What if No One's Watching?

Number of phone calls made: 14

Number of phone calls made only to be directed to call someone else: 3

Number of dollars stolen: $2,300

Number of additional dollars attempted to steal: $1,900

Number of days the bank estimates until they get back to me for a PRELIMINARY phone call: 3

Number of accounts closed: 2, so far

Number of direct deposits or withdrawls cancelled: 5

Number of curse words uttered: approximately 25,000

Number of days for which my credit file is flagged: 90

Number of years for which my credit file will be flagged if this does not get resolved within 90 days: 7

To the person who found my blog by searching for "ways a teenage girl can have sex without her parents knowing"--good luck, my dear. And please, please, if the sex you are trying to secretly have is heterosexual, use a condom. Even if you have to buy it, unwrap it, and apply it, use a condom.

-This message brought to you the Coaltion of Texas Women Doing Their Part to Fight Abstinence Only Education.

You and I serve our country in a time of great consequence, and my service comes with great consequences. During this session of Congress, we have the duty to disintegrate domestic programs vital to our country, screwing as many poor people as possible; we have the opportunity to save millions of lives abroad from a terrible disease, imperialism, but instead, spread it we will! We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared by all the rich white men of this country, and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people, as long as they are threatening those very same rich white men.

To read the real State of the Union Address, go here. While a barf bucket will still probably be necessary, reading it isn't quite as bad as watching him talk.

This is my favorite part:

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

Indeed.

All weekend I meant to blog, but I was distracted. You see, 5 years after the rest of the world, I finally got The Sims (for $5 at the Goodwill, no less). And I am an instant addict. It's not even funny. They had me at hello.

It was a busy weekend otherwise, as well. Mark is sick and had to be babied, I went to see Ani, I looked at a bunch of houses, and I watched the Puppy Bowl. Oh, and I attempted to make gingerbread from Laura Ingalls Wilder's recipe (did you know today is her birthday?). I don't suggest you try it. Either the recipe is bad, or one of the spices I used was too old, or something, because the shit isn't even edible.

Ani was amazing. Inspiring. Better than I have seen her in years. She played better, she played longer, she seemed relaxed and upbeat--like the old Ani. I was really really happy I forked out the $40 and went, and if you are of the Ani persuasion, I suggest you do the same--even if you haven't been impressed with her in the last handful of years. It's just her and an good, understated (cute) upright bass player named Todd. Then when you go, tell me what you think about Andrew Bird, who is opening for her on this tour. I am honestly perplexed as to what I think, except to say that the man has a mean whistle.

We all want something beautiful
Man I wish I was beautiful

I'm in the gray. I don't know why, but I am. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the reduced Prozac dosage. Maybe it just is. My friend S. calls this feeling purple, but to me, it's more gray. Oregon in February three-consecutive-months-of-drizzle-looking
-out-the-window-and-seeing-nothing-alive gray. Dammit, this is what I moved away from.

I'm not unhappy. I'm just...unenthusiastic.

It's easy, after we end relationships and move on, to forget what was so great to begin with. It is especially easy when our current partners have no love lost for our former ones, or when the relationship ended badly. It's a shame this is so easy, I think, because we'd all do well to remember the joys as well as we remember the slights. It's something I will work on, should I ever be in another ended relationship (easy to say right now, huh?)

My college boyfriend, S., is a perfect example. We've been broken up for like...five(?) years now, and I've spent most of that time all kinds of bitter. And I have every earthly right to be--he cheated, among other things. I spent three+ years of my life dedicated to someone who has no capacity for that kind of dedication. It was a disappointment. I think the thing that had me the most bitter, after it was all over, was not even losing him, or losing the self-respect that he cost me, but it was losing that much time.

But that's not the point. The point is that there were good things, too. In fact, there were lots of good things. The night that he and I got together, in October of (gulp) 1997, sticks in my mind as a good memory. And no matter what happened after, the memory remains, and it doesn't do anyone justice for me to change it in my mind because of what happened after.

