Molly's Mom's Toaster

When my sixteen year old daughter told me she had invited Molly’s mom into our apartment while I was napping, my stomach clinched so tight I nearly puked. Molly was my daughter’s new best friend in high school marching band. My family and I (me and my hubby, our four kids, and our dog) had just moved to the area so I could finish up grad school, and I was looking upon our tiny, two bedroom single level apartment as temporary. I did not plan on ever entertaining company – at least not without an extensive explanation. Making buddies with a fellow parent wasn’t really a workable plan – unless the parents were more than a little free-spirited, nontraditionally young (I had my first three kids all before I was 21), and struggling (I mean food stamp approval level struggles) for time and money. THEN maybe I could relate a little.

Molly’s mom seemed to me, an alien, over a decade older, a city woman, a future helicopter parent, two car garage and tiny yappy dog owner, a God Complex attender, likely conservative. Molly’s mother seemed more organized, more involved and connected, more flexibly employed, more traditionally married, more housewifey, and so fit to the given plastic-mold in her concern for her daughter’s education. She had a two story on the outskirts of town, where all the houses were brick and the townspeople cruised to the grocery store in golf carts. Her and her kids were always dressed in name-brand clothing. She had afforded BOTH kids clear braces. She wore decorative sweatshirts appropriate to season. She worked part time in some office. Her husband kept the money flowing but was rarely home because he was always “off on business.” They had four dogs and a fat black cat that would all peer down their noses at me from her bay window whenever I pulled into her driveway to drop off or pick up my daughter.

I was overwhelmed by things like squeezing our money through a sieve, pulling together a work schedule, attending late night classes, and getting my writing done. I didn’t clean house much, and my husband kept up with it well enough. I sort of felt cozy in the muck and muddle. I was good enough if I was giving my children – the youngest 6 and the oldest 20 – a warm meal and some sort of minutely positive attention daily. I had to hope that the public school system was doing well enough and, occasionally, I tried to reverse any disreputable damages. I imagined myself stepping up later. I thought the older I became, the better I’d fit in with those “traditional” type parents like Molly’s mother, but I was beginning to realize I wasn’t catching up with anyone.

I had nearly puked because I realize Molly’s mom had seen my apartment in an outright wreck. She saw the piles of shoes and coats which beaver damned the flow of traffic from the front door. She saw my gritty carpet after my kindergartener had been chopping up one hundred tiny paper triangles to prove her newfound counting skills. Molly’s mom saw our family dog, sick and coughing and weepy eyed, in need of a vet’s attention, if only we could have afforded it. She saw a twin bed as it sat unmade on the floor without a frame in the space traditionally reserved for a dining table. There had been toys and papers everywhere. She saw stacks of half-filled cups on the end table and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and discarded chewing gum. She saw my sink full of dirty dishes, the leftovers of supper, and, of course, it had been spaghetti. The worst was she saw my husband napping half-naked on the couch in his Darth Vader-esque sleep apnea mask. Surely, she bore witness to his hairy belly button.

My daughter had tried to wake me so us two mothers could meet, and I, being exhausted from staying up über late the night before, brushed it off in a sleepy mumble. I told her – perhaps half aware of what I was avoiding – I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Later, when I learned of Molly’s mom’s invasion, I beheld visions of the woman running a manicured finger over the top of my television to calculate the depth of the dust. I envisioned her kicking coats and shoes aside, fighting the urge to organize them herself or perhaps thinking she should graciously loan me one of her organizational cubbyhole systems (like a good fellow mother would). I saw her sniffing the air and lifting her chin in an attempt to raise her head out of the scent of dirty dog and cigarette smoke. I saw her gazing caringly at my sixteen year old daughter, wishing the Lord had given her a more suitable set of parents.

After learning of my exposure, I snapped. I assured my family they were a group of totally careless people, not concerning themselves with the appearance of the apartment in the face of new company, and the worst kind of company – a “traditional,” older, conservative mother. I started tossing shoes into the shoe basket, started rinsing dishes and shoving them in the dishwasher. It is a given, I insisted, that when anyone – not just another woman – looks upon the interior of a living space and it’s messy, it’s immediately blamed upon the mental state and ability of the woman. Among mothers, there can be a brutal competiveness, a tendency to sneer, judge, and share gossip. Mothers can seek to show up one another. Society sets this up the regulative order of things. When I was very young, I witnessed my own poor, single mother as she was practically tortured by fellow female church goers. Having had my first three kids before I was 21, I have had nightmares about such castings and have always felt like I had a wider tail to cover.

