Pain Makes Me Angry

You know, I'm basically pretty happy with life right now.
I like my job. Me and The Hubby are doing excellent. I love my clothes. I think I'm pretty. I have plans for the future -- a vague one for the career, and a specific one regarding my health, fitness, and general well-being.
But this freaking pain makes me so impatient and grumpy and generally a such a raging bitch, that I wrote a massive email to a friend today, chock full of negativity. Meanwhile, I'm trying to convince him of my woo-woo, flaky belief that if you put positive thoughts in the universe, positive stuff will come back to you. Irony, thy name is Erica.
And I've been listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash almost all day, which makes me feel very mellow. I don't understand why I was such a Negative Nancy in that email. Oh, right, the friggin pain.
Grrr.
So anyway, I'm going to dinner tonight with the in-laws, including sister-in-law, to celebrate my niece's 5th birthday. (And she, by the way, is the absolute cutest being on the planet.) That will cheer me up. I greatly enjoy my in-laws. They're hilarious and sweet and very, very loving.
So that's my Friday night. Hopefully I will be less of an angerball tomorrow.

Emotions Are Weird

When you really think about it, about the weird-ass things that trigger different emotions, they are some bizarre suckers, aren't they?
For example, I started off the day on a good foot. I still hurt a lot, so I wore my brightest, happiest, most-forgiving top and cardigan combination, did my makeup and giggled relentlessly over how much wearing purple eyeshadow and blue mascara makes me happy. Came in to work determined to Get Stuff Done.
I started listening to the podcast of Krissie, Lani, and Jenny together on Reinventing Fabulous, caught up on the podcasts at Popcorn Dialogues, did lots and lots of library work.
And then I was listening to ReFab podcast again and all of a sudden, I got super, super sad. Like all of a sudden the fact that I haven't been in the physical presence of my bestie in ten years caught up to me. And when I hurt this much, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump from reasonable amounts of sad to I Will Die Alone Depression-Ville.
Here's how it works:
"I wish I had friends like these three. They're so awesome. They really are like sisters. That's so awesome. Well, I have Bestie. Bestie's awesome. I haven't seen Bestie in ten years. I'll probably never get to see her. This pain is never going to go away. I'm going to live the rest of my life in pain and on painkillers just to be able to work. And I'll never be able to go out like a normal person, so I'll never have any other friends. And I'll never be able to travel to see Bestie, so eventually she'll get tired of my whining, and I'll lose her. And I'm a raging bitch when I hurt, and I'm going to hurt for forever, so The Hubby will get sick of me and leave me, and I'll be so stressed that he left me that I'll get to the point where I hurt so bad, I can never leave the bed ever, and I'll blow up to one of those people who weigh like 800 pounds, and then I'll really never have friends, because I'll smell from not being able to move, and then I'll die alone, a smelly gross, fat bitch."
See? It's insane, I swear.
And I try to cheer myself up, but when it gets this looney tunes, it's hard to find anything that will work.
So, in twenty minutes, I'll head home and get a hug from The Hubby who will reassure me that he won't leave me if I become a super-bitchy hurty-pants, and I'll believe him... for a minute or two, before the Crazy starts up again.

I'm Not Dead

I've missed the last two days on the blog. On Monday, I felt like hammered dogshit, and yesterday my internet browser and Blogger weren't getting along.
So anyway. I have pain. I have lots of pain. It's like my entire body is covered with bruises, but I don't have any bruises. That's fun. Everything hurts, and it's making me super-bitchy.
I've been eating really well, and I was going to brag about that yesterday. But then my computer spazzed out and I got stressed and went and ate six pieces of cinnamon toast. So, eating really well until I start thinking about how well I've been eating and then I start craving something terrible.
Ugh.
So anyway, that's what's going on. (That and I spent almost twelve hours at work today, so my brain isn't working.) Maybe I'll be more with it tomorrow.

Weekend Musings

I missed posting yesterday. I would feel bad about that but I felt so supremely terrible yesterday that I don't really care.
Friday night, the Hubby and I decided to do some drinking. I needed to pretend that the last week hadn't happened, and he was happy to play along. I had three margaritas, which along with my painkillers made for an interesting little cocktail called "Erica has the alcohol tolerance of a gnat." The Hubby had fifteen beers and we had a blast. We watched a lot of silly stuff, we had some great conversations, and we just laughed and had a good time.
Saturday morning-afternoon-whenever-the-hell-we-decided-to-regain-consciousness, we both felt terrible. We both wound up throwing up and it was just awful. And I feel like someone has systematically beat every part of my body with a sledgehammer. Seriously, everything hurts. I feel bruised everywhere.
Anyway, today has been the grocery shopping, chores around the house day. Chill.
I'm going to go try water walking tomorrow. I've already got a bag all packed of stuff to take to the pool. I will do it. I will, I will.
My mom and I had a conversation recently about me and exercise. I always make these plans and then never follow through with them. I join a gym and never go. Things like that. So, hopefully already having a bag packed for tomorrow will help me get over that hump of "I'm going to do this" to actually accomplish something.
I'm also going to try making a healthier diet happen this week. I've created a very specific menu that is now on my fridge that I want to stick to. The big thing will be seeing if I choose to stick with it even on the days when I'm tired and grumpy and just plain don't want to.
We'll see. But I'm at least trying.

The Political is Personal, and I am Pissed

I had decided that I wasn't going to share this on here. I had decided that this was just a little too personal to put out there. I had decided that the issue was entirely too polarizing for me, that I would hurt any future endeavors I ever tried if I put this story up here.
But today, I just feel like everything's lining up. The planets are aligned a certain way. All the winds are blowing the right direction. Or something. Everywhere I turn, this story is coming up. It's important. It needs to be discussed. And so, here's a note I wrote and published on Facebook. Here's my deepest, darkest secret in the world.

