At the beginning of the year, the women’s organization I ran was invited to speak at a workshop for teen girls in Detroit. We stood on stage and explained body image and media literacy to about 100 girls, showing them advertisements and talking about ways to combat negative imagery.

As an exercise in building self esteem, we asked them to write three positive things about themselves on a leaf, which would then be attached to a giant tree on stage. Most of the girls were quickly scribbling on their leaves, while some took a minute or two to come up an idea.

I walked around to the tables in the first row to check out what the girls were writing. A girl with a round face, glasses and a long brown pony tail told me, “I’m not good at anything. I hate myself.” Out of all the things I expected to hear at the workshop, that was not one I was prepared for. I almost cried, right there in front of all those girls. I couldn’t believe at only 13 or 14-years-old this girl had already decided to hate herself.

I held on to my composure and asked what subject she did best. “Math,” she told me. “‘Math?! That’s great!” I told her. “I think math is really difficult, I’m terrible at it.” Then I rattled off some positive traits she might have. “Are you a good friend? A good listener? Do you play sports? Do you help out at home?” She was a good listener and played soccer. “There ya go! Three positive traits. That was too easy,” I told her.

The three hours at the conference went by quickly. I don’t really remember what we talked about, how the girls responded or what anyone looked like. But the image of that one girl saying she hates herself will stay burned into my memory for a long time. I can only hope that we were able to make as big of an impression on her as she made on me.

The show was interactive and hilarious. They did skits on Bush, McCain and Sarah Palin and showed a bunch of the posters they’ve created.

After the show they stayed for a Q and A. A woman stood up in the back and with a shaking, enraged voice said she felt disgusted and insulted by their portrayal of Bush and the Pope as gay lovers. A man stood up and started yelling about Catholic priests abusing boys and then someone else began yelling about separation of church and state.

One of the Guerrilla Girls began to say she was also Catholic, but the woman, while still yelling, headed for the exit. Adele, always tactful and seeing the larger issue, stood and called for the woman to stay. “Don’t leave!” she said, “Stay and have the discussion.” THIS is why Adele is one of my biggest role models. In the midst of people attacking each other she was, and always is, the voice of reason and the voice reminding us of the importance of communication.

After the show we met in Royal Oak for dinner and to celebrate Adele’s 35th birthday. I told them to seat us in the back because we would get loud…and we did, loud and vulgar. We talked about vibrators and then about using curse words other than bitch and douchebag. Of course we needed to see how all the new ones sounded, yelling ‘bag of dicks’ and ‘assholery’ over and over. We also discussed our plan to open a women’s center and went over information from ones that are already running in Canada. And of course we stuffed our faces with fried pickles, hummus, pizza, and veggie burgers.

Jenn and I wandered away for some girl talk. As were walking toward a clump of trees I noticed there were two people under the branches of a weeping willow PUTTING THEIR CLOTHES BACK ON. We headed in the other direction and found swings near where the Cass Tech marching band was having a party and rocking out all day.

Right now the Grand Prix is being set up – the road around Belle Isle being the track. It was very strange to be driving on a race track and I was a little annoyed the cars around me were not taking advantage of it and driving a lot faster.

Jim from the Wobbly Kitchen was there and spent the day grilling hot dogs and veggie kabobs for us. We played a very awkward, circular volleyball type game and there were some adorable kids there that joined in. One little girl, who was about to start kindergarten, kept telling me she wanted to play Scrabble. You can’t tell from the pictures, but it was sunny and hot the whole day. We also had a great view of the freighters going down the Detroit River.

TG Masterminds – Cecelia, Julie and Jenn

Adele (pretending to be a cowgirl up there), as usual, did an amazing job organizing everything and bringing people together. I think we’re going to try to get another event going before it gets too cold. I always feel so lucky that we have such a fantastic activist community in MI.

We need to come up with a political, activist, feminist, bowling-related name for the event. Ideas?

The picture they used is from last year and butt ugly. Seriously people, I would have sent a new one, all you had to do is ask!

It still weirds me out to have magazines call and want to talk to me about women’s issues like I’m some authority on the subject. But it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, so I’m ok with it.

Last week CosmoGirl called….yeah. Still trying to wrap my mind around that one. I haven’t heard if they’re actually going to do a story yet or not.

We also talked about holding a feminist mixer (part of my 101 things to do in 1001 days!) to bring together all the activist groups working on women’s issues in metro-Detroit. We had a woman that’s working with Detroit NOW and Planned Parenthood join us and she seemed really receptive to the idea. She also brought up doing some sort of Take Back The Night parade with V-Day, which we would love to do.

There’s something about being surrounded by intelligent, creative women that really gets my brain buzzing and puts a fire under my ass to get stuff organized.

After the meeting Jenn and I went to the WAB for dinner. Dunner was just getting off work so he sat with us while we scarfed down a giant salad. The size of the bowls they serve it in is just ridiculous…I should have taken a picture. Then we walked down the street to The Post and it was teaming with white hats because of the Wings game. Mondays and Thursdays are usually safe nights to go because it’s taken over by punk rock/indie/metal kids, but not last night.

We didn’t stay for long, the vibe in that place was too weird and the Wings went into overtime. Took the chance to drive home and watched the rest of the game from bed.

Race For The Cure was this morning. Got lots of compliments on our shirts…guess we should have entered the t-shirt contest afterall. I’m always terribly annoyed with the whole thing, trying to get everything organized, until we get down to the event and get caught up in all the action.

Spending the rest of the day on the couch watching movies. Don’t feeling like doing much else after getting up at 7am. Just finished watching The Night Listener, which was incredibly creepy and now I’m watching The Rose. (Is she gonna wear the same outfit through the whole movie? Or maybe it’s a bunch of outfits that are all purple and pink and sparkly…)

B is in Omaha today without much service. Didn’t hear from him until after 7 when he sent an email to say he has zero service. Two more weeks!

I tried to get them done in advance this time, but my lack of interest in reading directions really screwed me.

Brian is trying to figure out blogging and I’m coaching him through it over the phone. It’s very cute.