Liberating ourselves- a mini rant about being a woman

            What makes a woman a woman? This is a topic that royally pisses me off, I won’t lie about it. Why you ask?

-EXPECTATION VS. REALITY-

           

            I could go on the typical rant about how social media is ruining women’s expectations of themselves, (I happen to agree for the most part) but I won’t. The subject has been beaten to death. Moral of the story- take it all with a grain of salt. No, I take more issue with women. Yep, you freakin’ heard me.        

            We could change the conversation ourselves. We could decide we won’t starve ourselves to reach a stupid ideal, which in truth isn’t really an ideal most men and women find attractive. We could decide we like video games, science, math, nerdy stuff, wearing what we want, doing what we want. We allow the braces on our brains, choosing to follow what we’re told like cattle.

            It’s like we don’t even bother to look back and see how much we have evolved, from being given away with Dowry’s attached, (I’ll throw in a cow and two sheep if you take this girl as your wife!) to woman being astronauts, physicists, leaders of countries. We treat the examples I’ve given as anomalies, create differences and barriers that do not exist.

            COMPLIMENTS- I’m going to point the finger at myself now. I still get an eye-twitch if I’m given a compliment, especially if it’s about my looks. Words like beautiful, exotic, pretty, all evoke a knee-jerk reaction to refute said compliment. Wtf is up with that?! This is a dumb social norm I allow myself to follow.  Listen, I’m no 10, but I’m not barking either. So why not take a compliment with grace, even if it’s only given from someone trying to get into my knickers, (hey- that ish still counts)? I do this because I’m worried they will think I’m full of myself, they might think I stare longingly in the mirror for hours admiring my cheekbones… or whatever the hell one would admire if she sat in front of the mirror for hours. Why do I care? So now I’m trying to say thank you, instead of telling them I’m anything but beautiful.  Ok, I still pull faces when anyone says these things to me, but I’m tryin’ here.

            SEX- I am a sexual person, (holy shit- she admitted that out loud!).  It’s dumb that our male counter parts are allowed to talk about sex, how much they like it, how much they have it, how much they want to have it. I don’t go around pointing at people and saying, “I’d bang that. That too. Oh- I’m taking that home with me…” It happens to not really be my style. The bullshit dance, acting like the attraction isn’t there, and the woman being expected to be the smart one and want to wait… I. Hate. That. Sometimes, I just want to give the cookies, and get the cookies. Why the hell does it matter? As long as we women understand if we give them away early, chances are we won’t be talking to that dude later. Also, doing this quickly with another woman can lead to matching jammies and a cat, but whatever. I’m super up front and honest with whomever I am talking to, dating, at the time. “So, I kinda wanna jump your bones.” They say honesty is the best policy.

            MORE SEX- One more poke at sex, (haha) then I’ll move on. Why don’t we figure out what we like? Missionary sucks. Knowing your own body, what turns you on and off, what kind of partner you like, do you like talking, pinching, nibbling? Are you self sufficient, or do you want a partner? Outfits, toys? Are you an exhibitionist? Fan of PDA? Do you need a back rub, the oven warmed, candles and poetry? Doing a dead fish impression is not cool, and every one I’ve ever talked to on this subject finds it so sexy when their partner can tell them what they want. This does not make you a slut. It makes you a liberated thinker. You should know your own topography, and how to navigate it. Just so you know, anyone who would think knowing what you like makes you a slut is just intimidated because all they know how to do is hump like a Chihuahua. Ladies- know thyself.

           

            FASHION-This is a really cool time for fashion, the new and the old being mixed together to make for interesting patterns and choices. Why conform to one? Know what works for your body, and rock it out luv! I happen to enjoy dressing mostly like a jock,  (spandex anyone?) but 50’s style dresses that bell out from the waist do great things for my figure. Why are we so self-conscious? I feel very sexy when I wear my American Apparel dresses, (similar to being human sausage in one of those) and wearing towering heels. Yes, I enjoy the looks I get- I work damn hard to look the way I do. So what? If you’re happy in a potato sack, who gives a rip what Joe Schmoe has to say about it? It’s his loss. Your hair and make up too. Eye liner makes you feel snazzy? Hoop earrings some extra pep in your step? Finger curls give you class? Do eeeet.

