February Book Report (slim pickins)

I only got through one book in February -- and I just squeaked it in, finishing it last night. (When my Lyme acts up and I go to sleep at 9 p.m. every night, it's hard to get a lot of reading done. And let's not even talk about knitting.)

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, which was very kindly sent to me by a faithful reader and test knitter (thanks, Carol!) was heartbreaking, fascinating and infuriating. The subject of the book, David Reimer, suffered a horrible accident as a baby that resulted in a penisectomy. Under the guidance of a Svengali-like psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, his well-meaning parents had doctors perform a rudimentary sex-change operation and raised him as a girl. David's childhood was every bit as miserable as you might expect, and at age 14, when he learned for the first time what had happened to him, he resolved to switch back and live the remainder of his life as a boy. What is particularly infuriating is that the doctor who spearheaded the course of treatment apparently did not communicate to the parents that this was basically an experimental course of treatment and that the doctor's own scientific "methods" left a whole lot to be desired. In fact, even though Reimer's case could not be considered a success by any standard, the doctor continued to portray it as such, likely leading to more ill-fated surgeries on babies with damaged or ambiguous genitals.

Black Bunny preview

Here's a sneak peek at tomorrow's Etsy update. I've got some rovings and a lot of superwash merino sock yarn, as well as a couple of wool/nylon sock yarns.



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