Post Women’s March: How I’ll Help

Last night, every time I woke up to feed my daughter (four times!) I struggled to go back to sleep because my mind was racing. All I could think about was Trump’s team having zero qualms about lying on their first full day in office, the overwhelmingly uplifting feelings of solidarity I felt at the Women’s March in Boston yesterday, and wondering what the fuck I was going to do next.

Yesterday wasn’t just about feeling the catharsis  of standing together with other people against oppression, nor was it about getting a photo-op capturing my participation in the march for posterity (though I will teach my children and grandchildren about what I did). On election night, I was enveloped in sleepy and tearful postpartum hormones that made me feel like I could do nothing but hold my newborn baby and let a deep sense of dread seep up from my core to my brain, filling it with doubt and sadness. Three months later, I feel firmer in my footing and more confident in my ability to help. But, here’s my problem: I am an introvert through and through. Meeting new people gives me anxiety. I get nervous when I order a coffee. I have to psych myself up to call people on the phone for work. But, I’m prepared to set that all aside and tell my ego to shut the hell up for once because the fear of being embarrassed if I say something wrong is not as bad as the fears I have of hate, discrimination and oppression becoming legalized.

I’ve probably seen this statement from Trump supporters a thousand times since November 9th: “I lived through Obama, you’ll live through Trump. Get over it.” OR “We won, get over it.” Well, remember the Tea Party Rallies? Me too. Sit down. BECAUSE GUESS WHAT MY TAX RATE IS GOING UP UNDER TRUMP AND I’M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. Also, the asinine crap about how happy Trumpists are over the repeal of “Obamacare” aka the Affordable Care Act make me sick to my stomach. That rant is for another day. I hope you all don’t get injured, sick or die before then.

The point of my writing this is that this morning I visited the Women’s March website to view the 10 Actions/100 Days. It reminded me that I live in a very progressive district, so I need to double my efforts and reach out to swing districts to help. Here’s what I came up with:

• Are you registered to vote?
  • No? Get that taken care of well in advance so you aren’t scrambling to do it before the midterm elections. Rules are different in every state. Find out more here. When you’re done, mark your calendar for the Midterm Elections.
  • Yes? Great. Please mark your calendar for the Midterm Elections.
  • Either way: Here’s what’s at stake. The Conservative majority could get even bigger. Millenials need to outnumber the backwards Baby Boomers who show up at the polls.
• Do you know where to find out about legislative activities?
  • If not, go to  Congress.gov and sign up to get alerts on the bills that affect your life and your community. These are the issues you need to call your Congress members about.
• Sign up for Swingleft.org to find out where your nearest swing district is so you can get involved and help influence the elections.
• At least once a week, or when it is urgent, I will call Congress.
  • I could say to myself, gee, I wish I had the time. As a nursing mother, I have to take multiple breaks during the work day to pump milk for my baby. During those 15-30 minutes, I will make a phone call. PHONE CALLS ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO REACH REPRESENTATIVES. You can’t ignore a phone call the way you can ignore an email or a letter. Be persistent.
• If I’m not sure what to say, I will do my research and write myself a script so I do not fumble.

More than once since the election, I’ve been asking my husband if he can apply for residency in another country. I’m seriously dreading what could happen with this illegitimate presidency. I’m really glad that I live in the Northeast, and I plan to live in a progressive part of the country for the rest of my life. The only problem is that inside this bubble, everyone else who is left vulnerable in red states doesn’t get to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that I have. Here is why I will fight for rights for all:

1. Even if you are Pro-Life, I support your right to have access to safe and affordable birth control and abortions.
2. Even if you are Pro-Big Business, I support your right to receive a livable wage so you don’t have to struggle working multiple jobs to make ends meet.
3. Even if you believe that God gave Earth to man to reap wealth from its resources, I support your right to live in an unpolluted environment where you will be unharmed from cancer-causing industrial by-products.
4. Even if you believe that taxes being taken from your paycheck to support government programs that care for the elderly, sick and needy, I support your right to receive money taken from my own paycheck to help you when and if you find yourself in a vulnerable position. 
5. Even if you believe that the United States is a Christian country, I support your right to practice your religion freely so long as you respect everyone else’s right to practice their religion freely. 
6. Even if you view Black Lives Matter as an Anti-Police movement… Well, I don’t really support you feeling that way because it’s not true. Black Lives Matter. They Matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6MVjwnNIg4

I’ve probably left some things out because I’m trying to write this as fast as I can before my baby needs me again. Hopefully I have another opportunity to get amped up on coffee and write soon.

The 12 Weeks I’m Looking Forward To?

Today is Mother’s Day 2016. I’m looking forward to becoming a mother in October this year. However, I do feel that whenever feelings of happiness, excitement and total amazement begin to arise, they’re quickly buried by stress and anxiety when reality hits me. There’s a lot I need to buy (cribs/bassinets, strollers, diapers) and a lot I need to do (enroll in a daycare, figure out budget) before my little guy or gal comes. Currently, at 15 weeks pregnant, I am on a wait list for a daycare in our soon-to-be neighborhood that doesn’t open up until February 2017. Yes, this is normal.

It’s also normal that 12 weeks after I leave work to give birth to my child, I will return again. I will be able to count on my mom for the first few months after I return to work and prior to the daycare wait list spot opening up. I’m extremely grateful for that, but it doesn’t change my fear or anxiety of the unknowns about having a human life to be responsible for. The Sims was so not good practice for me. What’s with the arbitrary number of 12 weeks for leave? Is it because it’s a the length of a fiscal quarter? It’s impossible that it has anything to do with childhood development. When I first started to research daycare, I’d think about handing over a child I will barely know to be cared for by strangers for a majority of the hours that he or she spends awake during the week, and tears would fill my eyes. It’s not that the baby will mind this, but I will.

While discussing my leave with a co-worker, she told me that I might want to take more than those 12 weeks or that I might change my mind about coming back full time because everything will change when the baby is here. All I could think was, “I definitely don’t have the resources in my life right now to be less than full time at work”. I know that once week 12 is up, I’ll be back. I know that any effort to work towards a civilized paid parental leave policy won’t happen before my baby is born this year, but that’s not going to stop me from talking about it and writing to congress to demand it for the future.

 

I feel really, really sad when I think about all the opposing forces against women’s careers and when/if they choose to have families. First, we push ourselves to work hard in our careers so we can have stability, pay off our student loans, and maybe even have some accomplishments we’re proud of. Assuming we are childless during our career-ladder climb, we rely on drugs and devices to remain childless – amazing drugs and devices that are under attack and seemingly always in jeopardy of becoming less accessible to us. Second, we either opt out of having children altogether for whatever reason – kids aren’t for everyone, so don’t assume that they are and don’t make someone else’s reproduction your interest – or we take the plunge to either stop preventing pregnancy from happening, or full on planning for one. If we’ve made it to the point where we’ve been able to plan out when our family begins so that it’s a time we deem optimal, a host of questions arise. Am I healthy enough? Will age be a challenge? Is my insurance good enough? How will I cover my co-pay for a hospital stay at birth? Will my work be supportive? Can I afford to go 12 weeks without pay? Can I afford daycare? These questions transform pregnancy from a process of life into an experience where the commoditization of so many aspects in life becomes apparent. You’re either privileged enough to have the job with a business that is eligible for the 12 weeks unpaid guaranteed by the FMLA, or you aren’t. Maybe you’re really lucky and have a generous employer with an excellent paid parental leave policy. My guess is that most people do not work for such employers. Either way, starting a family in the United States comes with sacrifices and burdens that fall heavily on women. Our careers are set back and we lose wages.

I feel like the person who came up with the 12 week number imagined that they’d be giving women a break, but also helping them get ahead by not giving them too much time away from the job so they can continue to work on those careers of theirs.

In closing, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver made a Mother’s Day episode that I watched again this year. It made me feel all the sadness, rage and stress that I experience at one point or another throughout the day now.

https://youtu.be/zIhKAQX5izw

$15/hr to work in Fast Food? Yeesh! Why would you deserve that?

