawna's teachers and parents. "Now we have to figure out how to help Mr. Zorzi and the principal solve the same mystery." 

Oh, I don't know, maybe have Claudia's parents talk to them? And have the girls each re-take the test! That's standard procedure.

I remembered liking this book when I was a kid but I'm struggling here.

Chapter 10: The girls go ahead with their plan to break into Shawna's locker to look for evidence. Apparently this is such a complicated and risky venture that it requires three pages of planning and a lookout. Girls, you know there's a VERY EASY solution to clear up this false allegation -- ah, fuck it.

  
Shawna's a slob who keeps crumpled papers, moldy food, and a bathing suit in her locker. You'd think Claudia would feel right at home there. Instead she gets distracted by a picture of a gorgeous guy. Good thing slutty Stacey's at the end of the hall being the lookout, because otherwise the janitor would need a mop and bucket in front of this locker. Claud finds a note she can use as evidence, steals it, then realizes she has no proof of who wrote it and no good excuse for why she has it. She puts it back. 

Chapter 11: The girls are aghast that Claudia put the incriminating note back in Shawna's locker, but they realize it was the best thing to do. Claud's got another math quiz coming up, and Stacey offers to help her study, then suggests that Claudia ask Mr. Zorzi if she can switch seats so Shawna doesn't cheat off her again. If I were Claud, I'd ask to sit completely alone, or next to Mr. Zorzi's desk to take the quiz. And if I were Mr. Zorzi, I'd take such a request as evidence that Claud wants to prove she knows the material. But something tells me that's not going to happen.

"I've got it!" said Kristy, referencing a previous book: "Remember how we tricked [the bully] Cokie Gray into incriminating herself?" Continuity error! Cokie's last name is Mason! Who was responsible for this error: ghostwriter Ellen Miles, or the editor at Scholastic? This is the real mystery of the book.

 
Claudia decides to trick Shawna into confessing during their next math class, but her attempts fail and all she does is put Mr. Zorzi's attention on herself instead. Toward the end of class she sees Shawna writing a juicy gossip note to a friend, and leans over her desk to read more of what Shawna's writing...and she's caught in the act by Mr. Zorzi. Way to go.

Chapter 12: The Pikes are the only kids the BSC sits for in this book. So now we get ANOTHER conversational notebook entry between two sitters - this time, Claudia and Mallory. When I was a kid, I never thought about the logistics of how the two-sitter notebook entries worked. Did they both sit there with the notebook, one looking over another's shoulder, interrupting by pen? Or did they pass the notebook back and forth, prompting each other to reply? I care more about this than about the "tripplets" getting "ungrounded" (Claudia's poor attempts at spelling).

Mallory is sick of the triplets being cooped up in the house, so she asks them to stage a reenactment of the baseball game to determine who broke the window. She finds that it was a freak accident and no one's fault directly: a wild pitch, a bad swing, and a misjudge of the ball's direction. When Mrs. Pike comes home, they reenact it once again to prove it to her. Which would likely be physically impossible to demonstrate exactly, but whatever. This gives Claudia the great idea: she'll ask Mr Zorzi to reenact the test!

After dinner, she runs the idea by Janine, who rightfully points out that Shawna would just pretend not to cheat. Claud feels like crying again, but Janine just smiles and tells her Shawna won't get away with making Claud look like a cheater. Janine is such a great sister. But Claudia thinks it doesn't matter anymore if anyone believes her.

Chapter 13: Outfit time! It's a new day and Claud's got a new attitude: "It doesn't matter! I don't care! It doesn't matter! I don't care!" she chants to herself. But what outfit can best depict this new attitude?

"I decided to do a Ms. Frizzle. [...] My theme for the day would be The Sea. I put on a blue skirt with brightly colored tropical fish printed all over it. Then I put on a green blouse. I figured that could represent seaweed or something. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, over to one side, and I pinned it with a sand-dollar barrette I made last summer."

OK, this isn't terrible. It actually sounds kind of cute. It's also color coordinated, which is more than I can say for a lot of Claudia outfits. At least there's no neon.

"I ran to my closet and pulled out a pair of shoes. They're the plastic kind called 'jellies' that I had decorated with stickers of seahorses and shells."

Hold up. Record scratch. I was an 80's girl and you better believe I had jellies. I've never seen a pair that had enough space where stickers could fit on them. The shoes always had cutout spaces all over them. Even if there was a place to put stickers, I don't see how stickers could stay on them anyway, they'd get creased and dirty and eventually fall off when you walked, wouldn't they?

