9 Examples of Food Porn Discrimination

I test cookbooks on a fairly regular basis. I am offered cookbooks through Amazon Vine or I am sent them directly by publishers or authors. I probably average a cookbook once every two months. That's likely less than blogs which focus on cookbook testing but since I'm generally not given funds to buy ingredients or the ingredients to test out the recipes, I really can't afford to be trying out new recipes every single week. It is my economic reality that limits what I can review either for reviews on online bookstores, for publisher or author blogs, and of course for my primary blog, The Chocolate Cult. I often think "Can I afford to test these recipes?" or "What can I find on sale that might let me test these recipes?" Then I realized, my economic considerations are minor compared to many others. Today I want to share my thoughts about what I'm calling Food Porn Discrimination.

So many people love to look at food that the concept of "food porn" was developed. The idea of "foodpornography" seems to date by to the 1978 Frank Chin story "Railroad Standard Time" while "food pornography" was expanded upon by Rosalind Coward in her 1984 book Female Desire.  The basic idea is that food and sexual desire are connected. Of course seeing any type of desire as sexual has a much longer history in the Western World.

Today, we generally use the terms "food pornography" or "food porn" to refer to the great love people show online for shared photos of food (made or bought) and the focus on using such photos in media. Indeed, staging is very common at all levels of food photography from the average person taking a quick pic in a dark restaurant to the publishing of a cookbook spending thousands to have the images just so for the recipes or to accompany text.

I pay attention to the photography myself for The Chocolate Cult or my account on Instagram even though I won't spend money to get that image because I'm not selling products directly to anyone.

There isn't anything wrong with these beautiful images of food. Studies have shown that humans and animals in general may be drawn to lovely displays or bright colors of food. This is true for what we see right in front of us, in a still photograph, or a video we watch. 1, 2, and 3.

With internet access becoming more and more affordable, it becomes possible for the masses to share in the desire of food. However, with the loss of certain federal rules about the Internet we may be about to see a deep divide in terms of what people can access online. But that divide has been part of food porn for a while now with some online recipe sites or magazine requiring a subscription to get full access. There are a lot of free recipe sites out there and companies who sell food generally put out their sites for free, so you can get a lot of decent food porn for nothing or very little.

Print cookbooks are another matter. I have friends who collect cookbooks and one of our writers for this blog is a food historian. The type and number of images in cookbooks has skyrocketed. Recently I shared two books that I'm slowly working my way through to review with a friend of mine. She immediately said "This is food porn. This is, too." Books cost money and with so many cookbooks now trying to have a photo for very recipe they can be very pricy. You can try your public library if you are lucky enough to have access to one but of course you can't keep those (or you shouldn't). If you want to buy them, be willing to spend between $25 and $50 on average.

If you want vintage cookbooks these can cost thousands of dollars! Yikes!

Ebooks might seem like a good alternative if price is an issue. However many ebooks now cost the same as a paperback book and most cookbooks come out in a hardcover format. Sometimes I will accept an ecookbook but the quality is very hit and miss and so much of the layout is dependent upon the program the publisher used for the book. If it is for a Kindle, you have to use a Kindle for example. Even then some of the ecookbooks I've looked at have failed to line up the photo of a recipe properly and it just looks weird or even distasteful. Distasteful is the last thing you want in your food porn.

The photos in many cookbooks or professional online sites are lovely but can I get my attempts at those recipes to look like that? Usually not.

Sometimes this is a matter of recipe quality. The more cookbook testing I do, the easier it is for me to spot a poorly written recipe. But sometimes you don't realize that some detail is missing until it all goes bad. At other times the disappointment comes from your skills or your circumstances.

Beyond making food, your food porn desires may be a struggle because what you or a loved one sees and wants may not be available to you for a variety of reasons.

Food porn should make you feel good not horrible. The entire point of pornography of any type was to get return consumers afterall and who honestly wants to go back to have their self-esteem stomped without some pleasurable pay off?

Let's look at some of the reasons I believe that there is a bias in the world of food porn.

Examples of Food Porn Discrimination

1. You have not had the time or money to get the training required to make a recipe.

Schools are still teaching home economics even though the demise of this is bemoaned in a number of articles over the past few years. The number of courses taught and at what grade depends on the location of your schools. Formal classes to teach cooking dates back at at least the 19th century in the USA. None of these are free, not really, even if you personally aren't paying a fee, the money probably comes out of your taxes. So if you live in a school system that is poor or too urban, you may not have had a chance to learn. Not just that but honestly how many of you who did take home economics in junior high or high school have kept up the skills that you learned?

Let's say that you can't remember what you learned or you simply didn't learn that in school, getting the training as an adult isn't going to a taxes paid for proposition. Sure you might be able to find them at the community college or a program at your town does every year or every half year but again that will cost money. Beyond money it costs time. For many people barely making ends meet, they have neither time nor money and thus the skills needed to produce the food they admire.

2. You have not had the money to buy the gadgets and small appliances used in the recipes.

Some items are small and relatively inexpensive but many times when I'm looking through a cookbook or recipes online a tool will be mentioned that I don't have. Do I run out and find it? Hell, no! But many cookbooks include lists of where you can find all those gadgets and tools just in case you want to. Sometimes it isn't a matter of want but ability. Here on The Chocolate Cult I am sent such items from time to time so over the years I have been able to expand the recipes I can try based on having more tools at my disposal but I still run into the next problem.

