I drove to a town over the railroad tracks, a rural town with gravel roads. They eat talking turtles there. They say that they don’t but that’s a lie. They lure them in with promises of work and friendship and good benefits. My talking turtle friend hitch hiked a ride with me. Can you hitch hike with someone you know? And isn’t that really turtle suicide?
Right away we were pulled over by the cop, because I’m sure that he could see the turtle in the passenger seat. And there was only one cop, because it’s a small town. The cop tried to take the talking turtle in on an infraction of some obscure town law. Only he made it seem like a favor. Told him he would get him a job as a dishwasher in the backroom with racquetball benefits. So once he had the turtle, I decided to get out of there before I they decided they were cannibals. But the main road didn’t go anywhere. It was a dead end, and I had to turn around in someone’s flower bed, my car spitting gravel.
But somehow, I didn’t leave either. I parked my car alongside the road. I left it there for several days with my cell phone and wallet. And I never called home to let anyone know where I was at. I don’t remember what kept me there so long. Maybe I decided that I couldn’t leave my turtle friend. Maybe my conscience had grown inside of me.
I didn’t find my turtle friend. They invited me in and showed me the racquetball courts. But the racquetball court was transformed into a music room during the day for the children. My racquetball partner and I played the instruments instead of stretching out the room for racquetball. And we ate the children’s Valentine’s Day candy until the teacher came in after hours. We complimented her on her fine classroom, and hoped we didn’t get blamed for the broken sound board in the violin that was broken before we had arrived.
After racquetball, I attended the town meeting. I stood next to the scheming leader who was also the cop. He stood at the edge of a swamp, talking about his great plans to throw the next “brother” into the swamp. I asked how it was going to work since they weren’t really brothers. DNA would show that. He ignored my question. He was trying to set the whole thing up as a crime scene. He wanted it to look a certain way. “Who’s going to push in the next brother?” he asked. I pushed the cop leader, but he regained his balance. So I pushed even harder the second time and watched him fall into the poisonous sludge. The crowd was quiet. They had adored their leader and believed his lies. All eyes were on me. I walked quickly out of the building and down the street. I had to get back to my car. I hoped it was still there, because I had been inside for almost a week or more. I felt my pocket to make sure my keys were still there. The entire town was behind me, ready to stone me. I picked up my pace.
My car was gone. But Seth Green was there with a tattooed eye. He told me that my car was parked around the corner on the inside of the building (actually a large cultish complex). He said that it was all a set. None of it was real. I could see for myself. Inside there would be placemats for all the actors and visitors, eating meals, ready to watch the debut.
I did look. It was like a grey hair convention in a Big Boy Restaurant. The placemats had our names and rank. Mine read Executive Leader or something like Queen.
I still didn’t believe any of it. I had to get to my car.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Waiting for the Reparation. Insert check here <>
Feminism is dead.
I have never considered myself a feminist. That was a concept that they needed in the 1960’s and 1970’s to overcome inequalities that no longer exist and is therefore irrelevant. Anyone who describes themselves as a feminist now is a man-hating bulldyke bitch—like Hilary Rodham Clinton. And who wants to be associated with that? It’s unattractive.
As a child, Dad encouraged me to do well in school so that I could be whatever I wanted to be. When he said that I could be anything, he really meant that I should go into Medicine or Engineering. He also strongly encouraged me to marry for money and not to do so until after I had finished my first four years of college. Because he would not be paying for my wedding, he suggested elopement. It would be cheaper.
My parents followed traditional gender roles. Mom never attended college. It wasn’t really presented as an option. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years of my life—cooking, cleaning and caring for me and my brother. Dad worked 40 hours a week, doled out Mom’s allowance and did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. It was the typical Conservative, Republican, Nuclear Family.
Household responsibilities were clearly demarcated as Mom or Dad’s. The kitchen was Mom’s area of expertise. Dad might have washed one load of dishes during my first 18 years—in one extreme instance when Mom was deathly ill. And there was a point during Dad’s mid-life crisis that he was into cooking Chinese stir fry in the new wok and smoking meats in the new smoker, but that was short-lived.