After my mini-explosion upon being exposed as incompetent, my husband stared at me like I was crazy. He raised his eyebrows and stepped away from me as though I was contagious. But all this falls on me! I cried. Can’t you see? Molly’s mom thinks I’m awful. His stare sunk deep. What had I just said? I was thinking crazy. I stopped and laughed at myself and convinced myself to brush it all off. Why should I care what Molly’s mom thinks of me? She’s so freakin’ plastic.

Not long after all this, Molly’s mom let me in her ranch to make a quick phone call. As I walked up to her house, I realized I had never noticed her grass was dry and tan unlock the other lush green lawns on the block, nor had I noticed that there sat a rusting Bronco in the driveway that never moved. “Just kick the dogs away,” Molly’s mom had told me. The dogs had yapped and jumped and sniffed over all of my lower half. There sat a tiny pink bow on the head of the Pomeranian, and when I saw this I thought I had been spot on in my assumptions. But then I noticed the fur on its belly and the underside of its tail was so grungy it was twisted into dredlocks. As her big black cat nuzzled my calves, I saw it had bald spots. Something was off. After Molly’s mom pointed me to the phone, she ran to the bathroom to ponytail her flaming red hair which suddenly seemed insanely frizzy and unruly.

Molly’s mom’s house was disgusting. I stepped over pets and pillows and dirty clothes in the living room to get to the phone in the kitchen. With all of those pets and that overfilled trashcan, her house was so odorous it was tangy. Stringy dust bunnies waved from her heating vents. Her front bay window was cloudy and had a line of slimy dog saliva. Her sofa was ripped open in places, exposing chunks of yellowed foam. Her carpet was stained – pee? tea? Her houseplants were all brown and slumping, neglected. Her family portraits were all goofy, off-center, and hanged crooked. She had a large kitchen table, but I couldn’t see the top of it for the stacks of junk mail, magazines, and cookie packages. She had a plastic basket on her kitchen counter overflowing with little orange bottles of prescription pills. Then I saw her toaster which sat there by the phone. It was covered with caked-on crumbs and burnt crud. It was a repeated tool of the easy breakfast, littered with PopTart pieces, a symbol of neglect, overuse, and exhaustion.

TheToaster - FA+, by Ingrid Falk & Gustavo Aguerre. 

Buenos Aires, 2000 - installation

2500 slices of bread on foamboard. 500 x 450 cm.

I would come to learn that when Molly’s mom’s husband was “off on business” he was trekking across the country as an OTR truck driver – and she hated his guts. He never helped her with anything, being stout to follow the “proper” rules of gender expectation. They were in massive debt, she was suffering from multiple health problems all multiplied by depression, and she ran herself ragged every day. The only relief she ever found was in the occasional bottle of wine, and, on that day, she hinted to me I should have some with her some time. I told her maybe, but doubted myself, knowing she was indeed a conservative Christian and, when I drink wine, I can get testy. I did hug her after making the phone call that day, but I was unsure of whether I liked her better or worse having discovered she wasn’t so Disney. I had left her driveway sporting a half-smile, and even as irony waited to punch me in the face, I patted myself on the back knowing I would never let my toaster get that nasty.

As Common as I Love Yous

“Someday I WILL murder you in your sleep.”

“Not if I get you first, you sonofabitch.”

Ah, the sounds of love. Isn’t it fun to watch different couples interact and relate to each other? You never know what’s just under the surface there, what’s underneath the side comment or the eye roll. Some couples are all over each other in public, and some barely acknowledge each other. My partner and I have what I think is an interesting relationship, wherein the statements above are as common as “I love yous,” (which are totally common in my house, you guys). My partner and I get each other. We have our inside jokes, and we make each other laugh every day. We do small kindnesses for each other throughout the day, we work hard, and we meet at night to kiss before we fall down to do it all over again.

We’re madly in love after a decade together, but we often joke about how our relationship might look if people could peek inside our home and see some of our exchanges. In fact, we have a recurring scene that we act out in frustration and fondness. It goes something like this:

Me: Joseph! I swear! If you do (X offense) ONE more time, I am going to set you on FIRE.

Joe: Shut up before I strangle you.

Me: I wish you were dead.

Joe: Oh, I’m dead inside. I’m dead inside.

It’s mostly just at home that we act this way, but sometimes our exuberance in carries over into public. Like, if we’re at Target and he wants to buy something, and gets all excited about what that thing would mean to our life, and all the ways we could use it. And I wait until he stops for a second and then I say NO, wickedly and with a smile on my face, because I know I’m the boss of the money. And then he grabs my shoulders quite dramatically (but not roughly) and says “Why are you always trying to kill my dreams?! Naysayer!”

