shameless plug: Girls on the Run - Chicago!

a colleague of ours now heads up this organization and, while i've never actually used a pair of running shoes, i've heard that others do!



WonderGirl 5K Fun Run 9 a.m. on June 3, 2006
Join hundreds of girls who will be running their first 5K at this great family event!

Join Girls on the Run- Chicago at one of the most moving and unique events in Chicagoland, the WonderGirl 5K. Hundreds of young girls will celebrate their “girl power” by running 3.1 miles together. Let them inspire you! All men, women, children and superheros are welcome. Run along with them to celebrate health, inspiration and months of hard work at this fun, family event where all girls are number one! All finishers will receive a WonderGirl medal. The family event takes place on June 3, 2006 at Montrose Harbor and will feature kid-friendly entertainment and activities in addition to the race. Event sponsors include Fleet Feet Sports, American Girl Place, Dominick’s Finer Foods, New Balance, Goody and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes.

Who: Everybody! Hundreds of girls aged 8-12, their “running buddies” and the Chicagoland running community; local, state and federal public officials; sports celebrities; and Tony the Tiger!

What: 5K fun run benefiting Girls on the Run-Chicago. The race is registered by the Chicago-area Runners Association (CARA)

When: 9:00 a.m. CT on Saturday, June 3, 2006

Where: Course starts and ends at Montrose Harbor Beach House, located at 4400 N. Lake Shore Drive Chicago. Plentiful, free parking is available in the Montrose Harbor Avenue parking lots east of Lake Shore Drive


To register for the race or for more information, visit www.gotrchicago.com or email WG5K@gotrchicago.com.

Girls On The Run®-Chicago uses the power of running to change the way girls see themselves and their opportunities. It is an innovative, preventative health education and wellness program that combines training for a 5K (3.1 mile) run/walk with life-changing lessons that inspire a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living

i think i'll have chili for lunch

Cat and Girl
(thanks, twisty.)

i had the cutest bag, at least

These are my observations from spending 2 hours with boys in politics earlier this week (and since it was a very long 2 hours, this is a very long post):

- Where are the women, indeed? Other than the woman who won her primary for a heavily contested city position and the women who worked for the host's office, I was the only woman in the room. (And frankly, I was only there because we're the host's client.) We sat around a big conference table to throw questions at Kos and hear him talk about his new book (which I'm excited to read, I'm not ashamed to say) and I couldn't help but look around at all the earnest, serious, white male faces around that table and think, "Wow. And we're different from the Republicans how??"

(They were all very nice guys, yes. And one had a lovely beard and another sported a cuorderoy jacket that was quite fetching. I'm just saying that the organizer couldn't find a few women in the whole of metropolitan Chicago to go to this lunch?? Nowhere? No women running campaigns? No women in charge of strategic communications for some progressive candidate somewhere? No women working for progressive change? Not even a single woman who writes about politics? As a member of several strategic coalitions in the city and state, I find that hard to believe.)

- Never give a vote to a Republican - NEVER. It's no secret or surprise that when NOW and NARAL threw their weight behind a Republican "pro-choice" candidate a while ago, instead of behind the Democrat candidate who was on record being anti-choice, their decision made Kos and his fellows lose their shit. When this was brought up at lunch (as in 'what are we supposed to do when a less than ideal Dem goes up against a so-so Republican?') The answer was simple - primary them. Find the candidate you want, run them against the candidate you don't want. Or, vote for the Dem candidate anyway, knowing their single anti-choice vote will become moot and you get rid of them next time with a preferable candidate. But never give a vote to a Republican. Why? Because in the end they'll totally screw things up: the conservative candidate, though giving lip service to reproductive rights, later backed all of the conservative judges and justices up for appointment (and basically ignored the two choice groups who backed him.) Those justices and their decisions can make life a hell for the rest of us.

-Strategic thinking isn't bad. I never thought I'd say this but the context of my thinking has changed a little. During lunch it was my impression that Kos thinks that women's groups are wasting opportunities, that they aren't thinking long game and are only working short, reactive games. I question that. I don't think groups like NOW, NARAL or Planned Parenthood were caught by surprise by the Alito nomination at all. (Was it even possible to stop the Alito confirmation from happening? I'd say no; the whole game had been lost when we folded on the whole filibuster deal earlier in the year. After a deal like that, made my Congressional Dems, who has room to maneuver at all? Not the groups' fault - I lay that whole thing at Democratic leadership's feet.) All of us were at the mercy of the extremely small window of opportunity we had.

But back to my point. Kos&Fellows has a point about strategery. And I've only just come to this realization just this year; after working where I work and seeing how advocacy strategy isn't *only* about getting people to follow you and support your cause, I see that it's also about insuring that the right people are in place who will make it easier for you to get your work done over the long haul. Who is most likely to support my organization, one that serves women? Who is more likely to understand what I mean when I talk to them about the needs of low-income working women, single mothers or student mothers? Who is more likely to protect the breadth of my interests? This isn't to say that the big women's groups don't do this. I think they do; I think Kos and his Fellows underestimate just how savvy women's groups are. But I think the strategy question is a question that needs to be asked whenever we engage with TPTB.

Our issues (women's issues) are no longer stand-alone. Economic empowerment, reproductive rights, education and health care - these are all related to one another. The increase in opportunity, or access, in one area depends on the strength of the others. Perhaps that's what K&Fellows mean when they keep repeating the mantra that 'single-issue' advocacy won't get us anywhere. (gasp! am i saying that i think single-issue advocacy is bad? no, just that they're not really single-issue.)

Strategy is not the binary opposite to Values. If done correctly, strategy should be a direct product of our ideological values.

-I want to win. Having said that values define strategy, does that mean that strategy is the only thing that matters? That, as long as we feel good about our values and that we have a long-term strategy in place to spread those values, the work ends there? It was funny, sitting there with my cute bag and cute shoes, listening to the boys use military and sports terms for everything. I don't have that language. I have the language of my old corporate world, which mirrors this language, but that's not really my language. My language is academic. Academics don't win anything. For the past 6 years, we progressives haven't won anything either.

But I want to win. Winning is important. Not everywhere or with everything, but in this context of politics and progressive causes, yes it is. It is very Important because the alternative (Losing) is too awful to withstand. But is winning our end goal? (I think this is where people get hung up. 'As long as we win, whatever's ok.' No, there is no 'as long as we win.' That puts winning first and values last. We spread our values AND we win.) No - our end goal should be a place where our values are lived out and demonstrated at every level - but we can only get there if we win.

-Other observations - Kos is actually very nice and seems to enjoy Corner Bakery brownies.

Crashing the Gate in Chicago!

so i may have missed out on my chance to see hillary last night but today i get to go to a lunch for these guys. no black tie, but should be fascinating.

i haven't been hanging out at kos since the election ended (it just made everything too raw) but the opportunity to ask questions of the 'leaders' of the progressive blogosphere is too good to pass up.

maybe i should ask them where all the women bloggers are...

Chicagoist: Crashing the Gate in Chicago

best line. ever.

'doris, you're a sexual disneyland!'

oh, my kingdom for a black tie!!

argh!!

i just had to turn down an invite to the hillary clinton event tonight.
why?

because i have nothing to wear!!

damn you, black tie events! damn you!
(to tell the truth, the very thorough security check scared the bejeebus out of me, too...who knows what kinds of petitions i've signed in my life??)

a perplexing dilemma has sprung up in the ding-roomie household:

which is the worse movie - xanadu or showgirls?

it's unexpectedly hard to decide.

geez magazine sent out a pitch call for articles. due monday.
i have nothing.
nothin'.

dammit.

um, i think one of these guys installed our cable

ever wonder who's out there paying $20 for a little alley action?

these guys.

and i'm not kidding about the cable guy.
i mean, how many bogdans are out there??

oh, god.
ucla is down. it's the second half.

i can't watch anymore.

so i'm watching amelie. (mathieu kassovitz is ...sigh.)

huh?: Immigrants and the Economics of Hard Work - New York Times

ok, maybe it's because i haven't had my first sip of coffee yet but i'm having a difficult time figuring out the argument from the guy at the conservative think tank if:

illegal immigrants only take up a tiny fraction of our workforce and aren't really taking jobs from citizens but do depress wages for less-educated african americans, therefore...

i'm confused.

