Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, II

So remember that post I made like a few months ago in which I bitched about not being able to go to Loyola? Funny story. I’m leaving for Chicago in six days.

That’s about it for the moment.

Variations on a Meme

So when everyone ever does this kind of meme, it’s always asking what albums one could not live without. Being the meticulous and can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees kind of person that I am, I’ve decided to grace you all with my list of the Top 10 Songs I Really, Really Like. I don’t say “can’t live without” because I’m pretty sure I could live without them. My heart and lungs don’t run on music.

In no particular order…

1. “Rise” – Eddie Vedder I blame this one on the Deadliest Catch commercials. I could listen to this tune a couple times a day, every day and still not get tired of it. Thing is, I don’t like Pearl Jam. I really don’t. And it is pretty much because of Eddie Vedder’s voice. So why, you ask, do I like this song so much? I don’t know. It’s mournful, it’s hopeful, it’s evocative. And it has a mandolin.



2. “Samson” – Regina Spektor I almost went with “The Call,” but I like this one better. I actually only just got into Regina Spektor, but better late than never, right? Like the previous song, it’s very evocative. She’s not the most technically adept of singers, but this kind of music doesn’t require it. And it is perhaps better that she isn’t as I find that many technically-oriented singers lack emotion, which is something that she definitely does not lack. I also am a fan of simple piano music and, let’s face it, that’s exactly what this is (which is interesting, given her classical background). A rather simple collection of chords and a pretty, if not conventional, voice.


3. “Hope There’s Someone” – Antony and the Johnsons I love a lot of songs by Antony and the Johnsons (“For Today I Am A Buoy,” “My Lady Story,” and “Bird Gurhl” are some of them), but this one is my favorite of the lot. Antony’s voice is really interesting. Sometimes he sounds like he’s taken a hit of helium before recording a track. It’s a pretty depressing song, but I seem to like songs like that. There is a kind of weird hope behind it, although that perhaps makes it even more depressing. Though that could just be me. I don’t often find hope to be a very useful emotion (or outlook, however you want to put it).


4. “When You Were Young” – The Killers I actually did not like this record (Sam’s Town) when it came out. I was a big fan of Hot Fuss and this had a bit of a different sound. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t bail out on bands when they change directions, I just wasn’t sure about it to begin with. Once it grew on me though, this song stuck out as the best on the album – though “Uncle Jonny” and “This River is Wild” come in close behind it. And it may be just because of this string of lyrics: “He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young.” Your guess is as good as mine why I like that so much. The melody isn’t particularly catchy, it’s doesn’t really have a hook, the rhythm is pretty standard for this genre. So with all that taken into account, I’ve decided that it has to be the lyrics that make this song for me.


5. “Sodom, South Georgia” – Iron & Wine The songs that I like most are ones that put me in a particular time and place. This is one of those songs. It calls to mind the most vivid of memories. I lived in England for four months about three years ago and once when I was walking back home from town, this song came on just as I was passing the cemetery. I can see the leaves on the ground (it was in October), and even remember every house across the street. It isn’t a particularly exciting memory, but there all the same. It’s also Iron & Wine, so, really, how can you not like it?


6. “O Come O Come Emmanuel” – Atlanta Symphony Orchestra OK, yes, I know this is a weird one. Usually I don’t put holiday tunes on all-encompassing lists like this because, while I love every Christmas song on the planet (excepting “Mele Kalikamaka,” I’m really sorry, Bing), they usually aren’t songs that I will listen to all year round and hold up against everything else I listen to. This one, however, is the exception. I went to the ASO Christmas Concert last year and, if I remember correctly, this is the first song they played. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but when the full chorus finally kicks in, well, there really isn’t any way to describe it. This is the kind of song that you have to listen to on your headphones, full blast, eyes closed. If it doesn’t give you chills, I seriously question your taste in music.


