The 10 year plan

"It's you and me, or it's nothing."

M- said this to me the other night and it's not as scary and stalkerish as it sounds. I forget the context for the conversation, but suddenly we were talking about What If we hadn't met. Maybe the conversation was prompted by my long trip in DC and the distance between us.

He said, 'Meeting you was..my chance. Before meeting you, I was fine with the idea of being alone; I had pretty much decided that finding someone wasn't going to happen for me.'

I said, 'Aww. I don't know if I was exactly there but if I hadn't met you, I think I would have stopped dating in any serious way. It was getting too gross and pathetic.'

Yay, me and M- found each other, but it made me think about how getting older perhaps means a closing of the fan of possibility. Not that getting old means love is dead but that the willingness, the hunger, for the whole process of seeking out and falling in love just peters out. It's exhausting.

Finding the One Right Now took 39 years; I don't have the stamina or optimism to go through finding The Next One. It's not like my relationship skill-building would be that much better. (And frankly I won't have the hormonal urge to, anyway.)

M- recently found another job and it has us thinking, and talking, about cohabitation again. It's another step toward permanence and I am more receptive to things becoming more...settled. The idea of melding our households doesn't fill me with immediate panic; it's a logistical problem to be worked out between now and Fall. I think I'm also taking my cue from M-; he's in a much better thinking space. Because he rid himself of a toxic work environment, he's much less depressed and sad about where he is, and that makes me more comfortable with the idea of living with him. I think we'll be looking at neighborhoods this summer.

This increased comfort with the idea of permanence has also been prompted by thoughts of my aging father who is going through a period of not being able to pee because of typical old guy problems; of my sister, who is now more interesting to me; of my work (which might change in a few years); and of M-'s new job which has an office in Los Angeles.

He said to his new boss, 'Me and the girlfriend might get married and relocate out there since her family lives in LA.'

When he told me the story, for once I didn't get all huffed up and defensive ('How dare you make plans for me!'); the thought made sense.  I could imagine myself back in LA with my family, taking care of my dad, being reunited with my friends from the Old Delia, driving badly across all the freeways. For the first time, the idea of returning home made me think of the possibility of long-term happiness.

Being One of Two is an act of will; I've said so before and I believe it more firmly than ever. I don't think I'd have the will again for this path I'm walking with M-. Rather than making me afraid of what I want, this relationship is making me more sure of it. I want permanence. (I still don't want children. And I could take or leave a wedding.) But it's making me work for it, man. None of these decisions about my future, or our future together, come easy.  All sorts of negotiations need to be considered.

(For instance, my relationship with Girl Island. Unfortunately, I don't think M- or certain of my friends will ever be comfortable around each other; this might be a necessary price to pay for what I have with him. Or it's karmic payback for being a raging bitch toward my gay best friend's partner for a few years.)

But this is me putting it on the record: there's a vague 10 year plan moving forward and I might be ok with that.

God I'm getting old. What's next? Sensible DKNY walking shoes?

My sister's mediation is tomorrow and I called her tonight to see how she was doing.

I'm so proud of my little sister. She finally called the lawyer my friend found for her and had a good consultation - but realized that she needed to be more proactive with her own case.

(Note to little sisters everywhere: Big sisters know what we're talking about!)

I also find myself giving her advice from my own professional field: if you're not framing the narrative then tell your story strategically to build will and get people engaged on your behalf.

Yeah, it sounds like PR and it is. MABIL has spent the whole year turning his friends and family against her (while hiding his tendency to treat marriage like a gilded cage) so now's the time to start turning that against him.

I thought she'd resist when I said that it's sometimes useful to strategically share some vulnerability to get people on your side but she got my point. MABIL's family and friends are a lost audience. Never message to an audience that you don't have.

But that still leaves teachers, other parents, old neighbors, and casual mutual acquantances to win over.

She said, "I don't like putting my business out there. It has nothing to do with them."

"True. But since your kid has said out loud that she hates you, and bursts into tears every time you come to pick her up, you really don't need her teacher looking at you like you're the bad guy. 

"All you need to say is something like 'Thanks so much for being patient with Sally lately. Her father and I are going through a difficult separation and divorce; the whole thing has been tough on her --on all of us. Thanks for being so understanding.'"

I said. "Just say it in that squinty parent voice people have and the teacher will be on your side -- or at least less likely to look at you like you're Mommy Dearest."

Ah, strategic communications. Good even for divorce.

a marriage only dimmesdale would love

I have to give a huge thumbs up for non traditional family holidays. No long hours cooking, overly crowded house, a formal dining table, a wrecked kitchen or screaming children.

The holiday I spent in Los Angeles was a lovely combination of brunches, lunches, pedicures, dim sum, cocktails and visits.

Of course it was painful hearing my sister call her soon to be ex-husband to tell her children Happy Thanksgiving and overhear the eldest girl snipe and bitch at my sister in the best imitation of a bitchy 10 year old.

"Why is she even calling at all," my niece said to her father. "I don't want to speak to her." It will probably take years for my sister and her daughter to repair their relationship.

But the conflict is nearing a close; my sister and MABIL have a court date in January. As predicted, he is seeking full custody of both children, and she is seeking joint. I am praying my sister succeeds and her lawyer will smash MABIL's petition into the dust.

