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This week Mister Bubby has been attending a day camp put on by some teenage girls from church. I don’t know what qualifies these girls to run a day camp in someone’s mom’s back yard, and for all I know it may not even be legal. Mine is a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. I do know the camp is a good thing for the following reasons:
- For $50 I can get rid of one of one of my kids for three hours a day for five days.
- With both Elvis and Princess Zurg in summer school, MB was in need of some diversion of his own.
- Every day has a different theme. It’s so cute!
- They call it “Cool Kids Camp,” and they don’t spell it “Kool Kidz Kamp.” Granted, perhaps the only reason for this random act of standard English is that they didn’t want to be running an operation with the initials KKK, but it pleases me nonetheless.
- Did I mention it only cost me $50? It’s not exploitation if it’s voluntary, right?
Anyway, this has been a great experience for him, worth every penny even if it had cost twice as much (shhh!), and I am thus feeling a tad less guilty for not arranging more play dates with his friends from school this summer. I don’t know why arranging play dates is such an ordeal for me. I thought I’d gotten past most of my social anxiety, what with getting older and taking more drugs, but I still dread making phone calls to people I don’t know and asking them if it’s okay for our offspring to get together. Wow, I just made it sound kind of sick. No wonder I’m nervous! Anyway, I suspect that I’d approach the calls with less trepidation if MB were less inclined to make friendships exclusively with children whose parents/guardians are a) first-generation immigrants and/or b) hard-of-hearing. I don’t have a problem making the first move, as it were, if the person on the receiving end can hold up her/his end of the conversation. It’s very difficult for me to carry on a conversation all by myself, especially when there’s another person there cramping my style. I overthink these things, I know. And then I get resentful because my mother didn’t arrange play dates for me when I was six years old. I have a hard enough time arranging my own social life. The stress of organizing four additional persons’ social lives is overwhelming.
Where was I? Oh yes, Cool Kids Camp. It’s been an interesting week because it’s been raining again. Why not? It’s Oregon in July, what else is it going to do? Someone plans an outdoor activity and the Rain Gods are summoned. Our own family is culpable for this current round of unseasonable weather, as Sugar Daddy reserved this week to build the play structure in the back yard. Well, never mind. He’ll just have to do it when we get back from vacation.
Yes, we’re leaving Monday for California. Not coincidentally, Monday is also the day that the sunshine is supposed to return to Oregon. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I go to California to escape the rain, not the sunshine. I can’t help but feel that the trip is somewhat wasted if it isn’t going to coincide with poor weather back home. Fortunately, the weather in California is supposed to be nice next week also, even in Santa Cruz, which is one of our destinations. Unless we accidentally bring some rain with us. That’s been known to happen.
Another documented phenomenon on past California trips is our habit of getting deathly ill upon arrival. The reason SD does this is clear: he can’t afford to get sick while he’s working, so he waits until vacation. Why the kids and I also do it is something of a mystery. But the pattern holds. We go to California, we get sick for a few days. I don’t think we’ve ever gone there and not had that happen. By contrast, our family vacations to the Oregon Coast, Chicago and St. Louis were all illness free. COINCIDENCE? Probably. I’m hoping that by naming the threat, I can neutralize it. You know, for a Western Christian, I’m surprisingly superstitious. My true religious temperament is more compatible with voodoo. I would be very at home with that type of faith practice. But as I blogged yesterday, it’s a little late for that.
Anyway, so I’m going to be on vacation for the next two weeks–or as I like to call it, “vacation.” Let’s just say I’ll be touring with my company and eating out a lot. Try not to miss me too much. And if you know any neat tricks with chicken entrails that will ensure good health while I’m gone, feel free to engage in them.
This comment was left by TR on my post Tuesday:
Church membership is only voluntary for adults, and questionably so, for those who were raised that way.
I don’t know if this is implying that the social pressure to remain in a faith community compromises an adult’s free will, or if the religious indoctrination they received as children compromises their ability to think independently. I wouldn’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but neither do I want to go to the trouble of asking what exactly she meant by that, because that would go contrary to my agenda for this blog. Regardless of which spin I put on this statement, I actually agree with it to some extent.
Church membership, technically, is always voluntary, except for children who are baptized as infants, but being raised under the spectre of a particular dogma is not. I was raised by Mormons, and it is no accident that I continued to identify as a Mormon even after I left my parents’ home. Some people call this sort of thing “brainwashing.” Which is not an inaccurate term, just a pejorative one. But we all brainwash our children to some degree. I mean, I hope so. What’s the point of parenting if you aren’t going to pass on your values to them? Oh, sure, there’s that whole clothing and feeding thing, but basic survival tools can only take you so far in life. Most parents feel obligated, even privileged, to steer their children on whatever path they consider the Road To Being A Decent Person. Lots of people use religion as a means to this end, but secular humanists also indoctrinate their children for this purpose, i.e. churning out decent human beings. They just have different arguments.
But parental brainwashing is about more than instilling ethics. We also teach our children what we believe about the world. One might believe a particular thing about the world for a religious reason, or one might have some non-religious reason–but still believe the thing with a religious fervor. You could believe that the world is only 6,000 years old. It would be pretty hard to believe that for a non-religious reason, unless you were just pulling random numbers out of the air. But alternatively, you could believe that humans evolved from lower primates. You could believe that there’s no such thing as a “lower primate.” You could believe that Chinese people have a natural facility for mathematics. You could believe that white men can’t jump. You could believe that women are irrational because of their menstrual periods and that this has something to do with why they can’t parallel park. You could believe that homosexuality is genetic. You could believe that sexuality is a matter of free will. You could believe there’s no such thing as “free will.” You could believe that women are innately more nurturing than men. You could believe that gender is a social construct. You could believe that there is life on other planets. You could believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. You could believe that the Constitution is a “living document.” You could believe all governments are illegitimate. You could believe that violence never solves anything. You could believe that the toilet paper should always roll over rather than under. You could believe that Republicans hate the poor. You could believe that Democrats eat their young. You could believe it’s okay to mix plaids with stripes. You could believe that you should talk to your kids openly about sex. You could believe that clothing is oppressive. You could believe that it’s essential for everyone to learn a second language. You could believe that it’s wrong to eat animals. You could believe that people suck. You could believe that Wal-Mart is a major source of the world’s suffering. You could believe that Jews are the cause of all the wars in the world. You could believe that air travel is safe. You could believe Sudoku is a waste of time. You could believe that there’s no point in trying because the Man is always going to keep you down. You could believe that aspartame kills.
Growing up in a millennialist religion during the cold war era, I was convinced that I would not live to see thirty. Either the U.S. and the Soviets were going to blow us all up, or Jesus was going to come, or both. I was well into adulthood before I could wrap my head around the possibility that the end of the world was not immediately at hand. To this day I have difficulty making plans for the distant future, e.g. retirement, even though I now lean toward thinking that the Earth most likely has a few hundred more years left in her, global warming notwithstanding. Rationally I know that living to see my golden years is a distinct possibility, but in my bones I feel that it is a moot point. What is responsible for this world view, which I can’t seem to shake in spite of my best efforts–religion, nuclear power, or mental illness? Most likely all of the above.
Who I am and how I got here is a very complicated story. Fifteen years ago I was a Democrat, which is somewhat subversive in Mormon culture, at least in the Western U.S., but I would have told you then that my religious beliefs absolutely shaped my political views. They still do, even though my political views are drastically different now. The reason is that both my religious beliefs and my politics have been informed by my personal experience.
My mother was a very religious woman, though she was not a pious one. She swore like a sailor when she got angry, but her specialty was sins of omission. I inherited that from her. I did not inherit her strong, natural inclination toward faith in God. My father was religious–a very obedient, religious Mormon–but he was also a scientist and an independent thinker. Some might wonder how one could simultaneously be religiously obedient and think independently, and those people will just have to trust me. One of my favorite stories about my father–and I’m sure I’ve told it here before–is when he was impanelled for a jury and the defense attorney asked him how he made judgments. “If someone holds up this ball and says it’s blue, and someone else says it’s green, how do you know what color it is?” Dad said, “I look at it. If it’s blue, it’s blue, and if it’s green, it’s green.” Interestingly enough, he was not selected for that jury. I did not inherit my dad’s facility for science. But I was profoundly influenced by his unrelenting logic and insistence on seeing things as they really were. I lived with it and saw it every day. I have to tell you, it was frequently as annoying as the religious indoctrination was.
I have never been fully at ease with my religion. There have been times when I thought it was less nutty than others, but I don’t pretend that there isn’t a high level of irrationality involved. At one point I thought I would chuck the whole thing and start over from scratch, but I found that I couldn’t really do that. I would have to forget everything I’ve ever learned, including the stuff I’d rather remember. It’s all so intertwined. Instead I’ve taught myself to work within the intellectual framework that’s been foisted on me–by my church, by my culture, by my parents, by my DNA–and I consider every act of faith, such as it is, a voluntary one. But am I as free, philosophically, to not choose Mormonism as I would have been if I’d been raised differently? Theoretically, yes. In reality, probably not. But ultimately it must be a choice, or else nothing is.
