This imperfect world, full of juicy and poisoned apples...

When we are young, when we are nineteen and twenty, things are so much more wonderfully simple. What a dreamy, lovely time. Yes, it’s more complicated in many ways - by juggling school, work, infatuations and drink specials, by our ricocheting emotional state - but simpler in that we think that for the first time in our lives, we feel that we have “finally” Figured It All Out. What is it that makes us so steadfastly certain about life at that stage? Is it a certain hormone that’s set to be released after high school but before our first serious job? My guess is that it’s the lack of nuance that youth and inexperience foster inside us that creates such intoxicatingly unclouded convictions at nineteen and twenty.

When I was a twenty-year-old feminist, I was insufferable to all but a select few. That was okay because I was certain that everyone else was a selfish idiot. After that first heady blush of fiercely feral conviction I experienced during my feminist awakening in college (oh, how I tormented the menfolk), I had another wave of intense certainty again when I became vegan at 27. As before, I was insufferable to all but a select few. I was certain that people who didn’t believe what I knew to be true were selfish idiots. That was the only reasonable explanation. Years under the belt and more experience have worked in tandem to smooth over most of those harsh edges: I know now that people who eat meat are not consumed with violent, sadistic bloodlust. Most are simply following customs that are ingrained in them and supported by our culture. Many feel very attached to certain foods – through traditions in their home, associations they have, simply because it tastes good to them – and it is not as easy for some to adopt a new way of living than for others. I was fortunate in that it was a fairly quick process for me once I was ready, accelerated by seeing a film I simultaneously wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy and also wish would be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to continue to eat animal products. There are so many thoroughly unnecessary tragedies happening at once that it is paralyzing to contemplate. If there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that we live in a seriously messed up world created by some seriously messed up people with their seriously messed up ideas, and the idealists among us need to accept these simple truths and try to make the best of it. As vegans, we need to accept that some of the choices we have to make as the result of living in an imperfect world are also going to be imperfect.

Does this sound like cynicism, like giving up? I hope not, because I am not advocating either. It’s simply that there are always going to be compromises we accept that undermine our pure, Utopian beliefs, unless we want to close ourselves off to the rest of the world completely, that is. The thought of living in a non-violent, vegan, feminist paradise (one that manages to be artistic and fun-loving, too!) is deeply appealing but…it’s not here. The deeply idealistic 19-year-old in me wishes that I didn’t think that it could very well never be here. I could go off and live surrounded by those who live, think and feel like I do, but in my heart, I know that that’s not what I want. I am challenged by people who are not vegan all the time: my life is enriched and thoughts are broadened by those who come from different perspectives and experiences. Also, as someone who is cloistered and separate, how much could I really help to change attitudes with my isolation? Yes, I could be more of an unsullied visionary but I would be deluding myself if I thought I could bring positive change by living as a separatist.

So I choose to live in the real world, one that is very flawed. I’ve tried to carve out a place for myself here that works and I think that I’ve largely succeeded. Accepting my place in this temporal world, though, means acknowledging that it is flawed place and requires all kinds of compromises of those who live here. This sort of compromise means that the grocery store I shop at also sells meat. I support them with my money because I don’t know any other way, realistically, unless I were to live completely self-sufficiently. It means that I buy some vegan items from non-vegan companies. I also support them with my dollars because although I’d love to give my money to exclusively vegan companies, there aren’t enough around to have that luxury, and I think it is a very elite, or intentionally isolated, few who can be afforded that privilege. This also means countless other compromises, too many to list, that wear away at the sharply defined edges and reassert that I live in the real world, dwell among people who do not live, think or feel like I do.

I am not a separatist. If that’s what I wanted, and if I thought that was what would do the most positive, lasting effect on the world, that would be what I’d do. Frankly, at times it’d be an easier choice: cut off the stuff I dislike. It is easy to sit on a secluded mountaintop and issue condemnations of how others live, but it is hard to live honestly and engaged in this flawed world with that sense of personal purity intact. Life is messy. Once you put yourself out there – take in a disabled parent who loves to order bacon when she eats out (and more than twenty years of your comments have made no impression), for example, or adopt a cat who loves to eat moths, flies, mice, any creature that moves – you allow for some measure of compromise.  This doesn’t mean that you accept the violence of the world. It simply means that you accept the truth that violence exists. When you also have to make decisions that are imperfect because of how this flawed world operates, well, that is life, at least for now. I will do my best to change the things I can but I didn’t become a vegan so I could feel superior to everyone else. I became a vegan because it was consistent with my values and I wanted to do the most good possible. Sometimes the most good possible is still tinged with defects just as I am still tinged with defects.

Maintaining someone else’s standard of perfection is not my goal. My goal is to live a dynamic, compassionate, happy and challenging life. I want to live the hell out of this life I’ve got. Sitting on a metaphoric mountaintop so I can keep my hands clean and issue judgments with impunity? That’s not for me.

Wheat-free, vegan Pumpkin-Cream Cheese Brownies

I don't care how much my West Coast friends make their little cutting remarks to me in the deep, dark heart of January, stories about going to the beach and working up a sweat on their bike rides, I love where I live for many reasons, the dramatically changing seasons chief among them. If you poll your friends who live in the Chicago area, you'll probably find that a sizable percentage are like me and love autumn most. With the bright, bold leaves, the crisp air, the crunch under our shoes, that tantalizing, thrilling feeling that Halloween brings to our hearts, it is a sensuous, free-spirited time of year, a last hootenanny before the deep freeze of winter settles in. Also, after a hot summer, it's time for us to start those ovens again, filling our homes with the great, comforting smells we associate with the season: pumpkin, nutmeg, vanilla. The idea for these brownies seized my imagination for a day before I gave in and my test kitchen was open for business. Pumpkin, cream cheese, chocolate chips: a symphony of both mild and rich flavors, it was even better than I imagined. The morning after? They are insane.

These brownies are wheat-free and, unless you have Celiac disease, gluten-free. Oats are naturally gluten-free, but are cross-handled with gluten containing grains like wheat, barley and rye in mills and processing plants. For those who are like me, people who do not have not had a diagnosed allergy but have difficulty digesting gluten, oats are usually fine. (For those who need a more strict avoidance of gluten, there are oats, such as a variety sold by Bob's Red Mill, that are handled separately and are therefore gluten-free.) The flour I used here is made from oats, and it can be used from grinding quick rolled oats in the blender or buying already ground oat flour. This flour is substantial enough to give your brownies the structure they need without adding too much weight. (Feel free to substitute the kind of flour you prefer.) The pumpkin purée adds a rich texture and subtle flavor without any fat; the cream cheese-pumpkin topping adds a cheesecake-like finish to something that was already kind of amazing. As always with vegan baking, these babies are cholesterol-free. To heighten the seasonal flavor, you might want to try a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice blend (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice) in the cream cheese topping.

Pumpkin-Cream Cheese Brownies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil an 8 X 8-inch baking pan.

In a small bowl, whisk together the following ingredients:

1/3 cup + 2 Tb. pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie purée)
1/3 cup + 1 T. maple syrup
1/4 cup oil (olive or safflower is ideal)
1 tablespoon vanilla

In a larger bowl, stir together the following:

1 cup oat flour
2/3 cup natural, unbleached sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips (add 1/4 cup for the topping!)

Then, sift in the following:

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Stir together, and add the wet pumpkin mixture from above. Stir until everything is well combined and then add it to the prepared pan. 

Pumpkin-Cream Cheese Topping

1 8-ounce container room temperature vegan cream cheese (I like the Follow Your Heart brand)
1/3 cup natural, unbleached sugar
3 tablespoons pumpkin purée
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1 tablespoon oat flour
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice blend

In a mixer or using electric beaters, mix together the cream cheese, sugar and pumpkin purée until it is smooth. Then add the rest of the ingredients, processing until smooth.

Smooth this over the brownie batter, and sprinkle 1/4 cup of chocolate chips over the top. Bake for twenty minutes at 350 degrees, rotate a half turn, and lower the temperature to 325 degrees. Bake for twelve more minutes, until the cream cheese is a little tan around the edges. Let it cool, preferably on a wire rack.

Now go take a walk. Seriously, this is part of the recipe. Enjoy the beautiful maple trees, peeking with color. Throw a stick for your dog or borrow your neighbor's dog for this purpose. Don't come back for at least 30 minutes. You have to let your brownies cool for at least that long before cutting and enjoying, otherwise they'll fall apart. These are best cool, stored in the fridge.

Happy autumn, everyone!

After the Mania...

