Rectory Entrance

Top pick

2009-05-26T20:15:00.003-04:00

I like to think of baby names in my spare time. I don't know why. But I thought of a gem today: Ophelia Amelia. You heard me. That's what I'm naming my baby girl in seven years. And when I'm angry, it will be impossible to call her both names without sounding completely stupid.

Thoughts are hard

2009-05-20T22:28:00.005-04:00

Which is why I began two blogposts since the last one and scrapped them midway through. But I'm feeling the need to write something. So I'm cheating and using a modified prompt from One Minute Writer. The prompt is to write about a memorable summer activity you enjoyed as a child, but I decided to reminisce about a summer activity that I did not enjoy. I know, I'm so subversive sometimes.

My mom had a loosely-enforced summertime rule regarding the wearing of innertubes, swimmies, and the like in the pool: You have to wear them until you pass swim lessons. I say "loosely-enforced" because, like most of her rules, I could generally whine and wheedle my way out of them (don't judge my mom. You don't know the piercing hell that was/is my tantrum voice). However, it would seem a rule such as this--one designed for safety--wouldn't be up for compromise. But, dear reader, let me tell you: Had she actually enforced it, I would have been wearing my red rubber innertube-swimsuit until I moved out of the house. I never learned to swim.

It's not that I'm afraid of water. On the contrary, I always look forward to pool excursions. It's that I am supremely unathletic. My body simply refuses to move the way it should. Water gets up my nose, no matter how hard I try to blow out underwater. Diving inevitably ends in bellyflops. A simple freestyle stroke turns to a doggie paddle, and a float always ends in a sink. As recently as last summer friends tried to get me to execute a successful float on my back. I was relaxed, head back, arms out, and my legs still refused to remain horizontal. I'm very dense, you see. I can't tread water in the same way that other people can, either. The only way I can stay afloat in one place is by kicking as fast as I can like I'm riding a unicycle, while simulataneously sweeping my arms. If I try to do it slowly, the sea eats me.

Oh, and I still hold my nose when I go underwater. GOD HELP YOU if you dunk me before I have a chance to pinch my nostrils shut.

I can't recall the order in which I was signed up for swim lessons, but I do recall at least three separate summers in which my mom attempted to instill aquatic knowledge in my young mind. There was Mr. Doug, a large hairy man with a bushy mustache. I believe his swim lessons were in his home pool, but I could be wrong. We have a home movie of this debacle. I'm blissfully doggie paddling along in arm swimmies, a giant styrofoam q-tip under my armpits for extra support. I laugh and splash, and make silly jokes with Mr. Doug. Then Mr. Doug takes away my q-tip, THAT MONSTER. I flail and cry, my head dipping underwater and begging for mercy. After a good ten minutes of watching me sputter and die, Mr. Doug finally gives up and deposits me, still clinging to his hairy chest, on the side of the pool. There I curl up into an angry ball, betrayed.

I don't remember the second swim lessons at all, except that a pretty blonde lady (maybe a teen, who knows) taught it. Also, a failure, because that led to the final swim lesson at a local country club. I think I was about 8 or 9 by that time, and had to be placed with some younger kids. That probably didn't encourage me to take the lessons very seriously, and I recall mostly splashing around and ignoring the instructor. One day we had a CPR lesson, and instead of getting to be in the pool we had to sit on the side and watch demonstration after demonstration. I remember being hot, and thinking I can go into the water if I make it look like an accident. So I slipped off the side into the deep end and let myself sink to the bottom. Then, I kicked my way back up to the top, expecting the instructor to yell at me. Instead, she praised me for knowing how to get back up, and I was pleased that my deception was successful. THAT is what I learned from those lessons.

I'm pretty sure that because I disliked swim lessons so much as a child, and was so awful to my instructors, it's my cosmic fate that someday I'll be the sole survivor of a plane crash only to land in the middle of a small, relatively shallow lake/river/pond/swimmin' hole, and that I will drown right then and there with onlookers lamenting "if only she learned to swim." Or that one day I will have a child that I take to the beach, and he will get caught in a rip tide, and I will only be able to shout helplessly from the beach, "I'M SORRY JOHNNY. MOMMY HAS TO HOLD HER NOSE IN THE WATER AND SHE CAN'T REACH YOU WITH ONLY ONE ARM, NOW CAN SHE?"

Even worse: My mother will show up one day and demand I wear my swimmies again. She would.

This infant is actually rescuing me.

I am the Elmer Fudd of real estate

2009-05-08T22:24:00.004-04:00

All week we've been out there: Silently stalking our prey. Meeting strangers on corners, following them into buildings. What we seek is the most dangerous game: ~~Man~~ ~~Orca whales~~ Apartments.

Actually, I'm beginning to think murder/whale slaughter might be easier than this. We have pretty specific requirements: At least one bedroom, a space big enough to fit the junk that's in our current apartment, a dishwasher, in-building laundry. As it turns out, these are steep requests of any neighborhood outside of our current residence. I've lost count of how many apartments we've looked at, because they all blur into one blob that looks like this:

Broker: Okay, I have a great place to show you. You guys will love it.
Me: Does it have a dishwasher?
Broker: Oh yeah, all these units have them.
*arrive at each unit. Discover that NO UNIT HAS A DISHWASHER, let alone a functional kitchen*
Broker: Oh, that's weird, I could have sworn there was a dishwasher. Let's look at the next one, you'll really love this one.
Me: Is there laundry in the building?
Broker: Oh yeah, all these units have them...

Repeat, ad nauseum. Each unit we've looked at is either way too old, in terrible shape, has zero kitchen cabinet space, has no dishwasher, no laundry in the building, dead children in the closet, or is out of our price range.

So we'll see a couple more tomorrow. There was one unit that was a maybe...the deal is that it has an identical unit that is getting renovated, but we can't see it for at least another week or so. The unrenovated twin wasn't something I would take, but if the renovations are what the broker describes, I would want to be inside of that. *Snicker*

One unit was laid out in the coolest way ever, but the flooring in the bedroom was that kind of tiling you see in a McDonald's, and the kitchen was minus a dishwasher. If the Mickey D's tiling hadn't been there I might have compromised on the magical washing box, but two strikes is two too many. The apartment was set up so that you entered the bedroom, which was a level below the rest of the apartment, from a spiraly staircase in the floor of the living room. Like a treehouse! Or a secret spy fortress of solitude! A layout in which I can pretend to be a superhero is the only way in which you will pry a dishwasher from my cold, dishpan hands.

How's that gentrification going?

2009-04-29T23:13:00.005-04:00

Edit: This has been cross-posted at the always-thoughtful Stuff White People Do blog. If you haven't already, give the rest of Macon D's posts a looksee.

This might be TMI for an anonymous blog, but I live in Harlem. When we moved to New York, we had a weekend to find our place, and this was the second building we looked at. It was in our price range, on Manhattan, and in a great location relative to Boyfriend's work and (where we presumed) I was going to school at the time. The building was brand new, gorgeous, and just right for us. So we moved to Harlem.

At the time, I didn't think twice about it. My knowledge of New York City and its neighborhoods was pretty limited, and although I associated Harlem with its large African-American population, I knew little of this thing called "gentrification." That's a term that New Yorkers (and I'm sure residents in other cities) throw around pretty often. I didn't even hear it for the first time until we had been here for about two weeks. I can't remember where I heard the term or in what context, but something prompted me to look it up (Wikipedia, natch).

Gentrification is, as Wikipedia defines it, the change in an urban area associated with the movement of more affluent individuals into a lower-class area. Let's not forget that class is hopelessly entangled with race as well, and so in places like Harlem the more honest definition of "gentrification" would be: When rich, white individuals move into a poor, black and/or Hispanic neighborhood. For the city and the affluent people who move to lower-class areas, gentrification is a real boon. It produces more revenue for the city in terms of higher property taxes, changes the character of neighborhoods, and can reduce neighborhood crime rates. The City of New York would like to see Harlem and places like it gentrified. In fact, I believe my building was part of the city's conscious effort to do just that: The city auctioned off "postage stamp" lots for a bargain price of $1 million. My landlord bought one of these properties, and on it she constructed the building in which I sit typing this.

Unfortunately, it turns out those benefits for the city come at a cost. A human one. Higher property taxes mean the current neighborhood residents can't afford their homes anymore. Higher rents on gentrified properties drive up rents of surrounding buildings, and landlords force out their tenants with inflated rents. People who have lived in these neighborhoods for generations suddenly have to find somewhere else to live. People become homeless. And when I say that gentrification changes the "character" of the neighborhood, what that usually means is that it makes the neighborhood "whiter." Suddenly, a neighborhood in which residents have spent years socializing and bonding on their stoops and on the sidewalk is antagonized by white residents who don't understand the culture and make noise complaints. Instead of small, locally-run shops, a couple of Starbucks and Duane Reades move in. Although the wealthy white people who now occupy the neighborhood (and run the government) may see these things as an advantage, they are decidedly not beneficial to the already disenfranchised residents.

When I finally took the time to do some reading about gentrification, I was astounded and saddened at my own ignorance. I didn't know about it when we moved, and I was ashamed to be part of the problem. Correction: I am still ashamed that I am part of that problem. What I saw when we moved was a beautiful apartment in our price range, in a good location, that was well below what landlords in other areas were charging for units that weren't even as nice. We aren't "rich," and so we jumped on the find. But although we aren't rich, we're obviously better off than many of the other residents in Harlem, particularly those who live in the housing projects beside us and across the street. We're especially better off than those who stand in line for the food pantry every Sunday at the church on the other side of us. Oh, and did I mention that we're automatically more privileged in this society than every minority resident in Harlem simply by virtue of the fact that we're white?

So yeah, I feel pretty fucking bad about moving to this neighborhood. And it's not because it's "dangerous" or because residents harass us in some way. To the contrary, in the nearly-year that we've lived here no one has bothered or hassled us in any way that we haven't encountered in other city neighborhoods; I regularly stumble home drunk at 2 am feeling no more danger than I would stumbling home elsewhere at 2 am; and I've never lived someplace where the neighbors have been friendlier. I feel bad that the very act of signing a lease in this neighborhood poses a serious threat to the future of Harlem and its residents. I feel bad that the neighbors who are so friendly might be forced out in ten years' time, and that Harlem will soon become indistinguishable from Park Slope. I feel bad that it's my fault.

Maybe it's because I grew up without much money myself and have faced class discrimination that I empathize with the people whom gentrification adversely affects, but I thought any city resident would be able to see what a problem this is. I guess not, because this week a rich, white professional asked me, in cheerful and optimistic way, "So, how's gentrification going up there?" This is not the first time someone has asked me this question, and it is certainly not the first time someone has asked it as though they were inquiring whether my open, festering sore had healed nicely.

When asked in such a manner, that question boils down to this: "So, how's the forced evacuation of blacks and Hispanics going? And the poor in general? You've driven them out as well? Excellent."

I'm never sure how to answer that question. I try to be diplomatic and polite (something along the lines of "fine" and switching the subject usually works), but maybe I ought to be more direct about my feelings on the subject. What would I say? "Yes, depriving poor minorities of their homes and businesses is going swimmingly. I certainly love waking up each morning and thinking: What can I do today that will squelch the local culture into a bland, white mass?"

We were ignorant when we moved, but we know better now. We would like to move and not be part of this problem anymore, but I will admit that it is difficult, because we fall into what you would call New York's middle class (if it had one). We're somewhere between affording Harlem and affording Chelsea, but there isn't much in the way of accomodating that. We're recent college grads and it will take time before we are able to afford a place in an affluent neighborhood. But there's the rub: I can defend why we, and other gentrifiers choose these neighborhoods on the grounds that high prices elsewhere have driven us out; however, I can't defend doing the same thing to an even more disadvantaged group, especially when we have cause to believe we will eventually possess the earning power to move to those affluent areas that we can't afford now. Many residents of this neighborhood won't ever have that opportunity, and all we're doing is destroying the only place they have so we can have a temporary foothold on our way up.

So yes, we are looking for a new place at the end of this lease, in a different neighborhood. The shitty economy may work in our favor this time, as dropping rents may make those neighborhoods more accessible to us. I can't guarantee that we'll be able to find a place, and I genuinely enjoy our current apartment. But it would sadden me to be part of this problem for much longer, especially now that I know about it. That said, I realize that nothing is going to stop gentrification: What the local government wants, the local government gets. And really, nothing can change the fact that we've already contributed to the problem. But if we move, at least I can finally sleep at night knowing I'm no longer helping the government further disenfranchise the poor. And maybe the next time someone asks me the dreaded gentrification question, I can tell them how I really feel about it.

I can't believe this problem even exists

2009-04-22T00:59:00.004-04:00

Facebook used to be so nice. It was open exclusively to college students. You needed a valid college email address to register. Preteens didn't use it to post sexy, semi-nude pictures of themselves. Older relatives didn't join and judge your drunken photos. Your boyfriend's aunt didn't use it to stalk you.

Oh, Facebook. If only you had retained your integrity, I might not be in this mess.

A few days ago Miss California said a nasty, disgusting thing at the Miss USA pageant. I happened to see it just as I was switching off a movie (because I will not voluntarily watch pageants). In case you missed it, here it is again:

Don't you love a supposed role-model spewing hate speech? So, I post a status update to my Facebook about how shitty this is. I get multiple comments in agreement. Then, to my surprise, I receive one more comment. From my uncle. From my racist, sexist, homophobic, Rush Limbaugh-loving, Bush-fucking uncle.

This uncle has always been an instigator. From the time that I was little, he has always made comments at family gatherings that have struck me as...inappropriate. Although he has always been kind to me, as I have gotten older I have felt less and less respect for him as a person. He has made it clear that the various "jokes" he cracks about blacks, gays, and women thinly mask his true feelings.

Anyway, back to the Facebook status. I won't paste or address everything he said here, but he made several statements that specifically bother me. I want to use this post to organize my thoughts on them.

On the other hand, I cheered when I heard [what Miss California said]. To each his or her own. People should have the right to say what they want and when they want. Political correctness is bullshit!"

I love the glaring hypocrisy of a statement like this. How can a person claim "to each his or her own" when their "own" involves actively denying the "own" of others? Furthermore, Miss California DOES have the right to say what she wants, no matter how horrible it is. No one arrested her, or stopped her from answering the question, or hauled her off the stage. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T VEHEMENTLY DISAGREE WITH HER. Dissent is NOT a form of limiting another person's speech. The audience has just as much a right to boo, criticize, send angry letters, etc., to Miss California as Miss California has to say hateful things.

I also have trouble wrapping my head around the anti-political correctness mentality that has gripped conservatives. They seem to think that all political correctness "goes too far" or is unneccessary. Let's get one thing straight: The purpose of political correctness is to RESPECT people. It is not to silence you, but to ensure you understand that it is hurtful to say certain things to certain people. Refraining from calling someone a "fag" is political correctness. Calling someone "black" or "African-American" instead of "colored" or "negro" is political correctness. Disenfranchised communities ask that you use this language because the hope is that reformed language makes you see them as EQUALS. If we can use language to denigrate and "otherize" groups of people, then we can use it to empower and equalize. Refusing to acknowledge the power of political correctness is to refuse to acknowledge the struggle of the disenfranchised to be seen as humans. It is NOT "bullshit," and it doesn't hurt anyone to practice it. But it does hurt when people refuse to practice it.

"and did Prop 8 lose by one vote, I don't think so"

This comment was a response to a comment in which I said that Miss California's opinion contributed to the denial of equal rights for millions of people (presuming that Miss California participated in the Prop 8 vote). Of course Miss California's vote wasn't the single determining factor in the outcome of Prop 8. However, it's highly fallacious reasoning to claim that her vote somehow doesn't count. Attittudes like Miss USA's are a part that constitutes the whole of the anti-gay conservative population. By participating in a state vote, she ACTIVELY helped build that population. By dismissing her hateful opinions and the impact those opinions have on other people via her participation in this democracy (including the people she elects to represent her in state and federal government), my uncle is dismissing the impact that every individual has on our government. If he's going to make statements like this, then I would expect him to not vote in any elections himself, by virtue of the claim that his single vote will not impact the outcome of the election.

As far as role models go, who gives a shit how Miss America, any pro athlete or any of those Hollywood idiots like Alec Baldwin or Sean Penn think. They all make a lot of money and think all of a sudden because they are famous that they need to tell us how to live our lives because it is the way they see it. Fuck em all.

Well, I can't argue with the fact that no one should care what a vapid pageant participant thinks about politics. However, Miss USA's SOLE REASON FOR EXISTENCE is to serve as a role-model. She is unlike Alec Baldwin or Sean Penn because, although some people might think actors and actresses should set a good example, they are not SPECIFICALLY labled as role-models. Every part of the Miss USA pageant showcases what a positive example the contestant sets. She is supposed to be clean, pretty, well-spoken, talented, thoughtful, feminine, etc. What she should NOT be is a homophobe. Furthermore, while an actor might "think...they need to tell us how to live our lives," the contest REQUIRES the contestants to answer questions on politics and current events; their opinions are not unsolicited, as an actor's might be. The pageant WANTS you to care what Miss USA thinks.

I don't care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their house. It is none of my business. However, when people start protesting and telling ME that I am wrong or I am a racist or a homophobe, then they just drew a line in the sand.

Oh, jesus. Here it is, right here. Let's go slowly. My uncle is correct: It IS none of his business what two consenting adults do in their home. Based on this statement, he is not a homophobe. However, as soon as he begins supporting the politicians and legislation that deny people rights BASED OFF WHAT THEY DO IN THE PRIVACY OF THEIR HOMES, he is making it his business. And that is what homophobia is. I know, it's a confusing word, this "homophobia": The "phobia" part would lead you to believe it refers to a "fear" of homosexuality, rather than a prejudice against it. Let me clear it up for you: Although I agree that the word is a misnomer, it is generally accepted that it indicates prejudice against homosexuals, which may or may not include fear. You can "love the sinner, hate the sin" all you want, but the INSTANT you decide to support legislation that TREATS HOMOSEXUALS DIFFFERNTLY FROM HETEROSEXUALS, you are showing PREJUDICE AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS.

What I think is most interesting about people like my uncle is that they will say racist, sexist, and homophobic things until the cows come home, but they lose their minds when someone labels those statements as racist, sexist, or homophobic. Do they only define racism as participating in a lynching? Or sexism as wifebeating? I think it's too easy for people to forget that these "isms" encompass a wide variety of behaviors and opinions, ranging from the classic extreme examples I just mentioned to the subtle injustices of daily life. For instance, falsely assuming that all gay men love interior decorating. Or making comments about shitty female drivers when a woman happens to cut you off in traffic. Or prefacing a story about a person by describing their non-white race, when their race has nothing to do with the story. These things all fall under the "ism" category of behaviors, and the more you do them, the more of an "ist" you are. The sooner people understand that these "small" actions and thoughts make as much of an impact as the extreme, after-school-special type of stuff, the better off we'll all be.

"XXX said "She's a Cunt" on the comments above. Is that not "Cheering" from his side? Don't like what you hear so you resort to name calling?
Obama won the election for President. I don't like him, didn't vote for him but he is my president. Unlike XXX, I don't refer to him as a fucking nigger. I sure as shit don't like his policies."

This is the comment that got my uncle placed on limited profile, as well as a frank private message from me. I also deleted the comment, because I won't have the n-word bandied about my wall. My sister felt that it was hypocritical of me to delete my uncle's comment, and not XXX's; however, I simply do not place XXX's use of "cunt" on the same plane as my uncle's use of the n-word. In the first place, XXX made his comment in passing, not as part of an attempt at high-end discourse or argument. Secondly, I'm not even sure what point my uncle is trying to make here: This comment came in response to one that a friend made, stating that the acceptance of homophobia is "nothing to cheer for" (itself a reference to my uncle's first comment). My friend's comment did not state that no one should cheer for who they support. Therefore, I would allow XXX his right to "cheer" for "his side" by calling Miss USA a cunt (and frankly, I'm not particularly bothered by that word). If my uncle is trying to state that resorting to name-calling is immature, then I would agree with him (and I am in no way saying that XXX is making the most intelligent statement ever. But to be fair, that was NEVER his intent). But here is the kicker: I have PERSONALLY heard my uncle call Obama the n-word. He uses that word ALL THE TIME. So actually, I know his argument to be a lie, and to have him openly use those words on my wall when they weren't actually relevant to the argument is unfathomable. I believe he was looking for an excuse to use the n-word in this argument, despite its irrelevancy: He loves shock-value.

After this comment, I apologized to my friends who had seen it, and promptly sent him a private message. In this message, I told him that I didn't want that word on my wall, especially not from him. I also told him that his years of bigotry have always bothered me, and now I find it especially bothersome that he is transgressing the confines of family gatherings and exposing my friends, co-workers, and other family to his hateful views. I asked him to seriously re-evaluate his needless resentment to non-white, non-male, non-Christian, non-straight people and the impact of his feelings on his family members. I also told him, point-blank, that he is an embarassment to me. I do not regret anything that I said.

His return message was a mix of backhanded apologies ("I'm sorry you feel that way") and typical conservative self-victimization ("What I do have a problem with is the attitude that I and other conservatives have to put up with because we believe what we believe."). The victimization is my favorite part, because it so blatantly ignores the fact that what they believe TRULY victimizes others (in the form of discriminatory laws, hate crimes, schoolyard bullying, etc.), while what the non-conservative view believes in DOES NOTHING TO VICTIMIZE CONSERVATIVES (For example, allowing gay marriage doesn't force conservatives to marry gays, or end the practice of heterosexual marriage).

He ended the message with a totally awesome example of bad logic: "BTW, as you may or may not know, I was raised in a Jewish neighborhood and the high school was 85% jewish. I have jewish friends and I have black friends and acquaintences. " Does he not realize how cliched this statement is? "I have black friends so I can't be a racist." Just because someone has friends and acquaintences in the group which they are trying to marginalize does not make their prejudiced opinions okay. It's a weak attempt at justifying opinions he knows to be bigoted. Also, why does growing up in a Jewish neighborhood have anything to do with validating the credibility of his opinions about gay marriage? Obviously, he is attempting to convince me that he is a man of the world, with a veritable rainbow of friends and acquaintances; however, the classic "I have a (insert minority)" defense is specious reasoning at best (I wonder what his oodles of black friends would think if they heard him talk like I have?)

