Poetry: Little Yolk

In honor of National Poetry Month, which starts today, I've decided to participate in the Academy of American Poets' pledge drive. Much like a runner might collect donations for a charity for miles run in a race, by writing a poem every day this month and by raising small donations for those poems, I hope to do my small part to keep an art form I love alive.

I'm not a great poet by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy writing poetry from time to time and have always wished I took time to do it more often, so this is a good excuse to force myself to write. At the very least, I expect it will be a fun experiment - I can't imagine keeping up with the daily quota will be easy or that the results will always be something I would normally want to print for public consumption! So, I promise to amuse, if not inspire - maybe both unintentionally (with my bad poetry) and intentionally (to break up the monotony, I may throw in one or two bawdy limericks and/or absurd haiku).

So without further ado, in observance of April Fool's Day, I give you a brief portrait of a fool . . .

Little Yolk

In those days,

She wasn’t the type to burn

Bridges in the name of feminism.

Which isn’t to say

She wasn't a feminist;

She’d just learned to choose

Her battles. She smiled and thanked

The man eating at

The counter

Who said, “You’re smart

For a woman,” a little yolk,

Yellow, dribble

Hanging from his beard.

She thought it was

Futile to argue

With the man

With money

Who didn’t realize

He had egg on his face.

To read other poems or poetry-related posts on this blog, click here.

I Love Words: Saucebox

Word: saucebox

Pronunciation: \ˈsȯs-ˌbäks, ˈsas-\

Function: noun

Date: 1588

Definition: a saucy impudent person

(Some folks may want a definition for 'impudent,' so here you go: 1 [obsolete]: lacking modesty; 2: marked by contemptuous or cocky boldness or disregard of others : insolent.)

I'd actually never heard this word before until I read it recently in an Editrix post (Thanks, Ed!). Love it. Apparently, it's the precursor to saucy and sassy, two other favorites. Sassy reminds me of my pubescent days when I had a subscription to the eponymous magazine - such a great publication for young girls because they employed healthy (not anorexic), unconventional (read: normal!) female models and highlighted topics and people who were hip and smart instead of what the common fair focused on (i.e., diets, diets, diets, omgBOYS!, gossip, sex, Sex, and SEX). Of course, this was before they were purchased by a big conglomerate and morphed into just another teen rag ('Stepford Sassy' as writers at Bust [a great magazine, btw] and the authors of How Sassy Changed My Life called it.)

Words like sassy and saucy went on to inspire my young adult life as well. Case in point, this campy photo captured by my cousin. Saucy, very saucy. (No, we're not really hitchhiking. We're just being silly in a field in the middle of nowhere.)

As a result of my saucebox research I found out that it is also the name of what appears to be a pretty cool restaurant in Portland, OR. Will have to check it out if I ever get up that way.


Other "I Love Words" Posts

BUST Holiday Craftacular 2008

The BUST Holiday Craftacular makes its LA Debut!

Saturday, December 6th, 11am to 6pm
The Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles

Get jiggy with jingle bells and party with BUST as you browse through the best in handmade gifts, from handbags and accessories to jewelry and cards, make your own giftwrap at an all-day "Craftnight," and get loose with Djs C. Brown (Small Town Talk) and Audrey Napoleon. Goodie bags for the first 100 attendees, giant raffle giveaway, open bar from 4 - 5 pm, and more! Door: $2

Unfortunately, I've got other obligations Saturday so won't be able to make it, but you should check it out if you're free!

Pet Peeves: Ho-ing it up for Halloween

Halloween (or All Hallow's Eve) used to be a time to take stock of and celebrate the harvest, a time when people believed the divide between this world and the underworld became permeable, allowing the dead to cause havoc amongst the living. During celebrations, people would often dress like ghouls, goblins, and other scary creatures to mimic and placate or scare the ghosts away.

Now? Well, now we dress like whores. The movie Mean Girls captured this beautifully. Remember Lindsay Lohan's character Cady's big faux pas when she dressed up like a zombie bride for a high school Halloween party? Cady's inner dialogue: "In 'Girl World,' Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. The hard-core girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears."

And nothing's sacred. Even the most chaste and honorable costume ideas have a "sexy" twist nowadays. Angel? How about a bad angel? A nun? How about a naughty nun? Judge Judy? How about Judge Do-Me?

And me? I'm no better. That's me dressed like a belly dancer in college in the picture to the right here. . . . And didn't I just comment about being sick of the objectification of women as eye candy in a recent post, using the U2 belly dancer as an example? Yes, yes I did, Internet.

Hmm. Have I become a complete and utter hypocrite? Have I just become a finger-wagging prude in my 30's? Or was I just a young girl who was susceptible to societal gender stereotypes who has since matured? Ya, . . . I'd like to argue for the latter, . . . but, if I'm honest, the truth is probably closer to a combination of all three of those theories. Nevertheless, it's still the latter that bothers me the most . . . because it starts so early. Unless you've been in a coma for the past few years, you have to be aware of the most recent generation of little girls' unhealthy obsession with Disney princesses these days. (See a great Target Women video post regarding this too.) There they are to the left, each coquettishly tilting her head for the "camera." Yikes. Just when I think we've made so much progress, I realize how much things are still so gender-typed. Parents might as well just cut to the chase and dress their kids like this for Halloween! Boo, indeed.

Praying Mantis Visitations

I hadn't seen a praying mantis since I was a small child in my grandparents' backyard. Now, yesterday marks the second time I've had one drop from out of nowhere inside or just outside my window in the span of a month. Eerie. (And by eerie, I mean . . . eerie. Have you seen one of these mofos up close‽ *shudder*)

Mantis Dude says the "mantis under the crescent moon in European cultures would represent a female's menstruation . . . [In] the 1920's European symbolism had crept into the Japanese culture and female 'sanitary pads' were advertised with crescent moons depicted on the women's kimono." (Well, if Mantis Dude says so, I guess I'll have to believe him. After all, he is Mantis Dude.)

Just so happens that this week was "my time of the month" and the moon is crescent-shaped right about now (according to the lunar calendar). Sorry if that's T.M.I., but, hey, it's a natural part of life, so I am going to have to ask you to just get over it. And speaking of getting over it, what's up with the quotation marks around sanitary pads? Were they not sanitary? Or not pads? Or is this just another example of society still treating menstruation like something taboo and dirty? I should probably fight my urge to send Mantis Dude a link to this.

Of course, the female praying mantis is probably most known for killing and eating the male immediately after copulation (see video below), so it has also been associated with radical feminism and "man-haters." Turns out, though, that this sex-typed cannibalism might be a behavior provoked in stressful laboratory settings when the female has been deprived of an adequate food supply and not something that actually happens independently in nature as often as has been suggested by scientists in the past.


Others say the praying mantis symbolizes peace, patience, and stillness. Particularly funny considering my purposefully ironic status update on Facebook the other day - "Cheri wants more patience . . . now." I'm going to choose to believe my praying mantis visitations are reminders to invite more peace into my life, so I'm going to try to make an effort to cultivate a little more zen in my intentions and surroundings. It's been a while sine I've done any yoga or meditated properly. I'm thinking that might be a nice place to start.

*Namasté*

One to Watch: Sarah Haskins

I think we'd all like to think that we've come a long way since these days:


Most product marketers nowadays don't need to be reminded that women have real buying power, but, unfortunately, there are still a glut of them out there who haven't quite figured out that we're real people too. Thankfully, Sarah Haskins over at http:current.com's infoMania does a nice job of pointing out these ridiculous stereotypes and insults to our intelligence in her "Target Women" video segments. If you haven't seen one, you're missing out:

And it's not just me; Kate Harding over at Broadsheet has a girl crush on Ms. Haskins too. She's only been in L.A. for under a year, but people have already started to take notice, calling for her to be added to the cast of The Daily Show, and The Bastion and NPR have already cornered her for interviews. In the Bastion interview, she's asked if she's a feminist. Her answer: "Yes, I’m a feminist. . . . To me it means that as women we are individuals before we are gendered people and that we're not defined by our gender except in the ways we chose to appropriate that definition." Very nice. There are too many women out there who think feminism is a dirty word. I think Sarah, a Harvard grad, could easily join the ranks of smart comediennes like Tina Fey, also a product of Chicago's Second City. And that just makes me very very happy. There aren't nearly enough women of this ilk getting air time, if you ask me.

International Women's Day

Women have made great strides over the past century to achieve equal rights, opportunities, and protections against maltreatment. I’m very grateful to the brave and brilliant women who have come before me who blazed that trail, making it possible for me to live the life that I do. On Saturday, International Women’s Day, I think we should all take a moment to appreciate those women – both the famous and the personal female role models in our lives – and perhaps make a commitment to take action on initiatives that will further our progress. It can be as simple as calling your aunt and thanking her for teaching you that women can be successful in the science professions or calling (301-443-1083), writing a letter (address below) to, or e-mailing Robert McSwain, Director of Indian Health Services, to demand quality health care for Native American and Alaska native women (1 in 3 is raped in her lifetime).

Sadly, it’s easy to take for granted all that has been achieved in the name of women’s rights, especially in the United States where things aren’t anywhere near as bad as they still are in many other regions of the world (e.g., dangerous, life-threatening female genital cutting is still practiced in the name of tradition in some regions of the world). We can’t forget that our fellow women come from all countries, all walks of life, and many of them do not yet enjoy the rights, opportunities, or protections against maltreatment that we do; and we can’t forget that, even though we may have made great strides in the United States, we still have obstacles to overcome here as well, like the “glass ceiling” in the workplace. In short, our work is not done, sisters!

IHS Address:

Indian Health Service (HQ)
The Reyes Building
801 Thompson Avenue, Ste. 400
Rockville, MD 20852-1627

Additional info on events and actions can be found via the following links:

Amnesty International’s Women’s Human Rights

National Organization for Women

Famous Feminists

Test your knowledge of famous female feminists.

"Hysterical" Hillary

I’m sick to death of the hullabaloo over this clip of Hillary Clinton. Could the media be any more collectively misogynistic? Either she’s cold and calculating or “cracking under the pressure,” unable to keep her feminine emotions in check - either an automaton or a “hysterical woman.” Some reporters are even saying she was “crying.” Um, have they watched the actual clip? Choked up, sure, but not crying.

Is it really too much to imagine that she might be passionate, a little tired, . . .human?? Apparently, yes, it is too much to ask because some are even saying she “planned” this as a PR stunt to help her appear more accessible, likable. (Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.) I have a novel idea - how about we judge her on her abilities and qualifications? (Now I really am asking too much.)

This cartoon by Tom Toles in the Washington Post (unfortunately) sums it up pretty well. (If you can’t get to the cartoon, you may need to register. Registration is free though.)