BlogHer Topic - Life - Editor's Picks

White Lies and Valentines

Karen Milling — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:25:01 +0000

Every once in a while, one of my clients innocently asks, “Are you married?” This always stops me in my tracks. Even if I see it coming, it forces me to pause, to think about how to answer.

Image: ish called wanda via Flickr

I’m a massage therapist. Basically, I go into a dark room with naked strangers for a living. There is, of course, much more to a therapeutic relationship than that. There is a great deal of trust involved. Clients trust me to care for them and respect them, as well as maintain their boundaries, both physical and emotional. It can be a delicate balance sometimes. We are two individuals. We might be as different as could be, and yet we agree to spend an hour or so together in a situation that makes both of us somewhat vulnerable.

In massage school, I took ethics classes in which I was instructed not to talk about myself to my clients. I’m to let the client guide any conversation that may or may not occur. And I learned to set my own boundaries regarding what and how much I share with my clients, if anything.

So when the questions begin — like, “How long have you been doing this?” “Are you from here?” “Do you have any kids?” — my answers are short and polite, and I quickly turn the conversation back to the client or to the massage: “I wonder if the pain you’re experiencing in your arm is due to nerve entrapment?”

But when they ask if I am married, everything changes.

Suddenly I have to decide. Do I tell the truth and risk upsetting my client if they are conservative and anti-gay? I’m compassionate enough to imagine that a homophobic person would feel very uncomfortable lying naked in a dark room and being touched by a lesbian. Not to mention the discomfort I would feel. Do I lie? Which way shall I lie? Tell them I have a husband? Or tell them no, I’m not married? Or do I say something neutral like, “I prefer not to discuss my personal relationships?” — in which case I’ve probably raised their suspicions and so I might as well have told the truth.

I hardly think a straight massage therapist would be faced with the same conundrum.

Today it was a perfectly sweet Midwestern woman who asked me if I was married. She was retired, travelling with her husband on a two-month adventure in their motor home.

I lied to her — and then my heart broke and all I could think of was my beautiful wife, whom I love and love and love.

Maybe I would have been pleasantly surprised. Maybe if I had spoken the truth my client would have said, “Oh wonderful! Tell me about your wife.” I won’t ever know. Is it even my place to test that boundary during a massage?

It’s Valentine’s Day. Carla and I are celebrating. We love each other to the ends of the earth and back again. We will keep loving each other every minute of every day until our days are done. And someday, during our lifetimes, I hope I will be able to tell each and every person I meet how proud I am of my beautiful wife and expect nothing more than a smile in return.

I’ll just keep loving her until we get there.

Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.

You Don't Know How To Clean So I'll Show You

Heather Clisby — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:03:40 +0000

This post has taken way too long to arrive. Finally, someone better than me can handily take control of my filthy household:

"After reading blogs for a couple of years I’ve come to the realization that if a blogger doesn’t tell you how to do something, you probably don’t know how to do it. How did I make oatmeal, fold laundry, run, or even know how to take awkward photos of myself making strange faces before I started reading them? Upon this epiphany I realized that I’ve never told you how to properly clean. How many of you are just sitting on your laptop in eight feet of trash and filth just waiting for me to help you? Millions? Billions? So, here you go: The proper way to clean. And don’t worry, if you already think you know how to clean, you probably don’t. Whatever you are doing, it is wrong."

Image credit: skampy via Flickr, Creative Commons.

On Not Being 'Good Enough'

Heather Clisby — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:10:49 +0000

A Christian woman strives to see herself through a more loving, more accepting pair of eyes:

"I had a thought a few weeks ago... What if all these fears were in fact a bunch of lies? What if I treated them as such; nothing but tall tales and untruths? How would that play into my every day life, if I daily refused to listen to the lies of not being good enough?"

Image credit: Scarleth White via Flickr, Creative Commons.

Why LGBTQ Discrimination in Writing Contests Hurts Everyone

readingreality — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:30:00 +0000

In many romance novels there's a scene where one party rips open the other party's shirt, and there are buttons popping all over the place. The last few days have been just like that in the Romance Publishing world, but so far, no one is heading towards the usual steamy sex scene.

