I Just Need To Get It All Out

Y'know those days when everything goes wrong? Like, when taken individually, those things aren't the end of the world, but when strung together in sequence, they make for a tear-fest at night?

I just had one of those days.

I get to work late this morning. I'm cold. There's a lunch-and-learn seminar in the conference room, so I have to take my lunch break an hour late. I don't get to take my daily walk to Fed Ex, because no one has any Fed Ex packages. Half an hour before closing time, somebody dumps a huge project on my desk and says, "Get it done before you leave." I rush around to try and get it done, and then, as I look up and realize that I'm out of time and I STILL haven't closed up the office for the night and I'm going to be late getting home, the person changes his mind about the project, anyways.

I don't remember if I turned my heater off, and if I didn't, I'll get yelled at for it tomorrow. I remember this right as I get back to the seminary.

I get home, and it's my night to make dinner, since Adam is in class until 9. I decide to make French bread pizzas— and I need French bread and pasta sauce. I also want to get some more flour to make cookies.

I go to Chelsea Market, and as I try to walk in, a man in a fancy suit stops me and tells me the Market is closed "for a private party." I look around and see rich people and limos. Huh.

So I head for Western Beef, the cheap grocery store near the projects. They're out of French bread. Double huh.

So now I have to walk to the only grocery store around with French bread: Whole Foods. I love Whole Foods, but I hate Whole Foods, if you know what I mean. It's expensive and crowded and on the complete opposite side of home. So while I walk there, I figure that I'll call my parents, to make me feel better.

I call, and my mom tells me that our cat Buster died today.

A man almost runs me over with a bike (because he was running a red light and I was crossing the street during a "WALK" signal like a GOOD PERSON) and he yells at me. That's right, HE yells at ME.

I get to Whole Foods. It is packed. I buy bread, pasta sauce, and flour. I wait in line for a very long time. As soon as the cashier calls "NEXT!" I go to the register. "How would you like to pay?" she asks.

"Cash," I say.

"Well, you need a different register for that," she says.

Great.

Finally, at a different register, the cashier puts all my stuff in one bag. I'm thinking, "Huh, one bag? That's a lot of heavy stuff for one little brown paper bag." But I don't say anything, because I'm tired of being yelled at today.

On my way home from Whole Foods, I stop at Rite-Aid to buy a birthday card for my sister and a sympathy card for my mom (she's very sad about the cat). I wait in line for another million years. As I approach the counter, an old lady cuts in front of me. Somehow, holding a large case of beer and being old means you get to cut EVERYONE.

I walk outside. I'm ready to go home.

My bag handle breaks. The bag hits the pavement with a crash.

I swear, and look inside the bag. The pasta sauce jar has smashed, and the bag of flour is split in half.

I cry.

However, I can't wipe my tears, because I have a broken bag filled with sticky pasta sauce and flour in my hands. I hoist the heavy, wet, sticky, floury bag into my arms and drag it home. I get to the gate. I've forgotten my swipe card.

I cry some more. I walk all the way around the entire perimeter of the campus so I can go into the front gate, the only other entrance to the campus, which is located on the complete opposite side of the entrance I just tried to access. I think I might have gotten sauce on my brand-new wool coat. I certainly got it all over the rest of me— my shoes, my pants, my shirt, the ends of my hair.

Right when I get to the gate, the soggy bag in my arms gives way entirely, and pasta sauce and flour splatter all over the ground. I look up just in time to see Adam's entire class walking out of a building to enjoy their ten-minute break. I am covered in crap, and everyone on campus is staring at me.

Adam helps me get upstairs. He hugs me and tells me it will be all right.

Now I am tired, hungry, and the owner of two greeting cards with pasta sauce all over them.

I had this whole great post planned out for tonight— I really did. It was totally deep and meaningful. And now it'll have to wait, because I only have one thought in my head right now:

I hate this day.

Weight Loss v. Health

Today, I listened as a middle-aged man at work disparaged fat people.

"Why is there so much obesity down South?" he asked my boss, a lovely, kind, gentle, and very skinny woman who hails originally from Louisiana. She stammered back something about diet and lifestyle. The gentleman continued to wonder aloud how people could possibly get to be fat. "How could you let yourself be that unhealthy?" he asked.

At that moment, I recalled an article I read a few weeks ago. It discussed the newest trend in fad dieting among women: acting as though your diet is simply a health plan, not actually a diet at all. The idea, of course, is that being anorexic is shallow, but being "healthy" (i.e., relying on the pseudoscience of "detoxing" and "fasting") is acceptable:

“Most women here are at all times either on a diet, thinking about one, reading about one or hearing about one their friends are on,” says Kathy Kaehler, a fitness and food coach in L.A. who works with Julia Roberts and other celebrities. But there’s a hitch. Even in this city, if you go on too many diets, your friends will start to think that you are vain, have an eating disorder or are just plain annoying. As a result, women here are—superficially, anyway—forswearing dieting and embracing a new euphemism for it: cleansing. Sure, you’re still expected to fit into those size 00 jeans, but instead of merely being super skinny, now you’re supposed to be skinny and healthy."

As I read the list of things that women have been consuming exclusively to lose weight (lemon juice diets, for example, or the lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper combination that is apparently known as the "master cleanse"), I thought about this film we saw in middle school health class. The film was one of those classic cautionary educational films that showcase kids getting in to trouble (via drugs, eating disorders, or pregnancy) and then either dying horribly or redeeming themselves through repentance and hard work. Anyways, the girl in the film was anorexic, and all she would eat was popcorn. She said to her friend, "It hardly has any calories, but it makes me feel full!"

How is drinking nothing but lemon juice any different from eating nothing but popcorn?

It seems that we've conflated "skinny" with "healthy," and that's worrisome, because sometimes skinny is as far from healthy as it can be. Sure, we have a national obesity epidemic on our hands, and that's obviously something about which we should be concerned. But shouldn't the focus be on promoting a healthy lifestyle (exercise, a balanced diet of whole foods, knowing your body and how to interpret what it's telling you) instead of just promoting weight loss itself?

At a certain point, and under certain conditions, weight loss can be BAD. I'm underweight; my account on Keas suggests I might want to discuss this with my doctor. My low weight is the result of how my body works, not a diet; I eat like a horse, and I'm still underweight. But I'm constantly being told that my body represents a healthy ideal, and, simultaneously, I feel the pressure to ALWAYS be thinking about how to lose weight. Even though I know I'm skinny and that my goal should be to find out what's causing this underweight situation (Keas suggested Celiac Disease), I'm simultaneously being told that the way I look is the way I SHOULD look, and that I should be considering ways to lose even more weight. The message being driven home by the media these days is that weight loss is always supposed to be in the back of your mind, not necessarily healthy living.

Can't we all just agree that being healthy is good— but that being healthy entails actually consuming food at some point?

The progress (and lack thereof) of feminism

This morning, as I was enjoying a lazy Saturday in bed with my coffee and my newspaper, I came across an article in the New York Times Book Review. The review tackled Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present, and the reviewer, Amy Bloom, did a fabulous job of making me want to run out to the bookstore and pick up a copy.

Some of the excerpts from the book were startling— it’s strange to think about how different things were in 1960. Women my age tend to assume that, although subtle sexist overtones color many contemporary interactions, overt sexism was something that belonged to a sepia past when women wore corsets and hoopskirts and were thought to be physically unfit for public office because of their occasional "fits of hysterics."

