Monday, May 10, 2010

(Won't You Take Me to) Crazy Town

I'm guest-posting today over in Crazy Town (funny how I feel right at home there). Notice how I said that all nonchalant-like, and not as if I'm hopping up and down with barely repressed excitement at my VERY FIRSTEST GUEST POST EVER (she's probably betting no one really reads blogs on Mondays.) I'm hoping the different setting will make my whining and ranting sound fresh and rejuvenated. Hope -- the thing with feathers that perches in the soul (Emily Dickinson). And then gets blown away by a strong wind and falls in a mud puddle and gets ripped to pieces by rabid bunnies (me).

Friday, May 7, 2010

Sense and Insensibility

Yesterday I was in my daughter's class for another Scientists in the Schools session. So far I've done Insects twice for both kids in J.K. (playdough bugs, head, thorax, abdomen -- I think we still have one somewhere), Forces with Angus in grade three (physics - hard) and Pulleys and Levers for Angus last term (in French -- hard). Smarter than a fifth grader? Well, yesterday was The Five Senses with Eve's grade one class, and I hit that one out of the park, but everyone from the second grade up can pretty much kick my butt all over town.

I had the Hearing Station. Did you know that animals who live in the desert generally have big ears because they lose body heat through their ears and it keeps them cooler, and animals who live in the arctic have smaller ears because ipso facto ergo hence? Go ahead, tell me you knew that, I won't believe you. The kids didn't know it either, so they're still not smarter than me. We looked at blown-up pictures of animal and insect ears and tried to guess which animal they belonged to (why the hell would they put a shrew in? You know a lot of six or seven-year-olds who are familiar with shrews?). We talked about sign language and learned how to spell everyone's name (Eve was easy. Marianna and Demitrianna gave us all a hand cramp). We experimented with me saying 'hello' to them with their hands in front of their ears and behind, and with small cups and larger cups with the bottoms cut out over their ears (which for some reason made all the boys say 'I come in peace').

Later on in the van on our way back to school for Eve's choir concert she was trying to tell Angus about it. "It was about the five senses. Hear, smell... see..... um, see, touch, taste.... um....see, hear, smell..." finally she said "I figured it out. It's everything on your face, plus your hand."

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Uglification and Derision: Outrage, Part 1

I just read this over at Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia's blog (I read it on a recommendation and tried not to love it, because I'm a contrary and perverse creature, but I failed. It's lovable, dammit). Apparently a St. Louis sex blogger who blogged anonymously and whose blog mentioned nothing about her job, was fired because her boss somehow came across her blog and was disgusted. That's it -- you're fired because you blog about sex and I find that disgusting.

'Scuse me? No, really, EXCUSE ME? Yeah. I know. The internet is forever. Anything you say online can and will be used to flagellate you by any asshole who comes across it in the present and future. And if your boss fires you for a stupid-ass reason that doesn't happen to be a stupid-ass reason that falls under various categories of discrimination, you have to take it up the (butt-plugged or not) ass (yeah, that's a little crude for me, but it's germane to the plot so I'm leaving it in). And I can't say I find it all that surprising. A lot of Americans, and Canadians, and Corporate America (and Canada) especially have a long rich tradition of hysterical repression and denigrating people who stand out, who push the borders of 'polite' discourse, who say words like 'vagina' in public. I just want to go on record saying I think it's... what's the word... DUMB.

Some people think the internet leads people to share too much. I think the people who share too much have always shared too much. The fact that they now have this medium to do it with and now they can share too much with waaaay more people? Yes, it does bear thinking about. But the hysteria on the part of the shared-with needs to be addressed too. Hey, everyone who's offended by sex blogs, or things people say on Facebook: there's this nifty thing you can do that should help -- it's called looking away.

A while ago there was a big kerfuffle about something a nurse had written on Facebook. A doctor had written in her status update that she was sleepy and wished the baby she was delivering would come soon. Her friend, a nurse, responded something admittedly crude and off-putting, like 'oh fuck it, just cut her'. Someone else who was the doctor's friend took great offense and described her own horrific c-section, which resulted in the nurse reacting defensively, blah blah blah. Some bloggers took up the cause, urging that someone should report her to her hospital and/or try to have her fired.

Was the comment inappropriate? The definition of 'appropriate' is 'especially suitable or compatible'. In the context of discussing a woman's labour and delivery? Pretty f*ckin' inappropriate. In the context of Facebook, a vast internet playland of frivolousness and frippery? Things become a little more slippery. Yes, the comment was stupid and offensive. People say stupid and offensive things all the time. Should she have been fired for a stupid, offensive comment that she made while not in her workplace? If she made the comment at a party or in a bar and was overheard, would people be grouping together planning to report her to her boss? Do we just ban all people with any propensity for making stupid offensive comments from the internet? Is it free speech, or is it only free speech for people who don't regularly make giant ass-hats of themselves when they open their mouths (speaking as one who has regularly been asshattish)?

To be continued....

Happy Mother's Day -- now shut up and smile

I'm still not sure about writing this post. It seems stupid that I feel like I have to write this post. But it's been spinning around like a nasty little sharp-toothed spinny thing in my head for a few days, particularly in the shower, and shaving my legs is unpleasant enough without the nasty spinny stuff, and hey -- Crazy Mayor Lady asked for a Mayhem guest post, so where better to spin off my stuff?

