BITCHCRAFT

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

2010-04-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've not written anything since January, apparently. Oops.

I'm working full-time for the first time in my life, and it's kind of killing me. Not in an "I don't like my job" sense, because I do, but in a "good grief, this takes everything out of me" sense. 3-year-olds, it turns out, are exhausting.

The thought of finding something coherent and analytical to say is a little daunting.

I suppose I could shift the focus of this blog to more of a personal journal type of thing, but I worry that that would be completely boring to people.

So, I don't know. I'd like to get back to posting frequently, and to actually have something worthwhile to say....I hope that can happen.

Blog For Choice/Blog-aversary

2010-01-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

Good God! I've not been blogging much lately. I didn't realize quite how infrequent the posts have become.....I think I need to find my enthusiasm again....

Anyway, it's "Blog for Choice" day. Incidentally, it's also the anniversary of my having started this thing.

I'm pro-choice because every human deserves COMPLETE bodily autonomy. Whatever one's "beliefs," one does not have the right to dictate what someone else can or can't do with hir own life or body.

So there. Simple.

You know what makes me happy?

2009-12-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

You know what makes me happy?

Feminist dads.

At the beginning of the school year, my head teachers and I let the parents know that they are more than welcome in the classroom, should they want to come in and do art, make music, read a story or cook something with us.

On Friday, one of the dads came in to do a small art project with the kids. He arrived early to set up, and was playing with his daughter and chatting with the English teacher and with me. For whatever reason, all the kids were late that morning (okay, maybe not all of them.....just most), which gave us a lot of time to fill him in on class goings-on and whatever. I mentioned that I found a nifty t-shirt that I want to start wearing to school, to counteract some of the "I like princesses and only want to draw with the pink marker"* bullshit that's going on in the class.
The shirt has a crown on it, and says "Self-rescuing Princess." (available here)

This dad, whose daughter Maggie is a super kid and well on her way to being a kick-ass empowered girl, loved the idea of the shirt. He told us that he was so frustrated at Halloween, because even for little girls, the ready-made costume choices were frilly princess, frillier princess and slutty pirate girl.....oy vey....**

Then he said that last week, when the grandparents were all in town for Thanksgiving, his dad was reading "The Paperbag Princess" to Maggie. Grandpa was a little uncomfortable with the message, apparently, because he finished the book and gave an addendum: "Then the prince went on to Stanford and got an MBA and became a CEO."

To which Dad responded with an addendum to the addendum: "And the princess grew up to get the world to achieve WORLD PEACE!"

I love that this dad is just quietly and calmly going about being a fantastic feminist ally and active partner in raising an empowered feminist kid. He's not reciting empty tropes about "girl power" while encouraging Disneymania. He doesn't work till 8pm all week, then take the kids to the park once on the weekend and expect a cookie for it. He just chooses the books and movies and costumes carefully, buys the striped leggings instead of the frilly shit, and comes into the class to do art with us.

Okay, so when it's his turn to do Maggie's hair it turns out a little wonky, but no one's perfect, right?

I'm so glad that I've got this family in my class, and I wish all our parents were this cool!

UPDATE: Feminist Dad is also insanely good at calligraphy.....my holiday gift (a box of See's chocolates! Woot!) had a lovely, lovely hand-lettered note.

*Maggie ended up deciding that she wanted to be Pocahontas for Halloween, so dad made the costume himself.

**There's only one pink marker, for whatever reason, and I'm sick to death of seeing all-pink drawings. So I hid the marker in the closet. I know, I'm evil.

Maggie

2009-10-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, please make a donation to my friend Maggie.

Donate here.

Life, the Universe and Everything

2009-10-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

I knew that I hadn't written anything in some time, but it wasn't until a second ago that I realized I had gone a full month without posting.....

I've been overworked and preoccupied lately, by a number of things:
1) Spending 90% of my work day tending to 1 child, to the detriment of the other 15.
2) Spending my weekends grouching about having to go teach music lessons to belligerent students whose parents can't be bothered to schedule a regular time for lessons because of soccer, softball, swimming, and, last week, going to adopt a dog.
3) Getting horribly sick with the worst cold known to humanity, and wishing that it were the flu because then the symptoms and the name would be on the same level of misery
4) The universe crashing down horribly on those I know and love.

1) Yes, there's a child in my class who is so out of control, so toddler (developmentally, not age wise), and so disruptive and violent that if I don't tend to him ALL THE TIME it will mean physical and emotional harm to the other students. Thanks, admissions director. Fuck you too.

2) I'm sick of it and am trying to find a way to fire my students, despite the precipitous drop in income that that will mean for me.

3) It was only a cold. No fever, at any point. And yet, I felt miserable for a good 2 weeks....blech.

4) a. A family friend and well-known Bay Area conductor went in for a scheduled heart surgery. She suffered clotting problems and a stroke on the table, and never regained consciousness. A week later, her partner chose to take her off life support and take her home to die in peace and dignity. Imagine having to make that decision?? Her death was misreported, and I inadvertently passed on news of her demise before it had actually happened. I feel like the biggest shithead on earth for that one. She died the next day.

b. The same day that I misreported K's death, I found out that my dear blog-friend Maggie had been rushed to the hospital after 48 hours of the most intense pain that a human can imagine. She waited that long to call 911 because, of course, she has no health insurance.
Luckily, the public hospital in Austin was on ER diversion, and she was instead rushed to the best hospital around. She was treated by an ace surgical team, and is being given the best care possible.
It's damn lucky that the other ER was on diversion or Maggie would likely be dead right now.
The bad news is that because she's uninsured and poor, there's no way that she can pay for this care. She might get chucked out of the hospital before she has recovered if we dont' come up with funds FAST.
Go to her personal blog, Meta Watershed, or the news blog where she writes, Group News Blog, to read all of the harrowing details and to DONATE. Give till it hurts. Please. This woman has done more for the world so far than I can imagine squeezing into one life and she's not done yet. But she desperately needs everyone's help.

You can do donations through Paypal or by sending a check to Group News Blog with "Maggie Jochild" in the memo. Maggie has such limited mobility that getting the mail and getting to a bank and that sort of thing is nearly impossible.

c. The next day, my mom's ex's mother died. She was elderly, and had been declining fast, and it was "time." Still very sad, though. The ex and mom were together for about 12 years, and in that time, we got to know his family quite well. His parents were such dear people, always welcoming and kind. She'll be truly missed.

d. At some point in all of this, another friend was also rushed to the ER. I don't have permission to write about her situation, but suffice it to say that she's living in a new town, at a new school, without family or close friends yet, and my heart just aches for what she's going through....

e. My mom is having to go in for a surgical procedure this coming week. Besides having to deal with a boyfriend who recently had a stroke, and a mother who is completely dependent on us for transport and such.

f. Boyfriend's father just had a pacemaker installed. At least once the leads have disconnected. He's in Canada, though, and Boyfriend is pretty bummed about living so far away.

So, yeah, life has been really intense lately.

There have been plenty of things that I've read or heard that warrant essays in response. I just haven't been able to deal.

Sorry.

That's Genius

2009-09-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

The list of this year's MacArthur fellowship (aka the "Genius Grant") winners is out, and exactly half of the recipients are women. Woot!

Several are older women, several are women of color. Science, the arts and the humanities are represented all represented.

Glad to know that it's not always bad news for women!

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.5410503/k.11CB/Meet_the_2009_Fellows.htm

(one of Boyfriend's co-advisers is a former MacArthur winner.....yay for women in science and engineering!)

That's Not My Name

2009-09-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

Safeway, the grocery store chain, apparently has a policy that states that guests should be thanked by name at the end of each transaction.

After scanning and bagging one's groceries and taking one's money, employees will print out the receipt, look at it, and say something along the lines of "Thank you, Mr. Aggleflaggle, have a nice day!"

They will get the name from either the credit/debit card or "Club Card" info, at the bottom of the receipt. I suppose that if you pay in cash, and don't use a club card, you'll just get a "thank you, have a nice day."

So here's where it gets interesting.

I almost always buy groceries with my debit card, because the cash in my wallet usually only suffices for a coffee or a burrito. This means that my name appears on the receipt along with my card information. I don't have a "Club Card" of my own, so I always plug in either my grandmother's or Boyfriend's phone number, to get the discounts that way.

This means that the checker has a choice of names. And, interestingly enough, the checker seems to always choose to read the "club card" name, not the debit card name.

Which means that on a fairly regular basis, I get addressed as "Ms. Boyfriend'slastname."

Which weirds me out completely.

I usually don't correct them, since that would require me to spend more time in Safeway. I hate supermarkets, you see, and usually try to dash in and out as quickly as possible.

But yeah, their assumption really bugs me. If you see my name (on the credit/debit line) and some dude's name, why would you assume that that's the right last name?????

*****

Semi-, but not completely related:

Why are so many women my age changing their names when they get married? Women who seem otherwise feminist and progressive? Just among friends and coworkers, I can think of at least 6 or 8 people who have gotten married in the last few years and have changed their names. I can only think of 3 who have gotten married and kept their names.

I mean, not even getting into the "why get married?" discussion, why is this trend still so prevalent?

I know I sound horribly judgmental, but I really don't understand.

Especially when the women in question are performers, who rely on publicity and "getting their names out there".....

sigh.

Challenging Art and our Eucations

2009-09-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

This post is kind of an extended commentary on another blog post. Sorry if that's too self-referential!

My friend -m- writes the blog Modest and Witty. It's a pretty phenomenal account of her life and adventures. Like me, -m- tends to rant, but in a far more cohesive and intelligent manner than I usually accomplish.

-m- just moved to New York, to go to an impressive music school. Obviously, it being New York and all, there are so many things to see and do that -m- is having quite an interesting time.

A recent trip, to the Brooklyn Art Museum, sparked a mammoth post, the entirety of which can be read here. -m- and a friend saw Judy Chicago's 1974-79 installation piece The Dinner Party.

The Dinner Party is huge. It's an equilateral triangle measuring 48 feet per side (that's a perimeter of 144 feet or 43.89 metres for all you nerds). The triangle is set up like a table, with places for 39 "Guests of Honor." Each place setting highlights the contributions of a woman, whose name is shown on the place mat/table runner. The space inside the lines of the triangle features the names of 999 other women who have contributed to predated the 39 featured women.

Instead of plates, there are intricate porcelain sculpture inspired by butterflies/vaginal imagery.

I have not seen this instillation in person, so the descriptions are based on -m-'s writing as well as the site throughtheflower.org

-m- reacts this way:

I was utterly unprepared for this installation. How could I have expected it? The catalog itself reports it as consisting of:
39 dinner place settings of porcelain flatware (fork, knife and spoon), porcelain chalice, and decorated porcelain plate. Each setting is laid out on a separate embroidered textile runner. Thirteen place settings are on each side (48 feet long) of a triangular table draped with a white felt cloth, with a triangular millennium runner at each of three corners. Each of the settings represents one of thirty-nine historically significant women. The table sits on a floor of 2304 porcelain triangular tiles (in 129 units) inscribed with the names of 999 significant women.
Ok, so it's a big table set for dinner and there are lots of women's names. Cool. This will be interesting. Right. How can I tell you what it was like walking into that room? Rather, walking into the room was just what I expected. Each setting is quite particular, and placed in a mostly chronological order. First? 'Primordial Goddess'

Ok. That makes sense.

Next? 'Fertile Goddess'

Sure.

Of note, the plates at each setting are decorated in personalized floral/butterfly/vulva patterns. I add floral and butterfly to the description mostly because the plaque at the exhibit did so. My impression of the plates was overwhelmingly linked to feminine power, to clitoral and sexual potency, power, depth, mystery, and strength. There were cunts all over this table, each beautiful and different. Each cunt-plate brought its own sacred history to the table.

Next? 'Ishtar', 'Kali', 'Snake Goddess', 'Sophia', 'Amazon', 'Hatshepsut', 'Judith', 'Sappho', 'Boadaceia', 'Hypatia', 'Marcella', 'Saint Bridget'. . .

By this point, I had finished one third of the table, and I was starting to get worried. The women who earned a place at the table were assumedly at the top of the list, a list that involves more than a thousand names. Only 39 received special settings, and I guess I assumed that of those 39 I would know a vast majority. I was discovering how naïve that assumption had been.

'Theodora', 'Hrosvitha', 'Trotula', 'Eleanor of Aquitaine', 'Hildegarde of Bingen', 'Petronilla de Meath', 'Christine de Pisan', 'Isabella d'Este', 'Elizabeth R.', 'Artemisia Gentileschi'. . .

I recognized two of these names, and I could tell you about one of them. The names continued almost in defiance of my ignorance. A grief I had never experienced began to overwhelm me, and I felt tears begin to well up. I have never before cried because of a piece of art. Art has moved me toward thought, toward debate, toward laughter, toward anger, toward many things- but never tears. Of the more than thousand names celebrated in 'The Dinner Party", I would recognize a perhaps generous figure of 100.

Less than 10%.

'Anna van Schurman', 'Anne Hutchinson', 'Sacajawea', 'Caroline Herschel', 'Mary Wollstonecraft', 'Sojourner Truth', 'Susan B. Anthony', 'Elizabeth Blackwell', 'Emily Dickinson', 'Ethel Smyth'. . .

I realized even more so, that at least 50% of the names I recognized belonged to women about which I knew nothing. For example, I could not have told you yesterday (I am very sorry to admit) who Mary Wollstonecraft was or what contributions she had made. A horrifying thought occurred to me: should a similar celebration of man's historical contributions be constructed in such a manner, I would easily recognize at least 50% of the names. I would probably also be able to explain in depth the contributions of at least 15% of them. Of course, that's just a guess.

I don't remember at what point I began to cry, but I know it was after I had left the table settings and had moved to the Herstory Board section- a chronology/brief description of the contributions of every name on exhibit. I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. Somewhere, deep within, something had been stolen from me. My education had failed me. My culture had failed me. I had failed myself. How could I know so little about the power of the feminine? How had I missed my own history so succinctly? Who was Margaret Sanger? Natalie Barney? Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keefe were names familiar to me, but they provided little comfort after the onslaught of the unfamiliar.

I cried. I cried for myself. For my culture. For the education that I and my sisters and brothers were missing. It was a quiet cry, privately witnessed by an almost unending row of names.
I sat down on a bench and tried to center myself, attempting to pull myself back from the brink of destructive self-pity, searching for the redemptive righteous anger that I knew must be on the other side of such a deep wound. While I waited a man came over to the lady sitting next to me on the bench and commented on the 'fascinating' board of names.
. . .

Fascinating.

Even now I am filled with an anger and a hurt that is beyond my ability to capture.

Fascinating.

I understand how a board filled with the history of influential women one has never heard of could be a fascinating concept. I understand and respect this man's ability to recognize a resource he had not previously encountered. I understand to a certain extent.

But it goes so much deeper than the cognitive whimsy of a 'fascinating' history display. This is personal. It is my mother, my great-grandmother, my as-yet-undreamt-of-daughter. It is me. It is the mantle I inherited by being born into this body, or rather more so by living in it. It is the lie that has been perpetuated by silence. It is the gaping holes in my history. In me. It is the lack of acknowledgment of those holes- my previous inability to even conceptualize how many holes there might be.

I knew, of course, that there was much of the history and contributions of women that I didn't know, but I had never before been confronted so tangibly by the vastness of the unknown of feminine beauty, strength, thought, and power.

I am enraged.

I am crying.

I am crying, and I am enraged by the bleeding hole where my knowledge of my grandmothers should be. I have been robbed. So have you.

We, all of us, have been robbed by patriarchal thieves bent on silencing the brilliance of half our forebears. This cannot stand, but who will stand with me?

Why do we allow such silence? What do we do about it? How can I turn this wounded-ness, this anger, into a vehicle for change?

How can we?

***

In order to get a sense of where -m-'s anger comes from, try this experiment. Look at the list of women whose names appear in The Dinner Party (Wikipedia lists them, showing how they are organized in the work) and start counting. I made 3 categories: Know About, Recognize Name, and Huh??

Go through the list and classify the names. Then tally them up. I'm not interested in a competition of who can tell me about the largest number of these women, but rather the internal reflection. Count them up for yourself, then see what it means to you that this list of women who have contributed tons to western society will no doubt feature people you've never heard of.

Now, I realize that unless one was a history major, womens' studies minor, and possesses the memorisational powers of a super computer, its unlikely that anyone would know all of these women. But if a similar list were compiled of men who have contributed to western society, the number of well-known names would undoubtedly be far larger.

*****

Since I haven't seen this work in person, and since it's not like a painting that can be fully captured in a photograph or print, it's a little weird for me to start analysing the visual impact or aesthetics.

That said, I think that the significance of The Dinner Party for me lies not in what it is, physically, but what it represents. I think that all of the vaginal imagery would likely strike me as very heavy handed and overly literal. In general, though, I HATE when people trot out the idea that women's power comes from their fertility, and when people are reduced to their biology. They are ideas that simply do not interest me.

The picky/judgemental part of me needs to chime in:

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the inclusion of saints/mythological characters/non-people. I can see how, given that most societies have had strong ties to religion, the people or gods that they venerate become important, but it's still a little weird to me. I don't really know why.

Sophia, though? Uh-uh. We're supposed to be talking about WOMEN here, and just because the word "Σoφíα" is feminine doesn't mean that it refers to a woman. Even in ancient Greece, to my knowledge there was not a female character or representation attached to the concept of wisdom. In Orthodox mystical theology, wisdom is associated with the Virgin Mary (Theotokos), but that's not the same. She's being used as an allegory for wisdom.
Shall we start calling all feminine words (words that are feminine in other languages) women? Table? Window? Library?

Sorry, that's really not the point of the post, and is possibly harmful to the point at hand......I just get picky like that. My incredible obsession with accuracy can get in the way of a lot of things. Apologies!

I think my overall point is The Dinner Party would be even more powerful to me if all of the names were people, and people who actually existed, rather than goddesses and mythological figures. It's easy to discount those non-real people if you don't subscribe to that philosophy or religion, and the goal of the work is exactly the opposite of that. It seems to be about NOT discounting and NOT overlooking.

