1. OMG! Democrats and treehugger organizations! Stop! Emailing! Me! I am happy you are not killing trees anymore for the purpose of decrying Republicans’ environmental depredations (The irony! It burns!), but what about the poor little hamsters on treadmills powering the internet? Don’t they deserve some consideration?

2. What is wrong with me? Seriously. Why am I one mouseclick and one freelance project check away from clicking the Buy button on this thing (creepy animal warning)? I found this site from a link on some random blog and I sent Jim this link and he said he would consider repiercing his ear(s) to wear them and then I was all NO! You can’t have them! I want them! I also know that if we got either item, our cats would never recover.

3. Speaking of (and I appear to be traipsing down a fairly gross path here, so proceed at your own risk), if you wash the cover of your butterfly chair and you take the batting out to do so and one of your cats who likes to eat fabric and the like munches on said batting? A day or two later, she will walk around with what looks like an extra bunny-rabbit-type fluffy tail and you will be mystified until you are all ewewewew because that’s not a tail, that is an incompletely-poo’d poo full of batting protruding from her rear. And then you will have to pull it the rest of the way out because batting is apparently difficult for cats to pass cleanly.

4. Backing away from the grossness: a kid-hack. The child, lo, she doth dawdle with the dressing for school. And then I remembered that she is insanely competitive (hello, birthright!) and so we have been having “Getting Dressed Contests” every morning. She usually wins, which is not difficult if you do not care that your underpants are on backwards or your socks are on inside out. So, there is my suggestion, if you have a dawdler with a competitive streak.

5. We are thinking about our next step in schooling Eliza and on the list of possibilities is a local charter school. Students are chosen by random lottery so I had to submit our application this morning to have her included. Now, you should know that the thought of my little kid going to kindergarten is freaking me way the hell out — much more so than preschool ever did. Like, heart palpitations-level freaking out. All those big kids! My little one! Homework! Lord of the Flies! Bullies! OMG! I can’t think about it too much. However, this morning, when I walked in from the parking lot to the new school to drop off her application, a little dude, about elbow high on me, rushed ahead of me, pulled open the door, and held it for me with a friendly smile. And on the way out, a girl did the same. I don’t think I can convey to you how comforting I found this.

Now all that’s left to worry about is whether or not Eliza’s name will be drawn in the lottery. Jim attempted to reassure me this morning that since I had had a hard time finding the submission info on their website, maybe others would too, and we wouldn’t have too much competition.

This is what Jim and Eliza did with their afternoon. Look in the lower right hand corner for Barney to poke his head in.

Also, if you want the password for the protected post, email me at elizasmo_ atsign _ elizasmom _period _ com

Hey, universe: do you want me to be an angry feminazi? Because it sure seems like it.

Today, shortly before dinner, Eliza started decompensating rapidly with an alleged stomach ache that progressed to weepiness.

The symptoms were kind of erratic and odd and her reaction was kind of strange too — veering between honest-to-god distress and crocodile tears.

It finally dawned on me that something else might be going on, and I asked her if there was anything that was making her upset. She hemmed and hawed for a minute but then it came out. This kid at morning school, who I sense, from her comments, is something of an alpha male among the 5 and under set, gave her grief/made fun of her lunch. Also, he doesn’t like girls. Any of ‘em. On account of they’re girls. And is vocal about same. And one of the other kids says girls can’t play Star Wars. Only boys. As in, only boys are good enough/girls can’t do swordplay.

That mushroom cloud that enveloped the eastern seaboard at about 6:30 tonight eastern time? That was my head exploding.

I suspect it is bad form to call 5-year-olds what I called these two when I relayed the conversation to Jim later, but OMGWTF!

Is it really necessary to spice up the whole mean-kid dynamic with such a liberal helping of sexism? And yes, I know little kids are all, “Ew, cooties!” about the opposite sex, but this, as it was experienced by Eliza and relayed to me, was definitely about girls being less than.

I did NOT follow my first impulse, which was to encourage her to kick them in the nuts, although I did tell her that it would be perfectly OK to ask, nicely, that Mr. Lunch Nazi mind his own effing business, and that if people are mean to us, we are under no obligation to give them the time of day and that she was well within her rights to ignore him and play with other boys and girls instead. You know: Don’t feed the trolls.

And then I talked about Princess Leia and how people who say girls can’t do something are just wrong and we shouldn’t listen to that and don’t EVER let someone tell her that girls aren’t just as good as boys and then I stopped because I think I was getting a little scary.

I suspect I am STILL being a little scary, so I’m going to go walk it off now.

For Christmas, my mom bought me a subscription to Runner’s World, which I love because it’s this weird mix of inspirational running tales, geeked out running humor, esoteric product reviews and assorted other randomness.

The latest issue included a story about Scott Jurek, who is an ultra-distance runner — one of those guys for whom a marathon is a warm-up for the real thing. It’s sort of a Behind-The-Music-type tale of his triumphs and failings, all centered around his participation on a 24-hour run on a track. He’s struggling, a lot, and thinking about dropping out, and in the article, his girlfriend, Jenny Uehisa, tries to motivate him by saying “to an onlooker, ‘Tell him he ran so slow at Mont Blanc that he got chicked twice.’ (That’s racing lexicon for being passed by a woman.)” (From Runner’s World April 2010, P. 90)

Well! I’m sure you can begin to guess where I’m going with this, because, WOW, the sexism in this comment, the assumption that the humiliation of being passed by, God forbid, one of those lesser creatures that has the temerity to run whilst in possession of a vagina, would motivate someone! I don’t know what’s sadder, that there’s actually a pejorative term for being passed by a woman, or that this woman has so internalized the contempt in which women athletes are held that she would use it.

The comment’s been stuck in my head ever since I read it and I used it as fuel yesterday in my one-woman quest to prove them wrong. It was, unsurprisingly, quite effective. I ran the distance 2 1/2 minutes faster than I’ve ever run it before and finished in the top third of the field, total, and 15th for women from my city, and I chicked as many dudes as possible. Yes, I’m bragging (you may roll your eyes… NOW!).

I was interviewed after the race by a reporter I knew and made a point of mentioning that I had previously taught a karate class. If you get chicked, it is because you’ve been beaten by the better athlete who ran the better race, and not that you’ve been humiliated by a creature with particularly objectionable sex organs and therefore you are weak, weak, weak. I doubt either of those two people above will ever read it, but I had to say it anyway.

I’m not fighting the big global fights for women’s rights, but this is something I can do, this chipping away at attitudes of contempt and dismissal toward women. I think I have to because I believe that everything you send out into the universe affects it, and so I hope that maybe it’ll tip the scales a little bit more toward respect for women and girls.

***

The fun stuff

1. Last year, I was beaten by a banana. This year, it was two dudes dressed head to toe in spandex. Dayglo green spandex, and when I say head to toe, I mean they were wearing body stockings that covered everything including their faces.

2. At most races, volunteers with the racing organizers set up watering stations and everything’s very orderly. In this city, it’s more ad hoc. Random people along the route go to the store and buy a couple flats of water and have their kindergartners handing out bottles, and young dudes who are three sheets to the wind across the street are doing the same with little cups of beer.

3. There’s a guy who stands at the exact midpoint of the race, who is not affiliated with the race, but who starts his watch when the people at the mile markers do, and he yells out time just like them, and tells you you’re halfway there. I love that dude so much, because the halfway mark is usually where I start composing blog entries that I will clearly be publishing from beyond the grave because in just another minute the hill will kill me dead.

4. The cheering is pretty fantastic, too — the bystanders yell like it’s their JOB. My favorite was the house of young women, probably in their late teens, early 20s, who spotted a pair of young boys, maybe 10 years old, zipping through the crowd and decided to encourage them. “LITTLE GUYS! GO LITTLE GUYS! WHOOOOOOO!” they shrieked, wolf-whistling expertly. It was simultaneously totally inappropriate and heartwarming.

5. My city is cool because anyone can have a DJ playing U2 for a St. Patty’s Day race, but my city plays The Sawdoctors at several points during the first half mile.

6. I have officially abandoned running races with earphones. It allows me to strategize better, and that thing I said once about it being much more satisfying to pass people when you can hear them panting? Still true.

7. Me, waving and yelling at Eliza and Jim as I passed them. You can’t see it but my finger and toe nails were also green. This, plus the green t-shirt, made me among the more restrained racers, colorwise. The dayglo guys are a few yards out of the frame in this shot, although you can see the leg of a dude who ran shirtless and in green tights behind me: