This is a sincere promo post about Disney on Ice
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Don't roll your eyes at me -- I come bearing coupons!So listen, my kids are MAJOR fans of Disney on Ice (any one, they aren't picky) and frankly Disney ought to hire them to promote the show because honestly nobody else does a better job. Right now a bunch of parents we know are either cursing my name or buying tickets to the show (although, upon reflection, it's not mutually exclusive lol).
The kids are currently hoppier than a grasshopper in a field of clover and more excited than for Halloween because tomorrow we are going to see Disney on Ice's 100 Years of Magic.
I am really glad it is tomorrow because I told them a week ago that we were going and it's been a chorus of "are we there yet?" ever since. And we're excited about it too because it IS a great and entertaining show. I can't ice skate in simple clothes clutching a wall so to watch these athletes glide around in elaborate costumes wows me every time.
I'll be back later with photos and stories (you may comment on the cuteness of the kids) but in the meantime I wanted to tell you tomorrow is opening night and if you want to go, there's a coupon code. Here are the details:
Use code: MOM**
Get 4 tickets for $44 weekday or $4 off on weekends
You can buy tickets at ticketmaster <-- that link also has date, time and location details
Labels: family fun
posted by Julie Pippert @ 2:38 PM,
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There are worse things I could do
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
It's a jungle out there, which requires skilled juggling and a bag of tricks, too.When Grease! (the movie) came out, my friends and I went Grease-crazy. Everyone bought the album, and we poured over the foldout album cover's yearbook style collection of photos. We tried to decide which T-Birds were cute versus too greaser, and which photo of Danny and Sandy was best. Meanwhile, the vinyl record played on the record player in the background, repeating the songs until they were burned into my brain for thirty years (and probably beyond).
For my birthday, I had a fifties themed party that year. All the kids came in rolled up jeans and tee-shirt or puffy poodle skirts. I have the photos still, and there we are dancing, singing, and mugging in a big group for the camera. It's amazing how period-perfect we looked. It's amazing how carefree and happy we were.
When I look at the photos, I remember other things beyond the giant amount of fun we had at my party, beyond how thrilled I was when the first doorbell chimed with the first guest. I remember how my entire birthday nearly crashed and burned before it even happened, courtesy of a very mean girl who lived on my street. And I remember how Grease fixed it.
Most girls liked Summer Nights or Hopelessly Devoted, and I did too, but this little heart-breaker from Rizzo (Stockard Channing) was my favorite.
Grease was the first time I caught a hint that the incredibly scary Girl World (via Rosalind Wiseman) I inhabited was not my own personal limited experience (and occasional nightmare). Here was an entire movie about the scary dynamics between girls, their friends, and boys, too. It was, apparently, a universal truth, a universal experience. That truly helped to know. The movie played to sterotypes but not too deeply. Each female character had a little bit of complication and depth:
You had Betty Rizzo, the head Pink Lady. A tough girl. Hard of mouth and hard of heart. Sexy. The school loose girl. Plays insider jokes to heighten a sense (or fear of) exclusion. Sets up pranks and prats for Sandy, the new girl, to trip over. The Mean Girl.
Then there was Marty, often Rizzo's right-hand girl. Pen pal to a long billfold full of servicemen. Goes for older guys. Flirtatious. Hints of sweetness and innocence, or wicked irony in naming her after a cherry that's been popped and pickled. Borrowed sophistication.
Frenchie was the girl who floated around the edges of the Pink Ladies, and tried to truly befriend Sandy, but not enough to stand up for her when the ladies target her. Frenchie has her own issues, anyway.
Jan, the class clown who seemed to follow Rizzo more often than not.
Last but not least, you had Sandy Olsson, the new girl, the good girl, the one who is just trying to be nice and yet somehow inadvertently stepped all over toes everywhere while trying to figure out who she is and how she fits in.
The quintessential coming of age story.
Also? The quintessential Girl World movie. Well before anything starring Lindsay Lohan. A whole generation before, in fact.
Shelley was the Rizzo of our neighborhood, and Moria was her Marty/Frenchie. Mine as well. Shelley was completely a power player -- a player with power. She was the youngest of older parents, with older siblings. Her older siblings were in high school and could barely spare us a glance. She was incredibly spoiled. She got more money, candy, and TV than the rest of us combined. She also got a lot more freedom. And she used that liberally.
She'd plan trips to the corner store, which required walking up a major road for several blocks. My mother put her foot down with a big no. Shelley sweetened the pot saying she'd buy everyone a bubblegum who came. I pleaded. I whined. I threatened. My mother held firm. And so I'd watch the kids tromp off with Shelley, who had the lead, of course. She'd tell them how to walk and which songs to sing. They all came home with new bubblegum card packs. How I felt: my mother was in my way of maintaining my position in the pack. She was ruining my life. And it was all Shelley's fault, too.
Shelley moved in after we did, and by the time she arrived, my sister and I were good friends with the two sisters next door -- by luck we were all of an age. Shelley leapt into the center of that, of course. She offered constant tests of her friendship and friends' loyalty to her. She'd dare them, challenge them to prove how they'd do anything for her, for her friendship, and the kids invariably did.
Except me.
And thus began the battle.
