amy has tagged me with the "four meme," and that's cool, because it gives me something to do on a lazy sunday afternoon. without further ado:
Four jobs I’ve had:
1. retail associate (*shudder*)
2. mail delivery person at UMass
3. waitstaff at the catville country club
4. development associate
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. field of dreams
2. the truman show
3. breakfast at tiffany's
4. six degrees of separation
Four places I’ve lived:
1. catville, ma (i don't know why i'm so recalcitrant to give up the name of my hometown. maybe because i don't want people from high school finding me via google.)
2. amherst, ma
3. boston, ma
4. chicago, il
Four TV shows I love(d):
1. the west wing
2. my so-called life
3. house hunters
4. globe trekker
Four places I’ve vacationed:
1. ireland
2. florida
3. on a cruise ship (belize, honduras, grand cayman, mexico)
4. toronto and ottawa, canada (ottawa was actually a really cute little city!)
Four of my favorite dishes:
1. margaritas (and any mexican food that arrives along with them)
2. buffalo chicken pizza
3. a bento box from ecce cafe
4. pad thai
Four sites I visit daily:
only four?? ok.
1. salon
2. pachycephalosaur
3. ornithology for beginners
4. critical fluff
Four places I would rather be right now:
1. on a beach in southern thailand (we were just looking at their tourism website last night)
2. sitting with SisterCat, Mike, and Kim-Soo, drinking wine and cracking wise
3. on the swingset at mothers beach in kennebunk, maine
4. at a sushi restaurant, eating california rolls
i'm not going to tag people, because i'm not sure who's left to tag! i am uncertain over my ability to sway the few loyal readers who're also bloggers that i have. so you've dodged a bullet, all three or four of you. however, if you want to grab this, please feel free - i will certainly read the random details about your existences as you have so nicely read mine.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
friday cat blogging, selfless cold and composed edition.
this is CatCat looking very prim and proper. i think it's the way she sits like that, with both front paws pressed together but still visible. it's like the feline equivalent of sitting with your knees together and your hands folded on your lap.
that is also (thank god) an old rug. we finally got rid of that thing a few months ago and got something a little more respectable. i bought the old one in grad school, and for some reason carted it all the way out here to chicago too. Once CatCat arrived on the scene, her claws finished it off fairly quickly. which was a nice excuse to throw it away.
that is also (thank god) an old rug. we finally got rid of that thing a few months ago and got something a little more respectable. i bought the old one in grad school, and for some reason carted it all the way out here to chicago too. Once CatCat arrived on the scene, her claws finished it off fairly quickly. which was a nice excuse to throw it away.
immune system = hurting.
i am sickly. there's no getting around it. i have had three colds this winter alone, when i usually get one or two a year. my immune system is flailing about in confusion, wondering what's going on. my hunch: job stress.
so anyway, this will be brief. but i wanted to say two things.
1. this morning on the El, i sat across from a woman reading a million little pieces. i mean, i knew this phenomenon was going to happen, but seeing evidence right in front of my face was still startling. what is wrong with people? did you not watch oprah kick james frey's ass yesterday? (well, if you're in chicago, there's a good chance you didn't, since bush decided that would be a fine time to commandeer the airwaves and tell us shit that we already knew. but if you're crazy like me, you could have stayed up til midnight to watch the re-broadcast.)
2. the patching project worked (i think). the results will be final when they come out of their initial run through the washing machine this weekend. i remain quite hopeful.
so anyway, this will be brief. but i wanted to say two things.
1. this morning on the El, i sat across from a woman reading a million little pieces. i mean, i knew this phenomenon was going to happen, but seeing evidence right in front of my face was still startling. what is wrong with people? did you not watch oprah kick james frey's ass yesterday? (well, if you're in chicago, there's a good chance you didn't, since bush decided that would be a fine time to commandeer the airwaves and tell us shit that we already knew. but if you're crazy like me, you could have stayed up til midnight to watch the re-broadcast.)
2. the patching project worked (i think). the results will be final when they come out of their initial run through the washing machine this weekend. i remain quite hopeful.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
eat it, jacoby.
through another kate's blog, i found this great post at Pinko Feminist Hellcat about why people are leaving massachusetts in droves. contrary to jeff jacoby's howler-monkey screechings, it's not about gay marriage or liberalism. it's about dollars and cents.
this is a great post, as it manages not only to take on those who would make these ridiculous arguments like jacoby, but everyone who has decided to label all 20 and 30 somethings "slackers." sheelzebub asserts that we're actually not slackers, we're just trying to scrape together enough money to get by with some basic comforts of life, and maybe healthcare and a house someday if we're lucky.
brava.
this is a great post, as it manages not only to take on those who would make these ridiculous arguments like jacoby, but everyone who has decided to label all 20 and 30 somethings "slackers." sheelzebub asserts that we're actually not slackers, we're just trying to scrape together enough money to get by with some basic comforts of life, and maybe healthcare and a house someday if we're lucky.
brava.
your wednesday one-liner.
courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Hobo: I got one thing to say to you: "Thank you." And...I got two things to say to you: "Thank you" and "Flame on!"
--F train
the real story.
the real story i wanted to write this morning was not about moving and jeans. nothing against either topic, as they are nominally important to the functioning of my own life at the moment, but the willful frivolity of the post below is not really truthful.
the headline on the Tribune's website today is Chicago's Rape Epidemic. this actually elicited a wry smile from me when i first read it - this is news? the prevalence of rape is news to people? this just in: the pope is catholic. then, against my better judgement, i clicked through the morning news. on CBS2 we got a report of an unidentified man in his 30s who is breaking into women's dorm rooms at northwestern. he isn't assaulting them or stealing anything; apparently, accordingly to broadcaster man, he just likes to "watch girls sleep." over on NBC5, we get a story of one woman in aurora who was not quite so lucky. she came home to her apartment to find a man in a ski mask jumping out of her closet, who then raped her, stole her stuff, and fled.
ok. this is a big part of why i go through phases of attempting to avoid news media in general. the combination of sensationalism, voyeurism, and plain old fear-mongering become hard to handle after awhile. but still, when i see two particular stories like i did on tv this morning, combined with the Trib's "yeah, no kidding" headline, i feel sick to my stomach. because regardless of the statistical improbablity of being assaulted by a stranger, it happens. statistics are no comfort to that woman in aurora today. and what did she do wrong? nothing. her problem was being a woman. that's all. being in the wrong place at the wrong time (which, ironically, was her own home) and being female.
really, how can anyone look at the reality of these three news stories and not be struck by how our society treats women? how can anyone reconcile the prevalence of rape with the idea that feminism "got what it wanted" and women are considered equals? how do you take two and two and not come up with four?
if society truly valued women, the incidence of rape would be vastly diminished. i don't think you're ever going to eradicate rape - it's hard to eradicate anything - but it would certainly be less widespread that it is today. and don't talk to me about declining crime statistics overall, because i know and that's great, but it doesn't change the fact that women are still raped every day. but beyond the actual instance of rape, the issue grows roots and takes hold in the way that a society actually reacts to rape - which, in our case, is without a real sense of seriousness or condemnation. according to the department of justice, the average time served on a rape conviction is about five years. for a sexual assault conviction, it is just under three years. and we all know how many rapists actually end up being convicted.
truthfully, we don't forcefully condemn rape because it is not in society's interest to do so. rape is a tool of any patriarchal society, and a very powerful and effective one at that. it is used to instill fear, to keep a portion of the population cowed and frightened, back on their heels in a defensive position. how often do we see the burden of preventing rape put on women? don't walk alone at night! don't live alone! carry mace! take self-defense! don't talk back, don't go to his room, don't drink, don't wear that skirt! and by god, it works. we live in fear. it doesn't matter if it's a statistically improbable fear - when i am walking down a street at dusk, with the streetlights barely on, and i hear footsteps behind me where a second ago there were none, that momentary flush of panic is real.
i resent that. i resent the way that my society forces me to live this way. i resent the fact that if i were raped tomorrow, in the year 2006, what i was wearing would still be a matter of discussion. i resent being told that it's up to me to stop men from assaulting my bodily integrity. i resent how the anchorman on NBC reports a rape, shakes his head sadly, and then moves on seamlessly to the traffic report.
the headline on the Tribune's website today is Chicago's Rape Epidemic. this actually elicited a wry smile from me when i first read it - this is news? the prevalence of rape is news to people? this just in: the pope is catholic. then, against my better judgement, i clicked through the morning news. on CBS2 we got a report of an unidentified man in his 30s who is breaking into women's dorm rooms at northwestern. he isn't assaulting them or stealing anything; apparently, accordingly to broadcaster man, he just likes to "watch girls sleep." over on NBC5, we get a story of one woman in aurora who was not quite so lucky. she came home to her apartment to find a man in a ski mask jumping out of her closet, who then raped her, stole her stuff, and fled.
ok. this is a big part of why i go through phases of attempting to avoid news media in general. the combination of sensationalism, voyeurism, and plain old fear-mongering become hard to handle after awhile. but still, when i see two particular stories like i did on tv this morning, combined with the Trib's "yeah, no kidding" headline, i feel sick to my stomach. because regardless of the statistical improbablity of being assaulted by a stranger, it happens. statistics are no comfort to that woman in aurora today. and what did she do wrong? nothing. her problem was being a woman. that's all. being in the wrong place at the wrong time (which, ironically, was her own home) and being female.
really, how can anyone look at the reality of these three news stories and not be struck by how our society treats women? how can anyone reconcile the prevalence of rape with the idea that feminism "got what it wanted" and women are considered equals? how do you take two and two and not come up with four?
if society truly valued women, the incidence of rape would be vastly diminished. i don't think you're ever going to eradicate rape - it's hard to eradicate anything - but it would certainly be less widespread that it is today. and don't talk to me about declining crime statistics overall, because i know and that's great, but it doesn't change the fact that women are still raped every day. but beyond the actual instance of rape, the issue grows roots and takes hold in the way that a society actually reacts to rape - which, in our case, is without a real sense of seriousness or condemnation. according to the department of justice, the average time served on a rape conviction is about five years. for a sexual assault conviction, it is just under three years. and we all know how many rapists actually end up being convicted.
truthfully, we don't forcefully condemn rape because it is not in society's interest to do so. rape is a tool of any patriarchal society, and a very powerful and effective one at that. it is used to instill fear, to keep a portion of the population cowed and frightened, back on their heels in a defensive position. how often do we see the burden of preventing rape put on women? don't walk alone at night! don't live alone! carry mace! take self-defense! don't talk back, don't go to his room, don't drink, don't wear that skirt! and by god, it works. we live in fear. it doesn't matter if it's a statistically improbable fear - when i am walking down a street at dusk, with the streetlights barely on, and i hear footsteps behind me where a second ago there were none, that momentary flush of panic is real.
i resent that. i resent the way that my society forces me to live this way. i resent the fact that if i were raped tomorrow, in the year 2006, what i was wearing would still be a matter of discussion. i resent being told that it's up to me to stop men from assaulting my bodily integrity. i resent how the anchorman on NBC reports a rape, shakes his head sadly, and then moves on seamlessly to the traffic report.
end of an era.
if almost eighteen months can be considered an era. yesterday, we finished packing up nonprofitland's old office, and today around noon i will head to the new office, where hopefully i will encounter all of the boxes i just packed up over the last week. that's the bitch about moving - you feel like you're finished when the last cardboard box is taped and labeled (though with house moves you might even have to load the truck and move the boxes too, but luckily here we're paying someone to do it), but you aren't! those boxes just rematerialize in a new place, to be unpacked and sorted through and organized. at least i get to wear jeans and sneakers today.
speaking of jeans: i also thought i should end the desperate suspense that i most certainly left you all in when i mentioned the latest transaction in the search for the Holy Grail. do you think i bought the $190 Seven jeans? oh, hell no, you know i didn't! not that they even fit. not that anything in that damn store fit. they had a wall of jeans that cost a ton of money! you'd think one pair would fit! but no, i think in retrospect i was actually less likely to find a pair that fit at the hip lincoln park denim bar. why? my theory: designers don't want girls who don't look like models wearing their jeans. now i am not a very big girl, but there is a definite curve factor - the waist to hip ratio is pretty serious. this apparently puts me out of the running for high-end jeans, as my hip size was pushing the limit of the sizes that they carried (they probably went three or four sizes higher, but these were waist sizes, 29, 30, 31, etc, and not the double sizes you find in regular ol' stores). and of course i wanted to bludgeon all the other little trixies in there, giggling about how "oh, i'm a 25. oh, i don't know, i love both these pairs, which one should i get? oh, maybe i'll just get them both!"
*grits teeth and walks out of the store empty handed.*
but anyway. i did buy a pair at the brown elephant for eight bucks (eight bucks!!) that actually seem to fit. jesus h. christ, it's too good to be true, right?? well, yes. because after i come out of the fitting room, i notice there's a five inch rip just to the left of one of the back pockets. shit! so close! so i decided, you know what, i'll just buy them, buy a two dollar iron on patch, and conjure my inner domestic goddess. if i succeed, voila, ten dollar jeans. if i fail, well, it was only ten bucks.
cross your fingers - if this works, i'll have a pair of jeans that fit and i won't subject you to this juvenile prattling about pants any longer!
speaking of jeans: i also thought i should end the desperate suspense that i most certainly left you all in when i mentioned the latest transaction in the search for the Holy Grail. do you think i bought the $190 Seven jeans? oh, hell no, you know i didn't! not that they even fit. not that anything in that damn store fit. they had a wall of jeans that cost a ton of money! you'd think one pair would fit! but no, i think in retrospect i was actually less likely to find a pair that fit at the hip lincoln park denim bar. why? my theory: designers don't want girls who don't look like models wearing their jeans. now i am not a very big girl, but there is a definite curve factor - the waist to hip ratio is pretty serious. this apparently puts me out of the running for high-end jeans, as my hip size was pushing the limit of the sizes that they carried (they probably went three or four sizes higher, but these were waist sizes, 29, 30, 31, etc, and not the double sizes you find in regular ol' stores). and of course i wanted to bludgeon all the other little trixies in there, giggling about how "oh, i'm a 25. oh, i don't know, i love both these pairs, which one should i get? oh, maybe i'll just get them both!"
*grits teeth and walks out of the store empty handed.*
but anyway. i did buy a pair at the brown elephant for eight bucks (eight bucks!!) that actually seem to fit. jesus h. christ, it's too good to be true, right?? well, yes. because after i come out of the fitting room, i notice there's a five inch rip just to the left of one of the back pockets. shit! so close! so i decided, you know what, i'll just buy them, buy a two dollar iron on patch, and conjure my inner domestic goddess. if i succeed, voila, ten dollar jeans. if i fail, well, it was only ten bucks.
cross your fingers - if this works, i'll have a pair of jeans that fit and i won't subject you to this juvenile prattling about pants any longer!
