The This-Next Controversy Continues

Conversation at work this morning:

Director of Development: Hey, Grants Writer, does Rosh Hashanah start this Monday or next Monday?
Grants Writer (who happens to be Jewish, clearly): ...do you mean... next Monday or the Monday after that?
DD: No - I mean this Monday or next Monday.
GW: But this Monday already happened.
DD: What? No, I mean...
Me (explosively, I will admit): No, GW, this Monday is the Monday that's three days from now, and next Monday is the Monday following that!
GW: No, this Monday is the Monday of this week, and next Monday is the Monday of next week.
Me: No, that is completely untrue.
Intern (not only doing awesome work for me, but also having my back, woo!): She's totally right about this, this Monday is the upcoming Monday.
DD: THANK YOU! I fight with my husband about this all the time!
Me: Yeah, well, tell him he's wrong. And GW is wrong, too.
GW: OK, clearly you've recently gotten into a fight about this very subject [funny, because he's occasionally read this blog...]. But I think I'm right and, DD, I'm going to call your husband and tell him he's right, too.
Me: No, you're wrong, and do I have to remind you that DD is your supervisor? I don't know if you want to be stirring up shit in her home life, given that she could make things difficult for you.
GW: ...Rosh Hashanah begins on Monday the 29th. Does that answer your question?
DD: Yes. Thank you.... MCM, do you have any documentation on this, so I can prove to my husband he's wrong?

And so I seem to have stumbled into a project....

Save Bitch!

OK, I never imagined I'd be promoting a cause here, especially given that I have all of about 4 readers... but I think Bitch Magazine (subtitle: Feminist Response to Pop Culture) is a really important voice in today's climate, where feminism is either dismissed as irrelevant/outdated, dismissed as women being a bunch of whiny dykes or, in the last few weeks, weirdly co-opted by a woman whose history doesn't seem to imply all that much concern for women's rights.

I think Broadsheet puts it better than I can:

Bitch's themed issues -- on such broad and varied subjects as "Risk" and "Maturity & Immaturity" -- dissect the arts, the media and the larger cultural conversation through the lenses of gender and sexuality. The quarterly magazine is one of a very few remaining sources of sensible, contemporary, long-form feminist critique. While I don't always agree with Bitch's articles, the magazine unfailingly challenges me to think harder about the films I watch, the music I listen to, the news I read and the culture I live in.

Even if you don't give, check Bitch out, and tell other folks about it. I would consider just exposing more people to their awesome work an important victory....

Irrationally Annoyed (and Defensive!)

So I just sent someone this e-mail:

You are all set with one ticket for next Sunday, 9/28.

And got this response:

that's 2 sundays from now. 9/28. thanks.

And I really really really want to write back and say, yes, that's next Sunday. THIS Sunday would be 9/21, whereas NEXT Sunday is 9/28. And why do people always get that confused? Seriously, it's not that hard! And now you think I'M the dumb-ass when, in reality, clearly it is YOU who are the dumb-ass! And yes, the correct verb there is ARE, not IS, because it corresponds with YOU. RAR!

In the interest of keeping the peace, though, I should probably just ignore it.

Neither H, nor N-E....

When the husband and I were married, we were committed, first and foremost, to each other. We wanted to celebrate each other, and our life together, to the fullest before we even considered having children.

And when I say "considered," please know that that word is chosen very carefully. We went into our marriage knowing that nothing was a foregone conclusion. Frankly, it bothers me that so many people assume that having children is simply "what you do" after committing your life to another person (the same way it bothers me when women don't, for even a moment, stop and question whether they should take their husband's name upon marriage... but that's another discussion for another day).

It is a HUGE decision, not one to be entered into lightly. And it's certainly not a task that everyone is up for. Some people recognize that, and choose to opt out of parenthood, and are inevitably told that they will regret their decision some day. Other people go ahead and have kids, having had it drilled into them that it is the "right" thing to do, and never stop to question whether it's the right thing for them, for their marriage, for their life plans, or for the children in question. We didn't want to be those people - we wanted to make decisions on our terms and, if we did choose to have children, wait until we felt we were ready.

And we told people that - "don't assume we're going to have children." That phrase came out of both of our mouths several times, particularly in the first year or two of our marriage.

Many people took that to mean "we aren't going to have children." It makes me sad that we live in a society where people really do equate "I'm not chomping at the bit to reproduce right now, please don't make any assumptions about our future plans" with "I have no intention of having children, ever." One family member recently said to me, "You were so adamant about not having children!" Frankly, I got defensive upon hearing that, and responded, "No, that was never true. We were adamant that no one should make assumptions one way or the other."

We've talked about what the right choice is for us for quite a while. And we began referring to a future with HNEC... our Hypothetical, Non-Existent Child. Potential career changes? "Well, if you got a new job, maybe it would make sense for me to work part-time and spend some of my time with HNEC." The possibility of another pet? "I don't know, Floyd might have to get used to HNEC at some point, too." Moving? "Well, there's the chance we'd need another room for HNEC."

HNEC became a topic of conversation more and more often. Until the revelation that we probably shouldn't refer to it as HNEC any longer when it became neither hypothetical nor non-existent.

So now, five months in, we're calling it Osmodiar. Osmo for short.

Living the Dream

In one of Chicago's tonier suburbs over the weekend, I saw a fancy-schmancy new Lexus with a vanity license plate reading CLICHE.

I couldn't decide whether I found it amusing or ridiculous.