Slow News Day

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Have you ever seen mean comments left by irate YouTubers for people who videotapes the television as a show was going on and uploaded the footage of that onto YouTube?

“Hey loser. Why are you taping your own TV and then put that on YouTube?!”

 

I am a loser so I take pictures of magazines that I read and I post them on the Interweb…

 

Rarely did I take one look at The Economist and burst out laughing...

 

 

The Economist can be raunchy, and it has a sense of humor. Who knew?!

 

Hey, at least they refrained from using the picture of the now famous "bulge"... The ending of this article titled, The Weiner War, (of course), once again showed The Economist can be raunchy, IF they want to.

 

"THE earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan three months ago have revealed something important about the country: a seam of strength and composure in the bedrock of society that has surprised even the Japanese themselves."

“THE earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan three months ago have revealed something important about the country: a seam of strength and composure in the bedrock of society that has surprised even the Japanese themselves.”

To me, this picture chosen by The Economist to accompany this article, says so much about what is quintessential and unique about Japan. From the “light-hearted” (as much as one could in this situation) reference to the ubiquitous 7 Eleven, to a quiet, subtle display of the much-vaunted attention to efficiency, adaptability, cleanliness, orderliness, and personal appearances (Notice how the mother looks much more put together than I am on a daily basis, and in such chaos and under such duress…)

And then read these two stories of exemplary spirits:

24-year-old Miki Endo, who used the loudspeaker system in Minamisanriku, a fishing port close to the focus of the 9.0 earthquake, to urge residents to do what they could to escape the incoming tsunami. She drowned at her post. Television footage shows the rising sea approaching, with her haunting voice echoing over the waves…

One fisherman tells of the four days he spent clearing the wreckage of his village, with no knowledge of the whereabouts of his eldest son. When his son eventually appeared, walking down off the mountain after a long cross-country trek to reach his parents, the two wiped tears from their eyes but did not say a word to each other. The son did not wish to disturb his father’s toil.

 

All the world is watching, holding their breath, especially their neighbors in Asia, because, as some commentators in the news media in China, India and Taiwan have said, If the Japanese people, with all their disciplines, their perseverance, their technological know-hows, their attention to details and rules, cannot pull through, we are all doomed when the same thing happens on our soil.

Spitting Blood

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I am sitting here trying to catch up on the million things people just piled on my desk with a pool of blood in my mouth.

I don’t know why but I keep on thinking of Brat Pitt from Fight Club.

I don’t remember whether he lost any tooth inside the Fight Club or not. I guess you really cannot talk about it. But I just lost a tooth. So I win.

I did have my oral surgery today. All I remember now is:

  1. I was worried that I would have to be like Liz Lemon from the Valentine’s Day episode and pretend I actually had a ride home. I did. My babysitter came through.
  2. The doctor put the needle not very gently in 3 different places before he was able to draw blood.
  3. The doctor not very gently used something with very hard bristles all over my gum which made me, mind you, I did not cry once during my root canal in March, cry quite a few times. “Are you sure I am supposed to be feeling this pain? Am I not supposed to be sleeping now as you kept on telling me?”
  4. The doctor kept on yelling, “Open your mouth. I cannot see anything!” and complaining, “You have a very small mouth.”
  5. I restrained myself from laughing out loud and saying, “Tell my husband about it.”
  6. I woke up from a dreamless nap which I thought was only 30 minutes, but 2 hours had already passed.
  7. I felt around my mouth with my tongue and my tooth was gone.
  8. The doctor failed to volunteer any information to me. I had to yell, “Can I ask you some questions?” in my groggy state from my chair for him to come into the room. “So what did you do today?” And he told me to take it easy, one thing at a time. I fucking want to know what he’s going to do with that big giant hole in my mouth. He told me to wait until I see him again next week and we can talk about it.
  9. I checked my phone and saw an IM from my boss asking for something that he has never asked me to do, knowing also that I was going under the knife today, actually, at that specific hour. I fired back with enough bitchiness probably never has been heard from me before.
  10. The tooth that was taken out was the same tooth that has undergone the root canal not too long ago. And the salt that was added to the wound? I have just paid for the crown for it. It’s like renovating your house right before they decide to demolish it.

