The Rude Thing About Life

I paid a bunch of bills this morning. That’s not the rude thing about life, though it is a rude thing about life. Bills, they have to be paid.

I put a butternut squash in the oven just now, because I don’t want to subsist on fast food and eating out, but I’ve long been too brain-dead to focus on cooking. Another thing that is rude, but not THE rude thing about life.

Except, really? They both are part of the rude thing about life. The rude thing about life is that it goes on. I haven’t heard For My Broken Heart in years, possibly as much as a decade, but a tiny piece of it has lodged in my head and reminded me “the world ain’t gonna stop for my broken heart.”… Continue reading →

A Time for Everything

It’s a snow day here in Portland, Oregon. We got somewhere between six and nine inches of snow last night. Maybe even more, but given how bad I am at estimating sizes of things1, I won’t try harder to be sure.

It’s not the first snow day we’ve had, but somehow it feels more like a snow day than any other. Maybe it’s how damn much snow is out there, or maybe it’s how quiet it is inside. I’m not sure. Nor am I sure if I care to figure out the “why” rather than just experience things as they are. In this case, it’s a snow day kind of day. I have tea. I have an urge to write. My tea is in a new, fabulous mug from the fantastic Deb Cooperman, and it’s encouraging my tea-ing and writing.… Continue reading →

No, Seriously. 18th Street Brewery’s Response Was Utterly Predictable.

The most recent post on this blog is a guest post regarding 18th Street Brewery’s sexism. As the guest didn’t have a title, I titled it, “Your Sexism is Predictable and Boring, 18th Street Brewery.” And this is my take on the matter: 18th Street Brewery’s sexist response was utterly predictable.

Drew Fox (the founder & head brewer of 18th Street Brewery) has shown us before what he thinks of women. He’ll tell a woman raising concerns about the industry to “back the fuck off” and engage in policing what women and girls wear to try to derail the conversation at hand.

So, no, it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that not only would he not take critique well, he’d go attempt to derail the conversation by focusing on a woman’s behavior rather than his own1.… Continue reading →

Let’s Be Honest – Sometimes Self-Care Blows Chunks.

I’ve mentioned once or twice in the past that I worked directly with Michelle Ward, The When I Grow Up coach awhile back. I still follow her on Twitter, among other things, and think she’s pretty swell.

She’s big on “self-care” and has written about it often, most recently talking about how it is more than bubble baths and yoga. She’s got a point, and I’m glad she’s dusting off her cabaret show and doing something with her need to make music and perform. She’s going to be stellar.

But what I realized yesterday, after thinking about it a lot, is that there’s still a lot of framing of “self-care” as a wholly good thing. And I began to wonder if there wouldn’t be some benefit in admitting that, really, it’s a net good thing, not pure good.… Continue reading →