Blogpost The First: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!

I've had three things on my mind this week but have lacked the energy necessary to commit them to internettia.  But I slept for ten hours last night.  I know that's excessive and that normal people thrive on seven hours.  I am not one.  I can sleep like a boss.  If I were a superhero, sleeping would be my power.  I would be Lady Sleepsalot.  Or Narcolady (which, to be fair, sounds like a-whole-nother superpower).  Sleeping is a stupid superpower.  But, hey, remember the Wonder Twins?  Shape of a Tiger (empirically awesome)!  Form of an Iceberg (what?).

Here's my other sleeping joke:  If I lead a good life I will be reincarnated as a sloth.

When I get enough sleep, I am less manifestly hilarious.

Anyhoo, what it is I'm saying is that I have the energy to commit the three topics that have consumed me to the Blogosphere.  Enjoy!

Topic the First: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS
Laney scorns and maligns anything that she deems "girly."  I confess that I could have fun with a kid that was into lipgloss and fixing her hair. Instead I have a kid who acts like I'm trying to get the nuclear codes every time I run a brush through her hair.  I like sparkles and flounces and makeup.  But this is not Laney's jam, and I'm cool with that.  I never try to talk her into dresses when we shop, although she may catch me sighing wistfully when we walk past something like this.

But it bugs me that the word Laney uses to express her derision is "girly."  I do not want the word "girly" to be her pejorative.  We have a long social history of casting female things as frivolous and silly and male things as substantive and important.   And this is one of the ways that patriarchal hegemony is sustained.  To continue in this proto-feminist vein, I am totally over gender essentialism.  I don't want my daughter thinking that the thing that makes something worthy of her disgust is that it is something for girls.  I am lobbying hard for her to abandon "girly" in favor of "princess crap."

Whenever we get Happy Meals (which is rarely. Don't judge me), and the checkout person says, "is it for a girl or a boy," I say "she'll have [whichever toy she wants]." Yesterday she wanted the Hexbug toy.  The checkout lady gave her the Barbie toy.

Apparently, McDonald's has a way to go before it catches up.

Getting All Deep Up in a Big Old Tree

When I was about 12 or 13 or so, I was walking through this neighborhood in Memphis called Hedgemoor.  Hedgemoor is this fancy, pretty old neighborhood with windy roads and lots of trees (Memphis gives good tree, y'all.  Lots of big old pretty trees in Memphis).  I was walking a dog, I think and in the midst of this walk I found myself staring at this huge, beautiful old tree and thinking "I want to be as big as that tree! I'm going to be as huge as that tree."  I meant, like, famous, you know?  Not 18 feet tall.  Stop being so literal.  God.

Still, what an embarrassing memory!  It sounds like the start of an overwrought Lifetime biopic that ends with some glamorous but fading beauty driving an expensive car off a cliff or something.  The final shot:  an $1800 shoe floats poetically to the top of the ocean, the last sad remnant of a a star that blazed too bright and then flared out.   And.... credits.  For what it's worth, back in the days that my Saturdays were spent fighting off hangovers instead of chauffeuring Laney to various classes and vacuuming and stuff, I would have watched the living shit out of that movie.

But it happened.  This is a real moment from my youth.  And don't you go being all smug about it.  You know had similarly melodramatic teenage affirmations of your own future fame.

But, now?  God, fame sounds like such a huge pain in the ass.  I mean, I'm not really interested in any life plan that involves me having to go out at night.  I spend my evenings in sweatpants city, population: a very comfortable me.  Teenage me would have wept at that assertion.  But, you know, she also listened to Huey Lewis on purpose.  What the hell does she know?

I feel no urge to take the world by storm. It seems much nicer to sit back and enjoy it.  And this is not just because I'm lazy and enjoy television.  I've also grown to grok that there's not much point in taking the world by storm because no matter how big we are, we're still so small.

Walking home from the el today, I told Laney about the Pale Blue Dot. You know that picture, right?  This one:

Everyone you've ever loved, the entire sum history of humankind, all the literature and love and Olympic gold medals, all the big old trees that are and have ever been...  just that tiny blue dot.

This doesn't make me feel insignificant.  It makes me feel sort of relaxed and happy that my own narcissism is adequately served by this shitty blog.

This Thing That Happened Last Night

I read Mary Dorial Russel's Doc recently.  It's just a wonderful book, filled with moments both large and small that stick with you.  That's how I know it's a good book.  I internalized it.

You probably knew this, but I didn't: Doc Holliday was a dentist, and, according to this book,  quite a good, dedicated dentist. There's a part where Doc mulls on the dental pain that one might not even be aware of that can be relieved.  Pain can be accommodated for so long that it become as commonplace and ignorable as breathing. It is an astonishing relief when you are relieved of the lizard-brain pain.

There was a knock on my door last night about 8:30 or so.  I thought it was the local neighborhood kid who seems to think we're living in an 80's sitcom and pops by between 8 and 9 million times a day for the most random of reasons.  But instead it was a 40ish African-American guy who had his driver's license and cell phone in hand.

You develop an instinct when you live in the city for a while.  You get pretty good at recognizing who is going to be dangerous and who is going to be merely annoying.  This cell phone/driver's license combo is a gimme:  annoying.  He was fixing to ask me for money.  Ugh.

I have no major beef with giving money to people asking for it.  A couple of bucks our of my pocket is no big deal and I don't care if you're going to buy drugs with it.  It is, to borrow a phrase from my dear departed dad, a profoundly red-ass world. Who am I to begrudge someone a pop?  But, it's a little different when you come to my house.  One must, after all, protect the homestead.  One does not want to encourage strangers to come a'knocking.

So, when he held out his hand, I pointedly ignored it, put on my coldest voice and said, "I don't know you and you're making me a little nervous here standing at my door."  And then this look of anguished frustration passed over his face and he said, "I just live behind you."  Now, if it were the 'burbs I'd imagine I'd feel like a jerk for not recognizing someone who lived behind me, but, shit, a LOT of people live behind me.   There's a lot of behind behind me.

But he looked like he might have been familiar so I decided to let him tell me what's what.  I shook his hand, kept my suspicious face on,  and let him begin.  He has a three year old who has ... some disease I didn't quite pick up because I was pretty sure he was lying still and fake kid diseases are the shittiest lies. He told me he was going to Walgreen's to get something for his son and he needed $15 dollars.

I know, it sounds like such bullshit right?  But I've left out a lot.   He spoke for a while and I found myself starting to believe him. My city vibes were picking up desperation, but not wheedling, jonesing desperation.   I have lived here twenty-five years.  My city vibes are good, they are unaffected by guilt of either the Catholic or White variety. He was legit embarrassed about asking me for money.  I felt sorry for him.  But I hadn't completely shucked my city armor and my pat response to queries of this nature came out automatically: "I'm so sorry, but I don't have ANY cash."

He looked disappointed, distraught and sad.   But he smiled and said, "Well, thanks anyway."

And then something snapped, and I decided to believe him.  "Wait!" I said. I checked in my wallet,  found $12 and gave it to him.

You guys, the look of relief on his face was amazing.  He looked relieved to have gotten that money and maybe even more relieved that someone believed him.  He held out his arms to me,  we hugged and he smiled again.  "Now I just have to scrounge up three more," he said.  But I raided the magic change bowl in the kitchen and and gave him 12 quarters.  We hugged again and he left.

And still, as I write this, I know that it sounds like such bullshit.  It sounds like he took my $15 and bought something illicit, that I'm just another Nice White Lady (tm) trying to shore up my charitable bona fides.  But it wasn't bullshit.  It was a real.  I still believe that he really needed $15.

And I am relieved of a pain I'd accommodated so long I was unaware of it.  Suspicion and doubt and self-protection wear you down after a while.  It felt good to help someone out.  It felt good to trust someone for no reason other than that they really need someone to believe them.  I felt lighter when I came back inside,  relieved of a burden I didn't know I was carrying.

In the cold light of morning, I recognize that he could have just been very good at scamming Nice Whie Ladies (tm).  But I don't think so.  I think I helped someone who needed it and I am glad to have laid aside my armor of self-protection for a few minutes.  I felt lighter last night. I feel lighter today.

And I'll leave you now with the cautionary part of this: it is perhaps not wise to open your door to strangers.   A healthy skepticism is an important part of surviving in the world.  But, letting self-protection and fear overtake you can also lead to tragic results.  Find the middle-ground.

Happy Valentimes Day!

I've had a bad day.  I have cried four times already which, to be fair, ain't hardly a record for a weepy lady like myself.  I've just been running hard into my own shortcomings all day; an inability to just  DEAL when things get tough, a propensity for projecting my own personal failures onto others, being a bad friend, losing my emotional shit in front of my daughter.  In short (and we all have these days), all I could think of was Laney going to bed so I could crawl under the covers and cry to my heart's content.  With a whiskey.

But when I came home, there was a Valentine's card and candy from Don who had also left a lovely quiche in the fridge so I didn't have to make dinner.  I was pulled from the abyss in just the nick of time.

But I still cried again because  (a) I am a weepy lady and was touched and grateful and (b) I felt like a big old jerk for not getting Don anything for V-Day.    

