Page 362 of 524

Sex and the City: Getting My B.S. in Post-Feminism


Girls Will Analyze Two-Word Conversations Like Jesuit Theologians

 

Girl #1: Oh my god, did I tell you? Alex called me yesterday! And it wasn’t 6 am for once, it was 3 pm!
Girl #2: That’s great!
Girl #1: I know. He was like [low voice] “heeeeeeey” and I was like [high voice] “heeeeey!” and it was amazing. Well, not really. But it was so great.  

–Starbucks, Washington Square (Overheard in New York)

I didn’t watch Sex and the City until after I was widowed. I think by then it was in syndication on regular cable channels, and so I didn’t even see it in all its HBO soft-porn glory. When I did watch the show, it was never on purpose. By that time I rarely watched television and any sofa-tater activity was a result of my inability to tune my mind to the off position and grab a little sleep.

For me the show wasn’t lulling. It took everything that was most awful about approaching middle-age, female and alone, and nearly all the worst aspects of women’s friendships and rolled it up in stereo-types, blatant contradictions, and really infuriating ideas about women that it would work me up more than it numbed me with glutton-like consumerism and cultural cliche. Read Full Article

First Kisses – A Monday Meme


A piece on Pammy’s Wyldreams blog a week or so ago gave me the idea for this week’s meme. She wrote about kissing. So today, Iet’s talk about the art, the act, the romance, the good, the bad and ugly of that seminal relationship moment – the first kiss. Who? When? Where? and Why? And any other pertinent information you feel like ‘fessing up to.

I’ll go first.

My first kiss was with a boy in my first grade class at Resurrection Grade School. His name was John Shaw. We went out behind the cars in the teachers’ parking lot. I think we were standing behind a station wagon that belonged to Paul Donahue’s mom who taught 4th grade.

It wasn’t a particularly romantic moment as John had told his friends and several of them followed us. I can’t remember now if they stayed to watch or I chased them off (I was a bossy girl and it helped that I was taller than nearly all of them).

We kissed twice. The second time was due to the fact that John did not open his mouth and I told him that this was the wrong way to kiss. Whenever I had observed grown-ups kiss, they opened their mouths (I was not aware of the whole tongue aspect until junior high and found it repugnant for a quite some time after). So the second kiss was open-mouthed.

No teacher observed us. The nuns and lay teachers ate lunch while we had recess. Free-range teaching in those days.

Your turn. Don’t forget to link back or just share it here in the comment space.

Thoughts on The Florida Teacher who Voted a Five year old Off her Island


Have a new piece up on Moms Speak Up concerning the incident in Florida recently when a kindergarten teacher had her students vote another child out of the the classroom.

As a teacher, I can see easily that there is more to the story than what has graced the headlines and the news stories. There almost always is. As a parent of a little girl who has been stuck in a kindergarten class with several behaviorally challenged classmates all year, I would like to side with the parents of the children who have been trapped in a classroom that sounds less than learning friendly for them. As a teacher, I am torn between wondering what the real story is and why this teacher didn’t simply ask for some help dealing with the child that day (beyond what she had already done) instead of resorting to such a drastic measure.

If you have a moment and can skip over to MSU to read this piece and let me know your thoughts, I would be most appreciative.