7. “How Can I Tell You” – Cat Power Alright, here’s the thing. I know she never recorded a full version of this song, but if she had, I can tell you that it would be my favorite. You may remember it from one of the “Diamond is Forever” Christmas commercials that started airing a couple of years ago. As soon as it came out, Marshall’s record company was swamped with requests for the full song. It came out that she had only recorded the thirty seconds you hear in the commercial and that she had no plans to record the full song. Which is displeasing. At any rate, Chan has this uncanny ability to take someone else’s song and make it sound like it was hers all along. Her cover album (creatively titled The Covers Record) is filled with amazing covers and yet everything has a common style to them, they sound like Cat Power songs; not Velvet Underground or Bob Dylan or Rolling Stones. And this is another one. Though it doesn’t deviate much from Cat Stevens’ original composition, she brings a different mood to it that I never got out of his version. It’s solid stuff. And Chan, if you’re out there, please record the full song!


8. “Rock’n’Roll Suicide” – David Bowie This is Bowie’s best song. Hands down. I will hear nothing against it. I’ve heard a couple of people do good covers of this tune (Jenny Lewis and Seu Jorge, among them), but no one even approaches the ballpark of Bowie’s recording. It builds so perfectly and Bowie’s distinctive voice is the icing on the cake. It’s really the last half of the song that makes it so good. I just love it. To me, it’s a perfect song and one that I think would make an awesome ending to a movie. I haven’t a clue why, but it’s always struck me as a great closer.


9. “Transatlanticism” – Death Cab For Cutie Is it possible for me to pick a more depressing song? I mean, Ben Gibbard spends about four minutes repeating the phrase, “I need you so much closer.” I like pretty much all of Death Cab For Cutie’s discography, and I almost went with “What Sarah Said” (and as an album, I prefer Plans), but there’s something about this tune that makes me want to listen to it again and again. Hell, I do that even with Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of it. Clocking in at nearly eight minutes, a lot of people find it repetitive to the point of being annoying, but I find that the repetition underscores the sort of desperate longing you hear in the song.


10. “Delilah” – The Dresden Dolls Just like pretty much all of the other songs on here, I had a hard time nailing down which Dresden Dolls song stands out from all the rest. This is another one of those songs that builds really well – actually, I find that most songs I like have slow builds and big ends. As an album, Yes, Virginia shows a grasp of musical composition, and technique for that matter, that is miles ahead of their self-titled debut. Amanda’s voice and playing is where you see the biggest improvement (and even more so on her subsequent solo work), but you still get the cheeky, cabaret-style lyrics that drew me in to begin with. I singled out this song, in particular, because it is another one of those songs that I can listen to over and over again, as well as being one of the best examples of the Dolls’ improved writing and playing.


10+1 Bonus. “That Day Is Done” – The Fairfield Four & Elvis Costello
So I lied when I said it was ten songs. This had to be included. I just cannot get enough of this song. All it needs to have, really, is Elvis Costello’s voice, but this shows his voice as it is now at its best. It’s rough, it’s doesn’t always hold the tune perfectly, and I love it. And then you’ve got the Fairfield Four backing him up and it just makes for an amazing song.


Well, there you have it, my top ten favorite songs. Plus one. For the moment. This list changes a lot. And I do, of course, have a couple of honorable mentions: “Blue Orchid” by The White Stripes, “Days Like This” by Van Morrison, “Hello Sunshine” by Super Furry Animals, “Judas Sings (Jesus and Me)” by Robyn Hitchcock, “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel, everything Elvis Costello has ever recorded (I know that anyone who knows me is stunned that he sort of didn’t make it on the list, but I simply cannot narrow it down!), “Hallelujah” as covered by Rufus Wainwright, “In Noctem” by Nicholas Hooper (composed by, more like), most of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s catalog, and “Combinations” by Eisley. Oh yes, and the entire North & South soundtrack, which was composed by Martin Phipps. Oh, oh, and Amanda Palmer’s ukulele cover of “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead. Oh, oh, oh, and a whole bunch of stuff by Soap&Skin. And Massive Attack. Of course, all of that doesn’t even touch the classical music I listen to.

OK, so I could have made a top twenty list and still not hit everything. Some were left out simply because I forgot about them (when you have almost 5,000 songs on your iPod, come talk to me about forgetting that you simply cannot live without this or that song) or because they don’t make my cut at this moment in time. If I do this list in a month, it’ll be totally different.

vasectomies all around!

So there I was, on facebook, getting into a discussion about paternal rights when it comes to the issue of abortion.

Do men have a choice? Can they ever truly have the final say?

