Death & Taxes

Memories of a Rink Rat

2011-12-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

I grew up as a rink rat, a term originally given to young kids who hung out at hockey rinks to meet the players, but the vernacular now simply refers to "a person always at the skating rink, usually a freestyle skater with mad skillz." Thank you Urban Dictionary. According to this definition, I still am a rink rat and proud of it.

I grew up on quad skates out in the Arizona dessert. My Mom had taken my sister and I out to the brand new local roller rink, Skate Country East in Tucson, and we loved it - although we could not skate worth a damn. I can't remember how old I was, but I am guessing I was around 6 or 7. My sister and I had seen the older kids skate, and skate fast, and we totally wanted to be one of those skaters. So, we practiced out back of our house, around a pink pong table, until we got it down. Both of us became fast skaters.

We spent every free hour at Skate Country, developing friends, a community, and a lifelong skill. It was a haven for us and, I am guessing, a haven for our parents. They could drop us off at the rink for several hours at a time and feel comfortable that we were safe - indeed that if anything happened to us, we would be cared for until they could come get us. We were there for afternoon skates, and evening dance skates, we did the 24 hour Jerry Skate-a-thons- raising a ton of money, and speed skating (but we were not on a team). My sister and I have nothing but the fondest memories of Skate Country and it's concrete floor (I would not skate on a wooden floor until I was in my 40s - ouch!)

We particularly appreciated the rink during my parents' divorce, since it became a second home for us where we had support from friends and adults as well. The rink and the skating community supported their own, which is why I was happy to be there after, in 7th grade, I had been attacked by three boys from my cross country team. When people had made up stories about me and treated me terribly at my school, my skate family took care of me and did not let those boys near me at the rink.

I also met my first boyfriend there - a Duncan yo-yo Champion by the name of Bruce. He could do tricks on the Yo-Yo and tricks on his quads - maybe one of the first Jam skaters around really. He even had a theme song:*

When I left Tucson, I left skating for a time. It was never the same in the Northwest and the rinks we had were far from where we lived. We lived out in North Seattle and the rinks were all in the South, and so we missed out on skating. That was until we grew up. My sister took me skating for my 40th birthday and it was a blast. It was like we had never taken our skates off. We started to take our nephew to the rink, who also loves it (it's in the McCarthy blood!). And now I am a rink rat again as I took up roller derby - spending many a free hours at the link, finding community again and a way of life. It is wonderful how what goes around, comes around.

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*My husband and I have argued over this song extensively and whether "Bruce" is being sung in the lyrics. Apparently the original lyric was "grouce" (whatever the hell that is), but the audience all heard "Bruce." Eventually, the lead singer of ELO started to sing Bruce as well. So who is right? ME! LOL

Yum Bread

2011-11-15T08:30:00.001-08:00

I do not normally post on food at this blog, but my sister got me into the no-knead, refrigerator bread. Indeed, dough that can be stored for up to two weeks in your frig, and quickly formed into hot bread in minutes. The original recipe came from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. The directions are simple, and you can find them over at Jan CAN Cook Blog. I would include them here, but my hope is that you will get the inform from Jan and then come here for ideas on how to change up the bread for variety sake.

Generally, this bread is amazing when it is hot out of the oven with a spot of butter, but it can be a little bland after it has been out for a bit. Since I love experimenting outside of cook books, I tried a few variations on the recipe.

I love cinnamon bread (cinnamon is AWESOMEEEEE), and so I wanted to see if I could make some with this bread recipe. Taking a small bit of the dough from the refrigerator, about the size of a grapefruit, I first lightly worked in a large hand full of raisins. I just wanted to mix it in, so not kneed the dough too much!

Mix a Handful of Raisins into Dough

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Mixture

Next, made a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar and set it aside. I then rolled out my dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch or so, and sprinkled on the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture. Finally, I took about 2 tablespoons of butter and worked it in/ that is covered the mixture so that a nice even layer of the cinnamon sugar goodness covered the entire slab of dough. Finally, I rolled the dough up and sealed all ends and seams. I prepared a pizza peel with corn meal and set my creation aside to rise and set for 40 minutes.

Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Butter Mix


Set Aside to Rise

Can you taste the cinnamon goodness?

I can!

So, that was the breakfast (yummy snack) bread.

Now I wanted to make something to have with soups and dinners: rosemary garlic bread! First I made a mixture of rosemary and DRY garlic shavings. I got the garlic shavings last year in Missouri when I was workcamping. There was this awesome store ran by the Amish, and they sold a bunch of homemade and organic foods and spices. I had loaded up on the spices and the garlic shavings were part of that glorious shopping day. However, I know you can purchase dry garlic shavings at a store. Try finding this in bulk as it lasts a long time and is useful in cooking. Taking a small handful of garlic and rosemary, I mixed and rubbed the contents together and then worked it into the last bit of my dough. After mixing, I simply formed the dough into a nice round and set it next to the cinnamon raisin bread to rise.

I let both breads rise for 40 minutes total. 20 minutes into the process, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. At the end of the 40 minutes, I made 1/4 inch slashes onto the top of the bread. For the small round I did a checkered 4 classes (#), and for the raisin bread I made four separate slices. When the 40 minutes were up, I put it all into the oven on the upper rack, with a pan of water on the lower rack, and let the bread cook for about 40 minutes.

To be honest, I had little hope for the cinnamon raisin bread, and feared greatly that my experiment would turn out a hard piece of bread with uncooked portions in the middle. Fortunately, was wrong; I got lucky!

Hot bread from the oven!

When I was done, I had two very tasty breads for my husband and myself! Indeed, I had made very small loafs because it is just the two of us, and a larger loaf would go bad before we could eat it all. But that is the charm of the recipe - you can make a much or as little as you want. I even used the dough for pizza one night, and that was delicious as well. So, enjoy and I hope you give this fantastically simple bread recipe a try yourself!

R

Creating the Power Vision

2011-11-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, my husband and I attempted to live off the grid (to some degree) and start full-time RVing a year and a half ago. If you followed our journey, you know that we loved the adventure, but were challenged by one mechanical problem after another, as well as being challenged financially because of the many, many, many problems on the road. But that does not mean we do not still desire to live that life. We do but we need to recoup seriously from trial #1!

Now that we have our wind back, I am ready to start my vision for the future once again - hence my vision board. I got the idea from fellow Blogger Dangerous Linda when she shared a post on her Super Vision, and the use of a vision board. In this post she discussed how she creates and uses vision boards to help direct her life. This has proven very helpful and powerful for her, especially since she has branched off into new directions in her life.

Like Linda, I have been in transition since the great RV adventure, and I am about ready to branch out into a new direction/business in December of this year. My sister has suggested in the past making a type of a vision list, and so the idea was already in my head when I read Linda's post. Since I do not have the same creative ability as Linda, who is an artist, and since I have worked hard to become paperless (I have no magazines to make a collage), I decided to tackle the project using my blackboard and a bit of image mapping (thanks to Image-Map.com - a freeware - donations welcomed -web app). Below is my vision board (comically drawn). I am an eclectic person, and so there are many streams of themes throughout, but I am hoping a coherent vision will emerge for me somehow. Feel free to click on this image map to explore the major themes I have identified for myself. The entire picture is click-able and depending on what image you click, it will take you to a new place on the web where the theme is explored. I hope you find this enjoyable.

Occupy's 99% = Bottom-Up Participatory Democracy

2011-11-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

The Question and Objection to the Occupy Movement

One recurring complaint and or question I have heard from the media, as well as those who oppose or are confused about the Occupy protests is this: What do you all want anyway? For the rich to pay more taxes? For an apology from Wall Street? What??? On one hand, "What do you want" is a good question being asked of the 99% protesters. This is a common question asked whenever there is a movement protesting perceived wrongs. If you have a problem with something, what is your proposed solution? However, this is a "top-down" representative democracy approach to problems, rather than a "bottom-up" participatory democracy philosophy. The Occupy movement is a bottom-up philosophical movement. As such, it is important to understand the difference between these two approaches and why the "what are your demands" question is not really an appropriate question to ask at this moment in time.

Image by Don Ryan/AP, and linked to from: "Occupy Wall Street" @ NPR.org

A Top-Down Approach

From the "Top-Down" perspective, it is expected that a centralized group of people/leaders organize, make demands, form a plan, and encourage the masses to follow the laid out plan. Like a representative democracy, the followers select not simply the message or the plan, but the leaders they trust to facilitate that message and plan. If the plan or message runs into roadblocks, we can then feel comfortable that our leaders will make the adjustments needed. Power lies in the leader rather than the plan or demands. Thus, this mode of power/problem solving suggests that if we select the right person for the job, those people will act in our self-interest, and not just their self-interest. In effect, this is the philosophy of a representative democracy since our focus is more on the elect rather than simply the plan of action. Plans and "party philosophy" is important in this paradigm, but what takes focus are the leaders and their ability to make things right for us.

