Last fall, I noticed that Ryan, once an avid reader, was now a television junkie. On weekend nights, when I allowed her to stay up reading and watching TV, she would have the TV on and not a book in sight. Only the summer before, she had devoured 75 Babysitters Club books, so I knew that this was a new thing and that probably I could lure her away from the Food Network and Discovery Channel if only I found the right book. So at the very first opportunity, I went to Walmart and bought the first three Harry Potter books. That afternoon, I handed the brand new paperback copy of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone to her and watched her face fall.
"Mom, that's Harry Potter. It's a boy's book," she told me.
"Just read the back cover for me. Please."
She slumped to the couch, eyes rolling, and fell back into the cushions to read the description. Now this was a kid who watched The Princess Diaries and spent the next week wishing that Julie Andrews would come tell her she was a princess. She watched The Thirteenth Year and wanted to be a mermaid. I was pretty sure that the idea of a normal everyday picked-on kid suddenly being whisked away to an interesting and fantastical world of magic would be one that appealed to her. I was right, and in less than two months I was buying books four and five.
Now I didn't know anything about Harry Potter. I knew there was a kid with glasses who went to magic school and had a lightening bolt scar and a friend with an unpronounceable name. I think I read it as Hermy-own. The only reason I bought those books in the first place was that I was desperate and they were almost guaranteed. Harry Potter was The Book That Every Kid Will Read! I thought all of the books had been written, that I would buy them a couple at a time and she would whiz through the series to it's exciting final conclusion. And I made a deal with her from the beginning, that she could not watch any of the movies until she had finished it's corresponding book. I didn't realize that there were movies still to be made.
Why do I write about my daughter's Harry Potter obsession? Because these last two weeks have been Harry Potter Mania at my house. First the movie, which we didn't attend until the thirteenth due to Tom having surgery on the ninth, and tonight at midnight: book seven. The movie she watched half-folded in her theater seat, dressed in last Halloween's Hermione costume, completely entranced by death eaters and patronuses (patronii?) and CGI effects better (I think) than any Star Wars movie. I spent most of the film staring at her, trying to memorize her reactions. For a couple short hours in the dark she was a little kid again, and not the eye-rolling, sighing, "Whatever"-spouting adolescent she's become, which may account for why I bought her an entire new outfit to wear to the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows release party tonight.
Hermione has brown hair, and is almost a decade older than Ryan, and until last Friday that had no effect on the pale blond child I live with. But on Friday a new character made the scene: a blond, younger, slightly off-beat and decidedly more amusing character. Luna Lovegood looked a lot more like Ryan, and acted a bit like her too. But the Hermione costume won't work for Luna, because despite Hogwarts being a boarding school with assigned uniforms, the uniform colors have to correspond to a student's house, and Luna and Hermione belong to different houses. So off we went to Kohl's and Walmart, desperately looking for navy blue and silver to replace her red, gray, and gold. I have no idea why one house has more colors than the other but having one less to match didn't help us as much as you'd think. See, Luna accessorizes. Radish earrings (and Ryan let her ears close) and a necklace featuring the cork from a fictional drink. Enter the Sculpey and a wine cork "borrowed" from my mother. Last year's Hermione costume won a costume contest but with this one, I'm just hoping it's not the worst one in the room.
Also, I'm hoping I don't get trampled by hundreds of Weasleys and Potters and Grangers tonight, although I know I probably will. But I can't in good conscience deny her the experience. Some day these midnight Harry Potter parties will turn out to be a universal memory for her generation, like getting a Cabbage Patch doll is for mine. I don't want Ryan to be that humorless bully who never had a Cabbage Patch doll. Although, how will I get her to read once she's done with this series? She's already gone through all the Narnia books just waiting for Deathly Hallows to get published.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
And My Name Can Be Myrtle.
In life we grow, we mature, we evolve. And hopefully, we change. We stop being the selfish thoughtless inconsiderate little children we used to be, and we become selfish thoughtless inconsiderate teenagers. Then we turn twenty-one and become barely functioning drunks for a while. And eventually we become adults, and let's all hope we know what we're doing by then. The glory of the internet is that the stupid things we do when we are young can now be recorded and posted for all the world to see. That drunk college guy who passed out and had a dick drawn on his face by his roommates? Well instead of being dusted off to laugh about at class reunions, that horrifying moment is now fresh for millions of people on YouTube.
Luckily, I am just old enough, and technologically retarded enough, that none of my youthful mistakes have been recorded on the internet, except that time I got caught with my head down a mannequin's pants, but still the internet reminds me of the idiot I once was. Reminisce with me, won't you?
I was nineteen and in love. For the record, at nineteen I was a moron. Most people are at that age though, since they think they know everything and therefor are willing to learn nothing. Oh well, whatever the reason I was a class A nincompoop. But I was a nincompoop with a hot girlfriend. Yes I, the quasi-goth geek from high school, had the hot girlfriend. Let's call her, oh I don't know, Evelyn. Well Evelyn was hot. And, unfortunately, in the closet. I finally had the hot girlfriend and she didn't want anyone to know. You can see where this is going can't you?
Yeah, so anyway a lot of people found out about us, and just enough other personal information that it was very apparent that I was the one who had spilled the lesbian beans. And so she tried to kick my ass. And by "tried" I don't mean she landed some good punches but in the end I won. No, by "tried" I mean she was about to knock my head off my shoulders when a friend of mine called the cops. And I never saw Evelyn again. Mostly because she scared the holy fuck out of me and I avoided her, but also because really hot women and I never did run in the same circles to start with. What does all of this have to do with the internet and the mistakes which can haunt us? Well. . .
Evelyn was dating a guy. Let's call him Bruce. And at the time Bruce and Evelyn were quite the item. Except that, in another town and with an entirely different social circle, Evelyn was also dating, hmm let me think, Cosmo. Yeah well, I kinda let that whole triangle thing slip. To a stripper. An out of work stripper but still, strippers apparently aren't paragons of discretion.
Wait a second. If she was dating me, and Bruce, and Cosmo, wouldn't that have made it more of a love pyramid than a triangle, per se?
Where was I? Oh yeah. Evelyn wanted me dead, both guys dumped her (so I heard), and I never again got the hot girl. Any hot girl. Oh, I got girls I thought were hot. My last girlfriend was beautiful. But Evelyn was hot by popular consensus. If a casting director was told to find someone to play "Hot Chick Number One", he'd cast her. I still think of her, sometimes. But no one wants to hear about that. Anyway, here I am some twelve years later, older and wiser and consciously not thinking about all of the many stupid mistakes I have made in my life, when I get a message on MySpace. From Bruce. It says simply, "I know you, don't I?" And deep down, a very large part of me thinks he may kick my ass. After all, he was with Evelyn, cheering her on, when she tried to kick my ass. And again, my use of the word "tried" in no way implies that she couldn't have, easily. So I answered him. I told him that he had known me, once long ago, and then I invited him to please kick my ass from afar because I simply do not have enough time for every person I treated poorly in my youth to take their rightful turn. And then I searched his friends list and I think, based on name and age, that he may still be in touch with Evelyn.
So if I don't post here for a while, and you begin to suspect that something may have happened to me, let it be known that I might have been killed by people whose names do not, in reality, sound anything like Evelyn, Bruce, or Cosmo. Wish me luck, though.
On a lighter note, Tom and I spent a few days in Minnesota getting his nuts hacked into. Big cuts, and bruises in places a man doesn't want to see bruised. Well, bruises in one place a man doesn't want to see bruised. The main place, I would think. But really, as a woman, I don't know anything about nuts. I pretend to, but I don't. To all my male readers, should I have enough to warrant using the plural, I will tell you a secret. There is no one place on the female body comparable to the testicles. We know not to hit them and we know that it hurts really really bad if we do, but we can't empathize. All we know about balls is that they hurt a lot and that they are really fun to watch when they get cold. Have you guys ever really bent down to look at those things? They're amazing! Hold a cold pop can against them for just a second and they're off like it's the Kentucky Derby of balls. They are the only part of the human body to crawl away of their own accord, and we don't have them. I'm jealous. If I had balls I would play with them all day. I would sit at home and play with them all day every day until I starved to death, a skeleton with my balls in my hand. And yet, even knowing this, I still bitch at Tom when he watches TV with his hand in his pants. Go figure.
So, to recap: I fear the ex-boyfriend of my murderous ex-girlfriend, and balls are fun to play with. The End.
Luckily, I am just old enough, and technologically retarded enough, that none of my youthful mistakes have been recorded on the internet, except that time I got caught with my head down a mannequin's pants, but still the internet reminds me of the idiot I once was. Reminisce with me, won't you?
I was nineteen and in love. For the record, at nineteen I was a moron. Most people are at that age though, since they think they know everything and therefor are willing to learn nothing. Oh well, whatever the reason I was a class A nincompoop. But I was a nincompoop with a hot girlfriend. Yes I, the quasi-goth geek from high school, had the hot girlfriend. Let's call her, oh I don't know, Evelyn. Well Evelyn was hot. And, unfortunately, in the closet. I finally had the hot girlfriend and she didn't want anyone to know. You can see where this is going can't you?
Yeah, so anyway a lot of people found out about us, and just enough other personal information that it was very apparent that I was the one who had spilled the lesbian beans. And so she tried to kick my ass. And by "tried" I don't mean she landed some good punches but in the end I won. No, by "tried" I mean she was about to knock my head off my shoulders when a friend of mine called the cops. And I never saw Evelyn again. Mostly because she scared the holy fuck out of me and I avoided her, but also because really hot women and I never did run in the same circles to start with. What does all of this have to do with the internet and the mistakes which can haunt us? Well. . .
Evelyn was dating a guy. Let's call him Bruce. And at the time Bruce and Evelyn were quite the item. Except that, in another town and with an entirely different social circle, Evelyn was also dating, hmm let me think, Cosmo. Yeah well, I kinda let that whole triangle thing slip. To a stripper. An out of work stripper but still, strippers apparently aren't paragons of discretion.
Wait a second. If she was dating me, and Bruce, and Cosmo, wouldn't that have made it more of a love pyramid than a triangle, per se?
Where was I? Oh yeah. Evelyn wanted me dead, both guys dumped her (so I heard), and I never again got the hot girl. Any hot girl. Oh, I got girls I thought were hot. My last girlfriend was beautiful. But Evelyn was hot by popular consensus. If a casting director was told to find someone to play "Hot Chick Number One", he'd cast her. I still think of her, sometimes. But no one wants to hear about that. Anyway, here I am some twelve years later, older and wiser and consciously not thinking about all of the many stupid mistakes I have made in my life, when I get a message on MySpace. From Bruce. It says simply, "I know you, don't I?" And deep down, a very large part of me thinks he may kick my ass. After all, he was with Evelyn, cheering her on, when she tried to kick my ass. And again, my use of the word "tried" in no way implies that she couldn't have, easily. So I answered him. I told him that he had known me, once long ago, and then I invited him to please kick my ass from afar because I simply do not have enough time for every person I treated poorly in my youth to take their rightful turn. And then I searched his friends list and I think, based on name and age, that he may still be in touch with Evelyn.
So if I don't post here for a while, and you begin to suspect that something may have happened to me, let it be known that I might have been killed by people whose names do not, in reality, sound anything like Evelyn, Bruce, or Cosmo. Wish me luck, though.
On a lighter note, Tom and I spent a few days in Minnesota getting his nuts hacked into. Big cuts, and bruises in places a man doesn't want to see bruised. Well, bruises in one place a man doesn't want to see bruised. The main place, I would think. But really, as a woman, I don't know anything about nuts. I pretend to, but I don't. To all my male readers, should I have enough to warrant using the plural, I will tell you a secret. There is no one place on the female body comparable to the testicles. We know not to hit them and we know that it hurts really really bad if we do, but we can't empathize. All we know about balls is that they hurt a lot and that they are really fun to watch when they get cold. Have you guys ever really bent down to look at those things? They're amazing! Hold a cold pop can against them for just a second and they're off like it's the Kentucky Derby of balls. They are the only part of the human body to crawl away of their own accord, and we don't have them. I'm jealous. If I had balls I would play with them all day. I would sit at home and play with them all day every day until I starved to death, a skeleton with my balls in my hand. And yet, even knowing this, I still bitch at Tom when he watches TV with his hand in his pants. Go figure.
So, to recap: I fear the ex-boyfriend of my murderous ex-girlfriend, and balls are fun to play with. The End.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Bush Vetoes Free Thought
Bush vetoes war-funding.
Bush prepares to veto stem-cell research.
Veto threat for federal hate crimes protection.
How about, Bush Vetoes Common Sense.
Not only will this war be looked back on as another Vietnam, it already is seen that way today. Not only is stem-cell research holding the potential to save and improve millions of lives, but what little research has been done has gotten us to the point where it kind of already is; for instance, bone marrow transplants don't need giant bone-drilling needles anymore. And not only is gay-bashing the very definition of a hate-crime and therefore worthy of classification as one, but in some areas the hate is still being used as a defense. Doesn't "He looked at me funny" sound just as bad as "He looked at a white woman funny"?
I know the GOP is supposed to stand for less big government, fewer laws telling us what we can and cannot do and all that. But as long as they're going to tell us who we can and cannot marry, they really should go along with letting modern medicine make some progress, perhaps think about when they want to get out of the widow-making business, and tell some of the good old boys back home to lay off killing queers while they're at it. At least around election time. Sheesh.
Bush prepares to veto stem-cell research.
Veto threat for federal hate crimes protection.
How about, Bush Vetoes Common Sense.
Not only will this war be looked back on as another Vietnam, it already is seen that way today. Not only is stem-cell research holding the potential to save and improve millions of lives, but what little research has been done has gotten us to the point where it kind of already is; for instance, bone marrow transplants don't need giant bone-drilling needles anymore. And not only is gay-bashing the very definition of a hate-crime and therefore worthy of classification as one, but in some areas the hate is still being used as a defense. Doesn't "He looked at me funny" sound just as bad as "He looked at a white woman funny"?
I know the GOP is supposed to stand for less big government, fewer laws telling us what we can and cannot do and all that. But as long as they're going to tell us who we can and cannot marry, they really should go along with letting modern medicine make some progress, perhaps think about when they want to get out of the widow-making business, and tell some of the good old boys back home to lay off killing queers while they're at it. At least around election time. Sheesh.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
My Life Is Boring
Yep, it's official. My life is boring. I've been randomly entering names of old classmates and coworkers into MySpace, because I can't really think of anything else to do with MySpace, and almost all of them have lives much more interesting than mine. The kid who used to make fun of my name in high school has traveled Europe and now lives in San Francisco. The guy I almost got fired with in a Clintonian work scandal (tee hee hee) lives in Chicago with a beautiful wife and a bizarre Cubs obsession. The guy I (and my friends) always secretly wanted to date in school but never even approached lives somewhere in Michigan as a perpetual student. And of course the guy I VERY publicly wanted to date, and share Clintonian scandals with, in school is living somewhere in the depths of Georgia with his profile set to private. Gee I wonder why.
My point is, the life of a housewife who had a kid at twenty-one and never in her life set foot on a commercial airplane somehow pales in comparison. I want to push a vintage Italian motorcycle up a hill in San Francisco. I want to post bass-heavy discotheque remixes on my profile page. I want to study and travel and live somewhere more than 15 miles away from the hospital I was born in. I'd like to be able to say "local scenery" and mean something other than corn and bean fields. It would be nice to walk down the street and perhaps see more than the homogeneous mix of pale white faces this town has to offer.
Ahhh, to live in a place where the neighbors don't know your grandparents. To live in a place where the neighbors don't share your grandparents. A town with more history than "Back when the Dutch Church only had two hundred members," a better claim to fame than "Chainsaw from Summer School was born here." Ahhh, to have a life where a Friday night didn't consist of randomly entering names from ten years ago into My Space.
On a more upbeat note, Tom finally has a definite appointment to get his cherry stems tied back together. The deposit has been sent, the hotel reservations have been made, and the sitter has been booked. Everybody keep your fingers crossed and gods-willing the world will have more little Chucks in the next couple of years. Oh, but to dream!
My point is, the life of a housewife who had a kid at twenty-one and never in her life set foot on a commercial airplane somehow pales in comparison. I want to push a vintage Italian motorcycle up a hill in San Francisco. I want to post bass-heavy discotheque remixes on my profile page. I want to study and travel and live somewhere more than 15 miles away from the hospital I was born in. I'd like to be able to say "local scenery" and mean something other than corn and bean fields. It would be nice to walk down the street and perhaps see more than the homogeneous mix of pale white faces this town has to offer.
