Heroine of the week

Elvira Arellano, who is taking sanctuary in a Chicago church. She compares herself to Rosa Parks, with good reason: like Parks, Arellano isn't just a random harassed immigrant, but apparently the president of La Familia Latina Unida, an organization that, no surprise, lobbies for immigrants' rights.

Hard worker, political activist, devoted mama, smart woman. Exactly the kind of person you'd think we need more of in these United States.

Sex in marriage

In his August 28th New Yorker article on Upton Sinclair, David Denby writes:

Sinclair seems to have felt a considerable antipathy toward sexual love. ...In a fictional portrait of his marriage, "Love's Pilgrimage," published in 1911, he describes sex as a marriage duty in which "the body and soul...were wrung and squeezed dry like a sponge."

I think Sinclair might have been doing it wrong. Or perhaps he was doing it right—so very vigorously right that untold hours of libidinous exertions exhausted him. But if that's the case, you'd think that perhaps he wouldn't have found it so burdensome. Then again, if every bout of relations (which, ever since Bill Clinton's whole thang, is what I like to call sex—but you have to use a Southern accent when you say "relations") involved hours of aerobic exercise in the sack, perhaps we'd all find it to be more trouble than it's worth. I mean, who's got that sort of time?

The epic battle: sudoku vs. crosswords

When you see someone engrossed in a sudoku puzzle, I encourage you to look on them with pity. And when you witness someone solving a crossword, please smile, nod appreciatively, and flirt.

Sudoku puzzles serve their purpose, yes: they pass the time (I admit to doing them on occasion—haven't I said I am a procrastinator?). But don't kid yourself. You're not learning anything, and you're not making yourself any smarter by doing them. It's the same logical challenge every time. It's not as if you've learned something essential about the number 4 and can now unlock the mysteries of the universe.

Now, crossword puzzles are a different story. Every one is different, the good ones have some funny clues, you stretch your brain when you have to think flexibly to interpret tricky clues, and you learn an awful lot of trivia (which can expand your horizons a little—think of all the 70-year-old women who now know the names of a few rappers because they appeared in the New York Times crossword).

If you've grown fond of sudoku, is it because you "can't do crosswords"? Nonsense. You may think you can't do crosswords, but really, you can. Just start with the easy ones. There are plenty of books of NYT and other crosswords specifically labeled "easy" (or even "easy, breezy"), and the Monday NYT puzzle has become easier of late. Start with the easy ones (and go for the easiest clues first—generally fill-in-the-blank clues, or anything asking for a name you know), and check the solutions in the back of the book for any answers you don't know. Don't just fill them in—reread the clue and figure out how the answer goes with it. Over time, you'll learn the ropes and become more adept, and then you can move along to tougher puzzles.

If you thought crosswords were stodgy things for boring old folks, think again. Even the Onion (the Onion!) will start running a crossword in a few weeks. See? So not stodgy. This is not your grandmother's crossword puzzle any more. But sudoku? Stodgy by nature. You can tart it up with different twists, but it remains the same logical task for your brain, over and over. All the cool kids are moving to crosswords.

If you've ever wondered how crosswords are made, don't miss Patrick Creadon's entertaining crossword documentary, Wordplay; it's still playing in selected theaters, and the DVD is due out in early November. Be sure to save it in your Netflix queue, because it's a good movie, some of my crossword-geek friends star in it, and I cameo in it—watch for the curtsy by the woman in lime green. Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton are among the famous crossword fans featured in the movie, and they ain't stodgy. See the movie, catch crossword fever. (And don't hold your breath for a sudoku movie.)

(Cross-posted at Orange Tangerine.)

Here's the story of a lovely lady

Dr. B e-mailed me that Mr. B has found a rental house in California, sort of a Bradyesque ranch house complete with Japanese garden and koi pond. Dr. B is insane because she feels like a hypocritical sellout and thinks everyone will mock her for...I'm not sure what. For not seeking out a tarpaper shack? It doesn't sound like a bloated McMansion or anything. And between the ample sunshine of Southern California and the soothing Japanese garden and the not feeling trapped in Little College Town, this portends good things for la familia Bitch and Her Majesty, Bitch Ph.D. Doesn't a Japanese garden sound like a wonderful place to lounge with a laptop and write?

Me, I'll hold off on my mocking unless she upgrades to an SUV or a Dodge Viper. Or if she gets a tummy tuck within the first year. Or if the writing sabbatical turns into a finding-multiple-twentysomething-surfer-boyfriends sabbatical instead.

How about you—do you feel impelled to mock her?

Life chafes, bras shouldn't

It's been a long and irritating summer for me, with turning thirty-ten, assorted pain-in-the-ass ailments (figuratively speaking), still waiting for a book contract to be sent, and I-love-my-kid-but-four-weeks-between-the-end-of-day-camp-and-the-start-of-school-is-too-much (Chicago public school kids don't start till next Tuesday). And yesterday, my mom took Ben off my hands for a grammy-kid outing downtown—but this plastic shield thingy on the underside of the front of my car cracked open and I drove on Lake Shore Drive with plastic scraping the roadway, and then when I got home, I was too ill-tempered to be productive (See? Procrastinators always have excuses.) and had to spend a half hour on the phone with the car insurance guy (if you or your partner has a US military connection and a hookup with USAA, omigod is their customer service fantastic. The guy asked before he put me on hold each time and always told me how long it would be. "Is it okay if I put you on hold for 30 seconds?" What a dreamboat! I wish USAA could provide my phone service, because my local phone service is a little iffy and their customer service avoidance techniques suck ass. Speaking of insurance companies, all you renters who are on a tight budget should really make sure you have renter's insurance, because the premiums are so much cheaper than what it would cost you to replace everything if you had a fire, water damage, or a break-in. Really.)

There have been bright spots in Irritating Summer, to be sure: I have a great husband, a sweet and funny almost-first-grader, a reasonably easy life, and I even got off my ass and started using that health club membership three months ago. (Although I haven't gone in over two weeks—see "assorted ailments," above.)

But my brain is on hiatus right now. And it's guest-posting Wednesday! So I'll tack up a few unserious, unrelated small posts. First up, bras:

Thanks to working out at the aforementioned health club, my bra band size increased (muscles!) so I needed new bras. (I'll hold onto the wardrobe of Wacoals in the no-longer-right-size in case I reshape my bosom again.) I went to Bloomingdales, which just so happened to provide an excellent illustration of why Nordstrom's has a better reputation in lingerie sales. (The sad part is that the same shopping center also had a Nordy's, but it was a long walk to that end of the shopstravaganza, and one of my recent ailments involved my foot.) Anyway, while the customer service was dreadful, the Wacoal inventory was great. I found out the funky iBra doesn't fit me, but I bought this one in an adorable pink (why didn't I know that pink bras don't show through white shirts? I love pink!), and it's perfectly smooth under a tee (but I remember trying it on in my previous size, and it didn't work for me at all then); and I bought this more supportive one for less jiggly days.

