CHILDCARE

I might have told some of you that I was basically raised by this insane, super-Catholic family up until high school. I stayed in their home more than either of my parents' and they played a much bigger role in my schooling, religious upbringing, etc. Which still wasn't much of a role: they kept me in their basement watching tv whenever I was over. It's no mystery why I was sick all the time and why I was afraid of people as a kid. Since they had cable, I didn't mind at the time; I thought this was all normal.

A mother and a father who absolutely loathe each other, three miserable daughters – the youngest of whom is around 5 years older than me – and an adopted son who cut off all contact when he turned 18. I'd say only the oldest daughter is some semblance of sane and even that's a stretch. The family had two dogs throughout the time I was under their care, both were neglected. All families have problems, but how many scream and cry daily about how much they hate each other while their dogs sit in piss-filled cages?

Why am I writing about this?

THIS IS WHY THERE MUST BE AFFORDABLE CHILDCARE!!!!!
In order for a household to qualify as some kind of childcare facility, a certain number of children must stay there. My mom took care of 5+ kids daily for a year, so her house qualified and was routinely inspected by officials. Because this family took care of only one or two at a time, it didn't qualify. My mom couldn't afford real daycare, thus she stuck me with these terrible people.

Femme Day

I decided to come in to work on Sunday all femmed out. Headband, makeup, dangly earrings, bra, skirt, hoes and heels. I even freaked myself out:



This was partly as a social experiment...but mostly to keep my coworkers on their toes. And if I made anyone squirm, all the better!



The last time I had dressed all up like this was for my old job, canvassing for WI Environment. As my regular, androgynous/butchy self, people were very rude and mean to me. When I was feminine, people were super-nice...and then my boss reprimanded me for not having "worked this hard" previous days. I absolutely hated the entire experiment. But this time, it was on my terms and my job didn't rely on it.



Yes, I took one of THOSE pictures.
Anyway, normally, straight guys will give me the nod in passing and straight women (excluding the dense middle-aged trophy wives) know better than to gab with me. Sunday, the same kind of guys were giving me dopey grins and the same women tried to gush all over everything with me. In short, people were much nicer...which I appreciate but I don't want any of that crap if I haven't done anything to earn it!



It felt so much better to be back to my abnormal self the next day. I don't get how nearly half the population manages to do that every day.

