Death and Taxes

Back in November, I wrote my Goodbye Drama Mama post. That's when I decided enough was finally enough with certain family members and Mother. I did all my mourning then as well, and, wept profusely.

Last night Mother passed and I've barely felt the pain. My family of origin was highly dysfunctional, i.e. totally nuts. I spent part of the day reading Drama Mama's emails that I've saved since 2003. She was really something and so are the others (still living) involved in this most recent go round.

It's relief I feel, with only a tiny bit of shame for being glad she's gone. I certainly hope that Mother manages to work through a few issues before we meet again. And, today, once again I felt the kindness of my husband and my kids. It's so nice that we don't have to be defined by our messy families of origin.

This afternoon, I've passed the time by quietly working on the longest tax return I've ever had to prepare in our married life. There is that old saying, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes."

BYU-Schmyu Honor Code

Another thing I just don't get-when in Rome live by Rome's laws. The BYU honor code.

To read some bloggers you'd think the Spanish Inquisition was in place. So, never having personally attended the Y, I guess I just don't quite get the allure and the reason for staying if one is unhappy. Oh-your parents are paying for your education you say? Hmmmm. Well one could choose to pay their own way. Of course, few universities on the planet are as affordable as the BYU's for those who qualify for the super duper member rates. Or is it that you want all the benefits of affiliation with said university (networking, high ranking, and status)and not the baggage?

Sorry, if you are not feeling the love, sign me "a product of fine non-Utah community college, public university undergrad, Methodist and Jesuit grad school programs," Quiet Song.

Interesting take on Catholic University's honor code as it pertains to things sexuuual.

It seems to me if you are going to a religion's flagship university and that religion has strictly constrained certain types of sexual activity one may expect certain types of monitoring.

The Queen Bee and I

When I met her, it was under the unpleasant yet reinforcing experience of being held up to be an example of what a young LDS girl should dress like in the era of the miniskirt. As I recall, it was my first night at mutual in my new ward and the lesson was on modesty. I had made my cute blue jumper the previous year in Home Economics class. Sewing came easy to me, Mother did it, and it had been the only 4-H option available to me as an inner city gradeschooler. By the time I was a second year Beehive, I COULD make just about anything I wanted to and my mother would buy fabric and patterns when she wouldn't buy new clothes.

I think this was the start of my love hate relationship with Queen Bee. Our fathers were business associates. Hers was already on his way to being more successful than my stepfather. She had the added benefit of having a sane, moral father figure in her life, I did not. Her mom was the classic LDS homemaker. Mine was not, but became a world class baker of whole wheat bread, could can anything and began her odyssey into what I'll call a health food fetishism which has lasted the rest of her life.

Queen Bee did not like having any attention diverted to me. In the next few months she managed two nasty emotional sabotages through other people, one through the same beehive leader and another through one of the young men, who told me I didn't belong in their ward group and I should get out. I know this because another girl told me that he wanted to be with Queen Bee and she had been there when Queen Bee asked him to tell me. Fortunately, Queen Bee and I did not attend the same junior high school.

I was very, very used to being the new kid as my mother had moved a lot as a single parent. Paying my dues one way or another was typical. At least this was not physical and I was not being physically attacked for being a newcomer.

During the second year of Beehives (never thought how funny this is before), Queen Bee and I had become uneasy friends. I remember many nights of pleasant sleep overs. Her Mom was fun and I liked her. Queen Bee's mom let me borrow a beautiful pink long dress that she had made for Queen Bee for a dance. As I recall, Queen Bee could no longer fit the bodice.

I don't ever remember being sexually attracted to Queen Bee, but I do recall wanting to be her friend and never quite feeling like I measured up. This feeling of inadequacy grew during the high school years and we attended the same school. Queen Bee became, you guessed it, a cheerleader. She also had a classic Barbie Doll figure. I did not, I had a good, but old fashioned hour glass figure. Queen Bee was naturally browner and in our California beach community that also added to her popularity package.

In retrospect, it's funny how inadequate I always felt around Queen Bee. I remember asking her about Cheerleader try-outs. With incredible scorn, Queen Bee basically told me I was crazy for even thinking of trying and that I absoulutely did not have what was necessary to be a cheerleader. So I didn't try out. I cannot remember if it was because I felt so put down or simply no longer wanted to be around her.

Understand that I was very, very beautiful as a teenager. I had been solicited to model locally, but turned that opportunity down. I've always wondered if that was foolhardy and whether I should have taken advantage of that opportunity when it came. However, I never felt beautiful.

And, I felt so ugly compared to the popular Queen Bee. Being a shy and serious person didn't help.

As we continued on in high school, Queen Bee, mostly maintained our "friendship" by borrowing my surfer chick clothes. Mother had discovered a cute boutique that carried Alfred Shaheen and other hawaiian designers and I had great women's hawaiian shirts and a really wonderful bikini with a cover up that I never wore without the cover up. Queen Bee was never allowed to wear jeans, they were too unladylike (remember it hadn't been so very long that we could even wear pants to school). As I also had a horse at this time, I had plenty of jeans of various configurations, wranglers, checks, and the classic Levi's 501's.