By the way, I punched my boyfriend in the face for burning the roast, but I have male friends, so I wasn't wrong. So, you know, there's that.

The end of this is that I didn't give my uncle the dignity of responding to his last message. Arguing with him is such a logical clusterfuck, anyway; it's really impossible to make him see reason. Have I severed yet another family tie (albeit this time within my own family. I told Boyfriend that I did it so we would be even)? Frankly, I don't really care all that much. While I believe that it's possible to disagree on political issues and still remain friendly, some political issues enter a territory that severely alter my perception of you as a human being. Disagreements over how to treat other members of the human race do not fall under the category of public transit fare-hike disagreements. Instead, they speak volumes about the sort of person you are, and whether or not you truly support equality for all humans. In the end, if you can look me in the eye and tell me that you think we should value some people less than others based on their skin color, sexual orientation, sexual identity, or any other intrinsic factor, then I would prefer to limit my association with you. Even if you are my uncle. I have tolerated harmful opinions for the sake of peace for too long; This country will make no social progress if we do not call out our friends and family for their discriminatory actions.

100th Blog Post Extravaganza

2009-04-19T16:25:00.002-04:00

I have actually had the follow-through to complete 100 blog posts! Hooray! I've been putting this post off because I wanted to have something really good to say, but blogging hasn't been my main focus recently and I haven't had a ton of time to, you know, think. About stuff. And junk.

Frankly, I consider this lapse in blogging somewhat of a success for me, because it means that I'm doing things in real life. I started this blog during a time when I was fighting an ultimately losing battle for my graduate school funding, had moved to a new city with no friends (save Boyfriend), and was too broke to do anything. I was depressed and smelly, insomnia plagued me for months, and I couldn't bring myself to leave the sofa. This blog served as a good diversion from wishing for swift death 24-7, and I'm pleased that today I can say that it no longer serves the same purpose. Instead, I'm interested in using this as a medium to keep my brain from turning to mush. As lame as it sounds, I really liked writing papers in college, and I wish I still had someone to assign me a 10 page paper on the rising prevalence of autism diagnoses. I miss having regular brain stimulation, and I'm sure as hell not getting it from my job. So this helps.

Now that I've lived in New York for nearly ten months, am gainfully employed, have friends, and smell better, I don't feel as compelled to spend as much time on the internet (after work, that is). The weather is nice, and even though I enjoy working on forming a sofa-crater in the shape of my body, sometimes it's nice to get out, too. In the last week I went on a nine-mile day climb, saw a fashion show, visited my sister in D.C., and took a wine-and-painting class. So even though I enjoy the chance to write on this blog, and I enjoy the challenge of gaining and communicating with readers, I find that I have other things to enjoy as well. Like this jar of Nutella that I'm about to bust open.

It's been awhile

2009-04-09T16:06:00.002-04:00

It's been sort of crazy, between a couple people quitting at work and training new ones, and multiple trips to the D.C. area this month (related to my sister's wedding), and so there hasn't been much time for blogging. But, there are things to blog about!

For starters, there's that really cool thing that Vermont and Iowa did. You know, with the gays and the marriage and so on. Seriously, I did not see that coming, and it just restored my faith in humanity that much. From what I hear, Gov. Paterson is planning to send a bill to legislature to legalize same-sex marriage in New York; unfortunately, it seems like his timing is off and he's doing it for all the wrong reasons (read: dipping popularity in the polls). That said, I don't really care what his motivation is, I just want to see it pass.

I've also been trying to do more in my spare time than sit around in my underwear and scratch myself. On Sunday, we're joining a group for a 9-mile day hike in the Hudson Valley, which I am BEYOND excited about. Sometimes I just really feel the need to run around outside and scramble up a bunch of rocks. I also have a 5-day vacation starting today, so I'm at least trying to not spend every second of it on the sofa. I slept in late today, met Boyfriend for lunch, bought a new bra (this is no small feat. I have bras custom-made for me at this little shop in midtown. Buying a bra takes about an hour and a half of being measured and fussed over by a middle-aged woman, all while my tits hang out for the entire shop to see. If I wasn't a genetic mutant with 30-F/30-DD/30-E boobs, depending on the brand, I would not have to endure this), and took a stroll in Central Park. I spent about an hour on a park bench reading and watching the nannies with their kids. Bliss.

Um, I'm getting a little fat. That's not the right word, Boyfriend would disapprove, but...out of shape? Shapeless? I don't know what in-shape is supposed to look like on me, but I'm not it. I reluctantly returned to the gym a three days ago, and I think it will be another five before I can go back again. Ouch.

I paused in a pet shop to hold a puppy on my way home. This was foolish. Now I ache to press that soft, warm bundle of love to my chest again. My rabbit is not a cuddler, and I need a cuddler. Unfortunately, the reason we opted for a rabbit in the first place is that we do not have the time for a dog. But damn, I wanted to take that little puppy home with me. Side note: Although the bun is not a cuddler, he is a world-class champ at waking us at 6 am. If we stack the pillows beside the bed, he is able to leap and frolic his way into our bed. He then proceeds to snuffle our faces, lick our foreheads, eat our hair, and head-butt us (but ever-so-gently) until we acquiesce and feed him. Sometimes, after we feed him, he comes back and eats our hair just for fun. Although Boyfriend and I agree that this is disruptive and annoying, we also agree that it's too fucking cute to stop stacking the pillows. Also, it's a better alarm clock than the actual alarm clock. And fuzzy, too!

End non-sequitors.

On Ceilings and Elevators

2009-03-29T12:21:00.003-04:00

Reader and fellow blogger Lucy invited my commentary on someone's recent blog post regarding "glass ceilings." The entry is brief, and the author concludes that "There is nothing stopping a person from moving up in the ranks...except for the person him(or her)self."

I suppose that I shouldn't be too shocked that the author feels this way; however, I can't help but feel...disappointed that the concept of the glass ceiling is lost on this woman. The concept of glass ceilings and elevators (I'll get to what these terms mean in a moment) are not particularly new, and because of this I have taken for granted that all women are able to understand the role that these concepts play in their lives and the lives of all women. I do not know if that author will read this blog, but I'd like to offer a deeper understanding of these concepts for anyone who struggles with their existence.

The term "glass ceiling" refers to, as the blogger stated, an unofficial barrier to advancement in the workplace. It is "glass" because it does not exist in any obvious capacity: There is no "No Girls Allowed" clause in the company handbook; nor is there any official policy that overtly prohibits women and minorities from rising in the ranks. We have "equal opportunity" statements on our employment applications, as well as government policies like Title IX. By all accounts, it does not appear to exist. But like the windows in my home that trick wayward birds into smashing their little bird skulls, the ceiling remains in place.

If you squint your eyes and crane your neck just so, you can still see the light reflecting off the glass:

The wage gap between men and women, especially in the upper tail of the wage distribution, is a large part of the glass ceiling. Currently, American women make 70 cents for every dollar that men make. Although this gap has closed over recent decades, it remains significantly large and persists across professions and education levels. This means that when scientists compare men and women, within the same profession, with the same amount of experience and qualifications for that profession, women receive less pay than men. Blatant pay discrimination such as this can go undetected for years, because we are taught that it is impolite to ask your colleagues what they make. Pay is considered private; therefore, women get the shaft and often have no hard evidence to make their case.

Wage gaps also occur when employers make judgments on the expected value, productivity, or reliability of employees. What this means is that it is not uncommon to find employers promoting men over women because they hold pre-conceived notions about how well women work. For example: As a woman, Kathy will become too emotional in business confrontations. Better go with Ross or Fred; they won't cry over firing someone. Get it? As people, employers often have unenlightened notions about how women act and how men act. Even if the fictional Kathy is completely capable of making decisions, firing employees, and dealing with conflict, her employer may assume that she can't BECAUSE SHE HAS A VAGINA. The female is then excluded from the 'male' job, and left with depressed wages.

Another theory for discriminatory promotion is that employers view the jobs that females hold as "less easily promoted." This means that employers may be reluctant to invest training in women in order to promote them. Employers may feel this way for any number of reasons, but commonly they feel that women are less worthy of investment because of their expected domestic roles. Let me break that down for you: We aren't training Becca for the role of regional manager, because she just got married and will probably have a baby soon, and will take maternity leave. Because our society is geared to think of the women as the sole domestic provider, women are likely to be passed over because of expected familial duties; whereas a man's marriage and paternity are rarely-to-never considered.

Other barriers make up the glass ceiling in addition to the wage gap. Sexual harassment, for instance, isn't going anywhere. Workplaces in which women are belittled or made to feel inferior because of sexual harassment are not conducive to promoting women or hiring them for top roles. Let's not forget about general perceptions of female to male performance. Numerous studies have found that traits in which we view as positive for males we view as negative for females (sum this up as if a man is assertive, he is seen as effective; however, an assertive woman is a "bitch" or "shrew.") Sexist stereotypes like these, which are embedded in our social hierarchy, often prevent women from reaching the upper eschelons of the workplace.

As if a hulking wage gap, sexual harassment and sexual stereotyping wasn't enough, women often must contend with barriers involving family and domestic life, while men do not. This is a very rich and complicated topic, but can be easily understood when you understand that society places overwhelming domestic responsibility on women, but almost none on men. We are given the expectation of caring for the homes and children, as well as other family issues, and as a result we take jobs with fewer hours and flexible schedules. These jobs offer less pay, less room for advancement, and less prestige. As long as society asks more of women in the home than it does of men, we remain stagnant.

All of these theories deal in the present; however, I have my own theory that the glass ceiling begins in childhood. From an early age, women are encouraged to achieve less than men. We give little girls kitchen sets and "pregnancy Barbie" dolls, but we give little boys Erector sets and chem sets and other mechanical things that help them learn and grow. We see that our daughters excel at math and we assume they will be teachers when they grow up; but our boys who excel in math will surely be engineers. The difference in treatment is often subtle, but the way we raise our children has as much impact on their future earning potential as do sexist workplace attitudes.

I'm also quite fascinated by the concept of the "glass elevator," which I think might be easier to see than the glass ceiling. By "glass elevator" I am referring to a phenonmenon in which men in female-dominated occupations experience various advantages that women in those occupations do not. So, in contrast to the glass ceiling, in which women suffer in male-dominated occupations, men in female-dominated jobs will enjoy advantages in hiring practices, rapport-building with male supervisors, and promotional tracking. The best example of this concept is the teaching profession, particularly elementary school. The primary-school teaching occupation is heavily female dominated; depsite this, elementary school principals and administrators are overwhelmingly male. Research shows that men who enter the profession as elementary school teachers are often "fast-tracked" to more prestigious and higher-paying adminstrative positions, while women who have equal or better qualifications remain. I know that this concept is not outdated, because I did a research paper on it last year in which I took the 2006 annual averages of employed persons by detailed occupation and sex from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and compared them using prestige scores from the Hollingshead Four-Factor Index of Social Status. My results very much supported the hypothesis that current labor data reveals male-favored occupational prestige inequities in occupational domains containing two or more heavily female-dominated occupations.

The topics of ceilings and elevators have spawned oodles of academic papers and studies, and in this post my goal is to simply touch on some of the main fruits of that research...I couldn't possible cover all of it in one post. I can only assume that ignorance of this research, and possibly personal anecdotal evidence, leads people like our blogger friend to assume that nothing stands in the way of female success. Trust me when I say that we aren't simply whining: These barriers to advancement are VERY real and felt by MANY women. Our society has not yet evolved to offer women truly equal opportunities in the workplace; although outwardly it might seem that we can achieve anything, in reality we face many obstacles that men never will. Many of these obstacles are so deeply ingrained in our society that I question whether we can ever completely overcome them.

If the author of that blog post feels that no one has stood in her way in her career advancement, then good for her. She's apparently found something that millions of us, myself included, struggle for daily. However, I think it's good for everyone to keep in mind that simply because they have not personally experienced limitations, that experience does NOT generalize to the rest of the population. We have not "shattered" the ceiling; there may be cracks, but trust me when I say that it is still far too thick to fall apart.

Dooce, old people, and shitty jobs

2009-03-26T18:08:00.006-04:00

I'm gonna cram a couple of things into this post. Let's do it in list form today, okay? I'll even use bullets, because I am all about efficiency.

I met Dooce!! That would be Heather Armstrong, the genius behind the most popular personal blog on the interwebikins (I am drinking wine). Armstrong's book, It Sucked and Then I Cried, came out on Wednesday and she held a reading/signing at a Barnes and Noble in Chelsea (or is that considered TriBeCa? I never know neighborhood boundaries. Sometimes I tell people that I live in Chicago, because I just don't know anymore). Her book is a simultaneously hilarious and provocative memoir that chronicles the events surrounding the birth of her first daughter; most notably, it covers Armstrong's severe post-partum depression and mental breakdown. It is fascinating and honest, and I can't put it down. Also, her reading was great...Boyfriend especially liked it, as he finds reading actual words to be tiresome and laborious, and much prefers to have someone else read things to him:

My 85-year old grandmother totally learned how to send email today. We moved her into an assisted-living home a few months ago, and she had hinted that she was taking classes at the home but that the specific class was a surprise. Turns out, it was some sort of computer class, because I got an email from her this morning. I can't even say how much this made my day. She sent the email to all of the grandchildren, so we all promptly g-chatted each other to gush about how completely awesomesauce our grandmother is.
The great email could not have come at a better time, as I spent this morning embroiled in a bitter battle over my vacation time. I work on a grant-funded project for a University, and apparently my boss feels like this gives him license to deny me University vacation time whenever he wants (It's a federal grant, so according to him we should only take federal holidays). Sorry, buddy, but if I was hired by the UNIVERSITY and told at the UNIVERSITY HR orientation that I am entitled to UNIVERSITY STAFF HOLIDAYS than I want my 3 days off for Easter, goddammit (you can't deny me my Zombie Jesus Day, no matter how godless I am). I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've always had a lot of trouble controlling my temper and tongue, so it took EVERY OUNCE OF STRENGTH TO TEMPER MY HOMICIDAL URGES as my boss insisted that we attend work those three days. My jaw was clenched; I could feel my face warm as blood surged in my cheeks and forehead; my eyes turned to sharp, piercing, three-foot daggers. I have been told that my "mad face" is terrifying: This must be true, because I'll be damned if I didn't win this battle. The official "compromise" is that I get the promised vacations until the end of the fiscal year (which is like, in June), and then we follow a modified vacation schedule. Trust me, if I had other options, I'd be outta there faster than the RoadRunner. You don't tell a working-class girl that she doesn't get her days off. If I thought it would be possible to unionize my occupation at my place of employment, I'd fight that fight in a heartbeat.

Anyway, that last bullet explains why I'm halfway through a bottle of cheap wine right now. I am the queen of bad choices.

"That's so Gay" PSA

2009-03-22T11:37:00.003-04:00

Oh, cheesy television PSAs. They're generally anti-drug these days, and the latest batch is ridiculously sexist and inaccurate (I'm thinking specifically of the "slut shaming" anti-marijuana PSA in which the girl realizes that scandalous pictures taken while high have been texted to the whole school. A: Marijuana doesn't work that way. B: Slut shaming is stupid). There's also that annoying "Optimism: Pass it on" PSA where the kid playing baseball alone strikes himself out and decides he's the greatest pitcher in the world. Alright kid: I can't help but notice that you're playing baseball all alone. That's pretty sad. Couple that with the fact that you genuinely suck at hitting the ball, and you should want to kill yourself.

Generally, I think everything would be better without these PSAs. The anti-drug ones are exaggerated and misleading; The other ones make my brain hurt. But today, I was watching Degrassi: The Next Generation (shut up) and a new type of PSA came on:

How awesome is that? A PSA for sensitivity towards gays! A PSA that actually says something on a topic that matters! (Sorry, but the 'war on drugs' is unnecessary and detracts from real problems. It isn't deserving of a bajillion PSAs).

Apparently there's a whole series of them, but I haven't seen them until now. Hilary Duff is in one (I suspect that she's struggling to stay relevant, but good for her anyway):

But my favorite by far is this one that Wanda Sykes did, not just because Wanda Sykes is super saucy and hilarious but also because she is ACTUALLY gay:

I, too, went through a phrase of calling stupid or bad things "gay," until I thought more about it. It's easy to say things like that when you hear other people say it daily (specifically as a teenager). I find it incredibly insensitive and annoying to hear now, though, especially when it comes from people who I think should know better. Gay people have to endure enough stigmatization in this country; let's not make it worse by using language to associate them with all things negative. It's not just a "saying," it's deliberately derogatory language. It hurts, and it perpetuates the association between "bad" and "gay" in the minds of those who use it and hear it.

Knock it off.

But lifting the beer can to my lips IS exercise

2009-03-19T19:40:00.006-04:00

About a month ago Boyfriend had a perfect storm of optimism and self-loathing that culminated in a gym membership. He only bought one membership, but it has an unlimited guest pass that is intended for me. I've gone a whopping three times, finding each excursion both physically and mentally painful. Ten minutes ago, Boyfriend left for the gym without me. I'm pretty sure that I won't be coaxed into joining him anytime soon.

I've never liked exercise of any kind. As my sister so kindly pointed out, I spend a lot of time harping on the importance of exercise and physical movement for women and girls, but no time practicing this advice in my personal life. I'll clarify: What I believe in is the opportunity for women and girls to be as physically active as men and boys; what I don't believe in is that I, personally, must drag my cottage-cheese ass on an elliptical as I cry on the inside. I never derived any pleasure from sports or exercise as others seemed to. At 5, I spent every single pee-wee soccer practice crying on the sidelines and begging to go home; At 7, I quit tennis camp after a little boy schooled me on the court and then teased me for it; At 11, I prematurely left basketball camp when I realized that none of the other girls would talk to me; At 13, I came in last at the first cross-country running practice and never returned; At 15, I almost got into fisticuffs with a much larger girl at softball and decided that softball wasn't for me.

What DID love was horseback riding. At 17, I had to quit my lessons so I could keep working my crappy job and earn money for the move to college. I haven't been on horseback since, nor have I found a suitable replacement.

I think the fact that I was gangly and naturally uncoordinated had much to do with my hatred of sports; coupled with the fact that my parents didn't really place any sort of emphasis on them and cared more about my schoolwork. Also, it seemed like every other kid who was into sports wasn't into me...I was weird or a goody-two-shoes or talked too much or cracked jokes that no one understood. The sports kids were not my kind. My kind liked to run and climb, but not in any sort of organized fashion. My kind liked to talk on the sidelines at gym class; not because we feared sweat or messing up our hair but because we just wanted a time-out from all the work and competition.

I refuse to feel guilt over this. This is how I am. I'm not overweight and I don't have bad cholesterol and I only get winded from walking stairs sometimes. Until those things change, I refuse to waste minutes of my precious life wishing for swift death on a treadmill.

Anyways, I'm 22. I can do what I want. I'm making a blueberry cobbler for dessert tonight and nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Vote!

2009-03-14T13:04:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure if I've adequately expressed my feelings on this topic before, but I really love bacon. Basically, bacon gives me a super-boner.

In this vein, I entered the Three Degrees of Bacon contest at Bacon Nation, which I found through the always-endearing Bacon Unwrapped blog. The challenge was to link any food to bacon with three steps or less. I linked sheep testicles to bacon (how do I know this? Let's just say that there are many things in life that I wish I could unlearn). Anyhoodle, I'm a finalist! Vote for me here so that I can add a sweet raw bacon weave cardholder to my collection of bacon salt, bacon toothpicks, and bacon thong.

Bacon thong pending.

Update: I totally won! Thanks, guys!

Obama: Aw, yeah!

2009-03-11T18:11:00.003-04:00

My favoritist president ever announced that he will sign an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. This council will ensure that federal agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and their families. That sound you hear is my reproductive organs cheering. Here is what he had to say on it:

My two favorite parts (although the whole speech was spot-on):

"When a job doesn't offer family leave, that also hurts men who want to care for a new baby or an ailing parent"--Do I smell reform of the Family and Medical Leave Act?!?!
"When there's no affordable childcare, that hurts children who wind up in second-rate care or spending afternoons alone in front of the television set." Universal daycare? I can haz universal daycare?!

I can't believe we have a president that actually gives a shit about women. Incidentally, we used to have a council just like this...until Bush disbanded it in 2001, along with a council on racial issues. This surprises exactly no one.

Valerie Jarrett will chair the council, a super-duper smarty pants who grew up in Iran, got her BA in psychology (a woman after my own heart) from Stanford, and a JD from University of Michigan Law School. She is currently a Senior Advisor to Obama.

Best part of the speech is the end: "Alright, so I'm gonna go sign this thing. Thank you very much." Man, that guy gets. shit. done.

At least I didn't have any cavities

2009-03-09T22:06:00.003-04:00

As someone with a vested interest in the scientific method, I would LOVE to know what studies have been done on the topic of sexism in the medical profession. I'm not talking glass-ceiling/glass-elevator stuff; I'm thinking more specifically about sexist attitudes/entitlement among male medical professionals. I bring this up not only because of my prior experience with male medical professionals (and that guy wasn't the only one who behaved inappropriately in that office), but also because of what happened to me at the dentist today.

I haven't been to the dentist in about two years (you can imagine how psyched I was to finally get the layers of barnacles scraped off my teeth), so I was a new patient to this particular dentist. Therefore, keep in mind that the following things he said to me/in my presence were all things that he was saying to a total stranger. He ACTUALLY said these things to me.

"Rhianna and Beyonce kind of look alike. Well, Rhianna has the black eye, I guess!"
"I'm going to guess some things about your boyfriend, and you tell me if I'm right, okay? At night, you put your clothes neatly in the hamper, and he leaves his over the floor. You drink nice diet sodas and drinks and he drinks straight from the milk carton (me: No...he puts his clothes in the hamper and I don't drink diet drinks of any kind, and I'm the one who drinks from the milk carton). No? Really? He's gay!"
"Before I got married my idols were Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi...After I got married my idol was OJ Simpson!"
"Hey girlie!"

So...first he started with a joke about domestic abuse, then he attempted to insult my boyfriend because he *gasp* is a neat person, then he sandwiched that comment with ANOTHER domestic abuse joke, and then he topped it off by addressing me with a diminutive name when I returned later for my forgotten insurance card.

