In which the Suz invites you to Witness the Violence Inherent in the System

Perhaps it is the rising temperatures. Perhaps I'm riled up from the ending of the book about In-N-Out Burger. Perhaps I'm finally gaining steam on that slippery slope down to Bitchy Old Woman. Whatever. I'm a little pissed, and contemplating becoming more so. Wanna hear why?

Of course you do. What isn't fun about a Bitchy Old Woman?

This morning, I went in for the ritual of the Bitchy Old Woman in Training -- I got my hair colored. With a Mom who went gray early (not that anyone could offer photographic proof, mind you) and a paternal Grandmother who went totally white-haired before 40, this is a common ritual, and a local spa gets the privilege of my company and a nice chunk of my hard-earned wages every six weeks. Until one of my minions reports back to me with the location of that Fountain of Youth, I'm a sure thing, so they're generally nice to me at my little spa.

Today, I was about 10 minutes into my process when a stylist, not my own, asks me if I got married. An odd question since I didn't have a ring on my left hand last time, and I didn't have one on this time. I told her no, and asked why she asked (while looking at my left hand). She made a comment that I used to drive in in a little Pontiac and today I showed up in an Audi S4.

For the uninformed, you can buy a good half dozen rusted out Pontiac's for the price of an S4 in worse condition than the one I was driving. I wouldn't have known that either until I was told that as part of the Pretest to driving the S4 in question. (Yes, there is a pretest. There were essay questions.)

But I digress. The stylist's question turned my Bitchy Old Woman Ire up so fast that I felt like an Extra in The Fast and the Furious.

Yes, I showed up in a nice car. Why does that mean its likely I've hitched my wagon to a big fat wallet with a man attached? I believe this is indicative of a larger problem in the perception of Bitchy Old Women in this country. Yes, I was driving the Crimefighter's car, but that isn't the only way the scenario could have gone down.

So the next time you find yourself next to a woman whose circumstances have become rosy, let's consider alternative reasons she could have quadrupled my car wealth in 6 weeks. shall we?

• I just finished my dissertation and received tenure.
• I just sold my screenplay.
• I got a big promotion based on years of hard work.
• I've been scrimping and saving since I first got a job and finally bought myself the car of my dreams.
• I borrowed it from a friend.
• I did REALLY well in Vegas.
• I took my crappy car into the shop, and have an OUTSTANDING loaner car.
• I stole this car and decided to get a little pretty on before beginning my life on the lam.

There are a whole lot of reasons why I might have upgraded my car on my own merit. Why not consider one of those first? If the Crimefighter suddenly showed up in a Jaguar, how many people would think I or any other woman had anything to do with his being able to afford it?

If all of my other options are so unbelievable, how's about trying one other possibility:

• It's none of your business.

On the upside, my hair looks FABULOUS.

The Suz wonders whether she sparkles

I have a lot of free time in the summer. A lot. It's totally by design, and this won't be a post where I apologize for it. Last time: I eat a lot of pasta in the winter, I don't have kids, and I chose well in that my job is closed in the summer. If it helps you to think I'll die alone in some sort of diabetic coma.... well, you go right ahead and think that. I'll be over in aisle ten buying something cool I don't really need in every color they make it in.

Life is choices.

That said, a lot of free time means I spend a lot of time unwisely. I always have high hopes for the summer: daily overdoing it at the gym, writing the great American novel, actually cleaning out closets I don't remember filling..... but then the temp hits 90 one day, and I realize I'm done for the summer. Whatever. I'll attempt to change the lives of others after Labor Day.

One of the things I love about summer is the ability to catch up on my DVR. It's all I can do from Labor Day til Memorial Day to keep the darn thing from filling, as I enjoy a lot of mindless television the Crimefighter can't stomach. I watch it in snatches every time he heads out. A well timed trip to the Home Depot for him can net me a good episode and a half of Jerseylicious for me.

Yeah, I love reality TV. Not all of it, but what I love, I love purely. I know it's fake (I do a whole unit in the Spring concerning how fake it is and how it produces unhealthy views of race and gender to an unsuspecting nation), but sometimes you just want the heat to stop and the grey matter in your brain to drain slowly out, if only for a time.