But there is so much steam that even Publishers Weekly noticed. LGBTQ authors were steamed to discover that after several years of doing quite well in the "More Than Magic" contest sponsored each year by Romance Writers Ink (RWI), the Oklahoma Chapter of Romance Writers of America (RWA), same sex romances were specifically disqualified from competing in the 2012 contest. The reason given was that "some members of the chapter felt 'uncomfortable' with the same-sex entries."

The information about this discomfort was revealed in an impassioned message that Heidi Cullinan, the President of the Rainbow Romance Writers (RRW), posted on her personal blog. The Rainbow Romance Writers are a Special Interest Chapter of the RWA.

The Rainbow Romance Writers specialize in LGBT romance. It says so right there on their home page. Romance Writers Ink states their own purpose, quoted from their website, as:

The purpose of RWI is to promote excellence in romantic fiction, to advance the professional interests of career-focused romance writers through networking and advocacy, to provide a general basis of mentorship to any writer who is actively, and seriously striving to become published and thus establish a career in the romance genre, as well as to provide a camaraderie for writers within the romance publishing industry.

Disqualifying an entire group of career-focused romance writers because they write same-sex romance seems to run counter to this charter.

Probably as a result of the attention brought to bear on this issue, RWI has cancelled the 2012 contest. This is a loss for everyone involved. Contests like this are one of the ways that genre authors (any genre), gain recognition. Being able to say that their book won a contest represents a terrific sales boost. There had to have been a better way.

Speaking of contests and sales boosts, what about the Romance Writers of America? Because the RWA contains special interest chapters like Rainbow Romance Writers and the Chick Lit Writers of the World, the RWA does not police the guidelines for any contests its chapters might choose to have. After all, the Chick Lit chapter does only admit Chick Lit, and asking them to allow anything else would just be, well, weird. On the other hand, expecting a general chapter like Romance Writers Ink, which is not a special interest group, to accept all forms of romance seems reasonable to most readers.

Credit: Horia Varlan on Flickr

Which comes back to the Romance Writers of America. There are no categories in the RITAs (their annual awards) for same-sex romances. There is a category for Young Adult romances, and there is one for Inspirational Romances. Why Inspirational gets its own category but same-sex doesn't is a head-shaker to me.

I'm not a member of any of the organizations involved, not RWA or RWI or RRW. So why do I care?

First. I publish Ebook Review Central. I cover several LGBTQ publishers. I cover those publishers because their books are popular. ERC is not about my personal taste, and it never has been. It's always been about promoting ebooks, about what is getting read, what is interesting to readers, and also what my fellow librarians have a difficult time finding reviews for.

Second. Awards and contests matter. It's difficult to get started as an author, and incredibly hard to keep going. The kind of recognition represented by winning a contest means increased sales every time a reader sees the list of award winners, and every time an agent or a publisher sees an author's list of credits. Being automatically disqualified because of the genre one chooses to write in is just plain wrong.

Third. Romance is already stigmatized. We have enough problems without creating internal ghettos. Let's stop poking sticks at each other.

Fourth and most important. Prejudice hurts everyone. Always.

--
Marlene Harris
Reading Reality, LLC
marlene@readingreality.net
www.readingreality.net
ph: 404-984-4535
twitter: @readingreality

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Dealing With Adult Bullies

Chivas Sandage — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:18:07 +0000

As I walked along the narrow, tree-lined, lovely-even-if-in-disrepair road that leads to our little house in our own particular corner of a town I’ll call Paradise, I saw the bully next door approaching me. He isn’t a scowling little boy or even teenager, but the scowling grown man who rents the house and barn next door. “Scowling Bob” rode slowly toward me on his red motorcycle.

Since moving to our cozy yellow Ranch house in this friendly community more village than town—and this is the first house I’ve ever lived in that we (me and a partner or parents) actually own—the one disappointment is having a next door neighbor who’s not just unfriendly and negative but thinks nothing of yelling at my wife and me from time to time. Then there’s the unleashed dogs rushing us, their poop scattered across our property, the muscle cars, trucks, motorcycles and numerous boats (yes, boats) and for a long time the camper (yes, camper) parked right up next to our fence, a camper in which strange men would sometimes live for a while (yes, live).

