Fallacies

I don't want to talk about Anthony Weiner. The man has gotten more than his fair share of press already, and the reports of his tasteless social media interactions make me queasy. However, I do want to talk about his wife, and what some of the comments I've seen floating around in the interwebs about her say about our society's feelings towards women.

This discussion isn't just about Huma Abedin. Inevitably when any high profile man gets caught in some sort of bad behavior that humiliates his spouse*, the talk eventually turns to how beautiful the betrayed wife is or isn't (Tiger Woods is another recent example). Huma Abedin is gorgeous, leading the online community to cry out, "How could he do this to her? She's hot!!" And this is the sort of talk that gets under my skin.

Why is so much emphasis placed on the wife's looks? If she were ugly would his behavior have been more acceptable? If she were merely ordinary-looking would it have made her somehow more deserving of being humiliated and betrayed? Her worth as a human being and her value as a wife are not dependent upon her looks, any more than a misbehaving man's looks are tied to some sort of sliding scale that determines how outraged people ought to be about his behavior.

Whether you feel that Weiner's actions were completely reprehensible or that they merely demonstrated a lack of judgment and incredibly poor taste is beside the point of this discussion. The part of the story that disturbs me is when people focus on the wife's looks as if they're something that needs to be accounted for in the body of evidence.

The other fallacy I've noticed in the online discourse is more subtle: the underlying expectation that beautiful women are supposed to be immune to the hardships of life, that they don't get manipulated and lied to and have their hearts broken just like everybody else. That if you're hot and your husband sexted someone else, then you must be a nagging, overbearing shrew because beautiful women don't get cheated on unless there's something really, really wrong with them. Being beautiful does not endow women with a superhuman ability to detect cheaters; it does not prevent them from falling in love with the wrong person or making bad choices; it does not mean that their spouses will love them more or treat them better.

Beautiful women get betrayed for exactly the same reason that other women do: they get involved with men who are liars and cheats. And that sort of man will lie to and cheat on whoever he's with, no matter what she looks like. A man is either a good man, or he's not; what ultimately saves women from the bad ones is discernment, strength, a belief in one's self, maybe even a little bit of luck. Often these things have to be acquired the hard way, too; beauty may bring other advantages in life, but it won't help in this arena.

Huma Abedin is beautiful. But bringing her beauty into the discussion of her husband's behavior is disrespectful to her as a wife and a woman. Beauty will not help her handle this situation; only her character will.

I'd love to hear your comments. And hey look, I wore clothes today too!

Top: Forever 21
Jeans: Level 99
Bracelet: Nicole Miller
Boots: Jo Ghost

*ETA: I didn't mean to make this a hetero-exclusive discussion; obviously people get hurt in same-sex relationships also, just as wives can sometimes treat husbands badly. But when we're talking about a powerful, high profile person doing something shitty to their spouse, 9 times out of 10 it's a straight man doing it to his wife.

Brick Wall

I finally got to wear this maxi dress with bare legs, and what a difference it made -- this was lightyears more comfortable than having to deal with tights underneath. I'm excited about the possibilities for wearing it through the summer. For this outfit, I added navy blue and orange to give it a nautical touch.

Dress: Forever 21
Top, belt: Red Dress Shoppe
Scarf: Banana Republic
Shoes: BC Footwear

On a completely random and unrelated note, I realized something about myself this morning as I was driving to work: I deeply dislike songs that have choruses of children in them. Get those kids out of my rock song! Moreover, I think it's because I feel like kids should be chaotic, so having a bunch of them them doing something as organized and disciplined as singing in harmony creeps me out in a Village of the Damned sort of way.

A brick wall... I must think of a brick wall!

Random Bonus Post: Photo Subject Found 20 Years Later

I just had to repost this story (found via Neatorama), because it made me smile and because the photo that accompanies it is so beautiful and moving. I just can't stop looking at it.

Photographer Catherine Karnow took this photo in Vietnam in 1990, and through the phenomenon that is Facebook, recently reconnected with its subject after losing her address 20 years ago.

Click here to read the full story.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Oblong Inflated Spheroid

Disclaimer: the rest of the text in this post has nothing at all to do with the outfit. I tried and tried to write something interesting about it, but finally had to call uncle. It was just a casual Friday outfit, after all. Here are the details in case you're pressed for time or are otherwise disinclined to read my random rant of the day:


Tunic: thrifted
Harness: Audra Jean
Bangles: Amrita Singh (via Gilt)
Jeans: Diesel (via Gilt)
Boots: All Black










Over the weekend I realized why I cannot watch American football. I always figured it had mainly to do with the fact that the players spend most of their time just standing around on the sidelines. That, and the way the players' butts look catastrophically bad in those gross shiny pants with the weird seams on either side of the crack. The uniforms look like a skintight, disco version of a union suit.

