Ten Things Men Should Learn (Like Right Now)

1. Your tight pants are not hot. Even if sperm motility isn't a concern for you, please have consideration for the rest of us. I'd prefer to keep my eyeballs.

2. Your weird chest tattoo freaks us out. I like Edgar Allen Poe as much as the next literature nerd, but his face is the last thing I want to see during sex. Unless you plan to keep your shirt buttoned up during all future intimate moments, choose your tattoos carefully. Or, you know, get your dead, alcoholic authors tattooed on your bicep like the normal dudes do.

3. Do not show me your weird chest tattoo the first time we meet. I suggest a third-date field test, at the earliest.

4. If I'm typing away on my laptop and mention all the work I need to get done, that means I do not have three hours to listen to you talk about football, your job, and your ex. Even if you buy me coffee. The rule is: You can talk to me for as long as it takes me to finish the drink. If I go bottoms-up with a piping hot venti, take the hint.

5. Thank you, little hipster boy, for complimenting my sweet frames. I wear glasses to help me see things, like how you didn't know how many lords were a-leaping. And how you were so busy complimenting my sense of style that you nearly let the door slam in my face.

6. If you can't glean the lesson to be learned in number 5, try this one: Listen. For example, don't ask me a question, then interrupt me mid-sentence to start talking about football. Or about how much your job sucks. Or about your ex.

7. Never, ever make the mistake of assuming that appearance is directly related to interests or lifestyle. Comments like "You don't look like a geek!" or "You're too pretty to be single!" are demeaning. That's why I like to respond with, "You don't look like a loser!"

8. Comments like the ones above aren't compliments. Neither is suggesting you would like to have sex with me as though it's a favor you're bestowing. Especially when you do that kind of thing at work. Especially when I'm your boss. Especially when I'm old enough to be your mother. Especially when you haven't finished your work. Especially when you're an idiot.

9. A smile is not an invitation. Neither is a short skirt. Or a nice figure. Or happening to be female.

10. You are not automatically the most important person in the room. This is true even on your birthday. If you're lucky enough to be the most important person to someone else, realize that others may not share that opinion.

That Whole "Resolution" Thing

For a few years, people have urged me to blog, you know, regularly, and--while I did capitulate on a couple of occasions--it's obvious to anyone who read those two blog posts from December of 2011 that my heart wasn't really in it. I had a secret blog once, which scored a lot of page views (probably because of my frequent use of provocative search labels, heh), but even that wasn't something I felt invested in.

This blog has more unpublished drafts than published entries, including notables like "10 Things Men Should Learn (Like Right Now)" and "Dead German Poets are Geniuses (And Other Logical Fallacies)." I know I started "Secrets and Confidences" more than once, which morphed into "The Really Juicy Secrets," followed by "I'm an Open Book (Mostly)." At some point, "Secrets and Confidences" turned into a play, then a screenplay, then was abandoned altogether.

The reason I abandoned the blog (and the other blog, before that) wasn't because of poor ideas or poor writing. It wasn't because I couldn't find an audience or because I doubted my own thoughts. There was some of the old "rediscovering my voice" to be done, sure--which is much more of a thing than it sounds in that trite phrase--but even that wasn't exactly it. Certainly, I needed time to let some of my thoughts coalesce, blah blah blah...I'm talking about myself thinking about my thoughts, horriblly self-indulgent and I'm boring even myself.

Congratulations if you made it through to the end of that last paragraph. My blog, my rules, my shameless obsession with my own thought processes. Win-win. For me.

I don't remember the last time I made a resolution at the new year. I usually make resolutions during Lent, which is great, because 40 days of resolve is about all I can handle. Plus, it seldom means stuff like jogging outside in winter weather. So, the renewed blogging isn't really a resolution.

The reason I'm blogging again, this time, you know, for real, is because recently a few friends have expressed their frustration with the cultural climate for women. Yes, we've been taking steps backward; we've got the illusion of having arrived as a feminist culture, and yet have lost ground where it really counts: in the political and social arenas. Women are more divided from one another, across racial, socioeconomic, and generational lines. "Girl culture" has morphed into some type of consumerist, ironic hootchie-mama nonsense that makes many of us cringe.

A week or so ago, a woman I only know on the internet sent me a message of thanks for my "voice of sanity" in a decidedly un-woman-friendly environment. I may repost it here later, but it was remarkable. It mattered. And after two or three other friends expressed their recent despair over the loss of their voice in this postfeminist culture, I've decided it's time to have a forum for the things I've been saying already. You know, a positive place for women where so much of that is lacking, the internet.

I'll probably also talk about knitting and movies and things like that. But, you know, in a feminist way.