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04 Aug 23:59

Where’s Rory? (UPDATED)

by thebloggess

So.  Next month my new book comes out and if you read here often enough you’re already familiar with Rory, the gloriously ecstatic and somewhat terrifying taxidermied road-kill raccoon who graces the cover.

furiously happy

When you read the book you’ll learn all about Rory, and also more about how my anxiety disorder makes it hard to leave the house at times.  These things seem unrelated but when my publisher first started making cardboard standees to send to book sellers I mentioned how nice it was that all of these cardboard raccoons were traveling so bravely around the world as my stand-in.

Next month I’ll start traveling for months (off and on) during my book tour but I already know from my first tour that I’m not really strong enough to see anything of the cities that I’ll travel to, except for the blanket fort I’ll make in my hotel room and the wonderful people who’ll come to bookstores to listen to me read.  It probably seems like a waste of travel to the average person but I know that I don’t have the physical or mental stamina to see the sites or landmarks.  And that’s a little sad, but it’s also sort of wonderful to finally acknowledge my limits and recognize them and to not push myself past them…to know that taking care of myself is more important than seeing the world.

But when I first saw the cardboard Rory raccoons being made I thought of the traveling gnome prank (the practice of stealing a garden gnome and sending postcards and pictures of the gnome traveling the world to the owner) and thought how lovely it would be if some of these Rorys could travel around the world and see all of the amazing things that so many of us never see.  And my publisher (who is strange enough to agree to put a dead raccoon on the cover of a book) agreed completely and sent me a lovely cardboard Rory.  I photographed him all around the house.

With my pets:

wheresrorypets

Ferris Mewler, Hunter S. Thomcat, Dorothy Barker and Rory.

With Beyoncé:

Knock knock, motherfucker.

Knock knock, motherfucker.

With James Garfield:

whereroryjamesgarfield

And even with the original Rory:

"SURPRISE!"

“SURPRISE!”

Then my friend Laura took Rory with her on a few weeks of travel.  He was with her at Blogher, and she texted me pictures of old friends with Rory as I sat at home and suddenly felt so much less lonely than I had before.

Do you know these people?  You should.

Do you know these people? You should.

Then came pictures of him in New York.

If a dead raccoon can make it here he can make it anywhere.  I'm paraphrasing.

If a dead raccoon can make it here he can make it anywhere. I’m paraphrasing.

And then he was jetted off to the beach.

No sunscreen needed.

No sunscreen needed.

And he joined in on a family vacation.

"High-five, Walt."

“High-five, Walt.”

And each time a picture would come in I’d feel like I was there.  And I’d share the picture with Hailey and Victor and we’d all laugh at the ridiculous wonder of a small raccoon seeing the world.  And Laura would tell me hysterical stories of people she’d met because they were so intrigued with this bizarre, ecstatic cardboard raccoon who was lounging on beach chairs, or riding on ferris wheels, or watching a Broadway play.

And it was lovely.

We haven’t even started and already I’m thrilled.  But let’s keep going.  Do you have someplace you think Rory needs to see?  Do you want to take him with you to see a landmark, share a photo of him and then pass him on to someone else who can photograph him in another new place?  The Eiffel Tower?  The world’s largest ball of twine?  Horseback riding?  Being hugged by sloths?  Balancing on the head of your great-grandmother?  Just leave me a comment (with your email so I can contact you) and I’ll send dozens of Rorys into the world so we can see what happens.

I’ll be updating this post with new pictures as they come in, and sharing them online using the #WheresRory hashtag.  I hope you’ll enjoy vicariously seeing the world through the eyes of a tiny, couch-surfing, furiously happy raccoon as much as I do.

PS. If you simply can’t wait for someone to mail you a Rory you can make one yourself.  Just click here, print the pdf, glue it on something stiff and cut it out.  BOOM.  You’re in business.  You can share links and pictures in the comment section and I’ll update it as Rory travels.

PPS.  Thank you.  This is ridiculous and I know that but I also know that you people are magic with ridiculousness, and that instead of judging me you’re more likely to take this someplace I’d never imagine.  You are made of stardust.  Thank you.

UPDATED:  GO LOOK AT THESE PICTURES, Y’ALL.

13 May 19:21

Again

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

This morning I got up early – so early it was still dark, and I made coffee, and while it was brewing, I put on my biking stuff – including the incredibly flattering and esteem boosting spandex. Then I came downstairs again, and sat in the dawning light, eating peanut butter toast and waiting for the text from Jen that would tell me she was at the trailhead. When she got there, I went outside, got on my bike, and as I pushed off down the street to meet her, I marvelled that I was doing it.  I’m training for the Bike Rally again, and I have a secret to tell you.

verychipper 2015-05-13

(Jen and I are seen here at the beginning of our ride this morning. 50km before work. What you can’t see is how cold we are. We were attempting supernatural chipperness as an antidote. It helps.)

At the end of the Rally last year, I was going to take a year off. Last year was… hard. I don’t know any other way to describe it. The rain, the overwhelming training schedule, my knees – they were really hurting. I think I have a grip on the problem now, but last year? The ends of the rides were all punctuated with ice packs. Also, the issue of the (*&%$%##ing squirrel EATING MY SEAT right before the rally, and having to ride the whole thing on a new one? I’d rather not discuss the impact on my nether-regions, and instead tell you that that year was… hard.  I had a very, very low night about mid-way through the rally, when I cried (by myself, like a grownup) and wondered why the hell I do this to myself, and thought that maybe I would have a break this year. That feeling was still there when we pulled into Montreal. It was amazing to have done it, I was so proud of everything, but I was done. Just… for a while. I imagined all the ways that I could still support this cause without involving my free time, summer vacation, weekends and crotch.  I hadn’t figured out how to tell anyone. Joe knew though, and he said everyone would understand. I thought he was right too.

Then, something happened. PWA (the Toronto People with Aids Foundation) was forced to cut some staff and services. The Bike Rally is the sustaining fundraiser for PWA, and we’d failed to sustain them, and the people who use them. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. In fact, the ridership raised more money per rider last year than ever before – there there were fewer riders though, compared to years past, and even though the fundraising efforts were heroic, it wasn’t enough.  This moved me more than I can tell you. This tangible evidence that the Rally is so fundamental, so immediate to the ability of PWA to help people… it just struck me that the choices that I made mattered, and they mattered that day, and something snapped.

I did three important things that day.  I decided to ride again. I decided to accept the position I was offered on the Steering Committee. (Without a word of a lie, I was going to turn it down.) And… I decided to do everything in my power to change the outcome for this year, to try as hard as I could to raise as much as I could.  So, I didn’t quit. I had sort of a bad feeling in my tummy, but I didn’t quit.

Those decisions have had, shall we say… “impact”.  I have the added responsibilities of Steering Committee. I help make decisions that shape the Rally, and make things possible. I go to a lot of meetings. I send a lot of emails, and once again, my summer is going to evaporate into a blur of training rides and Rally stuff, and I’ll probably be away when my new niece of nephew comes – and while I have some feelings about that,  I don’t regret my choice. I feel like it’s important, and I am so, so very lucky to have this time to give. (My arse disagrees, but we are in negotiations.)

rainagain 2015-05-13 (1)

(Jen and I are seen here this morning, having lost a little of that chipperness as the rain started, and we became both wet and cold.)

So, to make a long story even longer. This summer I will ride my bike more than 600 kilometres from Toronto to Montreal, in The Friends for Life Bike Rally.  This year, we have a little family team, as always.  Ken, long-time rider, blog starter, and the person who roped me into this in the first place. Pato, the most decent 23 year old man alive (he will very much appreciate me saying “man” instead of “boy”)  and Jen – mum, student, employee, wonderful riding partner,  and all four of us… knitters. (Well, in the interest of honesty I feel compelled to tell you that Pato *can* knit, but he doesn’t often. He’s 23. With maturity, will come reason.)  My daughters aren’t joining us this year, because they have work/school schedules that simply cannot allow for the 12 weekend/1 week off work commitments that are the Rally.  (It’s not small potatoes. It eats your vacation.) Look for their influence in other places. They’re still in it.

thatdamnhill 2015-05-13

(Jen and I are seen here being handed our arses by a monster hill we couldn’t get up. If you live in Toronto, know that it was Pottery Road. It’s the beginning of training – we couldn’t make it all the way up. We’ll see how we do in a few weeks. It was brutal.)

Once again, I’m asking for your help. Our commitment means nothing without you.  (I am stopping just short of calling you the wind beneath our wings, thank goodness, although that was a near thing. I deleted it.)  Once again, I’m going to try and raise a ton of money, and I have a private and deeply personal crazy-pants goal. To this end, I’m going to do some things the same way, and some things differently. What stays the same? Karmic Balancing gifts. Once a week (or so) between now and the rally, I’ll chose from amongst the people who’ve helped and redirect a knitterly (or spinnerly) gift from someone else who wants to help.*  What’s different? Who sends their name along.

This year I want it to be all about the Karma. We’re trying to change lives here, make things better for some people, and there’s so much more to that than money, so, here’s the thing. If you donate to anyone on our little team

Me

Ken

Pato

Jen

Then please send me an email letting me know you’ve done so. Make the subject line “I helped” and send it to stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca. (Note the .ca it’s a Canada thing.) Include your name, address, and whether or not you spin.  (For the love of all things woolly, please use the subject line. It makes your email go to a specific folder and you have no idea what a difference that makes to my sanity.) You don’t need to say what you gave, or include proof. I know you’ll do your best, whatever that is, and I know you wouldn’t lie.  What’s new? Not everyone has money to help with – so we’re taking all kinds of help.  If you can figure out some other way to do that, please send in your email. Maybe you can tell a friend. Maybe you can post about it to social media. Maybe you can contribute a gift. There’s lots and lots of ways to help, and if you can figure out a way? Send that email, letting me know you did.