So often, I would lend Queen Bee my 501's and a hawaiian shirt and she would come out of the bathroom at school as someone different, a surfer chick. And off she would go in my clothes to her other friends. I remember thinking how odd it was that she so liked my clothing but not me. I also loaned my three piece bikini and cover up to her (how nasty is that?) and later heard she was wearing the bikini only.

Queen Bee eventually paired up with a rich, asian boyfriend who was not LDS. I remember being at his house once with Queen Bee so we must have continued spending some time together willingly. I basically had several strong male friendships with boys in our ward, a couple maturing into quasi and full romances. During those years, I can safely say that most of my friends were boys, but I so wanted a strong female friendship and my experience with Queen Bee was frustratingly unrequited.

After moving away in my Junior year, I did make several strong female friends at the next school. And, later met DH. I can honestly say that DH was the very best thing about those years. And, bless my girlfriends (active LDS girls who did allow me to be their friends without limitation) for loving and befriending him, too. They were not popular but had strong convictions and a sense of their own worth.

When I've read posts on first crushes, read stories of teenage same sex attractions and how the writers later characterized their experiences with friends, I've wondered why I was so drawn to Queen Bee and so badly wanted her approval. I don't think it was sexual at all. But I wanted to belong and somehow Queen Bee had become the gatekeeper or icon of acceptible feminity and I just didn't measure up. I just didn't have what was needed to really be a young women. I was too mannish. There were other reasons I wished I had been born male, again, fodder for another post. These were all thoughts I had that I used to reinforce my own low self esteem.

Also, the whole modesty and appropriateness in dress was interwoven with our mutual teenage experience. This is where she chose to rebel and she used me to do it.

The term Queen Bee comes from a book called Queen Bees and Wannabees. It was later made into the movie Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan. Not only did I really like the movie, but thus began my obsession with LILO as well. I guess that's also fodder for another post. Strangely some of this Queen Bee behavior carries on into adult life with some women, too.

I think I'm no longer a wannabee, it's taken a long time to get here. I hope I have not become a Queen Bee either although there are characteristics of a heavenly queen that I hope I do have. As women we judge, we criticize each other and ourselves, we try to protect our turf, we fail to forgive and worse. I decided to really make an effort to find Queen Bee last night to see how her life turned out. I don't want to be her friend (well, I think maybe I'm still fearful of rejection or nastiness), but I wanted to know.

In the last couple of years, Queen Bee lost her father and married a daughter off to a nice young man. From my strictly online sources, I was able to ascertain that Queen Bee didn't stay with her high school boyfriend, she married what looked to be a nice LDS boy, got her own degree, put husband through professional school, went through a serious health issue with husband, went through serious health problem and miracle with one of her children, experienced financial hardship, possibly endured criminal activity by her husband, and divorced her husband. I found her facebook profile and could not believe how unhappy she looked. Wow.

This only serves to reinforce what I already knew about life, that there are tremendous sorrows hidden within each and every soul. I am not at all happy for her distress or gloating about the things which on their face seem to be better about my life. Life is not easy even for Queen Bees.

Women of Cover

In my community there are at least three distinct religious groups of women covering: two in the Christian tradition and one in the Islamic tradition. Our Islamic ladies wear the headscarves sometimes with abaya or long dusters, and sometimes in regular western clothing. One Christian group wears prayer caps with long dresses and capes. The other tends toward the long denim skirts and kerchiefs. These women are respected in our community and while they tend to be devoted to home and family, many do work outside the home AND run businesses here both as individuals and as part of their families.

We do not have any fundamentalist Mormons here. My Jewish friend, strangely, is the only person I have ever heard snipe about the dress code of our covered friends. This goes along with her well meaning but unfortunate lack of tact. I do not think there are any Orthodox Jews here or we would see the requisite wigged married ladies.

Because I am old, I have been exposed to other head covering traditions such as in the Catholic church, yes I am old enough to have attended a Catholic wedding mass, be named for a Catholic Saint (subconsciously, I think, by Mother), and be familiar with the Catholic Mantilla. Mother briefly attended Catholic nursing school before being dismissed by the assistant Mother Superior for (choose any of the following): a) walking in the convent halls in only her underwear (this may have something else to do with my interest in the history of underwear!), b) drag racing on Saturday nights, c) Coming to Sunday Mass so drunk she could not say the Rosary, d) Her older brother calling the school and asking, "Is this the Catholic whorehouse?", or e) some combination or all of the above. Mind you, Mother was not Catholic, nor was I baptized Catholic. Nevertheless, Catholicism is a part of the family tradition. It is also the tradition I married into.

I had a lot of misconceptions. I met a beloved customer who shared with me her true and abiding Catholic faith and how a devout, pious modern Catholic lives. It was eye opening and nourishing. There is a lot of diversity in Catholicism and some of that diversity is finding expression in a return to more traditional practices such as women wearing the head covering.

