Meanie Beanie
Today’s strip showed Michael Patterson in a feeble attempt to capitalize on the good will he earned from dealing with Robin to try to get Deanna to give out the goods. My initial thought was that it was pretty much true to life, that boys will do whatever they think will work to get those goods. On the other hand, it also demonstrated how grossly incompetent Michael is at dealing with Deanna as a husband.
Years ago I had the good fortune to take a course in university called Sex and Gender Roles in our Society, which has informed most of my thinking about the sexes. The professor produced charts of the level of testosterone in women’s and men’s bodies over a lifetime and spoke about studies where women had taken testosterone to see how it affected them. Aside from the usual effects of growing body hair and causing voices to get lower, it also had the effect of causing the women in the study to experience the male sex drive first hand. One of the findings of the study was that the women who participated felt very uncomfortable, because they thought about sex all the time and they were unable to control it. Then we looked at the chart on the level of testosterone in men’s bodies vs. women’s bodies and I forget the exact ratio, but let’s just say men had a whole lot more of it. The professor then went on to point out that this single difference drove many of the differences between the genders and how they reacted to each other and to things in general.
So, yes, Michael Patterson has no idea when an appropriate time is to ask for intimate relations, but on the other hand, the man is probably desperate. He kissed Deanna just before he went to pick up his parents from the airport back in March, but all the other bedroom strips with Mike and Deanna show them talking or Mike getting rejected by a smirking Deanna. Speaking as a married man, who’s been married for almost 14 years now, I felt for Mike in this strip. He wants something a lot, and he has no idea how to get it.
Character-wise, Blogger kicked my butt this morning and it took me forever to get my character’s top-of-the-morning snark out. The topic today seemed to be bearing children and most of the characters riffed on that. I especially enjoyed pulling in Rosemary Mayes as a threat to April over Gerald. “Meanie Beanie”, the phrase Rosemary used, is a pet phrase that my sister’s first husband used with her, when he was perturbed with her but not angry. When aprilp_katje's April resorted to name-calling on little Rosemary, I thought it was fun to unleash that name. In reality, these days, 1st graders know a lot worse words. My daughter is in second grade and she has picked up a lot I would rather her not to have known by this age. Popular culture is not as tame as it was when I was growing up.
Jeremy Jones is playing with an Eva study / romance thing. I don’t know if aprilp_katje who posts as Eva is game for such a thing, but I figure it’s short term at best. Strip Eva is very likely to be permanently linked with Duncan by June. But since ARB Duncan is currently involved with susannamoodie’s excellent Zandra Larson character, ARB Eva and Jeremy could enjoy each other’s company for the next month or so, without messing anything up in the continuity.
I have been enjoying posting as Michael Patterson for this story arc, and I have adapted aprilp_katje’s method of posting as him, where he never mentions his children by name. My favourite posts to do today were when Michael drew parallels between him and April, and then later mentioned that April had not yet entered puberty. To me, it seemed like perfect self-oriented Michael for him to be unaware that April was already well past puberty.
Tomorrow’s strip: Who are these people and what did they do with Deanna and Mike? At least we have a clear lead-in to Elly’s appearance and the reason for it. Not only that but the day care reason for Robin getting sick is eliminated. It could mean Robin is just a sickly boy, or he has some kind of life-threatening disease. But you know it really means the Kelpfroths’ smoke has been making him sick and the best thing for him is to move to Milborough. If that ends up being the case, then you know the desperate measures the Lynnions are going to in order to paint the Kelpfroths as evil, since the fans are resisting that characterization tooth and nail. I guess the alternative to moving to Milborough is for the Kelpfroths to finally be evicted for child endangerment or some such nonsense as that.
Years ago I had the good fortune to take a course in university called Sex and Gender Roles in our Society, which has informed most of my thinking about the sexes. The professor produced charts of the level of testosterone in women’s and men’s bodies over a lifetime and spoke about studies where women had taken testosterone to see how it affected them. Aside from the usual effects of growing body hair and causing voices to get lower, it also had the effect of causing the women in the study to experience the male sex drive first hand. One of the findings of the study was that the women who participated felt very uncomfortable, because they thought about sex all the time and they were unable to control it. Then we looked at the chart on the level of testosterone in men’s bodies vs. women’s bodies and I forget the exact ratio, but let’s just say men had a whole lot more of it. The professor then went on to point out that this single difference drove many of the differences between the genders and how they reacted to each other and to things in general.
