What’s Below The Marzipan Layer?

I was reading The Daily Beast’s coverage of its Women in the World Summit, and I found coverage of a panel on women and negotiations. There was some reiteration of the facts that while women are good negotiators, we are often crap at negotiating for ourselves. The one man on the panel, John Donahoe, president and CEO of eBay, shared this bit:

“Donahoe told a story where his wife was clerking for a judge and it fell on him to take the kids to school. He told his boss at Bain Consulting that he was going to have to quit because he was traveling so much and couldn’t make things work. But, his boss got him the help he needed so he didn’t have to be in until 10 a.m. The moral of the story? We all should demand "customizable options at different parts of your career.”

I 100% agree with him. Flexible work arrangements help everyone. But even with these flexible arrangements, why are women getting stuck in the marzipan layer? The one just below the icing of senior management? Look at the number of female Fortune 500 CEOs. Not many. My guess is that guys like Donahoe have mentors and other backers who push them through the politics required to make it to upper management, and women don’t. You can only make it so far on your own.

And no comment on the people like me who aren’t even anywhere near peeking at the Marzipan Layer. What are we? Filler? Crust?

Mmmmm…..Hungry.

A bookkeeper, not a money manager

I read this article in Salon and shuddered nervously, mainly because it speaks to a lot of the big fears that I am grappling with right now.

“I had inadvertently become part of an opt-out revolution much different than the one writer Lisa Belkin described in an article for the New York Times Magazine in 2003. In that revolution, upper-middle-class, Type A women opted out of their MBA-fueled careers to stay home and overzealously manage their toddlers' lives. In my revolution, relatively average women get married and -- especially after having children -- consciously opt out of duties considered somehow "male," and I'm not just talking about mowing the lawn. I'm talking about money. I became, like many other middle-aged married mothers, Lucy to my husband's Ricky, focusing on kids and home and letting him focus on money and all the big decisions that come with it -- should we refinance the house? Buy a minivan? Get a new dining room table? Fix the roof? Open a Roth IRA?”

With Z2 on the way, I have been thinking a lot about what I want to do for work after my maternity leave and what that means for our financial situation. To be 100% crystal clear, I want to work. I am work-identified, I want my career, and I don’t think that going to work has any impact on my kids, other than a positive one. However, I have lots of conflicting feelings about leaving those kids to go to a job that I can barely tolerate and that I don’t seem to be advancing in anymore. There are also real challenges to trying to juggle two corporate work schedules especially when one person’s schedule (YG’s) requires a lot of traveling, and the other person’s (my) company values a lot of face time. I would like something with a little more flexibility, and in some ideal utopia, I would not mind working somewhere where the product or solution or whatever was something I really cared about. I would not mind that at all.

But, dudes, I am SCARED. Like the author, “I bought into the belief system -- one that pervades society . . . -- that the only jobs with value are the ones with a paycheck.” It was scary enough to cut my hours back after Zygote, but I knew that I was still bringing in a decent paycheck. To leave the corporate life behind entirely means leaving behind money, and that terrifies me to my core for the following list of random reasons*:

*NOTE: These are all MY reasons and don’t really reflect the realities of our marriage in any way. YG remains the most awesome of husbands and is not driving these thoughts. It's all my stuff -- most of which could be filed away in the whole ‘way you were raised’ drawer of shit.

· If I don’t make as much money, my needs become less important. When we both work the same amount, we both can ask for what we need – like time to go to the gym or out with friends or to watch whatever the hell tv we want to watch.

· If I don’t make as much money, I don’t get a say in our money. I have always been in control of my own finances – bought my own house, have the 401k, have to IRA, have Zygote’s 529, etc. Would working less mean giving some of that up? If YG gets transferred across the world, do I have a choice? If YG thinks we should pay off all our debt, do I have a say? Right now I do, but what about later?

· If I don’t make money, my career doesn’t really count. I don’t want my career to be just another thing we try to squeeze into our really busy lives. Right now, it matters because it helps pay the bills. If it doesn’t pay the bills, is it still important? From a mental health perspective, yes, but what if my job is just something else to schedule around?

· If I don’t make money, I won’t be taken seriously as an employee. I will be just a wife and just a mom and just an order taker and…

· Total transparency about what I spend my money on. Right now, we have my money, his money and our money. We spend within reason, but if I want to buy a sweater or a round of drinks for my friends, I do and I don’t really think about it. If I don’t bring in money, does YG get to tell me what I can and cannot spend on? Is it going to be all Sophie’s choice between clean bikini line and college education for the kids?

And probably the biggest, and therefore, least rationale of the bunch:

· What else would I do for work?

· What if I decide to leave the corporate life and feed the poor, and I become financially dependent on YG, and then he trades me in for a newer model or gets terribly sick and I have to raise all these kids by myself on a crappy salary?

· What if I’m not actually good at anything besides being a cog in the machine?

We have some time to work this out, and I alternate between thinking that this is the most terrifying time of my life and also the most exciting. I never really thought about my career in detail – it just sort of happened. I thought I would be writing stories and working at a coffee shop, so when something different happened, I just went with it. I have never asked myself the question, “What do you want to do every day?” Until now.

Sick Thinking

I am sick. Not my usual sick in the head, but actually sick. I had a really bad cold that flattened me before I left for Conference, and then caught something on the way back that will just not leave. I've got bronchitis. I've got a sinus infection. Because of Z2, I can't take much, so it's all about staying hydrated which means that I am up to pee almost every single hour. End result: exhausted, head achey, and was bordering on miserable.

I have a tendency to blame myself when I get sick. Clearly, it's because I didn't do something right. I didn't eat well enough, I didn't exercise enough, I wash my hands the wrong way, whatever...because I am in control of everything, when things are not right (i.e. i get sick), it is because I lost control for a second. I know. The first time I told that someone, she looked at me like I had ten heads.

"When someone gets cancer, do you think it's because they did something wrong?"

"WHAT?" "No, that's insane."

"But when you get sick, it's because YOU did something wrong?"

Blank stare from me. I am a fairly logical and reasonable person. Except when I am the topic.

So here I am, feeling like someone is hammering away at my temples and panting like a dog whenever I have to do something that resembles physical activity. And trying desperately to stay out of my head.

I don't know if I have a point here. Probably not. That is a problem with trying to write every day -- I very rarely have a point. However, I stumbled across this little bit of wisdom over on Medicinal Marzipan that I loved:

"The difference between loving yourself and not loving yourself is not in the things that you do it is in the way that you feel when you are doing them. It means being honest and brave, and not spiraling into a pit of self-hatred when you don’t like what you see or how you feel. It means reassessing, doing what is best, and being very, very sweet to yourself when you are scared. It means proving to your body that you are capable of providing a safe and healthy environment to grow and flourish. It means melting away the shame that you’ve developed over the years about your size. It means going to bat for yourself, the way you would for someone that you love."

It doesn't entirely relate, but I am trying to stay out of the pit right now. Get better, sleep, rest, take care of myself. All of that stuff I'm supposed to be doing but don't. Advice I would give a friend, but don't follow. Trying to feel as okay as I can.

I Need A Job, And Then I'll Get Married

I love this kid. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. The comments on this and the CNN feed make me sad -- calling a 5 year old kid a bitch for being independent is just....well, I guess, expected.

Prayers, Japan

The footage from Japan is horrifying. I have an unnatural fear of earthquakes. Drowning too. A coworker was on a plane on the tarmac when everything hit. There's really nothing to say other than I am thinking of all of those people and hoping/praying for miracle rescues.

Nice, Clink, Etc.

When I tell people that I don't work on Fridays, I usually get a variety of responses ranging from "how cool" or "everyone needs an errand day" to the snarkier eye-rolling, "well, that must be niiiice." The people delivering this response are usually white collar workers who have never done a lick of menial labor, but my Fridays "off" (in quotes because um, I don't get PAID) somehow make them feel wronged and maligned and they must then regale me of tales of how hard they work, and how they wished they could get the same deal, but "well, you know....not everybody gets what they want."