For the second year now, we worked and planned and laughed and made scowling faces over the details for months before it happened, and then it blew through town like a tornado. It's sort of like a wedding where every aspect of it has been pushed and pulled and fussed over for months, and then, before you know it, you're standing there in your tulle and the janitor is slowly sweeping up the last of the sparkly confetti. It's a little melancholic, naturally, but that's how it has to be.

Chicago VeganMania is a little beastly, to be honest, a friendly gorilla, but a gorilla nonetheless, and it's often pretty overwhelming to try to manage. It has a life of its own and it marches to its own beat: we can try to control it, we can try to coax it with bananas and belly rubs, but we really can't. The best we can hope for is to plan for what we would like and hope that it is amenable to our ideas.

What happens behind the scenes is always rich material for those of us who find comedy in the absurd. There were quite a few last minute cancellations of speakers and food vendors. There was scrambling to find volunteers, to find a place worthy of receiving all that waste that'd been so meticulously sorted (only four bags of actual trash, go Green Team!), searching for rides to and from the airport. There are only about ten of us who work on making Chicago VeganMania happen and it feels like scaling a mountain sometimes and we don't have any fancy equipment from Erehwon, we just have what we happen to have on us. As a perfectionist, it almost caused me physical pain when some balls (or teaspoons and bowls) were dropped. Oh, and there were occasional equipment failures. It was too loud, it was too hot. There were also moments of sheer panic. We weathered it together as a team, and we did so with everyone working hard but with grace. Again, there's the mountain climbing metaphor because sometimes when you have something this huge in front of you, all you have is what is on your body: foot, hand, foot, hand, breathe...

I am inclined to browbeat myself over what went wrong but when I have some perspective, I can see that most people were happy. Very happy. They were ensconced in a little vegan paradise for a day, a place where ingredient labels didn't need to be scrutinized, where they were surrounded by businesses, non-profits and people they love, where they were the norm for the day. Most of the vegans I know are on the rebellious side and truly embrace going against the grain. We are different and we wouldn't have it any other way. There can be something so reassuring, though, to just be around others who relate to our experiences, share many of our convictions, our joys and sorrows. You can relax in this sort of company: your guard can be relieved from his or her post. What I saw on Saturday was so many happy, radiant, animated faces taking it all in. This was a day for us a day to celebrate our unique, creative and ever-evolving culture. What's not to love?

Yes, things can be improved upon. We need way more volunteers than we have. (Ideally, some of those volunteers should be more pragmatic and detail-oriented as we seem to be imbalanced toward favoring the visionary/impractical people.) We need to run a much tighter, better organized ship. It I could take a time machine and a big eraser to fix the day and one major thing, it'd be to improve the cooking demo area. The spirit, the energy and creativity were all there, though, and I think people responded really well to it. In describing our event the other day I came up with the idea that it is a big vegan house party. That's what it is: it is not an expo.  It is not primarily focused on converting or even educating people. It is a celebration. As simple as that sounds, the idea of a vegan celebration is still a pretty radical idea considering the expectations people have.

It's strange to work so hard for something and then to have it disappear. I think about those monks creating their intricate sand mandalas over days or even weeks, only to have them naturally whisked away by the wind. They were beautiful while they lasted, though. It's an exercise in non-attachment, of appreciating the moment, of creating beauty for its own sake. Maybe this will be my final metaphor: Chicago VeganMania is kind of like a sand mandala (a big, loud one). We put it out there with the best expectations and hope that it is received as we intend for it to be. Its evanescence and the subjective nature of the experience is part of what makes it feel so magical. It is a short-lived gift to the community we love so much.

We'll be back next year, better than before.

Pushing the wave (Chicago VeganMania)...