Wednesday was, perhaps, the high point of the crappy reality TV summer season -- the season premiere of Toddlers & Tiaras. I actually did DVR this, but not because it's a program I watch regularly. It was mentioned in Peggy Oresnstein's Cinderella Ate my Daughter, and I thought she made some good points. In her discussion of The Princess Beast that Ate American Girls, she went on the road with some of the more famous contestants and offered a perspective not given by the meritorious producers of our show. One of the "stars" of the show, if a child routinely exploited by both her parents and the powers that be in the show can be referred to as the "star," actually got into the pageant world because she has a sibling with catastrophic disabilities who requires almost constant care from both parents 24/7. Her mother wanted to be able to give her able-bodied daughter some time to be in the spotlight since she does not get the same amount of time with her parents as her brother does. This must be concentrated into small bursts, like one glitz-filled pageant every two months. Toddlers & Tiaras doesn't show this because it is a "downer," but the show does pay for all the pageant fees these parents couldn't otherwise afford due to medical expenses. Talk about a rock and a hard place for parents.

Toddlers & Tiaras is, when it comes to criticism either television or culture based, shooting fish in a very small barrel. That said, I think the American public is aiming its criticism in completely the wrong place. Sure, I find it disturbing to see little girls dressed up like they are shooting the new Britney Spears video. Sure, the mothers doing the dances on the sidelines are more than a little grotesque, but I think both parties can be excused somewhat. We live in an age of extremely permissive, child-desires-based parenting, and beauty pageants seem to be just another, albeit extremely expensive and weird, branch in a pretty well-accepted, deeply-rooted tree. The contestants themselves? Well, any Child Psych 101 textbook will tell you that anything that garners positive attention is going to hit the mark with your average toddler. I even understand the people who organize the pageants. They charge a grand to enter the pageant of 150 girls and give out $5000 total prize money and about $4.25 worth of cheap plastic trophies. This is the cash cow that will not die.

Yes, I know these shows promote the image that to be a successful female means to be beautiful, and I know that the spectrum of what constitutes beauty is quite narrow (not to mention a little slutty). I know that families bankrupt themselves and cause their daughters to become spoiled divas only focused on image. That said, these messages hardly occur in a vacuum, and at least in pageants they get a trophy and a crown. You don't get that from reading books and graduating from a top-tiered school. Trust me. I know. I looked.

So we feel scornful, but we need a place to heap that scorn..... and this is where I find myself looking at..... the judges. On the season opener of Toddlers & Tiaras, I thought for a moment I was watching that old Kirstie Allie classic Drop Dead Gorgeous. Who ARE these people? I get wanting to strut your stuff on stage. I get wanting to see your daughter be told she's the best. I get wanting to make fat cash by exploiting the weaknesses of women who have done nothing with their lives other than procreate and have a desperate need to get a physical sign that they've done so well.

What I don't get is who gets up on a Saturday morning, dons a sequined cocktail dress, and spends their day evaluating the "sexiness and sparkle" of 4 year old girls in spray tans and hair pieces? These are attractive women in their twenties who must have had a better offer for their Friday night and Saturday morning than sitting in the ballroom of the Howard Johnson's judging the relative merits of some strip mall dentist's fake teeth and some overworked seamstress from the 3rd world's beadwork. Hell, I'm 5'2", 38, rarely wear makeup, and inherited my mother's ankles (or lack thereof) and *I* have better offers.

Then again, maybe I just lack sparkle.

Shame

So, I started this whole reading challenge, easily downshifted into the life of the unemployed, and got ready to feel superior to the masses due to my mad crazy reading skillz (yes, that's with a Z, my friends. I'm a machine). Then, out of the blue, my friends start DISCUSSING the books they are reading and having insightful things to say. Well.....shit.

This is when I begin to feel the shame. I should add that this began happening about two weeks ago, so it is wicked slow acting shame, but there you go.