Okay. I'm pissed. I'm seventeen levels beyond pissed. I am so freaking enraged that I could attack someone without much of a second thought, and I am not a violent person, typically.
But this has gotten out of hand.
Yesterday, OK Senate bill 1433, aka the Personhood Act, was passed in the Oklahoma Senate. Only 8 people voted against it. The bill is expected to pass the House. So, basically, now my eggs are people.
Seriously? That's like saying... that my eggs are people. How freaking insane and ludicrous is that? Extremely.
And also yesterday, the GOP prevented a woman from giving testimony about birth control, which lead to an all-male panel. About birth control. For real. Now, I'm not saying that men aren't invested in what happens to women in regards to birth control, but goddammit, they're hardly "qualified" to speak about it -- which is why they refused a female witness. She wasn't qualified. Guess what, assholes, she has a uterus, so she's quite a bit more qualified than you are.
It's when we're talking about stuff like this when I do start to perhaps hate men a bit. Because men are so often telling women what to do with their bodies and their fertility, without any knowledge of or experience with what it means to be female. That shit pisses me off.
The thing is, men can walk away at any point in the event of a pregnancy. Would he be a total jackass and a piece of shit and would most men agree with that? Sure. But he can. He can walk away and never look back. That's why women demand so much in terms of child support money, because that's the only way to kind of keep things fair. But even then, it's not really fair. (And some guys get completely shafted in terms of child support, I know. Just roll with me for a bit.) It's still the woman who has to carry the child, give birth, and then make the decision to keep the child, put it up for adoption, whatever. If she chooses to keep and raise the child, then that's her life for the rest of her life. And at any moment, a man can just walk away and leave her stranded. That's why birth control is a woman's issue. Because it is women's lives that are really affected.
Women and children are consistently at the bottom of the economic ladder. The largest demographic below the poverty line is single-parent women and their children. So when people complain about welfare, or other government assistance programs, most of the people that are getting help from those programs are women and children. If you want to get rid of the programs, then you have to make comprehensive sex education a priority everywhere and you have to make birth control accessible to everyone. To everyone. In every neighborhood. You don't like abortions? Then make sure that all women everywhere have access to birth control. And access to birth control that they are in control of, like the pill. Not condoms, because you're still dependent on the man. With the pill, the woman is completely in control.
And while we're on the subject. Let's talk about control. That's what all of this is really about, after all. People can tell me that they're "pro-life" until they are blue in the face, but I will never acknowledge that. I can't. Because it's not about "life," it's about control.
The pro-choice movement is all about giving women complete and total autonomy over her own body. She can give birth as much as she wants. She can never give birth. It is all the individual woman's choice and no one else should have the power to make that decision for her. The "pro-life" or anti-choice movement, is about limiting women's control of their bodies. Some refuse any use of contraceptives. Others say that it's only abortion that's wrong. Others waffle around in the middle and say that they dislike abortion for birth control, but that they think abortion is okay in cases of rape and incest.
There is a very, very long history of women's bodies being used by whoever is in power at the time. For example, both Hitler and Stalin made rules regarding women's fertility. They were on opposite ends of the spectrum -- Hitler wanted all women to give birth to lots of pretty white German boy babies and Stalin wanted women to be basically sterile, and state-sanctioned abortion was a big deal -- but both of them decided that women's fertility were tools for their ideological ends.
And that's bullshit. My body and my fertility and whatever I decide to do with it is not, in any way, something to support an ideology or a government or any belief system whatsoever. My body and my fertility is mine. And I truly, truly believe that until other women make these same kinds of statements, we'll never really be equal.
So, anyway. Why do I care? Because I'm just some smart-assed liberal bitch who hates men?
Nope.
Be wary, the political is about to get personal.
I've talked about my depression and my history of being suicidal in other places. So, you know about that. Well, my freshman year of college (my first college, which shows how special all that was), I got pregnant. It was a bad deal. I was already downing bottles of pills on a fairly regular basis in an attempt to either kill myself or drown myself in chemicals. I was 19 and I'd never heard of Planned Parenthood, and I don't even know if there was one in Wisconsin. I didn't have a lot of money, so some friends from my dorm went around and collected money from the college's Womyn's Group, and I went to Madison and had an abortion. Well, it didn't go quite that smoothly. There was a lot of agonizing. When I first found out, I was stunned. You see, I had fainted. And my boyfriend at the time was really worried that I had a concussion, so he took me to the hospital. I wasn't eating a lot, so we thought that that was what has caused the fainting, but the hospital did a pregnancy test, hooked me up to EKG and we waited. Then a doctor walked in said, "You're pregnant. You need to stop smoking and start taking prenatal vitamins." And he walked out. That was it. He just walked out.
I, of course, lost my goddamn mind. I was screaming. I was crying. I threw my shoes. I started jerking the EKG thingies off of my chest, desperate to just the fuck out of there. My boyfriend at the time hugged me and told me that we'd "do anything you want to do." This is important, because he was uber-Catholic. I walked around like a zombie for a couple of days, completely unable to process what was happening. I had a professor who had discussed her abortion in class (we were reading Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants), and so I went to her and we chain smoked and I looked at it from every angle. There were two things that I knew about myself for certain. 1) I could not ever give up a kid, the second I saw the baby's face I would lose it and not be able to give it up. 2) I was in no way healthy enough to be a parent. I was trying to kill myself almost every week. And so, I went to Madison and had an abortion.
It was terrible. But when it was over, I was so relieved I can't even explain it to you. It was like this gigantic rock had been pressing on me, and then once the procedure was over, the rock exploded into tiny little pieces and I was suddenly free.
And about two weeks later, I was watching an episode of The Cosby Show (random, I know), where this older couple unexpectedly found out they were pregnant and they were so, so happy. And that. That was when the guilt hit.
That was exactly ten years ago. Yep, this is one of the reasons why I hate Valentine's Day.
So anyway, that happened. And for nine years, I've been on and off various medications to keep my crazy under some semblance of control. But I started cutting and did a brief stint in a psych ward. When I look back on the last ten years and see that I am *just now* getting myself under control, that I am *just now* learning how to love myself, I can't say that I made the wrong decision. Do I regret it? Yes. I regret the fact that it happened. But I know that I made the best decision. And so this year, I was finally able to look at the whole thing and say, I think I'm okay with what happened. I did the best I could.
In fact, my crazy has been such a big deal, that it still affects my decisions about my body. About four years ago, I was seeing a therapist who told me that I should probably never have kids. Because with my history of suicidal thoughts, depression, and bipolar disorder, postpartum depression would be an extremely significant risk -- and I don't want to be one of those moms on TV who've drowned their kids. So, I went on Mirena, a 5-year IUD, for my birth control, because no one would have tied the tubes on a 25-year-old. I've got a year left on it, and I need to start really thinking about my future and what I'm willing to risk and what I want to do about having kids.
So, knowing all of this, would anyone sit there and tell me at 19 that no, I had to have that baby? Well, maybe not. Although there are some who may have, just because there are some people who are so dogmatic that they can't see through the rhetoric to any one individual's story. But there are a lot of people who would say that I was justified in making that decision, that yes, abortion was the right choice in that instance.
So here's my point. When you can admit to the fact that there are some circumstances in which abortion makes sense, when that's the best decision to make in a shitty situation, then how can you ever start casting stones? Are you going to sit there and ask each and every woman why she's having the procedure? Who gets to decide who's worthy of one and who's not? I'm sure there are some sanctimonious bastards around who would have no problem being the one to make that kind of judgment call, but I'm sure most of us can see the problem. That no one gets to sit and ask those questions. Because it's not our business. And therefore, maybe we should shut up about who deserves the opportunity to have an abortion and who doesn't, because how do we know what the circumstances really are? How we know who's really *deserving*? And just accept that abortion happens. It's not pretty. It's not nice. But I can guarantee you that it is rarely, if ever, entered into lightly. We've thought about it; we've thought about it long and hard and often and made a decision. That is our right. It is our right to choose what to do with our bodies. It is our right to demand that it's nobody's freaking business what we do with our bodies.
So. If you don't like abortion, and I don't blame you, then please do the responsible thing. Demand that all kids get accurate information about sex and preventing pregnancies. Demand that all women everywhere get access to birth control that they are in control of. Don't start talking to me about how cheap condoms are. Don't start talking to me about how people should be more responsible and shouldn't have sex if they can't handle the consequences. Don't do it. Because you're full of shit. There are men who will not wear a condom. There are men who don't give a shit about consent. If you want to get rid of abortion, then start handing out the Pill, start demanding that all women everywhere have access to it. Start being pro-life and start looking out for the lives that are being lived right this moment.
And, by the way, my eggs are not people.

