"So-Called Women's Rights"

I’ve been thinking about something someone said when she commented on a post my mom made on Facebook on election night. It kind of ties into my last blog, which is I guess why I’m thinking about it again. I don’t even remember what my mom’s post was about. I think it said something to the effect of “whew, election season is over!!” So, anyway, this woman replied by saying that she was sick of hearing all this garbage about what she referred to as “so-called women’s rights.” My knee-jerk reaction in my head was something along the lines of “fuck you, bitch. What do you know about it??”

And then I got to thinking about it myself. What would possess a woman my age to not even have the slightest deference to the movement that has given her so many rights?? I mean, she votes. She drives a car, and she and her daughters are not considered the property of her husband. Where does she think all that came from?? Really, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for me, because what she said really kind of did piss me off.

So, I asked my mom, “what do you think she meant by that??” I don’t know this woman very well. We’ve met a handful of times, though I’ve known her husband’s family since childhood. She and her husband are uber-conservative, obviously, but in such a way that when they talk they sound like they’ve been living in a plastic bubble, sheltered from what the rest of the world outside their smart little self-made enclave have to work with. And, yes: I do think there is something wrong with that. She and her husband believe that no woman should be allowed to have an abortion; anywhere, anytime, ever, so obviously their opinion should be the law. Now, I don’t take issue with people who don’t agree with abortion, but I do have a problem with women who think that all other women’s rights should be taken away from them because she thinks abortion is wrong.

Roe vs. Wade is about so much more than just abortion. I wish more people understood that. It’s about women having the agency to make our own reproductive choices, which sometimes includes abortion. We can take birth control or leave it. We can have an abortion, safely and legally, or not. But there’s this attitude like being pro-choice means that we should all have abortions because they’re so much fun, and that is simply not true. I wish people like that, like her, would sit up straight and pay attention instead of just deciding that because she doesn’t like abortion that no one should be able to use birth control at all. Because that’s what her candidate said, out loud, multiple times.

My mom mentioned that this woman thought that some of the language surrounding “so-called women’s rights” is too vulgar; for example, they say vagina. Now, I get that not everyone wants to have their personal anatomy discussed on the public forum, but come on. Crusty old white guys want to tell women what to do with said vaginas, yet they make women leave the room because they’re so disgusted with the word being said out loud. It’s just a word. Vagina. Vagina. Vagina. It’s an anatomically correct descriptor. Act like a big kid and deal with it instead of hiding from it behind some patriarchal 1950s idea of what women are allowed to do and say. I don’t get it. It’s not even a dirty word. Even if we’re on the shy side and only say the word “vagina” to our doctors, it’s medically accurate and still not a bad word. I’m left to wonder if the real problem she has is that strong, independent women who make decisions for themselves scare her because she’s not one.

In any case, I think the word itself is just a precursor to what the issue may actually be: perhaps the women aligned with “so-called women’s rights” are too aggressive for her?? I mean, I love Margaret Cho, but she’s definitely not for everyone. I mean, I think that’s kind of a wimpy stance to take on being a woman, but to each her own.

She and her husband are nice, sweet people. They have a home and two beautiful children. They’ve cultivated the life for themselves that they wanted, and for that I genuinely commend them. I know they’ve had some heartache and scary times, and I thought about them all the time while they were. I’m not at all trying to malign this woman or her husband for being bad people. But does that mean everyone should live their lives exactly as she had, because if we do we’ll never have to think about our rights because everything will be taken care of by our husbands?? It’s a lovely idea, but not all of us want husbands. What would she do with that idea??

My mom also mentioned that this woman was in favor of equal pay for women, which struck me as odd. So, reproductive health care is “so-called women’s rights” but pay equality is a real women’s right?? For most of us, repro health care is an economic matter; not just equal pay. Is it because she remained a virgin until marriage and has purely procreative sex that it’s what we all should do?? I’m mystified.

Sometimes I try too hard to get into other people’s heads.

Thanksgiving and Jacoby Miles

Six days ago, a fifteen-year-old gymnast named Jacoby Miles sustained a life-alerting injury at a local gymnastics gym. She fell off the bars doing a dismount she’d done hundreds of times, pinching her spinal cord and paralyzing her from the chest down. I haven’t stopped thinking of her since I heard about what happened. I had tears in my eyes watching the news video clip, and it’s probably for a number of reasons.

When I was fifteen, I torked my back doing a beam dismount I’d done hundreds of times. Five months later, I was diagnosed with a severe stress fracture in a vertebrae most people don’t have: the congenital abnormality of a 6th lumbar. It bored the living shit out of me, but I was out of the gym for ten months. I hated it. I didn’t want to sit still. I wanted to be in the gym, where I had friends and had a good time. I spent as much time hanging out there as the staff would allow, because for me it was the only place I felt like I fit in. As I went from agonizing back pain every day to feeling physically regular, mentally I was angry because the only thing I really loved to do, other than write, was taken away from me.

The injury never completely healed, but eventually after those ten boring-ass months of rehab I was able to come back. I went on to compete a few more years, eventually becoming a gymnastics coach, which I’ve been for fifteen years, and now I have a fifteen-year-old daughter who is a competitive level 7 gymnast.

Sometimes my back still hurts. It’s a signal of something I never knew how to do when I was a kid: stop. I used to just run through everything until I was so sore I couldn’t move, and as I’ve grown older I’ve had to learn how to slow down and listen to my body.

But I remember how often I cried and how sad I was without gymnastics, and that’s a huge part of why my heart goes out to Jacoby. According to the articles I’ve read, the doctors are saying it could take a miracle for her to walk again. As my mom said, “if anyone can do it, it’s a gymnast.” We’re strong and determined. I can’t imagine what it would have been like at fifteen to be injured so badly that I had to be in a wheelchair. It was enough hell at such a young age to go through rehabbing the injury I have. I can’t reconcile in my head what Jacoby’s experience will be like, but my heart most certainly goes with her on her journey.

