Rita Arens's Blog, page 55
November 16, 2011
Her Father's Eyes, My Father's Sight
My little girl has her father's beautiful blue eyes. They're huge and deep and I can get sucked in to their gaze, either one of them. But she has my own father's eyesight.
My dad has always been able to see stuff I can't on the side of the road. Owls, eagles, deer, raccoons, cranes -- you name it, he points, I see nothing unless it's moving. And he's the one driving.
"Look, Mommy, is that a boy deer or a girl deer?" she asked last night as we drove to the library. I tried to look and yet...
November 15, 2011
The Kindness Gene
Raising a child has given me a different perspective on genetics than I once had. As a young adult, I was convinced that we are all a product of our environment. Now I'm not so sure. My daughter's personality started emerging very, very early. One thing I noticed right off the bat was her empathy -- she started patting crying babies in daycare from the time she was nine months old, I was told by her teachers. I don't think we taught her that quite so fast.
My major in college was...
November 14, 2011
I'm Really Writing This Post to Explain Pinterest to My Mother
No, not really. I'm writing this because I'm caught today in something of a 65-degree-long-bike-ride Sunday lethargic Monday. Why is it not still Sunday?
Also, I started pinning things on Pinterest. I am not a design gal, nor do I have any fashion sense. I'm not really crafty. But I decided I would pin stuff that I find when I am doing my job that are awesome for one reason or another. I get nothing out of it if you look, but I'm telling you about it anyway because honestly, I can't think...
November 10, 2011
She Can't Tell the Difference
I was just looking at Twitter and saw a link to Alison Gresik's post on the night she almost went crazy. I wasn't planning to post today, but then I read this:
We were nearly home when I tried to make up for how pissy I'd been. This is not about you, it's about me, I said.
And that's when Shawn got really angry.
How dare you get this upset and then say it's not about me? It's impossible for me to tell the difference, and it'll certainly be impossible for a child to tell the difference. You...
November 9, 2011
Boy, That Made Me Feel Old
On Monday, I talked to a business communication class at UMKC about business communication as it pertains to social media. I told them the story about how a commenter on this blog tried to get me fired from H&R Block years ago. I told them about how I started this blog anonymously and how I evolved to using my real name as my username for pretty much everything. I talked about strong language and politics and privacy.
They asked why I hated Facebook. And I tried to explain how it is when you...
November 8, 2011
High School Intern Kills It With PR Email
So about a week ago, I got the following email:
Hello,
I know, I'm supposed to follow your blog, comment regularly and build a relationship before sending you a note.
But I'm a high school student interning at a nonprofit, and I'm helping spread the word about a book giveaway for classrooms. So I hope that you will welcome a good message from a teen as much as you would a note from a regular reader. In any event, please forgive the lapse of blogger etiquette as I try to help get books...
November 5, 2011
Only One Half of the Conversation
Darcy picked up the phone. "Hello?"
Jose shifted uncomfortably on the chair. He hated it when she took calls during their time together.
She made a pleading face, mouthing I'm sorry.
"Is this an emergency?" she asked the caller.
Jose squirmed on the chair, its leather warmed by his being there so long. He heard a car drive by on the street outside.
"Do you want to hurt yourself?" Darcy asked, her voice tightening as her hand curled into a fist on her lap.
Jose removed his glasses and...
November 3, 2011
Where I'm Writing Yesterday/Today
I posted yesterday on BlogHer about Hillary Adams, whose father, Judge William Adams (a family court judge in Texas) beat her savagely with a belt when she was sixteen (I'm sure there were other times, but this is the one she caught on tape). This week, she got fed up and uploaded the video to YouTube. The rest of the story is here.
I put a trigger alert on my post because the whole thing is so disturbing. But Hillary is now a 23-year-old woman speaking out against abuse. The comments on the...
November 2, 2011
I Can't Tell What He's Trying to Say
So I just read this article by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic about sexism in TV ads. It seems like his thesis is this:
A certain kind of sexism, however, is still considered pretty funny and not terribly sacred. In most modern ads, there are two kinds of sexism. First there is winking sexism, where women are objectified but something in the ad seems to acknowledge to the audience: "We know we're being sexist, so that makes it okay." Second, there is the boomerang sexism, where we see men...
