Procrastinating
That is what this entry is all about. I had an awesome weekend and woke up really late this morning still in "weekend mode," so since I'm going to the gym at noon and couldn't get any real work done between now and then, I decided to take the morning off from novel writing.
I finally got to stay in the apartment for a weekend. I don't think that's happened since late June. Between anniversaries, weddings, weekends at MO and an X-Files weekend that I spent most of in Greenville...it's been awhile since I woke up in this bedroom on a Saturday morning.
I went poking around in some old LJ entries and it brought back memories of awesome days long ago. It's weird, I really like to reminisce about old times, but it makes me really sad, so I don't know why I like it.
Okay, here's the two things this entry is really about, and I'll try to make them both interesting for all of you. Number one: we went to the Loop in St. Louis last night to watch Berry and the Jake Russell Band. It was So. Much. Fun. I haven't been to the Loop since college. We went to this restaurant called The Red Sea (that was where he was playing). It was an Ethiopian place, but the concert was downstairs in the basement, totally separate from the restaurant. It was this cool underground no-windows dim-lighted cigarette smoke-filled everyone-kicking-back-beers place, old looking but not rundown, with big squares of rock mortared together and tabletops stuck on top. And of course a microscopic stage for the band.
Okay, I'm not into the drink and smoke in a dim room party scene, like, AT ALL, but it was still fun to experience that atmosphere. The basement was just so cool, despite the lack of breathable smoke-free air, and the music was eclectic and fun. Berry was actually better than I expected. Now I want to find their web site (if they have one) and maybe get a CD or something. Jake's show was hilarious. He has such an interesting style of music/silliness in his shows. The last song got really crazy, with chairs flying everywhere and Joey Lemon putting a paper bag over Jake's head.
Put all that together with a few adventures along the Loop looking for an ATM and you can see why last night was both a blast and exhausting.
(As an aside: I saw many old college acquaintances there smoking and drinking, and I wonder how many of them were doing these things at the time we were in college. I mean, a lot of them went to the loop all the time back then, and no one from the college would have known who was breaking the rules all the way over at the Loop. It's very interesting. But then, the overall tone at GC was to push the envelope, so perhaps I shouldn't be so viciously naive).
The other thing that happened this weekend was that my biggest pet peeve of a sexist stereotype got PWNED. We're talking serious pwnage. I was so happy. I think all of you that read my LJ will be similarly enthralled with my discovery, so read on, good fellow females.
We saw a video series in a Sunday School class we're trying out, and the series is about how modern culture can influence the church too much. The guy on the video seemed like a very intelligent guy who has really done his homework on the evolution of American culture for the last couple centuries. He was talking about all of the Big Changes that have transformed American culture, and how they've changed the church's outlook/approach/methods.
He talked about the Industrial Revolution, when men were plucked from their work at home to go outside the family and start working at "jobs" in factories. According to him, before the industrial revolution, most men worked at home with their families, either on a farm or on a family business in town. He said that the family was a much more well-knit unit, with every member of the family contributing to running the business and the household. Women often worked alongside their husbands, so that if their husbands died, they would know enough to carry on the business themselves. Husbands were expected to do a great deal of child-rearing and housekeeping. Apparently if you look at housekeeping and child-rearing pamphlets written back in those days, almost all of them were geared at men. Isn't that astounding?
But then the Industrial Revolution came along, and men started leaving the home and making their money not with a family business, but doing work at a workplace and getting paid a salary. This preacher in the video was talking about how men used to get their validation, their sense of self, by building up a farm or business with their families, and training their children to be good people and good workers. But Post-IR, they were plucked away from all that and forced to get their sense of self from how good they were doing at their job. He called it a "crisis of manhood," because a career alone is not enough to make anyone, male or female, feel validated. And that, children, is how our society came to focus on proving your worth as a human being by how successful your career is.
ANYWAY...isn't that interesting that the family used to be two parents doing everything together, rather than the different sexes having their own different "spheres" in life? We in our modern culture take it for granted that housekeeping and child-rearing has always been "woman's work" since the dawn of time, but that's not entirely true. To some extent, perhaps, but certainly not to the extent that we've been led to believe (sometimes even by the church).
The guy teaching our Sunday School class said after the video "I know so many men who would blow a gasket if they heard this, because they are so reliant on having a wife to cook for them and do all the work with the kids." I almost laughed out loud, because I know guys like that, and they make me glad I married Jaron. I'm not naming any names, but I'm sure a couple of you can guess who I'm thinking of.
Anyway, I felt so validated in my insistence that men do their share in childrearing. I've been saying it for years, and come to find out that's actually the way it used to be. It was a red-letter day for Rachel, I can tell you that. I also can't help but wonder: men lost out in the Industrial Revolution, because they got pulled away from their families and thus from a huge source of validation. Women lost out, because they got forced into full-time childrearing which left no room for other work to help THEM feel validated. What did children lose? I got to spend more time with my dad than the average person whose father works outside the home, and I feel like those hours with him greatly impacted my personality and self-esteem. Did children start missing out on that more after men went outside the home to work?
I have too many thoughts and questions on this subject to make an adequate post about it, but there's the highlights. I leave the rest of you to ponder these things.