Small bone to pick.

I realize that I haven't really responded to -m-'s anger and call to arms. I think they stand alone, and don't need reinforcement from me. Think about what you can do, though.

Gearing Up

2009-08-31T21:04:00.000-07:00

The first day of school is tomorrow.....think happy thoughts for me! I'm a little scared!

We met our students today....they seem soooooooo young it's unbelievable!

Back Home

2009-08-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

I got back this morning from my second workshop of the summer. I was in Seattle for 2 weeks, attending a baroque opera workshop. We learned and performed a program of scenes from various 17th C operas.

This particular workshop was started by a totally famous and important lutenist, and besides the impeccable musical coaching and teaching, the strengths lie in the areas of drama and movement. The 3 stage directors are all remarkably good at dissecting archaic texts, guiding the students as they discover the nuances of the language, the best ways to express that language verbally and physically, and the movement and gestures that will best accomplish that.

2 of the 3 directors also run a movement class every morning, focusing on de-stressing and ways to kindly use one's body.

I haven't written anything about this yet, mostly because I was processing so much information that it was hard to stop and dissect. Also, the internet filter on the campus blocked anything with the word "bitch".....oops!

One thing I've noticed at past workshops is that some participants manage to get to know the faculty far better than others. I've always been in the "wanting to get to know, and therefore get everything possible out of faculty, but too introverted and shy to actually do it" group. I vowed to change that this year, so I made a point of just hanging around outside the theater after the last rehearsal of the day, and asking to have dinner with the out-of-town directors. The locals seemed to go home to their families in the evenings, but the non-locals were staying on campus, just like the students.

So, it turns out that one can learn loads from just sitting around the dinner table or the bar.

I made a point of asking "what next?" or "who should I sing for" or "do you have ideas about how to carve out a career that synthesizes text, rhetoric, history, drama, movement, dance and singing??" (you know, just the little, inconsequential questions.....not!) It really isn't quite as scary as I thought, this whole being outgoing thing, and I'm soooo glad that I put in that effort.

I've come home with loads of ideas and inspiration. That's the good part. The terrifying part is going to be implementing them. Because it turns out that, according to G, the guy who directed my scene, and who has a fascinating and multi-faceted career in early music, the best way to go about all of that synthesis stuff is to found my own company.

Most "early operas" that get performed are actually 18th C, almost a full century later than the repertoire that most interests me. These earliest operas get performed at the Boston Early Music Festival, and occasionally in student productions, but not usually other places. G suggested that I start with memorized concerts with a continuo team, then move up to memorized concerts with some movement, then work up from there.

yeah, yikes. Not intimidating AT ALL!!!

I think that a certain amount of my terror stems from the little gremlins, which have been awfully active this summer. They've been nagging at me, telling me that I'm not living up to some ill-defined ideal, or something. The feedback that I've gotten from faculty members at all these workshops, however, has been very, very positive. I'm trying to listen to the objective feedback, and trust that these are the foremost experts in early music.

Now, just to torment everyone with knowledge of awful teen gross-out movies from about 10 years ago:

"This one time, at baroque camp..."

Wrap-up of Amherst stuff

2009-08-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

I advertised my show, but didn't get into much detail about the Amherst workshop. It's taken some time to digest the experience, and figure out how to apply all of the information to normal life.

It was a one week workshop, where participants could choose up to 4 classes. In addition, there was some free-form music making (although one of my classes, the theater project, basically nixed any free time for those opportunities), and things like English country dancing (for the geriatric hippies) and concerts in the evenings. I, like many of the other younger people, paid my way by doing work-study jobs.

I took 3 classes: Vocal Masterclass, Baroque Gesture and the Theater Project (the Lute Song Extravaganza)

Masterclasses and gesture were both taught by a wonderful Early Music soprano. I worked with her before, 3 years ago, and I was very nervous about seeing her again. She had wonderful things to say at the time, and I got all scared that she would think that I hadn't progressed, or something.

(I was dealing with a lot of self-loathing the week before I left)

It turns out that the opposite was the case. She was very, very complimentary. She said that she was extremely impressed with the work I have done, and loved the way that my singing has developed.

That was great to hear, as I'm sure you can imagine.

My work study job was "bartending" (really just pouring wine and sodas at post concert receptions) and was actually pretty fun. I do have to say, though, that if I've got one criticism of the program it's that they expect work study students to make the work their first priority. That seems a little backward to me, but whatever.....

I got lots of good feedback from the faculty, and have a good sense of what needs working on and how to go about doing it. I'm also a bit more focused on productive work, instead of stressing about work without really doing it.

As you can imagine, there's also the let-down after these kinds of things. One has to go back to normal life, where it's not all theater and singing all the time. One has to figure out how to stay this focused while working a day job and getting sucked into job drama and frustrations, and that's never easy. Especially since for the first time ever, I'll have a full time job this year. Well, full-time in the school realm, which means 8am-3:30 (but really more like 3:45), every day. I do get more vacations than most schools (we get a week of in October and February--European style, as well as Winter and Spring breaks).

Truthfully, I'm very ambivalent about that. I signed the contract because I wanted the guaranteed income and the benefits, and because day-to-day subbing has gotten very frustrating. I was sick of never knowing where or with whom I'd be working. This way, I know that I'm working with a fantastic head teacher, and the new English teacher in our class is a friend of mine. I know that I'll have money, even if the musical scene is very sparse this season (which it looks like will be the case....damned economy). I also will be able to, you know, get an updated prescription, so that wearing my glasses actually accomplishes something.

The good things are all very good, but the thought of working all day every day is rather daunting. I always end up feeling like this after a summer of workshops and festivals, though. Even if I didn't have a day job, life wouldn't be like the programs, so I should probably just get over it!!

So there it is. I'm here for another week, then it's off to my next workshop. This one will be 2 weeks long, so the recovery will likely be even harder (which should be interesting considering that I go back to work the day after I fly home!!).....

I'll leave you with a photo from the dress rehearsal of our show. It was taken during my song "If Thou Longst So Much to Learn, Sweet Boy, What 'Tis to Love"

Ouch!!!!

2009-07-31T15:04:00.000-07:00

I went to a new exercise class yesterday......today I hurt so much, and in places I never knew could hurt!!!

Here's my observation, though:
Let's demolish, once and for all, the idea that thin=healthy/strong and bigger=unhealthy/not strong.

I was one of the thinner people in this class, and got my ass handed to me, in a big way, by people heavier and older than I. Seriously.

Also, if you tend to think that thin people are healthier, think about a friend of mine from high school. She looked "good" and did sports, so there you go, right? Oops. Not. She was diagnosed with malnutrition because she only ate Diet Coke and cheese pizza.

So there.

In other news, I'm working really hard on not hating my physical self. I like me just fine, but I'm not so good at applying that to how I look......ugh......it's frustrating.

Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare's London

2009-07-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you're anywhere in the vicinity of New London, Connecticut on Friday night, you should TOTALLY come to my show.

It is, as you can tell from this title, called "Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare's London, a Lute Song Cabaret" and is a mash-up of English lute-songs and scenes/dialogues/monologues from Shakespeare and other 16th Century playwrights.

The goal, I think, is to convince people once and for all that Renaissance and Baroque music are not, in fact, boring. It can be pensive, rhetorical, flowery, suggestive and downright filthy.

There are lots and lots of downright filthy songs in this show. Lots.

There's also a couch on stage, so you can fill in the blanks.

Here, for example, is the text to a lovely little gem called "It fell on a sommer's day:"

It fell on sommers day,
While sweete Bessie sleeping laie
In her bower, on her bed,
Light with curtains shadowed;

Jamy came,
Shee him spies,
Op'ning halfe her sleeping eyes.

Jamy stole in through the dore,
She lay slumbring as before;
Softly to her he drewe neare,
She heard him, yet would not heare;
Bessie vowed not to speak;
......

(insert some innuendo, then follow:)

Jamy then began to play,
Bessie as one buried lay,
Gladly through this sleight
Deceiv'd in her own deceit;
And since this trounce begoon (began)
She sleeps ev'rie afternoone.
And, since this trance begoon,
She sleeps ev'rie afternoone.

(In this version, a woman is singing the lines about Bessie, and a man sings those about Jamy. I think that originally it was written for one voice)

Whew!!

So yeah, Friday night at 8pm at Connecticut College. It's part of the Amherst Early Music Festival, so if you look up their website, there will be info.

Un-frakkin'-believable!

2009-07-22T05:07:00.000-07:00

Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr. was arrested on his own front porch a couple of days ago. Apparently someone saw him (and a cab driver?) fiddling with his front door, which was jammed, and called the police reporting "2 black men on a porch with backpacks."
Because, you know, no black people live in Cambridge, MA, or something......

Gates was arrested for "disorderly conduct" when he got angry that, oh, HE WAS BEING ARRESTED IN HIS OWN HOUSE!!!!!

If you don't know who Gates is, go find out, because you should. He's very well known as a scholar, professor, literary critic and documentary film producer and host.
If you haven't watched "African American Lives" and African American Lives 2 (that aired on PBS a few years ago), go do that too. They're fascinating.

My favorite Gates moment (which will have to be from PBS because I'll never take any of his classes at Harvard) was when he said, upon learning that approximately 50% of his ancestors were European, "What?? ME? Captain Black Man???"

Moment of levity aside, this situation is all too common, and completely despicable!

ugh....

2009-07-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

I have a problem.

I'm leaving for a workshop on Sunday, and am expected to have my music (2 solos, 2 ensemble pieces and some dialogue) memorized by then. Not only that, but even though the texts are in English, they're all Elizabethan and use some very arcane words and strange syntax. AND I need to be able to recite all the texts and tell what every word means alone and in context.

Sounds normal right? Sounds like someone with inordinate amounts of free time could have it all completely under control and feel great, right???

Nope.

I cannot find motivation for the life of me.

Don't know why.

I'm so frustrated with myself. I've been beating myself up (mentally) every day, all summer, but I haven't managed to get off my ass and do my work.

Today, for example, I rolled out of bed around 9:45. It's now 2pm and what have I done? Lolled about on the couch watching TV and browsing through Harry Potter to check on what they changed for the most recent movie.

Seriously.

I haven't learned my dialogue at all.
Neither have I spent any time on the ensembles.

ugh.

I really hate myself right now.

Role of Women in the Court

2009-07-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Has everyone been listening to the Sotomayor hearing? It's really interesting, but it seems like every time a conservative senator gets the chance to question her, he comes off like a dolt.....Graham, I think, used the word "in" about 38 times in one sentence this afternoon (and no, it wasn't a stutter).

The other day, I read an interview with the Supreme Court's only (at the moment) female justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I think this interview has made its way to the cable news chumps, who have undoubtedly butchered the interpretation.

I wanted to pass it on, and strongly urge you all to read the whole thing, though, because wow. It's fascinating.

On the topic of whether one's life experiences affect how they view the world and decide cases ("well, duh!" is my response, but that's just me), and the whole to-do over Sonia Sotomayor's now infamous quote:

I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

On feminism and advancing its ideals:

I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world. If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

On the recently decided case of the middle-schooler who was strip-searched:

Q: What about the case this term involving the strip search, in school, of 13-year-old Savana Redding? Justice Souter’s majority opinion, finding that the strip search was unconstitutional, is very different from what I expected after oral argument, when some of the men on the court didn’t seem to see the seriousness here. Is that an example of a case when having a woman as part of the conversation was important?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it makes people stop and think, Maybe a 13-year-old girl is different from a 13-year-old boy in terms of how humiliating it is to be seen undressed. I think many of [the male justices] first thought of their own reaction. It came out in various questions. You change your clothes in the gym, what’s the big deal?

Again, "well duh!" Why is it hard for people to grasp that privileged white guys will not be the best at fairly evaluating the experiences of those not like themselves??

And on the biggie: Choice. Ginsberg does seem very firmly optimistic about reproductive rights remaining in place, which is a refreshing voice to hear.

The morning-after pill will become more accessible and easier to take. So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.

And on the problems with anti-choice thinking:

The poor little woman, to regret the choice that she made. Unfortunately there is something of that in Roe. It’s not about the women alone. It’s the women in consultation with her doctor. So the view you get is the tall doctor and the little woman who needs him.

Go read the whole thing!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2

Bwah hah hah ha (the I'm evil edition)

2009-07-07T15:34:00.001-07:00

Whoopsie!

2009-07-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

So, um, it turns out that Sandra Tsing Loh had an affair, which helped contribute to the end of her marriage.......somehow I missed that when I read the article.

oops.

My reaction and Bitch, Phd's analysis still stand, though.

Cue the William Tell Overture*

2009-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

It's Boyfriend's and my fourth anniversary today. Yay!

We count the day we met as our anniversary, because we started dating pretty much immediately. Maybe sometime I'll tell the crazy story of how we met, but not right now....

Anyway, I suppose that it could be much more intense, but at 4 years, and our ages (30 and 27), the questions have started.

You know the questions I mean:
"Well, is your relationship going well? It is? Well, have you two thought about...."
"Do you ever think about....."
"If you decide you want children, will you, ya know...."

Yes, kids, the topic of the day is, once again, marriage. That honorary four-letter word.

It would likely be far worse if I lived somewhere more "traditional" where everyone gets married a couple years out of college and has 9-5 jobs, or something. Being in the Bay Area liberal/progressive haven, and being a performer, certainly help. No one can "settle down" because that requires money. Which no one has.....

But yes. Certain family members or friends have definitely started pestering us. My aunt even asked if we were getting married "within the next year." She's most perturbed by the pre-marital sex you see. I'm not sure what the "within the next year" thing is all about, though. Is there some little known passage of scripture that says that sex is less bad if it occurs within the same fiscal year as marriage??

And don't even get me started on having children.....

I love the perplexed looks, though, when I say that, no, marriage is SO not a priority. "Why not?"

Why not? Um, well.....

Sandra Tsing Loh's article in the Atlantic is a good reason. Because everything can be perfectly fine, and still perfectly wrong.

Because the patriarchal bullshit still abounds, no matter how much couples try to ignore or supress it.

Because of what Bitch, PhD said about Tsing Loh's article:

The Good Marriage is Supposed to be:

sexually monogamous
between one man and one woman (even though, or rather because, men and women Are Different)
for their entire lives
begun early enough that they can have children, plural, (if they want to), without having to go through infertility treatment
passionate, again, for their entire lives
respectful at all times
mutually supportive, at all times
economically successful
able to accommodate two careers, if so desired
a friendship
something you "work" at, but it's not supposed to feel like work
flirty--but only with each other
not jealous
a Pillar of Society

Marriage should be like the early days of dating + the settled feeling of being "a couple" + a true partnership + a friendship + exciting + comfortable + productive (of kids, of material goods). People shouldn't get married "too young," but they certainly shouldn't wait "too long." They should both want to have passionate sex with each other whenever the other person wants to, but not when the other person doesn't, and god knows we don't want to see married people acting like teenagers in public places: holding hands is cute, and so are sweet chaste kisses, but come on! Especially if you already have children!

You mustn't fight--not in public, not in front of the children, and not so the neighbors can hear you. Certainly not in front of guests or friends. In fact, not only mustn't you fight, but you mustn't even act tense lest it make others uncomfortable. If one of you is abusive, then why does the other one put up with it???--but divorce, of course, is a Terrible Thing. Unless we've known all along that that person was bad for you, or that you were a terrible couple, or that the relationship was doomed, in which case for god's sake why didn't you divorce years ago? In fact, why did you get married in the first place?? We tried to tell you.

We also tried to tell you that that two careers thing wasn't going to work--you hardly spent any time together. It also doesn't work when one of you subsumes your life in the other person's career, though--I mean, don't you feel your masculinity is threatened? Isn't it your own fault that you don't have any savings or retirement or interests of your own now that he's left you/died/the children have moved out? Anyway, marriage is a total tool of patriarchy. And while we're at it, are you going to change your name or not?

If you're gay and you (want to) get married, you're just being assimilationist. And if your marriage ends, then not only are you a personal failure, but you've Undermined the Cause. Anyway, given how fucked up marriage is, why do you want to have anything to do with it? Except that oh right, we want you to save it for us, because god knows we've fucked it up. Unless of course your getting married is going to fuck it up even worse, in which case, forget it.

Marriage is a sacrament. It was ordained by god. It's a secular institution, which should include tax benefits and health insurance because it promotes stability and because financial benefits not only incentivize marriage but make it easier for spouses to support each other in hard times. But that's not fair to single people! So really, marriage shouldn't convey any benefits whatsoever--but you don't get to complain about the emotional or financial burdens of marriage, because after all, you chose to do it.

NOT that that means you can choose *how* you do it. Because your weird, unconventional marriage makes other people uncomfortable, and plus it sets a bad example for the children, who might think that it's okay to live that way. Which it isn't.

Why does any of that sound like fun?
Where in all of that is there time for tickle wars or laughing your ass off over horribly snarky jokes?

Why should I skip perkily into a life of frustration and trying to live up to expectations?

Everything is fine, and I like it just the way it is. Right now, on our fourth anniversary, I want nothing to do with marriage.

Even if all couples in the country could suddenly have all the rights of straight couples, even if there were children involved, even if someone could guarantee that the patriarchy would get the fuck out of the way.

Now I'm going to go make dinner reservations. And maybe get out of my pyjamas (yes, I'm still in pj's at almost-2-o'clock in the afternoon. Suck it.)

*Who can guess the reference?? Also, if the overture is all you know of Rossini's Guillaume Tell, you should seek it out. It's lovely.

Good things

2009-06-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Santa Barbara!
I'm spending the weekend with my best friend "Molly." There will be much giggling, silliness, and hilarity.
I drove down yesterday, and it was an easy, non-stressful drive. Which is good. Usually I get to about Santa Maria and realize that both my foot and butt are asleep....not good.

I was really worried that the Supreme Court would rule that strip-searching a 13 year old girl is just fine. Remember? Well, happily, I was wrong. In an 8-1 decision, the court ruled it unconstitutional. I'm not surprised that Thomas was the only dissenter....

So yes. It is decreed that making a child strip for the sake of finding some non-existent ibuprofen is WRONG!

