Brooke

I'm not the type of person to read the paper. I prefer my media to come filtered through the liberal lens of feministing, NPR or google. However I got into the habit of reading the local paper after one of my co-workers kept leaving it on the breakroom table. Of course I was drawn to the opinion section.

If negative stuff about Obama written by locals did not bother me enough I just had to read the opinion of a conservative nut job Cal Thomas. The first article I read was how Democrats are pushing away "faith voters". Voters of course who are of the Catholic faith and are also pro-life.

When I got out of the shower tonight I stood in front of the mirror for a good five to ten minutes just looking at myself. I was scared by what was staring back at me in the mirror.

Time to do anything but work, blog, eat and sleep these days is limited. I don't put on make up, I don't really do my hair, I never really stand in the mirror naked or half dressed. So I haven't noticed that being skinny has now become looking scary skinny. No one else has noticed either. I guess my t-shirts and baggy clothing is covering up the reality; that I have become Nicole Riche very scary skinny.

The first clue was that my bathing suit, a juniors small was kind of baggy when I put it on last weekend at a pool party. I of course covered up in gym shorts and a t-shirt so no one noticed, but I thought it was kind of odd. Clue number two was that I rubbed my back earlier today (I have my period, so I am having lots of back pain) and I didn't feel the normal layer of fat under the skin. Just my hip bone.

I saw the documentary Jesus Camp on A&E last night. This part really got to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mefXbLXlRpw

Later in the film the children stand in front of the capital with the word "Life" taped over their mouths.

I'm not against children being in political rallies or being involved in political action. If my daughter asked me at young age what abortion was I would explain it to her. This kind of propaganda is dangerous. The way in which the woman says "don't be a promise breaker" is scary. Such a small sentence, but it could have a huge impact for the girls that are in that room and then young boys that are "warriors for Jesus".

In the past few months since my house burned down I have lost weight. I am not sure how much since I don't own a scale, but I bought pants in size 4, 3 and 1 for work. My size 4 pants I can take off without unbuttoning, my size 3 pants keep falling down even with my belt on and I just noticed my size 1 pants are starting to be big around the waist as well. Actually, my belt isn't small enough anymore.

I'm not proud of my weight. I'm proud of the muscles I have now that I carry around heavy things at work and chasing around my toddler at home. But the skinny look, I just didn't work for it. If anything it's probably a sign that I am not healthy. I don't always eat three meals a day and I should probably be eating closer to 6 since I am still nursing my daughter. It doesn't help that the food where I work sucks and some days my dinner is an orange and a yogurt. At least some science leans towards calorie reduction as the way to live past a 100, so maybe I will live longer?

While shopping for some stuff for my boyfriend, we decided that Rosalynn needs summer clothing. She really doesn't have very many t-shirts and not a single pair of shorts. So while gawking at stroller prices we found that we had walked all the way into the toddler boys section. Nik found shirts he liked right away, including one that had a picture of microphones and guitar headstocks. Then we found some shorts, not too much different from the shorts I just bought for myself and picked up three pairs of them. We moved into the toddler girls section hoping to find more of the same, maybe in some different colors. Instead we found shorts that would barely cover her diaper, shirts that had a low neck line and bikini bathing suits. Did I mention my daughter is only 16 MONTHS old?

Thomas Beatie is legally married, legally male and pregnant. His pregnancy has caught the attention of numerous media outlets, even Oprah and People magazine. Originally thought to be a hoax, his ultrasound on Oprah along with an interview with him and his wife, seems to have convinced the public that this man is pregnant.

Thomas Beatie is transgendered man. The biology behind is pregnancy is pretty simple. By stopping testosterone injections Thomas Beatie was able to get pregnant through artificial insemination. It's hard for me to believe Thomas Beatie is the first pregnant man for this reason. Some websites claim the first pregnant man was a transgendered, homosexual man about 20 years ago. Some intersex individuals who live as men can also have children, so it's very possible Thomas Beatie is not the first pregnant man.

Ugh. I am so tired of "feminist" and members of previous generations telling mine how to act, think, vote, raise our children, how to exist in this society. So here is my response to Robin Morgan and people who share her point of view:

Stop insulting young women! Stop embracing the stereotypes that surround us that have been created by a sexist media and a sexist society. Stop calling us stupid. Stop calling us sluts. Stop calling us ignorant. Stop trying to divide us based on our age, race, class or sexuality.

Look around you. Look at the women in my generation who have graduated from college or are going to college. Look at the number of young women you see behind and in front of you in line when you go to vote. Look at the number of young women at protests defending a woman's right to abortion access and contraception. Look at the number of young women defending the right for gay couples to get married and adopt children; for gay couples to work in the military. Look at the number of young mothers who have attended rallies defending women's rights to breastfeed in public and in the work place, who have defended the right of midwifes to practice their profession (and all of the women who are not mothers, but still defend those rights). Look at the women who are active in civil rights and race equality in the workplace, on college campuses and in the court system. Look because we are not just women, we are members of various communities who are also looking for equal rights. Look at my generation as a movement of people, a movement of women and a movement of feminist.

Today I worked a 9 hour shift at our local health food store. Tomorrow is Rosalynn's first birthday party at my sister's house and she would like us to be there by noon, for a party that's at 2 . Which means I will be getting up at 10, if the baby doesn't get up before then. I still have at least a cake to make, maybe two. Things to clean, diapers to wash and a baby to take care of. My boyfriend is busy sleeping.