Monday, January 23, 2006
a deluge of cardboard and packing tape.
ok, a few quick thoughts before i am overrun by moving supplies and am unable to reach the keyboard:
1. i was going to blog about the 33rd anniversary of roe v. wade this weekend, but it just got me too depressed. i am too depressed about too many things at this point to willingly put myself in a frame of mind to get more depressed, so i just didn't do it. i have slapped myself on the wrist with the "bad feminist" ruler, and now i am moving on. i'm sure i can work up a healthy dose of outrage about reproductive rights in the near future, but right now, i am sans angry energy. at least, as far as all that goes.
2. my search for the holy grail, a.k.a. a pair of jeans that fit, had some interesting ups and downs this weekend. i went from trying on $190 Seven jeans in lincoln park to $8 thrift-store-rack stuff in boystown. i purchased one pair. which one? i'm not telling yet! but the odyssey is not over, so more self-absorbed rambling about this soon.
3. go steelers!
4. i have managed to lose two winter hats in three weeks. i found one, and promptly lost another. this is my subconscious trying to tell me something, though i can't quite figure out what. kinda like the dream i had last night, where i had these weird barnacle-like growths on my legs. gross! in the dream, i was like, oh my god! why have i never noticed these before? why have i not freaked out about this before?? and then i woke up and thought, because you were only dreaming. so bizarre.
1. i was going to blog about the 33rd anniversary of roe v. wade this weekend, but it just got me too depressed. i am too depressed about too many things at this point to willingly put myself in a frame of mind to get more depressed, so i just didn't do it. i have slapped myself on the wrist with the "bad feminist" ruler, and now i am moving on. i'm sure i can work up a healthy dose of outrage about reproductive rights in the near future, but right now, i am sans angry energy. at least, as far as all that goes.
2. my search for the holy grail, a.k.a. a pair of jeans that fit, had some interesting ups and downs this weekend. i went from trying on $190 Seven jeans in lincoln park to $8 thrift-store-rack stuff in boystown. i purchased one pair. which one? i'm not telling yet! but the odyssey is not over, so more self-absorbed rambling about this soon.
3. go steelers!
4. i have managed to lose two winter hats in three weeks. i found one, and promptly lost another. this is my subconscious trying to tell me something, though i can't quite figure out what. kinda like the dream i had last night, where i had these weird barnacle-like growths on my legs. gross! in the dream, i was like, oh my god! why have i never noticed these before? why have i not freaked out about this before?? and then i woke up and thought, because you were only dreaming. so bizarre.
Friday, January 20, 2006
friday cat blogging, fat bastard edition.
i told you this was coming. this is CatCat looking her fattest....
with alien eyes to boot.
with alien eyes to boot.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
among strangers.
"Then I think - Where? Where feels like home?...That time when I was twelve when we went to the Gaeltacht - our first time away from home - the other little girls sobbed for a day or two before they settled down. But I wasn't any more homesick than usual. I think you can be born homesick. I think you can have a dislocated heart. No place will do. The most wonderful home in the world full of the most love wouldn't be enough for you - you'd keep looking around for where you belong." -nuala o'faolain
the other day, coming back to my neighborhood from downtown, i got off the 146 bus at the intersection of roscoe and the inner drive. the underpass to the lakefront was just to my right, and time was plentiful, so i walked under the rush of traffic and emerged in front of belmont harbor. i had my hat and scarf on, though the wind off the lake wasn't very bad, and my iPod was tucked in my pocket. i sat at the edge of the choppy water, listening to fiona and tom petty and tori and rilo kiley. i watched the people around me - couples in expensive shoes strolling along together, joggers running in pairs or alone, two round middle-aged women, bundled up in big fleece coats, taking pictures of each other with the lake and skyline as their backdrop.
after a little while, i started making my way back to the street, and i realized that i rather enjoyed the sensation that i was an observer, someone who felt apart from the scene and watched it passively. i didn't feel like i belonged there, sitting on lake michigan, or walking the sidewalks and pathways alongside it, but i actually enjoyed that feeling. after a year and a half of living in this city, i've struck a comfortable balance between outsider and insider - i am comfortable enough with my surroundings and my understanding of them that i can go downtown without consulting a transit map or asking directions, and yet i can walk around still feeling like there is so much that i don't know.
and now, just as i've reached that cozy midpoint between newcomer and settled resident, i get an itch to move on - to start all over again. to find a new city where eventually, i can look out the window over an intersection and know where the uneven pavement is, which storefront has just closed, and which bus routes groan and hiss by every fifteen minutes - but still feel a random pang of loneliness, still feel that moment of "how did i get here?" rushing over me. that strange and beautiful feeling that you could belong, but you know that you don't.
home is a fascinating concept. i do have a home, in the sense that my parents live in the house i grew up in, and will always make a place there for me if and when i need one. for that, i am very lucky and grateful. however, in the long run, their home is not cut out to be my home. and i have to wonder, like nuala, if there will ever be a place that feels like my singular home. i have to wonder if i want there to be one. because for now, as odd as it sounds, small victories over places, small inroads into life in a certain spot at a certain time, seem really appealing to me. i like the idea that i can try it anywhere, and that maybe sometime soon, BoyCat and i will unpack our bags in some new apartment on some new city street, and i will grab my coat and my iPod and venture outside - a strange face among strangers.
the other day, coming back to my neighborhood from downtown, i got off the 146 bus at the intersection of roscoe and the inner drive. the underpass to the lakefront was just to my right, and time was plentiful, so i walked under the rush of traffic and emerged in front of belmont harbor. i had my hat and scarf on, though the wind off the lake wasn't very bad, and my iPod was tucked in my pocket. i sat at the edge of the choppy water, listening to fiona and tom petty and tori and rilo kiley. i watched the people around me - couples in expensive shoes strolling along together, joggers running in pairs or alone, two round middle-aged women, bundled up in big fleece coats, taking pictures of each other with the lake and skyline as their backdrop.
after a little while, i started making my way back to the street, and i realized that i rather enjoyed the sensation that i was an observer, someone who felt apart from the scene and watched it passively. i didn't feel like i belonged there, sitting on lake michigan, or walking the sidewalks and pathways alongside it, but i actually enjoyed that feeling. after a year and a half of living in this city, i've struck a comfortable balance between outsider and insider - i am comfortable enough with my surroundings and my understanding of them that i can go downtown without consulting a transit map or asking directions, and yet i can walk around still feeling like there is so much that i don't know.
and now, just as i've reached that cozy midpoint between newcomer and settled resident, i get an itch to move on - to start all over again. to find a new city where eventually, i can look out the window over an intersection and know where the uneven pavement is, which storefront has just closed, and which bus routes groan and hiss by every fifteen minutes - but still feel a random pang of loneliness, still feel that moment of "how did i get here?" rushing over me. that strange and beautiful feeling that you could belong, but you know that you don't.
home is a fascinating concept. i do have a home, in the sense that my parents live in the house i grew up in, and will always make a place there for me if and when i need one. for that, i am very lucky and grateful. however, in the long run, their home is not cut out to be my home. and i have to wonder, like nuala, if there will ever be a place that feels like my singular home. i have to wonder if i want there to be one. because for now, as odd as it sounds, small victories over places, small inroads into life in a certain spot at a certain time, seem really appealing to me. i like the idea that i can try it anywhere, and that maybe sometime soon, BoyCat and i will unpack our bags in some new apartment on some new city street, and i will grab my coat and my iPod and venture outside - a strange face among strangers.
imagine my surprise at this boston.com headline.
He's baaaaack...
oh, the intrigue! i can hardly stand it!
i was already missing his baseball acumen and boyish good looks.
oh, the intrigue! i can hardly stand it!
i was already missing his baseball acumen and boyish good looks.
recommended.
if you've got the time, click over to pandagon and check out amanda's recent riff on how "anti-abortion" really means "anti-choice." an enjoyable snippet:
amanda raises some very good points in this post, as usual, and it's worth a read. her final statement, though, struck an off note for me: "'pro-lifers' are not at all 'pro-life' so much as they are anti-choice."
in many ways, i agree with this theory. i think at its heart, the 30,000 foot view of the anti-abortion movement shows that it's not so much about saving babies as it is about imposing morality and punishment. however, the 30,000 foot view is almost always a theoretical one. do i think that blue-collar christians in kansas, or montana, or massachusetts for that matter all consciously think about how they want to punish women who have sex out of wedlock? no. maybe some do, but i doubt that the majority are functioning with that intention. for them, having received the indoctrination of abortion is murder from church figures and conservative politicians - having drank that propaganda kool-aid - they honestly believe that abortion is killing a child.
i, of course, would argue vociferously with that conclusion, but as amanda points out, that's a wild goose chase. it's also immaterial, as the matter can never be definitively decided (and don't tell me about "potential scientific advances" that might unearth an answer, because that's not possible - no matter how much we come to understand about gestation and "when life begins," there will always be a grey-area morality involving the worth of a potential life versus the worth of the actual life incubating it). however, there are other ways of entering into a discussion with anti-abortion people who believe it's a moral wrong to terminate a pregnancy - there's the fact that morality is at its foundation a personal issue, there's the fact of weighing moral wrongs, there's the fact of the church being separate from the state, etc. we can have these debates, while being somewhat sensitive to the fact that these people have been led to believe a certain way, and they won't react kindly to being told outright that they're dupes. in other words - while the anti-abortion movement is ripe with anti-woman sentiment and is ultimately out to relegate women to a lower status, our response has to be more nuanced than just shouting that from the hilltops.
the conservative christian movement has done a bang-up job of convincing many americans that they are morally superior by opposing abortion, and that by virtue of that moral superiority, they should be able to impose their views on those who disagree. the pro-choice movement of the last 20 years has yet to figure out an effective way to address that fact. i'm not saying i have the answer, or even that i'm original in identifying this problem - i just want to point out that unfortunately, it's more complicated that we'd like it to be.
I suggest applying abstinence-only logic to other areas of life. For instance, if you dare leave the house and associate with other people, you run a high risk of catching cold. And yet no one suggests that you be denied antibiotics because you were irresponsible by refusing the 100% surefire way of never catching cold by never leaving your house or seeing other people. Only when it comes to matters of fertility do we consider forcing doctors to withhold treatment as a way to punish people–and what we’re punishing, of course, is having sex.
amanda raises some very good points in this post, as usual, and it's worth a read. her final statement, though, struck an off note for me: "'pro-lifers' are not at all 'pro-life' so much as they are anti-choice."
in many ways, i agree with this theory. i think at its heart, the 30,000 foot view of the anti-abortion movement shows that it's not so much about saving babies as it is about imposing morality and punishment. however, the 30,000 foot view is almost always a theoretical one. do i think that blue-collar christians in kansas, or montana, or massachusetts for that matter all consciously think about how they want to punish women who have sex out of wedlock? no. maybe some do, but i doubt that the majority are functioning with that intention. for them, having received the indoctrination of abortion is murder from church figures and conservative politicians - having drank that propaganda kool-aid - they honestly believe that abortion is killing a child.
i, of course, would argue vociferously with that conclusion, but as amanda points out, that's a wild goose chase. it's also immaterial, as the matter can never be definitively decided (and don't tell me about "potential scientific advances" that might unearth an answer, because that's not possible - no matter how much we come to understand about gestation and "when life begins," there will always be a grey-area morality involving the worth of a potential life versus the worth of the actual life incubating it). however, there are other ways of entering into a discussion with anti-abortion people who believe it's a moral wrong to terminate a pregnancy - there's the fact that morality is at its foundation a personal issue, there's the fact of weighing moral wrongs, there's the fact of the church being separate from the state, etc. we can have these debates, while being somewhat sensitive to the fact that these people have been led to believe a certain way, and they won't react kindly to being told outright that they're dupes. in other words - while the anti-abortion movement is ripe with anti-woman sentiment and is ultimately out to relegate women to a lower status, our response has to be more nuanced than just shouting that from the hilltops.
the conservative christian movement has done a bang-up job of convincing many americans that they are morally superior by opposing abortion, and that by virtue of that moral superiority, they should be able to impose their views on those who disagree. the pro-choice movement of the last 20 years has yet to figure out an effective way to address that fact. i'm not saying i have the answer, or even that i'm original in identifying this problem - i just want to point out that unfortunately, it's more complicated that we'd like it to be.
i'm sorry.
this morning, i yelled at the lady on the honey bunches of oats commercial. you know, the one with the hair net?
now i feel bad.
now i feel bad.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
anniversaries abound.
BoyCat and i saw rick bayless yesterday.
if you're from chicago, or a total food network junkie, you'll know that rick is a pretty well-known chicago chef who specializes in mexican food and runs two good mexican restaurants downtown - frontera grill and topolobampo. he does a show on chicago public tv called "mexico one plate at a time" that is strangely enjoyable. rick himself is odd, slightly annoying but a little more slightly engaging, and between that and all the mexican food i've found myself watching the show more than a few times.
anyway, BoyCat and i went to frontera grill last night to celebrate our three year anniversary. (we were involved in that weird, not-really-dating, sort of passive-aggressive and definitely confusing kind of way for about four months prior to january of 2003, but we don't really count that!) we were happy to be a little low-key about the event, forgoing presents or elaborate anything for a nice mexican meal. we'd never been to frontera before, so we thought it'd be a good choice, and it was - the food was not outrageously priced, offered good basic mexican dishes, and it was really tasty. and then, at the end of the meal, we spotted the rickster himself hanging out over by the kitchen.
i dared BoyCat to go over and say, "oooh, rick, i love your plantanos!," but he wouldn't do it.
but that wasn't the only anniversary that we celebrated this week. today is also our one year anniversary of having CatCat! we didn't take her out to dinner or anything, but we did pick her up and squeeze her and tell her we loved her. earlier tonight i was remembering the first night we had her, when she sat under the dining room table most of the night, and i could only get her to venture out a few inches so i could pet her right before i went to bed. then she went right back under the table and settled back down, so i went to sleep figuring i would try to befriend her more the next day.
then, at around 2:00 am, i heard little paws padding into the bedroom and a tiny little squeak that bordered on a meow. there was CatCat at the foot of the bed, inquiring after some attention. she hopped up and let me pet her for a few minutes, and then curled up at the foot of the bed with us.
we've been friends ever since. awwww, so cute you could puke, right? pukey, but true.
i do love my two pseudonymous Cats.
if you're from chicago, or a total food network junkie, you'll know that rick is a pretty well-known chicago chef who specializes in mexican food and runs two good mexican restaurants downtown - frontera grill and topolobampo. he does a show on chicago public tv called "mexico one plate at a time" that is strangely enjoyable. rick himself is odd, slightly annoying but a little more slightly engaging, and between that and all the mexican food i've found myself watching the show more than a few times.
anyway, BoyCat and i went to frontera grill last night to celebrate our three year anniversary. (we were involved in that weird, not-really-dating, sort of passive-aggressive and definitely confusing kind of way for about four months prior to january of 2003, but we don't really count that!) we were happy to be a little low-key about the event, forgoing presents or elaborate anything for a nice mexican meal. we'd never been to frontera before, so we thought it'd be a good choice, and it was - the food was not outrageously priced, offered good basic mexican dishes, and it was really tasty. and then, at the end of the meal, we spotted the rickster himself hanging out over by the kitchen.
i dared BoyCat to go over and say, "oooh, rick, i love your plantanos!," but he wouldn't do it.
but that wasn't the only anniversary that we celebrated this week. today is also our one year anniversary of having CatCat! we didn't take her out to dinner or anything, but we did pick her up and squeeze her and tell her we loved her. earlier tonight i was remembering the first night we had her, when she sat under the dining room table most of the night, and i could only get her to venture out a few inches so i could pet her right before i went to bed. then she went right back under the table and settled back down, so i went to sleep figuring i would try to befriend her more the next day.
then, at around 2:00 am, i heard little paws padding into the bedroom and a tiny little squeak that bordered on a meow. there was CatCat at the foot of the bed, inquiring after some attention. she hopped up and let me pet her for a few minutes, and then curled up at the foot of the bed with us.
we've been friends ever since. awwww, so cute you could puke, right? pukey, but true.
i do love my two pseudonymous Cats.
carnival time.
they're back at it.......