Ahhh, to live in a place where the neighbors don't know your grandparents. To live in a place where the neighbors don't share your grandparents. A town with more history than "Back when the Dutch Church only had two hundred members," a better claim to fame than "Chainsaw from Summer School was born here." Ahhh, to have a life where a Friday night didn't consist of randomly entering names from ten years ago into My Space.
On a more upbeat note, Tom finally has a definite appointment to get his cherry stems tied back together. The deposit has been sent, the hotel reservations have been made, and the sitter has been booked. Everybody keep your fingers crossed and gods-willing the world will have more little Chucks in the next couple of years. Oh, but to dream!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
An Unsung Hero
Or at least, a not-sung-loudly-enough hero. This man did what was right and tried to positively influence his student with an analogy she would understand, in a time and place where "activist judges" and the "liberal media" are the favorite scapegoats on which to blame the decline of Western Civilization. And to reward his courage, his outright heroic behavior, he may lose his job. But he will be almost-publicly recognized here, where no doubt a grand total of 3 people may appreciate him. Not quite a public awards ceremony, but it's as much as I can give him.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Confronting Our Past, Through Yard Sales & MySpace
Today is the city-wide garage sale, where dozens of families decide that it is somehow worthwhile to wake up early to set up tables in their yards and impede traffic for nine hours just to sell gifts from their in-laws for a quarter. My tiny little No-Parking street is full of minivans and El Caminos and fat women in tank tops walking straight down the middle of the road. I realize that when your hips measure 58 inches the roadway becomes, relative to body-width, a sidewalk, but some of us want to actually drive down this stretch of asphalt. On a happier note, or maybe just a strange one, I have found my first boyfriend on Myspace.
Now for years I ignored Myspace and refused to set up an account. I'm not a pedophile so why would I need one anyway? But then through some bizarre Gary Busey angle I found an old friend and the only contact info I could find was through the dreaded "social networking" site, so I had to set up an account. Once I had done that, I started going to other people's pages and clicking "add friends" and the whole stupid Myspace thing snowballed. And I found my ex. Not just an ex, but the ex.
You know the guy. Any girl out there who didn't marry her high school sweetheart knows the guy. He's the one you're referring to when you say "my high school boyfriend", the one who corrupted you and then broke your heart. Sure I dated more than one guy in high school but this is the guy who sticks out. He was my Lord Henry, my Joey Buttafuoco if you will.
Lord Henry really is a good description for him now that I think of it. All the talking of logic and rational thought and atheism and sexual freedom. And get this, less than a year after he dumped me he found Jesus. The same guy who at nineteen taught a fifteen year old to question everything and to face the world with cynicism found Jesus. I resent that. He should not be allowed to walk around with faith after that.
I guess every girl meets a guy like him. Every girl has to learn somehow that boys really do only want one thing, that a broken heart will heal, and that "We can still hang out and stuff" just means they want to continue to have sex while dating other women. But we will still resent them for it, and we should. If we didn't then what would keep us from making those mistakes again?
I suppose I resent him in that "It was a hard lesson to learn" sort of way, but to be honest there are other less personal ways to resent him as well. I resent that he and his Myspace page are a reminder of my youth, when long-gone friends were near or even just still alive. I resent that he hasn't seemed to age at all in the last fifteen years (which is reason enough to bump that resentment up to hatred). And I resent that I know I have been "the ex" before and I feel guilt over it, guilt his conveniently located god absolves him of. But I thank him too. I thank him for lights-out glowstick fights in God's apartment, for exposing me to Henry Rollins' box set, for sewer-gasket bungee jumping in Eagle Point Park, and for showing me the Hall Mall, absolutely the coolest place to buy a vintage Ramones t-shirt ever.
Oh look, fat women in short shorts wandering up my driveway. And I'm not even having a yard sale. Time to go chase them off with a pitchfork. And time to let you go google Lord Henry :)
Now for years I ignored Myspace and refused to set up an account. I'm not a pedophile so why would I need one anyway? But then through some bizarre Gary Busey angle I found an old friend and the only contact info I could find was through the dreaded "social networking" site, so I had to set up an account. Once I had done that, I started going to other people's pages and clicking "add friends" and the whole stupid Myspace thing snowballed. And I found my ex. Not just an ex, but the ex.
You know the guy. Any girl out there who didn't marry her high school sweetheart knows the guy. He's the one you're referring to when you say "my high school boyfriend", the one who corrupted you and then broke your heart. Sure I dated more than one guy in high school but this is the guy who sticks out. He was my Lord Henry, my Joey Buttafuoco if you will.
Lord Henry really is a good description for him now that I think of it. All the talking of logic and rational thought and atheism and sexual freedom. And get this, less than a year after he dumped me he found Jesus. The same guy who at nineteen taught a fifteen year old to question everything and to face the world with cynicism found Jesus. I resent that. He should not be allowed to walk around with faith after that.
I guess every girl meets a guy like him. Every girl has to learn somehow that boys really do only want one thing, that a broken heart will heal, and that "We can still hang out and stuff" just means they want to continue to have sex while dating other women. But we will still resent them for it, and we should. If we didn't then what would keep us from making those mistakes again?
I suppose I resent him in that "It was a hard lesson to learn" sort of way, but to be honest there are other less personal ways to resent him as well. I resent that he and his Myspace page are a reminder of my youth, when long-gone friends were near or even just still alive. I resent that he hasn't seemed to age at all in the last fifteen years (which is reason enough to bump that resentment up to hatred). And I resent that I know I have been "the ex" before and I feel guilt over it, guilt his conveniently located god absolves him of. But I thank him too. I thank him for lights-out glowstick fights in God's apartment, for exposing me to Henry Rollins' box set, for sewer-gasket bungee jumping in Eagle Point Park, and for showing me the Hall Mall, absolutely the coolest place to buy a vintage Ramones t-shirt ever.
Oh look, fat women in short shorts wandering up my driveway. And I'm not even having a yard sale. Time to go chase them off with a pitchfork. And time to let you go google Lord Henry :)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
In Response To Criticism
Some old people are cool. They have wisdom and patience gleaned from decades of life experience and we could all stand to learn from them. Others, however, just turn into miserable grouchy old goats that no one wants to be around. My grandmother falls decidedly into the latter category.
Ever watch Roseanne? How about Everybody Loves Raymond? Well, my grandma is Bev from Roseanne (but without the lesbianism of the last season) but she looks like Marie from Raymond. She knows everything, and if she doesn't know or understand it it obviously doesn't matter. To illustrate, here are some topical opinions, from my grandmother:
The circumcision debate: It doesn't hurt them; they just push something somewhere. Oh, they cut it? Well I don't know, I just signed what they told me to sign. And besides, you have to circumcise a baby to show that it's white.
Gay marriage: Well we can't let them get married. If they got married what would show that it's better not to be gay?
On race: Thankfully your grandfather just looked tan, and the family never mentioned it. I wouldn't have married him at all if I'd known he wasn't white! (For the record, my grandfather was one eighth Native American. And also, there was the whole black Barbie episode.)
On childhood obesity: Someone needs to tell that boy not to sit in the good chairs. He'll break them! Do you want some ice cream? Or I have candy bars in the drawer over there.
Now, to illustrate the other end of the old people spectrum, I offer this example:
Ever watch Roseanne? How about Everybody Loves Raymond? Well, my grandma is Bev from Roseanne (but without the lesbianism of the last season) but she looks like Marie from Raymond. She knows everything, and if she doesn't know or understand it it obviously doesn't matter. To illustrate, here are some topical opinions, from my grandmother:
The circumcision debate: It doesn't hurt them; they just push something somewhere. Oh, they cut it? Well I don't know, I just signed what they told me to sign. And besides, you have to circumcise a baby to show that it's white.
Gay marriage: Well we can't let them get married. If they got married what would show that it's better not to be gay?
On race: Thankfully your grandfather just looked tan, and the family never mentioned it. I wouldn't have married him at all if I'd known he wasn't white! (For the record, my grandfather was one eighth Native American. And also, there was the whole black Barbie episode.)
On childhood obesity: Someone needs to tell that boy not to sit in the good chairs. He'll break them! Do you want some ice cream? Or I have candy bars in the drawer over there.
Now, to illustrate the other end of the old people spectrum, I offer this example:
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Your Girlfriend's Creepy Mother
Apparently there are two thirties. There is the Friends thirty where you're still young and sexy and "thirty is the new twenty" and then there is my thirty, where you have gray hairs and stretch marks and can't wear spaghetti strap tank tops anymore because you can't wear spaghetti strap bras anymore and the option of going braless no longer even occurs to you. This thirty is the new forty.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I went out to the greenhouse, where my good friend Jame works weekends, to buy my mother a beautiful hanging basket. She will hate it, but that is inevitable so I buy it anyway. While shopping around for the proper soon-to-be-hated flowers, I am assisted by a strapping young man. And by strapping, I mean he is a gay porn model come to life in front of me. And I, of course, am wearing my grubby weekend housework clothes, not a hint of make-up, and haven't dyed my roots in two months. Nonetheless, since I happen to know this kid, I chat with him while he reaches effortlessly to retrieve for me baskets of flowers which hang above my head. Stretching. Flexing. His t-shirt lifting to reveal. . . and then the watering hose from the plant falls out of the basket and cracks me on the skull. Ouch. What a rude reminder that I am an old married pervert buying a plant for my mother with a car insurance rebate check.
And who uses metal hoses to water hanging baskets anyway?
But anyway, back to our story. Adonis, as I'll call him, appeared to be flirting with me in that "Thank you for pulling me away from the register the old lady with the tomato plants was driving me crazy" kind of way that seemed to whisper just a little bit of "Just in case you're wondering I'd do you and by the way I have nothing going on all next week since I dropped out of junior college with two credits left because I heard The Dead were going back on tour." So I flirted back, in a "I'm married and you are way too young and you stink of patchouli and pot but damn you're still sexy, you phish-quoting hippy" sort of way. I'm not an idiot. I know when someone's coming on to me, even when it's watered down. He was making it clear that the next move was mine, and welcome. I was starting to feel like maybe I wasn't that old. I guess I'm still decent looking, and to someone who's never had the misfortune of seeing me naked, I could look okay. I have a decent smile, and good hair. And if Adonis is hitting on me, I must still have it.
Well, I bought the plant for my ungrateful mother and, sadly, left. But let me tell you, nothing cheers you up quite as much as getting hit on by a twenty three year old with two percent body fat. And nothing brings you down again like being told by our best friend hours later that after you left, they guy called you Mrs Robinson. Yeah, I'm old.
Mrs Robinson. Not Stifler's mom. Not Stacey's mom. Not a milf, no. I don't get compared to any modern day examples of older but still sexy women. Nope. Stoner-Adonis has to reach through the smog of his memory to pull out a forty year old reference to a chain smoking pre-Botox seductress in order to describe me. I get to be Anne Bancroft. Yeah, that's great. I wouldn't want to be anyone sexy or desirable. I'd much rather be your girlfriend's creepy mother. See this way I have nowhere to go but up, unless any mimbos out there would like to accuse me of being manly? I suppose there's still room for someone to call me Chandler's dad.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I went out to the greenhouse, where my good friend Jame works weekends, to buy my mother a beautiful hanging basket. She will hate it, but that is inevitable so I buy it anyway. While shopping around for the proper soon-to-be-hated flowers, I am assisted by a strapping young man. And by strapping, I mean he is a gay porn model come to life in front of me. And I, of course, am wearing my grubby weekend housework clothes, not a hint of make-up, and haven't dyed my roots in two months. Nonetheless, since I happen to know this kid, I chat with him while he reaches effortlessly to retrieve for me baskets of flowers which hang above my head. Stretching. Flexing. His t-shirt lifting to reveal. . . and then the watering hose from the plant falls out of the basket and cracks me on the skull. Ouch. What a rude reminder that I am an old married pervert buying a plant for my mother with a car insurance rebate check.
And who uses metal hoses to water hanging baskets anyway?
But anyway, back to our story. Adonis, as I'll call him, appeared to be flirting with me in that "Thank you for pulling me away from the register the old lady with the tomato plants was driving me crazy" kind of way that seemed to whisper just a little bit of "Just in case you're wondering I'd do you and by the way I have nothing going on all next week since I dropped out of junior college with two credits left because I heard The Dead were going back on tour." So I flirted back, in a "I'm married and you are way too young and you stink of patchouli and pot but damn you're still sexy, you phish-quoting hippy" sort of way. I'm not an idiot. I know when someone's coming on to me, even when it's watered down. He was making it clear that the next move was mine, and welcome. I was starting to feel like maybe I wasn't that old. I guess I'm still decent looking, and to someone who's never had the misfortune of seeing me naked, I could look okay. I have a decent smile, and good hair. And if Adonis is hitting on me, I must still have it.
Well, I bought the plant for my ungrateful mother and, sadly, left. But let me tell you, nothing cheers you up quite as much as getting hit on by a twenty three year old with two percent body fat. And nothing brings you down again like being told by our best friend hours later that after you left, they guy called you Mrs Robinson. Yeah, I'm old.
Mrs Robinson. Not Stifler's mom. Not Stacey's mom. Not a milf, no. I don't get compared to any modern day examples of older but still sexy women. Nope. Stoner-Adonis has to reach through the smog of his memory to pull out a forty year old reference to a chain smoking pre-Botox seductress in order to describe me. I get to be Anne Bancroft. Yeah, that's great. I wouldn't want to be anyone sexy or desirable. I'd much rather be your girlfriend's creepy mother. See this way I have nowhere to go but up, unless any mimbos out there would like to accuse me of being manly? I suppose there's still room for someone to call me Chandler's dad.
Define "Special" Again For Me
Special has become a rather hard to define word lately. I looked it up online and found many different wordings of definitions that would be hard to understand if you didn't just know what "special" means. It means somehow different, not the norm, not the same as everything else. A special day, a special friend, a special price, a 'special-needs child'. Special is a way to say that something stands out from the rest.
So why do the far right always seem to say that gays want special rights and privileges? To be able to meet, date, fall in love, and then marry is not special. It is a privilege already granted to (statistically) 90% of Americans. If it is already the norm, already accepted and practiced by the majority then how does it stand out as different? Marriage is nothing new in this country so it can't be that wanting to legally bind possessions and earnings through means of a government recognized contract is some new idea that the homosexuals cooked up amongst themselves. And since secular marriages not blessed by any church and performed by approved government employees (judges, justices of the peace, etc) have been recognized for years then it can't be that the ability to enter into a marriage opposed by churches is the new-fangled gay concept. So what is so "special" about wanting equal marriage rights?
Maybe it's not the marriage thing. Maybe it's the more restrictive bills that keep popping up. So let's take a look at them.
1: Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of categories of discrimination already banned by anti-discrimination laws. Well, since anti-discrimination laws already exist it can't be the idea of telling people why or why not to fire their employees or evict their tenants or refuse their services to that's special. And since churches and church-run businesses are already exempt from most such laws it can't even be that refusing to allow gay- or tranny-bashing infringes on their expression of religion. And let's face it, if someone wants to fire you or evict you or refuse you service, they can. They can always come up with one night you played your music too loud or one day you were two minutes late from lunch and hang it on that. The only thing these laws would deprive employers and landlords and anyone else of is the bigoted joy of telling someone why they're being fired / evicted / turned away. After all, how much fun can it be to cite late rent or poor attendance when what you really want to do is call them a flaming fag or rug-muncher and tell them how gross they are?
2: Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of minority statuses recognized by hate-crime laws. Like with the discrimination laws, the fact that we're discussing adding anything already proves that such laws are an accepted norm. I suppose that since hate-crimes carry with them harsher punishments than regular non-discriminatory crimes there is a bit of "specialness" inherent in them. But is it special just for gays and TGs? Hate-crime legislation already applies to race and religion among other things so no, it's not really a just-for-the-homos kind of thing. There are those who claim that giving gays and TGs status as protected species, so to speak, will only serve to harshen punishments where there is no hate. In other words, I kill you because you cut me off on the freeway and then find out you're gay and now I'm screwed, or I beat you up for being a bitch but because you're a bitch with a penis I get a longer sentence. See how it would make all of the glbt untouchable? After all, there's no burden of proof in a courtroom. It's not like anyone would have to actually present evidence showing beyond, say, a reasonable doubt that the motive for the crime were generalized hatred based on the victims sexuality or gender identity. In fact, the law may be used willy-nilly by liberal prosecutors. I mean, the victim was wearing a pink shirt when he broke into that house so obviously the killing was a hate crime, not self-defense! Get real! The burden of proof to prosecute someone for violating a hate crime is already higher than to just prosecute them for the physical offense. Murder one is easier to punish than race-motivated murder one, because not only do you have to prove guilt but also motive. Proving that the person actually stabbed, cut up, burned, and then buried the victim may be easy compared to proving why they did it. So the theory that the gay and transgendered communities are trying to make themselves unaccountable, to remove the consequences to their own actions and remove the risk from life, is ridiculous. You can kill them, just not for being queer. Nope, the only thing this law deprives people of is the unbridled joy in harassing, threatening, beating, raping, or killing people for BLATANTLY homophobic reasons. It also kills the ultra-preposterous "gay-panic" defense. On a more emotional note, click these links.
