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What makes a "well put-together" woman?

I know there are some that believe that because I call certain types of women Gaping Vaginas, or Stupid, that I'm an insensitive hypocrite or a "bad feminist". That I'm putting down women by talking badly about certain types of women.

However, I'm actually quite a fan of women.

That is why I spend hours and hours of my life, every single day, examining "women's issues",  trying to find positive examples for women; why I try to immerse myself in all things that promote healthy and empowering lifestyle choices for women.

Blindly telling people, "You go girl! You're empowered!" no matter what they do, isn't exactly being supportive of women. Do we all know what an enabler is?

Sometimes we need to criticize each other. We need to lift up the women who are kicking ass. The way we kick ass doesn't all have to look alike, but there need to be some major lifestyle and behavior choices that need to be axed. Ya know, like flashing your vagina to the world for a living, or weighing as much as a 4th-grader when you're a 25-year-old woman that stands at 5'10" for the sake of fashion.

Life is fucking hard. And its even harder when you're a women who allows herself  to be bogged down by stereotypes, glass ceilings, and society's stupid ass rules.

To an extent, I think everyone, male or female is affected by such things.

However, aside from all of the frustrations from GVs and the women who seem to revel in their own self-indulgent, stereotyped-chaos...

 There are some fabulous women out there who lead such empowering lifestyles that they just leave me in an awestruck state of appreciation, envy, and inspiration.

These women that just seem to be light years away from the place I'd like to be. In fact, they're so fabulous, that I the best way I know how to describe them sometimes is "put-together".

But what does "well put-together" mean?

For my own definition, it means many different things. I've always looked up to women who have a "set up". This may mean that they have a lot of accessories, a strong sense of style, a lot of handy-dandy-gadgets. That X-factor. When I was younger I probably envied one of my peers that had a well decorated binder, and a set of matching gel pens. (Remember them? Oh man. Gel Pens.)

It's not that I'm just in awe of women who have material things - it goes deeper than that.

If they have a moleskin journal obsession, it may not be just because they like to buy the most expensive journals, but because she's a writer, and she feels the most inspired to write when she has a quality notebook.

 And the reason she has such an nice pen collection, is because she'll only write in black ink, and writes so much that she goes through pens like most go through chewing gum.

The women with the most eclectic accessories may not just be a fashionista, but owns so many different pieces of fantastic looking jewellery because she's a photographer who travels to the most exotic of locations, and has made a tradition of buying one piece of jewellery from every city she visits.

My own personal admiration of women who have lots of accessories, or a well organized, vintage handbag is because I believe it shows depth.

A story.

Having a crap load of lip glosses and a Nicole Richie inspired sunglasses collection may not exactly have a story to it, other than the fact that you're IRRITATING.

There are so many women, who just have these amazing stories, and endearing quirks, and talents:

They have cute glasses, and curly hair, and have an impeccable sense of style.

They bake. They create.

They speak French and make fucking furniture with their BARE HANDS.

They cook food and write about how it touches and fits into their lives about it so eloquently...

They start a blog, and then end up writing screen plays, and TV shows with Steven Spielberg.

These women, and women like them, are not people to be jealous of.

Why do we expend so much energy being jealous of "well put together women", when we could be inspired by them?

Why are we so quick to hate someone and be jealous of them, when we could just learn from them?

At the same time, I'm sure any of the women I've mentioned, and ones I haven't because they don't exactly have a link, may say, "Are you fucking kidding me? I don't 'have it together'."

From the outside looking in, perhaps most of us appear to have our shit together and be on the ball about stuff. Do I think I do?

Sort of.

I think I've got most of my 'internal shit' (literally, and not so literally) together: I understand my emotions very well. My relationship, my relationship with my family members and in-laws, my relationship with myself and my body image...These are all things that I've put as my top priority. I don't have any lurking demons in my emotional closets. Sure I have normal issues and a pain in the ass depressive disorder that I deal with on a pretty regular basis...

