Grocery

That place never has any plain rice. They have jasmine, and yellow, and Basmati, and brown mixes and medleys, but never the plain sticky “I just worked in the paddy all day” white. That’s not the first time I went into that store looking for the basest of base ingredients and came  through the opposite swinging door empty-handed and ticked off.

This time, some jerk with a smile on his face was standing in a Hawaiian shirt at the entrance, and told me I had to go through the exit doors around the corner instead of back out the way I came in.

Well, I hate doing that.

Every time, no matter how small my bag is, I feel like I’m trying to smuggle something out, unpaid. I don’t ever steal except for that one time when I took plastic figurines off my grandma’s mail table, and after my parents found the tiny orange giraffes caravanning on the dresser in my room my chin smarted for a week. I was really foxed by those giraffes.

But I feel like a crook whenever I leave a store through a separate exit and haven’t bought anything, but the store layout makes it so you are definitely exiting and not entering. And you pass the registers, and you say to yourself “I didn’t buy anything, but I have no reason to feel strange or apprehensive.” But then the thought that you have no reason to appear that way makes you wonder how you appear, and that extra layer of consciousness always gets me–soon my eyes are shifting, and I’ve morphed into a hoodlum, complete with baggy pants, a cautious step, and a feeling that my parents never thought I would amount to anything. I’ll show them for slapping me on the chin.  What’s an 85-year old woman doing with tiny giraffes anyways?

That’s the feeling of the tragedy of capitalism, or something. And they make the exits so sinuous and impossible to get out of without banging into something or otherwise drawing undue attention to yourself.  It’s like navigating a sleigh in the Iditarod with rabid raccoons, all the more if you have an empty cart with a busted front wheel.

My dad once told me never to talk politics in polite conversation. But I don’t think it’s politically controversal to ask markets not to fill their register n-caps with small bags of goodies I would like. You’re walking through without a purchase, or you have your ingredients for dinner, and then you see that damn barrel of honey roasted peanuts, calling out like an orange giraffe on a mail table. But you don’t need them, and they are pricey for such a small portion. It should be illegal. It’s like they are aiding and abetting a crime. The crime? Highway robbery, as my father would say.  And if you’re on a public highway, it is now a political/social issue. I’m more than capable of shoving bags of peanuts in my pockets unnoticed before I get to the checkout. But now, when they’re right in my face at the end of my trip, I’m mad if I missed them back in the aisle where the security camera doesn’t have good visibility. The pockets of my coat  can’t afford any unusual bulges. I didn’t think it was possible to say “fuck you” using legumes, but that just goes to show how insidious politics can get.

m.snowe’s Baaaack.

The strength and phallic imagery of the British Empire (and it keeps time!).

 

After a short hiatus to the UK, get ready for some actual blogging.  Soon.

Just in case…

Dear Reader (whoever you might be):

So I just wanted to write this letter in case I am the victim of a horrible accident. I decided to go on a trip to Europe, and while it was fun planning, now an over-arching sense of dread is totally mucking up all my excitement. So I decided that it would be best to write this letter in preparation of my unlikely, yet possible, demise.

So first, let me say that I really love my family. And my friends. I mean, I know a lot of people would say that, and Love Actually already covered that aspect of human relationships and planes crashing right at the beginning of the movie, but I just really want you to know that I actually mean it. Sometimes I yell at you all, and sometimes I don’t talk to you for years on end, but let me assure you, that as I approach my watery grave, you and every other single person I’ve come into contact with will go through my mind, like, um, a Rolodex of emotion. This I promise you–and even you, Ewan, who I promised, while yelling down from my bedroom window, that “I would never even think of your sorry ass again,” well, in this instance of despair and terrific horror, my emotions, like my bowel  movements, will be out of my control–and so I will think of you. I want you to know that, so you can feel especially bad once this letter is made public.

I feel like I should also tell you all how I want to be remembered. This can go one of two ways, and it’s all dependant on how exactly I die, and whether or not my remains are found.

Okay, so if they find me, I want a full funeral. But before that, I would like a group meditation, with the final Leo DiCaprio scene in Titanic playing softly in the background. (I know, I know, that was a ship and this is a plane, but come on, he’s clutching debris and sinking into the ocean–same difference!). Then, I want that song that they played for Liam Neeson’s dead wife in Love Actually played as the pallbearers bear the pall. I forget the name of the song, or who sang it, but god that was beautiful. Also, get Liam to be one of the pall bearers. He doesn’t have to cry, but a single tear would add a nice touch.