Off to walk around the salt marshes and seal rookery.

Clumsiest-er Girl

2009-06-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

I mentioned, didn't I, that Boyfriend is away?

Well, the other evening I went out to get some food for dinner. I gathered up my stuff, pulled the (always latched) door shut, and sure enough: No keys.

Usually when I do this, I trudge over to campus and take Boyfriend's......not possible. I sat on the doorstep for a while.

It occurred to me that our kitchen has a door to a central stairway that connects all of the apartments. That door has a lock, but we have no specific key for it. I knocked on the neighbors' door to ask if, by chance, the key that opens our front gate and our door (but only the front, not the backdoor) would also open the inside door.

Sure enough, their key opened our kitchen door. Thanks inept landlord, I appreciate the TOTAL LACK OF SECURITY!

Crisis averted, and we promised not to break into each others' apartments.

Still, I feel pretty dumb.

I need to stop locking myself out of the house.

Seriously???

2009-06-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Yahoo front page has an article about the shithead who shot (oh, 'scuse me, "allegedly shot") Dr. Tiller.

"The man charged in the George Tiller murder warns of more "events" and complains about jail."

Complains about jail???

Well, ass-hat, maybe you should have though of that before you fucking MURDERED someone!!!!!

Celluloid Closet

2009-06-06T22:30:00.001-07:00

I've spent the majority of the day sitting (okay, lounging and lying) on the couch watching TV. It feels terribly luxurious. I did get up for a while to go hunt for a new perfect tea-mug for work (which I didn't find, but I did indulge in some new Luminarc mixing bowls), and a non-carcinogenic foundation (turns out the brand I've been using for performances has totally dangerous chemicals...boo! I didn't find that either....indulged in 2 t-shirts from Old Navy instead).

My unnecessary shopping, however, is not the point.*

The point is that I did watch some non-trashy TV. For Pride Month, PBS showed "The Celluloid Closet," which is a documentary about LGBT characters in film, and the way that Hollywood has shown (and not shown) them. The history was interesting, though I suspect that I would have gotten more out of it if I were a film buff.

One point, about the difference in the way that homosexuality was depicted in early cinema for men and women, was exactly the same as a point that Julia Serano made in her book Whipping Girl.

I read Whipping Girl a few months ago, and at the time, I wanted to write a review/dissection of it. I didn't, though, because it was around the same time as the pro-trans/anti-trans blog kerfuffle, in which feminist blogs on both sides of the "issue" spat venom at each other. I really didn't want to get into it, especially since prior to reading the book, I really didn't know much about trans theory.

Serano's main hypothesis is that femininity has been demonized and scapegoated, and a feature of that is the way that gay and/or gender variant people are looked at: a woman wanting to be a man (or acting like one) is far more accepted than a man who wants to be (or "acts like") a woman, because men are considered superior to women.

This same point was made in "Celluloid Closet" in regards to gay characters. In the early days of Hollywood, up to about the 30's, male homosexuality was only referenced in terms of the "sissy" character who was ridiculed and derided. Lesbianism or masculinity in women was less stereotyped and more acceptable to audiences. The example was Marlene Dietrich dressed in a totally snazzy, perfectly tailored tuxedo, swaggering into a nightclub, tipping her top hat and knocking all the women AND all the men off their feet.

Interestingly, it was the 2nd time this weekend that I've thought about film in reference to Serrano's work.

Boyfriend is away again, which means that I've filled our Netflix** queue with all sorts of things that he won't like. Namely, costume dramas. This time, I'm on a steady diet of the showtime series "The Tudors."

The entire thing seems to be devised for the sole purpose of showing Jonathan Rhys Myers with his clothes off, which is something of a shame because the costumes are gorgeous. They are not always historically accurate (um, no, bare shoulders were not acceptable in the Tudor era), but beautiful nonetheless.

Anyhow, I kept thinking back to Serano's idea that femininity (or masculinity, for that matter) is to a certain extent ingrained, since some people develop affinities for its trappings at a very young age.

I know that I didn't quite agree at the time, but my counter-argument became much clearer as I watched "The Tudors." It just doesn't seem to fit in my head that the way one expresses gender is biological since the tools of expression have changed so drastically from one era to the next.

Whipping Girl is very interesting and thought provoking, even if I don't think that I quite agree with all of the theories in it. It taught me a lot about the history of the Trans movement, and the ways in which current trans issues are deeply tied to traditional sexism.

Incidentally, I think that I propose a change in vocabulary. Rather than "masculine" or "feminine," which claim a rightness or an essentialism to the way that some women and men act, I think we need new words that won't have a negative connotation, and can simply be descriptive.

I propose "froofy" instead of "feminine."

I'm still looking for a good word for "masculine."

Let me know...

*My income has gone up this spring, giving me a certain amount of disposable income the likes of which I've never seen. It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but it makes things like a weekend of reasonably priced, though not absolutely necessary items possible.

*Have I mentioned that I friggin' LOVE Netflix?? It's inexpensive, and lets me watch as many old PBS shows as I can manage!

Final Stretch

2009-06-04T07:03:00.001-07:00

Only 7 more days of work before the summer. Well, more, actually, but seven days with children.

It's taking every last ounce of energy to get there, partially because I'm impatient, and partially because all of my little darlings' brains are full and they're acting up....

They're so little that the concept of summer vacation doesn't exist yet. They have, however, had more than 6 weeks of school in a row without a break, and it shows. Pedagogical research shows that children (up to about 3rd grade, I think, but don't quote me) can't really go more than 6 weeks at a time. Their brains are absorbing so much information that at a certain point they can't take any more.

The result is a serious decline in concentration, behavior and retention of material. My preschool sisteren and I don't have accademics to deal with, per se, but we have certainly noticed that kids are antsier during story time, wilder during play time, and need to hear instructions about 37 million times. That's up from about 1,000.

Also, the quality of sleep in the nap room has plummeted. That's extra annoying for me, since I'm the one who has to "supervise" the nap room. Which, when everyone sleeps, really means "take an almost-nap and surf the internet." I've really come to value that part of the day. It's calm and quiet, and I can recharge a little.....usually. This week has been a wash, so far. I hope I can get these sleep resistant beasts back to a nice routine.

Only a week and a half till summer! Then maybe I'll write about something more interesting than 3 year olds!

The Clumsiest Girl

2009-05-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

The comic misadventures continued this week:

Thursday night, I spent an hour and a half translating a recipe into pictures. As in, removing all the words and replacing them with images of the ingredients, the amounts, what to do with them, etc. I did this so that my students could follow the recipe themselves, which makes cooking with kids more fun, because they feel like they're "reading." It also creates opportunities for meaningful interchanges and some "math."

Anyway, it was gorgeous. Never has a recipe for applesauce brownies been more beautiful.

I saved it to my desktop and went to bed.

Then, in the morning, I forgot my computer on the couch when I went to work.

Seriously.

Later that day, I got home from work, realized I was thirsty and decided to go to the corner store for a soda.

I got my bag, my shoes and my sunglasses and left the house, pulling the door shut (it was latched, of course). I then reached into my bag to pull out my keys to lock the screen.

They were inside the house.

Sigh.

My supposed 3 minute trip to get a soda turned into an hour long trek over to Cal, so that I could get keys from Boyfriend. I took the circuitous route around campus, got stopped by families of graduaters wanting me to take family photos and got a little lost (cause I'm used to accessing his lab from North Side, not from South Side)......

And that, dear friends, is how I started my weekend.

Must go on grandma duty now.

Great. Just. Friggin. Great.

2009-05-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

As if my week weren't bad enough. It was one of those "everything that can go wrong will go wrong" weeks, topped off with a complete lack of sleep. I was waiting for Friday. All week, I waited for Friday. Friday came, and it looked like it was going to be an ok day.

Then. My head teacher determined that one of our kids has lice.

Yes, lice. As if my week weren't shitty enough, we had to discover lice in the class.

We think it's just that one kid. We hope he hasn't given it to the others. That, however, remains to be seen.....We'll have to do really thorough checks on Monday morning.

Ugh.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies.

Quick Singer Rant

2009-05-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

At the risk of confusing my non-musician or non-classically-minded readers, I'd like to share a few things that one should NEVER say to a classical singer:

"You should go on American Idol!"

"Do you sing like this: *cue wobbly weird sound that crosses Tarzan with Julia Child*?"

"Oh, you sing Renaissance and Baroque music? Have you ever sing at the Renaissance faire?"
(This one could also be "Do you wear garb?" which is also forbidden)

"You're an opera singer? Like, you mean Phantom of the Opera?"

"You're an opera singer? But you're not fat!"

I know that I've heard others, but this is a basic list of things that will probably annoy or offend a classical singer. Please make a note.

Apologies

2009-05-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

My writing has been poor to non-existent lately.

I'm really sorry.

I've been generally angsty about lots of things (singing, body stuff, blogging) in the last couple of weeks, and my lack of meaningful writing is among them.

I would like to move away from re-posting other people's work, with only brief comments, because I feel like that's a cop-out and a poor excuse for blogging.

That's really all I had to say.

Further Proof that Music Programs are Good for Young People

2009-04-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

This charming little story of 2 would be muggers and a 17 year old girl.

They approached her from behind and demanded her money.

And then she beat the shit out of them with her marching band baton.

On behalf of band geeks, choir sluts*, orchestra nerds and everyone in between, I say:
"Awesome job, girl in Quartz Hill, CA. You Rock!"

(via the AP...why Yahoo filed it under "odd news" is unclear. Obviously it should have been under "awesomest news")

*refers to musical promiscuity. We used that term in high school for those of us who sang in all the choirs at school, and probably some outside of school as well. Yes, it's weird. So are teenagers.

Finally, Reasonable Thought From the Government

2009-04-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

Secretary of State Clinton addressed Congress the other day. Here's a transcript:

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ): —my question: Is the Obama administration seeking, in any way, to weaken or overturn pro-life laws and policies in African and Latin-American countries, either directly or through multi-lateral organizations, including and especially the United Nations, African Union, or the OAS, or by way of funding NGOs like Planned Parenthood; and, secondly, and so we can have total transparency—you know, you know, as a former lawmaker, we always have definition pages when we write legislation; definitions do matter—does the United States' definition of the term "reproductive health," or "reproductive services," or "reproductive rights," include abortion? I yield to the distinguished gentleman.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Congressman, I deeply respect your passionate concern and views, which you have championed and advocated for over the course of your public career. We obviously have a profound disagreement.

When I think about the suffering that I have seen of women around the world—I've been in hospitals in Brazil where half the women were enthusiastically and joyfully greeting new babies and the other half were fighting for their lives against botched abortions. I've been in African countries where 12- and 13-year-old girls are bearing children. I have been in Asian countries where the denial of family planning consigns women to lives of oppression and hardship. So we have a very fundamental disagreement.

And it is my strongly held view that you are entitled to advocate, and everyone who agrees with you should be free to do so anywhere in the world, and so are we.

We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health—and reproductive health includes access to abortion, that I believe should be safe, legal, and rare. I spent a lot of my time trying to bring down the rate of abortions, and it has been my experience that good family planning and good medical care brings down the rate of abortion. Keeping women and men in ignorance and denied the access to services actually increases the rate of abortion.

During my time as First Lady, I helped to create the Campaign Against Teenage Pregnancy, and while we were working to provide good information, access to contraception, and decision-making that would enable young women to protect themselves and say no, the rate of teen pregnancy went down. I'm sad to report that, after an administration of 8 years that undid so much of the good work, the rate of teenage pregnancy is going up.

So, we disagree. And we are now an administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive healthcare.

Abso-fucking-lutely!!

It's really great to hear reasonable, 21st Century thinking coming out of the administration. None of this "oooh, no, we won't give you money unless you promise you won't let those women get uppity and live their lives independently" bullshit.

(transcript by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville)

Beyond disturbing-update

2009-04-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who's completely, physically ill over the Supreme Court's probable decision that a school strip searching a 13 year old girl is just fine??

I'm sorry for the nearly incoherent previous sentence.

I'm absolutely grossed out. Literally, it makes me physically ill to think that the nation's highest court sees no difference between changing for gym class and a forcible strip search. Of a child. In fact, they laughed about it.

Justice Ginsburg will probably be the most vocal dissenter, but the fact she will be in the minority is at once not surprising and totally shocking. Not surprising because the court is full of asshole men, but shocking because how could even the most assholic of assholes not realize that strip searching A CHILD is downright repugnant.

There are many sites that are reporting on this (just none in the mainstream media....go figure), but I'll choose to link to Alas, A Blog. Read up on what happened. Follow Amersand's links, too, because apparently this isn't the first time that Justice Alito has given the ok to strip searching girl children.

**Update: Commenter "PG" posted the dissent from the circuit court case. It's comment number 27 after the post to which I linked**

heh

2009-04-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

There was an article on Yahoo today about an Ivy Leaguer who "infiltrated" Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in order to write a book.

One sentence really caught my eye:

He visited a campus support group for chronic masturbators, where students were taught to curb impure thoughts

Heh. Hehe. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Okay, now that that's over with, I'll open up to floor to my darling readers:
What do you think the poster for that support group would say??

What the Hell, Yo???? Part 2

2009-04-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I stopped in Whole Paycheck on the way home from work. I don't usually shop there (the prices are prohibitive), but I was very short on time, and needed a couple of ingredients for a salad that I wanted to take to some friends' goodbye party. I dashed in, tried not to be run over by self-righteous yuppy mommies, and got what I needed. Actually there was a really cute moment at the fish/meat counter when the kid behind me in line looked at the shrimp and started chanting "Ebi.....eeeeebbbbbiiiiii.........eeebbbiii......ebi...."

Sadly, cute toddlers are not the point of the post.

Anyway, expensive shrimp (and less expensive but still overpriced produce) in hand, I got into the shortest line that I could find, which moved pretty quickly. At the register I noticed a little sign:

"Bring in any conventional food item, and we will switch it for a 365 Organics equivalent item."

Then, in MUCH smaller letters underneath it said:

"Conventional items will be donated to the Alameda County Food Bank."

Um..........what? Yuppies are too good for non-organic food, cuz it'll kill you, ya know, but poor people don't deserve "good" food?

What?

Does that rub anyone else the wrong way?

(Not that folks should be feeling all virtuous for shopping there anyway. Just cuz their stuff is grown without chemicals does not mean that their suppliers can farm according to susstainable, bio-diverse theories. How could they, having to supply such vast quantities?)

What the Hell, yo???

2009-04-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently people who earn $250,000 a year don't think they're rich. And the mayor of San Jose, CA thinks that they're "upper working class" and that they can't afford to buy a home.

Um.....right.....

They, therefore, are not to pleased with President Obama's proposed tax changes.

That's right. Even though they fall into the category known as "richest in America" who make more money than 98% of Americans, they don't "consider themselves" rich.

Excuse me while I laugh hysterically.

The article doesn't say that these people think that rich bastards should decide for themselves whether they should pay higher taxes, but it comes pretty close. I'm especially fond of the "But my car is nearly a decade old. I can't possibly be rich!!"

I wonder if these people even realize that they come off sounding like total assholes. When the phrase "We're meeting our needs, but just barely" or whatever, comes out of the mouth of someone who makes more than the 300,000,000 other people in the country.

I make about as much in one year as the featured family pays in church tithes. To them, and the rest of these whiny dirt-bags, I say "pftflpfyfpfltfltpfht!"*

(that was me blowing a big fat raspberry)

Why Yes, Mezzos Do Have the Sense of Humor of 12 Year Old Boys

2009-04-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight is my first concert with Big Nationally Known Period Instrument Orchestra. Yay!!!

Further proof that all those trouser roles have gone to my head, here is a sampling of things that I've scribbled in my score in the last couple of days:

-Silent games of hangman with my tenor friend who sits next to me (the words we choose? "Hamburger" "Butthead" "Tom is a Tool"*)
-Adding an "s" to the word "breast" in a recitative sung by Famous British Countertenor, which makes the sentence "What sacred horrors shake my breast! Ah! 'Tis the pow'r divine confessed! Who can his energy control? He comes, he comes, and fires my soul" extra, extra funny.
(I mean, it's pretty funny already, but I think that the unintended innuendo gets better when it's "breasts." Am I wrong?)
-changing the words to a recitative cadence from "prepare to answer thy offended queen!" to "prepare to answer, I'm a flaming queen!"
(no, I was not making a judgmental comment about the person singing this recit. I just think that these words fit the notes better than what Handel wrote)

So yes, my sense of humor is horrible and reprehensible.

This follows in the grand tradition of changing the words to some of Handel's frequently sung music. A friend of mine was singing "Where e'er you walk" several years ago and accidentally sang "Trees where you shit" instead of "sit." At the Conservatory there was the perennial Messiah concert that was so tiresome folks would daydream about changing "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over the flock by night" to "There were shepherds imbibing in the fields, drinking scotch on the rocks by night."

Not to even mention Latin. I mean, Hildegard actually uses the word "speculum." And "nati poenas inclyti" really? That joke just makes itself.....

Anyway, yes, I have the mind of a 12 year old boy.....'cept with bigger words.
I just needed to make that confession and get it out of my system now, so I don't giggle all the way through the oratorio!

*This dude Tom is being a total tool. He keeps turning around and glaring at the row behind him when someone sings a wrong note, or apparently even when they sing in a way he doesn't like. He also walks around trilling, just to prove that he can, or something....ugh, tenors

Dammit!!!

2009-04-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Earlier today an idea for a post popped into my head, nearly fleshed out. It has since popped back out, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

shit.

Random tidbits while I think of something more interesting to write

2009-04-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

The annual egg roll (chase?) took place this weekend at the White House. It really wouldn't be that interesting, except that the President read a story to the kis as they waited to begin. What did he read?

Where the Wild Things Are!!!

The president! Obama yelled "Let the wild rumpus begin!" at the top of his lungs!!!!

I can't even tell you how cute that is.

In other Easter-related news, the Washington Post put up photos of the Peeps diorama contest. If you haven't seen them, you really should.

(I'm not sure what's up with the Guantanamo bay one, though. That's just in poor taste....)