The Carnival of Feminists, seventh edition, for your reading pleasure. this carnival's theme is "feminism and pop culture." i will be clicking away furiously when i get home from work, and you should too!
The Carnival of Feminists, seventh edition, for your reading pleasure. this carnival's theme is "feminism and pop culture." i will be clicking away furiously when i get home from work, and you should too!
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
code red. this is serious. seriously serious.
ok, people, the jeans problem has just intensified exponentially.
is that scary enough language? i hope so. because i almost had a slight heart attack today when i laid down on my bed while wearing my one pair of good jeans, and noticed that the seam on my left hip looked a little funny. upon investigation with my index finger and thumb, it was discovered that there is actually A HOLE developing along the seam. about an inch of fabric was just receding from the stitching, having had enough of being part of a functional piece of clothing. i freaked out, yelled incoherent things for a few minutes, shook my hands like homer simpson, you know. then i realized i could just, you know, sew up the hole. but that is just a temporary band-aid on this ticking time-bomb of a situation.
because you know this is just the tip of the ice berg. i've been wearing these jeans for so long, and now that they're the only pair i own that actually fit and that i actually like, i wear them exclusively. so sooner or later, they are bound to start falling apart. i will stave off the inevitable for as long as i can with a needle and some navy blue thread, but there's only so much an incompetent seamstress can do.
to compound things, i went to the levi's store on monday, and guess what? they don't do the custom jeans thing anymore. so, even if i wanted to drop a buck fifty on a pair of jeans there, i couldn't. so, i tried on four different cuts in two sizes each, and still.....nothing. this jean hunt was slightly ridiculous before, but now? now that i've been to the levi's store (levi's! the original maker of jeans!) and still been unable to find a pair that fits, what next?
sigh.
next up: i'm going to a place called The Blue Jeans Bar in lincoln park and, if i do buy a pair that fit, spend way to much money in order to possess them. i will keep you posted.
is that scary enough language? i hope so. because i almost had a slight heart attack today when i laid down on my bed while wearing my one pair of good jeans, and noticed that the seam on my left hip looked a little funny. upon investigation with my index finger and thumb, it was discovered that there is actually A HOLE developing along the seam. about an inch of fabric was just receding from the stitching, having had enough of being part of a functional piece of clothing. i freaked out, yelled incoherent things for a few minutes, shook my hands like homer simpson, you know. then i realized i could just, you know, sew up the hole. but that is just a temporary band-aid on this ticking time-bomb of a situation.
because you know this is just the tip of the ice berg. i've been wearing these jeans for so long, and now that they're the only pair i own that actually fit and that i actually like, i wear them exclusively. so sooner or later, they are bound to start falling apart. i will stave off the inevitable for as long as i can with a needle and some navy blue thread, but there's only so much an incompetent seamstress can do.
to compound things, i went to the levi's store on monday, and guess what? they don't do the custom jeans thing anymore. so, even if i wanted to drop a buck fifty on a pair of jeans there, i couldn't. so, i tried on four different cuts in two sizes each, and still.....nothing. this jean hunt was slightly ridiculous before, but now? now that i've been to the levi's store (levi's! the original maker of jeans!) and still been unable to find a pair that fits, what next?
sigh.
next up: i'm going to a place called The Blue Jeans Bar in lincoln park and, if i do buy a pair that fit, spend way to much money in order to possess them. i will keep you posted.
Monday, January 16, 2006
holiday observations.
1. well, it was a fairly disappointing football weekend overall, with two of the three teams i was rooting for eliminated from the playoffs. this sadness was mitigated, however, with the utter glee of watching Saint Peyton and his Colts brought down by the Steelers. holy shit, what a game that was. there was the horrendous officiating (since when does a guy catching the ball, hitting the ground with both knees, and maintaining control not constitute an interception??), the nail-biting defensive manuevers, that surreal Bettis fumble, then that even more surreal Roethlisberger tackle, then the missed field goal? my god. it was almost heart stopping. but i am very pleased with the outcome, because i just cannot stand Manning. that smug little prick - walking around like he's god's gift to football. did anybody else see that 4th down play where Dungy sent the punt team onto the field and Manning waved them off?? and Dungy did nothing?? seriously...my friend from pittsburgh noted, "Cowher would have gone out on the field and dragged him off by the helmet." and nothing against Dungy, i think he's a great coach, but how are you going to let yourself be disrespected like that? whose team is this, anyway? unreal. and then after the loss, in the press room, Manning's trying to "find a safe word" with which to criticize his offensive line? well, honey, you're certainly going to need a safe word after managing to point a finger in public at the guys charged with protecting your ass week in and week out. good luck.
2. i was watching dawson's creek this morning (shut up), and i sort of can't believe that the Michelle Williams of that first season is the Michelle Williams who could go home with a golden globe for best supporting actress tonight. and she'd deserve it - she was freaking fantastic in Brokeback Mountain. however, this is the woman who decided that in this morning's episode, the best was to play Jen Lindley as a convincing teenage drunk is to puke into her hand, and not over the fence like any normal person. seven years later, there's oscar talk. miracles do happen.
3. women, please stop wearing trucker hats. right this second. ditto with the Uggs.
4. you know what demographic i feel really bad hating but usually do it anyway? those slightly elderly ladies that stock up on random amalgamations of things at the drug store, and then hold up the line for 10 minutes getting everything out of their cart (there are carts, at walgreen's! who knew?) and spreading their coupons out and arguing over 30 cents here and 65 cents there. i want to bludgeon these women with stacks of Us Weekly, or bins of Chapstick, or whatever else is handy while i wait interminably to buy a roll of toilet paper and some dish soap. i'm sorry old ladies, i know you mean me no malice, but i want to kill you.
2. i was watching dawson's creek this morning (shut up), and i sort of can't believe that the Michelle Williams of that first season is the Michelle Williams who could go home with a golden globe for best supporting actress tonight. and she'd deserve it - she was freaking fantastic in Brokeback Mountain. however, this is the woman who decided that in this morning's episode, the best was to play Jen Lindley as a convincing teenage drunk is to puke into her hand, and not over the fence like any normal person. seven years later, there's oscar talk. miracles do happen.
3. women, please stop wearing trucker hats. right this second. ditto with the Uggs.
4. you know what demographic i feel really bad hating but usually do it anyway? those slightly elderly ladies that stock up on random amalgamations of things at the drug store, and then hold up the line for 10 minutes getting everything out of their cart (there are carts, at walgreen's! who knew?) and spreading their coupons out and arguing over 30 cents here and 65 cents there. i want to bludgeon these women with stacks of Us Weekly, or bins of Chapstick, or whatever else is handy while i wait interminably to buy a roll of toilet paper and some dish soap. i'm sorry old ladies, i know you mean me no malice, but i want to kill you.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
can i tell you a secret?
i love watching Nanny 911.
why? why do i get such pleasure from watching a variety of dysfunctional families with insane children get disciplined by british nannies?
well, when i put it that way, i'm not sure i want to know.
but really - i said to BoyCat last night about 20 minutes into the episode about the Graham family, "this show is like crack!" if it's on, i inevitably end up watching it - i can't help it. maybe it makes me feel a little bit better about my own life. hell, my job is ridiculous and the brick walls in our apartment are slowly disintegrating and there's almost no food in the house, but at least i'm not the Graham family!
oh, the Grahams, they were quite a little clan. they live in a big brick (probably brick facade) McMansion outside chicago, where dad is an ER doctor and mom is (wait for it) a stay-at-home mom. they have four boys - one 13 year old from mom's previous marriage, a six year old, and four year old twins. the kids play video games all day every day, and when they're not playing video games, they're pummeling each other and/or the dog. oh, and screaming. screaming that would make your ears bleed after an hour or two. it was utter chaos in that house, to a degree that i can't even imagine living with. and yet, the parents - despite the fact that they are being filmed for a show called Nanny 911 and not Parents of the Year - wanted nothing to do with Nanny Deb's suggestions for improving their household. what it came down to was that it was easier for them to let the kids play video games four hours a day than actually, you know, entertain the kids themselves. dad works a whole "30-40 hours a week" and thus really needs his downtime, and mom, well, mom has "things to get done." why bother also trying to parent your children, when you can just warm up the Game Cube?
perhaps i'm not being fair. well, i'm sure i'm not being fair, because editing is everything and i really know nothing about the Grahams. but the whole thing - and so many episodes of Nanny 911 - just reek of obvious problems and obvious solutions, that you just end up staring slack-jawed at the mounting insanity and thinking, "you idiots."
of course, that's a big part of the allure - feeling oh so much smarter than these clueless people. but even being aware of that, god, it's still fun when you can make pretty accurate predictions about how long it will take to hear statements like "boys will be boys!" and "who do you think cares more about parenting - a stay-at-home mom, or the woman that makes enough money to pay you to parent their kids??"
oooooh, snap. but you're still on Nanny 911.
why? why do i get such pleasure from watching a variety of dysfunctional families with insane children get disciplined by british nannies?
well, when i put it that way, i'm not sure i want to know.
but really - i said to BoyCat last night about 20 minutes into the episode about the Graham family, "this show is like crack!" if it's on, i inevitably end up watching it - i can't help it. maybe it makes me feel a little bit better about my own life. hell, my job is ridiculous and the brick walls in our apartment are slowly disintegrating and there's almost no food in the house, but at least i'm not the Graham family!
oh, the Grahams, they were quite a little clan. they live in a big brick (probably brick facade) McMansion outside chicago, where dad is an ER doctor and mom is (wait for it) a stay-at-home mom. they have four boys - one 13 year old from mom's previous marriage, a six year old, and four year old twins. the kids play video games all day every day, and when they're not playing video games, they're pummeling each other and/or the dog. oh, and screaming. screaming that would make your ears bleed after an hour or two. it was utter chaos in that house, to a degree that i can't even imagine living with. and yet, the parents - despite the fact that they are being filmed for a show called Nanny 911 and not Parents of the Year - wanted nothing to do with Nanny Deb's suggestions for improving their household. what it came down to was that it was easier for them to let the kids play video games four hours a day than actually, you know, entertain the kids themselves. dad works a whole "30-40 hours a week" and thus really needs his downtime, and mom, well, mom has "things to get done." why bother also trying to parent your children, when you can just warm up the Game Cube?
perhaps i'm not being fair. well, i'm sure i'm not being fair, because editing is everything and i really know nothing about the Grahams. but the whole thing - and so many episodes of Nanny 911 - just reek of obvious problems and obvious solutions, that you just end up staring slack-jawed at the mounting insanity and thinking, "you idiots."
of course, that's a big part of the allure - feeling oh so much smarter than these clueless people. but even being aware of that, god, it's still fun when you can make pretty accurate predictions about how long it will take to hear statements like "boys will be boys!" and "who do you think cares more about parenting - a stay-at-home mom, or the woman that makes enough money to pay you to parent their kids??"
oooooh, snap. but you're still on Nanny 911.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
wahoo, a wednesday one-liner.
courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Drunk girl: And shrimp is round. Not a color, but round. Fuck that! I'm going home!
--Dumpling Man, St. Marks
and more. plus, i'm freaking angry.
ok, linkfest, i know, but really you should read ayelet waldman's article on salon, I was conned by JT Leroy. usually i'm not a huge fan, but her take on it is interesting. the following is partly what i was trying to get at in the debate BoyCat and i had last night:
Her own response to these hypothetical questions is interesting, as well.
this seems pretty perceptive to me. however, i have trouble agreeing with the conclusion that "it probably did some good, if the books themselves found an audience among the very people JT was pretending to be." i think maybe it did, right up until the moment that Leroy was revealed to be a fraud. the implication of that revelation, at least as i see it, is that what the fraud says to those "very people" is your existence is not important, so much so that i can just make it up as i go along. i can claim your voice as my own, and make money off of it, and fuck all what you care about it. your life is just fodder for my mill, and by extent, everyone's mill. it's entertainment.
anyway.
what i'm angry about is actually unrelated to literary scandal. it's jeans, and Oprah.
firstly - why on earth can i not find a pair of jeans that fit me? i know this is a common tale of woe, but seriously people, i cannot find a pair of jeans that i could wear out of the house. i eternally damn to hell the forces that inflicted "ultra low rise" upon society. i would really love to be able to purchase a pair of jeans that don't make me eligible for Indecent Exposure charges when i sit down in public. the low rise problem is compounded by the fact that i have a really small waist but pretty sizable hips (curse you, MomCat, curse you!). apparently, no one else in the world is shaped like this, and if they are, they are apparently not allowed to wear jeans. today at the GAP i literally tried on a dozen pairs of jeans, six different cuts in two sizes each. nothing. nothing even close to wearable. i am getting ready to walk into some high-end michigan avenue store, supplicate myself, and beg for a pair of jeans that fit, whatever the cost. this, of course, would be unadvisable, but i am almost, almost there.
secondly - why on earth does everyone in the world think that Oprah should be the solution to all of nonprofitland's problems? and by problems, i mean fundraising needs. i get this all the time, from people involved with the agency from the outside, from people involved with the agency from closer to the inside, even from people in the foundation world who should know better! "what about Oprah? maybe she could help." "how about Oprah's foundation, you're based in chicago." "oh, maybe Oprah?" ok, here's the deal. Oprah does not run around chicago tossing bags of money into the street! Oprah does not ride down the street in a sleigh slinging presents into worthwhile non-profits! you cannot just call up Oprah, tell her you need some money, and get a check the next day! Oprah IS NOT AN OPTION, so stop trying to put us off of asking you for money by suggesting i peek into Oprah's piggy bank! i already have, and it ain't happening! so shut up about it already!!
phew. i feel better.