The point? Dr. B, she knows bras. I know a lot of you won't pay more than $15 for a bra, but don't think your boobs are thanking you for that. You should at least try on some good bras (like Wacoal, which run roughly $38 to $62). And make sure you're wearing the right size: this site and this one are helpful. Many women actually need a smaller band size (use the loosest hook when the bra's new) and larger cup size (that Nordstrom's link has photos that illustrate when the cups are too big or too small for you).

For more wisdom from the Professor of Brassiere and Shoe Studies (she's tenured and holds an endowed chair in the department), check out the bra links in the sidebar.

(Cross-posted at Orange Tangerine.)

Anti-contraception zealots move to their own plan b

Just in case you thought that, hey, getting Plan B available over-the-counter (to legal adults) meant you couldn't wear your swanky new t-shirts any more, don't worry! According to ABC,

the battle will likely now move to the courts and state legislatures. Nine states had already made Plan B available without a prescription to women of all ages; more conservative states may now try to impose new controls on the drug. Gaul says [the Family Research Council] is exploring "legislative and legal options" to fight the decision going forward.

I don't know if the Republican party is going to jettison its anti-abortion base, but whether or no, the impetus behind this entire anti-Plan B thing is the lie belief belief, based on a lie, that Plan B is a form of abortion. Without even getting into the question of how one feels about abortion, Americans need to internalize the fact that Plan B, like all contraceptives, prevents abortion--which is good whether you look at it from the "saving babies" point of view or the "avoiding unnecessary invasive surgery, thankyouverymuch" point of view.

How will I break the news to Pseudonymous Kid?

Pluto is was his favorite planet. Because it's the smallest, cutest one.

:(

More about Plan B

A reader sent me this story; I think it's apropos to reprint it here.

Saturday night, there was "an accident." Condom slippage, if you must know. In the kind of situation that seldom results in a pregnancy, but you never know. Little did I know that this would be my introduction to how different medical practices and practitioners are from state to state.

Having come from California, where Plan B or the equivalent is available from a pharmacist, imagine my chagrin when I showed up at the pharmacy on Sunday morning like the ultra-responsible person I thought I was, only to be told that Southern State Law said I needed a prescription. To his credit, the pharmacist did say I had 72 hours and that I could go to Urgent Care or the emergency room, but that that would be pretty expensive, so maybe I should wait till Monday and see my doctor.

I went to Urgent Care, and asked to see someone. I told the receptionist why, and she said, "We don't do that here. Moral reasons." My first thought was, "WTF??? It's been 12 hours. It'll be a much bigger moral concern if I don't do this, you self-righteous bitch!" My second was, "OMG -- this is the only urgent care facility in this college town -- what do students do?" My third was to go home and call the emergency room.

The emergency room nurse was very nice, but suggested waiting till the next day, because really, I had time, and they were busy and it's expensive. And she seemed entirely offended at the attitude of the urgent care person. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out the moral reasons, because the MAP/Plan B is contraception, not an abortifacient. And even if it were, that's legal. How is it that one of the only weekend providers in a town can refuse to provide legal medical treatment? It's not affiliated with any religious organization, even.

Monday, I called my doctor. I was already thinking of changing doctors because I prefer female gynecologists. Moreover, the guy's decorative scheme was pretty much "Madonna and Child" -- not the actual M & C, but that imagery. So I was pleasantly surprised when the secretary said it would be no problem.

Fast forward through an afternoon of meetings where my phone was turned off, to find at 4 p.m. that the nurse had been calling me all day. Doctor (this is how she referred to him) would not prescribe without a pregnancy test. I pointed out that it had been about 40 hours, i.e., that any test was likely to be negative, and wasn't that the point of emergency contraception? Besides, for goodness' sake, there was no ejaculation! I was just being careful!! She apologized but said I needed to get across town before the lab closed at 4:30. There is no law in this state that a test must be done, by the way. I checked.

I asked a colleague to call her OB/GYN and ask if there were any way to squeeze me in, just in case. There wasn't, but she said that, were I already one of her patients, I'd have been able to call and leave a message and would have had the prescription on Sunday. I guess I had to prove I really, really wanted the MAP. So I went. I peed in a cup. I waited for them to tell me that I wasn't pregnant. I watched them charge my insurance company for a totally unnecessary test. Can you blame me for insisting they give me the prescription in writing?

I informed the stony-faced lab tech and receptionist that I would be changing practices. I went to the pharmacy. I waited. I lodged a complaint with my insurance company, and asked them to see if this test was necessary. I got my prescription. The pharmacist was not as pleasant as he usually is.

Here's the kicker: the prescription was half the recommended dosage. Rather than giving me the trademarked Plan B, I was given the alternate acceptable method, multiple dosages of regular oral contraceptives. Neither the pharmacy nor the doctor's office offered me any counseling on side effects, things to watch out for, etc.

So I went online. I found this site; it was very useful. It also had information regarding recommended dosages. The site said I should take 4 pills now, and 4 in 12 hours. My doctor said 2 and 2.

I put in a call to my old doctor in California. I looked at the Planned Parenthood site. I looked for a nearby Planned Parenthood. My Left Coast Metro Area had one about every 15 miles -- something like 15 for an area of about 400k people. The closest PP to where I live in Southern State is 75 miles away. I called PP on the Left Coast, because the one near me didn't have a way to dial through. The nurse at PP got very angry, and said to take the recommended dosage, not the prescibed one. A few minutes later, my Left Coast doctor's office called to say the same thing.

What happened to me could happen to anyone. I happen to know my rights, and the (federal) law, and am old enough and cranky enough to get in people's faces. And yet, I felt abused and humiliated by my experience. In order to get medical treatment that is perfectly legal, and which exists in part to prevent pregnancy and the possibility of actual abortion, I had to humble myself and jump through someone else's hoops. But what if I hadn't had a car? a flexible schedule? been young and insecure? not had insurance? How is it that my freedoms as a citizen do not include being treated civilly and humanely by the medical establishment of my community?

Soon that kind of panic will be (except for girls under 18) a thing of the past. And just in time, too, she says bitterly: the cost of regular birth control pills just went way, way up.

Plan B, woot!

The FDA does, at long last, the right thing [for women over 18]. I'm not going to give much administration much credit for finally getting beyond letting the likes of David Hager interpose his crackpot beliefs between American women and the scientific evidence. But kudos [and big bouquets of flowers and the gratitude of all right-minded Americans] to Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray for forcing the issue [and showing the rest of congress what leadership is all about]. And when a Democratic administration takes over hopefully the pointless and arbitrary age restriction--do we consider teenage pregnancies more desirable?--but this is a major step in the right direction.

Post lifted wholesale, with editorial amendations, from my blog-fiance Scott Lemieux, because my real-life husband moves to Los Angeles tomorrow, still has electrical work and painting to finish up on the house--which goes on the market tomorrow--not to mention packing; because I rearranged ("staged") the living and dining rooms yesterday and moved the china cabinet into the basement and my upper back is killing me, and I still have revisions to finish up (due tomorrow) for an article about which I just emailed the editor begging and pleading for an extension until monday morning; and because Pseudonymous Kid has lost all patience with being told that Mama and Papa are too busy to do anything with him other than maybe take him on another errand to Home Depot and is literally yelling at me as I type (to be fair, I am yelling back at him not to come in this room because there is wet paint, no, can't you please just stand still and wait outside for one more minute while Mama sends an email) to do something with him for a change, so I simply do not have time to do anything other than steal from Scott and warn him that this is what marriage to me, even blog marriage, is all about: me running around like a chicken with my head chopped off and relying on my partner to do the heavy lifting.

