Introducing Sue Katz

One of my favorite things about blogging has been the opportunity to connect with people who I would never otherwise meet. That is one reason I was so intrigued by Neil's Great Interview Experiment and it delivered what it promised. Below you will find my interview of Sue Katz, author of Sue Katz:Consenting Adult. Her blog is an interesting blend of commentary on culture and mature sexuality. It's good reading--go give it a look.

You are a professional writer and contributor to a variety of publications. What made you decide to start a blog?

I first started my blog on the advice of my literary agent as a tool to demonstrate to potential publishers that there is interest in the subject of my manuscript – the intersection of ageing and alternative sexualities. I continue with my blog because it is the perfect forum for me as a writer with eclectic interests who enjoys doing short pieces. In fact, if I didn’t have to scrap around for a living (paid journalism is dying), I’d love to blog daily.

One of your key interests is mature sexuality. If you could give one piece of bedroom advice to women over 50, what would it be?

Keep the lube flowing, use pink bulbs in multiple nightlights for a flattering rosy milieu, keep tables on both sides of the bed to easily stash your bifocals, and initiate/negotiate activities that will make all of your sexual dreams come true. If not now, when?

In terms of sexuality, what do you see as the biggest issue facing young women today?

Young women need to control their own bodies and establish mutuality in their relationships if they’re to feel they can get a grip on the world. Since Bush has been president, access to birth control and abortion has been restricted world-wide, alternative sexualities have been under attack, and impotent “abstinence-only” sex education has replaced the real thing.

You describe yourself as a rebel. Were you rebellious as a teenager?

I had a miserable time as a teenager. To put it diplomatically, my mother and I did not get along. I started my life-long political activism at age 13 – against the bomb and for civil rights – in a rather segregated industrial town. I fell in love with another girl at 15, with eventual disastrous consequences when we were caught – in those days homosexuality was considered a mental illness and was widely illegal. But whatever was going on, I kept my grades way up, knowing that a college scholarship was my ticket out of Pittsburgh.

It looks like you've lived in quite a few places. Which was your favorite and which was your least favorite?

Luckily, I’ve never felt the need for a national identity. For me, “home” is the place you run away from. That said, every country has its cons and pros – the most important being close friendships. I lived in Israel for 14 years and London, England for 10 years before returning to the States in 2000. Life in Israel is very intense, very passionate and Tel Aviv is the most cosmopolitan city I’ve ever been in. But Israel’s brutal occupation of the Palestinian people is a constant distress of life there and the summers scorch. In London I found privacy, incomparable museums and a location from which it was easy to travel the world. But foggy England is also an elitist, colonial-minded and cold social environment. Luckily London itself is far more diverse than the rest of the country and I found friends from around the world. As for the States, I’ve never really felt comfortable here, although I’ve always adored the shopping. Now that I know more about the exploitation of foreign workers being at the bottom of all those low prices, it’s not so much fun.

What drew you to martial arts and do you still practice?

I began the martial arts in the late 60s after seeing a woman (Jayne West, one of the first women black belts) defend another woman from an attack by some drunken men trying to pick them up. The idea of being able to protect myself and my girlfriends was intoxicating, and my subsequent immersion in the training gave me an endorphin rush I’ve never since been able to do without. I never anticipated that I’d own and run my own championship gyms for 18 years. No, I no longer train. Ballroom and Latin dance replaced the martial arts as my endorphin source in my 40s and sex with my lover does it for me since my mid-50s.

Do you have a favorite candidate in the 2008 Presidential Election? Is there a topic you would like to see addressed by the candidates?

My favorite candidate, Dennis Kucinich, is no longer in the running. Now I prefer the unknown Obama over the hawkish Clinton. I’ve never been hugely engaged by electoral politics, and my list of “demands” would run the gamut from stopping the USA’s role as world bully, economic justice and the end to the government’s reach into our bedrooms. Total social transformation would be nice, and while I’m at it, I’d like Jay Leno’s job.

