it's weird how i'm a complex human person

A friend of mine just posted a long, rambly quote on Facebook about not pursuing any romantic relationships until she finds full satisfaction in God. You see a lot of similar quotes when you and/or many of your friends are young evangelical Christians. Hell, i've even said similar things, and back in high school i broke up with one guy and rejected another because i felt like romantic considerations were distracting me from God.

You also see a lot of almost empowering secular quotes about not pursuing a man until you've found full satisfaction in yourself. You know, graduate from college, get a good career going, pay off some debts, buy some fabulous shoes, pick up a hobby. No one else can love you until you love yourself, after all, and men will like you better if they have to chase you and compete for you with your job and friends and dog or whatever, because of their cavemen genes. Or something. I stopped reading Cosmo a few years ago because of shit like that.

I realized over the past year that a lot of the things i have always taken for granted are not guaranteed. I also realized that i had never really thought about whether or not i personally wanted these things; i just knew that they were good things for some people and assumed they would come to me. Things like marriage and kids, for example. I had always more or less assumed that i would be married by the time i was 25. And then i was dating this amazing man, and we were so in love, and things were going well, and i thought i would marry him some day.

Over the summer, John and i talked about exactly that. We'd talked about marriage before, about how we had some things to work out in our individual lives before we could start making those kinds of plans, and how if/when we did get engaged, it wouldn't be till we were both done with grad school. But during this conversation, John told me he wasn't sure he ever wanted to marry anyone. And then as i thought about it more, i realized that John's grad school schedule meant that, assuming we did get engaged, i couldn't possibly expect to have a ring on my finger until i was 26 or 27. I thought about my options for a few minutes. Do i wait it out with John and see if he wants to get married some day? Do i stay with him even if we never get married? If we do, will i be able to marry him while i'm still young enough to have kids? Do i break up with him and start looking for someone who's a little closer to being ready to settle down? If so, can i get over him, find someone new, and wrangle him to the altar before i hit my quarter century? Where did i get this magic 25, anyway? Wait, do i even want kids?

And then i realized that i simply did not give a single fuck.

Getting married is no longer a goal of mine. If it happens, great, if not, oh well. I do want to do my best to love well those who come into my path. I do want to know that i never abandoned a promising relationship before doing everything i could to make it work. But if i'm on my deathbed, looking at my cats and my post-graduate degrees and my written works (published and unpublished), reflecting on years of hard and satisfying work, surrounded by nieces and nephews and friends, i'm pretty sure i won't be saying, "Damn. If only i had gotten married."

I pursue a relationship with God because i love Him, and because everything in my life seems better when things are good with Him. I pursue other things in my life (school, work, shoes) because i like them and they make me happy. I don't pursue them so i can cross things off of my pre-wedding check-list.

And here's the crux of the whole thing: My relationship with God is pretty solid right now. It could be better, but we'll never get to a point where there's no more room for improvement, because that's not how relationships work. And my personal life is heading in a good direction, and i'm working hard to keep it on that track: working nights and weekends so i can (FINALLY!) finish grad school, getting a new roommate, painting my apartment, and even trying to do a little writing here and there.

Yet two months ago, John and i broke up. I'm not dating anyone else right now, and i'm not looking for anyone else. Mostly because i'm still getting over him, and a little bit because i'm hoping we might still have a future. But big picture? I'm not dating anyone right now because i'm not dating anyone right now. It's not because God is trying to teach me a lesson or because He hasn't brought the right person to me yet. It's not because my many impressive accomplishments intimidate men, or because they see my cat pictures and knitting needles and decide i'm too much of a loser to activate their (bullshit) caveman genetic drive to pursue me. I'm not dating anyone right now because i'm not dating anyone right now.

Life is bigger than bumper stickers or Facebook statuses. It is far more beautiful and complex than Cosmo articles or the imaginary goals we think we're supposed to have. It doesn't mesh all that well with timelines and schedules. And it looks very, very different to each and every person who has it.