When I hear of MABIL's particular stream of crazy, I feel sad, humored and angry all at once. I don't think I've ever really known a man who steadfastly refuses to recognize reality. (Other than my father.) While he tries to project the image of a wounded, caring father, he has told their children their mother is gay and is abandoing them to marry her lesbian girlfriend and have sex; he interviews them on tape while they cry and plead for their mother to come back; and he tells them that gay people are sinful and are going to hell.

In other words, 'Your mother is going to hell.'  Is it any wonder the kids are terrified about their mother?

Is this really what a good parent does? These kids are 8 and 10 years old! My stressed out nephew tells my sister, "I don't like it when daddy talks to me about this every day. I don't want to talk about this anymore." My niece is seeing a counselor but who knows what effect that's having since she practically boils with hate toward my sister. In the face of all this, my sister is quiet, calm and forbearing. I honestly don't know how she does it. I wouldn't have the patience to be so...strong-minded.

And a hilariously pathetic picture of MABIL's view of relationships is growing clearer.

According to MABIL, love is:
...Not about pleasing one another.
...Not about being in love with the other person (because love eventually dies) but about loving what the person represents. (Thereby erasing the agency and subjectivity of the partner completely.)
...Not about personal happiness, either for yourself or your partner.
...About structure and community. (Which sounds about as appealing as catechism.)
...Never talked about, reflected upon or tended to.  (It's apparently just a misshapen troll huddled in a corner you ignore for years.)

MABIL's picture of love is the opposite of any lesson found in Corinthians; it is a vision of repression, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and duty to others at the expense of the individual. Despite his obvious anger, he even has the nerve to say that he will forgive my sister and 'take her back.' I shudder to think of being forced to live with someone for any extended period of time who believes these things.

(And don't get me started on MABIL's views about the body, sex and pleasure. Let's just say that he and Christine McDonnell have a lot in common. The man should have been a priest rather than a husband.)

My sister is one step closer to her liberation and I can see her sloughing off the remnants of her wrecked marriage; this weekend showed me a sister who wasn't tense, silent, cautious, or angry. She was her old self: funny, affectionate, present, smart and loving.

Is having my sister back an even trade for the past year? Perhaps.

It's Me, It's Not You: Pt. 2

This weekend, M- brought tears to my eyes. In a good way!

We were having pints with some friends after dinner and catching a few minutes alone (if you can be alone in the middle of a crowded bar.) Over dinner I had told one of M-'s coupled friends that he and I were thinking about their neighborhood for a house rental. The guy gave me a look and said, "Yeah, I think our neighborhood is a good compromise for you but not for M-. It's not downmarket enough."

"Really?"

"Yeah; he feels a little uncomfortable in places that aren't working class enough." I don't know if he said this because we had just walked through my neighborhood and they got a gander at all the new condos and the gentrification in Ukrainian Village, but it made me take a mental pause and added another mental brick to the pile in my brain.

Fast forward a few minutes and M- suddenly says to me, "You know, we don't have to do this until you're ready. I know you've been talking about this alot but ... you're not ready, yet." And he gave me his wry, Dad-look.

I said, "But I am! Really!" Totally lying.

And this is when he made me tear up. He cupped my face and said, "You're not. But if you insist you are going to break us up. We'll move in, you'll try to please me instead of thinking of what it is you want and then we'll break up and I'll be stuck with a goddamn house. I want us to do this because it's right for both of us at the same time."

I was quiet for a bit. "I thought I was hiding this better. I've been a little tense and anxious about this --"

"I know, babe," he said. "But when you're anxious, it makes me anxious and I can't take the stress. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been sensitive to other people's moods like this. When there's a problem, it makes me feel bad -- literally. I get sick when I feel that you're feeling all weird about us. So we don't have to do this now."

"And I get anxious when things move too fast. I just wanted you to know I'm committed to us, this thing we have."

"That's great to know you're willing to do this for me, but I don't need that big a sacrifice from you," he said. "You like living alone, you like doing your own thing and I like seeing you when I see you. Sure, I want to wake up with you. Sure, I wish we lived closer to one another. But don't worry about making ME feel good - I'm in this for the long haul. So when you're ready, we'll do this and it'll be good."

So we kissed, had more beers and went home for a rambunctious frolic and then some mutually disruptive snoring.

The upshot of all this cohabitation navel-gazing: I don't think I've felt more for this guy than during this conversation. How can any woman resist a guy who will wait for her?

It's Me, It's Not You

When it comes to things between me and M- I would say that those things are going pretty well. Right now, we're juggling my increased work schedule (I now have business meetings, dinners and trips!) and I'm struggling just to wash the dishes in my sink.

I wouldn't say things are totally ok, though.  Conversations about moving in together have stepped up and are triggering GirlFriend Separation Anxiety (GFSA) and Boys Are Messy and Gross Anxiety (BAMGA), which is also related to Boys Hog the TV Remote Irritation (BHTVRI).  A friend who recently moved in with, and married, her boyfriend has struggled sharing her condo with him, his duffel bag collection, his sports gear, his records and his snoring.

She said to me today, 'Oh, that irritation and anxiety is real. It is not all in your head. Do not underestimate that.'

