This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

In France, in order to protect women from being oppressed by Muslim men who tell them what to wear, white men with guns force women to take their clothes off. I have so much fury and contempt for this racism, Islamophobia, and misogyny disguised as "liberation" and "secular values" that I don't even have enough room in my head for it. By writer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan at the Independent: Dear white people of France: being forced to undress wasn't exactly the liberation I was longing for. "It seems that oppression is only when brown men tell you how to dress; when white men do it it’s called liberation. But even French feminism has its roots in colonialism and imperialism."

At the Guardian: Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds. "As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period."

In nicer news,…

We went deep-sea fishing.




On the way out to the deep sea, I was so happy. I love boats. I love moving fast with all the wind. I loved bouncing over all the waves. I told Kevin that my Sicilian ancestors must have been seafaring people, that's why I love this so much.

Then we got to the place where the boat was stopping for six hours so we could fish. That's when I started puking. Oh my god. If I was standing up, I was puking. If I was inside, I was puking. If I was sitting, I was puking.

For the next six hours, the only thing that kept me from puking was lying down, in the air, alone on the upper deck, with my eyes closed. If my brain was in any way responsible for keeping my balance, I would puke. The people on the boat were so nice. When I told them I would prefer not to continue puking over the side and instead would like a bucket so I could go up by myself to puke in peace, they found me a bucket and helped me up. Poor Kevin had a hard time enjoying himself, because there…

Season 3 of The Great British Baking Show (known as The Great British Bake Off in Britain) was my favorite yet. I cried through the Final (in a good way). Here is the chocolate well created by a contestant in Episode 9...


...with a bucket that drops to the bottom to collect liquid white chocolate for dipping the biscuits in.


The judges told the contestant (whose name I'm not saying because it would be a spoiler) that it needed more decoration, frills, and furbelows.  Dear judges: Wrong.

***

At Reuters: France defends burkini ban on tense post-attack beaches. Wow, does this make my blood boil. Dear French officials: Stop telling women to uncover their bodies and calling it feminism. Stop telling women what to wear, period, and calling it feminism. Racism, misogyny, and religious intolerance are especially disgusting when you claim to be doing it on behalf of these women, who will now not be able to go to the beach.

***

In better French news, at The Guardian: How a 3-D clitoris will…

It's birthday month on the blog and things are looking up with my revision. \o/\o/

Also, my nieces just turned 7... my father will shortly turn 75... and next week, I turn 40!

I'm certain it never occurred to me when I was a kid that someday I would be glowing with happiness to be turning 40. It makes me feel like a kickass archer in a skintight bodysuit (?), surfing through life. (-----> That's my Indonesian cover for Graceling, published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama ^_^.)

Some nice things: Vicki Lee's, the bakery/café in my new neighborhood, has a breakfast muffin with a soft-boiled egg inside. I meant to take a nicer picture of it, but I accidentally ate it first.


Also, I continue to enjoy the Summer of Darkness app.


Also, one month in, I think it's safe to say that my many plants have survived the move. Moving is really hard on plants. On the one hand, they don't run around the new home freaking out and peeing on everything the way pets do, but on the othe…

Lateish last night, in the middle of the sixth revision of what will be my fourth published book, I inaugurated Notebook 24.

It's been a long journey to the middle of the sixth revision of my fourth book. First I needed to write all the other books, and revise them, and write this one, and revise it five times. After I revise it for the sixth time, I will probably revise it for the seventh time.

Confession: I'm tired and cranky.
BUT,
 I'm not the only one who was working hard in my office yesterday.
See the lily? (The tall, skinny one in the middle?)

Look what it had done by the end of the day.

How the heck did it do that? I don't know. But I'm guessing it started a long time ago.
Keep trying.

It's hard to focus on a hard revision when my new home remains chaotic and I could be organizing, cleaning, and hanging up pictures, rather than fixing this book. The news, which is heartbreaking everywhere, every single day, also makes it difficult. But I am focusing and fixing the book, because it feels even more awful not to.


In the meantime, it isn't all chaos.






Further afield, yesterday in New Jersey, we got together with this distinguished gentleman…


...and totally learned to GOLF.

Sort of.

It was our first time. We started at the driving range, where my dad taught us the basics, demonstrated a few things, then made extremely kind and encouraging comments as it became clear that I CAN'T HIT GOLF BALLS. Oh my goodness. They're so small and far away!




Oh my goodness. When I actually managed to hit the ball, it would usually go in the right direction, and sometimes it would even have some lift and go a little bit far. But probably 75% of the time, I didn't eve…

We decided to go to Float, this place in Somerville where you close yourself inside a small floating tank with body-temperature water containing a thousand pounds of Epson salts (causing guaranteed flotation), and, in silence and complete darkness, float for an hour.

Why, you ask?

Curiosity, I guess.


I went into this with no expectations, other than looking forward to doing absolutely nothing for an hour in the midst of a very stressful week (my moving week!). People who float regularly talk about amazing meditative experiences, and while I wouldn't say I went into this with cynicism, I definitely wasn't expecting an amazing experience. I was prepared for the possibility that it might be relaxing, just as I was prepared for the possibility that it might be completely stupid.

Turns out I loved it.

While Kevin in his tank was apparently spinning around in circles and running a series of hilarious experiments (which he told me about later), I just lay there in the body-temperatu…