Honestly? Fridays off are nice. Great, actually. I get to spend some time with Zygote and I get to do all the glamorous things around the house that don't get done when two working parents are traveling and juggling and just generally living. Things like grocery shopping and laundry and today, cleaning out some sort of juice that congealed on the bottom of my fridge. Oh, and changing diapers. Let's not forget that. When YG and I first started talking about Fridays off, the idea was that I would be writing and/or working another contract or training for, I don't know, something. I did do a lot of writing, and took a class, and it was NICE, but the vast majority of my Fridays are spent doing general house stuff. I'm okay with that. Someone has to do it, and I like that it allows us to spend our limited free time on the weekends together as a family.

I am well aware that I am lucky.

I'm also aware that some days are luckier than others. It's Restaurant Week in Boston, so YG and I took advantage of a relatively light day to have lunch at Clink. Some things do not suck. Some things are quite nice.

Kick, Kick, Kick

There are no many things not to like about pregnancy. You go through all this drama trying to even get pregnant and then your body rewards you with some truly weird, puberty-like stuff. That being said, I have enjoyed both of these pregnancies. I’ve been healthy and haven’t had a lot of nausea or other complications, and I can live with swollen feet for a few months if it means that I can pretty much keep doing what I was doing before, only wearing uglier shoes. Plus, people are nice to you.

My favorite part is the kicks. It’s hard to describe them. A lot of the baby books describe a “fluttering” feeling, but it’s more like an undulating water bed or a rumble. It’s definitely weird, but pleasant weird in a “oh, there you are” way. Like, there’s a PERSON in me. Now that I’m heading toward the third trimester, the kicks are more painful. Kicks to the ribs, sharp sticks to the hoo hah, and random rumbling pains in places I was sure the kid couldn’t reach. Still, even on my crustiest of days, they make me smile, and if I get kicked hard, I might even laugh out loud.

After Zygote was born, I missed the kicks. I couldn’t quite get used to her being on the outside, so I would sit her on my belly and let her wriggle around to try and simulate that feeling. I’m sure it’s going to be the same with Z2.

This is likely my last pregnancy. Or as YG puts it, “well, the last time you will be pregnant with one of MY kids.” So I’m going to keep enjoying those sharp jab to the junk while I have them.

What The Hell is Lent Anyway?

Remember this? That was the year I was going to blog about being grateful for something every day during Lent. It was pre-Zygote, so I should have been able to get it done. I’m amazed how truly narcissistic I am sometimes – being able to translate "join Jesus” into “the world really wants to hear about my love of America’s Next Top Model EVERY DAY.” Try as I may to be a more spiritually grounded person (whatever that means), the end results are sometimes interesting.

So my go-to-church-but-am-still-questioning-and-have-no-shame-about-some-of-my-bad-vices-like-crappy-tv would simply define Lent as the time when Christian folk start prepping for Holy Week, which leads up to Easter, the BIG deal. Why is it forty days? When Jesus was prepping for his ministry, he spent 40 days in the desert/wilderness. You know the story. He was tested, tempted, could have been a bad guy, but wasn’t. During Lent, people give things up or go to Church more – the idea that doing all this stuff will help them spiritually ‘join’ Jesus. *

I do that every year. Try to give something up. Believe me, it was never an attempt to find and/or refind Jesus. It was either because I was told to as a kid or because it seemed like a nice, relatively acceptable way to explain some sort of behavior change I wanted to do anyway. It’s easier to say that you’re giving up buying clothes for Lent, rather than something like, “yeah, well I’m really concerned about the unsustainable manufacturing practices of big-box clothing retailers and generally despise the corporatization of the world blah blah.” Or "I’m giving up cookies for Lent" as opposed to "OMG HFCS IS KILLING OUR KIDS.”

I have given up cookies, crackers, Diet Coke, meat, swearing, saying mean things about myself, being judgmental about others (ha ha ha, that one was a riot), and shopping among other things. I’m not sure I succeeded in any of them. There are a few things that I would like to try and give up again, like swearing so much (mostly for Zygote’s sake, not because I think God gives a shit). See, there. FAIL. And eating so much crappy food (also mostly for Z2 and because I don’t want to fail my glucose test). Good things, but not really in the spirit.

So I’m not sure what to do. I find this whole God/church thing very hard to write about without sounding like some sort of religious fanatic. I guess what I really want is to spend a few minutes each day away from the chaos to think bigger picture. I have been a ball of anxiety and ick lately, obsessing about everything and generally feeling sick (physically. yay bronchitis!) and unmoored (yay pregnancy!) I want to write and blog and just THINK about the good things, rather than cross items off a giant to-do list. If that gets me “closer to God” than hey, cool, I am open to it, but if it only makes me a little bit nicer of a friend, mom and wife, I can live with that too.


*I actually thought some of these were pretty cool ideas. Mainly, the carbon fast. Giving up alcohol always seems a little too Footloose for me.

When I am not blogging, I read

Since I haven’t been doing much blogging and/or other writing lately, you’re probably wondering what I have been doing with all of my time outside of being anxious about work which is a full-time job in and of itself. Well, you probably aren’t wondering.

The reading frenzy of 2011 continues. The insomnia definitely helps with having more time to read, or maybe it’s just knowing that I’m going to be entering into another reading lull after Z2 comes. It’s been nice, and varied.

1.The Help: It’s nice to read a book that people are talking about around the same time that they are actually talking about it. I tore through this. I liked that the characters were fairly nuanced – with a few exceptions, the bad people weren’t always bad and the good people weren’t always good. I can’t imagine what it was like to try and make sense of life in that nascent Civil Rights era. I think she did a good job of capturing the conflicting swirl of emotions for each of the different characters.

2.Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival in Prep School: Oh God, this book. I don’t even know where to start. I picked this up on a discount table, and was interested because Milton Academy is somewhat near here and prep schools are so, so weird. And so foreign to my experience of high school and growing up. The kids in the book come across as a bunch of entitled tools and don’t strike me as intelligent, even with their fancy schools. That said, I couldn’t put it down. Teenage sex scandals! Good readin’.

3.A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier: Meh. I feel somewhat guilty saying that I didn’t find a book about child soldiers in Sierra Leaone particularly interesting, especially considering that I just said I couldn’t put down a book about bratty New England prepsters. It felt like a very rushed memoir, and I would have liked to know more.

4.The Time Traveler’s Wife: Also a discount table pick that sat on my bookshelf for years because I thought it was the kind of book that appears in the WOMENS(!) section of airport bookstores. I wish I had read it sooner, because I absolutely loved it. I loved the characters and the weird traveling sequences and how it’s a not-particularly-goopy love story. I liked it so much that I made YG sit through the movie version with me. Bad move. The movie sucked.

5.Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America: I probably should have read this a long time ago, just to try and keep up with YG. I know that people have their issues with Friedman and think he’s a hypocrite with his 11,000+ square foot house. Still, this was a very concise breakdown of how “going green” is imperative to getting the US economy moving again. There are people are born tree huggers and they care deeply about recycling and the environment and living sustainable lifestyles. I am not one of them. Or I wasn’t raised that way. I knew that stuff was important, but I didn’t think much about it. I work in the corporate world, though, and I do think a lot about innovation in business and what will be the next great American industry. We need to slow down the mess we are making of our environment, and we need to get people working again. There is such opportunity. It made me want to learn more.

6.The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Junot Diaz breaks my heart again. Beautiful, funny, coming of age. Read this.

Dream Small

I LOVE THIS.

"Whatever the case, I believe true happiness lies in really understanding ourselves: who we are, what we're capable of, and what we can really accomplish with the resources we have. When you realize one small dream, it feels awesome, and it gives you the freedom to take a tiny step toward your next small dream.

What I'm really trying to say is, be happy with now. Be happy with you. Be happy with learning to be the best little fish you can be, and you'll care much less about what the big fish are doing.

Don't reach for the stars. Sometimes just reaching to touch the ceiling is more attainable. It's not "settling", it's not under-achieving, it's just the first step to getting what you want."

What would today look like if I actually started to think that way?

Unbiased Opinion: Cutest Kid in the World

To make up for my lack of posting, I present you with Z.

Unlearning Girldom

A friend of mine posted this link to 5 Things We Should Stop Teaching Girls on Facebook the other day. I loved it. Worth a repeat.

"As the mother of a daughter, I want to be deliberate in how I raise her with the hope that she can avoid the hang-ups and pitfalls that I have wrestled with. While I have learned countless invaluable lessons from the women who raised, nurtured and mentored me, there are a few things that I wish we, as women, could un-learn.