A Bottom-Up Approach

Conversely, a "Bottom-Up" participatory functions within an opposite paradigm. Here, people who agree on a general protest idea or grievance, in this case the problems of capitalism and regulation of markets, come together to negotiate and work through the core problems or concerns at hand. The focus is on the problem, the many possible solutions, and negotiation. The focus is not on absolute leader(s) who will make these decisions for us. Process before a decided end result is emphasized because people recognize that one plan, one demand, will likely NOT be sufficient.

The Occupy Movement and the Bottom-Up Approach

Within the 99% Occupy Movement, it seems to me that an important fear about making specific demands at this moment is this: one solution will likely only benefit a portion of the population, not solve the root of the problems, whereas the hope is to benefit 100% (no one wishes to harm the 1%) and heal the roots. So, for example, maybe taxing the 1% is a good idea, but it is NOT the only good idea and more investigation is needed. To reach this goal, we must negotiate over the use of language and action; we must negotiate everyday practices and ethical/social values between our personal self-interest and the interest of the collective (our local, national, and Global Community). This is a "double process" of consensus, which takes much longer to accomplish then the top-down approach discussed above. This is why I call the occupy movement a "Bottom-UP" movement, and why this global group of people are an example of participatory democracy.

I suspect a plan and demands will come in a more concrete form later on, but right now what we are witnessing is a global discussion process of consensus building. Such a discussion takes a lot of time and a lot of endurance. As such, is it a waste of time? This too is a good question. After all, absolute consensus is almost always impossible to reach in a small family, let alone a nation or a global community. But I would argue that the answer to that question is a resounding NO. Equality in economics, politics, and social arrangements can only be reached through the consensus process. We no longer live in a world were we can allow ourselves to make top-down decisions for the global population. This approach ends in increased conflict and war and, I would continue to argue, is a good part of the reason we are in the mess we are in right now.

A Cosmopolitan Movement

The 99%ers are a cosmopolitan group functioning within the tradition of the World Social Forum and participatory-democratic philosophy - it is a new way of thinking. A way of thinking that must trust wide participation in the democratic process (not simply a process based on voting), and one that must trust the chaos of that process, and the uncertainty of that process. In the end, I suspect if we follow this approach through, we may end up with plans that support the majority rather than the minority of the population.

For more on cosmopolitan democracy and my thoughts on process (bottom-up), over end (top-down) approaches, you might wish to read: Toward a Cosmopolitical Democracy: Process over Ends.

I would love your thoughts on this!

It's About Inequality in Everything - duh!

2011-10-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted on the motivation for Occupy Wall Street and explained, or attempted to explain, to the talking heads the motivation of the protesters. Now that this movement has gone global, and more media is being focused on the global protest, I am hearing even more talking heads either marginalize the points being made by the protesters, or arguing the point that asking for fairness is not the issues because: "fair" and "what is fair economically" is so vague - What is fair? after all: what is fair to me, is not fair to you ..... (spoken by a guest on the Diane Rehn show this morning).

Driving to work this morning, I was listening to the Diane Rehn Show and the discussion on the global "Occupy" movement. I hovered over the radio dial, contemplating changing it to some nice FM radio station because I knew my anger would likely flare - and it did. Speakers from the American Enterprise Institute tend to make me angry, and that is because the speakers I have hear sees only numbers. Economics baked in a number cake where the social element removed is dangerous. It is nothing less then theorizing in a vacuum. Regardless, this morning on the Diane Rehn show, I heard how economists are not in the business of politics, not in the business of ethics (the fair comment above), and not in the business of social policy. And yet .... the economic factor challenges, colors, and changes each: politics, ethics, and social arrangements.

With that said, the thing I have noticed about this new media focus on the Occupy movement is that either the media is still suggesting that they don't understand the demands of the protesters, or the media marginalizes the demands to a simple argument: the protesters want to tax the rich. Really, that is not it folks, it is far more complicated than that.

It is not simply about taxing the rich; those who have over a million dollars in the bank. Many of the protesters may want that, but if you spend some time listening to the protesters, they want a fair society with safeguards in place for potential economic break down, many want a return to the unions, many are looking for jobs, for corporations to get out of politics and start paying the taxes they are getting out of because of tax breaks and other "tricks" that allow a skirting of the law. They want their retirement back. The young want to work. The older, 50+ group, would like to be hired again and not viewed as obsolete workers. they need to hired again - many have lost everything.

What the 99% want is to see substantial fairness in economics, politics, and social life. You should not have to be rich to run for office - and yet that is the actuality now. The retirement we worked for should be there for us. The unemployment we paid into should be there for us. It is not simply about taxing the rich, it is about changing an entire paradigm that has crippled the 99% of people in this WORLD who have been made the scapegoat by a system that could care less about them. That is the point. Listen to what this one protester, Kyli Rhoads a 26 year old college graduate working toward a master's degree, in Seattle had to say to local KING 5 news about why she was protesting and pitching a tent, against city laws, in Downtown Seattle:

It means we're here to stay, we're not going anywhere. ... This is not something that's going to settle down, we're not going to be quiet. We're going to do this until somebody listens. I'm not lazy, I'm a very motivated person, ... and I feel like having to go through these obstacles and wind up in debt and work a ridiculous amount of hours a week in order to accomplish happiness and what you want in life is ridiculous. It shouldn't be this way.

Rhoads is not alone in her anger regarding being called lazy. Indeed, at the protest there are many older protesters, 50+ and older, who lost their retirement, lost their jobs and now lost any chance of a financially good end of life. Does this turn of events make them lazy? No. Yet I have heard, time and again from mostly conservative political heads that these people are lazy: You can't get a job? Relying on public assistance? Your are lazy and not taking responsibility for your self. Hump! Public goods and benefits are cut and so these folks will not even have that to rely on. It is a problem. We are going to have hundreds of thousands of people living in tents very soon if we do not do something NOW.

But that something, I fear, will not come fast enough. I also hear chants around the world for wide justice, and against an extreme capitalism. Capitalism does not care about the average person, after all, it only cares about profit and the mechanism in place for making profit - not creating jobs, health care, or any social benefit. As such we are now hearing a new chant: Revolution.

As for the success for the current movement, I think Immamual Wallerstein (a social economist theorists) did a good job at projecting:

As to the future, it could be that the movement goes from strength to strength. It might be able to do two things: force short-term restructuring of what the government will actually do to minimize the pain that people are obviously feeling acutely; and bring about long-term transformation of how large segments of the American population think about the realities of the structural crisis of capitalism and the major geopolitical transformations that are occurring because we are now living in a multipolar world.

Occupy Wall Street is about Inequality - Duh!

2011-10-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting simply to hear a news organization, any news organization, to report on the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Portland and all the other protests happing around this country. Finally, going into week three of the protests, major news organizations are taking notice and reporting on the activity. Part of that reason may be the fact that local news organizations are arresting protesters for breaking the law. Whether it is because protestors are sleeping in tents, or marching without a permit, or stoping traffic and hindering the normal flow of business, arrests are being made for bureaucratic red tape and this, apparently, is news worthy.

What is not news worthy, it seems, is an in-depth look into the whys, the motivation for the movement. Indeed, in the last 24 hours on NPR, Fox news, CNN, and even Huffington Post, I have hear the following: "we are not sure of their message but" ..... Seriously, people, you don't get the message?

Seeing how many within the traditional media are having a problem articulating the message of Occupy Wall Street, outside of stories about the problems of using tents to sleep in in downtown Seattle(1) where it is raining, I thought I might be able to help.

First, let us look at the recurring 99% message that many of the protestors are displaying on picket signs, and I have displayed on my house windows. This number can be understood in two lights: 1) in relation to the 99ers, and 2) the growing income gap between the "haves" and "have nots."

99ers

I should start with a definition of this idea:

99ers is a colloquial term for unemployed people in the United States, mostly citizens, who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, including all unemployment extensions. As a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February 2009, many unemployed people can receive up to 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits, hence the name '99ers.' An estimated 7 million people are affected.

The 99ers are a growing number of disenfranchised citizens in the US and beyond who, because of the recession, ageism, shrinking job market, loss of full-time work and so on, find themselves still without work and now, without means to live (hence tent cities). These disenfranchised members of our society are often called lazy, moochers, unresponsible and uneducated. I have heard this line of unsupported rhetoric over and over again and it is NOT true. Many of the 99ers want to work and many are educated. Many are over the age of 50 and find a market that is uninterested in experienced workers. A market that boldly promotes how the unemployed may not apply. Many are also underemployed, and find that the part-time work available will not, and can not sustain a simple life. Underemployment is as dangerous to society as unemployment - maybe more so as it offers an illusion of an income without any sustainability. The 99ers are often hard-working, deeply caring, educated (either by life or institutions), and they have been left behind. This group of people are growing everyday, right along with the income gap in this country.

