Today while discussing this here blog with me mama I was reprimanded.
Did you know I'm not allowed to name names, even if they are assholes and I am asserting power (think back to the gym fight and responding to "you don't know who I am").
I also need to watch my language- "suck it" is no longer acceptable because I'm looking for a job and perspective employers may somehow find this here weblog.
I'm sure I won't change but to those I've offended my sincerest apologies, and mom sorry, but you know.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Food and People: A Special Relationship
There are a few "special relationships" that everyone knows about: the US and the UK, Bill and Monica, Fat Kids and Cake which takes me to the whole food and folks thing.
As I was warming up left over chicken and my famous mac'n'cheese'n'pepper I was caught by memory blow back. As a child I was at my great-uncle Emory's house for dinner, he's dying I think, and the old folk, who I know know would have only been in their 40s then, were talking. That dinner would have been something southern, fried chicken is the only thing I can for sure remember. Fried chicken was a treat, the family has a history of bad tickers and fried and salty didn't happen in my house because of that.
The even bigger treat, the chicken was fried skin on. (I know, I know, it sounds revolting but fried skin [with the exception of bagged pork rinds] is one of those things that is somehow is life-changingly delicious.) But that treat was ruined after the meal when I heard my father's Aunt Barb discussing the meal with a man, who I believe is her ex-husband. At some point someone said, "They says [sic] chicken skin causes's [sic] the cancer [sic]." (It might not have been that bad but that's how I hear them.) And I felt a lump in my throat, my heart beat was heavier and I knew that the meal I had just eaten was now killing me.
Ok, so I'm a bit excitable and now that I am an adult (as I occasionally assert publicly) I know that even if chicken skin causes cancer I'd have to eat it in mass quantities over a long period of time. Its amazing to me that food has the ability to cause so much fear, but food is a nicest for life.
Food and I have an especially strange relationship. I have food allergies, strange ones, and I can't consume carbs like a normal human because I was blessed with a metabolism that is so efficient that it forgets to metabolize. Today I was considering making gumbo, a good hearty meal but it contains shrimp which I'll eat but the family won't (fear of swimming things, I think) and okra, which I love but cannot eat for fear of death, so I stuck with chicken and macaroni and life.
If I eat okra or kiwis I die, if I don't eat I die. If I eat what I want everyday I die early of a heart attack or stroke and am ostracized for being severely obese, if I eat what I should I am unsatisfied.
Food and people it's all about balance, as long as you can balanced on both your feet while walking up a flight of stairs you're doing it right.
(HAHA don't believe the last sentence, you're in trouble if that's your guide)
As I was warming up left over chicken and my famous mac'n'cheese'n'pepper I was caught by memory blow back. As a child I was at my great-uncle Emory's house for dinner, he's dying I think, and the old folk, who I know know would have only been in their 40s then, were talking. That dinner would have been something southern, fried chicken is the only thing I can for sure remember. Fried chicken was a treat, the family has a history of bad tickers and fried and salty didn't happen in my house because of that.
The even bigger treat, the chicken was fried skin on. (I know, I know, it sounds revolting but fried skin [with the exception of bagged pork rinds] is one of those things that is somehow is life-changingly delicious.) But that treat was ruined after the meal when I heard my father's Aunt Barb discussing the meal with a man, who I believe is her ex-husband. At some point someone said, "They says [sic] chicken skin causes's [sic] the cancer [sic]." (It might not have been that bad but that's how I hear them.) And I felt a lump in my throat, my heart beat was heavier and I knew that the meal I had just eaten was now killing me.
Ok, so I'm a bit excitable and now that I am an adult (as I occasionally assert publicly) I know that even if chicken skin causes cancer I'd have to eat it in mass quantities over a long period of time. Its amazing to me that food has the ability to cause so much fear, but food is a nicest for life.
Food and I have an especially strange relationship. I have food allergies, strange ones, and I can't consume carbs like a normal human because I was blessed with a metabolism that is so efficient that it forgets to metabolize. Today I was considering making gumbo, a good hearty meal but it contains shrimp which I'll eat but the family won't (fear of swimming things, I think) and okra, which I love but cannot eat for fear of death, so I stuck with chicken and macaroni and life.
