January 2006 Archives

I just learned that Keira Knightley got an Oscar nomination for her insipid portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in prd & prjdc! The movie as a whole got FOUR nominations, including art direction (yeah, it was pretty, but that doesn't make up for the lousy script), costume design (again, the clothes were very pretty, but they were NOT authentic--there was one gown Caroline Bingley wore that, while fabulous, was a thoroughly contemporary design), and "music written for a motion picture" (can't say the music made an impression on me).

I shouldn't gripe, I suppose: after all, even though it's watered-down, simplified, prettified Austen.... No, I should gripe. It's a mediocre version of a GREAT novel, and I rather hope Keira Knightley loses.

As I mentioned a million years ago (OK, it was five and a half months, but in blog time, that is the equivalent of a million years), my friend and colleague Dr. Sweet Baby Jesus introduced me to this game we call Mellencamp (if you want to know why, you have to read the original post), where you take two basically equal and/or frequently paired things, and decide which one you prefer.

If you're playing this game properly, you wouldn't ask someone, "Which do you prefer: a full-body massage, or a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?" Rather, you'd ask, "Which do you prefer: Swedish massage, or shiatsu?" Opting for one does not necessarily mean that you are dismissing the other as thoroughly vile. For instance, I prefer raspberries to strawberries, but that doesn't mean I don't like strawberries--I love them, in fact. I just love raspberries a teeny bit more.

I prefer

sunset to sunrise
questions to answers
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
skirts to trousers
pedicures to manicures
mountains to the ocean
the west coast to the east coast
the desert to the tropics
Arizona to the other 49 states
Tucson to Phoenix
saguaro to any other cactus, though I also really like those purple prickly pears
Jane Austen to the Brontes
Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman
meticulously produced rock music like Pink Floyd to punk
new wave to grunge
Christmas to New Year's
baths to showers
water skiing to snow skiing
aisle seat to window
raspberries to strawberries
chocolate to any other form of candy (though I like a heck of a lot of candy)
wild berry skittles to regular
pecans to walnuts
Mexican food to Italian
tortilla chips to potato chips
Coke to Pepsi
vodka to gin
beer to wine
margaritas to martinis
sobriety to drunkenness (I grew up a teetotaler, and while I have learned to appreciate the occasional, decent booze buzz, I'd still rather have my thinking unclouded and my motor skills sharp)
coffee to tea
decaf to regular (because caffeine really screws with my sleep)
hyacinths and crocuses to chrysanthemums and asters
maple leaves to the leaf of any other tree (having lived in someplace that has sugar maples, I can now understand why the Canadians put a maple leaf on their flag--they're just really cool)
deep colors--especially greens, reds and blues--to earth tones
cats to dogs (I really love dogs, but I find cats require less maintenance, so I prefer them as pets)
solitude to crowds
jacks to tiddly winks
jump rope to hop scotch
seeing my acupuncturist to seeing my MD
Elizabeth Tudor to Mary Stewart
Gene Kelly to Fred Astaire
Bette Davis to Joan Crawford
Buffy the Vampire Slayer to its spinoff, Angel
Spike to Angel
People who call themselves feminists to people who, for whatever reason, don't
Curious skeptics engaged with the mystery and even godless heathen to the religiously devout and orthodox of any ilk
holly to ivy

OK, there are a few pairings where one choice is obviously right and the other is obviously wrong--like ANYONE actually prefers Angel to Spike, or tiddly winks to jacks? (I really used to love jacks. Someone with children between the ages of, say, five and 11, tell me: do children still play them? Can you even buy them?)

I tag any and every blogger who reads this to make and post a list of your own.

It seems there is more than one person in Texas who has figured out that PATRIARCHY IS TO BLAME.

Here's a story from Women's e News about a new program to rehabilitate batterers. Unlike many other programs designed to treat batterers, which "have typically looked at how batterers use violence to control their victims--or counseled them on how to manage 'out of control' anger--staffers at Travis [County Sheriff Department in Austin, Texas] say this program assumes that violence arises from a decision based on deeply-held beliefs of male dominance, not a flash of 'uncontrollable' emotion."

