27 posts from 2007

Congratulations Mr. Gore! If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right.  

Luciano Pavarotti has died and we may never see his like again. If there is a Heaven, he is surely there, outshining the angels. Godspeed, Maestro, and thank you.

Dr. Pepper, O Dr. Pepper,
O Sweet nectar of life,
How thou dost tempt and beguile me
With thine complexities, Divine.
My shame, my love,
My angel, my demon.
My drink.

There is a ghost in my house, mostly in the kitchen. We think the ghost came with the house, and there are limited possibilities as to our ghost's identity. My house is a mid-century modern, flat-roofed model a la Eichler (but designed by a local architect named Donald Honn) built in 1955. We are only the third owners I believe. We bought the home from a widow lady, and have always supposed that the ghost may have been her husband.
From the time we moved in to this very day, we have heard our ghost in the kitchen. But we never hear him when we are in there, we always hear the noises from the kitchen when were are sitting at the dining table or watching TV in the den. The noises are not associated with the stove, fridge, or dishwasher; but we have never been able to tell exactly what causes them. So, we just smile and say "Kitchen ghost!"
My husband and I have also both seen things that are odd. No apparitions or ectoplasm, nothing "Ghostbusters" or anything, just odd things. Like things seen out of the corner of the eye, when you think someone is standing right there and you turn to look and no one is there. More times than I can count, I'll see movement and think Hubby has poked his head into the room but he will be back in the bedroom and the kids will be sound asleep. He has the same experiences and thinks that I am looking in on him.
I don't scare easily and I'm not superstitious; and I'm not going to go all New-Agey and start yelling "Go to the light!" If my ghost wants to stick around it's ok by me, after all it's "lived" here longer than we have. But I did have to have a talk with the ghost this morning about some things that have happened the last couple of days.
Last night while I was getting new school clothes ready for the laundry, something came into the den. I was standing facing the fireplace when a little white column of vapor floated in front of me. I saw it enter the den through the doorway, float in column form to a stop right in front of me. The base of the column was wispy and hovered above the floor about 6 inches; the top was rounder and "stood" about 4 feet tall. It stayed stationary in front of me, and as I stared in surprise, just vanished gently away. I shrugged and said aloud, "Huh, the ghost is pretty active tonight." Told you, I don't scare easily.
This morning after my husband left something else happened. Every morning I iron a shirt for him then put the iron on a silicone hot pad on the kitchen counter facing the wall so I don't accidentally get burned, then I lock the baby gate behind me when I leave. Hubby had already left for work and the kids and I were watching "Yogi Bear" when I heard a noise in the kitchen. Just a small thud, no loud clattering, no crashing. Both kids were with me, so I didn't worry too much. Later, I walked into the kitchen for a drink and found my iron face-down on the floor. Now, I had set the iron firmly on the counter away from the edge and a drawer was open right under the spot. To fall to the floor, the iron would've had to bounce off the open drawer, making a terrible noise all the way down. But that's not what happened. The iron looked for all the world like it had been set on the floor. While it was still warm, no less. It stuck to the linoleum when I picked it up, luckily the floor wasn't damaged. I called my husband to confirm that he hadn't knocked it the floor, he hadn't.
So I talked directly to my ghost. I told him he was welcome to stay (does he or she even have meaning when discussing ghosts?), after all, he had been here longer than we had, I wouldn't try to make him go to the light, but  please, just don't scare the children.
This is not going to set me off on some mad search to "find" my ghost; I will NOT be having any seances and I don't own a Ouija board. To me, having a ghost is part of the charm of living in a 50-year old house.

My main blog, Tales From The Burning Prairie, has recently seen a plague of spam. Among the body-building, dog-training, and male-enhancing spam, I noticed several that were apparently written by Janosz Poha. I didn't think about preserving these most excellent examples of Engrish, and am now regretting my haste in unloading them.

To make up for these lost gems, I am starting a contest for comments left for my main blog. Today is August 1st and the contest will run the entire month. The rules are simple: go to my site-Tales From The Burning Prairie, choose any story, read it and leave a relevant comment written in Engrish.

I reserve the right to approve or disapprove based on content. Judging will commence September 1 and the results will be announced no later than September 15, 2007. The winner will be announced on Twitter, Vox, and my main blog. The winning entry will be published in its very own blog post, here on Vox and on Tales From The Burning Prairie. Other than my sincere thanks and a sense of accomplishment, the only prize will be the sure knowledge that you have injected a little humor into an all-too-humorless world.