Maybe it's the adoption laws? Maybe it's that in states that don't allow unmarried heterosexuals to adopt there should be no reason to allow unmarried homosexuals to adopt. And why are the homosexuals unmarried? Okay, I'll leave that one alone for now. But still it comes down to this: would it be a special law for gays? Again, as long as it would apply to straight people it can't be. And there is no bill proposed anywhere that I know of that says single people can only adopt children if they're gay. No one is suggesting that in order for a man to become a single parent he should suck anyone's dick. No one wants the day to come where a single woman must go down on a pregnant lady to receive custody of her baby. No, these laws would apply to heterosexuals too. And there are instances where they would benefit straight people. If, for instance, a woman wants to adopt her dead sister's orphaned children, she would not have to be married to do so. If a foster parent were suddenly widowed, it would not cost him the possibility of adopting the foster child. So see, a law enabling unmarried people to marry is NOT special for gays. But what about the bills which specifically seek to allow homosexuals and/or transgendered people to adopt children? Those are geared toward gays and trannies only so they must be special. Well, adoption is already legal, already a privilege enjoyed by many people, so raising another person's baby as their own, not really a just-for-gays thing. The bills and laws allowing gays specifically to adopt are just responses to laws denying the ability to adopt specifically to gays. It's more of an amendment rather than a free-standing law. Rather than re-write an existing law to remove the existing restrictions, sometimes it's just easier to pass a whole new law over-riding it. Special wording, but not special rights. As for how damaging it may be for kids to be raised by gay parents, I don't see it. From Kate & Allie to My Two Dads and Full House America has, with the help of Nielson boxes, celebrated children being raised by adults of the same gender. Why is it different now? Oh, because with gay parents the parents actually have sex? Yes well, you will find it very hard to convince me that any household where the children are made aware of what precisely happens between the parents in the bedroom is less than damaging. I know I walked in on my parents once and I don't feel that I was any less damaged by the situation because they were straight. And I can tell you that, within the confines of my own heterosexual marriage, my child would probably have to go straight in the loony bin if she knew just half of what her dad and I do. Kink is not reserved for the queers. That's a special right we all can share.
I am left to draw only one conclusion. I am forced to believe that the far-right, fundies, high ranking current government officials, feel that they must be special. All of these rights reserved for only straight people born with the right parts, actually are special rights. And if we extended them to every drag queen and leather-daddy who walked in off the street they would lose their "special" status. If everyone, regardless of who they loved or how, were capable of living without fear of personal attack, loss of employment or housing, or of never being allowed the joy of changing diapers, then what would make the far-right special? How would the gay-basher stand out from the crowd if not for his inherent superiority granted by the courts?
All of these laws are special. They are not the norm, and they are not the same for everyone. Gays do not demand rights special to them; they demand to share the special rights granted only to the rest of the country. And that's just a little too uppity for some. Too bad the only thing that makes some marriages, some careers, some parenting special is that someone else isn't allowed to do it.
So why do the far right always seem to say that gays want special rights and privileges? To be able to meet, date, fall in love, and then marry is not special. It is a privilege already granted to (statistically) 90% of Americans. If it is already the norm, already accepted and practiced by the majority then how does it stand out as different? Marriage is nothing new in this country so it can't be that wanting to legally bind possessions and earnings through means of a government recognized contract is some new idea that the homosexuals cooked up amongst themselves. And since secular marriages not blessed by any church and performed by approved government employees (judges, justices of the peace, etc) have been recognized for years then it can't be that the ability to enter into a marriage opposed by churches is the new-fangled gay concept. So what is so "special" about wanting equal marriage rights?
Maybe it's not the marriage thing. Maybe it's the more restrictive bills that keep popping up. So let's take a look at them.
1: Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of categories of discrimination already banned by anti-discrimination laws. Well, since anti-discrimination laws already exist it can't be the idea of telling people why or why not to fire their employees or evict their tenants or refuse their services to that's special. And since churches and church-run businesses are already exempt from most such laws it can't even be that refusing to allow gay- or tranny-bashing infringes on their expression of religion. And let's face it, if someone wants to fire you or evict you or refuse you service, they can. They can always come up with one night you played your music too loud or one day you were two minutes late from lunch and hang it on that. The only thing these laws would deprive employers and landlords and anyone else of is the bigoted joy of telling someone why they're being fired / evicted / turned away. After all, how much fun can it be to cite late rent or poor attendance when what you really want to do is call them a flaming fag or rug-muncher and tell them how gross they are?
2: Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of minority statuses recognized by hate-crime laws. Like with the discrimination laws, the fact that we're discussing adding anything already proves that such laws are an accepted norm. I suppose that since hate-crimes carry with them harsher punishments than regular non-discriminatory crimes there is a bit of "specialness" inherent in them. But is it special just for gays and TGs? Hate-crime legislation already applies to race and religion among other things so no, it's not really a just-for-the-homos kind of thing. There are those who claim that giving gays and TGs status as protected species, so to speak, will only serve to harshen punishments where there is no hate. In other words, I kill you because you cut me off on the freeway and then find out you're gay and now I'm screwed, or I beat you up for being a bitch but because you're a bitch with a penis I get a longer sentence. See how it would make all of the glbt untouchable? After all, there's no burden of proof in a courtroom. It's not like anyone would have to actually present evidence showing beyond, say, a reasonable doubt that the motive for the crime were generalized hatred based on the victims sexuality or gender identity. In fact, the law may be used willy-nilly by liberal prosecutors. I mean, the victim was wearing a pink shirt when he broke into that house so obviously the killing was a hate crime, not self-defense! Get real! The burden of proof to prosecute someone for violating a hate crime is already higher than to just prosecute them for the physical offense. Murder one is easier to punish than race-motivated murder one, because not only do you have to prove guilt but also motive. Proving that the person actually stabbed, cut up, burned, and then buried the victim may be easy compared to proving why they did it. So the theory that the gay and transgendered communities are trying to make themselves unaccountable, to remove the consequences to their own actions and remove the risk from life, is ridiculous. You can kill them, just not for being queer. Nope, the only thing this law deprives people of is the unbridled joy in harassing, threatening, beating, raping, or killing people for BLATANTLY homophobic reasons. It also kills the ultra-preposterous "gay-panic" defense. On a more emotional note, click these links.
Maybe it's the adoption laws? Maybe it's that in states that don't allow unmarried heterosexuals to adopt there should be no reason to allow unmarried homosexuals to adopt. And why are the homosexuals unmarried? Okay, I'll leave that one alone for now. But still it comes down to this: would it be a special law for gays? Again, as long as it would apply to straight people it can't be. And there is no bill proposed anywhere that I know of that says single people can only adopt children if they're gay. No one is suggesting that in order for a man to become a single parent he should suck anyone's dick. No one wants the day to come where a single woman must go down on a pregnant lady to receive custody of her baby. No, these laws would apply to heterosexuals too. And there are instances where they would benefit straight people. If, for instance, a woman wants to adopt her dead sister's orphaned children, she would not have to be married to do so. If a foster parent were suddenly widowed, it would not cost him the possibility of adopting the foster child. So see, a law enabling unmarried people to marry is NOT special for gays. But what about the bills which specifically seek to allow homosexuals and/or transgendered people to adopt children? Those are geared toward gays and trannies only so they must be special. Well, adoption is already legal, already a privilege enjoyed by many people, so raising another person's baby as their own, not really a just-for-gays thing. The bills and laws allowing gays specifically to adopt are just responses to laws denying the ability to adopt specifically to gays. It's more of an amendment rather than a free-standing law. Rather than re-write an existing law to remove the existing restrictions, sometimes it's just easier to pass a whole new law over-riding it. Special wording, but not special rights. As for how damaging it may be for kids to be raised by gay parents, I don't see it. From Kate & Allie to My Two Dads and Full House America has, with the help of Nielson boxes, celebrated children being raised by adults of the same gender. Why is it different now? Oh, because with gay parents the parents actually have sex? Yes well, you will find it very hard to convince me that any household where the children are made aware of what precisely happens between the parents in the bedroom is less than damaging. I know I walked in on my parents once and I don't feel that I was any less damaged by the situation because they were straight. And I can tell you that, within the confines of my own heterosexual marriage, my child would probably have to go straight in the loony bin if she knew just half of what her dad and I do. Kink is not reserved for the queers. That's a special right we all can share.
I am left to draw only one conclusion. I am forced to believe that the far-right, fundies, high ranking current government officials, feel that they must be special. All of these rights reserved for only straight people born with the right parts, actually are special rights. And if we extended them to every drag queen and leather-daddy who walked in off the street they would lose their "special" status. If everyone, regardless of who they loved or how, were capable of living without fear of personal attack, loss of employment or housing, or of never being allowed the joy of changing diapers, then what would make the far-right special? How would the gay-basher stand out from the crowd if not for his inherent superiority granted by the courts?
All of these laws are special. They are not the norm, and they are not the same for everyone. Gays do not demand rights special to them; they demand to share the special rights granted only to the rest of the country. And that's just a little too uppity for some. Too bad the only thing that makes some marriages, some careers, some parenting special is that someone else isn't allowed to do it.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Chanitx Update Two
This is hard, yet easy. I realize that makes no sense but follow along. It's like looking at a newborn baby. The baby is so unbelievably small, until you think about where it came from; at that point it's Godzilla. Quitting smoking is difficult and requires the infinite patience of all those around you, as well as 150 Tootsie pops. (Anyone want 25 orange Tootsie Pops?) But the usual symptoms of nicotine withdrawal aren't here. The tightness in my chest, the willingness to face imprisonment by killing someone for a cigarette, the tears and begging usually associated with horror movie victims aware of their fate. It's not here.
What is here is a subconscious, almost casual, habit of reaching. I wake up and my hand slaps the nightstand, reaching for the cigarettes. I'm at the computer and my hand smacks the desk, reaching again. I leave the house and I just know I'm forgetting something. Keys, phone, wallet . . . oh yeah. Until the reaching started, I wasn't even aware that I always set my cigarettes on the same spot on the desk before, or that I ritually lit a smoke before heading in to take a shower. Reaching isn't that bad, not even really all that irritating.
Reaching does have it's drawbacks though. When you're talking to someone and you suddenly grab your own tit, they never look quite like they believe you were going for the cigarettes that aren't in your shirt pocket. And as for the Tootsie Pops, I have come to firmly believe that I have passed the age where suckers look sexy and am now in the age where I just look stupid. Walking down the street sucking on a lollipop and randomly fondling myself. Thank gods for Chantix.
What is here is a subconscious, almost casual, habit of reaching. I wake up and my hand slaps the nightstand, reaching for the cigarettes. I'm at the computer and my hand smacks the desk, reaching again. I leave the house and I just know I'm forgetting something. Keys, phone, wallet . . . oh yeah. Until the reaching started, I wasn't even aware that I always set my cigarettes on the same spot on the desk before, or that I ritually lit a smoke before heading in to take a shower. Reaching isn't that bad, not even really all that irritating.
Reaching does have it's drawbacks though. When you're talking to someone and you suddenly grab your own tit, they never look quite like they believe you were going for the cigarettes that aren't in your shirt pocket. And as for the Tootsie Pops, I have come to firmly believe that I have passed the age where suckers look sexy and am now in the age where I just look stupid. Walking down the street sucking on a lollipop and randomly fondling myself. Thank gods for Chantix.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Chantix Update One
One of the side effects of Chantix is reported to be "unusual or vivid dreams". I've always been real big on dreams. I like dreaming. With dreams I can get away with stuff I could never do in real life, go places I'll never go, meet people I'll never meet, and never be bound by the laws of physics. Pesky gravity. So imagine my joy when I woke up one day and realized that I was one of the lucky few to experience unusual or vivid dreams!
Oh, it's magical. I can dream all sorts of interesting stories, wake up to write them down, and only later, when fully conscious, realize that they make no sense and may in some cases actually be disturbing. I blame the medicine rather than my own psyche. My brain would never think of such whacked out shit on its own. Nahhh, must be the meds.
So far I haven't actually tried to quit smoking yet. The information packet that came with the pills says to quit on the eighth day but my doctor said to quit after two weeks. Guess which one I'm going to listen to. I want to make sure my drug level is really high before I try not to light up. I'm nervous. Wish me luck!
Oh, it's magical. I can dream all sorts of interesting stories, wake up to write them down, and only later, when fully conscious, realize that they make no sense and may in some cases actually be disturbing. I blame the medicine rather than my own psyche. My brain would never think of such whacked out shit on its own. Nahhh, must be the meds.
So far I haven't actually tried to quit smoking yet. The information packet that came with the pills says to quit on the eighth day but my doctor said to quit after two weeks. Guess which one I'm going to listen to. I want to make sure my drug level is really high before I try not to light up. I'm nervous. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Political Bullshit
For the past two days the nation has, quite appropriately, been shocked by the Virginia Tech shooting, and has been looking for answers. Now, since I live nowhere near Virginia, and know no one who lives anywhere near Virginia, I am less interested in the shooting. It's not that I don't care; it's just that I simply don't have the time to get panicked about every school or workplace shooting in the country. But the news outlets, television, radio, print AND internet, are full of updates and recaps and theories on the student who decided that the one college experience he simply could not skip was of course, mass murder. Today, while skimming through all of these headlines, I found this.
The third paragraph grabbed my attention instantly. The president is expected to make a statement of apology at an event in Seoul Wednesday afternoon. My question is, why?
Why is the president of South Korea apologizing for the actions of one former resident, who hasn't lived in the country for fifteen years? And why does America seem to collectively think that this apology is appropriate? I mean, this is the same country which has repeatedly refused to apologize to its own citizens for slavery, a legal and government-endorsed practice of mass oppression and abuse spanning much of the nation's history.
So, we can't apologize for what our forefathers might have done, but we can certainly expect a foreign leader to apologize for what someone he has never met and is in no way linked to, other than a common birthplace, did without his knowledge. This is just one more example of the national ego which makes certain parts of the world hate America. Combine that ego with the current president, a man who should have a short yellow school bus heading his motorcade in the interest of truth in advertising laws, and it's not surprising that we are resented by people all the world over.
The third paragraph grabbed my attention instantly. The president is expected to make a statement of apology at an event in Seoul Wednesday afternoon. My question is, why?
Why is the president of South Korea apologizing for the actions of one former resident, who hasn't lived in the country for fifteen years? And why does America seem to collectively think that this apology is appropriate? I mean, this is the same country which has repeatedly refused to apologize to its own citizens for slavery, a legal and government-endorsed practice of mass oppression and abuse spanning much of the nation's history.
So, we can't apologize for what our forefathers might have done, but we can certainly expect a foreign leader to apologize for what someone he has never met and is in no way linked to, other than a common birthplace, did without his knowledge. This is just one more example of the national ego which makes certain parts of the world hate America. Combine that ego with the current president, a man who should have a short yellow school bus heading his motorcade in the interest of truth in advertising laws, and it's not surprising that we are resented by people all the world over.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
But All The Cool Kids Were Doing It
My parents divorced the summer I turned eleven years old. It was hard on me, losing my father (he never really came by after the divorce, not really a visitation' kind of guy) and I felt pretty alone in the world for a while. Anyway, my mother acted in much the same way as many recently divorced women. She lost weight, had her hair done, and went out with friends determined to cheer her up. And she left my little brother and I in the care of a local high-school girl. For two dollars an hour Lori would come over, watch television, and basically ignore us. But she was cool. She had long dark hair, a car, and a boyfriend. There was a constant stream of beautiful people coming through my house, especially when Lori started babysitting all day during the summers.
