Fashion (blog) Week part 4: me

And at last, we bring Fashion (blog) Week to an end with my experience.


*Indicates events that I thought were happening when I planned my outfit, but did not.
** Indicates events that I did not know were happening when I planned my outfit, but that happened anyway.


Fashion (blog) Week part 1
Fashion (blog) Week part 2
Fashion (blog) Week part 3

Monday:

• What's the weather? High 80; low 61; isolated thunderstorms
• What's on your schedule? Cookout at my parents' house, lots of playtime with my young niece and nephew, possibly a trip to the lake*, nap**, bowling
• What's your inspiration? I'm not sure I understand the "inspiration" part of this. Casual effortlessness with a certain artsy early-60s j'ne sais quois?
• What's the outfit plan? Cuffed loose jeans, flip flops, sleeveless flowered blouse; swimsuit; running shoes and a pair of socks in case a walk is called for; bowling shoes later.
• How'd it work out?  Just fine, thanks. I don't remember the last time I got ready so quickly and didn't hate what I was wearing. Awesome.

Tuesday:

• What's the weather? High 79; low 63; isolated thunderstorms
• What's on your schedule? Morning workout; work with one internal meeting; a chiropractic appointment (midday); possibly drinks after work*; drinks and dinner to meet a friend's long-distance significant other in flash-flooding-type storms**
• What's your inspiration? Er — brown, I guess.
• What's the outfit plan? Workout clothes; khakis, brown peeptoe wedges, brown sleeveless sweater
• How'd it work out? Not bad, though I did add a white short-sleeved cardigan at the last minute because I chickened out of wearing a sleeveless shirt with nothing over it to work. And changed into jeans pre-drinks and dinner.

Wednesday:

• What's the weather? High 78; low 55; partly cloudy
• What's on your schedule? Morning workout*; work; bowling lesson; softball game (watching, not playing) in the evening*; yoga class**
• What's your inspiration? Summer, or also a desire to be simultaneously work-appropriate and casual enough for a softball game.
• What's the outfit plan? Workout clothes; green capris (or pedal pushers? I'm not sure I know the difference.), black peeptoes, short sleeved flower print shirt; short-sleeved black cardigan
• How'd it work out? Swell. The rain cancelled the softball game, but this outfit was a combination I don't use often, and I liked it. And it was good to have the workout clothes at-the-ready for the yoga class; there have been times in my life I'd have skipped the class because trying to pull together a clean workout outfit would have been tricky.

Thursday: 

• What's the weather? High 75; low 49; partly cloudy
• What's on your schedule? Morning workout; work, one internal meeting, possibly a long day writing the internal campus newsletter; lunch with a friend**
• What's your inspiration? Comfort and ease — the gray dress is jersey knit, and I could sleep in it if I had to. I'm not going to. Probably.
• What's the outfit plan? Workout clothes; gray dress, black peeptoes. 
• How'd it work out?  Super, and I did not, in fact, have to sleep in the gray dress. I didn't even have to work that late.

Friday:

• What's the weather? High 74; low 54; partly cloudy
• What's on your schedule? Morning workout; work; pedicure with a  friend**; "This American Life — Live"**
• What's your inspiration? Fun summer! Summer fun!
• What's the outfit plan? Workout clothes; blue denim dress, fun tan sandals, gray cardigan
• How'd it work out? Mostly great, though the temperature dropped suddenly during the late afternoon, so I had to run home and change out of my adorable dress and into jeans — which was not a problem, except that it left me having to pick a shirt on my own, with no planning, for the first time since Sunday night. I did fine. An olive green lace-neck t-shirt with the jeans, gray cardigan, and sandals worked out great. And it didn't take me an hour of changing outfits, either. I think I was just more confident in my ability to get dressed by this point — at least to get dressed for sitting in a dark theater.

So, overall, what did you learn?

• No kidding, Sunday night, this was painful and took me a very long time.
• Monday morning, on the other hand, was awesome, as I rolled out of bed and into clothes.
• If I lay out workout clothes for every day, I feel bad about not wearing them, and therefore am more likely to work out.
• I wear a lot of neutral clothing.
• My plans change a lot between Sunday and Friday.
• My friends and I have different sources for weather reports.
• What ikat is.

Will you keep up with the system?

• I'd like to try. It seems unlikely. But the workout factor alone would be worth it.

What were the best and worst parts?

• Best: The workout motivation; who knew that clothes were what was standing in my way there?
• Worst: I dunno. I'm a little sore from all the working out. Kidding — Sunday night was definitely the worst part. I have confidence it'd get better if I did it regularly.

Fashion (blog) week Part 3: The Reuniter

Today's guest post comes from my colleague and friend The Reuniter, so named because she tried this experiment during one of the busiest weeks of her year — the week leading up to Reunion Weekend at the college. Throw in Memorial Day and some crazy weather, and — well, I'll let her tell you.

[Note: I intended to publish this on Wednesday. I was all done reading it and formatting it and whatnot, and was just about to hit publish, when lightning struck my house and fried my router. True Story.]

Fashion (blog) week Part 1
Fashion (blog) week Part 2

Monday

• What's the weather? Sunny & 75.
• What's the schedule? Driving home from a wedding in Darien, CT.
• What's your inspiration? Comfort for the car and layers, since my co-traveler and I often prefer different temperatures.
• What's the outfit plan? Black cotton dress, gray flip flops, and a brown 3/4 length cardigan for breakfast and the 4-hour drive, followed by my pajamas.
• How'd it work? It was perfect!

Tuesday

• What's the weather? 80 with possible thunderstorms (ended up with torrential rain and a tornado warning). 
• What's the schedule? Follow up from the extra-long weekend, prep for Reunion weekend, and tying LED candles in paper lanterns. An after-hours work meeting (which got canceled when the tornado warnings seemed guaranteed). 
• What's your inspiration? Comfort for a long day and cool for hot temperatures. 
• What's the outfit plan? Navy blue Old Navy knee length dress, new long multi-colored Lia Sophia necklace for some drama and brown flat sandals. 
• How'd it work? It was a great outfit for the work day, but I was a little chilly once the rain hit that evening. 

Wednesday

• What's the weather? 75 and sunny. 
• What's the schedule? Reunion meetings, website updates, a little spray painting and happy hour with some coworkers who are leaving (I ended up not being able to make it for drinks). 
• What's your inspiration? New linen pants and my best chance to wear heels this week. 
• What's the outfit plan? Linen pants, indigo cap-sleeve blouse, brown pumps and gold jewelry. 
• How'd it work? After experiencing an unexpected detour on the way to work due to flooding, it felt great to be pulled together. 

Thursday

• What's the weather? Sunny and warm. 
• What's the schedule? Decorating for our Friday night event, climbing ladders to hang hooks, and picking up helium tanks, balloons, plants, etc. 
• What's your inspiration? Simple and classic. 
• What's the outfit plan? V-neck black cotton dress with empire waist and aqua cardigan, triple-strand blue bead and pearl necklace and aqua earrings with peep-toe flats. 
• How'd it work? I probably didn't think the whole ladder and dress thing through well enough, but it still worked out well. 

Friday

• What's the weather? A little cooler (70) and sunny. 
• What's the schedule? Decorating golf carts, hanging paper lanterns and lantern lights, setting up music playlists, and mapping sandwich board locations. 
• What's your inspiration? Outfit 1: running around campus, quick changes, and flexibility. Outfit 2: more formal and youthful. 
• What's the outfit plan? Outfit 1: white corduroy skirt, teal dress t-shirt, short pearl necklace and black flip flops. Outfit 2: Blue ikat print dress (with pockets), brown pumps, coral short-sleeve dolman cardigan.  
• How'd it work? The first outfit was perfect for running around, especially when I lost my keys and had to scour campus to find them (they turned up on the back of a golf cart). The dress in outfit 2 was a great choice. It was perfect for the weather and event, and the pockets were a great asset for holding a variety of items. I actually ended up with a 3rd outfit. The temperature dropped, so, following my work event, I changed into jeans and a purple tank top for a night out on the town. I changed into flats for walking around and kept the coral cardigan on. 

So, overall, what did you learn? Will you keep up with the system? What were the best and worst parts? I learned that figuring out what to wear is always a little tough for me. Even when planning ahead, picking out what to wear was a challenge. I think factoring in our laundry schedule added a level of complexity, as I was planning for the end of the week (maybe that means I need to expand my wardrobe :). I did find that planning ahead made it quicker for me to get ready in the mornings, which is something I am always looking for. Also, I tried a few combinations that I haven't before, since I was not rushing. I was also more likely to wear jewelry, which adds a little color and style. I think that I will try the system again. If I can get into the habit, maybe it won’t seem like such an effort. Plus, next time I will try not to give it a go during a crazy, unpredictable work week!

Fashion (blog) week Part 2: The Yogini

Many thanks to my friend and colleague, known hereafter as the yogini (or TY) for participating in this experiment and writing today's post! This is the first blog post she's ever written. I think you will agree it doesn't show.