Clear your plate. Whether you’re hungry or not, keep eating until all of the food is gone. Take one look at me and you will know that I took this one to heart.
New lesson: We don’t want to be wasteful, so don’t put too much on your plate. Listen to your body. When you feel full, stop eating.

Be ladylike. How many of us suppress our thoughts and feelings because we don’t want to inconvenience anyone with them?
New lesson: Be considerate, but always speak your mind!

Ambition is not an attractive quality. And thus we limit ourselves.
New lesson: Reach for the stars. Toot your own horn. Conquer the world. And make a ton of money while you’re at it.

It’s not polite to talk about money. Women miss out on hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a career because we’re not comfortable negotiating on our own behalf.
New lesson: Be discreet, but know what you’re worth and say so. Once you earn it, you need to know how to manage it for yourself too.

He pushed you down on the playground because he likes you. What?!?
New lesson: No one gets to touch you without your permission. Boys who really like you will not be mean to you. He pushed you down because he’s an asshole. Tell a grown-up and if it happens again, knock his block off."

My own "lessons" to add:
1. Don't be a victim.
2. There are always choices.
3. Tell the truth. You won't need to remember anything.
4. Be loud and proud
5. But nice too.

Gone Fishing

It is time for my annual conference in San Francisco. That should explain my absence around the Internets and the fact that I am filled with rage and woe and lots of cookies. This will be over next week.

Time Machine (I Wish): Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

OMG. This movie was just about perfect. The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been if it was my life before I became a boring, pregnant married lady watching it on Pay Per View in a hotel while my parents babysat my toddler. Michael Cera. Hasbians. Jason Schwartzman. Battle of the Bands. WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN THIS YET?

Time Machine: Pearl Cream

I saw this posted on someone's Facebook page and almost DIED. This used to be on t.v. all the time when I was younger, and we would imitate it and crack our shit up. Even then, as a little kid, you just knew it was offensive.

CHOOSE CARBS

Bread makes everyone happy.

This Is What a Relationship Looks Like: A. We're So Married or B. It's Really Fucking Cold

YG and I don't really do big Christmas presents for each other. We prefer to either get something that we both want for the house or go out to a fun dinner. This year, we decided to have my parents come up for a weekend in January and watch Zygote while we spent the night overnight at the hotel where we were married.

JM: Night at a hotel! Aw yeah!
YG: Sweet.
JM: You know what that means, right?
YG: Oh yeah. I know what you're thinking.
JM: Hot.
YG: Actually hot.
JM: We get to turn the heat up all the way without worrying about how much it's going to cost.
YG: We might actually be...
JM: HOT.
YG: Nice.
JM: Nice.

Some Brutally Honest Truths About Parenting (Or More Specifically, My Parenting)

Snow days start to suck more the older you get. Instead of snow angels and sledding, there’s dropped VPN tunnels and day care closings and shoveling, lots of shoveling. We spent Wednesday snowed in. Rather than look at it as an opportunity to spend extra time with our kids, we were cranky. YG and I both have a lot of work to do. I, of course, added this crankiness to my ever-growing List of Things To Feel Guilty About. Normal, good parents would be happy for a break from work. Normal, good parents would want to play in the snow with their kids. I don’t know what normal, good parents are. I don’t know if I know any. But I’ve gotten it into my head that I am not one.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Work has been ramping up, headed into the pressure-cooker Conference, and I am just reaching that part of pregnancy where my hormones are raging and physically, I ache all the time from things stretching and moving. Plus, the tiredness. All.The.Time.

On the parenting side, the MG is testing out her adolescence, rolling her eyes all the time and huffing or sulking whenever she is asked to do something. Or, correction, whenever I ask her to do something. Dad is still perfect and saintly and the expert on all things. I’m just the extra. Sadly, this is not just a function of the weird stepchild/stepparent relationship. Zygote also follows YG around like a shadow, demanding to be held and yelling if he dares to do something else. When I reach out to her and say, “Come to mama. I’ll pick you up,” she gives me this look that says, “seriously? Are you kidding with this?” She looks like my mother, but most so when she’s staring, witheringly, at me. “NO,” she shouts, decisive. I think of all my friends who never travel or go out by themselves because their kids would freak out. That must suck, but at least they notice when you’re gone.

Is this all sounding a little too sad sack? A bit much with the self-pity? Of course it is. But finding myself halfway through another pregnancy, I’m still SHOCKED and AMAZED that being a parent hasn’t transformed me into a shiny and new version of myself. Sometimes I think it’s brought out the uglier versions of me.

Zygote has started having temper tantrums. Given that she started everything else early, it’s not surprising that the Terrible Twos are starting now. If she doesn’t get her way, she melts down and screams. She throws things and hurls herself onto the floor, kicking and flailing. This is great fun in restaurants and other public places. We ignore her, give time outs, and other forms of “positive discipline” or yell back, and eventually she settles down, but not until everyone is rattled.

This came to a head last weekend during a battle to get her down for a nap. After multiple fits and starts and soothing and rocking and stroking her hair, she still wouldn’t calm down. Then she took her little hand and hurled it across my face so hard that it made my nose bleed. I was stunned, and my reaction was…not good. Horrific actually. I completely lost my shit. I screamed as loud as I could in her face, and left her wailing in the crib while I slammed the door to her room, punched it for good measure and then knocked a bunch of things off of our walls.

And then, quiet. Nothing except for her heavy breathing and hiccupy sobs. She went to sleep for two hours, and I crawled under my own covers to cry and made myself physically sick (read: puked. A lot). It’s not that I haven’t yelled at her before, or disciplined her. It’s just that my reaction was so quick and fiery. I replayed the whole scene in my head, wondering where I slipped over the edge from “my toddler is irritating” to “I’m so angry I’m going to punch the walls down.” I thought about her scared look, and remembered all the times I was nervous that I had finally pushed my mother over the edge. We would fight about my hair, and she would smack me with the hairbrush and I’d cry, wondering why she was so mean. Why I wouldn’t just let her brush my goddamn hair is another story.

I’ve always had some anger in me, but it’s the pilot light kind, always on but never really explosive, save for the occasional disaster. And it’s embarrassed me, because really, I’ve lived a pretty privileged life. What is there to be so angry about? But kids, and the lack of sleep and free time that come with them, have made that embarrassment really ugly. I yell. I lick things. I listen to Black Sabbath on the radio REALLY loud. It’s like being a teenager again, but without the cool goth makeup and badass boots. It’s just unattractive.

Other horrible traits of mine that have been amplified since having Zygote: an extreme lack of patience, selfishness, stubbornness, and a crippling fear of asking anyone for help for fear that I will appear incompetent.

After the blowout, I was afraid for Zygote to wake up. How do you apologize to someone that doesn’t talk? How do you explain to someone that hitting (her) and screaming (me) is not okay when she doesn’t really grasp those concepts yet? What’s the best way to convey ‘I love you no matter what’ when what she hears is blah, blah, blah, dog, blah, cat? I walked in there, and she rolled over, smiled big and reached out. “Hiiiiii mama,” she gurgled before scrunching her lips into a kissy face.

And that, there, makes it worth it. All the crap. I didn’t understand that before I had her, and I probably would have barfed all over a story like this, telling the author to go buy another Hummel figurine and Christmas sweater down at The Hallmark Store. The good parts are almost too hard to explain.

These kids seem to bring out the absolute worst in me, but they also help me find the good parts – tenderness, sweetness, those gross words that never had a place in my vocabulary before. I get to be silly. I get to sing off-key show tunes to an appreciative audience every night. I always have someone with a head on my shoulder reminding me, with authority, where my nose is. I get to be the nicer version of me too.

We survived the rest of Snowpocalypse without any other major incidents. Zygote’s smile did not magically make everything better, even though I had a brief few minutes (maybe seconds) where I thought, “I am never going to lose my shit again. I am going to read those Positive Parenting books and we are starting over.” A few hours in, I found myself dying to get out of the house. To do something, anything without being smeared in applesauce and boogers.

Is there some lesson here? I don’t know. This stuff happens. Most of the people I told this story too shrugged it off with a, “Relax. Stop guilting yourself.” I am….trying? Trying to remember that she’s going to get older and keep testing her limits. And trying to remember that her personality, just like mine, has its good parts and its less-than-appealing parts.

Home Is Wherever I'm With You

I loved this cover making the rounds on Youtube. I might have gotten a little sniffly. Might have.

Home -- Lyrics by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma & Pa
Not the way that I do love you

Holy roly, me, oh my, you’re the apple of my eye
Girl, I’ve never loved one like you

Man, oh man, you’re my best friend, I scream it to the nothingness
There ain’t nothin’ that I need

Well, hot & heavy, pumpkin pie, chocolate candy, Jesus Christ
There ain’t nothin’ please me more than you

Chorus:
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you
(2x)
La la la la, take me Home
Baby, I’m coming Home

I’ll follow you into the park, through the jungle, through the dark
Girl, I’ve never loved one like you

Moats & boats & waterfalls, alley ways & pay phone calls
I’ve been everywhere with you

That’s true

We laugh until we think we’ll die, barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you

And in the sticks we’re running free like it’s only you and me
Geez, you’re something to see.

Chorus

“Jade?”
“Alexander?”
“Do you remember that day you fell out of my window?”
“I sure do, you came jumping out after me.”
“Well, you fell on the concrete and nearly broke your ass and you were bleeding all over the place and I rushed you off to the hospital. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, there’s something I never told you about that night.”
“What didn’t you tell me?”
“While you were sitting in the backseat smoking a cigarette you thought was going to be your last, I was falling deep, deeply in love with you and I never told you ‘til just now.”
“Now I know.”

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is whenever I’m with you
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is when I’m alone with you

Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you

Ahh, Home
Yes, I am Home
Home is when I’m alone with you.

Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma & Pa
Moats & boats & waterfalls & pay phone calls

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is when I’m alone with you

Healthy Pregnancies And Overweight Women (Or Best Spam Ever)

Someone must have found out that YG has a chunk of a wife. This showed up in his inbox, and I had to laugh. Canine blood from penis? Really?

-----Original Message-----
From: martinvignes@hotmail.com [mailto:martinvignes@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 11:50 PM
To: vpn6000@yandex.ru
Subject: healthy pregnancies and overweight women


Get canine blood from penis
http://dtykmdxtudx.nextmail.ru/

Reading Frenzy

I have not been doing much writing lately, or blogging, even though one of my resolutions was to try and post at least twice a week. However, I have been on a tear with books, reading pretty much anything I can get my hands on. A few recent pics:

1. Freedom -- Jonathan Franzen: Blah, blah, blah, the writer of our times, book of the century, blah, blah. All that aside, I did like this book. Or not like it. I find that Franzen creates incredibly unlikable characters that I want to know more about, and I can't put his books down. But I find it hard to believe that this is the best writing out there right now. I don't think it's bad; I don't think it's not brilliant -- it just doesn't compare to my other "great books."

2. Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story -- Wally Lamb: A cute, easy read for the holidays. Probably more enjoyable if you are Catholic and/or Italian.

3. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide -- Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: I saw WuDunn speak at the Simmons Leadership Conference last year, and immediately bought the book and had her sign it. I was so inspired that it sat on my shelf for seven months. Eye roll, please. I would characterize this read as "important." It made me want to do something, help people, and the advice was extremely practical, not one of these patronizing "well, we should dismantle our entire economic system and have everyone join the Peace Corps" tomes. Because both the authors are journalists as well, it's very easy to digest. READ THIS BOOK.

4. Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves -- Kate Moses and Camille Peri: This anthology was pulled together by the women who wrote for Salon's 'Mothers Who Think' column. Some of the essays were slightly boring, but all tackled bigger issues than the 'sleep training is hard' and 'i used to be someone important and now all I do is change diapers' standard mommy stories.

5. Charmed Thirds -- Megan McCafferty: The third installment of the Jessica Darling novels, covering her college years. I read this in a day. I love Jessica Darling. I love Megan McCafferty. We need to be bestest friends forever.

I just started The Help in an attempt to read a book that people are talking about when they are actually talking about it. And what are YOU reading?

Holidays: The New Media Way

My dad has read Night Before Christmas to me every year* on Christmas Eve since I was born. This was my first Christmas Eve outside of the Whip, so we did it via Skype.



And proving how social media savvy we are, I didn't even take this picture. My brother took it. But he didn't send it to me. Too old school. I took it from his blog.

Yes, roll those eyes.

More holiday pics here, and an update soon.

* We didn't do it in 2002 because my grandfather died early Christmas morning that year, so my dad gets a pass as Christmas was sucking for numerous reasons beyond no Night Before Christmas.

This Is What a Relationship Looks Like:Guest Edition

Courtesy of my friend, BB, who passed this along to me yesterday detailing a scene from her marriage.


P: give me bread. now. do it.
B: no
P: i bought that bread so you shouldn't actually be eating any of it.
B:
p: well fine, then you can eat the cheese but no bread.

(5 min later, as he goes upstairs):
P: don't eat any bread
B: how do you know i didn't put this bread up my butt?
p: how do you know i didn't rub my nuts all over the bread?
/end.

I like that we are not only in our undying love for butt jokes.

Speak To Me About Networking

Do you do it? How do you do it? Has it paid off? I am shy and curmudgeonly, but I desperately, and I mean desperately, need to be doing something new. That means putting myself out there, and um, I do not want to be out there.

This Is What A Relationship Looks Like: Did I Really Write Nice Things About You Just Yesterday Edition

YG: Where have you been hiding?
JM: I was in the kitchen, on the computer. Facebook.
YG: Did you make me anything?
JM: Like what?
YG: Tea? Hot chocolate?
JM: You want me to make you something?
YG: It would nice if you made me something once in a while. I make you tea or cocoa every night.
JM: I made you that thing. Sometimes. That time.
YG: What things?
JM: I make you money.
YG: You don't make ME money.
JM: I totally make money.
YG: You're not out there hustlin' in the streets to bring ME back some cash.
JM: I pay the rent. And I made you coffee like TWICE this year. And I cleaned ALL THE THINGS that time.
YG: *smirk, smirk, smirk*

I made the tea. Check that box, bitches.

Committed, Marriage, Etc

I just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage. Yes, she is that Eat, Pray, Love lady. Yes, fine, judge me, because I liked the book. Part-memoir, part travelogue, part marriage history, it basically tells the story of how she, a divorced feminist, makes peace with deciding to get married again.

There weren't a lot of stories in there that I hadn't heard before, but I obviously loved the memoir parts because I almost always love memoir, and I liked the legal parallels she drew between interracial and gay marriage. She discusses the Lovings, and how at the time the Supreme Court ruled that race-based legal restrictions on marriage were unconstitutional in 1967, "70 percent of Americans vehemently opposed this ruling. Let me repeat that: In recent American history, seven out of ten Americans still believed that it should be a criminal offense for people of different races to marry each other." The mind boggles. I think of how many interracial couples I know now, and I cannot imagine this. This gives me hope for the future of gay marriage and the tide of public opinion.

Perhaps the best part of the book, though, was all the discussion it prompted between YG and I about how we see our own marriage and where we want to go. We are thick in the middle of the child years right now, and sometimes its a struggle just getting through day and all the chores and all the SHIT -- never mind being the kind of person that anyone else would want to be around. But here's the thing: I like YG. A lot. Yes, of course, I lurve him and all that -- husband, father of my child, all around nice guy, blah blah. But I LIKE him. I like being around him and talking with him and scheming with him. He's usually my favorite person in the room (expression courtesy of a friend who said this exact phrase about her husband, and I fell in love with it).

Really, if I could sum up in one sentence what I want out of this marriage, it is that I hope we always like each other.

"It's been famously said that second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience, but I'm not entirely sure that's true. It seems to me that first marriages are the more hope-drenched affairs, awash in vast expectations and easy optimism. Second marriages are cloaked, I think, in something else: a respect for forces that are bigger than us, maybe. . . . Maybe the only difference between first marriage and second marriage is that the second time at least you know you are gambling."

So read the book. Or not.