Help your mother with the dishes. I resented having to help with dishes, because I never saw Dad pick up a dish. Why should I? Each time I made it into some conspiracy theory.
Grandma never learned to drive. That would have allowed her too many freedoms. When her children were older, she started working at a nursing home. Every week she handed over her entire check too grandpa, and was not given an allowance out of her own money until she demanded $5 out each check. She worked 3rd shift was still expected to cook all the meals and do the laundry.
Now I’m head of household. I don’t have children nor do I want children. I work full-time in a stereotypically female dominated profession—nursing and have a masters degree that would allow me to work in another stereotypically female profession--teaching. I’m a woman in relationship with a woman. I do what I want to do when I want to do it. I still hate doing dishes. And even though I claim to be all post-modern, I don’t know much about cars or mechanical things. I leave household repairs to my more stereotypical butch partner.
I didn’t want to be like my grandmother or my mother. I wanted to be the boss. And perhaps their traditional gender roles instilled in me the fear of what could be and what I didn’t what. Somehow I identified more with my father’s role. I understood the inequality of roles and where the power laid. I wanted to be the one with the power. And now I look at the inequality that I contribute to my own relationship. We’re both women. But I make more money. She makes a majority of meals, does most of the cleaning. And I expect things, because I’m the one putting in the “work” hours. Maybe the inequality is more about money and less about gender. Whoever has the most money wins? Why don’t I give my partner an allowance? After all she washes my dirty chonies.
Had I been born 10 years earlier, would things have been different for me? I do what I want to do. But I think perhaps this is possible because of all the other bitchy, Birkenstock wearing women who paved the way. There were not the same environmental or cultural obstacles impeding my progress. I really do have a choice.
The lives that women lead now were only recently made possible. There are still gender role expectations and inequalities that we take for granted because it’s so encultured in the way we do things and how things have been and always have been. And it’s all based on higher levels of testosterone and a larger appendage. Penis verses Vagina.
In 1962, my aunt was unable to take a drafting class in high school because she had a vagina. During that same time, it was required that vaginas had to wear certain length dresses—even in the winter.
All penises were able to vote before any vaginas could vote. How long do you think before the Presidential office will be desecrated by a bleeding vagina? Penises still dominate high paying corporate jobs and government offices of power and political influence. A vagina running for office is placed under a different type scrutiny. The public doesn’t necessarily want to see the same qualities of a powerful penis in a vagina. Because it’s un-vagina-like.
Women have only been able to vote since 1920. Prior to 1936, birth control information was deemed obscene. In 1963, it was made illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. These are only dates when the laws changed. Just because the laws changed, doesn’t mean the mindset or attitude about these things changed. Nor does it mean the laws were actually enforced.
Cialis, Levitra and Viagra treat erectile dysfunction. Name a medication that treats female sexual dysfunction or a woman’s inability to achieve orgasm. Where is our pill for that? It doesn’t exist. In 2003, less than half the states required health insurances to cover oral contraceptives for women. Yet Viagra was widely accepted and covered by health insurances. In July 2008, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly asserted: "Viagra is used to help a medical condition -- that's why it's covered. Birth control is not a medical condition, it is a choice.” http://mediamatters.org/research/200807200002 Wow.
Society views vaginas that allow their armpit and leg hair to grow out as unhygienic and lazy rather than natural. Look at all the body products designed to remove hair. But it’s okay for the penis to have a hairy back. It’s natural. It grows there.
Vaginas are socially conditioned to start wearing bras as soon as those breast buds peek out. It’s unsightly to have sagging breasts or breasts that flop around. Keep that shit wrapped up. But what about penises that hang low or bulge? Where’s the cockholder? And what about penises showing off their man-boobs in the summer? Oooh, look at that A-cup hottie.