As I have experienced my friends and neighbors who cover, I do not find oppression. I do not find oppression myself in being a woman of cover. And, I believe more and more women of many faiths are choosing to cover both in worship and in daily life as a statement of faith and identity. However, I do believe many people feel threatened by covering women because it distresses their own secular identities. This has even been raised as a possible source for the head covering conflict in France, as it is a difficult reminder for some of the influence and power of the Catholic church.

Underwear in History and in the War on Terror.

So you may ask how is it that Quiet Song has so much interest in the history of underwear? I will give a few answers:

1) In general I love potty humor. However, as a parent I specifically dislike Captain Underpants, and was more than happy to "inadvertantly" abandon the one book we had from this series in the Urologist's office. Yes, sometimes the young'uns have to be seen in these places, too. I also have to admit that some of the potty training cassettes we used had some pretty catchy tunes. And, when DH admitted to the littlest angel that he would like character briefs, too, and wanted the Incredible Hulk . . . . Well, I've never stopped laughing.

2) I once was asked to build a fleet of corsets for a local theatre production, which I wisely declined, but not before learning a great deal about corset manufacture.

3) I have never, ever had a bra that fit, and seriously considered making my own. Now I'm at an age and with a family history of breast cancer, I may face future reconstruction, at which time I'll have my girls realigned and rebuilt in such a way as to fit standard commercial brands of brasierres instead.

4) I also considered making or having a corset made to train my waist flab to lie in a more attractive manner than it does. Ladies, ever notice the strange confirguration of fat and how it appears to be related to where the waistband of pants hits? I discovered that there is an entire subculture related to the modern corset. And,

5) There is the ongoing debate that temple garment wearing women are oppressed creatures who do not own control of their bodies as recently demonstrated on the Curie's blog. The curious result is that for some people wearing underwear that allows you to express your fashion sense or makes you feel sexy, dominating or attractive is ok, whereas wearing underwear in conformance with the tenets of your faith and an expression thereof is not ok.

Three sites of interest on the history of underwear and, men, I have not forgotten you!

The Secret History of the Corset and Crinoline

Vintage Skivvies' History Pages (Mens' underwear)

Warning: Menstrual related content-European Underwear 1700-1900

And, waist training and corset dieting from the lovely Romantasy.

Finally, from the War on Terror in 2009 we have Zachary from Texas fighting the Taliban in his pink boxers and flip flops. Note that these are "I love New York" pink boxers. Not to be outdone, Umar Farouk of Nigeria, attempted to blow up an airliner with his explosive briefs on behalf of Al-Qaeda on Christmas day.

And the Winner is . . . Heterosexuality with some Homosexuality

I read the Curies blog regularly, (sigh, except sometimes when it makes me blush) and have followed Mister's exploration of trying to determine what his sexuality is. He mentioned taking the Klein test. Today I tried the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and came out straight but very, very close on the quadrant of being emotionally gay. On the Multidimensional Scale of Sexuality I came out Heterosexual with some Homosexuality and low but measurable ratings for concurrent bisexuality and serial bisexuality. Concurrent bisexuality means having sex with males and females separately during the same period of time and serial bisexuality means alternating male and female partners over time.

Both of these scales seemed to require a fair amount of experience with multiple sexual partners (one and only one for me) and more experience using erotic material than I have. Both tests attempt to measure sexual fluidity at any given time. I don't know how accurately either measures the "active LGBT LDS member lifestyle" with no porn, no gay cultural identity, and limited sexual contacts. Perhaps I'm "straight for the cause?"

So, do I know anymore than I did when I started? Not really. Sounds a bit like of a wine marketing slogan though, "Heterosexual with a piquant hint of homosexuality."

The Mormon Matriarchy

With the very large number of children being reared in the church by their mothers without a father in the home, the large number of single women and the large number of men who are either unable or unwilling to preside in their home as priesthood holders, I'm going out on a limb here and suggesting the following observations reflect actual reality for us as a people:

1) Many women are already performing functions traditionally thought to be performed by holders of the priesthood, i.e. presiding in the home, and that we outnumber men in the church and are more likely to live alone at some time in our life due to our greater lifespans.

2) Many women are actually performing blessings and the like in their homes and for their loved ones, and most are not sharing that information with others as it is considered sacred, and, yes, sometimes, sacreligous, and both the language and perception may be different as women who find themselves in this situation do not exercise the priesthood power as a result of their ordination but rather as a right of their endowment,

3) and, that the church is actually at the level of it's most fundamental building block, the family, is an unabashedly matriarchial institution in actual fact regardless of whether there is a presiding priesthood holder present and accounted for.


Wikipedia's definitions of both Patriarchy and Matriarchy are useful here. As I cobbled together the numbers in the past when thinking about this issue, my unscientific feel for the numbers was that households in the church spiritually "led" by a woman would be at least 40% and may even exceed 50%. That would make for interesting research.