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Welcome to My Official Web Page!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Gouge My Eyes Out With a Sewing Needle

A woman should never learn to sew, 
and if she can she should never admit to it. 
--Katherine Clifton, The English Patient

I despise sewing. And in the midst of editing DAUGHTER OF THE GODS, I realized something else. 

All my female protagonists hate sewing. Not just sewing--knitting, spinning, carding, embroidering... If it involves some sort of thread or material to be made into clothes, they hate it. 

Part of this is surely due to my inherent distaste for sewing. I've tried knitting and cross-stitch and both made me want to gouge my eyes out. (Although I have family members who are excellent seamstresses who never fail to impress me with their prowess with a sewing machine). I can sew a button on one of my daughter's shirts, but that's the end of my expertise, and even that almost sends me into epileptic fits

Yet, I think there's also a part of me that wants my heroines to buck the trend of history. Throughout the ages, most societies expected women to be able to sew. Instead, my leading ladies are sassy (sometimes snarky) women who speak multiple languages, read, write, hunt, study medicine, race horses, and take to the stage. Maybe it would be more historically accurate if they also sewed, but I don't care. 

After all, well-behaved women rarely make history, right?

Monday, January 14, 2013

Hatshepsut's Temple at Deir el-Bahri

I was planning to post last night about my favorite books from 2012, but then a nasty cold bug tried to take me down. Today was an ice day (no school!) so I figured some procrastinating work on my latest revision desk organization was in order. Guess what I found?!

A CD of pictures from my 2005 trip to Egypt!

I thought these were long gone, well, actually, locked on the old laptop with the fried hard drive. But no! So, yes, today's post is kind of like when you get dragged to someone's house to see their vacation slideshow, except this one has a history lesson too!

(You know that sounds riveting. Just nod and smile.)

So, without further ado, here's a trip back in time to Hatshepsut's Temple at Deir el-Bahri, right next door to the Valley of the Kings. 

When I'm dictator of the world, I plan to sweep other tourists out of the way for my cool historical pictures. You've been warned. 

Hatshepsut was Pharaoh during the New Kingdom (16th-11th c. BCE), often referred to as Egypt's Golden Age. As had many pharaohs before her, she left a trail of monuments to herself scattered about the country, the greatest of which was her mortuary temple at modern Deir el-Bahri, but called Djeser-djeseru (translated as Holiest of Holies) in her time. The temple fell into ruin in antiquity and has been rebuilt in modern times by a Polish archaeological expedition. (All of whom deserve rides on unicorns and cupcakes for life for reassembling this giant jigsaw puzzle).

Hatshepsut covered the walls of her limestone temple with scenes of offerings to the gods, the story of her divine birth (it's excellent propaganda to be the daughter of a god), and depictions of her general awesomeness (including her expedition to the mythical land of Punt, the photos of which seem to have disappeared from my file).

 Yes, those are the original paints. Did I mention they're roughly 3,500 years old?

 Her stepson, Tutmose, making an offering to the falcon god Horus. 

I know it's really hard to see, but if you squint you can make out Hatshepsut's mom being led to the birthing chamber to have little-Hat. And that bump that looks like she ate too much for dinner? Her 9-month pregnant belly. (The ancient Egyptians were big into body image).

So the old history books used to say that after her death, Hatshepsut's stepson took out his revenge against her (she kind of swiped his throne) by destroying all her images and temples. This doesn't really seem to be the case anymore, as most of the destruction took place at the end of his reign (if he was angry, why wait so long?) and only the images of Hatshepsut as pharaoh were erased. The new version is that Tutmose wanted to erase the aberration of a woman ruling from the history books--Hatshepsut as daughter, wife and step-mother to three separate pharaohs was fine, but she couldn't possibly be Pharaoh herself.


A pit was found near Deir el-Bahri containing destroyed statues of Hatshepsut (and also depictions of her possible lover, Senenmut), but those dedicated Polish archaeologists have lovingly pieced back together all those statues and put them in their original spots at the forefront of Hatshepsut's temple.

Right where they belong.


Sunday, January 6, 2013

Postcards from Hawaii

I just returned from a terribly relaxing week on Kauai where I did a lot of sitting in the sun and not much else. (Although in case my editor or agent are reading, I did a ton of editing on the planes!) As my 2012-Year-In-Review post isn't quite ready (blame the two hours of lecture notes I had to take yesterday), I thought we could all ooh and ahh over pretty Hawaii pictures instead. 

I have a tendency to kill orchids, so I was pretty impressed by this one growing off a tree.


A chenille plant. I've killed several of these in Alaska--I guess they like Hawaii better. 
 
 
Kauai is covered with chickens and roosters. Apparently they flew the coop (ha!) during Hurricane Iniki and have since multiplied and gone wild. This one liked Subway sandwiches.
 

A gorgeous offering left behind at the Queen's Falls on the Wailua River.
 

The teensy-tiny gecko I tricked into jumping on my hand. His name is Willard. (And yes, I almost brought him home, but thought it would be cruel to transplant him to a house in Alaska. With two cats.)

I'm pretty much thinking I should be a professional traveler/beach-bum. If anyone knows of an available gig, feel free to send my references. 
 
(And on an unrelated side note, my daughter became obsessed with She-Ra on the trip and can now recite almost full episodes by memory. For the honor of Gray-Skull! She-Ra, She-Ra!)

What about you? Any cool trips on your agenda?