Has the U.S. made strides in gender equality in the last 20 years? What do you think still needs to be done?

I was involved in one of the very first feminist collectives in the late 1960s and have written about gender issues ever since. While I have lived through some of our profound gains, I’ve also seen these grossly eroded, particularly in the last seven years. Over the decades, I’ve noticed how women are erased from the public eye in war situations. The dominance of fundamentalism, no matter which religion, is always bad news for women and queers. May I mention my pet peeve? Why oh why must women newscasters on American TV wear those massive teased, bleached hairdos?

Describe one defining experience in your life.

Leaving home and supporting myself at 17 was a biggie; coming to gender and class consciousness allowed me to make sense of the world; and leading my brilliant London dance partner Brian in the rumba was heart-stopping. When we impacted foreign policy through out anti-Viet Nam war movement and then later opened up options for women through feminism, I got my first we-can-change-the-world buzz, which I have only lost in this new millennium.

If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I’ve traveled extensively and there are many places I’d like to return to, not the least Kenya and Peru. But for a vacation, I always love visiting my dear friend Jaya Schuerch, a marble sculptor (http://www.jayaschuerch.com/) who lives atop a mountain in Tuscany, Italy, in an ancient converted wine-making house among the vineyards and chestnut forests, with a view down to the Mediterranean Sea.

Is there anything you would like to do in life that you have not yet done?

Oh my gawd, the list is as long as this election primary season. There are many travels to complete, unknown sexual thrills to seek, a PhD to earn, more dance to be done and, most of all, books to be written and a revolution to foment.

What is your favorite book? Magazine? Movie?

My favorite authors are Jane Austen, Richard Schweid and Primo Levi. My favorite magazines are “Colorlines” and the Vermont Country Store catalogue. And my top movies are “Monsoon Wedding” and, despite its title, “Twelve Angry Men.”

The Great Interview Experiment

A few days ago, I stumbled across Citizen of the Month and The Great Interview Experiment. Neil, author of Citizen of the Month, had the brilliant idea to start an interview chain based on his belief that everyone is someone and deserves to be interviewed. You simply place a comment on his blog and are placed on the interview list. You are then interviewed by the blogger listed ahead of you and you in turn interview the next person to sign up. Then you post the interviews on your blog. He already has hundreds of bloggers signed up.

I was interviewed by Marge at Marge in Real Life and I really lucked out because she authors a great blog which I have added to my daily reading list and she asked fabulous questions. Go visit her.

So, here is my interview. It's kind of long. It may offer you
enough reading material for the next week. Sorry, apparently I like to write about myself. Who'd a thunk it?

I have interviewed another very interesting blogger, one whom I or my readers would not be likely to find on our own, and I will post my interview with her this weekend. Stay tuned--she's a pretty cool lady.


Your writing is amusing and unguarded in Not In Front Of The Children. How has online writing affected you personally?


Your question actually reflects on of the things I have learned about myself through blogging. I have never thought of myself as a very funny person, so the occasional humor in my writing has surprised me.

The whole blogging experience has given me the sense of fulfillment that I had been seeking. I have really enjoyed the daily writing and have been particularly excited to connect with other women bloggers. I especially love the dialogue through comments. They always spark new post ideas. I also am thrilled that people other than my friends and family read my blog!

What options did you consider in addition to blogging as a means to stave off your desperation as a housewife?

You mean aside of the obvious choices of martini lunches, bong hits and running off with Pablo, the pool boy? Nothing really. This was it. Do, or die a death of boredom.



You seem to have a regular readership. Do you try to provide catharsis for your readers or are your posts more of an outlet for your emotions?

Both, but using it as an outlet for my emotions can be dangerous sometimes and
I don't like to make everything about me, me, me, so I edit myself.

Do you consider your teaching career to be a passion or is there some other field that piques your interest?

Teaching is definitely a passion, but not my only one. In fact, teaching is something I decided to do to pursue a larger passion, which is interest in social equality and justice.

