So, I’ve been doing some research on women’s fashions in the Civil War-era, specifically the incidence of pants-wearing women, and have found some very funny stuff.

Here’s a big news flash for all my readers who may be unfamiliar with various lunacies of the fundie crowd: pants are sinful. At least on women. Here’s my favorite online resource about hell-bent ladies’ trousers– Jesus-is-savior.com. My most favorite part is how, in his fervor to denounce all of us panted hussies, he gives free advertising to rap artist, Chingy. Mr. Stewart, after not getting enough titillation-factor from the title alone, felt it necessary to include all of the lyrics, suitably sanitized for our virgin eyes of course. I find it very interesting that Mr. Stewart is apparently taking his cultural direction from Chingy. I mean, come on, he is totally ignoring the incredible artistic contribution of one Trace Adkins and his incomparable “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” Man, that’s just sloppy.

I won’t even go into the historical flap that women’s pants have caused; the modern stuff is too much fun! Whenever one of these discount-theologians wants to back up his (usually a man, sometimes a defeated woman) personal biases, he quotes Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Yeah, these guys always use the Old Testament when they feel the need to condemn others, but I just always wonder how many of them have eaten bacon or a cheeseburger recently. Oops.

But Deuteronomy says that women shouldn’t put on things that pertain to men! And that men shouldn’t dress like women! Oh noes! Interestingly enough, nobody wore pants in the Old Testament. Everybody wore some version of a robe-like garment. So even if one is given to a literal interpretation of the O.T., except for that whole bacon-thing of course, there is NO specific prohibition against women wearing pants! But God-fearin’ folk will work themselves up into knots fretting about, not poverty, not injustice, not genocide, not oppression, not violence, but pants. Pants. Let the absurdity sink in a bit. Let it roll around in your brain for a while, as you try to understand someone whose faith is so shaky, so tenuous that it can be destroyed by pants. O.K., by women in pants. The devil’s own pants.

If you would like to see the preponderance of this opinion for yourself, just google women wearing pants, you’ll see. Another common theme in the know-what’s-better-for-women-than-the-women-themselves crowd is bringing up dubious sociological studies that allegedly prove that the eyes of both women and men are drawn to a woman’s butt and crotch when she is clad in pants. As opposed to what happens when said woman is dressed in a shapeless, ankle-grazing calico bag of a dress, where people look only at the woman’s face. My opinion on that one is that people are desperately trying not to stare at the hideous dress, because staring is rude.

And you know what, people notice each other’s appearances. We all look at faces and hairstyles and clothing and even shoes. We notice if someone’s hair is unkempt, we notice if a woman’s slip is showing, we notice if a kid has on an emo belt, and yes, we notice if someone has a nice caboose. Sighted people always notice appearances first, so what. Women have shapes, curves, actual physical bodies, and if a man can’t handle that it’s his own fault, not the woman’s.

The anti-pant crowd wants women to believe that shapeless dresses are somehow freeing. Freeing us poor, helpless frails from the unwanted lustful stares of big, bad men who just can’t help themselves in the powerful presence of our awesome sexiness. And they say feminists hate men. But I’m not in charge of another person’s lustfulness, I’m only in charge of my own. And that’s another thing. Men wear pants, does that mean I’m supposed to stare at them and not be able to control myself?

I guess the assumption is that women don’t lust after men. Maybe we’re too busy tempting hordes of fine, upstanding christian gentlemen into sin with our devil-pants. So, on one hand, we are wicked temptresses, well-versed in the siren-call of trousers-wearing. And on the other hand, we are demure, innocent creatures, who never lust after anyone, suitable only for patronizing and protecting. The only reason that fundamentalist heads are not exploding over this dichotomy is because fundamentalists are given to living unexamined lives. But, guess what, women do lust, so what.

But, but, but. Lust is a sin! You say that like it’s a bad thing. Hate to tell these people, but lust is sort of the very thing that has kept the human race going during the worst of times. The Great Depression wasn’t the most stable time to have children, but humans just insisted on reproducing. Times of war, disease, and famine are terrible times to bring children into the world, but since one of those things is almost always happening, what are we to do? Let the human race die out because we think lust is icky? But I digress.

For centuries, women were hobbled by their clothing. Corsets made it difficult to breath and impossible to move freely. Hoop skirts made the mere act of sitting down an exercise in embarrassment. Long skirts and multiple petticoats had to be held aloft as women walked around, effectively tying their hands. And those long skirts and petticoats often cost women their lives, by catching fire or becoming heavy with water and drowning them, or by catching in machinery. Long sleeves could also be caught in household or farm or factory machinery, causing injury or death. Yards and yards of heavy fabric were literally shackles around the ankles of the women who had to wear them.

And this pining for the modesty of an earlier time is misplaced at best. Corsets and bustles were designed to exaggerate the natural curves of a woman’s body. And we fetishize what we take pains to hide. There were times when the bodices of dresses were cut just barely high enough to cover the nipple, yet a stolen glimpse of black-stockinged ankle was scandalous! And trust me, people given to the practice of fetishisizing women are only going to be spurred on by the all-covering, ankle-grazing dress. Imagination is often more titillating than reality. “What’s under that dress!”

