Category: Writing

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mawwiage, mad-dog, and fairness

Mr. Rogers taught me that no one knows what youre thinking and feeling unless you tell them.
Mr. Rogers taught me that "no one knows what you're thinking and feeling unless you tell them."

I write a lot about marriage equality and believe very strongly in marriage equality largely because I’m so happily married.  Though it seems some straight people see their marriages as somehow under attack from a threat of gay marriage, experiencing marriage has only more firmly convinced me how wrong it is to deny anyone a chance at this kind of happiness– spending every day with their best friend.

And today I am especially thankful for my husband and “dearest friend” (as Abigail Adams often referred to her husband John).  Yesterday I got home and was just feeling sort of mad-doggish (shout out to my English prof Dr. Robbins, who taught me this term from J.M. Barrie: “to be mad-dog is to kick out at everything, and there is some satisfaction in that” from “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens”).  It didn’t help that I had thought Jon would be home around 7:30 and didn’t arrive until about 20 minutes later than that, meaning the dinner I had made was overcooked and soggy by the time he got in the door.

So he arrived to be greeted by a wife who was seemingly annoyed at everything he said.  WHY ARE YOU TALKING SO WEIRD? WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT KIND OF VEGGIE IS THIS, IT’S AN ENDIVE, GAH!  YEAH, DINNER WOULD BE TASTIER IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE 20 MINUTES AGO!  The poor guy would have been very justified to get snippy back at me, but instead, in his typically patient manner, he just asked me why I was so annoyed with him.  But the truth was, I really had no idea.  I was just irritated at the world and I had no idea why.  And if that was frustrating for HIM, it’s also super frustrating to me.  It’s totally unfair when my feelings are a mystery even to me.  Continue reading “mawwiage, mad-dog, and fairness”

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that’s a framer

New semi-regular feature, “that’s a framer!”  This way I can share the occasional cool photo I somehow get lucky and manage to snap, despite my lack of skills.  (Seriously, only part I struggled to pass in journalism classes was photography.)

These photos were taken Sunday evening at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

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not quite what i expected

These are the shoes I was wearing.
These are the shoes I was wearing.

I’ve blogged fairly extensively about my less-than-stellar experiences on and waiting for the bus.  I’ve been harassed, stared at, honked at, and whistled at, and made uncomfortable.  I’ve been chatted up by mentally ill homeless people and stuck sitting next to smelly guys day after day.  I’ve even been given a phone number by a man who apparently found the back of my head alluring, as he’d been sitting behind me the entire ride.  But I think I may have just had my strangest experience thus far.

I was standing at my stop, sweating in the full sun and trying to keep the wind generated by cars whizzing by from blowing my skirt up, wondering if I should just get out the umbrella to give myself some shade.  That’s when a car with two typical South Carolina preppy, fraternity types stopped at the light nearby.  When one rolled down his window, I was expecting more bus stop lewd/rudeness.

But instead I heard:

Hey! I like your shoes!

I was so taken aback all I could say was, “Thanks!”

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FAME

Brief moment of fame in the home decor blogosphere: one of my comments got shouted out over at shelterrific in their weekly wrap-up post “Five Things We Learned Last Week“.  They had posted a bit about cable television and who has it, and as we all know, we recently ditched cable and despite my fears, I’m much happier for it.  My brief shoutout:

Lots of you don’t have cable. It came as a surprise that most of the commenters on the Do you have cable tv? post said no, you don’t. Erniebufflo says that, after cutting out cable: “I’m more content because I don’t want as much STUFF because I’m exposed to a lot less advertising.” Several expressed an idea that we could get behind — if we could just pick and choose one or two channels to buy, instead of a huge package of channels we don’t need, we would. Are you listening, cable companies?

It gave me warm fuzzies. If you’re into home decor/gardening/DIY, shelterrific is a great site.  Some others I love include apartmenttherapy, design*sponge, decorno, and badder homes and gardens.

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your google is as good as mine

This is just a quickie to note two hilarious search terms that led people to this humble wee blog.

You lookin for me?
You lookin for me?

First:

webbed toes

Perhaps related to a post in which I mentioned my dog Bessie has webbed toes. I wonder if this was someone who has webbed toes and was looking for support? Or perhaps, as Bill O’Reilly and Pat Robertson fear, this person is attracted to webbed toes?

Second:

woman my eye!

I have no idea what this means, or how this phrase, complete with exclamation point, led someone here. You?

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land of the free, home of the…educated?

John Adams, Founding Father and education advocate. Image licensed under Creative Commons.
John Adams, Founding Father and education advocate. Image licensed under Creative Commons.

I’m reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, and one thing that has struck me again and again is how strongly Adams believed that education was essential to the success of the American system.  As a younger man writing about what he thought a government should be, Adams wrote:

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

Later, after the Revolution had ended and he began advocating for the type of government that would be instituted for the United States in its wake, Adams wrote:

Knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation, instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many.

Even at the end of the 1700s, Adams understood that the best way to lift people out of poverty was through education.  And Adams also fully believed that educated people not bogged down by poverty made the best citizens, able to be engaged with and participatory in our truly revolutionary system of democracy.

Over the years that followed, we sometimes lost our way.  Sometimes we were eager to say that there was nothing we could do to overcome poverty, because there was nothing we could do about poor people’s intelligence– it was just genetics, you see.  Maybe the best we could hope for was to give them welfare and other government assistance and hope for the best, but we’d always have poor people, and it was just a fact. Continue reading “land of the free, home of the…educated?”

