Homeless and ______________

Almost every time I get off the highway when I drive into “my” city there is a person standing at the top of the off ramp holding a “Homeless and _____ “sign (Homeless Vet, Homeless and Hungry, Homeless with Children, Homeless and Unemployed). The other day 3 out of the 4 off ramps had someone standing there.

I hate this.

I used to give them a dollar or two, handed out the barely-opened window of my locked car door, until I was told (by someone who is fairly cynical, but also probably right) that these are usually people who are not actually homeless, but who do this as their “part time job,” and that there are plenty of services in Our Fair City designed to help them,  of which most of them do not avail themselves.

But even when I would give them money I hated it.

I would like to give them cards for the organizations that will help them find homes, or jobs. I would like to give them a sandwich and a bottle of water. I don’t believe they want these things from me.

And I hate it.

I hate being confronted by my guilt, and my luck, every single time I drive into town. I sit there in my nice car, drinking coffee from newly-roasted beans out of a well-made insulated coffee mug with a full belly and a nice coat around my shoulders and a house to come home to that has electricity and heat and running water. I know I’ve worked for all of this, but I also know that I have been amazingly lucky — born to good parents who fed and housed me and expected me to do well in school and an exceptional education and some natural talent that I had the good sense to utilize and a husband with a good job. Some of it I’ve earned, and some of it I’ve tripped and fallen over.

It’s even worse with Only Daughter in the car. She hates that she has so much and so many have so little (and by so much I mean a full belly and a coat around her shoulders and a house to come home to that has electricity and heat and running water; we’re not rich, unless you compare us to the rest of the world). She feels terribly guilty and sad every time we encounter someone on the street or on one of these off ramps. She hates the idea that people sleep on sidewalks or park benches and pee in doorways and eat the stuff they find in garbage cans. She sees them and lets out this short little groan of despair; and I tell her “don’t make eye contact.”

(I’m such a good mom.)(I never have kleenex in my purse, either.)

There was this homeless person in the town I used to live in in central Illinois. Everybody knew him — his family had money, he struggled with mental illness, he didn’t want to be hospitalized and couldn’t live with his family so he lived on the streets, wearing his tattered coat and pushing his little shopping cart around and mumbling to himself. He was gentle and completely harmless, and I used to try to bring him coffee and sandwiches when I saw him, but invariably by the time I returned with the coffee and sandwiches he would have moved on.

I’m not heartless, but you can’t help everyone, and some of what I do professionally raises money for these very agencies which are there to help these people, but I still hate it.

Is it just me? Are we being manipulated by these people, standing there on off ramps with their not-as-tattered-as-might-be-expected coats and their pathetic little cardboard signs? Are they using our guilt, and our awareness of our own luck, against us? Or is that just the cynical me talking?

Why do I hate this so much?

my take, takes, or lack thereof, on the Steubenville rape and trial

Just read this excellent article by Jessica Valenti in The Nation.

Have been thinking about this case all week, trying to figure out how I really feel about all this.

The thought process goes something like this:

How awful!

How could she be so drunk that she’s throwing up repeatedly and passing out, and no one’s helping her?

How could they take such advantage of her in such a compromised condition?

Teenage guys want sex, and will take advantage of any opportunity to get it.

But how could they take such advantage of her in such a compromised condition?

Why didn’t someone take care of her? She was clearly incapacitated, a true friend would have taken her home.

But remember those parties in high school, when ________ would always drink too much and end up in bed with someone? None of us did anything, we didn’t think it was our business.

Yeah, but none of us took pictures with our cell phones and posted them on facebook either.

We didn’t have facebook or cell phones, and _______ took that one Polaroid that one time.

Yeah, but __________ grabbed it from him and tore it up. Besides, we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about this.

Where were the parents? How did these kids get so much alcohol? And has no one taught this girl not to drink so much that she loses her ability to make decisions? And what’s up with the coach brushing this off? Was he really so callous? He must not have understood what was really going on.

But has no one taught these boys that it’s inappropriate to take advantage of someone who has clearly drunk so much that are incapacitated?

But they’re teenage boys, they’re suffering from hormone-induced mental illness.

But they still should know better. And how could they continue to be so heartless that really the only thing they are worried about is their reputation and their football career? What about her reputation?

And does he really think that texting her trying to talk her out of pressing charges because he “took care of her” is a valid argument? Really? How well was he taking care of her when he was raping her?

But they’re all young and oversexed and half of them probably go to these parties expecting to get drunk and have sex with someone.

But it’s clearly wrong, they clearly raped her, as she was in no condition to grant or deny consent.

But how could she let herself get into that condition?

How can these boys not know the difference between sex and rape?

etc. etc. etc.

