Nope

Got this from my district today, inviting all NBCTs to come watch, it'll be great!

Nope. This kind of junk is part of what keeps us underpaid. My students are not a mercy project, they are people who need me to do my work well for their benefit, not in order to feel like a superior person. My craft is not built out of good intentions, and good intentions aren't where learning comes from. Teaching IS a job. It takes talent, work, study, and it should be paid like the profession it is. We don't say this about doctors or firefighters or politicians. And you know what? We pay them properly. I wish my district and my union would stop perpetuating this crummy myth that teaching is done out of goodness, rather than out of passion and talent and desire for career.

I hate this narrative about my profession. It's damaging to me, my students, education as a whole.

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.

If You're More Focused on the Looting Than the Lack of Indictment...

"Let's say you're at a shindig of some sort - an office holiday party, a department function, the post-lecture refreshments, a gallery opening, a con, any place where there are a lot of other people, most of whom you don't know personally or well, and a lot of milling around.

In the course of this milling around, someone steps on your foot. Someone very much larger than you, wearing big, heavy shoes. And doesn't move off. You can't pull your foot out from under theirs. They're talking to other people and don't even notice through their thick soles and distraction, what they not only have done but are continuing to do.

You go "Ahem," and "Excuse me," and "Sorry, but you're standing on my foot," in a polite if urgent tone, but they can't hear you, partly because they're too tall, partly because of the party hubbub, and partly because they're not listening to you but instead the sound of their own voice and the appreciative remarks of their friends.

Your hands are full, so you cough louder, but it doesn't get any results. At this point, you can't even feel your toes any more. In desperation, you awkwardly shuffle your drink onto your plate and tap gently on their shoulder, but they don't notice it either. (Perhaps a couple of their friends have, though, and are discreetly trying to break into the monologue, but having no luck.)

Finally, in desperation, you raise your voice and shout "EXCUSE ME!" The foot-trapper turns their head to look over their shoulder, without moving their feet, and goes "What?!?" (Perhaps they brush their elbow against your arm, making your drink splash and scattering a cheese cube or three.)

"You're standing on my foot," you point out. "Can you get off it?"

"You're rude!" says the foot-squisher. "You shouldn't interrupt people in the middle of a conversation. Now I've lost my train of thought!" or maybe "It's rude to shout at people!" (Perhaps even, "Look what you did to my coat!")

And then they turn right back to the conversation they were having, without bothering to move.

When you point this out, again, they say smugly, "If you'd asked politely, I would have.""

From http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/336952.html

When people complain about the looters and the riots more than they do about the miscarriage of justice that happens over and over again in our country, this is what I hear. I hear a demand that the oppressed just take it politely and put up with it for as long as it takes for this who are uninterested in changing to change. I hear a demand to assimilate. To join the dominant culture. To be better than human, because what human can suffer indignity over and over again without lashing out one day? Who can stand to go unheard for so long without finally yelling?

This is not to say I approve of riots or looting. I don't. And the people who turned peaceful protests violent should be prosecuted. The police who handled things with restraint should be commended for doing their job well. But when we deny a community justice, then also deny them the right to anger, misused as it may be, we are saying we have no respect for their humanity.

Tragic

Police should be held to higher standards than civilians, not lower ones. They have a greater duty to protect life, not a lesser one; an expectation of more bravery, not more reactions based in fear. I can't imagine the devastated and powerless rage and loss Michael Brown's mother must be feeling.

This statement, too, is infuriating. The internet and the media are not at fault for the frustration of people over the killing of an unarmed man...the killing of an unarmed man and the incompetent handling of the investigation following it is why people are so frustrated, so enraged, up in arms.

Michael Brown, even if he stole things, did not deserve to die. He should not have been left out, uncovered, in the street for 4.5 hours. The investigation should have been done properly. The secrecy surrounding this will forever leave doubts in people's minds. Who are these corroborating witnesses who've never spoken to the media?

And so many questions unanswered. Why does the government and police force of Ferguson have so little understanding of the racial undertones of our society? How can anyone think that racism is over in the United States? Why are white people so unwilling to hear and believe the experiences of people of color in the United States? Why did Michael Brown turn back? How can Bob McCulloch be so tone deaf as to think that the fact that his job has been hard lately is something we care about? Of course your job is hard, dude. That's the job you have, and right now, you are not the focus. How can his perspective still be that the social media caused this outrage? How can he really believe, in light of the many things that have happened lately, that young men of color are not being killed with impunity? How can cases like this be reviewed without prosecutors and grand juries believing that there was a likelihood that a crime was committed? How can he say that what needs to happen now is that people of color need to speak up on behalf of their communities? Does he not hear them? I'm baffled. 