The larger question...is the morality of courting people's sympathies, including mine, by exploiting the issues of AIDS, homelessness, teenage castaways and transgenderism. Wasn't Albert and Knoop's assumption of these victim identities in order to achieve fame and fortune immoral, even evil? Doesn't it belittle the experience of everyone who has really suffered as they only pretended to?
Her own response to these hypothetical questions is interesting, as well.
Yes, of course. And yet somehow I'm not as troubled by this particular thing. It probably did little harm, except to the egos of those of us who were fooled, and it probably did some good, if the books themselves found an audience among the very people JT was pretending to be. I'm much more troubled by James Frey's actions in perpetrating a similar fraud. I view him as far more venal, more absurdly self-aggrandizing, and dangerous. Because Frey actually tried to convince people that his "recovery" could inspire them in a specific way. If they acted as he did, if they followed his lead, they too could be saved. JT Leroy's creators presented a model of redemption, not a prescription for it.
this seems pretty perceptive to me. however, i have trouble agreeing with the conclusion that "it probably did some good, if the books themselves found an audience among the very people JT was pretending to be." i think maybe it did, right up until the moment that Leroy was revealed to be a fraud. the implication of that revelation, at least as i see it, is that what the fraud says to those "very people" is your existence is not important, so much so that i can just make it up as i go along. i can claim your voice as my own, and make money off of it, and fuck all what you care about it. your life is just fodder for my mill, and by extent, everyone's mill. it's entertainment.
anyway.
what i'm angry about is actually unrelated to literary scandal. it's jeans, and Oprah.
firstly - why on earth can i not find a pair of jeans that fit me? i know this is a common tale of woe, but seriously people, i cannot find a pair of jeans that i could wear out of the house. i eternally damn to hell the forces that inflicted "ultra low rise" upon society. i would really love to be able to purchase a pair of jeans that don't make me eligible for Indecent Exposure charges when i sit down in public. the low rise problem is compounded by the fact that i have a really small waist but pretty sizable hips (curse you, MomCat, curse you!). apparently, no one else in the world is shaped like this, and if they are, they are apparently not allowed to wear jeans. today at the GAP i literally tried on a dozen pairs of jeans, six different cuts in two sizes each. nothing. nothing even close to wearable. i am getting ready to walk into some high-end michigan avenue store, supplicate myself, and beg for a pair of jeans that fit, whatever the cost. this, of course, would be unadvisable, but i am almost, almost there.
secondly - why on earth does everyone in the world think that Oprah should be the solution to all of nonprofitland's problems? and by problems, i mean fundraising needs. i get this all the time, from people involved with the agency from the outside, from people involved with the agency from closer to the inside, even from people in the foundation world who should know better! "what about Oprah? maybe she could help." "how about Oprah's foundation, you're based in chicago." "oh, maybe Oprah?" ok, here's the deal. Oprah does not run around chicago tossing bags of money into the street! Oprah does not ride down the street in a sleigh slinging presents into worthwhile non-profits! you cannot just call up Oprah, tell her you need some money, and get a check the next day! Oprah IS NOT AN OPTION, so stop trying to put us off of asking you for money by suggesting i peek into Oprah's piggy bank! i already have, and it ain't happening! so shut up about it already!!
phew. i feel better.
more.
from the New York Times, some follow-up on the Frey fall-out.
also, the ramifications of both unmaskings for hollywood.
also, the ramifications of both unmaskings for hollywood.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
deceitful above all things, indeed.
so, i'm sure you've heard. you know, about James Frey being a total liar and JT Leroy not even really existing.
for some reason, i am completely and totally fascinated by this. technically, they are two different stories with two different sets of ramifications, but the fact that they both broke within 48 hours of each other? holy shit. it makes it difficult to process in its entirety. being a girl who studied and analyzed books and authors for a solid six-year stretch (never mind all that pesky work i did in high school), this is like a gold mine for my little brain. where to start, where to start?
i'd say the issue of authenticity is central here. both cases are so shocking because the authors claimed to be "authentically" something, and it turned out to be a lie. the Leroy case is a little more complicated in that "JT Leroy" wrote (in my understanding) autobiographical fiction, but the autobiography on which his fiction was based was a fabrication. This makes the judgement more difficult - what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that a 40-ish woman musician wrote under the guise of a teenage transgendered former prostitute? other than the fact that she didn't, you know, tell anyone that.
BoyCat and i found that we disagree on the answer to this question. he, in sum, doesn't think there's anything wrong with Laura Albert's deception per se, but that the problem begins when she (and her other partners in crime, her husband and sister-in-law) eventually embellished the tale to include Leroy's HIV-positive status, and used that to curry sympathy and favor from well-minded people. BoyCat is unwilling to condemn her for merely creating the original fabrication. i, on the other hand, am totally willing to do that. my instinct is to say "of course it's wrong!," but i'm have a harder time pinning down a reason why.
in trying to figure out why what Albert and her co-horts did was "wrong," i find a tangle of things knotted up in my mind: the authorial voice, fiction, non-fiction, minorities and the disadvantaged, ego, greed, good writing, bad intentions. and i don't even know the full story - who knows why Albert did this? on the surface, it seems to be about finding a way into a publishing industry with certain predilections and biases, and then exploiting that industry and its money-making ability for personal gain. but who knows? we certainly never will. even if Albert ends up writing a tell-all book about her reasons "why," it will never be a three dimensional picture of the truth. so i'm left with this bad taste in my mouth - with a sense that some unspoken rule has been broken, with a sense that someone who never even existed has been wronged. and yet, i find myself laughing out loud at the absurdity of it all. oh, the contradictions, the conundrums - the ridiculousness of it all!
and James Frey, well, that's a little more cut and dry. this guy wildly exaggerated or out-and-out fabriacated an autobiography of himself, made millions off of it, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. what will Oprah do? seriously, what will she do?? ooooh, i really hope she does something. because it seems to me like there's nothing Oprah likes less than being made a fool of. if you haven't had a chance to read the Smoking Gun report that i linked above, you should - it's fairly jaw-dropping. it seems to me like TSG ended up having a serious ax to grind with Frey by the end of the whole investigative process - part of me wonders how much he managed to dig his own grave here by acting like an arrogant, juvenile, "who-me-no-way-i'm-invincible" prick.
all in all, the publishing industry has had a wild beginning to their week. you do have to wonder how this kind of blatant hoaxery (just made that word up, i like it - is there even a plural noun form of "hoax"?) got past the sentinels so relentlessly and continually. will heads roll? will books burn? will Oprah kill?
stay tuned.
for some reason, i am completely and totally fascinated by this. technically, they are two different stories with two different sets of ramifications, but the fact that they both broke within 48 hours of each other? holy shit. it makes it difficult to process in its entirety. being a girl who studied and analyzed books and authors for a solid six-year stretch (never mind all that pesky work i did in high school), this is like a gold mine for my little brain. where to start, where to start?
i'd say the issue of authenticity is central here. both cases are so shocking because the authors claimed to be "authentically" something, and it turned out to be a lie. the Leroy case is a little more complicated in that "JT Leroy" wrote (in my understanding) autobiographical fiction, but the autobiography on which his fiction was based was a fabrication. This makes the judgement more difficult - what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that a 40-ish woman musician wrote under the guise of a teenage transgendered former prostitute? other than the fact that she didn't, you know, tell anyone that.
BoyCat and i found that we disagree on the answer to this question. he, in sum, doesn't think there's anything wrong with Laura Albert's deception per se, but that the problem begins when she (and her other partners in crime, her husband and sister-in-law) eventually embellished the tale to include Leroy's HIV-positive status, and used that to curry sympathy and favor from well-minded people. BoyCat is unwilling to condemn her for merely creating the original fabrication. i, on the other hand, am totally willing to do that. my instinct is to say "of course it's wrong!," but i'm have a harder time pinning down a reason why.
in trying to figure out why what Albert and her co-horts did was "wrong," i find a tangle of things knotted up in my mind: the authorial voice, fiction, non-fiction, minorities and the disadvantaged, ego, greed, good writing, bad intentions. and i don't even know the full story - who knows why Albert did this? on the surface, it seems to be about finding a way into a publishing industry with certain predilections and biases, and then exploiting that industry and its money-making ability for personal gain. but who knows? we certainly never will. even if Albert ends up writing a tell-all book about her reasons "why," it will never be a three dimensional picture of the truth. so i'm left with this bad taste in my mouth - with a sense that some unspoken rule has been broken, with a sense that someone who never even existed has been wronged. and yet, i find myself laughing out loud at the absurdity of it all. oh, the contradictions, the conundrums - the ridiculousness of it all!
and James Frey, well, that's a little more cut and dry. this guy wildly exaggerated or out-and-out fabriacated an autobiography of himself, made millions off of it, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. what will Oprah do? seriously, what will she do?? ooooh, i really hope she does something. because it seems to me like there's nothing Oprah likes less than being made a fool of. if you haven't had a chance to read the Smoking Gun report that i linked above, you should - it's fairly jaw-dropping. it seems to me like TSG ended up having a serious ax to grind with Frey by the end of the whole investigative process - part of me wonders how much he managed to dig his own grave here by acting like an arrogant, juvenile, "who-me-no-way-i'm-invincible" prick.
all in all, the publishing industry has had a wild beginning to their week. you do have to wonder how this kind of blatant hoaxery (just made that word up, i like it - is there even a plural noun form of "hoax"?) got past the sentinels so relentlessly and continually. will heads roll? will books burn? will Oprah kill?
stay tuned.
Monday, January 09, 2006
the good, and the bad.
on the down side:
i left my hat in the car over the weekend, so i was forced to leave the apartment today wearing dark brown boots, a camel coat, and a black hat and scarf. oh, the shame.
on the up side:
i just got a raise. whoa.
i left my hat in the car over the weekend, so i was forced to leave the apartment today wearing dark brown boots, a camel coat, and a black hat and scarf. oh, the shame.
on the up side:
i just got a raise. whoa.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
indignities du jour.
Media Girl observes that in south dakota, women are like cows.
Shakespeare's Sister informs us that in indiana, men know how a woman's "health or life would be permanently impaired," and it's sure as shit not by bearing a child that she doesn't want.
Shakespeare's Sister informs us that in indiana, men know how a woman's "health or life would be permanently impaired," and it's sure as shit not by bearing a child that she doesn't want.
Friday, January 06, 2006
friday cat blogging, last of 'the early years' collection.
holy crap was she skinny. she is looking in the direction of the kitchen, with a crazed look in her eye. this was probably day 3 or 4 of her tenure here. look how tense she is.
it will be a year on january 18th that CatCat has lived with us. if i do say so myself, she's had it pretty good so far. as evidence - fat pictures, crazy pictures, and fat and crazy pictures to come.
on a completely unrelated note, we just finished watching "me and you and everyone we know." i think i liked it.
it will be a year on january 18th that CatCat has lived with us. if i do say so myself, she's had it pretty good so far. as evidence - fat pictures, crazy pictures, and fat and crazy pictures to come.
on a completely unrelated note, we just finished watching "me and you and everyone we know." i think i liked it.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
real quick like, before i fall into bed.
i have some real posts percolating in my brain, but they will have to wait until that most noble of organs can figure out how to translate said percolations into actual, readable sentences.
see above for exhibit A of this problem.
a few thoughts, though, that i feel oddly compelled to share:
- i really need to put in a new pair of contacts. i am one of those abusers of the two-week limit, you know, where i just wear them until they make my eyeballs hurt. well, my eyeballs hurt.
- mtv's true life has the ability to draw me in like no other tv show. if i haven't told you about the wonder that was true life: i have a summer share (on the jersey shore!), well, i'm going to commit 3 or 4 future posts to doing just that. tonight's episode was not quite that good, but true life: i'm moving to new york was still highly entertaining. i can't even get into all of it now, it's just too much to process, but the favorite character of BoyCat and i by far was josh, a 20 year old from wisconsin who moved to new york to become a model. if josh had three brain cells, then they must've been fighting with each other at all times. and he had a wisconsin accent. and he fell asleep on camera at a "burrito world." that's all i can say.
- CatCat is in some kind of highly agitated state right now. she has attacked BoyCat's glasses sitting on the edge of the couch, leapt at low-hanging christmas ornaments (i'm taking the tree down tomorrow, really), and has spent the last five minutes attempting to peer behind the cable box and dvd player, in order to get at some invisible menace that's lurking there. the catnip mice scattered around on the floor are usually the extent of CatCat's entertainment, so this is intriguing. if someone finds BoyCat and i dead via clawing tomorrow, you'll know whodunit.
see above for exhibit A of this problem.
a few thoughts, though, that i feel oddly compelled to share:
- i really need to put in a new pair of contacts. i am one of those abusers of the two-week limit, you know, where i just wear them until they make my eyeballs hurt. well, my eyeballs hurt.
- mtv's true life has the ability to draw me in like no other tv show. if i haven't told you about the wonder that was true life: i have a summer share (on the jersey shore!), well, i'm going to commit 3 or 4 future posts to doing just that. tonight's episode was not quite that good, but true life: i'm moving to new york was still highly entertaining. i can't even get into all of it now, it's just too much to process, but the favorite character of BoyCat and i by far was josh, a 20 year old from wisconsin who moved to new york to become a model. if josh had three brain cells, then they must've been fighting with each other at all times. and he had a wisconsin accent. and he fell asleep on camera at a "burrito world." that's all i can say.
- CatCat is in some kind of highly agitated state right now. she has attacked BoyCat's glasses sitting on the edge of the couch, leapt at low-hanging christmas ornaments (i'm taking the tree down tomorrow, really), and has spent the last five minutes attempting to peer behind the cable box and dvd player, in order to get at some invisible menace that's lurking there. the catnip mice scattered around on the floor are usually the extent of CatCat's entertainment, so this is intriguing. if someone finds BoyCat and i dead via clawing tomorrow, you'll know whodunit.
real quick like, before my morning meeting. UPDATED...TWICE!
i must get west of the mississippi! i must! i mean christ, looks like i've got the eastern part of the country mainly under control. i'd be embarrassed by BoyCat's map, i'm sure...
update: ok, i know this looks really ugly on my template, but i don't really care.
update 2: i was correct, BoyCat did kick my ass in U.S. travel. ok, in world travel too (they have a map for that, but i would be so mortified by displaying mine that i'd crawl under the couch and never come out). oh, and he also showed me how to make the map fit within my post space, because apparently in addition to being better traveled, he is also smarter than me.
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
update: ok, i know this looks really ugly on my template, but i don't really care.
update 2: i was correct, BoyCat did kick my ass in U.S. travel. ok, in world travel too (they have a map for that, but i would be so mortified by displaying mine that i'd crawl under the couch and never come out). oh, and he also showed me how to make the map fit within my post space, because apparently in addition to being better traveled, he is also smarter than me.
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
just enough time for a wednesday one-liner.
this one is near and dear to my heart, and courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Girl: He doesn't smell that bad for an academic.
--Gotham Bar & Grill, East 12th Street
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
new things.
so, after reading my last post, many of you are probably assuming that my new year's resolution for 2006 was "start smoking crack." this is understandable, but untrue. i actually haven't really made resolutions per se - they're more like mini-resolutions. pseudo-resolutions. sorta-kinda-resolutions.
what can i say, i hedge my bets.
anyway, one of these resolutions is to write more, period. i have two degrees in this, for god's sake (it sounds funny to say that my degrees are in "english," when i think a more apt description would be "reading and writing stuff."). i should do more of it. so what better place than a blog, with its total lack of restriction or structure, to play around and write in some different ways? the point is, don't be surprised by anything this year. except for poetry - i will not subject you to poetry, i promise. really, it wouldn't work out well for any of us.
and on that note about all the writing i'll be doing, try not to miss me too much over the next two weeks as i submerge myself in nonprofitland work. two weeks, many proposals, a photo project to coordinate, and an entire office move. i will try to post whenever i come up for air.
what can i say, i hedge my bets.
anyway, one of these resolutions is to write more, period. i have two degrees in this, for god's sake (it sounds funny to say that my degrees are in "english," when i think a more apt description would be "reading and writing stuff."). i should do more of it. so what better place than a blog, with its total lack of restriction or structure, to play around and write in some different ways? the point is, don't be surprised by anything this year. except for poetry - i will not subject you to poetry, i promise. really, it wouldn't work out well for any of us.
and on that note about all the writing i'll be doing, try not to miss me too much over the next two weeks as i submerge myself in nonprofitland work. two weeks, many proposals, a photo project to coordinate, and an entire office move. i will try to post whenever i come up for air.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
at night.
my apartment, late at night, is a place with which i'm not entirely familiar. i am a night person, but not a late night person - i am 12:45 a.m, not 3:30 am. during what most would consider "the middle of the night," i am usually asleep. i sleep lightly, and because of this i wake up intermittently, shuffle to the bathroom, wander back.
these moments of half wakefulness can yield interesting results. i have often just been roused from dreaming, and as i move through the bedroom doorway i rub my forehead and the bridge of my nose, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. trying to snatch out a bit of meaning from whatever bizarre scenario my subconscious was playing out, or sometimes, trying to stamp down some unruly emotion or memory my waking mind usually has the intelligence to forget. trying, in the few moments that i'm awake, to understand the previous sleep.
i usually fail on all counts.
the other night, i walked out of the bathroom around 4:30 am, readjusting my eyes to the darkness after a few moments of light. ususally, i just turn right, and then left, and then push the door, and then push it shut again without hesitation - with a bit of haste, in fact, because dark unseeable space is deeply unsettling to me. even though it is my apartment, and i can see the thick outline of the couches and bookshelves and dining room table, there are pockets of nothing between them that can't be penetrated. anything could be there. so i scurry past, not wanting to know.
but the other night, i slowed down. the other night, i looked, and everything was tinged blue. it was like the blue of a television set that's on in the dark, but the television was outside. it came through every window, it came from under the front door. it bounced off the walls, and the furniture, and tinted the floor.
i'm sure that there is an explanation for this. the hour of day, probably. (though it seemed too early for late winter light, this was like a precursor to light. light's harbinger.) and i didn't even ponder it for more than three seconds before i continued my scripted journey back to bed. but why did this, of all things, arrest my attention in my half-sleep? and why am i thinking about it now?
maybe because the very beginning of illumination, in that particular drowsy moment of my life, was a beautiful shade of blue. and it required nothing of me except to notice it.
i was asleep again in seconds.
these moments of half wakefulness can yield interesting results. i have often just been roused from dreaming, and as i move through the bedroom doorway i rub my forehead and the bridge of my nose, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. trying to snatch out a bit of meaning from whatever bizarre scenario my subconscious was playing out, or sometimes, trying to stamp down some unruly emotion or memory my waking mind usually has the intelligence to forget. trying, in the few moments that i'm awake, to understand the previous sleep.
i usually fail on all counts.
the other night, i walked out of the bathroom around 4:30 am, readjusting my eyes to the darkness after a few moments of light. ususally, i just turn right, and then left, and then push the door, and then push it shut again without hesitation - with a bit of haste, in fact, because dark unseeable space is deeply unsettling to me. even though it is my apartment, and i can see the thick outline of the couches and bookshelves and dining room table, there are pockets of nothing between them that can't be penetrated. anything could be there. so i scurry past, not wanting to know.
but the other night, i slowed down. the other night, i looked, and everything was tinged blue. it was like the blue of a television set that's on in the dark, but the television was outside. it came through every window, it came from under the front door. it bounced off the walls, and the furniture, and tinted the floor.
i'm sure that there is an explanation for this. the hour of day, probably. (though it seemed too early for late winter light, this was like a precursor to light. light's harbinger.) and i didn't even ponder it for more than three seconds before i continued my scripted journey back to bed. but why did this, of all things, arrest my attention in my half-sleep? and why am i thinking about it now?
maybe because the very beginning of illumination, in that particular drowsy moment of my life, was a beautiful shade of blue. and it required nothing of me except to notice it.
i was asleep again in seconds.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
an unusual practice for me.
i am not usually in the habit of quoting song lyrics on this blog. in fact, i don't believe that i ever have. my general position on it is, no one really cares and just skims over them with their eyes anyway. i still feel that way, but i am breaking this self-imposed ban today because this seems to be the only thing running through my head as midnight approaches:
love and luck to all of you in the new year. thanks for reading for the past four months - i've got twelve more in store, so don't go too far.
it's been a
long december
and there's reason to believe
maybe this year will be
better than the last.
i can't remember
all the times
i tried to tell myself
to hold on to these moments
as they pass.
love and luck to all of you in the new year. thanks for reading for the past four months - i've got twelve more in store, so don't go too far.
Friday, December 30, 2005
two for one.
friday cat blogging PLUS a late wednesday one-liner thrown in for free, just because i like you.
this is what CatCat and i will be doing for most of the day:
of course, this is what she does most every day.
and your one-liner, courtesy of Overheard in New York:
this is what CatCat and i will be doing for most of the day:
of course, this is what she does most every day.
and your one-liner, courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Guy on cell: Number one: I'm going back to Brooklyn now. Number two: I can't fucking stand you and I never want to see you again. Number three: Call me.
--8th & Mercer
pseudo sick day.
i am in my pajamas and wrapped up in a blanket as i write this. i am also not at work as i write this. (you would think the former would indicate the latter, but my office has a very lax dress code.) this all worked out very well for me, actually, as we have today off as a holiday (nonprofitland gives you a "new year's eve day" as well as a "new year's day" holiday, probably to make up for the fact that you then have no paid holidays until memorial day) but if we didn't have it off, i would be home sick regardless. so, it's not that i'm pseudo-sick, it's that what is a holiday for everyone else at my office is a sick day for me. but i don't have to use up a sick day for it. ha.
re-reading the above paragraph, the fact that i am high on cold medicine is really quite evident.
perhaps i will post some medicated ramblings later. for now, though, i need to turn on the game show network or something. ah yes, mind-numbing television seen through half-asleep eyelids. heavenly.
re-reading the above paragraph, the fact that i am high on cold medicine is really quite evident.
perhaps i will post some medicated ramblings later. for now, though, i need to turn on the game show network or something. ah yes, mind-numbing television seen through half-asleep eyelids. heavenly.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
this just in.
friendster is addictive.
why did it take me a year and a half to figure this out? i signed up back in grad school and promptly forgot about it, until i got a random friendster email yesterday. with this being The Week that Time Forgot here in nonprofitland, i figured i'd kill some time and check it out.
holy crap, there are a lot of people that i know on friendster! people that i knew in college. people that i knew in high school. people that i used to date. people that i used to hate. people that i still hate. people that i hardly know, but am slightly obsessed with regardless.
it's very interesting, and yet slightly disconcerting at the same time. i don't know if it's the time of year, since usually around new year's eve you find yourself looking forward, not backward. i am trying to be good about looking forward, about using the new year as a catalyst (however stereotypical!) for potential change in my life. and yet here i am, three days before that new year arrives, poring over pictures of people with whom i haven't spoken in years, or people i have no real desire to ever speak to again. there's something very contradictory there. and yet i can't stop! so many strange, dust-covered memories to dig out, so many forgotten moments and character traits and facial expressions to resurrect.
what are these people to me now? and what am i to them? this little website has suddenly wiped away miles and arguments and years. it could be entirely irrelevant, or it could be crucial. i haven't decided yet.
but i keep clicking away, fascinated.
why did it take me a year and a half to figure this out? i signed up back in grad school and promptly forgot about it, until i got a random friendster email yesterday. with this being The Week that Time Forgot here in nonprofitland, i figured i'd kill some time and check it out.
holy crap, there are a lot of people that i know on friendster! people that i knew in college. people that i knew in high school. people that i used to date. people that i used to hate. people that i still hate. people that i hardly know, but am slightly obsessed with regardless.
it's very interesting, and yet slightly disconcerting at the same time. i don't know if it's the time of year, since usually around new year's eve you find yourself looking forward, not backward. i am trying to be good about looking forward, about using the new year as a catalyst (however stereotypical!) for potential change in my life. and yet here i am, three days before that new year arrives, poring over pictures of people with whom i haven't spoken in years, or people i have no real desire to ever speak to again. there's something very contradictory there. and yet i can't stop! so many strange, dust-covered memories to dig out, so many forgotten moments and character traits and facial expressions to resurrect.
what are these people to me now? and what am i to them? this little website has suddenly wiped away miles and arguments and years. it could be entirely irrelevant, or it could be crucial. i haven't decided yet.
but i keep clicking away, fascinated.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
strange bedfellows.
it's an interesting day when twisty links to the manolo. can you imagine a dinner conversation between those two? i would possibly pay money to witness it.
and speaking of the manolo, he's going to give me nightmares with this post. ugh.
and speaking of the manolo, he's going to give me nightmares with this post. ugh.
i need a tissue.
seriously, does anybody have one? there are none in my office, and i need one in a bad way. i have some kind of freak winter allergies that are rendering me useless. i say "freak winter allergies" because it doesn't feel like a cold - it feels more like the entire inside of my face and ears are one big itch. oh, and my throat too, can't forget that.
is that a cold? bird flu? impetigo? what's wrong with me??
anyway, i hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. i am back in chicago after five lovely days in the land of my birth, a.k.a. massachusetts. a small amount of time was spent in "live free or die" new hampshire, mainly for their lack of sales tax two days before christmas. BoyCat and i pulled into a mall parking lot and saw this giant black truck with about five of those obnoxious ribbon stickers (support the troops! support america! support god! support me!) lined up above his "live free or die" new hampshire license plate. and he was indeed living free, as he had apparently been in such a rush that he couldn't be bothered to only take up one parking space instead of three. it was like he had just careened into the parking lot, decided to stop at some indiscriminate point, and leapt out of the truck like it was on fire to run into Michael's Arts and Craft Store.
i love new hampshire.
is that a cold? bird flu? impetigo? what's wrong with me??
anyway, i hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. i am back in chicago after five lovely days in the land of my birth, a.k.a. massachusetts. a small amount of time was spent in "live free or die" new hampshire, mainly for their lack of sales tax two days before christmas. BoyCat and i pulled into a mall parking lot and saw this giant black truck with about five of those obnoxious ribbon stickers (support the troops! support america! support god! support me!) lined up above his "live free or die" new hampshire license plate. and he was indeed living free, as he had apparently been in such a rush that he couldn't be bothered to only take up one parking space instead of three. it was like he had just careened into the parking lot, decided to stop at some indiscriminate point, and leapt out of the truck like it was on fire to run into Michael's Arts and Craft Store.
i love new hampshire.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
back to the homeland.
well. after i leave the office today, BoyCat and i will be heading to the pseudo-cats-in-laws house, and then tomorrow morning we fly out to massachusetts.
i am happy about this. i am happy to have a few days off, i am happy to not have to walk around in the freezing cold (well, it maybe be freezing cold there, but it's suburbia, so there will be cars!), i am happy to drink wine and sit on the couch with my feet up and admire my family's christmas tree. i am happy to shop in new hampshire, where there is no sales tax. i am happy to see old friends. i am happy to be in a place where no one makes fun of me for tacking an "r" onto the end of the word "saw." yes, i am happy.
i may post some dispatches from new england, i may not. if it ends up being the latter, well then, happy holidays everyone!
i am happy about this. i am happy to have a few days off, i am happy to not have to walk around in the freezing cold (well, it maybe be freezing cold there, but it's suburbia, so there will be cars!), i am happy to drink wine and sit on the couch with my feet up and admire my family's christmas tree. i am happy to shop in new hampshire, where there is no sales tax. i am happy to see old friends. i am happy to be in a place where no one makes fun of me for tacking an "r" onto the end of the word "saw." yes, i am happy.
i may post some dispatches from new england, i may not. if it ends up being the latter, well then, happy holidays everyone!
you know what i'm going to say.
but i honestly can't even talk about it. i can't even link to it, because the sight of the headlines makes me borderline homicidal.
and his hair, his beautiful hair...what will become of it? such a tragedy.
fucking steinbrenner. fucking idiot sox organization.
fuck.
and his hair, his beautiful hair...what will become of it? such a tragedy.
fucking steinbrenner. fucking idiot sox organization.
fuck.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
a potentially enlightening post.
nothing better than a meme for those evenings, such as this one, when your brain feels like a bowl of oatmeal. for the half dozen readers that don't know me in real life, this could be informative. for the rest of you, well - let me know if i get anything wrong. this one was lifted from Ornithology for Beginners:
A is for Age: 25. a young'un. wet behind the ears. just fell off the turnip truck over here.
B is for Booze: there's not much that i won't drink. in my short time on earth (as noted above), the only two drinks that i've learned to refuse at all costs are shots of tequila and irish car bombs.
C is for Career: writing lots of stuff at nonprofitland.
D is for Dad’s name: DadCat.
E is for Essential items to bring to a party: money for a cab home.
F is for Favorite song or music: if i had to pick one song as my favorite song ever, it's "A Long December" by Counting Crows. there is no arguing with me about this, so don't even try.