Free bonus post!

Why work hard to entertain y'all when I can just put up a couple links to funny stuff of the liberal ilk? This is so easy, I need not bother with procrastinating. Hell, I didn't even scrounge up the links myself—I found them both at an acquaintance's LiveJournal.

Up first, Will Murphy's What Right-Wingers See When They Read the New York Times. (Don't miss the many alternative titles for the newspaper up top.)

Next, the guys who wrote Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly review O'Reilly's distinguished print oeuvre in The Nation.

Enjoy!

Support the troops: send Republicans home

Did you all hear that the Marines are now calling up folks from the Individual Ready Reserve because--surprise--they can't find enough "volunteers" to go to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But that's not really the whole story. First: this is getting awfully close to draft territory. Second, the problem isn't a lack of new recruits; it's problems recruiting combined with Marines coming back from the front without eyes, ears, limbs, or their sanity.

Let me explain. According to CNN, the Individual Ready Reserve . . . consists mainly of those who left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligation. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? These guys and gals got out before they'd done their time, now the military wants them to finish up.

Only that's not really what the IRR is. When you sign up, you sign up for an X year active duty committment. Then when you get out, you spend about half an hour signing paperwork. At the end they say, "and this is for the IRR. Your service committment includes four years in the IRR [which by the way they don't really tell you when you sign up], but don't worry; it's just a way for the military to keep tabs on you for a few years in case WWIII breaks out and they need people who are already trained right away."

Mr. B's in the IRR. When he left the military, he was supposed to sign up for it for two years, but he's stayed on the list for a couple of reasons. First, it makes it easier to get into the active duty reserves later, which he thought he might want to do if he ended up being a full-time stay-home dad. The second is that, because he had a regular officer's commission, they can pretty much call him back in an emergency anyway.

But luckily he was in the USAF, and his particular skill set is knowledge-based--which means that in the years since he's left, new stuff has been developed that he wouldn't be up on. As he said just now when I said, "fuck, are they going to start calling you guys up?" "No. I'm not a truck driver or an infantryman."

The Republicans in Congress and the White House are treating military vets like crap. Front-line troops are coming back with injuries that would formerly have been fatal while VA funding is being effectively cut. Because Rumsfeld wanted to do this war on the cheap, troops are pulling unprecedently long tours and winding up with massive PTSD but we're not bothering to increase funding for veteran's mental health (which has always been poorly funded).

And now they're pulling back people who served their time and have gone on to other things--marriage, kids, safer jobs--to fill the open slots left by their injured compatriots and the slots that can't be filled by other young people who have no desire to join the ranks of the maimed and disabled in a war built on lies. Including the lie that it wouldn't become the next Vietnam.

Oy, is it Wednesday again?

This guest-blogging thing is killing me. No Nym makes it look easy, spending the rest of the week cooking up posts so he can spoil us on Tuesday. But dammit, I have two other blogs to maintain (my low-key original blog, which I encourage you to visit if you have anti-squirrel suggestions because one of those gnarly varmints chewed through my screen door to steal my wheat bread, and my crossword blog—yeah, that's right, I'm a crossword geek. Wanna make something of it?), and here it is, mid-morning on my assigned day, and I haven't got anything drafted.

So the natural topic is procrastination. I am a procrastinator. I always have been. Hell, a few years ago I came across one of my report cards from first grade, and the teacher said something about my not always finishing my assignments. I was certainly capable of doing so, but apparently I've just been a procrastinator since my early years. Here's a sample of what I've been procrastinating on lately:

• Editing manuscripts.

• Writing a book.

• Ordering a new toilet.

• Taking the car for an oil change.

• Paying some bills.

• Purging unloved clothes from my wardrobe and donating them to the Brown Elephant.

• Clearing up a crapload of clutter and papers.

• Reading a zillion books.

• Running errands.

• Sending thank-you notes.

• Sending out photos of my kid, family, and friends.

• Returning a Netflix movie.

• Doing laundry, sorting clean laundry, and the worst part—putting everything away.

• Cooking frozen vegetables before they shrivel up in the freezer.

• Writing up condo meeting minutes.

This is just a sampling of what's on my mental to-do list but sits undone. We've been in need of a new toilet for a year now, and all I have to do is go to a store (or just call them), ask them to order this or that model number, and hire a plumber to install it. A year! Objectively, my daily schedule is incredibly cushy and I have ample time to accomplish all these things and more, but I'm far too busy procrastinating to be productive.

It's confession time: What's are you procrastinating on, and why don't you just do it already? Do you have an explanation? Because I don't have a good way to rationalize my own procrastination, and I could use some excuses.

(Cross-posted at Orange Tangerine, because I procrastinate so much on blogging there that I need to double-dip.)

Separate Queues at Airport Security

In case the word "queues" didn't tip you off, this is a BritFriend post. He emailed me:

sorry not to have been in touch for a while (am on a boat in the med) but have left a draft on your blog that you can post a) if it interests you and b) if you are short of material. please tidy it up first but you can post. . . .

p.s. you are still my favorite despite slagging me off on the website

So without further ado, I give you BritFriend.

You must be f**cking kidding me . You must really be f**cking kidding me … surely no-one is actually proposing the immoral, impractical, unsuccessful, unconstitutional policy of targeting Muslims for extra security checks at airports?

Just in case you are not all messing with my head and this discussion is actually taking place, can we please, please all read stav506’s methodologically suspect but essentially accurate comment deep inside the excellent news hounds site. [Ed: Go to "comments" on the second link above for source.]

Check this site out. It's Wikipedia. If you don't like that I have others. If you look it shows that your statement that most terrorists are Muslim is WRONG!

According to this listing:

41 - Islamic
24 - Other religions
13 - Northern Ireland
2 - India
34 - Communist/Socialist
13 - Ethnic Hate (ie KKK, Black Panthers)

That makes a total of 41 out of 127 terrorist groups Muslim (by word alone as they do not really follow the faith as described by Muhammed).

By the way it seems relevant to point out that I am posting this from Milan airport. Airport security did not single me out on my way in (any more than they did when I transited through Amsterdam this morning). I presume that this is because they have accurately profiled me as a rather dull academic going on holiday. They may also have worked out that I have no propensity to violence whatsoever despite my Arab name.

Ed: That's all well and good, but really I think that the only reason that BritFriend's presence didn't ground the plane is because he doesn't have a beard. Link via that other Arab-type terrorist over at Unfogged.