I read this article a few days ago. I read Suburban Bliss long before I read any other blogs, and I had heard a bit about Michele McBee, who is apparently just the epitome of churlish, venomous, ungrammatical, unimaginative bitcherness (when bitterness marries bitchiness). I don't read Suburban Bliss all that often anymore, not because it's not every bit as funny and real as it's always been, but because Melissa Summers is a total success who doesn't need or notice my readership or comments, and I prefer to spend the majority of my blog-reading time on people for whom I am part of a community instead of merely an audience. When I have time, I catch up on it. She's funny and truthful and a little wacky and loves her kids and finds motherhood rewarding, difficult and sometimes overwhelming. Because of this, thousands of people adore her blog, and a few people feel justified in telling her that she's a neglectful, ineffective, alcoholic mother who shouldn't have had children. In the article, Michele McBee says bloggers like Summers make motherhood 'a horrible, nasty experience', and 'so much harder than it has to be'. She 'worries about some of these kids', so she very helpfully and graciously offers her negative opinions on Summers' personal appearance and that of her kids, and questions her husband's sexuality -- you know, to point out how motherhood is easy and to help the children.

I know, I know -- why get mad at stupid people? Why waste my breath trying to refute the stupid vituperative ramblings of stupid people? Maybe they can't help being stupid. Maybe they're lacking some crucial gene for intelligence and we should be holding a telethon to raise money for smartness transfusions. The problem is, it's not just stupid people that are always ready and willing to chuck sh*t at mothers. There was a column I read in my local paper a few years ago, which I think I've mentioned before, because it really struck a nerve for me. It was a smug male columnist mocking one of those emails that periodically gets sent around, in which the salaries for various jobs that mothers do are added up to some fairly large number and everyone's supposed to stop for a minute and realize all the stuff mothers do for free. Yeah, it's a little cheesy, but as someone currently involved in doing all that sh*t for free, it's nice to see. This columnist made some conciliatory remarks about the fact that motherhood might be a little tough, and we should respect mothers, but 'surely not based on the putative value of diapering and sandwich-making'. The fact that he used the words 'surely' and 'putative' only made me want to kick him in the slats even more.

Motherhood is hard. Motherhood is lifelong and constant and yes, it is intensely joyful and tremendously rewarding and sometimes just downright enjoyable, but it is also incredibly freaking difficult. If it's not? YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!!!! Michele McBee has asked Melissa Summers why she had kids. Why did we have kids if we weren't going to bliss out on every single moment? Um, because we don't live in Cartoon F*cking Fairyland where little birds carry away the dirty diapers and mice wearing little clothes sweep up the house and scrub the toilets? Nobody cares about the value of diapering and sandwich-making? That's right, they don't -- AND THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT HARD, YOU BIG STUPID STUPIDHEAD! Because no matter what Big Stuff is going on -- medical issues, bullying problems, drug problems, legal problems -- all the small, annoying stuff still has to get done. By the mothers.

According to Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living. But if you're a mother daring to do a little examining of your mothering life, be prepared for people to say a great number of things that essentially boil down to: Nobody forced you to have kids, so don't whine about it. I know a fair number of people who have chosen to have kids. Not a single one of them wanted kids but decided to forego them for the good of the planet -- some of them imply that this was a factor in their decision every now and then, and every now and then I imply that they're full of sh*t. We decide a lot of things in life -- where to live, what to work at, what colour to dye our hair. Sometimes we complain about them.

I don't mean to suggest that this is more than a few stupid people or smart people with localized stupidity in this area. Most of the bloggers I know and read and comment on and see commenting on my blog are wonderful, supportive, understanding people. It can't be overestimated how helpful it is to know that you're not the only one who gets tired of cleaning up the same mess or answering the same question, or loves the sound of your children's voices ninety-eight percent of the time and the other two percent of the time finds them akin to the sound of a pterodactyl mating with a leafblower. And that's why it's so out of line for people to equate voicing negative things about motherhood to being a bad mother. Because if we can't talk about them, then things will get really ugly.

People slag celebrities. People slag politicians. If you get any kind of famousness thing going on, people are going to judge you, and gossip about you, and try to cash in on your reputation by riding your coattails, whether they're flattering you or vomiting their acidic bile in the comments section of your blog. In a weird way, I guess Melissa Summers could consider being targeted by Michele McBee and the other harpies a sign of success. I'm so not famous, I feel pretty safe. But anyone attacking a mother for hinting that motherhood is anything but one hundred percent fabulous one hundred percent of the time is attacking me. And beware the wrath of me -- I know a LOT of uncomplimentary adjectives.

Am now going to fire this off to Tracy and trust she will spice it up with some funny cartoons. Thanks for the loan of the soapbox. Hope you all had a great mother's day with your nearly-perfect children.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

That about sums it up

Eve and Angus eating fortune cookies.

Eve: 'Can you read me your fortune?'

Angus: 'You are kind-hearted, hospital...hospitable, cheerful and well-liked.'

(me snickering as I manage not to add 'in bed'.)

Eve: 'What does that even mean?'

Angus: 'It means I'm awesome.'

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Why I only dated football and hockey players.

Spring baseball starts tomorrow. Eve plays Monday, Angus plays Tuesday, they both play Wednesday. (Crap, I shouldn't be blogging, I should be making freezer meals. Oh well.) Angus is also glued to televised baseball every chance he gets. ("What happened? Someone hit a two-run homer? Dad, (insert name) made a great catch!") I was watching with him for a few minutes while I ate my yogurt. The pitcher threw the ball, then turned towards the camera and... did some stuff.

Me: "Oh, nice."

Angus: "I know, good strike huh?"

Me: "Actually I was referring to the fact that he spat while the camera was on him. Directly after grabbing his crotch. Classy."

Angus (indignantly): "Hey, he's got a jock on, remember."

Me: "Fair enough. And the spitting?"

Angus: "Umm... that's to keep his mouth warm. For yelling at the umpire."

And I thought French immersion was bad for having us speak two different languages.

Season in the Sun

 I am a little sad for various reasons right now, but I do want to gratefully acknowledge that we had a fantastic summer. Angus didn't c...