My husband bought me a “smart phone” a couple weeks ago. I tried in vain to explain to him that I did not need one, that I did not want one, that my old phone was fine. Sadly, his once torrid love affair with his iPhone is over, and he was ready to jump ship, dump AT&T and get the latest, greatest phone on the market. My old phone was a casualty of his divorce from Apple/AT&T.

Not that I liked my old phone either. It’s just that it was simple, and I was used to it. If you know me or if you’ve read my blog before, you know I have an aversion to all phones.

I was one of those rare teenagers who avoided calls even from my closest friends. My mother used to make me order pizza, and I would break into a cold sweat. Phone conversation does not work to my strengths. I’m not a glib conversationalist; I don’t think in quick sound bites, plus I’m pretty sarcastic and rather terse. Over the phone, I come off as rude which is ironic because people who meet me face-to-face think I’m quite sunny and friendly.

I have a visceral and irrational reaction to a phone ringing: I am instantly angry. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’m overscheduled, and an impromptu phone call is an inconvenience. Maybe it’s because I always have to run to get the phone since I’m not one of those people who keeps it on them every second of the day. (Sorry, I have too many other more important things to think about than where my stupid phone is at the moment.)  Even if it’s someone I really want to talk to right this instant (which is rare), I’m already mad when I answer the phone.

Anyway, now I’ve got this “smart phone” - an HTC EVO. So far, I’ve found two things I like about it. First, it has a decent camera. Second, I can waste more time on Facebook. That’s about it for positives, and for me, neither of those two things means much. We have an awesome camera - a digital SLR that I adore. It is far faster than my phone and takes far better pictures. So my EVO’s phone is nice, but not that big a deal to me. And as far as wasting more time on FB, well, I don’t need to waste more time.

I’d like to be more productive, actually, but the internet interface on the EVO confuses me. It’s dodgy, and the screen seems to arbitrarily flip to horizontal or vertical, regardless of which way I’m holding it. Plus, I am text-challenged. I am not dextrous, so I’m very slow at typing on the phone. And it infuriates me when the phone tries to “help” me by giving me suggestions about the word I’m trying to type. Because of my lack of dexterity, I often hit the wrong button and end up using one of the phone’s erroneous suggestions. Yesterday, I posted a comment on FB: “Imitation is the interest form of flatten.” Argh!

The difficulty I have using the phone keeps me from using it for anything important. So I just go to Facebook. Or try to read the news if I can figure out how. Most websites I like to visit on my computer look alien on my phone; I have trouble navigating sites I’ve used for years. Maybe in a few years, the Internet will catch up to phone technology, but right now, surfing the web on my EVO is an exercise in frustration.

My husband thinks I’m being an ungrateful, spoiled brat. He bought me this wonderful toy, and he loves his. How can I not appreciate this wonder of technology? I try not to complain for fear of looking like a fumbling, old-fashioned, anti-technology hag, but how smart can a phone be if it can’t set a simple alarm? I was almost late on the first day of class because I hadn’t set the “day” as well as the time. Really? I can’t just tell this wonder of technology to ring at 7am? I have to tell it 7am on Saturday? I guess I’ll just drag out my old Mickey Mouse alarm clock with the bell on top. It can manage that difficult task just fine.

Plus, I don’t like that I can turn off the EVO’s alarm with a swipe of my finger. I am not conscious when my alarm goes off; I just flail around to stop whatever is making noise, and I have accidentally turned it off several times. I need something more deliberate.

“We can get you an app,” says my well-meaning husband, trying to be helpful. “You can just download an app with a simpler clock that’s more difficult to turn off.”

But I don’t want to spend an hour looking for an application that will make something that should be simple - simple. I’ll just go get my Mickey clock, thanks. The phone is supposed to save me time, not make me spend more time trying to make it work for me.