By the time my birthday rolled around, the war was in full heat. Shelley threatened to tell everyone to skip my birthday. Much drama and threats and tears and yelling and more drama ensued. I wish I remember exactly how it all worked out, but my memory gets a little hazy at that point. I think some of the mothers talked and the kids were given no choice. Except, maybe, Shelley. She never said one way or another whether she was coming, but in the end, with the entire neighborhood and our friends all there, she came. The last guest to arrive.
I remember her arrival and how I tensed. Missy, my lifelong good friend who went to another school and lived in another neighborhood, had heard about Shelley but never met her. Caryn, my very own personal best friend in the whole wide world, knew Shelley well from school. When Shelley arrived, I deployed my manners, but then I also gave into a hissy fit. I stalked back to my bedroom with Missy and Caryn and vented about Shelley coming.
They tried to reassure me that I should ignore her, that it would be fine, that she wouldn't cause any trouble. They talked me into returning to the party and having fun anyway. Then Missy delivered the coup de grace, "She doesn't seem so bad, anyway, Julie," she said, "I mean, from your descriptions I sort of expected Regan!" (Regan, from The Exorcist.)
Could nobody see how bad this girl was? How manipulative? Could nobody see her games? Every time I tried to talk to anyone about Shelley and the misery she caused, I got a lot of "ignore her" and "it's not that bad" and "you need to quit making such a big deal out of it" and "let it roll off your back." I also got, "she's insecure," and "she's jealous of you," which I did not buy for one second. Shelley had nothing to envy, that was clear, plus she never seemed envious or insecure. The worst was, 'You're letting her do this, letting her get to you." After a while, I began to believe that it was true: I was the problem, I made the problem by naming it, and it was all my fault. Not to mention, I must deserve it.
On some level, though, I continued to think Shelley was the bad news, not me, and someone needed to notice and take care of it.
I stalked out to my party with my friends, and Caryn, always the fun and funny girl, said, "Let's twist again, like we did last summer!" She swung her hips and demanded music and dancing. Nobody cared it was anachronistic. Nobody cared because we all just wanted to have fun.
I ran to the big stereo table and grabbed the Grease album. A Rizzo photo caught my eye. Suddenly, the Shelley v me situation was so clear. It was life or death to her, or felt like it was to her, to be in charge of the Pink Ladies (or our neighborhood). It was who she was, and my constant challenges on the basis of fairness and principles to her authority, while seemingly rational and reasonable to me, were attacks of the very fiber of her being to Shelley. Shelley would never give up her Queen Bee perch, and we'd never be friends, no matter how much I followed my mother's entreaties to "be nice and you'll make friends." I didn't like her, she didn't like me, and we disagreed about the rules of the 'hood.
Right in the moment I was ready to slap her with my glove (metaphorically), I realized...I didn't even really want a duel, and the principle was really not that important to me. I'd been engaged via my stubbornness, only. In fact, maybe, just maybe, I was part of the problem. In fact, maybe, just maybe, I'd been a bit territorial about the friends when she arrived. Maybe I wasn't quite blameless. Maybe things weren't so simple or black and white.
I looked at Caryn, Missy, and the girls I really liked. True friends.
In my mind, I stepped aside. The next day and the day after that, I stepped aside. I quit letting Shelley be That Important, That Powerful. I'd made my point -- I wasn't her subject. I couldn't force others to make the same choice, and in that instant, I realized that these girls probably wouldn't. They'd keep playing her game. In the end, that had been what I'd wanted. In my mind, it was justice -- to convince these girls to see the power player for who she was and to abandon her court, so we could return to the happy play days we'd had before she arrived.
But it would never be, and so, I opted out.
I took the measure of the other girls and recognized them for the Marty, Frenchie, Jan, Betty Rizzo, Sandy, Patty Simcox and so forth that they were. I recognized them for who they were as much as which roles they played. And I got it, sort of.
I opted out, and things were more peaceful. Nobody thanked me. Nobody expressed appreciation that I'd quit putting them in the middle of a struggle between me and Shelley. Nobody said they were glad that the tenseness eased.
But the friendships got a little easier, and Shelley's teasing had no more nerve to hit.
I found out that Shelley wasn't evil personified at all, sometimes, she was even kind of fun. But, she was not a girl I'd ever particularly like. And that? Was okay. Because we could get along.
I wish I could say that there was never another problem, or that I didn't continue to have to close my eyes and count down my anger. I wish I could say I really learned learned that lesson, and never went through the same things again and again throughout my youth. But, I needed to learn it a little bit more thoroughly. The key, though, was that Shelley, Rizzo, and Grease! did provide valuable perspective: it's not really life or death, it's not the end of the world, you can make a choice, and in the end, you can always opt out.
I'm still learning how and when to do this, but as I raise my daughters -- and re-read the new edition of Queen Bees and Wannabes (just go get it -- it's still as good, and better, with updates, additions, and the new technology chapter that helped me and my husband settle on a Specific Policy WRT Technology and now I sleep better at night. really.) -- I have an empathy for the Girl World they inhabit that I hope translates into useful and supportive parenting.
Because of all the Shelleys, Morias, and similar that I met in life, it caused me to constantly seek perspective and positive tools to handle the situations.
