above and beyond all this.

this morning, i sat down on the couch, put a bowl of cereal on the coffee table, and turned on the tv to check the weather forecast. after the weather channel gave me the only information i really needed from the morning news, i ignored my better judgment and clicked over to the Today show. the top of the hour news segment was about 18 year old Kelsey Smith, who went missing from a Target parking lot under very suspicious circumstances (security cameras caught what appears to be a woman being forced into her car in the hazy corner of their footage). the segment talked about the rewards offered, the suspects being searched for, the family's pleas.

i clicked the off button on the remote and thought, with a certainty that frightens me to recollect, "she's already dead."

they discovered her body this afternoon.

i thought about her on the train ride to work. and by this, i mean i thought about her and i thought about myself, in that we're both women. as far as we know at this point, she was merely a young woman in a parking lot - i am that woman a lot of times too. and these horrible moments in time, regardless of how long the odds of them happening to any given woman are, exist for all women in the sense that we know it could happen to us. that we could walk out of a Target at 7:10 pm on a saturday and not make it safely to our cars. that we could be the victims of such terrorism, such pointed destruction, such punishment.

and it is punishment. it's punishment for that supreme sin that we all commit every day, that heinous offense the feminist blogosphere has trenchantly labeled Living While Female. nothing galls our patriarchal society to see this offense on constant display - we walk about so freely, talking and making decisions, like we had some right to be acting with something resembling agency - and it makes every possible effort to discourage this behavior. since we are all, however, such uppity bitches who for some reason refuse to take direction and quit being so evident all the time, force is often necessary. harassment, intimidation, abuse, rape, murder: the price we pay for breathing.

you know what makes me sad, though, above and beyond all this? all this, for which i could already cry for a lifetime and despair until i die? what makes me so sad is that we believe it. we women believe, on some collective unconscious level, that the charges against us are true.

last month, joss whedon posted a lengthy lament about the way women are perceived and treated, uniformly around the globe, as inferior and detestable beings. his thoughts were in reaction to the infamous internet video of a kurdish girl, Dua Khalil, whose death by stoning was captured for posterity* by cameraphones in the mob that murdered her. this reminded him, somewhat randomly but understandably, of the trailer for an upcoming movie in which the sum of the action is the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a beautiful young woman. whedon writes,

The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.

“I’m sorry.”

What is wrong with women?

I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.

whedon is at a loss to explain why the crime of Living While Female is so universally reviled. i am at a loss as to why we apologize for it.

and we do - not just in the movies, where such a scripted repentance could be read as wishful thinking more than anything else. we do it in real life, all the time, under both the most ordinary circumstances and the most unimaginable ones. the most sickening part of reading about the De Anza gang rape case, for me, was this observation from one of the female party-goers who helped the girl to safety:

This poor girl was not moving...She had her one shoe one, her jeans were wrapped around one of her ankles and her underwear was left around her ankles. To the left of the bed there was some condom thrown on the ground. When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said 'I'm sorry.'

she was sorry. she knew enough, even drunk to the point of unconsciousness and physically incapable of movement, that she was sorry about something. because we always are. we are always supposed to be.

you know what i wish? well, i wish a lot of things, really, chief among them being that men would stop hating women so goddamn much. because it's not our fault. whatever it is that actually drives that misogyny, whatever fear is actually coiled up at the bottom of that vast heart of darkness, it is most definitely not our fault.

but barring these impossible dreams, you know what i wish? i wish that we would stop apologizing. it's not easy - we've learned to say "i'm sorry" to try to preempt the whipping, or to lessen the lashes, or just to quiet our own minds while it's happening. we've learned that "sorry" helps us survive. but i wish we could start fighting back, just a little, in little ways.

so women - you women i know, you women i don't, any women who happen to read this, women everywhere, right now - start by not apologizing. don't apologize for just being what you are - don't apologize for the big and little things you do because you're a woman, or because you're a human being who happens to be a woman. don't qualify your thoughts, your opinions, your feelings - don't beat people to the punch of implying that they don't matter. "i know this might sound stupid, but..." "i know this is a dumb question..." "this is going to sound silly..."

stop. it is worth saying. you are worth hearing. women, please, say it, ask it, take it, do it - don't apologize.

there is nothing wrong with you.



*this is a link to twisty's post about the video, which does contain a link to the video, but it doesn't begin automatically. i couldn't bring myself to watch it, and can understand anyone else who can't either.)

some day, yeah.

the doors of the red line slam open - the metro system in this city has very decisive ideas about when the doors will be open versus when they will be closed, and woe to the person who mistakenly thinks that they can influence this matter - and i turn quickly to the right amidst the crush of travelers. it's a right, then a left, and then down the escalator to the blue and orange lines for the second leg of the trip home.

the Five Stairsteps are on my iPod, singing O-o-h Child, telling me things are gonna get brighter. i sway my head a little, back and forth with the beat of it, as i make my way around the corner towards the escalator, dodging a woman with a double stroller to my left and avoiding stepping on the toes of a gaggle of teenage PIRG volunteers to my right. i am pulled along by the little commuter current; i like this song.

i am put so at ease by the sounds coming through the headphones that i almost don't notice that we are backlogged, for some reason, at the top of the escalator. i survey the scene, a bit confused - there are people moving down the stairs, but the group of half a dozen in front of me is not. why would this be? i see a few of them look at each other, bewildered-like, and i don't need to hear their conversation to deduce that they've never been to Metro Center and are trying to figure out whether this escalator is indeed the one they want. i am trapped by the ebb of other commuters behind and around them; i have no recourse but to wait until they make a collective decision.

luckily, this happens a few seconds later, and they step onto the escalator, with me directly behind. as we descend, i see the blue line train sitting there, doors open.

the people in front of me just stand there. this is not suprising, but infuriating nonetheless. when we reach the floor, i can finally dart around them, but i'm too late - the doors whip shut just a few feet in front of me. i curse silently, and make a kicking motion towards the tracks.

the Five Stairsteps coo, "things are gonna get easier...right now."

where was i?

how did i miss the news that last month tom brady was spotted out in public...in new york city...wearing a yankees hat??

the horror. it renders me (nearly) speechless.

thank goodness he has issued an implicit, B-logo-based mea culpa this past weekend, but still. tommy, what is up? i don't care how many other actresses and supermodels you go on to date and/or impregnate, but for god's sake, have some decency!

summer reading.

i don't know how many readers i've been able to lure back in the few days since my little self-imposed exile ended, however, i have a question for you all.

on tuesday, i plan on swinging by the library downtown and becoming the owner of a shiny new district of columbia library card. hooray for free books! (and hooray for a big city system that actually allows residents to renew books online! can you imagine?? chicago, i know you can't.) so, i am going to endeavor to actually utilize the library more than i did back in chi-town, because a) i really should read more and b) i am not made of money, so i can't afford frequent trips to barnes and noble and/or any more bookshelves.

the query here is this: i would love some "good read" recommendations. i have a few books in mind, but in order to adequately fuel my attempt to read more books for longer than say, three weeks, i'll need more than a few. plus, there's an upcoming family vacation in june that will involve little more than sitting around by the water, drinking, and reading - so in particular i'd love to hear about some lighter reads that you've recently enjoyed. none of that "confessions of a prada-wearing shopaholic good in bed devil" stuff, but i'm not looking for proust either, you know? fiction or non-fiction, i'm open to either!

sidenote: since i don't currently possess a library card, and after we moved in here we didn't have tv for about a week and a half, i was propelled to our own bookcases in search of my next read. as i scanned the shelves, i realized that i'd never read Jane Eyre. can you believe that? two english degrees, and that pillar of british fiction ignored for so long? what was i paying them for, anyway??

(i'm enjoying it thoroughly, by the way. i'm only about 100 pages in, but there's already much tromping about the english countryside, overwrought emoting, and of course a somewhat foreboding villian/hero who gallops around on a horse. i do love the classics.)

you know what's a great idea?

going out for drinks after work on a friday. generally, that is.

what is kind of a poor idea is going out for drinks after work on a friday and doing the following: 1) having three margaritas, two vodka tonics, one stoli madras, and one free rum-based shot-thingee from the bacardi promo guy 2) not really eating any dinner except some tortilla chips and guacamole, 3) staying out for five and a half hours, and 4) doing all of the above while conveniently forgetting that you have to get up early and help your friends move the next day.

sadly, i didn't receive the following newsflash from my biology until about 2:00 a.m.: you cannot drink like you did in college anymore. honestly. so stop trying. this unfortunate processing delay resulted in an awful night of sleep and a general feeling of zombie-like stupor upon rising. i was barely fit to lift my own two feet, never mind a couch.

but i survived, and luckily only had to do some light to moderate lifting in the process. and now it's a little after 1:00 p.m., and i've managed to eat an english muffin, half a bagel with cream cheese, and a salad, so i feel something resembling human again.

now i need another glass of water.

and so you're back. from outer space.

it's been so long since i've blogged, i blanked out on the website address to sign into this thing. i was like, "www.blogspot.com?? that seems logical, but for some reason, incorrect." and lo - it was. blog-ger, kate, blog-ger.

so anyways. i am back, and boring as ever. i regret that this blog has gotten boring. i plan on changing that (truly, i do, and not in the "my new year's resolution is to quit smoking" kind of way). i'm going to write when i write - which is hopefully fairly regularly, but i'm not going to pressure myself to throw up some blahdy-blah just because it's been two days since i last posted - and i'm going to write stuff with a point.

revolutionary, i know.