G is for Goof-off thing to do: watch E! and Vh1.
H is for Hometown: catville, massachusetts (yeah, i'm not telling that one either).
I is for Instrument you play: none. i played trumpet for a year in the sixth grade. not well, though.
J is for Jam or Jelly you like: i'm not really a jelly fan in general. it's a texture thing. if a food has a texture that weirds me out - too gelatinous, too grainy, etc - i can't eat it. thus, my refusal to eat sour cream or any other white gelatinous substance.
K is for Kids: bearing one? no. the idea of pregnancy literally turns my stomach. raising one? i'll consider it, vaguely, for a minute, in about 10 years.
L is for Living arrangement: sharing a north side apartment with BoyCat and CatCat.
M is for Mom’s name: MomCat.
N is for Name of best friend: i don't have a best friend in the traditional sense. BoyCat is my best friend, and SisterCat is my best friend, and i have a few other great friends who i often refer to as my best friends. so i can't pick just one.
O is for Overnight stay in a hospital: never.
P is for Phobias: how much time do you have? flying. bridges. strangers. wicker furniture. (just kidding about the last one. sort of.)
Q is for Quote you like: "brevity is the soul of lingerie." - dorothy parker (i've got dp on the brain today, after finding this meme's origin site!)
R is for Relationship that lasted longest: the one that i'm in right now.
S is for Siblings: just one. SisterCat. and believe me, one is enough - we've got our hands full with each other!
T is for Texas, ever been?: no, and i don't plan on it. SisterCat has a theory that all really weird things happen in texas. obviously that can't really be true, but when you read the papers, you can start to think it might be.
U is for Unique trait: SisterCat and i recently developed a new freckle in the exact same spot on our bodies.
V if for Vegetable you love: spinach.
W is for Worst trait: mild paranoia over just about everything.
X is for X-rays you’ve had: none. kinda remarkable.
Y is for Yummy food you make: i make good baked ziti florentine. that's about it!
Z is for Zodiac sign: Leo
A is for Age: 25. a young'un. wet behind the ears. just fell off the turnip truck over here.
B is for Booze: there's not much that i won't drink. in my short time on earth (as noted above), the only two drinks that i've learned to refuse at all costs are shots of tequila and irish car bombs.
C is for Career: writing lots of stuff at nonprofitland.
D is for Dad’s name: DadCat.
E is for Essential items to bring to a party: money for a cab home.
F is for Favorite song or music: if i had to pick one song as my favorite song ever, it's "A Long December" by Counting Crows. there is no arguing with me about this, so don't even try.
G is for Goof-off thing to do: watch E! and Vh1.
H is for Hometown: catville, massachusetts (yeah, i'm not telling that one either).
I is for Instrument you play: none. i played trumpet for a year in the sixth grade. not well, though.
J is for Jam or Jelly you like: i'm not really a jelly fan in general. it's a texture thing. if a food has a texture that weirds me out - too gelatinous, too grainy, etc - i can't eat it. thus, my refusal to eat sour cream or any other white gelatinous substance.
K is for Kids: bearing one? no. the idea of pregnancy literally turns my stomach. raising one? i'll consider it, vaguely, for a minute, in about 10 years.
L is for Living arrangement: sharing a north side apartment with BoyCat and CatCat.
M is for Mom’s name: MomCat.
N is for Name of best friend: i don't have a best friend in the traditional sense. BoyCat is my best friend, and SisterCat is my best friend, and i have a few other great friends who i often refer to as my best friends. so i can't pick just one.
O is for Overnight stay in a hospital: never.
P is for Phobias: how much time do you have? flying. bridges. strangers. wicker furniture. (just kidding about the last one. sort of.)
Q is for Quote you like: "brevity is the soul of lingerie." - dorothy parker (i've got dp on the brain today, after finding this meme's origin site!)
R is for Relationship that lasted longest: the one that i'm in right now.
S is for Siblings: just one. SisterCat. and believe me, one is enough - we've got our hands full with each other!
T is for Texas, ever been?: no, and i don't plan on it. SisterCat has a theory that all really weird things happen in texas. obviously that can't really be true, but when you read the papers, you can start to think it might be.
U is for Unique trait: SisterCat and i recently developed a new freckle in the exact same spot on our bodies.
V if for Vegetable you love: spinach.
W is for Worst trait: mild paranoia over just about everything.
X is for X-rays you’ve had: none. kinda remarkable.
Y is for Yummy food you make: i make good baked ziti florentine. that's about it!
Z is for Zodiac sign: Leo
apparently, jets fans can't hold their liquor.
and that means they ruin all the fun for the rest of us. and by the rest of us, i mean the always-well-behaved pats fans.
i eagerly await Toast's response to this indignity.
my statement, for the record, is this: hahahahahahaha!
i eagerly await Toast's response to this indignity.
my statement, for the record, is this: hahahahahahaha!
someone had to say it.
thank you, debbie stoller, for putting words to the deep sensation of disgust that i feel whenever i am faced with that grease stain on the pop-culture pan, adam corolla.
you know, back in the day when he was on loveline with dr. drew, i found him merely annoying- like a hangnail, or a tiny little fly that keeps bobbing around just outside your line of vision. and then the man show debuted, and my hatred offically began. the man show, jesus christ. news flash - every show is the man show! get off it already!
you know what, i'm not even going to expend my energy on this right now. i could spend three hours pontificating about why both adam corolla and jimmy kimmel should be locked in a closet for the rest of their earthly lives, but i won't.
but seriously, what is sarah silverman thinking??
"Adam Corolla, with his perpetual show-me-your-tits sneer, giant Pez-like teeth, and dude-fro that make him resemble a Brady brother missing link. Adam Corolla, so much of whose schtick involves discussing what does or does not make a woman sexually attractive. Hey Adam, people who live in ass houses shouldn't throw stones. If there was a woman as unattractive as Adam Corolla on television, she'd probably be the first on his list of people to ridicule. But of course, there would never be a woman as unattractive as Adam Corolla on television, because unattractive women aren't allowed on TV. And if, by some miracle, there was an unattractive woman on TV, she'd be playing 'the unattractive woman.' She certainly wouldn't be given her own late-night talk show, let alone two TV shows at the same time."
you know, back in the day when he was on loveline with dr. drew, i found him merely annoying- like a hangnail, or a tiny little fly that keeps bobbing around just outside your line of vision. and then the man show debuted, and my hatred offically began. the man show, jesus christ. news flash - every show is the man show! get off it already!
you know what, i'm not even going to expend my energy on this right now. i could spend three hours pontificating about why both adam corolla and jimmy kimmel should be locked in a closet for the rest of their earthly lives, but i won't.
but seriously, what is sarah silverman thinking??
Monday, December 19, 2005
fun with science textbooks.
if you haven't seen these yet, check 'em out (it's safe for work, no worries - unless you work for Intelligent Design International, or some similar enterprise). my favorite sticker is the fourth one down on the left hand side.
hat tip to The Chemist, for reminding me that these existed.
hat tip to The Chemist, for reminding me that these existed.
a downside of renting.
this morning, i got in the shower and discovered icicles on my bathroom window. on the inside. mmmmhmmm, that's right. a thin layer of frost on the whole window, and tiny little icicles hanging off the metal lip at the bottom of the window.
this could be because the window is made of frosted plastic, and there is no storm window in between it and the elements. that, plus the fact that it was below zero last night. i imagine i should call my landlord about this, no? they are usually pretty good about fixing things when they break, and i think that ice on the inside of a window could potentially constitute "broken." at least, it does in my book.
oh, and dawson wore a vest to the school dance in this morning's episode. a green button down shirt, and a big brown vest. and this was when he had the big floppy hair, too. i'll tell you, it was splendid to behold.
it almost made up for the fact that i nearly got hypothermia in the shower.
this could be because the window is made of frosted plastic, and there is no storm window in between it and the elements. that, plus the fact that it was below zero last night. i imagine i should call my landlord about this, no? they are usually pretty good about fixing things when they break, and i think that ice on the inside of a window could potentially constitute "broken." at least, it does in my book.
oh, and dawson wore a vest to the school dance in this morning's episode. a green button down shirt, and a big brown vest. and this was when he had the big floppy hair, too. i'll tell you, it was splendid to behold.
it almost made up for the fact that i nearly got hypothermia in the shower.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
more mind-bending fun from the Yahoo News page.
i tried to get a screen shot of the Yahoo homepage just now, because it is blowing my mind. but apparently the laptop's print screen function is not in the mood to, you know, function, so i'll have to recreate it for you. the only really relevant portion of the homepage is the news section, where the following two headlines hold the top two slots:
Bush Asserts U.S. Is Winning Iraq War
Analysis: Bush Drops Rosy Iraq Scenarios
humina-whaaa?
and if that weren't enough to knock my brain sideways, lovie smith pulled kyle orton in the third quarter, while the bears were winning 6-3, and put in rex grossman. where did this come from? what's going on?? now, i am happy about rex's potential return as much as the next gal, but putting him in during the third quarter, while we're winning? what's the rationale? granted, we're up 16-3 now, and rex is doing well, but i think it's kinda suspect. kyle orton has worked hard to keep this team in the hunt all season, and while he hasn't been spectacular, he's done the job. is it fair to pull him? i don't really think so.
i have much thinking to do this evening, in order to sort all of this out. unfortunately, the boondocks is on, so it'll have to wait another half hour.
Bush Asserts U.S. Is Winning Iraq War
Analysis: Bush Drops Rosy Iraq Scenarios
humina-whaaa?
and if that weren't enough to knock my brain sideways, lovie smith pulled kyle orton in the third quarter, while the bears were winning 6-3, and put in rex grossman. where did this come from? what's going on?? now, i am happy about rex's potential return as much as the next gal, but putting him in during the third quarter, while we're winning? what's the rationale? granted, we're up 16-3 now, and rex is doing well, but i think it's kinda suspect. kyle orton has worked hard to keep this team in the hunt all season, and while he hasn't been spectacular, he's done the job. is it fair to pull him? i don't really think so.
i have much thinking to do this evening, in order to sort all of this out. unfortunately, the boondocks is on, so it'll have to wait another half hour.
Friday, December 16, 2005
friday cat blogging, alien edition.
this was taken the day that we brought her home from the shelter, all skinny and pathetic looking. she seriously looks like the cat from outer space here.
poor thing. but believe me, she is much fatter than this now. i have evidence, which i will share...on a different friday.
poor thing. but believe me, she is much fatter than this now. i have evidence, which i will share...on a different friday.
i can't take this kind of insult so early in the morning.
so around 8:00 this morning, i turn on the tv and find a Dawson's Creek re-run. the pilot episode, no less! so of course i must watch. i'm just eating my Special K, watching a teen soap, having a grand old time. and then. there is a scene where dawson rides up to joey on his bike, and he's wearing a backwards baseball hat. an ugly hat, too, like this khaki brown color with a faded navy blue bill. this is not bothering me so much until he reaches over to hug joey, and from the angle of the shot i see that it's a yankees hat.
oh. no. you. didn't.
i sat there going, "is that a fucking yankees hat?? no, it is not. no way. it is!! it's a fucking yankees hat!! are you fucking kidding me!!!" my cat bolted from the living room in fear, and i sat there muttering to myself all the way into commercial break.
this show is set in capeside, massachusetts. even though capeside is not a real place, if it were, it would be in the heart of red sox nation. how in the world did something like this happen? who allowed for such an affront?
i feel like i need to find out who the wardrobe director was for this particular episode. then i need to hire a private detective to track down this person, and then i will go to their home or place of employment. when i find them, i'll say, "are you so-and-so, wardrobe director for the pilot episode of Dawson's Creek?" and they will say, "yes." and then i will cuff them upside the head.
a fucking yankees hat. seriously.
oh. no. you. didn't.
i sat there going, "is that a fucking yankees hat?? no, it is not. no way. it is!! it's a fucking yankees hat!! are you fucking kidding me!!!" my cat bolted from the living room in fear, and i sat there muttering to myself all the way into commercial break.
this show is set in capeside, massachusetts. even though capeside is not a real place, if it were, it would be in the heart of red sox nation. how in the world did something like this happen? who allowed for such an affront?
i feel like i need to find out who the wardrobe director was for this particular episode. then i need to hire a private detective to track down this person, and then i will go to their home or place of employment. when i find them, i'll say, "are you so-and-so, wardrobe director for the pilot episode of Dawson's Creek?" and they will say, "yes." and then i will cuff them upside the head.
a fucking yankees hat. seriously.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
viva twisty.
twisty, our favorite patriarchy blamer currently in the process of kicking cancer in the ass, has still managed to find time to kick patriarchy in the ass on a regular basis. her recent post on "culture" is a brilliant specimen of spot-on analysis and beautifully rude wit. two excerpts, if i may:
this is something that most people, myself included, can often forget. when you are as immersed in something as we all are in culture, it can seem almost pre-ordained, like it's supposed to be this way. but it's not. it's going to continue to shift and change, slowly but surely, and we need to recognize that. the wingnuts and fundies are especially loathe to allow for such recognition, because it demolishes their central argument, which is that "we need to keep things the way they are (or the way they were), or else we're all going to hell in a handbasket!" thus, gay marriage is the end of cilivization as we know it. well hey, imagine that - it is the end of civilization as we know it, and that's not really a bad thing!
thank you. this is much more concise than i was.
Culture, despite the hallucinations of those who yearn for a simpler, gentler time, isn’t static and cannot be sustained unchanged. People...who wish to mummify it for its own sake, presumably against the ravages of feminism or the homo agenda or the swarthy Muslims or global homogeneity, are suffering from nostalgia and delusion and xenophobia.
this is something that most people, myself included, can often forget. when you are as immersed in something as we all are in culture, it can seem almost pre-ordained, like it's supposed to be this way. but it's not. it's going to continue to shift and change, slowly but surely, and we need to recognize that. the wingnuts and fundies are especially loathe to allow for such recognition, because it demolishes their central argument, which is that "we need to keep things the way they are (or the way they were), or else we're all going to hell in a handbasket!" thus, gay marriage is the end of cilivization as we know it. well hey, imagine that - it is the end of civilization as we know it, and that's not really a bad thing!
Here are some other examples of culture-worship that really chap my hide....what about when you’re in a bar and you hear some dumb white American dude declaim in a Chicago accent, by way of revealing something deeply significant about himself, "well, you know, I’m one-sixteenth Cherokee." What the fuck difference does that make? You’re still an asshole! Or, "well, you know I’m Irish." Hello, dumb American dude! You’re not Irish! The closest you’ve ever gotten to Ireland is a box of Lucky Charms! And big whoop about Ireland anyway! You can get a Guinness in South Austin! The erstwhile geographical location of your remote ancestors is not a measure of your character!
thank you. this is much more concise than i was.
wednesday (ok, thursday) one-liner.
a little late, but still courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Woman on cell: All right, I'm at her sperm donor's barbershop now so I'll have to call you back.
