Friday Foolishness: Friday the 13th Edition

Happy Friday the 13th!  I actually like Friday the 13th.  Maybe it’s because I think a day associated with bad luck means good luck for me?  Isn’t that backwards?  It probably gives you a bit of insight into how I think and how I view myself and life in general.

This week has been scattered and manic for me.  I’ve had a hard time sitting down and writing the two posts I wanted to write: a book review of The Expats and the latest adventure in baking with Daniel (here’s a preview).

There is a little boy underneath all that flour

Yet, I wanted to write, so here are a few random items on my mind.  Feel free to ignore any or all of them.

• Ashley Judd’s essay in The Daily Beast taking all of us to task for speculating about her puffy face.  After I read it, I virtually fist-bumped her.  Then I thought about it some more and decided it was a pretentious piece.  I think she used every vocabulary word she learned in the Ivy League. Ms. Judd is absolutely justified in disliking the negative comments and calling out the media for their speculation, but I question her indictment of the patriarchy for turning women into objects when she herself has willingly profited from that objectification. And it appears she wouldn’t have deigned to verbally slap us if the comments had been praise instead of negative and catty.   She can’t have it both ways.  She can’t profit it from her looks and never criticize the system and then turn around and condemn it now that she is aging.

The two biggest beauty stories lately have been Ms. Judd and Samantha Brick and they are similar in that they both are condemning the patriarchy: Ms. Judd for being judged negatively on her appearance and Ms. Brick for believing women hate her because she is beautiful and the attention it garners her.  Are these two really the ones we want to initiate a discussion about the patriarchy and female objectification?  Ms. Judd joined an industry that objectifies women and profited from it.  Ms. Brick allowed herself to become objectified because she sees everything through the lens of her own beauty.  We need legitimate voices talking about this issue, not spectacle.

• April:  Someone apparently decided that April is the month in which we celebrate everything.  It’s National Autism Awareness Month as well as Multiple Birth Awareness Month.  In a few weeks, we’ll have National Infertility Awareness Week and this week was National Library Week.  Speaking of libraries, I went to pick up a book from a branch of my university’s library this week.  Embarrassingly, I couldn’t find the library.  I walked outside, around the building, several times, my eyes streaming thanks to the pollen.  Once I finally found the library, I must have looked like I was emotionally undone by being in the library.  *Sob* I really love libraries *Sob*  I wonder if they’ll revoke my MSLS.

• Day Care:  We decided on Daniel’s start date for day care this week.  He’ll go for a few hours on April 26 and April 27 and then start full time on April 30.  I am excited, yet anxious.  We need to buy a lunch box for him, so I hope we can make it seem like a fun change instead of like the verboten s-c-h-o-o-l word that we can’t use because of his preschool adventure.

• A-Conferencing I’ll Go: I already had a trip to Orlando planned in late May to attend a conference at which I’ll be presenting on my Master’s Paper.  Yesterday, one of our sister organizations contacted me about participating on a social media panel they have scheduled at another national conference in early May.  My bosses agreed it was a good opportunity, so that means another trip to Orlando.  My two trips will be two weeks apart and at different hotels, providing me the opportunity to experience all the hospitality Orlando has to offer #sarcasm.

• The Hunger Games: A few weeks ago, I hadn’t read the trilogy and didn’t plan to.  Then one day, Jimmy asked me if I read them and admitted they sound interesting.  I admitted I thought they did too.  Next thing I know, he’s tearing through the first book and then I tear through it.  Then we go see the movie and now have his- and her- copies of the rest of the trilogy (so we can read them at the same time of course).  Our nightly ritual now revolves around the question of how quickly we can finish our chores and start reading.  I think I’m shocked by the suddenness of it all.  I’m not a book snob (or at least I try not to be; I still won’t read the Twilight series.  Ever) and I loved Harry Potter, but I didn’t feel the compulsion to read The Hunger Games trilogy until recently. Suzanne Collins is no J.K. Rowling, but we can’t put down the books.

• Touche:  We take Daniel to the bounce house down the road every Saturday because he loves the 4-level play structure it has.  A few weeks ago I noticed a 4-year-old boy wearing an Angry Birds t-shirt and rolled my eyes at the pop culture silliness of his parents.  Does he even know what Angry Birds is? I know that Angry Birds is popular with kids but kids that young?  Well. Ahem.  This week, a t-shirt we ordered for Daniel arrived in the mail:

My-my-my Poker Face

   Who are the silly pop culture parents now?

How was your week?  What’s on your mind?