Immigrants and the Economics of Hard Work - New York Times

12345678!
U. (clap clap clap)
C. (clap clap clap)
L. (clap clap clap)
A. (clap clap clap)

U-C-L-A FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

hee!

just trying to clarify...

i wonder if this is what alabama senator hank erwin meant when he said alabama was 'family friendly.'

control

there's this intern. (yes, i'm about to talk about work, for those who know me and where i work.) she's great. she really is. smart, willing, and down with our cause in a super big way. the perfect person we want volunteering for us. she even has a grad degree.

but there's this project. it's bigger (oops, i almost wrote the n-word) than we originally thought and could lead to some stupendous conclusions; me and the intern made a preliminary presentation on thursday to the project manager. she was duly impressed but it was clear that we had some holes to fill. so we extended this sub-project to fill these gaps. then the PM suggested that we might want to each write a report on our project and draw some conclusions and present it to her (and my boss) because the stuff was turning out to be fascinating.

no biggie. this all makes sense to me. the timeline is sorta tight, but i'm thinking about how we can do this in three easy stages: stage 1 - gap/fit; stage 2 - populate the map; stage 3 - look at the map and report what it's saying to us.

the problem: the Intern is a grad student and likes to make brilliant-sounding pronouncements that ultimately get us off task and she gets caught up in all the details. the map is one such detail. we're putting all these little markers on it, coding them for different things, and the map isn't the best. it's a population/demographic map so it has only the most general outlines of communities. if it was a map with census tracts AND demographic (racial/ethnic) info it would be different. so the Intern, now confronted with how this project is about to get a mite bigger, starts worrying about how far apart the dots are on the map.

this is not the problem i'm identifying, which is how we're going to gather the data for the fracking map complete in just 5 days, with a few more days to do the mapping and then write the report. who fucking cares about what color sharpie to use to dilineate pilsen from logan square??

i said, 'i don't think we should be worrying about this. we need to establish a process for how we're going to cull through the information from all these other sources. we to decide how we're going to divide this job.'
she said, 'but the map isn't accurate.'
'uh-huh - it's accurate enough. we don't need satellite-level accuracy. we need general areas. the dots can come off. the tabs can come off. i can reprint another fricking map. we have to trawl through potentially 400 more agency sources.'
'do you think a silver sharpie would show up?'

aaack! suddenly, i could see her getting bogged down and we'd miss the deadline and who'd be to blame? me - not some volunteer, but ME. no way, dude. not on my watch!

so, on friday, i made a decision that kept me at the office for 5 extra hours: i completed the first half of stage 1, then i sent her what i'd finished and told her what part was hers and when she needed to be finished (wednesday).

we are not going to co-write this report sitting side by side like snow white and rose red, dickering over each word/idea. she's going to write hers and i'm going to write mine; then we're going to see whose report the PM likes best.

clickety-clak! clickety-clak!

my world is split into several tracks: work, the now, and the past that runs silently underneath everything else.
i'm still up at 1.30 in the morning because of work; i'm trying to finish up a project an intern (of sorts) was doing for us for a presentation tomorrow and i feel like i'm pulling an all-nighter for school.

in the now, i'm feeling a little jangly. because work is increasingly becoming important to me and i'm being asked to be more responsible for things, i'm feeling the pressure; and, when i feel pressure, i tend to shut other things down so that i can concentrate. like - friends.

(to the gals, here's an apology. i'm sorry i've been distracted and not totally 'there.' i haven't been Making the Effort! i'm sorry!)

and keeping the work-pressure company is that guy, B* (to distinguish him from B-, he gets an asterisk!). he sent me an email tonight (he's working late, too); it was bowie's 'rock and roll suicide'. i've tried to decipher why he sent it, but i am too jangly.

and from the past there's S-. (and since he's probably reading, i'll be discrete. or is it discreet? i can never remember what the difference is.) S- is from my past and when we unexpectedly got back in touch early this week, it made me go back and trawl through my journals from 2001. (yes, it was that long ago.) i read about our first date and it made me giggle; it also made me wistful for that girl i was. i was so...ignorant.

so, beneath all the other stressors of this week, there are the side trips i've been taking to Nostalgiaville. on the bus, i think about the first time he and i kissed (on the roof of my building); the time he asked me to go with him to find a computer desk and he dithered about it for so long i wanted to chew my fingers off and run all the way home (and then i repeated the ordeal when he needed to buy a sweater and i waited patiently with the nordstrom salesman while S- doggedly looked for the right color white); then there's the time he sat with me and my girl friends and we made him blush at my dining room table and he was shocked (shocked, i tell you!) at our conversation but later...

and then i find myself in the naughty part of town, in Nostalgiaville. that's where i find the things i remember in the dark. those details.
and secretly, thinking about those things on public transportation, i smile.

and the work and the now disappear for just a bit.

just before bed, a post about cnn's coverage of the anti-sensenbrenner marches (i like that frame better):
La Queen Sucia: How Stupid are the US Media?!?!

I think people who drive without seatbelts deserve what's coming to them.

You drove without a seatbelt and now you're crying. You should have known better. You should have made better choices. You're nothing except an irresponsible wanton seatbelt derelict.

How can you expect people to sympathize with you when you knowingly got in your car and drove without a seatbelt? You forgot? Your seatbelt malfunctioned? What a bunch of crap. You broke the law; you chose to break the natural law of good driving that says 'Click it or ticket.' You and that Gary Busey (who doesn't want to wear a helmet) - all you individual rights whiners, 'i wanna feel unrestricted'- well, all you 'this is my life' freaks need to shut up and toe the line.

And what gets me is all these people who want to make 'safe driving' part of our curriculum. Drivers Ed - give me a break! There is no 'safe' driving. Encouraging 'safe' driving encourages irresponsibility and a reliance on untested methods - like so-called 'defensive driving.' Just wear your seatbelt.

I mean, it's consequences, man. You drive without a seatbelt and - wham! You know what's coming. Don't whine. Don't cavil. You deserve it. Natural consequences.

This world would be so much better if people just suffered a natural disincentive for their actions...

[insanity via bitch phd]

just call me jael

This is a double-purposed post: one part about how I want to drive a tent stake through a guy's head; the other part about being progressive.

1. This is our second drink together and he's giving me a rash. Like, seriously. We've just yelled at each other about private vs. public interests, valuing education vs. valuing money, 'consequences' vs. comprehensive sex education, living with integrity and a sense of moral centeredness vs. life being just an existential hellhole. My face is flushed, my neck is hot and my chest itches. I've broken out into an ideologically-fueled rash.

He reminds me of Sidney Poitier in his early 40s. In fact, that's exactly who he looks like - neat, trim, dark, and tidy. We're meeting for a purely casual, this-is-not-a-date, after work drink. Why is this not a date? Because he already has a girlfriend. I'm happy to sit in a crappy bar and chat with a near-stranger about books, work, music, politics, relationships, and growing up odd.

(And, considering my less than stellar boy-record, I don't think I need to be dating anyone right now.)

But he's an utter pragmatist. Having a conversation with him is like talking with the Borg. Or a conservative from Dartmouth. Hence, the tent peg.

2. At one point during our conversation he leaned back and said, 'You really believe all that, don't you? Helping the poor, the brown people. You really swallow all that.'

And I said, 'Yes, I do. Every word of it.'
It makes me an easy read. I mean, you don't really have to think all that hard to wonder how I'll come down on an issue. And I'll trace it back to the book of bible stories I had when I was a kid. There was a fabulous illustrated story about David and Goliath. And that was it. David was a cute Israelite with smarter technology and Goliath was a moron. My ideological loyalties were born.

Political stances birthed by childhood Bible stories perhaps aren't the most flexible. Or the most 'of the moment.' There doesn't seem to be a lot of room for rhetorical maneuvering when you stake out a progressive claim.

fashion friday: you hairy monkey

i used to call the Librarian paul bunyan. he was over 6 ft tall, sported curly dark hair, was broad shouldered, long of limb, had ice blue eyes and a thick bushy beard.

the beard was disconcerting. it would intrude on kisses and, in the mornings, it would nuzzle my face and tickle my neck. eventually, i got used to it. it suited the Librarian's dark germanic face. it gave his face character.

but there were caveats: it could get messy. it could retain smells.

so some words of advice to those who want to sport the most wood-choppingest manly man beard of their desires: trim and clean your beard regularly. a beard that tastes/smells of nicotine/pepperoni pizza/beer is a little yucky.

Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol - New York Times

uh, it's poverty thursday

I'm about to get wonky on you. Get ready. Bear down.
The point of this post isn’t to make us feel guilty for being well off or comfortable; I’m proud of what I’ve earned and accomplished. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I’d like us to start realizing what it’s like for people on the other side of the street. And if poverty is a complex social issue, which it is, then why are we willing to fob off uncomplicated and superficial remedies (like marriage policies, like bashing immigrants, like trickle down economics and tax breaks for the rich)?