Testimony Testimony

I am deep in the plumbing of feeling sorry for myself right now because my work/life balance seems to be a lot more about work than life right now. Hence, no updating. But then I remembered the high of my last class and getting congratulated on a fabulous essay, and the high of my weird, strange testimony at church. I was surprised that they asked me to participate because I'm not exactly "church-y," but the positive feedback about being honest and having said what other people were thinking but couldn't say was overwhelming. And just...NICE. I figured I'd post it here.

tes·ti·mo·ny   
[tes-tuh-moh-nee, or, especially Brit., -muh-nee]
–noun, plural -nies.
1. Law . the statement or declaration of a witness under oath or affirmation, usually in court.
2. evidence in support of a fact or statement; proof.
3. open declaration or profession, as of faith.
4. Usually, testimonies. the precepts of god.
5. the Decalogue as inscribed on the two tables of the law, or the ark in which the tables were kept. Ex. 16:34; 25:16.
6. Archaic . a declaration of disapproval; protest.

After being approached to give my testimony, my initial thought, or the one AFTER revivals and speaking in tongues and fire and brimstone, was, “wouldn’t you want someone a little more spiritually evolved than me to do this?” But I have a tendency to ignore or be completely oblivious to Gifts from God – even when they are so close I can trip over them. So I decided to look at this “giving testimony” thing as an opportunity or gift.

YG and I have been members of First Church for a few years now, after doing a bit of church shopping. We were both raised with religion, and we both realized, gratefully at the same time, that we were missing spirituality and that sense of church community, in our adult lives. I don’t remember when our first visit here was, but I do remember the sign of peace and all the hugging, looking at YG and saying, “no. just no.” I am an awkward hugger and complete social weirdo, especially with strangers, and I couldn’t imagine hugging. In church. YG gave me one of his YG-Let’s-Just-Chill-Out-A-Minute looks, and we stayed. And it was great. Welcoming. It was the first church I felt like I BELONGED in, that was speaking to me. We stayed after for coffee hour (me, begrudgingly), and I think I may have even socially interacted with people without dying.

And then we kept coming back. My stepdaughter, MG, joined the Sunday school classes, Dan married YG and I, and later, when Zygote came along, she was baptized here.
It’s hard to describe and put into words, especially in 3 to 5 minutes, what being here means to us. When people find out that we come here and that we volunteer our time, their initial reaction is usually, “YOU go the church?” followed by “Why?”
Mainly because I can be quiet here. I can listen here. Most of the time, I have a constant monologue running through my head of things I have to do, ways I’m supposed to be, things I’m doing wrong, tasks that need to be accomplished – a laundry list of ways I am somehow not good enough. Sometimes being here is the one hour during the week that I can remember and have some clarity about what I’m doing all those other things FOR. And really, what’s important.

I have been incredibly blessed with a beautiful family and good health and enough money, but I don’t always remember that. Sometimes it feels like we are living from chore to chore, but when I’m here, it’s like there’s a mute button on everything else and I can be still and listen to what God wants me to hear, that still-speaking God that I can drown out in my day-to-day life.

There’s also the community. We’re all a little Cambridge crunchy in our own ways, but this community has come through for us in ways that were completely unexpected and totally amazing. When I was 37 weeks pregnant, YG got sick and suddenly lost his hearing completely in one ear, needing to learn how to use his balance again. Then I had Zygote and began a pretty hideous bout of post-partum depression, while our older daughter was also battling different illnesses and ended up needing an emergency appendectomy. Let’s just say it was not the best Spring.

Through all of this, you gave us food and letters and helped run errands and sometimes just came and sat with me when I felt like I might go crazy. And we never asked for it! Neither YG or I are particularly adept at asking for help, and I much prefer to soldier on alone. Give me more – I can take it. That which does not kill you only makes you stronger. That kind of stuff. But helping is what First Church does. It’s who we are. And I am so grateful.

I’m glad we ended up here. I can listen and learn and contribute where I can. I have never had to prove myself here. People just accept that everyone has gifts to offer, and they welcome them. I hope that being here will give me clarity on how God wants me to use those gifts in the rest of my life.

Sometimes I still have a very Sunday school view of the world, and I want there to be rumbling and thunder and a parting of the clouds and God saying, “JM, this is exactly what you should do with your life and how should do it. Step One: work part time. Step Two: Run far, far away from Corporate America” and so on. This would be VERY convenient for me. Especially, if it was bulleted or in PowerPoint.
But I suspect that this is not how God rolls, and that the real learning will come in figuring it out for myself, with your support on the way. I am grateful for this space to be quiet, to hear and feel what matters, and to be near people who are modeling the ways that I would like to be. Thank you.

Patience: The Virtue I Don't Have

I seriously considered biting my child today. She has been whiny and irritated and frustrated. According to the baby books, this is "a normal phase of development" -- the kids want to be doing more and are frustrated that they can't. According to me, it sucks.
I did not bite her. I took the high road and got right in her face and shouted, "Oh my god, what the HELL do you keep whining about?"

File under: Proud Mother.

I Was A Young James Dean

Or not. But this is what I was talking about in referring to Girlyman's awesomeness. Girlyman video directed by the even-more-awesome Margaret Cho.
And yes, Ty really is that cute up close, but SKB called her first.

What I've Been Writing About

Next week is my last week of class, and I'm sad. It's been a royal pain in the ass to make the schedule work, but so great, and makes me sad that nobody will pay me to do this all the time. Because really, you should pay me to write all the time. About things I want to write it. It would really make the world a better place.

Stories that I've written this semester have been about:
1. The time I swallowed a nickel in church
2. My roommates in London
3. Why I like running
4. How fabulous it is when your grandfather dies on Christmas Eve
5. Why I hate "the obesity crisis"
6. My change of perspective moment, also known as how I survived postpartum depression

My teacher is a real stickler for 600 words or less, so it's been a challenge to tell "important" stories in that short a space, but workable. I have gotten lots of good feedback, and I want to take another class.

Other things I've been doing:
1. Reading Jonathan Franzen's new book. Undecided.
2. Going to see Girlyman with SKB and gang, listening obsessively ever since.
3. Listening to a lot of Devotchka.
4. Working on my "testimony." I got asked by my church to do this, and once I got past the initial "do I need to speak in tongues and start converting people?" freaked out ness, I began to enjoy it. I have to stand up and deliver it to the congregation next Sunday, so we'll see how it's received. I already edited out all the swears.

We Interrupt This Blogging

To sleep.

Seriously, y'all, I'm tired. Many times I have had itchy blog fingers, but I've taken a nap instead. And by nap, I mean that after-dark time that is supposed to be 8 hours but never is. There's so much going on in the World: the elections, the awesome World Series, Marie Claire's fat hate, Jon Stewart, etc. that I would love to talk about, but the exhaustion at this point is a little overwhelming. I am loving school and am moderately enjoying some volunteer projects I am doing, but that added with a regular job and Zygote = want. vacation.

I'm hoping to be back to some sort of regular schedule soon.

Obama: It Gets Better

I'm going to put aside my current issues with Obama and DADT, and give him enormous props for doing this.




Hillary's was also good, if a little corporate.

Fat Talk Free Week: October 18-22

I am doing marginally better than usual at this. I adore the Body Image Program.

Too.Much.Food

This is what happens when you decide you are going to "split" a large order of egg rolls with a small child that a. does not like egg roll, b. should not be eating fried food and c. would prefer to munch on the garnish.



Food coma. Too full to write.

Image courtesy of Hyperbole and a Half: God of Cake, who always makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Running: Tufts 10K for Women

Fastest 10k yet: 1:17:58 at the Tufts 10K for Women today. I ran behind a woman who has been running this race every year for the past 34 years, and then when I crossed the finish line, I got a high five from Joan Benoit Samuelson. Not bad for a race I didn't have much time to train for.

A Little Bit Thornton Melon

I'm embarrassed to admit how much I love Back to School. I believe I may have actually seen this movie at the theater, and I know that I've watched it pretty much whenever it comes one of the bad local tv stations at night. I was convinced that school was going to be exactly like that. Um, well, not exactly.

It's been a while since I've taken a writing class. I took one the semester before Z was born, and I meant to go back, but Z's a handful and I wasn't sure how to balance her, work, me, training for the half, volunteer work, etc.