The issue here really is freedom, or rather, freedoms. Fundamentalist men, of all stripes, want the freedom that comes with not taking any responsibility for their own baser desires, and instead, off-loading all of society’s ills onto all women. I should actually say all females, because these men get started with the woman-blaming while the women are still little girls. Hello? Purity Balls?

And pants give freedom to women. The freedom to move without restriction, the freedom to do the hard work that our lives require, the freedom to run if we need to, and the freedom to fight if we must. The freedom to not worry about a stiff wind, the freedom to get dirty, and the freedom to have warm legs.

It is this feminine freedom that the fundamentalists fear. Before the freedom of pants and the throwing-off of the corsets, men could rest assured, basking in the certainty of their superiority over the “weaker sex.” But it was the clothes, the fabric shackles that kept women weak and helpless. The days of corsets and crinolines and fainting couches are over! Now we have the vote, our own jobs, and the devil’s own pants–the fabric shackles are off.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with undergarments. Bras are fine, I tend to find ones I like and wear them until they fall apart. Underpants always have been, and ever shall remain, the bane of my existence. Don’t get me wrong, I always wear underpants, I wouldn’t dream of going around without them. It’s like they know that I can’t live without them, so they take advantage of my naked vulnerability so to speak, engaging me in a near constant wrestling match just to keep them in place.

You may find this difficult to believe, but there have been times when I have been reduced to tears out of sheer loathing for my underpants. OK, it was just that one time and I was pregnant. You do not know clothing hell until you have worn maternity underpants. Pregnancy is the one time in my life when I have even considered going commando because all maternity underpants were apparently designed by sadists.

There is even one brand of ladies’ underpants that claims to have a no-ride-up guarantee. Ride-up, how deceptively charming. I refer to the phenomenon as Black-Hole Butt. As long as I can remember, my behind has acted as a kind of gravity well, pulling in every garment that gets close. So I have perfected some techniques for dealing with the problem. There is the Rise-and-Tug, useful for getting out of chairs and cars. There is the Discreet-Turn-and-Tug, perfect for dealing with the problem while in enclosed public venues, like department stores and grocery stores. But recently I have stopped caring so much, if the issue doesn’t involve more than a little elastic-snapping, I just do it. Since having children I have come to the realization that other people rarely care about, or even notice, what is going on around them. And even if someone notices, I am not the first person, nor will I be the last, who has to make adjustments in public. Fear not, if the problem is serious enough, I excuse myself and head to the ladies’ room.

For the record, I have tried department store underpants, mass-retailer underpants, fancy schmancy lingerie store underpants, and not one of them are better than the others. It has gotten to the point where I am considering men’s underpants. I never hear of men having to go through these gyrations just to keep their undergarments in place. My most recent purchases have been the ones with the charmingly deceptive “guarantee.” Oh, and Major Underpants Manufacturer, they still ride up, you owe me nine dollars.

Today I had occasion to purchase underpants for my both my children, you know, to pass down the misery to a new generation. Don’t blame me, kids, I just bought them. My son, who is growing up faster than I like, decided that he no longer wants picture underpants. He wants underpants just like Daddy’s, so today I got him his first “tighty whities.” Those things are cuter than I thought possible; who knew miniature underpants were that adorable.

I also bought my 3-year old daughter her first big-girl underpants. Not that she gets to wear them right now or anything. I also got her a little tin lunch-box/purse thing for her “money box.” Monkey has a shoe box full of coins because he filled up his piggy bank and had to have a place for all the extra money. How does a five-year old get so much money, you might ask. Easy, extortion. He got into a bad habit of asking anyone who came to the door if they had any coins for him. It’s Nana’s fault. She started giving him the coins to put in that piggy bank, then Uncle D. got in on the act. Enablers, the lot of them. Luckily, he’s no longer asking plumbers and electricians to empty their pockets. But I digress.

Pumpkin decided she need a money box, too. One that would go up in her closet so Monkey couldn’t get it. Only one problem, she has no money, and she wants some. I have decided to turn this to my advantage and I told her that I will give her coins for peeing and pooping in the potty. That’s right, I am resorting to bribery. I hope that the lure of cold, hard cash will convince her to start using the potty. Heaven knows nothing else is working. So I am going to pay her. To use the potty. If I could outsource one parenting task this would be the one.

I hope that the big girl underpants will also be an incentive to use the potty, but I really think I’ll get more traction with the cash. But it’s like I’m paying her to stop using diapers and start wearing underpants. Come to think of it, if somebody paid me to wear underpants I might not mind that whole Black-Hole Butt problem.

Or, How Greed and Bigotry Drive Up Housing Costs

By now, unless you live in an undisclosed mountain enclave (and sometimes even when you do, Hi Bob!), dear reader, you must certainly be aware of these terms: sub-prime, housing crisis, housing bubble, foreclosure. A phrase you will also hear a lot is average home price.

(There are going to be some statistics, but bear with me, they don’t last long.)

