yeah, i'm still on my soapbox

a little friend was kind enough to smuggle something out from behind the NYTimes Iron Curtain.

in all the kerfuffle about the Imus Incident, one thing consistently gets lost: the blatant sexism of his comments. race is the most obvious thing to get riled up about, but what about the sexism? are women still so invisible as subjects that it never crosses our minds? selena roberts below takes a look at how women are easy targets; we become the symbol of what men don't want to be: powerless, weak, less than, debilitated, unskilled.

Sports of The Times
A First-Class Response to a Second-Class Put-Down

By SELENA ROBERTS
Published: April 11, 2007

Of grace and dignity, without a single boob joke for ratings or a raunchy sidekick for on-air laughs, the women wearing Rutgers scarlet managed to capsize society’s power differential yesterday.

The meek held the microphone — or the lifeline of the potent Don Imus — as the Rutgers players used their poised voices to hold a radio cowboy accountable for losing his 10-gallon mind during an unconscionable riff last week.

That was when Imus departed from his usual ridicule of influential equals, whether politicians or pro athletes or celebrities, to mock the vulnerable by degrading a mostly African-American basketball team of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old women.

The Rutgers team had done nothing but excel as history students and music majors, as big sisters and determined players on an improbable joyride to the national championship game.

“Nappy-headed hos,” Imus called them.

Racism, shouted prominent black male politicians and journalists. And on the crawls across the screens of cable networks, when news of the Imus rant fomented, the word “racial” bumped into “racially charged.” Right account, if only partly.

By its lonesome, “ho” has barely registered a ripple for anyone outside Gloria Steinem’s buddy list or the Rutgers team.

“It’s more than about the Rutgers women’s basketball team,” the team’s captain, Essence Carson, said during a news conference in Piscataway, N.J., adding, “As a society, we’re trying to grow and get to the point where we don’t classify women as hos and we don’t classify African-American women as nappy-headed hos.”

Ho is the new bitch. And bitch is the old sissy. But whatever the label, women are always first to be part of the gag when sexism and misogyny are publicly sanctioned and celebrated — particularly in sports.

Shaquille O’Neal, in his Lakers days, referred to the Sacramento Kings as “Queens.”

And in this sanitized version, a top Division I football coach was once overheard telling his team after a particularly big win: tonight, you guys deserve to take whatever woman you want.

In Johnny Damon’s long-haired Boston days, a punch line used to circulate: He looks like Jesus, throws like Mary.

Last fall, a television ad for DiGiorno frozen pizza was broadcast throughout the college football season with South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier and Washington Coach Tyrone Willingham in starring roles. They were shown participating in a news conference at which pizza was served. “If this isn’t delivery, we’ll play the entire game in dresses,” Spurrier tells Willingham.

Cut to the beefy players in sundresses and heels.
•
No one wants a nanny planet, but funny has to be a fair fight — even in pillow fights.

It’s not just Imus in the cross hairs for mocking the defenseless. The Toronto Blue Jays have been under scrutiny for producing a commercial promoting this baseball season.

At 6 feet 5 inches and 275 pounds, Frank Thomas is filmed whacking a small boy so hard with a pillow that the child flies off the bed and hits the floor with a thud. Thomas then breaks into a home run trot.

The Television Bureau of Canada refused to approve the spot. The Blue Jays can’t understand why. But possessing the power differential means bullying someone your own size.

With the ear of a national audience, Imus denigrated women who have revealed the courage to play a sport in its pure, fundamental form even though it is often branded inferior to the dunk style of men. The gals absorb enough put-downs as it is.

The racial twist of Imus’s derision prompted the public outrage and scared network executives out of their focus groups. Talk of race ultimately gave the Rutgers women a platform, but a dialogue on vanquishing sexism and misogyny ribboned their message as they spoke from a dais yesterday.

“It is all women athletes,” Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer said. “It is all women. Have we lost the sense of our own moral fiber? Has society decayed to the point that we forgive and forget because, you know what, it was just a slip of the tongue?”

With everyone’s attention, would Rutgers scream for justice? Instead the players eloquently described their tales of personal pain and their disillusionment with the networks. As the sophomore forward Heather Zurich said, “Our moment was taken away, our moment to celebrate our success, our moment to realize how far we’d come on and off the court as young women; we were stripped of this moment by a degrading comment made by Mr. Imus.”

With the stage, would they demand Imus be fired? They would not play shock jock, but calmly asked for time to meet with him, time to reflect.

“Right now, I can’t really say if we have come to a conclusion on whether we will accept the apology,” the junior guard Matee Ajavon said.
•
Ajavon and her teammates could have cracked Imus over his cowboy hat with the microphone in their hands. They had the outlet to mock him if they had chosen to attack him just as personally as he had them.

Rutgers wasn’t out for revenge, though. Carson said the team did not want to be looked at “as if we’re attacking a major broadcasting figure.

“We’re attacking an issue we know isn’t right,” she said.

Somewhere, Imus was listening. He, like everyone, had to hear the women out. This wasn’t his studio or his sidekicks. The Rutgers women ran the show without abusing the privilege. Very ladylike of them.

E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com

imus action

if one happens to want to send a strongly worded note to the radio station, CBS and MSNBC, you can go here. the National YWCA has weighed in and you can find their action alert on the link.

cry me a river, don.

i woke up this morning and turned on Good Morning America and the first story i heard, while i tried to ignore my clock, was the whole 'nappy headed ho's' thing. i sleepily watched while robin exuded hurt disapproval and her co-anchor, chris, practically set himself on fire in empathetic outrage over imus' remarks and his lame apology.

as a brown girl who is seriously tired of every single story like this, i give a great big Whatever to his apology and everyone's outrage. i mean, how outraged are we, really? we're shocked and apalled that don imus spewed asshat bigotry on the air? gasp!
and as for his apology, whatever. chalk up another Tour of Sorry as he tries to cleanse himself of his PR mistake.

i don't really give a crap about imus or his remarks (as bad as they are) because, honestly, i don't expect anything more from 'mainstream society.' (read that however you wish.) my expectations have been managed downward at such an alarming rate, things like basic bigotry no longer make my blood pressure jump; i expect the larger society to behave stupidly, crassly and ignorantly. i no longer expect people to behave like civilized, rational adults. unless i have evidence to the contrary, whenever i see people like don imus open their mouths, i wait expectantly for a foot to be inserted.

how cynical is that?

and i am outraged at how paltry our language for condemnation has become. i don't want to hear imus apologize for saying 'bad,' 'insensitive,' 'racially charged' things about those girls on the college basketball team; i want to hear him apologize for being an asshole. i want to hear him apologize for shitting on civility and farting in the face of our cultural discourse. i want him to go on his radio show and say, 'I'm sorry. I'm a pig.' for the love of western civilization, say something that actually matters and is true.

on those rare occasions i meet someone who's a bigoted, misogynist or homophobic asshat, or am confronted with an unexpected bigoted, misogynist or homophobic asshat comment during a social occasion, i drop that person. immediately. they no longer exist for me. they disappear from my universe.

when are we going to start setting the same rules for all the rest? why aren't we outraged over that?!


[everything bloggy you need to know about the imus kerfuffle can be found here.]

Pilot season - British actors - Television - New York Times

brain is dead.
work is hard.
sex is...where?

but pullo and vorenus from 'rome' are coming to network tv.
heh.

shperta!

my blog friend johnboy writes about sparta (the place, not the movie) here. fascinating.

(and i link to it because i think johnboy knows what he's talking about, being a classical scholar and all.)

It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment - New York Times

It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment - New York Times

some people may call us shallow but there are some of us who can only take so much when it comes to gettin' down in a craptacular apartment. and i've gotten down in some craptacular apartments. (i'll go on record and admit i've even had a craptacular apartment or two - but i rarely had sex in them. and i was depressed. very very depressed.)

a list of greatest hits:

C-, the financial analyst who lived in a studio in boystown with plastic lawn chairs instead of living room furniture mere inches away from a sagging twin bed and hot plate. he once chased me around his room with his pants around his knees but when i told him it wasn't working out i used his apartment, instead, as an excuse to get rid of him.

T-, a 30-something consultant who lived in a basement with stolen sugar packets, an old lava lamp and a couch that was clearly stolen from a dorm room.

B-, who lives/ed like he lives/ed in prison: one fork, one spoon, one cup, one towel and a mattress on the floor. his record collection, however, is/was stellar.

The Librarian, whose dilapidated connecticut shack was entirely the fault of his bossy, manipulative roommate who owned giant, shedding cats and her bertha-like brother who lived in the attic. not comfortable.

would love to hear of any domiciles that gave folks the heebie-jeebies when it came down to gettin' down.

wow. even the times knows about our train issues

A Rail System (and Patience) Are Stretched Thin in Chicago - New York Times

i made plans to meet a friend up in lincoln square on sunday for lunch.
i left the house shortly before noon; i walked to the chicago bus about 2-3 blocks away; it came after a teeny 3-5 minute wait. then i transferred to the brown line/franlkin stop which took *forever* to arrive. when i finally got to lincoln square it was 1.30.