Roid rage?

So, back when I saw the neurosurgeon's PA, he put me on a steroid to help with my inflammation. An apparently strong steroid.
I have been losing-my-mind angry all freaking day today. Partly that's because a lot of shit has pissed me off, but even still. If someone had said something weird to me, I may have attacked someone. For real.
I've also been eating myself out of house and home, which I didn't realize was happening until I woke up at 2 this morning. To eat. 2 sandwiches. Oh yeah.
So now, I'm all guilty about not eating well, and eating too much, and being blindingly furious at freaking EVERYONE.
Sorry. *forced grin*
Anyway, so yeah. 'Roid rage? Apparently that's a thing.

Sick

The Hubby has some head-stuffing sinus something and I feel like crap myself (everything hurts. Everything. How does everything hurt?), so go play elsewhere today. I'm taking pills and going to bed. Again.

Slushy Brains and Valentine's

So, I think I've figured out how to describe this weird amount of non-functional I've been going through. It's like, my body is working and doing something, and my brain is off in the ether. And then my brain realizes that my body is doing stuff without it, and then there's this insanely long lag time for my brain to catch up with my body. I have no idea what's causing it. I only know that it's happening and that I really kind of desperately want to sleep for a week.
Anyway, today is 2/14. This is a bad anniversary for me, so I try to pretend that it doesn't exist, but resistance is futile. Luckily I'm not insanely sad this year. Last year I think I cried all day. So there's progress. At least slushy, nonfunctional brains aren't completely embarassing at work.
Because of this anniversary, I don't really get into the whole Valentine's thing. But regardless of the anniversary, the whole idea of this holiday annoys the crap out of me.
Why is *this* the day to show the ones you love that you love them? Why don't you do that every day?
The Hubby asked me what I wanted to do this year, and I was like, "You know, I'd rather have a normal day than anything else. Because it's the little everyday things that show that you love someone." And I firmly believe that. Hubby could buy me ropes of diamonds and buckets of roses and tons of chocolate, and it wouldn't mean as much as emailing Jenny Crusie about signing a book for me. It wouldn't mean as much as the two of us cooking together. It wouldn't mean as much as him taking me to get new boots before the Superbowl. Those are the things that really matter. Those are the things that show someone that you love them.
Don't get me wrong. I love chocolate, jewelry, and flowers as much as the next girly girl (although I don't like any of the standard things, for example, I hate fancy jewelry and diamonds and crap like that). I wouldn't be mad if I got any of those things.
However, I just don't think those things are important, or even meaningful or valuable, as tokens of affection.
This is just me, though. And I maybe clinically brain dead right now. So take that for what it's worth.
And have a very happy day showing your loved ones that you love them.

Like Swimming in Concrete

Today was another very weird day. I just feel kind of enveloped in wool. Nothing's really connecting. Although today I think I did it to myself.
Last night we got some snow, the first snow of the whole winter, actually. And it was coming down and I was getting really tense and stressed out by the whole thing.
Why, you ask?
Because Erica is a no-walking-in-the-slick-stuff ass. Also, no-driving-in-the-slick-stuff. I tend to slip and fall a lot in the winter when there's "weather," and I cannot stand driving in it. I'm honest enough with myself to know that I'm not that great of a driver, although I'm okay and I've never been in an accident, but realizing my limitations gets me very stressed out about winter conditions.
So I couldn't get to sleep last night until absurdly late, and then I woke up this morning absurdly early, just because I was terrified and wanted to give myself a crapton of time to get stuff done. And I made it to work fine, an hour and change earlier than the library opened today, and all was well.
Except that that damn tension and stress I'd managed to create was swirling all around me and settled quite firmly into a knot the size of my fist in the middle of my back. God damn my back. So now I'm tired as hell, stressed out, and in massive amounts of pain. So I decided the one thing that I could control was the pain, and took an extra painkiller.
It didn't really do a thing for the pain, but the next thing I know, I'm walking around like some kind of zombie. Fun. Note to self: don't do that again.
I actually did manage to get some things done at work today. It was like swimming in concrete, but I did things.
I also sent in a, what I thought anyway, pretty awesome question for the DBSA (Dear Bitches, Smart Authors) podcast. Yay me! I'm contributing. Haha.
But in general, I've been pretty weirdly useless today. And I'm over it. I'm over my back, too.
Anyway. Yeah, I got nothing.

Blahblablah

I've been totally out of it since yesterday. I don't really know what's going on, but my brain just feels sluggish. The Hubby was trying to talk to me while we were making dinner tonight and I think I just looked at him for a couple of minutes. Special.
I've been trying to decide how I'm feeling about the Eloisa James book I finished last night. The cross-dressing plot worked pretty well without being too homophobic. The big climactic fight between the hero and heroine, however, didn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't feel like I understood at all why the hero got so upset with the heroine. I may need to look at it again and work out some thoughts.
Neither of the two Eloisa James books I've read in the past couple of days has affected me as much as When Beauty Tamed the Beast did. They were both good reads and I'm glad I read them. I enjoyed them. (Well, I think. I'm still puzzling over the last one.) But When Beauty Tamed the Beast was incredible. I mean, I get teary thinking about that book, it was so good.
I found a couple of places where romances are being critically analyzed and my inner nerd's heartstrings have been tugged. Tugged, I say! Now I'm having all kinds of fantasies of doing critical work in romances, writing papers and going to conferences and stuff. I'm such a dork. But it's very cool to know that people are looking at romances seriously, and critically.
I'm trying to read Beyond Heaving Bosoms again, a loving and critical look at romances from the women who founded Smart Bitches Trashy Books (and I swear, Sarah Wendell is my sister from another mister or something, she's so awesome).
I'm watching a bunch of shows on the Travel channel about super-expensive stuff. I have decided that if I was ever ridiculously rich, I want a villa in the south of France. I love the Provencal vibe. This one villa we saw on this show could be rented for like $12,000 a week, and I swear it is my total dream home. Everything about it is completely perfect. The dream. I love the style of the house. I love the colors, I love the architecture, I love it all.
Yeah, this is ridiculous. I'm just babbling now.
I don't know what's up with my brain. It is not functioning. Not functioning at all.
Yeah, I'm giving this up today. Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Maybe my brain will be working tomorrow.