Average is an imprecise term used to denote any of a number of ways to calculate the center of a set of data. When people talk about averages what they are generally talking about is called the arithmetic mean. It’s when you take each value in the data set, add them all together, and then divide that number by how many values are in the data set. Like this: 3+6+9+50+100=168. 168 divided by 5=33.6, the arithmetic mean, or simply mean, is 33.6. A frequently more understandable way to look at the data is using a median, which the middle value in a data set when the values are lined up in order from smallest to largest (or vice versa). It is the number in which half of the values are less than the median, and half are more than the median. So in a data set of 3, 6, 9, 50, 100, 9 would be the median. Wow, turns out that Statistics course was good for something. As you can see, the average number is heavily influenced by the larger numbers in the data set, where the median number more accurately reflects the reality of the data set.

In calculating housing prices, it is extraordinarily important to know which method is being used, mean or median. The U.S Census Bureau has just such information available. Let’s start with the median price of housing and the median wage in the year I was born, 1968. It was at the end of an economically stable decade, and before the oil crisis and inflation of the 1970s. In 1968, the median wage for men was $5980.00 per year, for women it was $2019.00. The median home price in 1968 was $24,700. That is roughly four times the median salary of the American man, who was usually the sole breadwinner of the family at that point in history. In 2006, the median price for homes in the U.S. was $246,500 and the median income per family (no longer just the sole, male breadwinner mind you) was $32,265. That is 7.64 times the median family income.

If we were still operating on the 1968 model, median housing prices would be about $133,200. So what has caused this top-heavy housing market? Two things: greed and bigotry.

The recent arrests of hedge fund managers points to the greed of Wall Street. Mortgage financing companies displayed their greed in pushing sub-prime mortgages and ARMs, even to more credit-worthy borrowers. Real estate developers, with their general disregard for the surrounding houses, build McMansions for in-fill development in more moderate neighborhoods. Or they clear-cut vast tracts of land and squeeze as many monster houses as they can onto that land.

And then there is the greed of the consumers themselves. The people who saw the value of their homes soar into rarified territory and “cashed-out” that new-found equity were greedy. And for what? College educations for their children? Or boats and RVs and vacation homes? How about all the things you can stock your home with to make the neighbors green with envy? Never has “keeping up with the Joneses” been so toxic.

Then there were the home-buyers who, forgetting the axiom “buy low and sell high”, thought they would get rich by buying high and selling higher. I have no sympathy for those folks. When someone deliberately tries to game the system and drives housing prices higher for everyone, then they lose what little claim they had on my good graces. For decades real estate was considered to be one of the most stable investments you could make, it lacked the volatility of the stock market and value grew at a slow, but steady pace. Until the last, oh, eight years or so, when unbridled greed and and a distinct lack of compassion for one’s fellow human came back into style.

Then there is a greed of spirit, a desire to be seen as more than you are. People of modest means all of a sudden wanted to appear wealthy. What better way to look wealthy than to have a mini-mansion all of your own? I knew one lady and her mint-new husband who pulled just such a caper. Way back in 1998, when houses were still reasonably priced, this couple purchased a house so huge and so expensive that they didn’t have enough money left over to furnish it. The dining table was a fold-up affair, there was one sectional in the living room, and each huge bedroom contained little more than a mattress and single dresser. Whole areas of the house were just closed up, not being used. Tell me, what in the world is the point of having a huge house when you aren’t even going to enter half the rooms? The point seemed to be that from the outside, they looked rich. It wasn’t until you actually entered their home that you saw their absolute poverty and greed of spirit.

How does bigotry play a role in our current housing crisis? Well, many urban areas are going through “gentrification,” a process which prices lower-income residents right out of the neighborhood and frequently these residents are members of a minority group. This also prices a lot of older people and single-parent families right out of the neighborhood as well. Gentrification is literally pushing diversity out of the city, or at least into rigidly-defined areas.

We have something else happening in Tulsa, a kind of “white flight” in which people eschew the smaller houses in the more affordable mid-town neighborhoods to move to the wealthier, whiter south part of town or the suburbs. Mid-town has a large mix of housing, from funky apartments to the old homes of the oil barons to modest middle-class dwellings. Anybody, with any budget, can find a place to live in the main, middle parts of town. Therein lies the problem for some people.

Oh, they never come right out and say it, but they don’t want to live next to African-American people, or Hispanic people, or Native people. They are willing to live at the very edges of their means so that the only black or Mexican people they ever see in their neighborhoods are there to mow lawns or pick up the garbage. And they all have so many excuses and I’ve heard them all. “You get more house for your money out in _____” “They have better schools.” “Mid-town is too pretentious and trendy, it’s more real out south.” These are all code for: “I wanted a nice, white neighborhood.” Check it! Next time you hear somebody say something similar in your town, you better believe that’s what it really means! Even people I thought I knew have come out with these lines, their hidden truths. It’s really disturbing when I find out something this nasty about people I used to like.

So, where do we go from here? First, we have to stop being greedy bigots.

As houses sit unsold longer and longer, housing prices will be forced lower. Some people are, unfortunately, going to take a hit on property values. But maybe that’s a good thing, it’s time we changed our view of real estate as cash cow back to humanity’s traditional view of housing–as shelter. Housing is not an investment or a path to wealth, it is a very old technology for protecting and nurturing ourselves and our loved ones, and keeping our stuff dry. As housing prices are forced back to reasonable levels, houses will cease to be tools of greed.

