yay. 2009.

happy new year, folks.

this year-end was odd, wasn't it? it felt weird to me.
maybe it was because coming back home from LA took some adjusting; maybe because the news in illinois is so very often bizarre and off putting. for whatever reason, wrapping up this year just felt a little anti-climactic.

like, if the year had ended when we elected Obama, that would have been ok. you know, end on an up note.

in fact, an Obama administration is the only bright spot i can think of, though my optimism is tempered by the realities of 2009: worsening economy, foreign conflict, cleaning up the Shrub's missteps and mistakes.

i think 2009 is going to be a year of reacting to circumstances instead of getting ahead of anything. in my personal life, there are potential blind spots lurking out there. some gray spots, cloudy areas, that aren't clear to me, yet. my professional direction, my new place (once i find one), my relationships - these are all up in the air. this kind of uncertainty makes me uncomfortable.

so maybe a good resolution (to echo past resolutions like Make an Effort) would be Be Prepared.

exciting, isn't it? absolutely thrilling.

like Make an Effort (which was actually effective), Be Prepared works on both a professional and personal level.
Be Prepared to be downsized, if this economy tightens further.
Be Prepared to do some covert interviewing.
Be Prepared to tighten one's belt.
Be Prepared to drop the hammer on LTF. Or not. Who knows?
Be Prepared for some sacrifices.

but also,
Be Prepared to be open for positive changes.
Be Prepared to change my mind about some things.
Be Prepared to shift direction, if a shift presents itself.

wow. i sound positively oprah-like (except i'd have a much better way of fact-checking than she has. clearly, her new mantra needs to be Avoid All Creative Non-Fiction Memoirs!)

ugh, dating again

so how are things on the 'dating' front?

well, there was a brief setback last week when i discovered that, horror of horrors, B- is now in a relationship. my horror and dismay was not from jealousy; there was no regret that things hadn't worked out between us. (though there is much evidence of my inconsistency here.) no, my dismay and shock came from an irrational sense of competition.

"how dare he, the most lonely and dysfunctional of men, have a relationship while i don't! at least i'm working on my issues, dammit." i'm not proud of my pettiness; i just acknowledge that it exists.

anyway, a friend reminded me of my many vows to leave B-'s eeyore-like specter behind and so, finally, i am. (it helps that i'm confident B-'s inherent lack of generosity will doom his relationship in a few months no matter how often he goes jogging.) as i leave the weirdo behind, i look to the future and what do i see?

i see more weirdos.
i'm on a black networking site and, lord help me, it's sort of depressing. it's almost as bad as those christian dating sites i tried years ago. my kingdom for a man who can spell and use punctuation correctly!

and i'm tired of telling black men no, i don't have kids. make of that what you will.

are the men i've met there weird because they their writing skills are a little lacking? no. most of them are weird because they live in the burbs and can't say anything that doesn't sound like a R&B cliche. i'd also give my left nipple for a decent bit of banter.

(there was this one guy who thought he was being funny when he said that he'd buy me dinner, drinks and give me a warm place to stay for folding his laundry. it took everything in me not to get snippy. enough women have been snippy to these guys, it seems but, lord, trying to communicate with these guys is drying up my very small well of patience!)

i'll keep looking, though. there's gotta be a black/brown equivalent to me out there, somewhere. right?

merry merry

Enough of the Hills and Woods, Can I Send Grandma an E-Card? - New York Times

merry christmas to all 7 of my readers!
instead of sleeping on an arrow mattress in my sister's tv room, i will be warmly ensconced in chicago's brutal, weird weather, drinking all sorts of sparkly things and hosting a sleepover for my friends and other holiday orphans. it's good to know that the ny times has recognized how nice it is to sometimes spend christmas on one's own.

i hope all of you have a wonderful holiday!

cheers,
ding

i love thanksgiving

but i'm in no shape to cook a whole freaking dinner. my solution? get someone else to cook it for me.