I will, obviously, not return to that dentist (on top of this, he was also quite rough with my teeth). Now, I know that this sort of sexual discrimination--the "trivial" stuff, as opposed to the more obvious sexual harassment/pay discrimination, etc--is something we encounter everyday, regardless of occupation. It's on the street when a stranger tells you to smile; it's at work when your boss calls you "sweetheart." But I can't help but notice that it's very, very pervasive among male medical professionals. EVERY male doctor I worked with at my old job seemed to be either patronizingly paternalistic or an alpha-male chauvinist. Nearly all called me "sweetie" or another diminutive on a regular basis (and my status as the youngest has nothing to do with this...a male of the same age in the same job would not be the office sweetheart). Many seemed to think that they could say things to me that were profoundly unprofessional, and which they would not say to a male employee. And now, I have this dentist, acting in much the same way.

If my anecdotal evidence were scientifically examined in a study comparing rates of daily discriminatory behavior across professions (I think I'm forming a thesis idea...), would it hold true that something within the medical profession produces or promotes these undesirable actions and words?

Perhaps, given their status in a male-dominated field that undervalues women, male doctors feel more entitled to behave this way than men in other fields. Perhaps they can say these things to the new patient or front-desk girl, because she will find their brazenness "charming." She won't say anything or even think to be offended, because in this world of men in serious lab coats and women in puppy-dog-printed scrubs, the men are untouchable. The fact that women in domestic abuse situations are "stupid" to the point of being hilarious; that young women enjoy being your "girlie" or "sweetheart"; that men are MEN who don't pick up after themselves and women are ladies who watch their figures with diet drinks for the benefit of the men...are these the symptoms of a profession that remains one of the great microcosms for greater societal gender inequities? What is happening between high school and med school that produces these behaviors among our pediatricians, dentists, and obstetricians?

More importantly, how can we stop it?

Uber Nerd post

2009-03-07T23:16:00.004-05:00

We're pretty nerdy in this household, in case you haven't garnered that from my postings. For instance, we have a desktop computer with not one, but two monitors (I thought it was excessive at first too, but now I don't know how people do without them). There are also no fewer than three laptops (five, if you count the ones we sometimes bring home from work), one picture of Yoda, an old shell NES, a Family Guy-StarWars wall calendar, and a pink stuffed Domo (don't know what Domo are? Perhaps you might recognize them from this classic viral picture). We like our games. Admittedly, Boyfriend likes games a bit more than I, but I've got my weaknesses.

Case in point: I have been dying--DYING--to play three particular games in the last few weeks. All are totally inaccessible.

Kid's Typing: This is a weird one, I know. But it came with our very first computer, a Compaq Presario that ran Windows 95. Sloooooowly. This game was the shit, though. It taught typing with the help of a character called Spooky the Ghost. The game took place in a house that Spooky haunted. You started the game in the attic of the home, learning basics like home keys with Spooky. Then, you would go into the individual rooms to "test" yourself. The cool thing was, your typing was synched with something fun in the room...like in the Baby's room, the toy xylophone would play classical music; the quality of the music would vary with how quickly and accurately you typed. I didn't really learn to type well with this game...what finally taught me how to type well was AIM instant messenger (I'm sure that's the case with a lot of people in my generation). I bet I would KICK ASS at Kid's Typing now, though (63 words per minute with 97% accuracy!)
The 11th Hour: My sister bought this game, but I may have played it more than her. I remember that the graphics were like nothing I had ever seen (I wonder what they would look like to me now). I think the game ran off of DOS. It was essentially a mystery game. You were trapped in a haunted mansion, trying to find your missing girlfriend. You had to solve a bunch of logic puzzles, and find your way through oodles of secret passageways. We had one of those cheat books. The puzzles were mostly too hard for me to figure out on my own, so I remember that I used the cheat book all the way until the last puzzle...but the fucking book didn't give an answer to the last puzzle! So I never beat the game. Also, I think there were some steamy video scenes...
Sims 3: The third installment of the highly-addictive Sims series was supposed to come out in February. I used a gift card to pre-order it on Amazon...and then the release date got pushed back to June. I really wanted to piss away my winter playing that game. I briefly considered installing Sims 2 on my laptop (it's currently on an old laptop), but I decided it would only heighten my longing for the new version.

The first two games I cannot have without finding and purchasing via Ebay...and I think that's BULLSHIT. There ought to be a statute of limitations on PC game copyrights. If software is nearly 15 years old, I want to be able to play that shit online FOR FREE. It's not like they're selling anymore, anyway. Some seller on Ebay wanted 25 bucks for Kid's Typing! Fuhgeddaboudit.

Anyone else got any warm fuzzy memories of old computer games?

I still said "No"

2009-03-04T20:54:00.005-05:00

Sexual harassment...Or, as my father would say, "Her ass meant nothing to me!" Oh, dad...

Jezebel did a post a few days ago that I really wanted to address here, because I have a lot to say about it. The post concerned an article on AOL (does AOL still exist? Jesus, they gotta be hanging on by a thread) that advises women to not report sexual harassment. The AOL article's reasoning was that HR will immediately question your credibility, rather than work with you. Furthermore, the article reasons that the reporting process can be long and painful, and that you'll most likely be left awkwardly working with your harasser until you quit.

Naturally, the good Jezzies disagree, as do I. They also raise other issues, such as the tendency for outsiders to sympathize with the "nice" men who seem so wrongfully accused.

This topic is really close to me, because in my freshman year of college I had to endure the process of reporting a sexual harassment. At the time, I was working as a bitch for a medical office (Copy these articles! Then sit around and smile at the doctors as they enter the room! Now file!). I was all naive and fresh-faced, straight off the farm and adjusting to a moderately-sized city (now I'm old and haggard and jaded in a gigantic city). One doctor in particular was fairly young, and had just earned a promotion. I'm a bit flirtatious by nature (I call it "sassy," but whatever) and we often spoke and joked around. Because he had been promoted, he was moving to a new office. He asked me one day if perhaps I could do some filing and organizing in it, since he didn't have time. Since my day was already fairly packed and I could not earn overtime, he said he would be happy to pay me out of his own pocket if I stayed late to do the work.

Looking back, and I'm sure to all you savvy readers out there, this request should have set off alarm bells and I should have declined. But like I said, farm-girl. I hadn't yet acquired the finely-honed creeper senses that I have today.

So I stayed to do the work. I would say this is about the time he started coming on to me. At first it was the regular stuff: TMI about his personal life, comments about how cute/skinny I was, asking me about my boyfriend, etc. I think I sensed what he was about, but I felt awkward and rude about shutting him down, so I kept up with all the friendly banter. After all, he was paying me. He was in charge. What was I gonna do? So I kept staying after work with him.

Eventually, I guess he started feeling like this was really going somewhere for him. He started removing his wedding ring when he was around me. One day, I was typing up some labels, and he came behind me and started massaging my shoulders. (WARNING: This paragraph is going to start as a bad HR training video and move into bad soft-core porn territory). I sort of froze and wasn't sure what to do or say. He took my silence as an affirmation, I guess. He was talking this whole time; I'm not sure what, exactly, but it was along the lines of "I really like you." He moved his hands down to my waist, then under and up my shirt. He was grabbing my breasts and kissing the top of my head, whispering things into my ear. And I just froze. The fuck? I mean, I had been sexually harassed before. But not to this degree. And all I could think of was I had NO IDEA what to say or do. I didn't want to have sex with him. I had a boyfriend at the time, and I wasn't interested in cheating on him. And I wasn't particularly attracted to this guy, either. But it almost felt rude to say no. I felt like I had led him on, and it was my fault he was behaving this way. I thought he would be mad if I said no.

But I DID say "no." I regained myself after a moment and pulled his hands away. I told him I had a boyfriend, and I didn't want to do this. He PLEADED for me to have sex with him. No one has to know! I still said "No."

For the next few months, he persisted. He grabbed my ass when no one was looking. He bought me Grey Goose for my birthday (Okay: He asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said Grey Goose. Can you blame a girl? I wasn't that stupid). He invited me to take shots with him in his office (not with the Grey Goose. This was a separate occasion). He told me that I was sexy over and over and over again.

When he did these things, I was not as firm as I should have been. I should have been colder. I shouldn't have giggled and smiled awkwardly. But that's how we're conditioned to react to men who behave that way. How many times has someone told you to "Smile, sweetie" and you bashfully flash a grin and laugh? We're supposed to be charming. We're supposed to WANT attention from men. So even though I was really uncomfortable with it, at most I would quietly say "stop" or nothing at all, but SMILE or LAUGH.

It was stupid of me. I was young. I know better now. I am a STONE COLD BITCH now, don't you worry.

Eventually I decided that I REALLY had enough. One day I was on a ladder putting books away, when he came up from behind and grabbed my ass. I wheeled around and whacked him with a medical textbook this thick. In the FACE. He laid off for a few days, but then he started again. At this point, I was getting mean. He would grab me and I would turn and shout "STOP" so that everyone in earshot would look. He would make a shushing motion and slink away.

But he would always start up again. I knew that he wouldn't stop on his own. I had to make a report. I walked into my boss' office one day with the door open:

"Alex, can I ask you something? Can we do something about men touching me in this office?"

Alex, thankfully, was great about the whole thing. He was super sympathetic, since he had been similarly harassed by a woman at his last job (Guess she couldn't pick up that he was gay?) But here's how it went down: I had to type up a report, detailing EVERYTHING that happened. Then, I had to give one copy to Alex, and another to the fucking Chair of the department. Then, they had to call in my harasser and speak with him about the accusations. Then paperwork had to be processed. By the end of it all, every secretary in that place had to have known what happened. Although no one said anything to my face.

At one point, Alex asked me what I wanted to happen to my harasser. I knew going into it that he would get a slap on the wrist; it's not like they were going to fire the guy. Basically, the first harassment report is a warning...even if the victim has already warned the harasser multiple times. It's looked at as a mistake. "Oh look, buddy. We all know the front-desk girl is cute...you just can't touch her anymore. Sure, we all make that mistake! Ha, women. They don't know what they want, I'm sure she was hard to read. Okay, back to work for you!"

So the harasser gets a mulligan. He gets embarrassed. I get embarrassed. But then...we have to work together. We get stuck in the elevator together. I still have to file for the guy. Where does that leave me?

It leaves me searching for new jobs at 2 AM, that's where. He gets a smack on the hand that everyone forgets about in six months. And I get to find a new job.

So in a way, I can see where the AOL article is coming from. The process IS long, and VERY humiliating. You are subject to scrutiny and criticism (Although I was lucky; in my case, no one asked me to "prove" anything. I'm sure if I wanted to take it further than a report, things would have been different). Everyone has to know that you "let" the guy get to second, you skank. Then, you still have to work with the harasser, and it sucks. And because it sucks, you eventually leave. So that begs the big question: Is it better, given all this, to NOT report that harassment?

NO.

Ladies, REPORT THAT SHIT. You know what I got for my troubles? I got that asshole EMBARRASSED AS HELL. He was HUMILIATED. For as embarrassed as I was, at least I didn't have to go talk about the time I molested the front desk girl to my superiors. Boy, was he ashamed. I tend to believe that people like my harasser will always be repeat offenders; but you know, if that humiliating experience at least stopped him from soliciting my replacement, then it was worth it. Really. And at the very least, I'm happy to say that he did not ask me to have sex with him for the rest of my tenure. If my goal was to get him to stop grabbing my ass and asking me to fuck him, then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. He could barely look me in the eye.

I realize that my case was...lucky, to say the least. My superiors were sensitive. If anyone thought that I was a liar or a whore (and I believe many of them did; my harasser was one of those "nice" men that you would never suspect), they had the good sense to keep it to themselves. My harasser wasn't violent or vengeful, and didn't threaten or intimidate me for reporting him. I realize that this happens to some women, and those situations are terrible. Some women don't have the luxury of finding a new job; I was lucky in this area as well, since I was able to secure a paid internship with a few months of the incident and quit the old one.

I can't make judgments on women who, for reasons that I was lucky enough to avoid, choose to NOT report their harassment. It must be terrible to know that you can't find another job (or REALLY don't want to leave the old one), that your harasser may retaliate, or that your superiors and coworkers might blame or scorn you. What I can say is that sometimes, you gotta sacrifice. I knew when I made the report that it would be uncomfortable, and I knew that I would have to leave sooner rather than later. But knowing that everyone finally knew...that I had made a public declaration that THIS MAN IS BEHAVING INAPPROPRIATELY...I felt vindicated. It didn't matter whether people believed me or liked me. I knew what the truth was, and I had done everything in my power to stop him from violating me again, and from violating other girls. Contrary to appearances, I now had the upper hand: if he still felt the need to harass either myself or someone else in the future, here is all the documentation that it happened before. And maybe the next time he does it, he'll finally get what's coming to him.

I want to encourage everyone who gets sexually harassed, who is made to feel inferior or objectified or violated, to SAY SOMETHING. Do not let them get away with it. And if anyone gets in your way; if anyone makes it hard for you to make your case, THROW A FUCKING TANTRUM UNTIL YOU SILENCE THEM ALL. Don't let your employer handle your case inappropriately; take it higher. Don't let your co-workers make judgments: Tell them they don't know shit. Don't let your harasser threaten you: Tell your bosses or the police about that too, because then he's REALLY fucked. Don't let them make you quit if you don't want to: Stay and make it as uncomfortable for him as it is for you. Don't think that you encouraged it or led him on, and therefore don't have a case: You said no, and that's what you meant. Please. You can have power in this, I promise.

Snow Day!

2009-03-02T08:31:00.006-05:00

Yes, it's quite snowy here today. Key difference between Boyfriend and myself: While I awoke at 7 am (a good 40 minutes earlier than usual), giddy to find out if work was canceled, Boyfriend woke at his normal time and proceeded to get ready without a thought as to whether or not he might have the day off. Had I not received the cancellation notice immediately, you can bet your ass I would have spent the next hour fervently trying to call back, rather than accepting it and moving on. So even though I got a summons for jury duty on Saturday, I think it's pretty clear who the real adult is in this household.

So this jury duty thing. Anyone ever get one of these before? Got any good stories about it? I used to think that I wouldn't be comfortable serving on a jury. I didn't want to be responsible for making judgements on strangers that could alter their lives. I didn't want to be manipulated by sly lawyers or faulty eye-witnesses. But as I stood there holding the summons in my hand, all I could think of was, "Hey, I get a day off work for this! And maybe more than one day! AND THERE COULD BE FREE LUNCH."

So you can see that my standards are really quite low these days. In fact, I like to imagine that it will be just like that Simpson's episode where Homer gets jury duty:

Comments not working?

2009-02-28T23:37:00.003-05:00

So I've heard via email from two people that the word verification may not be in working order. For now, I've turned it off, so if anyone still has difficulties, please email me at rectoryentrance@gmail.com.

I also noticed that, from my work computer, the header-banner thingy is not visible (although it works on both of my home computers). Can anyone else not see the banner, or perhaps have an explanation for it? It really is a fine, tasteful banner, and should absolutely be displayed for everyone, including young schoolchildren, to see.

Update: Turning off the word verification still does not help some, so for the time being I have switched to the pop-up comments window. Holla' at me if that still doesn't work for you.

Really? You guys care?

2009-02-26T01:15:00.002-05:00

I just got back home from a concert. I'm pretty drunk, thanks for asking. I'm sitting here trying to settle my stomach with an Eggo Blueberry Waffle (I LOVE FROZEN BREAKFAST FOODS) and to kill time, I check my Google Analytics.

Turns out, you guys REALLY like hearing about that time I met Elijah Wood in a bar. Cuz my damn stats shot WAY THE FUCK UP after that post. Well, I'm here to share that nerdgasm with you all. Welcome, new readers. If you like Elijah Wood, I can promise that you'll like my musings on child beauty pageants, Disney, and poop.

Come for Elijah. Stay for the poop jokes.

A president you can be proud of

2009-02-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

The president's speech tonight was inspiring. It felt so much different from Bush's addresses. I feel like with Bush, all I heard was rhetoric and patriotic phrases, with no real meat. If Bush's speeches were a salad with a nice dressing, Obama's speech was a fucking turducken with bacon on the side.

I found out that I am getting a tax cut on April 1. I learned that people who have lost their jobs (my mother potentially included in that group) will get extended unemployment benefits and health care. I learned that we won't just throw this money to the wind and cover our eyes to where it ends up (like some bailouts I could mention). I found out that our new government is making a lending fund to provide the auto, education, and small business loans that have ground to a halt. I learned that banks will receive assistance, but will be held accountable for where that money goes. I learned that we would have health care reform by the end of the year, and that the government wants the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. And I learned that this education would be made affordable. I learned that our government wants to remove the troops from Iraq, and raise pay for soldiers.

You know what I would learn from Bush's speeches? I would learn that there wasn't really an economic crisis, that the Iraqis pose a threat to our national security, and that terrorists lurk around every corner. I would learn that the wealthy individuals and corporations in this country deserved more federal support than the middle and lower class. I would learn that I didn't need to know where my tax money went.

On a side note, what a totally awesome nod to his wife in the beginning of his speech. I'm pretty sure she mouthed "I love you" to him. Commence swooning.

Outside of political news, I've been out quite a bit lately and subsequently have been too exhausted/drunk/hungover to blog. But I do have stories. I went to a bar with a friend that's in the style of a speakeasy. You make reservations at 3 pm the day of, and when you get there, the door is located in a secret door in a phone booth inside of a hot dog shop. It was small and cozy, and had not even 30 seats. The prices were right, and you could chow down on hot dogs from the adjoining shop (avocado and sour cream hot dog!).

Then, last night I went out to help a friend celebrate a visiting friend's birthday. We were in a small dive bar that we frequent, and who should walk in but Elijah Wood! After much giggling and nervousness, I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder:

"Are you Elijah Wood?"
"Yes."
"My name is Phoebe, and it is a pleasure to meet you." (firm handshake)
"It's a pleasure to meet you too."

Then we asked him for a picture, and he happily obliged. Whadda guy. He even put his arm around me for the picture! SQUEAL!!! And I don't care what anyone says: Elijah Wood is ADORABLE. His eyes are so blue....he gives me a nerdgasm. I can't say as much for the entourage that was with him, though (that's right, hobbits apparently have entourages). They were all scowly and possessive. Pretty high and mighty for a group that's only hanging around the guy for status.

Then we left him alone, and proceeded to have a damn good time.
Below is the picture. Blog-safe, of course ;)

VD: Valentine's Day or Venereal Disease? Maybe both.

2009-02-14T22:49:00.005-05:00

Valentine's Day gives me mixed feelings, because on one hand I know that it's a stupid corporate holiday that means nothing at all; and on the other hand, I like attention from my boyfriend. So every year I sort of struggle with how we acknowledge the holiday without being stupid and going over the top. Or too lame and cliched. We could not acknowledge it at all, and show how cool and progressive we are, but then I would be a little sad because I want to make up for all those years in high school when other girls got flowers in their locker and candy-grams in homeroom, but I was flat-chested and awkward and got a card from my mom instead (at least my mom choo-choo-chooses me).

For our first Valentine's, I tried to cook a whole ham for Boyfriend. I also tried to make cornbread stuffing, which required placing a cast-iron skillet in the oven. After I took the skillet out of the oven and put it on the stove to cool, I turned away, and then turned back to grab it. I have the attention span of an infant, so in that time span I forgot that I had just removed the skillet from a 400 degree stove. I grabbed it with my bare hand, and spent the rest of the night in unbearable pain. I thought I would be scarred for life (I wasn't, but I swear it was the worst pain of my life). So that dinner was interspersed with many, many tears.

Our second Valentine's was during our long-distance period, and fell on a weekday, so we couldn't see each other. I had a flower arrangement sent to his office, complete with a teddy bear. Yes, he was ribbed mercilessly. But he liked the flowers, and wasn't ashamed to admit it.
I don't care if you have a penis or a vagina; it's still nice to receive flowers. Also, for as much as his co-workers teased him, they were all woefully single and therefore fucking jealous.

This year, I decided to let Boyfriend take the reins. I even sort of forgot that it was coming up:

Boyfriend: What are we doing tomorrow?
Me: Tomorrow? We're cleaning. My sister is visiting, remember?
Boyfriend: No, I mean, it's Valentine's Day.
Me: Oh! Um. We're still cleaning...

So boyfriend woke up way early and went shopping, and made me Surf 'n Turf! Filet Mignon and lobster, mashed potatoes and asparagus. Then he brought me Max Brenner chocolates, and a lovely Merlot. We consumed our totally fucking awesome meal while watching season 3 of Weeds. All of these things caused me to pee my pants in excitement, and because he's so awesome, Boyfriend didn't mind mopping up the puddle.

Also, we took a little walk over to the animal shelter and played with the bunnies. SQUEAL!

Just one of those weeks

2009-02-12T20:46:00.002-05:00

Just one of those weeks where:

Your shoes get stolen
Your boss complains about the direction of staples
You notice that your headaches occur daily
Your pet bunny refuses to cuddle
You can't find appropriate replacement boots
The pantry is devoid of edibles
The idea of doing small things feels like trudging through a sandstorm
The future seems bleak and devoid of promise.

On the flip side, it IS 30 Rock Thursday. Liz Lemon + Don Draper 4 eva.

Honestly, who steals a shoe?

2009-02-10T17:17:00.004-05:00

My apartment building is set up in such a way that there are only two apartments on each floor, and the elevators open directly into a "private" hallway for each apartment (one in front, one in back). This hallway is more or less unsecured, and can be accessed from both the elevator and the stairwell. When we moved in, our landlord assured us that eventually the elevator could only access our floor by swiping a card, and of course that the stairwell door would have locks installed (the building was new when we moved in).

Fast forward 7 months. The fire department demanded that our landlord remove the locks on the stairwell doors (they also serve as the only fire escape), and of course we have not received the card-swipe elevator (although, without a lock on the stairwell door, what's the point?). Anyway, we still keep stuff in the hallway, like a shoe rack (I don't like shoes in my apartment, especially after tramping around the subway), a coat rack, and a storage closet (containing junk like wrapping paper and sports equipment and artificial Christmas trees). Our apartment is short on closet space, so everyone in the building uses their hallway as storage space.

This morning, as I always do, I paused in the hallway to put on my shoes. Normally I wear boots to keep my legs warm and my feet dry, but the weather has been nice lately, and I thought I might opt for my Skechers sneakers. As I pulled on my sneakers, I paused. Something seemed amiss. I stared hard at the shoe rack. Where...where are my boots?

