Just sit there and look pretty

So I just read this piece in one of my favorite lefty news websites about “nerdy” women becoming sex symbols in these new, enlightened times. Fucking great, except, well, it isn’t.

While the author of this piece does a pretty good job of picking out the problems with this trend, she doesn’t mention that pop culture media seems to conflate “nerdy” with “smart/clever/witty”. They’re not the same thing. A nerd is, by definition, someone “who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests that are age inappropriate rather than engaging in more social or popular activities” (thanks, wikipedia!). This means that someone like their prime example, Tina Fey, who is smart as hell AND hot, is not really a nerd. In fact, none of the women they mentioned can really be called a nerd. They’re incredibly awesome and their intellect is a boost to their hotness, which is a great thing. But calling them “nerds” kind of defeats the whole “yay, smart ladies” thing—why does a woman who knows her shit automatically become a nerd? Why can’t she just be smart?

Don’t get me wrong, this is a step in the right direction. However, as the author points out, the “sex symbol” aspect comes with some very tired definitions of what sexiness requires. One example given of the New Sexy Nerd is Danica McKellar, mathematics genius and portrayer of Kevin Arnold’s object of affection, posing in a bikini for “Stuff” magazine. Millions of men in their late twenties and early thirties would agree, Winnie Cooper was sexy before she posed in a bikini, and a lot of them find the fact that she’s crazy-smart to be even better. Pin-ups are great and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cheesecake, it just doesn’t need to be held up as evidence of hotness, like, “See, smart girls have nice tits too!”

So, basically it seems like it’s not that we’re recognizing the inherent sexiness in a smart, funny woman who can carry on a conversation, it’s that they’ve started wearing lipstick! So now they’re sexy! Isn’t that great?

Um, not really, no. I mean, I like makeup and everything, and I guess I’m all for anything that starts to shift the Sexy Ideal away from the Jessica Simpson/Tara Reid/Jessica Alba template, where it doesn’t really matter what, if anything, they have to say as long as they look good in a tube top. But you know, regardless of what she’s wearing, Tina Fey is sexy because of, not in spite of, her intelligence, and I think that’s what the media, in rushing to declare the newest definition of what makes a Hot Lady, seems to be missing.

The pre-crack Whitney was right, children ARE the future

I used to think that my outspokenly liberal nature was, while always a part of me, something that really took off in my late teens and early twenties. But the other day I remembered something from my childhood.

When I was 8, Ronald Reagan was in office, and I did not like him. Granted, when you're that age, if you have any thoughts on politics, they come from your parents. Still, I watched the news. I knew nuclear war was scary and bad. And even at that tender age, I could see that Reagan was kind of a joke, an affable old fart with a penchant for illegal weapons sales and rambling speeches about Evil Empires. Side note: who decided he was one of our greatest presidents? Cause I don't think the historical record bears that out.

Anyway, I started hearing about this "Star Wars" program, and at first I didn't understand why people were getting so upset about Star Wars. I liked it, especially Han Solo. When it was explained to me that, no, it was actually a nickname for a nuclear weapons program called SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative, and it would make the Soviet Union angry and cost lots and lots of money, I thought that was a bad idea. Actually, as soon as I heard "nuclear weapon" I thought about how a nuclear war would destroy the world, which I had read somewhere ("somewhere" being closer to Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing than The Economist), and I worked myself up into quite a state of righteous indignation, if memory serves. I got so angry I decided i was going to write the president A LETTER.

So I sat at our dining room table and wrote something along the lines of "Please don't start a nuclear war with Star Wars. Nuclear weapons are bad and we should be friends with the Soviet Union." I think it was a little more fleshed out than that, but you get the drift. I also drew mushroom clouds with sienna crayons to illustrate my point to dramatic effect. My mom mailed it for me and I waited for my response. I was certain I would receive a tear-stained letter from Ronnie, telling me that I had made him see the error of his war-mongering ways, and he was convening a diplomatic envoy to Moscow; would I please serve as Junior Ambassador?

Weeks went by and I started to get a little annoyed that he hadn't responded yet; after all, how many articulate (and illustrated!) pleas for peace could the president be receiving from precocious children? I couldn't imagine very many children wrote to the president.

Finally, I came home from school to find an envelope from the White House waiting for me. I tore it open, read it eagerly, then cried "What the hell is this shit?" (That's not a verbatim quote. My truck driver vocabulary has been developed over many many years and was still in the incubation stage when I was 8). In response to my impassioned letter, I had received a picture of Ron and Nancy, a "Just Say No" sticker, and an incredibly lame brochure, printed on cardstock, about the Youth of America being The Future.

I was not pleased. I promptly threw it all in the trash and declared that I would wash my hands of this bozo president of ours. If he wasn't going to listen to an 8-year-old girl from Minnesota, who on earth could get through to him? My cynicism began to develop that day, and the following year in school, when we talked about satire and put together a silly little magazine, I drew a scathing cartoon that depicted Reagan freaking out about running out of jellybeans while weapons (including arrows, which I could never really explain, but they were easy to draw) flew past his head in the Oval Office. It was the sort of thing that almost certainly could have brought the government to its knees had it received distribution beyond the parents of the ten kids who worked on it. I'm a grudge-holder, what can I say?

After a 16-month flirtation with MySpace (I don't know why), I'm coming back to my abandoned blogger account. I promise never to leave again.