I wanted to be Lori. I wanted to be five nine and thin with a huge 80s perm and a fake-bake tan so dark it could change my race. I wanted the cute jock boyfriend and the prom queen best friend. I wanted to drive and buy my own Debbie Gibson tapes and smoke long menthol cigarettes. But I was only eleven and I couldn't drive yet, or buy much of anything with my tiny allowance. I burnt if I stayed in the sun for more than half an hour and I would never reach five nine in my life. But I could smoke, and I did.
Fast forward almost twenty years and I am now just a cool as I dreamed. Yellowed teeth, a hacking cough, thirty dollars poorer every week. Yep, nothing says "Cool" better than a dirt-poor nicotine-stained walking ball of phlegm. If I keep it up I can accomplish the single sexiest aspect of smoking: excessive aging. I can hardly wait.
So I'm going to quit. I have heard nothing but good about the latest prescription-only quitting aid and I have made an appointment for five days from today to request a prescription. I think I am finally ready to quit. They always say that if you don't really want to quit you won't be able to, and I believe them. I don't know who "they" are, but I believe them on this one. I have been on the patch before which, depending on the strength, made me either nauseous or had absolutely no noticeable effect. I have tried tapering down, an endeavor which took two months just to convince me that I was more willing to endure the possibility of far-away cancer than the reality of right-then misery. And I have tried quitting cold-turkey, which lasted twenty-three full hours, ten of which were spent sleeping. I've even put rubber bands around my wrist and snapped them until I had a welt that looked like a suicide attempt. But all of these attempts to quit had one thing in common; I was doing it for reasons other than truly wanting to quit. I was dating a non-smoker, or I was having trouble affording the cigarettes, or I had a new job that didn't hand out smoke breaks. Even when I was pregnant I was doing it for the baby, not for myself. I wanted to smoke; I just didn't want the baby to smoke. A small distinction, but a very large obstacle. But now I want to quit smoking. I don't want Ryan to grow up believing that cigarettes are like coffee, nasty-tasting but part of adulthood, like I did. I don't want to be a pregnant smoker again. And I would really like to get in shape, but I seem to run out of breath too quickly to accomplish any real exercise. So I am counting down the days to my appointment (four days, nineteen hours, thirty minutes) and I am looking forward to the day when I wake up in the morning and don't feel every cell in my body screaming for a cigarette. Wish me luck.
I wanted to be Lori. I wanted to be five nine and thin with a huge 80s perm and a fake-bake tan so dark it could change my race. I wanted the cute jock boyfriend and the prom queen best friend. I wanted to drive and buy my own Debbie Gibson tapes and smoke long menthol cigarettes. But I was only eleven and I couldn't drive yet, or buy much of anything with my tiny allowance. I burnt if I stayed in the sun for more than half an hour and I would never reach five nine in my life. But I could smoke, and I did.
Fast forward almost twenty years and I am now just a cool as I dreamed. Yellowed teeth, a hacking cough, thirty dollars poorer every week. Yep, nothing says "Cool" better than a dirt-poor nicotine-stained walking ball of phlegm. If I keep it up I can accomplish the single sexiest aspect of smoking: excessive aging. I can hardly wait.
So I'm going to quit. I have heard nothing but good about the latest prescription-only quitting aid and I have made an appointment for five days from today to request a prescription. I think I am finally ready to quit. They always say that if you don't really want to quit you won't be able to, and I believe them. I don't know who "they" are, but I believe them on this one. I have been on the patch before which, depending on the strength, made me either nauseous or had absolutely no noticeable effect. I have tried tapering down, an endeavor which took two months just to convince me that I was more willing to endure the possibility of far-away cancer than the reality of right-then misery. And I have tried quitting cold-turkey, which lasted twenty-three full hours, ten of which were spent sleeping. I've even put rubber bands around my wrist and snapped them until I had a welt that looked like a suicide attempt. But all of these attempts to quit had one thing in common; I was doing it for reasons other than truly wanting to quit. I was dating a non-smoker, or I was having trouble affording the cigarettes, or I had a new job that didn't hand out smoke breaks. Even when I was pregnant I was doing it for the baby, not for myself. I wanted to smoke; I just didn't want the baby to smoke. A small distinction, but a very large obstacle. But now I want to quit smoking. I don't want Ryan to grow up believing that cigarettes are like coffee, nasty-tasting but part of adulthood, like I did. I don't want to be a pregnant smoker again. And I would really like to get in shape, but I seem to run out of breath too quickly to accomplish any real exercise. So I am counting down the days to my appointment (four days, nineteen hours, thirty minutes) and I am looking forward to the day when I wake up in the morning and don't feel every cell in my body screaming for a cigarette. Wish me luck.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
An Ancient Evil Claims Another Victim
Today I realized that my mother is becoming my grandmother. I don't know why I didn't see it until today; it can't have been an overnight kind of thing. It didn't occur to me when she got the $25,000 a year raise and still insisted on shopping at Aldi's with the food-stamp crowd. It didn't even dawn on me that she may be turning into her own mother when I arrived at her house to find a giant box of bulk dog-training pads taking up permanent residence on her living room sofa. No, it wasn't until today's phone call that I realized that no matter how different they seemed, my mother was in fact transforming into my psychotic grandmother. Diaper pins and carpeted stairs can only be so far away now.
It was early afternoon and Ryan had spent the night up at Doan's house (she calls my mother Doan, long story), as she does just about every weekend. The phone rang, I answered, and it was Ryan. I could hear Mom feeding her lines in the background. Was I awake? Was I dressed? I asked if she was ready to come home and she said no, Doan had told her to call. I asked to speak to Doan and when she came on the line I asked, like I do just about every Saturday when I get this call, why she felt the need to wake me up for nothing. I mean, I'm thirty years old; shouldn't I be able to sleep all day if I want to? Ryan's having fun up there and I have nothing I need to get done today so why do I have to get up before noon if I don't want to? PLUS, I've been sick all week! If being far too old to be woken up by my mother on a Saturday isn't a good enough reason for her not to make Ryan call me, aren't sick people generally granted a little more freedom to sleep than most? Isn't rest what you're supposed to get when you're sick? Her reply? A very huffy "Well I thought you might want to talk to your daughter!"
Great, the guilt angle. But I wasn't falling for it. Because if that were a plausible reason then I should be able to have Ryan call her at 2 a.m. after a nightmare under the assumption that I thought she might want to talk to her grand-daughter. Of course, this argument in my favor didn't go over too well. Now, keep in mind that I said all of this light-heartedly, not confrontationally. I did want her to see that it was ridiculous to call me to wake me up for no reason on the only day of the week I have to sleep in, but I didn't want to start a fight over it. But the next thing I heard was "Well fine. I'll never call you again, okay? Goodbye." Click. She hung up on me.
This is Grandma Dorie behavior. The absolute over-reaction to anything conflicting with what she wants to do at the time, with no reasoning behind it. No reasoning behind making Ryan call to wake me up, and no reasoning behind acting as though I just told her I hated her and was going to put out a mob contract on her. This is disturbingly reminiscent of the time my grandmother confused her pill timer with the telephone ringer and *69'ed me angry that I was prank calling her every day at 3:15. She knows she's right despite any evidence to the contrary and is upset because I refuse to recognize it. Now I have to wonder, when did Mom become Grandma?
When did my braless, hairy-legged, feminist mother turn into the woman who wouldn't pull the alarm cord in her retirement home bathroom after a heart attack because the EMTs would have seen her with her pants down? When did the lady who refused to buy us any cereal in a box decorated with cartoon characters, the promise of a prize, or even primary colors become the same woman who believes that twinkie is a food group? At what time did the woman who kept condoms in the house just so I would have them, at age 14, mutate into the same woman who called me a whore for taking birth control pills? And what does this say for me? If my mother, who has historically been so polar-opposite to her mother, can evolve into her, what hope do I have? My mom's adopted; there isn't even a genetic reason for her to become the woman who raised her. I don't have that hope to cling to since my mother actually gave birth to me. Am I going to start taking notes on cooking shows, refuse to wax my post-menopausal beard, drink three day old black coffee I forgot was in the microwave? What's next for me?
But even more frightening than becoming my own mother is the possibility that if my mother is her mother, then I may become HER. I may become the semi-suicidal shut-in watching Anna Nicole updates and Montel reruns all day. I may someday find myself screaming at the kids in the playroom at McDonald's to keep it down, oblivious to their parents' hostile stares. I could someday find myself, during the family Christmas celebration, yelling at my nineteen year old grandson to keep it in his pants, with NO provocation. I don't want that. I don't want to be that. Hell, I don't even want to be around that, which is why I avoid my grandmother at all costs.
Please, somebody tell me there is hope. Tell me that we are not predestined to become our mothers. Tell me that the evil that is my racist homophobic grandmother will not attempt to live on through me. And if it ever does, tell me that you will kill me then to stop it. This deep ancient dark force, this slave to bodily functions, must be stopped by someone. Promise that if you ever find me, ten years past menopause and five years past a hysterectomy, buying panty-liners just because "they're free after rebate", that you will put the good of the world first and sprinkle cyanide in my sugar bowl.
It was early afternoon and Ryan had spent the night up at Doan's house (she calls my mother Doan, long story), as she does just about every weekend. The phone rang, I answered, and it was Ryan. I could hear Mom feeding her lines in the background. Was I awake? Was I dressed? I asked if she was ready to come home and she said no, Doan had told her to call. I asked to speak to Doan and when she came on the line I asked, like I do just about every Saturday when I get this call, why she felt the need to wake me up for nothing. I mean, I'm thirty years old; shouldn't I be able to sleep all day if I want to? Ryan's having fun up there and I have nothing I need to get done today so why do I have to get up before noon if I don't want to? PLUS, I've been sick all week! If being far too old to be woken up by my mother on a Saturday isn't a good enough reason for her not to make Ryan call me, aren't sick people generally granted a little more freedom to sleep than most? Isn't rest what you're supposed to get when you're sick? Her reply? A very huffy "Well I thought you might want to talk to your daughter!"
Great, the guilt angle. But I wasn't falling for it. Because if that were a plausible reason then I should be able to have Ryan call her at 2 a.m. after a nightmare under the assumption that I thought she might want to talk to her grand-daughter. Of course, this argument in my favor didn't go over too well. Now, keep in mind that I said all of this light-heartedly, not confrontationally. I did want her to see that it was ridiculous to call me to wake me up for no reason on the only day of the week I have to sleep in, but I didn't want to start a fight over it. But the next thing I heard was "Well fine. I'll never call you again, okay? Goodbye." Click. She hung up on me.
This is Grandma Dorie behavior. The absolute over-reaction to anything conflicting with what she wants to do at the time, with no reasoning behind it. No reasoning behind making Ryan call to wake me up, and no reasoning behind acting as though I just told her I hated her and was going to put out a mob contract on her. This is disturbingly reminiscent of the time my grandmother confused her pill timer with the telephone ringer and *69'ed me angry that I was prank calling her every day at 3:15. She knows she's right despite any evidence to the contrary and is upset because I refuse to recognize it. Now I have to wonder, when did Mom become Grandma?
When did my braless, hairy-legged, feminist mother turn into the woman who wouldn't pull the alarm cord in her retirement home bathroom after a heart attack because the EMTs would have seen her with her pants down? When did the lady who refused to buy us any cereal in a box decorated with cartoon characters, the promise of a prize, or even primary colors become the same woman who believes that twinkie is a food group? At what time did the woman who kept condoms in the house just so I would have them, at age 14, mutate into the same woman who called me a whore for taking birth control pills? And what does this say for me? If my mother, who has historically been so polar-opposite to her mother, can evolve into her, what hope do I have? My mom's adopted; there isn't even a genetic reason for her to become the woman who raised her. I don't have that hope to cling to since my mother actually gave birth to me. Am I going to start taking notes on cooking shows, refuse to wax my post-menopausal beard, drink three day old black coffee I forgot was in the microwave? What's next for me?
But even more frightening than becoming my own mother is the possibility that if my mother is her mother, then I may become HER. I may become the semi-suicidal shut-in watching Anna Nicole updates and Montel reruns all day. I may someday find myself screaming at the kids in the playroom at McDonald's to keep it down, oblivious to their parents' hostile stares. I could someday find myself, during the family Christmas celebration, yelling at my nineteen year old grandson to keep it in his pants, with NO provocation. I don't want that. I don't want to be that. Hell, I don't even want to be around that, which is why I avoid my grandmother at all costs.
Please, somebody tell me there is hope. Tell me that we are not predestined to become our mothers. Tell me that the evil that is my racist homophobic grandmother will not attempt to live on through me. And if it ever does, tell me that you will kill me then to stop it. This deep ancient dark force, this slave to bodily functions, must be stopped by someone. Promise that if you ever find me, ten years past menopause and five years past a hysterectomy, buying panty-liners just because "they're free after rebate", that you will put the good of the world first and sprinkle cyanide in my sugar bowl.
Friday, April 13, 2007
So It Goes
Perhaps the phrase has become too cliche in the past few days, but that is only because it is the most, if not the only, fitting statement to be made. It's fatalism is only offensive in that it serves to remind us that in matters of death we have no power. We can kill, end life at will, but we can not perpetuate life beyond it's time. And that is why I feel so depressed today, because if such a great mind as Kurt Vonnegut's cannot be made to stay then what hope is there for the rest of us?
I mourn Vonnegut as I mourn myself. He has died and so will I, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. So it goes.
November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007
I mourn Vonnegut as I mourn myself. He has died and so will I, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. So it goes.
November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Why I Vote Sanjaya
Because I hate American Idol, that's why. I don't watch the show but I do watch a lot of what comes on after it and lately I've been trying to catch the last couple minutes of the show to get the call-in number for Sanjaya so I can flash / redial twenty or so times. Why would I vote on a show I hate for a guy everyone hates? Because it is funny to piss off the Idol fans and because maybe getting stuck contracting this guy will convince the backers to cancel the show. Then House won't get preempted for weeks at a time, msnbc won't devote an entire section of their site to the show, my news sites will stop headlining Idol news over actually pertinent world events, and Simon Cowell will stop making news for being such an asshole.
I don't care if Ryan Seacrest is gay or not. I don't care if Paula cries. I don't care who slept with whom or whose naked pics got posted where or who showed up last night to mentor the contestants. And if the show didn't monopolize the collective consciousness so much I wouldn't care if it ran for next 50 years. But it does garnish way more attention than it warrants and I'm sick of hearing about it and seeing clips every time I turn on the computer or TV.
Randy Jackson punctuating every sentence with the word Dawg, Paula telling legions of tone-deaf hopefuls that they deserve to go to Hollywood when even they seem to know they don't, Simon being needlessly cruel to people just for trying, and Ryan making fun of Simon's breast tissue. Why is this taking the market's share four or five or however many nights a week? And why do people still show up to audition?!
I have seen enough of the auditions while channel surfing to know that the most horrific singers try out. I'm not talking about people who are pitchy (what the hell does THAT mean?) but the truly bad. The kind of people who are asked to keep it down during hymn-time at church. The sort of people who make Roseanne's version of the national anthem sound good. Why do they go? Even good singers get torn into by Simon, so what would motivate anyone to put themself into the firing line?
I'll tell you who: idiot attention-whores. The same people who jump up and down with banners trying to get Al Roker's attention in sub-freezing temperatures at 6 AM. The people who press their face to the glass behind the network morning show hosts hoping to get their squashed features on television for 15 seconds. So now we put them on the air. It's not the attention whores willing to jump over a gorge or eat a giant cockroach anymore; now all they have to do is butcher a Whitney Houston song. No, I can't sing. I sound like a dying alley-cat when I do. But I have more dignity than to try out for a televised talent show. And I have more self-respect than to basically walk up to Simon Cowell and ask to be ripped to shreds. Why are we rewarding people with no dignity or self-respect, and preempting House to do it?
So, if the American Idol fans are going to monopolize the media, monopolize conversations every day all over the US, and monopolize time slots that could be better served by almost any other television show, I am going to do my best to make sure they get Sanjaya every week. Sanjaya in all of his wild-haired tone-deaf glory. Sanjaya, dream-twink to millions, winning the recording contract. What could be better than that?
I don't care if Ryan Seacrest is gay or not. I don't care if Paula cries. I don't care who slept with whom or whose naked pics got posted where or who showed up last night to mentor the contestants. And if the show didn't monopolize the collective consciousness so much I wouldn't care if it ran for next 50 years. But it does garnish way more attention than it warrants and I'm sick of hearing about it and seeing clips every time I turn on the computer or TV.