And what is interesting about this to me is how my anxiety bucks the female nesting stereotype. The image of the woman who can't wait to get her hands on some man's space and fill his drawers with her bras and panties is blown to pieces.  I don't want my hands on his space. That's his space. And this is mine!

The other night I actually paused while brushing my teeth thinking about how we will probably need an armoire and what if he hates going to Ikea to get one and what if I don't have enough closet space and what if his things clash with my things? And what if we can't find a place with at least two bathrooms? And I walked to my cramped bedroom where my bras, socks and various sundries were all  helter skelter, and felt a little sad.

Goodbye, girl space.

Of course, this is my Libra/Capricorn tendency to over-think.

I think I'll handle everything ok if I just keep myself grounded. And think of how my other coupled friends balance their together/apart time and how, generally, change is always good and moving in with a guy does not mean that I will never see my girls but that I'll have to be more intentional about seeing them on a regular basis, and that I've had two roommates before and living with them well always came down to open communication.

Then again, maybe I'll need to start seeing a therapist again once a month.

My father is observing the same things in my sister's situation but he's looking at them in a very different way.

I look at MABIL's actions and see the desperation of a man fighting to keep what he's already lost; I see him flailing, desperately trying to hold onto the illusion of his masculine control and patriarchal authority.

My father, on the other hand, buys into the fear MABIL tries to drum up. He believes a man's moral anger will naturally supercede a woman's legal defense. I think that's interesting.

It's as if the world these men imagine is more real than the world actually in front of them. In the real world, California statute and practice limits what MABIL can do; but does he realize that? No. He thinks that the weight of his moral outrage and disapproval will be all it takes to punish my sister and keep his family the way he wants it. My father believes, to some extent, the same thing - that the wrong done to MABIL will necessarily require some sacrifice from my sister.

But that's not the way the world works.  In the real world, marriages fall apart and people walk away from one another all the time. No one is punished; no one is sacrificed. They pick up, go to therapy and move on. Or maybe they pick up a hobby, learn how to be civil, and then they move on.

In the real world, bad actors get away with their bad acts all the time.

There's even a real possibility that MABIL will get away with his bad acts, performed in retaliation for my sister's, whose own acts were created by the sinkhole of her own marriage and the immediate death of intimacy between them. So in this daisy chain of bad acts, intentional and otherwise, who deserves punishment?

Oh, what do I know about marriage and bad acts? M- won't introduce me to his family until my last remaining ambivalence about our relationship evaporates.

And, yet the very tiny pull and tug going on between me and M- (and my acknowledgment that he has a right to set his own limits and boundaries, even if it creates some pressure for me) seems more honest and realistic than creating an ideal world where everyone is set up for failure.

the patriarch has no vision

In the vivid fantasy in my brain, I am dressed in a well-fitted black suit with marvelous shoes and my asshat brother in law is being ripped apart in family court by my keen legal mind as my sister looks on, joint custody about to be given. As I lead him down a path that will expose him for the evil homophobic asshat that he is, I am cool, unrelenting and when I'm finished, not only does my sister have joint custody, the judge has recommended my asshat brother in law (MABIL) undergo serious psychological counseling for his anger issues and reliance on 17th century catholic codes of behavior.

In reality, I'm sourcing queer family custody lawyers for my sister, gritting my teeth, and refraining from sending MABIL the most incendiary email in the history of the interwebs.

Because what is a big sister supposed to do when a man is trying to make your sister look mentally unstable, counting on the hope that the world is still so sexist and woman-hating that a court would strip her of her ability to mother her children; when a man is hating your sister so much he'll stand in front of their children and slowly taunt her with, 'You are soooo craaaazy, you're craaaaaazy,' full well knowing my sister can't fight back or he'll use it against her?

So since I can't fly to Los Angeles and punch MABIL in his testicles and superglue his fingers up his ass, I will do everything I can - call every well-connected friend, find a pro bono queer lawyer, read up on California statute - to prepare my sister for the custody fight of her life.

After years of being a very distant big sister perhaps I should take this opportunity to thank MABIL for bringing us closer than we have ever been; for the first time, without her so-called perfect marriage sitting between us like a stinking turd to intimidate me and oppress her, we speak about real things and treat the other like a real person. There is real intimacy between us. I love her more than I ever have. And now we actually say it.

(Though she needs to get off her high horse about having a drivers license. I will have one -- soon! You'll see!)

As a feminist I have to chuckle at reading MABIL's 'plan' so clearly. Oh, I don't underestimate it. I know that our culture can easily strip a gay woman (or any woman) of her rights as a parent simply because she has a life that somehow doesn't match a 1950s stereotype. But I sneer at his puny thinking.  A man's word does not carry the legal weight it used to.  Thank god. What a man wants is no longer what a man gets, necessarily. The frustration and anger MABIL feels in the face of my sister's rebellion is the product of feminism and I couldn't be more pleased.

Feel that hot rush of heat to your face every time you see my sister at the soccer game trying to cheer on her kids even though you won't let her near them, MABIL?

Welcome to women's lib, asshat.

update: the road less traveled, iowa edition

I may have been harsher than I needed to be with M-. On the road yesterday, our crankiness got to such a level we inadvertently caused a beef with a waiter in a bad Mexican restaurant and went to bed huffy and tired.

