Transitions - round 832

July was a busy month. I entertained the fabulous Michael D, cheered on roommate at finish of San Francisco Marathon (she ran 2nd half) and cooked pancake breakfast for 6 afterwards, went to an oceanside cabin on Bodega Bay, swore I would freeze to death in San Francisco's chill... and lost my job.

So now I'm yet another statistic. Luckily I was already one week into teaching European teens English at a language school (run by Canadians!), a course that lasted 2 weeks total. Being back in the classroom was challenging, but using my gray matter to bend teens to my will was entertaining at times, rewarding (yeah, it's hokey) at others. I learned they ride penguins in Spain. And the koala mafia fights with the butterfly mafia in Italy. When a kid said "2 butterflies came to my grandparents house..." then trailed off and looked at the ground in obvious sadness, reliving the painful memory it was amazingly hilarious. They were a creative class, that's for sure. I've also been teaching more French privately and finding that while French grammar trounces English in terms of complexity, I can still make people understand it. Mostly.

Job hunting isn't my favorite activity. But one gig I'm starting on is working with ConferenceHound.com; I have my first blog post with them up now. Their aim is to be something between kayak and yelp for conferences, a pretty cool idea. I'm working on other writing projects, trying to keep the resume factory productive, and learned the basics of driving stick shift so I could commute to another short-term gig last week. Joblessness finds me with so many things to do I wonder how I spent 40 hours a week working in the shop.

I also got my hands on The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. And read it all in less than a day - fabulous ending to a great, thrill-packed trilogy. I love it when the operations kick in and they outline all the clever steps involved so that justice can be served. He was a huge women's rights guy it seems as well from looking at his characters and plots.

Also discovered Porchlight, a local storytelling group here in SF and am looking forward to going to more of their events, maybe trying to tell a story or two of my own. My sister Cassie comes tomorrow morning for fun and fabulous times before she starts college - glad I have time to spend with her!

The visit of the young D...

My lovely brother Michael D came to visit for the first week of July and it was a blast. We walked around a bunch, I got some extra time off so we could go to Muir Woods and along the coast, museums, fourth of July party at Jaylan's place...

And we ate. A ton. Mike and I realized that we can pretend to be totally VIP since we know enough folks in the restaurants we frequent. Which is pretty cool. D seemed to be down for sushi, Indian, Asian fusion, whatever we fancied and thus we ate our way around the city. And then ate some more. And walked some more. I enjoyed going to the California Academy of Sciences for the first time and walking through a rain forest, even if the tree frogs in one part were fake. They were in reach of the walkway, I suppose it makes sense from the frogs' perspective, but odd to see a lady snapping a photo right after we'd ascertained they were, in fact, not breathing.

Also we figured out a good way to rig sheet over big bookcase in the living room for projecting movies. Die Hard 1 & 2 were great to see big. Great in that terrible way Die Hard movies are, that is. Power mullets are crazy!!!

It was lovely. I can't wait to do it again.

Also, happy Bastille Day a day late! Yay for freedom.

Baby Beauty Queens? Really?

I’ve been listening to a lot of the Savage Love podcast here recently. I like Dan Savage’s advice (usually), the quirky things that come up on the show, and how it is often sane, sensible advice given to folks who sound like they really and truly need it. (He's also frank and often raw, so if your workplace a is a quiet one, ummm, put on headphones if you're sneaking in a listen there).

It also is a way to get through unpleasant tasks – building Ikea furniture, sorting through that mound of papers I keep needing to sort through, even cleaning out my closet in my parents house full of memories from the first 20-odd years of my life.

So, channeling Dan Savage and my own honed ranting ability, I must confess how shocked and, well, shocked I was to see this tv show called “Toddlers and Tiaras” on TLC today. Yes, there is a show that is about beauty queens under the age of 9. This episode followed a few lovely “ladies” whose ages ranged from 3 to I think 6?

Every scene brought new horror. The mother who says that sometimes you have to be tough, but she supports her daughter and really just wants to be a supportive mother. Her daughter is 3. And is told that her “smile is fake” and that she “won’t win with a fake smile” repeatedly. This girl also gets fake spray tanning done, wears fake hair… has a makeup artist…

Perhaps I’m so riled because these women (there don’t seem to be many dads pushing their young daughters to be beauty queens that I could see) spend OBSCENE amounts of money on their little girls. Dresses, teachers, tanning, hair, nails, entry fees – thousands of dollars. One had spent over $35,000 for the initial “investment” of beauty shots, costumes, etc. Ummm, why don’t you invest that in her college fund? Or make a savings account for future need, a nest egg so that she has options when she finishes high school? Or buy her a toy tiara or two?

