Quodlibets

Holy good lord

I'm drinking a tumbler of wine. What's more odd--the fact that I'm drinking it, or the fact that I had it on hand in the first place? Anyone?

A wolf in sheep's clothing

Family, do not ask about my job interview today.  Because let me tell you, it was not a job interview so much as a disabuse of notions previously held.

When the interviewer (would-be) asked me why I applied for the job, I told him that the ad I saw for the job mentioned library work.  He laughed.  He laughed.  And I had to tell him I was serious.  The job I apparently applied for and agreed to be interviewed for was a corporate accounts management job.  I'd be opening and managing/maintaining accounts.  I felt I deserved to know why I was told a different thing by personnel, at which point he asked me what I had been told.

When he heard me say "research" he said that there was sort of a research component, but only as it pertained to the accounts I'd be working on.  I think it was at this point that I gently (even though I was seething/melting with genuine sadness) told him that I simply wasn't interested, and that I thought I'd be doing something that at least somewhat pertained to library work, and that many, many corporations had libraries, and I wasn't averse to working in a corporate library.  (I don't think he believed me, because he asked me for some examples.)  He then said it was not remotely a corporate library job, said we shouldn't waste each other's time anymore, and sent me on my way.

I'm happy about this, because I would have been miserable at the job.  MISERABLE.  I could feel my soul sucking right out of me the minute I walked in--all I could see in front of me was a sea of cubicles.  I swear, my life in a cubicle flashed before my eyes, and I knew that if the job I was offered was going to take place in a cubicle I'd have to turn it down.  I would have been miserable there.  I would have hated going to work.  I would have felt unhappy every minute I spent in the place.  So I'm happy, but pissed.  How the hell could an accounts job have masqueraded as a research job?  They tell prospective employees whatever they have to to get them in the door?  What a waste of time for him, and for me. 

I'm going to start applying for part-time jobs four hours ago. 

The Obligatory Six Feet Under rumination

I loved Six Feet Under.  Sort of.  By the end of the series, I was frustrated with the show, simply because nothing good was ever happening to the characters.  Things were predictably bad for almost every character on the show.  One thing that I couldn't say about the first couple seasons of the show was that they weren't at all predictable, so this was disappointing for me.  I also missed a majority of the fourth season, for no discernable reason except that I was sick of the bad things happening.  I wanted these people to be living real lives, if a little surreal. 

However, I returned to the show this year, and overall, really loved it.  And now that it's over, I've been reading many of the reactions to the show's demise, and many overall reactions to the show.  (Have you seen the obituaries at HBO, for the main characters?  Interesting.)  One of the things I don't understand about all the reactions to the show is how much hatred was aimed at Nate.  Even though he cheated on Brenda--and don't get me wrong, that's bad--I couldn't muster an ounce of hate for him.  Maybe because I'm a sick, incurable romantic, I thought it was fantastic that Nate found love in his last moments.  I normally don't think that cheaters should be commended.  I'm very against it.  But for some reason, Nate's case felt sympathetic to me.  I can't explain it; quite a few people have said that they weren't really saddened by Nate's death, but I was close to tears.  He'd just met the love of his life; it seemed so unfair to me.  I don't know what that says about me.

I also will miss seeing Frances Conroy on TV.  I'm not sure what it was about her, but something about the way she acted Ruth Fisher made me feel in some ways that she was an 'everywoman'.  I just can't forget that scene at the party, when she dumped her famous potato salad in the toilet, and she was the odd one out, the frumpy one, the alone one.  People don't talk about Ruth Fisher much, except to say that Frances Conroy is a marvelous actress who brought so much to the role.  Perhaps because I am a daughter, perhaps because my mother and I aren't at all like Ruth and Claire, perhaps something else; whatever it was, my favorite part of most shows was Claire and Ruth, Ruth and Claire, and the ways in which they interacted.  I also just loved watching Ruth change from mother to individual, which I think definitely happened in the course of the show.

I think S and I are going to start renting the first season of 6FU, because he hasn't seen it, and I really, really want to see it again, and remember the excitement of that first season.  Because I remember thinking, while watching it for the first time that it was something different. And I think I was right.  It was.

I am (deceptively) a lightweight

I didn't share this story last week because it's kind of embarrassing.  But only a little bit, and anyway, it might be sorta funny.

Last week, S and I went to dinner with my cousin, the Nicknamer, and his wife Rocky.  The restaurant was right around the corner from my sister's apartment (in a manner of speaking, but definitely within walking distance), so S and I drove to my sis', parked, and hung out with her for a little while.  About fifteen minutes before we were set to meet Nick and Rocky, we set out for the restaurant.  When we got there, it was relatively empty, and Nick and Rocky were nowhere to be found.  S and I decided to sit at the bar (in the VERY small restaurant) and not drink, because generally, we do not.  About 20 minutes after our meeting time came and went, Nick called and said that they'd be there in about 10 minutes. 

We were hungry.  So I ordered a beer, because I thought it might calm me down, and they had Blue Moon, which I really like.  20 minutes later, the beer was mostly gone, the restaurant was jammin' and Nick and Rocky finally walked in.  It was fine, it really was.  They apologized, we got seated almost right away (the host having become S and my newest friend during our wait), and we ordered immediately. 

The problem was, I was completely drunk off my ass.  I know, I know, lame.  But my stomach was empty, and that beer just went straight to my head.  I seriously thought I was going to kill myself on my walk to the table.  I couldn't focus on anything; I was sure that Nick and Rocky (especially Nick) could tell that I was soooo out of it.  I was positive that everything I said was stupid and incoherent.  I was trying desperately not to slur my words.  I also thought that I was behaving like I was mad at Nick and Rocky for being late, which I wasn't really.  Shit happens sometimes, and it worked out fine.  Anyway, the appetizer, which was a yummy flatbread, came quickly, I ate some, and I didn't feel drunk anymore.  I'm sure that the bread soaked up some of the alcohol, because I began to function normally.

Afterward, in the car on the ride home, I asked S if he could tell that I was really, really tipsy before dinner came.  He looked at me like I had three heads, and said he couldn't tell at all.  That was a relief, but in the future, I think I'll avoid any alcohol before dinner.  Because that experience sucked.

Pondering

How do you know when a headache crosses over and is more than a headache?  How many days should you wait until you do something about it?  Honestly.

Answer:  You go to the ER on the fifth day.  You have a CT scan, but everything is okay.  It's allergies or a migraine.  You get a prescription for a narcotic.  (Which you don't plan on using.)  And then you come home and the power is out.  Until late at night.  So you decide to spend the night at your Mom's house where the power is secure.  It's like a vacation.  But not.

Another round in the Chick Lit Battle

I'm so fucking sick of women smearing Chick Lit.  I'm so done with it.  At Bitch PhD, one of the guest bloggers wrote a post about Chick Lit--love it or hate it, embrace it or shun it.  Her post was okay.  Not the best start for a post on Chick Lit (as if it is something to be ashamed of reading), and some blurring between Romance and Chick Lit, but okay.  No, the problem with that post was the venom that the comments inspired.  I left one of my own, because I'm just appalled by what I read.

When did it become okay to so harshly judge what people are reading?  Kelly recently posted a great entry about librarians not judging what people are reading, and I think she's right.  But I don't think you need to be a librarian to know that you shouldn't judge so harshly the reading habits of anyone.  Furthermore, I don't think it benefits women if other women attack their choices so harshly.  Assuming that every women who happened to read The Devil Wears Prada is an unintelligent, unethical, apolitical, shopping bimbo is fucked up.  I'm sure that some women are like that.  I know that some women are like that.  But contrary to what that commenter believes, your reading choices definitely don't always define you. 