Because of Grease! and Rizzo, I always suspect that under each Girl World role-player lies a real feeling human being, who, regardless of role, probably feels like the real girl Rizzo sang about:
I could hurt someone like me,It doesn't make us like each other. It doesn't make the world sunshine and roses whenever we're around each other. But it does provide an underlying base of understanding, that can enable us to let it go -- in a real way, a positive way, not a "try to shut it out and sweep it under the rug way."
Out of spite or jealousy.
I don't steal and I don't lie,
But I can feel and I can cry.
A fact I'll bet you never knew.
But to cry in front of you,
That's the worse thing I could do.
So when my older daughter refused to say goodbye to a classmate one day, and when I asked about it said, "She's always so mean to me!" I thought of Mean Shelley, and I thought of Wise Rosalind, and I checked my personal baggage and asked, "What does that mean, she's mean to you? What is mean?"
In this case, mean meant bossy. Mean meant challenging my daughter's perceived right to run her own show, and that show might include a cast of characters that overlapped the other girl's show. In this case, it meant a Shelley and Julie dynamic.
I took a deep breath...and we talked.
I watched my daughter consider taking the same step I had, and letting it go. For now, though, we agreed that you don't have to be friends, but you do always have to be courteous, which means accepting it when it comes your way.
It's never simple, never black and white. There are always multiple players in any game, and a key is deciding what you are doing, and whether it fits with your own personal convictions for who you are and what your morals are.
Labels: Growing Up is Hard To Do, helping kids grow up, mean girls
posted by Julie Pippert @ 12:48 PM,
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Imagine all the people...celebrating more birthdays
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
It was days, really, between learning my friend was being sent home, cancer treatment suspended, and learning she had passed away. Sadly, the first symptom came well after the cancer had already metastasized and spread. They began intensive treatment, aggressive. It was hard on her, but she had a lot to live for: loving family, loving friends, and two beautiful children, as well as all of her work, including a book she authored for children about children on the autism spectrum. That was her: a do-er.She was the sort of person you could picture growing older, still doing. I could even picture her forty years from now blowing out a cake full of candles. In my imagination, over her cake, her hair was still bright, as it was before she got sick. She’d do that, I knew, keep herself looking nice. She’d have a big smile, and she’d tell everyone they shouldn’t have made such a fuss, but everyone would ignore her because they knew she was deeply touched -- family and family times were everything. I wished that for her with all my heart.
When I got the message she was gone, I denied it. I didn’t believe it until I read her obituary in the paper. I left a comment on the online memorial. I spoke about what a fantastic person she was. I spoke about how heartbreaking a loss it was. I mentioned nothing of my anger.
The next day, I went for a run. My feet pounded the track in fury. The hot
My iPod stumbled out of my pacing songs and Falling Slowly came on. I nearly clicked to the next song, but the lyrics caught and tugged at my grief. We’ve still got time…the song trilled. But my friend doesn’t, I thought, my friend hasn’t got more time. Why not? I knew how she’d feel about that, and that she’d be of two minds, and unapologetic. That’s how she was. She called it like it was. But she also called blessings for what they were too. I felt ashamed of my ingratitude: for having known her, for all the gifts I received from her, for the beautiful children she brought into the world and would not get to see grow up, for the fact that I had today, another day with my children even if they were cranky and I was grief-stricken and miserably hot. I took the curve in the track a little slowly and I thought hard about her. She’d have loved this hot day. She’d have loved to be healthy and bickering with her children about getting ready for day camp. She would have loved having this day, I knew. And I wanted to give it to her, a late or early birthday gift, depending upon how you looked at it.
Here it is, I thought with my mind and heart, here is this day, another day, one you would have liked, one that was hot, one that was about being a mom, one that was about making a healthy choice.
I sent the experience of the day up and out, and away to her. And a little bit of grief fell away from my heart. She may not have another birthday, but I do. She may not get to celebrate another birthday with her kids, but I can. And I can send the appreciation and joy from that to her.
My friend, and all the other friends, mothers, sisters, daughters, brothers, fathers, husbands, wives – all the other people who have gone, or are still here fighting, or stand beside someone fighting cancer – are why I joined the American Cancer Society’s More Birthdays effort. I can take a page from my friend’s book and be a do-er. I can celebrate and recognize that every birthday is a blessing.
***********************************************************************************
I am a member of the American Cancer Society's Blogger Advisory Council, a small group of volunteers that advises the Society on its social media strategy. Part of our mission is to spread the word that we have power in the fight against cancer. The first step is to build awareness and engage women. Visibility equals power! So we have started a blog "chain" to spread the word among women bloggers. We call it Bloggers for More Birthdays.
You can help me!
Join Bloggers for More Birthdays by dedicating a blog post to someone you love who's been affected by cancer. Host the badge on your site to build visibility. It's a simple way to celebrate those you love. Just write a post, host our badge, and know that whatever you write, you’re raising awareness and inspiring others to join American Cancer Society in the fight against cancer.
And please, host the special Bloggers for More Birthdays badge on your blog to encourage others to join. Just visit our site for the code to grab a badge, and sample posts.
We want to spread the word, so we ask you to get others in your networks involved by sending them your posts and asking them to dedicate a post of their own. If you don't have your own space online, email a post to bloggersubmit@officialbirthdayblog.com and we'll post it for you.
