Wrong

2007-01-30 - 10:14 p.m.

Tonight, I watched some television. House, SVU, and then I read the news on cnn.com. If you watched either of the shows, you know the theme of this post. It's rape.

I am always amazed at how people want women who are raped to act the same ways. We will accept any action for someone who is grieving. Their personalities call for these differences, we tell ourselves. But a woman who has been raped best be crying and ashamed and pale and ugly. She should hate herself. She should hate men. She should trust no one, and she is unable to make decisions for herself until all the world has heard her tell her story of rape between her sobs.

On House, the show told the woman that she had to abort the "rape baby." In real life, as reported on cnn, a woman was jailed after reporting rape and refused the rest of her requested morning after pill treatment while in jail. SVU was a repeat, but it dealt with a woman who chose to keep her child conceived from rape.

First off, let me say this angers me to no end. Everything was taken away from these women during their rapes (fictional or no, work with me here), and someone is coming along to take another decision out of their hands.

Rape is traumatic. No one doubts this. Yet taking away more decision-making, telling a woman that she simply has no ability to make any choice of her own because she has been raped is frighteningly similar to the situation we abhor. Children are made up of 50% of the DNA of their mothers. Is she not worth more than the man who raped her? It is also unlikely that a rapist will raise the child in these situations. Do we truly hold nature over nurture to this degree? Do we devalue a woman who is raped so much that she makes an unfit mother, even a birth mother?

I cannot say I know the answer for everyone. But I hate to hear those who advocate "choice" telling women who have had their most basic choices already stolen from them what they must do. Reminding her of her worth, of her humanity, of her decency and beauty may heal her more than telling her to hate a pregnancy that had as much to do with her rape as she did. Let's value a victim's mind, value her as a person, and allow her to be human. Not a victim.

The Windy City

2007-01-22 - 10:34 p.m.

Well, there are whirlwinds, and then there are whirlwinds. The Boy and I were in Chicago for a family function from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. Lovely city, that is. Except for the HELL THAT IS O'HARE.

Sunday was a day of true excitement in Chi-town (I'm going to try and use as many nicknames as I can come up with here. Go with me, will you?). Da Bears were in the playoffs, against a team darling. And a storm was a-brewin in the Chi Ill. No, not a metaphorical storm. A real one. With snow and crap like that.

The Big Onion does have two separate airports. It's a huge Second City. But the issue here was that the family event was nearby to O'Hare, and we aren't exactly rolling in cash to hire ways to get around My Kind of Town.

The 312, however, was full of folks trying to get here, there and everywhere. It's the same everyday in the City By the Lake, but the snow and crazy weather everywhere meant even more insanity than usual.

We were in the airport for six hours in the City of the Century. And as great as Paris on the Prairie was, we wanted to get back to

Don't take it personally, Chicago. You're a gorgeous town. And best of luck with your Superbowl. But we just wanted back in our home, Sweet Home: Pittsburgh. (Had to fit one more in.)

Not that I Obsess

2007-01-05 - 12:16 a.m.

So I've been trying to win an item on eBay. I know, I know, I haven't written in forever, and I've had Christmas and New Year's and exams are over. And, too bad, I'm going to write about eBay.

It was a typewriter key bracelet. I love manual typewriters (see the sidebar). I think they have a character that computer designers will never be able to capture. I have three manual typewriters. And the idea of a typewriter bracelet was really cool.

Until I saw the prices.

Holy cow! People wanted $150+ for a silver bracelet made of mostly old typewriter keys. And the non-silver? Are somewhere around $50.00. So I found a bracelet on eBay for $10. It went up to $15 while I watched. And I even decided to bid $20 on this thing.

Mind you, I find one or two pieces of jewelry, and I never take them off (or at least trade them off). I have three rings, two marriage-related, and a watch. But I decided this would be really awesome. So I watched.

Obsessively.

For five days.

The Boy is awesome, because he found this funny. But really, near the last few days? I was checking every two or three minutes if I wasn't already completely occupied. I must have checked over 150 times. And in the last hour? I went nuts. I checked and checked and checked. And within 45 minutes of the sale ending? Someone else started to bid against me.

I don't know who this person is. I don't want to. Because now? I don't like their $30-bidding ass. They are dumb-heads. And I'm very upset with them. I may never meet them, I may never have talked to them, but I'm never speaking with them.

