Recently Renee asked,

“What *is* a feminist? I love the differences in genders. I love that some responsibilities come more naturally to a woman and some to a man. I don’t want to be a man. I love being a woman.”

Some women, some men. I love being a women too, most feminists do. Who needs testicles anyway, silly ugly little things. Just kidding. Love your testicles, gentlemen. I just don’t want them.

“I find it ironic that people I’d deem as major feminists seem like they want to be men. It seems like some of those women devalue the intrisic (sp?) beauty and responsibilities we already have as women.”

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I just wrote a really long post full of the most brilliant stories I have ever told.
More stories from my shameful past like this one.

Then I lost them. Sorry. I was laughing hard at myself, wondering if I should really share my stupidity to a bunch of strangers. But I love you strangers, and I know all of you are dying to hear about the time I put the fear of lice deep into the hearts of several hundred freshmen.

But I can’t retype them today. My humiliation will have to wait for another day.

I can hear my baby in the kitchen. Making happy baby noises. But the fact of the matter is, I think (okay I know) he’s playing with (my euphamism for eating) the dog food. He loves the dog food. I would be open to any creative solutions to keeping the baby out of the dog food.

And vice versa, come to think of it.

Not too long ago I heard a report on NPR about a serial killer who was put to death (in Oregon if IIRC). They played several chunks of testimony from family members of the victims, they were telling the murderer how he deserved to fry, how he had destroyed their families, how much they hated him. Bitter and angry and vindictive.

Then they played a snip of a very different testimony. She was queit and calm, and she had clearly forgiven him. Peaceful. She didn’t hate him, she said, she was sorry for him and she left his fate to Jesus.

I remember feeling the power of her peace, the power of believing in Jesus’ teachings and truly trying to live them. By letting go, she had healed.

I’m a big believer in the forgiveness thing. In fact it’s one of my favorite parts of being a Christian. Also really enjoy the whole judge-not bit. You never know what it’s like to be in those shoes. It’s good stuff. That Jesus guy was on to something.

However.

It has recently become clearer and clearer that one my daughter’s sweet innocent little four-year-old girl-friends is being molested by her father.

And that just makes me feel mean. You know what I’m talking about. Jail is too good for him. I want to shoot him. I want to chop off his testicles and fry them up and feed them to him with canned peas. I want to take an ad in the paper with his picture on it. I want to hire thugs to beat the crap out of him and pull his fingernails out one at a time. I want to call his work and spread nasty (but true) rumors. I want to dispense flyers in his neighborhood. I want to hurt and humiliate him.

I just feel mean.

The police have been called. And we’re waiting to hear what happens next. And it’s really out of my hands now. But is it? Would it be okay to humiliate him with a few well-placed phone calls? Or would Jesus disapprove? Am I hurting myself more than I’m hurting him by hating him so much? And do you know any thugs-for-hire?

What does it mean to forgive? Can I harbor this anger for a while before I’m required to do the Christ-like thing? Can I hurt him without hurting myself too?

I happen to know there are bunch of good (you may define that any way you please) mormon men who read this blog and have not commented about your own housekeeping habits.

Kim isn’t the only guilty man around, he’s just the only one with a wife to push him out of the closet. I expect more from you guys.

I have a hard time asking my husband questions like “When you say the kitchen is clean do you really not see the crumbs on the counter? Then chunks on the floor?” because he will generally take such a question as a criticism. And it is generally meant as such. I don’t like to be a nag. So I just wipe off the stupid counter myself. Is this the plan? I hate to think so. But the suspicion worries at me.

Comments please. What’s going on in there guys? Does your silence imply guilt? I wonder?