I'm now enrolled in a class about writing personal essays. I've taken a class with this teacher before, and I was vaguely intimidated by him. He won't bullshit you or tell you your stuff is good when it isn't. Two years ago, when I took his Humorous Writing class, he told me that one of my stories about getting drunk in college and throwing up on my roommate's crush's bed was neither funny or interesting. But then he told me that my 'Letter to An Ex-Husband" was brilliant and amazing. I like him.

The class is an interesting mix of people, and I am one of the youngest. Our first assignment was to write about a childhood memory and the stories were amazing. Some light (read: me swallowing a nickel in church) and some very deep like this beautiful story about a girl making her alcoholic father happy for the first time. Everyone seems to have a very poetic writing style, which is also a bit intimidating since that is not how I write AT ALL. There is nothing worse that having to follow the reading of a guy who described seeing his childhood friends killed at a pool party during fighting in Lebanon with your story about your own personal tragedy of that time you farted at work. (And yes that really happened.) I'm a little scared, but also relieved and excited to be back in school.

Next week's assignment is to write about a photograph that represents a certain time in your life. I spent some time leafing through albums and discovered a photo of all my London roommates dressed in our Halloween costumes. I have no idea if I'll use this one or not, but oh, the memories. London was about as close to Thornton Melon as I'll ever be.

It Gets Better

I meant to write about Dan Savage's It Gets Better project earlier this week. I had watched some of the videos, sniffling my way through them. But after this week, and the tragedies at Rutgers and the other schools, I want to give this guy the Nobel Prize. From his column:

"Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likelier to attempt suicide. Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs, and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids.

"My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas," a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas to my blog. "I wish I could have told you that things get better."

I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models."

I love that there are already so many videos up on this site. I love that Ellen and Neil Patrick Harris are speaking out.

I really hate that they have to.

Does Privacy Even Exist Anymore?

I would say that's a big fat No. Examples:

1. The Duke graduate who decided to publish a "fuck list" with photos and lurid details of guys she slept with. In Powerpoint.

2. The two classless and homophobic students that webcasted a roommate having sex. In case you live under a rock, that kid, Tyler Clementi, later threw himself off the George Washington Bridge.

More on this later.

Why Do You HATE AMERICA, Anderson Cooper?

I have loved my silver fox, Anderson Cooper, ever since he was on Channel One. I love him even more when he calls people on their bullshit.

My friend, Kacey, shared this first one, where he interviews Renee Ellmers, a Republican House candidate from North Carolina, who uses terrorist interchangeably with Muslim. The milisecond that Cooper catches her off guard, she immediately says,
"Are you anti-religion? Are you anti-Christian in your thinking?" No debate -- just you hate Jesus.



Then last night, he interviewed Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general in Michigan, about Shirvell's campaign against University of Michigan student assembly president Chris Armstrong, who is openly gay. This fucker actually has stalked this guy, blogs about him, and posts pictures of him with Nazi symbols embedded in the rainbow flag. This is a scary, scary PUBLIC OFFICIAL. Cooper takes him down.



He is awesome, and I'm sure that all the ridiculous people that support Ellmers and Shirvell will immediately say that he hates America.

When You Get a Call From Costco About Beetle Crap In Your Kid’s Formula

Last Friday night, I ignored a phone call from an 800 number. I hate talking on the phone. I hate telemarketers even more. If you call me and I don’t recognize your number, it’s most likely you’re going straight to voice mail. This time, the 800 caller left a message, though, so I was intrigued. The retrieved message was from Costco notifying me that Similac formula I had bought months ago was part of the recent recall and that I should throw it out to be safe. I shrugged and hung up. I stopped feeding Zygote formula months ago, and the formula she did drink was very minimal compared to her breastmilk intake – nothing to worry about here.

I didn’t think about the recall again until I was consulting Dr. Google about why my normally voracious eater had pretty much stopped eating anything except oatmeal and mashed fruit. This led me to the recall site where I read, “Abbott…detected the remote possibility of the presence of a small common beetle in the product produced in one production area in a single manufacturing facility. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that while the formula containing these beetles poses no immediate health risk, there is a possibility that infants who consume formula containing the beetles or their larvae, could experience symptoms of gastrointestinal discomfort and refusal to eat as a result of small insect parts irritating the GI tract. If these symptoms persist for more than a few days, a physician should be consulted.” Hmmm…interesting. While I was pondering the possibility of a small insect colony setting up shop in Zygote’s lower intestine, I looked over and noticed her devouring a cheese stick, followed by an inhalation of edamame. Then a lot of pointing and whining in the general direction of a box of Cheerios. She had not been invaded by beetles, just “exerting her toddler independence at mealtime” which seems to be the polite way of saying “acting like a possessed demon.”

I don’t know what I would have done if she actually was infested with beetles. Took her to the doctor? Got her some medicine to make her feel better? Sat her on my lap and read her favorite books and played with her hair to comfort her? Probably. You know what I would not have done? I would not have felt guilty about giving her formula, because my guilt won’t really do jack for her.

Apparently, this would not have been the right approach. I should definitely feel very, very, very guilty. If you read the mommy boards (which I do because I like to know that there is always someone out there more batshit crazy than me), you have probably seen all the “tsk, tsk” and “well, if you didn’t feed your baby POISON, you wouldn’t have to worry about beetles” or “This is what happens with formula. DID YOU KNOW..that breast is best?” Did I know? Seriously? Yes, I did know. I live in Cambridge, one of the most liberal cities in the country, home to ‘the Kremlin on the Charles,’ home to gazillions of doulas, lactation consultants, nursing mothers groups, babywearers associations, cloth diaper services, how to make your own organic baby food classes, and so on. You really think I NEVER HEARD that breastfeeding is best for my kid? That I have been sitting here, ignorant and uneducated, waiting for you to help me see the light about breastfeeding? Really?

I read this wonderful post, The Similac Formula Recall Is Not a Punchline and loved this:

“Life happens. Formula happens. You know who formula happens to, in particular? Women who can’t breastfeed. Fathers caring for babies on their own. Adoptive parents caring for babies. You know what those parents don’t want to read? Shitty, spiteful comments about how “well if you were breastfeeding, you wouldn’t have to worry about feeding your kid beetle parts.”

I hate that I even have to defend why I ever used formula, but I realize that if I’m frothing at the mouth about something, people probably would like some kind of back story. Here you go. It was always my intention to breastfeed Zygote, and I would say that I am firmly in the pro-breastfeeding camp. I don’t like the big business of formula, and I think that the marketing of formula in areas where people have no access to money and/or clean water is pretty gross. You know the benefits of breastfeeding, so I won’t repeat them here.

And then I got postpartum depression. FUN! The sheer neverendingness of breastfeeding was just one more thing that was making me feel INSANE. I felt like all I did was move from chair to chair, feeding and feeding and feeding, with nothing but time to think some really, really dark stuff about how, if I just got slightly injured (nothing fatal), someone else would have to take care of the baby and what a relief that would be. That thought was enough to scare the shit out of me, and I got on some meds pronto and made the decision to supplement with one bottle a day to give myself some breathing room and just the feeling that I could separate from Z if I needed to. It made the transition make to work much easier, helped with pumping, and made me a much calmer and happier mother. I started that at six weeks and continued the one bottle until Z abruptly decided to stop nursing at 11months, moving on to bigger and better things, like steak. I never felt guilty about it and I don’t now. The only guilt I felt was about not being emotionally present for my kid those first few weeks, but I realize I need to cut myself a break on that one.

I expect that much of parenting is going to be like this – having lots of intentions and dreams and goals, but needing to modify to make things work best for my kid, my family and me. I don’t really see the point in ‘shoulding’ all over people or making them feel guilty if what’s right for me doesn’t work for them.

Erin Shea (one of my favorite bloggers and someone I’ve been following since I first discovered blogs all those eons ago) posted on this same topic, and I especially loved this:

“Even more baffling to me is why, to my friend Jackie’s point, people feel “duty-bound” to “educate” others to the point where it’s intrusive and rude.

Or, you know, they’re advocating by being an asshole.

Here’s the thing about advocating by asshole: the people who you have no hope of converting think you’re an asshole. And the people who you do have a chance of converting think you’re an asshole, too. And everyone who agrees with your position wishes you’d just shut up or at least learn a modicum of manners.”