Then we have to start putting the resources we are no longer bleeding into the housing market into making sure that all neighborhoods are as safe as we can make them and that all schools are good schools. And we have to stop letting small-minded idiots tell us that property values are affected by the skin pigmentation of the people who live there. And we have to challenge the very people who Stephen Colbert mocks with his “I don’t see color.”-schtick. We have to tell them that seeing color is o.k., discriminating based on that color is not. We have to stand up and say that discriminating because someone is older and on a fixed-income is not o.k.; discriminating because someone is a single parent is not o.k.; discriminating because someone is gay is no o.k.; discriminating because someone doesn’t go to the right kind of church is not o.k. We have to change this mindset and the only way to do it is to call attention to it every chance we get. I suggest loudly saying, “I find your racism (or sexism or ageism or homophobia or classism, etc.) offensive and I demand you apologize!”

“That’s all well and good, Burning Prairie, but how am I supposed to save money on housing right this very minute?” you may ask. I’m getting to that, hold your horses.

I worked in a bank for many years and one of the things I learned (besides facing all my bills the same direction) was that not everybody should buy a house. There are a lot of reasons to not buy a house. Of course, the folks that would be pushed into the sub-prime market should stop thinking that buying a house will magically solve all their problems and just not buy a house at this time. Some big cities are terrible markets for buying and are better suited to renting. We lived (and rented) in Chicago for a while and with housing prices that expensive, we would’ve been long-term renters had we stayed. If you have more than the usual instability with your jobs, don’t buy a house! And by that, I don’t just mean the always-present danger of losing a good job, but also the possibility that you may need to change jobs or job markets soon, or that your employer may be one of those that likes to move people around. Better to pack up and move an apartment than a whole house, trust me. Don’t buy a house just because someone told you it’s a waste of money to rent, even if that person is your dad.

Don’t buy just because you want the freedom to paint things any color you want or to knock out walls and add on. Condo boards and housing covenants will have something to say about that. If you are very young and fresh-out of something–high school, college, the Navy, whatever–think about it long and hard before you make such a permanent decision. You may be thinking that you can just sell if you ever need or desire to move, but it is hard to unload a house. And it is even harder to unload a foreclosure from your permanent record. If you are not rock-solid sure that you are in a place you want to stay, just keep renting.

So, you’ve weighed all the options and you still want to buy. Your credit is good and you know better than to fall for that beguiling ARM. You are all set, now what? How do you save money while buying a house?

Rule number one: don’t buy too much house. If it’s just you, do you really need a 3-bedroom, 2 bath single-family home or would a small condo be a better fit? If it’s just the two of you, or even just the four of you, do you really need a McMansion? Or are you just trying to show off? Exactly how many extra rooms does each member of the family need? A larger home is going to cost more to run than a smaller home. There will be larger heating and electric bills, possibly even larger water bills. And then there are the intangible costs. Who is going to do the cleaning? If you have stretched yourself to the breaking point to buy too large a house, it won’t be hired help, you won’t be able to afford them. Hope you like the smell of bleach. And what about the stress of trying to maintain a large house? I wouldn’t want that. Mid-town has many post-war neighborhoods, with tiny little houses in which people raised whole passels of kids. Why do you need such cavernous spaces if you only plan on having one or two kids, or maybe none at all? Start by questioning these motivations.

Rule number two: don’t get fooled by the “houses cost less out here” illusion. With gas prices this high, anything you may save on housing and more will go right into the gas tank every time you drive to work or to the closest real grocery store, which isn’t all that close. And long commutes take a very real toll on your personal relationships.

Rule number three: don’t spend extra money to move into a small, “safe” town or suburb with “good” schools. Mayberry never existed and small towns and suburbs are no safer per capita than most city neighborhoods. And by the way, the elementary school that is close enough for us to walk to? It got the state’s highest rating for elementary schools.

Rule number three: if a particular neighborhood that you like is kind of pricey, cross the closest major street and check out the adjacent neighborhoods. They may be just as charming at a lower cost.

Rule number four: wait. Just wait out this housing-bubble-burst. At the end of it, housing prices will be something closer to reasonable in relation to wages. But you may be thinking about interest rates, what if they go up? Trust me, a low interest rate isn’t going to help you pay the mortgage on a house that you can’t afford. Or just wait until you are at a better spot in your life, because being shackled to a house payment isn’t going to help if you aren’t there yet.

Rule number five: buy an existing house in an established neighborhood. It is no secret that I don’t care for new houses. I prefer a house with some love behind it, some history in it, and even a ghost or two. My favorite neighborhoods are fifty to a hundred years old, with interesting architecture and mature, graceful trees. I hate the faux character that is being built into new houses. Irish Provencial? Really? In Tulsa? Come on, you may like pretending you’re in County Cork while you’re standing in front of your cultured-stone fireplace, but leave your gated community and drive west, what will you see? The grand, sweeping prairies of central Oklahoma. Drive a little way east and what will you see? The green, rolling hills and rivers and lakes of northeastern Oklahoma. Because you. Are. Still. In. Oklahoma. And don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that you are “having a house built” just because the builder lets you pick out the carpet and paint colors. If you are ever at the point where you can hire an architect and a private contractor and have a house designed and built for you then you do not need my money-saving tips.