90 minutes for a usual 45 minute train ride (if that.) unbelievable.

and this morning?
a normal 15 minute bus ride took twice the time.

ding perhaps shares too much

my raincoat smells funny. it smells like old guy.

what a day - when i left the house it was pitch black and i got to the office at 7 for a board meeting and then realized, halfway through the meeting, that after my shower this morning, i'd forgotten my instead cup.

niiice. so now my lower regions are stuffed with toilet paper.

and the day for the agency's spoken word event (at which B-'s sister will perform) is one month out. i'm looking at the nifty postcard advertising the event right now and trying to find a family resemblance but can't find one.

in the stirrups

so a couple weeks ago i went to the doctor for my bi-annual pelvic. (although i know better, i usually don't go to the doctor unless something is hanging out of me, bleeding.)

anyway, there i am, in the stirrups, being palpated by my doctor and missing the old cloth robes we used to wear during these kind of examinations.

then she goes, 'Hm.'
i think, Hm is never good.
i say, 'what's wrong?'
she says, 'did you know you have fibroids?'
'uh, no.'
'well, you do. do you know what they are?' palpate. palpate.
i say, 'big tumor-y things?'
she laughs while continuing to palpate. 'yes, big tumor-y things.' she snaps off the gloves and gets ready to do the pap.
'you got 'em. i'm going to recommend you get an ultrasound just so we see how big they are.'

i just nod and i can't help but think, wow, i really won't ever have children. i have fibroids! huzzah!*

god works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

*for folks out there who may be befuddled at my logic re: infertility: fibroids keep growing back so i'd either have to get them lasered out all the time, take constant medication all the time, or get a hysterectomy. it's an inevitability. goodbye uterus.*

**and, indeed, god works mysteriously because my STD screening was totally clear! whoo hoo!!**

caught.

i've been a fugitive. for years, i've 'deferred' (avoided/postponed/whatever) my student loan from undergrad and it finally caught up to me today.

the guy on the phone today sort of chuckled and said, 'you're a hard one to locate, actually. i'm glad i caught up with you.'

'yeah, so am i.'

and so he did - from 1992 to the present - whoo hoo! and the principal didn't much rise over all that time. (yes, i already know i'm bad with money. no need to chastise me.)

but, there is a little sigh of relief; in two months my dept of education/student loan debt will be completely gone. why i waited this long, i don't know. it's not like the original $1300 was all that huge...

JT

i'm just too frakking old, you know?

thanks to a very generous friend and acquaintance, i went to the JT concert last night. (a school night!) i think my hearing is broken. oh, not that JT wasn't great. he was...awesome. he puts on a great r&b show. see him play the piano, strum the guitar, dance (and dance and dance and dance) and see him drink tequila and see him get all sensitive with 3 slow jams in a row. it was a little bit of prince, morris day, janet & michael jackson, and it was great. (i think he might even have the coolest back up singers on the planet.)

but it's exhausticating, being at the Allstate arena, listening to thousands of girls scream and watching timbaland blow everyone's mind with some weird 20 minute intermission show. and then riding home in a limo while 14 grown women sing along to JT all over again? my hearing is definitely broken.

however, i must admit: JT is the funkiest little white boy ever.

over at Alas, a Blog, a fascinating review of some back and forth. from Alas (and i heartily encourage y'all to follow the links and read the discussion):

*** ONGOING INTER-BLOG DEBATE ABOUT RACE, BEING A WHITE “RACE TRAITOR,” AND FEMINISM ***
Or, as Nine Pearls aptly calls it, “The White Lady Pity Party.” There are good link round-ups at Fetch Me My Axe and Renegade Evolution, so I won’t attempt to replicate their work. But I will point out three posts that were (for me) stand-outs: Brownfemipower’s typically super-sharp and well-written analysis; the “Clue Phone” post at Cassandra Says; and this milk-shot-out-my-nose visual post at My Private Casbah.

i'm not going to weigh in (because Brownfemipower's post really said it all) but the whole thing is just fascinating.

taboo: taboo for a reason

i was on the bbc news site because i wanted to read some news that had nothing to do with the united states when i came across this.

gick isn't even the word for it.

about my lost link list: i loved my link list. it wasn't super extensive like others' were, but it was made of my favorite things. it will return! soon. as soon as i've figured out where i put my favorite links...

the longest day. ever.

At long last, I have finished preparing my boss for her second lobby trip to Springfield. Not to whine, but here I go: Waah! I'm working really hard! Waah! I need a nap!

And underneath the whining, a quiet 'heh. i rock.'
...
so now that Forth & Towne is closing, i need to plan a massive shopping trip to hoard accessories and cute jackets for spring and summer. who's with me?
...
the political season is underway and i have only meh thoughts about hillary and obama in black churches to prove their street cred. (what cred do they seek, i wonder? is hillary really trying to show what a friend she is to black folks? and is obama really going to cave on the whole 'if you're mixed you're not black enough' meme? i guess so.) how ridiculous is our political process that we pay more attention to the stupid photo op than actual policy?

what i'd love to ask hillary:
without referencing the 60's, martin luther king or anyone from the civil rights era, why should black people pay any attention to you today?
...
in what is becoming an uncomfortable phone call habit, my father keeps asking me what the outcome was of my lunch with MichiGarry.

this lunch was back in january.

so my father is either *really* worried that i'm going to die unshriven and alone or he's entering senility.

is it bad that i'm hoping it's the latter?

kenneth eng: just stupid or just a stupid racist?

here is where you can find all the recent articles about a (crazy) article that ended up in the pages of asian week, a san francisco weekly paper.

(you can read the original article written by kenneth eng here. you can also read his other articles here and here, which demonstrate that perhaps his asshattery isn't just for blacks. it seems to be endemic with mr. eng.)

it reminds me of a chinese freshman student i once had at ucla who wrote a paper defending the japanese internment camps. when my head stopped throbbing with disbelief at his thesis i sat with him in office hours to talk about it. i gave the paper a passing grade (technically, there was nothing much wrong with it) but he and i had a long discussion about critical thinking, research, and the need to avoid talking out of one's ass if one wants to be taken seriously.

i am also reminded of the asian guy whose bright idea it was to create a game called Ghettopoly. remember that?

dear lord, how much fucking ignorance must we endure from young college grads who graduate dumber than when they went in?

i fear for this world, i really do.

[and how much do you want to bet that a statement from mr. eng will soon appear, defending his columns as 'satire' or 'ironic,' whose real, subterranean and much too subtle purpose was to hold racism and bigotry to ridicule?

if such a statement appears i want to be the very first to call bullshit on that.]

damn you, new Blogger!
i lost my link list and buttons!

noooo!: Gap to close Forth & Towne chain

Gap to close Forth & Towne chain

dammit!

now where the hell am i supposed to find anymore cute work clothes??!!
marina renaldi is too expensive.
banana, GAP and JCrew don't have the sizes.
H&M is too young.
Old Navy too cheap.
Bloomies still can't quite get the fit and cut right - and they don't have the variety.
Lane Bryant is too...unprofessional.

so, thanks, GAP.
thanks for totally screwing over 30-something women who can't/won't dress like tarts who also happen to be shaped like women.

fuckers!

[wanna share your thoughts? forth & towne feedback can be emailed here.]

living well

the dinner party was lovely. i love my friends - not only are they funny as hell, they have style, they can cook (when we've had a week to prepare ourselves) and they appreciate effort. and what a lot of effort we went to!

(in fact, at one point of the night, we bemoaned - unfairly, perhaps? - the fact that not very many of the single men we knew went to this kind of effort at all.)

Roomie tapped into her midwestern hostess geneology and laid a spectacular table - gorgeous silver, great big fat goblets for wine, ruby water glasses and silver candleabra (how the hell do you spell that?) over a creamy white silky tablecloth sprinkled with little sparkly glass beads that caught the light. vintage linen napkins rolled in heavy silver napkin rings were perfect and pretty. T- brought over a delicate orchid as a hostess gift that played nice with the simple red tulip arrangement and the teeny, pretty as can be calla lilies that Roomie bought the day before.

the menu:

1st course - two amuses: an onion tartelet of puff pastry and cooked with thyme and butter (so yummy) and the salmon mousse on toast, drizzled with a bright green chive oil (ti wasn't my favorite, but it did look very feminine and pretty)
2nd course - roasted tomato soup with fresh basil and crusty artisanal bread, accompanied by a really round fruity white wine that i can't recall
3rd course - endive salad with pear, topped with a gorgonzola and honey dressing (which went well with the champagne we had been drinking before the meal got started)
4th course - meat tortellini with a prosciutto/cream sauce, baked in a puff pastry sarcophagus, as well as a filet of baked red snapper in a champagne sauce with fresh green beans and red peppers on the side, paired with a very nice white burgundy (i think it was called Mayhem & Mischief)
5th course - K-'s gastronomic chocolate topper: a little chocolate cake with a kapow of chipotle, three handmade truffles (one was topped with sea salt and it was so good we all just ruminated on that for a while), a lime cream in the shape of a heart, meringue 'cigarettes' and the whole thing was paired with a very manly shot of vodka. dude. we all agreed that she won the Top Chef moment of the night.
6th course - the very nice cheese plate from T- that was a nice finisher to the chocolate and vodka we'd consumed.

then we sat around the table while the candles burned down, smoked our cigs, drank the rest of the wine and champagne until the table was a wonderful decadent mess of ashtrays, half empty wine glasses, cheese and silver. i took a few pictures and everything had a really great golden glow.

the night reminded me of those nights back in grad school when we wanted to distract ourselves from our deprivation and depression and we'd throw over the top, elaborate dinners and hang out with YF because she was the best cook and we'd sit at her long table in her quirky victorian studio, eating and drinking until we staggered home. i have a few photos from one of those dinners: you can see the packs of french cigarettes, the bottles of wine, the wine and sauce stains on the white tablecloth, profiles of heated faces caught in mid conversation, the over flowing ash trays.

every night you're with friends should be like this, don't you think?