You can tweet about the chain as well, please use #morebirthdays:
Examples:
dedicate a blog post to someone you love with cancer and tell their story join http://bit.ly/13kS6L for #morebirthdays
blog against cancer: join http://officialbirthdayblog.com/category/bloggers/ for #morebirthdays
Blog for #morebirthdays, less cancer join http://officialbirthdayblog.com/category/bloggers/
Happy Birthday.
Labels: cancer, charitable endeavors, doing the right thing for the right reason
posted by Julie Pippert @ 1:49 PM,
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The American People in their Righteous Might*
Friday, September 11, 2009
* Title from a speech by FDR immediately after the attack on Pearl HarborEight years ago I was so pregnant I was at that "oh no you didn't go and make me move, now I'll have to sit on you and crush you" stage.
When I woke up that morning, I lay on my side, the left, of course, with my knees slightly bent, of course, and I contemplated the floor. Was it going to be easier, I wondered, to maneuver the upper half of my body upright first, or to kick my legs hard enough to get momentum to drop them over the edge of the bed to help hurtle me into a standing position?
In the end, hunger is what really got me out of bed that day. But still, I moved at the speed of snail.
That's why I was still in my car zipping through Salem, slowing only to consider stopping for a pistachio donut at the greatest little bakery right before the historic square. In my mind, the morning is molasses slow motion and details are vivid. It was a gorgeous perfect New England fall day. Brilliant sky, crisp air with sunlit warmth. I glanced to my left as my car slowed for the curve and checked out the window display for the Salem doll lady, then swung my head to the right to drool over the gorgeous Victorians. The witch museum off the square was preparing for Halloween. Not a morning like any other, a sharper more perfect morning than any other. A day that should have been as spectacular as the weather, as the coming season with all its fun and treats and special moments.
NPR chirped the news in my ear. I turned off to Marblehead, and as I drove into my work parking lot I felt so lucky: I was pregnant, healthy, had a great job, lived in the most beautiful place in the US, had a great husband and life was good.
That's why I was so stunned, so disbelieving when the newscaster stumbled over his words and said, "This can't be right...we're getting reports that a plane has struck the World Trade Center...we don' t understand the report, we need to check, we'll keep bringing information..."
That's the moment the day started to move in fast motion blur.
I actually ran into my office building, the first office was the film guy. He had all sorts of TVs and equipment and people were crammed into his office.
"Oh my God," I said, "They're saying...planes? In New York City?"
"I know," my coworker Frank said, "We're watching..."
And the bodies parted and we turned to the television just in time to see the second plane hit. There was a long, loud audible inhale, and maybe a short scream, but what I really recall was the publisher's long low moan. "My son," she said, "My son is in that building!" She hurried from the room and it was so, so quiet until several people started murmuring oh my god.
The newscasters were talking about Boston, about threats and planes to Boston, to the Financial District where my husband worked.
I tore my eyes away from the television and hurried to my office. I called my husband, "Oh my God did you see?"
We spoke for a few minutes then he said there was a commotion outside his office. He came back a minute later, "There are military planes flying over my building," he told me, "What is happening?"
"You should leave," I said, "I heard they're shutting down the trains."
"I don't know," he said, with that reluctance of people who've been through too many false fire alarms.
A minute later I heard urgent shouting behind him. "What was that?"
"A fireman," he said, "He told us all to get out, now, not to shut anything down just go."
"Do it," I said, "Run as fast as you can to try to get space on the train. Get off at Swampscott," I said, naming a stop significantly south of us, "I'll drive to get you."
"I'll call you," he said. But cell service went out and it was the last I heard from him for hours and hours.
Nobody understood. Nobody comprehended. But urgency began penetrating the shock.
I drove to Swampscott and waited. Much later than expected, the train arrived, so full that people stood on the steps, clinging to the rail, white-faced, silent. People poured out. "There he is!" an older woman said out loud. "Oh I'm glad," I said. "Do you see your husband yet?" she asked. "No, no, not yet." Her son joined her and they lingered beside me until I burst out, "Oh thank goodness there he is!" She smiled at me and left, one happy end to one story that day.
Every architect in America who watched the news that day knew what was coming. The World Trade Center towers are standard lesson in architectural school. My husband predicted nearly to the minute when the towers would fall, and how. Later, I heard countless architects share the same story.
So much grief and anger. So much sudden comprehension. So much seeing what would happen next with deep dread. So much so unavoidable. So much anger about what could have been, or should have been, known and avoided.
My sister-in-law called. She'd been rounded up by the FBI. That's how she phrased it -- rounded up. "I stood behind him in line," she said, "The terrorist guy, the one who flew the Boston plane. He was right in front of me." She was terrified and the FBI kept questioning her. They took all her bags -- briefcase and purse -- and her car. She cried. Not from fear, but because she had nothing to tell them. She wished she had something to tell them.
We all wished we had the right words that day, the ones people wanted to hear.
I remember being so confused by my shock. "It's not like it's the first time this sort of thing has ever happened," I kept saying.
"Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.The truth is, history and past events not withstanding, it was unprecedented, what happened that day.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God. "
--- Franklin Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech, December 8, 1941
Shock became anger, anger became action, action became war, and then the losses compounded, as did the deep divisions, and the cementing of opinions and sides.