And that is where this phone has lost me. Its primary function is supposed to be phone calls, right? Well, whenever I’m on campus, 15 miles from my home and right in the middle of downtown Indianapolis, I’m roaming. Yep. Roaming. Not a big deal except that before I discovered this geographic anomaly, I kept getting a bizarre error message from Verizon (we’re on Sprint) whenever I tried to call my mom or mother-in-law to check on my children. I finally resorted to calling from a decades-old, push-button phone on a landline in our Writing Center. Of course, now that we know about the roaming problem, I can just remember to add a 1 and the area code EVERY TIME I MAKE A LOCAL CALL AT WORK! Convenient.

In addition to that little technical glitch is a design flaw that is not only maddening but also insulting. Every time I hold the phone to my face, my fat cheeks hit buttons, usually the Mute or the End Call. I’ve gotten to the point where I just put the stupid thing on speaker every time I have a conversation to avoid dropping the call and to avoid being reminded that I have chubby cheeks.

Other people love their EVOs, and my friends and students love to make fun of me for being phone-a-phobic. I just don’t see why I HAVE to have the latest and greatest. If other people want to spend their lives with their face buried in their phones, that’s fine. Why can’t I just have something simple? Whatever happened to buying what is right for you and not what is right for you according to everyone else? I’m not a phone person. It doesn’t make sense for me to have a super-complex phone.

The whole thing makes me feel old and disgruntled, which isn’t fair either because I don’t dislike all technology. I’ve been a computer analyst, software designer, webmaster, and database manager for many years. Computers make sense to me, but phones feel like an invasion in many ways. An invasion of time, an invasion of privacy, an invasion of energy, an invasion of the moment. I do not like them well enough to invest the time and energy it will evidently take for me to learn to use this fabulous phone.

And if I do learn it, I’m sure it will be just in time for us to upgrade.

Humpty Dumpty said gaily… “That shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents”
“Certainly,” said Alice.
“And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’”Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?”
“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”
“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”
“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

Lewis Carroll’s passage from “Through the Looking Glass” is near and dear to many linguists because it demonstrates so succinctly some of the fundamental debates about language: Where does definition stop and connotation begin? Who wields the power of language in a dialogue – the speaker or the listener? Who has the authority to determine what a word means and how it is used?

As an English teacher and a writer, I think about these general ideas all the time. But lately, I’ve noticed an odd little movement that has me thinking about this on a more specific level.

The movement has to do with the word “American.”

Lately, I’ve seen posts on Internet message boards and heard comments from people on television and even from students regarding the meaning of “American.” There is a small group of people who disapprove of United States citizens monopolizing the term to label themselves. After all, the argument goes, anyone living on the North or South American continents is an “American.”

Sure. I’ll buy that. But what purpose does it serve to define the term only that way and strip it of its other definitions? According to Merriam-Webster, “American” has three meanings: 1) an American Indian of North or South America  2) an inhabitant of North or South America  3) a citizen of the United States. To suddenly decide that it is offensive for inhabitants of the United States to call themselves “American” because we’re leaving out the rest of the people in the Western Hemisphere, seems contrived.

The argument seems to be coming from uber-left-wing progressives and non-U.S. citizens. If you know me or if you’ve read my blog before, you know that I’ve got nothing against either of these groups. I’m a moderate liberal myself, and I’m certainly no xenophobe. Speaking as a linguist, though, their argument is illogical.

First, if we don’t call ourselves “Americans,” what do we call ourselves? “U.S. citizens?” “Yankees?” (That’d go over well with Southerners.) “Residents of the country north of Mexico?” I mean, there aren’t any concise, useful synonyms. It’s not like an offensive epithet for which there are many, more appropriate terms.  It’s actually a unique word.

