Ladies on the phone.
I've had a couple of pretty good conversations over the phone recently.
One was yesterday. It was unexpectedly long. I mean, you won't believe how long the conversation was. Do you think you could believe me? Do you? I don't, because it was a ridiculously long phone call.
Alaina's birthday was on the 3rd, and so was Gab's (and so was that really smelly fat girl's from guard, Tina Fontanez). On the 2nd, I admitted to myself that I was going to fail to remember to contact Alaina and Gab with birthday greetings because I always do (sorry, Nick), so I texted Gab with my preemptive birthday wishes and while doing so, somehow fooled myself into believing I could remember to call Alaina, and I did remember, at 7am. On that day and for the six days following, I never thought to contact her at a decent Pacific Time hour OR while I wasn't, uh... let's say "watching children's cartoons". During my walk yesterday, I decided to say "fuck it" and just woke her up at 8-something California time. I was expecting a 20-minute phone call, especially since I had pulled her from what was a near-sleepless night, but no-no, no. Six or seven fucking hours.
I'm not complaining. They were filled with stimulating conversation, all seven of those hours. Alaina's always fun to catch up with. Whenever she's in Jersey or I'm in California, we have a good time.
But it was fucking seven hours long.
I won't say I've never spent that much time on the phone, but I will say that I've never spent that much time on the phone with someone I wasn't eventually going to sleep with.
Alaina always says I'm the only person in the world she could always talk to without having to worry that something she says will be misunderstood, that some subtle sarcasm or lilting irony in her tone will be mischaracterized. Yesterday, she said I was her soul mate for this reason, that I had to be, and that she really wishes she was into girls too because it would make things a lot easier if we were in a relationship. I found that funny.
Alaina and I are finding a growing amount of people who in high school believed Alaina and I to be dating, so I replied jokingly with "Well we were, in high school."
When she questioned it, the conversation turned into some backwards, half-hearted, Seinfeldian discussion in which I took faux offense to the suspicion that I wasn't her fake girlfriend. I remember yelling into the phone "Bullshit! If you weren't dating anybody and I wasn't dating anybody and we spent all of that time together and the word 'lesbian' was in the air, then who the fuck was your girlfriend if it wasn't me?!"
I have to say I greatly enjoyed the entire phone call. It was refreshing to talk to another intelligent female feminist, the perks being we could root our references in our mutual childhood experiences. We talked about her love life, well-dressed and empty-headed Hollywood inhabitants, the GRE, gender socialization.
She told me about how her old boss is good friends with Bill Maher when his anti-feminism came up in conversation. From our talk, I now believe he most likely is indeed a Christian.
Alaina: Well did you see Religulous?
Maria: No, actually. I can't make myself like Bill Maher. I know we agree on pretty much everything regarding religion, but he's anti-feminist, so I hate his face.
Alaina: It's true, he is anti-feminist. In fact, Ray [her old boss], is pretty good friends with him, or at least he has a lot of pictures of the two of him and says he's good friends with him, you never know with these people. He told me once that Bill Maher only dates women 24 and under, and when I said to him jokingly on my 25th birthday "I guess I don't have a chance with Bill Maher now huh?" he just said "well you wouldn't have anyway; he only dates Black and Asian women."
Maria: [I sat up from the sofa] WHAT!
Alaina: Yeah, he says Bill refuses to date a girl after she turns 25. It's like a rule he has. And he won't date White women.
Maria: Then why the fuck isn't he a Christian?
Bill [my Bill] said he heard the young girl thing referenced his show when someone was talking shit to him.
So let's take a look at this picture. He only dates women who are:
- less than half his age
- non-celebrity [except for porn stars!]
- ethnic minorities
So he's a sexist and a racist. Why not go for the hat trick and be a full out Bible-thumping bigot?
DISCLAIMER: Because I feel I must, I'm going to in no uncertain terms point out the fact that my link of racism and sexism to Christianity is not to imply that all Christians are racists and/or sexists.
But being a Christian here (or whatever the major religion is, anywhere) would afford him more support and less scrutiny. It works for Rush, O'Reilly, and all the other asshole criminal sexual deviants who hide behind their mass-endorsed bigotry. I was also told he went easy on Christianity in Religulous (this I've only heard--that he was most harsh on things like Mormonism and anything in the Middle East). I've always found it odd that someone so against the bullshit patriarchal war-fueling machine that is organized religion wouldn't be pro-women's rights, or rather, would be so anti-feminist.
