Monday, January 25, the Pittsburgh Penguins met the New York Rangers at Madison Square Gardens. My boyfriend Marc-Andre Fleury, who sat out several games with a broken finger, was back in net for the first time since the injury. I was all set to marvel at the sexy athleticism on the Penguins’ side when I realized that opposite Fleury, all bedecked in catching gloves and giant leg pads stood… Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist.

Well, I’ll get to Lundvqist later. But because today is my twenty-fourth birthday, I thought I would share with you the hotness that is Marc-Andre Fleury!

Beware: extremely image-heavy below the cut.

I have been having a total shit week, very busy with doctor’s appointments and dealing with some extra-special obstructive, discriminatory shit at work, so I haven’t been up for anything that requires engagement. Just mindless reading. But I can always count on the Penguins to cheer me up.

Marc Andre Fleury made the most ridiculous save against the Philadelphia Flyers last night:

This is why he’s my boyfriend. And also why my husband doesn’t mind.

I feel like a five-year-old who just got teleported into Disneyland for the first time. I start bouncing up and down giddily and crying do it again! do it again!!

Philadelphia’s Jeff Carter rushes to the net and makes a shot, which Marc-Andre Fleury thinks he has frozen but ends up coming out for a juicy rebound. Philadelphia’s Daniel Briere works in front of the net trying to chip the puck in, and Fleury falls on his side reaching to stop the puck just outside his crease. Briere makes one last attempt, trying to chip the puck over the body of Fleury, and Fleury, still lying on his side, rolls on his back and curls up just enough to grab the puck out of the air with his glove, legs in the air, rather like a turtle on his back…

Paul Steiggerwald: — good save by Fleury — the rebound, loose around the net, Fleury can’t corrall it — OH! makes a good glove save on a puck that was going over his body and into the net off the stick of Daniel Briere.

Bob Errey: Absolutely sick save by Marc-Andre Fleury, laying on his right side, and Briere thought he had himself when he chipped it, but Fleury somehow got the glove reaching back! …

Guess what you get today? Video! Previously Buddy was featured finding creative ways to share my tea: one and two.

This is the game Mitsy plays with me when I sit at my desk. I’ll touch her on the front side, then reach around to a spot of fur poking out under the shelf in the back, and she flops and rolls around feigning great surprise and indignation, mewing at me — then flopping back around and staring expectantly for me to continue. This goes on til my arm gets tired reaching up, and she’ll keep rolling and flopping for some time, staring down and meowing at me.

And pictures.

Mitsy cuddling on my lap.

Both of them on my desk, stirring up trouble.

Buddy is a big huge bully. Often he will fight his sister out of whatever spot she occupies — on the wide open floor, in a box, on a chair, or in this case, on top of my desk — and either take over, or just wander off. Bully, I tell you.

Today’s roundup brought to you by oh look a feather toy!

I’m having a hard time settling in without fazing out and completely losing cognition. What else to do but turn to youtube?

MOON SHOE IT UP!

Second, here’s Billy Mays (RIP) going through the drive-through at McDonalds.

(I’ve heard that (surprise, surprise) the morning radio show people this is associated with are assholes, and I’m sure they are, given that it’s pretty much a requirement in the genre. Fortunately, they don’t appear to have part in this video — it’s all Billy.)

What’s been cheering you up this week?

(Cross-posted at Feministe.)

Watch the video:

Listen without interruption. (Embedding disabled, you have to click through.)

There are so many times, so many situations, where this song is just the right medicine. Listen. And then watch the video. It provides the right context (despite the annoying interruptions), but most of all the video is simply captivating.

Every time this song comes up on my playlist, my mind just stops and I escape into that video for two minutes.

And then I go back and play it again.

“I’m Not Like Everybody Else” (The Kinks)

I won’t take all that they hand me down,
and make out a smile, though I wear a frown,
and I won’t take it all lying down,
’cause once I get started I go to town.

’cause I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

And I don’t want to ball about like everybody else,
and I don’t want to live my life like everybody else,
and I won’t say that I feel fine like everybody else,
’cause Im not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

But darling, you know that I love you true,
do anything that you want me to,
confess all my sins like you want me to,
there’s one thing that I will say to you,
I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else
and I don’t want to ball about like everybody else,
and I don’t want to live my life like everybody else,
and I won’t say that I feel fine like everybody else,
’cause I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

Like everybody else,
Like everybody else,
Like everybody else,
Like everybody else.

If you all want me to settle down,
slow up and stop all my running round,
do everything like you want me to,
there’s one thing that I will say to you,
I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.
and I don’t want to ball about like everybody else,
and I don’t want to live my life like everybody else,
and I won’t say that I feel fine like everybody else,
’cause I’m not like everybody else,
I’m not like everybody else.

Like everybody else (like everybody else),
Like everybody else (like everybody else),
Like everybody else (like everybody else),
Like everybody else.

Oooooh boy, Dove, you have no idea what you’re getting into here, do you?

