Think the thoughts, feel the feels...write it down

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the death of my mother, brother, and grandmother.  Many people who know me, may vaguely know what happened, but I don't talk about it often, if ever, because it makes people sad and uncomfortable.  But since it's 10 years to the day, I'm gonna tell the story. It was Winter Break 2003 and my Daddy's side of the family (minus my uncle and his children) decided to take a family vacation to Edisto Island in South Carolina.  Grandma, my two aunts and their children (two girl cousins and two boy cousins), as well as this random guy one of my aunts was boarding arrived at my family's house Christmas day.  We exchanged gifts, packed up a rented 15 passenger van and Grandma's car and we all headed down to the beach.  It was probably one of the most perfect Christmases I remember having; there was such happiness in the air.  And the week before we had gone to Grandma's house and taken family pictures for the first time in ...

Today I watched the movie Lovelace ; it's based on a true story of a woman who was coerced into pornography by her abusive husband and who became a pioneer of pornography.  The story of this woman,  Linda Lovelace , was difficult to watch, yet very eye opening.  It shows the struggle that some people who are victims of domestic violence go through in their relationships; why she stayed, how he got away with it, the cycle of abuse .  And just like that, it hit me: I was a victim of sexual assault. People (and up until tonight that included me) associate rape, and only rape, with sexual assault, but The United States' Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women defines sexual assault as " any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted ...

'Becoming' is the name of the women's ministry at my church.  I thought the name was lame and therefore the ministry was lame.  I assumed the name, becoming, meant that women would be learning how to become better mothers and wives, and mainly sweet, submissive, demure women; my having grown up in the South and in the church lead me to believe that women's ministries were about making their women into the Stepford wives our patriarchal society drools over.  It occurs to me now what a stupid assumption that was considering 1) while (some of) the women at my church are wives and mothers, all of them are unique powerhouses of splendor, wisdom, and worth (they are not objects composed of a sexist society) and 2) the woman who started the ministry is one of my favorite people on the planet because she is so real, intelligent, graceful, and a delightful feminist.  While I was realizing the above about my ASSumptions concerning the women's ministry, the name, Becoming, c...

I'm not rich by US standards, and the likelihood of me ever being rich is pretty slim; but sometimes I get displeased with something and decide that if I'm ever rich I'll remedy what displeases me by using my money.  Here are some things I'd remedy if I was ever rich. 1)  Pants.  I went to Target today just for some mouthwash and swung by the clothes section (a constant mistake of mine) to check out the jeans.  Currently, I have about 4 pairs of jeans and 2-3 are getting pretty worn looking and/don't fit properly because they've been worn so often, so I've decided to replace them.  I found my "fit" jeans and tried on my size, too small.  I figure the next size up should do it, too small and too large.  What?!  The sad thing is, this isn't unusual.  Pants will fit in the legs-butt-hips but will be entirely (and noticeably) too big in the waist.  Or some other combination.  So I've decided (dreamed) that when (which is never) I'...

I might have an affinity for television shows that don't make it very far.  Some make it just one season and others two, but they never have as much success as others out there.  Here are some shows that need to come back...for me. 1) Bomb Girls .  This show, I discovered on Netflix a couple weeks ago, takes place in the 1940's in Ontario, Canada.  It's centered around the lives of (mostly) women workers at a bomb factory.  This was a time in history when women were beginning to work outside the house, during the Second World War, in more areas than just teaching and administrative tasks.  This show is wonderful because it shows feminism in the baby stages of realization.  Watching this show makes me quite grateful that I didn't live in the '40's, even in Canada where racism wasn't built into the government.  The shit women had to put up with from men was endless and absurd.  Unfortunately, the show only lasted two seasons, but I'm pret...

I'm a vegetarian, a lacto-ovo vegetarian (I eat dairy: eggs, milk, yogurt, etc) to be exact, and I love it more and more each day.  I have very strong feelings about being vegetarian including what types of (typically processed) foods I will and won't eat; this means I read the ingredients for EVERYTHING I eat.  I'm that vegetarian who asks details about how the food is cooked and what ingredients were used to prepare this food.  Do you cook the eggs on the same surface that you cook the bacon/sausage?  Is there meat stock in these mashed potatoes/this soup/this rice/this whatever?  Do you use the same utensils for your meats and non-meats?  Is there meat in the vegetable soup?  (That, by far, is the most infuriating question to ask, but I've learned that people will call it vegetable soup and will leave off the beef part; let's be clear, that is BEEF soup with vegetables.  Dummies.)  People have these stereotypes about vegetarians' likes an...

I don't know if there is an exact moment when you know you're going to be friends with someone.  Surely, some friendships start off with certainty, but others just sneak up and surprise YOU'RE FRIENDS!  But wouldn't it be great if you knew some things about your relationship before you all invested in this person as your friend?! I'm 25, so that means most people my age are either dating seriously/engaged/married, that's pretty normal.  I'm not in a relationship, and I really like it that way, but it doesn't mean that I'm not surrounded by romantic relationships.  It's unavoidable, really.  As a single person, but mostly just a person who has feelings, I would like to know some things about a person before I enter into a friendship with them.  I want to know how they're going to be when they are dating/engaged/married. Something I've noticed about some, not all , people when they get married is that they become an island.  I actually...