My friend M. (the very same M. whom I have mentioned here ad nauseum lately) visited me my second month at college. Well, visited is probably not the right word. She had an unhealthy obsession with Faith No More, and I was an easy person to stay with and bum a ride off to go see their show. But that isn't part of this story (that is a whole other bitterness, I'm afraid). Anyway, she and I had gone to see Faith No More. It was smoky, full room, and she insisted on being in the very front. In the mosh pit, as it were. I ended up having an asthma attack and having to be carried out. No joke. So by the time we got back to the dorms, I was ready to crash out. But then S. showed up.

He'd been sort of around for a couple of weeks, he was a friend of my dormmate and new friend, also M. (who you have met here as well). The first thing I noticed about him was that he was very attractive. Like, Johnny Depp attractive. Seriously. It was a little freaky, actually, and retrospectively it still is. The second thing I noticed was that he was a total pain in the ass, but in that way that can kind of grow on you. M. had mentioned that he might be interested in me, but I honestly hadn't thought a whole lot about it. The first couple of months of college were kind of traumatic for me. There was a lot going on.

Anyway, S. showed up and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. To get away from M., who was driving me crazy, I agreed.

We must have walked for four hours that night. We left late, but the sun was rising by the time we got back to the dorm. And by the time we got back to the dorm, we were dating. We'd agreed that it probably wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks, but thought it might be fun.

The things I remember vividly from that night are not things that should have made any difference. I have almost no idea what was said, but I know there were Fruit Runts in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and we ate them as we walked. I know that when we got back to the dorm, I sat on top of a washing machine in the laundry room and we kissed. I know that I kept having to use my inhaler, and it was cold, but I didn't ever want to stop walking.

The years that came after that were as much bad as good, but those first few months were great. For the first time since I'd come to college, I could sleep with him with me. We studied together, we ate dinner together, we went out, we watched movies. It was the first relationship I'd had where I had only the relationship to negotiate, with no parental influence, no high school politics. He accepted me for what I was, and in those first months, he was good to me, and at that point in my life, not all that many men had been.

And in spite of everything since, I appreciate that.

Title line courtesy of my friend Adam Brodsky.

I am trying to write every day for Lent. Can't think of anything to say at the moment, though, so here's what I am listening to/thinking about:

"The Ballad of Mary Magdalene"
by Richard Shindell

My name is Mary Magdalene
I come from Palestine
Please excuse these rags I'm in
I've fallen on hard times
But long ago I had my work
When I was in my prime
But I gave it up
And all for love
It was his career or mine

He was always faithful
He was always kind
But he walked off with this heart of mine

In today's episode of my search for God, I found myself in sitting at a Quaker meeting. For over a hour, I sat in a room with thirty or forty other people, quietly, concentrating. Two men got up and spoke, each for no more than a couple of minutes, and I listened closely to what each of them had to say, then pondered what they said, looking for a message in it, looking for shades of something that I needed to hear. Before anyone spoke, I concentrated hard, first on the list of people I had brought with me that I wanted to pray for, and then on myself, praying for faith.

Once again, faith didn't come. If God was present in that room, God did not make its presence known, at least not to me. I sat there, trying from the inside out to open my heart and make room for faith, but faith did not come. As I attempted to meditate on faith, I concentrated on the word--faith. I saw it in my mind like the screen saver on a computer screen, bright, swirling letters. And just as soon as I saw it, it turned from "faith" to "fake." As in, I am a fake for sitting here with my eyes closed, trying to pretend I am one of these people. These people feel God in this space. They feel community. I feel my ass against the chair, my feet on the floor. These people are somewhere inside themselves, pondering on the things that are important in their lives, talking to their gods. I am sneaking glances at the clock, looking around the room, counting the panes in the windows. God wants nothing to do with me.

So here I am. Again. Disappointed. Wondering if this search is worthwhile. Wondering if searching is even what I should be doing. After all, if God wanted to me to know it exists, why wouldn't it just TELL ME rather than sending me on this wild goose chase? What am I supposed to be learning here?