I need to stop reading the comments on CNN's "Political Ticker" section. The illiterate rants that make up the bulk of the comments paint a vivid mental image, and that image is "Red-Faced Idiot". In a recent post about Obama, one person actually said that Obama was a crazy liberal who wanted to destroy the economy in the name of the environment, specifically, to save polar bears, and don't you know that polar bears are dangerous and if you came face-to-face with a polar bear, it would kill you? You can't even have a reasonable discussion with someone who says something so insanely stupid. Just reading that made me a little dumber.

This is one of the downfalls of the Internet, that it gives an anonymous platform for those who have absolutely no qualms about letting the whole wide world know what moronic, racist, misogynistic, or all-around hateful assholish thoughts are rolling around in their big empty heads.

Of Speculums, Morning-After Pills, and Lobbying the Legislature

Last night I was watching the news and they ran a piece about the state Majority Leader's proposal to require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims. It's appalling to me that this even has to come to legal requirements--it's just the right thing to do. Women who don't want it for their own personal reasons don't have to take it, but anyone who has just experienced such horrific violation shouldn't have further control over their bodies taken away. As for the people who call it abortion, I would suggest some remedial biology courses, focusing on female anatomy and the reproductive system.

Anyway, I didn't come here to discuss the pathetic state of affairs in which women have to fight tooth and nail to have some ownership of their bodies and reproduction. In the news coverage of this last night, they had a brief interview with a nurse from Planned Parenthood, herself a rape victim who testified about the intense further trauma she suffered waiting to find out if she had become pregnant as a result of her attack. It was the same nurse who did my annual exam last year, which was probably the worst exam I've ever had. She was snotty, she jammed the speculum in (which makes an already delightful experience a veritable picnic at the beach), and she demonstrated a total lack of interest in addressing any questions I had. I got a prescription for birth control pills, and she told me she'd also give me a dose of emergency contraception so I'd have it as back-up, but neglected to mention I'd be charged an extra $50 for this back-up I didn't really need or want. Annual exams are not the easiest thing to go through when you have a nice doctor or nurse, but when they're assholes, it can be quite upsetting. I did not care for her.

Now, it's kind of strange to me that someone who has been through something so awful could do such a crappy job in such a vulnerable setting, and it makes me sort of wonder why she's in this field of work. Maybe she would have been nicer if I had been raped, and maybe that's why she does this, to provide care for victims and the rest of us are just sort of a nuisance. It's hard to say. Regardless, I'm thankful that I'll have health insurance in another three weeks and won't have to put up with care providers who seem to hate their jobs.

Snowfall, or spring..

It's been a lame winter. First not enough snow, then too much, and idiot neighbors who seem unaware of the fact that when a foot of heavy, wet snow has fallen, it is perhaps unwise to skip shoveling before you try and back out. And who also continue to make a ridiculous amount of noise with the piano-playing and constant singing and lack of understanding of the concept of "indoor voice", and maintain an unfortunate partiality to Billy Joel, and generally annoy the ever-loving shit out of us with their very presence. Five more months of this garbage, and I swear, if our little science experiment works, the hormones may break all sense of restraint and send me rushing downstairs with a board with a nail driven through it. See how cleverly I disguised that update?

Despite my low expectations, the flower shop job was not up to par. Perhaps I should have expected that my boss would be batshit. It's not really worth getting into all of it, other than to say that I was the 17th employee who has been hired and left within the past 18 months. I have a fairly promising interview on Monday, so we'll see what happens. I'm hoping to pull in a couple of doula clients on a part-time basis, too. We're also planning on a move to Ashland in August of '08, and I'll be going to school for nursing up there, and I'm so goddamn excited. I never, ever saw myself as a small-town girl, and I don't think Kevin ever thought he'd wind up in the rural northwoods, either, but we're both really looking forward to it.

I'm making orange rolls right now, for brunch with Em tomorrow, and they're not rising properly. Nothing I bake ever rises properly. I'm suspecting that the whole "rise" thing is a whole lot of Yeast Industry propaganda.

A Brief Open Letter

To the City of Boston,

I'm sure that the belief that there were bombs scattered throughout the city was terrifying. I'd be scared if I heard that too. However, I just have to say that I think it is unbelievably, hysterically AWESOME that Boston's commerce, traffic, and general day-to-day goings on were brought to a halt by the Mooninites.

What I Did Over My January (And Late December)

Not a hell of a lot.

The job at the diner sucked big time (I know, piss-your-pants shocking, isn't it?). I quit after five or six weeks. Memo to old men: It's not 1954. Fifty cents is no longer an appropriate tip. And your jokes don't get any funnier when you tell them day after day.

I got a new job at a flower shop. It's okay. My expectations are not that high, so I think they might be met.

My doula training workshop was amazing. I'm so freaking excited about this. I'm talking to some other doulas in the area and will start taking clients as soon as I can, possibly even in the next couple of weeks.

My lovah is drawing a lot. He's talented. I'm hoping he'll eventually become the breadwinner and I can have the sugardaddy I've always dreamt of having.

Our neighbors continue to display their penchant for stomping, banging away on their piano (seriously, who thinks it's okay to move into a jury-rigged duplex with a goddamn piano? That they play every singleday?) and singing show tune duets and easy listening classics, and having what sounds to be extremely unsatisfying sex. We have six months left of this.

Oh, and I also made a pillow out of a huge souvenir scarf from Grenada. It's super-tacky.