Randy Jackson punctuating every sentence with the word Dawg, Paula telling legions of tone-deaf hopefuls that they deserve to go to Hollywood when even they seem to know they don't, Simon being needlessly cruel to people just for trying, and Ryan making fun of Simon's breast tissue. Why is this taking the market's share four or five or however many nights a week? And why do people still show up to audition?!
I have seen enough of the auditions while channel surfing to know that the most horrific singers try out. I'm not talking about people who are pitchy (what the hell does THAT mean?) but the truly bad. The kind of people who are asked to keep it down during hymn-time at church. The sort of people who make Roseanne's version of the national anthem sound good. Why do they go? Even good singers get torn into by Simon, so what would motivate anyone to put themself into the firing line?
I'll tell you who: idiot attention-whores. The same people who jump up and down with banners trying to get Al Roker's attention in sub-freezing temperatures at 6 AM. The people who press their face to the glass behind the network morning show hosts hoping to get their squashed features on television for 15 seconds. So now we put them on the air. It's not the attention whores willing to jump over a gorge or eat a giant cockroach anymore; now all they have to do is butcher a Whitney Houston song. No, I can't sing. I sound like a dying alley-cat when I do. But I have more dignity than to try out for a televised talent show. And I have more self-respect than to basically walk up to Simon Cowell and ask to be ripped to shreds. Why are we rewarding people with no dignity or self-respect, and preempting House to do it?
So, if the American Idol fans are going to monopolize the media, monopolize conversations every day all over the US, and monopolize time slots that could be better served by almost any other television show, I am going to do my best to make sure they get Sanjaya every week. Sanjaya in all of his wild-haired tone-deaf glory. Sanjaya, dream-twink to millions, winning the recording contract. What could be better than that?
Friday, March 30, 2007
I Really Miss Dana
If I were to find out I was dying, I would call Dana.
Scratch that.
I would go to Dana, and make him talk to me. I would tell him that I know who he is and I don't forget, and I would ask him not to visit the sins of the father upon the daughter. I would tell him I never meant to complicate his life and I never wanted to add any trauma or stress to it. All I want for him is a simple happy life with no anger or sadness. I would ask him to see that I am a victim too, although not as much as he is. And I would ask forgiveness for the hurt I have brought him, no matter how unintentional it was.
Why do we have to pay for our parents' mistakes? We may be past the days of outcasted bastards but we still pay, be it with our reputations or just with our peace of mind. I have known so many people in my life, but there's one I would so love to know and probably never will. He has three children now, or at least that's what his email address implies, and I only know two of their names. I could find out from his brother, but I don't want to ask around about him. I don't think he'd want me to, and his are wishes I will respect until I die, although that kind of goes against my opening sentence, doesn't it. Well it's a complicated situation, full of conflict, so I suppose it's no surprise that I'm full of conflict too.
Scratch that.
I would go to Dana, and make him talk to me. I would tell him that I know who he is and I don't forget, and I would ask him not to visit the sins of the father upon the daughter. I would tell him I never meant to complicate his life and I never wanted to add any trauma or stress to it. All I want for him is a simple happy life with no anger or sadness. I would ask him to see that I am a victim too, although not as much as he is. And I would ask forgiveness for the hurt I have brought him, no matter how unintentional it was.
Why do we have to pay for our parents' mistakes? We may be past the days of outcasted bastards but we still pay, be it with our reputations or just with our peace of mind. I have known so many people in my life, but there's one I would so love to know and probably never will. He has three children now, or at least that's what his email address implies, and I only know two of their names. I could find out from his brother, but I don't want to ask around about him. I don't think he'd want me to, and his are wishes I will respect until I die, although that kind of goes against my opening sentence, doesn't it. Well it's a complicated situation, full of conflict, so I suppose it's no surprise that I'm full of conflict too.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Chatlog 1
Jordan: Do you want to see your grand kids
Charlie: I have grandkids?
Jordan: You do?
Charlie: You're the one who asked if I wanted to see them.
Charlie: I'm 30 fucking years old. What grandkids would i have?
Jordan: No I meant in the future
Jordan: Do you want to live long enough to see your grandkids
Charlie: No! I shall ignore them.
Charlie: Of course I want to see them. You ask weird questions, you know that?
Jordan: Well I dunno. Do you look forward to being Grandma Chuck?
Charlie: I like being Auntie Chuck. Grandma Chuck will be just as nice.
Charlie: But I will make them call me Nana and I will always carry hard candies in my purse and let them drink coffee.
Jordan: and alcohol?
Charlie: Nope. That'll be just for Nana Chuck.
Charlie: I will pour creme de menthe in my coffee and let them melt ande's candies in their's and it will all taste the same.
Charlie: I better make sure my mug looks different though, so they can't fool my cataract-ridden eyes and take my hooch!
Jordan: eww cataracts
Jordan: Do you smoke?
Charlie: I do smoke. I will endeavor to quit though, when I can afford quit-pills.
Jordan: You should just quit cold turkey
Charlie: Cold turkey would end with murders, lots and lots of murders.
Charlie: I have grandkids?
Jordan: You do?
Charlie: You're the one who asked if I wanted to see them.
Charlie: I'm 30 fucking years old. What grandkids would i have?
Jordan: No I meant in the future
Jordan: Do you want to live long enough to see your grandkids
Charlie: No! I shall ignore them.
Charlie: Of course I want to see them. You ask weird questions, you know that?
Jordan: Well I dunno. Do you look forward to being Grandma Chuck?
Charlie: I like being Auntie Chuck. Grandma Chuck will be just as nice.
Charlie: But I will make them call me Nana and I will always carry hard candies in my purse and let them drink coffee.
Jordan: and alcohol?
Charlie: Nope. That'll be just for Nana Chuck.
Charlie: I will pour creme de menthe in my coffee and let them melt ande's candies in their's and it will all taste the same.
Charlie: I better make sure my mug looks different though, so they can't fool my cataract-ridden eyes and take my hooch!
Jordan: eww cataracts
Jordan: Do you smoke?
Charlie: I do smoke. I will endeavor to quit though, when I can afford quit-pills.
Jordan: You should just quit cold turkey
Charlie: Cold turkey would end with murders, lots and lots of murders.
Death Pisses Me Off
I am obsessed with death. Not in a gothic Marilyn Manson sort of way, just in a running theme kind of way. I've known a few people who died, including my own father, and none of them has spoken to me since. That upsets me.
I am a product of my generation. I watch too much TV and read too many books. I escape reality at nearly every opportunity and I have learned something from those escapes. Dead people are supposed to talk to you afterward. They either become vampires or grim reapers or they just stick around invisibly and leave little signs to let you know they are okay. Sometimes, they appear in dreams, uttering the sort of sentimental crap they never said in life, because ghosts are inherently sentimental creatures, being dead and all. And if they can't get ahold of you that way, like if perhaps you don't dream or maybe have such nasty erotic dreams that they don't want to be anywhere near you in your sleep, they will find Whoopi Goldberg or Patricia Arquette or Jennifer Love Hewitt and have them relay a message. But so far no one has called me on behalf of my father, no mysterious attorney has handed me one last letter, entrusted to him to be delivered only upon my dad's death, telling me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me. And what few dreams I have had of my father have fallen into two basic categories: dreams where he faked his death and dreams where he hadn't died yet so I didn't know to ask or say the things I now feel the need to ask and say.
This world, or at least my little corner of it, has no permanence. It's full of second chances. Marriage has the option of divorce, pregnancy has the option of abortion, criminal records can be sealed or expunged, classes and work days can be made up if missed, everything has an escape clause or a do-over. But death, that's the one thing that has no second chance. When someone dies they are just gone. And most of the time there's no prophetic and meaningful last sentence to carve into a tombstone, no final reconciliation of petty disputes; people don't even put personal messages in their wills anymore, if they ever did. Maybe that's just something they made up for the movies. You know, "And to Susan, my loving wife. I leave you the summer home where I proposed."
I want to talk to Smokey. I want to tell him that whatever small milestone in his life was footnoted with my name, he played a larger part in mine. Even without the tragic and untimely death part, I would never have forgotten him. I wonder if he knew that a girl he hadn't spoken to in eleven years still thought of him fondly. But I can't ask him, although if the Catholics are right I will see him again someday.
I want to talk to my dad. I want to yell at him for fucking me so badly when he died. I want to ask him if he liked me. Parents love their kids but they don't always like them. Was I a person my father liked, independent of blood? Although, in the same vein, I'm not sure I want the answer. After all, his last words to me were lies, deliberate lies which served only to put me in therapy for a year, hopped up on so many anti-seizure mood-stabilizers that I couldn't have convulsed if I'd tongue-kissed a 220 plug.
I wish I'd known they were going to die. Two perfect examples of people who knew when their time was, two pivotal people in my life whom I would have dropped everything to talk to, and it never occurred to me to call them regardless of life expectancy. I should make a list of people I would regret not calling if they were to die tomorrow and I should call them. But I won't, because that's the curse of the living. We don't open up until it's too late. Maybe having the warning, the diagnosis or death threat or execution date, is the greatest mercy there is.
May God someday have that mercy on me.
I am a product of my generation. I watch too much TV and read too many books. I escape reality at nearly every opportunity and I have learned something from those escapes. Dead people are supposed to talk to you afterward. They either become vampires or grim reapers or they just stick around invisibly and leave little signs to let you know they are okay. Sometimes, they appear in dreams, uttering the sort of sentimental crap they never said in life, because ghosts are inherently sentimental creatures, being dead and all. And if they can't get ahold of you that way, like if perhaps you don't dream or maybe have such nasty erotic dreams that they don't want to be anywhere near you in your sleep, they will find Whoopi Goldberg or Patricia Arquette or Jennifer Love Hewitt and have them relay a message. But so far no one has called me on behalf of my father, no mysterious attorney has handed me one last letter, entrusted to him to be delivered only upon my dad's death, telling me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me. And what few dreams I have had of my father have fallen into two basic categories: dreams where he faked his death and dreams where he hadn't died yet so I didn't know to ask or say the things I now feel the need to ask and say.
This world, or at least my little corner of it, has no permanence. It's full of second chances. Marriage has the option of divorce, pregnancy has the option of abortion, criminal records can be sealed or expunged, classes and work days can be made up if missed, everything has an escape clause or a do-over. But death, that's the one thing that has no second chance. When someone dies they are just gone. And most of the time there's no prophetic and meaningful last sentence to carve into a tombstone, no final reconciliation of petty disputes; people don't even put personal messages in their wills anymore, if they ever did. Maybe that's just something they made up for the movies. You know, "And to Susan, my loving wife. I leave you the summer home where I proposed."
I want to talk to Smokey. I want to tell him that whatever small milestone in his life was footnoted with my name, he played a larger part in mine. Even without the tragic and untimely death part, I would never have forgotten him. I wonder if he knew that a girl he hadn't spoken to in eleven years still thought of him fondly. But I can't ask him, although if the Catholics are right I will see him again someday.
I want to talk to my dad. I want to yell at him for fucking me so badly when he died. I want to ask him if he liked me. Parents love their kids but they don't always like them. Was I a person my father liked, independent of blood? Although, in the same vein, I'm not sure I want the answer. After all, his last words to me were lies, deliberate lies which served only to put me in therapy for a year, hopped up on so many anti-seizure mood-stabilizers that I couldn't have convulsed if I'd tongue-kissed a 220 plug.
I wish I'd known they were going to die. Two perfect examples of people who knew when their time was, two pivotal people in my life whom I would have dropped everything to talk to, and it never occurred to me to call them regardless of life expectancy. I should make a list of people I would regret not calling if they were to die tomorrow and I should call them. But I won't, because that's the curse of the living. We don't open up until it's too late. Maybe having the warning, the diagnosis or death threat or execution date, is the greatest mercy there is.
May God someday have that mercy on me.
Six Months Left
I got an interesting text message last night from my friend Anne. It was a plea for help with a psych paper and it posed an interesting question. If you found out you only had six months left to live, how would you spend that time?
I called her, rather than try to type out a decent answer with my thumbs, and gave what I thought was a pretty standard answer. After the initial nervous breakdown upon hearing of my own eminent demise, I would travel to all the places I think I'll have time to see, like Ireland and an ocean. I would make videos for my daughter including some for special occasions like graduations, her wedding day, the birth of her first child, etc. I would call people who had an impact on my life and thank them and write letters to the few teachers I remember fondly, something I should do now but don't. After giving my answer, I emailed Anne the Tim McGraw song Live Like You Were Dying. I thought it appropriate and was surprised she'd never heard it.
At some point in the conversation we drifted off topic. (I know, hard to imagine two old friends, both women, could possibly drift off topic, but it happened.) I gave her my theory on what should happen after I die and told her I want my friends to laugh at me. She seemed surprised so I explained.
I have done tons of stupid things in my life. There are a lot of stories that could be told about me after my funeral. People always tell stories about the dead, but they rarely do so with the expressed intent of laughing. The people who mourn me will have their crying time and will no doubt feel compelled to share their "she was a good person" stories all by themselves. I want them to know that gathering together to have a few drinks and laugh at the many times I made an ass of myself would be a way of honoring the dead that, in this case, would be endorsed by the dead. Tell my kid all the idiotic things I've done now that it can't ruin my credibility. I figure, between Tom, Jame, and Anne, they could pretty much compile complete list of my stupidities from age 13 to my death. Like the time I bought a new pillow, and the cover had some pattern printed on it. The first night I used it I drooled in my sleep and the dye from the pattern got pulled through the pillowcase and I woke up convinced I was bleeding out of my ears. And when I got into a very heated argument with Tom about whether or not New England was a state, and he had to pull up a map of the continental US to prove me wrong. Ahhh, good times. Too many people feel guilty laughing and smiling after someone dies. I want my friends and family to laugh and smile. I want everyone to gather together at my home, pitch in to buy a weekend's worth of food and beer and wine, and relate all the memories they have the decency not to remind me of while I'm here. If, gods forbid, I die before my children are old enough to know me as an equal, I want them to learn to see me that way when I'm gone.
I probably should call the people I'd call if I were dying, but how exactly do you express gratitude to people who may not even remember you? Anne told me that one of the people on my "In case of impending death, call" list is back in town. I want to look him up, but what would I say if I did? In my mind he's still 19 years old with long blond hair and a notebook of prophetic sayings. Would meeting him now, after life has gotten a chance to turn him jaded and cynical, ruin my nostalgia? I suppose there's a certain freedom granted to those who can make the call and explain that they're dying. Dying people have nothing to lose, and an instinctive exemption from societal rules such as "Don't call the leader of a long-dead Mountain Dew cult to say thanks for making my sophomore year fun."
But in case he ever reads this, Thank you Jeremy. No doubt you are one of the few people from my life I will remember even after the Alzheimer's sets in.
I called her, rather than try to type out a decent answer with my thumbs, and gave what I thought was a pretty standard answer. After the initial nervous breakdown upon hearing of my own eminent demise, I would travel to all the places I think I'll have time to see, like Ireland and an ocean. I would make videos for my daughter including some for special occasions like graduations, her wedding day, the birth of her first child, etc. I would call people who had an impact on my life and thank them and write letters to the few teachers I remember fondly, something I should do now but don't. After giving my answer, I emailed Anne the Tim McGraw song Live Like You Were Dying. I thought it appropriate and was surprised she'd never heard it.
At some point in the conversation we drifted off topic. (I know, hard to imagine two old friends, both women, could possibly drift off topic, but it happened.) I gave her my theory on what should happen after I die and told her I want my friends to laugh at me. She seemed surprised so I explained.
I have done tons of stupid things in my life. There are a lot of stories that could be told about me after my funeral. People always tell stories about the dead, but they rarely do so with the expressed intent of laughing. The people who mourn me will have their crying time and will no doubt feel compelled to share their "she was a good person" stories all by themselves. I want them to know that gathering together to have a few drinks and laugh at the many times I made an ass of myself would be a way of honoring the dead that, in this case, would be endorsed by the dead. Tell my kid all the idiotic things I've done now that it can't ruin my credibility. I figure, between Tom, Jame, and Anne, they could pretty much compile complete list of my stupidities from age 13 to my death. Like the time I bought a new pillow, and the cover had some pattern printed on it. The first night I used it I drooled in my sleep and the dye from the pattern got pulled through the pillowcase and I woke up convinced I was bleeding out of my ears. And when I got into a very heated argument with Tom about whether or not New England was a state, and he had to pull up a map of the continental US to prove me wrong. Ahhh, good times. Too many people feel guilty laughing and smiling after someone dies. I want my friends and family to laugh and smile. I want everyone to gather together at my home, pitch in to buy a weekend's worth of food and beer and wine, and relate all the memories they have the decency not to remind me of while I'm here. If, gods forbid, I die before my children are old enough to know me as an equal, I want them to learn to see me that way when I'm gone.
