Privilege

Odd thing about that previous post....I never thought of those things as "privilege." I just thought of them as a normal part of life. Well, the ones that applied to me, at least. Private schools would be part of a privileged lifestyle...as would cruises and having your own credit card in high school (what a bad idea).

We had an old family friend who was a fairly well-known Texas landscape artist--her work hung in our house (most of what the family had was destroyed in Katrina), as did a good bit of my work (some of that went in the 10 feet of water, as well :( ). My grandfather's art was also up, and some original Japanese prints and watercolors. We didn't think anything about it...it just was. They didn't specify what sort of camp...does girl scout camp count? Or YMCA camp, cuz you have to have somewhere to stick your kid while you work? And where else do you stay, but hotels (or motels) when you're on vacation? The Y? Flophouses? Although I guess they might mean like staying in a really nice hotel for a week or more...in which case, never mind.

And as for reading to your kids...isn't that what you're supposed to do? Isn't that part of being a parent? To me, that's not privilege, that's an obligation, and people who don't do it are failing their kids...but then that's why so many of them can't (or won't) read, I guess. It just wasn't an option I ever thought about...in fact I beat myself up constantly for not reading MORE to my kids.

I never thought of my self as part of the "privileged" class...just upper-middle class.

Do re meme

Stole this from Queen of the Harpies

The privilege meme:

Bold all things that apply to you.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
(Women weren’t generally given credit in their own name when I was in high school)
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
(no, but I had one in the 6^th grade)
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
(IRAs didn’t exist, lol)
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

And now, for my kids.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your [grand]parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18—or a cell phone
(daughter didn't, son will probably have a cell phone before 18)
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. (son will)
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (daughter has, son hasn't yet)
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Different sorts of privilege for me and my kids. Interesting.

This meme is from "What Privileges Do You Have?", based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Filch

While I ponder the second part of the promised never-ending self-analysis, I stole this from my daughter's blog, simply because she expects it of me (as in I'm the one person she knows will answer the list).


1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
I think it was my maternal grandfather's mother...but as it turned out, I was also named after my paternal grandfather's mother, too...it's just that neither parent knew that she was also a [name].

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Really cried as opposed to tearing up? Can't remember.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
I had a writing instructor in college say that like the smell of their own farts, people like the sight of their own handwriting (which is why he required us to type all our papers--in the time before word-processors and computers :P ). I like my handwriting when I'm being careful. I love my signature. I hate my handwriting most of the time, though, it's inconsistent and hard to read.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Ham or liverwurst.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yep. Two...26 years between them.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Probably not, which is a harsh thing to say about yourself.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Heh..you're joking, right?

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Nup. Out at 13, baby.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
*stares blankly*

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Basic 4, Total Raisin Bran

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
When I wear lace-ups....sometimes.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
To quote the kiddo, kind of: Mentally/emotionally? Yes. Physically? Sort of. I can do a lot of things that people don't think I should be able to do, but on the other hand...I have to get my husband to grate cheese and scoop ice cream.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Plain ol' vanilla or Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia or pralines'n'cream.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
mm...dunno...with guys it's their shoulders *pants* but mostly I'd say the whole package...maybe eyes?

15. RED OR PINK?
Blue.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
To quote led kid again: my temper and my insecurity around people, but I'll add my fat-ass body and the fact that I've wasted all the talent Goddess gave me.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST
My dad

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
Well, since I'm not sending it out...and maybe 1 or two people *might* read my blog....it's a moot point, eh wot?

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue pants, black loafers.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Baked potato....er no, I take that back, 4 robin's eggs (the candy, you doofus).

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The hum of my printer, voice across the hall and the fire doors opening and closing.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Is there a multi-colored one?

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Lavender, bacon frying, the air after rain, rosemary, yarrow, roses

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My best friend, Dory.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Stole it from my daughter...and she doth rock the earth. <3>

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Baseball, baby!