Knitters, lets go big. Let’s fill up the world with amazing, and when everyone at PWA asks who these people are? Ken, Pato, Jen and I will smile and say what we always do. “They’re knitters. You have no idea what they’re made of.”

*If you want to contribute a gift, I’m trying to make it easier for myself this year. It’s a ton of work, and I don’t mind doing it, but I have a better shot at getting it all done if you do this: Take a picture of your gift. Email me with the subject line “Karmic Balancing” with the details, picture and a link, if you want me to use one. When one of the helpers is chosen for a gift, I’ll email you the address, and you can ship it right to them. (It’s not a bad idea to let me know if you have shipping restrictions. I’ll keep track.) Thank you!

08 Sep 16:48

Adulthood, Round Two

by A Practical Wedding
Alia

Funny how much life can change in a short amount of time, but how often those changes bring something so much better.

Adulthood, Round Two | A Practical Wedding

In the beginning of 2013, just after my twenty-eighth birthday, I thought I had it all figured out. I had a Masters degree and a steady job; I’d just published my first book with a reputable London house; I was finally independent financially; and my long-term boyfriend and I would soon be engaged and moving back to my home country to start our own American Dream. I was content, settled in my age and my accomplishments for the first time I could remember—if that wasn’t the definition of adulthood, I didn’t know what was.

Then, a few months into the year, the grown-up life I’d built started to unravel. My relationship with my family hit previously unheard of levels of strife and I stopped talking to my parents altogether; my brain was so burned out from writing and editing the book that I was convinced I’d never write anything of value again; and, worst of all, my fiancé started acting like someone I didn’t know, someone cruel, lying to me and flipping erratically between excitement about our upcoming commitment and extreme uncertainty about the one thing he’d been adamant he wanted for seven years (me, in his life, for the rest of it). Eventually, I discovered he’d been having an affair, and the betrayal went far too deep to forgive. I lost everything I’d held so dear, in one fell swoop.

As my life as I knew it disintegrated, so did my sense of self. Who was I if I wasn’t G’s partner? Where was my passion if I felt no motivation or energy to write? What would I do with myself if I didn’t have my job, my home, and my grown-up life? I was paralyzed, tormented by the destruction of a future I had come to rely on, and in the nightmarish month after we broke up, I had no choice but to plan to move back to the States alone, into the home of my parents, with whom I was still on very shaky terms.

None of it was ideal, but it was the only option I had. I couldn’t stay in London on my own—my visa would expire in a few months—I couldn’t afford our apartment without G’s share, and the city where we spent five years together had become a torture chamber—I had nowhere else to go but back “home.” When I arrived in San Francisco, twenty-five pounds lighter and an emotional wreck after a month of crying instead of eating, I felt like I’d stepped into a parallel universe. Somewhere out there I was still engaged, still happy and fulfilled and looking forward to our future. This was just a visit, like all the other times I’d come back for brief vacations from real life.

Of course, over the months that followed I eventually had to face the truth: I was alone. I was also jobless, living in my parents’ house, and still not writing—well, I was pouring my pain into a journal, and typing the odd bloodletting post on my blog, but I wasn’t writing anything structured, anything I felt proud of. I doubled over in sobs every morning when I woke up and realized it hadn’t all been a horrible dream, spent all day in excruciating emotional pain, and fell asleep every evening praying to wake up to a different reality the next day.

Then, so slowly I could barely feel it, I started to grow up again. The massive wound inside me scabbed over and cracked open again a thousand times, until the scabs started to pile upon themselves and I formed some sort of hard lump of determination. With the help of a good friend I found the right therapist, and with the everyday support of my loved ones—mostly friends, but some family as well—I began to have moments of feeling human. After a couple of months of moments, I even went whole days without tears. I started eating normally again, and then quickly worried about gaining back the weight I’d lost so unhealthily (that’s one way I knew I was recovering part of my old self, the rude part I fight every day when I’m not entirely crushed). I went on dates, so many first dates, and a few second and third. I also learned that I’m great at dates, and that people want to date me, sometimes more than three times.

I started writing again. I wrote an essay about my ex, and it was published by my favorite wedding site (the only one I still read now, over a year after the engagement ended). I was floored, thrilled, and filled with the kind of pure happiness I wasn’t sure I was still capable of. I wrote more blog posts, with a little less bloodletting and a little more thoughtfulness. I got surprisingly invested in yoga, after much snark about the “girls in yoga pants,” and found it helped my mood and sense of self immensely.

These days I cry pretty rarely, although I have my moments. I don’t go on many dates, but the ones I do go on are mellower and less focused on people-pleasing. I can touch my toes and hold a side plank. I socialize to see people I love, rather than to distract myself from my loneliness. I am still lonely, but I’m learning to sit with it. Most importantly, I’m writing. In fact, I’m moving to Italy in September to dedicate three months of my life (and my savings) to writing my next book—the book I would have sworn I didn’t have in me just last year.

A year and a half ago I thought I’d reached adulthood. I was happy, with what I thought was a beautiful future in front of me. But that future was picked apart by fingernails black with deceit, and as I watched it go I felt myself disintegrate too. Growing up all over again has felt impossible at times, but the only alternative was to stop living, so I kept on trying. Am I grown up now? Not hardly. But I’m getting there, and the core of fledgling-adult me is stronger this time, made of scar tissue that is slowly healing into something unbreakable—it might look ugly from some angles, but its resilience is beautiful to me.

The post Adulthood, Round Two appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Blog Ideas for the Modern Wedding, Plus Marriage.

14 Aug 01:52

Forever Isn’t Real

by A Practical Wedding
Alia

This feels very very true.

Forever Isnt Real | A Practical Wedding

My parents stayed married too long. They stayed and stayed, for twenty-three years, and in the fifteen I shared with them, I saw spite. I saw passive aggression. I saw flickers of a love they once had, only to see it roar into the house-burning flames of disappointment, mental illness, bad behavior, dishonesty, and far too much sacrifice.When their marriage ended, I sat with my mother over coffee, all sixteen years of me. She stopped, my mother, and looked at me with full, blue, red-rimmed eyes and said, “I don’t have memories without him in them, Hil.” And my heart shattered for her. Because it was still no reason to stay with a man who was ill, narcissistic, cruel. Forever was a bad idea.

If the marriage had ended the first time he stumbled, when I was eight, perhaps I could have still had a father I respected, loved. Perhaps I wouldn’t think of him as the man who devastated my mother. Perhaps the time away from the family would have shown him our worth, spared us his casual cruelty, his self-absorption, his violence. Perhaps I would have learned different things about men, and not lost myself, Radiohead style, in the briar patch of enmired sexual experiences, barely consensual relationships, and ill-treatment for a decade or more, thinking, “I deserve this. This is all there is for me.” I wouldn’t have had to spend my late twenties and early thirties healing that damage, finding the pieces of me that survived the blaze and fitting them back together again. I might know a little less about grief and loss.

It’s all neither here nor there, for my parents. But forever at what price? Why is Forever intrinsically worthy? Why is it inherently valuable?

It isn’t. It’s the moments and effort that make up forever that hold the value. I want to make promises about that. I want promises about that. The idea of someone staying with me merely because “they promised,” that the promise to do so is what constitutes the heart and soul of a marriage—I balk. I resist. I buck. No, says my heart. If it comes to it, it’s okay to leave. I’ll cry. I might beg. But leave with some love in your heart left for me. We will build the hallway to forever this way, and walk as far as we can down it. But I will never drag you. I will never tether you to me. You will always, always be free. I wouldn’t have you any other way. Stay because you want to. Stay because I make you laugh. Stay because I’m tough as nails and soft as silk. Stay because I’m fierce and flawed. Stay because you love the man you are with me, the person reflected in my eyes. But do not stay out of obligation. I want to be a celebration, not a duty. Even when it’s hard. Even when we’re sick. Even when we’re broke and scared.

Maybe forever shouldn’t be the explicit goal. Maybe the explicit goal should be in why we might want forever, and how to keep wanting it. What makes a relationship successful is not that it does not end—because hey. They all end, somehow. What makes a relationship successful is how much joy, delight, and victory you can wrestle from the jaws of a less-than-gentle world.

Let’s join hands and walk into that unknown with chips on our shoulders and swords in our hands. I’ll take every moment with you I can have.

The post Forever Isn’t Real appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Blog Ideas for the Modern Wedding, Plus Marriage.

17 Jun 22:31

Relay Recap

by Erin T
Alia

Awesome night, all for a good cause! :D

Friday night into Saturday morning was the Canadian Cancer Society’s Toronto-Central Relay for Life in support of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre.

Our team, Downtown Knit Collective, raised almost $13,000!! I myself raised my all-time best of $560! Thanks to those of you who saw my many requests and blog post and donated :D

In a typical relay you walk around the track all night from 7pm to 7am. Now, 12 hours is a LOT, so that’s why you register in teams, so that you can spell each other off, hence “relay.” Our team, however, has special dispensation to knit all night instead.

Though the reason for the event is serious and sobering, which is at times brought home by things like the Luminary ceremony, ultimately it is a fun night of camaraderie and hope. That and lots of sugar and coffee to help you stay awake.

    

There were also activities you could do on your breaks, including SUMO WRESTLING (yes, again. I don’t care it’s super fun) and these gigantic inflatable bouncy pony things that became the best thing ever at 3am.