(Personal opinion? Probably not, but if you can come to some sort of agreement where the woman will carry the baby to term and the man can become sole guardian, more power to you.)

This discussion then moves into the prevention of abortion in the first place, since no one thinks that abortion should be used as a form of birth control.

Sterilization is the common denometer for most of the people in the discussion. just get a vasectomy that can be reversed if you ever feel like having a child. reversable vasectomies for everyone! give them out in high school! (could you imagine? the current uproar over condoms being passed out, and now we should pass out vasectomies?)

I left the conversation here, because it seemed as though the only consequence being spoken of when it comes sex is that of pregnancy. This, obviously, was the subject of the whole thing, but I felt like there was a lot not being said.

Not even getting into the whole STD (I’m sorry, i’m still not hip enough to switch over to STI when I reference these things) crisis which would obviously errupt if a bunch of high school students know they won’t get knocked up and will find no real reason to wear any form of protection, what about the still very real flood of teenage hormones that will be thrown around in the process?

I don’t give sex the merit some people do. I don’t think your “special gift” is something you should cherish until marriage and you will one day regret not doing so if you get deflowered a little too soon. But sex is complicated. It can make a relationship difficult. It finds a way to weave itself in and out of almost every aspect of someone’s life, and I don’t think it should be taken as lightly as “it feels good.”

If you take the risk of getting pregnant away, that does not make sex any less… messy. It wouldn’t take away the jealousy and the vulnerability, the passion or the fear. It wouldn’t make men beg for it any less, or make women less likely to feel pressure to have it. In fact, being able to say, “but we won’t get pregnant” would only take away one of the less embarassing reasons a girl/woman can use when, contrary to all the commercial, shows, magazines, and movies, they’re just not ready.

The over simplification of sex runs parallel with the disaster of pretending sex doesn’t exist among teens and young adults. When you don’t look at the many facets of it, ignorance is rampant. You may not have a baby because of it, but you will have a woman questioning whether her worth lies in her intelligence or her vagina.

*sighs*

Sex, with or without potential babies, just can never be that simple.

~krystle

Derby Girls

So I’ve been getting into roller derby lately.  The Atlanta Rollergirls’ 2010 season just started last month and I’ve gone to both doubleheaders they’ve had so far.  And it’s been, well, friggin’ sweet.  The awesomeness of chicks beating the shit out of each other for three hours aside (I mean that as awesome in a totally straight appreciation of violence sort of way), its BYOB.  I mean, PBR is a sponsor of these ladies.

And why are the ladies themselves awesome?  Two reasons.  First, the creativity involved in coming up with their derby names boggles the mind.  I’ve actually compiled a list of my favorites, which, oddly enough, was originally put together to prove to my priest that they have way better names than “Debbie Denim,” as he so uncreatively suggested.

APOCALYPSTIX
Sk8 Outta Compton
Demi Gore
Quadratic Abrasion
Bullie Jean King
PBRawr
Smack N Cheeze
Tequila SlamHer

DENIM DEMONS
Reba Smackentire
Sissy Splaysek
Hate Ashbury
Holly Point Bullet
Demanda Rumble

SAKE TUYAS
Shannihilator
Regreta Garbo
Agent Maulder
Layla Beatdown
Brutal Strudel

TOXIC SHOCKS
HELLena Bomb’em Slaughter
Forniskate
Desi Scarnaz

Not to mention the refs: DJ Jazzy Ref, Ref Fried Beans, Freddy Chopin’, Pallbearer, Fury Elise, Skatezula the Rink Rula, Father Time Out, and Grandmaster Bash

And the second reason they’re awesome is because of who these derby demonesses really are.  They’re grad students and English teachers and chiropractors (which probably comes in handy) and moms and what have you.  And they’re not messin’ around.  They could probably kill you with one hand tied behind their back.  The hits they take leave bruises and busted lips and sometimes serious injuries.  And while it is violent and competitive, they leave it on the track and go to bars and hang out after the bout is over.  Yeah, it may smart a bit after losing a bout, but in the end, it’s keeping the league alive that matters.  And it’s a pretty big commitment on top of their “real lives.”  Besides monthly bouts, they have practice and away bouts and all star bouts and they participate in parades and other public events.  Did I mention there’s no financial gain in this?