Back when I started with this business of being vegan, back in the Mesozoic era of the mid-1990s when terrifying winged beasts beat their wings in circles above us and all the milk in local coffee shops came from udders, life ticked along at a distinctly different syncopation. In Chicago, there were usually between twenty and thirty of us who were consistently active, and we met monthly in church basements or spare rooms at the library. Photos from the time were, to put it bluntly, strange: fervent activists in their twenties working side-by-side with sad-eyed animal lovers in their sixties, with few ages represented in between. Back in the day, we got loopy from marker vapors together when we made our protest signs, we looked through an endless stack of boxes in a volunteer's basement to find the musty old chicken costume and played rock-paper-scissors to determine who would almost faint while wearing it at the World Vegetarian Day leafletting, we licked envelopes, people, and lugged all the newsletters to the post office downtown four times a year. We passed our favorite catalogue around the table at Mandy's house and put in group orders together for t-shirts, buttons, stickers. I still have one of those shirts, worn in and cozy like a favorite baby blanket, a black ink Rorsharch splotch on a sleeve from one of our marathon sign-making sessions. It's in the drawer of t-shirts designated only as sleep wear these days. It just has words on it: No, I don't eat meat. Yes, I get enough protein. No, my shoes aren't leather. Yes, I have a life. This shirt encapsulated the experience of a vegan animal advocate, and that particular time in my life, perfectly. Every time I pull it out, it's like I'm transformed back to the day, and I'm standing outside of a circus again or I'm in front of the McDonald's in River North, standing with my friends, rolling our eyes at the dirty looks, making our far superior snide comments about the idiotic snide comments. It's a t-shirt, and a time, that always makes me smile in recollection. 

Although I am nostalgic for the sienna-toned quaintness of that time, for the passionate connection that face-to-face hands-on work creates, I am very grateful to be able to enjoy this particular time right now perhaps because i remember what it was like before veganism had gained a little foothold in our popular culture. We are still very small in actual numbers, but somehow, we've become a force to be reckoned with over the past decade, and the ripple effect of our influence is keenly felt. Recently, for example, I went with my son to an apple festival in the city. Back when I lived in that very same neighborhood of Lincoln Square, it was all about the German delis. (At the Brauhaus on a date, I asked the server if they had anything vegetarian and she recommended hasenpfeffer, rabbit stew, but thankfully I had seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon where the king angrily - and with imperious sibilance -  demanded it so I was nobody's fool. Who says cartoons have no value?) In other words, Lincoln Square was pretty much the opposite of a vegan mecca. Today, the German food and culture remains, but shuffled between everything is more than a little hint at the change that's happening. At the apple festival, I could walk into pretty much any café with a boy Who Suddenly Could Not Wait Even A Second Longer to use the restroom, and know that I could pick up something in the treats-for-bathroom barter system. Later, when we picked up soy- and fruit-based gelato it occurred to me once again, as my friend told to the guy behind the counter that they should carry more soy options, what a radically different culture my son is growing up in, thank goodness. Back in the 1990s, my friends and I would launch into spontaneous cartwheels and shout from the rooftops if one coffee shop offered a dry, tasteless vegan cookie or we spotted the v-word on a menu, elusive and magical like a purple unicorn, but today, my son and his little herbivorous urban peers take it for granted that there will be high quality vegan treats for them. Not only that, but they actually have a choice now because just chocolate or vanilla is soooo pre-school: pumpkin, cinnamon swirl, lemon poppyseed, blueberry-freaking-cream cheese. Yes, they're a generation of entitled little brats who will never have to walk three miles barefoot in the snow for mushy veggie burgers, but I can't describe the sense of happiness I feel when I go somewhere and we can just be like everyone else. (But cooler!)

A couple of things to make clear: a culturally diverse, large city, and all the bounty within, is in easy access. I understand that this effortlessness is not available everywhere and I am so appreciative of what we have here. Second, I don't mistake a proliferation of vegan cupcakes as evidence that the revolution is at hand. The revolution will not be found in a bag of powdered sugar. The shift is happening, though, and it is seismic and it is real, born of natural cultural change, smart outreach, talented animal advocates and people waking up to the inescapable reality that our dietary habits cannot continue if we are to continue. It has not translated into fewer animals being consumed or abused yet - these institutions are nothing if not entrenched - but I have no doubt that this will happen as the wave continues. What we are witnessing is this slow untangling in real time so we may not always see it in an obvious way, but make no mistake that it is happening. Imagine the evolution of the vegan lifestyle as it settles into our larger culture like stop-action photography, from 1995 until the present. The dust is still very much unsettled and I believe that the boomerang we tossed out is really in its infancy of its journey back, but progress is certainly happening. I have no doubt about that.