3. You do not have the money to have a kitchen big enough to store all those gadgets and appliances used in recipes.

I subscribe to a housing porn email list because I love to dream about houses that my parents couldn't have afforded and which I am unlikely to be able to afford. The amount of kitchen you can get for your buck varies a great deal. You don't just need countertops to work on, I use my dining room table for a lot of things, but you do need places to store everything. That means drawers, shelves, cabinets, and even freezers and refrigerators. If your refrigerator-freezer unit can basically hold a few cubic feet of items, you aren't make large sheet cakes or storing food you found on sale in the freezer.

4. You do not have the time to spend on all the steps of the food prep for a recipe.

This gets us back to the problem in #1 -- Time. Recently I've been working on some cookbook reviews that really hit me with how much time is involved. Actually hands on work might be only an hour or two (and that could be a problem for some of you) but the amount of time I have to schedule the steps over can span anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. These are basically weekend recipes but a lot of folks work weekends or have other things they'd like to do rather than make a loaf of bread or a casserole. If you do, you are probably a stay-at-home spouse in an upper middle class home.  Less than 30% of American women (and far fewer men) fit into the stay-at-home part of this equation and a good chunk of those are not upper middle class but instead simply can't afford to pay for childcare until their kids are much older.

5. You may have children and/or pets that would make some of those food prep steps challenging if not impossible.

Now imagine that you personally do have that much time that you can plan out and see through the steps. What if you have kids or pets? Is there a safe place to store your sourdough starter without a risk of it getting knocked down? Will you have enough quiet to make that souffle? What about stirring constantly for 10 minutes or 20 minutes or longer? There's a reason why fancy dishes and time consuming courses were created in the kitchens of the wealthy. They had servants or slaves (or both) who had nothing else to do other than focus on that stovetop, the oven, or that countertop unless they wanted to be punished or not be paid.

6. You may not have time to go shopping for some of the ingredients either because of your work schedule or the distance to the types of shops where you can buy such products.

What if you are single, childless/petless, and you do have the resources like the money and time to put into recipes you might still face a struggle to find the ingredients Perhaps you live in a food desert where your store options are limited. This isn't just a problem for poor urban communities either. Rural communities are finding that grocery stores are moving out or being displaced by massive chains. Will you be able to find that particular type of olive a recipe calls for? What about a certain percentage of chocolate? How sure are you of your skills to substitute?

Yes, with grocery delivery services and places like Amazon or speciality shops online you can get get a lot more ingredients that you might be able to find in your hometown stores.

7. You may not have the money to spend on some of the ingredients even if you can find them.

You find the ingredients you need to recreate that lovely dish you saw on Instagram. Can you afford to order them? Will you be home when the mail carrier arrives? Not only do you pay for the food but you pay for the shipping. You might think that you shipping in free but you have to buy a certain amount or pay an annual membership fee. Those requirements do limit who can use these services.

8. You don't have the money to waste on food should the recipe not be fully vetted before it appears online or in a cookbook.

I grew up in a working class family. While some of you may have heard of the "eat what's on your plate because there are children starving in X" I heard "if you put it on your plate you must eat it." Why? If I didn't want it, my mother would save it for another meal either another dinner or a lunch or even breakfast, possibly even a lunchbox. But once it was on my plate, once I'd touched it, was it safe to save? They were poor but not so poor that she was willing to take that risk. However if she tried a recipe and it didn't work, we all just sucked it up and at it anyway no matter how many meals it might take.

I still do that. I'm loathe to throw out food. Collectively Americans waste more food than any other nation in the world. Individually this can average out to 30% of the calories we buy wasted. Think of how much money that might be? Some of us simply cannot justify tossing out that loaf of bread that didn't turn out right or that can of special mushrooms we bought when it turns out no one liked that recipe but one person.

9. You don't have money to purchase something as lovely to show your affection or respect for someone even after they have expressed a clear interest in that item.

Perhaps you know you can't cook that wonderful dish you saw or that your lover or kid told you about. You can always buy it, right? That depends who what you see.

If a see an image from a restaurant in our neighborhood or from a shop near us that is within our budget, sure I can hop out and get that. If it's for a special occasion, I m likely to order it or get it for a person I care about.

But what if it is a fancy meal at a restaurant halfway around the world? Do I feel bad about that or can I just enjoy the image? I hope most of us can just enjoy the image but that might always be the case.

Hopefully most of us aren't in the types of relationships where our partner/kids/family would berate us for not being able to buy that fancy food but again that isn't always the case.

Food is necessary to live but it is also very tightly connected to our self-image and the image others of about us.

Is there a way out of this food porn discrimination? Leave a comment with your ideas.

Nail Fun with Friends or Lovers

I've written before about nail polish; it is my own form of cosmetics unless you count lip balm, lotion, or scent. Recently I've experimented with decals and nail decoration that goes beyond polish. I was offered a chance through the Amazon Vine Reviewer program to test a nail kit marketed toward kids from Alex Brands. I hoped this would teach me a bit more about nail decoration. I was sent this kit in exchange for an honest review on Amazon but I thought some of you might find it interesting as well. I received no other compensation for this article.

The kit box proclaims that it has 190 pieces but let's be honest -- most of these are the 135 tiny "sticky nail gems" and I mean I needed tweezers to use them tiny. There are also 49 appliques that you can color in that are very fragile but larger so be careful when you add them. There are 5 2-in-1 nail polish pens that have a brush in and a "precision tip." There is also a star-shaped nail file that is very weak even if it looks cute.

To use the polish pen's brush or tip, you remove the top in different ways that took us a few minutes to figure out. These pens are sealed tight and the polish inside varied in thickness. We discovered that the tips flowed smoothly once you got them going but you needed to scrap off the brush part before trying to apply it because if the nail polish is too thick it won't dry evenly or quickly. There are these taped pins on the flat, black bottom of the pens if the tip doesn't work but we didn't have to use them at all so I left them attached as you could see.

The supplies came in an over-sized plastic box inside the cardboard box. Given all of the small pieces such as the pins and the gems and appliques, I wish this had a storage case instead of the plastic that you can see in this photo.

I applied nail polish to my partner's hands along with some of the "sticky nail gems" as you can see here. He loves getting peacocked up but he feel conscious about doing it in our culture so we can only do it on weekends. Personally I think this is sexist in a bizarre way. In much of the animal kingdom, male animals are more colorful. Even pickup artists, as much as I loath their sexist philosophies and fuck at all costs attitudes, seem to understand that dressing up nice and being colorful is a good way for men to attract attention. I like his nails, what do you think? He has nice large surface areas to work with, we could have easily put 1-2 more of the gems on each one. We didn't use a clear top coat, none came in the kit and the instructions do not mention them; the gems fell off in less than 24 hours with normal daily activity but the turquoise polish remained.

We used the color-in appliques on my nails and my partner used the "precision tip" to color them in. What do you think? We did use a clear top coat because these were more fragile to begin with and I wanted mine to last; he used polish remover Sunday night on his for work the next day. The polish dries very quickly if you do not apply it too thickly. If you use tweezers you can get the stickers or appliques on fairly well. The appliques are less thick and I loved the coloring in aspect of it. Frankly get rid of the "sticky nail gems" and give me more of these with more colors to use.

One final photo for you. These are my nails a week later. I've used basic polish remover but look at what has been removed -- the top coat and the polish. The only damage you see to the appliques are what happened while using my hands for the week I had these on. I'm not sure at this point how to remove them except by working at the edges and peeling them off but that is taking a bit of time. At least it isn't as stinky as polish remover, right? How many of you have done the stickers, decals, and multiple colors to your nails? Tell me about it in the comments please.

Her Struggle (and Success) Deserves to be Known

WARNING: This post will contain descriptions of violence and sexual assault. It is the truth as I remember it. If you don't like that, don't read it. I'm writing this because my cousin Sherry was killed last week in a murder-suicide in her home in Cedar Rapids Iowa. You can read the article in the main newspaper for that city here.

I hadn't seen or heard from Sherry since 1989 after one of my visits home from college. As you can see in this obituary for her, her life was unknown to many of us who grew up with her. But I knew more. I want to tell you what happened during that visit, the history of her life as I knew it to that point, because sadly she had been conditioned to accept less than she was worth in life. That wasn't right. The truth deserves to be known, because maybe, just maybe, it will make someone out there realize that what happens today to their children will impact those children's entire life.

Therapy Dogs Group; Sherry second human from left

As readers of this blog know, I'm a survivor of childhood abuse. As horrible as that was, it was a bright sunny life compared to my cousin Sherry's. I wish I had more photos to share than I do, but I remember reading a book about Liza Minnelli as a child, a kid's picture book, and looking at my cousin Sherry and telling her, "You look like her." Sherry had pale skin, dark eyes, and black hair that she always wore short. She also wore glasses, which I thought hid those beautiful eyes, so I'm at least pleased to see that in her adult years she stopped wearing glasses. I tried to find out more about her life. She worked in the public and community school system in Cedar Rapids. I found the above photo of her and a group of people who worked with therapy dogs: Sherry is the second person from the left. A local TV station in Cedar Rapids had this report that mentions her work and the aftermath of her death.

A high school classmate of Sherry's contacted me privately to let me know about a fund that is currently being raised to help support Sherry's work with therapy dogs at the school where she worked for many years. If you'd like to help, please make checks out to Prairie Hill PTO then mail them to:
Prairie Hill Elementary
Attn: Scott Schipper
401 76th Ave SW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404

Sherry became a very valued member of the school system she served. This is from the Prairie Hill Elementary School where she worked: During the week of March 2-6 we would like to take the time to honor the life of our friend Sherry through the giving of random acts of kindness. We believe that even through hurting it is important to spread joy and make a positive impact on our community, family, and friends. Each student will be bringing home a small card to pass along when they do a random act of kindness. Take a picture of it, or write a short story describing it, or both and submit them to us. We will be turning them into a collective display, or book, or both in the coming weeks.

But let's go back to my first memories of Sherry and what I knew about her life before she left home, left town, and left our family in 1989.

Sherry lived with her grandmother, my aunt Maureen, and her brother, Jeff, from the time she was at least three until she left home soon after high school graduation. I don't have the legal records, but I recall being told that Aunt Maureen got custody of them because their mother, Maureen's daughter, had abandoned them after years of an abusive marriage, and Aunt Maureen was worried about them being the two youngest kids in that house. They might have been better off in foster care or with another family member.

My aunt Maureen was a nasty piece of work.  Prior to Sherry and Jeff she had two adopted children: a son she claimed could do no wrong who later committed suicide, and a daughter she claimed was a liar and could do nothing right, which sounds exactly like what she said about Sherry and Jeff. Her sexism is astonishing to me today, and I have to wonder how many male abusers are raised in an environment where they feel free to do whatever they want – and how many female survivors are raised in an environment where they feel as if they can do nothing right.