I still think that most women who criticize Chick Lit so harshly are afraid of what they'll look like to men if they don't.  I mean, I don't care if you don't like Chick Lit, or Romance.  That's fine.  But I do care when you cross the line from "I don't like Chick Lit." to "Chick Lit has no value, nor do the women who read it."  Because the second sounds suspiciously like an attempt to make yourself appear better to the people who don't read Chick Lit in great quantities, and who are apt to dismiss it out of hand.  Men. 

In some ways, reading Chick Lit and enjoying it feels subversive to me.  Because I refuse to accept that men are the arbiters of what is good writing, and so I refuse to accept that all Chick Lit has no literary merit.  Again, not all chick lit is good writing.  Neither is all literary fiction, or all sci-fi, or all mystery.  But I think that we can find value in some books in every genre that is currently being read.  Including romance.  A good writer is a good writer is a good writer, no matter what genre they're currently writing in, no matter what the boys' club wants you to think.

I think it's fucked up that we let people tell us what to think about literature simply by the label it's given.  I think that it's sad that we'll so willingly trash women on the basis of what they're reading, regardless of the fact that we might not know anything about them.  I think that we, as women, lose when we attack reading choices.  We lose when we attack two of the only genres that exist for women, by women.  And you're really missing the point if you buy into the paradigm that literary fiction=value and chick lit=trash.  Missing. The. Point.

People read these books for a reason.  People buy these books for a reason.  There's a reason literary fiction is begging Oprah to rescue it.  What is popular is not necessarily bad, and it doesn't make you better or smarter if you only read "literary fiction".  In fact, I'd say that you're pretty damn boring if that's all you read.  There's a big, bad world of books out there.  Try a mystery, try some sci-fi.  Try a romance or some chick lit, for god's sake.  Read some non-fiction--a travel narrative or a collection of food essays.  Aim for well-roundedness, and variety.  There are good books in every genre.  Hunt them down.  Explore.  It's gonna make you smarter, and hopefully, it will make you nicer. 

Because frankly, I'm sick of being trashed by other women, for no good reason.

Update:  And can I please reiterate that NOT ALL CHICK LIT features "fluff-head" shopping idiots?  Please, stop fucking characterizing the genre this way when you haven't read enough of the genre to understand it.  Because if you had, you'd know that your insulting condescension is wrong.  Would I read books about women who were so uninteresting?  Would I?  Assuming that every book is like the one you read is just such a fucking mistake.  GRRRRRRRR.  That comment thread is getting longer, and longer, and more and more people are characterizing the genre in a way that if you don't hate it, you're a traitor to women, because you like reading about bimbos who love shoes.  It's so much more than that, people!

Friday Random Ten

1. Don't Tell Me -- Madonna
2. Don't Let Me Down -- The Beatles
3. Help Me -- Joni Mitchell
4. Roads (Live) -- Portishead
5. Driving Sideways -- Aimee Mann
6. All I Really Want -- Alanis Morissette
7. Plane Crash in C -- Rilo Kiley
8. We Never Change -- Coldplay
9. Fred Jones, Pt. 2 -- Ben Folds
10. I Can Love You Better -- The Dixie Chicks

This is pretty representative.  I love the fact that it's mostly women (at least in terms of singer, for Portishead and Rilo Kiley), because I listen to a lot a lot a lot of women musicians.  I'm not sure why, because it certainly isn't a conscious choice.  Actually, S has a really hard time with "chick singers", something I thought might be limited to him, but in the car on the way to the concert on Saturday, my brother said something about not being able to listen to women singers.  I really, really don't understand why it would be HARD to listen to women singing, but there you go.  I love them, anyway.

Tomato, tomahto

Oh man, I can't get enough of them.  I eat a tomato every day.  A whole tomato, in one sitting.  I can't resist them, when they're fresh and summery.  Today, I made my mom take me to a farmstand out by her just so that I could buy enough tomatoes to get me through the weekend.  Usually, a little sprinkling of sea salt or gray salt is more than enough seasoning, but if I want variety I've used mayonnaise, olive oil, and various salad dressings.  (I'm not sure if everyone does this, but in my family, we eat fresh summer tomatoes spread with mayonnaise as an side dish to most summer meals.)  In fact, this rather segues into a meme I've seen floating around the food blogs that simply asks you to list five childhood food memories.  Well, chalk tomatoes up as number one.  I can't remember a time when the jar of mayonnaise didn't come out to accompany our glorious summer tomatoes.