My partner and I aren’t super lovey-dovey in public, though usually that has a lot to do with having kids—our hands are always being held or pushing something. But when we’re out alone, which, seriously, is only about five times a year at this point, we sometimes hold hands, or I loop my arm through his, because he has sweaty hands and we can’t hold hands for too long. And sometimes when he’s driving I put my hand on the back of his neck. We’re more about the everyday small things—I think when you’ve been together for a long time, and especially when you have kids, it gets that way. We don’t buy each other birthday or Christmas gifts, simply because we can’t afford it, and we don’t ever go out to dinner and to see a play. We don’t have lives that allow grand(ish) romantical pleasures, but we have our idiosyncratic, deadpan humor and our small and simple kindnesses.

I love our relationship. You won’t find us canoodling through Facebook, but if you stopped by one night you might hear us flirting with idle threats and curse words. It’s actually pretty beautiful.

An Ex-Boyfriend Confessional.

I can’t believe I loved him.

Charm, I know now, is an understatement. He grasped life like it was one big bowl for him and I had NEVER. Ever. Done that.

His European eyebrows. The ka-blam when we kissed. Dancing in his kitchen. The fact that he listened to the radio station of all Christmas music during the holidays.

The fact that he cried on our first date that lasted 14 hours.

These are most of the things that blinded me to the bad. The texts from girls I didn’t know. Pictures saved on his phone. The fact that I WOULD go through his phone.

He never made plans with me ahead of time. A trip halfway through Montana to see Bess get married was finalized the day before. But I’d planned to go without him.

I was used to being disappointed.

Blinded by the fact that his time with his kids is sacred. That his ex-wife cheated on him.

But the fact is, he cheated on her first. He’s first rate Spokane player scum and I…the girl getting divorced…didn’t see it. I just FELT hope.

All I wanted was grace.

And the fact is, I felt that grace 85% of the year we were together.

In bars, if women tried to hit on him in front of me, he would introduce them to his best friend. Dance only with me in front of the band. This fodder made for a good New Year’s Eve memory.

The way he would put me on his arm. I was nothing to be ashamed of. How could I not be important to him? I felt important. Even if it was momentary.

A few weeks after we dumped me for another woman he cried, like he did on that first date, about what a bad guy he was. Confessed to being the one who cheated on his ex-wife and then she divorced him. Said he was sorry. Didn’t want a life without me in it, somehow. But I’d already been too broken. Couldn’t look him in the eye, for what reason, I don’t know. Perhaps, I was afraid I would laugh. Laugh at the pain he had caused me and to now be seeing him in pain. Or maybe I would have cried, too. I couldn’t trust myself to look at him. Too risky. But when he asked me to look at him, I did.

A few days ago, I came out of my apartment to see his car parked by mine. A man was telling him to stay away from his girlfriend. To never come around here again, if he knew what was good for him. I saw the stoic Section V* that I knew, learning on his car, eyes vacant, slowly smoking at the ground.

Turns out the women he had dumped me for lived just two floors above me. Said she had met him in a bar. The guy who had told Section V to leave was her boyfriend. She said she had never been Section V’s girlfriend and that he had been texting her incessantly. She hadn’t heard from him for about a week and now, he’d shown up at her door.

It was then, I knew. The man that I knew didn’t really exist. He was a selfish liar.

How had I not seen this? Did he get worse in the past few months? Could I have been so blind?

I feel now that I made Section V into a character of my own life. He danced, caressed and performed in my poems but in life, he was just really out to get what he could from a broken woman trying to get over the car wreak for her marriage. He could bandage me poorly and I was grateful. Grateful for any sort of salve I could get.

I hope someday I find I still have enough belief in grace, hope and yes, love, that I can put all my proverbial eggs in one basket.

Even if it’s just my own basket, it’ll all have been worth it.