Fashion (blog) week Part 1

Monday: 5/28/12

• What's the weather? Beautiful – 75 and sunny 
• What's on your schedule? Taking a boat ride, sun bathing, a possible dip in the lake, and visiting with family 
• What's your inspiration? The sun goddess 
• What's the outfit plan? Bathing suit – nothing more, nothing less…well, it could be less, you never know with me. 
• How'd it work out? Perfectly, except for the horrible sun burn on my back from not wearing a cover up. I need to get into official summer mode and be a bit more prepared. 

Tuesday: 5/29/12

• What's the weather? Sunny – 80 with a chance of rain (as per the weather forecast the weekend before. Turns out we had a massive thunderstorm with a tornado warning!) 
• What's on your schedule? Work at the office, then off to Spofford for a breath work session at the Power of Breath Institute 
• What's your inspiration? My sister’s good taste in clothing. 
• What's the outfit plan? Off white lace top with an emerald green skirt, brown belt and brown shoes. Plus an awesome locket necklace my sis let me borrow…and not surprisingly, I still have it. ☺ Then I changed into yoga clothes for the breath work session- my favorite type of clothing to be in. 
• How'd it work out? Fantastic. I thought I was not going to be comfortable all day with a lace shirt on a sunburned back, but it was actually OK. Yoga clothes and sandals, however, did not prove to be a good choice in torrential rain. 

Wednesday: 5/30/12

• What's the weather? Beautiful again – 75 and sunny 
• What's on your schedule? Work at the office, then teaching yoga at the KSC gym, followed by a Kundalani yoga workshop. 
• What's your inspiration? Be comfortable, it will be a long day! 
• What's the outfit plan? A floral dress with an off white shrug and brown shoes, and later, yoga clothes . Did I mention I love wearing yoga clothes? 
• How'd it work out? Great, the dress was very comfortable and I got lots of compliments on it which always brightens my day. I wore my favorite lotus flower tank top to yoga and I just love the way it fits my body. It allows for plenty of room to breathe and move, while discreetly covering the parts of my body that make me feel insecure. 

Thursday: 5/31/12

• What's the weather? Sunny and 75 
• What's on your schedule? Work at the office, and then over to my dear friends house for a girl’s night/clothing swap. 
• What's your inspiration? To wear something that makes me happy. 
• What's the outfit plan? I had planned to wear a black skirt with a black and white striped top, but when I got dressed I decided it was all wrong. I went against my pre-planning idea, and changed into a color block dress with a black shrug. 
• How'd it work out? I love my color block dress (teal, royal blue and black) only the straps are a bit too big and I need to shorten them. They were always falling down and that became a bit annoying. My girlfriends loved the dress however, and thought it flattered my body very nicely. Thanks again to my sis for picking out this dress for me! She does have a great eye for what works. 

Friday: 6/1/12

• What's the weather? A bit cooler – 65 to 70 
• What's on your schedule? Work at the office during the day and reunion festivities at night. 
• What's your inspiration? I want to be comfortable and look snazzy. 
• What's the outfit plan? I had planned a cute skirt and top outfit, but my plans were interrupted this morning by a skunk attack as I was trying to leave my house! I did not get directly sprayed, but there was that gross skunk odor in my house, and I had to re-shower and change. Already late for work, I changed into a gauzy top (found at the clothing swap the night before!) with cream colored capris – comfortable, but definitely not snazzy. I did bring another change of clothes for the reunion kick-off later that evening. 
• How'd it work out? It was not what I had planned, but the outfit served its purpose – I had clothes on. The skirt and top that I changed into were a bit too casual for the evening, but overall I did not smell like skunk so that was a plus. 

So, overall, what did you learn? Will you keep up with the system? What were the best and worst parts? The system has its advantages for sure. There is no doubt I saved loads of time in the morning, but it was hard to stick with my plan. Each morning I still had the desire to stand in front of my closet, aimlessly starting at all the colorful clothes on hangers, and waste away precious morning time. I think I will give the system another go, and see if I can make this a habit. If you are like me, you wake up, get ready, and get to work within 30 minutes – with a 20 minute commute mind you. If I can make this system work, I can save the aimlessly-starting-at-the-closet routine for Sunday morning. I would recommend everyone give it a go!

Fashion (blog) Week Part 1: Introduction

Some of you may already read my friend Genny's blog, Genny's Journal, in which she blogs mostly about her family and fashion.

Some of you may not be shocked to know that I am not so much into the fashion blogs. (Although, on reflection, I do read several. I think Genny's is the only one I actually trust, fashion-wise.)

But I am very into Genny's blog, because she is smart and funny and looks good in her clothes. She has actually influenced my personal style.

In March, Genny blogged about how she looks so good so much of the time. She has a system for getting dressed.

I also have a system, as I said in the comments of Genny's post:

• wake up, 
• check the weather, 
• stare at my closet, 
• rummage through my drawers, 
• pull together an outfit, 
• try it on, 
• feel fat or too casual or just off somehow, 
• change one component of the outfit, dumping what I take off on the bed, 
• wish I'd done laundry the night before and contemplate whether I have time to do laundry before work or whatever I'm leaving the house to do, 
• change one component of the outfit (sometimes the same component, sometimes a different one), dumping what I take off on the bed, 
• repeat until I feel cute (yea!) or am late enough that I convince myself it's just an outfit and it doesn't have to be perfect (boo!), 
• leave the house, 
• return to a messy room that then needs to be picked up (eventually). 

In light of a joint recognition that Genny's system is probably better than our own, two friends and I decided to give Genny's system a try last week. It is not an accident that one of the days in that week was Memorial Day, so we only had to deal with four days of work. We also only even tried to do five days — gotta ease into these things.

This week, I have guest posts by my friends and one by me, detailing how our week went. There will not be pictures, because I am not a fashion blogger and I am more interested in being hilarious (or something) than fashionable — at least online. If you want fashion inspiration, go read Genny's blog.

Otherwise engaged

I have somehow gotten sucked into looking at blurry pictures of celebrity engagement rings, and I have a few things to say about it:

• So far, I like Halle Berry's best. But I like Kim Kardashian's second best, and that is embarrassing. 
• Kate Moss's is also very pretty. 
• If I were Prince William, I think I'd give my bride-to-be old family heirlooms, too. But I do not think I'd use the engagement ring from a completely famously unhappy marriage, even if it is pretty, and even if I loved the people in that unhappy marriage very much. 
• As the friend I first shared this complete waste of time with said, "Who are some of these 'celebrities'?"

Hijinks, clarified

That feels like long enough for a cliffhanger.

So, way back in August 2007, I met a young woman named Renée (most of my friends get code names on here, but Renée blogs under her own name and I'm about to link to it, so what would be the point?). One of our close mutual friends (you may recall him as my favorite Adirondackian from the Plattsburgh saga) informed me that we should be friends. I was going to be working with her for a week, so I didn't have a lot of time to get to know her, but we were friendly, and that was nice.

At some point, when I got on Facebook, we became Facebook friends, and I got to vaguely keep up with her college life, her commitment to education, her politics. Again, it was nice.

In August 2012, after graduating from college, Renée joined the Peace Corps and started a blog about her life in Namibia. And her blog, which I read, was amazing. She was such a great combination of young-and-idealistic and wise-beyond-her-years. She addressed the ambivalence I have myself about the Peace Corps, and was clearly doing all the right things for all the right reasons. At some point, I was hanging out with a mutual friend (you may recall Bread Truck Grrl from the moving story), and we were discussing Renée, and BTG suggested I should send an Renée e-mail. And I did, which began a very fun and rewarding long-distance friendship.

I'll let her tell you what comes next at her blog. But a couple of additions: Renée told only two people back in the U.S. — her dad and me — when she was coming home, and she stayed with me off-and-on for three weeks. It. Was. Awesome. We had a blast. And, of course, since virtually no one knew we were close friends (including BTG, including MFA), no one suspected she'd be here.

And because I cannot mind my own business, I helped her plan a little. And every single surprise (at least the ones I witnessed and saw later on video) was incredible. This girl lights up lives when she shows up and you think she's in Namibia. When she snuck up on BTG in my house, they rolled around on the floor like puppies for easily fifteen minutes. MFA just stared agape at the screen as we Skyped from my living room. Many more people had many more delicious reactions.

And all those people kept her secret, did not post about it on Facebook, did not post about it here on CMC, did not spill the beans to the one friend she wanted to surprise most of all. And so obviously, that was the best one.

(I am sure the hijinks continue, because that's what Renée's like, but she hasn't been staying with me for a couple of weeks, so my life is less hijinky. Neither of us is pregnant.)

Biden time

Today, Joe Biden came to campus. It was very exciting. Seriously, it was, and I decided the best way to capture the event was by liveblogging, to the point that I downloaded a blogger application to my phone, but it was crummy. So I did the next best thing, I thought — liveblogging but not live posting, also known as taking notes with times next to them.