Because Bob and his friends share a “hobby” of working on muscle cars and boats, we live with the loud rumbling of revving and repeated testing of engines and sometimes there’s a party with a circle of unfriendly (to us) drunk and shirtless men laughing raucously amongst several cases of beer. Once, as I stood on my front porch, the entire group looked over at me as they laughed. I felt like I was in an un-pc beer commercial and the joke was on me.

Image: Jan Tik via Flickr

Once, near tears after a long afternoon of revving motors, I made the mistake of walking around the fence to ask Bob when the noise might end. He became defensive and began loudly ranting. The other men started defending him—one of them also raising his voice. We had to leave our property—as we often do—and take a hike (literally) for a little peace.

Regardless of how he treats us, when his dog (unleashed) was struck by a driver that took off, my wife went to him and asked if she could help in some way. He yelled at her (like he yells at his dog), even cursing, then sped off (endangering other people’s dogs) to go find the driver (rather than immediately helping his dog). Nor did he ever apologize.

For the record, every other person we’ve met on our street is friendly; this is not a “northerner issue.” And I appreciate muscle cars, admire a wide variety of motorcycles and trucks (especially my wife’s red Tundra) and my best girlfriend is a Harley girl!

To be fair, the NASCAR party next door becomes relatively quiet in the winter, which is why what happened a few days ago stands out.

Returning from a walk, I was in a goofy, transcendental state of mind, just feeling grateful for cliché things like being alive and healthy on such a gorgeous, oddly warm, winter day.

I grew up in a part of the world where folks—including strangers—are usually friendly to one another on the street, in stores and driving. Neighbors even more so. Before moving here, I rented on a block where my neighbors quickly became friends. We were respectful, helpful, generous, and looked out for one another, even driving each other to the ER on occasion.

So when I saw Bob approaching on his motorcycle, I chose to smile and wave. It was sincere—maybe a little vulnerable and nerdy if anything. I don’t have any ill-will toward the dude, regardless of how hard it is to be his neighbor, so I chose to smile and wave (as I often do) because that’s how I treat any other neighbor. Why should I treat Bob differently just because he acts like a miserable, hostile human being when he sees us? As usual, I felt it would actually take more out of me to participate in his game than to be myself.

However, Bob chose to actually behave like a bully on the school yard. A grown man—he actually tilted his head and gave me a cynical “mean-smile” face almost identical to the little boy's expression (on the left) in the terrific pic below!

Image: groovingdan via Flickr

The usual glare looks much like the little one's on the right. Yes, some expressions are cutest on kids!

Bob expresses his ill-will toward my wife and me in countless ways and this particular “mean-boy” behavior is certainly the smallest, funniest example. We don’t know what’s behind Bob’s animosity and hope it’s not homophobia in the raw. It’s hard to not “go there” when we’re the only same-sex married couple for miles.

Perhaps it’s just a case of the little bully on the playground growing older but not up?

Gay Acceptance in the NHL?

Heather Clisby — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:53:00 +0000

When Brian Burke, General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, appeared as a guest on George Stromboloupous' show last week, he discussed the concept of an openly gay player in the NHL. Burke was confident that any player coming out would find a more tolerant, welcoming atmosphere than they might expect. A Canadian (and therefore, a hockey fan) posted her thoughts:

"What I liked is that Brian looked straight into the camera as he offered words of encouragement and support to any one watching who may be struggling with this decision. It’s obvious he recognizes that, as a leader in the NHL, he has influence in terms of disrupting systemic homophobia in the sport of hockey. And society in general."

Image credit: George Stromboloupous Show.

Words With Friends: A Metaphor for Life

Heather Clisby — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:24:37 +0000

After much prodding from a friend, I began my very first WWF game yesterday and already, I see the wisdom of this post:

"Life Lesson: Shit or get off the pot. If you wait too long to make decisions someone or something will decide for you—and you may not like the outcome."

Image credit: Incase via Flickr, Creative Commons.

I Hated to Pray

simplyjune — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:43:55 +0000

The first thing you need to know is that for the first few years of marriage, I hated saying prayers. Let me clarify that... I didn't hate praying in general, I had no problem saying my own personal prayers, I just didn't like to pray in front of others. I hated how it made me feel, because I would compare prayers.

Image: Ghislain & Marie David De Lossy/Cultura via ZUMA Press.

I had been taught to speak to my Heavenly Father with respect but also like I would talk to my own father and that's exactly what I had always done. That is until I married my sweet husband.