My number two memory is absolutely most definitely Spaghetti Sunday.  Every Sunday in the winter, my mom cooks up a pot of spaghetti.  One Sunday, she'd start a double batch by frying up the sausage, which instantly made the whole house smell delightful.  I'd wake up to the whole house smelling of Italian food and football games on TV.  It was a constant in my life.  I could count on it every single Sunday, and my mom's spaghetti is not a shabby meal.  It's fantastic and rich; you can't get a better meat sauce in a restaurant.

In much the same vein, another solid childhood food memory is of my dad's deep-dish pizza.  He makes some of the most amazing pizza, just utterly delicious.  We used to get together with his best friend's family, and the two men would make the pizza, which was then generally eaten (at our house, anyhow) on a Smurfs picnic table.  We still eat the pizza, but don't see the people anymore.  Strange, but good.

Oooh, I know another one.  My mom made ridiculously fantastic cakes when we were kids.  I don't mean that the actual cake was fantastic, because she just used boxed cake mix (which we do all love immensely).  But my mom learned Wilton cake decorating, and she made all kinds of beautiful cakes.  Once, she made a stand-up, 3-D Care Bear cake for my birthday.  It was so fantastic!  (I won't share the rest of this food memory, though, unless my sister gives me the go-ahead.  For reasons you'll either find out, or not, depending on Kate.)  My sister had a spooky Halloween cake one year, and that was fun.  I know she also did a Mickey Mouse cake as well, but I don't know who that was for.  Those cakes were so fun!

And lastly, I fondly remember picking raspberries off the bushes next to our house.  I still love raspberries (I think all of us do, actually), and those raspberries, fresh off the bushes, were amazing.

Feminists who don't have female friends

Via feministe, I read this post by a woman (feminist) who doesn't know how to relate to women.  Who, self-professed, found herself suspicious of a woman at work, just because.

I'm definitely not that girl.  I don't have a hard time relating to women; most of the best friends I've had have been women.  The woman in the above post hypothesizes that her relationship with her mother might have been a catalyst for this sort of mistrust of women; my relationship with my mom is fantastic, and always have been.  I've also somehow maintained a closeness with my sister (even though we tend to fight like cats and dogs when living with one another), that seems to at times transcend a simple blood tie.  I genuinely like my sister, and feel like I would want to know her if she wasn't my sister.  And if my mom wasn't my mom, I think I'd be jealous of whoever had her for a mom.  I feel lucky, I guess, that I've had such positive model female relationships, because it's obviously served me well.  My closest friends in high school were all women, some of whom I keep in touch with regularly and love dearly.  (In fact, one of my friends in high school, that I might not have been super-close with became a far closer friend after high school--this is the one in seminary now--which is interesting.)  I was surrounded by women, and I was fine with it. 

In college, which really began for me in Rome (a school environment that literally included six men and sixty women), I became close friends with a man, and started dating a woman.  When I came back to the States, my closest friends were all lesbians (and my best friend, Enzo, a man.).  I'm not sure how to say this without it sounding crap, but when you hang around women who genuinely love other women, it changes your life.  There was drama, of course, because lesbians seem to acquire drama at least as fast as the general population, but there was no catty, backstabbing type of shit.  I don't feel like women were talking about me behind my back, and I certainly wasn't doing it, not really.  When you surround yourself with women who genuinely LOVE women, you can't help but learn to love the different ways in which women move through the world.  It was the most accepting society I've ever been a part of; I never, ever had a problem relating to women, straight or gay.  And we did, I hasten to add, have as many women friends who were straight as gay.  It was a very, very woman-centric (regardless of sexual orientation) community.

When I moved away, broke up with my g/f, and came home, I wasn't sure what was what.  I started to work at the bookstore, and sure enough, the first friend that I made was a woman.  She's a close friend still, one of the best I have, and it felt easy from the beginning.  But I'll admit that my time at college has made me less tolerant of the back-stabbing and betrayals of high school.  It's amazing to me now that I relate so well to women, because one of my friends in high school made a play for every boy I liked.  I think that she has possibly complimented me (and then, back-handedly) three or four times.  And I LOVED this girl.  I can't explain how I came through so willing to trust women, so willing to love them and put my faith in them.  I don't know.  I know now that I don't put up with the same shit from close friends, but that I don't need to.  There are so many kick-ass women out there, so many good people to be friends with.  I don't mistrust a woman until she gives me a reason to.  And yeah, some of them do.  But so do men; in fact, all of my close friendships with men (besides with S) are defunct now.

I've kept the women though.  A couple from every phase of my life, women I'd rather cut off my arm than live without.  I guess, at the very base of this, is the fact that I don't consider other women as competition.  And no matter how you look at it, through a lesbian lens or a hetero lens, women view other women as competition allllll the time.  For jobs, for men, for other women, for affection from a parent, whatever.  Other woman as competition is a relentless theme that is DRILLED into our heads all the time by society, and it's baaaad.  It's very, very bad.  You can't be friends with someone, not in a close, deep way if you view someone as a competitor. 

And you can't create a feminist unity if you're willing to step on the woman in front of you just to get ahead.  You can't love women, really love women, if you don't give up on the idea that you have to compete with every woman in the world.  Honestly, how can you be a feminist if you can't love (and I'm not talking sexual love, here) a woman in real life?  You can talk all you want about loving women, and equality for women, but what you're really talking about is equality for YOU, and rights for YOU.  It seems to me that a practical part of feminism is being able to relate to women, on a very fundamental level. 

I'm not saying that you're not a feminist if you have no women friends, but just that I find it hard to understand.  I'm not a feminist just because I'm a woman.  I'm a feminist because of all the amazing, wonderful women who have been in my life.  Because being a feminist just for me seems pretty selfish; I don't think I'm the most important thing in my feminism.  There's a list of women that make it vital that I'm a feminist, a list of women that I've loved, and who have loved me.  I wasn't a feminist first, let me put it that way.  I wasn't a feminist who learned to love women.  I was a woman who loved women, and became a feminist because of this.  Love women, and the feminism will follow.  But perhaps not vice versa?

Book Pro'lems

I'm having the hardest time getting into books right now.  Last night I wrote an email to a friend about what I'm reading, and realized that I have FOUR books in progress right now, and that's very rare for me.  I started every one of them fully intending to finish, but put all of them down in the middle, for one reason or another.  (One of them is pseudo-homework, so it will absolutely get finished, just not right now.)  It's probably not a coincidence that all of them are genres that I don't normally read; when I do pick up a romance, cozy mystery or an alternative history, I finish it.  I finished a crazy romance novel last night.

I think I hit this point about once a month, maybe more often, and I'm not really sure why.  It's possible that I'm reading too much, and I'm full to saturation.  Or I need something way more compelling right now.  I speculated in my email last night that I really need to read a book by one of my favorite authors, but the only author on that list that has a book coming out, that I know of, is Diana Gabaldon, and her new book doesn't come out until September 27.  I've been hanging out at Amazon, looking through the upcoming releases, popular pre-orders, and looking up all my favorite authors, but to no avail. 

Losing interest in reading feels like losing interest in life, in some ways.  I'm just so in love with the written word normally that when I have to sit on the bed in front of my bookcase for hours looking for a book, it's baaaad.  Normally, I have an organized idea of what I'm going to be reading after my current book.  It's a little plan in my head, and it usually works out.  I think it de-railed when I didn't finish the first book, and then the three piled up and really left me drowning.  I'm not sure other readers have these little crises, but again, it happens about once a month for me.  My solution this time is to go back and re-read something that I felt deserved a better, more intensive reading.  I know I like it, see, and hopefully that will keep me reading it.