bucket-list my feelings. archaeology edition.

y’all. all I ever ever wanted to be growing up was an archaeologist. or paleontologist. or anthropologist. or a combination of those three. I didn’t, because… reasons… some having to do with a super conservative upbringing where women have a specific role and it doesn’t involve digging in the Valley of the Kings. and also an enormous lack of self confidence. and a general fear of getting the thing that I want. and my college counselor telling me she would’t write me a recommendation to the schools with the good archaeology departments.

“why would you want to do all of that work, when you’ll know all the answers when you get to heaven anyways?” (not a quote from my guidance counselor, just a thing I was told growing up.) but what the actual fork?!

ancient-architecture-camel-931881 — Photo by Simon Matzinger from Pexels

the point – I’ve stopped listening to MSNBC in the car, and while I miss Nicole Wallace and the righteous rage of Steve Schmidt I don’t miss the anxiety or Joe Scarborough’s pompous snark. So what have I been listening to instead? Glad you asked. I’ve been listening to National Geographic’s: The Great Courses. Specifically Archaeology: An Introduction to the World’s Greatest Sites. Which, I did NOT pay 234.95 for, I used a single Audible credit. (14.95) And while I feel a little jealous when he is obviously showing images to the camera I also feel like I can put the $220.00 that I saved towards my Nile River Cruise in 2022.

it is a FANTASTIC listen, and one I highly recommend. Chapter 10 is “How do you excavate at a site?” and he goes into specific things like tools (Marshalltown Trowels, everyone should bring their own) to pick axes. (provided at the site). at one point he says something about how his dig volunteers are mostly students but they’re not all students. sometimes they’re retired doctors or people who want to check ‘archaeological dig’ off of their bucket list. at which point, 5 minutes from the office, at 7:30 in the morning, I’m crying in my car.

I can do that! I’m 42 and the fact that I’m not an archaeologist is 100% on me now and next year we will have 2 kids in college so volunteering on a dig sounds about my speed.

You can come with me if you want.

ancient-archaeology-architecture-631339 — Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels

Happy Halloween! xoxo

angry feminist rant Tuesday.

underhiseye — this great piece is by Val & Mani Art and can be found here.

I’m going to feminist rant all up in this bench. (I’ve been re-watching The Good Place)

only a forking douchebro gets into a fight after a reggae show because he’s too drunk. but by all means, let’s put that forking douchebro on the highest court in the land. I KNEW THESE GUYS IN COLLEGE. these were the guys who 1. didn’t smoke pot because it was illegal but got blacked out drunk and got into their cars. 2. they got kicked out of school for selling roofies. but school would let them back for a big enough donation! 3. they’d ask you on a date, get PLASTERED and would refuse to drive you home, you’d spend the night on their nastyash sofa and then they’d tell everyone that they’d slept with you. 4. They’d cryyyyyy as soon as you told them no, CRY. “I just needed someone to hold me, I’m so sad, I miss my girlfriend from Niagara Falls”. bench, call your mother. 5. These ashholes picked and chose their sins with impunity. Premarital sex? heck yes. Wear a condom? no, contraception is a sin. Fork off.

I’m SO ANGRY. I’m so angry that we’re still talking about this. that every single other man hasn’t said NO WAIT, THIS IS WRONG, FIND ANOTHER JUDGE. instead they’re on forking camera talking about “ramming this thing through” ARE YOU MOTHERFORKING KIDDING ME?!

While the church child abuse scandal is reopening in the public eye, rightfully infuriating Catholics nationwide we’re REALLY going to let this happen?

***Ladies. you gotta vote. you gotta get evangelical about voting. “have you accepted freedom and democracy as your personal life and savior?” because if so you gotta vote. vote. vote.

and don’t TALK to me about Roe v Wade. I’d love the number of medically unnecessary abortions to be zero, but not because of legislation! the best way to do that isn’t to start restricting abortion, it’s to start educating! it is to teach consent, and contraception. “ramming this through” so that you can finally win some moral victory about overturning Roe… you have no idea what you’re really asking for. Stop it. Be better. Vote better.

