Latest disgusting trend:

French manicures on toes. It's just dumb, and here's why. A French manicure on hands is where the nail is painted some neutral beige or pink color and then the overhang, the long part of the nail that isn't attached to the finger and is normally a lighter shade because of it, is painted white. It's a lovely type of manicure to have, designed to look natural but enhanced. But on toes it's stupid because the white stripe is, by necessity, down where the nail is still attached to the toe. So at absolute best, it seems designed to look as though you've shoved something under your toenails to pry them up and away from the toes, and at worst it looks like you just have long nasty toenails that need to be trimmed. And I think some women are actually growing their toenails out for this look. And let me tell you, talons are not attractive. Not unless you have the gift of flight and a need for ocean fish.

Again

I'm pregnant, again. I'm due on Tommy's second birthday. This will be another long, hot, summer.

A sad realization

Why are some Republicans/social conservatives so selfish? And why do they deny it when you call them on it? They say "I don't think it's the government's job to take care of me" when they mean "I don't think the government should be able to help people." They say "I don't think there are really that many uninsured people" when they mean "My friends and family have insurance which is all I care about." "I don't think global warming is caused by people" means "I don't want to change anything I do so I'm going to deflect responsibility." "Gay marriage violates religious freedom" means "I don't want things I don't do to be considered as valid as things that I do do."

I used to believe that most people hadn't had the opportunity to see things from another viewpoint, that healthy debate could help bring people together. But I don't anymore. Some people wouldn't care if everyone but them were dying in the streets, as long as they were left alone and unaffected. It's Dickensian and it ruins just a little bit of my faith in the human race. But hey, at least it's not socialist.

One week and counting

Hanukkah is on the eleventh this year and while I'm not Jewish, I can't wait! Every year I make delicious yummy latkes on the first day of Hanukkah and I am in such a mood for them that it's driving me nuts. I have all the ingredients, but they're not the simplest thing to do so I don't think I'll be making them early. Plus, it's probably not a good idea to cook with hot oil when there's no one here to watch Tommy while I do it. It's just . . . the thought of yummy crispy potatoey oniony latkes with warm melty sour cream on them, it drives me crazy. I fear nothing will taste good today with this craving in my mind. But, for anyone who may want to know what I'm talking about, here is my latke recipe. Enjoy!




2 lg. baking potatoes or 4 med. potatoes, peeled
1/2 sm. onion
2 eggs
2 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Vegetable oil

Grate potatoes into large bowl. Grate onion into bowl. Drain off excess potato liquid. Beat in eggs, then stir in flour, salt and pepper. Heat about 1/4 inch oil in a large skillet. Drop potato mixture by tablespoonfuls into hot oil. Brown just until edges are crisp. Turn and brown other side. Serve hot. Latkes are traditionally served with sour cream or applesauce. Makes about 4 servings.

Best Article Ever

From Dan Savage. In part:

When someone tells me that gay and lesbians are going to hell I concede the point—any attempt to argue with someone about their religious beliefs will be interpreted as an attack—and move on to the obvious followup question: Anybody else going to hell? Any other groups of people? Or is just us? How about the Jews? Are the Jews going to hell? Non-Catholics? Christian Scientists? Are Mormons going to hell? Seventh Day Adventists? How about the Scientologists? Atheists, obviously, but what about agnostics? Wiccans? Buddhists? Muslims? Zoroastrians?

It's the quickest way to make religious conservatives and their heavens and their hells look ridiculous. Because they don't just believe "sinners" are going to hell. They don't just believe that gays and lesbians and adulterers and murderers and other people who have committed discrete sinful acts—they don't believe in gay people, only the sin of gay sex—are going to hell. They also believe that other large groups of people—groups that number in the hundreds of millions—are going to hell too. Here's the dirty little secret that spoils the modern ecumenical anti-gay hate fest: Most "people of faith" believe that people of other faiths—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the wrong kinds of Christianity—are going to hell. Evangelicals think Catholics are going to hell, Catholics think everybody who isn't Catholic is going to hell, all conservative Christians think the Jews are going to hell, and on and on.

And yet you don't see conservative Christians out there attacking the civil rights of all the other people they believe are going to hell. They may proselytize, sure, they may try to save the souls lost to the Whore of Babylon (that would be the Catholic Church, according to traditional Lutherans), but they don't attempt to persecute the Jews (anymore), the atheists (anymore), the other-kinds-of-Christians (anymore), the yoga instructors (really). Conservative Christians like the mayor of Vallejo and the cardinal are capable of sharing this world with sinners and apostates and infidels who enjoy full civil equality—atheists can marry! you can't fire someone just for being Jewish! yoga is totally legal in all 50 states!—content in the knowledge that God will punish the sinners and apostates and infidels after death. So, hey, no need to punish them here on earth! Because eternal torment is punishment enough, right? At least conservative Christians regard eternal torment as punishment enough where, say, the Jews and atheists and yoga instructors are concerned—at least they do now—and so they refrain from tormenting or attempting to disenfranchise Jews and atheists and yoga instructors here on earth.

All gay people want is the same deal the Jews and the atheists and the yoga instructors have got: full legal and civil equality, all the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens, equal protections under the law while we're all here on earth together.

just to get it off my chest

• Laptop, not labtop

• Dilated, not dialated

• regardless, not irregardless

• couldn't care less, not could care less. Unless you actually care, in which case I suppose it would be possible for you to care less than you do.

• clitter-us, not clit-TORE-us

• corroded, not creoded.

• lose as in lost, loose as in not tight

• they're/their/there figure them out

• than denotes relation (more this than that), then denotes time (do this, then that). Don't say "I wish I had more then I do," unless you mean that when you wish for more, you then have it.

• there is no A in tomorrow

• 'deaf' means unable to hear. 'death' means unable to hear for a whole other reason.

• The new terrorist prison in Illinois is in Thomson, not Thompson. I don't know why it bugs me, but it's important to the Thomson population that you not butcher their name. And on the same note......

• The city is Joe-lee-ette, not Jolly-ette.

• TMI, but I have a cervix, not a cervex. Unimportant, I know, but it's up there with....

• It's nuclear, not nucular

• They're fringe benefits, not French benefits

• it's definitely (as in finite), not definately.