Jeff raped Sherry. Not once, not twice, but over the course of her entire life. She'd tell me about it, but she rebuffed my attempts to get her to at least go to the school counselor. Any words anyone said against her grandmother brought out fear and anger; our last discussion was an argument, because I was urging her to tell the authorities and get away from that woman. I ended our argument by telling her that when she wanted help, she knew where to find me. I've been wracked by guilt this week, thinking that I should have called the police, should have grabbed her and made her tell someone. I couldn't even do that to protect myself; I wasn't yet conscious enough of my own power, let alone trained in any way to really help another survivor.

I witnessed a sexual assault when I was visiting my aunt Maureen's home in the early 1970s. I was four, Sherry would have been three, and Jeff was seven or eight. We were playing a game in another room while my mother and her sister (Maureen) visited in the kitchen. Jeff scooted over, grabbed at me, and tried to put his hands down my pants. I punched him. While I hadn't been able to protect myself from the adult man who had previously molested me a few times, I was big enough to defend myself against Jeff. I remember him looking at me with confusion and then just scooting over to his sister and shoving her skirt up and putting his hands under her panties; she was crying but didn't fight back. I ran into the kitchen and told my mom and Aunt Maureen, who came back into the other room, where now the other two kids were sitting apart, Sherry with tears in her eyes and Jeff with that perpetually confused and vacant look he always had. My mother grabbed me while my aunt Maureen was yelling that I was lying, that Sherry was lying, that Sherry always lied, and how poor Jeff was an angel.

My mother never took me back to that house when I was a child, and I have no more memories of my cousins until I am in the 9th grade and Sherry showed up in the 8th grade in one of my classes. My mother did that often – she'd simply remove me from a dangerous or abusive situation, and we'd never talk about it again.

Suddenly my aunt Maureen's health took a turn for the worse, so my mother was driving her to doctor's appointments, and we were spending more time with them again. Sherry and I were in junior high school, and Jeff was in high school by that time. Aunt Maureen was always saying that Jeff should date me, an idea that spread to other female family members ... CREEPY! The house they lived in seemed like a normal house except for Sherry's and Jeff's bedrooms. To get to Sherry's bedroom you had to go through his – or, put another way, the only way for Sherry to get out of her room was through Jeff's ... who sets up a house like that? Was that how her mother's bedroom had been set up? Did this same thing happen to her mother? A cousin recently told me that she heard through the family that Aunt Maureen moved Sherry into her bedroom and put a lock on her door later in Sherry's teen years but I never heard or saw that.

Old Timey Photo of Clique taken 1986 or 1986

Aunt Maureen always made Jeff accompany Sherry when she and I wanted to hang out just the two of us, but somehow, sometimes, we got her away. She joined my clique of friends by the time we got to high school; it got her away from that house for a while, and she got to see what other boys were like. Our clique was for the artistic geeks, you could say, focused on a core group of students in the same year; neither Sherry nor I were part of that core group, but we were part of the basic members; we stayed until the core group graduated in 1987.

Date or Friend? Prom 1988

Some new people came and went into our clique as new boyfriends and girlfriends entered the lives of the basic members. One of Sherry's high school classmates sent me this photo of her with one a young man at the prom in 1988... I don't recall him so he might not have interacted with our clique very much. During my senior and her junior year the core members were gone so we were moving into different groups of friends, a necessary thing to do given that we were not going to graduate the same year. Anyone know more about this uniformed guy named Tom?

Sherry & Boyfriend Summer 1986?

Getting away from her brother meant that Sherry could see new ways for boys and girls to interact. Okay, sure, we could be super goofy in our clique, but she also had boyfriends, including this dude, whom I later dated myself. Oddly that didn't cause a rift between us; dating among members of the clique was about as common as bringing in new girlfriends and boyfriends. Dating was more of a group dynamic, often with one-on-one dates afterward. We circulated between different houses -- some of us lived on farms, others in town, and once members of the clique could drive, we'd go to everyone's house. Going to Sherry's was very rare and very uncomfortable, because once more her brother had to be included. It was just easier to have her over to another person's house than deal with the atmosphere there. I never talked with the other clique members ... did they know what was happening? Did they sense the unease that both Sherry and I felt there?

It was difficult to talk with Sherry, even when I saw Jeff touching her inappropriately. I always spoke up and stopped him, I often sat between them in the back of the pickup, and he knew better than to touch me. But by then we all knew that telling the adults in our family would accomplish nothing. As I said above, she rejected any of my attempts to get her to tell a school official or even our minister, sometimes with a lot of angry words on both sides. Maybe she was told so many horror stories about her abusive father – and they are quite frightening – that she thought she had it good? She did tell me that she hated to be with Jeff because he came into her bedroom and touched her, made her do things.

A few years after I was far enough from Iowa to start dealing with my own childhood, I remembered the above incident with the game and the assault. I asked my mother about it, and she confirmed it. She told me more as well, like how her sisters and brothers had a family meeting about the abuse in that house. She told me, and my father later confirmed it, that she and Dad offered to take in Sherry, but that Aunt Maureen convinced them to let her deal with it, claimed she didn't know. Nothing changed in that house.

