age is just a number

That number could be $3 million (an estimate at what Demi Moore has spent on cosmetic surgery, tho she doesn't like to talk about it)
Or perhaps that number is ￡6 (what madonna spent to create her own gym) [which leads to another number: 3-6 hours she spends working out every day]
The number might also be the $288 it would take to buy this anti-aging skin care set.
As last resort, $39.99 looks cheap for this anti-aging make-up kit.

Those are the numbers I thought of the other day when I looked through this Fit and Fabulous over 40 gallery.

(OH! the other thing I though about looking at that gallery of beauties: PHOTOSHOP! Hello, here's what Faith Hill has to go through to be RedBook cover ready. Check out more Photoshop horrors.)

These "You-can-still-look-like-you're-20-even-when-you-are-40" spreads that the glossies like to put out make me feel like shit. What's that? They are SUPPOSED to make me feel like shit? So that I will pay them back by buying all the anti-aging shit they sell advertising space for?? (BTW, I love Sarah Haskins and her brilliant dissections of advertising targeting woman.)

Yeah, I'm afraid of aging. I bemoan the wrinkles that are appearing around my eyes and mouth. I DO have a cheap-end stash of anti-aging shit that I pay homage too and one of the reasons I work-out and eat healthy is to try to stay young/cute. I'm not dismissing efforts towards being healthy and taking care of one's self (I ♡ good hygiene) (plus I really dig make-up) (and muscles), I'm merely trying to hack my own insecurities here. Bear with me.

Anyhoo...
What helps me get over feeling shitty about aging: Women (of any age) who accomplish awesome things (other than staying wrinkle free). Like women athletes who kick the behinds of women half their age in sports. Women astronauts (of which there are 4 in space right now!). Women comedians (margaret cho ya'll! She's awesome. And raunchy~ consider yourself warned). Women comic book writers and illustrators. Women artists. Women in math and science and medicine, women in politics, women writers, women chefs, women musicians, etc etc etc (sorry... got tired finding links)

You get the idea. The idea being: there is a lot of cool stuff to dedicate time and energy to besides merely trying to stay young and cute. It's a good thing for me to keep in mind as my numbers go up with every fast-passing year. Oh, do you know Kate over at Eat The Damn Cake? she wrote this awesome piece about the flat tummy police and goals for aging.

creating gods

(this post also at Feminist Mormon Housewives)

So that's me, at the back of the church, hiding out in the last pew. The atheist mommy with a sketchbook.

Lisa, Moriah and I got talking about the act of creating, of making art, and how it related to our religious beliefs. It was interesting, our different approaches. Me: I'm the naval gazer: having thought and read my way out of all belief in any literal Gods, I still find myself as an artist, obsessed with the symbols and icons and language of religion (in particular, my native religion: Mormon). God has been pivotal to my art for years: here's a piece I did a while back as I worked thought my issues/concerns/etc about approaching God.

Nowadays, I find myself obsessed with taking the stories and re-working them, twisting them, turning them, doing a bit of re-arranging (for example, I am currently hard at work re-telling the story of Eve). In my mind what I am doing is scraping away the white-washing; trying to get down to the raw, messy stuff that is at the root of all of our belief systems. My tools are pretty simple: pencil, pen, paint, a bit of ink and other odds and ends. With them I go sifting through all the shards of my broken belief.

Art is my therapy.
Art is also one of the only forms of worship that I practice at the moment. I guess you could say it is my homage to the reasons we humans make our Gods (see here and here) and also, to the way we make our monsters. (Sometimes I think those are the same thing.)


(In case you are wondering, one of the reasons I hide way at the back during church is because, quite frequently, what comes out of my pen while listening to the talks/lessons is either quite disturbing, or rather blasphemous. WARNING. Those links are disturbing and blasphemous.)

conditioned to love the monster god

[now posted over at The Exponent also]
Here is a half-baked thought that has been marinating in the back of my head for a while:

Sermons and lessons in the LDS church have elements in them that condition us to accept a Monster God.

(Probably not LDS alone, but that is the majority of my church going experience so it is where I have seen it the most.)