--Boerum Hill
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
awesomeness of the day.
on a google search of madonna feminism, i am the eighth result. not eightieth - eighth.
wowza.
of course, tomorrow i could be eightieth, as google is an inscrutable mystery wrapped in an enigma. but today, eighth!
search away, college kids writing finals papers!
wowza.
of course, tomorrow i could be eightieth, as google is an inscrutable mystery wrapped in an enigma. but today, eighth!
search away, college kids writing finals papers!
an expert to the rescue.
please hop over and check out Shakespeare's Sister for a comprehensive smackdown of the study referenced in the post below.
i can only relate second-hand snark about it, but she knows her stuff.
i can only relate second-hand snark about it, but she knows her stuff.
thoughts on women and children. not the store, the demographic categories.
i fear the permanent loss of my critical faculties. the lack of interesting, incisive posts around here as of late has already been addressed, but i feel as though i need to let you know that i still suck, and i'm not sure when the suckitude will end. i do wish that i could blog more freely about nonprofitland, as that is what is taking up the lion's share of my mental energy lately, but i really shouldn't. i am only semi-anonymous out here in the ether, and any web ninja worth his or her salt could easily discover my identity. so, this will have to suffice for an update: tomorrow is going to be a hell.ac.ious day here, and i'm tired just thinking about it.
ok, moving on. a few things i've come across traipsing around the blogosphere are worth sharing*:
1) Baby, Mix Me a Drink is hands down the funniest thing i've seen available for purchase in, oh, at least 48 hours. hey, it's the holidays, what can i say. whether or not you are a parent, if you can't laugh at this in some way, then you need to take a time-out yourselves and ruminate on how you managed to eradicate your entire sense of humor. sadly, i know a few people who should give that little exercise a try.
2) a reproductive study out of Norway "found that while miscarriage was associated with 'more mental distress in the six months after the loss of a baby,' abortion 'had a much longer lasting negative effect,' including residual feelings of guilt and anxiety." i really can't sum up a feminist reaction any better than amanda did: "After we shamed them relentlessly, for some reason, they felt shame."
so, one funny ha-ha, one funny people-are-so-dumb-you-have-to-laugh.
*hat tip to Broadsheet on both counts.
ok, moving on. a few things i've come across traipsing around the blogosphere are worth sharing*:
1) Baby, Mix Me a Drink is hands down the funniest thing i've seen available for purchase in, oh, at least 48 hours. hey, it's the holidays, what can i say. whether or not you are a parent, if you can't laugh at this in some way, then you need to take a time-out yourselves and ruminate on how you managed to eradicate your entire sense of humor. sadly, i know a few people who should give that little exercise a try.
2) a reproductive study out of Norway "found that while miscarriage was associated with 'more mental distress in the six months after the loss of a baby,' abortion 'had a much longer lasting negative effect,' including residual feelings of guilt and anxiety." i really can't sum up a feminist reaction any better than amanda did: "After we shamed them relentlessly, for some reason, they felt shame."
so, one funny ha-ha, one funny people-are-so-dumb-you-have-to-laugh.
*hat tip to Broadsheet on both counts.
Monday, December 12, 2005
your semi-shocking pseudo-revelation of the day.
Oprah, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune:
i fell halfway out of my chair after i read this. literally.
now if only Oprah and i could come to an agreement on what the "real awakening of women" constitutes, i could start watching her show with something akin to conscience. but one never knows...
She recently told her producers to not "even say those words [makeover show] to me anymore. I won't do it, not even for a number," she adds, referring to the high ratings those shows inevitably get. "Because if you could fix things with a haircut and a new wardrobe, we'd all be fixed. And we have to be part of the real awakening of women or we are part of the oppression of them. On every show."
i fell halfway out of my chair after i read this. literally.
now if only Oprah and i could come to an agreement on what the "real awakening of women" constitutes, i could start watching her show with something akin to conscience. but one never knows...
Sunday, December 11, 2005
an advertising observation.
so, did you ever notice that in those home alarm system ads on TV, there's never a man in the house at the time of the attempted break-in? it's always a mother figure and one or two children, ususally girls.
i'm not surprised by this at all. it makes sense, really - they're trying to appeal to women by having them imagine a scenario when they're home alone (whether that be almost every night if they're single or a single mom, or just every once in a while when their husband is away if they're married). they're also trying to appeal to husbands by making them imagine a scenario when their wife and children might be home alone. ADT and the like certainly don't want to emasculate a man by implying that he can't protect his family when he is home.
and that's what i find kinda funny about it - if there were a man in the house every night, would there be no need for the ADT system? will a baseball bat next to the man's side of the bed and every guy's inner ninja do the trick? because obviously that's not the reality of how these alarm systems are used. they're programmed every night, regardless of whether daddy is home or "away on business" (or wherever he is at 3:00 am on a friday night sometimes). and you know what? i'm sure men get as much peace of mind going to sleep with the alarm on as women do. the problem is, they're not really allowed to admit it. so they are conspicuously absent in the advertisments.
the ADT ad i saw the other day was particularly interesting, though, in that at the end of the ad, after mom and her daughter had foiled the scary burglar in the middle of the night with their nifty ADT system, there was a daytime shot of the woman and her daughter sitting on the front steps with a man who was obviously the father figure. now that i haven't seen before - he just shows up the next morning, in time to complete the happy family scene above the ADT logo. i wanted to say, "oh yeah, where were you last night, you delinquent? 'staying late at the office?' you deadbeat. go fuck your secretary or something, ADT has this covered."
and who knows - maybe that's the reaction they were going for.
i'm not surprised by this at all. it makes sense, really - they're trying to appeal to women by having them imagine a scenario when they're home alone (whether that be almost every night if they're single or a single mom, or just every once in a while when their husband is away if they're married). they're also trying to appeal to husbands by making them imagine a scenario when their wife and children might be home alone. ADT and the like certainly don't want to emasculate a man by implying that he can't protect his family when he is home.
and that's what i find kinda funny about it - if there were a man in the house every night, would there be no need for the ADT system? will a baseball bat next to the man's side of the bed and every guy's inner ninja do the trick? because obviously that's not the reality of how these alarm systems are used. they're programmed every night, regardless of whether daddy is home or "away on business" (or wherever he is at 3:00 am on a friday night sometimes). and you know what? i'm sure men get as much peace of mind going to sleep with the alarm on as women do. the problem is, they're not really allowed to admit it. so they are conspicuously absent in the advertisments.
the ADT ad i saw the other day was particularly interesting, though, in that at the end of the ad, after mom and her daughter had foiled the scary burglar in the middle of the night with their nifty ADT system, there was a daytime shot of the woman and her daughter sitting on the front steps with a man who was obviously the father figure. now that i haven't seen before - he just shows up the next morning, in time to complete the happy family scene above the ADT logo. i wanted to say, "oh yeah, where were you last night, you delinquent? 'staying late at the office?' you deadbeat. go fuck your secretary or something, ADT has this covered."
and who knows - maybe that's the reaction they were going for.
Friday, December 09, 2005
friday cat blogging, Damn The Man! edition.
BoyCat and i find amusement in the strangest things. like putting a tie on CatCat and taking her picture.
she had a long week.
she had a long week.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
it's carnival time again.
the newest Carnival of Feminists is up at The Happy Feminist, and i highly recommend checking it out. of particular interest to me is the response to Linda Hirshman's Alternet article on stay-at-home feminists. though i haven't read the article myself, the reactions from bloggers that i hold in high esteem have been well-written and thought-provoking. Bitch Ph.D.'s My Married Radical Feminist Manifesto is particularly interesting (hey, what manifesto isn't interesting in some way or another? it's a manifesto!). i'm going to excerpt one small part of it, and then go on a small tangent from Dr. B's larger point. humor me.
to this proclamation i offer a rousing round of cat applause. nay, a cat standing ovation. i know many of you have a rotten tomato in hand already, but you know what? go ahead and throw it. i always try to be very civil and reasonable when it comes to the Great Name Debate, being generally respectful and non-judgemental of people's personal choices. but dammit, sometimes i get tired of all the explanations and the exemptions and the nuanced reasonings, and i just want to scream...well, something exactly like this.
amanda at Pandagon also made a very important point about the Great Name Debate and patriarchy a little while back:
this is why, even though i have a pretty staunch opinion on the naming issue, i refuse to out-and-out condemn women who make choices that i myself would not make. it's the fault of the patriarchy that women are forced to sit around and agonize over this choice, and that men (by and large) don't really have to give it a second thought. i mean really, can you picture a group of men sitting around a table drinking coffee, moaning about how "i really want to take her name, but...i just don't know!"
i hate the fact that we're still going around and around on this issue, that 94% of women still choose to participate in a patriarchal holdout and take their husband's name (for whatever reason), and that ultimately this still divides women against each other more than anything else. but just because we recognize the ultimate underpinning of the whole debate is partriarchy itself, that doesn't mean that we can ignore the fact that the choices we make are also cultural statements.
now, speaking of owning un-feminist choices, the o.c. is on.
To begin with, don't, for god's sake, change your name when you marry. What are the arguments for changing your name? "It's easier?" "It will make us more a family?" "It will be better for the children?" Do you not realize that already, even before your marriage begins, you are conceding that making things "easy," making the two of you "a family," worrying about "the children" is your job, not his? If having the same last name makes such a big difference to the two of you, let him change his damn name.
to this proclamation i offer a rousing round of cat applause. nay, a cat standing ovation. i know many of you have a rotten tomato in hand already, but you know what? go ahead and throw it. i always try to be very civil and reasonable when it comes to the Great Name Debate, being generally respectful and non-judgemental of people's personal choices. but dammit, sometimes i get tired of all the explanations and the exemptions and the nuanced reasonings, and i just want to scream...well, something exactly like this.
amanda at Pandagon also made a very important point about the Great Name Debate and patriarchy a little while back:
...this post is to beseech my fellow feminists who made an un-feminist choice to change your name, please just own that choice and quit making excuses. It's seriously okay. Woman is not an island unto herself. And frankly, if we start blaming ourselves and other women for making choices that help them get by in the patriarchy instead of blaming the patriarchy for putting women in these situations in the first place, we come very close to agreeing to the conservo-bullshit that there's no such thing as oppression, just inferior people. With that in mind, please quit making these arguments excusing name-changing, because they are kind of embarrassing...
this is why, even though i have a pretty staunch opinion on the naming issue, i refuse to out-and-out condemn women who make choices that i myself would not make. it's the fault of the patriarchy that women are forced to sit around and agonize over this choice, and that men (by and large) don't really have to give it a second thought. i mean really, can you picture a group of men sitting around a table drinking coffee, moaning about how "i really want to take her name, but...i just don't know!"
i hate the fact that we're still going around and around on this issue, that 94% of women still choose to participate in a patriarchal holdout and take their husband's name (for whatever reason), and that ultimately this still divides women against each other more than anything else. but just because we recognize the ultimate underpinning of the whole debate is partriarchy itself, that doesn't mean that we can ignore the fact that the choices we make are also cultural statements.
now, speaking of owning un-feminist choices, the o.c. is on.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
wonders never cease.
so the other day, a sign on belmont made me do a bit of a double take. luckily, i had my digital camera in my bag, and so i can share the experience with you fine folks.
now, personally, i've always thought that even once was a bit suspect. but three times in one day? that's one powerful parish priest.
or perhaps this is just david copperfield's new venue?
now, personally, i've always thought that even once was a bit suspect. but three times in one day? that's one powerful parish priest.
or perhaps this is just david copperfield's new venue?
your wednesday one-liner.
and it's a head scratcher, courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Guy: Dude, why is it diet soda but light beer?
--Fordham Law School cafeteria
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
drained.
apologies for being m.i.a. yesterday. nonprofitland has come loose from its moorings, and is rapidly spiraling towards the ninth level of hell (way past limbo, if that even exists anymore). i would tell you more, but that would be foolish, so i won't. suffice to say, some dominos have definitely started to fall around here.
as an example of how mentally wiped out i am, i mis-spelled the post title "dareind" the first time i typed it. that's not even close to correct. that could short-circuit spellcheck, people.
as an example of how mentally wiped out i am, i mis-spelled the post title "dareind" the first time i typed it. that's not even close to correct. that could short-circuit spellcheck, people.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
brad pitt seriously needs to fire his publicist. or get a lobotomy. or both.
ok, i know i'm on a bit of a pop culture kick, but how can i not post about this little gem buried at the bottom of the tribune home page:
Brad Pitt Seeks to Adopt Angelina Jolie's Kids
i'm sorry, what? what? in case you haven't been paying attention to your own life, brad, you haven't even acknowledged your relationship with your potential adoptees' mother. but apparently narrative inconsistencies like that don't bother america's former golden boy.
lest you think i'm kidding, or that the tribune has suddenly begun reporting rumor as fact:
i really didn't think brad could bungle the PR around his relationship with angelina to a greater degree. i was wrong. as if we weren't rooting for jen enough already...
Brad Pitt Seeks to Adopt Angelina Jolie's Kids
i'm sorry, what? what? in case you haven't been paying attention to your own life, brad, you haven't even acknowledged your relationship with your potential adoptees' mother. but apparently narrative inconsistencies like that don't bother america's former golden boy.
lest you think i'm kidding, or that the tribune has suddenly begun reporting rumor as fact:
Brad Pitt is seeking to become the adoptive father of Angelina Jolie's children, the actor's publicist announced. A legal petition seeking to change the names of the children to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt was filed Friday in Los Angeles, publicist Cindy Guagenti said Friday in a written statement to The Associated Press.
i really didn't think brad could bungle the PR around his relationship with angelina to a greater degree. i was wrong. as if we weren't rooting for jen enough already...