I don’t want to undervalue his contributions. He works all day, he comes home and he works all night. It’s a rare thing for him to take a moment for himself. He plays with the kids, he puts them to bed and reads them stories. He helps make dinner. But he also spends a lot of time stepping over things on his way through the house instead of picking them up and putting them away as he goes. Does he just not notice that he stepped over ten toys on the way to the girls room without picking up one of them? Does it not occur to him that he could reach his arm out and put the dirty girl clothes in the hamper instead of dumping them on the floor? Is it so hard to put the books back on the shelf instead of dumping them on the floor for me to pick up in the morning when I make the girl’s beds? I could spend an hour making this list: putting the toilet paper roll on the roller, putting his tools back in the garage instead of on the first handy surface nearby, putting my skissors back in it’s storage bin instead of in *front* of it, the cap on the toothpaste, his socks in the hamper instead of on it, the toilet seat down so I don’t fall in it at night, empty the garbage instead of letting cramming it in harder, and WORST of all, pushing the cutting board back in without wiping it off first. That’s just Nasty!

Like I said, I don’t say these things to him. They make him feel badly. I don’t want to do that. I make suggestions every once in a while and it rarely has an effect and it feels naggy.

Am I enabling him?

Now if you’re a man and you’re feeling all self-righteous right now thinking you’re neat and tidy and you don’t test your wife this way, hold back a second. Are you sure? Are you really as much help as you think or is your little women just following you around silently (the way I do) picking everything up before you even noticed it was there? I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt but before you post here about how tidy you are, please ask your dear wife for clearance. If she gives you a funny little look, or pauses in order to form a diplomatice response then your not as neat as you think you are.

I’m serious, you ask first. If you post here all about how clean you are and you haven’t run it by the little woman first I’m going to send fleas to inhabit your armpits and you will regret your hasty words. This is no idle threat. It’s bad mojo to mess with my search for the dirty truth.

And I’d also like to add that this really seems to be a post-children thing. Before kids I do not remember these issues. Maybe because the mess was easier to keep up with and it was either his or mine. Now it’s impossible to keep up with and it’s a collective thing. I don’t know, but the egaliatrian system we had working just fine for seven years before kids flew out the window with the first baby and has never been seen again. Which is interesting fodder for another post.

I’m better now, thank you very much.

My dear husband stayed home Thursday and Friday to take care of us. The two youngest and I were sick and my four-year-old and her dad took care of us. I lost five pounds.

Anyway to get to the blunt point of this post, when I got better, my house was a filthy pig sty. I mean bad news. Terrible. A sink full of dishes surrounded by a counter-top full of dishes, bits of food and ick covering every surface of the kitchen, counters, table, floor. A pile of laundry piled up taller than I am, and I’m tall. The bottom levels was two batches I did just before I was caught in the vortex of hurlation. Toys everywhere. Newspapers, Mail, dirty socks, wet washcloths.

And under it all the floor is still not finished. They guy didn’t order enough pergo. So we wait.

On one level I sympathize with my husband letting the house just fall apart. He had a house full of sick people. On the other hand, if it had been him home in bed with sick kids and me being the responsible party it wouldn’t have been this bad. Not even close.

Don’t get me wrong. I let things go sometimes. Things get messy around here on a regular basis. Sometimes there are dishes in the sink and laundry has been known to pile up on occation. But for the most part this is an orderly home, and clean. I am anti-chunks of food outside of designated containers. I hate cleaning but I hate living in filth even more.

I’m not sure what to think of this. On one hand, I probably wouldn’t be very successful at his job if I was suddenly dropped into it and expected to take over a moments notice. But on the other hand, a trained monkey could do my job. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power, just a butt-load of tedious repetition and a high tolerance for ick.

One one hand, he helped my babies vomit in the toilet and clean up the misses without complaint. He brought me water, when I said jump he asked how high, he bent over backwards so that I could lay in bed moaning in peace and quiet. On the other hand, when I woke up and felt better and walked into the kitchen every single surface was covered in ick. And I cleaned it.