So, I'm going to give him a public Valentine and tell the little corner of the world that reads this shitty blog six things that I really like about Don (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

1) Don is strong, the kind of strong that never needs to prove it.  When I left to make my way in the world, my mother told me that there are two kinds of men: men who like women and men who don't like women and that this has nothing to do with their sexuality.  I think this is true.  Don is one of those guys who doesn't act like hanging out with me or my women friends is an onerous chore that he is obliged to endure.  He can hang quite comfortably with the double-x-ed.  Which has the happy effect of making him seem so much manlier, so sexy!

2) Speaking of which, he knows *how* to like me as a woman, if you know I mean (wink wink nudge nudge... you get me, right?  Because I'm being pretty obvious here)

3) He's funny.  Really funny.  He tickles me after all these years.  He has this way of being explosive and hilarious and making me laugh in that way that makes my stomach hurt a little.

4) He's so thoughtful.  Even after all these years he can surprise me with the breadth of his kindness and the depth of his perspicacity.  

5)  He's a good father in a million ways, but for this blog I'm going to focus on how he respects Laney. He doesn't look at her as an adorable little extension of himself or me, as a future person.  Don knows that Laney is her own person and deserves to be treated as such.  This is going to go a long way in helping Laney to find a good partner of her own when the time comes.  I know the way my father treated me went a long way in helping me to wait until I found a man like Don.

6) He keeps himself open to new experience and to the potential for change.  The world is still such an exciting place to him.  I don't get why anyone wants to jump in Lake Michigan in January.  But, god, I love that Don does.

So, my darling, my love,  Happy Valentine's Day.  I thought I'd tell the world at large what a great guy you are, although, really, if they've met you they probably already know.

The State of My Union

My couch smells like pee and it is *not* my fault.  I take the dog out when she has to go and I haven't peed on a couch in well over 40 years.  The dog peed on the couch a few times when she was sick and now there's no way the couch will ever not smell like pee.  Stupid dog.  Stupid couch.  Also, I ate far too much food this weekend and gained back some weight that I'd lost which is awfully dispiriting.  And on top of all that, some people in Texas elected (ON PURPOSE) a Congressman who thought inviting Ted Nugent to the State of the Union address was trenchant political commentary.  And I bet the people who voted for him still think that!  And think that unironically, because I'm pretty sure that Austin is the only city in Texas that has irony and they probably have far too much.  For the love of all that's holy, Texas,  stop it already!  Steve Stockman, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry... it's like your whole political ethos is hinged on an existential struggle between assholery and dumbassery.  

I'm poking at Texas, because I love it .  Well, I love some Texans, anyway.  And a lot of Texas music.

On another topic, I've taken to DVR-ing Doogie Howser.  This is also dispiriting because, god, 1991 was a long fucking time ago and this makes me feel super super old.  It's fun to watch Doogie Howser because that Neil Patrick Harris has always been a delight and also because the blue screen computer he pecks out the lesson of the week on is a hoot.

When I watch it, I like to remember the fresh-faced young lass I was when that show was on.  The 21 year old me would never have imagined the Internet and a black president and that Neil Patrick Harris would be gay and that this fact would be no big deal and also entirely incidental to his abiding delightfulness.  There's so much really great stuff about this time vs. that time.  On the other hand,  the 21 year old me would also never have imagined this jiggly belly and a couch that smells like pee and that bringing an assault weapon into a JC Penny would be viewed as trenchant political commentary by a group wielding really disproportionate political power (and by that I mean ANY political power held by people that stupid is too much).

Speaking of which: Wayne LaPierre just today told his addlepated devotees that they need assault weapons because there will be hurricanes and after them people will loot (fact: only black people loot.  White people gather supplies.  You knew that right?  I learned it on CNN). Wayne LaPierre says we need big guns so we can shoot people before they take our shit. Because killing people is hella better than not having as much shit as you used to.

I never thought that watching Doogie Howser would cause so much mental strife, such anguished, pitched battle between optimism and pessimism.  At least those fucking horrible jeans we wore in 1991 will never come back in fashion.  Right?  Oh, who am I kidding, of course they will.  I wore the same pair of jeans to work today that I wore in 1983.  Only much larger.

I look to the future and despair.

On the other hand, it is kind of nice that I live in a world where if I want a picture of Neil Patrick Harris circa 1991, I can get one in seconds.  There is something to be said for that...

Imagine Hamsterdam

2013 is nine days old, and already 13 people have been murdered in Chicago.    Here's a list of the names of the dead who most often remain nameless.  12 of the dead were black.  12 were male. 7 were under 30.

