This One Riles Me.

A woman's place: it's a vast topic, but one I am experiencing in a particularly personal realm, as I sit on my sticky spot in my little life. I am a puzzle piece in the wrong box, destined not to fit. Here's the scenario for me, and I am guessing, based on extensive research of women whom I know and like, that American culture is squeezing us out unless we adhere. Adhere to the looking pretty and plucking. Adhere to the mothering well and making bucks. Checking on one's parents when they're needy? Children when they're ill? Caring for one's self - or one's partner - when we are ill or needy? Is any of this new? Of course not. So this is a tale of an ogre - that would be me - who is uncomfortably roped into a world where she is expected to do tasks with delicate little fingers that she doesn't have; and to master assignments with strength that's already sapped.

My brother died last July. He was murdered. It was random but purposeful. I somehow went back to work a few weeks later. He was one of my best friends, my quirky pal as a kid, and the only person who never, ever, judged me. We won't get into the muppet voices, the Thai food, and his excellent guitar playing.

I went back to my teaching job. I tried to comfort my parents, my brother's wife, my dear sister, and my kids, all of whom were devastated. We comforted one another. I wanted to comfort them - what else would I do? At work, I did strangely well. The word "excellent" was used. I heard it as if from a long distance, and kept on moving. I managed; people helped me. By the holidays, I started coming unglued. Even typinging this into my electronic box I feel the pulses in my fingers as I trank the keys to think of the presumptuousness of people who advocate the status quo even when it has been utterly violated. It is like an ogre-tale: remember the college guy in American Werewolf in London? And all of the inferior subsequent rip-offs? He became angry as he lost the ability to do the every-day stuff. So this winter I made some mistakes at work. Not awful mistakes. No children were injured or tormented. A couple of classes were lousy and boring. I consulted with colleagues; considered a leave. Couldn't afford it.

And then I recovered my abilities at work, pretty much. But in our profession, in the female teaching profession, and I am guessing that nurses, and others, put up with analogous crap, that just wasn't good enough. I was told that I was "good," but that in my snotty school system everyone needs to be excellent. Women are dispensable. My husband does more around the house - he is the neatnik - but who is caring for my grieving children? Who in our society cares for ailing parents, grieving parents? Isn't it usually the daughters? I was encouraged to take the leave when suddenly the idea that I wouldn't be invited back next year arose, but who would pay for it? The Grief Fairy? The Goddess of Devastated Siblings? Is she related to The Maternity Banker?

I don't know my place. It seems, ironically, that a private school would be a better fit: they are less rigid and have fewer legislators making arbitrary rules about how children learn. Psychologists say that when one loses a sibling, it fucks with the whole perspective, because one's fundamental reality has shifted. Some days I am better, and other days I take the pills they gave me, and I try to imagine how I could possibly fit, without my brother to argue with me over which t.v. shows suck and other such important matters.

Did I shed a new light on an old topic? I'll tell you what: for me, I'm not waiting for someone else to figure out the best way to mother my children. I'm not laughing when the joke isn't funny and I'm not speaking to my students as if they're idiots. So if my unpleasant area smells a bit, and makes some folks want to stay away, they can go right ahead. Like I tell my students, 'we're all yoo-mun beens.' I know my right and I know my wrong. If that doesn't fit in anybody's All-American bad-suits in bad-colors hierarchy, may they be subjected to the purgatory of micro-management, standardized testing, and a perpetual sense of alienation. And if they are already subjecting others to the aforementioned blights of society, well, I'm considering ogre as a full-time profession. Until then, anybody gotta job?

Meditations and Facts From My Cyber-Disabled Phase

Blogger was giving me a headache and so I couldn't post for a few days. Imagine all of the important ideas missed: Why do I seem to undermine myself at work? Why don't I cook when I'm actually kinda good at it? Why have I stopped reading the newspaper? Here are some more important thoughts:

~Warm is better than cold.
~Weetabix heated up in the microwave tastes like baby food, and it is so creamy-licious.
~Friends moving to California is a bad pattern.
~Friends supporting me even as my job seems to eke through my fingers is a good thing.
~It is challenging to explain to one's young daughter what a prostitute or a whore is, and should be avoided if at all possible.
~It is challenging to avoid explaining what a prostitute or a whore is to one's young daughter when one has an irreverent teen son.
~Mini-pads are excellent because I cannot deal with excess mucous sticking to me and then drying.
~Being married is good sometimes, and not others: it's like blue cheese - it works for some people and not for others.
~Celebrities don't really exist.
~Matt Damon looks very weird with his big neck and shiny face - I saw him in person.
~Some of these meditations and facts may seem contradictory.
~People over 40 shouldn't have bosses because we don't wanna listen to anybody.
~It's no fun to have little bumps on your ass that turn into zits when you sweat too much.
~Reading Haruki Murakami can give you all sorts of new perspectives on thinking, consciousness and the stops and starts during the cognitive process.
~Using those little squiggles, like this ~, before each statement is a bit too pretty, but do I really have another choice?
~Making lists is a bit lazy, really.
~There isn't enough room in our society for people to make mistakes.