But today, while reading this review, I learned that in 1960, a woman named Lois Rabinowitz went to traffic court to pay her boss’ speeding ticket. That in itself is fairly offensive, but not really all that different from what bosses do to secretaries today— I’m always being told to make reservations for my boss, or buy gifts for his grandchildren, or have his wife’s car picked up from the dealership. No, the really shocking part is what happened when she got to court: the judge rebuked her for wearing pants. Then he “instructed her husband to use a tighter rein and told reporters that it upset him to see ‘women tearing themselves down from this pedestal.’”

This happened in 1960. 1960! My own mother was six years old then…old enough to be absorbing cultural messages about gender inequality.

In fact, it was from my mother’s experiences that I first learned how tenuous and recent our steps towards gender equality have been. When my mother was a teenager, she had two passions: science and cooking. Her school guidance counselor told her that women weren’t supposed to enjoy the former; her own mother, my fiercely feminist grandmother, occasionally insinuated that intelligent women weren’t supposed to like the latter. (My grandmother, by the way, may have come to this conclusion simply because she happened to hate cooking, herself.)

What was my mother to do? She failed her introductory physics class in her freshman year of college; later on, my grandfather would tell me that the reason she failed was because her male teacher didn’t believe women could be scientists, and so he failed every single woman in the class. (By the way, this was in the 70s, not in some bygone era.) My mother moved on to history and got her Masters, but then, when she married and had kids, she and my father faced a stark reality: he was likely to make more money than she was, so it made more sense for her to be the stay-at-home parent. She loved cooking and sewing, of course, and was willing to do those things; later on, when I was old enough to ask her why she’d stayed home with us instead of going back to work, she’d said, “As soon as I saw you, I didn’t WANT to be away from you. Ever.” Yet I’ve always been aware that, as voluntary as her housewifery has been, and as happy as she has been as a stay-at-home mom, the decision to stay home was still, in some small measure, predicated on the assumption that a man would have better job prospects than a woman.

My mother went back to work, full-time, after I left for UWC, although she also continued to be a full-time mom to my two younger sisters. This year, however, she’s scaled her hours back to part-time, mostly so she can spend more time at the house with my youngest sister, Sarah, who is sixteen.

Anyways, the point of all this is that we rarely think about how much has been accomplished for women’s rights just in the last fifty years. We’ve come to make up half of the workforce and half (and often more than half) of the freshman class at most universities. We’re a potent political force (potent enough, for example, to cause the 2008 McCain presidential campaign to inadvertently insult us by bringing Sarah Palin onto the ticket in a botched attempt to woo ladies to the GOP), and we’ve gotten most of the country to at least pay lip service to the idea that men and women can be equal partners in relationships, at work, and in civil society.

Of course, we still have a long way to go before we’re really afforded the ability to choose what we want to do with our lives as completely as men can. After I read the review article, Adam began watching To The Contrary With Bonnie Erbé, on PBS, and the topic of the day was, fortuitously, women in the GOP. The talk began with a discussion between four women— one liberal, one conservative, one moderately liberal, and one moderately conservative— about women in the workplace. Several important points about the predicaments of modern women were examined: a Democratic representative pointed out that, while the conservatives were right that being a parent is a “full-time job,” it isn’t fair to expect women either shoulder both their career job and their parenting job, or to choose between the two. I mean, only three percent of stay-at-home parents are dads. Articles about how the recession has apparently “shaken up” gender roles have popped up everywhere in the media this year— interesting, since the reporters writing the story (and the folks they’re interviewing) seem to take as a given that most women would rather stay home with children and most men would rather be the breadwinners. (For example, check out this article; it made me sad when I read the quote from a woman who says she doesn’t “want to see [her husband] in an apron” because she’s “lost so much respect for him” since he lost his job and became a stay-at-home dad. Wow— I feel sorry for the dude, to have married such a judgmental and shallow lady.) If we’re really seeing this amazing shift in gender roles, how come people still give me confused (or angry) looks when I talk about how my husband does the housework and cleaning, how he packs my lunch everyday? How come, in my year of working as a temporary secretary, have I never met a single male working in the same role I am? How come every single person I’ve been working to replace— every single secretary that has come before me at one job or another— has been a woman? How come every single boss I’ve had— every single company owner I’ve ever worked for— has been a man?

Paradoxically, eliminating chauvinistic behavior has become more difficult in light of the shift in attitudes that has come about since the 1960s. Nowadays, being identified as a sexist or a chauvinist is something people want to avoid, so they’ll couch their preconceptions in vaguely optimistic language, like, “Of course we need women in the workplace, but…” or “We all know that women and men are equal— except…” The conservative talking head on To The Contrary initially began talking about how women ought to start “taking responsibility” not to have children with a partner who doesn’t want to share in childcare: "Too often women are desperate to get married, and they end up in dysfunctional relationships with men who aren’t willing to help out.” When the Democratic councilwoman quickly countered with, “So, you’re saying that women ought to have unrestricted access to abortion and contraception, then?” the conservative hastily stammered something to the effect that she REALLY was talking about the evils of single parenthood and out-of-wedlock births, effectively calling all single moms terrible people for not trying hard enough to make their marriages work or for having sex outside of marriage.

But while we still have a long way to go before we achieve true equality, it’s good to remember that we’ve already done so much to advance gender equality. In 1960, I wouldn’t have had all the opportunities I have now. It would have been even harder to keep my last name after I married. (Hey, just ask my mom about that one.) I might have been chastised for wanting to work after marriage. I might be expected to be popping out a kid by now, too, and not focusing on my writing and my career objectives.

Let’s not stop working for equality…but let’s not forget to look back and enjoy our successes, our triumphs, our hard work— and what we’ve managed to accomplish in so short a period of time.

My Sister Rocks!

I spoke to my sister Sarah today, and she told me a very interesting story.

Apparently, several kids wore anti-choice shirts to her school last week, complete with Bible verses (though I'm curious as to which verses they chose, considering the Bible doesn't discuss abortion). This week, a few of Sarah's friends wore pro-choice shirts in retaliation, and included slogans about keeping one's religion away from their bodies.

The pro-choice kids were suspended. The anti-choice kids were not.

The rationale for this was, apparently, that the pro-choice shirts were made using fabric markers, which counts as writing on one's clothes, and is therefore banned by the dress code. The anti-choice shirts, however, were professionally made.

I'm still in the process of collecting information on this, so I can't confirm any information via school officials until I make a few calls tomorrow. But I just wanted to use this opportunity to address a few people.

First off, I'm truly skeptical that the pro-life kids came up with this idea on their own. Making some shirts out of a few Wal-Mart tees and some puffy paint/fabric markers is one thing; wearing professionally made shirts is another thing altogether, and suggests to me that these kids were either encouraged by their parents or acting as part of some incendiary group as a reaction against that guy who got shot outside a high school last month. I mean, how many high school kids do you know who pool their allowance in order to buy religiously motivated tee-shirts? Why isn't the school talking to the parents of these kids?

Secondly, I say to the school district: this is amateur bullshit. Suspending one politically active group of kids over another— are you freaking kidding me? Are you asking for public ridicule? It's obvious to anyone with a brain that if any of these kids sue you, the mainstream media are going to turn Struthers into a circus. It doesn't even matter how the trial goes, whether or not the school is held responsible— because if there ever is a trial, this makes the entire city of Struthers look like backwards, ignorant extremists. How could you ever let it get this far? Why wouldn't you simply suspend both groups, or leave both alone? Why did you have to make such a stupid, obvious screw-up?

