Quodlibets

I'm currently working on the

I'm currently working on the most tedious, boring assignment ever. I decided to blog to take a break, but I have a sneaking hunch that I won't go back to the project tonight. Let me just describe the horrible thing, so you have a little bit of sympathy for the ridiculousness that is the task.
The assignment is officially called, "The Ready Reference Document", but that sounds totally innocuous compared to what it really entails. I have to visit websites and copy information into a document that would provide at hand info for a libarian. What "at hand" info is it? Government information. Yes, I have to visit the city's webpage, the county's webpage, the state's webpage, the federal government, and copy the pertinent information into a Word document. And we can't just cut and paste; the document has to look official and be suitable for use in an actual library. Just to give you some idea of how time-consuming this is, I've been working for two hours, have six pages of info, and just finished the city of my choice. Seems good, right? Wrong. I still have the library info, the chamber of commerce info, school district info and any other pertinent city info, and then the county, state and federal information. We're looking at what, 25-30 pages of info, all formatted and typed by me.
I understand the point of the exercise--we need practice working with these kinds of sources, and we need practice organizing information, since librarians do that a lot. Okay, but couldn't we have just done city info? We're still talking 10-15 pages, if we did that. But no, I'm condemned and doomed to a life of government info. Hey, if you need some info about the town I went to high school in, drop me a line, 'cause I got it all.

Also, I got a job this week. I won't say much, because I'm really not working very much (15 or so hours a week) and the job is going to be mundane. I'm a student aide to the library tech department at my community college. It's money, though, and I think I might reward myself with one book purchase a week. This might sound extreme, but if you consider what I was buying before, it's the very minimum for me. I'm depleting the supply of unread books already, and every couple weeks I have a crisis where nothing on my bookshelf looks good. Considering I'm reading furiously again, (about a book every two days, sometimes more), I need more books. I need to get some new books, just to mix it up sometimes. I'll just send S to work with a list, and then I can remember what it's like to smell new books. I can't wait for my first paycheck.

I'm pretty sure that I

I'm pretty sure that I could talk about the last two posts for a long time, but I can't anymore. I've had an exhausting week capped off by the doctor appointment from hell.

I really understand what frame Astarte is working in. It's a good frame, and it's (in my opinion) the right one. Meaning the one we should all strive to be in. I could list so many reasons why I feel the same way she does about certain things, but also, obviously, I disagree in some ways.

Okay. So now I can't think about serious things for an evening, because I just need to get away from the seriousness that has been the past few days. I got a job as an student aide at COD, I did wayyyyy too much homework, and the doctor sucked. Oh, and yoga was terrible this morning. It was a different teacher, and she didn't do such a great job. And I was so looking forward to it!

Argggggh. Maybe when I have more coherent things to say I'll post again on jobs/passions/etc. But not right now.

If you read the comment

If you read the comment that Astarte posted to my last post, then this will make sense. If not, go do that, and then read this.

Fundamentally, I think Astarte has some of this right. Most people who choose to be homemakers do it because they love it. However, saying that most people hate their jobs, and so the two things can't compare isn't right. Some people don't hate their jobs, but love them. Does that make it not a job?
And furthermore, when Astarte asks me if I would apply the things people hate about their jobs to my mother, I would answer yes. Yes, the hours sucked, the pay was inadequate, the job was too big for one person, the budget could be tricky, and sometimes the boss was just a little too demanding. And if you think there's not a boss in homemaking, you're missing something. If the kids aren't the boss, then the partner is, and if the partner isn't, then society is. And often, the three exchange the boss position during the longs hours of homemaking, so it's not just one boss but many. Do I think women at home deal with traditional job issues? Hell yes.

What makes it not a job, then? A salary? Well, women who work at day care centers care for children. But I guess since they get paid for caring for children, then it's a job. And what about women who operate day care centers out of their homes? They care for their children, and maybe two or three others, and that's a job. Why, because they're being paid? That's hard to argue, isn't it? That women who get paid for caring for children and/or care only for children other than their own have a job, but women who don't get paid and only care for their own children don't have a job? And we pay cleaning women, don't we? Women clean hotel rooms and other people's houses, and yes, they hate the job. It's a terrible job, but it's a job, and it pays bills. But if you clean your own home, it's not a job. Even though you probably still hate it, since you're not getting paid, it's not a job. So clean your own home, care for your kids, not a job, but leave the house and get paid for doing the same things: job.

