Rant of the Day: Papal Rage

You know what I'm sick of? People saying shit all over Facebook for the past week about how this new pope might be better, sounds good/promising, whatever blah blah FUCKIN' blah. You know what I desperately want to comment on their shit to shut them up?? 

Hey there, he's STILL ANTI-GAY, ANTI-ABORTION, ANTI-BIRTH CONTROL muthafuckas, because he's a CATHOLIC POPE for fuck's sake!! What do you expect?? It's a vestigial religion that needs to DIE. It is no longer relevant, even to its current practitioners.

You know when I'll have hope? When they decide to do away with POPES, that's when.

Ok, I'm done.

How to switch your checking account without (completely) losing your mind

Fed up with your corporate bank? Want to switch banks but you’re afraid of the hassle? Switching checking accounts doesn’t have to mean a total disruption of your life.  It does take time though, so allow a good month for the transition. You can learn from the benefit of my experience below.

If you’re old school and are switching to another brick-and-mortar bank in your hometown because you have a need to talk to actual people, you still may find this helpful.

Before you begin the process:

• If you use online Bill Pay, make a list of all your creditors and other people you pay on a regular basis. Don’t forget people who bill you monthly for something using your credit card—your gym membership, Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, etc—you will need to provide them with a new credit card when it arrives. I was able to take screen shots of all my online pay-to accounts, and I made a list that I could check off after I’d added each one to the online bill pay in my new account.
• Make a note of any checks that haven’t cleared yet (who still writes checks? Oh that's right, middle-aged women and old people).
• Steel yourself. Winter is coming.

1. Open the new checking acct with a small deposit to give yourself time to receive checks and debit cards. Most online banks (Ally, ING) offer checking with no minimum balance requirements or fees which will give you time to transition—but you will probably need a small deposit to trigger issuance of debit cards and checks. The answer to the age-old question, 'which comes first, the debit card or the money?' is, the money, duh.
2. Keep your directly-deposited paycheck at the old account UNTIL you receive debit cards and checks for the new accounts—you can always change your direct deposits for the next pay cycle, and transfer any monies from the old account if necessary.
3. While you’re waiting for the debit cards and checks to arrive, add all of your payees to the new checking account so all of your online bill pay stuff will be set up and ready to use in the new account. Don’t underestimate this step. Collect recent copies of your bills so that you can set up the accounts all over again using their pay-to address. This is probably the most time-consuming part of the entire process. (Oh the agony of convenience!)
4. Once you receive debit cards and checks on the new account, switch your direct-deposit paycheck over to the new account. Check with your employer about their direct deposit policies--be aware that when you change a direct deposit account with your employer, it may take 2 pay periods for them to 'adjust'—look, I know it's bs that it takes this long in the electronic age, but that's how it goes. On the upside, they will likely send you a quaint paper check in the interim. Take this time to reminisce about days of yore when you had no bank account and went to the local grocery to cash your paycheck on payday so you could spend it immediately on booze.
5. Switch any automatic drafts (that use a credit card) over to the new account before or just after the next due date to make sure it is withdrawn from a funded account. This will likely be a PITA as well--I haven't yet completed this step, but I'm sure my gym will make me fill out a piece of PAPER listing my new credit card information, blood type, and next of kin, and will SAY they will file it but will likely leave it out somewhere where some disgruntled employee can use it to buy Slankets.
6. Finally, make sure all checks have cleared and transfer any remaining funds to the new account and, once you’re sure that everything has cleared, close the old checking account (suck it BOA). 

Some thoughts after viewing my Gawker RSS feed

• Are those really bad pictures of Beyonce? Can there be a bad picture of Beyonce? I don’t think so. Suck it up.
• Chris Brown is cursed. And he looks anorexic.
• Lady Gaga: does anyone still give a fuck?
• Monopoly piece: this is news?
• North Korea: why don’t we just seize the motherfuckers already?

Man, I wish I was a celebrity (warning: breastfeeding discussion)

It's not what you think--I have no delusions. Sometimes I wish I were a celebrity so that I could tell people to fucking shut UP already.

Apparently some woman named Kristen Cavallari (who is famous despite the fact that I've never heard of her) was quoted in an article saying that she stopped breastfeeding because she felt like a slave to the pump, and some lactivists got their knickers in a twist over it, calling her a bad mother, saying that she's selfishly denied bonding to her kid, yadda yadda.

Hello people, she did breastfeed for 6 months, and that's good, right? Well apparently it's not good enough. I am so sick to death of breastfeeding fascists who do not shrink from pointing out how you've failed your child by not breastfeeding them as long as humanly possible. These people are just as bad, IMHO, as people who want to ban abortions and whatnot--both are consumed with telling women what to do based on their idea of what is "right" instead of respectfully letting nature take its course.