27. HAIR COLOR?
Faded red-gold with lots of grey and silver, au naturale!

28. EYE COLOR?
Blue.

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
I used to before I had lasik.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Almost anything I don't have to fix myself.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Either Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl--I can't remember.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Coral polo, a work shirt with logo

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter, as long as it's here in Austin.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Yes.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Almost any..maybe ice cream or sugar cookies or pumpkin pie with whipped cream....

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
See #18

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND
See #18

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
I have several that I've started some time ago, and need to pick up again: Dianne Sylvan's The Body Sacred; the First Earthsea book, A Wizard of Earthsea; Rising Tide; I just finished Succubus Blues and Strands of Starlight

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Don't use one at work.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT?
Don't watch TV

42. FAVORITE SOUND?
The little "mrr?" noise one of my cats makes, the hungry-I'm eating noises my son has made since a baby (you have to hear it to understand), the rumble of a powerful engine

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
The Beatles.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Well, I suppose that depends on where I was living at the time...probably Nice, CA while living here, or NYC while living here.When I went from one coast to the other, I was technically moving, so not really away from home, lol.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I can make dinner out of a practically empty pantry, I can differentiate between the most minute color differences, give the most amazing...er...look something shiny!!!

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
NAS North Island CA (NAS=Naval Air Station)

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
UM.

48. WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?
0900 CDT

Cat in the Hats

Okay....this tidbit has forced me to write. I think I know why poor Snowman is no longer with us: the poor thing died of utter shame, mortification, otherwise known as feline humiliation. It's a dread disease that comes in the blood of clueless owners. 14 ..FOURTEEN...different ways this (I'm assuming) woman found to harass and humiliate poor Snowman.

Let's hope there's no cat hattery in the after life.

Help actually helped

Finally got this switched over to the right gmail account, so don't get confused by the name change down below.

Back to your regularly scheduled drivel....I crack myself up, posting announcements here, like someone actually reads this shit...or cares. :P

Is it just me?

A small rantish interlude before I get back to yesterday's thought. Why does this annoy me so? I've seen this before, people wearing glasses strictly as a fashion statement and not because they needed them. Until I had lasik a couple years ago, I was extremely nearsighted, and quite frankly, it's a disability, not a fashion statement. To my way of thinking, wearing glasses as an accessory is insulting to those who have no choice. Think about it...would you wear a wheelchair or leg-braces as accessories?

Macho--or fun with Self Analysis Part I

I really do think sometimes I would have made a better guy. I think in a past lifetime, or several of them, I was...and more than likely one of "those" guys. I can compartmentalize things in my life with amazing ease, I tend to be insensitive, my spatial abilities outstrip most guys I know, as do my mechanical abilities. On the flip side, I notice things that a lot of people don't. If I tell you I didn't notice, I'm either disinterested or lying because I'm disinterested.

Also, as I age, I find myself attracted more and more to women...freaky, I know. And this is the part where L might want to stop reading and pick up in the next paragraph. If I picture myself as being...well, intimate with a woman, the first thing that comes to mind is having sex with her as a guy, not as two women would...which tells me there's some kind of residual memory there.

I say all of this because my insensitivity struck a chord with me today. I'm particularly, like my dad was, insensitive when it comes to fat people...although I at least do not make the snarky comments, especially where they can hear me, like Daddy did. I do understand that being fat is not the real issue. Deep, underlying pain usually is (barring the relatively rare cases where hormone- and/or thyroid-imbalances are the culprit). If the underlying issues can be faced and "handled" then the idea is that the overweight person can then love themselves enough to pursue losing weight, or more correctly, getting healthy.

You might think I'm one of those skinny bitches who don't understand...you'd be wrong. I'm 100 lbs over where I was when I was 20. It's taken me 35 years to get there, but today I weighed in at 219. I'm fat. I'm fat and no amount of rationalizing will soften that. The real bitch is that when I was 118 lbs, or 124, or even 130, 140...I thought I was fat. 145 was like the end of the world for me...and now here I'm facing size 20s if I don't stop the upward spiral. So, why, you ask, am I not sympathetic to the fatgirls? I am. But not to the point of saying it's okay to be fat. It's not. It's okay to love yourself enough to take care of yourself. I think that's at the bottom of my fat issues, really. I hate myself, I hate my body for the treachery over the years and this is some sort of mental time bomb I've planted. It’s a vicious cycle, though. You hate yourself, so you’re mean to yourself, which makes you uglier, so you hate yourself even more, because now, instead of just being a loser, you’re a fat loser, ad infinitum.

Sylvan posted this today and I wanted to cry, I wanted to reach out and hold her, to make the hurt go away. My overly vivid imagination can come up with any number of scenarios as to why she was adopted at 2. Car wreck killed both parents, one parent was an abuser, the other was in jail, single mom just couldn’t cut it anymore…the possibilities are endless. She has let go of that…or at least it seems that way, only someone delving more deeply than she’d really want them to could find out for sure. Does it matter, in the end? Probably not. She was adopted by a loving family who raised her and made her their own. The reason this is relevant is the whole Inner Child vs needs vs wants and why are we fat. She’s had her weight issues, I understand, since she was a girl. I thought I had weight issues 30 years before I really did. And now I have serious ones.

I had a therapist who is convinced all weight issues (save the aforementioned biochemical ones) have emotional roots. And that includes the under-weight issues as well as the over-weight ones. Whether you’re anorexic, bulimic, or tipping the freight scales at 400 pounds, you have an emotional problem that needs to be discovered and dealt with before the weight issues can be addressed. The “dealing with” part is the hard part. How does one “deal” with something like that. Not to mention knowing what it is might even make it worse, might make you so depressed that you drown yourself in whipped cream-covered jelly donuts. I have no such past. I was not only wanted by my parents, I was, according to them, planned. Essentially they said they wanted a blue-eyed, blonde-haired little girl and they got one. (And you see…right there I was tempted to write: and what they got was me; thereby devaluing myself yet again. I’ll give in to the temptation by merely saying: Well, at least I stayed blonde for a few years.)

So, back to this Inner Child-needs-wants-and body issues thing. Yes, I know I wander and ramble, but hell, this is a blog, not RHE 306.

I have at least four different facets to my personality, and over the years I’ve identified them and even named them. Nan is just me, Katie is the party girl, the flirt, the joker, the funster (haven’t seen a whole lot of her lately), David is the logical, reasonable one, and Roxanne is the complete and total bitch; if I have an inner child, it is she. I’m thinking I probably have another male personality, too…one who is not as well-defined, but is the sex-crazed prick…?

I do have a number of theories as to why I’ve tanked out. The whole process began with turning 30 and not realizing that I *had* been like my mother and father, in that I was actually rather thin in high school (my mother did not get curves until she was 17, when she went through puberty, so when I curved out earlier, going through menarche at 12—like a normal girl :P—she thought I was overweight.* I can remember it being intimated that I was carrying too much weight when I was still in high school…and I was 115 at 5’5”!!!!) Here’s 18, 5’5” and 118. On top of that, my first husband (who dated the ultimate skinny mini in high school) called me chubby at 120 lbs. Now granted, he was young, but so was I, so I didn’t have the experience to tell him to shove it…as a result of those two histories, I went into my late 20s, early 30s thinking anything over 125 was utter disaster. So, when I approached 128, 130 (had a bf at that time telling me I was fat, too), I think I started beating myself up at that point. Even at 28, 128, I had a fabulous body, but in my own mind, I was over the hill.

This is what my father hated on TV…a two-parter (invariably, he’d get wrapped up in some TV show and discover at the end that it was …to be continued…and he knew he’d be on the road. Well…hope you’re not on the road when I finish this, but I’ve made a commitment to myself to work out and that’s where I’m off to…

*In talking to her now, 40 years later, she says I was the one worried about my weight and she used to tell me I was fine. Not how I remember it...but...

The word of the day

Ineffable

Gee....and I always thought it meant something like concrete...not fuckable...In-eff-able.


*sighs* Just kidding.

Um...?