My grandmother and mother came from a long line of full blooded vaginas. I’m full blooded vagina. I deserve reparation for past and current discrimination of women. Every woman born with a vagina should get a check. Imagine how rich and powerful we could have been, had our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers been allowed to do the things we do everyday.
And just for writing this blog, I’m probably flagged as some bulldyke feminist bitch, because these are really non-issues.
I still want my check. Maybe it could be a check mark box on my tax return.
I have never considered myself a feminist. That was a concept that they needed in the 1960’s and 1970’s to overcome inequalities that no longer exist and is therefore irrelevant. Anyone who describes themselves as a feminist now is a man-hating bulldyke bitch—like Hilary Rodham Clinton. And who wants to be associated with that? It’s unattractive.
As a child, Dad encouraged me to do well in school so that I could be whatever I wanted to be. When he said that I could be anything, he really meant that I should go into Medicine or Engineering. He also strongly encouraged me to marry for money and not to do so until after I had finished my first four years of college. Because he would not be paying for my wedding, he suggested elopement. It would be cheaper.
My parents followed traditional gender roles. Mom never attended college. It wasn’t really presented as an option. She was a stay at home mom for the first 13 years of my life—cooking, cleaning and caring for me and my brother. Dad worked 40 hours a week, doled out Mom’s allowance and did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. It was the typical Conservative, Republican, Nuclear Family.
Household responsibilities were clearly demarcated as Mom or Dad’s. The kitchen was Mom’s area of expertise. Dad might have washed one load of dishes during my first 18 years—in one extreme instance when Mom was deathly ill. And there was a point during Dad’s mid-life crisis that he was into cooking Chinese stir fry in the new wok and smoking meats in the new smoker, but that was short-lived.
Help your mother with the dishes. I resented having to help with dishes, because I never saw Dad pick up a dish. Why should I? Each time I made it into some conspiracy theory.
Grandma never learned to drive. That would have allowed her too many freedoms. When her children were older, she started working at a nursing home. Every week she handed over her entire check too grandpa, and was not given an allowance out of her own money until she demanded $5 out each check. She worked 3rd shift was still expected to cook all the meals and do the laundry.
Now I’m head of household. I don’t have children nor do I want children. I work full-time in a stereotypically female dominated profession—nursing and have a masters degree that would allow me to work in another stereotypically female profession--teaching. I’m a woman in relationship with a woman. I do what I want to do when I want to do it. I still hate doing dishes. And even though I claim to be all post-modern, I don’t know much about cars or mechanical things. I leave household repairs to my more stereotypical butch partner.
I didn’t want to be like my grandmother or my mother. I wanted to be the boss. And perhaps their traditional gender roles instilled in me the fear of what could be and what I didn’t what. Somehow I identified more with my father’s role. I understood the inequality of roles and where the power laid. I wanted to be the one with the power. And now I look at the inequality that I contribute to my own relationship. We’re both women. But I make more money. She makes a majority of meals, does most of the cleaning. And I expect things, because I’m the one putting in the “work” hours. Maybe the inequality is more about money and less about gender. Whoever has the most money wins? Why don’t I give my partner an allowance? After all she washes my dirty chonies.
Had I been born 10 years earlier, would things have been different for me? I do what I want to do. But I think perhaps this is possible because of all the other bitchy, Birkenstock wearing women who paved the way. There were not the same environmental or cultural obstacles impeding my progress. I really do have a choice.
The lives that women lead now were only recently made possible. There are still gender role expectations and inequalities that we take for granted because it’s so encultured in the way we do things and how things have been and always have been. And it’s all based on higher levels of testosterone and a larger appendage. Penis verses Vagina.
In 1962, my aunt was unable to take a drafting class in high school because she had a vagina. During that same time, it was required that vaginas had to wear certain length dresses—even in the winter.
All penises were able to vote before any vaginas could vote. How long do you think before the Presidential office will be desecrated by a bleeding vagina? Penises still dominate high paying corporate jobs and government offices of power and political influence. A vagina running for office is placed under a different type scrutiny. The public doesn’t necessarily want to see the same qualities of a powerful penis in a vagina. Because it’s un-vagina-like.