But I feel that since I've given all of that inside crap priority over everything else, I haven't really developed a lot of the other stuff that I want to...

And because I don't quite have all of the trimmings of the other women I see to be "put together", then I must not be.

Do I have moleskin journals?

Can I make a fucking table and chairs?

CAN I ADAPT THE RECIPE FOR "GREEN LENTIL SOUP WITH COCONUT MILK AND WARM SPICES" FROM ONCE UPON A TART AND MAKE IT MY OWN?

NoOoooOooo!

Is that a ridiculous thought?

Definitely.

Especially considering I know that nobody's happiness can be identical to someone else's.

But when I'm going through a stressed-out funk where I feel like I need more substance in my life, I start to compare and notice things about the other people I see who seem to have shit loads of substance in their life. And then I start to notice that, hey, they bake. They spend time doing projects for their home to increase how much they like being at home. They manage to buy incredible clothes for cheap. They can speak 3 languages...

Some of it is just me being too hard on myself.

But, then again, I think there are parts of that way of thinking that are positive, especially considering that, in the past, the idea of doing anything Houswife related or something that "women should do" gave me a small panic attack.

I seem to have grown up a bit.

And I don't think its a coincidence that most of the women I find myself so in awe of tend to have hobbies and do things that I, myself, am intimidated by. Is the reason I've made jokes about housewives and knitters in the past because they do something I can't? Probably. That's some of the reasoning behind it. I can admit that.

I can also admit that I'm trying to be a bit more open. Learn. Learn from other women. Listen. Take a risk and try something new, accepting that I may not be perfect at it. (**Blood curdling scream**)

I'm learning to be a better cupcake Cate, which, in turn, makes me a better woman.

So, I tip my hat to all of you fabulous women out there.

You scare me. You intimidate me.

Your hair is better than mine. (You bitch. Did I just say that? I didn't mean it. Swear. I didn't mean it.)

And the best part is, I don't hate you for it.

No jealousy here, ladies. Just admiration.

YOU GO, GIRL!!!!

10 things you don't know about me! (And probably don't care about.)

Oh, I've been tagged.

I'd ignore it, but I have bitching-blogger's block, and I'm trying to be a good neighbor.

I guess tagging is sort of like asking your neighbor to come to a Pampered Chef party, or drive them to an AA meeting...or to come over to a community clam bake so we can share and learn bout each other.

I mean, I'd prefer it if you invited me to a lingerie party, but whatever.

You tagged, I'm it! This is me giving you a cup of sugar!

*10 minutes later* Why is this so hard? Why am I not more mysterious!?!

1.) I've gotten the, "Omg! You look like the Mom from Gilmore Girls!" about a million times. Maybe it was my sarcasm and the fact that I have a 16-year-old daughter, but I don't get it. Even when I was on vacation in Costa Rica, I had our tour guide go, "Lorelei! You! Lorelei!" and laugh, and laugh. All those brown hair, blue eyed sarcastic bitches look alike.

2.) I want pink hair. Ever since I was 15 I wanted pink hair. Blame Gwen Stefani in her "Simple Kind of Life" days or my teenage "I want to be pierced and tattooed and unruly" longings, I just want it. Plus, now it would match my blog, and let me look like an actual cupcake. And how awesome would that be?

3.) I didn't go to college. Well, I went, and then after a year and a half of mundane bullshit, and realizing that I because I had a full time job, bills, and a family that wanted me to go, but couldn't pay for it...and the fact that I FUCKING HATED IT, I wouldn't graduate until I was 25...so I quit. Best decision I ever made. I don't like talking about this, or my age, because somehow people think this gives them the right to tell me I'm a quitter, as well as being uneducated, and that I'm not going anywhere in life. I used to have huge complex about this. Partly because certain people that I have the same genes as, like to make sure I know that I'm never going anywhere in life whenever they see me. To which I now say, "Eat me, you over-educated, BAed swine!"