I will continue to have posts on what the House does to save money on various things and how you can, too. I’ll even warn against some of the mistakes I’ve made so you can avoid them. And be prepared for stories about my Gammie, who grew up in the Great Depression. She could really stretch a dollar! And if you have any tips and tricks that you’d like to share, speak up! We’d all like to hear them!

Sources:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p05ar.html

http://www.census.gov/const/pricerega.pdf

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/values.html

That’s how long Hubby and I have been married as of today. Happy Anniversary, Buddy!

Attention local grocery store chain:

Big bags of organic fertilizer (AKA bags of poop) + stacked right outside the front door + 90 degree day = REALLY BAD IDEA.

That is all.

My daughter doesn’t just make a mess in her room, she trashes her room like a rock star! It may be her super-power.

It has either been raining or soggy all week long and I haven’t been able to take the kids out to play to run off some of their energy. So that energy has been directed into the serious business of messing up the House. Today, I’d had enough. The mess has become overwhelming–there are toys in every room in the House! I wanted to move all the toys back to where they live, but there was literally no space in Pumpkin’s room for one more toy. Don’t believe me? Have a peek.

When faced with a mess like this it is sometimes difficult to know where to start. But this time it was easy. Apparently, some kind of stuffed animal-volcano had erupted and the resulting toy-flow impeded my ability to get to the rest of the mess. So I tucked all the stuffed animals back into their basket and then tackled the rest of the room.

Several of Monkey’s toys had made their way into Pumpkin’s room; I removed those first. Then I found my new hat, it’s been missing all week. I found it in Pumpkin’s closet, filled with tiny toys. Not long after I started, the kids showed up, wanting to “help.” Monkey was playing Pokemon so it was easy to persuade him not to help. But Pumpkin had to help, she even started crying when I told her “no.” So I crumbled like a stale cookie and let her help. Which actually made the whole process take longer than it should, but it made her happy. And here’s the little culprit herself:

After all the toys were off the floor and stowed in their little bins, I had to move the rug and vacuum the room, so I parked the Pumpkin in the den with her brother and gave them snacks. I got the room perfectly put together and was so proud of all my hard that I took some “after” pictures.

And:

And finally:

That’s the great little organizer I bought at Target. Now if only I could get her to put the toys back in the bins!

Anyway, didn’t I, I mean, we do a good job? Care to guess how long the clean lasted?

Less than three hours. Three hours! I was hoping to get at least a day of clean for all my troubles.

They are kicking my butt.

A girlfriend once told me about a couple she knew that didn’t believe in complimenting their daughters on their appearances. And if anyone dared to mention how pretty the girls were, those compliments were violently rebuked. Excuse me, but exactly what are people supposed to say about babies? “Um, she’s not cute or anything but I’m sure she’ll grow up to accomplish something.”

Their thinking is apparently that children should not be praised for things that they can’t control. I feel so sorry for those girls, because I can guarantee that nothing will be good enough for those parents. I grew up with parents who seemed to believe that a parent’s prime responsibility was to ensure that their children didn’t get “The Bighead”. No praising your children in front of others, because it’s unseemly. No telling your daughter that she is pretty, because what does she have to feel pretty about? When insensitive people insult your children, even accidentally, it’s rude to contradict and defend your own offspring. And when your children do good in school, don’t fail to point out that they could’ve done better. And, whatever you do, don’t brag about your children’s accomplishments to others, you’re not even impressed, why should anyone else be?

As a direct result of my upbringing, I lack much of the arrogant self-confidence that this world requires. If either of my parents told me I was pretty, I don’t recall it. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t pretty, the most I could ever hope for was cute. But the thing is, the two people who should’ve thought I was pretty, no matter what reality threw their way, didn’t. When the kids at school bullied me about the way I looked, I had no opposing viewpoint to help me feel better about myself. I had a mother who thought that my hair needed home-perms and that my skin was terrible. And a father who called me “Birdlegs.” No affirmations, no encouragement.

My primary jobs as a parent are to love and protect my children. That protection takes so many forms beyond giving them food and shelter. I want to make sure that they are armed with the self-confidence they need to succeed in this harsh, cold world. I want to cushion the blows that life is sure to deal out. I want them to be able to fit in with their peers or not, as they so choose. I didn’t fit in with my peers, but it’s not because I didn’t want to. I wanted desperately to fit in, wanted it so bad that it felt like a physical ache. But it was not to be. Were there things my parents could have done differently to help me fit in? Perhaps. If they had told me I was pretty, or made sure that my clothes looked a little more like the things all the other kids were wearing, or believed in my dreams, maybe I would have been better able to deal with my peers. Seriously, exactly how is a kid supposed to deal when her own parents don’t think she’s pretty?

