#AMonthofFaves2016 is HERE!

I'm super late announcing this because I put a moratorium on my Internet usage over the Thanksgiving holidays. I needed a sanity break, but now I'm back along with Tanya Patrice and Tamara for another installment of #AMonthofFaves. Here's the schedule for December. Feel free to come and go, dip in and out, and link up your posts on any of our blogs throughout the event!

Thu. | Dec. 1 – These Are A Few of My Favorite Things #AMonthofFaves2016 – eg. to eat, drink, wear, smell, see, do, enjoy, best thing I bought, most used gift received etc, favorite concert, outdoor activity, place visited, most squee worthy moment of the year, biggest change.

---

Fri. | Dec. 2 – 5 Popular Books Worth the Hype #AMonthofFaves2016

---

Mon. | Dec. 5 – This Is How We Read #AMonthofFaves2016 – eg. Number of books read so far, genre you read the most from, picture of favorite (or most often used) reading location, most read author, % eBooks, hardcovers, paperbacks and/or audiobooks, hint at what your favorite read of the year is (let us guess), types of books you wish you read more of, month you read the most and least)

Tue. | Dec. 6 – This Is How We Blog #AMonthofFaves2016 – – Essential Computer Programs, Browser Plugins, Websites and / or your blogging routine

Wed. | Dec. 7 – Most Useful Tools For Getting Sh&! Done #AMonthofFaves2016 – Apps, websites, planners – how and what do you use to get life and / or work Shit done?!

Thu. | Dec 8 – Favorite Book to Movie or TV Shows #AMonthofFaves2016 – what were your faves; did you both watch the movie and read the book; which was better?

Fri. | Dec. 9 – #WeekendReading {Picking Favorites} – Let’s support each other by sharing our faves from other #AMonthofFaves participant blogs, eg. your favorite posts, a book added to your reading list, or a blogger you just discovered

Mon. | Dec. 12 – The Most Unique, Weird or Most Memorable Book(s) Read This Year – not necessarily your favorite book because it could be memorable for how bad or how much you liked or disliked the characters.

---

Tue. | Dec. 13 – 5 Books on Our Winter Reading List  #AMonthofFaves2016 – which books are your must read this winter?

---

Wed. | Dec. 14 – Best Changes We Made This Year #AMonthofFaves2016 – to your Day / Life / Routines / Blog / Habits

---

Thu. | Dec. 15 – 5 Fave “New to Me” Author Discoveries or Audiobook Narrations This Year #AMonthofFaves2016

---

Fri. | Dec. 16 – #WeekendReading {Picking Favorites} – Let’s support each other by sharing your favorite post, book, or something else, mentioned on other #AMonthofFaves participant blogs

Mon. | Dec. 19 – Reading Outside My Comfort Zone #AMonthofFaves2016 – Surprise Find(s) This Year

---

Tue. | Dec. 20 – 5 Must Haves for Winter Survival – shout out your favorite brand or stores or favorite items

---

Wed. | Dec. 21 –Keep It! 5 Purchases That Were Totally Worth It #IRegretNothing #AMonthofFaves 2016 – what did you buy this year – big or small – that you love, bought more of, got your monies worth

---

Thu. | Dec. 22 –  I Love … December #AMonthofFaves2016 – Favorite holiday festivities, favorite ornaments, home decor, places to go, holiday drinks, holiday eats, holiday themed reads

---

Fri. | Dec. 23 – #WeekendReading {Picking Favorites} – Let’s support each other by sharing your favorite post, book, or something else, mentioned on other #AMonthofFaves participant blogs

Mon. | Dec. 26 – Challenges {The Year End Updates on Reading Challenges, Personal Goals, Resolutions}– how did you do? Are you going to do more challenges next year?

---

Tue. | Dec. 27 – Top 10 Blog Posts From GXO This Year

---

Wed. | Dec. 28 – Favorite Book Covers From Our Reads This Year – what did you like about each one?

---

Thu. | Dec. 29 – Top 10 Books that Blew My Mind This Year – squee worthy reads

---

Fri. | Dec. 30 – Top 10 Other Sh$t That Rocked in 2016 … Or 5 Reasons I’m Glad 2016 is Over

No Snappy Titles Here

Post-election...

I'm doing a lot of listening. To people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants. In truth, I'm doing a lot of listening to Trump voters, too. This mix of individuals is in my college classroom every day. We all live in this fray.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel as a white middle class American, it's my job to tackle white middle class America. It's time to talk (and protest and act)...online AND off. Screaming on Facebook is not doing the work.

White Women, You Need to Talk About Racism

Marco Rogers

Justina Ireland

What So Many People Don't Get About the US Working Class

#transvoices: Celebrating transgender changemakers

How to Make Your Congressman Listen to You

Janani The Shrinkette

Read Diverse Books

Florinda's post-election reading list

Marlon James

Shaun King

Siyanda Mohutsiwa

Kamala Harris

@AngryBlackLady

A Confession of Liberal Intolerance

@jpbrammer

The Times I Lost My Voice

My grandfather always talked to me like an adult. I remember as a 5 year old, not even in school yet, standing next to his chair discussing my great grandmother's health. She was in the hospital, and the doctors were trying to understand why she was bleeding internally. He told me. He was kind, matter of fact, truthful...about this and so many other topics. He trusted me to listen and ask questions.

The first presidential election I remember was 1988. George H.W. Bush vs. Michael Dukakis. For some reason, I was interested. The news was on in my grandparents' house every night, so I saw, and I listened. I asked questions about what I was seeing and hearing, and I began to form a strong opinion. While my mom was consistently closed-lipped about her vote, once I'd made up my mind and become vocal about it, my grandfather was truthful and matter of fact. We agreed on our choice of candidate.

In 1992, Clinton vs. G.H.W. Bush, I was again fascinated, outspoken. Sure of myself. My sixth grade language arts teacher, one day while we were getting ready to write in our journals, blessed us with her conservative political views. I wrote in my journal that day that teachers shouldn't try to influence students' political opinions. I still got a 100 on that writing.

I grew up being told, "You can do whatever you put your mind to." My mom told me, my grandparents told me, my friends, and family members across the board told me. I believed them. I wasn't afraid of adversity, of my friends' disapproval. I just did what I thought was right. I debated those presidential elections and big issues in class without a second thought. I ran for and won school offices. I put my head down and did what I wanted and needed to do to get scholarships and go to a university. I spoke about things important to me. Cried openly in class and berated my classmates for their callous comments about AIDS patients and gay Americans. This was the 1990s. Those things were still taboo, and I had close friends who were AIDS patients, beloved friends who were gay.

I had a voice, and because I had such great support growing up I wasn't afraid to use it.

I ran to college. Ran to a university that was just far enough from the town I grew up in. Just big enough to offer some anonymity and the promise of new friends, new experiences, a growing set of beliefs.

For all the confidence I felt at those earlier ages, I was fragile and naive.  I was full of Christian values but also a raging wad of hormones, starved for affection. I was sexually assaulted. I've mentioned it just a couple of posts ago, and I won't offer much more detail now except to say that I should've been able to watch a movie in his apartment without being called names, shamed, berated, and ultimately broken down. Coerced. Bent to another person's will. I was effectively silenced.

I lost my voice.

I didn't tell anyone for years. I lived with guilt, self doubt, flashbacks, and a paralyzing hurt. I carried it silently for so very long because I blamed no one but myself.

After college I ran away again. Across the country to new opportunities, to a new relationship. For all his faults, he was kind in ways. He listened and respected me when I told him about my assault. I didn't even know it was assault. Just this big, troubling thing. For a while I shared my opinions in this new relationship, but any of them, especially social or political, that didn't line up with his conservative views were dismissed. I was "wet behind the ears," or "non traditional," and I was corrected. Like a willful child. Everything devolved into emotional abuse, infantilization, the witholding of love as punishment, neglect, infidelity, lies. I came back home to my first college teaching job, chronic depression, mounting anxiety, and antidepressants. I pulled the covers over my head. I never would've thought of "abuse" if it hadn't been pointed out to me. I still felt like it was my fault. For getting into the situation and for staying too long. A stupid decision by a not-strong woman.

Silence.

Graduate school was a positive shift. I began to feel confident in my abilities again, respected for my intellect. I was surrounded by like-minded students, professors, and rad friends who loved me. I was with my mom, who is my best friend, and while my grandparents were gone, she still reminded me that she was proud, and they would've been proud, and I could do anything I put my mind to.

I started this blog. I found a comfortable space in writing. A new peace with myself. The ability to say what I needed to say for my own self awareness and mental well-being. Those times that people shut me down or bent me to their will, degraded, demeaned, and denied my values, my opinions, my very thoughts...it was heartbreaking. Dehumanizing. And I know I had it easy in comparison to many, many women.

I tell a lot of stories about myself. Not because I'm proud of this stuff, but because I'm still making peace with it. Working through it. Sorting it out. Sometimes over and over just like a broken record. There's a tendency for the curation of our lives online to come across as much more rosy than it really is. You tell me I'm badass and strong and empowered and inspiring. My God, those are the last things I ever thought of myself for so long.

I'm getting louder. More outspoken. Brash. Daring? Aggressive at times. It's come to a fever pitch in this election cycle in particular because seeing a man on the podium who so much reminds me of those darkest, most shameful, silent moments is terrifying. It is deeply, deeply personal. To watch people around me dismiss the abusive language, the toxic rhetoric, is infuriating.

I have a voice, and I'm insistent about using it. In particular, I talk about big things with my students. We analyze and deconstruct power structures, cultural norms, our own biases. I am honest with them. I am open. Not only do I want the young men in my class to get used to the idea of a weird, loud, opinionated, honest, thoughtful, caring, encouraging, fat, bald, running woman at the helm...I want the women who are the age that I was when I was silenced to see a weird, loud, opinionated, honest, thoughtful, caring, encouraging, fat, bald, running woman at the helm. I don't want them to feel alone. I want them to feel empowered when I wasn't.

This is my work. This is my reason for being so fucking loud and outspoken and brash and sometimes hateful and oftentimes diplomatic. Always insistent. Trying to not be afraid.

Even when I am afraid, I'll never be silent again.

Sunday Stuff

We fell back. It's weird that it's only 11am right now. It already feels like it should be much later.

I cut back to one 10 oz cup of coffee per day this past week because I found that bigger cups were exacerbating my anxiety. So far, so good. Today I decided to go big and had 20 oz while I was jabbering with my mom over breakfast, and I need someone to come peel me off the ceiling.

I have a few things to do today. I'm listening to an "angry feminist" playlist on YouTube while I clean, organize, and generally whip the house into shape. First, I did a bit of weed eating in the front yard. The flower beds needed chopping down for the fall. Of course, I weed eated (weed ate?) the toes on one foot. Ugh.

I'm reading a bit. I have Just Mercy and Missoula downloaded and I'm taking them a bit at a time. Big, heavy, absolutely-necessary-to-read-right-now topics.

My students are starting a unit on power structures and cultural norms as we round out the semester. We started last week with very little commentary/direction from me. We watched Amanda Palmer's "The Art of Asking" TED Talk to get their initial reactions (verbally and a response paper) which we'll later break down into a class discussion and some more writings on norms. This is gonna be a fun unit.

Finally, I'm having a blast with my planners. Yeah, I'm up to three. I have an Erin Condren I use for pre-planning my week...things I have to remember, bills to pay, school deadlines, grocery list, etc. I use a Happy Planner for memory keeping...essentially journaling or scrapbooking. The bottom line of that one is remembering stuff I would otherwise forget...cute stuff Greyson says and does, behavior notes that come home with him, my runs, food choices. I also have a personal planner. I actually use this one the least. I keep a few notes about my classes. They're on slightly different schedules, so I have to refresh my memory about which class stopped where and what assignments are coming in at different times. I'm finding that with the swirl of election stuff and tumultuous feelings I'm having, planning is incredibly calming and cathartic. Having an overview of everything is comforting.

The photo up top is the first half of this past week's spread.

What are you up to?