speed bunny

Biphobia

rapidrabbit — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 03:44:46 GMT

I'm noticing a lot more biphobia in the world than I'd previously allowed myself to really acknowledge. It shows up in a number of different ways, many of them very specific to bisexuality and not homosexuality. Every queer faces problems from heterocentric rules/mindsets/etc., but bisexuals have our own set of stereotypes, our own trials to overcome outside of the homosexual community. These aren't any greater than anyone else's (trying to decide which marginalized group has it tougher is a silly endeavor), but they are distinct.

I ran into one of these recently when throwing together a Match.com profile to check out some guys a friend of mine was thinking about contacting. The profile requires you to select your sex ("male" or "female"--transphobia right there, but I'm gonna keep this post to what's specifically impacting my life directly right now) and which sex you are interested in meeting. No check boxes--you are forced to select either "male" or "female." Because it's perfectly fine to marginalize those of us who don't think a person's genitalia should be the determining factor in whether or not they're worth our romantic attention.

This is a major fucking issue for me right now--the marginalization of my orientation. Why? Because I've been struggling with feeling as if my sexuality is being ignored, and I'm realizing that my problem isn't simply about going from one hetero-monogamous relationship into another (as I have, in divorcing a male and now dating another one). It's about how it wouldn't really matter what sex my partner was, because erroneous assumptions would be made about me either way. When most (non-bi, especially) people see a couple together, whether the pairing is male-female, female-female, or male-male, they assume that those partners choose only to date the sex with whom they're currently attached. Simply, people will look at someone like me, a woman out with a male partner, and assume I'm straight. And I don't particularly like the idea of having to tattoo the bi pride flag on my forehead to get people to understand that that is an unfair and very prejudiced assumption to make. Yeah, that shit's biphobic.

I think this stems from perhaps my favorite little piece of biphobia: The idea that bisexuality isn't a "real" orientation, and we're all just "confused" or simply haven't made up our minds yet if we're gay or straight. I was in a heterosexual relationship with my former spouse for 8 1/2 years. I'm now in a new heterosexual relationship, which was my first romantic engagement following separation from my spouse. This does not mean that I'm a straight person who just can't admit her heterosexuality to herself. Frankly, this relationship fell into my lap and was a complete surprise to me. (It developed rather suddenly out of an existing friendship.) I wasn't looking for a new romance, and my life probably would have been a lot easier if it hadn't sprung up. But I believe in pursuing happiness where you find it, and I want to see where this leads me. I'm not going to reject it because I've paid my dues to the het community and it's time to get my gay on. And it also doesn't mean that I've been converted to The Order of the Dick. It means that I'm staying true to what is most important about my sexual desires: That I follow them to be with people who stimulate me emotionally, regardless of their physical packaging.

Now, I also have a heterosexual partner for the first time. My former spouse was also bisexual, and in spite of the fact that we were het-partnered, there was a very real comfort that came with being with somebody who knew what it was like, who'd faced some of the same struggles and understood that in spite of my love and commitment to him, it didn't change who I was, it didn't change my sexuality. My current partner is very supportive of me, and is as understanding as he can be, but he's also not used to a bisexual partner. This is a learning experience for both of us. He's getting used to being able to commiserate with his partner over other attractive females, and I have to get used to not pointing out hot guys (something tells me he just won't appreciate it like my former did). He isn't sensitive to slights against the community like I am, just because he's the unwitting recipient of America's Straight White Male Privilege. (As an aside, I don't think he's particularly used to the outspoken activist type in general...he's also getting schooled in dating a hardcore feminist. Really, he deserves lots of credit for how well he's responding to all of this.)

Back to the subject at hand: My former also understood, being bisexual himself, that another bi-stereotype was untrue: That of the unfaithful, nymphomaniac bisexual. This is just so wildly prejudiced, I hardly know how to tackle it without simply raging. First, let me express that I do indeed love sex. It's an amazing, exciting, pleasurable, wonderful act. But my list of sexual partners is extremely short, and I'm very happy about that. I do not want to screw every person I meet, and I most certainly am not the cheating type. I enjoy monogamy, and I can absolutely find full sexual satisfaction with a single partner. I do not cheat, I do not swing, and I do not engage in threesomes. This is not a condemnation of those who choose to engage in polyamory (as a lifestyle, or simply as an occasional indulgence) or of those who chose to engage in (responsible) sex with a great number of partners, but rather to illustrate that it is absolutely not the default for all bisexuals. Most are seeking the same sort of relationship experience as any hetero- or homosexual person, they just don't want to place boundaries on the sex of a possible partner. We aren't whores, we don't spread disease anymore than any other sexuality, and we aren't any more likely to leave our partners for someone new.

There's one last bothersome stereotype that applies specifically to female bisexuals far more than males. Bi women have been fetishized by popular culture, turned into an exotic marvel, rather than fully-fledged human beings. Because of the aforementioned whore stereotype, people (largely het men) have been trained to see bi women as an exciting opportunity to invite extra partners into the bedroom. "So, since you like women, I assume you'll want to fuck one along with me." This assumption is insulting to say the least, repulsive to say the most. Making any assumptions about what an individual will do in the bedroom simply because of their orientation is ignorant and inappropriate. I've known gay men who won't engage in anal sex, straight women who won't give blow jobs, lesbians who won't go down on their partners. You can't assume what activities a person will enjoy simply because of their orientation. Straight people can manage successful triads, just as bisexuals might prefer strict monogamy. And the image of the "hot bi girl" is entirely based upon this idea that we're all willing to do anything, because we just don't know how to set up boundaries. No, we can set boundaries, and those boundaries might be as strict or a free as those of any other person, regardless of sexuality. And just like everyone else, bisexuals deserve to be treated primarily as individuals, and not demeaned, fetishized, or disregarded as a group.

For me, it's all about respect. And I feel like society at large needs to start dishing out a whole hell of a lot more for the bisexual community.

Ch-ch-ch-changes....

rapidrabbit — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:39 GMT

Life has changed a lot for me in recent months. I've been confronted with the biggest upheaval I've faced in my adult life, and I'm still coming to terms with how to handle it.

Divorce is a crazy thing. Now that I'm actually experiencing it, I don't understand how so many people have gone through it. It's an emotional, mental, legal, financial, and logistic nightmare. There is no upside to divorce itself, regardless of why you're going through it. Even if the outcome--being single--is positive in your circumstances, the method of getting there is always negative. Legal fees, contracts, custody arrangements...it's all horrific. I'm overwhelmed, exhausted, and more frustrated than I can possibly express.

But in spite of this, I'm remaining optimistic about the future. There's so much to be scared of, but I'm trying to focus on those things I have to be excited about. I'm discovering new interests, developing new relationships, and nourishing old ones. I'm trying to learn to focus more on myself than I ever did as a married woman--being single sort of forces this upon you. Suddenly I've got all this time for introspection, and sometimes I find myself surprised by what I discover. I'm doing things I never used to do, experiencing life in a new way, and sometimes even acting my age for a change. I'm enjoying aspects of my personality that I've never nurtured before, and I'm excited to see what else I will discover about myself.

I changed a lot during seven years of marriage. Some of those changes were good, and some of them I'm not so proud of. I walked away from things that were important to me, ignored aspects of myself that were convenient to forget. But it's never too late to correct such mistakes, and I'm determined to make myself better again. No matter how rough this situation may be, I have a bright future ahead of me, and a beautiful daughter to remind me of everything that's important in life. I want to be a better woman for myself, and a better mother for her. I feel a new determination in life, and it's granting me comfort when I need it most.

The holiday season

rapidrabbit — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:42:13 GMT

There are parts of the holiday season that are intrinsically linked not with the generic "holiday" term that encompasses all winter celebrations, but with Christmas, that one which holds so much spiritual baggage for some. Unfortunately, I'm one who greatly enjoys all those festive aspects of the holiday, but I become painfully uncomfortable when someone assumes I'm celebrating the birth of a savior I don't believe in.

I'm a pantheist, and so several years ago my husband (a very obliging atheist who gamely tolerates my spiritual leanings) and I started celebrating the Winter Solstice instead of Christmas. It's a holiday that actually has spiritual meaning for me, and still means cookies and presents to him, so we were content. There's the added bonus, of course, that the whole tree concept is inherently Pagan and thus I got to carry it along with me. The whole situation seemed to satisfy our needs, though explaining this to people was complicated. We never even bothered with my Catholic in-laws--they're the sort who bake a cake on Christmas and join hands to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. Some cans of worms just aren't worth opening.

Yet, lots of things can change when you have a child. And the more I started looking at the holiday season through my daughter's eyes, the more I started to wonder if I was making her miss out on certain aspects of the holiday season simply because of an implied relationship to Jesus.

The original Miracle on 34th Street was one of my favorite movies, and I practically wore out my videotape of A Walt Disney Christmas. Admitedly, I've never been a fan of most Christmas music, but I've always passionately loved <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Peace-Elvis-Presley/dp/B0000CBIN5/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1261022687&sr=1-6>Elvis Presley's renditions</a>. There's a lot about the season that's very Christmas-specific, and I worried that I might be limiting my daughter's enjoyment simply because I've never believed in the religious aspect of the holiday. I was okay with celebrating Solstice alone, because my celebration had most of what I still loved about Christmas: The family togetherness, the food, the decorations. But Solstice for me is more about the spiritual importance of the changing seasons, and a little part of me hated lumping that together with the commercial aspects of my youthful Christmas celebration that I still dearly love, but in a different way. I will always be a gift-giver, and I don't care who says that's the superficial aspect of the holidays. When I was a child, I'd spent countless hours making gifts for my entire family, and giving those gifts was so incredibly important to me. So this year, we're trying a new tactic: We're going to celebrate the Winter Solstice with a small family celebration, and save the superficial fun for Christmas. I know a lot of non-Christians who still enjoy Christmas, and I don't really see why I can't be one of them. It also allows my daughter to get caught up in all of the seasonal fun, while keeping a seperate, dillineated spiritual holiday that I can teach her more about each year. So Happy Solstice to those celebrating it today. Enjoy the return of the sun.

Religion's role in my childhood

rapidrabbit — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:41:51 GMT

I haven't posted here in a while, but have been meaning to remedy that. I've also had this entry saved on my computer for a while, but often the timing didn't seem right for posting. I figure now's as good a time as any.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the lord my soul to take

My mother used to recite that with me every night at bedtime. We had a ritual: That poem, the alphabet, and fully spelling my first, middle, and last names. Then we said goodnight, shared a quick peck, and I went to bed.

It didn't occur to me until I was a teenager that the rhyme she had me recite was a prayer of sorts. I'd always repeated it so blindly, I never even thought about the words. I didn't notice the "lord" references, or any of that soul-talk. It was just like how you spell your name so automatically, you don't even think about it. She made it a habit, and I was good at being habitual.

The rhyme mattered to me for many years, as part of the ritual as a whole. My mother was not an affectionate person, though she would argue that. My sister and I got kisses at bedtime and before leaving for school, but we didn't hug or snuggle or hold hands. That prayer-poem was a part of a ritual that ended with one of the very few physical displays of affection I received in my day. So it meant a lot to me.