Much Rambling

It's been a lovely chill day. I've slept a lot, read some stuff, done a little bit of laundry. The Hubby's out with buddies, and I am watching a movie that the Hubby would never want to watch, and I found problematic the first time I saw it.
The movie, folks, is He's Just Not That Into You.
For one thing, I hate Bradley Cooper's character in this movie with a seething, roiling passion. He is such a complete jerkwad. Ugh. He makes me want to puke.
Then there's the relationship between Ginnifer Godwin and Justin Long. The first time I saw this movie I was so happy that there was a relationship between a man and a woman that was based in friendship, not romance. But when I watched their relationship develop, I admit I had some crazy secret romantic streak and I was hoping that they would get together. And I was horrified when she came on to him and he rejected her -- because, obviously he did really care about her. But then he comes back for her and tells that he does love her, and then I was totally disgusted, because of course, they had to make it romantic. They had to have some kind of fairy tale ending, even though the whole point of the movie is to show that romantic expectations are screwed up and unrealistic and can completely damage your relationships.
So, I'm watching it again, to see how it feels this time around.
I'm still completely hating Bradley Cooper's character. I'm hurting for Jennifer Connelly's character. I'm hurting for Jennifer Aniston's character. I'm really debating turning the channel.
My latest book, another one by Eloisa James, is a cross-dressing story, which sometimes bothers me. To make the romance work, the hero has to be attracted to the heroine dressed as a male, which leads to a bunch of questioning of one's sexuality, only to be profoundly relieved when the heroine is revealed to be a woman. It just seems to come across a bit homophobic, which is, of course, to be expected of a character living the 1780s, but it still bothers me a little bit. So I've been having some trouble getting into this one.
I'm a teeny bit jealous of The Hubby going out with friends, since with all of my back stuff I can't really do much, but I'm trying not to be one of Those Wives.
Have I mentioned how much I love Drew Barrymore? I love Drew Barrymore. I adore her. She's totally adorable. She's smart. She's funny. She's completely amazing and I love her with every fiber of my body.
Yeah, my brain is not organized right now. I apologize.
Okay, back to watching this movie, or reading my book, or hating Bradley Cooper.

Grouchitude and Fabulousness

So, I've been pissy all day. I got the only decent night's sleep of the week last night, and I was extremely bitter to have to wake up and do stuff today. Plus, my stomach has been hurting a lot, which is making me hunch over, which is making my back hurt, which is making me, quite possible, the single biggest grump on the planet. I came home and just started bitching all over the place. Poor Hubby.
However, The Hubby knows me, and knows what's going on with me. So when I mentioned that my tummy was killing me, he was like, "Well, let's go get you a salad." So we went to a buffet place where I could make myself a massive salad, get a plain baked sweet potato, and a piece of rotisserie chicken and I am feeling much, much better. That's a good Hubby. I don't know why I don't eat like that all the time, instead of all the crap I usually eat, especially knowing that eating crap makes me feel terrible. Ugh, it's dumb.
Oh well.
Anyway, I'm about to take some painkillers and curl up with the Eloisa James book I'm about to finish, so hopefully I'll be feeling much more personable tomorrow. We'll see. There's been a lot of stress this week. It was bound to catch up with me at some point.
So, to make you all feel like you're getting something good, go check out Reinventing Fabulous (http://reinventingfabulous.com/). The posts from the 7th until today have been hilarious and wonderful, and sure to inspire giggling and big giant smiles. Which is what I want you all to be doing (and loving yourselves, by the way!), while I'm getting over my massive grouchitude. So go there and smile and giggle and have a wonderful Friday night.

On Audience and My Navel

Oh my god. I had this excellent post and it all just vanished. Sigh. Damn it.
Anyway, let's try this again.
Jenny Crusie posted this (http://www.arghink.com/2012/02/09/blog-ramble/) today, and it's been making me think. It's been making me think a lot, actually.
You see, I am apparently running this blog all kinds of wrong. Instead of asking "Why would people want to read this?", I'm saying, "I have stuff I want to say." Now granted, I created this blog as a place for me to figure out what I want out of life, to try to achieve some direction and maturity before I turn 30, so it's mostly a lot of navel-gazing and me, me, me, me, me. But I have on occasion addressed other people's concerns about the tone of the blog, and then I addressed concerns that I thought my defense of the tone brought up. But for the most part, I'm just rambling away about something that's all about me and my pretty, pretty navel, and probably has zero affect or interest for anyone else.
Also, I never expected to attract huge numbers here. I knew that this was going to be for me, so I didn't think too many people would be too interested in what I had to say. (I'm actually shocked that I've heard from as many people as I have, and that all of them have been male.) I did try to keep it somewhat apolitical, because since this was a place for self-reflection, I didn't want to get into the kind of debates that political topics can become. I have no problem with them in other spaces, but I didn't feel like it was right for what I was trying to do here. See, not a lot of concern for my audience here. Sorry.
Anyway, I'm thinking about this more seriously than I may have before because I've been considering starting another blog -- one dedicated to reviewing books that I'm reading. And while Journey to Thirty is purely for me and my sorting myself out, I would want this reviewing site to be a little more inclusive to others, because I would like it to eventually do something for me... like show authors that I understand how stories work and that I could be paid to edit their e-books for them... So, for that project I need to think more about audience than I have been, and that's going to be an interesting thought experiment.
Anyway, I'm not starting it anytime soon, so I have plenty of time to try to work out all the kinks and to try to come at it from the right side, like Jenny suggests in her ramble.
Speaking of this blog and its purpose, I feel like it's really been doing some good. I feel like I'm starting to focus a little more clearly on what I want to do. I always knew I loved reading and writing, but I don't think I ever really understood just how much story meant to me. Now I know that I'm eventually going to write my novel, and the others floating in my head, regardless of what happens with them. They can get published or not, but I will write them because I must. I know that I am passionate about stories and I will defend them to the death, and talk about the books I've loved, and the books that fell down. So reviewing is looking really wonderful -- and it's something I've considered doing before, so it's not totally out of the blue. But all of these things are something that's going to happen because they are things I love doing. They can wind up being my career one day, or I can go to library school and become The Cataloging Goddess of All Time, which I would also enjoy, but I will still read and write and discuss books.
And for not even a month into this project, the fact that I found these truths out already is pretty exciting and encouraging. Who knows what else could happen?

Respect

Okay, so I got into a huge fight today with someone pretty important, a member of an extended family of sorts. This fight was about political stuff on Facebook.
Now, my general policy is that if someone posts something that I disagree with, I ignore it or mumble something under my breath. But I never, ever go on to someone's personal page and tell them that they're wrong, or anything like that. For the most part, they seem to do the same for me.
But there are a couple of people who feel the need to post sarcastic, antagonistic, or otherwise disrespectful comments on things that I post. I may argue with them for a bit, but for the most part, I try to ignore them because I feel like they're deliberately baiting me.
Today, a person attacked one of my friends because of a comment my friend had on a post of mine. And I couldn't take it. This person's comments lately had been increasingly anatognistic, and I was getting fed up. So I sent a message saying (to put it succinctly), "Listen, you can disagree with me all you want, but please don't come on my page and attack my beliefs or my friends. Please show me some respect." And this person started in on me how I was completely disrespecting America and a horrible person, and I didn't respect anyone else's opinion, and so on.
Now, this annoys me. Because clearly I do respect other people's opinions, as I never attack anyone else's posts. I have been sorely tempted, but I never do, because that's freaking rude.
Plus, the whole point of this country is that we have the ability, the responsibility even, to dissent when we feel our government is wrong. Look at the Declaration of Independence.
And the simple fact of the matter is, that during this contentious period of political history, everyone is dissenting. Everyone feels wronged by our government. Some people hate the things Obama has done, some people hate the things that the Congress has done or is trying to do, some people hate other things. That's the one commonality we all have, across all divisions of ideology, class, race, gender, and sexual orientation -- we all feel like we have been wronged by our government.
I don't mind having a conversation with someone of opposing beliefs. I have no problem with that at all, and have frequently found myself changing my mind about something due to something that they said. But the way to have a conversation is not to attack someone and say that they're stupid and wrong for believing what they do. That is disrespectful.
Needless to say, the fight with this particular person didn't end well. I don't know what the future holds. On one hand, I feel terrible that I kind of started this argument. But on the other hand, I feel good that I loved and respected myself enough to demand that I be treated well. That's big progress for me.
So, I welcome respectful discussions. Did I go too far? Did I mess up? Let me know. Respectfully, please.