You cannot put stickers on these. Ghostwriter fail.

Moving on...Mrs. Kishi says her outfit is "interesting," so she must not pay close attention to what her youngest daughter usually wears if she thinks this particular outfit is remarkable. But everyone at school loves it, and Claudia has a confidence boost and is feeling great. At the end of the school day, Claudia spots Janine in the hall. Janine's come to talk to the principal and clear her sister's name.

 

"I thought I told you to stay out of this!" I said to Janine angrily. "No," Janine said solemnly, "you told Mom and Dad to stay out of it. You never said I couldn't help."

Ah, literal thinking. Gotta love it, especially from someone like Janine.

Claud waits outside while Janine talks to the principal. A few minutes later, Mr. Zorzi enters the office, and then Claudia's told to come in. Janine's worked her magic on the principal (why doesn't he have a name?), and he isn't an ass like Mr. Zorzi. He thinks Claudia is innocent until proven guilty, and tells her that he and Mr. Zorzi will work out a way for her to prove she didn't cheat.

Janine is such a good sister.

Chapter 14: Claudia's allowed a re-test, which should have happened ten chapters ago. Mr. Zorzi allows her to sit alone in the back of class and take the test while the rest of the class does group work. Personally I'd be distracted being singled out like that, but Claudia ignores the other kids looking at her and focuses on the exam. She finishes early enough that Mr. Zorzi can grade it before class is over. It turns out she does even better than last time, and Mr. Zorzi apologizes for accusing her of cheating. Fuckin' A! Pun intended.

He calls Shawna to his desk and tells her that she'll be retaking the test tomorrow. Claud realizes that's not fair - she didn't get any advance notice. Now Shawna has a whole day to study. But before Claud can say anything, Shawna breaks down and confesses. She'd been too busy to study the first time and she still doesn't know the material. Mr. Zorzi makes her apologize to Claud, who almost feels sorry for her. Almost.

Shawna not only gets an F, but gets suspended for two days. I'm actually surprised that SMS took cheating that seriously, considering Shawna was generally a good student and involved in extracurriculars. I would have expected her to get a slap on the wrist. Justice is served.

Chapter 15: Claudia's in her room, painting and singing along with the radio. She tells us she's tone deaf. Does that ever get mentioned again? It's a BSC meeting day but no one's there at 5:29. Then at 5:30 on the dot, everyone including Janine bursts in with cookies, chips, and soda for a surprise congratulatory party. Claudia tells Janine what a great sister she is, and presents her with an art collage as a thank-you. Awww. 

At dinner, the Kishi parents tell Claud they're proud of her. Well you weren't so proud when you accused her of cheating. Mr. Kishi even says "Your record is always clear with us" and...hello? Selective amnesia, anyone? They bring out a celebratory cake, and everyone's happy, and Claudia's proud of herself. 

But like a sitcom, in future books everything's going to reset. She'll once again be struggling in school and hiding her failing grades from her parents and feeling resentful toward Janine the Genius. Like all the characters, Claudia got Flanderized as the series went on. Here, she struggles with math but can do it if she studies hard. (The same can't be said for her spelling though.) I stopped reading the series long before the arc where she gets sent back to 7th grade. I'm glad I'd aged out of it by that point. I'm not sure I could have taken the WTF of that plotline. 

Broken Glass (short fiction)

i have to put away the dishes it's one of my chores and to save time i grab a handful of forks and spoons at once but i'm clumsy and one spoon drops from my hand onto the floor but i'm able to pick it up before she sees it. i wipe it off and put it in the drawer and i'm able to put away the bowls okay but when i go to grab a glass it's still a little wet on the outside and it slips and then it's on the floor in a dozen pieces and she heard it break and now i'm in trouble because there's no way to hide it.

WHAT DID YOU DO THIS TIME she stomps in the kitchen with a loud sigh and says YOU ARE ALWAYS MAKING MESSES FOR ME TO CLEAN UP!  

no, i'm not! and it was an accident. i can clean it up if she'll let me but she never does. whenever i spill something or break something she jumps on top of it and won't let me help, but she yells all the time that i "make" her clean up messes. but that's not true, i don't make messes on purpose, i can't help it, it just happens.

and i try to say "i didn't mean to, it was an accident, let me clean it up" but when she's mad i know i'm in trouble and i get scared and i stutter so it comes out "i-- i-- it-- i-- di--"

GOD YOU ARE USELESS she says. I AM ALWAYS CLEANING UP YOUR MESS.

i don't know what to do and she won't let me near the broken glass, she blocks it with her body and with the trash can and broom. i don't make her mad on purpose, i don't drop things on purpose. i don't want her to be mad.