Instead, batterers are shown that they have choices. In group meetings, batterers "are led step by step to recall and re-enact what they felt, thought and did as domestic conflicts escalated and turned violent. Often, [George Jurand, coordinator of the San Francisco sheriff's department's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project] said, the offenders can be expected to voice the idea that, as men, they should be dominant. This 'male-role belief system' is then linked to its destructive consequences: arrest, imprisonment or loss of family."

An important feature of the program is having offenders listen to the stories of survivors of violence, who describe the terror and pain such violence inflicts on women and their children.

Classes are also taught and workshops led by men who once were batterers themselves, and focus making batterers accountable for their decisions to use violence. The program shows significant results: data reported in 2002 showed that "compared with offenders who did not participate, [program] participants showed an 80-percent steeper decline in repeat violence after 16 weeks. Those spending 12 weeks in the program showed a 51-percent steeper decline and those in the program for four weeks had a 42-percent steeper decline in repeat violence."

Well, imagine that: teaching men who commit violence against women that IT'S WRONG, THAT THE MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VIOLENCE AND THEY CAN STOP IT, actually works.

The Happy Feminist posted an entry about words and phrases she doesn't like, one of which is panties. I also hate that word, but I quit using it when I quit wearing conventional underwear and started wearing the temple garment, or Mormon sacred underwear.

This is a strange thing a lot of non-Mormons don't know anything about, and I've been accused of making this up. I swear to God, I am not. Anyway, below is the explanation of garments I provide in my book, which is forthcoming god-only-knows when. (Supposedly my agent has it at a couple of presses now.)

***

Because of the Fall of Adam and Eve, I had to begin wearing special long white underwear known as the temple garment before I could go on a mission. The temple garment symbolizes the status of Adam and Eve before God after they ate of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Upon discovering their nakedness, Adam and Eve cover themselves with fig leaves, then hide from God when he visits the garden. When they finally come forward and confess, God first curses Adam and Eve, then replaces their flimsy fig leaf aprons with coats made from animal skins--which, as someone pointed out to me once, means that God had already introduced death into the garden, since he had the hides of dead animals to give Adam and Eve. It's those skins that the temple garment represent: a shield against primordial nakedness, a reminder of what can happen when you deceive or disobey God.

Here's the bit of satire I promised yesterday. This piece was originally published in The Sugar Beet, a website of Mormon satire, in 2002. I got in a spot of trouble for it--plenty of people couldn't understand why anyone would attack a document claiming that "that the disintegration of the family [caused by things like uppity women and gay people wanting to get married] will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets." But I still feel the attitudes I mock here deserve to be mocked.

You can still find the original version on the web if you want to go looking for it. The version below differs slightly from the earlier one: I've changed a sentence in the third paragraph because I am a compulsive fact-checker (that's one reason I had to leave the Mormon church: its facts don't check) and discovered that my original summary of McKinney's defense was incomplete, so I had to fix it.

(Salt Lake City, UT) October 11 was National Coming Out Day, a day on which gays and lesbians admit their sexual identity to themselves and others. In a show of support for the day, the Church issued a statement condemning homophobia. "Homophobia is un-Christlike," a spokesperson for the Church said. "We can't tolerate or condone violence against so-called gays and lesbians, even when they do something so heinous and disgusting as to insist that their perverse desires are actual parts of their eternal, god-given identities."

The spokesperson went on to say, "Remember, these people are sons and daughters of God, and are welcome as members of the church, as long as they do not imagine that they have any right to find happiness and companionship in a relationship with someone of their same sex, as God finds that utterly repugnant. We must do all we can to help these unfortunate people see that they are violating their divine natures, as well as the divine decrees of God, by ever imagining that there is nothing grotesque, obscene and evil about same-sex relationships. And pistol-whipping them and leaving them to die by the side of the road doesn't really help in that mission."

The mention of pistol-whipping was a reference to Matthew Wayne Shepard, a 21-year-old openly gay student at the University of Wyoming. On the night of October 6,1998, Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence on a remote highway in Wyoming, and left to die by several young people, one of whom, Aaron McKinney, was LDS. Shepard died of his injuries on October 12, 1998. McKinney did not deny that he kidnapped, robbed and beat Shepard, or that he pretended to be gay in order to lure Shepard into leaving with him; his defense was that he intended only to kidnap and rob Shepard, not to kill him, but flew into a rage when Shepard "fell" for the gay act and grabbed McKinney's genitals. McKinney was eventually convicted of felony murder. He received visits from home teachers up until the conviction.

