bitter broad

tonight i read a blog post about a writer who claims there is no room for feminism in love/marriage. oh no she didn't!!!

i immediately read the 2008 interview in The Atlantic with this woman, followed by a 2010 marie claire interview with her. Lori Gottlieb, a seemingly bitter never-married 40-year-old single mother, recently published a book encouraging women to lower their standards so they can find a husband: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

in these interviews, gottlieb argues that a woman should have a checklist and find a man that meets most of her criteria rather than holding out for love. we shouldn't be so picky while we're young, lest we end up old maids like she has.

this is all quite relevant to me (though you know i don't hope to technically marry), as too much work mixed with winter blues has me feeling lonely and doomed to forever be a girl among (platonic) men. as much as i enjoy the freedom of being single, i would like to find myself in a stable romantic relationship. but i'm in no hurry to settle for the next person i go on a date with.

gottlieb knows i will disagree with her:

in your 20s, because of this whole idea of empowerment and we-don’t-have-to-compromise-on-anything and we’re so independent and self-sufficient, a lot of us think, “Well of course I wanna meet my soul mate and of course I wanna get married, but if it doesn’t happen — that’s okay, I will be okay.” Better to be alone for the right reasons...

anyway, she continues to insist that most women want to make a family and even claims that the domestic-goddess-housewife lifestyle is still an ideal for most women. while it's not the case for me, maybe it is true, but that's not really what inspired this post.

here it is: as i was reading this and getting all indignant and third-wave-feminist on gottlieb, i noticed a box of links in the right of the window:

remember i was trying to discern whence my distaste for my own kind? i'm thinking it has something to do with this.

i am lucky to have men in my life who like my mind and find my thoughts interesting. maybe they also think my boobs "look amazing" and wouldn't mind if i learned the "5 little things that make me more attractive". or maybe not. but when i pull on my standard outfit: leggings, skirt, stupid t-shirt and cardigan, the impression i hope to give is that i have a mind teeming with interesting thoughts. i'm not trying to trick anyone into the sack with me. my exact level of attractiveness is there for all to see.

women's fashion magazines put up a rather transparent facade of empowerment while keeping their readers trapped beneath layers of suffocating makeup and starving for attention and a juicy burger. the blatant superficiality of these articles turns my stomach. (ed. note: sorry for the cliche-overload!)

while i was impressed by the marie claire interviewer (a single-and-loving-it 35-year-old woman), i wonder how many lonely single ladies actually stuck it out til the end of the article instead of clicking on one of these links:

when i dance i raise the dead

how does winter affect you? i am having a much different experience this year than ever before and though it is less depressive than the past 23 years, i'm still having trouble dealing.

i'm caught between the desire to reveal myself and the desire to hibernate, emotionally speaking. i posted a blog a few nights ago and then deleted it from the internet. what is that? here's an excerpt (i promise i'm leaving out the worst parts):

it was going to be about how winter makes me write differently; how winter makes me write cryptically. you see, last night i wrote these words (among others): "how many times can you bite your tongue before you're just gnawing air, gnashing teeth, grinding words?"

most things i write in the winter are buried beneath layers of meaning. it's like some stupid living metaphor. in the winter, i bundle up my message in layers of warm words. but in the summer i run free and naked, my armpits flying in your face and making you uncomfortable.

i do have flashes of frankness during winter, however. often these flashes end up in blazes, much to my chagrin. not beautiful, glorious blazes. not like the fireworks on my birthday. more like fires that take the lives of family cats in the middle of the night. these blazes are demoralizing and make me wish i'd just never opened my mouth at all.

this weird living metaphor of burying meaning is not confined to the written word. it happens when i speak and act. can anyone else relate? am i even making sense right now? maybe i should blame it on estrogen or something.

the act of posting this entry and then deleting it hours later is a perfect example of a flash of frankness gone wrong.

there is something lonely and sad about winter. everyone bundled up tight in their coats and scarves and hats and watching the sidewalk while they step to beware of ice. no eye contact. everyone cold and stir-crazy and sleepy. people anticipating the future (warm weather), so not present in the moment and so not able to really be with you even when you're together.

i feel all of this a bit too deeply. everything seems to crack at the seams in the winter. then with the spring thaw, i face the mess i left and everything is melty and fluid and i mold myself into a more acceptable form.