(and i'm kind of lying - sometimes i still won't have a point. this is a blog, after all. but hopefully it will be less often.)

ok, so, before we get to all that point-having, i'll tell you a little bit about what i've been up to. mainly, moving the fuck out of virginia. here are some pics of the new place (the apartment is long and narrow, which doesn't lend itself well to being able to capture a whole room in one picture - the following half-assed attempts will have to suffice):

the living room, as seen from the kitchen

the kitchen, as seen from the living room

the itty bitty bathroom

and the piece de resistance - and not just because i just spent 20 minutes in microsoft paint deciding how to best anonymize BoyCat - the bedroom

i think i just made up that word, anonymize. and i like it.

so this is where we live now. it's pretty great, but i'm not gonna lie, it's taking some getting used to. a new job and a big move are both big events in and of themselves, and the fact that i took both on within one month has left me a bit...overwhelmed. as in, i've had about three mini-breakdowns in as many days. i'm tired, and anxiety-ridden, and wound up, and freaked out, and....so on. i'm just glad that most of the major logistical hurdles are behind us (except you for you, DC DMV...and oh how i am sick just thinking about you. the story of our car inspection process is a tale for a whole 'nother post), and that soon i can start trying to do things like breathe. and relax. ideally at the same time.

and finally, for the few of you that are still curious about what the unbloggable stuff was, i am going to have to remain mum on that for a little while longer. but really, don't waste any energy on it, because it's nothing bad and nothing really major - i'm not becoming an astronaut or having a baby or getting married or moving to portugal or anything. i hate bein' like that - you know i do - but i am. and when i finally do post about it, you all will be like "that's it? aw man. that's boring."

because boring is what i do best! did best, i mean, did best...things will be different this year, i swear. i'm gonna lose 20 pounds. and write a novel. and spend more time with my kids. and quit smoking, of course.

see you again when i have a point.

i would like to interrupt this blog hiatus to say...

i fell down today.

on the street.

in front of strangers.

note to self: purchase summer commuting sandals that have something resembling treads on the bottom of them, so that when the sidewalks are wet, you don't resemble a three-year-old at an ice skating rink.

good grief.

that dreaded term.

you know the one - the one that every blogger, at some point in his or her life, is going to find themselves forced to utter. no, it's not "unbloggable" - i've done that one already.

it's..."hiatus."

god, i am loathe to even type it. it sounds so self-important, doesn't it? tv shows go on hiatus. professors go on hiatus (no wait, that's "sabbatical." but whatever.). my little blog, with its 20-odd regular readers, should not warrant the term. but the blogosphere has deigned it so - any foreseen and somewhat lengthy absence from blogging shall henceforth be properly termed a "hiatus", it's there in the by-laws, look it up - and i am merely following orders.

i will be back at the turn of the month, after a number of crazy things die down around here. you know about the move - that probably would've resulted in a little blogging break all on its own! but add to that a little editing gig that is really not little at all (pages. hundreds and hundreds of them.), and another totally unexpected, totally exciting, and totally as yet unbloggable (oh god, i'm doing it again!!) development have all conspired to take me out of blogging commission for the rest of the month. but once i get everything done and regain some semblance of my sanity, i'll be back, and hopefully able to blog the unbloggable and continue to annoy you all with my generally self-involved blathering.

until that fine day arrives, though, go forth and read my blogroll. get to know each other. enjoy each other's company. and i'll see you later.

your wednesday one-liner.

he or she has a point, courtesy of Overheard in New York:

Law professor: Death is bad, but there is a tax advantage.

--NYU Stern School of Business

hmmm. and they wonder why us volvo-driving, latte-sipping eco-crunchy bleeding heart liberals mock them.

i am aware that by this point in time, making fun of NASCAR and its fans has something of a sad sheen to it - a violation of PC "diversity" ideals combined with the shame of picking the low-hanging humor fruit. it's just too easy, and it's kinda not nice to boot.

but whatever. because really? fans throwing beer cans onto the track is bad enough. throwing them in such en masse numbers as to warrant a front page Yahoo! story is worse. and doing it at the venue for which talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby is named? well, i don't know what kind of self-restraint you think us new england liberals have, but it's not *that* much.

christ. what's next? cans of skoal and ratty old confederate flag adorned tank tops? because that'd cover the triumvirate of your Stereotypical Hickness. so, think about it, if that's where you're aiming to go with this. until then, we'll be around, snickering behind our hands at your "sport" and its, um, unique displays of fandom.

"it seems unexceptionable to conclude..."

so, you've heard about the gonzales v. carhart ruling. you probably know it better as the court upholding the so-called "partial-birth abortion" ban (the right wing began its checkmate when it got that wholly imaginary term to stick with the mainstream media, but that's another post for another day). i highly recommend dahlia lithwick's article from slate.com about the ruling, as she does a great job of covering the waterfront of offenses to be found within its pages. it is tragic and infuriating on so many levels, and i don't need to detail them all here. (honestly, maybe i should, but it's too exhausting on too many levels.)

there are, however, three main aspects of the ruling that i think deserve emphasis. many others in the women's rights field and across the blogosphere have made note of them already, but i do it again here because on the off chance that you haven't considered them, i think that you should. because of all of it, all the absurdity and misogyny inherent in this ruling, these three things frighten me the most.

1) The Condescension

Lithwick's article focuses heavily on this aspect of the ruling - Kennedy's amazingly condescending language towards both women and the medical community. if you're like me (that is to say, basically a person without a law degree), you imagine supreme court rulings as full of legalese and dense, difficult to parse language. as decisions handed down by the highest court of the country, you imagine them to be complex and logically intricate documents. in many ways, gonzales is such a document, but in other ways, it is shockingly not. the assertion from the ruling that has gotten a lot of airtime is the following statement: "Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child." these kind of platitudes are a foundation upon which we're suddenly basing constitutional law?? i don't doubt that many people would find that statement to be true - i don't, but again, another story - but regardless, for the life of me i can't figure out how such a sweeping assumption should be the basis for a federal ban on anything.

it gets worse, too. the decision goes on to assert, "whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision..." (of course, 100% of the time absolutely always it does), and then posits that the best way to prevent already regretful mothers from learning of the way in which their fetus was aborted is not to, you know, explain it to them beforehand and allow them to reconsider, but to ban the procedure all together. because obviously, these distraught and morally compromised women can't make that kind of decision for themselves.

and it's not just women for whom the court has decided the legislature can make unilateral decisions - it's the medical community as well! what can't these senators control, really? from the decision:

The Act's stated purposes are protecting innocent human life from a brutal and inhumane procedure and protecting the medical community's ethics and reputation. The government undoubtedly 'has an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession.'

in other words, women and doctors, fret not: we will protect you from yourselves. the level of patronizing behavior and rationale here is breathtaking, and guess what? it's now constitutional doctrine.

2) The Blatant Dismissal of Fact

now, we know that the bush administration has been no huge fan of "the fact" in its seven-year tenure. we know that this anti-intellectualism has seeped into many a corner of the government and indeed, society at large. but i guess i hadn't realized quite how bad it was, or just how disastrous this kind of disregard for the former basis of all legislation and law could be. because i couldn't conceive of statements like this being able to find their way into supreme court rulings:

While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.

i had to re-read that sentence after i read it the first time, because i truly couldn't believe it. "while we find no reliable data"? "it seems unexceptionable to conclude"?? ok, you seriously just based a federal ban on a medical procedure on the idea that "well, we can't prove it, but we have to assume that some women wish they hadn't done this." this - this ability to legislate and rule based on nothing more than the perceived "truthiness" of the matter - this is what bush hath wrought. i laugh when colbert ridicules it; i nearly weep when the supreme court codifies it.