(and then i think about the brief phone call i had with S- yesterday, when she called me from the traffic in los angeles. and, again, she mourned the death of her past life - now it was teaching at a local university and constant daycare for her two children instead of nights with friends and going out.

i said, 'S-. you have to stop that. there's no point to wishing or missing what's gone. your life is different now. all of that - it's over.'
she said, 'i know. but what about you? is it all work and nothing else? don't you miss what it was before?'
'no. because i'm at a different point now. i hate bars and clubs - i don't miss it at all; so while there's tons of work, there's also hanging out with my friends at my place, there're movies, dinners, visits, cocktails. it's just different - better, more livable. and...i don't have kids. i have the freedom to schedule around what i want. there's no one else depending on me for sustenance.'
she sighed. 'i know. it's just that we never go out, we never see anyone, my house is full of toys, it's a mess, my mom is living with us because we can't cope with everything and it just sucks, you know?'

and while i made sympathetic noises, i also felt a little superior. i did! i couldn't help it. i just did. so there.)

the weekend begins

fox & obel makes me want to cook. when i'm there i imagine i'm in paris, on my way to my charming flat overlooking the rue de whatever, picking up just a few things for dinner with sophisticated friends. ah, the dream. it's the dream where i'm wearing a simple chic outfit, carrying a chic canvas bag (no proletariat plastic for me!), and i'll use public transportation in a very chic way, effortlessly balancing bread, cheese, flowers, boeuf and wine.

unfortunately, the reality is far different. i'm slogging through crusty gray snow, slushing through dirty water in the parking lot and the plastic bags are cutting off my circulation in my fingers while my glasses fog over in the cold. (all the while i'm bloated with my period and waddling so slowly across the street i almost get hit by a jeep.)

the plan was so easy: take the time before the dinner party to get a couple recipes under my belt so i could get the timing down and such. so prepared! so full of foresight! so deluded. i bought my smoked salmon, my heavy cream, the chives, the grapeseed oil - all to make a fluffy little amuse. how hard could it be?

almost 2 hours later, with a cuisinart, blender and beater going, grapeseed oil burning on the stove while chives burnt to a crisp, pureed smoked salmon looking about as appetizing as vomit, i decided that stores like fox & obel could kiss my ass. even now, i know i should taste the test batch i made last night but i'm afraid.

pureed salmon with cream sprinkled with chive oil? gag.
...
while near blizzard conditions battered chicago tuesday night, roomie and i (with a couple of girl friends) went to the Chicago Auto Show. (it was ladies night! $5!)

i have to admit that when you're on your period, there's nothing better than wandering desultorily around a convention center with your belly all poked out just being lulled by all the shiny paint jobs and the new car smells.

observations:

why do men want to take pictures with cars? i don't get it.

how cool that you can drive the cars in fake rivers and over faux hills?

the mini is really made for a tiny little hipster with no friends. i mean, really. we tried to fit four people in the new mini convertible and i almost dislocated a hip sliding into the driver's seat.

a car that costs over 150k is totally obscene and no one, except a tacky saudi prince, should ever own one.

the new volvo c30 is love love love love. it's not here, yet, and i don't drive but now i'm rethinking that lifestyle choice, thanks to the volvo.

so whaddya know. cooking and car shows.
i contain multitudes.

ever wonder why you were so dissatisfied with Pretty in Pink and why you can't turn away from Some Kind of Wonderful?

beyond the whole Gen X thing, Atalanta (hee!) discovers the answer here.

(yes, i gave you a shout out!)

the winter blues

Bloog.

It's like I'm a manitee. I'm so incredibly bloated right now I actually look pregnant. (I do. And the empire-waisted blouse I'm wearing ain't helping.)

It feels good, though, to let the belly out. Just stand there and let it all go. ahhh...

Hm.

I'm so signing up for Weight Watchers Online...

another one for the oscar party, ladies.

Anna Nicole Smith Dies - The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

is it hugely cruel of me to say 'As the fembot lives, so shall the fembot die?"
yes?

ok, then. i won't say it.

Orange Tangerine: Phobias

while i dither at work, frantically trying to prep for tomorrow (now there's a chance i'll have to speak at the press conference!!), here's a post about our sometimes irrational fears from Orange: Orange Tangerine: Phobias.

(in the comments you'll find a short list of mine, which includes having acid thrown in my face. i've been horribly afraid of this since i was a kid. any idea if that's an actual condition or just an extreme expression of my vanity?)

i know i should be excited about tomorrow's trip to springfield.
i really should. i'll be down in the capitol as part of our democratic process. yay.

but it's going to be 2 degrees, snowing and/or yucky. who's at their best when they're wrapped up like the michelin man and wearing sensible boots?

not me!

krugman on molly ivins and satire

(do i have times select? no. but i have friends who have. thanks, Orange! i reprint this not to point out similarities between my rant on what satire is and krugman's essay - ahem - but to direct attention to ivins' desire to hold Power accountable. i hope we can continue to do that.)
...

Missing Molly Ivins
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 2, 2007

Molly Ivins, the Texas columnist, died of breast cancer on Wednesday.
I first met her more than three years ago, when our book tours
crossed. She was, as she wrote, “a card-carrying member of The Great
Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now
schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak kindly
of Our Leader’s record.”

I can’t claim to have known her well. But I spent enough time with
her, and paid enough attention to her work, to know that obituaries
that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes,
she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But
her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful
accountable.

She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother
Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. “Satire ... has historically been
the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,” she wrote.
“When you use satire against powerless people ... it is like kicking a
cripple.”

Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the
times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the
times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she
remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out
in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central
political issue of our time.

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period
when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us
to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who
complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory
celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably
not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a
batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to
our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what
happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni
and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would
lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come
true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the
occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald
Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing
ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to
fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks
like a quagmire. ...

“I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be
killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by
Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a
bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t
have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special
expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost
everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those
credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the
obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse
the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was
almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight.
And they took years to realize that everything we were being told
about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The
administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which
it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

And it’s not over. Many of those who failed the big test in 2002 and
2003 are now making excuses for the “surge.” Meanwhile, the same
techniques of allegation and innuendo that were used to promote war
with Iraq are being used to ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the
follies and lies of the powerful. And Molly Ivins, who devoted her
life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed.

aw, crap: Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

who cares if you're racist when you're stupid?

here is a post from Alas, A Blog commenting about a really ill-thought racially themed party at Clemson on Martin Luther King Day.

not only does the general ignorance of college kids stun me, their whole misunderstanding of satire (which just re-emphasizes they weren't paying that much attention in their english classes in the first place) frustrates me.

we've seen this excuse before. michael richards had his defenders who said his n-word laden rant was perhaps a misfired attempt to satirize ... something (it's unclear what exactly he would be satirizing); chuck knipp's drag character, Shirly Q. Liquor, is supposed to be (in his words) a satirical look at racism; the hipsters in brooklyn with their Kill Whitey club nights think they're satirizing 'ghetto culture'; and now, every frat boy/sorority girl, college or law school student who wants to wear a sombrero, put on blackface, speak in ebonics or 'run for the border' thinks they're engaging in satire.

but what they forget, or perhaps never knew or understood, is that satire is a punch in the eye of Power. satire's anger, it's needle, is directed upward - never downward. if it does, then it ceases to be satire and it's just another way for those in power to bully the powerless or to scream to the public that you're just another tool of the status quo.

so, for all you dumbass college kids and misinformed adults out there, this is satire:

it is a precise literary term (which means you have to have some measure of intellectual weight to pull it off)
it has a very specific target (i.e., a person or group of people, an idea or attitude, an institution or a social practice)
in satire, your target is held up to merciless ridicule that is often very angry, ideally in the hope of shaming your target into reform (again, critical faculties are necessary as well as a recognition of power and how it operates in society)
it has a strong vein of irony or sarcasm (parody, burlesque, exaggeration and double entendre are all devices frequently used in satirical speech and writing - again, pointing to intellectual rigor in the person who calls herself a satirist)
finally, it is strictly a misuse of the word to describe as "satire" works without an ironic (or sarcastic) undercurrent of mock-approval, criticism and an element at least of anger.