Women have only been able to vote since 1920. Prior to 1936, birth control information was deemed obscene. In 1963, it was made illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. These are only dates when the laws changed. Just because the laws changed, doesn’t mean the mindset or attitude about these things changed. Nor does it mean the laws were actually enforced.
Cialis, Levitra and Viagra treat erectile dysfunction. Name a medication that treats female sexual dysfunction or a woman’s inability to achieve orgasm. Where is our pill for that? It doesn’t exist. In 2003, less than half the states required health insurances to cover oral contraceptives for women. Yet Viagra was widely accepted and covered by health insurances. In July 2008, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly asserted: "Viagra is used to help a medical condition -- that's why it's covered. Birth control is not a medical condition, it is a choice.” http://mediamatters.org/research/200807200002 Wow.
Society views vaginas that allow their armpit and leg hair to grow out as unhygienic and lazy rather than natural. Look at all the body products designed to remove hair. But it’s okay for the penis to have a hairy back. It’s natural. It grows there.
Vaginas are socially conditioned to start wearing bras as soon as those breast buds peek out. It’s unsightly to have sagging breasts or breasts that flop around. Keep that shit wrapped up. But what about penises that hang low or bulge? Where’s the cockholder? And what about penises showing off their man-boobs in the summer? Oooh, look at that A-cup hottie.
My grandmother and mother came from a long line of full blooded vaginas. I’m full blooded vagina. I deserve reparation for past and current discrimination of women. Every woman born with a vagina should get a check. Imagine how rich and powerful we could have been, had our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers been allowed to do the things we do everyday.
And just for writing this blog, I’m probably flagged as some bulldyke feminist bitch, because these are really non-issues.
I still want my check. Maybe it could be a check mark box on my tax return.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Remembering a Rainbow Wedding in a Parking lot
My friend was having a rainbow wedding under a circus tent in the Holland Civic Center Parking lot. The couple smiled even though there wasn’t enough chocolate covered strawberries and cake to go around. The person in charge of the food had actually been eating it. Nadia with the eyes had started to eat their wedding cake. But it couldn’t have been now. The vending area for the farmer’s market hadn’t been built yet. And I was wearing some purple sailor style dress from 1992—which I had owned then, but has long ceased to exist in my wardrobe. God, I wish I could get into that dress. So we were all younger and thinner with some anachronisms and distortions. I brought Eva as my date. Eva, a coworker of mine. I think maybe it was really Sylvia wearing Eva’s skin so that I wouldn’t get too scared.
When I woke up, I called my friend. Okay, so I Facebooked her first, because I’m lame like that. And she said she was moving. Someone else asked if it was Wisconsin. And she said yes. Then I browsed her most recent pictures. She had spent Christmas with a strange new woman from Wisconsin. The last thing I had committed to memory was a possible woman of interest in Arizona. But that might be me just remembering wrong or making shit up or just not paying attention.
Did you know there’s a place called Onalaska? Not InAlaska. Or ThruAlaska. But OnAlaska. That’s where she’s going at the end of July. She’s fallen in love. They camp and hike and play WorldWar Craft. I’m happy for her. A little sad that she’s leaving Michigan, but I only see her twice a year now, so how can I really be that sad. Maybe I’m sad that I’m not really that sad.
Seems like I called her at least once a week or maybe more when Emery died. Then when Sylvia and I were fighting. There were many potlucks and Cranium game nights at her house. But I broke up with my girlfriend. She broke up with hers. Then when I met Jacks, I had to be up Jacks butt 24/7, and the world disappeared. She moved. I moved. The whole space time continuum stretches and evolves.
Sometimes when you meet a person, you hold them in your memory as when you first met them. You forget that 10 years passes and that people get older, kids grow up. You don’t look for a really long time. Or you don’t pay attention. You expect people to be where you left them. But you’re not where they left you either.