3) The Ruling Between the Lines

this, of all of it, is the most horrifying, the thing that chills me down to my bones. this ruling is not about "partial-birth abortion." how do we know this? because, on a logical level, this decision is totally ineffective in achieving its stated aims. the language of the ruling reaffirms that "the state maintains its own regulatory interest in protecting the life of the fetus that may become a child." ok. but how, exactly, does this decision protect the life of the fetus? it doesn't. in sum, it merely tells doctors that they can't perform an abortion this way, they have to do it that way. the authors of the legislation tap-danced around this by saying that intact D&E (the real medical term for the procedure) is such a "brutal and inhumane" method of abortion that it essentially helps foster a disregard for human life. and that argument, as explicitly accepted by the supreme court in the ruling, is the golden ticket for anti-abortion activists. because who is now to say that regular old D&E (as opposed to "intact D&E", which is the now-banned procedure) isn't brutal and inhumane? or vacuum aspiration in the sixth week of pregnancy? on this level, the true intent of the legislation becomes clear, which is to open the door to further and tighter restrictions, and ultimately a federal ban on all abortion.

you heard about anti-abortion activists jubilation over the gonzales ruling. this is why. the decision is literally an invitation to start legislating on all kinds of abortion access restriction, because they can now be upheld via two things: weakened legal scrutiny standards (another long story, but suffice to say this ruling lowered the bar in a number of ways on how rigorously a court needs to protect the health of a woman in these considerations) and a nebulous desire to ban procedures that "coarsen society to the humanity...of all innocent human life." and it's coming. north dakota voters thankfully shot down a state ban that could have been used as the basis to overturn Roe, but that only bought us time. now, with gonzales on the books, another state will soon pass an all-out ban. it will be challenged. and it will start winding its way through the courts, on its way to the supreme court's doorstep, where it has an exceedingly strong chance of being upheld.

now, it's just a waiting game.

friday cat blogging, "get the hell out of dodge" edition.

CatCat has a very important request. she needs to get out of northern virginia. right now.




lucky for her, we are very compliant with relocation wants and needs. we went ahead and found her a cute one-bedroom in capitol hill, one block to the metro, hardwood floors, heat and water included. we applied. we got it!

so CatCat's burning desire to become a denizen of the district will soon become reality. and for that, everyone who lives here is thoroughly relieved.

newman. with a badge. for reals.

this has been a short week, technically. this has been a very long week, literally.

wait, that doesn't make sense. but you know.

so there is some apartment craziness happening. we are hopeful and nervous. (well, it's me with the nervous, mostly.) and really? the postal service can kiss my ass. it's the 21st century - an express overnight tracking system that actually works should not be outside the realm of possibility. especially when my ability to get an apartment depends on it.

(by the way - did you know that there are post office police cars? with red and blue lights on top and everything? as i was hustling over to a downtown post office this morning, i noticed what looked like a cop car parked out front. but it wasn't - it was the "postal police." seriously, i am not making this up. and it raises the question about what the "postal police" would need a police car for - are there postal emergencies that necessitate postal workers flying around the city streets, sirens blaring and lights whirling? if so, what are they?? because i would really like to know.)

your wednesday one-liner.

courtesy of Overheard in New York, a glimpse into what SisterCat would be like if she were your (as they were once quaintly known) "stewardess":

Flight attendant on PA: Be careful when opening the overhead bins. Items can shift during flight and fall on you, or even, God forbid, me.

--American Airlines flight, JFK

second verse...

ok, i survived the first day. yes, i deserve a cookie or something.

now it is the second day. the excitement has kinda worn off, so i'm mainly left with nerves. many of them. plus - an apartment hunt!

we started really, seriously looking for a new place this week. we've seen two places, and given two places the thumbs down. last night's candidate was a tough decision though, and me functioning on eight previous hours of first day stress did not help things. BoyCat and i were both conflicted about whether to take the place, and i ended up having - i kid you not, i wish i was exaggerating here - a two-hour long freakout about it. i hesitate to call it a meltdown, because no tears were actually shed, but i will definitely give myself an ulcer over the next five weeks if i continue to behave this way.

today - back at it! work, and then a possible viewing at 6:00. hopefully minus the kate tantrums.

damn.

i wrote a little post in my head this morning, before i got out of bed. but now i've forgotten it.

this is possibly because friday was my last day, today is my first day, and i'm nervous and excited and nervous and thinking about eight million things.

honestly, eight million.

friday cat blogging, last day edition.

as in, last day at my old job! wahoo!

as you can see, CatCat is ecstatic.



and the excitement continues, because i am soon off to the airport to fetch SisterCat, who is here for a three-day weekend visit! i have stocked the house with various types of booze in preparation. there are not many occasions in life that warrant purchasing champagne; the last day on the job and the arrival of a sister in town is indeed one of them.

so blogging will be light this weekend (unless SisterCat decides to take the mike - and that could be interesting). bask in the sunshine. go for a walk. drink something (outside). enjoy yourselves!

a tip.

i am really late with this one, given that if you did buy girl scout cookies this year, you have almost certainly eaten them all already. but, if you haven't finished them yet...

and some of the leftovers happen to be Caramel deLites...

here's what you do.

you put them in the microwave. for about 10 seconds, and not much longer. just enough to warm them up, and melt the chocolate on the bottom a bit. (oh, and tip within a tip - turn them upside down on the plate, chocolate side up, so you don't end up with all the melted chocolate sticking to the plate when you pick them up.)

i have been rationing for the past month. i have three cookies left. i just ate my second-to-last three, and their incredible deliciousness inspired me to share this little-known cookie trick with you all.

use it wisely. and often. definitely often.

a chill wind, indeed.

we knew it was coming.

but it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

the supreme court has decided not only to ignore legal precedent, but to completely disregard the logical idea that decisions about a woman's health should be made by her and her doctor, not by the state.

it is truly - truly - horrifying. and for anti-choice activists, it's only the starting gun.

veggie shoe shopping, or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the peep toe.

(i realize that blog posts appropriating the dr. strangelove title should probably, at this point, be subject to heavy fines. but i've gone and done it anyway. so there you go.)

i haven't talked much here about going vegetarian, which i did at the turn of 2007. there were a lot of compelling arguments for it, i had been leaning in that direction for a little while, and the beginning of a new year seemed like as good a time as any to make such a life change. so, i went veg. and it's been pretty great thus far (except for the popeye's chicken right around the corner from our apartment complex - damn that place and its delicious fry-a-lator aromas!). in addition to a vegetarian diet, i also decided to stop purchasing leather. it seemed fairly hypocritical of me to imply that killing animals to eat them is not ok, but killing them to wear them is totally fine. while i'm not throwing away the leather-based jackets and such that i already own (i'm also a big fan of reduce reuse recycle - i'm mid-90s old school in that way), i'm also not buying anything from here on out that involves leather, suede, etc.

so. do you know how hard it is to find nice shoes that are also leather-free?

because it's damn near fucking impossible.

today, i started at marshall's, browsing their sizable shoe department. i need a cute pair of more summery black shoes or sandals. now, to be fair, i'm kind of a picky shoe person to start with - i have definitive ideas about how high a heel i want, how strappy i want, what kind of texture i want, and blahdy blah blah. then add to that my new leather-less requirement, and you've got one big clusterfuck of shoe buying impossibility. i quickly gave up on marshall's and got serious. i went to DSW.

DSW - literally, the warehouse of shoes. if there was anywhere that i could find a manmade and cute pair of shoes, this was it. and still, i wandered the aisles, putting down shoe after shoe with "leather upper" stamped on the inside. "dejected" doesn't even begin to cover my mindset as i approached the final few aisles.

then, a discovery. black. decent sized heel. nice taper. good texture. "all manmade material"!! a total winner, right? the issue - they had a peep toe.

now, here's the thing. i know peep toes are all the rage right now. you can't go two feet without bumping into someone wearing them, or seeing a pair on display in a store window. the peep toes are hot. so what's my problem?? thing is, i just, well...i kinda don't like them. i don't have a rationale or reason for this - i don't begrudge anyone else for liking and/or wearing peep toes. i just always felt like, eh. not for me.

but today, today was a turning point. i was faced with a dilemma - accept the peep toe as it is and walk away from this two-hour shoe odyssey with something to show for it, or rule out the pair based on an inexplicable disinclination towards a tiny, toe-sized hole?

i bought them.



and they're pretty cute, right? i have to admit, they kinda are. so a day that i thought would never come - me, in possession of a pair of peep toes! - has, in fact, arrived. what's next? rope wedge heels??

no. never that. although they are in style now, too..

read the fine print.

you know what really amuses me? advertising. it never gets old. and often, if i don't laugh at it, i'll cry. so when something particularly odd or asinine in a commercial strikes me, i like to take a moment and fully appreciate the absurdity.

for instance. you've all seen that ad for the Ford Edge? it's apparently another attempt at making a littler SUV, a "crossover" vehicle, if you will. (which i won't, actually - it's a glorified station wagon. "crossover" my ass.)

anyway. the ad where the car is driving around in the sky, hugging building with two tires, and that annoying synth-y voice is singing, "i like to live on the edddd-juh"? if you watch the bottom of the screen, some fine print pops up about five seconds in. it reads,

Yes, this is a fantasy. Cars can't really drive on buildings.

there is so much that i love about this fine print. firstly, there's the way it (like most fine print) assumes we are all raging idiots. gosh, i was not aware that certain cars don't have the ability to suspend the laws of gravity - thanks for setting me straight on that one, Ford! secondly, there's the way they try to be all cheeky about it. some highly-educated person in the Ford marketing department realized that fine print = not cool, and "crossover" SUVs must equal cool at all times. such a conundrum! what to do? i know, let's fall back on the most overused cliche about the demographic we're trying to sell to - their deep-seated affection for sarcasm - and insult them with both form and content! it's genius. truly.

the other great bit of fine print i saw the other day was in a Red Lobster ad. i'm sure you've seen it too, it was on about every three minutes last week. it's gist was this: 30 shrimp! come eat 30 shrimp at a time at Red Lobster! doooooo it! you know the one. but have you noticed the tiny-lettered admonition at the bottom?