I went with two friends; we were told that doors would open at 11:30, and that we should get there early to get through security. We left the office around 11:30, went in one side of the Student Center to get food, and came out and around the building to stand in line in drizzly rain at the other entrance to the Student Center, because that is securer. Once we got through metal detectors and into the building (past a bunch of freestaters protesting because it wouldn't be a — well, anything — without freestaters protesting), we made our way up to the balcony where I sat on the floor to eat my lunch.

That task finished, I stood up with my friends and commenced blogging.

• 12:27 Standing and waiting. In very high heels. Have spotted many work friends, a few community members, a friend from summer camp. Someone near me smells bad, but I have subtly determined it is not either of the friends I am here with.
• 12:43 Still standing and waiting. Turnout's ok, but not amazing. There is a woman to my right in a turquoise suit and a fantastic hat. If I can furtively take a picture, I will. Oh, except that as usual when I want to take a picture, my phone battery's too low.
• 12:51 There's a staff member around who looks like Tyler Coates, which is interesting, because Tyler Coates looks like Jesse Tyler Ferguson, but this dude does NOT look like Jesse Tyler Ferguson. What are the odds my battery will die completely before Biden enters the building?
• 12:55 Real conversation between my friends and me: "They should put the disco ball on when he comes in. He seems like that kind of guy, right? I don't think Mitt Romney is a disco ball kind of guy." "Mitt Romney would want to seem like a disco ball kind of guy, but then he'd say something weird that suggests he's never actually heard of disco or balls." I did not mean testicles, just to clarify. I rarely mean testicles.
• 1:02 The interim provost of the college made big gestures that I initially interpreted as saying she liked my necklace from across the room. She was actually trying to show off her own necklace to the woman next to me. I am vain and love my new necklace. [Added later: I did not pay anything anywhere near full price for that necklace. I did not pay 25% for that necklace, even. Genny can tell you how to do the same, if you're interested.] 
• 1:09 Something's happening. By "something" I mean patriotic images on a screen accompanied by painfully scratchy sound. Seriously, impossible to understand, hard to be in a room with. It might be about the economy.
• 1:11 Resolved for roughly four seconds.
• 1:13 Resolved for roughly 30 seconds.
• 1:20 Maybe now it's about Osama Bin Laden, and I think for a bit it was about health care. I don't know. I'm trying not to jam my thumb into my eye.
• 1:22 I may never forgive my employer or this administration for exposing me to this earsplitting noise. Something predatory lenders something. People just clapped for women, I think.
• 1:26 It ended at last as a really rude freestater elbowed her way in front of a bunch of people (including me), many of whom who gave her a hard time for lying to them and being rude. Highlight of my day. Some kid, er, field organizer is talking now.
• 1:30 A woman in the crowd has whipped out a largeish makeup palette and is fixing her face. Huh?
• 1:33 The makeup continues. Meantime, the field organizer has finished and we seem to be at the awkward silence part of the afternoon.
• 1:40 No kidding, the makeup continues, and consists not only of the palette but also of at least two (maybe three) makeup bags. Maybe she's secret service and that's weaponized mascara.
• 1:46 Secret service suddenly emerges from nowhere. Maybe it's almost time!
• 1:48 I decide to kneel. A professor friend asks if I'm OK. I point to my heels; she lets me know she's first-aid certified if I need it.
• 1:52 Hell with it. I'm taking off the cute shoes. Now I feel like I'm standing in a hole.
• 1:53 The freestater is now talking with a campus safety officer. I like where this is going.
• 1:54 Biden's here!
• 1:59 Some people are just rude and loud, and by "some people," I mean "effing freestaters." [Explanation added later: They just started chanting to drown out the vice president, or, more likely, to get arrested or escorted from the building. Their big M.O. lately seems to be to be rotten enough to get in trouble, and then complain about how oppressed they are.]
• 2:00 Biden says: "Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."
• 2:09 Biden says: "Listen to those 2, 5, 20 debates they had. They said some unbelievable things."
• 2:11 Note to self and others (and by "others," I mean "Joe Biden"): Avoid unfunny Preakness jokes. What are you, Romney?
• 2:13 Biden says: "75% of those in nursing homes are women who've lost their husbands." That can't possibly be true, can it? Does the remaining 25% really include all single women, all divorced women, all straight married women who have not lost their husbands, all gay women regardless of status, and all men put together? 
• 2:16 When Biden talks about the "crux" of Romney's argument being his business experience, he pronounces it "crooks." Genius.
• 2:19 Biden says: "Creating wealth for investors is not the job of the president. The president has a different job." Real genius.

...and then someone sent me a text with a picture and it killed my battery. Suffice it to say, I had a lovely afternoon, foot pain and white noise and freestaters aside. The vice president was inspirational and funny, but did not say anything really boffo, which was disappointing.

What did you do this afternoon?

Helpful haircare hints

If you are, say, a little grayer than you might like to be, and sort of between stylists, and do a Google search for "hair color in keene, nh" (without quotes), the third hit is for registered sex offenders.

In which I clarify almost nothing

I seem to have created quite a stir on the Facebook page today. That wasn't on purpose, but it's good to know how. I posted:

Oh, hey. Remember when I used to post over here? Sorry about that, gang. Some of the biggest stuff in my life the last few weeks has been VERY SECRET; you'll probably hear about it soon. For today, you get this — and vague promises that I'll try to post more frequently and more hilariously.

And then a link to what Tyler Coates said on his Tumblr about Obama's statement on marriage equality.

Here's a little non-clarifying clarification about that VERY SECRET business. I was maybe a little bit making fun, though there's no way you would have known that.

It's just that one of the things in my life that has taken a certain amount of hijinks-ensue-type energy involves a secret that is not mine to share. It's like if someone else was pregnant (it's not that someone is pregnant) and still early in her first trimester (it's also not that I am pregnant). I'd be able to tell you all about it once she was sharing publicly, just not quite yet.

Seriously, it's not that anyone is pregnant.

But highjinks have ensued.

Brother, you won't get no argument here

I do actually have one or two more things to say about LGBTQ week.

This isn't one of them.

Some of you may have heard me singing this before. Some of you may know that I have been searching for this for as long as I have had access to a video-sharing internet. Some of you will be unsurprised to know that I have been watching old Saturday Night Lives, starting at the beginning, and now that I have found this I am sort of inclined to stop watching.

I'm probably overselling it. But country folks will understand.

Parent Trap

Sometimes, I get a published study to back me up, just in the nick of time.

I have a young friend (an adult, but this happens to adolescents, too, and my advice to their parents would be the same) who is in her first relationship with a woman.

Her straight mom, who is not much older than I am, is having a hard time with this. I know she's not alone, and I am not unsympathetic, and I have watched many straight parents go through this same thing.

Should you be a parent in this situation, here's what you need to navigate the situation with aplomb:

• Plan ahead. Way, way before this comes up, make sure there are trustworthy openly LGBTQ adults in your kids' lives — these could be friends of yours, godparents, aunts or uncles, camp counselors, teachers, clergy if that's your thing. You know, the kind of adults you'd want them going to if they ever felt they couldn't go to you. I understand it may be too late for this step for some of you.
• It's not about you. When and how they share this, whether by accident or on purpose, does not reflect on you or your relationship with your children. How you respond does.
• Your children are not ruining their lives. If anyone does ruin your children's life over a same-sex relationship, it will be the people who are mean to them about who they are. Don't be one of them.
• It's not about you. However much you are accustomed to having your children's identities tied up in yours, it is healthy and appropriate for them to distinguish themselves from you.
• Be open, but respectful. Coming out is different for everyone — some people have a hard time with it, and some people have a less hard time with it; for some people, it's about one relationship, and for some folks, it's a major identity awareness. Either way, you'll do better if you're available without pushing too hard.
• It's not about you. If this is behavior you don't approve of, your child already knows it — and it is likely killing him or her.
• Think of your future. Whatever you do or say now, your children will carry with them as they progress further into adulthood. Be cool for the sake of your future relationships with your children, their future partners, their future children... 
• It's not about you. If you find yourself rationalizing your reaction as actually about something else — secrecy, or a specific person, or even missing curfew, or something, take a deep breath and step way, way back. You will be glad you did.
• Show your kids how proud you are. My young friend is the type you'd be proud to have as your daughter; she's smart and kind and funny and confident and open-minded and athletic and beautiful. Your kids are incredible in their own ways. Make sure they know (and by this I mean, tell them, and also show them) all of how wonderful you think they are, always, both before and after any big revelations come to light.
• Oh, hey. It's not about you.

Straight parents, what would worry/bother you about a queer kid? Other queers, what would you add?

28, as, it turns out, plus 9 — Now with updates!

LGBTQ week here on CMC is off to a slow start, I know, but Monday night I was busy actually celebrating my queerness at the last night of Rainbow Bowl, and last night I was busy with a horrible, horrible migraine. So we're jumping in with both feet, with maybe the longest post of the week.

One of my favorite commenters, Amanda, asked for this one. She suggested "10 things straight friends do that they'd be SHOCKED! to know annoy the hell out of their gay friends (or five, or 15)."

