Another Dispatch from the Pinko Commie Front

So, the health care bill. I agree, it's not perfect and it doesn't address all the issues I would like it to*. But I think it's a start.


Not all that long ago, I got really sick. (I haven't mentioned it here before - among other reasons, I've been recuperating rather than blogging about recuperating.) I was really sick. I spent a lot of time in hospitals while people worked to save my life.

Without health insurance, these would have been my options:
1. Death
2. Treatment - at the cost of $40,000 of debt


This is why I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right? Which part of having to go $40,000 in debt in order to save your own life constitutes liberty or the pursuit of happiness? And I didn't even have something complicated and expensive like cancer!

Although I was lucky enough to have health insurance when I got sick, not everyone is as lucky as me. And it *is* luck. I had no input into being born white, which is a huge privilege - and that's just for starters. I've had lots of other privilege in my life, and I agree with Luke that "unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required". Dave and I are solidly middle class - ostensibly the demographic getting "screwed" by this bill, and we both agree that we are HAPPY to have to pay a little bit more in our taxes so that fewer people have to decide between life and crippling debt.

For the record? When I was sick? If I'd had to make that choice? I would have chosen to die. I'm not saying that's what everyone would or should choose, but it would have been my choice. I was pretty motherfucking sick and I felt pretty motherfucking bad. So if you read this blog, you probably know me. Know that without health insurance, you would not be reading this right now, because I would be dead.

Thousands of Americans have to make non-hypothetical versions of my choice, and they not only have blog readers, they have friends and families and people who love them - but who aren't in a position to spot them $40,000. Just pause for a second, and let that idea sink in.




* I am most unhappy about the rabidly oppressive Stupak provisions, and second-most unhappy that the issue of the cost of health care hasn't been directly addressed. But my friend Jodi, an economist, wrote a great post about the way the bill works from an economic point of view, and she's a lot smarter than me more coherent than me on the issue.

I used to work for an insurance company, and at this job I learned that, in Massachusetts at least, no driver, no matter how risky, could be denied automobile insurance. If a driver is rejected from insurers via the traditional channels, he can get insurance via a secondary pool that all of the insurers have to contribute to. These premiums are higher than in most other cases, but at least there is an insurance option for people who want to operate a car. This seems to work pretty well, so why not have the same for health insurance?

In a way, that’s pretty much what we are ending up with. (For the record, it costs about twice as much to insure me as it costs to insure my car. This ratio is lower than it probably should be because I am a bad driver.) Insurance exchanges are being set up to serve customers who cannot get insurance from private companies directly. People are even being treated better than my car since they are getting subsidized if they have an income such that regular health insurance is “unaffordable.” (I hate that word, since it really has no good meaning, but you get my point.) And yes, this works in some fashion as a transfer from the more wealthy to the less wealthy, since it has to be paid for somehow and we have a progressive income tax. (See below for more on this point and deficit neutrality.)

Go read the whole thing, though; it's worth it. Plus there are cartoons!

So it's come to this:

Apparently I have become someone who vacuums every day.

I also clean the litterboxes daily. (I have to; otherwise the whole house smells like a big cat turd.)

I am no longer able to ignore messes around the house.

Given $600, I would probably spend the money on a vacuum and not a Nikon D60.

I think that's kind of a female thing, actually. Spending the money on something household related for a shared good rather than a toy for myself. I'm kind of bummed out by realizing this, actually. I'm also completely disconcerted to realize I have become something my ex-husband reserved a special sneer for: I am house proud.

And I can't tell if that's bad because it's embracing traditional female value assigned by a patriarchal culture or if it's okay to groove on a clean house, the way it's okay to wear lipstick and heels and feel like you look awesome.

On marriage, and weddings, and the bridal experience.

So, I was standing in the fitting room at Vera Wang, looking at myself in the dress (and wearing the Undergarment of Insanity. This undergarment required many google searches, but I finally found something which was backless AND had an underwire. The only design flaw – besides the lack of instructions for the adjustable straps – is that it’s not a snap crotch. So, um, that will be fun. Luckily my maid of honor is up to the task.)

So there was this beautiful dress and that I was wearing in front of a full-length mirror and then on top of it was my regular old face, and it felt … strange, like someone had photoshopped my face into an ad. After I eloped with my first husband, I really gave up the idea of ever having a real wedding or wearing white and I guess the reality of it still hasn’t sunk in. Leaving aside considerations about tackiness of wearing white to a second wedding … I definitely bought into the bride concept enough to not care that A) this is my second marriage (but first wedding!) B) that white originally symbolized purity/virginity and we’ve been living together for a couple of years and, uh, clearly not a virgin …

I really wanted that status symbol of being a bride, illogical as it may be in my case. And yet, while I wanted it, I don’t feel like I deserve it (see objections A and B above)… which is bullshit since the whole bride-wearing-white is a marketing concept and the only thing that qualifies one to deserve to wear a white dress is the desire to wear one and the ability to purchase it. (I also feel very torn about the idea of a couple receiving gifts for a wedding, since the original idea was to help a couple set up house together and we did that when we moved in together. But I wasn’t so torn that I failed to register at a couple of places; nor did I request that anyone who wanted to give us a gift should make a contribution to the charity of their choice instead because actually, there is a bunch of stuff we need and it would take us years to be able to afford it on our own. Almost all our furniture and sheets and towels and stuff is hand-me-down and/or left over from college, so - for example - the towels are getting pretty threadbare, as you might imagine. Blah blah justification-cakes.)

Anyway. I hate it when women become consumed by their weddings and swore that that wouldn’t happen to me, but I cannot seem to shut up about it. Everyone indulges me in this, too, which is not helping my resolve. Because truthfully I do feel extraordinarily lucky to be able to have this marvelous wedding (thank you, Mom and Dad) and so I shouldn’t complain, because, you know, lucky.

That said, planning a party for 150 people when there are all kinds of other agendas in play IS a lot of work. As an example of another agenda … my mom is using the wedding as an excuse to have a mini family reunion with her side of the family, which I think is a fairly common side function for weddings (and funerals), it just hadn’t occurred to me beforehand that this was the case, so I was like, WHY exactly are you so insistent on inviting these people I barely know to my wedding? Why would they even care about my wedding? … because …despite the marketing, my wedding is not actually all about me. (It's about Dave, too! Heh.)

But a big community celebration of the couple's commitment to one another is kind of the point of having a wedding, I think. And that’s a really cool tradition, and it was one of the things I regretted most about eloping the first time around. I can totally see where someone wouldn’t be into having a wedding and would just want to do something quiet at the courthouse, but I like the idea of the wedding as a chance for a bunch of community good wishes for people starting a new phase.

And it is a new phase. I lived with my first husband for a while also before we got married, and things definitely shifted after we got married. It felt a little more permanent and not like we might break up after every big fight. I liked that feeling. I’m also, of course, deeply glad about Massachusetts’ no fault divorce options, since I do think it’s important to be able to get out of a relationship once you’ve tried everything and it’s still just not going to work.

Even after I left my first husband, I was somehow relieved to have gotten married at all – I’d been terrified all my life that I’d end up an unmarried spinster (such an awful word), lonely and the object of pity for others. This fear was not helped by the fact that I was a super late bloomer and didn’t really start dating until I was about 19 … and even then, I couldn’t really find anyone to be my BOYFRIEND, which I thought was my fault. In a way it was, since I was all fucked up about myself and thought I was just unlovable and unattractive, when really it was not so much that I was unlovable as that I was thought that finding someone to love me would fix my giant seething mass of insecurities. Which, as it turns out, is not a good idea.

I have a pet theory that damaged attracts damaged, which is why when I first met my first husband - and I was the same mess that other, saner boys had run screaming from - and he stuck around to actually become my boyfriend, it was a sign that he was just as fucked up as me. It should have been a sign, anyway. That’s unfortunately the kind of lesson that only experience can teach you.

At least I learned it pretty well – after I left the first husband and moved back to the states, I would meet men in bars and tell them that I had just left a marriage, that I was unemployed and living with my parents - and you’d think they’d be all, beep beep beep flashing lights, back off! But no, the strategy kind of backfired, since I was so open about admitting how much I’d fucked up, it disarmed them into thinking I wasn’t crazy and asked for my number anyway. I guess they ignored the obvious logic that only a crazy broad would get herself into a shitty situation like that.

