Julie Pippert: Using My Words

Lately, my kids have been competing for the award for Bickeriest Bickerton Ever. I find myself saying, constantly, things such as: If you start a sentence with No no no no no no, you are probably starting a battle. If you start a sentence with this sarcastic tooooonnnnnneeee, you are probably starting a battle. If you accuse someone of something awful -- you lied! you stole! you broke! you're so weird! -- you are probably starting a battle. I am trying to convince my kids that starting a battle is a bad plan. It takes time, wastes energy, creates an unpleasant environment, leaves everyone feeling bad, and doesn't accomplish a thing. I don't want them growing up feeding off negativity like drama vampires, you see. In point of fact, I don't want them to grow up to be thoughtless or bullies or only able to relate via "telling it like it is" and through harshness and cruelty. Lately, though, it's getting harder, and I think I realized my tolerance is at an all...

Not too long ago, I was reading a New York Times article about why people unfriend other people on Facebook and it got me thinking about a lot of things, truly. What does Friend mean, anyway? (And when did it get to be a Proper Verb? When did Verbs get Proper, anyway?) Don't you Friend people you like, and thereby, de facto, accept as they are? Who are you to deem someone else uninteresting? Okay let's start at the end. From the article : "The rules of Internet friendship seem to differ in other ways from their earthbound equivalents. There is a bluntness to unfriending that would hardly fly in real life: “As soon as you have a baby, you become uninteresting,” noted one survey respondent." Really? You think maybe, possibly, it could be that it's a case of the other person hasn't become uninteresting but, in fact, developed a new life focus that is just worlds away from your own, and that doesn't make either of you bad...it just means you don't fit the...

The other day I listened to one of the most brilliant modern satirists, David Sedaris, talk about his new transition into fictional stories, where the main characters are animals ( David Sedaris, Anatomizing Us In 'Squirrel' Tales ). These aren't fables nor are they for children. They are instead modern Grimm's Fairy Tales of a sort -- although Sedaris claims they have no moral to them (I think they do, in fact -- any satire of a culture includes a lesson, if you think on it). Sedaris said: "Fables have morals, and not all of these do," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "So I wound up calling it a bestiary, which is just a book in which animals do things that people do." In contrast to classic animal fables like Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare," there are few identifiably good characters in Sedaris' stories. "I don't think our world is as black and white now," says Sedaris, who consciously avoided Aesop and La Fonta...

Grumpy and prickly: or are appearances deceiving ? It started with a tweet I read by an exasperated person who was in proximity with someone chatting on a cell phone. The crux of the comment was that nobody has any boundaries these days and that everyone has simply gotten so horribly rude. So...is it rude? Has rudeness truly increased? I've thought a lot about this lately. It occurred to me that perhaps we aren't ruder as a people -- perhaps we simply have a lot of evolution rapidly entering our society, and our mores haven't had a chance to catch up. More importantly, perhaps we have more overlapping cultural mores than ever. In other words, there are so very many people living in close proximity, crossing paths daily, and the truth is, we're so mobile now -- but of course, everywhere we go, we take ourselves (and our personal and cultural mores). That means that all these people we're bumping up against are not likely to be from our village, raised with our same r...

Today on an NPR story , an actor was talking about his challenges getting roles. A common theme perhaps, but his obstacle, he said, was the fact that he uses a wheelchair. He's not bothered by the fact that the actor who plays wheelchair-bound Artie is not actually disabled, "People who have disabilities or who use wheelchairs who could still conceivably play that part should have equal opportunities to audition for those roles. And if it goes both ways, then the best actor should get the part." Another disabled performer, Alana, said that this doesn't actually happen. She said that it floors her that even open-minded producers and directors envision that disabled actors and performers should only play victims, in roles that revolve around their disability. In fact, the part usually acts out a morality play, by having the characters be charity cases, she said, heroic characters overcoming tragedy. The disability, then, is the real character, and the actor is merely pl...

Every morning I boot up my Twitter stream because, like this guy I know named Ed, I trust human editors who happen to be people I've deliberately chosen to follow, to let me know what I need to know. In fact, I usually hear on Twitter today the news major media brings me tomorrow. I'm pretty sure journalists are trolling Twitter for inspiration, too. Or trawling. Depending upon the motives. My motive is definitely to be inspired and informed. I love knowing what has caught people's attention and what has held it. The cultural geographer in me finds Twitter an awesome insight into our culture, mindset, interests, motives, and more. I have a lot of different intentions behind using Twitter and the Tweets I send out. Mostly I send out links to interesting things I've read or stuff I think you should know, RTs from people I esteem and who said something I found worthwhile, or germane thoughts about twitversations or current events. I've used it for customer service. C...