i cannot say enough about not cooking. (isn't that what being a feminist means during the holidays? the expectation NOT to cook?) why get all hot and sweaty and tired (and smell like stuffing) when you're about to have people over? i used to watch my mother ramp up into a fine resentful boil every thanksgiving afternoon so that, by the time guests arrived, she was completely off her rocker. it wasn't pretty so i decided early on to save myself all that hassle.

i love having friends over and feeding them - i just hate cooking. i hate the timing, the rush, the uncertainty, and the inability to snatch victory from the jaws of culinary defeat.

so i ordered a dinner for 6. the friends are bringing wine, dessert and side dishes, i'm 'doing' the rest.

thanks, fox & obel. you're the best.

(happy thanksgiving to everyone. don't pig out too hard.)

burning questions...

is it horribly wrong - when someone you've hooked up with in the past (and with whom you hoped to continue a casual liaison) appears to have taken advantage of an improved mental state and moved on - to feel sort of put out by it?

was watching the unbearable 'tell me you love me' with Roomie the other night; is it true that married women are really stunned that their husbands look at porn? i mean, really. who is stunned that men look at porn?? for that matter, isn't it understood by now that women also look at porn? (or is this a generational thing?)

speaking of TMYLM, how can i scrub the image of jane alexander, naked and having sex on a chair, off my inner eyeballs?

can we please have movies about neurotic people of color now? i mean, i'm getting sort of bored by all the representations of quirky/conflicted white folks in popular culture now. and i don't think the tyler perry movies count.

i guess what i'm asking is: who's the Wes Anderson for brown people? (great critique of wes anderson's work here.)

why is the #66 chicago bus the most crowded motherfrakker ever? hm? and why don't the folks who ride the #66 understand the Move to the Back rule ?

why isn't every parent of daughters reading Packaging Girlhood? i bought it for my sister and it's so good, i think everyone should read it with their daughters. (if i had a daughter we'd be talking about this book.) they even have a website.

random dating rant

when does anyone have time to date?
i'm totally serious. between job, friends, volunteer obligations and such, where does anyone find the time to meet someone new?

right now, as i write this, i'm also working on now national advocacy campaign for my agency that could be great or could go down in a conglagration so huge the flames of it could be seen for miles. tomorrow morning i have an 8 am breakfast panel to attend. i'm prepping for our agency's big fundraiser this thursday which is just physically exhausting. i have medical appts, coaching appts, life appts.

when the heck am i supposed to have time to date? while i'm riding the bus?
have you noticed that no one looks at anyone while on the bus? we're all plugged into our mp3 player or reading a book; there's no eye contact. a truly hot guy could be sharing my hand strap and i'd have no idea. or maybe i'm supposed to date in the short walk from my office to my bus stop; or maybe when i'm picking up my birth control at CVS. or maybe a 38 year old woman doesn't date anymore. she just reads her PDA and schedules her next meeting.

i only feel slightly guilty that the guy i was seeing over the summer i've let totally drop off the face of the planet. sorry i forgot to call you, dude.

you know what will solve all this angst of mine? shoe shopping. yeah, that's it.

accessing birth control hits home

Behind the Price of Birth Control RHRealityCheck.org

for the first time, i'm on birth control. when i was 18 i was briefly on the Pill to regulate my irregular and heavy periods. now, almost two decades later, i'm back on it. Seasonique is my new best friend. and each prescription roughly costs about $140.

i'm not on birth control simply to prevent pregnancy (though that's an added bonus). seasonique is preventing ovulation to assist in the shrinkage of my fibroid and to give me more of a chance to increase my iron levels - which would be dangerously low if i continued to ovulate and bleed every month.

what if i couldn't afford to buy Seasonique? i'd be screwed. my doctor and i would be in a tough spot - i'd keep ovulating and bleeding, my fibroid could possibly get bigger and more unstable and my anemia would continue unabated, affecting my overall health in a very dangerous way.