Amen. I just don’t see the point in being a dick in situations where being a dick is not called for. And if I’m going to be a dick to you, I will at least be a polite dick, and hope we can have a reasonable conversation.

Bonk! (But Still 10:33)

Yesterday, I raced my fastest 5K yet, finishing in 32:49, or a 10:33 pace. This is fairly amazing considering that I totally bonked. My goal was to finish in less than 33:30, and I thought that was fairly aggressive, considering I usually run about a 11:19 mile, and anything less than 11 minutes has been indoors on the treadmill, with the benefit of some shitty tv like Keeping Up With The Kardashians to watch.

I have run this race, the Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure, three times before, though, so I figured it was good to aim high. Also, I'm never quite sure if I'm pushing myself hard enough. When I worked out with a trainer before, I would sometimes get so exhausted that I would actually throw up. I'm not a hardcore athlete and I certainly am not one of these 'go big or go home' freaks who think you need to puke to work out, but still, how do you know if you're pushing far enough?

Even though it's late September and supposedly to brisk, beautiful boot and corderoy weather, yesterday was hot as balls and muggy. I rode the T to the race site, grabbed some free vendor schwag and stretched. I've been battling a head cold, so I took an extra Claritin and drank some water. The place was an absolute mob scene, but I tried to make my way as close as I could to the starting line. [Insert standard runner rant here about walkers who line up in front of all the runners even though it is SUPER CLEAR that that's dangerous and you should line up in the back.] Lots of bad dance music, "inspirational" speeches, and then Mumbles Menino sounding the horn.

I took off like a bat out of hell. I could feel that I was running faster than I normally run, but I wanted to break free of the crowds and the walkers and the strollers. I usually have a hard time with the first mile, but I figured if I could make it through that, I'd be fine. The crowd was so thick that I ended up missing the first water station, but I still felt okay. My arm and shoulders were a little crampy and it was HOT, but powered by 'Paradise City,' I soldiered on.

I passed the Mile 2 marker and managed to get some water, but it was only halfway filled and the crowd was too thick to make my way back. I kept going, but I knew that my breathing was labored. I focused on some breathing exercises, figuring that the combo of the heat and the head cold was not helping. I felt very, very, very hot. As I passed the 2.5 mile mark, I began to feel more and more lightheaded and a girl pulled up beside me and asked if I was okay and if I could breathe. I waved her on, and just stopped.

I hate walking in races. Hate it. Even in the half marathon, I never stopped to walk. I know that I'm a super slow runner, but I've always taken pride in the fact that I never walk. I knew the answer to that question I posed above, though -- I knew I pushed it far enough on Saturday, and I imagined how mortified I would be if I fainted. So I stopped. Got my shit together. Took some deep breaths. Walked a bit. And then jogged for that last half mile.

When I neared the finish line, I saw that the clock was at 33 so I pushed myself to run as fast as I could. I crossed at 33:28, so factoring in gun and net time, I knew I beat my goal. I was happy for that, but also happy that I knew when to stop.

And here ends my inspirational sports entry. And on to another 5K next weekend.

Historical Factoids That May Be Of No Interest To Anyone But Me
I just spent a ridiculous amount of time on Cool Running looking up my old race times. The 2007 Komen Race was the first 5K I ever ran, and my pace was 12:31, a full two minutes higher than now. I ran the 2008 Komen at a 10:35 pace. This was the summer I was training a LOT, and I had also dropped a lot of weight. My pace for the 2009 race was 11:26 -- awesome considering I had just had a C-section a few months earlier. My worst 5K pace in recent years was 13:18 in 2008, but I was pregnant, so I will give myself a break on that one.

My Impassioned Plea To Save Huge (Or Things I Watched)

I watch a lot of tv. Or a lot of tv for someone with a job and a kid and a host of other things to do. I rarely watch GOOD tv, though, or something that I get really thrilled about seeing (Rescue Me, being the exception). I began watching Huge this season, mainly because everyone in the Fatosphere was blogging about it. And, oh my god, it was amazing.

The show is an ABC Family network series that focuses on eight kids sent to a summer weight-loss camp, and Winnie Holzman, the creator of My So-Called Life, and her daughter Savannah Dooley wrote the pilot. My So-Called Life was one of those life changer shows, and years later, I sometimes still feel like I am Angela Chase. That show got the horrible awkwardness of the teen years exactly right, and even though there were some other decent shows like Freaks & Geeks about high school, I haven't seen anything else that came close.

Until now. Huge manages to capture the painful and horrendous awkwardness of being a teenager, and because it takes place at a fat camp, there's no token fat person to deal with "fat issues" while the black person deals with "minority issues" and the gay person deals with "gay issues." The cast is incredibly diverse, and because they are all fat, the show allows you to focus on the character development rather than their size.

There are so many things to love about Huge. First, I love that the cast is actually big. Not Hollywood big, but actual large people. This sounds ridiculous to point out (it's a show about a fat camp, after all), but how many times do we see the loveable "fat" friend played by someone who is way smaller than...well, me? Second, the writing is really, really, really good. The characters are multi-dimensional and there is no single "fat issue" to solve. The show covers binge eating, emotional eating, disorders, fat acceptance, and it's all done respectfully. I never got the impression that the writers were making fun of these kids. (For the opposite, see this review of the other "fat" show, Mike & Molly). Third, I love the way the show deals with "the gay character" in that it's never explicitly stated that Alistair is gay, much like it was never stated in My So-Called Life until the end that Ricky was gay. Alistair wants to be Athena and he loves girly things, but the writers never made us sit through a cringe-worthy Very Special Episode: I'm Gay. This seemed much truer to my high school experience where you had gay friends and you were pretty sure they were gay but you weren't sure if they thought they were gay, so you just sort of rolled with it. Fourth*, the adults are real characters too with real problems, and the writers never try to convince you that adulthood is going to be this magical solution for all your fat issues. I won't give away the season ender, but let's just say that it was brilliantly acted.

* I feel like I'm writing a third grade essay with all these "and first," and "second" blah blah.

The future of the show is still uncertain, but I've sent my emails to ABC and joined the Save Huge Facebook page. You should too.

Also, check out this amazing interview with Savannah Dooley. If you don't believe my arguments, this will convince you to watch.

Mama Things

Big surprise -- this made me cry.

Don't Ask How Bad Your Senators Suck, Tell Them

So the move to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' stalled in the Senate today. Given the partisanship of late, this is not a big surprise, but still sad and a setback. The blame game has started, but in the opinion of those that matter (read: me), we can blame the Republicans for the filibuster, but let's also leave some flaming bags of poop on the doorstep of Harry Reid, the guy that thought it would be good to play political football with the lives of people that WANT to serve our country in the military. The whole process disgusts me.

I will leave all my 'gays are people too' comments out of this. If you read this blog, you know I support gay rights and you know that you can't convince me that anything less than equal rights for all is fair. Let's just leave that aside. Look at it LOGICALLY. We're fighting two bars. Badly. Our military is overstressed. Our military families are overstressed. Wouldn't it make sense for us to allow people that WANT to join the military to serve their country? Wouldn't it alleviate some of the burden on our existing workforce? Explain it to me.

I am seriously considering writing a letter to my congresspeople for the first time in my life. AFTER I can think of something more coherent to say than, "Fuck you."

LOVED BODIES, BIG IDEAS (Or: I really want to participate)

I really would like to spend some of my limited brainpower on this contest.

From the website:

Tired of talktalktalking about how toxic our culture is for girls and women, particularly in relation to their bodies? Craving to take action? Brimming with good ideas but suffering from a lack of support? Then this is your moment.

The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute is thrilled to announce the LOVED BODIES, BIG IDEAS Contest.

We need your BIG IDEA in response to the following question:

What is one bold action that could make the world truly value

the diversity of women and girls’ bodies?

All of the BIG IDEAS will be considered by a team of expert judges and the three most thrilling and original ones will be chosen as winners. These winners will be invited to present their ideas in 10-minute presentations at the Endangered Species Summit in March of 2011 in New York City in front of a power-packed audience of media representatives, philanthropists, public intellectuals, activists, therapists, and more. It is our hope that the energy in the room will propel these ideas into real, bonafide action!

Right up my alley, no? Wish me luck!