99%

If you wish to consider the "%" aspect of the protest signage found in this movement, take a moment and read the article "It's Inequality Stupid" in The Mother Jones, and you will have the answer to your question regarding 99%, 99ers, and the Occupy Wall Street protest. The problem is simple, each year the income gap between the rich and poor grows, and each year more middle class citizens slip into the poor category. Add to that a growing number of Americans who heard the call, went back to school to get "retrained" and then graduated to find, wait for it, still no jobs ... but now they are saddled with thousands of dollars of educational debt - and you have a problem Washington.

So the message is clear really: We live in a culture that has worked to disenfranchise the average citizen from political participation (you gotta be rich to run of office now, on time for voting, with the perfect form of identification and so on and so forth), from a strong working economy, from jobs, and from the so-called American Dream. The idea of public goods are wrongly associated with evil as well as communism and so are destroyed. This is why average folks, now marching and sleeping in tent cities for protest or livelihood reasons, are protesting and you (meaning many in the mass media) don't understand why? Can't get the message? Really?

Why wall street and why corporations?

Earlier this week I was listening to NPR on my drive to work (an adjunct teaching job with no security, benefits, and that offers little hope of any in the future), and I heard an interview with Bill Frezza of the Competitive Enterprise Institute talk about the myths regarding job creation (listen to the NPR story here), stating that it is not the responsibility of business to provide jobs for American workers. It is their responsibility, Frezza expressed, to make money, to make products, to do business. I got angry but I know he is right when we examine the paradigm our economic philosophy has pushed since our founding. If we look at how we have promoted business in America, we have promoted business as profit making institutions. In the US we love profit and if you are a business, in a capitalist or free-market economic system, that is indeed the point: to make profit. But I think the protesters are asking now: is this enough? What about the public good? Should our culture really just be about making money and making as much money as we possibly can, without really caring to give back to the society that made this happen? Unlike the tycoon Ford, although a screwed up and scary man on most accounts, businesses no longer care if you or I can afford their products. It does not matter anymore because we are not the ones making the products. Rather, the drum-beat is now: make it cheap and make in on the backs of workers in countries where you can pay pennies on the dollar for compensation. Abuse the workers there as you abuse the consumers here. I do not have to care about the American worker - my products are made in China or the Philippines or India.

This is also linked to the death and the continued assault on the dwindling worker unions that are left, on workers rights, on retirement potential, on health care and benefits - all these central things have gone away to make room for a few people in our society to get richer. This is why people are occupying the "wall" streets of America.

As Mother Jones said it, so it is. The message of the Occupy Wall Street protests throughout our nation is simple really:

It's Inequality Stupid, and it is time to Rebuild the Dream.

(1) Seattle has a problem with "tent cities" because as a city, we like to pretend there is not nearly a big of a homelessness problem here as there is. If we can hide the tents, then it does not exit - besides, we don't wish to harm tourism!

Rip Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

2011-10-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Today Steve Jobs died and I am feeling a loss. I am rather surprised abut my feeling of loss and grief. After all, I did not know Steve Jobs; I never met him. I never heard him tell a joke in my presence, nor feel the pressure of his hand in mine. Generally, he's a stranger to me–nothing more than a seriously recognizable name. And yet I feel a void today. Maybe it's because I sit at my Macintosh computer, and I conduct my life on my iPhone, and enjoying my time off with my iPad. Maybe it's because his technology, and the technology created by Apple, has inspired me to learn and do new things–to combine my art with technology, define that intersection between the two entities, a goal of Steve Jobs.

It wasn't long ago that Steve jobs left Apple, indeed less than a month–August 24th. Most of us expected that this move meant he no longer had much time left to live. However, I rather hoped he would've had more time than he did. I suspect that he was prepared for this moment, at least as much as any of us can be prepared for death. I cannot help but think about his 2005 commencement speech that he gave to Stanford University. I have watched the speech many times, but I stood in the kitchen tonight with my ipad and watched it again after I heard the news that he had died. This time, however, instead of smiling or just simply feeling inspired, which I always do when I watch the speech, I felt profoundly sad and at the same time I felt profoundly reminded that life is (too) short, and that Steve Jobs was quite right–death is the greatest motivator one could wish for. If his life is any measure of how one can be motivated by the possibility of not being alive tomorrow, not being able to strive for new potential and possibility, then Steve Jobs lived that exemplary.

Somehow I think Apple will continue to grow and will continue to innovate. I can only hope that they continue the mission of fusing art with technology because that is quite simply why I was attracted to Apple products in the first place. I like the fact I can do music on a Mac. I like the fact that my computer, phone, and pad are aesthetically pleasing. I like the fact that I can edit multimedia - make movies or even simply write a book. There is an intuitive ease and inspiration to Apple products in general that I find inspires me in my own endeavors. There are many people I have to thank for this, but certainly Steve jobs is at the top of that list.

There will be lots of people who will criticize Steve Jobs, like they did when he was alive, because he wasn't always the kindest or the most empathic of individuals. However, as my husband pointed out–he was brilliant. He was inspirational. He was a visionary. He was an individual that tore down personal and societal barriers. For those reasons he is help change our world and certainly he is helped change my life. And so today, I feel a loss.

Apple

Cost Benefits of a Total Recall Project

2011-09-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, I read a post over at ProfHacker, the Chronical's Blog, on the 200 rule: Templeton suggests that we should write 200 words a day, a reasonable commitment, in order to keep our writing chops going. Many instructors, myself included, tend to write less during the school year. For myself, I have three classes this term with approx. 90 students. Since two of these classes are English Comp courses, I will have my hands full reading many, many term papers. But I would like to create this new habit of 200 words a day, and today is the first day of the rest of my life!

In all three courses this term, I am teaching the theme of Lifelogging or Total Recall based on the book, Your Life Uploaded, by Gordon Bell. The premise of this text is simple: digitalize and record everything in your life you possible can, download all that information onto a hard drive or cloud service, create a data base so you can start to search and track your e-memories. In the process, you will become clutter free, have a better account of your life and doings, can help your weak bio-memory and so on. The idea is inspiring and I have worked at implementing it in my own life. When I teach this theme, however, I tend to get two objections to the process: 1) I do not want to have my life public, and 2) it is too expensive. Let me discuss each objection to this process.

1) Your Life Public:

I do not want my life to be publicly broadcast on the Internet! This is a fair objection but one that tends to miss the clear distinction between "life-logging" and "life-blogging." Gordon Bell makes this distinction clear at the beginning of this text when he states:

Those who put their lives up on the web for others to view are called life bloggers (blog being short for "web log"). I am a life logger, not a life blogger. That is, I log my life into my e-memory. I may be old-fashioned, but it strikes me as foolish to publish too much, especially to an unrestricted audience. (P. 20)

I agree with Bell, although I likely have published much more to the web about myself than he would. Indeed, I tend to be a bit of both: Life logger and a life blogger. But you do not have to broadcast your life to life log. Most of us life log as it it, but we do it on a smaller level. we take the occasional picture, keep the occasional voice mail message. Keep old letters, emails, papers we wrote in school and so on. So the question is not so much "do you life-log," but to what degree do you life log and have you made the digital jump yet?

2) It costs too much.

Poppy cock (I always wanted to use that word in a post). I have found that I saved money because of my Total Recall work. Indeed, I got rid of so much clutter and physical stuff that I was able to move into a small space. This cost less in rent, utilities and just about everything! I saved so much money. And I enjoy memories more because I see them more by looking at pictures displaying across my computer and TV! Also, I can find my memories super fast. Regardless, let us look at the basics needed to start a total recall project:

Purchase a scanner to scan pictures and documents you now have on paper. You can use a smart phone application, such as Genius Scan PDF scanner, or a real scanner. If you have a smart phone, you can get the genius scan, or a similar app for free, or you can spend as low as 100 for a portable scanner. When I started my Total Recall project, I purchased a 100 dollar scanner and now I rely on my genius scan PDF scanner. ($100 or less)

A computer that allows you to somehow organize, tag, and start to sort your info. This is the most expensive expense, but in today's world, in Western Society, a computer is often a devise you likely have. If you cannot afford a new computer, consider a used one. Cost varies.

Next, you will need storage for your digital documents. But the good news is that external hard drive storage is super cheap now! Indeed, you can get one terabyte worth of storage for as low as $66.00 - amazing!