I used to toy with the idea of having a separate blog wherein to pontificate on all matter Mormon–since the vast majority of my subscribers are not Mormon and likely uninterested in most of my religious angst and philosophizin’ (which is significant, I’m afraid)–but I eventually concluded that it felt unnatural to write in a venue devoted excluively to faith issues, without the context my mundane and profane existence provides. I must blog with integrity, or not at all! Which is why, when religion is at the forefront of my mind, I tend not to blog at all. It’s the same with politics, incidentally. But sometimes I just can’t help myself.
Whilst conducting some internet research for an undisclosed side project of mine, I came across the following article on about.com:
Q. “The Salt Lake Tribune has carried several articles recently about “LDS women” who seem to believe that women are an oppressed majority within the Church. Other than the 2 dozen who signed the letter, do LDS women really feel this commonly? If so, why?”
A. There will always be a conflict for Latter-day Saint women who seek after the honors of the world. Living the gospel requires us to leave those honors behind and focus on the things of eternity. While our efforts in the home may go unheralded by the world, they are of the greatest worth and value in this life and in the life to come.
Those women who lose their focus and seek after wordly honor will inevitably find dissatisfaction. The Church oftentimes becomes an easy target for their frustrations. Be assured that these women are not the majority.
The average Latter-day Saint woman is at home nurturing her children. She’s teaching them to read, to serve, to do good in the world. She’s helping her neighbor or planting a garden. She’s developing a new talent or comforting a loved one. She’s reading a book, she’s coaching her child’s team, she’s serving in the local PTO or writing to her local congressman. She’s rocking a baby, she’s praying, she’s sharing the best of herself with those who matter most. Though she may experience sorrow from time to time she is generally happy and at peace with herself.
In the immortal words of Dorothy Parker, “And then Tantle Weader fwowed up.”
Let’s start with the insinuation that LDS women dissatisfied with the patriarchal structure of the church must be “seeking the honors of the world,” i.e. they’re dissatisfied with their God-given role of homemaker and require a professional career to validate their worth. This assumes that
a) women who are satisfied with their homemaking careers could not possibly be dissatisfied with their patriarchal institutions;
b) the desire to do meaningful work outside the domestic realm necessarily stems from a thirst for worldly honors rather than the irritating compulsion to live as a multi-faceted human; and
c) struggling intellectually, psychologically or emotionally with certain aspects of your faith tradition and/or community constitutes “losing your focus.”
Really, is there no more charitable way to view Mormon women who consider themselves “an oppressed majority” in the Church? Maybe some of them are ill-focused whiners seeking the praise and honor of the world–I mean, aren’t there some of those in every crowd?–but to dismiss women who question the fairness of the patriarchal order as having lost their perspective on what’s important in life? You’re not making a very good case for LDS women being unoppressed. I know that if I were to wonder aloud why the Church doesn’t ordain women, only to have someone respond with “What’s wrong with you?” or “Don’t you like your kids anymore?” I would find that somewhat oppressive.
The issue isn’t really whether women should work outside the home or not. Women who aren’t mothers are still women. Women who aren’t married are still women. To make this about women not wanting to be homemakers is an ad hominem argument and dodges the question. The question is whether LDS women “commonly” feel “oppressed,” and if so, why? One could also ask, if not, why not?
I admit that I have not done any scientific studies on the subject, but apparently the author of this about.com article has not either, so I’m at least as qualified as she is to answer the question of whether LDS women feel “oppressed.” I think some LDS women feel oppressed. I think a lot of LDS women who feel oppressed would not publicly admit as much. I reckon they probably are a minority, but I could hardly say with certainty that they are a “tiny” minority.
However, the vast majority of LDS women I know (and have known) would say the idea that we are oppressed is for to LAUGH. To be sure, there are pressures on LDS women to act in certain ways and to make certain choices. That’s sort of what society does to people. But the same culture that exerts these pressures–to get married, to have kids, to stay home with your kids (at least while they’re young), to always wear your Church Face–also produces an inordinate number of smart, dynamic, independent women who speak their minds, take care of business and generally kick a**. And I’m not talking about baking some killer quiche or playing a mean pipe organ or changing a legion of dirty diapers. The stereotypical Mormon woman who is constantly deferring to men and having more babies than she can possibly handle does not jibe with my observation of Mormon women. I’ve met hundreds over my short lifetime thusfar, and every last one of them is different from the other.
Who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history”? Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Harvard professor and Mormon woman. It’s not a coincidence. A Mormon woman’s scriptural role model is as likely to be Eve, infamous eater of the forbidden fruit, as it is Mary, celebrated handmaiden of the Lord. (I suspect most Mormon women don’t even think of the nameless Proverbs 31 gal because she’s a little too perfect.) Mormonism is, I think, unique in its characterization of the Fall and particularly Eve’s role in it. In our tradition the Fall was part of God’s plan from the beginning because God always intended for us to have the ability to choose between good and evil and to learn through our own experience. Without delving too deeply into LDS theology (does any of us really want that?), suffice it to say that to varying degrees, most Mormons think Mother Eve rocks. This would include every stripe of Mormon, from the feminist to the killer-quiche-maker to the Stodgy Old White Men who run the joint.