4.) I'm part Filipino. Or is it  'phillipino', or do I say "Fillapina"?? (Fuck maybe I should have gone to college...) Part of the reason I don't know any of what the fuck I'm suppose to call myself is because that side of my family likes to pretend I don't exist. For the first 12 years of my life it was because I had a tall, white, Catholic mom, and I was also white and Catholic. And for the last decade or so they've ignored me because I'm still too white, didn't convert to their church, and have a sort of chip on my shoulder that they ignored me and my sister for TWELVE YEARS, and then decided that they "loved me" when my parents got divorced. Other than the fact that my grandfather was born near Manila, my grandmother was half, and that my dad used to make me kick ass lumpia, I know nothing of this part of me. Not through lack of trying, however. But at the same time, trying to discover a part of yourself that I can only learn from people like my dad, and his family who clearly don't give a shit about me (my Dad's mom has seen me 3 times in my entire life, despite living 2 miles from me for the first 5 years of my life) I've chosen to just ignore it. It's sad, but it's too painful to try and find out the answers.

5.) I want to be a country music star. Look, for those of you who were at karaoke in SF after the meet-up, you may have noticed that I like me some country. I can actually sing, but NOT when I'm drunk, I just can't. I think for most people it has the exact opposite effect, but with me, the vodka sucks away any vocal talent I have. I grew up listening to Trisha Yearwood, and Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, and Patsy Cline. Would I cry if I met Garth Brooks?? Oh yes. I may have a guitar and a cowboy hat stashed away somewhere. I may sometimes sing Faith Hill and 'Blue' by Leann Rimes when no one's home. I still sometimes fantasize about moving to Nashville, learning how to do my hair in a beehive, changing my name to something terribly country sounding, and singing in smoky honky tonk bars for a living. Iain could be my roadie.

6.) I still carry my Thespian Society card in my wallet. I think I talked about this with Harold, but yeah, I used to be a theatre nerd. If I had my yearbooks with me in England I would totally scan in the geek-tastic photos of me in Drama Club. I did about 6 plays in high school. I was Little Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods and Cookie in Neil Simon's rumours. I loved theatre. For a miserable, ever-so-slightly unpopular, slightly depressed, Blink 182-loving 16-year-old girl...Drama Club was my safe haven. And DAMN STRAIGHT I got "Best Actress" my senior year.

7.) I've never had anything waxed. I was born with more than enough eyebrow.  It took almost all of my teen years to perfect the shape, so the last thing I need is some lady in "Rosemary's Nail and Brow" to fuck up all that hard work. I don't trust anyone to rip hair off my face, and make it look good. I also don't see the point of paying someone to wax my legs for me, when I can just shave them on my own. Which brings us to the ole "bikini area". The thought me, spreading my legs, and letting some lady have a gander at my goods, and then savagely RIP MY PUBES OUT doesn't exactly sound like pampering myself. I'll take care of it myself thank you. By god, if anyone's pouring hot wax on me, it's not to be for hair removal.

8.) I used to have short, bright red hair. Yeah, I had a definite "Is she a lesbian?" hair cut when I was 17. It was short. Short than Iain's hair, and red. Like, Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman red...with blonde highlights. I thought it was hot. The boys however...did not. (And my Mom didn't either. I believe the morning after I got it done I was greeted with, "Good morning, Bozo." LOVE YOU TOO.)

9.) Like Patty, I'm a crier. I cry all the fucking time. It's sort of like a hobby. I cry at least once a week, maybe twice. Sometimes thrice. It just depends.They're not horribly, sob fests. (It's not because Iain and I are fighting.) It's more so just the way I deal with stress. Coming home after a horrible day and crying it all out for 5 minutes, verses being tearful and raging all day is one of the best things I've learnt. (Thank you, therapy.) However, when it's the Week Before (PMS, folks.) I will cry over anything. Even pitas.