What the fucking fuck?!

 

Ok. I need the Silverlining Man to the rescue…

  1. I now have an official diagnosis from a medical professional that I do indeed have a very small mouth. Here is a note from the doctor, honey.
  2. I cannot eat hard food for the next week. Here is the same note from the same doctor, honey. Eh, I mean, I will probably be able to lose my tummy fat (yes I know this is kind of contradictory to my previous Rah Rah post about Ruby the Anti-Barbie…)
  3. I will probably finally put my Vitamix to good use. Bacon smoothie anyone?
  4. The doctor did NOT say that alcohol is not allowed.
  5. I am still walking in Cloud 9 because of this episode from yesterday…

When I was waiting for a taxi to come by outside the office building yesterday, a truck made a U Turn and stopped in the middle of the street. The guy on the passenger side poked his head out of the window and yelled at me,

“You are really attractive. Wow. Really really attractive.”

Mind you, he did not use the word HOT. Or SEXY. Or GORGEOUS. Or BEAUTIFUL. And I was not showing any cleavage. In fact I was wearing a plain black t-shirt.

I thanked him for making my day. I believe I may have even curtsied when I thanked him. I am still thinking it was probably a bet, or a random act of kindness, or candid camera, or Punk’d.

I am just glad he saw me yesterday and not today.

 

Ok. Got to go and spit out the blood that’s almost overflowing inside my puffed cheeks.

TMI?

Definitely.

But you like it, right?

 

The Curious Case of Ruby, the Anti-Barbie

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I suspect that you have been seeing this picture popping up on your Facebook and/or Twitter stream this week. I did. Like you, I had a visceral response to it.

FUCK YEAH!

Was exactly what I said to the monitor as I responded to the plea on Facebook “This was an ad made by bodyshop. But Barbie INC. found out about it and now it’s banned. Repost if you think this ad deserves to be seen,” and hit the SHARE button before I could say “Happy National Donut Day!”

Then my inner Cyber Sleuth / Internet Meme Historian took over. “I wonder whether this is yet another hoax?” Ok. Fine. It was also my inner cynic’s doing. I googled it.

Good news (or is it in fact bad news?) : This is for realz. The Body Shop did wage such a brilliant war against The Barbie.

Bad news (or does it really matter?) : It was from 1998.

The late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, wrote in 2001:

In 1998, The Body Shop debuted its self-esteem campaign, featuring the generously proportioned doll we dubbed “Ruby.” … …

Ruby was a fun idea, but she carried a serious message. She was intended to challenge stereotypes of beauty and counter the pervasive influence of the cosmetics industry, of which we understood we were a part. Perhaps more than we had even hoped, Ruby kick-started a worldwide debate about body image and self-esteem.

But Ruby was not universally loved. In the United States, the toy company Mattel sent us a cease-and-desist order, demanding we pull the images of Ruby from American shop windows. Their reason: Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller (Barbie dolls sell at a rate of two per second; it’s hard to see how our Ruby could have done any meaningful damage.) I was ecstatic that Mattel thought Ruby was insulting to Barbie — the idea of one inanimate piece of molded plastic hurting another’s feelings was absolutely mind-blowing.

In 2002, Ms. Roddick again wrote about Ruby when the Danish pop band Aqua was sued by Mattel for their song “Barbie Girl”. In the same post, she also mentioned how an American artist, Tom Forsythe, had been engaged in lengthy legal battle against Mattel when Mattel sued him for his photographic project “Food Chain Barbie“. (You’d be happy to know that in 2004, after five years and millions of dollars in legal expenses, Mattel was ordered by court to pay $1.8 million in legal fees for Mr. Forsythe.)

Googling also led me to believe that every year or so, this poster of daring and clever protest by The Body Shop would resurface to the Internet’s attention but then the buzz would die down as fast as it started. For example, this article in Mother Jones from 2007.

It seems that more and more people are being outraged on Twitter and Facebook asking people, “It is banned by Mattel. OMG! RETWEET IF YOU WANT THIS POSTER TO BE SEEN!” It has caught on like a bad rumor. (It has now appeared on BuzzFeed with no historical context).