for social conservatives who think every woman is just like any other and all reproductive health issues are all the same, and simple, my being able to buy my prescription of Seasonique is no big deal. to some extent, it's not, really. i'm middle class, employed and have great health benefits through my employer. the odds of my not being able to afford a prescription for my birth control is fairly low. but what if i lose my job? what if my job changes? what about other women - what about women in the service industry who most likely don't have comprehensive health care plans, women who are working poor, or student women?

but the paucity of social conservative's rhetoric is patently unthoughtful: 'don't have sex' is their solution to complicated problems like access and, somehow, women who want to control their fertility or must depend on medication to address a reproductive health situation are 'irresponsible.' for these people, living like a religious celibate or 'letting nature, sickness and illness' run its course is preferred to prevention.

birth control has become the newest battle to control women's autonomy and i don't think women (any woman) can afford to be complacent about it. think about what life was like for women before the Pill - no, do more than think about it. research it. look at the laws and policies governing women's bodies before the Pill became available to women and think about what changes that brought to women's lives.

men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses...

Feministing has a great post about some bullshit article that whines about a 40-year old woman who can't find a man.

are you kidding me??
WHY are people still writing these lameass articles?
why are we still listening to fools who say things like 'smart girls will never be married because they're too smart?'
conversely, why can't i find the article that says 'smart women tell little man-boys to take a flying fuck'?

i mean, please. PLEASE!

aargh. the inherent sexism of our popular culture is almost enough to make me wanna send a stink bomb to some magazines.

being a girl

thanks to my friend L- who sent me this article about the woman who stonewalled the inquiry at the justice department: How Monica Goodling played the gender card. - By Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine although i read newspaper reports i haven't been all up in this story. (i have a job, you know!)

but it's a smart, savvy take on gender performance and how our public eye is still more comfortable and accommodating when women weaken themselves rather than stand from a position of strength. (which gives credence to that recent study about 'uppity' women being targets of sexual harrassment more frequently than women who adhere to traditional gender roles.)
...
speaking of being a girl, it's dating season (for good or bad.)

had drinks last week with a very naughty actor guy and yesterday had dinner with a divorced father of two who lived in the burbs. (thanks, eharmony. those 29 dimensions really know how to pick 'em!)

but i think the surprise of the weekend was running into an old boss of mine in the supermarket and, while we were chatting and catching up, suddenly thinking, 'dude. he's totally hot.'

it's going to be a rough summer.

all clear!

my ob gyn called today to let me know that my irregular pap is all clear! whoo hoo! the biopsies they took are clear, too! more whoo hoo!

i've been so worried about my fibroid (aka, Agatha) that i totally forgot i had a weird pap. so: no std's. no cervical weirdnesses (as of right now). just one poolball-sized fibroid to be eradicated.

life's good.

(oh, and i broke down and re-upped with eHarmony. frakking commercials!)

ah, the female gaze

it's gettin' all springtime everywhere, and i don't know about you, but my sap is running. (it's running nowhere, but that's another, more private, post.)

yesterday, the roomie (who is, incidentally, enjoying her unemployment more than a normal human being should) went to Artopolis with a girl friend of ours. she saw some awesome art and came home swooning about industrial, metal furniture that she wants for our new place (when that happens, i'll let you know) but then the swooning over furniture evaporated when she started ranting about all the female nudes all over the place:

roomie: i couldn't believe it! i mean, if i saw one more nipple i was gonna die. painting after painting, statue after statue, naked women! i mean, what the hell?! even the female artists - all their feminist painting and crap and STILL ONLY NAKED WOMEN! i started to get seriously pissed off.

ding: hm. (keeping her mouth shut because roomie gets mad when ding mentions 'patriarchy.')

roomie: for the love of god, show me some naked men! where where the naked men? oh, yeah, over by the sensual masculine gay art! arrgh! you know? and, seriously, where do they expect me to mount a wall length painting of some naked chick and her pudenda? my dining room?!



anyway, Where Sheelzebub indulges in the female gaze at Pandagon.

of course, any and all beefcake suggestions are welcome down in comments.

heh.

they'll adjust. really.