"i-- i-- le-- le--" i'm trying to say, let me clean it up, so she won't be mad anymore. "le-- let--"

SPIT IT OUT!  she screams in my face like she always does when i can't get the words out, and that makes everything worse, now i can't speak at all and it's hard for me to breathe. i start to cry because i don't know why she's so mean to me all the time, and i'm gonna get the hiccups soon, and when i cry snot runs out of my nose and down to my mouth and my whole face is wet and it tastes bad when i lick my lips. when she sees it she screams WIPE YOUR FACE YOU'RE DISGUSTING WHY CAN'T YOU GROW UP YOU'RE SO HELPLESS GOD WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE A DAUGHTER LIKE YOU.

and now i'm crying so hard i can't do anything until i stop crying and can breathe normal again. but by then of course the glass is all cleaned up and she wouldn't let me show her that i could clean it up myself. she said the whole time that i "made" her clean it up.

so i put away the rest of the dishes extra carefully and then i look carefully on the floor for any missed bits of broken glass, because if someone cuts their foot it will be my fault because i'm so clumsy and i can't do anything right.

Musings of an Alien Anthropologist Among the Human Race

It's Friday night and I'm sitting here thinking about how there's so much I don't understand about other people...mostly cultural stuff (marriage, weddings, religion) but also biological stuff (the desire to have children) and, why do so many people fear death? etc.

I realized long ago that I'll never understand the why behind why other people believe and want certain things, and I have to chalk it up to my brain being wired differently than the majority of other humans. And it's difficult for me to articulate questions without sounding judgmental.

You can tell me that religion gives you answers or makes you feel comforted, and on an intellectual level I can understand that answer, but I don't fully comprehend it because I've never felt a need for answers or comfort. So I still wonder "but WHY do you need/want/believe, though?"

You can tell me that you've always wanted kids, or try to claim that it's driven by biology, but I'm a biological human and I've never felt any desire or compulsion to procreate. It's like my brain doesn't recognize my body as even being capable of such an act. I can only think of it in abstract terms. I understand the biology, but even though my organs function normally, something's different in the way my brain is wired. It's wired to find the idea of child-bearing almost...offensive, if not outright horrifying and repulsive. The same way people know whether they're straight or gay, is how I've always known I will not get married or have kids. It's not even a choice I made, it's something I've always known, since childhood. So I find it bizarre that people choose to do those things. You can tell me why you did, and what it means to you, but your answers aren't answers I can comprehend.

Basically, I can't grok it.

That doesn't mean I don't respect your religion or your marriage or your family. I just often feel like an alien anthropologist living among the human race and being puzzled by why you do and believe various things.

Like, why do people fear death? Maybe this ties in with my inability to understand the need for religion: Everything dies, and once you're dead, you're dead. In death there is no ability to regret things you did or didn't do in life. You have no consciousness; there is no such thing as an afterlife. But billions of people don't believe that. I'll respect their beliefs as long as they're not harmful to anyone. But I'll never understand why people feel the need to seek answers or believe in a higher power or follow a religion. 

So, with this in mind, I gave up trying to figure out people years ago. There's so much I'll never understand about them. As long as there's a mutual "live and let live" philosophy, we generally get along though.

Sorry, I Don't Know You: Adventures in Face-Blindness

You may have heard of a condition called prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. It's when people are unable to recognize or recall people's faces, regardless of how long they've known them. I've suffered from a mild form of this my entire life, but fortunately my affliction is occasional and random. That is, some faces I'll instantly and permanently remember, others take some time to permanently fix in my brain, and other people I could see several times a day but never be able to recall what their face looks like. There's no seeming reason for the discrepancies, but I've noticed trends. I have yet to find an account of anyone who only experiences occasional face-blindness towards certain individuals, so I figured I'd go into detail about what I experience.

Up until a few years ago I didn't know there was a term for this. It was my secret embarrassment that led to a lifetime of awkwardness in school and when meeting new people. I don't know at what age I became aware that I had delays and difficulty recognizing some of my classmates, but usually during the first few weeks of the new school year, if there were new kids I didn't know yet, I had anxiety until my brain finally registered everyone's face. Until that happened, I could never predict whether I'd recognize an unfamiliar classmate the following day. 