10.)  I heart Buffy. I used to be such a big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan growing up that my screen names were always like "Buffy03" and "Buffster2948". I may have had a incense burner shaped like a stake. And I may have had a claddagh ring, simply because Angel had one on the show. And I might have had Buffy books...and maybe the soundtrack....I don't want to talk about it.

This seems like it took me about 3 hours, so I'm not making anyone do this. But I'll totally invite you to my next GV Gear neighborhood party. Promise!

Vox Hunt: Good Morning!

Show us what wakes you up in the morning. 
Submitted by Rob.

Or...

The imperfect balance of holding on, and letting go

Moving on.

How do you leave your history in a cardboard box -or five- and continue to move forward with your life?

Do you keep the old letters from your ex boyfriend? Do you keep them in your cellar? In the darkest parts under your bed?

The photos of you and the man that you thought would give you babies and grandchildren and a home...the photos of you and him before he broke your heart. Do they stay in the chest at the foot of your bed? Or are you still so angry you can't bring yourself to touch them?

The daughter you abandoned, and left alone when she needed you most. Do you keep the finger painted pictures she made you when she was five? You don't understand why she won't talk to you, but can you love someone who says that your love hurts? Are those pictures still in a random box? Or are they lost, thrown away, or burned?

Do you keep your past husband's wedding suit in the dust, and the darkness of your attic? Do you let it sit above your head, every Christmas, every birthday. Your past memories and pain, and love, and death, and once-futures...do you leave them to rot above you, and below, and all around you. Hidden, tucked away, put under blankets, and taped shut. Out of your eyes, and of your widowed heart, but never out of your mind.

Do you sneak up-stairs and hold the old fabric to your face?

Everybody moves on in their own way. Some preserve the bedrooms of their lost children. To go in, to remember, to honor.

Some run away. They leave the life that fell apart, the life they thought would be forever. The pain, the familiarity, the memories that reappear at every single turn. Every smell, every song, every day...is simply too often and too much. They leave.

Some fall into whatever hole they first land in after being shoved off whatever free ride they were on.They recreate their manic version of what "normal life" is to them no matter where they are. Alone. Married. Divorced. Dating. It's all the same, because they are always the same. Never changing. Round and round. U-turn after U-turn...never forward.

Some leave with their finger in the air, but leave a strategically abandoned trail of items in their wake. Anniversary cards in the sock drawer, a lipstick under a couch cushion, or their caricatured photos from their birthday on the boardwalk left on the wall. "I'm gone, but see if you can ever get rid of me."

Some burn their photos, and the letters. A symbolic gesture of turning the past in to ashes, and the ashes in to dust. They float further and further away, with each passing breeze. The memories we want to hold on to, will live on forever in the lessons we've learned.

...Keeping a note of promises from an disloyal lover is hardly a memory I enjoy to hold on to, never mind festering and lurking in a box under my bed...a bed I lay in with a man who doesn't need to write me notes of affection to prove his loyalty...he just is.

With so many of us running and flying through life, and running away from the life the universe has given us...we don't force ourselves to stop, and to live through and learn from the gratuitous moments of pain that we are dealt despite our  infinite moments of happiness.

The balance of preserving memories:

Either holding on to possessions because we are afraid that the memories associated with them will disappear from our hearts if they're thrown away...Or burning, throwing away everything in sight that represents sadness, happiness, or loss...

The imbalance between these two ways of dealing with losing someone is perhaps the most painful thing, even more painful than the initial loss itself. It's a form of self torture, sabotage, and the inability to look inwards, to grieve, to accept..and to move the fuck on.

Losing someone is probably the worst situation anyone will ever have to go through. Whether it is through death, the falling out of a relationship/friendship, or heart break...the process of grieving is a painful, tedious thing to learn.

However, we tend to make the process a million times worse when we make the choice to either hold on too long, or not long enough. It's almost seems an impossible balance.

What we also do not sometimes think about, is that we are never alone. Our grief is hardly ever our own, there is always someone else involved: Our ex lover, our family, our friends, his brother, your son, my daughter.