As I’ve said, I've coached gymnastics in the Seattle area for fifteen years. If Jacoby had been one of the kids I’ve coached, or any of the kids on my daughter’s gymnastics team, I would be absolutely beside myself. My daughter’s recreational optional team has competed against Roach Gymnastics, Jacoby’s home gym. It’s horrifying enough to hear that such a rare accident as this even happened, but to have it happen locally, to a member of our gymnastics community, really brings reality home. It could be any of us, at any time. But hearing how many people have rallied behind Jacoby and her family, seeing how many news organizations are spreading her story far and wide, encouraging folks to give donations to the Miles family, is 50 shades of awesome. Tweets from American gymnastics royalty like Gabrielle Douglas, Nastia Liukin and Chellsie Memmel, and support from people all around the nation: it’s phenomenal. It reminds me that my little incestuous gymnastics community, where everyone knows everyone, is a part of a larger gymnastics community. And we stand together with our own.

It’s been an especially difficult few weeks for me personally. Without oversharing, I can tell you that no one died but it’s still been hard to get up in the morning. My own fifteen-year-old daughter sprained her ankle at a gymnastics competition, and the same week she also got a sinus infection. Small proverbial potatoes compared to Jacoby’s circumstances, and un-fucking believably hard to watch. We want our kids to be healthy and happy, and to have the things they want (within reason). To watch them in pain is nothing short of hell on earth. One of the things I’ve focused on, even as my life has become more complicated recently, is that my daughter’s injury and illness were not that bad. It was little more than an uncomfortable and temporary annoyance. The ankle turned out not to be as bad as we’d initially thought, and antibiotic knocked the sinus infection out for now. For that, I’ve been thanking my lucky fucking stars every day. While she dodged a bullet, another kid is taking one, and it breaks my heart.

I’m not going to end this post by spewing irritating platitudes about how everything happens for a reason. I remain unconvinced that it does. Some days you just feel like the universe is conspiring against you. Maybe it is, though I tend to think that the universe has bigger shit to deal with than most of our little lives. In any case, some things happen for no reason other than that they happen. And we get up the next day and move forward whether we feel good or not. It happens to all of us, in a myriad of different ways, every day.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of the usual “I’m thankful for my family and friends and God,” or whatever everyone’s 30 Days of Thankful on Facebook says, I remain thankful every day for a healthy kid, and to be a part of a gymnastics community that truly does take care of its own.

And I wish nothing but health and happiness for Jacoby, her family, and her teammates.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

For more information on how you may show support and make a donation to Jacoby's family visit www.goteamjacoby.com and show a little love this shopping season.

Drug Testing the Poor

I’m going to address something that’s been bothering me for some time. Last night I read an article in the New York Times informing readers that the state of Florida’s mandatory drug testing for those seeking public assistance hasn’t been effective in saving money, catching drug offenders, had an effect on the number of folks applying for assistance, and in fact has cost the state tens of thousands of dollars in just four months.

And yet, all over my Facebook page I read friends’ posts about how more states should do this, and that is what I’d like to talk about.

Being poor is not the free ride right-wing politicians and pundits will have people believe it is. In fact, it’s hell. I hate it. It’s a waking nightmare, and in addition to being depressing, difficult, and terrifying, sometimes unbearably so, poor people are called names. Freeloader, moocher, idiot, slut, and now we’re being told that somehow we must be poor because we’re spending all our money on drugs.

Pardon me, but fuck you. Fuck you for your sweeping and erroneous generalization. We’re not all crackheads any more than we are all sluts or freeloaders, and I resent the implication. Of course there are exceptions. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. But to lump all poor people together and shame them into having their privacy disturbed is not only shitty but is also being called unconstitutional.

And don’t give me that nonsense about how your employer makes you take a drug test. Boo-fuckin’-hoo. At least you're fortunate enough to have an employer. And, if I’m not mistaken, you chose to be employed by them. Purely anecdotal, but I’ve known plenty of people who have turned down jobs because they felt like mandatory drug testing is a violation of privacy. And, yes, I have made a series of miscalculations in my life that have resulted in my being poor, but that is a far cry from making a conscious decision to be poor. Your argument is invalid.

Think about all this for a minute. I’m not really expecting to change minds, but pause for a moment and let what I’ve said sink in, and think about the people in your life who are struggling just to stay afloat in this world before you post something that passes judgment on those of us who have had to ask for help. It's not fun. It's not a joke. We're not laughing at the taxpayers who help us out. If you pay attention you'll find that most people like me are humbled and grateful that our government does sometimes help people when they need it, because it's not easy out there. For anyone, I know that. Just think about it for a sec.

"The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class."

George Carlin

Election Season: I Didn't Come Here to Argue

Election season is almost over. If you know me, you know I’m a bit of a current events junkie, and seeing as though my hours at work have dwindled down to three a week, I have a lot of time on my hands to read. And I do. At great length. Now, I’ve heard some complaints from friends and loved ones that I would like to address. Mind you, none of these complaints have been directed at me, personally, but I’d like to take a moment to say a few things anyway. I like to share the information I come across. I love blogs and opinion pieces, even ones I don’t necessarily agree with. Listening to other people gives me an opportunity to think, not only about other people’s opinions and why they hold them but about my own, and why I hold them. It’s food for thought, if nothing else. I think it’s good to be culturally aware.

But: here comes the big “but,” I know that sometimes I offend people, or people disagree with me. If I’ve offended you then I’m all on board with having a polite conversation between two grown individuals. I’ve even been known to apologize for hurting people’s feelings. And if you disagree with me, that’s fine. I’d rather talk about that, too, if you want. I’m not going to start saying mean things to you, or insulting your intelligence, even if sometimes I may want to. I did not come here to start an argument, but a discussion would be great.