CanadianChia even cut off her hair to donate to Locks of Love. And instead of just sending donors on their way, volunteer professional stylists styled your new cropped ‘do for free!

 

New this year was a Night Market. Naturally, we knitters had some wares for sale.

Flowers by the lovely Ilana

The cuteness of this hat just kills me.


Tagged: 2014, all night, arm knitting, cancer, charity, corking, crochet, crocheters, DKC, donate, downtown knit collective, felting, finger knitting, knitter, knitters, knitting, making, needle felting, odette cancer centre, pompom, relay for life, spinners, spinning, spooling, Sunnybrook, sunnybrook hospital, survivor, survivors, Toronto
10 Jun 18:16

Quotable conversational risk

by Smug Singleton
Alia

Good quote, I like it.

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”
– Thomas Moore

Thanks to everyone in my life who makes the risk worth it.


17 May 00:11

Ask Team Practical: Marrying Again

by Liz Moorhead
Alia

This was definitely something I needed to read right about now.

Ask Team Practical: Marrying Again | A Practical Wedding

Q: I am in a wonderful relationship (finally) with the man I’ve always known I was meant to be with. We have known each other for almost seven years, and have been inseparable (and platonic) best friends for five years. Neither of us has ever been happier, or in a relationship that felt more right, with anyone else. We are completely in synch regarding where we are and where we want to be in our lives; I am about to start grad school, and he is dealing with some medical issues so that he can rejoin the workforce. Currently, we live separately with our respective parents, and see each other roughly four days per week. There is no doubt in either of our minds that we will get married and have a family together one day. In spite of all this, few people are as happy as we are about it. You see, H. and I got together about four months ago… just after I decided to divorce my husband.

*record scratch*

Yep. I know that most people believe H. is a rebound for me, because the idea of dating after divorce brings up a lot of contentious issues. Rest assured: my ex and I have no children, no marital property, and no feelings between us; I went to the altar wishing I was marrying H., and only went through with the whole marriage thing because “Good Girls Marry Their Firsts… Even If They Cheat and Lie.” The divorce won’t be final for almost a year, and, for myriad reasons, I don’t have many people at all to talk to about the problem I am having. So it’s going to take the Internet (or at least one sweet blog) to help me with it.

You see, I feel as if, by marrying my ex, I squandered both H.’s and my chances of having a fantastic married life together. If I had not stayed with my ex, if I had left earlier, H. and I would probably be married by now. But, as it stands, we have to wait almost a year on my divorce, and then who knows how long after? I feel as if he deserves this gorgeous wedding and beautiful family, and I’m somehow tarnished or pockmarked because, even though I will be his first wife, he will never be my first husband. I know that these feelings are only mine: I have talked to him, and, in his mind, everything is for the best that we took so long to get together. But I can’t help this sense of guilt, like I ruined out fairytale.

How should I deal?

—Happy And Guilty

 

A: Dear HAG,

I know that feeling of “time wasted” all too well. If we had just _____ sooner, we’d have so many extra years of happiness and togetherness under our belts! Although it feels that way, waiting time is rarely wasted, and usually valuable. Regretting the past, though? That’s a real waste of time.

Not all of us have been in multiple marriages, but most of us have been in multiple relationships. I can say for a fact that I was a pretty crappy girlfriend for quite a few of mine. I learned a lot from meeting people, dating people, and ugh, yes, even crying to Dashboard Confessional over people. Those experiences shaped me into the stellar wife that I am now (and also really, really help me to appreciate what a stellar husband I have). I might’ve saved myself a lot of heartache if I’d just skipped over those dummies, but probably not. It’s more likely that those relationships helped to pave the way for an excellent marriage, with quite a bit of learning out of the way.

You can look at the past as baggage, as something that mars you or taints you. Or, you can see it as the path that led you where you are now. If you hadn’t ever been in that first relationship, would you necessarily be with H. now? Maybe not. Would you value him in the same ways you do now? Perhaps no.

We all know it’s the fairytale, not reality, that’s pockmarked. Running off with dashing prince charming on love at first sight sounds nice enough I guess, but also sort of problematic and creepy. Real life is more complicated, and as a result, more interesting and personal and yeah, beautiful. Your story maybe doesn’t follow a nice neat little rom-com format, but that also makes it your story.

But you know, I haven’t been there. So I reached out to Ms. Manya, she of the wedding she should’ve called off, and asked her for some words of wisdom and experience. Here’s what she had for you:

In my experience, no matter how ready you were, how alone you felt during your marriage, and how few the ties that bound, a divorce represents a major life shift. Even when you know you have made the right decision, there is a lot to process during a divorce—including your deeply held beliefs about what it is to be a “good girl” and the stories you tell yourself about what it means to live happily ever after (and how to do that). The problem with fairytales is that they imply a singular and linear path to happiness. But life is tangled and messy and snotty-crying ugly a whole lot of the time—even when things are going great! Lasting happiness, in life or marriage, isn’t guaranteed by following some sort of formula (research proves it!), getting the approval of your community, or by following a storyline that has worked for other people.

In my experience sometimes our worry about what “most people” think, is a proxy for our own inner doubts. I can admit now that when I was first dating my now-husband (“too soon” after deciding to divorce my ex-husband) I was secretly worried that he was a rebound, or even worse, that he was a bridge to the freedom I was not courageous enough to claim on my own. I was extremely happy with him, but I also didn’t trust myself—after all, I was the girl who had married the wrong man once before. Honestly, the only remedy for that was time. As I settled into my divorced life/self, got more comfortable with Brian, blossomed into true independence, and grew more trusting of my inner voice, the opinions of the people around me—and the stories about what life “should” look like—became less interesting to me. And when the people who truly care about me saw those changes and my enduring happiness with Brian, they got on board with our relationship. In the grand scheme of an entire messy “ever after” (which included a gorgeous wedding and a beautiful blended family), the so-called dubious beginnings of our relationship have faded into irrelevancy.

Team Practical, how do you view your current relationship in light of the past?

The post Ask Team Practical: Marrying Again appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Blog Ideas for the Modern Wedding, Plus Marriage.

04 Apr 15:40

Coming to the End of Our Triumph

by A Practical Wedding
Alia

Well, this hits home.

Coming to the End of Our Triumph | A Practical Wedding

by Anonymous

At first, it felt like something happening to me. Something my husband was doing to me. I abdicated all responsibility. “If he wants to divorce me,” I thought to myself, “he’s damn well doing all the paperwork himself. I’m not going to play a part.”

Over a year later, seven months after I left, on a beautiful sunny Friday, I photographed a courthouse wedding. After I said goodbye to the happy couple, I sat in a coffee shop sipping a hot chocolate and pulled out all the paperwork. A couple of weeks earlier, I’d paid a lawyer to help me make sense of everything that needed to be filed. I’d mailed copies of all of it to my husband in another state, carefully annotated with post-its to indicate the two pages he needed to sign in front of a notary and mail back to me. I put the documents he’d signed in their proper places, ran through my checklist again, finished my hot chocolate, walked back to the courthouse, and filed for divorce. A woman sitting behind a desk stamped my paperwork with my case number, accepted my credit card for the court fees, and handed me a receipt. I walked out in a daze.

Years earlier, when I’d finished my undergraduate thesis, I’d handed it to a woman at a desk and she’d handed me a wreath of fake plastic laurels to wear around my head. For the few days afterward that I wore them, everyone I passed on campus yelled “congratulations!” Getting divorced was like writing my thesis. It was a many-months-long process that demanded patience and intellectual rigor, exhausted my emotional capacity, and required detailed attention to formatting and presentation. Where were my laurels? I wanted a sign, or a t-shirt I could wear: “I just filed for divorce. Congratulate me.” Instead, I found a florist and told her what I’d done, and she put together a beautiful bouquet for me, and I carried it home and put it in a vase and tried to find a spot to put it that my two cats couldn’t reach.

My ex-husband and I adopted the cats together. They have names based on the grad school research he was doing at the time—beautiful, melodic names of Indian classical musicians. As I write, they are asleep on the foot of my bed in my wonderful little apartment. Their custody was never really a question—they were always mine. Once, before we’d stopped trying to have a happy marriage, I went out of town for a few days and had to leave detailed cat care instructions for him, like people leave for pet sitters. At the time, I resented my partner’s reluctant involvement in their caretaking, but when I was getting ready to leave I was glad to be able to make plans to take them with me without discussion. Nothing like divorce to change your perspective.

Before I got divorced, I thought divorce only happened to people who got married too young, or who didn’t ask the tough questions before they got married, or who weren’t willing to work really hard at a relationship, to put it ahead of other priorities. We were old enough, we’d worked through one of those premarital-counseling-in-a-book books before we got engaged, we’d had actual premarital counseling during our engagement, and our relationship was, I’d have told anyone who asked, the most important thing in my life. A child of multiple divorces, my partner even insisted we talk about divorce. We agreed that even if we someday had to separate, we would always love one another—we would always be kind. Those messy, dramatic divorces you always hear about happened, we were sure, to people who hadn’t been together as long as we had before getting married, or people who didn’t love to laugh at the same things, didn’t know how to travel together, didn’t share the values and politics that we did. Before we got married, I went through this checklist of sorts, sure that the combination of these things meant we were safe, ready to start adopting cats and having children and growing old.

So when, four days after our wedding, we revisited an old argument and he told me he couldn’t be sure we’d be together forever, I had to pull over the car on the side of the highway to sob. I clutched my manufactured certainty to me and, like ice, the tighter I gripped it the faster it melted away, and the colder I got.