Her birthday is coming up in at the end of February. She told me she was going to be 46 this year. What? I counted on my fingers. I must have lost a few years. Her daughter that I met when she was 10 is now 20. I stopped counting when she was in high school. So when I see her in my mind walking through her life--being accepted into a Medical PhD program and contemplating marriage—she’s still 16. I know she owes me another ice skating date, and I never sent her a care package her freshman year.
People aren’t where we leave them. We’re constantly moving, changing, growing.
Last week Mom was cleaning the basement and found a picture of me tucked between the school files. It’s a rapidly deteriorating Polaroid. I’m wearing a wrinkled bridesmaids dress with puffy sleeves and a beret that clearly does not go with the dress. I’m holding a little purse. Beneath the dress, you can see my regular everyday shoes. It’s 1980-something. But other than that. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. My parents never owned a Polaroid.
“See,” Mom said. “You don’t remember everything.”
She handed the photo to Dad.
“She could easily be 14 there,” he said.
“She’s not 14! She doesn’t have any boobs. Do you see boobs in that picture?” Mom pointed.
I think Dad is one of those people who sees a person only once, and that’s what he remembers forever. He sees me at one age. I’ll be the same age, no matter what. Clearly, I was not 14 in the picture. I was still wearing my hair in the ever-so-unpopular bowl cut—definitely the humiliation of grade school.
When I woke up, I called my friend. Okay, so I Facebooked her first, because I’m lame like that. And she said she was moving. Someone else asked if it was Wisconsin. And she said yes. Then I browsed her most recent pictures. She had spent Christmas with a strange new woman from Wisconsin. The last thing I had committed to memory was a possible woman of interest in Arizona. But that might be me just remembering wrong or making shit up or just not paying attention.
Did you know there’s a place called Onalaska? Not InAlaska. Or ThruAlaska. But OnAlaska. That’s where she’s going at the end of July. She’s fallen in love. They camp and hike and play WorldWar Craft. I’m happy for her. A little sad that she’s leaving Michigan, but I only see her twice a year now, so how can I really be that sad. Maybe I’m sad that I’m not really that sad.
Seems like I called her at least once a week or maybe more when Emery died. Then when Sylvia and I were fighting. There were many potlucks and Cranium game nights at her house. But I broke up with my girlfriend. She broke up with hers. Then when I met Jacks, I had to be up Jacks butt 24/7, and the world disappeared. She moved. I moved. The whole space time continuum stretches and evolves.
Sometimes when you meet a person, you hold them in your memory as when you first met them. You forget that 10 years passes and that people get older, kids grow up. You don’t look for a really long time. Or you don’t pay attention. You expect people to be where you left them. But you’re not where they left you either.
Her birthday is coming up in at the end of February. She told me she was going to be 46 this year. What? I counted on my fingers. I must have lost a few years. Her daughter that I met when she was 10 is now 20. I stopped counting when she was in high school. So when I see her in my mind walking through her life--being accepted into a Medical PhD program and contemplating marriage—she’s still 16. I know she owes me another ice skating date, and I never sent her a care package her freshman year.
People aren’t where we leave them. We’re constantly moving, changing, growing.
Last week Mom was cleaning the basement and found a picture of me tucked between the school files. It’s a rapidly deteriorating Polaroid. I’m wearing a wrinkled bridesmaids dress with puffy sleeves and a beret that clearly does not go with the dress. I’m holding a little purse. Beneath the dress, you can see my regular everyday shoes. It’s 1980-something. But other than that. I don’t know where. I don’t know when. My parents never owned a Polaroid.
“See,” Mom said. “You don’t remember everything.”
She handed the photo to Dad.
“She could easily be 14 there,” he said.
“She’s not 14! She doesn’t have any boobs. Do you see boobs in that picture?” Mom pointed.
I think Dad is one of those people who sees a person only once, and that’s what he remembers forever. He sees me at one age. I’ll be the same age, no matter what. Clearly, I was not 14 in the picture. I was still wearing my hair in the ever-so-unpopular bowl cut—definitely the humiliation of grade school.
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