Why do I care about this? I don’t know, why do you? Let’s chat because it seems like someone else’s hard work and good fortune is offending you.

On July 22nd, a panel in New York state made the recommendation that fast-food chain restaurants raise minimum wage to $15/hr. Minimum wage in New York state is currently $8.75. I’ve noticed a lot of people I know from Western New York are deeply outraged by this victory for fast-food employees. To those individuals who find themselves angered by this – maybe because they worked in the industry and didn’t experience this benefit, maybe because they think it’s unfair to upset the wage hierarchy – I have some items I want to go over before you continue to use your energy and mind space to complain about this.

1. Do you hate that your tax dollars go to welfare programs to support poor people? Do you consider it Communism?

Maybe you shouldn’t be hating the recipients. This is actually a victory for you – not just them. Every paycheck, taxes are taken out in order to fund a safety-net for members of our community who fall into bad times. This could be a temporary condition for them – I was on food stamps once – or a chronic problem due to a system that perpetuates poverty for many. For fast food workers making a minimum wage under $10/hr, tax payers foot a bill of $7 BILLION PER YEAR (source: Bloomberg Business) to make up the difference of their living expenses in the form of social welfare programs. This does not mean we should be mad at the people who are working the low wage jobs. We should be angry that multi-billion dollar corporations engage in a compensation strategy that funnels tax payer dollars through welfare programs in order to subsidize wages and increase their own profits. In the United States, even if you don’t hit up McDonalds, the corporation has made it compulsory that you still help line its executives pockets. So, if you thought $15/hr was absurd, back in 2013 it was reported that McDonalds CEO’s make $9,200/hr (source: Business Insider). Yes, a McDonalds CEO earns $9,200 per every hour worked at the expense of cheap labor and poor quality food. Do NOT get me started on the quality of this food. I’m resisting a tangent, so here’s a Huffpo graph of what we shell out every year in what is essentially corporate welfare:

2. Do you think people who work Fast Food jobs are just high school kids and it isn’t a career? Do you think they’re lazy, unmotivated, or opportunists?

I’m struggling to start my point on this one. Not because I don’t know what point to make, but… you’ll see how I feel when you make it to the end of this post. Maybe your local McDonalds is staffed by perky teens saving up to buy a car, but if you go for a road trip or set foot in any metropolitan area, you’ll see something different. What angers me about this point is that it reduces a source of income (that supports individuals, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, entire families) to an indication of immaturity and lack of development. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, about 1 in 4 fast food employees has a child. Having a child is by no means an indication of maturity, but it definitely indicates the added challenge of doing something like going back to school. You need to pay for your child’s expenses. You do that with a job.

3. If you encountered a working mother or father employed at minimum wage by a fast food restaurant, would you say any of the things you did in your Facebook post to that fast food worker’s face? 

Like, would you walk into a McDonalds, order off the dollar menu, then berate them about your personal struggle with their life? Would you pull up in the drive through and after being handed your food, yell BY THE WAY I DISAGREE WITH HOW MUCH YOU GET PAID BECAUSE… and start trailing off as you speed away from the pick up window with your hot Big Mac because they started to give you a really confused look that made you realize just how crazy you sounded?

I digress from statistics and tables to just try to make sense of your character. Facebook can become a very cozy place. You’re among, friends, right? You’re just typing some statements into your phone or your computer, right? It’s just your thoughts. It’s not like you’re standing by the on-ramp to the thruway brandishing a big cardboard sign and shouting at cars going by. Some people would have it that everyone is “entitled” to an opinion (for whatever reason they’re led to “believe” that).

The entire reason why I’m spending my time writing this is because I feel sad that you have these opinions and beliefs. I feel sad that even if you’re complaining about $15/hr from a consumer’s perspective, you’re still supporting a big business who does not care about you over the families in your community that you live side by side with.

4. The bulk of this post has been what I THINK but now I’m going to tell you how I FEEL about your opinion. 

Editors note: I am taking a break from my normally scheduled block of time for freelance writing. It get’s fast and feverish here. 