Also I ate an entire papaya over the course of that phone call.
The other phone call was from Laura, who called me a few days ago. She called in response to an email I sent out to her [and three others] after getting their contact information on the Tanzanian Children's Fund volunteering page. She and the three were listed as former volunteers who would be happy to speak with prospective volunteers if they had any questions. I wrote them an email asking about "Sunday School" at the Children's Village and what it meant, expressing as graciously as I could, that "despite our openness to anyone's spiritual path, Bill and I are somewhat wary of the line between humanitarianism and proselytizing."
Laura called me the next morning and we spoke for two hours about all sorts of things. I greatly enjoyed our phone call, and hope to keep in contact with her. In fact, if all things work out correctly, we might be in Tanzania at the same time this year. She, like the others who responded, told me that she knew exactly how I felt and that Bill and I had nothing to worry about. From what I've gathered, it's not like other organizations in the country, where entire families have to convert to Christianity for their child to be able to attend school (sometimes I really hate that religion). It serves a purpose for giving the children a further sense of community since German and English colonizers tried to plant Jesus trees everywhere they could and much of the outside community is Christian influenced. The songs, all in Swahili, are about loving your brothers and sisters, respecting your elders, and giving thanks.
Laura is a lot of what I hope to be in my future years, if all goes as planned and I may flatter my ambitions. She's a non-religious, socially aware, vegan grandmother who spends as much of her time volunteering as finances and time will allow. Laura told me she had two biological children and opted to adopt four or six (I couldn't remember the total number) of her foster kids. She described living in the cruel South as a White woman with a Black son, a gay daughter, and developmentally disabled kids, and what that means on a daily basis in her community. I can only hope I have the patience to deal with people's comments the way she described. She laughed and apologized when telling me a story about how connected to her children she felt: "I was on a bike ride just driving myself crazy after finding out that my son, who is Black, had asthma. I just couldn't accept it. I kept asking myself, 'who in the family has asthma? I don't have asthma. My husband doesn't. There has to have been a mistake'". It made me smile. It also made me smile when she told me about how lucky she feels to have actually wanted the big family with the picket fence and a dog lifestyle, since wanting a number of other things would have meant a much more difficult life for her.
Alright I'm tired.
One was yesterday. It was unexpectedly long. I mean, you won't believe how long the conversation was. Do you think you could believe me? Do you? I don't, because it was a ridiculously long phone call.
Alaina's birthday was on the 3rd, and so was Gab's (and so was that really smelly fat girl's from guard, Tina Fontanez). On the 2nd, I admitted to myself that I was going to fail to remember to contact Alaina and Gab with birthday greetings because I always do (sorry, Nick), so I texted Gab with my preemptive birthday wishes and while doing so, somehow fooled myself into believing I could remember to call Alaina, and I did remember, at 7am. On that day and for the six days following, I never thought to contact her at a decent Pacific Time hour OR while I wasn't, uh... let's say "watching children's cartoons". During my walk yesterday, I decided to say "fuck it" and just woke her up at 8-something California time. I was expecting a 20-minute phone call, especially since I had pulled her from what was a near-sleepless night, but no-no, no. Six or seven fucking hours.
I'm not complaining. They were filled with stimulating conversation, all seven of those hours. Alaina's always fun to catch up with. Whenever she's in Jersey or I'm in California, we have a good time.
But it was fucking seven hours long.
I won't say I've never spent that much time on the phone, but I will say that I've never spent that much time on the phone with someone I wasn't eventually going to sleep with.
Alaina always says I'm the only person in the world she could always talk to without having to worry that something she says will be misunderstood, that some subtle sarcasm or lilting irony in her tone will be mischaracterized. Yesterday, she said I was her soul mate for this reason, that I had to be, and that she really wishes she was into girls too because it would make things a lot easier if we were in a relationship. I found that funny.
Alaina and I are finding a growing amount of people who in high school believed Alaina and I to be dating, so I replied jokingly with "Well we were, in high school."
When she questioned it, the conversation turned into some backwards, half-hearted, Seinfeldian discussion in which I took faux offense to the suspicion that I wasn't her fake girlfriend. I remember yelling into the phone "Bullshit! If you weren't dating anybody and I wasn't dating anybody and we spent all of that time together and the word 'lesbian' was in the air, then who the fuck was your girlfriend if it wasn't me?!"