But somehow being married – the fact that someone HAD once wanted me enough to commit to marry me – did a lot for my self-esteem. Fucked up though that is, the status afforded to women who get married went a long way towards making me feel better about myself. (I also had, and continue to seek, a lot of therapy.) But it was like I’d checked some kind of life goal off the list: I’d proved my worth by getting married, just as I’d proved my independence by living abroad for a while. On to the next life goal: Owning the Dallas Cowboys.

So on the eve (… nearly) of marrying again, I don’t have that huge need for someone else to validate my worth as a woman by marrying me … which I think is why I am entering this marriage with so much reflection about the meaning of weddings and the experience of being a bride. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t enjoying all the priviledges that come with bridal status – everything from the mild envy of other women to getting to wear the white dress and getting a couple of fantastic pieces of jewelry to having a party where I will be, legitimately, the star for the day. (Co-star, really, but the wedding industry is All About The Bride – which is fucked up, but this is long enough already so I won’t get into it.) That’s a lot of ego-stroking, so no wonder I found it seductive and no wonder, as a good progressive liberal feminist, I also found it troubling, with all the class indicators and consumerism which surround weddings.

So my strategy has been to try to separate the wedding (which is basically a giant party) from the marriage/relationship, which I don’t expect to change much (apart from maybe the comfort that a worrywart like me derives from being married during fights.) And I feel like I’ve done a decent job of this for the most part, but as the wedding date gets closer (May 18th, peeps!), I am finding I’m getting more sucked into the idea that the success of the wedding will somehow be a predictor of the success of the marriage. Which it’s not, really.

You can have a perfect wedding and it can still all end in divorce a few years later, or you can run into every disaster possible and still make a go of the marriage. In some cases … like where one member of the to-be-wedded couple behaves badly at the wedding or during the run-up, in retrospect it’s like, yeah, that groom who banged a stripper at his bachelor party, that probably should have said something about the prospects for his future fidelity during the marriage … but mostly, as long as the couple continue to treat each other with respect as hopefully they’ve been doing all along, the wedding isn’t any kind of reading of the entrails of the marriage’s success. I was just having a hard time for a while making the distinction in my head between Dave’s and my relationship and our wedding.

The wedding and the relationship are related, sure, but not the same, although I hadn’t previously made this distinction. Therefore, the fight we had last weekend freaked me right out (Oh noes! We are fighting right before the wedding! Does this mean we shouldn’t be getting married?!!1111???)

But actually, if you (okay, me) take a step back and think about it, it makes sense that we should be fighting because Dave’s school stuff continues to be wicked stressful and also very time-consuming, plus his band is really taking off. And all of THAT results in Dave not having much time at home to help with housework or wedding stuff or hang out with me (never mind time to himself, which is probably more important than the first two).

Plus I’ve had some changes at work that mean I feel like I need to prove myself (obviously dealing with wedding stuff – which mostly needs to be dealt with between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm – is not helping my work situation.) So I end up feeling lonely and also overworked, especially given the increased effort/time spent at my paid work … and so we’re both getting a pretty raw deal right now, which is why it’s no surprise that we’re fighting, but also that the fighting isn’t really anything but a byproduct of both of us being short on patience and on sleep. And it’s not an indication that the wedding ought to be called off, it’s an indication that we’ve got WAY too much going on right now.

And we’ve recognized that, and Dave has made changes at work so he’s “only” working a 32 hour week, which will hopefully help with the school pressure. As for me, the wedding WILL be over soon, and then things can mostly go back to “normal”, which is still too busy, but at least might afford more time and energy for yoga and self-care. And we’ll reassess the situation once the big old wedding hurdle has been cleared, and see if we need to make other changes. And if that doesn’t work … well, remember what I said about Mass divorce laws! Heh. I’m not planning on ever getting divorced again, though.

Holy crap. 2000 word blog post, and it’s not even humorous. I wonder if anyone will read to the end?

A Tale of Two Vertical Search Engines

The good vertical search engine:

There's a vertical search engine called MissingMoney.com, and basically you type in your name and state and it checks to see if there's any unclaimed money in your name ... like a last paycheck, or an old bank account. I did a little research and the service seems to be legit, despite the impossibly spammy-sounding text in the SearchEngineWatch post where I first read about the service. (I read SearchEngineWatch all the time, so I know it's a legit site, and I think the excessive use of hyperlinks in their post might be to prevent the content from being scraped and reused elsewhere without allocation. And maybe the writer thought he was being funny by imitating the hyperbolic authorial voice common to spam email. But "Find free money" just doesn't do it for me, especially since this is money that's been yours all along. Like treating your tax return as a "bonus" .... no, that money was yours all along, and the government's just been making interest off it in the meantime. Can you tell I sent my taxes off today?) Anyway.

Some of the commenters over at lifehacker said they'd found money. I didn't find anything searching on my name and state, but oh well.
It only takes a few seconds to type in your last name and state, and there's really nothing to lose, you don't have to input an email address or your social security number or much else that could be used to prop up any kind of nefarious identity theft.

The bad vertical search engine:

A government-funded health search engine called Popline, with the tagline of "Your connection to the world's reproductive health literature", has put a stop on all keywords that contain the word "abortion". As in, any search that you do which includes "abortion" in your kewyord string will come up with no results. Your connection to the world's reproductive health information now has no connection with abortion. That is SO FUCKED UP. Wired has a great article on it. An excerpt:

"We recently made all abortion terms stop words," Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. "As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now."

There was no notice of the change on the site.

Dickson suggested other kinds of more obscure search strategies and alternative words to get around the keyword blocking.

"In addition to the terms you're already using, you could try using 'Fertility Control, Postconception'. This is the broader term to our 'abortion' terms and most records have both in the keyword fields," she wrote.

She also suggested using a euphemistic search strategy of "unwanted w/2 pregnancy." But the workarounds don't satisfy critics of the censorship.

That said ... when I went to the site myself and performed a search on the word "abortion", I got back a zillion article results. So maybe someone somewhere in the goverment is listening. It's still wicked messed up that they tried to block it in the first place, though.

update: Broadsheet has more on the decision to reinstate "abortion" as a search term.

It’s going to take a lot of fireworks to clean up this mess

*fyi: metaphors and language in this post might offend you. I’m pissed.*

So, watching the state of the union last night enraged me, mostly because Bush appeared so pleased with himself and I’m so damn mad at him for the mess he’s made. Not like the country hasn’t been fucked up for years … the groundwork for this current recession was laid at least as far back as the Clinton years.

I had to turn off the State of the Union after … not very long. Don’t worry though, I skimmed the full transcript so I’m still informed. I like that this version of the transcript notes the pauses for applause or laughter, but not how Bush’s little black piggy eyes twinkled with self-delight at every scripted reaction from his flunkeys. Way to go, dickhead, you made your yes-men chortle at your jokes! One of my favorite highlights:

I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you; for you, the Social Security system will not change in any way. (Applause.) For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. … As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts.

Hooray for Americans 55 and older, you chose the right years to be born in and President Bush congratulates you! Screw you younger people though; y’all need to keep paying into this system to support the aging generations stupid enough to bring you into the world, then pay again for your own retirement (preferably into an 401K or other stock market account that will also help shore up Wall Street’s shoddy shortsighted business practices.)

And then people express surprise when I tell them that I’m not sure I want kids. The only fucking retirement plan I'll ever be able to afford is made by Smith & Wesson; there’s no way I’ll ever have enough money saved to stop working. And I’m talking about working for my own benefit, never mind a dependent or two.

However. You can get the bad taste out of your mouth by watching this. The man does a genius impersonation of Bush and the clip is only about 3 minutes.



Anyway. Out with the old and in with the new, right?

Actually, I’m not so sure that anything new is coming down the line. Whoever gets into the White House is just going to continue doing more of the same. Even if I didn’t believe that, it wouldn’t matter, because I live in Massachusetts. I guess I’ve got a shot at influencing the primary candidate on Super Tuesday. I’m not registered for either party (haha, like I would register Repugnican anyway.)

But who wants phone calls from one party or the other? Bleh. I get enough unsolicited crap from political cults – seriously – and “non-profits” which don’t disclose the percentage of donations which actually go towards the cause you ostensibly wrote a check for. Also, dickbags should be sending me a check, because I just got the bill from the January oil tank and it is A THOUSAND MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS. Coming right on the heels of the SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS I paid to heat the house (and the dripping hot water faucet and empty apartments above and below us) in December. So now my heating bill for this winter so far is SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. I think that’s more than I’ve paid in TOTAL for the past 2 years. So I guess the meaning of “capped oil prices”, as defined by my oil company, is really more like “we’re gonna put a cap in your ass and you can suck it up or freeze, bitch.”

Yeah, I get that oil prices are market dependent but I also get that I’m being raped by the market. Yay capitalism! Keep driving your huge cock up my ass while I bend over, I love it hard and bloody. So thanks very much for making this oil war, Mr. President. In your genius effort to gain a foothold in one of the major oil fields in the world, you’ve made prices go to 100 dollars a barrel, in large part because of war uncertainty. Speaking of uncertainty, don’t get me started on the stock market (although actually Wall Street has been fucking things up for at least 15 years now, I can’t blame a single administration for that.)

Which gets me back to being disenfranchised. If I want to do anything with my vote in the Mass primary, I’d probably give it to Romney (former Mass governor) because I think he’s less electable than John McCain (who is looking more and more like a really good contender for the Republicans) and I suppose a Democratic administration is marginally preferable to a Republican one, although I don’t think well of either party.

One thing that has struck me in watching the democratic primary race (and keep in mind that this is the first election I’ve been in the country for and eligible to vote in since 1996) is how weird everyone seems to feel about Senator Clinton, like they were all kind of on the fence about her in the first place and were just looking for a reasonable excuse to jump ship. Her campaign has started using some icky nasty rhetoric against Barack Obama and yes, I find it icky and nasty too. But a lot of people are saying that’s why they’ve stopped supporting her, which … what? You didn’t realize most political campaigns are run this way? You didn’t realize HRC was a politician? What sandhole has your head been in? Ditto with her pro-war votes.

Leaving aside the fact that she’s so divisive as to be practically unelectable (plus an HRC nomination for the Democratic party is guaranteed to stimulate the right wing nuts to crawl out from under their rocks and swell the ranks of voters against her), I just don’t hold it against her that she’s rolled over on a bunch of shit because it was politically expedient to do so. You know which politicians don’t roll over and will speak out? The ones that are so entrenched that taking a controversial stance won’t affect them. (Ahem, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Really fucking brave to diss HRC or speak out against the war when you’ve been in the senate –or maybe just Congress – since 1962. Nineteen sixty fucking two. I had to get my calculator out but that’s 45 years (depends on if you count 2008 or not.) It’s not that I disagree with him when he says the war is bad or that he supports Barack Obama, I just think he’s a big blowhard who’s risking zilch and therefore I don’t give his words much weight.

Also I appreciate that HRC has been in Washington for a long time and probably knows everyone. I know that creates its own problems but I’ve noticed that at work and in regular life, having a good relationship with someone – your pharmacist, your boss, your sister – makes a BIG difference in trying to get things done. Not that I would necessarily vote for her since her willingness to do what’s politically expedient means I can’t trust her to stick up for my interests, but who am I kidding? No one gives a shit about my interests.

Anyway. If you don’t like HRC then your option is Barak Obama and I’m not in love with him either because how can I judge someone with no report card at all? (Although I still hope I spelled his first name right.) Possibly I’m just jaded because the campaign for the current Mass governor, Deval Patrick, was similarly grass-roots and messages of hope and inexperience* and since Patrick has been in office, I haven’t seen much in the way of changes, apart from some casinos coming to Massachusetts. Woohoo, that means a lot more money is going to go into a few pockets in central Mass and a few more people will probably develop gambling addictions and Patrick will claim he’s added X numbers of revenue dollars and X number of jobs during his tenure when he runs for re-election.

But I guess I hope Obama gets the democratic nomination, because I prefer him to Anti-Choice McCain. Bleh, though. The whole system is just really crappy. And it’s easy for me to pick holes in someone else’s campaign or administration – one of the things I find amazing about the Presidential primary races is how many people want the fucking job. You could not pay me enough money to be President, for reals.

…Or maybe I am just really crabby because after all that, I did wash my jeans (spilled milky tea on them) and lo and behold! now they are too tight. Fucking hell.



* Deval Patrick is also black, which I feel like adds another similarity to the Obama comparison but I don’t know how to factor race into my campaign strategy analysis so apart from noting it, I’m going to leave it out. Sorry.

the saga of my boobs, part one million

Sarah Hepola has a great salon piece on what it's like to have big boobs. She articulates everything I really minded.

I was in the middle of a semi-naked makeout session with the man I was (foolishly) dating when he interrupted to ask a question.

"What size are those?" He meant my breasts.

A sleazeball, right? Of course. But I've gotten that question, too. It's like kissing me is some kind of license to ask. Gee, why don't you ask how much I weigh, too?


A gajillion porno sites and essentially all of modern pop culture would suggest having big boobs is a wonderful thing, an aspirational thing; hey, people pay good money for these puppies. But for me, it's something I never wanted, something that never fit what I felt like inside, something I try badly to ignore. Unfortunately, most people don't return the favor.

...

But underneath all the good-natured self-mockery and the saucy, low-cut tops, there is something else: I am embarrassed by my knockers. And the fact that something I am embarrassed about is the first thing people notice about me? Well, that kinda sucks. I feel like I could save a baby from a burning building, I could cure cancer with glitter alone, and I would still be referred to as "Sarah, you know, the short one with the big tits."

Ditto. It's not really any fun. One of my first husband's best friends referred to me, for years, as "the lassie wi the big tits." Um, thanks. That was after the reduction, which, if you are interested, brought me down to a 32DD. My surgeon's response, a year after the reduction: "Huh. I thought they'd be smaller, more like a C cup." Yeah, I thought so too. But you don't need to slice me up again and cut off my nipples and reattach them again and leave big swathes of ropy scar tissue - it's okay, I'll live with it. It's certainly an improvement from the G cup or whatever I was wearing before. I was too embarassed to go to the old ladies in a department store who would have measured me, and it's uncommon to stock even a 32DD (which is why I often end up wearing a 34D and tugging at the back as it slides up all day). Never mind the 32G.

And not knowing your own cup size is another point that Hepola touches on:

I'll sum up my early adolescence like this: I wore T-shirts in the pool. I showered alone. I learned that clever ruse of changing clothes but never being naked. I tried to be terribly quiet about all this, because if I was terribly quiet, then all of it just might disappear.

Which is the kind of magical thinking that got me to the age of 33, not knowing the size of my breasts. I don't need an "Oprah" episode and a thousand women's magazine articles and the cast of "What Not to Wear" to tell me I'm in the wrong cup size. My breasts spill out the top. (I was horrified to discover the tabloid press had a name for this: quadriboobage!) My breasts spill out the bottom. They spill out everywhere boobs can spill out, basically.

It's been ten years since I had the reduction, and I still think it was a great decision. Even though my boobs, outside of a bra, fall about halfway to China, at least within a bra, I can look normal and wear dresses off the rack and stuff. Mostly because I am 5'7" and slim, so the boobs can get smushed into a sheath and look fine, as long as it's got some elastic.

But pre-operation, I was the object of admiration from my friends for how I could change without ever getting undressed. They also admired how well I hid my disproportion. And then they refused to let me borrow clothing, because it would get stretched. Which was true but annoying.


They look like I expect: Beige and giant, like you could parachute out of a plane with them. I try them on and she is surprisingly hands-on with me, running one finger along each seam, sticking a finger deep in the crevasse of my cleavage and rooting around, jiggling things unexpectedly. Even my boyfriend and my doctor aren't this thorough.

Yeah. How about the time I was getting fitted - bad enough to be topless in front of a bunch of strangers with your untoned stomach jiggling all over the place and muffin top seeping over the top of your pants with no sweater in place to camoflage it - and one lady commented on how saggy I was. Awesome. Why don't you also recommend aerobics so I can tone my thighs a little (as a waxer once did)?*

I'm sure she didn't mean to wound me, but if you're 21 or so and some white haired old broad is clucking over your tits and speculating that it's happened extra fast because of the reduction, that's no fun. Of course she's right; they are at my elbows and I offer proof:


I really should go braless less often.

versus:


I might be angry, but I'm supported.

it has always been my not-so-revelatory suspicion that this entire industry -- this luxurious, pink powder-puff, thongs-as-women's-empowerment industry -- is really just about pleasing men. Because let's face it: I am much more comfortable in a jogging bra and cotton boy shorts, and those don't run me $100 a set. It's all well and good to find a bra that fits, but the truth is that I wanted a bra that not only fit but could also be seen in daylight by the man I'm in love with.

Yeah. Except actually, a good sportsbra with an underwire seems to run me about 50 - 60 bucks. Worth every motherfucking penny.


* it's funny, I seem to mind the comments from other women more than men. Maybe because I expect that kind of bullshit from men, but when another woman - and one you are paying, who is seeing you vulnerable, in a state of undress - offers up her opinions about your body, well, it's like a double betrayal.

Internet round-up! some fun, some depressing

Fun stuff:

Animals cans teach us how to stay cool! okay, this article is fairly simplistic (take naps in the heat of the day ... wear protective clothing ... don't drink alcohol to quench your thirst ...) but whatever, I clicked anyway bnecause my second-floor apartment has apparently relocated itself to the eleventh circle of hell (I know Dante didn't know about that one. It's for enterprising sinners like me.) Whatever, even the cats are all panting on the couch and have lost their cat cool (probably all that fur.) Via Digg.

MizPee. Find the nearest clean toilet when you're out and about in an unfamiliar place - as long as you've got your cell phone, you're all set. No more crouching between parked cars while your friends gigglingly "stand guard". It works with text messages and phone with online browsing capabilities (so, anyone with an iPhone, then ...) via TechCrunch.


Seven brilliant free fonts from Smashing magazine. Check out their back articles, they are chocka with useful stuff and loads of free fonts.

some distressed free fonts. (Via HowAboutOrange, I think.) Man, do I wish I had photoshop so I could use all this stuff. I'd so love to design our wedding invitations using a distressed free font and maybe some of these free brushes ... I'm particularly fond of the misprinted type grunge brushes and the bloodspot brushes from angryblue. (Possibly not the bloodied fingerprints one on the wedding invitation ... unless I can incorporate it as some sort of (tasteful) nod to Sid Vicious.)

Since I don't have photoshop (can't afford, le sigh, also don't need in the course of day job wherein I massage the internets so that they yield money for my company) I use The GIMP (nope, not like the Pulp Fiction one at all, it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and it's a free open-source alterbative to Photoshop. I just wish for photoshop since it's a lot more intuitive than GIMP.) Althuogh I did manage to use GIMP to make the lolZoe below:



And here are some free flower brushes for GIMP. Or, if you're really tech-y (or have more time on your hands than I) here's a tutorial on how to convert Photoshop Brushes to GIMP. (I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for it.)

In case your odd photo quota hasn't been met yet for this month, quick! go to the china daily and see images like this goat walking a tightrope while carrying a monkey on its back. Who knew?



Depressing stuff:

Only one topic here, but it's not good news. Anyone miss the coverage of Jessie Davis, the pregnant lady (by a married! black! man) who was murdered by her partner? If you missed that, surely you haven't forgotten Lacey Peterson? Turns out, as a matter of fact, that being pregnant is really really really likely to increase a pregnant woman's risk of death by violence. (Homicide, in fact.) In fact, if you're pregnant, you're statistically more likely to be murdered than to die of any pregnancy-related health issue. Why's that? Intimate partner violence. Being pregnant increases the likelihood and severity of abuse dramatically. Read this Salon article, Murder Most Foul, for some eye-opening (and horrifying) facts.

From the article:
"Why are pregnant women dying?" asks Rebecca Whiteman of the Family Violence Protection Fund in San Francisco. "Their partners are killing them."

Go read it.

Of course there are other issues at play - because it's her fault, right? For being a slut? Check out Jill's analysis (at Feministe) of the thinking behind some people who are indeed implying that she deserved it. And I'd also recommend Amanda Marcotte's take on some of the racial issues playing into the media coverage (from Pandagon)