If you feel like you need to work out some shit with God before you date anyone, great. Go do that. If you feel like you need to get your career on track before you date anyone, great. Go do that. Me, i'm working hard and having adventures. Sometimes i'm alone, sometimes i'm with friends, and for two years i had a steady partner. Maybe one day i will again. But in the meantime, i'm not trying to get my life lined up so i'll be ready for love when it finds me. I'm trying to get my life lined up because that makes it easier for me to have adventures.

Life is the thing. Don't have a great life so that some guy will want to be a part of it. Have a great life so that YOU can have a great life.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: July through September

"I think Paul would roll over in his grave if he knew we were turning his letters into torah." -- F. F. Bruce (pg. 259)

I think about this all the time. When the New Testament writers talked about the importance of Scripture, they didn't mean Hebrews or John. They meant the Old Testament. And Paul, a Pharisee, had the utmost respect for the Scriptures and would never have presumed to think that anything he wrote (particularly personal letters to friends and specific churches) would be placed in the same category as the Law. Not that i have a problem with taking the NT seriously, but it does feel a little uncomfortable sometimes when someone takes one out-of-context phrase from the NT and uses it to contradict huge chunks of the OT.

". . . I've also never heard a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:8, in which Paul tells Timothy, 'I want men everywhere to pray, lifting holy hands without anger or disrupting' that included a universal dictum that all men everywhere must raise their hands whenever they pray (updated NIV). But I've heard more than I can count on 1 Timothy 2:11, just three verses later, which says, 'A woman should learn in quietness and full submission' that have included universal dictums that all women everywhere must submit to male authority in the church." (pg. 261)

If Paul was writing Scripture that we should obey, then he was writing Scripture we should obey. If he occasionally made suggestions and offered his own opinion and talked about specific situations bound by specific cultures, then he has room to be wrong. We can either pick out the parts of Paul that we like and think are good and ignore the rest, or we can take everything he ever wrote as a direct command from God.

Personally, i think that Paul was smart and had a deep connection to the Holy Spirit and was a human being who was sometimes wrong and even when he was right he may only have been right in a specific context and not in every situation in the world. But i'm a woman, so who the hell knows.

"Some rabbis say that, at birth, we are each tied to God with a string, and that every time we sin, the string breaks. To those who repent of their sins, especially in the days of Rosh Hashana, God sends the angel Gabriel to make knots in the string, so that the humble and contrite are once again close to God. Because each one of us fails, because we all lose our way on the path to righteousness from time to time, our strings are full of knots. But, the rabbis like to say, a string with many knots is shorter than one without knots. So the person with many sins but a humble heart is closer to God."

My boyfriend often cites a spiritual teaching from his mom, in which she compared faith to a rubber band. Sometimes we wander far from God, but when we do, the band is stretched tight, and the farther we wander the more likely we are to be pulled in again. In her metaphor, the connection is never broken, but the ideas are still similar. And i like that Judaism (or at least, some of its rabbis) give room for grace. It's funny, because grace is supposed to be the Christian thing. You know: the OT God was full of wrath and judgement and fire and brimstone, and the NT God loves us and wants to forgive us and have us all live in harmony and love. It looks to me,  however, as though God is just a little bit bigger and more complicated than whatever boxes we try to build for Him, and that He always makes room for grace.

sticks and stones

I'm a poet. For a long time, i preferred the word "crap" to the word "shit" because i liked the sound of it better. It's like a slap: heavy and solid, it registers your frustration and disapproval firmly. "Shit", on the other hand, with its hissing sibilant and thin vowels, sounds like something a crotchety spinster aunt would whisper-scream at you in her fancy parlor. It's annoying and a little scary, but it can be ignored. But "crap"? Crap WILL be heard.

