I know her! I know her!

By the way, my awesome friend Debra Michals will be on the Today Show on Monday morning. She is scheduled to be on between 8 and 9 a.m.

Here's the scoop, if you have not already read about it on Newburyport Biz:

Newburyport local Debra Michals, Ph.D., is heading for NYC to appear on the Today Show this Monday, April 12. A writer who teaches women's and gender studies at Merrimack College, Michals was invited to speak about her research for a book on female breadwinners -- a hot topic these days, especially given the economic recession. In fact, it's such a hot topic that Michals was quoted about it recently in The Boston Globe.

Downtown Women's Club & me

This came from the Downtown Women's Club North. I will address the group briefly to introduce Newburyport Business.

Text of message: Great Networking and Free Food for Monday Night, Feb 8. Networking for Women, Mini Life Assessments with our speaker, Mikki Lessard. Oregano Pizzeria, 5:30. Join the meetup: http://www.meetup.com/DWC-BostonNorth/

Cooked vs. raw

A friend pointed out on Facebook this piece from Salon.com, about cooked vs. raw food. The person who originally posted it noted that Newburyport is slated to get a raw food restaurant soon.

I had not heard that, I don't think. Reminds me of that episode of "Sex and the City" where the character Samantha eats yucky raw food entrees because she's hot for the waiter.

"Anthropologist Richard Wrangham has a provocative theory on human evolution. It starts with food and an open flame"

Anyway, the article goes on to have Wrangham say, among other things, that how in every society - ever - women cooked for men.

In every single society women cook for men. And, what's more fascinating, in many societies you can really say that food or domestic promiscuity is far more serious than sexual promiscuity. In other words, it's more of a breach of social convention for a woman to feed the wrong man than it is for her to have sex with him.

Interesting, huh? I know I had this long, involved conversation on FB with a man and some of it involved cooking. I think I said I wasn't that good at cooking (which is not strictly the case - I do just fine with a recipe), which if Wrangham is to be believed, explains a lot.

That may have been my 'strike two.' I'm not saying what 'strike one' was (it's nothing thrilling, believe me).

I know that from our perspective in the West, where we tend to focus even more than other societies on questions of sexual morality, it's rather an immoral suggestion that I'm making -- basically that men set themselves up with wives in order to have the freedom to be men, as it were -- and then go ahead and design their sexual strategy from that point on.

So - if a man doesn't have to worry about feeding himself, he can be free to be a man (whatever that entails these days).

I was going to point out some instances in my (extended) family of women who were married but who couldn't cook for shit. Then I remembered that their husbands may not have been that interested in women, good cook or not.

My mother and my sisters are all excellent cooks, btw.

Should I sally forth with a hunk of roast beef strapped to my chest? Apparently the roasted meat would be of more interest to a man than my chest.

Very interesting ...

Would my cat use me for lunch?

I would worry more about this - being dead in my home for days before anyone notices, not being slain (although I sometimes worry about that, reporting on what I do and all) - if not for my readers.

A while back, when I wasn't blogging regularly, a couple of people wrote to me asking if I was OK.

It's not clear if, had I not responded, they would have called the police, but it's a whole lot better than thinking no one notices.

I should note that my neighbor (HH) calls or stops by if he hasn't seen me around or thinks my car hasn't moved, and I do the same for him. Of course, he's mad at me right now ...

But I really appreciated the two emails; thanks, guys (you know who you are).

Comprehending female desire

I seem to be on a theme here today!

I tried to read this whole story, from the NY Times Magazine, entitled "What Do Women Want?" and written by Daniel Bergner, who has written a book about lust and desire. It's pretty long, though, and I've still got my stories to write (two down so far, though).

The piece chronicles the work of Meredith Chivers, a scientist studying and/or teaching sexual research in Canada.

