11..., Lifestyle

11…ish Anthems in a Spotify Playlist for 2023

Hi, hey, hello! It’s been a minute. Or a whole bunch of minutes, really. 

Woman sitting on the ground in pajamas in a home office in front of speakers, listening to music.
I do not sit and listen to music like this, false advertising, but I do listen to these speakers all the f*$!ing time because they’re amazing and custom made by my father.

I chose to take all of January off from this and Instagram. But, if I’m being honest, which I do strive for with varying degrees of success, mostly, because I’m also lying to myself, I’ve been on a hiatus of sorts since March 2020. If it were due to the pandemic, I probably would have been a lot more productive in this venture. Instead, it was the completely unplanned yet concurrent incorporation of a rescue dog and her thirteen puppies into my life three days before lockdown commenced. Keeping Tess and four of her special needs puppers was incredibly draining, especially that first year, so I let the blog and all its bits be ravaged by neglect and the inevitability of time.  

Also over the last—almost—three years (Jesus) since my unintentional hiatus, my life has changed drastically while remaining quite similar on the surface. Navigating this new and improved[?] life has been a feat of patience, love, grace, hard work, and a whole lotta just figuring it the fuck out. I made huge life changes. I went from a passing pansexual to a raging lesbian. I’m learning to create boundaries and enforce them. I’ve chosen to be me a lot more fully than ever before. I’m being a lot more honest about my neurodivergence. I’m only allowing awesome people into my life and actively searching out people who help me grow and add to my life. I’m still figuring it the fuck out in the midst of planned disruptions and unexpected tragedies, but I have reached a point where there is a glimmer of peace in the not entirely distant future. This year, shit must change. Or I might be the first documented case of spontaneous human combustion. 

Woman sitting on the ground in pajamas in a home office in front of speakers, listening to music on Bose headphones.
Headphones mean music on the go… Or really driving home the point of this post.

Music has always been an integral part of my life, both listening and creating. It’s something I would have a hard time living without. Thank the Goddess below, I was born in a time where I don’t have to live without. In the relativity of humanity, music on demand is incredibly new. The creation of the radio, which was not even for music, was within a century of my birth. And yet, I have the world’s music at my fingertips in technology that can do what would have been unimaginable to the world’s population a mere twenty years ago. I digress into nerdiness. 

At my core lies music. As a dancer, a writer, a musician, an activist, a skeptical global inhabitant, music is a way of expressing, feeling, communicating, relaxing, inspiring, and so much more. I have loads of playlists for every occasion, whether they be necessary, hallucinatory, or jocular and all are too long realistically. This year, I chose to make a playlist of songs to keep me in check and also remind me it’s okay to be the bummer that I authentically am. Because, I truly would not have a career or passion or drive without the depression, anxiety, abuse, and neurodivergence that make up the trauma responses I call my personality. So here is my playlist for this year… It is really gay. I will probably add to it on Spotify as the year goes on and I discover new music. So, by 2024, this too will be unrealistically long. 

Woman sitting on the ground in pajamas in a home office in front of speakers, listening to music
Just vibing here. That is all.
  1. Head Held High Sera
  2. B.O.M.B Emlyn
  3. Fuck Your Labels Carlie Hanson
  4. Stand in the Light Jordan Smith
  5. Lighthouse Collabro
  6. Devil Is A Woman Cloudy Jane
  7. Safe Place Hannah Hall
  8. Pillbx Grace Gaustad
  9. Get Off My Julia Wolf
  10. Carry You Ruelle
  11. Strut Emeline

Realistic Bonus Tracks Because I’m Not Completely Delusional 

  1. Stuck in My Head Blü Eyes
  2. Red Flags Mimi Webb
  3. by now Vérité
  4. Lego Blocks NERIAH
  5. Zero Feelings Zoe Clark
  6. Not Used to Normal Jillian Rossi
  7. Bad Timing Rachel Grae
  8. What Doesn’t Kill You Mutates and Tries Again iamnotshane
  9. Dreamland Alexis Ffrench
  10. Shapeshifting Taylor Acorn
  11. Secrets Mary Lambert

Playlist Link
Spotify

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bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle, So Gay

Gay A Synonym For Happy, So Gay Pride 2022

The very first Pride I ever went to was ten years ago in London, albeit accidentally. I haven’t been to one since. I have celebrated every single Pride month in some way for twelve years—a year before I came out as pansexual. 