I AM way ahead in the whole "page count" category, but I realize that my reading taste, compared to that of the smarties with whom I choose to spend my time, may be quite lacking. I would say, "Screw it; it's summer," but when the thermometer reads 50 and the books aren't all that different than when the thermometer reads 20..... Um..... I'm beginning to think that if books were booze, I would be the chick at the bar strung out on Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I'll set the stage. I finally decided to unpack from the move a year and a half ago, so a lot of my day is spent trying on clothes that used to fit. Then, natch, the rest of the day is spent in sweats and drinking. Don't judge me. The funny thing is that in the same section of my closet I will find things that used to be loose that are now unzippable, but I also find things that used to be wicked tight that now fall off me. Clearly, this doesn't mean I'm necessarily becoming the human pudding pop I have always had inside me...... I've decided to blame the fabrics and the weather. Project Runway starts in a few weeks. I'll find some excuse that doesn't make me switch to the creepy olive oil mayonnaise. God bless Tim Gunn.

Mornings, though, are my relaxation time. I actually have the most energy in the early morning, but right after their morning ablutions is when the pack settles down for their long winter's nap, and one learns to adapt. Because I love my partner in crime, I've moved the 'puter up to my "office" (read, a place to put all the tacky crap I've picked up along the way that the Crimefighter really doesn't want to see on the mantle even though my acrylic polar bears bequeathed to me by a student would look EXCELLENT up there), and I try to spend at least an hour every morning doing something that doesn't involve raising my blood pressure talking to silly deluded people from South Carolina about how I'm not fulfilling my role as the Crimefighter's "helpmate" and who do I think I am to take a vacation by myself and not give him babies? (The answer, by the way, is that Gerry likes having the house to himself during baseball season, and if I presented him with a baby, he would want to exchange it for a handy attachment for the riding lawnmower..... sorry. It's who we are).

So, 2 Crimefighting Sidekicks at my feet, here's what I've made it through this summer, bookwards:

• Cinderella Ate my Daughter by Peggy Orenstein. I've loved what Orenstein has to say about American girls since I encountered Schoolgirls in an Intro to Education course in college. This book was a strong start to the summer. It helped put into words the unsettled feelings I have with the American Girls dolls and the Disney Princess line. Above all, it made me really happy not to have to raise a daughter in contemporary American society. I've never been a big fan of damned if you do and damned if you don't situations. A very even-handed approach to a landscape of peril.
• Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague by Brandon Mull. This is a fun middle school series. I'm fascinated by re-tellings of fairy tales, and I'm a fantasy novel reader. Would that these kinds of books were around when I was growing up. I probably could have gotten my full-on geek on much sooner. Two kids work with their aging grandparents to protect fairy creatures from the outside world (and protect the outside world from the fairy creatures). A nice mix of creatures acting as they do in classic literature and those who are simply misunderstood. Good for people who liked the Sisters Grimm series but have outgrown its reading level.
• Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews. Every now and again (like when it's really really cold outside) I like to read a good round of silly Southern literature. Andrews is better than the standard chick lit fare. Her characters are a little more interesting than the herd of drawling heroines that line the shelves at Barnes and Noble. That said, this one took me longer than you would think. I did find myself caring more about the information on antiques and home renovation than the relationships.
• Belle Weather by Celia Rivenbark. Love Celia. A series of essays on moving into a new house. I laughed at some of them until it hurt. While we moved a year ago, I spent most of last summer laid up, so now is when we are really getting into the arguments about wall colors and new furniture.
• Fundraising the Dead by Sheila Connolly. Your standard $7.99 paperback mystery series. Not terrible, but I didn't run out and buy the rest of them. Mystery set in a museum. I knew whodunnit by about page 12 (hint: don't make the shifty-eyed dog QUITE so shifty-eyed. KThxBye.). This is also the first author in the list (I'm going in order) that I had to look up on Amazon. That says something, I think.
• Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle by Ann Ross. I like this series. It reads quickly and reminds me of all the fine older Southern ladies from my hometown. I recommend this one to anyone who would like their older parents (especially Moms) to read more. The basic premise is that a widowed wealthy Southern lady finds out her husband had a protracted affair with a younger woman that resulted in a son, her dead husband's only heir. Through a series of wacky hi-jinks that make for delightful reading, Miss Julia decides to embrace the mistress and her son. Throughout the series, they all become a family, with new additions in almost every book. This is fun and sweet and counteracts the nightly news well on one of those evenings where you just can't care anymore. This series is one of those old friends I catch up with when I have the time. I'm not at the bookstore the Tuesday it comes out in hardcover, but I make sure to stop in and say hello when I have some free time.)
  
• Rowan Hood by Nancy Springer. My first audio book of the trip down the Eastern Seaboard. Tales of Robin Hood's daughter after the death of her mother. A quest to find Robin Hood. An interesting take without much actual history. The Merry Men are a fun lot, though. It describes well "the other side of the story" or how much not fun being a girl would have been then.
• The Mailbox by Audrey Shafer. Audio book #2. This was a tear jerker. A boy bounces out of the foster care system and into the home of his Vietnam War veteran uncle. When the Uncle dies, the boy doesn't want to go back into foster care. Someone (we don't know who) is helping the boy live on his own. An interesting little mystery and some good information about the bonds of vets from the Vietnam War.
• The Roar by Emma Clayton. YA dystopian novel about, among other things, class struggle and eco-terrorism. I think there needs to be (and probably will be) a sequel. I'll reserve judgment for that. I'm not a huge fan of cliffhangers in books. It's unnecessary. If you write engaging characters, then people will read your follow-ups.
• Nation by Terry Pratchett. I have a confession to make. I don't get Terry Pratchett. I feel like I do in Chinatown or New Orleans -- there's something going on that I'm not seeing, and I'm not sure if I want to see it or not. Fantastical/parallel universe tale of a boy caught between boyhood and manhood and between cultures with different agendas. There's a fair amount of "trust no one over 30" as well. Who does?
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. This is, by far, the most amazing book I've read in a long time. Based on the Mao's assertion that "women hold up half the sky," this is a blatant (they cop to it on page 3) attempt to open Americans' eyes to the desperate plight of women in most of the world. Lots of awesome information. Worth a read by anyone. So moving, I'm thinking about reorganizing my 111 class at Northeastern. I love the authors' assertion that oppression of women is the root cause of terrorism, a thought I've held for a long time. Speaking at a Saudi conference on technology, Bill Gates was asked what he thought the Saudi's chances for being in the top ten of technological advancement in the next ten years. His response? If the Saudis refused to utilize fifty percent of the resources of the country, they shouldn't expect to EVER enter the top quarter, let along the top ten per cent. Saudi women cheered. Too bad our own government doesn't feel like Gates does.
• Spackled and Spooked by Jennie Bentley. Another fun mystery -- this one featuring a crimefighting duo of home restorers. I like the home improvement tips, if the mystery is a bit weak. What the heck? It's fun. I needed it after Half the Sky.
  
• Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin) by Jennifer Estep. Because every now and again, I miss books with vampires, werewolves, witches and other things that go bump in the night in them. I've read a lot better; I've read a lot worse.
  
• Shine by Lauren Myracle. Myracle is better known for her text message themed books (TT4N, TTYL, L8R G8R, etc) but this one is actually interesting and well-written. A compelling portrait of growing up in a small town that the rest of the world forgot. Reminded me a lot of the town I grew up in and how hard it is for a lot of people to get out. Oh, and there's a meth ring and gay bashing and alcoholics...... so it reflects contemporary small town society accurately if not prettily.

And there you have it. A buttload of books, very few of which I would recommend to everyone without a coda. The exception is Half the Sky. Truly moving. Cinderella Ate my Daughter is also delightful, to a certain audience anyway. Right now, I am trying to settle into the next one I will finish. Working on a book about gypsies (non-fiction), a YA fairy tale retelling, a work of short stories, and The Happiness Project which is awesome so far but needs to be read in pieces.

And that is my shame sort of lifting.......