When we slow down to talk, and listen, we can have complementary strengths. I pay attention to certain details and he to others. I could not have the patience for DJing a wedding and taking care of set up, logistics and whatever. This has been on his mind for weeks and it should be; it's a huuge favor for a good friend. If he screws up, he's ruined a wedding for everyone.

So he's had more than one thought in his head. He just hasn't had the thoughts in his head that are in mine.

But, to a larger point that was mentioned in comments below, there is Work that a lot of women do that goes unacknowledged. Especially married and mothering women - the work these women perform to keep a household running is largeley ignored, uncompensated and devalued. 

Since I must bring everything to the personal or memoir level, I'll think about my father.

As much as my father loved my mom, I don't think he really considered the amount of work my mother contributed to the smooth running of his home. Every morning, my sister and I were clothed, fed, prepared for school or church, food was on the table, clothes were clean and everyone was on schedule.

I think he expected it to happen naturally because that's what the gender roles dictated. But the actual details of that work escaped him and went completely unacknowledged, which made my mother fester. Now that mom is gone, I think he's had some time to think about it but during those years, at the height of his ministry, he had no idea.

He would plan dinners, invite people over, volunteer mom's time and it would be done without a thought. 'Oh, of course, Lucy won't mind making a huge Sunday dinner for 9 people; she is such a good cook!' As if her talent automatically translated into consent.

It reminds me of episodes of Undercover Boss. The CEO, or COO, walks briefly in the shoes of his frontline staff and he is astounded at the sheer amount of herculean tasks put in front of him - vaguely realizing that this labor represents a fraction of the work hundreds of people contribute to his bottom line. I wonder if most husbands are like that. (Though it's problematic to see wives as 'staff.')

M- and I don't live together; we don't have a shared household. We're still in the early part of our relationship so I'm not going to fly a huge red flag. Being present means you deal with what's in front of you, not spin out into fantasies of future disaster.

But it's something for us to think about as we take our baby steps toward living together. It means we have to consciously talk about expectations and division of labor - especially what we learned from our parents and what those triggers are.

Here's to having a great party and drinking lots of champers!

if only men read women's literature

[Note: These opinions are my own. I don't consult with others before having them and I don't ask permission before sharing them. This is my prerogative as the owner and writer of this space. Do I really need to say this?]

If only more men read more feminist literature the vast unknown-ness of their wives would be laid bare and life would be less confusing.

During the various ups and downs of watching my family 'find themselves' I'm struck at how hard it is for a woman to break free of social expectations. Like Lucy Honeychurch, my sister is bucking all the expectations of her class, gender, mothering status and perceived orientation and, in the process, making everyone around her freak out. Even I am stunned, watching my sister go through a process that makes me think of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

Her defiant refusal to remain in her marriage has apparently broken the rules of her little social community. In this community obligation to family (including friends) and church supercedes anything else, no matter if you're dying inside. But now, suddenly, relationships and identities are thrown into upheaval, children are endangered and all of morality has been upended and requires defense. Justifications must be made, core motivations must be plumbed and Someone needs to give a public accounting of how one has Betrayed Everyone.

Certainly, there was a betrayal. But which comes first? The betrayal of vows, or the desperate scramble for air that prompts the betrayal of vows? My brother in law asked me if I thought it was 'ok' that my sister did what she did. But I don't think in those terms. I try to put myself in her shoes and imagine what could have been done to facilitate the most immediate break in a marriage, deliver the greatest shock and bring things to an inevitable, and irreparable, conclusion. And then my sister's actions make sense.

But it doesn't make sense to the male members of her community. Their reactions are interesting. I think hysteria is accurate. There's also a degree of anger, seen especially in their demand for my sister to 'explain herself.'

All because a woman decided she wasn't happy.

What happens when men aren't happy? They can pull a Tiger, flaming out in a collection of hostesses and sleazy text messages. Or they can pull a Pastor C-, pushing everything down, only to release the unhappiness in bursts of furtive vacations. What do women do? We suck it up. We swallow our unhappiness until it turns us into the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper. Or we kill ourselves like Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.

Again, I don't think men read a lot of 19th century domestic fiction. If they did, women's unhappiness would make a lot more sense.

A patriarchal society always inhibits a woman's autonomy and refuses to see her as an agent with a value system of her own. Her freedom, her independence doesn't exist unless some man authorizes it. And this is what I see. Men (very nice ones) demanding that my sister give an accounting of her actions because they're not satisfied with any of the answers they've received. These aren't bad men - they're just men. In defense of one of their own, they want to reassert control of a situation that she has set in motion.

For this, her journals have been secretly dissected, in an effort to find these answers when the woman herself is standing in front of them, repeating, "I wasn't happy. This wasn't me. I lied from the start. I never wanted any of this - wife, marriage. I was only that other person for everyone else."

Let's go back to literature (where all answers can be found, actually. At least humanist ones.) At the end of A Room With a View, Lucy Honeychurch is living in Florence with George Emerson, isolated from her family, even from her staunchest supporters like Rev. Beebe, because that is the price a woman pays when she betrays all expectations of her.

When a woman has defined for herself what her freedom entails, and she dares to take it, she finds herself cast outside of the castle walls. Imagine the Disney castle gone dark and quiet. The moat is filled and the drawbridge pulled up.

The only thing she has in front of her is the open world.