Note: Most of the numbers mentioned in this post are from a report that can be downloaded from here.

What's poverty?
There are actually four kinds of poverty, based on our federal index which is based on what a family would need annually to earn to feed them (no, it's not a perfect measure, but it's the way we measure poverty now. If you want to read more about how the index is measured and critiques of how it's measured, go here:

Here's our federal poverty level index for 2006:
Family size - 2006 poverty guidelines:
1 - $ 9,800
2 - 13,200
3 - 16,600
4 - 20,000
5 - 23,400
6 - 26,800
7 - 30,200
8 - 33,600

You are Income Poor if you fall within the parameters of the FPL
You are in Deep or Extreme Poverty if you live at or below 50% of the FPL
You are Low-Income or Near Poor if you live at or below 200% of FPL and have trouble meeting your basic needs because of rising costs (child care, housing/rent, health insurance - if you have this at all.)
A household is Asset Poor if it doesn’t have enough net worth to live at the poverty level for 3 months - if you experience one significant life event (medical crisis, job loss or divorce) you can end up homeless or go straight into Poverty.

(While this index is based on food cost, which probably needs to be changed, here's what the index doesn't include: cost of transportation/commute to work, cost of child care, cost of utilities, or the rising cost of housing. Factor those costs and the number of those who qualify as poor would probably increase rather than decrease.)

Who’s poor?
You might be poor if you are old; nearly half of IL seniors would be in poverty if not for Social Security benefits; Social Security benefits are primary source of income for two-thirds of IL seniors; 70% of senior women living alone live near poverty. Senior men had a median income of $20,363 in 2003 and senior women had a median income of $11,845.
(Dude. Who can live on that??)

You might be poor if you are a child; 37.2% of children lived in low-income families in 2004; 15% of children in IL lived in houses where the head of household didn’t finish high school (an indicator of poverty); 11% lived in crowded housing.

You might be poor if you are disabled; in IL the monthly SSI payment is $564 (the national average is $617.02); a disabled person would have to spend more than ALL of their SSI income to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

You might be poor if you are a woman; IL women have higher poverty rates than men; 13.3% were living in poverty compared to 11.5% men in 2004; 31.4% lived in near poverty compared to 26.7% of men; compound that with the worst gender wage inequity of the 5 most populous states and you have women working their asses off for not a whole lot in return. Most single heads of households in the state are women.

You might be poor if you are Black or Latino: nearly 30% of the black population in IL lives under the FPL; 16% of the Latino population in IL lives in poverty.

Maybe most of us think of the victims of Hurricane Katrina when we try to envision who’s poor – they were visibly destitute, almost sharecropper poor. But that’s just one face of poverty; not the only face.
I argue that the more quotidian face of poverty is probably the face of someone you already see: the woman who provides you with childcare; your company’s receptionist or assistant; the security guard in the lobby of your building; the woman who checks out your groceries.

You might not be poor if 4 crucial areas of your life’s needs are stable:
Economic well-being. Are you earning a living where all your basic needs can be met? Can you live on your wage? Do you have a ‘cushion’ of some sort?
Health Insurance. Does your employer provide them? Are you relatively confident you won’t have to lose your house if your appendix bursts?
Housing Affordability. Can you pay your rent or mortgage easily and without much stress? Can you afford to live where you live? Have you never had to choose between food or rent?
Education. Do you have a college degree? Do you have a professional degree? Have you graduated from high school? Are most of your friends and neighbors literate?

Before indulging in a superficial discussion of poverty ('poor people suck!'/'poor people are saints!') I think it's important to dispel a couple of assumptions:
* poor people are lazy welfare queens who don't work and
* poverty is about bad financial planning

Poverty is about a maelstrom of bad breaks: illiteracy, generational poverty, economic downturns, cuts in social services, no education, rising costs in the standard of living; lowering wage values, no access to health care. Access to work. In Illinois, one quarter of our work force lives below the federally defined 'poverty line.' These are people (most of them single moms) who work full time jobs; they work 40 hours/week just like you and I work. And yet, they're poor. And these are people who, every day, make crucial financial planning decisions – the thing is, they’re making these decisions with less money than you or I can even think of using to even live.

I was at a retreat for an organization for whom I sit on the Board and a woman made the point that, for most of us, we think of low wages as entry-level wages; we think "Oh, I made 28k when I was out of school for my first job! That's totally livable!" But for many of the working poor, 28k is not entry level. That's a life wage. That's a wage that won't change. Ever. No bonus. No signing bonus. No relocation bonus. No holiday bonus. Through children, illness, divorce, and death - that wage won't change.

Think $30k goes a long way? I earn a little over that amount in my new non profit gig. But I don’t have children, I have health insurance, an education and my rent kicks ass. (And I have a roommate who makes triple what I make and is willing to buy me a beer or a movie once in a while.)

But how far does that $30k go for a family of 4?
Or, maybe it’s $25k.
Or, maybe it’s $19k.
If you made $19k/year and had to support a family of four (or even three), what kinds of decisions would you make?

These?

Yeah, Jesus said the poor will always be with us.
But that doesn’t mean their lives have to suck.

hey, breeders!

from a favorite gay:

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're having those babies, ladies, and you're making those child-support payments, gentlemen. If you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas wants to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking holy war, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Straights Rights Update

time to move on?

I'm thinking about closing my ChurchGal blog for a while, if not permanently. I've loved writing for that blog but I have to admit the few times some fundamentalists have strolled on over, I've lost my equanimity and sense of humor. I know - only a few times. I should be glad it's not all the time.

This is what it is: They're rude. Like, I don't care what they think - I'd actually like it more if they talked more about what they thought - not what they think about me but what they think. But they're really crudely rude.

They feel comfortable saying things that, if they were standing in front of my face, in my home, I'd be forced to tell them, Get the fuck out my house.

As it's becoming distasteful to listen to them or engage with them, I also find that I'm becoming as humorless and dour as they and that's unacceptable.

The original goal of the blog has disappeared - I wanted it to be a snarky eyed view of contemporary religion but more recently it's becoming a place where people want to engage in seminary theology debate. If I wanted seminary debate I'd be in seminary, thanks.

Or, maybe I'll just do what the conservative blogs do and close comments. Yeah, that'll do it.

I shouldn't be disappointed but I am. A business trip to meet/greet some politicos was called off for weather. I should be glad I don't have to get up at dawn to take a train to springfield; i should be glad i don't have to haul a bunch of stuff with me for the reception; i should be glad i don't have to sleep in a strange bed.

but...i really wanted to go!!

i was actually excited about it. a lot of this work is tedious - phone calls, emails, tiny detail work, the repetition of stats, the mind-numbing strategy and follow through. (you wanna know how politics gets done? a lot of effing meetings.) but there's a different part i find fascinating - the process, the personalities, the act of convincing someone that your cause is their cause.

i love this stuff.

fathers & daughters

In Los Angeles I saw my twin - and it was my father. For years the Ding Family has said, You're so much like your dad. I shrugged it off. I mean, yes, there is a physical similarity - I look like my dead grandmother, I have the Ding chin, the Ding mole, the Ding complexion, the Ding eyes and fingers. But beneath the skin, there is something else binding me to my father - the Ding Distance.

The Ding Distance is the vast emotional gulf between anyone from the Ding Family and everyone else (except that lucky lucky person we happen to be in love with.) If you are not loved by a Ding Family Member, then we will look at you with all the puzzlement and bwilderment of an alien landing on another planet. But if you're loved, if a DFM has decided to love you, then you can't get rid of us. We love hard and deeply. No matter what. (My sister is proof of this; she ran her husband to ground like a hound after a stag.)

So Dad and I are driving down Sunset, toward the ocean, at the best time of the afternoon when Los Angeles feels like a cool hand across your brow. We're talking relationships:

Papa Ding: I told her. God as my witness, I told her I wasn't
attracted to her.
ding: But then you invited her to a wedding.
Papa Ding: Well, I needed a date.
ding: But you knew she had feelings for you.
Papa Ding: But I told her there could never be anything between
us!
ding: And then you asked her to make tamales for your party?
Papa Ding: I can't cook!
ding: But that's a special thing. You asked her to do a special
thing. You cannot reject someone and then ask them to do special things for
you! That's not right!
Papa Ding: I didn't reject her. I never said that.
ding: You said, I am not attracted to you. That screams
rejection. That's not exactly a big Yes, I want to be with you.
Papa Ding: I never used those words. I never said I rejected her.
ding: Oh, that's right - because you keep asking her to be your secret
girlfriend!
Papa Ding: No!
ding: You need to understand some women's feelings, Dad. You may reject us but what we really do is look at what you do. If you say No but then ask us to be your date and cook you special food for your friends you're either in love with us or you're taking advantage of us. A woman in love - what does she want to believe? That the man she wants returns her feelings? Or that he has a hole where his emotional center should be?

