Rita Arens's Blog, page 2

On Being a Woman

Tonight I saw some commentary on DadSummit about a device that simulated breastfeeding.

I had some feelings.

My friend Doug French encouraged me to write. 

So here goes.

I have one child. She's fourteen. 

She's healthy and happy.

I only breastfed her for seven weeks, because that was the minimum my OB-GYN gave me for her health.

I hated breastfeeding.

Imagine, my men, what it would feel like to have a part of your body that you had always associated as a secondary sex charactaristic suddenly...

Radiation Tatts

I never really processed the radiation tattoos.

Six little dots. Freckles, they called them.

I was happy they weren't my first ink. I had two real tattoos before those six dots. I assume there are plenty of straight-laced ladies who were horrified to get their first ink in this way.

My breast cancer still doesn't feel real. I see people with pink ribbons and I don't resonate with them. Mine was so early, so unexpected, so ... in some ways, harmless, compared to what other people face. 

My bro...

How Many Times?

I've used this boot twice before. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

In the past, however, it's been my fault. Stress fractures from running longer and harder than a nonathlete with flat feet should. This time, a very tall, very large horse accidentally stepped on my foot and broke a toe. The doc with the X-ray warned me if I didn't wear the boot, I'd end up with arthritis and also not be able to run without pain. He also told me that if I were eighteen, I'd probably heal within a week. 

Thanks,...

Bought Matching Diamonds

Tonight the little angel introduced me to Ari's Seven Rings. Cultural appropriation aside, I need to react on a whole 'nother level. That's not really setting cultural appropriation aside ... I just have another subject to also introduce, and others have handled the appropriation better than I would. 

Dude. What is wrong with us? When are we going to realize that buying stuff doesn't solve anything?

Sorry, Ari. I just can't listen to this and take it at face value -- you've never been one to...

That Place in My Head

Over the past year or so, I've been having what I'll call a stress dream over finding an apartment because I suddenly realize I have to go back to college.

I graduated from the University of Iowa over twenty years ago. In all the time I lived there, through two dorm rooms, one sorority house and three apartments with approximately fifteen roommates, I don't recall losing any sleep over where I was going to live. 

I didn't go to graduate school in Iowa City. I went to graduate school in Kansas...

Why, Thank You, Sir

Today I had a worlds-colliding moment when a new co-worker commented on an old practice of mine, which is to say, blogging. He called it "Facebook," which is totally fair - that's one of the places my blog bleeds out to. And he complimented me on my writing. In my head, I was all:

Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

        William Shakespeare

Because even now, when I went to put that quote in there, I had to pop the hood up on Typepad, creaky old bitch that she is, and look at the HTML, bec...

A New Day

This week, I've spent time thinking about how much my life has changed in the past decade. In 2008, I was fresh off the publication of my first book and in the heyday of blogging as a service, BaaS, if you will humor my acronyms.

Oh my, how life has changed.

In the time that has passed since my departure from BlogHer/SheKnows Media, I've ceased to have a professional reason to be on social media. And, to some extent, my appetite for it has decreased.

I finished another novel, which will come...

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For the Little Angel

It must be very difficult to be the child of a blogger. It was a grand experiment, this parenting blogging thing, and we navigated it by making a lot of mistakes, trying to figure out as we went along how much of ourselves to share and where the line was between us and our babies. 

In SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK, I wrote a lot about the struggles of parenting. I didn't write enough about the joy. Now the parent of an amazing fourteen-year-old girl, I've waited too long to revisit what it feels like...

When Blogging Was a Thing

In 2009, I left my corporate job for a job in the blogosphere. At the time, it was my dream job. We had a good run.

In that time,  I watched many of my contemporaries make a living from their words and then fall from the industry as the way media works changed. Now, my TIME magazine is 100 pages shorter per issue and the headlines are more dominated by the royal wedding than they are a school shooting or Hawaii being ruined by a volcano. I remember the day Osama bin Laden died. I found out on...