You're Not the Boss of Me

So the other day I was taking some Facebook quizzes (I should live in Paris), and I came across one called "What Kind of Wife Are You?" Despite the fact that I am not a wife, I do think that I would be pretty kick-ass at it, and not in a scary desperate-to-get-married-and-make-babies kind of way, but in a stuck up, condescending, over-it-all kind of way. Like I could be a wife if I wanted to be, but I'm not, but I'm still good at it.

And of course, my suspicions were confirmed. According to some Facebook app, I'm totally a good wife.

But this isn't just another blog about how great I am. There are plenty of those already. This one is about my favorite favorite question on the quiz.

It said something like your husband comes home and tells you to quit your job. Your response is.

Now, before I tell you what I said, I have to qualify my response by saying that most of the answer choices were a little absurd and some kind of mean. One was that you'd tell your husband that there was no way you could afford to quit your job on his "puny" paycheck. But my response was "laugh in his face," mostly because the idea that Wes or anyone would say that to me is facially absurd. I'm not saying I'd never quit my job because my nonexistent husband asked me too for a really important reason. But if he told me to, well, either he'd be kidding, or we'd soon be going through a real divorce.

I'm an Idiot and Other Thoughts on Running

So after recovering from the awesome flu of death, which sidelined me for 9 days (!), I started running again on Wednesday. Immediately after my little 4-mile jaunt downtown with Katie, she and I went to an inversion workshop at Lululemon. I can now totally do a headstand and a handstand, and yes, I would love to show you.

But then I went for my usual Thursday morning run and my hip HURT. Now, I've been having left hip/glute/hamstring problems for some time now--since about September of 2007. I've briefly seen a massage therapist and chiropractor about it, but mostly I just kept running and complaining. Hip pain that started at mile 9 played a big part in my MCM meltdown. But this is bad. I'm not sure what set it off--I don't remember falling on it when doing inversions, though I do tend to fall left. And for the record I do remember falling and hitting my back (twice, once on the door knob at home) and hitting my head once really hard. But my hip?

I thought I figured out the cause of the pain several times. I've certainly temporarily improved it, but now, after a year and a half, I've reached the point where all running hurts. And I just took 9 days off. Ibuprofen worked until it didn't (ahem, marathon day), weight lifting is making me jacked, but not in the right places, yoga has loosened me up, and all this has made me faster to the tune of a sub-47 minute 10k, but my legs still hurt. So I'm going to go to the doctor.

Of course I don't want any anti-inflammatories (very bad for your stomach) and God forbid a cortisone shot, and I'm not a huge fan of the natural remedy of not running, but maybe something can be done. Because I cannot crack 3:40 with this kind of pain, and if I don't do something now I'm not going to be able to run a marathon at all. Eight miles was torture this morning, and I'm supposed to do 14 tomorrow, but I highly doubt that will happen.

In other better running news, Jezebel had a post up about women marathoners, which led to some awesome discussion in the comments and a neato facebook group for Jezebel-reading marathoners. And at the risk of sounding like the creeper I am, Jezebel-reading marathoners are probably all my soul mates. So anyway, one of them writes a great new blog on running. Check it out.

Cleaning My Damn House

That's what I've been doing all day. So much so that my legs are exhausted, as I've been standing up since like 1pm. Wes and I are entertaining this weekend (aren't we every weekend, haha), so it's time for me to put away all those piles of things to put away later.

So far, I've pretty well managed to avoid an unequal gender division of labor, where I do all the work while Wes sits around and you know, does man things like watch tv or drink beer. I have a secret weapon--I'm lazy. Like crazy lazy. And I hate cleaning. And I have a really high tolerance for clutter. Not filth, clutter. So I'll wipe up stuff like the sinks, but I'm pretty laid back about the rest. And, because I'm totally lazy, I have absolutely no qualms about asking Wes to help me.

I've read articles about training or nagging men into helping you (Linda Hirschman has some extreme ideas in Get to Work--hey, where is my copy of that?), but usually I just ask Wes or complain about having to do it and he does it. Even though I'm by far the messier one. So at the risk of jinxing myself, cleaning my house is not as bad as it could be. Though I hear it could get worse (and here I'm trying to link to a Feministing post whose permalink isn't working, but it says that co-habitating men do more housework than married men. Reason #8,567 why I'm not getting married... Reason #8,568 is that Wes announced today that he likes the name Felon for a child, Felony for a girl.)

Anyway, I also did this today! Hooray for Halloween!

We Salute You

Earlier today I went to the 9:30 Club from about noon to 1. It was very strange--I've been to the 9:30 Club many many times, but never walked out into the sun before.

But I was there for the first Girls Rock! DC Showcase. GR!DC is a rock camp for girls by women. My sister, Kate, volunteered there, and she's pretty much been bouncing off the wall all week with excitement. I know this, and I've only talked to her like twice.

So sometimes it's exhausting to be a feminist, but sometimes, times like this morning, it's completely exhilarating. This camp is all about teaching girls to rock and all the attendant values and virtues that come along with "rocking"--of which there are many, I can assure you after seeing this morning's show.

I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I fought back tears a few times. Watching a little girl spin is such a non-sequiter, but that's the point. With some notable exceptions, female DJs are few, and, like lots of women in male-dominated fields, women musicians have to work harder than their male counterparts to prove themselves. My dad once told me he just doesn't like women singers. (That feeling you can't seem to place when you dislike a woman but just can't explain it? Yeah, that's sexism.) Though he also doesn't care about lyrics, so we don't have much to talk about when it comes to music.

So, in the last week, these girls formed bands, practiced or learned to play instruments, wrote a song, and cultivated their image. And without exception, their songs were fun, and their images were fierce. There was a lot of confidence on display--a trait that can be so rare and vulnerable in teen girls. One band, the Beat Queens ("like a drum, not like a vegetable") were all about 8 years old and had a whole routine worked out where they asked each other and the audience "Are you ready?" "Thank you, America," Queen Adia, the lead singer, shouted at the end of her set and again at the end of the GR!DC camp song. We ran into her after brunch, and she gave me her autograph.

Some girls are born with that kind of confidence, and I suspect Queen Adia is such a child. But some of us have had to constantly choke down self-doubt and fear and shyness to ever get anything done, and I saw a lot of those girls on stage today too. They're the ones who made me cry, because if they can realize at such a young age that it's awesome to be a girl and to have attitude and style and confidence and not worry about what anyone else thinks, then their lives are going to be that much better, starting today.