In lieu of an actual post, some raw dialogue

me: do you want to know what a total asshole i am?
BritFriend: always
BF: I live for that
me: this is probably the best yet.
BF: and for the total asshole I could be
me: so three years ago i lost my wedding ring playing volleyball in santa monica
me: it had gotten a little loose and i hadn't had it resized.
me: mr. b. spent the rest of the day until sundown looking for it in a sand pit.
BF: NO!
me: which, i hasten to add, i didn't do myself b/c i was taking care of pseudonymous kid.
me: okay. so for our anniversary, which was 8 august as you surely remembered, he replaced it.
BF: grkkk
me: it was a little big, and he said he'd paid for a resizing and all i had to do was take it to the mall. this was tuesday. well, we've been very busy with last-minute house stuff before leaving for chicago, and i didn't have time to go to the mall. yesterday i took pk for a loooong walk to run several errands downtown.
me: this morning at 3 am in bed i suddenly realized i wasn't wearing the ring.
me: the end.
BF: NOOOOOOOOOOO!
BF: SHIT
BF: SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT
me: i know. mr. b. is not a happy pup.
me: it's *possible* i lost it at home and it'll turn up?
me: but of course i just know i lost it on this long fucking walk. i'm obviously going to call all the stores i went to
BF: OH SHIT
me: but, come on.
me: of course i should NEVER HAVE WORN IT until i had it resized.
BF: oh shit
me: and! if i had any room left on my credit card, i would have gone to the mall TODAY and bought a new one and never told him. but alas, it's maxed out.
me: so i had to fess up.
BF: BOLLOCKS
me: yes.
BF: BOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKS
me: indeed.
BF: oh B
BF: I am truly sorry
me: i told you, it's the worst asshole story, ever.
BF: that is a horrible thing to have happened
BF: actually no
BF: its not your fault
BF: but
BF: SHIT
me: it might as well be my fault, come on.
BF: this is an awful story
me: yes, i know.
me: what can i do but tell it lightly?
BF: agreed
BF: but ouch
me: yeah.
me: feel free to advise me how to get out of this situation.
BF: reach down.....
BF: grab your ankles
BF: hold tight
BF: the end
me: that just doesn't seem very productive.
BF: I'm sorry
BF: I dont have a productive solution available
me: i was hoping a blow job or two would take care of it. no?
BF: but we could go through my curl up like a ball approach
me: sadly, that's no good on my part. because then it just turns into making it all about how embarrassed i am, when of course the right thing for me to do is face up to it and take it on the chin.
BF: you have to be VERY VERY nice to that boy for a while
me: yeah, i know. i am being!
me: i mean, as much as i am capable.

(I found the ring; it was in one of the shops I'd visited. I am now going to go to the mall and have it resized.)

English pigdog v. Supermom

So you now see how unreliable Brit Friend is. And yet I've been in love with him for seventeen years. Clearly the head knows not, etc.

Anyway. As he has flaked (story of my life), and as it is Friday, and as I am tahrd, I'm just going to point out that I am this year's top contender for the Mother of the Year award.

Why, you ask? Oh, I'll be happy to tell you. So Wednesday we drove home from Chicago in our new used car (with air conditioning! I've never owned a car with a/c. I feel so rich!); since we left late, we got back a little past midnight. Then we putzed around with a little bit of unpacking and relaxing and I finally turned off the light at, I think, four a.m. Shortly after that we had another nocturnal bat visitor, who actually flew into Mr. B.'s face and scratched him this time, so that in the morning he called the health department folks and we gave them the poor little bat (which we'd boxed up. I'm so so sorry, little bat) and Mr. B. awaits word from them on whether or not he needs rabies shots.

But that's nothing to do with me, so who cares.

Back to my narrative. After a few hours of sleep, yesterday, up at nine! So that Pseudonymous Kid and I could make the two-hour drive to Big City's zoo, because the presenters from his favorite children's show were going to be there doing a live show! Which he had been very, very excited about for the couple of weeks since they'd announced it, and really, for the months before since he'd heard that they were doing a live show someplace in another state. I had promised him that if they ever came somewhere near us, we would go, and it was time to keep my mama word. So he and I hopped back in the car (with air conditioning!), called a couple friends with kids who actually live in Big City, arranged to meet them at the show, and had a fabulous time. We watched the show, PK danced (so much so that a middle-aged man afterwards shook his hand and, very seriously, congratulated him on such excellent dancing), then we mooched off the picnic lunch our friends had packed for their kids and stood in line so PK could get autographs fro the kids' show presenters.

Then we wandered around the zoo for several hours until it closed, in a pretty successful bid to avoid rush-hour traffic on the way back. PK fell asleep, and I bit my cheeks and wiggled my legs and played loud music and turned off the a/c and rolled down the window instead to keep myself awake.

Then we got home and I showered and helped PK put together his new zoo puzzle, and uploaded all the pictures of him meeting the tv presenters so he could see them, and we had a light dinner and then PK took a shower of his own, and we finally went to bed.

I hear that the Mother of the Year award is an all-expenses paid week alone at a spa somewhere in Greece or Hawaii.

I'm really looking forward to it, let me tell you.

Open letter to John Ramsey

I am really sorry that for the last ten years you and your wife, may she rest in peace, have had to live with the knowledge that most of America figured that one or both of you had something to do with your six-year old daughter's death; that we spent a fair bit of time disdaining you because you put her in beauty pageants; that we suspected that there was some connection between the beauty pageant thing and her death (because, you know, being a "bad" parent automatically means you're probably a murderer, too); and that your wife died before we learned that apparently the two of you were telling the truth. I can't say I blame you for embracing the tabloid and daytime television exposure initially; I'd probably do the same if, god forbid, I were in your shoes. I'm sure if I did so, I, too, would be raked over the coals about some of my decisions as a parent. And I can't imagine how awful it must have been, not only to live with your daughter's death and being unable to solve the crime, but also being popularly considered somehow to blame for it.

I hope that if this arrest has, in fact, caught the guilty party, that it helps make up a little bit for what we've all done to you in the last decade.

Fear and Loathing of SUVs

How do I loathe SUVs? Let me count the ways.

They use a lot of gas, which (1) exhausts the world’s dwindling oil supplies faster and (2) pollutes the air, thereby (3) contributing to the acceleration of global warming.

When I’m waiting to turn left at an intersection, there’s often an SUV in the lane across from me. (4) I can’t see through the fucker to know if there’s traffic coming from behind it, so I’m stuck waiting until the SUV turns or the light changes.

When I’m on the highway, (5) I can’t see the road ahead of me if I’m following an SUV. I’ll speed and change lanes less carefully than I should just to get past an SUV so I can see the road ahead. It’s not safe to drive at highway speeds when you can’t see any potential hazards or slowdowns you’re approaching.

When I want to turn out of a parking lot in the city, (6) if there’s an SUV parked to the left of the driveway, I have no visibility and can’t see if it’s safe to pull out. I nearly got hit by a minivan when inching out from the McDonald’s lot last week because of a stinkin’ SUV parked there.

Not only are (7) SUVs taller than cars, they also (8) usually seem to have tinted windows. WTF? Why do they need tinted windows? If they’re not hiding the pope or Brangelina in there, I think they could make do with clear windows so other drivers’ ability to see hazards isn’t obliterated.

And when I go into a crowded parking garage, you know what fills up the row of "small car only" spots? That’s right: (9) An SUV will take up two small spots rather than driving up a few more levels to find a ful-sized parking space that’s open. Doesn’t that just smack of (10) yuppie entitlement, taking up two parking spaces because you choose to drive something that’s ridiculously oversized for a congested city?

Now, I’m a reasonable woman. If you live in the snowy mountains, you can make an argument for driving a rugged SUV rather than a car (though a sporty station wagon with good tires might serve your purposes). A Hummer, though? Nobody needs a Hummer. You’ve got a muddy dog? Then you can get a small SUV like the Honda Element, or the boxy little Scion xB, or a sporty wagon. You don’t need an Explorer or Navigator.

If you need to transport a lot of kids in the suburbs, a minivan makes a lot more sense than an SUV. They generally accommodate passengers better and get better gas mileage.

You need to move a lot of cargo? Guess what—you can often fit far more into a minivan than an SUV. The athletic folks I know who need to schlep lots of bulky gear drive minivans.

You say you feel safer up high in an SUV than in a regular car? Well, knock it off! You’re making it harder for all the people driving those regular cars to safely see where they’re going, and the sheer size of your SUV poses more risk to car passengers when the two vehicles collide.

I’m not done ranting yet. Have you seen the latest way McDonald’s has sold its hollow soul to the corporate crossover devil? The current Happy Meal promotion is Polly Pocket dolls for girls (heavy on the pink, of course*) and toy Hummers for boys. I can’t believe General Motors passed up the chance to make pink flowered Hummers for little girls, to double the number of children lobbying their parents to buy a cool Hummer (as my son’s been doing this past week). But then, if Hummers weren’t so blatantly manly-man, the guys wouldn’t be so keen on them, and they’d buy fewer of these giant metal penises on wheels, so GM can’t risk diluting the brand by pinkifying it for the girls who get Happy Meals. No, the girls will have to be content with their dolls.

Now, I’ve been fine with past Hot Wheels Happy Meal promotions. Cars are fun. We all like to play with toy cars, don’t we? Smasho-bango! Zoom-zoom! But McDonald’s and GM have crossed the line by foisting Hummers on little kids in a naked attempt to build brand loyalty early and enlist children into GM’s marketing army.

Looking on the bright side, the Happy Meal Hummers are all made of plastic, so if I should happen to crush one (of the three that have entered our house) by stepping on it like mighty Godzilla…

* My son often reports his favorite color to be purple (though he’s fickle sometimes). We have several pairs of these clothespin chopsticks (which are great for kids and other beginning chopstick wielders). I asked Ben which color he wanted today, and he opted for purple. I might do a whole post on boys, purple, and pink, in fact. Maybe next week…

Cross-posted at Orange Tangerine.

Abortion shouldn't be something to be ashamed of

The year before Roe v. Wade, fifty-three famous women, including Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, and Anne Sexton, publicly acknowledged in Ms. magazine that they had had abortions.

Now Ms. is asking those of us who value the fact that we've grown up with the ability to obtain abortions safely and legally to do the same. If you've had an abortion, you can say so here; and like Sexton, Steinem, and Sontag, you can give Ms. permission to print your name in the magazine, or on the website (or not at all, if you prefer).

And if, like me, you've been lucky enough to have only the pregnancy(ies) you were ready for, you can still sign in solidarity with your sisters--in my case, literally--and donate to Ms. "Reproductive Freedom Fund," which goes to support the Feminist Majority Foundation, which "engages in research and public policy development, public education programs, grassroots organizing projects, leadership training and development programs, and participates in and organizes forums on issues of women's equality and empowerment." They also, if you didn't know, have a nifty Feminist Career Center that lists interesting jobs and--for you academic types--internships that you or your students might be interested in.

Mr Lover, Lover

So if I understand correctly, that plucky Ned Lamont finally gave Joe Lieberman the bloody nose he deserved. He stepped up to with his little sling to fire a stone at the goliath of DNC leadership and made an important point on behalf of the growing group of anti-war Americans - There are enough of you now to bring down the hawks. To quote the Economist (registration required), “An anti-war left has been joined by an anti-war centre.”

At some level of course this is an entirely positive turn of events for the progressive left and, by extension, the country as a whole:

It marks, for example, the start of a more vigorous (i.e. multi-faceted) debate in the US about your foreign policy objectives and about the means you use to pursue them. It may re-ignite a debate about your fiscal position and the way that you choose to use your tax dollars. It may even signal a renewed willingness to punish those who have let you down through the very peaceful means of the (primary) ballot box – all too rare an event in senatorial elections.

And yet.....

This story (as reported) still leaves me with the nagging feeling that the US left is still stuck in the role of being “not like them”. Ned Lamont is sold in the press as an anti-war campaigner, not a three dimensional politician. His cause, therefore, fits neatly with its most prominent equivalents – being anti-globalization (at best a really dumb slogan and at worst, a really dumb idea but that’s another post), anti-fossil-fuel and, most importantly, anti-Bush.

The well-worn question this raises is exactly what the progressive left is actually for. If the other side wasn’t out there setting policy, what would you believe in?

As you think about this, remember that many American voters really don’t seem to care about your ability to look up antonyms. Being anti-war cannot simply be re-packaged as being pro-peace. Are you against all wars? Any that are conducted in a certain way? Just this one?

As the Democracy corps reported in June:

“The credibility gap facing Democrats, a natural extension of the fact that voters don't see us as standing for any clear ideas or issues, undermines all of our other work. This then leads logically to the central finding of our rural and red state research — if they can't discern a difference on jobs, health care, retirement, gas prices, etc., voters will default to security and values issues, and they will assume that a candidate who matches their values will also advance their interests on those bread and butter issues”.

In this climate, celebrating Ned Lamont because he is anti-Lieberman, anti-aggression and (again) anti-Bush seems to be a truly pyrrhic exercise.

So my question, as we head towards the comments section is exactly what the progressive US left is for. You have the beginnings of a platform in the central theme of this weblog - Pro-choice starts with exactly the right three letters. All that remains is to work out where you go from there. Do you want to spend more on healthcare and education as Ned Lamont suggests on his website? Do you want to be the constituency of reality and wages as Dr. B puts proposes in her recent post or is it enough to be anti?

Forget dinosaur Joe. Forget plucky Ned and his heroic victory. Try even to forget Howard Dean and his novel campaigning style, Barack Obama’s polished delivery and Hillary’s link to the recent past. Look forward from here and tell me: what is the progressive left really for?

All right, it's really time to just stop worrying about this

Dear god, my fellow Americans. We have a new epidemic: overweight infants!

Yes, you heard me right. Those healthy fat babies who aren't yet eating solid foods? They're not cute! They're obese! Get those babies on diets! Oh no, wait, don't do that. "It is much better to be guided by the appetite of the baby." No, don't! "It could be that if you're overfed early in life, that may affect the brain's neurochemistry during a key development period and reprogram a person to eat to excess."

Worry, worry, worry! And don't forget that it's really all the fault of pre-pregnant women. That's right: not only are fat chicks ugly and weak-willed and unfeminine--they're also endangering babies!

Or, you know, maybe we could just recognize that well-off countries are likely to produce healthy babies, that fat babies have traditionally been admired as cute and healthy, that once they start crawling and walking they'll be getting exercise, that exercise in the form of walking is good for everyone plus it saves oil, and that really, the most likely route to healthy eating habits is not to fucking become obsessed with food and fat.

Nah.

The state of the union

The administration needs some anti-persdesperant, methinks. According to this morning's NYT,

Vice President Dick Cheney . . . suggest[ed] that the ouster of Mr. Lieberman might encourage “al Qaeda types.”

No, Prince of Lies, people voted for Lamont because Lieberman unapologetically backed a war fought on false premises with an imaginary rosy strategy, one that actually has encouraged more terrorism in the Middle East. As opposed to, you know, primary elections for minority party candidates in small U.S. states, which I'm sure Osama follows very closely.

Oh, and maybe a few of them voted for Lamont because Lieberman's belief in his own moral superiority, even--especially?--at the price of loyalty to his party and his constituents, is just a wee bit offensive:

“That’s not my fault,” he said. “They are not criticizing me for running an independent campaign, they are criticizing Democratic voters for the way they voted.”

Way to go, Joe! It's not your fault if the terrorists win! It's the fault of Democratic voters who failed to support you in your one-man stand against the forces of Evil!!

'Scuse me while I channel my inner drag queen:

Honey, please.

This is gonna be the Republican campaign strategy: "a vote against us is a vote for Osama!" "Lack of support for the Iraq war quagmire civil war mess encouraged a couple of dozen British Muslims to try to bomb airplanes at Heathrow! Re-elect the people who declared petting zoos and kangaroos more in need of security than Times Square!" Really, it's gone beyond loathsome and become ludicrous.

I propose that the Democratic approach should be that we're the party that is actually serious about security. The party that believes in real intelligence, real threat assessment, real priorities. Hell, spin it into an all-purpose slogan: real people (not imaginary billionares who are bilked out of the family business by the estate tax), real problems (like wages and education, instead of gay marriage and Terri Schiavo), real solutions (like preventing unwanted pregnancy rather than promoting ignorance), real facts (like global warming and evolution). We're the reality-based community; let's take that phrase and run with it.

Not guilty as charged

I almost feel guilty about faking the date and time stamp on this post. I was enlisted into the Bitch Army for a Wednesday gig, but I'm kinda busy this Wednesday, so I'm horning in on No Nym's Tuesday. The topic at hand is guilt, and I excel at rationalization, so...no guilt.

My son, Ben, recently asked me why I take trips away from home without him and my husband. I’ve had five such trips in his six years, ranging from a three-day weekend to a week’s vacation. Every last one of them was completely optional and recreational, so it’s not as if I were traveling for business (I’m a stay-at-home mom and freelance editor) or for family obligations. Faced with a questioning child, I suspect that many women would instinctively feel that much-ballyhooed female/maternal guilt about taking time for themselves.

But that guilt thing is not my cup o’ tea. My friend DoctorMama recently blogged about feeling guilty, and the comments thread indicates that she’s far from alone. There was just one commenter who spoke my language: “I don’t think I ever feel too guilty about things I have or have not done. I'm pretty good at justifying my reasoning. I just look at everything as one step at a time and that there's no point in getting worked up over things you can't change.” Turns out that particular commenter is a man. Of course! What woman would think that way? Oh, right—me.

Now, I drafted this post before discovering that he wasn’t a she, which leads me in an entirely different direction. It doesn’t seem to me that men struggle as much with this ilk of guilt—what say you, gentlemen? Do the tropes of Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt weigh equally on men and women, or are women particularly susceptible to berating themselves? Is it just that women are more comfortable openly expressing their regrets, while men subsume their guilty feelings? Or is the patriarchy to blame for encouraging women to blame themselves for this, that, and the other thing? (Discuss.)

In addition to having traveled like a (modestly) footloose single woman, I also exhibit a stark degree of parental slackitude on evenings and weekends when my husband is home from work. A full day (or five of them) in close proximity to a small child, while rewarding, can grow wearying.

But I don’t feel guilty about taking these vacations and daily breathers. By getting to wallow in “me time,” I recharge my drained batteries and lessen the amount of time I sit around feeling put upon by childrearing/household/freelance responsibilities. Goodness, I’d have plenty to feel guilty about if I never got a break—feeling oppressed by a pretty decent life that just didn’t happen to spoil me rotten? I might feel guilty about that. But I feel much more content knowing that I can get a breather when I need one, that my own interests and interior life are deemed important by my spouse.

I can also rationalize the “me time” thus: My husband’s a fabulous dad who finds 24-hours-a-day one-on-one time with the kid to be much less draining than I do, as he doesn’t have to do it all the time and he’s innately far more patient than I. Ben really does seem to depend on his mom and dad equally—when he’s injured or scared, he evinces no preference for one parent over the other. What better grounding can you give a child than a close relationship with two loving adults? Plus, one of those loving adults would tend to be crankier if she didn’t get to nourish her inner self along the way. (As you see, I am adept at piling justifications upon rationalizations as needed.)

So maybe I’m just a selfish bitch who doesn’t have enough heart to dedicate her all to her child and spouse. But in a person who is essentially good and decent (i.e., this doesn’t apply to that scumbag Joe Francis), I think guilt is nothing but a tremendous energy suck. I encourage you all to take a couple of the things you feel guilty about and rationalize away the guilt. Go ahead—we’ll wait. Did you do it? Do you feel the burden lightening? I hope you do.

[Cross-posted at Orange Tangerine.]

shirts up!

Check out the near side bar--once blogger's image upload starts working again, it'll have a little graphic instead of REALLY BIG WORDS. The retro designs aren't quite ready yet, but those of you who liked the graffiti/stencil style can browse to your heart's content.

Do be sure and let me know what you think once you get the shirts, okay?

The "terrorism bubble" has burst

So, between this paper, and the cover story for this month's Atlantic, I'm happy to say that the war on terra is over.

The Cato paper shows that in the US you're more likely to be killed by lightning than terrorists, and urges us to calibrate our responses appropriately. Armchair Generalist catches the US Congress in a rare moment of sanity, seeming to be, er, rational about defense spending. The Atlantic argues that Al Q is FUBAR, and the only threats coming out of the Middle East are the ones of our own making.

I think David Brin had it right, when he said that the "War on Terror" was fought and won on Flight 93, by ordinary US citizens, and Afghanistan was just a mopping up operation.

I think the "terrorism bubble has popped" style of argument is a political keeper. It further lionizes the heroes on Flight 93, and Americans in general. It ties the notion of "war" to specific results: disrupting Al Q. Moreover, it makes the GOP, or anyone who is not acting rationally, look like a bunch of cowards.* Although, the part of me that loves The Prisoner will dearly miss being on Orange Alert all the time. ;)

*If you're not reading Armchair Generalist and Arms and Influence on a regular basis, you should be. Unless you're a republican running for re-election**. In that case, you should stay the course.

