accidental feminist

like I’m supposed to know… September 27, 2005

The school I work at has recently had the great fortune of having a wealthy and altruistic donor provide us with educationally valuable ancient artifacts, fossils, and other fun stuff. Today, after the staff meeting, we were invited to peruse the collection. It was pretty thrilling. I’m not usually allowed to handle cross-sections of millions of year old meteorites or fossilized velociraptor eggs.

So I’m over in the fossil section, and among the objects there’s a lovely chunk of fossilized dinosaur poop. Yes, prehistoric feces. The donor approaches the table and smiles. “When students ask if this one is real, I tell them to smell it.” I’m intruigued. Can a fossil retain an odor? Can it tranfer this odor to other objects? Should I smell it? I give an aprehensive look, but I’m ready to take one for science, so I start to bring the piece of doo doo to my nose.

That’s when everyone around me laughs. “Of course it doesn’t smell,” the donor tells me, “it’s a fossil!”

I’m less embarassed than I am disappointed. It doesn’t? Look, what do I know…I’m just a caveman…

evita= man that antonio banderas can sing! September 26, 2005

It’s a lot like my pleasant surprise with Richard Gere’s performance in “Chicago.” You think of an actor one way (read: dull and talentless, trying to cash in on undeniable or questionable good looks), only to find out that you should be thinking of him wholly differently (read: not an actor with any depth at all, but a schmaltzy triple threat with a lovely tenor voice). And I have to admit, that accent (Banderas, not Gere), is just to die for.

What? Madonna was in it, too? Whatever…

must have been bassie! September 22, 2005

In preparation for Rosh Hashana, Bassie’s Pre-School class had been talking about apples. When Yosef went to pick her up the other day, he saw a bulletin board outside the room with a list of all of the things the kids knew about apples. “They’re round” one said. Thanks, Sherlock! “They have stickers on them,” said another. A little more observant, but completely peripheral! “They have vitamin C!” A mother turned to Yosef. “That one must have been Bassie!” Yes, it turns out, it was Bassie. So, only two weeks into formalized education and she’s already impressing the other mothers. Hopefully someday she and I can bond about how weird and uncomfortable it is to listen to your friends’ parents use you as an example of excellence while chastising their own children for not being “like Bassie.”

A mother can dream…

eternal vertigo of the blood brain barrier September 21, 2005

So it’s been about two weeks now that I have had this feeling of moderate vertigo. It basically feels like I’m drunk, but not any of the good parts. My head’s in a fog, but not enough to say silly things and get away with it; I feel like I’m floating when I walk, but not enough to just faint and get it over with. This morning when I awoke, it seemed to have subsided, and I went through about three hours of relative normalcy. Then, suddenly, as I sat at a teachers’ meeting, it crept up on me. “No! No! No!” I thought. It felt like a Vietnam flashback that I was powerless to stop.

If this is how people who chronically abuse substances live, I would be happy to go on a speaking tour of middle schools to describe how much it sucks!

muma dena September 17, 2005

Congrats to the happy couple! I’ll refrain from waxing gender-issues about marriage, weddings, etc., and simply offer you a repeat of the brocha I gave Dena right before Dovid came to turn down her veil:

You should be as happy in your marriage as I am in mine. And I’ll add now, that how you get there is up to you…)

Love and kisses, you crazy kids!

“crash” course in Indian culture

Below is the list of interesting cultural tidbits I learned while flying Air India (keeping in mind that my analysis is limited, nay, stifled, by my complete ignorance of Indian culture at-large, and is completely dependent on the conclusions to which I have jumped after less than 13 hours exposure…):

1) Indians, like Eastern European Jews, seem to have missing DNA in the strand having to do with time management. Not only was our departure from London 2 hours behind schedule (”Only two hours!” said those who know of Air India’s reputation), but none of the “natives” waiting at the terminal seemed in the least bit vexed. “Hey! We’ve got a connecting flight to catch!” I complained to the flight attendant in the air. She just smiled. “Everything will be fine,” she assured me…We missed our connecting flight.

2) Indian flight attendants (female) wear sarees, which rocks! They were also incredibly polite, but demure, unlike the stereotypical American flight attendant who is supposed to be abnormally and sometimes annoyingly (depending on your level of motion sickness) chipper.

3) It is neither an indication of a specific sexual orientation nor mafia-connection for a man to wear multiple “fashion” rings, preferably gold (it looks better against their skin tone than silver, I think). Even the “regular guys” in the Indian tv shows we saw, who were wearing polos and jeans, were decked out in regal and gleaming finger-wear. Not my taste, but it does seem to work for them, which leads to…

4) Indian guys are total studs! I mean, at least that’s the way they are portrayed in the several music videos we saw. But, I mean, aren’t music videos liekly to be accurate representations of real life, especially with regards to gender interactions?

) There’s this coy smile and head flick that the women use when they dance for men. It was pretty consistent in both the movie and several music videos. It made me wonder what facial expressions or postures have become built into gender interactions in America, and are such second nature to us that we might not even know when we are using them, and do not consciously recongnize when we see others use them.

Kind of like when my students imitate me, and I’m shocked by how they perceive me. “Do I really whine and dig my toes nervously into the ground like a five year old when I’m annoyed? Wow. That’s, like, pathological, or something…”

the kids without packpacks on the first day of school September 7, 2005

You know who I’m talking about. They’re the same kids whose parent is always at least ten minutes late picking them up every day. The same kids who forget to turn in the permission slip for the special lunch day and have to eat tuna salad while everyone else gets pizza and soda. The kids I never wanted my kids to be. So what went wrong?