Time. At the start of your Total Recall Project, it will take your time. You need to scan, sort, and go through your stuff. This takes time. When I did it I spend my nights watching TV and scanning/tagging documents. I had boxes upon boxes of journals, pictures and memories to scan. It took about over 3 months to complete most of the work. I still have some pictures to scan actually and I am thinking of going to a business that scans images. So put your own price on the time.

That is all you really need to start your Total Recall project. The rest, a smart phone, super computer, massive storage (over 1 TB), and so on, are all icing on the cake. If you want to spurge, the best devise for your e-memory/life-logging work would be a smart phone. These range from $99 - $400.0 depending on specials, and contracts with a phone company. But what makes the smart phone great is that it can support amazing applications that integrate the collection of memories, images, scanning, and other life-logging needs. It also makes collecting of your memories easy and spontaneous. Some of my favorite smart phone Apps include:

Genius scan
Evernote (web, desktop and mobile app)
Momento
moesnotes
reeldirector
voice memos
reQall
social media applications (Facebook, Google+, Foursquare, and so on)
food and health programs
exercise programs
headache trackers (I use iheadache for tracking my migraines)

And there are many more!

A Modern Witch

2011-09-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Book reviews are not normally my thing, however I had such fun reading A Modern Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 1) by Debora Geary, that I felt like I wanted to offer up a review. If you are looking for serious literary fiction, this book/series is not for you. However, if you are looking for fantasy/fiction that will allow you to smile, remind you that cool unexpected moments do happen, and you would like to see the witching/Wicca community placed in a positive context, then this is a book for you. In some ways, A Modern Witch offered me the same feel good vibe as The Good Witch series (Hallmark), or even some of my childhood favorite films: Escape to Witch Mountain (the remake to that film, Race to Witch Mountain, came out in 2009).

A Modern Witch tells the story of Lauren, a 28 year old realtor who works in Chicago and does not know she is a witch, and a powerful mind witch at that. One day her life is turned upside down when an online fetching spell takes her from her shopping needs and into a Witches' Chat. Here she meets a group of Berkeley Modern Day Witches who help Lauren discover who she really is and her destiny. Lauren is a reluctant witch at first, but with encouragement, training, and a new found ability to consume large quantities of chocolate and ice cream without gaining weight (doing magic is a great work out!), Lauren finds herself and her new life.

Geary's book has a host of memorable characters that will capture your heart and your imagination. By far the most enchanting character in A Modern Witch is Aervyn, a four year old "Punk Witch" who wields great power to heal the elements or bring a comic book character to life. Other notable characters include the new lovers Jamie (a programing elemental witch) and Nat (Lauren's non-witch best friend), whose love affair will capture heart.

On a personal note, part of what captured my interest in A Modern Witch, was that it rekindled my need to get back to basics with Wicca and my family legacy. I rarely talk about such things on my blog, but with the passing of my mom, I have let that part of my life pass as well. Never really a solitary practitioner, it has been hard to lose my partner. So, if any Modern Day Witches out there are working on fetching spells, send one this way :)

Product Description - Taken from Amazon.com

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 916 KB
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1937041034
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Fireweed Publishing (March 12, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004RZ2660
Lending: Enabled

After Bleaching My Hair That Once

2011-09-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

I walk into the bathroom, and check my newly short, bleached and bed-head hair, which is standing straight up on my crown and rounded flat in the front: creating a look of the 1950s duck-tail in the bang area, with a Mohawk on top. I giggled. This might have been a style I would have purposely tired to achieve back when I was 16 or 17. This is the first time I’ve had bleach blond hair. I decided to do this to hide all of the white hair coming in, which started when I was around 33. It is become quite noticeable, but unfortunately most of my white hair is coming in around the the temple of my head, shooting backwards. There is relatively less white hair on top of my head. Two months before, I had decided not to die my hair anymore and to let the white roots grow out so I could see where I stood. I noticed that my hair was pretty much doing its best impersonation of a skunk.

When I was a little kid in Tucson, my Mom had bought my Dad a skunk for his birthday. We named it Babette and she eventually used her workable thumb to escape our abode, out the back yard gate. Sadly, no one liked Babette mostly because that skunk didn’t like us, it would bite us and slash at us with its nails. The only one who could defend itself against the skunk was our cat Piewacket, who also did not like Babette.

One day my Mom, Sister and I saw a dead skunk in the middle of the road at the same moment that the Dr. Demento Show was playing the song “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.” We wondered if the dead skunk was Babette, but the irony was so thick that none of us could stop laughing. We actually missed that fucking skunk. This is the memory that returns to me as I look at my hair, bleached to hide my inner skunk.

I wanted a platinum blond color that I would eventually transform to pure white. I figured if my hair was going to turn white anyway, why sit around waiting for it to happen? Why not simply help things along a bit, and bleach my hair as white it could possibly get. White hair is a fashion statement is it not? But the beautician I had chose a different route, and she gave me what my husband fondly calls cinnamon hair. Somewhere between a cinnamon stick and golden honey. I didn’t like it at first, but now it’s kind of grown on me. It probably works better with my complexion than platinum blond would, and my hair might fall out if I continue to try to make it white. What makes a woman look older, white/gray hair or being bald?

I looked in the mirror again, but this time at the lines in my face, my neck, and my naked chest before I enter the shower. Last night I noticed that in iTunes, one of the top new applications for the iPhone was called “Boob Job.” This application allows you to augment your breasts, make them even or uneven as the developers suggest: lopsided breasts for everyone!(1) The application cost $.99, and so I downloaded it. I took a picture of my cat, and I tried to give him cat breasts. It didn’t work. I tried to give myself breasts, and that didn’t work either …. Figures (or a lack of one anyway). What a waste of money. I am convinced that the only reason this application is in the top 10 is because it contains the word “boob.” The picture advertising the app is of the Mona Lisa with augmented boobs; finally we have improved upon the most amazing piece of art ever painted by giving her tits … Leonardo would be proud!

So many things have changed on my body. When I think of myself, I don’t think of myself this way: old. When I think of myself, my neck doesn’t have all those wrinkles (Oh god, not the start of goose neck), my eye lids do not droop. My stomach was flat once and now I am hundred and forty-four pounds. I grabbed the fat around my belly button and I shake it. I make my bellybutton talk: “Yo, old lady! Watz uppppp?”

However, for a 45-year-old woman I am rather strong. About a year and a half ago I won a Kumite Karate (sparing) contest against a much younger woman at my skill level and in my division. She was a spry little thing but my roundhouse kick is fierce. I took first place with sparring and was delighted over my ability to win a fight with a woman who had to be in her mid-20s. A few weeks ago I joined an amateur Roller Derby team, and I suspect I am the oldest member in our group. My Derby name? Mental-pause (what the hell). I love roller skating and competitive sports. I’m not a weakling, but I must admit that I hate the way everything hangs on my body now. I can no longer find clothing to make me feel attractive. I love getting older and wiser, being better able to understand my world around me, but I hate that everything is changing in my body from the way the skin hangs off my bones, to how my period affects me monthly, to an increase of migraines. Which is partly why I cannot stop thinking of my Mom, her menopause and her struggle with migraines - I simply pray that her struggles will not become mine.
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(1) Golijan, Rosa. “iPhone app gives anyone a boob job.” Gadgetbox at MSMBC.com. 13 July, 2011. Web. 21 July, 2011 from http://gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/13/7075959-iphone-app-gives-anyone-a-boob-job

Menopause and Aging - please take your commercials on wrinkles and incontinence and shove it

2011-08-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

This week I have been writing about perimenopause and menopause. One interesting article I read on the subject, "Menopause is the 'Good Way': Women's Thoughts about Reproductive Aging," by Heather E. Dillaway, demonstrated how most women saw aging and menopause as separate processes, and that menopause did not necessarily make women feel old. I had to agree with that idea, generally, and I would like to suggest that what actually makes me feel old is all the commercials telling me that I am old. Commercials that focus on my wrinkles, weight, memory and the like. I am not the target of incontinence commercials! I remember when I was the target of lingerie - ah the good old days.

Regardless, I thought I would present here some commercials targeted to the older woman, to allow us to reflect on the general ageism and sexism in ads today:

Jack-In-The-Box menopause commercial (This commercial suggest that menopausal women are potential crazy SOBS)

Inside Out Menopause - (I think this video demonstrates how Menopause is sold as a Disease that can be treated)

I love Ellen DeGeneres but I am tired of her "hey wrinkle face" commercials.

Incontinence commercials - no words needed!

