Thanks, my friend! (July 5)

Although I'm a day late for this meme, it's better late than never.  A fitting "key" light is shown on my long-time friend, Sandy, this week.  She is literally one of the hardest-working women I know who always more than one project going at a time.  Not only does Sandy put in her 40+ work week at her new/old job, there is never a dull moment in her spare time either.  


Sandy is a video producer who has put together a multitude of projects throughout Kansas City.  She helps organizes independent film festivals (wtf ... what the fringe?) as well as exhibiting her own photography at events such as the 1st Friday art walk in the KC Crossroads District.  I'm telling you, this woman never slows down.  Her work is what seems to keep her happy and creatively fulfilled, though.  Thank goodness for Emergen-C!  The arts have played a long-standing role in Sandy's life.  She has built sets for community theater, wrote scripts and shot video for innumerable PBS productions, created corporate video, and basically kept many other professional and personal projects on time and on budget for lots of years.  


One of the traits I admire most about Sandy is her fearlessness for acting on what she wants in life.  She'll find a way to make something happen under any circumstances.  Many an freelance job has paid the way when someone else may have found a nine-to-five the safer way to go.  In one trip cross-country road trip she camped her way to and up the east coast, by herself mind you, and then went further north into Quebec!  Another jaunt took her to Amsterdam and Paris, which I also got to witness through online Kodak sharing at the time.  My music nostalgia obsession was fed with pix from Pierre le Chase (Jim Morrison's tomb) taken just for me.  

gratuitously stolen shot

Last year there was yet another drive out west to visit family, meandering through Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, California and on up into Montana to see other friends.  I can't imagine braving any of these trips by myself, much less several times, even though I'm sure the solace is great.  She and I went to Toronto a few  years back (pre-baby days) and made stops in Chicago up and back.  A great few days were also spent at Bayfield on Lake Huron with a mutual friend.  It sucks to wait on people to decide on whether to go, so she's just gonna go.  I trust her skills implicitly, even though she drives very fast, which is saying a lot since I hate car trips!  She obviously loves to drive.  Now if I could only talk her into travel blogging ...     


There is no one else who can manage mayhem as well as Sandy.  She is truly the only person I've witnessed help my husband get things together without him taking offense or rejecting the instructions proffered.  She has supplied us a wedding, pregnancy, and little-guy photographic chronograph, for which I am forever grateful.  Her "eye" is spot on, so people respect her judgment and ability, as do I.  There are probably a lot of other people whom she has directed without their giving a second thought as to whether she knows what she's doing.  


Two such beings are her own kids, a young woman and man who also follow their hearts from her past example.  I can't imagine having a cooler mom when I was young.  Her little grand-toddler will feel the same way one day I'm sure.  


It's probably been a tougher couple years since her divorce than we realize, but her friends wouldn't really know since she gracefully tackles that pain.  There are too many new things to do or try (I actually miss bicycling the downtown airport), pictures to take (more drag show heels), and unexplored trails to blaze than to remain static.  Her adventurous spirit is infectious, and I hope we have more roads to travel together.  Even if it's just to meet up for child-free coffee!    


And so ... here's to you, my friend!  



I encourage anyone who reads this post to publicly celebrate a friend of their own.  It's so easy to let her know how much she means to you and others.
  

Twitter party - media representation of women

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, CEO and Founder of MissRepresentation.org, has been quite an inspiration to me lately.  It seems I'd never post if it weren't for MissRep.  At the very least, her writing has inspired several of my blog posts here.  Her latest call to action includes:

Coupled with the recent news that the Kardashian family's reality TV show has been renewed for another three years, I am especially worried about the message the media is sending my daughter, my son and their generation. Who are their role models? Why are we rewarding reality TV's exploitation of women's bodies? Are looks, for women, more important than their brains or their talents? Is hyper-sexualization and self-objectification now a legitimate path to success in America?
These aren't rhetorical questions, but part of a real conversation we want to have with you - because each of us plays a role in healing our culture. Next Tuesday, at 4 PM PST, we're calling a Twitter party with hashtag #WhyKardashians to get to the root of America's increasing fascination with superficiality and the objectification of women in popular media. 

I keep going back to #TheConversation.  The conversation springs from the unrealistic images of perfection purported throughout the media.  We should, instead, consider what we can do to better value ourselves.  Our culture has been permeated with a distorted way of showing women and girls. I'm glad there are people fighting for an "international action-oriented conversation" around these issues.  I had begun to type our "American" culture, but the misrepresentation of perfect expectation is an international phenomenon and not specific to the U.S.  The status quo is not limited to American movies, television, books and advertising throughout all those venues.

My young life was spent with a slump-shouldered gait and an androgynous mousy brown pixie haircut that got me mistaken for a long-haired boy in our class.  Mother was always telling me to stand up straight, and I kept my posture the way it was just to spite her.  Our "measure of perfection" at the time was Charlie's Angels, a latter-day fictional Kardashians. 

If boys were going to kiss you during the moonlight skate, you had to look as angelic as possible to gain their interest.  Needless to say, I wanted to instead fade into the background.  Even if my mom wasn't telling me to stand up straight to necessarily boost my self-confidence, much less get me my first adolescent kiss at the roller rink, I wish I had heeded her coaxing anyway.  Not to gain the boys' attention, but simply to help me project a better self-image than I had back then.

Women now witness an even more overt push toward perfection by the current size two to four females in the media.  Charlie's newer angels were even updated a few years back to a politically correct modern-day troupe and later another (failed) television show.  


Young women apparently have to embody that kind of flawless figure and magazine cover made-up face to be attractive enough to draw positive male attention.  Realizing it is currently the look-at-me generation, girls are trying more than ever to get anyone and everyone to look at them.  Are they hoping to mirror the K sisters or some other cookie-cutter pattern?

I hope they choose to stand up straight for themselves and not for the gaze of others.