Prices higher at Times Square and Hawaii locations.

now, this first caught my eye while i was on the treadmill at the gym. and i pondered it for a good two or three minutes. Times Square and Hawaii? it's like a brain teaser. what do these two places have in common when it comes to....shrimp? ready, go.

honestly, i still haven't totally figured it out.

a frustration, and a vindication.

today, i opened the mail. this is an ordinary occurence. what is unusual is the amount staring me in the face when i looked at the water bill. 96 dollars. what?? the last one was half that.

and can i back up a wee bit and also point out that we even have a water bill? we rent, for chrissakes! we're shelling out over $1400 a month on rent alone for a one bedroom near the edge of the metro's reach in virginia. and there are no utilities included. that's right, not even water. for which we are now paying $100 a month.

i cannot wait to find a new place in six weeks. i don't care if i have to devote my life to it during the month of may, by god, we will find a place that isn't costing us close to half our net income to live in.

before i got home and had my evening semi-soured by a stupid piece of paper, i was thinking i would post about the day's little vindication. i emphasize little; it will probably please no one else but me, really. but when i pulled up twisty this afternoon and read this post, i felt a twinge of recognition. in reference to the comment thread of a previous post about the kathy sierra situation, she opines,

I find that feminists of the empowerful, slo-mo kickboxing variety are sometimes impatient with women who have been publicly screwed over by the Establishment. These feminists seem actually to be critical of women on the wrong end of a beatdown...According to these feminists, the women who cry uncle have allowed themselves to become “victims rather than people.” But look here. Who are they trying to kid. Women can be kept in line with intimidation, and the whole world knows it. Aren’t people who have been raped and intimidated and harassed and threatened with death “victims”? What the fuck is wrong with that word? It describes the situation perfectly.

so it took about a year and a half of strolling around the internet to find a post that mirrors my own stated discomfort about the way "victim" has become something of a dirty word in feminist circles:

but in all of this clamoring for empowerment, have we lost the ability to make people see why women deserve to be empowered in the first place? are we unable to convince people that the reason we need empowerment is that we still lack societal and cultural power? women are still victimized, all the time, all over the world. we are victims of sexual harassment. we are victims of rape. we are victims of pay inequity. we are victims of impossible beauty standards. we are victims of double standards. we are victims, every day. why are we so ashamed to admit that?

i posted this almost eighteen months ago, and twisty's post is the first time i've seen the sentiment echoed since then. not just in explicitly feminist circles, but anywhere. what is that about? why is this a question that we are reluctant to take on - hell, that we apparently aren't even considering taking on? i don't know, but i'm just glad to see that i'm not the only one wondering about it.

a recommendation.

you all get comcast on demand, right?

well, if you do, you should go there. open up the tv entertainment section, and go to the sundance channel. then pick the Iconoclasts episode with dave chappelle and maya angelou.

watch it. it's great. engaging. thought-provoking. and all those other robert-redford-ish, park city-esqe liberal-minded adjectives.

that is my only insight of the weekend. but trust me, it's a good one.

friday cat blogging, guest kitty edition.

courtesy of

Meme Cats

because often, i feel exactly the same way.

some understanding.

many people around the world took a moment yesterday to eulogize kurt vonnegut, and i appreciated that. and while i have nothing new to add to the mountain of melancholy over his death or to the eloquent expression of why his work mattered (for me, tart's observations hit most close to home), i didn't want to let the occasion pass without marking it here in my own little corner of the universe.

much has been made, in all these obituaries and rememberances, about vonnegut's humanism. i'm happy about that. while i don't consider myself a humanist per se (i don't consider myself anything, really, but that's another issue for another day!), vonnegut's discussions of humanism always struck me as both eminently rational and beautiful in their simplicity. the quote being most circled, understandably in this circumstance, is this one:

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A.H.A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles....When I myself am dead, God forbid, I hope some wag will say about me, "He's up in Heaven now."

the passage i'd like to share here is only one page removed from the prior quote in Timequake, vonnegut's odd little autobiographic last novel. i take the time to quote it here now, sitting in my bathrobe and still rubbing sleep out of my eyes, because it seemed when i first read it - and still, when i re-read it today - an amazing encapsulation of what human kindness should be about.

Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the Universe has been to us unknowable so far. We serve as well as we can the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community.

i was just talking to BoyCat yesterday about my fear that my pessimism will overrun me at some point, that one day in middle age i will just throw up my hands and say "fuck it. humanity really isn't worth it anyway." but when i read this, i hope that day never comes. because it doesn't have to be "worth it," humanity, in order to deserve my care and effort and concern. it just has to be the biggest thing that i know how to handle, that i understand in a small enough way to be able to help.

so bless you, mr. vonnegut, for reminding me of that.

nothing but a number?

body image is a feminist issue, no doubt. sometimes it is tempting for us to relegate it to the back burner, given the myriad other problems facing women in our society; we often feel that there are "more pressing concerns" than how we feel when we look in the dressing room mirror. But the societal bombardment of dysfunctional aesthetic ideals is a real problem and a big one - i don't think i've ever met a woman unaffected by it.

all this said, yesterday i read this post on feministing and its varied comment thread, and something about it has been needling me ever since. not needling in the sense that i necessarily disagree, but needling in the sense that i find the whole thing complicated and kinda exhausting.

the article, in sum, cites a study proving that most people who "diet" eventually gain the weight back. the intro paragraph:

The world's largest study of weight loss by a group of researchers at the University of California has proven, once and for all, that two-thirds of those who diet gain the weight back and put themselves at risk for a host of scary side effects—like heart attack, stroke, and diabetes—in the process. Diets also commonly lead to eating disorders, afflictions which affect 10 million Americans and rising.

not surprising, right? of course. and i even agree with the post's assertion that we, as a society, are continually and blatantly duped by a diet industry that has zero interest in helping us lose weight and every interest in separating us from our paychecks.

but wait - that's not exactly the post's point. it concludes, in bold lettering, "It is your emotions about those numbers [on the scale], not the numbers themselves, that have the power to make or break you." and here's where the rubber hits the road in the comment thread.

there have been many a feminist blog post about weight and body issues, and many have resulted in the same sniping arguments about fatness, thinness, health, and acceptance. i don't mean to rehash it all in detail here. but i'm troubled by assertions like these, made after a few commenters chimed in to say of course yo-you dieting is insane and beauty standards are wack, but there are more holistic, lifestyle-based ways to lose weight if you need to:

"I'm sorry, but any conscious restriction of food intake with the goal of losing weight counts as 'dieting' under any reasonable definition."

"So when researchers say that dieting doesn't work, they literally mean that any effort to restrict food intake is likely to be unsuccessful, or even harmful."

and this is where i start saying, out loud, to myself, wait, what?? you're trying to tell me that "any effort to restrict food intake" is probably a bad idea? newsflash: we do that every day. does this commenter actually know a living person who eats whatever they want, whenever they want all the time? because that's absurd. there are things called biology, and physiology, and nutrition - they are important! they matter! i "restrict" my food intake at a baseline level because it's proven as the healthy thing to do.

maybe you can say i'm stretching the meaning of these arguments past what they were supposed to mean. in parsing them within their context, i could cop to that. but i think the argument you see play out in the rest of the thread is that same old binary of "fuck beauty standards, total fat acceptance!" versus "fat is not healthy!"

of course, the "fat is not healthy" crowd does themselves no favors by often vastly overgeneralizing and thus donning the strawman suit. (hey, i'm all for health as a realistic and worthy goal as far as one's weight, but there are women who've got 30 pounds on me and could slaughter me in a 5K. so, your premise sucks.) and i dunno, the whole thing is so tiring, and you start to feel like whatever you think and however you feel must be wrong somehow. wanting to eat healthier? well, you're obviously "restricting your food intake" and thus a failure to the feminist movement. want to tell the world to kiss your fat ass and bring you another slice of cheesecake? well, society knows full well how to shame you for that one.

and for most equality-minded women, we just ping-pong in between the two arenas of guilt. different scenery, but essentially the same place. and this is feminist discourse, feminist thinking! how is there ever any hope for rehabilitating mainstream media? i dunno. i just came away from the whole thing a little sad about this state of affairs.

sigh. pass the ben & jerry's.

observed, today.

on the walk from work to the metro:

two yellow gummy bears, about a foot apart, lying on the cobblestone by a lamp post.

i like to pretend that this is some sort of sign from above. but...