When I was a child, my mother took my sisters and me shopping one Friday afternoon and we stopped at Krystal’s on the way home for a quick dinner. She ordered the usual 2-3 of the little hamburgers and fries for each of us. If you have ever been to Krystal’s or White Castle, you know that the little hamburgers are perhaps a third of the size of a regular burger. One is definitely not enough, so we usually each had two or three.

As we were eating, an African American family, a mom, dad, and a couple of children, came in, ordered and sat a few booths down from us. As we got up to leave, we passed their table and I noticed that the father was cutting a little hamburger in half for the two children. There were only two other little hamburgers on the table and one box of fries. The children looked eagerly at the meal and I could tell that this was a special treat for them. I was concerned and confused though about why the children didn’t have their own hamburgers and fries. I just didn’t think that was fair and didn’t understand why the parents hadn’t ordered more for them.

As we walked out of the restaurant, I asked my mother why the children didn’t have their own meals. Why did they have to split the hamburger and why was there only one box of fries for the family? My mother replied that perhaps they could not afford more than that. This was Friday, the parents had probably just been paid and it was a special treat, even if they could only afford three burgers and one box of fries.

This did not seem right to me. It did not seem fair that those children, who were around my age, had to split a burger while my sisters and I had more than we could eat. I asked my mother if she could buy the children some more hamburgers so they could have enough. She told me no, that they might not appreciate that. I did not think that was a good answer and if it had been up to me at that moment, I would have bought them more food. Of course, now, I understand her point.

Although I had this experience at a young age, it really was a defining moment for me. It was my first realization that other people in the world were not as fortunate as I was and I wanted to change that.

I also became interested in people different from me through extensive travel as a child and because I attended very diverse schools. Many of my friends were from other cultures or were other races. Furthermore, my mother was an inner-city middle school teacher and I saw the dedication and love she had for her students and her intense desire to impact their lives for the better.

When I was in high school, I developed a love for writing and a deep interest politics as a means to change the world. I wanted to combine my writing talent and interest in social issues and politics with a career in journalism as an op-ed writer. I initially attended to University of Missouri to major in journalism, but transferred to Rhodes College, where I majored in political science because they did not offer a communications degree.

Somewhere along the way, I got waylaid and after much thought, decided to pursue teaching. I love learning, I love children and I believe it is one of the most important jobs in society. It offers me a hands-on way to change people’s lives through education. I am especially interested in teaching in an inner-city environment, though it looks like I won't be next year.

If I were to choose another career, I would choose to be a professional writer and political commentator or work for a non-profit serving minority and lower socioeconomic communities.

How do you define your “comfort zone” in life and what activities have you considered that might fall outside of it?

Actually, my life right now is a little out of my comfort zone and I would like to get back in it!
I am not very comfortable not working and I am not very comfortable living in our current location. I don’t necessarily dislike where we live, but it is not what I would prefer. Without divulging too much, it is a small, very homogeneous southern city which is very conservative politically and religiously.

In fact, I have never lived in such a small city, or such a homogeneous city. We moved here from Nashville, which is three times as large and a gazillion times more diverse. Before living in Nashville, I lived in Memphis proper, where as a white woman, I was in the minority. My favorite city of all is New Orleans, due to its diversity and blend of cultures. And I also lived in San Francisco for a year or so as a child. My current local is about as far as you can get on the other end of the spectrum. It is definitely outside my comfort zone.

What subject(s) do you teach? In light of the coming election, have your teaching experiences influenced your political views?

Well, currently I teach the ABC’s and how to wipe your bottom, but when I go back to work this fall, I will teach middle school reading and language arts, as I have in the past.

My teaching experience absolutely informs my political views. On a national level, I always examine a candidate’s stance on education and it is a deciding factor in which candidate I choose to support. I want someone who believes in the value of public education and is willing to work hard to improve it. I dislike much of the NCLB legislation and would like to see it dropped or changed drastically. I also am not in favor of school choice or voucher systems and I would like to see a candidate who can maintain a good working relationship with the NEA (more important on a local level than national).