You see, I have these obsessive planning urges. I was the little girl who would set up my birthday party paper goods three days before the party and not let anyone touch them; who would buy a Chandlers in the middle of the summer, then lose it before school even started. So, against my nature, I did not buy my children backpacks. “Wait until school starts, then you’ll see what they need. Otherwise they’re going to have six backpacks on wheels and four lunch boxes before September.” So I dug in my heels, bided my time. Only to get a call from my husband today. “Our kids were the only ones without backpacks!” Panic struck. The other kids must have already picked out nicknames for them. “Naked-Back” or “girl with the JCrew bag full of school supplies.” They won’t get invited to birthday parties. People will blame lice breakouts on them!

Yosef reassures me: “Don’t worry, it’s not like they’re eight.”

my children no longer need me September 6, 2005

“No, Mommy, I’ll serve myself, I want to decide how much corn I get.”
“But, Bassie, Mommy wants to do it.”
“I can do it myself.”
“But, honey, Mommy is the grown-up.”
“But I know how much corn I want.”
“Look, just let Mommy momentarily squeltch the feelings of guilt and neglect that have arisen due to her recent return to work!”
(shaking head sadly) “Okay, Mommy, you can do the corn.”

Yes, while I write this my 2.5 year old is taking a shower (that’s right, a shower), while my almost four year old helps herself to some apple juice to go with her pudding pie.

As I label their socks, baby wipes, and anything else to which permanent marker will take, with their little names in preparation for their first day of preschool, I’m overwhelmed. I’m so glad that I did what I did for as long as I did. Staying at home with them for the first several years is a choice I will never regret. And at the same time, I almost feel guilty about not feeling guilty about going back to work now. It helps to know that my husband will be picking them up from school; that they’ll be cared for by a loving parent (who is significantly more practial, neat, and organized than I am, by the way. When people joke with me that I will come home every day to all of the cushions off the couches and chocolate syrup in the kids’ hair, I respond, “No, no, that’s when I’m with them. He’ll have ‘em vacuuming the carpets.”)

Kind little Dina has already begun a ritual with which to greet me at the door at the end of my work day. she jumps onto my lap. “Mommy, I missed you!” It’s kind of her to throw me that bone…

today’s shopping stream-of-conciousness September 4, 2005

hey i don’t have work today. I should go shopping. I’ve really wanted a velvet blazer ever since I read about them in the wall street journal. maybe my mom with go with me; that would be easier with the kids. okay here we are. jcrew first. don’t back down on the velvet blazer. focus. ooh ooh cute pencil jean skirts, argyle sweaters are back this winter, awesome. focus. velvet blazer. ooh ooh so many colors. my eye went for the green first. go with your instinct. $138? no no too much. but it looks so cute on, and it’s really well made. I would wear it all the time. no. I can’t justify the price, especially with my bargain-hunting mother at my side. yet now I must buy $150 of other clothing that I didn’t come here for in order to make myself feel better about not getting this expensive item (i.e. “Look how many stuffs I got for just a little bit more than that one stuff that I came here to buy.”) must get pencil skirt and two sale t-shirts. actually these will come in handy, maybe even more than the blazer. this was a good move. and I can always see if the blazer goes on sale. no point in buying something I’m going to feel guilty about every time I wear it…

go to gap; buy two sweaters on sale then get in line and annoy everyone behind me by continually stepping out of line to look for something I can impetuously throw into my pile. there. a dark red cordouroy skirt that doesn’t quite fit in the waist. okay, that was a bad idea but I can’t just return it now. that would be admitting defeat. I know. I need a belt. I’ll exchange the skirt for the belt. okay that’s it. time to go home. now clean out the closets and take the old stuff to the donation boxes in the Target parking lot. hey maybe they have velvet blazers at Target. no I should have known better. velvet is too expensive a fabric. but maybe this cordouroy blazer would work. no no snap out of it. it’s not the jcrew velvet blazer that you wanted. okay go look for a purse or something. oh my God it’s my mom. why is she here? it’s that shopping vibe…once you get it you need to just ride it out. just walk out and tell her later that you saw her at Target but were in a hurry. that’s pretty ridiculous, not saying hi to your mom when you see her at Target. but there’s something embarassing about being caught trying to find a velvet blazer at Target after spending three hours and $150 with her at Old Orchard this morning and walking out without that very item. seeing her here reminds me of that line from the producers when bialystock gets bloom to play hooky: if someone sees us, then why aren’t they at work? oh well, I’m already out the door. I’ll just call her later…

Proving once again that even the most otherwise rational of women can become mindless suburban mallophiles if given the proper stimulus.

love potion number mine

As the second in an ongoing series on the gender images that shaped my childhood, I’m reminded of one of my strange fascinations growing up, and I may finally have an insight as to why the concept bewitched me so.

You’re all familiar with it: the evil queen with the magic spell that makes any man fall in love with her; the villainess who seduces the superhero with her poison perfume. As a young girl, I sometimes had fantasies of having such supernatural powers; a potion or spell I could have at my disposal to bring men to their knees. What would I do with so many admirers? The question didn’t seem to bother me. I would simply collect them.
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