The subcontext here is incredible. Jess uses a wheelchair. She’s happy and perky and having fun. Katie is visibly healthy. She has low self-esteem and her self-hatred keeps her from even being able to greet Jess when she comes to the door. Instead, she slouches to the ground in despair.

There is a reason they put Jess in a wheelchair. In doing this, Dove sets up a contrast: the physically disabled girl who feels good enough about herself to go about her life; the able-bodied girl who hates herself so much she can’t even go out with the people least likely to judge her at all.

The only way this contrast is meaningful is if it rests on the assumption that the physically disabled girl has reason to think less of herself.

Dove, here, is deliberately driving home the message: It’s such a shame that the “normal” girl thinks less of herself than does the girl in a wheelchair!

The shame conveyed here is that each girl does not recognize her true place in the social order. The normal-bodied girl is pretty, but can’t see her prettiness in the mirror. The girl in the wheelchair does feel good about herself. This is out of order, backwards. The girl in the wheelchair should be the one who sees herself one step lower; the normal-bodied girl should recognize her innate goodness in being able-bodied and conventionally attractive.

The dissonance Dove deliberately draws here relies on the recognition that Jess is diminished by her disability, but Katie is so dragged down by her poor self-esteem that she ends up in an even lower place than Jess. This is not right! This is not how things should be!

How should they be, then?

Of course, the commercial is also contemptible for the simple reason that it uses the girl in the wheelchair as an object to develop the human character of the able-bodied girl. In this setup, Jess is not a character; she is a tool. We don’t see Jess’ character explored, developed, reflected upon. She is introduced for only one reason: to act as a foil to Katie. To demonstrate just how low Katie has sunk.

Because you know it’s a fucking shame when she falls even lower than the cripple.

DIsability, here, is set up as an awful tragedy, the lowest a person can sink in life. This is what the title communicates. Disability is a reason to be sad, upset, mournful, pitied. This is what Dove purports to save young women from — a life of suffering. This is the reason Katie is to be pitied: she has fallen into the state Jess should be in.

Finally, the issue of appropriation. I’ll make it simple. Never, ever, ever, ever appropriate another group’s cause. White folk, you are simply not allowed to flip a situation to make it on a black person to try to communicate how outrageous it should be. Abled folk, you are simply not allowed to purport yourself disabled to communicate how tragic something against you is. Period. (The comparisons are slightly different in effect and implication, but my point applies to both.)

This assumes that to be disabled (black, gay, female, etc.) should always be understood to be a bad thing. It assumes that discrimination against disabled/etc. folk, or other forms of oppresion against them, are always taken seriously. And the subtext in these comparisons just screams out: How dare *I* be treated like those people!

Like it or not, whether you were thinking it or not, when you use these tropes, you imply that wrongs against you are worse than wrongs against the other group, that people should be outraged that you have been lowered to their level. What you are protesting, like it or not, is that your privilege over them has been violated.

Seriously, there is never a good reason to use the comparison trope. So just don’t do it. Ever. Period. End of story.

Via Wheelchair Dancer

Video, via. Well worth watching. It will take some time.

That said, I have something to ask. It has been brewing in my mind for some time now.

I am a white woman with ancestors straight out of Europe, married to a white man with same (mine Hungarian, his German), who grew up in white families, with predominantly white schoolmates, and mostly white friends. We live, and will continue to live, in an area that is 80% white (to be honest, that surprises me; I was going to write 95% until I decided to look up the actual figures for accuracy). To be fair, I grew up between two cities, one 54% white, and the other where Latin@s actually outnumber whites by 1.8%. My middle brother’s wife is Mexican (and therefore their child half) and I had several friends of color (Mexican, Filipina, Japanese) growing up.

But that does not change the underlying reality that concerns me: our children are going to grow up in a sheltered, privileged white community. And I want to know what I can do to counteract that.

This is smalltown southwestern Pennsylvania; there is, needless to say, a fair amount of racism about. Obviously I plan on making it clear to my children that is not acceptable, and trying to foster a sense of community with a wide variety of people, to try to make sure they just have that basic sense of the humanity of every person, to make sure that they grow up to approach difference with appreciation rather than skepticism.

Watching this video I got the idea that any dolls my children play with be representative of various races, to reinforce the idea that there is something to relate to in every person because they are human, not because “they look just like me.”

I don’t know — I know that due to my privilege there are things I might not see.

What else can a parent do? Are there any other tactics, activities, etc. that can be used by a parent trying to raise her children to feel that strong sense of identity with every person, not merely those who are most like them?

I’ve got a couple years to keep learning, at least.

Buddy tea-toe-dipping.

I caught Buddy drinking out of my tea this morning. The cup was almost empty, so I didn’t really mind, but I moved the cup under a shelf on my desk so that he couldn’t drink out of it directly.

Buddy responded by ever-so-cautiously dipping his paw into the cup, then drawing it out and licking the tea off his toes.

I couldn’t manage to get him to repeat it on video, but almost…

(ETA: I managed to catch him doing it with the camera, but it’s on the xD card, which I have no way of transferring files from. Dammit! It’s such a cute video!)