I've looked for God on my own in more ways and on more occasions than I can count. I've done rituals, I've prayed in song, in speech, in writing. I've looking for God in nature, in the faces of my friends and family, at the graves of those I have lost. And I haven't been able to find God alone. Thinking maybe that I just needed help, or structure, I've looked for God in a Lutheran church, a Universalist Unitarian church, and now at a Quaker meeting. And I've seen no inclination of God in any of those places either. What now? Should I try Episcopalian? Should I stop picking churches based on their social values and service work and just force myself to sit through services at the Baptist church down the street? What if God has been hiding there all along, only a few blocks away?

Lord, I Have Made You a Place in My Heart

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart
among the rags and the bones and the dirt.
There's piles of lies,
the love gone from her eyes,
and old moving boxes full of hurt.
Pull up a chair by the trouble and care.
I got whiskey, you're welcome to some.
Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,
but I don't reckon you're gonna come.

I've tried to fix up the place,
I know it's a disgrace,
you get used to it after a while -
with the flood and the drought and old pals hanging out
with their IOU's and their smiles.
Bare naked women keep coming in
and they dance like you wouldn't believe.
Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,
so take a good look - and then leave.

Oh Lord, why does the Fall get colder each year?
Lord, why can't I learn to love?
Lord, if you made me, it's easy to see
that you all make mistakes up above.
But if I open the door, you will know I'm poor
and my secrets are all that I own.
Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart
and I hope that you leave it alone.

-Greg Brown

I am a girl, a woman, really, and I write a woman's blog. So if you have a problem with women's topics, such as the ever-taboo menstruation, then just move right along, there's nothing to see here. Don't bother telling me how much my blog sucks because it is self absorbed and only applies to me, or any of that shit. I'm bloated, I'm cranky, and I don't fucking want to hear it.

It pisses me off when people blame women's very reasonable moods or opinions on PMS. It also pisses me off, though, when people say that PMS doesn't exist, or that very few people actually have it, or whatever. Guess what? I have it, and I dare you to tell me otherwise. My back has hurt for two days, my insides feel like they want to come out, I am painfully aware of my left ovary and the sloughing that is presumably going on in it currently, my head hurts, I'm retaining water (I've gained 3 lbs since yesterday), and I just want to curl up in fetal position in my bed and have every living thing, particularly every living male thing, leave me THE FUCK alone for 24-48 hours, until the bleeding actually starts, the cramps and back pain loosen up, and I can put in a tampon and go about my daily business. If that isn't PMS, you tell me what the fuck it is.

I have never had what I would call a position relationship with my period. I started it on the first day of seventh grade, and spent the rest of that year in insurmountable pain every time it decided to grace me with its presence (which, thank God, was not every month). I already had enough hatred for all humankind in the seventh grade--I really did not need sporadic bleeding and pain that took me out of commission four to six days in a row on top of my already overgrown angst. In short, I hated my period from Day 1.

The summer between seventh and eighth grade, my mom took me for my first gynecological examination, with the idea that putting me on the The Pill might help with the extreme periods. That was fun. My sexual experience at that point was all of the solo variety, and it did not include some old guy and a cold metal speculum. It was horrifying, and it hurt. The pills, however, were a godsend. Within two months I had normal, stable, only slightly painful periods.

And so it went for the next few years. My time of the month wasn't ever fun, but it generally didn't put me in bed, at least not for more than a day. After I had a pregnancy scare at 15 (birth control pills+diet pills=no birth control--who knew!?), I was even happy to see it return. Then somewhere around my junior year, a doctor decided that the high-dose birth control pills that I had been on since I was 12 were probably not a great idea for someone who was still developing, so she put me on a lower dose pill. That worked out OK--periods got a little worse, but they were still bearable.

Then I went to college and no longer had my mom's luxury health insurance. Time to go on the cheaper pills. First I tried one kind, then another. There were problems with the first several. Tri-phasic pills were out due to mid-cycle bleeding. Super low-dose pills were out because the terrible periods came back. This pill and that pill were discontinued, or fell off the ever-changing insurance formulary, or they didn't have them at Planned Parenthood. I jumped from pill to pill for years, sometimes having periods that were under control, sometimes not.

For a while, I decided I would go off the Pill, because I was concerned that my hormones had been irrepairably fucked up by taking it for so long (I'd been taking it for probably ten years at the time). I tried for four months, then couldn't stand the pain and went back on.