Secondly, and this might sound immature, but we were the first nation in the Americas to break free from our colonial empire. When we first began calling ourselves “Americans,” Mexicans were still calling themselves “Spanish” or “Aztec.” Brazilians were still calling themselves “Portugese.” Canadians were still calling themselves “British” or “French.” It’s the old playground claim – we were here first, so it’s ours! Seriously, though, from this perspective, it becomes pretty silly to be offended by our use of “American.” When we first started calling ourselves that, no one else wanted the name.

Most people living in the Western Hemisphere still don’t want the name. Call a Brazilian an “American” and they will correct you. “No, I’m Brazilian.” If you persist, they’ll probably laugh. “Oh, I get it!” Most of the Mexicans, Canadians, Central Americans and South Americans I know would think it was kind of a joke.

Besides, to limit the term “American” to its second definition is to render the term fairly useless. It’s like calling Germans “Eastern Hemispherians.” Who does that? Why would they? Make a term too broad, and it becomes ineffectual.

Human beings just don’t think of themselves in such big terms. Sure, some people like to think of themselves as global citizens, but they don’t usually speak that way in normal conversation. I mean, if you say to someone, “Where are you from?” and they answer, “I am a citizen of the world,” you’re going to think they’re a nutjob.

Most of the time, depending on where you are and to whom you are speaking, you would answer, “I’m from Paris,” or “I’m from Saudi Arabia.” Human beings have a general propensity for putting ourselves in smaller communities. And it’s not just endemic to people in the United States; Great Britain has extensive experience with this phenomenon. Just call a Scotsman “British” sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.  We tend to identify ourselves locally, not globally, sometimes even in direct opposition to political realities. (Like my Iranian friends who call themselves “Persian” even though Persia has not existed politically since 1935.)

Our loyalties lie with our countries, our regions, our cities or towns, our neighborhoods, our schools. We’re not loyal to our hemisphere. Thinking of ourselves in pan-continental terms is not natural to us, and I don’t think it will ever really catch on.

Then again, limiting the word “American” to only its second definition not only makes its third definition offensive, but also its first. Try telling a Navajo or a Cherokee that they cannot call themselves American, and you’re likely to get punched in the face. And rightly so. After all, they were here before the Europeans. If anyone is going to change the definition, shouldn’t it be up to them and not a radically politicized group of word police or a bunch of people who don’t even live here?

Of course, people are, like Humpty Dumpty, quite free to call themselves or others whatever they like.  Americans don’t pass laws restrict our own speech, and we certainly cannot expect to restrict the speech of people in other countries. If these folks want to redefine “American,” though, it’s going to take a long time. Words don’t change their meanings on a dime.  In the meantime, it’s just not a very clear way to communicate.  People who insist on calling all inhabitants of the West “Americans” will likely get the same reaction Humpty Dumpty got from Alice – a puzzled “oh.”

I grew up as the daughter of an abused child. My grandfather, and his father before that, were the villains of our family. I grew up recognizing the symptoms of child abuse in my mother, and I learned how to handle their manifestations which often shocked or overwhelmed people who were not familiar with them. When I was about 9, I watched my mother yank a truck driver out of the cab of his semi. He had been speeding, tail-gating and menacing us on the road, and his threatening behavior flipped the little switch in my mother’s brain which had developed after years of abuse. Her rational brain shut off; she was on auto-pilot, reacting solely to what she perceived as a bully using his position to frighten and endanger her and her children. When she came to a stop sign, she got out of the car, stalked back to his truck and hauled him out. He practically fell on top of her as she was screaming at him. Luckily for her, he was a small man, and he was so taken aback by her fury, he just stammered something about her being “crazy,” scrambled back into his cab and sped away.

Despite her occasional scary outbursts, my mom never abused me or my sister. She was one of those amazing victims who was able to stop the cycle of violence, and for that, she will always be a hero to me. But I did have to learn to watch for “the signs” that the switch was about to flip. In any situation where she saw bullying, where someone bigger and stronger was threatening someone smaller and weaker, particularly if the bully was a man, and the victim was a woman, child or animal, I could see my mom’s back stiffen, her jaw would set, and something would come into her eyes that eventually became familiar to me, although I cannot name it. On more than one occasion, I have had to physically restrain her from going after a complete stranger who was behaving badly.