“Can’t Even Think Straight” True Facts

I’ve never really been to Pride. As an extreme introvert with zero gay friends in Houston, I haven’t had anyone make me go or go with me. As soon as my life included people, straight but supportive people, who would happily accompany me to Pride, the pandemic hit, and Pride was canceled for two years; though, I put on my own Pride Parade, dressing up my six dogs in 2020. 

The pandemic put stress on the seams of my life that I had been so desperately mending as they tore until I couldn’t do it anymore. I let every seam pop, and my life is just a jumble of fabric and thread at this point. Eventually, I’ll figure out how to sew it all back together, but I’m in the process of figuring out how I want the pieces to fit together because what was didn’t work. 

Over the last two years, I have become more and more outspoken about being gay. I’ve never hidden this part of myself since coming out eleven years ago, but being in straight passing relationships made it a bit more complicated. And it is exhausting arguing with people over my own identity. Two years ago, I decided to stop letting exhaustion deter me from calling people on their heteronormativity. A conversation worth having for myself but also for every other queer person so maybe one day it no longer needs to be had. Six months ago, I came out as lesbian. 

Gay, queer, lesbian. They’re all identities I happily wear. 

Living my best gay life surrounded by a bunch of circles.

Sometimes I feel like my life has been nothing but doing hard things. Thirty-one years of just getting by, biding my time until the next tragedy creeps in. In my early twenties, I chose to walk away from a cushy corporate life to pursue a career in doing the hard things. I spend my time learning and writing about this life and this world of inequity, violence, and struggle. As someone who has chosen to always have the hard conversations, to stand up for what I believe is right, to never stay quiet, to not accept what is as what can be, my career and beliefs, though rooted in kindness, has alienated everyone in my life who do not believe in working to create a better world. We do not have to hold the same opinions or beliefs, but my people cannot actively cultivate ignorance, hate, violence, or worse ambivalence. So, I am well acquainted with watching people walk away. 

My life has been a series of doing hard things, but coming out was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. 

As someone whose life revolves around gender and racial equity and human sexuality, as a gay someone, I am well acquainted with the fears my community has when they come out, when we live our lives in the open. I know the privilege I have as a straight passing woman. A 5’10” woman who can hold her own in a fight against a man. A white woman. An American woman. A cis woman. A woman with an education and the words to tell my story and defend my actions and understand the consequences of my choices. I choose to come out at every opportunity. I chose to get very gay tattoos in very visible places. I choose to put rainbows on everything. I choose to call myself gay and lesbian and queer. I choose to be loud and proud because so many people never had the chance. So many live in fear because they are who they are. 

My community has fought for the rights we have. We have died to be where we are today. Yet three days ago, I listened to a fifteen year old girl talk about her parents refusing to acknowledge her sexuality because she’s not straight, maybe bi, maybe lesbian. The fact a fifteen year old feels comfortable enough to call herself gay is such an amazing win, but the fight is not over. Especially if we look at what is playing out in the highest court of this nation and the repercussions of the decision and overturning of Roe v. Wade will have for women and my community. 

Blue and yellow are my favorite colors, so yes for this wall.

Pride is a celebration. It’s a celebration of who we are. It’s a celebration I hold in my heart and life every fucking day because Pride isn’t a month, it is my life. It is the lives lost to violence and ignorance; the lives lost to hopelessness; the lives lost to a lack of health care; the lives lost fighting for equity. Pride is a remembrance of every person who has come before so that we can wear rainbows and dance in the street. Pride is honoring the pain that has led to joy and love and laughter. Pride is hope that the struggles and fights we continue to face will be alleviated for the queer people of tomorrow. 