I did not feel qualified to answer this one on my own, so I asked for some help. I did some editing on some of these for length or clarity or format, but all of these happened in real life to me or someone I know — in many cases, repeatedly. Remember, as we discussed back in 19 Secrets Women Wish Men Knew, not all people think alike, even when they are in a group.

1. Telling me I don't "look gay." I don't even know what people mean when they say this. Or rather, I do; they mean my hair is longer than that of the last queer woman they met and they have possibly observed I am wearing heels. What I don't know is how they want me to respond. "Thanks," maybe. Gross. What if I said you didn't look straight/female/black/American/something else that is part of your identity? People do say that other people don't look female/black/American, by the way — it's rude then, too.
2. (From A, a married friend) Referring to marriage equality as “gay marriage” — oh, really, aside from the idiotic lack of federal sanction, how is my gay marriage different from their straight one?
3. Upon learning I'm queer, immediately thinking of the one other queer person they know who they should introduce me to.
4. Never managing to introduce me to any of their other queer friends — it seems like maybe I'm the only queer friend they have, which makes me wonder about them.
5. Encouraging me to start dating very quickly after a major breakup. This has happened to me, but it happened worse to a friend. A gay male couple I knew broke up after 8 years, most of that time spent living together. Literally two weeks later (possibly less), people were urging at least one half that couple to get out there. Let the dude mourn a little if he wants to. I don't know if that's about assuming the relationship was less important because it was two men, or if it's about assuming men (especially gay ones) are so horny they need to have someone to sleep with always, but if I did that to a straight friend who'd just ended a, say, six-year marriage, people would think me abominable.
6. (From A) Ghettoizing us more than we do with phrases like “you people…”
7. (From B, a married female friend in her 60s) People/men addressing us as "girls" - whereas other groups of older women are addressed as ladies… not sure what that is about. 
8. (From B) Asking questions about who takes out the trash and/or does the lawn — like one of us is the butch — which may be true, but I'm not sure it is anyone's business.
9. Defending hurtful behavior as somehow not a big deal. If I stomp on your foot, and you object, and I (or someone else) dismiss it as, "I was just being funny!", your foot will still hurt, and now you'll also be sad that someone who you thought was your friend is standing up for the foot-stomper. On the other hand, "I was just trying to be funny, but I see how my actions had real-life consequences, so I'm sorry I did it, and I'll try not to do it anymore," could be very healing. Just silently agreeing to disagree, even, doesn't heal, but it at least doesn't hurt more. 
10. (From C, a pansexual female friend) Assuming I am a lesbian because I am dating a woman.
11. (From C) Assuming I was a lesbian all along because I am divorcing my husband (because, clearly, the ONLY reason to leave a man is for another woman?!!?!) 
12. (From C) Assuming I was a lesbian all along and grandly congratulating me on my new-to-them same-sex relationship (because, clearly, I've just come out of the closet?!!?) 
13. (From C) Assuming I am not serious about my girlfriend because: a) I married a man, b) I have been with more men than women in my lifetime c) I'm bisexual (really pansexual, but whatev), d) I might just go back to "playing for the other team" 
14. (From C) Assuming that she is male/my boyfriend because of her appearance.
15. (From C) My dad declining my request to bring my girlfriend to the weekly family dinner for a meet-and-greet because: a) he's a homophobic ex-catholic republican b) he thinks that my having a girlfriend is some sort of sexual phase I will outgrow. 
16. Labelling single-person bathrooms by sex. What good does that do anyone?
17. (From D, a female married friend with a child) Asking me if my son's dad is a red-head. It is weird and awkward. 
18. (From D) Asking if I've met the donor even though they know we used a sperm bank - a valid question but odd - it moves closer to annoying when they ask if I had sex with the donor. 
19. (From D) Giving "permission," as in, if a nurse asks a male patient about his wife and he replies that he has a husband, it is incredibly inappropriate for the nurse to say, "Oh, that's OK".
20. (From my friend E) Flirting — or unflirting, as in, "If I were gay, I'd totally be into you."
21. (From E) Using any of the following sentences: "I wish I were gay." "It must be so much easier." "I think I'll just quit [the opposite sex]."
22. (From E) "No, I don't mean gay like that kind of gay; I mean gay like stupid."
23. Using "queer" and "gay" to mean "stupid," and then, when I've called them on it, launching into an explanation that they experimented with the same sex in college.
24. Actually, launching into an explanation of college experimentation with me at all.
25. Taking it personally when we don't come out to them. If this is you, think about whether it's about you or something you might have said, and then, if you're sure it's not, accept that it's about us and our own journey. Let it go.
26. Talking about how they have nothing against LGBTQ folks, but they wouldn't want their own child to be queer, because the world can be so cruel.
27. Claiming they are "queer" because they identify as allies.
28. Using the word "partner" for their heterosexual significant other. This didn't used to bother me the way it does now; now, I see that word as a password, and I dislike when people not in the club use it out of what feels to me like misplaced solidarity.
29. UPDATE: (just in from my friend F) Assuming that we queer folks are big fans of your HRC t-shirt/sticker/etc. Some LGBT folks support the HRC. Others (and this is more than a small number) would rather gnaw off their own foot than give them money. Just because they make the nice equal sign stickers doesn't mean they're the best place to give your money.
30. UPDATE: (from F) "You're just like everyone else!" No, I'm not. And I don't need to be. And, by the way, "everyone else" is not just like "everyone else". 
31. UPDATE: (from F) "Oh...don't call yourself butch!" That tells me two things: first, that the person I'm talking to is uncomfortable with butch identity for a variety of reasons and, two, that they think they way I am proud to describe myself is somehow a put-down.

But also, I thought I should add this to Amanda's original idea: "Things straight people have done unexpectedly that were completely the right thing to do," both because straight people do things right all the time, and because the first one makes a point so beautifully.

1. (From the same A above) Numerous straight people have referred to their husband/wife/significant other as “partner”, which, depending on the couldn’t-really-say-if-you-are-straight-or-gay-or-somewhere-in-between factor they embodied, has kept me wondering until I met said person and learned they were just run o’ the mill straight people after all. 
2. (From A) They’ve asked me (when I was single) and us, now that I’m married, to be godfather(s) to their child, and want their child to grow up knowing that love comes in myriad forms. Mostly, they want their child to know that love comes at them from many directions. 
3. (From B) They passed legal marriage and that had to be done by straights; as well as the ordination of gays in at least some states… 
4. (From B) So often now guys like the plumber who comes to fix the sink, doesn't blink. How different from even 5 years ago! 
5. (From C) My sister talking at length about my girlfriend and how (insanely) happy she makes me at said homophobic ex-catholic republican dad's house during the weekly family dinner 
6. (From C) My (aforementioned) dad's wife sending an e-mail to me suggesting that while dinner with dad is a no-go, she would be very happy to meet my girlfriend 
7. (From C) My co-workers noting that I'm a happier camper and upon finding out why (her!) giving tons of support/congrats/et cetera. Hell, Chef even picked up the food tab for our elaborate 9-course side-by-side belated Valentine's dinner date. That's love right there in the food industry! 
8. People who just asked when they wondered if I'm, you know, that way, especially when I was obviously struggling with coming out.
9. People who've had and expressed hurtful views to me — and apologized unequivocally when they realized they were wrong.

So, hoping the comments here are more lively. LGBTQ folks, what did I leave off either list? Straight folks, what are your questions/comments/concerns, beyond that I appear to sort my friends in alphabetical order?

Timing is everything

Here's the thing: I have a thing I want to do with the blog, which I was going to announce today, and then decided that today would be the wrong day for it, because if you all thought it was an April Fool thing, and said it was dumb, then I wouldn't be able to do it.

It's like that time my friend had to tell his or her newish significant other they had crabs on April Fools Day, and the S.O. thought it was a joke. That's awkward, right? To have to convince someone you have crabs?*

So I thought I'd do a real April Fool thing here if I could think of a good one, but all I've come up with so far is an apology to you announcing I have to shut down the blog for some reason, except that then if anyone took it seriously, they'd unsubscribe, and then I'd lose readers, which I only have like a dozen of to start with. For real, you guys, I'm not shutting down the blog.

Here's what I am doing, for reals: Not next week, but the week after, is queer week. A bunch of different LGBTQ topics have come up in my life lately, and it occurred to me that my readership, which consists mostly (though by no means exclusively) of supportive straight folks (thanks, by the way), might benefit from my thoughts on some of those topics. Topics will include but are not necessarily limited to:

• Appropriate responses to your child dating people of the same sex, and what it means when parents do it wrong
• Appropriate responses to the insulting use of words like "faggy," "gay," "queer," "dyke," etc., and appropriate responses to being called on inappropriate use of same
• Dealing with "Christians" who think people are damned to hell

In the week between now and then, I'll try to keep it light with some funny stories at my expense. Here's your job: Think of other topics you'd like to see addressed in queer week and comment here. If you're worried about offending me, feel free to comment anonymously.




*None of the people in that story are me, I promise.