**I think that anyone citing 9/11 as evidence for this or that national security policy is objectively pro-terrorist.

Bidness

1. Shirts: working on setting up the store. Soon.

2. Guest bloggers! Since I'm moving and packing and painting and maybe landscaping and revising an article and planning a TA training session and looking for a new place to live and kind of stressing out and trying to keep PK entertained through all this and going to Chicago from Saturday-Monday/Tuesdayish for Flea's oldest's birthday party and to see my sister-in-law (who is giving us her old car!) and to pass along the Subie to the lucky impoverished grad student I've promised it to and to visit a friend or two or three, I've signed up No Nym, Orange, and my Mysterious British Friend to guest blog on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and "ONLY ONE Friday, Bitch, and that is all I promise to do." No need to be nice to this lot--they're all thick-skinned.

3. If you're in Chicago and want to have a drink or something, drop me an email. I DO NOT promise that I'll have time--this is a quick trip, obvs.--but if I do, there are a few of you (Ding,* Ron O., I'm looking at you guys specifically) I'd like to see, if I can.

*Speaking of, her last three blog entries have been awfully good, and two out of three of them have been on things I specifically wanted to write about myself but have *not had time*. Hm. I should email you, Ding, and twist your arm into guest blogging for me.

Yeah, we really do talk to each other this way

Yesterday:

Mr. B.: . . . so once I'm done with the bedroom, I'll tackle the bathroom floor.
Me: What about this trip to Chicago? We so don't have time for it.
Mr. B.: It's really important to me. I think we can make it happen.
Me: Jesus, and Tuesday's our anniversary.
Mr. B.: Congratulations, you remembered!
Me, giving him the finger: Yeah, yeah. The point is, are we doing something? Should we hire a sitter? We don't get paid until Friday.
Mr. B.: I figured we wouldn't do anything this year.
Me: Yeah, you're just saying that because you were testing me to see if I'd remember.
Pseudonymous Kid: Can we have a cake?
Me: You want cake? Okay, we can probably do that.
Pseudonymous Kid, whispering in my ear: Can I have a piece?
Mr. B.: That's my cake, PK!
Pseudonymous Kid, still whispering: Mama, who would you rather share a cake with? Someone who is annoying you a little bit, that is, Papa? Or someone who loves you more than anything, that is, me?

Today:

Me: PK, do you want something to eat?
Pseudonymous Kid: No, I'm not hungry.
Me: All you've eaten today is bread! You have to have something.
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay, I'll have some bread.
Me: You've only eaten bread. You have to have something else.
Pseudonymous Kid: Mama, give me a break.
Me: Okay, fine. Here's some more bread.
Pseudonymous Kid: Thanks. Can I have some orange juice?
Me: Sure. Although you are perfectly capable of getting your own orange juice, you realize. Now that you're big enough to be losing a tooth.* (Delivering the orange juice): Okay, here's your orange juice. Don't spill it, or I'll kill you. And I really do not want to have to clean up dead little kid.
Pseudonymous Kid: Okay.


*His two bottom incisors are loose. He wants (!) me to pull them. I tried one this morning, and the stupid dental floss kept slipping off, so he agreed to wait until it's a little looser. I may just go to the grocery store and buy him an apple. Which will also solve the only-eating-bread problem.

Dirty commerce, here we come!

Okay, y'all. I'ma give you a choice of designs A *or* B (because I don't want the non-confrontational types not to buy shirts!) through GoodStorm, who totally won me over by actually backtracking my link to them and leaving a comment. Plus, Jess, who comments here, has a cousin who works there, so maybe Jess's cousin will get a referral fee or a pat on the back or something. (Jess, make sure your cousin knows to claim credit--she/he can email me and I'll email GoodStorm, if that works.) Plus they give part of their profits to progressive charities.

So I've asked both Lovely Lady, who submitted lovely design A, and Elise, who sent me fab retro design B, to modify the text a bit to "prevents," since I'm convinced by those of you who argued it's a better message. They'll each get free shirts. And I'll get the images sent to the teeshirt folks asap and get the store set up for your retail therapy needs.

I'm afraid I don't have several hundred bucks right now to put down on screen printed shirts, so these will be digital prints. If you wash them inside out and don't throw them in the dryer, that'll preserve the image better. If I make enough from these to reinvest in screen-printed tees, then I'll do that next time. And hopefully those who (like myself) prefer screen prints can overcome that just this once for a good cause: I'll donate 15% of profits to pro-choice causes.

And thanks to everyone who voted, offered suggestions, and showed interest. I would never have done this without a li'l encouragement.

Okay, what about these?

Option A
Option B
Option C (added a bit late, after modifying yesterday's options to accomodate yesterday's suggeestions)

Vote in comments; by this evening I'll make a decision and start an account at either Cafepress or Good Storm.

Also let me know if you have a preference regarding digital transfer (less durable, but faster) or screen print (more permanent, but takes a while. Also, it would require me to do a bulk order of 144 and hope to sell 'em all, which I'm willing to do). Cafepress lets you do direct printing, which they claim is more durable than the regular heat transfer. So do let me know how much (a) durability of the image and (b) speed getting your hands on the things matter. I'm willing to bulk order screenprinted tees, but I really don't want to get stuck with a hundred of the things because the initial enthusiasm has worn off while we're waiting for the printing to be done!

(BTW, size is a non-issue; whichever design we pick, they'll end up the same size b/c I'll submit it according to the templates for the printers.)

Y'all can say you read this blog before it sold out

And you can even help me sell out! Get in on the ground floor with the flogging of the merchandise, even.

Because making Plan B available over the counter is an immediate issue, I've decided to go with CafePress, though I'm going to use the transfer process that they say is the more durable of the two options. In the fall I'm thinking of actually doing a silkscreen (better quality than print-to-order) Bitch blog tees order, but we'll see how this one goes first.

So let me know which of these four possible images you like best. I'm not entirely done fiddling with them, but I want to get an idea as far as fonts go. And do you guys like just black and red print, or black, red, and blue? I'm inclined to like #4 myself, especially if I can figure out how to get a little editor's caret underneath the "not" (I have no imaging software to speak of--I'm doing this with a word processor, people, is how lame I am). But y'all tell me what you think, and I'll try to have the shirts available for purchase on Monday.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

Don't forget! It's special cookie day!

By official declaration of Pseudonymous Kid, August 4th is Special Cookie Day. Alas, as sometimes happens with these things, I forgot the date (wait and see if I forget my wedding anniversary, which is Tuesday--it's happened before). So, by special dispensation, I declare that Special Cookie Day will be celebrated all weekend!

Make (or buy) some special cookies, and share them with a friend or little kid. Or eat them all yourself. Either way is fine.

AARRGGHHH

Mr. B. sent me this video clip from The View, in which Barbara Walters tells half the women in America that Plan B works by preventing implantation. WHICH IS NOT TRUE. Plan B works by preventing ovulation. Sperm hangs out in your reproductive tract for a while, waiting for an egg. If you ovulate while the sperm is still alive, you get pregnant. If you can prevent ovulation, e.g., with Plan B, then you prevent pregnancy.