Many members of the Church responded with support for the statement. "We shouldn't kill those 'so-called gays and lesbians,' to use a phrase you hear at Church, even though it would do the world a lot of good to get rid of them once and for all," said Marjorie Kimball, 34, of Walnut Creek, California. "Have you ever walked down Castro Street in San Francisco? It's disgusting. But taking a gun and cleaning out the whole area really isn't what God intends, since he can just wait until they all die of AIDS and then send them straight to hell."

Mark Jefferson, 42, of Madison, Wisconsin, stated, "In a really liberal place like Madison, where you can end up being friends with people who are gay or lesbian and kind of grow to care about them before you even know certain things about them, it can be hard to keep in mind how wrong homosexuality really is. It's a good thing we have the Proclamation on the Family up in our house, to remind me 'that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.' It's kind of weird to realize that all the terrorist attacks and the impending war in Iraq are a result of efforts in Hawaii and California and Vermont to legalize gay marriage. But even though these people are bringing about Armageddon, we have to try to forgive them anyway and hope they go straight before it's too late."

A practicing, believing Mormon I've collaborated with on a couple of projects has posted something on his blog about how, although he doesn't think he's a homophobe because he has been friends with gay people and recently drank decaf with a gay man in his own kitchen, still, he's upset about Brokeback Mountain because

there's something about homosexuality that always makes me think of the Roman empire crumbling and stuff like that. It seems to come to a head pretty late in a civilization's decline, By the time it becomes prominent, I think it's equivalent to the bruises you start to see on a piece of overripe fruit. It represents a new, deeper level of decay.

He acknowledges that there are probably

many individuals for whom homosexuality does not seem like a choice. But I think there are as many or more people for whom homosexuality is an option but not a foregone conclusion (in other words, they're in the middle of that 6-point spectrum used to rank homo vs. hetero). I haven't seen [Brokeback Mountain] yet, but I think depictions like this that get people thinking about homosexuality will cause many to go ahead and explore it, whereas they probably never would've if society kept a better cap on it.

He goes on to conclude that

deep down, I'm alarmed. I see more bruises forming on the fruit. I think we're in trouble. To mix in another metaphor, compared to the heterosexual sexual revolution of the '60s, I think the gay movement is like crack cocaine next to pot, in terms of potential to ruin people's lives and upset the right balance of things. (emphasis added.)

Before discussing this further, I want to say that I'm sure there are many individuals for whom homophobia does not seem like a choice. But I think there are as many or more people for whom homophobia is an option but not a foregone conclusion (in other words, they're in the middle of that 6-point spectrum used to rank homophobia vs. tolerance). Having spent 26 years as a practicing Mormon and seen Mormon homophobia in action up close, I think the post by this guy is a perfect example of how religious doctrine that justifies homophobia will cause many people to go ahead and explore it, whereas they probably never would've if society kept a better cap on it.

The author of the post I quote here, for instance, probably started out as a two or a three--more tolerant than not. But years of indoctrination into the Mormon church have helped him become an advocate of one of the most dangerous threats to all humanity: ignorant intolerance dressed in the guise of righteous religion.

Reading the post upset me profoundly, because this is someone I work with, and not only is his message homophobic and bigoted, his logic sucks: he feels justified in announcing his conviction that the gay movement is extreme in its "potential to ruin people's lives and upset the right balance of things"; he expresses openly his dire fears and grievous worries that acceptance of homosexuality will hasten some sort of dangerous, dreadful moral decay--but he rejects the label of homophobe! And this despite the fact that homophobia means "an irrational fear of homosexuality and homosexuals." Given that he proclaims his uh, righteous fears of homosexuality's threat to virtuous, upstanding society, given how overwrought, paranoid and hyperbolic his fears are (what the hell is he doing invoking the fall of the Roman empire? I thought that had to do with putting an emperor in charge of the government, and with the fact that the Goths sacked the capital.... Then there's the fact that the Greeks accepted homosexuality, and they are, after all, the basis for what we in the Western world call civilization), he seems to fit the definition of a homophobe to a rigid, straight H--OK, he's not a virulent, rampaging homophobe, just a mild, meandering one, looking for rotten fruit in the garden of life, blaming the rot on others--god forbid he consider the possibility that HE and his beliefs are responsible for such things.