On the other side, I've heard the view expressed that breastfeeding is the socio-politico-industrial complex's (aka "The Man's") way of keeping women tied to the home instead of to their careers. No, I'm not making this up. This was someone I know's overarching justification for NOT breastfeeding.

What do we learn from this? That's right, there's paranoids on both sides! I don't want to use the 'F' word, but it seems to me that in order to get beyond so-called feminism, we need to stop telling women what to do. And in particular, women need to stop being so nasty to one another.

I did love breastfeeding, and am proud that I was able to do it for 7 months. But I will not lie--I was relieved when it was finally over.  Breastfeeding is freakin' hard work. Have you seen a dog wean her puppies? She literally runs away from them, repeatedly, in an effort to get them to stop sucking on her already.

While it is awesome to bond with and nourish your baby, once you get past the warm and tingly aspects, it's boring and demands a ton of the mother's time. There, I said it. I remember a short period of not being able to sleep more than a few hours at a time because the baby had to eat...and I was the only one able to feed her. Sleeping with my baby wasn't in the cards for me because of my c-section (couldn't get upstairs to our bed so I slept on the couch next to bassinet), and I don't think I would have rested well anyway.

I would go so far as to say that breastfeeding was the single hardest thing I've ever done, because it required commitment, attention, energy, consistency, and time.  Which means, there were sacrifices made by me for sure--but I made the choice to breastfeed and I stuck to it. In the beginning I pumped so much extra that my husband was able to give her bottles at night, which gave me a much-needed break. Towards the end, I pumped in the office for a while, but when it seemed baby wasn't getting enough, I started supplementing with formula, and it was over shortly after that. I would do it again in a heartbeat for the next baby, for sure, but would try to enjoy it more and not stress as much about prolonging it. And I would definitely invest in a better pump.

Like so many things, you just don't realize how much demand breastfeeding places on you until you're done with it. As mothers in the 21st century, are we still expected to give every ounce of ourselves over to our babies? I say, that's every mother's call to make for themselves. Whole generations of babies weren't breastfed and breastfeeding nearly died out because of it--and yet society survived. The reality is, we aren't hunter-gatherers anymore, able to strap our babies to our teats for hours on end, we have jobs and responsibilities, and no one needs to martyr themselves or pat themselves on the back for being 'superior' because they were able to do something that not everyone can.

Instead of these stupid arguments that pit mothers against one another, as women we should be encouraging an environment in which women feel free to do things as they see fit, without harsh, self-aggrandizing judgments by other women.

CHINCHILLA!!!!!

I just saw this post on Cute Overload this morning, and I think I've identified my next pet. They're clean and sooo cuddly cute, and they sleep in a cage--perfect!

How can you resist the cute??

Now I just have to wait till Clover dies.

Finally: a reason to have a baby

Before we had a baby, we were on the fence about having children. Some years, we would inhabit the 'no' side of the fence, and we lived that. Then for a few minutes, we would sometimes inhabit the 'yes' side--a few minutes because we could never stand to live there for long. While we finally made up our minds to have a kid, it wasn't an easy journey getting there. I think we were always looking for a definitive reason to HAVE a kid, to go through all of that, to be responsible for another human being--and were always coming up short. Aside from reasons of ego and legacy, there isn't a solid reason to have a kid--the world sucks, there's no hope for the future--in short, having a kid in the 21st century seems like the ultimate act of selfishness. And the reasons other people gave me were not good enough for me--'oh, just do it, it will change your life' or 'having a kid will make you less self-centered' or my favorite, 'you have to have a kid or you won't have fulfilled your purpose as a woman and human being.'

Fast forward to now. The 'arguments' people gave me as to why one should have a kid, still ring hollow, but I get now why people spout cliches--there is some truth to cliches, a comforting quality that reassures us that our actions are larger than us, that we are somehow participating in some great human cycle, blah blah blah. Do I have the answer for you or anyone else besides myself? No, and I don't claim to. Truth is, there is no overarching reason to have or not to have a kid, at the end of the day--if you argue both sides you will soon realize that there is no rational argument for or against, there is only 'having a kid' or 'not having a kid.' That is all.

What's my personal reason for having a kid? It's going to sound cheesy, so brace yourselves. This is my reason: because life, friends, is boring (to quote John Berryman). Before Baby, we were looking down the barrel of the rest of our lives spent doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted--sleeping in on weekends, drinking, going out whenever, seeing movies whenever, buying things we wanted whenever, never taking anything really seriously, the ribbons of life were frizzing into boredom around the edges. In that pre-kid reality, it was the same shit day after day, with no onus placed on us for anything, other than to continue to live and to consume day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Now? I have a baby daughter, and she requires that I pay attention. Not just to her, but to the choices I make in life, even ones that don't seem to concern her directly. And time is no longer this open-ended thing that I can squander at will. I feel the flow of time much more acutely now than before, and I've learned to work with it and make better choices so that I don't squander it unnecessarily.