I'm in tears.

Undervaluing Teachers and Women

This Washington Post article is making the rounds among my teacher friends lately. They share it to build awareness, to counteract their perception that teachers have a terrible reputation, that we are maligned, that no one appreciates the work we do, that we are "rotten apples." 

…. First, let me clarify what it means to be a public school educator in the United States today. Unfortunately, at college campuses around this country, [education students] are berated by their peers for their career choice. I was told on many occasions at the University of Virginia that I was wasting my time and talent on teaching. 

And in many ways, I agree with that perception, and with the teacher who originally wrote this letter to TIME Magazine, in response to this pretty awful cover.

The article itself is much more nuanced, though still flawed...but this cover is pretty crappy  
(image via Time)

No one does get the work we do, but everyone thinks they do! Because we've all gone through school, sat there for 13 years critiquing our experience, knowing with certainty that we would do better than that crazy lady up in front of the room, we (as a country) think we know what teaching is. Trust me, you don't know, unless you've done it. It's a juggling act that requires constant mental acrobatics. It's being criticized and challenged all day long. It's answering questions with questions, making the worst things sound hopeful, loving those people who drive you crazy, and making the most boring thing in the world seem thrilling. It's being mistrusted by parents, manipulated, constantly censoring yourself. It's running out of words at noon but still having hours of talking to go. 

Also, when I hear the phrase "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." Teaching is a craft, in and of itself. I bet you I could teach biology better than a lot of biologists, because even though I understand so much less of the subject, I understand teaching.  
(image via teachers with a sense of humor)

But it's not the sacrifice of self that this article, and so many others, present it to be. 

Or at least, it shouldn't be. 

Teachers - stop it. Stop doing unpaid work. Stop giving more than your job description requires of you. You are damaging our profession and YOU are why we are under appreciated. 

No other profession claims this...why do we, and so proudly? 
(image via teachers with a sense of humor)

Let me explain - when we go above and beyond, when we work extra hours, when we buy our own supplies, we tell the world that we don't need better salaries, that we don't need better funding. We are making do with less, so we are given less. 

And all the rest of the world sees is that they still don't get enough education or attention for their kids. They don't see that we're giving more than we get, because WE are not their focus (nor should we be). Their children are their focus; their children who are being failed, across the board. 

They are subjected to awful tests that we administer, even as we say how much we hate them and how pointless they are. They are assigned huge amounts of homework, even as we protest the huge workload our students must cope with. We enforce rigid behavioral expectations, inwardly cringing at the ridiculousness of these arbitrary rules that drive our school system. 

We do this to ourselves 
(image via teachers with a sense of humor)

We have the power to change this, and writing yet another article detailing how willing we are to be doormats to ridiculous expectations is not the way to change it. 

Instead, we need to stop. 

Stop bringing in supplies. If our students don't have what they need, bring attention to THAT, not how great you are for bringing them supplies. No one likes a braggart. Also, it's not addressing the actual problem, which is that our schools are underfunded.

 (image via teachers with a sense of humor)

Stop working extra hours. Don't bring grading home. If it can't be done in the time you're paid for, it can't be done. Reevaluate your assignments, your lessons, how much feedback you give. You devalue all of us when you do this and YOU spread the expectation that we all are willing to work for free. You are the reason we earn 14% of what similarly educated adults earn, 60% of what our peers earn. 

I, for one, am not willing to work unpaid any longer. 

And here's the kicker. Teaching is largely women's work. And women's work is always the work that is undervalued, underpaid, unappreciated. We do more housework, more childcare, more eldercare. We manage families while working full time. Sheryl Sandberg has advised us to lean in, and while I see problems with a lot of what she says, I agree with her premise that we should not undervalue ourselves. 

Why not? Some days, I totally do this for the money. Because it's a job, not a hobby!

A stand by teachers, a refusal to sacrifice ourselves for some vague idea of the greater good, may be the reality check the rest of the United States needs. 

Because while we continue down this road of trying to create awareness of our sacrifices, we're only going to perpetuate the expectation that we make those sacrifices. 

I wish.
(image via teachers with a sense of humor)

I'm taking a stand. I won't work unpaid any longer. I will teach, I will grade, I will care and correct and coerce and create passionate learners. But I won't do it at the expense of my self. I'm worth more than that.




Disclaimer:  I work in a wonderful and privileged urban school. My students have more advantages than many, and I am afforded more time in my day to plan and meet and prepare than many other teachers. I work for a wonderful administration who believes in teacher freedom whenever possible. It may be that my stand is a luxury that some other teachers don't have. But if I can do it, and start setting the example, then I should, and hopefully others will be able to follow.

