Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #129 - The Wrestler
Hi Mom,
This is a quickie as it's late and I am sending it back in time.
And it's another installment in things you would not care about, Mom, but I am sharing with you anyway, and you would tolerate because you love me.
At Ivan's suggestion (thanks Ivan!), we watched The Wrestler tonight.
SPOILERS AHEAD - This should go without saying, but if you have not seen the movie and wish to watch it without prior knowledge, do not keep reading.
This would not be your kind of movie. It's not really my kind of movie, as I do not like wrestling.
But I am open minded enough to watch a story about a wrestler and a glimpse into the wrestling world, even though I am not about to go out and start watching wrestling as a habit.
Though it's strange to see buff, pumped out, and re-constructed Mickey Rourke, his performance in this movie is fantastic. Darren Aronofsky is a great director and handled this story in a very under-stated way without sentimentalizing. In other words, it's not The Champ (see 1980s films if you don't know what I mean).
But.... the ending. Aronofsky ends the film in an open way, no closure, leaving the audience to decide if Randy the Ram dies after his Ram Jam in the final wrestling match that doctors told him may kill him due to his heart condition or if he survives. IF he survives, does he have a relationship with Pam (Marisa Tomei) and repair his relationship with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood)? And if he survives, what does he do for money since he burned his bridges in epic fashion at the Acme grocery store?
One argument is that Aronofsky had to end the movie this way with Randy the Ram in midair, leaping to his Ram Jam final move, a belly flop from a post in the corner of the wrestling ring because the alternatives are all cheesy and overly sentimental, wrecking his hyper-real, day-in-the-life, almost documentary-style story development.
But I disagree. I liked non-closure endings when I was younger. I appreciated the artsy-fartsy "statement" of such endings. Now, I want closure, Mom. I want endings. I want good endings. And I am okay with some sentimentality. After all, this is one of the main functions of movies, to give me that sentimental experience.
So, okay, I get it, the ending, but I didn't like it. I am bugged. I keep thinking about how and why I am bugged, which means Darren Aronofsky probably wins as this is what he wants. Randy the Ram was in a no-win scenario and he goes out (or doesn't) on his terms, with his Ram Jam. Okay, fine. Doesn't mean I have to like it, no matter how good the movie is.
Just like us, Mom. And here. I had closure with you. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #128 - Things I said in class today
Hi Mom, I did some cool things in class today, and I want to share. I almost cried. I had to stop talking for almost fifteen seconds to master my emotions.
I was talking about education and its impact. I shared the story of Steve Pitts, who took my Tech Writing course in my brief return to it in Fall of 2003. Inspired by my exhortations, Steve took my Media and the Sexes course, after which he decided to change his major and go into Psychology. Steve went on to work with Miranda Rosenberg as my two TAs the next term and became a close friend. I invited him to my wedding. At the reception, he came up to me and related the story of how and why he changed his major and told me that I changed his life. I will never forget this moment and the emotional impact it had on me to have helped Steve take a new path. As I told my students about it, I got all choked up and had to stop talking for a good ten seconds as I fought back tears and the flood of emotion.
It's things like this that demonstrate why I teach and why I have taught for so long because, you know, it's not the money.
playing magic with Steve
This is what I wrote to my students following class: I did mean what I said in class about our work together. We’re caught in a feedback loop. So far, you have all been awesome (well, mostly). Let’s hope I am still saying this when I am done grading your papers... :-) ... And your awesomeness has caused me to be more awesome (or at least, I feel more awesome, maybe it’s a trick of the light), and this in turn makes you more awesome, and around it goes.
Or so it seems... Or I just put a little too much scotch in this glass.
Not that I support drinking at all, let alone under aged drinking. But while I am sipping scotch, and on that topic, WARREN ELLIS compared scotch to the dew on angel’s nipples, the word scotch has a different etymology from Gaelic:
“First off, when we speak of whisky with no E, we speak of single malt Scotch whisky - uisge beatha, the water of life” - Warren Ellis, Twitter, 2008.
There will be more Rules of Chris, such as Rule #1: always have something to read with you at all times. This used to be “a book,” so I bought a copy of Tao te Ching for my man purse. Now, I just carry my Kindle.
On the other subject of things I say in class, I hope it’s clear that gender issues are important to me and that my goal in discussing them is to open up the world to those who need the world opened to them. I come from a place of love. We should all love each other. Accept each other. Yes, we’re different, but we’re all good at the root. That said, the Easter egg as promised is that the passage I will have you summarize for Monday’s quiz (Monday 11/23) is already posted to e-learning in content. The file has the word “quiz” in the title. Doing this thing I have done allows you to familiarize yourself with the passage before class and even write a practice summary. At the very least, read the passage a few times. You’re welcome.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
I think of you when I do my exercises. I am starting another round of physical therapy tomorrow.
You were so good about doing your exercises. You diligently performed them daily in your bedroom after you recovered from "breaking your back." I follow suit. In fact, for the first two years of my marriage, I did my exercises in that same bedroom.
