blah blah blah

Boys are stupid.

Blah.

Why I'm not an anarchist

Because anarchy in the patriarchy would actually be worse for women, in my view. Peek into a dudebro's mind to find out what he thinks "anarchy" would be like, and you'll see a nasty rapey world, all Mad Max and Thunderdome. Eff that. I'll take the U S Constitution over anarchy as long as I live in a rape culture, thankyouverymuch.

Am I a socialist? Kindasorta. Same problem applies: the same minority of white hetero able-bodied old white guys will still be decided who needs what, and who needs to give what. Guess who'll stay at the bottom of the food chain? Yeah, before revolution, chop wood carry water, after the revolution, chop wood carry water. On the plus side, the massive inequities in wealth would be eradicated and a lot more people would have an education, health care, a clean environment, and at least a decent shot at living the life they want to live. You can take the boy out of the government but you can't take the patriarchy out of the boy.

Thoughts on crying in public

A week and a half ago, Ferris and I lost his battle with whatever was wrong with him. I tried everything reasonable, and in the end I had to say goodbye. This is the second time I've had to make that decision for a beloved pet, and it probably won't be the last. I cried almost from the minute I walked in the vet for our last visit all the way out the door, and home. And I remembered the day of my Grandma's funeral, when I did the same thing. I've noticed that public crying makes other people uncomfortable, and I used to try to control my crying, rein it in, in order to NOT make others uncomfortable. Somewhere along the way I said to myself: fuck it. I am sad, I am crying, and other people's fee-fees are really not my problem. So I let 'em flow. I never cry at work if I can possibly help it, but otherwise, I refuse to keep a lid on it for the sake of polite conformity. A cousin looked at me at Grandma's funeral and said, "We're going to have to get you alright." And I thought: why? What does it mean to you if I'm sitting here crying? Let me be. Just let me be.

I've been thinking about why I felt for so long that crying in public was shameful, embarrassing, to be avoided at all costs. I know that it's considered a sign of weakness in our culture - *girls* are crybabies, and "boys don't cry." Crying is a sign, particularly, of feminine weakness, and boys the world over are punished for crying. [Example: a guy I used to date who was beaten regularly by his dad from about age 8 to age 14 stopped getting beatings when he stopped crying and started getting angry. No lie. The guy is almost totally incapable of expressing his emotions or even knowing what they are or really feeling empathy. His dad beat it out of him. Literally.]

I then remembered my personal grammar school bully, let's call him Donny Anderson, because that was his name. He sat right behind me in the third grade. I was the new kid, I'd just skipped a grade, and I was nearly 2 years younger than everybody in class. I was 6, they were 7 and 8 years old. Donny was way bigger and taller than me. I don't remember why he made me cry the first time, but as soon as he realized he could bully me into crying, he did it as often as possible. He'd sit behind me and whisper mean things to me, and I'd tear up. Or he'd pull my hair so hard that I would involuntarily get tears in my eyes. Then he'd make fun of me for crying. He'd start making submarine sounds: "Whoop, whoop, it's gonna flood, get in the submarine!" Eventually I learned to not cry when he was being an asshole, and if I gave him a dirty look, he'd start with the 'whoop, whoop' submarine noises and talking about how I was crying, and then I'd get mad at him because I fucking well WASN'T crying, but he was pretending like I was. It was just infuriating. Truly, if I saw that guy right now, I'd punch him in the face. He tormented me for three long years. I spent an entire year with skinned knees because every time I walked past the kickball game, where he was usually pitching, he'd throw the fucking ball at me and knock me down. I had to walk past it to get to the water fountain, and eventually found a different route, but he found new and shitty ways to torment me. Seriously. I would walk up to him right now and punch him in the face if I could.

But wait. Let me get to the point: it was Donny Fucking Anderson that made fun of me crying, after he'd MADE me cry by being an asshole. It was right there, age 6, that I learned from a boy that girls were big crybabies, and weak, and that was a bad thing. I was tagged as a crybaby the whole three years I was at that school because of that asshole. And where did he learn it? At home, no doubt. One hopes he grew out of it, but what are the odds? We live in a culture where crying is shameful.

