World’s Best Mom

Absolutely beautiful

Alive In You

That’s a lofty title, I know. And believe it or not, I know her. Even more amazing (to me) is that I’m married to her.

One might think the world’s best mom would be someone with years of motherly experience and a number of kids — someone who has been doing it for a long time. My wife, Katie, doesn’t come close to qualifying under those terms. You see, we’re new parents. Our first son, Randol Thomas, was born on Thursday at 12:56 a.m. at the incredibly young gestational age of 25 weeks and 4 days. That happy moment had a sad ending when our baby boy lost his life later that morning at 5:20 a.m. after struggling for hours to try and breathe with what we knew were severely underdeveloped lungs — something we knew would be an issue after my wife’s water broke at just 18 weeks.

So how could…

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7 Ways Your Life is Like High School

Some thoughts on #readwomen2014

Pechorin's Journal

For those of you not familiar with it, #readwomen2014 is a campaign started on twitter by writer Joanna Walsh intended to get people reading more books by women.

The concept of the campaign is a simple one, female writers don’t get the same critical attention as male. That’s odd, women read more than men (proportionally and in aggregate) and they get published in much the same numbers. So if women are published equally and women read more, why are they reviewed less?

Part of the answer seems to be that a disproportionate number of professional critics are men, and men famously are much less likely to read books by women than women are books by men (which is both bizarre and frankly depressing). Another part is marketing and perception.Women’s fiction is often given “girly” covers with pastels and sometimes cute taglines. If you’re male those covers are profoundly offputting.

Equally, it’s sadly true…

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The “Me Time” Myth

Your Mom Has A Blog

We moms are always talking about “Me Time.”  We seem to spend a lot of brain power thinking about it and how to get it.  I even recently saw a red carpet reporter whose sole assignment was to ask celebrity moms how they get the all-important Me Time.  And, each celebrity had different answers.  Pedicures and coffee were favorites.  Lunches and going to the gym were mentioned.  Basically any activity that doesn’t involve the children can qualify, although if doesn’t involve the children OR the husband, then it is really considered a treat.

And I know why we say this.  It’s because being a mom is tiring.  And draining.  And some days it’s not all that fun or even interesting.  Being a mom requires lots of hard work, lots of putting others first, and lots of doing things that you don’t necessarily feel like doing.  So, when we have been…

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Is Feminism Depressing? Ableism, mental illness and fourth wave feminism

Completely took me to another level and that is The Point.

bottomfacedotcom

I took part in a discussion with a few Twitter users the other day in which we spoke about the appropriation of the term “depressing” in the title of a webchat about the effects of fourth wave feminism. This conversation took many meandering paths and we were pretty unanimous in our opprobrium of medicalised terms to discuss everyday experiences. We spoke, at length, about the myriad ways in which we, as women with disabilities, are erased from the discourse of mainstream feminism. On the one hand my instinct is to ignore the word “depressing” as something which has become deeply assimilated into our everyday conversations, but on the other I am aware of the hypocrisy of ignoring such terms whilst feeling offend by the use of other medical terms such as “schizophrenic” or “retarded” as adjectives for negative terminology. 

 My life has been full of a variety of tragic strands…

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The Beauty of Abandonment

This piece has put into words so many of my feelings over the years – I love this, beautifully written.

Aware of Awareness

I spoke with my father today, for perhaps four and a half minutes. After a bit of courteous small talk that revolved around the weather and summer plans, he rushed to get off the phone.  I’m not sure why.  I didn’t ask.  Perhaps he had company, an appointment or something pressing on his mind.  He might have been in physical pain.  As a survivor of a traumatic accident, my father has multiple health challenges.  Walking is profoundly difficult. Even sitting isn’t easy for him.

I’m not sure what reason he had for getting off the phone so quickly, but I can’t say I was surprised.  Our last call – about six months ago – was similarly brief.  I felt so many things in those four and a half minutes. Concern about his health. Happiness at hearing the warm, deep tones of his southern drawl.  Guilt over waiting so long to call…

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What Kind of Hooker Are You? Crocheter Personality Comparisons

This is in honor of my best friend that has this wonderful talent for nearly 30 years and I sadly cannot crochet

Knot Just Yarn Blog

Sheri Goad, 7th Place for the Mad Hatters Challenge

I was thinking about what type of crocheter am I. I began to dig around in my ‘noggin and realized there are different types of personalities based on the love of crochet. I have a cross mix of personalities depending on the project.

Just for kicks, let’s compare. Would love your comments to hear what type of hooker are you!

Wanna-be Hooker:  You enjoy the concept of hooking and longingly lust over other peoples work, but you haven’t quite mustered the oomph to get started. You most likely have a skein or two of yarn and a hook sitting next to you in case inspiration strikes while you spend your day clicking through multiple crochet boards.

‘Squirrely’ Hooker: You are like a squirrel in a nut shop! Your love of it all is uncontrollable. You might actually concentrate long enough…

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If You Ever….

The Language of Dude Feminism

The sort of language used to assert men’s dominance over women has a pretty recognizable pattern across the cultural landscape. Men, we are told, are in charge of things because they have something women (supposedly) lack: physical strength, honor, higher cognitive facilities, or the mystique of the male organ itself. Women, sadly “lacking” these qualities, need to be “protected” from the all-consuming lusts of strange men.

This can be spun as noble chivalry, brutal domination, or a playful battle of the sexes, but at the root it’s the same: women are denied the freedoms that men take as a God-given right, assigned subordinate status, and coerced into performative gender roles.

In this dialectic, men’s protective abilities and ravaging urges come from the same place and are both aimed squarely at women. Language, of course, did not create the patriarchy, but language is a powerful method of inscribing the possible, shaping…

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Imposition

feministkilljoys

You know that feeling when you arrive into a room and you feel like you are imposing?

Say you end up with a group of people who know each other really well. Everyone is polite and attentive. And then the conversation might fall into the charm and ease of familiarity. A falling, a rolling: shared memories that come up because just a word can be enough to bring them up. The chuckle when she said that, a chuckle that can ripple through the group, accompanied by sideways glances of affection. You don’t mind this at all; you might be sitting back and enjoying that roll. But someone looks up and notices you are not being included in the conversation. There is a checking; a feeling of being checked. And someone else might turn to you and ask you a question. It is such a polite question; the atmosphere becomes more formal. And this tonal shift is a shift of…

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