how does a privileged white boy in blackface poke fun or criticize or throw into instability the codes of racism or our racist history? how does a white girl in a do' rag holding a forty problematize the ways that race, sexuality and racial images are reproduced and disseminted in this country?

it doesn't. because all you have is a white girl in a do' rag holding a forty.

here endeth the lesson.

silky panties, pt 2.

next week may be my first trip to springfield to knock on some doors and attend a coalition press conference. but what's the burning question on my mind (as i avoid creating my trip agenda)?

what does the well-dressed advocate wear while chasing after legislators and their staff all day? sensible shoes, yes, but how about a pointy-toed flat? (and what about snow?) and, clearly, a pantsuit is necessary, but can i find one that won't bankrupt me but still accommodate the flat sensible shoes? and what about a bag? i can't see myself tooling around with my Tumi messenger.

i'm sure all the guy advocates worry about the same thing.
...
yesterday was also a lesson in city/county politics. did you know that city hall is literally split in two? yes; if you go to the 5th floor you'll notice a big ugly iron door cutting the floor in half. on one side is the county and the other the city. i think there's some story behind this but i can't recall it right now.

i had plenty of time to contemplate the symbolism of a divided city hall while i and a coworker waited in the hot hallway to enter the public budget hearings for the county. (you know, the budget that's basically going to suck ass and kill basic services for the whole county.) above us, the speakers tried to transmit the droning tones of the meeting happening inside, but the anger in the hallway sometimes got in the way.

in line with us were crowds of city and cook county employees, rallying for the survival of their departments. it was an interesting crowd: doctors elbowing with criminal justice folks, nudging against nurses, doctors, clerks, public defenders, administrators, priests, plus all the big beefy guys you see in various parts of the city.

with 110 speakers signed up, we calculated that the meeting would last 5.5 hours. so we left without being able to participate in our city's democratic process. and outside, in the flurrying snow and wind, hundreds of city and county workers marched on Daly Plaza yelling "They say cutback! We say fight back! They say cutback! We say fight back!" we saw at least 4 different unions represented. and that's what makes a good rally - organization and anger. it was awesome.

depressing, but awesome.

they shoot horses, don't they? well, duh!

i went to the planned parenthood gala tonight. i worked a little late so i missed half the cocktail hour and have resolved that, next year, i am not going alone. it was totally boring without having someone to dish with.

however, todd stroger (our new county board president) was there. he's really short and bears an uncanny resemblance to a guy i once dated in my dad's church. his handwritten nametag gave him a forlorn, paddington bear kind of air. poor thing didn't realize everyone called him Urkel behind his back. but, hey, why should i feel sorry for him? there he is, in a feminist organization's annual gala, rubbing elbows with other politicos (like gov. rod blagojevich, jan schakowsky and carol ronen). he's made in the shade. but he's also the guy who's proposing to get rid of the women's justice services dept in the sherrif's dept (meanwhile, men's services stay intact.) i wonder if he felt the irony. i know i did. i wonder if anyone approached him to ask him about it. probably not.

then i hung out in the bar to drink a glass of jameson's and overheard some staffers complain about the big donors' reserved tables while the frontline staff were 'forced' to stand (along with folks like me); she railed on about the hyprocrisy and i hid a smile. i've heard this complaint before, from folks in my own organization, and i have to admit to a certain lack of patience with the complaint. it's petty and painfully childish.

in a perfect world, organizations that provide crucial social and human services would be fueled by all the good feelings it produces in the world. butterflies would bring me coffee and birds would read my email; then, a blue fairy would hit me with her wand and i'd suddenly become a real boy.

but, alas, we live in the world of cold, hard cash. that money the staffer is so quick to scoff at actually means something to the organization. it's a fucking line item in the budget - a line item that needs to exist if the organization is going to continue to function.

fundraisers aren't about recognizing the hard work of front line staff; unfortunate, but true. they're about the story we tell donors so we can get our hands on their money. they're marginally about the work we do. they're really about telling a really great story of our organization to the donor so the donor can feel good about parting with hefty sums of cash. it's an intricate dance of seduction - and, if you've done the job well, you will celebrate and feel a little icky that you've just spent one night whoring yourself out for nearly $1 million. (hence all the folks who shook hands with todd stroger with gritted teeth.)

yes. $1 million dollars. what would you do for $1 million, knowing that it pays for programs, overhead, education, advocacy capacity, and direct service? can those of us in the nonprofit arena afford to be so frakking naive about how our organizations operate and what our money is used for? with the increasing strictures of govt funding and private sources of funding becoming even more important, i think not.

come one, people. leave graduate school behind and frakking grow up a little.

i'm ecstatic. i can now order my most favorite pants and jackets by phone from forth & towne, here!

but when the heck are they going to have an online store?? come on, people - enough dilly dallying!

hola, super osas!

yesterday, dressed in an orange cashmere sweater, my hair in a perky ponytail topped off by an orange ribbon tied in a bow (i was so spirited i should have won an award), i watched The Game with a couple of girl friends at our local bar and now our Bears are going to the Superbowl!!

yay for lovie smith (don't you just love his calm demeanor?)! yay for rex grossman! and yay for punter dude, who really deserves an outstanding contribution award, considering our first 6 or 9 points on the board were for field goals!

just imagine: chicago wins the superbowl AND we get the olympics.
awesome.

yeah, i'm successful: i'm wearing silky panties

Speaking Chic to Power - New York Times

in addition to my brown silky bikini panties, i'm also wearing a matching lacy brown bra underneath a sheer silk blouse, which is underneath a black nipped in blazer on top of a crisp pair of black boot cut trousers. on my feet, a pair of black/white plaid, kitten heel flats with a scarlet rhinestone buckle. (it seems gaudy, but you have to see these shoes - they're cute as hell.)

and what did i have to do today (nay, this week)?
plan/organize a board meeting for this morning, take minutes, manage the board members, set up/break down; juggle various presentations, senior managers, consultants, vendors, logistics, agendas, materials for a staff retreat; remain cheerful, supportive and efficient; take my knocks and step up when things didn't go as planned, much to my CEO's displeasure, and basically make sure that everything, by hell or high water, got frakking done for 150 people tomorrow (for whom i will be up at the crack of dawn again, onsite, helping the facilitation team, getting our bill paid and smoothing over whatever gaps/cracks appear over the course of one very long, arduous day.) am i successful? i'd like to think so.

now.
what do my panties have to do with any of that?
apparently, a lot, if you take this article seriously.

from the article:
“You don’t have to grow up to look like a librarian,” said Lauren Solomon, founder and director of LS Image Associates, which has clients in the corporate and political fields. “But you don’t have to look like a hooker, either.”

nice. librarian/hooker. these are our choices when we're women of substance. clearly our media is still new to the idea that there are thousands of women in our offices and universities, hospitals and courhouses who manage to avoid this nonsensical binary every single day.

what does a girl do when she gets rid of one mistake?
she flies to boston to forget it ever happened and replace it with...more fun memories.

so.
i'll miss all 5 of my readers, but i'll be away until monday afternoon, getting some sleep, some sex and some food.

ding dong, the B- is gone!

how do you tell a boy it's over after he's called you too crazy for friendship, too cool for love and too uptight (because you have a crazy busy work/social schedule) for everything else and then demanded you drop everything you had scheduled that night in order to prove you're not?

you tell him like this:

From: ding
To: B-

"busy" means 'uptight'?
whatever, b-. busy means that i have a full work and social life and enjoy it.
and i have to prove something to you? are you kidding?

i was willing to give the friendship thing a try but it's patently obvious that friendship between us will never be possible. (i'm too crazy for friendship? ha! that's called projection. when it's so clear that two people don't get along and aren't right for each other, it's pointless to argue back and forth about who or what's at fault.
but rest assured i could make a list. a long one.)

and since it's clear we've entered the Active Dislike phase of our association, and we can't even get the basics down, i think we've done this long enough. (in total, we've been going back and forth like this since 2002. too long without progress!)

so. in the interest of our mental health for 2007, let's drop the hammer on the two of us and vow never to contact the other ever again. i mean it. i don't want to open my inbox and see another email from you asking how i am. chances are, i'll be great.

in fact, i just deleted you from my mobile.

bye, b-. i'm late for a meeting.

here i come, old orchard!

Gaining steam, finally Chicago Tribune

so plans are afoot to extend the yellow line to old orchard.
this would make me ecstatic beyond measure. no more bugging roomie to drive me out to the mall - i could hop on several trains and make it myself! yay!
it'd be easier to get to forth & towne sales! yay!

oh, and can you tell my boss is on vacation for a week? (i'm also wearing jeans...heh heh heh.)

the chicago way

so, a rather important part of my job is to make sure certain folks know about the work we do here and to encourage mutually beneficial contact. it's like marketing. ok, it is marketing - but for public officials and other such important 'stakeholders'. like that.

so this morning a breaking news alert pops into my inbox and, to my horror, i read that a city official has just been arrested on federal corruption charges. i was totally going to call this person for an appointment this week! aagh!

frakkin' chicago - you're killing me!

deal me out

driving home yesterday in the rain, roomie and i had a conversation about my current dating status which is, to date, zilch. i despaired of 2007 turning into a repeat of 2006, The Year of Celibacy (though there's nothing really wrong with that and i rather enjoyed it - sorta), and she said, 'ding, you need to look at the cards that have been dealt you and be honest about what it is you want.'

i tried to imagine these cards but i had no idea what they were. 'and...what are they?'
'are you kidding me?'
'no! i don't know what cards i have! what cards? is it a good hand?'
'B-! your cards are B-!'
'oh,' i said. 'those cards. i don't want those cards. those cards piss me off.'