My husband is (and I really believe this) the best man in the universe. I Love him dearly and he has the nobelest of intentions. He works hard, he means well, he is smart and kind and good. And he is the best father ever. My children worship his toe hairs. And he is a feminist, he believes in equality. He doesn’t for a minute think that there is such a thing as women’s work and that I should be doing it. And yet . . .

So what is this?

ralphing, hurling, blowing chunks, spewing, up chucking, puking, barfing, heaving, losing my lunch,

It was fun. Here’s to a better tomorrow!

Obligatory Post-Flood Update: Tile is in. Carpet is in. Pergo is on the horizon. I sure hope it is all in by the weekend when I will be celebrating anniversary number ten. And dear Hero, the mighty weiner dog, will have birthday number three.

After a short vacation the ick returns . ..

WARNING: TMI ZONE. GO AWAY WEAKLINGS. You were warned.

Confession time. I’m not particularly qualified to speak on the subject. You see I don’t really suffer from PMS much. It’s not that I’m not crabby when the time comes around, it’s just that it doesn’t come around often for me. First there’s the whole three kids is three years and nursing in between. It’s been a good four and a half years since I had a period at all. And (you’re going to hate me for this) even before that I only had periods a few times a year. Doctors would tell me it would be difficult to get pregnant as I obviously didn’t ovulate much. They were wrong.

But anyway here are some issues we could hash out:

First: It’s somewhat verboten to discuss PMS and/or menses at all. Good thing or Bad? I can’t see how it would be a moral issue to remain quiet on the subject, yet it does remain largely off-limits. I can’t see that some frank talk now and then will harm anyone. Am I wrong?

Second: Is the subject somehow different than other bodily functions we don’t discuss much, you know the ones, things that smell bad, things we pretend don’t happen, things we refer to using polite euphemisms. Is there anything about menses the makes it more important and/or more interesting in a discussion than say . . . flatulence?

Third: Is menses a purely earthy experience, or does it have larger implication about the nature of the eternal female body? There are references in the Bible, but none in the BOM or modern scriptures that I am aware. I have no idea on this one, and it may not matter. The question just occurred to me.

Fourth: It’s a little personal, visceral, physical, icky and all that. I don’t care if you discuss the ick here. Go ahead. If you can’t sludge through some of the ick on the internet, where can you? But then if you disagree with me on number one and you’re still reading this then you should go away now.

Fifth: The discussion of menses, especially the emotional PMS component, it seem to me, can be considered (often, maybe, sometimes) anti-feminist. To imply that women are ruled by our hormones makes my feminist antennae quiver. The whole menses-eats-their-brains-away thing was used as an excuse to oppress women since the dawn of time. And yet . . . feminists get PMS too. How do we balance the physical truth of hormonal rage (not that *I* ever experience such a thing) with the belief that this hormonal rage does not make us weak-minded or

Fifth: I once heard that men too have programmed hormonal emotional upheavals. Can’t remember where or when I heard this but I remember thinking it sounded valid at the time (isn’t that helpful). Men’s bodies have their own cycles, but they’re just less obvious because they are not accompanied by bloody discharge. Anyone see/hear/know any truth in that?

Sixth: How and under what circumstances is it okay for men to talk about PMS. I don’t think we modern women are nearly as sensitive talking about the physical issues as about the emotional ones. Maybe because the physical issues are often easily quantifiable and attributable and clearly out-of-our-control, pain, bloating, and blood, (nothing we can do about that) versus the vague short-tempered crankiness that we think we should be strong enough to resist. But often can’t.

I’m sure there are a million, billion, gazillion more issues on this topic but I’ve got to go to bed.

Raise new issues.
Hash out these ones.
Be short tempered and crabby.
Do whatever you want. I’m sure you all have brilliant things to say as usual.

When I come back, I should be in a fabulous mood because I will no longer be walking around on sub-flooring. Yipee!!

My social skills aren’t very finely tuned. Not a soul dared venture in, and suddenly I’m thinking I crossed the line. Ick. Well, I’ll be back on Monday, meanwhile, peace and joy and new floors!