I'm not sure when or why or how I decided that I would fucking well cry in public if I need to, maybe it was when my Grandma died and there was no holding back the flow, or maybe before that, but now I cry when I need to. I don't let other people determine my behavior. I will cry at the vet, I will cry at funerals, and I will cry driving down the road. I will not hide my "weakness" - by which, I think, people mean my "emotions" - for the convenience of others. I hate this idea that having emotions, and showing them, is weak and feminine.

I also hate it when someone says or does something that makes me cry, and then blames ME for being "hypersensitive." Suddenly it's MY fault that I'm crying, not theirs. It's also infuriating. You want to see me turn into a howler monkey? Call crying "emotional blackmail," implying that the crying is just fakery, designed to manipulate. Or laugh at me when I'm crying. The emotionally abusive ex used to do both of those things. I honestly have never been so angry in my life as I was when he'd hurt my feelings so much I cried, and then he'd laugh because he thought I was "over-reacting." No, I was REACTING. Accusing me of dishonesty - of crying to manipulate - is the meanest thing someone can accuse me of. I have a lot of faults, but I am not a liar, and I am not a hypocrite. My mother used to accuse me of being hypersensitive, too. I think this is a way for people who have done hurtful things to disavow their responsibility for their meanness. They shift the blame to the victim. Hm, that sounds familiar: I get hurt, I cry, it's MY fault for responding to it. No bully has ever been really stopped by the stupid advice to "just ignore him" and "don't respond." They just raise their game, get meaner and meaner, in my experience. I left two schools in six years because of bullying. In junior high, it was girls. Kelly Revercomb and Julie Roseman, I hope you are googling yourselves and find this post. I hope Donny does too. All three of them were hateful little shitheads, bullies, and I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. Truly.

So I learned as a kid to try to hide my emotions, to not express them, but now, as an adult, I say to hell with that. If my emotions make you uncomfortable, that's YOUR problem, not mine. Bottling up emotions makes you sick. Makes ME sick. And I won't do it, not for anybody. So if you see somebody crying in public, don't think of them as weak. Think that they have finally decided they do not give a shit what you think about their emotions, because, really, it's none of your business. It's my business. I'm reclaiming crying in public. I HAVE reclaimed it.

fighting a losing battle.

The Foo, my feline soulmate of twelve years, is ill. He is jaundiced, he is not eating, he is yakking up any medicine I give him, he's lost a bunch of weight, and $500 worth of vet visits and bloodwork has yielded no solid answers. Now it looks like he's got an eye infection. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent lying on the floor petting his head and weeping this week. If I can't get medicine into him, I can't help him at all. Tuna, chicken, milk, yogurt, wet food, you name it, all of his favorite foods, he won't eat it. I am an absolute wreck.

Here, let's see what the wingnuts in Mississippi are up to...

The wingnuts have successfully managed to get a "Personhood" amendment on the Mississippi ballot this fall. I could go on and on about how incredibly fucked up it is that the voters will get to decide on a human rights issue - as in, taking away human rights from women of reproductive age - but I think I'll let Planned Parenthood do it for me:



INITIATIVE 26: EXTREME CONSEQUENCES FOR FAMILIES

If passed, amendment will have extreme consequences for women and children.

HATTIESBURG, MS --Today the Mississippi Supreme Court sent down a decision placing Initiative 26 on the 2011 general election ballot.

“Planned Parenthood is very disappointed that the court ruled to allow this clearly unconstitutional amendment to be placed on the 2011 general ballot,” said Kay Scott, CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., which covers Mississippi. “The Mississippi Constitution explicitly states that the initiative process cannot be used to change the Bill of Rights and Initiative 26 would do just that if it passes,” said Scott.

Scott said further, “Amendment 26 may sound sensible to some, but it will have extreme consequences for women and children. It may outlaw abortions, even if the woman's life is threatened or she's been raped. It’s so extreme it could even ban common methods of birth control like the pill and IUDs. This would mean more unintended pregnancies, putting families at risk, and women facing unhealthy and dangerous options. This would put government bureaucrats in charge of important life decisions when they should really be focusing on getting the economy back on track and getting their own house in order.”