Another girl was distinctly bratty, spoiled totally and completely with a-need-to-win complex. She flounced, she rebelled, she fussed. Her mother said over and over “She has a lot of personality.” No. She is stubborn and spoiled and you encourage this behavior. I want to see the show in 10 years where the girls have eating disorders, body image issues, sleep with everything that breathes, get into partying, drugs, alcohol and other acts of rebellion and hear the mothers say they just "don’t understand" what could have caused this. Staring earnestly into the camera: "I’m a good mother, I’ve supported her decisions but I don’t get why she doesn’t think she can ever be good enough."

I’m positive that it was the girls themselves, naturally, who proposed the idea of being mini beauty queens to their mothers. Not the other way around. That instead of praise for what’s been accomplished, the mothers all seemed to hold their breath for the next bigger, better prize. Even though several of them admitted they didn’t understand how the crowning system worked – they still wanted that next big one.

The sight of the little girls wearing rhinestone crowns literally almost half their size… there are no words. Well, there are some. But they aren’t very complimentary ones. These rooms decorated with crowns, sashes, glitter and glitz – the girl who is the youngest of 8 and the only daughter – what are these girls learning about self-worth and looks?

That they obviously go hand and hand.

Perhaps that’s not so insidious, one could say. Our society has long honored the beautiful woman over the plain, over the smart, over the athletic (unless she is both/and of course). These girls are no worse than others who have mothers who push them to have boyfriends at 8, to idolize the Barbie image, to, to, to… I’m still reeling from the images of that show though.

Exploitation anyone?

Because I think it’s wrong. I don’t understand how those judges can do their job, how folks can think that this is a good idea. And I probably never will.

But at least my sister and I can agree that whatever weird or potentially terrible things our parents may have done to us in our youth (when she writes her life story you’ll get all the gory details) that was one thing that they didn’t do – we weren’t toddler beauty queens.

I made the mistake of telling them this. Their response: there are always the grandchildren.

Compassion and its lack

Yesterday brought with it a blinding realization. True, I had often expressed hatred for Yelp and other online review sites (but especially Yelp), but I never had a concrete, iron-clad reason for it. It was more of a miasma of unease, of bad taste left in mouth. Of not liking something because it's cool not to like a popular internet phenomenon (see twitter for more details).

Yelp doesn't promote compassion. In fact, it holds the distinction of doing exactly opposite. Places like this promote critical, unforgiving, unmitigated nastiness. Because there is never any recourse, there are never any repercussions against what might be false, exaggerated, or otherwise untrue.

I was talking with the woman who owns the shop next door about how reading Yelp reviews alone is a bad idea (just like drinking). It makes one angry and upset. She added that it's also a bad idea to look at them before going to work for much the same reasons. Because folks can say things like "you're just a glorified girl scout," on the internet, perhaps thinking they're funny. And maybe they are. But seriously? Really? What is that going to change? Why does the world need to know that you think I have an attitude problem after working a weekend in a busy store basically alone? How will that guide them in their cookie quest? Why do you care enough to post this? Conversely, why do I care what you think of me? (Because I liked to be liked is one reason.)

I mentioned this conversation to Mike and he riposted that I am just as critical. Especially of customers. Fair. But there's a difference between treating someone like a fellow human being and like a subhuman creature. I also don't post my nastiness on the internet but let it die a natural, oral death (most of the time). Thus speaks the service industry worker. What I also like is the idea of a reverse yelp where baristas and other service workers can follow customers to their important office buildings in financial centers or whathaveyou and rate their performance there. 3 stars because you slacked on your copying and phone call responding. 2.5 stars because you were a terrible kiss ass to your boss and she could totally tell.

And then we can post it on the internet for all the world to see.

I think this all comes into perspective as a new bakery/restaurant has opened up nearby. I went on the first day (Saturday) and had to wait a ridiculously long time for my sandwich because, hey, it's the first day and the kitchen is slammed. I get it. I went back yesterday with Sarah for breakfast and things were much smoother. And delicious. Also supernice counter help, even if one guy tried a little too hard to be smooth. Maybe he's new at this waiting game. Maybe that's his style and just not mine. Maybe I'm thinking too much. But what I will do is tell folks with my actual mouth about places I think are worthwhile and listen to what they have to say as well - it's called word-of-mouth I think. You do it by talking.

(She snarkily typed.)