I’m going to NYC for a magazine photoshoot!

Please excuse me while I get some stereotypically girly glee out of my system:

SQUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!…Okay, I’m still insanely excited, so forgive me while I flail for a post. I was contacted by More Magazine about doing an interview for their piece on “Young Feminists.” More is an American woman’s lifestyle magazine targeted towards the 40+ demographic (not to be confused with the UK’s More! Magazine, which I’ve been told is a somewhat trashy fashion/gossip mag). Eleven different “up and coming” feminists under the age of 30 have each been interviewed for the special piece, including yours truly. I agreed to do the interview before I found out that they were flying us all to New York City for a professional photoshoot.

If you’ve hung around here for a while, you’ll know I have a horrible fascination with America’s Next Top Model. It’s a terrible show, but something about watching girls be ridiculous and catty without personally being a part of it is extremely addictive. Not to mention some shoots do produce pretty cool photos, and watching Tyra Banks’s newest insanity while screaming at the TV with my roommate is oddly fulfilling.

…I may or may not have watched all fourteen seasons. *shifty eyes*

So finding out I’m being flown to New York for a professional photoshoot is a bit of a fantasy of mine, a fantasy I never thought would actually happen since 1) I’m not exactly fashion model material and 2) Even if I was, I really have no interest in being a professional model. But to get to do it for a day is frankly awesome.

It didn’t really dawn on me how this is a “real” photoshoot until I started getting more information. They’re doing my hair and makeup. I don’t even wear makeup. I don’t want to be dolled up to the point where I’m unrecognizable – that would be kind of ironic for a piece on feminism – but I’m still excited. I’ve blogged before how one of the big reasons I don’t do makeup is just because I have no idea what I’m doing, so I’m pretty stoked to see what I’ll look like when someone actually does a nice job.

But reality really sank in when they asked me for my sizes and measurements because I’m going to have a wardrobe. WTF. A wardrobe! I don’t know if this caused me more excitement or anxiety. I’m a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, and I hate clothes shopping. I’ve always joked that I’d love to have a professional pick out clothes for me, but then it dawned on me that I didn’t even know what my sizes were.

I mean, I know how tall I am, and my shoe size… But pants? Uh, 10-ish depending on the brand? “Long” isn’t a legitimate measure for length? What, you want it in inches? You think I shop somewhere nicer than Old Navy? Shirts can range from small to extra large depending on how boob friendly they are. And a dress size? The last time I bought a dress was four years ago when I was two cup sizes smaller, so who knows if that’s accurate.

Anxiety aside, I know it’ll be ridiculously fun. My parents are just happy to get some professional photos of me out of it. I’m going to be thinking of all the stupid ANTM in jokes and “tips” the whole time. Smeyes! Ugly pretty, not ugly ugly! Find the light! Fierce!

Vanessa (roommate and ANTM mocking buddy): I still think you need someone recording the whole thing, it’d be hilarious
Me: It would be! Unfortunately I don’t have a camera crew, and I think my brother and sister-in-law actually have jobs, lol. I’ll make sure to take lots of photos and recount it in its full hilarity
Vanessa: Oh darn. That’s too bad because you could have used it as an application for the next season of ANTM
Me: Rofl, that would be awesome
Vanessa: Yeah, and everyone would want you to win because you’d be the token plus size girl
Me: Yeah, me and my fatty size 10 pants*, hehe
Vanessa: lol

The one downside? Three years of screaming at the TV and thinking “I can totally do that! How hard can it be?!” will finally be put to the test. Uh oh.

So, I can’t wait. I’ll definitely document the experience and post about it afterwards, as it’s sure to be interesting. And I’ll let you know when the actual magazine comes out! At the very least, you can cut out my photo and slap it on your wall so I can pretend I’m something more than a D-list internet celebrity for a day, haha.

*Yes, size 10 is considered plus size on ANTM. I wish I were joking.

“Having a baby made me an atheist”

There’s an excellent article at Offbeat Mama on how having a child spurred one mom into reevaluating her religious views. It’s a great read and a refreshing alternative to the typical “Witnessing the miracle of birth convinced me we had to be intelligently designed!” emotional nonsense I frequently hear. Here’s just a snippet:

“Everything changes when you have a baby,” our relatives and acquaintances said, but they missed the point: everything had changed already. It was the baby, that fuzzy blur on the sonogram screen, pushing us further and further from our old world view.

We were both raised and baptized Seventh-Day Adventists. We attended church, prayed and read the Bible. We had both had doubts about religion in the past, but we had put them aside, believing that what our faith gave us was more important than the answers it couldn’t provide. When our daughter was born, though, those elusive answers began to seem more important.

