doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

Yes I am. And it’s long. So don’t start this if you’re in a hurry. I know how you are, so busy you only have time to skim your favorite blogs these days. Well slow down and set aside a little time for blog-reading. It’s important for your health. Proven scientific fact.

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The other night in class some people in my group started talking about last names. One of the girls is getting married soon, and she has been struggling with what to do about the last name issue. She said she had always planned to keep her last name, but her fiancé had “a really good argument” about why she should change it to his. She didn’t expand on what this “good argument” was, but now she is considering making her current last name into a second middle name.

My interest and deeply-considered feelings on this subject have already been documented on this site, so you know I couldn’t resist joining this conversation. I listened quietly for awhile until I couldn’t hold it anymore, then I jumped in with “So why exactly did you change your mind about keeping your name?”

I never did a clear answer on this from her, but I did share that I plan to keep my last name when I get married. Immediately the whole group looked at my left hand.

Are you engaged though?
No, but I’m really attached to my last name and I’m going to keep it.

Then the used-to-want-to-keep-my-name-until-my-fiancé-had-a-good-argument girl said the thing that makes my head spin every time.

Yeah, that’s what I used to think too. When I was in my “independent stage.” You’ll change your mind when you meet the right guy.

Of all the arguments for changing your last name, this one makes me the most frustrated. If you explain that you just never thought about it before, I can ask you what you might have done if you did think about. If you tell me that you didn’t know you even had a choice, I can ask you what you think now that you know you do. If you say that your last name used to be Ballikker and you couldn’t wait to marry your husband and become a Lopez, I really don’t blame you. If you explain that you want you, your husband and your kids to have the same last name, I can ask you if you ever considered using your last name instead. But when you tell me that you did it because you just love him so much and you’re so proud to be Mrs. Whatever because you’re just so proud of him and oh just wait until you meet the right guy, you’ll see, you’ll change your mind too? I kind of want to take a branding iron to your face.

I believe that you love your man, and I’m sure that you’re proud to be his wife, but the implication is that I don’t (or won’t) love my husband as much. If I did, I’d be tripping over myself to take his name. Or that my well thought out ideas of this whole thing, my personal opinion and decision, will mean nothing when I do finally meet the right guy. I take great offense to that. I can love someone, I can be proud of them and not want to change my name. Please don’t assume that I will change my mind just because you did.

[Before I go any further, I should include a disclaimer. I know that people learn and grow and change over time, so I’m fully aware that I, in fact, might change my mind for a multitude of reasons. But your assumptions only demonstrate that you don’t think I’ve given this serious thought, and that my friend, makes you wrong.]

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In a related story, a few weeks ago a friend said something similar to me. She said, essentially (with no prompting whatsoever - we weren’t even talking about this!): “I used to be like you. I used to think that stuff about keeping your name was important, but then I met Whoever and it didn’t matter anymore. I’d be proud to be Mrs. Whoever, and now I know all that stuff just isn’t important. You’ll see.”

I told her that she was wrong, that that is not the reason she is going to change her name. I may have been brash, but I told her that the real reason is that it’s a tradition of our culture. A lot of people who are in love get married and don’t change their names. Or they hyphenate, or they do a number of other things. They are no less proud or in love than you. If that’s really the reason, then why isn’t he taking your last name? Does he not love you that much? Is he not that proud to be your husband?

In a neutral world where there was no history of this custom, a couple who loved each other greatly and planned to get married might have a conversation about wanting the same last name. And they would discuss what to do—both have his, both have hers, both have both, create something new? And they would figure out together what is the best solution for both of them. Without bias, without preconceived notions, without the pressure of tradition, without the expectations of society, without blinders on. Did my friend have that conversation with her fiancé? No, I know for a fact she did not. And why not? Because we don’t live in that neutral world. We live in a culture that tells us women take their husband’s name, and even if you think you might not want to, it’s something you do for love. Just wait, you’ll see.

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Maybe part of the reason I feel so strongly about keeping my last name is that my own mother has changed hers seven times. She’s had some bad luck with marriage. Of course I wouldn’t get married unless I planned to make it work forever—I’m not planning on divorce—but I’ve seen the reality and so yes, it makes me wary. Let me just demonstrate for you what my mom’s name roller coaster has been like in the last 47 years (names have been altered obviously):

McElm to Wade to McElm to Dodd to Wade to McAlp to McElm to Huizenga

Yes the real McElm and McAlp names sounded that similar, and yes she changed her name to match her children’s (”Wade” – my dad’s last name) after her second divorce. The point is that somewhere in all of this, she kind of lost her identity. She has had so many different names that she doesn’t have any real connection to any of them anymore. Her newest name doesn’t fit her at all in my opinion, and even though she seems to have finally met the right guy, I don’t know if the final name change was really necessary. And even though she doesn’t seem that connected to any of her previous names, the one that seems the most genuinely her, the one that seems the most natural, is McElm, her original name.