Finally, this man says it all about those damned incontinence commercials

GoTopless

2011-08-22T17:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was National Go Topless Day in the US, a day encouraging women to be the "skins" in a skins and shirts world. Here is what the organization has to say about the movement:

We are a U.S.-based organization founded in 2007 by spiritual leader Rael and we claim that women have the same constitutional right that men have to go bare-chested in public. As long as men are allowed to be topless in public, women should have the same constitutional right. Or else, men should have to wear something to hide their chests. Rael, founder of GoTopless.org and spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org)

NOTE: As a side note, the organization I support, SlutWalk, did not participate simply because this movement is a spiritual/religious based movement and SlutWalk does not wish to promote one spiritual set of beliefs over another.

Anyway, today on Google+ several people posted about this event including +Jeff Jarvis, whose post encouraged over 169 replies in a matter of hours. Reading the original responses, I was dismayed at the reality that most people responding were men. The tone was set with this first response:

Back to the trade off between rights and responsibilities I think. A right probably, sensible, probably not.

And things started to deteriorate from there with the following generalized proclimations:

Women's breasts function in a sexual manner, and are pubescent developments.

But got interesting again with this line of thought:

Not mincing words, but keep the discussion in context. I don't believe the issue is with walking around the streets of New York topless. The real discussion is breast feeding and the rights of a citizen.

how so? the civilised thing. somehow the thread hadn't updated in my stream, I was asking about your previous post

I disagree, it's what the article says it is: the right to go topless in public. breast feeding is something completely separate from this.

One of the most vocal and intelligent women in this conversation was +Samantha Adams who rebutted many a lame observation this afternoon:

Two people are sitting topless on a beach. One is arrested because she is a woman. The other is not arrested, because he is a man. Fair? Forget for a moment what "society" thinks, because society is fickle, and public opinion changes often. Look simply at equality. Is there any argument out there whatsoever that can justify why it is legal to arrest the woman and not the man for doing the same thing?

I came to the conversation late, oddly enough after doing research on the lame rhetoric used to describe women in menopause, and I wrote the following:

The problem is simple, women's breasts are sexualize, which is why women are often uncomfortable in their own skin. We augment them, smooch them down, hid them, fly them, and make laws regarding them for the sake of maintaining a desire status quo. It is obnoxious and, I must say, frustrating for the woman who does not have the perfect set to breasts. Consider this - how many nicknames exist for the boob - and tell me breasts are not fetishized and objectified:

"Boobies, Winnebagos (when they go cross country), ta-ta’s, melons (all kinds depending upon size, from large to small, we have…: watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew [do you honey do, do you?], grapefruit, oranges, grapes… ), hooters (also a restaurant serving wings), feeders, ho-hos (a Hostess favorite) , bazoongas, bodacious tatas, the girls, milkers, bettyboops, fried eggs, lulus, ant bites, mole hills, alps, apples, Babylons (babylons?), bazookas (also a type of gum or gun), bread-winners, mammaries (clinical), cans, rack, knockers (on my front door?), jugs, bee stings, mosquito bites, Abbott and Costello, Ben and Jerry, Bert and Ernie (why are these all male names?), airbags, blinkers, bombs (not the explosive kind), balloons, boulders (for the over the shoulder holders), cha-chas, chesticles (is there a resemblance?), cupcakes, Danny DeVitos (Really? After drinking his Lemoncello!), lemons, David and Goliath (Biblical), Devil’s Dumplings (Biblical?), Eisenhowers (political), funbags, Gobstoppers (the everlasting kind), headlamps, high beams, Holmes and Watson (should you get lost), honkers, hood ornaments, hubcaps (to round out the car metaphors), John and Paul (Ringo and George on Tuesdays and Thursdays), Mounds (of ice-cream? You scream, we all scream for . . .), muffins, Tweedledee and Tweedledum (ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum), Volvos (because Honda will not do), ying-yangs (because balance is everything) and Yahoos (also an internet search engine). Mother dear, may I have a drink?" (from: Writing the Diaphragm Blues)

I have written about the boobie issue before, indeed several times in this blog. I support movements that allow and make way for women to have a healthier view of their sexuality and being. I would love to see women be happy and proud of their breasts simply because they are part of "her." I would also love to see a society that does not promote the augmentation of boobs, boobie implants and the like - all moves designed to further objectify a women via her breasts.

R

Viagra politicking

2011-08-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

We should not be surprised that at the moment in which birth control is seen not only as a right, but as a necessary part of a woman's health care program, we have a great deal of Viagra politicking going around as well.

The Washington monthly.com reported on Sean Hannity's description the other night regarding Viagra being an important medication for a serious medical disorder for man, not being able to get it up, as compared to birth control which is not a medical necessity for women. You can read the blog post by Steve Benen here.

You can also obtain the transcript of the interview that Sean Hannity had with Kimberly Guilfoyle and Jehmu Greene here, but watch the video to see the entire discussion because the Viagra comment is not in the written transcript but only on the video.

The argument made by Hannity in the video clip is simply that Viagra is needed to correct a medical problem rather than being a medication used so that you can chose to have sex: this is Hannity's distinction and logic. But why then take Viagra? Men are not taking Viagra simply because they want to have a hard on, but because they want to have sex! In that light, there is NO difference between covering Viagra vs covering birth control.

Viagra Politicking folks!

And They Danced In the Streets

2011-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Grab your diaphragms, your Birth Control Pills, your IUDs and come dance! Thanks to legislation finally signed, insurance companies must totally cover birth control without co-payments! Kids, this one was a long time in coming, but rejoice and dance in the streets. Planned Parenthood is and I only wish Margaret Sanger was here to see this joyful moment. The following is a video produced by Planned Parenthood, showing folks dancing for joy Bollywood style. I wish I could have joined them myself!

Goal two? Male birth control!

R

The Misguided and Archaic #1

2011-07-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

"The Misguided and Archaic" will be a new series on this blog where I log and discuss misguided and archaic quotes regarding gender, sexuality and birth control. I am not simply trying to criticize, but I will offer rebuttals in a direct way:

For this first entry, I am actually starting with the news from July 21st because several misguided posts and editorials were made after the July 19th publication from the Institute of Medicine. An independent panel argued that insurance companies should offer birth control to women without co-payments:

1) Jeffrey T. Kuhner in his July 21st post, "Obama's Culture of Death," Writes:

The administration is now contemplating forcing health insurance companies to provide free birth control - including the “morning-after” pill - as part of Obamacare. ... The proposal is profoundly immoral. Contraception violates the natural moral order. It decouples sexual intercourse from its main purpose: procreation. It entrenches the hedonistic ethic that sex is about recreation and individual gratification.

I find several problems with his basic rhetoric. First up is Kuhner's belief that the "Morning-after pill" is somehow worse than the normal birth control pill. This is incorrect. The Morning-After pill is simply a stronger version of the birth control pill, which can be taken up to 3 days after unprotected intercourse. By including the phrase "including the 'morning-after' pill" as an addition to "free birth control," Kuhner is arguing that it is entirely different, more nefarious somehow. He needs a better metaphor, so consider this: if the birth control pill was aspirin, then the morning-after pill would be extra-strength aspirin.

Next is Kuhner's belief that birth control is not natural. Nature, in her beautiful wisdom, has provided humanity for centuries with natural forms of birth control. Here is a top ten list! Granted, many herbs such as the Blue Cohosh is not as effective as the birth control pill or the diaphragm, it is effective. When you think about it, birth control is as natural as deciding to drive, wearing clothing and so on. Indeed, if we are talking about "natural" vs "unnatural" in the world of medicine, then all medicine, including anything that might save a life, should be off limits under Kuhner's logic- if man-made does not equal natural that is. So, no Viagra for you, or aspirin, or antibiotics, and so on.

Finally, I take objection to Kuhner's belief that sex and the use of birth control "entrenches the hedonistic ethic that sex is about recreation and individual gratification." This "individual gratification" concern seems to miss the point of consensual sex- I should hope to shout partners in sex all receive gratification.

2) Bill O'Reilly - on his July 21st show, he expressed the following:

"Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex and [are] not going to use birth control anyway."

I do not mean to be uncouth, but WTF? What women have you dated Bill? Seriously - you have a warped understanding of women and sex. I guess there are some women out there who enjoy mixing sex with drugs, but all women? As if that is the only way a woman can bring herself to having sex?

I am afraid dear O'Reilly that you are displaying "truthiness" logic here - based only on your imagination and nothing else. I'm feeling a bit sorry for your wife.

3) Summer Eve's "Hail to the V" campaign.