Eight years later.
That baby is nearly eight now. My baby, I mean, not the war.
But you can't hardly think of ages without realizing that we've been at war my daughter's entire life. That children her age are missing someone. I read an essay today by a 9/11 widow. She has meticulously architected, in her mind, her husband's death, and her own life to this day.
This morning, on another 9-11 -- which remains, no matter what, not just any other day in September, not any other Friday or birthday or deadline or any event, special or mundane, Nine Eleven -- I felt sluggish as I did eight years ago. I pushed myself around the track, though, bribing myself with an episode of This American Life: "Fine Print." They interviewed an Iranian man who had been seized, imprisoned, tortured and forced into a false confession about conspiring with Western Powers. Western makes me think of cowboys, which isn't too far off if you think more deeply about how the West was won. Western makes Middle Easterners, okay, Iranians, think of 1953 and how the West won then, too. They have not forgiven or forgotten, and it lends credence to the false confessions, which are actually well-planned and profesionally delivered.
Omid Memarian's confession was well-planned and professionally delivered, despite his best attempts to surreptitiously poke sticks in the spokes.
He said that he realized, a week or so into his detainment (such a word) and torture, that he wasn't even the real target -- the perceived threat. He was merely an innocent bystander, so to speak, a tool to threaten and get at the real targets and true perceived threats. He sounded put out, and humiliated. To go through all this and just to be a tool.
Sort of like the people in the Towers, on the planes, in the field in Pennsylvania. The people lost in 2001.
Memarian falsely confessed in 2004, his country ramping up its anti-Western strategy, possibly as a direct result of US actions -- although they seem to dislike the British as intensely -- which were a result of the 9/11 attacks which were a result of...
War is a Mobius strip.
So here we all are, eight years later, continuing to feed in on ourselves, feed on ourselves.
Memarian also said that while he was being tortured he thought, "I don't want this to become that divisive moment, that defining moment, not for me, not when I'm only 30."
As a journalist, he said, explaining, you spend time with people in tragedies, and you realize that there are these moments when life becomes split into Before and After. He'd interviewed detainees and torture victims, among others, and he said they just never quite recover themselves.
The producer of the show, Nancy Updike, didn't ask him to explain what he meant. At this point, eight years later, we all comprehend what that means.
1941
1953
In 1969 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published her book On Death and Dying. In 1969, a lot of people knew a lot about loss and grief. In 1969, four generations of men had fought four generations of wars. In 1969, war didn't bring about a baby boom, it brought about a baby bust. The joke is that the Baby Boomers were too busy being eternal teenagers and living selfishly to actually have children, but if you asked me straight out I'd say that's silly, straight out.
Anyway, as we all know, they waited until the first Gulf War was over to have children. Maybe we all thought war was petering out, by then. It certainly didn't have the same impact the Vietnam War had on us, culturally. Also, the Greatest Generation had already happened, so what was left to the rest of us? Lesser? Frankly that was fine by me. I didn't mind having a lesser and more comfy life. I was happy to appreciate the mettle testing the gradnparents' generation had sustained if it meant I got to miss out on a Great Depression and World War.
Anyway, though, as we all know, that wasn't to be.
2001
2009
Kubler Ross said there were five stages of grief. Have we hit number 3, Bargaining, yet? or are we stuck at 2, Anger?
You aren't supposed to rush the process.
But maybe, just maybe, it's time to let go of the second stage.
I heard that the ability or willingness to traverse the stages linked to the amount of meaning and purpose one has in life.
Here's to us finding, nationally, a new and strong meaning and purpose beyond the before and after, beyond the anger and fear.
I learned a lot more about loss and grief, personally, this summer. That's why right now it feels so important, urgent maybe even, to me to say we need to celebrate.
A short while ago, on a curve in a track by the water, I cried about a lost friend. I cried because I hated the day -- it was hot, the children had been contrary -- and she would have loved it. I cried because I was here and she was not. How I wish you were here to have this day, my heart cried. That's when it hit me: I needed to have this day and find the joy in it, and send it up to her, somehow.
Live and let live.
We need to have this day and find the joy in it and send it up, somehow.
Labels: war
posted by Julie Pippert @ 11:15 AM,
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Anger in another language
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
I've been subtly correcting my children lately. Persistence has anger management issues, which I realize is the definition of a four year old, but directing that from anti-social to acceptable communication is the definition of mother."Stomp your foot, say I feel angry! That's okay! It's not okay to hit or say hurtful things!"
If I had a dollar for every time I said that the private school tuition would be paid for.
We used to say mad. But the phrase "I'm mad" began to get under my connotation, denotation, and grammatically OCD skin.
I did not like picturing Ophelia. I did not like being put in mind of a mad bull, someone enraged; greatly provoked or irritated; angry; abnormally furious; ferocious; extremely foolish or unwise; imprudent; irrational.
Although upon reflection, perhaps mad is the right word, after all. But we've stuck with anger. Angry sounds like something you can get under control. Mad, enraged, fury does not.
Betty Draper is walking fury.
My friend Becky generously loaned me her disc collection of the first season of Mad Men. I leapt into the show a few episodes into season 2. Season 1 is a real eye-opener. It also proves that this show was completely self-actualized and brilliant from the beginning.
