Happy International Women's Day!

Here's a little quote from Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, telling you to wave your feminism flag high and don't worry about being the epitome of feminism or stamping out every single wrong all at once or you're not doing it right:

sometimes, the bravest and most activist thing you do — and the most annoying, if you’re into that sort of thing — is to just step out there and be as feminist as you please, all on your own [emphasis mine]

Be yourself.  Or if you're not happy with how you've been being, be better.  Do new things until you find the things that make you feel good and smile when you catch yourself in the mirror.  Fashion is not always important, but wear something that makes you walk tall.  Eat.  Eat for health and eat for pleasure and don't apologize for it. Go take just one bellydance class.  Do this, you'll thank me I swear.

 Remember that at the end of the day, even ladies you don't like very much are your allies, and if you think really hard you might like them more than you think.  Re-think statements like, "I like being friends with men better" and ask yourself a lot of questions.

Ask lots of questions-- do not be quiet!  Being quiet gets us in a lot of trouble, even if being loud does, too.  Voices carry.

Remember that it's OK to be proud if there's centuries or millennia of history where you were devalued. Be valued now.  It's OK to be proud of good things, and remember that the definition of good is changing for the better.

If you are paying attention, you will be mad a lot.  It's OK to be mad-- it isn't your period, and when it is, that's OK too.

Remember that though the patriarchy is full of grade-A powerful douchebags, but it's more full of dudes who don't know any better, and they are capable of change. Also there are LOTS of guys in there who are great, who are feminists, who aren't feminists yet.  And all of them can be.  And when they all are, and we all are, we won't need the word anymore except to look back and remember how it used to be.

Snowed in with the one I love

Bonnie "Prince" Billy and the Cairo Gang's The Wondershow of the World* is the album I'll be listening to on repeat all day.  I don't usually post about music, because I have no way of explaining why I like a certain song to convince someone to listen to it, but this is one that always makes my heart feel tender.  The line, "Will you love me if I change?" makes me think of Simply Bored's comment in the guest post a few days ago: would we have done the things we say we'd have done if we hadn't made a decision to stick to someone else? What would we find out about ourselves, when we really ask, What would I have accomplished otherwise?  Would I be here, with J, if I'd done the things I convince myself I regret not doing?  Would he still love me, or even have found out he loved me, if I'd gone away and come back a year later.  Who will I be if I decide to start being more honest to myself about what I can achieve?  If I am as successful as my what ifs? will it lead me somewhere that I can't be with him anymore?


Did passing up a good opportunity get me where I am today, and can I admit that giving something up and gaining a wonderful relationship isn't as retrograde as rationality tells me?  Can I not be ashamed to honestly say, If I had gone for it, I would not be here?  Here, where I don't have a career, am not multi-lingual, not fiercely independent, defined somewhat by my relationship?  Where being someone's wife can't be chipped out from what I truly am?  Why is being a woman, in love with a man, caught up in so many feelings of guilt and looked upon with condescension? I can't change the world in that respect, but I can change the way I react to it.  It is so much harder to learn to ignore something, than to rail against it.


With Cornstalks or Among Them


Where were you again tonight? 
(with cornstalks or among them) 
Moonless night my love burned bright. 
(o out among them) 


I'm not impressed by fields of cane. 
Our house is good to me, and plain. 
Happiness can live here still, 
if coming back you only will. 


Or I can fnd you out among 
(o out among them) 
and sleep next to you and hear it sung 
(o out among them). 
I have saved enough that I can go. 
But where to find you, I don't know. 


Please to fnd me, here I am 
(with cornstalks or among them),
 devoured by fields unmade by man 
(o out among them). 
You love me still, although it's strange. 
Will you love me if I change? 


There was one life with you before, 
and one life more, and one life more. 




*Follow the link to all those songs on youtube. If you are similarly snowed in, please listen to some of these songs.  And then if you are really sad on account of it, see him and Zach Galifianakis's version of Can't Tell Me Nothin' by Kanye West.  But don't watch this video until you've listened to some of his music. It is amazing to listen to that beauty and then see that video and wonder, "Who the fuck is this person?"

Is this a lady problem?

You know you have a problem, but no words to describe it.  Time goes by, and you tell yourself it's all in your head.  Then, when someone else says they have the same problem, thus validating it, you feel better! The problem is still there, but now you know you're not crazy.  This is for all the commenters who have assured me I"m not crazy. And I do feel a whole lot better.

Now I just need to find more blogs about domestic movers!  If I drop everything to follow my husband to Iowa, it's not quite the same as going to Borneo or something. At least with an international move, I'll have an air of worldliness and perhaps a new language.  No offense to Iowa, but you understand?  You take away the glamor of international travel (yeah, yeah, I'm reading all about that glamor) and it's just me schlepping around without a job.  Help prove me wrong! Where are you guys?

Truth bombs away!

On the London Relocation blog (which I didn't check out initially thinking it was just ads for flats) there's another great post about the need for a new name for trailing spouses, and about the resentment that happens in that strange, topsy-turvy world:

Tackling the first issue is primarily psychological—mind over matter, as they say.  It’s not to say that your concerns aren’t legitimate and you shouldn’t assert your viewpoints to ensure your side is understood and that your spouse will similarly make concessions to maintain the balance of power in the relationship.  However, it’s also imperative to recognize when maybe your side is understood and your spouse will and does make concessions, in which case the problem may rest largely in your mind, so requires a shift in outlook.

I put this in big because it's really important. Now, there probably are horrid power imbalances in some relationships, but if you've got a good one now, you can probably have a good one when things get crazy.  In my case, this is true. I've got a feminist husband. He's worth like, 20,000 heads of cattle. And 10 Cadillacs. But do I get some resentment brewing my head about this? Oh, hell yeah. Luckily I spotted it before it was too late.  Thank you blog, ye olde time-suck and navel-gazing cure-all.