Getting Dressed

What with the U.S. House of Representatives dithering over the Violence Against Women Act, I thought it would be a good time to post the second of the two pieces of writing I got paid for. Speaker Boehner and the gang seem to be resigned to the fact that they will have to pass some sort of act to protect women, as much as it pains them to do so, but they are still hoping that they can find a few here and there to exclude. ETA: The House passed the Senate version of the VAWA today, February 28. My representative, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, voted against it.

Here, with a Trigger Warning for domestic violence, is the account whose publication in The Denver Post was one of the ways in which I was once the most dangerous person on earth. Maybe I can find a way to summon up those powers again and use them for good this time.

Getting Dressed*

It doesn’t help that my mornings are usually punctuated by the “What am I going to wear?” question anyway. What fits is in the wash or needs ironing or has a button missing.  As I stand in front of my closet, it occurs to me that it didn’t take me this much time to get dressed on my wedding day.  On the other hand, on my wedding day I didn’t stand in front of my closet thinking, “Now what am I going to wear?”

Now what am I going to . . .

Do?  Not think for a start, or at least not think about why getting dressed presents more than its usual puzzle .  What I want to wear is my teal skirt and its matching teal, purple, royal and gold striped T-shirt, a Mother’s Day present and the most expensive daytime outfit I have ever owned.  It’s attractive and comfortable, and the colors are perfect for me.

The sleeves, however, stop an inch or so short of covering the large purple bruises (finger marks, really, although that is not immediately apparent) on my left arm.

My pink cotton shirt covers the bruises, but I can’t wear it with my teal skirt.  There is a cream skirt that goes with it, but it won’t cover the bruises on both knees. I have a white cotton overshirt that goes with the teal skirt, but it needs a belt, which chafes my sore and, for all I know, broken, rib. 

I cannot cover my arms and my knees and wear clothes appropriate to the weather which on June 14, 1983 is hot. June 14 is one day past my 36th birthday. My coworkers will want to know what my husband gave me for my birthday.

Don’t laugh. My rib hurts when I laugh. Don’t cry for the same reason. In fact, I won’t cry for another 18 months, until my cat dies. Then for three days I won’t be able to stop.

I shouldn’t be going to work in my condition, but I can’t stay home either. I find myself pacing in tight, precise circles, while my thoughts follow tight, precise circles of their own.

Why am I covering up – for him? But why should I expose myself to questions, comments, possibly criticism? What the hell am I going wear?

The striped T-shirt, I decide grimly, matches the bruises on my arm.

For the next several weeks, while the bruises heal, I present a most ladylike appearance to the world, even while taking out the trash. For the next two years, I cope with the housekeeping of a marital breakup: seeing an attorney, finding an additional part-time job, putting up my house for sale, taking my son to a counselor.

And shopping. Suddenly I, who had worn the same out-of-style outfits until they fell apart, am interested in clothes.  I study fashion magazines, note hemlines and styles, make a new suit and two dresses, buy sweaters, a coat, hats, scarves. My friends tease me about dressing for my new single life style. Since my new single lifestyle resembles my old married lifestyle, except with half the income and twice the workload, I think they are missing the point, although I am not sure myself what the point is.

Then one night in front of a group of women like myself, I tell my story of standing in front of my closet wondering what to wear. Suddenly every woman in the room has a story of getting dressed: of sunglasses worn indoors, sweaters on hot days, hats, layers of makeup, bruises visible under long sheer sleeves.

When we finish, the group facilitator says softly, “And wasn’t it sad, after everything you had been through, that getting dressed had to be such a struggle, too?”

A few weeks later, preparing to go out to dinner with a (male, platonic) friend, I find that I enjoy getting dressed. I debate between two skirts, try on several blouses and sweaters, switch belts, only to settle on the original outfit. I even slip on pantyhose, which I normally do not wear.

At dinner, I describe the whole process to my friend, precipitating a silence so profound that I wonder if he thinks, and dreads, that all this primping is for him.  A month later, when I have not heard from him, I wonder if he has misunderstood. There can be other explanations for his silence. Perhaps he has out-of-town guests, or has been hit by a bus. If he has fled from my presumed ardor, it will just have to stay that way. How can I explain to him what getting dressed means to me?

