Sometimes We Need To Read These Things

I wanted to link to these two posts from Single Dad Laughing, because I think the topics are pretty important, and are eloquently discussed.

Congratulations, You Just Broke Your Child

Memoirs of a Bullied Kid

I was bullied mercilessly as a child, from the fifth grade until the end of my first year of high school. I don’t think it is something that can be talked about too much.

I hesitated to post them at first, because I sometimes find Single Dad Laughing to be more than a little self congratulatory. I find myself hoping that there is a little tongue in cheek humour going on that is just not coming across online. The byline: “Deep, powerful content. Intelligent humour. Sincere followers. Change we can all get behind.” reminds me of a political campaign slogan.

But hey, he has more followers than me, after blogging for a month – so who I am to criticize?

Princess Leia is my Role Model and Other Musings…

I was recently asked if I had seen Star Wars. This question was quickly qualified, pointing out that the questioner meant the original. The first thing that ran through my head was, originals? You mean there is anything else? Oh yeah, there were those 2 1/2 pieces of crap the powers that be decided to torture us with. ( 1/2 of Revenge of the Sith is worthwhile, I will grant that, but no more.) I laughed when answering this question, because of course I had seen them. Hadn’t everyone in this country? I often forget that the whole Star Wars deal isn’t a universal experience, and that as a child of 1974, my perspective on their cultural impact might be a bit skewed.

So yeah, I’ve seen them. Several times. Probably several dozen, sadly enough. Okay, fine – I own them, actually. As a kid, we all lived and breathed Star Wars. We were the original brand loyalists – we had Star Wars sheets, trading cards, lunch boxes, t-shirts and action figures (with extra cool points for those with parents who would patiently cut out UPC codes for the limited edition 1979 Boba Fett.) I was so jealous of my friend Paul – while I had to be content with my dinky Landspeeder and TIE fighter, he had the Millenium Falcon with all it’s eight million moveable parts!

The nice thing about being the lone girl in a circle of friends was that I always got to be Princess Leia. Which was fortunate, what with the dearth of female characters around. If you didn’t fancy yourself spending an afternoon pretending to be tied to a rock or fainting a lot, the princesses were the way to go. Princess Leia and Princess from Battle of the Planets got to kick butt and be stylish. Other than that, you were pretty much out of luck. Wonder Woman seemed too far out of reach for a little girl, far too womanly with that sparkly bustier and bosom that could front the prow of a ship. The bionic woman was boring when you took away the sound effects. Charlie’s Angels required more girls than we had around, and left the boys to be bad guys or a disembodied voice. Besides, unless they were blonde, they all dressed like Mom. We occasionally played Dukes of Hazzard, but that entire game just involved jumping in and out of the window of my Dad’s car until he would catch us and tell us to knock it off.

Princess Leia had it all going on, though. She had attitude in spades and snappy dialogue to go with it, trading sassy banter with bad and good boys alike. She was handy with a blaster and tactical maps and could pilot a ship when the occasion called for it. All that, and pretty white dresses that didn’t get dirty, like ever, and extremely complicated hairstyles. This is who I totally wanted to be when I grew up – I wanted to have adventures and face down unspeakable evil while moving through life with courage and grace, and an endless supply of smartass remarks. Of course, I also figured by the time I grew up, one could actually win an interstellar spacecraft in a card game and there would be plenty of evil aliens to do battle with behind the greater backdrop of intergalatic war – so take it for what it’s worth.

If you haven’t heard already, South Africa’s Sesame Street will be introducing an HIV positive muppet. This scandalous fact seems to be on everyone’s lips lately, and I just don’t get it. Maybe I am missing something here, because I’m really having a hard time wrapping my brain around why this is such a big deal.

It is estimated that one in nine people in South Africa have HIV. One in nine. With numbers like that, an HIV positive character is far more socially relevant than wether or not the Cookie Monster will learn the value of sharing, and the significance of the letter B. For many children the specter of HIV won’t be some far off boogeyman, but instead their reality. One of their friends will have it, one of their parents, or relatives, or teachers, or maybe it will be them. When 40% of adult deaths in South Africa are attributed to HIV, it’s no longer about the dangers of needle sharing and unprotected sex, or the tragedies of contaminated blood supplies – it’s about a population trying to come to grips with what is now everybody’s problem.

Nor do I understand the outrage about Sesame Street’s supposedly “PC” attitude towards modern programming. This isn’t new and it isn’t news. If you hadn’t noticed this until recently, you’ve been watching the wrong show. This latest brouhaha is just Sesame Street doing what Sesame Street has always done. Ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, and tolerance – along with a host of other “liberal” mores – have been a mainstay of the show since it started. This is PBS. Broadcasting with a social conscience and a liberal political bent is kinda what it’s all about.

‘Course, I could be wrong, what the hell do I know – I love Sesame Street.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it,
And look what it’s done so far.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

(And yeah, I know the Rainbow Connection is from The Muppets. Sometimes we must make do. )

Maybe it’s because I just watched Roger & Me last night, or maybe the heat is making me cranky, but really – to say that children go hungry in the US because their parents are dumb is, quite frankly, the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Okay, maybe not the dumbest thing, but certainly naive, and reeking of priviledge.

Lots of families go hungy, not because they are too stupid, or too lazy, or don’t give a shit about their kids. Truth is, for a lot of people, the American Dream is a big, fat lie. The romantic notion that the only thing standing in the way of a white picket fence and two cars in the driveway is some elbow grease and good ole fashioned ingenuity is, quite simply, bullshit. Equal opportunity for all is a nice idea on paper, but really, the playing field sure as hell isn’t equal, and a small group of people have the ball, and they aren’t sharing.

Imagine this, if you will:

You work at a factory, making whatever. The money is decent – you can raise your family on your income. Your family, your friends, everyone works there. Whatever industry this factory is in, it is the only game in town. Every other business serve the employees of the factory. The grocery stores, the retail stores, the car lots, the real estate agents, the restaurants, all make their money from the factory’s wages. So then, the layoffs start. A couple thousand people in one day. Then a couple thousand more. Then a few more, for good measure. The great thing is, you aren’t being laid off because business is bad, but instead because your company realized that they can pay people in Mexico 70 cents an hour to do your job! What a great deal!

There are only a couple hundred jobs to be found, so the rest get unemployment. Frightened that people will start to leave town to find better jobs, the local government tells people not to worry, the job market will pick up, it will be okay. But it’s not okay. Soon people realize that the jobs they found making half what they made at the factory don’t pay their rent. Unemployment will maybe cover your mortgage, or your bills, but not both. The local economy becomes depressed, retailers start losing their businesses. More and more stores close, and more and more people become unemployed. Crime goes up – way up, depressing the economy even more. You can’t sell your house, because the market is for shit. Your trapped with a mortgage you can no longer afford. You can either pay your rent or feed your kids, but if you don’t pay your rent, you’ll get evicted and won’t be able to feed them anyways. Your choice is either to abandon your house, and hope you can find a job elsewhere, or wait till the bank forecloses and you end up on the street. You can’t get unemployment if you move out of state to try and find a job, even if you could afford the expenses of moving. Then again, you can’t get unemployment if you live in a cardboard box, either, so whichever way you look, you’re screwed. You can’t borrow money from your friends or family to help you get back on your feet, because they all lost their jobs, too, and are facing the same thing.

Everyone knows, though, that the only reason your kids are going to school hungry is because you are dumb. Yeah, right, whatever.

So, on another blog, a guy commented about how the current discussion going on in the comments section was being conducted by “hormonally heightened” females. He apparently came into the discussion in order to start some “intelligent discourse”. Little did we know that the discussion happily going on before that was lacking in intelligence. Gosh, it’s a good thing he came along to set us little ladies straight.

Do people still really think this way? Didn’t this misogynistic bullshit go out of style sometime in late 1973? Last I checked, we were all, male and female, under the influence of hormones. They go running through our bodies when we are stressed, scared, hurt, and frightened, not to mention when we are in the mood to tangle some sheets. Last I checked, neither sex gets to claim some “get out of hormones free” card that allows them to pass go and collect two hundred dollars. Unless of course, testosterone is no longer considered a hormone. Gotta keep up with those advances in medical science, I guess.

It wouldn’t bother me so much if this were only about the rantings of the occasional internet dipshit. The problem is, this whole “those pesky women, always at the mercy of their hormones” mentality affects more than just the clouded minds of a mere few. It’s awfully pervasive, for these oh-so-enlightened times. For instance, the British Boxing Association decided, oh about two years ago, to not allow women to enter the sport of boxing, because apparently women are so at the mercy of their hormones that they could not be trusted to not accidentally maim or kill another boxer while they suffered through the apparently mind bending effects of PMS. Gee, little do my friends and family know that they gamble with their lives hanging out with me for a few days each month. Funny how the male dominated boxing that I have witnessed has also had their problems with the occasional maiming and killing. Guess the British Boxing Association is suffering from short term memory loss. Too many blows to the head can do that, I have heard.

Now, I am not all that interested in stepping into the boxing ring, as I like my nose right where it is, but decisions such as this have a much wider impact. We can assert that women are autonomous and capable individuals, yet every time a group of people who get to decide what we can do and how we can do it base their decisions on the idea that women are helplessly at the mercy of their overwhelming hormonal urges, any assertion to the contrary by the general public is completely undermined. Yeah, you�ve come a long way, baby. The thing is – I don�t get it. I really don�t. What is so fearsome and loathsome about a few women having an intelligent and passionate conversation, or about a woman wanting to play a freakin� sport that makes everyone have to run out and find any excuse to characterize them as nothing more than a Stepford wife married to a bunch of biological secretions.