In other and more cryptic news...I watched my own trail of destruction with interest today. Quite a humbling experience, and I'm rather sorry I left it. :) But then, who is happy about leaving a trail of destruction? LOL
And finally...I miss Greenville after not seeing it this weekend. I miss my parents, my kitties, my Holly, and my Jendy, my Kristin, AND my Michael. Yes, you're all mine.
dascully
I finally got to stay in the apartment for a weekend. I don't think that's happened since late June. Between anniversaries, weddings, weekends at MO and an X-Files weekend that I spent most of in Greenville...it's been awhile since I woke up in this bedroom on a Saturday morning.
I went poking around in some old LJ entries and it brought back memories of awesome days long ago. It's weird, I really like to reminisce about old times, but it makes me really sad, so I don't know why I like it.
Okay, here's the two things this entry is really about, and I'll try to make them both interesting for all of you. Number one: we went to the Loop in St. Louis last night to watch Berry and the Jake Russell Band. It was So. Much. Fun. I haven't been to the Loop since college. We went to this restaurant called The Red Sea (that was where he was playing). It was an Ethiopian place, but the concert was downstairs in the basement, totally separate from the restaurant. It was this cool underground no-windows dim-lighted cigarette smoke-filled everyone-kicking-back-beers place, old looking but not rundown, with big squares of rock mortared together and tabletops stuck on top. And of course a microscopic stage for the band.
Okay, I'm not into the drink and smoke in a dim room party scene, like, AT ALL, but it was still fun to experience that atmosphere. The basement was just so cool, despite the lack of breathable smoke-free air, and the music was eclectic and fun. Berry was actually better than I expected. Now I want to find their web site (if they have one) and maybe get a CD or something. Jake's show was hilarious. He has such an interesting style of music/silliness in his shows. The last song got really crazy, with chairs flying everywhere and Joey Lemon putting a paper bag over Jake's head.
Put all that together with a few adventures along the Loop looking for an ATM and you can see why last night was both a blast and exhausting.
(As an aside: I saw many old college acquaintances there smoking and drinking, and I wonder how many of them were doing these things at the time we were in college. I mean, a lot of them went to the loop all the time back then, and no one from the college would have known who was breaking the rules all the way over at the Loop. It's very interesting. But then, the overall tone at GC was to push the envelope, so perhaps I shouldn't be so viciously naive).
The other thing that happened this weekend was that my biggest pet peeve of a sexist stereotype got PWNED. We're talking serious pwnage. I was so happy. I think all of you that read my LJ will be similarly enthralled with my discovery, so read on, good fellow females.
We saw a video series in a Sunday School class we're trying out, and the series is about how modern culture can influence the church too much. The guy on the video seemed like a very intelligent guy who has really done his homework on the evolution of American culture for the last couple centuries. He was talking about all of the Big Changes that have transformed American culture, and how they've changed the church's outlook/approach/methods.
He talked about the Industrial Revolution, when men were plucked from their work at home to go outside the family and start working at "jobs" in factories. According to him, before the industrial revolution, most men worked at home with their families, either on a farm or on a family business in town. He said that the family was a much more well-knit unit, with every member of the family contributing to running the business and the household. Women often worked alongside their husbands, so that if their husbands died, they would know enough to carry on the business themselves. Husbands were expected to do a great deal of child-rearing and housekeeping. Apparently if you look at housekeeping and child-rearing pamphlets written back in those days, almost all of them were geared at men. Isn't that astounding?
But then the Industrial Revolution came along, and men started leaving the home and making their money not with a family business, but doing work at a workplace and getting paid a salary. This preacher in the video was talking about how men used to get their validation, their sense of self, by building up a farm or business with their families, and training their children to be good people and good workers. But Post-IR, they were plucked away from all that and forced to get their sense of self from how good they were doing at their job. He called it a "crisis of manhood," because a career alone is not enough to make anyone, male or female, feel validated. And that, children, is how our society came to focus on proving your worth as a human being by how successful your career is.
ANYWAY...isn't that interesting that the family used to be two parents doing everything together, rather than the different sexes having their own different "spheres" in life? We in our modern culture take it for granted that housekeeping and child-rearing has always been "woman's work" since the dawn of time, but that's not entirely true. To some extent, perhaps, but certainly not to the extent that we've been led to believe (sometimes even by the church).
The guy teaching our Sunday School class said after the video "I know so many men who would blow a gasket if they heard this, because they are so reliant on having a wife to cook for them and do all the work with the kids." I almost laughed out loud, because I know guys like that, and they make me glad I married Jaron. I'm not naming any names, but I'm sure a couple of you can guess who I'm thinking of.
Anyway, I felt so validated in my insistence that men do their share in childrearing. I've been saying it for years, and come to find out that's actually the way it used to be. It was a red-letter day for Rachel, I can tell you that. I also can't help but wonder: men lost out in the Industrial Revolution, because they got pulled away from their families and thus from a huge source of validation. Women lost out, because they got forced into full-time childrearing which left no room for other work to help THEM feel validated. What did children lose? I got to spend more time with my dad than the average person whose father works outside the home, and I feel like those hours with him greatly impacted my personality and self-esteem. Did children start missing out on that more after men went outside the home to work?
I have too many thoughts and questions on this subject to make an adequate post about it, but there's the highlights. I leave the rest of you to ponder these things.
In other and more cryptic news...I watched my own trail of destruction with interest today. Quite a humbling experience, and I'm rather sorry I left it. :) But then, who is happy about leaving a trail of destruction? LOL
And finally...I miss Greenville after not seeing it this weekend. I miss my parents, my kitties, my Holly, and my Jendy, my Kristin, AND my Michael. Yes, you're all mine.
dascully