I find myself reacting a bit when people describe my derby series as being about a subgroup. To me, it’s not so much about roller derby as it is about gender and identity as performance, and how real women construct and reveal their identities. The roller derby part is because the sport toys with sexuality, aggression, our expectations of femininity and performance within the context of a physically demanding sport. Then again, my statement starts with a description of roller derby, so maybe I need to change that.

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I wonder if the silence around early pregnancy – maintained by the fear of miscarriage – is really a vestige (or continued evidence?) of the belief that woman’s only value is in childbearing. If a woman’s only value is in bearing children, then losing a baby becomes a source of shame. As much as I support any woman’s right to privacy, I don’t believe that this silence does any favours for real, grieving women and the people who love her and who (would if they knew) love her baby.

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I wonder if institutions seek to cover up stories of their male staff or volunteers molesting boys rather than calling the police because of the homosexual aspect to it. That rape is something that’s supposed to happen only to girls. Men and boys should be impenetrable. That the idea of a boy being raped is so abhorrent, people prefer to stuff it under the rug than to call the police. If a coach were raping a young girl in a shower room, would a witness be more likely to call the police?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how many messages we send to young girls (and women of all ages, really) that the most important thing about them is their appearance and being pretty. I mentioned this to my mom this weekend and she asked me if I thought that receiving comments on my appearance had affected me. I was about to answer no, somewhat disappointedly since it seemed to be contradicting my belief. But then I remembered the times I wept to my mother that I was ugly. She remembered one time I was mad at my boyfriend when I was 17 because I’d asked him if he would still like me if I was fat and he’d said he didn’t know. (Or at least that was the story I told my mom. The real story was that I was thinking of going on The Pill, and the potential side effect I was most worried about was gaining five pounds. So I asked my boyfriend if he would still be attracted to me if I gained five pounds from The Pill and he said he didn’t know. THAT’s why I was mad. Also, how messed up is that???) But that wasn’t the time I was remembering. I remember crying in the bathroom about my supposed ugliness when I was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old. I also remember being surprised by an episode of Three’s Company, when Jack was excited at the prospect of dating a redhead. I was younger than eight, and I didn’t think it was possible for a redhead to be pretty. I wonder where I got those ideas from?

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Now that the leaves are mostly gone, I keep noticing all the birds’ nests that were hidden all summer, and I want to steal them. I was all disappointed with how high up they all are but today I noticed two nests in the shrubs in front of our house. Is it bad to steal birds’ nests in the winter? Will they come back in the spring and expect them to be intact?