So yeah, I’ve made gay a huge part of my personality in the last two years. Because I’m fucking proud. I’m proud of my community. I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of who I am, and it has taken me thirty-one years of doing the hard things so that I could have this one easy thing. 

I am gay. I am lesbian. I am here. I am loud. I am proud. I will be at Pride in Houston whether that is with my people or by myself. If you need people, I’ll be your people. Because I’m proud of you too. We’re not perfect, but gay is a synonym for happy, so here’s to a Gay Fucking Pride and celebrating exactly who we are because we are exceptional.  

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Am Not Trauma Bonding

I am not trauma bonding. 

I’m incredibly open about my past, which was basically 24 years of constant trauma. (The last six have seen their trauma, but nowhere near the first two and a half decades of the hellscape I called home.) So fun! It’s a huge part of my life and led to my career in social justice and writing and depression (kidding?). If I could separate me the person from me the traumatized, I fucking would. But I can’t. It is ever present. A character in my story. It comes up. In my stories and especially in my humor. If you don’t like dark humor at my own expense… I’m probably not for you. To be in my life is to have some familiarity with my trauma. Don’t confuse that with bonding or asking others to take it on. I’ll carry that weight; I’ve got this; it’s not new. My pain is a familiar companion. 

My trauma solidified my existence as a raging intersectional feminist in search of knowledge.

When a new person starts to enter my life in a non-surface relationship, I tend to give the ten minute run down. Friends, dating, whatever. The rundown will happen sooner rather than later.

I am not trauma bonding.

Sharing the events that made me is as necessary as where I’m from and who my siblings are. I am a writer who specializes in memoir work. One of the biggest reasons I give the rundown is because I want a person to find out from me what happened to me. It’s a heads up. A hey, I’m okay. I don’t want them to find out all the really violent and awful things that were my daily life through an Instagram post, an article on Medium, through my blog, on Facebook, or worse a 280 character tweet. I’m not about to do that to a person cause that just feels shitty to me. I wouldn’t want to find out someone I care about even a teensy bit was gang raped at nineteen. I want people to know I’m okay; I’m not a sploot on the surface of the Earth. I’m a broken, thriving human. 

I am not trauma bonding.

My story opens the door for people to tell me their own stories. Or not. It’s up to them. I’m not trying to have a good cathartic cry and feel my feelings with someone. No one gets that. Tears and devastation are left for solo road trips and hot showers. I’m not looking to be raw and open. I’m looking to change the world, even if it’s just in small ways. My story is not new, but it has had an impact on people’s lives; helped them find their own voice; not feel so alone; know someone somewhere sees their pain and cares. My story is in the world because I want to end the stigma for survivors, for those who did not survive, for those who have yet to survive. Maybe my story will stop someone from going too far and creating another survivor. I don’t know. Do we ever really know the impact of our existence in the world? All I know is that I have a voice. I have a past. I will use my voice to do as much good in the world as I can.   

I can be broken and strong, femme and capable, vulnerable and resilient, traumatized and healthy.

I am not trauma bonding.

I am simply preparing people for what the reality of being in my life is. To stand by my side in any significant capacity is to bear witness to pain that was, is, and will be. Though the events of my past are solidly in my past, the consequences and pain are ever evolving. I’m constantly reconciling and healing. Honestly, I’m also testing the waters to see if this new person can handle it. Out of sheer self-preservation, I’m not going to let myself become emotionally involved with someone who will flee when the hard stories start coming up. Let alone if they invest a lot of time and get to the point where they may see the consequences of another’s actions in the form of my anxiety, PTSD, depression, and OCD. The truth is, I am a bit of a mess. My life and mental health is really in a good place considering, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days. I want to know I can potentially show a side of me that is not completely together and capable. I don’t want to hide integral pieces of myself. Fuck, I’m not going to stop writing, talking, and fighting for change because someone is uncomfortable with my past; I’ve been there too many times to do it again. I take pen to paper, fingers to keys, putting that pain on display for the world to see and hopefully feel. This is my job. This is my purpose.