Sherry Senior Photo

After our argument about her reporting her grandmother and getting out of that house, I never heard from or saw her again. I did hear and see a few things about her within the greater family over the years. One of my sisters responded to a call from Sherry and helped her move out and find an apartment right after she graduated from High School. I met her first husband once at a family gathering – she'd left him and their kids; their two daughters are still alive. After her death, I learned that she kept in touch with her daughters and they seemed to have had a good relationship; I'm very glad to learn that but I won't share their names with you because I never met them beyond that one time. I don't know how many husbands Sherry had over the years, but she does not seem to have had more children. Considering the role models she had and how she was raised, I'm amazed that she had what seems to have been a relatively stable life in Cedar Rapids for many years. But she always tried to be so very friendly and helpful out in public. Maybe, like me, she felt she could help others, even if she couldn't help herself.

As for Aunt Maureen? She died while I lived in NYC, sometime between 1995-97. I baked a cake and we had a party to celebrate her death. This paralleled the Easy Bake Oven cake I'd made at age 8 when my sister, who had been married to my first abuser, filed for divorce from him.

And Jeff? I once picked him up and shoved him against a wall at the local bowling alley when I found out that he was harassing my eldest niece (at least eight years younger than him) over the phone and in person around town, and even showing up at her school.  I told him that if I heard that he'd even looked at her again, I'd kill him. I learned later that he was found guilty of child molestation at least twice – after his first jail sentence, he did it again and was arrested again. I believe he is in jail for life now; if not, he should be.

Through all of this, Sherry managed to get decent grades in school, make friends, and do activities such as band, chorus, and bowling. So I want to ask folks with good memories to leave comments here after I share some more photos with Sherry in them.

Sherry was active in band, where she played French horn. I hope she continued to play some instrument as an adult. She always went to state musical competitions. In the photo to the right she's the first person on the lower right. I remember that sweater with the fruit slices.

Band was great, not just for music, but also to make friends. You got to take trips to various competitions, and you'd share lesson time with others, so you could get to know each other if you wanted to. Sherry is in the center of this photo in the second row.

Sherry was active in chorus as well. In addition to our high school chorus there were several smaller ensembles – mixed, mixed à capella, and girls' chorus. Chorus wasn't as active as band in terms of travelling around, but you'd spend a few hours a week and do a handful of shows each year for the school and by extension our little town. Sherry is the second from the right in the first row.

Her love of and ability with music went outside high school as well. I remember being part of a quartet – two boys and the two of us – in our church that sang for services a few times. We did pop songs that could be spun as Christian. We were also in the church youth group together. I wish I had photos of those times together. But one of her friends sent me a copy of a photo of Sherry singing at their senior prom in 1989; she also sang with a group of girls as well as this solo I'm told. Prom is one of those "school" events that you don't have to do so I wanted to include this photo to show more of her individual talent.

Sherry bowled as well; she was a better bowler than I. This was an activity our clique did often; I wish I had photos of us all bowling, but these newspaper clippings will have to do. In this image we see the top bowlers, boys and girls, from the various grades. Sherry is the second from the left in the second row.

Here's a photo of my junior prom that included Sherry. In the first one, she must have been dating a junior or senior, or maybe she was part of the pre-dinner serving team.  I hope someone remembers and leaves a comment to clarify. Aunt Maureen made her dresses; my mother made mine.

I loved my dress color so much, and we were always looking to save money, so for my senior prom, my mother just changed the details of my previous year's dress, while Sherry sported a new design and color. Which do you like better -- white with red or this blue one? I like them both on her.

Some of her friends from high school have sent me other photos since this post went live on Friday, March 6, 2015. I wanted to add in some of their images of her with her friends. The most common private comment I've received from these old friends were that my memories have answered questions for them and that they, too, lost touch. I think it is only fair to show Sherry with the people who did care for her over those years in Vinton. Like your high school days, I'm sure, the last day was one of mischief and lots of photos. Here we see Sherry (back with her arm around a teacher/secretary) and a group of others cleaning out their lockers and threatening to throw away textbooks.

Here we have her with a group of girl friends some of whom I know were in my grade. I love how happy she seems here. Yes, it was the 1980s... check out some of the puffy hair styles.

Please, please share some fond memories of Sherry in the comments.

Ruined Christmas Tree Memories

Update: December 31, 2014 -- Finally our local Kmart fixed the problem.  New manager called me last night asking me to come in today which we did.  He said he had a note from Corporate telling him to fix this.  Not surprising considering that the State's Attorney General Office sent them our formal complaint right before Christmas.

I won't break privacy issues with all that the manager and assistant manager told me today but let me just say that the actions of the previous manager seem suspicious to me in all of this.

I was refunded the cost of the incorrect tree in the form of a card I can also use at Sears so it was acceptable.  I got my apology and acknowledgement that we were sold the incorrect tree -- those were the primary things I wanted.

Update: December 8, 2014 -- I got the following note from Kmart:

Dears TammyJo Eckhart,

Thank you for contacting Kmart.  We are always interested in hearing
from our Kmart customers.  We apologize for the inconvenience you have
experienced with holiday tree purchase.

We appreciate your feedback. By sharing your ideas, you have enabled us
to address the issues and provide feedback to the appropriate person.
Truly, your remarks provide valuable feedback that will enable Sears
Holdings to improve the customer experience.

Due to the inconvenience of this matter, we have attached a coupon to
this email that you may use on your next visit to our store.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us.  We value you as a Sears
Holdings customer and hope you will continue to make Kmart your choice
for quality and value.

Sincerely,

Kyle W
Kmart Member Services

Really? The above coupon makes up for the hassle and the bait & switch?  I don't think so!