Notes from Preschool

2009-04-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

My beasties (aka the 16 3 year-olds with whom I spend all day, every day) are endlessly interesting and sometimes quite humorous. I thought I'd share some interesting anecdotes, and one more serious issue.

Scene 1:

There are 3 bathroom stalls in our classroom. They have curtains instead of doors, and lines of tape on the floor in front of each one for kids to stand on to wait in line. Some children have a hard time not playing with the curtain while they wait, and this really bothers one little boy.
One day while being pestered by the flying curtain, this little guy (who has a terrible stammer) lets loose with:
"Heeey, Stop FUCKING with me!"

The head teacher and I looked at each other, stopped cold and stared.

(yes, we did talk to him about appropriate language)

Scene 2:

A little girl is chatting with Andrea, one of the preschool English teachers, and is being as cute as she could possibly be. Andrea looks down at her and says: "S, you are sooo cute, I think I'll just put you in my pocket, take you home and you can be my baby." S looked up and said "Well, Andrea, I could go home with you and we could MAKE a baby together!"

(She's so little that it actually came out "wew Andwea....")

Scene 3:

Q, a ridiculously smart little guy in my class, with eyes that are a lighter, more piercing blue than anything I've ever seen, and a control issue that leads to squirreling things away, was discovered hiding push pins. He was apparently working them out of the wall and stashing them somewhere. The head teacher found his stash, and so he promptly moved it, partially to his back pocket. The little weasel made it home with 8 push pins in his pocket. When his mom discovered them, he responded:
"Mommy, I just LOVE needles!"

Q's mom reported the conversation to us the next morning, and ended with "Great, in 20 years he'll be one of those guys in the Tenderloin rolling his head back and going 'mooooom, ahhh just loooove neeeedles.....'"

(for those not from the San Francisco area, the Tenderloin is a neighborhood best known for its drug dealers and users)

Those were the cute/funny ones.

The obnoxious one involves a little girl, Y, her dad, and our Thursday Workshops. They're called "Décloisonnements" in French, but that really doesn't translate. What happens is that the teachers and assistants (8 of us in all) each plan an activity in one of 8 topics, and the kids in the preschool each choose one. They have the opportunity to work with other teachers and meet kids from other classes. I do music (duh), and my current activity is an exploration of Carnival of the Animals (by Saint-Saëns).

Anyway, there's a chart up in the class with little drawings of all of the activities and the date, so that we (and the parents) can keep track of who goes where, and also so that the children can look at the pictures and choose their activity for the week.

Last week, the kids chose their activites on Thursday morning, which meant that some parents were there while the choosing happened (this was not the case previously). One dad looked at the chart, looked at the activities that his daughter had done already and said:
"Science? It's really weird that she would do that. She hasn't shown interest in science before. Here, Y why don't you do music or library this week? You like music so much! Yeah, why don't you do that?"

UGH.....

A, the head teacher and I, didn't say anything at the time. Later, though, we just raised our eyebrows at each other, and vented our frustration that the dad had obviously steered his daughter away from a less "girly" activity, and toward a more acceptable one. Y has never done either of the outdoor choices either.......The funny thing is, though, that my music activity is very large-motor oriented, and involves roaring like a dinosaur (the rowdy boys love it).

We haven't let the beasties choose activities with their parents around anymore, by the way. One of the points is for them to choose things they might not have had access to before.

Dinner

2009-03-31T19:46:00.001-07:00

In general, I don't really like it when serious bloggers tell me what they've been making for dinner. I don't know why, but it kind of bugs me.

That, of course, means that I'm going to share what I had for dinner last night!

My friend Celeste gave me some lentils last week, when she realized with horror that I've never cooked with them before. Trying to figure out what to do, I remembered a dish that I ate quite frequently my first year of college. A brown rice and lentil "casserole." I ate it all the time because it was the only vegetarian meal option that my dorm dining hall offered, and at the time I didn't eat meat.

Anyway, a quick google search resulted in a very simple recipe that sounded similar. Brown rice and lentil casserole, with a cheese topping. The recipe couldn't be simpler.

Combine in a baking dish:
3/4 C Lentils
1/2 C Brown Rice
3/4 C Chopped Onion (that was about 1/2 of a medium-large onion)
3 C Chicken Broth (or whatever other broth you like)
Some Garlic (they recommended garlic powder, I crushed a couple of cloves of fresh)
1 t Italian Seasoning
**I added 2 small zucchini, quartered the long way and chopped**

The recipe recommends 1 C grated cheddar sprinkled on top. The accompanying picture made that look pretty gloppy and gross, so I substituted freshly grated Parmesan. I think I actually used a little more than a cup, but my microplane grater makes the cheese shreds so fluffy that it's probably a lot less (in terms of mass) than cheddar would have been.

Cover with foil and bake at 300 degrees for 1hr 10min, then remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes (if you're doing parmesan, you might want to bake for an hour and 20 minutes, then take the top off for 10, so that the parm doesn't burn).

The results:
The flavor was really good, and I particularly liked that the parmesan and lentil flavors complimented each other. I have always had trouble cooking brown rice, though, and this was no exception. Even after all that time, the rice was pretty hard still. I think that I got brown basmati, this time around, but since I got it from the bulk bins (either from Berkeley Bowl or Star Grocery, I can't remember), there are no cooking directions. Oh, and also our oven is a pitiful immitation of an oven, so that might have something to do with it....
When I make it again, I will likely add more liquid.

If one wanted, I think that carrots would taste good in it. Boyfriend would prefer mushrooms, but he'll have to cook it himself on other premises if he wants those nasty things. If one wanted a heartier, meatier flavor, I'm sure some chopped bacon or pancetta would be really good. It might get a little soggy, though......

Tonight is another casserole night. This time it's an old favorite of ours. "Cacciatore Style Chicken Bake" is chicken, red and green bell peppers, a little onion and tomato sauce in a baking dish with bread crumb topping. This is a perfect outlet for Trader Joe's "Starter Sauce," which is tomatoes, onion, garlic and basil. Nothing else. I cuised it so that it was smoother, and sturred in some (lots of) oregano and salt and pepper. I use whole wheat bread for crumbs, and I mixed some parmesan into the topping.

I don't know if we'll continue the "All Casseroles All the Time" trend this week.....it could be fun. I've got several more in my recipe file.

So???

2009-03-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

What do y'all think of the new look??

Michelle Obama--too "ambitious"??

2009-03-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

During the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama was the subject of much scrutiny and criticism. Most of it was for really stupid reasons, like her wardrobe or her strong opinions. Well, why stop at the election, or the inauguration?? It seems that the news media is perfectly content to keep critiquing her choices. This time, it's not about sleeveless tops, but about her "platform" and whether it's too "ambitious."

The role and duties of the first lady is not super well defined. They get stuck with the traditionalist bullshit like hosting tea parties in the White House, of course, but also tend to pick a "platform" of issues that need more publicity and thought. Lady Bird Johnson threw herself into highway beautification and wildflowers, for instance. More recently, First Lady Hillary Clinton chaired the task force on universal health care (we know how THAT worked out....). It seems that First Ladies, since they have given up their own identities and all, have traditionally picked one or two things on which to focus and talk about.

Michelle Obama, however, has a platform with many issues, and that's worrying some people.
She's keen on promoting: Fitness, parenting, the environment, women's rights, self-esteem for young girls, volunteerism, improving life for military families and helping working women balance home and career life.

OMG, she's got varied interests!!!! ARHG!!!!

That list is taken directly from the article (Politico via Yahoo), and I think that in hopes of making it seem really long, they listed things as seperate when they are really sub-issues a larger topic. Self-esteem for young girls, for instance, should really fall under both parenting and women's rights (OMG intersections!!!). Helping working women balance the challenges of careers and home lives.....um, that's also women's rights, and, if I'm not mistaken, it's one of the original tennets of feminism....

Laura Bush's press secretary says that it's important to focus on two or three things with which you can make a difference. Let's see, for Laura Bush, those are....um....hang on....**crickets chirping**

Some marketing person says that if you do more than a couple of things, you will become fragmented. She wonders why Obama is wasting time "planting herbs." Besides the obvious answers (because gardens are cool, because you can teach your kids about plants and biology, because homegrown food is satisfying....), I was smacking my head over this marketing person's company. It specializes in strategic branding.

Yes, because that's what the First Lady should be doing. Strategically branding herself. Turning herself into a simplified, pretty-fied product that can churn out memorized speeches about how "our children should read." Or something.

Just now, Boyfriend had a really good perspective. His thought was that in a perfect egalitarian universe, in which true gender equality is acheived, it really wouldn't matter what the first spouse would do. She or he would keep their job in wherever, jet to DC for part of the week for family time, and otherwise go about his or her business. Since we don't have that yet, we must suffice with the First Lady being a symbolic throwback to the Ladies Auxilliary and stuff like that.

I also brought up the ridiculousness of Bush's press secretary being interviewed, given that I couldn't remember Laura Bush doing anything. He said: "Oh, yes. Wasn't she vociferous in making sure that people in Africa can't get birth control?? See, she did stuff, she was just on the side of Satan!"

So yes, in this weird world where the spouse of the president is unable to go about his or her life, and must sit in the White House looking for things to do, we've got Michelle Obama. We've got someone who is interesting, capable, driven and yes, probably very ambitious. Last I checked, none of these was negative.

(if you want to induce head/desk collisions, here's the article.)

oh! p.s. "she can't possibly talk about military families, because she's never been in one!" um.....she's never been a tomato either, but it's not gonna stop her!

Sigh...

2009-03-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

So, I'm totally dissatisfied with the look of Bitchcraft. Time for some spring cleaning, methinks.

I'm going to play around with colors and images, and in addition, I'm hunting for a template that will be inviting, interesting, and relate to the theme/content.....

What do you think of these options?
http://www.eblogtemplates.com/tastelessly-blogger/

or

http://www.eblogtemplates.com/dirtylicious/

What have you all done to make your blogs all pretty-fied and interesting??

Halp!!

Mo's My Homie

2009-03-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

And now for some non-ranting. I know it's a strange thing on this blog, but I thought I'd surprise you....

I'm totally digging Mo Willems at the mo. Sorry....couldn't resist.

I first encountered his book Knuffle Bunny, a Cautionary Tale in about 2006, and have since been really enjoying reading his books to all the little beasties in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, the head teacher in my class was absent, so I got to lead circle time. It's always lots of fun, but particularly so when you get to read a book called Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (except that it was in French, so it was really Léonardo, le monstre épouvantable (in French you only capitalize the first letter of the first word of a title). I loved it even more than my class did, I think!

The plot is that Leonardo is a terrible monster. Terrible at BEING a monster. Cuteness ensues, and it's not entirely dissimilar to Lamont the Lonely Monster, which was a favorite of mine when I was a child.

It's also a wonderful little collision of monsters and children, which reminds me ever so slightly of THE.BEST.BOOK.EVER.WRITTEN.

His websites are lots of fun, too.

Laptop!!

2009-03-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

I finally, finally, finally got my work laptop on Monday afternoon. I had to sign an agreement saying that it's for school-business related things only, not for anything personal.....

Of course I immediately went home and used the thing to type a paper for my child-development class and surf the web. Which I've been doing ever since.

So, yes, I'm back in the land of Tech, finally. I've been catching up on blogs, which has been a challenge, because ordinarily I just click "bookmarks" and work my way alphabetically through my list of sites. Since I'm on a new machine (which is really an old machine, but still), I've been trying to remember all of the blogs I read. It's a bit hard, really.

On Sunday, given my lack of net to surf, I spent all afternoon watching TV. Oy vey. I hadn't seen an episode of MTV's "The Real World" since maybe the 7th grade, and so I stopped in to see how it's doing. Well, the misogyny abounds. It was pretty appalling, actually, that the boys on the show (I won't even give them enough credit to call them "men") get away with the horrendously offensive sexist language and behavior. One charming example went something like this:
"Where are those dumb girls?"
"I dunno, probably shaving their vagina hair."

Wow. Um, leaving aside the crassness of the answer, which is not even worth commenting on, the child needs an anatomy lesson.

The interesting thing, though, is that this season's real world has a transgender character. Caitlin (I don't know how she spells it) is a 24 year-old trans woman. For the most part, the housemates seemed really respectful and supportive. Since the premise of the show is that it's a house full of people from all different backgrounds, I assumed that the conservative army kid would be a shithead to and about her. In fact, he really wasn't. He asked some questions that seemed awkward and poorly worded, but you could tell that it was coming from a sincere place. Even after coming out to everyone (which she did little by little), people seemed to use the right pronouns when referring to Caitlin and seemed to value her. Except one, who started by asking what seemed like sincere questions and ended up spending days tormenting her with the same lewd, inappropriate suggestion. It made me want to throw up a little....

I watched for as long as I did to see whether the women of the house would ever call out the boys on their sexist language and actions. The answer seems to be: nope. Not at all....

*sigh*

The other pop-culture horror that I saw a bit of was called "Tough Love" (I think). This one is straight-up barf inducing. I'm sick this week, though, and so maybe I thought that I only deserve things that will make me feel sicker.....I don't know. Anyway, this little gem involves a male "matchmaker" reforming a bunch of undateable wenches into charming, matched up ladies. Or something. I think that the basic message is "You should be looking for a man all the time and your goal should be to pair yourself up and if you don't make yourself look the way the menz want your useless and a bitch."

Yeah, charming, huh?

The women on the show (why on earth would they sign up for something like this???) all seem to have labels "the princess," "the bad girl," "the ball-buster" (she's Russian, of course, because ethnic stereotypes are even more fun than misogyny). In the first couple of minutes of the show, they were analysed by a group of "real men" and then told all of their flaws in gory detail. Bien sur, "doesn't take care of herself" and "could drop some weight" were used at least once.

I was really, really angry. Then I got to thinking: If you really buy into this idea that being paired up is the most important thing in the world, and you are "searching for love" all the time, why not do whatever it takes to get you some man-meat? If that means being degraded on national television, then, hey, that's millions of MTV watching boys who can see you and maybe want you as their very own Barbie inspired doll!

Or, you could work on being and interesting, independent person who gives the finger to the notion that if you're not paired up with a gel-and-Axe-body-spray-covered male of the species you're worthless.

The whole show included *one* decent piece of advice: "Work on yourself. If you don't know who you are and what you want, you'll never succeed." Of course, this girl was already thin and conventionally pretty.....

Status Update

2009-03-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

I wanted to check in and let you all know that I am, in fact, alive. And yes, I do intend to keep blogging, despite my nearly one month absence.

My computer died, and I'm still waiting to be given the work laptop that comes with the long-term sub replacement that I'm doing. You know, the one that started at the end of January??? Until then, my only computer time is snippets on Boyfriend's laptop (when he's not madly writing or researching, which is rarely) or even smaller snippets on the computer in the school library. I can't blog from the school network, because they forbid any sites with the word "bitch." A coworker, though was able to look up some European porn start guy from her laptop in the staff room, and even find pictures.......typical.......

So until the laptop materializes, I'm pretty stuck.
I hope you all are patient with me!!

Random Round Up

2009-02-19T09:52:00.001-08:00

Hey there,
I've had a lot of little ideas rattling around my head, but none has developed enough to take up a whole post on its own. This will have to be like one of those flashback episodes of a sit-com or something....

I was hired to take over for a coworker who's going on maternity leave. This means that I have guaranteed work until June (woot!). This also means that I have to finish up my Early Childhood Education credits, which I've been putting off for a couple of years. I'm taking two classes online, which is the least painful way to do the classes, even though it's tough to stay motivated.
The experience has been strange, actually. One of the classes is on how to teach the Anti-Bias Curriculum, which is a wonderful idea. The point is that society not only constructs complex roles for people to fill, but also teaches us (from birth) to have biases against those who don't embody those roles. The idea behind the curriculum is to dismantle racism, ableism, sexism in the youngest members of society, which will hopefully help to get rid of them in the rest of us.

Sounds great, right?

Well, being an online class, the professor wanted to maintain some medium for class discussion. She hit upon the online forum idea. We all have to answer certain questions on the forum and then respond to other people's posts. The first big topic of discussion went like this:

"In order to know about biases, you have to know yourself. What are your biases and where do you think they came from?"

That was it. No other instructions. Point final as they say in French. Nothing about being respectful, nothing about avoiding hate speech, just a big space to wallow in your hatred of other groups of people. Oh, yeah, and no moderation either.

Big fat balls of hate were thrown at gays and lesbians, immigrants (especially those who "refuse to learn English"), Middle Eastern people, the homeless, the poor, those on welfare....The list goes on.

A couple of us interpreted this as "we need to get over our biases," and so we set out to respectfully provide counter-points to people's assumptions. I have tried to phrase things in such a way that I seem sympathetic, but also thoughtful and critical......Like I said, I tried. If you know me or know how I write, try to imagine how hard that is.....
Those responses, though, have been met with "Well that's just how I feel, so you don't get to jump down my back."

um......right......

This is the future of America's (or, California's, anyway) early childhood educators????? Oy vey.

I've been so worked up by these discussions that it's making it very difficult for me to concentrate on other things. And sleep. And finish knitting the scarf for my best friend's birthday. These things all need finishing! Stop poisoning my brain, you stupid online class!!!!!

**********

Okay, I'm calmer now.

Next up is the Vatican, who has tallied up some essentialist assumptions, uh...I mean research, and decided which deadly sins are most often done by men and which are more perpetrated by women. Um, yeah. Women are prideful and envious. Men are gluttons and lustful. Big shock, eh? This research was done by a 95 year-old Jesuit monsignor, who obviously knows so much about women from his vast life experience avoiding them completely. The article I read (BBC) also told me that they have added some new deadly sins:
Genetic modification, experiments on the person, environmental pollution, taking or selling illegal drugs, social injustice, causing poverty and financial greed.

So, let's see.....Catholic church, you encourage giant families, which inevitably leads to environmental pollution. You deny the civil rights of vast swaths of the population (women, lgbt folks, etc) thereby perpetuating social injustic. You force priests and nuns to take vows of poverty. You amass money and art and keep it from the public, and have done for, oh, 1,000 years or so. You may or may not eat genetically modified food (if you're the American branch of the Church you do....European branch not so much).