If women didn't do these jobs in their home, whether or not they have another job (and many women do have both jobs--the home and the workplace (for instance, my dad's business partner did both jobs for many years)--then they'd be paying someone else to do them. Or nagging at their partners to help them do these jobs. They have to get done, these things. The kids somehow have to be fed, and they have to have clean clothes, and the house can't be a mess, and...the list goes on. No matter who does these things, they constitute a job. A salary doesn't make something a job.

And I do think that it is demeaning to women to demand that they admit that what they're doing in the home isn't "real" work, that's it's not a real job. Men have been asking women to admit that for years, and feminism is about asking them to stop, asking them to value the things they do, whether it be in a home, in a school, in a hospital, in a factory, etc. Not calling it a job instantly forces an inequality upon any woman who does the job of keeping a home, and children. That's the inequality we should be fighting against, and that's why acknowledging homemaking as a job is important.

I was going to blog

I was going to blog about my mom yesterday (even though she reads my blog; I wouldn't have said anything bad anyway) but held off because I felt like I might not have enough to say. It would basically be a tribute to the fact that my mom and I don't have (and I can't remember having) any problems with her. (The link is to another woman's story of her mother. It's sad and so hard for me to understand, since my relationship with my mother is pretty much wonderful.)
Anyway, today I was reading a different blog, and came across another article (less personal) about mothers and homemakers. I like the blog a lot, but this article kind of pissed me off. Here is what pissed me off: "A lot of people, not just feminists, consider it hard work (just like being president, apparently), but we don’t consider it a real job for very good reasons." She's referring to being a homemaker. She's saying that being a homemaker isn't a real job, for whatever reasons. I understand her arguments. Many women can't afford to stay home. Men can care for children as much as women, and as well as women. And I totally agree with both those points.
But I can't see minimizing the care of children, whether it be a man or woman who does it. I was very happy that my mom stayed home with us; it forged a very strong bond between my mother and I. I don't think that moms who work, though, have any less of a bond. I don't think it matters, sometimes, what the situation is, as long as it works for the people involved. And I don't think that it matters, if a parent stays home, if it is the father or the mother.
And I don't think that my mom's choice makes her any better or any worse than any other woman on the planet. And I think it was a job. I know it was a job. I was there. We were a pain in the ass.
Denigrating a woman's choice is so fundamentally against everything that feminism is for me. Feminism is a fight for choice. It's a fight to choose the best options for you, whether that be at home with the children, or in the workplace, along with your partner, or while your partner stays home. Just because the right-wing constantly crows about how the proper place for the woman is in the home doesn't mean that women in the home are somehow guilty of something.

In the beginning stages of my discovery of feminism, I thought that any woman who would consent to being a prisoner in her home was not a feminist, and was bad for women in general. But I grew up, and I realized that for me, yes, the house would be a prison. But for some women, it is the place where they find the most happiness. And for some men, it is that as well. Talk about lack of choice. Most men aren't given the option to stay home, because, like it or not, women don't have access to most of the highest paying jobs. I probably couldn't support S and a baby with a job at the library. Most librarians are women.
That's the real fight. Fighting for access to jobs that pay well. Fighting so that jobs that women do are paid well enough to support a stay-at-home dad, if that's what the couple wants. Fighting to overthrow a system in which women often don't have a choice to be the "breadwinner" (and oh, how I hate that term), and men don't have a choice about it either.

I'm a feminist. I have identified as such for a long time, even on a campus where feminist was a dirty word. I fought hard for the right to make choices at that campus, and for that administration to allow women to make their own choices on campus. But part of my identity as a feminist means that I have to fight for a society in which all these harmful stereotypes, whether it be men as bad nurturers or women homemakers as harmful to women, are no longer as prevalent.
I have to fight for choice.