On the way to dinner the other night, we turned down a street and my mother said, "Hey Julie, look at those apartments right there---they just built them..." And I said, "Are they full?" Which she misheard, unsurprisingly considering the amount of noise six children can make, and said, "No, no they aren't for the poor, it isn't subsidized housing, I think anyone can live there." Which caused my sister to say, "Are you telling your HOMELESS daughter about alternative housing possibilities?" We laughed---a little at my mother for misunderstanding, and a little at me for the homeless thing. See, the homeless thing is a joke. It came from this whole incident at the school, when I tried to register my kids for temporary enrollment. When I went by the local school to see about sending the kids there until our school district opens, they handed me a form that I had to sign, declaring myself homeless, so that my mother---with whom we are staying-...

When Patience was a baby, her colic didn't end at three months like everyone promised it would. My mother and sister, both more experienced at mothering than I, insisted I ask about reflux, again, despite my doctor's continual waving of her hand dismissively. I finally got the doctor to listen and we did get a reflux diagnosis. Ah blessed quiet, blessed sleep. Unfortunately it took over six months and by then we were half delusional from stress and exhaustion. But never once did I question medical intervention because something was wrong and that created a quality of life problem, therefore it needed to be fixed . I watched a friend from playgroup get a patch for a lazy eye for her child, another get glasses for her toddler, another baby needed a helmet for a skull not growing correctly, that baby needed surgery to correct a hernia, this toddler was getting tested for developmental delays...from birth, we learn of human imperfection. Here, in our culture, we don't rely on s...

Her name is Lakshmi Tatma and she was born in October during the festival for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. The night before she was born, her mother dreamt of the goddess, who represents prosperity and wealth (worldly and spiritual). She believed it was a sign that her soon-to-be-born child would bring good fortune. The Tatma family looked forward to good fortune. The rural area of the Indian Behar province where they live is a largely poor region with little access to things we take for granted, such as medical care, stores, and other modern conveniences. Life there is, as National Geographic said, ". . .untouched by the 21st Century." Due to the poverty and lack of medical care, infants often die or, if sickly or deformed, are sometimes left in fields to die. This might have been Lakshmi's fate, because she was born with four arms and four legs---the result of an undeveloped parasitic twin. Her mother was so shocked to see her new daughter that she fainted, but I got the ...

( Photo by Scott Peterson. ) Yesterday a good friend dropped by my house and said, "Come over for dinner later. I feel like cooking and having people over. Wear a swimsuit." "What can I bring?" I asked. "Anything you like. We're eating what makes us feel good," she said, "I already asked Friend and Other Friend. They're bringing side dishes and desserts." "So like an appetizer?" "Sure. Just come. I need to cook. I need to entertain." "Okay," I said. This friend's father passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was a surprise/not surprise. He'd been suffering strokes for years and---despite really effective treatment that not only prolonged his life, but also prolonged the quality of his life by minimizing the effects of the strokes---doctors had warned the family quite some time ago that the next big one would likely be fatal. So they knew that death loomed. When her father passed away, as her friend, I ...

Image of Syesha Mercado from TV Guide online . My husband and I are invariably behind on watching American Idol . First, our time is pretty tight, and we prefer to watch together. Second, and maybe more importantly, our heart's just not in it that much, any more. The singers we began really excited about---the ones we thought would be really good and who somehow captured our interest---never really delivered the goods and were slowly picked off, one by one, leaving two singers we don't really like, and one who we think is very talented, but a really iffy proposition in this showcase. Nevertheless, we watched the show last night, only one day late (we don't know the results, so please, no spoilers). When Syesha Mercado came on to do her second number---the song she picked for herself---a few things finally clicked in my mind. "What is that?" my husband asked, after her interview, "That super Southern voice, and all that arm waving and clicking? Who is this gi...

Photo of Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult in About a Boy from allmoviephotos.com and Universal Pictures. BADLY DRAWN BOY "Walking Out Of Stride" You and me we could never hide Too busy walking out of stride You and me could never hide Too busy walking out of stride Take 1,2,3 then 4 or 5 People talking keeps us alive You and me could never hide Too busy walking out of stride Take 1,2,3 then 4 or 5 People talking keeps us alive What does it mean to you: walking out of stride? Does it mean at cross-purposes with yourself, or is it more of a cross-purposes with the norm, with general expectations? Is it a light issue or a deep one? Do you embrace walking out of stride? Endeavor to stand out? Or are you more the type of person who does your best to keep pace, remain part of the anonymous crowd? It's said that the desire to stand out from the crowd is innate. When I researched this, I found just as much written about the other side of the coin: the fear of standing out is innate...

Today I am listening to the words of others. Yours. And these. 1. " Social comparison and body image: attractiveness comparisons to models and peers among adolescent girls and boys " (Statistical Data Included) Sex Roles: A Journal of Research , Nov, 2001 by Diane Carlson Jones The empirical relationship between social comparison and body image has been evaluated among college students, primarily for women. The general finding has been that females who have reported more appearance-related social comparisons have been more likely to be dissatisfied with their body images (Faith, Leone, & Allison, 1997; Stormer & Thompson, 1996; Thompson, Coovert, & Stormer, 1999). The linkage between social comparison and negative body image may be enhanced in the research because the targets of the appearance comparisons have frequently been models and celebrities presented in the media (Botta, 1999; Taylor et al., 1998). Media images of thin females and muscular males represen...