Great. How many of those are most perpetuated by the very body who has deemed them sins??? Screw you, Catholic Church. And your little dog, too.

*********

In far more positive news (heh, sex positive...hehe...), Feministe recently linked to a site that provides real, accurate, non-judgmental, non-het-biased sex advice to teens and people in their 20's. This site, Scarleteen, provides advice, information (that kids don't seem to be getting in sex-ed classes anymore), and education. Some of it is totally basic (information about anatomy), some of the questions in the advice column are *head/desk* inducing, but I'm really glad that there is accurate information out there. I honestly can't wrap my head around the idea that "abstinence education" was ever a good plan, but nonetheless it stays around, which makes Scarleteen very necessary.

Speaking of "abstinence only education" does anyone know whether that kind of sex-ed actually includes things like basic anatomy and physiology?? Because some of the questions on the site lead me to believe that no, they don't.

I suspect that one's "lady bits" are not explained in the slightest. This leads me to my next link, which is "I almost wish my vagina were mysterious and powerful" It's from the blog "Tiny Cat Pants," and the author keeps referencing someone named Campfield (who, I gather, is some Tennessee republican) who is apparently terrified of vaginas. Or women. I'm not entirely sure, but the post is really, really funny.

Update: It helps if you read the previous post, "Campfield's Anti-Fatherhood campaign" for context.

*************

Crooked Timber posted a survey about gender justice. It's designed to be administered to (I think) college students, probably in a history/sociology/women's/gender studies department, but it's really interesting and thought provoking. Definitely worth checking out.

*************

So, there it is. A random mish-mash of things I've read and thought about this week. Not terribly coherent or cohesive, I know....Sorry.

It's a Tough Life Out There for a Marsupial

2009-02-10T06:57:00.000-08:00

So, Australia is apparently having a crazy heat wave. I know, we think of Australia as just plain hot all the time, but apparently that's not the case. Or, it's more the case than usual....or something.

What's a poor koala to do when it's been over 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) for several weeks?
Apparently, if you're this little guy, you take refuge on someone's shady back porch. That person, in turn, takes pity and puts out a bowl of water.

As if that weren't lovely enough, you decide that while a quick drink is nice, you really would like a nice cool bath.

Ready for the cutest thing EVER IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE!?!

Like I said: Tough life out there for a marsupial.

(via http://www.bestweekever.tv/2009/02/05/guess-what-australia-and-my-ovaries-have-in-common/)

(also, did you know that certain koala populations have been hit by chlamydia??? I'm telling you, it's a rough life!)

2009-01-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

It's been over a week since work started back up, but my body still has a serious case of vacation time. I never did grow out of that adolescent need for ridiculous amounts of sleep, so the day I get out of work, I go back to sleeping for 10 or more hours at a time. What this means, though, is that I end up going to bed much later that I would ordinarily. Now that I'm back into the full swing of things, though, I'm waking up super early, but still going to bed around midnight. This leads to Not Enough Sleep.....boo.....

Anyway, that's entirely not the point of this post, so I'll get on with it.

I had a really fascinating and interesting conversation with my best friend the other night. She's working on an "assignment," if you will, though it's not for a class or academic pursuit.

She asked me if I have an experience, or thought process, or set of goals that I think are integral or quintessential to my existence as a woman.

I have to admit, I was stumped.

I am going to turn this question over to you, readers, to answer or otherwise chime in on your thoughts on the subject.

I eventually came to the conclusion that no, I don't think I do have anything that I think of as quintessential to the experience of woman, because I honestly feel that as soon as we start to assign things as the very definition of a whole group, we will alienate those whose experiences differ. I think that the spectrum of human life is so great that we can't accurately pin down one thing (or a couple of things) and call it universal.

An older lesbian couple at Molly's synagogue responded to the question with "Well, we all have to pee sitting down. That's pretty universal."

Much as I'd like to sit and sulk that I didn't come up with such a funny quip, I'd like to hear from you all.

The other problem that I see is that many of the existing definitions of womanhood are very much tied to patriarchal ideals. The definitions of mother, caregiver, supporter, whatever, have been imposed on generations of women. Either that or we have been defined, again by patriarchal society, as objects, things, communal property, lays or otherwise LESS THAN.

The inception of feminism sought to throw all that out the window, level the playing field and allow us to be fully independent and individual. We can choose whether to define ourselves as creators, givers of life or nurturers if we choose (no, Rebecca Walker, feminism does not think badly of these things), but if we choose otherwise, that's our prerogative. The feminist movements have attempted to achieve the goal that Martin Luther King set out: to be judged by the content of our character.

I've been thinking about this conversation for several days, now, and have been compiling some reading material for Molly. I've been trying to put together a list of blogs and sites that might help sort out the desire for a sense of personal worth and belonging versus an imposed set of roles and regulations.

The first thing I thought of was, of course, The Woman Identified Woman. "Molly" is straight and married, so the life experience identified within will not immediately recall her own life, but the document is important and significant nonetheless. Besides which, I'm not sure how many people our age are familiar with The Woman Identified Woman (outside of women's studies departments, which neither of us attended), and so I feel a duty to keep it in the collective conscious.

One phrase that really resonates for me is this:

As the source of self-hate and the lack of real self are rooted in our male-given identity, we must create a new sense of self. As long as we cling to the idea of "being a woman, '' we will sense some conflict with that incipient self, that sense of I, that sense of a whole person.

I have encountered enough confusion in trying to define myself that trying to fit that definition into a group identity has been nearly impossible. But that may not be the case for everyone, and so, again, I urge you to share your thoughts.

Many people are working to define themselves in a way that is more real and inclusive than what society expects of them, and they have some really interesting things to say:

First, a vocabulary lesson and round-up of frequent questions from the folks at "Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog:"
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/04/17/faq-what-do-you-mean-by-not-my-nigel-feminist-abbreviationsjargon/

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/the-faqs/faq-roundup/

Next, a stop at one of my blog favs, Bitch PhD:

"My feminisms:"
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2005/04/feminisms.html

A big challenge of all of your ideas of surrounding parenthood (not really a propos, but interesting nonetheless):
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2004/07/feminism-101.html

Moving on, we move over to body issues....(ugh, I know, do I even want to go there....)
I have lots more to say on that topic, but for now, I'll just link to Wimn's Voices (from the organisation Women in Media & News), which shreds several articles in mainstream publications about how plastic surgery makes everything better. Except it doesn't, and the articles are misogynist and misleading.
http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/?p=1234

Again, not entirely on topic, because I'm not linking to a specific post, is What About Our Daugters. Focusing on issues faced by African American women, and featuring a section called the "Michelle Obama Watch" (which calls out all the dehumanizing crap flung at her), this blog is a really great addition to the internet universe.

Last (for now) is a little gem known as Dinosaur Comics. Yes, that's right, dinosaurs. In comic form.....Okay, shut up back there! I can totally hear you calling me a nerd and a dork. Stop.

The Male Gaze is a phrase flung around quite a lot, which has come to mean anything in the life of women that gets viewed from a male perspective. It originated as a film theory, though, and Dinosaur Comics explain that to us.

http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000859.html

So, dear readers, (if I have any left after my crazy long post christmas stupor hiatus) please chime in, if you feel that you have a "quintessentially woman" experience (any mention of menstruation, however, will be met with sarcastic eye-rolls and imaginary bonks on the head with wet lettuce). If you have other resources to recommend, please do so.

Hair....

2008-12-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

Almost a week ago, my last post touched on the issue of hair and its racial connotations.....I was writing in the airport, after about 2 hours of sleep, while waiting to get on a flight that didn't materialize until more than 6 hours later.

If the post is totally incomprehensible, do forgive me.

I have been thinking a lot about hair issues lately. A couple of weeks ago, Feministing had a post up about body hair. The next day, or two days later, something like that, Womanist Musings talked about hair on women of color. Both really got me thinking.

The Feministing post was one of their "community" postings, which means that it was written and uploaded by one of their readers, not by any of the blog's main authors. She sounded totally obsessed and paranoid about the existence of any and all body hair. The comments, of which there were many, all seemed to look at the issue through the lens of femininity. Do our choices of what to remove make us more womanly? Does the choice not to remove anything make us more feminist? Stuff like that....

It's a constant issue, right? Dominant western culture has told us that body hair is unattractive. Everyone has it, though, so what amount is acceptable? My problem with this discussion, though, is that it ignores the big, giant elephant in the room. The ethnicity/racial issue.

Of the women and girls who commented, the ones who said "Well, yeah, I just decided that I would stop shaving, and you know what, it's been fine" all seemed to end it with "But I'm blond/redheaded/fair."

The ones who expressed insecurity or who felt a need to do a lot of hair removal (or many of them, I should say, not all) would mention their coloring as well, as in "I'm Indian/Middle-Eastern/bi-racial, and so I have to."

It seems to me that the femininity/feminist/womanly reading of the effects of hair totally ignore this feeling that many (myself included) seem to have that light hair is okay, but dark isn't. Or that white girls can get away with it, but the rest of us had better force ourselves into white culture's mould, since we're different enough already.

I don't know if that makes sense, or if that's really how I want to express the weird unsettled-ness that's floating around in my head, but it'll have to do....

My friend Emily responded to the Feministing post with this:

My mother was called many names in seventh grade, like Gorilla Girl. And
Ape. Sometimes the children just made monkey noises. I grew up knowing the
stories of my mother's pain intimately, and the shame of body hair was a
language I spoke fluently for many, many years. The hair on my body is not quite
as voluptuous as the hair I imagine would grow on my mother's body if she ever
stopped shaving. My hair is more brown instead of black, but one can see the
pronounced hairiness of my legs from across a room. Clearly. When I first stopped
shaving my legs I was terribly conflicted. I wanted to be able to choose my body
with hair, but I felt so incredibly ugly. I felt like a freak- some aberration
to the feminine gender. I felt alone when I rode the bus, and embarrassed to
wear skirts. But it got better. Much Better.It has taken a lot of time and a ton
of self-growth and love, but I am proud of my body- my hairy, obese, beautiful
body. I get a lot of reactions to my leg hair, which still shocks me, as I often
forget for a moment why a person would be staring at my legs, and though I
thought in San Francisco I would get less attention than in Michigan, I was very
very wrong. More often than not it amuses me now, which is something that I
hoped would be true 4 years ago, but had never thought possible. I do think there
is a difference between shaving one's body as a preference and being embarrassed
or ashamed of one's body hair. I agree that an individual's choice to
shave/not-shave his/her pubic area is not inherently a feminist issue, but as a
generic issue, I think it most definitely is. Body hair is a part of the body,
and while I embrace body modification wholeheartedly, I cannot in good
conscience embrace the consistent acceptance and systematic continuation of
intense body shame. The fact that millions of adolescents and adults feel they
MUST alter their pubic/facial/body hair in order to be acceptable, attractive,
healthy, un-freakish, and simply without shame, is a pity. My solution? Break out
your skirts, oh hairy-legged people! How do we bring about acceptance? By being
seen. By letting the little girl on the bus see that adults have hair, too!And
this is not just about hairy legs and pits. Bearded Women UNITE!! I wish I had
the guts that the bearded women I've encountered have. Their self-confidence is
inspiring and has helped me to re-shape my perception of the world. On a
practical and personal level, what has helped me? (1) Seek examples of beautiful
hairy people. Watch more Foreign Films (like Lust Caution!) where women are more
likely to have pit hair or body hair in general. Find images of women who have
body hair to help normalize the 'anomaly' for your brain. (2) Find (or
convince!) a friend who doesn't shave. Having a palpable peer who doesn't shave
can help bring some oomph to your efforts- you can go dancing together and risk
raising fists high in solidarity. (3) Start slowly, and become comfortable with
yourself before you unveil your beautiful, hairy body to the world. There's no
rule saying you must shave everything if you shave anything. . . I was really
uncomfortable with pit hair for the longest time- so I let my comfort with my
legs grow first. Take it at your own pace! And the hint about winter is very
true! It's a convenient time to start experimenting. (4) Be patient- exploring
and learning to love a socially unacceptable part of yourself is a lengthy
process! I still encounter days when I feel very iffy about my hairy body, but
those days get farther between as I grow stronger.Over time I have come to see
my act of not-shaving as a reclamation. What ignorant 7th graders at SJV used to
wound my mother in 1968, I have taken and made my own, I have made it a point of
pride!

I really admire her courage and bluntness, and really wish that I had the same. I still have to wonder, though, if I'm somehow less committed to overthrowing the dominant image obsessed patriarchal bullshit if I continue with the hair removal routine. Because honestly, I don't have the guts. And I still carry around the feeling that the amount of hair that I naturally have is not remotely accepted, even in crunchy-granola, hippy or dyke circles. And let's not even get started on whether it would be acceptable in opera circles. I don't like Stravinsky enough to spend the rest of my life singing Baba the Turk!

So, yes, there are a lot of hang-ups that I, and many, many others have that are hard to break. They're hard even to discuss, because inevitably someone breaks in with "Well, hair is just unattractive" which is not a belief that you can usually argue someone out of.

Let's be brave and try, though. Let's try to have a discussion that takes into account brown girls and the issue of race as it applies to the issue of feminism.

Let's also suggest things to Kat that will stop her from obsessively yanking out her eyebrows. It's not an "ew, hair!" thing, it's a physical compulsion. When the skin underneath gets dry or irritated, I start to pull....it's bad. I've gotten much better, but I've had to resort to rubbing toothache stuff into the skin to numb it and (hopefully) stop the yanking.

travel woes

2008-12-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

I'm currently stuck at SFO, where I've been since 6am. We were booked on a flight to Vancouver that was supposed to go through Seattle, which is apparently snowed in, or something. Our flight was cancelled, and we're now waiting for standby on a later flight. We were 38th on the standby list, but we're now about 20th, which still sucks, but is much better than before. I think that things have sucked for long enough that the airlines are doing what they can to get as many people out onto flights as possible.

Hopefully I'll get to the Okanagan before Christmas. If not, I'll be really pissed that I spent money on snow boots for nothing.

Oh well, at least I now know that I can darn socks using a pen and waxed dental floss.
(you think I'm kidding, don't you?!?)

**************

I've read some really interesting articles lately, all of which deserve commentary and analysis, but I simply haven't had the energy to delve into them. I finally had to close the gazillions of tabs that I had open, simply because there's no chance of me actually writing about anything really substantive.

I'll point you in some fun directions, though:

If you like Neil Patrick Harris, or are just a nerd who enjoys musical comedy, check out his turn on Sesame Street in the guise of the Fairy Shoe Person. It's very nearly as good as Dr. Horrible.

Next up is a girl who surely has a remarkable future ahead of her. Her name is Zora Howard, and here she recites (performs, declares) the poem "I have Biracial Hair."

This girl kicks some serious ass, and this poem, which I heard right after reading a couple of really intense pieces on the role and impact of hair, both from a racial perspective and a femininity/gender role perspective, made ma laugh and cry, and then both again, and look, what do you know, I'm choked up again......

Sometime shortly, I will reprint a piece that my friend Emily wrote, on hair and all its implications.

Here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTnxJdxhU7o

One thing that occurs to me is that there is no one kind of "biracial hair." I think about "my" pre-k class, the 3 year old class at work that I positively adore (I'm hoping to spend the rest of the year with them, but we'll see). There are no fewer than 5 mixed race kids in a class of about 15. Each one of them has a totally unique "look." Zehlia has loose dark-brown/black curls like mine, Hazel has little teensy corkscrews, Sara's is more like Zora's (down to the two braids), Nikola and Niepa have denser, short, boy looks....And even though Zora's poem describes one kind of what she calls "biracial hair," she's also speaking to everyone who's got that experience of "What the hell is happening up there on my head?!?!"

So anyway, this girl (who's all of about 13, aparently) is rocking pretty righteously....

I hope everyone's holidays are good and fun and warm and dry and safe. I'll try to write again soon, providing I don't lose any fingers in Canada, what with its -25 degree weather (ugh....)

Calling In Gay

2008-12-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

As a continued protest against Proposition 8 and the other anti-gay initiatives across the country, today was chosen to be the "Day Without a Gay." All people (not just LGBT folks) have been encouraged to "call in gay" (instead of sick) to work, and focus instead on service and activism.

Normally I'm all for a protest, especially one that would keep Californians from getting complacent about having had their rights stripped away.

So what am I doing today? Am I skipping work in favor of letter writing, civil disobedience, neighborhood activism?

Nope, I'm teaching 5th grade and trying really, really hard to stay awake all day.

Yeah, I dropped the ball on this one. I guess my service for the day will be to encourage all Americans to do something today to participate in the march towards full and equal rights for all people.

I won't try to tell you what to do. Y'all are smart and can figure it out, but just find something, even if it's a short conversation...

If you want to read more about December 10th ("Day Without a Gay"), go here.

Henceforth, It Is Decreed That Neil Patrick Harris Should ALWAYS Sing

2008-12-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

This is no surprise. He was in Rent. But since this summer's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" I've been totally digging Neil Patrick Harris as a musical theater genius. This doesn't disappoint.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

ugh....

2008-12-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

Have I really not posted in over two weeks? Man, I lose at this blogging business....

I've had a lack of anything substantive to say, I think, and no energy to come up with something silly or clever.

I had a wonderfully quiet Thanksgiving. Boyfriend and I cooked for ourselves (roast chicken with potatoes in the pan, stuffing, veggies (Brussels sprouts cooked with bacon!), rolls) and did a lot of "social reading." That's when you're together or cuddling or something, but everyone's got a book.

Apparently what I missed by skipping out on my grandmother's gathering was the opportunity to see my cousin's 2 year-old daughter stand up on a chair and belt out songs at the top of her lungs! I'm awfully sad that I missed that.

As soon as I have more than 3 spare minutes, I'll post properly. I still haven't written about Obama's win.....

Meanwhile, it's my b-day! Shameless self promotion!!

Geekery

2008-11-18T13:51:00.001-08:00

I'm a nerd. A total and complete nerd.

We all know this, but just to solidify my position, here ya go:

hmmmm

2008-11-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

So, back early October I sang a couple of masses at St. Mary's College, out in Moraga. I didn't think too much of it, since singers are always doing "church gigs."