'then you need to fold and get a new hand.'
i said, 'and how would i do that? all three of the straight guys i know in chicago are...actually, there's just one. how is it possible i only know one straight guy and he has a girlfriend?'
roomie said, 'i don't know, ding. but you need a new deck of cards or you're going to go nuts. just call B-, arrange to see him this weekend and call it a night.'
'i can't. that would not be good. he makes me mad. but, grr! i want a frolic!'
'you're nuts. get a frolic. go online, choose a boy and get your frolic.'

'but i'm trying to be good!'
'then i don't know what to tell you, ding. you want the frolic or you don't. tradition and habit say that you want the frolic more than being good. so get the frolic.'

so, after a whole night of watching season 2 of Veronica Mars (damn you karis), i went online last night and looked for a frolic. what happened? when my search results came up the first candidate at the top of the queue was B-! aagh! i blocked him and logged off.

the universe has become a cockblock!

why women ain't funny: our uterus sucks out all the funny

Adam Ash: Christopher Hitchens explains why women aren't funny

have you read the hitchens piece about why women aren't funny (faithfully reproduced on adam ash's space)? it's a doozy. shorter hitchens: women aren't funny because mommies are never funny.

that's right; for hitchens, every woman is a nagging, churchy, fecund, humorless, authority-loving priss just dying to kill the funny. in other words, vagina dentata. that toothy vijayjay inhibits everything that makes men funny - irreverence, irreligion, rebellion, and defiance. we're too soft, too emotional, too serious, too dreamy, and too damn biological to be funny.

(however, if we're fat, dykey or jewish, we've apparently got funny to spare.)

never in my life have i laughed as hard, snorted or accidentally farted than when i'm with my girlfriends telling them the latest B- disaster or listening to what happened at so-and-so's birthday party/wedding, or reading the sharply worded, hilarious emails sent from various scattered family domiciles while we're trapped in hometowns for the holidays. (i remember one string of christmas emails from roomie, A- and J- that had me snorting and blowing wine all over my dad's laptop. 'the baby jesus blows!')

women don't like dirty or crude? hitchens, we could make you guzzle a whole bottle of Hendricks with tales of monstrous blood clots, menstrual disasters, catastrophic sexual encounters, embarassing visits to the doctor, the unfortunate thing that happened at grandma's funeral and the reason why sometimes my friends call me Puddles. there's nothing dirtier or cruder than a bunch of women hopped up on tequila, my friend. nothing. (just ask what a bridal party did to the cowboy troubadour they hired then drunkenly held captive until they finally released him, shaking and traumatized, the following day.)

women can't be funny in the face of death? too bad hitchens wasn't at my roomie's mother's funeral this past summer. the tears were expected; the guffaws halfway through my roomie's speech were a welcome surprise. it takes guts, strength and a finely tuned sensibility to get a whole church full of mourning midwesterners to give up the funny.

his tone wavers between 'admiration' of our inherent biological/moral authority over men and a smarmy castigation of it but what's most clear is that hitchens (and other men who always seem to ask these dumbass questions) has never really eavesdropped on a real conversation between groups of women. or maybe it's because he only knows neurotic white women. (expose yourself to a little diversity and suddenly you have a lot of funny.)

neurotic women aren't funny. confident, self-aware women are funny. women willing to look ridiculous are funny. women willing to point out the ridiculous and the neurotic in others are funny. women who tell the truth are funny. women in touch with their anger are funny. (bitter, but funny.) oh, we're funny, alright. just depends on who's listening to us.

popping the cork

happy new year, people!

i'm back, relaxed, i even have a slight tan from LA and so frakking relieved that 2007 is here. (wasn't 2006 a little boring yet also stressful?)

i have to get ready for the sharon jones show at the park west tonight; after my freak out with B- last week, G- wanted to come out to chicago and help me ring in the new year but his father burned down his kitchen this morning so now i'm going with E-, an old nerve pal from milwaukee. (i'm a firm believer in recycling. there's no need for past internet dates to die on the vine, you know?)

be safe, be happy and have a great new year!

-ding

merry merry

i'm off early tomorrow to the west coast to see the family.
posting will be sporadic and will most likely be an act of desperate procrastination while i fall farther behind my writing schedule.

but i hope everyone's holiday (whatever it is you celebrate) means you're surrounded by people you love and who love you back.

cheers,
ding

last of the year

if i wasn't so gassy right now i'd be laughing.
i think the 'reunion' with B- has come (once again!) to an ignominius end.

i think i know why i always went back to B-, even though nothing materially changed. pride. at every email from him telling me how he missed me or wants a 'doover' my pride and vanity (ok, two reasons why i always went back) were pricked and it was an irresistible challenge to me to see if i could seduce him all over again and try to return to our initial period of intensity. but i should have paid attention to the law of diminishing returns. with each reunion, my mental and lifestyle difference from B- increased - as his from mine and the pleasure i sought soon dwindled to nothing the more we tried.

so last night, prompted by my ONE girly act of insecurity ('is he seeing someone else?'), which was also prompted by pride and vanity, the short-lived ding/B- show ended. we fought, we argued, we insulted one another, laid bare our misgivings, he admitted that he's thinking of someone else, and we came to the mutual conclusion that perhaps this was not a good idea.

so.

let this be the last B- post of the year - and hopefully thereafter.

i'm supposed to be working, but...

instead, here's something from some friends over on myspace:

2006 Awards

1) DRINKING BUDDY OF THE YEAR?
roomie and the presbyterians, man. no one gets plowed better than a scottish pastor and his minions.

2) LIFETIME SERVICE AWARD
me. i'm working in non-profit, dude. that deserves something.

3) NEWCOMER AWARD
hm, the friend group has been closed for a while. must work on that next year.

4) LOW POINT OF THE YEAR?
most of the summer, august when roomie's mom died and a couple of weeks in november when i just went brain dead.

5) BEST HOLIDAY?
thanksgiving. out of the country and loved it.

6) ANTHEM FOR 2006?
hm. based on my wine intake last night, i think ray lamontagne's 'three days' sort of hits me right in the girly parts.

7) ANY REGRETS?
not a single one. (although this latest go-round with B- might just be it.)

8) BEST NIGHT OUT?
jeebus. H-'s birthday party in november - the tequila, the horrific stories (all of which i told), the pregnant pinata. classic.

9) WORST NIGHT OUT?
last friday, schlepping my tired ass up to rogers park to be with B- and spending as much money on a cab as to go to o'hare. ass!

10) WHO DID YOU SPEND VALENTINES WITH?
when's that again?

11) BEST RELATIONSHIP?
my friends and roomie. love them.

12) WORST RELATIONSHIP?
it's a tie between B- and tequila. but tequila gets me in more trouble than B-, so it wins.

13) BEST CONCERT?
ravinia, tom jones and etta james. watching skinny north shore wives set fire to their picnic table, they were so drunk.

14) BEST MEMORY?
watching the dems take the senate and the house in november. in your FACE GOP!

15) BEST DECISION MADE THIS YEAR?
kicking ass at work. oh, and to go without sex for a year. i think that's why i got my promotion.

16) WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR?
well, i certainly hope i'm past that whole celibacy thing.

17) MOST STUPID IDEA WHEN DRUNK?
opening my mouth. sometimes, things are secret for a *reason.*

18) TWAT OF THE YEAR?
it's still the president.

19) MOST LOYAL FRIEND?
roomie. she puts up with more crap...

20) BIGGEST CHANGE OF THE YEAR?
great new promotion. love it.

21) BEST TRIP OF THE YEAR?
thanksgiving in montreal. though the traverse city trip on 4th of july was all sorts of interesting.

22) BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE YEAR?
my writing gigs.

23) BEST FALL OF THE YEAR?
wearing new shoes and totally biting it in front of my office building, almost crashing my head right into the us bank window.

24) BEST JOB OF THE YEAR?
mine.