It is much more acceptable nowadays to choose not to have children, and that is a completely valid lifestyle choice now where it wasn't even 30 years ago. Life has progressed beyond the need for base procreation, as the impetus to reproduce is  no longer as strong as it once was, since we have reached a unique point in human history where we have more luxury than we could have ever dreamed of, and basic survival isn't on our minds, and it doesn't take 2 hours to go a mile up the road. We aren't as afraid of dying as we were 100 years ago, so without the daily threat of imminent death, we lose the impetus to procreate and leave a bunch of people in our wake. In my opinion this new childless reality puts too much pressure on us as individuals and on the significant others we share our lives with to be extraordinarily clever and interesting ad infinitum--just thinking about it makes me tired.

Having a kid is like re-injecting your life with that imminent fear of death--suddenly everything matters again. Everything is new--your old dried-out soul starts to feel excitement again, anticipation for holidays, traditions, life. I know it sounds like living vicariously through someone else, except you're not living through them so much as actually prepping the stage of their experiences. You're the puppet master! And at the same time you're keenly aware that this kid ISN'T you; they aren't yet fucked-up, haven't yet been disappointed and rejected by life, and there is still hope--in YOU for THEM. (Remember they don't know what the fuck is going on yet, so all of this takes place inside your head.) This puts intense pressure on you to make their experiences good ones, and causes you to want to do all that fun shit that your parents did with you--and so the cycle continues, but with a difference, because each person is an individual with their own experiences and thought patterns.

I can verify that as a parent you irrationally want to protect your kid from the shittier parts of life, but of course you can't--the shitty parts are what make us who we are, in the end (show me a person who has never been vexed or crossed in life, and you will show me a very boring person indeed)--but still the desire to protect is there. So yes, I'm gonna say it--I think having a kid taps into the better part of human nature, the hopeful part that somehow believes there is still hope for the human race despite the shit we see everyday to the contrary. The part that is so often a bezoar in us by the time we're 30.

There, I'm done. Take it or leave it, I really don't care. It's my opinion, just like everything else here.

Getting old sucks (buzzed blogging at the airport).

Yes it does. I realize this is not news, but it is news to anyone who is experiencing it for the first time, like me. You take youth for granted for so long that this getting old trick kind of sneaks up on you. One day things aren't wrinkled and don't sag, the next, you find fine lines on your hands and saggy parts that weren't there before (I swear). I had a baby last year and I feel like I've been catapulted into the old-age category overnight, never to return.

When aging dawns on you, two paths diverge. One, keep fighting it with diet and exercise; two, give in and use age as your excuse to let yourself go to hell. I was at a sales meeting this week, and as is typical at these things, I saw a good many people in the latter category. Women with quivering bags of flesh for arms, who nonetheless wear sleeveless, tight shirts that fit them like sausage casings, men with moobs unabashedly stuffing their faces with meat and candy like they're still 17, sad, saggy women and men wandering around in complete denial of the reality of their shape. I desperately don't want to be like these people, so I continue to fight the good fight, exercising regularly and watching what I eat from time to time. But if their bodies betrayed them so completely, who is to say that mine won't, too, despite efforts to the contrary?

Thanks to pregnancy and a c-section I now have this weird fold on my lower abdomen where the scar is, not to mention stretch marks, and though I'm losing weight, this thing just doesn't want to leave. Ever. It makes my clothes not fit quite right, and overall makes me feel hideously deformed, at least in my mind. It is a daily reminder that I am no longer young, and that no matter what I do, my body will not go back to its former tautness. And I never had a six-pack but I wish now I could go back and revise my pre-pregnancy self-loathing, bc I was certainly closer to perfect then than I am now.

This is horrible of course, but it's also life. You can't give birth and have it not affect your body. There is a part of me that thinks my stomach is hideous and gross, but there is another, stubborn part that thinks it is beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of. I know that sounds very Lilith-fair of me, but a part of me refuses to see this as anything other than proof that I did something amazing, society be damned. I wish more women felt this way. Instead, it's just another reason to hate our bodies more than before, because we have completely internalized the male gaze and keep failing to live up to the flawless figure we think it demands of us. I see why people give up after kids--beauty is for the young, but wasted on the young, and attempts to hold onto youth can seem pathetic and sad.

I was carded just now buying liquor at an airport kiosk. I haven't been carded in quite sometime, so I chose to be flattered by it. I understand midlife crises now in a way I couldn't before. Let me have just one more go at youth before it leaves me completely, that must be the driving force. I get it. Thank goodness we all get old, sooner or later, or there would be riots.