 Dude, you've got way worse problems than the concussion you're about to get;

pimps in 1975 looked hotter in their spandex pants than you.

But in fact I don't think it's either of those things at all; my general loathing of football comes down to two annoying little occurrences that just plain bug the crap out of me.

One is how the calls are communicated. Now in hockey, when a call is made the referee gives you three important pieces of information: who is being penalized, for how many minutes, and what the penalty is for (usually in one to three words). That's it; no more, no less. "Number 64, 2 minutes for high sticking." Fine, now let's get on with the game. But in football the explanation might take several minutes, and frankly I don't have the patience to hear the entire rationale behind a convoluted call pulled from some obscure rule, whose source can only be found by poring over a tome that's undoubtedly equivalent in mass to the entire Encyclopedia Britannica series.

 Easier to interpret than the rules of football.

What's worse is that the majority of the referee's monologue typically isn't even the call at all, but a recap of what just happened. Look buddy, I just sat here for 10 minutes of deliberation, watching the players wander around spitting and readjusting their crotches; cut to the chase, would you?

The other thing that really gets under my skin is the commentators, who insist on using the word, "football" in their descriptions of the action, as in, "He ran the football into the end zone." Now I may not even begin to understand the intricacies of the game, but even a blockhead like me knows what kind of a ball they're playing with. Obviously if I'm WATCHING FOOTBALL, then the object they're throwing around (when they can be bothered to get out on the field)  is simply the ball. Is that extra syllable really going to fill up a significant amount of airtime when you've got nothing clever to say? I didn't think so.

 

Clearly they were never told that silence is golden.

I understand the desire to spice up the language and make the commentary more interesting, but this is not the way. In hockey they might call the puck a biscuit, or simply the puck, but you'll never hear them say, "Marleau shot the hockey puck from the blue line." Why? Because it sounds stupid, that's why. Get some new words, football announcers; even calling it an 'oblong inflated spheroid' would be better than football.

It's sort of like that annoying sound, faint though it may be, that once perceived is impossible to ignore. A distant barking dog or crying baby, perhaps. And now that I've taken note of the lengthy soliloquies of the refs and the irritating overuse of the word "football," my utter disdain for the entire sport has crystallized. I do, however, occasionally enjoy hearing about how a player's head was "on a swivel." Perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Thoughts...on thinking.

I think a lot. I know that's a weird statement to make, but sometimes I think I think too much (see, there I go thinking again...about thinking). But really, my mind is always going, and I'm always pondering this or that, here or there. I have not only a wild imagination but in the past I've also tended to worry more than necessary, which is not always the best combination. I'm incredibly introspective and I often think about strange, morbid things. Why I don't know, but I've been this way my entire life.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about how happy I am. I feel very, very blessed in my life. More than anything, I'm grateful for this love I have with my husband. I couldn't imagine anything better in my life, and as silly as it sounds, Hank is really and honestly my dream come true. I think we have a very special kind of love, and I feel so fortunate to experience it. With that said, if I think too much about being happy, I start to think about what a precarious perch happiness is. There's a Death Cab song that says "And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time." This couldn't be more true. It's crazy to think that every single day is a silent little hope that we make it to the end. It makes me think about one of my closest friends, my "little brother," who passed away a few years ago unexpectedly right around this time. I had seen him earlier that day, and I was able to give him a hug and tell him I loved him. I didn't know it would be the last time I'd ever see him, and that our plans for the next evening would never happen.

This kind of thing terrifies me. After Kendall died I became obsessed with thinking that every time I saw someone I loved it might be the last time I ever saw them. There couldn't be a more true statement though, because that is really a true possibility. It's scary and upsetting and I hate thinking about it. I don't know. I get into these emotional moods where I just start thinking and thinking about loss and how quickly everything good in my life could be gone. Does anyone else do this? It's a weird, weird thing that I don't do often but when I'm feeling emotional it's thoughts like these that make me feel so sad.

I think though, that with happiness this fear comes hand in hand. Of course when things are wonderful, there is the chance it could disappear. But what does this mean?

