The French Strangers - Part Two

Here is part one if you missed it.

We stood up together to make a run for it but the stranger caught me from behind. As he swung me around, he punched me in the face. His fist connected with my upper left cheek and for a few seconds everything went black with bright spots flashing. The hit should have sent me crashing to the ground but he still had a firm hold on me. Luckily, my friend was getting away because the other guy was not interested in attacking American women. He just watched.

She came back though. She rescued me. She whacked him in the face with her umbrella and got herself a massive kick to the stomach in return. It was enough to divert his attention and I scrambled backward out of his reach. Before he could decide which of us to come after, I screamed at her to run the other way and I ran out into the road.

I ran right into the path of an oncoming car, the only car on the road. It swerved, screeched to a stop, and two men got out. One of the men was the tram driver. I was hysterical. I told him over and over that a man had hurt me and I asked them “Where is my friend?” I don’t know how those men understood what I was saying in my broken, sob-filled French, but they did.

They wanted to take me to the hospital, the police station, or even home, but I kept asking them about my friend. So they drove up, down, and around the streets near the station until we found her. She (whose French was so much better than mine) explained to them what happened, and then she told them where we each lived.

You wouldn’t blame me if I packed up and flew home, especially if I told you I saw him again a couple days later on the tram, on my way to school, and he flicked his tongue at me like a snake. But as scared as I was to go out to class, I stuck it out. Eventually, I made friends and found out I was living in a French ghetto highly populated with Algerians. I learned that (back then anyway) the French and the French Algerians hated each other.

Oddly enough, it was a friendship I made with an Algerian shop keeper that kept me in France. His tiny grocery store was located on the roof plaza of the building just across from mine, accessible by a pedestrian bridge that was attached to our building a few floors below me. There was a butcher shop and a bakery over there as well, and that plaza was just about the only place I wasn’t afraid to go because I didn’t even have to go down out to the street.

The stranger who owned the grocery store was tall, well-built, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a beautiful smile. He made such an effort to befriend me, tolerating my immature French, asking me about myself in between explaining as best he could the difference between the zillion types of milk. He wanted to know if I was enjoying his country, and so I told him my tram station story.

It made him visibly angry. He brought his sister out from the back room to tell me in her broken English that he would take care of this problem for me and that I should not be afraid to go out. She said that her brother was my friend and that this meant that I would be safe anywhere in the neighborhood. She was right. I stayed in France until the following July and I never saw tram man again.

I’ve never stopped traveling, but tram man taught me quite a bit about how to do it. I’ve also never been able to kick the innate fear of strangers that most of us have but I do recognize it for what it is and find my way around it.

Is Kimani a Real Girl?

Dr. Logan Levkoff wrote a post, “The True Meaning of Womanhood.” Daring soul. She took a good stab at it, but her conclusion that Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin represent the “wrong” definition of woman, which seemed to be the real reason for the article, annoyed me and thus sparked my brain cells, forcing me to consider what really makes a woman, a woman.

I have to question some of Dr. Levkoff’s points. She asks, “Is womanhood measured in degrees? Are there some women who are ‘more woman’ than others?” and then answers herself with a firm, “No, of course not.” Immediately following she defines being a woman as “a state of mind and a commitment to social action.”

If that were the actual definition of womanhood, the true meaning of womanhood, then either we all have the same state of mind and are all equally committed to social action, or womanhood can be measured in degrees. Oops Dr. Levkoff.

One reason she needs to define it that way (“I think I am, therefore I am” and “I agree with Dr. Levkoff’s political views, therefore I am”) is to open the door to transgendered women. (A transgendered person is someone whose gender identity is different from their assigned sex at birth.)

She correctly makes clear that a woman is not simply the sum of her physical parts. She points out that a woman who has a mastectomy is no less a woman after, and I agree. Seeing how we have objectified and sexualized women based on a body image, I get why she wants to toss boobs to the wind, but I can’t let her.

Because according to Dr. Levkoff, Kimani might not qualify as a girl. After all, Kimani may never even understand that she is a “woman,” as her state of mind is limited. Kimani will doubtfully be committed to any social action. Rather than losing her girl parts to cancer, Kimani has lost her mind parts to meningitis, but this makes her no less a girl who will grow up to be a woman.