*Name for Ex-Bf. Also refers to the fact that Section V of my thesis contains only poems about this relationship.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

The holiday season can bring our sexual etiquette into question. We all know potentially catastrophic results hover around the implied norm of drinking at holiday parties to the point of stupidity. Alcohol does in fact make us less responsive, less responsible. Some warn us to keep our heads on straight to avoid STDs and those awful, morning-after regrets. While some imply, in this hazardous world, it’s best to not take our boots off at all. As funny as the idea of drunk & lusty may be, some warnings evoke worse dangers. It brings to mind the recent controversies surrounding an ad created by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB). The one ad was part of an ad campaign which seemingly upheld the best of intentions: increasing public awareness regarding the negative effects of alcohol and binge drinking. Unfortunately, the one ad – specifically designed for women – only succeeded at playing another bad hand in the blame game of rape. The PLCB ad –which warned girlfriends to not let their girlfriends get raped while drunk – was another example of finger pointing at the victim, a major uncalled-for insult after the fact of a brutal attack and an obvious side-step to a massive problem. It was a finger NOT pointed at the rapist, and another finger NOT pointed at the rapist is like another rapist ignored or forgiven.

So I wonder: in our efforts to raise awareness, can we turn to call out the rapists? And what gender do we address THIS type ad to? Just as the female is precast as a victim, the anger, violence, mistrust and hate that often times leads to the violation of another human is readily accepted as given “symptoms” of the male species. Of course, women are raped by men - and the stats are staggering (in American and even more so worldwide). But when men are raped - especially by a woman - they rarely report it and for understandable reasons. Maybe here lies a little insight into the problem at its root.

How would the public have taken the PLCB ad if it was directed at a man? And what if it sought to go beyond a warning invoking the stereotype that lies behind the “typical rapist” (something like an image of a stout, drunken, cocky young man – similar to the one we see in movies set around frat houses?  – and the text reads: “Don’t get so drunk that you can’t control yourself and so end up raping nameless blond chic in the bathroom”? - Ugh - How many would THAT one offend?). What about informing a man that he too is in danger in the bathroom if he has dropped his Levis but is so drunk he can’t find the pot to piss in?  How offensive would an ad showing the man as sexually vulnerable be? Would the ad be laughed at? Which gender would laugh more? Would the ad be immediately pulled? Are such ads ever even considered?

Every human being is susceptible to physical and/or psychological force that can lead to sexual victimization. Every human being is capable of invoking such force. We are, however, often times taught (in all the ways we come to learn of gender stereotypes) to CARE LESS about a man’s openness to sexuality, to assume that any and every man would enjoy getting off at any place or time as long as the opportunity presents itself. If a man is taken sexually by a woman, he has been taught to define a sexually aggressive woman as an undeniable “blessing.” He is taught that he need only reach for the moral capacity to lie back and enjoy the moment. And he is taught that a “real man” would even rightly overpower such a woman and turn the tables (and she would love every minute of it - and maybe she would). But what of when he cannot overpower her and things turn from “sex game” to violation and domination? What if having sex with a woman at that moment is in fact the LAST thing he would ever choose to do? To refer to male rape by a woman lightly is just as offensive as what we walked for in the Slut Walk. The damage that can follow a man who claims to have been victimized by a woman is far beyond social expectations and stigmas and, thus, massively crushing, and there are very few avenues of healing for men given the little amount of attention – aside from humiliation – that the crime receives.

Physical sexual response (such as erection or orgasm/ejaculation) can be completely involuntary. Women have fought such reports of being “turned on” in rape cases before and such "behavior" has led to dropped charges and public insolence. Men have been taken sexually upon being drugged, having had their penises tied to maintain erection, or even in their sleep when the penis may become naturally erect. If a man is sexually assaulted without penetration, the issue may be minimized because the penis is so exterior and personal "space" is not so easily defined. Just as men, women are unpredictable when it comes to size and strength and are so capable of using physical brute force and threatening weapons, and they can also be inspired to master psychological force, i.e., the use of blackmail or manipulation that plays right into all angles of both gender stereotypes (e.g., “A real man would fuck me” or “If you don’t fuck me I’ll tell everyone your dick was too small.”).

We know to define rape as a violation of another person, a violent method through which one individual forces control over another individual. It is the absence of consent. Men are more likely to use aggressive sex as a tool to prove dominance and gain control because, by and large, society allows for such things and in many ways even (still) CALLS for such things. A step towards betterment is to allow “real men” to BE vulnerable and to not forget that women can BE sexually aggressive and violent. It wasn’t until recently in modern society that male rape was given even a shrug by law (it still isn't even acknowledged in many places) – and rape during which a man is victimized by a woman is hard to prove and very much still laughed at socially. If we continue to laugh at the notion of a man being sexually victimized by a woman (something both genders are guilty of in all cultures), we uphold a massive double standard and continue to detour potential change. Of course, we resort to fallacy if we interpret female sexual aggression as it leads to male violation as a forgivable spin-off of the anger in existence for so many centuries of the denigration of women.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~ Ghandi