Despite the heavy commitment, lack of remuneration, and promise of pain and suffering, ever since I was approached about going out for the league while I was still working at Hot Topic, I have seriously thought about trying out.  I even came up with a name.  Divine Merciless.  Nice, right?  I was told by a former derby girl that it was a “fuckin’ awesome” name, so it’s gotta be solid.  Perhaps the whole desire to be a part of the derby stems from my well-hidden desire for fame (or infamy depending on my playing style).  Maybe it’s too late for me now, what with the lack of health insurance and all, but I am still taking it under serious consideration.

The Good Life

I would like to present a couple of interesting passages from Michael J. Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?.  Not because I have nothing to write about, but more because Sandel says it better than I can.

 …[I]t may be worth reconsidering Aristotle’s way of thinking about justice.  If deliberating about my good involves reflecting on the good of those communities with which my identity is bound, then the aspiration to neutrality may be mistaken.  It may not be possible, or even desirable, to deliberate about justice without deliberating about the good life. (p. 242)

 Asking democratic citizens to leave their moral and religious convictions behind when they enter the public realm may seem a way of ensuring toleration and mutual respect.  In practice, however, the opposite can be true.  Deciding important public questions while pretending to a neutrality that cannot be achieved is a recipe for backlash and resentment.  A politics emptied of substantive moral engagement makes for an impoverished civic life.  It is also an open invitation to narrow, intolerant moralisms.  Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread. (p. 243) 

 Discuss.

The Secret World of Fashion Plates

Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2007.

In Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England, Sharon Marcus presents an insightful reinterpretation of femininity and sexuality in nineteenth-century England.  Marcus structures her study around three forms of female relationships: friendship, marriage, and desire between women (most often identified as homoeroticism rather than homosexual desire).  She argues that contrary to popular belief, women were not the frail, downtrodden creatures that most studies and literature have portrayed them to be.  Rather, according to Marcus, relationships among women gave them an agency they would not otherwise have had.  Marcus writes that while “[f]riendship reinforced gender roles and consolidated class status … it also provided women with socially permissible opportunities to engage in behavior commonly seen as the monopoly of men: competition, active choice, appreciation of female beauty, and struggles with religious belief” (p. 26).  Marcus also claims that homoeroticism among women was acceptable and, indeed, expected of women, asserting that “female homoeroticism did not subvert dominant codes of femininity, because female homoeroticism was one of those codes” (p. 113).  This female homoeroticism was played out through anything from fashion plates, to children’s dolls, to tales of corporal punishment bordering on the pornographic.  Though some saw these lurid tales about dolls and punishment as being scandalous, it is Marcus’ opinion that, for the most part, these forms of eroticism were designed to incite in women a desire for femininity, which would then help them to attain “the feminine virtues of sympathy and altruism that made women into good helpmates” (p. 26).

Marcus’ greatest strength is the structure and underlying argument for her study.  She insists that previous studies of this subject have missed the dynamics described above because the scholars who wrote them relied upon legal and medical sources.  Instead, Marcus uses lifewritings (diaries, letters, and the like), in addition to elements of popular culture like literature or fashion plates and magazines, in order to delve into the personal worlds of the women she is studying.  Marcus also wanted to eschew the common interpretation of female relationships as being defined against men, that is to say, that there is a central theme in the field that assumes that “the opposition between men and women governs relationships between women, which take shape only reactions against, retreats from, or appropriations of masculinity” (p. 11).  In addition, lesbianism and female friendship are often conflated and assumed to be only a rejection of a male-dominated society and a forced heterosexuality.  Marcus argues that this interpretation devalues the significance of relationships between women in and of themselves because they are viewed as existing solely as a reaction against oppression, rather than something that women may have found beneficial on an emotional, spiritual, or social level.  In shifting the meaning of female friendships, Marcus is able to give these women an identity that does not have to be defined in a dichotomous relationship to that of a man.

