Rick Santorum Loves Abortion

Let’s start this post with a little about me. I am adamantly, unapologetically pro-choice. I believe that all reproductive decisions belong to the person making them and not to anyone else without that person’s consent. As a matter of human decency, the full range of reproductive health services must be accessible (economically, geographically, logistically and any other adverb that seems applicable) to all people. Now, obviously I don’t find abortion to be morally suspect, but I am offended by how pro-abortion Rick Santorum is. Santorum loves abortions. Santorum wants more abortions. More and more and more and more and more abortions. Abortions for everyone! How do I know this anti-abortion man actually wants more abortions? Elementary, my dear Watson!* If you follow his stances on reproductive rights to their logical conclusions, you get more abortions. Santorum loves abortion.
Continue reading “Rick Santorum Loves Abortion”

Three Word Muse: peaches, earplugs, notebook

Sitting under that old, Southern peach tree, the fruit so ripe the sweetness was dripping down onto my head, my hair, my shoulders, my face, I started to dream. Sticky sweet and wrapped in that humid blanket called summer, the dreams just come. Awake or asleep, on days like these, they flow over you, dancing before your mind’s eye. Your life can go on if you don’t have a tree to lounge under, but the dreams remain. This life, though, has an end to it. Not my own end, which comes when it comes, but end to this way of life. This lazy Sunday life. Modern was coming with highways and noise and cityfolk and convenience. This lonely tree would fall to the pavement. These were the last days of sitting and dreaming.

I had brought my notebook to try to capture the dreams, the smells, the sights, the feeling, but how do you capture experience while you experience experience? Good Words, always reaching beyond their limits, helping me to codify explain the conversation of my skin but beautifully inadequate. I wrote a few things down. A paragraph here or there. Then I just leaned back against the tree, my tree, closed my eyes and said good-bye. Three deep breaths of summer peach and I got up to go buy new earplugs. The Modern may come, but I will block it out.

 

To keep being creative, I ask friends (and readers!) to give me three words from which I will craft a story. I leave them fairly raw (i.e. little editing) and just like to see what comes of the connections I make with the words I get. If you would like to be my next Three Word Muse, click here! H/T to BP (not the oil company).

Legitimate Use of Violence

While Tumblring yesterday, I came across a lovely article detailing how a police officer, while trying to remove a rape survivor from her boyfriend’s home, decided to use his legitimate force in order to get her to cooperate. He punched her in the eye. She wouldn’t leave the apartment because she wanted a female officer present before doing so, and in the move to remove her, he threw a punch.Continue reading “Legitimate Use of Violence”

Women’s Strike Force! Engage!

Last night I actually got to watch Rachel Maddow on the day it aired (usually I watch in the mornings as I’m getting ready for the day), and one of the stories was about a reaction to Virginia’s anti-woman WTFery. Out of this hateful, hateful legislation has come a new PAC dedicated to defeat any politician that votes for these anti-woman bills: Women’s Strike Force. As they say on their site, “We are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents joining together to fight for women.“Continue reading “Women’s Strike Force! Engage!”

Trashy

I think I’m going off the deep end with the environment. More specifically with trash. I compost by freezing my scraps and then taking them to Union Square for the LES Ecology Center drop-off. I save plastic bags that I cannot avoid getting for that compost (bread bags, tortilla bags). I own reusable produce bags and of course reusable shopping bags. When plastic shopping bags happen, they are used for trashbags. I am really trying to reduce the amount of waste I produce. One thing that I just seemed not to be able to avoid is paper towels, specifically paper towels in public bathrooms. So much waste and no real alternative.

Sometimes you have air dryers. They are aren’t my favorite. They use energy to run and take so long to dry my hands. I always end up wiping my hands on my jeans (probably not the most sanitary thing, but eh). Dryers aren’t always there. That stack of paper towels stares at me. And I use them. And then I feel slightly guilty as I drop them in the garbage. What to do? I guess I could always just use my pants…

But then I was cleaning my juicer and I bought these Trader Joe’s reusable paper towel alternatives, and my brain made the connection! Reusable paper towels in my bag as I move through my day! They come in packs of two, so I can trade them off daily so I don’t end up molding in the plastic bag I keep it in (gross) and wash them when I do laundry.

I know this solution is not for everyone, and I got some interesting looks at Metropolitan Opera last week when I busted out this shocking blue towel in the bathroom. I laugh at myself and also feel pretty great not using the air dryers or the paper towels. And I’m becoming a little less trashy every day.

Manju, the Firebreather

Carrie, Manju and Kim in traditional Tamang dress

This past weekend we went to Manegaun. It was amazing to get out of the city and the smog and be in a place much stiller, harder, and vibrant than my normal routine. The lushness of the landscape, the way trees have the ability to grow on a seemingly vertical slope, the rushing rivers and the unmanicured farms, all of these things make me feel part of an ecosystem, rather than part of a rat race. The only other places in the world where I have felt something similar are Guatemala and Ireland. Continue reading “Manju, the Firebreather”

Change it up!

I have been in Kathmandu for over a week now. I’ve started walking around, and so far I have been able to get myself where I need to go with very little confusion about where to go. I am now living with my homestay. We are figuring each other out and how we live together, but it is good so far! I predict that my biggest, practical issue over the next few weeks is going to be dealing with money. It won’t be an issue of having enough money. It won’t be an issue of knowing what bills I have in my wallet. These things are easy, and the latter issue is just a matter of paying attention. This issue I am going to have is change.Continue reading “Change it up!”