I know, it’s not good to make blanket statements about an entire gender, half the human race and all that, but it’s just true sometimes.

I have a question.

I get really antsy and cranky when men talk about women’s issues. Check out this thread over at Times and Seasons, or pretty much any other one like it in that predominantly male watering hole. Do you feel it too? That vague feeling that something just isn’t right.

Why do I feel this way? What is it about a group of men (even with good intentions, even if I agree with them) talking about abortion or underwear practices or female priesthood or motherhood or childbirth or whatever that makes me feel kinda queasy and taut.

And another question, is there any opposing equivalent? Do women have discussions about male issues in this manner? And how do men feel about it when/if that happens?

My tenth anniversary is almost here. The tin one. Heh. Anyway I’ve been thinking about giddy days of falling in love, it was fun wasn’t it? My whole courtship story is pretty boring so I won’t hoist if off on you all. Boy and girl meet, boy and girl date, boy and girl marry.

My parent’s story is a good one though, and I’m going tell because I feel like it. So there.

My mom grew up in California. She and my Auntie M were very active in the church even though their father was not a member and their mother had passed away when my mom was 13.

Mom had the same steady non-member boyfriend through high school and they got engaged shortly after graduation. He aspired to be a writer and hocked his type writer to buy a really beautiful diamond ring. It was all very romantic. Then he went off to school.

Meanwhile, my dear mother goes to a service project canning fish. Fabulous. She meets this really luscious red-head mo-boy and gets all flirty and gooey and stuff. Oh fickle heart. Mo-boy backs off because she smells like fish. No, just kidding, he backs off because she’s wearing this huge rock.

So the next day, she goes to church, and there he is again, all that glorious red hair, the conservative tie, the Peter Pristhood of her dreams. And my dear sweet brutally moral mommy slips off that ring and puts in her pocket. When he asks where the ring went she just shrugs and looks coy.

They were engaged two weeks later. My dad went down to the dock and buys two gold bands for fifty bucks, mom puts the rock in the mail with a note, see ya loser. Two months after their first meeting, they drove to Manti with a picnic basket to tie the knot. Crazy kids. They celebrated their 50th this summer.

Do not try this at home.

I just sat here and wrote out a list of the things I need/want to get done in the next few days. I prioritized them. I contemplated them. It’s a reasonable list, I’m not expecting much from myself. No big projects (other than my floors), no home-made Christmas cards, nor baked goods for everyone in the Ward. Just everyday important things that really need to be accomplished and a few small things I’d like to do. I can realistically only accomplish one or two of the most important things, leaving everything else unfinished, sitting there, hanging over my head so that I can feel guilty.

I simply can’t get much done. I have to herd children, wipe bums, referee, read stories, do dishes, keep my house in some semblance of order (speaking of which, my neighbor just dropped by soliciting Boy Scout donations with his sons and in additions to the floors being torn up there was not one speck of floor space that was not covered in toys and/or Christmas decorations. Mortifying).

When it takes an hour, AN HOUR, from the time I say “I need to go now,” until I have my children in the car (dressed, clean, socks, shoes, coats, gloves, hats, one toy each, binki, extra diapers, wet wipes, snacks) , the keys in the ignition and go, it’s no wonder I can’t accomplish much of anything.

And one other thing while I’m grousing. Is it just me, or is it harder to keep order in the house when the dear husband is home? I consider dh to be a generally tidy kinda guy.

But . . . the house is clean all week when he’s at work, then the weekend hits, he’s home and things fall apart. I don’t blame him per say, I haven’t thought about it enough to pinpoint where the breakdown occurs, but it’s a pattern around here and it needs to stop because it’s wearing thin.

Sometimes I think I don’t know much about evil. My life has been so sheltered. I’ve never really been hurt by anyone. I’ve lived a life of amazing privilege and ease. And when I look at the ‘brutish, nasty, and short’ reality that is the more common experience for most people who have walked this earth I have a hard time even contemplating why I would have had this easy experience.

