el fin

No, not like dorsal, it’s just me pretending to know Spanish.

I noticed that blue milk recommended my retirement plan as a top feminist post of the year over at the smashingly fabulous Hoyden About Town. I am verklempt. Can we nominate her entire blog for the honor? I mean, how much do we love her? Craaaaaazy much, that’s how. She was one of the first on my Bawdy Broads reading list and homegirl lit a such fire under me to express my truth as a woman and a new parent. I will love her forever and ever for that, and for lots o’ other things, too.

This blog has chronicled my much-less-than-graceful transition to motherhood. It and the people I’ve met through it have saved my sanity on many, many occasions. It has got some cringe-worthy stuff; it is not easy to learn to be a parent when you are coming from a place with so little in the way of healthy role models. Looking back on some posts makes me bow my head and cover my eyes, and those were just the ones for which I clicked “publish”. There have been a few more that never made it to through that brave moment, and a few more after that did but were taken down in the middle of the night when I woke panicking thinking “nooooo, that is too raw, too real to publicly share, wtf was I thinking?”. It’s also got some moments I am very proud of.

I feel done here, though. 210 (211 now) posts about my issues are quite enough. I am still a little shocked at how much I simply did not know about becoming a mom and I am slightly worse, but also better in many ways, for the wear. I am also still tired and angry a good bit, but more often than not I am grinning.

As far as what’s next, I leave you with a big fat fabulous question mark. Of course, I am an activist at heart and will remain so. I’ll be continuing to write and I may even take it seriously (every Wednesday). You should see the notebooks I’ve filled with dialogue, always dialogue, based on where I’ve been and who I’ve known. Huz keeps trying to peek. The snippets I’ve read to him here and there alternately crack him up and alarm him, so if nothing else comes of it, at least my nearest and dearest audience is also my best. I will being hanging around with my friends more, too, as I’ve finally resolved the once disparate mom-me and the me-me. Parenting me-then is coming along nicely as well; I’ve got some good strategies in my dress pocket. I do plan to bite my sharp tongue more often (but I make no promises, haaaa!) especially regarding issues of the familial kind. What’s done is done and I have no time or space for such thinking anymore. 

I will certainly continue to read and chime in on the unique, refreshing, and very necessary conversations the Bawdy Broads and their ilk are having via the interweb.  I have grown quite accustomed to living and parenting vicariously all over the world. You all make the air I breathe sweeter. I am facing the general uncertainty ahead of me with enthusiasm and a willingness to say yes to things I never would have before I had this blog, met so many cool people, and yelled aloud about what was rattling around in my brain.

So Happy New Year, peeps! And thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll be seeing you.

xoxoxo,

B.

Huz is in the kitchen

being gorgeous and cooking up some venison stew with the leftovers from Christmas dinner. I’m at the table reading A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise between tastes, drinking a big, fat, sockarooney cabernet (just a little bit!) with candied brie on crackers, and yelling half-in-jest, “The stew is perfect, don’t fuck it up!” Bean is comfortably asleep for the first time in one hundred and fifty years after finally (finally!) breaking in that last. freaking. one year. molar. and looking beautiful beyond compare (are footie pajamas a gift of pure delight from the Heavens or what?) and let me tell you, peeps, I am just having the best time.

I seem to be settling in. Like sediment. Ha! But really. Maybe I am calming down. Maybe I am finding a place to be me, in my entirety. Maybe even for good this time.

Speechless

God/dess bless the people of Pakistan and women in government everywhere. Bhutto was incredibly brave and this fatal sabotage of her efforts leaves me speechless.

The American Islamic Congress, a national civil rights organization based in Washington, D.C., condemned the assassination with an additional appeal to Muslim women.

“Young Muslim women around the world should not let this murder dissuade them from speaking out and claiming their rightful place as equals in society,” a statement said.

Well it sure as hell isn’t going to encourage them. Was she murdered for her politics or her womanhood? I don’t know the answer and even if I did its wrongness wouldn’t be any less shocking.

Barack Obama powers, activate!

Form of: a president that may actually want to help us become a better nation!

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Our Moment Is Now
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Des Moines, Iowa

Ten months ago, I stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, and began an unlikely journey to change America.

I did not run for the presidency to fulfill some long-held ambition or because I believed it was somehow owed to me. I chose to run in this election – at this moment – because of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.” Because we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril. Our health care system is broken, our economy is out of balance, our education system fails too many of our children, and our retirement system is in tatters.

At this defining moment, we cannot wait any longer for universal health care. We cannot wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait for good jobs, and living wages, and pensions we can count on. We cannot wait to halt global warming, and we cannot wait to end this war in Iraq.

I chose to run because I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them; because I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.

Read the rest here

I know, I know, a speech is just a speech, but I’m telling you, peeps, I believe this Obama-osity can become a very good thing.

Here is an almost frighteningly bare look inside my brain

and it wasn’t even posted by me. How odd to read words that I have said only to myself and maybe to Huz written here so perfectly by someone else. How very comforting, too. She has given it clarity that I have been unable to achieve. Finding the post was like a Christmas present.

Here was me last Christmas, newly postpartum:

Here was me with the Beavs this Christmas

No, it was not due to heavy pharmaceuticals, just time. I actually did spend time with the Beavers last Christmas, too, but I was in a fog. This year was exponentially better. Don’t our cook-ays rock? We also made Christmas unicorns, rhinos and our newly traditional sparkly poos (leftover gingerbread that we are too tipsy on Glogg to cut out properly).

Happy Holidays, peeps! Peace on Earth, goodwill to Women (and the fellas we love, too)!

Choices - real ones this time

Choices are good. I like them. Everyone should have them. I have written about pseudo -choices that are really a forced crossroads where one is stuck picking the thing that sucks the least. That, to me, is just a shitty situation in disguise. Okay, maybe such things do count as choices, but they still rim. Good choices require you to make decisions where clear benefits are present either way, where your options are wiiiiiide open. Sure there are cons depending on what you decide, when are there not consequences in life? The kind of decisions I am talking about are those where the good outweighs the bad, where one can be pretty damn happy either way, it’s just a matter of picking this path or that one. These are the choices that give a woman the opportunity to be true to herself.

Choices I like having even though I have no idea (yet) what to do: 

One child or more? I am likely going to be a one-baby-momma for all sorts of thorny reasons but it will take years to decide once and for all and I am pleased that it is entirely up to me.

Chicago or Philly? Though it is amazing how much of my Chicago-related boo-hooing has lifted since I’ve lately had more time to myself and the crappy real estate market is priddy much making this decision for me at this moment.

Take an enjoyable, paying job that utilizes my degrees once a week and provides much-needed continuity on my resume or use my upcoming me-Wednesdays to go wherever the hell I feel like going and dedicate at least 4 hours each week to writing for rilly rilly real instead of hopping on and off the interweb to spout off like I do in such an unorganized fashion? I’ve allowed myself to be caged by blue-collar sensibilities my entire life, where creative endeavors were an amusing luxury, hobbies to be pursued as time allowed between the scheduling of multiple jobs, not something you actually did. Should I finally break through that mentality now, even in the face of a paid opportunity? Hmmmmmm…

Oh, and more on that second decision up there: why is it that strong and resourceful women who politely and repeatedly ask for help are brushed off until they reach a breaking point where they freak the fuck out and demand it or else? Why must we be driven to extremes, then get slapped with that pervasive bitch/psycho label (societally speaking, nobody is calling me that around here, balls would be nailed to the wall as a trophy) when the fact is if you cage or corner any being on Earth you will incite depression and wrath? Why is asking not enough? It is so very frustrating. A damsel-in-frequent-distress I know has the world laid at her feet every time she so much as tears up over something, while ol’ Bianca could be bleeding and dying alone on the side of a road somewhere but hey, she’s a bitch, she’s nobody’s sweetheart- she’ll figure it out, she always does. I do not believe there is such a thing as a woman being too self-sufficient, but given my experiences over the past 2 years or so, I can see the attraction to tactics such as swooning and feigning helplessness. Not that I’ll ever use them, hell no. I just see now how much easier life can be if nobody expects that you can handle it on your own.

Ahem. Back to choices. I have them, and that is a very, very good thing. Thank you most kindly and reverently, Foremothers!

One to watch

Charity Navigator is has listed the Women’s Learning Partnership as one of their top 10 charities to watch, for all the right reasons (I’d hate to be on one of their shit lists). They have a 4 star rating on CN and their mission is as follows:

Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) is dedicated to women’s leadership and empowerment. At its essence, WLP is a builder of networks, working with 18 autonomous and independent partner organizations in the Global South, particularly in Muslim-majority societies, to empower women to transform their families, communities, and societies. We strongly believe that women, working in partnership, will learn the skills and implement the strategies needed to secure human rights, contribute to the development of their communities, and ultimately create a more peaceful world. Our primary objectives are to increase the number of women taking on leadership and decision-making roles at family, community, and national levels.

Here is their main site if you want to check out the work they are doing to gain basic civil rights for women in Arab countries. The testimonies are riveting. Makes the media-created mommy wars over here look like pure idiocy (which you already knew, you big ol’ smartypants).

Give a gift of Plumpynut

Nooooo, I’m not being racy for once.