###

Planned Parenthood is a trusted provider of high-quality, affordable health care and is a valued community partner in the Greater Hattiesburg area. PPSE is committed to helping make health care services available to those in need in communities across Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. The regional administrative office is in Atlanta.

Here, let me explain south Mississippi to you.

So I'm on Facebook, and I see a friend of a friend's profile picture and think: "I cannot possibly be seeing what I think I'm seeing." So I click on her name, and behold, let me describe to you the full redneck-ed-ness of her profile picture. She and her partner/bf/babydaddy/wev have gone to a photo studio in jeans. She is about 4-5 months pregnant, and they have taken off their shirts. They are posed with her in his arms, her to the right, him to the left, with his arm around her front (covering her boobs) and his other hand firmly clamped on her ass. Yes: this is the pose they chose at Olan Mills, or WalMart, or wherever it is they went to commemorate their young love, early pregnancy, and vibrant youth. He has a crappy tattoo on the bicep facing us (I'm sure this is on purpose, so we can see his awesomely crappy tattoo) and his hair has been doused with some sort of unguent and combed back so you can see exactly where the stylist did his highlights. Did I mention she is wearing low-rider maternity jeans so you can see the fullness of her baby bump?

Look, I am not one to judge her for getting pregnant so young. It's just the state of things in Mississippi, where there is no sex education and kids are taught that using birth control is as big a sin as fornication, so why double their sins when they decide to fuck while still in high school? [this accounts not only for our high teen pregnancy rate but also our awesomely high rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, et al.] My objection is entirely in the realm of aesthetics and taste.

But, see, it's not just the poor aesthetic choice I am judging. No, it's not. There's more. And this is where my bitchy Southern lady hostess training goes into full effect. This kid, with her naked Olan Mills portrait AS HER FACEBOOK PROFILE, says to our mutual friend: "I'm rushing. Any words of advice?"

Which means, precious, that our heroine wants to join a sorority. Yes. And it has not occurred to her that her Portrait of Young Love? Is not what sororities are looking for. O. M. G. I almost - I swear to you - posted in that thread and said, honey, take that picture down if you want to get into a decent sorority.

And then I remembered how much I loathe the national Greek system, and that she's really going to be better off NOT joining a sorority (even though she thinks she wants that right now), and I let it pass.

And then I thought: what the fuck do I know about sororities in the 21st century in the buttcrack of Mississippi? Maybe they don't care if you put pictures of your semi-naked pregnant self on the internet?

And then! Bitchy Southern Lady Hostess-Trained Self thinks: oh holy fuck the Greek system has gone to hell in handbasket if this is appropriate behavior not only for young women in general, but also for sorority rushees?

Yes, I'm a fogey. I get that. But, jeez, kids, keep your naked pics off the internet. Especially if you want to join a sorority. And any sorority that's okay with your naked pic being on the internet? You don't want to join it.

Although, really, I'd advise against joining the Greek system under any circumstances. It's a conformity machine for women, and fraternities are, for the most part, a tool for turning semi-douchey young men into the douchiest, date-rapiest assholes they can be.

Unsolicited Advice Part Whatever

[and a bit of brand-naming consumerism]

Some things that are working for me at the moment:

Smoked Sea Salt. On everything.

I am still in love with my Kenmore Calypso washer & dryer. High Efficiency, large loads, cost a fortune ten years ago (like maybe $1400?) but still going strong. I can do a month's laundry in four loads: lights, darks, sheets/towels, and delicates on the "ultra handwash" setting. Love. It.

Washing my hair with baking soda. My hair is cleaner, stays clean longer, it's cheap, easy, no plastic bottles or weird chemicals going into the landfill/water stream.

Started using vinegar as fabric softener. The vinegar smell is gone by the time everything leaves the dryer. Works to soften towels and get grease out. Cheap and genius, and really just as easy as using the other smelly stuff.

Just, fyi, amateur artists of my acquaintance...

Really, it would be best if you not ask me what I think of your new paintings unless you want an honest answer. There are things I will make noncommittal noises about, but when it comes to art, I'm afraid you're going to get the unvarnished truth. Proceed with caution.

today in fat-hating....

