I love this

and meant to link to it ages ago. Hoyden About Town rocks.

Binoculars

I’m obsessed.

Huz got binoculars for some unknown reason (that should prolly stay unknown to me). I made fun of him for days as he skulked about with them, saying I can’t believe I married the crazy citydweller stalker guy depicted in so many crime shows. Now I’ve taken them up and I can’t stop. I started with looking at the moon but I’ve moved on to a more voyeuristic intent. No, no, I’m not some weirdo looking at people. I am not compelled to see folks partaking in naked aerobics or gorging on food and bodypainting ala 9 &1/2 weeks.  I just want to see their places.

I live in a (former) artists’ community where massive industrial buildings were turned into living spaces. Mine is very modest but a building I can see from my windows, one that looks to be sagging and about to fall down in some places, has living spaces that are HUGE. I mean, roller skating rink huge. Indoor luge-ing huge. I’ve been looking them up online and the square footage of some are 41,500 ft. 41,500!!!! I would run back and forth all. day. long. and slide in my socks. I would hold sock-sliding tournaments, perhaps with a championship bout that included jousting.

The art they’ve got hanging in some is massive and museum-lit via their lofted timber ceilings. One has a substantial hanging garden that spans two enormous windows. The staircases they’ve installed in some units to connect the (whole?) floors of the building are a body’s length wide and look to be made of steel. Steel!

I must make friends with these people. I have got to feel what it means to have that much indoor space. I can’t imagine what they pay in real estate taxes but I want their homes. All of them.

I have to believe this is worth something

This coming Saturday, October 27, people from all walks of life will gather in 11 cities around the country in a national expression of the breadth and depth of antiwar sentiment in this nation.

http://www.oct27.org/

If you are in the Chicago area, I hope to see you here tomorrow:

http://www.oct27chicago.org/

Don’t worry, I’m not bringing Bean. Cops here have a tendency to beat the shit out of people. He and his daddy will fight the power from the safety of our home.

Dammitall, I wish more people in this world had that option.

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Update: Turnout was just okay better than originally thought, something like 2,000 5,000 attended. Oh, and Holy Police Presence, Batman. Are that many weapons and horses and officers really necessary at a peace march? The ratio of cops to marchers felt like it was 1:1. Maybe all of their deadly weapons just made it feel that way. All was calm, though.

I did see some interesting people and read some thought-provoking pamphlets while there and I am grateful to live in a country where I could carry the sign I made with it saying what it did. Then again, a lot of people stopped me to take my picture with it. No worries though, right? I do live in a country where presidential dissidents don’t disappear in the night, don’t I? Heh. Don’t I?

Something that made me sad was the counter-protest of about 40 people holding American flags and calling us traitors and all that. What could be more American than a protest that aims to hold our government accountable for unconstitutional behavior? There were a lot of parents of soldiers in the counter-protest, who wanted to show support for their deployed children. They seemed to miss how much we support their deployed children, too, how we want them out of the Middle East and doing the kind of service they likely signed up to do, rather than being treated “like toys a rich kid got for Christmas“. There were actually more signs on our side saying “support the troops” than any other kind. I wanted to cross the police line dividing us to tell them so, but when I heard a soldier’s mother yell to an Iraq Veteran Against the War who was protesting with us that he didn’t deserve to be wearing his uniform, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would have been a waste of energy. No good could have come from speaking with someone in that frame of mind.

Urban bohemian

I was talking to a new friend at the playground the other day and the discussion found its way to napping. Shocker, right? I swear we talk about things non-kid-related, too, and I’m pleased to have found her for that reason. Anywho, I said that I am looking forward to Bean whittling down his naps to one in the midday. The two he currently takes (did I actually just write that? I never dreamed it possible) kinda hit in the middle of the morning and then the afternoon, so getting out of the house for any length of time or making it to planned events is a challenge. He’s not a good stroller napper; he wakes up like a bear. So I went on, as I usually do, to say that we spend many mornings and early afternoons at home because there is no point in getting all geared up just to have to turn around to take a nap. Her response? An eye roll followed by ”Oh, we run around doing errands every morning”. Come again?

She lives nearby with a child close in age to Bean and seems to be in a similar financial situation. Actually, better: she can afford a sitter. We are both in a busy part of the city where driving is pure hell and hardly worth the effort. Public transportation is unreliable and very cumbersome with a toddler and various parcels in tow, so our groceries are ordered online and delivered. Our dry goods such as bulk boxes of diapers, etc. are as well. Our postal service is within spitting distance. What’s left? What are these errands that require running to and fro? I am still somewhat a novice to my role as a sahm so maybe I am missing something, but no thanks, I don’t want these errands. I feel no need to run about. When Bean gets old enough to take classes, they will be nearby. I see no point in paying to live in a neighborhood that has everything if I’m going to have to schlep us everywhere else to gets these mystery errands done.

