I've been going through old blog post drafts and I think I'll start publishing them every so often. I have no idea why I didn't pull the trigger on this one from January 2012 - I probably had more to say. But...here goes! Unedited.
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Unemployment does weird things to a person. I may not be fully qualified to talk about this seeing as I've only been without a job for 3 weeks, but..here we are.
You can fill your days and fill your days and fill your days and yet somehow, there are so many hours left. You can sleep until almost noon, run all the errands, power through half a season of Mad Men, apply to jobs, call your grandma, and there's still time left.
We all wish we had more time. We fantasize about what we would do if we didn't have these pesky JOB things to go to every day. And then suddenly, the wish is granted. You realize that these paltry unemployment payments don't do anything as far as allowing you the lifestyle you imagined for yourself and so...more Mad Men episodes. But then you wonder if maybe you should cancel your Netflix subscription because, you know, budget reasons. The same reason you don't have a job anymore.
Unemployment is lonely. There are no coworkers to interact with and your communications between 9am and 5pm become relegated to a series of gchats from people saying, "Soooo what are you doing with your day?" The fact that you no longer have an official THING to do all day suddenly makes everyone want to know what on earth you're doing with your day. The irony. And so you spend a lot of time thinking. Thinking and worrying.
All the minor things that maybe didn't bother you before now bother you because a) you have all the time to dwell on them and b) all your problems seem magnified a million times when you're worried about money. Your printer runs out of ink and there's a dire printing situation because the unemployment website wants you to print this information RIGHT NOW because if you don't you'll lose it forever and so you run to Staples and drop $20 on ink and then you panic because that $20 could have gone to something better. Or you go to sleep not having done something on your to-do list and instead of your usual, "eh, I'll do it tomorrow," you beat yourself up over it because WHAT DID I DO ALL DAY THAT WASN'T THIS ONE THING. It probably wasn't even that important but you have this compulsion to do at least one really productive thing every day because you can't possibly tell someone that all you did was wake up at 11:30 and then watch TV all day. Even if you have the worst case of bronchitis you've ever had in your life, you still feel compelled to at least leave the apartment to mail a letter, even though you're going to practically cough your lungs up by the time you get to the top of your 2 flights of stairs on your return.
There's another compulsion you have when you're unemployed - the compulsion to drink. Going out and having a few beers makes you feel like a person again. Because you may not have an answer to the "So, what do you do?" question at the moment, but you can at least still be social and see your friends and let loose. And there's nothing you have to wake up for in the morning so sure, I'll go see this random cover band and come home at 3:30am on a Tuesday night (you do this, of course, with your other unemployed friend). And as unhealthy as the sentiment may sound, the ability to really enjoy your social life kind of makes not having a job totally worth it.
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It's pretty weird to read that now, knowing that this was the first 3 weeks of 11 crappy months of unemployment. While this post doesn't address how unemployment makes you feel like the scum of the earth, and while I would hardly call unemployment "worth it," I think this is a pretty good summary of what the rest of those 11 months were like.
Defending Macklemore (and why all of us, gay or straight, have to look out for each other)
Monday, August 26, 2013
Labels:
Music,
Our country has problems
Perusing Facebook as I often do, I came across the following headline, posted by one of the NYC music pages that I follow:
Le1f just blasted Macklemore for "Same Love"
I had no idea who Le1f was, but the notion that someone was "blasting" a song about legalizing gay marriage certainly got my attention. I assumed Le1f was one of the many sad people out there who think homosexuality is a sin because it says so in the Bible, right there with women daring to open their mouths in places of worship ("Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak" - 1 Corinthians) or, um, the bulk of American eating habits ("The eating of fat is prohibited forever" - Leviticus).
I clicked the link and was pretty surprised to learn that Le1f isn't shitting all over Macklemore because he hates gay people - he's doing it because he IS gay and how dare a straight guy make money off someone else's issues?! He's also pissed because Macklemore didn't donate any of the proceeds from Same Love to pro-LGBT charities.
Before I really get down to it, let's address some of the more minor issues that arise here.
1) Macklemore and Ryan Lewis aren't signed with a major label and release all their music independently. While they certainly have a ton of money at this point, artists who voluntarily choose to forgo big name representation are probably at least slightly less in it for the money than others. Maybe he thinks that they wrote this song with the express purpose of making money off it, but I'm not convinced.