They’re children. They have no judgment skills. Maybe the best solution is to not let anyone out of a parent’s sight until they’ve recovered from adolescence-induced hormone poisoning — girls around 18, boys, I hear, around 26 (sigh). I know that as a parent I have tried to teach my children everything they need to know to be good, kind, considerate, contributing members of society. That no always means no. That they should respect themselves, and everyone else.  I also know that they have, and will, do things on occasion that I don’t agree with (although I am pretty sure none of my children have done anything even remotely like this). I also look back on my 16-year old self and shudder. The only criterion for me liking a boy was if he liked me; I drank too much wine with a friend, whose dad made it himself and stored it in vast carboys, almost every Friday night, we would go to school dances drunk, and throw up on the tennis courts after; I had this other friend I already  mentioned who would always get too drunk at parties, and go to bed with any number of the “popular,” “in” guys. We didn’t do anything to stop it. WE DIDN’T THINK IT WAS OUR BUSINESS.

Granted, my parents didn’t talk to me much about any of these things. They were either too uncomfortable to, or too clueless to know that they should.

There’s a disconnect, probably partially borne of being adolescent and having no judgment skills; of being children who want to believe they’re adults; of living in a society where a blow job is referred to as a “good night kiss” and everyone’s violating their own privacy daily on social media. But don’t we all look back at things we did at 16, and realize how incredibly stupid we were? And maybe most of us were just lucky. Really, really lucky.

I hope you all realize that I am not making excuses for these two boys, nor for all of the people who stood around and not only let it happen, but documented it. I’m also not really making an excuse for this girl. We want her to be respected, she has a right not to be violated, but she didn’t respect herself, either, and removed her own agency by allowing herself to become so incapacitated that she couldn’t even say no. They were all very, very in the wrong. My question is, how far from that wrong were many of us at the same age? Probably (hopefully) not on par with the rapists, but what about the rest?

**********

Is this only me? Am I the only one who sees this this way? I feel/fear that there is something wrong with me, that I’m not so willing just to point my finger and shout “You! You rapists!” Why is this issue, that is usually so black and white for me, giving me so much trouble in this case?

*********

In a strange mental connection (my mind works in mysterious ways), one of the rapist’s claims of being a “nice guy” and “taking care of her” reminded me of this discussion of “nice guys”:

Some of the language is a little raw, but I like his points overall. I think he’s probably a really nice guy.

to engage, or not to engage, that is the question

A friend and professional colleague (someone who works in the same field, and with whom I have performed in the past) recently posted a query on facebook, seeking advice to give a student who was considering getting a nose piercing. Specifically, the student wanted to know if it might adversely affect his/her audition outcomes, apparently by causing those judging the audition to prejudicially form an opinion of their merit or respectability.

A long series of comments ensued, including this, from me: “I’m 48 (omg!) and have a nose piercing, and it has had, as far as I can tell, no negative impact whatsoever. I think it makes some of my younger students think I’m possibly still at least a little bit cool, but that might just be in my imagination.”

Some more comments follow, of the “sure why not” or “if they’re going to teach parents might find it threatening” (really?) persuasion, and then this: “Well refined and well educated and well mannered people don’t do all the body piercing. To me, it’s a psychological thing to draw attention to oneself, for reasons I don’t understand.”

Wow. Judgement, dismissal, and insult, all in one sentence. Seems, if she doesn’t understand, she should refrain from commenting. . .

But now for my question: would you engage this person (I don’t know her from, as my former father-in-law used to say, $6 a week), telling her that she is being judgmental and dismissive and insulting, or does one just let her continue on down her path of willful negativity and ignorance?

Jon Stewart and the real reason we can’t seem to negotiate reasonable gun control laws in this country

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-8-2013/scapegoat-hunter—gun-control

post-election woes

No, I don’t miss the constant bickering (as if!) or persistent phone calls; I don’t miss the extremist messages or political infighting.

Nope, I don’t miss them because first of all, who would, and second of all, who says it’s stopped? (Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, JUST IGNORE THEM AND THEY’LL GO AWAY)

But I just finally listened to my voice mail from the past two weeks (If you called, Deb, Only Daughter, sorry; I can’t seem to remember to actually check my voice mail. My one personality flaw. Glad you each had my cell phone number).

11 voice mail messages, 2 from actual people, 1 a robo call recorded by Bill Clinton (that’s right, Bill Clinton’s voice on my voicemail) and 8 from some version of the Republican Party.

Is it a result of the if-I’m-really-really-irritatingly-persistent-I-might-just-get-my-way tactic tried by 4-year olds everywhere?

And I must be missing something. . .Patraeus having an affair makes him unfit to head the CIA because. . . ? At first we thought there must have been some kind of security breach, but apparently the problem is that his mistress was jealous of some other woman. (Is THAT ironic?)

Whatever. I just don’t get it. We’re living in what is purported to be the “freest” country on the planet, but actually live in the the most puritanical, provincial one. God bless us, every one.

We can all, actually, have it all.

Kristin Howterton posted recently on the underlying tension of gender roles in the pursuit of an egalitarian marriage. You can read it here.

The underlying premise is that, despite our (meaning, mostly women’s) efforts to find equality in both the home and the workplace, many women still feel guilty getting home to see their husbands cooking dinner with a crying toddler on his hip or wonder whether it’s fair to expect that men should PROBABLY contribute to the household chores if their wives are working outside the home.

I know, right?

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but this kind of thing does not make me feel guilty.