What do we have here? Talking vagina hand puppets. Gotta see them to believe them:

lady Wowza - Targeting Black American
Leopard Thong - Targeting Latino Americans
BFF-Targeting Anglo-Social Medial-Americans

The only good thing about this ad campaign was that it was finally pulled. "Hand puppet vaginas" do not bother me really, hell I have some great comic bits already forming in my brain. But the message does. The message being that without a special product, I am somehow unnatural.

As far as I am concerned, douche ads have always been horrific and sexist. As women, we are told that we should be offended by how we smell. Just another reason to be wary of the vagina. We are told we are not natural, or normal. Bad jokes such as telling a woman she smells like "fish" has been promoted for decades. To combat it, we must feel fresh and clean! Take this ad from 1948 for example: ladies douche with Lysol so that your husband will actually, finally, want to take you to bed. You will smell as clean as the kitchen!
R

Chapter 6: Playing Heads or Tails with My Diaphragm

2011-07-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

In 2008 I wrote a creative piece for Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion called: "Playing Heads or Tails with My Diaphragm: Drinking Lattés with Hélène Cixous." In this short essay, I get to imagine myself having a conversation with John McCain and Hélène Cixous about gender, politics, and identity. I am reworking this essay to be included as a short piece in my memoir on sex and sexuality. Here is a pieced together preview of some of the dialogue. I call the McCain approach to sexuality "Viagra politicking." We have a lot of Viagra politicking in Washington as of late.

*****

“And so it still goes . . .” I sighed, while sipping my double-shot latté.

“What still goes?” said John McCain coming up behind me—grinning brightly, and sandwiching my hand between his.

“Politics as usual. Empty rhetoric. Careless sexism.”

“My, my dear girl!” Pat, pat, pat came his hand on mine. “It can't be as bad as all that!”

“Can't it? You who champions Viagra over birth control,# stagnate, ‘calm’ courts over equal pay for women.# ‘My, my dear man,’ can you smell the patronizing?”

"Don't you mean patriotism!"

“Hum . . . Yes, presently they do smell the same.”

“So then,” he said grinning once again—his shark tooth smile reflecting the sun, “I can count on your vote?”

“I'll tell you what, let's play heads or tails with my diaphragm and leave it up to chance. Can you guess which side is heads . . . is tails?”

“Why the part that sticks up like a dome, that’s the head.”

“Ah yes, I figured you'd say as much, no more Viagra for you.”

“You know, you shouldn't think of a corset as a jail, but as a thing of beauty,” said the press-deemed maverick, while fruitlessly reaching for Hélène's hands.

“John,” I said, “I did not invite you into my skin. I would have remembered addressing the invitation.”

“Shush. Enough now” said McCain, who was backing away from Hélène's Mona Lisa smile. “You look lovely in the corset, enchanting. Let me lace up the back for you.”

“Goddamn it! That's too damn tight!”

“Just a bit more. There, now turn towards me. Yes, that is what I like to see. As Rousseau, that great defender of democracy liked to say, a woman ‘ought to make herself pleasing in [a man's] eyes and not provoke him to anger; her strength is in her charms, by their means she should compel him to discover and use his strength.’”

“To please you? I didn't even invite you.”

“But you did, my dear. Or why would you have let me play with that diaphragm of yours? I think it landed on heads.” John McCain smiled.

“Stop calling me ‘dear,’ I'm Lilith.”

“Would a rose by any other name . . .?”

“I’m unlacing myself—I’m untangling myself from your words. I did’nt invite you. I will not become you. Now give me back my diaphragm, I saw you slip it into your pocket, next to your Viagra."

Watch him run. Can you see him? Limping forward, legs close together, protecting himself from possible castration—run, sir, run to Freud … comfort each other the best you can as time for both of you is linear and short. I live in the circular realm; it goes around and around, never to stop.

“Hélène, do you think he saw in me the Medusa?”

“You're Lilith, and I'm Medusa.”

“A rose by any other name …”

R

Getting my First Period - Chapter 3

2011-07-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is another short bit from my book, Writing the Diaphragm Blues. In this chapter, I recount what happened to me when I got my period for the first time. Do you remember what happened when you got your period? Did you family support you and help you along? My family throw a party.
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From Chapter 3: "Diaphragm Blues."

I’ll never forget when I got my period …. oh hell on earth! I say this with a combination of horror, delight, and just a little bit more horror thrown in for good measure. Why do I say horror? Simply because when you are a thirteen year-old girl, having your period for the first time, even if your prepared for it, is a horrible experience. To be honest, the first time I noticed hair under my arms, it was enough to send me to my bedroom for three months.

I really did not want to grow up, as I had no interest in becoming a woman. I enjoyed being a child, and I enjoyed being a tomboy even more, so these signs of womanhood were offensive and threatening. When I got my period for the first time, my Mother was overjoyed. She sent Lee-Dad to the market for menstrual pads, because she only used tampons and she didn’t think I would like to use a tampon on my first time. However, a family friend was present and she tried to teach me how to use a tampon in the bathroom. Oh my God. Let me just say that again ... Oh my God! Talk about an epic failure, not only was it a tampon, but it was one of those tampons without an applicator. Again … hell for a thirteen year old.

My Dad soon came home from the store with the pads, beaming, announcing to the world, it seemed, that I was now a woman. Did he tell the guy at 7-Eleven? I am rather sure he did. I see the scene very clearly in my mind’s eye:

Dad: Good day sir, I would like to buy these menstrual pads.

Store Clerk: Why certainly good man. I’m assuming they’re not for you?

Both: (laugh)

Dad: No indeed not, but I hear they make good odor-eaters for your shoes.

Both: (the two men laugh again).

Dad: No, they’re for my daughter - she is a woman today.

Store Clerk: Well congratulations. I guess you’re going to be locking her up from now on, right? (Both men chuckle.)

Dad: Yep! The next stop is the local armoury. I’m buying her the best chastity belt money can buy!

Store Clerk: Good luck with that!

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please follow it officially (link to the right). You can also be updated on entries via the email subscription option. I would love to hear from you!
R

B is for Boobs and Birth Control

2011-07-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Today I am working on Chapter 6, writing about two nicknames I have been given by my peers at different times in my life - nicknames around the topic of sexuality.

The first and most frustrating nickname I was given was One-Boob-Becky when I was a child. I think the name speaks for itself. I got this name when I was at Kino and in 6th grade. The name followed me through to JR High and High School, when I finally left for WA state with my family. To celebrate this memory, I thought I would do two things. First, I invite you to look at this interesting Twitter feed/search on two terms: "lopsided Boobs," as well as "Boobs."I love searching Social Media for key words and topics because it lets me see a slice of spontaneous opinion about the ideas and topics. If you linger on the Boob link for long, you will see that the updates are continuous on that topic! People like to speak about boobs.

For the heck of it, I also decided to Songify part of the chapter, a monologue I wrote on the topic of growing up with one boob.

Listen here: One-Boob-Becky

Finally, I want to direct your attention to this interesting article from NPR that talks about the possibility of birth control being deemed mandatory for Insurance coverage: Birth Control Without Copays Could Become Mandatory.

For years, many insurance companies would willingly cover the entire price of an abortion but NOT for birth control. I have written and studied about this situation before and the logic continues to boggle the mind. It is about time that birth control is seen as normal part of health care need for women. The battle over this issue is tomorrow, when "when the independent Institute of Medicine is expected to make recommendations about preventive health care services for women." I'll be waiting and watching myself.
R

Chapter One: Under Where? Underwear!

2011-07-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a short excerpt from my memoir that examines one woman's journey discovering and understanding her sexuality, her role as a woman, and herself. In Chapter One, I talk about how we are often introduced to the idea of sexuality with a simple question: Where do Babies Come From?

On Facebook I read a status update that my nephew was told by a friend of his that babies come from the great baby cloud. Since cloud computing is getting so very popular, I could not help but imagine Google being behind this operation, talk about Google+, with Apple on its heels for iTunes downloads. Picture this, baby souls stored in “the cloud,” being pumped with information from the Internet - twitter feeding the virtual soul fetus along with Facebook wall updates, and targeted advertisements. Advertisers would be in heaven! Consider the potential of training a child to be a consumer even before he or she popped out of the womb! Capital delight!

I also examine the sad truth that for many women, including many in my family, the first introduction to sex is rape:

Writing this memory down, I sit and wonder what my Mother must have felt or thought with my imitation of her eye drawings: for I now know this was her first memory, and the eye was what she focused on as she was being raped. She was a very young child when it first happened. This sexual abuse would follow her throughout her childhood, adolescence, and into the throws of young adulthood. Much of it stopped at thirteen or fourteen when she pulled a gun on her attacker, her Stepfather, and hitchhiked out of Fairbanks, Alaska, taking the Alcan highway. Maybe she viewed the single eye as not only a physical example of her attacker, but as the all-seeing Ra, a universal god.