It doesn't surprise me, then, that the cessation of my affection for that poem coincided with increased distance between my mother and me. I'd started homeschooling, which served quite the opposite purpose that you might assume; my curriculum was self-taught, so my mother didn't interact in my lessons. She didn't allow me much time outside of the house (three times a week I was allowed an hour and a half to figure skate at the local ice rink; I wasn't allowed any other activities or social interactions), and even those occasional trips were always chaperoned, so she was always with me, if not interacting. There was no longer a reason for a goodbye kiss during my day, and my resentment towards her for my stunted social life led me to shun all kisses in general. I began to drastically change my schedule, staying up until 8 in the morning so I could sleep until the early afternoon and avoid her for as long as possible. We started to have frequent, ugly fights which always resulted in me unloading my growing hatred, and her telling me I was insane and should be locked in a mental institution.

I don't know how to feel when I hear that prayer now. A part of me feels a warmth for a fond childhood memory, whereas another part of me is simply irritated that she'd impose such a meaningless Christian ritual upon me when she did nothing to help me spiritually develop.

I feel the same way about the time in my youth when she made me go to Sunday school, though she never, ever went to church herself. Oddly, I remember everything about those Sunday mornings with pristine clarity, with the exception of what actually happened inside the church. I remember getting dressed up in one of my sister's old dresses (which always looked ridiculous on me as she was always short for her age and large, whereas I was tall for my age and stick-skinny), I remember unzipping my baby blue patent leather purse with white lace and buttons on the front, and sticking in the dollar my mother gave me for the collection plate. I remember walking across the parking lot to the conveniently-located Lutheran church behind our home, and I remember climbing those giant cement stairs. But once those wide red door openned, it's as if my mind refused to commit a single event to memory. This has always made me a bit curious; have I blocked out bad memories, or was my time there simply so meaningless to me that my brain didn't bother to store the events?

I remember thinking I was a Christian when I was a young child. I think I was 10 or 11 when I started to question why on earth I thought this. I know my mother told me we were Christians, and we put up a tree on Christmas and hunted for eggs on Easter. But no one ever accompanied me on those Sunday school trips, and no one talked about God or Jesus. I remember having picture books of Biblical stories on the shelves next to my Dr. Seuss books, but we always read them with the same attitude that we read all of our other fairy tales. In my mind, Noah must have had one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish on his ark. I didn't think I was supposed to actually believe any of it was real.

When I was 12, my father became a Born Again Christian, and would suddenly choose random times to lecture me about hell and damnation. His timing was a horrible coincidence, as this was right around the same age that I really started to think I didn't believe in any of that stuff. I was two years into my ultimately seven-year schooling experience through a Seventh Day Adventist organization, and the lessons I'd been receiving on their doctrines began to inspire a feeling verging on ridicule within me. I read Genesis and finished my lessons as directed, but read up on Darwin in my spare time. My life-long love of dinosaurs and the fossil record spurred a great deal of frustration in the face of lessons which taught that fossils are all fake, planted on the earth by Satan to tempt people from the path of righteousness. My fascination with the Big Bang Theory and carbon dating did not align well with the lessons on Earth's literal 6000-year age. When my father, who I'd only ever bonded with over discussions on logic and science, suddenly began to spew the same "truths" at me, I began to question the sanity of organized religion.

That year, I earned my permanent damnation. When my father told me that it was a provable scientific fact that Jesus was the holy son of the one God, I argued that only the existance of him as a man could possibly be proven, and his divinity was a matter of personal faith. He exploded, and told me that I would burn in Hell for all eternity. I was 12. And I was a very straight-laced child. I decided that any religion that would punish an honest, innocent, upstanding kid for theological disagreement was not a religion I wanted to be any part of.

My experiences discovering my true spiritual self are another chapter in and of themselves. This is how I cleaned my slate, shrugged off those vaguely imposed religious ideals that were such a subtle but pervasive part of my childhood. I am no shade of Christian; I do not believe in monotheism, nor do I believe that any great deity sent their son to die for our sins. Jesus may have lived, and he may have been a great man, but I do not see him as holy, nor do I view him with any greater reverence than any other human being. This, in and of itself, is a complicated way to live in this country sometimes. I don't talk about my religious views often, because they've caused so much trouble in my life. But I am content in my beliefs, and respect all others for their own, so long as they use faith to seek enlightenment, and do not use it as an excuse to hate or persecute others. I wonder, sometimes, if those sorts of religious people are dying out in an increasingly extremist world. It feels like we are all being asked to be Sunday worshipers or atheists, and I don't wish to commit to either.

Books and their covers

rapidrabbit — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:45:42 GMT

I got a haircut yesterday. First time since January, so I had about two inches of growth I wanted chopped off. But, as my hair wasn't quite three inches total, trying to convince a hairstylist to abide by my wishes was harder than it should have been.

Yes, there is a very large part of me that wanted to walk out the door and tell the woman arguing that my desired style was "too harsh" and "too masculine" to shove her gender bias up her ass. The problem is, that's the only place in town where I can afford to get my hair cut. And since I go 4 months in between cuts as it is, you might imagine that something like this is actually a budget issue for me.

So I ground my teeth together and tried to explain that I have no fear of appearing "masculine" or "harsh," and to please just cut off my damn hair. She eventually got close to the length I desired, close enough that I was tired of arguing, especially considering that it was nearing my daughter's wake-up time and I wanted to get home. So fine, thank you, I'm done. It's cute; my husband called it "punky," and I'm sure it will look better with a fresh coat of dye.

And that's what this post is really about--the dye. Said hairstylist started a conversation with me while I was in her chair, all about how she "used to be just like [me]," with wildly colored hair and an attitude to match. But then she had a kid. And when her son came home from preschool and told her to wear a hat when she dropped him off so his friends wouldn't see her hair, she knew it was time to "grow up" and go brunette.

I try very hard to not lecture other parents on their decisions, even if I wildly disagree with them. The same courtesy is rarely extended to me, however, and this was again the case as this woman then went on at length to tell me how I'd better normalize before my daughter enters school, or I'm a bad parent.

Really? You want to talk about bad parents? Okay, let's look at her decision: Her child said his friends were making fun of her hair color, so she changes it to stop the teasing. What lesson has she taught her child? She's taught him to be ashamed of being different. She's taught them that if someone doesn't like you for a superficial reason, you should change yourself to please them. She's taught him that it's okay to judge and insult someone based on their appearance. Well those are all fabulous lessons if you wish to raise another drone, a cookie-cutter kid who will never question the status quo or think independantly from the mob. But that's not what I want for my daughter.

If my daughter were to come to me and ask me to change myself because her friends made fun of me, it wouldn't be time for a dye job; it would be time for a serious discussion. I'd explain to her that no one has the right to judge another human being based on their appearance, and that anyone who does isn't worth listening to. I'd explain to her that it doesn't hurt me if people make fun of me, because I know those opinions don't matter, and I'd tell her to not let it hurt her, either. I'd explain to her that it's okay to be different, even if it's difficult sometimes. And I'd teach her that the best response to someone who would mock you for your appearance is to remain true to yourself and not change a damn thing about yourself in order to please them. Would her life be a little harder than the hairstylist's kid's? Probably. But she'd come out much better for it.

What if your child came home and said, "Mommy, the other kids make fun of you because you wear jeans and sneakers! They say you're like a man!"? Would you wear nothing but skirts and spiked heels? What if a child was ashamed of a parent for looking too ethnic? Should they disguise their skin color with makeup and wear hats, sunglasses, or veils to disguise their ethnic features? Or do you teach your child that appearances aren't the end-all and be-all of the universe?

If someone else wishes to make their life easier by "fitting in," that's their perogative. But they have no right to tell me that I must do the same, lest I traumatize my child. I think I'm helping my daughter learn a very important lesson from day one--appearances are only skin deep, it's the person underneath that matters. There are far too many adults in this world who still don't acknowledge this simple truth, and I'll be damned if I'll add my child to the list.

Stories from the retirement home

rapidrabbit — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:24:41 GMT

I was recalling an anecdote from an old job earlier, and it brought back a flood of memories. I worked as a dining services supervisor for a retirement home outside Reading, PA. I was in charge of the Assisted Living section, which is home to people who need regular nursing attention, but who are still moderately capable of caring for themselves. (The other sections were Independant Living--basically a series of apartments on the property where the residents had complete freedom, but could dine in the main dining hall and recieve normal checkups from the staff--and Healthcare, which was for residents with severe demensia or motor skill impairments requiring constant nursing care.) I've heard a lot of people say they could never work in a place like that, because it would make them too sad. I used to worry that I'd feel the same way, but I really think a number of those residents affected me in profound ways that I am so thankful for.

As a whole, the job was miserable; I won't lie about that. But it was never the residents who made me miserable, just my bosses. They were the type to delegate impossible tasks, do no work themselves, and thus take no responsibility for their ultimate failure. They spoke horribly of the residents behind their backs, purposefully didn't follow legal guidelines for food preparation, and had seemingly no empathy for any other human being. A good example? After having taken none of my 10 sick or 3 excused absense days, I was told I would not be allowed to take a day off if it were deemed medically necessary. I explained to my bosses (a bit tearfully, I admit) that on my most recent dental visit, my X-Rays had shown an abnormality that my dentist feared was a tumor. I was going in for more invasive testing on my day off, and if the anomoly was cancerous, I was going to have a root canal that morning to remove the tumor. I set this specifically for my weekday off (a Wednesday) when I had the following weekend off, so that I could take only two sick days and still have five days to recover from the surgery, if necessary. I was told this was unacceptable; even having the following day off was unacceptable. They didn't care that it was against HR regulations, that it was against FMLA law, that it was outright cruel. All that mattered to them was that they'd have to cover my shift if I was busy with cancer, and that wasn't okay. After crying onto the shoulder of a nurse I'd befriended, I quit.

I don't regret walking away from the company. I truly think my bosses were a drain on my soul, and being around people that horrible cannot benefit anyone. But I do regret never seeing the residents again. I really bonded with some of them, and I think about them often. That's why I wanted to share some anecdotes...because I think the elderly, especially those in special care, are a segment of society often overlooked, and they don't deserve to be.

All of the residents I really befriended were the ones that all of the other employees seemed to really hate. A couple of them had demensia that had nearly advanced to the stage that they'd be transfered to Healthcare, but they still had enough lucid days that they stayed in AL. One woman, a 90-something who I recalled in that anecdote earlier, was one of the most difficult residents to work with on her "bad days." But on her good days, she was vibrant and talkative, and loved to regail any and all listeners with stories of her past. This irritated the nurses and my waitstaff nearly as much as her bad-day obstinance, but I adored hearing her stories. My favorite was when she spoke of her husband, who she'd met just a decade earlier. They only had a few years together before he passed away, but she constantly told me how he was her one true love. Her eyes were so brilliant and full of life when she spoke of him, it made me want to cry, simply because I could feel the pure joy radiating from her soul. The hardest thing for me to deal with was the days when she couldn't remember her husband at all. Those days, I remembered him for her, and I still carry the both of them in my heart, trying to make their love immortal in some way, to keep the story alive for all eternity. I'm going to tell their story to my daughter when she gets older, and I hope she'll share it with her children, should she have any. It deserves to be remembered.