Understand that my point is not to argue theology–this view may well indeed make us phony Christians, and if that’s your opinion, you can save it because I’ve already been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. My point is that with as much religious baggage as Mormon women carry, we certainly are not burdened with any notion that woman is responsible for bringing evil into the world, or alternatively, that woman is too weak and dim to realize that eating fruit = bad. So right there we have an advantage.
No, we are more burdened with the multiple examples of Mormon pioneer women crossing the plains and taming the wild desert, raising forty-two children alone whilst their husbands served eight-year missions overseas–not to mention all the canning of fruit that must have gone on during this period. If Mormon women are oppressed, it is not by men but by our heritage of female heroism. We are much more oppressed by the expectations we place on ourselves than we are by whatever sexism lingers in our institution.
LDS women are a diverse lot–sort of like women in general. Are we more likely than other women to be full-time homemakers? Perhaps. I haven’t seen the numbers. But full-time homemakers are a diverse lot also. To say that the average LDS woman is “at home nurturing her children” is only telling part of the story. The average LDS woman does many things, usually at all once.
I’m not sure what exactly it is about that last paragraph I quoted that rubs me wrong, whether it’s the suggestion that feminists are women who are not happy and not at peace with themselves, or the implication that the “average” LDS woman is too busy performing acceptable feminine tasks (like planting a garden and serving in the PTO) to be dissatisfied or sad about anything. Perhaps what irks me is that it’s a phony answer to a phony question. Does anyone really wonder if LDS women “commonly” feel oppressed? Obviously they don’t, or 1) LDS women feeling that way wouldn’t be newsworthy, and 2) the Church would have changed more by now. I’m not defending or maligning the Church’s patriarchal hierarchy as it now stands. I’m only trying to characterize the experience of myself and the Mormon women I’ve known. Of course there are sexist, domineering men and timid, submissive women who wouldn’t know their own worth if they tripped over it, but you don’t need religion to facilitate that sort of dysfunction. It’s just that when religion is used to justify unfairness and mistreatment, it’s especially egregious and infuriating. Especially to religious people.
I’m not sure why the author feels compelled to tie things up with a neat little bow, this Pollyanna-ish description of Mormon women that doesn’t account for the wide range of women among us who proudly proclaim themselves unoppressed–the single, the married, the divorced, the widowed, the employed, the housewifely, the emotional, the analytical, the scrapbookers, the NASCAR fans, the cheerful, the cranky, the peaceful, the frustrated, the organized, the confused–they’re all here, and the common denominator is that they find more meaning within the Church than they do without it. And something that gives your life meaning is a great source of personal empowerment. Even Mormon feminists–the ones who characterize us as an ”oppressed majority”–continue to stay in the church specifically because of the doctrinal and historical aspects of our faith that they find particularly empowering to women (and incompatible with the status quo).
As for the rest of us, to chalk up our lack of discontent to the fact that we’re happy serving in our own little sphere is a truly inadequate response. Every Mormon woman I know thinks of herself as a person, not a gender role.
And now I’ve pretty much run out of things to say, if indeed I was ever saying anything.
“I feel so…clean. Something’s not right.”
“Quick! Somebody spill something!”
“Something sticky, preferably.”
“Yeah, something sticky. Sticky but mostly transparent, like apple juice or lemonade. Ah, that’s better!”
“I don’t know, I think I need a little more color.”
“Red Kool-aid?”
“Yeah, maybe. I was wondering, maybe something with a little texture? I’m feeling very tactile today.”
“How about fresh fruit?”
“Oooh, yeah, like cherries or strawberries–throw ‘em down and crush them with your heel! That’s the stuff!”
“You know, this is great, but it’s still all sugar. We should have something more substantial. Like dirt.”
“Yeah, dirt! Dirt’s good. Mud is better, though. Someone ought to play in the mud out back and then track it back in.”
“Yeah, get on that, somebody!”
“You know, this is nourishing, but I’m feeling a little parched again.”
“Someone should really walk around eating watermelon.”
“Great idea!”
“Or make some chocolate milk.”
“No, no, get this–make some chocolate milk, and then drop the chocolate milk–”
“Yes, yes–”
“Drop it from several feet up so that it gets maximum splatter effect!”
“You are a freaking genius!”
“I dunno, I’m still craving salt. Why doesn’t somebody just knock the big bottle of soy sauce off the top of the fridge?”
