Barbie, Humanism, and Death

Mild-to-medium spoilers for Barbie.

I expected the Barbie movie to be enormously fun. It was.

I expected it to be gorgeous, art-directed within an inch of its life, with a look both explosively oversized and finely detailed. It was.

I expected it to be feminist, with a sharp and complex depiction of gender roles and gender expectations. It was.

I even expected it to be surprising, to the degree that you can ever expect to be surprised. And boy, was it surprising. It was a wild rollercoaster ride, an intense mashup of giddiness and sorrow, with unexpected emotional nuance and plot turns that came out of left field.

What I didn’t expect was a powerful humanist view of death.

Continue reading “Barbie, Humanism, and Death”

Barbie, Humanism, and Death
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My Adult Trike and French-Style Grocery Shopping

Greta's adult trike with grocery bags in cargo basket, in front of produce stands

With the adult tricycle, the entire way I do grocery shopping has changed.

When I got the trike, the main thing I wanted to do with it was get groceries. The trike has a nice big cargo basket — it’s one of the main advantages over a bicycle — and I pictured myself like a quirky character in a movie, toodling around the neighborhood with grocery bags in the basket, a baguette and a bouquet of flowers poking decoratively out of the top. (Never mind the fact that I don’t like baguettes and we can’t have flowers because the cats will eat them.)

It is, weirdly, kind of like that. Life imitates art, sometimes. Except for the part where I’m still building my strength and stamina, and when the trike’s loaded with heavy groceries it can be a struggle. Sometimes I’m the cute old dyke on the tricycle gliding around the neighborhood saying Hi to people — and sometimes I’m the fat old lady straining and puffing to get up a two percent incline. It’s fine.

But I’ve had to re-think my entire strategy around grocery shopping. Continue reading “My Adult Trike and French-Style Grocery Shopping”

My Adult Trike and French-Style Grocery Shopping

How and Where to Buy An Adult Trike: A Half-Assed Guide

Greta on adult trike
More babbling about my adult trike!

In response to my recent post on the pros and cons of adult trikes, Andi (you know, from Facebook) commented:

You made me remember that I want to get a trike! [Partner] has and loves bikes, but my balance issues and general dyspraxia make me very unsteady on them. Do you have suggestions for where to start looking?

Hi, Andi (you know, from Facebook)!  “Where to start looking” is a good question, but a tricky one. Most local bike stores don’t carry adult trikes, and rental places don’t rent them — not in San Francisco, anyway. I bought mine online, and there are LOTS of online sources, but I wish I’d been able to try one out before I did that. So here is my very half-assed guide to shopping for an adult trike, based entirely on my own limited experience, with some guidance from the I Saw It Somewhere On The Internet Times. Some of this may be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway, since I didn’t know all of this when I was first shopping.

Continue reading “How and Where to Buy An Adult Trike: A Half-Assed Guide”

How and Where to Buy An Adult Trike: A Half-Assed Guide

My Adult Trike: Pros, Cons, and Shameless Evangelizing

Greta on adult tricycle, Louise
I have a new thing! It’s a toy, a mode of transportation, an exercise helper, and a thing to get all excited about. Let me introduce you to my tricycle, Louise. (Yes, she’s named after the character in Bob’s Burgers.)

I was recently diagnosed with mild arthritis in my ankles. I can walk fine, but I can’t walk as far as I used to. Which fucking SUCKS: for years, walking has been my main form of both exercise and transportation. I needed something to replace both. Hence, Louise.

I’ve been riding Louise about a month. I am super excited about her, and am going to evangelize shamelessly. I like to evangelize honestly, though. Compared to a regular two-wheeled bicycle, there are some downsides to a trike. So I’ll fill you in on those as well.

Why did I get a trike instead of a bike? And why do I like it so much?

Continue reading “My Adult Trike: Pros, Cons, and Shameless Evangelizing”

My Adult Trike: Pros, Cons, and Shameless Evangelizing

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class

Children playing in park
I hated gym class. Like so many other nerdy, awkward kids, I despised it. I was bad at it; I was scared of it; it was a place of exclusion and shame.

And then almost overnight, I started liking gym. I didn’t just stop hating it — I actually enjoyed it. I looked forward to it. I had fun with it. And I was good at it. I vividly remember my nerdy math-teacher father jokingly scolding me about my report card one quarter, scowling and asking with mock disapproval how a daughter of his could have gotten an A in gym.

What happened?

I didn’t change overnight. I didn’t suddenly become a jock; I didn’t suddenly get good at playing with others or remembering the rules of the games. So what happened?

I was able to pick my own gym classes.