This all a very longwinded way to explain what I am up to these days. My husband and I, along with some of the very best kind of people you could know, are putting together an event called Chicago VeganMania, and it's happening October 9 at the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, 1419 W. Blackhawk in Chicago from 10:00 - 6:00. This is our second year. The driving force behind our event, the thing that gets us excited to send out press releases and answer questions about parking (okay, this last thing is an exaggeration) in addition to all the other work we're doing, is the idea of third and fourth wave activism. If you think back on the historic arc of social justice movements, which the animal advocacy movement is part of, you'll see that the first wave is usually confrontation. It's people not getting to the back of the bus, it is Stonewall. This is what propels us at the beginning, what gives us momentum and the passion. Education is next: this is the outreach, the written materials that make the case, the more recognizable advocacy work. Understandably, the vegan movement has largely centered around these first two waves of activism. What we are trying to do with Chicago VeganMania is to be a part of ushering in the next two waves: celebration, which is the sort of thing witnessed in cultural pride festivals, and integration, where the "whys" of veganism rarely come into play, and it is simply accepted as a normal and natural way of life. The first two waves are still vitally important and they work in tandem with what follows: it's not as though they dissolve when the next waves begin. It is an organic and fluid back-and-forth motion, as waves naturally will be, with different current systems throughout. We need the third and fourth waves, though, for the veganism to take root on a mass scale and become more than a fringe movement. This doesn't mean that we're adapting veganism for mainstream tastes: quite the opposite. By taking proud ownership and putting it out there in our unique and diverse ways with our unique and diverse gifts, we are ensuring that that this movement that flows outward whether we like it or not, will have our particular stamp on it. And our stamp is fabulous so Chicago VeganMania will be fabulous!

We will have speakers, all lovely and passionate and talented with their distinctive voices. There's Nathan Runkle, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Dr. Milton Mills, Dr. Michael Greger, and Zarakyah Ben Sar Ahmadiel. We will also have cooking demos this year, with Isa Chandra Moskowitz again, Kim Gracen (from The Chicago Diner), Fran Costigan, Kelly Peloza, Linda Szarkowski and chefs from Soul Vegetarian. We will have entertainment: The Giving Tree Band, The Exponential, Read My Hips (belly dance troupe), The Rust Belt Ramblers, Phenom and Nikki Lynette. (The schedule and bios can here found here.)

There will be so much else: a children's play area. A DJ'd Luxury Lounge where people can relax and connect, Dozens of cruelty-free, independent vendors. Great food. Gift bags for the first one hundred in line age sixteen and older. A vegan rock star photo booth. Even a Vegan Cupcake Fairy! It's going to be amazing and it's all going to be part of that vibrant collective creative vision that is a small part of what is ushering in the third and fourth waves of the vegan movement.

So get excited and come to see us if you can at Chicago VeganMania. If you can't join us, keep adding your distinctive talents and unique, compassionate voice to the mix. When people perceive veganism as something more than a dietary fad, as something different than an exclusive club you need to know the secret handshake to gain entry to, we will effect incredible change. Chicago VeganMania is part of the galvanizing entrenchment of the movement. We have so much at our fingertips, we really do. Keep your eyes on the prize, and keep moving forward!

See you there...

Lady Gaga's Meat Dress Statement, zzzzz....

I'd heard rumbles about the Japanese Vogue with Lady Gag (that last 'a' in her name suddenly and inexplicably stopped working) in a meat bikini and, as I do so often with pop and mainstream culture in our society, I studiously avoided seeing it. The insatiable drilling away on our inner-peace by the media, though, made it virtually impossible for me to completely avoid that magazine cover, but the moment that my eyes caught a glimpse, they ran and hid. I prefer to stay under the radar here in my happy little vegan world: yes, I know fully well that people "out there" eat meat and take their kids to circuses and some even experiment on animals in laboratory cages, but in Vegan Land, where bunnies nibble organic carrots and every baby mammal drinks his own mother's milk without harassment, I'm in a much happier place. I spent quite a few years as someone who was deeply disappointed and angry about innumerable aspects of how our society functions: the violence, injustice, the stupefying normalization of cruelty, just everyday events. As a result of looking at things in this way, unsurprisingly, I only saw violence, injustice and cruelty. My lenses became skewed, unable to see the breathtaking beauty of this place, and I became depressed, imbalanced. It is much better for all parties if I just tune out occasionally. That little bit of air in an otherwise suffocating space allows me to catch my breath before I sink back into it. It helps me not to drown. So the Japanese Vogue came and went, and it made just the barest of ripples on my psyche.

As an activist, I also have a strategic quandary with the meat bikini: what is wrong about wearing meat when people eat animals and wear leather? Doesn't it at least force consumers to face what they try avoid from seeing? Yes and no. On the one hand, it is hard to be in an uproar about something when you support this practice in a less overt, but no less cruel, way. In terms of damage done, there is little difference between eating steak and making an attempt at an avant-garde statement of some sort by wearing an outfit made of it. As a former painting major who even took a performance art class (don't hold it against me: it was fun) what needles me at a deeper level is the notion that someone like Lady Gag can wear such an ensemble, package it as A Provocative Artistic Statement, and then call it a day. With artists, or people who adopt the cultural embellishments we associate with artists, we're supposed to take their word on such matters.

More recently, Gag wore a dress, hat and shoes fashioned out of cuts of meat to MTV's Video Music Awards. The next day, when asked by the popular vegan talk show host Ellen DeGeneres about her outfit, Gag said, "As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the earth. [It] has many interpretations, but for me this evening, if we don't stand up for what we believe in, if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we'll have as much rights as the meat on our bones." Then she held up a copy of her issue of Japanese Vogue and said with a smile and mock stridency, "And I am not a piece of meat."

Oh really? That's your statement, Gag? That you are not a piece of meat so you are wrapping yourself in it to...to...I nodded off there, sorry, let me open the window, get some fresh air...you are wearing meat to show that you are NOT meat. Right? Right? And this wrapping of yourself in misery and violence and exploitation is a way to show the powers that be that they must not try to suppress Lady Gag's voice, right? That she is not a piece of meat, even though she has associated herself with it without apparently irony. And the animals that became those pieces of meat? Their lives, the horrors they were born into, breathed, saw, suffered under and ultimately fell to, existed to become mere props for a derivative pop singer reformulated as a performance artist. The rest of the animals, the billions that were not to be part of Gag's wardrobe? Those that are neither Art nor Statement? They remain just pieces of meat.

In the end, this woman who presents herself as an iconoclast and an artist is just like anyone else in line at the drive-thru, consuming animals for her reasons, basking in a set of privileges she is not challenging. A blasé sense of elite entitlement is every bit as ordinary and unoriginal and stupefyingly normal as someone in line trying to decide between a cheeseburger and a Big Mac.

You don't have us fooled, Lady Gag. You're just reinforcing the cultural privileges, norms and power structures. In other words, you're just like nearly every other schmuck.

And with that, I'm skipping off back to Vegan Land. La dee da! See you guys there.

There is no Y.O.U. in Unity

When I was a child, my family had a bit of a PR problem. We looked more or less like our neighbors, our yard was tidy but sprinkled with colorful, heavy-headed flowers, my brother and I were dressed, fed and taken for our yearly doctor appointments. It was just that under the surface, things were a kind of roiling mess, sort of like a house that looks orderly, but you can't move the couch an inch or open the closet or everything will come spilling out. Despite most outward appearances that reinforced our status as upstanding suburban citizens, we had a pretty big problem. The problem tended to get drunk and disorderly. It was a blessing when the problem would finally pass out for the night but getting there was a dicey, rocky ride full of peril. Other times, the problem would race with the whole family in the car and swerve towards parked cars, big trees in medians, and as his captive passengers, we would clench on door handles, too scared to look or even make a sound. My mother would turn and look at us, shrug and shake her head like, "Oh, this again. He's crazy."

We learned to carry on as normal. At a young age, my brother and I began to steer clear of the problem and we scheduled our Sunday's full of activities as that was the day the problem would be in the living room, the kitchen, the back yard. My mother, given her limited tools and life experiences, tried her best. One of her coping strategies was that we were told, quite plainly, that we were not to admit to the problem. The elephant was in the room, he was all over the damn house, he was trumpeting and stomping and spraying water over everything, but we were not allowed to acknowledge the mere existence of the elephant. Family unity, at least the impression of it, trumped anything else and speaking of anything that contradicted the appearance of us as anything but a happy, healthy, wholesome family was tantamount to treason. Worse, it spoke to our selfishness if we couldn't just "get over it" for the good of maintaining family peace and a decent public image. Being asked to be complicit in a lie, and the implication that if you refuse, you are selfish, shallow and harming others, is a deeply troubling accommodation to ask of another and it wreaks havoc on one's emotional health. The deception is multifaceted: not only are we told that we don't see what we knew we see, but we are told that we don't feel what we know we feel. We are also told that we are responsible for harm to others if we don't maintain the lie.

