Archive for February, 2010
It’s Friday, we should breakup – Fear*
Feb 26th
After yesterday’s post, I know we could all use a little less political BS in our blog. I wanted to say thank you to those of you who had kind words of support for me about my experiences. I wanted to thank those of you who put yourself out there to state your opinions about the matter, whether you agreed with my take on it or not. I think it’s important to be able to have a dialogue about this.
And to the people who sent me lovely emails about being a “baby killer,” well, I’m glad that you got that off your chest. Since many of you claimed to be Christians, I’d suggest you go read that New Testament again. Think about how you’ll be judged by your God when you get to those pearly gates you’re all so excited about. I’m not going to post the contents of your emails. I deleted them. I don’t need such filth in my inbox. But you know. And I know. And since you believe in God, you believe that he knows.
Last night, I had dinner with my mom. We try to do this sort of thing at least twice a month. Our schedules are both really hectic, though, so sometimes life gets in the way. My mother has decided to respect my request that she not read my blog. Truthfully, she doesn’t really have time anyway, as she works about 18 hours everyday. Nonetheless, she said she wouldn’t read it.
She does ask me about it. She asks about the things I’m writing and such. Last night, I don’t know if she brought it up or I did, but we started talking about that law in Utah. My mom usually gets upset with me for being cynical, but if I learned to be cynical anywhere, it was from her. She wasn’t even SURPRISED by this law (she hadn’t heard about it yet), she just shook her head and said that she was sad that it had to be this way.
I tried to get her to discuss it with me, but it’s not a topic she feels comfortable discussing. Especially in public. She asked me what the response was like to what I had written. I said that it had been mostly support and outrage, but that I had gotten a few pretty nasty emails.
“What exactly did you write that would cause people to send you nasty emails?”
So I told her. I told her that I talked about the new law and it’s possible implications, using articles that other people had written and my own thoughts and opinions. And then I told her that I had related it to myself. That I had explained that the reason I felt so passionately about this topic was because of my own experiences with abortion.
Her next words came out in capital letters.
“YOU TOLD THE WHOLE WORLD YOU HAD AN ABORTION?”
In the middle of the restaurant.
“No, Mom. I didn’t tell the whole world, for cryin’ out loud. The whole world doesn’t read my blog.”
You’re probably thinking right about now that my mom either didn’t know I had an abortion, or that she didn’t agree with me having it. But you’d be wrong. She drove me to the clinic herself. Although, that’s another story entirely.
I explained to her that I didn’t think I should be ashamed to have had an abortion. I told her that I felt like if more women would just TALK about it, there wouldn’t be such a stigma. There wouldn’t be such fear. Women would realize that they DO have a choice. I said that I wasn’t scared to share something like that on my blog because I know that I might change someone’s mind about the “type of woman” who chooses to have an abortion. Or make someone else feel more normal about the choice they already made.
I’m tired of this fear we all have to talk about these things. Sexual assault. Abortion. Funny hairs that grow on your chin. Whatever. We have to stop being afraid and realize that we’re all going through the same things. And none of it makes us abnormal or bad people. We’re all women and we need to be in this together.
I wish that tomorrow could be National “Stop Judging Other Women So Harshly” Day or something. Tomorrow, you don’t make fun of the woman shopping at WalMart, because you realize that if you lost your job, you’d be there too. You don’t make fun of the random woman out there who has a hair growing in her chin or her nipple, because that just might be you in a few years. Let’s not make fun of the fat women, if you’re not fat, you have NO IDEA what they’re going through.
I’m pretty sure we can still make fun of the women wearing leggings as pants. Let’s face it, they’re doing that to themselves.
Let’s make tomorrow a day of support for our fellow woman. Or you know, you can just go get drunk and have a good time. But I’m going to spend tomorrow trying to think about women in a different way (no, not THAT way, you pervs). I’m going to spend time trying to put myself in their shoes.
If I leave the apartment, that is.
My mom’s response to my impassioned speech about fear? “Yes, yes, and you’re right. But does it have to be YOU who shares everything?”
Oh, Moms, you don’t know me at all.
From now on, I will NOT be afraid to tell people about my experiences. I will wear them proudly. Fear, you have no place in my life. GET OUT!
*Um, yeah, but I’m keeping my fears of “go fast” and “eating in the dark.” WHAT? I’m not perfect, yo. I have completely irrational fears and I LOVE them.
There’s no way I can NOT talk about this.
Feb 25th
You guys. Today I totally had a light-hearted post about leggings as pants planned, but then last night, I heard some news. From Utah. And now we’re going to get serious.