If I eat okra or kiwis I die, if I don't eat I die. If I eat what I want everyday I die early of a heart attack or stroke and am ostracized for being severely obese, if I eat what I should I am unsatisfied.
Food and people it's all about balance, as long as you can balanced on both your feet while walking up a flight of stairs you're doing it right.
(HAHA don't believe the last sentence, you're in trouble if that's your guide)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Fearing Feminism: A Disappointment to my Mother
I am a woman, though I probably wouldn't classify myself as a feminist. Feminism is a dirty word, on that means that I hate me and want saggy tits (yes, I said tits) because bras are men's invention to confine a woman, put her in her place, coerce her into sex and threaten her life and the lives of the children.
Before you're panties get too bunched up, the ugly stuff is no joke. I have a problem with women who have been afforded every opportunity in life and come up believing that because they posess a vagina/uterus combo the world owes them more. Their plight is disgusting. Their entitlement is considerably more disgusting.
I grew up in an upper-middle class type situation, I went to one of the better public schools out there, I went to an excellent public university, I have never been for want of food, I have never had an illness go untreated and I wear a bra because in day to day activities the support is more comfortable plus, my clothes look better.
Lately my mother, who I live with and is a labor and delivery nurse, has been reading about the atrocities that occur around the world to women. She's up on all the stoning, the use of rape as a weapon, female circumcision and the sex trade. I'm not sure when it started, this need to read about the horrors and then spew them on the world, sharing the stories in the books she's reading before passing the books off as must reads. It's killing me slowly. I don't want to read about the 10 year-old who has been raped by every man in the village because her father owes another man money, I don't want to read about women paying with their lives with sexual affairs when their male counterparts see no consequences. I don't care to know how many people need to witness a rape for it to be an actual rape.
Again, I sound insensitive. These people she's reading about are in need of help, awareness is the only way to stop this time of thing and the ranting college educated white woman from the burbs is doing the rest of femininity, or humanity for that matter.
My reasoning for not wanting to delve deeper into these things is complicated, selfish, as well I suppose, and I have yet to make her understand. So I'll try you. I know of the horrors and I avoid them. I spent my breaks during college working for a local group of midwives. Most of the phone calls I answered were about setting up yearly gynecological exams and women trilled with positive pregnancy tests. A few calls a week would be women seeking abortions, most of them were not "I'm a stupid irresponsible human being and I think its easier to get rid of this than to face it" calls, they were desperate women who begged me not to judge them.
Some days the 15 year-olds with their more or less brain dead boyfriends were too much, their mothers made me sick. The day a woman signed at me and asked me if I had kids, all I could do was smile and tell her not yet, her kid wouldn't even fill out her own paperwork. I don't think the pregnant girls decided to kill their mothers slowly, but they do it every day. But what killed me was the one call I didn't take, a teen girl's neighbor called. Not her mother or father, not herself but her neighbor. The girl needed prenatal care but she was already past the point in which the practice I worked for would take her, she had been to the free clinic once and had been treated poorly, which is one of those things that sadly is to be expected and the neighbor didn't want to make the girl return to the clinic. As the neighbor pleaded explaining that the girl's family had kicked her out and she had been homeless for the majority of her pregnancy until the neighbor found out and took her in, that the girl couldn't get decent care, that she didn't have a job, couldn't get a job and was more or less a child herself all the secretary said to her was that she was sorry but there was nothing that she could do.
She was wrong. I made a Rolodex that had all the names of public agencies and safe houses for women in this girl's situation but the secretary spent nearly a half hour explaining that she couldn't help instead of giving out the names and numbers of people who could. Hell, Child Protective Services would have been an option but "I'm sorry we can't help you" was all she could say.
It is not that I don't see the bad, its that after having my heart broken by all the bad in my own community I don't have faith in people. They don't care enough about each other unless there is something in it for them. If people with money and time can't fix the bad in their backyards why would they care about people halfway around the world. They're busy fighting about who should and should pay for the public schools and roads and bitching about "wasteful" social services.
So I apologize that at 23 I've given up and choose not to know the horrific details.