so my sister told this story when she was visiting over the summer:

back in my undergrad days i relented, just a few times, to do some babysitting for a couple in dad's church. my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) were hanging out at our house watching movies while i 'babysat,' which entailed feeding them, then watching the clock assiduously and praying for bedtime to come. at last, bedtime. i tucked the little tykes in bed, clicked off the light and shut the door. i'd barely settled on the couch before faint wails wobbled from the bedroom down the hall.

i opened the door. 'yes?'
'it's dark!'
'it's bedtime.'
'it's dark!'
'it's bedtime.'
'leave the light on!
'your eyes will adjust!' click.

my sister and her husband laugh their asses off whenever they tell this story, always shouting the ending: 'your eyes will adjust!'

anyway. co-sleeping. excuse me while i roll my eyes.

Sleeping-Co-Sleeping-Children - New York Times

generation gap, pt 1

There really is a gulf separating those of us who live in my vague Generational X-ish sphere and Boomers like my dad, and the chasm between us seems virtually impassable. But I suspect this impassability has more to do with the comfort of familiar nostalgic narratives than anything real.

On the phone with my dad Sunday morning while he waited in Nebraska for a flight to get him back to California after a series of snow delays, our conversation turned to my sister and her husband calling my father for more babysitting duties.

Shorter Dad, the Boomer: Young folks today with families are shirking their responsibilities and have too much free time.

Shorter Ding, the Gen X-er: Young families/single people today have totally different (and in crucial ways, more demanding) responsibilities than the ones you guys had back in the 70s. Life is different now so don’t expect solutions to be the same as back in the day.

And this is where the dangerous power of nostalgia comes in. I love and esteem my dad in a huge way, but there are some crucial gaps in his memory. Gone is the fact that he and mom didn’t have an extended network of family around them – there were no cousins, aunts or uncles to take up any family slack (which isn’t usually the norm), so he and mom going it alone was a matter of necessity rather than choice; gone is the fact that mom was a secretary and he was a civil servant, so their professional obligations were very different than the ones my sister, brother in law and I have; gone is the fact that the cost of living/raising a family was considerably lower then than now; gone is the memory that my sister and I, through our elementary and junior high lives, had babysitters to watch us after school until our parents came home from work, though it’s somewhat comforting to think that mom and dad provided every moment of care themselves; also gone is the uncomfortable fact that, at the height of his pastorate, my father spent 90% of his time away from the home and family.

(Also forgotten: the bulk of their parenting advice came from our hardened, cranky, arid as Texas, Depression era Baptist pastor whose relationship with his own offspring was, shall we say, less than ideal.)

Nostalgia, however, paints a golden patina over all of these potholes of memory until the surface looks smooth and glossy. Instead of highlighting how he and mom operated in a parenting context that reflected their social and economic context, their childrearing is a simple story of two parents stalwartly facing the music and going it alone because, naturally, that’s what parents do.

But perhaps my sister and I are guilty of the same kind of nostalgia, too. Perhaps, in our mind's eye, we have a comfortable idea of what grandparents are: accessible, doting on the grandchildren, service-oriented. But that's not who my father is at all. Like others of his generation, he has a very fixed outside life from family. There's a strong feeling of "I put in my time and now it's Me time." Who can argue with that? What right do we have to impose on what little time he has left? (heh.) The grandparents now aren't the grandparents of whenever: they get depressed, restless, horny, impatient and, frankly, don't want to relive the years of raising kids.

My father teaches, goes on conferences, counsels, and preaches. (Sometimes he even goes out on a date.) And he deliberately bought a car that won't fit a child's car seat, let alone two. Deep down, the single childless woman in me respects his independence, applauding and encouraging it.

So if we are more similar than we think, why can't our generations keep nostalgia from clouding our perceptions of one another?

(next: take this job and shove it!)

why people are single: two views

so there's this analysis of why the numbers of unmarried people seem to be edging upward: Why Are There So Many Single Americans? - New York Times and then there's this one, coauthored by glenn sacks.