You see, I’ve been thinking of the sahm thing in a new light. It’s not that I have started liking that label, because I don’t. Still sounds like house arrest to me. What I do (finally) like is the lifestyle it represents. I am no longer overwhelmed by the 24/7ness of it. I’ve been broken in :) and anything is easier than that first 5-9 months or so. The simple fact that I am no longer in deep physical and/or emotional pain helps a great deal. So yes, it’s 24/7, but that means the days and nights and weekdays and weekends roll into one another so I can structure them however the hell I want. I am also able to pursue things I never had the time or patience for when I was working outside our home. I’ve embraced this urban bohemian existence. Is it simply that being stretched to my emotional and physical limits this past year has mellowed me? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’m not going to get all Suzie Sunshine on your ass but the power of positive thinking is nothing to blow snot at.

Sure, I am relatively broke (which of course means wealthy compared to 99% of the world’s population) but I live within a highly interesting part of the city. Being house-poor requires innovation in my choice of activities, so I write things like letters to government officials, this blog and my never ending (and actually never really beginning) novel. I paint with found materials and those of el cheapo student-quality. I make food from seasonal ingredients like my latest invention of sweet potato and carrot filling in a flaxseed and white truffle oil ravioli:

which are imperfect looking but ridiculously yum when lightly fried. I never would have tried to make them if I weren’t looking for ways to save money on groceries. The hand-rolling is very satisfying and I do not have to pay for the truffle oil; it’s a chef perk. I’m now thinking of offering fresh pastas at my future farmer’s market stand.

I re-construct clothing into things that suit the season and my changing taste. I get asked where I shop. I think of new ways to create coverings for our ancient and impossibly drafty windows. They look very dramatic now. I drink wine, I have sex with my lovah Huz, I laugh often. I wear high, sturdy boots and an apron over damn cute dresses. The strength and curves of my body beneath it all impress me.

Does all of this sound too kitschy-cool and self-indulgent? Bite me. I’m also an advocate for people with disabilities. You know, for the fun of it.

Of course, I do all of these things in short intervals during Bean’s naps or after his bedtime, otherwise I have a small and highly emotional person screeching at me. Even that makes me feel all the more bohemian, though; it’s like I’ve got my own little Toulouse Lautrec pulling at my skirt. When he is awake, I nurse him, we sing and dance, and we play little games of his invention such as Hide Under Things and Chase and Crumple Leaves. I tell him what “That! That!’ is. I show him my art for his approval. We read picture books again and again. We build. We crawl. We walk far from the traffic and breathe good air. It is not such a lonely existence anymore. We’ve worked it out, Bean and me. No errands, real or imagined, can take me away. We’re too busy together.

I’m going to invite this new friend and her little one over to my place soon. I’m not here to tell anyone else how to live but maybe I’ll show her how I’ve learned to breathe a little more and use the powers of the interweb to make life a little less errand-y. Then we can all make a crazy-delicious snack and play Throw the Book.

Gah!

Why is this a giant leap for womankind? Good for them, I am thrilled for them. They are qualified. Is that such a surprise?

It makes me sad that one of the astronauts said she’s “luckier” because nobody is making public comments implying that her job will be to clean to fucking shuttle. I know she means she has it easier than the women who went before her, but it has nothing to do with luck. It was hard fought and hard won. I’ll forgive the word choice on a personal level, but not what it represents on a societal one.

And why does the article’s author get into who has kids and who is married to whom? What does that have to do with being an astronaut? Do they get into the personal lives of the male astronauts in articles about their roles and accomplishments? wtf, Marcia Dunn? Do you realize what you are implying with the way this article is written that these two women have made it further because they have no children and are married to scientists, while the others never made it to commander or quit and oh by the way, those are the ones that have kids?

If my hair hadn’t taken so long to grow back, I’d be pulling it out. Why do I still read things posted on msnbc? I get pissed off every time.

Interesting…

I was just looking around the interweb to find some ad-free child development sites (if that is possible) so I went to PBS. They have an entire section of their PBS Kids website devoted to raising boys. I know there is alot of media hubbub out there on the so-called attack on American boys, and I am not trying to either invalidate or support that line of thinking. I am just curious as to why an organization like PBS has a section to address the unique needs of boys and I don’t seem to be finding one there for girls. Hmmm…strikes me as a missed opportunity, at the very least. Am I missing something?

