I'm Ape For You!

I've recently realized that this fine coffee mug from the Milwaukee County Zoo has a chimp and an orangutan hugging each other like best buddies.  This mug also says "I'm Ape for You" in big letters on the side.  In real life these guys would tear each other apart.  Seriously.

I will potentially write something of substance soon.  I just thought this new mug discovery was funny.  It's cute anyway, and maybe we could learn something from these little fake illustrated apes.  Or just drink coffee out of them.   

Barnacles

I had to snag this photo from à la garconnière.

All the things I own I will share with you

If I feel tomorrow like I feel today

We'll take what we want and give the rest away

I've spent a lot of time, in life and in this blog, waxing "boo-hoo." I'll admit it. Some of it has been a necessary catharsis, and some of it has been self-indulgent whining. Nobody is perfect, and I shall refrain from casting stones from my glass house.

At the moment I'm feeling pretty content. Urges to keep one foot (or the entire left side of my body...) out the door have waned, and I'm feeling like there's a person who might actually "get" me. Scary, right? It's hard to find someone who knows exactly what you're talking about when you confess that you made something up at your first confession because you got stressed out about not wanting to go down in flames in front of the priest, your family, and the entire parish. That's a special bond right there. P.S. I was 10 at the time. Talk about neurotic.

The interesting part is, that behind the puppy love and the smooches which annoy anyone and everyone in a 2 mile radius, there's a shared financial/employment struggle that could very easily be a disaster. Money or lack thereof always seems to derail everything. While our empty wallets are very much a roadblock to many things, for example a long dreamed of trip to Mexico, it's not a relationship roadblock. I'm not resentful and I want to share the little bit that I do have. I want us to be a team, each of us be on the other's side. Refreshingly, I feel like we are that.

Of course it's fun to have someone to go to the movies with, yell Simpsons quotes at, go on sweet little dates with, but sometimes it's actually more satisfying to have someone to lean on when it's going all wrong.

Sisterhood

What is Blog for Choice Day?

Each year, NARAL Pro-Choice America poses a question to pro-choice bloggers before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and then asks them to blog their answer on January 22.

This Year's Topic

In honor of Dr. George Tiller, who often wore a button that simply read, "Trust Women," this year's Blog for Choice question is:

What does Trust Women mean to you?

As most of you know, I'd classify myself as a woman's woman. I like to wear pretty dresses, and have dinner parties. It's not a crime, people. I also know how to use power tools. I have a hard time with women who claim that they don't get along with other women, and yet it seems that they're everywhere, claiming that other women are "catty," "bitchy," or don't "get" them.

Every day, in high school hallways, or, I'm sorry to say, in more adult scenarios like a bar or on the bus, it's hard not to hear women calling other women bitches and sluts, putting other women down because of their weight, or smugly analyzing some starlet or high school classmate's "poor" life choices. It's shameful, but I won't lie, I've definitely been guilty of this at one point or another. This is partially a call to myself to stop setting myself and my sisters back.

Worse than this is the way many of us, myself included, treat ourselves. Just this morning, I sat around my bathroom pulling at my blouse, sweating, tearing my hair because I just felt undeniably fat.

It's time to start trusting ourselves and trusting our fellow women. This means respecting ourselves and each other. Band together. Cut the bullshit.

In 1981, Regina Polk spoke to a Teamsters' stewards seminar about reminding union members that every right, every wage increase, and every benefit is something that is fought for and earned. As a fighter for workers' rights, especially women's rights, Polk's words are as relevant here. Row v. Wade isn't something that was just given to anyone, it was something that activists had to struggle to take. It's something that a lot of women's (and men's) hard work, struggle, blood, sweat, tears, and sometimes defeat went into.

Apparently in this country, we have to struggle to keep our hard earned victories. Earning them is not simply enough, and let's be serious, it takes a lot of people's collective hard work to fight. Instead of being jealous of one another, or thinking of ways to cut each other down, as women, let's trust each other. Let's try to hold each other up.

Solidarity, sisters.

P.S. Regina Polk's wardrobe would put mine to shame, and she was still a Teamster badass, so we can really be anything we want to be, with each other's support.

I found out about this thanks to Paige Worthy's blog. Thanks, Paige!

A Little Bit of Resolve. A Little Bit Late.

Photo by Ben

For a variety of reasons, I've been hesitant to post a requisite "New Years Resolutions!" post. This is probably because generally I find New Year's resolutions to be silly and trite, but in the interest of my ever-evolving quest for self-improvement and my insatiable lust for finding a little bit of accountability, here are some goals, some hopes for the future, some things for me to keep in mind. Maybe they'll inspire people to not just make silly resolutions for the sake of a new year, but think about improving the quality of their lives.

• Commit myself to better dental hygiene. This one's a sad one, but let's face it, not all of us have been good little flossers. I found my old Timmy the Tooth timer. So far he's both mocked me, and helped me brush longer.
• GET A JOB! I will not do this in an extremely self-critical way, that's just proven to be counter productive. It's hard to look at job descriptions if you're crying all the time.
  
• Cut myself a little damn slack.
  
• Stop being so oversensitive. This one has been a lifelong disaster, like a rollercoaster with the tracks bent out of shape. It's wrong when you're 7 and your mother has to tell you to lighten up and take a joke. I still can't take a joke. I'm working on this one.
  
• Try to work out, without feeling like a shitty person when I don't. Self-abuse is rarely a good motivator.
  
• Make out more.
  
• Become disgustingly adept at vegetarian cooking. And I don't mean heating up Chick'n nuggets (though my lust for them is out of control).
• Write more
• Make more art
• Get involved.
• Don't worry. Be happy.
  

Par for the course... this is not a hole in one.

Why is it that we always want to believe the worst about ourselves? Hear only the bad things others say about us? I'm sure there have been countless blogs, musings, diary entries, and the like, on this very subject. I'm sure one could devote an entire course of study on why people are so hard on themselves about everything from their ability to get a decent job, to their lack of skill in the kitchen (at least that one isn't me). Why is it that a perfectly lovely phone conversation, a calming "how was your day" chat, can get perfectly derailed by one flip comment? Is this a woman thing, a low self esteem thing, a person thing?

Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a message, mental cogs grinding furiously, because she'd accidentally "liked" a Facebook post that wasn't particularly likable. Suddenly, a tiny Blackberry related error became a whirlwind of "will everyone think I'm a bitch?" Certainly technology has made it easier for misunderstandings to crop up and mushroom horribly out of control, but what is it in us, psychologically, that fuels these little fires?

I've had a few sleepless nights this week, spent obsessing about this very subject. Slips of the tongue analyzed to death. It's hard to dive into something new when you suspect that the other person always has one foot out the door. The problem is that this type of suspicion is like a familiar friend, a security blanket frayed around the edges from self-indulgent stroking. I've been down this road before, the memory whitewashed by the years, and then cropping up in a new person, a new place. I want to jump into the deep end, but something is holding one foot on the deck, just in case. Wouldn't want to get all my toes wet. Someone needs to just push me in, but unfortunately, I suspect that the only person who can do that is myself.