If they don’t find my body, I would still like you all to believe I went down loving, in my mind, every one of you–however, and this is key: I am not dead. I was in the tail of the plane. I crashed onto an abandoned tropical island, and a Matthew-Fox-looking guy is tending to my wounds and trying, with more and more success, to seduce me into a tryst of tropical, tropical passion. (Yeah, how do you like that, Ewan? How does that smack you?).  So again, I am totally still alive (even if I’m not). Disregard my early infatuation with Amelia Earhart, and understand that it is a mere coincidence that we both ended up missing (but feel free to bring it up, teary-eyed, when you are interviewed on the Today Show, or Oprah). Come to think of it, my story should be more compelling and have a longer shelf life, seeing as I’m waaaay hotter, and Earhart was kind of a gap-toothed, Eleanor-Roosevelt type, if you understand what I’m saying. And if Dateline has taught us nothing else, it has shown us that hot people who go missing are much more important than the fugly-looking ones.

Alright, I think that’s really all I have to say. So remember, you all are so important in continuing my legacy once I am gone. And also, this letter should be saved for posterity, so please keep it safe. (But just in case you misplaced it, there are about ten copies scattered about my apartment, and at work.)
Love,

Me

Monday Postage for Friday

The fiction Lady-Rating returns (on a Monday).

Do you have what it takes, fictionally?

First, apologies–m.snowe has been neglecting this Friday post  idea. But to remedy that on a Monday morning, here we go with a new book to analyze in terms of its female characters, or the presence/lack of any type of feminist ideas.

Today’s Lady-Rating, for American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.

Do ladies ever strike twice?

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Reasoning: First let m.snowe say that she enjoyed this book immensely. It was an easy read, and presented ideas and creative vignettes that were extremely original and thought-provoking. There was an underlying message or preachyness to the book, but it really didn’t distract or take away from m.snowe’s enjoyment of the story. But here’s the problem–most of the lady bits are tangential. The protagonist, Shadow, is actually quite a redeeming character, and it’s clear that he respects and enjoys the company of women (yeah, in that way too). And women do play a crucial role in the movement of the story–Gaiman’s premise of broke-down gods living in America is not neglectful of lady gods–Easter, Mama Ji, the Zorya sisters, etc., and so on. And Shadow’s dead wife is also a key character. But honestly, sometimes m.snowe felt like the ladies were either there to add flourish or intrigue, or merely drive the story–which is fine, but the women don’t get the kind of character development that the men sometimes do. Despite the variety of names these lady-gods are given, it might not be completely unfair to say they are all really Muses. They guide and assist Shadow on his way, and the real players are men–Shadow, Wednesday, Mister World.

But let m.snowe make it clear–she loved this book, and found herself reading passages that were completely unique, and many times wished she could’ve come up with such strange and beautiful stories. The small stories that breakaway from the main action were just out-of-place enough to work, yet intrinsically tied to the plot, even if you couldn’t fully puzzle out why. A scene of a reverse birth was shocking (at least, it was to m.snowe!), and the frank suspension of reality somehow works. In fact, it was mildly disappointing to see that the end was connected to the solving of a “real life” murder mystery, because it hurled the story back into reality, taking the reader out of the world of strange possibilities that Gaiman navigates so fluidly. If only Shadow or Wednesday had a lady counterpart, this story would’ve tipped the lady-rating scales to a seven or eight. But m.snowe recommends you read it anyway.

My Chotchkie Is Better Than Your Chotchkie

…also, m.snowe just likes saying “chotchkie.”

Imagine Each Grain of Sand Is an Awesome, Awesome Word.

m.snowe is referring to this project/contest–where writers have been enlisted to compose very short stories, stories centered around some arbitrary, worthless knickknacks. The knickknacks in question are then auctioned off, all in some attempt to see if storytelling can thereby increase the value of an otherwise practically value-less object. Some fairly well-knowns have submitted stories, including Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Goldstein, and Nickolson Baker. Now, the creators of this little project have opened it up to any Joe or Josephine Schmo, and ask people to submit their best less-than-500-word stories about some rando BBQ sauce baster thingy.

Okay, so m.snowe thinks it’s an interesting premise, writing about rando objects. It sounds kind of like a first year composition class project. Fine. But here’s the problem: you cannot use this as an accurate gauge of how the object’s monetary value changes in response to storytelling. Because in reality, the story is not what is changing the monetary value of the chotchkie written about. Inherently, what people are paying for is the name. It would be like saying, “this baseball is absolutely worth more in itself…oh, and it happens to have Babe Ruth’s signature on it.” People are not paying for the baseball–the baseball is merely the vehicle for the expensive, added value thing appended to it. So yes, maybe Colson pulled out a good story, and people will want to read it…sure. But you can be certain that the object connected with the story is not going to be more expensive or sought-after on a large scale, aside from that single one written about. Because Colson’s story is his signature on a baseball, in effect. Which is fine. But let’s call this what it is folks–a marketing tool. Aren’t convinced? Well if this one is writing a story for it, you know it’s shameless self-promotion.