25) WHAT WILL U MISS THE MOST OF 2006?
nothing. it's done. over. kaput.

i had to write anyway...

that's it.
no word from B- about this weekend so i'm going to old orchard instead of lolling about in a hormonal haze with a boy before i leave.

grumble frakkin' grumble frakkin' grumble.

update:
B- has emerged after i emailed him asking if he'd been overcome by carbon monoxide and eaten by his cats. his response to my invitation: 'i'd rather hang out at my place. give me a call.'

well, FRAK! i'd rather NOT.

update #2:
there's a personal post today on his site. i'm reading it, seeing me in what he's writing (aw, he likes my belchiness!) then the post ends with a reference to this awesome woman, whoever she is, who makes him want to write poetry to her, wearing sweat pants with 'hot metal rocks' emblazoned across the ass.

this is not me.

i'm going about my pre-christmas business right now, in the apartment, and there's a part of me that is also going slowly insane. i don't want to go insane like those other hugely insecure, neurotic women. i don't want this...this doubt (about myself, mainly.) i'm not used to self-doubt. i left that behind in junior high and high school. that's not the Me that i am now.

fuck!

boy blogging is boring but i still haven't heard if B- has accepted my invitation to spend the weekend with me before i leave town. it's driving me nuts, making me second-guess friday night and wondering if i did something wrong.

aagh. i hate this. i hate. this.

building trust is like building a bridge on the river kwai

once B- finds out about this little blog, i'll have to stop with the stories about him, but until then, let the B- train roll on.

yesterday i was in a dire quandary; foolishly i had triple booked my evening. drinks with a girlfriend right after work, then the movie premiere at century landmark for A- and S-, then B-. for some reason i thought i could handle all of this in four hours. it became clear to me, however, that something was going to give -- and it couldn't be B-. he was already a little snitty that i had him down for 9 pm. 'i had a feeling it would be late,' he'd said in his best Eyore voice.

you see, i'm trying to build trust. i'm trying to demonstrate that, yes, being his friend is a priority, i am interested in spending time with him and that, yes, i am different from that shallow, callow girl all those years before. (cough) but i'm finding that finding the time to build that trust is frakking hard when my time management skills are lacking, my other friends are very nice people and i like spending time with them, and B-s totally not ready for full Friend Circle Integration (FCI.)

so i'm in my office with some coworkers hoping they can help me figure out who exactly i'm going to blow off (but not B-.) and while they seriously weigh my options, i ask, 'is this what it's going to be like? having a steady boy in my life? a constant process of negotiation between my wants and his needs? this sucks!'

my marketing manager said, 'relationships are all about compromise.'
i said,'i have no idea how to do that. it's either win or cave.'
'ah.'

but a decision is made. i can't handle any of it. so i reschedule my girlfriend for next week (she also happened to overbook so it was fine); i called A- and offered up dinner on saturday night instead of the premiere and drinks with his partner and family (while blaming my flakiness on B- and this whole building trust process.) then i call B-, thinking he'd be glad that i totally rearranged my whole evening to be with him. instead, we have a truly lame O. Henry-like moment.

'ohh,' he said. 'i thought you were coming later, like 9 or 10 or whatever, and so i invited a friend to come over to watch the bulls game.'
'well, you were clearly disappointed i was coming up later, so i shuffled everything around. now i can come up earlier. like now.'
'but i thought you were coming later, so i invited my friend over...'
'does your friend hate girls? i'm coming up.'
'but i thought - '
'ok! ok. i get it - you have mentally prepared yourself for guy time. i have to run some errands anyway and get some things, so how about a couple hours? i'll see you in a couple of hours.'
'fine. i'll see you then.'

painful, isn't it? the two of us are totally retarded. i run my errands (which include buying a totally cute nightie at Old Navy) rush home to freshen up and change (remember i haven't been home in 24 hours) and then catch a cab ALLL the way to rogers park.

i didn't think it was possible, but B- lives even closer to wisconsin than ever before. in the cab, i note all the streets i'm familiar with, then start noticing that i have no idea where i frakking am. and the cab fare? i might as well have gone to o'hare. but that's ok! we're building trust.

up some rickety stairs, i'm in B-'s new place and - hey! it's nice! clean, white walls, built-ins, new couch, new dining set. and look! a friend! an actual, living breathing friend with red hair and a beer; we all introduce ourselves, we watch some basketball over beers, i discover they've been friends since college, the friend is married (i.e., he's NORMAL!) and B- likes kitschy hammond organ music. he's got loads of it and plays some for us.

'no willie nelson?' i said.
'um, now's not the time for that,' he said.

the friend leaves, i play with the kitty, i stretch out on the couch and, of course, a very nice 'hello, how are you, let's make out' thing starts. then, all too soon, he pulls me up and behind him to the bedroom.

i pull back. 'oh, do we have to? so soon? this was so nice.'

apparently, a tactical mistake. because B- went into another snit about how maybe this wasn't a good night after all, i keep saying i'm tired (which i was - tired of transportation), and if i wasn't in the mood maybe i should have kept those plans with all those other friends i have. and he actually flops over to the far end of the couch, crosses his arms and pouts.

i'm stunned. i'm speechless. i just want to hang out on the couch a little bit, finish my beer, kiss a little bit and i'm getting shade?! (have boys forgotten how nice it is to just sit and kiss?) but then i remember, ok, he's a depressed hermit, and who knows what kind of social cues he's missing? but then i get mad. so we have a very tense, low-voiced fight about his expectations, our lack of communication and my time management lack-wittage and how he needs to understand that if i didn't want to be here, i wouldn't. and, yes, i have friends; yes, i have a job that requires me to work late; yes, i have responsibilities. i'm a freaking grown woman.

then he says, 'well, i have lots of grading to do, too. i'm actually sort of wiped.'
i say, 'no. no, no. you don't get to do that. i'm here, the beer's here and i'm not getting into another cab, bus or fuck all. i'm here and staying until the morning.'
'fine.'
'fine!'

silence. he putters. i play with his cats (i hate cats.) then, it blows over. he comes over and wants to know what i'd like for dinner. he teases me about my salad choice, we talk about work and we watch the bulls feebly kick the bucks' ass. we talk about movies, i still try to discover what it is he likes to do outside his apartment, and then i feel a telltale internal twinge.

when i come back from the bathroom, i look at him and say, 'well. my period just started.'
he just stares at me blankly and then says, 'you're killing me, you know? you're just. killing me.'

later, he says, 'you know if we'd had sex earlier we could have beat it.'
'probably. my uterus - what can i say?'
'you're so contrary. it's such an effort with you.'
'i don't think so. last time, i thought that happened pretty organically and spontaneously. i didn't make you work for it at all.'
'yes, you did.'
'no, i didn't.'
'you did. you always do.'
'well...i don't know what to say to that.'
'that's ok. i've accepted this is the way things are.'
'hm. so, where are the bucks from?'

and on like that until bedtime. he goes in before me but i dither. do i sleep with him or am i on the couch? we never made that clear. and i'm disturbed that i need to have things spelled out for me so precisely. but we're building trust and communication! i'll get better at this. then, from the bedroom, his very dry voice: 'what now? do you want me to sleep on the couch while you take my bed? or are you coming to bed - with me?'

i'm so retarded, you know? so very very retarded. i can research government appropriations but i can't figure out if i'm the girl who kits out on the couch or the bed.

anyway, this is where we are. one step forward and then two stumbling, misunderstood steps backward; building our trust bridge, one brick at a time, all the while conscious that one false move and the whole thing could tumble down.

at this pace, we could officially be in a relationship by the year 2010.

my own carless office party commute

i was held hostage yesterday by my own bad planning.

the plan was to leave work early, pick up a couple of bottles of champagne, catch a bus to the north side where my coworker was hosting this year's office party, and arrive by six-thirty. a snap! so easy!
so didn't happen.

5.00 pm - left the office. (the plan in action!)
5.15 pm - caught the very crowded grand bus.
5.45 pm - at Binny's, buying champagne. (ok, the plan is starting to falter a little bit)
5.50 pm - waiting for the Grand bus to take me to ashland. phone call to hostess. ('hi, i'm waiting for the second bus of the evening, but i should be there by 6.30, no problem. see you later!')
6.05 pm - waiting for second ashland bus because first one was too crowded (plan definitely in danger at this point.)
6.20 pm - while stuck in traffic realization dawns that i'm on the wrong frakking bus.
6.21 pm - while asking directions, inappropriately hit upon by bus driver who wants to 'recruit' me to be his girlfriend. sorry, buddy. i have an office party to attend.
6.25 pm - bus driver polls passengers and all agree that, yes, i am on the wrong bus and i need to be on the clark bus. he drops me off on clark and irving and says it's too bad destiny wasn't on his side. (plan is officially tanked.)
6.27 pm - phone call to hostess. ('hi, um, i'm now waiting for the clark bus. i'm so close! i have no idea when i'll get there but don't eat all the food! i'm on my way!')
6.57 pm - clark bus finally comes and i'm desperate for a cigarette but NO ONE has a light. damn north siders.
7.20 pm - encounter J- and T-, also on their way to the party, one block away from the party. am sweaty, thirsty, and exhausted.
7.25 pm - arrive at party, at last! immediately guzzle two glasses of champagne in quick succession.
7.30 - 11.45 pm - slightly inappropriate, not-safe-for-work story follows inappropriate, not-safe-for-work story; 4-5 gin and tonics consumed; good times.
12.00 am - am too tired and tipsy to take CTA again. after canceling on B-, i crash in the hostess' extra bedroom and immediately dream of evil italian plumbers and christmas elves.

happy office parties to you all!
Campaign pushes car-less commute | Chicago Tribune

whoda thunk?: b- is back

where to begin?

if my roomie was writing this, she'd say 'and, like clockwork, B- has returned and Ding pretends it's over, but it's not. it never is.' but she's not writing it so i'll fall back on my standard protest: it was like a bolt from the past! i didn't see it coming! it took me completely by surprise!

one day i'm just desultorily pretending to work at my office because i'm muzzy with a head cold, i'm physically exhausted, i'm mentally wasted and i have no energy for anything. i'm all a-fuzz. then, an email from B- signalling that perhaps his Eyore existence isn't all that it's cracked up to be. he misses me. he may even venture outside. because of his email and the ones that follow, i lose a whole week of work.

