weight loss and fat positivity

Awhile back, I posted a bit of a rant (I know, this is all kinds of shocking) about people's reactions to my weight loss (and maybe a little bit about my own discomfort with said weight loss and what it means about my own fat politics and positivity and identity and such.)  At any rate, a friend of mine reposted this fantastic blog post about similar issues and it is just BEGGING to me read.  Really.  Begging.  But don't take my word for it...

living in our hearts

A few months ago:

Death. The big D. The topic no one wants to think about, let alone explain to a 4 year old, and yet, there I was, trying to sound all soothingly nonchalant and do just that.  Boy-o was asking again, as he does periodically, about where Kali (our furbaby that we lost to cancer last year) was.  I responded again, that Kali died, and that it's okay to miss her and be sad about it.  But that we can also feel happy about Kali's life with us, and that she will always be with us 'in our hearts'. 

Previously, this explanation had sufficed, and off he would go, seemingly satisfied.  Not this time.  "But what does death mean?  Where do we go?  Are you going to die?  Is Gramma going to die?  She's older than 60!  Am I going to die?"   And under this barrage of kiddie questions, I do what any unprepared parent would.  I totally panic.  My inner dialogue likely ran something like this: "Death is freaky shit.  Do not fuck your kid up."  I always thought this conversation would happen, you know, later.  And I could talk about all these different beliefs about what happens after you die.  But I'm pretty sure that Boy-o isn't ready for heaven/reincarnation/the circle of life/nothingness conversation just yet.   So I stumble through as best I can.  It sounded something like this: "Yes buddy, everyone has to die.  Even Mama, and Gramma, and even you.  But hopefully you won't have to worry about it for a long, long time.  And even when I die, I'll always be with you in your heart.  And if you died, I'd always keep you with me in my heart.  That way we will always be together."  And I feel sort of satisfied with this answer, thinking it's sort of vague and reassuring.  Until Boy-o litearlly dissolves in a puddle of sobs before my eyes.  And when he can finally say something, he manages through tears to ask: "I'm going to be in your heart forever?"  And I concur.  To which he starts wailing afresh: "BUT IS IT DARK IN THERE?!"  Oh Christ.  Good job, Mama.  Four year olds = the most literal creatures on the face of the planet.  Swell.  I need a fucking manual.  I really do.

And back in the present day:

The kids and I are off to take our other cat Jezebel (and yes Grampa, I still remember that Jezebel 'wasn't a nice woman') to the vet to check out a large and steadily growing lump.  I am all too aware that it could easily be cancer, and that we will again have some tough decisions to make about our furbaby.  And that Boy-o may again be thrown into the kiddie turmoil of wrestling with death. 

And I still don't have any better answers for him.

Does anyone know of any fantastic four-year old appropriate books about dying?



 

Rihanna shoots back...

So it would seem as though Ms. Rihanna is in the centre of a shitstorm (but I warn you here - when you read the above linked article, the comments section may just make you lose all faith in humanity and any gains feminism may have made for women.  Consider yourself warned). Anyways, Rihanna
just released a song/video (viewable in above link) in which her character is sexually assaulted, and the proceeds to shoot (and kill) her attacker. This has been met with, well, furor.  As in, How could Rihanna encourage violence in this way?  Shocking!, sort of furor.  It is, if memory serves, the same sort of bull-shitty crappola that occured when the Dixie Chicks came out with their anthem "Goodbye Earl,"  which I have, on occassion, been known to belt out.  We don't like it when women talk about fighting back.  So what's that all about?  (I'm pretty sure no one yelled and screamed when Aerosmith came out with "Janie's Got Gun".  So apparently men can sing about it.  Curious, no?). 

While I remain pretty opposed to things like gun violence of all kinds, it begs mentioning (as many of my lovely friends have) that we live in a media culture which is literally saturated in imagery containing violence and brutality toward women. (Moreover, our culture at large is filled with real instances of violence against women that we grow increasingly desensitized to).  No one bats an eyelash when high end shoe designers sell their shoes with the image of a murdered woman's lower half (and saucy shoes, natch) hanging out of a dumpster. That's cool, cause like, they're really nice shoes.   It's not at all unusual for models to be depicted as dead to advertise all sorts of merchandise.   In another vein, it somehow makes sense to us to market video games in which sexually assaulting or beating up sex workers, as though this should be, you know, entertaining.  No biggie.  Similarly, in the music world, there are many, many (did I mention many?!) songs about murdering women.   Classics.  Think Neil Young's "Down By The River"... This link: http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-playlist-killing-women/, will in fact take you to a playlist of thirty songs (note that it's a highly incomplete list, I can think of lots more) where you can listen to a bunch of them all at once, if you have the stomach for it. 

I've heard a number of statistics for what percentage of incarcerated women (for violence related offenses) are there for hurting or killing their abuser.  I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that it's, you know, a lot.  As a friend pointed out on facecrack (she also posted the playlist of woman killin' tunes - thanks Heather!), I don't think anyone can say that this video isn't relevant to women's realities.

Whether you believe that Rihanna's video is empowering for women, or a problematic encouragement of violence (or something else entirely), I think we are all very, very remiss if we allow this discussion to take place with blinders to the aforementioned culture we live in, which is clearly extremely tolerant of violence against women.  And if this media shitstorm is any indication, clearly much less tolerant of the idea of women fighting back. 

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I'm a lousy housekeeper, which I think has already been well-documented here. I hate it. It hates me. Also - I'm lazy. And do I tend to wait until the house is oppressing me to do anything about it. And yesterday, because I couldn't stand it anymore, I spent 3/4 hour scouring the kitchen and listening to Motown (the latter of which I find it next to impossible to be grumpy whilst listening to) while the children seemingly happily played in the living room. This last bit should have been a warning to me. But apparently I missed that warning sign while feeling self-satisfied with my sort-of togetherness.

So now I am the proud owner of a sparkly clean kitchen AND an ottoman and chair that have been 'artified' with swirls of brown (mostly washable) marker.

Enter reason #657 why I am, and will steadfastly remain, a shitty housekeeper.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Repost from: Parenting is Political

Parenting is Political: Today's guest blogger, Prabhakar Ragde, is a profe...:

Prabhakar Ragde, the above linked guest blogger over at Parenting is Political, is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. In the 1990s, he and his wife made a decision to keep the sex of their children on the down low.  An interesting post :)

AFA Boycotting Home Depot Because Gays Are Caught "In The Clasp of Satan"

Let's support our local Home Depots, peeps. They know the queer's love their home renos ;) ANd they don't seem to mind our being caught in the clasp of Satan, either.

A Repost from Hook and Eye: A conferencing we go!

Hook and Eye: A conferencing we go!:  This is a repost from the multi-authored fab feminists in academia blog called Hook and Eye. 

I'm not sure I've ever read another blog post with more unbridled envy :)

Old Milwaukee - "Don't Be That Guy..."

So - Old Milwaukee Beer has a really awful billboard (masquerading as, 'hey look at us, we're all retro cool') circulating across the country.  I haven't yet seen it in Old Redneckville, but to be honest, I'm generally too busy dolling out snacks, breaking up backseat fisticuffs and trying very hard not to crash my car to notice billboards much these days. 

For realz.


Now if ever there was a need for a sister billboard, immediately adjacent, with an image of the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign, this is it folks.  GROSS.

Please send a message and tell this company "Don't be that guy". 

You can file a complaint on adstandards.com - the company in question/questionable company is Pabst Brewing Company.

Some thoughts on our new queer-ish kid lit

So - on a trip to Greenwood Books the other day - I found and bought two queer-ish kiddie books. The first is My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis (2011), a mom of a dress loving little dude who subsequently became an activist and educator on her son's behalf, and The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith (2010).

I love the intent behind My Princess Boy, that sharing the experiences of her son will bring about greater understanding for dress-wearing, bling-lovin' boys. It's written for a young audience, and is a good way to introduce the topic to the preschooler set. The illustrations by Suzanne DeSimone, are gorgeous and really help to connect Princess Boy to the audience. I say all of the aforementioned with a few caveats though. But - and there is a but here - I really wish we could have the conversation about boys rockin frocks without calling frocks and pretty things "girl clothes". If the goal is to disrupt the limiting conceptualizations of boy/girl, then invoking them seems counter intuitive to me, even it is probably the simplest way to explain things to the kid set. Though the author does speak of her own love support for her Princess Boy, it does seem as though there is an emphasis on the 'normal' males in Princess Boy's life.  She notes that Princess Boy loves his brother, who "plays baseball and soccer" and who is depicted in a baseball uniform (3). She notes that Princess Boy "loves his dad" and how "[h]is dad tells him how pretty he looks in a dress" (5). (No similar declarations of love for his mom or other female characters are included). And I have to wonder if the focus on maleness is a way to normalize the role models in Princess Boy's life.  In this way, no one is to blame for the child breaking gender barriers, it's just a child being their 'authentic self' (which of course it is, with or without the sort of witting or unwitting setting up of familial 'innocence').  All caveats aside though, the project of My Princess Boy is laudible, especially since there are so few books of its kind for this age group in particular.  And the messages about the painful realities of being different, of familial love and acceptance are important ones. I love the character Princess Boy, and I love his mama for having the immense mama-love and gutsiness it took to write this book for her boy and for all the rest of us.  I hope against hope that this book flies off the shelves and into the hands of waiting teachers, parents, preschoolers and early schoolers too. I know I'm looking forward to reading it to my own sometimes dress-rocking, bling lovin' Boy-o.

I love The Great Big Book of Famillies. I think it's one of the best family books I"ve come across yet. Hoffman begins by explaining that "Once upon a time most families in books looked like this:" with a corresponding pictorial of the traditional heterosexual, white, upper middle class, nuclear suburban family, "But in real-life, families come in all shapes and sizes" (1). This book may not be uber exciting to kids (except possibly to me) but I love the way it matter-of-factly explores all kinds of different family formations (queer, grandparented, adopted, fostered, single-parented). It is multi-racial and multi-ethnic throughout. The illustrations by Ros Aquith (whose work you've probably seen either in the Guardian or the oodles of other kids books she's illustrated) add additional layers of depth to the text, such as where she depicts a stay-at-home dad with a working mom heading off to work next to the text: "In some families everyone has a job. In others, only one person goes out to work" (11). And what I really love about this book if that it is one of the first pieces of kids literature that I've found which tackles class issues throughout. In the section about different kinds of homes, for instance, it mentioned that "some people can't find anywhere to live at all" (8). Similarly, in the section addressing holidays, Hoffman explains "Not all families can afford a holiday. But most people get some time off from work. even a weekend at home can be a little holiday" (13). And I also really loved how this book addresses boys who rock the frocks! In the clothes section, there is a boy wearing a tu-tu. And it's just presented as the way some folks dress. The beauty of this book is that queer families or single famlies or poor families (or boys in tut-tus) are explored well outside of the standard it's okay to be different dialogue (that makes me more than a little batty). Because ALL families are different. Simple, matter-of-fact, there you go. Me likey. A lot. This one should be a standard classroom fixture and it's definitely getting a coveted space on our family bookshelf!



R & R

Forgive me, it's been a few days since my last confession... erm, I mean blog (of substance, at any rate). I've been busy having R & R. By this, I don't actually mean rest & relaxation (because, as you may have already surmised, that's not how we roll around here.) No, I've been surviving on running -an old stand by- and reading - a renewed passion. (And between you, me and the lamppost, the antidepressants probably aren't hurting either).

It's been awhile since I've been able to really read. (Like, a long while).  With all my faculties and teeth and brain firmly sunk in. I'm not sure why that is, particularly given I've always been a fairly voracious reader, but wonder if maybe my not being able to pick up books has been one small symptom of feeling and being disconnected.   And also, not having any brain left at the end of the day - but that probably goes without saying.

Anyways - lately I've become a bit of a reading machine. And to that end, I've just finished reading, and holy fucking loving, Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions. A huge, big love developing for Anne Lamott. Big. The biggest. Like when she says things like this:  "I tell my writing students to get into the habit of calling one another, because writing is such a lonely business, and if you're not careful, you can trip off into this Edgar Allen Poe feeling of otherness. Turns out that motherhood is much the same" (97), and I find myself wondering "How I have not read this before?"  (What with being all Edgar Allen Poe-y myself and all).   Had a lot of those moments reading this book.  Especially since, this is like the mother of all mommy memoirs, really.

Anyhow - Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year of Life, is, you know, like a journal of the first year of her son Sam's life.  And though realize that it's wholly trite and also self-centred, I feel like she is speaking directly to me.  (Probably why this baby is a bestseller, hmmm?  Anyhoo).  We are incredibly different. She is a single mama, me partnered. She is straight, I am queer.  She's a recovering addict, I'm not. She's into religion.  Me - not so much.  She's broker than broke - I'm less broke (but it's still a bit of a squeaker).  She's a writer, I'm a.... (I guess that's the proverbial question, isn't it?).  And still,across our differences her journey feels achingly familar and comfortable.  Turns out that Anne Lamott and I speak the same mothering language (okay - hers is probably much prettier).  But we share a very dark sense of humour, a profound sense of frustration with the state of the world, peaks and valleys of pretty high anxiety and near-ridiculous amounts of self-doubt.

Lamott really manages to capture the massive push-pull of emotions involved in the mothering project, like when she declares resolutely: "I'm not even remotely well enough to be a mother.  That's what the problem is.  Also, I think I don't like babies" (114), and then later announces "[h]e's so goddamn beautiful it breaks my heart" (196).   And that's it right there in a nutshell, isn't it?  It's all that.  And more. 

And then there's the massive impact of self-doubt and beating up one ones' self that occurs after various levels of mothering 'failures' (the kind I fall prey to daily and then proceed to beat myself to a pulp before proclaiming that I beat myself up too much and should really stop and be more kind to myself.... well, you know how it is.  I think this kind of self-flagellation can be a particularly persistent issue for those of us who have a bit of the, you know, crazy.  Lamott does too:  "I'm trying to be extremely gentle and forgiving with myself today, having decided while I nursed Sam at dawn this morning that I'm probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac" (95).  Um yeah.  What she said.  Also, it seems to me as though the process and results of being a stay at home mama has, for me, been a bit like having a massive crush on someone who doesn't know you're alive (I've had a lot of those in my time, so you'll have to just trust me there). Remarkably the same, actually. You know, at least in your moments of better resolve, that you might be a fairly decent specimen of humanity, reasonably cute and reasonably smart. And you hold onto this belief for as long as you can. But the longer you aren't noticed, or the frequency with which you have "I carried a watermelon" moments -something I have also had a great deal of experience with - (get thee to a TV to watch Dirty Dancing if you do not know what I mean here), the less and less you are able to believe in your own worth.   The same holds true for parenting.  You can hold onto the belief that you are a reasonably good parent who is contributing both to your child and the world, but the longer you're stuck doing this invisible loving sort of work, the more you do or say things you regret, the more difficult it gets to hold onto that belief.  Self-doubt.  It's a biggie.

And then, just when I think I couldn't connect more - she somehow manages to tap right into where I am.  Now.  As the mama of a two and four year old.   Apparently, some folks hit this wall earlier than me:

The slow pace and all this rumination wear me down and bore me and make me desperately want a hit of something, of anything.  Adrenaline, say, or a man to fantasize about or have drama with, or some big professional pressure, like a deadline I'm just barely able to make.  I want to check out.  I do not want to be in the here and now with God and myself and all that shit. . . . I want to learn to live in the now, I want to learn to breathe my way into it and hang out there more and more and experience life in all it's richness and realness.  But I want to do it later, like maybe sometime early next week.  Right now, I'd like a rush.  173

Of course, I read this bit and think something along the lines of  "SHAZAAAM!" or whatever people say when they really connect to a sentiment with some extra oooomph.   It's so funny how much less alone you feel when a total stranger can articulate clearly a moment in time you are experiencing.   For the most part, this book felt like a marker of where I've moved through, but some places, like this one, felt all kinds of fresh in the 'right here and now' way. 

I cannot recommend this read enough.  I loved the voice.  I loved the honesty and fearlessness.  It should be given out in hospitals and by adoption agencies.  For real.

Okay - off to my next read...