I started my new job on Monday, and four days in I’m starting to settle into something of a routine. I’m excited about the work, despite the fact that it’s not entirely what I expected. I’m definitely going through some amount of culture shock: I was working at a small liberal arts college, in a library with only seven librarians, and now I’m in a large office building in downtown Oakland, working in a small cubicle and surrounded on all sides by librarians and programmers and project managers and UX designers and who knows what all else. I was working in what was essentially a department of one; my projects were managed by me with occasional check-ins with the Director and perhaps one or two other folks. Now I’m part of a much larger team, and we have people whose sole role is to manage projects. It’s very, very different.

Not to mention that we haven’t moved into our apartment yet, my partner is still on the other side of the country wrapping up his stuff and getting ready to move, and I’m kind of in personal life limbo. I’m doing everything I can to manage the completely predictable stress I’m feeling (because when I’m stressed I get grouchy and no one wants to be grouchy in their first days on a new job). I’m trying to keep reminding myself that I’ll adapt to the differences, that we’ll be settled in soon, that I’m just not good with change.

It helps whenever I look around me and remember that I’m in California, I’m in the Bay Area, I’m in my favorite place ever. I instantly relax a little bit, and smile, and think, “Yes, I made the right choice.”

I came across this image on the interwebs today and was instantly thrown into paroxysms of nostalgia.

The dream of the 90s…

It was actually not as easy a decision as I expected it to be, taking this new job. I have loved my work here in Walla Walla: loved the variety, the responsibility, the trust that my colleagues have in me do to things well, the opportunities that come up working with a small staff. I have loved the friendliness of people in this college community, and in this town. I love the library and the campus, the faculty and staff and students. And this little town of Walla Walla has started to grow on me, although I know I could never be completely happy with small town living. It might be small and lacking in some of the finer amenities that a city provides, but it’s charming and comfortable, and growing more charming every day as new businesses open and as the local wine industry settles into its unique and quirky and very special personality. So no, it was not an easy decision.

But California is where I belong, and my new job promises new chances to learn and grow, to do different kinds of work and contribute to projects that are bigger than just one small library. The work I’m going to do will potentially benefit all libraries, and in this particular time, I think that’s where I want my energy dedicated. And the idea of living somewhere where winter is a minor inconvenience, where snow is someplace you get to go visit, where farmers’ markets operate year-round? I get giddy just thinking of it. We found a great apartment in downtown Oakland (or uptown, I guess it’s called), surrounded by amazing restaurants and bars and theaters and markets, shopping and entertainment. And even more important, surrounded by family and friends. And just a short drive to so many other beautiful and amazing things California has to offer. I can hardly wait!

We leave at the end of March, and while it’s certainly harder to say goodbye to eastern Washington than I expected it to be, I’m running home to California with open arms. It’s about time.

When I lived in Boston, I frequented a neighborhood pub, in the best sense of the phrase. This place was down the street from my house and I knew all the regulars. We were involved in each others’ lives, and not only when we were inside those four wood-paneled walls. We were friends. And occasionally, these friends had babies. I loved it when someone would drop by with their babies, because babies are cute! This usually happened in the late afternoon, and the parents of said babies weren’t there to tie one on. They’d have one beer, if any, and head on their way, after we all got to fawn over the little person. This seemed totally normal to me.

Every now and then, someone would bring a child to the bar at a later hour, when there were drunk people around and the music was loud and very likely there were unsavory things going on in at least one dark corner. This never seemed normal to me. This, in fact, seemed very wrong. If there are drunk strangers around, your child probably shouldn’t be there, is all I’m saying.

I would like to be able to say that every parent should be able to make a judgement call, and at the end of the day, of course, that’s always what I’m going to say. Every parent has the right to decide for his or her own children which environments are acceptable. But some parents decide that very adult environments are ok for their very young children, and that is where this idea of personal choice breaks down for me. Some parents are always going to make terrible choices, and that doesn’t just suck for their children (although, you know, it sucks for their children the most). It’s also completely uncomfortable for the adults in that environment who chose not to bring their children (or have them at all). There are just some places that are for grown-ups only, and when I hear parents bitching about how they should be able to bring their kids wherever they want, I just feel befuddled.

The thing is, even though I loved it when my friends brought their cute babies to the bar, when I’m a parent, I will probably never do this. Because, no matter how friendly, a bar is for adults. If you really want to have a drink with your friends and your baby, find a nice restaurant that serves cocktails, and try to leave before the drunks show up. This is what parenting is, after all: It’s sacrificing the things you want to do for the little person you chose to give birth to.

