Author Archives: crunchymetromom

I’m a XX and I vote

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I was originally thinking of titling this “I have a uterus, and I vote”, but I thought of friends who’ve had hysterectomies and decided against it. Even “I have breasts, and I vote” seems off kilter when you think of people you know who had mastectomies. And thus, I’ll just go with the XX chromosomal model and beg deference from my trans friends – if YOU know you’re a woman, I’m cool with that. Just go with it, please…

So, here’s where I want to point out that democratic math in the U.S. is completely effed up. I know I’ve probably mentioned that parental math has a law that states that 1 kid + 1 kid > 2 kids, so there’s precedent. But still, seeing 52 < 47 makes me want to throw up. Between the failure of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the various newly created laws that restrict access to abortion and/or that require women to undergo ultrasounds prior to abortions, I wonder if there’s some notion that women just don’t vote?

According to the Roper Center, approximately 53% of those voting in the 2008 election were women. (I cross-referenced this against the U.S. Census, which said that it was more like 52% – all close enough for me, given the incredibly large sample sizes). So, what’s up with all of the people who vote against women on issues of things like fair pay? Even if you set aside the incredibly emotionally charged issues around abortion/choice/life, can’t we all agree that men and women who do the same job should be paid on the same scale and measured by the same yardstick?

If not, why not?

My breasts don’t make me any less able to calculate sums, do complex formulas in Excel, or compose an elegant PowerPoint.

My uterus doesn’t inhibit my ability to speak publicly on a variety of topics, nor does it keep me from providing consultative support to my co-workers who come to me for my (amazingly unaffected by estrogen) subject-matter expertise.

I don’t need special women-only water to power me through my day, with GIRL-VITAMINS that keep my body moving even as I suffer from the rather common affliction known as “lack of a penis”.

I’m confused.

So, let me just say this to the Ritchie Riches who are running for office in 2012: I am a XX and I vote. I vote in MY best interests. That means I want to see fair wages for women, because I AM one, and because my daughter will grow up to become one, and no one should pay me or her lower amounts just because we suffer from penile-deficiency-syndrome. Lacking a penis isn’t a disability for me, thanks.

I vote for things that I believe in, like a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, making sure that everybody in the country has access to affordable care (not just those who can afford care, which ISN’T the same thing), and making marriage rights available to all American citizens, not just those who pair up Adam-and-Eve style. Adam-and-Steve is cool, too, as is Madam-and-Eve. Love is love, y’all.

That’s not to say that I won’t vote based on other issues, like economy, defense, and who’s the lesser evil. It just means that I’m not going to vote for someone who’s proven that they either aren’t in my corner or they support those who aren’t in my corner.

So, I’d like to publicly shame Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Clearly, you don’t deserve to be paid as much as your male colleagues, in your minds. Thanks for looking out for your fellow gals. For the three of you who aren’t retiring this fall (Ayotte, Collins & Murkowski), I hope your XX constituents remember your voting record the next time they go to the ballot box and see your name.

And for the rest of the Republican slugs who voted sheer party line to defeat this legislature, I hope they all get tossed out. Don’t they have mothers? Wives? Daughters? Friends who are female that aren’t impressionable interns or mistresses?

It all makes me shake my head. In the 21st century, that we can still fight over whether or not one gender is entitled to the same pay for the same work as that of another gender…clearly history is being written by people with some very big balls. And, being seriously tired of bigots and bullies, I can only hope that the 2012 election is one massive kick in their nuts.

Expanding the definition of “locavore”

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The concept of a “locavore” is pretty easy for most folks to grasp: someone who buys things that are produced locally. Typically, this is used when describing people who purchase locally-produced foods, whether those foods are animal or vegetable. There’s also the idea of “Think Global, Act Local” to remind people that we need to support local businesses. And, between the bevy of days designed to get us out there frequenting local businesses (i.e. Record Store Day, Free Comic Book Day, Small Business Saturday, etc.), you have a whole host of reminders that we need to consume local resources first, before we look outside of what’s right nearby.

And so, it was with a terribly heavy heart I heard the news yesterday that WFNX (101.7FM to those of us in Eastern MA) had been sold to Clear Channel. Yes, the folks who own the “IHeartRadio” brand that seems hell-bent on destroying all variety in radio had bought yet another station and was planning to take it from its current alternative music format to (likely) either Spanish-language talk or country.

I can’t describe how awful I felt when I heard this. I have all kinds of words that I would typically use for this circumstance which I try pretty hard not to use on this blog, for fear of giving the impression that I’m an off-duty sailor. Basically, this decision is just bullshit and it’s robbing the local area of a resource that many of us really enjoyed. My sister introduced me to WFNX in the early 90’s, on one of my trips up to Boston while I was still in college. I loved the variety, the fact that they played music that no one else even considered putting on the radio, and the sheer bravado of putting on music that wasn’t designed for people who only wanted aural pap. When I moved up to the Boston area several years later, WFNX became “my station” – the one I would listen to in the car all the time. Even now, working well out of the range of its puny transmitter, I stream it to my desktop at work so that I can keep tabs on the music I love and the DJ’s that I find highly amusing (in an era when most DJ’s are interchangeable animatronic figures with their own inner laugh tracks on constantly).

These days, when you turn on the radio in your car (assuming you only have terrestrial radio and haven’t ponied up for Sirius/XM), what you hear is fairly homogeneous. Any station you land on fits neatly into one of five categories: news/talk, classical, classic rock, pop rock or college radio. The alternative rock stations have been wiped clean off the map in many cities (my beloved WHFS in DC disappeared one day, suddenly, but is available for streaming these days). And now, the station that introduced me to Mumford & Sons, Foster the People, Arcade Fire, Young the Giant and many, many others is disappearing. The radio personalities that actually lent personality to the radio were let go. A skeleton crew will man the station until its final switchover somewhere between 2-8 weeks from now, and then Clear Channel will re-baptize it as something else.