He Said, She Said.

"Off with Her Head!" (Don't worry, she's just PMS-ing)

m.snowe just came across an interesting article on Slate that discusses the quantity and quality of female judges relative to male ones.

The article seems to be tackling two main questions:

1. Are female nominees for judicial positions chosen based on affirmative action?

2. Are female judges “better” or “worse” than their male counterparts?

The writers then go on to explain the findings of their study–that women perform just as well (if not better, at least by the factors studied) as men in terms of their output of dissent, opinions, and being cited by other lawyers/judges. Of course, how does one actually quantify what it means to be a good judge? Though the professors who conducted this study tried to, m.snowe is still skeptical. m.snowe is also skeptical of any study that pits a group of male and females against each other, because despite the good intentions of the study’s authors, it  reinforces the notion of difference between “genders” instead of among them (i.e. there is more variation within a group of males or a group of females than there is when you compare the two groups against each other).

But there are some specifics we need to totally shoot down, right now. Here’s a quote:

They [women] have attended lower-ranked colleges and lower-ranked law schools, they are less likely to have had judicial clerkships (a prestigious job often taken by top law school graduates), and they have less experience in private practice before becoming judges. This suggests that the pool of stellar female candidates for the judiciary is smaller than the pool of stellar male candidates, which provides ammunition for the conservative argument that President Obama’s choice of Sotomayor, or another female justice, involves affirmative action in favor of women.

Okay. The study they are using involves a “dataset of all the state high court judges in 1998-2000″–so it is reasonable to assume these judges were at the very least in their late 30s, early 40s at the time they were serving as state high court judges. That would put them in law school probably about 20 to 30-plus years before the 1998-2000 sample years (somewhere between the late 1950’s  up through the 1970’s). At this point, m.snowe refers to her old stand-by of unfair treatment of women in law school and afterwards: Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor was third in her graduating class at Standford Law (by any estimation in today’s and yesterday’s law world, that’s kind of a big deal). This was the mid-1950’s. No law firms were interested in hiring O’Connor, and she was only offered a position as a legal secretary. So she pretty much flipped ‘em the bird and decided to go into public service. From there, she worked her way up to the Supreme Court–no easy task for a male or a female.

So conservatives or whoever call foul when women are added to the court instead of equally experienced or perhaps “more experienced” male judges, because they perceive a smaller pool of “qualified” female judges verses men–and yes, the numbers are tipped towards more men in higher-up, prestigious, money-making positions. They shout “affirmative action! No fair!” (And this is a wider issue, that spans sex, age, race, orientation, etc.). You can shout ’til your un-discriminated-against lungs can’t take it anymore, but once you claim unfairness, once you introduce that onto the evidence pile, you must be ready for the defense’s counter-claims. Yes, maybe there are more men who have the qualified pedigree you’re looking for that they earned back in the day when Old Boys Clubs existed freely and without question (as opposed to now, when they’re merely implied and secretly enforced). But some of those “qualified” men took spots from women (in law school and directly upon graduation) that they had an equal (or more than equal) right to years ago, but were denied merely on the basis of their sex. And that set into motion the situation and skewed averages we have today. If men and women were judged absolutely equally (blindly) 20-40 years ago, in terms of school admissions and then job placement, there would be less of a disparity between the sexes in this study. Yes, m.snowe realizes that society dictated in that era that less women would persue law school. However, even the smartest, most determined female students were met with offers of secretarial positions. And now conservatives have the cojones to get upset that Obama might appoint women to the court because of affirmative action? And how can you possibly suggest that women with a less prestigious pedigree are less talented, when women were actively discriminated against, and still performed (and in some cases, out-performed men) and still rose to the highest ranks?

Fiction Smack Down

Don't step to this.