Love stories are unique but also all the same; I think that divorce stories are like that, too. The play-by-play doesn’t really matter. A few months later there was an incident and a huge fight. I felt betrayed. He felt smothered. For a few months I clung to the relationship while he tried to decide whether or not he could be the husband he saw me wanting, to decide whether or not he would stay. For a few months he thought he could and would, and we tried. But it wasn’t enough, and I decided to leave. For a few months he tried to make me stay, and then, one year after our wedding, I left. It was messy. It was dramatic. We were not kind to one another.

There is no certainty. There is no amount of premarital counseling that will guarantee that you mean the same thing when you say the same words or that you’ve asked the questions that will end up mattering most. There is no amount of rehearsing for worst-case scenarios that will prevent their occurrence. Vows and promises, however genuine and well intentioned, are still just words, not clairvoyance. Certainty is not the same thing as security, and I’m starting to believe they work against each other.

Certainty says: this is a sure thing. I know this person, and they know me, full stop. Certainty has arrived. Certainty is done. Certainty doesn’t need vulnerability or real intimacy. Certainty is jealous because, fundamentally, it is afraid.

Security says: this feels good. I trust this person, and they trust me. I am excited to always be getting to know this person as a dynamic, evolving being. Security is a journey. Security is always in progress. Security requires vulnerability and makes intimacy possible. Security is brave, because it can be, because it accepts that there are no guarantees.

That’s one of the things I’ve learned since I left. I’ve learned a lot by getting divorced. I’ve learned that these things happen and the world keeps spinning and life goes on. I’ve learned that no matter how ashamed I feel, the people who love me still love me. I’ve learned the very important lesson, obvious in retrospect, that happiness with one’s own life circumstances is a prerequisite for happiness with and commitment to another person. With the help of my awesome therapist, I’ve learned how to acknowledge, respect, and respectfully communicate my emotions, values, and priorities (though that stuff, like security, is also always in progress). I’ve learned a lot about taking responsibility. I take responsibility for years of incomplete communication with my partner and with my own true self. I take responsibility for my own reluctance to be vulnerable and allow myself to be known wholly, for fear of losing the romantic relationship I ended up losing anyway. I take responsibility for leaving the city I loved to follow my partner to a new state. I take responsibility for resisting happiness in our new city, for failing to create a community or support network outside of my partner. I take responsibility for choosing to leave my marriage and return to the city I never stopped missing. I take responsibility for our divorce.

I got the letter in the mail from the courthouse, confirming that “a General Judgment was entered in the register of the court in the above-noted case,” that we were divorced, two days before Valentine’s Day. I emailed my ex-husband to let him know. Recently, it feels possible to talk to him again. I wished him a happy Valentine’s Day and asked about his girlfriend. He wished me a happy Valentine’s Day and asked about my boyfriend. We both answered carefully but honestly. Sometimes we send each other links to articles or things we find on the Internet that remind us of one another or that we know the other would appreciate. He asked me if he could use a piece of my artwork in a lecture he’s putting together for his students. Recently he told me that getting legally divorced has helped him release some anger, and now he just feels sort of sad about it. I told him I feel sort of sad, too. There’ll be a learning curve as we try to be friends, I think. He’ll be in town at the end of this month to see his mom, who lives here. I told him he could come to my place to see the cats, too. And me, I guess.

So did our marriage fail? I think a lot about these lines from a poem by Jack Gilbert about divorce that I originally read years ago, before I’d ever been married or even met my ex: “I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, / but just coming to the end of his triumph.” We loved so much. We felt such tender things. We learned so much. We saw such beautiful places. We dreamed such beautiful dreams. Also from Jack Gilbert’s poem: “How can they say / the marriage failed?” I am a braver, stronger person because I married my partner, and I am a braver, stronger person because I divorced him, too.

Photo by Vivian Chen (APW Sponsor)

The post Coming to the End of Our Triumph appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Blog Ideas for the Modern Wedding, Plus Marriage.

19 Feb 16:00

Hugs are Good For Everyone!

Alia

I love this.

Hugs are Good For Everyone!

Submitted by: Unknown

Tagged: dogs , friends , cute , hugs , love
05 Feb 17:05

I want that. In my pants.

by Smug Singleton
Alia

All I can say is, YES PLEASE.

Oh… Well, I may be set for fake *dick*, but um… I could really use one of these. Like, a lot. Perhaps daily. So at that point it’s an investment piece. Ahem.

Futuristic-looking vibrator has a very special job.

Also, ha ha, it’s a hundred and 69 dollars. I see what they did there. Heh.


02 Jan 17:38

At the top of the year

by Glenna C
Alia

I think this is great knitting advice.

It’s the top of another new year, knitter friends, and so I decided to collect up the bits of advice that are the things I usually tell – or want to tell – to knitters, especially those who might be … Continue reading →
02 Jan 17:33

Solid wisdom

by Smug Singleton
Alia

Agreed!

I don’t know this writer’s work, but I’m going to.

From the Word Porn Facebook page:
20140102-114429.jpg


18 Dec 01:25

A Letter To My Son About Porn

by By Harriet Pawson
Alia

Definitely some good points. Worth thinking about for conversations with my future children.

To my darling son,

I know this is not a conversation any boy wants to have with his mom at any age, so I’m going to let you off the hook. Sort of.

By writing you this letter, I’m going to spare you from having a face-to-face conversation with me about sex. Or more specifically, about porn.

But it’s a conversation we must have nonetheless.

I would be failing in my duty as a parent, guide, and woman if I did not share the following information with you—information that has the power to greatly impact your future sex life. And your relationships. So listen carefully. This is important.

First of all, I know you’ve watched porn. Probably a lot of it. I struggled with this at first. Nobody wants to imagine their child watching strangers having crazy sex.

But I’ve come to accept that the world is different now and from the moment we gave you access to a smartphone and your own computer, it was inevitable that you’d see porn.

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11 Dec 02:16

International Travel With A Baby

by Meg Keene

Our first night in London, we found ourselves jet lagged at a pub, drinking wine, feeding the baby oxtail on toast, and watching him giggle uncontrollably. “Welcome to the family tradition,” I whispered to him. “We’re so glad you’re here.” But really, I was glad I was there too.

Two weeks before the trip, overtired from relaunching APW, I tried to talk David into canceling the whole thing. “It’s too much,” I told him. “A baby, on an international flight, and jet lagged? That’s not a vacation. It’s a marathon.” The truth was, I’d become increasingly frantic about the logistics. Our experience in the US has been that taking a baby out into public spaces that are not designated as “family friendly” (a code term to disguise the fact that our culture is anything but) can be a nightmare. Forget the basics of a helping hand (say, offering you a seat when you’re carrying a twenty-five pound kid), when out in public with a well behaved baby, I’m regularly treated with overt aggression: rude waitstaff, or loud sighs from the people I sit down next to at the airport, or nasty comments from a shopper after letting the baby crawl around for a few minutes in a secluded corner of the Gap. And if the kid is crying? Well, game over (as in, we normally just go home).

What the hell were we going to do in London? I googled “London with kids,” which didn’t help, because a baby doesn’t care about the zoo. I googled “London with toddlers,” which lead me to lists of parks, not helpful with a temperature hovering around freezing. So when David refused to cancel the trip, I started asking (slightly panicked) advice of my London girlfriends. Their answers were… outside of my frame of reference. “Just let him crawl around in any museum,” they said, “people will be fine with that.” “You can breast feed pretty much anywhere without a cover. No one is going to bother you.” “It’s all pretty family friendly, I wouldn’t even worry.” I didn’t even know where to file their answers in my brain.

As soon as we got on our British Airways flight, I started the preemptive apologizing that has marked my experience of motherhood. Our British seatmates looked at me like I was crazy. “He’s a baby,” they said. “Babies cry. Don’t worry about it.” And from there on out, things were… different. A ninety-five-year-old woman offered me and the baby her seat at the pub. “He was a baby just like that, once,” she said, leaning over to me and pointing at her sixty-year-old son, looking wistful, “Enjoy it.” I sent David in to another pub, to make sure it was fine to bring the baby in, and the bartender looked at him like he’d never heard a stupider question. “Of course?” he said. Oh, England. Waitstaff flirted with him. Museum employees stopped to chat with him as he crawled around. People jumped up to give me their seat on the Tube. The buses had… stroller parking? And while it was far from perfect (the night we accidentally ended up in a trendy area, and couldn’t find a restaurant that would seat us was fun), it was the whole societal tone that threw me. Instead of my kid being my problem, he was generally treated like a very small member of society.

After all my worrying, I can honestly say that the trip with the baby was easier than trips without the baby have been. Forget babies being bad travelers, I’ve never been great at traveling myself. This time around, I didn’t have time to worry about how much I hated flying, because I had a baby to take care of. I’ve never been able to sleep on planes, but parenthood has made me tired enough that I can now sleep anywhere. Instead of having high expectations that needed to be met to make the trip feel worth it, we woke up each day and pondered what we might be able to pull off, because the real trick had been making it there in the first place. And time with family and friends? If they were happy to see us, they were thrilled to see us and the wriggling little bundle. I mean, don’t get me wrong: we had screaming jet lag in both directions. There were restaurants that weren’t willing to fit us in with a stroller. David and I missed having date nights, just the two of us. The baby dealt with his anxiety about the trip by clinging to me fairly nonstop for days. But the three of us had tons of quality time together, an adventure, and we now have one hell of a story.