SO MUCH FAIL:

Should obese children be taken from their parents?

This article makes me sick to my stomach.

My thought is that being fat is not a reason to subject a child to the foster care system and being torn out of her family. It is also unreasonable to expect poor parents, especially those who live in food deserts, to be able to feed their children anything *but* what is available in their neighborhoods. This will turn into witch hunt going after poor, fat, mothers. Do we really want to burden the already inadequate foster care system with kids who are fat? This is just punishing fat kids. It's awful. I hate the very idea of it.

A blogger at the XX Factor is slightly more reasonable: ">"Let's put all the fat kids in health care. Real health care, not "we can't afford any visit with any local physician and the nearest doctor who takes the state child health insurance is an hour away and has a three-month-long waiting list and so we end up in the emergency room" health care."

Although she, too, thinks foster care is a viable solution. And she's dead wrong.

Here's part of the JAMA opinion piece - note that it's COMMENTARY, not SCIENCE -

State Intervention in Life-Threatening Childhood Obesity

Here's my problem: the OBESITY EPIDEMIC OMG people think that any extra poundage is life-threatening. Nobody is safe from the deathfat, yo! So where do we draw the line? When does it become acceptable to tear a kid away from her family, to take a child from her parents, because she's overweight? Ten pounds? Twenty? Fifty? Does the family have access to healthful affordable food? Is there anywhere safe in their neighborhood to play outdoors? Do the parents have any kind of information about nutrition that is useful for them? Is the kid in need of medical attention? Shit, maybe's she's just, you know, a fat kid who's perfectly healthy and happens to store fat on her person. A donut is not child abuse.

In which I confess

My resolve has failed. I was determined to give up paying someone to clean my house, and so have not had a cleaner here in several months. This means my bathroom has only been cleaned in a desultory fashion, because I LOATHE cleaning the tub. HATE. IT. And today, readers, was the day I was going to finally do it, here on this three-day weekend, and my resolve to be a responsible adult and clean my own fucking bathroom: it failed. I have texted the cleaner to see if she will come this week.

Sigh.

If this were a tweet:
#firstworldproblems
#feminismfail

Dear Omnivores:

For the record, omnivores, it is none of your fucking business what I eat, what I wear, or where I shop. Mind your own business and I won't regale YOU with tales of battery cages, veal barns, and slaughterhouses, mmmkay?

I am SO FUCKING SICK of drive-by anti-veg*an snark showing up in my life, like some bird just flew over and shit on my head. Really, people: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Argh.

And, just so you know, we've heard it all before:

Prom season

'Tis prom season here in the ol' U.S. of A., and the subject seems to be circling around and around me lately. I recently heard from a younger friend that prom spending has become massive, and that teenagers think of prom as sort of 'practice weddings.' So, that information was revolting ENOUGH, when he proceeded to casually mention that they have a ritual where the boys take garters off their dates' legs with their teeth. A la the wedding garter ritual, except teenagers, en masse, and approved by the adultly authorities, believe it or not. This friend of mine graduated high school about 2000, and it was well-established by then.

No way, I thought: this is weird. This must be some stupid Buttcrack County ritual, and could hardly be normal nation-wide. But lo, I was wrong. I listened this weekend to the podcast of This American Life's prom episode, and a story produced in NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY FIVE referred to this wedding-based prom ritual, in which teenage boys stick their heads between the sweaty thighs of their dates *ON THE DANCE FLOOR* and do this garter crap. When Ira Glass was surprised by this, a high school teacher said, "where have YOU been?" I was wondering the same thing myself: where the hell have I been that I didn't know this has been going on these fifteen years at least? Sixteen, even. Good gravy. I am a fogey. I am also a grossed-out radical feminist that does not approve of turning prom into a rehearsal for a wedding, along with the attendant expenses and heteronormativity and, of course, enforced couple-hood. of the wedding-industrial complex.