There is a guy who I am no longer friends with because the politicking got to be too much. We vehemently disagreed with each other, and eventually I got tired of him telling me how stupid and uninformed I am (for not watching enough Fox News or reading the GOP website). I just got tired of the insults and decided I don’t want to be friends with someone who behaves like that over disagreeing about something. I think it’s incredibly petty, and I don’t need friends who call me stupid. Call me out on my bullshit, sure. I can hang with that. But if you really think I’m stupid, why are you friends with me?? And why the fuck am I friends with you?? If you call me stupid on my Facebook now, I have a lot of great friends who will gladly come to my defense. But my policy is not to engage in a flame war because it so often accomplishes nothing, and I have other shit to do. I’m not going to try to change someone’s mind. I’m busy.

I do try to kind of get into people’s heads sometimes. I don’t know if you knew this about me, but I’m not a Romney person. I’m not even a little bit conservative. There are too many reasons why not, and the Obama administration has done a great deal to help people like me. I appreciate that, whether the Romney camp thinks I’m a moocher, or a slut, or an idiot, or whatever. There are some Romney supporters, though; I just can’t get there. Why would a teacher, a single parent, or someone who is sick and on government funded medical assistance in order to stay alive vote for Romney?? These are all people I know, and I don’t get it. Because he’s anti-choice?? Because he’s white?? Because he’s a businessman?? What is it?? I cannot figure it out no matter how hard I try. But I’m also not going to pick a fight with a friend over it, either, or tell them they’re stupid or uninformed. I think that’s mean, and I’m not out to low-blow my friends. Like I said, I’ve had that done to me and I try to have a little more integrity than to act like I get to shit-talk people and expect to be treated with respect.

Anyway, I know people are exhausted by this election and ready for it to be over. I’m kind of excited to see how the whole thing plays out. There are bound to be some great jokes and, hopefully, some inspired activism on the horizon.

In any case, go out and vote – or stay in and vote. Help someone else vote, if you can. I promise I won’t call you an idiot in front of all your friends if I disagree with you.

The end.

Night Time is the Right Time to Talk About the VP Debate

Election season is taxing on anyone who’s paying attention to it. If you’re reading, watching, tweeting it, you’re probably exhausted. Nevermind that having a day-to-day life that doesn’t include an IV drip of current events, partisan and otherwise, it’s easy to feel uninformed.

I didn’t watch the VP debates earlier tonight. I’m coming out of a cold medication fog and my daughter is entering one, so I spent the evening relaxing, making her some fall-time, Chinese-themed comfort food: egg drop soup and mango fried rice. And I feel uninformed. I also feel very comfortable in that. At least for the moment.

I would like to address one thing, though. From an outsider’s perspective, as someone who read the tweets, a browsed a few articles, laughed at a few graphics, and saw some varying Facebook status updates, my observations are purely anecdotal, but I’m going to put it out there anyway. My friends on the right thought Joe Biden was rude and smug. I can’t speak to that because I didn’t watch this evening, but I will say this:

Who cares?? When politicians on the right do it, the left gets all up in arms: when politicians on the left do it, the right gets all butt-hurt. It doesn’t make it right or wrong. It’s just kind of what it is, as they say. You don’t get to the top of the political ladder by not being a grand-standing yutz on at least some level, and sometimes that includes being snide and condescending and smarmy and pissy and rude. But when it’s your party it pisses me off and when it’s my party it pisses you off. I lean to the left, so of course I think it’s funny when a left-leaning politician schools a conservo, and I say “psh, whatever, what do you know,” so forth and so on when I feel like the mud is coming from stage right. I think at this saturation point, in the age of newer and newer new media, there’s a time to be outraged, or even just annoyed, and a time to say fuck it: whatever, dude. What the hell do you know, anyway, whoever-you-are??

And with that I bid you good night. NyQuil wishes and TheraFlu dreams, y’all.

Math Illiterate

I’m just going to put this out there because I’m tired as hell of hearing it. Hopefully I can rally and not have to take another math class as long as I live, hence not have to hear from other people about it.

Yeah, I share on Facebook and Twitter how nervous math makes me. I share how I hate it, it’s boring, I don’t understand it, and it sucks. I don’t like it. I don’t get it. And in reply I get a bunch of responses about how good other people are at math. It’s easy. Seriously. Just do this, this this, this, and this other thing. Have you heard of this?? Did you try this?? Maybe if you this?? I’m really good. Maybe I can help you.

No, I’ve never done or heard of any of that. Obviously I suck at math because I just crawled out from under a fucking rock yesterday. I have textbooks and resources. I have amazing people who have tried in earnest to help me. What I do not possess are the skills to cram an entire textbook, of which I have the loosest grasp on the one before it, in five weeks.

If that makes me a fucking moron, than I suppose I am a fucking moron. But the next time you decide that the correct reply to someone telling you that they’re struggling is to tell them how great you are at what they are struggling with, take a look at your face in the mirror and then punch yourself. If I went around telling everyone I know who struggles with writing how great I am, that would make me an insensitive asshole.

Think about that for a minute.

The Merits of Knowing When to Quit

Our society sends a pervasive message of never-say-die. Quitting is widely considered a bad thing. From horrible jobs to toxic relationships to our workout regimen, the message is that quitters never win and winners never quit. Stick with it. Keep going. Push yourself and you’ll be successful. It’s all fine and good sometimes. It’s certainly not healthy to constantly be quitting things, or writing people off without really trying. But where is the line between perseverance and self-destruction??

I see my friends staying in bad relationships because if they leave they’re considered a quitter, abandoning someone they’re supposed to care about. Shoot, I’ve done it myself. Thankfully I put my proverbial bitch hat on and left before I married the guy I’d been actively allowing to destroy me from the inside out for three-and-a-half years. And why did I stay?? Because my friends told me that I write people off too easily, that I should give this guy a chance. And I thought they were right. So I stayed, and when I left I was so angry with myself for ignoring my needs for so long. That’s not healthy, either.

Who of us hasn’t had a soul-deadening job that was killing us?? Of course, people need a livelihood, and sometimes that’s enough to make us stay in bad situations for longer than we may want to. But eventually we leave. We quit. And we feel better for it.