Before you're panties get too bunched up, the ugly stuff is no joke. I have a problem with women who have been afforded every opportunity in life and come up believing that because they posess a vagina/uterus combo the world owes them more. Their plight is disgusting. Their entitlement is considerably more disgusting.
I grew up in an upper-middle class type situation, I went to one of the better public schools out there, I went to an excellent public university, I have never been for want of food, I have never had an illness go untreated and I wear a bra because in day to day activities the support is more comfortable plus, my clothes look better.
Lately my mother, who I live with and is a labor and delivery nurse, has been reading about the atrocities that occur around the world to women. She's up on all the stoning, the use of rape as a weapon, female circumcision and the sex trade. I'm not sure when it started, this need to read about the horrors and then spew them on the world, sharing the stories in the books she's reading before passing the books off as must reads. It's killing me slowly. I don't want to read about the 10 year-old who has been raped by every man in the village because her father owes another man money, I don't want to read about women paying with their lives with sexual affairs when their male counterparts see no consequences. I don't care to know how many people need to witness a rape for it to be an actual rape.
Again, I sound insensitive. These people she's reading about are in need of help, awareness is the only way to stop this time of thing and the ranting college educated white woman from the burbs is doing the rest of femininity, or humanity for that matter.
My reasoning for not wanting to delve deeper into these things is complicated, selfish, as well I suppose, and I have yet to make her understand. So I'll try you. I know of the horrors and I avoid them. I spent my breaks during college working for a local group of midwives. Most of the phone calls I answered were about setting up yearly gynecological exams and women trilled with positive pregnancy tests. A few calls a week would be women seeking abortions, most of them were not "I'm a stupid irresponsible human being and I think its easier to get rid of this than to face it" calls, they were desperate women who begged me not to judge them.
Some days the 15 year-olds with their more or less brain dead boyfriends were too much, their mothers made me sick. The day a woman signed at me and asked me if I had kids, all I could do was smile and tell her not yet, her kid wouldn't even fill out her own paperwork. I don't think the pregnant girls decided to kill their mothers slowly, but they do it every day. But what killed me was the one call I didn't take, a teen girl's neighbor called. Not her mother or father, not herself but her neighbor. The girl needed prenatal care but she was already past the point in which the practice I worked for would take her, she had been to the free clinic once and had been treated poorly, which is one of those things that sadly is to be expected and the neighbor didn't want to make the girl return to the clinic. As the neighbor pleaded explaining that the girl's family had kicked her out and she had been homeless for the majority of her pregnancy until the neighbor found out and took her in, that the girl couldn't get decent care, that she didn't have a job, couldn't get a job and was more or less a child herself all the secretary said to her was that she was sorry but there was nothing that she could do.
She was wrong. I made a Rolodex that had all the names of public agencies and safe houses for women in this girl's situation but the secretary spent nearly a half hour explaining that she couldn't help instead of giving out the names and numbers of people who could. Hell, Child Protective Services would have been an option but "I'm sorry we can't help you" was all she could say.
It is not that I don't see the bad, its that after having my heart broken by all the bad in my own community I don't have faith in people. They don't care enough about each other unless there is something in it for them. If people with money and time can't fix the bad in their backyards why would they care about people halfway around the world. They're busy fighting about who should and should pay for the public schools and roads and bitching about "wasteful" social services.
So I apologize that at 23 I've given up and choose not to know the horrific details.
Hello Canada
I see that a good bit of my tiny viewing audience hails from our Great Northern Neighbor. I just thought I'd say, hi, welcome, hope you find me interesting.
To the rest of you SUCK IT. You bore me with you're boring American viewing. (Sorry, Kristin, you may be foreign but you view in the US.)
But wait! Aren't Canadians technically Americans too? I think its time for a new more specific name for the people of the United States, just so when people who also live in the Americas are called American there isn't any confusion.
Just a thought.
To the rest of you SUCK IT. You bore me with you're boring American viewing. (Sorry, Kristin, you may be foreign but you view in the US.)
But wait! Aren't Canadians technically Americans too? I think its time for a new more specific name for the people of the United States, just so when people who also live in the Americas are called American there isn't any confusion.
Just a thought.
