What do feminists think about in 2005?

My very new friend, Philip Greenspun, has a post on his blog today, saying:

Women have seemingly achieved most of the goals of the folks in the 1960s who called themselves "feminists." Women can work 24/7. Women can vote (for the white male of their choice, at least in the last few presidential elections). Women can get abortions without having to travel beyond their home state. Women constitute close to 50 percent of the young folks training for and holding jobs that are actually worth having (e.g., medical doctor).

And I could only think of about 7,324 things that I’m still thinking I’d like to change, and am actively working to change, as a woman in our society, starting with equal pay for equal work, the fact that only 7 of the Fortune 500 companies have women CEO’s, and myriad other enormous issues.

And I would like to see a woman be President of the United States.

And I’m delighted to say that the women’s right to vote passed in this country long before the 1960’s. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Congress on June 4, 1919 and ratified August 18, 1920.

Any other women and men out there who think of themselves as feminists want to say what they’re thinking about in 2005?

Altered States

I hardly ever get sick, but Brad brought me the gift of some kind of virus from the Lower 48 that started to take hold Friday afternoon with a sore throat, and has now developed into a full head cold with lots of goo in the face and that sensation that the brain is wrapped in a layer of fuzzy cotton, making the world seem soft and distant and faintly echoing. I didn’t feel too bad yesterday, and got lazy with the fluid intake and didn’t swath myself in eucalyptus oil at bedtime. I am definitely sick today. Brad has headed off to yoga without me, which is a first for the summer. I think I will just roll with this virus today, and be lazy and mostly stay in bed in my ancient Apple sweatshirt and cups of hot tea and orange juice.

Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars

I read this memoir last summer and ran across it on the shelves today while looking for Tobias Wolff books for Brad. It’s a fascinating story of the childhood of Lauralee Summer who grew up in poverty and homelessness and went to college at Harvard. Ben Casnocha, I recommend that you read this book in your voluminous spare time as you think about college choices. Pros and cons, food for thought.

from p. 223

During the first week, we attended many orientation sessions about diversity. At one of these gatherings, the speaker asked the audience of two hundred to raise their hands if they were from working-class backgrounds. I looked over the heads of the mass of students and saw seven raised hands, one of which was my own. Only seven out of two hundred Harvard students were from working-class families. My mother and I were not even working class; we were welfare class. During Freshman [sic] Week, I met many students whose parents owned companies, had millions of dollars, or were faculty at other elite universities. It was a shock to learn that such people existed in my own world.

The Audre Lorde quote in my last post is from the epigraph from Chapter 28 of this book (p. 266).

A poem written by an anonymous homeless youth is the main epigraph:

we are not lost

we know where we are

but our itinerary is chance and weather

we do not believe in destinations

and we are in no hurry

we have learned patience

from statues in a thousand parks

and joy from dogs without collars.

Free Speech: Audre Lorde

We can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid…[I]n this way alone we can survive, by taking part in a process of life that is creative and continuing, that is growth. And it is never without fear — of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment….But we have lived through all of those already, in silence….And I remind myself all the time now that if I were to have been born mute, or had maintained an oath of silence my whole life long for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die. It is very good for establishing perspective —

from "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, Santa Cruz, CA: Crossing Press, 1984

Poem: For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

(by W.S. Merwin)

Google Moon Landing Anniversary

It’s the anniversary of the moon landing (1969) and Google has done a really cool thing with NASA imagery of the moon. I read the More About section and found this:

. What happens if I try to zoom too close?

Well, you’ll have to go and find out, won’t you?

Definitely DO zoom too close and see what the moon is really made of.

Ashtanga Vinyasa

Today I got my monster ass kicked by ashtanga, which is actually a good thing. My regular yoga teacher was off today, and the replacement teacher taught a full on ashtanga class, including jumping from down-dog directly into staff pose and then back to plank over and over again with lots of poses in between and many bound twists and half-moons and pigeons. Extra aerobic and challenging. We ended with headstands, which makes me feel so victorious when I can really press into it and feel everything aligned upside down in opposition to gravity. I’m a bit fearful about what tomorrow will bring. I may be like the Tin Woodsman and need some oil in the morning, but it sure felt good to move around today. Oh, and did I mention that the teacher couldn’t have been younger than 65? Maybe 70? Incredibly strong and fit and flexible and kicking the asses of people 30 years younger. Total inspiration.

Rain Series

I buried myself in a thriller series the last couple of days so I could ignore the empty house around me while Brad was off doing his thing in California. I read the first two John Rain books last summer and bought the third in hardback in Seattle when I was on my last detective/thriller/mystery binge. The latest John Rain arrived from Amazon a couple of days ago (I’m on a first name basis with Dan, the UPS man), which inspired me to re-read the series. They’re the best assassin-as-hero books since The Eiger Sanction. They are set in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Macau, Manila, Bangkok, Phuket, and other fun places in Asia, as well as Brazil and a brief, but memorable, visit to Virginia. I read the first couple last summer in preparation for a planned birthday trip to Tokyo in September that didn’t come to fruition, and have now read the next two in preparation for a planned trip to Tokyo at the end of this month that’s also not going to come to fruition. I’m sure I’ll make it to Japan eventually and will look up some of the coffee houses and jazz clubs described so lovingly in these books.

Emily Eveleth Paintings

Emily Eveleth is another favorite artist of Brad and mine, who we’ve collected for many years. We own several of her large paintings of donuts and are delighted to add Pass to our collection. You can see other images of her work at Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston and the Danese Gallery in New York.

Evelethpass2004

Pass, Oil on Canvas, 31" x 50", image courtesy of Howard Yezerski Gallery

Evelethbrace2002_1

Brace, 2002, oil on canvas, 54 x 82, image from Danese Gallery website

From the Press Release for the fall 2004 show:

Howard Yezerski Gallery is very pleased to present a new evocative body of work by Emily Eveleth. Growing out of the figurative work that she had done in her last show at the gallery in 2002, this recent body of work features an archetypal figure in a suit and tie playing out an ambiguous scenario of hula hooping. The close, cinematic cropping of the scenes draws attention to the movement of the hoop, and emphasizes the sequencing of events that happens throughout this new series. The close-up nature of each scene in these paintings creates a feeling of intimacy, as though they are suggesting that the viewer has caught this figure indulging in a private moment. By not giving any details as to surroundings, time, or place the figure remains anonymous.

“Emily Eveleth’s paintings conceal as the reveal. At once theatrical and restrained,…yet somehow private, they seem to invite the viewer’s gaze, acknowledge it, and them absorb it, folding it into their own particular dramas.” – Nico Israel

It Has a Blue Cover

We went to the coffee shop Saturday morning and the perky young woman who works there asked us when we got to the front of the (very short) line, "Do you guys ever fight?" We must have looked confused because she said that every time she sees us, which is just about every day, we look so happy and relaxed together. Brad said that whenever I get mad at him he thinks it’s funny and just laughs, which almost always makes me laugh, too. It’s nice to be part of a relationship that is in such a happy place that even strangers notice.

After we had our drinks in our hands (grande skinny latte for me, Denali-size soy latte for Brad), we went over to the bookstore to see whether they had survived their midnight Harry Potter party and to redeem myself for our visit the previous day when I had done one of those classic "customers are crazy" activities: "I’m looking for a book. I don’t remember the author, or the name, but it has a blue cover." Actually, I thought the name was 59th Parallel and is about the sinking of a fishing boat in the Bering Sea. The nice people who work at the Homer Bookstore duly looked on their computer search for 59 and 59th and 59th parallel and didn’t find anything, so we bought a couple of other books and went home. I looked in my Amazon account info since I had sent the book I wanted to my Mom at the beginning of June, and there it was. 58 Degrees North So close, and yet so unsearchable. And it does indeed have a blue cover, dammit. It was in stock, so we bought it, and of course bought the new Harry Potter and then realized that we hadn’t read the previous one yet, so bought that, too.

I read Book 5: The Order of the Phoenix on Saturday (which also has a blue cover), and immediately started Book 6: The Half-Blood Prince. I took Brad to the airport on Sunday morning for his extra-long commute to Palo Alto and finished Book 6 in the afternoon. It’s certainly a sad tale, and both books are thoroughly engrossing. It was great to read two of them in a row and be completely absorbed in the story. I’m not a huge science fiction / fantasy reader, but loved the Chronicles of Narnia when I read them in 6th grade, and the first three Sword of Shannara books which I read around the same time. Oh, and of course The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series. I also read Dune and Dune Messiah, which made a big impression on me (esp. Fear is the mind killer, political power of religion), at least to the extent I could understand them then, and then didn’t really read any other science fiction or fantasy until The Mists of Avalon in college. Except for Neuromancer. And maybe a couple of other things. I think the Potter books are certainly worthy of being in the company of these other great fantasy books, and I look forward to Book 7.