I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want to be this and then that and then this again. I know, I know, if I get married it should be forever and that won’t matter. But the name that fits me, the name that represents me and feels like home is mine. I don’t want another one, no matter how much I love someone.

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The final thing that I’m thinking about while I’m on this topic is this idea of the last name as a gift. I read on a message board recently that a woman’s fiancé had always planned on “giving his name to his wife” and that he felt like this was an important gift that she was rejecting by keeping her own name. That seems silly to me. I know he genuinely thinks it’s a gift because he’s probably been taught all along that it is. That someday he would meet the right girl and he would give her his name, and that he shouldn’t give that away until he meets the right woman. Huh, kind of like how girls are taught to save their virginity and only give it to the right guy. Why do you get the gift of my vagina and I get the gift of your name? Well, I don’t want it. So I’m sorry that your gift is being rejected but maybe you should have gotten to know me and my preferences better before deciding what kind of gift to give me. I’d much prefer a trip to Europe. Why isn’t that a tradition? The customary free trip to Europe when you get married? Instead of marking on your marriage license what your new name is, you mark where you’d like to travel: Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Poland?

The worst thing I’ve heard is this idea of women having to earn their future husband’s last name. One guy I know says that he basically demands that his fiancé take his last name. If she doesn’t want it, then she doesn’t need to marry him. Or I’ve heard of guys who say their girlfriend needs to change something about herself—her looks, her behavior, her opinions—before she can be allowed to carry the Whatever name. And what bothers me more is that women go for this! Oh okay, I so badly want to be Mrs. Whatever, I’ll shape up. I’ll change myself, just please please please give me the gift of your last name.

I better stop, I’m getting very sarcastic and people are going to start getting annoyed. Wait, is anyone even still reading? If you are, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. You can disagree all you want (and I really do respect your choice to change your name if that’s what you’ve done or want to do, this isn’t an attack on you or your decision), as long as you don’t call me bad names. I might even allow that if the bad names are framed by intelligent, thought-provoking words.

Wednesday was a perfect summer day in Michigan, so in the afternoon I decided to check out the Riverwalk downtown. It’s about a two-mile trek, but it took me almost two hours because I was taking pictures and checking things out and stopping to sit in the sun along the way. It was lovely.

But when I was about an eighth of a mile from finishing the loop I was suddenly attacked by a bird. A mother fucking little piece of shit bird. It was one of those little red-winged black birds that I used to think were pretty.

The first time it dive-bombed my head, I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I brushed my hair with my hand and kept walking. But the bird kept loudly squawking above me and flapping around like crazy. Then it came down and hit my head full force! This time I screamed like Carrie Bradshaw and started running. The guy walking 15 yards ahead looked at me like I was a maniac, and when I explained that the bird was attacking me (while running at him and violently shaking my head and arms), he was unmoved and just kept walking. Meanwhile the little bird bastard was still squawking and flapping above me. He didn’t come at me again, but he didn’t chill out until I was well out of his zone.

Wikipedia explains:

The Red-Winged Blackbird can be very aggressive while defending its territory. It will attack much larger birds, such as crows, ravens, magpies, hawks, and osprey if they enter.

Uh yeah. What the hell dude, I’m not an osprey. And the Riverwalk is not your territory. You can totally live there, but I wasn’t trying to move in on you. I was just trying to walk through. Back off.

Also, apparently this bird is an omnivore:

It feeds primarily on plant materials, including seeds from weeds and waste grain such as corn and rice, but about a quarter of its diet consists of insects and other small animals.

I think to that they might want to add “human head” to the list.

I used to scoff at people who had a fear of birds. They always explained that they thought the birds were going to attack their head. Haha yeah right, how silly. Birds don’t do that. But now I know.

YES THEY DO!

I was sitting in the car, on the phone with my dad. It was a nice day so I rolled down the windows and talked to him in the parking lot rather than try to fight traffic while chatting. The sun was bright, so I put the visor down to block it. The mirror on the visor was open so I was staring at myself while we talked. I was studying my complexion, noting the errant hairs near my eyebrows, counting the freckles that always show up on my nose in the summer. I was looking at my teeth, inspecting their cleanliness, when I noticed them. Wrinkles. Smile lines. Little creases between my nose and the corners of my mouth. Hardly noticeable, but there nonetheless.