April powers

Things that I read, heard about, or did today that seemed like April Fool's jokes but apparently weren't:

• I told my friend I was leaving for Sears right then, but I didn't leave for an hour, and she was waiting for me there the whole time.
• Someone I know started doing something called a "Harry Potter workout."
• A friend-of-a-friend received a phone call asserting that her mother had been kidnapped and demanding ransom, when in fact the mother was in a sauna and not kidnapped. The FBI was uninterested that someone is making calls claiming to have kidnapped people.
• The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced his intent to retire, and one of the frontrunners his successor is opposed to the ordination of women.
• I started watching Dirty Sexy Money because I ran out of episodes of The Jersey Shore. 
• I continued to cram for my cholesterol test.

Also, I gave away the bed frame from the moving story to BTG from the moving story.

And may have learned that eating too many almonds maybe gives me migraines. Maybe. I'm not willing to commit to that yet, because almonds are good.

An open letter to Kathryn Lehman

Dear Ms. Lehman,

Shut up.

Your story is neither brave nor cute. You are, frankly, dangerous — I hope less so now that you're lobbying on the side of angels, but frankly, I am uncertain of it. And your worldview is wrong, no matter how much you believe in it.

Specifically:

• I was an out queer in 1996. There were plenty of "regular" LGBTQ folks around (as evidenced, probably, by the reception you got from your Republican friends). 
• Ellen DeGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris were not the image of Our People in 1996, but you know who was? Billy Jean King. Martina Navratilova. Barney Frank. Are you suggesting that you needed more comedians, specifically, to make it worthwhile to not legislate depriving people of their civil rights?
• Just because you have all kinds of internalized homophobia doesn't mean it's OK to externalize that homophobia. The rest of us homos don't like it.
• HRC definitely meets with Republicans and conservatives — historically panders to them, some would say.
• As my friend pointed out when he shared this story, all chaps are assless; otherwise, they're leather pants.
• Also, nobody gets married in them. Anymore. What is this, 1954?

Yours in sisterhood,

bzzzzgrrrl

P.S. Shut the hell up.
P.P.S. No, wait. Apologize. Then shut up.


[In case you don't know what I'm talking about, and missed that link up top, I'll give it to you again. This sentence is a link.]

Things I actually had to say to my seatmate on my flight from Chicago to Manchester Sunday

• "I'm on page 70."
• "I'm on page 82."
• "I'm on page 96."
• "If I'm going to be your PR person, the first thing I'm going to do is tell you to stop asking women if they're pregnant."
• "You'll understand if I disagree with you about Title IX."
• "I'm sorry you had a son. No, not really. I don't really care, and you seem fine with it."
• "No, you probably shouldn't ask. It seems presumptuous, doesn't it?"
• "No, thanks, you don't need to buy me a drink."
• "It'll be OK."

Dream weirder

I feel like there's a lot of weird in the air these days. Is that happening to you, too? I am told that Mercury is retrograde, so that could be it, but then I feel like someone is always saying that Mercury is retrograde, so whatever.

But:

• I am going to visit a friend in Chicago. I have only one other friend in Chicago, who I wanted to introduce the first friend to. Turns out, they not only already know each other, but teach together, are mentor and mentee to each other, and coached soccer together in the fall.
• I found Davey and Goliath on TV. How long has it been since you saw that show, amiright?*
• Someone was cooking soup in my kitchen, and as I stirred the pot, I discovered a whole blueberry muffin, still in its wrapper, in the soup, apparently accidentally. How did that even get in there?*
• A then-girl, now-woman I had a crush on in high school friended my ex on Facebook. They have never met, do not know each other, have no mutual friends but me.

Weird, right? 

*OK, technically, those two things happened in a dream, but they were so funny and weird to me in the dream that I woke up to quick post here or on Facebook, except that by the time I was awake enough to actually do that, I was aware that both Davey and Goliath and the blueberry muffin were a dream. My sister the clinical social worker assures me that the significance of said dream was just that I am too into Facebook; if you discover any deeper or more embarrassing meaning, you'll tell me, right?

Family: Large

Happy election day for many people!

Here in my lovely burg, we will be voting for school board and also on a couple of school-related proposals.

As a local paper should, our local paper profiled the candidates for school board:

• Cyr and Droppa
• Freeman and Hay
• Panza

If you are deeply interested in the local school-related politics of my region, you should read them all.

If you are instead merely curious about why I am so ridiculously, rabidly anti-Free-Stater* — or looking to have your jaw drop in astonishment and amusement — you should just read Ian Freeman's** profile. The comments are excellent, too.

As one friend said, "dude really hates Monopoly."

(Oh, hey. If you live in Keene, please vote today.)



*Sadly, the fact that I have now met a total of one Free Stater who I don't loathe has not turned me around on this.

**Not his legal name, but nonetheless the name he is running with.

PSA

Just because it appears there are people who don't know this, and because it is important for people to know this:
All people who take birth control pills properly take the same amount of birth control pills.

So:

• If you take birth control pills because you have sex within a heterosexual marriage twice a week, or
• If you take birth control pills because you have sex with lots of men every day, or
• If you take birth control pills because you haven't had sex with a man yet but think you might sometime, or
• If you take "birth control pills" because you are using them for some other kind of hormonal therapy that has nothing to do with preventing pregnancy...

...you take one pill per day, which is usually a birth control pill but is sometimes a placebo so that you menstruate.

That is all. Questions?

Hush

Tonight, I went to a fantastic show on campus, before which I had a session with my trainer. She and I take turns talking; I exercise, she watches me, and whoever's not talking counts.

I was all excited to tell her about this thing I was going to, and now I'm excited to tell you:
The Devil Music Ensemble, which includes a guy I used to work with at summer camp, composes and performs original scores for silent films. The one they brought to campus tonight is a silent kung-fu movie from 1929 called Red Heroine, and both the film and the performance were awesome. The band is actually touring to China with it in March; if that sounds like the kind of artistic endeavor you'd like to support, you can do that at Kickstarter.

So I set out to tell my trainer about it.

"You count," I said. "I'm going to this thing tonight; my friend's in a band that does original scores for silent movies, and —"

"Wait," she said. "What's a silent movie?"

I literally did not know there were people that young.

Holy what?

I need to couch this in a lot of things; here's a seemingly unrelated list of them that will become clearer once I get to my main point:

• I'm still sick, and therefore still crabby
• I have been watching TV and sleeping in maybe roughly equal amounts since midday Friday
• I'll watch almost any damn thing if it's likely to be funny at this point
• I have a great deal of respect for the good the Catholic Church has done in the world, while still disagreeing with much of its doctrine
• I don't think, usually, religion is the cause of evil; I think some people behave badly for a variety of pretty much inexcusable reasons, and when those people happen to be in positions of power, the damage that does can be worse (of course, the converse is true for people who behave nobly)
• I'm tired; that was a lot more philosophical than this likely warrants
• I rarely like British television as much as people think I will

OK, back to that main point.

Does this:

Three Catholic priests are exiled to a remote Irish island after various misdeeds brought them under the scrutiny of the bishop.

Sound like a terrible premise for a comedy TV show? Nightmarish, even?

Oh, wow. Spoiler after the colon; highlight the text to read: The last episode of the series, no kidding, is titled "Going to America." 

I am afraid to watch this show, but I don't really see how I can not. Did everyone else already know about this?

Oh, super, she's sick and wants help again

As we all know by now, I am crabby when I'm sick. And as frequent commenter Joe is fond of telling us, Facebook is a huge waste of time. Now, I disagree with Joe, because today, in my cranky state, I have gotten a great deal of sympathy from Facebook, and for that I am grateful. You know what I have not gotten from Facebook? Good movie recommendations. Maybe you can do better.

Here are my requirements:

• It must be happy/fun (I don't need good movies that are not happy/fun. I have a queue full of those. That is why I am asking for help);
• It must pass the Bechdel test (for our purposes, the movie needs to contain at least two female characters, with names, who talk to each other, about something other than a man*);
• It must be available on Netflix streaming.

These are not my requirements for all movies ever, they are my requirements for me right now when I am sick and very cranky about it. In the comments, I'll try to list some movies that meet this set of requirements (including helpful ones from the Facebook post), but you have to do the same, OK? Please don't let me think there just aren't any movies that meet these requirements.



*Men are not limited to romantic interests. They can include but are not limited to male nemeses, children, parents, bosses, royalty, etc.

Bonnie and clod

I have a few friends who've been going through big deal nasty health stuff this year. And two are now, blessedly, through the worst of it for now. Which is great. So much relief. I suspect you'll hear more about one of them next week, but now you just get a funny story at my expense, about the other one.

So, she's doing great. Her treatments are over. We needed to celebrate, I thought. And what started out as talking about having one or two of us go out for drinks turned into her thinking about all the great folks who've been really very much there for her, which turned into our inviting a bunch of people to come have a party at my house. Which is all as it should be.

In the interest of not making her life any more difficult, I handled the invitations.

Now, it happens that there are two women who work with us who have the same first name and last initial. We'll call them Bonnie Cormier* and Bonnie Carruthers.* They are otherwise nothing at all alike, except that they're fun to have around. I'm a little closer to Bonnie Cormier, who is also a friend to the guest of honor (who we'll call GOH). But GOH is closer to Bonnie Carruthers, who I like fine but do not know well, and Bonnie Carruthers has been a great help to GOH in her illness.