But mad props go to my sister Sarah, who, by the way, doesn't seem particularly pro-choice to me. In our conversations together, she's always been very against abortion. But it clearly upset her that the school is so blatantly playing favorites, and that her friends are being punished for standing up for their beliefs, and so she told me this today, over the phone, as she baked a Halloween-themed cake.

More kids ought to be like Sarah. More kids ought to be able to look at a situation and say, "Well, while I agree with the sentiment, the ways in which this was executed have really been unfair and unjustified." I'm so proud of her— at sixteen, she's clearly already a critical thinker, and she's clearly able to make up her own mind (it can't be easy being pro-life when your own grandmother had an abortion) and to recognize when other people might be right, even if she disagrees with them in other ways.

So the real hero of the day is not the pro-choice movement or the pro-life movement; it's Sarah, and how smart and brave she's been in standing up for what she believes is fair.

NaNo Update

I haven't blogged in FORVER! Chalk it up to NaNo taking over my soul-- between working full-time and trying to hang out with my husband and squeezing in novel-writing in the moments in between, it hasn't been easy to find a moment to post here.

I'm almost at 30,000 words-- which is still 3000 behind schedule, but better than last week, when I was almost 6000 words behind at one point. I'm hoping to catch up to my goal this weekend (although Adam is making me go to some stupid football game in New Haven, so I'll have to work around that), especially since my mom sent me a STARBUCKS GIFT CARD! Now I can indulge my obsession while writing beautiful prose! (By the way, their pumpkin scones? AMAZING.)

I've also found some nice sources of inspiration-- I tried a lot of the stuff you guys suggested to get rid of writer's block, and I've also begun talking to other people and asking them what they'd like to see happen in the novel. For instance, I was planning to have the priest's wife commit suicide at the end, but my mom detested that move-- she thought it was too cliche, and also waaaaaay too much of a bummer. So we decided that I would kill the mean old church lady off instead, and have the priest experience a spiritual revelation while sitting at her bedside.

I've been listening to religion lectures from Yale University on my way to work, and that has helped me come up with some good ideas, too.

Really, the hardest part about NaNo is finding the damn TIME to write. I get up at 7, take a shower and have breakfast, get dressed, brush my teeth, and leave for work at 8. I get to work by quarter of nine, and I'm at my desk until noon. I can write over my hour-long lunch break, but then I'm back at my desk until 5:30, and I don't get home until about 6:20. Then I have to either make dinner (2 nights per week) or help Adam cook/wash dishes (3 nights per week), and a lot of times I have to help him tidy up a bit before we eat. So really, I don't get to sit down and write in the evening until 8, and even then I'm so tired that I can't do much more than stare blankly at my computer screen and listen distractedly to whatever Adam's watching on television.

Usually weekends are better, but tomorrow we'll be gone from 7 a.m. until about 6 p.m. (I'm a REALLY GOOD WIFE, going to a stupid football game three hours away), and then on Sunday we'll be at church in the morning/early afternoon, so who knows how much time I'll have? And of course, Thanksgiving will take up next weekend; I'll have to spend much of that time cooking or entertaining my mother-law, sister-in-law, and cousin-in-law, all of whom are coming for the holiday.

Fellow writers: how do you find the time?

Someone Help Me!

I'm stuck.

I'm 15,000 words into my NaNo draft, and I've got nothing left. The first section is done, but the second is barely begun, and I've no idea where to go from here.

Anyone have any tips on besting writer's block?

Anyone for a write-in?

Are any New York City NaNo-ers considering going to the write-in next Saturday in Manhattan? I think it's from 2 PM to 6 PM.

I'd really like to go, but I'm shy in person, so it makes me nervous to think about meeting new people. It'd be cooler if I could go and meet up with people I already know, even if I only know them from the internet.

Anyone? Alternatively, does anyone want to create a new write-in just for us? We could go to a cafe or something. Or just sit in my apartment.

Also, when did I become shy? Before about seventeen, I was totally NOT.

The Sweet Triumphs and Bitter Failures of NaNoWriMo

I have two items to discuss here, both on the subject on NaNoWriMo (although the second one is only tangentially related):

1. Dear NaNo writing buddies: STOP BEING SO AWESOME. Everyone else on my buddies' list has, like, 15,000 words already, and I have a little more than 5,000. I was so proud of myself for not falling TOO far behind the daily goals that the stats application on the website suggests, and then I saw my friends' stats and felt horrible.

Why am I not as cool as you guys? WHY? And how do I become more like you?

This novel stuff is teh hard works, yo. I should return to the safe, fluffy world of form poetry, where I belong.

2. After I leave work today, I'll be getting on a bus and going to visit Claire, who, as you all are well aware, is incredibly awesome. My trip will last two hours, so I intend on getting some real, concrete novel-writing done. To facilitate this process, I am allowing myself a rare treat:

I'm going to Starbucks.

Many of you know that I have an inexplicable obsession with Starbucks, mostly because the area where I grew up only had one and my family hardly ever went out for stuff like that, and so it always felt special and exciting to go there. Plus, I like any combination of too much sugar and too many calories in one large, caffeinated beverage.

However, my love for Starbucks must frequently go unconsummated, since A) my husband hates hates hates it, and B) I am poor, and cannot afford such luxuries on a regular basis. Perhaps when Adam and I have clawed our way up from the lower middle class into the world of shabby-but-financially-secure academia, I will be able to indulge myself more often. For now, this is a treat I have not had in over a year.

Today, though, I am going to Philadelphia, and I have two hours in between my arrival home from work and my bus' departure time. I will be away from Adam all weekend (he's going to be in Connecticut for a retreat thingy) and I will be sad about this, and thus need some beverage-related cheering before I step onto the bus. And of course, I neeeeeeed coffee to be able to write. Right?

So here is my question: I heard through the grapevine (i.e., Facebook) that seasonal lattes may have made an appearance at Starbucks today. Can anyone confirm the return of the pumpkin spice latte? Or, more importantly, the peppermint mocha latte?

Title Help?

As I've previously mentioned here, I'm not very good with titles-- usually I either come up with a title that I never actually develop into a poem/story, or else I write a cool poem/story and then can't think of a suitably cool title. I spent months trying to title my thesis, and in the end, I was still unhappy with what I chose. But I feel like this whole novel thing will be a lot easier if I have a title first, so that I can kind of weave all the themes together with that aspect in mind.

So I wanted to run a few titles by you guys, to see what you think. (And yes, I know book titles should be underlined/italicized instead of contained in quotation marks, but my text formatting buttons won't show up on PNN today for some reason...)

1. "Heavenly Country"

This comes from the Eucharistic part of the Episcopal prayer book; the priest implores God to "bring us to that heavenly country, where with [insert names of some of the priest's favorite saints] and all your saints we may enter the everlasting heritage of your sons and daughters." I'm planning on having Simon, the main character (who is an Episcopal priest) do a little reflection on what "that heavenly country" would be like, if you could get there right now. Might be confusing as a title, though-- I wouldn't want people to think they were about to read an inspirational religious tract and end up with a novel about a mentally ill preacher's wife.