I'm a feminist. It infuriates me that so many swear words are feminine. I mean, we have "dick" and "cock", which are almost more comedic nonsense words than profanity these days. You can call your friend a dick in between bursts of laughter. And you can maybe do the same with "bitch", if the person is a very good friend. But "cunt"? No way. "Pussy" is a little tricky; if you're calling a person a pussy, it can be in a mean bullying way or in a joking fun way, teasing or harassing them for being a wimp, but if you're talking about getting pussy it almost always sounds gross (unless you read a lot of feminist, queer-friendly blogs, like i do. Those bitches can pull it off).

"Cunt", though. That's pretty much the worst one, right? "Fuck" is almost punctuation anymore, like the "like" of earlier decades. My first encounter with the word "fuck" was when i was two or three and i saw it spray-painted on the side of a building. I was with one of my older cousins, and i asked him what it meant. He told me that it was the king of all cuss words, and that i should never repeat it again, especially not to my mom. So i naturally went to my mom and asked her what it meant. Her definition was not much more satisfying, but she was certainly careful to make sure that i knew that it was the very worst word anyone could ever say and that i should never say it again. I heard it a lot more over the years, and saw it again and again in various places. I even began using it, daringly, when i was in college.

My first encounter with the word "cunt" was when i was about fifteen and caught part of a stand-up competition on Comedy Central. A female comic was talking about how someone had called her something rude, maybe "bitch" or "prude" or something; i can't recall. She said that they had clearly meant it to wound, but that she had barely registered the insult at all. "Maybe because I've been called **** so many times, I didn't even notice," she said. Comedy Central bleeped out the word so thoroughly that i couldn't even guess what it was. There were some startled noises from the audience, and some nervous laughter, and the comedian looked upset and uncomfortable. In an interview later, she said that she should have known better than to use the "C-word". I asked my mom what the "C-word" was and she flat-out refused to tell me. I ran into it again a few years later in a book and figured it out for myself.

In college, i had a friend who could out-cuss a Marine. She would say things like "the fuck-word" instead of "the f-word". If you tried to edit her for TV, she would barely be speaking in full sentences anymore. I have never heard her use the word "cunt". We did have a conversation once in which she referred to it as "the C-word", and explained that she hated it and refused to use it. In fact, i know lots of people (mostly women, but some men) who refuse to use that word.

This terrible word, too terrible to even be spray-painted on a building, too terrible to mention when choosing the "king of all cuss words", to terrible to speak aloud? This word means "vagina". So does "pussy", for that matter. And "bitch" just means female dog. "Dick" and "cock" mean penis.

A penis is, at worst, hilarious. A vagina is, at best, weak and cowardly and maybe a little gross. Maybe not even human.

I am a poet. I love the word "bitch". It has a heavy slap, like "crap", but it also has a slightly stabby quality. I love the word "pussy". I like the sputter of the "p", the derision of the "u", the slithery needles of the double "s". "Cunt" is deep and guttural and visceral, like "drunk" and "ugly" and "thrust". I love to say these words. I like to feel them in my mouth, to hear them in the air. I like the way they look on the page, the shapes they make with their black on white.

I am a feminist. I hate the words "bitch", "cunt", and "pussy". More and more, when i find myself irritated with someone (a bad driver, a terrible roommate, a character in Virtual Villagers), i find myself using the word "asshole". Everyone has one of those, so i'm more comfortable using it to express negative feelings. But i don't like that so much negativity is attached to the female body, and i don't like to promote that negativity on my own lips. Vaginas have just as much potential for comedy as penises. Penises can be every bit as weak and gross as vaginas. And both are capable of all kinds of ecstasy and beauty in the right context.

But "pussy" is really fun to say.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: January-July

"Now, I've got nothing against aluminum poles, sex outdoors, "sacred stripping", and that sort of thing, but you should be able to tell your spouse that you'd like to try it in the backyard without insisting your instructions come directly from God. Poems were never meant to be forced into commands." (pg. 112) (emphasis mine)

Oh, Christian sexuality. We like to do this thing where we confuse descriptive with prescriptive. We also like to do this thing where we don't really understand what's being described, so it gets kinda messy. And not in the good way.

"Both Jesus and Paul spoke highly of celibacy and singleness, and for centuries the Church honored the contributions of virgins and widows to the extent that their stories occupied the majority of Christian literature." (pg. 179)

We have this narrative in the Church that behind every great man there's a great woman, that it is the role of men to be great and to do great things, and it is the role of women to support them in their accomplishments. Men are to go forth and do great things, and women are to have a clean house and warm meal waiting for them when they return.

But the Bible has a LOT to say about how great it is to never get married. So if men can do great things either married or single, but women have to be someone's wife in order to achieve something great, we are left with two options: men have multiple wives, or women marry each other.

For the first, while it is Biblical, it's mostly been rejected. But if we're talking about Biblical roles for men and women, i guess i can't really stop you. You just have to move to Utah.

For the second, it's a little dicey. I mean, here you have two women, married to each other, making their home an absolutely perfect haven of domestic bliss: clean, orderly, well-managed, with three hot meals a day and never any quarreling or bitterness or discontent or jealousy or anything. Just two happy, domestic, virtuous women being perfect wives to one another. They may not be preaching sermons or writing books or running businesses or ministering to the heathens in foreign lands, but they can certainly feed and clothe the the poor, and they can make their home open to those who need a place to stay, and those are all important Biblical things, too. In fact, hospitality is one of the things the Bible talks about the most. Definitely way more than homosexuality. Really, if you think about it, being a married lesbian is pretty much the highest calling there could be for a Christian woman.

Or, you know, maybe women can be allowed to accomplish things outside of the house and can even be praised for and encouraged in those accomplishments. "As a Christian, my highest calling is not motherhood; my highest calling is to follow Christ." (pg. 180)

"Traditionally, readers of the text have assumed that Jesus called the (Samaritan woman at the well) out on her loose morals, confronting the aberrant nature of her sexual history in order to convict her of her sin. But such a confident interpretation reveals a certain level of bias, for John never actually revealed the reason why the Samaritan woman had five husbands. It is just as plausible, therefore, to assume that her marital history was a tragic one -- women were not permitted to initiate divorce at that time, after all -- and that Jesus sought to acknowledge the difficult set of circumstances facing a woman in first-century Palestine. She may have been a concubine or a slave, which would explain why the man she was with was not her husband." (pg. 199)

The story of the Samaritan woman was an important one for me in coming to terms with my own sexuality, so i was very pleased to see an interpretation of her story that gives her a little more grace.

"In the biblical narrative, hierarchy enters human relationship as part of the curse, and begins with man's oppression of women -- "your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). But with Christ, hierarchical relationships are exposed for the sham that they are, as the last are made first, the first are made last, the poor are blessed, the meek inherit the earth, and the God of the universe takes the form of a slave.

"Women should not have to pry equality from the grip of Christian men. It should be surrendered willingly, with the humility and love of Jesus, or else we miss the once radical teaching that slaves and masters, parents and children, husbands and wives, rich and poor, healthy and sick, should "submit to one another" (Ephesians 5:21)."

*slow clap*

slutty sluts, pubes, and babies eating lemons

1. This is so accurate it's almost not even funny. Almost: The Comment Section for Every Article Every Written About Intimate Grooming

2. This was a really important epiphany for me today.

3. Birth control is such a touchy subject in America, even in this day and age. Just a few weeks ago, i heard someone call "keeping a nickel between your knees" contraception. If dumb nasty slutty sluts could just keep their legs closed and not murder their tiny innocent babies, we'd all be better off, and if you want to take my tax dollars to pay for some slutty slut's sinful choices, you'll have to pry the cash out of my cold, dead hands!

Except that "Family planning could prevent up to 30 percent of the more than 287,000 maternal deaths that occur every year, by enabling women to delay their first pregnancy and space later pregnancies at the safest intervals. If all babies were born three years apart, the lives of 1.6 million children under the age of five would be saved each year.