I read the gospels while breastfeeding, feeling safer in the New Testament with Jesus’s reassuring compassion than in the Old Testament with its endless wars and wrath of God, but I was not reassured. Had the Bible always been so inconsistent, so violent, so sexist? Had it always needed so much adjustment to fit with my own sense of right and wrong? I tried to stretch my faith, twisting it like the rubber band I had looped through my buttonhole to give me a few more weeks in my pre-maternity jeans, but it didn’t fit. I tried to ignore my questions and doubts as I had in the past, but there was a new question I could not ignore: What am I going to teach my daughter?

For those of you who are parents, did you have similar experiences? Or general religious issues that arose when having children?

I’m coming to New York City!

I’ll be in the Big Apple from Wed, August 18th to Wednesday, August 25th – yep, that’s the new travel destination I hinted at earlier! I absolutely can’t wait! I’ll be busy with something super exciting on the 18th and 19th – you’ll find the exact details why later today when I have enough time to properly squee*. This cruel teaser post is for three things:

1. What awesome things do I have to see in NYC? I’ve never been there before. My brother and sister-in-law live in Brooklyn and are prepared to show me neat places, but I’m still open to suggestions.

2. Since invariably someone will ask me this whenever I’m traveling…If I have any readers in/near NYC that want to meet for a pub night, now’s your chance to speak up in the comments. Please let me know which nights (20th through 24th) do or do not work for you. It’ll be somewhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan, depending on what works for people.

3. If anyone know how to hook me up with a ticket for the Daily Show or Colbert Report, I’ll give you my undying love/immortal soul/one million internet points. Not just people with connections – tips on finding a ticket are appreciated. I’m dying to go, and I’m willing to exploit boobquake for a seat if necessary (“But Colbert Report staff, you talked about me on the show! Surely you can sneak me in? *puppy eyes*”)

*If you’re a friend who knows what it is, please humor me by not ruining my dramatic suspense in the comments :P

Today’s hint of male privilege

I’m currently watching Chopped on Food Network. I love FN because I like to cook and it’s basically food porn, and I love Chopped because people always have to be super creative with the bizarre ingredients they give them.

But my first thought when this episode started was “Wow, all the competitors are women!”

There have been tons of episodes with all men, and never once have I thought “Wow, all the competitors are men!” Why? Because we’re used to having women be underrepresented in most fields, including as professional chefs.

Just something to chew over.

…Yes that horrible pun was intentional.

Atheist donates $5,600,000 to NY Catholic schools

From Bloomberg.org:

Retired hedge fund titan Robert W. Wilson lost his faith in God years ago, yet he believes in Catholic schools and gave $5.6 million to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York this summer.

It’s the latest of many gifts from Wilson to the city’s Catholic hierarchy and educators, this one aimed at funding the Catholic Alumni Partnership, a program he founded that helps elementary schools track down their 750,000 alumni and recruit them as donors.

“Most of what the Catholic schools teach are the three Rs,” said Wilson, 83, in a phone interview, referring to reading, writing and arithmetic. “And they do it better than the union-controlled inner-city schools.”

You know what would help make those union-controlled inner-city schools do just as good of job? Giving them $5.6 million dollars. He may be concerned with the three Rs, but Catholic schools have a forth R he’s forgetting about: Religious indoctrination. Gah.

Over at Friendly Atheist, Hemant asks what everyone thinks about this. I’m going to have to side with the “FFFFUUUUUUUU” option.

Blog Makeover

Just to give you guys a heads up, I’m giving Blag Hag a bit of a makeover. It was getting a bit too hodge podge and cramped for me, and I wanted room for larger photos and videos. Hopefully this will look a lot more slick and organized.

If anything looks glitchy, it’s because I’m tweaking it throughout the day, so please be patient. And if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them here. If you think it’s fugly but have no advice on how to improve it, feel free to keep that to yourself ;P

EDIT: Whoops, Disqus commenting has been reinstalled. Sorry ’bout that. Seems to be working now, though I lost a couple of comments that you posted in this thread (I saw them at least!). It’s not working on the About page anymore for some reason, but I’ll see what I can do.

Strippers give church protesters a taste of their own medicine

This definitely goes down as a Win in my book (emphasis mine):

The battle that has heretofore played out in the parking lot of George’s strip club – the Foxhole, a run-down, garage-like building at a Coshocton County crossroads called Newcastle – has shifted 7 miles east to Church Street.

Every weekend for the last four years, Dunfee and members of his ministry have stood watch over George’s joint, taking up residence in the right of way with signs, video cameras and bullhorns in hand. They videotape customers’ license plates and post them online, and they try to save the souls of anyone who comes and goes.

Now, the dancers have turned the tables, so to speak. Fed up with the tactics of Dunfee and his flock, they say they have finally accepted his constant invitation to come to church.

It’s just that they’ve come wearing see-through shorts and toting Super Soakers.

