Things I tweeted but are awesome enough to repeat here

I love Karen O's outfit here so much it's making me cry a little.

And it is amazing how easily "Miracles" lends itself to twee indie treatment. First commenter wins any commentary with, "Fuckin' hipsters, how do they work?"

I hope you all have wonderful long weekends!

I'm off to OBX for a week. While I'm gone, enjoy this youtube of Stevie Nicks singing an early version of "Wild Heart" in her dressing room. I've watched it about 15 times this week. Let me tell you all the reasons it is amazing.

1) when the makeup artist gives up like, "oh, this again"

2) that her voice is so amazing I thought she was lip synching at first, but she's just STEVIE FUCKING NICKS. seriously sounds like a mastered and finished recording. girl.

3) her dorky arm gestures

4) the laugh at the end

5) her dress. and her makeup artist's dress.

Enjoy!





[via]

Adding to the Things I Want list

Top Shop Heart Print Bandeau Dress



Top Shop Cloud Silk Scarf

You will be mine. Oh yes. You will be mine.

Found via Svpply

Don't you want to buy my house?

Come on, look how nice! Tell your friends! Open house on Sunday!

UPDATE: Apparently Nathan Fillion comes out on the screen and talks to you really loud when you click on that link. This didn't happen to me but it's probably because I wrote this post from a computer with a mouse wheel inside of it. So: due warning. Message still stands though: buy my cute condo! Tell your friends! Speak mandarin there with space cowboys!

New Beach Week Goal

[via]

What's in a name? A lot's in a name.

A discussion today on Twitter amongst several feminists I know and respect has really stuck in my craw. Kicked off by the above tweet, the notion seems to be that if you are feminist, you absolutely will not take your husband's name if you get married. Lots of replies and discussion broke women into two categories: "changers" and keepers. And, maybe it makes me a bad feminist to say so, but I think they're wrong.

Yes, I understand the connotations of ownership and patriarchy behind the tradition of name changing. And, duh, I disagree with them! But isn't marriage itself an institution based in a lot of those same beliefs? Plenty of feminists still make the choice to get married. And I think that deciding whether or not to take your husband's name is another choice that a woman has to make for herself, without having her choice made for her by anybody else -- either her fiance, her family, or the feminists she aligns herself with.

And that name you're hanging on to? It's not like it's fresh and clean of any patriarchal influences either. At some point, probably just one generation ago, you got it from a man. I hate these arguments that make me sound like I agree more with established ideas than I do. Let me be clear: I 100% support anybody's decision to keep the name they were born with from cradle to grave. But for me, feminism is having the ability to make choices for yourself, and to take the same opportunities anyone else has. And the idea that Good Feminists would never make this particular, very personal, choice seems too prescriptive to me. So I 100% support people who decide to change their names, or to hyphenate, or to redefine the whole deal completely, too.

This argument is, naturally, rooted in the idea that names have power. That they connote identity. And I definitely agree with that! I have a pretty badass last name that I love, and that will happen to run out, as far as my family lines are concerned, after this generation if I do decide to change my name (if I do decide to get married). But just like I think that there are a lot of positive reasons to get married that are not associated with ownership or other misogynistic traditions, I think that it's nice for a family unit to be defined by something so simple and unifying as a name. Mostly for the sake of children.

And there are other reasons too! If you came from a family with a terrible last name that has been making you cringe for as long as you can remember, and you are lucky enough to fall in love with someone with a melodic and lovely, or even a delightfully simple, last name, why not seize the opportunity to rid yourself of that name-weight and trade up? If you hate your family and long ago distanced yourself from them of your own volition, and now have the opportunity to do it on paper, why not? What about any of these factors, or just for the sake of likeness, as they apply to same sex marriage? These are all choices women (and men!) should be free to make for themselves.

Will I change my name? I don't know! Depends on a lot of factors that I'm not in a position to weigh just yet. But it will never be because I'm sacrificing any part of myself for my husband. Because I will never marry someone who believes that marriage indicates any sort of ownership over your wife. Nor will I likely marry anyone that would be offended by my choice not to. If and when I meet Mr. Future Husband, he's going to be someone that supports my ability to make choices about myself and my identity.

Please let me know if I'm making an argument that is terribly archaic for reasons that I'm unaware of. But at the end of the day, I believe that these choices are mine to make and no one else's. Does that make me a bad feminist?

Gayngs

I haven't given this song a ton of thought yet, but about 3 minutes ago I was ready to kick the shins of everyone in my immediate surroundings, then I played "Faded High" by Gayngs and my desire to inflict harm dropped significantly. And that's saying something. Get soothed by Gayngs!

My favorite music blogs right now

Some Velvet Blog and Aquarium Drunkard.

I quit facebook!

And I feel great about it! Laura's article on TAP about her reasons for quitting mirror mine exactly, and she did a great, researched, thought-out job of writing it up so I will point you that way rather than reiterating. Even in deleting your account though, they still move it simply to "deactivated" for 14 days (which means it still has all my photos, friends, groups, people can still tag me in things, etc.), and if I log in at any time (which for most people who choose to stay logged in to sites like that means that if I click on a link that points me to facebook) my account will be reactivated. Which is skeevy. At any rate, I'm out! I still actually have an account for work, which I might kill too. But I have about 50 friends and one photo and that is about all on that one, and it's solely for work-related uses, so I'm not that concerned with it. But my point is: read Laura's article. Also, use the better versions of the internet for the things you've been using facebook for. Blogs, twitter, flickr, EMAIL. I think we should all diversify our online presence. And Tom agreed with me about that on twitter, which makes me feel smart and like it is the absolute only way to go. Because Tom says so.

Things I've Been Thinking About Today

I think this is how I'll spend my evening