This is Hard

And I wish I were about to make penis jokes...but sadly, no. Instead I need to get onto 'paper' what I've been dealing with the past couple months; namely a kind of difficult pregnancy.

My first pregnancy was a breeze. The usual things happened - crying for no reason, some nausea in the first weeks, ridiculous food cravings, fat feet in month 9...but I was still hiking and dancing and hanging out the weekend before the kiddo was born. Aside from labor, my pregnancy with E was almost pain-free.

This time around, not so much. The first trimester and the beginning of the second were almost the same, physically (though not mentally) as they had been with E, minus the stress of planning a wedding, though with the added stress of my National Boards. But starting around week 24, things got really hard.

First, I began having serious pain in my lower swimsuit area. As in, standing up or sitting down made me want to cry. Getting into bed did make me cry a few times. Rolling over became a 5 step process. At my first doctor's appointment about the pain, an ultrasound showed the baby was verrry low which my awesome OB said had resulted in a sprained pelvic floor. Ouch.

So, that led to week 1 of bedrest and instructions to not pick up the kiddo anymore, or anything else really, and a prescription for a really pretty pregnancy support belt. After about a week, things felt a bit better, and we headed down to my parents' place for some rest and floating, which was awesome...but I still couldn't walk all that well, stairs were a literal pain in my ass, and my rolling over process still resembled a turtle on its back. 

 And then something happened. I don't know what exactly, but oh man, did it hurt. And the pain just didn't really go away. I was walking like an old lady for days. Ross had to put my pants and socks on for me, because it was too painful to lift my legs. So back to the Dr, who recommends a chiropractor (which of course Kaiser won't cover because I'm pregnant - if I weren't, it'd totally be covered) because my pelvic bone has come out of alignment.

The chiro, while an odd duck, definitely helped, but in the 6+ weeks I spent pretty much couch-ridden, I lost a lot of my fitness, and what with still not being allowed to do much physical activity (due to concerns I'll misalign it again - a condition called "pubic symphisis disorder"), I'm having a tough time getting it back. On top of that, I'm having contractions almost every time I stand up or go for long walks, and definitely any time I run or break the rules and pick up my 2 year old. I'm constantly on the border of having to call in to the hospital because it's too early for me to be having any more contractions than I am. Which are two of several compounding issues making this next thing possibly even harder than the pain was.

I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes last week. Ugh. I kinda suspected that would happen, considering I barely passed the 3 hour blood sugar test during pregnancy 1, and then had a giant baby, but it still sucks.

I have to test my blood sugar 4 times a day (needles - one of my biggest fears...seriously, I cry at most blood tests), severely restrict my diet, exercise more (easier said than done), have regular consultations with someone over the phone about my blood sugar numbers and diet and may end up on medication. Much of which seemed mostly manageable, until I actually got into it.

First, Kaiser is being incredibly less than helpful. The nutritional education department in Oakland had no openings for the required consultation until July 24 - halfway through the rest of my pregnancy! Not exactly helpful. And they were unwilling to call around to other locations to see about earlier appointments. So I had to do it...6 phone calls later, I got myself an appointment on July 15, meaning I still have to just figure this diet thing out on my own for the first two weeks. One person had meal plans, but not for vegetarians so she just said "Sorry about that" and that was that. And man, no one has talked to anyone in the health education/nutrition departments about how to talk about food and weight with people in recovery from eating disorders.

I've been given lists of things not to do, rules about all sorts of food - no fruit or milk in the morning, only 45 grams of carbs per meal, instructions to count calories, instructions to divide my plate into quadrants. They've even recommended some of my old eating disorder "tricks" to me - when eating out or having a big meal at home, put half of your plate into a to-go box right away; drink a giant glass of water before eating so you have less; fill up on just lettuce; go for a quick run (ha!) right after eating to burn the food off. I even had one person, over the phone, tell me I shouldn't gain any more weight, but also shouldn't lose any weight. I've gained 7 pounds since my pre-pregnancy weight, and only 15 since my low point during 1st trimester.

Aside from the incompetence of the people who are supposed to be helping me, there are so so so many eating disorder triggers for me in managing this, I feel like I'm losing my mind. The blood sugar checks are like immediate criticism or praise of my food choices - it's not easy to be told that, an hour after eating cottage cheese and a banana that you weren't healthy enough. I mean dang, I was still hungry, but my blood sugar was already too high. And honestly, the low numbers aren't all that helpful either. I remember setting goals for myself - keep your meal under 200 calories and you can be proud. Keeping my blood sugar under 130 doesn't feel all that different (although I know in my brain it's for totally different reasons). I have to eat high protein/low carb meals - so for me, that's lots of eggs and cheese and tofu. And eggs make me nauseous (thanks, pregnancy!), which means I spend the hour or so in between eating them and testing my blood sugar trying my damnedest to not vomit on purpose just to get rid of that feeling.