I've had conversations like this before with my friends about a few boys in
my past; I've said I am not responsible for their feelings, even after I've just
stomped all over their little bitty hearts with my stiletto heels. I have said, 'But I made it clear where I stood! It's not my fault they chose to misunderstand me!' It was cool to be so flippant when it came to another person's emotions; my indifference turned me into an impervious tower. I was not moved by emotion. All my liaisons were rational, I thought. Everything was understood.

But then I think about this woman who hankers after my father, who plays by the same rules that I do. (And let me say my dad is not a bad man; he's just a man relearning what it's like to date again after 33 years of marriage and 5 years of being a widower. He has no idea what he's doing.) These are the rules that say, If you don't really care about the other person the most you can do is make sure they know where they stand.

So I think about this woman and these untenable rules and I think about how crazy she's become because of loving someone who doesn't see it or won't see it and can't love her back and how no one is putting her out of her misery.
And I think that I don't want to be the type of person who draws out the pain so much when just a quick snap of the neck will do.

rough morning? yeah. you could say that.

You know when you're in bed and you've just gotten to a point in your dream cycle, and the bed is so toasty, that you feel that there could almost be another person in there with you and you go, 'Mmmm' and then you snuggle under the covers more and wipe the drool? Yeah, I was totally IN that place when I drowsily checked the time on my cell phone.

7.42!?! Motherfucker!
I have a Board meeting in 20 minutes! Shit!

Within 10 minutes, I pulled on fishnets, my brown wraparound dress, the cute brown/white jacket, my slingbacks, shook my hair around, put in earrings, scrubbed on deodorant, sprayed perfume, brushed teeth, grabbed cab fare from roomie and crashed downstairs to hail a cab, rushed to the office, after babbling to my bosses "I'm coming! I don't know what happened! I'm coming! Pick up the catering downstairs!" and ran into the Board meeting.

Where I immediately began to cough like Typhoid Mary and had to stagger *out* of the meeting, feeling my whole torso contract and my little Instead cup totally dislodge because I coughed so hard. Damn! So now I have to fix my feminary situation.

(Note to self: being on period while coughing up phlegm is nasty. Both ends, dude, both ends!!)

But there's no time! The Board meeting must go on and who will know what happened with capacity building if I'm not there to take notes? The meeting will drop into the memory hole of forever and the Agency will collapse from the weight of its amnesia. I can't let that happen.

So, sitting off to the side, I slip out my bottle of Robitussin, unscrew the cap (fuck that little plastic cup), and suck down a huge gulp. From the Board table, where they're giving me the fish eye, I'm sure I looked like an inappropriate drunkard.

Welcome to Thursday, everybody.

carnival!

are you radical?
are you brown?
are you a woman?

then this carnival's for you.

blackfeminism.org � Blog Archive � April�s Radical Women of Color Carnival

taking a little break: learn something about meth labs

wondering if that anti-social, scabby, twitching neighbor of yours has turned your building into a meth lab?

dude.

Drug News & Features Meth Prevention Methamphetamine Information Community Information about Meth

jp's limerick festival!

i'm back from los angeles, where i had a surprisingly relaxed weekend. while i'd love to catch up on everything, i'm too tired. i'm also fighting off some weird cough.

so, go leave a limerick at jp's space. they're fun. (i love limericks. i think they're vastly underrated and, frankly, my favorite way to seduce wordsmithy boys. hee.)

you don't have to read: 2006 youdonhavetoread San Patricio Limerick eFestival!

my flight leaves in 3 hours and i'm still not packed. grr!

will miss you madly but will try to drag myself away from the family to scribble thoughts on L.A, smog and wonder, once again, why i didn't get a car when i had a chance.

play nice.

it's official: i am tired of the 'boomers

yesterday was a long day and i have to blame a 4-hour staff meeting for the crankiness that led me to erupt at a coworker. there we all were, patiently walking down the Appriciative Inquiry path, when our boss asked a question about donor development and looking 5 years into the future.

it was like i saw the light at the end of the tunnel. it was like the craziness that hits the mountain climber when she's about to return to basecamp - she loses her grip and smashes into her trusty sherpa, killing him and everyone on the expedition with her.

our only male colleague kept saying how we needed to pay more attention to baby boomer women and their issues and i just couldn't take it anymore.

'jesus, i can't wait for their hegemonic grip on our culture to end. like the Greatest Generation, they need to die off. god.'

he got ruffled. 'hey, i'm a boomer!'

exactly, i thought. i said, 'when are we going to stop catering to them and actually think about the future? but no. we'll be strategizing around your needs for the next 50 years and nothing's ever going to change!'

you could almost hear the screech of the wheels as our boss tried to wrench the meeting back on track.

i went home, only mildly repentant that i had just made a 54-yr old guy feel irrelevant in a staff meeting. this morning, crossing the bridge on michigan avenue, i even tried to find another way i could've couched my contempt. but i couldn't.

it needed to be said for all of us around that table. (shrug)

Not Wanting to Be Left Out, Men Find Their Own 'Pause' - New York Times

black like me. or, uh, maybe not: how i spent my thursday night

The bar in Redfish almost fell completely silent.
Dropping his bar towel the black bartender said, "What do you mean you don't know who Common is?" He pulled the other bartender, a young black woman, to his side. "She doesn't know who Common is."
"No, she didn't!" she said.

My drinking companion, a 40-ish black man, whispered, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that so loud."
The two black girls across the bar started laughing - and not with me, either.
I shrugged. "I'm sorry! I don't know who Common is! I grew up Baptist! I'm biracial! Uh, I don't listen to the radio!" The bartender said that was no excuse. "Do I have to turn in my black card?"

Guy bartender leaned on the bar in front of me and said, "Well, who's Common Sense?"
"There's no Common Sense," I scoffed.
The whole bar howled. The Guy Bartender threw up his arms and turned away. Even the white guy smoking a cigar across from me was laughing his ass off.
Then the bartender held up his hands. The bar was silent again. "So name me all the members of Public Enemy."
"Uh..."
Bar howled again.

Bartender said, "Okay, how about 3 members of the Jackson 5?"
My mind totally blanked. "Uh, Tito...Michael..."
They waited. "Um...I got nothin'," I said desperate for another drink while the guy next to me (a very buppie lawyer, mind you) laughed and shook his head. Then the white guy across from me took out his cigar and rattled off the names of all the Jackson 5 (AND their sisters) like they were members of his own family. Bar howled again.

"Girl, you are whiter than the white guy," the guy bartender said. "I gotta ask for that black card back!"

unbelievable: alleged rape victim in contempt of court

Chicago Tribune Alleged rape victim threatened with jail

so. though she's been cross examined already and has testified she has no recollection of consenting to sex with this group of men, she's basically going to be thrown in jail if she doesn't watch a videotape of her own rape.

before you write me and say something really idiotic, ask yourself this: if she was your 20 year old daughter, would you want her to watch a tape of her rape?

if you're as pissed off about this dehumanization of a woman as i am, contact the men who should know better here:

call the judge: Judge Kerry M. Kennedy at 708-974-6759
call the presiding judge: Judge Anthony S. Montelione at 708-974-6288
call the chief judge: Judge Timothy C. Evans at 312-603-6000

[update: within minutes of me posting this, the Trib just posted an update - the judge backed down.]

[update2: scott lemieux has analysis here]

another one gone: Octavia Butler

this is shocking: CNN.com - Sci-fi�author Octavia Butler dies after fall - Feb 27, 2006

at least shani won something...