in the meantime, my writing will be cryptic, my frank words/actions will often be regrettable and prove fruitless, and i will try not to backtrack on my path to self-acceptance. so far, the answer has been running in the cold and the longest hottest showers my body has known.

how are you dealing?

future_regret.livejournal.com

i write letters on foot. on feet. two feet, one touching at a time.

wondering why one would waste his time with intentions that don't match, i make fresh tracks in the snow. few are out tonight, it's a blizzard. planes haven't taken off in hours.

i can't go inside yet, things are sparkling.

i remember seeing two moons one night. realizing one was a beacon illuminating a prison, we went toes first into the water. no secrets those nights. to think of it now, i see how metaphoric the whole scene was. how prophetic the whole scene was. we always forgot our towels, didn't we?

but now i'm in the snow and i'm by myself and i'm eating my tail and feeling it all over again. it isn't bad. it isn't anything, really.

so long as i don't see my reflection, i feel good.

hygienic epiphany

this occurred to me a few mornings ago while brushing my teeth:

i have always assumed the arm from the arm & hammer logo belongs to mr. clean.

anyone else?


the fact that i've drawn this conclusion since i was old enough to recognize each brand makes me sick over branding and brainwashing. also, my recently-contemplating-feminism-and-gender-roles-in-general mind finds it interesting that such masculine symbols (add to this list the Brawny man) represent cleanliness.

shouldn't it be a beautiful housewife in heels and pearls? maybe it was a way for advertisers to sell via sex to women: buff, tough dudes will help you make home sparkle for hubby.

but i digress. the real point of this post was to bring up the fact that for roughly 20 years i thought the body-less arm belonged to a hair-less man. i don't know what to think anymore.

steal your face

for the last few weeks i've been debating deleting my internet presence. deleting facebook. ceasing to blog (though i probably wouldn't delete them, if only for selfish reasons). the major impetus for this debate is that i hurt my sister's feelings by not accepting her facebook friend request. when she let me know she was hurt, it threw me into a days-long funk. over facebook. stupid. not worth it.

now, before you jump to conclusions about why i won't add my own blood -- a woman who changed my diapers and saved me from getting grounded so many times during my teen years -- as a facebook friend, all i can say is if you knew jen, you'd understand. she and i do not have the same sense of humor nor the same set of values. this is a preemptive defense against future fights with her. little did i know it would land me in a fight.

as far as the end of blogging, i just fear i come off as more self-obsessed than i am. and i think blogging has deteriorated my writing skills a bit. and sometimes i just don't have anything to say but there is some weird nagging in my head that i should say something anyway.

since i am a new media studies student, deleting my facebook account would be sort of antithetical to my intellectual pursuits. or it would be an interesting experiment. though, i'd be out of touch with what i'm learning about, so how would that help me?

anyway, i was talking to a friend/classmate/pig-lover tonight about my recent urge to "kill my digital self" and he told me about the web 2.0 suicide machine! apparently facebook isn't allowing them to completely kill facebook users, which just makes me want to get rid of it even more. corporations with claws fused to my bones -- scary.

i tried to commit myspace suicide but it doesn't look like it worked. i guess they still have to work some bugs out.

i could go on for a really long time about the positives and negatives of social networking sites. i think that for the most part, it is a game of self-promotion and it is doing little for the generation that was born into it (younger than me). in fact, it has introduced a whole host of new problems for tweens/teens today: cyberbullying (which has led to IRL suicide), sexual predation is easier, kids are posting naughty photos, etc.

on the other hand, it facilitates communication with people we may not have otherwise communicated with. it's a place to share interesting links and news stories that your friends may not have otherwise found. it can be useful for businesses and consumers.

i don't know. everything in life is polar, that's what i always say. you have to take the good with the bad. stop drop and roll. what do you think about it? i wasted a good half-hour tonight looking at facebook profiles of people from high school i don't think i ever truly cared about and certainly never related to, just to see what they look like now that they're engaged or pregnant or drunk or whatever. that's absurd!! i don't care about these people, yet because of facebook i have a window into their world that i can't bring myself to draw the curtain on.

enjoy this tune by suicide and let's all mourn for the days of the no wave movement, when facebook wasn't even a word: