This is good, just not for the rest of his life

I don’t necessarily think this article will win him any fans.  He said something that could be seen as careless, but ultimately honest.  He admits to having a conflicted view on marriage, insisting that he loves his wife but doesn’t like marriage, which some people would see as inconsiderate to her feelings.  Worst, some people will likely consider him a bad person for not being gun-ho about marriage as a concept.  Admittedly, I think it was not fair to his wife, but he didn’t admit to something so horrible and amoral, it’s just an opinion.

He actually states, “. . . I think marriage is ridiculous.”  But what he says indicates that he finds monogamy ridiculous, not marriage itself, since marriage should be defined by the two people in the contract.  I say this because of what he told the reporter.  He said, “Because it’s crazy-to spend your life with one person and not totally be driven crazy.”  Marriage isn’t necessarily spending the rest of your life with one person; that’s just the traditional perspective of it.  Many people have open marriages where they are allowed to have sexual relations with other people besides their spouse.  Obviously, Mr. Damon hasn’t considered this or already knows it’s a no-go with his wife.

I think it’s pretty rad that he didn’t do the standard Hollywood interview, giving boring, PC answers.  It’s pretty interesting to read such a conflicted statement.  I think the only person who has the right to have strong emotions about this is his wife.  And that’s none of our business.

See, in the past two months, I’ve lived in 4 different places. I’ve come to think of myself as something of an expert on dragging one’s possessions, in their entirety, through the snow-and-ice-encrusted streets of a foreign city (and airports. God, I hate airports now.). My plan was to use my new found, hard-won expertise to write not exactly a guide to moving, but a guide to settling in and staying relatively sane while doing so. (Hint: my method involves long hot baths and lots of chocolate. And also wine.)

BUT. I was walking through the city last Monday, in a great mood, thinking about how I was getting back into the swing of everything, when I almost died. For real. This past year, Saint Petersburg, along with most of the rest of Europe, had its worst winter in anyone’s recent memory (here, it was the double threat of the coldest weather in 15 or 20 years and the heaviest snowfall in 130).

Last week the temperature here crept above freezing for the first time in 4 months (or more? I can’t remember the last time). This SOUNDS like a great thing, but in fact it transformed the entire city into a giant, living video game, with innumerable deadly obstacles to avoid. And no cheat codes for extra lives. The sidewalks are alternately icy, covered with piles of snow, or lakes of slush. Cars slip and slide and don’t stop when you expect them to. But that’s not what tried to kill me on Monday. No, I had a more sinister enemy, one that attacks swiftly from above.

As the snow started to melt, huge chunks of it, often mixed with large blocks of ice, started falling from roofs. I’d been trying my best to stay away from the edges of buildings, but some sidewalks are narrow, and people have a bad habit of parking their cars on sidewalks, too. I bet you can see where this is going.

So remember I was walking around in a great mood? Yeah. Well I heard a noise from above me, and I immediately stopped walking. At that second, a HUGE, HUGE block of ice fell not three inches in front of my face. Small chunks of ice and snow landed on my head and in the collar of my jacket. I couldn’t move for maybe a full minute. Then I pulled myself together and scrambled to the other side of the street (a canal, so no buildings around!). I didn’t stop shaking for hours.

“Your computer has been infected!” it flashed, detailing that I was now at risk for spyware, for my passwords and private data to be stolen, and for god-knows-what-else to happen. Basically, this virus was going to fuck my shit up, and my computer-savvy doesn’t really extend beyond extensive knowledge of useless blogs and the uncanny ability to find almost any tv show streaming online.

Still, I was going to have to deal with this, and I was going to have to deal with it alone. I use free anti-virus software, so no tech support to call, and my falling-apart computer’s own tech support had long run out. I don’t have any computer-savvy friends I could call, and frankly, asking my dad or mom (engineer and programmer, respectively), who, to put it politely, aren’t the calmest of problem-solvers, was going to be more stress than it was worth.

So, I determined to go it alone. I updated my anti-virus software. It didn’t work. I uninstalled and reinstalled. Didn’t work. I googled. Ah-ha! Some progress. I didn’t have a virus at al – I had some malware that pretended to be an anti-virus program. I googled what the hell malware was and what to do about it. I researched the best way to get rid of it. I downloaded a program. Finally, after five hours, I got rid of that fucker.

And you know what? It felt great. After years of asking my dad, brother, or boyfriend for computer problems, I had taken on a challenge I knew nothing about, and used my analytical and critical thinking and research skills to solve it. Frankly, dizzy with own awesomeness, I doubted whether they would have been able to do a better job.