I responded at length, including replies to other commenters.

Most substantially:

I think we all learned the lessons of our childhood, and watching our parents, and have to struggle with these lessons, maybe just a little. But when I read these two sentences:

“When I walk though the door and see him cooking dinner with a crying toddler on this hip, I get a gut check that says, ‘Oh dear. I should be doing that.’”

and

“I think people our age have wised up to the idea that if a woman works, then the husband should probably step it up and help with some of the domestic duties as well.”

I just want to weep.

You think you should be doing that, but he shouldn’t? And the husband should PROBABLY step up? Ugh.

It’s his household as much as yours, his children as much as yours; and even if they’re not “his” children, but, say, maybe even “only” his stepchildren, his marriage to you makes him an equal partner in domestic needs if he wants to be an equal partner in domestic bliss.

I think there are ways people can balance things. I knew a couple once where the mom stayed at home, so the “housework” was her job, but when he was home, the childrearing was shared. That seemed fair. I guess you could do a proportional thing: he works 40 hours per week to her 30 so she does 60% of the housework. I guess you could even divide it proportionally to reflect the amount of money brought in, but I think that’s a terrible idea and think I shouldn’t even suggest it. (The jury will disregard the last statement.) My husband make 50% more money than I do, but my scheduled work time far exceeds his, so he does most of the cooking, laundry, and shopping. I clean when I can get to it. It works for us.

No shoulds, no probablys about it.

Fortuitously, Anne-Marie Slaughter writes in the issue of The Atlantic about “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.”

It’s a very good article. It’s long, but worth it. Some of the best stuff is at the end.

Her arguments could be summarized thusly:

Women can have it all, but only if there is a radical paradigm shift, including if men start demanding the right to have it all, too. Meaning that it’s not a sign of unprofessionalism or a lack of commitment for ANYONE to want to take time to take care of their children, their aging/ailing parents, or even, GASP, themselves.

The idea that women who take a different track so as to raise their own children are NOT less ambitious; the realization that one of the biggest challenges is that the hours of a school day continue not to coincide with the hours of a work day (we won’t even talk about the havoc wreaked by snow days and 2-hour delays); the fact that women have to make trade-offs that men do not — these are realizations that can and should trigger real change, change that requires an effort by the majority of us out there, male AND female, or they won’t.

Ms. Slaughter ends with a goal, if not a challenge:

I continually push the young women in my classes to speak more. They must gain the confidence to value their own insights and questions, and to present them readily. My husband agrees, but he actually tries to get the young men in his classes to act more like the women–to speak less and listen more. If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal. We must insist on changing social policies and bending career tracks to accommodate our choices, too. We have the power to do it if we decide to, and we have many men standing besides us.

We’ll create a better society in the process, for all women. We may need to put a woman in the White House before we are able to change the conditions of the women working at Walmart. But when we do, we will stop talking about whether women can have it all. We will properly focus on how we can help all Americans have healthy, happy, productive lives, valuing the people they love as much as the success they seek.

That’s the ticket.

Where do I sign?

 

 

what she said

Here.

who would *you* rather talk to?

Me, in my childhood and adolescence:

Now; and I interpolate, based on the “tone” of the commercials, supposedly to be seen as a perfectly suitable replacement:

Maybe it’s just me, but I would much rather talk to, OIdon’tknow, maybe an actual person, and walk around and get to know my neighborhood so as to find the perfect coffee bar/restaurant/bookstore/resale shop, or have Husband tell me that joke about the bear on the roof again (tell me if you’ve heard this one–the punch line goes: “And if for some reason the bear falls off the roof, shoot the dog.”)

Are we so far gone that an obviously-studied-and-manufactured-so-as-to-be-interesting-and-soothing-without-being-threatening BUT STILL A WORDICAN’TSAY ROBOTIC  voice is our new best friend?

Sheesh.

where’s my class?

The middle class is shrinking.

I’m not even sure I’m still in it.

We all know this: While corporations aiming for high- and low-end consumers at the expense of middle-class earners appears to be a new development, the income gap has been growing in America for at least three decades. While wages and productivity rose in tandem during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, they become decoupled in about 1980, as productivity continued to climb while wages slumped and then recovered only modestly. And the gap between rich and poor grew more pronounced during the late-2000s recession, according to Timothy Noah at Slate, due to a jump in the poverty rate that was the highest in over a decade.

But did you know that the “Gini” coefficient — a measure of a country’s income inequality — was at 0.468 in 2009, nearly halfway up the Gini scale that ranges from zero (most equal) to one (least equal)? A high Gini coefficient is often associated with political instability and a poor standard of living, and most first-world countries rank lower on the Gini scale than the U.S. Some other nations that have had Gini coefficients similar to the United States’ include the Philippines, Ecuador and Rwanda.

I’m not making this up.

The Philippines, Ecuador, and Rwanda.

That’s just terrific.

 

 

call me perpetually perplexed, just don’t call me late for dinner

#Can someone explain Twitter to me?

That’s all.

Just curious.

It seems to be something a lot of people do, and I just don’t get it.