So, of course, as we were planning, GOH reminded me to invite Bonnie. And I invited a number of people, including Bonnie. And Bonnie was the first person to respond, saying what a great idea it was and how glad she'd be to attend, and could she bring anything? And because I'm organized like that, I started an RSVP list, and wrote "Bonnie C." at the top of the "yes" column.

(Confused yet? Welcome to the three-card monte that is my brain. I, too, have lost track of which Bonnie we're talking about.)

And when I sent GOH a list of who was coming, "Bonnie C." was right there at the top of the list, but as I was typing it, I thought twice. So the actual list item says:

• Bonnie C. (Hm. I invited Bonnie Cormier. Just occurred to me, did you mean Bonnie Carruthers? It is not too late for me to invite her.) 

And then the response came: "I did mean Bonnie Carruthers ... Bonnie Cormier is great too!!"

Ah, ick. Now I feel like a jerk, because the invites went out almost a week ago, and now the gathering is tomorrow. But, as diplomatically as possible, I send this message to Bonnie Carruthers:

I am SO sorry to have inadvertently left you off the original list for this; you were on my paper list, but I just realized as I was nudging people with reminders that you’d never actually gotten the e-mail. Yikes! I really hope you can join us; I know GOH would want you there if you can make it, but I understand if the notice is too short.

to which I get the response, from Bonnie Carruthers:

You didn’t leave me off the list – I got the original and I’m planning to be there (bringing a munchie).

and so I responded how glad I was to hear it, and then quickly checked my sent messages to see if I had also sent one to Bonnie Cormier. Nope.

So, all is right with the world, except that Bonnie Carruthers probably thinks I’m a crazy person. Or drunk at work. Either way, should be a hell of a much-deserved party.





*Not their real names, though Bonnie Cormier and Bonnie Carruthers were two girls from my second-grade class with whom we had somewhat similar difficulties, back in 1978.

The anonymous comment experiment: Buying

I'm bringing back the Anonymous Comment Experiment, because I miss it. Wasn't it fun before?

Respond to today's question (or any of them) in the comments, anonymously.
Those of you reading the comments on any of the anonymous comment threads, realize that anonymity may increase the likelihood that some of the comments may be mean or NSFW. Although frankly, that didn't really happen before.

What's the best purchase you've made in the last 48 hours? Why?

Live

I've been watching the first season of Saturday Night Live, and I've had a theory since I was in college that for any given person, "when Saturday Night Live was good" equals "the original cast" and/or "when [said person] was in high school."

Mind you, I've never actually watched much of the original cast stuff — clips here and there, as they come up, pretty much. But I'm finally watching some of those early shows now. There's a lot of terrible stuff in there (including recurring bits by the Muppets, in what have to be the least interesting Jim Henson creations ever). Like, a lot. To the point where I fast-forward a lot.

But the stuff that's good is amazing to the point of transcendent, so that's what our nostalgic brains remember.

In the whole first season, I've had my jaw drop with astonishment several times, but only two sketches have made me laugh out loud.

If I find the other one online (and I'm trying, because it's fantastic), I'll post it to Facebook. OK, Joe, and link to it in the comments.

All the single ladies

I would like to thank every single person who did not send me this story from The Washington Post: "The single life: Some people never find the love of their lives. And live to tell about it."

Criminy, that was an obnoxious read. That I obviously read every word of.

So... singleness. Nearly all of CMC the readers I know about are married or permanently coupled. Do you sit around worrying about me? Do you think I'm just fine single? Do you assume I'll meet The One? Do you assume singleness is a straight-person thing, as the Post seems to? Do you not think at all about other people's relationships or lack thereof?

Because who is the intended audience of that article?

Face time

You know what I thought would be cool? If City Mouse Country had a Facebook page.

Just think how much easier that'll make sharing with your friends, while still protecting my pseudoanonymity.

Plus, when there's a new post, you'll know about it right away, even if you've resisted the magic of the RSS feed.

Plus, there will probably be occasional updates visible only to Facebook likers.

What are you waiting for? Go like me! Go really, really like me!

Putting the city in City Mouse Country

I went to DC last weekend. I've been trying to think about how to write about it, and I haven't come up with anything brilliant in a week, so, you know, we default to bullet points.

I:

• Saw 32 old friends, ranging in age from roughly 2 to roughly 90
• Met 4 new ones, ranging in age from roughly 4 weeks to roughly 30 years
• Missed a whole lot more
• Lunched with a cousin
• Breakfasted with my parents
• Incited my goddaughters to a screaming fit 
• Got a pedicure
• Made a new life plan
• Got a fantastic massage
• Lost at poker
• Had a few drinks
• Had a million laughs
• Went to church
• Got my hair cut
• Finished one book
• Started another
• Encouraged others to move to Framingham
• Wore flip-flops (perhaps ill-advisedly)

I also gained some pretty earth-shaking new perspectives on a bunch of stuff and had. a. blast.

The result is that it's been kind of a funny near-week since then: a little bit floaty, quite a bit smiley, and deeply warm with the reminder of how much I gained from my city life. It won't be a year and a half before I go back again.

Good morning

It's Saturday, so I slept in a little.

I awoke to what, in my half-asleep state, I assumed was the kids in the apartment upstairs running around.

And then, a few moments later, jolted fully awake to the realization that I live in a free-standing, one-story house.

So what the hell was that?

Serious fashion advice

At what point, temperature-wise, would you not look askance at a woman in flip-flops (assuming they were otherwise appropriate to her level of dress)?

If you choose to answer this one, please also say where you live. I suspect, for example, that 50 degrees does not sound as downright tropical to you DC folks as it does to me.

Randy

I simultaneously:

• believe TSA "safety" measures are essentially cosmetic (and therefore ridiculous and invasive), and 
• am giggling a lot that this happened to Rand Paul on his way to speak at March for Life.

I mean, you know, speaking of ridiculous and invasive.

What do you think he thinks libertarian means?

A minus

As a child, I loved TV.

And naturally, that made any restrictions very frustrating.

My loving parents frequently restricted the amount of time I was allowed to spend watching TV, of course, but just as exasperating (depending on the day) was that, to my young self, they seemed to be forbidding so many of what were probably the best shows. Like:

• Laverne and Shirley (sexist)
  
• Diff'rent Strokes (my mother caught the Very Special Episode where Arnold meets a child molester)
• Three's Company (also sexist)
• Eight Is Enough (Frankly, I think this one was because my parents couldn't remember which was which of Three's Company and Eight Is Enough; better safe than sorry.)
• I Love Lucy (also sexist, but a classic, so permitted but only occasionally, and only after a lot of discussion of what respectful relationships were and why Lucy and Ricky's was not one)
  
• Anything that might give me nightmares (which was a lot of shows, including Scooby-Doo cartoons)
• Any PG-13 movies that came out the first summer of PG-13 (when I was twelve)
• Dukes of Hazzard (violent)
  
• The A-Team (also violent)
  

So eye-rollingly frustrating. Everybody could watch those shows. And talk about them for days in school afterward.

And so tonight, 29 years after it first came out, I finally started watching The A-Team.

Less than three minutes into the first episode, I encountered the first instance of gratuitous sexual violence. Done with The A-Team.

Stupid parents.

Looking for bangs in all the wrong places

I didn't think I could find the search terms that brought people here. Turns out I can.

I did know that I get more traffic than I'd expect, based on the number of people I know who read regularly and the number of comments I get.

Turns out, that may be because virtually no one who gets here via search is actually looking for this blog. Sorry about that, visitors. Stick around anyway. I'm pretty entertaining.

Search terms that brought people to CMC in the last week:

• images of bangs 
• straight across bangs 
• baby bangs hair styles 
• baby bangs with medium hair 
• city to country blog 
• coty mouse country blog 
• country mouse city mouse have sex with their girlfriends 
• difference between the country mouse and city mouse 
• try to remember the kind of november

Lookin'

In high school, my friends and I had a seemingly endless stream of "bits" — inside jokes we'd just lapse into. My friends were mostly boys, mostly artistic, mostly dorky. We had an excellent time.

In one (and I'm not sure how well this will translate to the written word), we'd stand around a car and be a mechanic character we'd developed. This guy always started slowly with "I'm lookin' atcha cah" (we were in Massachusetts, after all) "and it looks like yer gunna need a new..."

And then we'd just rattle off a lengthy list of car parts to replace. As one person ran out, someone else would jump in.

"I'm lookin' atcha cah, and it looks like yer gunna need a new ball joint timing belt brake pad windshield wiper rear door transmission spark plug tail light battery roof rack hubcap..."

At some point recently, my father pointed out to me that I might be living in "I'm lookin' atcha cah."

That is perhaps a too-long way to update you on my basically uneventful weekend, during which my starter died.