It makes you look mean.  Are you a parent? How would you feel if your child walked into your house and started spouting classist or racist rants? Would you enable them, agree with them, and tell them it’s ok to hate people for the way they are?

You sound jealous. And maybe you are! But jealousy is not attractive and it certainly isn’t productive.

Look, I don’t want to call you names. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But, if you do anything to directly state or insinuate that a fast food worker’s labor is inferior to you because you worked so hard to get where you are and someone like yourself is more deserving of better wages…. you’re missing the point and I pray that God bestows the gifts of compassion and empathy upon you. This isn’t about you. The victory of these people does nothing to detract from your own personal success and career choices. This doesn’t affect you (unless you eat a ton of Fast Food and you’re concerned about a price hike).

If you’re concerned about a price hike and you want to get outraged about it, I suppose just keep in mind that it’s probably going to happen. So be prepared. It’s not going to happen because the companies fear becoming insolvent by paying those extra couple dollars an hour (without any other benefits like health insurance or retirement), but it is going to happen because the companies know that you’re a sucker for their Dollar Menu economics and they want to win you over with it. They know that you equate a cheap burger to value, and they know they can stir your emotions and political ideals by tacking on $0.50 or another $1.00 to make that burger less valuable than it used to be. A Two Dollar Menu doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? These companies don’t care how much money you spend at their restaurant on any given visit, they just care that you’re spending. They don’t want to relinquish any control they have over keeping you happy with the status quo, so they’re going to do whatever it takes to make consumers think they’re experiencing a huge economic blow to their wealth that will deprive you of your treasured burger (made from several tortured cows in every bite — I HAD TO!) all because the workers who sling said burgers demanded more money for their time.

In conclusion – you don’t have to feel the way that you do, and I don’t have to feel the way that I do about you for having the opinions that you do. The point of all this is that a corporation like McDonalds does not care about you. It doesn’t. Not at all. They see you as a prospect, a source of money, a dollar sign, and a pawn in an economic game. I see you as a person. You are a citizen of the same country as me, a member of my community, and I care about you enough to risk you hating me and thinking that I’m a stupid bitch for explaining in detail why you should stop wasting your time saying mean things about fast food workers.

I feel really depressed today.

Feeding-and-Exercising of Self Plan for Week of March 1st – March 7th

I haven’t written for myself in awhile (that’s not true, but I’m not going to share it here). Last night I wrote a grocery list and plotted out a week’s worth of meals and an exercise plan. I traveled for 2 weekends in a row and last week I ate take-out for every meal from Monday-Friday. I feel puffy and weak from not getting enough sleep whatsoever for 2 weeks straight, not getting enough exercise due to exhausting myself by sitting at a damn desk all day, and exclusively eating sandwiches. After the holidays I went low carb for a week and a half and I lost 3 lbs. I would love to lose 8 lbs and be my pre desk-job self, but I’d have to take up smoking cigarettes and only eating twice every other day to be like that again. I like having boobs and an ass, I guess.

This morning my refrigerator was completely empty. This afternoon, I rented a ZipCar and went to Stop & Shop to change that. List, meal plan, and links to recipes below:

(Reprise) Smell Ya Later, New York: Street Harassment

Ladies: when someone tells you that street harassment is actually a compliment, they are telling you to shut up. Never shut up.

Originally posted on a blog from yesteryear, I unearthed a beauty of a post on a subject that is receiving a lot of responses lately thanks to the video above. I’ve come across facebook posts where folks are trying to open up earnest conversations about why “God Bless You” and “Have a Nice Day” are considered harassment, and I’ve seen videos of men telling women they’re thinking about it wrong and they should be thrilled to be receiving compliments. I’m happy that some people are taking the time to analyze the issue, and I dreadfully disappointed that there are men and women who fail to analyze AND empathize. See below:

End of Year Travel

September was a really great month for results on paying down balances, and it was practically effortless. Nothing was going on that month! October, November, and December on the other hand – different story. Traveling is a bigger part of my life now in Boston than it ever was when I was in New York. Traveling doesn’t just mean accounting for plane and train tickets, but also for spending money on going out with the people I don’t get to see for months at a time. Meeting up with people for brunch, dinner, and drinks can easily spiral out of control if there aren’t some limits. To give myself hard-stops on spending and in order to have fun within my means, I planned my allowances for each of the four major trips I will be making before 2015.