Someone stole two pairs of my boots. Right out of my fucking hallway. MY hallway. Not a communal hallway. I had two pairs of black, size 7.5 Nine West boots that I recently spent FOREVER finding and purchasing (on sale, mind you! I'm not made of money). They were my only warm, suitable-for-wet-weather shoes. Hell, they're my only nice shoes. I'm notorious for picking out less-than-dressy footwear. Who steals shoes???

I only keep the boots in the hallway; they're too big for my makeshift-Ikea closet. They don't ever come inside. My other shoes were intact; Boyfriend's nice leather shoes (which were far more expensive than mine) remained. The coat rack was untouched, as was the storage closet (as far as I can tell. Honestly, if they took something out of there, I might not miss it). They just. took. my fucking. boots.

My landlord thinks it's a particular neighbor, who hasn't paid rent in nine months. I'm not sure if I'm ready to point fingers (I really like the guy), but I would like to ask him and other neighbors if they noticed anything. We have a security camera in the front hallway to the building, so she promised to check the tape and see if somebody either left carrying my boots or if someone entered the building who does not belong. I've also been frantically checking Ebay all day to see if my boots get posted. So far, no dice.

In the grand scheme of things, this is small potatoes. Total, the boots probably cost me $150, which is a lot of money to me; But it's still not much considering how much worse other people get ripped off (Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, anyone?). But mostly I'm feeling angry and insecure. Why pick on me? Why leave me with chilly and wet feet? Is it someone in my building? Should I distrust my neighbors? If it was someone who doesn't live in my building, will they come back? Will it be worse the next time? Did they try to enter my apartment? Is there something more important missing that I haven't realized yet?

In the meanwhile, I'm putting out an APB for my missing, size 7.5 Nine West babies:

NSFW, if you're a big weepy baby like me

2009-02-09T20:35:00.003-05:00

This story made me openly weep at work. I had to stop reading it.

This nine-year-old has a terminal cancer, and he was too sick to go to the John Deere Museum like he wanted. So all of the people in his farming community held a parade of tractors and fire trucks and other farming machinery past his window for him. Then he died. What?! I know it's depressing! Shut up! I'M BLEEDING FROM MY 'GINA SO THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT TO ME, OKAY??

Where I live is cooler than where you live

2009-02-07T10:18:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, as the work week trudges on and time drags endlessly, it seems that I live in a completely ordinary place that's no different than any other place I've lived. We get up, go to work, and then come home. We order McDonald's or Chinese take-out when we're too tired to cook. We know what shows are on which nights, and relish 30 Rock Thursdays and Biggest Loser Tuesdays (don't judge. I like to watch it while I eat a big bowl of ice cream, and contemplate the wonders of metabolism).

But then sometimes we leave our apartment, and then we have a night like last night. These nights help me remember why I love living here.

Coraline opened last night, so we made plans to see it downtown after work. I have to say, this was one of the best children's movies I have seen in a long time. The stop-motion animation was a refreshing change from the constant deluge of Pixar computer-animated flicks. The visuals were incredible. The creators constructed a beautiful and detailed world, right down to the cracks on the ceiling in Coraline's bedroom. Aside from the visuals, the movie featured a strong and spunky female heroine, who takes on an evil other-world to save her parents. In these times of damsel-in-distress Twilight crap, I'm happy to see a strong female character. Did I mention that we saw it in 3D? When we chose the theater I wasn't aware that it was showing in 3D, but it was a pleasant surprise. Instead of a hokey, overdone film that is made to showcase 3D technology, it had just a smattering of effects that emphasized the visuals. There wasn't anything ridiculous flying at you; instead, the 3D simply complemented the movie. Tasteful, if you will.

Then we left the movie just in time to hit up a bookstore before it closed. I chose The Glass Castle and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (I'm reading the latter six years too late, apparently, but what young adult doesn't need a healthy dose of teenage angst?).

And then! Then we started to go home. We walked to the 59th street subway, and headed to the lower level to catch the express. There, we saw a group of people at the far end of the platform, encircling two other people. We ventured closer, and then I realized what it was: Subway Theater! For those not in the know, there is a troop of actors in New York who regularly perform entire plays throughout the subway system. The catch is that you don't know when or where the play starts, and you must purchase a ticket to find out that information. I attempted to buy a ticket months ago, but all showings have been sold out for quite some time. So we were very lucky to walk in just a few acts into the beginning. The way it works is that the audience follows a host through the subway to see the next scenes, and the final destination is unknown. After we found the play, the host led us upstairs to the next scene, where waiting actors and live muscians were staging a ballroom dance. After that scene, the host led us to another platform, where she monologued while we waited for the next train. The actors actually move the props onto the train and perform the whole scene there. At one point, a train arrived with the props already set, if that gives you any indication as to the detail and planning of the event. The whole thing almost felt like a game; a scavenger hunt for the next scene. Also, the faces of the people who were on the trains were priceless. Everyone's just sitting in the car, late on a Friday, and then the doors open and 40 people flood in, a guy drags in a desk and a backdrop, and they perform the scene of a play. The doors open, and everyone leaves just as fast as they came in. New York is full of what-the-fuck moments, but this really takes the cake.

The other catch here is that you do not know where the play will finish. Luckily for us, it ended at our exact subway stop. What are the odds, I ask you?!

And today, I'm going with a friend to be an extra in some low-budget fashion reality TV show. This sure beats the weekends of my childhood, which we spent hanging out in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. I have a crush on this city.

Toddlers and Tiaras

2009-02-04T19:35:00.002-05:00

For the last year and a half of college I eschewed cable in favor of...um...rent money, and I didn't really miss it that much. But since I've had cable again, I don't know how I ever lived without TLC. I am addicted to this damn channel, especially what I like to call the Sunday night freak-show lineup. This is when TLC airs gems like "Pregnant Man" and "Woman with half a body who gets around on a skateboard" and "Billion-ton elephant guy who eats way too much fried chicken." Oh, and let's not forget the round-the-clock obsession with dwarfism (although at this point, is it really so interesting or exotic anymore? Especially the dwarf-family reality shows. I mean, the only difference I see is that they have shorter countertops. Those shows are really quite boring).

Anyway, there's this series called "Toddlers and Tiaras," and it covers the world of child beauty pageants. HATE. What kind of parent puts their damn toddler out to be judged on beauty and their appearance in a swimsuit? It's a disgusting display of enforcing arbitrary standards of feminism. The parents coach their daughters for hours a day on how to runway-walk, shake their hips (and sometimes chests), and wink seductively at judges. All of the parents defend themselves with the same line: "It builds self-esteem." SHENANIGANS, pageant parents. Judging your child's worth based on their appearance and imitations of sexuality will not make them feel good about themselves and their abilities later in life. All they will learn is that their worth is based on how feminine they appear. This particular featured pageant even has categories for "best eyes," "best hair," and "photogenic winner." The "talent" portion is no more than a token addition. Clearly appearance and femininity are what matters here.

If you want to build self-esteem in your daughter, there are a lot of things that you could base it on that have real and lasting use. Enroll her in a sport so that she can learn how strong and capable her body is. Spend your money on books, so she can start learning how wonderful reading is. Put her in front of an easel with fingerpaints, and tell her how much you admire her creativity. Let her play dress-up and explore her idenitity at home. But for the love of christ, don't make her parade out on a stage in front of judges in a swimsuit, shake her hips, spin, look seductively over her shoulder, tilt her sunglasses over her nose and wink at the judges. That's not how self-esteem is built. That's how you get a girl whose self-worth is overly-dependent on the opinions of others.

So, I get to kick him in the balls if I see him now, right?

2009-01-28T14:20:00.004-05:00

Did anyone catch Bush the Elder making this reeeeeeeeeaaaally sexist joke in a speech to some sort of automakers' forum?

Because I'm home from work today (no heat in the office! Woo hoo!), I've taken the liberty of transcribing it, just in case you'd rather read it:

"One time, we thought we'd outsmarted the crowd. We sent a decoy limousine off in one direction, while I snuck out in the back entrance. As we rounded the corner-I'll never forget it-uh, I saw one of the ugliest and angriest women I have ever seen in my entire life. Boy, she was really bad. And she charged my car with a sign-and I don't see why the secret service let her up that close, right next to the window-'Stay outta my womb!' No, problem, lady."

America, how could we have let assmonkeys like this be PRESIDENT?? Why doesn't Bush just tell a black joke while he's at it? "Ha, feminists are UGLY and ANGRY and they can't have sex because they're so UGLY. Get it?" Bush, feminists exist because feces-heads like you can't figure out that women don't exist just to look pretty and have sex with you. She's angry because you DON'T FUCKING GET WHAT HER SIGN MEANS.

"Jokes" like that aren't fucking funny, ESPECIALLY when they come from a former president. It's just scary that this country was run by that man in my short lifetime. No wonder we still have pay disparities and fights about how and when we can have babies and sex and play professional sports. We let a bunch of sexist privileged white men into office. Shame on you, 1989 voters.

Oh, one more thing, Bush. If you think the womb is where sex happens, I feel real sorry for Barbara.

This post may contain hilarious euphemisms and feminist outrage

2009-01-27T18:11:00.003-05:00

The fuck, conservatives? When are you going to learn that PEOPLE HAVE SEX? There is NOTHING you can do to change that. We are humans. We fuck. Bone. Fornicate. Rodger. Bump uglies. Boff. Bury the weenie. Knock boots. Insert things into other things, repeatedly and rhythmically.

Are all conservatives 5 years old, inserting their fingers into their ears, grimacing, and squinching their eyes shut when something reminds them that we fuck? Because they keep doing things like banning the sale of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." For serious, Georgia??

This ordinance is primarily aimed at the sale of sex toys, but also affects things like ribbed condoms, lube, and at-home adult novelty parties (Pampered Chef parties are for my mother. I want me some pampered snatch). I don't see any provision limiting Viagra sales. But, you know, God didn't intend for women to enjoy sex, and it's fucking sinful for them to seek out the means to an orgasm. Let me just find my Bible here...ah, here it is:

"And on the eighth day, Eve did complaineth that Adam's holy eruptions were hasty and sloppy, and that she wisheth to erupt of her own. And God did see that there would be no use for Adam, and so he forbade Eve from touching her forbidden fruits. And he did sayeth to Eve: Women, ye shall layeth on thy back, and spreadeth thy legs, and thou shalt not seek thy happiness any further. Oh, and thou shalt maketh Adam and me a sammich."
-Genesis 4:12

Why does sex scare conservatives so much? If they feel that products like The Fister are perverse, why can't they just abstain from using them in their own lives and let others fist to their hearts' content? The use of dildos and cock rings and lube doesn't interfere with their lives. Whether someone uses their jelly glitter dildo tonight or not doesn't change ANYTHING in anyone's life. This "moral indignation" is absurd and antiquated, and now that an ultra-conservative is no longer in power, these frivolous ordinances ought to stop.

On a similarly outrageous note, Republicans forced Obama to remove a $200 million addition to his $825 billion stimulus package that would have allowed 23 states to cover contraceptive services for the poor who don't qualify for Medicaid, without a long application process. It was basically a package that would have let women in 23 states do exactly what I did this summer when I was unemployed: Obtain free birth control from a family-planning organization although I did not qualify for Medicaid (but did not have the insurance to cover a gynecologist or the money to cover the cost of a prescription). It's not like the package was sneaking birth control into the water. It was meant to cut down on wait times and administrative costs, and get low-income women the reproductive healthcare that they need. But Republicans were all "ICKY! WHY WOULD ANYONE NEED BIRTH CONTROL? WOMEN DON'T HAVE SEX! I'M HOLDING MY BREATH 'TIL I PASS OUT IF YOU DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW!"

So instead of letting them all faint and bang their heads against the coffee table and die, Obama had to pull the funding out so the rest of the package would pass. Obama, you're a stand-up guy, but this "reach across the aisle" shit doesn't fly with me if it means that the government keeps denying us access to reproductive health services.

Damnit, Republicans. Don't tell me not to park the beef bus in Tuna Town.

She might be ready for it, but I'm not

2009-01-25T21:47:00.004-05:00

My grandmother is in the hospital for the first time in 53 years. The last time was for the birth of my father. She has an enlarged heart, and was experiencing some difficulty breathing and fluid retention. Apparently, she is expected to do fine for the time being and should go home Monday with no problems. But at one point (I'm sure because of her age) her doctor had to obtain her wishes regarding resuscitation, should the worst happen. My father told me her answer:

"I'm done."

It's a new day

2009-01-22T18:10:00.004-05:00

Perhaps I am the only blogger who didn't post on the momentous and historical occasion yesterday. However, you won't begrudge me forgiveness when you learn that I scored reservations at the posh (does anyone use that word anymore?) 21 Club for restaurant week (a week of discounts at select uber-fancy restaurants), and was busy indulging in game terrine, braised beef, and a half-bottle of shiraz all night. And then promptly falling into a satisfying, full-belly stupor upon my return home.

That said, I am glad that I waited to post, because today I realized that I feel something different than what I felt yesterday. Yesterday I felt proud, excited, almost giddy. For the first time in my adult life, I was actually proud of my government. When President Obama danced with his wife, I wanted to dance along in my living room. Today, however, I felt something different: Safe.

I realized that for the first time in eight years, this country is controlled by a competent, qualified person. A person who earned his position, rather than inheriting it from daddy. A person who is educated. A person who recognizes the importance of serving the disenfranchised of the nation. A person who can read (read this Vanity Fair piece. People were asked to avoid giving Bush long memos, because he's "not a big reader." This among other, more serious travesties, like, um, ignoring 9/11 warnings?).

This administration is not interested in forcing the tenants of conservative Christianity on the masses (shout-out to "non-believers" in the inaugural speech, anyone?). It does not want to tell me what to do with my uterus. It does not want to serve the interests of the wealthy, or large corporations, or the oil industries before the interests of the people. It does not want to start frivoulous wars. It does not want to model this country off of the plot of The Handmaid's Tale.

Already we have seen change, and it's only been a day. President Obama ordered Guantanamo closed within the year. He showed support for Roe V. Wade on its anniversary today, stating that it "not only protects women's health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters." He is expected to reverse the "global gag rule" that banned US aid to organizations that perform abortions or refer women to abortion clinics. He started talks with his national security team to pull troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

But there's more. The Obama administration website has been overhauled, and there is an entire "agenda" section that clearly states future plans, organized by categories such as "poverty" and "civil rights." Some of my favorite highlights:

President Obama and Vice President Biden will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination. (side note: as I write this, the senate has just passed Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We got this shit locked down). They will also pass the Fair Pay Act, to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

President Obama and Vice President Biden will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.

President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

There are more promises. Clear-as-day promises, in 24 categories. President Obama has four years to make good on them. I am not naive enough to believe that he will fulfill every single one. I am not naive enough to think that he will always make decisions with which I agree. But I know what I saw today from the Obama administration. I saw potential. For now, that's enough to make me feel like an American.

Old white guy, who are you?!

2009-01-19T15:57:00.002-05:00

Boyfriend and I both have off work today, and because my self-esteem concerning sports isn't crippling enough, Boyfriend suggested we bowl. Mostly there were just kids bowling (Liz Lemon moment: Oh god! Youths!), but for most of the first game we were tucked away in a lane by ourselves. Then, near the end of the first game, this older couple came to bowl in the lane beside us, with a young grandson. They had two other men with them, but eventually I realized that the two men weren't bowling. Instead, they were standing behind the family, watching. Wearing suits. Just...watching, with their arms folded in front of them.

"What are those suits doing? Are they...are they bodyguards?"

Cue me intensely scrutinizing the three faces of the bowling family. "Is the kid a child star? Does the grandmother look familiar? The grandfather is really hamming it up. Is he a comedian? A politician? Boyfriend, make a sudden move to see what the bodyguards do! THROW YOUR BALL AT THEM NOW I HAVE TO KNOW IF THESE PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT."

So they bowled two games beside us and I still have no idea who the fuck these people are, to have bodyguards. Or maybe they aren't bodyguards, maybe they're just butlers that the family pays to follow them everywhere. Fuck if I know. The only info that I got is that the grandson was named Nathaniel and the grandfather may have been named Victor (that's right, I looked at their scoreboard. I MUST KNOW).

So if anyone happens to have some trivial knowledge of famous old white men who live in New York City, bowl in Harlem, and have a young grandson named Nathaniel, for the love of god tell me so I can tell people that I bowled beside someone famous.

Women and children first? Really? In 2009?

2009-01-18T13:50:00.002-05:00

In case you haven't heard, a plane crash-landed in the Hudson River the other day, right near Manhattan. Everyone got out okay, and no one died. At some point during the evacuation of the plane, someone (I am finding mixed opinions as to whether it was a staff member or a passenger) gave that ages-old cry of "women and children first."
In this particular case, I wouldn't fault the passengers for making this antiquated and sexist decree. This was obviously an emergency situation and people were just trying to bring some order to the chaos. The problem here is whether "women and children first" is still an official evacuation policy. If a crew member made this call, then there are some real issues:

Why women? Is is that you are assuming we are weaker, fragile, and less likely to survive? Are you assuming that we are better suited to care for the children who disembark first? Neither are necessarily true.
This policy neglects the elderly, the sick, and the disabled who should be allowed to disembark before all healthy and able-bodied women. Why would anyone call for able-bodied women to evacuate before disabled people?
This policy neglects single fathers. Why should a strange woman be better suited to care for a child than the child's own father? We aren't "natural caregivers" by virtue of having female reproductive organs. And if the concern is then shifted to keeping the caregiver with the child, regardless of caregiver sex, why shouldn't both parents be allowed to evacuate simultaneously with their child? It seems nonsensical and tragic to split families in an emergency.
Some women have claimed that they don't care if this gets their asses off the sinking ship/plane faster. Sorry, that doesn't fly with me. If we want to be seen as equal, we have to start acting like the strong women we are. We can stay on the plane and help the disabled, elderly, children, and families off first. Hell, we can help the people who can't swim if we need to. But we need to stop accepting help that we DON'T NEED.

I want to reiterate that I'm not faulting any passenger in that flight who, in the heat of the moment, felt that women and children should go first. But if airlines still endorse this policy, or if their crews aren't well-trained enough to know that they shouldn't use this policy, there is a problem. "Elderly, disabled, and people with children" first. All able bodied people last.

To my best friend's daughter, on her second birthday

2009-01-15T17:00:00.000-05:00

When she was born, she didn't look like anyone. She had fat cheeks, a smooth bald head, and wrinkly skin, like someone had mistakenly given her the size-large skin suit instead of the medium. You would be hard-pressed to say that she looked like anyone in her family, unless Buddha or Winston Churchill was her uncle. When they brought her home, dry skin flaked off of her forehead in droves, and she moved her alien hands stiffly and in mysterious, ninja-like patterns. Everything seemed to surprise her. She would squint and widen her eyes again and again; her dry cupid lips would form into a tight "O," as though she was practicing her whistling. She was gassy and messy, and gave many darling outfits foul, un-ladylike stains. She flashed big, gummy smiles if you made just the right face. She was soft and warm and small. When you held her, you could feel your heart beat out of your chest and into your throat, then out of your mouth and into her hands.

She is two years old today. Today, she is all sturdy toddler legs and flashes of color as she speeds by. Her hair is straight and blonde; its limp wisps graze her deep brown eyes and the tops of her ears. Her cheeks are still plump, and when she poses for the camera they turn into two glossy ornaments that frame her toothy smile. She smiles a lot these days. She can say all sorts of things, including "no" and "mine, all mine." She uses these phrases liberally and with zeal. When she is tickled she squeals and scrunches her face as she protectively shrugs her shoulders up to those infamous cheeks. Books are one of her favorite toys. She will sit in your lap and demand that you read board-book after board-book until you are hoarse. She is no doormat, and is quick to show the other kids who is boss. She can drink through a straw and ride a tricycle. She has her daddy's Lithuanian-blonde hair, brown eyes, and straight nose. She has her mommy's full lips, big smile, and oval face. She is as impish as both of them.

I still don't have my heart back. I think she put it in her pocket so her hands are free to kick the world's ass.

Happy Birthday, Kid.

Can a bitch get some pay equity?

2009-01-15T15:46:00.003-05:00

Congress is voting on Lilly Ledbetter today, and I wait with baited breath. For those of you who don't know, Lilly Ledbetter is a woman who started working for Goodyear Tire in 1979. Apparently, Ledbetter had long believed that her male co-workers were receiving higher salaries, but she couldn't prove it until 1998, when someone slipped a letter in her mailbox confirming her suspicions. Ledbetter sued, and the Supreme Court (in its infinite wisdom), ruled that she couldn't sue because of an 180-day statute of limitations. Basically, the Supreme Court told Ledbetter to suck it, because she hadn't sued 180 days after she was hired in 1979.

So today Congress votes on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which will determine that the 180-day statute of limitations begins with every paycheck, rather than the date that the pay is agreed upon.

This case highlights a lot of the ongoing discrimination that women still face, but I think what bugs the fuck out of me is that something is terribly awry with the Supreme Court. I realize, of course, that 6 of them were appointed by the Bushes and Reagan, so OF COURSE something is wrong with them. But really. I'll never understand the urge of some people to side with big business over actual people. I'm not saying that rulings which favor business don't have their place; but for crying out loud, this is an obvious case of equal rights. The court had a chance to take a stand against the pay disparities that have been plaguing women since...forever, and they failed. It sickens and saddens me that the judges on the highest court in the nation still favor business' rights over women's rights. In fact, I believe the Supreme Court recently took a vote on their new official slogan: "Bros before hos."

Our vaginas don't make us less competent, less able, or less valuable employees. If we perform the same job as a man, we get the same pay. It's that simple. And if we DON'T get the same pay, we get to sue the shit out of the company for damages and backpay. Businesses need to learn that women aren't inferior workers, and that there are consequences for treating us that way. Society leaves us at enough of a disadvantage without the added injustice of receiving 79% of what men make. So come on congress: take a stand for eliminating sexist business practices. Or my vagina will get you in your sleep.

A movie that will punch you in the face

2009-01-10T11:52:00.003-05:00

If you happen to be sitting around today, and you think you might be feeling a little too happy or optimistic and you need to take it down a notch, have I got a movie for you.

