From the Mouths of Babes

Two gems from Ethefirst today.

First thing in the morning: "Ma! My head is a gas giant, like Jupiter!"

Just before bed, as Ross is sciencesplaining how eyes work to him: "No, daddy, those aren't tear ducts! They're cry drips!"

I hope with all my heart that he stays this insightful, cause this stuff is too funny!

Blasphemy

I'm starting to think that either God never intended for religion to exist, or he made a huge mistake when he started it.

So sad for Copenhagen today.

Women's Work, at Work

This article is fascinating, and really rings true for me in a lot of ways. 

----
Women at Work: We're Doing All the 'Office Housework,' Too
// Jezebel

Question: Who brings the cupcakes at your office, is more likely to toss the moldy leftovers from the communal fridge, or gets stuck organizing the office b-day shindig? Answer: Hey guys, I can make reservations at the bar for today's post-work drinks. It's no problem, really!

Read more...

----

Shared via my feedly reader

Sent from my iPhone

Here Are the 36 Questions That Will Allegedly Make You Fall in Love [feedly]

I think I may try this with Ross. Not because we need to fall in love (got there!) but because we used to love asking each other questions from the book "If" when our relationship was long distance. 

I think the "staring into each other's eyes" part might be a little odd, though. We'll see!

----
Here Are the 36 Questions That Will Allegedly Make You Fall in Love
http://jezebel.com/here-are-the-36-questions-that-will-allegedly-make-you-1679062869
----
Shared via my feedly reader

Sent from my iPhone

Verbal Vomit

There's a fine line between not being ashamed of things that happened in my past and telling everybody about it. I have a really hard time not divulging everything about myself when I'm meeting someone who seems cool. It's like, logically I know the grocery store is not the place to talk about my recovery from my eating disorder. Or pregnancy details. Or my weird enjoyment of terrible politics. But…sometimes only my brain knows that. My mouth just goes. And how do you stop talking in the middle of that? Once verbal vomit gets going, you just have to get to a stopping point. My brain is going WrapItUpWrapItUpWrapItUp and my mouth is going BlahBlahBlahBlah and my body is going *cringe.*

And then I just stand there awkwardly, like, dammit. Hope that person is cool enough to not think I'm a total freak now.

So here's hoping I don't replay that in my head for the next week, thinking of all the smart cool things I could have said, rather than what I did say.

#fingerscrossedemoji

Conversations with E the First

E1: Mama, where do firefighters come from?
Me: Sometimes little boys and girls who want to help people grow up and decide to become firefighters.
E1: Oh I know, jus' like the firefighters at the firestation
Me: Yeah! What do you want to be when you grow up, Em?
E1: A good monster.

Just....Ugh...

I am so sick of hearing people use the death of this poor man to attempt to invalidate claims of racism.

His death is tragic in its own right...how would you feel if your child, unjustly killed by police, were talked about in the news only as a perverted "proof" that race wasn't a factor in the death of Michael Brown? Or in the lack of an indictment for Darren Wilson? It's the more "murdery" version of "I can't be racist, I have a black friend." The headline...

Unarmed White Man Shot By Police: No Riots, Al Sharpton Silent, Obama Keeps Golfing

And then...

The St. Louis County prosecutor just charged a black cop with felony assault for using his baton too aggressively. How can you still think race isn't a factor after that?! It's not just about Michael Brown. It's systemic.

White people who kill black people rarely get the death penalty, yet black people who kill white people very often do.

Want to come back with "but what about black-on-black crime?" It's irrelevant. Also, if you're not also yelling about "white-on-white crime" then you're a hypocrite.

When allowed to do "random" searches like in the Stop and Frisk program, cops choose to search people of color 85% of the time, even though white people are more likely to have contraband on them.

via

via

Black people are significantly less likely to face an actual jury of their peers.

1/3 of all black men will be put in jail at some point in their lives, statistically. We jail more of our minorities than any other country. Hell, we imprison more of our people than any other country, proportionately, but we target minorities while doing so.

Want to say "well it's all about the kind of family you come from, your values, if only their fathers stuck around, etc?" When we, as a country, take 1/3 of the men in a group away, how can you blame them for their children growing up without a father? No one should have to adjust to your idealized way of living, comply with your fashion sense or idea of family or anything else beyond "don't try to hurt others", just to stay alive.

And you sit here using your time to try to disprove their complaint because what...it makes you uncomfortable to think that racism isn't over? Because you are inconvenienced hearing about it? Because traffic? Because businesses you don't patronize are suffering loss? People are being killed, being oppressed, being kept in poverty, robbed of the "ideal family" we all cherish so much. And it's because of race. Not the in your face KKK cross burning kind of racism, but subtle, systemic, insidious racism.



The kind of racism that allows a white cop to kill an unarmed black man, get a 3/4 white grand jury to do extraordinary things just for his potential indictment, then a white prosecutor tells a room of almost all white reporters why the cop won't be charged, sounding like a defense lawyer instead of a prosecutor. After which the white cop gets a TV special where he reveals his desire to teach others about use of force, says he regrets nothing, and complains about having to wear a beard.


And then through all that, what you find most outrageous is that the people who loved Michael Brown aren't protesting the death of some other person they didn't know. Or the people who loved Eric Garner, or Oscar Grant, or Tamir Rice...my god, Tamir Rice, that poor poor kid. Why aren't you up in arms about that? Just...why? Or the people who loved Dillon Taylor, even...why AREN'T they protesting?

I can't understand the lack of outrage. I just can't.