My first year out of college, a doctor suggested I try continuous contraception (i.e. taking pills for three or four months straight and only having a period 3-4 times a year). Sounds wonderful, says I, who have always, and for good reason, dreaded my time of the month. So I tried it. The first two or three months were OK, then it got progressivelly worse until I bled constantly for three full months. Fuck that, I went back to regular pills.

I have changed prescriptions yet again, and am now taking what must be a least my twelfth variety of birth control pill. The magical ones I started out on at 12 are no longer made. My period comes when it wants to, lasts however long it wants, causes almost no bleeding, and is a constant source of trial, irritation, and pain. I fantasize about a hysterectomy. I am not at one with my moon cycle, I do not feel like a goddess, I am in no way impressed with this indication that I might be able to bear life. I'm just in pain, I have fucking PMS, and I hate it. So everyone else can read Cunt and bleed freely and gather up the water in which they rinse out their Glad Rags and put it on their plants, and sing and chant and worship the great goddess that has given them this life-affirming cycle, but I'm going to go home, take some Midol, curl up in the fetal position, and take a nap. And if anybody bothers me, I am going to bite his fucking head off and blame it on PMS.

In her comment on this post, Emma Goldman asked me a very good question. Two of them, actually. Her questions were:

Why do you want there to be a deity? What will happen if you don't find one?

The second question is not of much interest to me, because I don't think anything will happen if I don't find God. I'll be pretty much in the same place I am now--no proof of existance, no faith, but no proof of inexistance either. Unless for some reason my seach sours me so much it gets me all the way to Atheism, but honestly I just don't see that happening. The first question, though, is really at the heart of what is going on here.

There are quite a number of reasons I want there to be a deity, some kind of greater power. One of them is because I don't want to feel like I'm in this alone--I want there to be someone bigger than me watching out for me. Another one is that I can't stand the idea of never again seeing the people I love who have died, and in order to believe that I am going to see them again, I sort of need to believe in a God, some conception of Heaven, something. One of the biggest ones is that I want a community to be part of, and the kinds of communities people I know seem to find in their churches seem so great. I want to be part of that, and I think becoming part of it would be a lot easier if I actually shared beliefs with said community.

There are a more shallow set of reasons as well. I like church, especially ritualistic church. It makes me feel centered, safe. I like the rountine of it, the symbolism, the quiet, sacred space. I want to have a legitimate share in that space and not feel like an imposter in it. I want to a person who knows the words to the hymns and the proper responses, who knows when to say "and also with you" and "Amen."

The biggest reason, though, is simple curiousity. I want to know if there is a God or not, and I don't think factual evidence that I find believable is going to surface, or that it would be enough even if it did. I want to have some strong feeling about it, one way or the other. Agnosticism is fine when you don't care, but as I get older I do care, I want to have a theory of what is going to happen when I die that I actually believe and don't just find interesting. I want to be able to commit to a position of some sort, driven by something inside myself. I want to feel faith. I feel like I am missing out on some basic human experience by not having it in my life, and I am missing it.

I don't know if that's a sufficient answer, but it is what I have, for now. Thanks for asking.

My results:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Neo-Pagan (89%)
3. Liberal Quakers (87%)
4. Secular Humanism (78%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (76%)
6. New Age (70%)
7. Reform Judaism (68%)
8. Theravada Buddhism (66%)
9. Mahayana Buddhism (62%)
10. Taoism (48%)
11. Nontheist (46%)
12. New Thought (46%)
13. Orthodox Quaker (46%)
14. Sikhism (43%)
15. Scientology (39%)
16. Bahm'n Faith (34%)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (28%)
18. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (27%)
19. Jainism (26%)
20. Hinduism (25%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (24%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (23%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (20%)
24. Jehovah's Witness (20%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
26. Islam (16%)
27. Roman Catholic (16%)

To have your own beliefs quizzed and simplified to the point of ridiculousness, go here.

You know, while you are doing it, that you are going to hate yourself for it later. You know that in a week, or a day, or even the moment you've finished it, you will start with the taunts. You will tell yourself how weak you are, how stupid, how shallow. You will promise yourself one more time not to do it again. You will make one more vow to learn moderation.