Once a week I have to call in and recite all my numbers. Anything seems off? I have to explain what I ate and then the faceless person on the phone tells me what I did wrong. Fun. I don't know yet what it's like to have a good week to report, cause I haven't had one yet.

Anyways, I'm feeling helpless and emotionally drained. I'm in tears every day, battling demons I thought I had pretty well under control. I tried to call Kaiser yesterday to get an appointment to see a therapist, but they closed early for a long weekend, so I'm just kinda hanging in the wind for now. There's nothing on the internet, that I've found anyways, that's helpful in terms of managing both of these conditions...so I don't know where to turn. Just a big fat pile of conflicting information for me to sort through on my own - eat all the time, but not too much; exercise, but don't push yourself, but even if you're tired you have to do something but stop if you have contractions; don't gain weight, but don't lose weight, but don't weigh yourself; eat 4 servings of fruit every day but avoid fruit; take each meal one at a time but plan ahead to make sure you eat the right foods but don't think about it too much but make sure you don't eat anything preprepared or processed....ugh. It's all too much.

This is hard.

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I'm thankful for my husband, who is doing most of the cooking for me so I can try to think about all of this a little less. For my OB, who so far is the only person at Kaiser who's managed to actually help me. For our backyard, my little safe haven of sunshine, and for parades and fireworks. 


Update! I found a therapist I can work with, and I've seen her twice, and just that alone has lifted some serious weight off my shoulders. And, I talked to my OB about how the phone nurses and nutritionists were all being insensitive buttheads (a technical term) and she said "well, why don't you just come see me every week, and we can look at your numbers together and plan for the next week" and then got me off the call list for the nurses and has been awesome about advocating for me with everyone else at Kaiser. So yay!

Letter to Target

I like Target. It might be a bit of a guilty pleasure in the super hippie, buy-local, boycott-corporations part of society that I tend to hang out in, but all the same, I like it. The clothes are comfortable (if a bit limited in color palate), the people are really nice, the stores are clean, and they usually have whatever it is I'm looking for.

But today, I really noticed for the first time just how gendered their toy aisles are. I've seen it before, but usually while rushing the kiddo past so he doesn't notice that there are piles of things he might want, like a princess outfit or a drum or a bike or cars or a doll or a new ball or any of the other fun looking stuff that's there. Today I was on my own, and perusing to see if they had a kid-proof digital camera. We're planning to give the kiddo one when his new baby cousin arrives to help him feel involved. "Take pictures, E!"

Anyways, the aisles with the "girl" stuff in them are not only filled solely with toys marketed to girls, but the shelves themselves were painted hot pink. Same thing for the boy aisles, but replace pink with blue. No dolls to be found in any gender-neutral way, no lego sets that aren't "girly" in the girl section...just a message of "These are the toys boys can like and these are the toys girls can like. The end." The only non-gendered stuff was the sports and swimming stuff, but even that has clearly been influenced - lots of black and blue and tan baseball gloves, but no pink ones. Swim stuff was available in all sorts of gender neutral colors, which means blue is an option for everyone, but pink is not. Ugh. I'm so sick of it.

So I wrote to Target Corporate. And I'm gonna Tweet them and Facebook them and hopefully, maybe, if they as cool of a company as I hope they are, they'll make some easy changes to their store setup, and not contribute anymore to making kids feel like they have to be a certain way. Cause kids definitely don't. I should have taken a picture today...I will next time I'm there.

Here's my letter. Fingers crossed.

Hello,

I'm a regular Target customer, and I really like your stores a lot. But I hate the way your toys section is set up. It's awful. The "girl" toys are in shelves that are painted pink and the "boy" toys in shelves painted blue and the things that are supposedly gendered don't have to be that way. Why are all the Legos for boys? Why is all the dress up stuff only for girls? I get that you have to market things to a target (ha!) audience, but you don't have to play into it THAT much. I would be so much happier as a supporter of your stores if you sent down a directive to remove a significant amount of the pink/blue gendering of toys. Girls like legos, and cars. My son likes horses and crowns. And bikes, and sports stuff, and basically all the toys. But soon, he'll learn from society that some of those things aren't "for him." And it would be so easy for you, as a corporation, to not be part of that stupid message that makes kids feel awkward and inferior for liking things they aren't supposed to. Thanks for your time, and I hope to hear back from you, and see some changes soon.

Lynds

Blergh

This is how I'm feeling today... ETA: There used to be a video here...I don't know where it went, and I don't remember what it was. I bet it was funny and full of yelling, though.