I probably should call the people I'd call if I were dying, but how exactly do you express gratitude to people who may not even remember you? Anne told me that one of the people on my "In case of impending death, call" list is back in town. I want to look him up, but what would I say if I did? In my mind he's still 19 years old with long blond hair and a notebook of prophetic sayings. Would meeting him now, after life has gotten a chance to turn him jaded and cynical, ruin my nostalgia? I suppose there's a certain freedom granted to those who can make the call and explain that they're dying. Dying people have nothing to lose, and an instinctive exemption from societal rules such as "Don't call the leader of a long-dead Mountain Dew cult to say thanks for making my sophomore year fun."
But in case he ever reads this, Thank you Jeremy. No doubt you are one of the few people from my life I will remember even after the Alzheimer's sets in.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Another Boring Sunday
Sundays are so boring. My kid is playing outside, my husband is watching televised golf is some homo-erotic Tiger Woods trance, and I have just spent twenty mindless minutes skimming through the somethingawful archives. Two more loads of laundry and I'll have nothing to do until Ryan takes her shower and I assume my duty of reminding her of what she's supposed to be doing every five minutes so she doesn't zone out and forget that hot water has a shelf life. Basically my job during this time is to scream "Shampoo!" and "Soap up!" at appropriate intervals while resetting the dryer to make sure her towel stays hot. I'm such a nice mommy aren't I, warming her towel like that?
Sunday mornings always remind me of my grandmother. Not in a nostalgic home-baked cookies kind of way but rather in an insane octogenarian hopped up on sugar and Jesus kind of way. While other people may have fond memories of their dearly departed grandmothers I have none, for two reasons. One: she doesn't have the decency to dearly depart, and Two: she has never done anything in my presence which could form a fond memory. The reason Sunday mornings remind me of her are because she would always be the overnight babysitter on the rare occasion my parents went out. (Looking back, and knowing my parents from a more mature standpoint than I did then, I realize that their romantic getaways probably consisted entirely of stays in cheap hotels with piped in porn. My father was NOT a romantic.) Anyway, my grandmother, after a night of Lawrence Welk and Knots Landing, would forcibly wake me and my brother up and make us watch The Hour Of Power in an attempt to save our souls. All I really remember of the show was that it was outside and the guy, some preacher dressed like a gay choir singer, stood in front of a giant triangle, which seems even more gay, now doesn't it? I never listened to the words, mainly because my grandmother liked it and she was insane.
Here, to illustrate why I hate my grandmother, is a list of memorable things she has done or said during the years I have been unfortunate enough to know her, along with my age at the time:
1) Told me I would go to Hell if I didn't read Guideposts magazine every time I went to her house. I was 5.
2) Bent over, grabbed my foot, hiked it up farther than it ever wanted to be, and sniffed for dog poo before letting me in her door. This happened almost continuously throughout my childhood.
3) Tried to toss my elderly declawed decidedly INDOORS cat out the back door because she was convinced it was trying to watch her use the toilet. I was 7.
4) Flashed me her boobs in an attempt to convince me to be happy with a small chest, apparently using the argument that hers were huge and hurt her back. I'm still not sure how exposing herself in any way expressed back pain. I was 16.
5) Told me my boyfriend had "the pot eyes" while he stood only four feet away. I was 24.
6) Called me a whore on the street in front of my house. I was 15.
7) Told me, in a restaurant during lunch rush, that my infant daughter would starve if I didn't bottle feed her because my "boobies" were "too small to hold enough milk." I was 22.
8) Called me a slut in front of my daughter. I was 23.
9) Threatened to report me to authorities for bad parenting when she found out that two of Ryan's babysitters were lesbians. I was 24.
10) Told me it was unnatural for my white child to play with black dolls. I was 25.
11) Bought me underwear at a garage sale. Who wears used underwear? Who sells it? I was 12.
12) Accused me of robbing my nine year old cousin of her childhood by asking her discreetly where her mother kept the tampons. Apparently children have no need to know what "the time" is and by mentioning mine to her, I stole the girl's innocence. Funny thing is, I just asked which bathroom was her mom's; the kid was the one who asked if I needed a tampon. I was 15.
13) Accused me of introducing my daughter to witchcraft by buying her Harry Potter books, two years after she saw my pentagram tattoo. I was 30.
14) Told me I'd catch crabs if I didn't wear underwear. I was 29.
15) Kicked me out of her house for responding that you can't catch crabs if you shave your crotch. Hee hee; still 29.
16) Tried to be cool by buying me a grasshopper at the local VFW. I was 22 and nursing.
17) Attempted suicide to get attention, by sliding on her but down half a flight of carpeted stairs with a suicide not pinned to her chest with one of those oversized diaper pins with the pink plastic clasp. I was 18.
18) Accused me of being the black sheep of the family, while my cousin was in Leavenworth on federal drug manufacturing charges. I was 28.
19) Told me how nice my new friend was and that she seemed like she might be the good influence I so needed to have, then called her a horrible person when she found out we were sleeping together. I was 19.
20) Took my picture off the "grandkids table" and replaced it with a photo of Tom and Ryan. I was 29.
21) Faked a series of strokes to get attention. I was 28.
22) Refused to talk to the shrink when her neurologist, in response to her stroke-like attacks, wrote a letter to her family doctor asking him to cancel her Zoloft refills and let a psychiatrist prescribe all psychotropic drugs. "What does it matter what I did when I was a kid? Why won't they just give me my pills?!" I was still 28.
23) Introduced Ryan to frosted Cheerios when she had been perfectly happy with the plainer, healthier ones. I was 22; Ryan was 1.
24) Held it over my head that my cousin was so important at work that she wasn't even able to make it home for Spring Break when the rest of the family knew she was in rehab but wouldn't let me tell her. I was 25.
25) Tried to get me to listen to the tapes of family members' funerals that she sits and listens to at night. I was 26.
27) Convinced my aunt and uncle not to let me babysit their kids because I liked girls and would no doubt molest them while changing their diapers. I was 16.
28) Upon learning of my unplanned pregnancy, suggested that perhaps my uncle might want the baby. I was 21.
29) Called my father a drunk in front of me. I was, ummmm, birth to present.
30) Called my five young cousins together for an important talk and then explained that their parents were getting a divorce when they weren't. When confronted she explained by saying "Well if they aren't, they should!" I was 22; the cousins ranged in age from 8 to 16.
31) Fed my daughter baby food when she was past it because it was easier than cleaning up crumbs. I was 23, my daughter was almost 2.
32) Swaddled my infant daughter in a fleece blanket in July because "babies need to stay warm" despite all of the literature I had shown her saying exactly the opposite. I was 22.
I will no doubt add to this list in the future, but 32 things is all I can think of off the top of my head. Check back later for more.
Sunday mornings always remind me of my grandmother. Not in a nostalgic home-baked cookies kind of way but rather in an insane octogenarian hopped up on sugar and Jesus kind of way. While other people may have fond memories of their dearly departed grandmothers I have none, for two reasons. One: she doesn't have the decency to dearly depart, and Two: she has never done anything in my presence which could form a fond memory. The reason Sunday mornings remind me of her are because she would always be the overnight babysitter on the rare occasion my parents went out. (Looking back, and knowing my parents from a more mature standpoint than I did then, I realize that their romantic getaways probably consisted entirely of stays in cheap hotels with piped in porn. My father was NOT a romantic.) Anyway, my grandmother, after a night of Lawrence Welk and Knots Landing, would forcibly wake me and my brother up and make us watch The Hour Of Power in an attempt to save our souls. All I really remember of the show was that it was outside and the guy, some preacher dressed like a gay choir singer, stood in front of a giant triangle, which seems even more gay, now doesn't it? I never listened to the words, mainly because my grandmother liked it and she was insane.
Here, to illustrate why I hate my grandmother, is a list of memorable things she has done or said during the years I have been unfortunate enough to know her, along with my age at the time:
1) Told me I would go to Hell if I didn't read Guideposts magazine every time I went to her house. I was 5.
2) Bent over, grabbed my foot, hiked it up farther than it ever wanted to be, and sniffed for dog poo before letting me in her door. This happened almost continuously throughout my childhood.
3) Tried to toss my elderly declawed decidedly INDOORS cat out the back door because she was convinced it was trying to watch her use the toilet. I was 7.
4) Flashed me her boobs in an attempt to convince me to be happy with a small chest, apparently using the argument that hers were huge and hurt her back. I'm still not sure how exposing herself in any way expressed back pain. I was 16.
5) Told me my boyfriend had "the pot eyes" while he stood only four feet away. I was 24.
6) Called me a whore on the street in front of my house. I was 15.
7) Told me, in a restaurant during lunch rush, that my infant daughter would starve if I didn't bottle feed her because my "boobies" were "too small to hold enough milk." I was 22.
8) Called me a slut in front of my daughter. I was 23.
9) Threatened to report me to authorities for bad parenting when she found out that two of Ryan's babysitters were lesbians. I was 24.
10) Told me it was unnatural for my white child to play with black dolls. I was 25.
11) Bought me underwear at a garage sale. Who wears used underwear? Who sells it? I was 12.
12) Accused me of robbing my nine year old cousin of her childhood by asking her discreetly where her mother kept the tampons. Apparently children have no need to know what "the time" is and by mentioning mine to her, I stole the girl's innocence. Funny thing is, I just asked which bathroom was her mom's; the kid was the one who asked if I needed a tampon. I was 15.
13) Accused me of introducing my daughter to witchcraft by buying her Harry Potter books, two years after she saw my pentagram tattoo. I was 30.
14) Told me I'd catch crabs if I didn't wear underwear. I was 29.
15) Kicked me out of her house for responding that you can't catch crabs if you shave your crotch. Hee hee; still 29.
16) Tried to be cool by buying me a grasshopper at the local VFW. I was 22 and nursing.
17) Attempted suicide to get attention, by sliding on her but down half a flight of carpeted stairs with a suicide not pinned to her chest with one of those oversized diaper pins with the pink plastic clasp. I was 18.
18) Accused me of being the black sheep of the family, while my cousin was in Leavenworth on federal drug manufacturing charges. I was 28.
19) Told me how nice my new friend was and that she seemed like she might be the good influence I so needed to have, then called her a horrible person when she found out we were sleeping together. I was 19.
20) Took my picture off the "grandkids table" and replaced it with a photo of Tom and Ryan. I was 29.
21) Faked a series of strokes to get attention. I was 28.
22) Refused to talk to the shrink when her neurologist, in response to her stroke-like attacks, wrote a letter to her family doctor asking him to cancel her Zoloft refills and let a psychiatrist prescribe all psychotropic drugs. "What does it matter what I did when I was a kid? Why won't they just give me my pills?!" I was still 28.
23) Introduced Ryan to frosted Cheerios when she had been perfectly happy with the plainer, healthier ones. I was 22; Ryan was 1.
24) Held it over my head that my cousin was so important at work that she wasn't even able to make it home for Spring Break when the rest of the family knew she was in rehab but wouldn't let me tell her. I was 25.
25) Tried to get me to listen to the tapes of family members' funerals that she sits and listens to at night. I was 26.
27) Convinced my aunt and uncle not to let me babysit their kids because I liked girls and would no doubt molest them while changing their diapers. I was 16.
28) Upon learning of my unplanned pregnancy, suggested that perhaps my uncle might want the baby. I was 21.
29) Called my father a drunk in front of me. I was, ummmm, birth to present.
30) Called my five young cousins together for an important talk and then explained that their parents were getting a divorce when they weren't. When confronted she explained by saying "Well if they aren't, they should!" I was 22; the cousins ranged in age from 8 to 16.
31) Fed my daughter baby food when she was past it because it was easier than cleaning up crumbs. I was 23, my daughter was almost 2.
32) Swaddled my infant daughter in a fleece blanket in July because "babies need to stay warm" despite all of the literature I had shown her saying exactly the opposite. I was 22.
I will no doubt add to this list in the future, but 32 things is all I can think of off the top of my head. Check back later for more.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Why Doesn't Anyone Leave Me Comments?
That's all; just why won't anyone leave me any comments? I don't require constant praise, but a little validation would be nice. Am I wasting webspace talking to myself?
Friday, March 23, 2007
My Computer Has Gone Insane
My computer has gone insane.
I don't know much about computers. Mine runs really slow and I have no idea how to fix it. I run ad-ware and spy-ware programs daily and I defrag weekly, but it doesn't seem to help. Someone told me once to reformat, but I found out that I would have to burn every single file I have to disc and that's just way too much work, and a lot of discs, so I pretty much just deal with stuff on my own at a dos-meets-dial-up pace and ask people how to do things as I run into them. Or I google walk-throughs and take whatever bad advice I find on complaint forums, because I have no way of knowing what is bad advice and what is the good and effective advice I seek. Finally, fed up with such incompetence, my computer has mutinied. It randomly pops up alerts to announce that scheduled updates have failed, I occasionally get an extra empty beige stripe between my address bar and title bar, and lately it has started changing its own wallpaper whenever I close or minimize Sims Pets. That's the worst.
I know I don't have a virus, because I run updated anti-virus software daily, as well as several free products (AVG, trend micro, etc) and because I have never heard of the G. Gordon Liddy computer virus. Yes, I know it's ironic since I recently had my daughter write a paper on Watergate, a paper in which I took a hit for screwing up Mr. Liddy's very name, and then published it to this tiny corner of the web. I think perhaps I am the victim of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. (I like Hill, but it sounds a bit grassy-knollish even to me.)
I think perhaps high ranking Republican officials are angry at me for my Liddy faux pas and are insidiously hacking my personal computer and placing a very disturbing photo of G. Gordon Liddy, some out of shape older women in unflattering underwear, and high powered assault rifles on my desktop screen. To be honest, it's not a photo I am entirely unfamiliar with, as I recently came upon the frightening image at somethingawful mere hours before this first happened. How frightening is it? Check for yourself:
Yes, it is that horrible. It is apparently the cover of some disturbing calendar from 2001. Two thousand one! Where G. Gordon Liddy managed to find 1970s porn stars in 2001 is beyond me. Personally, I thought vanity and ego were such ingrained American traits that women who looked like this tried to avoid being seen publicly in only their Sears catalog granny panties. Although, disturbing as the photo is, I do appreciate the humor in any photo of Liddy breaking into a locked room.
I wonder, did they have scantily clad women with assault weapons at the Watergate break in? Because it would go a little way toward explaining the photo if the point were to use authentic period costumes.
Either way, I don't very much enjoy having my Sims-buzz ruined by this freak-show and his lazy-eyed girlfriends. Is the one on the floor supposed to be winking or does she have an ill-fitting glass eye, perhaps from being poked in the face by one of the guns? Oh my God, maybe she had a Grafenberg- stroke! Is that what I'll look like someday? And if so, please tell me there's a better term for it, because Grafenberg-stroke sounds a lot more like what caused it than the actual damage itself. Now that I think of it though, Grafenberg-stroke would be a great name for a band. Or a Marilyn Manson CD. But I'd hate to see the cover image.
Somehow I need to find a way to get this horrific government conspiracy / computer virus / practical joke by a secretly sentient computer with a bad sense of humor to end. And oddly enough I can't find any advice, good or bad, on any complaint forums.
I don't know much about computers. Mine runs really slow and I have no idea how to fix it. I run ad-ware and spy-ware programs daily and I defrag weekly, but it doesn't seem to help. Someone told me once to reformat, but I found out that I would have to burn every single file I have to disc and that's just way too much work, and a lot of discs, so I pretty much just deal with stuff on my own at a dos-meets-dial-up pace and ask people how to do things as I run into them. Or I google walk-throughs and take whatever bad advice I find on complaint forums, because I have no way of knowing what is bad advice and what is the good and effective advice I seek. Finally, fed up with such incompetence, my computer has mutinied. It randomly pops up alerts to announce that scheduled updates have failed, I occasionally get an extra empty beige stripe between my address bar and title bar, and lately it has started changing its own wallpaper whenever I close or minimize Sims Pets. That's the worst.