Continue reading “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class”

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gym Class

Compassion and Abstraction

abstract photo

Abstraction gets a bad rep. It’s often seen as cold, calculating, divorced from emotion. But I’ve found the exact opposite. Abstraction is crucial to my ability to have compassion. Abstraction helps me step back from my own experience, and look at it in a bigger picture — a picture that includes other people.

Here’s an example. We’ve all seen progressives who are very skilled at critiquing oppression that affects them — and utterly clueless about ways they oppress others. We’ve all seen, for instance, white feminists go after men who derail conversations about sexism, focus the conversations on themselves and their hurt feelings, chide women for being uncivil and harsh, demand to be educated on demand about Feminism 101, argue arrogantly instead of listening, accuse feminists of being divisive, and pull out the “not all men” card. Then, in conversations with black women about racism in the feminist movement, those same white feminists will turn around and do the exact same things: derail, make it about them, argue instead of listening, say black feminists are being divisive, etc.

Abstraction helps me not do that. Continue reading “Compassion and Abstraction”

Compassion and Abstraction

What I Want For My Birthday

birthday  photo

My birthday is today, December 31. Happy birthday to me!

If you’d like to get me something for my birthday, of course it would be nice if you’d buy one of my books. I’m author of five books: The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More. (All my books are available in print, ebook, and audiobook: all the audiobooks are read by me.)

all five books

But the main thing you could get me for my birthday would be to support one of the organizations I care about.

foundation beyond belief logo
Foundation Beyond Belief is the humanist charitable organization that channels donations and volunteering from secular people into on-the-ground projects doing good work. Among other things, we’ve funded Transgender Law Center, Center for Reproductive Rights, Ocean Conservancy, Innocence Project of Texas, Rainforest Foundation US, The Greening of Detroit — you get the idea. I’m on the board of directors, and I’m really proud of the work we do. It would mean a lot to me if you’d support us. Even small donations make a difference — they really do add up.

If that’s not up your alley, you could also donate in my honor to the Transgender Law Center, Red Light Legal, St. James Infirmary, Black Nonbelievers, or Black Lives Matter.

If you do this, please make a note with your donation if you can, saying “Happy Birthday Greta.” It will make them and me happy.

What I really want for my birthday, of course, is to stop the rise of fascism in the U.S. No one person can give me that, of course — but all of us acting together can make a dent. Please take a look at this list of things we can do to resist fascism, and do what you can. It’ll make this a very happy birthday for me, and a marginally less awful New Year for all of us. Thanks!

What I Want For My Birthday

“Someday you’ll get snake-eyes ten times in a row”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

"Roll a pair of dice long enough, someday you'll get snake-eyes ten times in a row. Live long enough, someday you'll have a month when your cat dies, your hard drive crashes, and you get pneumonia. It can feel like a pattern with a purpose -- but it isn't."

“Roll a pair of dice long enough, someday you’ll get snake-eyes ten times in a row. Live long enough, someday you’ll have a month when your cat dies, your hard drive crashes, and you get pneumonia. It can feel like a pattern with a purpose — but it isn’t.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 21, “Bad Luck and the Comfort of Reason)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed next to image of a pair of dice in “snake-eyes” configuration)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“Someday you’ll get snake-eyes ten times in a row”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

“A good life can mean many things”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

"A good life can mean many things, and move in many directions. It doesn't have to constantly move forward."

“A good life can mean many things, and move in many directions. It doesn’t have to constantly move forward.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 48, “Atheist Thoughts on a Life Well-Lived”)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed next to image of balloons floating in the sky)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“A good life can mean many things”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

“It can be comforting to externalize evil”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen

"It can be comforting to externalize evil, to see it as something the bad guys do. But it's a false comfort, and a dangerous one."

“It can be comforting to externalize evil, to see it as something the bad guys do. But it’s a false comfort, and a dangerous one.”
-Greta Christina, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life
(from Chapter 9: “Two Different Ways to Be a Good Person”)

(Image description: above text, juxtaposed above photo of cannons in field of grass with blue sky)

I’m making a series of memes/ inspirational poster thingies with my favorite quotes from my new book, The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life. Please feel free to share this on social media, or print it and hang it on your wall if you like. (The image above is pretty big: you can click on it to get a bigger size if you like.)

Way of the Heathen cover
The Way of the Heathen is available in ebook on Amazon/Kindle and on Smashwords for $7.99. The audiobook is at Audible. The print edition is at Amazon and Powell’s Books, and can be ordered or carried by pretty much any bookstore: it’s being wholesaled by Ingram, Baker & Taylor, IPG, and bookstores can buy it directly from the publisher, Pitchstone Publishing. Check it out, and tell your friends!

“It can be comforting to externalize evil”: Meme from The Way of the Heathen