On our last day, we were eating in a village pub (this one, to be precise) and the baby was doing his joyful scream bit. “AHHHHHH!” he’d say, “AH!” And over my Sunday roast, I heard a tiny voice pipe up, “That baby is being too loud,” she said, “with his WAHWAHWAH.” It was the voice of America, spoken out loud. But then the rational voice of an adult stepped in. “You were just like that, Lulu,” she said, “Not that long ago.” And then Lulu got out of her chair and came over. “Nice baby,” she said, appraising. “Cute. I like him.”

What the UK taught us is that it doesn’t have to be parents vs. non-parents. Families don’t have to lock themselves away, in “kid friendly” zones. Whether or not we have a baby, or want a baby one day, or never want a baby at all: we were all babies once. We all screeched, “AHHHH!” with joy, and “WAAAHHH” in sadness. And one day, if we’re lucky enough, we’ll be older and weaker, and we’ll need more help again. But till then (and even then, if the ninety-five-year-old woman is any example), we can offer our seat to the young mom. Hold open the door for the stroller. Tell the dad on the plane not to worry that the baby is crying.

And really, America? Maybe we should just get pubs, and start allowing kids in them. A beer, dinner, and some joyful baby yells? That’s lots of good things in life, in one small package.

Till then, parents, book that ticket. Next time we’re going to Europe. I hear they really love babies there.

Note: I had intended to talk a little more about the logistics of traveling with a wee one, like the magic that is the Baby Bjorn Travel Crib, but I got distracted. But anyone that wants to chat kids and travel, let’s meet in the comments for a gab fest.

Photo: Personal for APW

The post International Travel With A Baby appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Blog Ideas for Unique, DIY, and Budget Wedding Planning.

27 Nov 14:31

How We Teach Our Kids That Women Are Liars

by By Soraya Chemaly
Alia

This is fucked up. Sometimes our society makes me really angry and sad.

The message that women are untrustworthy liars is everywhere in our culture—from TV and music, to politics and religion, says Soraya Chemaly.

Two weeks ago a man in France was arrested for raping his daughter. She’d gone to her school counselor and then the police but they needed “hard evidence.” So, she videotaped her next assault. Her father was arrested. His attorney explained, “There was a period when he was unemployed and in the middle of a divorce. He insists that these acts did not stretch back further than three or four months. His daughter says longer. But everyone should be very careful in what they say.” Because, really, even despite her seeking out help, her testimony, her bravery in setting up a webcam to film her father raping her, you really can’t believe what the girl says, can you? Everyone “knows” this. Even children.

Three years ago, in fly-on-the-wall fashion of parent drivers everywhere, I listened while a 14-year-old girl in the back seat of my car described how angry she was that her parents had stopped allowing her to walk home alone just because a girl in her neighborhood “claimed she was raped.” When I asked her if there any reason to think the girls’ story was not true, she said, “Girls lie about rape all the time.” 

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06 Nov 19:14

Raising A Boy

by Liz

Raising A Boy | A Practical WeddingI guess I always assumed that if I had kids, I’d have girls.

For a little while now, I’ve been taking mental notes for them like, “Maybe don’t date guys who teasingly call you a ‘slut.’” Little gems that I’d gleaned through experience, to pass on so they’d avoid so many of the pitfalls I’d encountered. And who knows, maybe eventually I will have a daughter and she’ll suffer through my passionate, anecdote-fueled diatribes.

But, right here and now, I have a son. While that difference alone makes some of my stored up words of wisdom useless (I’ll save that tip about bra shopping), some of it just takes a different, before-unconsidered twist. I still have to worry about instilling correct perceptions of beauty and sex and women, but from an altogether different perspective than originally planned.

It’s not just about my own journey, littered as it is with sexist experiences. When reading about things like Steubenville and Maryville (and all of the other villes that undoubtedly occur unpublicized), I find myself shouting along with everyone else, “Stop telling our girls how to avoid rape and start telling our boys how to avoid raping!” And then I realize, oh right, me. I have to do that.

Being in that position now, I realize just how simultaneously simple and complex it is to raise a man with respect for women. I mean, he needs to value people as individuals with differences. To respect other human beings, full stop. That part is simple and straightforward, whether we’re talking about gender or race or religion or orientation. Don’t Be a Dick is the shorthand title of my parenting philosophy book, if I ever write it.

But I’m not naive enough to hope to parent within a vacuum. No matter how clearly articulated my Don’t Be a Dick philosophy, I recognize it’s coming up against a whole host of socially accepted messages about sex as end goal, masculinity defined by violence, and woman being no more than the sum of her parts. My presentation has to be a bit more nuanced and focused if it’s going to come out ahead of all that noise.

Basically, I want him to know that stereotypes and assumptions dehumanize people, and that remembering that everyone else is human, and as a result valuable, is primary. A piece of that means, I want my son to know that there are all sorts of beautiful women, and not all of them look anything remotely like the cover of a magazine. But also that their beauty isn’t the only thing that matters, and women are valuable for far more than how they look. That sex is important, but not for any of the reasons people show in movies or TV. In fact, movies and TV get it wrong a lot. That people of all kinds are smart and capable, and differences, instead of making others less-than, evidence that others have things to offer that he does not. And that’s not just okay, but wonderful and sort of powerful. I want him to know that strength is manifested in different ways. That he’s not defined by his physical urges. That he’s no pig or wild beast that needs to be tamed. I want to teach him that blaming his actions on his body or on someone else is debasing, insulting to his own intellect and character. That sex isn’t some mysterious, murky thing that you figure out through subtle cues and hints, but instead is something to be handled with honesty and discussion and forthright requests.

So, alright, those are just lovely ideas when all written out. Maybe I’ll crochet a pillow. But how does one practically, in real life say to a three year old, “Hey, buddy, all humans are worthy of respect no matter their genitalia. Now finish up your applesauce, it’s time for a nap”? It doesn’t naturally arise in conversation. The other day, my husband compared it all to teaching the alphabet (at which my son excels, in case you were wondering, and I know you were). Right now, we start with just some building blocks. The A-B-C’s. The “be kind to everyone, no matter who they are” part. Eventually he’ll progress to spelling, and then building sentences, and then using those sentences to write meaningful thoughts all his own. How to apply and use the alphabet is the important part, but for now, just the A-B-C’s are enough. For now, just the, “everyone is valuable” is hopefully enough.

Meanwhile, I still try to do what I can. I make sure to point out beautiful women when I’m out (actually just something I do anyway, but now it seems sort of purposed, I guess). I reframe my comments about myself. No longer, “I’m so fat,” but instead, “I feel so fat.” I’m particularly lucky to have a husband who is, himself, Not a Dick and says things like, “Doesn’t mom look pretty today?” when I’m in sweats and un-mascara-ed. We both encourage our son to ask before hugging or touching someone and make it clear that he, too, cannot be forced to hug and touch, even with those well-meaning grandparents.

It seems such a big task. But if I can just break it into chunks—just focus on the A-B-C’s for right now, maybe I can handle it. Maybe it won’t be so hard to raise someone who treats people with respect and dignity, especially if I can hope that there are other parents out there trying to do the same.

Photo by APW Sponsor Vivian Chen

30 Oct 17:00

Why We Need Feminism

by Lucy

Why We Need Feminism | A Practical Wedding

by Lisa Carnochan

Clarifying The Language Of Feminism

I was born in 1956. In 1968, I heard about what was then called “Women’s Liberation” for the first time. I was twelve. Since you like math—despite what Barbie said—you already figured that out.

I remember, we sat under a California pepper tree at my little hippie school, surrounded by the tar scent of field weeds. Our teacher spoke just to the girls. Her voice was hard to hear over the blood pounding in our wrists. I said to myself even then, “This is big.”

However, being twelve in 1968 also meant the era of academic feminism passed me by. What with working, raising children, reading escapist literature before bed, and drinking too much red wine, I never participated in the theoretical discussions apparently common to later generations.

But hit you where you live, shove-the-rock-up-the-hill feminism? That passed no one by. When I hear young women say they “aren’t feminists” I want to curl up and cry. Except girls don’t cry. Kidding. Feminism is not just for smarty-pants, or leftists, or people who cut their hair asymmetrically. It’s required if humans are to merit our privilege at the top of the food chain.

And right now the language of feminism is confused. We need to clarify. Here’s my take.

What Feminism Isn’t

Hating Men

Back in the 90s I used to say, “I don’t hate men. I married one, I gave birth to a baby one. How could I hate them?” I’ve worked in male-abundant industries on and off since 1983, my happiness in my job independent of gender percentages. In all this time, I have seen no evidence of a unified patriarchal conspiracy. Some men like women, some do not. Some want equality, others do not.

We don’t have to assume conspiracy by the dominant to liberate the oppressed.

Being Treated Equally

Men and women aren’t “equal,” as in “the same.” Any attempt to parse out “equal” leads to infinite angels dancing on the heads of infinite pins. Men and women are biologically different, and we can’t disappear that fact unless we develop an infrastructure that allows babies to grow as well in aquarium tubes as they do in women.

Celebrating The Female, Per Se

We can Celebrate The Female, or not, independent of feminism. Cultures celebrate the same women they oppress. Think about it.

What Feminism Is: An Immodest Proposal

Equal Access To Power—Taking Down The Barriers

Let’s clarify. We don’t have the right that power be awarded us just because we’re women. We do have the right to equal access to power. And, if we want to realize that right, we have to take down barriers.

And they’re everywhere, barriers, from institutions—both formal and informal—through public and private spaces, all the way into our deepest feelings.

Institutional & Formal: At the very least, all institutional barriers to power should be eradicated. No public laws or private bylaws should prevent women from access to power. I think we are mostly there in the American legal framework. However, we see immediately that some churches remain the final bastions of denial. They are protected, and any changes will be hard fought.