“Reader, I married the bastard.” Or something…

Many feminists tell you Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte’s ode to early feminist ideas. What’s not to love: a headstrong, smart, independent, equality-loving poor woman who doesn’t use physical attractiveness or “wiles” to get ahead, and yet gets everything she needs and wants by the end. She was riding the tides all the way into shore before there was any thought of different “waves.” Then there’s that whole “madwoman in the attic” that feminist scholars and critics of all kinds love to deconstruct more than Bertha herself ever did to the dresses and veils she tore and set alight in Thornfield Manor. The madwoman, locked away in her tower must represent Bronte’s repressed anger at being a second-class citizen, not taken seriously as a valid writer because of her sex, sequestered from the literary parlours. Maybe. Every scene is another reinforcement of Bronte’s philosophy. Listen, m.snowe knows a little about this book. She’s spent a lot of time picking at the bones of this story like it was carrion. But can we just cut the psycho-babble for a second? This story just plain WORKS. To read the plot summary might not convince you. In fact, m.snowe spent a long time riding the fence on this one–after all, Eyre ends up marrying the blind candy-ass. But then m.snowe read Villette (quite possibly a much better example of Bronte’s feminist philosophy, if there is one to define) and her mind was made up. But aside from all that, Bronte understood and executed something more important than how to weave in ideas about women in society, more than her fierce feelings on inequality. She knew how to write characters. And that’s one of the most feminist themes any “lady” writer can display–the ability to write characters that have staying power, that speak to us, regardless of how we view them as people. Characters that stand up to the test of time just as fiercely as any other writer’s, male or female. Jane Eyre was no watered-down David Copperfield–David would be lucky to lick her Moor-worn boots. And that’s that.

Literary Libido Loser

This is your brain on poor research and skewed agendas

Best Seller. Riddled with errors. All the worse because some of these errors actually reverse maybe thirty-odd (and even) years of feminist gains. m.snowe has many issues with this book, The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine (and she hasn’t even finished it yet!). But here’s a quick run down: The audience is clearly only women, and the author writes as if she’s talking to her girlfriends. Also, she and her girlfriends are still in highschool. Because women are the obvious audience, this book is peddling “science” as a confirmation of many stereotypical, sexist, completely un-feminist notions that seemingly want to survive like cockroaches in nuclear winter (which actually is kind of a lie, too, by the way). What is m.snowe talking about? All that “no honey, not tonight” business. Or that “the bitch just won’t shut up” crap. In fact, this book has already received press and fake accolades for its scientific errors, including one that error that claimed women said 3 times as many words on average as men each day. False. So this book even won the 2006 Becky Award, that “goes to people or organizations who have made outstanding contributions to linguistic misinformation.” Congrats!

It really makes m.snowe mad when people promote this kind of 50’s era backward thinking. It makes her even more mad when even women claim “it’s science.” This is the same argument used against women in sports, in the workplace, and guess what: even math and science! But what’s even, even, even worse about this book is not that the misinformation could make women feel like what their grandmothers told them about sex was true–it’s the serious lack of foresight and research that could really cause women harm. Even the author admits that 4 in 10 women have suffered some kind of sexual abuse, whether during childhood, or later on (we haven’t confirmed these numbers with any actual outside sources, but m.snowe thinks its fair to say that this is probably pretty close). So let’s say you are one of these 4 out of 10 women. Let’s say, even, that you were raped. Now, please read the following quotes from Dr. Brizendine’s chapter, “Sex: The Brain Below the Belt.”:

“Female sexual turn-on begins, ironically, with a brain turn-off. The impulses can rush to the pleasure centers and trigger orgasms only if the amygdala–the fear and anxiety center of the brain–has been deactivated.”

“The fact that a woman requires this extra neurological step may account for why it takes her on average three to ten times longer…”

“If you’re not relaxed, comfortable, warm, and cozy, it’s not likely to happen.”

Okay, so that’s the Brizendine take. But there have been many instances where people who are sexually abused actually reach orgasm. m.snowe’s guess is that while they were being raped or abused in some way, these women were not in a comfort zone, and their feet were not being kept warm and cozy (really? scientific research on cozy feet?) As a legitimate scientific journal explains: “A woman can become aroused, her body can produce natural lubrication, and she can even experience orgasm(s) against her will while being raped.” (Roy J. Levin; Willy van Berlo (2004-04). “Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation – a review”. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine (elsevier.com) 11 (2): 82-88.)

This is more a factor of the woman’s body protecting itself–these processes are necessary so that all a lady’s lady-parts don’t get really damaged during a sexual encounter–be it rape or an actual consensual event. As a “neuropsychiatrist” or whatever the hell this lady is, Brizendine should know better than to suggest you “must be” one way in order to orgasm, unless she is really looking to create more patients, as the women who read this and did experience some form of orgasm during an abusive situation are completely distraught by the fact that they were “comfortable” or “cozy” with their rapist. Quick, marry him!