Just another of those things that makes me think of you, Mom. Actually, you were much better about doing your exercises than I am, which is probably why I am back tomorrow for a second round of physical therapy.
My legs hurt, and I am spending too much time in my office chair because I have so much work to do.
So, this is a short one, especially since, as I write this, the last three entries are unfinished.
I did my exercises today, though, despite being busy. This is my roller for my IT bands.
Yes, that's a pillow for my elbow.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Hi Mom, I know it seems silly to post unfinished blogs like this just to get a date and time stamp that I can get by publishing backwards in time, but so it is and there we go.
I like to at least approximate the actual date and time.
Dad needs to work on his smiling for photos.
Dad and I went to the King Tut exhibit before we went to the Hocus Pocus party.
I thought I took more pictures at the exhibit, but I guess I didn't.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #125 - Hocus Pocus Dinner Party
Hi Mom,
Dad and I attended a magic show in Grand Rapids last night called the Hocus Pocus dinner, hosted by the Grand Rapids Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
I won many door prizes and gave them all to this young girl pictured above: Willow Bigham.
Dad and I met her and her father at the Abbott's Magic Get Together in Colon in August, and then they set at our table for this event.
Willow performed some magic at our table and walking about performing throughout the room.
We were very impressed with Willow who is an exceptionally bright and talented young girl.
Dad is also kind enough to attend these magical events with me.
The food was not that great, so you may not have enjoyed it, Mom, but you would have loved Willow.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #124 - Gloria Steinem
Hi Mom,
We went to see Gloria Steinem last night (Friday 11/7) at Miller Auditorium. I told Liesel I had to go. As someone who has proudly worn the label of feminist all of my adult life, especially the ten years that I taught the Gender and Media course in the Women's Studies department, I had to go see one of my heroes, a person for whom I have the utmost respect, and whom I was sure would inspire me further in her comments at Western Michigan University.
As a man, I have always had to explain my stand as a feminist. It was never something automatically accepted. In fact, some people felt that I could not be a feminist. I have faced vocal opposition to my feminism from men and women. I have faced a great deal of silent judgement from those reticent, for whatever reason, to confront me and engage in discourse that might end with agreeing with my stand. And I have been accused of posing, of using feminism as a way to pretend liberal thinking, even as a tool to charm women into bed, which is possibly the most offensive accusation of all.
And yet, boo hoo. Not a big deal. Not compared to the violent rape culture that our women must live in, not compared to the culture of inequality and harsh judgement that the women of the world must try to navigate every day. I am privileged, both as a white person and a male person, not to mention as someone living a middle class lifestyle. I not looking for sympathy.
All of this text serves only to point out how I have borne up through some resistance to call myself a feminist and to continue to do so, and how pleased I was when Steinem answered the first question of the night, texted by a thirteen-year-old boy, who asked if a man could be a feminist. In reply, Steinem said "abso-fucking-lutely." Thank you, Ms. Steinem. You just validated my life, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.
I was hoping there was a transcript available for the evening with Steinem. It's rather ridiculous that there is not a transcript. After all, there was a person signing the entire evening. I see transcribers in my college classes providing real-time transcripts for hearing-impaired students. Why is there no transcript?
Steinem said so many things that were inspiring or surprising. Facts and figures that I did not know, such as if we add up all the people killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York and all the people killed in military action in Afghanistan and Iraq since then, still, more women have been killed by their husbands and boyfriends since then. Astonishing.
One of the messages she stressed that resonated most powerfully with me was that "it's all connected." I am paraphrasing here, but Steinem said that there's no feminist who is against sexism who is not also against racism, not also against the way our planet is being raped and our natural resources depleted, not against classism, not also against discrimination based ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, ability, size, and whatever else people concoct to discriminate. These are all connected. The civil rights movement, the women's movement, the environmental movement, the LBGT movement. We cannot have one without the other. And then she further shattered the preconceptions of many people reminding us (or enlightening some for the first time) that we have invented these things. There is no such thing as different races in our ONE human race. Gender is a social construct and can be as varied and individual as there are individuals to express it. She explained people cannot look at these movements differently by saying, “We cannot see ourselves in silos. We are all a part of the same movement.”
I was happy to hear Steinem echo many things I spoke about during the decade I taught Gender Studies, but I was also inspired to hear the things that were not forefront of my mind, such as “you cannot perpetuate class difference, race difference, without controlling reproduction,” Steinem said.
(Parts of this text have been taken from the WESTERN HERALD without permission. See link below.).
Additionally, during her trip down the Nile River, Steinem observed the historical perspective of male dominance over women. In the first part of the river, Steinem said she saw statues of nature and goddesses; however, as the trip progressed, she noticed the goddess had a son but no daughter. At the end of the trip, Steinem said the goddess had been reduced to the throne which the Pharaoh sat on.
She also connected female violence to police violence by saying, “Police families experience four times the national rate of domestic violence.”