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Update:

I just received a very kind response from PBS saying that a section of their site and a documentary focusing on the unique needs of girls are in the works and I should check back in Jan or Feb 2008. Yay!

Reframing trauma

So last night I went to a session on reframing trauma in order to move past it and remove the residual scum of it that may be blocking me from feeling/doing/wanting things in the healthiest way possible (that’s my synopsis of it, anyway). I wasn’t sure what to expect but the guy running it has an extensive professional background so I figured it would be worth the $35 for a two-hour lecture from him. It was. It’s not just because I have an affinity for ex-Catholic middle-aged gay men, either. That was just the black truffle demi glace of the experience for me.

I’ve written about the whole re-parenting thing and how I try to remember to do so every time I hit a wall, as I recently did. The cognitive strategy of re-parenting helped, but it was incomplete. The guy I listened to last night gave me more to do than go back and get me-then, but even though I now have more to think about, it’s made the whole reframing process a hell of a lot easier and more effective.

Anyway, I won’t get all looly-looly on you about trauma, psychic blockages and how negative experiences continue to manifest themselves in the most fucked up and unexpected ways. You know all that. I will tell you that if talk therapy bores you to death and/or hasn’t worked for you because who does that therapist think s/he is anyway, this whole advanced reframing thing may help. I am a work-in-progress, but even my dreams last night were affected in a positive way. I won’t get into what Chris Kattan was doing in them (wtf?) but there were breakthroughs and I am feeling happily buzzed today. It even turned the 4am crazies into something constructive (I no longer wake at that time in a panic; the dog woke me up and my brain aaaalmost got going but I was able to reel it in). Write me a note if you want to hear more about it. It may work for you, it may not. But if you’re like me, almost anything is worth trying once.

Why wait until tomorrow?

Tomorrow, October 18, has been dubbed “Love Your Body Day”. Why wait? Let’s get started now with some visits to these places:

Sex, Stereotype and Beauty Presentation: The ABCs and Ds of Commercial Images of Women

Good Vibrations

and be sure to take in some artwork via All About My Vagina’s image link list as a reminder of just how beautiful and varied we all are.

Happy women = happy world.

My guilt: financial, parental, religious, or a.o.t.a.?

Why do I feel badly about not taking Bean somewhere wonderful each and every day? Is it due to:

A. Financial guilt: we pay so much money to live downtown in order to access a broad range of free/cheap cultural events that when we don’t, I wonder what the hell our mortgage and related housing expenses are doing eating up 50% of our income. Also, since I am a “sahm” and therefore not drawing a salary, I am allowing myself to feel pressure to be the most budget-savvy, self-sacrificing, imaginative and self-possessed sahm that ever was so I can prove to myself and the world that I do not need to make money to contribute to society in a ginormous fashion.

OR

B. Parental guilt: I’ve succumbed the media bombardment by the baby industry and pop culture “news” shows that try to convince me daily to provide (subjectively) enriching experiences to my offspring during every waking second (and every sleeping one as well) and it can only be done if I purchase this toy/playset/venue ticket or engage in some highly stimulating organized activity or he is bound to live his adult life on the streets in front of our home muttering to himself about missed opportunities.

OR

C. Religious guilt: as an ex-Catholic told by church authorities from around age 4 that she is a sinner who needs to repent and whose every deed is being tallied up by some Big Brother in the sky, is it even possible for me to feel worthy to just be without doing?

OR

D. some hyperneurotic combo of all of the above?

I’m guessing D.

It’s raining, not that I don’t love the rain but Bean’s not much of a fan of being out in it. Besides, it’s not like I’m letting him watch Jerry Springer reruns and play with matches while I drink beer from a can and clean my gun (somewhere in America that very scenario is happening).

Ah, shite. The sun came out while I was writing. Now we definitely have to go somewhere fabulous.

I’ve got to get a yard.

I usually loathe this sort of classification thing

even (and sometimes especially) in jest, but this is kinda me (not really but it could be if I were not so obsessively self-evaluative) and it is pretty freaking hilarious.

Trust me, though, I am stupendously aware that I am not even remotely hip, even as I do “insist upon living in an urban setting populated by 20-year old art students, but spend a good deal of time complaining that there’s no other parents in (my) “tragically gentrified” neighborhood”. And I don’t regret my tattoos. They’re right sexy.

Touche, Monsieur Pussycat!

If you can’t poke fun at yourself, who are you really fit to poke?