Unfortunately we live in a world that judges us based on appearances first. The first thing people see when they look at me is a pudgy, graying housewife, not my sparkling personality. Bare minimum for girls, in this society, is pretty. I’m not trying to be shallow, or even say that I agree, it is simply an unpleasant reality with which we have to deal, like it or not. Attractive boys also tend to have an easier time of things than their less-attractive counterparts. And here’s the secret: every girl can be pretty, it has little to do with the particulars of one’s face and everything to do with self-confidence and presentation.

I had a friend who wasn’t what anyone would call conventionally pretty, but she presented beautifully and could put on an air of self-confidence as if it were a cloak. Men would literally throw themselves at her feet. She claimed pretty and made it her own. Somewhere in her history someone told her she was pretty, and they told her that every day. I did not have that. Whenever I tried to do that whole present-pretty thing I just looked like a little girl who fell face-first into mommy’s make-up bag, I could not pull it off.

I praise my children for the wonderful things they do, whether it’s drawing pictures, building Lego spaceships, singing pretty songs, or behaving well in stores. I also tell my son he’s handsome and smart and strong. My daughter is fearless, barnstormer-brave, wing-walker-brave, and I tell her she’s my little daredevil, my wing-walker. She receives copious amounts of praise for knowing her letters and numbers (to 13); and I heap the praise lavishly when she manages to use her spoon instead of her hands to eat. I tell both of them that I love them many times a day, eventually it will embarrass them, but until then I lay it on thick. One day, they may well dodge my kisses and squirm out of my hugs and say, “Mo-om!” when I commit the grave offense of saying I love them in front of their friends. For now, they eat it up and thrive on it. Something I make a point of doing is telling my daughter that she is pretty. Every. Day. It certainly helps that she is a beautiful child with ridiculously long eyelashes and caramel-colored curls. But here’s the deal, even if she wasn’t objectively pretty, I would still say it, because it is that important.

My husband thinks I’m beautiful, by the way, and for that I am glad. And maybe I’d be able to believe him if my parents had told me I was pretty. Every. Day.

We did an inordinate amount of running around this weekend, pretty much like always. We needed some stuff for the House and Hubby wanted some wine and wineglasses for Father’s Day. This was all on the whiteboard I keep on the fridge.

Along with some other things, all written by Hubby (except for ADAM, which was written by Monkey of course). He has the worst handwriting. To the untrained eye, our list may appear as this:

• Tvash Caus
• Smoke Detecnvs
• Surge Supressov
• ADAM
• o x o corn holders
• 11 choppers
• more chip clips
• wine
• wine glasses

Hug-and-Kiss corn holders? And don’t you think one chopper would be enough, even if you weren’t sure if we were talking about motorcycles, helicopters, or vegetable choppers. It’s that last one by the way.

We took the whole crew to Bed Bath and Beyond and came home with a bag full of this:

Apparently, the House is keeping OXO in business. The coffee mug and the (one) chopper are fairly self-explanatory, but I think some background will help on the other stuff.

Chip clips–I cannot tell you how many of these things I have thrown away, usually stuffed down in cereal boxes. We’re on about our tenth package of them. Hubby thought the big red ones would be good, he’s probably right, they are more noticeable. Maybe I won’t be so inclined to throw those away.

Corn holders–the set we bought last summer fell apart, because they cost about a dollar. And we’re gonna need them soon, it’s nearly time to go buy a couple of bushels of corn from Conrad Farms in Bixby.

Measuring cups and spoons–I don’t care for cooking, but I love to bake. Over the years, various pieces from my previous sets of cups and spoons have gone missing. The spoons have largely fallen prey to the garbage disposal, even some of the metal ones. The cups are a little harder to explain, I think one or two of them have been left in bags of flour. If it’s been a while since I baked anything, and there’s not much flour left in the old bag, I’ll start over with a new bag. It’s very likely that some cups have been thrown away with flour remnants.

We did buy two items not made by OXO–a little trash can for Monkey’s room (he loves having his own trash can and has been finding things to throw in it), and a sleep mask for me. I’m still debating whether I should wear it or not, at night of course.

That was yesterday. Today we went to a bookstore, finished grocery shopping, and ate an early dinner. Hubby took a nice, long Father’s Day nap when we got home. The kids absolutely did not stay quiet or calm, but he managed to sleep through all the ruckus.

After one of my many, futile tries at getting them to pipe down, I found this little guy.

For all the world, just sitting there, looking like he’s waiting for a bus. And then this:

The crime scene. And the culprit?

Pumpkin.

As you probably know, Saturday was my 40th birthday. When pressed about what I wanted for my birthday I had a very hard time thinking of things, objects that I wanted. Let’s see, I already have a computer (obviously), I got an iPod for Mother’s Day, I don’t really need a lot of clothes (I’ll be wearing scrubs in Clinicals), a new Coach purse, while nice, would be useless right now. So, after much thought, I asked for and got what I wanted: time. Time without the kids, time to browse in a bookstore, time to do things for me instead of for someone else. My folks kept the kids while Hubby and I went to a nice, sedate, quiet, grown-up lunch at P.F. Chang’s, then we went to a bookstore where I didn’t have to spend the entire time ensconced in the children’s section. After I picked out three books and three magazines, we went to see the Sex and The City movie.