Tom Watson: The President and Mr. Miller

i have no idea who tom watson is. all i know is james wolcott linked to a portion of his post and i had to read the rest.

so here it is - a smoothly and sharply written reflection on the dud called bode and our dud of a president.

it's official: women aren't people

echidne, a favorite blogger of mine, has a nice rundown of the anti-abortion law going down in south dakota as well as links to other writers who've been on this story all along.
ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

i especially like the analysis at lawyers, guns and money .

people, this south dakota law is huge. it doesn't fuck with chipping away at reproductive rights but goes for the whole enchilada - women, no matter the situation or medical context, won't be able to have access to abortion and doctors who perform abortions are criminally responsible - not women, which is an illogical and disingenuous move on their part. (again, hat tip to LG&M)

i have to hand it to the opposition - when they decide to move, they really haul ass. i thought we'd have a few years for this fight, but it seems they're emboldened by roberts and alito on the bench. the way things are going (and i've said it before) birth control access is going to be the next reproductive issue to be narrowly defined and then toppled. check out the naral map to see what anti-reproductive freedom bills are wending their stealthy courses through your legislatures.

where are we going to stand, women? if we're okay with one state, or a few states, to put unconstitutional bans on abortion on the books, thus establishing test cases for the supreme court to decide, then what are we NOT okay with?

and how about it, guys in the democratic party? still waffling that reproductive rights is a 'niche' 'womens' issue and not so important as, say, the shrinking middle class or the economy? still feeling this is something that's going to scare the poor wittle moderates? still thinking that winning in 2008 is more important than what strange men are deciding NOW about your girlfriend or wife's uterus? still thinking feminists are shrill and humorless and hysterical about concentrating on reproductive issues and not our silly war on terror?

for many of us, this is terror. it is a war waged on the landscapes of our bodies. and i'm wondering if there's more than just me getting angry about it.

found: pants!!

so enough with shani.
not only is the topic edging folks real close to calling me 'bougie' (oh, anonymous, don't think i don't know what you're thinking) it's nothing compared to my new news:
i have a new pair of pants.

they're brown, cut straight and wide through the thigh with a very slight flare at the bottom. i wore them yesterday to the office and they were gorgeous. and you know where i got them?

forth & towne. i know - forth & towne!

it's hard for me to wear brown. it makes me nervous. what goes with brown? more brown. i'm already brown. i don't want to be head to foot brown, like a snickers. but these pants? love them. they cover my weird flat/not flat ass, actually make it look like i'm taller and straighter than i am and hit the top of my foot at exactly the right place, which is a feat since i'm not tall. and paired with the brown/white print jacket (also an object of love) the whole thing just cost a couple hundred bucks. swoon!

here's a word to people who make pants for women over size 14: these pants don't taper! the rise isn't too long! it sits at the waist and yet doesn't look frumpy! everything lies flat!

my only complaint: the pockets are still on the slant on the side of the hip and they pucker just a teeny bit. (i got hips, dude.) they really should have been on the front of the pant and 'hidden', you know?

[i wish i could show you a picture but i think they're afraid F&T will tank and so won't invest in putting their clothes online! come on, people - if you're going to force me to go out to the burbs at LEAST put your merchandise online so i don't schlep in vain!]

the dutch to hedrick: 'boooo'

thanks to reader K- who sends me this link to a TimesSelect article. Bottom line? The Dutch think Hedrick is a tool.
...

Fans in the Know Give Their Cheers to Shani Davis
By HARVEY ARATON
TURIN, Italy
IN the continuing and increasingly acidic case of Chad Hedrick versus Shani Davis, the unofficial Dutch court of speedskating arbitration reached a verdict last night.
Davis: innocent of the charges levied by Hedrick, that he was a disloyal and even unpatriotic teammate.
Hedrick: guilty of being the self-promoting, ugly American of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
"When Hedrick comes around, we say nothing, but when Shani comes, we stand up and yell," said Krista Wander, a fan from the formidable Dutch contingent, before Davis bumped Hedrick to third from second in the 1,500 meters and precipitated a series of stunning contrasts between the two American skaters.
Davis said the silver was special and warmly congratulated the surprise Italian gold medalist, Enrico Fabris. Hedrick, the five-gold hope who has won just one with one race to go, said he considered the bronze a bust and stoically went through the medal-ceremony motions.
In a riveting news conference without Fabris, who was attending to drug-testing matters, Davis chided American journalists for creating a Shaq-and-Kobe scenario and said it was doing the sport no good. Hedrick bought into the belief that Tonya-and-Nancy elevated figure skating to unprecedented levels of popularity in the mid-1990's, and so might Chad-and-Shani.
Hedrick revealed his intentions to eventually become a movie star. Davis said, "I'm not a phony person; no way I'll ever be a Hollywood actor."
At which point a pretense of civility evaporated, with Davis responding to a reporter's request to shake hands with Hedrick by castigating Hedrick for not congratulating him Saturday after he became the first black athlete to win a Winter Olympics gold medal in an individual event (he won the 1,000 meters). Then Davis bolted for the door,
muttering, "I don't want to hear what he has to say; he wants to shake my hand when I lose."
Alone, Hedrick repeated his assertion that Davis "betrayed" him and the United States team by not competing in the team pursuit — a relay race — to focus on the 1,000.
On the scale of American bad vibes here, Bode Miller has been a mountain rumor compared to Davis and Hedrick, Lindsey Jacobellis a flawed snowflake on a snowboard. To date, the Italian police haven't staged any late-night raids on American athletes that would risk the renaming of every pasta dish in the Congressional cafeteria. But the Davis-Hedrick feud — one with at least the sniff of a racial subtext — has put a cloud over one of the rare American success stories in Turin.
My e-mail messages from the United States have been running a polarized 50-50 since I wrote Sunday that Davis was justified in his decision to tolerate no distractions while preparing for what may have been his one chance to win the race he has been dreaming of since he began skating at the age of 6. But in the most boisterous Little Amsterdam section of an oval that has been swarmed by orange-clad Dutch fans since the start of the Games, a sampling of opinion was unanimous for Davis.
"If you are winning the gold, then you are doing the right thing, because how many Olympics can you count on being the favorite?" Gert Jan Verrips said. His friend Eric de Beer added: "You see here, Davis and Hedrick are two new guys at the Olympics. You look back to four years ago, with Derek Parra, and where is he now?"
Parra, the American who won the 1,500 meters in 2002, was 19th last night, on his way to a farewell race next month in the Netherlands, the country where, as he said, "you have the most knowledgeable fans."
If my informal Dutch poll wasn't enough to warrant a consensus, consider that Davis's mother, Cherie, was spotted in an orange jacket and a cap with "Holland" stitched across the front outside the news conference, while inside several Dutch fans heckled Hedrick until they were ordered to leave.
Why the antipathy for Hedrick from people known for their unfailing cheeriness, their support for all skaters, when attending a sport that is deeply ingrained in their culture? It's all in the perceived agenda. Marian Van den Berg, another Dutch fan, said, "He wants to be famous, you can see that."
And at the root of the conflict is Davis's belief that Hedrick has been attempting to swift boat him here at the Olympics, use him as a prop as he wraps himself, Texas-style, in the flag, for the purpose of increasing his commercial appeal, while claiming that the feud has elevated their skating and is good for the sport.
Davis, for his part, countered by reminding us that the short-track controversy between the Americans and the South Koreans in Salt Lake City was a made-for-Olympics mess that ultimately accomplished nothing on the commercial front.
"It's not a heavyweight boxing fight," he said, unwilling to play Joe Frazier to Hedrick's Muhammad Ali.
That matches the purist Dutch mentality. "Shani to us seems like he is racing for the love of skating," Sietze de Vries said in Little Amsterdam.
So they all cheered when Hedrick's time, short of Fabris's, was posted, and again when Davis, skating in the final heat, bested Hedrick by nine-hundredths of a second, nudging their own skater, Simon Kuipers, off the podium.
No matter. They could forgive. They could forget. "We love you, you beat Hedrick," a Dutch fan called out to Davis, on his way to the news conference where Hedrick was waiting to begin the next round.

cutting shani some slack: more on middle class black angst

thinking about shani davis. he's the first black guy to win an individual gold in the winter olympics - EVER - and he can't seem to get a break. i was reading an article yesterday that seemed to say that his reaction to winning is bizarre. but it's not, really.

I had to explain this to my roomie once. She comes from a midwestern family that celebrates everything in a really big way- holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, this and that. It's great - they're a wonderfully loving and generous family. Sometimes she doesn't understand me and my family's more...low key way of doing things.

For instance, when I had that article published. I knew my family was happy for me - but my dad just sent an email that said, "Proud of you, girl." When I took a risk to change jobs and do something I really really wanted and it actually worked out, my sister simply said, "I knew you could do it." It was the same when I graduated college, went to grad school, finished my degree, moved to Chicago - my family just said, "We're proud of you. We knew you could do it."

And so I understand Shani Davis and his mother. They're a family who've had to work extra hard to get where they are. And for them, as it was for me and my family, the work never stops. It's hard to let go of that work, to relax, and say, "Ok, I can take a breath now. I can take a break now." There's never a break. Not when you're the first. There's a whole lot of black folk looking at you, smiling in pride, but that's a heavy burden - the First. There's a whole lot of white people looking at you - watching you. They may or may not be waiting for you to crack, but let's just assume the worst (there are no surprises when you think of the worst). Someone wants you to fail. You're the First, so if you screw up, you screw up big.