(who's glenn sacks? well, he's no disinterested party in the cultural gender wars. you can read his work right here.)

why bring up the two?
i think the emphasis in these pieces are rather interesting: one looks at the single/married disparity as an issue of class and economics and the other sort of begins from a false conclusion (men don't measure up, and are no longer needed nor often even wanted) and then takes off from there. it's an interesting contrast, also since the Times piece also looks at the marriage rates of men (so it's not just a woman issue - this declining marriage rate also affects our gonadinal counterparts.)

from a personal point of view, it's gratifying to see that i'm not the only one in my mid-late 30s still single. (more on this later. you'll have noticed that the Boy who came back on the scene during the holidays is no longer around. it's a good story and one that could be used as a personal way to enter these two stories.)

why does this make me laugh so hard?

Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee - New York Times

do you read the wedding announcements in the times?
i do. (why i torture myself, i don't know. maybe i'm waiting for the one wedding announcement that won't make me barf.) anyway, this announcement struck me as particularly ridiculous - and it doesn't help that the bride looks like she's in drag.

and i know i vaguely promised a post on men's pain...i'm working on it! this has been a tough week: i dumped the boy, once and for all (that lasted all of a month) and work has been wretched, to say the least. plus, i have two writing deadlines coming up (one is next week for a reading i'm doing) and as a result i'm sort of frazzled.

complain complain complain. my life is good. i should relax, be thankful, and enjoy it.

but as a kind of preview of the thing i'm thinking about posting later, here's a piece from norah vincent's 'self-made man' (about her year plus spent dressed as a man, in order to access exclusively male circles and observe male behavior) which i just finished reading sunday:

"Being a guy was like that much of the time, a series of unrealistic,
limiting, infuriating and depressing expectations constantly coming over the
wire, and you just dummy trying to act on the instructions. White manhood
in America isn't the standard anymore by which women and all other minorities
are being measured and found wanting, or at least it doesn't feel that way from
the inside. It's just another set of marching orders, another stereotype
to inhabit."

there are trenchant observations throughout this book (especially the chapter on her time dating as a man). so, look for a post on this and some other thoughts i have about the MRM and the model of manhood i grew up with sometime over the weekend.

popping the cork

happy new year, people!

i'm back, relaxed, i even have a slight tan from LA and so frakking relieved that 2007 is here. (wasn't 2006 a little boring yet also stressful?)

i have to get ready for the sharon jones show at the park west tonight; after my freak out with B- last week, G- wanted to come out to chicago and help me ring in the new year but his father burned down his kitchen this morning so now i'm going with E-, an old nerve pal from milwaukee.

(i'm a firm believer in recycling. there's no need for past internet dates to die on the vine, you know?)

be safe, be happy and have a great new year! -ding

it's sunday afternoon, a rare day that i've been able to enjoy without 'running errands' or otherwise being outside in a heatwave.

i've stumbled across two articles today in the 'paper' that are sort of like bookends to one another; one looks at the declining number of men without college educations marrying and the other looks at women, with educations, entering financial services and what they encounter - as well as the adjustments some firms are having to make because of them:

Facing Middle Age With No Degree, and No Wife - New York Times

Wall Street's Women Face A Fork in the Road - New York Times

what's interesting to me about both these articles is how they avoid the tone of a fake 'crisis' (unlike the Times' previous shoddy Opt Out articles, for which one of these is a tonic) and they show how the idea of what's 'traditional' is changing because people (men and women alike) are saying up front 'this isn't working for me.' and their rejection is saying something about the way our worlds, social and corporate worlds, are organized.

when looking at the low trends of young women entering financial services it's offered that 'Generation Y cares less about money if it comes at too high a price, ...throwing a wrench into Wall Street’s past assurance that it could demand cultlike devotion from employees in return for fatter paychecks than any other profession.' instead, younger men and women (even those who'd like to return) are demanding something less insane than working around the clock to the detriment of their personal/family lives.

and the guys featured in the marriage piece - they seem ok with their status, whatever their reasons for remaining single (financial stbility, fear of divorce, can't commit.) to the pressure of marriage, the effort and expense of it - they're saying no. while the article makes a lot of the stats showing how the pool of available women has shrunk for these men, their own personal stories tell a different story - they just don't want to marry. it's working for them.

of course it makes me think what life will look like down the line when most folk in my generation will be living as roommates, unmarried and pretty well happy about it. it'll be unlike life as we've known it (or heard about from our parents and grandparents). my friends and i joke about it: we're through with lovers and husbands (or maybe not), we're living in some hip elderly commune somewhere, getting all nostalgic about U2 or Wilco.

that'll be sort of interesting.

the hypocrite housewife

i read this essay in the back of my roomie's latest Time mag while taking a morning constitutional and i had a suspicion that something was wrong.

1. the whiny victim tone. sweetie, you're not a victim. the image of ms. flanagan, homey homemaker, being marched back to the protective arms of the GOP while the mean girls of the Dem party hoot bad names and vulgar gestures because ms. flanagan is a nice girl who'd rather stay home than hold a picket sign is ridiculous. from all reports, ms. flanagan is just as privileged as her husband; she is an accomplished writer who earns money with her writing, and has a staff to help her do it. how many traditional housewives get that? (and, frankly, the notion that only SHE gets to have a dead mother whom she misses desperately is sickening and offensive.)

2. the sticking up for the white male. does the White Male (as signifier) really need another apologist? really? is it stigmatizing the WM to reveal the existence of those on the outside, rather than to always cater to those on the inside with ultimate cultural privilege? (like any other upper middle class white woman, she's uncomfortable with having privilege revealed and being called out on it.) i think it's interesting that she chooses to frame her argument like this, rather than say that the Dem party has abandoned the working man - which it hasn't and she'd be hard pressed to show that it has.

or perhaps her allegation would ring truer if she wrote that the 'beer-guzzling, union-dues paying' white guy got the shit scared out of him by the GOP when 9/11 hit. rather, flanagan makes the WM a victim like herself and we all know how much they suffer, don't we?

3. she's wrong. perhaps i'm watching the wrong Democratic party but i've always felt that the party has been abject in its pursuit of the Housewife. it's women like me the party's abandoned - single women, single women of color, single working men and women. in my particular case, the post-election backpedaling on the choice issue is one such example; discussion abounded that perhaps the language of reproductive choice was too scary for those housewives living in places like naperville; it was too angry. and where are the policies that look out for the interests of the people like me in the party - people who don't live in a subdivision, people without children, but still people who work hard and believe heartily in progressive causes? instead we watch as the party fumbles for its nerve and makes concessions to those easily upset.

so if anyone is being alienated by the Dems, it's not a housewife. and it's certainly not because of contempt. to muster contempt, a party must have vast stores of anger and the GOP spits it continuously while we swallow ours and hope no one notices.

TIME.com: We're Here, We're Square, Get Used to It -- May. 08, 2006 -- Page 1
Joan Walsh about Flanagan on the Huffington Post

potato, potahtoe: you say responsibility, i say misogyny

The other day, I was called irresponsible. I’m a little puzzled. I mean, I pay taxes, have a job, go to church (I even believe in Christianity), vote, brush my teeth and wash my face. I’ve never been arrested, I’ve never struggled with addictions, and I’ve never even been fined for anything. I’ve never been a single mother (or even been pregnant), I’ve never been on welfare (though I’ve been laid off a couple times) and I’ve never had the police visit my apartment to shut down a raging party.

By the standards of most people, parents included, I am the picture of Responsibility. Wherefore this ‘irresponsibility’?

I suspect that when the word Irresponsible is thrown around or directed at women like me, it is not ‘sloppy living’ or ‘wastrel-ness’ that they really mean. No, I think, for a certain group of people (men who believe that women need to learn their 'place' – a problematic, gendered and racially charged word that should NEVER be used here), what is called 'irresponsibility' is actually a cover for another word, ‘misogyny.'

Isn’t language wonderful? We can say a word but actually be thinking something else entirely!