Another couple claimed a special place in my heart, and again, in spite of everyone else's irritation with the pair. The wife was a delicate, sweet woman who'd moved to AL when she lost the ability to walk. Her husband moved with her--though he was spry and exhuberant--simply because he refused to leave her. He never let the nurses push her wheelchair; he always insisted on doing it himself. They playfully bickered all the time, and truthfully, made me think of what my husband and I might be like at that age. But he was a difficult diner, very particular and cranky, and even his wife's sweetness couldn't smooth over his gruff attitude in the minds of my waitstaff. I liked him though; he was obstinant because he had every right to be. He was absolutely right when he complained to the nurses that the residents didn't recieve the care they deserved...it's just that the rest of the residents were incapacitated enough that they couldn't complain nearly as readily (or loudly) as he could, so his seemed like the lone voice of dissatisfaction. I could tell when I met him that he didn't want to like me, but I've always had a way of winning people over if given the proper opportunity. (I actually have a very sunny personality.) I treated him with the respect he didn't get from the rest of the staff, and because of that simple thing, he came to truly enjoy my company and conversation. One of my favorite stories from that job is about him, one the nurses had told me with furrowed brows and scolding tones, but which was so much more entertaining when he told it in an amused voice infused with youthful mischeif. There was a hair salon on the first floor of the main building, and the residents would park their wheelchairs outside the salon to be helped into chairs to get their hair styled. He was passing by the salon, saw a sleek red electric, and decided to take a spin around the complex. Apparently quite a few nurses and supervisors ended up chasing him around, trying to convince him to relinquish the chair, while he laughed in refusal. I could picture the entire scene so perfectly, almost entirely because of the mischeivous grin plastered on his face while he told it, and it's an image that always brings a smile to my face.

I do miss these people, and a few others, and I have tried very hard to cement these memories in my mind. I don't like to think about "where are they now," because a lot can happen in a place like that in five years. I remember them as I knew them, and I thank them for allowing me to know them at all. I feel like a better person for it. I feel as though my soul is richer for having shared a tiny part of their lives, and I hope I brought them some tiny bit of happiness in return.

Talking to strangers...were our parents right?

rapidrabbit — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:47:06 GMT

Do you ever overhear people making ridiculous or false comments in public and have to fight the urge to correct them?

I was at AC Moore the other day and some 20-something was on the phone: "Well just remember, if you go on antibiotics, you'll get yeast infections. Yeah, 'cause yeast is bacteria!"--I admit, I was completely amused that she announced this like it was an amazing revelation--"But you can just eat yogurt, and you'll never get an infection. *pause* Uh-huh. *pause* Oh yeah, I'm sure frozen yogurt would be fine, too."

Don't even get me started on the person at the grocery store telling their kid that apples are a citrus fruit. Great, pass it on to another generation....

I'll strike up a conversation with a stranger under some circumstances, but most people don't like to be corrected by people they know, let alone by some random chick who they always assume has the IQ of a slow-witted puppy. Though I really should train myself to not speak to people unless spoken to first, because sometimes even pleasant comments get people mad at me somehow. There was a woman at the grocery store looking through varieties of baby carrots last month, and I just commented, "If you've never tried the petite ones, they're worth it. They're the sweetest carrots I've ever had, and actually bite-size, which is nice." She then turned up her nose at me and gave me a mini-lecture on how real cooks use real carrots and cut them to size. Uh...the baby carrots were actually six feet away from the regular carrots, in a display all by themselves, so why was she looking at them if she's too good for them? There is no winning. I just walked away.

I never mind being approached in public. Many times someone has seen me picking out jewelry findings or yarn or food products, and asked me an opinion on something about them, or given their own opinion on something I'm debating. I don't find it intrusive or offensive, but maybe I'm in the minority. Does this happen to everyone, or is it just a prejudice against me? I'm aware that I don't look like Susie Homemaker, but that doesn't mean all my expertise lies within the realm of body piercings and demonic summoning.

So what is proper stranger-etiquette? Should you just never speak? Only speak when spoken to? But then, if everyone followed that rule, how would you ever get spoken to...?

I met someone just last week through a random conversation in the fabric section of Wal-Mart. Someone recognized my hat as a moogle hat, and commented on it, and conversation sprung from there. We have a toddler play-date for our daughters next week. Is it no longer normal to meet new friends this way? Are we all doomed to keep within our silent public-bubbles every time we come within ten feet of a stranger?

I'm not very good at the social butterfly thing. And being shot down every time I try is making me want to stay in my cocoon.

Springtime and returning to self

rapidrabbit — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:56:37 GMT

I have been in a fantastic mood and mindset lately, and I owe it entirely to livejournal. That is, I owe LJ for allowing me to meet so many wonderful people, who absolutely yanked me right out of the dumps when I started feeling very down recently. Affection, support, and even gifts, I am so touched by how great my friends have been. And it means so much to me that there are other people who feel the way that I do, and who appreciate the value of a relationship that can be built over this "series of tubes." I wish I had the money and time to visit everyone, but it's simply not possible. I'm so glad that even without my physical presence, my friends still value me as much as I value them. I truly think I have the most amazing friends ever.

All of the pick-me-ups coming my way recently have really helped me shove myself back into a more optimistic mindset. So often lately I've become moody, cranky, and downright miserable, and that is not anything like the person I really am. I'm not "perky," I don't think, but several people throughout my life have referred to me as "effervescent," and commented on my contagious enthusiasm and excitability. I feel so alien to myself when I lose track of that. Lately I've been finding it again, and it's so marvelous to feel more like myself.

I'm learning to approach obstacles in a healthier fashion again, which is something I always lose when I become depressed. I start feeling like the entire world is conspiring against me, and I have no reason to even attempt anything. I may not be able to move mountains, but I'm chipping away at some stones now, and I feel like I might actually be able to make a dent in some of the daunting tasks ahead of me.

March is usually an up-and-down month for me, but for the first time in a while, I feel like I'm ready to tackle it. The coming of Spring is always a great cause of celebration in my household, but my estranged sister's birthday falls right after the Equinox, and it's a painful reminder of past wounds and false promises. (It's made no better by my inability to just ignore the date - she shares her birthday with my brother-in-law, so I have no choice but to recognize it.) We've had beautiful weather these past two days (though I would have appreciated a bit more sun) and I made a point to take my daughter out both yesterday and today. Just walking in the breeze made me feel so exhilarated.

I'm looking forward to a permanent wave of pleasant weather, so I can rake up remaining leaves from last fall, and watch the green shoots begin to sprout in my yard. I have a gigantic American Sycamore in my backyard - the largest tree in the neighborhood! - and I love to watch those Jurassic leaves start to sprout. This year I also hope to start a vegetable garden. My green thumb has waned a bit since childhood, but bringing in any sort of crop grown with my own hands will bring me delicious satisfaction.

Always fond of staring out the window, my daughter has now almost permanently camped in front of it, as if she knows Spring is coming, and she hopes to catch the first flower when it blooms. I know she's as excited for the coming season as I am.

I'm hoping that this year the weather will permit me to have a proper welcoming celebration for the Equinox, filled with outside activities and fantastic picnic food. It's a major goal of mine to stop letting circumstances get between me and my time with Nature. I need that connection to feel alive, and I'm going to bask in the sunshine as much as humanly possible this year. I'd love to have a hammock or cushioned swing I could set up under my tree canopy, to read books in the shade during the summer. Maybe I'll actually work to save for that this year. I don't give myself enough pure leisure time, and I never spend money selfishly. But something like that would be such a boost for my spirit, I think it would be worth it.

I hope everyone is receiving the same sort of weather blessing I'm enjoying right now, and I will say a special prayer for all of you when I celebrate the coming of Spring.

The morality of hunting

rapidrabbit — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:01:15 GMT

In one of my graduate classes, we recently read an essay defending hunting. An interesting conversation ensued on my class's discussion board (naturally, one that I plunked myself in the middle of), and I'm curious to hear other opinions on the subject. This conversation is still ongoing, so I might add to this post, but for now, I think my opinions were stated succinctly enough that I'm comfortable posting it.

Classmate 1:
While I respect the point the author was trying to make, I do not agree with him. I feel like this article was written to justify hunting for sport and prove that hunters were not immoral in their pursuits. There was one quote especially that stood out that I did not like. It says, "It is sometimes said thathunters are cruel, insensitive, and barbaric. In fact, however, the hunter may experience life and death deeply." I understand hunting for necessity. I realize that protein is essential for our survival and meat is the most efficient way to consume it. I do not, however agree with hunting for sport. It seems wasteful and cruel. What right do we have to disrupt the animal's way of life? What makes our leisure activities more important than their life? I do not hunt, so I can't say for sure but I imagine it's true that the hunter does "experience life and death deeply" since they are so near it, but it seems highly improbably for me that they respect life and death.

* * * * *

Me:
What I really disliked is while he complained greatly of how hunters are villified, he went to great lengths to villify the anti-hunters. This part particularly bothered me:

"A moral criterion is sometimes offered for killing limited to the necessity for food and defense. This logically opposes the sportsman and approves of the slaughterhouse."

His logic there is so faulty, I don't even know where to start. Firstly, opposing the "sportsman" does not equate to opposition of hunting. I oppose hunting for sport, but understand it if it is a matter of necessity. (My mother grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and her family so poor they had dirt floors in their home. They hunted so they would not starve. My mother had her own "squirrel gun" and hunted with the boys, but was always saddened by the necessity of the kill, and to this day is staunchly against hunting for sport.) "Sportsman" by definition means someone who hunts because he sees it as sport, as a game, as FUN, not a necessity. The essay confuses this with hunting in general, which bothered me greatly.

Secondly, approving of killing out of necessity does not necessarily equate to approval of the slaughterhouse. I know people who find the sort of hunting my mother's family did acceptable, but who are vegans because they are so appalled by slaughterhouses. In a far less extremist sense, I know many people who only buy from local butchers who aquire their meat from humane local farmers. This is a far cry from "slaughterhouses" which I think the author uses as a buzz word to further villify anti-hunters.

In all, I think his arguments are more about stirring up controversy than about making a truly logical defense. As is the case when I get in this debate with sport hunters, he seems unable to counter arguments like those I mentioned above, and thus relies on the same subtle name-calling he accuses anti-hunters of.

I am wholly against killing animals for sport. But I fished a great deal with my father growing up, because we were poor and those fish constituted 50% of our dinners. (Trust me, you grow sick of perch and bluegill after a while.) And I don't think my mother's family deserves condemnation for what they did. But when my father-in-law gets decked out in thousands of dollars' worth of camo equipment to go shoot a buck because he wants antlers mounted on his wall, I'm nauseated. The man makes a respectable middle-class income and hunts because he thinks it's fun. He will eat a bit of the meat, but not much. Most of it gets tossed. That's just not right. And it's a reflection not on this great connection with nature [the essay's author] seems to think the hunter finds and respects, but rather of the wasteful, selfish culture of modern America.

* * * * *

Classmate 2:
While I can appreciate why some people do not approve of hunting as a sport, I cannot understand why they believe it is not necessary. Due to hunters, many parts of the country have become well populated and balanced with a variety of wildlife. I know that my sound ironic, but hunters help control the population, especially of the old and weak.

Growing up on a Kansas farm in the fifties and sixties, we never saw deer or antelope on the High Plains. Now, decades later, the prairie is plentiful -- sometimes too much now as evident by the wrecked cars and fatalities. Also at that time coyote bounties were plentiful, and thus began a decade of over-population of jackrabbits. Our car tires would hit them as easily as a windshield would hit a moth.

