The frustrating spazzy thing of it, though, is that I sorted the letters alphabetically, but forgot to sort the labels! And we ran out of address labels, so I had to alphabetize all - yep, you've got it - 450 of the labels. No wonder it took me so long.

But but but!!! They're out! They're done! I can relax until two weeks when we send out the reminder post cards. Enough work stuff. This weekend I went to an Imbolc open circle with Brian's coven and it was really great.. lots of singing and drumming and good cheer. I am going to be starting their Grove classes - Paganism 101, practically - to see if it fits me. I always feel welcome and happy when I go to the open circles. I just don't know how paganism might fit into my skeptical/agnostic nature. But I figure I can just pull a Joseph Campbell and view it all as metaphor. (Too bad Evil-Ex liked Joseph Campbell - it'll take some time to wash off that association.) Then I met Jill at Grand Central and we had a ton of fun - we were in my kitchen dancing around and singing while drinking strawberry dacquiris and making vegetarian tacos. (Note to anyone reading this who might be interested: crumbling up Morningstar veggie burgers - we used spicy black bean - and mixing with taco seasoning as per the directions works really well!) The best moment was when she and I were talking about the Michael Jackson 20/20 special (shudder) and we both spontaneously broke into "Billie Jean" at the same time. It was inspired.

So anyway, for hah-hahs I decided to read The Surrendered Wife and boy did it piss me off. (I knew it would, of course, but somehow this still surprises me.) Grrrrr.. a tiny bit of the book is useful - that you should treat your husband with respect and not belittle him. That's hard to disagree with - why bother getting married if you just want to insult your husband? Not to mention that she does say some good stuff of letting go of things that you can't control. Fine, this is all good - but then it just goes downhill from there. She suggests never expressing your opinion on anything; you can say, "I feel" but never "I think," because somehow having your own opinion would be emasculating. She suggests that you start saying "I can't do this" to anything you don't want to do any more, and he will automatically want to come rescue your helpless, feminine self. (Can you feel your gorge rising yet?)

But the ultimate kicker here is that she insists that in order to follow her program, you must relinquish any control of the finances. You could make ten times what he does, you could be an MBA and an accountant and he could barely know how to add and subtract, it doesn't matter - tell him you can't do the checkbook any more and leave it to him to pick it up. So what if the electricity gets turned off? He'll eventually figure it out. If he comes to you saying "I don't know how we're going to pay the mortgage this month," say to him "I'm so glad you're taking care of it for us." I'm serious! That last part was from the book! How horrible for this supposed partnership.

Her stance is that being involved in your family finances is - you've got it - emasculating (and how I hate that word, it just feeds into the stereotype of the fragile male ego, and if I were a man I'd hate it too), and think about how relaxing it would be to never have to think about money again! Just hand over your paycheck to your husband and ask for an allowance and never have to think about such pesky manly matters again!!!

Oh god, I feel ill. Granted, she does make the point that you should make sure your husband is trustworthy before you "surrender" (that word alone skieves me out), but I'm sorry. I would never ever advocate anyone giving up any possibility for economic freedom. Having my own income and my own money made it possible to leave Evil-Ex, and that was hard enough. What if I had been asking him for a fucking allowance? How the hell would I have gotten out then? And how many times have you heard of women who relinquished any input into the family finances and when their husbands die, they find out that they have nothing?

I am so steamed by this monstrosity, but at least it helps me remember what my standards are, and how I'll never let anyone control me again.

Whew, I feel better having gotten that off my chest.