And so you work even harder - because who cares if people like/don't like you? Being a success trumps that.

So I wrote the reporter and told her all this. I said, Please understand; what you trivialize by calling a 'mood swing' is a way we black people have for dealing with and preparing for success. Allow Davis to process this huge moment, this culmination of all his hard work, in his own way. And also understand how condescending and problematic it is for the press (the - ahem - white press) to say to a black man, "Now show me how happy you are!" In my community, we call that minstrelsy and we don't do that anymore.

[sister gal even wrote me back and said thanks for giving her a perspective she'd never had before. she even said mine was the best letter she had about the subject. yay for me - i get a gold star for race relations. a bridge was built. that's my good deed for Black History Month.]

happy president's day: i'm supposed to be off

but, instead, i'm in the office finishing up a project.
since 11.30 am.

i could be at a museum. or a bookstore. or, in bed (which is where i was for 16 hours yesterday - so long my roomie thought i had a stroke.)

but no. i'm here. on a holiday. working.

the power of the internets

On Private Web Site, Wal-Mart Chief Talks Tough - New York Times

i'll come clean; i've never shopped in a wal mart and i never will. (hi, target and cost co!) so reading how the CEO's internal managerial blog got out makes me gleeful. i tend to think the flattening of information makes things transparent and transparency is good.

it leads to accountability.

accountability should be good, right?

man oh man

so today was my quick phone interview with the reporter about why i'm a girl who likes watching boys get it on. we laughed and giggled about the voyeur thing, sure. and who can really resist heath and jake? not i.

B- and i had a conversation (one of the very few) one night about porn; he wanted to know how i felt about it and i shrugged. it's okay the first time, but then the repetition just doesn't do anything for me, i said. erotica works better for me and seeing two men make out works the best. B- was a little quiet. i said that when i see two men together i don't see me in that at all and that's comforting to me; it's comfortable. it allows me to be the selfish observer. i'm not the object; they are. it's a turn on to not be someone else's object.

(mark pritchard has a brutally hilarious story about what happens when a gay couple takes an impromptu dance lesson from a girl friend after a dinner party.)

it's hot to see two men come together, matched strength for strength, power to power. there's a physicality and muscularity in it that i like. i'd like to consume that.

hm. 'consume'. i wasn't going for that word but it's the one that came out.

(or, maybe my erotic attachment to man/man action is just a way of expressing my desire for the phallus. heh. theory made flesh.)

i realized all this back in grad school, at a party. i came upon a friend kissing his boyfriend in a dark corner of the hall. they were so caught up they didn't see me. and so i watched them for a while and found myself completely enthralled. there was the surprise of finding my friend like this, in a context he'd never allowed me to see; there was the sense of the forbidden (back then, i was totally a virgin and just beginning to shed my baptist skin); but there was just the pure erotic enjoyment of watching two hot guys go at it in the dark. i kept thinking about it for days.

and that's why figleaf, over there on my blogroll, makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. here's an average, anonymous guy somewhere in the northwest putting his rather average body out there for visual consumption. it's startling, even though the photos are in no way pornographic or obscene. most of them are rather mundane - he's getting dressed, steeping out of the shower or sitting in his robe (the one in his wife's pleated skirt is just ridiculous, though. no one should wear pleats that wide.) but it's erotic to me.

(not as erotic as it'd be if there was another guy with him, also sitting around in his flannel robe and socks, but you can't have everything.)

so because of comments left on orange's post back in november, i received an email from a trib reporter who wants to ask me (and some other women) questions about why we are big fans of hot man/man action! like it's a mystery.
...
speaking of mysteries, roomie and i are rooting for this guy on american idol. we call him the 'silver fox'. hee! he sounds like ray charles, spazzes out like joe cocker and he makes us hot.

it's okay. you can say it - we're really just two teenagers pretending to be adults.

speaking of eating the young...

Life&Style Weekly - TomKat are totally over!

if you were little katie holmes, wouldn't you be super pissed?
i mean, if you were strapped down and impregnated with his alien seed, wouldn't you want to sue his ass now that you're going to be forced to give birth to his extraterrestrial baby?

i would.

(a coworker said little katie holmes is a perfect example of why emergency contraception is so important ... snort.)

see? we eat our young.

last night my agency hosted a small event for a popular congresswoman. it was a fabulous event but, inevitably, during the Q&A, questions arose about Democratic tactics and why, basically, we all think the DNC sucks for giving up on women and what we know are our issues.

(i even said to her, Frankly, if I have another fundraising call from the DNC I'm throwing my phone out the window until they get their act together.)

most of us in the room felt the same way and agreed with the very successful and well-connected business woman, whose father used to be a congressman, who heatedly ripped the Democratic party a new one. gamely, the congresswoman said that while we had valid points (and that our criticisms are widespread and nothing new) she basically said 'stop complaining and DO something.'

i agree. so what are we to do? we clearly have a party that doesn't hear us, doesn't listen to us, is dangerously out of touch with a lot of us and has the strategic instincts of a drunk behind the wheel of a car. in light of all their missed opportunities, half-hearted fights and fake populism, what's a progressive girl to do?

change parties.

Popular Ohio Democrat Drops Out of Race, and Perhaps Politics - New York Times

it's a good day for freedom

What's the word around the world today?

Well, we discover our Vice President is a trigger-happy geezer (we all suspected as much, didn't we?) and that Haiti has a well-developed sense of irony when it comes to democracy. Meanwhile, from a separate wing of the Old Folk's Home, Rummy decides there just aren't enough armed conflicts in Africa.

On the homefront several big guns finally admit that our gov's response to Katrina was 'unacceptable.' In response, our nation shrugs.

Closer to home, a bill in Illinois inches closer to a vote authorizing pharmacists to NOT do their jobs because of their moral sqeamishness. In response, our state shrugs.

Ain't freedom grand?

the groove is in the details

i'm tired of looking at boring profiles; i'm sure the men are personally fascinating but their profiles bring to mind white noise:

I love movies, music, reading, writing. [well, really. who doesn't? and what kind? 19th century sea ballads? educational films from the 50s? cookbooks? writing notes to coworkers on pieces of yellow tissue paper?] I work out and love to swim and ski. I play guitar and piano and love all kinds of music. ['all kinds.' how discriminating.] And I love to cook. I like the eclectic mix of restaurants [where? what? why?], movies theatres, museums, live music, theatre, etc. [making lists is so tiring, isn't it?] Who would I like to meet? Someone intelligent, kind and cheerful. Someone who's versatile and likes being with all different kinds of people and in all kinds of environments. [and maybe she'll like all kinds of music, too.] A good sense of humour [the british spelling!] is important, as is the ability to handle daily life with grace and goodwill. [this was nice. he should have started here.] I'm looking for someone who's down-to-earth and flexible, who can enjoy spending time together and can feel comfortable with my extremely varied group of friends - from artists to corporate executives. If you're easy-going [who's he looking for? basically, a woman who won't kick up a fuss.] and curious about learning and life, we're probably a good match. Send me a note and let's find out.

this man is a blank. a piece of lined paper covered in erasure scrubs.

what superbowl? let's talk about girly things.

inevitably, ding's thoughts turn to valentine's day.
i can't avoid it; the crap is everywhere. and it probably doesn't help that i saw that new movie, 'something new.' (l.a. looks great in it and, dammit, it made me wish i was a buppie living in baldwin hills with a hot landscaper.)
anyway, v-day's arrival makes me think that if i had continued to swallow my resentment toward B- and our oddly non-communicative relationship, i might have had something to do on valentine's day.

hm. Making An Effort, so far, is rather lonesome business.

[thanks to roomie for the white castle link]

superbowl update: they just taped up some guy's groin.

relationship self-pity always occurs when i go to the movies and watch a rom-com. they make me feel like if only *i* had done something different with any of the boys in the past, then i'd have a partner now. maybe, maybe not. clearly, my thing with B- was a disaster on both our parts. and i mean, ok, with The Librarian - perhaps if i'd been...actually, i have no idea what happened there. i think he was eaten by a moose.

superbowl update: steelers touchdown is total bullshit. the ball clearly didn't make it over the line.

i go back to my father and his sandwich analogy. 'ding,' he'd say. 'you need to know how to make a man a sandwich.' but i honestly don't know what that means. i know what it *means* politically but i have no idea what that looks like. there are no nurturing women in my family. my father was never catered to. he was never coddled. my poor father was outnumbered in a house full of women who pretty much got our way when it counted.

superbowl update: this is a fast game. first half is over and while seattle started out promising, the steelers are up. wtf?? hang in there, seattle. the ball didn't cross the line!

so if i've never had a model of good relationship handling, then how the hell am i supposed to navigate these fucked up waters?

superbowl update: the stones!! dude. they're my dad's age. in spandex.

what's the bottom line of all this rambling?
valentine's day can kiss my ass.

superbowl update: fuck. steelers just got a 75-yard TD. seattle is screwed.

brill-yunt: 50 most loathsome

bilious and vituperative, this list makes me smile.