I told everyone about my victory, and I’m still proud of myself three days later. So, my advice is to take on a new challenge this week. Is there something you’ve been reluctant to take on yourself? That you’re not sure you could handle? I say, give it a shot. When you succeed, it’ll feel like you’re on top of the world.

You’ve heard about the earthquake in Chile, the devastation, the destruction which has affected a huge part of the country. It was a stronger earthquake then that which hit Haiti earlier this year, although Chile was more able to handle the disaster; there is after all a difference between developing and Haiti, in a class of its own in the Western Hemisphere.

Government response has been swift, and fairly effective. It seems like things in much of the country where buildings and people where unaffected are now returning to usual; I know this is the case for a Chilean friend of mine, he is headed back to university classes on Monday.

Here is what I am wondering, is it OK for me to go to Chile this summer as a tourist?

I am, or was, planning on spending 2 weeks in Chile this July. One week in Santiago doing a Spanish course and another skiing, visiting vineyards and exploring. I wasn’t going to visit the part of the country most severely affected by the earthquake and aftershocks, the plan was to stay in and around Santiago, before catching a bus over the Andes and into Argentina.

But I’m torn. I’ve been reading Al-Jahzera, BBC and my other usual new outlets and they’ve sort of made me feel uneasy about visiting. I’m not sure why, it’s not a feeling I seem to be able to describe, but still it remains even when I am reassured by my parents and friends that it would be fine for me to go.

Am I wrong to be skeptical about visiting a country 4 months after it has been struck by such an event? What say you Lady Business readers?

Come back next week for thoughts on solo travel- Lady Style.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I’m effing terrified of needles and will probably never donate blood regardless of if the ban is lifted. Also worth noting is that I could always just, like, lie about my sexual history? You know, if I wanted to.

Still, the point is, nobody should be allowed to tell me or others that we cannot donate blood except ourselves. So, if the bill should get to a public vote, you know… Vote yes. And I’ll try to think of another excuse not to donate.

The most interesting fact about the donation ban is that lesbians are still allowed to donate blood. It’s only gay men (or the female mates of bisexual men) that are banned. Also, they seem to think it’s not blind discrimination if they’re only banning men who have acted upon their urges, but I think that’s also how some “Christians” justify hating homosexuals: “I don’t hate the person; I hate the act,” etc. (As if they’re smart enough to use a semi-colon properly…).

But I thought I’d start this series of posts on an unexpected note, since there will be plenty of time for me to wax rhapsodic about my love for Veronica Mars later on (seriously, I’m not exaggerating. My camera – by far the most expensive thing I own – is named Veronica).

Also, in this day of itunes and DVDs (and free streaming video for those who can’t afford itunes or DVDs), I am not limiting myself only to current shows, especially since I’ve discovered some of my all-times favourite TV series after they were already off the air.

So, first up – The Wire.

But Roberta, I hear you saying, isn’t the Wire all about gangsters and cops? Isn’t it heavily male dominated?

Well, yes. I am only starting the fifth and final season now, so bear with me if I’m missing someone, or a major plot twist. But in the seasons that I’ve seen, there have been some really awesome female characters, and I find them all compelling to watch.

The first one is Shakima (Kima) Greggs. A character that, on a lesser show, could so easily be the token female or token minority (Greggs, a cop, is pretty much the only woman we see at the police department – she is also black and a lesbian), is nothing but fully developed here. Watch her kick ass, but also struggle with family, commitment, and fidelity – it’s never less than fascinating.

Rhonda Pearlman is the assistant state’s attorney. She’s capable, smart, and knows what she wants, at work and in love. She’s not afraid to pull the first move on a hot guy, nor enjoy guilt-free no-strings-attached hook ups.

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson. When her character was first introduced, I – like, I’m sure, many a viewer – assumed she was a guy. Felicia is a thug whose main job is killing people, and she talks, dresses and acts like the other gangsters and drug dealers. At first I thought maybe she was hiding her gender from the other members of her crew, but eventually it became they acknowledged the fact that she was a girl, even though they all accept her as one of the guys. I find myself fascinating by her character – she is the only woman we have ever seen involved as a player in “the game.” I really hope that season five will have more of her backstory and motivations.

So, if you’re anything like me, and demand kick-ass women on your TV, check out The Wire. It’s some of the best television I’ve even seen.

The following conversation tends to take place right after I “come out” (as if I was ever “in” to begin with) to somebody new:

Me: So, I’m gay.

Straight Female: Awesome!

Me: Why is it awesome?