One extremely dry summer at Cheyenne Bottoms, a water fowl preserve located in the center of the state, the water disappeared. With the water went the pelicans, geese, ducks and cranes, and people complained claiming mismanagement. But the balance shifted. The Bottoms got more mice and other small rodents, thus came more snakes, coyotes, hawks and eagles. Leave the deer population alone, and you justmay find more coyotes or wolves and traffic fatalities.

* * * * *

Me:
"Also at that time coyote bounties were plentiful, and thus began a decade of over-population of jackrabbits. Our car tires would hit them as easily as a windshield would hit a moth."

I don't think I understand this statement - aren't coyotes natural predators of jackrabbits? Coyotes being plentiful would not lead to an overpopulation of rabbits, because they exist as a natural check to overpopulation. If the two coincided (plentiful coyote population and plentiful jackrabbit population) it can't be "blamed" on the plentiful coyote population. (The flow would only go the other way - plentiful prey leads to food enough to sustain the coyotes. But if the coyote population is decimated, the rabbits would breed unchecked, leading to even more of those traffic incidents.) It seems sort of like that "high ice cream sales correlate to increased crime rate" reasoning that most of us probably heard about as undergrads.

Also, I think the statistics are against the idea of the American/modern approach to hunting helping to balance the ecosystem. Think of all the species we have hunted out of existence, or to near-extinction. Just like paranoid (or sport) hunting of the natural predators (wolves, coyotes, big cats, bears) has led to the overpopulation of deer. The hunters' answer to this is to ignore the source of the problem and say they're doing the humane thing by "helping" with the deer overpopulation. But if you cut a big hole in a bag of sugar, the solution isn't to pick up a few grains from the floor here and there. It's to patch the hole. (Like with the re-introduction of wolves that has proven so successful.) Only when we are willing, as human beings, to take responsibility for the horrible wrongs we have done to the natural balance (yes, largely through foolish hunting) and try to correct those will hunting become less villified, or perhaps even accepted as a natural part of the environmental balance.

And I've just never been a fan of the "we hit them with our cars, let's hunt them instead" mentality. Yes, traffic fatalities are a horrible shame, but the number of animals killed in traffic collisions compared to the number of humans killed in animal-involved collisions is far higher. But most people are so used to driving past roadkill that they just don't care. They didn't start living on our roads, we chose to build our roads in their home. I'm not anti-progress, but I think we have to accept the risks that come with plunking progress in the middle of the wild. It's not fair that we expect every other creature on the planet to bend to our wills, just because we want it that way.

On nudity and morality

rapidrabbit — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:45:54 GMT

Last night I was conversing via headset with some men (initially my husband's friends, though we have a good rapport, as I play online with them whenever an interesting RPG is released), and somehow the subject of my hair color came up. One of the guys didn't believe my hair was purple, so one of the others posted the link to my husband's MySpace as proof. (My own is private, whereas my husband has several photos of me on his, which is public.)

Now I should note that the photos my husband has of me on there are quite...varied. Among them are a couple of more risqué photographs, including one from a casual photo shoot I did with friends a few years ago when I visited them in Georgia, and another taken at a different time. I happen to love those photos, as does my husband, but since MySpace does not allow partial nudity, all objectionable parts are covered in these particular photos (either by pose or by censorship bar).

Apparently this guy was the last of the group who had not seen my husband's MySpace, and he was surprised to see so much of me. (I must actually give a great deal of credit to the rest of these men, because they have never made a big deal out of it, and have pretty much always treated me as "one of the guys.") He commented repeatedly about how he felt it was unfair that the photos were censored, so I responded that he could see the originals if he'd like. He was shocked, and said he didn't feel right seeing another man's wife naked.

This struck me as incredibly ridiculous, as not twenty minutes earlier he'd been talking about porn. "So, you only search for porn made by single women? How can you know?" I thought it was a legitimate question, and his response was, "Well, I don't know, so it's okay."

And so I come to my first objection in this story: I do not feel that purposeful ignorance is an excuse for anything. This guy continually said it was a moral objection for him, but his morals apparently don't apply in all situations. If I say I'm a vegetarian for moral reasons, I can't devour a mystery meal that has a 50/50 chance of containing meat without asking about its origins, and be magically spared from moral condemnation. My unwillingness to learn the truth does not save me from the possible immorality of the situation. And furthermore, since morals are personal constructs we build based on our own senses of right and wrong, I consider that self-delusion, which serves no purpose whatsoever. You either stand behind your morals 100%, or there is no reason to have them. This is not a matter of being tricked into breaking your moral code - this is deliberate, willful ignorance. That’s not an acceptable loophole.

My second objection is to the idea of this being inappropriate in the first place. I would like to point out that not only does my husband proudly display those photos, but also that he was in the same conversation, and had no objection to his friend seeing the rest. He had no objection to those photos being taken in the first place, even though the photography for one set was done by another man (one friend's spouse) while I was a thousand miles away. He has no objection to the fact that all of my friends of the time have seen the entire set, or that they were posted to that same friend's body-positive internet community. He doesn't care that I've changed clothes in front of every friend who's ever visited (female and male), or that I proudly posted pictures to my livejournal when I first got my nipples pierced.

It’s just a body, functional and pleasurable, flawed and beautiful, just like everyone else’s. My body is less expressive than my face, and it’s in emotions that I find true intimacy. Why, then, are people allowed to see my face?

This is who I am. I don't consider myself an exhibitionist, because I don't go out of my way to flaunt myself to people. I do not post photos of my breasts to chat communities, I don't flash people in passing cars, I don't get drunk and lift my shirt to barrooms full of leering men. But I also don't think that it's any stranger for a friend to see my breasts than it is for them to see my arms, my feet, or my face. It's just another part of me, and not one I find inherently sexual. Truthfully, they're not even what I consider an erogenous zone, at least not more so than any other area of my body. I'm much more aroused by graceful hands, and when someone runs their fingers along my palm. I find the curve of a person's back very erotic, and love to have my own caressed. But no one would object to photos of my hands or back.

Furthermore, I detest the cultural idea that breasts must be sexual. The Great American Breast Obsession (which, by the way, has a fantastic acronym: GABO!) is tiresome. I dislike that when I make a comment about breastfeeding, it is met by many men with jeers and "Oh, Mama!" calls, followed by suckling noises and childish giggles. That is inappropriate. The fact that breastfeeding moms still have to fight battles for the basic human right to feed their child in public because - oh no! - the act involves a naked breast, that is inappropriate. Me not being ashamed of my body? I think that's perfectly appropriate.

Why, especially in circles where viewing pornography is considered as natural as breathing, is this so unacceptable? If these people were Jenna Jameson’s neighbors, do you think they’d burn their Jenna-centered porn collection? Where, exactly, is this tentative line drawn?

When I took those photos, I viewed my body differently than I do now. Now I see my body even more for its functionality. My legs were always built to carry me, my hands were always made to form the world around me, my eyes were always meant to drink in every sight available. But now I see my stomach as the warm protector of unborn life, my breasts the source of precious infantile nutrition, my arms as the appendages that hug away fears and injuries. This is nothing to be ashamed of. This is nothing to hide.

Someone in my husband's history class told him our daughter is going to grow up stupid.

rapidrabbit — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:19:19 GMT

Perhaps this needs context, so:

Our daughter doesn't watch Dora or Sesame Street or any of those "learning" kids shows. Her favorite cartoon is Garfield, which we have on DVD, and she loves Disney movies like Lady and the Tramp. She also loves Futurama, which I attribute to having heard it every day in utero (I'm an addict). The classmate thought this was horrific, and told my husband that our daughter would never learn what she needs to learn if she doesn't watch educational television shows.

Okay, back up. Since when is TV the only teacher a kid has?

We had a no-TV rule until our daughter was 23 months old (I was shooting for 2 years, but her daddy bent the rules, and I aquiesced). Before she ever started watching cartoons, she had quite an impressive vocabulary. (Animal names were always her specialty...how many 20-month-olds do you know who can successfully identify a tarsier?) Now - for a while actually - she can count to ten, and can identify all letters of the alphabet. She can speak in full sentences, and constantly adds to that encyclopedia she's building in her brain.

I'm sure there are kids smarter than my daughter. I'm not one of those parents who thinks her kid is ohmygod the most brilliantest brilliant genius ever. But she's bright. In fact, I'd say she's damn smart. And she didn't have to get it from TV. And the TV she does watch hasn't caused her brain cells to melt and leak out from her ear.

She still doesn't watch much TV, as I keep it as a wind-down treat before naptime and/or bedtime. And why do I choose to let her watch the things that I do? Because I watch them with her, and frankly, I don't want to watch Blues Clues. She's not the sort of kid who's content to just sit and watch something; it has to be an interactive experience. When she watches Lady and the Tramp, she narrates the action to me. ("The beaver is eating the tree!" "The cats are singing the music!") She asks me questions, I answer, and I point things out to her so she learns new words and relationships. She even learns from Futurama ("Bender is a robot!" "Fry's hair is orange!").

Now, as I've mentioned before, I'm a big believer in parents being left alone in the decisions they make for their kids. It's all different based on the individual child, and the entire process is a very personal one that can be hard to objectively critique from the outside. Hence why, were it me this classmate spoke to, I would have told them exactly where they could shove their opinion. But the fact is, based on results alone, I don't think anyone can tell us we're doing this "wrong." Our daughter isn't educated by TV, she's educated by us - and I think we're doing a fine job.

For those of you who are wondering, my husband took the slightly more diplomatic approach, and told his classmate that he wasn't worried, since our daughter is bright, and we don't use TV as a babysitter. He also told her that if she thought such shows would rot a person's brain, she should talk to me, since I grew up on Garfield and The Simpsons. I think I turned out alright, too.

25

rapidrabbit — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:56:07 GMT

I rather like the idea of this meme that aetheric posted, in which you share 25 random things about yourself. I included 11 brief facts in my user info, so obviously I'm a fan of the genre of randomness. So, I figured I'd give a shot at 25 more.

1. My husband and I had our full names legally changed before our daughter was born. We took his stepfather's last name, and chose first names that we felt suited us better than those our parents gave us.

2. My daughter's name is of Japanese origin. No, neither my husband nor I are of significant Japanese ancestory. I dislike that there is a cultural attitude that ethnic names should only be used by people of that ethnicity. A beautiful name is a beautiful name, why should it be of limited use based on what color your skin is?

3. The reason I don't share family names on here is because I worry about being Googled. Last year I discovered that my estranged sister had created a false identity online to stalk me and several of my friends and ex-friends, as well as her adult stepdaughter. That's why I don't openly share my personal journal, either. To call it an "invasion of privacy" would be an understatement. I have no patience for people who indulge in such childish, dishonest pasttimes.

4. I'm allergic to about a half-dozen different food additives (and all of them are things added to dye or preserve food).

5. Early this summer, my family adopted an adult beagle/terrier mutt from a local rescue. I named her in honor of my first dog, a beautiful doberman who I loved dearly. My new pup is the only dog I've ever known who is as affectionate, gentle, and loving as my dobey. When I was a toddler, my doberman had puppies, and I used to curl up next to her with the puppies and sleep.