I don’t so much mind having smile lines if that is in fact what they are. I hope it means I’ve done a lot of smiling. But I was kind of hoping the wrinkles would hold off until my 30s at least. I think what freaks me out the most is that wrinkles are permanent. I have problems with permanent.

I’ve been putting off getting my Z tattoo because I can’t decide where I want to permanently ink myself. The idea of settling in and living or working in one place “for life” makes me squirmy. I don’t even like to use permanent marker!

A wrinkle isn’t like a zit that will eventually go away. It’s not a bruise that eventually fades or a cut that eventually heals. It’s not a bad haircut that will grow out or a rash that will clear up. It’s there. Forever. That wrinkle next to my nose will be there tomorrow and next month and next year. It will be there when I’m 30 and 40 and 50 and 80. That very same wrinkle. There will be others as time goes on of course, but that wrinkle that I discovered while sitting in my car, talking on the phone, that same one will be there forever. When I’m an old lady I’ll look at the wrinkle – it will be much larger and deeper then – and remember when it first showed up, back in my 20s.

I promised myself that I would try to embrace aging as it comes, but the idea of being unable to do anything about those two little wrinkles, except watch them get more prominent, kind of makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I should name them, maybe then I’d think of them as friends who I’d like to see stick around. I can greet them in the morning and be proud as I watch them progress. Maybe I could even teach them tricks.

So what’s a good name for a wrinkle?

Help me solve a mystery. So far, this is what we know:

• I put my beach towel on top of my bag while packing for my weekend trip.

• The beach towel was on top of the bag when I carried it from my apartment to my car on Friday afternoon.

• The beach towel was no longer on top of the bag when I carried the bag from the car to the cabin Friday evening.

• The bag did not leave the back seat of my car on the ride from the apartment to the cabin.

• Family members and friends do not remember seeing the beach towel.

• The beach towel was never found on the cabin premises.

• The beach towel was also not found at the apartment.

• The beach towel was also not found at my mom’s house where I stopped on the way.

Where is the beach towel?

It is truly a mystery to me. At first I figured it would turn up eventually, but by the time we were leaving to tube down the river, I was severely aggravated by its mysterious absence. There was swearing. And yelling. But seriously. WHERE THE HELL IS MY DAMN BEACH TOWEL?

It was basically brand new, only used a couple times. It was a gift and it was the only one I had. I’m too stubborn and cheap to go buy a new one because I know my beach towel is out there somewhere in the world, and paying money for another one just hurts my heart too much.

Any idea where it could be? Is there something I’m missing, something I’m not thinking of? Did Bill and Ted travel to 2008, steal my beach towel and bring it back to 1989? Did our housekeeping ghost decide it needed to be laundered before I used it? Maybe I should check the dryer…

This weekend my family and I went up to a little cabin in the woods. It was actually my sisters, their boyfriends, some of their friends, me and my mom (Brad was busy and missed out). It was a tiny little cabin with no electricity or running water, but we spent most of our time around the campfire anyway. Friday night I didn’t get any sleep because half of the group stayed up until past 5am, keeping me unwillingly awake with them. Mom and I ended up leaving Saturday night because I had to get some sleep and I knew it wouldn’t happen if we stayed there again.

None of that is the point of this story though. The point is that on Saturday we rented some tubes to float a river for a few hours. I was so excited because it had been years since I did that, but now, on the other side of that trip, I can safely say that I’ll probably never want to go again. It wasn’t horrible, but it was probably the least relaxing thing I’ve ever done. I had visions of chilling in a tube, drinking a beer while the current quietly carried me down the river.

Not at all what happened.

Misadventure #1
We created two “pods” of tubes so we could stick together. Pod 1 – my pod – consisted of two double-seater tubes, five single tubes, eight people and one fully stocked cooler tied together with rope. We were large and quite unmanageable. It’s impossible to steer something like that, so we were basically never where we wanted to be. Always hung up on a fallen log, stuck in a bank, floating over large rocks or under overhanging trees. And those overhanging trees? FULL. OF. SPIDERS. When I went canoeing a couple years ago on the same river, I had a traumatic encounter with a spider tree, which I had kind of forgotten about until I was back on the river. And then it was too late. I spent the whole trip desperately trying to avoid these trees, and at one point I dove out of my tube and on top of my sister’s boyfriend’s six-year-old daughter to dodge a particularly spidery one. Seriously not relaxing.