The blaming of the victim (or the one who was defeated in some challenge because he/she did not "try" hard enough) is a theory we use commonly to empower ourselves – and it can work if we have decided that empowerment IS a decent end goal. But a world where rape is at least given the attention it deserves as a punishable crime and where the victim is given the respect he/she deserves calls for a set of renewed, shared goals and redefinitions. It calls for a redefining of sex as we've known it as unbalanced for centuries (yes, women are capable of having orgasms for good reason). Out of respect for each other, our goals would rise above invoking more competition and even fear (consider, for example, the sad need for such a thing as the Rape Axe condom). And yet we tell ourselves it's crazy to reach for a cease in all wars – as rape is and always has been a profound tool of war. Let alone to reach for a cease in greed and lust for power and domination and therefore ownership. And no religion, too? Peace and Goodwill toward All Beings? Some great evolution of our minds in regards to enlightenment and self-control and earthly responsibility including for one another?  Do we worry that, in such a crazy world, we may lose our eggnog?  :(

Top Ten Ways to Piss Off a Writer

1) Tell them you don’t vote.

2) Remove them from a social media page they started.

3) Ask them to admit AWP is just schmoozing and they LOVE it.

4) Break the copy machine at their crappy job.

5) Be the copy machine at the crappy job.

6) Talk incessantly about how worthwhile a Community College certificate in the medical field is nowadays.

7) Tell them you gave up writing “stories” to go into advertising. OK...you might've been right. But we're still pissed!!

8) Ask, “So, you like, hangout at coffee shops a lot, huh?” As a matter of fact, ass hat, I do!

9) Send them links to lists like “Top Degrees for Making Money.” Yeah, we know writing isn’t one of them.

10) Tell dinner guests that MFA stands for “More Fries, Anyone?”

My Abortions Story Part 2: Complications and the business of payment

On the day of the abortion, I had lunch at the dorms with Eva, though I didn’t live there, and then we drove to the clinic. I wore those track type pants that swooshed, with a long tee shirt. After a short wait, I was called back to the counselor’s office. She was kind, and asked me questions. I told her the father didn’t want me to have the abortion, but I had made up my mind. I was frightened but sure. Then, I went back to sit with Eva for a few minutes.

My doctor was a woman, maybe in her forties or fifties. She had long, straight, silver-gray hair. Her face was softly lined, and she was calm. I remember bright lights and the whirring vacuum machine, and that’s it. After the procedure was finished, the doctor and a nurse helped me to the recovery area, which was a small room with two couches, a table with juice and cookies, and some magazines. I rested there for 45 minutes. They let Eva come in. When the time came, the nurse nodded and I got up, already reaching for the door handle, and then everything went black and I was sitting on the couch again. I’d passed out. I felt nauseated and closed my eyes, swallowing mouthfuls of saliva. More juice and cookies, and 45 minutes later I got up again, slower this time, and black splashed my eyes again. Over and over I rested, tried to get up, and passed out. Eva looked a little worried when the nurse came in and checked my stomach. She paused. “Does your stomach normally look this way?” I looked at Eva. I didn’t even know if my own stomach was pooched out more than it normally was. I didn’t even know what my own stomach looked like, the part of my body I’d always hated. This is how oblivious I was to what was going on with my body. I had no idea if it was bloated, and I told her so.

Eva and I had made plans to go to our friends’ house, the two friends who I mentioned earlier, so that they could take care of me. They were cooking spaghetti, and we’d watch Friends. It was a Thursday. But the afternoon passed, and the clinic closed. I passed out repeatedly, and everyone around me was nervous. But I was calm. I’m not sure if it was just the weakness, or my general obliviousness to things happening around me, but I never got worried or frightened. Finally, around 8 p.m. the doctor came back to the clinic. She felt around on my stomach and said I might have a clot. She’d need to get me back in the procedure room to take a look and get it out if needed. But she’d need help.

She and Eva grabbed either arm and we stood up fast and made it to the exam bed just as I went limp. I woke up and vomited. I wasn’t nervous, but I was shaking uncontrollably. The doctor started up the vacuum machine again, the rumbling filling the room, and I looked over to see Eva in the room, her arms wrapped around her stomach. I moaned—I hadn’t wanted her here for this. She was pregnant and I knew she had to be having some conflicting stuff going on. But soon they called Eva to duty and asked her to squeeze my IV bag. Apparently I had an IV by this time. She stood by my head and told me to look at her, and I did. “Breathe,” she kept saying. “Breathe, pal.” And I’d take a breath and hold it until she reminded me again.