She contextualized this statistic with the George Zimmerman case. “Zimmerman was violent towards women, had we known that Treyvon Martin may be alive today,” she said.
Gloria Steinem drew connections between domestic abuse, sexual violence, war, and police brutality.
Steinem encouraged everyone to try to change the world by doing what they can using their unique gifts, one day at a time.
Ms. Steinem spoke about the importance of “truth telling” in order to create change in the world.
An audience member asked if Gloria Steinem considered herself to be an “intersectional” feminist. An intersectional feminism is: “The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society.” Examples of factors that contribute to these intersectional systems include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.
I know, Mom, that these issues are not ones that you cared overly much about. You were part of the Betty Crocker era and strongly identified with classic TV house wives and mothers. And yet, you would have listened politely as I told you about all of this, as you listened for years as I talked about what I was teaching in the class room.
I remember that I went to me first women's meeting with my good friend Julie Peck at Kalamazoo College in 1982. Many of the women there were less than inviting. No one told me that I was not welcome, but I definitely felt the unwelcome vibe.
And yet, I adopted the feminist label, even knowing it was flawed. Liesel and I agree that "humanist" is a better term, just as Steinem explained because these ideologies are all connected, shared, and they should work together. But we're not there yet. We're not ready yet as a culture to combine in a way that would be prevalent and easy.
The women's movement gave rise to Women's Studies departments on campuses just as the civil rights movement gave birth to African-American Studies departments. It was necessary to compartmentalize these issues while at the same time integrating this content, previously ignored or glossed over, to existing programs. Really, ultimately, there would be no need for separate departments to address a deficit in teaching. The teaching should be there in all departments, and the special programs should only exist for more in depth study.
But we're not there yet. We're not ready yet for the inclusion, but we're working for that goal and we're getting closer. But there's still so much resistance, so much denial. People do not want to acknowledge that we live in a rape culture. Many people vehemently resist that media products, such as Grand Theft Auto normalize and trivialize violence against women.
When I started teaching the gender course, I expected resistance to feminism from men. In fact, in my first few years enrollment by men in the course was very low. By the time I was "dismissed" from my role, I had tripled the enrollment by men. And yet, their resistance was often palpable, though more strongly to material I did each term on LBGT issues than feminism. Still, I modeled what a feminist looks like for my students. I modeled what I thought a man should be, or maybe rather could be, for the young men in my course.
And yet, I was baffled by resistance from women. They were not resisting the idea of me being a feminist. They resisted feminism, some ardently and with hostility. Others confessed that they agreed with everything I espoused, that feminism espoused, and yet they were reticent to call themselves feminists. They did not have the courage to take on the baggage that the feminist label carried. One friend of mine suggested that they feared that calling themselves a feminist because it would damage their attractiveness to men. I questioned why they would want to attract men that would feel that way about feminism.
But I was happy to see Miller Auditorium filled with 4000 some people loudly cheering feminism. Thanks WMU for showing Gloria Steinem that we appreciate her great work as one of the icons of feminism.
Steinem ended her presentation by saying the message, “Imagine we are linked, not ranked.”
There are great comments by students on the page at the previous link. Though I am happy to see how many were moved and inspired by Gloria Steinem, I am sad to see how many had not heard of her before. Obviously, our public school system fails to properly stand up someone like Ms. Steinem next to Martin Luther King and other movers and shakers in consciousness raising and paradigm shifting movements in our recent history.
I am late finishing this post, so it's Veteran's Day as I type this. I posted the following to Facebook.
"GRAND CANYON" by ani difranco
Lastly, I am ashamed to say that in my t-shirt year writing the t-shirt blog, I never got around to showing the THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE t-shirt. I am proud of that t-shirt. But what I wanted to write about it was taking too long. I have it planned but I never finished my essay. Here's four links of content that I did write about feminism, though. But none of this content really equals what I wrote here and still could write about this subject. Some of the posts only touch on feminism tangentially.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #123 - new license - the gmr
Hi Mom,
I need a quick entry because I have to send this back in time as I am writing this on Saturday morning, but it's for Friday.
Some may remember Hey Mom #16, I know you do Mom. I asked and I received my sign: I should not hold on to your license plate as my license plate out of sentimentality, and I certainly should not monogram my care as you did. I should do my own thing. As you can see, I did. Message received. Thank you.
Early feedback from people who don't know me think it may mean "the gamer" abbreviated to fit on the license. I am okay with that misinterpretation. It stands for Galactic Monkey Wrench. And yes, I know that should be GMW, but that sounds like a car. My good friend the LOC dubbed me the gmr many years ago without thinking carefully about the actual acronym. It stuck. It's me. I am the one who throws the monkey wrench into the galaxy. Yup.
So, I have a new license plate. But what did not occur to me previously is that I still HAVE Mom's license. It's just not on my car, but I could frame it and hang it on my wall.
More later, Mom. Went to Gloria Steinem tonight and going to a magic show with Dad tomorrow. I want to write about these things, so that's up next. Plus, I have on more song to do for the seven songs in seven days.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
