#ThxBirthControl!

Today, Planned Parenthood encouraged women to share why they're thankful for birth control. This is something that I take personally, so let me list why I appreciate my birth control:

1. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, my birth control pills are free. Without it, they would be close to $100 for a 3-month supply. While I have a good job, I wouldn't be able to afford that. And when I get the opportunity to revisit the conversation with my doctor, my sterilization will be 100% covered.

2. Thanks to my birth control, I am not burdened with children that I a) can't afford to take care of, b) do not want, and c) would probably abuse (It takes a lot of self-awareness to understand this about yourself, and I don't think less of myself for coming to this realization).

3. Thanks to my birth control, I have and can focus on a job I really love.

4. Thanks to my birth control, I don't worry about adding to the staggering amount of people at risk for heart disease in my family (along with mental illness and cancer).

5. Thanks to birth control, I can travel whenever I want to, without having to make any extra plans except for making sure my cats have sufficient food and water. I can go to adult-friendly places and eat at kid-unfriendly restaurants.

6. Thanks to birth control, I can be as selfish as I want to be. I can have nice things and eat ice cream for dinner without having to set an example or share. I don't have to share my video games.

7. Thanks to birth control, I can save money to become more financially stable.

8. Thanks to birth control, I don't have to watch my fucking mouth or save naughty movies for late at night.
 
9. Thanks to birth cntrol, I can be empowered as a woman to make my own health choices.

It's Time to Censor Censorship

As far back as I can remember, I have had a book in my hand. Around the age of ten, I started reading my mother's Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Saul books. I watched HBO and The Movie Channel late at night unsupervised. When questioned about my reading material, my mother would respond with "she understands what she is reading." And I did. I was emotionally mature enough to understand what I was reading and anything that I didn't understand, whether it be words I was unfamiliar with or situations I just had no frame of reference for, I asked. This is how I grew up. While my parents didn't share my musical tastes, they never told me I couldn't listen to a certain genre or band, didn't make me cover my eyes during scenes of nudity in movies. My parents didn't believe in censoring me, or censorship in general.

Growing up like this, it was always a shock to go to friends' houses where censorship was present, where certain types of music were verboten to the point where CDs were confiscated from bedrooms during school or outings (even after the age of 18). I didn't understand why the coddling was necessary; wasn't their child going to get the literature/music/movie/whatever outside of the home?

I often see on Goodreads threads that start out "what age is appropriate?" when it comes to books, especially the classics. There really isn't such a thing as an appropriate age for a book, in my opinion. The appropriate age is when the child is emotionally ready to read it. Granted, emotional maturation usually follows a certain steady path, but others (like myself) mature earlier than others, or have a higher reading level than other children. If a child is intellectually curious enough to read a book on their own, they're going to ask questions if they don't understand-- it's part of that whole "intellectual curiosity" thing.

On a separate note, a pet peeve of mine: I don't understand people who self-censor, especially in social media. As an educated, intelligent woman, I am a huge advocate of swearing, and nothing makes me grind my teeth more than seeing someone write something like "f@%k" instead of flat-out saying "fuck." What the hell is the point? Who are you protecting? If you're too offended to even write out the word, then why even try to use it in your vernacular? In my mind, words like fuck, shit, piss, cunt, hell, and damn are far less offensive than nigger, fag, dyke, spic, and chink. "Swear" words are, at face value, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns, whereas the slurs are deliberately used for hate. If you're going to censor anything, check yourself next time you pass on the latest hate speech disguised as a joke.

Censoring ourselves and what our kids are reading, watching on TV, or listening to for music is like saying "I'm okay with being a mindless robot," because really, it's taking away a certain aspect of creativity, independent thought, and passion from our lives. Some people make the argument that swearing is coarse language that is never necessary but I feel that powerful words, placed with strategy in an impassioned speech or even song can deliver so much impact to the listener.

So, Why the Crows?

The subject of my latest tattoo

I get it all the time: "So what's the deal with all the crows?" I guess it's a reasonable question. My tattoos are all crow-themed, I dressed as a crow this Halloween, I keep a crow feather on my fridge, and I have lots of crow stuff at home and in my office. There's even a crow as the background of my phone. So why do I love them? Well, corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, etc.) are incredibly intelligent and have been known to use tools and complex forms of communication. They can also be taught to talk (Julian the raven is the most adorable thing, ever).