Good Luck! Make me laugh! 

I just finished ready my August Allure cover to cover. It is the only fashion magazine I subscribe to, although I am not above sneaking a guilty peek at Cosmo in the waiting room, mind you. But that is not a magazine I would want anyone to see at my house; I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong ideas about me, that's also the reason I don't take Good Housekeeping. Must be my upbringing; you can take the girl out of the Baptist Church, but you can't take the baptist out of the girl, it is my other curse. I like reading about hair styles, makeup, perfume, fashion, shoes they don't make in my size; I just don't want to have to wade through something titled, "75 Things to do with your toes that drive men wild", or the like.  Hey, if you like that kind of thing it's fine, but I don't think men ever even notice our feet unless we make them look at our shoes. I don't even mind the articles about diets and cosmetic procedures.
But this month's issue seemed laser-focused on the only two aspects of my appearance I give more than 2 seconds to-hairstyle and lipstick.

These two things, hairstyles and lipstick, are so iconic, so entrenched, so utterly feminine that they refuse to be usurped by ideas about mere gender equality. In fact, I see nothing incongruous about beauty and feminism. Not that we should all strive to conform ourselves to someone else's perception of beauty, but it is when we slip below our own personal threshold of beauty that we falter. Years before she became an oncology nurse, my mother gave me a valuable piece of advice for when I am sick: get up and take a shower everyday even if you can't manage anything else. I have always done just that, even after surgery, even after two C-sections, even when Mom had to watch the baby just so I could take that shower. And you know what, I always felt better afterwards. There are studies and organizations dedicated to helping women cope with chemotherapy with the power of makeup. Before you scoff at the idea, ladies, try this the next time you have a baby, or the flu, whatever-shower or at least wash your hair, fix your hair (at least comb it), and apply lipstick. It won't magically make you all better, but it will lift your spirits.

Lipstick is about the only makeup I really care about. I'm so pale (or pasty) that most foundations make me look like I'm wearing a Kabuki mask; I wear dark-rimmed glasses so eyeshadow is pointless; my eyes are sensitive so mascara is impossible (yes, I know, I've tried them all). The more I wear, the worse I look, so I have stuck to the KISS rule: keep it simple, sister (not Gene Simmons). Tinted moisturizer, single swipe of eyeliner pencil (if at all), and lipstick. I recently added a blush to my meager arsenal-Nars Orgasm, naturally. Ah, but the lipstick, always the lipstick. Never leave home without two tubes in my purse. And I am promiscuous with lipstick, I will try just about any color, any texture. There are about a dozen in my bathroom drawer right now. There are even tests based on the shape of your favorite lipstick that are supposed to indicate personality traits. Lipstick is like a makeover in one little tube. Oh, I include lip glosses and tinted lip balm, too, just as long as it colors the lips. And I don't care if Cleopatra or Parisian prostitutes invented it-if lipstick can make me feel attractive on my fattest days, then it is heaven-sent.

Hair is a different kind of story for me. If you could line up pictures of every single hair style I have worn, well be glad you can't, the number would scare you. When I was a little girl in the 70's, I had long, glossy, stick-straight copper-brown hair. My father loved it, my mother despised it. She wanted a girl with curls and my hair just would not cooperate. Mother wore, and still does, a classic 50's poodle cut, processed to within an inch of its life. She has always waged an epic battle against the natural state of her hair, whatever it might be, I've never seen it. When I was 9, she drafted me into the Hair Wars. She bullied me into getting a tragedy known as the Wedge or the Dorothy Hamil (sorry Dorothy). My father hated it, he liked long hair on girls (as evidenced by his long-standing crush on Cher), especially on his girls. I hated it so much that I dug in my heels and refused further hair cuts until 7th grade. My punishment for going AWOL at the Hair Wars? Toni home perms. To this day the smell of perm solution makes me want to hide under my bed.

Body waves, that what she called them. Maybe she thought she was putting them on her own head instead of mine, because my hair did NOT need any more body!!! Since adolescence, I have been graced with a super-abundance of hair on my head. Now brown, it is thick, heavy, medium-to-coarse, and lots of it. Body waves were like gasoline on a wildfire, not a good idea. Then she told the hairdresser to cut my hair to chin-length. Let that sink in for a moment. Massive quantities of hair unnaturally pumped up with home perms, loosed from the weight that held it somewhat in place, exploded like a pyroclastic cloud. It was a painful time for me and my hair. After several more missteps, it all had to go. Pat, my new hairdresser, loved me. I was up for anything. She'd go to hair shows and come back with wild ideas that she tried on my head; I would draw pictures of haircuts I couldn't find in magazines; good times.