Dr. Levkoff’s true meaning of womanhood is flawed because the scope is too narrow, her political mission too obvious. When defining womanhood, you cannot separate the physical and the metaphysical and exclude either one or the other. The true meaning of womanhood is complex and vast, but I promise you there is a place for Kimani within it.

The French Strangers - Part One

Ever since I spent six weeks one summer partying in Montreal, I have felt that I should go everywhere I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can.

(Did I say partying? No Dad, I was learning French, studying every day, behaving myself, I pinkie swear it.)

On the 27th of September many years ago, I landed in Lyon, France with a bunch of college students from all over the US. We arrived by van in Grenoble after midnight and I was handed off to a tiny blond lady who had agreed to host me and another girl. As Madame explained the house rules to us, I realized that all those years of French class didn’t add up to much and my brain hurt terribly.

(Uh, guess I should have studied French during my immersion program in Montreal.)

On the night of October 3rd, not even a whole week into the great adventure, I was at the deserted end-of-the-line tram station, our stop, waiting for my housemate who was supposed to be on the last tram of the night. I was with another female student who lived near us and had agreed to show me how to get there and to keep me company.

On the far side of the station parking lot was a Superman kind of phone booth with a metal bench by it. I had a new fancy phone card, so I stepped inside to call my mom and wish her a happy birthday. We talked for a few minutes until the clicks cut in and a pretty French robot voice said something like “you are out of time”.

I hung up the phone and turned to exit the booth, and there he was... pinning the door shut. Medium height, slim, dark hair and eyes... the stranger I never saw approaching. His companion sat next to my friend on the bench. She looked frightened.

After a moment of grinning at me through the glass, he opened the doors, pulled me out of the booth and pushed me down on the bench. I could not understand much of what he was saying but he would not let go of my arm. His powerful grip transcended the language barrier.

My friend and I talked over them, trying to come up with a plan. There was no one else around. The last tram had come and gone, and my housemate had not been on it. The station lights had gone out and there were no cars left in the lot. The adjacent road was dark and quiet.

I remember being glad that I had just said “I love you” to my mother.

I Don’t Wanna Be an Independent

Really, I don’t. I want an issue, something I can glom onto and vote with no matter what else is at stake. I want to be so prolife that I have to vote Republican no matter what, or so pro-LGBT that I vote Democrat no matter what. I want to not have to think about who is running for President and what his or her ideas are.

Because when I think too long about various issues, I am a flip-flopper. After a couple debates, I am a Newt supporter. He just sounds so fair, so smart, so experienced, so full of good ideas to get this country back on track (were we ever on track?) But then, Obama goes to Kansas and delivers one of his first real campaign speeches, and boom, I remember why I voted for him last time.

Obama has such good speech writers, such good spinners, and he is such a good storyteller. I was goo-goo eyed watching him as he talked up his “American values” and “middle class fair-playing field” vision. My husband saw me transfixed and said, “Oh no, you’re not going to vote for him again, are you?” I might.

Imagine that “truth is not about getting it right or representing reality, but is part of a social practice and language that serves our purposes during a particular time period” (David Donaldson) or that “knowledge is produced through operations of power and therefore changes fundamentally during different time periods.” (Michel Foucault) Imagine that the truth, the reality of your time period, is not absolute, not based on empirical evidence or facts, but is rather determined by the narratives that are created to record it. The story becomes the “truth”. And right now there are a lot of ways to tell the story of our country.

(All you postmodern philosophers and critical theorists, hush... I know I simplified it. How could I not?)

When the gay, high-profile, nationally syndicated, sex columnist Dan Savage categorized my daughter as a “tard,” I felt angry at him and his readers who didn’t call him out on it, and thought “Who cares if you can’t marry your boyfriend? Why should I use my vote to help you out when you don’t give equal respect to people with Down syndrome?” But then I remembered that I do want equal rights for everybody, which includes even certain hypocritical gay men.

When a presidential candidate starts talking about overturning Roe vs. Wade, my “no way” buzzer goes off and I want to cross him or her off my list. But ending mid to late term abortions for any reason other than to save the mother’s life is worth my vote.