After, I was able to leave the recovery room standing, and we drove to our friends’ house. The spaghetti was cold, and they had antoehr friend over, who didn’t’ know about the abortion. I’m a pro at glossing over though, and I sat cross-legged on the floor eating microwaved spaghetti. When the friend used the bathroom, Eva told me that there was blood on my sock. They hadn’t taken my socks off when they put me on the exam table the second time, and a neat round circle of bright red blood covered the heel of my white ankle sock.

The abortion cost $360, and my friends paid for it. I had just moved back to school, and I hadn’t found a job yet. The father had promised to send half of the money to me before he’d gone to California and I’d come back to college, but it never showed up, so I had to ask my friends, who had a little money. Two friends lent me $180 each, and I paid them back bit by bit over the next year.

Despite the complications, which were actually quite serious, despite the heavy stress the whole situation put me under, I remained somehow apart, somehow unaware and calmer than I should have been. I guess it was my body’s way of getting me through it. I’m learning more and more to trust my body. Eva, who is now a labor and delivery nurse, told me recently that I was hemorrhaging that day, and that I could have died. I went to her for her memories of my abortion experience, because I guess I kept a lot of that stuff on the periphery of my mind, and she filled in some of the blanks for me.

Having been rather out of it during the entire pregnancy and termination, you might think I’d have these great feelings of regret or distress or despair now that I’ve had time and opportunity to look back and reassess those weeks. But instead, I am calm. I have not regretted that abortion for one second. I have not wondered what would have happened if, because I’m more concerned with what did happen and what’s happening now, which is raising my three beautiful children with a beautiful, beautiful man.

And I am thankful every day for what my friends did for me. Without them, I probably would have allowed myself to ignore the pregnancy for too long. And if I hadn't ignored it, I would have gone to the Pregnancy "Care" Center by myself. I would have gone to the clinic by myself. But probably, that wouldn't have happened, because without my two friends who paid for it, I wouldn't have been able to afford the abortion. Thank you, friends. Because you were there I was able to use my reproductive choice, and it was the bravest choice I could make at that time. I will try to pay it forward.

Well, are we pro-choice or not?

This topic has been knocking around in my head for a bit now, and with Thursday’s news and the assholes it brought out of the internet woodwork, I had to say something.

Michelle Duggar suffered or is suffering a miscarriage. Duggar was pregnant with #20. I’ve never watched the show and I have not followed this family at all. I know they are very conservative Christians and that they don’t believe in birth control, that god plans their family size, that they are the Above Rubies and Quiverfull type of family. And that’s it. That’s all I know about them. And you must know I’m pro-choice, which is why it pisses me off to no end that self-proclaimed pro-choice feminists 1)Criticize her reproductive choices and 2)Are either out and out cruel or offer fake-ass, back-handed sympathy (“I feel bad for her, but every ejaculation does not need a name.”)

Some women have been arguing that maybe Michelle Duggar doesn’t really want these children, she only thinks she does because she’s brainwashed by her religion. I don’t know about that. And really, neither does anyone else, even someone who’s been in a very similar place. We don’t know if she’s under some kind of religious or spousal duress to keep having children. We don’t know if the older children’s lives will be ruined forever by having to help out with the younger children. We don’t know if they’re the happiest and most well-adjusted family on earth. WE DON’T KNOW. Whatever the Duggars have going on in their household is their business. Reproductive choice is reproductive choice, and she’s made hers. If she’s not really happy in her life, well damn, that’s pretty sad. But again, we just don’t know—we can only conjecture. And to say that she can’t possibly be happy in the life she’s living, well that feels about as condescending as when someone wants to outlaw abortion for women’s own good.

Now. If we call ourselves reproductive freedom fighters, if we believe that parenthood is a choice, if we trust women, we have to respect ALL reproductive choices. There is no picking and choosing. It’s not “I support reproductive rights, but she’s had enough kids.” No. Disagree with the woman all you want, but don’t say she doesn’t have the right to have twenty children. Don’t say she’s selfish for having children—I don’t give a shit if she’s on welfare or not. Even if she was, guess what? Still none of your business how many kids she has. It’s not a sign from God to stop having children (who are you to interpret the signs, anyway?) It’s time to pick a side, and please, pro-choicers, let’s all be on the same side. The side where we trust women, and the side where, for fuck’s sake, we don’t say “maybe she needs to be mentally envaluated, and then we they do the D & C, take her baby parts away because this is beyond enough” to a woman who has lost a loved and wanted child. You don’t get to be pro-choice with a BUT. The pro-choice crowd doesn’t want to see your but, so if you must have it, keep your but to yourself. Because if we see your but, we may start to think you’re not actually pro-choice after all.