Misadventure #2
About half an hour into the trip I saw a little animal swim across the river a hundred yards ahead of us. Aww, cute little animal. A few minutes later Pod 2 yelled back at us to watch out for the woodchuck – apparently they can be aggressive. We made our way to where the woodchuck was spotted and we lifted our feet just in case, but we weren’t really worried. Until suddenly the motherfucking woodchuck surfaced less than two feet from us. Without a bit of exaggeration I can say that the big furry beast was just out of arm’s reach from me when it surfaced and then dove back under. I saw every hair on its broad back. I may have made eye contact. Not so much a cute little animal by the way. This thing was as big as my sister’s yellow lab. It would have been fine if we could have just floated right past it, but instead we were stuck behind a fallen log. Try as we might, we could not get past the log without sticking our legs in the water, which none of us were willing to do with a giant killer woodchuck swimming below us.

While the rest of us tried to keep our limbs and asses from touching the water, my sister Emily was finally brave enough to jump in and pull us around the log. But then she lost her hat, so my sister Kelli had to jump in to save the hat while Emily saved us. Thankfully nobody was mauled by what one of the guys described as “a fucking bear in the water.”

Misadventure #3
But none of this is even the worst part of the trip. All day the weather was gorgeous, and even though we knew there was a small chance of rain, we weren’t concerned. A little sprinkle wouldn’t hurt. When we saw the storm cloud and heard it rumbling though, we knew we were going to get hit with a little more than rain. The guys at the rafting company told us to go left at the fork in the river and our exit was at the first road overpass after that. The first raindrops fell just as we came to the fork, so we figured we’d be out of the river before it got bad. But then it started down pouring, the kind of driving rain that stings your skin. It was so cold that we were all shivering violently.

And then it started to hail. Yes hail. Marble-sized chunks of ice pelted our bodies. So now it’s raining, it’s hailing, it’s freezing cold and the wind picks up. We have no idea how much farther we have to go and the little girl is scared to death. Andrea held onto her while her dad did his best to shield her with his body. Then we see lightening. We’re in the water and there is lightening striking nearby. The river is warmer than the air (what with the HAIL and all!), so it’s a choice between getting in the water with lightening nearby or staying above the water where it’s bitter cold.

About half an hour after the whole thing started, we finally see the bridge. As soon as we get out of the water, the rain lets up, but then it’s a quarter mile hike down a muddy path in bare feet, carrying heavy tubes and coolers. After the rain it was gorgeous and warm, so we spent the ride back to the cabin baking in the sun, which was magnificent. In the end, nobody got hurt so it really wasn’t that bad. But in the middle of the chaos, I looked at my sister and said, “This is what we’re doing right now. This is our life at this moment – floating down a river while it’s raining and hailing and lightening. How did this happen?” But at the same time I kept thinking that soon it would all be over and we’d have a great story to tell.

Edited to add: After some research, I determined that the woodchuck may have in fact been a beaver. This is no less discomforting.

So tell me, what the hell does this mean: I’m sitting at my desk at work today and somebody hands me a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking.

If you haven’t been keeping track, I started reading that book on Sunday. Then yesterday I officially gave up on it because it was frustrating and basically unhelpful to me. And then today it shows up on my desk again.

Now the logistics of the thing really aren’t that odd, don’t let me fool you. I work for a library and even though I don’t work in an actual library branch, we get this special service where you simply select a book you want in the online catalog and a couple days later, voila! it shows up on your desk. Plus no late fees, so for a book lover, it’s a big perk of the job. I put practically no effort into getting books these days. I think what happened is I accidentally ordered the same book twice: the first one got to me at the end of last week, the second one took a little longer to travel here.

But you have to admit it’s a little weird that I publicly denounced this book, and the very next day it shows up again. What does that mean? Should I just walk over and return the book again, or should I interpret this as a sign that there really is a gem in there that I need to discover?

It might be a little bit like torture trying to read through the book in search of this gem, but I’m going to choose to take this as a sign and at least hold on to the book for awhile. Maybe I’ll pick it up someday when I’m bored, flip to a random page, skim a few paragraphs and stumble upon something that’s not totally gag-worthy. Maybe it will even be inspiring.

Probably not, but hey, think positive right?

God I can’t believe I’ve dedicated three fucking blog posts to this damn book now!

When I was a kid, one of my favorite icons was Strawberry Shortcake. She went away for awhile as I got older, but I was thrilled when she started getting popular again. I like that my niece and my seven year old sister know about my old pal. I’d rather have them covet Strawberry Shortcake merchandise than that god awful Bratz crap. Strawberry is an icon from my childhood, so I was sad to read that they’re updating her look. Lately she’s been seen in jeans and doo rags, but apparently she’s getting an even more modern look. She’s getting rid of Custard the cat and replacing the kitty with a cellphone and a flat iron.

Can’t anything ever just stay the same?

