Hip Mama founder Ariel Gore will be teaching an online writing intensive STARTING NEXT WEEK (11/26/07)! Check it out at chuckpalahniuk.net

"I don’t know how you do it," my neighbor’s girlfriend commented. My five-year-old daughter Siu Loong was at her father’s house and I had taken advantage of my free night to attend and photograph a march against police brutality, then stayed out till midnight developing the film I had shot.

"I dunno. I just do," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

But that’s not entirely true. To simply say that leaves out the resources and community I’ve gained from years of being engaged in social justice work.--read more >>

My take on pregnancy and birth (home birth advocate) may have been the beginning to my feeling of alienation from the world of mommies. "Mommies" were always the other women I saw at the park, grocery store or at the zoo, I was just an imposter. Maybe it is because I don’t have all of the gear to make my mommy image complete or maybe it is because I seem to miss what other parents consider to be big issues.--read more >>

I don’t fit in again.

I am standing in the middle of the book fair at my 8 year old’s school. He has seated himself on the floor and is engrossed in a book based on the TV series "Dexter’s Laboratory". I am looking over the books designated as "for the parents". There are a multitude of cookbooks, Chick Soups for the various souls, and a large, coffee-table book extolling the gloriousness of the Reagan years.

I groan audibly.--read more >>

When I first laid eyes on my positive pregnancy test, I was (and am still, in spirit) a reprobate caffeine addict. Coffee had played a major role in my life, and I can honestly say that I would be a very different person without it. In spite of a naturally sleepy disposition, my several coffees a day have fueled the accomplishment of a molecular biology Ph.D., a rich side life as a semi-professional musician, and a lively avocation in amateur bellydance.--read more >>

Is acknowledging the biological divide key to achieving equality between the sexes?

When I went to college in the 1980s, I hadn’t yet figured out where I stood on the issue of abortion. I’d led a sheltered life as a high school student and didn’t know of any friends who had terminated a pregnancy. The issue was very abstract for me.

Then, as a freshman, I attended a pro-life film featuring young women who spoke about boyfriends or older family members who had pressured them to have their abortions. Later, these women found themselves filled with sadness and remorse, emotions that led them to join the pro-life movement. After watching the testimony of these girls, I returned to my dormitory and asked the boy I was dating what he would do if I became pregnant and chose not to abort. Without any hesitation, he said that he would leave me. --read more >>

"You're just like Britney Spears!"

I froze. I tried not to let the polite smile dissolve into an expression of disgust. My face felt hot, and my teeth clenched. I feigned a chuckle as the teenage carousel attendant stood before me, clearly unaware that she had offended me, strapped my two kids onto the carousel horses. As she walked away, her words echoed in my head. Britney Spears?!

As a petite Indian woman, I couldn't understand at first how I stacked up to Britney. Was it my caked on makeup? Nope, no makeup today. My quickie marriage to my rapper/dancer boyfriend? Oh, wait, that was the trashie magazine I read yesterday. My inappropriately tight clothing? My protruding pooch and love handles? Ok, it's been a while since I went to the gym. But, then I knew, the teenager referred to me having two kids about one year apart in age. --read more >>

My daughter is 20 months old, and I have recently recovered from a breast infection. The clinical term is mastitis, but I tend to shy away from calling it that. Growing up on a farm, I have heard the term mastitis applied all to often to members of the bovine species. Maybe I'm a bit neurotic, but I cannot rid myself of the cow/mastitis connection. If I were to find myself uttering the words, "I have mastitis," I would feel like I was calling myself a cow! No matter what you call it, though, a breast infection, for lack of better word, sucks.--read more >>