Why I Married Charlie Sheen...

In being a part of this blog, I have become more aware of what is going on in the world. Not just because I feel I need to find things to respond to, but I am just more engaged in the cycle of news and happenings in the world which can be ignored if you avoid news sites, don’t have cable or say, have spent the last two years immersed in an MFA program.

So, being more plugged into politics, I find I am more in tune with personal politics as well. Take for example this article from the Huffington Post Style section. Tracy McMillan has written a not quite satirical piece entitled “Why You Aren’t Married.”

McMillan addresses a specific set of women in the article when she states she is addressing a ‘you’ who has “never dreamt of an aqua-blue ring box.” Those of us who have always dreamed of a “real” wedding day are not included.

But then, a shocking turn occurs when McMillan says this about herself:

“I was, for some reason, born knowing how to get married. Growing up in foster care is a big part of it. The need for security made me look for very specific traits in the men I dated -- traits it turns out lead to marriage a surprisingly high percentage of the time.”

McMillan has been married three times and the advice that follows her backstory is aimed to tell the women who are dying to be married why they aren’t.

Ready for why?

They’re shallow, slutty, lying, selfish bitches who think they aren’t good enough.

It’s enough to make your head spin, right? Because 1) how dare she? and 2) whoa, wait lady…you’ve been married three times and hence, DIVORCED that many times…couldn’t the finger be pointed right back at McMillan? In an article titled “Why You Are Divorced?”

As a woman who has been married and divorced…and perhaps, would like to get married again someday with a pretty dress this time, not 8 months pregnant and with some dancing afterwards, I took offense.

Let’s just look at some quotes:

“But I won't lie. The problem is not men, it's you. Sure, there are lame men out there, but they're not really standing in your way. Because the fact is -- if whatever you're doing right now was going to get you married, you'd already have a ring on it.”

Yes, McMillan, because men are PERFECT and INFALLIBLE beings that women must serve? I think not. And they are ALL just waiting for a non-bitch, wholesome woman to walk into their lives. Again, I think not.

Marriage is a two way street where yes, you are going to have to put up with farts and belching (from both sides of the fence perhaps), the bad mood he gets in when he’s hungry, the way she snaps when you interrupt her concentration, kids complaining about homework and being too tired for sex. But that is MARRIAGE. It isn’t some sort of play where the woman tiptoes around so their husband doesn’t leave them.

“You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married.”

99% of American women are not Kim Kardashian. And I have been pissed off since I was 13 and I am pretty sure it was a part of my charm to my ex-husband. I am not going to stop ‘being angry,’ what I assume is reference to the Feminist stereotype, for anyone. If some man thinks I am ‘too angry’ for him, then he best just move along. Compromising my self isn’t the deal. And I wouldn’t want any potential partner of mine to do that either.

“This thing called oxytocin…it's why you can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn't even all that great and the next thing you know, you're totally strung out on him…And since nature can't discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you're going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.”

Whoa. Who said we were all sleeping with Charlie Sheens?! Can we not be seen as capable of having a casusal relationship without going all gaga over some sort of chemical cocktail? I say we all lay off the booze and call it good.

“Which is also to say -- if what you really want is a baby, go get you one. Your husband will be along shortly. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios.”

Haha. Ok, that one was funny.

When we get to McMillan’s last point (and after I had read the article six times) it struck me that she may be writing this list to herself. That she, as an American woman, has fallen prey to what everyone (men, family, media) has ever said to her.

Perhaps, it’s a sad diatribe on the harmful words spewed from the angry soon-to-be ex-spouses, who have been pointing out faults for years before the split. I could feel bad here, but I guess I am thankful in a way, to think McMillan is just telling her story.

She’s a little angry.

Miss Representation ala Brighid & Bess

I am but a young feminist. Like Thomas Jefferson’s declaration “I am but a young gardener” I feel there is so much I have yet to learn though I have been one since well…I’m pretty sure I was born a feminist.

The documentary Miss Representation talks about a ‘tipping point’ in 1980 when Reagan took office, which also happens to be the year I was born. And while the Republican machine was working during the 1980s, I was growing up in a loving lower-middle class home where my Dad worked 12-14 hour days and my mom ran everything else.