I really did try to give this book a chance, but it’s just not for me. I can’t relate to any of the anecdotes, nothing resonates with me and I can’t take the advice seriously. I really wanted to finish it though. It felt wrong to pick up a book about being more positive just to criticize and discard it. I thought if I just kept reading, surely I could take something away from it.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bullshit. It did get me thinking about thinking more positively, but the way it’s written has really turned me off. Even Brad has told me to give up and look for something else because I think I scowl when I’m reading it. Yet I was still determined to plow through, determined that I was going to learn from this book damn it. Somewhere in here there’s a gem that’s going to change my life!

But I was in the middle of chapter five (of seventeen) last night when I had to give up. Here’s the passage that made me quit:

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so, that is a mighty pretty hat* you are wearing.”
She looked up at him and said, “Thank you.”
“And I might add,” he said, “that sure is a pretty dress you have on. I like it so much.”
Being a woman, this appealed to her, and despite the fact that she was not feeling well, she brightened up and asked, “Why in the world did you say those nice things to me? It is very thoughtful of you.”
“Well,” he said, “I saw how unhappy you were. I saw that you were crying, and I just asked the Lord how I could help you. The Lord said, ‘Speak to her about her hat.’ The mention of the dress,” he added, “was my own idea.” Ralston Young and the Lord together knew how to get a woman’s mind off her troubles. [emphasis mine]

Oh really? Just compliment a woman on her clothes and all her troubles leave her mind? This woman later admits she is in constant pain, which is why she looked down and in need of help when Ralston met her. Years and years of constant pain, but Ralston and the Lord knew that all you gotta do is tell a woman she looks pretty and TA-DA! her mind is clear of troubles. Why don’t we just go around complimenting women on their outfits all day and nobody (at least the women) will feel sad again. Just one compliment after another. Nice hat! Nice dress! Nice shoes! Nice purse! Nice belt! Nice earrings! Nice jacket! Oh look I’m so distracted with fashion compliments, which appeal to me so much because I’m a woman, obviously, that I completely forgot I have no job, two broken arms, a chronic disease and my family has abandoned me.

If the above passage was an isolated ocurrence I wouldn’t be so bothered, but the majority of the author’s examples are about men, and the few women are people I have nothing in common with. I’m not in dire straits, I’m not at the end of my rope, none of those clichés. I just want to learn to have a better outlook. Like I said, this book wasn’t written for me. I can see how a lot of people would get good things from it, but I’m ready to give up and find something better for me.

Any recommendations?

*When I was reading over this before publishing, I realized I had written ‘hate’ instead of ‘hat.’ Coincidence? I think not.

What do you know, I was right all along. Tomatoes are the enemy.

At least for awhile I don’t have to worry that when I ask for no tomato I’ll be completely ignored. Is it bad that I kind of hope they never solve the tomato salmonella problem?

I’m having a problem with the current season of The Real World. I haven’t really watched RW in years, mostly because I didn’t get MTV, but somehow I got interested in the current season. It’s much the same: drinking, fighting, general debauchery. When did this show become less about finding out what happens when people start getting real and more about what happens when people drink too much and have orgies in the hot tub?

That’s not really my problem though. My problem is all the fucking misogyny! What’s with all the woman-hating and general degradation?

First there’s Greg who doesn’t use the word “girl” or “woman” but refers to all of us as “females” and says it in the most condescending way possible. And he doesn’t date, he associates. He doesn’t have girlfriends, he has “female associates.” I think he used the phrase “female I associate with” about eight times in last night’s episode. And he reprimanded his current “female associate” for daring to talk to the other females in the house. If she wants to talk to them, she can come to the house as their guest. If she’s there with him, there’s no associating with anyone else. All focus on him please.

Then there’s Sarah and Kim. Oh Kim, how badly you need a little feminism in your life. Day one in the house, Kim asks Brianna, another housemate who happens to be a stripper, to teach her to work the pole. I’m okay with that, but when you later turn around and throw her stripping in her face, calling her a whore and a slut, saying only lazy people strip and telling her to “go back to her pole”? Then I’ve got a problem. Every time a girl visits one of her male housemates, she opens up her artillery of sexist insults and starts calling names.

“I’m hotter than the whore in the glitter belt.”

“Stop bringing naked whores home.”

“Why are there dirty sluts in the hot tub?”

I want to cry a little every time she says something like that because how is that helping? Maybe it’s making her feel better, but those girls didn’t actually do anything to her. They’re just there, and maybe they’re pretty or sexy, and that’s just not okay with Kim apparently.