(my boss says to me monday that she'd like to be kept more informed of what i'm doing. i'm zoning out because of a boy! that's what i'm doing! i can't concentrate of government appropriations because of a boy! actually, that's not true. since i've seen B- again, my powers of concentration are much better. too, this could be a result of no longer overdosing myself with cold medicine.)

so what's different now? i don't know. seeing him in my apartment, on my ground, made a huge difference. he feels different - less closed off, more secure. but am i different? i'm trying to be. Making an Effort.

anyway. that's where we are with that.

an interesting thing just happened in the office; a coworker and i just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to address a letter to a pair of women who may/may not be domestic partners. their donation was a tribute to someone else, so we could assume they are sisters. but they could also be domestic partners.

should our formal letter of acknowledgment say Dear Ms. Cathy Stone and Ms. Emily Stone?
or should it be Dear Cathy and Emily?
or should it be Dear Mesdames Stone? (Miss Manners recommends this approach.)
or should we send two separate letters that just say, each, Dear Ms. Stone?

it's a puzzlement and we are both waiting for Emily Post to get back to us.

robin, can i touch your hair?

ABC News: Confronting Tough Issues of Race

this one made me and my roomie laugh; we saw it advertised on GMA yesterday (roomie watches it religiously) and we recorded it this morning. the clip yesterday of robin getting all sorts of uncomfortable when diane sawyer touched her wrist and said 'what do you say to that?' after a segment about michael richards losing his shit was priceless. we just laughed and laughed and laughed.

but if this segment is supposed to explore race (a woman from my organization is one of the panelists) it seems really sort of Race 101, you know? like, Race for Middle Class Dummies. (see, i was going to write 'Race for Retards' but, though it rings better, that would have been insensitive and boneheaded.)

i mean, really:

Sawyer brought up the first topic: do a lot of white Americans feel they're
being tested by black Americans by having to watch every word lest they be
accused of racism ? She asked, "What if I said something really insensitive and
boneheaded?"

i like my answer much better than dubois' - then you're insensitive and boneheaded, diane. shouldn't the more interesting question be why shouldn't a lot of white americans feel they're being tested by non-white americans by having to watch every word they say?

otherwise, we'll end up finding a nice way to justify/normalize being insensitive and boneheaded. let's put an end to the benign 'pass' we give for comments that make us inwardly cringe but we never call people out for it because we make the excuse 'well, they just don't know better.' i'm putting my feet down; y'all people should know better by now. it's fracking 2006.

again, shouldn't the bigger goal be for all of us to watch what we say? at the very least? i mean, that just seems basic - the dumbass end of the DiversityBehavior spectrum - Don't call someone a derogatory name.

jesus. do people actually have to be told this?

but if you want an extra gold star, how about making friends with someone who doesn't look like you? at the very least, your Diversity Learning Curve will increase rapidly. i remember when me and roomie first met, the first 6 months of our friendship was spent in bars while she asked me things like, "So what the hell is up with Martin Lawrence?" and explaining why the cocktail hour seems to only happen in white households (though i had white friends growing up, i didn't encounter cocktail hour until i moved to the midwest.) by having at least one friend with different levels of melanin, it puts you one step further away from Diversity Dumbass and several closer to Diversity Expert.

(in all honesty, one brown friend isn't going to get you to that Expert level; you'll need to have more than several, be invited over to share a meal with their family and have to attend at least one funeral without freaking out. roomie's already passed this test.)

cough. hack. still sick.

what's that kind of sick where you touch your eyeballs and they ache?
or the kind of sick where, when you cough, everything feels like it's going to be forced to explode through your ears?

yeah, i'm that kind of sick and i'm back home.
i had every intention to go in to the office, and i did. then i nearly coughed up a lung and my boss said, 'you sound like crap. maybe you shouldn't be here.'

so i agreed and then decided to go to a lunch meeting for a bunch of women working to do some public education around wage equity. i almost tore my face off it was so unproductive. no, it wasn't unproductive. i just wasn't in the mood to sit in a tiny office and listen to stuff.

so now i'm home, plugged into my office email, 'working' and making myself lunch.

viva la inferma!

i'm sick! i'm sick!

like a kid in elementary school, i'm home sick today. i never get sick. maybe a head cold or a tonsil thing but not the kind of sick where i have to leave the office early (ok, i left at five but i didn't feel good about it!) and then go straight to bed, tossing and turning with weird aches and pains.

(last night i dreamed that the canadian prime minister was fake and no one knew but me and my roommate and no one would believe us and the canadian secret police were after us. he was made out of parts! we saw him being put together!)

so after asking my roomie what one does when they're sick (it entails bundling up and watching tv surrounded by vitamins and tea and romance novels) i think i'm all set for a wonderful, rainy, gray day on the couch under a comforter.

you call in sick, too, ok?

oh, canada!

Random thoughts on being out of the country during this most American of holidays:

1. Montréal has a wonderfully silent airport. We shooshed down the people mover and it was eerie – so quiet, so clean, so…Logan’s Run. Fabulous.
2. I tend to freeze like a deer in headlights when spoken to in French. I can’t help it. I didn’t practice any phrases. I could only smile, shake my head and answer in English.
3. It is a city one can crisscross on foot in one day. And, by golly, we were going to do it until my footwear gave out. Old Montreal, Latin Quarter, Ste. Catherine, the business district, the riverfront - very charming.
4. Our shopping is better. It just is – in variety, depth, and style our shopping in Chicago is better. It’s not to say that they don’t have nice things but I didn’t really see anything extraordinarily different or that screamed Must Have! I was hoping for a really great avenue of boutiques and while Mont Royal was nice it was just…meh. However, their winter boots kick ass – stylish AND functional. And, apparently, from Iceland.
5. Being out of the US during a US holiday is incredibly freeing. No blather about shopping or turkeys or worrying about the food or who’s cooking it. It was just about waking up, finding a place for breakfast (an unpleasant sight of the waitstaff eating off of a plate they were clearing meant no breakfast at the hotel), and then walking around. It is the best kind of anonymity.
6. The men are short. And dour, with a kind of existential despair thrown in while also being over-coiffed. Strange. We wonder how the men are in Toronto.
7. Their news is more serious than ours. Quebec nationhood is a big thing. It was everywhere – as well as what looked like the biggest mafia bust in Canadian history. But roomie and I were wondering, Ok, so you get your nationhood – how do you support your new nation infrastructurally? I mean, if Texas wanted to be its own country, I think we’d all be saying Good luck with that.
8. Dinner at Les Remparts was out of this world. Try the tasting menu, if you can. Fabulous. The sommelier, when asked if we should bother getting a bottle of wine with dinner in addition to the wine pairings with dinner, said in his best French-ish accent, ‘You will each consume a bottle of wine with dinner on your own.’ We said, ‘Score.’
9. We had a freaking good time. We planned our days around our meals, took our time with everything and just relaxed. Everyone should go.

Now. Do it. Go.

roomie and i are on our way to montreal for the holiday!
to all five of my readers, have a great thanksgiving.

i wanna hear all about the going home drama when i get back.

wow. a bad week for race relations.

a list, in light of the Michael Richards/Kramer and UCLA student taser thing:

1. when talking about the use of the N-word, let's have a basic understanding that no one should be using it.

2. yes, some black folk use it. not all of us like that but that doesn't mean everyone gets to.

3. (similarly, yes, some gay folk also use the f-word when they speak with/about one another, but that's not going to make it ok for me to say it. it's bad manners.)

4. (just the way it's bad manners to whine about why certain people get to do certain things that seem naughty and you can't. you just can't. deal with it. if you're burning with a desire to say a naughty word and you're mad that people will think you're a racist if you do, then you have a problem.)

4.5. (and if you ask if that's fair - what are you, five?)

5. and besides, that's not the point. whether or not you are a racist is not the point. who cares if you're a racist?

6. the point is, Richards used it in a really really problematic way. you get a few racial demerits for saying the N-word but you flunk the whole test when you start referencing lynching.

7. and that's what's ugly. when we use the word racism *properly* we are to understand that there's a whole history and cultural tradition supporting it and giving it life; we understand that history isn't in the past - it's now, it's flowing forward, everything we do make us part of it and we inform it just as we're informed by it. history and cultural/social practice make racism real and Richards basically sickened himself and his audience when he vomited that history all over the stage that night.

8. this history claim - does this mean that we don't recognize other histories? (i.e., the history of the english oppression of the irish, the genocide in darfur, the spanish decimation of the native american and the indigenous. those histories.) no way. but that's not the context of this particular conversation or incident.