At first I wanted to “set the record straight” by shouting from the mountain top: This was from 1998, people. Case closed!

Then I thought about what Ms. Roddick wrote:

It makes me angry, not only because it is a male-dominated industry built on creating needs that don’t exist, but because it seems to have decided that it needs to make women unhappy about their appearances. It plays on self-doubt and insecurity about image and ageing by projecting impossible ideals of youth and beauty.

Things have not changed much since 1998 when the world first met Ruby. And yes, the world needs to be reminded of Ruby once in a while. We are a forgetful people with short attention spans which seem to get shorter with each new generation.

Ruby, who still watches us from posters throughout The Body Shop’s offices, won’t let us forget.                                     — Dame Anita Roddick

I just want to go home

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Photo Courtesy of Stew Dean on Flickr

 

Sometimes, for no reason at all, I would get a severe attack of homesickness.

Without any provocation, my heart would ache and I would get a sensation of emptiness and at the same time heaviness inside my stomach.

I recognize that feeling well.

It is an intense loneliness that comes from a herd animal being away from its kind.

I am exhausted: I just want to drop everything and go home.

Do Americans feel this way?

It seems to me that, (I know I am grossly generalizing here), Americans take it for granted that they will not be living where they grew up, and that they will, most likely, be away from their parents and siblings, simply on account of how vast this country is and how geographically widely distributed job opportunities can be.

So is the pang of homesickness less acute if you know you are not expected to be there in the first place? Not being adulterated by a sense of guilt? The mutual understanding that you are where you are supposed to be? Without the gnawing sensation that eats you away as you age, as your parents age, that somehow you have pulled a bait and switch on them?

“Oh I will be back in two years. Tops.”

That somehow you ran away. You did not stay put like 99% of the population on the small island, the size of Maryland.

Betrayal.

The feeling that you may have turned away and the chasm is now irreparable because…

many years ago…

you started dreaming in English?

The Real American Idols

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Source: I saw this cartoon via Paul Rieckhoff today.

 

My 13-year-old is working on a debate project for school. His topic? Support for Death Penalty. (He has turned in a written article against death penalty last week. The teacher wants them to be able to argue from both sides for the topic they are each assigned to)

He was telling me all about the horrible cases he has read on the Internet, including some high profile cases of brutal assault and murder on young children. I cringed. My first instinct was to tell him to stop. Aren’t there some things in the world simply to horrifying to learn about? Isn’t it sometimes better if one simply does not know such evil existed and still exists?

I don’t remember how we went from death penalty, to Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (from women’s right to vote, to the right to bear arms, to the freedom of speech), but all of a sudden I found myself telling them about Westboro “Church” (Church is in quotation mark for obvious reasons…)  Naturally the boys were astounded to find such ridiculousness is being practiced by a bunch of grownups.  I went on to tell them about the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that even Westboro “Church” is protected under the First Amendment.

“Can you just imagine these stupid people protesting at the funerals of soldiers who died just so these stupid people could have their stupid freedom of speech?” (Just substitute Stupid with Fucking)

“Can you imagine their parents who just lost their children having to see these stupid people at the funeral??!!”

I started tearing up.

 

I am trying to explain via my rambling above why I woke up this morning and decided to google “Memorial Day + Westboro” without even knowing that Westboro “Church” had planned to picket the memorial service in Joplin, MO because President Obama was going to be there. (According to tweets and the latest news I could find: POTUS was there; Westboro was not. Several unconfirmed reports said that Westboro crazies were in town but their presence at the memorial service was thwarted due to citizen actions…)

Then I saw the tweets from Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) who is there right now at the Arlington National Cemetery:

 

I will just stop here because, wow, I don’t know what to say…

 

 

 