The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005

a sad day in munchkin land

craptastic. alito was confirmed.
what to look forward to: an out of control executive branch and a country that swerves a little bit closer to theocracy. ladies, say goodbye to your uterus.

come on, God, where's that fiery meteor i've been waiting for?!?

and sad. coretta scott king died last night.

well, january kind of blew

why i'm staying up late, i don't know. i have a full week ahead of me.
but i'm watching 'man from snowy river' and noticing how parts of it feel close to 'brokeback.' the yearning twangy guitar, the smooth cheeked cowboy alone with his horse, the livestock, the mountains and his little tent.

[god, i'm bored.
being all earnest and non profity is boring. i mean, not really. it's tremendously fulfilling and good, you know? good. but being good is dull.

being good requires patience. i think i have a thimble full left of that substance.
being good asks for a certain kind of dullard acquiescence. and that just makes me more bored. and you know what happens when i get bored?

i make bad decisions.
bad bad decisions.]

whither the Dems?

Kerry Gets Cool Response to Call to Filibuster Alito - New York Times

my favorite part of dumbassery:
"No one can complain on this matter that there hasn't been sufficient time to talk about Judge Alito, pro and con," Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. "I hope that this matter will be resolved without too much more talking."

yeah, we certainly wouldn't want to muddy this whole confirmation with, uh, DEBATE.

i'm sick of them. just sick of them.

partying with the planned parenthood folks

tonight i went over to the ritz for the planned parenthood annual award reception. two other women from the office joined me. we'd never been before - to a planned parenthood reception, that is.

that was approximately 6 hours ago.

what a blast! planned parenthood throws a kickass party. (a full 90 minutes of cocktailing!!) we heard from the governor, the woman who resigned from the FDA, and a community doctor who'd been serving planned parenthood for the past 30 odd years. it was fabulous being in a room full of activists, officials, agencies - everyone tossing back the cocktails, eating the prime rib, nibbling on chocolate, reading everyone's nametags desperately trying to figure out who you were. oh, yes, and catching up on what's been happening back in washington for the scalito confirmation. everyone had a story about being depressed and angry. (though rumor had it that kerry called for a filibuster, kennedy backed him and then frist called cloture.)

interesting fact: did you know that planned parenthood only has ONE abortion provider in the whole of metropolitan chicago? ONE. a doctor who's been doing this since roe was decided. i was stunned. we think that because we live in the city that we're protected. that access is easy and it's always going to be here.

it's not. there's ONE doctor in the whole city of chicago providing services for planned parenthood. who are the other service providers? the county hospital and one other service agency. how many providers do they have? one each. so that makes 3. 3 abortion providers in the whole city of chicago.

what the hell is going to happen when those doctors move away, or die or somehow stop providing services? some of the discussion tonight was about what would happen when abortion became a regional issue. my friends and i realized that chicago (and illinois) is surrounded by virulently anti-abortion states: wisconsin, missouri, michigan, indiana. if abortion turns into a regional burden, illinois will be swamped. i spoke with a woman who works in one of the medical offices and she said that today, they performed 65 procedures. 65. in one day. in one city. in one office.

we northern liberals like to distinguish ourselves from states like mississippi, states where there's one agency where women can go for abortions, but if a place like chicago of all places only has 3 doctors providing service, what's the difference? there's no difference between them and us.

a loss for them is a loss for us.

noooo! ira glass is leaving us

via Gapers Block, Chicago, IL - Merge: January 2006

like a brazen jezebel who just doesn't know how to leave well enough alone, new york has stolen away chicago's This American Life.
first you kill marshall fields, then you saddle us with trump's monstrosity on the river, and now you steal ira?

what's next, new york? what more can you do to us??

and so it begins...again

the mid term elections are around the corner and the jockeying, the strategizing, and the handicapping has begun. i've taken a year to recover from the whole election thing (which is why a hillary run makes me nauseous - it'll be hell) and i've been happy ignoring the fundraising pleas of the DNC.

but can i really stand another republican administration?
(and canada's no longer an option. thanks for that, canada.)

anyway, a piece that's been floating around today about what's really ailing the left: the media.

totally: no hillary for 2008

I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President

i can't do it.

i would love to vote for a woman but i can't vote for hillary. i admire her ambition, her drive and her brains but i can't do it. not for president. let's just hand the country to the republicans for the next 50 years, why don't we?

a friend's book: reading at the newberry

A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith

she's actually a friend of a friend but her project is stunning. last week, new orleans' mayor practically shat all over king's dream of racial cooperation. cox's book looks at a town in michigan that predated king and lived his dream. it's a great work of research.

on february 22, she'll be reading from and signing her new book at the Newberry. hope to see some of y'all there.

oh, gack: students get uppity

Hugo Schwyzer: Quick reflection on UCLAProfs

like sands through the hourglass, our university system gets dumber and dumberer. but instead of trying to figure out why college kids can't read by the time they graduate, a group loosely affiliated with my alma mater is truckin' out that old canard: universities are full of lib'ruls - and they're out to get your children!

michael berube has a fabulous post about it here.

i wish we'd had the ability, way back when, to brainwash students. it would have freed up a lot of time; instead of introducing the urchins to austen and bronte, i'd have lost my virginity a lot sooner.

teachers don't think about inculcating young minds with progressive dogma; we'd be happy if the little urchins actually knew how to write a non-plagiarized paper.
we don't have time to cook up ways to bring them over to the dark side; we're too busy getting drunk reading papers on why the japanese deserved to be interred, or why ayn rand was misunderstood or why feminists just need to get laid.
we don't have the flipping time to scheme of ways to get them to renounce capitalism or kiss michael moore's ass; we're too effing busy trying to explain what cultural literacy is.

i wish these people who think teaching college is like touching one's intimate parts for public gratification would actually try teaching a class one day.

Blogging for Choice

My alter-ego, ChurchGal, Blogs for Choice here.

And it's the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Let's enjoy it while we can.

(And if you need reminding why reproductive choice is so very important, take your head out the sand and read up on what's been going on across the country for the past year or so. it's boggling.

Via Bush v. Choice)

with the mayor of new orleans blathering on about chocolate on monday, i finally saw 'crash' friday night, dreading whatever racial lessons were going to be unleashed, and i was pleasantly surprised. sure, it totally stressed me out to see the lapd and l.a. but i was surprised how true the movie rang.

not about race. i don't think 'crash' is about race at all. it's too convenient to say it's a race movie. l.a. is too racially diverse to avoid racial tension but race is often a handy metaphor for what l.a. feels like beneath everything. but beyond racial conflict, the movie is really about the basic, crazy isolation of los angeles.

i was born in l.a. but i hate it. it makes me tense. i feel like i'm on some lonely planet whenever i visit. and what i noticed in the film is that every conversation, the basic bridge from one person to another, misfires with possible disaster as a consequence. beneath every conversation, you sense there's something a character really wants to say: about desire, fear, something. there's something he desperately wants to get out. (you see it most with terrance howard's character, especially in his scene with ryan phillipe. you see it in the last scene between nola gaye and brendan frasier and he's saying good night to his wife. there's always something under the surface and the opportunity to voice what it is never presents itself.) but they either don't know how to say it, or they've been so alone in their bubble, they've forgotten about other people.

not because of race, but because l.a. makes you that way.

the women didn't seem to have this much of a problem, though. the female detective, the persian daughter, the tv director's wife, the DA's wife - the women in this film try to pierce the little bubbles that surround them, to varying degrees of success.

when i talk to midwesterners who moved to l.a. for a little bit, then came back hating it, i nod. they felt like they were going insane. no one talked to one another. no one touched each other. there was nowhere to go. it felt like people spoke a secret language only a few others could understand. it was too isolating. and that's what l.a. is. it's a skinner box. you're in your car for hours at a time; then you're in your office park; then you're back in your car; then you're home.

l.a. doesn't have public space; it doesn't have sidewalks full of people. the streets are too large to cross in one traffic light. none of the public transportation goes quite as far as it needs to go. but it has commerce. it's not unnoticed that the most popular places in the city are places like The Promenade or Universal City Walk or The Grove, the old Farmers Market on Fairfax that's been turned into a huge outdoor mall where they manufacture snow for the holidays. it tries to capture the way a neighborhood is supposed to feel but instead it just feels like an amusement park.

think of it - in l.a. people drive miles to find a place to walk around and brush shoulders with other people. how sad is that??

when you live in a city that's just a nasty ball of artifice, distance and commercial calculation how can you not feel crazy and disconnected?

yay!: Carnival of the Feminists 7

i love the carnival.

if you haven't read a carnival, you really should. it's a compendium of some really great, smart writing by blogging women. (emphasis on smart - if you like your women the way you like your president, then this ain't for you. on the other hand, who knows? you may learn something.)

hosted by Feministe.

that loud popping noise you may have heard today, around 5.30 pm?
yeah. that was my head.

so if it doesn't work...

why use it? Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends - New York Times

wookin' pa nub

were you at wit's end on MLK day? so were these people.