That’s my mom. She’s the champion of the little guy, and I love that about her, but it can be frightening. On a handful of occasions, she’s turned that fury on people she loved, though never in a violent way. Years of tangling with my grandfather - a very intelligent, ex-military, professional boxer - have turned my mom into a formidable fighter. She can argue with you for days! She will pull out all the stops too. If she feels threatened, that switch will flip, and you’re in for a long, nasty haul. As I said, I can recognize the signs and avoid the marathon arguments. Growing up with my mom taught me some very useful things about adult victims of child abuse.

Which brings me to the real reason for writing this blog entry. In 1996, I met the man who would become my husband. An ex-boyfriend of mine called me up and said he wanted to introduce me to his new roommate, Sean. (Yes, I know it’s unusual - I had a pattern of breaking up with guys without alienating them.) I walked into their quintessential bachelor pad - all high-end wi-fi stereo, big screen TV, video game systems, wires everywhere, a few mismatched sticks of ancient furniture, empty pizza boxes and beer cans and overflowing ash trays. My guy was standing in the middle of the room with an electric guitar slung around his shoulders and a lit cigarette tucked between the strings at the top of the guitar. It was love at first sight.

More than that, though, we were a perfect match, if there is such a thing. Partly because Sean is an adult victim of child abuse like my mom. I’ve always said that God sent him to me because there aren’t many women in the world who have been raised by an abused parent without having been abused themselves. Sean could not have married an abused person; he could not have married someone without the learned strategies for dealing with the symptoms. It had to be someone like me. Someone who had the knowledge without the baggage.

So let me tell you about that baggage. Like my mother, Sean has a switch. On a few occasions, I’ve had to restrain him from going after strangers as well. In fact, on one family vacation, I was sitting between my mom and my husband when a little girl came flying out of the restaurant in whose terrace we were dining. The little girl was about 3 or 4, and she was crying frantically. A split-second behind her came her mother, who looked like hell on wheels. She was furiously stalking her child out into the plaza, and when she caught up with her, she yanked that little girl right out of her shoes. Sean and Mom were on their feet in an instant, and I was clinging to their arms when the little girl’s father came to rescue his daughter from his overwrought wife.

Another odd and annoying bit of baggage from abuse has to do with food. Like my mom, Sean has myriad food “issues.” His abusive stepmother made chicken a lot. So chicken is a problem. If you’re a cook, you recognize what a major complication that is. Sean and my mom are both incredibly picky eaters. My 9-year-old is easier to cook for than either of them. I read an article that indicated many victims of child abuse have eating disorders because of the control factor. What they put into their mouths is one of the few things an abused child can control. They use it as a defensive weapon just as abusers will use it to punish them. Sean won’t eat peach-flavored foods, stewed tomatoes, cooked carrots and several other foods that he associates with his abuser.

Then there is the hypochondria. I read an article about this too. Abused children often develop it as a defense mechanism because many abusers will not be as violent if they believe their victim is already weakened from another source. I guess it takes the fun out of hitting the child. Nice, huh? Well, that hypochondria doesn’t go away when the child grows up and escapes the abuse. If you ask my mom or my husband how they’re feeling, they’ll give you a laundry list of ailments; their hair is falling out, their right earlobes are sore, their pancreas is twitchy, and their left toenails are loose - stuff like that. I try to be patient with that because sometimes, I swear I can see the 9-year-old version of my husband in his eyes when he is whining about not feeling good, and I remember that it’s not a character flaw. It’s a defense mechanism.

