A witch in time

That's my way of saying I wish I'd caught the witch in time to prevent her from soiling my yard. I didn't, unfortunately. So I learned some valuable lessons about blogging and life. The lesson about blogging is pretty straightforward: Don't give the outside world unrestricted access to your blog. The lesson about life is harder for me to take, but probably more important in the end: There are people, like our Anonymous, who will exploit you for their own purposes. They don't give a damn (sorry Mom!) about the effect their actions have on you after they use you to achieve their selfish aims. They often come into your world in disguise, wearing a mask of concern: They "care about you" or are giving you a "heads up", as our witch did. But it's never really about you or what's best for you. It's about them and what's best for them; it's about what they want out of a situation. You know this because if it were really about you, they would've handled it differently. For one thing, they would never make the kinds of ugly allegations they make about an unwitting third party from behind the bunker of anonymity. They're snipers and cowards who launch their sneak attacks under cover of darkness, then retreat to savor what they've done (no doubt laughing at how clever they are) while leaving you to clean up their mess. Like Blogger's version of Hezbollah.

I might have mixed a few metaphors here but that's okay. I'd rather deal with the metaphor police than with people like our anonymous witch any day and twice on Sunday. Actually if I'd been here Sunday to deal with her, none of this would have happened. And I would not have caused such embarrassment to a man I greatly respect.

Oh--my--God!

In the beginning I was just a girl who got caught up in a blog, Steve's, and thought it would be interesting and fun to try one of my own. It is amazing to me now, the amount of anger and emotional torment I've had to deal with from just about every side over the past week as a direct result of my FIRST FEW POSTS! So I think I'm going to be putting things on hold while I reevaluate and decide how I feel about everything.

Thanks to all of you who gave me a pat on the back, yes, even Steve who now seems so very disgusted with me. In fairness I can see why, and I deeply regret any trouble and embarrassment I've caused by not being as hands-on as I should have been about this. Lawsuits? Libel? How and when did all this happen?!

Who knows, I may be back. Right now it hardly seems worth the trouble.

I hope I don't lose a friend for good today

"How could you write something like that?"

That's how "Emily" started our lunch. They were her first words even before "hi" or "it's good to see you," which she never did get around to saying. I knew immediately which "something like that" she had in mind. Ordinarily it might be presumptuous to assume my friend could only be referring to my new blog, but over the weekend I'd gotten so much feedback on "Let me tell you a love story" that it seemed unlikely Em could be referring to anything else. In addition to the people who took the time to comment here, the emails to my Yahoo and college accounts totaled more than a dozen.

"Em, what did I really say? You knew how my Grandma and Grandpa were."

Okay, I was baiting her. It's true that Emily and I have been friends for most of my 23 years, and she'd spent a good deal of time at my grandparents' house when we were both growing up. It's also true that she'd even commented on occasion about the wonderful marriage Lena and Hal still had "after all this time." But Em is one of those "friends in Women's Studies" I talked about earlier, so I knew she wasn't concerned with the part about my grandparents and their marriage. She was concerned about what came after that. What I made of it all.

"You know what I'm talking about, 'Lis," she said bitterly. "And to make it your first real post the way you did! It's like you were purposely trying to slap us in the face."

The "us," of course, would be Em's feminist friends from her Women's Studies classes. She'd be quick to tell you that the actual name is Gender Studies, even though the gender they're really studying is women, and the way they mostly study women is in terms of how much men have oppressed them. That's my impression based on everything that filters back to me.

"I don't understand why you're acting like this is some big news flash," I told her. "You know how I feel about the way things are today with dating and relationships and all. We've talked about this a hundred times."

"Yes, but those were personal feelings, expressed in a personal setting. You made it public and political."

"Political?"

"Oh, and then you had to put that afterthought where you mentioned feminists by name. Don't you realize how bad it looks for a young woman, a college woman, to say such things? When did you become Rush Limbaugh? Frankly, I found it offensive."