If the teacher had divided us into work groups earlier that week, and told us to get into groups with our partners, there was always the small chance that I'd have no idea who my partner was. I could look around the room and rule out the people I obviously knew. But if there were a few new kids that year, I might not be able to recognize them yet, and I wouldn't know who I'd sat next to the previous day. But this would only happen if my brain hadn't yet "fixed" the face in my head. Meaning, once I recognize and know someone, they'll never be unfamiliar to me from that point on. It's just that I never know if and when I'll struggle to remember a new face. It's so frustrating and embarrassing that I can't predict when or if this will happen.

As I said earlier, I've noticed some trends but they're not absolute. If I find you very interesting or attractive, I'm almost always able to immediately fix your face in my head, and I'll never forget you. If you are a rather bland and nondescript person (sorry!) I am likely to have trouble remembering your face. And there are a few people who, no matter how hard I try, just look the same to me and I don't recognize them. There have been weeks or months at a time when I couldn't tell two coworkers or two classmates apart, and then when it suddenly hit me and I could permanently recognize them, I couldn't believe it because they didn't look anything alike. 

Brains are weird.

(I actually like it when people post lots of selfies from different angles and in different lighting, with different facial expressions. I can study the photos and tell myself "Okay, my coworker Jenn can look like this, or this, or this," and that does help if I'm trying to memorize who Jenn is.)

I do want to make a distinction here for those who are confused by the term face-blindness. I often see it "illustrated" by pictures of gray or blurred faces with no eyes or noses or features at all. This is not how I (or how I believe most people with face-blindness) perceive people at all. We are not literally blind. Our prosopagnosia is not related to a vision disorder, and we see every detail of a face just the same way we see every detail of anything else. What we have trouble with is facial recognition. I absolutely see your eyes, nose, lips, etc. Your face is a normal face. I could have a conversation with you, but if you're a stranger who walked away and came back 20 minutes later, there is a small chance I wouldn't recognize you, especially if you changed your shirt or your hair. Your face just wouldn't register as one that I'd just seen.

Fortunately, this is rare for me, and as I've gotten older I've learned to anticipate the possibility of it happening, so I try to pay more attention to the (for lack of a better word) bland or non-descript people I encounter. That's tough. Most people who have prosopagnosia can never recognize a face, even their family or loved ones; instead they learn to use cues such as hairstyle, voice, etc. And this can throw them for a loop if someone shaves a beard or changes their hair. And people with a severe form can't even recognize themselves in a mirror.

One thing I'd like to point out about myself is that I otherwise have a fantastic visual and spatial memory. I can glance at a map and memorize a route in my head, and recall it days later. I can scan an instructional diagram and then build the thing from memory. I know when something has been changed in my familiar surroundings. I keep dream diaries going back to childhood, and just reading descriptions of dreams I had 25 years ago makes me see them in my mind as if I'm experiencing them again. I can visualize and describe in detail memories of events that happened throughout my life. But for some reason, I blank on random people's faces. I don't know if this is at all related to prosopagnosia though. 

Having to fake my way through a conversation with someone who knows me (but whom I do not recognize) was fairly common when I was growing up. Most of my parents' friends looked alike to me and I rarely saw them often enough to pay attention. I know many of them got insulted, and my parents were horribly offended by my seeming lack of interest in their friends. I've never told my parents about my troubles with facial recognition. I've read that it's thought to be genetic, so I wonder if any of my family had it and never talked about it, either.

Interestingly, I've never had any delayed recognition of family members.  

The most frustrating thing is that I can't predict how long it will take before my brain permanently registers your face. As I explained earlier, if you're a visually interesting person with distinguishing features, and I'm paying attention, (and especially if I like you or find you attractive), my brain will register your face immediately and I'll never have trouble recognizing you. But if you're sort of plain, I might be unable to recall your face and spend months confusing you with another person. Eventually it will stick in my brain, but the length of time until it sticks is impossible to predict. 

This can cause a professional embarrassment as well, especially because I work as a receptionist at an animal hospital. We have a few (human) clients who I still struggle to recognize even when they come in every week. If they come in unexpectedly without their pet (for example, to buy dog food or renew a prescription), I might not recognize them. I've had several clients drop their pet off in the morning and then come to pick them up in the evening, and even though I was the one who checked them in, when they come back I don't know who they are. Sometimes it doesn't matter if they've changed clothes over the course of the day or not. I cover myself by asking "Sorry, how do you spell your last name?" so I can look up their file without revealing that I don't recognize them. I'm getting better, though, because I have to force myself to pay attention to voice, height, gait, mannerisms, etc. But it's always a crapshoot until that day they walk in and all of a sudden I know who they are. There's no sudden "A-ha!" moment, it just...happens.