In local politics, I want a candidate who will support local schools no matter what the political cost, even if it means raising taxes.

And of course my broader interest in social justice means I always support a Democratic candidate.

When parenting the young ones becomes a hassle, where do you go to find escape (beside your blog)?

I read, exercise, and occasionally go to dinner with friends.

I also am embarrassed to admit that I have affection for television. I often like to just zone out. My guiltiest pleasure is The Girls Next Door. Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain it.

Your literary hobby is befitting of a teacher. Which book would you choose to represent your preferred genre and writing style? Why?

I really can’t choose a book to represent my preferred writing style, because the only writing I am any good at at all is journalistic in style. I could not write fiction to save my life. I guess some book of essays would best reflect my writing style.

I also read a wide variety of stuff and am never without a book. My favorite books are Another Country, The Color Purple, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, The Secret History, and Pride and Prejudice, and The Road.

Recently you courageously shared very personal photos of your house its natural “lived in” state. Is your home a reflection of your family and the love that lives there? If money were not an object, what would you want your home to say about you?

If love is defined in mess, than yes!

If I had unlimited funds, I would fill my house with artwork that I truly loved and with pieces I had picked up during our travels. Each piece would be chosen for its beauty or as a remembrance of a location. I would love to furnish it with eclectic, one of a kind furnishings, and wonderful hand-woven rugs. The house would have to have tons of bookshelves to house our ever expanding library. I would also choose to live in an older, remodeled home full of character and architectural details.

All of this would reflect a person who is connected to the world around her and who values diversity and its manifestation rather than mass consumerism and the artificial beauty of a showroom floor. It would be evident as a thinking person’s home, not the home of someone who is the blind acceptor of what pop-culture deems fashionable or important.

That sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? It’s not meant that way.

What legacy do you hope you and your posts will leave for bloggers and readers in the future?

I don't expect to ever have a blog important
enough to leave a legacy, though I can always dream!

More Money Than Brains

When your bottom deserves the very best.





The Isis, handset with Swaroviski crystals. $75,000.




How'd you like to clean this sucker?

My Hillary Problem

A few weeks ago, before Super Tuesday, I was in quite a quandary. It's no secret that I am a huge Obama supporter, so much so that I have been volunteering for his campaign. However, when it seemed that Hillary might very well win the nomination, I was struggling with what I would do if she were the nominee. Don't ask me why I was worried about this months and months before the general election. I guess I was just on election overload.

A couple of years ago, if you had asked me if I would support Hillary in a presidential bid, I would have answered unequivocally yes. These days, though, I am not so sure. I am concerned about her electability. I believe she would have a very difficult time getting things done due to the animosity the entire Republican Party seems to have for her (and vice versa). Her condescension turns me off. I believe we need a fresh start and break from the past. And I really, really do not like the way the Clintons handled South Carolina.

In an effort to help quell my unease with Hillary, I started reading Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge. This biography is reputed to be one of the fairest and unbiased ones out there. After all, it is Carl Bernstein.

The book is an incredibly rich and detailed portrait of Hillary's life. It is extremely well-written and easy to read. I am only about 2/3 of the way through, but it is hard to put down and I expect I'll finish it in the next couple of days.

The problem is, the more I read,the less I like Hillary. For the first third of the book, she is very much a sympathetic character. That changes though, once she and Bill launch his political career. And it gets steadily worse the deeper in you get.

On the bright side, she comes across as very, very intelligent, genuinely interested in bettering the country, and a devout person of faith. On the downside, she is controlling, tunnel-visioned, rigid, paranoid, deaf to criticism or dissention, and willing to do whatever it takes to protect and further her career and her husband's, even if it takes something of moral or ethical ambiguity.

The one thing that really bugs me, though, has to do with how she has handled his affairs and what that says about her view of women. Even before she and Bill got married, she knew of his wandering eye. She thought long and hard about marrying him. She chose to marry him because she loved him. It seems she thought the pay-off would justify the risk. That’s her choice and if she is willing to put up with it, who am I to fault her?

What I dislike is the way she handled the affairs, even from the very beginning. Once Bill began running for office in Arkansas, his extramarital affairs became a real issue. Very early on, she chose a stance on the issue and has stuck to it throughout their entire political career. She chose to publically vilify the women involved, depicting them as women beneath her, women of questionable character who were just out to make a buck.

The issue came up during the very first campaign Bill launched. When Bill ran for Congress (and lost), he had an affair with at least one staffer. It was well-known by everyone in the office and other staffers served as accomplices by ushering the woman out the backdoor when Hillary pulled up. Of course Hillary found out about the affair and Bernstein writes this,

“Hillary made it know that she thought women from Bill's past, and by implication any other still in his orbit, were intellectually from another world than her Bill's, and thus represented no serious competition. This would be her condescending assertion through many an election season, the degree of venom and how publically she expressed it often dependent on the commensurate political danger to him and embarrassment to her."


From this point on, she had to deal with the issue of Bill's women, who were numerous. Bernstein writes, "The question of Bill's other women would become a prominent feature of the Clinton electoral landscape and, when raised by opponents or when the women themselves surfaced, Hillary would set the strategy of response: to attach the women as gold diggers and lying opportunists trying to capitalize on her husband's prominence."

Hillary's stance is all the more important because she truely ran his campaigns. So when she set a position, that is what the campaign took.

What bothers me is that Hillary is supposedly a voice for women and yet, she would publically disgrace the other women and not her husband, when she knew he was as guilty as they were. Yes, the women were wrong in having an affair with a married, but she married him knowing who he was and knowing it would not stop. Doesn't that say something about her too?

I would expect her to be angry at the women, but it seems hypocritical to me for her to bash them and not her husband, in fact bashing them to help her husband get ahead. In her campainging, Hillary directly appeals to women, but it seems she is ready to throw us under the bus when it would benefit her.

In addition, she apparently feels she is somehow above the rest of us too. Does she really respect and want to help women, or does she just use us to get what she wants? The whole thing just bugs me.

What do you guys think?

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Apparently I am very in tune with the universe. Yes, that's right. I am a veritable Shirley McClaine. I use her as an example because a long, long time ago, I read one of her books about her enlightenment and she told this story about how she spent the night in some hut in the Himalayas and only had one nasty yak hide or something to over up with, but she stripped down to her birthday suit and used her connection with all things holy to warm herself. She claimed it was the spirit or something that warmed her. Other explanations could be she had a little too much yak milk toddy before bed or that the yak herder hottie in town slipped in bed with her. Who knows.


Anyway, just yesterday I was mooning over everyone else's bloggy bling and awards. I was feeling a jealous because I am so very blingless and awardless. Would I ever be one of the cool kids?



Well readers, I am giddy, positively giddy I tell you, to have been awarded my very first award by my blog friend Missy over at The House of Flying Monkeys.


If you haven't been to her blog, go check it out. She's always got something interesting to say.

As the recipient of this award, I have been charged with the responsibility of passing it on to ten of my favorite blogs. Here's my cool kid list:

Derfwad Manor Mrs. G is absolutely hilarious and a very talented writer. She's gained a huge following in the short time she's been blogging and is kind of my idol.

Blonde Mom Blog Sweetly funny and she lives in my hometown.

Rima Rama Mama Drama Also always good for a laugh. Can you tell I need some laughs in my day?

Don't Touch the Cactus. Cause she's a bad-ass and also my sister-in-law.

Poot and Cubby Another cool mama.

Thursday Drive I so wish I had written her Super Wash post.

Oh the Joys Serious and funny all at once.

Ms Teacher She's a middle school teacher and an Obama supporter. We could be the same person. Hmmm.

Bad Mom Love the name and the blog.

Mommy's Dirty Little Secret. Just found her a few days ago, but I might be in love.