I recognize this judgment call will likely piss off a lot of people (well, if anyone actually read this blog). Especially because I don’t have children. I mean, who am I do tell a parent what kinds of choices to make, right? I guess to that I say that I hope that parents can occasionally try to think of others outside their nuclear unit, and that they can recognize how uncomfortable it can be for a group of adults in a place designated for an adult activity to suddenly feel like they’re in a nursery. Perhaps the best way to get that feeling across would be for a group of childless adults to show up at Gymboree with a case of beer and start hanging out. It would probably feel a little wrong, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Despite these things, 2010 was a rough year. I lost both my Grandparents in April, within a week of each other, which was harder and sadder than I ever could have imagined. My partner and I went through some tough times (long distance sucks), and I had a few personal experiences that were, well, a bit traumatic. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months taking a hard, hard look at some difficult personal things, and am still in the midst of hoping that I have the fortitude to make it all come out right in the end. But one thing I know, though, is that 2011 has to be a better year. I can feel it in my bones.

I’ve had a few resolution-type things swirling through my brain for the last week or so, and I thought it was high time I get them out of my head and into some concrete form. Most broadly, I want to continue progressing on last year’s goals: Keep working to stay healthy and happy and grounded. I want to be guided in most everything I do by the drive to take care of myself. But more specifically:

• I want to read more classics this year, and finally fill in some of the gaps in my UC Santa Cruz-provided Literature education.
• I want to write more this year. I think this is the year to focus on professional writing, and really push my comfort zone in this area. I want to complete my cookbook proposal by the end of the year, and to start writing more about issues I’m interested in in the library world. My professional blog has been sadly, sadly neglected.

There are a lot of much more personal, not-for-sharing goals I have (that’s what therapy is for, right?), but I feel like for the first time, I can look back and see real progress in the year behind me. Which makes it a lot easier to feel positive about the year ahead.

You know what? Sometimes I agree that people get way too aggravated about throw-away comments and remarks. Big deals are made of things that don’t necessarily have to be big deals. In our 24-hours news world and commenting, re-tweeting, tumblr-ing culture, anger and offense tend to be blown out of proportion. It can easily seem like The Feminists are all hanging out in our woman clubhouses and creating placards for our next protest against Stephen Fry’s comments on why women don’t go cruising. But for reals, there is no such thing as The Feminists.

Yeah, I’m sorry to break it to you, but we do not have a cabal. There is no party line. There is, in fact, great disagreement among people who all identify as feminist. When a person makes an argument that is feminist, he/she is not speaking for The Feminists. And when you answer back by talking about how The Feminist Are Getting Pissed Again, those silly ladies, you are actively refusing to engage in dialogue, ignoring the statements and points that that person made. It’s belittling, and not at all constructive, and pretty much proves the point of why we still need feminism.

Constructive, compassionate dialogue involves hearing what the person you’re engaging with is saying, and I understand that people don’t really like to do that on the internet. Which is so sad, because damn, there is so much potential for meaningful communication in this tool. In order to hear what the person you are talking to is saying, you first have to acknowledge that a person is saying it, not a monolithic group of people. And that, frankly, is the only undisputed goal of feminism: To recognize that all people are people, individual and eccentric and each with our own desires, habits, thoughts, and needs. All men don’t cruise, all women don’t yearn for romantic love, all gay people don’t like the same kind of sex, and all feminists don’t hate Stephen Fry or think he’s a horrible misogynist. All feminists do not think the same; it’s not like we’re programmed, for the love of god. And all feminism is really about is wanting you to recognize and engage with each individual you encounter as an individual, without letting your preconceived ideas about how they think or what their gender (or race or class or background) says about them interfering with that.

But Peggy’s comments make complete sense in the context of the show, and I keep being surprised that other feminist writers are ignoring that. In 1965, the feminist movement didn’t exist. Women were working in the civil rights movement, and being told to fetch coffee and clean up after the people doing the “real work,” the men. The civil rights movement was, at this point, actually fairly racist. This was still a time when privileged white men thought they could fix the problems of less privileged non-white men, that it was their responsibility and in their control.

Peggy, as has been pointed out, is not a political being. It doesn’t seem like she even really knows very many black people. A lot of the ideas circulating in this time period seem pretty darn new to her. And I think the writers crafted an accurate, and even forward-thinking for its time, reaction. At this point, people weren’t talking about women’s oppression, which is made abundantly clear when Abe scoffs at the idea of a civil rights march for women. It’s true, women weren’t being shot for trying to vote (although only 60 years previously, they were beaten and arrested for trying to do the same). But I think Peggy’s reaction is exactly what I would have expected it to be, in 1965, for a person with her background and experiences.