Even with Nik not working (he lost his job), working part time and having a baby is a juggling act and a hard one. Partly because I am still expected to act like a stay at home mom, while at home, while I am also expected to act like an employee at work. In both cases I am thinking about other things, while in both environments. Both are causing me to space out completely. I almost charged someone $1,116.00, instead of $116.00 in groceries this morning. Oops. When I left I forgot to check my schedule for this up coming week, I hope I don't forget to call in and ask.

I became a big fan of the Midwest Teen Sex show after a link to their website was posted on Feministing. Personally I find them witty and fun to watch, a far cry from the scare tactic sex ed videos used in my sex education class. I guess not everyone likes their humor however.

Today on the Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (a day time talk show I was only watching because it was on our TV after the Today show) they had the creator and stars of the show, a sex expert and a psychologist to debate about the web casts. I was pleased that in general the show was positive about the show and about teens learning about sex. Their sex expert even talked about how parents should start talking to their kids about sex as early as possible. Awesome info. The only negitive comments seemed to be from a parent of adults who was worried about younger teens watching the episodes and the phycologist who worried about "isolated" teens who would get the wrong message from the show and take it literally. I'm not sure what she meant by that, because it's not like they are encouraging kids to have sex, just safe sex for the right reasons, if they choose to. I also like how the Midwest Teen gets that their audience is mainly either adults or teens thinking about having sex or are having sex. I know it's a pretty big assumption that most teens will want to have sex, but how else would they find an online sex education show online if they weren't looking to have sex?

On a recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO, retired general Wesley Clark said that the vast majority of women enjoy wearing the burka and choose to live in "those" societies.

The conversation over the burka started when Bill Maher pulled out a photo of Laura Bush sitting in between two women dressed in burkas. She was recently on a tour in middle east as part of her breast cancer awareness campaign (which brings up the point of why she isn't involved in a domestic violence awareness campaign this month, which is an important issue in that part of the world, obviously) but instead the panel focused on if Laura Bush should be speaking to women in burkas about breast cancer at all, that it was missing the obvious point. Wesley Clark jumped in and commented that women like wearing the burka, that polls have been done showing the vast majority of women in these countries like wearing the burka and even went further by saying that these women are choosing to live in these societies.

It was really hard for me to come up with an inspiring quote. I have a tendency to remember the negative instead of the positive words. The positive words I could remember, positive lyrics from female song writers we're almost impossible to be found in full online. Today this blog was written about on feministing.com iamemilyx.blogspot.com and the following words on her blog made me cry:

"I’ll tell you about better care. When I walk into our health center this morning, one of our doctors is on the phone with a patient asking her if she has picked up her UTI medicine at the pharmacy. 'Promise me you’ll do that today, sweetie. And listen, if you don’t have the money for it, bring in your receipt, and we’ll reimburse you. The most important thing is that you start taking those pills and feeling better.'"

Ugh. Let me explain that laptops are not good for blogging. The whole not having a real mouse thing creates alot of mistakes. As a result I have written this blog 4 times now.

So to make things short:

Here is another blog about the event I went to Tuesday, including pictures. Can anyone guess which one is me and the baby? beentheredonethat.typepad.com

Then I passed out copies of the Motherhood Manifesto, which you can buy from MomsRising.com

BTW if you don't hear alot from me in the next few days or weeks its because I am very busy.

Ugh. I'm tired of Dr.Phil as it is. His show has turned from being about helping people, to having guest argue on the show about their pointless, often petty disputes. However, I got my period today (after months of not having it because I was breastfeeding my daughter 24-7, I guess taking a break away from her a few nights ago made it come back) so I am tired and don't feel like doing more then watching TV. So I was watching Dr.Phil...

Yesterday and today a show has been on about a man who "slept" with the nanny. The premise of the show is that a firefighter husband cheated on his wife who had a three month old daughter with a nanny they hired. Well on yesterday's show it came to light that the nanny in question said his guy gave her painkillers and then forced himself on her in a bedroom. The wife even watched him place painkillers in the girl's mouth. She was only 18. Then on today's show Dr. Phil says three other nannies complained about being sexually harrassed (although it's never phrased that way), once according to Dr.Phil and this nanny, he corned a woman in a pantry and told her if she wanted her paycheck she had to give him a oral sex and that he wanted to perform oral sex on her as well.

I turned 20 today. I looked at my past blog from my last birthday. It has several goals on it. Well I have completed none of them.

I guess this past years my goals have changed alot. The small amount of money I was able to save went into buying this house. Dirt bags does have a website, but consists of only a template and a poll. I'm not really interested in website design anymore. I've concluded I don't have the attention span for coding, or the time or the energy to read books about different coding languages. I haven't gotten a library card yet because I'm now not sure where my local library is since we moved. I still don't have my drivers license, but I did take my driving test and failed.

I never have the door to my house locked. I've never lived in a house where I felt I needed to lock my doors. Even with our weirdo looking neighbor who my boyfriend says hits on teenagers (he is in his 40's) I still feel pretty comfortable in my own home. I've never felt uncomfortable walking down the street, even at the crack of dawn or late at night. Actually I find walking in the middle of the night, when it's so silent very relaxing. Walking at night maybe when I feel the most safe. It reminds me of walking with my dog at night when I lived at home, one of the only times during the day when I actually was safe; away from criticism from students and teachers at school, away from yelling and abuse at home.