And it's worth it.

at last, the religious right gets honest

From Exposing the Christian Right's New Racial Playbook News & Politics AlterNet:

At the Freedom Federation meeting, Rodriguez's rhetoric epitomized how the religious right is reframing its core issues to build a new army for "spiritual warfare" on sexual impurity and its consequences. Appearing on a panel moderated by Richard Land, who for decades has been the public and political face of the Southern Baptist Convention in Washington, Rodriguez said, "Let me be very blunt here. I don't believe white evangelicals or white conservatives alone can repudiate the spirit of Herod, the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah, the spirit of Jezebel."


During the summit's closing rally, Rev. Arnold Culbreath, an African-American minister from Cincinnati, Ohio, admonished young women for their lack of purity. Culbreath is billed as the urban outreach director of Life Issues Institute, Inc., an anti-abortion organization, and the leader of the group's Black Life Initiative. "I want to say a word to the young ladies: Stop making it so easy for the young men," Culbreath said. His words were met with applause. "God has designed us to be the pursuers," he continued, "and you to be the pursuees." [emphasis mine]

Before, the religious right had always tip-toed around their obsession with gender roles and appropriate feminine behavior. Oh, sure - they want to save babies and segregate gays, but they'd never cop to the charge that they focused on these issues because a reproductively autonomous woman or gay man/woman challenged notions of hyper-patriarchy and 'natural order.'

They'd just chalk it up to God or the Bible and hide their intentions behind mealy-mouthed Jesus-talk.

But at last, their agenda is overt: in order to break the hold the Dems have over African American and Latino votes, the christian right is overtly positioning themselves to be the voice of pre-modernity by going after those issues that cross all racial/ethnic lines: killing teh babehs, gays, and sluts.

What's the spirit of Herod? Abortion.
The spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality.
The spirit of Jezebel? Those goddamned women who like sex, have sex and use birth control, aren't married, flout (male) authority, work outside the home, feminists, loud-mouthed bitches and so on. In other words, women like me. Or you. Just .... women.

The social ick factor posed by abortion, homosexuality and feminism for religious conservatives has never been in doubt. But it's interesting to see how they've pitched race out the window in order to unify disparate factions under a banner everyone can get behind: hetero-coersive patriarchy.

Can I get an amen? (I'll write later about thoughts of how this movement appeals to the not so latent patriarchal tendencies among some black clergy and how it soothes their fear of the 'Sapphire' and tries to build a cage around black women's agency in order to support and protect the black male ego.)

And they're willing to build a socio-political movement behind it:

That vision of social justice is -- like the traditional religious right -- anti-government and theocratic. For the "multiracial" Freedom Federation, it is focused on saving black and brown babies from the spirit of Herod. In a panel discussion on social justice, Engle said, "prostitution in America is fueled majorly [sic] out of the foster care system. Government is going to produce that kind of thing. Here is where the church becomes the outrageous lover, the outrageous answer." [emphasis mine]

(It's interesting to note how Engle's thinking turns the government into a pimp - and, of course, there won't be any thinking about how such a hyper-patriarchal model of gender creates the man who buys the trafficked woman... )

The way Engle connects domestic trafficking to the foster care system makes me take a closer look at the ways that evangelical groups have begun to advocate around international and domestic sex trafficking and wonder how their advocacy on those issues(the presence of which anti-violence against women groups have warily welcomed) is going to merge with this new fight to rescue America from the Herods, Sodomites and Jezebels among us.

And how are their wary feminist/pro-woman partners going to navigate that?

(I'm thinking specifically of particular 'rescue and restore' ministries that have worked with established feminist anti-trafficking groups; these groups have very heavy 'American patriot' overtones/imagery and a definite vibe of 'manly Christian men rescuing endangered frail, corrupted woman in order to restore her to home and hearth, where she rightfully belongs.' It is a discourse ripped directly from the 19th century Victorian playbook.)

The religious right has always fascinated me. One, because I come from it and understand it; and two, because their narratives and goals are so very, very narrow and familiar. Throughout history there have been those who have fought to hold back time and progress. Despite the lessons to be learned in literature, history, art and psychology about the unhappiness and damage such a narrowly defined culture can produce, they fight on.

And keep losing. For every women who is educated, employed, empowered and autonomous, beholden to no one, they lose.

I hope we women are strong enough for this fight again.
...
Bible story time!
Who is Jezebel?

It's one of the most vivid and violent stories in the Old Testament. I read it constantly when I was a little girl.  Jezebel is married to Ahab, who covets a man's land. Ahab dithers so his wife strategizes to steal the land, kill the owner and make the land a gift to Ahab. The prophet Elijah forsees doom because of their sin and when the kingdom is attacked, Ahab dies in battle and Elijah orders Jehu to find Jezebel and throw her from the highest tower. The dogs lick her blood and eat her body, leaving only her hands, feet and head - the tools that schemed, wrote the order and delivered the gift to Ahab. 

And....that's who sexually impure women are supposed to be: scheming, murderous, manipulative sluts who deserve to be thrown off a tower and eaten by dogs.

(Think I'm exaggerating? Church folk interpret this story exactly like this.)