And that brings me to the elephant in the room, the person I have seen only once for about 5 seconds from a distance in the dark. The person I would most like to believe is reading this blog, but she won’t - my husband’s ex-step-mother. My letter to her:

Mrs. Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is-Now (since you can’t get a husband to stay with you for long),

I’ve been dealing with the consequences of your cruelty for several years longer than you actually had the victim in your power. I believe your abuse of my husband lasted about seven years; I’ve been with him for over 14.

If you’ve actually read the preceding paragraphs, you can see some of the results of your abuse. In addition to having a hair-trigger reaction to bullies, difficult food phobias, and mild hypochondria, my husband is an agnostic. It’s a tribute to his logical mind and strength of character that he’s not a simple atheist.  I understand that one of your excuses for beating him was that you believed God wanted you to, but you were such a devout Christian, such an active church member, such a religious woman, no one would believe Sean’s stories. You told him he was evil and deserved the beatings you inflicted. Did you know that little boy used to pray every night, begging God to make him good so you’d stop hitting him? And when God didn’t answer in the way Sean expected, Sean decided He probably didn’t exist. Thanks for that, lady. I’m working every day to undo that bit of damage. Occasionally, I’ll feel like I’m making a tiny bit of progress, then Sean will hear Pat Robertson or some other televangelist make some ridiculously unkind pronouncement against an unfortunate bunch of people who obviously deserve their pain, and we’re right back. In those cases, he always mentions you. And when Sarah Palin was running for Vice President, he was reminded of you because of her illogical, holier-than-thou demeanor. I have to run interference, trying to live as a better example of a loving, forgiving CHRISTian than you or those other angry, paranoid posers so that Sean will perhaps, one day, forgive God for leaving him in your clutches for so long.

For all those reasons, your existence is often cursed in our home - by me, by my husband, sometimes even by our son, who is now old enough to understand the damage you did. In fact, your name is a code word in our family for “villain.” You are THE evil stepmother, the ogre, the wicked witch of all our bedtime stories. To speak your name, however, is to cast a pall over our home, so we don’t say it often. You’re the “Voldemort” of our family.

Yet, Sean, like my mom, is such a remarkable individual that he has chosen not to continue the cycle of abuse. He never touches our children in anger; he gets upset with me if I occasionally swat their behinds. Spanking is not a punishment in our home. He is a magnificent father, in spite of you. His children adore him. I know you cannot say the same of your children.

Sean has a great life. He has a good job that pays enough for me to work only part-time so I can stay home with our young kids. He has some terrific friends who think he’s brilliant and fun. He has two beautiful, healthy, smart, well-behaved children who think he hung the moon just for them. And he’s got me, his wife of 12 years. I believe that’s longer than any of your marriages have lasted, and we’re still going strong. I think he’s amazing. He’s a genius, did you know that? He’s smarter than I am, and I’m a National Merit Scholar, a college lecturer with 3 degrees, a published author. Sean blows me away intellectually. His family and friends continue to be impressed by his intelligence.

He’s kind too. Like the other men in the Mahoney family, he loves animals and has some weird cat attraction that brings every feline within a mile radius to our door. Like my mom, he won’t let any harm come to an animal or child if he can help it. His kindness is accompanied by bravery; for that reason, he’s the type of person bullies fear. Maybe that’s why my grandfather kept his distance on the three occasions he met Sean.

Sean has an amazing gift for sizing people up. He will meet someone new, and later in the evening, I’ll ask him, “What do you think of So-and-So?” And I always take his judgment to heart because he is always right. The people for whom he gets a bad first impression inevitably turn out to be unworthy of our friendship. If he doesn’t trust someone, we keep our children away them. Needless to say, you will never come near Sean’s kids.

Together, we have created the kind of rich life you can only envy from afar because people like you cannot manage it. We have a nice house full of love and laughter and happy memories. We take crazy family vacations to wonderful places like Disney World, the Black Hills, the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon. We drive for hours together, and we enjoy each others’ company.