I thoroughly loved this movie and, except for some mild camera-operator pilot errors, could find no flaws. I realize that not everyone was a fan of the series, but I was an ardent fan, nay, devoted fan, ok both. A couple of years ago Hubby even bought me the full boxed set, in the attractive hot pink velveteen binder protected with a Plexiglas box. Trust me, SATC is a pleasant change from all the children’s programming I am forced to watch.

Lots of people have had problems with this movie for various and sundry reasons, too many to really go indepth about. But I’ll try to offer rebuttals as I go along. O.K., this is a chick flick, attractive only to women and gay men, hm? Well, my husband used to watch the series with me and enjoyed as much as I did. And there were other men in the theater, seemingly with their wives and not a single one looked bored or angry or resentful to be there. To address the despicable “chick flick” label, the four main characters are indeed women and the stories being told are from their points of view, but the men in their lives are no mere accessories, pawns for the playing. All the male characters are presented as complex people with good sides and bad, with lives and motivations of their own. Much like real people.

Of course, in many movies with male leads, the women are afterthoughts, arm candy, distractions, trophies. One-dimensional, universally blandly pretty and unchallenging, pliant and intellectually inferior. Unless of course they are bad. Bad women are allowed to be real. In Sex and The City, real women are allowed to be bad or good or marginal or selfish or petty or vain or forgiving or unselfish or heroic or loyal or depressed or weepy or poopy or tired or desirable or desiring or smart or foolish. Much like real people.

See how nicely that works out, men and women are portrayed as real people. And for fans of the show, we care about these characters because we can project ourselves onto them. While I identified with the writer aspect of Carrie, it was Charlotte’s struggle with fertility and miscarriage that carried particular weight with me, as I too experienced those very things.

A large portion of people (my parents among them) are aghast at the very notion of single women even having sex lives. When I told Mom which movie Hubby was taking me to, she practically got the vapors. “Ohhhh!” she said, like I’d told her I planning on visiting a bordello or maybe taking a few spins around a stripper pole. So I teased her. “‘Ohhhh!’ What does that even mean?!” I said back to her. Then when I called my dad to tell him we had to go to the later show he asked me. So told him, “Sex and The City“, you know like it was no big deal, because it’s no big deal. He said the same damn thing, “Oh.” but really clipped, like he didn’t approve of my free-wheelin’ ways. That’s me, shameless hussy.

But this movie is NOT porn, the word “sex” may be in the title but it is a good, old-fashioned love story. With boobies. Seriously, it doesn’t matter if the love is for a spouse, a child, friends, or one’s self. I gather that is another thing that makes a different segment of the population uncomfortable. The notion that love is important, maybe all-important.

I have actually seen some opinions castigating the characters for being interested only in marriage and family. And shoes. Relationships are the things that make life better or even tolerable. Because honestly, at the end of your life, what will you count most important? A job or friends and family? My mother-in-law had a dear friend who never married or had children, but she had friends who stayed by her side. She was a lovely woman who came to my baby shower and got to meet my son. Because she cultivated her relationships, I will always speak well of her, and tell my children about her.

That search for relationships is just human nature. We seek connections. And SATC was about connections. Maybe those connections will be romantic, sexual, marital, maternal, or platonic, but they are still connections and we still crave them. The world is a cold, nasty, bitter place with dark scary corners and creatures that howl in the night, but having a hand to hold has the power to give us courage. To light the dark corners and vanquish the monsters. What poor things we become when we deny ourselves that hand to hold, and insist that no, I’m fine on my own, I can do it by myself.

And that brings me to another point–the apparent absence of the characters’ families of origin. But Carrie once mentions that her dad left and Miranda’s mom dies in the course of the show, so it’s not like they sprang, fully formed, from the earth, wearing the latest fashions. And I think the point is that the four friends are each others families. In fact, Carrie-as-narrator said something to the effect that sometimes the families we make are more important than the ones we happen to be born into. I’m currently re-watching the whole series and when I find the exact quote I’m looking for, I’ll post it here.

And don’t know about how other moms feel about it, but one of the funnest parts of the show, and movie, is the fashion. I live in capris or jeans and t-shirts, so I get a kind of vicarious thrill from seeing the kind of clothes I would never wear. But I absolutely swoon over Carrie’s impossible shoes. With my bum hip and, you know, my life, I can’t wear high heels but I love to see them on Carrie. Seems like a lot of reviewers who should know better are positively offended that the characters spend money, time, and effort on fashion. But I think it’s kind of affirming: they have the desire and disposable income to spend on things that are solely for themselves. Because, honestly, most straight men don’t care what women wear. They know when we look nice, but that’s about it. The specifics of fashion escape them.

And because of the frivolity of fashion, some reviewers are upset that the Sex and The City movie is frivolous. Seriously. Did they think that they were going to see An Inconvenient Truth? Or maybe a Michael Moore movie? Or possibly Gandhi? And another point, is it trivial and frivolous simply because the lives of women, single or married, are assumed to be trivial and frivolous? If a woman cares about it, clothes, shoes, love, whatever, it’s by definition less important than the things men care about. Like fantasy football and motorcycles and comic-book superheroes. Please. If men, en masse, started passionately caring about fashion you better believe that, all of a sudden, fashion would be afforded more gravitas.

