30 Jan 01 
 
Whenever I start a tirade, I always tell myself to be brief, but I never 
am.  Not only can other people trick me repeatedly with the same statement 
("This time I really mean it!"), I can also trick myself. 
 
But I will not be brief, so nyah. 
 
Pet peeve #1 - calling anything a ----- rage, as in the NYT article today 
about "rain rage", accompanied by a cute diagram indicating uimbrella do's 
and dont's (one of which I don't quite understand, not opening an umbrella 
in a foyer, but maybe it's a space concern) -- I'm tired of these supposed 
"rages".  It's almost always people behaving badly, and more specifically, 
two people behaving badly in an escalating way.  Perhaps this kind of 
behavior can be attributed to the number of only children in the world 
today, who never learned from sibling interactions that "She started 
it!" is not an admissable excuse.  But then, so many of the genocidal 
hatreds in existence today are based on that kind of reasoning, so it's 
probably just "tit-for-tat" gone awry. 
 
Reminds me of this snotty kid on the bus yesterday - perhaps she was 18 
years old or so - had her feet up on the seat and getting snippy about the 
guy sitting next to her "crowding" her.  She may have been 16; she seemed 
to enjoy saying the words "fuck" and "fucking".  I think I heard some kind 
of rant about not being a Jew, but I don't know.  I assume she wasn't from 
New York; everyone else in the bus, including the two guys standing next 
to the door, had been enjoying themselves -- reading their books, talking 
with their commuting companions.  I keep telling people, though they don't 
believe me, most people who live in New York are really nice.  I've had 
plenty of people tell me when I drop something or my bag is unzipped - 
while I'm on the subway or in the station, in fact.  A couple people 
retrieved my ball of yarn yesterday when it got away from me on the 
train.  It's children like this, who aren't from the city and feel like 
they've got to be belligerent to "protect" themselves from being taken 
advantage of, who give NYC a bad name.  Well, those people and the people 
who leave NYC for "better" living conditions and then complain about the 
lack of a good kosher deli. 
 
Excuse me, if you wanted a good kosher deli, why did you leave New 
York?  Besides, I think these annoying carpetbaggers aren't even from New 
York City, but are from upstate or Long Island, pretending to be from 
here.  Ha! 
 
 
Damn fucking pop-up windows in my Netscape!   GRRRRRR! 
 
Now to get to my main rant: that of "realistic" characterization in 
novels.  I've heard people criticizing the characters in Charles Dickens's 
novels as being caricatures, and, indeed, many of them are.  However, I 
take umbrage at those who say he never wrote a realistic female character 
in his books - pardon me, do you remember Betsey Trotwood?  She of 
donkey-hating fame?  She who consulted with Mr. Dick?  She who took in a 
runaway nephew, weathered a heavy financial setback, and dealt with an 
abusive and alcoholic ex-husband?  She is the most fully human of any of 
the Dickens characters (keeping in mind the only novel I haven't read is 
_Oliver_Twist_, mainly because I have yet to steel my nerves against how 
angry its plotline makes me).   
 
I am tired of hearing of any character having details of their behavior 
and life different from the "norm" being called quirky, eccentric, or, 
worst of all, unrealistic.  Excuse me?  I think too many characters in 
books are unrealistic simply due to how "normal" they are; perhaps the 
authors don't want to write sprawling novels, but I think many a modern 
novel would be improved by cutting down on the introspection and 
psychoanalysis and adding a little more of the actual behavior of the 
characters. 
 
Let's see, in my own life, my father used to have as his late-night snack, 
a bowl of peanut butter and jelly, which he mixed together with a spoon 
and ate it that way.  Usually he never finished the bowl, but would 
extinguish his evening cigarettes in there, leaving a PB-encrusted 
butthenge for my annoyed mother to deal with in the morning (sometimes 
that peanut butter would become =cement= - not unlike the sedimentary 
rock that was my grandfather's toenails, but I digress).  I have had a 
blankie - a satin-edged synthetic blanket that I like to tweak against my 
nose and wedge between my toes - all my life (not the same one, of course, 
but pretty much the same kind).  I sucked the two middle fingers of my 
right hand (as opposed to the more conventional thumb-sucking) until I got 
braces (I think I was about 13 years old then).  I talk in my sleep.  I 
used to walk in my sleep.  I've had my ears pierced twice, but I have only 
one hole per ear (I'm not counting the ones I use to hear with).  I'm 
wearing a cap I knitted right now, even though my head isn't cold and the 
wool itches a little bit.  I like worcestershire sauce (French's only) on 
egg noodles and cottage cheese. 
 
And I, a math grad student who should be programming in some poisson point 
processes, am typing a tirade on the scant characterization of people in 
fiction. 
 
And that doesn't even begin to describe some of my odder habits, but many 
of those involve other people still living, and thus I would need 
additional permission to divulge those. 
 
Still, I'm going to disallow the "yes, but you're =different= remark" that 
people like to serve up when I tell of some personal experience that chops 
their generalization to shreds.  When a person does things for her own 
personal reasons that have some grounding in reality, you are not allowed 
to say the stuff she does isn't what a "normal" person would do.  
 
I am normal (but not orthonormal - because I'm not a set). 
 
I have no idea if you're normal.  It's really none of my business.