We saw The Wrestler last night (which is on limited release now but will be nation-wide in a few weeks), and it felt like the movie slapped me around for awhile before it just stomped on my heart with soccer spikes. Repeatedly. It was a story about a pro-wrestler, whose career peaked in the 80s (think Hulk Hogan). 20 years later, he's washed up. He can barely afford the rent for his trailer home, his only child hates him, and the only woman he loves is a stripper. On top of this, what's left of his wrestling career grinds to a halt when he suffers a heart attack.

Mickey Rourke's performance as the wrestler is totally genuine. I think it must be very hard to act in such an emotional role without making it into a contrived, Lifetime-movie type of thing. He pulled it off with sincerity. At one point, you even sympathize more with him than his daughter, despite the fact that his character is an absentee father.

My only recommendation is that you follow this movie with lots of ice cream and cuddly animals. Otherwise, you'll spend all night brooding over the cruelty and hopelessness of life.

My days as a deaf blog are over...

2009-01-08T21:35:00.002-05:00

Because I got myself an Ear! Or an Earie, as I like to call it. Lucy over at Lucy's Life in Suburb World saw fit to award me the Van Gogh's Ear award for thought-provoking blog. Lucy is one of my most loyal and conservative readers, and I have appreciated her contribution since I started this blog. I don't necessarily want to preach to the choir with these posts; part of my goal is to foster an open-dialogue about my topics. Lucy has proven that we can all talk about our differences without resorting to commiting felonies.

The award is an arts award, but includes writing as an artform (and indeed writing is). So here are my picks for the next Ear recipients:

Courageous Blogger: Possummomma (aka, Atheist in a minivan)
I've written about my girly lesbo crush for Pmomma before. Pmomma is an atheist mother of four awesome kids. She also suffers from lupus, and more recently got royally fucked over by some weird Jon & Kate Plus 8 internet-fan base (it's a weird story, but it involves overzealous religious supporters of J&K accusing Pmomma of something that never happened and then trying to post her personal info all over the internet). She went offline for a bit, but is back and bigger than ever. What I love most about her is her total honesty about her atheism, and ability to stand up for herself (and children) when challenged.

Insightful Blogger: White Trash Academic. She's smart, she's had a really interesting life, and she's overcome a lot. Oh yeah, and our childhoods are eerily similar. 17 thumbs up, WTA.

Provocative Blogger: Stuff White People Do, a thoughtful look into racism and white privilege. Macon D has a bottomless supply of posts on all-things racist and ethnocentric, written with great care and insight. I really appreciate his ability to make me step out of my comfort zone and take a hard look at how myself and the world around me in these terms.

So, congratulations, bloggers. You've won an Earie from a total Rookie :) Pass on the love.

Does Not Play Well With Others

2009-01-07T17:51:00.004-05:00

If I were to make a totally honest resume, the title of it would be the title of this post. Since that's not entirely factual, there would be a smaller, bulleted point below that explaining: "When micromanaged by incompetent supervisors."

I don't hate my job; I hate my supervisor. In turn, she makes me hate my job. "Freya" doesn't deserve her position. She isn't qualified: she neither holds a degree nor has any relevant experience in our field. She got the job because a relative of hers attended the same daycare as the relative of a higher boss. Not only does Freya have no clue how things work in our field, she also lacks managerial skills. She's timid, inefficient, and inflexible.

Since these qualities revealed themselves to me in the last few months, I've smelled trouble. I've had trouble containing myself in the past when working with people like Freya. I've been known to either completely shut down or totally blow my top at some point. This time, I've elected to shut down. I minimize my contact with Freya; I keep our meetings as short as possible; I've stopped offering much input when she asks (she doesn't really want it, anyway. It seems that she asks our opinions just so she can tell us that she's doing it differently, anyway).

So today myself and my office-mate, "Carrie" (who is awesome), had our coats and were heading out the door. I believe it was about 4:55. Freya is at her office door.
Me: We're, out, Freya.
Freya: Oh...*check watch* Carrie, do you have class?
Carrie: Um, no?
Freya: Oh...
Me: Do I need to stay for (other employee who is coming in)?
Freya: Uh...no.
Me: Ok. Goodnight.

Then Freya proceeded to stand awkwardly and watch us go. It was clear that she had some issue with us leaving 5 MINUTES EARLY. The thing is, Carrie and I are both salaried. There isn't a punch clock or anything. And we had finished our work for the day. But Freya is the loneliest fucking workaholic in the universe. Leaving at 5 is early for her. Which is cool, if you want to be a lonely cat-lady for the rest of your life. But I think she expects Carrie and me to stay as long as she does, which is unreasonable when THE WORK IS DONE.

I come home and open my laptop, to find an email from Freya: "Phoebe, Can you be sure to stop in and see me tomorrow?" Those are what I call "doom messages." They don't specify the subject of the meeting, so it's clear that it's not gonna be nice. The thing is, if Freya was a good manager, she would have either understood that 5 minutes is a negligible amount of time, or she would have asked us if we could stay to finish a particular task (if she even had a task).

So now I have to go in tomorrow and argue over leaving 5 minutes early, like when I was 16 and punching out of my fast-food job early. I can't wait until the day that I get to be the boss.

Hug someone you love today

2009-01-01T12:42:00.003-05:00

Last night, something like 300,000 people were a 20 minute subway-ride from our apartment, shivering and celebrating 2009 with Dick Clark's mummified face. Our friends from college were in bars, drinking and smoking and laughing. The five people that we know in New York (count 'em!) were at loft parties or private parties or in their apartments, watching those suckers freeze in Times Square.

We weren't with any of them. Instead, we were in our apartment with a bottle of champagne, pigs-in-a-blanket, steamed shrimp, and chocolate chip cookies. We also had one guest: our 52 year old neighbor, "Rose." Normally Rose would be in her own apartment with her husband, hosting her own guests. She would be steaming her own shrimp and serving her own drinks. But exactly 2 weeks ago, Rose's husband died. They were married for 27 years.

This is the same neighbor who asked us to help move her husband to the bed when he fell, a few short weeks ago. Apparently he had been diagnosed with skin cancer last year, but was relatively okay until he developed brain tumors in November. From November to December was a fast downhill spiral, and he was gone much sooner than she expected. She buried him on a Monday. The following Friday, she spent their wedding anniversary alone.

Before she came over on New Year's Eve, she was filling out insurance papers to cover the cost of her husband's burial. She was moving the computer out of his bedroom, so she wouldn't have to be in there so often. She was choosing which of his clothes to give away, and which she wanted to keep just a little while longer.

When she came over, we talked about many things, but especially her husband. They met in India while he was on an extended business trip. She was 25, he was 46. He brought her home to the States, and they built their own business from the ground-up. They traveled all over the world for his job. He didn't cook, so she learned to cook for him. During the last months of his life, Rose said she was sure to make him something he would love for every meal. Yesterday, she brought over a few of her cookbooks for us to have. Some recipes were marked with an star, and I can't help but imagine him sitting at a table with Rose, telling her how much he liked her coconut-lemon cake, and would she make it again sometime?

Rose came over around 9, and stayed until 11:50, when she politely excused herself despite our insistence that she stay and have champagne with us at midnight. Maybe she was tired and didn't really care about waiting until midnight. Maybe she didn't want to sit with a couple while watching all of the other couples kiss on television. Or maybe she just wanted to sit on the couch that she had shared with her husband for so many years, and wish him a happy new year one last time.

That went fast...

2008-12-30T21:30:00.003-05:00

2008 is the year that I graduated college, and it seems weird to me that The Year In Which I Graduate College has come and gone so soon. I'm also surprised that I actually graduated when I was supposed to. When I started my freshman year in '04, I was coming out of a shitty senior year in which I was busted for underage drinking, grounded for several months, let my grades slip, mouthed off to teachers and other adults, skipped school regularly, and on one notable occasion, served an in-school suspension. In general, I was a little shit, and therefore had really low expectations for myself at college-entry. My mom had more or less made me feel like the failure child, and my goals consisted of "get a degree, ANY degree, and graduate. And for the love of all that is holy, don't go back home."

Fast forward four years and I'm a college graduate in New York City with a 3.9 GPA and lofty academic aspirations. I did not see that one coming at all. Shouldn't I be on Intervention by now? I guess there's still time to develop a meth addiction...

Anyway, in the spirit of "Holyshitthatyearwentbysofast" musings, I present the highlights (and lowlights) of my 2008:

I finished my very first thesis, a 28-page monstrosity on effects of child attentiveness on later parenting and child problem behavior. All the real academics are snorting derisively at labeling a 28-page paper a "monstrosity," but I'm young, goddamnit.
I worked two jobs, a "real" one at a lab and a supplemental one serving snotty weddings and corporate functions. I had a fucking blast at both.
I got into a literal screaming match at the wedding-job with a cunt of an event planner. I got to keep my job without so much as a reprimand. I may be the most spoiled employee on Earth.
I graduated.
I got accepted into an Ivy League PhD program in New York.
I went to Bonnaroo and did a shit-load of drugs. Oh, and I saw some good bands, too.
I wore a bridesmaid's dress instead of a wedding-server tux.
I got my first car, from my Nana. It was a 1987 Plymouth Horizon hatchback. It only had 83,000 miles on it. I predict that it was the coolest car I will ever own in my entire life (I do not mean that sarcastically. I truly appreciate the quirkiness of that car, and I would kill to have it back).
I sold my first car to a friend when I moved to New York.
I moved to Manhattan.
Boyfriend and I moved in together. I think this was the best thing that happened to me all year.
I spent more time unemployed than I ever have since I started working at 14.
I got a pet bunny from the animal shelter. I litter trained him and taught him to come when called (er, most of the time). He always impresses our visitors.
I declined entering my graduate program when the promised funding "fell through" (read: was a lie).
I spent many weeks crying myself to sleep. And crying myself awake. And being a gloomy gus in general.
I got a new job, just as everyone else was losing theirs.
I voted in my second presidential election and fourth overall election.
I participated in a major, nationwide protest against Prop 8.
I watched my best friend's baby grow into a little girl.

I wish I could glimpse my 2009 list. I hope it says something like "won a muli-million dollar lawsuit against Ivy League Liars" or "ate so many donuts I won a prize." Either one would be fine with me.

PS: Speaking of donuts, my new New York doctor called with blood test results. My cholesterol is AWESOME. The power of youth, baby. I'm gonna get me some McNuggets and a milkshake, suckas.

What's on your list? Happy New Year, everyone :)

Just for funsies

2008-12-29T12:42:00.002-05:00

While I still have a few blissful days of vacation left, I am back from my parents' home and relaxing in front of the couch, ready to blog again. Might I mention that I am currently blogging on my Shiny New HP Laptop? With built-in webcam, TWO headphone ports (for sharing!) a DVD-RW drive, Windows Vista (Sims 3, here I come!), 4 gigs of memory, and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU? Well, I am. Will it make me a better writer? It might! Thank you, Boyfriend :)

I also received some great books that I am greedily devouring. One is the memoir of one of the first blogs I ever read (starting all the way back in 2004), Schuyler's Monster. If you have never heard of Rob Rummel-Hudson; his awesome wife, Julie; or his amazing daughter, Schuyler; you should give him a read (both book and blog). Schuyler was born with a rare neurological defect that has left her unable to speak (along with a few other disabilities), with the exception of vowels and a few soft consonants. She speaks with a communicative device, Stephen Hawking-style. I have enjoyed following their story since I accidentally stumbled on Rob's old blog, "Darn Tootin'", while googling nasty after-effects of my wisdom-tooth removal (apparently we share similar dental nightmares). Um, and he totally dyes second-grade Schuyler's hair purple. How fucking cool is that? Note to self: Must encourage bad-assness in future children.

While I'm gloating: In reference to the Great Family Rift of '08, yet another study has come out damning the effects of abstinence-only education. This one was particularly interesting, as it compared groups of kids who have similar, conservative backgrounds, but receive different types of sex ed (abstinence v. comprehensive). Other studies have apparently failed to match teens based on family background, and subsequently often compared children from religious and conservative backgrounds to children from liberal backgrounds. In this latest study, the abstinence-only teens show non-significant differences from the comprehensive teens in age of first intercourse, number of partners, or types of sexual activity. Naturally, the abstinence-only teens were at a greater risk for unwanted pregnancies and STDS. Sorry, Boyfriend's Aunt, but I'm still fucking right. Oh, and you're still damaging your children in the name of your God.

And finally, two people who know me in Real Life and also know about my blog asked me what sorts of internet searches lead people to my blog. This is a hilarious question, because I could tell them that RIDICULOUS searches lead to my blog, and thus reflect the high-caliber content that I post. So, I present to you a selection of some of the more interesting search queries (spelling errors and all):

atheist tree toppers (I may google that myself, later).
"i want to * you like an animal" (why would someone censor themselves in a Google search?)
amish piss me off (me too, buddy, me too).
amish women fucking (um...ok. Different strokes for different folks?)
disneys characters fuckink watch now (my favorite part of that query isn't so much the "disneys characters fuckink" as the "watch now" part. Like the person thought they might get a video of Disney characters fucking but they couldn't watch it until next week).
dont go yet monkey (what???)
heroin sandwiches (I'm surprised another person has thought of this concept).
screwing amish women (WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WITH AN AMISH FETISH??)
sexo kid (I do not want to know. I do not want to know. I do not want to know).
woman ass (and you clicked on my blog?)

Of course, I just realized that I typed the words "Amish Fetish" together, thus increasing the amount of Amish sex-fetishists who frequent my site. Hey, I'm not the thought-police. Welcome, friends.

I kissed a squirrel and I liked it

2008-12-22T20:09:00.003-05:00

Huzzah! My Fishmas shopping is all done! Unless, of course, you count the gift card that I ordered for my mom, which apparently I missed signing for today. Damn you, UPS!

On the table for this holiday is, thankfully, NOT an awkward and frustrating week with Boyfriend's Southern Baptist family. Instead, it's 5 days with my folks, and at least one day with the side of the family that produced a few white supremacists (it can't be proved, but I've got a hunch). But at least it's my family this time, so I can yell and start fights all I want without guilt.

In other good news, Boyfriend and I started with our new New York doctor. He was very nice and it makes me feel like a Big Girl to have My Own Insurance Card and My Own Doctor that I handpicked myself (thanks, ratemymd.com!). The checkup was very thorough, including some blood work. I'm interested to see what my cholesterol is like (family history of high cholesterol + massive intake of fast food does not bode well). Now all I need is My Own Gynecologist and My Own Dentist. The latter is particularly important to me since I realized that I have some icky-looking tarter on the inside of my front bottom teeth. Gross.

By the way, my parents' house is in the Land That Time Forgot, and subsequently lacks internet. So I expect posting to be nil from the 24-28. But please rest assured that during those days, I will continue to make a stand for liberals everywhere and refuse to enter the local Wal-Mart (until my mom begs me to get some paper plates, and I realize that Wal-Mart is holding the entire paper-plate industry hostage, just to piss me off).

Happy Holidays, all!

I have something in my eye...

2008-12-20T21:55:00.002-05:00

If you were wondering what it takes to make my cold, dead, husk of a heart beat again, here it is:

Safety Harbor Montessori's Cindy Horrocks, who teaches 4th, 5th and 6th grades and Carol Wooldridge who does admissions, are stunned when they open up an envelope containing a ten thousand dollar check from an anonymous donor. Each of the 30 staffers of the school received a check during a lunch in their honor at the Ozona Blue Grilling Company in Ozona. [Jim Damaske, Times]

Thanks for telling me what to do with my body

2008-12-18T19:38:00.002-05:00

I REALLY wish that shoe had hit Bush the other day. And by "shoe" I mean "bullet," because I came home from work to this news:

The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health-care workers -- from doctors to janitors -- who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctor's office or other entity if it does not accommodate employees who exercise their "right of conscience." It would apply to more than 584,000 health-care facilities.

They finally did it. Bush and his cronies finally passed legislation that allows medical employees to deny women information and resources critical to their reproductive health. It effectively ensures that women are no longer secure in the knowledge that their medical provider is doing all that they can to help them. It means that medical personnel can deny women access to abortions, birth control pills, even information about sexual and reproductive health.

I can hardly contain my outrage at this decision. The federal government should be PROTECTING our right to information and medical services, not limiting it. Women have EVERY RIGHT to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs. Instead, our government has just swooped in and proclaimed that our right to health and happiness is secondary to another person's religious views.

The idea that this bill "protects the conscience" of medical providers is bullshit. If you aren't comfortable with the idea of prescribing/distributing birth control or performing abortions, DON'T GO INTO THAT PROFESSION. I can't get a job driving an ice cream truck and then refuse to hand out ice cream on the grounds that I'm against childhood obesity. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists shouldn't be allowed to keep their jobs if they aren't willing to DO THOSE JOBS. They don't deserve protection for failing to provide adequate medical information and care for women. This action, like so much of Bush's administration, is absolutely unconstitutional. The government is endorsing religion by empowering people to impose their religious views on the rest of us. No one should have the power to impose their religiously-driven morals on others who don't share those viewpoints.

It is neither reasonable nor fair to expect women to travel elsewhere to receive these services. There are so many places in America that are served by a single pharmacy or doctor's office. And not everyone in those places has the money, resources, or insurance coverage to find another doctor or pharmacy. Furthermore, if you are a young person growing up in such an isolated place, how would you even know what information you are lacking if your doctor won't even discuss issues of birth control or sexual health?

Ironically, I bet every single one of the people who receive "protection" from this legislation have no problem with issues of men's health. Go into any pharmacy that refuses to sell birth control and ask to see how many bottles of Viagra they stock. This entire school of thought is the product of a religious patriarchy that inherently values the health and well-being of men over women.

It's up to the Obama administration to undo this travesty and allow women full control over their bodies and health. Obama, I had so much hope for you. Please don't let us down.

A time for idealism

2008-12-15T22:45:00.002-05:00

Maxie at I hate So Much asked her readers to describe their perfect world:

My boss wouldn't have some sort of anxiety disorder, and subsequently wouldn't PESTER THE LIVING FUCK out of me 6 hours of the day.
I would have fully-developed fine and gross motor-control. I would use this newfound motor-control to wrap lump-free Christmas gifts, eat without spewing crumbs in a 20-foot radius, and drink coffee without spilling it everywhere.
The shoe would have hit Bush smack in the face.
I would have something chocolaty and delicious in my hand RIGHT NOW.
My best friend would be moving in next door, instead of moving 1,278 miles away from me this week.
We wouldn't have to second-guess buying kiddie science kits for Boyfriend's cousins, because it might look like we have an "agenda."
My grad school would have funded me, and I would be one semester closer to my doctorate.

Fuck. That made me sort of depressed. I have to counter this with things that could be worse:

I could still be unemployed.
Boyfriend could be unemployed.
I could have no Christmas shopping done.
McCain could have won.
The east-coast ice storm could have hit New York (instead it was 50 degrees today).
I could still live with my parents.

I think I'm really reaching now. I don't really recommend trying this list yourself, unless you feel like curling into a ball and sighing deeply for a half-hour.

Bony Bitch

2008-12-13T18:40:00.003-05:00

I had some Big Work Thing today (yes, today, as in Saturday, damnit), at which I met a couple of people whom I normally only hear over the phone in conference calls and whom I was eager to impress in person (for selfish, career-advancing reasons). At one point, one of these people said something that didn't register with me at the time, but irked me later. Basically, we were talking about safety issues relevant to my job, which involves visiting strangers in their homes for extended periods of time. To make her point about this particular safety issue (being left alone in the home with strangers if our partner were to leave), she used me as an example. Specifically, she used my size as an example:

"We don't want a situation where someone small, like Phoebe, is alone like that."

First of all, yes, I am skinny. Puny, if you will. And by "small," she surely was not referencing my height, because I am 5'7". And yeah, it's not like I dead-lift or anything. But is it really fair to assume anything about my strength, based on how you perceive my weight? Furthermore, is it fair to assume that my weight (or lack thereof) is "fair game" for an example because I'm not fat? I don't think it is. For all she knows, I could either be a fucking power-lifting champ in my spare time, or morbidly anorexic. Maybe I don't want her using me as an example, based solely on my appearance, in front of 15 co-workers. She doesn't know me.

What this really boils down to for me is a double-standard in appearance-sensitivity. Something that I've noticed throughout my life is that people are unabashedly candid when discussing a skinny person's weight, but would absolutely never be so bold as to have the same discussion or make the same comments with an overweight person (or even an average-sized person). I can recall several girls in high school who would tell me that I was so skinny I "made them sick," and frequently put me down for my weight...But I was supposed to take these comments as compliments! Can you imagine saying such things to an overweight person? Everyone would think you were a goddamn monster. But in my case, people seem to expect me to welcome these commentaries.

I know what you're thinking: boo-fucking-hoo, Phoebe. Life is so hard when your body fulfills arbitrary cultural standards for beauty. Way to play the poor-little-rich girl. Well you know what? Someone's weight shouldn't ever be fair-game for a public discussion IN FRONT OF THAT PERSON. Weight is a sensitive issue, period. Whether you are talking to Jabba-the-Hutt or Twiggy, it's not okay to single someone out based on their weight. And it's ESPECIALLY not okay to turn that person's weight into a stereotype (assumptions of strength included). Remember that Wal-Mart worker who got trampled by the Black Friday crowd? They put him in front of that crowd because he was big, and supposedly, strong. The assumption that his weight should have been enough to control a mob of crazed Wal-Mart shoppers got that guy killed.

That's an extreme example. But even in my case, assumptions that my weight determines my strength has caused a lot of people to underestimate my physical skill. I'm actually quite good at lifting heavy shit. And I find it demeaning when someone jumps to help me because they assume that I can't carry/lift something. I wanted your help, I would ask for it.

That post was all over the place. I promise more coherency in the next.

Ok, NuvaRing, WE GET IT

2008-12-09T21:09:00.003-05:00

I swear to god, if I have to hear that fucking NuvaRing commerical one more time, I will rip out my uterus with my bare hands and mail it in a white envelope to the NuvaRing marketing execs.

You know which one I mean: "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday every daaaaaaaay..."

Yeah, now it's in your head, too. TAKE THAT.

Old people make me sad :(

2008-12-08T21:28:00.004-05:00

God, are old people downers.