I know less than nothing about NYC real estate, but it doesn’t seem improbable to me that four successful women with no children (at the beginning of the series) should be able to afford apartments. Let’s see: Charlotte is a successful art dealer, then she marries a congenitally rich guy and then a successful lawyer; Miranda is a successful lawyer, all on her little lonesome; Samantha is described as a successful public relations executive; and Carrie is a successful writer. Maybe it’s that word “successful” that makes some people uncomfortable. These women are successful at things outside of marriage, so since they’ve got that covered why not focus on the personal relationship aspects of their lives? And to those that think a free-lance writer like Carrie can’t possibly afford that apartment–dude, it’s a dinky place. It’s totally unlike the impossible apartments in “Friends” and did I mention that whole successful writer thing. Free-lancers don’t have just one gig, that would be foolhardy. The series even addresses one of her other jobs: Vogue. And then later, she becomes a published author. And by the time the movie rolls around, she has published three books and has another on the way. There’s that whole successful thing.

And another way a lot of women identify with SATC is the manner and timing with which the characters order their lives. Lots of women are delaying marriage and childbearing to establish careers, identities, lives beyond what has traditionally been afforded to women. Increasingly, women are no longer allowing themselves to be defined only by marriage and children. And Sex and The City beautifully illustrates this, even while looking for love these characters remain true to themselves.

One last thing, I really, really, really like seeing women my age in movies. Attention Hollywood: more, please. More women with lines and character in their faces, more women without breast implants, more female characters who can string more than a couple of words together cogently, more gutsy dames, more women who are challenging, more women who are vital and sexy even in their dotage (that would be in their 40’s in Hollywood years), more women who refuse to be defined on a man’s terms, give me more of what I want and I will gladly give you more of my entertainment dollars. And are you listening, Hollywood? I am the one who pushes us to go see movies at the theater. If it were up to Hubby, we’d never leave the house. So if you want my, our money, you better pony up with the goods.

Shorter me: Sex and The City was a great movie, it totally did what all good movies are supposed to do–drew me in and made me forget about the passing of time in the outside world. The last movie that did that for me was Big Fish. What an awesome way to spend my 40th birthday! Anyone know where I can send my Thank You card to Sarah Jessica Parker?

Me, that’s who. Today, Saturday June 7, is my 40th birthday. (This is being written before Saturday because I don’t want to spend my birthday doing this.) I was born in 1968, one of the most turbulent years in recent history. The Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy (who died the day before my birth), protests and riots, the Chicago Convention, Nixon. “Sympathy for the Devil” and 2001: A Space Odyssey were both released that year. Those two pieces of popular culture neatly encapsulate both the darkness and the hope of the year of my birth.

Hope was abundant that year in the Apollo Space Program. Apollo 7, in October, was the first manned Apollo flight and a welcome success after the tragedy of Apollo 1. Apollo 8, in December, was the first mission to leave Earth orbit and travel to the moon. Humans left the relative safety of Earth’s orbit and traveled to another world!

I decided to look up other people who share my birthday. Here are some of my favorites:

• Beau Brummel, 1778
• Paul Gauguin, 1848
• Jessica Tandy, 1909
• Dean Martin, 1917
• Tom Jones, 1940 (yes, that Tom Jones)
• Liam Neeson, 1952
• Prince, 1958 (yes, that Prince)

Thanks to Brainy History for some of the dates.

I grew up in Claremore so I was literally steeped in Will Rogers lore. The Will Rogers Memorial Museum was not far from my house and every time we had out-of-town visitors, we’d drag them there. Heck, I even had my formal wedding portrait shot on the museum’s wide veranda. I don’t think I’ve seen any more of Will’s movies than the snippets they played in the exhibits, but the title of one really stuck with me–Life Begins At Forty. I remember thinking how impossibly old forty seemed even as my parents neared (and passed) forty themselves. How could life begin at such an advanced and decrepit age?

Well, now that I’m here, forty doesn’t seem so advanced, maybe just a tad decrepit. But I get the title, I finally get it. At the time that movie was made (1935) people tended to marry and have kids fairly young. My own great-grandmother got married at 13 and had my grandmother at 15. So if you get married, say, at 18 and have kids in your early 20’s, then by the time you turn 40, the kids are grown and gone or nearly so. The next phase of your life (one sans kids) would indeed start at 40. Now more people are holding off on having kids, waiting until their mid-30’s to mid-40’s, much like I did.

Even though I got married at 23, Monkey wasn’t born until I was 34, then Pumpkin came along right before I turned 37. I had plenty of time to live one sort of life, one sans kids, and get thoroughly set in my ways. Parenting infants can feel like a kind of timeless limbo, but things start to pick up once they become toddlers and preschoolers. So it does feel like a different phase of life is beginning. Plus, I’ve only got two more years of school then I will re-enter the working world. I finally feel like I have a concrete direction for my life, not just nebulous wishes.

Even though I live in same old ghost-ridden house, I am still married to my best friend after all these years, and I’ve decided to keep at this whole motherhood-thing, I feel like I’ve been given a fresh start, a do-over. Maybe life really does begin at forty after all.