"That's a lot of children's lives.

"At home in the US, a study conducted among people most likely to get abortions has found . . . that free birth control dramatically cuts the rate of abortion:

"4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000 women in the study, compared with 13.4 to 17 abortions per 1,000 women overall.

"For me, these are compelling reasons to consider widely accessible subsidized birth control as a moral imperative: It saves lives -- lots of them, and allows for the flourishing of those lives. That's why it's been written into laws, and funded by taxes."

Birth control is not just about nasty slutty sluts being sinful and slutty. It's also about a responsible, married couple who have a decent annual income and one baby, but want to wait a little while before they have another baby, to make sure they can still budget for their family in an uncertain economy, and to give them lots of time to figure out this whole parenting thing while they're still stacked 2-1, but they're young and in love and can't keep their hands off each other. It's about a woman with health issues that demand treatment (such as chemotherapy or antidepressants) that may be harmful to a baby, or a couple who has trouble conceiving and who has suffered one too many miscarriages and wants a break from that pain for a while, or a rape victim who doesn't want to have to choose whether or not to keep her rapist's baby. And yes, it's also about the slutty sluts, because this is America, and everyone can make their own choices, even if you disagree, even if they are wrong. (Plus, sluttiness is just so much fun).

The reality is, you can't control everyone's behavior, and there simply aren't enough nickels or aspirins in the world to keep everyone's knees together, especially the teenagers and young adults and regular adults and even old people who aren't even your kids or part of your church, and whose choices you therefore have absolutely no sway over. The reality is, you have to choose which is less objectionable: lots of women having lots of abortions, or almost no one even having to make that choice. Birth control SAVES LIVES. If you oppose abortion, the only sane position is to make sure that safe and effective birth control is available to everyone. Even if they need to take your tax dollars to fund it.

4. I'm pretty sure i don't want any babies myself (and certainly not for another ten years or so), because of reasons. But then i see something like this, and i want ALL THE BABIES. But just for a few hours, and then i want to send them home where someone else can change their diapers for the third time in an hour or try to get them to stop crying at 3 am or spend thousands of dollars on absurdly tiny shoes and sun hats and winter coats. I just want to play with them and feed them lemons.

5. I really, really, really, really, really wish i'd had this Barbie to play with when i was a kid.

one for the history books

First Wendy Davis, then DOMA, and now Prop 8. This is a good day to be an American.

colin you're like freaking me out

1. I'm freaking out right now

2. There are SO many good things here, but quoting them all would be lazy. Go read the article in full. 

"When we talk of saving oneself for marriage as an act of self-control, we necessary (sic) posit those who do not wait as unable or less able to control themselves. In doing so, we remove from them the idea that they make the decision to have sex of their own volition. It prevents those who do not wait from owning their decisions -- and thus understanding themselves as sexual beings capable of autonomy and consent, rather than souls who just temporarily lost control of their bodies.

This, to me, is where the post-evangelical discussion of self-control fails. Having premarital sex still, in this mindset, ends up being categorized as a failure of holiness, as a failure of one's will or relationship with God, which prevents the experience from being something in which one can learn about one's self and one's wants and desires and pleasures. It necessarily demonizes the flesh (and therefore one's sexuality) by making it into something that must be tamed rather than something that must be understood. Instead of framing the experience in a positive - 'Why did I make that choice and what can I learn about myself from it? Was it healthy?' - it necessarily interjects a negative - 'Failed to control myself again.'"

3. God, i love Cracked. Here's a hilarious and insightful article about how men screw themselves over in romantic situations.

"One of the weirdest things about high school is that they don't teach you the really important shit that you need in order to survive. We spent so much time in health class learning how to prevent teenage pregnancy and crotch diseases that we didn't realize until long after we'd graduated that they never showed us how to go about it when we were old enough to actually want that stuff that biology was pressing for.