Yesterday I watched the episode where an ad man appealed to Betty Draper's vanity and asked her to be a model for a campaign. It was all part of a different campaign entirely -- to recruit her husband from Sterling Cooper to this other firm. When he declined, Betty's photoshoot and campaign was scrapped. Ruthlessly. Without thought for her face, or any saving of it. The next day, she went outside and began shooting at her neighbor's pigeons. It's nearly too complicated to explain why, but she had her reasons.
I think it was really because he made her little girl cry and she was just that done with men and their oppression and manipulation.
I was thinking about Betty Draper when reading (again) Isabel Allende explain how Chilean women render their men utterly dependent on them domestically, pampering them like babies, thinking they are queens of the castle, without really understanding they were royalty in name only.
It's really about trying to find comfort in any perception of power in a powerless place.
I wonder how Chilean men who can't cook for themselves and mad men who objectify women into sex and chess pieces explain the current level of pigeon-shooting anger that obscures our national vision now. Pea-soup murky hazy miasma.
Anger.
Mad.
Ira.
Furia.
Cólera.
Choler makes me realize we have a long and lethal history with anger, we people. We understand it is more than an emotion; it is also a physical and physiological thing. In horror movies, anger summons poltergeists who feed on the fury, are attracted to it.
I wonder if too many of us in the US, in the world, have become poltergeists, attracted to and feeding off of anger.
Today I told my sister I am angry about everything. For example, I told her, I am angry that some utility company or another has been digging in my backyard for nine months. Then I laughed because it is foolish to be angry about this. It's self-pity really. But I've got a hearty mad on about it.
She said she is angry too. For example, she told me, she is angry that she ordered a necessary suit for her son three weeks ago and said she needed it by today. The store said fine, then when she went today to pick it up, the angry sales clerk angered my sister by telling her she was being ridiculous: delivery trucks only come on Thursdays.
My sister called me in the first place because she is angry about something else. I am angry about that, too. We are angry because it is, and even more because there is nothing we can do about it.
Oppressed.
Manipulated.
Powerless.
Angry.
My Facebook stream and any news or blog feeders are clogged with anger.
I laughed long and hard during the moment in Mad Men when, based on an old fraternity prank, Pete and Harry decided to clog up the airwaves with Nixon and Secor laxative ads, blocking Kennedy from TV. That show. So clever. In the good way.
In a different scene, Cooper came to see Sterling, and told him to put out his cigarette, "It makes you look weak," Cooper said. He backed up his point with an anecdote about Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. Hitler planned the meeting in an old castle that forbade smoking, which cost the cigarette-addicted Chamberlain greatly. "By the end of that he would have sold his mother to Hitler for a dance," Cooper said.
"All I got from that story," Sterling said, "Was that Hitler didn't smoke."
All I got from that story is that the writers know their history. Mr. Appeasement, that's what they called former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. I've never before heard anyone blame cigarettes for his giving away of a chunk of Czechoslovakia to Germany but I have heard the logical equivalent of bipartisanship blamed.
But drinking and smoking are time-honored methods of smoothing over awkward social moments, and without either, I bet there were plenty in that meeting between Neville and Hitler. Of course later Mr. Appeasement had to resign, but he got a new job in in Churchill's War Cabinet, which I always thought was the embodiment of the old adage about working from the inside out, but now I wonder if it's the embodiment of the old adage about an angry dove, furious about being bitten, morphing into a hawk.
Outside of Mad Men, we seem to have lost sight of our history. Forgotten it. It's a big hole in our perspective. It means we are perpetually four year olds, relearning lessons each generation, over and over, about anti-social versus acceptable communication of anger.
Labels: Geek Me Baby One More Time, Growing Up is Hard To Do, history
posted by Julie Pippert @ 1:17 PM,
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Other People and Their Stories
Friday, August 28, 2009
Every morning I'd get back from my laps and I'd see her, the mom with the baby in the stroller doing her daily walk around the neighborhood. We'd wave, two moms in shorts and tees, sweaty and a little red in the face from the exertion and heat. Me, unencumbered, she, pushing the stroller.
Child in stroller is such a stage and age. Any parent knows it.
When I had my first baby the awesome commonwealth of Massachusetts offered a lovely one year postpartum support and parenting program in the form of a mom-and-me program once a week at the education building adjacent to our local hospital. It was, of course, free. I came for one "give it a shot" group and stayed for the whole year and beyond. In my memory, when I pushed a stroller around the neighborhood, I always had at least one mom from a community of these moms with me.
One time I walked with another mom on a gorgeous path through a park and her son reached out and held my daughter's hand. They were six months old.
One time the stroller mom walked past me as I headed in to the house and as I waved I had this compulsion to ask her if she ever wanted to walk together. Then I thought twice.
Where once upon a time, that walking time was communal time, now it is solo time for me. I listen to my music or podcasts and simply am -- just me, just doing my thing, not serving anyone. I am no longer a stroller mom. I push my children in other ways, now.
Anyway, I don't know her story. She looks content as she walks and she has never reached out to me beyond that wave. She never even hesitates or pauses, never lets her eyes linger as I stand still in my drive, my walking finished.
In the evening I often share other people and their stories with my husband. As a commuter worker, it is often his only connection with the people we know in our community.