Falling for Fall
There was frost on my car when I got in it at 6:30 this morning. It's November 2, last week there were days in the 80s and the week before a day in the 90s, now I have socks and a sweatshirt on and I can't feel my hands or feet (I'm indoors, if that isn't a given variable).
I need you to know that Autumn is my most favorite season and last year I missed it while I was living in London, the weather turned cool but the leaves stayed green. This year the color is beautiful, the grass is finally green again after the summer draught and the leaves are yellow and orange and red and everywhere. It is breathtaking.
I drove home this afternoon and as I hit the dirt road and drove through the tunnel of trees and it was all yellow, the sky, the walls of trees and the edges of the road, all yellow. I can't really describe it, but it is the most beautiful thing, that half-mile of road is the reason I don't really mind living at home. That half-mile is the reason Robert Frost is such a successful poet (I know, I know he's not from here, he's from much farther north and I hear that New England has the most gorgeous Falls).
I need a few more days of warm then I'll surrender to the cold. And if after two days of warm the colors fade and the grey sets in, I'll be ok.
I need you to know that Autumn is my most favorite season and last year I missed it while I was living in London, the weather turned cool but the leaves stayed green. This year the color is beautiful, the grass is finally green again after the summer draught and the leaves are yellow and orange and red and everywhere. It is breathtaking.
I drove home this afternoon and as I hit the dirt road and drove through the tunnel of trees and it was all yellow, the sky, the walls of trees and the edges of the road, all yellow. I can't really describe it, but it is the most beautiful thing, that half-mile of road is the reason I don't really mind living at home. That half-mile is the reason Robert Frost is such a successful poet (I know, I know he's not from here, he's from much farther north and I hear that New England has the most gorgeous Falls).
I need a few more days of warm then I'll surrender to the cold. And if after two days of warm the colors fade and the grey sets in, I'll be ok.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Really Baltimore?
Today I had an interview in the lovely city of Baltimore. (Lovely, really Megan, really?) It is a bit of a drive, but there wasn't any traffic, unlike the commute to DC, though the 40ish mile difference is hard to swallow (that's what she said). Somehow I managed to get to my destination in one and a half hours, despite the road work in the city, I wish the return trip would have been as easy.
Really Baltimore?
You're going to work on every street at the same time? I don't think that is particularly practical. I also think that the poor construction workers have to be a very careful with the perhaps-less-than-sober drivers floating through red lights, stopping at greens on one flat and one naked rim. I don't know how I escaped alive!
Really Baltimore?
You're going to work on every street at the same time? I don't think that is particularly practical. I also think that the poor construction workers have to be a very careful with the perhaps-less-than-sober drivers floating through red lights, stopping at greens on one flat and one naked rim. I don't know how I escaped alive!
10 Reasons My Mother is Not a Polygamist
1. She doesn't share her man.
2. She doesn't share her man.
3. She doesn't share her man.
4. She doesn't share her man.
5. She doesn't share her man.
6. She doesn't share her man.
7. She doesn't share her man.
8. She doesn't share her man.
9. She doesn't share her man.
10. She doesn't share her man.
I'm not sure you understand. She stood over me while I was typing a nonsense something and was doing the scary finger pointing thing she does and had her serious face on. Then she asked if I understood. But on the plus side having women kin folk would be nice. And that is where I have to disagree, I don't like too many women, cycles get messy and feelings get hurt. Plus I'm kind of a bitch and as Lauren from work says, "You're mean, but you're like that everyday so it's ok." I don't think women and I would make good kin. So I agree with mom, without the pointing finger thing.
2. She doesn't share her man.
3. She doesn't share her man.
4. She doesn't share her man.
5. She doesn't share her man.
6. She doesn't share her man.
7. She doesn't share her man.
8. She doesn't share her man.
9. She doesn't share her man.
10. She doesn't share her man.
I'm not sure you understand. She stood over me while I was typing a nonsense something and was doing the scary finger pointing thing she does and had her serious face on. Then she asked if I understood. But on the plus side having women kin folk would be nice. And that is where I have to disagree, I don't like too many women, cycles get messy and feelings get hurt. Plus I'm kind of a bitch and as Lauren from work says, "You're mean, but you're like that everyday so it's ok." I don't think women and I would make good kin. So I agree with mom, without the pointing finger thing.
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