SF: Now I have somebody to go clothes shopping with!

…and I die a little inside.

Ladies, I have to tell you something: I really do love shopping. The problem is, I don’t want to shop for you. I want to buy stuff for me. And have you seen the stores lately? I can’t shop for me (and look good) where you shop.

Another problem is I’m not a straight woman. Much as I’d love to have to deal with PMS and birth and running while having boobs and all that glorious stuff, I lack in that department. Straight women friends are going to lie to you and say, “Oh, no, honey. That dress looks fine.” Why? Because if y’all are going out together, you will be competing with each other for attention. Sabotage is your best friend.

I don’t have to compete with you, though. So I’m going to be perfectly and brutally honest with you and tell you that your ass looks like a bag of grapefruits in those jeans, or that your cooking tastes like I’m eating out of a diaper, or that your self-esteem depending on your boyfriend (or lack thereof) is due to you not getting enough attention as a child (and thus needing drama in your life now).

Me: So, I’m gay.

SF: Awesome!

Me: Why?

SF: Because I’ve never had a gay friend!

So, I’m now the token homo in your little bubble. You won’t be judged as homophobic, because you have a gay friend! Wonderful! Unfortunately, I never agreed to be your token, nor did I say we were friends. Trust me, honey. When you’re gay, you come out a lot. It stops being a big deal right around 13 or so. This little secretive, say-nothing divulging to you means about as much as if I told you I really, really hate peas. The army has Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell. Real life doesn’t really matter. Not after 1952, at least. And if you think I shouldn’t go around telling everybody, then I can now understand why you don’t have any gay friends.

Me: I’m gay.

Straight Female: Oh my God! I totally have a hot friend who would totally be interested in you!

I’m sorry, what? When did I say I was single? I’m not. Also, if I were, when did I ask you to fix me up? It’s not your job to fix up the gays – we have plenty of expertise in that area. And if it were, please, do it by request only. I have been in a happy, fulfilling relationship for almost three years now. Your last relationship lasted a month. What makes you the expert here again?

My darlings, I’m sorry that this comes off as ranty. I just can’t hold this in any longer. If you are meeting a gay person for the first time, or somebody outed themselves to you, this is how the conversation needs to play out:

Gay: I’m gay.

Straight: That’s cool.

Sunday. Time: 2:30 PM. Place: The living room/bedroom/dining room/walk-in closet/office of our lady’s studio apartment. She’s got nothing to do but eat Doritos and Girl Scout cookies and watch whatever’s on E! currently. She doesn’t like her inexplicable addiction to Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but that doesn’t stop her from giving in to it.

Our lady has big dreams of running her own business involving opening stores where the names are all pop culture references (for example, Sherlock Homes, a real estate agency, and Charles Dick-ins, a dildo wholesaler), but for now she’s working for the man, so she’s going to have to look nice, goddamn it!

Just because she works for the man, it doesn’t mean she can’t be sexy. And just because she lives in 2010 (which is basically the future), it doesn’t mean she can’t dress like it’s 1962, à la her Mad Men style icon, Joan Holloway. Sure, she just got a weird look from that creepy UPS guy, but she doesn’t care. That dress isn’t for any man’s pleasure, it’s for her!

You might think that our Lady Business lady is hung over, since she appears to be wearing a party dress to work. You may think she’s hungover because it looks like she put on a lot of eye makeup last night, forgot to take it off, woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and said, “ugh, fuck it, it looks fine!” You might think she’s hungover because it sounded like she just vomited in the ladies’ room. But she’s not hungover. Don’t go spreading that around, jerk.

Ah, the all black outfit. You think to yourself, “wow, she’s so edgy and fashion forward with her all black outfit! She’s way too cool for me.” She’s thinking, “I hope no one notices that I did this in about two minutes. I mean, what the fuck, I’m supposed to pick out 5 super cute, original outfits every week? Not reasonable unless you’re Beyoncé, and even then it’s a nightmare.”

Why yes, Courtney Love is one of her style icons. Why do you ask?

My first response was actually less than stellar. It was, “Oh, shit! This means I have to write a different article.” My second reaction was “Huh, this is kinda…hinky.” Not because I’m against abortions or have any individual problems with medical abortions specifically (background, I used to work for NARAL) but because I was sure how I felt about announcing it over Twitter. That’s what made me feel hinky. When I started writing this article I felt that Twitter wasn’t the most dignified of mediums to talk about abortion. But, then I got to thinking and reading about everything that was happening and going on (it was not pretty).