He’s never had the experience of carrying around someone’s guilty secret on his skin and not knowing what to do about it. It’s not an experience one can imagine without having experienced it, and even then  . . .

I find that I cannot imagine, make an image of it. For when the  group facilitator asked, “And wasn’t it sad, after everything you had been through, that getting dressed had to be such a struggle, too?” the only answer I could think of was, “Yeah.  I guess so.”

*When this piece was published in the Denver Post, they gave it the title Abuse So Slow to Wear Off  instead of my title, Getting Dressed.  I was not happy about the title, but forgave them when I saw Cindy Enright’s perfect illustration. I can’t post that here, for copyright reasons, so I made my own illustration using Polyvore.

That's the Way You Do It

So you’re hosting the Oscars, and you want to get away with singing an opening number called We Saw Your Boobs addressed to a number of women in the audience. Well, one way to do that is to embed it in a sequence in which Captain James Kirk comes back from the future to tell you how badly your hosting performance was received, in part because of that song. It’s a rhetorical technique called apophasis, from the Greek for “I’m not saying”. (Okay, actually, from the Greek for “to say no”, if you want to be so everlastingly picky.)

That works to an extent, but you don’t want to have to embed every tasteless joke, like the one about John Wilkes Booth, in that one opening sequence, and William Shatner is demanding some outrageous coin to stick around for the whole show for the has-been actor he is.

So what do you do? You have a surprise presenter give out the final award, the one for Best Picture. Somebody well-known to the public, but not associated with the movie industry. Somebody attractive and articulate, but at the same time controversial. Someone who is all dressed up anyway, in a Naeem Khan creation, because she and her husband are hosting a black-tie dinner for 100 or so people at the White House.

Who do we know who fits that description? Yes, it’s first lady Michelle Obama.

And the trick works. The outrage over Mrs. Obama’s appearance is instantaneous and, to me at least, hilarious. Never mind that she is not the only first lady to make an appearance at the Oscar ceremony. Laura Bush appeared at the 74th Academy Award show in a short film showing 100 people discussing movies. Of course, Mrs. Bush’s appearance could easily be overlooked in the controversy over whether it was too soon after the attacks on the WTC to hold a big Oscar extravaganza at all, not to mention she was one of 100 people shown in 3 minutes of film. Michelle Obama got a whole three minutes or so all to herself, live.

It’s amazing how many of her critics managed to overlook the fact that Mrs. Obama was not physically present at the ceremony, just shown on a screen from the White House. 

Some typical comments from Facebook:

I'm more concerned about the taxpayer money used to get her there and back. I'm tired if them spending my money to party.

That one drew a reaction:

On the other hand,[name], it's nice to know that transporter technology is working so well. Just think of all the military applications it will have.

which apparently went over more than a few subsequent commenter’s heads, because then we got:

The First Lady should not be at the oscars! She should be out trying to help make a difference in the world!

and

STAY THE HELL IN WASHINGTOn

The funny thing is, the article these people were responding to made it clear that the FLOTUS was in Washington, hosting the governors' dinner.

That fact also did not stop at least one person from believing that Mrs. Obama got dressed up and summoned up a military guard purely for her three minutes of fame on TV:

We were all waiting to see who was going to win for Best Picture and then all of a sudden, cut to Michele Obama from Jack Nicholson? She's wearing a gown at the White House for the Oscars with military guard? What is the purpose of this?? Why didn't she just go to L.A. and present then? None of this makes sense, because it's totally contrived and self serving.

So why didn’t she just go to LA, so that people could criticize her for not staying home? By now I’m seeing boobs, but not the kind Seth MacFarlane sang about. (See, I bet you forgot about that already.)

I also loved this comment:

She's definitely no Hillary, that's for sure...

Yes, because when Hillary was first lady, everybody loved her and no one ever criticized her.

The after several people made the predictable accusation that Mrs. Obama is a communist, there were these comments:

She had NO business there!!!

I thought Michele Obama had no right being on The Oscars,

She had no.business there

Because if there is one thing the free enterprise system means, it’s that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can’t invite just anyone they want to be a presenter. We the people will decide who they can ask, through our special Who Can Be a Presenter Commissar. 

