OnLine With Zoe

Her Little House

A friend called me this morning to tell me that the house my adored friend Laura Nyro owned is for sale.  I seldom think of the house but when I do, it is almost blinding with warmth and light.  I googled the sale and looked at the pictures.  There is little remaining of her touch there; though I know exactly where her ashes rest with Ember. 

The ad shows pictures of the big house on the road.  She did not live there at all.  A wonderful couple rented the big house.  Maria's painting studio was up the outside stairs.  Laura lived in the little house, across the pond.  The only picture of Laura's true house that I have is the one in the misguided Kort biography.  You can see the Gypsy parked outside which is the first home of Laura's I was ever in.  It was parked in the Magic Speller Bookstore's parking lot as Laura brought her new baby boy to visit. 

The second home I visited was in Amherst.  I spent a week with Laura, Maria, Gil, and the Belgian Tervurans.  Maria had a studio upstairs and a little guest room where I slept.  Maria was painting interpretations of the Dutch Masters at the time and, in particular, Vermeer  After knowing her and her work for over 15 years, it was the first time I saw yellow in her pallet.  I am certain she was deeply happy.  This duplex was walking distance from Emily Dickinson's house which led me to marvel at the birds, insects and foliage in their shared neighborhood with even greater scrutiny. 

Then they moved back to the Danbury house and I went there many times including March and April of 1997.  I have so many memories that I foster as to not let them fade.  So to see the house listed today, to know that her ashes, her pond, her land is for sale is assailing.  I know where she lived.  I know where she died.  No realtor knows this; maybe no one knows this.  And many secrets, bright and dark, will die with me. 

He is a Juiced Pinhead

Just in case you thought I can only rant about feminism and politics let me offer a few words about Barry Bonds and his delusions.  Bonds will never, never break Hammerin' Hank's home run record.  #44 will always hold his record 755 home runs.  Regardless of the size of his cap - Bonds is a genuine pinhead if he thinks that 10,000 home runs on growth hormones has anything to do with the grace, determination and athleticism of Hank Aaron.  That is as stupid as thinking the bionic woman can set a legitimate record against Billie Jean King. 

The more this blown up hitter says, such as saying that Bob Costas is a midget and knows nothing about baseball, the more clear it is that the juice has addlepated his brain.  There is one possible ethical and honorable to do ~ drop out of baseball now and spend the rest of your life teaching kids that the rules of baseball cover more than 3 strikes and you are out.  Maybe you can give Mr. Vick a ride to the ASPCA for his million hours of volunteer work.

A woman's point of view

You will find this so interesting!  I wondered what the heck was going on.  Listen to Stephanie Mackley's story about her video, experience with the debate and insight. 

This video really puts it together.  There were so many parts floating about that I could not get my mind around it all.  The promise of a people's debate is/was intoxicating.  I was so hopeful and, yet, something wasn't right.  And if this was a modern debate, that doesn't mean "young people" only, for god's sake, do we need to develop another form of discrimination on the road to the future? 

Jackets, cleavage, civil unions as if they are acceptable?  Why didn't they have 20 questions by women and 20 by men.  And what of the 10,000 questions that were not asked ~

1. Campus safety
2. Abstinence only campaigns
3. HIV/AIDS
4. Congress is only 16% women
5. Terrorizing women with clinic bombings and murders
6. Gay people adopting children
7. Women's reproductive justice
8. Women separated from their children due to immigration laws or childbirth in prison
9. you know I could go on for another hour ....

OK Anderson, CNN and all those folks who thought that the debate was revolutionary - you really need to drop a little acid, take some MDMA or just stop hanging on so tight - the world is spinning and, apparently, so are you - though not in the way I mean.

Finishing up on 58

I am just putting the finishing touches on 58.  I have 38 days left and then that slippery slope known as 59 will be the rule of the day.  Maybe that is why I seem to be hearing so much, all too much, about age lately.  Although it may be floating around a bit more this year ~ as most of my day is spent with people around half my age. 

Lets start with the youtube deal.  Yes, I have been watching CNN and having a ball watching my blooper aired in the segment, "Weird Questions."  The reporter narrates that some people forgot their question midstream ~ the fact is I lurched on whether or not I should refer to John Edwards as "Senator."  That's okay.  In fact the implication that I am old may be a leg up in the youtube thing, as CNN tells us every 20 minutes that the youtube debate is the "Young Person's Debate."  Now what is that about?  You page through the entries - it is people of all ages - and a few cats and dogs. 

Last Tuesday I went to a fantastic event, the first Ladies Party, given by Object.  They were celebrating Jessica Valenti's new book, Full Frontal Feminism, with music by Michelle Featherstone and Jonneine Zapata.  In the course of the evening, while talking with a few women in their mid twenties, I told them that a dream of mine is to travel with a panel, Bridging the Waves, with women who worked in the Second Wave and women who know only the Third Wave as I believe in what Deborah Siegal states in Sisterhood Interrupted, "... instead of making tidal waves together, we splash about in separate pools."  Imagine if we truly did unite.  But then one women in the circle said, "Yes, Zoe, we need women your age to teach us history."      