My mom is a feminist role model. Some would see staying at home to be anti-feminist (esp. back in the 1980s) but the dynamic in my home showed me how women can be viewed by the men in their lives: as smart, determined and strong. My family has always been matriarchal.

So, while Miss Representation names the 1980s and the ERA backlash as the tipping point, I myself see that tipping point as being Britney Spears.

See, as a teenage girl in the late 1990s I looked to 7 Year Bitch, L7, Team Dresch, Sleater-Kinney and Ani Difranco as role models. Perhaps, I was an exception but there were other girls like me in high school, some even more fierce with army jackets and severe, sharp haircuts. Think of Claire Danes and friends in My So Called Life. I ran around in men’s cargo pants, thrift store granny sweaters and the non-revealing t-shirt. I felt no need to be sexy. I wore what I wanted. I wore makeup for me or to cover a really bad zit. I told many a boy ‘no’ without any qualms about if he would still like me or not.

I wish the movie had pointed to the late 90s and early 2000s assault of pseudo girl-power in Ms. Spears, X-Tina, and the Spice Girls. At the time, the media even labeled these performers as “girl power.” The girl power I knew was spelled differently (its Riot Grrrl, sheesh) and DEFINITELY didn’t include push-up bras or being a ‘slave’ for anyone.

But what Miss Representation did do was call to light what is going on today, which is a long deep slide away from the power I felt as a teen. Women are to be sexy or not worth anything except the pleasure they can bring to men. Media in all forms: music, television, internet, movies and TV shows rarely depict a strong woman that is less than ‘sexy.’

I don’t want my son to grow up thinking women need to be a size 4, opinionless and great arm candy. I generally try to keep him away from what I can in this respect but, in the public schools, it’s going to trickle down. Hell, even in a private school it would.

The questions with the panel after the film tended to focus on What can we do NOW? And I think the answers are 1) to speak up when demeaning portrayals of women show up in media, not only shutting it off but also taking action with a letter, email or phone call; 2) supporting your fellow women. So many women today come down on their fellow female counterparts so they can feel better in a world where no woman can be ‘good enough.’ Extending kindness and acceptance to other women can have a huge impact on the social dynamics of womanhood and; 3) Show this film to the people, especially the men, in our lives. Men need to be informed of the degradation of women which infiltrates our lives. They may not even be aware.

Make them aware.

And a few words from Bess as well:


Sometimes, you watch a documentary to learn something, or see something interesting. And sometimes you watch a documentary because you want to be fired up. You want to curse at what you see in the film, and you want to feel inspired again. I think Miss Representation is a film like the latter. The statistics frightened and appalled me, and the deregulation of the communications industry, resulting in a very few groups controlling virtually everything we see, actually causing women in the media to backslide, really caught my attention.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, we had shows like Golden Girls. We had Grace Under Fire with Rhett Butler. We had Roseanne. And those women didn’t have it easy in TV land, by any means. Somehow, though, we had them. We had five older women living as roommates. We had a struggling single mother who had been abused by her ex-husband. We had a down-and-out couple with a strong female lead, a couple, I might add, who made it on TV despite the fat paranoia pervasive in all of American life today.

Can you imagine a show like Golden Girls on television right now? Because I can’t.
Instead we’re inundated with beautiful, thin women married to chubby men, even in animated shows. And listen, nothing wrong with a chubby guy. But do you ever see a chubby girl and a hot guy? I certainly can’t think of any examples. I like the show Raising Hope, but it’s portrayal of poverty is more polished and unreal than Roseanne. Dan and Roseanne Connor struggled with job loss, business failure, and keeping their home with that couch and afghan we came to know so well. In Raising Hope, the couple mentions that they’re broke all the time, but in a flippant way that’s not realistic, making it seem “folksy” to be poor, and like life as a maid and a pool cleaner is somehow delightful with no pesky aching legs or backs, no arguments about working late or how they’re going to buy their kid’s prom dress.

And when I think that today, the powers that be would never allow a show like Roseanne or Golden Girls on the air, I don’t feel that women have made progress in this area, and that’s what Miss Representation points out. As per Jane Fonda, “Media creates consciousness, and if what gets put out there that creates our consciousness is determined by men, we’re not going to make any progress.” Well, shit. Yep. Brighid’s right, we have to call that crap out whenever we see it. Just today I learned through a Facebook conversation that a cousin of mine had no idea that “cankles” is a derogatory term reserved pretty much exclusively for women. And I believe he had no idea about that, strange as it seems. I’m guessing my cousin learned something today, and I’m hoping that one cousin at a time we can change this landscape.


Watch a preview of the film here.