The idea that giving up and moving on is bad is especially disturbing for me because now I see this with my daughter. She’s stuck with her sport through all manner of difficult times and obstacles that would have crushed the dreams of a lot of people, and I have endless respect for her for doing so. But now she’s applying that persistence to her pursuit of a school that her father and I can ill afford the tuition to, and the lesson being learned is a harsh one.

My daughter has always done well in school. From preschool through 8th grade she had the opportunity to attend an exclusive school for gifted kids in Seattle's independent school system. It was a tremendous gift since her dad and I don’t make the kind of money necessary to pay for tuition ourselves. Her 7th and 8th grade years she got a full ride: $20,000 a year plus a month-long study abroad in Turkey, paid for. This past year, like so many other 8th grade families in the independent school system, we did the whole high school application thing. It’s a lot like college, only with more expensive schools. I went to the meetings and open houses, drove to the study sessions, made phone calls, sent emails, filled out paperwork, and paperwork, and paperwork. But none of the kids who applied for financial aid got into the schools they’d applied at, and my daughter was one of them. She was waitlisted at three of the schools, and the one she got into outright she did not get financial aid for. They needed a $30,000 commitment in order for her to be able to attend.

She cried. A lot. And I don’t blame her. We heard all the rumors and the stories about the slacker kids who got into the good schools because their parents have big bank accounts. I hearken back to the fact that none of the kids in her 8th grade class who applied for financial aid got into the schools. I understand that times are tough, and the schools need to make money to stay open and in the kind of high-end service that’s expected of them, but ultimately the message these kids learned is that fancy schools are for rich kids. It doesn’t matter how hard you work; getting good grades and having terrific recommendations is all fine and dandy until your parents can’t waltz in with a $30,000 check and a $20,000 donation. It was a difficult lesson for a kid whose hard work has been duly rewarded her entire life. For it to not matter all of a sudden was a tough pill to swallow, and I felt terrible for her.

So she wound up in public school, which she still gripes and bitches about. Now we’re three weeks into her freshman year; her first year in a public school, where the teachers and administrators give a big song and dance about how they don’t want kids to fall through the cracks and then lose her registration paperwork the day before school started. On the first day of school, the bus skipped her stop and she had to be driven. And away she goes, sliding right through the cracks.

This is what all her hard work has led up to. This is what she gets for trying hard and doing a good job. Because her parents aren’t rich.

Now, the process of applying to schools is arduous. You fill out all the paperwork, get your references, transcripts, grades, recommendations in order and then pay an application fee for each school applied to. Last year it was $90 at each of the 4 schools. Then there’s test prep for the Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), which runs a cool $525, not including the diagnostic test or any of the $15 practice tests. Then the test costs $125 to take. Then the parents are charged $36 for one school’s financial aid application, and $40 for the remaining three. And then there’s the price of gas, driving to and from the schools on open house nights and for meetings with the admissions people. Expensive, and exhausting.

And now she wants to do it all again. After the tears and disappointment, she seems convinced that she didn’t get into any of these schools because she didn’t do a good enough job, and that kills me. Part of me really admires her persistence, but in this case I think it’s a desperate and destructive Hail Mary.

Maybe I’m wrong?? Maybe things will be different this time?? Maybe I’m too cynical?? Frankly, after watching her break down as many times as I did as she learned what the world is really all about, I don’t know how I could be anything other than pissed off. I don’t want to jump through all these flaming hoops again, and I sure as shit don’t want to stand back and watch my kid get her hopes smashed by some mean old rich people who only reward kids from moneyed families.

I can’t help but wish that the kid just knew when to throw in the towel and figure something else out. What would be so disgraceful about that??

Them That Can't, Cheer.

Okay, so before I launch into my diatribe about how silly and degrading cheer is, I feel I must clarify something off the top. Cheer in this geographic area is not what it is in other parts of the country, at least not for the most part. There are talented tumblers and stunters and whatnot, but it’s usually just what it is: girls who wear short skirts and yell for attention. I know enough about competitive cheer, which is pretty dang-ola athletic, and that’s not really what I’m talking about here.

In any case, I don’t understand cheer. I guess part of that comes from being a gymnast my whole life, where them that can do and them that can’t, cheer. Maybe part of my attitude is tied to that idea. But, really. I have a young daughter who is a talented athlete. She’s been so all her life. Now she’s talking about wanting to cheer. Dude, I sat through a performance of the cheerleaders at her new high school. They’re cute and fun and peppy and all, but they’re just a bunch of girls in short skirts with pom poms. They’re not dancers, tumblers, acrobats, or gymnasts. Their moves are so rudimentary that I’ve seen recreational cheer classes for nine-year-olds that have more proverbial meat and potatoes to them. So, what’s the deal with this?? Why are we still encouraging girls to do this?? I was unfortunate enough to be sitting in the front row of the gymnasium, so I got an eyeful of each girl’s “spankies.”

And, really, folks. Let’s just call these what they is: panties. Underwear. Teenage girls flashing their underwear in a socially sanctioned environment. Usually we wear our underwear underneath our clothes, and when we don’t someone calls us trashy. Not cheerleaders. It’s not only encouraged but required for their underwear to be out. Where else in polite society can we say this??

There is this pervasive idea that I’m some kind of pedo for noticing when there’s a crotch in my face, but the fact of the matter is that so has everyone else: they just don’t say it out loud because they’re afraid someone will call them a pedo. But it’s a crotch. In. My. Face. A child crotch. And underage crotch. A crotch I did not invite into my field of vision, but there it is. It’s weird and fucked up, but people love it!! They act like it’s nothing. Go, team. Rah-rah-whatrever. Every dude in the place has his eyes glued to an underage girl’s cha-cha-cha whether we wish to talk about it or not. These sensible suburban moms don’t appear to want to discuss it. That’s for damn sure. They’ll tell you you’re disgusting if you say that their daughter’s pussy is out. But there it is. Like Matthew Perry in Three to Tango, “butt, crotch, butt, crotch, butt, crotch.” Apparently the audience is supposed to be so wowed by the girls’ mad skills that we’re not supposed to notice her parts on parade?? Or we’re supposed to notice but not say we notice?? I don’t know. These girls are perfectly capable of doing something substantial with their lives, and yet they’re encouraged to go out into public and bend at the waist to show support for their school. Boys play football, and football is important. Girls stand back and tell the boys how great they are by kicking high and placing their naughty bits on display.