In fact, I think it shows a very interesting foreshadowing of the early feminist movement, and I’m just surprised people aren’t seeing it that way. I guess it points up one of my frustrations with the way people sometimes talk about television. Mad Men isn’t a show that’s about trying to show us good people doing good things in a way that makes sense within our historical context. None of these characters is supposed to be a role model. This show is showing us the way it was, and Peggy’s comments are the way it was. If she’d reacted differently it would have been false.

I do think this gives us a way to talk about intersectionality, and the problems with the early feminist movement (and yes, the continuing problems within the feminist movement). I think it’s good to point out why what Peggy is saying is problematic. But it seems silly to wish this character, in this time and place, had said something else.

I, personally, am curious to see more of how Peggy’s political consciousness develops. And I think this aspect of this show can be a very useful way to talk about the beginnings of the feminist movement, and to highlight what’s still wrong with the feminist movement. This bit of dialogue in this show is a pretty good way of showing how the feminist  movement came to be what it was.  Because what it was was very much a product of its time. Just as the current feminist movement is a product of our time, and of all the things that have happened between 1965 and now. Our movement now is still far from perfect, but we can use these moments of pop culture gold to talk about those imperfections and work to change them.

Wow. Now that I’m in my early 30s I’ve discovered that the show is actually kind of infuriating. (And yet, still oddly addictive, in the same way, I think, that fashion magazines can be addictive…perhaps related to some residual, deep-seated masochism?) And these ladies? These ladies I related to and laughed with and commiserated with? Now that I’m actually their age, I loathe them. I wanted to sit down at the table with them and say, “Get a grip! And also, stop being stupid!”

It’s not just their overwhelming and unanalyzed privilege. In the beginning, that wasn’t even such a big part of the show. Sure, they had money and expensive things, but it wasn’t as obsessively flaunted. It wasn’t THE focus of the show, the way it became. Carrie isn’t ridiculously wealthy, she’s just a writer of a column, in her small studio apartment. These ladies are upper-middle class, for sure, but they have good careers, and their lifestyles seem to match those careers. Considering that the excessive consumerism is what many people seem to hate about the movie, I must admit, it wasn’t what I found myself hating about the early seasons of the show.

A lot of people also seem to really hate Samantha’s caricatured sexuality. She’s over the top, her overactive (and old) vagina is freaking people out, she seems to have no other personality other than being a big ol’ slut. Well, you know what, I’m a 90s woman at heart, and that doesn’t bother me, either. Also, I don’t think it’s true. Yes, Samantha’s sexuality is a big part of her self-identity. There are other components to Samantha’s personality that are revealed throughout the series: She’s loyal, courageous, unflinching, and, under her tough exterior, humanly vulnerable. Yeah, they push her character into some caricatured moments, but, um, it’s television. All of these women are meant to appeal to different aspects of our own, individual personalities, so sometimes they are written a bit one-note. I accept that television characters aren’t meant to be realistic, well-rounded people, and that is not what is bugging me about this show.

It isn’t (entirely) Carrie’s neuroses, either, although my younger self wasn’t as aware of them as neuroses. Yes, it’s true, I’m one of those women who relates to Carrie’s freak outs and panics. Just ask my boyfriend. But I think the SATC version of this is just an exaggerated version of something a lot of women experience: insecurity and fear, romantically, personally, and professionally. I kind of appreciate Carrie’s over the top freak outs, because they put my freak out moments in perspective, and give me a sort of alternate view of my own fears. No, Carrie’s crazy is still in some ways appealing and interesting to watch.

No, what started bugging me as I embarked on my SATC The Early Years marathon was the way various relationship behaviors (both men’s and women’s) are framed within the narrative of each episode. The show is meant to mimic Carrie’s (or rather, Candace Bushnell’s) newspaper column on sex and relationships, so each episode has a theme. Each is meant to be an investigation of a particular aspect of relationships and human sexuality in the late 20th century. But the incidents that seem to prompt each column idea/episode theme are taken wildly out of context, weirdly misconstrued, over-analyzed and mis-analyzed, and often, just plain ridiculous. And the way all the characters in this show, not just the four mains, react to these incidents, well, geez, grow up, people.