6. I also have three cats, all brothers. I adopted their mother and the rest of their litter when they were only 2 days old, because the people who "took care of them" had over one hundred cats running wild, and less than half of them survived beyond one year. Most of the kittens were very sick, and I lost two to an inherited bone marrow disease. One was a runt, and I had to bottle feed him to keep him alive. The mother and one girl kitten are now in a new home, and the three surviving boys are with me.

The runt (who's now the biggest of all three)

7. My family had an outside cat when I was a child, who was one year older than I was. When I was 10, I decided that she was too old to stay outside, and stepped up my pleading with my parents to allow her indoors. My parents hated the idea of an indoor cat, and said that she could stay in the kitchen, but only so long as I was with her. If I left the room, she had to go back outside. So I set up a lawn chair in the middle of the kitchen floor, and didn't leave for two days. My parents then let her live out the rest of her 17 years inside, and she slept in my bed every night. I have never known a cat quite like her, and I truly believe she was a feline soul mate to me.

8. I really do love rabbits. "Bunny" is also a nickname my husband uses for me frequently, and one that several people online have taken to calling me. I like it. :-) I have had pet rabbits in the past, but my husband developed a severe rabbit allergy, so I can't have them anymore. I miss having bunnies in my home.

9. I used to drive a red Honda Metropolitan scooter, but I also lived in a bad neighborhood, and it got stolen. Twice. The last time it wasn't recovered, which was sad, but probably for the best. Shortly before it was stolen the second time, I was driven off the road on a rainy day by an unreasonably angry person in a sedan who appeared to think I had no right to be on the road. I fell onto my back, knocking my head on the road and sliding violently into the curb. Luckily, I have never cared that scooter drivers aren't required by law to wear helmets, and always wore one anyway. I was also on my way to school, with my laptop in my backback, which took the brunt of the hit. It was scary, but I was fine. I found out I was pregnant the next day, hence why I handled losing the scooter so well - it's not exactly the safest form of transportation for a pregnant lady.

10. I am a Capricorn in the Aquarius cusp, and yes, I find astrology very interesting. My personality is a dynamic, conflicting blend of qualities from those two star signs.

11. I have gray eyes, but people always argue this with me. Depending on what color my hair is, what I'm wearing, the lighting, or other external factors, my eyes can appear either blue, green, or hazel, when they really are slate gray.

12. I have four ear piercings: 1 in my left ear, 3 in my right. This is because my left earlobe isn't formed properly in the back, and I can't have any more piercings in that lobe. You can't tell to look at me; it's only noticable if you feel behind my earlobe. And really, how many people are going to do that?

13. I have never been to a concert. People tend to find that odd, though it never struck me that way.

14. When I was 16 I was hospitalized for what turned out to be complications from chronic bacterial dysbiosis (bacteria overgrowth in my digestive tract). I'd been seeing doctors for months, trying to figure out the source of several health problems, and cultures done while I was in the hospital shocked my doctor. He called in an expert from out-of-state because he'd never seen anything so extreme before. I now manage the problem mainly through diet, though sometimes I'm not very diligent, and I can get quite sick. It's no fun.

15. I'm really good with needles. My father was a medical technologist and used to draw my blood fairly regularly when I was a child to run tests while he was at work. He was very good at it, though, so I have little patience for phlebotomists who don't know how to do a good stick. I have better veins on my right arm, so even though I'm right-handed, I always roll up my right sleeve to make it easier for them.

16. I got a new haircut this week. My hair hasn't been this short since the end of my pregnancy, and I missed it.

17. I have never traveled to a U.S. state that's not on the East Coast. I've visited every state from Massachusetts to Florida, but nothing further west.

18. I did visit the Bahamas once, though. I took a family vacation there during my 18th birthday. I spent 4 days violently ill from food poisoning. Lesson learned: Don't eat beef while vacationing on an island. Most meals are fish for a reason.

19. I have fairly large teeth, and I used to be made fun of a lot for my smile, because when I'm really happy I smile with both rows. My sister was especially cruel in picking on me, and tried to train me as a child to "smile the right way." I've since learned to love my smile, even if it seems obnoxious or unattractive to some people. It's an honest smile, not one I plaster on to look prettier. An honest smile is always beautiful, in my opinion.

20. I am currently reading Pamela by Samuel Richardson. It is driving me up the wall. Turns out English literature from the mid-1700's is not all that engrossing to me.

21. I haaaaaate talking on the phone. Even if I really like talking to a person, I don't like to do it on the phone. I prefer face-to-face conversation, or even email or letters.

22. I don't listen to the radio. Ever. I lost my patience with popular/modern music stations when I was a teenager, and have since become irritated with classic rock stations as well. I get new music largely on recommendation, and often from pitying friends who burn CD mixes for me to expose me to the grand musical world I'm unfamiliar with. Most recently, invisibleglue burned a CD for me, and I fell madly in love with "Woman Like a Man" by Damien Rice. And I have no idea if he's a popular or well-known artist, because I live under a rock in that respect.

23. Similarly, I don't watch any TV shows or read any magazines that focus on "entertainment news" or celebrity gossip. I often have no idea who famous people are, since I'm only really familiar with people who star in shows or movies I watch, and sing the music I listen to. And even then, I often don't know anything about their personal lives, just whether or not I like their performances.

24. I've been crocheting since I was 8. I took to it very quickly, and used to help my grandmother teach crocheting classes at the local senior center. I didn't crochet for several years as an adult, and have been getting back into it recently. I forgot how much I enjoyed it, and wish I had more reason to indulge in the pasttime. But honestly, I think most crocheted items are strange looking, and my family members only need so many hats and scarves.

25. When I total up all the weeks I've spent vacationing in Disney World over the course of my life, I can officially say I've spent half a year in the Land of Mouse. I love it there, and am headed back again in October.

Welcome to flavor country.

rapidrabbit — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:49:33 GMT

I don't think I'm alone in disliking junk mail. It's a nuisance, a waste of paper, and completely useless. The junk mail that gets sent to my physical mailbox gets about the same amount of attention that my email's spam folder does; that is, a cursory glance to be sure nothing important is mixed in before it gets permanently tossed.

But lately I've been getting some odd junk mail, and it's really starting to irk me. I somehow got on a mailing list for the Philip Morris company, and I am receiving a ridiculous volume of cigarette coupons and ads. Today's was a "Happy Birthday from Marlboro" package, which was not the first birthday well-wish I'd hoped to receive.

Really, this all bothers me on a moral level. I'm strongly anti-smoking, but that's not even what this is about. (I'm also a strong advocate of "adults should be able to do what they wish with their own bodies.") I'm bothered by what is acceptable in our mixed-up culture.

Presumably, my name got snatched from some other mailing list based on information I asked for at one point, or maybe a magazine I've subscribed to. Now let me assure you that I've never received any tobacco aficionado publications, nor have I written to any cigarette companies and requested product information. I can't really figure out how I ended up in this target group, and it bothers me that I've been selected to receive these mailers. (Trust me, PM, you're wasting your money.)

Imagine, for a moment, another situation: Someone subscribes to, say, Road & Track. Studies show a positive correlation between people who like cars and people who like sex, so a company that manufactures sex toys starts sending mailers to that person. "Buy one dildo, get your second free!" Do you think this would cause a massive outcry? I suspect it would.

In our puritanical culture, sex is vilified, and made to seem "dirty." People would be appalled to get something like this in the mail if they didn't specifically request it, and there would probably be calls to any regulating agency people could think of.

But really, the same criteria would be required for the recipient of either mailer - you can't buy sex toys or cigarettes if you're under 18. So why would the one be so appalling, and the other so acceptable? I have yet to read of a positive correlation between sex toys and cancer. Someone please show me the article that tells me daily vibrator use leads to clitoral cancer, or that people frequently exposed to those who masturbate can die from second-hand ejaculation.

And yet it's okay to send tobacco mailers. Perhaps it's about shame? A neighbor seeing a flyer for "Bob's Discount Butt Plugs" being placed in your mailbox might think poorly of you. Well interestingly enough, such a flyer would have to be "discreet" - that is, hidden in a security envelope or behind black plastic - whereas the Marlboro Man is allowed to flaunt himself has he sticks out of my tiny mailbox. Frankly, I'd rather my neighbors think I have mass amounts of kinky sex; that sounds like a lot more fun anyway.

Clutter

rapidrabbit — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:56:44 GMT

I'm trying to bring order into my life, partially by bringing order into my home. I even started organizing some of my books, which is a major step in the right direction for me.

(I feel the need to remind you all that owning it doesn't mean I've read it, and reading it doesn't mean I remember it. A lot of these are books I read in childhood that are in desperate need of a re-read, and some are gifts I haven't gotten around to yet.)

I've still got books that I haven't found yet, and I'm sure I lost several in house floods at my old place. (I've lost a lot of things that way; I try not to dwell on it, but sometimes it makes me really sad, specifically over the childhood posessions I now won't be able to pass on to my daughter.) I've been living out of boxes for so many years, and it doesn't look like that's going to entirely stop for quite a while. My house is in a spectacular state of disrepair; we currently live in the upstairs, while we wait for the time and money to make the first floor habitable. But our three livable rooms are quite lovely, and I'm enjoying putting little touches in here and there. Hopefully I'll remember to upload photos as I do little things; it makes me feel accomplished, and makes me happier in my home.

I've noticed a funny thing in how people view their homes, and the upkeep thereof. My house is messy. I don't pretend otherwise. I don't worry if I don't get my daughter's books and toys picked up every night before bed, or if the laundry doesn't get folded and put away immediately. I could almost forget what color my computer desk is, it's so piled up with books, papers, computer accessories, and sometimes just random junk. There is pet hair on every bed, chair, and floor in my house. And I've realized that I don't really care. I visit people with far nicer homes, people who vacuum daily and keep everything in it's place, but feel the need to appologize to me a half dozen times because there were two pieces of mail sitting on their coffee table when I came in. Those people used to make me uncomfortable. They made me feel like I was failing, because my house didn't look like theirs. They'd tell me how hard it was to vacuum every day when they had a toddler, and the first thought that pops in my head is, "But then why bother?" There are always Cheerios hiding in some corner of my home, but I just don't care. Yeah, my guests will probably have some cat hair on their butts if they sit on my floor, but if that's an issue, I suggest they don't visit. I have a two-year-old, a dog, three cats, two mice, and one very messy husband. Why should my goal be to make my house appear unoccupied?

There are lots of areas in which I'd like to see my housekeeping improve. One of my goals this year is to try and keep dishes washed and put away daily. But my goals are simply the ones that make life easier - if there are never clean dishes in the dishwasher, I can load the dirties in right after they're used, which saves time and effort. I want housekeeping to be something that's done to make life more comfortable, not something I do so people think better of me, or so my house lives up to some ridiculous standard of cleanliness.

I organize my books in neat little stacks because it makes my eyes happy to see them that way. Most printing on book bindings is horizontal, so while lining them up vertically with pretty little bookends might make my house look classier, it also makes my eyes hurt to try and read the titles. I vacuum weekly because it keeps me from crunching niblits of toddler-dropped Life cereal between my toes when I crawl out of bed in the morning, not because it makes my carpets look like they don't get walked on.

Frankly, I'm not happy in spotless homes. Whenever I visit someone who keeps their house like that, I'm nervous. I don't dare drink a soda in the living room, because I might spill a drop on the sofa and incur the wrath of the homeowner. Not a problem in my house; we spill, we clean it up, hopefully it won't stain. If it does, oh well, at least we get to enjoy our food and beverages wherever we want without stress. I like when I enter someone's home, and they have to clear books or sweatshirts or a couple of cats off of a chair so I have a place to sit. That's the kind of house I grew up, the kind of house I keep myself, and the kind of house that feels like a home to me. Spotless places feel like hotels to me. Yeah, there are photos or knick knacks around that remind you an actual person lives there, but they somehow lack that feeling that an actual, normal, fallable human being spends their life in that home. That it's that very life that takes precidence, and not whether or not you'd be comfortable eating off of their kitchen floor.

I'm sure that as our house gets repaired and we spread out, our clutter will decrease, simply based on mathematics (the same amount of stuff in twice the space will naturally feel like half the stuff). But there will still be pet hair on my floor, sweatshirts draped over my furniture, and papers strewn over my desk. And the day I worry about that stuff is the day I'm not enjoying the rest of my life enough.

Friendships, revisited

rapidrabbit — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:59:30 GMT

My husband goes out for drinks with his friends about once a week. This is an alien concept to me; the last time I went out with friends was in September. invisibleglue was staying with me for a week and a half, and boobiequeen came for a night while she was here. I had a lot of fun during the visit, but in spite of the fact that those ten days were hardly whirlwind by the definitions of people who ever actually go out, I was entirely thrown for a loop by how different it was from my normal routine.

You see, I'm exceptionally boring in a number of ways. I don't go out to bars or clubs, and hell, I don't even go to the movies. The fact is, if an activity can't be done (respectfully) with a toddler in tow, I don't do it. I go out to eat with my husband (oh cheap lunches; we budget), but that's only because my daughter is remarkably well-behaved in restaurants. Like her mommy and daddy, she lives for food and is thrilled with the chance to try something new, or indulge in an old favorite. I occassionally go to the mall, but really only because my daughter has the same bubble tea addiction that I do. I never actually get any shopping done, but she and I walk around while she points to items in store windows and announces what they are (just in case I wasn't aware of the "pretty green shoes" or "fluffy panda bear" stuffed animals in passing shops).

I've found that even other parents don't tend to share my outlook on social activity. I'm seen as "weird" or "overprotective" or even worse adjectives because I'm unwilling to leave my daughter with a babysitter while I go out with friends. If my daughter is not with me, she's with either my husband or my mother; no one else watches her, because no one else is close to her. I don't feel that it's fair to her to be left with someone she doesn't love, because she's a very attached child. As it is, upon my return from the very rare excursions I make without her, I'm regaled with stories of how she kept asking for me. I've only once even returned after her bedtime (and that during the visit mentioned earlier; I suppose if a person's going to fly across the Atlantic to visit me, I could do them the favor of not giving them an 11:30 curfew every night :-P), because I like to be there to tuck her in. We have a bedtime ritual, and I don't like to disturb it. It comforts her, and it pleases me. Why is this a bad thing?

That's what it keeps coming back to for me: I don't see why everyone seems to believe my relationship with my daughter is unhealthy, simply because we're closely bonded. Isn't that what should happen between a mother and child? But I'm constantly being told that I should leave her behind more often, and that she shouldn't rely on me so much. Man, I must have really missed the boat on that one. If she's happy having me around, and I'm happy being around, how on earth can this be a bad situation?

A couple days ago, my husband made another trip to the bar with his friends. This time, his coupled friends brought their significant others. I rather dislike when this is the scenario, because it results in my husband being routinely pestered over why he didn't bring me. Everyone seems to think this reflects his lack of desire to be around his wife, or that maybe he's embarassed by me, which is certainly not the case. (He likes to joke that I'm his "trophy wife," because he so enjoys introducing me to his friends.) It just shows my lack of desire to leave my daughter with a stranger while I toss back alcoholic beverages. This most recent time, his one friend's wife kept insisting that I should have come. I've never met the woman, but she's heard about me, and seen a photo of me, and really wants to meet me. This would be very flattering, if it weren't for the fact that I think she's under a false impression of me. She thinks I look like I'm a lot of fun, and extremely interesting. Naturally, I'd love to think that's true, but as her idea of fun seems to be gathering in large groups and becoming thoroughly intoxicated, I doubt that I'd live up to her expectations. (But whenever somebody sees a pictures of a woman with pink or blue or purple or whatever-color-it-is-at-the-moment hair, they assume she's "wild," which is truly a horrible adjective to even attempt applying to me.) She insisted to my husband that we leave our daughter with a sitter one night to go out, a suggestion that my husband also thoroughly rebuffed. (He may be more willing than I am to go out without her, but that's because as the breadwinner he's used to it; he's still not willing to leave her with a stranger, and in areas on parenting where our opinions differ, he generally demures to me anyway, as I'm the primary caregiver.) It's now been determined that my mother must visit for a night so this friend's wife can meet me, which I'm open too, but it remains an encounter I don't have high expectations for. If someone wanting to meet me learned of my child-devotion and said that we had to meet at a family-friendly restaurant with my daughter coming along, I'd be far more optimistic of the opportunity for a real friendship.

I suppose all of this makes me sound either incredibly high-maintanance, or incredibly boring. Maybe I am; regardless, I'm past the point of really caring how I come off to others. I'm aware that most of my husband's friends see me as an incredibly odd combination of wild child and prude, neither of which are descriptors that can accurately be applied to my personality, but it doesn't bother me. The only thing that really bugs me is that I'm wholly unable to meet other people like myself (mothers, fathers, or simply nonparents who appreciate and respect a close parent-child bond), who wish to cultivate a worthwhile relationship. I'm growing sick of putting any sort of effort into aquaintanceships when it's becoming obvious that they won't turn into anything fulfilling for me. I'm not against going out to dinner and a movie with someone; in fact, I would dearly love to indulge in those activities. I guess what I keep forgetting to preface those desires with is that fact that I'd like those activities to be accompanied by real conversation and not just mindless small talk.

The two people I spend the most time with (aside from my daughter, obviously) are my husband and my mother, the only two people I know who truly, intrinsically understand the depth of my bond with my child. My husband is a devoted father, so while he's not as attached as I am out of the pure necessity of needing to leave home nearly every day to earn most of our monetary support, he is very aware of how I feel. My mother was also an attached parent, and while she wasn't a perfect mother (and we certainly had our issues during my teenage years), I always remember that she was there, and how much that meant. Frankly, if being an attached parent means that your adult child (me, in this case) will end up seeing you as one of their closest friends, then I really can't see a downside. I dearly hope that my daughter and I can have a close relationship for the rest of our lives, and if my desire to nurture that love is too much of a hinderance to outside friendships, then I just haven't met the right sort of friends yet.

All of this is also why I appreciate LJ as much as I do. Because of distance or other factors, there are people on here who I'd rarely if ever get to see in "the real world" with whom I think I've found real bonds. Some I knew before LJ, and this merely allows a medium for keeping in touch, and others I met here and have developed a closeness with thanks to this often frivolous blogging tool. Regardless of how we met, I feel like many of you have filled a void in my life, and help me keep my sanity when seemingly no one in the outside world understands where I'm coming from. I don't judge a friendship based on how often we get together to share drinks or chatter, but on how fulfilling our intellectual and spiritual experiences are in our interactions, however brief or infrequent.

Arguments regarding childbirth

rapidrabbit — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:14:57 GMT

My husband and I had a brief but fiery argument last night spurred by an episode of 20/20. (Which, by the way, feels like such an insanely ridiculous spark, but we'll set that aside.) He came home from work at the end of the episode, of which I'd seen most (you never see all of anything when you're watching a toddler). It was about "new" choices in motherhood, things like natural births and extended nursing. When the reporter mentioned the medical community's view (I'm not sure if they phrased it as the all-encompassing view, but that's really beside the point) that home births are "selfish" on behalf of the mother, as if she's placing her own desires before the health of her child, my husband announced his agreement. I countered with my disagreement, to which he replied, "Well then it's a good thing we'll never find out, because we're never doing it."

This was a bit shocking for me. Don't get me wrong, my husband can challenge the most pompous of assholes for their seat on the Grand Asshole throne. It's just that he's not normally a chauvenist, and hearing him tell me what I wasn't allowed to do with my own body was quite shocking. We threw off terse arguments at one another, until I finally calmed down enough to explain to him that I simply don't think he's in a place to judge. He admits to knowing nothing about homebirths or midwifery, and I'm a firm believer that you can't have an opinion about something without being educated about it. I threw off two facts that I know to be true (that the U.S. medicalizes pregnancy and childbirth more than any other nation, and that we also have one of the highest - if not the highest, it's been a few years since I looked into it - infant mortality rate among developed nations; I think that says something about how great over-medicalization of a natural experience is), and told him to do his own research before coming back to me with this "hospital or bust" line of thinking.

Now, before anyone starts wondering, no, I'm not pregnant. And I don't plan to be any time soon. But someday, and it would be nice to have things like this ironed out before I'm raging with hormones and can't have a disagreement without weeping uncontrollably.

When I had my daughter, it was a hospital birth. Really, there are a number of things I would have changed, had I been a bit less frightened during the whole experience. It was my first child, and everyone did a fantastic job of scaring me to death. I'm a small woman, with a very petite frame, and my husband is a hulking giant who was a whopping ten pounds at birth. Everyone had me convinced that I'd be lucky if I could fit an average-sized baby through my narrow pelvis, and that I'd be at death's door if she were large. They also had me convinced that she was oversized, and thus the hospital was the safest place to be. And when I came to term, suddenly I had nerve-wracking phone calls from my doctor insisting that he should have been called immediately after my last ultrasound because of my dangerously low levels of amniotic fluid. That's why my labor was induced, rather than waiting for it to occur naturally. Having later found out that my fluid levels were just on the low side of normal (that is, not dangerous at all), and after going through many, many tear-filled nights of the least pleasant side-effect of induced labor (I had immense trouble producing breast milk), I really wish I'd had a second opinion available, and someone to support me if I'd decided to wait for things to happen naturally.

Induced labor is hell. Even if I hadn't had the breast milk issues afterwards, the actual process of labor is made even worse than the standard hospital experience. You are not allowed out of bed, meaning no relaxing showers to relieve labor pains, and no getting up to stretch out cramps or use the bathroom. (Frankly, I tricked passing nurses into thinking I was having an average labor so I could use the bathroom. I felt perfectly capable of walking 10 feet to the toilet, and with all the other humbling messiness of labor, I didn't think I should be forced to use a bedpan.)

Epidurals really are pushed in hospitals, as well. I was fairly certain I wanted one (as my mom and every other mother I knew insisted it was absolutely necessary; again, I wish I had been surrounded by a more varied group of people) but I wanted to put it off as long as possible. Epidurals slow labor, and generally add slight risks that I just didn't want to introduce any earlier than necessary. My doctor finally came in and scolded me for not having one (at what ended up being about an hour before delivery), but I was pleased it managed to fly under his radar that long. I got the epidural, but it was an odd and uncomfortable experience in and of itself (not to mention the nurse who took 20 minutes threading my catheter, finally needing my doctor to show her how to do it, only to re-enter my room half an hour later and announce she used a latex cath in spite of the large neon orange "WARNING: PATIENT HAS LATEX ALLERGY" sign on my door). It was off-balance, and only numbed my left side most of the way. My right side had well over half-feeling leftover, so I got a relatively decent taste of what delivery pain is like. You know what? I think I could handle it.

In the end, my daughter was born a healthy 7 1/2 pounds, and had no trouble making her way into the world. But some of the experiences even after the delivery were just not what I wanted. I didn't understand why doctors and nurses insisted on still milling around for half an hour after her birth, well after post-birth medical issues were cared for. All I wanted was to be alone with my husband and daughter, and nurse. I wasn't comfortable having her first (or my first, for that matter) nursing experience surrounded by several strangers, and I dislike that the mother-child bonding process seems somewhat delayed in a hospital environment. Once she's out, she's mine. That's the way I see it. But the rest of the room seemed to disagree.

I would certainly consider a midwife instead of an OB for next pregnancy. Sadly, a lot of this depends on what sort of coverage my insurance would allow for alternative care, because pregnancy and delivery are expensive, regardless of which option you choose, and we are not wealthy people. And I'm sure there are many other circumstances that could sway my opinion in one way or another. But I very much believe that home births are a safe, healthy alternative to hospital births, and I don't like being told that I don't have a choice. Normally my husband is supportive of any decision I could make in regards to my own body, but I think his opinion shifts too drastically when his child would be involved. I firmly believe that fathers have the right to be involved in discussions of such matters, but in the end, they're not the ones pushing kids out of them. A mother has the right to birth her child as she sees fit, and I can only hope my husband does a bit more research on the subject before he tries to lay down the law again.

Just a brief PSA

rapidrabbit — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:21:39 GMT

An LJ friend of mine has found two small dogs (to me, they appear to be a chihuahua and a chihuahua/min pin mix, though they might both be mixes), and is unable to keep them. If you live in or around NC and wish to give them a loving home, you can read her post for more information.

Too many animals are losing their homes in America right now. One thing people often overlook in the face of economic crisis is how expensive it can be to care for a pet. When people lose their jobs, animals can lose their homes. Unfortunately, the owners of these dogs did not do the responsible thing and bring them to a rescue, but hopefully someone can step forward and give them a loving home.

Not the next spirituality post I indended to make, but the topic presented itself

rapidrabbit — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:07:47 GMT

I've always believed that my husband and I have a psychic connection. He, an atheist and eternal skeptic, would argue this, but there have been certain occurrances that have left him scratching his head as well. Sometimes it's silly things; I remember when we were living together in our first apartment, a shabby little studio off-campus from my university when I was a freshman. We were camped out on the top bunk bed that we'd converted into a sofa, watching a VHS movie on the tiny TV we'd placed on the top shelf of the open closet across from the bed. (Tiny apartments force you to be creative with layouts.) I was inwardly salivating over the leftover brownies sitting on the kitchen counter, but I was enjoying the movie too much to actually climb down and grab one. Suddenly my husband jumped down, retrieved a brownie, and presented it to me without a word. I asked him what made him do that, and he responded, "Because you said you wanted one." He refused to believe that I hadn't openned my mouth in half an hour. He was wholly convinced he heard me physically utter my desire for a brownie. I'm wholly convinced that I was just thinking it loudly enough that he overheard.

Today he called me from work. This is a very unusual occurrance. While I'm welcome to call him any time, he only calls me to return a missed call from me, or if there's an emergency. He sounded worried, so I immediately asked what was wrong. His voice was a bit halting, and he hesitantly assured me everything was okay. "I just...I don't know, I was working on some paperwork and suddenly thought, 'I need to call Bunny.' Are you okay?" I assured him that I was fine. He didn't sound too convinced, and seemed reluctant to hang up. He offered many assurances of how much he loved me, reminding me that he was there for me if I needed him. It was sweet, but odd. I didn't understand what was driving his desperation to reassure me.

Shortly after he called, one of my pet mice, Cinnamon, passed away. She'd been sick for a few days, and I wasn't too hopeful for her recovery, but still, I'm not the best at dealing with a lost pet. I believe that he sensed my oncoming sadness, that he knew something was going to upset me. He wasn't even aware Cinnamon was sick, so he couldn't have predicted that she would pass today. It was just one of those things.

I don't consider myself psychic in the broad sense, but I feel that we are all capable of psychic experiences, especially with those souls we are closest to. There are so many aspects of human communications that are beyond the grasp of the physical, and I'm awed every time I witness one.

Spirituality: My thoughts on reincarnation, regression, and the point of our existence

rapidrabbit — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:43:51 GMT

I decided that I wanted to try and make a post about my spirituality, but it's so hard to know where to start on such a broad topic. Additionally, it's not like my faith is easily divisible into "categories" - a lot of my beliefs intertwine with one another, overlapping in a way that can make it hard to speak of them seperately, or even know where to start. And I don't really want to write a book on the subject; I just want to get some of my thoughts out there.

I realize that plenty of people will think I'm crazy, or weird, or simply wrong. I will trust those people to keep their mouths shut about that. I have no problem if your faith tells you I'm wrong; I have a problem with you telling me "you are wrong." Please feel free to discuss your similar or different points of view or experiences, I'm very interested. But respect is paramount. Please keep that in mind.

So I thought maybe to start, I'd cover the big issue: What I think the point of human existence is. What I think happens when we die. All that stuff that's so much easier to cover when you have a giant heavy book telling you what to believe, that promises millions of other people who believe the same thing. It's sort of rough talking about the big picture when you expect plenty of people to hear your words and think, "Well, she's going to burn in hell." I don't like condemnatory thoughts on matters of faith; one of my core beliefs is that anyone following any religion is working towards enlightenment if they use their faith to become kinder, more loving human beings. But the enlightenment I think they're working towards isn't Heaven or Valhalla or any of those lovely majestic resting grounds for spectacular souls. I find the entire concept of heaven boring, stagnant; even though I feel I am, as a whole, a good person, I wouldn't want to go to Heaven even if religion dictated that I was worthy. I know I will not be finished learning or growing by the time I finish this life, and not being allowed to explore and learn on my own, just being plunked into paradise...I'd feel a bit cheated, or like a cheater myself.

I wholeheartedly believe in reincarnation, and yes, I believe I have had visions, dreams, and regressions into some of my past lives. I believe that we carry the lessons we learned in previous lives along with us into our new ones, and that's why we can sometimes be so uncannily wise on subjects we know nothing about. It's also how our souls evolve, eventually experiencing all that life has to offer, and learning all the lessons we need to learn first-hand. That evolution is, I believe, the point of human existence. Once our souls have cycled through as many lives as they need to, we are reborn onto a new spiritual plane. We no longer incarnate as humans, but can exist as guiding spirits for those still working their way through the evolutionary process.

I believe that there are souls that we encounter more than once in our incarnations. (I will talk about my feelings on soul mates more in another post; this is background for discussing regression and reincarnation.) Our spouse in this life may be our child or grandparent in the next. There are souls that we have so much to learn from, that we will see them over and over until we have learned all we have from each other and can part ways. I strongly believe I have met several such souls already, and one in particular I had an amazing regressionary experience with.

Years ago, there was a woman who had a powerful impact on my life. She was a sort of mentor; I looked up to her for being able to do things I was not yet brave enough to do, and she gave me the courage to step out of my darkened corner. It's not that she was perfect, but that she embraced her flaws, and that she wasn't ashamed of what made her different. Well one day we both logged on to instant messenger, excited to tell the other about a fascinating dream we'd had the night before. Both of us were frantically typing, tapping out the elaborate stories that were bursting forth from our dream-memories. We hit "enter" at nearly the same exact time, and began reading the other's tale. They were identical. The only difference was point of view. We both told the story of a heart-wrenching night we, in bodies and times that we didn't consciously recognize but which felt so familiar, experienced with another woman. Women who made us think of each other, who drove us to immediately tell the other about the experience. We'd dreamed about being together in a different time, a different place, in different bodies. But we were together.

That was the first time I truly began to have faith in the ability of dreams to show us something beyond psychadelic night-movies. I don't believe that every dream is a regression, or even that necessarily every dream has a deeply poignant message, but I think they can be a vehicle for showing us things that we can't see in our waking lives.

As I said, I have a lot more to voice in all of this, and even the topics I openned up here aren't fleshed out as fully as they would be if I sat down and wrote that book I'm sure no one would really want to read. So if I'm unclear, or you worry that you'r interpretting me incorrectly, just ask, and I'll try to make anything as concise as I can. Sometimes I worry I'm not so good at making everything transparent; it's easy to get caught up in semantics and have something not sound quite right. Any questions are welcome, and there's a lot I hope to expand upon in later posts. Thanks for tolerating my ramblings.

My little artist

rapidrabbit — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:44:05 GMT

My daughter surprised me with yet another spectacular feat this evening. She's an avid drawer, constantly swiping every writing instrument in the house and scribbling all over any piece of paper she can find. This evening she was camped out next to me, scribbling away, when she announced, "Momma! I drew a fishie!"

She proudly held this aloft for my inspection:

I don't know about you, but I think that looks like a fish. But my husband is constantly picking on me for "seeing things that aren't there" in her drawings. She'll tell me she drew a love (that's what she calls hearts) and I'll see it, but my husband rains on my parade with "it's just a squiggle." When she doesn't immediately duplicate her drawing, he takes that as proof that it was just an accident. But tonight, she followed just a moment later with another announcement: "Momma! Momma! I drew a fishie!"

And then she showed me this:

It's the same style, she just "colored" this one in. (Admitedly, she'd have an easier time with coloring if she'd stop ignoring her Crayolas in favor of my ink pens.) I also like to think that the line above it is the waterline, but that may be the wishful thinking my husband picks on me for.

Truthfully, the past couple of weeks have been really rough for me. I'm dealing with some health issues, the end of the semester is kicking my ass, and a thousand different stressors have just left me barely able to keep my head above water. But no matter how overwhelmed I get, that little girl has the most spectacular ability to remind me why I keep trying. She can pull me out of the darkest recesses of my mind and make me really smile. As crazy as parenting can drive a person, sometimes I truly feel like she's the only thing that keeps me sane.

Spirituality - empathy and individuality

rapidrabbit — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:58:47 GMT

I don't usually talk about spiritual matters. I think it's largely due to the fact that I'm probably a lot more "out there" than most of my friends realize, and I dislike the idea of being criticized for my faith. I don't really care if people think I'm a nut; I care if they feel the need to tell me I'm wrong. I've been told that far too many times, and it frustrates me, angers me. How can someone else pretend to know what's right or wrong for my faith?

Several people on my friends list have been talking about spirituality lately. Frankly, I never know how to respond to these posts. One in particular resonated so strongly with experiences I've had myself, but I dislike empathizing with a person's faith. I worry that it will be misinterpreted, that the person will think I'm undervaluing what they view as a deeply personal, individual experience by saying, "Oh yeah, that happened to me, too!" That's never what I mean, but somehow that's always how it ends up sounding. So I just keep silent, thinking it's better to not contribute at all than it is to offend someone's sense of spirituality or individuality.

The silly thing is, I then also feel like, even if such a post stirs strong thoughts or emotions in me, I can't post about them. Like I'll be "copycatting" them. Maybe they'll assume I'm making it all up, just trying to weasel into their lives or experiences and live vicariously. I'd never do that - what the hell is the point of living someone else's life? there's still too much I need to learn from my own - but I have this odd fear that people will think badly of me.