Footnote: Although I self-process to be a bleeding heart liberal, I often wonder what the official definition of that label is. Does it include an unexamined stance against war? Coming from a different country, different culture, different hemisphere, I am not completely anti-war. *gasp* War becomes inevitable when your country is being invaded and your people is being physically attacked on your physical territory. China went through the pillaging and ravaging by the Western world in the beginning of the 20th century; the whole people suffered humiliation under the greedy and power-hungry paws of the colonial forces.  (How do you think Hong Kong ended up being “leased” to the British Empire for 99 years?)  China fought against Japan in the brutal Sino-Japanese war two years before the so-called World War II started in Europe when Poland was invaded. And Taiwan? Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years. When the KMT first retreated to Taiwan, in order to consolidate and ensure their power, the KMT government massacred the majority of the intellectual leaders.  And now? Taiwan is constantly living with the threat that China may decide to invade one day. (Or from their perspective, simply “take back what is rightfully part of China”…) All the male children are required to serve in the army for 12 months (it used to be 2 years).

What I am trying to explain by way of the above rambling is that I have an instinctual respect and admiration for people who serve(d) their countries because I have learned the horror from Chinese histories of when a country was not able to defend itself and the brutality of war itself.

Instinctual the same way I feel about teachers. (Confucius is really quite influential despite my grumblings against all the stereotypes and stupid Confucius quotes on Twitter)

National Jukebox

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Did you hear about the National Jukebox project unveiled by the Library of Congress earlier this month?

When I heard it on NPR, I was so excited I almost crashed my car into the truck with a Calvin peeing sticker in front of me.

The National Jukebox is, according to NPR,

“the largest collection of historical recordings ever made publicly available online.”

The new website provides access to more than 10-thousand historical recordings for free on a streaming-only basis – no downloads. It covers the first quarter of the twentieth century and includes music, poetry, political speeches and other spoken word recordings. Right now, it only includes recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company, which Sony controls. The project is also a collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara – and its Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records – which is helping to create a searchable database for every recording in the National Jukebox.

 

I am so happy that the big shots over at Sony decided to grant the access to and sharing of the recordings they own. This is a truly amazing treasure trove of historical records that one could spend a lot of time on, just by randomly browsing the catalogue.

Popular music (3585)
Ethnic music (1525)
Opera (1366)
Classical music (1223)
Ethnic characterizations (729)
Humorous songs (613)
Ragtime, jazz, and more (603)
Religious (486)
Comedies (222)
Monologues, dialogues, and recitations (205)
Descriptive specialties (133)
Blues (112)
Ethnic spoken word (94)
Traditional/Country (73)
Whistling (62)
Speeches (35)
Yodeling (32)
Spoken word (13)

 

Some of these categories intrigued me: “Ethnic spoke word”. “Ethnic characterizations”. Remember, these were from the first quarter of the 20th century and we all know what it was like back then. Therefore, the LOC posts this warning on every single page:

WARNING: Historical recordings may contain offensive language.

and the full disclaimer says:

These selections are presented as part of the record of the past. They are historical documents which reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress does not endorse the views expressed in these recordings, which may contain content offensive to users.

Good times, eh?

 

My favorite feature has got to be the Jukebox Day by Day. You select a date, and out pop the available recordings made on the said date. Naturally, I tried my birthday.

 


By Paul Whiteman Orchestra recorded on July 11, 1924. I was truly not born then. (For once, I am being honest about my birth year…). And it was composed none other than George Gershwin.

 

How amazing that we now have free and open access to the following recording, with George Gershwin himself playing the piano?

By Paul Whiteman Concert Orchestra, recorded on June 10, 1924.

 

Technology rocks. Internet is awesome.

 

“I have a spare tire in my car.”

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I don’t know what else to say. I will just quote extensively from this news report from KSN News 3 on May 25, 2011.

Sometime in May Representatives in Topeka, Kansas “were debating a bill that would ban insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in regular health plans. The bill, that was signed into law Wednesday, means women will have to buy a separate health policy to cover abortions.”

During the debate, Barbara Bollier, a Kansas lawmaker “pointed out that abortions would not be covered, under the new Kansas law, for cases of rape and incest.”

Kansas Pete DeGraaf responded by saying, “We need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life?”

Bollier then asked, “And so, women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?”

Are you ready for DeGraaf’s response to this question?

“I have a spare tire in my car,” said DeGraaf. “I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

 

“I have a spare tire in my car.”