Saturday, December 03, 2005
camille, please. go take a long walk off of a short pier.
pulling up salon during my lunch hour yesterday, i was greeted with a headlining article by none other than that eternal scourge upon feminism, camille paglia.
i cannot stand camille paglia. there are hardly words to express the rage that she inspires within me. she is hands down one of the most pretentious, strident, egomaniacal writers in existence. perhaps what i find most maddening about her is that while 95% of the time i disagree with her theories and conclusions anyway, her rampant egotism is so odious that even the 5% of the time when i might possibly agree with something that she says, i refuse to do so on principle alone.
but of course, i read her articles anyway.
this one, Dancing as Fast as She Can, was about madonna's new album: why camille doesn't like it, why camille is always right about such things, and why camille knows better than madonna what madonna should be doing. i'm not even going to bother picking apart the whole article - that would be a heartbreaking waste of 12-14 hours of my life. there is one thing that i'd like to point out, though.
camille's big schtick is being a "sex-positive" feminist and gleefully poking holes in any feminist theory with which she disagrees. her book, "sexual personae," was big in the early 90s, and she built a career on being contrarian and "edgy." camille is very proud of herself about this, as she feels like history has vindicated her proclamations about sex-positive feminism being the truth and the way. in this salon article, she crows:
hmmmm. ok. though i think this thesis is ripe for shredding on a number of different levels, let's be charitable and say that it actually is true - madonna portended a revolution in feminist thinking that allowed for visible and viable female sexuality. if that is so, well then camille, we have a big problem, because that vibrant, risque sexuality for which you worshipped madonna long ago seems to have suddenly become less appealing to you with the passage of fifteen years, a husband, and two children:
seems to me like camille didn't think her little theory through. if you want to celebrate madonna's feminism as the future - all spectacle and no substance, and founded on the ability of the attractive female form to generate interest and attention - well, this is the end result. because guess what? madonna wasn't going to stay 24 (or even 34) forever. and how was she going to continue to play that sexual power game when she reached an age at which society no longer considered her "sexual"? madonna made a career out of putting herself on display, and hiding her business acumen in order to further her image in the way that would make her more money. seem circular? it was. and madonna is reaching a point where that modus operandi is no longer workable.
camille doesn't seem to recognize the irony of her recent complaints against madonna. there seems to be a bit of cognitive dissonance here, which is a shame- with camille being the most brilliant feminist mind to ever put pen to paper in the 20th century and all, you think she'd be able to see a theoretical loophole a mile away. but since she doesn't, i'm happy to hang her with it.
i cannot stand camille paglia. there are hardly words to express the rage that she inspires within me. she is hands down one of the most pretentious, strident, egomaniacal writers in existence. perhaps what i find most maddening about her is that while 95% of the time i disagree with her theories and conclusions anyway, her rampant egotism is so odious that even the 5% of the time when i might possibly agree with something that she says, i refuse to do so on principle alone.
but of course, i read her articles anyway.
this one, Dancing as Fast as She Can, was about madonna's new album: why camille doesn't like it, why camille is always right about such things, and why camille knows better than madonna what madonna should be doing. i'm not even going to bother picking apart the whole article - that would be a heartbreaking waste of 12-14 hours of my life. there is one thing that i'd like to point out, though.
camille's big schtick is being a "sex-positive" feminist and gleefully poking holes in any feminist theory with which she disagrees. her book, "sexual personae," was big in the early 90s, and she built a career on being contrarian and "edgy." camille is very proud of herself about this, as she feels like history has vindicated her proclamations about sex-positive feminism being the truth and the way. in this salon article, she crows:
When I wrote in my polemical 1990 New York Times op-ed that "Madonna is the future of feminism," there were squawks of disbelief on all sides -- but that is exactly what came to pass over the next decade.
hmmmm. ok. though i think this thesis is ripe for shredding on a number of different levels, let's be charitable and say that it actually is true - madonna portended a revolution in feminist thinking that allowed for visible and viable female sexuality. if that is so, well then camille, we have a big problem, because that vibrant, risque sexuality for which you worshipped madonna long ago seems to have suddenly become less appealing to you with the passage of fifteen years, a husband, and two children:
Even allowing for the fact that she must strenuously maintain her hipness for a busy husband 10 years her junior, Madonna is starting to morph into the mature Joan Crawford of "Torch Song," still ferociously dancing but with her fascist willpower signaled by brute, staring eyes and fixed jawline. In cannibalizing her disco diva days, Madonna runs the risk of turning into a pasty powdered crumpet like the aging Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"
seems to me like camille didn't think her little theory through. if you want to celebrate madonna's feminism as the future - all spectacle and no substance, and founded on the ability of the attractive female form to generate interest and attention - well, this is the end result. because guess what? madonna wasn't going to stay 24 (or even 34) forever. and how was she going to continue to play that sexual power game when she reached an age at which society no longer considered her "sexual"? madonna made a career out of putting herself on display, and hiding her business acumen in order to further her image in the way that would make her more money. seem circular? it was. and madonna is reaching a point where that modus operandi is no longer workable.
camille doesn't seem to recognize the irony of her recent complaints against madonna. there seems to be a bit of cognitive dissonance here, which is a shame- with camille being the most brilliant feminist mind to ever put pen to paper in the 20th century and all, you think she'd be able to see a theoretical loophole a mile away. but since she doesn't, i'm happy to hang her with it.
Friday, December 02, 2005
friday cat blogging, slightly drunk edition.
ok, back from the nonprofitland holiday party, slightly drunk (don't worry, BoyCat drove), and ready to post some CatCat pictures. i figured in the spirit of holiday drunkenness, i would take a few pictures right now and post them - it's almost like real time, but not quite.
the above picture is of CatCat ignoring my pleas for her to smile at the camera, and licking her tail instead.
this is CatCat crawling under the coffee table, after attempting to lick the camera lens repeatedly. doesn't she look tough?
ok, that concludes our semi-drunken edition of friday cat blogging. now i'm off to enjoy the rest of my night. i think there's a half empty bottle of belvedere around here somewhere...
the above picture is of CatCat ignoring my pleas for her to smile at the camera, and licking her tail instead.
this is CatCat crawling under the coffee table, after attempting to lick the camera lens repeatedly. doesn't she look tough?
ok, that concludes our semi-drunken edition of friday cat blogging. now i'm off to enjoy the rest of my night. i think there's a half empty bottle of belvedere around here somewhere...
well, this makes me feel much better.
this is the kind of mainstream reporting that makes me want to stick my head in an oven. in a front page Yahoo story titled Alito Assures Specter on Abortion Views , the intro says (now read this carefully):
three short paragraphs later, we see:
"Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, who expressed strong opposition to abortion rights two decades ago, pledged Friday that his personal views on the subject 'would not be a factor' in his rulings, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Alito had told him in a private meeting that 'with respect to his personal views on a woman's right to choose ... that is not a matter to be considered in the deliberation on a constitutional issue of a woman's right to choose. The judicial role is entirely different.'"
three short paragraphs later, we see:
"In one, a sort of job application, Alito wrote in 1985 that he did not believe abortion rights were provided by the Constitution." (emphasis mine)if a judge is supposed to be involved in "the deliberation on a constitutional issue of a woman's right to choose," and the judge in question doesn't believe that the constitution protects abortion, isn't that still kind of an issue? of what, pray tell, is that supposed to "assure" us? that you don't just personally oppose abortion, but that you think the constitution disapproves of it as well?
a recommendation.
per my post from a few days ago , you all know how i like picking apart The Pop Culture. Funnily enough, my fabulous and estimable friend Jayne has taken up that torch and is running with it on her brand new blog:
Critical Fluff
so go. gorge yourself on her wit and wisdom. it'll make you feel better about all that vh1 you've been watching lately.
Critical Fluff
so go. gorge yourself on her wit and wisdom. it'll make you feel better about all that vh1 you've been watching lately.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
rock. and. roll.
when i heard the news that blondie was being inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame, i thought hey, i have to light my debbie harry worship candle. granted, i'm three days late, but i finally got around to it.
the picture is blurry because well, it's a candle, and you can't take a picture of a candle with the flash on, now can you? i don't think debbie harry would have approved of that kind of harsh lighting.
the picture is blurry because well, it's a candle, and you can't take a picture of a candle with the flash on, now can you? i don't think debbie harry would have approved of that kind of harsh lighting.
my offering.
what follows is my humble offering for blog against racism day, the brainchild of chris clarke at Creek Running North.
sitting down to write this, i realized that i wasn’t exactly sure how to “blog against racism.” i’m excited that chris initiated the project, and i look forward to reading all of the posts that it will generate, but i don’t exactly know how to tackle the topic myself. So, instead of trying to go all grad-school theoretical on you (which would of course just kinda bore you anyway – “race is a social construct? *smacks forehead* you’re kidding me!”), i thought i’d relay an experience from my own life that made me think about race and my place in the proverbial mix.
as background, i consider my childhood, teenage years, and college years as pretty average for a suburban white girl learning about, and reacting to, racism. my family was open-minded and didn’t advocate any racist thinking, and i went to a fair-to-middlingly diverse high school. after a few years at umass, i had been introduced to a ton of theories and information about racism (and sexism, and classism, and...) – the class i took on the history of the civil rights movement with a militant ex-Black Panther was probably the best 3 credits of my college career. in sum, by the time i was a senior in college, i think i was generally enlightened about how racism functioned in this country, and was committed to monitoring my own internalized racism and critiquing external racism when i saw it.
in the second semester of my senior year, i started dating a guy who was a first generation American – his parents were both from the Dominican Republic. actually, his father moved back there after his parents divorced, so he spent a fair amount of time there as well as in new england. pretty early on in our involvement, he invited me to a party at Drew House at Amherst College. Drew House is one of the theme houses on Amherst’s campus, and it’s devoted to African and African-American culture. They were having a big end-of-year party, with all the requisite drinking and dancing, so we went.
i really had no qualms about going – i like to drink and i like to dance, and i’d never been to anything at Amherst, so i was happy to go. i guess the first funny point about how race factors into a white person’s life is the luxury of how little we have to consider it, until it smacks us upside the head. for me, i was smacked upside the head when we walked into Drew House – dark and smoky, dj playing, and about a hundred people crammed in the living room dancing – and after about 30 seconds realized i was one of maybe half a dozen white people there.
this was a pretty unique experience for me. i had grown up conscious of race, but never been faced with it unavoidably – again, a benefit of my skin color. the situation didn’t bother me – abe didn’t make an issue of it, and i didn’t feel the need to. but it was a really eye-opening experience for me to be on the receiving end of some askance looks – looks that questioned, often without malice or hostility, but questioned nonetheless, what exactly i was doing there. i gained a greater appreciation for the visceral reality of what it might be like for a non-white person to inhabit a space surrounded by white people.
i say that i gained a greater appreciation for what it might be like, because i can never fully understand what it is like. i could have been the only white person in Drew House that night, and my experience still would not be the same as that of the only black person at an all-white party. that’s how racism works. it’s not just a phenomenon that happens between two individuals, or amongst a group of people – it’s a social structure that alters the very nature of all interactions. i think i acquired some sympathy for the experience of being vulnerably different that night, but not an empathy for the experience of being black, or asian, or latino. that i can never have.
i’ve had a few more moments, especially since moving to Chicago, where i realize that i’m the only white person there. i always try to be conscious of those moments, how they make me feel. i also try to be conscious of how rare they are, even in a city as diverse as this one. it’s a privilege for me to not have to feel that split second of conspicuous difference, one of many privileges i possess as a white person that i often don’t even fully realize that i have. i try to keep realizing it.
sitting down to write this, i realized that i wasn’t exactly sure how to “blog against racism.” i’m excited that chris initiated the project, and i look forward to reading all of the posts that it will generate, but i don’t exactly know how to tackle the topic myself. So, instead of trying to go all grad-school theoretical on you (which would of course just kinda bore you anyway – “race is a social construct? *smacks forehead* you’re kidding me!”), i thought i’d relay an experience from my own life that made me think about race and my place in the proverbial mix.
as background, i consider my childhood, teenage years, and college years as pretty average for a suburban white girl learning about, and reacting to, racism. my family was open-minded and didn’t advocate any racist thinking, and i went to a fair-to-middlingly diverse high school. after a few years at umass, i had been introduced to a ton of theories and information about racism (and sexism, and classism, and...) – the class i took on the history of the civil rights movement with a militant ex-Black Panther was probably the best 3 credits of my college career. in sum, by the time i was a senior in college, i think i was generally enlightened about how racism functioned in this country, and was committed to monitoring my own internalized racism and critiquing external racism when i saw it.
in the second semester of my senior year, i started dating a guy who was a first generation American – his parents were both from the Dominican Republic. actually, his father moved back there after his parents divorced, so he spent a fair amount of time there as well as in new england. pretty early on in our involvement, he invited me to a party at Drew House at Amherst College. Drew House is one of the theme houses on Amherst’s campus, and it’s devoted to African and African-American culture. They were having a big end-of-year party, with all the requisite drinking and dancing, so we went.
i really had no qualms about going – i like to drink and i like to dance, and i’d never been to anything at Amherst, so i was happy to go. i guess the first funny point about how race factors into a white person’s life is the luxury of how little we have to consider it, until it smacks us upside the head. for me, i was smacked upside the head when we walked into Drew House – dark and smoky, dj playing, and about a hundred people crammed in the living room dancing – and after about 30 seconds realized i was one of maybe half a dozen white people there.
this was a pretty unique experience for me. i had grown up conscious of race, but never been faced with it unavoidably – again, a benefit of my skin color. the situation didn’t bother me – abe didn’t make an issue of it, and i didn’t feel the need to. but it was a really eye-opening experience for me to be on the receiving end of some askance looks – looks that questioned, often without malice or hostility, but questioned nonetheless, what exactly i was doing there. i gained a greater appreciation for the visceral reality of what it might be like for a non-white person to inhabit a space surrounded by white people.
i say that i gained a greater appreciation for what it might be like, because i can never fully understand what it is like. i could have been the only white person in Drew House that night, and my experience still would not be the same as that of the only black person at an all-white party. that’s how racism works. it’s not just a phenomenon that happens between two individuals, or amongst a group of people – it’s a social structure that alters the very nature of all interactions. i think i acquired some sympathy for the experience of being vulnerably different that night, but not an empathy for the experience of being black, or asian, or latino. that i can never have.
i’ve had a few more moments, especially since moving to Chicago, where i realize that i’m the only white person there. i always try to be conscious of those moments, how they make me feel. i also try to be conscious of how rare they are, even in a city as diverse as this one. it’s a privilege for me to not have to feel that split second of conspicuous difference, one of many privileges i possess as a white person that i often don’t even fully realize that i have. i try to keep realizing it.
god, i love the catholic church.
via Yahoo: Pope may abolish concept of limbo
tell me, how exactly does one abolish a concept?
"concept, be gone!"
"out, damned concept!"
"concept, i command thee...cease and desist in your existence."
wheeeeee, omnipotence is fun! oh but wait, i thought only god was omnipotent. oh but wait, the pope is a divine conduit to god, therefore he's kinda omnipotent too. he's like, an omnipotence representative. that sounds cool, i think i'd like to be pope.
oh but wait...
tell me, how exactly does one abolish a concept?
"concept, be gone!"
"out, damned concept!"
"concept, i command thee...cease and desist in your existence."
wheeeeee, omnipotence is fun! oh but wait, i thought only god was omnipotent. oh but wait, the pope is a divine conduit to god, therefore he's kinda omnipotent too. he's like, an omnipotence representative. that sounds cool, i think i'd like to be pope.
oh but wait...
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