So the damage you inflicted on Sean, the damage my deceased grandfather inflicted on my mom, and the damage so many other abusers inflict on their victims has some lasting, annoying side effects. But the smart victims, the strong victims, the lucky victims get the last laugh. They get to choose the rest of their lives.  I have been blessed to witness the lives of my husband and my mom, two remarkable people who are so much better than you, it seems a shame they have to share the same planet with you. You will never be as loved as they are.

May God have mercy on your twisted soul.

Jennifer Price Mahoney

My husband chastised me the other day because my blog’s been idle for a while. I admit, I’ve been lax, but I do have some really good excuses if you’re interested! First, I’ve been in summer school hell. Like an idiot, I accepted a double assignment which means I’m teaching two classes covering 15 weeks’ material in 6 weeks. I’m a lesson planning-student-email-responding-paper-grading automaton! Second, the novel that has been gestating in my brain for the past 8 years has decided it’s time to be born. So in between my manic teaching work, I’ve been spending most of my writing time writing that. And finally, well, most of my blog stuff’s been focused on current events, and the oil spill in the Gulf has been dominating that spectrum for a while. The whole fiasco simply paralyzes me with disappointment and anxiety. I am so angry with BP, disappointed in our government’s response, devastated about the environmental impact, and grief-stricken for the people of that region, I don’t want to write more than these few lines about it. Soooooooo…

My guilt-ridden conscience thus temporarily cleared, I can move on to something kinda fun.

As an English teacher with a couple of degrees in literature, I am often asked for summer reading recommendations. Now if you were talking to me in person, I’d ask you several questions about your personal tastes before I would presume to recommend anything because the possibilities are really endless. Plus, I have some rather particular tastes in reading materials, especially the stuff I read in my free time.

Since you’re just reading this blog, though, I’ll list my personal favorites. Please bear in mind that I read some rather heavy stuff for my professional work, so in the summer, I tend to read fun, low-impact books. I love Dante, Shakespeare and Henry James, but I’m not going to recommend them for light reading on the beach. Please don’t hold the fluff in this list against me!

In no particular order:

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher: A memoir of Princess Leia’s life, growing up in a celebrity family. Painfully funny, it is particularly fascinating if you are remotely interested in Hollywood history. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it wasn’t three times as long.

Fool by Christopher Moore: A retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear from the fool’s perspective. I’ve been a Christopher Moore fan for years, but I was leery of his taking on my beloved bard, especially Lear, which is my favorite Shakespearean tragedy. Moore is irreverent, hilarious and dirty, so I had my doubts. I needn’t have worried; it is hilarious, and his love for this magnificent play is obvious just behind all the four-letter words and naughty bits.

Angels and Demons/ Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: Imaginative novels about Catholic conspiracies. If you’re one of the few Americans left who haven’t read these, pick ‘em up at your local library or used book store. They’re fun, fast-paced, and intriguing, especially Angels and Demons, which moves at a near-breakneck pace that keeps your nose in the book right until the rather farfetched end. I can’t recommend the third one because I haven’t read it yet. I refuse to shell out $30 for a hardback, so I’ll wait until it’s available at the library.

Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich: Series of mysteries about an unlikely bounty hunter in New Jersey. These are pure fluff, but I was hooked when my sister lent me the 9^th book in the series, and I read the line: “Punky Balog had an ass like Winnie the Pooh…big and fat and furry.” That was the first page, and it just got funnier from there. They’re all filled with wild characters and improbable fumbles – the kind of stories I have to stop and read pieces aloud to my husband now and then.

Sex with Kings/Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman: A whirlwind tour of European history via royal bedrooms. I’m a sucker for European history, so I love Herman’s books. They’re not your high school history textbooks, for sure. All the juicy particulars of romance, passion, sex, and political intrigue are woven into real history to make it come alive in lurid detail - everything from tsarist Russia to Prince Charles and Princess Di.

Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie: Murder mystery with a twist before twists were cool. My mom has read every Christie novel. I’ve read about a dozen or so, and the Hercule Poirot stories are my favorites. This one is a classic. Think M. Night Shyamalan before his father was even a twinkle in his grandfather’s eye.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: The monster classic. I taught this to freshmen a few years back, and I was worried. The course was designed for non-majors, and I feared the 18^th-century language and sensibilities might turn them off. I warned them to forget about watching any of the film adaptations and faking their way through discussions; this is nothing like what you think you know about Frankenstein. They loved it. It’s actually an easy read despite its age, and it is still fascinating and disturbing and thought-provoking.

Dracula by Bram Stoker: The other monster classic. Again, forget what you think you know. Even more so than Frankenstein, Dracula has been done some terrible disservice by Hollywood. Stoker’s novel is far richer in characters, plot and paranoia than any of the film adaptations. This novel is what I started to write my Master’s thesis on, so it’s a personal favorite. I’ve read it about 20 times. A couple scenes still give me chills!

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: An adventure tale about an OCD British gentleman who makes an outrageous wager. If you ever watched “Frasier” with Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde-Pierce, you’ll recognize Phileas Fogg’s type – fastidious, exacting, particular, and over-educated. But you can’t help but fall in love with him as he battles his way around the 19^th-century globe. I read this to my 8-year-old son, and we had a blast following Fogg’s travels.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold : Historical fiction about a magician in 1920’s San Francisco. I love historical fiction done well. This novel is full of surprises and keeps you guessing until the end. Supposedly, it was just picked up by Warner Brothers for a film adaptation. That’s been a rumor for a while, though, so don’t wait for the movie.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr: Historical fiction about a profiler in turn-of-the-century New York City. Sherlock Holmes does Jack the Ripper in the United States. Sort of. This book is dark and twisty with cameos by great historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt.

Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll: Classic children’s fantasies. Most people (including myself, obviously) label these as children’s books, but they are so deep and full of tricks and word plays children would never catch, I think it’s a shame to dismiss them or relegate them to a genre where adults who never read them as kids will feel foolish picking them up. They are amazing, and I find myself quoting them all the time: “If you do such a thing again, I’ll have you buttered!”

So there you go. I wish I hadn’t read any of these so I could read them all this summer for the first time. They are such fun to discover. If you’re fortunate enough not to have read some of them, I envy you.

Meanwhile, I shall trudge off into the unknown bookshelves, mining for gems. Happy reading!

I grew up in a Christian church. My mom taught Sunday school; my dad played Michelangelo to our pastor’s Pope Julius. I never questioned my faith, nor did I ever really think about it much. Until the day our married pastor’s multiple affairs with female church members was uncovered. He resigned in disgrace; the church was rocked. My dad was really shaken. It was 1986, and it was the first time a fellow Christian challenged my faith.

We didn’t know it then, but our pastor was at the forefront of a national trend there in the late 1980’s: Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Peter Popoff. Seems like the televangelists just make it harder to be a Christian, much less try to convince others to become one. Every time I feel like I’m making some headway with my agnostic husband, Pat Robertson makes some ridiculous pronouncement about 9/11 being the fault of American homosexuals or the Haiti earthquake being the result of a pact with the devil (CBS News, 1/14/10).

Sadly, I have noticed for several years now that it’s not the “threats” from outside my inherited religion that really make me scratch my head. I have Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Unitarian Universalist friends. I have atheist friends. I’m married to an agnostic. I can have wonderful, thoughtful, respectful conversations with them. We do not proselytize or try to convert one another, but what we usually discover is that, despite our different faiths (or lack thereof), we have a lot in common.