Really, should we be surprised? Apparently this doctor is more than just that, she’s a product herself. Just take a gander at her website, if you dare. m.snowe won’t judge her by her pictures, some of which are too similar to Sarah Palin for comfort, but she doesn’t mind if the more shallowly-inclined among you do. (Disclaimer: Brizendine has advanced degrees, has done well for herself and obviously one of her goals must be advancing and improving the lives of women–and for that, m.snowe respects that. But that doesn’t mean we have to agree with her opinions, agenda, or the way she writes!)

Postscript: m.snowe couldn’t find out if the good doctor is religious, but her whole “if you’re in a loving and committed relationship you’re more likely to have better orgasms” sounds a bit too much like: “Married sex is totes the best!” Also, it grates against the doctor’s other claim, that women are similarly likely to go out and look for hot sex with “more symmetrically pleasing” guys than the ones they are in said committed love-nests with. Sigh.

You Fucking Kidding Me?

Really, New York Times?  m.snowe thought this story about the “trend” of pot bellies was ridiculous, and she scoffed at you, and then quickly went back to her own business. But then, she saw this one, on women in the military and combat and such, and she wanted to yell at you through the computer and hope you could hear her angry and disgusted scream all the way over at your stupid ladder building on 43rd Street.

Why is m.snowe appalled? This is after all about ladies kicking ass in the armed forces, which clearly m.snowe has no problem with. But look at how the “journalist” begins the “Woman at Arms” article:

“As the convoy rumbled up the road in Iraq, Specialist Veronica Alfaro was struck by the beauty of fireflies dancing in the night. Then she heard the unmistakable pinging of tracer rounds and, in a Baghdad moment, realized the insects were illuminated bullets.”

Yes, all girls do is daydream about fireflies, fairies, and lollipops. Also, if we weren’t so damned distracted by said daydreams, our convoy drivers wouldn’t have been riddled with bullets.

Aren’t journalists told to front load? So why did this journalist (a lady journalist, no less!) begin with fireflies, and not the real meat of the story, which is:

“She jumped from behind the wheel of her gun truck, grabbed her medical bag and sprinted 50 yards to a stalled civilian truck. On the way, bullets kicked up dust near her feet. She pulled the badly wounded driver to the ground and got to work.”

Let us not forget, this is super heroic, because the Specialist is a chick. She deserves not a purple heart, but a pink one, because hey, she’s a girl. And when little grown up girls do something so heroic that even most men wouldn’t do, well, that’s extra-special extraordinary. (m.snowe is laying this on thicker than the cream cheese at the corner deli … ).

Give us a break, Times.

New Friday Postage: Lady-Rating

The fiction Lady-Rating.

Can your writing run with the big girls?

“Yeah, she’s a 7, maybe an 8.”

Let’s turn this shit on it’s head. m.snowe was sadly subjected to, and heard stories of others subjected to the whole grade school, junior high, and high school ratings system. Oh yes, boys would rate the girls on a scale of one to ten, and sometimes there would be illustrations. Enough of that! Then what, might you ask, is the Fiction Lady-Rating? It’s the arbitrary name m.snowe has created in order to rate certain pieces of fiction in terms of their female characters, or the presence/lack of any type of feminist ideas. Obviously, this can’t help but be a bit subjective—but m.snowe will try her best to rate with fairness and insight. (obviously, a rating of 0 is absolutely horrid and represents either a complete lack of female characters or feminist ideas, 10 is the best, with strong female characters and/or feminist ideals.)

It’s m.snowe’s hope that at least one book, new or old, can be rated every Friday, and that any other posts going forward that necessitate a rating will have one appended to it at the bottom, holding down it’s skirt.

So here’s today’s Lady-Rating, for The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Quest? Not for Ladies.

Rating: 1 out of 10.

Reasoning: Despite m.snowe’s love for this classic piece of literature, big J.R.R.T. was not exactly female-friendly fare. Even his Lord of the Rings books have female characters few and far between, and they almost always serve as love interests, or evil enchantresses. Tolkien, a renowned scholar, claimed Beowulf was his biggest influence when writing The Hobbit–and obviously, there is a lack of females or feminist themes in that (although, at least Grendel’s mum makes an appearance!). Clearly, for Tolkien, great adventures and fighting dragons was just not for women. To be fair Tolkien should be placed in his time–The Hobbit was written before 1936, and he was a staunchly religious man–both of these are factors in his works which make him less apt to have leading ladies. But perhaps because of his later works that do include some ladies who are slightly stronger than shrunken violets, m.snowe is wont to give him a rating of 1 instead of the old goose egg.