Take “The Bay of Married Pigs,” an episode in which Carrie visits married friends at their beach house, where she inadvertently sees The Husband’s penis, in a totally non-sexual context. She tells The Wife, and is promptly sent packing back to the city, where the episode becomes all about the battle between the Singles and the Marrieds. Needless to say, Marrieds appears to refer only to married women, because clearly, men are largely unchanged by marriage. In fact, married men just want to have normal relationships with people equally, regardless of gender, but harpy wives jealously guard their husbands, refusing to allow them simple, friendly contact with any single person of the opposite sex. The moment those vows are spoken, apparently women become pit bulls of matrimony, and their friendships with single women are the sad casualties of the Battle of the Womenfolk. This just makes me sad, for so, so many reasons.

And “The Drought,” in which Carrie and Mr. Big, after dating for a significant period of time, are suddenly not having sex every single time they’re together, and Carrie freaks out because, god, that can’t be normal? I hate this episode! Rather than view it as a sign that the relationship has become about something more meaningful than sex, like companionship and emotional intimacy, Carrie thinks that the sudden slow down in banging is clearly happening because she’s no longer desirable. And her friends do not immediately disagree, and reassure her that frequency of sex in a relationship is cyclical and differs from person to person and relationship to relationship, as any real friend would and should do. What’s up with that?

And ugh, “Old Dogs, New Dicks.” This whole episode, about whether a woman can change a man, is prompted by Carrie’s discomfort when Mr. Big looks at beautiful women. Instead of becoming an interesting exploration of why people continue to check out other attractive people when they’re in a happy, healthy relationship (yes, women do it, too), it becomes a silly debate about whether women can change men’s “problems” (which apparently also include being uncircumcised?). They could have been talking about relationship insecurity, whether it’s a sign of disrespect to allow your wandering eye free reign, any number of interesting things. Instead, they’re talking about molding men to better meet their needs. Gross, dude.

Overall, I think there are a lot of potentially great things to talk about in this show, and sometimes, they get it really right. But often, they get it really wrong, and instead, show that vanity, superficiality, and insecurity don’t need to be explored or questioned. And there were some episodes in the first two seasons that really made me feel like the writer(s) flat out hate women. I don’t think this show was or is required to be a deep and truthful dive into women’s real emotional lives and the difficulties of living in a patriarchal society. In fact, it wasn’t necessarily written that way. However, it was often interpreted that way (well, maybe minus the patriarchal society bit). And it was, at least in my experience, often watched that way. Many women identified with the characters and the scenarios, and often with the conclusions that each episode reaches about what being a woman in the late 20th century really means. And that part is what really makes me cringe.

In some ways, the over-the-top travesty of consumerism, colonialism, and self-absorption that is Sex and the City 2 can be seen in the early episodes. So maybe it’s a good thing that this movie is being viewed as a ridiculous, unrealistic romp of summertime silliness. Because the early years of the show were not necessarily read as frivolous. And it’s just sad that these ridiculous attitudes toward relationships and womanhood were, and sometimes still are, taken seriously as some kind of glimpse into the lives of Real Women. (And don’t even get me started on what SATC says about men…)

The belief that weight and health are synonymous has become a given in modern America. If you try to argue that overweight itself isn’t a health issue, people will almost invariably look at you like you’re either ignorant, a lunatic, or both. To be honest, I don’t argue that overweight is healthy, but I do think we’ve lost touch completely with what healthy weight really is, and that our insistence on thinness has far more drastic health consequences than being a few pounds overweight ever would. This really hit home for me recently, when I was at the doctor’s office getting my annual physical. After I finished graduate school, I was able to get back into a regular exercise routine, and I decided it was really time to start eating more healthily, as well. I would be lying my face off if I said that weight loss wasn’t a goal, and so I was starting to feel really disappointed that the numbers on the scale weren’t coming down. But when I went in for my annual exam, my doctor told me that my blood pressure was very low (after two years of increases, when I wasn’t working out and wasn’t always eating that well) and that my heart rate and oxygen levels were terrific. And suddenly I got it. I got what I’d been unsuccessfully trying to convince myself of for years: The numbers on the scale and the size of my booty have very little to do with how healthy I am.