His voice is deep and commanding even when he whispers. You can't help but listen when he speaks because he is somehow able to convey the sincerity, conviction and strength of the good man he is from the very first word. I still remember the first time we knelt as a couple by the side of the bed. He took the first turn and I was blown away. It was a beautiful, perfectly worded and heart filled prayer that sounded more like the prayers I had heard over the pulpit. I even asked him one day, if he had taken a class on praying when he was at BYU. I was totally serious and NO, he did not. For example...

Brian would say something like: "Father, we ask that Thou will bless us through this trial. Bless us with patience, that we may learn from our experiences. We know Thou doest hear and answer our prayers."

On the other hand, I would say something like this: "Seriously, I'm trying to have faith but I can't take much more. Please help me not to have a complete melt down before this trial is over. I've learned enough. I've heard people say having lots of money can be a trial of sorts. Can I please trade for that one? Sorry, I was kidding. Uh, sort of..."

I would remember a talk I once heard where the woman speaking said if a prayer wasn't sincere enough, the person praying would have a "stupor of thought" after he said Amen. I can't count the number of times I ended my prayer saying "Amen" followed by a voice in my head saying, 'Don't think anything stupid. Dont think anything stupid..' leading in to, 'Oh my gosh, I just said that in my head...and it was stupid! Agh!!!!!'

Next to my dear husband, my prayers sounded ridiculous. Or so I thought. It took a while but eventually I grew to understand a few important things about praying. Once my children were old enough to learn about prayer, it sunk in even more.

I realized the words I use are not nearly as important as the spirit in which those words are spoken. It doesn't matter if your voice is loud and strong or soft and shaking, as long as it speaks the truth. It doesn't matter who's turn it is as long as you pray with your family and teach your children to do the same.

At the end of the day, whether it is personal prayer, a prayer in front of others, family prayer, or the prayer of a child, the important thing is that we PRAY. Period.

~June

www.simplyjunehaskell@blogspot.com

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Photo Essay: The Stark Beauty of Winter

Heather Clisby — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:21:22 +0000

Yesterday, Punxsutawney Phil declared six more weeks of winter and today, I awoke to eight inches of magical white stuff outside my Denver window. Such seasonal signs set the mood for this lovely photo essay by a sensitive woman with a trusty camera and (I'm guessing) a big parka. Enjoy!:

"Sunrise moments after an ice storm are always beautiful here on my Vermont hilltop. But the subtle drama of the storm itself —freezing rain, fog and mist— are equally compelling; pulling me like a siren song from the cozy warmth of my studio. And although it took an effort to walk through the garden pathways in such slippery conditions, the surprises I found round each and every corner made the chilly, wet excursion more than worthwhile …"

Is Your Past Truly Yours?

thosegraces — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:55:46 +0000

Last night I sat down intending to write about breaking up with friends, but I found myself tiptoeing around my own past in favor of speaking vaguely about my own friend breakup. Instead, I found myself holding back and hesitant about sharing specifics. It got me thinking: Which parts of my past are truly mine alone?

Image: theogeo via Flickr

Most of my important life moments involve friends, exes, family members and random strangers. Despite the presence of other actors in my past, it is just that: My past. And I think it deserves to be examined irregardless of how others feel.

In this so-called digital age, navigating your own past is even more muddled. With every open Facebook entry, tweet and blog post, there is always the off chance that anyone could see it, and think, “Well, that’s not who you were ten years ago!” or “How dare you write about me?!”

My older sister said she didn’t care what people thought about her. I paused and told her, “I don’t know if I care what other people think of me.” Having shared huge parts of my life online, I wonder how future employers will view my online identity. After all, we are told what we put on the Internet is forever. Believe me, I can still find my bad high school poetry.

When it comes to coming to terms with my own past, I wonder if it is something that should be kept offline in journals and therapy sessions. Is the past something to be dealt with privately and not publicly? This is an honest question because I honestly do not have an answer.

While at the bookstore a few months ago, I picked up a memoir where a mother lamented not sharing her life until she was well into her 50s. I found myself wondering if we should all be sharing and processing more. If we shared more of ourselves, would we all be better for it?

Originally posted on ThoseGraces.com

Courtney

@MsFemminista

Those Graces | Beauty Shy