Here’s the thing: I will always want more women’s (and feminist) voices in the mainstream media, particularly in politics. There’s an overwhelming byline gender gap and that needs to change. But The Washington Post’s new lady blog, “She the People,” is not a step in the right direction….
You play this game using a template:
All (pop cultural reference) are (derogatory adjective), except for (the ones you like).
Here are some examples:
All reality shows are evil, except for Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, Ice Loves Coco, and Full Throttle.
You keep the game going by sending your completed template to your friends. Each friend has to explain why she agrees or disagrees with you before filling out her own template.
Classes are over (finally) and Christmas is almost here. It’s time for me to detox from the internet.
I will be back December 19th. I will check my email twice during my detox, but I will not reply to any emails until the 19th. So if you want to email me you can, but I won’t get back right away.
I have not gone even one day without being online in longer than I remember. Can you believe that? I can’t believe it. I didn’t even have internet until 2004 or so. What did I do with myself? How did I spend my time? How could I have gone that long without googling “tattoo face” or “Christian chick lit” or “Mark Trail comic strip stupid?”
I don’t know, but it will be nice to relive a simpler time, when I didn’t check my blogger stats obsessively and tweet every time I finished reading a book.
Don’t you hate it when old people tell you how to run your life? I know I do, though it’s getting harder every year to find people who are actually older than me. The absolute worst approach is for the old person to say “don’t be like me,” or some variant thereof. Like the dozens of Navy lifers who told me to reenlist and stay in the Navy forever, because:
-There are no good civilian jobs out there ever and even if you get one you will get laid off eventually (how would a Navy lifer know)?;
-I (me personally) was too screwed up to function outside a total institution like the military (actually true at one time, but I preferred to take my chances);
-“I thought I was gonna get out too, but then I got married/ became an alcoholic/ ran up $40,000 in credit card debt/did get out, smoked pot every day for six months, then realized I didn’t want to waste my life so I came back (true story), and since everyone else’s experience matches mine, you aren’t gonna get out either, bro.”
I can laugh about all that “advice” now, but it really irritated me at the time. I know some of my readers are significantly younger than I am, so now it’s my turn to irritate you.
STAY IN SCHOOL.
If you are in your twenties and basically fit the mold of a typical college student (not married, some support from parents, might work part time but can focus mostly on school and social life), then stay where you are. A degree will not guarantee you a job, but it will put you in a much better position than I was in after I turned 30.
If you are in high school, or finished high school fairly recently, and you have any inclination at all to seek higher education, DO IT. It can be a 4-year college, trade school, community college, even an apprentice program, but do something. It’s far better than nothing.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either. I honestly think I joined the Navy because I was scared of the financial aid forms. That silly decision affected me for years after, and it would have been so easy to ask for help.
If you are a current or potential non-traditional (i.e. “old”) student, make it happen. Take limited classes. Go at night. Apply for any scholarship or grant that you hear about. Talk to an adviser. Do it as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the harder it gets.
Finally, if, like me, you have a family and a social group who will support your decision and help you achieve your goals, remember to thank them. They are making it possible for you to raise your standard of living. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a whole bunch of villages to put someone through college.
Note to readers: This is yet another thing I am doing for school. Teachers, if you want to use this or find out more about the lesson plan, feel free to message me. The photo is from wikimedia commons.
Poverty Breakfast
(app. 350 words)
Sandra pointed her camera at the crowd, making sure to fit as many of her friends into the group shot as she could.
“I wish I hadn’t worn my sandals,” she thought to herself, “it’s freezing out here.”
She had no idea how Bernard, the tall, skinny kid who was so quiet, was standing out there next to the quad in shorts. Of course, almost nobody knew anything about Bernard. He was a transfer from Barnett High, and, according to Lisa, his parents did some kind of shady work for the government.
“It’s true,” Lisa had said, smacking her pink gum as she, Sandra, and Barry set up the Poverty Awareness breakfast that morning. “Cloak and dagger stuff. Come visit your house in the middle of the night, you know.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” Ron, the Poverty Awareness chairman, had said, taping the group’s fliers to the front of the table. “Besides, our country would never be involved in something like that.”
“You are so naïve,” Lisa had said, placing a box of donuts on the table as she turned to Sandra. “Do you believe Captain America over here?”
Sandra had just smiled, shrugged, and straightened out the row of backpacks and goodie bags on the stone bench.
“Oh my God, you are so OCD,” Lisa had said, laughing in her kind but cutting way.
That was two hours ago. The backpacks were no longer in neat rows, having been jostled by the early rush of students. No matter. Bernard was here, and that was what mattered. She would snap the picture, the detonator in the pink bag would go off, and they would all die in the blast. Sandra was prepared. She knew the rest of the cell would celebrate her victory, honor her with a lavish funeral, and carry on the mission. More importantly, Barry’s parents would know how it felt to lose the person they loved the most.
“They’re getting off easy,” she told herself, “for what they did to my mom.”
Clearing her mind of all extraneous thoughts, Sandra stepped forward and pressed the shutter button.
Because young readers need cautionary tales about the internets.
Because she is a woman writer who writes about women and men in a literary way.
Because once you start watching it, you can’t stop, even though you know you should because you’re a feminist and its treatment of women is abominable, and so you have to give yourself some legitimacy by calling the show postmodern. You’ve been warned.
I am still reeling from this. One of my friends at college is in a wheelchair. When I had class with her I made a huge deal out of making sure she was comfortable. After a few days I realized she was a grown woman and could make herself comfortable just fine. I also realized I didn’t really know her, so I had no business being her self-appointed comfort police person or whatever.
Anyway, we know each other now, and she laughed the other day about my initial attitude towards her. This was in the context of her observation that people talk to her differently than they would if she were not in the chair. At first it didn’t make sense. Then she told us about the older lady who looked at her in the hall, grinned, and said:
“Speedy speedy!”
It all clicked then. I can totally see a patronizing old southern white lady saying something completely rude and imagining she was being nice to the poor li’l girl in the wheelchair.
Do people ever cut you down and imagine they are being nice? What’s that about? I think it is passive aggression, which some southern women have elevated to an art form.
