Rise and Shine

My sis sent me this video, and I laugh so hard every time I see it that I just had to put it up. If you can listen to it with sound it's even better, but the video is hysterical without, too.




Part cat lovers, part masochists.

Sexy Costume Wearhouse

Halloween is approaching, and while it is usually a day of fun and farce, I cannot help but point out that many of the costumes for women reinforce the notion of "women as sex objects" instead of "women dressing up to be whatever they opted to dress up as that day." My sister commented on this briefly last Halloween, but I think the issue is just getting worse and worse.

This year, I have found a great parody of the "sexing up" of Halloween for women. Give it a view. And then be mustard for Halloween. And not of the sexy mustard variety, either.

It's 12 degrees. Do you know where your leg warmers are?

For some reason, it is freezing YET AGAIN in my legal ethics class at Harvard. It is a bright and sunny 63 degrees outside, but it is a brisk 12 degrees inside. The professor has sworn to us that he has complained about the A/C every day for two weeks, but nothing has been done. Perhaps a class of otters meets before this one, and require icicles as part of their learning experience. No one knows. But we do know that no matter what is going on outside, you need a spare parka for legal ethics.

At least most people have taken a good attitude concerning the cold. I imagine that a class exchange will soon go a little like this:

Professor: Firms are incredible sensitive to potential conflict issues. How many of you have already been screened out of a matter at your future firm?
The class is a silent, huddled mass.
Professor: Come on, I know some of you have. Let me see a show of mittens.

It's 1am and I'm not asleep. In fact, I'm not even tired. This is quite annoying, as I know I will be tired tomorrow morning during class. I have tried to explain that to my body, but it isn't as good at cost/benefit analysis as I am. We are a work in progress.

In college, I suffered from insomnia every 6 months or so. I would go about a month being either unable to fall asleep, or unable to stay asleep after a couple of hours. I didn't like the idea of taking sleep aids (that creepy lime green butterfly aside, those drugs are addictive, and I don't have room in my rotation for another habit to break). Therefore, my sleep options in college were:

1. Drink. Nothing solves insomnia like alcoholism.
2. Play pool. Nothing improves your game like those 3am practice sessions.
3. Hang out with the graveyard shift desk associates. They are usually funny and endearingly neurotic.
4. Stay up and write stream of consciousness poetry. You'll be thankful when your first book is published.

But those options don't really exist for me anymore. There isn't a pool table in my house, and I don't want to drive anywhere because a) Patrick might wake up and think I've been kidnapped and b) if I suddenly get tired, I want to only have to stagger 3 steps to bed, not 3 miles.

There are also no desk associates at my house. It turns out this place doesn't have to be manned 24 hours a day.

So that leaves drinking or writing. Or drinking and writing. Mmmyessss. But wait! I suddenly remember that Patrick got me some great relaxation bath salts. And while I didn't have a bathtub in college, I do now, and I might as well use it. It's not a tried-and-true method, but hell, it's still better than that weird butterfly.

I'll let you know how composing drunken poetry in the tub goes. Goodnight.

This limp brought to you by the letters K, S & W

Oh, I just HAD to be treated like all the other prisoners. I just HAD to have lines and be in the songs and double as a dancer in the fantasies.

What I asked for in spoonfuls, they gave me in shovelfuls.

My butt is totally kicked. I've been practicing 4 nights a week for KSW, and while delivering my 5 lines with conviction isn't hard, and learning the music is challenging but not cruel, oh, the dances. The dances are cruel.

The choreographer is beside herself because there is a small cast, so she can really do difficult, amazing dances. And they are both difficult and amazing. And after a 4-hour rehearsal last week and a 3-hour rehearsal last night, my knees are swollen and my back is sore and I'm closer to crying in the fetal position than learning these dances.

But learn them I will. Because my moans will be the moans of faith abandoned and hope blah blah blah.

Back to limping.

make-up free with smc

I have been reading a lot of interesting articles lately that support the proposition that the more powerful and visible women become in the work force, the more demanding their make-up and fashion routine becomes. Sort of a, "in exchange for viewing you as competent, you must be extra beautiful, too," situation. There are many, many sex discrimination cases on the books in which women were fired for being too old or ugly, or because they were not feminine enough. Very often, the employer's decision to fire the woman was upheld, with the suggestion that beauty was an actual job requirement for women in the work place. On the other hand, many sexual harassment cases were dismissed because the woman was dressed too femininely, and thus was "asking for it." Today, those cases are thankfully more rare, but the pressure to be beautiful and feminine (but not too feminine and sexy) in the work place rages on, fueled incessantly by the cosmetic and fashion industry.

Other interesting articles have chronicled the rise of the make-up industry. Before 1920, make-up was referred to as "paint" and was associated only with the theater and prostitution. Respectable women did not paint their faces. But then, as women entered the workforce, the cosmetics industry was created and the term "paint" was changed to "make-up" (making up for what, one has to wonder). The pressure to never go out without make-up intensified on the newly liberated woman. A professional woman suddenly had to be "put-together" in ways men did not have to be.

So I am trying a mini-social experiment on myself. I am not wearing make-up this week. Not a stitch. I want to find out whether I wear make-up because I want to, or if I wear it because there are social pressures on me to wear it and so I only think I want to in order to conform with expectations of what being a woman means.

I'll let you know if I come across any interesting revelations as I face the world without my cheeks artificially flushed.

Hooray for the Parental Units

Special shout-out to my parents, who today celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Thanks for marrying each other, mom and dad! Thanks for being a shining example that marriages can still work, even in this "look to your left and right; 50% of you won't be married in 5 years" society.

And thanks for ensuring that el seester and I are who we are today (God love us), and not some weird halfling.

Congratulations!