How can he fail to see that he is a homophobe? Why is he willing to embrace thoroughly homophobic attitudes, but not the label that goes with them? (I do wonder why people are afraid of being labeled a bigot, but not of actually being one. I also wonder why they aren't afraid to reveal such thoroughly inadequate thinking, so that they end up seeming not only bigoted, but unable to follow clear reason.)

I also found the post profoundly ironic, because one of the projects I worked with him on was The Sugar Beet, a website of Mormon satire modeled on The Onion. And when I wrote for the Sugar Beet, I got in a little trouble for a piece I produced to assuage some of the grief and shame I felt when I learned that Aaron McKinney, one of Matthew Shepard's murderers, had grown up Mormon and received officially sanctioned visits from representatives of the Mormon church up until his conviction--at which time the visits ceased and he got excommunicated, because you can't be a convicted felon and a practicing Mormon, any more than you can be an uncloseted homosexual and a practicing Mormon.

I've had people tell me--make that, I've had Mormons tells me--in all seriousness, that homosexuality is a sin akin to murder--and the treatment McKinney received pretty much demonstrates that, at least in the view of the Mormon church, that's true.

And omigod, it's not attitudes like that that will cause the end of civilization! It's not bigotry and greed and vicious illegal wars and wanton devastation of the environment that will destroy the United States--no, it's the fact that there are people in this country who think it's OK to choose a same-sex relationship.

Good god, that is so FUCKED UP.

I'll post the story from the Sugar Beet tomorrow.

It's been a very long time since I've posted a recipe, so here's one I make fairly often. It's incredibly easy--so easy, in fact, that it was one of the very first things I learned to make on my own, back around age 8 or so. Most cookie lovers have some sort of no-bake recipe but this one is extra yummy.

3 cups rolled oats
5 tbs cocoa
1/2 cup each chopped pecans, coconut and mini chocolate chips
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
6 tbs butter

Combine oats, cocoa, nuts, coconut and chocolate chips in bowl. Heat milk, sugar and butter in small saucepan over low heat just until it boils, stirring constantly to avoid burning. Pour over oat mixture; stir well. Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper. Let cool at least ten minutes. Makes about three dozen medium-sized cookies.

When I was little I liked to wait until the cookies got a bit stale, then dissolve them in a glass of milk, which resulted in chocolate milk with a nice sludge of oats and pecans and such at the bottom of the glass. Now I just cut the recipe in half and make about 18 cookies, which lasts me about three days. They're really good for breakfast.

That title is both ironic and a tad oxymoronic: it's not like I have an old favorite rejection letter, and I've never received a rejection letter I like as well as any of the acceptances I've gotten. Still, some rejections are less vile and upsetting than others. Here's one I got last week that doesn't make me want to give up not merely sending my work out, but writing poetry altogether:

Dear Holly,

Apologies for the delayed response! I really enjoyed "Portrait of a Bedtime Storyteller" but got a bit lost toward the middle. The ending is magnificent, though. Would love to see more of your work.

Very Best,

Poetry Editor

Apologies are indeed in order for the delayed response: this journal had my submission for NINE MONTHS. It's not at all unheard of for literary journals to hold your work for six months to a year before they get back to you, and that long response time is one reason journals that don't accept simultaneous submissions totally SUCK the putrefied body parts of long dead farm animals. This journal at least allows simultaneous submissions, so the poems they held practically forever were also seen by other journals, one of which is now going on ten months for its response time.

But at least the editor liked my work and want to see more. So one of these days I'll send more out.

I am happy to report that I have a new window. I just opened my curtains so I could gaze at it with satisfaction for a few moments. It's solid and unbroken and a much better state of affairs than I woke to three days ago. There are only a few lingering annoyances about the whole business: first of all, although the glaziers washed the inside window before they installed the storm window, they didn't get all the grubbiness off it: you can still see a few smudges where the snowball or chunk of ice thudded against the inside window. Secondly, there are a few bits of glass and other debris trapped on the sill between the storm and the inside window, and since neither opens, the only way to get rid of said debris is to remove the storm window. Of course I won't do such a thing in the middle of winter, but I'm anal-retentive enough to get someone to help me do it when the weather warms up, because I just don't like knowing those bits that shouldn't be there, are.

And third, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm still mulling over the unpleasant idea that some people find vandalism fun. I've been the victim of such "fun" a time or two before. One Saturday morning during my last spring in Iowa, I got up, went out to my car to run some errands, and discovered that someone had kicked in the tail lights during the night. My neighbor told me that someone had knocked over his motorcycle and broken its mirrors.

I dutifully reported the incident to the cops. A nice middle-aged policeman came to take the report. "I don't get it," I said. "Why do people do stuff like this? Why do they think it's fun?"

"Too much alcohol and too much testosterone makes people stupid and mean," he said. "Add in that warm weather's finally here after a really long winter, and you've got all kinds of petty vandalism going on."

But that still doesn't explain why people think vandalism is fun. And as much as I would like to believe that women and girls as a whole don't get off on inflicting damage, I know better.

Sunday night I heard and felt some sort of concussion rattle all the glass in my upstairs windows. It was about 10 p.m. and I was in my bathroom, getting ready for bed. I could have sworn something had been thrown at and broken one of my windows, but I checked every pane in every window upstairs, and they were all fine. So I got in bed, read for a while, slept heavily, got up on Monday morning around 9 (because it was a holiday and I didn't have to go anywhere), went downstairs and opened the drapes in my living room, and discovered that the big pane of plate glass in the storm window in the front of my house was broken.

The good news is that only the storm window broke; the panes on the window inside are still intact, so I haven't had frigid air blowing into my living room; nor have I had to worry about someone crawling into my home through some giant hole in the front of my house. And that is genuine good news and I am grateful that things aren't as bad as they could be.

The bad news is that someone threw something at my window--from the marks on the unbroken pane behind the storm window, I'm guessing it was a very firmly packed snowball or a chunk of ice (there's been plenty of it in the streets lately)--hard enough to break it.

I looked at the window for a few minutes, and then I did what needs to be done: I hauled out the yellow pages, looked under "glass," and called someone to come see about replacing the broken panes. The receptionist told me that they'd been "bombarded" with calls all morning. "Someone was busy last night," she said. "I don't know if it was a full moon or what...."

You know you've got a bad case of the crankies when you find you'd rather tackle filthy, foul, anti-social tasks like cleaning the cat box and scrubbing your toilets than attend to intellectually stimulating, socially rewarding pursuits like writing a few blog entries, posting some comments on blogs you like reading, and answering your email.

Which is how I felt yesterday.

What can I say. It was a holiday and I didn't have to go anywhere or see anyone, and the litter box was starting to smell up my entire basement and the toilets looked so grubby I could hardly bear to pee in them.

And I was very cranky. One reason was the stuff I posted yesterday about how climate change is going to speed up and render parts of the world uninhabitable--I did the math, and if Lovelock is right, by the end of the century Phoenix will regularly have high temperatures of 135 F--and another was that when I mentioned global warming to my mother the other night, she did that standard, stupid, Pro-Bush anti-planet thing of telling me it was a hoax.

There are other reasons why I'm cranky, at least one of which I plan to tell you about soon.... I've been mulling over this unpleasant occurrence and its implications for a good 24 hours--I even woke up in the middle of the night and spent some time brooding over it.

But the holiday is passed, my toilets are clean and now I've got work to do that requires me to deal with other people, so I'll get busy doing it.

During my recent visit in Arizona, at each of the homes I hung out at, I played a game. At my parents' house I played Chinese checkers; at my sister's house I played the Turner Classic Movies version of Scene It?; at my brother and sister-in-law's house I played Carcassonne.

Chinese checkers was one of my favorite games when I was little--at least, it was my favorite game to play at my grandmother's house. My grandmother had this really cool set: a round, flat tin about the size of a dinner plate that served as both playing surface and storage for the marbles: you pushed a lever and suddenly six shallow holes appeared, each holding ten very beautiful translucent marbles of a specific color. When I saw that my mother had bought a set I asked her what happened to that set and she said she didn't know, but she bought the new one because she did remember how much we liked the game. I convinced her to play with me a few times, and when she got tired of that, I played myself, trying to figure out the fastest way across the board. It was so much fun that I think I'll have to find a set and someone to play with.

I am not a terribly competitive person, which is one reason I suck at sports: I prefer winning to losing, of course, but winning often doesn't seem worth the work it requires, and as long as my opponent doesn't gloat or play dirty, I can lose without minding much. This attribute comes in handy when I play any kind of trivia game with my sister Lisa, who has one of the best memories I have ever encountered in my life, and generally takes any and all who challenge her. When she was a teenager, her boyfriend (subsequently her husband) took her home to meet his parents, and they ended up playing Trivial Pursuit. She got a question about the name of a man who spent his life tracking down Nazi war criminals, and when she knew the answer--Simon Wiesenthal--her future father-in-law became enraged, convinced she had cheated. He couldn't believe that this perky bleached blonde whose shoes and handbags always matched had the intellectual capacity to even understand what it meant to hunt down war criminals, much less remember the name of someone who did it. I watched the same thing happen with a guy I was dating: we sat down to play Trivial Pursuit with Lisa, and she ended up kicking his ass and mine. He was flummoxed and angry; I couldn't have been more pleased if I'd won myself, since it meant he finally admit to me that Lisa was a lot smarter than she first appeared.

An interesting piece from the Independent UK detailing a study in Britain recommending that companies find ways to support people who have affairs with co-workers. Chantal Gaultier, the researcher, "found that while the employees said that their productivity had not been affected during the affair, all admitted that their workplace performance had decreased after their romance broke up." Ms. Gaultier goes on to conclude that "Although all of the couples split up, none of them regretted the affairs. Most said they would do it again if the occasion arose. While some of them were married, they did not express feelings of guilt, which shows the fact that people are going to be having these romances whatever companies do.

"The problem is that, after the split, these people often have to work together and see each other every day. This can have problems especially when there is no support or help for them from their employers."

I admit to dating a co-worker or two, and no one at work helped me out.... I can't really think what I would have wanted my employer to do, but then again, certain circumstances meant that the stakes weren't very high. However, I can think of one time when one coworker dated another coworker and it ended badly, and the employer really made things worse.... Most places have some sort of policy about how to deal with sexual harassment, but I think some sort of sensible policy that recognizes that dating does not always equal sexual harassment, would be in order.

As promised in yesterday's post, here is a list of scenarios about various ways people approach relationships and marriage in which love and other concerns might be in conflict.

Before presenting the list, I instructed my students to let memory and imagination run wild, to think of every dysfunctional relationship they'd either been in or witnessed.

A. Imagine that you go home and say, "Mom, Dad, guess what. I'm engaged. He's so great. He's a sculptor and, well, he's unemployed right now, and he just dropped out of school because he felt like his teachers couldn't really understand his vision but he's so talented, he's so great, and I'm going to drop out of school and go to work and support him until he makes it big." They say, "Um, OK, well, when can we meet him?" and you say, "When he gets out of rehab." I don't care what you say about marrying for love instead of more practical concerns--your parents would FREAK.

B. Imagine that a friend who grew up in a really conservative religious home in rural Iowa. She's always had a thing for bad boys, and she falls in love with this guy who spends all his money on his Harley. And he loves her too--he treats her really well--and they get engaged. Both families are HORRIFIED. Her family says, "Did you have to fall in love with a criminal?" His family says, "Did you have to fall in love with someone whose dad is going to call the cops as soon as someone lights up a joint at your reception?"

I've been reading all over the blogosphere about the January 3, 2006 NY Times editorial by John Tierney, discussing how smart, educated straight women are likely to end up alone because they won't date dumb men with bad jobs: these women actually do something so calculated and unromantic as consider a man's earning potential in deciding whether or not to marry him.

I admit I haven't read the editorial--I don't subscribe to the paper version of the Times, so if I want to read its columnists on line, I have to pay for the privilege, and I wouldn't fork over my last dingy centime or any other piece of no-longer-current European currency to read a single word by that shithead Tierney. Thus, my response is based only on a few excerpts and synopses provided by others. And my reaction to the synopses and excerpts I have read is pretty much this:

Duh. So what.

I mean, OF COURSE INTELLIGENT, EDUCATED STRAIGHT WOMEN TEND TO THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY A GUY IS LIKELY TO EARN IN DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT TO MARRY HIM. AN ABILITY TO GRASP THE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS LIKE FINANCES IS PART OF WHAT MAKES THEM SMART AND PART OF WHAT HELPED THEM BECOME EDUCATED.

Before I pursue that premise any further, let me make one thing clear: I'm a big believer in love. I love a lot of people. I've been in love and it has changed my life in ways I'm still grateful for. I think falling in love is one of the best things that can happen to someone. I believe in the redemptive power and possibilities of love.

And I used to think that the fact that you really, truly loved somebody sort of meant you HAD to get married, because if you love someone as much as I loved a couple of people, your feelings for them OBLIGATED you to vow to spend the rest of your life with them.

Funny how things work out.

In the January 1, 2006 Sunday NY Times Magazine, there is a piece by Daphne Merkin as part of "The Way We Live Now" column that begins, "These are cruel times for vaginas." The piece goes on to describe various procedures that can be done to "improve" the appearance of external female genitalia, ranging from the "so-called Brazilian waxes" to labiaplasty, which "fixes" labia that are too big or too small or otherwise "defective."

I rather like the tone of the article: Merkin makes it clear that she finds the whole business hogwash, though I think the best section is devoted to the silliness of "hymen-reattachment surgery,"

once a desperate stratagem undertaken by young women from Muslim, Asian and Latin American cultures that demonized the loss of virginity before marriage, [which] is now being hawked as a way to enjoy a second honeymoon. If it's unclear whom this procedure is meant for--aging women hoping to catch a flagging penis with the semblance of undeflowered innocence?--it's even more ontologically ungraspable how stitching a hymen back together vitiates the psychological experience of having already lost your virginity.

Nonetheless, I was bothered by the fact that in her opening sentence, Merkin uses the term "vagina" when she should have used the term "vulva" or "pudendum."

Don't believe me? Consider these definitions:

vulva: The external genital organs of the female, including the labia majora, labia minora, and vestibule of the vagina. [Latin, womb, covering.]

pudendum: the human external genital organs, especially of a woman. Often used in the plural. [Latin, neuter gerundive of pudere, to make or be ashamed.] (The fact that the term is literally rooted in shame is the main reason I will avoid using it.)

vagina: The passage leading from the opening of the vulva to the cervix of the uterus in female mammals. [Latin, vagina, sheath.]

I know, I know: some of you are pointing out that we've covered this territory before: there's a section on it in Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues: Ensler includes a letter from Jane Hirschman, honorary chair of the Vulva Club, membership in which cannot be extended to Ensler (much to the dismay of those already in the club), because membership is "predicated on the understanding and correct usage of the word vulva and being able to communicate that to as many people as possible, especially women." Ensler includes the letter without responding directly to it, and although she names the next monologue "The Vulva Club," once that piece is done, she goes right back to using the word vagina to mean both vagina and vulva.

I think it's good that we can talk openly about the vagina, but I wish we could talk openly about the vulva too. I think how awkward it would be if, when we wanted to talk about an arm, we never used that word--even though it was available to us--opting instead to use the word hand, which was supposed to mean both that thing at the end of your arm with fingers on it, and the arm itself, in contexts that didn't always make it clear which body part you were actually referring to.

Sadly, in pop culture, the generally accepted and acceptable term meant to invoke all of female genitalia is vagina. Vulva, apparently, is too fastidious and precise; cunt and pussy are too crude. (More about those terms later.) But that raises the question: WHY is vagina the more familiar, accepted term?

As you'll no doubt have surmised if you read my entry about what happened when I picked up my mail, I'm home. I left my sister's house in Mesa well before dawn on Tuesday and got back to my house in northwestern Pennsylvania well after dark. I can't say my trip home was anything approaching an ordeal: the only problems were that 1) the airport was PACKED and getting through security took about as long and involved as much standing around and responding to the commands of officials in silly uniforms as a college football game, because the Fiesta Bowl had been the day before and seemingly every last person who went to the damn game had a flight out of Phoenix the same time as mine; and 2) my flight was delayed about 30 minutes because we couldn't leave without our flight attendants, who got stuck in traffic on the freeway. But once they showed up, everything was fine: I made my connection on time; my suitcase rolled onto the conveyor belt early and intact; the weather here in PA was OK (rain rather than snow); I didn't have to call a cab because there was already one waiting, blah blah blah.

Back at my house, I was greeted by Dinah, my cat, who was yowling and needy and distressed with me for leaving her, albeit healthy and well-fed thanks to my extremely reliable neighbors. My plants were all alive and aside from the cats toys scattered all over the living room floor, the place was pretty tidy (I always straighten up before I leave, because I hate coming home to a messy house), and I was really glad to be home, blah blah blah.

I AM glad to be home, really and truly. But I never enjoy the first day or two after I get home from a long journey, because there's just so freakin' much to do, and most of it isn't that fun (i.e., spending three hours sorting through a gigantic stack of mail). I generally find the outbound part of a journey much more pleasant and pleasing than the return. Outbound, my suitcase is filled with clean clothes and gifts I'm excited to give someone; I feel virtuous and entitled to fun because I've arranged for business to go on without me for a week or two; most of all, I'm looking forward to spending time with people I haven't seen in a good long while. But on the trip home, I've got a suitcase full of dirty laundry and souvenirs I'm not sure I should have bought; I'm a bit apprehensive about how long it will take me to catch up on the work I've been ignoring; I am well aware that it might be a very long time before I again see the people I've just said good-bye to.

But oh well. A far worse option than dealing with all that would be never going anywhere in the first place.

At this point I've pretty much put my life back in order. I've restocked my refrigerator and cupboards; I've done four loads of laundry; I've gone in to campus and turned in my syllabi to be copied, because classes start Monday. (That's right, Monday, January 9th. Most other universities start January 17th, after Martin Luther King Day. Not my institution, unfortunately, because I could really use another week to get ready for what will be a very busy semester.) And now I think I'm ready to stay home for a while--I have no trips planned until May. Because although I would hate it if I never traveled again, a few months of sleeping every night in my own extremely comfortable bed (the thing I've liked best about being home has been waking up each morning in MY BED, not a bed vacated by one of my nieces so I wouldn't have to sleep on the couch) seems pretty damn appealing.

Having written recently about my new favorite plastic bag, my new favorite French cover band, my new favorite fantasy boyfriend, I figure I might as well also write about my new favorite cheese. It's Purple Haze, a wonderful soft goat cheese flavored with lavender, from Cypress Grove Chevre. Go out and buy some! It's unbelievably yummy.

Yesterday when I picked up my mail--all twelve tons that had accumulated during the two weeks I'd had it held--there was a package mailed from Scotland by a friend. It contained a t-shirt bearing the cover art from The Queen is Dead by (of course) the Smiths. I am not much one for wearing clothing with slogans or writing on it, but I will wear this shirt.

I've blogged about my loathing of excess packaging as well as my fondness for cool plastic bags, an eccentric interest, perhaps, but one I like to think is harmless if not virtuous, given that I reuse for as long as I possibly can something a great many people throw away. Much to my delight, included in the package was the bag in which the shirt had been carried from Unknown Pleasures, the store where it was purchased. The bag bears a claim that it is "Probably the best carrier bag in Scotland," as well as a blurb from John Peel, stating, "I was talking to a guy the other day who was trying to convince me that CDs were better than vinyl because they had no surface noise. And I said ‘listen mate, life has surface noise.'"

I personally still prefer CDs to vinyl, but I am willing to believe that the carrier bag I've got now is indeed the best one ever to have come out of Scotland, and I will treasure it for a good two to three years.