“Man, that would be so awesome. But how are they going to climb up there?”
“They don’t have to. Mom will do it.”
“Heh heh heh. Eh, she’s such a klutz.”
“This is sooooo much more comfortable.”
“Nothing like letting it all hang out.”
In general, the climate in Oregon (at least the Western part) is mild. That’s why, whenever my husband asks if I want to splurge this year and get air conditioning, I always say, “For how many days out of the year that we’d actually use it, I don’t think it’s worth it.” Granted, we usually have this conversation in April, while it’s pouring down rain. Usually come July or August, or whenever the three weeks of summer hits us hard, at least part of me is regretting being so sensible.
Since we’re currently experiencing triple-digit temperatures here in Portland, I was feeling a little of that regret again, until I heard an A/C repairman interviewed on the radio and he said days like this were boons to his industry because so many people call with a desperate need to have A/C and to have their A/C fixed. (This weather is a bane as well, since they have to work long hours–make that long, hot hours in places with no air conditioning. Truly, they are doing God’s work.) That’s when I started being glad that I don’t have air conditioning. Because how much would it suck to spend all that money on air conditioning, only to have it break down on the hottest day of the year? Answer: a lot! And you know me, Miss Negative Nellie–my air-conditioning would be sure to break when I needed it most. My pessimism alone would destroy it. And then my husband would be upset with me, too. “I spend all this money getting you air-conditioning so you can live like a queen while I slave in the factory all day, and you can’t think positively for five minutes? You have to go breaking the air-conditioning with your twisted thinking? Is nothing ever good enough for you?”
So I’m glad I don’t have air-conditioning. I’d rather complain about the heat.
I recently participated in a discussion on Feminist Mormon Housewives about Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and the bias each of them has to overcome because of people’s preconceived notions blah blah, and I realized that we must all be eager for a new administration because it is way, way too early to be having these conversations. Maybe we’d just rather be thinking about anything but the war.
I remembered that one of my two friends I willingly discuss politics with was in town last month and I completely forgot to ask her who she liked in the Democratic primary. (She’s a Democrat. Not only is she a Democrat, but she’s a Democrat who remembers when I was a Democrat. My other political-discussion friend is a Republican, but a Republican who also remembers when I was a Democrat. I wonder if that has anything to do with my relative comfort in discussing uncomfortable issues with them.) We must have been too busy talking about stuff that matters. But I’m still curious, especially since she is probably more enthusiastic about this primary race than primary races of yore. She used to live in Oregon, too, and always ended any discussion of who she liked in the primary with “But it doesn’t matter, because Oregon is a politically insignificant state, so who cares?” But she has since moved to a state with a February primary, so she actually gets to choose among multiple candidates. I can’t imagine how exciting that must be.
Unlike every other state in the Union, Oregon has decided not to move its primary to February 5. And good for us. Moving your primary up just to get attention is really so sad and pathetic. And it’s not like anyone cares about Oregon anyway. We’ve got, like, seven whole electoral votes. Which I guess is nothing to be ashamed of, except when you’re standing next to states with twelve, fifteen, twenty-four, or thirty-three electoral votes. Then you resemble the flat-chested Spring Break reveler flashing the “Girls Gone Wild” camera crew only to end up on the cutting-room floor. Why did you even bother signing that waiver? You weren’t even that drunk. Where is your dignity? Anyway, I’m not really sure when Oregon’s presidential primary is, but I do know it’s long after everyone else has been there, done that and started their Christmas shopping. By the time the 2008 campaign train rolls into town on its creaky wheels, there will only be one candidate aboard, and hopefully he doesn’t ask me to sign any waivers.
In lieu of talking to my Democrat friend about the Democratic primary, I have to make do with speculating about who my 1992 self would vote for. It would either be Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. I’m sure I would be torn. I would console myself by saying that it doesn’t matter since my 1992 self lives in California and California holds its primary in the late spring also, but then someone would have to remind me that this is 2008, hello, and California now has a February 5 primary, so I need to make up my mind already. My 1992 self can’t handle the pressure. She defers to my 1996 self, who initially favors Chris Dodd but ultimately sides with Hillary, only to regret it a year and a half later. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
What did any of that mean? I don’t know.
I had a dream the other night that I was holding a fundraising party for Rudy Giuliani. People kept saying, “I can’t believe you’re not supporting Mitt Romney,” and I kept saying, “I like Rudy.” During my waking hours I am not currently for any particular candidate, though my subconscious obviously leans toward Rudy. I do like Rudy. I’m a sucker for that rock-star quality, you know. I’m not particularly against any candidate either (in the Republican primary, at least), though I am not as enthusiastic about Romney. The conversation on FMH reminded me that I do harbor a bias against Mormon men, whom I tend to think of as old-fashioned, patronizing and chauvanistic. It’s really not a fair assumption. For every patronizing and chauvanistic Mormon man I’ve met, I know ten who are not that way. (If only I could have married one of those. Just kidding!)
Still, the stereotype persists, even in my extraordinarily fair-minded psyche. Also, there’s the fact that the beautiful Mitt Romney and his beautiful wife and beautiful family come across as Sickeningly Perfect Mormon types. If people voted for W because they thought he seemed like a nice guy to have a beer with, I don’t think Romney stands much of a chance of connecting with the Common Man. Not just because he doesn’t drink beer, but because he seems so well-scrubbed and polished that he must be Not One Of Us. I have to keep reminding myself of the many cookie-cutter Mormons I’ve known who turned out, in fact, to be Real People–individuals with their own thoughts and opinions and struggles. (They just have better dental plans.) As my husband has said of many a Perfect Mormon Family, “They’re not as innocent as they look.” And he means it in a good way.
I don’t have any sort of opinion on Fred Thompson, as I can’t even tell whether the cat is running or not. Put on an apron, Fred, or step away from the grill. Speaking of which, I need to decide what we’re eating for dinner. My 1992 self doesn’t eat meat. My 1996 self says she ate chicken the other day and it made her sick. My 2007 dream self throws parties for presidential candidates and has them catered. None of this is helping. Have I mentioned that it’s 100 degrees outside? If I served popsicles for supper, would that make me a bad person?
THIS JUST IN: Springfield, Vermont has been named The Simpsons’ official hometown for The Simpsons Movie premiere (“hometown premiere,” that is). Once again, Oregon has been dissed! And Matt Groening is from Oregon. Where’s the love?
Oh, well, I’m planning to boycott the Simpsons movie anyway because I do not wish to see Bart’s full monty. Really, who are these people drawing for? So I’m not bitter or anything.
But still…Vermont? Vermont? Psh.
So the other night I went shopping for a new swimsuit because I couldn’t find any of mine, not even the maternity ones (which hopefully don’t fit anymore). They are probably all buried deep within the bowels of my closet. No matter. I knew I could find a swimsuit for cheap in July. Whether I could find one that wasn’t ugly was another question. So I went to ye neighborhood department store and looked in their swimwear section, which as you might imagine–this being July and all–was very teeny-tiny indeed. They had a reasonably good selection of bikinis. Unfortunately, “bikini” is not in my fashion vocabulary, which meant that I was stuck with whatever leftovers they had for women with poor body images. Them were slim pickins indeed. Actually, there was nothing “slim,” exactly, in the selection. Not that I’m some Nicole Richie or Whatever-Olsen-Twin-Has-The-Eating-Disorder, but I am not quite large enough to fit into most of the sizes that were still available. I suppose the vast majority of women in my size do their swimsuit shopping in February, when the retail industry tells them to. I think they only make these ugly swimsuits so that there will be something still in the stores when the weather is such that people actually go swimming. But that’s just a theory.
Let me tell you what kind of bathing suits you can find in July: black suits with giant floral prints and–yeah, that about covers it. Black suits with giant floral prints. And if your suit happens to be black with a giant floral print, please don’t be offended. I’m sure yours is lovely and flatters your figure perfectly. But what if you don’t want a black suit with a giant floral print? Well, you can just go to hell, that’s what you can do. Unless this one suit that isn’t black with a giant floral print just happens to be in your size or the next size up, but oh, no, sorry, it’s four sizes too large. Next summer eat more doughnuts, dearie.
Actually, I was fortunate enough to find four suits in my size (or thereabouts), three of which were blue and one of which was not floral. I tried on one of those tankinis, which look so attractive on other people, but I’ve noticed in the dressing room that they tend to draw attention to a part of my body I’d rather people didn’t focus on. You know, when I see other people wearing those tankinis, I’m sure I don’t find my eyes irresistably drawn to their midriffs, and yet when I try on a tankini, all I can see is my midriff. So in theory I could wear a tankini and not make everyone around me grimace, but realitically speaking, I obviously lack the confidence to carry off such an outfit. So no tankini for moi. As for the other three suits, one was navy blue and rather plain–or rather, it was plain. It was a navy blue suit. Astonishingly minimalist for July swimwear, but then again, there was only one of them. The other two suits were various shades of blue, (mostly) inoffensive floral designs. Not my dream suit, but wouldn’t kill me to wear. While the colors were more flattering to my skin tone, I noticed that the cut was entirely wrong for my body type. To wit, it accentuated–if such a thing is possible in this context–the fact that I am mere centimeters away from having no breasts. So the navy blue suit it was.
