Archive for Contributors

No Texting? No Trust

I grabbed this graphic from the Facebook page of a friend, Melany. I agree with it wholeheartedly. If you always see someone checking their text messages or sending messages but you aren’t the recipient of them, something is UP! The same goes for email.

Cult Of True Womanhood

You might think American society has come far in its belief of the equality of men and women or that women are free to do whatever they want in this day and age.

Nope.

Something called the cult of true womanhood or the cult of domesticity is very much alive today.

I love studying this kind of gender and communication studies stuff.

According to Barbara Welter’s research called The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860, the cult of true womanhood consisted of four main virtues:

  • piety
  • purity
  • submissiveness
  • domesticity

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Living Well Is The Best Revenge

My mother Ann is the main reason I didn’t grow up with a desire to plot revenge for perceived wrongdoings by friends or family. She told me living well is the best revenge.

This doesn’t mean I was passive.

I physically fought with Gina across the street. She, my sister Renee’, and I spent so much time together it was like Gina was a third sibling. We would get on each other’s nerves.

I would also stand up for Renee’.

Mom, sister, and me. I’m protecting my sister from neighbors who won’t let her pick flowers.

A neighbor once scolded her for plucking flowers from the flower bed abutting our front yards. I lept in with, “Shut up old man.” And if my sister was being spanked or being punished in a very loud voice by our mother or father John, I would yell “stop it!” with all the force my childish voice could muster.
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Something To Decide Early On

“Saturday Night Fever” was a 1977 film starring a disco-dancing John Travolta. You know the one.

Back in the late 1990s, theater producers morphed the movie into a stage musical. I saw it when the show came through the town I lived in ten years ago.

In one scene during the show, protagonist Tony Manero (the Travolta character in the movie) asks Annette (the Donna Pescow character in the movie), “You a nice girl or a slut?”

She replies, “I dunno. Both.”

Tony tells her, “You can’t be both. You’re either a nice girl or a slut. That’s something a girl’s got to decide early on.”
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Tales From Sip And Go Girl: “Richard”

‘Tis time for another Tale From Sip and Go Girl. These are my real stories about dates and fellas I’ve met in my life.

Richard and I had our date at a vegetarian restaurant. He was from southern California, but was temporarily living in a city two hours from me while he was working in a contracting project. We had met online.

We ordered our food at the counter and sat down at the table. He seemed a little awkward and nervous, but I did my usual smiling and worked at keeping the conversation loose and flowing.

Suddenly, Richard reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of something. With a clatter, several rocks dropped onto the table.
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Taylor Swift Is Never Ever Getting Back Together

The Grammy Awards were on television the other night and the Internet was abuzz the next day with pics and stories about winners, clothing, songs, speeches, and other bits and pieces that make up an event at which thousands of people in the music industry reward each other for work well done.

Some of the chatter revolved around 23-year-old musician Taylor Swift and her opening performance of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” At about 2:10 into her performance, she has a spoken bridge where, in the Grammy version, she adopts a British accent.

Click here to check it out:

http://screen.yahoo.com/taylor-swift-opens-grammys-takes-105600137.html

The word on the so called street aka Internet is that Swift was mocking 19-year-old Harry Styles, a singer with the British band One Direction. Apparently, the singers had gone on a few dates.

This opened the flood gates of Swift Bashing.
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It’s The Thought That Counts

If you spent a ton of money for Valentine’s Day, I’m here to tell you that you may not have had to do that for the holiday or any day.

It truly is “the thought that counts.”

My ideas won’t work for everyone. There are females out there who are very materialistic and want big or pricy things. If you feel comfortable enough in your relationship to spend $60 to $120 on a dozen roses, you probably know her well enough to know this is what you want and should do.
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Slow Down Buddy

I was out to dinner with my friend Justin late last summer when he made a big announcement.

“I’ve met someone.”

If I remember correctly, he told me he met her through a mutual friend. Justin then began to talk about how she had recently moved into a new home. He was helping her set up the place and had given her a DVD player as a gift.

DVD player perhaps like one woman’s gift from her new man…

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Find Your Missed Connection On Craigslist

I receive voyeuristic joy from Craigslist’s Missed Connections section.

If you haven’t checked them out or used them before, then the time has come.

Missed Connections is the section of the free website where people can post comments regarding other people they saw out and about somewhere. Maybe they shared a lingering glance in the frozen foods aisle at the grocery store but never actually traded contact information. Then later while sitting alone in front of their computers they realized they might have missed a chance for love or something naughty.

As a relationship observer and researcher, I love to wander this part of the website when I’m not posting my old Barbie dolls for sale.
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I’ve Become A Drama Queen

In general, I’ve never considered myself to be a drama queen. Even when some tough event was happening, it seemed for the most part that I tried to keep it as mellow as possible.

Until lately.

I swear many more things in the last couple years and especially the last few months seem dramatic. I’m walking into nonsense that 15 years ago I would not have found myself facing. I’m embroiled in other people’s messy relationships or I just seem to face a series of bad luck. Even some of those close to me think that I’ve become fragile and seem a little impatient with me.
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