As of 3:55pm I have filed a formal complaint via the Attorney General's Office of the State of Indiana about the College Mall ‪#Kmart‬ here in town.
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WARNING: I'm upset and when I'm upset the quality of my writing goes down fast.  However I know from experience if I do not get these emotions out, they will be very dangerous later on.

For most of our marriage my husband and I have used the Christmas tree I grew up with plus a tree that his parents sent us when we lived in a small apartment in NYC.  Last year, after 21 Christmases we knew that the two trees were falling apart plus I seemed to be allergic to the one I grew up with because it constantly made me break out in a rash when it touched my bare skin.

We went out the day after Christmas which we have done a handful of times in our marriage because we don't crowds.  But we knew we needed a new tree and thought we might have a bit of choice.  I grew up shopping at Kmarts, my parents often used their layaway plans for the holidays, and we have one just a few blocks from us plus we have their (and Sears) "showyourwayrewards" card.

It turns out that was a huge mistake.

We wanted an LED or Fiber Optic tree but could only find an LED one.

We found this Color Switch Pine, 7.5ft Cortland Pine, Tree #85 at our local Kmart. It was a size that would fit in the space we had, it had LED strings of lights that could change color using a remote, and most cool of all a rotating base.  We could finally decorate the entire tree with all of our family decorations and have the tree actually show those decorations without people trying to push behind the tree.  In our entire marriage we have only bought three tree decorations -- our angel for the top and two boxes of ornaments (4 pieces in each). Everything else we put on the tree is a gift, which we keep note of or something from our childhood. Decorating the tree has been a time to reflect on the ornaments and remember who gave each to us.

Now that is ruined by the stress caused by the following problems with the tree when we set it up on Thanksgiving day, 2014:

1) The base makes noise but does not turn
2) There was no remote control for the lights
3) There are no replacement bulbs or other parts that the box claims should be there
4) There aren't even directions on how to set up the tree inside

My husband called the local Kmart and talked to the customer service.  Then their manager called back and said she couldn't do anything because we didn't have a paper receipt (who keeps a receipt for a Christmas tree for a year?) but even if we did it wouldn't matter because it had been more than 90 days (who sets up a Christmas tree they buy after Christmas?).

They could look up the sales on our loyalty card I'm sure but nope.

Because our local Kmart wouldn't help us, we had to turn to the company that made the tree.  The information on their website claims that they sell replacement parts -- we gave them the model numbers and bought replacement light bulbs, a controller for the lights, and a new rotating tree stand.... there went all but $20 of savings for the tree.

So one week after setting up the tree we get two packages from the manufacturer, one of which looks far too large to be necessary.  Now it has moved beyond Kmart being unresponsive to the manufacturer being crazy. Let me show you what they sent us.

4 tree bases which do not work -- probably because it turns out the tree base in the box has a different model number on it than it should be?  What the hell did Kmart sell us?

Base with Boxed Tree

Replacement Base

Not only that but when we compared the replacement lights (3 strings, not just replacement bulbs) to the original they are very different.  The ones that came with the tree are regular filament lights, something we absolutely did NOT want; the replacement ones are LED what should have been in the box.  The problem with the LED strings are that they do not have a way to plug into each other so how the hell are they supposed to attach to the base?

The 3 remote controllers for the lights don't work at all -- not on the ones in the box and not on the replacement ones.  Really?! They don't even work with the 4 bases you sent?



I'm so angry that I started posting this message on every social media site I know of which allows me to, even breaking it into pieces for Twitter:

Last year on December 26, 2013, we bought a Christmas tree at our local Kmart.  We foolishly trusted that it was as boxed.

Nope, the rotating base didn't work, the extra lights, the remote, even the directions for using the tree were missing.  But our local Kmart, which could look up the sales and confirm it especially since we have a Kmart/Sears loyalty card, refuses to make things right.

So we contact the manufacturer of the tree and they sell us replacement parts -- there went any savings we had on the tree.  Now it looks like the tree is not what should have been in the box because none of the replacement parts work.

How is Kmart going to fix this?  I will keep very publicly complaining about this until the problem is solved.

I will keep hammering away at this on social media until the companies involved make it right either by replacing our tree with one that works or by refunding our money.  If you know me at all, you know that I mean what I say.

It is clear that we will very likely have to spend more money to just buy a new tree in time for our annual Holiday Party.  That upsets me not just because I'm angry Kmart but because we'd had some major house repairs in 2014 that have taxed our savings.  This level of stress made me feel something I haven't felt in almost 23 months -- a strong drive to stress eat. I've lost 100 pounds in 23 months in large part because I've very slowly worked on losing the weight through tracking what I eat.  I fought the stress eating but today it is back and it will be a very great emotional challenge for me to resist.

I hope that all of you will help me out by spreading the link to this blog post with everyone you know and on every social media site you know.  We can't allow big companies to ignore us and make us waste our money.  We only make that happen by spreading the facts about their rotten service.

The Feminism of Hair Color?

Recently at our face-to-face meeting for the group of women that co-author this site I mentioned that I was looking to start making my hair darker, to bring back the red that I used to love about it.

Everyone looked surprised.

For most of my 44 years I've never entertained the idea of dyeing or coloring my hair, not even for a costume party.  There were many reasons for this stance.

Disgust with the idea that women must be beautiful and that beauty = youth.

A sister who when training as a stylist shared horror stories of the damage done to her and other's hair by the harsh chemical used to perm and dye hair.  I loved my curly, auburn hair (not always but 95% of my life) and was afraid it might be damaged by such treatments.