Do the myths we tell our children about sex and sexuality eventually lead to larger misconceptions, such as the myth that women deserve to be raped, that it is the only thing that can control her? Or, rather, is this slippery slope argument without steam and substance?

Writing the Diaphragm Blues looks to the comic moments of sexuality, to the more serious consequences of sex and violence - all though the eyes of one woman, her experiences, and her efforts to better understand herself and her place in the world.

New Underwear Followers

2011-07-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,

Well true to form, after mentioning the following words on my post (prostitution, underwear, sex and procreation), I received a few interesting new Twitter followers, including 1 sex worker, a book promoter-promoting a"Where do Babies Come From" book and, this was interesting in the end, a company called PantyO.

Sex Industry Workers

Generally, Twitter sex industry workers are rather easy to detect becuase the avatars of these Tweets are of young, sexy, women who either suck on their fingers, a piece of fruit or are seen sitting with their legs wide apart. I highly doubt that any of this images are of the actual Twitterer, but you have to love their Tweets:

I just met a new girl and we are gonna hang out, wanna cum?

Oh Brother! Again, each to their own, but these folks are NOT bothering to read my tweets, or my bio. Rather, all they are doing is targeting me with the use of searches. As Pooh Bear states: oh bother.

But I did get two unexpected new followers that should be mentioned generally: What looks to be an interesting read on where babies come from and a company selling Panties.

Where do Babies Come From?

One new follower was advertising the book Birds, Bees, Babies by J.L. Sweat. Regarding the book, the author writes:

The birds and the bees. Birds, Bees, Babies is a book that takes a “Santa Claus” or nonbiological approach to teaching children about the birds and the bees. When a child asks the age old question, where do babies come from, this book can help provide a healthy and positive solution to having the birds and bees talk. The book follows a little girl who has been taunted by a friend because she does not know where babies come from. Her father tells her the story of the birds and the bees and that babies are created because the birds and the bees make a baby and then it is delivered by the stork. This unique and exciting story is intended to present a non-sexual approach to the explanation of where children come from.

This book takes the opposition direction that my mom finally took when giving me low-down on procreation, and it leaves me to wonder: what story is the better story to tell on this topic: the mythological non-biological explanation or the biological one? What do you think (leave comments below!)

Underwear!

The other new follower from my post was a company called PantyO, and they make a Kegel exercise undergarment selling for over $50 dollars (ouch!). If you wish to investigate, here is an article that discusses the Kegel Exercises from the Mayo-Clinic. These female undergarments are designed to help strengthen the pelvic floor mussels, which assist in childbirth, urination (avoiding incontinence) and, of course, sexual enjoyment.

At first I was a bit wigged out on this follow. I thought to myself:

Great, vibrating panties are following me!

But this was not the case; after doing a bit of research, I can see how this product could be helpful not simply for someone hoping to enhance sexual pleasure, but, importantly, for those experiencing incontinence.

I have cared for several older and sick men and women in my life and I can tell you, if they could have avoided the problem of incontinence, they would have. But the panties made by PantyO should really come in more styles, rather than the bikini cut version, including styles preferred by an older crowd. If you are targeting to fight incontinence, then you need to market to those people as well.

Where do Babies Come From:

I am still interested in hearing the story you were given about where babies come from, why now leave a comment here!

R

Chapters Complete: 5

2011-07-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have five chapters mostly complete, there are always revisions, in my memoir about sex, sexuality, birth control and being a woman. There is a lot of excitement over the chapters overall, and not all from me! So, there is hope for an audience.

I often tell my students that they need to be very much aware of the audience they are writing for, and if they cannot be aware of the specific audience, normally that is me or another instructor, they need to be aware of writing for a general audience outside of the "self." Which is why in moments like these, I find myself deeply missing my Mom, and her feedback. For those of you who did not know her, she was a professional fiction writer, and a supporter of my nonfiction creative writing and theatre. I'm certain that she would have great advice for me, including how to go about finding a literary agent. There are many stories I have to tell, after all, and I do not wish to stop here. Although I have enjoyed my academic writing as well, I feel more comfortable with this present work, and I also feel like I can reach a wider audience through the type of writing I'm doing presently.

I am particularly lucky on this project because I have a couple of dear friends who have agreed to be readers, and also editors of sorts. They are catching all my eccentricities, so to speak, those hard to see grammar mistakes, and bizarre spellings that I occasionally developed out of thin air. They also are catching my acrobatic, dyslexic, interventions throughout the writings. I've got some of the greatest friends ever, and for that I am grateful.

I feel the need to start marketing the text, and also market myself as well. However, I'm not entirely sure how to do this. It's something that I will have to start thinking on. Along these lines, I wanted to start talking about some of the larger topics on Twitter, Google+ and on here, the blog, but the last time I talked about sexuality on these platforms, especially Twitter, I got a lot of people in the sex industry following me. Too funny, I can only imagine what any of them thought after reading my first book. It's not that I have a problem with porn, if you're into that kind of thing, it's just not the focus of this book.

It was nuts with the sex industry followers while I was writing about the Magdalene Laundries; people following me becuase I wrote on prostitution. Oh my goodness, I cannot tell you how many people wanted to help me out with finding a good prostitute. Oh those crazy search engines.

I thought tomorrow I would start writing more specifically about some of the themes in my book, without hopefully giving away too much, and also offering some excerpts here and there. I hope you will stay tuned. R

A New Book and Where do Babies Come From - ala YouTube

2011-07-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that I am hard at work on my next book, a literary adaptation of my play "Writing the Diaphragm Blues." As many of you know from seeing the web version, which has now been taken down as I write the book, this play was mostly based on my life, as well as discussions and experiences I had growing up and talking with my family on topics of sexuality. Unlike many families that I happen to know, my family was very open regarding the topics of sex and sexuality, and this led to some fairly interesting conversations. So my new book will also be a memoir of sorts, but one that looks very specifically at my introduction to sexuality, birth, contraception, menopause, and all this stuff that happens in between.

The book itself, I hope, will be a nice combination between a serious consideration of these topics, a research consideration of these topics (specifically looking at how sexuality is presented within social media), but also a humorous presentation of the topics. the chapters will vary from traditional memoir nonfiction, to creative nonfiction offering a recount of experiences. I'm also excited about the fact that a dear friend of mine, indeed someone I consider to be part of my family circle, has agreed to do some classic comic illustrations of the scenes. I can't wait to see what he comes up with!

However, I don't start the book off humorously, but with the fact that rape has been an issue in my family - across the generations. This obviously is not a happy or humorous topic, but one I think is still important to discuss in society. I honestly cannot tell you how many women I know who have been raped, and who are terribly uncomfortable discussing the fact that this has happened to them. Although I believe that every woman should decide for herself regarding how much they wish to discuss regarding such topics, I personally feel it is very important to talk about these things in the public forum, because silence tends to equal an agreement to how things are. I do not agree with how things are in this country, or abroad, in relation to how female sexuality is generally viewed, and rape is seen from not only as a crime, but as a turn on, and a fair weapon to use in warfare.

Although I start my new book out with this topic of rape, I also present in Chapter 1 a look at a more humorous topic: where babies come from. If you take a moment in Google this idea, where do babies come from, you'll find some interesting results. I was really quite surprised about the results I did find, and I'm giggling a little bit thinking about it, and so I thought it might be fun to share some of those rather interesting videos here today - all I can say is that I really hope people searching for real information on this topics, do not come across these videos first!

also, if you have a humorous story about misinformation you got growing up regarding where babies come from, please feel free to share it here. I'd love to hear what other people were told. I'm also going to post this question on Google+!

The top videos on YouTube regarding where babies come from.

And another gem!

Happiness is Open Access to Knowledge

2011-06-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of talk lately about Copyright protection to knowledge. Really, it comes down to money - who can control and profit from books and other materials. Gatekeeping :) I have been following the academic debate in the Chronicle of Education regarding this topic and how it is harming research, and the sharing of knowledge, in general. You also may be interested in a few of these articles:

Parry, Marc. "Out of Fear, Institutions lock millions of books and Images Away From Scholars." (29 May, 2011)

Young, Jeffery. "Pushing Back Against Legal Threats by Putting Fair Use Forward." (29 May, 2011)

I believe happiness is linked to our ability to freely have access to and explore knowledge. This is why I have only published articles with journals that allow for free access to their content. It is quite seriously a stance I decided on back when I started to publish, and it comes down to my personal ethics and beliefs regarding access to information. With that said, I thought I would suggest some great sites to go to explore the tradition of free access to information - for the sake of spreading happiness.