Women in Sports. Ugh.

My sister brought this up to me last week, after watching a lot of the Olympics (or at least enough to be able to chat about it with clients!) and the more I thought about it, the more it frustrates me.

Did you know that this was the first year that women were allowed to participate in Ski Jumping in the Olympics? And that when a reporter interviewed Lindsay Van (who was allowed to test the jumps for the men in Utah in 2002, but not allowed to compete), they asked her about whether or not she was worried about her vagina falling out? Ugh. Just ugh.

Which got me to thinking...we segregate almost all our sports based on gender. Even the ones where it shouldn't matter one bit whether the competitor is male or female. Curling? Come on...no way it matters what sex you are in that sport. Skeet shooting? Archery? Equestrian events?

I get it when we're talking gymnastics or baseball vs softball, because there are some actual physical differences in the way men's and women's bodies are put together. But Bobsled? Women weren't allowed to participate in 2-man(!) bobsled until 2002, and still can't compete in 4-man. Why?

Is it the legacy of misogyny in sports? Women were definitely ill-received when they began marathoning...
 

Kathrine Switzer, as the race organizer shouts "Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers." 

Is it the way the media covers sports, with vastly more time and attention paid to men's sports, even during the Olympics? And I'm not kidding about that vastly. 96% of televised sports are men's events. Women's Olympic gymnastics is one of the most watched sporting events ever, and women are much more likely to watch the Olympics, but still NBC is more likely to show only the events in which women are skimpily clothed, and devote the rest of the coverage to men's sports.

Is it the way we approach sports in general? Rick Paulaus makes an awesome point in the middle of an overall great article titled Why Women Will Never Beat Men in Sports:

Maybe think about it like this: Way back in the day, when James Naismith invented the game of basketball, what if instead of making the height of the baskets 10 feet, he decided to make them 8 feet? In this alternate reality, your favorite team's roster would be composed of entirely different players. Gone would be the crazy high jumpers or 7-foot plus monsters, because height and flight would no longer be as important of an asset. In their place would be... Well, I don't even know. No one really does. I imagine thy would be more muscular and compact athletes, like a rugby players. The fact is, the average height of an NBA player would no longer be nearly a foot higher than the average male because that kind of height wouldn't be necessary. Height would still assist, as it does in just about every competition this side of horseracing, but it wouldn't dominate the proceedings.

Now, multiply that subtle change in game construction by every little bit of difference between how male and female bodies are designed, and you'll get somewhere near our current state of affairs. 

Honestly, I don't know. There are piles more reasons why we, as a society, as a world, relegate women to second-class status in sports (as in so many other things). The solutions are much easier. Sign girls up for sports, encourage girls in sports, watch women's sports, and shut down anyone who dares to ask you about the connection between your vagina and your skiing ability. Because Fuck That Shit.

Notes

I had a pretty awesome strong-woman stand-up-for-myself moment today.  Of course, because I'm me, it came in the form of a note (I cry during in-person confrontations, which doesn't really help my cause most times).

When I was pregnant with the kiddo, I was scheduled by my OB's office to see a counselor. Apparently she checks in with people about alcohol and drug use and other stuff when pregnant. Anyways, it was an awful meeting. She wouldn't hear me at all about how an occasional glass of wine isn't harmful at all, and insisted I would be making bad choices for my child if I had a glass of champagne at my wedding. Science does not back her up, and my kiddo is great (I actually had two verrrrrrry slow flutes of delicious bubbly champagne over the course of my whole wedding day.)

But that wasn't the worst part. The first thing she handed me when I walked in there was a pamphlet about not gaining too much weight, and how to eat during your pregnancy so that it would be easier to lose the baby weight after the kid is born. I was 16 weeks pregnant at the time, and terrified about how I, as an eating disorder survivor, would react to gaining 30 pounds. I was already stressed out enough about food as it was, and I definitely didn't need a therapist type telling me to think about it more, or to worry more about not gaining weight.

Today, I got scheduled to see her again. I refused, because duh, why would I want to talk to her again? A great therapist is one of the best things ever, and conversely, a bad therapist (or a bad match) is one of the worst things. Even now, after just refusing, I'm worked up enough to be blogging about it while I wait for my OB. And I haven't talked to this lady for over 2 years!

Rather than just keep quiet about it, though, I wrote a note. Because she should know why, so other people don't have to get mind-fucked too.

So it wasn't the in-person schooling I'd imagined I would give this woman if I were ever to see her again, but that's ok. Because I said my piece both in writing and to the OB I have who I trust, my OB delivered the note to her, and now she knows. I think sometimes I get caught up in thinking that in order to stick up for myself I have to do it in a specific way...but this way is just fine. And honestly, writing is my way, so why not embrace it?