A few weeks ago while on the phone, in the midst of a discussion about the work of my significantly younger CANOW board members, I was told that I am a national treasure.  Why is it that I feel as though I am being told to get in my place?  And what drives me most crazy about it is that it happens right smack dab in the middle of participating in the current American Women's Movement.  I am not talking about the past.  I am not asking for a pass based on some past accomplishment.  AND I am not put off by the language, culture, fashion of today ~ I spend a lot of time defending it.

One of the better conversations on age I had recently was with a woman who is 24.  She was asking me about leadership, diversity and the American Women's Movement.  We talked about women in their 60's and 70's who don't want to be marginalized, trivialized or discarded.  She asked me directly what she could do.  It is simple really - invite us in.  Invite us into the Third Wave.  Invite us to march with you, to protest with you, to demonstrate WITH YOU.  No dais, no podium, no rarefied air, no special treatment, just make a bit of room.  No need to talk about the past.  Share the present.

Here's the truth of the matter ~ we originally and currently march for equality ~ let us march as equals.  It is what binds us.  It is what defines us as feminists.  Oh please don't even hint that I must now take on ageism.  Oh hell, not something else now.  Get me out of this bell jar - let me breathe and be a part of today's women's movement.  There is plenty to do.  Yes, you may have to slow down or even push my chair one day - but my heart is on fire for equality - age will not extinguish that.  And most of all, don't make age another obstacle to equality.  Equality will then be the National Treasure.

lets all write Mrs Pelosi

Dear Mrs. Pelosi,

I have to believe that you know that you do not have the ability to take impeachment off the table.  It is a fundamental part of our government, the systems of checks and balances, and the relationship of the three branches. 

This president and this vice-president have overstepped their domains and need to be course-corrected ~ that means impeached.  Are you unable to face that because you think it might appear improper, as you would be next in line for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?  That is not clear thinking; it is precisely the fact that you are next in line that YOU need to step up here and sort out the proper duties of a US President.  It would illustrate your worthiness.

Very sincerely,

Zoe Nicholson

Newport Beach, CA, 92663 

(yes the dreaded 64^th – I may be the only Democrat in the 64^th)

Your turn - AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

Blooper for the debate '08

I posted a few videos for the '08 Debate and here is one of my "senior moments"

For the "good" ones - go to youtube and watch them there so the count goes up.  Gee let's hope one makes it into the debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQCKypzVlX4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5K2WuOfUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABP7chlKw-I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3SkHfhLNu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5WxByklNqg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_p1KgX26c

Happy 72nd Birthday!

I am so happy that today we can celebrate that His Holiness is 72.  He is in Australia, launching Kindness Week.  Sounds like a great party to me.  Yesterday about 5000 people met His Holiness at the Irwin Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.  He met Terri Irwin, her children and a koala, as he spoke about kindness to animals.

Independence Day ~ July 4, 1876

excerpt from Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States 4 July 1876 ~

From the beginning of the century, when Abigail Adams, the wife of one President and the mother of another, said, "we will not hold ourselves bound to obey laws in which we have no voice or representation," until now, woman's discontent has been steadily increasing, culminating nearly thirty years ago in a simultaneous movement among the women of the nation, demanding the right of suffrage. In making our just demands, a higher motive than the pride of sex inspires us; we feel that national safety and stability depend on the complete recognition of the broad principles of our government. Woman's degraded, helpless position is the weak point in our institutions to-day; a disturbing force everywhere, severing family ties, filling our asylums with the deaf, the dumb, the blind, our prisons with criminals, our cities with drunkenness and prostitution, our homes with disease and death.

It was the boast of the founders of the republic, that the rights for which they contended, were the rights of human nature. If these rights are ignored in the case of one half the people, the nation is surely preparing for its own downfall. Governments try themselves. The recognition of a governing and a governed class is incompatible with the first principles of freedom. Woman has not been a heedless spectator of the events of this century, nor a dull listener to the grand arguments for the equal rights of humanity. From the earliest history of our country, woman has shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has stood firmly by his side in its defense. Together, they have made this country what it is. Woman's wealth, thought and labor have cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty.

And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour hand of the great clock that marks the centuries points to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of self-government; our full equality with man in natural rights; that woman was made first for her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself—to all the opportunities and advantages life affords, for her complete development; and we deny that dogma of the centuries, incorporated in the codes of all nations—that woman was made for man—her best interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will.

We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.

Circular, National Woman Suffrage Association, Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States . . . July 4th, 1876

See ~ its in the water!

EQUALITY*

rights + consciousness raising

rights - something that is due to a person or government by law tradition, or nature.

Consciousness raising - a process, as a group,  achieving greater awareness in order to fulfill one's potential as a person.

aqua - ingredients: feminism (advocacy for social equality of the sexes.  A movement dedicated to promoting equal rights for women in all aspects of life).   

*courtesy of NOW SDSU: working to end sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, appearancism, agism and classism.