*pauses for dramatic effect*

what could it mean?

that i will one day be mauled by a bear - near a post of some kind? that someone i know will soon bear asian twins? that i'm eating too much sugar?

so many possibilities.

the truth?

for some strange reason, i'm afraid to say it. embarrassed to say it. why? i'm not sure.

i am worried. all the time.

i am afraid. all the time.

this is true.

i stand on the corner waiting for the light to change, my hair hanging low against my ears, vertical blinds swinging through my peripheral vision. the sun's angle casts my shadow long against the curb, and a steady stream of water - from where, i have no idea, as it has not rained in days - curls around the edge of the street and past my feet. i realize that i don't know in which direction i'm moving; i realize that a little part of me is suffocating, somehow.

i'm a dull edge. i'm a butter knife. no, worse - i'm a spoon, sliding thick through life in a strange, indiscernible arc.

there should be a euphoria in me, now. have i misplaced it? has someone stolen it? has it deemed me an unworthy vessel and left me alone entirely?

i'm not sure.

but i have to get out from under this.

inspired by the employment gods, the baseball programming gods smile upon me as well.

what a day for lounging around! white sox game on WGN at 2:00, red sox game on ESPN at 8:00. love that cable television.

we were just discussing, though, why new england seems to be the only area of the country that doesn't carry the WGN Superstation. jason was perplexed by the fact that, upon my arrival in chicago, i had never heard of WGN - apparently it has both a local incarnation and national presence. who knew?

i mean, even his grandmother in rural georgia gets WGN! wherefore not boston? tragic indeed.

though apparently the loophole is if you get DirecTV, you get the Superstation, regardless of where you are. so, whenever we find ourselves living back in new england, it looks like we're gonna have to consider the dish...

pick up the receiver, i'll make you a believer.

at 12:15 this afternoon, i put in my two weeks notice.

i did this because half an hour earlier, i received a phone call from the head of development for a women's rights organization here in DC. and she offered me a job in her department. and a lot more money than i'm making right now.

so, i quit my current job. and i have a new one. an amazing one. an almost unimaginably ideal one. one that doesn't even quite feel real yet, because the perfectness of it all has yet to fully sink in.

people, this is why i have been a walking (and writing) embodiment of The Crazy for the past 30+ days. this is that annoyingly unbloggable stuff. but now, after a full month of interviewing and agonizing and chewing my fingernails to the quick (which, ok, i do regardless), i can tell you about it.

well, in a sense i can tell you about it. that sense is pretty much what i've just said. i've decided to go the overly way-über-cautious route and not provide any more identifying details about my new employer, and i certainly won't be blogging about any work-related stuff. the last thing i want to do is sabotage my dream job with my irritatingly self-absorbed ramblings! i also, as has been customary since i moved to DC, will not be blogging from work. ever. no matter how much the chicago tribune and/or manolo's shoe blogs tempt me. so, sad as it makes you, my internet peeps, you'll still only be hearing from me on evenings and weekends.

wow, that sounded really boring. like some kind of legal document or usage contract. so did i mention that i got a new job?? and a raise??? holy motherfrigging sweet baby jesus of incredibleness!

i can't even convey to you how excited i am. if i even attempted it, it would involve enough emoticons to choke a horse. and the written renditions of high-pitched squealing sounds. and no one likes those - not even me, the one making them. so suffice it to say, i am happy. very, very happy.

and thanks for putting up with me and my internet weirdness for the last month.

your wednesday one-liner.

courtesy of Overheard in New York, another precocious city kid. so young, yet so wise to the ways of urban life:

Little boy: The pigeon knows no fear.

--Central Park

how very obi wan of you, child. now what can you tell me of the cockroach and the rat?

and a picture.

this got me near hysterics the other day while i was at the office. this was a problem, as i work in a cubicle. i have never fought so hard in my life not to just lose it and laugh uncontrollably, you know, in that "holy shit i'm cracking up and i can't stop and now i'm cracking up more" kinda way.

this says something about my mental state as of late, i think.

courtesy of Meme Cats

a comparison.

things that i like, generally:

thunderstorms.

things that i don't like, when they descend at 4:30 am on a tuesday, causing the power to flicker on and off, electronics to beep and squeal angrily, and me to not be able to fall back to sleep for 45 minutes:

thunderstorms.

strange days.

i always knew that the first few bursts of spring weather after a long winter made people do strange things. however, i think yesterday takes the cake.

i was standing at the corner of M St., waiting at the crosswalk to continue my daily morning trek from the metro station to the office. the forecast for the day was 80 degrees, but it was starting off slowly - it couldn't have been more than 50 degrees as i stood there. i watched a woman approach the curb direct across the street, stop, and wait along with everyone else for the light to change.

she was probably in her mid-20s. short, maybe 5'3'' or so, and rail thin. her hair was lazily pulled back in a knot, and she had on a blue button-down shirt and khaki capri pants. she had two bags, one laptop and one smaller catch-all, slung across her shoulder.

she had no shoes on.

and i don't mean like, "and you should've seen how flimsy her flip-flops were, i mean, she might as well have not had any shoes on!" or "who walks around the city in gym socks, anyway?"

i mean, her feet were bare.

i stood there, aghast. i tried not to stare. but i was thoroughly flummoxed. i mean, no one walks around the downtown of a major urban center with no shoes on. not even bums and crazy people. the only rationale for such a behavior that i can imagine is waking up and thinking, "you know, i'd like to get a communicable disease today. oh, and perhaps step on a needle or a rusty nail!"

the light changed, and we walked past each other, me surreptitiously scanning her face for any latent signs of mental illness. and, though entirely inconclusive and inadmissible in a court of law, my spot-check deemed her clear of The Crazy. so what on earth was she doing wandering down a city street with no shoes on? and seemingly completely unperturbed by it??

baffling.

am i weird?

so i've developed this little habit.

when i run at the gym, i like to watch the food network. that's strange, right? in a very counter-intuitive kind of way. but it's actually not some weird masochistic thing or anything - though the food does often look really tasty - i just find it makes the time go by a little faster.

while on the treadmill today, watching gia de laurentiis make an eggplant, tomato, and penne dish, i pondered why this habit of watching the food network is working for me. i think that it's largely due to the fact that cooking shows are easy to watch with the sound off (rachael ray, i'm especially looking at you here). at the gym in our apartment complex, you have to plug into a little machine attached to the cardio machines in order to get sound, and really, i'd always rather run to music that the chatter of the tv anyway. so i can watch a half hour cooking show on mute, easily follow what's going on, and even play little guessing games as the meal progresses: what kind of raw meat is that, anyway? hmmm, what kind of salad will rachael ray serve with buffalo chicken pizza? and what kind of crazy cocktail will sandra lee come up with today??

however, i have to say, the cooking show combined with a 5K run has its off days. for example, at about the 2.9 mile mark today, i could no longer bear to watch ina garten making french toast. the milk, the butter, the big floppy pieces of bread squishing around in it - gack. if i'm going to puke on the treadmill, i damn sure want it to be because i've just freakishly run a half marathon, not because of televised dairy products.

overall, though, i highly recommend the food network as an amenable running companion. hey, maybe you'll even get an idea for a new dinner to make when you get off the treadmill. (i wouldn't know, as i usually get tripped up somewhere between the "boil water" and "drop ingredients in" portion of any recipe, but hey, it might work for you.)

two things that you should see.

1) you already know how much i love HollaBack. the HollaBack phenomenon has spread all over the country, and city-specific sites (the flagship site is NYC-based) have popped up all over the country. apparently, the HollaBack DC site went dormant awhile back, but thankfully, someone stepped into the breach and started Don't Be Silent, where DC residents can speak out about street harassment in the city.

the more venues that women have to speak up about this interminably rampant issue, the better. so thanks to Golden Silence for seeing a gap, and working to fill it. please check out the site, give it some traffic, help it get off the ground.