I bought myself this shirt this weekend. (plus 2 others, one of which was inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale, and another that says Black Lives Matter more than White Feelings, Check your Privilege.) Their entire shop is amazing, it is female owned and operated and the women running the company and designing the shirts are 16 & 18! Plus with every purchase they’re donating breakfast to the food insecure. I love this generation. We don’t deserve them.

xoxo

ps. I just this second bought this shirt also… it was too good not to. You should get one too. we can be twinsies.

No Favorites Thursday

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has been testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, I’m furious that in our names she is being put through this pain rather than just — oh I don’t know- finding a less problematic but still qualified nominee who doesn’t behave like he’s entitled to this goddamn job. and with this level of entitlement – think maybe he was a shitty entitled teenager too? because I do.

Screen Shot 2018-09-27 at 11.45.04 AM — so fricking cute, and I’ll wear a body-con but sometimes the week before you get your period you just need an empire waist. bonus points for making my pretty great boobs look even pretty greater.

I did shop the shit out of my feelings today – Torrid has a 40% off sale going for Platinum holders (people like me who shop the shit out of their feelings). I bought three Emma blouses – I’m wearing one right now and I love it, I feel cute, I get compliments when I wear it and a thing I love about Torrid is that they make the same thing in different prints for women like me. Also they are offering 4% back through Ebates today. Interestingly since I started writing about shopping I really slowed down my shopping… but sign up for Ebates. Since I signed up I’ve gotten checks totaling 1073.38. (Neiman Marcus offers 10% cash back almost all the time.)

So 300 dollars at Torrid later… I don’t feel better about things.

I think I need ice cream.

also I just bought this. from here.

Screen Shot 2018-09-27 at 2.13.46 PM

xoxo

a little rant about size exclusivity

So I was reading this piece written by author Amy Stewart about packing to go on a book tour. It’s smart and useful advice that I never really considered.

I like her method and I’m a notorious over packer and this wouldn’t necessarily work for Disney because — glitter and color and princesses and sweat, but it could work for going down to Austin for a foodie weekend, or to Tampa for a foodie weekend or over to Nantucket for a foodie… ok. I like to go eat places.

Anyways- I’m reading her piece fully prepared to just buy all the things she has in her suitcase- the stuff on the Brass website is cute and simple and perfect for the 45 minutes per year that I think I want a capsule wardrobe. But XL is the largest size they have and XL is a 12/14. And as a 14 I don’t trust it- the model who wears the LG on their website is an 8 maybe. What the hell, man?! Why you gotta be so size exclusive? More women come in sizes 14 and up than in 12 and down. And we want capsule wardrobes and chill dresses with pockets and sleek work blouses made of natural fibers that have intact shoulders and come in neutral colors. (Shocking that sometimes we might not want rayon cold shoulder blouses in fuchsia zebra print, I know.)

Screen Shot 2018-09-12 at 11.53.49 AM — this is the LG. (also available in S, XS and XXS)

Ann Taylor Loft started selling clothes in 16 and up this week, IN STORES! Which is the real test – you want to take money from fat women but don’t want us seen in your stores? (Madewell- looking at you here. “extended sizing available online!” gak.)

Selling clothes for EVERY SINGLE WOMAN shouldn’t make you feel like you’re doing us a favor, taking our cash shouldn’t be this hard, and it CERTAINLY should be seen as an act of charity.

this is just a series of incomplete thoughts, I know. I’m just feeling really ragey and disappointed.

xoxo

Three Favorites Thursday. v3.

This week has not been conducive to lighthearted blog posts. I’ve started a few but every one of them turned into a screed. A justified and completely logical screed but still… so so angry.

So today among my favorite things are the people who will stand between this administration and the people they mean to harm, the people who are speaking up and out, and the helpers, also teenagers for setting a good example of self appreciation.

one

RAICES Texas and their Bond Fund.

raicesbondfund — Donate to the fund HERE.

What is RAICES?

“The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services is a nonprofit organization that provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children, families and refugees in Central and South Texas.”

They are on the front line of getting these families reunited and with the summer refugee immigration surge just beginning they are needed now more than ever.

two2

Empathy, Activism, Protest.

Everyone is exhausted. Everyone thought that they couldn’t possibly maintain this level of outrage for going on 2 years now. And yet here we are. Marching, protesting, emailing our representatives so often that I just automatically recycle the response letters I get now. So many donations, so many emails from so many activist groups… it helps me feel like we aren’t alone, like these daily atrocities are not going unnoticed, unaccounted for.