On the other hand, the nastiest, most paranoid, angriest conversations I have had about religion have been with people who supposedly share my faith. For example, this semester I had a student who introduced himself to me on the first day as “a very conservative Christian.” I told him we should probably get along well then, for I was a Christian too. But that wasn’t enough for this young man. He wanted to know which church I attended, and when I told him it was an Episopalian church, he made his pronouncement: “Ooooooh, that’s too liberal.” He then spent the rest of the semester spewing his anger, paranoia and hate in every direction: “Buddhists are going to hell.” “I hate those Chinese guys.” “Hindus and Muslims are going to hell.” “I’m ready to fight for my God.” “The Bible says women who cut their hair are going to hell.” That last one he gave me after I told him about two of my girlfriends who did the St. Baldrick’s event, shaving their heads to show their support for their mother who was going through chemotherapy. Such a sweet, sensitive soul, right? I am a professional; I am a Christian. I turned the other cheek and said almost nothing.

Then there was the Christian missionary who cyber-stalked me for a couple weeks, sending me progressively angry e-mails via Facebook because I did not agree with his stance on the healthcare reform bill. “You show me where in the Bible it says I have to pay my taxes to pay other people’s doctor bills.” I guess he had a point. Jesus never mentioned doctor bills in the New Testament. I am pretty sure he did say, “Pay your taxes” (Matthew 22:21) and also “You can’t take it with you” (Matthew 19:23-24). For a missionary to be that angry about his taxes and about helping others really shook me up a bit.

Another regular challenge to my faith comes from a friend of my mother. This woman, whom I will call Louise, is, well, insane. I’m not sure how else to say it. But she is active in her church which is pretty good cover for her instability. In fact, her church probably appreciates it because she’s loaded, having inherited millions from her late husband. Louise can talk at you for an hour without taking a breath. One day when I was visiting my parents, Louise called, and I answered the phone. I said, “Hello,” and then spent the next ten minutes listening to all her theories: Hillary Clinton is a lesbian, Barack Obama was a secret Muslim terrorist, and all the media outlets except Fox are run by Muslims. My mom says I’m hypercritical of Louise because of her right-wing politics, but I’ve assured my mom that if any of my liberal friends ever tells me that Sarah Palin is actually a member of the KKK or Mitt Romney wants to turn all of America into a Mormon theocracy, I’ll tell them they’re insane too.

So today I got a flyer in my mailbox from the local Assembly of God congregation. It invited me to a four-part series called “The Future of America.” The lectures were titled “United We Stand, Divided We Fall: America’s March Toward Socialism,” “The Death of the Dollar: Will the American Economy Recover?” “Homosexuality: Exposing the Truth Behind the Facades,” And “National Security & Islam in the U.S.: Do You Know Your Neighbor?” My first response was laughter, but then I got nervous, and then angry myself. The inflammatory language on this little flyer - “socialism,” “death,” “exposing,” “security”- and the paranoid rhetoric - “Do you know your neighbor?” - made me wonder exactly what the purpose of a Christian church is. This thing was addressed to “Our Neighbor.” They don’t know me. I might be an agnostic, a lost soul or a Christian who has lost her way. What am I going to make of these titles? I have Muslim neighbors; they probably got this unsolicited trash too. Above the title of the lecture on Islam is a picture of fighter planes. Well, I’m sure that makes my Muslim neighbors comfortable. Not to mention the fury that homosexuality title evoked in me, a lifelong Christian who happens to have many dear gay friends who are not scary or dangerous or hiding anything which more than I can say for the BTK killer who was straight, a church member and Scout leader. How’s that for a facade?

Anyway, it’s a worrisome time for Christians, especially those of us who can’t embrace the almighty dollar, don’t despise all politicians or love toting guns and shooting at people who look different from us. I cling to a few of my Christian heroes: my friend Erik, a local pastor, who organizes new churches in inner-city communities. Frank Schaeffer, son of the theologian and missionary Francis Schaeffer. Fr. Jim Martin, who is actually the unofficial chaplain of “The Colbert Report.” And Reverend C. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who heads up the Interfaith Alliance. The good Christians are out there. Sometimes they’re just harder to find because of all the idiots making so much noise. In Jesus’ name. Amen.