Sarah’s a little better, she doesn’t throw around the woman-hating words as much. But she does laugh at Kim for doing it, and she did agree with her on the whole only-lazy-people-strip thing. However, when she told her dad about all this, her dad told her to “give it to the lord” or something like that, maybe quoting the Bible a little, and convinced her that she should love Brianna even though she’s different than Sarah. Which, actually yeah, good advice. Why would you judge and hate and tease someone just because they have a different kind of life than you? If it takes your Bible quoting dad to teach you that, then fine. Just learn it. And she has, a little bit. So she’s a notch above Kim in my book for now at least.

Now here’s the kicker. It’s the men on the show (or some of them) that are standing up against some of the misogyny. They’re not perfect by any means, but when Kim and Sarah were saying that Brianna could have gotten a job at McDonald’s and she obviously looooves stripping because she’s a dirty slut, Dave argued that not everyone has had the choices they’ve had or the opportunities they’ve had. And that they shouldn’t judge her circumstances just because they’re not the same as theirs. And that the pay at a fast food joint isn’t the same as a strip joint, and sometimes there’s very little choice about where or how you make your money. Or something along those lines, there was a lot more yelling involved so it wasn’t quite so coherent. But I kind of wanted to hug Dave just a little for that.

Last night’s episode included a visit from Sarah’s boyfriend Ryan who, it was mentioned, was a Women’s Studies major. At some point Sarah and Greg (remember him from earlier? The one with “female associates”?) got into a yelling match over, oh I don’t know, Greg was talking too loud while she was trying to sleep or something. I’m not really sure what all was said during the exchange, but when it ended, before walking away, Ryan (who was silent up to this point) calmly said to Greg, “Two things. First of all, don’t call my girlfriend a bitch. Second of all, don’t refer to women in general as hos.” The end, thank you Ryan.

Those are just a few obvious examples of how this show is going so far, but this whole season is just not painting a very good picture of women. Either they’re slutty whores or they’re close-mindedly calling other women slutty whores. It’s not good. At the end of the show last night, I growled and said to Brad, “This show is so frustrating. So much misogyny!”

And yes I’m going to keep watching. Not because I support those views but because despite the editing that creates the overall picture, these are actually real people. I want to see if they change, if there’s any hope. I want to see if Kim and Sarah can learn to live with a stripper and actually be her friend, not just pretend to be her friend while demeaning her and her lifestyle behind her back and to her face when it’s convenient. I want to see if Greg can learn that women aren’t just “associates” for his pleasure and use. That they’re real people, and even if they may be flawed and maybe they even hate on other women themselves sometimes, they’re not “females: opposite of and less than males” (I swear that’s what it sounds like when he says it).

Is anyone else is watching? Have you noticed this? It’s not just me is it?

The other day FOAM talked about a time the crotch of her pants ripped while stretching for a rousing round of bowling. That inspired me to tell my pants-ripping story because who doesn’t love a crushingly embarrasing story?

It was the semester I had taken off between transferring colleges. I had returned from working four months at Yellowstone and I was making money as a temp. My current temp position was in the records department of a hospital—they were going through a major filing system change, and it was my job to go down to the records room, load up a cart with patient files, bring them upstairs and unload them for others to relabel. I was really putting my talents to use, huh?

Anyway, one day I’m in the stacks trying to find a particular patient’s file, and I’m wearing these pants that were ollllldd. Like from freshman year of high school. I was poor and I was doing physical work, yet I was expected to dress business causual, so I was forced to haul out every and anything I had that met the criteria. Pants too sizes too small? As long as they’re not denim! So the patient’s file was on the very bottom shelf, and there’s not much room to move in the stacks—they’re the space-saving kind that you have to electronically move to get into. In order to get to the bottom shelf, I was contorting my limbs and stretching those too-small, too-old pants in ways they weren’t meant to be stretched.

Rip!

Right down the front. From near the top of the front-right pocket to half-way down my inner thigh. Clear panty shot, no mistaking. I froze because what the hell else do you do when you suddenly have a hole the size of a child’s head in the front of your pants? You freeze and pray that god will magically transport you from this place.

There wasn’t much I could do. I was a temp who was hardly valued. Leaving work in the middle of the day means someone else has your job tomorrow. I was also young and lame and didn’t realize that others might sympathize with my situation and help me out. I just thought everyone would find me a pathetic, fat pants-ripper. So I took off my cardigan (thank god for cardigans in a crisis!) and wrapped it around the FRONT of my waist. I tried to put it a little off-center, like oh oops look at that. I meant to tie it around my waist like a normal person, but I’m all helter-skelter, working hard at my job and it must have shifted. Oh well, back to file schlepping!