2) I did some googling and discovered that Le1f thinks Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ripped off his song Wut in their song, Thrift Shop. I assume you're all familiar with Thrift Shop, so here's Wut, for comparison:
There's a pretty strong horn section here. Just like in Thrift Shop. Are they similar? Sure. The same? No. Is there a rich history of sampling other people's songs in rap music that dates back to the beginning of rap itself so even if Thrift Shop did directly sample Wut it would be totally normal? Yes. Know your roots, Le1f.
3) A day after I originally published this post, I learned from a friend of Lacey's that Macklemore did, in fact, donate some of the proceeds from Same Love to Washington United for Marriage. So that point is totally bunk.
And now, on to the good stuff.
Though my immediate, visceral reaction to reading this slew of hateful tweets (all of which Le1f has since deleted) was one of disgust, I tried to put myself in his shoes before even entertaining the idea of writing this blog post.
As a woman, what I can or cannot do with my own body is a subject of national debate. What if a man, lacking a uterus, came out with a pro-choice rap song? What if he gave not even a single penny from his profits to Planned Parenthood? Would this anger me?
No, no it would not. In fact, it would be make me pretty damn happy. Sure, money to Planned Parenthood would be great, but so is verbal support and awareness. Because we don't live in the kind of society where it's perfectly acceptable to throw your hands up and yell, "NOT MY PROBLEM, SUCKA" when we witness injustices happening around us but not to us. Change will never happen if we only look after ourselves and don't stand up for our fellow man (or woman!). So if a man wants to champion a woman's right to choose even if he is not now, and will never be, a woman? High five, brotha. Happy to have you in my corner. I certainly don't have any poll results to draw from, but I would imagine that there are lots of gay men and women out there who are overjoyed to have a celebrity straight ally in Macklemore. Look at Lady Gaga - some people love her for the music and the meat dress. Some love her for the LGBT activism.
Furthermore, the issue of gay marriage represents so much more than giving people some legal rights (albeit very very important and meaningful ones). It's an issue of equality, and equality is EVERYONE'S problem. And while many of us have been fortunate enough to have never been discriminated against in our lifetimes, it doesn't mean that no one in our situation ever has. Identifying as a Jewish person certainly has different ramifications for me than it did for my grandparents. Am I allowed to just sit back and relax now that I live in a place where being Jewish is totally acceptable, even though not every minority group is quite so comfortable? The short answer: no.
My wholly unsolicited advice to Le1f would be as follows: stop hating on people who are trying to help you. Promoting a message of equality, especially through such a stereotypically un-LGBT-friendly medium as rap music, is never a bad thing.
Le1f just blasted Macklemore for "Same Love"
I had no idea who Le1f was, but the notion that someone was "blasting" a song about legalizing gay marriage certainly got my attention. I assumed Le1f was one of the many sad people out there who think homosexuality is a sin because it says so in the Bible, right there with women daring to open their mouths in places of worship ("Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak" - 1 Corinthians) or, um, the bulk of American eating habits ("The eating of fat is prohibited forever" - Leviticus).
I clicked the link and was pretty surprised to learn that Le1f isn't shitting all over Macklemore because he hates gay people - he's doing it because he IS gay and how dare a straight guy make money off someone else's issues?! He's also pissed because Macklemore didn't donate any of the proceeds from Same Love to pro-LGBT charities.
Photo via
Before I really get down to it, let's address some of the more minor issues that arise here.
1) Macklemore and Ryan Lewis aren't signed with a major label and release all their music independently. While they certainly have a ton of money at this point, artists who voluntarily choose to forgo big name representation are probably at least slightly less in it for the money than others. Maybe he thinks that they wrote this song with the express purpose of making money off it, but I'm not convinced.
2) I did some googling and discovered that Le1f thinks Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ripped off his song Wut in their song, Thrift Shop. I assume you're all familiar with Thrift Shop, so here's Wut, for comparison:
There's a pretty strong horn section here. Just like in Thrift Shop. Are they similar? Sure. The same? No. Is there a rich history of sampling other people's songs in rap music that dates back to the beginning of rap itself so even if Thrift Shop did directly sample Wut it would be totally normal? Yes. Know your roots, Le1f.
3) A day after I originally published this post, I learned from a friend of Lacey's that Macklemore did, in fact, donate some of the proceeds from Same Love to Washington United for Marriage. So that point is totally bunk.
And now, on to the good stuff.
Though my immediate, visceral reaction to reading this slew of hateful tweets (all of which Le1f has since deleted) was one of disgust, I tried to put myself in his shoes before even entertaining the idea of writing this blog post.