Not A Good Spread

I am going to yoga 3 times a week now to take care of my own self, as all the women's magazines that I don't read and all the people around tell me it is good to do. At times I love it, but when I've been away for a bit, my legs tighten up like a preacher's wife. Everyone's down there on the floor, breathing the oo-jai breath. From the throat, like Hebrew or German, but lighter: chuuuhhh. We're all focusing on ourselves, at this moment, in this space, but clearly some women can spread it better than others. And when my legs look tight enough to strangle my non-stop talker instructor it's a bit disheartening. It's like "Hello! I'm a lousy fuck! Nobody ever had any fun in there!" The things won't obey me - they're like my evil twins, taking revenge for too much thoughtless sex in my youth. Some twenty-year-old behind me usually has her legs wrapped behind her neck like a spider. A few weeks later, after torturing my thighs and calves to let go and let labia, the legs splay a tiny bit more. I'm grateful for the old guy in the back who can't touch his finger to his nose.

My back is a different story. Although it is the root of my leg distress - I had a ruptured disc a few years ago - my back is heavenly. I can practically put my head on my ass the first day I return from a yoga hiatus. After a few classes, I'm doing the bridge, I'm twisting, I'm all yoga-lady, and then someone says "spread your legs," and it's back to the preacher, the missionary position, and the vindictive and non-compliant twins.

Yesterday some buff guy around my age left at the same time I did, and instead of chatting him up - my usual mode of life - I avoided eye contact as if he had caught me naked on the toilet. Objectively, he probably got a good whiff of my provocative scent, took one look at my classic features (never mind those red marks), and lost the ability to speak. I know, I know, it's always the true beauties who don't realize how stunning they are. But in that parking lot, outside that gym, in those sweatpants, I was a schlub who had just spent a good part of an hour struggling to spread her legs.

Pussy-Whipped in the Comments Section

I had heard about a ridiculous blog in which a woman describes her obligation to be thin for her husband, and I thought, old news, I've heard that crap before. But then Becca wrote an insightful blog in response to the original. I was intrigued because Becca makes the important distinction between living a life together as two people and actually identifying as one unit - that old thing about two branches, one tree, that always bothered me. I wrote in a comment, and when the original blog writer said something about my assumptions, well, I sorta caved. I was so goddamn typically female. I apologized -because in part she was right - but then I went on to analyze the reason why - my fat family - I must really have been talking about my own faults rather than making social commentary. I was pussy-whipped by one of Martha Stuart's foot soldiers, hammered by a laundry-detergent advocate. I even pledged to go to her blog! And when I went, it was like stepping into Stepford, only without the warm, fuzzy feeling. Holy shit!

Worse, I had had the knee-jerk reaction that so many women do when a conflict arises: make nice. I am sick of making nice. I tire, I sprout gray, from following the fucking rules. It is absurd that I practically get ill every time I think someone is mad at me, or maybe I haven't done a good job, or I've been insensitive in some way. I have never even met this blogging person before, and I'm fucking apologizing to her. One of her claims is that it's bad to have a fat spouse because sex could hurt. Like, how? Is that when the fat is sharp, or sprays cholesterol bullets?

How many times have I apologized or covered or basically lied to avoid conflict? I am guessing a lot. The advice columns are filled with ways to politely spare feelings, not from brutal unkindness, but even shit like, "could we just have adults at dinner?" So in the spirit of making lists, and especially because I read Bonanza Jellybean's excellent list today, I am making a partial list of things for which a woman should never apologize:

1. Farting. Hey, if we have to operate and maintain all the machinery down there, we should be able to fart in peace.
2. Any aspect of our appearance. You don't like it, change the channel.
3. Telling off someone else's kid. An under-estimated pastime, especially when the responsible party is ignoring his/her progeny. Just yesterday, I said "I don't like it when you stick out your tongue at me," and the offending party disappeared for the rest of the night.
4. Sticking out your tongue at someone you dislike. Very satisfying.
5. Swearing. What bastard decided that some words are off-limits to proper-fucking-discourse? To hell with that.
6. Being bumped into. When a person bumps into me, I often find myself saying "excuse me, I'm sorry," pausing, and then saying to mysef, after offending party has walked past, "what the fuck? He bumped into me!"
7. Not being interested in sex. Obvious reasons.
8. Over-cooking dinner. Ditto.
9. Not making dinner. Isn't raw the new rave?
10. Disagreeing with one's spouse. Not only should you avoid apology, but this should be embraced as a sport.
11. Being your own self. If you're fat now, or somehow looking less 'attractive' than you did when you first met your partner, consider yourself human, consider him or her lucky, and open a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

I'm sorry - was that one too many?