Feeling that it is an expense that is unnecessary and thus as long as I'm not the primary income earner not really something we need to waste our resource upon.

My mother used to dye her hair as a way to hide her illnesses from us all. When I figured out what was happening this turned into one of our most intense fights of the entire time I lived with her.  How many times did her health get worse because she was hiding things and refusing to see the doctors?  How dare she lie to us this way on top of all the other lies she was telling us and herself?

I recently talked about this in therapy just a bit so if discussion of dead mommy issues distresses you, stop reading now.

One of the factors contributing to my auburn hair was the fact that my mother had strawberry blonde hair (my dad's was black).  In four of their five kids, four of us had auburn hair.  Natural auburn hair isn't common and I grew up feeling like it was a gift I'd been given.  While I never knew what my body should look like and was often told it was fat and ugly or too skinny and ugly, I was always told I had beautiful red hair.

My hair is the one thing I loved about my physical self.

Then it started to go white.

White not gray.  There is nothing in my hair to turn gray. It turns into a golden red, then a blonde, and finally a perfect white.  At first it was only on my bangs and I thought "Cool I can look like Rogue!"  Who wouldn't want to be her?  This image is the one I grew up seeing on TV shows by the way so you can see I was hoping the entire top layer of my hair would go white but not the rest... unrealistic I know but hey, it was a fantasy like the show right?

The whiteness increased as my stress from graduate school increased and then when I couldn't even get a job because none existed in my field right after I finished... don't get me started on that... I felt like it was all for nothing.

Still I didn't dye my hair.

Yet when I saw my friend who is a stylist we talked about dying my hair.  Oh, I asked all about damage and he looked at it and heard what I wanted -- natural, little to no difference from the current red parts of my hair -- but suddenly I was ok with dying it.

I'm not dying it however.  I have too much white now and it simply is unlikely to take but he did recommend this product:


I couldn't find that where he suggested but the good ladies at the shop he recommended suggested this and I am very happy with the results even just after three days!


So what's changed?  As I thought it about it therapy and today I realized what changed is that my mother is dead.

She can't tell me what I should look like anymore.

But more importantly I don't have that strong association of hair coloring = lying to your family.

While I'm not saying that my concerns about beauty and youth are invalid, indeed I think those are very important feminist and humanist concerns. But part of feminism is the idea that women should be able to choose free from pressures that only focus on their biology and attempt to shove them into tiny little boxes that dictate their lives. Now freed from the association between lying to martyr your health I have been empowered to choose and that is very feminist if I do for myself not simply because I feel I should or I must do it to fit into someone else's model of beauty.

So I'm trying it.  I'm using this shampoo and conditioner and I'll see what happens.  After all two days of it my family and therapist said I seemed younger, more vibrant... I think they may mean riveting, huh?

Old Maid Is a Children's Game

When I was a girl we used to play this card game called "Old Maid." You win the game by always being able to make a pair of matching cards on your turn until you have no more cards in your hand. You lose by being the only player with a card left; the one unmatched card.

As a young girl it was just a game. I never really thought about the message of the game. The implication: don't be left unmatched.

However, that changed as I grew older. It's almost impossible in this society not to get the message. We are geared to believe everyone must be married or in a relationship. Furthermore, you must have kids. It's the predominant message. Movies, ads, magazines, news stories, religion, politic and families all send out that message; "pair up and have kids."

Whether by choice or by circumstance those of us not in relationship and who are child free find we are that card. Sometimes it feels like "we're" losing. Well at least to me. I don't feel like I'm losing at life, just at some sort of game I don't remember agreeing to play.

Recently I had to go home for a family event. Finally someone asks me point blank, "Are you going to be an Old Maid?" Really? I mean I always suspected that was the whispering behind my back. I guess on one hand I'm kind of relieved it was said out loud but why does it matter? I know my marital status. It's obvious in a sea of kids, grandkids and spouses when I walk into a family function with none of those. If there's a change, I'll tell you.

Within that same week, had family member take issue with something I posted on Facebook. Now usually when that happens it has something to do with politics. I'm much more progressive then a swath of my family. Yet, this time the offending post was over a bit of humor involving a PR prank and a "devil baby."

I realize I can sometimes have a dark sense of humor. Maybe working at a haunted house a few Octobers didn't help any. However, I don't think the video was offensive enough to be told it was "horrible and if I had children I would understand just how horrible."

So here's where my blog becomes more rant than rational. I mean look, ok, I don't have children. I get it. I know there are things I will never truly comprehend or understand in this world. I mean it's kind of like when I was a virgin. Up until I actually had sex, I didn't really get all the sex jokes.

However, I don't have to be told that. I don't spend my time telling you don't understand my life! I mean being single and divorced with grown kids is not like not having been married nor having kids. But hey, since shoving it my face maybe I should shove back So here I go.

When you are child free, yeah, you have a lot of time on your hands. And when you are child free and single, you have even more freedom. But being single also comes with responsibilities. If there's laundry to get done. Who does it? You. House needs cleaned, who does it? You. Bills? You're the only bread winner. Lawn needs mowed. Yep you...Or you hire someone to do it. You hear a bump the night? There's no one to go send out to investigate but yourself. You get sick and need Nyquil who has to go to the pharmacy? You.

Or how about my personal favorite, the car needs to be left at the shop? How do you get to work? Have a friend drive you? Take a cab? Catch a bus? Try and work from the mechanics shop? Or do you have to take a PTO day? Of course if you don't stay at the shop, you'll have to figure out a way back to it when the car is fixed. See why it's such a fun one?