My "Assvice" to the World : Love Yourself

I have a couple of friends going through some rough stuff, and I am giving them unsolicited advice.
I feel like a bit of an ass about it (on Lucy March's blog, she calls unsolicited advice assvice). I feel like I'm really trying to help. And I wonder if I'm in any position to be giving advice.
It's true that I have come an absurdly long way in terms of my self-esteem and all that, but what if my giving advice is like the blind leading the blind?
I really believe what I've been saying to them. I really believe that if you sit there and say, "I am awesome and I'm going to have great things happen to me," then great things will happen. I think that the universe sends you back whatever energy you're sending out to it. So if you're in a place where you don't think you deserve anything good, then a whole lot of not-good things are going to happen. I believe that. I've seen it work for me. I also believe that you have to demand that people treat you well. If you let them use you and walk over you, if you keep telling yourself that your needs aren't important (or you keep sending that message to the people in your life because you don't defend yourself), then people will continue to use you. They won't magically realize that they were wrong and that they should treat you better. You have to tell them that they're screwing up. You have to demand whatever it is that you need to be happy. If that's time to sit and read, then demand that.
But when you demand this, you don't have to be a jerk about it. You don't have to be like, "Hey, you've been walking all over me for years and I'm tired of it and here's how it's going to be." That's just going to start some epic argument about you. And maybe for a second you'll get some of that resentment out and you'll feel better, but I almost guarantee that it will go back to the old pattern because, at some point, there will be some amount of guilt about the fight (and there will be if you've been a doormat, I mean there's a reason why you're like that) and you'll wind up caving and going back to being a doormat. So don't even open the door for conversation. Just tell them, "Listen, I need an hour every night to be alone and do some things." When your user complains, just reiterate that fact. When they come in to bother you during your hour, say, "No. This is my time." Just no. No argument, no justificatication, just stand up for what you need.
Now, the problem is, that if the user is a real user, they will walk away. Because users want to use people. If they can't use you, then they'll find someone they can. But if the person loves and respects you, they will start to honor your needs. It may take some time, but they will. Because the thing of it is, they may be excited that you're starting to take care of yourself, that you're starting to respect and love yourself -- because, almost always, loving yourself means that your relationship will be easier. It's very hard to love someone who doesn't love themself.
So actually, my message to both of my friends is essentially the same. Love yourself. Put that love and respect for yourself out in the world and see what wonderful things come back to you. Bad things will probably still happen, because that's life, but I really, truly, honestly believe that the majority of the things will be good. And, hey, when the bad things happen, you know that you're solid. And sometimes that's all you need.
And you know what, even if I'm not totally there yet, I still think that's good advice, unsolicited assvice as it may be.

The Back Update and a Bit On Comfort Reading

So, my big neurosurgeon appointment was this morning. What a mess that was. For starters I got a little lost finding the place, which is not shocking and why I gave myself a ridiculous amount of time to get there this morning. Then I got there and there was ten pages of paperwork to fill out. Meanwhile, I got nervous, and more nervous, and more nervous, and more nervous, until I was shaking so hard I could hardly write and I was dripping with sweat. (Add to all of this, the pain from not taking any pills this weekend, and oh yeah, it was special.)
I went by myself because The Hubby was like, "Hey, I'm not going to have to be there, am I?" And I said, "Oh no, they're not going to do anything to me that day." So while I was having a mini-heart attack in the waiting room, and blowing up my husband's phone with texts about my sweat level and the fact I was pretty sure I was about to vomit, The Hubby said, "Hey I could be there in 35 minutes if you need me/think it'll be that long before you get in." And I said, "No, it's fine." Because I am an idiot.
By the time they took me back into the examination room, I was crying. Kind of a lot. The doctor walked in (who was not the neurosurgeon, but the PA, which I have learned means Physician's Assistant), and he was just kind of stunned by the fact that I was having a freakin' nervous breakdown. He was really nice though, he told me that he didn't bite and he had no needles, and I laughed a bit at that (because needles don't scare me, my dad and I celebrated my seventeenth birthdat by me giving blood, true story). So, I started to calm down a bit. We talked about my pain and how it hurts and where it hurts and all that jazz. Then he pulled up my MRI and walked me through the images, showing me how severely screwed up the major herniation is (and good lord, is it screwed up). He told me that physical therapy wouldn't really help me, and, in fact, could increase my pain. And then he walked me through my options for how to proceed. I can: 1) do nothing, 2) take painkillers and some steroid, 3) have epidural shots to control pain and inflammation, 4) have surgery.
So, he typed up his notes for a bit and I looked at the MRI image and thought about it. I started sweating and shaking again. And then I thought, basically, everything but surgery is pain management. Which is kind of like putting a Band-Aid on a broken bone. I don't want to be hooked on pain pills. I don't want to have depend on pain medication for the rest of my freaking life. I want to fix the freaking problem. So, that means surgery. And I told him that I wanted surgery.
And proceeded to hyperventilate. So, I now have an appointment on the 29th to discuss surgery with the neurosurgeon. Apparently I may be a candidate for minimally invasive surgery, which would be excellent, and would apparently just require shaving off the bulging parts. I will be up and walking by the next day and my recovery period will be: walk, rest, walk, rest, walk, rest. There's a 15% chance that my discs could herniate again. There's a chance that the surgery might not get rid of my pain. I'll never be able to lift more than 20 pounds again. But you know what, I'm okay with all of that. I've been dealing with this stupid back pain since 2005. It's time to get it fixed. (And hell, maybe if someone had taken me seriously back then, it would've never gotten this bad. Friggin' asshats.)
So. That's my plan.
In my "my head is spinning too fast to be able to think clearly" daze after the appointment, because, HOLY CRAP I'M HAVING BACK SURGERY, I bought a couple of books by an author I've recently discovered, Eloisa James. She writes historical romances, and a couple of them are revisions of fairy tales, which I love. The first one I read by her was When Beauty Tamed the Beast, which was a retelling of... Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? (Yeah, that was lame.) Anyway, you get it. But it was completely lovely. The beauty was Linnet, a stunningly beautiful young woman who has been completely ruined by a bad prawn, a frumpy dress, a flirtation with a prince, and her dead mother's reputation as a tramp. As her father and aunt are trying to fix the situation, because Linnet's really not pregnant, they find a duke, a bit obsessed with royalty, whose estranged only son is apparently... incapable... of having a family, due to an injured leg, not to mention a fiendish temper. His name is Piers and he's the beast. He's also an amazingly brilliant doctor, and fashioned a bit on the character of House. (Except he's not an addict, yet. There's a temptation to numb his pain with laudanum, but he hasn't succumbed yet.)
So, the duke, supposedly desperate to see any heir in the family, agrees to set Linnet up with his son, and takes her to the castle in Wales where Piers has set up a hospital. And sparks fly. As do tempers. It's wonderful to read Linnet and Piers going back and forth on each other, because Linnet's no dummy and can give all his venom right back to him. There's one glaring possible historical inaccuracy, but I don't even care, because it's a truly wonderful plot point that gets them alone together. The sex scenes are fabulous. The damages they both carry from their parents is fabulous.
But lemme tell ya, that's not why I love this book. Why do I love this book? Because some crazy bad scarlet fever breaks out, and Piers kicks everyone out of the house so he can tend his patients. He says some terrible things to Linnet to get her to, not just leave the castle, but to leave him. We know he loves her, he knows he loves her, he knows that she loves him, but he doesn't think he should have her -- because his father was an addict, and Piers is really, desperately afraid of becoming his father, and with his injury, the temptation is always there. So, he kicks her out, and she leaves.
Piers saves all of his patients, and is seriously regretting sending Linnet off, so he's thinking of going to London to bring her back and make all better. But he's been having these dreams about Linnet that have been nagging at him. And then suddenly, he realizes that there is a damn good chance that Linnet may have been infected with scarlet fever before he kicked her out, and then he goes searching for her. He finds her in a coma, dehydrated, covered with the sores and rash of the fever and very, very close to dead in a chicken coop. That whole description of what he does to save her, how hard it is for him to see her that way, how hard it is for him to do the things he needs to do to save her, because of his leg, is freakin' heartbreaking. I think I've read the book three times now, and I still sob like a freaking baby all throughout that part. It is so gorgeous, and sad, and just shows how desperately he loves this woman. It's wonderful, wonderful stuff.
Anyway, the point of this is that that's the book, when I was scared to death last night of my appointment, and I hurt, and I couldn't sleep, I turned to that book, specifically to that scene in that book, because watching him fight so damn hard to save her, when he can barely carry a bucket of water up the stairs by himself, is such a wonderful, beautiful thing. It's comfort.
And I love that so much about stories, that they can give you that. That they can make you cry, but you're so happy that you don't even notice that you're crying. That they can give you safe space for you to go when you need to, that you can get a bit of peace for a moment, so that you can finally get a couple of hours of sleep.