Private clubs that are secret enclaves of decision-making, watch your backs.

Institutional & Informal: Informal barriers to participation in institutional power should also be blown up. This is much harder.

  • We need accessible high-quality childcare. Twenty-five years ago, when I announced my pregnancy to my sales colleagues, my boss’s boss said to me, “Lisa, I thought you were a career girl.” Um, right. Childcare needs to get better, parental leave needs to be understood as both maternal and paternal options.
  • Eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace. Despite the jokes those required online courses inspire, harassment is a real thing.
  • Communication styles, stereotyping, and relationship to expressed emotion. Also known as Don’t Cry At Work. This last is where feminism, and the evolution of consciousness around emotion and authenticity, converge.

What do I mean by that last point? While Brené Brown researches the value of vulnerability, Sandberg encourages Leaning In. We wonder, must we channel square-jawed John Wayne for true access to power? Or is the Healing Goddess a workable role model? In reality, much of the developed economy functions through fighting. Work is a battle against competitors or peers, and in a fight, no one is allowed to show weakness. The degree to which we can change the culture of economic and political institutions—for women—will depend on the rate at which those cultures evolve for everyone.

Individual & Public: What about power experienced in the broader society? Not institutional, but the web of values and behaviors. Here we deal with some bloody social and psychological strongholds.

  • Rape. Until the threat of rape disappears, since it’s much more frequent against women than men, we will be without equal power to walk alone.
  • The appeal of our bodies and their role as sales tools. Nobody should use any breasts but their own as marketing Calls To Action.

Individual & Private: And access to personal power in the private realm? To power in our homes, in our hearts, in our dreams at night? Some of what we face men do too.

  • All humans want recognition. Real personal power comes from supporting the dreams of those you love, vs. grabbing at your share.
  • Definitions of attractiveness. Is makeup a feminist issue? Is weight? Here’s the thing. Men have physical appearance requirements for access to power too. So I’m going to say no. It’d be utopian if humans didn’t care how everybody looked, didn’t make snap judgments, but utopia is highly unlikely in our lifetime.

However, some of women’s issues with private power are rooted in historical patterns of fertility and child sustenance.

  • Our culture doesn’t correctly value the work of raising children. This is also known as Freedom To Get A Haircut whenever you like. My most consuming and irrational moment of rage as a young stay-at-home mother came when my then-husband said on a Saturday, “I think I’ll go get a haircut.” Child raising cannot be defaulted to the mom, and assumed to be free or low-cost.
  • Housework, see also, Who Does It? Answer should be, it depends on skills and bandwidth.
  • Abortion. Ah, so difficult. At least in America. More complicated, beyond the obvious possible sorrows, because it’s both public and private. There’s no pure theoretical model that gives us a good answer, so I answer the question, myself, without reference to feminism per se. I answer pragmatically, looking for the most good for the most people. And if you want my opinion, let’s talk in the comments so as not to blow this post up. It was a lot of work.

So are you a feminist? I don’t know. Let’s see. Do you believe in Equal Access To Power? Yes? Do you then act in accordance with your beliefs? Beliefs you sit on might not count. Acting demands bravery, to face down your father who said you couldn’t be that smart, your minister who counseled you to obey, your boss who told you not to be such a girl about it, and your husband who silenced you at the dinner table. And yes, it takes a deep breath and resolution to have it out with your teenage daughter for disdaining your work as home-sustainer.

So are you a feminist? Let’s not ask that question any more if the answer involves checkboxes. If we treat feminism as a long rolling struggle, rather than dogma, we’re going to have more useful discussions. Useful discussions defined, of course, as those that lead to progress.

First you break the problem down, then you take it on. Bit by bit.

Here’s what I want, after fifty-seven years of being female. Logic, not hatred. Equal access, not guaranteed outcomes. Strength, not succor. We can’t ignore our biology, but civilization’s evolution depends on rising above the biological in so many areas. Feminism isn’t unique.

And if anyone, anywhere, believes that women shouldn’t have equal access to power, they are denying an awful lot of people baseline humanity.

Which brings us to lipstick. I wear this one. It’s the color of my lips, only more saturated. Feel free to derive multiple metaphors. It’s a privilege to talk to you.

Photo by Ian Londin Studios

    12 Oct 14:51

    What Sex Counts As 'Real' Sex?

    by By Emily Heist Moss

    Penis-in-vagina sex isn't the only kind of sex, and Emily Heist Moss gives four reasons why folks need to stop saying that it is.

    “Did you have sex?”

    “Well….”

    “How could that possibly be a complicated question?”

    “We did stuff, you know…other stuff, but we didn’t… “

    “Oh. Yeah. No, that doesn’t count.”

    I have been on both sides of this conversation. I’ve been the one diminishing the importance of a friend’s sexual experience because it didn’t involve penis-in-vagina sex, and I’ve been the one whose experience was labeled less than for the same reason. If you’re straight, you probably have too, and we’ve got to knock it off. Why?

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    12 Oct 14:31

    Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not)

    by Matthew Inman
    Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not)

    Happy Bartolomé Day.

    View
    12 Oct 13:37

    My Husband is Not My Best Friend

    by Alison
    Alia

    Totally agree with this 100%. My husband is not my best friend either.

    The other day, Fran (of Franish fame) tweeted, "'I'm so excited to marry my best friend!' DUDE everyone marries their best friend. That's kinda the point. You are not special." and I replied that my husband wasn't actually my best friend.

    I'll pause to let that sink in.

    Okay, can we move on now? Let's go.

    It has come to my attention that "I married my best friend!" is said a lot, and that's what Fran was pointing out. It seems like everyone marries their best friend. And it makes sense, right? Of course you would marry someone that you totally loved and cared for and thought was awesome. You wouldn't marry someone you thought was boring or lame or who didn't jive with your life goals... and if you would, then you should seriously reconsider your priorities here, but that's another post for another time. ANYWAY, I've been doing a lot of thinking about marriage and relationships, and not just because our one year anniversary of our wedding is on Monday (Sidenote: Where did the past year go? Can anyone figure that out for me? Great, thanks.) I think a lot about relationships in general because I'm neurotic, but also because I think it's good to keep your finger on the pulse of these kinds of things. Relationships and people are really important to me (said everyone ever?) and I like to think that they're something I'm good at... so I think about it a lot.

    So, quick back story. How did Ken and I meet?

    The short version is online blogging, a Canadian, and a cheese steak.

    The slightly longer version is that Ken was going to visit Rachelle (the South-African-Arizonian-Canadian, who has been one of my best friends since 2003 thanks to the magic of the internet) in Montreal because they were pseudo-romantically involved and it was decided that I should meet Ken to decide if he was an axe murderer or a creeper before he went to Canada. I was dating some other guy and moving to FL a few months later to start med school, and he was obviously into Rachelle, so this was a totally platonic endeavor. Our first conversation, as I opened the door, was:

    Me: You're tall.
    Ken: You're short.
    Me: Where's your axe?
    Ken: I left it in the car.
    Me: Oh, cool. Come on in.

    As luck would have it, the cheese steak place that I usually go to was closed, so we grabbed pizza and hung out and talked for a few hours. It was really fun and we said we should hang out again. Then he went back to NY and then to Montreal and I moved to FL and life went on.

    Cut to 2009. The thing with Rachelle hadn't panned out, so Ken was kind of dating around. I moved to FL with the guy I had been dating, promptly broke up with him (whoops), started dating another guy who turned out to be 97 kinds of wrong for me, suffered through the first semester of med school, had a mental breakdown, and moved home. Ken was employed, but not in his chosen career of finance (hello, recession that imploded the economy, beginning with the financial sector) and I was laying around in bed feeling sorry for myself and hating my life. We decided we needed to get that cheese steak. In March 2009, Ken drove down to my mom's house (where I was living at the time) and we went and got our cheese steak. We watched a bunch of Eddie Izzard stand up and had a glass of wine. We ended up on the same side of the couch with his arm around, and then he kissed me and I was totally surprised and confused, but really happy. As I tell people now, it was the best non-date-date ever. He asked me to come up and see him the following weekend. The rest, as they say, is history.

    So, no, Ken and I weren't friends before we started dating. We knew enough about each other to know that we were interested in learning more, but I didn't know everything I knew about my best friend, or even some of my close acquaintances. As we got to know each other more, some startling differences emerged. We listened to totally different kinds of music and didn't really care for each others' tastes. He was a gamer, I was a reader. I hated NYC and public transportation, it gave me hives. I was obsessed with my cats, he (mistakenly) classified himself as a dog person. I found myself thinking, "How can I love someone who doesn't read as much as I do or who doesn't love folky acoustic music?" I was concerned.

    When Ken and I moved in together, I was worried that he wouldn't understand my need for my own time and space. Totally the opposite. Even when we're home together, we rarely are doing things together. Sure, we might be in the same part of the house, but he'll be gaming and I'll be knitting, or I'll be in the bedroom watching something on TV and he'll be in the office watching The Colbert Report online. Sometimes, I'm just doing homework and he's lesson planning (there should probably be more of that and less of the TV/internet thing happening, but hey, we're only human).

    While we were dating, there were things, way more important things, that we did have in common, though. We were close to our siblings, we loved to cook, we loved to laugh, and we believed in "God and not being an asshole". We both knew that someday, we wanted to get married (although at the time, we weren't discussing whether that would be to each other) and have a family. We had similar life goals and morals. The bedrock of what I believe to be a good relationship was all there; the rest was essentially fluff. It's great to share hobbies with your partner/spouse, but I quickly learned that it totally wasn't necessary. That being said, we have found some things that we both enjoy, like marathoning TV shows on Netflix (we just caught up on Mad Men and recently started Breaking Bad), eating delicious food, seeing improv and stand-up shows, getting dressed up, and snuggling. I would say though, that largely, our interests and hobbies still are quite divergent. We have all of the important things in common though, and that's why it works.