I have the G-rated stories that I tell him at dinner or while the kids are around.
"H, C, and K are in class together this year," I'll share, "I bet they like that since they all know each other and it's their first year in elementary school."
Then there are the PG-13 and up tales. Things I save to relate until after the kids are in bed.
". . .she went through all that and then the client didn't even pay. I don't know what gets in people's heads!"
". . .but she seems pretty sure that they'll go from separation to divorce. The daughter told Patience, and I found myself trying to explain why some moms and dads can't stay married. The thing is, I had no answer for any of her questions."
Sometimes, we know just enough of other people's stories to be a menace. Sometimes we know not enough at all. Sometimes it seems as if it's a road game -- we're in cars sharing the road together. I know what kind of car you have and the color, but I don't know why you bought it or its relative value in your life. I think I know who you are by how you drive, but it's always so much more complicated than that. But as we speed down the street, we really are in a game of defense, and we haven't the time to try to think more deeply about who our fellow drivers are and what their stories are.
Once upon a time it seemed like I asked more. I recall many times being rebuked by others for doing so, "Julie! Those lane lines are there for a reason! You need to stay in your own lane!"
Eventually, I have.
I wonder if that pleases them, now.
Me? I'm more like the guy I met not too long ago in the airport. Circumstance had us trapped for a while, so we made the best of it chatting, instead of drawing solid white lines through iPods and books. (And I confess to being quite adept at drawing those solid white lines, often enough.)
We veered from one crazy story to another. In the end, one hour's talk had me knowing a lot about his verbs, even if I didn't know so much about his nouns.
I said, "I didn't really fear for our lives, but there is definitely something about being stopped by rebels with machine guns and bribing yourself away from them with wristwatches."
"I'd never thought about going to Central America for that reason," he said, "But my wife does really want to go to Egypt, in theory."
"Morocco is on that list for me," I said, "Although to tell the truth I really think the coolest trip would be going from the Mayan pyramids to the Egyptian ones, back to back. What a basis for comparison."
"We did go to Mexico," he said, "But you can't believe what happened there..."
As we queued up to board the plane and got back into our own lanes, he said, "I haven't had a talk like this since college!"
I smiled in understanding and shared enjoyment. We had even attracted other passengers who moved out of their lanes to join ours.
Sometimes there is something to be said about merging. Sometimes there is something to be said about abandoning mature respect for lines and lanes.
Labels: from here to eternity
posted by Julie Pippert @ 9:44 AM,
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Why Playing the Whore Card in Reference to Mombloggers is So Not Cool
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I'm really really glad I missed BlogHer this year. Every account makes it sound like a Self-Righteous Fest rather the the community building, sharing, learning, and fun I expect from that event. Then, that spilled over into the rest of the online community, and now moms who blog have garnered a reputation for being greedy, graspy harpies who cage fight for minor pieces of swag, like deranged parents beating one another up for the last Cabbage Patch doll.
Way to further the rep.
Even if people had fun -- and good for you -- clearly there was a major undercurrent I had been calling Culture Clash (which provided private amusement because it dredged up funny old 80s bands to mind) but have now begun calling the Whore Wars. You can subtitle it: That Same Old Mean Girl Judge and Jury Fest We've Had Since 5th Grade.
It's because yesterday someone played the whore card in reference to the mombloggers + PR + Review = Sometimes Profiting/Being Compensated While Blogging.
Don't be a whore, this person entreated.
ACK
ACK ACK ACK ACK ACK
Let's be honest here for a minute. Who sees big bloggers making a bit of a living at this and doesn't wish for that, just a little? Who loves blogging but doesn't wish to earn a little something from it, too? Who found a passion in blogging and doesn't want to succeed at it, grow in it, go to the next level? Who NEVER EVER wants to earn something for doing something they love?
You are welcome to head back to your ashram, my friend. Go in peace and with my good wishes. Maybe I can be you in my next life.
Okay back to the rest of us.
I started this blog as a business. It was intended to boost business, keep a Web site fresh, etc. I started it to promote some of my artwork and my other services. I started it because I intended to require my authors to promote their works via blogs. It was the Hot New Marketing Model and before I asked someone else to do it, I needed to know how to do it, and whether it was reasonable, and how to do it well. (Also, members of my writing group such as Halushki and OmegaMom had talked it up as such a positive medium and experience. It sounded like a Can't Lose proposition. And it has, in fact, been a Win! On so many unexpected levels.)
It evolved into a more personal venture because I moved most of my business work elsewhere and also I learned a large number of crucial lessons along the way that caused me to change direction and refine my strategy.
Writing is a business for me, and my sidebar clearly says so.
I had no ethical dilemma about putting ads on my sidebar. Why in the world wouldn't I grab the chance to augment my effort with income? I put effort into this, writing is my business, and my goal has always been to earn from it. The fact that I discovered this was a wonderful way to interact with a marvelous community was a bonus.
My family still needs to eat.
I had no ethical dilemma about trying out products and reviewing them. I personally prefer personal recommendations and reviews from people I know to any other criteria for selecting a product, service, or serviceperson. (Why do you think Angie's List is so successful?) I bought Ecover dishwasher tablets because someone on Twitter assured me they were good, and if I liked the dish soap, I'd like these too. I bought the A/C I have because the Small House movement recommended several models for good price and good green status. It helps me.