While her sources are many and varied, Marcus relies, unsurprisingly given her literary background, on popular literature of the time period to illustrate her point.  This is where we find her interpretive framework losing some of its resiliency.  While Marcus persuasively uses classics like David Copperfield and Middlemarch to show how female friendship is used as an integral element in ‘marriage plots’ in order to get the heroine happily married off in the end, there are times when her interpretations perhaps stretch the real intent of the author or the intuition of the reader.  When Marcus examines Great Expectations, she insists that all of the critics that have gone before her have missed an obvious theme of the novel; that of desire between women, and that this theme plays itself out in Pip’s desire to be a part of this female relationship as a female himself.  Marcus writes that “[j]ust as the desire to punish cannot be expunged from even the most moralistic doll narratives, which chastise girls for having punished their dolls, Pip’s sentimental mother-daughter relationship with Miss Haversham cannot fully displace the sadism and fetishism of the original dyad she formed with Estella” (p. 188).  Likewise, her use of fashion plates, while fascinating, is not wholly convincing because she has no proof that her explanation of their imagery – pointed shoes as a symbol for the clitoris, for example – was how the audience of middle class women were seeing these images.  While this alone does not debunk her argument, the strength of her interpretations of both the literature and of fashion plates can be called into question.  Interpretations of this nature are subjective and it is difficult to tell what historical actors thought of these things and whether or not they had the enormous impact upon the gender and sexuality of their audiences that Marcus argues they did.  However, despite these drawbacks, Marcus’ work is ultimately an innovative and thought-provoking study and the assumptions upon which it rests will provide a springboard for further work in gender studies as well as historical scholarship broadly.

My Apologies

It has been an absurd amount of time since I have written an entry. Not to say that I have not sat at a computer, opened up the “add new post” page and started one, realize I was just yammering and not very coherently, take a break, come back at the end of the day, decide I’d rather just go home and watch bad television, and do just that.

I think I have a problem with believing that any of my points have any true validity. It blows my mind that people even read this thing, aside from friends who know who I am. I don’t think of it so much as a self esteem issue. Perhaps it’s the idea that there is some sort of universal truth out there that I’m constantly trying to find, so obviously my opinion can’t be it. Not to mention, when you question everything, you inevitably begin to question yourself.

Anywhoozle, I was listening to the radio yesterday on my whopping one mile car ride from work to home, and a conservative radio host (a man) was talking about a girl suing her college for not letting her hold a pro-life rally on campus. The college didn’t let her, said something about it being related to a hate crime, and so she sued. And she won. Although it wasn’t about the money. But I’m pretty sure she still took it.

And the conservative radio host went on and on about how “pro abortionists” (never pro-choice) get to say whatever they want, whenever they want. That colleges are filled with pro abortionist propaganda, and that some have free abortions right there on site. So why is it wrong that this poor girl just wants to pass out flyers?

I was home by now, so I stopped the car, sat there awhile, and I tried to understand what this man was saying. I knew I was angry, but I wasn’t quitesure why. It couldn’t be the point that he was pro-life because I really am okay with people choosing their own paths in life. I respect and applaud any woman who gets into the situation of an unplanned pregnancy, takes time to educate herself, looks at both sides of the coin, and decides she’s going to have the child and raise it in a happy, healthy home.

I’m okay with people taking time out of their day to pass out pamphlets filled with information that they deem vital. Whether it is something I believe in or not, I may even be envious of the fact that they believe in something so much they stand on street corners, leaving themselves vulnerable to the ridicule of strangers.

And, although I am far from conservative, I can empathize with the difficulty of being one on most American college campuses.    

So I sat there still, stewing. Trying to put my finger on my anger. Finally I tried to envision what this man was saying. A pro-life advocate, quietly standing in a college campus square, passing out flyers, and telling people to have a nice day whether they took the publication or not. The idea of this was quite a 180 from what I have come to see in our sprawling metropolis as it relates to pro-life protestors.

She herself said she was having a rally. You don’t have to go to the college for permission to simply pass out leaflets. I’ve seen women with their children (who are strangely not in school on a Wednesday morning) filling the streets of downtown Atlanta, with posters of aborted fetuses, chanting and yelling together. A friend who works at a women’s health clinic is in the middle of a 40 day protest rally going on outside of her offices, where women are being harassed going in and out. Of course, this clinic is for all medical issues, yes, including abortion, but what does it say to uninsured women who are going to this facility for an annual gynecological exam to be called out as baby killers?