I am not trauma bonding. 

Silence was my protector for so long. I refuse to be silent. I refuse to be a well behaved woman. I am strong. I am broken. I am clumsy. I am kind. I am funny. I am sad. I like to think I’m smart. I am multitudes. But I am traumatized. I am not asking a single person to take that trauma on. It is just a story among many stories of my life. 

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

Books, Reading Lists

Pride Month May Be Over But Here’s An LGBTQ+ Reading List

Pride was last month. Like all the other heritage months, those who belong exist the other eleven months of the year. I love Pride. I think it’s great. A month long opportunity to celebrate, learn, challenge, and spread love. For the LGBTQ+ community, Pride is every day, all day, forever. It’s an existence. 

A combination of not being able to and spreading the joy, this post is coming after Pride month has come to an end. If you didn’t dive into learning about LGBTQ+ issues or stories during Pride, there’s no better time than the present. Learning is a never ending pursuit. 

I belong to the LGBTQ+ community, but I have so much to learn as well. We all do. None of us can know all of the things. Although, that’s not going to stop me from trying. These are three of my favorite books I’ve read recently dealing with rainbow issues. If you don’t know much, these are a great place to start. They’re grounded in personal stories, so you can connect and empathize with the people that make up this beautiful community. 

Of course I posed in front of a church with this one. How could I not?

The Queer Bible edited by Jack Guinness
I loved this one so, so, so much. It’s jam packed with illustrations, stories, maps, and more. It’s told by and supports the LGBTQ+ community. A collection of essays by well known members of the queer community about their personal queer icons. From David Furnish to Tan France to Graham Norton to Mae Martin and so many more. They’re personal stories of discovery but also love letters to the people who inspired them. 
Memorable Quotes
“This book is dedicated to my queer ancestors who went before me, that I never knew existed, whose stories we’ll never know, I hope that I’m making you proud.” Jack Guinness—dedication

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I sat on a rainbow in a rainbow dress for Queer Love in Color.

Queer Love In Color by Jamal Jordan
The queer community has been marginalized for so long, but to be a person of color and queer is double the marginalization. So often the queer narrative has been told by the white community. The media has portrayed white queer stories. Where are the people of color? They exist. Jamal Jordan photographed people around the world and tells their love stories in this marvelous book. 
Memorable Quotes
“Their stories range widely, but one thing kept coming up: the feeling that, on some level, finding love felt impossible.”

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I will find color whenever and wherever I can.

The Queens’ English by Chloe O. Davis
Language fascinates me as a writer and a linguist. Words are fluid; they change with time, geography, community, and more. Words are a way of excluding and including people. The LGBTQ+ community has their own language, which evolved as much as a way to protect themselves as to include themselves. So much of queer language has seeped into the mainstream vernacular, but so much of queer language has not.
I am known for being decades if not centuries behind on slang. I’ve found mainstream language difficult to understand, and I have found queer language just as difficult because my head has been hidden in books for years. The Queens’ English is a cheeky and very thorough dictionary that opens queer terms to me and I’m sure countless others. This is a fabulous book that is simultaneously heartbreaking, inspiring, educational, and uproariously funny. One of the most important things to remember, Davis says, “Many of the terms are not appropriate for people not in the LGBTQIA+ community to use.”
Memorable Quotes
The Queens’ English is merely a starting point for the important conversations around inclusivity, sexuality, gender expression and identity, gay slang that’s been co-opted by mainstream culture, and queer American terminology that’s been around for decades.”

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Happy reading, my dears. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do. They’re inspiring and beautiful. They showcase the ever expanding range of humanity and our capacity to survive and love. Because love is love, and we all are exactly who we are. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Hey! I’m Queer. Happy Pride!

Does this outfit make me look gay? Good.