We are all connected, and so is our pain.

Although you think that you've done as best as you can to start a new life, and leave us to ours...

You leaving your posessions, your memories, your old life within these walls, no matter how well stowed away, is choking me. It doesn't let us move on. Your old plates, your old mirrors, and photos.

Yes, they are only posessions.

But they have your energy. There is a reason graveyards feel creepy. There is a reason why wearing your dead mother's old pearls feels the way it does.

There is no justification for leaving pieces of yourself where our future should be. I am tired of your name. I am tired of your old mail. I am tired of sipping tea out of your old mugs.I am tired of people talking about you, in moments where we should be talking about which wine we'll be drinking tonight.

The desperate need to preserve the possessions that you so thoughtlessly, and lazily left behind is frustrating.

I am sick and tired of every person here lagging in the past, and still being bogged down by your own inability to move on, and take initiative. You will get your possessions back, one way or another. Whether I have to turn up at your door and physically hand them to you or throw them out the nearest window, hoping the wind will carry them in the right direction.

You are not dead, and yet you seem to forget that most of the time.

Those who have suddenly left us, sometimes inadvertently leave us the task of cleaning up this world they left behind. How does she move on when your smile is reflected in her son's eyes? How does she move on, and clean out without throwing out things you would have wanted kept?

Which photos can she throw away? Which love notes does she leave kept in secrecy? Your secret jokes, your favorite hat...does she keep them? How much does she keep? How can we preserve you, and move on, without you feeling locked up and thrown away?

And how can he move on, while the rest of you are dragging him down? Remember Father, remember Lover, remember My Love, My Loss, remember Your's?

Always in the past, always in the dusted, cob-webbed corners of moments gone...

Never in light, young, fertile moments of the future, of the now.

We must remember that we can preserve the memories of those past. We can hold on to the happy lessons we learned from lovers gone. We can save his jacket, her photo, my letters.

We can keep it private. We can move on, while they still pack boxes, scared to let go. We can save some items, those happy items, the possessions that make us smile despite the tears. Some we can burn, some we can throw away. Most we can break our sentimental ties with.

But let the dead rest. Let the past be what it is. Do not clutter your present with pain. Smile in their memory, cry at their absence, but know that the men and women who's souls we want with us, will stay. The painful, dark, and hurtful moments can be burned, return to ashes. You do not owe those who wrongfully broke your heart anything. Take down her photo. Take her blanket off of your couch. Free yourself.

We let you cry, and grieve, and have your time while your found your space.

Now let us move on. Let us look forward, with the wind at our backs, guiding us along.

You can never be boxed up, thrown away, or forgotten.

You're right here.

...And do they make cat condoms?

A bad day can lead to many things.

Thankfully, earlier this weekend I was smart enough to add:

To this:

Which then at lunch today, I added to a small bottle of this:

Which has led to an afternoon of warm, fuzzy, drunkity bliss while I sit here at my desk writing incomprehensible emails, and dramatically clicking and pressing ENTER!, because that's what all the important people 'round these parts do.

But, this little hour or so of sweet, sweet intoxication has left me with time to think, and worry....

Can cats get STDs?

Our whore male cat Orion escaped the other night to go on a Sex Tour of the neighborhood. Now, I've only ever had dogs, and it's been a bit of an adjustment, but the fact that our cat left the confines of our home and his safety and a fresh bowl of BRAND! NEW! CAT FOOD! to jump through my brother-in-law's window just to go screw and hump a bunch of nasty stray cats for 9 hours, pissed me off.

He finally showed up at about 5am, and was quite pleased with himself.

I imagine if he were able to talk and smoke he'd be puffing a cigar while giving us a run down of how he be "hitting the walls" and "working the middle" of every single freaking cat on the block.

I'm just grossed out. He's even neutered! He has no balls! How did that even work?

I've been calling him "Herpe" and "The Whore" ever since

...I guess I just never though one of my pets would turn into a GV.