Many churches want their choirs to sound better, and the only way to do that is to hire professionals to come in and beef up the sound. This means that many singers are used to going to services for religions that aren't their own.

Usually, I tune out for everything except whatever I need to be singing. I'm pretty lucky in that my usual Sunday gig is at a very liberal Presbyterian church where the message is about diversity, inclusion, social justice....

So anyway, I just got my mail, and found the check from St. Mary's. And I looked down at it, and all of a sudden thought:
"Hm, I'm taking money from an organization that opposes civil rights. I'm taking money from an organization whose clergy can withhold the Eucharist if you vote differently than they think you should...."

I'm really not sure how I feel about taking their money.

Maybe I should have thought of that BEFORE I agreed to do the gigs.....

National No on 8 rally

2008-11-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, November 15th, people across the country protested against the passing of proposition 8.

The events were planned so that they would occur more or less simultaneously, which is a cool concept, except if you're in Hawaii and had to protest at 8am on a Saturday!

Despite there being a huge event in San Francisco, I stayed local, and went with some friends to the Oakland Rally for Marriage Equality. I think it was important to show that it's not just the rich boys in the Castro who are angry, but people all over the state and even the country.

Oakland was a smaller affair. I can't find figures on how many people, but maybe 1,000? There were speakers who touched on many facets of the struggle, some chanting, a pair of stilt-walkers who tried to waltz, and a drum circle at the end. One woman read from Audre Lorde's work and her own. It was a very "Oakland" crowd--diverse, economically and racially/ethnically, laid back, and there were loads of families, some clergy members (I don't know from which denominations), young, old, able, disabled....

The most engaging speaker, in my opinion (though they all had great things to say), was new Oakland City Council-person Rebecca Kaplan. She's the first out Lesbian to serve on Oakland's City Council, and she's great. I kind of wish that I still lived in Oakland, so that I could vote for her, but even so, I think that Oakland's in good hands. She's brilliantly smart (actually, she went to MIT with Celeste), a great speaker, down to earth, and hopefully the antidote to some of the smarmy nepotistic crap that seems to come up in Oakland politics sometimes.

Anyway, she talked about how she won by this unexpectedly huge margin, and then heard the prop. 8 results and spent the whole next day crying. She talked about the supreme court ruling that made it possible for convicted murderers to get married, when they had previously not been allowed. She expressed outrage that when it comes to marriage, murderers are welcome, same sex couples are not.

(I cannot find anything about this court decision, so if you happen to know, could you tell me? I'd love to be able to check the specifics)

The crowd was peaceful and respectful, and the atmosphere was laid back and very family friendly. Frank Ogawa plaza is a sunken amphitheater thingy, and there's a wide, flat area at the bottom that was swarming with little kids. They were able to get closest to the speakers, which was cool. One of my favorite signs was "I support all famlies" (yes, spelled like that) which was held by a little girl in a red baseball cap.

The speakers also urged the crowd to be respectful of people of faith, which didn't seem like a problem at this particular rally, but some activists have been attacking religions or the religious, which waters down our hope for acceptance of ALL people, if you ask me....

I carried a sign. It took me ridiculously long to make, considering how simple it is:
Of the 3 friends that were with me, I was the only one who thought to make a sign, so we passed it around and took turns with it....

You can see more pictures of the event here, and read a write-up here. Most Bay Area media seems to be covering San Francisco, which makes sense on the one hand, since it's a bigger city with a bigger rally, but it would be great to get some firm information about how many people were there...

So there you have it. My morning/afternoon of peaceful protest. We couldn't have asked for better weather (it was in the high 70's and sunny), and the terrible winds from the night before died down so there were no fly away signs.

Feedjit

2008-11-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

I've become slightly obsessed with the "Recent Visitors" map in the sidebar of this blog. I can look at where my readers are, and I have to say, if it's accurate, I'm really pleasantly surprised at how many of you there are.

It also leads me to think silly things like "It would be cool to have a reader in Aberdeen....what can I do to up my readership in the north of Scotland."

I did notice that someone is reading from Leicester, England. If you are that person, could you leave a comment or something? My dad's from Leicestershire, you see, and it's fascinating to me that I've got a reader there!

So, anyway, back to your regularly scheduled Saturday...

What the Hell?

2008-11-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, no more miss nice girl.

What is up with Californians? Why is bigotry acceptable?

Yes, bigotry.

There is no viable, civic reason to favor Proposition 8. None.

I'm sick of arguing with words like "fairness" and "no matter what you believe about marriage..." I'm sick of "I respect your oppinion" because I don't.

I do not respect you if you think it is ok to discriminate against someone.
I do not respect you if you know so little about the US government that you don't know that Church and State are supposed to be separate. Unless you're under, oh, about age 14, there's no excuse for that.
I do not respect you if you have no real thought process and just think gays are icky.
I do not respect you if you vote for Obama and think you deserve an "I'm so tolerant" cookie but vote for a measure that screws over people who are different from you.

I'm done being "respectful." I'm really effing pissed.

Ballot Measures

2008-11-03T13:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I really dropped the ball.

I have been meaning to blog about the "other" California propositions that have been causing me distress, and, as you can tell from my archive, I haven't done it.

Well, here's a quick roundup:
1) Everyone and her mother knows that I'm very, very opposed to Prop 8. I've been shouting about it for ages. You'll find me tomorrow (Voting Day) out at polling places, volunteering with the campaign.

2) Proposition 4 would require parental consent for teenagers seeking abortions. This one is tricky, because even amongst those who are pro-choice, many still feel as though teenagers are children who should be controlled by their parents.

I, even, kinda feel that if you think of yourself as mature enough to be having sex, you should probably be mature enough to talk to your parents about it. BUT. I say that because my experience has been that I can tell my mom anything about anything. I always have.

I'm weird. My situation is very different than most people.

The bill does not take into account situations of abuse, whether sexual (ie, the cause of the pregnancy) or physical/emotional (ie, the consequences of a pregnancy). It says that a girl can get around it by going before a judge and getting a court order, but what teenager is equipped to deal with the legal system alone?

A campaign representative was interviewed on NPR and her response was: "I don't think that teenage girls are mature enough to decide to have abortions."

It's that simple. They don't think that abortion is a valid choice. period.

If you wouldn't ever choose to terminate a pregnancy, that's fine. That's your choice. If you really think that girls should get their parents' counsel if they're pregnant, that's also fine. Encourage those you know to have open and honest relationships with their children or parents. HOWEVER, don't force young women into harm's way with this law.

3)Proposition 6:
The one that is claiming to be about police and safety and curbing gang violence around the state. Well, that sounds like a good thing, right?

Only it would start us down a very scary road, legally. It would allow for heresay evidence in court, and would allow 14 year olds to be tried (and incarcerated) as adults. Do I even need to explain why those are bad, bad things?

So, there you have it. The other two bills that are making me vaguely sick to my stomach.

Be sure to go vote on Tuesday, Nov. 4th!!!!!

And everyone, say it with me:
"NO ON 8!!!!"

No on 8!!!

2008-10-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

My handful of readers are probably tired of hearing me say this, since I assume you all agree with me:
Vote NO on Proposition 8!!

Do what you can: give money, volunteer, put up a sign, tell your friends!

I had an interesting interchange with the watch repair guy at Longs yesterday. When he gave me back my watch, after replacing the battery, he looked at the "No on 8" button that's pinned to the strap of my bag.
"Why?" He asked (with a really heavy Russian accent)
"Why what?"
"Why vote no on 8?"
"Because it's about rights. Voting "no" is about treating everyone equally under the law. Like the constitution says." I responded. He didn't look convinced.

He went on to tell me about his drive through Sacramento the other day. There was a block where all the houses had "yes on 8" signs except one, which had a "no" sign.
I told him they must have interesting conversations with their neighbors....

Congratulations to that one person or family for stating their position despite what all their neighbors think.

Anyway, keep working for change, everyone!

gah...

2008-10-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've spent the better part of 3 1/2 days lying on the living room floor, because my back crapped out. Nothing is comfortable, but being horizontal is slightly less awful that any other position....

Geeky Composer Humor

2008-10-22T12:21:00.001-07:00

Claudio Monteverdi, upon receiving the text for some theatrical music that he was supposed to set, decided that he wasn't moved:

I see that the interlocutors are winds, amoretti, zefiretti and sirens, so that many sopranos will be needed; and also that winds – west winds and north winds – have to sing. How, dear sir, if winds do not speak, shall I be able to imitate their speech? And how, by such means, shall I be able to move the passions? Arianna moved us because she was a woman, and Orfeo did the same because he was a man and not a wind … I find that this tale does not move me at all and is even difficult to understand … Arianna inspired in me a true lament, and Orfeo a true prayer, but I do not know what this will inspire in me.

Ha!!!! I'm so amused!

Okay, I'll now retreat back to the article I'm supposed to be writing.....

Kat sighs as her brain clears of some of its clutter

2008-10-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

My weekend was insane, but mostly positive. My American Bach Soloists audition is over, and since it was a huge weight on my shoulders, I'm pleased. I sang well, too, which is great, and what's even greater is that the director really complimented me.

So yay!

As the brain fog clears more, I will be better able to write coherently. I'd like to disect more of the California ballot propositions. There's some scary stuff to vote on.

At the moment, however, my back is killing me, so I'm going to get out of the computer chair and find an ice-pack.

More "No on 8" news

2008-10-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Steve Bing, a philanthropist and film producer, has issued a challenge grant of $1 Million. He will match all donations made before Sunday, October 19th.

To my mom and "Molly": Thank you so much for donating last night!!! Your donations will be doubled as part of this challenge.

Here is the link to contribute!

Contribute to No on 8

Phone Banking

2008-10-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I headed up to the Presbyterian church up the road, which was hosting the Equality for All Campaign's "No on 8" phone bank.

I was nervous, because I'm generally pretty phone-phobic, most especially when I have to call people I don't know. Since a couple of us were new, there was a training session, with objectives (get people to vote no! get them to give money!), some time to practice the script, and then bang! Here's a 3 page list of phone numbers in the 916 area code. Get to it!

It was indeed pretty terrifying. Then it got better, because I realized that only about 1 in 10 calls would yield a conversation, and most of those conversations were "Oh, So-and-So doesn't live here anymore."

By the end of the night, I had spoken with about 5 people who promised to vote no, two who declined to state, and two who said "Actually, I support that initiative."

Pretty good stats, I'd say. We were told not to engage in debates or arguments with likely "yes" voters. We were just to wish them a good night and get off the phone as quickly as possible. You could tell that this was super hard for one guy in the room. I think he was having to physically restrain himself from berating any "yes" voters that he encountered.

When it was "friends and family" time, I got my mom and my bestest friend to donate some money, too, which was great.

In all, it was a really positive experience. I really felt like I participated in a cause that I believe in, and I hope that all of our efforts will successfully block the bill (please, please, please!!!!)

If you're an Oakland/Berkeley person, come phone bank with me next week! Thursdays from 6:30-9:30, St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave, Berkeley. There might be pizza.

I'm so agitated right now

2008-10-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm agitated only partly because I'm taking a short break from practicing the hardest, fastest piece of music that I've ever had to cram into my head at the last minute.

The main reason is the bad news on the Prop. 8 front. According to today's Oakland Tribune, the Mormon church has been calling on people and instructing them to donate huge amounts of their income to the "yes on 8" fund. On top of that, my mom drove past the Mormon temple today (she lives right below it) and saw a group of cute, clean cut, ever so trustworthy looking girls holding "yes on 8" signs. LDS folks have raised huge amounts of money (something like $20 million) for that cause.

I simply cannot wrap my head around this. It's making me so angry that I now have a giant pit in my stomach.

I know that some of my Mormon relatives read this blog, and to you I say this:
1. It's not about you. It's not about your traditional lifestyle. Your life will not change if same sex civil marriages continue. You are under no threat whatsoever.
2. It is about rights. It's about the rights of others and their protection under the law.
3. It's not about God. Or religion at all. Or the Church. It's about rights. It's about the rights of others and their protection under the law.

To you, I also say:
Please, please, please have the courage and strength to stand up and say "NO."
Have the strength to determine for yourself what is right and wrong.
Have the courage to confidently live your life according to how you see fit, and let all others do the same.
Realize that there is no way in which same sex civil marriage can be denied on a purely civic argument. The opposition to it (by which I mean the support of proposition 8) is basing all of the arguments on religion.
Have the guts to actually live the separation of church and state that the constitution ensures.

Protect Everyone's Civil Rights

2008-10-14T06:57:00.001-07:00

Californians, make sure that you get out and vote this November. Besides the presidential election, there are some really important measures and propositions, on things like abortion, public housing, and yes, gay marriage.

Voting "yes" on proposition 8 would put a constitutional ban on gay civil marriage. Voting "no" would allow the unions to continue as they have since the CA supreme court voted to legalize them.

There are more and more ads on TV about this one, and the pro-marriage ban ones are very troubling to me. Not only because of their stance, but also because they do not tell the truth. Just about everything in the adverts that I've seen has been false. I don't understand why there are truth in advertising laws for products, but political campaigns can lie all they want. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Let's be absolutely clear:

1. Keeping gay marriage legal would not in any way change the laws on the tax-exempt status of churches.

2. Keeping gay marriage legal would not force churches to perform same-sex ceremonies. We're talking about civil marriage. You know, court house, justice of the peace, being treated equally before the law.

3. Schools would not in any way change their sex-ed curricula or somehow start teaching the "gay lifestyle" as some ads are claiming.

None of these things is true. They are lies. If you want to know what the Supreme Court actually said, Lamda Legal has it here.

The pro proposition 8 ads are trying to scare people. They're lying to California's citizens and twisting the dialog so that it becomes about religion.

THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS ISSUE!!!!!!!

Those of us who oppose proposition 8 are striving for civil rights and equality. We are striving to protect everyone equally before the law. Proponents of proposition 8 are somehow threatened by the civil rights of others. They somehow feel that if other groups get rights, they will no longer be all powerful or they will feel threatened.

We've heard that kind of rhetoric before. On racial equality, on inter-racial marriage, on women's rights. There have always been some who fight and drag their feet because they can only see themselves and the privilege, or sense of superiority, that they might lose.

That's not valid. We CANNOT keep discriminating because someone might lose his sense of superiority. That's ridiculous. If you honestly feel threatened by the rights of some couple somewhere else in the state to live their lives together, you have a problem. Your problem is your insecurity with yourself and your own relationships. They will not change in the slightest, I assure you.

I can't stress enough that this measure needs to be defeated. I'm appalled that a constitutional amendment can be written in based on a simple majority. If something passes with 50.5%, it will become a constitutional amendment, even though half of the state disagrees or is harmed by the measure.......

Again, say it with me: This measure must be defeated!!!!!

Here are some things that you can do to help. And please, please, please help:

1. Phone bank to get people out to vote no. Thursday, October 16th (and the two following Thursdays), 6:30-9:30 in the Fireside room at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. 2727 College Ave, Berkeley 94705. They will provide training, but bring your cell phone and charger.

2. Give money (if you can). The pro-prop. 8 crowd has vastly more money than the opposition, much of it coming from churches, much of it coming from out of state. Even though our finances all suck right now, we need to give what we can. Here's some info sent to me by my neighbor:

A little history:

I've been on the Board of Directors at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) for the past 5 years. On May 15th the case that NCLR brought before the California Supreme Court changed history and granted same-sex couples the right to marry. Shortly thereafter, opponents of LGBT rights were able to put Proposition 8 on the November ballot to amend the constitution to take away this hard-won right.

The request:

I am asking you to make a significant financial contribution to defeat Proposition 8.

Right now in California:

Same-sex couples can legally marry.
The California constitution treats all of its citizens equally.
Sexual orientation has the same legal protection given to gender, religion, race, and national origin (i.e., LGBT people are full and equal citizens under state law).

If this initiative were to pass, 1 and 2 are no longer true and 3 is in extreme jeopardy.

While the words of Prop 8 are limited to marriage ("Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California"), it intends to undermine the broad protections recently given to all LGBT Californians.

This week, we found out that Prop 8 is ahead in the Polls 47% to 42%. That's probably a direct result of the fact that last week, 60,000 people donated more than $25 million to the opposition. With all that money, they're trying to "swift boat" and smear us with television ads that tell lies -- that we are attacking children and churches. We can win. But we must match them ad for ad and dollar for dollar.

If ever there were a time to give all we've got to a fight, this is it!

So, if you're ready to stand with me to defeat Prop 8, I need you to make a donation today. If you can't give a lot, please give whatever you can. Please also forward this email for me to other people in your address book. You can donate at the No on Prop 8 website (https://secure.ga4.org/01/stopthelies?qp_source=nclr) or follow in the footsteps of Ann Rostow (a local lesbian journalist) see below:

Show Them The Money

By Ann Rostow
Published: August 14, 2008

I've been exhorting readers to send money to the California campaign against Proposition 8 for weeks and weeks, but to be honest, I haven't gotten around to contributing myself because I've been too "busy" and I've been on vacation. It is now Aug. 13, and I swore to myself I would put my money where my fingers were before I wrote another column. Yet here I am, about to start this week's GLBT news update, and still I have not pulled the trigger on this donation.

So here goes! I'll go first and any of you who have procrastinated along with me can take inspiration in my bold action.

Step one. How much? I've gone back and forth between "painfully high donation" and "enough to clear my conscience donation." In fact, this has been one of my stumbling blocks. Late at night after a couple glasses of wine, I'm ready to mortgage the house for The Cause. Sifting through a pile of bills at three in the afternoon, a modest sum seems more than generous. This morning, I am going for painful. How painful? Worse than a blood donation, but short of major surgery. I am aiming for the mild sprained ankle level. Hey, I'm not talking about the "almost sprained ankle" where you just miss turning it over, hop around for a few minutes and recover in 15. I'm talking about something you have to ice down for a day and a half.

