I was a new mother, harried and tired and trying to finish errands when my daughter started crying. She was only a month old, persistently underweight, and she demanded to be fed once every hour. There was little gas in the car, and I had only a few dollars. I needed a place to nurse her.

With a grateful flash of memory I recalled a nearby coffeehouse. “The owners are Buddhist,” I thought to myself. “I will be welcome to feed my baby there.” I drove to the coffeehouse, carried in my baby and ordered a cup of coffee. I found a seat and asked the owner politely if I would bother anyone if I breastfed my baby. He was quickly reassuring.

There were two other people working there that day, both teenagers. The boy walked by me, staring straight ahead fixedly. I think he was trying to be polite. The girl was behind the counter, and I heard her telling the owner, in tones of contempt, how “gross” breastfeeding was. He gave her a gentle lecture on the benefits and “naturalness” of feeding a baby this way. I fed and comforted my daughter, gathered up my things and left.

I have thought about this several times since then. Imperfect as it was, that coffeehouse was a haven for me on a difficult afternoon. Our state had not yet passed its law guaranteeing women the right to breastfeed their children in public, and my baby was desperate to eat.

There is sadness in the memory, too. I cannot think of it without also realizing a small heartbreak: that no desperate mother has ever said to herself, “That’s a Christian-owned business. I’ll be welcome to feed my baby there.”

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

Lindsay at Suburban Turmoil has been writing about breastfeeding and asking her readers for their stories. Her comments and her column are worth reading.

Shannon had an interesting discussion at her blog about whether or not a presidential candidate’s history of marital infidelity should be considered in determining who to vote for. She got responses from all sides of the issue.

I don’t write about politics much on my blog, but, after my trip to the bookstore, I have been thinking about this in a non-political context. How much do a person’s personal actions matter in the job they do?

I used to love the mystery novels of Anne Perry. They are not all equally good, but some of them are a great read. She writes Victorian mysteries with dark realities of the Victorian period: drug addiction, class struggle, unequal rights for women. I used to read her books regularly, and considered including some in my recent stack from the used bookstore.

What stopped me was the knowledge that Anne Perry is a murderer. When she was young, she and a friend murdered her friend’s mother. It was a notorious crime in New Zealand, and filmmaker Peter Jackson decided to make a fictionalized movie about it (Heavenly Creatures 1994). After the movie came out, the renewed interest in the crime led to the discovery that Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers, had been living and writing for years under the name Anne Perry.

I haven’t been able to read her novels since I learned about it. Reading mysteries is an escape for me, a retreat into a world where the crimes are fictional, the truth is always discovered, and good is affirmed over evil. Perry has rarely talked about the crime to the press, but she has expressed regret for the murder. Still, somehow I don’t think I can enjoy reading a fictional murder written by someone who has actually committed one.

What do you think? Would it make a difference to you? Do the actions of a writer or artist affect your ability to enjoy their work? Where should the line be drawn?

Meredith put up a post of her summer reading stack, and I thought it was a great idea for a meme. As it happens, my favorite used bookstore is having its big 20% Off Everything sale today, and Az watched the kids so I could spend my morning picking out books. It’s a great birthday present.

“Fifty dollars,” he said, giving me my spending limit. I laughed. I am strictly a bargain hunter of books, and have not spent $50 at once on books in years. But it is my birthday (I’m 35 and feel 50, thank you very much) and there was a sale and we are not moving after all so I get to fill up my shelves again. I still didn’t spend $50, but I definitely indulged myself.

So without further ado, here is a promising way to spend $31.50:

Yes. Why do we áll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our tars? Both these being, the greater part,
But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess
That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less;
It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art;
And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart,
And scarlet wear the spirit of wár thére express.

Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;
He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss
Now, and séeing somewhére some mán do all that man can do,
For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,
And cry ‘O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
Were I come o’er again’ cries Christ ‘it should be this’.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Shh. The baby is finally letting Veronica sleep, so here is a little classic Dredge for you. This post was originally published in May of 2006. I’ll be back when I’ve had some shut eye.

So I’ve been reading the Kama Sutra again. Maybe it’s because I’m looking for a book to recommend to a young bride I know. Maybe it’s because I want to feel trendy. Maybe it’s because I like to sound worldy wise and say, blandly and dismissively, “Yeah, I’ve read it” if the subject comes up at parties.

Oh please, like I go to a parties. The truth is I’m a geek. Or a nerd. Wait, which one has no money? I’m that one. And when people refer to an ancient text in hushed tones of awe, I feel an imperative need to demystify it by reading it.

The thing nobody tells you about the Kama Sutra? It’s boring.

I know. It has this scandalous reputation for being The Big Book of Sexual Secrets. A kind of compendium of all those headline articles on Cosmo and Glamour: “10 Ways to Make Him Forget Her!” “Grade Your Sexual Technique” or whatever schlock Manhattan editors think might make you insecure enough to buy a magazine that teaches you how to compete with the local crack wh*re. But the Kama Sutra doesn’t read like Helen Gurley Brown. It reads like the Talmud, without the interesting parts.

For 600 pages it rambles on, listing differing scholarly opinions. But technique! you say. Isn’t it full of of descriptions of different positions? Yes, it is. And you’d think that would be thrilling, right? No. Eventually it starts to sound like the directions for putting together your kid’s high chair. “Insert Tab A into Slot B. Twist until it clicks.” And you remember how much fun that was.

A few years ago when a movie came out called Kama Sutra - as though it was some sort of visual version - I was dumbfounded. Because I was thinking, “How do you make a movie out of the Kama Sutra? It has no narrative. No plot!” (Straight man cue for you to say: “Neither did the movie.” Not that I’ve seen it). But you can’t make sex sexy without a narrative. Even p*rn has plots. Stupid, exploitive, misogynist, unrealistic plots, but still plots.

So here’s the truth you won’t get from the Kama Sutra, but you probably know anyway: sexy is in the narrative, the story two people write with their lives. The babies we’ve had together, the private jokes we share, even the arguments we’ve resolved. We have a life together, and it’s a good one. And (details deleted) nothing is sexier.