This is part of the next-to-last paragraph, which I did read:

There was the implication, in her words, that she might never illuminate her subject because she could not even see it, that the data she and her colleagues collect might be deceptive, might represent only the creations of culture, and that her interpretations might be leading away from underlying truth. There was the intimation that, at its core, women’s sexuality might not be passive at all. There was the chance that the long history of fear might have buried the nature of women’s lust too deeply to unearth, to view.

Tell that to Lady Caroline Lamb, I thought - but then, she's dead. So are all those other lustful ladies of historical notoriety I could mention here (and even more modern 'examples' of 'bad behavior,' who I won't mention at all). But I guess we know so much about them because they were lustful. Those hussies.

I think this, and the stories about Facebook and showing nipples, and the one about women being comfortable with their bodies all relate to the same thing.

What that same thing might be I have no clue. Ha! I got you ...

I think the words "hussy," "hysterical" and "Jezebel," among others more crude, might have something to do with it. But I'm no scientist; what do I know about what women want?

This 'bares' scrutiny

(Warning: I did no research on this; it's purely my personal observations.)

The controversy between Facebook and women who want to put photos of themselves breast feeding topless rages on. (You can watch this video about one particular mom on CNN.com.)

Is this prudishness?

Stepping into the Wayback Machine, I once again see the French exchange student who lived with my family for a year and photos she showed us of her life in France - including ones of her on a beach that allowed semi-nudity (bottoms but no tops).

As my warning above indicates, I have no figures on how hung up Europeans are on females baring their breasts ...

But if Facebook should change its policy, an unlikely event I would say, what's to stop everyone from wanting to post pictures of bared female breasts? Nada.

But (again) - if you are banning female nips, you should ban male ones as well. If mandatory dress codes have taught us nothing, they have taught us that you can't apply standards to women without also applying them to men.

So I say de-criminalize the female breast. How can a woman feel comfortable with her body if she knows exposing parts of it is considered "obscene?"

But no! The bits below are still 'bad.' Bad bits.

So I retract my previous bare statement and amend it to: let's go back to the 19th century, where women had to cover themselves from head to toe.

We haven't come a long way, baby.

Isn't it funny how something so purely functional (the human body) became a matter of shame and censorship? When did that happen? Not recently! Bad, naughty, evil Eve.

And for those of us not into the religious explanation - Bad, naughty, evil Mother Nature.

Well, folks, there are a million stories in The Naked City - and I have to go write up a few of them now!

Nipple Mania v. Facebook

Check out this young man, who is waging a war (of sorts) with Facebook over the site's policy of not allowing photos that include nipples.

Only women's nipples, of course.

So he made an artistic rendering of himself, made totally with small photos of his nips, and used it as his profile pic on Facebook.

He's even got a vid on iReport, which is accessible through CNN.com.

Strangely enough, most of the comments on his blog support the ban on (women's) nipples.

I agree. EWWWW, nipples! How gross!

Good grief.

Although there is one interesting comment, in which a reader asks, "Why did Michelangelo give Adam a Belly button?"

Think about it.

Give me a good (fictional) murder

I'm a big fan of mysteries (as reading material). It's always a challenge to find a good mystery writer because there are so many writers who take the easy street.

To wit (whit?), there is the old "I know something relevant, but for some perverse reason, I'm not going to tell anyone" gambit.

If the person (in the book) actually spilled the information they are withholding, the mystery would only last for 100 pages instead of 274, or whatever.

I hate that one.

Then there's the old, "I knew I was missing something (or had just heard something really relevant), but I just couldn't think what." The character then moves on to sleep, or do laundry and the little something niggling the back of their brain magically disappears until the end of the book.

I know that when I can't think of something, I never let it keep me from sleeping or anything.

I don't buy that one.

Over the weekend, I was reading a mystery by Mary Higgins Clark, a very famous writer.

She employed both these devices, and more. Gee, I know they are relevant, but I just can't think of them right now. Oh, well. I'll think about it tomorrow.

I was very annoyed, especially since these lapses are frequently displayed by a female protagonist.