 

I just have one question…

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I went out for emergency shopping for Mr. Monk, my second grader. The school field trip next week requires in addition to everything else, RAIN FUCKING BOOTS. Rain boots. Seriously, where the fuck could I find rain boots on a random day?

So I ran to Target.

I also discovered that Targets carry clothes. (Ok, I have known this fact for a long time but they used to strike me as “For High School Girls Only”) Nice ones for $25 on average. So I spent almost an hour in the empty dressing room past 9 pm trying on spring and summer dresses. This is quite a big change from my usual ensemble of t-shirt and jeans. Now that I have to go to this new office with younger and hipper people, I have begun to wear jeans and blouses. And shoes with heels. I have figured this out: As a woman, you can wear almost anything and still look put-together as long as you are sporting a pair of envy-inducing shoes.

(With regarding the topic of the importance of possessing kickass heels, I will have to defer to the two sexy goddesses, Vapid Blonde and Wicked Shawn…)

Hey, a little bit of Retail Therapy, especially the French kind, would not hurt anybody, right?

Now I really just have one question…

 

 

 

Where the fuck did my waist go?

 

Guilt is the trip

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Dear Blog,

I am very sorry for ignoring you for so long. I have not logged in for at least three days. I am so happy that you are still here.

Let’s see… It is 1:40 am right now. I am sad to say that I can at most spend 15 minutes with you. A quickie. And I will not even be able to cuddle afterwards.

My flight back home was delayed tonight so I did not arrive home until after 11 pm. I remembered this time to curb my urge to immediately pick up the house as soon as I stepped inside. I had a great conversation with The Husband about wine and wine glasses. Then I strayed: I thought, “Let me check work email for just one second.” You know how that turned out…

The Husband went to bed on his own. So I started feeling guilty. I did go upstairs to check on him and when he sounded really sleepy, I’ll be honest with you, I was relieved because I did not have to feel guilty about neglecting him. I mean, the man is tired anyway. I am actually being a nice wife for letting him sleep, right?

I rubbed his back for 3 seconds and he purred. That’s more affection than I have shown him most of the time. So, yeah, no guilt on that front.

I proceeded to pick up the bedroom and dragged the laundry downstairs because it would just be as easy as throwing stuff into the washer. It would be quick and easy so why not do it now rather than this weekend.

Turned out the amount of laundry will take about three loads…

I am now mentally calculating how much time it would take for me to clean up downstairs, put the clean dishes away (thanks to my trusted babysitter who comes every day after school), and do the dishes. I would like to get to bed at a reasonable hour, well, as reasonable as it could be considering it is now 1:50 am. I have to catch the 7:20 am train tomorrow to be in the office for a 9 am meeting with Da Boss.

So… why do I feel compelled to clean up the house NOW?

Why do I feel I would be a failure if I leave a messy house behind and go off to work tomorrow morning?

Why do  I feel so guilty about traveling for work, and now that I am home, about not being here to maintain the household?

 

I cannot form a cohesive thought right now so I am going to quote some passages from this article, The Bad Mother Complex that I came across around Mother’s Day. I have been thinking about it a lot, actually, ever since I became a mother.

The guilt had nothing to do with women’s actual ability to navigate competing obligations at work and at home; on the contrary, the study found that logistically, women were able to juggle the two spheres just as well as men. It’s how women felt about themselves while doing that juggling that set them apart.

Blair-Loy’s research centers around a concept she calls the work devotion schema — a kind of invisible, coercive mandate that permeates culture and requires us to see our work as a sacred calling, with meaning and value beyond just a paycheck… … it can trigger the uniquely moral emotion of guilt when family demands butt up against work allegiance.

The problem with the work devotion schema, Blair-Loy says, is this: While men and women both experience it, only women experience its mirror image at home. Blair-Loy calls it the family devotion schema; gender studies scholar Sharon Hays has termed it the ideology of intensive motherhood. Either way, it sets up a collision course of competing devotions for working women.

“Just like our culture has constructed work to have certain meanings and obligations, it has also constructed motherhood to have certain meanings and obligations,” says Blair-Loy. “Mothers who work full time are still trying to live up to this ideal of family devotion; they just have fewer hours to do it in…”    From The Bad Mother Complex

 

The guilt I feel as a working mother does not subside as the kids get older. In fact, it gets worse: now that they are old enough to notice the other mothers and how the other families live, esp. those presented on TV and in the movies.

