Personally, I don't think women are shopping, if that's what you're asking...

I have a good female (completely platonic) friend who is married to an honorably discharged Marine, and she would fill her Facebook newsfeed with updates from her life that variated between rapture and wonder at the experience of being a military and then veteran's spouse.  She's much more conservative than I am, politically, but but I was always glad to hear she was doing okay.

I bring this up because, as someone with professional degrees out the wazoo who has relocated based upon his partner's career path, and, therefore, without a job of his own set up and ready to start, I sort of strangely identify with the military spouse.  (This is also fascinating to me because my brother's wife is ex-Army, but that's for another post.)  It's tough to maintain trust in a relationship when you're separated; even worse when you're the one who hasn't anything to do but blog, paint, consider selling merchandise or etsy, or whatever.  As someone who has long advocated that women be considered peers within the professional workplace, and not underlings from the get-go, I've got to say that I'm glad that's the position I maintained.

Anyway, the title of this blog isn't a knock on hack comedians (of any race, though that completely raceless joke has, in my experience, been constantly attributed to male comedians of color in representations in the mass media, even though Rodney Dangerfield is the one who resurrected the Hagar the Horrible trope from the mines of the borscht belt) it's more of a chastisement to myself to not become like that strumming hipster dude from that very well made low-budget movie about a chemical attack on Los Angeles who dies because he gets super paranoid being home alone all day with nothing but his thoughts.  Anyway, yeah, seen it, refuse to act that out, I'm heading home for the holidays.  Best wishes to you all.

BL

P.S. - I'm not actually equating separation overseas from those you love (which I have experienced as part of a war crimes tribunal) with having your spouse/partner working and meeting new people while you're feeling lamed up for no good reason and have inherited generations worth of messages telling you that men work elsewhere and their women stay home - I'm just dealing with something akin to an on purpose role-reversal from Don to Betty that is definitely feeling a bit less happenstance than I am comfortable with.  Anyway, again, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays...

Update from the Other Columbia

-- Columbia, South Carolina

Danielle is working as a health educator at the University of South Carolina's Student Health Center.  She and the rest of the staff who work on student health related programs and campaigns are on a work retreat following the completion of a successful semester of immediately educating college students about the dangers posed by sexual transmitted infections in the current environment here, reproductive health concerns such as breast and testicular cancer, the importance of preventative health and the best way for people from different backgrounds to communicate what they expect in a healthy college level sexual relationship.  

Considering the environment around here, as it's been presented to us, she's been quite brave to take this task, and I truly respect her.  What's strange, though, is the way her getting a good paying career path position here has been sort of liberating for me.  I've been worried about whether she'd be prepared for a relationship with someone who's more creative than analytical, more intuitive than the driver type she might have encountered in the past and, most of all, someone who refuses to be rushed and resents anyone who rushes her.  

In any case, Christmas is fast approaching, and the desire to play Santa for one's own can sometimes overwhelm one's good sense about the current economic state of affairs, so I've sort of put myself in money lock-down for my own good, and for the sake of my future with Danielle.  In the mean time, I'm sort of wracking my brain to piece together exactly how Danielle and I ended up with such strange fortune amidst turbulent times.  That's all for now, more to come.

-BL