But that episode reminded me that I really need to buy a new nursing bra, if only so I can finally wean the baby. It usually takes a significant outlay of money for me to make the leap from one phase of life to another. But that’s a side issue. As of right now, the baby is not weaning, and I only have one nursing bra that fits.
//ATTENTION: THIS IS THE PORTION OF THE BLOG THAT YOU DON’T READ, IF YOU DON’T ENJOY READING ABOUT WOMEN’S BRA-SHOPPING EXPERIENCES. ACTUALLY, IF YOU DO USUALLY ENJOY SUCH THINGS, I’M REASONABLY CERTAIN THAT THIS WILL DISAPPOINT YOU. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.//
Most nursing mothers have large breasts. I am one of about three women in the world, near as I can figure, who wears a B cup while nursing, and I only fill it out the first six months. Once the baby starts eating solid food and nursing a little less, the nursing bra gets significantly roomier. If they made nursing bras in A cups, that’s what I’d wear right now. Only they don’t, so instead I wear bras that are too big for me, which can result in unsightly bunches of excess material under my outerwear. I don’t know if you followed that. Maybe you’d rather not.
A few months ago I found a nursing bra by Liz Lange at Target that was perfect for me. It’s made out of stretchy (I think that’s the technical term) fabric, so women who are on the buxomer side of B will fill it out better, but women such as myself, who are on the “lighter” side of B, do not have this voluminous cup for their diminutive breast to swim in. And the nursing flaps open to the side, rather than top-down. I hate the top-down flaps. They make for even more of the unsightly bunchy extra stuff that I don’t need. Unfortunately, they only had one of these Liz Lange bras in stock when I was there, so that is the one I have. Target has since stopped carrying Liz Lange maternity and nursing bras, I think. They certainly haven’t gotten any more of that particular style, and certainly not in a B cup. I’ve looked online for similar nursing bras, but I haven’t found anything I like. I certainly haven’t found it for $12, which is about what I feel like investing in a nursing bra right now.
But one bra that fits is really not enough. I mean, it would be nice to wear one bra that fits while I’m washing the other one. I know, I’m such a fat, spoiled American. Anyway, so after the swimsuit selection, I went to the lingerie section to look for nursing bras, or alternatively, some bra that might be compatible with nursing. I was not successful in that pursuit. It reminded me, though, that I have even less to look forward to once I wean the baby and my anemic B-cup chest dwindles to a double-A again. You might be wondering why a woman of my particular endowments needs to bother with a bra at all. Well, let’s just say I’m old-fashioned. It’s a psychological thing. If I never wore a bra, how would I know when I wasn’t fit to be seen in public? Not that I’m fit now, but as long as I’m wearing a bra, I can pretend.
Mister Bubby has just informed me that Elvis is eating ice cream out of the carton. With his hands. So I must adieu. ‘Til next time, my friends.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
LIFE,
Liberty
and the
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
Happy Independence Day, my fellow (and sister) Americans!
When Bridge to Terabithia came out a few months ago, Sugar Daddy wanted to take Princess Zurg and Mister Bubby to go see it. (The Onion must have given it a thumbs up.) I asked him if he’d ever read the book. He hadn’t. I hadn’t either, but I knew it had a major plot point that was usually described as “tragic.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to take the kids until we knew what we were getting them into–especially Princess Zurg, who has a low tolerance for tragedy. SD didn’t really share my view, but he humored me for about a week and then we compromised: he and Mister Bubby went alone. (Mister Bubby, after all, had already seen Revenge of the Sith–minus the parts he covered his eyes for–so what harm was a little tragedy going to do him?) They both enjoyed the movie very much, and MB was not at all traumatized by the tragic parts.
Meanwhile, I read the book–which is beautiful, by the way. (I’m from the school of thought that says you should read the book before you watch the movie. My father is from the school of thought that says, “The book is always better than the movie, so why not see the movie first and save the best for last?” SD is from the school of thought that says, “What difference does it make?” Which is the main reason why our children almost always see the movie first. The good news is that my children are usually still interested in reading the book, too. They must get that from their grandfather.) It’s a wonderful story, but after reading it I was really, really glad I talked SD out of taking PZ. For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, let’s just say that an hour with a thesaurus could not yield a more appropriate term than “tragic.” I was traumatized, and I saw it coming a mile away. I’m perversely fond of sad stories, but PZ, as I’ve already said, has no such perversion. She is not only not fond of sad stories, but she hates, hates, hates sad stories. She’s from the school of thought that says real life is sad enough–why would you need your entertainment to depress you further?