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I'm thankful today for Crash Course World History, good doctors, good therapists, good dentists, and a job that allows me to talk about real things in real ways.

Mr. Bates, You're a Jerk

I just finished watching Episodes 6 and 7 of Downton Abbey Season 4. I love the show - I'm such a geek for historical fiction, and then throw in some romance and fancy lacy outfits (plus the sassy Dowager Countess - Maggie Smith just makes everything better!) and I'm hooked.

I love so many of the characters too, particularly the women. They're portrayed as full-fledged people, with faults and interests and it's just so wonderful. Even with its Victorian ideals and setting, the show passes the Bechdel test without hardly trying, or so it appears.

I'm gonna start getting into spoilers here, so if you haven't watched as far as me, just know I'm mad at Mr. Bates and I'll see you later.

So Mr. Bates...he's supposed to be worthy of Anna, supposed to be kind, supposed to be sensitive, supposed to be good. And on the outside, he seems that way. But really, he's actually making Anna's life so much harder. His reaction to her rape, making it all about him, wanting revenge, diminishes him into someone who is just adding to the burden she's already surviving with. Her biggest concern is whether or not he'll kill her attacker, and that's not ok. A woman should be able to tell her husband anything and trust that if she asks him to, he'll keep his hands to himself, like any good kindergartener.

But no, even though she's done everything possible to keep him from knowing who attacked her, and everything possible to try to convince him that she doesn't want him to take revenge, he leaves town and shoves her rapist (who by the way, he doesn't have any proof on. Not that the guy didn't do it...but Mr. Bates doesn't know that) into oncoming traffic.

Mr. Bates has his revenge and he gets to feel just fine, relieving himself of the burden of anger. But his wife doesn't. Now she not only has the anger and fear and shame stemming from the attack to deal with, but also a betrayal by her husband, added fear that he'll be arrested, and the inability, should she ever be ready for it, to bring her own attacker to justice.

Ugh. I rarely side with Thomas on anything, but Bates, you're a jerk.

Dangit, Thomas

My kid loves Thomas the Tank Engine. So do lots of others. But it turns out even this show, which I usually tolerate just fine for my kid (aside from the incessant theme song) has a problem with pink.

A conversation I just had with my mother:

I really hope all these conversations about kids' toys, and the messages we send our children about what parts of them are valuable, and which parts are shameful, gets us somewhere, but I'm not feeling too encouraged. Amazon, a pretty good indicator of how shopping looks across America, looks like this:

"Toys" section preview - only dolls and art have any pink in them at all, even though nothing is technically gendered

"Girls" toys - all pink, all the time, except for the one thing that's white with a rainbow. The rest of the page was just as pink

"Boys" toys. No pink to be found. Boys get to have all the other colors, though, including purple.

On the upside, there are Goldiblox, which are pretty awesome. I plan to buy a bunch of sets for the kiddo when he's old enough to understand how to not chew on them. And if I ever have a daughter, I'll get even more of them for her.




Goldieblox gets it - pink isn't what makes girl's toys frustrating! These girls do all sorts of great things, and they still get to like pink! They still get to be proud of being girls, who like girly things! I love it.

PS - here's the original Goldieblox commercial, featuring a version of The Beastie Boys "Girls," which they've since had to take down from most places. I like it with both songs, but it's nice to have the lyrics, too.

Pink is NOT Just for Girls, and it's NOT the Problem!

A particular Huffington Post article has been making the rounds on my Facebook this week. It's mostly a great article, and it's been bringing a ton of attention to one of my biggest pet peeves, which is awesome. The hook is an adorable Lego ad from 1981:

The article goes on to mourn that we don't have ads like this anymore. And I so agree! I wish we treated girls, and by extension girl toys, as wholly developed things that don't have to be frilly or sparkly or pink in order to be something that girls want. And I wish marketers weren't doing this to the toys of my childhood, as they "modernize" them:

Dolls don't need to be sexier. They don't need to be made skinnier, or given bigger eyes and longer hair and more porcelain skin. Dolls and female characters can be girls without bows and boobs and makeup. I don't know why toy companies are so very insistent that young children believe that all girls want to look like this, or should look like this. I don't know why they want all children to want the same thing! It's infuriating.

Toys should be toys. For kids. Whichever kids want them. We shouldn't be allowing all the toys in our country to be divided up into boy toys and girl toys. It does our children a huge disservice, and it's going to cause problems for us all in about 15 years, when the kids who grew up in this atmosphere are young adults with no concept of gender-neutral.

But the HuffPo article made me pretty angry right off the bat with this line:

The LEGOs are not pink or "made for girls." She isn't even wearing pink.

