I decided early on that I would only take portraits of people I like. Those are the best ones.
To qualify for a portrait by me, the people must be friendly and kind, have lots of character and personality, a radiant smile, and a wicked sense of humor.
This criteria works. No one I have asked to pose for a portrait has ever turned me down. And Katie lights up a room all by herself.
We became friends the second we met.
Karie Cummings is one of the assistant managers at the Cambridge Food Co-Op, which Maria and I haunt several times a week. She and I have become good pals; we bullshit, talk, and trade stories whenever I come in.
She is also helpful and thoughtful in the store.
This morning, Maria had to drag me away by the arm.
Katie has a larger-than-life personality and leans to the good-natured side happily.
She is a born Jersey girl who is open, razor smart, eager to talk and listen, and almost always laughing. Jersey girls are like Long Island girls (Maria), sweet on the outside, but don’t mess with them.
I call people like Katie “sunshine people” because everyone around them always smiles. Katie has an iron will behind the genial exterior; I imagine her boyfriend Garrett, who works at a nearby museum, doesn’t have a chance.
There you go again, referring to women as “girls.” I don’t know how many times we can tell you how demeaning that is, and yet you persist.
Yes, June, and with good reason. You seem not to know that “Jersey Girls” became a popular term when MTV produced a TV show by that name, and all kinds of young women along the Jersey shore started calling themselves “Jersey Girls” with great pride. It was all about attitude and empowerment.
Katie called herself a “Jersey Girl” and introduced herself to me in that way. There is a large culture and community of girls and women who use the term in New Jersey, where it is well known. It’s well known all over the country if you take your head out of your butt and do some homework.
There are no “women” in the piece, just one woman who calls herself a “Jersey Girl.” She will be amused by your message. For your sake, I hope she doesn’t reply.
You might want to do a bit of thinking or, God forbid, research before your jerking knee hits you in the head. As for me, I will persist and persist; it’s my curse. I’ll give you a hint: you are not going to be the one who puts a stop to me. I never let toothless ducks nibble me to death.
Beyond that, what I call people in my blog or what Katie chooses to call herself is none of your business. I don’t recall seeking your approval or needing it. (and thanks, this feels so good to write!)
And there you go AGAIN, insisting that the subject of your piece (the one you’re demeaning) insists that you call her a “girl.” I don’t believe it, and I won’t believe it until I read your subject saying it for herself. For your information, I live in New Jersey, and I know a great deal more about it than you do. No, women here do not call ourselves “Jersey girls” with pride. We are women, and we consider the term derogatory. Maybe do your own research next time before spouting off on subjects you know nothing about.
June, I lived in New Jersey for 26 years and went to high school there and was a reporter for the Atlantic City Press. I’ve used the term “girls” twice on my blog, once to quote a farm girl who described herself in that way and once to describe my wife as “My Beloved Girl.” which I call her still and is also none of your business.
Here’s some homework for you. If you have any evidence that I habitually called grown women “girls,” which I have never done at any point in my life, please cite the dates and the comments and I will be happy to apologize to you. It is, in fact, offensive to call women girls, which is why I have never done it.
Since you are so proud of your life in New Jersey, here are some links to read for you since you seem to have missed some of the news in the news in the Garden State.
You are very welcome.
https://www.facebook.com/jerseygirlsshow/
http://www.jerseygirlslive.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Girl_(2004_film)
https://www.jerseygirlsmilk.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jersey_girls__/?
it’s important to put the truth on the record sometimes. Katie will get a big laugh out of this when I see her on Monday. J
I didn’t realize you are a spokesman for all of the women in the world, all the more important to reply to you. My wife, a lifelong feminist, thinks you are silly. She is a very generous person.
June, as I suspected, you are happy to lie without responsibility or accountability, the scourge of the Internet. I have set guidelines for the blog, and I won’t publish or interact with people who lie without hesitation and are hostile, cruel, or indifferent to the truth.
That is not what my blog or blog comments are about.
I gave you a chance to support your ridiculous accusations; of course, you ran away and hid. You are harsh in your insults and assumptions but short on proof.
I don’t want you here anymore, so I’m banning you from posting any future blog comments.
You have nothing to offer us but pus and poison.
This is a safe place, and you are not safe. Best to you. Be well, and get help if you need it.
let’s hear it for Jersey girls! 🙂
Hey Marianna, thanks, I went to high school in New Jersey with jersey girls and I admire them greatly. They are all about empowerment and attitude, and they take no bullshit from anyone.
Thank you Jon I have lived for 63 years in Jersey and always called myself a Jersey Girl I recently at 64 moved to upstate Ny and tell everyone This Jersey Girl doesn’t pump her own gas! Guess June needs to tell Bruce Springsteen to never sing his famous song I Am in love with a Jersey girl .
Katie has the right to call herself anything she wants, and she is very proud of calling herself a “jersey girl…” it’s the first thing she ever said to me. Nice note, thanks, I forgot the Springsteen song, thanks for reminding me…Your message makes me miss New Jersey for the first time.
It is SO sweet and so fun when my girlfriends call me Girl. So do my guyfriends. So does my bus driver, and my co-workers, and my neighbors. At this age, “Girl” feels hilarious and collaborative and warm. Also delightful are Young Lady (that’s even funnier), Sweetheart, Missy, Dear, and Hon. So that is one vote from a girl from Loangg Island, where at our coastline parks you could put a dime in a binocular meter and get a 60 second glimpse of the shores of JOISEY, a place so special we had to pay good money to see it.
Very cute.
