my heroes

OMG, here they are, all in one picture. I did not see this moment in person, but I'm pretty sure something good happened to me while this was taking place. I just took a sip of a delicious cocoa-coffee combo that I make at work. Or I received a happy email, or I was thinking a happy thought. Life was good in that moment. :)

L to R:

I love Martin O'Malley, governor of Maryland. Not just because he's a muscly-armed dreamboat with a slightly southern twang, (my mom's Harlequin romance novels are to blame for this fixation). Also because he's an enormous champion for the large immigrant community in Maryland and for the organization I teach for CASA de Maryland. But also because he is the first governor to join Share Our Strength in making the proclamation that we will end childhood hunger in America by 2015. The man combines so many of my favorite things - muscly arms (but not too muscly, we don't need to be on the cover of Iron Man magazine), concern for the immigrant community & childhood hunger.

Bill Shore, the founder of Share Our Strength is a terrific speaker, writer, human being. I don't think I could accurately translate the respect I have for him from my head into words. He combines the perfect amount of humility and passion. He has continuously rejuvenated my idealistic views of the world despite everyone else trying to beat it out of me. He has convinced me that it's not irrational to want more for the world, to want better. What's more, better is achievable. It's okay to believe big things can happen, indeed, it's necessary. How else can we make the world a better place? We first have to believe we can do it. He has made me believe.

Jeff Bridges, first of all, reminds me of my dad, which to me is a good thing. He's very relaxed & comfortable in his own skin. He says a lot of random things and has just that little bit of aloofness that I treasure in my own father. But more importantly, despite his incredible success as an actor, he still gives a damn about the rest of society. Instead of retreating to his mansion, counting his money by the stacks and staring at himself in the mirror he seems to do what he believes in. He chooses the roles that matter whether in movies or in charities. I'm so thrilled he has joined Share Our Strength to make No Kid Hungry in America. He's deep enough to identify with the people in this country who have never known the riches he has. I can't say enough about this man. When I grow up I hope I'm just like him, (and/or my dad), charitable, humble, completely comfortable with myself, compassionate, bearded and 6'1".

Just like a masculine group of Charlie's Angels, here is a delightful group of lean, mean childhood hunger fighting machines.

creepy old men

A friend of mine went to a bar last weekend. She is single and lovely. Someone put something in her drink. She ended up in the hospital. Fortunately she was with her friends who acted quickly and took her to help. She said she suspected it was a creepy old man who was hanging out around her and her group for part of the night. She vaguely remembered him sitting next to her on a bench outside after she had been drugged and fled the bar to find a place to lie down. She knew something was wrong after she got the urge to lie down at the bar and she was right, she had been drugged.

The scary thing is that these guys aren't like vampires that only come out at night. Their official daytime job title isn't "Creepy Old Man" unless they're always movie extras in Rob Zombie films. They are "normal" guys with "normal" jobs. Presumably they interact with women every day on a regular basis. And yet their respect for women as fellow human beings is so low that they can attempt these types of stunts on the weekends and not let that affect their weekly routine.

You can say this is a one-off thing and that these men are rare, but I wonder. If they're guaranteed to get away with something like this, what would keep them from doing it? I'd say it'd be pretty safe to assume it wouldn't be respect for women.

tights

I have small breasts. There's no hiding this, really. As a woman, most of the shirts I have to choose from (that are reasonably fashionable) are designed to accent and/or highlight this feature of my body.

To be honest it's okay, I don't need a huge chest, it seems a bit cumbersome to me, really. But I am reminded pretty regularly by society that I should be ashamed of something I don't have any control over. Why not try a padded bra? Or implants?

I'm never going to be in a T.I. video and I've learned over time to tell myself that's fine.

I have come up with a solution, though, to even out the discomfort so that men, too, can share in the pleasure of bodily exposure. Men's tights. First I need to make them au the rage and then the rest is cake.

Men might judge women for having misshapen bodies, but that's the pot calling the kettle black for sure. We just can't tell because they hide in those loose boxers and jeans. A small penis can look funny on a big guy but a big penis can look equally funny on a little guy, too. We should all be able to witness this and not be left to wonder.

Tights would eliminate the need for false confidence and Ford F-350s. Men would be brought to a female's level of constant questioning and need for reassurance -

Guy A - *walks out of bathroom* Hey...does my penis look big in these tights?
Guy B - Don't worry about it! You look hot and you've got an amazing ass anyway.
Guy A - Yeah but what about my balls? Does one look bigger than the other?
Guy B - Nobody's going to be looking at your balls, man, I promise.

Who wouldn't want to hear a conversation like this between two men?

Well...?

damned if we do

...she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late for meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question. These were working, powerful, leading women, she writes. Why did they insist on wearing heels? Sure, some women just like heels (and still others probably know their bosses like them). But there is also the reality that however hard men have it—and, from an economic perspective, their “beauty premium” is higher, say economists—women will always face a double bind, expected to conform to the beauty standards of the day, yet simultaneously condemned for doing so...

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of The Beauty Bias from http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/19/the-beauty-advantage.htm

12 and Delaware

I'm watching an HBO documentary called 12 and Delaware about a crisis pregnancy center in Florida that sits across the street from an abortion clinic. It's very sad to see that so many people value the lives of unborn children over the lives of the women having these children.

Women are controlled in a number of ways. What is especially sad to me is how these centers are able to guilt women into making decisions they might not want to make in the first place. What is sad is that these women are being lied to and given incorrect facts like abortions give you breast cancer and condoms only work 85% of the time. Women aren't even given the courtesy of truth. It's apparently okay to lie to women in order to make sure they have a baby that maybe they can't afford or don't want or can't physically carry due to health reasons.

I'll be glad to see the day when women are allowed to make decisions on their own without constant ridicule and scrutiny from both men and women.

cereal serving sizes

Look, General Mills, you and your industry cereal-making friends need to level with us, here.

Who in the hell eats 1 & 1/2 cups of cereal and calls it a morning!? I think we all know the average serving size should be 2-3 bowlfuls. Yes, the calorie count will probably be upwards in the 400s, but at least we'd be real. No more of this 1.5 cups of rice krispies jibber-jabber. Just hardcore mother-fucking TRUTH. Pour some milk and eat a bowl of THAT.

strippers

On any given day we see a number of near-naked women in various sexy positions. This might be on TV, billboard, online, so on.

Take the Gucci example above. This is Gucci, so naturally it is seen as provocative, sexy & interesting, tastefully done. Never mind that the girl's head is cut off and only her body is seen and that she has a G branded into her pubic hair, this ad is fucking art.

But a woman in the flesh, performing the same actions seen in these ads, as a real-life stripper, is not seen the same way. A stripper is the embodiment of how women are portrayed every day. Women are supposed to be sexy, but the minute they cash in on this idea and make money from it, they've gone too far. That's where the shame comes in. Suddenly they're dirty. And not just dirty, I've heard a number of terrible adjectives and similes used to describe these women.

Dumpsters, sluts, nasty, disgusting.

What would it take to shake these beliefs about women taking command over their own sexuality?