Really though, social issues can’t compete for my vote when we’re facing 15 trillion in national debt; we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend; we bail out banks and the auto industry, home owners, and possibly student loan holders; we refuse to get off the Arab oil tit... when the cost of living is rising and the paycheck and benefits are shrinking... then I have to think, think, think.

Whose version of the story is closest to the “truth”? Whose vision for the future will get us back on prosperous ground? I just don’t know. Do you?

Can Anybody Tell Me...

1. To what degree a government can provide services to 100% of its people, and to what percent it can tax the income of its working people to pay for these services, before it has to change its name from Capitalist to Socialist?

2. Why shouldn’t capital gains be taxed at a hefty rate?

3. Why we are still fighting over abortion? Before you answer, consider this... I have a friend who is newly pregnant. She is frightened. Her IUD failed. She and her husband have no money and already have 5 children. He works and she gave up her job to stay home with a medically fragile child. Without charitable support, her only options are abortion or adoption. Wouldn’t it be great if this troubled mother could avoid turing to social programs because some pro-life family or families decided to adopt her and her family. Let me know if you’re interested.

4. Who believes that complete de-regulation would not result in massive environmental and food supply pollution, financial rip-offs, and dangerous working conditions?

5. Where do you draw the line between a social safety net and a social hammock?

6. Why are we still fighting over same-sex marriage? (Some of my favorite people are... OMG, don’t say it!!!!!! gay. I do not believe their relationships are in any way negatively affecting my life or the lives of my children. And I don’t think they can do any more damage to the institution of marriage than we hetros have already done.)

7. What annual pre-tax income for a family of 4 would you consider to be rich? Now I know where you live, or rather where our imaginary family lives, makes a difference so go ahead and use your own region.

8. What is the highest percentage of combined Federal and State income taxes that you would consider fair for any working person to pay?

9. Why are we allowing American companies to take their resources and new jobs overseas without penalty?

10. Where is all the lottery income going? (Wasn’t it supposed to fund school budgets?)

11. Who watched the GOP debate in Vegas and wasn’t left awestruck by the lack of decent leadership available for us to choose from?

12. Does anyone truly believe that Obama won’t wipe the floor with Romney’s suave grin during the debates if Romney is selected as the GOP nominee?

13. And, just to make this a baker’s dozen, would you pay $16 for a breakfast muffin?

I am honestly interested in your answers to any or all of the questions. But please keep the discourse polite... we hear enough political nastiness on MSNBC and FOX News.

A GOP Nominee of Our Own

With the glasses and the ponytail, I think she looks like her. She's stubborn, opinionated, and well-spoken like her. Could it be that I am raising SP’s mini-me?





(My husband says, “Nope.” ... said he sees no resemblance at all. Really?

Crushing on Nietzsche

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies” -- Nietzsche.

TK and I were driving back from the mall today and she wondered aloud why “Satanists” would choose to be Satanists. “After all,” she mused, “Satan only exists if you believe in God, and if you believe in the existence of God, why would you choose the loser?”

Then she rambled on that maybe you would choose Satan if you believed that stupid Italian poet who wrote about the seven circles of Hell where people get to pig out and have sex all the time.

I opened the window, poked my head out, and yelled up into the air, “Did you hear that, Dante? She called you stupid!”

“Well don’t you think he was?” She asked.

“I think you need to read The Inferno,” I replied.

Then I expounded on Dante’s brilliance all the rest of the way home. I promised to fish out The Inferno for her which is how I found myself in the garage digging through boxes of my books, stumbling upon Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human...

I abandoned my search for Dante (there are a lot of boxes out there, let me tell ya) and offered her the Nietzsche book as an entertaining substitute for now. She opened it up and read me the quote above. “What does he mean?” she asked me.

As I explained my take on his words, yesterday’s post came to mind. Oh yes, our convictions certainly are more deadly to the Truth than any simple lie could ever be. Lies are easy for the Christian to see through, but our convictions can twist the path to the Truth, our convictions can lead us to hurt each other, and our convictions can turn people away from God.

(Note: There are actually nine circles in Dante’s poetic vision of Hell... perhaps she had it confused with the seven deadly sins...)