But when we talk about the multi-billion dollar child sex slave industry it brings the evil reality starkly to focus, contrasting and surreal to my every-day experiences. It’s real. Evil people, selfish depraved people, hurting hundreds of thousands of innocents for profit and pleasure. And it’s not even as far away as I think.

Here’s what I am wondering. In Bangkok, in Bombay the red-light districts are lined with cages full of children you can rape for a small charge and no consequences.

While there are still problems in America, this wide-spread evil is far away from me. Yes there are men looking at kiddie porn on the internet, feeding this horror. Yes a father in my friend’s ward was arrested a few months ago for taking disgusting pictures of own children. An occasional slavery ring is busted in LA or Chicago. But we don’t have streets lined with child prostitutes and institutionalized police corruption looking the other way.

But here’s the thing. We Americans are not better people than the Indians or the Thailanders (how are they called?). We are not inherently less evil more righteous or less inclined to torture children. What we do have (that they do not) is full stomachs and institutions that promise to hunt down sick selfish evil doers and punish them. (add a dash of gender equality, a cup or two of education and female empowerment and other stuff too I’m sure)

If you were to take away our wealth, make Americans as poor and desperate as the rest of the world, then take away the threat of punishment for harming innocent children, and we would have the same problem right here. We would have streets lined with child sex slaves.

It is so easy to point a finger over to the other side of the ocean, to say ‘that, over there, that is evil’ but the truth is the same evil lurks right here, right now. That is such a creepy concept to me.

As a teenager ideas like this weighed heavily on my mind. I would wonder, had I been born and raised in Nazi Germany, what would I have thought, who would I have been? Would I have believed the propaganda, would I have participated in the evil? What would I have become if I’d been sold as a sex slave and raped and tortured for years on end? What if I’d been born the daughter of a slave owner? Would I too have justified slavery, would I have believed as my father did?

What would I have become? How could I know?

I wanted to know that I would still be essentialy me. Someone who would fight for good things, and be good to others. I wanted to know that I could not have become evil and justify my evil as good. It really mattered to me.

Questions like those were the starting point for the journey I’ve taken to where I am now, in becoming a person who does not shy away from hard questions and my journey to becoming a fundamentalist humanist.

I finally decided I can never answer the question “What would I have become?” but I can answer the question, “What am I now?”. And in order to become the person I needed to be, the person who would never justify evil as good I had to let myself ask all the hard questions and I had to let myself reject unsatisfactory answers, even if I could not come up with better ones on my own.

And it’s a continuous process isn’t it? Weeding out the dishonesty and selfishness, the seeds of evil from my own soul. It still weighs heavily on me, but there’s something I can do about it now.

Urp, I’m not sure that’s a good ending but I’ve gotta go feed a crying baby now.

Our family has never had the opportunity to really live abroad, at least not for an extended period of time; we’ve improvised the experience instead. When we do get to foreign countries we’ll find one city, one apartment and live there for the weeks or months we do have. Yes we get to a few tourist attractions, but really not that many. Instead we try and get a feel for the country and its people by spending our time learning the local public transportation systems, finding our way through strange grocery stores and [most hilariously] trying to figure out how to follow the package directions in a language none of us speaks.

Well, a few years ago our whole family went to a certain European country and had a wonderful time. One long, hot, lazy afternoon I rounded up the kids, grabbed the towels and headed for a day of fun at the local swimming pool. Nice Mormon thing to do. Except of course, well, the European pool-side dress code is decidedly different from ours. One piece bathing suits were required at city pools — one piece being the bottom piece of course — so consequently there were several very topless women lying out on the grass, quite oblivious to the rest of us. And these were not just the gorgeous girls soaking up the sun. Many of the old ladies with their saggy accoutraments were likewise attired.
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