Now go spread some joy. Thanks Missy, you made my day/week/life.

Poop Tornado

This morning, I was changing Ladybug's ritual after-breakfast poopy diaper while Sweet Pea played tornado. He was pretending that a huge pile of couch cushions was his house and was running around yelling, "Mommy, Mommy, a tornado is coming. Come in my house!"

Note to self: turn off the news. You think they aren't paying attention, but apparently they are.

Back to the story, the smell coming from Ladybug was so bad that I swear I could see those little squiggly lines over her bottom, like in the old Pepi le Pue cartoons.

As I was turning blue in the face from holding my breath and attempting to keep a death grip on Ladybug's flailing legs, which threatened fling poop across the living room, Sweet Pea came over to us, leaned down, and yelled in Ladybug's face.

"Ladybug! Tornado coming! Tornado coming to blow your poop away!"

Ah, if only that were true.

If Only It Was August

This morning I was reminded of one reason I can't wait to go back to work.

I have been a stay-at-home mom for the past 3.5 years. When I got pregnant with Sweet Pea, I took a year's maternity leave from teaching, expecting to go back at some point, but not really sure when. We knew I would try to get pregnant again a year or so after Sweet Pea was born and it didn't make sense to try to go back to work in the interim.

While I have enjoyed life at home, I have not been totally happy doing it. Some women are great at it, and others are not. I am not. There are many reasons why I don't love it. I miss teaching and my students. I get bored and lonely at home (the reason I started blogging). I miss adult interaction and the children try my patience, even on the best of days. The biggest reason I don't like it though, is that I don't like the box it puts me in.

I don't like that as a stay-at-home mom, I have taken on the mantle of housewife with all the things that the term implies. It's not the being with the kids all day that I dislike. It's the rest of it.

I don't like that I feel responsible for all the housework. I don't like that, in my mind and to some degree my husband's, my worth is now tied up in how clean my kitchen is or how nicely my laundry is folded.

It's not that I think housework is beneath me. It's more that I resent having it feel like my sole responsibility. And I resent that, despite all my other talents and accomplishments, my role now ultimately boils down to scrubbing floors.

My husband does do a lot to help around the house, but I really think that someplace in the depths of his mind, when he sees the floor in need of a mopping, he gets irritated at me for not doing it. I hear it in his voice when he makes some comment about the house. He'll swear up and down that this is not so, but I really think it is.

When I was in therapy last year after Ladybug was born, my therapist urged me to go back to work. Not only would I be happier, she said, but she thought my husband would be happier. She thought that some men, perhaps my husband, lose some respect for their wives when they see them in the role of housewife every day. Their wife moves down a notch or so in their mind. It makes sense to me.

For men who are attracted to their wives for their intelligence, accomplishments, and independence, as I think my husband was initially attracted to me, it makes sense that when the wives are thrust into a role where their most difficult decision of the day is whether to play Chutes and Ladders or Candyland, the husbands' lose a little bit of the appreciation they had for their wives. They begin to feel a little superior.

This morning I made a comment about how one of Ladybug's push toys has scratched the hardwood floor. Big B replied that he thought the floors looked 100 years old, they looked so bad. It wasn't so much the words, as the tone that bugged me. This was also right after I was queuing up Diego in the Media Center and he came over, unasked, and took over although I am perfectly capable of doing it myself. It just irritated me.

These might not seem like big transgressions. It's not a big transgression when he closes doors behind me that I left open because I am about to turn around and go right back out or when he turns out lights after me that I left on because I am about to go back into the room. Or when he turns down stove top temps or turns on the fan over the stove. Or when he says he is going to vacuum after the kids go to bed. It all just seems a little condescending to me.

I am not faulting him for my feelings on this. I think my feelings are a combination my feeling a a bit degraded in my role and his slight loss of respect for what I do everyday. I am hoping that these feelings disappear when I go back to work and I think they will. I think he will see me in a different light and I will feel better about myself.

If not, we may just have to hire a housecleaner!