I am so thankful that my affliction is mild and that I never fail to recognize someone after that point.

Yeah, brains are weird.

An Open Letter to My Neighbors About Your Really Loud Sex.

Hi. 

You may not know me, in fact I'm sure you don't, but you live on the other side of the wall and your bed is about four feet away from my head right now. The only thing separating us is some bargain-bin plasterboard and paint. It's a pretty cheap apartment, to be sure, and I know the builders couldn't be bothered with soundproofing or insulation, because that would have raised this place to a level of "slightly more luxurious than a cardboard box" and no student can afford that extravagance. But I'm not here to talk about property values.

I want to talk to you about sex.

Specifically, yours. The noisy kind that you seem to have a lot of.

Surely you've noticed that the walls are so thin in this building that you can hear every cough, sneeze, fart, and conversation from your neighbors. I know you can hear my TV, my music, and my toilet flushing, because I can hear yours. I know when you shower, I know you watch cartoons on Thursday afternoons, and I know you two were arguing last week about flowers. That's how thin these walls are. (And that's why try to I confine my own conversations to the kitchen, where we don't share a wall.)

And I know that you have a LOT of sex. I don't want to be a buzzkill, but I really don't appreciate being woken up at 6AM by your grunting and moaning. I don't look forward to coming home at lunchtime and hearing your bedsprings creaking for over 20 minutes (although I do admire your stamina). I'm not sure if you realize that your bed sometimes bangs against the wall while you're banging each other in the evening, and this is, to put it mildly, somewhat of a distraction as I'm trying to read and get my work done.

Now, maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe your grunts and moans are part of some primal scream therapy you're using to uncover some repressed trauma. Maybe the squeaking I hear is just you working out on an exercise trampoline. Maybe the bangs on the wall are your attempts to communicate "Howdy, neighbor!" in Morse Code. I doubt this, though, because the one time I banged back, you responded by kicking the wall so hard I thought the ceiling was going to come down.

So maybe you just like having loud sex and don't give a shit.

But you have to know that I can hear everything that happens on the other side of the wall, four feet from my head. And since you don't seem to be discreet or concerned about who hears you, I'm going to presume you're open to criticism and critiques of your performance. Surely you wouldn't mind some running commentary, play-by-play as the action unfolds:

"Johnson's giving it everything he's got, he's heading straight for the tight end....there's the hand-off...yep, yep, it's gonna be a pile-driver...and GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!"

(Disclaimer: I'm not really sure how sports work.)

Or I could go the MST3K route:

"Watch out for snakes!"

"Push the button, Frank!"

"The HORRORS of Spider Island!"

And some other possible commentary:

"I'll have what she's having."

"5/10. Very difficult to masturbate to."

"Hey, she sounds better than the girl you had over yesterday!"

*****************************************************************************

But seriously, stop with the loud sex.

Your neighbor who would like some peace and quiet.

Birding Update: Amelia Island and Little Talbot Island

It's been a big week, birdwise. Migration is in full swing here in north Florida, and I'm taking advantage of my location and my free time to explore some places I've been meaning to visit. This past Saturday I took a trip up to Jacksonville to explore the parks around Amelia Island and the Talbot Islands, which I hadn't been to before.

First stop was Ft. Clinch State Park. On the beach by the fishing pier was a nice mix of Laughing Gulls, Herring Gulls, Black Skimmers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, and Royal and Caspian Terns:

I also visited the eponymous fort in the park, built during the Civil War, but to be honest it was a bit boring. It might have been nice if there was a guided tour, but I wandered around on my own with a brochure and thought "meh". If you're into military stuff you might like it; I am not.

Ft. Clinch State Park also disappointed me due to the lack of trails; the park's pretty small overall, and the majority of the attraction is the beach and the fort. Beyond that, there's two hiking/biking trails, but there was some sort of marathon or race going on that day, so I was constantly in the way of runners. I decided to head south on A1A to the other parks on my list.

Of the two Talbot Islands, I chose Little Talbot simply because I've heard the name come up more often than Big Talbot when discussing rare bird sightings. I was not disappointed. The beaches themselves were very nice, and I drove all the way to the south beach, which had the fewest people. The birds weren't numerous, but because it was a beautiful day and the beach was so nice and empty, I decided to sit and chill for about an hour. 

