accidental feminist

the yosefblog abides May 8, 2008

The 45 second walk from your hall duty in the A building to your Department Coordinator’s office in the C Building is the longest 45 seconds of your life iff (that is spelled correctly, for those who don’t know elementary logic) you are greeted by said Coordinator with the words: “Your father is on the phone; it’s about Yosef”. The thoughts went like this:

1. He is dead.
2. You are melodramatic and have a hyperactive and highly literary imagination.
3. Therefore, it is unlikely that he is dead.
4. But he probably got in a car crash and is in a coma.

Or, option 5, he inexplicably fainted on the el platform. He is fine, and decidedly not dead. But he cannot drive for at least two weeks, which makes him “dead weight” (no? too soon?).

In all sincerity, though, the thoughts go through your head so quickly, and one of the ones that was nearly half formulated and only barely coherent, like a dull headache coming on, was this: This person is my perfect match (although I have always wanted us to create profiles on eharmony and see if it matches us up, just to verify this suspicion with 29 scientifically proven points of compatibility), and he could be gone, and I am but a wee lass of 30; how could I possibly “start over”? How could I replicate that? Could the universe be so indifferent to my desires (Werner Herzog would say “yes, neccessarily”)? Only now, as I have more than 45 seconds to consider this thought, do I realize that there are so many people in the world, as sure of the “perfection” of their relationships, that have had that person taken from them in an instant. It is terrifying and comforting to know that the human brain is adaptable enough that such an event will most likely not kill you, the survivor, and that you will, in fact, find a way to move on. But for those few seconds when I actually thought my life might actually turn out like that, I was weighed down by that possibility, and the realness it had in those moments before I picked up that phone.

Now, anyone want to drive my gimp husband around for the next two weeks?

what not to watch April 25, 2008

Evanston Athletic Club has, like any respectable athletic club, televisions mounted to the front of their cardio machines. Although their lack of a DVR that would allow me to watch my choice of programming is a serious design flaw, they do have cable, and I can usually find something to watch for 45 minutes. In fact, I’ve developed a playlist of sorts of “work out” shows, i.e. shows that I would never choose to waste my time watching at home, but that somehow become incredibly appealing once I’m stuck on an ellipital machine. Ooh. Ooh. Is this the season where Chandler and Monica are married? Hmmm…they really do look “Ten Years Younger”! Oh, Chris Matthews, you’re so happy with yourself!

I have learned, however, that there are certain things you cannot watch while working out:
1. “The Godfather”- depressing tragic hero + bloody ass kicking + increased heart rate + vague smell of someone else’s sweat = nausea.

2. Anything on “E!”*- schadenfreude + public embarassment when the person next to you sees that you’re watching it + the strong stench of the guy next to you ripping a big one = nausea

*Note: You may be able to get away with watching “The Soup” because “Hey, I’m mocking this vapid, celebrity-worshipping culture! Really!”

3. HGTV - Actually, there’s never really a reason to watch HGTV. “Whoa! That guy built his house in the shape of a Smurf mushroom cottage! That’s weird…I’m bored…”

a second in what appears to be a series of suburban mother rants April 15, 2008

Um, okay. How do I explain this? When you make my latte without foam, and I get up the nerve to point this out to you, which is very out of character for me and I hate doing, but which my friend who works at Starbucks has encouraged me to to in order to provide proper feedback to baristas regarding their milk foaming abilities, and you fix the problem by taking that very same non-foamed latte and scooping some foam onto it from some unrelated metal “milk foaming” pitcher you are not fixing the problem. (If, however, you are placing foam from the very pitcher in which you foamed my milk in the first place, I may be more lenient; but I’m not happy).

My Starbucks employee friend can back me on this: hot, unfoamed milk and hot, foamed milk taste different.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m late to my daughter’s soccer practice and I still have to pick up the Capri Sun for the team snack. Good thing I have this mini-van to fit them all!

certain notes on the use of reusable shopping bags April 14, 2008

First of all, let it be known that I am not an active environmentalist. I don’t compost; I don’t go out of my way to recycle the glass that my landlord refuses to put in our regular recycling; I don’t take fast showers. But I am an environmental pragmatist. If aiding the environment is made into an economically beneficial option (and here I use “economically in a broad sense of exchange, and not just monetarily), then I will do it. It’s why I sent the cover of my recent Newsweek, filled with Target bags, to Tercycle. And it seems I am not alone, since it is clear that the reusable shopping bag has recently reached a tipping point. And I am on the bandwagon.

(Sit tight; that was just the prologue…)

So I go shopping at the big mega-Jewel on Howard tonight, since I have to fill several prescriptions there. I usually shop at the much smaller but well-stocked Dominick’s on Green Bay, but, things as they are…

So I get to the check out and proudly lay my reusable shopping bags on the conveyor belt. Things seem to be going fine, although the bagger is skimping on the bag-filling a bit. I reach over to help her load some light cereal boxes on top of the meat. Now, I’m feeling a little micro-managey at this point, so I back off. What happens next I would not believe but that I witnessed it myself. After half filling two of my three enormous bags, she leaves the third next to her and begins double plastic bagging the rest of the items. She used an entire bag for one matza box. Another for a package of chicken. And the kicker, she bags my freaking 12 roll toilet paper package. That thing barely even fits in a bag.

At this point, dear reader, I assume you are asking: Why would this dumb-shit bagger (and I’m not saying all of them are) use even more plastic bags than is normal for a person who has brought her own reusable bags? Alas, I cannot answer this question; but I can finish my epic tale…

Now I notice the unused bag, and remark as such to my foolish bagger. She smiles a sheepish grin, opens the bag, and proceeds to place the already half-filled plastic bags into my bag. I am dumbstuck, nay, awestruck, at her complete obliviousness. Rather than trying to stop her, I wait patiently until she is done, then move myself and my cart to the side, dump all of the contents of the plastic bags into my bag, and shove all of the plastic bags into the bagging station of the register next to mine. “Take your god damn bags!” I cry in my head. Then I turn and smile at the bagger, thank her, and head out into the cool night air.

“isn’t that something that old people get?” April 11, 2008

A thirty year old woman should not approach a colonoscopy like one approaches a yearly teeth cleaning. Next thing you know, It’ll be all “Doesn’t everyone have an enlarged prostate?” and “Time for my monthly blood letting…”

happy birthday, dina. April 6, 2008

My good friend recently wrote a very insightful post about bratz, and, shocked as I am to be disagreeing with her, I’m going to have to go out on a limb on this one and say that…

those things are f-ing vile! Are they 21 year old hookers? 8 year old nymphets? 90 year old plastic surgery addicts? They are awful! Awful! Awful!

So when Dina got this for her birthday today, I was beside myself.

“But I looooove it Mommy!”

Yes, and it’s Mommy’s job, just sometimes, to save you from yourself.

I’m all for positive body image. I’m all for being open with children about sexuality. And yet, and yet…I envision the next line of bratz dolls: Polly Porn Star! Comes with wax strips and asshole bleaching kit.

Was that shocking to some of you? Now you know how I feel…

a cautionary tale… April 1, 2008

…to those women who have cultivated the habit of taking food or drink from their husband’s plate/glass without asking first:

It started as a normal interaction. I had put my antibiotic in my mouth, and didn’t want to walk to the kitchen to get a drink of water to swig it down with. Yosef had in his glass what seemed to be that watery ice/soda mixture that occurs when you’re done drinking and you leave it to melt. Naturally, I grabbed it and poured it toward my lips.

But before it even got there, I noticed something; a sweet yet pungent smell. Only upon actually collecting some of the liquid in my mouth did I place the scent: it was twelve year old Scotch.

Yosefblog, realizing what had just happened, could only laugh at my folly. And I certainly learned my lesson: don’t drink that mixture of melted ice and soda at the bottom of the glass, because it just might be alcohol.

Open Letter to Tom Brady February 3, 2008

Dear Tom:

Yes, for the second year in a row, I actually cared who won the Super Bowl (and not just because I was nostalgic for the Super Bowl Shuffle™ like last year!) Oh, Tom, you are surely the better quarterback: you are more talented, more handsome, more awesomer. You don’t do as funny a commercial as Eli, but, hey, i get it, you’re a leading man type, not a character actor.

But you just couldn’t seem to throw that ball tonight, Tom. Did you see that play when Eli just kept running, even when they were hanging off his jersey like little monkeys, then chucked it up to whichever Giants receiver it was (see? I didn’t even bother to learn their names, Tom; that’s how little they meant to me), and that guy caught the ball between his hand and his helmet and just held it like it was gonna run away? That was a sweet play! Why didn’t you make it?

And yet, despite the fact that you sullied what would have been a record-breaking 19-0 season, you are still super awesome because you will still go home to Giselle, although tonight you may be too tired to reap your just desserts (read: lick whipped cream off her perfect body).

I did, however, and please forgive me, have this sick fantasy that somehow Payton would find his way to her box during the game and charm her with his down-home, laid-back style, thereby having you get screwed by both brothers in one night.

Probably a long shot, huh? Sort of like the Giants’ win tonight. Oh, uh-uh, I din’t. Yes, Tom, I did.

Happy New Years! December 27, 2007

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, the way I don’t believe in Truth or Dare (as in: I am no more or less likely to do something because I am dared to do so, or because it is January 1st). So it has nothing to do with December ending that I am considering joining the Evanston Athletic Club. It has to do with other considerations, like the fact that:
1) this year, I was transfered to the Freshman campus of the high school at which I am employed, and it does not have a Faculty Workout Room. (And yes, I did use the Faculty Workout Room at the other campus last year; obsessively; like, to the extent that the other teachers called me “hard core”.)
2) I got winded walking up to the top of the balcony at the United Center last night (where I watched the Blackhawks beat the Predators, and then missed the last 1 1/2 minutes of the game to take my daughters to the bathroom, thereby missing what yosefblog has called “the greatest hockey fight he has ever seen”).
3) my daughters have taken to calling me “squishy Mommy”.

Here’s to a new year filled with Cardio Funk and Spinning classes (and the DQ Blizzards I’ll reward myself with by participating in them).

I am cultured, do you hear me? Cultured! November 24, 2007

Yes. Yosef and I have been watching old foreign films, like “Breathless” and “Wild Strawberries”. In fact, “Wild Strawberries” was my first Bergman film ever, I think. And unlike when I saw “La Strada” and thought to myself “Uh, was I supposed to like that or risk being thought uncivilized?” (a question my college boyfriend answered for me when I mistakenly thought our relationship was built on enough honesty for me to ask it out loud; the answer, in case you were wondering, is “yes”. In fact, he spent most of our relationship acting like he liked things that would make him appear very cultured, like “Der Fledermaus” and Nat Sherman cigarettes; I think he almost threw up on me when I admitted that, while I appreciated the Marx Brothers, I didn’t laugh out loud to all the jokes in “Duck Soup”. Now, where was I…?), I actually loved this film. I can see why Woody Allen loves Bergman, too, what with all the self-absorbed and tortured characters and flashbacks to equally uneventful, self-absorbed, and tortured childhoods. Bergman shows that you needn’t live through extraordinary times or events to have lived a life worth consideration.

Also, Bibi Andersson is an awesome actress (yb and I had no clue she played both “Sara” characters), and she’s the quintessential hot Swedish girl.