Hey, y’all. I’m queer. Pansexual to be specific. This isn’t my coming out. I’m fully out of the closet. If I’m being honest, I never had an I’m-not-straight talk with anyone. It’s just been something that has existed as a solid fact in my life for a decade now. My non-heterosexual identity has been talked about for awhile, but as I get older, I’m feeling the need to live more loudly in my queer identity. This story is a whole lot longer than a single blog post, and, honestly, I may turn it into a collection of essays at some point. Let’s be honest, I’m unpacking so many things about my sexuality that I have kept firmly in a box unto itself, which is very unfair to my identity and journey as a human. 

I never felt the need to come out for a whole lot of reasons. Too many to count. The two biggest being my family and my college. 

I grew up in a weird house. Conservative in as many ways as it was liberal. So much progress mired in an ideology founded in my parent’s small, Midwestern childhoods’ of the 60s and 70s. My parents were and are accepting, but they did not grasp the nuance, language, or broad rainbow spectrum. They were products of their generation, and it showed[s] in their language, phrasing, expression, and beliefs. Equally, I am a product of my own generation, education, family, and ultimately genetics. 

Cornell College, my alma mater, is incredibly liberal. The epitomization of: college is for self-exploration. My friends embodied “Do the thing. Do all the things. Try them now before life crushes us with debt and responsibility.” Damn, I love those humans. There were labels, but if you were on a journey and didn’t label anything, well that was okay too. Label it or don’t, just be a good person.

My favorite pride dress.

I remember writing, “I think I’m gay.” at twelve. I quite literally burned that piece of paper. For so many reasons I couldn’t name back then. Shame (which was not instilled in me by my parents or church, just, you know, society and the patriarchy). Isolation. Mostly uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t gay in the binary that I was aware of. Bisexuality wasn’t even presented to me as an actual sexuality… I’m not even going to get into that here. The isolation came from knowing I wasn’t straight, but knowing I wasn’t gay either. In a progressive town that had… all but no gay people (that I knew of, especially at the time), I would have been very much alone in an identity I still had no name for. For the kids reading this, this is pre-high speed internet, and I would have had to know the term to look it up in a dictionary—it’s a large book containing all the words and their definitions. I remember hearing people say, “Oh, she’s gay.” But “she” had moved out of town years before. Had I known what I was and been out in high school, it would have changed nothing because there were only boys to date anyways. 

For so many reasons, the unknown of what I was didn’t affect my adolescence in any way. Truly, there is zero trauma stemming from my pansexual existence; loads and loads of trauma from other things in my life, though!

I don’t have that trauma because of a seminal moment in my adolescence. 

But first, back story. I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn’t get my first period until I was sixteen. I was not interested in sex until I met the love of my life at almost twenty. (I did get raped repeatedly by my high school “boyfriend” from 17 to 19. Oh hey there, trauma. Sup?) My sexuality wasn’t a crisis because it didn’t really exist for twenty years. I did not go through the boy/girl/sex crazy phase. Ever. I might be entering it now at thirty. Like I said, late bloomer. I became a sexual human at 19.5 when I fell in love and entered my first serious relationship with a human, who happened to be male. I fell in love with the human because he was and is incredible. 

More back story. As a kid, I was pretty intensely into ballet. I was also a cheerleader, had a huge affinity for dresses, played the flute, was working on being a classical pianist, had straight As for most of middle school and high school (getting raped affected that a bit), obsessed with wearing heels. In so many ways, all arrows pointed to girly-girl, on the surface. (I still present super femme.) Dig deeper into my psyche and for those who knew/know me, the gender expression and sexuality waters get a lot murkier, but I won’t get into that right now.   

Can’t Even Think Straight

On to the seminal moment. 