Other People Saying It Better

My inner monologue has been on high speed this week, and many times I've thought that I would write about something, but then scrapped in order to do...something. I don't know.

1. Meg Cabot on 9/11

I know of Meg Cabot, but I haven't read any of her books. I came to this post by way of The New York Times Motherlode blog. I read it today at lunch and cried.

I have wanted and not wanted to write about September 11, what it was like to go back to the apartment in Brooklyn past the silent Newark airport and talking to my brother, so far away in France, alone in my parents' kitchen trying to piece together what happened, and waiting for someone, anyone to find me. I tried to write an essay for one of my classes about a year or so ago (I was pregnant with Z), and the teacher and classmates said that it sounded hollow, that it didn't sound like me. Sounding "like me" seems to be synonymous with being snarky or trivial, and how do you do that with 9/11? They asked me why I even wanted to write the story, and I explained that I was inspired by an argument I got in at work with some helicopter mom with a thing for matching shoes and bags who had gasped in horror when I said I took my stepdaughter on the T, frequently. She would never do such a thing..."because of 9/11." Much eye rolling and tongue biting on my part, and loads and loads of venom. My teacher told me that that sounded more like me. Maybe someday I'll write about it.

2. The Shed Project: An Eight-Week Adventure in Letting Go

So, yes, this used to be the kind of thing that made me barf. It's like Simple Abundance, but with Buddha! And then I get my daily serving of humble pie.

"What’s weighing you down?

Stuff.

The stuff we accumulate in an attempt to feel safe, secure, happy, successful, and generally OK.
The stuff we use to fill every bit of space in our lives, so we don’t have to think or feel too much.
The stuff we consume to feed the vague yearning for more, so we can feel a little less empty for a while.

How’s that working for you?

Stuff is a tricky beast. You get more of it and then you need more space to store it, and then you need more money to maintain it. It’s an endless cycle that rarely satisfies your underlying need for love, safety and fulfillment.

Is the stuff helping you feel better, or you still feeling hungry, fearful and empty?"

I love the idea of simplifying and paring down. Moving here a few years ago necessitated that, but since I've been here, the STUFF has been creeping back in. I'm not sure if I could commit to such a huge lifestyle change, but I will reading along with interest.

3. Thomas Friedman: We're No. 1(1)!

"...it is a microcosm of a larger problem we have not faced honestly as we have dug out of this recession: We had a values breakdown — a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism. Wall Street may have been dealing the dope, but our lawmakers encouraged it. And far too many of us were happy to buy the dot-com and subprime crack for quick prosperity highs.

Ask yourself: What made our Greatest Generation great? First, the problems they faced were huge, merciless and inescapable: the Depression, Nazism and Soviet Communism. Second, the Greatest Generation’s leaders were never afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice. Third, that generation was ready to sacrifice, and pull together, for the good of the country. And fourth, because they were ready to do hard things, they earned global leadership the only way you can, by saying: “Follow me.”

Contrast that with the Baby Boomer Generation. Our big problems are unfolding incrementally — the decline in U.S. education, competitiveness and infrastructure, as well as oil addiction and climate change. Our generation’s leaders never dare utter the word “sacrifice.” All solutions must be painless. Which drug would you like? A stimulus from Democrats or a tax cut from Republicans? A national energy policy? Too hard. For a decade we sent our best minds not to make computer chips in Silicon Valley but to make poker chips on Wall Street, while telling ourselves we could have the American dream — a home — without saving and investing, for nothing down and nothing to pay for two years. Our leadership message to the world (except for our brave soldiers): “After you.”"

What he said.

4: Fatshionista: Thoughts on Appearance-Based Privilege
This one really made me think, and I encourage you to go check it out.

5. I think it's time for a Syracuse visit.

Watching this made me very nostalgic for a time when BB and I could drink a box of wine and snarf down a 'family size' Ortega taco kit. And go to shows at Chucks and hang out on porches all night. My birthday made me think of my 21st birthday and how awesome it was, and also, how lucky my friends are that I don't have a scanner.

The Non Political Anti-Gay Army

I know there are many "normal" people out there trying to convince you that Glen Beck is just a normal guy trying to return America to its "core values" or whatever it is that he supposedly stands for. I have to admit that I've done the worst possible thing in completely tuning this guy out because he's such a tool, so I don't pretend to be an expert on what the tea baggers want.

However, his non political agenda includes hanging with a bunch of anti-gay activists. Check it.

I can almost respect a nutcase religious zealot more than a tool that does the "but I'm just a regular guy" thing.

File under: old news.

Secret Thrills, Secret Worries

Zygote already seems to have a wicked sense of humor, and this thrills me to no end.



Secret Worry #1: She will be really boring or not like books or not understand the humor in a delicately-timed fart joke.

Secret Worry #2: She will be exactly like me, with all my neuroses and penchant for fart jokes.

Cute, though, no?

And For My 400th Post....

Let's go with a reprint. 400 posts over 4 years seems minuscule, but I'm giving myself permission to let that go.

From the very-cool Danielle Laporte of White Hot Truth who I found via Medicinal Marzipan who I found via Already Pretty who I found via....OMG I LOVE THE INTERNETS.

your permission slip from the universe

"I've got the Goddess of Permission on speed dial and she was thrilled to oblige with this sweeping list of acts of self expression and liberation. We can draw on it whenever we need. Come back often. Build on it. The Permission Goddess sends kisses and high-fives.

you have permission to

: not finish reading books that you're not really enjoying. Don't force it, close it.
: walk out of movies that suck (and hey, if you leave in the first twenty minutes, you can get your money back.)
: let it go to voicemail (especially during dinner, or snuggling, or watching So You Think You Can Dance?)
: give birthday gifts anytime of the year (which means you can be late or early and you can give yourself time to find just the right gift.)
: talk shit about WalMart (even if they do have the economic power of a small country.)
: cut the obligations cords that are driven by guilt.***
: pursue your own agenda.
: own next to nothing, live on a mattress, read and write and make love all day with no other responsibilities***
: return crappy products to their crappy manufacturers (because you can vote with your dollars.)
: leave your current business model so you can go do something bigger than you***
: tell your kids when you think that something an authority figure told them is bullshit (you need to be in solidarity with your child, not the so-called grown ups.)
: quit your job, even if you just started two weeks ago, or just got a raise, or are seemingly indispensable.
: get yourself off even, if you have a partner.
: have some secrets.
: cut out the elements of your business that you don't totally LOVE. The parts that 90% of the time make you say, "WHY am I doing this? I don't WANT to do this." ***
: give away/recycle/get rid of stuff, stuff, stuff sentimental stuff that special people gave you (your home is for you, not them); stuff that doesn't make you feel good even, if you spent a lot of money on it; stuff that has intense memories attached to it; stuff!
: say no to "free" stuff, like swag bags at fancy events and novelty erasers and pom-pom pens from the bank. (Because the only thing in life that's free is love.)

you have permission to

: fail, and fail again.
: to succeed, wildly, more than your neighbours, more than your folks, more than you thought was possible.
: be rich and "spiritual"
: be broke AND generous
: leave work early, get some ice cream, and sit in the hot tub at the gym***
: charge what you're worth***
: focus more on creating your soul job and less on finding a ho' job.***
: sleep! sleep in, nap, sleep.
: earn a living knitting for charity.***
: relax. To let go of the growing to-do list in your head. To release the need to get it "just right."***
: to dance.
: go bra-less or underwear free.
: give it all to charity.
: check your email whenever the hell you want.
: start now, without the degree, without the funding, without knowing exactly where you're going.
: sell your house to afford a big trip to India (a friend of mine did just that, no regrets.)
: walk away.
: fall in love.
: eat dessert first.

you have permission to
: not ever feel the need for permission.***

PS...The Goddess of Compassion, Quan Yin, also emailed me. She and The G' of Permish are a rad' team when they ride together. Quan Yin just wanted me to make sure she gets repp'ed in the mix: quit responsibly, say Fuck off with compassion in your heart, liberate with love, and cut clean when you need to use your sword. And when you can, do what you say you're going to do, or announce when you can't with deftness and care.

And then Ms. Permissive emailed me to say she gives you permission to whatever, however, because ultimately, it's all progress. I asked the Deities to take their debate off-line. Your liberation isn't their business anyway."