So, yes, Michael Patterson has no idea when an appropriate time is to ask for intimate relations, but on the other hand, the man is probably desperate. He kissed Deanna just before he went to pick up his parents from the airport back in March, but all the other bedroom strips with Mike and Deanna show them talking or Mike getting rejected by a smirking Deanna. Speaking as a married man, who’s been married for almost 14 years now, I felt for Mike in this strip. He wants something a lot, and he has no idea how to get it.
Character-wise, Blogger kicked my butt this morning and it took me forever to get my character’s top-of-the-morning snark out. The topic today seemed to be bearing children and most of the characters riffed on that. I especially enjoyed pulling in Rosemary Mayes as a threat to April over Gerald. “Meanie Beanie”, the phrase Rosemary used, is a pet phrase that my sister’s first husband used with her, when he was perturbed with her but not angry. When aprilp_katje's April resorted to name-calling on little Rosemary, I thought it was fun to unleash that name. In reality, these days, 1st graders know a lot worse words. My daughter is in second grade and she has picked up a lot I would rather her not to have known by this age. Popular culture is not as tame as it was when I was growing up.
Jeremy Jones is playing with an Eva study / romance thing. I don’t know if aprilp_katje who posts as Eva is game for such a thing, but I figure it’s short term at best. Strip Eva is very likely to be permanently linked with Duncan by June. But since ARB Duncan is currently involved with susannamoodie’s excellent Zandra Larson character, ARB Eva and Jeremy could enjoy each other’s company for the next month or so, without messing anything up in the continuity.
I have been enjoying posting as Michael Patterson for this story arc, and I have adapted aprilp_katje’s method of posting as him, where he never mentions his children by name. My favourite posts to do today were when Michael drew parallels between him and April, and then later mentioned that April had not yet entered puberty. To me, it seemed like perfect self-oriented Michael for him to be unaware that April was already well past puberty.
Tomorrow’s strip: Who are these people and what did they do with Deanna and Mike? At least we have a clear lead-in to Elly’s appearance and the reason for it. Not only that but the day care reason for Robin getting sick is eliminated. It could mean Robin is just a sickly boy, or he has some kind of life-threatening disease. But you know it really means the Kelpfroths’ smoke has been making him sick and the best thing for him is to move to Milborough. If that ends up being the case, then you know the desperate measures the Lynnions are going to in order to paint the Kelpfroths as evil, since the fans are resisting that characterization tooth and nail. I guess the alternative to moving to Milborough is for the Kelpfroths to finally be evicted for child endangerment or some such nonsense as that.
posted by howard at 9:54 PM
4 Comments:
I guess I'm somewhat in the "militant" camp, but I'd never in a million years suggest that a mom who's bipolar should go off her meds so she can bf! And lithium and breasfeeding are definitely contraindicated. There are instances where mothers cannot nurse, and it is for those instances that formula exists! I'm sure that if you have children someday, you will be a fantastic mother who will raise healthy, brilliant kids! :)
The ability to have and nurse children has been a source of female contention since forever. There are Bible stories about it, after all. What this tells me is that there are very strong forces at work, which some women are able to handle better than others.
My wife and I used formula with both our kids because she was not able to pump enough out of her to feed the children and she felt very, very guilty about that. We used a soy formula and recently a doctor did a blood test on our boy, which suggested the possibility that our boy was allergic to soy (fortunately an allergist disagreed) and my wife went through the whole guilt of not being able to feed her child herself thing. The kids are fine having been brought up primarily with soy formula, and my wife knows that, but there are those powerful female forces in her own self, with which she sometimes contends. As aprilp_katje says, "you will be a fantastic mother who will raise healthy, brilliant kids!", and that is what you should concentrate on, even when some force within yourself tells you differently.
I agree that Katje is not a super militant on breast-feeding, otherwise she would have suggested a wet nurse for your yet unborn and unconceived children. However it would be interesting to hear her opinion on celebrities who stop breastfeeding before or right at 6 months.
Hm. Well, I don't really have a separate opinion for celebrity mothers, though I'd find it upsetting if the mother were to use her celebrity status either to spread misinformation/disinformation about breastfeeding or to denigrate it. Other than that, it's really her business, and I know each mother has her own set of circumstances and has to make decisions accordingly.
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