Or, well, I’m just going to tell you about this and probably get all stabby and teary-eyed and you’ll sit at your computer screens in awe of how pretty I can be while crying and then we’ll all go have coffee and talk about the douchebag Republicans that run the state of Utah. Deal?
On February 18, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported that the Utah Senate had joined the Utah House of Representatives in support of a law that would allow for criminal charges to be brought against an expectant mother who arranges for an illegal abortion.
Now, federally, abortion is legal, but I assume here that each state gets to define the term “abortion,” and decide for itself what the legal issues that surround said abortion are. In Utah, an abortion is legal:
Before 20 weeks, abortion is necessary to save mother’s life or health, if woman was raped or incest committed, or child has grave defects; after 20 weeks, necessary to preserve health, life of mother or if child would be born with grave defects
Any other kind of abortion is illegal. This law, passed now by the Utah Senate and House of Representatives, will extend criminal charges to women who have miscarriages.
It doesn’t address legal abortion, but allows punishment up to life in prison for an “intentional, knowing, or reckless act” that leads to a miscarriage or abortion without a doctor’s supervision.
They’re doing this, supposedly, because a woman in October was being held and facing criminal charges because she paid a man $150 to beat her, in an effort to try to abort her baby. Clearly, that is not on the “legal abortion” list. At that time, she was released, because there was no law criminalizing her actions. Her pregnancy did not terminate.
But she had to take such extreme measures because of the restrictive nature of what constitutes a legal abortion in the state of Utah.
If the governor signs this new law, it is feared that women could and will be prosecuted for any negligent behavior that causes a miscarriage. A glass of wine, improper diet, failure to wear a seat belt in an auto accident, or slipping and falling down the stairs. And if you’ll notice, it says up there that a woman can be charged with UP TO LIFE IN PRISON for such a careless mistake.
Even more to the point, how is Utah possibly going to police this law? Jezebel.com writer Anna N. listed a quote from Dan Savage with a possible solution. A pregnancy registry. I won’t even go into the logistics of trying to force all women who become pregnant to go sign in to a registry, so that the government has an easier time prosecute them later for possible negligent behavior.
Rachel Larris, of Reality Check, writes:
Using the legal standard of “reckless behavior” all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn’t intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.
I’m just amazed that ANYONE, but particularly any woman, can find this new law palatable. Some people believe that birth control pills already overstep the bounds into MURDER because they prevent (if ovulation manages to happen) the egg from implanting into the uterine wall. But what has most people so concerned about this law is that it is aimed specifically at pregnant women. Most other laws about such matter to date, have been aimed at a third-party. This makes women the criminals.
This is an issue that is very close to my heart. As a woman who has had a miscarriage and who has had an abortion, I can tell you this: Neither is easy. I don’t want children anyway, but accidents happen. Life happens. I had an abortion because I chose me over a ball of cells in my uterus. My miscarriage was caused by several things. Not realizing I was pregnant and therefore continuing to take my birth control pills for a month or longer. Not eating, because I had just gone through the most painful heartbreak of my life. And contracting the flu, because things weren’t bad enough already. If the governor signs this law in Utah, it would be possible to prosecute me for those actions. I was negligent and reckless with an unborn fetus. And in Utah, a mass of cells in a woman’s uterus is more important than the woman carrying it.
Is that really okay with you?
Please and thank you?
Feb 23rd
Last night, I had sushi with @newslacker (it had been FAR too long), and we started talking about manners and chivalry and the like. You see, he’s been seeing this girl and she’s “like me.” I’m going to take that to mean smart, independent, and more than her fair share of awesome. Obviously. But he’s concerned because he’s much more traditional about gender roles, and he’s used to dating women who are pretty traditional, as well. This girl isn’t. Like me.
On the way to meet him for dinner, I was listening to the radio, where I heard our dear Artie Spanier (we all remember him, right?) talking about a teacher who has decided to teach his class “etiquette.” Acccording to Artie, parents have been calling the school complaining about this, and Artie himself is horrified that we even have to TEACH etiquette in school. Because he’s a pillar of polite society.
(As a side note, Artie told a touching story of how an older lady dropped her groceries in the parking lot and he saw it and some boys stepped over her cantaloupe and didn’t pick it up and he SOOO wanted to yell at them for not helping that lady out, but he didn’t. He also didn’t help the lady out himself. Way to go, Artie. Stay classy.)
Now, I’ll grant him that the REASON the parents (so says Artie) are calling in to complain is a little astounding. It seems the parents of the BOYS, not the parents of the girls, are calling the school because they’re concerned that this teacher is turning their boys into “sissies.” Seriously? What if he’s turning them into “not assholes”? However, the article I read on the subject said no such thing.