Splendid Isolation

When I got up to walk around again, I noticed a couple of birds that I didn't recognize. I took some photographs to help me ID them because I'm not good with shorebirds, especially when they're in winter vs. breeding plumage. Three of the birds hung around long enough for me to sit with my book for a few minutes and positively ID them as a Piping Plover and a pair of Wilson's Plovers, two uncommon species that made my Life List.

Piping Plover

Wilson's Plover

I ate lunch under a pavilion on the beach, but lots of people had shown up by that point and it was no longer quiet and peaceful. Next stop was further down A1A, at Hugenot Memorial Park. I'd been told this was a great breeding place for shorebirds including Dunlins, which I've only seen once in my life and hoped to find again. It's also a place where you can drive your car on the beach ($3 entrance fee).

It is also where I began having a panic attack from the crowds of people.

I guess my mistake was going on a Saturday, and this wasn't even a holiday weekend, but oh my god. It was like Spring Break. Hundreds, maybe a thousand cars and people crammed on this little stretch of beach. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Laughing Gulls in their fenced-off breeding area, flying everywhere and making a racket that drowned out the music from the partiers. I parked briefly and got out to look around, and I might have enjoyed looking at the birds if I hadn't been surrounded by so many people. I wanted to cry. I needed to get out of there fast. In my haste to leave, I drove the wrong way and nearly got my car stuck in the sand, which made me start freaking out more, and then I hit so many potholes and bumps on the way toward the exit I was afraid I was permanently damaging my car, which made me start crying and then I hated myself for not being able to cope with crowds of people and for ruining what had otherwise been a good day. And when I found a somewhat quieter parking area near the exit, and tried to salvage what I could of the trip, my shoes got bogged down in mud when I walked around and then I tracked mud into my car and everything was awful for a little while.

I left the park and made a few other stops along the way and took some more wrong turns; nothing interesting to see, and there was no place to park to visit Fernandina Beach, so I wound up just going back to Ft. Clinch (entrance fee good all day) to walk along the beach there. It was kind of crowded by that point but not terrible. Trying to avoid the runners and mountain bikers, I hiked along the trails for a bit and saw a Roseate Spoonbill fly by, along with some migratory warblers in the oaks. Also got another lifer on the beach: Sandwich Terns, which weren't there earlier that morning.

Sandwich Tern, small bird in the center. You can make out the yellow tip on the bill.

Two Willets, just chillin.

Verdict: The parks are probably nicer to visit on a weekday when there's fewer crowds. Overall, I only saw 34 bird species the whole day (I spent about 5 hours, total, in the car) but three of them were lifers, so while it wasn't a total bust, the day could have been better. The weather was nice and Little Talbot has pretty beaches, so I may go back at some point, but Cedar Key remains a better spot for migration.

Birds, Birds, Birds! Big Day at Cedar Key and Lower Suwannee

So it's been a while since I wrote about my birding activities...took a drive out to Cedar Key this morning, under cloudy skies and a light mist. The rain stopped but skies remained overcast until about 2:00, which was good because it didn't get too hot, but disappointing for photography and identification. Still, the day was productive and I managed to nab 61 species including 2 lifers.

My first stop was the shell mound and Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. As I turned onto the road that leads to the camping area and shell mound, I found dozens of Blue Grosbeaks foraging in the grass, and numerous Barn Swallows everywhere. The shell mound itself was kind of dead at 8:00 AM, but there was a nice flock of Black Skimmers on a sandbar.

Next stop was the railroad trestle trail, where I ran into the Alachua Audubon field trip that had come over from Gainesville. In some ways it would have been nice to go with them and get positive IDs on difficult birds, but I generally prefer to bird alone or in a very small group. There were about 20 people in this caravan and that's just too much for me. At the trailhead I got a Northern Parula and Black-throated Green Warbler, and further on, a Common Ground-Dove, and then had the good fortune to spot a Bald Eagle eating a fish out on an oyster bed. I managed to get one picture before a boat came along and scared it off:

Headed over to the museum grounds next, and had the place to myself. I stumbled upon a small flock of Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks (8 males, 6 females) that I watched for a good half-hour because they're so pretty. I have a fondness for black-and-white animals in general. I wasn't able to get a really clear picture of one, but the best picture I got shows off his rosy breast very well:

Other highlights around the museum at this time included a Summer Tanager, female Black-and-white Warbler, and a Mystery Bird that I later ID'd as an Orchard Oriole -- a lifer for me! I failed to get a photo, which would have greatly helped with the ID because I didn't have my book on me and I was trying to go from memory. At the time I couldn't think of any North American bird that fit the description of what I was seeing. I later saw another one in a garden when I went back towards the railroad trestle trail in the early afternoon.