Detroit Muddy Buddy 2010

This race was my first and, due to over a month of extreme weather and longer work shifts, I was grossly unprepared in my training. I was, however, very excited. My cousins, Scott and Don, had raced together in Elgin's Muddy Buddy the previous two years and Scott had raced in Detroit's once before with his local Buddy, Mike. Scott and Mike, this year, raced together as the Grubby Hubbies while Don and I teamed up as Team Ripley. My two goals were to finish and to be coherent – having seen how wiped out Scott and Don were after their first Muddy Buddy, this was an important goal!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Muddy Buddy: there's you and then your Buddy with a bike between you. One person bikes most of the way, the other runs most of the way; you switch who has the bike at each obstacle. You start about a minute and a half apart, the bikers before the runners, and you have to finish together. Right before the finish line is a mud pit, about twenty feet long, through which you have to crawl on your belly. There are several locations of this race throughout the country, each one hosting the race once a year and it is possible to take a road trip to compete at each location in one year.
Detroit's Muddy Buddy course was roughly six miles long in a hilly park. Don and I had agreed that I would be the biker, he the runner. I was set to bike the first, third, and final legs; this meant that I would run the two longest and roughest legs. Wonderful. Having eaten an apple and a Cliff bar, I felt ready without feeling weighed down or hungry.
The men's pairs went first, then co-eds, then women's, and the Beast group – pairs with combined weights of 400+ pounds – last. Waiting to begin with Scott's bike, which had tried to maim me when I tested it out the night before, and beginning the slow and crowded trek, I was very nervous. Scott had said that a racer can lose the excitement after getting away from the cheering fans, but I actually found it to be a relief. Nobody could see me take another dive now! Quickly, all the bikers in my group split into the really hard-core racers and those of us who were trying to pace ourselves. You can guess into which I went. Most of this leg was paved road and flat grassy areas, a good way to start off.
The first obstacle was an 8ft tall rock climbing wall with a rope ladder down the other side. The wall was remarkably easy, but rather difficult for the big guy in front of me. I tried to go down the rope ladder facing out, not wanting to turn around on top of the wall, but attendants were yelling at us not to; later, I found out a guy had jumped the wall earlier and tangled up, painfully, in the ladder. Ouch!
After each obstacle were cups of water and these were much appreciated. When we had checked in at some Michigan sporting supply store the day before, we invested in Jelly Belly's Sports Beans. These jelly beans have some magical energy juice in them and nomming one with a cup of cool water at every obstacle greatly helped!
Then was my first running leg, the longest leg of the whole race. This was terrible. Had I eaten more, I would have upchucked all over. I found out just how unprepared I was and struggled to pace myself. Passing by other racers and going through changes in terrain kept me going. Finally, I reached the balance beam obstacle: easy but time-consuming.
Getting back on the bike was refreshing and I flew by! I managed to keep a good pace for the first half of this leg, then struggled to maintain it. By the time I finally made it to the third obstacle, I was dying and Don was waiting. Sorry, Don. This obstacle was a crawl under a rope net.
I paced myself much better on the next running leg and I recovered my energy. This was by far the roughest area yet with hill after hill after hill; I'm really glad that I didn't have to bike this part! After the halfway point of this leg, I was feeling good and quickening up – from there on was my best.
The fourth obstacle was “The Inflatables”: a 30ft tall, inflated slide with a rope ladder up one side. Again, the only thing that slowed me was the same big guy in front of me! After sliding down the other side, I leaped back on the bike and soared the <2 miles to the mud pit and the finish line! With more paved road and grass, I was feeling great!
Don had been waiting about five minutes for me, much better than I had been dreading and better than how long Scott had been waiting for Mike. Don was expecting me to be dragging and ready to fall over, but I insisted that we sprint to the mud pit, I was exhilarated! The pit was refreshing and pretty easy after getting into a half-crawling, half-swimming routine. Finally, we got out of the pit and passed the finish line!!
This park had a lake, which felt fantastic. Experienced racers had warned me that, no matter how much scrubbing I could do, mud would still be everywhere. They were right. Mud, mud, and more mud. Finally, when I was as clean as I was going to get, I partook in the beer garden and relaxed in the sun.
Later, Don and I found out that we took one hour and eight minutes. Sorry, Don. I met my goals, though, and had a great time!

Dyke March

Yesterday was Dyke March Chicago, the second one I've attended - the first in 2006. Since I have to work during THE Pride Parade, I went to this.

The march itself was fantastic. A few hundred people enthusiastically chanting in political, semi-hipster gear. The '06 march was rather different: whiter, younger, wealthier, more exclusive/separatist, more academic. Trans was not a part of it at all. This year's march was much more trans-centric and diverse (although it was still predominantly white and young). So that was great!!

A lot of things went wrong, though, with my experience, and a couple of these things were on behalf of the march organizers...

- it took me nearly 2 hours to get there. Not only did the march happen in a very inconvenient place for car-free north-siders, but the CTA fails at everything. The organizers obviously can't help that. The south side was chosen because it's "untraditional", and that particular area was chosen because it's busy and a great public space...that doesn't ameliorate that the site was miles away from the L and the bus service is shit.
- the march was very late. I was over a half hour late because of the shitty transportation and the march still had not started by the time I got there.
- I've had a falling-out with one of the groups involved in the march. Nothing big, just personality clashes that could have been avoided had the leaders been inclusive in practice, not just in theory. It was just unpleasant to be with those people again, only one of whom acknowledged that I was there (one of the people who was always super-nice to everyone).
- the post-march rally was...cliquey. This issue ties in with the one above.