I think I am giving the silent treatment to a complete stranger. I'm so proud how much I've grown.

A Little Bit of Soap and a Pinch of Box

2006-12-17 - 5:47 p.m.

There's something that's been on my mind for a while, and we're dragging out that everloving soapbox again.

SCREEEEEE....

Many of my friends are agnostic or atheist. I respect this decision. Others are strong in their faith, which I respect, as well. One thing that I think has helped me the most in this world connect with other people is something that my schools and friends have done:

Taught me about religion.

I'm not just talking about my own. My elementary school was brilliant in slipping in Judiasm in my German classes (we made cards for Passover and Yom Kippur, sang the Dreidel song in German, too). In middle school, we copied text from the Koran in art class, and decorated it according to the precepts of Islam (NO PEOPLE! The face of the Prophet is sacred to Muslims. I knew that at age 12.) I learned about Christianity from different schools, and I even learned at age 5 that there was no Santa, because the Hindu kid in my class told me so. Then I learned what Hinduism was. (My mom also called his mom, who grounded him for a week. The moms are still friends.)

Religion is everywhere. Specifically in our literature. If you want your kid to read more than just the words on the page, make sure they know a lot about the religion of the authors. English lit? Just chock full of Christianity. And, oddly enough, so is this country.

My cousin was reading a kid's watered down version of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". She was freaked out that the lion character (I never liked the books, sorry) was going to die. I told her, don't worry, it's like Jesus and Easter. She was ten. She didn't know Easter was about Jesus, because, silly Alektra, it's about candy. And she's one of my very smart cousins.

I'm not saying she should know every doctrine of my faith. But it's difficult for children to connect without context. I am friends with people of many faiths and many walks of life, but I owe a debt to my mother, who never put her hands over my ears or eyes to the world around me. Elton John has been saying anti-religious statements. Yet if you go to the end of the article, he mentions that each of the religions should come together and talk to each other.

More than anything in this world, compassion often comes from looking at things from a different perspective. I'm not saying I'm perfect. You put me in a rural area, (or suburban, for that matter) and I start having panic attacks. It's a lot for me to wrap my head around, and I can't quite understand what it's like to be in that sort of a community. It's outside my understanding.

A lot of my friends get offended when their children learn about religious themes outside their own control. I don't have kids, so I will accept that I don't really understand what that's like. But I learned nearly everything about religion apart from my mom. (Much like sex, politics, and drugs, oddly. Funny how that goes.)

My grandparents, each of them, have their own perspectives. Knowing that people can believe different things and still love and sometimes even accept each other? Not a bad lesson, either.

So Happy Holidays, everyone. Whatever you believe, I hope your homes are warm, your family is safe, and your tummies are full. Excuse me while I put away my box for a bit...

SCREEEEEE....

Finals are Nearly Over

2006-12-16 - 9:50 a.m.

I only have one more final. It is a final that is so easy, I'm not studying for it. It's a foreign language exam with twenty questions, yes/no and matching, for 2 hours with open dictionary. Could it get easier than this?

So last night the Boy and I celebrated by staying in. Many people don't understand why we stay in so much. We stay in when we're working, it makes no sense why we don't go out.

Well, for one, if we didn't have fun at home, we'd never want to come back. Second, it's nice to be in your own space, doing your own thing. The Boy's been working himself to death, stupid projects and whatnot, and thus we're both mildly ill. I sent him back to bed when I woke up this morning.

In other news, I won something for one of the first times in my life. I'm trying to figure out if I've really won. I've won at blingo twice. I won a poetry contest when I was in high school. But this is the first time that I feel like I did something where I really won. Or Chris is just pitying me. But he has a lot of readers, so I'm gonna go with won!

Basically, if you need a tagline for your blog, I can come up with the second-best idea. Rock!

So I need to do all the things I've put off. Start blogging again. Send out holiday cards. CLEAN THE APARTMENT. And figure out what my department has done about paying tuition. It's all screwy.

Off to go wake up the Boy for some food...

Minneapolis Monday - DC Monday - 2007-08-06
Okay - 2007-08-02
The End is Here - 2007-07-26
Two Years - 2007-07-23
Screaming to a Halt - 2007-07-21

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