Step two. Where to donate? I am going to donate through the NCLR's political action fund. Every dime ends up in the coffers of the campaign against 8, but I take symbolic pleasure in routing money through the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a terrific organization and the leaders of the legal fight for marriage in California. In fact, I just read that NCLR legal director Shannon Minter won a big national gay legal award, as did San Francisco Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, his partner in the successful litigation. Just checked. It was the 2008 Dan Bradley Award, to be presented next month by the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association at the annual gay legal convention.

Step three. Remove credit card from wallet. Small twinge accompanies this gesture.

Step four. Access nclrights.org web site. Click on "No on 8." Go down and click on "donate."

Step five. Fill out information. A simple process except for the incessant demand to name an "honoree." I solved that by typing "no honoree," but only after I was repeatedly rapped on my cyber knuckles.

Done.

Goodbye, sweet cash. Hello even sweeter feeling of joining the swelling ranks of my GLBT brothers and sisters and our straight allies who are taking some kind of action to win what is surely the most critical battle in our history as a civil rights movement.

Your turn.

We need to be doing whatever we can to oppose this bill and protect everyone's rights!
Right? Right.

Cooking Disasters

2008-10-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

Good thing:
Actually getting to see Michelle Obama on the Daily Show. It was funny and smart. Jon Stewart is pretty hilarious.

Bad thing:
Dropping the chef's knife while cutting chives. In order to not get the pointy end through my toe, I jumped. And flailed my arms. Turns out that flailing one's arms while holding a measuring cup full of finely chopped chives causes a shower of said garnish to rain down on everything in the kitchen. Including, of course, yours truly, who had to spend the rest of the evening shaking chives out of my shirt and hair, and once even finding one in between my toes.

sigh.

Wink, Wink

2008-10-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

She winked. Twice. At the camera.

You know who I'm talking about, of course. She Who Must Not Be Named.
She winked. I feel like I'm the only one who noticed this, because in the post-debate analysis and the blogs this morning, no one has mentioned it.

One doesn't wink in a debate! She may as well have walked out in that red, white and blue bikini and said "Okay Boys, who's going to hose me down"!!!!!!!!!!

I'm serious, it was so disgusting.

And the whole thing was a fat slap in the face to all the women in law and politics who have spent ages crafting political personalities and demeanors devoid of sexuality. I guess if you're SWMNBN, then flipping off Hillary Clinton, Sandra Day O'Connor, Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro Ruth Bader Ginsberg and countless others is an okay thing to do.

Well, it's not.

Banned Book Week

2008-10-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

As RedHeadedMomma and Maggie have said, it's banned book week. The American Library Association compiles lists of the most frequently challenged or banned books, so that we can all make sure to read them.

The ALA explains the difference between challenging and banning a book:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. The positive message of Banned Books Week: Free People Read Freely is that due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

The reasons for many challenges are not surprising, but sad all the same. "Unsuited to age group" is a popular one......No one told that to Maggie's mom, as she recited The Highwayman to her newborn, but rather than being somehow harmed by the poem, it had a hand in shaping the poet she is now.

I would like to thank all the teachers who put banned books on their curricula:
-Judith for Bridge to Terebithia (4th grade English)
-Mr. Nikoloff for To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies (7th grade English)
-Libby for The Outsiders, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, Go Ask Alice and probably everything else we read in 8th grade English

Thank you to the English department at the Head-Royce School, for all books and poems and plays, challenged or not:
-Mr. Tiermann for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ( 1st week of 9th grade)
As well as the list of suggested books that included everything from the classics to Cormac McCarthy.
-Mr. Barankin for his gleeful mischieviousness and for Beloved, Huckelberry Finn ( 10th grade), The Children's Hour
-Yes, even for Dr. Enelow, who seemed completely evil at the time. His 11th grade Classical Lit course kicked my ass, and only featured 1 banned book (the Bible), but just look at the reading list:
The Odyssey
The Aeneid
The Bible
The Canterbury Tales
Hamlet

I hope you all find time this week to read a banned book, go to the library, talk about litterature, read, or do something creative. If you need a place to start, that won't take more than a few minutes, check out And Tango Makes Three, about the "gay" penguins at the Bronx zoo. It's adorable.

McCain, Lies and other nasty things

2008-09-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

So McCain keeps talking about how Obama wants to raise taxes.

My taxes, however, would more than double (yes, you read that right, MORE THAN DOUBLE) under McCain's proposed plan, as opposed to Obama's.

You can estimate your own taxes, according to the candidates' proposed tax changes here

I don't necessarily object to taxes. I believe that governments have responsibilities to their citizens, and that that costs money. Money that is usually raised via taxes.

I object, however, to lies. I object to smirking and insinuating that Obama "doesn't seem to understand how things work" when in fact Obama is absolutely truthful in saying that his tax plan would give lower taxes to MORE THAN 90% of AMERICANS. The McCain tax plan doesn't start looking better until you make more than $150,000 a year, and even then, it's better by a matter of tens of dollars. I don't know how these plans compare to current rates, frankly, so I can't speak to which one will "lower taxes more."

Maybe I'll think about doing something other than ranting.....

McCain, Corruption and Gambling

2008-09-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me realizes that my politics lie somewhere to the left of, oh, Hawaii, so it is absolutely no surprise that I really, really, really, really don't like McCain. Actually that would be a huge understatement, but you get the point. I just want to point out, though, that no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, this kind of thing should not be considered acceptable:

There was an article on the NY Times website on Saturday (which appeared in the Sunday print edition) about McCain and his work in the Indian Affairs Committee in the Senate. He works to regulate the casinos that have sprouted on tribal land. Among other things, of course. The trouble is that apparently he loves gambling, and thinks it's okay to gamble thousands of dollars in the casinos he's supposed to be regulating. He also loves to gamble with lobbyists for the gambling interests, even though he claims to be all anti-lobbyist. And just to show that he's an equal opportunity gambler/corrupt politician, he negotiated a tax break of over $100 Million for Las Vegas casinos.......brilliant, huh?

Here's the first page of text, with the option to register on the NY Times site (free) for the rest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222643828-3WOn/X+PuGZWRxU8OD19uw

I know that a couple of my readers are probably much less liberal than I, and might even be thinking that McCain is the way to go. If that describes you, please, please, please take this, and the many other instances of incredible hypocrisy on McCain's part, seriously.

please, please, please.

Annoyed

2008-09-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Just about every publicity information that I saw for the SF MOMA's Frida Kahlo exhibit said "Through the end of September."

Okay, that means that I could go today or tomorrow after work, right?

No, they actually meant "through September 28th." Which is not.the.same!!!!!

I'm annoyed by this.

Act Quickly!!!!!

2008-09-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, I blogged about this over the summer, but you now only have one day to tell the Department of Health and Human Services what you think about their evil plan. You know, the one that could reclassify birth control as abortion? The one that could allow doctors and pharmacists to deny women their rights, just for shits and giggles?

This would affect poor women, particularly women of color and especially Native American women, significantly. Any woman who gets health care from government programs could be denied birth control, simply because of a change of wording by some Bush goons. That doesn't mean that the rest of the women in the country will be unaffected. Some private insurance companies won't cover birth control, and the HHS plan could open the door for that becoming the norm.

I haven't even mentioned yet that this is another step to erode Roe V. Wade without having to officially repeal it, but yes, there's that too.

I especially love (sarcastically) the absurdity of a party that is supposedly anti-abortion taking steps that could drastically increase the number of unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. That's just brilliant......

ACT TODAY!!!!!!!

Here are your options:
Email the HHS directly and tell them they're dumb (hopefully more articulately than that)
consciencecomment@hhs.gov

Use the Planned Parenthood form letter (but know that government agencies don't look as closely to form letters as they do to individually worded ones):
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/frcp08_adv1?qp_source=frcp08pporg

Use the ACLU form letter (same warning as with the PP one):
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=999&page=UserAction

Do it today folks!!!!!!

Memorial for Grandpa

2008-09-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we finally had the memorial for Grand-dad. It was definitely time, if not past time. I'll write more about my grandpa and his life, but I'm waiting until I've got some photos to post as well. My cousin H (oops, a different H than the one I stayed with in Seattle) and I are planning a marathon photo-scanning session, after which I'll have more material.

The memorial was low-key. It wasn't a whole funeral or service, just light buffet lunch, with people sharing stories and memories. A priest was there to say a quick prayer. There were some really fun anecdotes from friends of the family, and a nice display that H made of photos and wood carvings that Grandpa had done.

Afterward, I went back into the City with H, her parents and her boyfriend. We went through old photos (there are so many, it's crazy), and laughed about the haircuts that our grandmother gave our dads when they were kids. Hint: if you have 2 little kinky-haired, mixed-race brown boys with pointy heads, don't give them cuts with shaved sides and lots of hair on top.....it's decidedly NOT CUTE!

The race topic is one that I need to sort through more thoroughly. Race relations in the UK are complicated and different from what they are in the US. I'm not sure how my family fits into the whole thing....

weekend update

2008-09-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sick again.....This cold's origin is no mystery, as I'm spending all of September working in the Pre-K class made up entirely of 3 year-olds. Many don't know how to blow their noses on their own, and all seem to have come back from summer vacation with colds.

I was even puked on a few days ago. So yucky.

The sad thing is that I got sick at 3am on Thursday morning, and Boyfriend was due back from Europe Thursday night. His return went something like:

"Hi, babe!!! I'm so glad to be home! I missed you so much! Kisses!"
"...Hi sweedie....I'b sick...."
"That's ok." *he leans in for a kiss*
"A...A.....ATHCHOOOO!!!!!" (I sneeze all over him)

Yeah, what a welcome, eh? I did reassure him that I was enthusiastic on the inside.....

2008-09-14T07:53:00.001-07:00

Little snippets of pseudo-political snarking:

Apparently the outfit that Cindy McCain wore to one of the RNC events cost about $300,000. Yes, that comma is in the right place. Her necklace alone was $25,ooo. That's $11,000 more than I made last year. Her watch was almost $5,000, and her dress $3,000 (if it was couture, that's not an unheard-of price...just...insane). The Vanity Fair piece doesn't even tell us how much the earrings (huge diamonds) or shoes cost, so we have to do the subtraction ourselves....

"Why do I care?" You ask.

Well, because people who spend that kind of money on clothing and jewelry can hardly be counted upon to keep regular folks' best interests in mind. Also, people who spend that kind of money on clothing have no right to call the other side "elitist," especially if the wife of the other side's candidate shops at "White House Black Market" where research tells me that no dress costs more than $200.

Sigh....

Katha Politt's article "Lipstick on a Wingnut" (published in the Nation) is great. You can read it here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/pollitt
In it, she proposes the "Olympics of Hypocrisy."

The supremely interesting Liza Cowan found a piece unearthing the truth about Sarah Palin. She's Dolores Umbridge in disguise!!! (okay, if you're not a Harry Potter fan, you're so confused right now....) Here's the blogger who has thoroughly examined the situation:
http://listofnow.com/?p=411

I'm poking about on the Obama campaign site, trying to figure out what I can do to help, since giving money is totally out of the question at the moment (and for all the forseeable moments....). I'm slightly discouraged, because it seems like the majority of volunteering involves getting on the phone (hate it!) to call people in swing states and try to convince them to vote Obama/Biden. I hate getting unsolicited calls, so I'm going to assume that most other people do too, and I don't know if I can handle being that person who calls and disrupts dinner or something....Ideas?

More commercials

2008-09-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

Um......I just saw an advert for some pill that promises "Maximum Strength Male Enhancement"

...Seriously....

**kat shudders**

I think I need to watch less television!

Are you joking???

2008-09-12T20:10:00.001-07:00

I saw a commercial the other day for high fructose corn syrup.

...No, I'm not joking.

Can you believe it? How on earth is that allowed on the air?

2008-09-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is how I feel this morning:

Did I mention that it's back to work I go?

Pictures from the Accademia

2008-09-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the photographer who came to our show got beautiful shots of everyone else in the program, but I look like I'm horribly surprised and/or trying to eat a huge sandwich???
Check it out for yourselves (and laugh your heads off that I look like such a nob!!):
http://www.pbase.com/billmohn/image/102452787

Update: There's actually one more picture from my scene, which is less freaky-looking, but it's from the dress rehearsal, so the director is in it as well:
http://www.pbase.com/billmohn/image/102452821

Vacation time is over, it's back to school for all

2008-09-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back from Washington state!
The workshop was amazing. I learned a lot, worked with some really cool people, and had a good time. We prepared scenes from 17th Century operas, had movement classes every morning, and got to explore the Queen Anne and Fremont neighborhoods of Seattle. The scenes were lots of fun, the movement classes wonderful, and the local eateries tasty.

It was in the midst of all this, however, that I realized that my paycheck had not been deposited. So it was an exercise in credit card over-use, which is not great. I still haven't worked up the nerve to check my CC balance, to find out exactly how much damage I did. I wasn't being frivolous at all, though, I just needed to eat! And since there was a kitchen but no utensils or cooking vessels, I couldn't make much more than cereal and sandwiches.

After the program ended, I went up to Redmond, WA to stay with my cousin H. She's got a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a new baby. I worked on my child-wrangling a little and helped around the house. I was hoping to get her freezer stocked with homemade, easily reheat-able meal options, but I didn't mangage it. Sorry H!

I think I'm deciding that trying to do all of those things on one's own is impossible. She's got a husband, but even so. It seems that there's more work than 2 humans (well, 1 when he's at work) can reasonably accomplish. If I'm ever a mom, I will likely be demanding help from anyone within shouting distance....

I was completely without news and information during this time (except for little snippets of internet time while at H's house), so I'm feeling rather out of the loop. It wasn't until the last day of August that I found out that Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate, and the whole "OMG Sara Palin has a pregnant daughter" hoopla missed me completely as well. I have to say, though, that I'm not feeling bad about taking a break from news and ranting and stuff. It was refreshing to completely devote my brain to music. For a few days I couldn't figure out why I was so tired, but then it occured to me that one doesn't usually spend ALL DAY in rehearsal, so that level of concentration is not what most people are used to.

So yeah, it's back to work I go. Pre-K until the end of the month. I don't like working every day, but I need to this month, so that I can get back on track with finances. Boyfriend is out of town till the 18th, so I'm on my own and a little bored when I'm home....Stop by and entertain me?

The anti-wedding

2008-09-07T17:36:00.001-07:00

Have you ever heard of an anti-wedding planner?

This article is really funny:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR2008082901905.html?sid=ST2008090501716&s_pos=

hey there!

2008-08-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

I'm up in Seattle, and I do have internet access after all, but I don't have a lot of time in which to use this priviledge. I did get a chance to check stuff today, and when I went to the blog Feministing, I noticed that the top post is based on an email that I sent them. About why there are cheerleaders at the Olympics. Oh yes, you read it right. Cheerleaders. In teeny bikinis. At the Olympics.
So. Gross.

Here's the Feministing take on it:http://www.feministing.com/archives/010546.html#comments

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Update: in the two minutes since I wrote this I realized that I told you about the cheerleaders a few days ago....sorry!!

Leavin' on a Jetplane

2008-08-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Seattle this afternoon for the Accademia d'Amore/Seattle Academy of Baroque Opera workshop. I'll be there ten days, then I head out to the outskirts of the city to my cousin's house for several days, where I'll put my child-wrangling skills to good use.

There won't be any kind of computer lab at the workshop, so since I don't have a laptop, I will probably not get to blog or email much. I'm not sure what I'll do without internet....I might have to actually talk to people! Gasp!

In the meantime, if you need to imagine a patented Kat rant, how bout this: Olympic Cheerleaders.
Yep, they exist, but you don't see them on TV. Apparently people raised a stink after the last games, so instead of getting rid of the cheerleaders, they just hid them from the TV viewing public. This asswipe blogger thinks that we should see more of them. You may fill in the rest of the rant yourself, cuz I have to go pack (did I mention that I leave in 1.5 hours??! Ack!).

Love and Hugs!

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

2008-08-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

The obituary is finished and published. The version that got printed, however, is different from the draft that my cousin Hannah and I wrote. Our version was much better written, frankly. And didn't contain horrendous typos. You do have to pay per line, though, so maybe the mortuary edited it to take up less space? Still, though, punctuation is there for a reason, and you can't just leave it out.

I'm a little mad about that, but you can read up about my granddad here.

Meanwhile, I never did get around to writing about the show that I just finished. There were some interesting things, some wacky ones and some frustrating ones. One of the other singers is an arts journalist, and she was asked to write a piece about the show for the LA times. It features 2 large pictures of me!

The article describes the learning processes in use for very early music. In this case, Ordo Virtutum (The order of the virtues) is from the mid-12th century. To further complicate things, the choreography was based on Kathak classical dance (from northern India), and none of us was used to that kind of movement.

Here's a link to the article, along with one of the pics of me (with a hand coming out of my head--I'm the one in green and gold). The other picture is only in the print version. I'm standing with my music "looking pensive" or something, but really I think I was chewing my nail when the photog snapped the shot! Also notice that I'm wearing skeleton earrings.....don't ask....

more on grief

2008-08-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

I looked at obituaries today, to get models for what I should write for my granddad. No one ever says "dies," have you noticed that? It's always "passed away." I hate "passed away." It's quite possibly the weirdest and least specific term ever and it bugs me. Also, it sounds too much like "passed off," as though your loved one is being shoved off on someone else. Yuck.

On Death and Grief

2008-08-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

Last year, when my godmother died, I experienced the Greek Orthodox approach. The services are designed to force you to grieve. And grieve. And grieve. And then you grieve some more, until there's nothing left. And then you eat.

My granddad died last night. He was English, and a Methodist, so I won't have that experience.

Instead I spent 3 hours today watching "Six Feet Under."

Am I the most morbid person on earth?

Gah...

2008-08-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

Gah, I say.
I've just finished my article for tomorrow's edition of San Francisco Classical Voice. It was hard. Why was it hard? Because I forced myself to be polite.

"Molly," T.d'A. and I drove down to hear Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio in San Jose. It was part of the Midsummer Mozart Festival.

You can read about the opera here or here. The second one has sound clips.