Al these years later, I still have a immediate, visceral reaction when I am told to suppress my thoughts and feelings for "the good for the whole." It is anathema to me and it sends me reeling back to that awful time in my life when I was not only powerless but pressured to maintain a flagrant lie. It saddens me to admit that there is an undercurrent of this attitude in the vegan movement, of pressure to shut your mouth if you disagree with tactics and to give your tacit approval by remaining silent. Some within the movement hold those of us who don't walk in lockstep responsible for the horrendous treatment of billions of animals, and we are told in no uncertain terms that our disagreements are banal, they are stupid, and that we are wrong to have them. Just like the message in my home growing up, we are told this implicitly and explicitly, and we are told that if we don't stop being selfish and petty about our silly little issues, others will be harmed. In fact, we are responsible for it. I believe that this is an emotionally manipulative and abusive paradigm, whether people mean for it to be or not.

Feminists in the animal advocacy movement are consistently told to just shut up about our ridiculous insistence that objectification is objectification, whether women are turned into "pieces of meat" to promote a PETA advertising campaign or cows are turned into "pieces of meat" to support a McDonald's advertising campaign. When living, unique beings can be objectified - reduced to an object (Boobies! Hamburgers!) or a means (titillation) to an end (hunger satiety) - any horrible abuse imaginable is possible. We need to speak up when we see examples that some forms of exploitation are condemned and others are embraced. I know that the confusion here is that women actually participate in these campaigns on their own free will and PETA certainly manipulates this to their favor, creating blurriness around the idea of choice. Regardless of who "chooses," these objectifying campaigns are still reinforcing the notion that women are passive, two-dimensional props to be used toward some nebulous goal. It is still reinforcing the same sort of disconnected mentality and privileged perspective that supports and creates obfuscation around what we do to so-called food animals. Whether or not you agree with me, the idea of telling someone to shut up and get in line, telling someone that she is a selfish, silly little girl for responding when she sees objectification, is deeply disturbing. We can disagree, but no one should be told to shut up and get in line. Ever. Speaking as someone who had this tactic forced on her as a child and attempted on her as an adult, I will tell you that it is abusive and fascistic.

People may claim that disagreements within the movement creates disharmony and is a waste of our resources: we should be unified, we are so small in number anyway, we don't need to fragmentize further. I don't "harmonize" with misogyny, though, just as I don't with other forms of exploitation. I tend to think of this as a good thing. Those of us who speak out are often told that we hurt the movement. You know what really hurts the movement? When people use shaming, idiotic and mean-spirited tactics and the rest of us remain mute, bullied into silence, taking it on faith that there's some amorphous benefit in maintaining the illusion of unity. What helps the movement? A diversity of views and voices and talents and people. Creative, truly progressive, smart advocacy. Not letting sick, disturbed people control the dialogue through manipulation and bullying, instead adding our unique gifts and provocative thoughts to the soup pot. Don't ever shut up and get in line. Your honest, brave, liberated spirit is what the movement - and the animals - needs more than ever.

I've been missing you and this and I'm glad to be back. Smooches....

Break...

Do you ever have a dream where you find an extra room in your house that you'd never discovered before? That's the only sort of recurring dream I think I have: I am walking around my house - or the house in my dream - and I discover an indoor swimming pool. Imagine the delight! Somebody had been maintaining it all those years, too. It would be equally amazing if if I discovered a secret stash of time that no one else knew about.

If I found a stingy genie who would only grant me one wish for my personal life, it would be for every day of my life to last for 48-hours. There is just too much to do this summer between various freelance jobs, regular writing assignments, taking care of my mother and son, Chicago VeganMania and trying to make sure that my house and yard don't become complete embarrassments. Every day is simply buckling under the weight of what is on my plate. There is also the small matter of a manuscript that I dearly love that desperately needs my attention. I need to give any spare time to this. So I am making the executive decision to take a little break here. It was causing me so much guilt and unhappiness that I was not updating but I simply don't have the time. I will resume when my son goes back to school at the end August. Maybe I'll be back sooner, though, if I can discover that extra 24-hours.

Smooches to all! Enjoy your summer and I will talk to you soon!