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i bet president obama doesn’t whine about HIS blackberry

So.  I’ve ranted about pod-people only to become one.  And now, I fear, my technology addiction may only get

This is what my new baby looks like. Can you show me how to work it?
This is what my new baby looks like. Can you show me how to work it?

worse.  You see, last night, I got a Blackberry Crackberry.

I didn’t set out to get one.  In fact, I wasn’t going to get one.  Our 2 year cell contract was finally up, and Jon especially was in dire need of a new cell phone.  About a year ago, he washed his nice LG flip phone in the washing machine, and had been using a 5-year-old Motorola since then.  Not only was this phone 5 years old, complete with walkie-talkie-style telescoping antenna, but Olive had gotten ahold of it and chewed the crap out of it.  The battery was held on with duct tape.  Now, considering what it had been through, the Motorola was holding up pretty dang well.  In fact, if we hadn’t recycled it, we probably should have sent it to Motorola to use in ads, like Timex– takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.  Pretty impressive considering cell phones are basically DESIGNED to break within a year so you have to buy a new one (talk about Planned Obsolescence!), and there’s no one out there who will actually repair a cell phone.  They think you’re nuts.  Just go get a new one seems to be the attitude. Continue reading “i bet president obama doesn’t whine about HIS blackberry”

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sexism, safety, and the bus

Photo via Googles Life Photo Archive.
Photo via Google's Life Photo Archive.
I ride the bus to work every day, as I’ve mentioned.  And more than any other consideration, where to sit on the bus occupies a lot of my thoughts.  In general, I think of the seats at the front of the bus, the two rows of 6 seats facing each other across the aisle, as a place for older people, or people with strollers and small children to sit, or for people hopping on who plan to hop off in just a few spots.  I also admit that I was raised by people with Good Southern Manners and occasionally have to resist the urge to give side-eye to able-bodied men who sit in these seats, because of some sort of vague “women and children first” idea.  I’m generally able bodied, and generally, I would think someone like me should not sit in these seats unless no other seats were available.

BUT.  That was before my now several experiences of male creepiness on the bus.  Continue reading “sexism, safety, and the bus”

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two dogs are better than one

Last night, we spent about an hour sitting on the back porch, enjoying the weather once the sun sank behind the trees

Bessie thinks Olive was the best Christmas present we ever got her.
Bessie thinks Olive was the best Christmas present we ever got her.

and the temp sank to a level that seemed downright nice compared to the sweat-pooling-in-my-bra-while-standing-at-the-bus-stop it had been at 5 when I spent about 10 minutes standing on a sidewalk in the blazing full sun.  We also swatted at mosquitos (curse you South Carolina marshes which are apparently heaven on earth for the lil bloodsuckers), wondering why our geraniums weren’t doing a better job repelling bugs– seriously, we were sitting with a giant geranium in between us, ruffling its leaves periodically to release whatever it is that supposedly makes geraniums repel bugs.  We even lit our citronella torches and wondered how in the world they managed to have such insanely huge flames.  Guess Jon’s going to have to spray the yard with poison again.

But we endured the bugs because it is such fun to watch our two dogs playing together.  They chased after tennis balls, chased after each other chasing after tennis balls, and just plain wrestled.  Sometimes they paused to graze.  Yes, graze– I’m starting to wonder if my dogs are either watching their ladylike figures by munching on salads, or perhaps suffering from some sort of nutritional deficiciency, as they munch on our grass like it’s the best snack ever.  Anyone know what’s up with that?

Anyway, as we sat their watching our hilarious puppygirls romp and play, tails wagging and tongues hanging out, just enjoying their lil puppydog lives, Jon said, “You know, most people who have one dog say they don’t want another because they don’t have enough time for the one dog as it is.  But really, two dogs are way less work than one.”  It’s totally true!  When we just had Bessie, we were the be all and end all of Bessie’s social life.  We were, aside from the scoundrels who dare to pass by our house and must be barked at like the bad people they are– HOW DARE THEY PUSH THEIR STROLLER PAST OUR HOUSE, THOSE ROGUES!– her only source of stimulation.  We finally had to cave and install a doggie door because we couldn’t get through a 30 minute TV show without Bessie wanting to be let in and out at least 3 times.  We had to throw balls and tug ropes and take walks all the time.  We’d take her to the dog park, where she’d have so much fun playing with other dogs, and we’d talk about how we really needed to get her a buddy, and we’d wonder if we had the time to devote to such a buddy.  Surely two dogs would be twice the work, right? Continue reading “two dogs are better than one”

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tragic

Dr. George Tiller. Image via the New York Times.
Dr. George Tiller. Image via the New York Times.

It’s tragic that a Kansas physician, Dr. George Tiller, was murdered while ushering at church this morning by a terrorist (yes, a terrorist.  When you kill a person in hopes of intimidating and striking fear in an entire group of people, it’s terrorism).  It’s crazy to me that anyone who claims to be “pro-life” would take a life in this way.  Also crazy to me is that media outlets including the AP continue to refer to him as “late term abortion provider George Tiller.”  Really?  Which one aspect of Jon’s profession should I choose to refer to him by?  “Lumbar puncturer Jon [Bufflo]?”  Maybe “Lung sounds listener Jon [Bufflo]?” No, accurately, it’s “pediatrician Jon [Bufflo].”  George Tiller was an OB/Gyn.  Who sometimes performed “late term abortions” in the course of his care for his patients.  To refer to him as “late term abortion provider George Tiller” is to further inflame the divisions that caused this tragedy in the first place, and it’s bad journalism.