2. "World Without End"

This is also from the Book of Common Prayer, and comes at the end of an invocation. I like this title, mostly because it just sounds so pretty (I love how Anglicans never can just say "forever," or "always"-- we have to say "world without end" or "everlasting") but it's already the title of a British novel about the Black Death, so I dunno.

3. "This Fragile Earth"

Again, this comes from the prayer book, specifically from Eucharistic Prayer C, when the celebrant discusses the grandiosity of the world God has allowed to come into being: "the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile Earth, our island home." It's always been one of my favorite passages-- I mean, I'm one of those people who can see science as an expression of God, not as an enemy of faith, and this sentence captures the beauty and terror of our world, as well as the frightening and fascinating delicacy of our civilization's very existence. The way the planet is described here-- "fragile," an "island,"-- suggests so strongly the need to protect it, to be good stewards of what we've been given, and to appreciate all that we have, as it's really pretty amazing that we have it.

Again, though, I don't want to confuse people-- I would hate to have folks think they're reading an environmental tract by, like, Al Gore, only to discover, disappointingly, that they've only found a third-rate novel written by some chick with a totally ridiculous pen name.

I'm putting up a poll on the side-- please help me out by voting for the title you like best. If you don't like any of them, suggestions are welcome! I'd like to stick to the whole religious theme, but it doesn't have to be an Episcopal, or even Christian, reference.

Please Note

I just want to clarify that the advertisement at the top of this page (the one that claims that the shadowy gay agenda wants to "teach homosexual marriage" in Maine's schools) was not my idea, and is not endorsed by this blog. I've had several awkward and/or inappropriate ads appear at the top of my page in the past, but this one really takes the cake, as I am a vehemently PRO-GAY MARRIAGE BLOGGER.

I am in the process of trying to discover where this ad has originated (is this something run through Google Ads? Does anyone know?) and contacting the advertisers to let them know that I am offended that this ad has appeared on my blog. For the time being, however, please note that the sentiments contained in said ad do not reflect the opinions of this blogger (or, I am sure, the opinions of this blogsite), and I urge you NOT to click the banner above this post.

"Teach homosexual marriage." Hrmph. As though they "teach" any kind of marriage in the schools! And as though teaching kids to be tolerant of others could ever be a BAD thing!

May I Have Your Attention Please

My darling readers, I have some somewhat insane news:

I'm going to try and do NaNoWriMo this year.

For those of you unfamiliar with this self-inflicted form of torture, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a project that requires a writer to churn out a 50,000-word novel between November 1st and November 30th. I'll be working on my crazy-priest's-wife novel, an early draft of which I submitted for a contest on PNN a long time ago.

Characters have been renamed, and section titles are already decided, but the novel's title is still up for debate. Any ideas?

Oh, and I'll be posting each day's work on my new NaNoWriMo tab, so enjoy.

I doubt that, between work and blogging about other stuff and hanging out with Adam and GOING TO PHILADELPHIA THIS WEEKEND TO VISIT CLAIRE, I will be able to finish this. But I'll at least try. Trying is good, right?

Okay. Here we go.

Let's do this thing.

(Fellow NaNoWriMos can add me as a writing buddy under the username phwalker.)

Have a Fun, Safe Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some up-close pictures of our Jack-o-Lanterns:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mine was a cat...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam's was a skull!

Enjoy your Halloween— go out and get a free taco, or go to a parade.

Pictures of Adam (as a cow) and I (as a milkmaid) will follow!

Vote NYC

As many of you will recall from the time we spent together during the 2008 election cycle, I take elections pretty darn seriously. There's nothing I love more than sitting down with a nice big voters' guide and teasing honesty out of the mountains of political-speak!

So even though we've only lived in New York for a little more than two months, I've already made my picks for the November election. Want to know about my favorite candidates? Of course you do!

 

A New Philosophy's political endorsements for the 2009 New York City elections:

 

For the office of mayor, A New Philosophy endorses: Frances Villar

I admit, I'm not really all that enthused about the two main candidates for mayor— Mike Bloomburg seems kind of scummy, and Bill Thompson is hard to get excited about, despite his endorsement from President Obama. So this year is a pretty good year to vote for a long-shot third party candidate— and Francis Villar seems cool to me.

A Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate, Villar is also a working mom and a college student. She believes in free, open education from Kindergarten through college, and wants to tax the Wall Street fat cats in order to help pay for the programs needed to combat the recession. And of course, she's a socialist, and I can't resist a socialist candidate for major public office. I mean, where else could you find a candidate who openly— proudly!— admits to being a socialist? I love this city!

For the office of public advocate, A New Philosophy endorses: Maura DeLuca

Another fabulous socialist, this time from the Socialist Workers' Party! I can't get enough of these socialist candidates, especially coming from a place where the only candidates ever to run for public office were Blue Dog Democrats or folksy, cowboy-boot-clad Republicans.

DeLuca emphasizes raising the minimum wage (yay!), nationalizing several different industries, and reinforcing a woman's right to choose. I'm not sure I'm behind ending ALL income taxes on workers (as long as it's proportional), but at least she's being specific— unlike Bill de Blasio, the only other acceptable candidate for Public Advocate. I like him, but his campaign promises tend to be more along the lines of, "I understand the importance of a quality education or "I will work to restore [a fair] vision to New York City," instead of, "I will do X, Y, and Z in order to accomplish these goals." DeLuca's specificity is what wins my vote.

 

For the office of comptroller, A New Philosophy endorses: John C. Liu

He's smart, he's qualified, he's competent, and he's the only liberal candidate for the office whose political party doesn't actually contain a swear word (cf. Salim Ejaz, of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. No, I am not making this up.)

For the office of Manhattan borough president, A New Philosophy endorses: Tom A. Baumann

Here is the entire reason for my endorsement (taken straight from Baumann's statement in the NYC Voters' Guide):

"I explain the need for a working-class revolution to take state power out of the hands of the propertied ruling class--the only answer to the expanding capitalist crisis and the frontal assault the capitalist rulers are beginning to wage against our class."

Plus he's, like, my age. AWESOME.

For the office of city council member (3rd district), A New Philosophy endorses: Christine C. Quinn

Not only is Quinn a gay activist— she's also tried (sadly, unsuccessfully) to get the stupid Ancient Order of Hibernians (what a silly name!) to let gay people march in the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. As chair of the Health Committee on city council, Quinn sponsored the Equal Benefits Bill (which required that city contractors provide the same benefits to domestic-partnered couples as they did to married ones) and the Health Care Security Act (which guaranteed health benefits for grocery workers).

Quinn is my kind of politician!

I still haven't decided how I feel about the ballot issues. Fellow New Yorkers— what do you think about the two ballot proposals?

It's Almost Here...

Tomorrow is the designated trick-or-treat day for the kids at the seminary, which means I'll have to hurry home from my doctor's appointment to help Adam hand out candy.

It also means Adam will be buying said candy from the store tomorrow— bags and bags of it. OMFG HALLOWEEN CANDY YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!

Seriously, folks, Halloween is all about the sugar. So many delectable sweets, so little time!

When I was little, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays; I loved choosing a costume, preparing for the big day, dressing up, getting free candy, and seeing all my friends look so different. Going to school was always awesome on Halloween— Power Rangers and black cats roamed the halls, and witches and doctors taught us math and science as we snacked on mini Snickers bars.

Of course, grown-ups were always trying to spoil the fun. My parents were usually pretty cool about it, and although they did ask to glance over my candy every year before I ate it, they never confiscated anything. (By the way, did you know that Halloween candy poisoning is an urban legend? I was interested to learn that the only recorded cases of poisoning through Halloween candy were intentional poisonings— like the dad who sprinkled poison in his son's Pixie Stix so he could collect on a life insurance plan he'd taken out in the boy's name.)

Some of my friends weren't so lucky. In elementary school, we all pitied the Jehovah's Witness kids, who had to leave the room and do math worksheets while the rest of us ate homemade cupcakes and played trivia games. In middle school, it was the evangelical kids (or the kids whose parents were extreme right-wing Catholics) who got sympathetic looks, since their parents banned the celebration of Halloween under the guise of "it's the devil's work!"

Now that I'm a grown-up, Halloween is definitely still fun, and I get to celebrate it however I want! We're going to go to the infamous Halloween parade in the village (we hear there might be drag queens there, and some of you may recall that my husband has a deep affection for drag queens— he says it "really takes balls to wear a tight dress and heels like that") and we're going to the campus Halloween party, too. Our costumes? A cow (Adam) and a milkmaid (me)!

As I write this, part of me looks forward in time— past this Halloween to Thanksgiving (my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law are coming to visit us) and Christmas (we're going back to Ohio to visit with family members from the 24th of December until the 3rd of January). And an even smaller, quieter part of me looks even further into the future, to a time when we have a little ghost or alligator or princess to take around the neighborhood, when my sisters and I can take our kids out together and spend time arguing about which of us let her child dress inappropriately or unseasonably this year. (I'm looking at you, Sarah! :P)

Holidays are fun, not just because of what you do during them, but because of who is there with you, and because it gives you a kind of window into both your past and your future— you can remember old childhood traditions and you can anticipate continuing those traditions with other people down the line. I just love the feeling of simultaneously being both young— with so much of my future ahead of me— and mature— with so many great memories of the past to remember.

Don't Know Where To Start

I really want to start running— not just a quick twenty minutes every other day, but as a real hobby. I've heard a lot of folks talking about their 5k and 10k races, and I'd really like to try it out!

But I don't really know how to go about it— how do you find races to run? This website has some advice, but no 5k races seem to be going on in NYC right now, and I'd like to start small.

Plus, how do I train? How long should I practice, and how many days per week? Will my asthma affect my training?

Also, I don't have enough money for any fancy gear or nice new shoes. All I have are old sweatpants, shoes I bought in sixth grade, and an iPod that's apparently already outdated despite the fact that I only bought it three years ago.

Starting new things is fun, but it's so hard and confusing sometimes!

So Poor People And Immigrants Don't Deserve Health Care?

Y'know, I thought I'd heard every single excuse that these anti-reform folks have concocted to prevent the advancement of health care reform. But here's a new one, brought to you by CNN:

"The president will use the money squeezed from Medicare to extend some form of coverage to the 35 million to 40 million people estimated to lack health insurance. And who are these people?

About one-quarter of them are foreign-born. Recent immigrants to the United States -- unlike the immigrations who arrived between World War II and 1970 -- have tended to be very low-skilled. Their labor is just not worth enough to their employers to support the high cost of an American health insurance plan: $13,000 a year, on average, for a family of four."

That's right: David Frum is arguing that people who are uninsured don't deserve medical coverage if they're 1) foreign-born Americans, or 2) people who never had a chance to go to college.

Who knew that conservatives thought only native-born, college-educated people deserve to be healthy? And wait, how is it that they're always accusing liberals of being "elitists"?

It gets even freakier and more xenophobic as you read on:

"Over the opposition of some 80 percent of the American people, your government allowed millions of poor newcomers to enter the country, many of them illegally. (Over the past 10 years, half of all immigrants to the United States have arrived illegally.)

These people cut the lawns of your more affluent neighbors, tended their babies, cleared their tables after their restaurant meals."

Does anyone else realize that a MAJOR NEWS OUTLET has published an editorial that says that poor people working service jobs don't deserve health insurance? That only wealthy people or the elderly should get to go to the hospital?

I officially give up. If this is the quality of the national debate over this issue right now, I'm done. Conservatives must not be taking this seriously if they're going to argue that a professor deserves to get affordable prescription drugs while a gardener or a nanny does not.

The most amusing part is that Frum is arguing that these poor people make so little money because they're somehow stupid, or unskilled. As a Bush conservative, this guy would probably oppose raising the minimum wage or increasing federal grants to help poor people go to college— and yet he thinks the poor shouldn't have health insurance precisely because they're apparently worth so little as unskilled workers. How does his head not explode from the cognitive dissonance?

This is not a serious argument, and I'm offended that CNN even allowed this to be published. Guys, when you've come up with some real talking points, come talk to me.

Crossed Fingers...

So...I applied for another job. And this job really is my dream job— because it's right here at the seminary!

I was surfing Idealist.org, just looking for volunteer stuff, and I figured, hey, why not look at the jobs, just to see what else is out there? After all, my job isn't bad, but it's basically New York City minimum wage, it's a long-ass commute, and I don't do anything really challenging or exciting. I know these aren't valid complaints, and I know I should simply be appreciative that I have a job in the first place...but if I can find something better, shouldn't I at least give it a try?

So I entered "New York City" into the city/town box, and I chose "Religious, Spiritual, and Metaphysical Issues" from the drop-down list of potential employment sectors.

And the first thing that came up, at the very top of the page, was an administrative job (database manager/administrative assistant) at General Theological Seminary.

I applied, of course, and really, how perfect would this be? I'd go from having a forty-five minute walk to a five-minute cross-campus stroll. I'd be able to participate in seminary life in the same way other spouses can (which is currently prevented by my work schedule, as I leave at 8 am and don't get back until 6:30 pm). Bad weather would never be an issue, and I'd always be home for dinner on time. My vacations would correspond more closely with Adam's vacations from school. And I'd be doing smart person things, with more responsibility and more challenging projects, in a field I love and for the Church to which I have devoted so much of my life. Plus, how good would this job look on an application to a seminary?

I would be great for this job, which is why I will naturally never, ever get it. Every single great job for which I've applied has been out of my reach, apparently. I never ever hear back from most employers, let alone get interviews. This job I have now I found through a temp agency, and I consider myself lucky to have found it at all, even though it's not remotely what I want to be doing in the long term. Most of the people I know from Vassar are now unemployed (like some of my Vassar acquaintances, who haven’t even been able to snag wait staff jobs here in New York), underemployed (i.e., paid $7/hour or kept on part-time status so the company can save money) or employed at a company they hate, with a boss they hate, doing things they hate. Really, I'm incredibly lucky— at least I don't hate my job, and I really really like some of my co-workers, and it's not horribly stressful or anything.

But this other job...oh, I dunno. I hate to get my hopes up, only to have them dashed again. I don't even know if seminary spouses are allowed to apply or not. And maybe they'd rather give the job to someone older or something.

It's just...some shit has been going down here, lately, shit that I can't post about here, because it's about someone else, but also about me, too...oh, it all sounds confusing, but the important part is that I feel like I could really use a little good luck.

And maybe a nice new job.

Yoga Cats

I'm telling you— I'm turning into a crazy cat lady. I talk to my cats. I play games with my cats. I have a special spot for my cats on the bed. Adam and I refer to one another as "daddy" and "mommy" when addressing the cats directly.

I even do yoga with my cats.