Then I walked around all day using my cart of files as a shield and avoiding eye contact with everyone. Nobody ever said anything to me, which I took to mean that my shifty cardigan was believable. Now I realize it was more likely a food-in-the-teeth situation. Everyone was too embarrassed for me to speak up. Poor girl, look at that gaping hole in her pants. Does she really think that sweater is doing anything to disguise it? Maybe if she wasn’t trying to wear pants that belong to her 12 year old sister she wouldn’t be showing off her bright red underwear.

So classy.

I got home that night and threw those pants away. Today I think I could deal better with such a malfunction, but back then I was so utterly embarrassed. Not only did I get rid of those pants, I threw away all the pants I was holding onto from high school. Die tiny high school pants!

This morning when my alarm went off, I would have given anything to shut it up and roll over into more sleep. But then I realized: “Hey it’s Friday, and I only have to work half a day!” This isn’t true every Friday, but today, half a day. Awesome, I can totally get up and work half a day. I even did a jig in the bathroom and sang a made-up tune in my head.

Today’s only a half day.
Today’s only a half day.

Then. Suddenly. I had a sick realization. Today is only Thursday. And not only does that mean a whole long day at work, but it means three and a half hours of class tonight as well. Half day my ass. Today is a day and a half.

It’s a good thing I didn’t realize that before I got out of bed. I never would have made it.

I don’t want a career or a baby. Is that so wrong?

Okay that’s not entirely true. I will probably want a baby someday, and I’ll probably always have a career. But I’m not really passionate about either, and that truth doesn’t seem to fit anywhere in our society’s ideas of women. You choose a career or you choose motherhood; you give up having a family so you can become a CEO or you give up the pursuit of the top so you can you have a family. There doesn’t seem to be anything in between.

And yet, I’m somewhere in between. So I wonder… what does that make me?

If you’ve already seen it, you may have guessed that I watched “Baby Mama” over the weekend. A movie in which a thirty-something woman decides that after years of climbing the corporate ladder, she’s ready to be a mommy. This isn’t just a woman was going along in life and forgot to have a child—she intentionally did not pursue motherhood because she wanted to be a rockstar at her job. And she is! At the time of her maternal realization, she is also promoted to vice president of something or other (details allude me). But this is clearly a woman who made a choice between kids and career.

Which is the dichotomy that is almost always set up for women in the media. Movies, television, the news, even blogs. You always see something about “More women giving up careers to stay home with kids” or “Family and work: can you have it all?”

Why does it have to be one or the other? What if I don’t want either? Or what if I just don’t want either that badly?

I have a career, and I’m even working on a master’s degree so I can continue that career. But I can’t say that I have ambitions to be a big fancy anything. I don’t work because I love working, I work because I have to. And since I have to, I make sure I do a damn good job—I’m good at what I do, and I’ve excelled at every job I’ve had. Since I have to keep working for, well, ever really, I’ll continue to make sure I’m good at what I do. But don’t expect me to make sacrifices in my life for my job. Ever. No I will not give up my allotted vacation days so I can demonstrate my dedication!

Likewise, I suppose I’ll have a baby someday too. Am I dying to be a mother? Does my uterus cry out every time I see a newborn? No and no. As a matter of fact, I keep assuming the maternal urge will hit me eventually, but so far, nothing. Motherhood is in my plans, but I have no idea when and I’m certainly in no hurry. So having babies is not my ultimate goal, to say the least.

So, to refresh: I’m not a superdriven career woman and I’m not a mother-in-the-making. What am I?

It’s not so much that I’m on a crusade to change these perceptions, but just that it’s starting to wear on me. I know that I should be okay with not fitting into either mold, but the constant reminder that I should be is starting to convince me that maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe I should get off my ass and climb the ladder. Or get off my ass and make some babies. I’m not doing anything, I’m just sitting here reading lots of good books and traveling whenever I can afford it and spending time with my family (of the sibling and parent nature…not the husband and kids kind). WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!

You see my point I’m sure. What is so wrong about wanting my life to be about interesting things: people, places, books, etc? Nothing. There’s nothing wrong and I know it. Yet I feel all this pressure, like, okay woman you’re 27 and you’re nowhere near becoming a mommy. That must mean you want to be a big shot career woman, but uh, nope. You don’t seem too interested in getting to the top very fast. So what exactly is it that you’re doing that’s worthwhile?

Um… I just started a book club. I went to New York last month. Does that count?

Sometimes I wonder if this whole grad school thing is just a result of that pressure. Like in order to keep going and getting better jobs, it makes sense to get some more education. And since I’m not doing anything very domestic, maybe I should try to be better at working for a living. So here I am, back in school. I’m not even sure what I want to do with this degree!