By the same token, I like to tell people about things I particularly love -- such as the Spanx Bralellujah which is the BEST bra I've ever met (and no, I got no free products or entreaties for reviews, but if I had I'd take it in a New York minute) -- in the hope that it helps them.
Believe it or not, I consider this part of being a member of a community.
It was never a question to me whether I ought to accept any sort of profit or compensation for effort I make from this or other online writing.
When it was an ethical dilemma for so many, I was boggled. Seriously.
Think of me what you will, but it sort of felt like a more erudite airing of the young babysitter who says, "Oh I don't know, whatever," when asked how much her time is worth.
It also smelled a bit like a prettily wrapped but still sexist package: why are women expected to contribute out of the goodness of their hearts? Why is receiving compensation a prospect that somehow corrupts what they do and makes them into whores in the eyes of their community?
It boils down to this for me: I want to earn from this OR I don't. The don't side is fair enough, but it isn't, in my opinion, an ethical question or a question of right or wrong -- it's an "I don't want to be obligated in any way."
Because the truth is, if you accept a job -- whether it pays in money or product -- you do accept a degree of obligation (or at least I do in my mind). I'm not per se obligated to write, or write positively, or on a timetable, but I do accept trying out the product, service, etc. I understand that by forming a relationship, I've agreed to Having Expectations on both sides.
Like I said...I'm a professional and this is a business. I know how to go about my business.
But now you've got the "it's for fun only" camp and the "this is a good business model" camp clashing, and suddenly you have insults such as "selling out" and "lacking integrity" being hurled until you reach the crescendo: whore.
A profitable venture is not inherently ethically wrong or lacking in integrity.
Yes, I wrote a positive review of a Ridemakerz event because it was an AWESOME experience for the whole family. I would never have tried that if they hadn't invited me. I subsequently had my kids' birthday party there and more parents found out it's fun. It felt like such a win-win.
Now I have paused to ponder that people I know and respect in the blogosphere consider that "selling out" and even possibly being a "whore."
That's so sexist and insulting. It really, really is.
Whore is, by its very first definition, about women: 1 : a woman who engages in sexual acts for money : prostitute; also : a promiscuous or immoral woman
An immoral woman. A woman who accept money for an effort. A woman who makes money from blogging is a whore, is immoral.
It sounds an awful lot like slamming a glass ceiling down hard and judgmentally on a group of people who have, by dint of a sexist workplace, already had to choose between career and family, and yet, by dint of wonderful technology and new marketing models, found a way to eat her cake (be at home) and have it too (contribute financially to her family and maintain her skills and independence).
Women, more specifically moms who blog, have begun succeeding in this market in major ways.
Suddenly, we have discussions about integrity and ethics and trust and ruining community. We use the whore word.
So some people aren't doing it "well" or meeting someone's standards. I have faith that this is a majorly impressively intelligent community and those who do it well and with integrity will succeed, and we'll begin avoiding those who do not meet those criteria. From backchannel discussions and intelligent conferences such as Mom 2.0, I know people know the difference between honest and with integrity and not. I know people I know who are doing this as a business are already employing personal integrity and standards.
Implying that it is otherwise on the whole has, I think, contributed to many negative perceptions, loss of opportunity, created an unnecessary divide within the community, and, I'm going to go ahead and say it, added to the National Advertising Review Council’s investigative units decision to impose rules, regulations and limits on bloggers that no other journalist or writer has, even when doing the exact same thing!
We're shooting ourselves in the feet, folks.
I bet some bloggers decided to forego any compensation, even if they needed it, because they were scared of alienating their community. Would you EVER ask that of ANYONE else?
"Dear Free Monthly Community Newsletter That Is So Wonderful to Read and So Useful to Me, Please quit running ads, I find them distracting, junky and they ruin my trust in your content. It makes you a big sell out. A whore."
"Dear NPR...please quit doing pledge drives. I know you need money to operate and bring me all that great content I ove and rely on, but I just hate it when you ask me for money. You bunch of whores."
ACK!
ACK ACK ACK!
Let's be reasonable. It's the business model, friends. I agree: some will do it well, and some not so much. You can trust spots like Cool Mom Picks, for example, and bloggers you know and like. You may not prefer it when they do things for compensation, but let's be fair, okay? Blogging takes time and ultimately it costs. It's okay to profit a little from it.
Let's roll back the debate, and stop using pejorative, sexist insults such as whore.
Instead of judging, asking "should we," and stating moral imperatives, why don't we instead use our voices to say "hey this one was good, and I like it when, and these are the best Dos in my opinion," and help each other grow and develop constructively.
It's not reasonable to ask people to stop or to make big soapbox ultimatums about refusing to cross paths with people who profit or advertise. You can do it, but it's not reasonable. It's not going to stop. I won't quit. I need an income. I know I'm not alone.
But we can -- and should -- speak up about when things are done well. It's new, this business model, and we can shape it positively instead of trying to destroy the opportunity, each other, and our community with glass ceilings and judgments.
Labels: blog etiquette, blogging, blogging for profit, mean girls
posted by Julie Pippert @ 9:59 AM,
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