But my real hair story is the long and short of it, literally. My hair looks its best very long or very short. After reflection, I have noticed that I cycle between the two lengths for a limited number of reasons. Hairstyles always say something fundamental about the person wearing them, especially women. Even if that something is "I don't want to look like I care what you think (but I really do)". In high school, most other girls had big 80's hair and I was rebelling against that with my very short hair. After high school, I grew my hair to my waste as a statement of femininity and sensuality to aid me in my search for appropriate male companionship (I did not think this at the time), I wore my hair long for several years into my marriage. Then I began a stressful job and in the midst of that stress, I cut off all my hair to regain control over at least that part of my life. I left that job; and my husband and I began trying in earnest to have a child. I grew my hair long during the course of my fertility treatments and resultant pregnancy, relishing the thicker hair pregnancy can bring. After our son's birth, much of that "extra" hair began to fall out and I wore my still long, scraggly hair in braids or ponytails.

Two years later, I was pregnant again. That time I suffered constant morning sickness for 6 months, all the while dealing with a two year old. My life felt like it was spinning out of control and my body felt like it had been invaded by a malevolent alien. My hair refused to regain its luster and thickness; my ponytail hung like a dead snake down my back; I felt hideous. One day, at the grocery store, I saw a graceful-looking woman with extremely short hair and knew my fate, or rather, my hair's fate. I made the appointment and my hair meet its doom on the beauty parlor floor. It is now pixie-short and worry-free, one thing under control in an out-of-control life. And my husband thinks my hair is cuter  this way. Maybe closer to menopause, when I need to feel ultra-feminine again, I'll grow my hair again. But for now, with two small children, what I need is the time that my hairstyle frees up. And feeling cuter doesn't hurt.

My last post was about freaky fundie swimwear, which inspired me to research other types of "modest" apparel. I have hit the jackpot: there are numerous online resources for various types of modest clothing. There are websites for modest Mormon girls and observant Jewish women, these offer stylish options that conform to their respective guidelines. I'm an Ex-baptist, so my knowledge is pretty thin about Judaism, I understand what Kosher food entails, but could someone comment on what a "kosher neckline" might be? The skirts and shirts and dresses on these sites looked just like clothes you might see at any mall in middle America, only with longer lengths and no cleavage. I even found some websites for clothing for Muslim women, offering beautifully styled and embellished yet fully-covering outfits.

This is a pretty comprehensive list of websites for those interested in doing their own snooping. But I won't make you do all the work, I have found my favorites to share with you. Daddy's Little Princess and The King's Daughters, along with too many others, offer a fine selection of calico bags for women and girls, suitable for shielding poor innocent males from the horror of having to actually see a female form. I'll agree that some of the dresses for little girls are cute and that I myself am not given to parading my flesh for everyone to see, but come on! There is a fine distinction between modesty and shame. Look, if you want to be modest for modesty's sake, fine. Not everyone is comfortable with letting their breasts and nether regions show to the whole world, or tummies, or thighs, or bottoms, or thick ankles, or wobbly upper arms. And I get modesty as part of your religious beliefs, but I don't like or agree with the way the Christian Fundies handle modesty. To these people, personal modesty for women is not to benefit the women per se, it is to not be  "stumbling blocks" to their weak-as-water males and to keep women properly in their places. The woman's spiritual beliefs play little part.

Lest you think that I couldn't possibly know what I am talking about, here's my cred: I was "born in church" meaning I attended from infancy, raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, and constantly bombarded with messages that women were 2nd class submissives, women were weak and unworthy and not allowed to speak in church without permission (?!), and that premarital sex was the same as adultery, I had a youth pastor who thought short hair on women was tantamount to satanism; the same guy informed the boys (in front of the girls) that girls were wicked and wanted to lure them into back-seat nookie (my wording) only to cry "rape" and ruin the boys' lives forever. I got screamed at during a lock-in for dressing punk, was assaulted with two other friends at a Christian music venue for dressing punk (it was the 80's), and was busted at church camp for wearing a dress 2 inches too short. I know, intimately, how these people operate and how they think still, because I still have family in that church. I fortunately was able to deprogram myself so I have a unique insight into this subculture.