Personally, I like Ruth Rendell, or her alter ego, Barbara Vine, although even she seems to be on a downswing. My favorite of late is The Chimney Sweep's Boy.

I have been working on a mystery/suspense book for about 12 years now. It's not easy to avoid using these plot devices (or the one used by Patricia Cornwell, where she does not introduce the person who is the killer until nearly the end of the book).

What I can't do is write all that filler - what the sky looks like, what everyone is wearing (heavy cream silk blouses are popular) and other stuff like that. My eyes just gloss over the fluff, anxious to get back to the action.

Except in the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich. Her fluff is usually pretty funny.

If you're still shopping for someone who's a mystery buff, stick with Rendell (Vine), Evanovich, or Sue Grafton. Old P.D. James is also stellar.

If you have some favorites, let me know. I need my good mysteries as much as I need my lattes.

Goodnight and have a socially relevant day tomorrow.

Sorry.

Mad Men (and women)

I've been turned on to AMC's dramatic series "Mad Men." Thanks, Jennifer!

So I was catching up with the series via On Demand and recaps on Television Without Pity (great for this kind of situation).

Season 2, episode 8 - called "Women on the Verge of Kicking Some Ass" on TWOP or "A Night To Remember" according to AMC - we've got a female office manager (Joan) filling in in an unfunded executive position at an ad agency.

As was clearly built up to in season 1 and season 2 prior to this episode, she performs in an outstanding manner. The ad agency gets all kinds of accolades. The inevitable happens ... the position gets funded ... I'll let TWOP's recapper, "Couch Baron," explain since he does it much better than could I:

Harry introduces Joan to "Dan," and says he's going to be in charge of Broadcast Operations. Joan's face freezes: "Excuse me?" Oblivious to the perfect storm that's manifesting right before him, Harry tells her that he really appreciates her having filled in, and asks if she can train Dan right then and there.

This series takes place in 1962, or thereabouts. What was so hilarious (not) to me is that this - or something of the same ilk - happened to me ... only in, like, 2002.

Yes, as hard as it is to believe, I one day came into the office I had been running efficiently to find a new guy there, who was introduced to me as the "Chief Administrative Officer." And since I did payroll, I knew he was being paid twice as much as was I.

Heh. I had to prop him up ... How far we've come, huh? And by "we," I mean both sexes.

It's a great series, though ... engrossing and disturbing. I didn't realize so many people smoked in the early 60s, but then I remembered both my parents smoked (although I don't remember that much alcohol consumption).

It's also cool to see dresses like the ones my mother used to wear.

Check it out, if you haven't already.

Lying and satire and why did McCain kiss Palin?

I'm getting a lot of fodder for posts off Oprah.com, via CNN.com. (I'm not sure what that relationship is all about, but who cares?)

This week's entry is a piece by one Lisa Kogan, who, it appears, is from Detroit. That does not make me predisposed to endorse her position, although I think she's a clever writer.

From the very headline "Lies are good for family and friends," you knew there was going to be trouble.

The bottom line is this: Life is short, time is precious, and I don't want to spend Saturday night watching my friend, the would-be actress, do a walk-on in "Tartuffe." It's not that I don't love my friend, and it's not that I don't love "Tartuffe" (okay, that's a lie, nobody actually loves "Tartuffe"). It's just that I reserve Saturday night for slathering my reptilelike feet in Vaseline Intensive Care as my daughter shampoos her Polly Pocket doll in the toilet.

Aside from the alleged lying (we don't know if this is just her using creative license to be humorous; see below) to her child that Toys "R" Us is only open when her (author's) parents are in town, I find advocating lying to your family/friends to get out of attending something that relates directly to them to be fairly hideous.

Friendship is about support and sure, you may have better things to do, like soaking your reptilelike feet, but what about when you want your friend/family member to read your new book, for instance, and provide feedback?

"Sorry, I have to groom my parrot, and it takes up the whole weekend!"