Apparently, my cats like yoga! I've been using it for stress relief, and every single time I get out the mat, the cats run over to stare at me with bemused, fascinated expressions.

Lenore even appears to do the poses with me. When I lie on my back, she lies on hers; when I sit up to do seated positions, she sits up with me.

Charlotte will usually watch nearby, although occasionally she will become incredibly agitated and alarmed if I lie still on the floor for too long, and will begin to paw at me and yowl. Sometimes she even pulls on my hair with her teeth. My theory is that she thinks I'm lying still on the ground because hurt; after all, whenever I'm very upset and I start to cry, she does the same thing. Once Adam was tickling me on the couch and I was squeaking with shrill laughter, and Charlotte seemed to think I was screaming and that Adam was hurting me, because she RACED into the room, terrified, and began mewing hysterically and pawing at my head.

My cats are not people, and I'm aware of that. But they ARE intelligent, and they DO have emotions, and they even recognize words and phrases. I think most animals do.

For example, I was hanging out with a few other seminary gals this evening, and the hostess' dog was really, really shy. When I asked why she was so shy, I was told that she was originally from Cuba, and had been horribly mistreated as a puppy.

"If a car is going down the street blaring merengue music, she becomes upset," the hostess told me. "If there's a guy outside the building speaking Spanish, she freaks out."

It's not the first bilingual dog I've ever met, either— when I was in France, the family I stayed with had a dog who had once belonged to an English lady. The dog responded to commands in both English and French, and knew certain words (walk, dinner, toy) in both languages. Sometimes, that damn dog was the only person in the whole house with whom I could converse in English.

I know that we anthropomorphize animals to a large extent, but still, it's remarkable how intelligent they are, and how startlingly human they can seem at times.

The Skinny On Skinny

Today, I splashed water on my face, glanced up at the bathroom mirror, and finally realized that I'm beautiful, and also that it doesn’t matter.

See, ever since I got to college and started reading Cosmopolitan, I've always been slightly nervous about my body. Prior to that, I never really thought much about it— I knew I wasn't fat and I knew I was relatively healthy and I knew I had nice eyes, and really, I thought, what more does one need?

And then came college, a place where boys [and girls!] looked at me, checked me out, hit on me, and I figured out that my propensity for small meals and walking everywhere had apparently given me a pretty slammin' body. On the one hand, this was good, because I could fit into all the tiny sizes in the store (and it's always the tiny sizes and the extra-large sizes that are left on the rack— never the in-between sizes!) and, if I was absolutely starving, I could eat many, many slices of pizza without having to endure shocked or disgusted stares from passersby.

On the other hand, I suddenly sensed this incredible pressure to STAY THIN. See, as a modern young American, I'm constantly bombarded by the media, by society, with two overwhelming messages. One is LOSE WEIGHT and the other is KEEP IT OFF. I am frequently accosted by well-meaning colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances who praise my body, always faintly insinuating that I better work hard to keep that body, or else, when I get older, I'll turn into a pile of fat, slushy Jello.

For example, take the interaction I had at work today with one of the bosses, a man in his late fifties. (By the way, this was the same guy I discussed in my previous blog on "cleansing" diets.) Today, he spoke to me about the need to "exercise and eat right, so [one] won't get fat." As he spoke, I began to feel almost panicked; I cursed the decision I'd made earlier that morning to wear long johns under my pants, thereby enlarging my ass to twice its normal size.

As I went about my day at work, I began thinking more and more about weight, and about how my fears of "getting fat" had originally come to be. I mean, EVERYTHING is about weight loss now, isn't it? When I turn on the TV, I see commercials for weight loss programs, pills, books. When I open a magazine, I there are hundreds of skinny women looking back at me, some of them much older than I am (and who have given birth to multiple children). The "plus-sized" models on America's Next Top Model look barely any larger than I am. Even the beloved cartoon characters of my childhood have lost weight recently.

Do you know how twisted it is for me to be worrying about this? I mean, look at how skinny I am:

Yeah. For real. I'm the kind of skinny that makes doctors order blood tests. (No, seriously.) I'm the kind of skinny that gets you kicked out of a fitness center. I'm the kind of skinny that sometimes makes me resemble a stick insect.

And that's the problem: I'm a fluke, a freak of nature, and yet I find myself constantly being held up to other people as an IDEAL. "Philosophy, you're so thin!" people say to me, and it's clear that they admire that, that they want that. And the whole time, I'm thinking, "You DO realize that I'm clinically underweight, right? You do realize that I'm LESS healthy than a person with a normal weight, do you not? You DO realize that this ISN'T WHAT YOU SHOULD BE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?"

And it also makes me nervous, because, hell, if having an accidentally skinny body is what makes me so awesome, then what happens when, six or seven years down the line, I start to plump up a bit? What happens when the baby weight comes, when I'm so busy with being a mom and the wife of the Bishop of New Zealand and writing my fourth best-selling collection of poems (entitled, "Shut The Hell Up And Do What I Say") that I don't have time to exercise three days per week? Is my thinness the only pretty thing about me? What happens when that's gone?

What happens if I lose what, in Amy March's words, was my "one beauty"?

And then, this evening, I washed my face in the sink, and I patted it dry with a towel, and I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and I realized that even though I had no glasses on, even though my eyes were puffy from allergies and lack of sleep, even though my hair hadn't been washed in awhile and it was pulled up into a messy rat's nest of a bun— I'm still beautiful. I'm a beautiful lady. I really am. It doesn't matter how much I weigh— I'm beautiful like this, but I will be beautiful at any weight, really, and my husband will think I'm beautiful at any weight. I can finally see some real beauty there.

And then, just as suddenly, I realized that none of this matters, because ultimately, nothing that is important about me can be seen on my face. I'm smart, and I'm well-read, and I'm a great poet and a nice person and deeply curious about everything and everyone.

And none of that is reflected back at me in the mirror. None of that is obvious in the curve of my hips or thighs. None of it shows up on the scale.

Positive self-affirmation about my physical looks feels good, but it doesn't matter, because my looks don't matter. At all. What matters is that I'm happy, and healthy, and content with what I have in my life.

Philosophy: By The Numbers

GPA: 3.6
IQ: 159
Height: 5'2''
Weight: 98 lbs.
Favorite numbers: anything even (but especially 10 and 20)
Languages spoken: 2
School systems attended (from Kindergarten to college): 4
Cats: 5 (4 in permanant residence at my parents' home, one temporarily crashing at their place until I become truly employed)
Foreign countries visited: 5
Jobs applied for: 0
Grad schools applied to: 2
Grad schools accepted at: 1
Grad schools attended: 0
Chance of life failure: 67.2%

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow!

I haven't had a haircut since May, and I think I'm going to grow it out for another few months, because I really really really want to do Locks of Love.

I've wanted to do Locks of Love for a long time now, but I had to wait a few years, because in high school I bleached my hair a lot, and I wanted to make sure that it had all grown out and been cut off before I donated any hair (because apparently, bleach messes with the manufacturing process when they make the hair pieces).

Now, though, my hair is pretty long, and with a little bit more growing, I think it'll be long enough soon!

The only problem is that I don't know how I want it to look AFTER all the hair is cut off. At first I thought I wanted to shave my head, but Adam says he likes my hair to, y'know, exist. He doesn't mind short hair, he says, but the shaved head thing might look a little funky on me. And while it's not like I'm forbidden from doing something my husband doesn't like (and he'll still think I'm hot no matter what!), I WOULD like him to enjoy my haircut.