When you know while you are doing it that it is going to make you hate yourself later, it takes whatever was originally joyful out of doing it in the first place. It turns pleasure into compulsion. You are no longer doing it because you want to, you are doing it because you are indolent, slothful, an addict.

So if it's not fun afterwards, and it's not fun during, then why are you still doing it? For one thing, it is still fun before. Thinking about doing it, planning it, reveling it--that's still fun. It's fun because you can tell yourself that you are only thinking about it, that this time you are going to be virtuous and good and it will end before it gets out of hand. You have a double pleasure, then, both thinking about the thing itself and thinking about what a great person you are for not imbibing.

You also do it because you don't know what else to do, don't know how else to fill the space that pops up all around you whenever you have a spare minute. You can distract yourself with this or that for a little while, but eventually it gets quiet again, and you are terrified of that kind of quiet, so you fill it with your noisy craving, and eventually with your gluttony. You tell yourself, in your self-flagellating after-sessions (like this one) that you have to find something else to fill that space or the cycle will never be broken. But nothing fills it quite the way this does. Sure, you can do other, healthier things, but none of them give you the same spark this does.

You know it is "out of hand" and has been for quite some time. Much as you dislike the term, you know you are an addict. And knowing makes it all even worse. Knowing is not half the battle. Knowing just makes the beratement of yourself afterwards more vitriolic. After all, it's not like you can use ignorance as an excuse.

The cycle consumes you on more days than it doesn't, and you are left feeling huge and empty, surrounded by everything you have insisted you must consume, even if you never enjoy it.

Baby Name Wizard

The huge spike recently in the popularity of my name, however, is not that cool.

All in all, I'm a fan of me. Really, I am. I think I'm smart, funny, have a good heart. Some days I think I'm attractive, though those are fewer and farther between than they used to be.

But in spite of that, I can never quite believe anybody actually likes me. I remember lying awake a night when I was a first-year in high school, wondering if the senior guy I was dating actually liked me, or if it was all some sort of cruel joke. When Mark and I finally got together, it took me more than a year to believe him when he said he loved me. And it's not just with men--I'm even worse with girlfriends. Nearly every time I have ever invited any woman to do anything with me, I've wondered if she only accepted out of politeness, and is trying to think of a way to get out of it. Or, at best, if she was only agreeing because she had absolutely nothing better to do. This has been happening since I was a little girl, and I am fucking sick and tired of it.

What is worse is that I get insanely jealous of other women's friendships. If someone I consider a friend seems to like someone else more than she likes me, I get totally green with envy and very defensive and passive-aggressive. If there is a club I'd like to be a member of and I'm not asked to join, my reaction is immature and I am unreasonably hurt (as I have shown in this space before, I'm afraid).

There is absolutely no reason I should not believe that I am worthy of friends. I'm a good friend! I listen, I care, I give great presents. But instead of this problem getting better with age, it is getting worse. More and more I've shuttered myself away in my house, alone, not because I don't want to see people, but because I don't believe that they really want to see me. More than anything, that is why I didn't make a single friend last year at school. I couldn't put myself out on that limb.

Another reason it is particularly ridiculous for me to feel this way is that I have GREAT friends, and I've never had any reason to suspect they don't actually like me. But I still do. I have trouble calling or emailing the woman who has been my best friend for more than 10 years, because every time I do, I'm afraid she'll have something better to do and not want to talk. If I don't hear from her for a while, I think it's because she has finally decided to be rid of me. Similarly, I'm afraid to ask the woman who I am good friends with here to do anything, lest she only say yes out of good manners and not a real desire to hang out. My worst fear is that someone is spending time with me who doesn't want to be.

How do you fight this problem? I mean, I am intellectually certain that it is completely ridiculous, and yet every single time I make plans with other women, no matter how excited I am about those plans, I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that it is a farce and they are just pretending to like me until they can figure out a way to get rid of me. And then I want to go right back to holing up in my house alone.

Does anyone else have this issue? I mean, I think a lot of us have it as children, but at 25 shouldn't I be confident and secure enough in myself to get over this?

(This is from Frog.)