The range of shapes considered acceptable for women’s bodies has become so narrow that, these days, I think there’s pretty much one acceptable shape: almost non-existent. Sure, every now and then you have your Christina Hendricks or…well, um, I can’t even think of another famous woman who doesn’t resemble a toothpick. But the fact that women like Christina Hendricks receive so much attention (and are actually called fat!!) proves how distorted our sense of women’s bodies has become. I could get into my theories about why we are forcing women into smaller and smaller shapes (I think it has to do with fear of women’s power), but that’s really a rant for a different day. Because today I’m talking about health, and wow, we have become so delusional about what healthy bodies look like. Recently there were a few fashion spreads in very fancy women’s magazines like Elle and V that featured plus-size models, and it was a very big deal on the Lady Blogs and even in some mainstream newspapers and whatnot. Because Wow! Aspirational fashion magazines showing women bigger than a size 0! It’s just crazy! And the thing was, these women are all absolutely stunning. I mean, of course they are, they are models. But they are really beautiful, and they all looked so incredibly healthy, with their clear, clear skin and shiny, shiny hair and strong-looking bodies. And for me, it was a moment of really recognizing that health can come in all kinds of shapes and all kinds of sizes, and that health is really what is beautiful, not skinny legs. And yet, these women are relegated to the Fat Lady Issue, and we are all talking heatedly about how big someone should be to be considered plus size, and what fat really is, and whether these beautiful models are fat or not, and no one (at least not that I read) raised the point that these women are healthy, and that they are bigger than what we are normally told is healthy, and that therefore the correlation between weight and health is probably not as clear cut and drastic as we have all been thinking it is.

Our insistence that thin is healthy doesn’t just make it difficult to recognize that bigger women can be healthy, it makes it difficult to recognize that thin women can be unhealthy. And it makes it hard for us all to learn how to be truly healthy. We are a culture that thinks 100 calorie Special K bars and meal-replacements shakes are good for us, because they might help us lose weight. We are a culture that equates working out with punishment that must be endured so we can enjoy chocolate later on. And we are a culture that makes women who take care of themselves, but might still have bellies and hips, feel like failures. These attitudes are not healthy, although they might make us skinny (although honestly, probably not). And these attitudes allow us to claim we know something about someone’s health based on their size, and allow us to pass judgment publicly on people we don’t even know.

A lot of well-intentioned people push the opposite stance, that thin is unhealthy. Or they attempt to make the claim that obesity is perfectly fine. And I’m not trying to make either of those claims. The fact is that severe overweight can be an indicator of health problems, and being healthy requires eating better food and getting regular exercise. People who don’t do these things are not likely to be very healthy. But if you do eat well and move your body frequently, you will be more healthy no matter what size pants you wear. And it would really behoove us all to allow more healthy women in bigger pants to be in our magazines and our movies and our tv shows, without making them talk about their constant diets, without making them justify why they are allowed to eat eggs or hamburgers, and without making assumptions about their longevity and what their doctors tell them.

And yeah, I specifically say that we should probably show a wider diversity of women’s bodies because we already show a wider diversity of men’s bodies without a whole lot of commentary. Before you menfolk jump down my throat about how being an overweight man is just as difficult, let me say that I do recognize that we are beginning to be pretty darn judgmental of men’s bodies, too, and that we aren’t always kind to overweight men, and that, yes, most of the men on television are conventionally hot and physically fit. However, men’s bodies simply are not policed to the same extent that women’s are in popular culture, period. That point was made very clearly to me during the aforementioned Gabourey Sidibe-Howard Stern debacle when someone said that actors like Chris Farley and John Belushi were never singled out for the same kind of vitriol and judgment as Sidibe, and Kirstie Alley, and Oprah herself, have received. Sure, overweight men deal with prejudice, too, but not nearly to the same cruel and ruthless extent as women. As I said earlier, though, I have my theories on why that is, and that is a topic for another day.

I live across the street from a housing project, and every night I see young families buying their “dinners” at a crappy convenience store, dinners that generally consist of sugar-flavored water, potato chips, candy, and frozen, processed food. The market does sell some produce, but none of it looks that good. The closest grocery store is an overpriced food co-op that I often can’t even afford to shop in, and I’m not trying to feed small children on a super limited budget. The restaurants in the neighborhood are mostly pubs, sub shops, or high priced bistros. There is a very clear demarcation in my neighborhood between the people who have money and can afford to eat well, and those who don’t, and therefore, can’t.

I am all for using the power of the government to get better, healthier food into neighborhoods that need it. Frankly, when a company like McDonald’s claims its free speech rights are being violated when it’s pushed out of a neighborhood, I feel more nauseous than I would if I had eaten one of their crap burgers. We’ve let corporations have free reign far too long, and it’s been proven that they aren’t doing us any favors. I’m fully behind a community telling them to get the hell out, even if they do use overblown rhetoric to do so.