Musings during the Super Bowl

So, I've been as bitchy as I feared I would be today without my painkillers. Thank goodness the neurosurgeon appointment is early tomorrow. (By the way, total yay for that!)
I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the game tonight -- I really don't care about football -- but I do kind of hope that the Patriots win, but to be honest I wouldn't be upset if they didn't. I enjoyed Madonna. I've enjoyed the commercials. I finished Frederica, which was the absolute most adorable story ever written. Which I'm pretty sure I declared loudly and at length to The Hubby several times.
The Hubby took me shopping for a bit today, because my absolute favorite, completely beloved boots officially fell apart. So he bought me new boots. 'Cause he's a sweetheart. And then I finished the chocolate and peanut butter ice cream he bought me it yesterday, because he's a sweetheart.
Kind of looking forward to The Voice. I hate American Idol because too much of it is focused on being negative to people and making fun of people who obviously can't sing, but the worst singers on the The Voice are just average, y'know? Nobody ever sucks. Hopefully this year I can keep myself in perspective and not get all pissy and wish I could audition for it or anything (which I really couldn't, you know. I'm not that good. I'm decent, but I'm not amazing).
I'm debating on trying to start the new Jeffrey Eugenides book I checked out from the library -- The Marriage Plot -- because it looks interesting, but I've been hesitating for some reason. I guess we'll see. It's been staring at me from the top of my book shelf for awhile, so the guilt of not reading it is starting to get to me.
I've been thinking about, depending what the neurosurgeon says, starting to do some water walking. I'm just vain and shallow enough to worry about looking like an old lady, though. But apparently it's amazing exercise, and there's not a lot I can do with my back, so if the water walking would be helpful, then that's what I'll do. The chubbiness must die. (Well, that's not really my primary motivation. I want my back to get stronger. But it would be a nice side effect. Like cake for icing.) But all of that is really dependent on this appointment tomorrow, and I'm really not certain how I want it to go. The Hubby wants surgery -- let's get it fixed and get it done. The parents don't want surgery because surgery should always be the last resort. I see the pros and cons of both sides a little too clearly, so I just want someone to decide for me and then tell me what to do. Which I guess is what tomorrow will be.
Anyway. Yeah, I'm just rambling. I'm kind of nervous, I guess, but I don't really know what I'm nervous for. I guess we'll see.

Nothing Serious

I'm a little worn out by all the whining I've done about my past the last couple of days, so I'm steering clear of those kinds of discussions for awhile. I will just say that although my past has been problematic, although I may come off as a man-hater and a victim, I am most certainly not. At least, not anymore. I couldn't even tell you when it all changed, or how it all changed. I know that sometime after I stopped taking anti-depressant medications and stopping seeing therapists, I started reading, almost exclusively, romance novels. I branched out from Jennifer Crusie and found other authors and subgenres that I enjoyed. And I think that I was affected by those stories the same way Jennifer Crusie was when she first started reading romances -- that here were these positive stories of women working hard to find happiness. And even though I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, suddenly reading became my therapy; stories became my medication.
And suddenly I was happy, but it was a sustained completely goofy happiness. I have been known to bunny-hop across the apartment just for giggles. The Hubby and I went to get our taxes done last night. He "fake stole" a peppermint and I wrote on him, and the chick doing our taxes stopped suggesting that we get some "dependents" so we could get a bigger refund. :)
Right now I'm reading Frederica, by Georgette Heyer, and it is so adorable. It's a Regency romance, and I have always maintained a disdainful distance from historical romances because usually they involve things so improbable as to border on ridiculous, or what the SmartBitches call the "Old Skool Romance" hero, who is generally an asshole who must be redeemed. Since we all know I how much I hate men, I am not a fan of that kind of hero. (Dripping sarcasm, by the way -- although I don't like the rapey asshole heroes, they annoy me for some reason.) Anyway, I've found a few historical romances that have been absolutely incredible. I've heard so many references to Heyer lately, that I decided to bite the bullet and try her out. Oh my god. SO cute. Take one something by Jane Austen and throw in the most hilarious and ridiculous set of accidents, and that's Frederica. The heroine is smart and funny and sharp. She thinks she's too old to be a suitable marriage partner for anyone, but wants to push her younger sister (a stunning beauty, but not a whole lot going on upstairs) into society. And the hero is this supremely bored, too rich for his own good, sardonic, sharp guy who is convinced to help, and to watch him fall under the spell of the family, to not be bored, but to try to do the right thing for everybody, and to watch him slowly realize he's in love with Frederica.. *sigh* It's just too, too wonderful. I am totally in love. And they do the things that Jenny Crusie and Lani Diane Rich determined were necessary to establish a good romance -- they work together (there's a completely hysterical scene where they just kind of improv with each other, which reminds me of It Happened One Night), they have great dialogue, and you can tell that they really care about each other, and it's so fabulous. So much squee.
Anyway, romance is fabulous. Haha.
Also, I'm going painkiller free this weekend, because the big meeting with the neurosurgeon is on Monday, and we want to have the decision based on all the facts. So, I may become extremely bitchy by tomorrow. That may be why The Hubby went out and got me peanut butter and chocolate ice cream of his own free will. Haha. That's a smart man. I'm very lucky.
Okay, I'm going to go back to my extremely happy-inducing book and to the UFC event we decided to buy.
Here is the transcript of a Three Goddess chat on romantic comedy, where they discuss everything they learned from their review of romantic comedy films on Popcorn Dialogues: http://lucymarch.com/?p=6066. It's awesome. You will learn much.

A Very Rambly Attempt to Correct Some Potential Misinformation

So, I wanted to follow up on some stuff I said yesterday, because I had a lot of ideas swirling and I don't entirely know how much sense I made. I rattled off a list of terrible things that men have done to me over the years. All of that is true, but that's not the whole truth. Some of those things happened because of me, because it was something I asked for. Let me explain.
I hated myself. I thought I was unworthy of anything good. I thought I was fat, ugly, melodramatic, and horrible in every way. I wanted to kill myself more times than I would like to think about.
And I think that when you are so mired in that self-hatred, you attract people around who validate your beliefs. I was a horrible person, so I dated people who treated me horribly.
Even the rape I kind of blame on myself. It wasn't a terribly violent thing, so everyone envisioning me getting grabbed and dragged into an alley can get that out of your head. I was on a date with a guy I didn't know particularly well. I'd met him a couple of times at the record store I worked at -- he was a customer -- and then one day our flirting got a little intense, and I gave him my number. We went to dinner -- where he super-obnoxiously flirted with the waitress and then demanded to know if I was jealous. Then we went to the movies, and he didn't have enough money for my ticket, so I bought it, but I didn't have enough money to buy Skittles. I always have Skittles at the movie theater. This is was the only time I didn't have Skittles. I have never not had Skittles again. I've decided it's some kind of good luck charm. Anyway, the movie was good -- 28 Days Later -- which I loved because it showed that it wasn't the monsters that were dangerous, it was people. Great, great stuff. The guy was crazy annoying, so we were walking around town and I had already decided I was over him and I was going home and never talking to him again. And we magically wound up at his house, and he asked me if I wanted to come in. I decided I would because I really had to use the bathroom. And then he basically threw me down. I pushed at him and kept saying no, and he just... plowed ahead. And a funny thing happened. My brain just totally shut down. *Caution: Gross Stuff Ahead.* I was on my period, and I had a tampon in, and he... entered anyway. So while he was going to town, in my head there was this very clinical, detached voice saying, "Wow. I hope I can get this thing out myself, otherwise I'm going to have to tell my dad and he's going to have to take me to the hospital, and then he'll have to know that I had sex." It was odd. And then he was done, and I got up and went home. And he came by the record store the next day and said something completely unrepeatable and I never saw him again. Thank heaven.
One time I was talking about it in therapy (with one of a string of therapists I've seen over the years), and I explained the whole incident and the therapist told me that that kind of detachment during a rape is really common.
Anyway, the point is, I blamed myself for years that it had happened. I would totally freak out if any of my friends ever blamed themselves for getting raped, but I blamed myself. "If only I had never gone into his house..." and so on. I don't blame myself that way. I do blame myself in the way that my negative, I-hate-myself energy attracted someone who wanted to feed on that. He validated my belief that I was unworthy of a loving relationship, that I was someone that I should hate.
And I think that's why a lot of the bad things that happened to me happened.
And, just for full disclosure, I've done some really terrible things to men. I regret that I've done them, but those are the facts. I usually wound up hurting one of the few good guys I would find, who defied my I-hate-myself energy, so I had to hurt them, to destroy the relationship, so that, once again, I could validate my belief that I was a horrible person.
However, mine is a rather extreme example.
I do not and will never believe that other rape victims were "asking for it." A person's clothing is not indicative of their consent to sex. Ever. I'm tired of hearing that. A person's sexual history is not relevant in determining whether or not they were raped. Just because they've given their consent before, doesn't mean they did during this instance. Argh. Rage, rage, rage.
I explain the high school torture with.. well, those guys were just dickwads. I'm still annoyed by that. But it got so ridiculous that I decided to just have fun with their crap. They thought I dressed weird? I was going to dress weirder than they ever imagined. (I distinctly remembered a polyester Mrs. Partridge-eque dress, fishnets, leg warmers, Doc Martens, four completely different earrings and like twenty necklaces.) They thought I was a lesbian? Then I'd sing Ani DiFranco songs at the talent show. I'd get down on one knee and ask my female friend to one of the dances. I bought a guy a corsage. The hell with them. But they did make life extremely miserable. Although it was odd kind of miserable. I was used to it. When I switched schools, I was scared. I was going to a private school -- a private, boarding school -- and my mom worked there, so she squelched my weird clothes so she wouldn't look bad. And there, basically no one paid the slightest bit of attention to me. It took me quite a while to make friends because I was just ignored. But eventually I met some seriously awesome ladies and my senior year was awesome -- for the most part, I made a really big mistake at one point and almost lost all of my friends -- and I'm really thankful that I got to go there.
But I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed at my first high school sometimes. Would I have eventually broke under the pressure of those guys' bullying? Or would I have continued to try to defy them and show that they couldn't get to me? I don't know. But it's interesting to think about.
Anyway. Wow, this is a rambling mess. Oh well. Yay blogging!
Oh, right. About my parents. I know I said yesterday that my mom is the result of my having such poor self-esteem, but I feel really terrible about that. Yes, she said those things. But she said it from a place of trying to help. She loves me tons, and I know that. She and my dad were just very, very young when they had me, and they did the best they could. One time in therapy (a different therapist than the one discussed above), my therapist told me I could be mad at my mom and my dad (who used to be kind of controlling and kind of judgmental). That it was totally okay to be mad at them. But I can't. Because it's simply not fair to be mad at them. They were infants, for heaven's sake. They didn't know what they were doing and they really did the best that they could, and I know that. I can point to certain things and say, "Well, I wish that had happened differently," but I can't be mad at them. I love them both dearly and I'm very glad that I have them for parents. I have great relationships with both of them and I am super thankful for that.
Was there anything else? Oh, I'm sure there was, but that will have to do for now.
I promise tomorrow I'll write something less melodramatic. Thanks for hanging in there.

A Defense. Or, I Swear I Don't Hate Men

Okay, what I'm about to discuss has been swirling around my head all day, so I have a lot, a lot of thoughts and most of them are not really organized. So, when this starts to ramble, please just hang in there. I have a point.
(deep breath.)
So, it has been brought to my attention that my "central theme" on here seems to be that I hate men. I've had the Fem-Nazi, man-hater epithets thrown my way before, but this was the first time I ever took the phrase seriously. This is because the friend who told me about it told me to brace myself before he said it, because he knew I wasn't going to like hearing it, because he knows that I don't actually hate men.
So I did a little reading on here in the wee hours of the morning and while I never say "All men are scum who should be sent to a fiery death," I say things like "Women suffer under a lot of shoulds" and "The romance genre is ridiculed because its created by and for women and promotes a healthy female sexuality," which could be read, especially by someone who's read my more virulent Facebook posts, as "This happens because all men are scum and should be sent to a fiery death." And therefore, I find myself at a weird point. I certainly don't hate Men, but I certainly don't want to be one of those male apologists who thinks Eve Ensler is the devil. So, what to do? Well, this is my best attempt to clarify my position on feminism, men, and why I write about women's issues the way that I do.
I am a feminist. I am not ashamed of the descriptor. I don't think that the word translates to "some crazy woman who doesn't shave, thinks all men are the devil, and saves her menstrual blood in a jar in the fridge." Nope. I am a feminist because, quite simply, I believe in women's rights. I believe a woman should have every right a man has. I believe that the presence or absence of a Y chromosome has nothing to do with what a person can achieve in this world. I idolized Susan B. Anthony as a second grader. When I found out who Gloria Steinem is, I idolized her. When I found out that I am extremely distantly related to Lucy Stone, another first wave feminist leader, I was ecstatic.
But look at me. I wear makeup and I love it. I'm married, and I even took my husband's name (although, to be honest, I was planning on hyphenating and then wrote "just Moore" at the last minute -- I do like it though, it sounds very literary). I am not your stereotypical "bra-burner."
Because I love men. I really do. I love all humanity (just not when I'm driving).
There have been a few men who have done some seriously shitty things to me. I've been raped, I've been hit because I wouldn't have sex, I've been treated like a whore, I've been mocked and harrassed and told that I wasn't pretty enough to date, or that I was pretty only so long as I was thought to be sexually available to them, and then I was a bitch and so have you. I have a complex about never being good enough because of how some men in my life treated me. There were a group of guys in my first high school who decided for some reason that I was a lesbian and made my life a living hell for two years, until I switched schools. And so on.
But just like I think it's wrong to judge one ethnic or religious group by the actions of a few people, I don't judge all Men and say that they're all rapists or abusers. I know that that's not right. There are a ton of men in the world who would never think of raping someone, who would never think of hitting their girlfriend, wife, or lover. I know that.
And let's face it, men don't have a monopoly on misogyny. Not by a long shot. Some of the most hateful, horrible, vitriol-spewing women-haters in the world are women. Phyllis Schafly, I'm looking at you.
In fact, god love her, my whole complex about being too fat and not pretty came from some well-intentioned but poorly executed statements from my mom. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to take ballet, and she told me I was too big for ballet. She meant tall because she thought dancers were short, but my brain took "too big" and made it into "too fat," and I've had a complicated relationship with my weight and food ever since. When I was ten, I told her I wanted to be an actress and a writer. And she asked, "Wouldn't it be better if you were a writer? Something that didn't focus on your appearance." Now, my mom loves me and my brother more than anything in the world. She never meant to imply that I wasn't pretty. What she was hoping for, was that I wouldn't caught up into caring about my looks and deriving all of my self-worth from appearance. But my brain said that she meant I wasn't pretty, and then the universe seemed to hammer that message home for years, and of course, I became obsessed with how I looked.
Women have done terrible things to women. Women have done terrible things to men. That is true. A wealthy white woman in the antebellum period definitely had it better than a black man. But a black man had it better than a black woman. And the white woman was still basically property, in a lot of instances.
Race, class, and gender all intersect and someone's experience isn't limited to just one of those factors. So, when I post things about women having a rough time, I never mean to imply that all women have it worse than all men all of the time. Not in the slightest. My world is seen through a lens of a roughly middle class, college-educated white girl. I don't always describe it in those terms, because that's a lot of descriptors to put on something, but I generalize and speak in broad strokes about the female experience, as I have seen and felt it to be.
So when I talk about all the shoulds placed on women, I don't mean to imply that there isn't a list a mile long of shoulds for men. There is. Definitely. And in a weird way, I think it's harder for men sometimes, because while the expectations of what women should be have been largely consistent through the years, the expectations for men are constantly shifting :
A man should be a "manly man" who has no feelings, drinks whiskey and eats red meat for every meal, as raw as possible because he's a Man. A man can't be a singer and dancer and not be thought "less than a man" (which does double-duty as also a horrible insult to gay men). A man can write poetry about daffodils. Real men don't write poetry. Men should be concerned about their appearance. Men should roll around in dirt all day.
And so on and so forth. It's ridiculous, really.
So, why didn't I acknowledge the shoulds placed on men? Well, for starters, I never imagined more than one guy would ever read my blog, and the one that I knew was reading it knows that I'm a feminist and that's how I see the world. Also, I'm not a man. I can comment on what I see portrayed on TV and say that men are getting the same ridiculous body-image messages women have been getting for years. I can say that all these Superman truck ads, and the Dr. Pepper 10 ad, are all serving this image that a "real man" is an action hero, and, above all Not Female, and that is a very limited view of masculinity and misogynistic at the same time. But, since I am not a man, I don't feel those pressures every day. I don't know what those standards do a man's sense of self worth. I'm a woman, so I talk about how women feel. And I don't even talk about how all women feel. Just what I've seen and experienced.
So. There. I don't hate men. How'd I do?

Completely blank

I've been sitting here staring at this screen for twenty minutes, should-ing all over the place. I should have something interesting to write about. I should be able to write about something interesting. I should, I should, I should, I should. Blegh to doing that again.
And it's not working anyway. My brain is a blissfully blank of anything to do with my life. I want to read the Georgette Heyer novel I recently bought (my first Heyer, who is, apparently, a goddess in the romance genre, everyone talks about her). I want to eat something that requires extremely minimal effort and I want to go to sleep. (Yes, even though a good friend brought me some seriously insane coffee at 2ish today.) That's pretty much all I'm thinking about. (Well, that, and some seriously pissed off reflections on political stuff, but this is not the place for that, and I'm trying to stop thinking about those things because rage makes my back get all stiff.)
So, I'm going cop out today and direct you to Will Write for Wine (http://www.willwriteforwine.com/) and tell you listen to some of their podcasts. They're a few years old, so all the stuff about the wine is probably not relevant anymore, but all of the writing information is still wonderful. I listen to these podcasts at work and I've learned a freaking ton, and the writer improvs are always hilarious. So, go, listen and enjoy. I'm going to stop should-ing and start sleeping.