Gutenberg Project

The original masters of unfettered access to knowledge and information; Gutenberg started it all and we all have benefited for years now - that you Gutenberg! I had my first ebook reader back in 2001 when I was attending Rollins College, and I was able to load this old beauty, a Rocket Ebook reader, with all my classical required reading from Gutenberg. Now they cater to all different platforms of readers, including: kindle, nook, pdf, iphone, androids - you name it! Consider giving them donations and showing your love for their forward thinking about knowledge and access to knowledge!

Google Books

My students are in awe when they discover how to really use this resource and for good reason! Google Books is awesome and except for the fact that their reader software does NOT allow for annotation, highlighting and note taking (seriously Google?!?), the book project and the free books rival that of any online library, including the Gutenberg project. It is because of Google books that I was able to have easy access to a great deal of interesting and important historical research for my book on the Magdalene Laundries! You can search and do research using Google books and, for scholars, how can this not make us happy!

Just for fun, here is a Google Book Search on Happiness - this search includes all books, even those you have to pay for!

Here is a Google Book Search on Happiness for only those texts that are free to read - again a treasure trove!

Happiness is a well researched topic!

Open Library

Open Library is also a happy place!

Here is a general search on happiness via Open Library - again a great resources. Lots of ebooks here in several formats including DAISY - a format for people who cannot read print but locked DAISY books can only be accessed through a key issued by the Library of Congress NLS program.
Enjoy!

National Academic Press

The National Academic Press has recently offered several of their publications, 4000, in PDF forms and are free to download and read! If you are into the sciences, this is a place for you!

Scribd

Scribd is a social publishing site that is rather neat. Lots of free content here from many different forms of texts, from notes taken at a course, to books, and so on. Worth a gander!

These are only a few of the many resources out there to help improve our knowledge base - and allows for free access to content. Do you have a suggestion for another site? Let me know since I am thinking of dedicating a page with links to all these sites.

R

Teaching and Happiness: What I Learned this Term

2011-06-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Greetings and Salutations Dear Reader! I am happy to say that I have once again found my way out of the "final grading" black-hole of education! The end of term is always difficult for the students and the professor. Every term I am asked by students:

Isn't there a better way to do this? I have three finals all due at the same time!

To deal with just this problem, I have tried something new with one of my courses. I created what I term a "master project" that spans approximately midterm to the end of the term - and this "master project" then replaces the traditional final. So, I did this for my online communications course at SSCC. Generally, my students had to maintain a blog for five weeks. They had to have at least one blog entry up a week, and that blog entry had to reflect the topic that they had chosen a head of time. I made up a blogging rubric that graded each blog entry on the following: design, the use of good writing skills, a general word count (500 words per post), the relevance of the weekly topic and whether the student was writing for him or herself or an audience (audience was stressed over "diary" type entries), the students needed to reply to any and all comments left on the blog, they had to respond to two of their fellow student's blog posts, they had to cite all sources, present links and images corrected (no copyright images allowed), and so on and so forth.

So my thought was this, if the projects and the project's longevity spanned this amount of time (5 - 6 weeks), the pressure of having to have one huge project, or one huge test, or one huge paper, at the very end of the term would be reduced for the student, and for me the instructor. After all, I evaluated the project each week.

I like this idea and I had some students who also liked the idea. Of course, I also had some students who hated the idea and felt that it actually made more work. For these students, generally they felt that the "master project" was more stressful than having a large final project due at the end of the term.

So . . You cannot win for innovation :)   Still, I think the idea is a good one and I'm going to try it again. I like having a truly encompassing project, one that captures the essence and the core of the teaching material for the class. Also, I don't think it's healthy at all, nor does it add to anyone's happiness, to overload a student with work at the end of a term. By the time week eight comes along, it is often just a struggle to keep my student's attention. The problem is simple: they are overloaded and tired, and so am I for that matter.

On a personal note, I do not like having to grade 120 papers within the span of five days, something I often need to do in order to get my work in to the universities I work for on time - we all have due dates! It is too much and I end up having what I term "brain meltage" as well - it is a bloody mess when there is ear leakage! Which brings me to my personal thought regarding happiness:

I hope never to teach four classes again at a time, at least not when four classes = 120 students.   I suppose if the type of courses I taught were the type where I only had to give tests in order to determine whether my students were learning, it might not be a difficult task. But each class this term was a writing intensive course, which meant that almost every week I was grading 60 to 120 papers and more discussion posts.

The other problem is this, you can not give as much personal attention to each student as you really need to, and as I personally want to, when you have that many students. It is a logistic impossibility. So you may be wondering: Why on earth did you agree to teach four classes, four writing classes, giving you 120 students this term (with no grad student TA help - where is my grad student??? LOL)

Why, dear reader, that is an excellent question. The problem is this, enrollment in all the institutions I work for (and generally around this country) has gone down, and there is always a good chance that one of my classes will be canceled. When I say a good chance, I mean better than average this last year. Add this concern to the fact that I have to teach at least three classes in order to make almost the same amount as my full-time counterpart, that means I have to commit to four classes and hope that one becomes canceled. If I commit to just three classes and if one of those classes do not run, then I find myself at the mercy of a bit of an economic strain for the term. It is rather a no-win situation when you work as an adjunct professor.

Now both of the institutions I work for are great, and I admire them greatly- the faculty and the administration. Both institutions work to give you a heads-up regarding whether your contracted class will run not, but you never hear in enough time to allow you to run out and try to find an additional class to teach. In this situation, you can apply for unemployment or find a part-time job doing something else. This makes me unhappy and a bit frustrated because I then overextend myself in order to make ends-meet (by the way, is it ends-meat or ends-meet?)*

So, I decided for my own happiness to teach no more than three classes at a time, and if one of those classes are canceled, to spend more time with my love of spaghetti and black beans. Err - not mixed together! LOL

Which brings me to the last subject of today's blog post: Running.   I have discovered running can bring happiness, mostly because it brings me the opportunity to have timeout from work and I give myself the luxury to just be in the moment, listen to music or book on tape, and to enjoy the view around me. I'm working very hard to allow myself running time every day, or at least five days a week. Not only should this help my waistline, which will also make me happy, but I'm noticing it really helps me on the mental and emotional part of life as well. So yea me and running!

My next post is going to be about a study that was just completed regarding happiness, well-being, and individualism! The findings actually surprised me and so I will be excited to share this information with you. But before I write this post, I want to do some additional research myself regarding some of the study's parameters, and specifically what cultures (individualist vs collectivist) were examined when conducting the series of tests.

Rebecca

---------------
* So, after doing a brief Internet search, the term is "making ends-meet" - I am adding the hyphen because it seems like this is a phrase that should have a hyphen. "Making ends-meat" came about because of the idea that what you're talking about is making enough money to put meat on the table, hence end's meat, the cheapest piece of meat one would purchase and eat. But seeing how I'm a vegetarian, I shall offer up this phrase instead: "Making ends-radish." I like radishes, their tasty.

Researching Unhappiness

2011-05-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Before I find myself brought down into the trenches of grading final papers for one of the institutions I work for, I wanted to bring to your attention, my dear reader, an interesting article published in the Chronicle of Education regarding a review of two studies/considerations on the economics of unhappiness: The Economics of Unhappiness.

Realizing that there is far more data regarding what makes people unhappy, in this article the author, John Quiggin (a professor of economics at the University of Queensland, Australia), asks an important question: Why we don't study unhappiness. Regarding the economics of happiness, Quiggin notes that economics is not necessarily the root of unhappiness, but rather "economic activity is largely concerned with the relief of unhappiness."

This is an interesting observation, that economics work toward the relief of conditions that can create unhappiness: housing, food, money to pay for our bills. For me, this observation brings about an important question when we examine the statement in connection with expectations: if economics connection to unhappiness is to relieve conditions that cause unhappiness, where does that act start and stop? That is, if not having a roof over our head, and no place to sleep, causes unhappiness then is this the same type of unhappiness that is caused by not having the new, up-to-date, iPhone? So where is the line drawn?

Regardless, John Quiggin reviews two books that may be of interest to you dear reader, and some links to their research can be found below:

Tomas Sedlacek's Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning From Gilgamesh to Wall Street (Oxford University Press, 2011) - here is an interesting Youtube film of the author discussing his work.

Stefano Bartolini's Manifesto for happiness: shifting society from money to well-being. (Manifesto per la Felicità. Come Passare dalla Società del Ben-Avere a quella del Ben-Essere, Donzelli, Roma, 2010). A partial English translation of this Italian text can be downloaded by clicking this link.

I Leave you all with these two questions:

Do we have more to gain by studying unhappiness than we do from studying happiness?
How can we determine the point in which our economic concerns stops helping us relieve our unhappiness and starts to harm out happiness with over expectations?