So there's the whole "stumbling block" women-are-evil-temptresses-out-to-seduce-squishy-virginal-males thing, and then there's the "wives submit yourselves" aspect. As this rather poisonous doctrine became ever more prevalent in the church, I realized that I would NEVER marry a baptist, because I submit to no one, husband or not. Here's where the cotton bag-dresses come into play: husband treats wife like property, husband realizes normal men don't do this, husband begins to fear normal men, husband makes wife wear shapeless ankle-length bag so no normal men will look at her, because if normal men look at her one of them may begin to desire her. Now, husband is terrified of losing his property because, you see, he has never felt truly secure as a man or even as a human being and cannot trust his wife to love him and remain faithful to him, so he has to rigidly control her at all times, in every particular. This is known as Christian Domestic Discipline, thanks to Atheist In A Minivan for alerting me to this, um, aberration. Which leads me to the Fundie equivalent of Frederick's of Hollywood, or more profanely-Jesus panties. I especially was repulsed by enjoyed the day dresses. These seem perfectly designed to make grown women look like little girls. Freaks. The BDSM crowd is freaked out by these people and that's pretty extreme.

I'm not saying that all of these people are in master/servant type relationships-sure there have got to be women willing to submit and sublimate themselves to their husbands and wear those calico shrouds, but why? Let's turn that around shall we. The husbands of these poor women probably believe they are in fair and loving marriages, while secretly thinking that they got a pretty sweet deal, but would they think it was so fair if they had to be on the submissive end of the spectrum. I didn't find very many, ok only one, site that even mentioned modest clothing of any kind for men. I guess they just don't think that women look at other men lustfully or maybe they realize that controlling women down to their very undergarments means that they never have to learn to control themselves. I'm just sayin'.

While looking online for boardshorts and rash guards as jiggly-bits-concealing swimwear, I ran across this perplexing website. Everything the Christian Taliban girl could want (?) in swimwear. You know, I grew up Southern Baptist, which has always been ultra-conservative in odd areas (dancing anyone?), and I'm not saying this is a good thing, but our swimming was just gender-segregated. Which did absolutely nothing to discourage standing at the fence and gawking at the dripping wet opposite-gender types. While the Falls Creek folks had injunctions against bikinis, they didn't expect us to cover ourselves from neck to knees in the pool! Apparently these folks have forgotten the first rule of Victoriana: you sexualize that which you take great pains to conceal. The sight of a well-turned ankle could send a proper Victorian gentleman into paroxysms of desire, because they were usually hidden under voluminous skirts, petticoats, stockings and high-button shoes. Is it really any wonder that Victorian England produced Jack the Ripper? Now, I'm not in favor of gratuitous displays of body parts usually covered by underwear, but I just don't think that wearing a traditional one-peice bathing suit will damn the wearer or anyone who sees it to perversion and then eventual death and an eternity spent in hell. And another thing, if you are afraid that males exposed to female flesh will lose control and go on some kind of rapacious tear, instead of covering the women, teach the males some freaking control! According to that kind of twisted logic, anyone who drives a nice car is "asking for it" it this time meaning grand theft auto.  Fundies of any stripe need to grow up and stop using women as scapegoats!

Or as I like to call it, my life. I had to go shoe shopping today. Now, I know what you're thinking, yeah right, she had to go shoe shopping, but I did. Really. My black sandals just would not last one more day and I was disappointed; I only got three full summers out of those shoes! I guess that's pretty good, I wore them almost every day. I don't have a lot of shoes, not because I don't want a nice, full, versatile shoe wardrobe, but because I can't find that many shoes. In my size. 5. Narrow. 5 narrow is my official, last-time-I-had-them-measured, size. This has drawn some rather interesting reactions from shoe salespeople. There was the snooty but statuesque saleslady who looked down at me from her impossible height and said, "I don't think we have anything in your size." She couldn't have sounded more offended if I had asked her for shoes made of poop. So I had to look elsewhere for my little poop shoes. She suggested the children's department. And then there was the young man who got a big giggle from my miniscule feet. After my son, I went to have my feet measured anew. You see, I had read that pregnancy can make your feet bigger and I had fresh hope. Off to the department store I went, where the nice young man measured my feet on that little foot-measuring thingy, then he said, "You got widdle, bitty feet!", in a baby-talk voice. I have a hard time choosing who was more insulting, baby-talk man or giraffe-lady.