If I were a month, I would be: September
If I were a day of the week, I would be: Friday
If I were a time of day, I would be: late afternoon
If I were a planet, I would be: Mars
If I were a sea animal, I would be: blue whale
If I were a direction, I would be: West
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: futon
If I were a sin, I would be: gluttony
If I were a liquid, I would be: Pepsi
If I were a body of water, I would be: Pacific Ocean
If I were a stone, I would be: amber
If I were a tree, I would be: Douglas Fir
If I were a bird, I would be: crow
If I were a flower/plant, I would be: iris
If I were a kind of weather, I would be: summer rain
If I were a musical instrument, I would be: upright bass
If I were an animal, I would be: elephant
If I were a color, I would be: true red
If I were an emotion, I would be: anxiety
If I were a vegetable, I would be: peas
If I were a sound, I would be: a ticking clock
If I were an element, I would be: silver
If I were a car, I would be: Volvo station wagon
If I were a song, I would be: �Me and Bobby McGee�
If I were a movie, I would be directed by: Penny Marshall
If I were a book, I would be written by: Raymond Carver
If I were a food, I would be: popcorn
If I were a place, I would be: Oregon
If I were a material, I would be: cotton
If I were a taste, I would be: bittersweet
If I were a scent, I would be: grapefruit
If I were a word, I would be: candid
If I were an object, I would be: some sort of organizational contraption
If I were a body part, I would be: small of the back
If I were a facial expression, I would be: puzzled
If I were a subject in school, I would be: American History
If I were a dog, I would be: Rottweiler
If I were a cat, I would be: gray tabby
If I were a number, I would be: 18

(First off, the title for this post is taken from the title of Christine Stansell's brilliant book. You should read it.)

It has taken me several years to figure out exactly what was meant by leading a "woman-centered" life. In earlier years, I found the term not only confusing, but also insulting--as if it implied that by choosing to have men present in my life, I was less of a feminist.

I think I'm starting to get it now. Lately, I just don't want to surround myself with men. Or, more precisely, I don't want men taking up the time and space in my life that I'd rather devote to women. I'm irritated by working with so many men. I'm irritated by seeing so many men wherever I go. I want space and time with just women; space and time without feeling like I am constantly being summed up, judged, and then dismissed.

I know women aren't perfect. I have known quite a number of women that I just plain do not like. But that isn't what this is about. This is about wanting to surround myself with other members of my gender, take part in the rituals of my gender. I want to listen to women's music, read women's books, listen to other women talk about their lives. I am fucking sick and tired of men's lives! I've spent 25 years hearing about men--I know enough about men. I am oversaturated with living in a man's world, and I want to live in a woman's world for awhile.

Partially, I think the problem is my job. It's been a long time since I have worked with men, and I don't think I've ever worked with this many. The best job I ever had (in terms of working conditions and coworkers, not in terms of pay or responsibilities) was in an all-woman office (if you still read this, hi Sarah!). The job I had after that was in a large office, but there were a core group of female admin staff that hung pretty close. Those women are a great example, actually. I had so little in common with most of them--class, education, age, religion were all very far apart--but I connected with them on the basis of being a woman. I cherish the experience. Finally, the last job I had before this one was once again in all-female (or at least vast majority female) office. Once again, I felt safe. Even if I didn't like all of the women there, I felt a certain security in knowing they were women (and made a very good friend there, as well--bonus!). Here, though, I work on a majority male team, have mostly male work friends, and am surrounded every day by a world that is undeniably male-driven. For the most part, they are perfectly good guys. But they are guys. And they don't get it. They will shut up when I tell them they are being sexist, but they won't actually think about why it is I am objecting.

Part of it about being tired of being an educator. Mark tries so hard, and bless him for that, but he's still a man, and he still reeks of male privledge. I still have to point things out to him, and even if he is generally very open to having things pointed out, sometimes you just get tired of having to explain it, you know?

None of this is to say that I am going to quit my job, or leave my relationship. It's just to say that I could really, really use some woman-only space, both in terms of a retreat from my usual life, and in terms of an ongoing oasis in my day-to-day life. But where does a straight-by-default girl find that space? If it isn't at work and it isn't at home, where should I look for it?