Fibbing is a fairly accepted means of preserving people's feelings, but usually it's done to save the person from hurt, not because you're an unsupportive smartass.

But then - maybe it's all a joke. I know people can't tell when I'm joking on here.

I once wrote on here in response to a reader who thought maybe he had offended me with a comment, that I had resolved my issues with him by kicking my cat around the room.

I have never kicked my cat, at least not intentionally (he will get under my feet anytime he thinks canned food is is in offing).

Should I have to explain that?

I usually write stuff and post it on here to inform, but sometimes it's to provoke people to think about something. I'm not trying to change the world, I'm just offering the proverbial food for thought.

And I've learned so much from comments. You know, like that because I rent I'm less than human - stuff like that.

I'm kidding!

Should I have to explain the post (here) about John McCain kissing Sarah Palin after her speech at the Republican convention? I could just as well have said, "How sweet, he kissed her. Men are always planting one on a woman's cheek in a professional situation - and how cute is that?"

OK, that second sentence reeks of sarcasm. Clearly, I was being serious in that post. I have never had anyone kiss me before, during, or after an interview.

But I did once have a boss/editor-in-chief who kissed me (and almost every other woman in the office) whenever he got the chance.

Palin clearly did not appreciate it, and I notice that yesterday, there were a lot of "man hugs," but no kisses from McCain (at least that I saw).

McCain could have simply hugged her, like the men do, and moved on. It's not even as if they are old buddies.

Kissing Lieberman would have made more sense.

Blogging, part III

I was just reading Ari Herzog's blog and clicked on a link at the end of his most recent post (as of this writing, anyway). The link I clicked on was "blogger in a post-literate society," which led me to all kinds of pieces speculating about blogging and whether it is journalism and so on.

But what I got most out of it all (aside from the fact that I never have considered myself a "journalist" and Bob Gould and I talked about that when I met him; he did not, either), was the privacy angle and ones personal life being out there, for all to see.

I've had a couple of people now question why I put something so personal as the post about my uncle on my blog. I replied to the last person, "If it helped just one person, it was worth it."

Not that it is/was any skin off my nose, at the time. I told my mother about my experience, and because it stopped, I assumed that something was said. But in the long run, it didn't stop because no one wanted to openly talk about it, myself included. But I was just a kid.

And then, the other day, I felt I had to write the 'apologetic' post as a followup. I felt worse about that post than about the original post, although I'm not sorry I recounted the good things I remembered about my uncle.

My younger siblings did not experience any of those things, although my sisters did inherit the Barbie sports car. (Because I am the product of my mother's first marriage, my next sibling is 9 years younger than I. My mother remarried when I was 7 years old.)

I could have written the post as a third-person account, I suppose, but I always think first-person accounts have more impact.

So .... Why is everything such a secret?

I remember when my youngest sister had her first child, she felt like she was a failure as a mother because it was a struggle to get my niece to breast feed at first.

As it turned out, this is a common problem. Babies have to be 'trained' to breast feed. Where was this ever portrayed on TV/movies, or written about in books preparing one to be a first-time mother? My sister is not an uninformed person, she reads a lot, but yet, she did not know this.

Neither did a friend of mine, who more recently went through the same thing after she had her first child. I told her about my sister having the same 'problem,' and my friend felt better about herself (and the child).

And it is an embarrassment, to say the least, to a mother to think that she, and she alone, is incapable of completing a task that is widely considered to be automatic.

It was on an Internet forum that I read a complete list of the signs of pre-menopause, beyond hot flashes and irritability. I had thought I was dying (which, by the way, was in the past the impetus for numerous women actually killing themselves). This was after I purchased 3 books on the subject, none of which were the least informative and were pushing hormone replacement meds.

Someone else recently asked me, "Why don't you write about menopause?"

Good question. Back at my last place of employment (not the Current), I said to a young, male co-worker who had just got engaged, "Please don't hate or resent Sarah when she gets to menopause." That wasn't my experience, but I know it's the experience of other women. (He looked at me like I was nuts, by the way.)

