#YesAllWomen

Guys, this post sucks to write.  As a nation, we have just watched another sickening, infuriating act of violence against innocent people.  I am not Betty Friedan, and I am not prepared to write any sort of manifesto.  But I am a human woman, and I am a feminist.

I didn't know this about myself until pretty recently.  In fact, as recently as college, I actively dismissed the idea of feminism.  I honestly didn't get it.  Like so many among us today, I assumed that feminism implied that I thought I was superior to men, or I shouldn't wear makeup, or something.  And I love makeup.  I like getting my hair did.  I like dresses, and shaving my legs, and wearing bras.  I figured this discredited me as a feminist.  I realize now, that at its most basic, Feminism just recognizes that I matter.

Several weeks ago, I was talking to a guy I work with.  He made some off-handed comment, and I said something in return about feminism in the work place.  He actually stopped what he was doing, turned to me, and said, "Wait, but you're not a feminist, right?"  As if the idea of an adult female who is a feminist is the weirdest thing anyone has heard of.

I wish this wasn't something that I had to address.  And I'm not entirely certain I'm comfortable doing it on a blog that its most obvious premise is about dating a guy.  But I date a great guy.  I date a guy who makes me realize, every day, by what he says and does, that feminism is legit.

At this point in the blog, I was going to list and quote a bunch of male celebrities proclaiming that they are feminists.  But isn't that part of the problem?  As a woman, do I need to show you all a group of men who approve of my little cause?  I shouldn't, and I won't.  Except for one.

This may sound like hyperbole, but it is possible that Joss Whedon taught me how to be a feminist.  I watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer regularly and feverishly in my middle school through high school years. I still did not understand feminism at this point, but I feel that Mr. Whedon was slowly teaching me*.  I watched this show.  And this show featured remarkable ladies played my remarkable actresses.  But I thought nothing of it.  Because Mr. Whedon does not feel the need to beat anyone over the head with a uterus (how's that for a visual?!).  Joss Whedon created characters who were characters.  The women of his shows were simultaneously strong, sad, happy, manic, broken, anxious, confident and beautiful.  They were all real.

I sit here tonight really perplexed and disturbed by what happened just a coast away.  I want to say, as the angry person with a computer, "Um, you referred to women as 'blonde sluts'. It is no one else's fault that no one wants to have sex with you."  But people died.  People with fathers, mothers, friends, pets and neighbors.  People with anonymous crushes.  People who had not yet discovered the amazing gift they were going to give to the world.

I am not yet thirty years old and I can't believe I am again mourning the tragic deaths of strangers younger than me.  It's horseshit.







*Let me state, for the record, that I had many incredible women teaching me my self-worth all along.  I was raised and influenced by the coolest, most intelligent, strong, gracious, funny, sweet, bad-ass ladies a girl can hope to be around.  I cannot express to you enough how little I knew about what it meant to be a woman and a feminist.

"Forever". (Forever Ever? ForEVER EVER?!)

You all have a favorite book, yes?  It can be "Goodnight, Moon" for all I care, (it is deceptively symbolic) but you have one... right?  How many copies of that book have you owned?

My favorite book is Pete Hamill's "Forever".  It was recommended to me 7 (yikes!) years ago by a guy I was working with in my life as an actor.  This particular gentleman also has the distinct honor of introducing me to a certain nerd with whom I would begin a relationship and about whom I would start to blog.  Remind me to buy him several beers.

I devoured "Forever".  Pete Hamill, over the course of his distinguished career, wrote for/edited the New York Post, The New York Daily News, and The Village Voice.  This man knows New York, and wrote a sprawling novel that begins in Ireland several centuries ago and ends in modern day New York City.  I am being purposefully vague.  This book moved me.  I have been trying to share it with, or possibly thrust it upon, pretty much everyone I like ever since.

I have purchased several copies as gifts, including sending a copy to my brother, who was deployed at the time.  I have loaned it out more times than any other book in my memory.  [Side bar: I'm not great at loaning books to people.  I am meticulous with my books.  As a child, I brought old books to donate to the library and they told me they only wanted used books.  My mother had to tell them that I had read them all several times.  I do not break the spine, I do not dog-ear a page, and I certainly do not make notes in the margins, not even in pencil.]  That I have wanted so passionately for people to read this book that I have given it up so often is kind of a miracle.

The first copy I lost was to a guy.  (Wah wah).  We had been on one or two dates, and we were talking about books, and I loaned it to him.  His mother was a librarian!, I thought, How could I go wrong?  I never saw him, or the book, again.  [Another side bar: He acted like a jerk and *then* I decided to never see him again.  I don't think it was a great book-stealing scam or anything.]

I bought a second copy.  I loaned it out again, to my nerd, among others.  This copy was returned to me several more times, until I handed it over to a friend.  Several weeks went by, but I thought nothing of it.  One day, I received a package in the mail from Amazon.  Inside was a copy of "Forever", alongside a copy of "Bright Lights, Big City."  There was also a note that said (and I paraphrase), "I damaged your book in a New York City rain.  Here's a new copy, and as a thank you, a copy of my favorite New York City book."  That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you borrow a book.

I read "Bright Lights..." and enjoyed it.  I was getting ready to re-read "Forever", my first time reading this new copy that had come to me.  A friend of my nerd's was over the other night, and we were talking books, and I sent him home with my copy of "Forever" instead.  Will I see it again?  Probably.  But if not, I think it's pretty clear that I don't mind spending 15 or so dollars on the same book every once in a while.

"This Is A Pie Chart Describing My Favorite Bars"

(Can we just ignore that I haven't written in forever?  Awesome, let's move on.)

So as I write this, I am six months shy of turning 30.  And despite being pretty proud of myself for co-running a household that has never run out of toilet paper, certain recent life events have reminded me that my shit is decidedly un-together.  And I've heard that 30 is where life begins, and I want to reach that landmark with a little bit of life savvy and grown-upness in tow.

I spent an evening comparison shopping fireproof safes.  I opened a savings account for the first time since high school.  I bought a Moleskine notebook as those are obviously academic and adult.  I've been wearing pigtails as much as possible, because I had a friend in college who said women over 30 should never wear pigtails and that stuck with me in a very weird way.  You know, standard "Leaving Your Twenties Bucket List" items.

I have never been good with finances.  Part of this, I attribute to the fact that most of my earnings are cash, I get paid immediately, and there is no way for me to really ascertain how much money I will make on a particular day.  I'm trying.  I'm using the old envelope method, compartmentalizing my cash into oblivion.  But I'm not tracking anything.

My nerd has been sick and trapped inside our (toilet paper stocked) apartment for days, and I think he went a little stir crazy.  I went to work yesterday, and got a text from him with a spreadsheet attached.  In his quest for productivity, the man made me a detailed spending/saving/earning Numbers Document.  I just "input the data" in the boxes at the end of the day, and that's it!  I'm told that once I put in enough numbers, there will be charts.

When we first started dating, I told my nerd that I didn't like receiving flowers.  (Note to past self: Never tell a guy you don't like getting flowers, as you will never get flowers again.)  There's an illustrative story I could tell, and may at a later date, but basically, I think that flowers are generic, and I prefer a more personally tailored romance.  Why flowers when I can come home and my favorite beer is in the fridge?  Why flowers when I leave for work before he's up and I return and he's sloppily made the bed?  Why flowers when he gets dessert from our favorite neighborhood bakery?  

Why flowers when he spends a sick day making a freaking budgeting system and making it available in the cloud so I can access it on all my devices?

Also, I love charts.  Probably as much as Marshall.

(via tumblr)