I wonder what this “woman” would think of the fact that when any one of us in my office’s group of female coworkers (all 30+ in age) wants to obtain the collective attention of the rest, we usually say “Hey guys….”! New Yawk gals (gasp) – whattaya gonna do!?
And you know what I’ve come to figure out, having lived in a couple of different US states, and visited several countries, and had friends all speaking with different accents in the same class? That we all pretty much say the same things, just in different ways. And, that usually when an individual takes personal offense on behalf of a group (or a whole gender?), that it’s the word ‘personal’ that usually applies more applicably than does ‘group’: because I’m not part of the “we” that was referenced…..
You don’t get it, as we all said after the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991.
Think of it this way. Blacks can use the N word. But you can’t. Because you’re white, you don’t get the subtle insults in the nuances that ripple out from the word. You don’t FEEL it. Same princple with girl::women, even if your wife, the schlaflies, michelle obama and Jesus’ Mother and young women who have no idea who Anita H. is defend you, they’re all irrelevant to your insensitivity to that humiliation.
Hey but you do this every few weeks. You get some kind of thrill or something out of insulting women. You especially like to insult feminists. I’m going to put it on my calendar when you turn to these insults. I sense it is about every six weeks.
This is a good picture of what a feminist is: a woman whose daughter looks at her with this kind of pride. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/style/ketanji-brown-jackson-daughter-photo.html
It would be so nice if you were a thoughtful, informed man. But you keep sliding back to your defensive, deeply hateful ways, indifferent to how groups have suffered (except your own group perhaps) on a human level. You can’t escape it it seems despite all the fluffiness you promote.
Sue, whatever you are selling, you are correct, I don’t get it, and I have no desire to get it. Just more aggrieved poison and victimization, the core of Trumpism.
I can’t imagine why you would waste your time so faithfully reading a man who is neither thoughtful or informed. I am flattered that you just can’t let me go, but I’d be happier if you did.
And I can’t imagine how to respond to your almost incomprehensible tirade since there wasn’t a thoughtful or kind word in it. It was pretty sad.
One day you may learn that cruelty, nastiness, and falsehoods are not persuasive, even in a good cause. Reading your messages makes me repelled by everything you claim to stand for. I am so glad you don’t like me.
I had the same feeling I had when I read this very thoughtful and detailed book about the rise of fascism and Benito Mussolini.
I recommend the book – Mussolini: The Rise And Fall by Christopher Herbert; Mussolini also labeled vast groups of men and women viciously and falsely, as you do.
You had one thoughtful thing in your message, and you are right: I don’t care for the neo-fascist cultural movement that pretends to be feminist since they do absolutely nothing for women but alienate both women and men, as you can see from some of these messages.
Sexism and bigotry are not the answer to sexism and bigotry; that’s one of the many things YOU don’t get. Telling people what to think and feel is the first sign of neo-fascism, spreading on both the far right and far left in America today.
The best answer I can give you is that your message invoked Mussolini’s brand of dialogue several times. Pretty creepy.
Mussolini also tried to exclude anyone who differed from his and his movement from participating in public conversation; he also loved lies, generalization, and slander.
https://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-Rise-Fall-Christopher-Hibbert/dp/0230606059/ref=asc_df_0230606059/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312144142951&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15927632445259452049&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004993&hvtargid=pla-756189626552&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=62149175956&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=312144142951&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15927632445259452049&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004993&hvtargid=pla-756189626552
Your vague accusations – you traffic in “feelings” and have a “sense” – but not one shred of evidence or example to support your accusations. This is another tool of neo-fascism and extremist cable and social media. We call it The Big Lie. There is never any evidence, just nasty accusations. Repeated often enough someone will believe them.
You “sense it about every six weeks?” But you make no sense at all. Could you possibly be any lazier or more irresponsible? How about getting off your ass and finding just one example of my horrific sins.
I’ve published the blog since 2007, so there should be hundreds of examples of my misogyny if I do it every six weeks. You should have no trouble; a search engine is at the top of every journal page. Here’s a free and simple way to back up your noxious bullshit. It would take you seconds. I won’t hold my breath.
Thanks for supporting my blog by being so faithful a reader, even as you hate me, strange as it must be for you. Why on earth would you do that? Have you nothing else to do?
I prefer to read people I do consider to be thoughtful and informed. I recommend it. Perhaps you’d be more coherent. Sounds like you’re stuck on me in some way. I can’t imagine how you might react to a thoughtful and informed man. I am proud not to be one of them.
You did make me think. And I thank you for the chance to define true feminism and the freedom, equality, empowerment, and love it represents. There is no sign of any of those things in your message. Just more pus and poison. Have a long life, as the Hasids say.
I’m moving on from this discussion, important as it is.
I have work I love to do, and this isn’t it. The record should show that despite the claims of June and Sue that I dislike feminists and am offensive to women at least once every six weeks, neither one of them could cite one single example of misogyny or contempt for women, even when invited to do so. Ever since I began it in 2007, my blog is an open book. Anyone can go and peruse all of it quickly and easily.
I have been a feminist all of my life, long before it was in fashion, and have a lot to learn and nothing to apologize for and nothing to hide. My writing speaks for itself. So does theirs. Here, at least another Big Lie is given the light and shriveled up and rushes off to hide. I believe truth is worth fighting for,and I believe it will always prevail in the long run.
Sorry to inflict this on my readers, but lies need to be challenged every time in order for truth to stand a chance. j
Yesss! “Hey Guys” feels really fun too. (One workplace presenter on professionalism tried to shame us women out of calling each other “Gals,” and good luck with that!). In Noo Yawk there is also the venerable “All-a yuh’s,” as in “Aright all-a yuh’s gidawfa this train it’s comin outa soivice.”