I Enjoy Being a Girl

Today two things happened that I want to write about, but I just can’t quite articulate.  One was when a friend of mine was going on about how she was ten pounds overweight for her height and how she was determined to lose that weight, you know, for her health.  She’s not the kind of girl who has big body image issues, but sometimes she says some stuff that makes me want to smuggle her out of the country and put her… I don’t know where… someplace without televisions or other fucked up women or men who feel fine about teaching her the meaning of the word “asshole” so that she doesn’t internalize this idea that she should always strive to be smaller and weaker and less noticeable than she is.  The other was when a friend of mine called up to complain about some guy at work and, as she was explaining her predicament, it was clear that she was trying to show proper deference for his position and he was reading that as weakness and her as someone who didn’t need respect, but instead the guiding hand of a wise teacher.

And I just keep thinking that it’s like we run along pretty okay through life until something happens, and for most of the women I know, it seems to have really kicked into gear in junior high, where you are just hobbled by the bullshit women are just supposed to take.

Someone smarter than me has probably already written about this at length, but it’s like we, as a society, are constantly enacting these patterns that, if were particularized to a specific family, we would recognize as abusive.  And maybe that’s how you understand it, that it’s right when we are old enough to realize that things are truly fucked up, that we cope with that knowledge by assuming that it’s our fault, that we bring it on ourselves, and if only we could figure out what the fuckers wanted, we could end the abuse.

So we go about making ourselves seems as weak and harmless as possible so that we won’t draw attention to ourselves, especially attention that might be negative.  It’s like we’re trying to send this message: no need to hurt us, we’re already hurting ourselves.  Move along.

I do that, too.  I’m not trying to set myself up as someone who’s better than all that nonsense.  I’m not.

But I see it.  I see it all around me.  I just don’t know for sure what steps we can take to act against it.

As You Know

I am a giant baby and a superstitious fool and so I’m about to do something that make me anxious, but I’m not going to tell you what it is until after, because even though I think it’s going to go poorly, I don’t want my high hopes and enthusiasm to be the cause of it going poorly and so I’m trying not to jinx it.

No, it makes no sense, but keep your fingers crossed for me any way.

Edited to add: Nothing to say about the thing we’re not talking about.  I should hear something tomorrow.

Great, Now I’m Going to Have That Stuck in My Head All Day

Tiny Pasture says it’s “probably best if Indiana voters don’t see this.”  I’m not sure why.  Will Indianans be surprised and disillusioned to see that the jungle their native son worked so hard to welcome them to is filled with catchy lyrics and fun dancing?  Will they be dismayed to learn that all the hard work that family from Gary did to teach the world to dance was for nothing?  Will they be offended that there are no little pink houses in the video?

Bad Night’s Sleep

Oh, y’all, I slept so poorly last night I can’t even tell you.  I’ve been waking up every day for the past week at exactly four in the morning and today was no exception.  Except worse, because, as I said, I had been sleeping like shit.

And why, you may ask?  Because even though I have been sunburnt since Sunday, last night was the night that my whole face just hurt to be touched, by anything–pillow, sheet, imaginary 4 a.m. bogeyman.

I tried to get sympathy from the Butcher, but he was all “I found a tick on my balls.” and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being his sister for almost three decades, it’s that any blood-sucking, disease-carrying animal near or on his junk, trumps any discomfort I might be having.

If he has an encounter with a candiru, I’ll never get any sympathy from him about anything, ever.

The Tiny Cat Just Does Things Differently

The tiny cat no longer takes her meals on the table where the cat food is in a bowl.  She either goes to the dog’s bowl, bats some of that food on the ground, and eats it, or she does as she’s doing right now: she spends a good twenty minutes tugging and pulling and rustling and tugging and pulling until the cat food bag is arranged in such a way that she can comfortably sit in it and eat, hidden from view.