My 80-something grandmother is moving to an assisted living facility this month. I haven't called her in a while, but my aunt sent out a family email urging people to check up on her, so I phoned. It's hard to talk to my grandmother, because apparently I talk too fast. Ever since I was a kid, adults have been completely unable to understand me for this reason. Our Christmas morning videos go like this:

Me: Wow! A My Little Pony! Thank you!
Grandparent: A high spittle baloney? What? Slow down, child!
Me: A my little pony, Nana.
Grandparent: WHAT? SLOW DOWN!
Me: A Myyyyyyyyy Liiiiiiiiit-tlllllle Poooooonyyyyyyyyyyy....
Grandparent: Good lord she speaks fast!

I dunno, old age refuses to hear youth, maybe. Anyway, talking to grandmother feels like a very slow conversation, with a lot of repeating. It was also a bit of a downer, because she talked some about how she wasn't really ready to move to this new place and was satisfied with her current apartment. Then she said that she was "ready now, but not before." But I don't know how true that is, because Grandmother is from the "shut the hell up and quit complaining" school. So I sort of suspect that she still isn't crazy about moving. Anyway, it made me sad that she's losing her independence, and is aware of it. I always hoped that if I lived long enough to lose my independence, I would be so out of it that I wouldn't even know. Basically, I'd rather be a huge burden to my kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Grandmother is lucid (her problem is that she has crippling arthritis in her knees, and just can't safely get around on her own). I don't want to see her sad. She's had kind of a shitty life, from what I hear, and she doesn't need more shittiness.

After I hung up the phone with Grandmother, our downstairs neighbor knocked on our door. She said that her husband had fallen and asked if we could help move him. The guy is pretty old, and he seems much older than his wife (not in a gold-digger way, but there's definitely an age gap). He had fallen off of a low air mattress and was too weak to move himself to the bed (before you medical-types jump on me, we did first ascertain that he was safe to move. Seems like he had more or less tumbled over, rather than really falling "down."). Boyfriend and I moved him, with quite a bit of difficulty, because he didn't seem to know what was going on and couldn't really move himself. He was shaking and scared, and we had trouble convincing him to lean on us and let go of the doorknob that he was using for support. After we moved him and left the room, our neighbor told us that he had cancerous brain tumors that prevented him from feeling his legs. What kills me is that we moved into this building in June, and at that time he seemed very healthy and active. It's disturbing to see such a fast deterioration.

Sorry about the sad post :( I will work on upbeat, non-wrist-slitting ideas for the next one, I swear! In the meantime, remember that it's down the highway, not across the street.

My official heathen atheist stance on Christmas

2008-12-07T23:15:00.003-05:00

Boyfriend and I decorated our apartment for Christmas yesterday. We have a little table-top fake tree, with some lights and ornaments, as well as some multi-colored lights in the window. Since we both identify as atheists, I thought it would be topical to address My Big Official Stance on Christmas (alternate working title: Why We Keep Celebrating a Holiday that We Don't Believe In).

It is a good discussion topic (unless we are with Boyfriend's Southern Baptist family. In which case, it is the WORST DISCUSSION POSSIBLE). I mean, Christians don't often go lighting menorahs, and I don't know too many Jews who fast for Ramadan. A lot of Christians seem to take offense at non-Christians butting in on their holiday, and I can see why they would be peeved.

Lots of atheists justify celebrating the holidays by claiming "winter solstice" and all that. And it is true that this time of the year was originally celebrated for the winter solstice, back when those crazy Pagans were running the show. Then, the Christians decided that they REALLY wanted that celebration for themselves, so they pretty much just took it and (literally) told the Pagans to go to hell. So in a way, a lot of atheists use the holidays to point out that no, Jesus ISN'T the reason for the season, and yes, we still have a right to exchange gifts and put up a tree.

I feel like that is a fine explanation, but let's be honest here: I am not a pagan, and I do not wish to celebrate the winter solstice. So while I can understand telling people about the solstice (because it does make a valid point regarding the origins of the holiday and the existence of other reasons to celebrate), I don't feel like it really "fits" me.

What does "fit" is the simple fact that I like being with my family and friends, exchanging tokens of appreciation, the smell of pine, and pretty lights. I (and everyone else on earth) like things that conjure up happy childhood memories. I like to make my family happy, as opposed to hurting them by refusing to participate in their religious holiday. In short, we celebrate Christmas as a "cultural" holiday; i.e., one that is inescapable given the value assigned to it by our society and families. A lot of Jewish kids who grew up in Christian neighborhoods know what I'm talking about: Sure, your family doesn't "technically" celebrate Christmas, but on the 25th, your mom gets you some gifts anyway. It's all about inclusiveness. We grew up this way, our families are this way, and the damned town/city/state/country is this way. We will be this way, too, but only in some ways.

I don't go to church anymore, even if my mom asks me (and she hasn't asked in a long time, thankfully). That's where I draw the limit in terms of cultural participation. I will go into churches for weddings, funerals, etc., but I think that going as far as attending a Christmas service would place me in a very hypocritical position. Basically, the "fun" stuff (if you always consider the holidays "fun," which I don't) is something in which I feel safe as a participant. I can justify it as a "cultural" thing, a "winter solstice" thing, a "traditional" thing. That part of Christmas is so far removed from Christianity at this point anyway, thanks to sweet, sweet capitalism. But once I have to sit through a sermon it's no longer something that I feel I can justify in the same way. Not to mention that I just don't want to fucking hear it anymore.

So that's why we have a tree, lights, ornaments, and will exchange gifts with our families on the 25th. Are we greedy and selfish for celebrating a holiday in which we do not believe? Maybe. Do I care? Not really. If anyone feels like challenging me on that, I'd just like you to know that you are totally welcome to celebrate Spaghettimas, even if you don't believe/understand/know anything about the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarians. See, shouldn't everyone be so generous with their holidays?

By the way, our tree topper is a pink-frosted donut ornament. With sprinkles.

Maybe they should be treated for "head-up-ass" syndrome

2008-12-05T22:07:00.003-05:00

I firmly believe that the US Armed Forces will always be the last frontier in conquering sexism. P.E. classes could be desegregated and the FCC could ban gender-typed marketing; but the US military would still insist that women are too weak to sign up for the draft, or too fragile to serve on the front lines, or too seductive and distracting to the men.

Evidence: Private Monica Brown. The CBS article is good and you should read it, but here is all you need to know:

Pvt. Brown was serving as a medic on Afghanistan's front lines with a paratrooper unit.
Brown's platoon drove straight into a massive ambush, complete with a roadside bomb, intense small arms fire, and mortar fire.
Brown ran through that ambush to provide medical aide to two of the most seriously wounded men.
As the ambush continued around her, Brown threw her body over the men as she worked on them, to protect them from the ongoing gunfire and explosions.
Brown then dragged the men back to the truck, and continued to shield them with her own body.

For all of this, Pvt. Brown earned a Silver Star. She is only the second woman to earn the Silver Star since WWII. She saved the lives of those two men, at the risk of her own. Both her brigade commander and sergeant major recommended her for the award, fully acknowledging her heroism.

Are you ready for the kicker? Sure? You're positive you really want to feel this story punch you in the face? Ok...

The two men who Brown saved, Larry Spray and Stanson Smith, don't really care that Brown saved their asses when they were bleeding, burned, lacerated, and dying. They don't care that in addition to doing her job as a medic in extreme conditions, she risked her own life to shield their bodies TWICE. Apparently what Spray and Smith care about is that Pvt. Brown has a vagina:

But both of those men, Smith and Spray, declined to give 60 Minutes an interview. When we asked why, Smith said flat out women have no business being on the front line..."People ask, you know, like, 'Was she a superhero? Did she do anything, you know, super woman, super heroic?' No, she did her job," Best (a gunner with the platoon) says. "And she did a very, very good job doing it. Now, that fact that she was 18 and, you know, a female and all, you know, that adds something to it."

I don't understand how the fact that Brown was not "supposed" to be there negates from what she did. She shielded two severely injured men with her own body as she gave them life-saving medical attention. Whether she was "supposed" to be there or not is irrelevant. She was. She did. It happened. People in cases of "right place, right time" aren't usually "supposed" to be there either, but everyone talks about how fortunate they are anyway.

As for Best's comments, I call shenanigans. While Brown was certainly "doing her job" as a medic, she went above and beyond the call of duty when she continued to expose herself to enemy fire. Her job as a medic is to treat wounds, not to act as a human shield. So yeah, I would say that what she did wasn't necessarily in her job description. Best's dismissive comments are the direct result of his inability to see past Brown's gender. He clearly feels that her femaleness gives her some sort of unfair "edge" in earning a star. I'd bet dollars-to-donuts that if Monica Brown were a Mark Brown, he would not be so quick to dumb the actions down to a job description.

But I'll give Best a fair shot, here: Let's look at the actions of some past male Silver Star awardees. I'm sure history will show that those men worked MUCH harder for their recognition:

Antonio Rodriguez Balinas (1951): Defended the left flank of his company from ongoing enemy attacks at great risk to his life. Hm. As a second lieutenant, isn't it his "job" to defend his company from enemy attacks?
Harry Frederick Bauer (1942): Was a Lieutenant Commander who was wounded, yet ordered his own men to turn attention from him and rescue another man instead. Bauer died, so I would say he definitely risked his own life while "doing his job" (ordering his men to rescue a wounded man).
Michael A. Monsoor (2006): Ran into a street under insurgent gunfire to rescue a wounded comrade. Sounds familiar.
John Stebbins (1993): Was supposed to be serving as a clerk for the Somalia conflict, but joined fighting anyway. That alone earned him the Star. But he had no business being there!

Sorry, Best. Looks like plenty of men have earned the Star for the same reasons as Brown. Try to contain your exploding head.

In 2008, there is not a single fucking excuse for feeling threatened by a woman's ability to match the ability of any man. We prove our equality all the time, but ignorant asses like Spray, Smith, and Best always find ways to justify the cognitive dissonance. Heaven forfend that they ever justify it by re-examining their personal perceptions of women. Brown could have thrown her body over a hand grenade for them and they would still claim that she didn't do anything special.

How about some fucking appreciation?

Le Femme Obamas

2008-12-04T19:08:00.003-05:00

Today I head a teaser for a "news" story on the potential designer for Michelle Obama's inaugural outfit; later, I read a story on Jezebel about what Malia and Sasha will wear. And to all of this I say: WHO THE FUCK CARES? No one ever speculates about what suit Barack Obama will don. No one analyzes the shit out of his tie colors and the crease on his pants. Can we talk about the things Michelle might like to do with her new position in the Whitehouse (And I'm not talking about decorating the fucking Christmas tree)? You know, I never hear it mentioned, but the woman has a fucking career, too. We could talk about how that might play into her future plans? For crying out loud, why don't we write about Sasha and Malia's favorite sports or school subjects? WHO CARES WHAT THEY WEAR?

My point is that the media can not seem to learn that WOMEN ARE NOT FUCKING DECORATIONS. Michelle, Sasha, and Malia are not pretty accessories for the president-elect. They are people. With minds. And one of them has a really fucking awesome career (can I just point out here that while Barack Obama was still a senator, Michelle earned waaaaaaay more than he did? like, over $100,000 more a year?). And there is more substance to them than how they look when they wear clothing. So it would be fucking awesome if the media dug a little deeper (I'm talking to you, Jezebel).

Writer's Block

2008-12-03T19:42:00.004-05:00

I'm feeling a bit clogged in the cranium, if you will. So I'm taking a cue from the One Minute Writer blog and writing for one minute on today's topic: What is your least favorite food, and why?

Vegetables. I fucking hate most vegetables. I know that vegetables are really more of a group of foods than a single food, but that's what I hate. Boyfriend has actually forcibly inserted broccoli into my mouth, only to have me push it out with my tongue. They taste bitter (or like nothing at all), some of them have bad textures (corn kernals), and some of them are too hard to chew (shut up. I have a delicate jaw). When we are at a family dinner, I will always fail to place the green beans/broccoli/cooked carrots/corn/nasty-ass vegetable combo on my plate. Instead, I will take seconds and thirds of the potatoes and rolls.

The only time that I will eat vegetables is if they are in a stew (and even then I often eat around them), deep-fried (particularly zucchini), or covered in ten pounds of cheez-whiz/peanut butter (this is how my mother got me to eat them as a child). I will not force myself to eat vegetables for the sake of my health. I'd rather stick a fork up my anus. Make that three forks.

I imagine that I am quite lacking in many essential nutrients. This does not bother me. Ask me again when the DIABEETUS (thank you, Wilford Brimley) kicks in. Because this bitch loves her sugar.

I didn't obey the minute-limit, but it's my blog and I can do what I want. So thhpppttt.

Passport 2 Teen Pregnancy, Part Deux

2008-12-01T22:56:00.003-05:00

Awhile back I wrote about some concerns I had about spending the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday with Boyfriend's family. You can read all about it here, but it you're anything like me, you generally don't follow the links back because you're a lazy sonofabitch. So I will be really nice and sum it up for you: Boyfriend has an Aunt and Uncle, with two daughters, Cute Cousins 1 and 2 (CC1 and 2). They are some sort of crazy Southern Baptist, from a VERY southern state. This year, CC1 is 12, and Aunt is doing an abstinence-only sex ed with her called Passport2Purity.

Boyfriend and I are quite concerned about this abstinence-only sex ed, for all of the reasons illuminated in my last entry (I know you didn't click the link, jerk). So we had talked about it and decided that if the opportunity arose, it would benefit CC1 to give her our perspective on sex (that it's AWESOME).

Ha! No, that would be age-inappropriate (that talk doesn't come until next year). We just wanted to let her know that A) She should ALWAYS seek either birth control pills and condoms if and when she decides to have sex, without shame or embarrassment and B) It's totally okay if you decide to have sex, so don't think that you're any less of a person (this is an especially important message if she gets molested or raped. Not that it's okay to be raped, but that it won't devalue her in any way).

We got to spend about two full days with this branch of Boyfriend's family. There were about 14 people in the house, so we figured that we probably wouldn't get a chance to talk to CC1 (although I was just dying to say something). On the last night of her visit, I went to call my mom privately in the basement, and CC1 sort of wandered in after me and was hanging around. I figured this was about the only chance I would ever get, so I said good-bye to my mom and went to talk to CC1.

Basically, we only got a little bit of time. I started by asking her about her Passport2Purity trip, and if it was embarrassing ("Yes!") Then I asked her if her mom told her about birth control or condoms on the trip. Of course not. This pisses me off. You take a whole fucking weekend to talk about sex with your kid and you can't include something about birth control or STD prevention? Are you fucking kidding me?

So I went for it and gave her my spiel about THESE ARE WHAT BIRTH CONTROL PILLS LOOK LIKE AND SWEAR TO GOD YOU WILL USE THESE AND CONDOMS WHEN YOU HAVE SEX (I hope it came off less desperate than that). I also got in some bit about how they aren't bad and she shouldn't be ashamed or scared to buy them, and the pills don't kill babies and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Then she got called upstairs for something. When whoever called her was done, she ran right back down to talk to me more. She seriously had a ton of questions, and she was super curious. Boyfriend figured out what I was doing and joined me to talk to her. We got a few more things in before we got interrupted and had to postpone the convo for later. Unfortunately, we didn't get another chance to talk to her alone (There were three other kids in the house and I swear we were like some sort of crack to them). So when she left the next morning I told her she could email us anytime she wanted to talk.

But wait, there's more.

We left on Sunday, by train (we're so old-fashioned, by which I mean "too cheap for plane tickets"). Two hours into the train ride, Boyfriend's phone rings. Sure enough, it's Aunt. CC1 spilled. Aunt asked for me (as an "outsider," I am naturally the main culprit). She wasn't very happy, to say the least. Well, no shit, I did undermine her parenting strategy. So I sat through a thorough telling-off. Looking back on it, I remember sitting in the train seat talking on the phone, quite upright. But then I could feel my spine slowly melting and swaying as it slowly turned into some sort of gelatinous goo. And just like that, I lost any nerve to actually debate Aunt on her choice of sex ed. Instead I spent the phone call telling her that I was "sorry for offending" and "respected her decisions."

I think that my yellow-bellied response was the right thing to do, for the sake of family harmony. First of all, I knew what I was doing in terms of undermining Aunt's parenting. I know what a big problem that is, and yes, I had considered how I would feel as a parent if someone did something like that to me. So I feel conflicted about our decision to talk to CC1. But what I've ultimately concluded is that in this case, CC1's health and well-being is at stake. CC1 is unlikely to hear this information from her school (VERY southern state, if I haven't made that clear enough already) or her parents. And anyone with their head NOT up their ass knows that abstinence-only sex ed has significantly higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs than comprehensive sex-ed. So if Boyfriend and I can do ANYTHING to get the information that she needs and deserves to protect herself as she gets older, then we will. I knew going into it that CC1 was likely to tell Aunt. And I knew that I was risking some serious family Drama.
So bowing to Aunt's almighty sense of indignation was the least price we could pay, I think, for the potential to help CC1 avoid a lot of nasty troubles.

It really could have gone worse, I think. Aunt could have completely cut us off from speaking to her daughters, which would have been too painful. Instead, she did a very "Christian" (or just plain nice) thing, which was to tell us that she loved and forgave us (whether she really feels that way is questionable. But it was nice to hear it, rather than ex-communicating us from her family).

Aunt also said a few things on the phone that bugged the shit out of me, which I failed to argue (harmony, harmony). She made the comment that "I wasn't ready to talk about this with her." Oh really? YOU weren't ready? Because I think what actually matters is whether your DAUGHTER is ready. And she seemed pretty fucking ready to hear about it to me. Plus, if you are going to have a whole weekend to talk about fucking, then you had BETTER be ready to discuss any and all aspects of it. Aunt also noted that CC1 is "12, not 14" to illustrate that she is "too young" to hear all this. Sorry, I fucking disagree. 12 is the PERFECT age to know this. Know why? Because it's old enough to comprehend, but (hopefully) before the need to practice. So when she IS 14 she's already armed. Also, she may not be having sex now, but that shit happens fast. I mean really. I think I decided I wanted to finally have sex in about two weeks' time. And if I hadn't known anything about birth control or condoms BEFORE then, I imagine that I would have figured I would be just fine without them (you can't get pregnant or STDs from just one time/if you pull out/ if you do it in the ass, right?). Not to mention that CC1 isn't some delicate fucking snowflake. Her head won't explode if she hears those words at 12. My middle school started sex ed in grade 6. Frankly, waiting until 12 is a bit generous, in my opinion.

Aunt got pretty condescending when she told me that I am young, don't know anything, and will change my mind when I'm 45 with kids. Actually, no. I'm pretty fucking sure about this. Mostly because my reasoning is grounded in reality, while yours is grounded in your pastor's asshole. That's why future 6-year-old will fucking school you in the latest stats on birth control effectiveness.

Aunt also said that CC1 was "upset." Really? If anything, CC1 is probably confused, because two people she trusts suddenly told her the OPPOSITE of whatever crap her family and church feed her. But I highly doubt that she is "upset." She was curious. She had questions. She said that she wanted to talk more. She never indicated that the conversation made her uncomfortable or that she didn't want to talk about it. If that was the case, I wouldn't have talked to her.

The one thing I regret is that I did tell CC1 to not tell her mom that I told her these things. When I said that, I was particularly thinking that I didn't want CC1 to tell her mom personal details about MY sex life that I was sharing as an example (age I started on birth control, etc). Admittedly, I would have preferred if CC1 didn't say anything to Aunt at all, for the obvious reason that Aunt would be angry with me. Of course, this is how it came across to CC1, who has been taught that an adult should never tell her not to share something with her parents (which is a good lesson). So I was sorry that I said that, because it probably came off as shady to CC1. But I'm not a creeper, I swear.

Anyway, we think it's mostly over (until next holiday. This could be one of those things that drags on for years). I am sorry that Aunt (and probably Uncle) are upset and may not trust us with their daughters in the future. I am sorry that I intentionally undermined somebody's parenting. But I am NOT sorry, nor will I ever be, that I did what I could to give CC1 honest information for the sake of her reproductive health. I am NOT sorry that I gave her the idea that she CAN have sex if she is safe. I am NOT sorry that I told her that she should not be too ashamed or embarrassed to protect herself. In this case, CC1's right to health and safety trumps Aunt's right to insulate her daughter in an archaic purity bubble.

Boyfriend and I now joke that this is that historical holiday we tell our kids about when they ask why Daddy's family doesn't talk to us. Ah, memories.

Atheist Adverts

2008-11-25T23:58:00.000-05:00

There was some article somewhere, that I am too lazy to look up right now and link to because I have a headache. But the gist of it was that some group of atheists (freedom from religious thought? something like that? GAH I HATE EFFORT) are all getting together to fund billboards and bus adverts to get their message out there. Things like "Reason's Greetings" (around xmas) and "reject religious Dogma" and "Don't believe in god? You're not alone."

Anywho, I'm just gonna come out and say that I'm not totally cool with this concept of "organized" atheism. My thinking is that I really fucking hate those stupid Christian billboards (there's one on the drive down to my parents' house that says "Keep using my name in vain, and I'll make rush hour longer. -God." WTF? That doesn't even say anything. What retarded monkey was allowed to pick that message?). So I can't see how the atheist billboards are any better than that. Honestly, I don't want any advert telling me what to believe in, or attempting to guilt me or whatever. So even though I may agree with the messages on the atheist billboards, I can't say that I believe in any great gain from their existence. If anything, it makes us look as obnoxious and insecure as the fundies. Isn't the idea that we don't need to get on a soapbox or have rallies or be fuck-ass CrAzY to be secure in our beliefs?

I imagine it looks like we're being pushy in those ads. And to the average fundie, I imagine that it looks like we're WAGING A FUCKING WAR on Christmas/god/America/little Debbie snack cakes. I don't think we need to feed into their bizarre martyr complex/delusions of grandeur anymore.

But there is a flip side. Because even if I disapprove of this "in-your-face" movement from organized atheism, it is doing things for us that are helpful, and which wouldn't be possible without group cohesiveness. For instance, this atheist group managed to hire its first lobbyist to speak for us in DC. That's a pretty big deal, because we're a pretty disenfranchised group in this country (can I refer you to the 14 states that don't officially let atheists hold office? Or the theistic chant that public school teach our children?) And I do sort of like the idea of letting people know that we do exist and we do matter. Seriously. Because some people actually believe that our numbers are so small that we don't matter. Or that we don't exist at all. So that makes it sort of hard to live, and I'm glad that a group is trying to ameliorate that for us.