So that was my lunch with my friend. I let her do most of the talking the rest of the way, hoping she would let off steam and feel better. That didn't happen. I was surprised she didn't get around to accusing me of wanting us all to end up barefoot and pregnant. We did manage to work our way into other topics by the end of it, but the atmosphere never got much nicer or more comfortable. Certainly not the way it usually is when Emily and I get together.

It would be ridiculous, and yes, offensive for any woman to discount the role feminism has played in the opportunities and privileges we women take for granted today. I know that I owe a great debt. And I'm not just saying that to say it. I am a woman, after all! I'm well aware of how things were for us as a gender fifty years ago. At the same time I'm aware of other things that were a certain way fifty years ago. And they were better, in my opinion. I think I'm within my rights as a person and a woman to speculate on the role feminists may have played in bringing about those things, too. The intentions were good, but there were areas where feminists overreacted and led us astray. The idea that a woman should express her equality by being able to have sex with anybody at any time and feeling nothing about it is not necessarily a positive development, just because it's "like what men have done, so we're entitled to do likewise." Maybe men are wrong to think that way in the first place. Did that ever occur to anyone?

The larger issue is that we should be able to disagree on things like this without writing each other off as people. There should be room for honest dissent without the true believers making those who don't buy the whole gospel out to be traitors. I always thought true feminism was about being accepted first and foremost as individuals. As unique people with unique feelings and ideas, not just as Women.

I know this post isn't going to make things any better, "Em." It just needs to be said.

Oops

In a comment yesterday I thanked Rodger and Laura for their kind words, sent to me via Yahoo, blaming technical difficulties for their inability to post here directly; I said Blogger was just "in one of its moods." Turns out Alyssa was just being lame-brained. Apparently I set up the blog so that only registered users could comment. I've fixed that now. At least I hope I have. Let's also hope that I remain able to write things that strike readers as worthy of comment in the first place!

Bear with me, please. Clearly I'm new at this.

Let me tell you a love story

When I read not long ago that the divorce rate for people who got married after meeting on Match.com was at least as bad as the rate overall, I thought first of my Grandma Lena. She died of cancer two years ago, and undoubtedly would die again of embarrassment if she read what I’m about to tell you. Grandma Lena met the only man she would ever sleep with on a blind date. That was my Grandpa Hal. They both agreed it was “love at first sight.” They married two months later and consummated their love on the wedding night. They stayed married for 51 years till Grandpa Hal died. I didn’t know them the whole time, of course, but in the time I did know them, I hardly ever saw either of them without a big smile on their faces. Grandpa Hal called Grandma Lena “my bride” till his dying day. I mean that literally. On his deathbed he told my father to “please take care of my bride.” After he died, Grandma Lena continued to draw strength and comfort from their love until she herself died. I repeat, they met on a blind date, and got married two months later.

In contrast, my generation has every modern diagnostic advantage at its disposal. We take computerized compatibility tests; if we’re really over the top, we can order background checks and credit reports. We Google previous girlfriends to supplement our knowledge of the new man in our life. Though we’re way too sophisticated to talk seriously about “love at first sight,” we’re often having sex from that very first date (yes, girls, oral either way counts as sex). We have a base of other lovers to compare that experience to. We date for three years, live together for two more years, and then finally get married. Four years later we get divorced. Or, since neither party wants to just throw away something as sacred as a marriage, one or both of us start cheating. We don’t smile nearly as often as my grandparents. For all we know, we may be destined to repeat this cycle two or three times before we're done.

Am I missing something here? I think the answer is yes. I think maybe we are all missing something.

And another blog of note

I also wanted to recommend Steve Salerno's blog, which I recently discovered and have very much enjoyed. And so I will!: I hereby recommend Shamblog. If that sounds like a strange title for a blog, or for anything, it's based on a book Steve wrote about the self-help movement, which he thinks is mostly a waste of time and money. But the discussions on his blog range far wider than Dr. Phil or Oprah. He tackles any number of wild and wonderful topics. Try it! It was really Steve's blog that was the deciding factor in my own entry into the blogosphere. I hope it motivates you too.

This is my world

A world where I hope to explore life in its majesty, mystery, and misery. We will hope for mostly the first two, but must be open to the latter as well, because life is life. It speaks. We listen.