Mr. Monk often demands requests that I make him food from scratch. It is not good enough if we make pancakes from the box of powder. It has to be made according to a recipe. I don’t blame him though. I suspect that to him it is a sign that I care as a mother, wherever he gets that idea of an ideal mother from (seriously I have no idea where he got it…)  Perhaps it also serves as a reassurance that we are like every other family, just a bit different, but not too much, now that the mother, i.e. me, also makes food in the kitchen as it should be. I am the embodiment of the family. If I am normal, we are normal.

Or something like that…

When I say, “No. I am sorry honey. We cannot do that this morning because of ____________.” the look he gives me is enough to send me on a guilt trip 8000 miles away and back.

It feels almost like an indictment.

So here I am. 2:20 am.

Time to put the load of laundry into the dryer and start another load.

 

ETA: 3:30 am. House picked. Dishes put away. Laundry #2 in progress. Kind of unpacked by emptying the luggage and throwing stuff either into a laundry basket or my work bag. As I was doing all this, I also remembered something else: Why is finding a babysitter my responsibility? Because I want to work so I am the one that should solve childcare issues? Whenever there is a scheduling conflict, I am the one being pointed at to figure out a way to hold my job. You know, all because I want to work, so of course I have to pay the price. I should stop now. I am just going to sound more and more bitter.

 

The Perfect Storm

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When I was pregnant with my number two child, Mr. Monk, I suffered Deep Vein Thrombosis (aka blood clot) : my entire left leg was swollen before I realized it was not a muscle strain that’s been causing me excruciating pain, but rather something that could be life-threatening. My Obgyn immediately sent me to the emergency room – yes I drove myself (but I was not having a heart attack so I was not as crazy as this other gal I know…) and they put a filter into my aorta so no broken pieces of the Titanic-sized blood clot would get into my heart and stuff.

It only happened because the stars were lined up just so. A perfect storm so to speak.

Turned out I have a genetic disorder #$^%@%* that makes it easier for blood clot to form if my body has extremely low level of folic acid.

The amount in prenatal vitamins would have been more than adequate to prevent that.

By then I had been throwing up for about four months so no, I was not absorbing my prenatal vitamins properly, and I was severely undernourished, sustaining mostly on Gatorade. (Btw, I bet severe “morning sickness” would have been qualified for disability IF men could get pregnant…)

Your blood turns thicker when you are pregnant due to female hormones.

I was also extremely dehydrated which did not help with the blood thinning department.

 

Long story short: everything worked perfectly and BOOM! I had DVT, blah blah blah.

 

Why am I telling you this now? Because once again, the stars have aligned perfectly:

New job (my company was acquired)

+ New office

+ Two computers to deal with

+ Two systems

+ Two business processes

+ Two to-do lists

+ Longer commute (including my “I am on a fucking boat” moments, yes, I realized that)

+ Longer hours expected

+ Same kids

+ Same husband

= STRESS

STRESS = TEETH CLENCHING (which I did not realize I do all the time until now) = Massive and Rapid Bone Loss in My Teeth = Oral surgery to be expected

It is not like I have been having nightmares about losing all my teeth since I was young…

Head. Meet desk.

Hello, more stress. Nice to see you show up with more of your friends. Just come on in. Move right in. Mi case su casa.

 

So here is what I have… I found this blogger who has quite a few cartoons with cultural/social media commentary that make me:

OMG. ROTFL. DNPMPL. ITA. FML. IYKWIMAITYD.

 

Mr. Dave Walker actually encourages bloggers to embed his cartoons on their blogs. He has been doing this since 2005 and is probably one of the first people online to understand the concept of Sharing is loving...

So I am sharing this because Dear Internet, I love you, and I miss you, but I really need to prioritize the many things on my plate and focus especially on the ones that will help ensure I continue to have good dental insurance…

I am taking cover and waiting for the storm to be over.

 

 

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

cartoon from www.weblogcartoons.com

 

Source: Cartoons by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.