accidental feminist

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.

Homecoming! October 12, 2007

It’s weird teaching high school sometimes. How can I explain? Well, you know all of those awkward, strange, beautiful, and painful moments you experienced between the ages of 14-18? Imagine having to vicariously relive them every year of your life. Having to awkwardly feign school spirit, having to watch as teenage relationships bud and blossom, then crash and burn before your eyes, all hindged on who gets asked to a 3-hour dance in the gym? And, to make it all the more ironic, you teach at a school that is in the same conference as the one where John Hughes went to school. So not only are you reliving high-school memories past, but you’re reliving the collective high school memories of an entire generation of Americans. To those of us who lived through it, this is what a school library looks like, this is what happens at the Von Steuben Day Parade (that’s right, Von Steuben Day), and this is every high school boy’s dream girl.

ER (but not as sexy) October 8, 2007

Yes, y’all, I had a brush with my chronic disease over the weekend, and I prevailed! Nothing like getting an abscess lanced without any painkiller to perk you up on a Saturday night. Yummy! And now that I’m home, I want to thank all of you who called, texted, emailed, visited, and just thought well of me these past few days. And to those of you who didn’t know about my little incident…(as I put on my best Jewish Bubbe voice) I didn’t want that you should worry. Better you didn’t know. Anyway, who am I but an old women, already? You, you’ve got a life yet to live, bubbele. Don’t mind me. I’ll just be over here bleeding on the carpet…

stranger than disco? September 7, 2007

Whilst at my desk earlier today, I heard music. It was coming from my colleague’s headphones. It was the Bee Gees; “More Than a Woman”. Later, I went to pick up some challah for the upcoming Sabbath. As I entered the bakery, what should be playing, but “Night Fever”, also by the Bee Gees; also from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack (as all good Bee Gees songs are). It was as though I were in some meta-retro romantic comedy docudrama where the ghost of John Travolta is following me (even though he’s still alive) and I am reliving the whole film, but as a 21st century female protagonist, trying to fix the mistakes his character made the first time around. If only I had listened to Joey when he said he was in trouble. If only I hadn’t let my friends gang bang that sweet girl (btw: one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in all of cinema). If only…if only…if only I hadn’t been in “Michael”. Sigh…

elevator snafu August 31, 2007

Myself and Ms. X (to protect the guilty) are in the elevator at work.

Ms. X: I like your shoes.

Myself: Yeah, I have two pair of the same ones. You know, once you find a pair you like…

Elevator stops at 3th floor and picks up a passenger, Mr. Y.

Ms. X: Yeah, I really need to buy new clothes, but I’m doing some augmentation on my unit right now, so I have to wait.

Elevator opens at 4th floor and Mr. Y gets out. We continue to the 5th floor.

Myself: What are you talking about?!

Ms.: My condo, I’m getting work done on it.

Myself: Oh, okay, cause, just so you know, Mr. Y now thinks you’re a trannie.

married (with blogs) August 25, 2007

The following is a dramatization of true events:

yosefblog: Hey, Eva Mendes worked out at my club today.

accidentalfeminist: Oh, wow. So, was she, like, hot?

yb: (pause) Yeah…yes she was.

af: She’s, like, supposed to be curvy; well, curvier than the average skinny Hollywood girl. Was she?

yb: She was pretty thin. I mean, the camera really does add ten pounds.

af: Oh, so she was too skinny?

yb: Oh, no, she was still hot.

af: But, not really hot, right?

yb: (Silence)

af: Oh.

while dining al fresco… August 14, 2007

Lady at the table next to me: (to waitress) We’ll have bottled water.

Waitress: Okay.

LATTNTM: No fancy glasses or anything. These (picking up perfectly nice glass on table) will be fine (ed.- why wouldn’t it be?). Just…bottled. You know, any brand is fine. Just…bottled.

Waitress: Sure.

Husband of LAATNTM walks up and sits down.

LATTNTM: I ordered bottled water.

Pause.

LATTNTM: I should have said “not sparkling”. Oh well.

Pause. Man comes to put bread on the table.

LATTNTM: (to random bread guy who has nothing to do with her order) I ordered bottled water. (Pause) I don’t want sparkling. (Pause) Just bottled. In these glasses (picking up glass again) is fine. But not sparkling.

Bread Man: (confused) Okay. (starts to walk away).

LATTNTM: Any brand is fine.

A few minutes go by.

LATTNTM: (to her husband) I should have said ice cold, but, oh well.

The water arrives. It’s some Italian brand I’ve never heard of. She eyes the label suspiciously, but says nothing.

LATTNTM: It’s ridiculous really. I mean, she can’t find her way there on the subway? College kids today are so coddled, they can’t do anything for themselves…and your brother just encourages it.

Ah, yes, nothing is good enough for you, LATTNTM. No one is good enough for you, LATTNTM. And yet, every time you order your precious bottled water you are using up precious resources to package and ship across the country what is, for all purposes, tap water, no better than the stuff the young man pours into my glass so diligently each time he sees it depleted. Read it and weep, LATTNTM. Any tears will do. And you can just put them in this glass (I hold up my empty water glass to catch her crocodile tears).