To state the question is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: "I am a woman"; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man.
-- "The Second Sex", Simone de Beauvoir
Case in point: One of today's stories at the Montreal Gazette has the headline of 'An example of what a woman should be'" — the fact that this is written by a girl about her mother shows how grave the situtation is, that women still feel that we have to define ourselves as women. Why couldn't it have been, and what would it have mattered, if the words had said, "An example of what a good human being should be" ?
Anyway, I've done a lot of reading lately. They have all been relatively small books, and "The Second Sex" will probably take me a while.
"Love That Dog" is a great, hilarious little story about a young boy named "Jack" who is discovering the joys of poetry. It took me barely a couple of hours to read, and has kept me smiling since.
Given that I've been asked "Why this sheep obsession?" several times now, maybe now is a good time to answer ;) I am not sheep-obsessed — it just so happened that we found a book published in 1969, by the Canada Department of Agriculture, called "Sheep Raising in Canada". (This is scary, if you google the title, I come up first.)
It occurred to me how little most of us know about the agricultural background of the country we live in — I suppose that is why this book holds such a fascination for me — nothing to do with the fact that I am Australian and that Australia has a big sheep industry! Plainly speaking, we don't tend to ask where our meat comes from, or where our clothes come from — for me, it's just interesting to know. And given that I am the caring/sharing type, you get to hear about it.
"Sheep Raising in Canada" is actually a very well-written little book, with the view to promote sheep farming. It outlines the different kind of sheep farming you can undertake, and at what risk. Then it discusses wool grades and meat grades. It has summaries on the top 18 breeds of sheep in Canada (complete with photos), in which the author talks about the origins, the breeding tendencies, wool/meat grades associated with each breed, and other annotations he felt necessary to give an overview.
As for Charlie, he was an accidental birth. No, really.
It's not that I am sheep-obsessed. I'm just obsessed with life.
Posted by sniffles at May 11, 2003 10:04 AM