Note: This is written mostly in response to comments from my last post...I just had too much to say to leave it all in the comments.

We all know how to identify overt sexism. When someone tells you "a woman's place is in the home," that's sexist. When the president of Harvard says that girls are just not as good at science as boys are, that's sexist (and hopefully career-ending, but that's another story). Being expected to make less money, have a baby, do the dishes, and give a blow job, then be happy with your lot in life, all due to your assigned gender, is sexist.

None of that is what I was talking about in my last post. I am not sick of men due to their overt sexism. I don't spend a hell of a lot of time with overly sexist men, at least not when I'm not around my family. But covert sexism, and even what I would call covert misogyny, is rampant in nearly ALL of the men I know, all of the men I've ever known. You don't want to see it, because they are such nice guys, you like them (sometimes you even love them), but you scratch the surface and its there. And that's the part that is exhausting to me. They have so much potential, and most of the time, they are great. Then you let your guard down and someone says something that gives you pause. You shake it off, telling yourself you are being "too sensitive." But then you wake up in the middle of the night and think about it, and goddamn it, you were right, that was a sexist or misogynist thing to say, and goddamn it, it doesn't matter if he thinks he was kidding, because this joke isn't funny anymore. Not when you have to listen to some variation on it everywhere you go, every day, for your whole life. Not when it is expected to define you.

It is difficult to give examples of covert sexism and misogyny, because when looked at singularly, they often seem trite, especially to people who don't want to look for sexism in their friends, family, or colleagues. When I try to give examples here, it is more than likely that comments will come back saying "that's no big deal" or "that doesn't bother me." And so the blame will be turned around on me, for overreacting, for being man-hating, for being too sensitive or overthinking. It's a trap, and I see it before I even walk into it.

That being said, my days are full of examples, and I'll give some.

• I have asked Mark to stop using "bitch" and "pussy" as insults at least twenty times. Sometimes, to humor me, he even tries to stop using the words. But it never lasts. They are part of his lexicon, and until he sees actual worth in taking them out of his vocabulary on his own, it's not going to happen.

• I share an office with one woman and one man. The man, who I honestly love to death most of the time, finds it perfectly appropriate to discuss strip clubs and to email around pictures of obese women for laughs (this is slightly beside the point, but he's obese himself). And sure, I can (and have) asked him not to do those things, at least not in my presence, and like Mark, he remembers for awhile, then it slips his mind, because he is just doing it to humor me anyway, he doesn't get why it's such a big deal. The same man also finds it appropriate to assume any grouchiness on the part of myself or my female officemate has to be PMS-related.

• On my "work team," there are five women and ten men. Of the men, five of them have wives who do not work outside the home (three have working wives and two are single). From these men, I have heard long explanations about why it is better for a wife to stay home. They are never saying that all women belong in the home, though. Oh, no, that would be sexist! Their cases are always the exception. 'My wife is subservient because she wants to be. She's really in charge, she just lets me pretend to be in charge to keep the peace. My wife likes to keep house. It's OK that she does all the housework and cooking and my laundry--I pay the bills!' And on and on. (Just as a sidenote, two of the five have small children at home, and those situations are somewhat different.)

• Length of time I have worked here: 6 months. Number of discussions I've been in regarding why women MUST shave their legs and pits: no less than 5

• Quickest way to get nice-but-sometimes-irritating coworker to leave my office? Say menstruation.

• Favorite word to describe nasty female manager? Cunt.

But I'm not going to. For the same reason that no amount of hatred for the U.S. government is going to get me to expatriate. This country, office, house, whatever belongs to me just as much as it does to them, and I am not going to let them push me out. Because I am not leaving, it would be easier, probably, to ignore than thousand small things a day that get under my skin, to save my battles for rapists and abusers, or at least for men who intentionally say nasty things. But I'm not going to do that either, because that is how we got here. Every time a woman says "well, I may not have actual equality, but it's better than it was before, and it's good enough," we don't just not move forward, we move a tiny step back. It we actually want to be equal human beings, then all sexism, no matter how trite it seems, is unexcusable.