At fifteen, I was walking through the kitchen, having just gotten home from cheerleading practice. My mother was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce. One hand controlling the wooden spoon. One hand holding the pan. One foot grounded and the other on a stool, a bit Captain Morgan-ish now that I think about it. As I walk past, she says, “RaeAnna, I have a question for you.” My mother is never this formal. The Type A personality in me froze. What had I done wrong??? “Okay?” Without missing a beat or looking at me, still very much focused on her task, “Are you a lesbian?” Not the question I was expecting at all. It was so far off my radar, I really never ever thought I would hear that question. I had always known that if I was gay that it would be no big deal. My parents would be able to accept that without a problem (probably one of the few things about the authentic me that have been easily accepted). I hadn’t really thought about it since writing “I think I’m gay” three years prior. Like I said, not a sexual human at that point in time. “Um… Not that I know of.” Again, without missing a beat, “Okay. Just asking. If that ever changes, let me know.” One of the most nonchalant conversations I have ever had with the woman. She has given me a lifetime’s worth of writing material, but this is one of the moments I look back on and respect the hell out of her for. 

If you don’t know me, if you don’t follow me, if you’re just meeting me for the first time, I present as ultra feminine, conservative, Christian, Suzy Homemaker, Type A, straight woman. I can be femme, but I also have some serious masc energy. I am absolutely not conservative; I get why people think that, but yikes no. I live my life pretty conservatively because that’s my comfort zone. Haha, trauma. But I am not conservative in any way at all. I am quite the flaming liberal, progressive, intersectional feminist. I’m not Christian; I’m atheist, but I was raised Methodist. I am definitely a Suzy Homemaker. Call me grandma; I love cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, taking care of people, and keeping a clean house. I hate cleaning, but I AM Type A with a touch of OCD. Hey there, I’m neurotic, fun neurotic, still neurotic, though. I am NOT straight. I have only been in relationships with men. For a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with preferring men to women. 

There was never an announcement of my queerness. No discussion. No party. I never officially came out. I never felt the need. It started with an “I’m attracted to women.” progressed to “I would definitely date women.” before turning into “I would have sex with women.” and eventually became “I’m attracted to people. I could spend my life with any gender.” It was slowly and steadily established as a fact about me. It’s been the last six years that I started using the term pansexual to describe myself. It’s been in the last year that I’ve started claiming queer. It’s a journey, and I’m on it. 

Alphabet Mafia

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Books, Fiction

Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

Worth A Read Meh
Length 352
Quick Review Paul is young and queer in the 90s on a journey and shapeshifting along the way.

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Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor | Asos Romper | Straw Purse | Bow | Pearl Barrette | Belt | Sandals | Pearl Bracelets

Andrea Lawlor’s debut novel Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl is quite the book. I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s not my typical read. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t dislike it. It just made me uncomfortable. Not because of the queer coming of age story. It’s the sex. Not queer sex, I don’t care about that. I just don’t read books with sex in them because reading and watching sex makes me uncomfortable. This book has a lot of sex. The New Yorker calls it “Smut,” and I don’t disagree. The sex has a point to it. 

Paul is queer in 90s Iowa City working and going to school as a Women’s Studies major. Paul has a dyke best friend, bartends, and dates around. Paul is a shapeshifter and can be anything he wants on demand. Paul changes his body by shortening his hair to becoming a party girl and everything in between. The young man travels from Iowa to San Francisco encountering struggles and pleasures along the way. 

I may have been uncomfortable through the book, but it is very well written. Lawlor fills Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl with insightful and quippy one liners from the first page. Paul may be a young man trying to find himself and his place in the world as a queer person, but I think most everyone can identify with Paul in one way or another. People of all ages, genders, and sexualities are on continual journey to find themselves. 

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Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor | Romper | Purse | Belt | Barrette | Bow  | Pearl Bracelets | Shoes

I also love that the book is partially set in Iowa City. Unknown fact, Iowa City is a UNESCO City of Literature. The city is home to the University of Iowa, and their internationally renowned MFA Writers’ Workshop. I grew up in Iowa and spent a lot of time in Iowa City during college. 

If you’re looking for an intellectually stimulating book which is also fun for the summer, I would highly suggest Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl. It is not for the faint of heart because it is quite the emotional roller coaster. 

Memorable Quotes
“Paul was flattered Jane thought he could understand what she was saying, did understand some percentage of what she was saying, and was bored by having to think that hard.”

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Title: Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Author: Andrea Lawlor
Publisher: Vintage
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780525566182