    A best friend is someone that you can come to with any problem, question, concern, whatever, and not worry about being judged. They're someone you can share everything with. And sure, Ken fills that role a lot of the time, but he doesn't solve all of my problems or provide me with all the support I need in my life. My brother is still the one I turn to when I have emotional issues or want an "outside guy's opinion" on something that I know won't be full of bro-tastic stupidity. He also calls me out when I'm being ridiculous and helps me figure my shit out. I call Victoria when I need baking advice or fashion help, or general "Am I being insane?" assistance. I text Julie pictures of shoes to help me figure out if what I have on my feet is acceptable and she is my undergarment guru (girl knows her stuff about bras!) Music question? I call or email Mike. I gripe to Constance, Michelle, and Sarah about medicine, and Pam and Kristin are my rocks when it comes to research coordinator bullshit. Emily is the most empathic person I know and if she were closer, I'd be knocking down her door for routine hugs (she gives the best ones).  Poor Jenn, she gets a little bit of everything, because I swear, we share a brain, and Katie and I trade therapy sessions because sometimes, it takes one to know one, haha.

    My husband is there to support me and comfort me. He is there to share my life, not be the sole purpose or my life. He shares in my triumphs, consoles me when I fail, and laughs with my every day. We know what we want, and that is a life with each other. Would we be best friends if we weren't married? Probably not. That used to bother me, but our differences is part of what makes my life and relationship with him so rich and fulfilling. I love him more than anything, and he is my husband and my partner and one of the best parts of my life, but he is not my best friend. I have a handful of people who fall into that category, and my husband just isn't one of them. Ken is my husband, a separate category of relationship who fills completely different roles and requirements that my best friends could never fill. That's one of the beautiful things about life; it's so full of people and layers and experiences. I cherish the fact that Ken and I have separate friendships, separate hobbies, and separate lives just as much I love that we share one life together. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

    So there you have it. I didn't marry my best friend, and that's okay. What I did do was marry someone who complemented me in every way that mattered, and who makes me want to be a better person every day. I wish for everyone, whether you marry your best friend or not, to have that experience in their relationships. It really is a blessing.

    In Calistoga on our honeymoon
    Portrait by Allison Andres
    So,  I'll be spending it with my non-best-friend-husband, trying to stay dry (the weather looks like it is going to suck for our anniversary weekend), watching our wedding video, eating our year-old cake, and generally relaxing. Have a good one, all!

    - A

    05 Oct 02:25

    The Meanest Mother in the World

    by Stephanie
    My friend is laughing.  I've just told her something that I believe about parenting and being a mum and what it does to you if you do it long enough, and I'm laughing too, but her kids are little and...
    24 Sep 15:37

    Why Men Need To Stop Asking Women To Smile

    by By Charlie Glickman
    Alia

    This, absolutely.

    The amazing Sabrina Morgan posted this on Facebook last week:

    Driver today told me "Your fare depends on how much you smile." 'Jokingly' threatened to charge me extra for staring out the window or trying to use the commute time to catch up on work rather than try to entertain him, the person I was paying for a service.

    Instead of relaxing and knocking out some emails, I was stressed out, feeling like I was doing unpaid companion work I hadn't been expecting to do for an undisclosed amount that would be decided—after completion—by my customer, who was monitoring and actively critiquing my facial expressions.

    I sometimes underestimate the emotional labor women and people read as female are expected to perform for free. Of course, people are rarely as up front about it as my driver today was.

    Related Links:

     

    21 Sep 14:55

    So much yes.

    by Smug Singleton
    Alia

    This article needs to be shared.

    All of this, re: young girls and body image. I can’t add anything, because it made me cry. (I am not hormonal. Shut up. And also bring me sushi.)


    18 Sep 17:30

    Friends! Big news! Penguin is publishing a book of my fairy...

    Alia

    Cool!



    Friends!

    Big news! Penguin is publishing a book of my fairy tales called Alice in Tumblr-land: And Other Fairy Tales for a New Generation. Out 11/05!

    From the inside flap:

    "The Ugly Duckling still feels gross compared to everyone else, but now she’s got Instagram, and there’s this one filter that makes her look awesome. Cinderella swaps her glass slippers for Crocs. The Tortoise and the Hare Facebook stalk each other. Goldilocks goes gluten-free. And Peter Pan finally has to grow up and ge ta job, or at least start paying rent.

    Here are more than one hundred fairy tales, illustrated and re-imagined for today. Instead of fairy godmothers, there’s Siri. And rather than big bad wolves, there are creepy dudes on OkCupid. In our brave new world of social networking, YouTube, and texting, fairy tales can once again lead us to ‘happily ever after’—and have us laughing all the way.”

    !!!

    It will be hardcover, with dust jacket, and fancy endpapers. Cream-colored, dark brown ink. Keepin’ it classy.

    240 pages of 150 illustrated fairy tales. Over 70% of the stories are new, and nearly every illustration is new.

    Certain characters reappear throughout the book—like Alice, Peter Pan, and Cinderella—with an overarching narrative. So you can read it cover to cover and get the larger story, or you can open up to any page and find a laugh.

    I tried really hard to make it something special. If you like what you’ve seen here, you’ll love the book. Ryan Gosling is on the first page, so.

    I’ll be posting excerpts, new stories, behind-the-scenes videos and photos, and all sorts of other things—including contests to write or illustrate a fairy tale—in the next two months, so follow on Tumblr, Facebook, or Twitter.

    First 200 pre-orders get a signed and numbered print from me, so reserve your copy now at AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-A-MillionIndieBound, oriTunes.

    And I’ll say this many more times in the next two months, but: Thanks. It’s because you liked or shared this stuff that this book is happening. I can’t express my gratitude enough.

    So much love,

    Tim Manley

    PS Please do share the news and book cover! And send me an email at fairytalesfor20somethings@gmail.com if you might want to help be a part of the super-secret street team spreading the word about the book, or if you just want to say hi!

    14 Sep 13:47

    Ask Team Practical: Why Is Everyone So Negative?

    by Liz
    Alia

    I think there definitely needs to be more conversation about what real marriages look like, during both the good and bad times.

    I got married a couple months ago and am really happy! But in the back of my mind I can’t get this narrative out of my head that “marriage will make you miserable” and will ruin the love my husband and I have for each other right now. Both of our parents are still happily married and the majority of our friends also have parents who are still together, so in my daily life, this fear has no real basis, but it still looms. I feel like all we see in popular culture are examples of husbands cheating on wives, parents who argue constantly and hate or resent each other, divorce being the assumed outcome of every marriage (how often do we hear the phrase, “You know fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, right?”…) and I feel like it is pounded into us that we should expect to fail. But there are clearly lots of people who are happy and make it work. Where’s a girl to turn to get some positive marriage reinforcement in this world (besides APW of course)? Where are these voices in our society? Is there a source of happy married people information out there that I’m missing?

    Not So Negative Nelly

    Dear NSNN,

    You know, as a group, the staff at APW couldn’t really think of anywhere in mainstream media that reinforces a healthy view of happy marriages—which I guess just goes to prove your point, doesn’t it?

    There’s probably a bunch of reasons for that, of course. People like to complain. Have you met people? That’s pretty much all they do. I know folks who have entire conversations of just back-to-back complaints. Sometimes it’s cathartic, sometimes commiseration feels like an easy way to bond and be relatable, but sometimes people are just flat out whiners. Besides the complaining, tragedy is just funnier than happy stuff. If I’m gonna make a funny movie about marriage, it’s easiest to just show how tragically bumbling the husband is and how shrewish and biting the wife is. They’re miserable! It’s funny! Happiness isn’t entertaining. Then of course, there’s the fact that people just plain don’t want to hear the good things. Your marriage is happy? Thanks for shoving it in my face, braggy.

    So, what do we do? First, we need to stop relying on the frigging media to ever get anything right. It’s always going to be distorted. And then, we fill the gaps ourselves—that goes for anything in life, ever. You see a need; you be the one to fill it. Start talking about your own marriage, openly and honestly! Ask the (apparently awesome) people in your life about their marriages and why they work together so well.

    More than that, though, we need to start being frank about the hard parts of marriage, too. It might be counter-intuitive, but a big reason we have no healthy positivity around marriage is because we have no healthy perceptions of the rough spots. Think about the depictions of marriage around us. Either you’re chained to a lifelong naggy, tense misery or you’re doomed for a shiny, happy marriage that suddenly and for no reason plunges into divorce. I don’t know about you or your parents or your friends, but that bears absolutely no reflection of what my marriage is like. My marriage isn’t conflict-free, but it’s a mostly smooth road with some bumps and rough patches and sometimes some seriously bleak spots. Until we start acknowledging that constant hard times are not normal, but occasional hard times aren’t predictive of doom, we can’t really get a straight idea of what a healthy marriage is like.

    That part sounds daunting, right? We all want to have more folks talking about happy marriages, but do any of us really want to share the dark scary spots of our own? I’d argue they go hand in hand. And I’d also argue that the second piece of that doesn’t need to be quite so very scary (just maybe a little tricky to navigate). Not everyone needs to share the inner workings of their married fights right here on the internet (in fact, maybe don’t until you check in with your partner to make sure it’s okay). Figure out with your partner how much of your bad you feel you can share with folks outside of the relationship, and more importantly, who those folks you can share with are.