I then tried to think of pro-choice rallies. I haven’t seen nearly as many. It could be because I haven’t been looking hard enough. The ones I’ve seen have mainly been held at government buildings. You know, the place where these laws are made.

But could you imagine if “pro abortionists” did the same things as those who advocate pro-life? Screaming and shouting outside of a church during Tuesday evening Bible study? Holding up signs of women with the degrees they acquired because they decided they would rather finish college than continue with an unplanned pregnancy? Or maybe posters of women in therapy for rape, crying, with a baby bump under their dress? What would one think if a group of people who are pro-choice filled the streets of the private sector to let out their message?

This is where I found the source of my frustration.

Perhaps there isn’t a grand universal truth, that I will, undoubtedly, search for until my last dying breath. But I do know there are some universal generalizations that can be made of humankind. A major one being: Not everyone is going to have the same opinion as you, but everyone is going to believe their opinion is right. This does not mean you respect a person with differing views any less.  

I would never ask a person with conflicting views to change his or her mind. But I would ask, nicely, to change how one chooses to approach a situation. If you believe in your heart of hearts that abortion is wrong, a sin, and whoever does it is going to hell, then please do not ever have one. I will never ask you to. And, really, the only person who probably would ask is the future father.

And if you feel many are uninformed about abortion, pass out pamphlets. Those who are interested will read. Those who aren’t will throw it away. You did your job. You tried to save them from eternal hell-fire.

Jesus never bombed a clinic to get his point across. Nor did he murder someone because he thought it was for the greater good. (I know these are extreme situations and very few ralliers fit into this realm, but these situations also have extreme consequences.) From what I learnt, love and patience for others were a constasnt throughout his teaching. Neither of which, for the record, are the same as abusing someone with hate speech and graphic pictures because they are doing something you do not agree with. Nor is it guilting someone into becoming a mother by placing false advertising (“pregnant? confused? we can help.”) and then forcing her to hear the heartbeat of a fetus and see it flickering on an ultrasound.

The first time I saw and heard my daughter’s heartbeat was probably the happiest day of my life, but I could not imagine the utter confusion and turmoil this would cause a young woman with nowhere to go and no one to support her.

I hope people realize that pro-choice means just that. I believe 100% that everyone has a choice in what they do with their lives, and to live with those consequences, whatever they may be. This is the reason I believe that, while many of these methods are flawed morally and ethically based on your own scripture, one has the right to act as they wish.

But please do not try to equate pro-choice advocates actions’ to those of prolife ralliers. One would hope that a choice is a rational, informed decision. Very few ask the same of a calling from God.

~Krystle (can I get a welcome back?)

*please not I am only speaking of those who rally for pro-life.

Open Season

Why is it that anyone and everyone is allowed to insult Catholics without any repercussions whatsoever?  And if we defend ourselves, why is it apparently nothing more than a regurgitation of the ‘lies’ we’ve been told our entire lives?

I bring this up because I recently saw an episode of Penn & Teller’s show, Bullshit (truer words were never spoken), in which they focused on the Vatican.  Now, you ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that I am not easily offended, but this show was nothing short of vile.  The majority of what they were saying was, if not flat out false, grossly distorted information.  If one can even use the term ‘information’ to describe the filth.

What is it about us that riles so many people up?  I know the abuse issue is what many reference, but it almost seems to be a symptom.  Most people point to it and say ‘see, this is what we’ve been saying all along,’ or something to that effect.  I read something that someone had written today about all priests being inherently evil and they used the sex abuse scandal as evidence.  As if every priest that ever was has been a pedophile or some kind of sexual deviant and that there is something intrinsic in the nature of a priest that would make him so, and that the scandal only proved their point.

Well you know what?  I take offense to that.  I am not a priest – obviously enough – but I am offended on behalf of all of the priests I know.  I take offense because they are all good men whose task is hard enough without every other idiot accusing them of child molestation or rape or whatever else it is they can come up with.  I honestly don’t know how they (priests, that is) do it.  The obligations of the priesthood aside, the way they are treated in the media, history, and in popular culture broadly would be enough to send me running.  Honestly, can you imagine someone hating you just because of the job you do?  And I don’t mean jokingly (lawyers come to mind), but real, vivid hatred.  Can you imagine that someone would automatically think you a pedophile if you told them you worked at a bank?  I’m sure there have been bankers who have been pedophiles.  I’m sure there have been doctors and lawyers and bakers and candlestick makers.  But no one tells you not to buy bread anymore.