2) ok, have you all been watching the Planet Earth series on the discovery channel? because if you haven't, you should start. like right now. fire up the TiVo and get to recording, because this is fricking amazing television. i remember being blown away by the commercials alone when they started airing a few weeks back - i also remember cursing the fact that i don't have a high-def tv. and it takes a lot to make me curse the fact that i haven't spent half a month's rent on a 17-inch television set!

since then, i've seen about two and a half episodes (there are 11 in all, and the whole series was five years in the making), and it has already sent me through the entire gamut of emotions. i have laughed out loud (baboons! tiptoeing through a flooded delta like dainty little primate divas!), i have gasped out loud (a 40 second slow motion shot of a great white leaping out of the ocean and snatching a seal in its gargantuan jaws), and - despite my valiant efforts to steel myself - cried more than a few tears (a baby elephant that was separated from its mother during a migration, thirsty and exhausted, accidentally following the mother's tracks in the wrong direction and towards certain death). the images and aesthetics alone are truly awesome, in the traditional sense, and the editing and narration keep it engaging. i cannot recommend this stuff highly enough. so you should watch it. really.

the stuff of nightmares. truly.

this is a lunatic week, peeps. lunatic. an ongoing (and still maddeningly unnamed) stressor, a big work event yesterday (13 hour workdays! are great!), the beginnings of a freelance project, plus the basics of oh, feeding and cleaning myself without having a nervous breakdown have resulted in a light week of blogging.

(i kinda hate talking about blogging on the blog? you know? it's kinda lame, in a too-pomo, overly self-referential way. yes, it is.)

i wish i had the etymology of "lunatic" easily accessible right now. because it has something to do with the moon, obviously. but now, after writing the word a few minutes ago, i really want to know the details.

can i tell you about the search term that showed up in my stat counter yesterday? ok, good, because it's extra horrifying. i checked my visitor stats and found the following phrase that directed someone to my blog:

pantyhose and crocs.

what? what?? i have so many questions. for one, do you mean wearing pantyhose and crocs simultaneously? i kinda have to assume that you must mean that, given the "and" in your search terms. this leads to directly to another question, which is why, in the name of all that is reasonable and just, would you even think about combining these two phenomenon? pantyhose are bad enough. crocs are bad enough. but together?? that reaches a level of fashion abomination that defies language.

as i was pondering this repugnant lower-body combination on the train ride home today (what can i say, i am a masochist), i played a mini-version of the "would you rather?" game with myself. the question was, "would you rather wear open-toed sandals with pantyhose, or wear crocs with pantyhose?" and really, after about five minutes of pondering this, i realized it was like a bizarro sophie's choice. i truly cannot say what i would do, because the idea of having to choose between those options is just too horrible for the rational brain to bear.

wow, look at that, i got on an actual topic for a whole three paragraphs there. it was crocs, but regardless. i'm impressed.

slow news day.

or slow kate brain. one of those, at least.

does anyone else hate those cingular commercials with the smug guy and the amazingly idiotic guy? they went away for awhile, and i was pleased, and now they're back, and i'm not.

and really, isn't AT&T phasing out the little orange cingular guy and subsuming it into the lined globe thingee? why would you revive an ad campaign solely associated with the cingular brand when you're trying to get rid of the cingular brand?

the brain, it hurts. slowly.

get out the fainting couch - no, for real this time.

if "feminine issues" trouble you on some fundamental level, i would avoid this post.* because while i'm not going to overly TMI you, if i don't vent about this right now i'm not sure what i will do. probably take out my frustration on some unassuming piece of small furniture or kitchenware. and that wouldn't be fair to those household goods, which have done nothing but be utilitarian. (and not in the philosophical sense.)

ANYWAY. i am rambling, i think, because i don't have enough blood to my brain. i'm lacking such stuff of life because my reproductive system has apparently commissioned all the blood in my body, and is currently expelling it. people, i have been bleeding for a month.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

the background: you know, i'm on the seasonale. before this month, i would've sung the praises of seasonale to anyone who would listen. i loved seasonale. i worshipped seasonale. four periods a year, how great is that?? i recently read other women complaining about breakthrough bleeding on seasonale, and i thought, "well, lucky me, i've never once had a problem with that in the last two years!"

apparently, karma took that as its cue to slap me upside the head and kick me in the shins. and by "shins" i mean "uterus."

as an unfortunate health care system by-product, i had to take a month off of seasonale back in december, because i was switching over from my old job's health plan to my new one, which of course didn't kick in for 30 days after i started. which was over a week after i was supposed to have started a new pack of pills. so after some consultations with people who know about this shit, they said "yeah, just take the full month off, then start the new pack after your period is over." cool. (and just fyi, i don't doubt that this was the right thing to do. i just never considered that the issue that arise for women just starting seasonale could rear their ugly heads for me now, too.)

so, the first two months of my new pack passed in relative equilibrium. then, at the beginning of my third month, i realized that one night i had forgotten to take my pill. oops - it happens. i just take two in one day, and it's fine. except this time, apparently, it wasn't fine, and my body took the one day off of its regular hormone regimen to break the uterine lining dam. and i have been bleeding, in intensities ranging from breakthrough to full-on period, for a month. a month!!! i have had two full strength periods in 28 days, and have also been bleeding enough to be a slave to the tampax box for the other 14 days.

last night, i took my last placebo pill. i am desperately hoping that the next round of hormones can regulate this menstruation free for all. because this has got. to. stop. i've had a low-level, recurring headache for the last two weeks, and GI system is not thrilled with the situation either. and if this lasts much longer, i don't think i'll have enough energy to like, stand upright.

(and yes, i'm taking my multivitamins. but are there any iron-rich vegetables that i should be eating? gypsy spells i should be incanting? proverbial rain-dances i should be doing? come to think of it, i should've asked you all for some good woman-related advice here much earlier - i blame the lack of blood to my brain, um, or something...)



*by the way, if this is the case, i highly recommend getting over it. the whole "fear and disgust" thing when it comes to women and menstruation is a tired routine. we're women, we bleed, deal with it.

friday cat blogging, the "i'm ready for my close up, mr. demille" edition.

i'm sorry. i realize as i post this that it's actually kinda frightening.


even with the in-focus rug for a bit of perspective, she still sort of seems like the Stay-Puft marshmellow man of cats, doesn't she? like her eyeball is actually the size of my hand.

in reality, it is not. just in case you were worried.

customs and culture - snug as a bug in a rug.

so during my Contrarian™ kick last month, i said that i was going to post about the marriage as ritual, and i never did. my delinquency is deeply regrettable. but i read something yesterday that reminded me of the topic, and thought i’d share it with you all and see what you thought.

the impetus for this little musing was an interview with kamy wicoff, author of i do but i don’t: walking down the aisle without losing your mind. i highly, highly, highly recommend that you read the whole thing, because the woman is just firing on all cylinders here. as i was explaining it to BoyCat on the metro ride home last night, ‘it’s like, she takes all these ideas and qualms and confusing contradictions that normally make me go ‘but...um...uh... you know...it’s like ...um...ahhhhh?’ and just nails them.”

so, anyway, it’s good. but this particular part really struck me:

One of the things I came to see is that there's a reason why society, at these watershed moments, steps in with a program. On the one hand it's because people want it and need it and ask for it and on the other hand it's because it's the ideal time to impose a set of values on people.

Society always steps in when people feel insecure or under pressure and says: "This is how you do it. This is who you are. This is what we expect you to be." I felt [during my engagement] I needed that guidance and support and I was willing to take it under any conditions. I was unable to say: "Do I believe this?"

This makes social progress hard. It is asking the individual to take on a real revolt alone and that's very difficult. One of the things that my generation struggles with is tearing down old rules without coming up with a new system of traditions and rituals that really describes our experience.

this is what i was talking about in the comment thread where i noted that rituals are a two way street: they provide people with a sense of security, comfort, understanding and belonging, but they also exact a price for that comfort in return. as twisty noted recently, “customs are the currency of culture: the more you absorb, the greater the rewards.” (that post, by the way? also fantastic. also worth reading. like right now.) i think it’s entirely fair – nay, entirely necessary – to try to understand the full weight of the cultural transactions in which you take part. i say this not just to be a cynical sourpuss, but in the hope that big life decisions can start to be based less in glorified peer pressure and fear of non-conformity, and more in a confidence that whatever we are giving up is worth what we are gaining.

hey, that doesn’t seem so contrarian at all, does it?

thoughts (on this, or any aspect of the wicoff interview, because seriously people, it is good stuff) most welcome.

play it again sam.

i am recommencing my minor freak-out from late last month. i will tell you more about it in a week or so, if i can.

or i might have to never mention it again. it really depends.

sorry, i know it's (and by "it's" i mean "i'm") annoying. but just wanted to shed a thin bit of light on what will probably be my scattered and illogical contributions to this blog in the very near future...

god, i'll probably have an ulcer by 30.

oof.

i worked today. then i ran today. 3.5 miles. now i am tired. very tired.

so, while i go do some editing work write a short story clean the kitchen sleep, check out this picture that MomCat took up in maine over the weekend. it is quite maine-esqe, if i do say so myself. and by "maine-esqe," i mean obviously motherfrigging cold. cold and rocky and generally inhospitable for nine months of the year, but yet somehow still wonderful.



holy christ, i am really tired. goodnight.

you can get anything at trader joe's.

seriously!

look, i just bought some spring for only $1.29.





is there any living thing in the world more cheerful than a daffodil? no, i do not think so.

how to go from a normal woman to a raving lunatic who runs in front of traffic - in thirteen easy steps!