I've always had a connection to crows and ravens, and in fact in my youth when I would potentially be late for school due to oversleeping, the crows would start outside my window and wake me. Naturally, I identified with the birds and eventually recognized them as my animal/spirit guide. I couldn't live in a place where there was no crows, it would just feel wrong. Seeing them makes me happy, and listening to them calms me.They are truly amazing creatures with an unfair reputation built by centuries of fear and lack of understanding.

The tattoo version of the above picture

Eggs-elent!

I have an impacted wisdom tooth trying to come through, so I've been trying to find soft things to eat that don't require a lot of chewing or that I open my mouth very wide. Tonight, I cooked the last of a dozen fresh eggs from my sister's chickens, and thought back to when I first started eating egg yolks. For my whole life, up until about a year and a half ago, I was egg whites only (except in scrambled and omelettes, and then it was just one yolk per 3 eggs). I didn't like the taste of them, and was afraid of the amount of cholesterol in them. Then John brought me to a little restaurant in Augusta called Rebecca's Place where I had eggs Benedict for the first time, where I willingly ate egg yolk for the first time. And I liked it.

Mmmm...

Fast forward a little to my extended unemployment. You've read about it and my struggles with food stamps and trying to survive (and if you haven't, go ahead and read back). As money dwindled I tried to eat as healthy as possible, which meant finding cheap sources of protein. Occasionally I would score a marked-down steak or package of chicken that I could make stretch for a couple of meals, but overall, meat was expensive. My sister has chickens and often has eggs to spare (and she has fun blue and green eggs!) so I usually have some in the fridge. After having eaten the fresh eggs from my sister's chickens (who eat vegetable scraps, bugs, and grass, and have a nice area to run around), I realized why I didn't like yolk: factory farm raised chicken eggs just don't taste good. You know how we describe things as smelling like "egg farts"? That's what store-bought eggs taste like to me.

Fresh, free-range eggs taste like wonderful sunshine. And I have to have that wonderful sunshine cooked a specific way: sunny side up (very runny) and fried in butter with Johnny's Seasoning Salt sprinkled on them, with some sort of bread vehicle for the yolk (but I've found hash browns or fried potatoes work amazingly well too). I still love eggs Benedict, though. There's a certain sensuality to fresh, creamy egg yolk coating your lips, and it's so much better for you than factory farmed eggs.

For those of you that don't like egg yolk, I challenge you to find fresh, local eggs. You'll find that they taste so much better than anything you can buy in the store.

Tatas Aren't Worth Saving

So last October, I ranted about the commercialization and commodifying of breast cancer/breast cancer awareness and how marketers take advantage of people's needs to feel good about supporting a cause by buying stuff. Breast cancer was, and still is, a very personal subject to me. So when I see the idiotic meme to the right floating around Facebook, and all the stupid "save the tatas" shit, I need to rant, and rant hardcore. I can understand the intent behind it all: be supportive! Be aware! Cancer is bad! But you know what? Memes like this and pink rubber "save the tatas" bracelets trivialize the disease and the women who struggle with it.

Not to sound like I'm ripping off Jezebel's article from last year on a similar subject, but we really need to stop the focus on the "breast" part of breast cancer awareness. In this sexualized American culture, more importance is put on the actual breast tissue than the woman with the disease. Let's talk breasts for a minute. What are they? According to cancer.org:

The breasts make milk for breastfeeding. It has 2 main types of tissues: glandular tissues and supporting (stromal) tissues.

The glandular part of the breast includes the lobules and ducts (shown in the picture below). In women who are breastfeeding, the cells of the lobules make milk. The milk then moves through the ducts–—tiny tubes that carry milk to the nipple. Each breast has several ducts that lead out to the nipple.

The support tissue of the breast includes fatty tissue and fibrous connective tissue that give the breast its size and shape. (source)

Breast tissue is non-essential. Women can easily live without breasts. However, so much emphasis is placed on the breasts being a large part of a woman's feminine identity that women often feel that a mastectomy makes them less feminine, or takes away their womanhood somehow. In '"Does That Make Me a Woman?" Breast Cancer, Mastectomy, and Breast Reconstruction Decisions among Sexual Minority Women,' Rubin and Tanenbaum write:

Lorde’s (1997) account of her own experience of breast
cancer was among the first to illuminate the sexism, racism,
and heterosexism ingrained in both the clinical and social
context of breast cancer. She was particularly concerned with
the assumption, expressed by medical professionals and
breast cancer support organizations alike, that some form of
replacement breast—whether through prosthesis or
reconstruction—is an essential element of cancer survivorship.

 Instead of focusing on the breasts as something that must be saved, let's look at the women themselves, and create a supportive and safe network for them where they don't have to feel like they are less of a woman for having a mastectomy done, or that they are reduced to no more than fatty tissue on their chests. Need to have a mastectomy? Go for it. Genetically cursed and want to do one preemptively? Excellent. It's your choice to have them removed, and also a choice whether you want them reconstructed. Either way, you're still a woman. In the end, it is the person who matters, not a fleshy part of the body.

For further reading, here is an excellent article about survivor identity. And here's a wonderful article about post-mastectomy tattooing.

Give Someone A Chance

Today I got my acrylics filled.I'm a creature of habit and go to the same place and usually, the same person does my nails, so I walked in with the expectation that I'd be sitting down in front of David. When it was my turn and a stranger walked up to me, asking "what color?" (I go to a Vietnamese nail salon, so the broken English is no big deal) I was surprised. I had never seen this person before. Usually, the owner and her husband and another lady were all that worked there and here was this new person?

What if she drilled too close to my cuticles and cut me? What if the drill got too hot? Oh my god why does the acrylic look white? My fears were all for naught, as she did a wonderful job and didn't proactively try to shorten my nails (I like them long, not Jersey long, but I have short fingers and David sighs every time I ask him to go longer when he's trimming down a new set). She gave me a shy but grateful "thank you" when I handed her her tip. I think my fears of seeing a new nail tech stem from when I first got acrylic nails (at this very salon) and then needed them filled. I went to a highly-recommended salon just down the road from my house and left really disappointed. So disappointed that I painted over them and waited for them to grow out.

I could have been a snot and requested David to do my nails. But let's use my trip to the nail salon as an allegory about giving people a chance. Yeah. That's my deep thought for the weekend.




I love the clicky sound of my nails on the keyboard. Yay!

Get That Brush Away From Me!

I've been sitting on this for a while, as I like to digest thoughts like so much brainfoods. Plus, I've been really busy (and for the infrequent updates, I apologize). I try to celebrate differences, especially in my relationship, but sometimes disparity can be taxing, especially when it comes to politics. I try hard to keep politics out of my personal, work, and romantic life, but when you have a romantic partner who stays so actively informed and is so intelligent (and I'm lucky I do) it can be difficult to keep the political discussion off the table. John is a Republican, and identifies as fairly conservative (although I would argue his conservatism is more fiscal in nature, rather than social) and I am a Democrat, and very, very liberal.

Within the last month or so, John has used the phrase "liberal propaganda" at least twice in conversation with me:  once, while writing his admissions essay for grad school, and once venting that his roommate's kid is not smart and is just "repeating the liberal propaganda that's fed to him at school" (for the record, this kid isn't smart at all). His use of "liberal propaganda" bothers me, and here's why:  I am liberal, but I don't fall into the liberal stereotype. I am an individual who thinks on her own and makes her own decisions about things. Take the gun debate, for example. Conservatives would say that liberals want to ban all the guns. While I don't necessarily understand a person's need for a semiautomatic weapon, I don't think they should all be banned. Stricter regulations? Yes. An all-out ban? No.

On the obverse, I am a liberal who is incredibly anti-drug. I don't support medical marijuana whereas the stereotypical liberal would fight for legalization. Not me. Ban it. And when it comes to Schedule I drugs?-- Doctors and pharmacists need to work closer with law enforcement to prevent resale of opiates, which is a big problem in my area.

One of the beautiful things about free thought and independence is the ability to form one's own thoughts. I value my intelligent boyfriend and friends, but I loathe being painted with one broad brush. I try to avoid labels for this reason, and I understand that he vents to me because there's no one else, but sometimes it rankles. It's not just him, though; a lot my Facebook friends are very conservative, and seem to think liberals are evil, gun-taking abortion monsters. I'm not, I just get very frustrated when people won't just talk about issues instead of laying blame. People-- and their opinions/socio-political leanings-- come in multiple colors. Let's recognize that.