So what should I do? I like this and this, but I don't know how good any of those would look on me.

If I wasn't working I could dye it pink again after I cut it— and that way it would at least feel familiar. But then, of course, I might get fired; administrative assistants in business suits aren't supposed to have pink hair. Stupid grown-up jobs! :)

Equality Now!

I'm deeply saddened by the fact that we couldn't be at the National Equality March this weekend! Check out photos from the march here on Jezebel.

The article on this march in the New York Times confused me, though. Why exactly is pressing for national movement on gay rights a DIVISIVE issue in the gay activist community?

To me, it's all about the national approach. As California has proven, state-by-state efforts can be reversed in a matter of months. As soon as we win one, we lose another. And I mean, if we wait for states like Alabama and Oklahoma to legalize gay marriage on their own, we'll be waiting a LONG ASS TIME, and I don't think that gay people in those states ought to be forced to wait any longer than gay people in more enlightened states.

Furthermore, I completely dismiss the entire "backlash" argument— that is, the argument that says that national action makes people feel threatened and causes them to turn against gay people violently. Um, that's already happening NOW. Gay people are already getting the crap beaten out of them for being who they are. I mean, it even happens in New York. Action MUST happen on the national level— and it must be enforced rigorously.

Anyways, I'm thrilled that the march happened, and I fail to understand why some people can't see the obvious parallels between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. As one of the signs at the march this Sunday pointed out, slavery was "tradition," too, as was treating black people like second-class citizens. We finally got over the urge to keep doing things the same old way after all, and now we have a black president! So don't you think it's possible for us to overcome the "it's always been this way" folks and advance the cause of gay rights rapidly and forcefully?

My favorite picture from the above link was the one with the couple whose shirts said, respectively, Together 17 years and Time to put a ring on it. Yes, it IS time. Seventeen years? If that couple had been heterosexual, their parents would be making awkward "so, when's the wedding?" jokes at Christmas by now. (Adam and I only dated a year before we got engaged, and people were already making awkward GETMARRIEDNOW sorts of comments.)

Let's put a ring on it, guys. It's time. Let's end "don't ask, don't tell"; let's open up adoption rights up to gay couples everywhere (and stop being rude to gay couples who do have kids); and, for goodness sakes, let's finally pass a national gay marriage law.

To Sisterhood

Today was my sister Tatiana's birthday... which is weird, since I still remember holding her in the hospital when she was born, and now she's gone and grown up into a real live adult and stuff.

I commemorated the day by 1) sending her a gift, 2) sending her a card in the mail, 3) writing on her Facebook wall, 4) calling her on the phone, and 5) watching the 1994 remake of Little Women and bawling my eyes out.

Growing up, Little Women was one of my favorite novels— I must have read it at least twenty times straight through before I hit twelve. I could see each of us in the March sisters— Sarah was Amy, with her cool blue eyes, her blonde hair, and her natural ability with people; Tatiana was shy, quiet Beth; and I was some unholy combination of Meg (vain, showy, determined, and always trying to mother everyone) and Jo (easy to anger, ease to please). And, of course, our mom was much like Marmee, with her insistence that we grow into the people we WANTED to be, not the people society told us to be.

Little Women explores a lot of interesting themes— it's a feminist book, for one thing, and the film version touches on this at several points, most notably when Jo, upon being told that her intelligence suggests that she ought to have been a lawyer, replies sadly, "I ought to have been a great many things." For another thing, it weaves in a lot of transcendentalist philosophy, something that the film acknowledges briefly as well.

But mostly, I love the book for its examination of sisterhood, something that many people profess to understand and yet few can accurately portray. It drives me nuts when books or movies depict sisters as either spiteful rivals or sappy best-friends-forever; in truth, I can think of no family relationship more complicated than sisterhood. Sisters can simultaneously love and resent one another; they can both fear and admire one another; they can be rivals and partners at the same time. It's because we're so similar in some ways and so different in others; my sisters all have my flashing, changeable temper (albeit perhaps not as violent tempers, overall), and so that makes it easy for a misunderstanding or a misstatement to escalate into a fight. We're also so different in tastes and preferences that we can sometimes have difficulty seeing eye to eye; Sarah loves Taco Bell and infomercials, Tatiana is a Wiccan vegetarian, and I'm a bookworm who's married to a priest.

But while we can often conflict with one another, we can also offer each other more love and understanding than anyone else alive. For some reason, even when we're hopping mad at one another, we still love one another. I guess that's what family means— that no matter how often you argue or disagree, you'll always still love one another fully and completely.

I miss my sisters every single day. I get letters (Sarah writes me beautiful handwritten snail-mail letters!) and emails and texts from them, but it's still not enough. I still wish I could spend the evening with them, watching "Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus" and self-translating Korean soap operas (hint: none of us speak Korean) and eating vegan marshmallows and playing board games (who else will play board games with you, other than a sister?) and piling onto my mom's bed to spend time together.

I won't pretend that we get along 100% of the time. Sometimes we drive each other crazy, and I'll admit, most of the time it's my fault— I can be hypercritical and hypersensitive and pushy and nosy and very, very loud, and that contributes to some small amount of discord among us. But the good times always outweigh the bad, and remembering them makes me wish for a nice long holiday when we can actually hang out together again. I mean, right now we're scattered across the country: I'm in Manhattan, Tati's attending college in Michigan, and Sarah's still in high school in Ohio. It's sad, missing people who are so close to you in spirit but so far away in the world.

So happy birthday, Tatiana: here's to you, and here's to sisters everywhere. Know that you are loved.

Nitifice!

When I was in sixth grade, I had a word collection. Every time I heard a cool word that I wanted to remember and use later on, I'd write it down in my Amazing Word Book. I had hundreds of amazing words by the end of that year— words I still love to use, like "loquacious" and "Sisyphean." My word collection became well known to the other nine kids in the gifted class, and sometimes they'd bring in suggestions for nifty words I could use.

I haven't thought about the collection in years, but today, when I stumbled upon Save the Words, I remembered how much fun it can be to use words that roll around in my mouth, words that drip off my tongue, words that make a boring day brighter. I mean, think about it: people are using textspeak ("U R Gr8!!!1") so often now that they don't even think about how beautiful some long, complicated, intricate words can be. You've heard of the Slow Food Movement, right? Well, let's have a Slow Words Movement. Let's enjoy the beauty and the music of our language to its fullest extent.

So here's my idea: everyone who reads this post should go to Save the Words and pick a word they love. (Alternatively, just pick a word that you've always enjoyed.) Then, use that word in a sentence this week, either in a comment on this post or in a post of your own.

My word is: nidifice, which means "a nest."

I shall now use it in a sentence: "Adam loves to keep the blankets on our bed neat; that's why he hates it when I pile up the pillows and make a nidifice out of our bedding."

I'm going to see if I can get that into a conversation at work! That'll keep 'em awake. :P

Now, tell me— what's your favorite word? What's a word you think we ought to use more often? What's your "adopted" word?

A Tale of Two Blogs

So guess what?

Claire is visiting me this weekend!

We're spending our weekend "doing work" (a.k.a., drinking wine and watching movies together); therefore, expect posting delays. Also, expect a Twilight snark collaboration project between our two blogs sometime soon.

Yay for friends!

Who On Earth Can Still Oppose Female Suffrage?