What I am thinking of here is the numerous talks, lessons, etc that use as their object lessons examples of extreme human suffering to teach about God. Two in particular stand out in memory (and I'm too tired to hunt down more):

1)From elder Monson's conference talk from last year (ironically entitled "Be Of Good Cheer") in which he talked about the German Mother in war-torn Prussia and how she had to bury her children one by one, having only a spoon to dig their graves with, until the very last child died, and at that point, she had even lost her spoon and so used her bare fingers against frozen ground to bury her baby.

2) From a local Stake Conference a few years back; the Stake President, as part of his talk described in great detail, how at a family cookout, the young toddler pulled the charcoal grill full of red-hot briquettes over on top of himself. The Stake President went on in great detail about the extent of the irreparable damage done to the toddler's body. I don't remember exactly what the SP's point was (probably prayer, or faith, or something) because I had to leave the meeting (leave my toddler sitting in the pew with his father) so I could go throw up.

I'm thinking that these gospel teaching elements are included as a coping mechanism, a way to preemptively curtail questions about the atrocities that occur and how an All powerful All loving God fits into this world of carnage. Perhaps, they are included to be intentionally numbing? (activism is frequently downplayed to make place for faith/acceptance.)

We are taught to Pray to the Monster God for protection (for he is mighty to save) while simultaneously being taught to accept that, at His humanly incomprehensible whim, He may chose not to save you. In spite of unwavering devotion, you and your loved ones may in die in a multitude of agonizing ways. Or live in a multitude of agonizing ways. And lesson after lesson in church is constructed to condition you to that fact.
So pray for patience.
For faith.
For understanding.
Or at least for acceptance.

It is storytelling.
Turning tragedy into faith promoting stories.

My own thought is that reality isn't very faith-promoting.

As an interesting segue: after the Earthquakes in Haiti earlier this year, JohnR wrote this post about suffering, and storytelling, and how we can cope with tragedy without trying to piece an all Powerful all Loving God into the story.

To end with, a little sacrilege.
Have you seen the painting "One Nation Under God" by Jon McNaughton?
In thinking about The Monster God, it occurred to me that the anonymous artist who did this parody of it might have been on to something.

wrong turns

It has happened several times now in the past week: While driving, my mind wanders (there's a lot for it to wander around in right now). Thinking through circumstances, wondering about actions made and decisions coming up...
When suddenly...
I realize I've taken a wrong turn. I'm on a street or highway I hadn't planned on being on (and am not sure how I got there.)

******
I used to be the sort of suspicious individual who would see all sorts of signs and messages from the universe in this sort of thing.

Now a days, I just think I need to start paying more attention while I'm driving. Leave off pondering for when I am not behind the wheel.

anti-aging ads suck

Why yes Avon, I DO remember when my eyes looked younger. Thank you for asking.

$$$ (or, career-fail insecurity)

one cause of significant insecurity and occasional bouts of panic/frustration/sense-of-failure: i attach huge emotional value to the dollar worth of 'what I do'.

and 'what I do' has no practical dollar value (ie, brings no money to our coffers).

i feel it like a chain, my little creative 'hobbies' that i, as a pampered housewife, indulge in. (god that almost made me sick to write it. but that is how it feels sometimes)

for added weight of guilt/failure; the fact that other people, DO get practical dollar value for those same indulgent creative 'hobbies'.

(NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH NOT GOOD ENOUGH.)

as a related segue... i sabotage all opportunities to get practical dollar value for my creative hobbies.

does this even make sense?
(pay this post no mind, it has merely been a bad day, requiring a rant and an outlet)
(i will most likely delete this. it's pretty humiliating.)

the Tree House

[a few thoughts while spending time at an extended family gathering during Gen Conf weekend (Sunday's 2nd session playing in the background right now)]

Let's say there's this Tree House. All the cool kids go to this tree house. There they have special games that are played only in that Tree House, plus you get special green and yellow socks that you are always supposed to wear after you have gone to the Tree House. Oh, and Brussels sprouts are forbidden, anyone who plays at the Tree House must NOT EAT Brussels sprouts. Lots of stories surround the Tree House: how important it is, that if you do not continue to play in the Tree House and live the Tree House rules your hair will fall out and your pets will get sick and bullies will always be stealing your allowance. That in order to be a Really Important Person you must be part of the Tree House club. Also, stories about how COOL you will be if you get other people to come play in the Tree House, to be part of the Tree House club.

Sometimes, a member of the Tree House club may wonder if all of those stories are true; about the hair falling out and pets getting sick and being a Really Important Person (etc). Sometimes, that person may stop believing those stories (and may have issues with the manipulative nature of the stories).

Then they must make some decisions.

They could keep living the Tree House rules so that no one will know better and things can continue they way they were.

OR, they may decide to STOP wearing the special green and yellow socks (they like blue socks better) and decide to EAT Brussels sprouts (they really do like the flavor) but they only do these things in secret so that none of the other Tree House club members will know.

OR, on the weekend in which all their Tree House family and friends get together to tell more stories about the Tree House and it's rules, they decide on THAT weekend to wear shoes that reveal BLUE socks. And they pull out some Brussels sprouts during snack time.

They are not sure what will happen.
But what they are hoping for is that they can all still be friends without having to hide the color of their socks and hide the food they like

We shall see.

keeping a record.

[also posted at The Exponent]
I am an obsessive journal-keeper. Always have been. For most of my life, the record I kept was pretty banal: the minutia of daily life turned into faith promoting stories. There came a point several years ago when my journaling changed, I was working out serious life questions and no longer had what it took to write out nice safe faith promoting endings. It all became very raw. There were no answers (definitely none of the expected, prescribed answers one was supposed to find when 'searching'). At a certain point, I realized my journals were... dangerous? Meaning, I was no longer safe if anyone happened to pick one one and snoop. Well, I never would have been too thrilled to know someone had snooped in my journal, but now it was full of deep dark secret questions that I felt I really wasn't supposed to be asking. That I didn't want anyone to know I was asking. Dangerous.

The typical Sunday School line about journal keeping is that it is for posterity's sake, we are to keep records like Nephi kept records; faith, testimony, guidance for future generations blah blah blah...

I keep a journal as the last line of defense against insanity. I cringe at the thought of others reading these raw, misspelled, grammatically incorrect ravings of a mad woman, utterly un-prep-ed for public consumption.

Also I journal much more during my low times, therefore my book has very few of the puppies and unicorns and rainbows type entries. Mostly gloom and pain. Reminds me of a quote from The Hobbit:

".. but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much listened to; while things that are uncomfortable palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale and take a good deal of telling anyways."

I joke about having these dark dangerous ramblings all burned when I die. But truth be told, I love these books so much, I don't think I'd have the heart to. It's all part of the weird narcissism that urges me to record these things in the first place. Which reminds me of another quote, one by Simone DeBeauvoir that I have inscribed on the first page of my journal as a sort of warning/reality check to myself:

"Her Memories become fixed, her behavior stereotyped; she reiterates words, she repeats histrionics that have gradually lost all context, hence, the poverty of many diaries and autobiographies written by women; wholly occupied in burning incense to herself."

Anyhoo.... that's me. Do you keep a journal? What purpose does it serve in your life?

owning the womb

The first 29 pgs of Stephanie Coontz's Marriage, a History has been a refreshing reminder that once you look outside the box of Judeo-Christian History, there's a good collection of culturally acceptable couplings that are NOT about controlling female sexuality (with the incumbent taboos for feminine virginity/fidelity etc).

Hope to write more about the book later, but wanted to share this segment:

"When Jesuit missionaries from France first encountered the North American Montagnais-Naskapi Inidans in the early seventeenth century, they were shocked by the native women's sexual freedom. One missionary warned a Naskapi man that if he did not impose tighter controls on his wife, he would never know for sure which of the children she bore belonged to him. The Indian was equally shocked that this mattered to the Europeans. 'You French people,' he replied, 'love only your own children; but we love all the children of our tribe.' " (pg 28)

women who are not married by 30, and are lawyers.

At one of those big Young Women meetings we had when I was a 14 yr old Mia Maid, there was a speaker who talked about finding herself 30 and unmarried. She also talked about her career as a lawyer.
It was a great talk (obviously still memorable years and years later).
Maybe it was made memorable by the conversation with my father after the meeting.

The conversation probably had a lot more words than this, but these are the ones I remember:

me: [something about the women woman speaker who was unmarried into her 30's]

dad: "What?! 30 and NOT married?? What was WRONG with her?"

me: [something about the woman's decision to pursue Law]

dad: "A LAWYER?! Oh, well that explains why she's not married!"