The worst thing is that as I get older, this is only going to get worse. I’ll be expected, more and more, to either procreate or tack a fancy title after my name. Or both. And all I’ll have done is read a few hundred books and taken a couple dozen trips. Is that so wrong?

Last night Brad and I made spaghetti for dinner. We were cleaning up and when Brad picked up the bowl of sauce, the serving spoon fell to the ground and splattered red spaghetti sauce all over the rug in the kitchen. He froze and looked at me, shocked, knowing what a mess he just created.

I tried to remain stoic because I didn’t want to make the situation worse, but I couldn’t help it. I bent over in laughter. Besides, it’s just a cheap rug, and it’s dark so it will clean easily enough. But then we noticed the sauce had splattered all over his pants AND onto the beige carpet in the dining room. Not so easy to clean.

Still, I laughed. Brad just looked at me pathetically and said, “Why does it have to be such a huge disaster?”

I love that line. It has made me smile every time I’ve thought of it since. For real, doesn’t it seem like that sometimes? It could have just been a minor mishap, a simple mistake, a tiny little problem. But instead, things are so much worse than they need to be. The sauce could have stayed on the cheap grey rug, but instead it splattered all over our light-colored carpet. And we have no carpet cleaner. And The Office is starting in five minutes, a show we hate to miss.

You could have simply locked your keys in your car. But no, you locked your cell phone in there too. And it’s raining. Hard. And the nearest phone is a mile away.

You could have just had problems getting the power point to work at that big presentation. But no, you also forgot your notes and your mind is blank. Plus you ate spicy sausage and mustard for lunch, evidenced by the stain on your shirt and the audible churning in your stomach.

True, none of these are actual disasters. But sometimes don’t you feel like it’s all just so much worse than it has to be? A simple inconvenience exploded into an incredibly annoying nuisance?

Seriously, why does it have to be feel like such a huge disaster sometimes?

Last night I was walking around the mall with my sisters and mom—we had been visiting my youngest sister who works at Macy’s, then hit the food court when her shift was over. Walking down the main corridor of the mall, some guy looked my sisters (only two of the three were there) up and down and said “Hey” in the most disgusting way possible. Andrea ignored him completely, and Kelli said a bored “Hi” back, and we all kept walking.

Essentially the encounter was harmless, and maybe it’s just because I don’t like nasty guys hitting on my baby sister, but I was really bothered by the exchange. I kept saying, “Gross, do guys do that to you a lot? How do you stand it?” I can’t imagine walking around and being ogled all the time. How uncomfortable.

Now I consider myself decently attractive, and even if you disagree, I’m still pretty okay with the way I look. But I’m not what you’d call “hot.” My sisters are.

I remember when Andrea and I were working and living together at Yellowstone - we’d walk into the cafeteria, and very subtley, everyone (or so it seemed) would watch her. Guys and girls. Some were checking her out, some were just noticing her, but either way it made her so uncomfortable. She didn’t like the attention and would get anxious, walk quickly through the room, eat fast and get out. One of the first times, when it was still a room full of strangers, we walked in and she looked at me anxiously and said, “I just want to leave.”

Emily hosts karaoke, and every time I go to support her (because I sure as hell don’t go to participate!) I hear drunk guys yelling disgusting things at her that they, apparently, think are compliments. And now I see that even Kelli, my baby sister, is being checked out in a disgusting, demeaning way by complete strangers who find nothing wrong with letting their eyes blatantly wander up and down a girl’s body.

I don’t get that kind of attention, and I thank god for it. I’m realizing more and more how blessed I am to be sort of average. I don’t draw attention for being “ugly” nor for being “hot,” and I’m actually quite relieved and happy about that.

There was an episode of King of Queens where Carrie suddenly feels unattractive because the men at a construction site don’t whistle and cat-call at her when she walks by. So her husband pays off the guys to demean and objectify her with lewd comments so she can feel better about herself. For the show, it’s just supposed to be comedy, but I know women in real life who feel that way. Like if they don’t get the attention of men, even the cat-call kind, then they feel ugly and unworthy. There is so much wrong with that, I won’t even go into it.

But I hope that my sisters aren’t those kind of women, I hope they feel confident in themselves despite their looks and what men think about them. The fact that all the attention makes Andrea uncomfortable, and the fact that all of them basically ignore that kind of attention instead of smiling and giggling and flirting back is a good sign at least.

Maybe I, as the oldest sister, am not as hot because it leaves me free to kick the asses of the jerks who look at or talk to my sisters the wrong way. The guys aren’t paying attention to me while they’re checking out the other three, so I can quietly come in from the side and roundhouse kick ‘em all in the face.