I feel pretty safe in the Chicago where I live, where I work.  I'm gun violence-adjacent, but I don't live in one of *those* neighborhoods.  And even when I did live in one of *those* neighborhoods, I wasn't one of *those* people.  You know... the gang people, the people who live in that other America.  This kind of gun violence has never been my problem.  It's always been *theirs.*

The heartless, possibly brainless NRA types love to tell us that these young, black men died of gunshot wounds from illegal guns. So, you know... whaddya gonna do?  It seems that in the fictional universe these NRA assholes have created, guns spring whole into existence, forged by God out of Adam's boner.  In the real world, guns are legally manufactured and legally distributed and, at some point,  legally purchased.  It's just so stupid to throw your hands up in defeat over what happens in between that and the dead 15 year old in Englewood. Jesus, it's such a stupid argument! I'm hard-pressed to understand how anyone with sense enough to tie their own shoes and get across the street alive would ever pose it.  And yet a good chunk of our national gun control philosophy seems to be based exactly on that manipulated "whaddya gonna do" bullshit.  Maybe tracking the guns will be part of the gun control action that the Obama administration is thankfully taking on.  I hope.

But guns are only a part of the problem, the toxic flotsam on the surface. At the core of the problem is an endless cycle of poverty, which begets an endless cycle of violence, which quite likely stems from one place: drugs.  Well, racism and drugs.  I think we're getting slowly better about the racism.  We remain mired in stupid about the drugs.  To be clear, I'm not talking about the junkies or the dealers, I'm talking about the goddamn, motherfucking, useless, senseless, endless War on Drugs.  The "war" that bears far more responsibility for the grotesque parade of dead young men than the drugs themselves do.

I ask you to imagine a world where drugs are legal - all of them.  I reject this pantywaist "legalize weed" nonsense.  Heroin, cocaine, crystal meth... all of it is legal and obtainable from government run pantries.  If you think that this world has more addicts than the one we live in  now, it might be time to go hang out with the "whaddya gonna do" crowd.  It's a tepid, facile morality that suffocates clarity.  I maintain that right now it is easier for a 12 year old kid in the projects to get his hands on crystal meth than it is for him to get some vodka.   I'll even scare the shit out of you by saying this is also quite likely true for the Freshman class at New Trier.

Now imagine the countless billions we spend on this useless, endless, goddamned pointless war on drugs... imagine that money spent on community outreach, afterschool programs and staffing inner city schools with counselors and social workers.  Imagine it spent on anti-drug campaigns and free rehabilitation centers.  This is a world with fewer addicts.  This is a world where a kid has place to turn to other than a gang.  This makes sense.  And, this COSTS less than the War on Drugs

Which we lost, by the way, before it even started.  What we're doing now is like dropping bombs on our own soldier's barracks and claiming that the high body count is the cost of victory.  It's time to fight the smart war.  And it's time to acknowledge that young black men matter, that they don't live in their own country, and that we are all in this together.

Unsolicited Advice for the Dads

Over the weekend, I encountered an unfortunate post over by there at the Facebook which purported to help women protect themselves against rape.  Here's a link to an article that explains pretty well how toxic and wrong the post was.  But the thing I want to talk about here is how the vast majority of sexual assaults are not committed by masked strangers who grab your ponytail (seriously... this post advised women not to wear ponytails.  Sigh).  The vast majority are perpetuated by someone the victim knows. And the vast majority go unreported because we've spent so much time and energy telling girls and women that it's probably her own fault it happened.

So what I'd like to say here is that while self-defense, muscly, strong stuff is a valuable and worthwhile skill (for both genders, not for nothing), arming your daughter with a fundamental appreciation for her own sexual agency is likely going to be much more beneficial.  Teach her stuff like this:

1. There is no such thing as blue balls.  He will be fine.  And he's being a dickhead manipulator by trying to make her feel guilty.
2. If she feels weird or uncomfortable in any situation, she should not be quiet about feeling weird and uncomfortable.  She has a right to feel uncomfortable.  She has a right to her own feelings.  If he's a good guy, he will stop what he's doing because he is also interested in the person attached to her body.  If he's a bad guy, he will not stop what he's doing and will instead try to persuade her that she shouldn't feel weird and uncomfortable.  This is a bad guy.  She should smack him upside the head and leave.  And then tell her friends about what a giant loser he is.
3. Sex is not currency.  It cannot be owed.
4. Sex is something people share, not something one party gives to another.
5.  And, Dads, here's a big one:  do not ever, under any circumstance, refer to a woman as a whore or a slut.  These words are violent, they are hateful, and their only function is to undermine female agency, to diminish women as a whole. Think of them the same way you think of the "n" word.  They are not good words.
6. And last, but not least, don't be mean to her boyfriends when you meet them.  That's so not cute.  It just means you don't respect her ability to make good choices.  If you respect her choices, then she'll learn that her choices should be respected.  See 1-4 for why this is important.

There you go.  Knowledge is power and all that. Respect your daughters, respect your sons.  And don't call that lady who cut you off in traffic a dumb whore.  Give her the respect she's due: call her an asshole.