So let me say this for all those who may be a little confused. Just because a woman displays a little passion and zeal doesn�t mean she is a hapless victim of her hormonal urges.

�well, unless she�s naked.

So last night we were at the pub, hanging out with some old friends and some new ones – always fun – when I discovered that someone had written “fuck you Steve” on one of the bathroom stalls. Which got me to thinking – what is the point? Will the mysterious Steve ever see this little message? It is unlikely, unless he spends inordinate amounts of time hanging out in the women’s washroom, in which case, I guess I could understand the sentiment. I can’t even understand how cathartic it could have possibly have been, as ballpoint pen flows so easily on a clean painted surface. So, I started wondering about who this Steve was, and the anonymous girl who was so upset with him she felt the need to vent her spleen on a bathroom wall. Did he break her heart? Irritate her with some intractable position on the literary importance of Tomson Highway? Skip out on his bar tab?

These thoughts skittered around my head until a half remembered story about a guy who was doing a travel book about public washrooms around the world vaguely came to the surface of my consciousness. If indeed, there ever was such a book, I would have liked it to include the women’s washroom from Cafe Wim, during the mid 1990′s. This washroom wasn’t covered with the usual epithets and lovestuck declarations most washrooms are. This one, much to the chagrin of the owners I am sure, had every available inch of writable space covered with poetry, and long drawn out discussions about philosophy and the meaning of art, conducted entirely by strangers. People would write their poetry, others would deconstruct it, and long debates would be waged, all within the confines of this one small space, all happening between people who would perhaps pass each other in the hall, or sit next to each other in the small cafe, but never sign their names. A couple of years ago, Cafe Wim closed it’s doors, and the space it used to gracefully occupy is now an aggressively upscale restaurant/martini bar. I met my husband at that cafe, so many years ago, and I must say, that although the menu was over priced, the owners kinda crazy, the service purposefully slow and the coffee really bad – I am so sad it is gone.

Yesterday, I was faced with a sad, unavoidable fact about myself.

I am a fashion mutant.

I must be, or how else could I go to ten stores, spend over two hours, and not find a single pair of pants that I like? In fact, be faced with racks and racks of pants that, although apparently considered quite cute by the rest of the world, made me want to throw up?

Now, I admit, I am not fond of shopping. I am fond of clothes, I love clothes. I loooove finding that perfect combination that makes you feel like a funky, free spirited vixen. There are outfits, that when donned, can make you feel all flirtatious and spunky, and hopelessly interesting, ala Holly Golightly. Sadly, though, these items are rarely found at a mall. Can you see Holly Golightly at the mall? Trying on oddly fitting pants with those stupid plastic theft deterrent doohickeys digging holes into her thigh, while bemoaning the funereal lighting mandatory in all fitting rooms? I think not.

Every three or four years, when my current pairs of pants become so ragged they are kept together by a myriad of patches, I go shopping. This is a cruel test of willpower that I usually put off for months before finally working up the required energy to endure. In fact, the only reason I actually went to buy these damn things is because I started a new job, and wanted more than two pairs of pants to rotate through each day. And my cat ripped a hole out of my third pair.

Strangely, my horrible affliction is apparently only reserved for pants. Everything else, I can handle. Shirts are easy – I have a uniform – I wear tank tops. Everyday. In the spring and fall, I wear tank tops and cardigans. In the winter, tank tops under sweaters. In the summer…you get the picture. A becoming and reasonably priced tank top is easy to find. Shoes are no problem. I own five pairs of Doc’s. Oh, and three pairs of pumps for the few times a year they are required. Skirts – easy – who needs skirts? Skirts are something you buy when you walk by a store and see something that catches your fancy. Pants – they are the bane of my existence.

So, off the mall. Evil, vile things, malls are. I swear they are designed with the specific intention of draining ones will to live, until you are so desperate to get out of there, you are willing to shell out 95 bucks for a pair of canary yellow platform running shoes. And, can I ask a question- please? Who the hell decided we all wanted to dress like refugees from 1976? I refuse to spend my hard earned money on anything I have vague recollections of my mother wearing when disco was considered cool. Why? Why? Why!!!

This time I thought I was being smart. I had a mission, an actual idea of what I wanted to find. I had a vague idea of khaki�s, casual, yet suitable for work. I hedged my bets by being flexible on style and colour. Before I left the house, it didn�t seem like all that big a deal, really. Khaki�s are popular, it would be easy, a piece of cake! Right? Boy, was I wrong! In retrospect, I was really, truly deluded. The closest I came to finding a pair was the Gap, they have nice khaki�s and in a variety of styles to suit even the freakishly short legged like myself. Problem being, I have issues with paying 70 dollars plus tax for a label, let alone a label that I am not particularly fond of. So begins much trudging and cringing and gnashing of teeth. Around two hours worth.

So you, ask, what do I end up buying, after this gruesome ordeal?

The exact same damn pair of jeans I bought the last time I bought jeans, in 1995.

Oh yeah, and a tank top.