To me, when I feel this way, and I get over feeling down for those moments, I am reminded to love so hard, and live as much as I can. It is indeed true that everything we love can be gone in a moment, but isn't that just the way it goes? Life has a tragic frailty to it, and if we live our lives in a bubble of fear, if we go about our business with this in the back of our minds at all times, how can we enjoy the beautiful moments? If we fill our head with worry, how will there be any room for joy? Over the past couple of years I've taught myself to take the fears and negative thoughts I have and spin them into positive ones. It's not easy, but when I start to feel upset, or start to get those familiar doomsday thoughts, I remind myself that I feel that way because I am in fact happy. To have good, there must be bad. Happiness does not exist without the other side of the coin existing as well.

I tell myself to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Life makes no promises, whether we worry or not, and the sooner we can accept this, the sooner we can go through life with a light heart. I'm sure once my little one is born I will be filled with a new kind of fear. Life will soon be about Henry, and with that deep love that I can't even fathom at this point, comes that familiar reminder that life is fragile. And that moments are fleeting. And I know I am going to be so, so scared of all of the unknown for him. I'm scared now. I'm frightened about this huge responsibility of raising a life, protecting my son, and all of the things that will or won't happen. But dwelling in the what-ifs and the oh-nos will only take me away from the happy moments. So I remind myself: enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Life is short, and we don't know what will happen tomorrow. But by focusing on the happiness I have today, and loving and living, and trying my best to make sense of this crazy world, I can regain some sense of balance.

Reminding myself to let go of the negativity isn't always easy, and some days it is downright impossible. But like anything it takes practice. You fall, you get up, you try again. I'm getting to a place where falls are rare, but I still have my skinned knees and bruised shins to prove where I've been. They fade with time, but luckily they are always there to remind me to keep going. Nowadays I allow sad times to push me back into happy ones, the down thoughts to remind me that up does, in fact, exist.

Above all else, life is beautiful. If we could predict every little thing about it, most of that beauty would be dulled. So I keep on going, keep on loving, keep on...keeping on. Reminding myself that all I can do is continue to strive for positivity, a light heart, and days full of love and laughter and peace...and I hope you'll join me. :)

Random Music Post, Or, A Celebration of the American West

I've been listening to a lot of Neko Case lately. Normally I'm not a huge fan of country music, but Neko really captures a particular slice of the American West that I find particularly haunting. It's that image of eerie desolation; a blowing tumbleweed, a lonely train whistle in the distance, an old mining town and dark, rolling clouds on the horizon. There's something very special about the American West that I've really come to appreciate in recent years; it was something I always took for granted growing up in the heart of the Gold Rush country in California.

As an avid traveler and a devotee of so many other cultures, it's easy to sometimes overlook the unique culture that exists right here. It's also easy to dismiss American culture in general, given our unpopularity in the rest of the world. During the Bush years I would never introduce myself as an American when I traveled; I always said, "I'm from San Francisco." But being American isn't a shameful thing, and despite our relative newness on the world stage, we still have a fascinating and storied history that is worth exploring.

Country music in many ways celebrates the uniqueness of the American experience, right down to its unglamorous and even seedy side. And Neko Case is one of those artists who brings to life the rough and uncivilized Western past that still has traces in our culture today. 

Neko's music reminds me that I'm proud of our rugged, pioneering ancestors, who left behind civilized cities like Boston or New York and headed West to make their fortune, or sometimes to die trying. Some were entrepreneurs, some were fleeing a dubious past and came in search of a fresh start and anonymity, and some just loved adventure and risk-taking. Some succeeded spectacularly and others failed miserably, but the legacy they left behind is one of spirited determination and fierce individuality. And from an "I can accomplish anything" kind of confidence to a "This is me, like it or not" attitude, I see many elements of that legacy in my own beloved city today.

If you get a chance to see Neko Case live, don't miss it. Her live performance is wonderful, and she's quite a character to boot; she looks like a sweet, fragile little thing behind her big acoustic guitar, but the girl swears like a trucker and is funny as hell. She's my kind of country music, and my kind of American.

Today's outfit (sorry, I really should've worn cowboy boots to accompany this post, shouldn't I?):
Capelet: F21
Shirt: J. Crew, thrifted
Skirt: Anthropologie
Boots: Bronx

Ellen DeGeneres

This outfit is from a couple weeks ago, and as I sit here wearing these striped leggings yet again I realize how addicted I've gotten to them. But they really are the perfect thing for summer because they're lightweight and semi-sheer, and yet enough of a barrier to the chilly, moist air that I don't get too cold. Not that I won't wear them all winter as well, but look how great they pair with these soft, light layers and bare toes.

This morning Mark and I were discussing which actor would voice Georgie's character if she were ever cast in an animated movie. We decided on Ellen DeGeneres. How's that for random?

Cardigan, skirt: Anthropologie

Top, leggings: Black Market Baby

Shoes: Bobbi Blu