(The weighty word Responsibility reminds me of something from Foucault: the panopticon. a structure to keep the human subject completely under surveillance and, through surveillance, control the subject .)

Of course I don’t think my life is irresponsible at all. I just define my responsibilities differently, according to my values. I put a very low priority on resting in my 'place.' You may even call me uppity. In this particular case, my irresponsibility stems from the fact that I ignore the ‘natural’ hierarchy established in the bible (God/man/woman on the bottom). I don’t just ignore that hierarchy; I think it’s irrelevant and bogus.

Like, am I subject to *all* men, or just the one I’m married to?
If I’m not married, is it my father I’m supposed to be subject to?
What if I don’t live with my father?
What if my father is dead?
What man am I supposed to be subject to then? Is it the next closest man in my family or just the one who lives across my hall?
Does this apply to just Christian women or would this also apply to slightly spiritual agnostics?
If it’s just Christian woman, are we subject to only the men in our church or perhaps men from visiting churches?
And what about men from other denominations?
Like, I’m Presbyterian – would this mean that a Methodist had mastery over me? Or a Catholic? And what about those free-wheeling Pentecostals?

See? Ridiculous.

If that’s real life, then every woman would be at the mercy of some whack-job simply because he had testicles. (And what do we call that? Patriarchy.)

And isn’t that what we’re really talking about? Patriarchal control. It’s all to put a woman in a tiny box and see her rattle around in it like a discarded toy. If you feel that a woman has a ‘place’ and should inhabit only two roles (wife and mother) in the human ‘chain of command’ you’re a straight up misogynist. You don’t respect women or value women; to you, women are objects to be mastered and used. And if that’s the ideology behind Responsibility/Irresponsibility, I’m willing to be that slacker.

(And I think it’s interesting that when you search for pictures under ‘women’ and ‘responsibility’ in Getty Images, they give you babies and marriage. haven't we progressed at all??)

whither obedience?

today was a full sunday.
church services, communion, church tour, bookstore, downtown wandering and the superbowl.
(damn you, pittsburgh 'stealers', damn you! you know that ball never made it across the line!)

after my pitiful whining about being obedient my dad sent me an email telling me the tension i'm feeling is my fighting against my need to be obedient. i can live with that but obedient in what context, exactly?

to rules of behavior?
to christian groupthink?

i think of that anonymous commenter in the 'choice' post below. (the one i called a self-righteous pharisee. sigh. that was harsh. damn my quick temper.) the way they went immediately from a thinly veiled ad hominem attack (i'm selfish) to a blurt of scripture to take away the sting. i bet whoever that commenter is, they're super obedient. they don't make mistakes, they do all the right things, they say only what's backed up by scripture, and they like the apostle paul best out of all the bible guys.

i don't want to be that kind of obedient christian. that kind of obedience reminds me of all the guys on those christian dating sites: they wore the jesus-mask and they all seemed ...odd. yes, the way is narrow but why is it the only models of christianity that we see (even here) are either the rigid, legalistic puritanical freak who seems to want to put everyone in jail or the flaccid, 'let everything hang out' hippie who thinks we should all give hamas a shout out?

a while ago, a guy told me that i didn't like church guys because, well, i wasn't a christian. i laughed. who else but a christian would be so concerned about not fitting in with the christian flock? (you think any old wanker would care? please.) but if christianity means conformity about *everything* then i'm at a loss. because, to me, that's what obedience means. to conform. it means the effing 'scarlet letter' and dimmsdale!

where is our identity as believers supposed to come from? our knowledge of the Word or...what? how well we adhere to correct forms of behavior? how well we hate the things we're supposed to hate? how well we...what? what is it? if paul can say that to the weak he became weak, to the gentile he became a gentile and to the jew a jew, then what's so horrific about saying, as a christian, that to the gay person i became their advocate; to the woman who's facing an intimate, personal choice, i will be that person who lets her make that intimate choice - how is that so disobedient?

[ha. you thought i didn't have a point and i did!]