I know I don't have a virus, because I run updated anti-virus software daily, as well as several free products (AVG, trend micro, etc) and because I have never heard of the G. Gordon Liddy computer virus. Yes, I know it's ironic since I recently had my daughter write a paper on Watergate, a paper in which I took a hit for screwing up Mr. Liddy's very name, and then published it to this tiny corner of the web. I think perhaps I am the victim of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. (I like Hill, but it sounds a bit grassy-knollish even to me.)
I think perhaps high ranking Republican officials are angry at me for my Liddy faux pas and are insidiously hacking my personal computer and placing a very disturbing photo of G. Gordon Liddy, some out of shape older women in unflattering underwear, and high powered assault rifles on my desktop screen. To be honest, it's not a photo I am entirely unfamiliar with, as I recently came upon the frightening image at somethingawful mere hours before this first happened. How frightening is it? Check for yourself:
Yes, it is that horrible. It is apparently the cover of some disturbing calendar from 2001. Two thousand one! Where G. Gordon Liddy managed to find 1970s porn stars in 2001 is beyond me. Personally, I thought vanity and ego were such ingrained American traits that women who looked like this tried to avoid being seen publicly in only their Sears catalog granny panties. Although, disturbing as the photo is, I do appreciate the humor in any photo of Liddy breaking into a locked room.
I wonder, did they have scantily clad women with assault weapons at the Watergate break in? Because it would go a little way toward explaining the photo if the point were to use authentic period costumes.
Either way, I don't very much enjoy having my Sims-buzz ruined by this freak-show and his lazy-eyed girlfriends. Is the one on the floor supposed to be winking or does she have an ill-fitting glass eye, perhaps from being poked in the face by one of the guns? Oh my God, maybe she had a Grafenberg- stroke! Is that what I'll look like someday? And if so, please tell me there's a better term for it, because Grafenberg-stroke sounds a lot more like what caused it than the actual damage itself. Now that I think of it though, Grafenberg-stroke would be a great name for a band. Or a Marilyn Manson CD. But I'd hate to see the cover image.
Somehow I need to find a way to get this horrific government conspiracy / computer virus / practical joke by a secretly sentient computer with a bad sense of humor to end. And oddly enough I can't find any advice, good or bad, on any complaint forums.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
On Proselytizing Teachers
Check out this blogger's recent post. I don't want to re-write or summarize her post so I'll just direct you all to it and ask you to read it before the rest of this post.
Go on. I'll wait.
Done? Alright then. Here I go.
WHY is it so hard for people to separate their religious faith from the rest of their life? Why can't people realize that if they work in the public domain that it is just plain common sense to keep their religion to themselves? Wear a cross if you must, put a nativity on your lawn in the winter, but don't "God bless !" me when I pay for my gas. Wal*Mart took a lot of heat for saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas; apparently inclusion is anti-Christian now. But Wal*Mart should say Happy Holidays because very few of their Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc customers are going to have a Christmas anyway. I don't run around wishing people a Happy Barmitzvah unless I know they are both Jewish and also turning thirteen soon, because it makes no sense. I don't wish random people a Happy Solstice or Merry Samhain either, although I do say it to those I know it applies to. And since the ninety year old man in the scooter handing me a shopping cart with one stuck wheel doesn't know my religion it is presumptuous of him to assume that I'm Christian. The assumption seems to be that everyone either is or should be Christian and therefore the Merry Christmas greeting can be either a heartfelt pleasantry or a subtle way of saying that the other religions (or none at all) don't warrant any notice. And don't even get me started on the trend of the funny-yet-poignant signs on church lawns. I guess it's free expression but if I put a lit up letter-board on my lawn proclaiming that if you are "Finding Life A Little Dark? The Goddess Illuminates." I would definitely hear about it. But replace The Goddess with Jesus and you've got the sign in front of my local church this week. Last week it was "Jesus, Rarely Early But Never Late."
As for government employees, well they take on an extra responsibility, to not only keep
their beliefs silent but also any feelings they may have regarding other religions. And in schools, teachers have a greater responsibility because of the impressionable nature of their students and the captivity of their audience, and the authority they wield enabling them to censor students. So what it boils down to, in my opinion is this. The teacher can decide who to call on and how long to let them speak, an ability that can in effect censor any student who dares speak up against the teacher. Students are forced by law, unless their families can afford private schools or the time home needed to home-school, to attend public school and take classes taught by whomever the district chose to hire. Young children are placed daily in the care of teachers whom parents have to blindly trust. And we tell our children to believe, and in some cases to memorize, what the teacher tells them as fact. After all, a young kid doesn't know the difference between "2+2=4" and "Jesus is the only true god".
I attended public school for more than twelve years (nobody but me seems to count kindergarten) and looking back, there have been a few things I thought sounded preachy but didn't have the nerve to speak up about. For instance, my home-ec teacher went on an anti-abortion rant one day. I happen to be anti-abortion (for the most part, I do believe in moral gray areas), but I thought spouting of terms like "infanticide" and "babies torn to shreds in the womb" to be a bit much for a classroom full of fourteen year old girls.
I can also remember the sex-ed chapter of my freshman health class, taught by the boys wrestling coach. We were taught that STDs were (I am not kidding here) punishment from God for promiscuity and that if you only had sex with someone you loved you were somehow immune from the burning lesions of God's wrath. I agree, if all people saved themselves for marriage and went their entire lives with only one partner, the STD rate would go down. But here's the problem: catching diseases doesn't just hinge on your morality. You may love and trust your mate , but what if, when he was a young man full of urges and desperation, some hot little slut had gotten a hold of him? No matter who he is now, at some point he was a teenage boys with a box of tissues on his nightstand and boobs were hypnotic to him. So although you may love him dearly and trust him with all your heart, he may not have always been the same moral upstanding guy. He may not have been someone you'd trust at all. And what about cold sores? Little kids get cold sores; they aren't all sexually transmitted. But if you rub your lips and then touch your, uh, bits and pieces, you can give yourself herpes. Any cold sore below the belt is going to be recurrent and transmittable through sex. What did that little kid so to piss off God?
Now, to be fair, this particular teacher overstepped on more than just religion. I wish I had a daughter in his class now so that I could say things on her behalf I never had the guts to say on my own at that young age. He was, in addition to being the boys wrestling coach and the freshman health teacher, the sophomore girls PE teacher and one chapter in gym class was swimming. Now, for obvious medical reasons, there might be a week or so when girls don't feel like swimming. But he was having none of that; he just told us to wear tampons or flunk the class. I can remember fifteen year old girls who were completely freaked out because they found tampons to be a bit, shall we say, invasive for their tastes. But the grade for the quarter depended on it, so what choice did they have? Back then I just thought it was a little off, but now I wonder where the hell that guy thought he had any right at all to tell fifteen year old girls that their grades depended on putting anything in their vaginas. I wish I knew a girl in his class now. I would march down to that school and cause such a loud screaming scene that the police would have to remove me, and then I'd demand his immediate termination.
Can you tell that this guy still pisses me off?
Oh well, there's my two cents on teachers basically being dicks imposing their wills on students who have no choice but to hear it. And as always, I welcome comments.
Go on. I'll wait.
Done? Alright then. Here I go.
WHY is it so hard for people to separate their religious faith from the rest of their life? Why can't people realize that if they work in the public domain that it is just plain common sense to keep their religion to themselves? Wear a cross if you must, put a nativity on your lawn in the winter, but don't "God bless !" me when I pay for my gas. Wal*Mart took a lot of heat for saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas; apparently inclusion is anti-Christian now. But Wal*Mart should say Happy Holidays because very few of their Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc customers are going to have a Christmas anyway. I don't run around wishing people a Happy Barmitzvah unless I know they are both Jewish and also turning thirteen soon, because it makes no sense. I don't wish random people a Happy Solstice or Merry Samhain either, although I do say it to those I know it applies to. And since the ninety year old man in the scooter handing me a shopping cart with one stuck wheel doesn't know my religion it is presumptuous of him to assume that I'm Christian. The assumption seems to be that everyone either is or should be Christian and therefore the Merry Christmas greeting can be either a heartfelt pleasantry or a subtle way of saying that the other religions (or none at all) don't warrant any notice. And don't even get me started on the trend of the funny-yet-poignant signs on church lawns. I guess it's free expression but if I put a lit up letter-board on my lawn proclaiming that if you are "Finding Life A Little Dark? The Goddess Illuminates." I would definitely hear about it. But replace The Goddess with Jesus and you've got the sign in front of my local church this week. Last week it was "Jesus, Rarely Early But Never Late."
As for government employees, well they take on an extra responsibility, to not only keep
their beliefs silent but also any feelings they may have regarding other religions. And in schools, teachers have a greater responsibility because of the impressionable nature of their students and the captivity of their audience, and the authority they wield enabling them to censor students. So what it boils down to, in my opinion is this. The teacher can decide who to call on and how long to let them speak, an ability that can in effect censor any student who dares speak up against the teacher. Students are forced by law, unless their families can afford private schools or the time home needed to home-school, to attend public school and take classes taught by whomever the district chose to hire. Young children are placed daily in the care of teachers whom parents have to blindly trust. And we tell our children to believe, and in some cases to memorize, what the teacher tells them as fact. After all, a young kid doesn't know the difference between "2+2=4" and "Jesus is the only true god".
I attended public school for more than twelve years (nobody but me seems to count kindergarten) and looking back, there have been a few things I thought sounded preachy but didn't have the nerve to speak up about. For instance, my home-ec teacher went on an anti-abortion rant one day. I happen to be anti-abortion (for the most part, I do believe in moral gray areas), but I thought spouting of terms like "infanticide" and "babies torn to shreds in the womb" to be a bit much for a classroom full of fourteen year old girls.
I can also remember the sex-ed chapter of my freshman health class, taught by the boys wrestling coach. We were taught that STDs were (I am not kidding here) punishment from God for promiscuity and that if you only had sex with someone you loved you were somehow immune from the burning lesions of God's wrath. I agree, if all people saved themselves for marriage and went their entire lives with only one partner, the STD rate would go down. But here's the problem: catching diseases doesn't just hinge on your morality. You may love and trust your mate , but what if, when he was a young man full of urges and desperation, some hot little slut had gotten a hold of him? No matter who he is now, at some point he was a teenage boys with a box of tissues on his nightstand and boobs were hypnotic to him. So although you may love him dearly and trust him with all your heart, he may not have always been the same moral upstanding guy. He may not have been someone you'd trust at all. And what about cold sores? Little kids get cold sores; they aren't all sexually transmitted. But if you rub your lips and then touch your, uh, bits and pieces, you can give yourself herpes. Any cold sore below the belt is going to be recurrent and transmittable through sex. What did that little kid so to piss off God?
Now, to be fair, this particular teacher overstepped on more than just religion. I wish I had a daughter in his class now so that I could say things on her behalf I never had the guts to say on my own at that young age. He was, in addition to being the boys wrestling coach and the freshman health teacher, the sophomore girls PE teacher and one chapter in gym class was swimming. Now, for obvious medical reasons, there might be a week or so when girls don't feel like swimming. But he was having none of that; he just told us to wear tampons or flunk the class. I can remember fifteen year old girls who were completely freaked out because they found tampons to be a bit, shall we say, invasive for their tastes. But the grade for the quarter depended on it, so what choice did they have? Back then I just thought it was a little off, but now I wonder where the hell that guy thought he had any right at all to tell fifteen year old girls that their grades depended on putting anything in their vaginas. I wish I knew a girl in his class now. I would march down to that school and cause such a loud screaming scene that the police would have to remove me, and then I'd demand his immediate termination.
Can you tell that this guy still pisses me off?
Oh well, there's my two cents on teachers basically being dicks imposing their wills on students who have no choice but to hear it. And as always, I welcome comments.
Monday, March 12, 2007
When Did Committing A Crime Stop Being Illegal?
When did the word illegal stop meaning bad? I mean, illegal possession or illegal distribution or illegal production are all terms which imply crime, and with it the possibility of prosecution. But somehow it has become racist to argue that illegal immigration is bad. Why?
Very few people I know, although there are some out there, are against immigration. After all, this nation was built on immigration. Well, that and the genocidal destruction of the Native Americans but that's a bit off-topic. But this country also has laws, like other countries do, about how to go about immigrating. Maybe the laws are ridiculous and overly restrictive, but they are the law. And breaking a law USED to mean committing a crime, and committing a crime USED to mean becoming a criminal. But these days you get into a lot of trouble for calling an illegal immigrant a criminal. There are huge demonstrations protesting the prosecution of illegal immigrants and people who try to point out that breaking the law = criminal activity = being a criminal are called racists. But, aren't illegal immigrants from Europe, though not as common, also criminals? Aren't they all, regardless of race, breaking the law? And wouldn't they be prosecuted as well?
Illegal immigration isn't just about Mexicans running through the desert. It's also Asians arriving in California on cargo ships and Haitians sneaking into Florida and countless others from all over the world. And the one thing they all have in common is that they want to be here and don't want to follow the laws to do it. Now why should any country welcome people who demonstrate from the very beginning that they have no intention of following the laws? If I were a landlord and my new renter refused to pay his deposit, why would I let him stay? How would I be expected to assume that he would pay the rent after that?
I read about this town and I wonder why they are in trouble? As far as I can tell, they're just trying to pass local laws to enforce federal ones. People aren't supposed to employ illegal immigrants anyway; why not have a business license depend on it? Why not make it harder for the criminals to get away with the crime? If it's illegal for them to live here, why not make it harder for them to find a place to live? As for making English the official language, I don't know if they can actually do that, but I can see why they'd want to. It would at least make it easier for people to communicate, English being what most of the country has historically spoken.
See, what people often don't understand is that the U.S. doesn't have an official language. Canada has two, in some places anyway, but we have none. There is no policy stating that America is an English speaking country; it just tends to be one. And it used to be that immigrants came her to become Americans, to live the American Dream as they saw it. No one waved a flag as proudly as an immigrant on the Fourth of July. Sure, people talked about the old country and taught their children to cook the food from back home. But they came to be Americans and they devoted a lot of energy to speaking the language of their new home. But now it is possible for a child to be born in the U.S. and live a long life never learning English and face very little inconvenience. There's a division now between Americans who want to BE American and people who just want to live here but not claim the country as their own.
The funny thing is, other countries don't see us this way. No matter what language you speak or where your family came from to get here, if you travel to another country they will call you an American. Over here you may be Irish, but in Ireland you're an American and by definition NOT Irish. The rest of the world can see us in a way we can't seem to see ourselves anymore, as one unified group.
We should be one unified group. We should be one nation together and regardless of ancestry or origin we should identify as Americans regardless of what country our last name came from. For a lot of us, our ancestors traveled to this country from Europe in terrible conditions, on crowded boats with few belongings just for the chance to become Americans. What would they think if they could see what immigration is like now? Refusing to even enter the country by the law, stealing social security numbers, self-segregating into communities like tiny foreign countries where only the native language and customs are followed.
Now I (admittedly) can't speak for blacks. Those crowded boats were a whole different story. But after all of the sacrifice and determination it took over so many years to be recognized as full American citizens, I would imagine it to be difficult not to resent a little the migrant worker bitching about being treated like a criminal for trying to circumvent any immigration processes at all. Paperwork? Red tape? Waiting? I can only assume that to see someone complaining about those hardships would sting a bit to someone whose family was, only a few generations back, fighting to make the jump, to be ALLOWED to make the jump, from American property to American citizen.
I don't believe we should wall off our country and never let another immigrant in. Like I said, this country was built on immigration. But let's start calling it what it is when people break the laws: a crime.
Very few people I know, although there are some out there, are against immigration. After all, this nation was built on immigration. Well, that and the genocidal destruction of the Native Americans but that's a bit off-topic. But this country also has laws, like other countries do, about how to go about immigrating. Maybe the laws are ridiculous and overly restrictive, but they are the law. And breaking a law USED to mean committing a crime, and committing a crime USED to mean becoming a criminal. But these days you get into a lot of trouble for calling an illegal immigrant a criminal. There are huge demonstrations protesting the prosecution of illegal immigrants and people who try to point out that breaking the law = criminal activity = being a criminal are called racists. But, aren't illegal immigrants from Europe, though not as common, also criminals? Aren't they all, regardless of race, breaking the law? And wouldn't they be prosecuted as well?
