Bump out the word songwriting and replace it with blogging, and I think Mr. Grohl has ultimately explained why we post, why we comment, why we jump off of each other’s ideas to form our own blog posts as a response, why we read.  That blogging, at its root, like all art forms, is about assuaging loneliness, about reaching out, about getting to hear a “me too.”  And that goes for reading blogs just as much for writing blogs.

There is a reason why I post online rather than leaving all these thoughts in a paper journal in a desk drawer.  And it goes beyond the fact that the technology exists, that it is possible for every person who has access to a computer to post their writing.

I’ve never told anyone this in an interview before, but when I was a teenager I had this little boom box, and I’d listen to music before going to bed. It was also a recorder. I would talk to the recorder about my problems as I was going to sleep. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I’d rewind the tape, play it and fall asleep listening to myself talking about my problems. Isn’t that weird? I think I take a similar approach with song writing. There are some things that you don’t want to say out loud, but for some reason when there are 10,000 people saying it with you, it makes it all right.

Every time I put those words out there, make myself read my own thoughts much in the same way Dave Grohl replayed his recordings, read the comments telling me that they feel the same way, I feel more connected to the world.  Every time I read a blog, recognize the emotions being described, understand myself better, finally have words to explain something I’ve struggled to comprehend, I feel more connected to the world.

There is no chorus more beautiful than a harmony of me toos.

I am a girl scout.

The first time I was a girl scout, it was chosen for me by my parents.  Or maybe I chose to join a troop because my friends were in it.  All I know is that I was first a brownie for a year and then a junior, after which I left the troop and didn’t really think about it again.

I recently became a girl scout again, and this time, it was my choice.  I saw the good in the organization and decided I wanted to be part of it.  Forget whatever good the ChickieNob could get from trust activities and camping and making invisible ink; girl scouts is as much about finding my own courage, confidence, and character as it is about her.

Girl Scouts of the USA was recently in the news due to the call to boycott over its admittance of transgender members.  I have to admit that the inclusivity of the organization is the reason why I allow my daughter to be a part of it.  That story hit CNN and Mashable, it was dissected on blogs and bulletin boards.  We showed the video responses to the ChickieNob, though not the original video — which had been made private by that point but lives on in YouTubeLand — and she was proud to be part of this larger whole who cares so deeply about respecting all people.

And then the hoopla died down, and I thought that was the last I’d hear of girl scouts in the news until… let’s say, March 12th, the 100 year anniversary date.  But what started with the original boycott in January has grown larger, like a monster gathering strength.  The Washington Post reported last week that,

Conservative activists have used social media to encourage parents to boycott cookie sales, pull their daughters out of scouts and push churches not to provide meeting spaces for troops.

This month, for the first time in our area, a church bowed to the pressure. St. Timothy Roman Catholic parish in Chantilly in Fairfax County ousted 12 troops with 115 girls. In Alexandria, Saint Rita Catholic Church is reportedly considering doing the same.

Girls — and also women — are being yanked in multiple directions at the same time.  The end result is that instead of moving forward, we move nowhere.  We tell our girls to take pride in their bodies while we simultaneously present them with air-brushed, unattainable photographs as examples of beauty and then grow angry with them when they aren’t respectful to their bodies.  We tell women that they shouldn’t have access to birth control but they also can’t have access to abortions and yet they shouldn’t have children if they can’t support them without public assistance.  We tell women that they need to stay at home and raise children while we berate them for not dedicating themselves to their careers — and we round that out by underpaying them for the same work performed by men, driving home a strong message about what we think about women in the workplace.  There are too many conflicting messages.  I use the collective “we” because we’re all human, we’re all guilty, we all have our hands in the mess we’re making of girls — one way or the other.  Either actively by reinforcing one of these messages, or passively by not speaking out against them.

When I signed up to be a girl scout, I took an oath and that was to uphold the girl scout law.  You are probably familiar with it; it’s that laundry list of good traits that you’d have to be a dick to disagree with:

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

And the best way I can be honest, fair, friendly, helpful, considerate, caring, courageous, strong, responsible, and respectful is to speak out against those who say the children are our future and we need to nurture and cherish our girls because they’re so troubled while simultaneously attempting to take away any positive messages we’re trying to give them about that future.  Again, it is the push-pull of girls: be considerate and caring; but not to those who are transgender.  Be honest and fair, but expel organizations that are open-minded.  Our girls absorb every single message thrown their way — the good ones and the bad ones.

If we want them to be honest, fair, friendly, helpful, considerate, caring, courageous, strong, responsible, and respectful, we need to not yank them away from those traits by simultaneously filling them with messages that are dishonest, unfair, unhelpful, inconsiderate, uncaring, scared, weak, irresponsible, and disrespectful.