Aaaarrrggghhh!! Pink isn't the problem! Why does it matter if she's wearing pink, or not wearing pink? Pink is not our enemy. Girls should be able to wear pink if they want to! Why do people, whenever they respond to this kind of problem (and I see it all the time) think that eliminating the pink toys is the solution?

Why is there never any outrage that pink wasn't included in the original Lego set? I dare you to find a gender-neutral toy that includes pink. Or is all pink. It's nearly impossible. I can't dress my son in pink. But I can damn sure find blue clothes and toys meant for girls. Why? Why are we so afraid of pink? Is it because it's associated with feminine, and we are scared of feminine becoming the norm?

We use feminine words as insults all the time:

"You throw like a girl"
"Don't get your panties in a twist"
"Quit being such a pussy"

And we imply that a loss of manhood is the worst thing that could happen to a man:

"Turn in your man card"
"Did someone put your balls in their purse?" 

Jessica Valenti, in Full Frontal Feminism wrote:

“What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman? Don’t hold back, now.
You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt (I told you not to hold back!), skank. Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy. I’ve even heard the term “mangina.” Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.” 

And it's true! Even the majority of our vulgar and insulting words equate to a woman's genitalia! I won't list them, but I'm sure you can think of plenty.

In Chicago several years ago, there was a contest to pick a new color to represent the newest train line. A young girl wrote an essay advocating for the color pink. “Who does not like pink?" she asked. "It’s so bright and lively … if it’s pink people will want to ride it.” The CTA agreed with her, and The Pink Line was born. And with it came outrage on the part of many Chicagoans. From Salon:

A pink train would be humiliating to the good people of Chicago. We are the hardworking, meat-eating, bar-brawling, sports-loving, dirty-politicking, multiple heart attack-surviving hog butcher for the world! We are men, except for the slightly more than half of us who are not! And you expect us to pay good money to ride on something called the “Pink Line”? Why not just put a tutu on the Sears Tower, or fill Soldier Field with tampons, or come to my house and cut my balls off?

 And there, I think, is the real problem. It's not so much that we now offer almost exclusively pink (and purple!) toys to girls. It's that we don't offer them to boys. And by doing so, by leaving pink out of all gender-neutral items, out of all "boy" toys, we are teaching both boys and girls that pink is an other.

That only someone who is less-than will want pink. Pink has been made to represent the underlying hatred our society has for all things feminine, and that sucks. Because I like pink. And I like girly things. And that makes me no less capable than anyone else.

I just wish society would agree with me on that.

***Whoops! Turns out the original title of this blog post was used already by the excellent Bob "MovieBob" Chipman. Here's a link to his great discussion of the same concept: Pink is Not the Problem.

Why so few kids movies?

It might be silly, but I love taking my kid to the movies. I love going to the movies, so that might be part of it, ha! When he was just born, we went to see The Muppet Movie together, and it was great. He slept, and nursed, and since he loved songs from very early on, it was an easy way to get out of the house.

He hadn't been to any other movies since then, until just before his 2nd birthday, when we took him to see Disney's Planes. We'd heard it was perfect for little ones, and it'd been so long since I saw a movie, I would have been willing to sit through almost anything! And it was adorable! Not so much the movie itself, which was pretty mediocre, but watching the kiddo watch the movie. He was enthralled. He danced to the songs, pointed out the planes, and loved the popcorn.

Since then, I've taken him to two more flicks - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Frozen. They were both great. Fun, funny at times (Meatballs more so), and a nice way for the kiddo and I to have a special adventure together.

But now that I have a kiddo of movie-going age, I've noticed the serious lack of kids movies in theaters. And I'm not just talking about good kids movies. Seriously, right now, Frozen is the only thing in the theaters. It's been the only thing in theaters for at least a month! I'm not saying I want to take him to movies all the time, but especially over winter break time, I would've thought there would have been at least two options! I hope this is just a weird lull, because I'd be sad for my kid if he hardly ever got to experience good films in the theaters - it's just too fun!

That said, I can't wait for the Lego movie to come out. Ross has loved Legos his whole life, and I just know the kiddo is going to too. And also, the movie looks awesome. Seriously, check it out!

Stupid song, stuck in my head

They played a Kid Rock song on the radio on my drive home today. And then it got stuck in my head. Which was especially frustrating because the only cure for me when I get a song stuck in my head is to listen to it. Which means I had to look up a Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet and play it. I was worried that Ross would make fun of me for it, because I know him and that's what he does, but this was serious! I really didn't think I could handle having that stupid chorus stuck on repeat in my head for the rest of the night.

So I did it. I googled Kid Rock, and ended up on the CMT website. If you wanna watch the video, and think you can stomach those two making googly eyes at each other, here ya go.

Or!

You could just let Ross narrate it for you. Because that's what he did. Instead of making fun of me, he scoffed and smirked and laughed his way through the whole video, and it was like having a "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" going in the background. To the best of my knowledge, this was the running commentary (I may have taken a bit of artistic license here and there):

Ross: You know Sheryl Crow's hit rock bottom when she's doin' duets with the straggelly ass ratface lookin' guy. What's his name? It's something dumb that he probably named himself when he was 8 and still thinks is cool. Kid Rock! That's his name. Look at that glare Sheryl Crow's givin' him. She looks like she hates him - like she hates the producers too. Like they promised her there would be glass between him but now there isn't and hes checking out her ass and she wants to punch him but can't because she's on camera. That dumbass hat. What is he trying to do with the giant mirror attached to the front of that thing, blind anyone who looks at him? This song is the theme song of West Virginia, right? 

I think this might be a new fun game: play terrible songs and document his reaction to them. For tomorrow, I'm torn between that Jordan Knight comeback attempt from about 8 years ago or the theme song to Friends...haven't watched that cheeseball of a video in ages.


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I'm thankful today for bars with gorgeous beer gardens, reading bedtime stories to my kiddo, that delicious yaki-soba that's in the case with the organic vegetables and tofu at the grocery store, dad sweaters, unmatching socks. Because who needs to match, seriously?

I hate other drivers. I get so very mad at them. I feel like they're always in my way, and rude about it too. I drive a pretty big commute to work every day, and go through multiple tunnels, merges, and one big ass bridge to do it, and there are some things that I see on a regular basis that make me really crazy. I'm going to preface this rant by saying that by no means do I believe I'm the best driver, and I've inherited a leadfoot, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Lynds's Rules for Drivers:

1. Go. Just go. When a light turns green, hit the gas pedal and get up to the speed limit, and do it quickly. There's no reason to hang out in limbo for 10 seconds in between taking your foot off the brake and hitting the gas. And if you must be slow about it, be in the right lane so I can pass you. You don't have to go fast, but I do, so get out of the way, please?

2. Get up to freeway speeds before you actually hit the freeway. That's what the onramp is for - you should be going 65 by the time you try to merge. Merging at 45 mph is dangerous, and causes traffic jams for everyone and road rage for me.

3. The right lane is for driving the speed limit or below. The lanes to the left of that are for going fast, faster, and fastest. Stay out of them if you're not passing someone, so that I can pass you if I want to go faster than you!

4. If you're going the same speed as someone to your right, get into their lane and drive the same speed together in the same lane, rather than doing it next to each other, so that I can pass you.

5. Use your turn signal. Just do it. Especially when you're going to be turning left and you're waiting at a stoplight. There's little that makes me madder than waiting behind someone at a light only to see them turn on their blinker after the light turns green. I would have been in another lane if I'd known you were going to turn! Gah! And of course, no one in the right lane wants to let anyone move over when they're stuck behind a stopped car.

6. Let people in when they signal a lane change. Don't be a selfish or vindictive jerk. Once, I had been signalling a lane change for a few minutes in traffic, hoping someone would let me in. I eventually just started scooting over, and the man in the car I was trying to get in front of rolled his window down and started yelling! I responded, because I like yelling in my car, that I was trying to change lanes (which, duh), and he said, before selfishly driving his car up the butt of the person in front of him, "YOU HAVE TO ASK PERMISSION!" To which I responded, "WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BLINKER IS FOR YA JERK?" Which didn't get me into the lane I wanted, but it did make me feel a little better.

7. Don't slow down to change lanes. It's not necessary and it's unsafe. You're just making traffic.

8. You don't have to go slower just because someone next to you is going slow. It's ok to continue at the speed limit.

9. If someone is close behind you, don't slow down. Move over so that they can pass you.  It's not your job to police other people's speed. It's your job to be as unobtrusive as possible.

10. Tunnels don't require you to hit the brakes. The people in the tunnel probably aren't even hitting their brakes, it's just that they have their headlights on, which makes their rear lights turn on too. So lay off the brakes.

11. Intersections don't require that either. Look both ways without putting your foot on the brake. Covering the brake and hitting the brake are two different things.

I really believe that if we all drove like we were trying our best to get out of each others' way, we would have so much less traffic. Instead, most people seem to drive like they're trying to own as much of the road as possible in one go, or like they're terrified. I regularly see people driving 45 mph on the freeway, and I don't understand how they don't realize that they're being more unsafe than people driving 90. Someone's going to rear end you!

In summary, everyone drive faster, please.

/rant