Excerpt from a Congressperson’s e-newsletter:

Several weeks ago I watched a 60 Minutes segment by Anderson Cooper. He showed us children of Africa…he explained their likely fate of death in their mother’s arms. He told us of all the failed effort to save them. And then he told us about Plumpynut. This sweetened mixture of peanuts, essential vitamins, minerals and milk served in foil pouches has become a high-nutrient, high-energy weapon in fighting malnutrition. Mothers see their babies restored and smiling and growing and discharged after an average of six weeks.

Developed by researchers in 1999, Plumpynut is one of several new “Ready-to-Use Foods” or RUFs that can save lives. Right now five million children under five years of age die each year due to malnutrition-related illnesses. The increased use of RUFs in food aid and nutrition programs could have an enormous impact on these tragic deaths.

The cost for a two week supply of Plumpynut to treat a severely malnourished child?

Twenty dollars.

Twenty dollars: A night at the movies for two. A bad tie. More socks. A gift certificate for three lattes. A book you will never read. A CD you already own.

This program will provide Plumpynut and other RUFs to malnourished children in Africa, and will call on others to expand their use and save more children from malnutrition.

Have a Plumpynut Christmas. A Plumpynut Kwanzaa. A Plumpynut Hannukah. And a great Plumpynut New Year.

Plumpynut is officially my new favorite word and my new favorite thing, too. If you’ve got a twenty or two to spare, please consider spending it here at Doctors Without Borders. They are a 4-star charity on Charity Navigator, which mean that the money you donate will go almost entirely to field services for people in need rather than getting all tied up in red tape.

Plumpynut.

Plumpynut.

Plumpynut!

Backpedaling

I can feel it coming, I can smell it: Huz is going to be doing some backpedaling on our recent decision to move to Philadelphia. The allure of a possible promotion in Spring (I’ll have more staff members! Think of all I could do with more people! [go crazier?]) and a mighty but far-too-inadequate-to-be-worth-the-time-away pay raise are wafting through the air as I write this.

Dammit, I do love this city. It’s changed for me, though. I can no longer just call up my boyfriends and head out to Boystown until 5am when Huz is working his crazy hours. All of the things I used to be able to do here (cocktails at midnight, accepting last minute tickets to black-tie green-tie shindigs, dancing with beautiful women, waking up late and wandering around strange neighborhoods with good coffee and friends, etc etc etc) can’t be done by me anymore while he pursues his work with such intensity. Those opportunities have been replaced by new ones. Better ones. Ones that require him to be around.

And what is a place, really? It’s just an illusion of sorts, depending on one’s personal perspective of it. Things that matter are people who aren’t half-crazy from social isolation and physical barriers like this damn building we live in. Yars, yars, much was self-imposed, but not all of it, nope, not all. I do fear that if we leave here we will hate our new digs, but I doubt that will hold true.

I may just have to pull out the big guns, and peeps, they’re big. I love him like I love no other but I will not be sucked into a way of living that I find intolerable. I tried like hell and I don’t like it. This situation doesn’t work for me. I won’t deprive a person from following his dreams, but I will deprive him from negating mine.

Mebbe I’ll be keeping up the personal theatrics here after all.

Feeling better

I am tres excited (excited enough to use French adverbs even though I don’t know, or don’t particularly care to know, French; I see myself as far more Spanish at heart). I do believe Philadelphia is on the cusp of reclaiming itself as a cultural and undeniably historical beacon in this crazy-ass nation. Yes, it is small. Indeed, it’s dirty. Crime rate? High as hell and mmmhmm, the locals are, well, local (no personal offense, I just love me my Chicagoans) but I am hoping they embrace my bubble butt and big ol’ brains with open arms. These lips can kiss like nobody else and I am ready to give their cheesesteaks and proper pizzas (have I ever mentioned how much I hate Chicago deep dish?) a big ol’ smooch. Huz is going to switch gears a bit and who knows, if he does he may just survive until 45 or so without succumbing to a stress-related illness. Besides, one of my mothers-in-law is there, the one with whom I’ve got tons in common. She’s an artist and an educator and she was many other cool things before it was cool to be those things. Besides, to steal a sentiment from a crappy movie: when she hugs me, she really hugs me. She is over the moon at the prospect of our move. And, AND! My most beautimous and kind sister-in-law and her fella will be there shortly with their new baby girl. How great will that be?

I am going to learn to accept help (help!) without viewing it as a weakness (screw roaring like a lion all the time) and I am going to learn to not gag at the word family (family!) and I am going to crash though this bourgeoisie cycle we’ve found ourselves in. Gilded Cage, I’ve had about enough of you.

I won’t be writing here as often as I make mental and logistical preparations. There is a stupid amount to do. I may taper off (then again, who knows, maybe not) but I am writing elsewhere (hullo, book with no ending or beginning) and elsewhere-elsewhere under another alias (’sup jeanius?)

It will be a good change, a necessary change, but I am going to cry my face right off my skull when we finally go.

xoxo,

B.