*Full Disclosure*: I attended several proms in my youth, but not my senior prom. I regret this decision NOT ONE WHIT. Furthermore, the proms I attended were at Catholic schools, and I would bet dollars to donuts that the Catholic schools still do not condone this sort of foolishness. Having one's date remove one's garter with his teeth is surely behavior reserved for the holy state of matrimony. Furthermore, there is absofuckinglutely no way I would've let some dude stick his face all up in my business in front of an entire hotel ballroom full of people.

Turns out Oreos are vegan.

I consider this awesome news. Once upon a time, they were made with lard, and I was sad. For years, I would read the ingredients list, see "lard," and make a frowny face. And lo! One day! I turned over the package and saw NO "lard" and I was happy. Now, even better; no whey, so they're completely vegan.

No, I'm not 100% vegan, but I'm working on getting dairy & eggs out of my diet and figuring out an array of vegan food that tastes good. What I find when I start looking at vegan cooking websites is an obsession with desserts, which really, I hardly ever make and am not that interested in for myself, and an obsession with fake meats and meat-looking things. Like fake meat-loaf and fake turkey and...yuck. I don't like meat, so I certainly don't want fake meat. There are a few pre-made veg* burgers I'll buy in the frozen aisle, just to make a convenient lunch. Eeeevery so often I buy fake hotdogs or fake bacon because I'm craving those - like maybe twice a year. But on the whole I do not want a casserole that looks like a soupy southern chicken/rice/mushroom soup debacle. I don't want to sculpt my fake-meat ingredients into something resembling shepherd's pie or pot pie or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is: I don't see a lot of recipes for *vegetables* in the few vegan blogs I try to read. I'd rather do without a meat analogue entirely instead of focusing on a meat + three model. I mean, I'm sure I could find plenty of vegan recipes that do not involve dessert or fake meat, but those seem to be the two categories that get most of the attention out there. How many people regularly make cupcakes? Especially people that aren't parents of elementary-school kids?

Jazz Fest!

NOLA!

That is all.

My middle name is "buzzkill"

Feh: Royal Wedding. Why is America obsessed?* I am repelled by the wedding-industrial complex, grossed out and offended that anyone would spend $30 million on a wedding, generally opposed to marriage in the first place, and really, on top of it, MONARCHY WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously, it's the 21st century, and the US of A gets all squidgy over a "commoner" becoming a "princess"? Didn't we fight a fucking revolution about that monarchy crap? The whole construct of "nobility" is revolting. Yuck.

A lot of people I consider otherwise reasonable got up at the ass-crack (as in, before dawn) to watch a wedding that will TOTALLY get re-run over and over for the next three days. Baroo??



*this is a rhetorical question. The answer, obviously, is "Patriarchy."

career change?

I'm working on an exhibition involved fashion photographs from the 1940s to the 1960s, and I'm finding the research kind of exciting. Suddenly I want to change paths and be a costume/fashion/textile historian. Well, maybe not so much the techniques of textile, because I cannot get excited about warps and wefts and dye techniques, but fabric and clothing and shoes are interesting to me. Also the ways in which fashion photographs changed over just those two decades - very interesting. I think there's room in costume history for gender analysis, especially when you mix it with photography, because not only are you dealing with the clothing designer's ideas about the garment, but then you have to take into account the point of view of the photographer, art director, and client. What is the message Vogue, or McCall's, or Harper's Bazaar is trying to deliver with this photo? Why pick that dress and that belt? Obviously, at the very base of the pyramid is the imperative: SELL MAGAZINES. Running a close second is: SELL GARMENTS. But then - there's this complex mix of messages, brands, desires, art and commerce.

I just watched "The September Issue" documentary about the development of Vogue's September issue in, I think it was about 2008, and although Wintour is clearly the final authority on all things Vogue right now, there are a lot of visions competing in that organization.

Part of me, of course, the elitist, wants to dismiss it all as puffery, vanity, commerce. But there is real gender analysis to be done here - and Marxist analysis - regarding the ways that fashion and fashion photography push the consumer and the consumer sometimes pushes back. Which is the cart? Which is the horse?

Succumbing to the ordinary

I am watching as a friend succumbs to the ordinary, to the script that was laid out for him at birth by this dumbfuck town he was born into, and it is depressing as hell. Soon he will get a factory job, marry his dumbass redneck infant of a girlfriend, go to church twice a week, and raise more dumbass rednecks who think the likes of Glenn Beck aren't lying, poisonous sacks of shit. It's like watching somebody sink beneath the surface.