9. and don't try to divert the conversation into another direction. it would be great if the folks who always use this gambit when they get super defensive about race/racism actually wanted to talk about other imperialisms and colonialisms and how they inform our contemporary culture and make our current race issues so frakking complicated. they say, 'what about this oppression or that oppression? are you saying that only black people have suffered, only black people have suffered oppression??' no, brother; i'm not saying that. let's DO talk about other people's suffering and oppression! i'd love to, but you're not going to like it. history ain't pretty. you really don't want to go there.

10. but if you do, maybe we can talk about this guy from UCLA (my alma mater!) who totally got tasered for refusing to show school ID and told some campus police to frak off. he probably has some ideas about why it happened.

is he kidding? jonah goldberg can kiss my minority ass.

so here's his piece: Racism by another name is `diversity' | Chicago Tribune

and here's mine (perhaps to appear in a newspaper near you sometime soon):

Mr. Goldberg is probably correct; if all children, across all economic and racial strata, had access to the basic building blocks for stability - adequate housing, nutrition, health care, family support and quality early childhood education from the start - then perhaps affirmative action would be moot. But we all know that hasn’t happened, yet, and perhaps Mr. Goldberg should look outside his own privileged background and take a reality check.

While we work towards a level playing field – and to date, other than to suggest black people should be happy with less challenging schools, Mr. Goldberg hasn’t offered a single recommendation how to make that happen – let’s ask ourselves what our universities and colleges would look like without affirmative action now?

To answer that question let's look at California; ten years since affirmative action was banned in California minority enrollment at the state’s best schools has plummeted. In 2000, nine African American first year law students enrolled at UC Berkely; in 1996, that number was twenty. University-wide numbers show that since 1995, African-American undergraduate enrollment dropped to 4,780 from 5,016 while white enrollment remained steady, hovering in the 50-55,000 area; in 2005 at UC Berkely alone, there were only 829 African-American students enrolled compared to the 1,200 back in 1995. In contrast, during that same period, White student enrollment remained steady.

If the white student population has not been significantly affected, why call for less opportunity for students of color? (It's not true that if you make room for Black Joe you take away from White Tom. In fact, what you've just done is make White Tom the default.)

There was a hope that eliminating affirmative action would force us to change the way we pipeline underrepresented students into higher education – we hoped that improved K-12 education would eliminate the need for so-called racial preferences. But that hasn’t happened, either. Disadvantaged school districts still lack the AP classes and counseling necessary to boost even their top students’ GPAs to the level of a student from a more privileged school district. In addition, recruiting students of color is now illegal under the California law, making it even harder to put students of color in the pipeline for higher education. And so, ten years after the California Prop 209 initiative, we can see that the desired affect has been reached; there are practically no students of color on any UC campus and Michigan wants to do the same thing in their state.

(Of course, Michigan also has a long tradition of being a racially segregated state so perhaps they're just going back to their roots. After all, it is one of the remaining states with bunches of sunset towns still operating in them.)

The privileges of the upper/middle class should be enjoyed by everyone. While affirmative action is an effective tool to give access to opportunity to students who need it, it's important to continue to ensure historically underrepresented populations have those basic building blocks necessary for a full and autonomous life – economic stability, family stability, physical and educational stability.

Maybe those who don’t like affirmative action can work on that.

the universe hates me

at first, today was normal: morning meeting (cancelled), busy work at the desk, pressing list of things to do and figure out, work work work, lunch, more work.

then comes the afternoon planning meeting for one of our major events next spring and i look down at the tentative schedule of events and see something that makes me sit up, squeak and loudly say, Holy shit.

remember last night? i'm cruising around B-'s archive of writing; i'm thinking that it's sad i didn't get to know him that well; i vaguely register a photo of him and his heretofore unknown well-known sister on his website.

why is this significant?

because she's going to be performing at my organization's event next spring with her nationally recognized spoken word troupe. that's why.

things i never knew about the man i knew

B- sent me an email today. it was a link to his newest article, a review of nbc's 'earl'. i don't think it was sent to me, personally, as some kind of sign or anything. it was probably just a mass email to folks he has in his address book.

but i'd never really read his writing in any close way. since the link was there, what harm would there be? what could i discover about B- since we'd stopped sleeping together?

you know how you read certain authors and you instantly have a sense of where they come from - they're authors of a Place and you'll always associate them with that? like, flannery o'connor is a southern writer; edith wharton is new york; steinbeck is california. well, B- is san antonio. you read him and you can taste the tecate, you feel the dry heat, you smell the dirt. his writing about his hometown should have been all the conversations we never had. the holes in his biography were filled: his sister is a well-known poet and spoken work performer and activist; his father was not just a crazy vietnam vet; he was raised by his staunch baptist grandparents; he may have been well-educated at stanford but he was in contempt of it all. he has a soft imaginative spot for petty criminals, con men, hustlers and winos.

there's nothing about me - and there shouldn't be. but there is a short piece called 'hello, walls,' roughly around the time we stopped seeing each other, and i can't help but remember this day we spent together.

anyway. i thought that was interesting.

brill-yunt: bush years as hook up

yes, i'm still riding the high of seeing the dems actually win something (see what message discipline can do??) so here's an apt metaphor for the past 6 years:

Listen, we've all had the questionable hook-up. We get it. Bush didn't seem at all crazy when you met him at the club. And sure you dabbled in faith-based stuff, and maybe his foreign policy was a little naive, but come on -- sexy, sexy tax cuts.

But then things got out of control, and kinkier and kinkier and next thing you know you're in a war with no occupation planning and no exit strategy and being told that's okay and back off; and people are being tortured, and then not allowed to talk to their lawyers because they might reveal the secrets of their torture; and the one dude who had oversight on the corruption in the war is fired in secret; and you have record deficits and record spending and Congress meeting over Terry Schiavo and warrantless wiretaps and faith-based anti-science and the end of separation of Church and State and troop families in food banks and the most venal Congress in history and Abramoff and K Street and Young Republican college students in charge of Iraqui reconstruction and fucking HORSE LAWYERS IN CHARGE OF FEMA and bing bang boom you got a whole American city, just lying there dead, no explanations, no excuses, just stunned at how the hell you got here. Exactly like our questionable hook-ups, just substitute "waitress in Provost" for "New Orleans" and "all that vodka and blow" for "Hurricane Katrina" --

But let's not get distracted. Point is -- questionable hook-ups. We, as ordinary citizens, all know how we get out of this: you stop returning the crazy person's calls. We promise never to bring it up when drinking. Several years from now, when everything's scabbed over the two of us can joke about our mutual lapses in judgement while sharing a fine Rolling Rock beverage.

if any metaphor for our political process is going to sink in, it's the metaphor of the inappropriate one-nighter.

h/t: wasp jerky

post-election fallout

what an amazing day so far.
the senate is still up in the air, with montana and virginia the deciding factors.
the house is ours.

and donald rumsfeld is stepping down.

i'm sorry. was that a pig flying overhead?

i couldn't do it

Eric Zorn, loathe as i am to admit it, expresses what happened to me in the voting booth this mornng.

though i liked rich whitney a lot (flaming ex-socialist that he is), i just couldn't do it. i couldn't vote for him. i actually stood in that steaming hot polling room and felt my hair curl as i debated with myself to vote for rod (gag) or vote for whitney, thereby putting topinka (gag) one step closer to the governor's mansion. and so i couldn't do it.

these days, voting is like a scene in sophie's choice, you know?

roomie and i are silently counting down until we can pack up our passports and get on that plane to montreal for thanksgiving. we're both sorta tired and being in another place for the beginning of the family holiday season makes us really really happy.

really happy.
it has given us a reason (uh, excuse) to shop like we're crazy women.

two pairs of black pumps, a black/white chain print wrap dress, and a bottle of marc jacobs body lotion (YUM) later, i can say that shopping is the *perfect* antidote for not having a boy around.

counting down to another nervous breakdown: politics

Green Party vs. the goliaths | Chicago Tribune

the blagojevich/topinka ads are turning my stomach. can't a girl watch 'dancing with the stars' in peace? apparently not.

so my gaze turns toward a candidate who's been running so far under the radar, when i mentioned him at a work meeting, my very politically astute coworkers went, 'Err?' ralph nader pissed me off but i think i could probably go for a Green governor. and if you check out his profile, rich whitney doesn't sound totally crazy. ok, his gun policy is weird, but i can overlook that. i'm from los angeles.

(my rubric for political candidates is quite simple - don't sound like a nutbag.)

change has to start somewhere, right?
...
speaking of commercials, why don't the GOP just come out and call poor tammy duckworth a 'legless satan worshipper'? it'd cut through all the crap and make their ads so much more interesting.
...
talking to roomie on the phone yesterday, i realized that approximately 2 years ago, bush won his second election, i had a political nervous breakdown and began the shaky process of giving my boss the finger. it's an anniversary of sorts.

so maybe it's rather apropos that senator john kerry (hereafter known as The Supreme Dumbass) says something just ONE frakking week before elections that seemed almost calculated to make the Dems lose any chance of winning back the House, thus leading to another second political nervous breakdown.

so, uh, john. when i quit my job while in the throes of a massive depression and end up living on the streets, shall i blame you?