I have apologized to my coworkers for being such a flaming bitch during the entire month of February. I think my mood will be much better in March, especially once I refill my Ativan prescription.  The snow is gone, the sun is out, and I don't have to wear snow boots anymore; how interesting that my mood is directly related to how cute I am able to look.  For instance, today is all about the Naughty Librarian With Red Pumps.  I feel fabulous; I look fabulous. I smell good.

Happy Tuesday to all!
...
So I think my sister L- will be moving back in with dad.  He seems to think she's on solid ground, but is worried that my brother in law is about to lose it.  (As am I; though he's a very cool guy, he is rather regimented.  And we all know what happens when regimented people crack their shit up.) While I'm concerned for everyone back in LA - especially my dad, who is SO not prepared to have one of his daughters move back in with him and put a crimp in his 66-year old bachelor lifestyle - my thoughts naturally, of course, turn to me.  What does my sister's divorce mean to me??

My bottom line: Sweet lord, I'm so glad I'm not married!  Marriage is apparently crazy-making. It carries a psychological and cultural expectation of permanence that doesn't encourage one to be in the Now - it's all about two inexorably bound timelines that stretch waaaaay into the future. Like, into Eternity. That is a lot of pressure. And I'm so glad I don't have it!

I mean, yes. I love M-.  He is my guy.  But we live in two different spaces. We spend days apart doing our own thing.  Our timelines, while running alongside each other's for a bit, aren't bound. They can diverge, oh yes they can. There is no expectation of Eternity. Oh, there's an expectation of mutual monogamy (though we've tentatively discussed other arrangements - as well as mutually decided our relationship is too new for us to get too creative with its structure.) But there's no expectation of frakking Eternity.

I try to imagine myself married and I can't get past imagining what I'll wear to the courthouse for a civil ceremony.  (I'm thinking a creamy, soft suit with nipped in jacket and pencil skirt and some kind of nifty hat. And really really hot shoes. And nude fishnets.) Or, if I get past that, I think of the small, intimate afternoon luncheon at a nice French restaurant afterward.  Then that's it. My imagination goes dark.

Anyway, I know there are a few among all 15 of my readers who enjoy their marital state and this is not to say y'all are chumps.  I think y'all are champs! 

You have chosen, however, a life structure that confuses me to the core. 

Ok, it's after 9. Carry on!

NewGuy or...NewMan?

The other night, the young kids next door decided it was time to rehash all their roommate issues at 5 am. My first-floor bedroom window was open to let in the heavy late summer air so it was as if the two of them were standing at the foot of my bed arguing about who was going to be the one to move out.

Next to me, M- turned from his back to his front. He put the pillow over his head. He snorted. He grumbled. I rubbed his back, drifting in and out of my own dream state. I wished that a flaming meteorite would land on these kids and incinerate them both.

M- got up, climbed over me, shuffled into the living room. For a minute, I thought he was going to charge outside in his underwear and yell at the kids. But he came back with a glass of water, drank some, handed it to me, went back into the kitchen and came back.

The arguing continued and it was clear that our sleep was irrevocably broken. I could tell the sky was going to lighten soon. We'd both have to go to work. I tossed. M- tossed.

Then M- sat up, wrenched off the comforter and boomed out the window in his Chicago guy voice, 'Take it inside or we're calling the police!'

Silence. A screen door slammed. Silence.

'Thanks, sweetie,' I mumbled, patting his arm as he got back in bed. Grumbling, he pulled me close and said, 'Well, now I can't go back to sleep.' And we waited for 6.15 am (when he had to leave) and spent the dawn talking and complaining about how frakking rude 20-somethings are in this neighborhood.

At the door, he said he appreciated how I didn't get mad at him for yelling out the window.

'Why would I get mad at you for yelling at them? I call the cops on those damn kids all the time.'
'Just...thanks for letting me take care of that.'
'Uh, ok.'

I get the feeling that these things are important to him - taking care of things, being the Guy. Or is it being the Man? I don't know.

According to this Modern Love, M- looks like a Guy but acts like a Man. Or is it the other way around?
Because it's all over the place.

Modern Love - Forget the Men. Pick a Guy. - NYTimes.com

why i love alfre woodard: a mother's day preview

this is from an Onion A/V interview with the badass alfre woodard about getting moms wrong onscreen:

Americans have a hard time writing moms. I’ll get a script and everything’s really great, everything’s well-drawn, but the mom is like this character, like stock footage, they go and get that out. They plug it in, this idea of “mother.” You could lift moms out of any script, no matter what the culture, what the neighborhood, what the economic status, even if it’s a period mom, and you could switch them around, and they’d be the same person. I think it’s because most people don’t really have a human idea, a specific life that they attach to who their mother was. Their mother was there for them, so it either gets deified, or the opposite. That Mommie Dearest kind of thing. We love them or we don’t, or we rebel, but we can’t see who they are. That they are a person in life with taste, with sexuality, with opinions, who is pissy also, who has a right to not be the big tit for you every time you want something. And then we leave, and we go off to college or off into the world to work—you really appreciate your mom then. But there’s that big chunk when you don’t know your mom’s faults, desires, wishes, distastes.

my very favorite part: That they are a person in life with taste, with sexuality, with opinions, who is pissy also, who has a right to not be the big tit for you every time you want something.

in an old post on my other blog ChurchGal (currently on hiatus) i wrote that i thought my mom was happier when she went back to work and came to this realization while watching her during work parties (she'd take us with her because there was no babysitter and dad worked the nightshift.) i saw a different Mom at those parties. well, some commenter went batshit, offended that i could say my mother had an interior life that was about more than caregiving.

if anyone responds to this post, i don't want this to turn into a 'good mommy' v. 'bad mommy' thing; i want us to start seeing motherhood, and talking about motherhood, in all its multiplicity.

and this, from a woman who will never be a mother.