A few words (and a video) on NH politics

Those of you who've been following the blog since the beginning will remember that it started because so many of my DC friends seemed to think moving to New Hampshire would be like moving to a different planet. For a few days, I kept up with those DC friends by sending mass e-mails, and then thought maybe a blog made more sense.

I still do some of those posts about what a different world New Hampshire is from DC, sometimes, but not as much as I used to, because I've settled into what I usually think of as a pretty ordinary ruralish life up here. The funny stories are at my expense more often than they're at New Hampshire's expense.

My extended family, from places like California and Connecticut and Maryland and Massachusetts and New York and Washington state, has not entirely escaped the can-you-believe-this saga, because they are more likely to ask how my job is going, and are more likely, therefore, to get treated to a big dose of New Hampshire politics — particularly over the summer, when the legislature cut more than half its already-smallest-in-the-nation appropriations to higher ed. That has very real repercussions for me, the people I work with, the students I work for, our ability to serve the community...

Anyway, Rachel Maddow did a thing on Republicans in New Hampshire, and I liked it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For your edification, here's some of the ridiculousness going on in the state that isn't about electing a president:

• House votes again to make NH gun licenses optional 
• NH House approves allowing guns on campus 
• New Hampshire bill would allow loaded guns in vehicles 
• Vote on possible repeal of New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage law expected in January 
• New Hampshire Lawmakers Pass Law Allowing Parental Objections To Curriculum 
• New Hampshire’s 2012 anti-evolution legislation (and the shocking thing a sponsor said) 
• New Hampshire Lawmakers Propose Increased Control Over Courts, Raising Minimum Judicial Age To 60 
• New Hampshire GOP Bill Mandates That New Laws Find Their Origin In 1215 English Magna Carta

If you don't understand why I think some of these things are ridiculous, please ask. I'm happy to:

• explain, or 
• have my mind changed.

I would love to think it's not as bad as it seems.

What I Read on My Winter Vacation: Unfinished Business

If you read the rules, you saw that I wasn't going to finish anything I didn't want to.

Books I did not finish included:

• Atwood, Margaret. The Tent. New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2006. Print. Got to p. 15. I love Margaret Atwood, but couldn't get into this collection of essays that's been on my shelf for a few years now. I'll try again another time.
• Renault, Mary. The King Must Die. New York: Bantam, 1984. Print. Got to p. 9. It just felt like it was trying too hard, or something. I don't even know where this book came from; someone probably gave it to me in high school. It's the kind of thing other people would have thought I would have liked in high school; that is how pretentious I was.
• Evans, Howard Ensign. Wasp Farm. Garden City, NY: Published for the American Museum of Natural History [by] the Natural History, 1963. Print. Got to p. 13. I found this one on my parents' bookshelf, and can therefore be forgiven for thinking it was about WASPs, rather than wasps. But it is in fact about insects, and the two or three new things I learned from the first 13 pages were not enough to sustain my interest.
• Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values. New York: HarperTorch, 2006. Print. This one, borrowed from a friend, I'm actually still reading; it's only on this list because I didn't get to finish it. If you want to claim this as a book you haven't finished yet, may I suggest saying that you're really enjoying the narrative style, but so far you're not sure you can agree with Pirsig's premise, and wonder if that's a sign of the shifting times and the changing nature of the relationship between technology and art (or function and aesthetic) since 1974, when the book was written. Of course, you may be a little off-base, since you're only 150 pages in.

Sometimes I clean the house to watch TV

Even still more fun with Netflix

Um, what?

More fun with Netflix

So, I'm sick today, and watching a lot more TV than reading. I begin to think that the descriptions of episodes of Family Ties available from Netflix are maybe not written by native English speakers.

A few examples:

While Alex is in the shop where Mallory works, they catch Jessie Blake shoplifting. Dad Steven points out Milford home where Jessie lives is not an orphanage but specialized in problem children, often abused.

Alex is in charge of this year's Leland parents students day. His girlfriend Ellen is angry because Alex personally invited her father, corporate lawyer Franklin Reed, whom she rejected as 'foul materialist' years ago.

Ma and Jen hardly notice the mustache Alex grows for the homecoming speech as former valedictorian in Harding High-school. Skippy hopes Mal just uses Nick to make him jealous, but of course she refuses to go with him to the homecoming dance.

and my personal favorite....

Alex committed the surprising error to vent his conviction so he gets stuck following the same elementary car mechanics course as ma Elyse, the architect, who proves more gifted at it.

What I Read on My Winter Vacation: Gather Together in My Name

Once again, your guide to pretending you've read books when people ask.

Angelou, Maya. Gather Together in My Name. Toronto: Bantam, 1975. Print.

I got this book many years ago, when I was a teacher and it was one of the options I had for teaching to my juniors. I neither read it nor taught it then.

Summary with spoilers (highlight to read): Maya Angelou had a really ridiculous late adolescence, apparently, including kind of a lot of criminal activity and a lot of moving around. She works as a cook, a pimp, a waitress, a prostitute, a chauffeurette, and a couple other things. She falls in love with a few real jerks. And when she thinks of it, she cares for her young child.

If you tell people you read this book, they'll think you're: Smart and interesting enough to get past I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. If you then tell them you haven't actually read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, they may or may not be intrigued by your choosing to read just part of the middle of a memoir.

Your informed opinion of this book is that it's: Not all that Christmassy. And beautifully written, though it reads like what it is — the middle of a memoir. Angelou's writing is magnificent — her imagery is flawless and her honest self-appraisal ranges from hilarious to sobering — but the book ends and you wonder, "And then?!"

And while we're talking about it, you know what's similar but better or worse? I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, probably, but like I said, I haven't read it. Honestly, though, I'm not sure it's like anything else I've read.

What I Read on My Winter Vacation: Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book

Here we go, folks. Your guide to pretending you've read books when people ask.

Miles, Betty. Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book. New York: Avon, 1981. Print.

 

This is one of those re-reads I was talking about; in this case, a kids' book I haven't read since I was a kid. It's OK, but not as good as I remembered.

 

Summary with spoilers (highlight to read): An eleven-year-old girl struggles with the pressures of middle school, befriends a fat girl, and reads a book about puppies to first-graders. The children improbably launch into a not-very-graphic conversation about sex. The townfolk are scandalized. Except, as it turns out, not very many of them. In the end, everyone is popular, the narrator gets her first babysitting job, and every apparent catastrophe is really not a very big deal.

If you tell people you read this book, they'll think you're: Eleven. Or in touch with your inner smut-reading child.

Your informed opinion of this book is that it's: Fine. Worth reading if you're exactly like I was in the sixth grade — a good enough reader that it won't take that long, worried about popularity and fatness, eager to babysit.

And while we're talking about it, you know what's similar but better or worse? The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, by Paula Danziger, is like this book but better. Yadda yadda misfit, yadda yadda cool teacher, yadda yadda censorship — but the stakes feel higher and more significant. Plus, the kids are older and therefore cooler, obviously.

Discuss.

Book me, Dano

I've been thinking about this book thing. I had a few extra minutes between things I was rushing between, so I came home and started pulling books off the shelf that:

• I haven't read yet, and
• look vaguely interesting.

And as I started observing:

• the size of the pile
• the size of the books in the pile
• the themes that emerge

... I decided we need some rules.

Here are the rules:

• I won't buy any books. I can read what I own, borrow them from friends and family, borrow them from the library, whatever, but there's no need for me to buy more books.
• I don't have to finish any books I'm not enjoying. Life's too short, babe, time is flyin'.
• I do have to write up every book I start, finished or not, for your edification, ideally in some way that will enable you to pretend you've read it, when your cousin corners you and wants to know whether you've read anything good lately.
• I can re-read books I've read before, but there has to be at least one new book to each re-read.

I'll start reading when my vacation starts tomorrow night. The comments are yours. What do you want covered in the reviews? What rules do I need to add?

Unofficial results

Driving the half-hour home from my parents' house to my own, 23 days before the NH primary, I saw yard signs for:

• Newt Gingrich
• Rick Santorum
• Ron Paul (just one sign, but it was enormous)
• Mitt Romney 
• Jon Huntsman

Sorry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Gary Johnson. It's not your year.

Feeling good

You know what feeling is better than when you find something important that was lost that you'd been searching for increasingly desperately for weeks?

The feeling when you finally fall asleep for an accidental nap in front of Murder, She Wrote after the relief of finding it, panic out of your mind because you think the finding it was just a dream and what the hell are you doing sleeping at a time like this, and then realize that it was not a dream, and that the very important thing is, in fact, still found. That, my friends, is the most elated feeling in the universe.

Reading is Fundamental

On Thanksgiving, my cousin-in-law asked me if I'd read any good books lately.

That seems like reasonable conversation, doesn't it? Especially if, like her, you love to read and are always on the lookout for the next good book. Or if, as she's heard about me, you started reading about six minutes after you started talking and never stopped, losing yourself in book after book, flopping down around the house next to whatever bookshelf caught your eye (including the one in the hallway by the bathroom), eventually working in the town library and reading your way through a sizable chunk of the collection there, too. It's totally reasonable Thanksgiving conversation. She and I are both readers, for sure.

