Whoopsie!

Friday, July 3, 2009

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*

Thursday, July 2, 2009

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

Friday, June 26, 2009

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

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

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???

Sunday, June 7, 2009

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

Saturday, June 6, 2009

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

Thursday, June 4, 2009

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!