            FLY YOUR FREAK FLAG- Do you dress up your cats? Play world of warcraft? Know the difference between DC and Marvel? Maybe you can name different fashion designers, have an amazing shoe collection, collect antique coins? Dudes are allowed to have man caves full of collectibles from their childhoods, why can’t women do something similar? Listen- what the hell are we so afraid of? I happen to know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek, love classic Hollywood musicals, full of useless factoids, and can quote Shakespeare. I find these things interesting, so I’ve learned more about them. I’m not afraid of the looks I get when I wear my star wars leggings, quote Puck the Mischievous fairy, or giggle with delight when I hear a Gene Kelly reference. To each their own.

            WHAT YOU WANT- Do you want to be a mum, travel the world, explore space? Maybe teach history, be a criminal lawyer, play professional sports? Women can do all of these things, doing one or the other, or several at once. Doing any one of these things does not make you any more of less of a woman. Be honest with your self about your expectations. When you honor yourself, the people around you will do the same. Those who disagree don’t really love you as you are in the first place. 

            Loving you as you are built instills confidence, which then attracts people to you. Honesty in what you expect and want to be is such a freeing experience. The parts that make up the person you are, happen to be yours to own and treasure, honor and enjoy. You are a woman, powerful and beautiful. You are a layered person, with so many different things going for you. You are not one-dimensional by any means. So own that, and earn it. We could run the world you know, we just have to take it. So, start with yourself. Once you get a grasp on you, and we all start doing it… ruh roh.

            

My 3 favorite escapes

FILM

            The most recent invention when it comes to my three favorite escapes, so it seems fitting to talk about it first. I love everything about it; going to the cinema and finding the perfect seat, watching previews for the movies coming soon. Noting which I’ll bother to watch in the theater, the ones I’ll wait to watch at home.  Then the theater darkens, and it starts. I’ve smuggled in my favorite dollar candy, and usually I’m flying solo at the theater, so I’m enjoying spreading out across two seats for optimum enjoyment.

            I love getting lost in all of it, my senses bombarded by the visuals, and hopefully a damn good soundtrack. Most genres appeal to me, suspense, mystery, romance, musicals, comedy, and drama. Ok, horror isn’t my cup of tea but you can’t win them all. Sure, I’ve come to a point where I can predict a lot of storylines, (I was one of those weirdos who knew that little kid was gonna see dead people) but who cares? Sometimes you want that. Other times I’ll watch an Indie or a foreign film, which usually ends with my favorite character alone after heartbreak, or dead.  I can’t seem to help myself, I’m still addicted.

            I still get a thrill every time I see Gene Kelly dance to singing in the rain, Darth Vader tell Luke he’s his father, when I rewatch the shark jump out of the water in Jaws, Bogart saying, “Here’s looking at you kid”, Robert Redford hitting the skin off the baseball in The Natural, and when “Rosebud” is whispered at the end of Citizen Kane. These iconic moments in film help me escape reality, even if only for a little while. They are their own time capsules, not only for when they were originally filmed, but for me. Even the movies that never received critical acclaim pull at my heart strings; Ferris Bueller’s Day off, 10 things I hate about you, Pitch Perfect, Love Actually, ET, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, All of the Die Hards... I watch them over and over again, because I know when I watch I can count on them to be the film I fell in love with in the first place. Sure, I may catch something I never did before, which if anything helps me fall in love even more.

            I can quote movies for days, and even use some of these to help me in my every day life, “I’d rather fight with you than make love with anyone else,” “What we do in life echoes in eternity,” “The Juice is worth the squeeze,” “What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?” “The sun rises and sets with you” “ If he wants to see you, he’ll see you.” “Do or do not, there is no try” “Life is but a dream”. Did you know any of those? If so, congrats!

BOOKS

            I think a love of books is being lost. People’s attention spans are shorter, the ability to read iambic pentameter is being lost, and a vocabulary large enough to appreciate the classics is falling by the wayside. There is nothing like pulling a book off the shelf you’ve read several times over, the pages creased and stained because of how many times you’ve thumbed the pages.  I still love the musty smell of library books, and I’m a purist- I hate electronic books. Have you ever dropped a kindle on your face because you fell asleep reading? That ish hurts, in case you were curious.

           

            There is a book for everything, and I for one can’t get enough of the knowledge held within a books pages. All you need to read a book is proper light and somewhere to sit or lay down, and you’re golden. I’ve spent entire days reading, only taking breaks to eat and run to the bathroom. These are rare days I enjoy immensely. I can also get a version on CD so I can listen to my favorite book on the road, and there have been many nights I’ve fallen asleep to one because the cadence of the narrator’s speech was soothing to me.

            I can’t help but fall in love with the characters, especially when I stumble upon a series and get to see their many adventures and misadventures, I feel like I know them as good as friends. I’ve cried at their heartbreaks, yelped when something printed in front of me was frightening, and yelled with happiness when the protagonist finally wins. I’ve gone back and reread a page when I couldn’t believe the plot twist the author had just written, either elated or saddened by the turn of events written there.

           

            I’m so glad my parents pushed me to read at an early age, because there is endless amounts of entertainment to be found, and reading really can be done anywhere. So far there isn’t a book I regret having read, even if some weren’t my cup of tea. I’m always learning something, picking up phrases, having my views challenged and reinforced. I can count on my books to keep me company, and helping me pass the time for the rest of my days.

           

MUSIC

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” –Bob Marley

            I often tell people I can find a song for every mood, and wish my life was a musical. In a way, it sort of is. Lyrics have always appealed to me, and I find it uncanny how my playlists and the radio seem to sing me the songs I need to hear at the right time. I’ve found songs I love across eras, genres, and fads. I’m told my musical love is quite eclectic, and this would be true.  My parents loved very different kinds of music, which helped me to be open-minded and appreciate a good song when I heard it.

            I have a soft spot for singer-songwriters, but give me a good power ballad, a sweet country song, a rap I can sing at the top of my lungs, they all have a place in my life’s playlist.

            I had it explained to me once why people seem to spontaneously burst into song during a musical; it’s because mere words couldn’t express all they were feeling, and singing was the only way to get it all out. Man, how I wish I could go around bursting into song without people thinking I was completely looney. I’d sing to my beloved all the songs I hear in my head when I think of them, yell the lyrics to my go-to angry songs when I was pissed off, and mumble along with the lyrics to the songs I know make me want to cry every time I hear them.  Music definitely helps me find emotional release, across the entire spectrum. Ps- if I’ve ever sent you a song, or told you it reminded me of you, then you should feel special.

            I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found a great album, raced home, and lay in bed listening to one track after another. Back in the day reading the song lyrics on the back of the CD cover, nowadays Googling the lyrics so I can learn them quickly. Duke Ellington’s “Sentimental Mood” always puts me in a state of wonder, The Foo Fighters “The best of you” always gets my blood up, anything by Disney makes me feel like a kid again, Billie Holliday’s haunting serenades make me ponder how someone can experience so much and keep going, and I’ve explained before how No Doubt narrates my love life.

            So these are my three favorite escapes. 3 easy ways to get to know me better, maybe win me over if you tell me you’d love to have a movie marathon, introduce me to a new book, or you also like to make road trip playlists.

A Physicist's Eulogy

            Don’t imagine for a minute I plan to kick the bucket tomorrow. The reason I’m re-sharing this is because I was reminded of it recently while conversing with someone. I remember the first time I read it, I was really struck by the words.

            A few years back I lost 3 of the most important people to me all in one year, and I struggled with coping and understanding losing them all so close to one another. I wish I had this to read back then, because of how much the words comforted me.

            I’m going off the assumption this guy knows what he’s talking about, because I am not a physicist. The truth is, even if every word after what I write here is complete poppycock I don’t really care.  I stumbled across it when I needed to, and rediscovered it again when I needed a bit of reminding. I thought what the hell, I’ll share with the class. Enjoy.

            “You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

           

            And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your broken-hearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles who’s paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

           

            And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all your energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell him that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

           

            And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know they can measure, that scientists have measure precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen." – Aaron Freeman

                         

Why she's my game changer

            This isn’t a crazy lesbian love story; so get your head out of the gutter people. I consider this woman one of the loves of my life.

            I met her a few years back, at a bar people hang out at back home. I had one of those total movie moments, when I saw her across the patio and just knew I needed to talk to her. I didn’t leave her side the entire night, even though I was there with friends. I even stole a kiss, (no shame in my game people!). She’s beautiful, intelligent, witty and sarcastic.  I remember thinking I didn’t want to lose touch with her, even though she lived in Santa Cruz, and I lived in San Diego.

            We did lose touch, fell into serious relationships. We didn’t find each other again until those relationships were coming to a close. I was at one of the lowest stages in my life thus far. I was hurt and scared, angry and completely lost. Lucky for me at that point, we became almost inseparable.

            I can’t tell you how comforting it was to wake up next to someone who didn’t judge me when she found me crying, she just rubbed my back and told me she loved me. We badmouthed our exes together, took each other on the dates we were never taken on, had movie marathons, sleep overs, and hit the town together. We could sit in silence, reading or just laying about, and were completely comfortable.

            That’s when it finally hit me. We were two people who got each other. We loved each other for all our flaws, and all we were that was good. I realized this is what love is supposed to be. We made each other better. She’s my realist, my sounding board, my muse. I push her to loosen the reins, be crazy, cry it out. We make each other better versions of ourselves.

            Here’s the funny thing- we don’t agree on everything. I like going out more than she does. She likes taking her dog to the dog park, I loathe the dog park. She can watch marathons of SVU, and I’d rather watch marathons of chick flicks and Disney movies all while singing along. I love the heat, she loves the cold.  I love sports, she considers sporting events like going through water torture. She smokes, I don’t. She has style, I look like a hippie’s worst nightmare, all patterns and colors. We are not a perfect fit. We happen to have lots in common as well. It just works. When it does, it really is easy.

            When I feel lost, she reminds me to dream, and when she gets too into her head, I help pull her out again. She reminds me my fears drive me to be better. I remind her wearing rose-colored glasses to see the world can be liberating. We work, because we care about each other, and we try. We’ve invested in one another emotionally.

            No, we have never been together that way. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to the moon and back, and am very attracted to her. It’s just not what we’re about. She’s the Robin to my Ted, (yes, that’s a HIMYM reference). I could name the reasons we wouldn’t work as a couple, the biggest one being this- I love her as one of my best friends. We won’t cross that threshold because we don’t need to.

            This last Valentine’s Day I played her a song by John Legend called “All of me”. I told her she was the first person I thought of when I heard the lyrics. They start with, “What would I do with out your smart mouth, drawing me in and you kicking me out?... What’s going on in that beautiful mind? I’m on your magical mystery ride.” She really is everything he speaks of in that song to me. She reminded me who I was, and reminded me to be brave. She’s never asked me to be anything other than myself. She’s loved me at my lowest, and my greatest. The best part is I love her the exact same way. When you love someone, the sun rises and sets with them. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be.

She taught me what loving someone truly was. When I find my person, I’ll get it. That’s why she’s my game changer.

“I’d rather fight with you than make love with anyone else” – The Wedding Date