PS: Dear film people - give Woodard more play!

WKYN: We Kid You Not
hmm. i have to check this out. but not right now because i'm late for drinks!

father, may i?

it's no secret that i have an 'issue' with authority: dads, pastors, cops, bosses, presidents, boyfriends, bus drivers. it's all one thing: Authority. seeing the world divided into sheep and masters, i guess i'd rather not be a willing sheep.

some people think differently. some people think being a sheep is really great.

amanda marcotte has a link to a post by some waay fundamentalist sisters about the dangers of sending your christian daughters to college. her fisking is sharp and funny.

then i read from those two sisters about maturity and the role of an adult daughter still living with her parents and i had to fight down bile:

The sign of maturity isn’t that we simply “obey” our parents’ commands, but that we understand deeply what our parents’ hearts and goals are, and can anticipate and even exceed what they expect of us. A mature, adult daughter who deserves her parents’ trust most certainly isn’t the one who says, “I’m not a child anymore, Dad! I’m an adult! I’m old enough to decide for myself when to get up, and it’s not something you have authority over anymore!” (Literally, “I’m mature enough to demand my own way, and throw a tantrum and threaten to run away if I don’t get it!”) But she also isn’t the one who says, “Ok, ok, Dad, I’ll get up when you tell me to.” The mature daughter is the one that takes the initiative and says, “Dad, what time would you like me to get up? I know that spending time with your family before you leave for work is important to you, and I love that about you… so how can I help make it happen?” This is one thing that makes us different from mindless automatons with no wills of our own (which some girls seem mortally afraid of becoming.)

why does this make me spew?

because this is exactly what makes a great executive assistant (which i was for a while before i came to my senses and got the hell out.) to be the ideal assistant you have to completely evacuate your own identity; your ways, needs, sensibilities and wants are completely replaced by the routines, habits, desires and enmities of your Executive. the line separating the two of you, if the relationship works out to the Executive's advantage, begins to disappear.

your day begins by asking yourself, 'what will upset Executive this morning and what can i do to make sure that it doesn't? what will make Executive happy and what can i do to facilitate more of that happiness? who is Executive going to fire today and how can i make sure that person isn't me?'

your day is filled with wondering what Executive will want for lunch, if Executive knows how to get to the airport, if Executive can find his/her way to baggage claim without step by step directions and whether Executive will have to stand in line longer than necessary once Executive gets to the hotel. you even ponder the possibility of traveling with Executive just to make sure everything gets done the way Executive wants it.

you will be consumed with wondering if Executive noticed how long your lunch break was, if Executive will buy you a birthday gift and if Executive will notice that you supported the whole team and made that presentation happen at 10 pm while the rest of the team went home and Executive went home to Executive's spouse. the idea of taking a day off scares you; what will happen to Executive if you're home or on vacation? how will Executive accomplish anything?

you will know details of the Executive's life only a partner or family member would know and you would order the world of the Executive to cater to those details: favorite foods, allergies, likes/dislikes, anniversary dates, birthdays, number of children, second home location, social security number, credit cards, taxes, personal finances. as ideal Assistant it's your job to care for these things just like they're your own.

while the Executive is proud of the fact that 'his Susan' or 'his Ali' or 'her Cathy' runs the Executive's life for them, they are also unaware of the seething resentment and anger that will slowly build in their assistant until it's bribed away. at least, if Susan, Ali or Cathy had any sense of self-preservation, they'd be filled with resentment and anger. if they know no better they will acquiesce and sink into a gray little nothing who doesn't exist unless they have an Executive to serve.

those of us who quit being an assistant did so because we hated every single frakking minute of it; being subservient was foreign to our sense of identity and purpose. whenever we interviewed with other firms we were forced to say, honestly, 'i don't do deference very well.'

the sisters have an odd way of defining 'independence.' though they say that the virtuous daughter asks her Executive - uh, Father - what his wishes would be for her, the end result is that she obeys. the virtuous daughter's will is entirely subject to that of her patriarch. in history, we'd call that kind of social organization a fiefdom.

and that's what these two sisters are advocating: deference. service. servility. servant.

who would groom another human being to glory in that kind of personal abnegation?
and why would you say that it's what God wants?

holy discipline!

edmontonsun.com - World - Hubby charged in minister's beating

so. bishop thomas w. weeks (the 3rd) put the beat down on his wife, gospel singer/televangelist, juanita bynum in a hotel parking lot. he chokes her, 'stomps' on her, flees the scene, she ends up in the hospital, he's arrested and released on $40,000 bail, and then he goes to church.

his supporters, instead of fleeing a so-called spiritual leader who has poor impulse control, have instead chosen to circle their wagons and say totally sheeplistic, insane things like:
"There are three sides to every story. Nobody has the right to judge anybody. God is in the midst of that and will work it out."
"We all make mistakes. He deserves another opportunity."
"Let's love and pray they stay together! It may be a blessing to us all!"