So I was embarrassed to have no answer for her. I stumbled around a little but ultimately offered her nothing. She tried to have the same conversation the next day, with similar results.

Here is the truth that I did not say: I read all day for work, and when I am not reading for work, I read online. Books? Lately? I read picture books to my niece sometimes, and every now and then, I pull out something from my collection of favorite young adult novels and re-read that. Sometimes the 1974 Readers Digests in my room at my parents' house. ANd, um, I watch a lot of Murder, She Wrote, which is about a lady who writes books. No, not so much with the "any good books lately." But I have read a seriously startlingly large sample of The Internet.

When I told this story to my sister, she suggested that I should change that, that reading books is good for me. I tried to get her to explain how reading books, specifically, is better for me than all the thousands and thousands of words I read every day for work and pleasure, and before she could make the only reasonable answer to that there is (attention span), her two-year-old distracted her and so I am victorious!

Unless she's right, that is, in which case I lose and don't even know it. So, just in case, I'm giving it a shot. I'm on vacation from December 24 through January 2, and I am going to read a bunch of books and tell you about them.

Don't bother to recommend books to me — or rather, go ahead, but it won't do you a lot of good; I rarely read books on recommendation from other people. But please use the comments to tell me what you want to be sure I include in my (very brief) reviews of books I read on my winter vacation.

Rest

[Here's Part 1 of The Plattsburgh Saga.
Here's Part 2.
Here's Part 3.
This is Part 4.]

The above, in case you were wondering, was mine and my dad's approximate route. "A" is where I live. "B" is Plattsburgh, where the garage was (see how close to Canada!). "C" is Lake Placid, where we had to return the rental car. "D" is Ludlow, where the car broke down. See how not close to "A" it is?

Anyway, back to our story...

Obviously, I called AAA and sent my dad to a sandwich shop to get us some dinner, and then called about half a dozen friends to explain how this thing that could not have happened had, in fact, happened. While I waited, Lee called. Yup.

"Hey, I just wanted to be sure you got home OK," he said.
"You have got some bad timing, buddy," I said.

Eventually, the tow truck came. Here is the difference between Lee (or me, for that matter) and someone who knows something about cars: This guy asked if my car would drive in any other gear. I had no idea. I'd only tried it in drive. Turns out, in second, it worked just fine, and just think how much easier that made hooking it up to the (completely real) tow truck this time. Wonder if that might have worked the first time. I guess we'll never know.

I got home, eventually, thanks to a long drive and a shortish walk. My father and I parted ways, and in the morning, the garage I like here in town checked out my car. The problem was definitely the transmission, they told me, and they don't do transmissions, so they referred me back to the person I'd called a now more than a week before. He was glad to take my car, but it'd be a while before he could get to it now, because he was backed up. I drove my car on over (in second) and expected to be carless for about a week and a half.

A week or so later, I got a call from the local transmission guy. My car was ready! The work had actually been excellent on my car! The problem was an issue with a part! I could come get it immediately!

Which, obviously, I did. And in my conversations with the local transmission guy, he wanted to be very careful to emphasize what a good job the guys in Plattsburgh had done. Top-notch work, the likes of which he'd rarely seen. They had not ripped me off. If I'd left with any bad feelings, I might want to call and let them know I knew how great they were.

I told him I thought I'd been pretty even-tempered, but I was sure they felt bad that I'd broken down three-quarters of the way home, so maybe I'd call anyway. He said he thought John did feel bad about that.

"John?" I said. "Was he the guy who actually did the work on my car?"
"Yes."
"Oh," I said. "I only ever talked to the shop manager."
"Oh," said the local transmission guy, in the same mild, even tone he'd been using. "Since you were up there, he cleaned them out and left town."
"Since I was there?" I said. "I just left a week ago."
"Yup."

Day 30 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful that my car goes like a breeze again. And I am thankful for confirmation of what I am trying harder to believe: Gut feelings are to be trusted.

Penultimate

[Here's Part 1 of The Plattsburgh Saga.
Here's Part 2.
This is Part 3.
Here's Part 4.]


You're probably wondering what happened with my car. Or you wonder how anyone can make a story last so damn long. If so, sorry, because we've miles to go on that tale.

(If you haven't yet read about the car, the story begins here and continues here.)

So, yeah, my car was to be done early the week after Thanksgiving. I'd already asked for the Tuesday after Thanksgiving off for a morning engagement, so a plan formed over Thanksgiving weekend. My father and I would drive in the rental up to Plattsburgh that Tuesday afternoon, then he'd drive my car and I'd drive the rental over to Lake Placid to drop off the rental car, then we'd drive back to my house together in my car. It's a nine-hour trip, and it'd be a late night, but we have a pretty good time together.

Sunday night, the shop manager at the garage in Plattsburgh (let's call him, "Lee") called me from his cell phone. I am not sure I've mentioned yet that he seemed to think, after our interactions in the car and on the phone, that we were buddies — at least. His status as a single (well, divorced) guy had come up more than once. Anyway, he called Sunday night to let me know the car would not be ready until late in the day Tuesday. I was so pleased I'd padded the schedule. We weren't going to arrive in Plattsburgh until late in the day Tuesday, so we were fine.

My mother, who is often skeptical, was skeptical. She suggested I call before we left.

Tuesday morning, I called before we left. The car would be ready, Lee said. We discussed again whether I might pay in cash in exchange for a sizeable discount. I actually lost it at him briefly in the phone when he seemed to be unable to actually explain this "cash discount" to me in terms that made any sense. I told him I thought I'd be paying with a card, instead. (Word to the wise: If you have prevented a person from calling AAA and then shown up incapable of moving her car without her own brute strength, do not later suggest that part of your "discount" is that you are not charging her a "towing fee.")

And then my father and I embarked on a pretty jovial road trip. We called Lee a few times from the road and we reassured the car would be ready. We stopped for lunch. We joked around a lot and told stories.

About 20 minutes outside Plattsburgh, we had a call from Lee. Would it be possible, he asked, for us to maybe spend the night in town?

Some questions are not so much questions.

We went to the shop and he assured us he'd be happy to put us up in the local EconoLodge, but he wanted to be sure the work was really done well. He also launched into a weird diatribe about how much he is trying to do for the community, between the homeless shelter he's trying to build (Note: Plattsburgh does not, in fact, have a million people in it, whatever Lee thinks.).

Luckily, my father is retired and didn't need to get back for anything urgent, so we agreed (as if we had a choice) and headed to Kmart for toothbrushes and toys for Toys for Tots. We had a lovely dinner surrounded by Francophones (because, you know, pretty much Canada). We watched a movie at the hotel yadda yadda amnesia something something January Jones. We slept in until 7:30 and enjoyed the waffles at the continental breakfast, went to the AAA office to satisfy my father's desperate need for paper maps even when I have a GPS. And then we explored Plattsburgh. As we wandered along the shore of Lake Champlain, we got another call from Lee.

"Hey, you," he said as my skin creeped. He was just wondering if it might be possible for me to pay most of the bill on the card, of course, but $300 in cash, possibly — you know, because of the homeless shelter. My father and I talked about it, decided it was clearly shady, but whatever. Sure. We could do that.

And there began several hours of Lee telling us the car was almost ready and then calling us back to say that it was not. At least twice, I was literally a block or less away from the garage when he called to ask for more time. Eventually, he called to ask if we could put the cash in an envelope and label it "Toys for Tots" because "not everyone in the shop needs to know everything that goes on." Seriously.

But through it all, we had a pretty good time. We walked around downtown, looking at the war monument and taking pictures with our cell phones. Although I do not recommend a trip to Plattsburgh just for the Museum of the War of 1812, I do recommend stopping in if you're in town. We went to Radio Shack and TJ Maxx and Staples (naturally, we needed envelopes). My father wrote "Toys for Tots" (complete with quotation marks), which gave us no end of mirth.

And finally, my car was ready, at nearly 3:30 Wednesday — just enough time to get the rental car back to Lake Placid. Lee warned us that it might need a "breaking in period." The car might have a little trouble upshifting. After one more weird joke in which he suggested he might move in with me and my father could start calling him "son," he gave us our warranty, we gave him a credit card and an envelope with cash inside and quotation marks outside, and we hit the road.

When we got to Lake Placid, I asked my dad how my car had handled. He said it was about like Lee had suggested, and otherwise fine. As soon as I got back behind the wheel, I was worried. It felt like it had before it broke down. My father tried to reassure me, and I tried to allow myself to be reassured. We were making good time; we decided not to stop for dinner and power through to Keene.

And then.

And then the transmission died, about an hour from my destination.

When the car stopped accelerating and then slowed nearly to a stop, I pulled over.


Day 29 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for the kind of father-daughter relationship that makes a semi-catastrophe into a fun(ish) adventure, rather than a real catastrophe. I am thankful for stupid, stupid little jokes, for support and apparently limitless willingness to help. I am thankful not to feel like "Daddy's Little Girl" because I have always felt as respected, smart, and strong as any adult in the room, even when he dotes. And I'm thankful he's finally started reading the blog. :)