The evidence shows ECPs work by preventing ovulation. There is no direct evidence they prevent fertilization. There's also no direct evidence they prevent implantation in humans.

And then the ladies at the View get into a huge argument about right to life and blah blah, and completely fail to talk about whether or not Plan B is going to be available over the counter or not.

Barbara Walters needs to be bombarded with letters setting her straight (link on the left). This kind of misinformation, in that kind of forum, is precisely the kind of shit that helps perpetuate crap like emergency rooms not providing e.c. to rape victims, pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions, and the rest of this tragically effective politcally-motivated movement to deny women basic reproductive services.

If I get a t-shirt made up that says "Plan B is not abortion. Ask me why," would you guys buy it?

40 is the new fuck you

So a couple of days ago I took PK to the community pool, and realized something kinda cool.

Although I'm a good swimmer, I haven't swum regularly since I was doing my MA--the overhead of changing and showering and conditioning my hair and swimming and then showering and conditioning my hair again and changing and rinsing out the suit and all of that makes what should be a half hour workout into an entire afternoon, which sucks.

Anyway.

So now I am getting pretty close to 40, and the last time I was swimming I was in my 20s. And now I have a kid and a mama belly and my ass (which has had a good long run and has been very good to me and has many years left, thank you) is getting a little dimply in places and shows that I've been sitting on it too much in the last couple of years.

But I didn't really think of any of this while PK and I were getting ready to go, because it was Fucking Hot and I just wanted to get the hell out of the house as soon as possible. So I got PK and myself into our suits (ugh, tight, sticky) and threw a shirt on each of us and wrapped a skirt on me and grabbed a couple of towels and a pair of shorts for him to change into and off we went.

And then we get to the community pool and I start to realize that I'm the freaky hippie lady who is comfortable with her body, and comfortable being naked in front of her opposite-sex child, and whose opposite-sex child is comfortable being naked in a locker room full of girls and women. We walk in and we grab a locker and we shed our coverup clothes. And I realize that everyone else--mostly adolescent girls, but a few moms with younger children--is sneaking off into little "changing rooms" that are set off from the main locker room, and changing in private, and that they haven't just worn their suits under their clothes but are, actually, changing. And that all the other moms are wearing one piece suits (which is fine and practical and I wear them too on occasion, but it made me realize that the bikini-wearing 30-something mom is an anamoly, at least in this town). And that all the teenage girls are hiding themselves under towels.

And we go out to the pool, and I get in, and PK (who can't swim yet) climbs down the ladder after me, and a little girl climbing down the ladder after him challenges me, demandingly, "is that a boy or a girl??" Because PK is wearing a boys' suit and has a ponytail to keep his hair out of his eyes. I say with just a little hint of "dumb question" in my tone that he is a boy. Okay, fine.

But damn! When I was a girl in the 70s, my sister and I would go to the beach and swim in our undies. And we'd play outside without shirts on in the summer all the time (I remember the asshole neighbor boy saying something at one point about "will you do that when you're thirteen, haw haw" and thinking, "what a dick"). And we weren't the only kids who did that stuff, either, although we were on the hippier side of normal, for sure. It's irksome, taking a little kid to the pool and having people (even other little kids) get stressed because his exposed little-kid body doesn't bear clear gender markers. Gimme a break.

We play in the pool, and I work him up to the bouncing-up-and-down-and-one-two-three-dunk! game that you play when you're teaching small children to put their heads under water, and he finds a raft to float around on and I swim under and around the raft to entertain him, and again I realize that I'm about the only mom--actually the only parent--who is actually swimming, albeit not much b/c PK can't so he needs me with him at all times. Dear god, I'm at the age where people are supposed to get into a pool and sort of wade around but not get their hair wet. What is this?

And after an hour or so, the whistle blows, and we go back into the locker room to change, and I--as I always do/did when I swim--strip in the shower and rinse my suit out thoroughly. No one else is stripping in the shower; everyone is washing their hair with their swimsuits on. (?!?) And PK is playing around in the shower with me in that "I shower with mama all the time" way. And somehow I realize that I'm the adult woman whose body used to freak me out a little when I was an adolescent--it just looks so frank, with the belly, and the softer ass, and the larger areolae. But what I realize now is that the frankness is largely a function of just not trying to hide when naked.

I wrap a towel around myself and one around PK, and we march back to the lockers, where I drop our towels on the bench and bend down to get our clothes out and PK gets out of his suit, and suddenly I can feel the sidelong glances we're not-quite-getting from the teenagers because omg that's a little boy naked in the women's locker room. And I help PK get dressed first, of course, without being wrapped in a towel myself because managing a towel while dressing a little kid is a hassle (plus I want to air out a bit), so I'm naked for a good long time. But no one else is naked, because they've all sneaked off into the side rooms to change. And he gets dressed, and then I wrap my skirt back around myself and pull my tank over my head and no way am I going to comb my chloriney hair so we walk out of the locker room, sans bra and underwear, tangled damp hair dripping down our backs, past the women and girls drying their hair at the mirrors and re-applying makeup (?!?!) and back out into the now-tolerable heat.

And I'm thinking, yeah. I really don't belong here. I'm glad I'm moving to Cali, where outside living is an all-year thing, and where heading to the beach wearing a swimsuit with a sarong wrapped around your waist is perfectly normal, and where the the slightly dissheveled "I've been swimming" ponytail is a regular hairstyle, and where women of all ages wear body-conscious clothing without standing out. And where hopefully I can avoid the flip side of all that, and ignore the LA angst about having a "perfect" body and instead feel good about having a body I'm perfectly comfortable with.



Earlier today a friend linked me to this post, which encouraged me to write this stuff up. Hooray for 40-something women who roll their bikini bottoms so that their 40-something asses can get some exposure! And the "oddly arousing" thing makes me wonder--and wish--that more men would write honestly about sex and sexiness. The only time you see guys writing about sex is when they're playing stud, or bragging on how hot some 19-year old model is. And it's tiresome, because in private (comment threads, chats, conversations) these same guys talk about women who look *nothing* like 19-year old models in ways that demonstrate real appreciation of, and love for, real women. But in popular culture we continue to perpetuate the idea that all men find 19-year old models to be the creme de la creme of female attractiveness.

I wish straight guys had the balls to talk about sexuality the way feminist women do.

Though to be fair, I suppose feminist women should talk more about real men and real men's bodies. It's funny how easy it is to talk about the socially-approved script--hot soccer players, hot models--but the real, honest stuff is so much more difficult.

HOTT

I am posting to you from a bathtub full of cold water. Half an hour ago I was nauseated and light-headed and my kidneys hurt. Now I feel almost human again. I am hoping that the roofers don't put a ladder up next to the bathroom window, but if they do, they can enjoy the show because I ain't getting out of this tub.

Another half hour or so and I might survive.

Too darn hot

It is too fucking hot to blog, people. As in 95 degrees and 60% humidity, according to teh internets (which calculate the heat index at 116 degrees???). Last night at 10 pm it was 80 and 90% humidity.

May I remind you I have no a/c? Motherfuck, it's hot.

That is all.