My feelings on organized atheism also make me feel apathetic about blogging my non-belief. I'm not really interested in arguing it, or hashing it out, etc. There are plenty of good atheist blogs that do that already, and they're interesting to read...to a point. But at some point, I'm not interested in watching a reasonable, logical atheist hash it out against some infuriated barely-literate fundie. It's a one-sided argument, it's not going to get resolved, and it's only re-stating what I already know. Preachin' to the choir, yo. So that's why I probably won't post on atheism as much as, say, queef jokes that Boyfriend makes. That's right, I said QUEEF. Don't act like I didn't make you CRINGE.

Anywhoodle, I know I was just absent from blogging for a bit, but I'm actually not done being absent. We're spending Thanksgiving with Boyfriend's family out-of-state, so I probably won't be blogging in a house where my online musings might be discovered (I guess I could blog and if someone asks what I'm doing, I could say that I'm looking at hardcore sadomasochist goat-cheese porn, but I don't know if I wanna risk it). So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'll be back next week!

Why I Love New York, Reason #1,233,434

2008-11-25T16:24:00.002-05:00

Because sometimes, when you step on the subway after a 4 hour bus ride from your mom's house dragging 60 pounds of luggage with a new cold and hungry as fuck, a young man with a pleasant voice and an acoustic guitar is standing across from you singing a Beatles song. And that just makes it all okay.

That was weird

2008-11-19T23:27:00.003-05:00

You know all of those fake-ass warning stories they tell to women, like "once a woman heard a baby cry on her porch but she thought it was weird so she called the cops and the cops were all DON'T A RAPIST HAS BEEN IMPERSONATING A CRYING BABY TO LURE FOOLISH BABY-LOVING WOMEN LIKE YOU RIGHT INTO HIS CLUTCHES and the woman is all PHEW I could have been raped"???

Yeah. I hate those urban-legends-passed-as-true stories. Oh, but one of them sort of happened to me tonight.

At around 10 tonight, Boyfriend and I are on the couch. The buzzer rings. Now, we live on a second floor apartment facing the street, and we can look out the window and see people at the door. But sometimes I think it's better to not look out the window and reveal yourself to whoever is at the door. 'Cause if it's some cute kids selling candy for school you look like a big scrooge when you drop the curtain and walk away. Anyway, for this reason, I asked who it was over the intercom before I looked out the window.

"Package for apartment two."

Um, okay. It's 10 pm, and we are not expecting a package. There's one other apartment on my floor, so I ask which apartment it's for.

"It just says two."

Okay. This is shady. Now I ask who's name is on it.

"It doesn't say."

Now I'm definitely not buzzing them in. Boyfriend glances out the window, and goes across the hall to see if our neighbor is perhaps expecting something. I push the "talk" button once more, and tell the person to hold on for a minute.

Silence on the other end.

I cross the room and look out the window. No one is at our gate.

The neighbor doesn't answer and Boyfriend comes back. I ask him if he saw someone standing at the gate when he looked. He had. Did they have a package? No. Were they in a uniform? No. What was he wearing? It was someone in a dark blue hoodie, with the hood up.

Nice. My night almost turned into a cautionary tale, doomed to eternal circulation in emails from well-meaning aunts.

So, at this point the guy was gone, but I felt unsettled knowing that some guy is in our neighborhood ringing buzzers and trying to get into apartments. His motive could be anything, really. It's cold out tonight, so maybe he's just trying to find a warm place to sleep. Or maybe he's trying to rob the shit out of someone. Honestly, I'm not much of a gambling woman, so I'd rather not try my luck. We called the cops, and made a report. The cops can't do anything, but it will ease my conscience if I read in the paper tomorrow that a guy in a dark blue hoodie killed a family of five by ringing their buzzers and pretending to have a package. At least I let someone know.

The best part of all this was that the cops who stopped by were waaaaay more interested in our house bunny than in making a report. They didn't even write anything down. Which I get, because legally speaking, nothing happened. But when I apologized for bothering them they were very sincere in assuring us that we had done the right thing.

All the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-house stories aside, I will be out of town for a few days, so no bloggity bloggin'. But don't try to rob me if you've been stalking me, because my fierce attack bunny will be holding down the fort. Hell, he nibbled on one of the cop's shoes. He's that hard.

An Underdog Undergnu Story

2008-11-17T21:12:00.005-05:00

I was going to post something femininsty tonight, but then Boyfriend and I watched the following video and I decided that I just really had to share this. It's eight minutes, but I promise that if you watch every minute of it you will NOT be sorry.

Let's just say, Gnus ain't nothin' to fuck with

Protest H8

2008-11-15T08:44:00.005-05:00

Boyfriend and I are going to City Hall as part of the Join the Impact national protests against Prop 8 today. If you have free time, please please please show your support for equality at your local city hall. The website lists where a protest is near you today. The more bodies, the better.

We will win this.

Update: The demonstration was so energizing and inspiring. I haven't heard official numbers yet, but they announced that they had it at over 5,000 in NYC (we could hear the roar of the crowd as soon as we got off the subway). And I heard that San Diego had 15,000. It took us some time to make our way over to a speaker so we could hear the speeches, but they were wonderful. One man talked about how he married his husband in California in October, and he was still married no matter what the government told him. Another person spoke about how he doesn't want to raise his son in a country where the government sees his father as a second-class citizen. And when everyone started chanting "Yes, we can," I may or may not have choked up a bit. Sentimental fool.

We didn't bring a camera, but someone posted a pic that caught our sign. It's the one that says "Gays aren't second-class citizens." My hand is holding it on the left side, Boyfriend's is on the right.

The other side said "Focus on your own family."

Jesus Truck

2008-11-14T18:21:00.002-05:00

The Yellow Jesus Truck is out again.

Boyfriend and I occasionally see YJT on our way home from the subway. It's a yellow truck, think like a mid-size U-Haul truck, and the side of it folds out into a stage. They park the truck on the sidewalk outside one of the housing projects, and spread blankets on the sidewalk for kids to sit on. Then whoever it is who owns the YJT holds a noisy Jesus rally for the kiddies.

I fucking hate YJT. Seriously. I seethe with anger when I walk by.

"But why, Phoebe! Why do you hate Jesus!"

No, no, I don't hate your precious lamb of god. I just hate the YJT. Because the weird Jesus rallies they have send fucked-up messages, and those messages remind me of the Jesus Camp that I attended for two summers in my early teens. The sick fucking Jesus Camp that played sick fucking mind games, except we were too young to know better so we just accepted the brainwashing. I don't like watching other children accepting the brainwashing from the YJT.

Today when I walked past YJT, two staffers (ministers? missionaries? crazeballs?) Were doing a little call-and-repeat. They were holding up a sign with the messages that they wanted the kids to shout. The first sign item was "Jesus loves me." That's cool. I sort of like that message. It's cute to hear them all shout that someone loves them.

The second message is what makes me clench my teeth and fists: "I am a sinner." UGH. I HATE IT. Making little kids say that they sin, that they're sinners, that they're unworthy, etc. It's so FUCKED UP. Do you know how much guilt I had as a kid over messages like that? No wonder I had such low self-esteem my whole life. No kid should have to go through life having extreme guilt over that stupid fucking shit. What sort of "loving" religion makes little kids chant that they're "sinners"? Fucking FUCKED UP.

The third message wasn't much better: "Jesus died for me." I triple hate that one. Now, on top of making a kid feel like a sinner, you're making them feel responsible for some dude's grisly death 2000 years ago.

"Hey Billy! I just want you to know that there is this guy who REALLY loves you, with all of his heart and soul. But also, I want you to know that you're the reason he died. Oh, and the things that you do everyday make him sad and unhappy."

Yeah, that's religion in a nutshell for me. I just really hate the way it's taught to kids. I mean, it's great to teach kids right from wrong, like don't steal. But really, I think it's better to teach them to not do those things for their logical reasons (like, stealing will hurt the owners' business and you can go to jail); rather than just saying "it's a sin and sinners go to Hell." And I don't like how lessons of "right and wrong" snowball into telling kids that they are sinners. Because whatever they're doing that's "wrong" in religions' eye shouldn't really define the whole person. Especially not a kid.

WANT

2008-11-13T18:51:00.003-05:00

I MUST have this child. Right now. Someone find her and mail her to me.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Note to self: Have children, and raise them to speak French. It is way fucking cuter in French.

I shake my fist at you, Mormons

2008-11-11T20:01:00.006-05:00

Everyone knows by now what an asshole the Mormon Church is when it comes to The Gay. But now, it seems that they've also been disrespecting another group.....(wait for it)....Jews!!! And not just any Jew, oh no. Turns out that the Mormons have decided to specifically hate on DEAD HOLOCAUST JEWS.

Yeah. Apparently they believe that Mormons can only be reunited in the afterlife with other Mormons. They also believe that it's not too late for your dead relatives to become Mormons, too, so that you can see them again. So they have a church member "stand in" for your dead relative during a baptism. They believe that by doing this, the stiff can then choose Mormonism and go to heaven for punch and cookies for all eternity.

The Mormons are also crazy for genealogy records. So they have a big-ass database with a bunch of names. In this database are the names of a bunch of dead Jewish Holocaust victims. So, it turns out, they've been taking the names of the dead Jews and baptizing them in the name of the Mormon Church.

So let's get this straight. You're a Jew. You are taken to a death camp, tortured, and killed because you are a Jew. Then, 70 years after you die, some self-righteous Christians ignore your religion, ignore the suffering that you endured for your religion, and claim your soul as a member of their religious group??

This is a huge insult to Holocaust victims, survivors, and their relatives. Basically, the Mormon Church is saying "We're right and Jews are wrong. So we're going to just go ahead and make them Mormons." It trivializes the entire Jewish religion. It's disgusting.

As it turns out, in 1995 the Mormon Church had agreed to stop this practice, and removed a number of names from the database. But someone who was keeping tabs on them discovered that Jewish names have been continually resubmitted and added to the database since that time.
The Church's defense for this blatant violation is a kicker. A spokesman said that the names were added by a small-group of "well-meaning" Mormons. Oh, fuck you. Fuck your intentions. That doesn't make any of this okay. Your intentions may have been good but the effect is horribly offensive. And the effect is the only thing that matters here.

The even sadder part of the story is that the Jewish people who have been decrying the Mormons' actions are basically giving up. The initial agreement has been violated for 13 years, so simply removing names from the database obviously isn't enough. So the Jews are tired and aren't negotiating with the Mormons anymore. It's basically like this:

Mormons: *Punches Jew in the face*
Jews: Ow! Quit it!
Mormons: Oh, sorry, I thought that it would be good for you. *punches Jew again*
Jews: That hurts! Please stop!
Mormons: Ok, I'll stop. *Punches Jew in balls*
Jews: Fine. I'm walking away.
Mormons: *Follows Jew, repeatedly punches Jew in back of head*

It kills me that Mormons are so nice to your face, and then they turn around and do shit-head things like this. No regard whatsoever for any group but themselves. They will cry all night about respect for their rights and their religion, but they don't give a flying fuck about gay rights or respect for other religions. I don't know how anyone who believes in being a loving person could EVER support an organization like LDS.

My only consolation is that I think this whole thing is ridiculous because A) I don't believe in souls, so the fact that the Mormons take this whole posthumous baptism thing seriously is fucking laughable and B) it's funny to see people waste so much energy and life because they think they're going to go somewhere after they die. Hey, Mormons: Just enjoy your fucking life and quit wasting your time making other people miserable. Because I bet you dollars to donuts that when you die, you ain't going nowhere but six feet under. And you won't hear your relatives' damn baptisms down there, either. So just abstain from your coffee and tea and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

Amish Country

2008-11-10T19:06:00.004-05:00

I met someone new at work today, and we started talking about a trip that she had just returned from to Amish country in PA. I got retardedly excited about this topic, because I grew up in that area. So when I get to the Big City and the City-folk want to discuss things like this, I'm all LET'S TALK ABOUT RUMSPRINGA AND FASNACHTS.

Man, the Amish piss me off. I know, it's not nice to say. But I can't help myself. They make me really angry. And it's not because they're Christians and I'm a godless heathen. It's because they are a FUCKING BRAINWASHED CULT and yet, they are revered for it.

The Amish live in isolated communities (no shit). They rear their children with little to no exposure to the English world. They stop educating their kids at an eighth grade level (and prior to that, the quality of education that they give is questionable). And then, at fucking 16 years old, they give their kids a couple of years to go crazy and experience the English world (Rumspringa). Eventually, the kids have to decide whether they want the English life or the Amish life.

Okay, so let's think of another scenario for a second. Imagine that for your whole life, you were only allowed to eat wheat bread. Your parents tell you that eating anything other than wheat bread is bad for you, will fill you with cholesterol, and kill you.. Your teachers say the same thing. They point to non-wheat-breaders and tell you how sick they are and how they are going to die. Suddenly, at 16, your parents say that you can try bacon. You try it. It tastes good, and you sort of like it, but you're uncomfortable. Isn't wheat bread the only thing that is good to eat? Won't eating bacon kill me? Then, to top it off, your family makes you choose: wheat bread or bacon? If you want to keep eating bacon, you can't have your old life. You have to leave your family and go out into the world. If you pick wheat bread, you can go back home. So: health, home, and wheat bread; or sickness, strangeness, and bacon?

It doesn't seem like much of a choice. That's what the Amish kids basically get. They aren't educated outside of their community, so when they have to choose what life they want, they almost always pick Amish.

Furthermore, some kids do pick the English life. But guess what happens to them? They have to go out into the world WITH AN EIGHTH GRADE EDUCATION. You can imagine how successful they will be.

So I don't really have much respect for the Amish, because they brainwash their children and deny them a lot of opportunities. Also, they have a lot of genetic problems from inbreeding (bilirubin problems in particular), and that's not cool either. Oh, and did I mention how they treat their women? LIKE SHIT. Amish women can't do shit except cook and clean and squeeze out more Amish babies. Because they have vaginas. Oh, and because some bitch named Eve gave some dude named Adam an apple. So, you know, if you have a vagina you should really just stay in the kitchen and cover up, for god's sake.

But what kills me is that for some reason, people fucking WORSHIP the Amish. They take special trips to Amish country. They go crazy over photographing buggies and hitching posts. They buy books that paint the Amish as a noble and admirable people. They lose their fucking minds over quilts. Enough with the fucking quilts. Boyfriend's mother makes quilts and you don't see a bunch of people acting like jackasses to get one.

I'm not saying that the Amish aren't nice or whatever. The Amish people that I've met are so damn sweet they'll make your teeth rot and fall out. But I don't think any group of people that purposefully denies its children educational opportunities or keeps its women so subservient deserves that sort of hero-worship.
I realize, of course, that the elder Amish are themselves lacking in educational opportunities, and don't know any better themselves. But it's still not okay that they shame and guilt their kids into following their religion. Or that they keep their kids stupid so that they don't know any better. Or deprives their women of choices and careers (A documentary on the Amish called Devil's Playground profiles a 42 year old woman who uses anorexia as her only means of birth control; she didn't want more than eight kids). For crying out loud, they don't even want their people to get treatment for mental disorders.

That's just how I see the Amish. They aren't monsters or anything, but they aren't much more than a group of people whose religion keeps them ignorant. So I don't get the reverence.

But, to be fair, I do enjoy Fasnachts, so I guess I have the Amish to thank for that.

Spare the rod

2008-11-07T22:52:00.003-05:00

When I ride the subway to and from work everyday, it's generally pretty deserted since I'm going the opposite direction of most of the NY workforce. This leaves me a lot of time to sit and people-watch. Today, I was in a car with maybe 6 or 7 people, all spread out. To my left and across the aisle, in line with my peripheral vision, was a mother and son.

They were pretty ordinary, except that the son was whining for something or other. He looked like he was roughly 8 or 9 years old. I'm not sure what he was whining for, but he kept doing that "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" thing over and over again.

I know how super frustrating that constant whining is from kids. They don't know when to stop, and it really grates the nerves. This mom felt that way too, apparently. Because she was FUCKING LOSING HER SHIT. Conversation sample:

Child: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!
Mom: Shut up! SHUT UP! You sound STUPID! You shut up NOW.
Child: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!
Mom: I WILL PUT MY FIST IN YOUR MOUTH. SHUT UP.
Child: Mommy!!!! MOMMY!

At this point, the mom started slapping him. She started on the leg, with quick swats. When the kid didn't relent, she graduated to slapping him on the side of the head and face. I guess the kid is pretty used to this by now, because he was still pestering her. She did the old "cheek squeeze," where you grab the kid's cheeks between your fingers and squeeze their mouths into a fish face (My mom used to pull that one. That shit hurts). Between the bouts of physical violence, she threw in a bunch of physical threats (YOU WANT THIS HAND IN YOUR FACE?) and generally nasty comments (YOU SOUND STUPID, ARE YOU STUPID?)

I think it's safe to say that most of the people in the car were watching this peripherally. At one point, a guy on my side of the car made eye contact with me in a can-you-believe-this sort of way. But no one said anything, and eventually my stop came and I left the car.

I don't have anything too profound to say about the incident. I got hit a lot as a kid, and it's not like I never see parents being physically rough with their children in public. But it just made me sad. It made me think about the things that this mother inflicts on her child in the privacy of their home. It made me think about how I was witnessing a kid's life unravel, because his parent doesn't know how to properly respond to a nagging child.

I don't believe in spanking or using intimidation to raise kids. And I'm adamant about not using violence to raise my own potential offspring. Resorting to spanking/slapping is a quick fix, and it's a terrible example to set for your children. I think it breeds a lot of resentment between parent and child, and kills the potential for teaching moments and open dialogue. It fails to teach long-term consequences. And if you have a kid like I was, eventually it doesn't work. Eventually, you get a kid who doesn't give a shit how hard or how often you hit. So you hit harder and more often. And then your kid fucking hates you. So, you know, I just don't think it's a good idea.

I realize that alternative disciplinary tactics (I am thinking specifically of time-outs, reward systems, etc) take time. They take more patience than the average person possesses. They take more time to kick in. But when they do, they kick-in for the long haul. They create an environment in which the child can understand the ramifications of their behavior (rather than "because I said so"). And they teach the child to evaluate their actions beyond "will I get caught?" But let's get one thing straight: they don't "spoil" the child. If you are a grown-ass person and you think that failing to HIT a CHILD will spoil them, then do us all a favor and stay the fuck away from children. You fucking bully.

Once, in a college class, we were debating this very topic. One particular student made the claim that she had been spanked, and had turned out "okay." I would counter that her anecdote is not something that we can generalize to a larger population. I would also counter that her definition of "okay" is not the same as my definition of "okay." I would further counter that perhaps she could have "turned out better," had she not been hit. But we can't know that for sure, can we? So, the argument isn't valid.

I hope that mother somehow receives the help that she needs. Unfortunately, that kid is pretty much damaged goods already. It's likely that he'll grow up to treat his kids in the same way.
Cycle of abuse, blah blah.

Anyway, it just made me sad.

Post-election blah

2008-11-06T18:55:00.003-05:00

Don't get me wrong, I'm still elated at the outcome of the election. Every time I think about it, I pee my pants a little (in excitement, not in fear). But as much as the election brought out the worst in some people, the outcome brought out even more.

Here's a good example. This was on the facebook status of a friend's high school friend:

I NEVER want to hear about African Americans complaining about anything being unfair to them ever again. if that makes me a racist, so be it.

Oh, I'm sorry, is racism extinct? I hadn't heard that. I didn't know that putting a black person in a position of power automatically ended all institutionalized racism in this country. I didn't know that Obama's presidency immediately got blacks equal pay, equal educational opportunities, better neighborhoods, and better treatment from white people. I didn't know that putting Obama in the white house would ensure that cops didn't unnecessarily arrest or shoot innocent black people. Phew. What a fucking relief. Racism and dinosaurs: You don't have to worry about them anymore!

I don't know who that bitch is who wrote that. Coincidentally, Macon D covered this topic today, so I sent the link to my friend, who posted it so that the waste-of-life who wrote that status could see it. Like always, Macon D said it better than I can.

So as much as I am ecstatic with Obama's presidency, I am deeply saddened and troubled by the attitudes and ideals of my own peers. For some reason, I can only see some 80 year old southern grandma saying awful, awful things like that. But to hear it from the mouth of someone young and supposedly educated makes me feel so sick. To think that people like that are representing part of my demographic brings the taste of bile into my mouth.

On a related note, let's not forget about Prop 8. Unbe-fucking-lievable. There are hardly words. When will people see the discrimination? The unconstitutionality? The perverted sense of right and wrong? As an atheist, I don't believe in hell. But if I'm wrong, and there is a hell, I'm POSITIVE that there are spots reserved for people who would actively discriminate against their fellow man in such a manner. And I know that no benevolent god would save a place in heaven for ~~bigots~~ ~~assholes~~ ~~trash~~ shitmotherfuckerdouchedicks. My only consolation in this is that the ACLU and a few other groups are bringing lawsuits in an attempt to claim that the proposition would alter the state constitution and warrants more consideration than a popular vote. So maybe something will come of that. I've said it before and I'll say it again: GAYS ARE PEOPLE AND CITIZENS TOO. THEIR MARRIAGE WILL NEVER HURT YOURS. THEIR MARRIAGES WILL NOT BE "TAUGHT" TO YOUR CHILDREN. YOUR PRIESTS WILL NOT HAVE TO PERFORM THEIR MARRIAGES. GAY MARRIAGE IS NOT BAD FOR CHILDREN. YOU CAN'T "CATCH" GAY. But apparently stupid is genetic, so stop having kids and raising them to post facebook statuses like the one above.

Racism and homophobia will never die. But I wish the pieces of shit who keep trying to make those things legal and commonplace would keel the fuck over right now.

I get my first paycheck in two weeks. The first think I'm doing is writing a check to both the NAACP, GLAAD, and Planned Parenthood. Those links go to the donation pages, and so I encourage you to do the same.

Update: I just read Melissa Etheridge's brilliant fucking plan: California won't give equal rights to gays? Then gays won't pay California taxes. Too bad, could have done a lot with Ellen's tax money.

SHAZAAAAAAM

2008-11-05T00:38:00.002-05:00

YES. WE. DID.

Can it be votez time now pleez?

2008-11-04T20:17:00.004-05:00

Ok, we voted. Took about 10 minutes. No problems, no one asked us for ID, no one told us we weren't in the books. Nice and simple. And the machines were those old lever machines!! The last three elections I voted in (2004, 2006 mid-terms, and 2008 primaries) were all the fancy-shmancy computer touch-screens. I liked the lever machine because it made me remember going to vote with my mom, and how she let me flip the switch (I'm sure it was for a Republican candidate, but it was a nice memory anyhow). AND it makes that satisfying mechanical sound.