So yeah, if there are people out here in the blogosphere who are writing stuff who can help with even the seemingly smallest of issues that no one seems inclined to talk about, then I say more power to us all.

Knowledge is power; sharing is good.

Some self-examination

So ... if Gloria Steinem had been reading my blog, and reading how I let that guy at the garage chastise me, she would have slapped my silly face, figuratively speaking.

Most of her talk was about, of course, sexism. And racism. And how the two have to be uprooted together.

I don't know what combination of motives led that man to think he could talk to me like that, or what made that girl-editor think so as well, but (aside from snoozing on the couch since about 5 p.m.) I've been giving it some hard thought.

In addition to inspiring me with her strength and her compassion, Steinem also laid me open to scrutiny - of myself, by myself. I would guess I'm a person who lashes out with written words rather than those spoken.

But I'm not entirely sure that's fair play.

I suddenly recall once being angry at this man I was seeing and writing a short story of a fictional nature about what made me so angry. He was the main character in this work. I handed it to him, he took it away with him - and never spoke to me again, except as he needed to since his Lotus was parked in my garage.

For all those years I didn't write, I had anxiety attacks and was approaching high blood pressure. One needs to keep healthy, doesn't one?

Me and Gloria Steinem (barely)

Unfortunately, this is as close as I got to Gloria Steinem (that's not me in the photo). Due to various mishaps and miscommunications, the mag for which I covered the story never got to schedule a few minutes with her.

I found out the same time I was snapping some pics that I could have, if we had ... oh, well, let's just say we did not get the correct contact info.

I don't know what I would have asked her that she did not cover in her talk.

"Hey, Ms. Steinem, how about them Celtics?"

Doesn't she look great for a 74-year-old?

I have never been a raging feminist (although I do believe in the cause), and I admit I've never closely followed Ms. Steinem's career, but I still got all teary-eyed when she walked onto the stage.

Other than the speech, it's been a dismal day. Triple-D and I (she handles sponsorships for the Commonwealth Institute and was the one who arranged for me to attend) struck out from Plum Island at 5:45 a.m. The breakfast was scheduled to start at 7:30.

Wow, I've rarely been in traffic so bad. I don't know if it was the rain or what, but we got there at barely 8 a.m. Of course, we did take a little of the scenic route.

So Ms. S told some jokes, spoke a lot about how the Democratic primary is going (noting it was a historic day) and was part of a Q&A with Channel 4 news anchor Lisa Hughes. It was all filmed, so I expect it will be on the news.

'Big' man tells off irate customer (me)

I've really run the gamut of emotions today.

Early on I was furious. I got my car back from the service garage yesterday afternoon and by the time I left for City Council, there was something else wrong with it. This has happened one too many times for comfort.

I rarely 'lose it' when dealing with another person, especially a virtual stranger, but I sort of lost it this morning. I did not yell, because I don't rarely yell (except at the computer), but I made it quite clear that I was not happy and that if I wasn't made happy, things would start appearing in print and/or on this blog.

I know this was not good. The only other time I can remember using my writing as a weapon was also over car repairs, but with another garage and over another car.

So later in the day the guy who runs the garage called me and told me I could pick up my car. I went on over and he sat me down like I was a little kid and told me off. Oddly enough, this kind of thing doesn't make me angry. This is one situation in which I am not reactive.

I apologized like a good little girl, the apology was accepted, and I vowed to myself never again to give him MY business.

(Even though he made the car better for free. I later realized that he had had my car keys in front of him on his desk the whole time. I find that more threatening than anything he said.)

It was the same situation as when the editor of the Current sat me down, talked to me like I was a little kid, and I also just smiled and apologized. Then I turned in my letter of resignation the next morning.

Not that this garage needs more business, as the head mechanic (who was also present and was the one I had spoken to earlier) informed me. Well, he should be happy because they're not going to get it.

So what I wonder is, would they have done that if I were a man? I doubt it.