The teacher in question is a man. He is teaching the little boys in his class to stand up when a girl enters the room, to pull out chairs for their little girl counterparts, to open doors for the girls, and to always let the girls go through the door first.
While, fundamentally, I don’t see any problem with teaching children actual etiquette, or manners for that matter, I do have a problem with teaching little boys that little girls are to be treated differently. Why do little girls need to have their chairs pulled out if little boys don’t? Why can’t whoever gets to the door first open the damn thing and hold it open for the person (male or female) behind him or her?
I am a woman. And I ALWAYS appreciate manners. What I don’t appreciate is being treated differently. Polite can be equal. And men who think that just because they want to be chivalrous, I should appreciate it are being chivalrous for the wrong reasons. I will sigh and roll my eyes at you if we have to dance around the door opening for 10 minutes because I got there first and I opened it, but you refuse to go through it first. And frankly, I think you’re being kind of rude.
I don’t think chivalry is dead. I do think it’s antiquated, and much like all codes that were established a long time ago, it can be changed to fit the times. What if instead of only men being chivalrous to women, we all just started being chivalrous to each other, regardless of gender? Would that really be so bad?
In reality, men and women are generally both gainfully employed these days. Men shouldn’t pay for everything. If on a date, whomever did the asking should probably do the paying. Women should ALWAYS be prepared to pay for at least their own meal and drinks. If walking through a doorway, whomever gets to the door first should open it. Whether or not you choose to walk through it first and hold it open for the other person to grab it, or you back up and let the other person go first should be up to you.
I guess the point here is that things don’t have to be skewed along gender lines for people to be polite.
Women, be appreciative when a man does something polite (and when a woman does something polite. Seriously, I was not put on this earth to be your door opener). Feel free to be polite to men and women alike.
Men, realize that you were not put here to take care of women, we’re pretty darn good at that ourselves nowadays. Have manners, but stop pushing your version of chivalry on women who aren’t interested in it. If she wants to pay, let her. If she opens the door, say thank you. Stop acting like a child who hasn’t gotten his way when she wants to do things you deem to be “a man’s job.”
Let’s all try to remember that we’re all PEOPLE. We can all treat each other respectfully. We can all have manners. And we can all be treated equally.
Drop the door in my face again, and I’ll kill you in your sleep. That is all.
The three-date rule, “I love you,” and the loss of something beautiful.
Feb 22nd
I used to work in new home sales. This means I was around a lot of men who build houses for a living. Men who build houses for a living, in my experience, are typically kind of…um, pervy. I was 19 when I started and, as I’m sure you can imagine, they really liked to fuck with me. Especially because at 19, I had led a pretty sheltered life. Calling myself naive would be the understatement of the decade.
Anyway, sometime during my six-year tenure with the pervy builders, I was introduced to what they called “the third date rule.” Since then, I’ve heard many people refer to the third date as the “sex date,” but this rule was a bit more involved. According to them, a woman must be prepared to make the sex with a man by either the third date or the point at which he has spent $150 on taking her out. Whichever comes first.
Now, of course she doesn’t KNOW anything about this. Oh, and my personal favorite man-thing? If she gives it up on the first date, she’s a slut. You shouldn’t waste your time. Never once did it cross their minds that THEY also gave it up on the first date. I mean, unless they just filmed her making the sex with someone ELSE on the first date. But not a one considered himself “slutty.” So a woman must be willing to give it all up by the third date (or the $150 mark) and no later, but also no sooner than the second date. I’m not sure what happens if you spend all $150 on the first date, as that has NEVER happened to me.
In fact, until Princess, I would say that no one had ever really spent a significant amount of money on me.
Well, I have my own “three dates rule.” In my opinion, three dates is the time you absolutely have to figure out if this person you’re going out with has what it takes to be in your life. If you decide that he doesn’t on or before the third date, I don’t think you owe him much of an explanation. Just a simple, “I’m not really interested” should suffice. And on or before the third date, your reason can be ANYTHING. He tucked his t-shirt into his underwear, he wore socks and sandals, he listens to Nickelback, whatever.
But you don’t owe him an explanation. Because the first three dates are just the interview process. And if I can’t figure it out in three dates, that’s usually my answer. Everyone is different though.
However, past three dates, I think you owe the other person an actual, truthful (but not mean) reason why you don’t want to be with him (or her). I don’t think you should be allowed to puss out any more, because you’ve put in a significant amount of time with another person. And that person DESERVES to know what happened. What changed. Even if it’s, “I met someone else and I think he’s better suited to me.” Or, “I just discovered that you listen to Nickelback.”
Breaking up with someone because they listen to Nickelback is ALWAYS okay. In case you hadn’t picked up on that.
I’m so tired of people pussing out. Of being too cowardly to be honest. Imagine all the over-thinking, over-analyzing, and misery you can save someone if you just take a few minutes to be honest. Of course, this also means you have to be honest with yourself. There’s no way to tell someone else the truth if you’re lying to yourself.
On a related note, this “I love you” thing has gotten way out of hand. Men (and I’m sure women) use it to get what they want without meaning it at all. And women (I don’t really know about men here) love the sound of those words so much. Want them to mean something. And when they don’t, it hurts.
Men, please stop throwing out the L-word when what you really mean is “You’re okay and I like hanging out with you for now.” Those are NOT the same thing. And if a woman hasn’t said it to you, please don’t say it to her if you don’t mean it. There’s no reason for that. If you want sex and she’s not giving it to you, find someone else. DON’T LIE about loving. It’s ridiculous.
Unfortunately for all of us, love is a completely subjective word. It means something different to everyone. Personally, I’m not even sure I know WHAT it means any more, with regard to a romantic relationship. Or if I’m going to feel comfortable hearing it in the near future.
But I can tell you one thing. I was completely and totally in LOVE with stealing internets from my neighbors. Yesterday, after at least eight months, my neighbors (assholes) secured their Wi-Fi. THEY PASSWORD PROTECTED IT AND LOCKED ME OUT. I thought we were friends! I thought they loved me as much as I loved them. But no. They just left me out in the cold. No explanation, no nothing. After EIGHT MONTHS of being together.
I almost cried. Now I’m going to have to…PAY for internets? That just seems wrong.
It’s Friday, we should breakup – Tiger Woods and all the people who think he owes them an apology.
Feb 19th
You guys, I’m just going to apologize in advance. I know no one wants to hear anything more about Tiger Woods and I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about him, but I am on OVERLOAD.
Mostly, I couldn’t care less that Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. If I ever liked anything about Tiger Woods, it was that he’s cute and really good at golf. He’s still cute. I would assume he’s still really good at golf. What he does with his dick has NOTHING to do with his golfing abilities. He’s not famous for being a good husband. He’s famous for being a good GOLFER.
Now, did he capitalize on a clean image? An image of one who is a good husband? Sure. I guess. Honestly, I never noticed. I didn’t even know he was married or had kids for the longest time.
What I do know is that Tiger Woods changed the face of golf. No more was it just for stuffy old white men (sorry, Granddaddy). I’m sure there were a few cute ones before Tiger, but he really made everyone stand up and take notice. Of golf. One of the most boring sports to watch in the history of all sports. Sorry dudes, but I think we can all admit this is true. And I’m a baseball fan.
I recognize that Tiger Woods is a celebrity. But he’s still a HUMAN BEING. Why are we holding him to a higher standard of living than everyone else? I wouldn’t give two shits if my neighbor cheated on his wife, why on earth should I care if Tiger Woods does?
And please, don’t try to tell me that he was a role model for your kids and now LOOK WHAT HE’S DONE! Guess what — YOU should be teaching your kids what’s right and what’s wrong. YOU should be their role model. YOU should be the one they look up to, so that when someone like Tiger Woods cheats on his wife or someone like Michael Phelps smokes a little pot, I don’t have to hear about how bad this is FOR THE CHILDREN. YOU are the parent. Not the celebrity athletes of the world.
There are certainly enough broken marriages and men and women cheating on each other in regular everyday life that a celebrity doing it shouldn’t even phase us. Why not take some responsibility for your own actions and not worry so much about what Tiger Woods does with his free time.
The truth is, if we didn’t put these celebrities and athletes on such a pedestal, this wouldn’t be such an issue. And seriously, if we’re going to let Michael Vick, who did something ILLEGAL (not just morally distasteful) and Dante Stallworth, who actually KILLED someone, back in the National Football League and we can ALL get over that, why are we so concerned that Tiger Woods slept with two dozen unattractive women?
In my personal opinion, he doesn’t owe an apology to anyone but his WIFE. And for the rest of the country to try and act like he’s done something to THEM is ridiculous. Tiger Woods hurt your feelings? Did he CHEAT ON YOU? No. Get OVER IT. He didn’t do ANYTHING to you. If you now don’t want to buy products that are endorsed by Tiger, please…DON’T. That’s the statement you get to make. But don’t whine all over the place acting like something personal has happened to you. Tiger Woods can still play golf and that’s all you ever asked him to do for you. He hasn’t let you down yet.
Having said that, Tiger Woods, I’m tired of hearing about you. Please go away. Stop being a douche to your wife. If you want to sleep with dozens of women, don’t be married. End of story.