Illegal immigration isn't just about Mexicans running through the desert. It's also Asians arriving in California on cargo ships and Haitians sneaking into Florida and countless others from all over the world. And the one thing they all have in common is that they want to be here and don't want to follow the laws to do it. Now why should any country welcome people who demonstrate from the very beginning that they have no intention of following the laws? If I were a landlord and my new renter refused to pay his deposit, why would I let him stay? How would I be expected to assume that he would pay the rent after that?
I read about this town and I wonder why they are in trouble? As far as I can tell, they're just trying to pass local laws to enforce federal ones. People aren't supposed to employ illegal immigrants anyway; why not have a business license depend on it? Why not make it harder for the criminals to get away with the crime? If it's illegal for them to live here, why not make it harder for them to find a place to live? As for making English the official language, I don't know if they can actually do that, but I can see why they'd want to. It would at least make it easier for people to communicate, English being what most of the country has historically spoken.
See, what people often don't understand is that the U.S. doesn't have an official language. Canada has two, in some places anyway, but we have none. There is no policy stating that America is an English speaking country; it just tends to be one. And it used to be that immigrants came her to become Americans, to live the American Dream as they saw it. No one waved a flag as proudly as an immigrant on the Fourth of July. Sure, people talked about the old country and taught their children to cook the food from back home. But they came to be Americans and they devoted a lot of energy to speaking the language of their new home. But now it is possible for a child to be born in the U.S. and live a long life never learning English and face very little inconvenience. There's a division now between Americans who want to BE American and people who just want to live here but not claim the country as their own.
The funny thing is, other countries don't see us this way. No matter what language you speak or where your family came from to get here, if you travel to another country they will call you an American. Over here you may be Irish, but in Ireland you're an American and by definition NOT Irish. The rest of the world can see us in a way we can't seem to see ourselves anymore, as one unified group.
We should be one unified group. We should be one nation together and regardless of ancestry or origin we should identify as Americans regardless of what country our last name came from. For a lot of us, our ancestors traveled to this country from Europe in terrible conditions, on crowded boats with few belongings just for the chance to become Americans. What would they think if they could see what immigration is like now? Refusing to even enter the country by the law, stealing social security numbers, self-segregating into communities like tiny foreign countries where only the native language and customs are followed.
Now I (admittedly) can't speak for blacks. Those crowded boats were a whole different story. But after all of the sacrifice and determination it took over so many years to be recognized as full American citizens, I would imagine it to be difficult not to resent a little the migrant worker bitching about being treated like a criminal for trying to circumvent any immigration processes at all. Paperwork? Red tape? Waiting? I can only assume that to see someone complaining about those hardships would sting a bit to someone whose family was, only a few generations back, fighting to make the jump, to be ALLOWED to make the jump, from American property to American citizen.
I don't believe we should wall off our country and never let another immigrant in. Like I said, this country was built on immigration. But let's start calling it what it is when people break the laws: a crime.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Why Protect The Guilty
I've noticed a lot of news blurbs about sex offender registry lists, and the websites they're posted on, being unfair to the offenders, even violating their civil rights.
Do you know any sex offenders? I've gone through the state site here and found a few acquaintances and most of them didn't, in my mind, do much wrong. See, according to Illinois law, if a guy is seventeen and his girlfriend is fifteen they can have all the sex they want because they are presumed to be at about the same maturity level. In other words, they're both teens so neither one is really taking advantage of the other's naivete. But once the guy turns eighteen then the sex they've already been having becomes a criminal act, punishable by jail time and lifelong registration. The problem is that the legal terms listed on the offender lists don't make much sense to the average person. What is the difference between Criminal Sexual Abuse and Criminal Sexual Assault? And even if a person is able to decipher that the "abuse" charge is the current wording of what used to be called Statutory Rape, the registry often doesn't list the victim's age, or only lists it in a vague categorical sense (Victim between the ages of 13 and 17). Well if you're nineteen there's a bit of a difference between sex with a thirteen year old and sex with a seventeen year old. So I have my problems with the list as it stands; I think it should somehow differentiate between predatory offenders and college kids who kept their high school girlfriends. But I understand why we have the online registry lists, while apparently some people don't.
We have the list so that parents, like myself, can check every once in a while to see if maybe there's a pedophile living down the block, or to make sure that this weekend's sleep-over party isn't being held at the home of a rapist. Yeah, I know; the registry only shows the ones who've been caught so the chance is still there regardless. But it gives me a chance to at least keep my daughter away from a portion of the perverts out there and it bothers me when people get upset that it exists. I'm sure that it must be difficult to be a registered sex offender, to have your name and crime on a website anyone can look up at will. I'm sure it comes with some pretty extreme prejudice and even the threat of violence. But although I'm sure many pedophiles and rapists are fine upstanding people I also believe that all people are judged by their past behavior and actions and no one will ever convince me that sex offenders are the one group who should be exempt from that universal truth. And does the threat facing registered offenders from the general public even come close to the threat these people may POSE to the general public? My daughter is young; she can't help but look young and it is readily apparent to anyone who sets eyes on her that she is young. What is not readily apparent to anyone is whether or not the guy on the bench at the park wants to violate her. See, the predators want a level of anonymity their victims don't have, and I don't buy that.
It must be a bitch to have the cops at your door every time a kid goes missing or a woman is raped. It must be a hassle when your kids' friends aren't allowed to come over and play. And getting dirty looks at the grocery store when all you want to do it buy your food and leave must be pretty humiliating. But that's the price you pay for your sins. Having the urges is not a crime, and no matter how offensive those urges may be to the rest of society it shouldn't be a crime. Thoughts are not criminal acts; actions are. And once a person chooses to act on the urge to grope a kid or force someone into having sex with them, they take on the risk of getting caught and paying the price. All the dirty looks and restrictions are part of that price. And if it's hard to see your kids being told that their friends can't come over then do the right thing and move out of the family home. It's probably best that the children not live with a sex offender anyway.
Do you know any sex offenders? I've gone through the state site here and found a few acquaintances and most of them didn't, in my mind, do much wrong. See, according to Illinois law, if a guy is seventeen and his girlfriend is fifteen they can have all the sex they want because they are presumed to be at about the same maturity level. In other words, they're both teens so neither one is really taking advantage of the other's naivete. But once the guy turns eighteen then the sex they've already been having becomes a criminal act, punishable by jail time and lifelong registration. The problem is that the legal terms listed on the offender lists don't make much sense to the average person. What is the difference between Criminal Sexual Abuse and Criminal Sexual Assault? And even if a person is able to decipher that the "abuse" charge is the current wording of what used to be called Statutory Rape, the registry often doesn't list the victim's age, or only lists it in a vague categorical sense (Victim between the ages of 13 and 17). Well if you're nineteen there's a bit of a difference between sex with a thirteen year old and sex with a seventeen year old. So I have my problems with the list as it stands; I think it should somehow differentiate between predatory offenders and college kids who kept their high school girlfriends. But I understand why we have the online registry lists, while apparently some people don't.
We have the list so that parents, like myself, can check every once in a while to see if maybe there's a pedophile living down the block, or to make sure that this weekend's sleep-over party isn't being held at the home of a rapist. Yeah, I know; the registry only shows the ones who've been caught so the chance is still there regardless. But it gives me a chance to at least keep my daughter away from a portion of the perverts out there and it bothers me when people get upset that it exists. I'm sure that it must be difficult to be a registered sex offender, to have your name and crime on a website anyone can look up at will. I'm sure it comes with some pretty extreme prejudice and even the threat of violence. But although I'm sure many pedophiles and rapists are fine upstanding people I also believe that all people are judged by their past behavior and actions and no one will ever convince me that sex offenders are the one group who should be exempt from that universal truth. And does the threat facing registered offenders from the general public even come close to the threat these people may POSE to the general public? My daughter is young; she can't help but look young and it is readily apparent to anyone who sets eyes on her that she is young. What is not readily apparent to anyone is whether or not the guy on the bench at the park wants to violate her. See, the predators want a level of anonymity their victims don't have, and I don't buy that.
It must be a bitch to have the cops at your door every time a kid goes missing or a woman is raped. It must be a hassle when your kids' friends aren't allowed to come over and play. And getting dirty looks at the grocery store when all you want to do it buy your food and leave must be pretty humiliating. But that's the price you pay for your sins. Having the urges is not a crime, and no matter how offensive those urges may be to the rest of society it shouldn't be a crime. Thoughts are not criminal acts; actions are. And once a person chooses to act on the urge to grope a kid or force someone into having sex with them, they take on the risk of getting caught and paying the price. All the dirty looks and restrictions are part of that price. And if it's hard to see your kids being told that their friends can't come over then do the right thing and move out of the family home. It's probably best that the children not live with a sex offender anyway.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Why The Little Guy Should Quit, And Other Thoughts
I'm a democrat, but even more so, I'm a Bush-hater. I laugh at anti-Bush bumper stickers, I felt the suffocating weight of despair after the 2004 elections, and I seriously wonder who besides the theocrats could possibly believe that the man is anything but dangerous to the future of this nation. He has proclaimed himself to be the voice of God, has proposed a constitutional amendment not only legalizing but forcing discrimination against law-abiding tax-paying U.S. citizens because his interpretation of his religion endorses it (Doesn't that same bible say that unmarried sexually active women should be stoned to death? I wonder then, about the fate of his own daughters.), has picked apart the meaning and intent of the Geneva Convention more than Clinton ever did with the word sex, and has managed to start not one but two wars (and then effectively abandoned the one against the people who actually attacked us). So yes, I'm a Bush-hater. And if anyone can tell me one thing he has done that may actually benefit this country, without throwing religious beliefs at me, I welcome and encourage your comments. And for the record, the war in Iraq doesn't count. Yes Saddam was a bad man and we got him. But the world is full of bad men and it's not worth, in my opinion, 2000+ American lives per villain to run around and dig them all out of holes. Kill Saddam, kill 2000+ American troops, kill Saddam, kill 2000+ American troops. The scales aren't even close on that one, sorry.
So imagine my joy when the Democratic party shows promise with not one but two promising presidential hopefuls. Yes, there are going to be people who will vote against them rather than for the name beside the hole they do punch, but for the most part it's Obama vs. Clinton in the primary. I know it; everybody knows it. But now the other democratic hopefuls are running around pouting that they're being left out of the spotlight. Hey! We finally have the spotlight! As far as I'm concerned the rest of the dems should take a cue from Vilsack and drop out and leave the primary to the main two. Then whoever wins should put the other on their ticket. Obama Clinton 08 or Clinton Obama 08. Either way it's the best chance we have of keeping this country out of the Bush followers' hands.
This country is fighting theocracies around the world, yet the conservative Christian right wants to make us one as well. When we fought the "Godless Communists" we didn't denounce religion, so why should we live by a centuries-old book while fighting injustices which are clear evidence of what happens when a nation lives by a centuries-old book? Islamic law or Christian law. They both boil down to interpretations of words translated over and over again and then twisted to mean whatever people want them to mean or think they should mean. Yes, there are passages in the bible warning of the evils of homosexual sex. But there are warnings just as stern against premarital sex and against adultery whether or not you're the one cheating (coveting ring a bell?), yet no one tries to push constitutional bans on single people having sex, or against allowing people to marry their former mistresses or male equivalent. And why? Because even though the bible mentions a lot of places you should not stick a penis, as well as times when not to stick it there, unless it grosses out the straight white male elite it gets kind of downplayed. According to the bible it's a sin to even jerk off about another man's wife. And yet, most of the sex symbols today are married and no congressman rallies against that. We all know that when you put Halle Berry in a catsuit and tell her to crawl around and purr with her back arched, very few male audience member are going to go home raving about how well she mimicked a siamese. No, those men are going to go home, pre-order the DVD, and stock up on tissues, even though she was married at the time of the filming. Well BAM, you're going to hell. You just coveted another man's wife; that's a commandment you're breaking and even the fags didn't make it into the top ten. But the Republicans want to jerk off about married women, and even the single ones want to get laid. But for the most part, they don't want to suck dick or take it in the bum so they pounce all over that as being an Abomination.
It bothers me that these people may once again choose the president. And it bothers me even more that the little guys, the Chris Dodds and Bill Richardsons, might actually take some votes away from the Big Two. Sure, it's just the primary now. But what if one of them decides to go Lieberman and run anyway? Independents don't win the presidency. This country may be ready to elect a woman or a black man president, but not an independent. Perot, Nader, they just took votes away from the other candidates. And the Democrats can't afford to lose any votes; didn't 2000 teach us that already?
Of course, the biggest fear would be that somehow one of these guys could actually win the primary. Hillary (although I still question her electability) has the closest thing to presidential experience a person can get without having been President or VP, and Obama has some sort of other-worldly charisma that fills stadiums and generates Beatlemania screams. Those two might be able to win over some swing voters, but an unknown senator from Delaware? I don't think so. My money is on an Obama - Clinton ticket.
And as for the whole "Obama isn't black because he's not a slave's descendant" thing that seems to have gripped the media lately: WTF does black mean anyway? I don't seem to recall too many black Americans arguing whenever Nelson Mandella was referred to as being black. And thirty years ago the black community was wearing African inspired clothing and Afros and naming their daughters Shaniqua. Why is an African man (second generation notwithstanding) suddenly not black? If you want to argue that he's not black, argue that his mother's white. That at least makes sense.
So imagine my joy when the Democratic party shows promise with not one but two promising presidential hopefuls. Yes, there are going to be people who will vote against them rather than for the name beside the hole they do punch, but for the most part it's Obama vs. Clinton in the primary. I know it; everybody knows it. But now the other democratic hopefuls are running around pouting that they're being left out of the spotlight. Hey! We finally have the spotlight! As far as I'm concerned the rest of the dems should take a cue from Vilsack and drop out and leave the primary to the main two. Then whoever wins should put the other on their ticket. Obama Clinton 08 or Clinton Obama 08. Either way it's the best chance we have of keeping this country out of the Bush followers' hands.
This country is fighting theocracies around the world, yet the conservative Christian right wants to make us one as well. When we fought the "Godless Communists" we didn't denounce religion, so why should we live by a centuries-old book while fighting injustices which are clear evidence of what happens when a nation lives by a centuries-old book? Islamic law or Christian law. They both boil down to interpretations of words translated over and over again and then twisted to mean whatever people want them to mean or think they should mean. Yes, there are passages in the bible warning of the evils of homosexual sex. But there are warnings just as stern against premarital sex and against adultery whether or not you're the one cheating (coveting ring a bell?), yet no one tries to push constitutional bans on single people having sex, or against allowing people to marry their former mistresses or male equivalent. And why? Because even though the bible mentions a lot of places you should not stick a penis, as well as times when not to stick it there, unless it grosses out the straight white male elite it gets kind of downplayed. According to the bible it's a sin to even jerk off about another man's wife. And yet, most of the sex symbols today are married and no congressman rallies against that. We all know that when you put Halle Berry in a catsuit and tell her to crawl around and purr with her back arched, very few male audience member are going to go home raving about how well she mimicked a siamese. No, those men are going to go home, pre-order the DVD, and stock up on tissues, even though she was married at the time of the filming. Well BAM, you're going to hell. You just coveted another man's wife; that's a commandment you're breaking and even the fags didn't make it into the top ten. But the Republicans want to jerk off about married women, and even the single ones want to get laid. But for the most part, they don't want to suck dick or take it in the bum so they pounce all over that as being an Abomination.
It bothers me that these people may once again choose the president. And it bothers me even more that the little guys, the Chris Dodds and Bill Richardsons, might actually take some votes away from the Big Two. Sure, it's just the primary now. But what if one of them decides to go Lieberman and run anyway? Independents don't win the presidency. This country may be ready to elect a woman or a black man president, but not an independent. Perot, Nader, they just took votes away from the other candidates. And the Democrats can't afford to lose any votes; didn't 2000 teach us that already?
Of course, the biggest fear would be that somehow one of these guys could actually win the primary. Hillary (although I still question her electability) has the closest thing to presidential experience a person can get without having been President or VP, and Obama has some sort of other-worldly charisma that fills stadiums and generates Beatlemania screams. Those two might be able to win over some swing voters, but an unknown senator from Delaware? I don't think so. My money is on an Obama - Clinton ticket.
And as for the whole "Obama isn't black because he's not a slave's descendant" thing that seems to have gripped the media lately: WTF does black mean anyway? I don't seem to recall too many black Americans arguing whenever Nelson Mandella was referred to as being black. And thirty years ago the black community was wearing African inspired clothing and Afros and naming their daughters Shaniqua. Why is an African man (second generation notwithstanding) suddenly not black? If you want to argue that he's not black, argue that his mother's white. That at least makes sense.
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