If you think about what being a locavore means, there’s an inherent sense of consciously bypassing the homogenized experience – the pre-packaged, chemically-enhanced version of what’s on the market. You want the fresh strawberries from the farm one county over, not the ones that flew in from 3,000 miles away. You want the beef that’s hormone-free instead of the beef that’s had god only knows WHAT done to it in order to get that cow to grow faster in a pen that’s smaller than a bathroom stall. Sure, you pay more for that, but you pay knowing that you’re supporting local businesses and your own local community, and you’re doing something that’s better for you in the process.

Listening to local radio isn’t all that different. Sure, the sales channel isn’t exactly the same – you don’t purchase directly from the station, although you may hear about a show or a service and purchase directly from the vendor who advertised on the radio. But still, how is there all that much difference? When you have the opportunity to listen to new bands that have a sound that challenges your preconceived notions of what’s good, expanding your mind, how is that so different from turning up your nose at packaged foods? In my mind, my rejection of all things Bieber and any of the digitally-enhanced crapola that comes out of the record company machine doesn’t stray all that much from my desire to have organic milk in the house. I’m consciously rejecting that which I know is being spoon-fed to me and branching out. That I listen to this on local radio is far better than just streaming it from some faceless server owned by a media conglomerate.

The other piece of this is that I don’t just listen: I buy. When I hear something I like, I go to Newbury Comics and I buy it. I don’t buy constantly, and I often look through their used selections when something finally occurs to me months after a disc has come out and I’ve heard enough to know it’s worth buying. But I buy. And I buy local. Newbury Comics is much like a DC-area chain I used to work for back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. That chain was destroyed by the rise of Tower Records and Best Buy, and ultimately Walmart and Target did them all in. Newbury’s still managed to survive, although they’re very much on life support, to hear their CEO tell it. They’ve had to expand their offerings to include more clothes and other ancillary items, because that’s where they’re getting sufficient margin. They’re being eaten alive by iTunes.

So, if I have to leave you with one idea as I sit in mourning for WFNX and desperately hope that Newbury won’t go the way of the dodo anytime soon: be a locavore about more than just food. Think Global, but for pete’s sake CONSUME LOCAL. Listen to your local radio station. Buy from your local CD store. If you live in the radio/musical equivalent of a food desert, seek out new music and new acts and buy their stuff. Go to local shows if you can. Just don’t give up on what’s local. Because, just as a radio station can disappear in the blink of an eye, so can a family farm. Businesses need patrons to succeed, and they need word of mouth to grow their base. Don’t let another decent station or music chain suffer because the deal is better on Amazon or the instant gratification’s there with iTunes. Think Global, CONSUME LOCAL. Please.

Kicking my training up a notch…

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It’s not every day when someone shows up at your door with a box filled with stuff. With things piled on top of the box. I do so love days like that, especially when the stuff that the person shows up with happens to be stuff I can use.

In this case, it’s stuff I know I *want* to use, so we’ll see if I can kick my own behind into gear enough to be able to use it properly.

This all stems from one of those “it’s who you know” things, where I happen to know someone who works for a company that makes fitness equipment that’s designed specially for women. Now, I say this not to get all mushy – “ooh, it’s pink and it has wings!” NO NO NO. “Things designed for women” isn’t code for “looks like a tampon and smells like Febreze”. In this case, it’s fitness equipment that was designed for different body needs. Will dh use any of it? Uh, yeah. Why? It’s not because he wants to get in touch with his feminine side…it’s more that there will come a point when his curiosity will get the better of him. (He was already sniffing around the fitness mats and was excited that there was more than one.)

Of course, I haven’t yet had the chance to try this stuff out. My friend was kind enough to bring all this stuff last night, showing me everything from mats to medicine balls. As I try things out, I’ll post some reviews so that you can see what I found that worked for me. Bear in mind that my current schedule has me working out – at most – 3-4 times a week, with most of my workouts running maybe 35-45 minutes (and a longer one on the weekend). Some weeks I work out more, some less. I work out when I can, as we can fit it into our schedule (dh is training for his first triathlon). Add in full-time jobs and two kids and our schedule is almost military-level regimented from about 4:45am until the kids are finally asleep for the night.

Thanks to a fitness competition that was going on at work for the last few weeks, I’ve been focusing my workouts on walking, but now I can start to reincorporate core work. Hopefully, this will be less likely to kill me than what the sadistic incredibly sweet personal trainer at my gym had taught me earlier this year. (For such a nice guy, he certainly got an evil grin going when I was feeling near death halfway through his workouts. Yeesh.)

My eyes are on the prize(s): becoming fitter and finishing this year’s walking marathon without limping my way into the finish line. FINISH STRONG. As it happens, I connected with the Director of this year’s walk and there are a bunchload of people who live in my town that are also planning to do this year’s marathon; I suggested that she help organize a training club, and she’s going to see what can be done to make that happen.

So we’ll see if this works. I don’t consider this a reboot or even a .x release. This is just continuous flow. I haven’t stopped moving. (On the contrary, I was averaging well over 10,000 steps/day for the last three months.) I’d just like to kick things up a notch and, with a little help from my friends (and some new fitness toys!) I think I can do just that.

Who’s with me?

P.S. – If things work out nicely with any of the items I try out, there is a chance for giveaways. *claps hands in joy and grins madly* Keep your fingers cross, peeps.