As a woman, what I can or cannot do with my own body is a subject of national debate. What if a man, lacking a uterus, came out with a pro-choice rap song? What if he gave not even a single penny from his profits to Planned Parenthood? Would this anger me?
No, no it would not. In fact, it would be make me pretty damn happy. Sure, money to Planned Parenthood would be great, but so is verbal support and awareness. Because we don't live in the kind of society where it's perfectly acceptable to throw your hands up and yell, "NOT MY PROBLEM, SUCKA" when we witness injustices happening around us but not to us. Change will never happen if we only look after ourselves and don't stand up for our fellow man (or woman!). So if a man wants to champion a woman's right to choose even if he is not now, and will never be, a woman? High five, brotha. Happy to have you in my corner. I certainly don't have any poll results to draw from, but I would imagine that there are lots of gay men and women out there who are overjoyed to have a celebrity straight ally in Macklemore. Look at Lady Gaga - some people love her for the music and the meat dress. Some love her for the LGBT activism.
Furthermore, the issue of gay marriage represents so much more than giving people some legal rights (albeit very very important and meaningful ones). It's an issue of equality, and equality is EVERYONE'S problem. And while many of us have been fortunate enough to have never been discriminated against in our lifetimes, it doesn't mean that no one in our situation ever has. Identifying as a Jewish person certainly has different ramifications for me than it did for my grandparents. Am I allowed to just sit back and relax now that I live in a place where being Jewish is totally acceptable, even though not every minority group is quite so comfortable? The short answer: no.
My wholly unsolicited advice to Le1f would be as follows: stop hating on people who are trying to help you. Promoting a message of equality, especially through such a stereotypically un-LGBT-friendly medium as rap music, is never a bad thing.
Why I Hate Chick Lit
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Labels:
Books
I'm tired of modern chick lit.
As
someone who spends 1.5+ hours a day on trains, I get a lot of reading
done. I'll read pretty much anything - fantasy, sci fi, historical
fiction, biographies, social science books, you name it. I love
when people give me book recommendations and very frequently I select my
books by seeing what my friends are reading on Goodreads. Even if I
know nothing about them.Sometimes, yes, I end up being blindsided by chick lit.
Here's the thing about it. Chick lit can be highly entertaining, and
those are frequently the books that I can't put down, finishing them in 1 or 2 days because I just NEEDED to let the drama unfold. The
problem, though, is that I come away from these books feeling dumber. Because I
didn't learn anything, didn't feel inspired by the quality of the
writing or the creativity of the ideas, and as realistic as the heroines
are supposed to seem, I never get the sense that those women are real people.
Frankly, I'm tired of reading this bullshit. I'm not even super well-versed in chick lit because I make a point of trying to avoid it, but I've accidentally or not-so-accidentally read enough over the years that I can tell chick lit from just the first few pages. Yet, like a deer in headlights, I just can't seem to extricate myself from the oncoming horror.
Frankly, I'm tired of reading this bullshit. I'm not even super well-versed in chick lit because I make a point of trying to avoid it, but I've accidentally or not-so-accidentally read enough over the years that I can tell chick lit from just the first few pages. Yet, like a deer in headlights, I just can't seem to extricate myself from the oncoming horror.
I'd like to read more books about women who aren't awful. Who are smart, nuanced, independent, and yes, flawed. And I don't mean flawed as in "oh teehee I spilled some coffee on my blouse on the way to work so I just artfully tied a scarf around my neck and totally rocked it because it ended up looking faaaaabulous." I mean actually flawed.
Giving a woman a fancy Wall Street job does not make her smart.
Surrounding your main character with some vacuous friends - the goody two shoes, the effortlessly promiscuous one, and the sensible one who is actually the main character's closest friend but the other 2 don't really know about it - doesn't mean she has deep, meaningful personal relationships. It means she's a ripoff of Sex and the City.
In real life, not everyone wants a cupcake bakery. Seriously. The presence of the bakery dream in chick lit is as ubiquitous as the bitchy coworker who's always trying to take the main girl down a peg.
And it should probably go without saying that in real life, the perfect man does not materialize just at the very moment that we've gotten our hearts broken by some shithead. We get our hearts broken and we drown our sorrows in vodka and then maybe we spend time with more shitheads and often also the original shithead.
I wish we could go back to the time when chick lit was more Jane Austen and less..this crap. Or maybe I should just do a better job of avoiding it. Hmph.