Here's what I would have said if I were being honest:

If you're a theater, say, the California Theater in San Jose, you should know that having one person in the box office is dumb. Really effing dumb. If you're a theater and you notice that the line stretches more than a block down the street, you should get your head out of your ass get more people into the box office to deal with that. Furthermore, if you're a theater whose box office/will call line stretches that far at 7:25, you hold the curtain until at least some of the audience is seated. You don't start the overture with a nearly empty theater and you MOST CERTAINLY don't bitch at your patrons for their "late arrival" when they've been in line outside for an hour.

George Cleve rocks. I'm not saying that because he's a friend of my dad's, nor because I'm kissing up (I want to work for him at some point), but because he's a really good conductor. He especially rocks at Mozart (which is good, considering his concert series is called the Midsummer MOZART Festival). A lot of the time he conducts from memory (without a score in front of him), which is about as bad-ass as you can get. The orchestra rocked out. He hires some awesome musicians. He hires less awesome singers.

The guy singing Belmonte sucked. Yeah, he was handsome, but his singing was really muffled and covered, and his acting was wooden. In the last act, he had one part on one duet that actually sounded okay, but generally yuck.

The woman singing Konstanze had way too big and hefty a voice for the role. She had the high notes, but the medium high ones were really splat-y and her lower register wasn't supported. Her hands were really creepy, and you should never, ever, ever, ever sing with both arms out to the sides. Unless you're playing Jesus in a passion play and you're on a cross. She, obviously, was not.

The Pedrillo was listed as an Adler Fellow, which seems incomprehensible to me, since his singing was so forced and pinched. His acting was very good, though, and he was funny.

The Blonde was very good, on the whole. She aced that "petite spitfire with claws" thing, and was perky and energetic. Her first aria was remarkably grounded, considering it's high, hard, and happens immediately upon entering the stage. Her second one was a little unsupported, but nicely acted and interesting.

The Osmin, a big bear of a character, was amazing. This guy sounded great, all resonant and deep and yummy. I'm a sucker for a good bass voice. He was also hilarious.

I couldn't hear the chorus over the orchestra, so I didn't mention them in my review. I figured that no good could come of that....

The staging was simple, but very humourous and fun. I would have had a good time, overall, had the logistics not been so horrible. It's always fun to see something with friends and then snark all the way home. But maybe my friends and I are just really mean.....

Woman hating of a strange new scale

2008-07-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

Last evening, very stupidly, I clicked on a Yahoo story called "The Best and Worst Summer Barbecue Foods. I'm not sure why I did this, but it's possible that I was lured in by the photo of a hot dog. It's also possible that I was temporarily inhabited by pod people....

It explained that hot dogs are better than burgers because there are fewer calories, and the portion size is predetermined for you. It should have been a warning when I came across the sentence "And if you're among the half of Americans who slather their hamburger buns with mayo..."Because apparently, mayonnaise is an evil super villain food that will kill you in your sleep.

Oh, but it gets worse. They continue to tell you to "eat this, not that." In fact, apparently the writer has a whole book with that title, devoted to telling you that you're a stupid, fat piece of shit, and only his book will save you from eternal damnation. Charming, ne?

The last paragraph starts off offensively enough with "If you absolutely must cave in and eat something sweet, choose an ice-cream sandwich." Ok, fair enough, I like ice-cream sandwiches, cuz, you know, who doesn't? But still, I wasn't aware that that was a personal failing.

The food that you absolutely must avoid, though, is apple pie. At this point I'll just quote, because it's so unbelievable.

Don’t be fooled by the wholesome association with "mom." Think "Eve," instead, and eternal damnation. The crust that holds those innocent apple slices is fashioned from lard and refined flour, and the fruit floats in a thick ooze of sugar sludge. Pie has more calories than an 8 oz sirloin and more sugar than most candy bars — and that’s not even counting that big scoop of vanilla ice cream you’re likely to flop next to the slice.

Um.....yeah.....

Eternal damnation from pie. Eating pie is akin to the acts of that terrible whore-ible creature Eve, whose feminine failing made us all fat.

Or something.

Also, what the hell kind of pie is this guy encountering?? Lard in a crust? I'm sure that somewhere that has happened, but who bakes with lard these days? I wouldn't even know where to buy lard if I had to!! Also, "thick ooze of sugary sludge"? I don't think I've ever eaten a pie filled with oozing sludge.

So, um, yeah, I'm wishing death on this "writer." The comment section is gross, with all sorts of people claiming to be enlightened by this shit, but one user gets the Kat stamp of approval. She or He says:

One more stupid article by the fat police. Get lost! I'll eat what I want. I'm 85 and nothing will hurt me much.

Thank you, anonymous Yahoo user. You are actually a reasonable human in a sea of stupidity.

User John, however, needs to be hit over the head with a roll of organic, locally made goat cheese made from the milk of grass fed goats, containing a zillion yummy, delicious calories:

Any article that shows food choices and their respective calories and fat is a good article. Americans need education about the foods they eat. The more they know about what they're eating, the easier it will be to make good food choices. Keep articles like this coming!

Um, education? How is comparing desert to original sin education? Moron.

I haven't found any way to contact the authors of the article, in order to lay on some criticisms.

I have more to say about body issues and such, and will do that shortly...
Happy Sunday! Eat some pie!

Template Changes

2008-07-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm messing around with templates and colors....Please let me know what you like and what you don't. In general, I really liked my old template, but it always bugged me that there were those huge, hot-pink stripes on the sides.

I'd love to have something interesting and creative, that doesn't look like the general Blogger templates.....thoughts?

bored.....

2008-07-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

Day three of sitting on my ass in the reception office of the school where I work......soooo bored....
There's construction going on in the office upstairs, which means lots of dust and noise, which means my throat, nose and head are unhappy. There's almost no one around, just a couple of administrators' underlings, and no actual work for me to do. Basically, I'm being paid to wait for the phone to ring.
If you're in the area, and are free around lunch time, come entertain me! Please?!

Update to this morning's post

2008-07-21T13:56:00.001-07:00

Senator Hillary Clinton has written a petition against the Health and Human Services Department attempt to call birth control abortion. She's written an article about it, which you can read at Huffington Post and RH Reality Check.
Here's the petition:
http://www.hillpac.com/action/hhspetition/

They want to do what? How? Are you sure?

2008-07-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to write about this for days, but I keep getting stuck because I don't know how to spell "ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHSSSSHHHTTTTTRRRRAAAAUUUGGHH!!!!!"...you know, that thing that Macauly Culkin did in Home Alone?

Because it seems that the Department of Health and Human services wants to change the labeling for contraceptives. They want to classify hormonal birth control as.....wait for it....wait for it....abortion!

Yes, the Bush administration's trained chimps, I mean minions, I mean idiots...oh well, I'll just go on...are trying to say that contraception is the same as abortion. "What thar fook?" You ask?
This same group, on its website today, released the results of study showing that the birth rate among teenagers is increasing. And yet they want to get rid of birth control.

I know, right, this sounds so ridiculous? Why on earth would they do such a thing?

The answer: So that they can remove contraception from the list of things that get federal funding. Among other things. Like making sure that pharmacists don't have to go against "their conciences" by allowing other people to live their lives the way they choose.

The other question is how. How on earth would they manage it?

The answer: By claiming that life begins at conception (fertilization) and therefore all fertilized eggs are people too.

Here's the thing. The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists both contend that pregnancy begins with implantation, that is, when the fertilized egg implants in the uterus. Basically, so does the rest of science. It's impossible to test when an egg has been fertilized, and not only that, but a large number of fertilized eggs never implant, whether or not contraception is involved. Something like 50% of all fertilized eggs never turn into pregnancies. Some studies say that as many as 80 % of all fertilized eggs never implant. Therefore, claiming that fertilization is the beginning of life is ridiculous, since in so many cases, fertilization doesn't lead to pregnancy.

That's kind of beside the point, though. The people supporting this argument don't care about science. The Bush administration has shown over and over that it doesn't care about science, and this is no different. It's something that affects so many of us, though, that we can't let it happen.

Here's the insult to add to the injury:
http://www.hhs.gov/faq/policies/civilrights/95.html
It's where the HHS tells you what to do if you think you've been discriminated against based on gender or sex!!! Um, you mean like your policy that screws over women and takes them back to the dark ages??

Here are a couple of links to letter writing campaigns against this decision:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/17/tell-secretary-leavitt-block-new-hhs-regulations-contraception

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/newsroom/press-releases/proposed-hhs-rule-would-compromise-womens-health-21514.htm

Here are some more coherent, better researched write ups of this horrendous plan:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/the-dog-whistlers-the-on_b_75995.html

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion

And some information on how pregnancy happens (heheh...not that kind of info, silly!)
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/04/how-pregnancy-happens/

More Beaker for your pleasure

2008-07-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

It seems that the most popular part of the Muppets 4th of July song was Beaker. Beaker rocks, so I'll further amuse you with more.

This time, Beaker takes a more serious, classical turn. Beethoven has never sounded so good:

Neither has Bizet:

Enjoy your Thursday, and thanks to Celeste for sending me these!!!

E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma.....update

2008-07-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

What I said on Saturday night:
Just back from Berkeley Opera's Tosca. Considering that I don't like Puccini, and can only barely stand Tosca, it was pretty awesome. Must go start on the review now....I'll be back in 36 hours, when I'm done!
Today: I managed to finish my article early, and under the maximum number or words, so yay! And it looks like the editing was done sparingly this time....sometimes the end result is very different from what I actually write....

If you're a Bay Area person, I recommend seeing Tosca. Despite her 1st act hairdo, which is totally horrible. I don't remember why I forgot to mention it in my piece....oh well. With the hat they made her wear, the hair probably didn't fit any other way...

Oh, and Ariodante was a bit uneven, but mostly fantastic. Susan Graham sang her despair aria while curled in a ball on the floor, facing away from the audience. She let out some of the most incredible singing I've ever heard......

Got Hope?

2008-07-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

I just saw an Obama bumper sticker saying "Got hope?"

Increasingly, I don't. I want to. I want, more than almost anything, to get a Democrat in the White House. I want a president who's smarter than a 5 year old, who grasps complicated concepts, who cares about something other than winning the "I'm mightier" pissing contest.

Help us, Barack Obama, you're our only hope.

This week, though, he seems to have decided that kissing right-wing-nut-jobs' asses is somehow helpful. Either that or he's really a lot more conservative than anyone realizes. Or his inexperience is showing......or all 3.

Obama gave an interview for the Christian magazine Relevant. That in itself is pretty strange. Or would be, had Obama not said this week that he wants federal funds to go to religious "faith based" organizations.

"Relevant" magazine is "a multimedia company whose purpose is to impact culture and show that a relationship with God is relevant and essential to a fulfilled life."

So, in this article, Obama discusses abortion, specifically late-term abortion. Both the interviewer and Obama use the term "partial-birth abortion." This is not a medical term, and was invented by the pro-life extremists. That's the first sign that this interview is worrisome.

As if using the uber-right's terminology (rather than informed, medical terminology) isn't enough of a problem, Obama jumps into a totally worthless debate. He falls into the trap by even holding a discussion about late-term abortion. I'll get to that in a minute. This is what he has to say about late-term abortion. It's a direct quote, not a paraphrase:

I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.

Here are the problems with that statement:

1) He thinks that the government should define the occasions in which it's appropriate to perform a late term abortion. I don't see any way in which it's possible for the government to predict any or all of the instances in which such a procedure would be medically necessary.
2) He thinks that these reasons must be physically necessary. "Mental distress" doesn't count. Again, how can a government determine the mental distress? He's basically saying that "health" means physical health and that mental health is inconsequential. People have been working for years to get the medical community to realize that mental health is real and serious and that it impacts a life as much as physical health.

Here are the larger problems:

1) He's having this discussion in the 1st place. Why is that a problem?
This whole interview seems to be saying that late term abortions are happening all the time and that women are having them willy-nilly just for fun.

Total. Myth.

Anti-abortions activists will tell you that Roe v. Wade allows abortions right up to birth. Also a total myth. It states that after viability, abortion may only be provided "where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." Therefore, any additional ban or discussion thereof is redundant and useless.

The actual statistics say that late-term abortions account for less than 1% of all abortions. Furthermore, there are only 2 clinics in the US that will perform them, though I don't know if there are doctors in other hospitals that will do the procedure in an emergency. 3rd trimester abortions have only happened in wanted pregnancies, in cases in which maternal or foetal health are in serious jeopardy.

Since the procedure is already regulated, rare, and done only in such serious medical emergencies, it's ridiculous for a presidential candidate (or any half-way intelligent person) to frame the argument as if this is a pressing issue to be discussed and decided.

I'm frustrated that Obama fell into the trap. It's important to resist the framework set up by the Christian Right. Their framework is faulty, not scientifically based and illogical. If we continue to allow discussions that use their vocabulary, we'll never get anywhere.

I really wish that Obama had realized that and had supported the "change" he seems so fond of.

A few days later, Barack Obama felt the need to explain what he said. It's just as troubling as the original article:

My only point is this -- historically I have been a strong believer in a women's right to choose with her doctor, her pastor and her family. And it is. I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions.

In the past there has been some fear on the part of people who, not only people who are anti-abortion, but people who may be in the middle, that that means that if a woman just doesn't feel good then that is an exception. That's never been the case.

I don't think that is how it has been interpreted. My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue. I don't think that's how pro-choice folks have interpreted it. I don't think that's how the courts have interpreted it and I think that's important to emphasize and understand.

Okay, let's dissect Obama's response:
A woman cannot choose on her own, but rather "with her doctor and her pastor." In other words, the little lady can only choose with the help of some strong, sensible men.....great.....

Next: "I have consistently been saying that you have to have a health exception on many significant restrictions or bans on abortions including late-term abortions."
You have, have you? Well, that's funny because we just determined that THE LAW already limits late-term abortions to instances in which life/health are at risk. Therefore a ban is totally unnecessary.

I will grant him that the middle paragraph is accurate. People do fear that those horrible murderous women are destroying foetuses for fun. Their fears are baseless, though, and we need to work to give facts and accurate information, not stock their anxiety.

Last paragraph: "It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue." What part of LIFE AND HEALTH IN JEOPARDY do you not understand???? Feeling blue? Are you joking? A woman goes to her doctor and says "doc, I'm 23 weeks pregnant and I'm feeling blue." The response is not going to be "okay, well, it's abortion time." Not by any stretch of the imagination!!!

I would really like to think that Obama can help steer this country in a new direction, away from the politics of fear, away from a secular government being run by religious extremists, and away from having leaders who don't understand simple concepts. I would really like to think that he can.

I hope he can. I think he's got to stop trying to kiss up to groups that will never vote for him, stop trying to please everyone by diluting his stances on things that he supports (or opposes) and think before he speaks.

Sunday Odds and Ends

2008-07-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

The NASA website has photos of Mars, taken by the Phoenix lander. Check them out, they're super cool!
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/index.html

For 4th of July I made Cook's Illustrated's recipe for dark chocolate cupcakes. They were beyond delicious, and I could easily have eaten them all day. Fortunately, there were fewer cupcakes than there were people at G's barbecue, so I didn't have to worry about making myself sick on chocolate!

We're off to see Ariodante at the Opera today. I can't wait! It features Susan Graham and Ruth Ann Swenson. Susan Graham is my idol, when it comes to singing. If I could wake up one day and spend a little bit of time in her life, I'd be overjoyed. Ruth Ann is a wonderful soprano, who is elegant and charming on stage, with a great voice and great acting skills. then she opens her mouth to talk and out comes the broadest Long-Island accent you've ever heard. It's hysterical.
They've gotten rave reviews, I love them both, and I'm very excited.....and thanks to student rush tickets procured on Boyfriend's student id, I can almost afford it!

Muppets

2008-07-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That Muppets rock.

Summer (updated)

2008-07-03T11:45:00.001-07:00

Considering how little I'm doing this summer, you would think that I would write more. Unfortunately, though, every time I read something interesting, or get an idea for a post, I file it under "things I'll get to later." Wherein later means.....uh.....never.

I'll get started by sharing the best photo I've ever seen. I have no idea who these girls were or why they were playing ukuleles in bathing suits and heels. They seem to be having a great time, though:
(from the Library of Congress)

I don't know why this picture didn't load yesterday.....

BITCHCRAFT

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

Blog For Choice/Blog-aversary

You know what makes me happy?

Maggie

Life, the Universe and Everything

That's Genius

That's Not My Name

Challenging Art and our Eucations

Gearing Up

Back Home

Wrap-up of Amherst stuff

Ouch!!!!

Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare's London

Un-frakkin'-believable!

ugh....

Role of Women in the Court

Bwah hah hah ha (the I'm evil edition)

Whoopsie!

Cue the William Tell Overture*

Good things

Clumsiest-er Girl

Seriously???

Celluloid Closet

Final Stretch

The Clumsiest Girl

Great. Just. Friggin. Great.

Quick Singer Rant

Apologies

Further Proof that Music Programs are Good for Young People

Finally, Reasonable Thought From the Government

Beyond disturbing-update

heh

What the Hell, Yo???? Part 2

What the Hell, yo???

Why Yes, Mezzos Do Have the Sense of Humor of 12 Year Old Boys

Dammit!!!

Random tidbits while I think of something more interesting to write

Notes from Preschool

Dinner

So???

Michelle Obama--too "ambitious"??

Sigh...

Mo's My Homie

Laptop!!

Status Update

Random Round Up

It's a Tough Life Out There for a Marsupial

Hair....

travel woes

Calling In Gay

Henceforth, It Is Decreed That Neil Patrick Harris Should ALWAYS Sing

ugh....

Geekery

hmmmm

National No on 8 rally

Feedjit

What the Hell?

Ballot Measures

No on 8!!!

gah...

Geeky Composer Humor

*Kat sighs as her brain clears of some of its clutter*

More "No on 8" news

Phone Banking

I'm so agitated right now

Protect Everyone's Civil Rights

Cooking Disasters

Wink, Wink

Banned Book Week

McCain, Lies and other nasty things

McCain, Corruption and Gambling

Annoyed

Act Quickly!!!!!

Memorial for Grandpa

weekend update

More commercials

Are you joking???

Pictures from the Accademia

Vacation time is over, it's back to school for all

Kat sighs as her brain clears of some of its clutter