Not the fucking. That's not what this article is about. I'm talking about all the stuff that leads up to it. Meeting the right person, how to approach them, what to say, how to present yourself. The most basic part of any relationship: finding someone. Because, let's be honest here, if you came into this article hoping it would answer your question of 'Why won't this bitch fuck me?' you have several stages of growing up to do before you're even mature enough to handle the discussion, let alone the woman."

4. There is still a LONG way to go before Exodus International can repair the damage they've done. But this and this are good first steps.

"From a Judeo-Christian perspective, gay, straight, or otherwise, we're all prodigal sons and daughters. Exodus International is the prodigal's older brother, trying to impose its will on God's promises, and make judgments on who's worthy of His kingdom. God is calling us to be the Father -- to welcome everyone, to love unhindered."

1. I know it's become almost trendy recently to hate on denominations, to say that we shouldn't put up divisions between one another and that we are all one body in Christ, and i agree to an extent. But then i read things like this and think, "Differentiated instruction is a good thing." I still think we need to do things together, so that we can be reminded that "other" does not equal "wrong" or "lesser" or otherwise bad, but i don't think it's a bad thing to say, "I like contemplative prayer and long services with lots of space for meditation and quiet, and you like praying in tongues and energetic services with dancing and shouting and call-and-response, and it's okay for us to worship separately." Of course, most denominations aren't divided this way, but wouldn't it be cool if they were? Wouldn't it be great if we made room for differences without building fences and alienating?

"All my life, I've just assumed that everyone else had maps of the year in their head that may/may not be similar to mine. It never occurred to me that something so basic as how one sees the calendar year could vary so much in between people. Within a few seconds this morning, my entire world shifted and grew larger.

Perhaps part of the issue of continuing disagreement in human life and, more narrowly, the church isn't necessarily chalked up to the theodicy explanation of "brokenness" and "sin," but to the simple fact that some people literally see the world differently. People literally experience God in different ways."

2. This was SO interesting to read. I love how Rachel always allows for so many voices, and so many points of view. It's so refreshing to see a bunch of smart, thoughtful people tackle a problem (especially such a sticky [no pun intended] issue as masturbation), and to see that all of them have come to different perspectives and still love and respect one another.

3. If you don't spend a lot of time in churchy circles, you're probably not familiar with conversations about "biblical inerrancy", and can therefore ignore this link. But if you do, this post may help you clarify some of your thoughts.

"You see, it's ok to believe that Noah's ark was filled with all the animals on earth when you're 5 years old, and then change your mind when you realize the physical impossibility of that when you're an adult, but still have faith in that story. Why? Because the truth of Noah's ark is not found in zoological arrangements. It's found in the message of a God who watches over and cares for His creation even in the midst of a storm."

4. Okay, when i read this, i kind of felt like someone had been reading my diary and posting it on the internet. Except that i don't really keep a diary anymore; it's pretty much been replaced by this blog. But still. This is so much of what i've been thinking and feeling about God in the past few years.

"Scripture references and sound logic are dangerous when the God they paint is a monster.

Words about God are heavy. Don't sling them about carelessly."

5. I don't just read about theology and feminism, FYI. I also read hysterically funny essays about home taxidermy.

"In order to fully explain what went wrong, in stages, I would have to look up the thesaurus entry for 'inexpertly' and then deploy every word listed and that would getting boring, so let's just say: I did some crimes.
. . .
You watch how their legs fit together, how their wings don't go like how you made them go like when you got all excited while stuffing that duck. One day you might notice one of them dead on the grass. In real life . . . (We could pretend this is hypothetical but obviously that would be lying.)
. . .
I wanted to explain but I was too embarrassed. I used words like "time sensitive delivery" and "awkward" and "no really". I envisioned a pair of mouldering squirrels in a bloated parcel in the Post Office depot with my name on them. Literally with my name on them. I further envisioned myself marching back to the Post Office with the unopened package and returning to sender. 'DEAR P STAINES,' began the letter in my head. 'UMM.'"

