lock it down, folks.

i think i just got heartburn.

no longer just a hidden paranoia amongst the pro-choice, the new evangelicals' 'war' on contraception has finally broken the surface. i hate being right!

i love all the space given to the anti-family planning side while the pro-family planning side is given just a few inches toward the end, legitimizing the idea that people (mostly women) shouldn't have the right to use contraception.

Abortion foes' new rallying point | Chicago Tribune

so.
all those married ladies on the pill or using the sponge, diaphragm or IUD? forget it.
all those married guys who don't want to get a vasectomy and so use condoms? too bad.
everyone else who doesn't want to get pregnant (for various reasons) and who don't believe the same as others about the place of sex in a relationship (or out of one)? yeah, too bad.

sex is only for married folks, people. the fundies have said so.
and now they're going to FORCE you to be celibate.

whether you like it or not.

adulthood checklist

1. realize that in your new job you are fracking responsible for shit. realize that this is slightly different from just 'doing' shit. you're responsible for what gets done. you have a fracking budget, for frack's sake!
2. pay off that student loan, once and for all. they're getting impatient.
3. do something with that stagnating 401k. roll it over, cash it out - something.
4. plan now for whatever tax hell you're going to find yourself in next year.
5. get someone to prepare your taxes.
6. write your will.
7. decide who your medical proxy is (or whatever that's called - who will tell the doctors to shut off the machine?)
8. make a decision *now* about the whole essure thing. or the long-term, 'could possibly poke through my uterus' IUD thing.
9. get a check up and get those boobs checked, see if you have diabetes or any other family-inherited disease and get a whole STD/HIV screen. (drive up those insurance premiums for everyone! bwah ha ha ha ha! sigh. you have to read the whole comment string to get the joke.)
10. buy renter's insurance. (yeah, for *one* painting, the books and the old laptop...)
11. write your friends more letters.

Guy Gone Wild Gets Fined: heh.

remember the reporter who nailed the skeeviness of joe francis for all to see back in august?

she's back and this time, no complaints about 'objectivity'. joe gets nailed (sorta) by the justice department for violating federal laws protecting minors from sexual exploitation:

Maker of 'Girls Gone Wild' Runs Afoul of Law on Minors | Chicago Tribune

dammit! i'm a girl!

i'm in the middle of hastily cobbling together a GOTV project for NonProfit but i still have a few minutes to wonder about fashion...

what shall my new fall look be?
i've tried sexy librarian and failed...
what should my new staples be?

what are the rest of you wearing/shopping?

over in churchgal land, i'm losing my temper over the mommy wars.

i shouldn't have called Happy Mom bitchy.
but she pissed me off.

i'll be the first to admit that i'm not a child-friendly person. i was with old friends this weekend, and they have kids; we were looking for a place to eat and i suggested the food court. i said, 'it has wide aisles for the stroller, it has something for everyone and it's kid-friendly. affordable.' and my friend's husband said, 'wow, totally not like you at all. affordable, kid-friendly and accessible.' fucker.

but thanks to folks like bitch ph.d and orange (and the kick ass women they have at their own communities) and to my gig working to 'empower women and eliminate racisim' i've learned more about the connections between us single/childless women and women who care for kids. big epiphany: mommy issues *are* feminist issues and vice versa. i've learned a lot about the burdens that working mothers bear, the pressures on stay at home moms to be everything to everyone, the judgments that land on single gals like me who just may be indifferent to child rearing and create our worlds to make sure we remain childless. i've learned about these things and about how all our disparate issues aren't so disparate after all. again, mommy issues *are* feminist issues, even though i won't ever be a mommy.

(psst. it's all about the patriarchy.)

but i got a little frustrated over at churchgal with the whole 'bad mommy' blame game going on and i'm tired of churchy housewives stepping over who don't know how to look at things critically as a 'system' and instead take criticism of the system as some fracking personal assault. they ask the wrong questions, they jump to conclusions and they don't know how to stay on point. i hate it.

(yeah, i know. i may have learned a lot but didn't seem to learn humility. frack humility. where's that gotten us except where we are?)

the good thing, though, is that i found a cool website for mommies and social change. they write intelligently about mommy issues and sometimes they come down a little conservative and sometimes they're unexpectedly radical. it's a good read and a good resource.

(and for those critical thinking/social change writer-mommies out there, they want to publish your stuff.)

the times has an essay on interracial dating.
read on; i'll probably have more to say about it later.

(shh. i'm at work!)

Race Wasn�t an Issue to Him, Which Was an Issue to Me - New York Times

trickle down theory: breast feeding for the haves and have not so muchs

this is fascinating.

so what trickles down?
from the article:

For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.

It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.

On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System - New York Times

before i begin i must make a very strong suggestion.
you must watch bbc america's ShakespeaRE: Told's 'Taming of the Shrew' with shirley henderson and rufus sewell. it's brilliant, it's funny and now it's made rufus a lot more interesting than i would have guessed. i loves me some big, loud, bad, drunk, cross-dressing petruchio.

but now that the brutal summer weather has broken and fall really feels like it's breathing down my neck, i've been giving thought to, of course, boys. not crazy boys, like B- (whom i totally can't handle and who drives me nuts), but perhaps some friendly, fun boys like S-, whom i might visit very soon. you know, for the -uh - art museums. in boston. yeah.

i'm getting my hair done tomorrow (hello, mysterious egyptians who know how to do a blowout), i'm looking at airfare to boston, and i'm also talking to a guy who lives in michigan and, apparently, our paths have crossed without us knowing.

we were both on nerve and we're emailing; he's brown, i'm brown; he's slightly older, i'm slightly older; he likes camping and making furniture, i'm a die-hard city girl who likes sitting in furniture; we apparently lived in the same neighborhood at the same time in michigan, we hung out at the same places, used the same butcher - but we had never ever met one another. then he starts talking about a well-known music camp.

i chime in:
'yeah! i have friends who have family places up there! and a friend of a friend - her family is really involved on their board and she worked at [boop] then moved to new york where she's working for [beep]!'

he writes:
'yeah, E-! i know her - and i know her brother and i see her uncle around town all the time and i've known her dad and she and i used to date for a while!'

i respond:
'get OUT! you know E-?! i just saw her this weekend. how is this possible you know people i know? how could we live around the corner from each other and not ever meet and 10 years later we start talking on nerve?? you used to date??'

i recovered from the shock that sometimes this world is too freaking small and tonight he called. will he come out to chicago? perhaps. it's too soon to tell. but i like the timing. fall, cooler weather, no big hair, new clothes (which i have to plan out.)

hello, boys.