Well I Thought It Was Funny

I find humor in strange places. Looking at the week’s statistics for my most read posts, I find these four in this order:

Where Do You Leave Tracts? 

At the St. Patrick's Day Parade, Gentleman

Do People Really Not Know This?

It's [Not Really] a Miracle!

Occasionally, I go to the AOL website to check on news. Today I found a link to a story on Huffpo, “Tim Tebow Officially Puts Evangelical Right on the Sideline.” 

Tebow apparently threw the yellow flag at a Baptist church where he had previously agreed to speak:

In an astonishing turn of events, Tim Tebow has now cancelled his appearance at First Baptist Dallas; and in doing so he has officially placed the political religious right to the far margins of society.Tebow's appearance was meant to be a pretty routine, if flashy event. First Baptist Church invited the football star, more famous for his prayerful pose than his forward passes,

Okay, now that’s just plain mean.

to be part of the reveal of their new church campus, which a press release calls "the largest church building project in modern history."

I’m not sure why a church would want to brag about that, seeing how badly that whole Tower of Babel thing turned out.

Just to be clear, First Baptist Dallas is not an outlier church. It is headed by Pastor Robert Jeffress, a very influential conservative Christian voice, who leads an 11,000 strong congregation connected to the Southern Baptist Convention. The theology and the constituency is squarely within the mainstream of contemporary right-wing Christian thought.But what has changed is that the views of the right-wing Christians are now officially out of step with the growing majority of Americans -- including, apparently, Tim Tebow.

Now out of step?

Dr. Jeffress has never been shy about his opinions

That's a kind way of putting it. Kinder than Jeffress puts his own opinions.

and he offered up some great soundbites in the last election. First he called Mormonism a cult, then changed his mind when Governor Romney (Mormon) was the Republican nominee, and topped it all off on the Sunday before the election by saying that President Obama's reelection would lead to the rise of the anti-Christ.

Exactly when was the last time the idea of a sitting president being the literal anti-Christ was mainstream?

Jeffress has also had a few choice words to say about the gays, namely that "homosexuality is perverse, it represents a degradation of a person's mind;" and Muslims who are following a religion that is a "heresy from the pit of hell."

That’s funny, too, because apparently at least some of those Muslims would agree with him about gays.

So, while it was not surprising that First Baptist Dallas would want one of America's most beloved and celebrated evangelicals to be part of their church opening, it was surprising that a petition began to circulate through Change.org urging Tebow to cancel -- and it is positively a miracle that Tebow decided to cancel.

Okay, so Tebow canceled his speaking engagement. I’m not sure it is worth all the hyperbole: “placed the political religious right to the far margins of society”, “positively a miracle that Tebow decided to cancel”, but I can understand that the people who hoped to hear him speak are disappointed. Still, the main focus of the event is surely on the wonderful things God is doing through First Baptist Dallas, what with blessing them with the largest church building project in modern history, so everyone accepted their disappointment with grace, right?

Oh, look, a few tweets:

Fast food Christian CEO bullied. Pastor bullied out of praying publicly. Today, athlete bullied out of speaking AT A CHURCH! - Rick Warren

I know it’s just me, but I think “Fast food Christian CEO” sounds hilarious.

It very very sad that Tim Tebow is bowing to the pressure of political correctness and cultural decay in canceling First Baptist Dallas. - Jack Graham

@TimTebow We are very disappointed in your decision to cave to liberal pressure and spurn Christians. - AFA (American Family Association - a lobbying group. Which means they are in the business of applying pressure.)

I think Tim Tebow just damaged his brand by appeasing those who oppose traditional values. - Rick Moore (His “brand”. Well, let’s not worry about anything silly, like his soul.)

I hope Tim Tebow hasn’t been bullied into changing his mind, as opposed to reasoned into changing his mind. I find it interesting that those who think poor Tim has been bullied out of taking the speaking engagement aren’t above trying to bully him back into it.

What do they really expect to happen now? Okay, I think it would be fun if Tebow said, “You know, you guys are right. I would like to speak after all if you still will let me,” and then went on to give a speech about how Jesus sided with the outcasts and not with the church establishment. 

I don’t think it really is going to happen that way. But I think it would serve them right.

Small Green Widgets

Since I have a few weeks before I get my new computer, I am sorting through files on my old computer to get rid of the ones I don’t really need. Naturally, I have run into the same problems decluttering my computer as I have decluttering my house: I’m afraid I’ll toss something out only to find myself wanting or needing it someday. Those pdf’s from 2007 showing I did in fact pay my Visa bills? How do I know for sure that Visa can’t come after me claiming I never paid for those shoes? I bet they have giant servers tracking my every purchase back to 1970, or whenever it was I got my first card.

And that folder full of quotations that I forgot I had and never read? Some of them are really, really good. Like this one: “We shouldn't fear reality. We should fear the illusions we try to maintain in the face of reality.” Or this one: “I am the product of millions of generations of individuals who each fought against a hostile universe and won, and I aim to maintain the tradition.” No, I don’t know who said them, but they sound wise. How can I consign wisdom to the trash can?

Then there’s the news article from 2006 about my niece’s debut on the swim team her freshman year. What kind of aunt would throw that one out? Or the pictures from an online friend’s daughter’s wedding. What kind of friend would throw those out?

I decided to create a folder for files to move to a USB drive: the ones I can’t quite make myself part with but know I have no immediate use for, seeing as how I have  forgotten I even had them for  years at a time, and would probably have had a hard time finding them if I did need them. I have tried to sort out my chaotic Documents folder by creating subfolders, but then I forget that I have the subfolders and create new ones. That, too, is exactly how my organization problems work out in the 3D world: I designate what I think is the perfect place to store small green widgets, but by time I need to find a small green widget I have forgotten what that place is, or I don’t start by looking there because I figure the small green widgets are not likely to be there, so I search for an hour everywhere else until finally in desperation I look in the small green widget drawer and find - small green widgets! (Well, actually, usually my car keys or jewelry, but you get the point.)

So I have been trying, first of all, to make myself throw away old files before resorting to the “Move to storage” folder, and second, to round up all the stray files that belong in subfolders and put them there. It has not been easy. 

I’m not being helped along by the fact that I keep running into situations in which I wish I had kept something I have tossed out. Years ago, my father, in one of his letters to me, remarked that it was his mother’s birthday, and she would have been 93 years old if she had been alive. My son is now trying to track down some information about my dad’s parents, and if I were the kind of daughter who had sentimentally kept every one of her dad’s letters, I could have used that one to figure out Grandma F’s birth date. Of course, Dad being the prolific writer that he was, if I had sentimentally kept every one of his letters, I wouldn’t be able to find the one I wanted, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty about not having kept it. Although I found in the course of looking for the letter that I do have most of the Valentine’s Day cards my son ever sent me, a receipt for a purchase made in 2003, a payroll check stub from the same year, and a pair of spare shoelaces for a pair of shoes I no longer wear and meant to throw out. 

And I think that is the root of my trouble with just throwing things out. It is fear that I might fail somebody, including myself, someday by not having just the right piece of documentation (or small green widget) when I need it. Hanging on to all the odds and ends is a way to guard against failure: failure to be a loving wife/mother/friend who cherishes every gift, card and  letter, failure to protect the earth by not adding to its landfills, failure to have the imagination to know just what small green widget I really will need, and when. Failure to keep a neat house, or laptop, just isn’t as scary.

You would think at 65 years of age I would have come to grips with the fact that yes, I will screw up. All the outdated, useless, and otherwise unsatisfactory stuff I hang onto out of fear isn’t going to protect me from that, and may even make it more likely.

I might even have a saying to that effect on my computer, in the documents folder, somewhere.  

Computing

I have been saving for most of the past year to replace my aging MacBook with a new one. I had pretty much made up my mind what I wanted: a 13” MacBook Pro with Retina display and 512 gigabytes of flash drive space. I had an appointment to go walking with D at the mall today, and the plan was that afterward, I would go buy the new computer at the Apple store. In the meantime, I looked online at my choices to decide whether I needed to buy a CD/DVD drive to go with it, whether I should replace my old wireless mouse, and what software I might want to get.

In the process, I found myself looking at the iMacs and thinking. Since I bought my iPad, I haven’t really traveled with my laptop. It sits on a desk in my house anyway. I could get more speed, a larger screen, and more hard drive space (one terabyte) for less money if I bought a desktop.

On the other hand, I like the flexibility of a laptop. The iPad is useful for travel, but I find it hard to blog with it from the road. Of course, I don’t blog while I’m on the road because I prefer for strangers not to know that I’m on the road, so there is that.

A helpful clerk at the Apple store, David, gave me the specs on several models and left me alone to play for a while. While I was surfing the net on the iMac, it occurred to me, if I bought it, I would still have my MacBook. No one was going to take it away from me, and while it is slow by modern standards and stuffed to within 3 gigs of its maximum storage capacity, it does work. Once I have a new desktop computer, I can move all the files I truly need to it, and then reformat the MacBook, upgrade to the newest Mac OS and add back only the items I truly need. Doing so might even speed it up a little.

David made the same point when he came by to check on me. I decided to come home and think about it a little more.

Actually, what I came home to think about is going online to buy a refurbished iMac of the model I had been looking at from the Apple online store.  I can get one for $263 less than a brand new model, which means I can buy the extended warranty and still have a little cash left over. That’s how I bought my MacBook, in fact, and it’s still perking along 5 or so years later.

That would mean no commission for David, but a little research reveals Apple’s sales staff doesn’t work on commission. They do get points for selling add-ons, however, which would explain why he was pushing their One to One subscription for another $99. It has to be bought when you buy the computer, he explained to me. I hate having to make snap decisions like that.

I went online and used Apple’s Chat Now feature to talk with Jeffrey, who answered all my questions about buying the refurbished iMac (which is only 4 months old) and informed me that I could still buy One to One by telling them at the store I had bought a refurbished Mac. Since I won’t have my new Mac for another 3 weeks or so, that gives me time to think it over.

I'm still not entirely sure whether Jeffrey was a real person or some very sophisticated software. He answered all my questions appropriately, but then I wasn't asking things like, "Are you as excited as I am about March Madness coming up next month?" I wouldn't have had any suspicions about Jeffrey if it weren't for his frequent interjections of "Right on!" into the conversation. I'm from the generation that used that phrase, and even I don't say it any more, although I will let slip an occasional "Far out!" Although I usually phrase it, "Far out, as we used to say in my younger days."

Just after I ordered the Mac, my husband offered me his Best Buy gift card, which he got by returning the Christmas gift his sister gave him, a video camera which he didn't think he would ever use. There are some accessories and software I still want to get that Best Buy carries, and the gift card should just cover them. 

Far out, as we used to say in my younger days.

Undecided

Apparently, I am not the only one having a hard time making up her mind in the Louisiana House District 65 special election. Another flyer from Candidate Sumac brags that he has pulled into the lead over Candidate Woodrow. The numbers he gave showed around a third, plus or minus, for each of the candidates, with Sumac leading, and over 30% still undecided. In addition, LABI (The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry) has declined to endorse either candidate through its PAC. Whether that means it finds them both equally satisfactory or equally unsatisfactory it is hard to say. 

Other interesting news: Sumac raised no money this month, but is paying his campaign expenses from the $50,000 of his own money he has donated to his campaign. I guess that is a good sign that he will not be beholden to special interests. On the other hand, if nobody is willing to donate to his campaign, that says something about how his fellow Republicans and business owners see him as a potential legislator.

Woodrow has raised “$30,400 in donations from 43 contributions, with an average donation of about $700. Among his largest donors are the Louisiana Realtors PAC and Louisiana Restaurant Association, which each gave more than $1,000 to his campaign.” I’m not sure what the significance of his popularity among realtors and restaurant owners is. It doesn’t sound like a bad thing.

This morning there was a special city council meeting to discuss whether our police chief  should be dismissed, as the mayor wants. I had hoped to go attend the meeting to see Woodrow in action. Unfortunately, I had a dentist appointment to fill a small cavity before it became a large cavity, right at the same time as the meeting.

As much as I hate to break my record of voting in all local elections, I may sit this one out. It sounds like a lot of other folks may, too.