Y'know, I've always known that the far right is absolutely made of crazy, but usually they manage to hide that crazy underneath layers and layers of smooth rhetoric. Lately, though, I have to say, they're having a hard time keeping the insanity in check.

For example: did you know that John Derbyshire, a columnist for the conservative National Review, has recently written a book— a book that contains a section entitled, "The Case Against Female Suffrage"?

Apparently, according to a recent radio interview, Derbyshire thinks women shouldn't vote (damn, I can't believe I'm even writing this sentence) because 1) women tend to vote for Democrats (well, at least he's being pragmatic), and 2) because, in his words, "They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.”

Oh, but it gets better, because Ann Coulter also thinks we shouldn't vote. "It’s kind of a pipe dream," she said of eliminating the female right to vote; "It’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."

Ha! "Single women." Because we all know that married women never vote for Democrats, right? Clearly, she's never met my mother. Or my grandmother. Or my aunts. Or, y'know, me. (And y'know, it takes a lotta nerve to generalize the voting patterns of married women, considering that Coulter has never been married herself.)

If the Republican Party would just openly and officially break with these morons, we wouldn't have a problem. But you know what? Elected, mainstream, well-known Republicans continue to encourage and condone the things these insane folks say. And when you start talking about taking away women's voting rights, well, you've gone too far.

Pssssst...conservatives! Your crazy is showing!

What To Do, What To Do?

I may have made a career decision... I think I'll go back to school and get my PhD in theology once Adam's done with his degree.

Over this past year, I've realized that, while I love being a writer, I really need to learn some more stuff about which I can write. Whining about my feelings and arguing over politics on my blog or in online articles isn't gonna cut it forever, folks. Getting an advanced degree and becoming an academic would really give me a lot of opportunity to exercise my awesome writing abilities, and maybe even write a sweet book.

I've also realized (what with all the crappy day jobs and all) that I need a flexible job, a job where I can have less work in the summers, and time off over the holidays so we can go to Ohio and see our families (and later on, so we can take our kid to see his/her grandparents for Christmas), a job with benefits and job security. Being a professor provides all that— and I should know, since my dad's been a prof his whole life.

And of course, being a professor would satisfy my deep and abiding urge to show off just how smart I can be. Showing off would kind of be my JOB.

The problem is: how would we do this, logistically speaking? I'd have to wait another two and a half years, since SOMEONE has to be making the money to keep us from starving. And how willing are we to shoulder a SECOND debt burden? We already have these stupid school loans from Adam's degree, and we'll have to be paying those off ASAP. As many of you are aware, I don't like debt, and it's not like professors or priests make ridiculous amounts of money. (I mean, they do okay, but they don't make as much as, say, lawyers or doctors or businessmen.)

Also— where exactly would I go for this degree? I could go here to General for my M.A., but then I think I'd want to go somewhere a little bit bigger— like Union, or maybe Yale— for my PhD. I mean, I love General, but they seem more focused on practical-minded M.Div. students (i.e., future priests) than on people who are getting degrees just because they want to know more stuff.

And y'know, I'm worried— what if, after all this time, they don't WANT me? What if no school wants to take me? Who would I ask for letters of recommendation, anyway? It's not like my professors from Vassar will have a clear picture of my abilities after five years. What if divinity schools look at me and say, "Ewwwwwww, gross! She's lame!"

Ah, well. I guess I have a long time to think about it. Longer than I'd like, in fact. I can't wait till it's my turn for school! :D

No On Issue 2

My friend Erin May lives with her family out on Heron Hill Farm outside of Kent, Ohio, and yesterday, she sent this email (via Facebook) out to all her friends in Ohio. While I don't live in Ohio anymore, and I can no longer vote there (I'm officially a New York voter now!), I know that a lot of you can vote in Ohio, and I think you might be interested in having her perspective on Issue 2. After all, Issue 2 deals with changes to agricultural practices in the state, and if anyone knows about agricultural practices, it's Erin!

So if you're an Ohio voter, please read the letter below.

Dear Friends,

I realize that many of you may not still be voting in Ohio, but please share this information with any Ohio voters you know, especially if you find the arguments against Issue 2 in any way compelling. Our opposition may be impressive, but a concerted push must be made to try to override this proposed amendment.

ALL OHIO VOTERS, please! Small-time, sustainable agriculture needs your help:

Vote NO on Issue 2!

This is incredibly important! I cannot stress emphatically enough how detrimental an impact this uncalled for constitutional amendment will have on all independent, local, sustainable farmers AND anyone who values what these farmers contribute to the community.

Most of you know that I have grown up on and around local Ohio farms my whole life, and that I currently live and work (not to mention subsist) on a sustainable, organic farm owned and operated by my parents in Brimfield, Ohio. I know that there are loads of bright, shiny, alluring signs and ads out there telling you that Issue 2 is GREAT for the small farmer, GREAT for our livestock, GREAT for our food, but I ask you this: just who do you think has the money and the power to pay for all that bright and shiny propaganda? The small time farmer? The environmental and health-conscious consumer? The livestock themselves, maybe? Obviously not. The gross, overblown promotion of Issue 2 is coming entirely from the corporate farming industry. Small time farmers have neither the funds nor the sway to get their voice out there, and you can be certain that unless it boosts their bottom line, agribusiness is not going to do it for them.

To quote ohioact.org, "the most serious concern over this ballot initiative is that it is not simply a new law, but an amendment to the Ohio state constitution, a point the Ohio groups supporting Issue 2 downplay." The main threat embedded in this constitutional amendment is that it will establish a Livestock Care Standards Board, which may sound all well and good, but this board will have "no accountability to voters. Their decisions will be final. There is no further review or evaluation of the standard, no established forum for public comment, and no ability to appeal their decisions."

Now, to be fair, "the standards the board makes could favor one method of production over another based on the undemocratic decisions of a dozen political appointees." Clearly this could go either way, but modern conventional thought is already leaning in favor of the factory raised animal rather than the sustainable small farm model and agribusiness is known for its influential lobbyists, so it is reasonable to presume that "this could easily mean implementing standards that would make raising food in an organic or sustainable manner excessively expensive or burdensome [or, to be completely realistic, even illegal in some cases*], driving small farmers out of business and hurting local economies." Basically, there is nothing to stop them from ruling against organic, sustainable farming practices and many logical reasons to assume they would!

So, unless you like the idea of cementing corporate agribusiness into the Ohio Constitution and further marginalizing sustainable farming, VOTE NO on Issue 2!

If you would like more information on Issue 2 and its affect on the food and farming industries, this page ( http://www.oeffa.org/alerts.php ) from the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association and this pdf ( http://www.ohioact.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Issue2.pdf ) from ohioact.org provide well-argued, accurate information.

Thank you for your consideration of this crucial issue.

Your friend,

Erin May

*There is valid concern amongst sustainable farmers and devotees that these cases may include the implementation of standards that would force the injection of antibiotics and certain hormones into livestock, as well as eliminate the right to raise free-range poultry, grass-fed beef, and distribute raw milk (the sale of which is already illegal in the state of Ohio)--all under the misguided pretense of "health and safety!" My opinion on this matter may be biased, however, due to the fact that I have my current consumption of such foods as raw dairy, grass-fed beef, and hormone and antibiotic-free meat to thank for my current level of good health and relief from chronic illness. (If you can't already tell, I am very passionate about this issue. But like I said, maybe I'm biased...)