Blue Grosbeaks have taken over the Cedar Key cemetery. I probably saw well over a hundred total today, between Cedar Key and the shell mound area. The boardwalk trail around the cemetery was also a nice spot for Avocets (some in breeding plumage), Willets, and some photogenic Barn Swallows:

Male Blue Grosbeak

There was also a female Scarlet Tanager on the ground by the side of the trail. As I approached she hopped into the bushes, but it was clear she was injured or possibly just exhausted from the migration. She was holding her right wing slightly away from her body.

I then headed over into town and walked around the pier. The shoreline was surprisingly absent of birds -- no gulls or terns to be seen.  I did, however, see two dolphins and a group of at least four, possibly 5 manatees in the shallow water on the north side of the bridge on the road that I don't know the name of. (That was helpful, wasn't it?)

I didn't want to make the trip back to Gainesville without making sure I'd covered everything, so I went back to the railroad trestle trail and saw a pair of Indigo Buntings and Summer Tanagers, as well as the other Orchard Orioles. I was really happy about the Indigo Buntings because every time I saw a blue bird earlier in the day, it always turned out to be a Blue Grosbeak. I realized Indigos are a much brighter blue, which will help me in future IDs. (I know they're also smaller than Grosbeaks, but you can't always tell size when they flit into the bushes.) I then went back to the museum grounds, where nothing appeared to be happening, so I decided to leave for lunch. But as I was driving away, I happened to look over at a tree and I saw a long tail with some distinctive white spots.

Cuckoo! Yellow-billed Cuckoo! I love these birds. Every time I've seen one, it's been by random chance: I just happened to be looking in the right place without expecting to see anything at all. At this point the Audubon field trip group showed up, so I pointed out the cuckoo to them and stuck around to do some further birding on the trails that go around the museum. The best photographic highlight for me was a male Scarlet Tanager who unfortunately was injured or exhausted from migration, but made for a good subject by not moving around too much.

Also found an oak tree filled with a mess of warblers (that's a more fun term than "mixed flock") and in total I wound up with 61 species for the day, including two lifers. I was out from 8 AM to about 3 PM, on my own, without a scope, so I think I did pretty well, considering. I could have probably had a longer and more productive day had I packed a lunch. Here's the total for today, including Cedar Key, the Lower Suwannee, and alongside S.R. 24:

Brown Pelican                                        Double-Crested Cormorant

Great Egret                                             Great Blue Heron

Tricolor Heron                                        Snowy Egret

White Ibis                                               Black Vulture

Red-shouldered Hawk                          Bald Eagle

Osprey                                                     Wild Turkey

American Avocet                                    Willet

Black-bellied Plover                              Sanderling

Ring-Billed Gull                                     Least Tern

Forster's Tern                                         Black Skimmer

Common Ground-Dove                        Mourning Dove

Eurasian Collared-Dove                        Yellow-Billed Cuckoo

Pileated Woodpecker                             Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker                              Great Crested Flycatcher

Gray Kingbird*                                       Barn Swallow

Tree Swallow                                          Carolina Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher                          Veery

Gray Catbird                                           Northern Mockingbird 

American Crow                                      Red-eyed Vireo

Blue-headed Vireo                                 Northern Parula

Black-throated Green Warbler            Cape May Warbler

Pine Warbler                                           Palm Warbler

Prairie Warbler                                       Black-and-white Warbler

Common Yellowthroat                          Summer Tanager

Scarlet Tanager                                       Northern Cardinal

Rose-breasted Grosbeak                       Blue Grosbeak

Indigo Bunting                                       Painted Bunting

Swamp Sparrow                                     Common Grackle

Boat-tailed Grackle                                Red-winged Blackbird

European Starling                                 House Sparrow

Orchard Oriole*

*New species for the life list. Total so far for 2014: 112 species

When I Can't Go Home Again

In 2011, having reluctantly moved back to my hometown, I made a list of little things I would always remember about going to college in Gainesville:

"UF campus. Ward's market. Krishna Lunch. Friends of the Library book sales. The bookstore with the vegetarian cafe. The random smell of incense in stores. The way the afternoon sun shone in my top floor loft apartment. The cow pastures I lived across the street from. Tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes in the winter, waking me up with their trumpeting calls. Paynes Prairie. Discovering the joy of birding. Being poor but optimistic for the future. My first real love affair. Buying my first legal alcohol. Meeting people from dozens of countries and continents. "Hare Krishna" chants at lunchtime. Free bus service for students all over town. Groovy historic neighborhoods. That little seedy pool hall on Main Street, with Bo Diddley on the jukebox. Awesome thrift stores. Cruising around to Tom Petty songs. Meditation. Trees, trees everywhere, 500 year old oak trees trailing Spanish moss on hot summer days while cicadas buzzed deafeningly. Trails and parks and pockets of wild places to explore, all around town. Day trips to Cedar Key. Overnight trip to Seahorse Key. A small town that welcomed everyone of all races, creeds, and orientation. Freedom. Youth. A feeling that I was home."

Fast-forward 3 years, and I'm back in Gainesville, where I thought I wanted to be settled permanently...only to find out, it's not home after all. As soon as I moved back here last July, I realized immediately that it was a mistake. I'd been away for five years, subsisting on rose-colored memories of good times in college with good friends. But all of my friends have moved away, my then-boyfriend is long gone from my life, and I'd conveniently forgotten the shitty parts of Gainesville: the suicide-inducing freezing gray winters, the broiling summers with no breeze at all, the stagnant job market, the rednecks, and how much I miss living by the beach. Despite the 50,000+ student population, the town seems so much smaller than it did when I was 20.

Is it time, or my own experiences that have left me with nowhere that feels like home? When I came back to the States from New Zealand last year, I stood in the LA airport and almost broke down in tears because I realized the U.S. just didn't feel like home to me. I'd left the country to travel because I had nothing keeping me here -- no career, no significant other, no family, no dog anymore. And I fooled myself into thinking that I could visit a few countries, travel for a few weeks, then move back to Gainesville and buy a house and get a job and somehow be happy.

But that's not me. There's nowhere that feels like home to me, and I'm trying to come to terms with that being OK.

I still love Florida, and the Florida coast may be the only place that'll ever come close to feeling like home, but the more I travel, the more I realize that not only is the world so much bigger than anything I thought I could dream up, but that it's also totally feasible to live out of a backpack for months or years at a time. I like that idea. I dig it, and I'm tired of trying to live my life in the way that other people have tried to convince me that I should live it.

Ever since I was a kid I've had an obsession with running away. In second grade, whenever I needed a break from class, I'd go hide in the bathroom and imagine that the tiles on the walls had a pattern that formed a secret doorway to another world. If I could find that doorway, I could escape my boring humdrum life and go have magical adventures. And I might not ever have to come back.

By the time I was eleven, I was making maps of my hometown and elaborate plans for running away. I tried to calculate how many miles I could cover in a day, the best paths to avoid detection, where I'd hide when the inevitable search-and-rescue teams came looking for me, and the dumpsters where I could find food. I had a list of things I'd carry in my little backpack. I wondered how long I could make it without getting caught --  if I could make it out to California to become a movie star or to join the circus.

The need for escape haunted me throughout my teenage years. I suspect normal kids would learn to drive and have some of that need fulfilled, but at that age I began to suffer from crippling depression and anxiety that left me unable to leave the house, much less my town or my state. My dreams never died, though. I lived them vicariously through Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Buffett lyrics. I needed to escape my suffocating small town full of losers, and I wanted to live on a boat and sail to exotic ports-of-call and have love affairs with strangers and the kinds of adventures that little quiet good-girl Krista was not supposed to have. 

I never did have the guts to run away. In addition to the depression and anxiety, all my life I lived in fear of doing the "wrong" thing, disappointing my parents (who shot down any artistic, bohemian, or unconventional thing I expressed interest in) and finding myself tied to a place or a job or a boyfriend and never getting to actually do the things I dreamed of doing.

But I'm going to do them now. I started travelling a few years ago, first for just a week or two on vacation, then longer trips of several weeks or a month. And I like it. Beginning in July I'm giving up my apartment, putting my stuff in storage, and taking a year off. Maybe it will extend to two years. Maybe I won't come back to the States at all. (Except California. There's still that little-girl part of me who has big dreams of L.A., and I can indulge her fantasy for a bit.) 

I no longer have any place I call "home", but that doesn't matter. When you have no home, you can't get homesick. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. "I ain't rich, but Lord, I'm free." I'm just starting to really learn what those phrases mean.

I have a lot of lost years of living to make up for.