[thanks gapers block]

work is heating up this week so, unless we invade iran, posting is going to be even more random and light than it has been since new year.

just so you know.

i have a dream: a day off

working for a non profit rocks.
why? i get martin luther king day off.

so right now roomie and i are wondering what to do:
hit a bar in the middle of the afternoon?
drive up to evanston for a movie, lunch and comic books?
find a roller skating rink?

roomie's wearing her hunting hat. we gotta go.

the One

it's late (i just spent 90 minutes straightening my hair) but in honor of the passing of B- (and to deflect any self-pitying tangents) i'd like to know who is the one who still makes you dizzy when you think about them? (the one who got away, the one you picked, the one you just glanced at on the el - who?)

mine was S-, an unemployed web developer in brooklyn. he was my first Nerver. tan skin, hair that stuck straight up, black rimmed glasses and a rower's butt. quirky, funny, neurotic as hell. he told me a story about blinding a mouse with hairspray and i was a goner. i flew out to brooklyn, we frolicked, he asked if black people ate asparagus...gosh, i liked him alot. he made me nuts.

no...maybe it's K-, my massive crush from grad school who'd wear a kilt to teach...or maybe it was M-... well, let's just stop there.

who's yours?

resolution: make an effort not to whine

work is going to be my lover for a while.
not that it's a bad thing! work is comforting; work makes me feel good; work makes me feel valuable and i do good work. so work is good. yeah...good.

it's good that i have a deadline for a piece to write coming up next week; it's good that the month of january and february will absolutely blow at the office. it's good that my position will probably be expanding (newest development!!). really, it's all good.

it's just that...sunday, i went to get a bra fitting and i think that's going to be the last time, for a very long time, that anyone is going to cup my boob.

alito in the house

now that the alito process is underway, i've been thinking about the worst case scenario: access to abortion being whittled down to nothing, forcing women who don't want to give birth to do so.

so i've been thinking that it's probably time for me to get an IUD. there are no hormones involved (which is a good thing for me since anything containing hormones will kill me) and it's long-term. my ex-roomie has one and she loves it, though it took her two years to find a doctor in illinois who didn't want to administer a psych exam before giving her one.

(can you believe that?? talk about bullshit patriarchy.)

worrying about how to keep my body baby-free is why choice is so important to me. if someone gets on the court who will severely limit access to abortion (or allow states to gut reproductive legislation significantly) my ability to make the best decision to not conceive or not give birth becomes harder and harder, accessible methods becoming more and more extreme.

a coworker of mine once told me i was paranoid, that nothing would ever happen to reproductive rights - at least roe wouldn't be overturned.

but we don't need roe to be overturned to worry; check out what's happening legislatively in south dakota, indiana, virginia.

[via feministing]

have i told you that my resolution this year is to Make An Effort?
well, to that end, i think i've dropped the hammer on B-.

he emailed me today.
shorter B-: i'm angry you blew me off; but i'm up for it again if you are.
shorter ding: i didn't blow you off; i had my period plus you live in wisconsin and i'm feeling resentful you expect me to do all the traveling and never once think about reciprocating.

his response? 'oh, well.' what the hell?? 'oh, well'?!?
so. i decided it was time i was honest with B-. it's a new year. i have to make an effort. i made a short list of my feelings: i feel resentful, i feel emotionally unsatisfied, i feel taken for granted, i feel tawdry. i feel it's his turn to give the CTA a whirl. i feel if we're going to continue to see each other, everything has to change.

he's likely to go on some kind of existential rant or ignore it altogether or call me a cruel, calculating bitch (which he's done before), but i don't care. i made the effort to communicate my feelings. via email.

among the news lou rawls kicking off this mortal coil, sharon's brain bleed and jon stewart hosting the oscars this is the stupidest thing i've come across today:

"In order to convince people we care about them, we've got to understand their culture and show them we care about their culture," Mr. Bush said. "You know, when somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they appreciate the Texas culture. When somebody takes time to figure out how to speak Arabic, it means they're interested in somebody else's culture."

someone please wake me up when this presidency is over.

bitch to david brooks: you missed the point

reliably, Bitch Ph.D. takes apart David Brooks and points us to other pieces covering the same article he wrote to kick off the new year.

my favorite part is her succinct parsing of his blind spot (emphasis mine):

Like a dummy, he goes on to say that "Hirshman has it exactly backward . . . . Power is in the kitchen. The big problem is not the women who stay there but the men who leave." Infuriating, because THAT IS PRECISELY HIRSHMAN'S POINT: that the problem is that men don't do enough of the unpaid, unrecognized, low-status work of domesticity. And that because they don't do it, women are forced into "choosing" between home life and professional life rather than getting to have both.

(and here's a letter to the times that says quite the same thing)

not a crush, but getting there

i really hate putting my clothes back in the closet.
it is such a punishment for them. like me, they love hanging out all over the bed.

but since i must Make an Effort this year, i have to put them away. but not yet. right now, i'm checking out this guy's blog (found via my roomie Feckless) and i think he might give the naked guy in the red flannel robe a run for his money.

he's clever with the words, people!

i am in the throes of an inappropriate blog-crush on a guy who takes pictures of himself in a red flannel robe and white socks. yes, i know it's ridiculous. but come on. if i can't have mathieu, then this is what's left.

shyly, i make my way over to his blog, lurk for a little bit - and i mean little. i can only take it for five minutes. i don't crawl through the archives, i don't leap from link to link. i read his latest post and when he says 'read more', i do. and then, when the naughty photo pops up, i giggle like a teenager. i even get a little light-headed.
then i get the hell out of dodge.

jeebus, i need to go out on a date.

naughty, naughty: black fiction too sexy?

Their Eyes Were Reading Smut - New York Times

last year, i dropped in on a black romance writer's blog and checked out the conversation there. in a thread about chick lit vs. literary fiction, someone said that those who complain about chick lit and how bad it is are just boring, over-educated so-and-so's, by extension arguing that literary fiction is boring and over-educated.

maybe. honestly, my tastes in african american literature are very particular. the more literary, the better. but nick chiles seems a bit overwrought in his reaction. why the shame, nick? don't we have permission to be trashy, too?

we broke it; they fix it

typical.

i guess not rebuilding iraq is what our president means when he uses the word 'resolve.' if so, we should be wary when he vows to show the same 'resolve' toward other things: fixing social security, protecting civil rights, strengthening our borders.

if this is resolve, show me a little timidity.

perfect start to the year

Tennessee Guerilla Women: David Brooks: The Year of Domesticity

wow. since the times went all premium i've thankfully been spared the weekly aneurism i suffer whenever i read him. but thanks to the folks at Tennessee Guerilla Women, here's Bobo at his most patriarchal:

Her third mistake is to not even grapple with the fact that men and women are wired differently. The Larry Summers flap produced an outpouring of work on the neurological differences between men and women. I'd especially recommend ''The Inequality Taboo'' by Charles Murray in Commentary and a debate between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke in the online magazine Edge.

One of the findings of this research is that men are more interested in things and abstract rules while women are more interested in people. (You can come up with your own Darwinian explanation as to why.)

my favorite posts

hugo started a short list of his favorite posts in 2005.
it seems almost pointless for me to do it since i have about 5 regular readers (except when i post about hemhorroids and having bad sex with B-), but here it is.

my faves:
why david brooks is a tool (jan 18)
i choose sex (feb 10)
odd messengers (april 22)
for the librarian (may 7)
the racial summer posts (jul 30, jul 1, jun 23 & jun 4)
ouch. my ass (aug 9)
the MoDo posts (oct 30 & nov 2)

why these? i don't know - some were more written, others more amusing, but i just like these the best.

anyway, happy 2006! may it be slightly more satisfying than 2005.