Condescension aside, I have no problem buying certain shoes in the kids' department, tennis shoes are tennis shoes after all. But pink sparkle mary janes and Dora sandals are just not appropriate for a nearly 40 year old woman. I had to special order my wedding shoes, because you just couldn't find off-white high-heel pumps in childrens' sizes, imagine that. When I find a pair of grown-up shoes that come close to fitting, I wear them to pieces. I don't even look for 5N's, I go for 5M's, even 5 1/2's, which most of my shoes are, because NOBODY carries 5's. Anyway, I have been looking for black sandals all month, all over town. I even thought about ordering online, but mail-order shoes don't seem like a wise choice for my difficult-to-fit feet. But today (cue the angel choir), I found a decent pair and bought them without even checking the price. I buy for fit, not price. Happily, when I got to the check-out, I found that they were not too expensive. I can't tell you where I got them, because I don't want to endanger a source of tiny shoes. We used to have a Naturalizer store here and a great place called Hueys, both excellent dealers in small shoes. Sadly, they are both gone and I have to fight it out with the other 3 ladies in town who wear my size for the available shoes. It's a dog-eat-dog world for those of us afflicted by the Curse.

On my daily morning information-quest, I read this story on Alternet about Hillary Clinton. I'm still proud that I voted for Bill Clinton, twice. His mild tom-catishness never bothered me; he wasn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, President to play a little fast and loose with the ol' marriage vows. For all his faults and human foibles, more people in our country, heck even in other countries, were much better off than they are now. I have been around nearly 4 decades now and have a pretty fair basis of comparison drawing upon my memories of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and now, the aughts. LBJ was president when I was born, but I don't remember that. I do remember Nixon (oy), Ford, Carter, Reagan, Daddy Bush, Clinton, and now Baby Bush. There are things that stand out to me, related or not to the man in office, during each of their terms. Nixon- Watergate naturally, but also the end of the Vietnam War; Ford- the pardon and Squeaky Fromme; Carter- Iran hostages and gas shortages and Billy Beer; Reagan- Iran-Contra, Berlin Wall, Stock Market plummet, trickle down economics (what a joke, my dad got laid-off, that's the impression I have of Reaganomics), I sound like a Billy Joel song, but I also think about high school, Punk/New Wave, and Sony Walkmans;  Daddy Bush- more of the same failed economics, Persian Gulf War I (terrified fiance would get drafted); Clinton- relative peace, prosperity, it was a nice time to be a very young married. And now Baby Bush- where to start, ahhh, Too. Much. Bad. I will say this, if it was inevitable that another Bush be president, shouldn't it have been any of the others. Seems to me, Baby Bush should have been the embarrassing red-neck brother of the real president. He would occasionally wander out of his back-woods glorified double-wide dressed like Larry the Cable Guy and show up at the Rose Garden during a press conference. Carrying a beer in one hand and pumping a backwards "Hook-em Horns" in the air with the other as the Secret Service tries to drag him away, before he breaks free and pukes in the rose bushes, media having a field day. Well, a girl can dream can't she?

All I'm saying is that I and mine have been much better off during Democratic presidencies. And it will always be thus because we are not outrageously wealthy.  Why anyone of more modest means would vote Republican against their own best interests will always be a mystery to me. Honey, it doesn't matter what the quarterback says, he doesn't love you, won't take care of you and only wants one thing in the backseat and when he gets it, he will laugh at your infantile fantasies of being Mrs. Quarterback. He will dump you for the rich girl more suited to his station in life.  In this case Honey, he wanted your vote and he got it. And now he and all of his corporate-buddies are in the locker room, talking about what a whore you are and laughing. Guess you're going to the prom alone and knocked-up. Sorry about the over-use of high school metaphors but isn't life just like high school? Which brings me to the Valedictorian- Hillary Clinton.

I can't vote for her in the primaries, I wish I could, but I can't. Should she get the nomination, I will vote for her, but not until then. I think she is too polarizing to win here in Oklahoma. And here is the deal: we must win, for the sake of everyone's freedom, we must win. My wise father once told me that the price I pay for my freedom of speech is that those I disagree with also share that freedom. So for everyone that may take issue with my opinions and expressing of them, when we win, your freedoms will be protected as well. But to get there, we need to have a candidate that can win with everyone who is not happy with the direction our country is taking. Too many people will vote against Hillary, not because she is a woman but because she is that woman. I will not throw away my vote on a lost cause. Do I have to turn over my feminist card now?