1) schedule an appointment to have your taxes done at 7:00 pm. assume that this will give you plenty of time to get home, as you usually get home around 6:15 on a normal night. disregard murphy's law here.

2) thoughtfully bring home two pieces of cheesecake from the office for your boyfriend. because there is no tupperware lying around your cubicle, fashion a contraption to hold the cheesecake out of a bunch of sandwich bags and small cardboard box. small, but not small enough to fit in your bag, thus necessitating hand-carrying all the way home.

3) make sure it is pouring rain when you leave work.

4) arrive at the metro station to a platform jam-packed with people, and wait ten minutes to squeeze your way onto a crowded blue line train. sandwich yourself uncomfortably in the middle of the car, with your bag on one shoulder and your umbrella and the cake in your other hand. hold onto the overhead bar that you can barely reach, and silently curse the effect of water plus wool on nasal passages.

5) get verbally berated, along with all other passengers, by the train conductor about "not leaning on the doors!!!!" at the next three stops, and listen to the mechanized metro lady say "doors closing..." half a dozen times at each stop before they actually, genuinely do.

6) ensure that the problem with the doors is not actually too many people on the train, but something much more inscrutable and thus unable to easily fix. stand in the train car, still holding your bag, umbrella, and cake, for 20 minutes while waiting for problem to be resolved. have "problem being resolved" equal the conductor getting on the PA and saying "this train is being offloaded at this station. everyone, off the train."

7) wait in the midst of a wet, wooly crush of humanity at said station while your broken train pulls away. don't even attempt to get on the first train, for fear of being stampeded. squeeze onto second one, and maintain tenuous grip on all three of your belongings while doing so. actually say, out loud, "would you all just settle down?" as you are shoved through the doors. resume your position barely grasping overhead handle in new car.

8) finally arrive at your stop at 6:20, thinking "great, as long as i don't have to wait much longer than ten minutes for the shuttle bus, i'll be ok." hoof it down the stairs and through the turnstile, wrestling your hat on and your umbrella open as you navigate through the crowd to the parking lot. see a shuttle pulling away.

9) decide to start abiding by murphy's law, and thus conclude that the shuttle on the way out of the lot must be yours. start walking briskly up the sidewalk towards the cross-street where it looks like the shuttle will be stopped at a red light.

10) have the wind blow your umbrella inside out.

11) realize that it really might be your shuttle. start jogging. simultaneously try to right your umbrella by shaking it violently and peer at the shuttle in an attempt to recognize whether it's frank, the driver, in the front seat. arrive at intersection just as the other street's light is turning yellow, and at that moment confirm it is definitely your shuttle.

12) disregard major intersection status of your location and the changing traffic lights, and charge across four lanes of traffic with your umbrella flailing about and your bag falling off your shoulder. miraculously, maintain firm grip on cake. watch light turn green while you are halfway across. leap onto the opened shuttle door just as the cars behind you start to honk furiously.

13) collapse into a seat, and when frank the shuttle driver asks, "are you ok?," just laugh.

the good, the bad, and the ugly.

the good: VCU just beat Duke in the last three seconds of the game. sweetness.

the bad: i just realized, with my tax appointment at H&R Block tomorrow, that Mutual of America never sent me the form for my Roth IRA deductions. that was a few hundred dollars that i probably won't be able to deduct. suckiness.

the ugly: i dunno, i just wanted to reference a spaghetti western. pasta-ness.

your wednesday one-liner.

from Overheard in New York, an example of those public transit conductors telling the god's honest truth (when they're not lying through their teeth, that is):

Conductor: This is 116th Street, Columbia University. Good luck paying your tuition.

--116th St

ok, so you're not into the sports.

thank you all for that outpouring of march madness advice and counsel. those zero comments responding to my plea for bracket help were incredibly useful as i sat in my cubicle this morning, frantically clicking back and forth between different espn.com screens and scribbling nonsense on my Fox Sports print out. i cursed you all and your lack of ncaa engagement as i fretted away my morning on seedings and dark horses and top-heavy final fours.

i was actually thinking about my brackets last night as i was falling asleep. i am a sick person.

anyway, despite my readership's distinct lack of ncaa enthusiasm, i did manage to actually make some decisions. i am in two pools, and i have UCLA winning it all in both of them. in one i have them beating Georgetown in the final, and in the other they best Ohio State for the title. i have BC going to the Elite Eight in toast's pool - even i, alumni superfan, could not bring myself to burn $10 by predicting the Eagles to win it all.

i have #12 Old Dominion over #5 Butler as my upset. this is apparently a fashionable upset pick, but so be it. i also have #11 Winthrop over #6 Notre Dame because hey, fuck Notre Dame, and #11 VCU over #6 Duke because you know, fuck Duke.

now, i will sit back and hope against hope that i'll make some of my money back....

remember that time?

when i said i'd be back to regularly scheduled blogging soon?

that was a total lie.

i am currently anticipating the ring of my cell phone, which will be BoyCat calling to request a pick-up at the Metro. this is really the least that i can do, considering the inclement weather odyssey on which he went to bring me to the airport last week. then after we get back, i need to make some dinner, which i haven't done because you know, murphy's law - BoyCat would have called the minute i put the rice in the boiling water. so i still gots to eat.

and then, after sustenance comes secondary income - a small editing job that should get done tonight. and then, hopefully some additional income on top of that - filling out my brackets. my brackets! they are giving me fits!! people, i do not know what to do. i'm halfway through my "serious" bracket (the one that goes in the bigger money pool at the office, and does not, under any circumstances, have Boston College winning it all), and i am stuck. i have too many one and two seeds going deep; i'm sending two second seeds and one top seed to the final four already, and i want to put in a lower seed as my fourth pick, but the region i have left is the East, and it's hard to bet against either UNC or Georgetown coming out of there, and.......

*freaks out*

i need help. i have until 5:00 pm tomorrow to get these picks in, and then i can tweak them for my "BC National Championship, Otherwise Known as Insanity" bracket for toast's pool. but in serious, serious, seriously seriousness - who do you like?



EDIT: this has nothing to do with anything, but is it me, or is blogger's timestamp all wickity-wack? this post is stamped 6:57 pm, but my laptop's clock says 8:12 pm. wha?? that's not even just an hour off, that's plain old messed up. i checked my settings, and it's on EST. weirdness.

"resistance is futile."

so say my allergies to my face. almost five days of radio silence over here, and i'm all ready to get back to blogging, and then the minute my plane touches down at dulles all parts of my head go into open revolt.

so, given that i've been on the move since 6:00 am this morning, and that my nose currently resembles a faucet more than a body part, i'm checking in just to check out. back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, i'm sure.

(and by the way, border cafe? still delicious. i love that place. and boston? still beautiful, especially when see from an airplane window. i love that town. and the Cat family? still hilarious and wonderful. i love those peeps.)

the drag on the line.

tomorrow, after work, i will be making my way to the airport and flying to boston. (well, by making my way, i mean BoyCat will be driving me, because he is a huge sweetheart and does things like drive me to the airport in beltway rush hour traffic.)

i am kind of freaking out (no! me, freaking out?) about the potential bad-ish weather predicted for tomorrow. BoyCat and my entire family are sick of hearing about this from me, so i have to assume that the internets are going to be just as disinterested in my snow-related hand wringing. i shall spare you. suffice to say, i am bringing a big novel, money for the airport bar, and my xanax, and then hoping for the best.

i'm really glad to be going home for a few days - i think all the members of the Cat family need a bit of a break right now. so we'll hibernate, watch tv, drink wine from a box, and generally try to recuperate from life. it sounds overly dramatic, but don't you sometimes feel like you need to recuperate from the effort of existing, from the drag on the line that accompanies every day, from the sadness and exhaustion that can come from the little depressing moments that you witness everywhere? today, on the way home from work, i looked at a middle-aged man's face as he waited for the train car doors to open, and i nearly cried. his wool hat sat crooked on his head, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat, deep lines on his face and no trace of emotion in his eyes. he was tired. i was tired. we are all so, so tired.

perhaps a post or two from me over the weekend, but perhaps not. either way, you all take care of yourselves over these next few days too.

and he named him judas? really??

we are totally watching that jesus show tonight. if it smacks of blasphemy, you know BoyCat and i are there.

apparently there is also a follow-up special, hosted by ted koppel, called a critical look airing right after the show. this, i think, raises the pertinent question: is there nothing critical in the two-hour investigation that comes before it? given that the filmmakers are implying that they may have found the tomb of "the artist previously known as ascended" jesus, and that this tomb bears evidence of a bloodline, i would like to think that they would attempt to address potential criticism of such allegations within their 120 minute presentation!

but then again, it is james cameron, so you never know.

