Sooooo...

I decided upon graduating to take a year off of school.

That year is up.

Now what?

Man, a BA in Literature gets you nothing.

Anybody have any ideas on how to become an editor?

Anybody have any advice on getting really awesome recommendation letters for gradschool?

Anybody know if you can put a key back on a keyboard when even the little squishy doohickey underneath is gone? My quotation mark key popped off...more than a year ago and I'm sick of it. I managed to write a thesis without it, too.

In Which a Hobby Reinforces Harmful Gender Policing

I love it when blogs I would categorize as "fun" cover topics I call "serious." So imagine my delight upon finding The Studioist, and this post:

Thoughts on Man Caves, Mom Caves, and Gendered Space

As the Guiness scientists would say, BRILLIANT!

The comments continue the goodness, with such snippets as:

"When I commented that “I think this personal space arms race is often a sign of culturally-reinforced familial dysfunction”, what I meant is that there are strong cultural narratives about how families should work that undermine families."

"...the “caveman” image insults everyone–it suggests that in the home or family sphere, men are incompetent, monosyllabic oafs, leaving women to be the Responsible Caretaker 24/7."

"I also found it strange that they call it a mom cave. As if women in general can’t have a place to themselves, unless they are a mom."

"Ready"

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Quibble

A number of blogs I read are written by women who are pregnant. Most of these are my cotton-candy blogs, that talk about clothes and jewelry and interior design and have pictures of cats. So I guess I shouldn't have particularly high expectations about this kind of thing, even when said bloggers are open about considering themselves kind of liberal, and mostly it's just a mistaken misuse of the word--

But I hate it when they refer to a fetus's "gender."

I mean, the kid is still a cashew-shaped blob with a tail, floating about in your amniotic fluid, and you're already talking about how it will conform to societal pressures and expectations about its appearance and behavior.

You mean your baby's sex, people. SEX.