As you grow older you realize you had best prepare to make arrangements in your golden years. Without kids, you can't rely on the fact anyone will be there to call or check on you at least once a week, let alone help you around the house. Better make plans for a retirement community or at least make good friends in the neighborhood.

As you grow older you realize you had best prepare to make arrangements in your golden years. Without kids, you can't rely on the fact anyone will be there to call or check on you at least once a week, let alone help you around the house. Better make plans for a retirement community or at least make good friends in the neighborhood. Now, of course I understand even if you have children, you may not rely on them for helping out in the winter days of life, but if you don't have kids it's definitely not an option.

Yet, that's just the boring mundane stuff.  Let's talk about the more social aspect of life. For example, let's say you a have social function at work. Talking about work, it's great. Talking about travel, well that's not to bad either. However, sooner or later, and usually it's sooner, the talk always drifts back to children or grand children. You have neither so you have limited choices. You can sit politely, nod your head and smile while the conversation goes long past the point where you have any reference or any ability to contribute,  talk about somebody else's kids or mention your pets.

Oh! But there you go! (Just in case you didn't know already.) Pets, they're not the same. Really? In my case, I'm a college educated woman past the age of thirty. While I may call my cats my "furbabies" I don't need to be told they are not the same as having children. I know that. If there was a building on fire and I have the choice to save a human child or my cat I know what choice to make.(Just to be clear, I’d save the child.)

Yet, if I my cat dies tomorrow, unless I have a really understanding boss I wouldn't be able to take the day off. I mean think about that. Here is a creature who has lived with me almost twenty years. He has given me unconditional love. He has been there when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. He has seen me sick and well. Sometimes he's the reason I've gotten out of bed. He's made me laugh. Yet, "he's just a cat" and if he dies tomorrow why I would be making "such a fuss."

Now, luckily I do have an understanding boss.

What about the holidays? Well holidays are a family affair which leads us back to the beginning of this blog. Family. When you are single and child free you start to stick out at family affairs, especially when your martial status is a topic of discussion.Plus, if you thought listening to co-workers talk about children and child rearing was awkward, well it can be practically an Olympic event with family. Yes, you can love your nieces and nephews. You can talk about them and share stories about them. However, it's only to a point. 

Let me be clear, this isn't a rant against children. I like kids and they seem to like me. I'm an Aunt by birth and by chosen family. Nor is this a rant against marriage. I'm a romantic at heart.

Being single and child free is not always easy, but it isn’t a deficiency. We are not losers to be criticized or pitied. And while we may not understand what it is like to live your lives, I can guarantee that you don’t know what it is like to live ours. Like you, we are people making it through life the best way we know how. Like you, we are people living our lives. Maybe one day we won't be single. Maybe we will have kids. Maybe we won't. However, if that changes, I'm sure it will be obvious to those around us. In the mean time,  can we play a different game; maybe Go Fish?

Plans, Hopes, and Wishes for 2014

What is on everyone's agenda for 2014?

I plan to keep working on getting my weight lower -- 60 pounds lost in 2013, 8 pounds more than I had hoped for so I'm happy and feel I have the momentum to continue.

I have an old series of novels to revise -- these are set 1100 years in our future.

Looking forward to the final book of the trilogy coming out later this year. Wondering if that publisher might want a sequel or a prequel to the universe the trilogy was set in but only seeing a single book for each of those. Hoping that all three books will come out in one paperback book so I can start promoting it at conventions.

If you want to see what trilogy I'm talking about you can check here

and here

Hopeful that there will be some movement from this editors and publishing hoarding that novel so that my agent and I can celebrate and move on to the next projects.

Hopeful that my agent can find a publisher for my mother's work now that I'm in the final stages of editing that.

Hopeful for even more companies and readers for The Chocolate Cult which is now read in 179 countries!  Now if I could only find a way to get readers to leave comments -- yes, the statistics are nice, they show that folks are reading what we have to say over there but direct feedback is the only way I'm paid. Neither that blog nor this one is a paid gig.  Some of my readers told me on Google+ that I could be more controversial about chocolate to stir up comments but then also asked me not to do so because they loved it the way that it was. I really wanted to say "then why don't you leave comments on the site?"

Praying my co-authors on "Butt-Kicking Women Write About It" will start writing again.  I try really hard not to remind them of their days because this is a venue for us to vent in a space about issues that stir us up but I really miss reading their thoughts, don't you?

Looking forward to two conventions (Inconjunction and Imaginarium) all ready planned but would love to have 2-4 more for the year.  Of course the wanting more conventions is only if the trilogy comes out in paperback form.  I've cut out most of my convention circuit simply because without something new to sell the sales results aren't in favor of returning.  As much as I love meeting readers and sister fans at these events I have to think basic economics at the end of the day.

I hope I haven't bitten off too much with this second RPG I"m running -- a weekly one set in the "Supernatural" system but set in the UK.

Looking forward to more docenting at the IUAM but not the group project -- this is supposed to be volunteer not a class and it isn't a job.

Looking forward to baking and candy making for the Bloomington Orchestra Guild.

Wishing for a new person to join our family.  We have a complicated family, I guess, doesn't seem that complicated to us.  We aren't having a baby (I'm past that) and we aren't adopting (we're too selfish for that) but we'd like to add another adult or two to the household. Of course on top of that then would be the need for a larger house... sigh... if only that novel would find a home and then the next projects get greenlighted then maybe we could look.

So what are you planning and hoping and wishing for?