IT’s ma birthday.

As of today, 26 is how many years I have spent on this planet. Today I’m celebrating by not brushing my hair, not showering, definitely not putting on a bra, and laying in bed to drift between sleep and my tumblr dash. I love that it is an overcast chilly day. I am not doing a goddamn thing except celebrating my ability to just be. Last week I worked Monday-Saturday, 6 days and 60 hours of intensity, and I am very, very tired.

BIRTHDAY PRESENT REQUEST: Before I dig into the details of my weekend, I want anyone who reads this to check out a GoFundMe page to buy prescription formula for a baby I know with a milk allergy that has caused her a lot of pain. Click and donate here: http://www.gofundme.com/fquzv8. I’ve never met this baby, but I used to hang out with her mom when I was a kid. I really don’t like some people’s baby photos popping up on Facebook, but I really LOVE seeing this baby girl growing up because she had such a difficult start at life. It’s amazing to see what perseverance and love does to make someone grow and become a healthy, adorable little nugget. Last night I donated $50, the cost of one can of the only formula her tummy can tolerate. If you read this blog, I strongly encourage you to make a random act of kindness, even if you don’t know the recipient, and send some cash her way. Just think about contributing towards putting a smile on this little one’s face and helping her grow big and strong. DO it. Don’t tear up now… just DO IT!

Ending the Spending Fast

The one thing this month that has kept me from irrationally and impulsively spending money has been my job. I’m very, very busy. I’m learning a lot about accounting and business management. I’ve only been able to slightly recognize the resentment I’m feeling towards my salary losing its hourly value as I exceed 40 hours every week. I’m so excited for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Xmas New Years beaks so I can spend time with family and friends. I’m still driven to get rid of my credit card debt even if it’s going to take a little longer than I hoped.

Final Stretch: 9 More Days

Last week was another busy one, and to top it off I came down with a bizarre lung-eating virus that gave me a killer cough (and killer abs). The act of breathing was a challenge, so I stayed away from the gym and walked home instead for exercise and to avoid spreading germs on the T. Except for Friday and Saturday night, I ate home-cooked food and leftovers for all three meals.. There are 9 days left to the spending fast, and even though I spent some of my money on “wants” I haven’t gone over my $200 budget for spending on my American Express Serve card.  There’s $8 to spare.

This week:

Workout as much as possible

My cough has subsided and I’m so ready to get back in the swing of exercise.

Eat home-cooked/homemade 3x/day 

Meal planning and building up pantry staples has been the key to success with this. The site budgetbytes.com has been a good resource for inexpensive, filling, and cheap eats. Last week I made the Creamy Tomato & Spinach Pasta for dinner, the Chopped Kale Salad for lunch(es), and the Spinach Rice Breakfast bowls. This week the Italian Wonderpot is on the menu along with some attempts at Turkish food inspired by watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations: Red Lentil Soup (Mercimek Corbasi), Fava Bean and Pea Salad (İç Bakla ve Bezelye Salatası), and Sultan’s Delight (Hünkar Beğendi). More on how that goes this week.

Finalize a budget for October

October is the last month before shit gets crazy with the holidays. Aside from basic living expenses, I have to account for budgeting and funding for some other ventures before the end of the year:

• My 26th birthday is October 13th. I need to decide how much I want to spend on celebrations. Dive bar? Yes – if only Boston had a good one near me.
• Travel arrangements for my friend’s November wedding in Brooklyn.
• Travel arrangements for Thanksgiving in NJ/NYC before the ticket prices sky rocket.
• Travel arrangements to Buffalo and NJ/NYC for Christmas/NYE
• Christmas presents for nieces and nephews