    So, yes, Miss. Unfortunately, I’m turning this one back around on you a bit. It really sucks that there isn’t more marriage-positive discussion out there. But that being the case, it’s our job to facilitate it on an individual, personal level. And that means opening yourself up to talking about the good and the bad.

    *****

    Team Practical, do you have any awesome resources of marriage positivity? How do you speak about your marriage in a way that tears down those negative social narratives?

    Photo by APW sponsor Emily Takes Photos.

    If you would like to ask Team Practical a question please don’t be shy! You can email Liz at: askteampractical [at] apracticalwedding [dot] com. If you would prefer to not be named, anonymous questions are also accepted. Though it really makes our day when you come up with a clever sign-off!

    This post includes Sponsors, who are a key part of supporting APW. For more information, see our Directory page for Emily Takes Photos.

      06 Sep 16:59

      Why Are The Majority Of Children's Books Still About White Boys?

      by By Soraya Chemaly

      Not long ago it was socially acceptable to say, “I won’t read that book, it’s about black people” in the same way that boys routinely reject stories about girls today, says Soraya Chemaly.

      One day, a few years ago, when my daughter was in third grade, she had to explain to a classmate what sexism was. Four kids, two boys and two girls, had been put in a reading group together, given a basket full of books and asked to talk about them and decide together which one they wanted to read together for a book review.

      As they went through their choices, the boy picked up a book whose cover was an illustration of a woman in a hoop skirt. He quickly tossed it aside. My daughter suggested that it might be good, and asked if he’d already read it, because she would like to. He said no, it was a girl book and he wouldn’t read it. Her response was pretty cut and dry, “That’s a sexist thing to say,” she explained.

      Related Links:

      02 Sep 16:30

      mistaken cases of hilarious identity

      archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - cute - search - about
      ← previous September 2nd, 2013 next

      September 2nd, 2013: Have you ever wanted to OWN a comic? Well that's crazy but did you know you can own a part of a comic?

      One year ago today: send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for he, she, Pawnee, the Adriatic Sea, and your computer science degree

      – Ryan

      22 Jul 13:39

      From The Classroom To The Courtroom, Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder. And The Beholder Is Always A Man

      by By Soraya Chemaly
      Alia

      This shit makes my blood boil, it is so fucked up.

      After a woman was fired for being "too attractive," Soraya Chemaly discusses how women are lifelong subjects of the male gaze.

      Last week, in a terrific-though-clumsily-titled article in the New York Times, “Fired For Being Beautiful,” Michael Kimmel wrote about the Iowa Supreme Court’s confirmation of its findings that employers can fire a person for the way they look. They concluded that an employee “may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction.”

      The case at hand involved a dentist who fired a female dental assistant, at the behest of his wife, because they felt that their marriage would be threatened by her presence in his office. She was too attractive. Now, this has nothing to do with how the woman or others before and after her, look. Just on how attractive the man found her. A commenter on Kimmel’s piece wrote:

      “This situation is all too familiar. I work in military aviation, and when an attractive, unmarried (she was engaged) female pilot was assigned to our squadron, the department heads spoke with the skipper and had her re-assigned.

      Related Links:

      17 Jul 13:04

      St. Baldrick’s – Going Bald for a Good Cause

      by kindofamess

      St. Baldrick's logo

      I haven’t posted in a bit because I’ve needed to do this post.  And I’ve worked on it for a couple weeks, but then kept hemming and hawing and dithering and yoyo-ing and all kinds of other words that mean, “Alyssa is a big giant wiener.”

      But, a wiener I am no longer.

      (Except when it comes to spiders.  Eff those bastards.)

      I am going bald for St. Baldrick’s.

      Well, techinically.  I am participating as a virtual shavee for St. Baldrick’s, but I’m going bald for a lot of other reasons.

      The first is for my beautiful little boy, who is not ill and whom I hope with every fiber of his being stays that way.  Just seeing a picture of his face not only makes me smile, but calms me in a way I didn’t anticipate when I imagined how being a mom felt.  His little goober grin makes the rest of the world make sense; he’s why I do will pretty much anything in my life from now on, either to make his life better or to make myself and the world a better place for him.  This is for him; he deserves a mommy who cares about others, and this is how I choose to do it.

      This is for Lincoln, whose pictures I cannot look at without tearing up.  I was never privileged enough to know him, and had he not been a part of St. Baldrick’s Honored Kids, I would never have even heard his name.   But his smile and blue eyes are stunning, and I know they are even more beautiful up in heaven now that he is an Angel.  His picture is what got me to seriously talk about participating and turn from something that Liz did into to something I could do too.

      This is also for Bennett, a lovely little boy who is in maintenance.  His big brown eyes remind me of why this important, why money is needed for research to keep big boys like him digging in the sandbox and having a blast with his grateful family every day.

      This is also for Maddie and A Practical Wedding, whose post on Pantene Beautiful Lengths and National Donate Your Hair Day made me stop going back and forth and decide to  go ahead and to be a virtual shavee.  Normally St. Baldrick’s has shaving events every year and there is one in Dallas every March that I thought about joining.  However, National Donate Your Hair Day is September 7th; the close date and chance to be part of two great causes was enough of a kick in the pants to get me really going.

      But this is also for Liz of happy sighs  and my friend Ollie.  Both of them participated in their own St. Baldrick’s event and their awesome words were enough to make me fill out the volunteer form and hit send.  Having them honestly talk about the ups and downs (and mostly ups) of being a part of St. Baldrick’s has helped me more than they even know.

      So.  I’m doing it.  Hair goes bye-bye on September 7th, with most of it going to Pantene Beautiful Lengths.  I was nervous, but now I’m just flat out excited.  My goal is $1500, but whatever amount I raise will be worth it.

      I’ll be talking about it for a bit on here before I do it, so you’ll have to forgive me.  I’d love it if you got a chance to donate, but I’d love it more if you spread the word.  Email out this post or my donation page, share it on Facebook, tweet about the crazy heifer who is chopping off her hair for strangers.  Getting the word out is important because there will be someone out there who will see it and donate more than you could because they have the means.  Or a parent who is having a hard time with their sick child will see the post and feel a little better about the world in general for a moment.  Or hopefully, someone will see the tweet, learn a little about the charity and decide to participate in a event as a shavee.

      So forgive me for this wall of text, and forgive me any upcoming posts that will contain more about childhood cancer than they will about deadly lingerie and bewb cakes.  And if you have any questions, please email me!  I’ll be happy answer what I can, or do a post if you think others might have the same question.

      Thank you, moppets!  Big hugs all around!


      12 Jul 14:19

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      by Kristin Rosenau
      Alia

      I clearly need to get some popsicle molds so I can make these.

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      Last weekend I took time to do something I don't do nearly often enough—relax. I put away the computer, closed the textbooks, and spent some quality time with my family. While I did do some baking in the kitchen, most of the weekend was spent enjoying home cooked meals, conversing over the dinner table, and wandering about in the great outdoors. After a long, difficult month, the few days I spent recuperating have left me feeling like a brand new person. There's less stress, more laughter, and a better outlook on the months to come.

      We need to remind ourselves to take breaks more often.

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      This summer in particular, I've been feeling a little sun-starved. It's halfway into July and I haven't detected a trace of any of my traditional tan lines. While I only have a few more weeks before I wrap up my masters degree, I can't help but stare longingly out the window, wishing my textbooks would disappear and I could go outside and play. My inner camp counselor misses the day of running in the grass, having picnics in the sun, and listening to the silly stories of excited children.

      One of my favorite parts of summer is eating popsicles when the weather feels like it can't get any warmer. The act becomes a competition as I try to lick up the frozen treat before the sun melts it into a puddle at my feet. Popsicles were a part of camp culture, the reward for a well-played game of capture the flag. The aftermath of sticky faces and bright colored tongues was a mess I would never wish away.

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      Last weekend, during an overcast morning, I wanted to bring a little of that sunshine into my kitchen. With a pint of strawberries in the refrigerator, it took only a few minutes to transform the fruit into frozen treats. Once the sun found its way out from the clouds, I took one out from the freezer and enjoyed it on my balcony, savoring the feeling of the sun on my face and sweet berries on my lips.

      A week later, I still have a few left, waiting for moments when I can take a break in the sun.

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      Frozen Strawberry Bars are a delightful summer treat. Strawberries are macerated in sugar to sweeten and bring out the flavor of the fruit. Half of the berries are left sliced while the other half is pureed with orange juice. The fruit is layered in the popsicle molds with the puree, creating a frozen bar that has a great bite. These popsicles are refreshing for those hot summer afternoons.

      One Year Ago: Chocolate Cherry Cake and Coconut Scones
      Two Years Ago: Harry Potter Treats and Cauldron Cakes

      Frozen Strawberry Bars

      Yields 6-7 popsicles

      1 lb (450 grams) strawberries, sliced
      2 tablespoons granulated sugar (or more depending on the sweetness of the berries)
      1 cup (240 ml) orange juice

      In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the sugar over the sliced strawberries. Gently stir until dissolved and allow to macerate for 10-15 minutes to release the strawberry juices.

      Take half of the sliced strawberries and process them in a food processor with the orange juice or blend the strawberries and orange juice together with a blender.

      Spoon the whole sliced strawberries into the popsicle molds, dividing them evenly. Next, spoon the pureed strawberries into the molds, filling the molds until nearly to the top to allow room for expansion. Insert in the popsicle sticks and freeze for 4-6 hours, or until completely frozen.

      Serve frozen.