What’s so meritorious about that?? What skill other than the most primitive hip flexibility and a fake smile does that take?? And why does society still support this garbage??

Gymnastics Shelters You

I was just reading an article by Helena Andrews in The Root where she talks about how Gabrielle Douglas has retained so much of her innocence at a time when many young black women do not. I don’t feel like I have any license to comment on the lives of black people in America, but what I can do is shed light on the subject of innocence and being young from a gymnast’s perspective.

Gymnastics shelters you. That discipline that you have that makes you show up to the gym every day can keep you out of the kinds of trouble a lot of young people get into sometimes. When I was a kid, a guy I was friends with shot out a neighbor’s car window, and all my friends who were there were placed on probation. I wasn’t there; I was at the gym. That sort of thing started happening more and more as I got to be closer to the age that Gabby is now. My friends had abortions, smoked a lot of pot, started doing meth and skipping school. I was at the gym. You usually can’t get into trouble when you’re not around when the shit goes down. I loved my friends, but I loved being in the gym, so every day I went because I wanted to be there and had an intrinsic passion for what I did there. And I had friends there, too. Not that we never did anything wrong or got in trouble at the gym, but it was different there; if we effed off too much we would not be welcome back, and being on the team was important. I don’t think that many people know what it’s like to discover that kind of dedication, delight, and enthusiasm for something at such a young age, but it happens, and from that fervor comes the kind of discipline that belies a young person’s age. But being in the gym, toiling away like that can stave off the outside world, at least for a little while.

Some people say that young gymnasts are robbed of their adolescence by working as hard as they do. I never did make it to the Olympics, but as someone who found something I was very passionate about very young I feel like I understand why that kind of thing doesn’t matter. Perhaps some of us do stay innocent a little bit longer because of it?? In some ways we are, or were, very driven and mature, but still children, and still playing at something that is, at its base, extremely fun.

The Art of Sport (and Loving your Body)

I’ve been reading a lot lately about women athletes being objectified as sex objects, and I’d like to take a moment to address the subject. While I certainly don’t think that objectifying anyone is a good thing to do, I’d be lying if I said I never had a screensaver of a gorgeous athlete whose bones I’d totally jump. Tell me Apolo Anton Ohno is not pretty to look at. But we can pretty much all agree that he is what and who he is because his sport is so much of his identity: he’s in great shape, so we like to look at him, and he’s successful because he’s in great shape and is massively talented. That being said, I don’t know if you noticed but he’s HOTT. Danell Leyva, Usain Bolt, shoot, even Tim Tebow’s not hard on the eyes, and I don’t like him. But what about the ladies?? Yeah, we have an entire culture of douchebags who only see women, athletes or otherwise, in terms of what we can do for their cocks. I, however, would like to offer an alternate way of thinking about young female athletes baring all.

The incomparable comedian Elayne Boosler said that the new rules of society shall be “you can’t get famous by being naked or sleeping with a celebrity: you have to make a contribution to society first.” Frankly, I think these women have. They are brave and hard-working and talented, and if they want to show us the side effects of all that training time, i.e. their amazing bodies, then more power to them. They’ve worked hard and they look great, and they should enjoy every moment of living in their hard-won human forms. It sure as shit beats beauty pageant culture.

It was only just outside my mom’s generation that women were not encouraged to be athletes at all, let alone thought of as attractive for being athletic. Of course, naked culture was much more under wraps than it is now, but really. The athletic female form is still kind of new in the grand scheme of mainstream attractiveness.

Just like their male counterparts, these women work tremendously hard and are passionate about what they do, and in my opinion that is something that makes them beautiful inside and out. Sometimes boys see better than they think, so they see only hotness where there is so much more, but fuck ‘em!! They’re not smart enough to understand that for Alicia Sacramone, Gretchen Bleiler, Lolo Jones, and on and on, hot and sexy is just the beginning. These women are badasses, and if they want to celebrate their stunning, enviable bodies by getting naked in front of the camera, then I say you go, girls. So many women don’t like their bodies, but yours are a monument to what hard work will get you.

You are living!!

Anyway, it’s just a thought, and I know that there is more to the argument than just this one idea, but I wanted to put this thought out there. I feel like we should all feel comfortable as we are, with or without clothing, or in the clothing our sports gave us to work with. (A shout-out to some of the ill-fitting leotards I’ve had to wear in public in order to compete in gymnastics!!)

"The Horrible Tyranny of Cheerfulness"

Today I read a quote today by an author and activist that I have a great deal of respect for. If I’m not mistaken, in context it has to do with something that may be a bit off the topic I’m about to align it with; but not entirely. Barbara Ehrenreich speaks openly about her experience with breast cancer, and the “tyranny of cheerfulness” (Google it). The idea that happy thoughts and reframing will make a situation less difficult, even manageable. A spoonful of sugar, and all that.

I’ve touched on this before, and I’m sure I will again.

The idea of a “tyranny of cheerfulness” is something I’ve put a lot of thought into myself. During an especially difficult bout in my life I was told by a counselor that I was being too negative, too sad. Long story short, I’d lost my job, my driver’s license, and my long-term relationship was over. Given that information, is it somehow unnatural for a person to be especially and overwhelmingly sad in such a situation?? Just recently I’ve been told that I should “try really, really hard” to pass a class that I failed more than once (but less than ten times), as though my problem is not a lack of understanding or a struggle with the material, but a lack of trying. A very good friend of mine received some scary, life-changing news about her health right around the time her beloved grandmother died, and friends told her to “put on a happy face,” and to love life and such things. I understand that some people like and need inspirational quotes and platitudes to get them through hard times, but I also understand that some people have to feel sad and pissed off in order to grieve their loss before they can find that ever-so-popular silver lining.

I have friends I don’t know very well tell me they’re divorcing before they tell the people closest to them. I don’t always know what to say. In fact, I rarely know what to say to someone I don’t know well. But there’s a part of me that feels honored that someone can come to me with their feelings of negativity, because they know I won’t try to invalidate them. People feel these ways for a reason, and not everyone who gets pissed off, who gets upset, who feels inadequate, or feels deep sadness is a constant Debbie Downer or Negative Nancy, and it’s total bullshit for people to make them feel like they are. It seems pretty well established that holding in negative feelings can lead to much deeper depression. So what is the big deal with letting people just feel shitty sometimes??

And that’s what it is about these inspirational quotes that pisses me right off. If you have the unmitigated gall to preface your sentence to a person who is suffering with “if you think about it,” you are only presuming that they have not. And obviously you have. So you must know something they don’t. It’s rude. It’s like prefacing your sentence with “Uuuuumm, no offense but.” You’re coming across to a friend in mortal pain like an insensitive asshole.

It seems to me that people who are going through something will get to the other side with or without their friends. The ones who make it to the other side are, in my experience, rarely the ones who tell their wounded comrades to “create your own reality.”

A Comedy of Influence.

Rush Limbaugh has been in the news again as of late. I try to ignore it and hope it’ll go away, but it doesn’t. Rush said some pretty grotesque things on air a minute ago (surprise!!) that pissed a lot of people off (surprise, again!!), and he's been losing sponsors, largely via demand from people who don't enjoy hatespeech. From the right, some folks are pulling at #StopRush-style protest on Jon Stewart, and suggesting that Bill Maher was being inappropriate when he called what’s her face from Alaska a cunt. I’d just like to put this out there as food for thought: Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are comedians. Jon Stewart is an actor. While I enjoy their programs very much, they are political comedy programs. The key word being comedy.

Let us Google the definition of “comedy,” shall we??


com•e•dy/ˈkämədē/
Noun: Professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh.
A movie, play, or broadcast program intended to make an audience laugh.


I picked the first available listing, but most of us can probably agree that the above is a reasonable overview of what comedy means. Now that we have that established, that Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are the hosts of comedy shows, meant to entertain an audience and make people laugh.

Let us now Google Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and Rush Limbaugh to see what their job descriptions are. I’m using Wikipedia. Deal with it.

*a-hem*

Jon Stewart: “American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian.”

Bill Maher: “American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.”

Rush Limbaugh: “American radio talk show host, political commentator, an opinion leader of American conservatives particularly influential in matters affecting the Republican Party.”

Okay, so as defined by popular culture, Stewart and Maher are funny whereas Limbaugh is influential and an opinion leader. Am I really the only one who sees a difference between a stand-up comedian, even one that I think is hilarious, and someone who is supposed to be in a position of power, influencing people’s opinions?? I mean, come on. I quote George Carlin, Lewis Black and Margaret Cho a lot, but I rarely hear them being lauded as leaders of influence. Do you??

I don’t always agree with Bill Maher, but to the best of my knowledge he called that Plain woman a cunt in a stand-up comedy show. Rush Limbaugh went on his show, as an influential opinion leader and went off on Sandra Fluke. And there’s call from the right that liberals hate free speech because we didn’t like that and said so, loudly. We could get into the whole “hate speech is not free speech” debate, but then we’d be here all day. I suggest that before anyone else stands up and demands the boycott of Stewart and Maher, learn the difference between “influence” and satire.

But that’s just one woman’s opinion.

Boobfeeding as Controversy.

I’m going to come out on a subject that’s been around for a long time but seems to be making (yet another) resurgence in the news right now: breastfeeding. If you do it in public, you’re disgusting, and if you don’t do it at all, you’re irresponsible. Or at least that’s what I’m gathering. When I chose not to breastfeed my daughter, a lot of people criticized me, and they weren’t very nice about it. I stand here today to say that I made the right decision. I lost my pregnancy weight in 2 weeks (I shit you not) and went on to lose another 20 lbs in the following six months. It sounds like a pregnant woman’s dream, but it was another year before I found out why: I had PPD, and when some women get that depressed, they don’t eat. I wasn’t getting enough nutrition for myself, let alone another person. Imagine that. A young mother making a choice for her damn self that was good and things worked out okay. And if you do choose to breastfeed your child, which society seems to have joined some militant chapter of the La Leche League, you’d better do it in the privacy of your own home.

What.

The.

HELL??

A gal can’t win no matter what choice she makes.

So, ladies, I say FUCK ‘EM. I’m tired of hearing everyone else’s opinion on the subject. They’ve come for our vaginas AND our boobs. It’s time to either punch some throats or just say that: FUCK ‘EM.

Facebook Parenting: For the gun-wielding madman, his family, and their need to publicize their issues.

By now most of us have seen the viral video of maniacal uber-hick Tommy Jordan going country-style ham over his bratty daughter Hannah’s whiny Facebook post. What’s been interesting for me has been the reaction. Most of the parents I’ve read and listened to are cheering for this gun-toting hillbilly fiend, which I don’t thoroughly understand. Everyone with children gets pissed off about the way their kids act sometimes; it’s universal. And many of us have ideas about what we’d like to do to our children, but reason and accountability stop us when we come to the rational conclusion that spiteful, hot-headed, knee-jerk reactions don’t teach our children anything but that it’s okay to be spiteful, hot-headed, and to not think about how they act before they act.

Usually when yokels brandish firearms and squeeze off a few rounds when they get pissed off, the rest of civilized society kind of laugh them off as being uncivilized and silly. Why not now?? Why in this instance have we suddenly changed our tune?? Why is this angry outburst and unnecessary destruction of perfectly useful property for the humiliation of a petulant child being lauded as healthy and effective parenting??

There appear to be a lot of folks out there applauding this guy because the way they would like to handle their children when they act out is to beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of them, like these parents learned everything they know about parenting from reality television; you disrespect me, I beat the shit out of you, sans consequences. (I know these ideas are older than reality tv; just hang with me for a minute.) I honestly think that this is why people should be thinking long and hard before they have children, because once they’re here they’re going to fuck your world up and you’re not allowed to use violence. You, meaning the adult, are supposed to know better. I know that chaps your ass, Daddy Warhead, but if you can’t treat your children with respect then how do you expect them to know what it means?? Indulging your children by giving them stuff and then expecting them to be blindly grateful is a lovely idea, but it’s completely unrealistic. Teaching genuine gratitude is more than teaching a child to say please and thank you, and it’s a process that is rarely complete by the time a kid is fifteen. All kids want a new phone, a new iPod, an new gaming system, a new computer, a new whatever. My sister pointed out to me, when I was complaining about my own teenage daughter’s appetite for needlessly expensive shit, that kids and teens are materialistic: they all want stuff. They just do. The bottom line is that children haven’t finished their cognitive development by the age of fifteen. Unfortunately for young Hannah, the agent of her DNA has and he appears to be missing a few chromosomes. Children are still learning these things that dad Tommy is carrying on about. Some kids do get paid for helping around the house; it’s commonly called an allowance and it’s not an entirely unpopular idea just because he and his family choose not to employ it.

I say that because I’ve been told before to “behave like the grown-up” when it comes to my own kid, and in most cases the person saying that to me was right. Don’t get me wrong: being the grown up can f*ckin suck out loud. It’s rarely fun, but at some point a-grouch-for-a-grouch is not a reasonable way to approach the child. If the kid is being a mewling wretch and a parent’s reply is to be a mewling wretch back, what are we teaching them?? I know we’ve all done it. No one is perfect. I’m certainly not. But at some point it’s the job of the adult in the room to be in control of his-or-herself or he-or-she will never be in control of the situation.

There seems to be an entire culture of parents who think that they can tell their child once not to do something and that the child will never, ever do it again. It would be lovely if it actually worked that way, but in reality we all have to tell our kids over and over (and over and over and over and over) not to do things. It’s irritating as f*ck, I’ll give you that, but haven’t we all sounded like broken records until our nerves are shot and our heads hurt?? And haven’t we all had that moment when we throw up our hands, wondering what’s wrong with the child that they just don’t get it?? You can explain it six ways from Sunday and the child is still rude, or whatever. It’s embarrassing and frustrating, mostly because it reflects on us and what other people think about our parenting. And don’t try and give me that “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks” garbage, because if you didn’t care at all we wouldn’t be having these conversations with our kids in the first place. In any case, teenagers are the same way. They’re still technically children; they just look more like us. Unfortunately their brains are still not yet ripe for the proverbial picking and we have to keep reminding them to behave themselves.

I’d be curious how the issue between this father and his daughter came to this point, but it’s really none of my business. I feel like I’ve been cordially invited into a stranger’s family drama. When a video about someone else’s personal life goes viral it’s natural for the audience it creates to have their opinions, and we’ve all become audience members in someone else’s life when we see this vid. I feel like this is so none of my business, but I still find myself thinking about it. You know the phrase “when you have a problem face it, don’t Facebook it??” Well, when I have a problem sometimes I’ll use social networking as a tool to ask my friends their opinion, or to vent my frustration, as do many people and as did both of our protagonists, Tommy and Hannah. So far, none of my own personal issues have become viral videos for all and sundry. If they had, I’d be embarrassed, but that’s just me.

Obviously this is not an isolated incident that grew out of the ground, but the back story is largely a mystery to most of the viewers, other than the father telling everyone in the world that Hannah had been grounded for being immature a few months ago. I can’t speak much to what the daughter did because most of the information I have has been brought to me by her father, and that brings us to a he-said-she-said scenario from Hades. I’m not 100% sure why an angsty teen venting to friends is that big of a deal. I’m pretty dang-ola sure most of us did it in some form or another when we were kids, and I don’t think I’m going too far out on a ledge speculating that most of us got yelled at, put on restriction, kicked out of the house, had our privileges and belongings taken away (or even given away) more than once for it. If the solution to the equation was to pack hardware and bust a cap, more of our parents would have done that a long-ass time ago. Long story short, I get why the dad is pissed, but I think he is totally overreacting.

I can’t imagine the irreparable damage that’s been done to this father-daughter relationship. He thinks he’s teaching her respect, but respect is not the living in fear of your trigger-happy dad and the possibility that he’ll blast a hole in your shit whenever he hulks up. If this dad’s aim was to publicly humiliate his daughter, he’s succeeded admirably. She may not act out again, but not because she understands that it’s wrong: it’ll be because she’ll be wondering what her erratic, acrimonious father will do next time. I would not blame Hannah if she ceased trusting him altogether. He says he’d moved out by the time he was fifteen. If he continues to use mean-spirited shame tactics in a public arena as parenting tools, there’s a good chance his girl will take his advice and high-tail it on out of his jurisdiction nice and early, and by any means necessary.

Hannah, honey, I say this without malice as a parent to a teen your age and a woman who was once the brattiest of all the brats in the land: consider this your wake-up call. It’s okay to be annoyed with your parents; it happens to all of us. Believe me. But there are expectations for you and your behavior and you, my dear, must extract your pretty head from your behind and do something other than what you’re doing, because what you’re doing isn’t working. You can’t change how your parents react to you or what you do. You can only change how you act and what you do. If you want independence, get a baby-sitting job and start spending more time at the library doing homework, or whatever you have to do to make some changes in your life. It’s what it is now, plain and simple. Your family seems to think that you’re old enough to start making some of your own decisions. It’s inconvenient, but somewhere between your note on Facebook and your family’s reaction, this is where you are and what you have to work with. If you’re going to gripe online you have to be responsible for what you say. We all do. If you think you deserve better then get up off your butt and make it happen, because no one is going to hand you shit and update your computer for you forever. If you want something no one is entitled to take away from you, then you do have to get it your damn self. You can grow up and be a trophy wife, but then you’re still relying on someone else to get it for you. I hope this whole debacle teaches you some things, one of them being that you probably can’t trust people who discharge firearms into perfectly useful pieces of expensive technology out of anger. Get it together, babe, and “may the forces of evil become confused on the way to your home.”