6. I am neither gay nor Mormon but this still made me tear up big time.

"I told her that some people are taught that [being gay is] wrong and don't want to believe differently. And that this parade was to celebrate the fact that being gay is no more a mark of one's character than being straight. She nodded and then asked, "Is there going to be candy?"

7. Oh God. I had so many of these conversations with my parents. In fact, over Christmas, i had them again. I am twenty-three years old and my parents still feel like they can and should comment on my size. (NB: Let me just say that my parents are awesome and affirming in many ways, but fat shaming is so deeply ingrained into the collective consciousness that even awesome people don't think twice about saying, "You've gotten bigger and should get smaller again. Let me give you some tips.")

8. It sucks, but sometimes we are just stuck with our feelings for a while. That's just kind of how it works.

ladybusiness and hilarity

1. So, i have a confession to make: i am in love.

I don't remember now how i first found Lucy Knisley. I know it had to do with her most recent book, Relish, and that i quickly put all of her books on my Amazon wishlist, along with a few of her iPhone cases. Her iPhone cases were instrumental in my decision to get an iPhone, which i probably will soon, maybe. I'm torn between her Wonder Women and St. Julia designs, and if they weren't so darned expensive, i'd buy both. But maybe i'll ask for them for Christmas or birthday presents.

Anyway, this whole post could easily become about Lucy Knisley, so let me just share one of my favorite .gifs that she created to celebrate the fourth season of Arrested Development (yeah, she's a fan. Like i said, i'm in love.)

2. Have you ever read the letters people write to advice columnists and wondered, "What answer are they hoping for? And how did 'Abby' make it all the way through her response without once using the phrase 'monumentally thunderous stupidity'?" The answer to your second question is, Abby is a pro. Or at least her editor is. The answer to your first question is this tumblr.

3. Here's a thoughtful essay about how much it sucks when a guy puts a girl in the "girlfriend zone":

"I must say that I find this really unfair. I mean, I'm a nice girl. I have a lot to offer as a friend, like not being a douchebag and stuff. But males just don't want to be friends with nice girls like me. They can't help it, I guess; it's just how they're wired, biologically. Evolution conditioned our male hominid ancestors to seek nice girls as mates and form friendship bonds only with the other dudes that they hunted mammoths with. It's true -- I know this because I studied hominids in my fifth-grade science class."

4. Yes.

5. This is worth reading, even if only for the kick-ass illustrations. But the words are pretty kick-ass too.

"'Women have always fought,' he said. 'Shaka Zulu had an all-female force of fighters. Women have been part of every resistance movement. Women dressed as men and went to war, went to sea, and participated actively in combat for as long as there have been people.'

I had no idea what to say to this. I had been nurtured in the U. S. school system on a steady diet of the Great Men theory of history. History was full of Great Men. I had to take separate Women's History courses just to learn about what women were doing while all the men were killing each other. It turned out many of them were governing countries and figuring out rather effective methods of birth control that had sweeping ramifications on the makeup of particular states, especially Greece and Rome.

Half the world is full of women, but it's rare to hear a narrative that doesn't speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things."

6. This is two weeks old and it's still making me tear up.

7. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it."

8. For those of you (like my brother) who have apparently lost the ability to detect sarcasm, let me make this clear: the following excerpt, as well as the whole post, are sarcastic and joking. She actually is a good mom who cares about her kids. If you don't believe me, read her three recent posts about adoption ethics (yeah, two of her kids are adopted).

"Teachers, we need to make a deal that after April testing, we don't have to do anything else. You don't. I don't. I don't care if you watch movies in class five days a week and take four recesses a day. I mean, Caleb had to bring an About Me poster with five school days left in the year. In September, this might have produced something noteworthy, with pictures perhaps, even some thoughtful components to describe his winning qualities, but as we've used up all our bandwidth, we yanked trash out of our actual trash can, glued it to a poster, and called it a day. I am not exaggerating when I tell you this is the very most we can do on May 29th."