I’m also a person who keeps rolls of stamps now because books just don’t cover it anymore. Because sometimes you can’t make a phone call, and a post-card sends the perfect little message.

Luckily I know a lot of creative women who have designed their own cards – like these:

postcards — Polkadot Paper Company post cards can be purchased from her Etsy store.

and these!

postcard2 — These are new and I am EXCITED. Get yours from Fisk & Fern here. (profits go to the ACLU!)

threethree

Finally – National Selfie Day.

Girls are constantly being mocked for taking selfies, for sharing pictures of themselves, for LIKING pictures of themselves. How messed up is that?! Now that our national embarrassment is an actual narcissist in the White House can we stop calling teenaged girls narcissists for taking selfies?

I get that women and girls are supposed to BE pretty but not KNOW we’re pretty, it makes us easier to belittle and control that way- but where’s the fun in that for us?

If you’re feeling your look, take a damn selfie, post it. Turns out not hating how you look is rebellious and incredibly political.

Why yes, I am about to post a bevy of selfies… (two with Manic Trout necklaces, two in Disney, one also with my new amazing Weighted Blanket which we can talk about later.)

Send a post card, be heard, post a selfie, be seen.

xoxo

Reclaiming Middle Age and Defying Sexist Anti-Aging Rules.

There was this piece in the Boston Globe last night about how we need to rebrand Middle Age for the generation who started calling Meditation – Mindfulness.

Screen Shot 2018-05-31 at 9.15.06 AM — by Beth Teitell

I turned 42 last week and now I have a bunion forming on my left foot. It hurt for the first time yesterday. There could be a whole post here about how my feet have always been my favorite feature and how I’m freaking out about losing my one physically attractive bit but that’s some shit I need to work through. My feet are still cute as heck but the rest of me isn’t bad either.

To mitigate the damage, however, I spent some time last weekend starting to edit my closet. Especially deleting uncomfortable heels. (You can have my Franco Sarto wedges when you pry them off my cold dead feet, but I’m setting the Rachel Roy studded snakeskin stilettos loose on Poshmark soon.)

Screen Shot 2018-05-31 at 9.03.12 AM — The Franco Sarto Frankie Wedge. I have them in every color.

I don’t want my forties and fifties – my sixties- let’s be honest – any age ever, to be wished away in longing for my twenties and thirties. I want to understand and appreciate this age for what it is. And in the same way that people enthusiastically took back “fat” or “queer” or even the conversation about mental illness – reclaiming the power of those words for ourselves – maybe it is time to do the same for “middle aged”. Or as Lisa Nagel in the Globe article calls it “mid-century modern”.

Women age, and we are told that as we age we become less valuable, less interesting, less desirable. We should be grateful for being given jobs, for being given attention, we should be quiet, motherly, soft, or we should be doing everything we can possibly do to pretend we are 10 years younger, suffering to be something else. Fuck. That. Noise. I do what I want. “Anti-Aging” is a trap – we are supposed to be panicking that someone younger is going to come along and replace us. We are supposed to put up with a stagnant job because we are lucky to get what we get.

There was an awesome piece in the New York Times last year by Ashton Applewhite about the BS “Anti-Aging Demon” and the way we disempower ourselves and each other when we compete viciously in a game where we aren’t even willing participants.

Appearance matters. Adornment pleases. But society’s obsession with the way women look is less about beauty than about obedience to a punishing external standard — and power. When women compete to “stay young,” we collude in our own disempowerment. When we rank other women by age, we reinforce ageism, sexism, lookism and patriarchy. What else we can we all agree on? This is one bad bargain. It sets us up to fail. It pits us against one another. It’s why the poorest of the poor, around the world, are old women of color.

Much in the same way that rich white men make billions of dollars a year on our dissatisfaction with our weight, other rich white men make billions of dollars a year on our dissatisfaction with our age. Overturning those apple carts would be really satisfying.

I am just barely scratching at the surface of what should be a daily conversation. So get ready – there will be a lot more of this. In the meantime I’m following Ashton Applewhite’s Facebook page: This Chair Rocks. Join me!