and then there's this love letter from a commenter on an aol board:
"He might have a short fuse. He was obviously tryna walk away from the situation and SHE followed him. A man can only take so much from a nagging ass wife."

ah, yes. the 'nagging ass wife.'
in my community she's the mouthy, back-talking, sassy, 'don't know her place' emasculating jezebel that all men must beware.

according to church folk, here's the lesson for all us single church gals out there:
if our man has a 'short fuse,' it's no one's fault but our own nagging ass self for making him stomp us so hard in the face a parking lot attendant has to pull him off us.

i hate ignorance. i really really really do. and ignorance crossed with self-hatred and misogyny? even worse.

it's making me flashback to my old church where attitudes like this grew like rotten fruit on a tree.
...
more than slightly related to holy folks smacking around women, this morning i came across a piece discussing Christian Domestic Discipline!

it made me a little mad. i really can't take the church's fascination with disciplining women. the official CDD site is apparently not open to the public anymore thanks to all the attention it's been getting lately; but there are plenty of other blogs talking about, including feministing.

i love how the CDD folks make a point of saying this activity is consensual but i think there is a huge difference between consent and acquiescence. one implies enthusiastic participation, the other implies more than a hint of coercion.

let's repeat that: consent = enthusiastic participation

it's a useful distinction that could shed light on all sorts of situations, don't you think?

bad mommy monday: celebs have moms, too

over on Church Gal, i wrote this morning about a piece in the nyt mag on family leave and workplace discrimination and how it focuses on working mothers (though working fathers are also targets).

then i came across this article in the style section. (note: really good articles on gender and society can be found in the style pages, i think.)

it's more on the way our culture judges and scrutinizes mothers - even celebs' mommies:

But the amount of derision directed at mothers seems out of proportion.
“We still have a virgin-whore binary in American pop culture, and this governs motherhood as well,” Professor Douglas said. The same way in which girls are labeled either good or bad, so are mothers. The same level of censure does not seem to apply to sons, whose risky behavior is often seen as merely a rite of passage.
Professor Douglas thinks the reproach directed at some celebrities’ mothers speaks to the particular kinds of lessons that mothers are supposed to teach their daughters — lessons Lindsay, Britney and Paris seem not to have learned. “It’s supposed to be a mother’s job to train her daughter into how to domesticate her various desires,” she said. “If we see a young woman who hasn’t done that, the mother has failed her tutorial.”

i love that phrase: 'domesticate her various desires.' good mothers are supposed to teach us how to tame desire, make them homey, safe, appropriate. let's put a frilly apron on those rampant desires and make them 'feminine.' i also like the connection the piece makes to bourgeois class values and idealizations of womanhood. so victorian.

and it's clear that these attitudes aren't just fodder for literary or academic smart-assery; if you go to these different gossip sites (where female judgment runs rampant), you'll read that these lessons about appropriate motherly/daughterly behavior are well-ingrained and often-expressed. (though, apparently, easily discarded, as well.) whether we like to admit it, we LIKE judging other women, women's behavior, women's mothers and their behaviors. it's the first place we go to when we wanna snark on someone.

but, as the article notes, scrutiny of the father and of sons is avoided - and perhaps this is a serious cultural oversight. where is the surveillance of fatherly behavior? where is the constant preying on the behavior of sons gone bad?

(where is the chastising of joe francis' parentage, for instance? why has his home training gone unnoticed, while the parenting skills of the girls he preys on becomes fodder for vicious speculation? i.e., 'what kind of parent would allow their underage daughter to go to spring break blah blah blah?' come on. you know you've said it. i have.)

how would our popular discourse change if we, for instance, began to take a hyper-close look at sports figures and their daddy issues? (or their absent daddy issues?) would we say that doping and cheating and violence and dog-fighting and sexual assault could be laid at the feet of these athletes' fathers? (even if the fathers aren't present, their absence IS a presence, one could argue.)

but no. that's not as much fun as looking at a woman self-destruct and then blaming her mother. so much better to kick a woman than scrutinize a man.

Sometimes Mothers Can Do No Right - New York Times

three in one

i'm drowning in binders at work over here. conference call, advocacy procedures, reviews coming up, board meetings, blah blah blah.

so, of course i'm going to spend my time thinking about distractions: clothes and boys. oh, and another lisa belkin article about the opt out moms now trying to opt back in.

clothes: the times acknowledges that teen fashion is everywhere (am i the only one who hates H&M?) and trying to dress one's age is difficult. however, there are solutions. if i looked like one of their fashion sketches, perhaps i'd agree with them.

boys: yeah, so, i'm doing the eHarmony thing. (roll of eyes) i mean, if you can't meet someone based on 29 dimensions, where can you? they've improved their process and, though i'm a hit with lots of divorced guys in the burbs, i'll reserve judgment and will try to ignore the overtly goody-goodiness of it all. meanwhile, there is one last nerve guy i'll probably meet for a drink next week.

and the times says that if you're trying to meet a guy in a class, good luck with that.

opting back in: a few women have managed to squeeze their way back into the workplace. i'm still waiting for the article about women of color and why they never opted out in the first place.

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.)

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