Jezebella on tour, Spring 2011

I've been out and about lately. Went to Tulsa to visit some friends, where we drank Guinness in the streets at Kilkenny's Pub. Lovely ginger crowd, but the music wasn't Irish...wtf? Seriously, play some Irish music on St. Pat's day, eh?

Visited the Gilcrease Museum and the Philbrook Museum. I may have more to say about them later. I had some...ISSUES... with an American history exhibition at the Gilcrease. The continuing honky-fication of American history mystifies me. It's the 21st century, for fucks' sake, do we still have to act like the only Americans since 1492 were white guys? Criminy. Both museums had some stellar works, some mediocre works, and decent Native American art collections.

Went to Jackson, MS last weekend to see the Orient Expressed show at the MMA. Good idea, lovely installation, some great works by Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, Hiroshige, and others. Also some kind of not-so-awesome Orientalist works which. I found the exhibition a bit lacking in its narrative.

Went to Hubfest in Hattiesburg a few weeks ago, volunteered with Planned Parenthood's info booth, drank some beer in the street, smelled a lot of meat-on-a-stick (gross) and decided that, really, funnelcake is the trashy poor relation of beignets and I'd rather just wait til I can have a beignet than eat such a poor substitute. I mean, you would think one fried dough products is the same as the next, but no, not really. Funnelcakes are too heavy and greasy, and probably fried in the same oil as corndogs and god-knows-what-all. Beignets are light and fluffy and not at all meat-tainted.

So: now I've talked myself into craving some beignets. Damn. And maybe a nice hunk of fry bread. Man, I love fry bread. I like the crispy southwestern kind with cinnamon on it, and the fluffy Choctaw kind with just a slightly sweet flavor, just out of the fryer...nom. Now my mouth is watering. Dammit.

Today in Anti-Fatty Bias

A seemingly benign article about using surgery to improve sleep apnea.

Blah de blah, new surgery, fixes sleep apnea, yay....but wait! Keep reading!

"I wouldn't send a middle-age obese man for surgery as their first option," says Aurora. "I would say let's lose the weight; lets use CPAP and see a nutritionist; lets avoid the alcohol and let's see how you do." The apnea can probably be taken care of with these non-invasive techniques, she says, and invasive surgery can be avoided.

But when she sees a young, thin person with severe apnea, says Aurora, surgery might be the answer."

[my emphasis]

So, basically: if you're fat and have too much tissue blocking your throat, we're not going to offer you surgery to correct that. Because you know what causes big tonsils? Fatness. RIGHT.

No, wait, that's not right. Tonsils are what they are. You either have a dangerous, possibly fatal condition caused by large tonsils, or you don't. The size of your ass has nothing to do with that. So, hey, fuck you, Dr. Aurora. People like you are the reason fat people have ever-so-slightly shorter life expectancies than thin people. Because we are denied life-saving medical intervention and told to "lose the weight and then we'll think about it".

This is pure and simple discrimination against fat people. In this case, it's not just about an airplane ticket or a job interview. NO. This is life-threatening fat-hating. And it needs to end now.

How much does this chap my ass? A WHOLE METRIC FUCK-TONNE that's how much.

Unsolicited Advice #2

Wooden clothes-pins, thus:




Handy little multi-purpose items. Love 'em. You can get a sack of a hundred for a couple of bucks.

- Save money on chip clips, use one of these instead to close sacks of chips, candy, or even your sack of flour or rice.

- Instead of buying fancy skirt hangers and whatnot, just use them (as they were intended) to clip clothes onto your regular plastic hangers. They're wooden, with round holes, don't clip too tight, so they don't leave marks on your clothes.

- Paint a decorative color and stick to the wall with double-stick tape or poster putty to hold papers - like, letters that need to go out, or coupons, or notes to people in the house.

- Clip together bunches of paper when you're working on a big, paper-intensive project that needs organizing.

For pennies per clothespin, you're getting a lot of handy uses out of them.