Moral of the story: I spent 4 hours traveling today to participate in a late, great march and then be reminded that my company isn't wanted. Fantastic

We Need a Hero

I've been paying more attention to non-queer news lately. The oil spill has been all up in everyone's face 24/7 for many weeks with no end in sight. And now there's the McCrystal issue. It's not pretty. Obama's approval rating was already low, neither of these situations have helped. Nobody's saying that he's handled the oil spill as poorly as Bush "handled" Katrina (ok maybe Glenn Beck, but his bile doesn't count), but he isn't a hero about it either. Two messes on top of broken promises aren't making the 2012 election hopeful.

A lot of people are calling for a Teddy Roosevelt president, not this current Calvin Coolidge. Most people don't realize that Teddy Roosevelt was a horrible bigot, but their point is clear: we need an active hero. Obama was that hero for unprivileged people the world over up until shortly after Inauguration Day when NOTHING HAPPENED.

It seems to me that Obama knows what's at risk through his presidency and that he's so afraid of making a mistake that he just won't do anything.

Women's Place: Kitchen, Boardroom and D-cup

I apologize for having been gone, my computer and my internet have been fussy for the past many weeks.

The Atlantic Magazine, Bloomburg Businesweek and Newsweek have all had major articles about Western women in the past couple weeks. The first that I read was Newsweek and it was about Sarah Palin *VOMIT*, mostly that she's gaining a huge following of upper-middle class, Christian, straight, white women. These women are a formidable political, religious and economic force. The second I read was Bloomburg Businessweek's article on La Barbe, France's political Guerrilla Girls. Finally, The Atlantic has a looooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggg article about women outperforming men in school, workplace, and the changing economy.

These three major magazines claim that Western women are gaining more power than we ever have before.

In Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas, American women's current status as a media audience, social group, etc. is mulled over. Plastic surgery is at an all-time high, reality shows and the general media depict women as catty bimboes, and the sex double standard is both more powerful and reaching younger girls.

According to all of this, women are a force to be reckoned with...as long as we're white, at least middle class, heterosexist, able-bodied, Christian, and hot.

As women become more powerful, the only way we can battle these ridiculous standards is through sisterhood. For those of you who don't like such a lovey-dovey word, think of SOLIDARITY

Living with Catholicism

A few months ago, I read "Catholicism in America" and, subsequently, most of the pieces of my Catholic childhood came together. Now that so much makes sense (the teachers/clergy/administrators discouraged questions and encouraged blind obedience because they thought that Vatican II never should have happened...knowing the long history, this is a logical conclusion), a lot of my anger and bitterness is gone. I pity Catholicism more and it's easier to understand wtf they're doing...except that the sex scandal will never make sense.

I've come to accept that, having spent 18 years in Catholic/Jesuit schools and coming from a very Catholic family, I'll probably always have a soft spot - or at least a few scars - for Catholicism. Sometimes, I translate catechism, the hierarchy of the Church, what they do and why to those without this long background. I'll probably never understand why Catholicism seems so alien to others (it doesn't make any logical sense to me either and it makes me uncomfortable, but it has a semblance of home)...but now I can say "Protestantism is very alien to me because it's so different from Catholicism. I expect certain things to be there and done in a certain way; without those things, Protestantism seems empty and bland...which is really ridiculous because Protestantism makes MORE SENSE to me!!"

With the current sex scandal and this shitty pope, the Church itself isn't changing THAT much but the way people (in the developed world. Don't even get me started on how successful the Church has been in brainwashing third world countries) approach Catholicism. When I read articles, particularly the recent Time magazine article, I wonder if people without 2 decades of Catholicism can read between the lines like I do.

Here: the reason why the Church has been so slow to respond - and to not really respond anyway - is because, without millions of semi-obedient people the world over, it won't exist. If things continue in this direction set by the sex scandal, the Church will have only its history and the poorest people in the world to support it...and why would they want them?! Once Catholicism came to the Americas, it shifted to rely more on foreign laymen than on clergy alone. Now, they may have to shift back in a world that doesn't have the same respect for clergy.