Angie Jackson decided to publicize her experience with getting a medical abortion because she felt that there was too much silence, secrecy, and shame surrounding a perfectly legal medical procedure. So, she decided to use the most popular media tools available to her: Twitter and Youtube among them. And she’s right, there is shame and a sense that getting a medical abortion should be a deep, dark secret like an evil twin that you keep hidden the attic. This can be seen in the responses that Jackson has been getting on her Youtube and Twitter account. When I look at the situation this way, my hinky feeling disappear. Abortion needs to be spoken about in ways that will reach the audience. In this day and age, this means content is expressed through blogging, vidding, and tweeting.

I now leave you with the musical styling of Amanda Palmer with her songs “Mandy Goes To Med School” and “Oasis.”

For more information on this subject please checkout this interview with Angie Jackson.

She’s a computer engineer.

Great! So now we finally have a Barbie that is an example for all of the little nerd and geek girls out there. A Barbie who knows how to use computers! Awesome! Right?

Well, other than the fact that no one ever plays with the dolls as they are intended to be played with (everyone knows that the “new careers!” are just a new way to add to the variety of things you can use that is actually Barbie-sized, actual theme of the doll be damned), and the fact that I highly doubt most 6 to 10 year olds even know what a computer engineer is (I just looked it up – it can be pretty heavy work), I think it’s a good thing (even though she is completely interchangeable with any other doll that could be said to be in a technology field. Come on, she comes with a teeny laptop and a Bluetooth headset. It’s not like there’s anything that explicitly says I DO ENGINEERING STUFF! Because really? She could be IT Barbie, and it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s what you do on the computer that changes your field, after all. Computers are capable of a vast number of things. But I guess Engineer sounds better than Hacker Barbie or Computer Geek Barbie).

After all, if there’s one thing that Barbie does and does well, it’s glamorizing stuff. And I really hate to break it to you who thinks she’s too fashionable to work with computers, but there’s a huge number of self-described geeks and nerds out there who don’t look like how Hollywood thinks we look. Shockingly, some of us actually have a sense of fashion (in fact, there tends to be a lot of people who are involved in subcultures with distinctive clothing styles who are also computer geeks). Some of us like makeup. So while she may be a bit prettied up compared to what most people picture computer geeks (and to be honest, if you’re working in the field, most likely you are a geek) to look like, she may not actually be too far from the truth (though that vest is somewhat questionable). Compared to most Barbies, she’s actually probably among the more accurate for the career they’re supposed to be representing. And it’s about time they released a doll with glasses.

And if anything, this will hopefully bring awareness to young girls that yes, they can study computer science and learn to program – that it exists, and while this doll is a bit of a glamorization of the field (after all, they are not told about the hours and hours of staring at a computer screen, cursing, staying up half the night, the copious amounts of caffeinated drinks they will imbibe, and trying to figure out which single line out of 70 or 80 has the error that’s screwing up the entire program from working that your editor is giving error warnings for seemingly no reason. That comes later. Much later), maybe it’ll make a few more girls curious about computers – to move on from the dinky plastic toy laptop that Barbie has and to a real one, to programming and graphic design and the myriad of other options out there, in a year or two. It likely won’t catch on with everyone, but for some little girls out there right now, this might be the little push that they need. In this age where girls are given messages all over the place that their intelligence doesn’t matter, to just stand there and be pretty, that all of their worth is in how they look – it’s nice to see something that says “you know what, you could be smart. And awesome. She likes computers just like you do!” for this age group. Or if there are girls with their mothers or older sisters in IT, this might be a nice little reminder of what it is that their family members do, in a bit more of an age-appropriate way.

I’m not saying it’s perfect – of course it’s not. The whole issue of women being expected to be pretty or smart, and ne’er the twain shall meet is big and frustrating. The whole information technology field is predominantly male, and there are many reports of women having difficulty fitting into the boys’ club that exists within the field. As a young woman currently studying a programming-based trade, every day I wonder if I’m going to be taken anywhere near as seriously as my male peers when I graduate. Women simply aren’t expected to be good at computers, and to want to pursue a career working with them. This is something we need to work on. It’s a big field that a lot of women (and in turn, girls) are not being directed into. Girls aren’t told at a young age that they can like computers and can like making things using computers (and if they are, it is covered in pink) if they want to. But. Baby steps. It’s an attempt, a start.

In conclusion, it’s not great. It’s not perfect. But in a way, Computer Engineer Barbie might very well be the gateway that some girls could use.

But everyone knows that no one wears a Bluetooth headset unless they want to look like an idiot. Or like they’re on the verge of Cyberized.