The only reason that's truly odd is that in a thousand different ways, I don't care what people think of me. I don't care about the people who pass me in the mall and think poorly of my appearance. I don't care about parents who watch me with my daughter and think I'm too clingy. I don't care about classmates who think I'm stupid, or employees who think I'm a slavedriver. But I am in a constant state of panic that those people I actually respect, whose thoughts and opinions I value as meaningful and important, will think I do anything maliciously, deceitfully, dishonestly. I strive for honesty above all else, and the thought of being viewed as somehow dishonest on any meaningful subject is really painful for me. (Hell, I wouldn't even like it if those people thought I cheated at cards.)

Shared experiences are not something I'm used to handling on a spiritual level. I've never had anyone close whose faith was like mine, aside from an aunt who is far more a mentor than a peer (and she and I still have some key disagreements). I don't know how to relate to someone on spiritual matters without stepping on their toes. I don't ever want to sound like I'm devaluing their experiences, or their faith. I don't want them to think that if I disagree with them for my own path, that I think theirs is wrong. (As I once told my mother-in-law, who is Italian Catholic and quite the fan of preaching damnation: I believe that anyone who uses any form of religion or faith to become a kinder, wiser, more loving person will achieve enlightenment in their own way.) But I've never had anyone who I could talk completely openly to about my own faith, without them somehow countering it, arguing it, or trying to disprove it, and I fear that my own attempts to share like experiences will end up being interpreted that way. And I can say from experience: That hurts.

Feminism and division of household labor

rapidrabbit — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:32:16 GMT

My house is home to a distinctly uneven division of labor. I have chosen a somewhat "traditional" role as a stay-at-home mom, but I dislike that this role continues to be undervalued in today's society, and even within my own family. I work half the year, attend graduate school online, care for my daughter, and keep my household running - why is this not considered "work" simply because I don't put in 40 hours outside the home each week?

I get frustrated with my husband because he sometimes steps onto his breadwinner's high horse and complains that the few things he's supposed to do around the house are an unfair load, since he works full time outside of the home. And yet his duty of taking out the garbage elicits far fewer complaints than the occasional time I've asked him to step for one moment into my shoes. And he's only ever really put a toe in. He's never had to pay the bills, cook the meals, or take care of the pets. But an hour watching our daughter without my aid is enough to leave him clawing his hair in desperation; I asked him today how, then, he thought I did it all day, every day. He was mute, and yet I don't think it really sank in.

I have no problem doing duties that were traditionally "feminine" roles in the household. I like being primary caregiver to my child, I like cooking, and I don't mind doing laundry or washing dishes. I'm not of the mindset that feminism only progresses by throwing off traditional roles for the sexes; instead I believe that gender/sex equality is about being able to choose whatever role you wish, and having an equal balance of work and power within the relationship. It's the latter part of that statement that my husband seems to falter on. He gets a kick out of having a partner who can cook, clean, and raise kids while also playing handyman, scholar, and part-time breadwinner. It never seems to occur to him that if I'm part-time breadwinner, he should be part-time house-spouse.

It bothers me that it is so socially acceptable for a man to prop his feet up in front of the TV (or in my husband's case, the PC) after getting home from work, while his wife struggles to find a break in her day that doesn't involve shaving time off of a restful night's sleep. (For the record, this post is brought to you courtesy of insomnia; I'll be running on 4 hours sleep, at best, tomorrow.) If the woman was the primary breadwinner, she'd get called all sorts of nasty names (not the least of which would be attacks on her femininity and mothering skills) if she did the same. "Feminism" to some people means that we must be the jacks of all trades, while it's still okay for our male partners to be the masters of only one.

Better than turkey day

rapidrabbit — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:51:39 GMT

We don't do traditional Thanksgivings in my house. The holiday just doesn't mean much to us. The sentiment of "giving thanks" is nice, but it feels almost counter productive to my desire to be thankful for my life every day. This naturally isn't true for everyone, so I hope all of you who celebrate the holiday had a lovely one.

Today was still a day of celebration, though, as it was two years ago today that my daughter joined our family. In her honor, I made a special meal with her favorite foods (salmon and seasoned steamed veggies), and it hit the spot better than turkey. Not that I'd turn down any offers of leftover stuffing and mashed potatoes anyone wanted to send along. :-)

Gamely modelling the new hat I made her, while playing with her new stuffed koala and reading her new alphabet book. Our dog insisted on being involved in the festivities, so naturally her back half had to show up in the photo.

There is nothing I could be more thankful for, so the holiday was unnecessary for me. I thank my lucky stars for blessing me with her every single day.

Money is a funny thing.

rapidrabbit — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:09:18 GMT

Something I've noticed: Your state of monetary satisfaction is always directly proportional to how much you have. I suppose that's partially where that saying "Money doesn't buy happiness" comes from.

I often make cracks about being poor, but I don't honestly think my family is poor at all. Yeah, we struggle, and we owe, but I have it so much better now than I ever used to that I can't imagine thinking of myself as actually poor. Even when I was a kid, I didn't think I was poor, even though in retrospect that was through the innocent eyes of a child.

I had toys, and it never occurred to me to notice that they were always purchased at ultra-discount stores, and we only ever got new ones on Christmases and birthdays. I always had clothes to wear, and while it always bugged me, I never questioned the reason why my entire wardrobe was made up of my sister's hand-me downs, even though they never fit (she was always average height for her age and heavy, I was always tall for my age and stick-skinny). It never bothered me that our "living room suite" consisted of two second-hand chairs and two stiff and bumpy foam floor loungers. I never questioned why my mother made so many soups off of that one chicken, why we ate so much rice and potatoes, why we never ate out until I was a teenager. (Outback Steakhouse...I can remember the trip so clearly, it brings tears to my eyes because I remember how special it was to me.) I didn't understand why my father rode his bike miles downtown to work every day, through bad neighborhoods in any weather. I never questioned why my lunch box held something like a hard-boiled egg sandwich, while my friends had Lunchables or deli meat sandwiches with fresh fruit and brand-name potato chips. It never mattered to me. I was happy with what I had. And I have far more now than I did then. My husband and I have an annual salary that's almost double what my family had then, and with one less child. Even with inflation, that's pretty damn good by my standards.

Several of my friends are house-hunting right now, or recently bought homes. (Something in the air?) I see the houses they're making offers on, and my jaw drops. They're so much nicer than any place I could dream of living in, that the concept of buying such a place is utterly alien to me. They say how high their mortgage approval is, and it's so staggeringly above our own that I think they must be far, far outside of our socioeconomic bracket. I hear them talking about wanting a place that's move-in ready, and I take a long look at my home. The entire first floor is uninhabitable, still awaiting the reconstruction necessary to make it livable. And even when my home is finished, through all the sweat and blisters of my own work, it still won't approach the level of these other homes. It's still a modest house, with modest potential.

But I love it. Even in it's torn-up state, I adore my home. I love the three rooms we're currently able to live in, I love the colors I painted it, I love the carpets we laid and the repairs I finished. This house has the potential to be everything I could hope for in a home. I just find myself wondering if I have extremely modest dreams. I find myself wondering if my house-hunting and new-home-owning friends were to walk into my home...would they be horrified? Disgusted? Would they pity me? Would they think less of me? I've watched aquaintances struggle to control their upshot eyebrows and curled upper lips when they see things like my torn-apart kitchen. But I like to think friends wouldn't care. It's just difficult sometimes to hear specifically what a person finds unacceptable in a home, and then realize that yours is the epitome of that description.

Of course I'd like to have more money, and I wish I could pay somebody else to do all the repairs that my house needs done. But I'm not resentful of what I've got, or of people who have more. I'm not jealous of my friends with nicer homes, more expensive cars, or better jobs. I don't care if someone else has more money than I do. I'm satisfied. But just like I'm sure Childhood Me would smack me in the face every time I make a joke about being poor, sometimes I wish I could take those friends weary from not finding the perfect house into my ugly, unfinished living room, give them a hug, and remind them that even if the building isn't perfect, it can still be their dream home.

Learning to like me

rapidrabbit — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:35:09 GMT

I've never been the type to get asked out. My husband and I have been together for what seems like a century now, but we've never been attached at the hip (and I rarely wear a ring). And even before we were together, it was such a rarity. Rare enough that I can remember everyone who's ever proposed a date with me.

Two were in high school. One guy was the leader of "The Possum Gang," a group of hillfolk who got their kicks from catching possoms, beating them to death, and leaving them on people's doorsteps. Oh be still my beating heart. I still haven't the slightest clue what inspired him to ask me. Sadly enough, he had a sort of popularity in my school, and people thought he was "lowering himself" to ask me out. Yes, I was enough of a pariah that the guy who led possum-beatings was too high up on the social ladder for me to date. Regardless, I declined very politely, as back then I was so much nicer than I grew to be. Now I can't imagine being approached by someone with such a cruel passtime and being able to even meet their gaze without telling them exactly how evil I find them.

The other high school fellow was barely one step down the Chain of Inbreeding that weaved through that school. He wore his hunting fatigues to school every day, and thought the key to my heart was regailing me with tales of gutting deer. Again, I was polite; it was even more important with this guy though, because he ended up dating one of my best friends for a very long time. (She never did have good taste in boyfriends.) It was during their courtship that I learned he kept a photo of me that he'd taken without my knowledge taped to his headboard. No one else's photos were in his room; just mine, taped to that bed like it was somehow normal. A friend once joked, "Hey, at least it's not taped to the ceiling." Somehow that gave me little comfort during his continued, overzealous pursuits.

My mother always told me I was too something to be asked out by anyone other than those people who had nothing to lose. I was too pretty, people thought I was out of their league. I was too smart, I made people feel dumb. I was too confident, it made people lose their nerve. But people who love you often feed you flattering lies to explain away things that bother you about yourself.

My confidence used to be largely bluster, a facade I put on to face those tortured hallways with all of their barbs and slurs before I went home and graced my pillow with my daily cry. But now I have real confidence, born of finding within myself a person that I adore. I give myself more credit than I used to. I don't think I'm drop-dead gorgeous, but I think I'm attractive. I'm quirky-cute; my look doesn't appeal to everyone, but I'm pleased when I look in the mirror. In some form of self-flagelation, I used to seek out people who were smarter, and who went to great pains to point out all of my intellectual shortcomings. Not anymore; now I know I'm smart, and I no longer care that I'm not the smartest person ever. And now I feel that anyone who corrects me snidely to prove the status of their own intellect is just trying to feed their own ego, to avoid their own nagging voice of imperfection. Just like all those people who told me I was too ugly, too fat, too skinny, too anything to be pretty.

I'm still not the type of person who gets approached, but now I'm not so busy insulting myself that I can't hear complimentary whispers. I smirk when I hear my husband's gaming buddies refer to me as his "hot liberal wife." Irritated as I may be by circumstances, I find it amusing that when drunk, his friends go on tirades about how attractive they find me. And unlike most of those people who used to insult me, these are people who have met me, spoken with me, and often been on the recieving end of some of my more biting rhetoric. And still they don't judge me harshly for it. Maybe they even like me more, because for once, people are getting to know me beyond my existence as a passing face. And my exterior may be alright, but it's the rest of me that's really worth knowing.