I've been listening to this

I've been listening to this obsessively in my car on the way to and from school and libraries. Every single time that first song chimes in, I am brought back to my first few months in music at my job at the bookstore.
I really loved that job. I woke up every morning truly excited to be going to work. So what if I made shit money? I went to work, I opened the CD player and put six CDs in. My choices. All day, I worked and listened to music that I liked. Oh, sure, you had to deal with the problem of making sure your co-workers liked the music, but most of the time, there were very few problems. So much of what I listen to now was introduced to me during that time (about a year, I think) in the music department. And I made good friends. With the exception of C, I don't think any of my friends from B_______ were not in music. Even S started in music, even though he moved to SPT.
The funny thing is, when I moved to music, everyone in music talked constantly about how bad the job had become, and how not fun it was. I don't know how great it had been, but I know that there was still great things about the job. And when I look at what that job became (non-existent), I feel sad. I feel sad because that bookstore just ruined itself. The parent company completely removed the music desk and the music staff went right with it. I really trace the downfall of the store to that moment, when the music desk disappeared. I could wax poetic about it, probably for a long time, but the truth of the matter is, the pay was shitty, and it was never going to get better. I'm glad I left, but I wish, sometimes, that I hadn't had to.

Well, I finished City of

Well, I finished City of the Soul last night, and I couldn't have been less satisfied. The book is in the series of books with Never a City So Real, which, you'll remember, I loved. And I thought that since City of the Soul was about Rome, I would really love it, and feel the city of Rome through the book.
It wasn't to be, though. The author, Murray, primarily concentrates on an older Rome (especially the late forties, mid-fifties period) that I'm just not familiar with. Rome changes so much, a characteristic I realized in 2002, when I went back with S and S.S. I mean, fundamentally, the city has stayed the same since it's founding. I don't think, for instance, that the Romans have changed. Ever. But the ongoing effort of keeping the ruins in good condition, of basically just making sure the ruins aren't destroyed, is changing the city. It always looks, and feels, just a little bit different.
But Murray didn't connect with me. He didn't make me love Rome any more than I already did. Whereas Kotlowitz, in Never a City So Real, made me love Chicago more than I already do. I'm now trying to reevaluate whether or not to buy any more books in the series.

Now look, I totally understand

Now look, I totally understand that I'm at a community college. It's focused on vocational and prep work, and not the intellectual pursuits that most higher institutions are. I totally get it. But I really chafe at being treated like an uneducated idiot. Here's an example: We spent 15 (or so) minutes today on the differences between (and I'm not kidding) full-text articles and citations. Excuse me? F U L L T E X T A R T I C L E pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Now, citations, that's a worthy topic. I mean, besides the fact that you can buy a book that tells you how to do it, I can understand how many people long out of the educational paradigm might need an update. But hello, we didn't cover how to cite. We covered what a citation was. I'm frustrated and really pissed.
I really love school, don't get me wrong. But I love learning, and I'm just not. (In this class--in reference materials, I'm learning a lot.) I'm so far, at 100% and if I get all the points on my homework, I can reasonably fail the research paper and still pass the class. I won't fail the research paper, because I am physically incapable of turning in sub-standard work, but I could, you see, and that means something. I just storm out of that class, completely mind-numbed. I think that I could get more intellectual stimulation in a high school class. I'm not kidding about that either.
I think the teacher can tell I'm getting frustrated (and don't even get me started about her. She says she has 95 hours past her masters degree in classes in adult education. Take it from me, you can't tell.), because I can't hide it. Those of you who know me, you know that I'm a ridiculously bad liar, and a ridiculously bad hider of feelings. For instance, if I hate your shoes/outfit/hairdo, it's likely you'll know, only because I'm truly bad at masking, in my eyes, how I feel. So I'm thinking she knows that I hate the whole thing. You should see my (non-existent) notes for the class. Doodles, words, mean (MEAN) statements about the teacher and some of the other assorted idiots in the class--it doesn't even qualify as notes. Because there is NOTHING worthy to write down.
I know other women in the class feel the same, and there are some incredibly intelligent women in the class. I honestly don't know how they take the condescension and pandering. I just don't get it. Thank fucking goodness I've only got a month of this class left.

I'm watching Philadelphia right now.

I'm watching Philadelphia right now. When the movie came out, a long time ago (it seems), it made a big, big impact on me. I think it was set up to make a big impact, but now, when I watch it, I think it partly failed. I think it failed because all I really remember now is the music from the movie. In fact, I still really like the song at the end of the movie, by Neil Young. I can't think of what it's called, but I love the song. I think it's beautiful.
I suppose, at the time, the movie was revolutionary because it put this issue of AIDS and homosexuality, really, right into the mainstream. When America's hero, Tom Hanks, (and let me tell you, I am NOT a Tom Hanks fan), plays a gay man with AIDS, well, you have to expect that America is going to sit up and listen. But now, and I may be wrong, since I'm not quite in the know, but now it seems that so much focus has moved away from HIV/AIDS education. I'm worried that we look at it as this big problem that doesn't affect America anymore. And it's true, the problems in Asia and Africa are monumental, and need attention, immediate attention. But I happen to think that the way American drug companies sickeningly try to make a profit off the pain and suffering of people who so badly need drugs, I happen to think it makes us, as Americans, culpable. I am 100% in favor of making those drugs available generically, and as soon as possible, to countries in crisis right now.
But if we don't keep teaching Americans how to avoid contracting HIV, our numbers are going to pop right back up to where they were before education seemed to win the battle. But we can't teach sex education anymore, just abstinence education, and so things get worse, and worse, and we'll end up where we started.

We're so callous, Americans. We think nothing will ever happen to us. How wrong we are continually proved to be.

Update: It still makes me cry. A lot. The Neil Young song (which is actually called "Philadelphia") and the wake/funeral. It's very sad. And I'm a movie cryer.

I want one of these

I want one of these t-shirts. The site might not be the most fun site, in terms of extras, but boy does it say it like it is.

Click this link....

and buy me a t-shirt!

Fonder, I hope. I know

Fonder, I hope. I know for me, absence makes the heart grow fonder. S is in San Diego, visiting his brother and trying not to fall in the ocean while taking pictures of the sunset. I have this fear of him climbing on a rock somewhere on the coast and falling into the surf. Let me tell you, that time in Monterrey, when he was perched precariously on a rock and it started to rain, I was scared shitless. Jumping from rock to slippery rock? Not a good idea.
People always tell me it's silly to miss him when he's only gone for a couple of days, but when you spend so much time in the company of one person, you tend to miss them when they're not there. And it's not missing, so much, that I am doing, but (how to describe it?)....
Certain things have been kind of nice. I like being noisy in the morning, and not having to tiptoe around while getting ready for class this morning was good. And I like the fact that the house is spotless. I keep things clean, he doesn't so much. And, much to his chagrin, I'm sure, I was able to have some cigarettes without feeling completely guilty. I don't smoke, you see, but I used to, and boy do I miss it. (Anyone who tells you they don't, be skeptical. I don't so much like the taste of cigs, but I simply adore doing it. I quit for S, and because I knew it would save me money, and because hey, smoking is actually bad for you. So a stolen cig here and there? Faaaaaantastic.) Okay, I do feel guilty. But only because I know S will read this and he'll be disappointed. Still.
Anyway, I do feel like everything would just be a little nicer if he were here. I don't want to get sappy, but he makes it all worth it. Even if I'm yelling at him to move his socks, or he's trying to drag me away from cooking a dinner that I am ridiculously hungry for, I still wouldn't want it any other way. I like the mundane things, like going grocery shopping together, and talking about our days. I like showing him my silly yoga moves, and telling him how stupid I looked. I like hearing his work gossip, and knowing what he's thinking about the situation there. People always talk about how great passionate love is, and they're right, it is. But you know, part of me finds the simplicity of companionship just as great. I don't think the person you love has to be the only companion you have, but it's really good if that person is a great friend and companion. And that's what S is to me. I love him passionately, but I also like him.

Okay, this is getting ucky. I'm sorry. What can I say? I'm sappy. And he's not here.