Hee!

Some of my favorite newspaper comics are on a roll. Yesterday's Dilbert was sheer brilliance:

( See? )

And then today's Get Fuzzy made me laugh out loud:

( Told you... )

I laughed out loud on both counts, and I almost never do that.

ETA: Okay, and now I've just laughed aloud for a third time, thanks to this little comment at the end of today's Josh Reads Comics entry:

Apropos of nothing, a few months ago the future Mrs. C. and I were cooling off in a wading pool at Paramount's Great America when we saw someone walk by with a giant inflatable chunk of Spider-Man merchandising. She pointed out that it's pretty hilarious to pronounce "Spider-Man" like it's a Jewish last name, with the last syllable de-emphasized. As in, "Oy, why do we have to have Passover at the Spidermans every year? There's always this weird webbing stuff in the haroset."

*dies*

The Problem of Susan

This essay has been brewing in my mind for a couple of years now, and since I was recently reminded of it during a discussion on lizbee's journal, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and put it down on paper. Comments are welcomed, but as I'm due to have my third child on (or before, or around) this coming Saturday, I'm sure you'll appreciate that I can't guarantee a timely response.

Anyway, here it is:

* * *

THE PROBLEM OF SUSAN

Over the last few years I have heard many indignant complaints about the treatment of Susan in the Narnia books, specifically in The Last Battle. Numerous LiveJournal rants have been written on it, Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) has deplored it, Neil Gaiman has written a story about it (with the same title as this essay), and most recently it was brought up by J.K. Rowling in an interview with Time Magazine:

"There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex," Rowling says. "I have a big problem with that."

Well, I have a problem with it too -- albeit for different reasons. ( And here they are, at quite some length )

ETA: Please also check out the brief follow-up post to this discussion, which brings up a very significant point raised by a commenter about the attitude of the Friends of Narnia to Susan.

ETA2: As of April 2013 I've been so inundated with spam replies to this entry that I've had to shut down Comments. Sorry to anyone who had further thoughts to add -- perhaps try the follow-up post instead.

Essaying Forth (in both senses)

Over the last couple of days I've discovered something surprising:

Walking helps.

For the last month or so I'd been hesitant about walking for any particular distance, because by the end of the day (well, really by the middle of the day) my feet are all blobby and swollen, and I figured spending more time on them would just make matters worse (not to mention not being the most comfortable prospect anyway). But on Sunday night I decided I needed a sanity break, plus I was thinking that walking is supposed to be good for labour, and so I headed out in the cool of the evening to walk from one end of our street to the other.

By the time I got back I was still feeling pretty good and although my calves ached a bit my feet didn't particularly hurt, so I walked another street as well. On the whole I'd say I was out for at least half an hour -- but when I went to bed that night, I didn't have nearly the same discomfort in my feet as usual. They didn't feel as hot, or as swollen. And I slept better than I had for some time.

Maybe a fluke, I thought, but it doesn't hurt to keep trying, and besides I need the exercise. So I headed out and did the same walking routine last night. And lo and behold, the walking worked its magic again. The walk itself wasn't as comfortable this time -- my feet did hurt a bit and I was glad to finally get home -- but again I didn't have that hot swollen feeling that used to keep me sticking my feet outside the covers, and I only woke twice during the night.

Plus, I had three bona fide contractions, albeit mild ones that went away when I turned over. Warming up for the big event, I guess.

In other news, for those interested in C.S. Lewis generally or Narnia in particular, there's an essay on my LiveJournal about the treatment of Susan in The Last Battle.