I have to say I greatly enjoyed the entire phone call. It was refreshing to talk to another intelligent female feminist, the perks being we could root our references in our mutual childhood experiences. We talked about her love life, well-dressed and empty-headed Hollywood inhabitants, the GRE, gender socialization.
She told me about how her old boss is good friends with Bill Maher when his anti-feminism came up in conversation. From our talk, I now believe he most likely is indeed a Christian.
Alaina: Well did you see Religulous?
Maria: No, actually. I can't make myself like Bill Maher. I know we agree on pretty much everything regarding religion, but he's anti-feminist, so I hate his face.
Alaina: It's true, he is anti-feminist. In fact, Ray [her old boss], is pretty good friends with him, or at least he has a lot of pictures of the two of him and says he's good friends with him, you never know with these people. He told me once that Bill Maher only dates women 24 and under, and when I said to him jokingly on my 25th birthday "I guess I don't have a chance with Bill Maher now huh?" he just said "well you wouldn't have anyway; he only dates Black and Asian women."
Maria: [I sat up from the sofa] WHAT!
Alaina: Yeah, he says Bill refuses to date a girl after she turns 25. It's like a rule he has. And he won't date White women.
Maria: Then why the fuck isn't he a Christian?
Bill [my Bill] said he heard the young girl thing referenced his show when someone was talking shit to him.
So let's take a look at this picture. He only dates women who are:
- less than half his age
- non-celebrity [except for porn stars!]
- ethnic minorities
So he's a sexist and a racist. Why not go for the hat trick and be a full out Bible-thumping bigot?
DISCLAIMER: Because I feel I must, I'm going to in no uncertain terms point out the fact that my link of racism and sexism to Christianity is not to imply that all Christians are racists and/or sexists.
But being a Christian here (or whatever the major religion is, anywhere) would afford him more support and less scrutiny. It works for Rush, O'Reilly, and all the other asshole criminal sexual deviants who hide behind their mass-endorsed bigotry. I was also told he went easy on Christianity in Religulous (this I've only heard--that he was most harsh on things like Mormonism and anything in the Middle East). I've always found it odd that someone so against the bullshit patriarchal war-fueling machine that is organized religion wouldn't be pro-women's rights, or rather, would be so anti-feminist.
Also I ate an entire papaya over the course of that phone call.
The other phone call was from Laura, who called me a few days ago. She called in response to an email I sent out to her [and three others] after getting their contact information on the Tanzanian Children's Fund volunteering page. She and the three were listed as former volunteers who would be happy to speak with prospective volunteers if they had any questions. I wrote them an email asking about "Sunday School" at the Children's Village and what it meant, expressing as graciously as I could, that "despite our openness to anyone's spiritual path, Bill and I are somewhat wary of the line between humanitarianism and proselytizing."
Laura called me the next morning and we spoke for two hours about all sorts of things. I greatly enjoyed our phone call, and hope to keep in contact with her. In fact, if all things work out correctly, we might be in Tanzania at the same time this year. She, like the others who responded, told me that she knew exactly how I felt and that Bill and I had nothing to worry about. From what I've gathered, it's not like other organizations in the country, where entire families have to convert to Christianity for their child to be able to attend school (sometimes I really hate that religion). It serves a purpose for giving the children a further sense of community since German and English colonizers tried to plant Jesus trees everywhere they could and much of the outside community is Christian influenced. The songs, all in Swahili, are about loving your brothers and sisters, respecting your elders, and giving thanks.
Laura is a lot of what I hope to be in my future years, if all goes as planned and I may flatter my ambitions. She's a non-religious, socially aware, vegan grandmother who spends as much of her time volunteering as finances and time will allow. Laura told me she had two biological children and opted to adopt four or six (I couldn't remember the total number) of her foster kids. She described living in the cruel South as a White woman with a Black son, a gay daughter, and developmentally disabled kids, and what that means on a daily basis in her community. I can only hope I have the patience to deal with people's comments the way she described. She laughed and apologized when telling me a story about how connected to her children she felt: "I was on a bike ride just driving myself crazy after finding out that my son, who is Black, had asthma. I just couldn't accept it. I kept asking myself, 'who in the family has asthma? I don't have asthma. My husband doesn't. There has to have been a mistake'". It made me smile. It also made me smile when she told me about how lucky she feels to have actually wanted the big family with the picket fence and a dog lifestyle, since wanting a number of other things would have meant a much more difficult life for her.
Alright I'm tired.