It seems the evil fairy of writer's block has caused a dearth of words available to me...I can't even come up with a catchy one-word title for a post. *sighs* Perhaps it's because I can only extend artistically in one direction at a time. Lately I've been trying to paint and draw more...and it seems to be sucking at the teat of creativity and running it dry, or not so cheesily put, stealin' mah werdz.

*another sigh* I hate resorting to lolcateze in order to cadge a chuckle...or groan, as the case might be.

Sitting here at work (yeah, sue me), drinking diet coke, eating way too oily peanuts on a dodgy stomach, wondering why I don't just go home (would involve calling the spousal unit and having him give up his comp time to haul my ass home), and if I can type this, why can't I sort through ancient accounting records and get them in order.

This is more fun?

I hate working, I hate getting out of my nice, comfy, cat-strewn bed on someone else's schedule. It sucks, and I've been doing it for nigh onto 38 years..at the risk of repeating myself, I say again..it sucks.

Four more years until I retire...and then I'll still have to work. I'm going to look into learning something like web-design, or medical transcription, something I can do from home in my t-shirt and sweats, yanno?

For those of you who were in suspense over this *cricket chirping* I was initiated on the 24th of February. Sylvan wrote an incredible ritual that had most of us crying at the least. Won't give it away, in case she wishes to use it for future initiates, but suffice to say it was awesome. And no, not crying in a scary way, well, not scary the way you might think. More like rebuilding yourself scary. We had the post-class-initiation "feast" yesterday...and a more unlikely spread of food you couldn't imagine. Sylvan brought leftovers from her dad's birthday party...the usual suspects, fruit, cheese, veggies, dips, salsa, chips, olives, etc. summer sausage, and she bought some chocolate-covered, pecan evilly decadent hockey pucks on the way home..one is enough to die from insulin shock. The wild redhead brought some sort of choco-chocolate cake that I didn't try, and the Kimmeister shows up with a bag of sunchips and a--ready for this?--dozen Krispy Kremes. ACK! and the worst of worst, I had eaten way too many apricots over the preceding 24 hours and yep...the worst. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say I wore home a pair of Sylvan's old lounge pants. >.<

After my trip to the loo I noticed they had lit incense...go figure. *dies*

Told you this blog would not be pretty at times.

Le Kimmeister put it best...shit happens.

ttfn

Um....oh, hai! I'm in ur hed, makin thingz up

Sorry...the title is well, sophomoric, but it got your attention, didn't it? ;)

Four months to the day...what was this thing about turning over new leaves, etc? Feh...leaves, schmeaves...I write when the muse twhacks me over the head with a box of number 2s. I'm hoping my priestess/teacher is still talking to me...I asked her to repeat the snarky comment story and I guess a couple of the "we have nothing better to do than diss people more intelligent than ourselves" sites got hold of it. *sighs* You know, since skinny is considered "normal" and "desirable" (yeah, right, ask my husband about that one), and fat is "not normal" and "undesirable" (these are society's views, not necessarily my own), then it seems to be okay for skinny bitches to be bitchy about fatgirls in public and everyone's alright with that...

In a word? Bullshit. Here's the story, btw. I think Sylvan was completely and totally within her rights to a) be snarky to the ill-bred bitch, and b) to blog about it. Tit for tat, as they say.

I have yet to experience any of the rudeness that goes along with being fat...I think because I'm not young anymore. I am off everyone's scope, so to speak. And I still think fat people can do something about it if they wanted to...now, before you jump down my throat, there's a lot in that. Very often "being fat" is not the issue. Addressing other emotional issues is the issue...and those things have to be recognized, analyzed, and then dealt with before the fat thing can be tackled. And myself? I'm no one to talk, I've literally gained 100 lbs since high school. Good gods.. .bleah.

And I know, I know, I'm a horrible pagan...I don't find fat attractive or acceptable, but at least I'm well-bred enough to not SAY shit to people like Miss Jogging Suit. She deserved what she got, snarky comment and judgment included.

'Nuff for now...back to clearing nearly 20 years of clutter...mind, body, and house...