We’ve been through this before. She knows that we dislike Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid because, frankly, they ruined it. Three hours with a thesaurus could probably not provide me with enough words to convey how egregiously Disney bastardized that fairy tale. Someone is going to hell for that one, if there’s any literary justice in the universe. Anyway, I misspoke earlier when I said she knows we dislike it. She knows that we hate it and that we refuse to buy it because it has that insipid happy ending instead of the original (and perfect-the-way-it-was) sad one. No offense to us, but she thinks that’s screwy, and she doesn’t mind telling us. (And telling us. And telling us.) Why would we like a sad story better than a happy story? It makes no sense. We’ve tried to explain it by telling her that the moral of a story is as important as the plot. The original “Little Mermaid” teaches you that true love requires great sacrifice, that there’s nobility in such sacrifices, and that it is more important to do right than to be happy. The Disney movie teaches you that if you disobey your father and run away from home, all your dreams will eventually come true. (And what dubious excuses for dreams are these–having your body mutilated by black magic in order to please some man? Hmph! I digress.)
So we’d been through it with The Little Mermaid. We went through it with “The Little Tin Soldier.” For a while we thought we’d gotten through with “The Little Tin Soldier.” She was intrigued by the sad version of that story (as opposed to the triumphant swill on display in Fantasia 2000), and she seemed to enjoy reading the book well enough. She didn’t freak out at Charlotte’s Web. She certainly took the opening of Finding Nemo in stride. Well, anyway, SD thought that, viewed in the right environment, under the right circumstances, with us there to talk to her about it afterwards, PZ could appreciate Bridge to Terabithia. I figured he was probably right. After all, she’s matured a lot in the last couple of years. And it would be great if she learned to appreciate stories with sad elements and even sad endings, because otherwise she’d be missing out on a lot of great literature. And as every English major knows, that would be the real tragedy. (Of course, every English major knows you also don’t get children to appreciate literature by showing them the movie before you’ve made them read the book. But why don’t you get off my back already?)
So last night we all watched Bridge to Terabithia (“we all” meaning SD, PZ, MB and I). SD had informed PZ that there was a very sad part, but that the ending was happy. We watched the movie. PZ was enjoying it. The tragic plot point happened. PZ seemed okay. //SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read the book and don’t wish to have the tragedy revealed, you should not read the rest of this blog. Maybe you should just go and read the book and come back later.// Then the rest of the movie played out. And the credits rolled.
And that’s when PZ burst into tears and was inconsolable for the next half hour or so.
“You call THAT a happy ending???” she wailed.
Yes, it was very, very sad, we told her. We understood. But as sad as that was, look at all the good things that came out of it. You see how Jess took all of that sadness inside him and used it to create something beautiful? Do you see how Leslie helped to make him a better friend, a better artist, a better brother, all those things?
“Yes, I know, I know, but–SO WHAT?!”
Ah, indeed. So what? She has a point. Tragedy really does suck.
I must say, it was hard not to feel guilty with my nine-year-old bawling her eyes out and saying things like, “Why? She was so young! It’s so unfair! I’m afraid I’ll never be happy again! Go away! I want to be by myself!”
The good news is that SD was able to cheer her up with an encore screening of Bumbo Two on YouTube.
But all those things aside, SD still thinks it was a good idea to expand PZ’s appreciation of the arts. After all, what is Bridge to Terabithia without the tragedy? A book not worth making into a movie. (Not that that would stop anyone, of course.) As distressed as I was upon learning character-in-question’s fate, as much as I didn’t want it to happen, I knew that was what made the story significant and meaningful, as opposed to a series of mildly entertaining vignettes. Not that there’s anything wrong with mildly entertaining vignettes (although I prefer enormously entertaining, personally). PZ would have thought the story was perfectly lovely without the tragedy. She really just doesn’t require superfluous conflict in her life, even of the fictional variety. Perhaps it’s a question of maturity, but I don’t know. Plenty of adults don’t like stories with sad endings and have no desire to immerse themselves in a fantasy world only to have their hearts ripped out and stomped on, regardless of how nice the moral is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on Amazon.com reading customer reviews, and in the middle all these four- and five-star reviews, there’s always a handful of one-star reviews that take the author to task for writing such a depressing book. “It was a good story, but TOO SAD.” “My husband recommended this book to me and when I finished reading it, I had to throw it at him.” “DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE DEPRESSED.” That kind of thing. The uncharitable take on those reviews is that anyone who would give a book one star solely because she (sorry, but it’s almost never a he) felt sad after reading it is not much more mature than my nine-year-old. But charitably speaking, it takes all kinds to make a world, and if you prefer happy endings to sad ones, so what? Life’s too short not to read what you like (provided you’ve graduated from high school, of course).
And now, for extra credit, class:
What is the saddest book you’ve ever read? The saddest good book? The best sad book? And most importantly, have you ever read a book that was so sad that you regretted reading it, or at least felt compelled to throw it at the person who told you to read it?
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