So why?  Is it religion?  Protestant ministers have been found guilty of child molestation, why are Catholic priests different?  Is it the celibacy thing?  Are those who are celibate perceived to be predisposed to sexual deviancy?  Or is it because they are all priests of the same Church?  Or some combination thereof?  I’ve heard both argued quite fervently.  The former is preposterous if one has any knowledge of the way pedophilia works, and the latter, well, I think that is truly the heart of the problem.

The Catholic Church is a global organization.  Some might go so far (and be so ill-informed) as to say a multi­-national corporation.  People like to talk about how rich the Church is and how greedy all of her priests are.  Those same people might not have seen that the Vatican City State is running on a $1 million dollar deficit this year, but that’s beside the point.  They point to all the churches and vestments and other ecclesial accoutrements and ask why we don’t just sell them all and give all the money to the poor.  Well, how about we sell the White House?  Buckingham Palace?  The Crown Jewels?  This is, essentially, what is being suggested.  ‘Liquidate all assets and stop being a hypocrite.’  That’s the message I’m getting, at least.

And here’s why we can’t just throw up a For Sale sign in St. Peter’s Square.  It isn’t owned by anyone.  Well, that’s not entirely right.  It’s owned by the whole Church.  His Holiness can’t get up one morning, ring up Century 21, and make them an offer they can’t refuse.  These things make up the patrimony of our faith.  They are physical representations of the continuity of the Church and they are owned by all Catholics, both living and deceased.  And they are not for sale.

Here’s the thing, though, I’m not even bothered that the Church has her detractors.  It is unsurprising that she and her faithful would be hated.  It is the public and unapologetic nature of the pronouncement of that hatred that gets me.  Not that I think that bigotry in any sense is right, but were anyone were to go out and say the same things about Jews or Muslims that are said about Catholics, they would be ostracized.  Quickly.  And why is that?  This is what I don’t get.  Is it history?  Mankind is flawed and people make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes are tragic.  Am I to be held accountable for what people did 500 years ago that I had no control of?  Or for what a priest I don’t even know may have done?  Life is not fair, no one need remind me of that, but how do people get off scot free from public defamation of character with only what amounts to folklore to back up what are oftentimes absurd claims?  It boggles the mind.

There is a lot more to say here.  I could talk about how sick I am of men (Catholic or non-Catholic) questioning how a woman could be a member of a faith that supposedly oppresses women, or how I’m going to scream at the next person who calls the Holy Father a Nazi, or how tired I am of people who call themselves Catholic though they clearly disagree with or even hate most of being Catholic really means.  But I won’t.  I really just want some answers.  Why are honest, decent, caring, devoted, holy men like my priests objects of scorn and derision?  Why am I, as a single woman, to be pitied for being duped into a religion that allegedly sees me as worthless in my current state?  And, finally, why is there a perpetual open season on my Church? 

Beauty in a Jar

I don’t know about anyone else, but I hate taking my makeup off at night.

I used to be one of those people who scoffed at women who couldn’t leave the house without their face and hair completely done up.  Now I can’t even go to the grocery store without at least some eyeliner on.  I probably spend about twenty minutes a day putting on makeup.  I use at the very least six or seven different products – be it foundation or eyeliner or blush or what have you.  I literally give myself a new face.

Which brings me to my initial statement – I hate taking my makeup off at night.  I hate it because I have to look at my face.  The circles around my eyes, the ruddy coloring, the wrinkles, the pores, the dry skin – it all comes back as I clean off the day’s creation.  The foundation that gave me my blank palette, the eye shadow that gave my eyes depth, the eyeliner that gave them shape, the mascara that lengthened my eyelashes, the brow shader that made my eyebrows even, the blush that gave me cheekbones, the lipstick and liner that created my lips; it all comes off.  I wear a mask each and every day and I can’t leave the house without it.