I didn’t love girl scouts as a child, but I think it’s one of the most important things I’m doing as an adult.  And I’m just massively grateful even for the support that comes from people who — like me — didn’t actually like the activity at all as a child, but who can see the good in it as an adult, so they support the girls, buy their cookies, salute them in their endeavours, and send the message that striving to be a better person is actually a really cool thing to be.

Because it is a really cool thing to be.

Josh and I were watching Oxygen’s House marathon even though we just purchased Season One of the series and realized that seeing everything out of order was probably going to mess us up, when we came to the episode where the woman needs a liver transplant and her girlfriend offers her part of her organ.  The catch is that the ill woman plans to leave her girlfriend, and the doctors believe that the girlfriend doesn’t know this.  It becomes an ethical dilemma, and that was all well and good, but I just used the whole situation to play my favourite game: what if.

Me: What if I needed a liver transplant, but I had just left you.

Josh: I would give you my liver.

Me: What if I had been a raging bitch while leaving you, but you had sort of turned me into a raging bitch by cheating on me.

Josh: Even if you were a raging bitch, I’d give you the liver.

Me: What if I had told you that you would never see your kids again.  You cheated on me, I left you, I told you that you’d never see your kids.

Josh: For the love, Melissa.  I’d give you my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiver.

He really loves me.

*******

At dinner, Josh mentioned that he read that Susan G Komen also defunded $12 million in stem cell research (I know, for the love, I’m still going on about Komen, but I’ve never liked this organization and now I can finally vent my spleen since they’ve showed their true colours.  And to think, I just thought they were wasteful in using fundraising dollars to collect more fundraising dollars vs. actually passing them along to research.)  According to a press release that is making the rounds on news sites, it is against Komen’s policy to ever fund research that utilizes human embryos.  While the researchers who were defunded weren’t using human embryonic stem cells, others in their organizations did use human stem cells.  Mother Jones has reported that Komen has not released a formal statement today on where they stand with stem cell research despite being asked by media outlets.  To me, the silence speaks volumes.

If there really is a race for the cure, if we’re attempting to sprint towards it rather than walk briskly or (based on Komen’s behaviour, crawl at a snail’s pace), I’m not sure why Komen would ever ask scientists not to utilize what doctors consider to be the most successful road to finding ways to treat cancer.  Within reason, within accepted parameters set by the medical community, isn’t Komen’s job to fund research that has potential, not to pass judgment on the ethics of that research?  Isn’t that for the advisory boards at these institutions to decide?  We’re not talking about outlying organizations; we’re talking about well-known universities, such as Johns Hopkins and Yale.  If we can’t trust Johns Hopkins and Yale to be ethical in their medical research, who can we trust?

When we really love someone, we are willing to do anything for them, such as give them part of our liver even when they’re being a raging bitch.  If Josh could do that for me on such a small scale, when it’s not even part of his mission statement, then I can’t understand how a cancer fundraising organization that the public trusts to fund projects that have the most potential to successfully bring about a cure can pull funding for stem cell research.

I am frustrated.  I have given money to Komen when friends have been racing for the cure.  Because I wanted to support my friends’ efforts, and because you’d really have to be a dick to not want a cure for every type of cancer.  Cancer is a horrific set of diseases which have struck our community too many times to count.  I don’t want a cure years from now when everyone stops fighting about this.  I want everyone to shut up now, to realize that political beliefs should never trump actual lives (and no, embryos are not actual lives.  They are potential lives, and while precious on the personal level, without implantation — which is outside of medical control — they will never become toddlers, preschoolers, teenagers).  And in this quiet, allow the medical community to put their collective heads together and actually sprint towards the finish line in this race for the cure.

CNN and other news sites are reporting that Susan G Komen has changed the policy under which Planned Parenthood lost its funding, stopping short of actually stating that funding will be forthcoming in the future.  Their statement begins with an apology and talks about how the wording of the policy will be changed to reflect only investigations that are criminal in nature.  When WashPo asked for further clarification whether Planned Parenthood would actually be funded in the future, they received no further information, only that “I think our statement speaks for itself.”

I do think it speaks volumes, just not the clear message I would expect to follow an apology to the public — an apology that addresses the section of the public who are upset over Planned Parenthood’s defunding.  If you look carefully, it doesn’t say that Planned Parenthood will be receiving funding in the future, just that they’ll be eligible to apply.  And in that case, they can be rejected for some other reason.

There are obviously positive ways to look at this week: People were suddenly reminded to do their monthly breast exams or make an appointment at Planned Parenthood.  People donated a lot of money to both organizations.  This apology may truly be the end of this debacle, and maybe Komen will be careful in the future about mixing themselves with politics and instead remain an organization aiming to fund cancer research and support women instead of an organization attempting to push a political agenda.  Or maybe it will just be dormant for a period of time like the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and then be released again at a future date.

I’m not a fan of apologies which are not heartfelt, deeply meaningful apologies.  I have high standards, and this doesn’t meet my high standards.  So I thank the organization for giving this thought, but for me, the damage has been done and I need something much bigger than this to trust again.  I’m aware that others respectfully disagree with me on this, and I’m totally supportive of that too.  It’s a great big world full of organizations that have the potential to do good.  I’m going to directly support those that provide services, and others can support philanthropies who decide the fate of those service organizations with their grants.  To each their own.

Can you tell that I was bothered by the Susan G Komen/Planned Parenthood defunding debacle this week?

*******

Last Friday, instead of getting work accomplished, I spent most of the day cleaning up my sidebar.  There were just a lot of… words.  Now there are more pictures.  There are little icons for places where I’ve always been such as Facebook or Twitter.  And there are new ones such as Pinterest (looky — I made a page for Life from Scratch).  Plus, there is a brand spanking new email list you can add yourself to (it’s the orange book icon) if you want to be informed when the sequel and future books (because yes, I have outlines for three more Rachel Goldman book) are coming out.

It’s nice and neat now, and I like the less-cluttered look.

*******

I started yoga this week, and I wish I could tell you that it has changed my life and brought me tons of inner peace, but I’m finding that I’m really not the yoga sort.  At the same time, I have already purchased the mat and paid for the classes, so I will be doing yoga since I am the practical sort.

The first day I went, I ate a yogurt and drank a cup of coffee beforehand.  The website told me not to, but I knew I needed my energy.  About three minutes into the 75-minute “continuous flow” yoga class (which is just a fancy way of saying that you never stop moving, holding each pose for only one breath.  Or, in my case, one gasp), as I was hanging in downward-facing dog, I realized that I wanted to vomit.  The yogurt and coffee were fighting their way into my throat, burning a hole in their path.  I went home fairly miserable for the rest of the day, leaving myself a reminder to go on an empty stomach next time.

The second class was more my speed (meaning, we paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaused for a loooooooooooooooooong tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime) and I wasn’t internally fighting with a container of Greek yogurt, but it still didn’t grab me in the way that running does.  My third class was attended with a friend of mine, so I spent most of the time trying not to laugh as our classmates got themselves into impressive positions while we fudged it.  And then we went out for a beer, which sort of negated the whole yoga thing but was the thought that kept me in the class for the full 75 minutes.

Perhaps yoga will grow on me; I’m not ruling that out.  And even if it doesn’t, I’m going to keep doing it for the time being.  Plus, I’ve lost 6 pounds so far by changing my eating habits and adding in yoga.  Pretty damn good progress.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady Asks How We Define Womanhood” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you!
• “Thin Ice” (Kmina’s Blog)
• “Guilt” (Seriously?!)
• “The Toddler Inside” (Better Full Than Empty)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Kir Corner has a post titled “Because It Wasn’t Enough” (fine, it was from last Thursday, but I didn’t read it until Friday night) about how she feels about working while parenting after infertility.  It’s not only an interesting post; it’s an interesting discussion in the comment section (and you should jump in too).  The part I love is what she will tell her children: “Because even though I wanted you with every ounce of my being, even though I struggled and beat the odds to even get pregnant with you, even though just the sight of you makes me struggle for breath because you are mine forever and always… motherhood wasn’t enough. I needed something for myself, just like every other mommy I know.”  Go over and read the post in full.

MoJo Working has a very honest post this week about the problem with infertility blogs, namely, the fact that they often change direction.  She admits: “Whatever the reason, I am finding myself deleting more and more of my familiar blogs from my reader, and seeking out new ones.”  I liked it because she said what I suspect a lot of people think, and because the post challenged me to consider a different point of view.

Mission: Fertile Soul has a post about feeling strange about feeling okay.  That she isn’t upset, and this is what feels weird and new.  She explains: “But, it’s almost as if I’m looking at my particular IF journey as an observer and not the person experiencing it.  There’s no more intense sadness, or guilt, or anger, or frustration.  I’ve gotten teary, because I want to hug that part of myself that experienced all of that crap and ended up stronger and with a bigger zest for life on the other side (even without currently having a baby or being pregnant).  I don’t feel wounded or scarred.”  It’s a post that proves the idea that children resolve childlessness, but they don’t resolve infertility.  That is something every person must do on their own.

Lastly, Magpie Musing has a post about loving her daughter and how she marries that with the grief she felt over all the cycles which didn’t result in a child.  The whole post is fantastic, but I love this thought: “Can you grieve that, a procedure that didn’t work?  Most attempts at pregnancy don’t work; lots of fertilizations the “normal” way end up in early miscarriage, so early that the woman doesn’t even know she was pregnant. So, yes, I was sad that it didn’t work, with all those dollars down the tube to boot, but that’s not really grief, is it?”

The roundup to the Roundup: Obviously bothered by the defunding of Planned Parenthood.  Check out my new icons (and sign up for the book news email list if you want to know when the next book will be released).  I started yoga, and I can’t say that I love it.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 27th and February 3rd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.