I Seethe Sometimes.

I don’t know why I did it. Sometimes commenting on other people’s political status updates is a suicide mission, because there’s usually someone out there who is going to shut you down. As my step-dad (jack Mormon, misogynist, child abuser) used to say “I’m right, you’re wrong, that’s it.” There is no room for discourse: “Truth hurts,” as one gentleman said online this evening, in reply to a FB friend’s post I was commenting on. By truth he meant his opinion, but talking to anyone about the difference between fact and opinion is all but useless. Anyway, this comment was in response to my saying that I could not in good conscience vote for Ron Paul, or any candidate who is anti-choice. One fellow brought up the idea of “monolithic voting,” which is certainly valid, but if an issue is important one should certainly not vote against one’s own interest, and as a woman reproductive freedom pertains to me on a number of levels.

This other man (the truth hurts guy) says, and I quote, “the country > your uterus.” He goes on to say that if I choose to have sex, not if a woman chooses to have sex, but “you” then “you” are responsible for “your” choices. Certainly, sir, but your candidate, Dr. Paul, is actively in favor of taking those choices away.

Incidentally I, meaning me, do not have sex anymore. (Stay tuned) I appreciate the possibility of the assumption that I must be pro-choice because I hate babies and men and all child-bearing women and I’m obviously a huge slut that doesn’t want to be responsible for myself. I admit, he didn’t say it, but it’s been suggested before, so I’m going with it. Join me, won’t you??

Choosing not to have sex for the time being is in part a health issue, at this point, as I have HPV. I’m well aware that something like 80% of sexually active adults have it, but 80% of sexually active adults are not currently paying for the cancer screenings I do not, nor have I ever, had any sort of coverage for. No government funding, no sliding scale, no friends or family helping me out. The cost for my next biopsy will come directly from my pocket, as did my last, and will likely land me into collections when I can’t make the minimum payment every month. As did my last. So, yes. I am actively responsible for my reproductive health, to the best of my ability, and to the best of my ability that means not having sex until I get this latest cervical cancer scare under control.

Because that is what I’m dealing with right now.

Ain’t no one payin’ my damn medical bills. Not the guy from whom I contracted HPV who accused me of cheating on him, which I did not do. At no point did either of us have visible warts, or it might have been an indication to stop and investigate. I can’t speak for his ass, because I left him a long time ago, but I still don’t. So when people say “warts” like they’re these big and green and oozing, nasty things, they’re not. Incidentally, this guy told me he tested negative for HPV. If he’d actually seen a doctor then he’d know that there is no HPV test for men, but I think he was more interested in accusing me of being slutty than acknowledging that he and I may have a problem. But that was enough for him to convince himself that I was cheating on him, which is what’s important sometimes.

I had sex as a teen, and I got pregnant. I don’t have to tell you how that turned out: she’s fourteen. My parents’ insurance dropped me the moment the stick turned pink. I went to clinics and found out I could have an abortion for free or cheap, but if I were to continue my pregnancy (which is another hot-button political issue, still) I would have no reasonable, healthy choice than to go on state-funded medical for the duration. So I did, and when the duration ended, so did my health care. I was eighteen. I’ve gone without ever since, mostly because I’ve been a reasonably healthy person with a small income and a child to raise. 10% of my income is not a reasonable cost for out-of-pocket health care benefits, and with some of my crappy jobs it’s been more than that if benefits were offered at all. I’ve dealt with being a teen mom and I think I’ve done a good job, for the most part. I did what the political right wanted me to do, which is not have an abortion. Then what?? I was thrown to the wolves, as far as health care is concerned. Other than not having an adequate income to cover my health issues, what have I done that is irresponsible?? Not get married?? Let’s not open that can of worms, shall we?? Another topic for another time; let’s just say I’d be divorced by now. Further shame!! By not getting a better job?? I know people who haven’t been out there honestly believe that jobs are plentiful and abounding, but they’re not. “Just take any job you can get.” I’ve tended bar, sold lingerie, waited tables in a strip joint, done laundry, cleaned houses. Are these the “any job” to which you were referring, because they took me away from my young child, placed me in the hole for childcare expenses that I accrued during my working hours, did not pay my bills, and did not offer benefits. So how does ‘taking any job’ benefit me, or anyone other than the predatory guy who grabs my thigh and tries to lick me while I bring him drinks at the titty bar??

I know, I know. You’re a young, white guy and Ron Paul looks fabulous from where you’re sitting. Reproductive health issues are a “women’s issue,” and thereby not something you feel invested in. Dr. Paul will “force” providers to lower their costs. No indication of how, considering as of right now even low-income clinics can’t slide their scales low enough to fund treatment and stay in business. It’s a lovely proposal, but I think it’s one that most people want to believe they don’t or won’t have to think about. I do, and I have, and I believe the solution is far more complicated than the ‘haves’ are even remotely aware of. Shoot, it’s more complex that I’m aware of am I ‘have-not.’

People concentrate on issues that affect them; that’s a no-brainer (as they say). Reproductive health and health care benefits (in any form) affect me whether others feel like my individual uterus, or whether or not I have cancer and can afford treatment, is important or not. I don’t expect to change anybody’s mind, but we all should be voting for our interests, not those of politicians or corporations or ideologies, and my interests are not necessarily those of privileged, white 20-year-old males who are more concerned with legalizing marijuana than the health of women and families.

And I say that without too much malice, because I’m in favor of legalizing it, too. But it’s another story for another time, again.

But when some random dude says I need to be responsible for myself when I have sex?? Thank you for your judgment, but to the best of my ability I already am.