They bring lawn chairs and – yesterday, anyway – grilled hamburgers, Monster energy drinks and corn on the cob. They sat in front of the church and waved at passing cars but largely ignored the congregation behind them.

[…]The women don’t come here, after all, without their own version of religion. They bring signs with Scriptures written in neon colors:

Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing

Revelations 22:11: He that is unjust, let him be unjust still

Greg Flaig is executive director of the Ohio Owners Coalition, a group of showbar and club owners. He called the women’s protest extraordinary, saying he’s never heard of anything like it in the country.

George said the protest has been a long time coming. He sued the church in federal court several years ago, claiming a violation of his constitutional rights, but he lost. Now, he said, turnabout is fair play.

“When these morons go away, we’ll go away,” George said. “The great thing about this country is that everyone has a right to believe what they want.”

Maybe next time religious groups try to be the Morality Police, they’ll remember they’re not the only ones allowed to hold protests…

Niece of Martin Luther King Jr. compares gay marriage to “genocide”

What a shame that a relative of a great civil rights leader would be spouting such vitriol about gays. Dr. Alveda King was one of the speakers at the National Organization for Marriage rally that just took place in Atlanta. Not to be outdone by the other hateful nonsense being peddled there, Dr. King threw in her own two cents:

“It is statistically proven that the strongest institution that guarantees procreation and continuity of the generations is marriage between one man and one woman. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to be extinct and none of us wants to be. We don’t want genocide, we don’t want to destroy the sacred institution of marriage.”

Because marriage is only about making babies. Which is why people have to take a fertility test before receiving their marriage license. And why marriages are required to end once a woman hits menopause. And why we poke holes in the condoms of couples who don’t want children.

You know what really guarantees procreation? Sex. Regardless if it occurs after you’ve signed some paperwork or not. If Dr. King is concerned about this, I’m sure she’ll quickly add how she’s all for unmarried couples having children, right? Or is she just worried that a small fraction of society showing their love for a partner of the same sex will magically turn every human being on the face of the planet gay?

Ironically, if she was really concerned with the extinction of Homo sapiens, she would be a bit more concerned about overpopulation and it’s potentially disastrous effects. You know, something gay people don’t usually contribute to.

I’ve become a bit of a world traveler lately

I didn’t realize how much traveling I’ve done until my dad pointed it out to me the other day. Sometimes I take for granted how many awesome travel experiences I’ve had – not many people get to escape their country or even their state, but I’ve been all over the place. And by age 22!

Because I’m a nerd, here’s a nice image of my travels. Red represents places I’ve lived, green represents places I’ve physically been in but didn’t actually do anything special there (aka, drove through/changed flights there), and blue represents places I visited with a purpose.
Some random observations:

  • I’ve only lived in two states. I lived in Illinois until I turned 2, and our house was about 10 minutes from where I grew up in Indiana, so I’m not sure if that even counts. And I only went to college an hour and a half away from home.
  • I’ve visited five foreign countries – Mexico, the Bahamas, Greece, Italy, and Vatican City. Our plane stopped in France for a couple hours, but I’d love to go back actually do something there. Well, I’d love to go back to any part of Europe. It was awesome when I was 12, and I’m sure I’d appreciate it even more now.
  • Despite living here, apparently I avoid the rest of the Midwest like the plague. Notice the green circle of states that I have driven through to actually get somewhere cool. And the only reason I’ve been to Kentucky and Ohio is because awesome Secular Student Alliance stuff has happened there in the last year.
  • Going off of that, it’s sort of mind boggling to me how I haven’t visited some places. How have I never been to Canada? Or Wisconsin?! How the heck did I hit up Greece and Alaska before places I could drive to in a couple of hours?
  • Almost all of my domestic traveling took place not only during college, but thanks to college. The only states I had been to prior to going to college were Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Florida. For example, here’s a map of the reasons why I traveled to each state. Blue is for a biology conference/field work, green is for grad school visits, red is for atheist related stuff (yes, I traveled within IL and IN for that), and purple is just for pleasure. You can see that while I enjoyed my travels, the vast majority were not just for fun and were either partially or fully funded by scholarships, my lab, universities, or blog readers (yay TAM!). I’m very lucky indeed.
  • Speaking of being very lucky, in a month my map will have to be updated again. I’ll be living in Seattle, so Washington state will join the places that I have lived in. This weekend I’ll be visiting St. Louis, MO, so then I will have properly “visited” it. And later this month I’ll be flying to a state I’ve never visited before for something super exciting – but you’ll find out about that soon!

Are any of you big travelers? Have you visited or lived in any especially awesome places? Where are you dying to go?

Oh, and since invariably when I talk about traveling someone asks “When are you going to visit _____?!”… Convince someone to help fund my trip and I’d be happy to come talk to your local godless group. I know, positively shocking that grad students aren’t rolling in the dough. ;)