Most of it is lack of self-esteem.  I would describe my face as a train wreck.  Some of it, though, some of it is the protection it provides.  No one actually knows what I look like.  If they don’t know what I look like, then they certainly can’t know me.  Not really anyhow.  It helps me keep everything skin deep.  At this point in my life, the most intimate act I can think of is allowing someone to see me without my makeup on or my hair done.

Yet another facet of the disguise: my hair.  Wash, dry, straighten, style.  Drying and straightening alone takes a good thirty minutes.  And then the products go in, followed by the bobby pins or barrettes or hair clips or whatever it is I decide to shove into my head on any given day.  My nails are always painted, usually a French manicure so that my fingers look longer and my nails look healthier.  And then come the clothes.  Pencil skirts with wide waistbands to flatten my stomach, button-up shirts cut to give me shape, and four inch heels to make my legs look longer, leaner, and stronger.

All of these things create a persona.  This person you think you know is not me.  This isn’t my face or my hair or my nails or my body.  Though sometimes I’m not sure which one is the real me.  Am I the business woman with the French twist and sweater vest that everyone sees at church and school?  Am I the rockabilly/punk rocker people see at concerts?  Am I the flirt with the low cut shirt that I appear to be at bars and clubs?  Or am I the nondescript girl with no makeup, pony tail, and the t-shirt and pajama pants that I perpetually wear at home?

Jesus, I sound like a feminist going through an existential crisis.

How HGTV has ruined my life.

I am a fanatic HGTV watcher.

House Hunters? OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Divine Design with Candice Olson? BITCH IS CRAZY BUT HER FINAL MAKEOVERS ARE BREATH TAKING!

Even Design on a Dime can work wonders.

But HGTV has sent me into a downwards spiral of expecting amazing things to happen within, at the very most, a one hour time span, and, basically, for free.

*sighs*

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to realize that that is not always the case.

My husband and I bought a house a little less than a year ago. It was a foreclosure, so the price was right. It was a good space, has a huge front porch, and a big backyard for the pups. An amazing starter home.

But some things had to be done. There was peach on every wall. There was disgusting mildewed carpet that professional cleanings weren’t fixing. And there was HGTV telling me that I could do it all, all by myself, with no money!

We painted every room but one, the one that wasn’t painted peach. We had new carpet installed, which cost far more than HGTV ever let on. We painted the cabinets in the kitchen and added new hardware. We put a fence up in the backyard, the price almost made me faint. And with our stimulus, thanks Papa Barack, we got the sectional I have literally wanted for years and a huge area rug which lessens the impact of our adorable yet filthy animals on our fancy white (yes, i’m an idiot) carpet.

But then I watch HGTV and I see so much more that needs to be done. We need a new bedroom set. Wait, scratch that, we need A bedroom set. In fact, we need a bedroom like this:

Do you see how all the tones are muted, yet together they make a statement? It’s a quiet, tranquil place. A retreat from the rest of my hectic everyday life.

It’s all the things I didn’t even realize a bedroom was supposed to be until I started watching HGTV. It is also one of crazy ass candace olsen’s creations. And this is why I love her. 

And if she’s reading this somehow, someway, I would love for her to come to my home, pro bono, and make my bedroom a masterpiece. It can be taped and made a complete tax write off. Please?

Anyway, I know it’ll be awhile until we’re there. With baby on the way, the only furniture we’re thinking about is that which will be in the nursery. Although the husband says he’ll just clear out one of his drawers and the baby can sleep in there. Because, damnit, we’re good parents.

But one day, I will have the house of my dreams. I will have that bedroom. Our bedroom now is a little too small, which is why I fantasize about expanding onto the back of the house, converting the attic that basically runs the entire length of the house into the greatest master suite known to man, this may have to be by way of raising the roof, literally, a few feet, and maybe even adding a deck to the new second story. All of this will give me room to change our current master into a formal dining room, for all of the entertaining we will one day be doing, changing the back room into the laundry room, and having two bedrooms with a jack and jill bathroom added to the first floor. Even better, make our house three stories, nothing but living area at the bottom, two large bedrooms with the jack and jill bathroom on the second level, with my husband’s much needed man room, and then, on the very top, the piece de resistance: a candace olsen master suite.

All done in an hour and paid for by a network.

Wait a second, I do nice things, think I can get on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?