(awww, that's not fair. sorry james. i'm one of the few people who will nowadays actually admit to liking titanic, for whatever that's worth. and kudos to you for lobbing some hand grenades at christianity, as fluff-filled and profit-driven as they may be.)

wrapped in plastic.

it has been years. literally, years. we have scoured the internet for signs, gossip, any kind of information whatsoever. we hung on every potential new development, sighed with disappointment with every seemingly promising development that turned out to be a bust. and we had recently, to be honest, started to give up hope.

then, around the end of 2006, things seemed to pick up speed. i was convinced it was going to happen. BoyCat was convinced we would merely be disappointed again. about a month or so ago, we argued vociferously about it in a Georgia Ave. kitchen around 12:30 am, while other partygoers looked on in bemusement. "it will!," i insisted. "it won't!," he retorted. "just wait and see, " i said, "it's gonna happen."

and i was right.

on april 3, 2007, the second season of Twin Peaks will finally be released on DVD in the US. for twin peaks fans, this is monumental. we thought this day would really never come, given a falling out between series creator david lynch and writer/executive producer mark frost in the wake of the first season's transition to DVD. so, while we had the first eight episodes on DVD, the final 22 were still relegated to poor quality VHS - and really, does anyone even have a VCR anymore? so years and years passed, and while talk and rumor would emerge every now again again about some progress on the DVD front, it started to seem like a lost cause.

however, in 2005 the rights to the show went to Paramount, and in 2006 word that Lynch was working on the transfers for the second season started to actually seem credible. by the end of 2006, news of the season's release in europe started popping up, prompting my assertions that the definitive arrival of the DVDs here in the US by 2007. and as i noted my correctness above already, i won't do it again. oh wait, i just did.

anyway, i just pre-ordered our box set on amazon.com this morning; i am not exaggerating by saying it kinda made me giddy. BoyCat has some friends and co-workers who have never seen the show and want to do some Twin Peaks marathon viewings (which truly, having been introduced to the show in that way back in 2002, is the only way to see it) soon. now that we have an estimated ship date for season two, we can set a date to start watching season one!

i realize, as i type this, how bizarre this must sound to some people (ok, most people). sorry about that. but my devotee-level love of this show has just driven me to write a whole post about getting to watch it...again. i am subjecting you all to some strange and annoying stuff lately, aren't i?

i'll get back to patriarchy blaming and college basketball soon enough, i promise. but for now, i'm too excited to find out "who killed laura palmer?" all over again to care about all that...

friday cat blogging, the "stuff juvenile comedy is made of" edition.

ok. this is totally gross, but when it happened earlier, BoyCat said, “you’ve got to friday cat blog this!” honestly, i couldn’t disagree. so here it is.



this is a blurry picture of CatCat, actively hanging her head in shame, about ten minutes after she pooped on the carpet.

what?? yes. she did.

and don’t go all humane society on me – she didn’t actually take an active poo on the carpet, which would obviously be indicative of something being wrong. no, she was on her way out of the bathroom (evidently after using the facilities, as that’s the only reason she ever goes in there – that and to hide from the vacuum cleaner), walking through the bedroom, and all of a sudden i hear BoyCat say, “awww, CatCat!”, and she gallops away under the dining room table. i crane my head around the bedroom door frame and see the offense – a single piece of kitty poop on the carpet.

ewwww! CatCat!

apparently she needs a refresher course in “making sure you’re finished before you leave the lavatory.” poor thing. she stayed under the table and licked her butt for ages. i think that’s penance enough, right? well, plus this little bit of internet humiliation.

but it could be worse! BoyCat said he wished i had taken a picture of the poo for this post. now even i, delighter in embarrassing anecdotes preferably with photo evidence, found this sentiment to be over the line of acceptable feline mortification. and i’m sure you’re all better off for it.

linkfarm.

there all these things that i want to share with you! interesting stuff abounds! check it:

1) amanda's recent post, Smile: It's easier than bowing, made me want to clap wildly in my cubicle yesterday. she was responding to an article "about how smiling indicates more than pleasure, but is actually linked with social status, and that the lower down the ladder you are, the more you tend to smile." she connects these researched findings to gender as well, in particular to that maddening habit that random men on the street have - you know, where they tell women they've never before seen in their life to "smile, honey!" the original article bears out her conclusion:

research show[s] that women smile more than men...this gender difference has been attributed to the perceived lower social status of women, and [a professor involved in the research] notes that this gender gap shrinks when you control for social status: high-status women apparently don’t feel the need to smile as much.

overall, some fascinating stuff, and satisfying to so many women who already knew, instinctively and from experience, that this was the case. amanda says at the end of the post,

In recent years, I’ve discovered that if I stifle the urge to smile all the time at people, I get more respect...over time, I’ve sort of fallen out of the habit [of smiling often] because the need to be taken seriously overrules the need to have people like me so much of the time.

amen! yes! women everywhere: smile less, demand more.

2) a post that got me thinking today was a recent musing from hugo about marriage, money, joint accounts and feminism. obviously, given my marriage ramblings of last month, the topic caught my attention. in this one, hugo responds to a few other posts involving money and marriage, and uses personal anecdote (as he does so often, and so well!) to examine the issue of the role of finances in a marriage. in his marriage (and his three previous ones - hugo's an interesting guy), finances are completely blended, and he ultimately argues for the value in that. his comment thread has some good contrasting viewpoints, as well as some relevant identifications of how class-based privilege could be factoring into his argument.

i don't have much else to say about it now, other than that for me, the discussion also raised (or re-framed) some serious questions about what marriage is about, and the different ways in which one could (should? would? how now brown cow!) conceptualize the institution.

3) my AdRants Daily email alerted me to this new campaign, Buy Less Crap, which is in response to the Bono and Oprah endorsed (RED) consumer-friendly charity campaign. my first unmitigated response was "thank you, thank you, thank you." as someone who toils away raising money for causes as a professional livelihood, the recent boom in cause marketing and consumer-driven (and consumer-connected) philanthropy makes me uneasy. i mean, no more than 17% of they money you spend on your (RED) motorola phone actually goes to charity - 83% goes in motorola's pocket. so Buy Less Crap cuts out the middle corporate man, and provides direct links to donate to the charities (RED) supports. brilliant!

the only thing that tempered my happiness with this initiative is the reason it was in AdRants in the first place - its ad campaign. the print ad featured in the AdRants email was a naked woman (sigh), cleverly concealing herself with her own arms (double sigh), with the word "(RED)ICU(LESS)" stamped over her. i thought, god damn it, you nice liberal causes with good progressive intentions! can you please try to achieve your aims without exploiting a woman's body, just once??

but then again, when you go to their site, two of the three posted print ads are naked guys. so while overall, i am certainly tired of the "naked people, ooooh, shocking!" marketing motif that many liberal/left-ish companies and organizations continue to buy into, at least it seems like Buy Less Crap is being somewhat egalitarian about their attempts at mass market titillation.

4) there is no number four. i kinda can't believe how long it took me to just write those three. when the portion of your brain that houses things like "thesaurus" and "sentence structure" starts shutting down by 8:30 pm, you know you're getting old.

aggressively defensive - for more than just driving!

if it makes me laugh out loud, i put it up here for your reading pleasure. as always, from Overheard in New York:

Tourist woman to crowd of pedestrians: No, don't cross! Here comes the big red hand!

--51st & 5th

Overheard by: Micaela

can't you practically hear the very mild, yet undeniably present, hysteria in her voice?

here's my thing: i'm all for obeying traffic laws. really. but there is a certain...flexibility with rules that one needs to have while in the city in order to a) get anywhere and b) survive. and honestly, it's more about awareness than anything else. i was shaking my head just this morning at a girl, during rush hour, wandering along the sidewalk and arriving at the corner totally oblivious to the onslaught of pedestrians (myself included) coming at her from the perpendicular crosswalk. i almost ran into her, because she made no attempt at adjusting her strides to the oncoming foot traffic - she was in her own little walking world. and i'm sorry, when you're in the midst of thousands of people both in cars and on foot who are trying to get somewhere, that is a really bad state in which to be.

phew. didn't realize that had annoyed me as much as it apparently did. moral of the story is, ignore the big red hand all you like, but just have a fucking clue what's around you while you do!