We celebrated at IHOP with strawberry milkshakes and bacon. Mmmm. Election-day bacon.

And now enjoy my favorite Barack Obama viral video:

Innnnnerestin'

2008-11-04T11:25:00.006-05:00

I have the day off of work today to vote, although I don't need it because I'm waiting for Boyfriend's work-day to end so we can vote together. I'm all antsy about it. CNN is on in the background, and Palin just cast her vote and is getting interviewed. Someone asked her who she voted for. Her response:

"I am also exercising my right to privacy! I don't have to tell anybody who I vote for, nobody does, and that's really cool about America."

Do I doubt that Palin voted for McCain? Not really. But wtf? Sarah, aren't you supposed to ENDORSE your OWN ticket? Also, the line about how the right to privacy is "really cool about America" slays me. Is she implying that other countries don't have secret ballots? Because here's a list of them...

I may be reading into that statement too much, but I get really sick of the constant implications that America is somehow more civilized, or socially advanced, or "the best country in the world." Sure, there are worse places to live. But I don't think this country can hold a candle to certain other countries in terms of infant mortality rates, health care, civil rights, education, and foreign policy. And I think that constantly denying our problems through rhetoric only negates and undermines the efforts of people who want to fix those problems.

Go vote to fix those problems today. If you encounter any problems, call the ACLU Voting Rights Project at 1-877-523-2792. You can even call if there are too few machines that cause discouragingly long lines (this happened to me when I voted in the 2004 election. I had to wait for a few hours, miss work, and miss class. A lot of people didn't vote because they didn't have hours to stand in line. I wish I knew that I could have called someone about that).

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

2008-11-03T19:07:00.002-05:00

So sad that Obama's grandmother died the day before her grandson was (most likely) elected president.

First day of work today. I'm so fucking exhausted. But it was good, and most of all I'm pleased that everyone was a fervent Obama supporter. So I think I'll fit in.

Tomorrow is the day that everything changes.

Live from New York, it's a last-minute attempt to endear yourself to voters!

2008-11-02T01:18:00.003-04:00

If there's anything to say about McCain's last-minute SNL appearance tonight, it's that this was the only time that I have ever felt like he was kind of a cute old codger. I especially enjoyed the line about being a Maverick republican, because other republicans have money.

How come Daisy, Daisy Adair (yay obscure reference to obsolete premium channel show!) didn't speak? I have a feeling that there is a strict "keep your goddamn fool mouth shut, woman" clause in her wedding vows. I know that she does speak, I just hardly ever hear it. She knows that rogues get the back hand in McCain-land.

Man, SNL sucks since Tina Fey left as head writer. I mean, the skits just fucking draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. Like they did before Tina Fey was head writer. Sl-o-o-o-o-w. It's sad when McCain is actually the comedy highlight of the show.

Okay, just a few more hours of Fallout 3 and then bed. If anyone is looking for a good gift for a nerd in your life, I and Boyfriend highly recommend it. I don't even normally like first-person shooters, but this one is off the chain, as the kids are saying.

Wicked, wicked wabbit

2008-11-01T16:18:00.002-04:00

We went to a showing of Wicked last night for our anniversary. We had good seats, not nose-bleed or anything. It was a good show, by the way, but I think I rank it below Young Frankenstein and Avenue Q.

But upon our return that night, the first thing I noticed was that clumps of something were all over our area rug. Clumps of something blue, brown, and tan. All over our blue, brown, and tan rug. And in the midst of these yarn-y, colorful clumps, was our house-bunny. Our bored house-bunny. Our bored house-bunny who decided to occupy his time by pulling up chunks of our rug.

Bastard.

Glad we figured this out now before I went to work on Monday and left him loose all day.

Punkin Day!!!!

2008-10-31T01:06:00.004-04:00

Happy Halloween!

This is, in my opinion, the best fucking holiday of all. There's candy. There are scary things lurking about. You get to dress up. You get to carve cool pictures into hollowed-out gourds. It's not a disgusting, crass display of commercialism in the sense that Christmas is (although I admit that it's commercial, obv). It's not a celebration of white supremacy over the indigenous peoples of North America, like T-day. It doesn't require anyone to sit solemnly in religious services all day (unless you're a big D-bag and think that kids dressing as pirates and collecting candy is the "Devil's Holiday").

But the BEST reason to love Halloween (especially if you happen to be me or Boyfriend) is that it is our anniversary :) Yes, indeedy, we do mark this holiday as the date of our romantic beginnings (although we were friends for quite some time beforehand).

This Halloween is the three year mark (gasp! And already shacked up with each other!). I'm quite proud that despite many, many emotional problems, I have managed to find and keep a man for so long. And not just any man. A man who is totally awesome in every way. He cooks! He does laundry! He forces-feeds me vitamins when he is concerned about my health! He supported me through 4 months of unemployment! Hell, he even bought me a bunny rabbit to keep me company during those four months:

That's right. A fuckin' bunny. And he is ADORABLE. And that's not even a billionth of everything this man has done for me, on top of loving me despite my crazies (one day, I shall post on all of the incredible things that he has done. Including driving me and my 8-month pregnant best friend from Pennsylvania to Mississippi). Oh, and he's cute and smart. Duh, of course he's cute and smart. He's MY boyfriend.

So Happy Anniversary, Boyfriend, and Happy Halloween, everyone else! Please indulge in our pumpkin creations: His witch on the left, my Nosferatu on the right:

Jorb?

2008-10-30T18:06:00.002-04:00

Eep! I start my new job on Monday. Panic is setting in. I'm making a bulleted list of the things that I'm panicking over, because I find bulleted lists comforting:

Arriving at 9:30 am. That means I have to wake up at 7:30 to make sure the subway takes me there on time. Because I must be the only person in all of Manhattan who actually LEAVES MANHATTAN to get to her job. I'm doing it wrong.
Running out of clothes in the first week. Boyfriend and I made two mad dashes to acquire business-y clothes during the Time of Interviews. But I still only have three pairs of pants and three shirts. One of those pairs of pants does not match any of those shirts. Don't get me started on what shoes I don't have. And I *really* can't put more onto my credit card. Really.
Will you be my friend? I miss my friends. I had a lot of friends. Now most of them are a nine-hour train ride away. I know it's not always best to mix work and pleasure, but I would really like to make at least one good work friend. I need friends again. Or a drinking buddy. Maybe a dealer (perhaps you can guess what sorts of jobs I have held in the past).
Eventually causing a huge scene. I have a temper. And a strong tendency to resist orders. I have been known to be, ahem, outspoken. This has been problematic in the past (although it has never gotten me fired. If anything, it's almost always gotten me what I've wanted. I suppose this is why I continue to behave this way). But these people seem so nice, and I hate the idea that I may snap on them.
Don't touch me. One time, at one of many jobs I held in college, I was sexually harassed to the point that I had to report it (oh, I think I've been sexually harassed in EVERY job. But this one was pretty serious. As in, stop touching my tits/ass and stop removing your wedding ring and directly asking me to fuck you). So I prefer to work with and for women. You may think this sexist, but if that's your stance, you can eat shit. This boss is a young-ish male. He seems like a decent guy, but I shall be in a state of cat-like readiness.
Lunch. Brown sack or invite co-worker to lunch? Or perhaps bring a brown sack, but wait for co-worker to ask first? Okay, I'm going with the latter. How do I pay for a lunch if she asks me out? Shit.
Vacay. I need to ask off for two days in November for which I had previously planned to leave town. I haven't earned vacation time yet. I sort of assumed that they would be flexible, but my stomach is in knots thinking that for some reason they won't be. Or they will be offended that I asked. Yipe!
Being a big fucking white-trash weirdo. I already sort of stalked one of my new co-workers on facebook. She went to two Ivy League schools. I may appear out of place (note to self: refrain from mentioning your love of Pabst, your knowledge of farm-animal castration, and try not to pick your teeth with a pen cap). Also, I may hate her, depending on how wrapped up she is in her privilege. But maybe I'm making false assumptions here. Maybe she isn't privileged at all. Maybe she's one of those people who was homeless and then pulled herself up by the bootstraps to achieve her dreams. Psh, yeah right.
Being a liberal douche-bag. Sometimes when I meet other people in academia, I just sort of assume that they are all a bunch of bleeding-hearts like me. And then it turns out that I'm wrong. So I really need to keep that in check.

I feel comforted now. Sort of. Aw, I've soiled myself again.

Passport 2 Teen Pregnancy

2008-10-29T12:07:00.002-04:00

Thanksgiving is coming up, and this year we're spending it with Boyfriend's family. Boyfriend's family is sort of spread out all across the US, but they are all coming together at his parents' house this year. We decided to forgo my family's dinner for his, since I will so rarely have the opportunity to see his extended relations.

I'm sort of psyched about this family dinner because there will be 4 kids there, ranging from ages 3-13, and I feel like family gatherings are really lame without kids to liven things up. When my mom's side of the family gets together, I generally tend to go off and play with the wee ones, because I find it less stressful and more amusing than talking to the adults. Especially adults who I am concerned might disapprove of me. And what's the fastest way to earn family approval? Why, being "good" with the kids, of course! I've got it all figured out...

Boyfriend has two young cousins who I met once, two years ago. We stayed with them for a few days during a christmas-time road trip. At the time, they were 11 and 9, so we had a lot of fun with them. They were super sweet and smart little girls, and their parents were also really fun and nice.

Cute Cousins 1 and 2 will be at this particular family gathering. But something has been nagging at me about seeing them, particularly regarding Cute Cousin 1 (the elder). Apparently, CC1's parents are some sort of hard-core Baptist. And last year, they took her on something called Passport2Purity. It is every bit as ominous as it sounds. Apparently, it's a kit that you buy to help you plan a weekend retreat with your son/daughter during which you explain the importance of abstinence and purity. From what I can see from the website, it emphasizes five main areas: Dating, peer pressure, purity, sexual maturity, the importance of god's word.

Okay, cool. You're a Christian, and you want your kid to not have sex. I get it. That's okay.

But what upsets me is that I can't really find any indication about whether this kit talks about safe sex. Including preventing pregnancy and STDs with methods other than abstinence. Or, if it does include these things, how accurately it discusses them. (I'm picturing a glossing-over that goes along the lines of: "You can use a condom to prevent pregnancy and STDs. But abstinence is THE ONLY WAY THAT IS TOTALLY EFFECTIVE. Also, birth control actually kills babies.")

My parents never gave me the sex talk. I believe I got it in the fifth grade from my sister, after she heard me singing Nine Inch Nails' "I want to fuck you like an animal." And even after that I was way confused for a while. When we got the internet in the eighth grade (remember when the internet was a novelty?) I had to turn to hard-core porn to figure out how the hell a penis could actually fit into a vagina (OH MY GOD IS THAT HOW EVERYONE DOES IT?) For crying out loud, my mom didn't even tell me what a period was. I had to figure it out from a Human Growth and Development class, which left me EVEN MORE CONFUSED (does the blood only come out when you pee?). And I didn't hit menarche until I was 15, so I was confused for an awfully long time. So, I really like the idea of having a talk with your kids about sex and sexual maturity. I think it could have saved me a lot of anxiety.

But here's the thing. There's a lot of things wrong with abstinence programs, mainly that they DON'T WORK (go ahead, Google it. It's old news, but someone just came out with yet another study confirming that they don't work). And as I implied in an earlier post, I feel like I've seen the effects of them first-hand. See, I have a theory that abstinence programs are not only damaging on their own, but that they tend to negate the effects of a comprehensive sex-ed program. In my high school, we had a good sex-ed program. The texts and teachers were honest. We got to anonymously ask whatever questions we wanted. We had sex-ed many years in a row, starting at sixth grade. A few times a year in high school, someone would drop a big box of free condoms in the locker room. But once a year, this lady came in from some religious group, and we were required to sit through this abstinence talk. I understand that this person's presence was an attempt to please the religious zealots in our rural community. But dammit if her talk didn't induce enough fear and shame to prevent us from buying condoms, or seeking birth control.

And guess what? A lot of girls got pregnant in my high school. A LOT.

This woman probably wasn't the sole cause of all those pregnancies. It was probably a combination of people like her and rural, uneducated parents who gave the same talks at home. Or who threatened to kick their kids out if they caught them fucking (stellar parenting).

But that "fear and shame" element is why hearing about this Passport2Purity program is bothering me. The program makes sex into a much bigger deal than it needs to be. It makes it into this big, scary, ominous thing that will either cause disfavor in the eyes of your god, or somehow decrease your value as a person. For chrissake, making the talk into an entire weekend getaway sends a pretty scary message all on its own, doesn't it? This "sex thing" is SO HUGE that we need an entire damn weekend to talk about it?

I'm upset that CC1 (and later, CC2) will have to hear about how shameful and dirty sex is. How it will make them lesser people if they fuck. How do lessons like this help girls who are victims of rape or sexual abuse? How do they help them make smart decisions about purchasing birth control? If CC1 happens to get molested at school, will she tell anyone after all she hears is that "God wants you to wait" and "Your future husband will be so disappointed if you aren't pure." If she hits 16 and decides to have sex, do you think she'll be more or less likely to run to the drugstore for condoms? Or ask her mom to take her to the gyno to get birth control pills?

CC1 is a smart girl. So I hope if those events do occur, she can see through the bullshit and make healthy choices. But my specific problem in this is that I don't think her world is set up to encourage this. Her parents are quite set in this thinking, her church is set, and until a few years ago, she attended a small Christian school. Now she attends public school, but it's in Mississippi. Not a very progressive state, I imagine, in terms of comprehensive sex ed. So I'm torn. I want to say something to her, anything, to help her out. But I know that it's not my place, and I could do real damage if her parents found out that I tried to undermine them. At the very least, I want to tell her that it's not dirty and she's not going to hell for it. I want her to have at least one person who tells her that. It would have been nice if someone I trusted had told me that when I was 13.

And it seems so plausible

2008-10-28T09:51:00.003-04:00

This douche-hole from Minnesota is claiming that he and Obama did some blow back in '99, and then had hot, steamy homo sex in the back of a limo. He says that he will submit to a polygraph to prove it, and some site is offering a load of cash to record it and to reward him if he passes.

I bet this guy has a backwards "b" on his ass, too *insert eye roll*

Really, no one should be giving this guy any attention. The claims are outlandish, that much should be obvious to anyone. He hasn't got any sort of proof, and even a positive polygraph isn't proof enough, as anyone with good self-control can easily pass them.

But the reason I'm giving him attention is that I think his claims illustrate some very sad things about our country. His "scandalous" accusations involve two things: Drug use and homosexual behavior. What kills me is that these were obviously formulated to be the "worst" things that could be said about a candidate. He didn't come out and claim that Obama raped a child, or that Obama once beat his wife. No. Obama's a GAY. And a DRUG ADDICT. OH MY GOD WHAT IS THE MORAL FIBER OF THIS COUNTRY COMING TO. Now if that Arab gits elected, he surely will spend his time in the Oval Office, smokin' crack and havin' the butt-sex, y'all.

Being gay is not some sort of disease or negative behavior or devastating event. It's just how some people are. Consenting sex between two adults doesn't hurt anyone: not them, not you, not your family or your marriage. And it shouldn't be an insult, let alone a DEAL BREAKER for the presidency.

And drug use? Drugs aren't the best, mmmmkay? But guess what? Lots of people do drugs. And those people are actually okay. They aren't all homeless "welfare queens", or negligent parents, or pregnant teens or irresponsible members of society in general (as the War on Drugs would have you believe). Clinton did drugs. Bush DEFINITELY did drugs. Obama already admitted that he smoked the reefer. Hell, I did a bunch of drugs in college, and I still got into a top PhD program. So they aren't great to do all the time, but sometimes a little dabbling here and there isn't going to hurt. But what gets me is that this guy specifically said that Obama did crack-cocaine (while this guy just had some plain old blow). Allow me to translate that accusation for you: "Oh, look at the black presidential candidate! I associate crack addicts with black men! It only makes sense that this black man would also do crack! You don't want a crack-head in the white house, do you?"

Oh my god, I can see the McCain rallies now. On top of the disgusting racist diarrhea that has been spewing from their mouths (This week I heard: "I think he's gonna put a turban on, and he's gonna go into the White house, and we're all gonna be shot"), now we're going to have gems like "He's a FAG. And a CRACK HEAD. A GAY CRACK-HEAD TERRORIST."

I could turn this into a rant into how this country openly discriminates and harasses gays, or how the War on Drugs is unnecessarily overcrowding our prisons and costing us excessive amounts of taxpayer dollars. But really my main concern here is that these two "insults" were the most devastating accusations that this fellow could conjure. My main concern is that this reflects how backwards much of this country is in terms of moral priorities. These same people will talk all day about how homosexuality is the scourge of the earth, but won't blink an eye when a girl in a short skirt gets raped (she was asking for it, after all). Or when they beat their children (spare the rod, spoil the child, y'all. Gotta learn 'em somehows). Or when impoverished families continue to suffer because our government won't provide them with healthcare, childcare, or a good education (they're poor because they're all lazy drug-addicts, obv).

The people who talk the most about morality and claim to have the highest sense of morality always seem to be the people with the most warped idea of morality. The things that they seem to care about the most seem to be the things that, in reality, matter the least. And it seems that those people are always pushing their warped views into our government. So we get laws that reinforce these subjective notions of morality (anti-sodomy laws, bans to gay marriage, overly-zealous penalties for drug use). And we DON'T get laws made on the things that really matter (proper protections for victims of abuse, quality health-care for everyone, adequate educational funding for all public schools and children).

8 days.

Good morning, Monday

2008-10-27T09:24:00.003-04:00

A bit of spoken word music for your Monday morning, courtesy of Sarah Palin and Katie Couric:

This is my last week as a slobbering, unemployed putz! So I'm enjoying loafing around in my pajamas with no bra,and watching viral videos, as much as possible.

Annnnnnnywho, enjoy the Monday.

Movie Sign!

2008-10-25T17:41:00.003-04:00

The prospect of a good movie gives me a boner (I said it). If I see something that looks good, I HAVE TO SEE IT RIGHT NOW. And if I see some cheesy-ass preview, or Boyfriend's mom says that she wants to see National Treasure 3, I'm apt to snort derisively. Is this pretentious of me? Am I some sort of elitist? The answer is yes. Yes, I am a huge fucking movie snob. But I get a big kick out of the good ones, and this weekend I saw a great one:

Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire movie. How cool is that? If you're into vampire movies, I swear that you'll love it. Even if you're not so into vampires, it's really good. It's an interesting spin on the vampire-as-seducer tale. And the gore isn't overdone in a lame Van Helsing way. And it gets you into the characters' heads. Mmmm, character development.

Also, there was a preview for another movie that I want to see, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas:

This is because I'm a huge sucker for Holocaust movies, as well. Call me morbid, but I've been hooked since I saw Schindler's List.

Let the Right One In is on limited release, so you might not be able to see it right now, depending on where you live (something else I've discovered that I love about New York is that it panders to my insatiable appetite for good indie flicks). Keep it in mind, though.

Check this out

2008-10-24T13:29:00.003-04:00

After Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama, a lot of people were crying that the endorsement was simply a race issue. These claims didn't sit well with me, but I didn't feel like I could adequately explain why. However, Macon D over at Stuff White People Do saved the day and put into words what I could not. Thanks, Macon D!

If you aren't already, you should be reading SWPD on a regular basis. It's an intelligent and thoughtful blog about what it means to be white in this country, and the ways in which the majority cause suffering among racial minorities (whether they intend to or not). It's a big wake-up call.

Sex with buff yet violent monkeys

2008-10-24T09:28:00.004-04:00

Just kidding, this post is actually about the Electoral College. I just wanted your attention.

My awesome and thoughtful and- dare I say- beautiful best friend brought up the topic of the electoral college the other day. She was looking into it, and frustrated with the lack of information on the whole process. If your high school was anything like ours, you too emerged with a murky sense of governmental process covered only in School House Rock videos. I think Best Friend was smart to think about the electoral college, when it hasn't even crossed my mind, because that's really how the president gets elected.

So I'm posting my best understanding of the Electoral College, in case you were wondering, too.

*Ahem*: In case you aren't already aware, the popular vote does not determine the presidency (but it does determine congressional elections, so rest assured that your vote directly matters when you vote for the folks who actually make the bills and vote to turn bills into laws). What a jip, huh? Anyway, we have 538 electors (equal to the number of folks in the house and senate, plus three electors from D.C.). It takes 270 electoral votes to make a majority win for a candidate.

The electors are nominated by the political parties in each state. Some states nominate electors during the primaries, others do it at their state's parties' conventions. Can I be an elector, you may ask? The answer is probably no, but technically yes. Anyone can be an elector who is not a Senator or Representative, or some kind of Benedict Arnold. BUT electors are usually nominated to recognize them for their service and dedication to their political party. So, basically, your school's basketball coach probably won't get to be an elector, unless the coach is also the state's district attorney, or executive director of the Service Employee's International Union in your state (as were two PA electors in 2004).

After electors are nominated for each state (each state gets a number of electors equal to the number of people they have in the House and Senate, for instance, 34 in Texas), you vote for the elector on election day. But Phoebe, how do I know what elector I want to vote for? What are their names? I never saw this on a ballot before! Well, more than likely, your electors' names will appear as either Barack Obama or John McCain. See, when you go to cast your ballot, you don't *actually* vote for McCain or Obama. Instead, you are voting for the electors who have either pledged to support that candidate or must support that candidate if that candidate wins the popular vote. So you aren't voting for Barack Obama. You are voting for an elector. An elector who is likely to cast their vote for Obama if you did, too.

There are three types of electors: ~~Batman, the penguin, and the Joker~~ electors who can vote for anyone, electors bound by state law, and electors bound by pledges to political parties. There are 24 states not bound by pledge or by state law. The electors in those states are not legally required to vote for any candidate (My assumption is that the electors in those states commonly vote according to the popular vote anyway). Electors bound by state law are required to cast their votes according to the popular vote. Electors bound by pledges will vow to vote for their party's nominee. If an elector breaks this pledge, Al Gore personally breaks the elector's knee caps. I mean, the electors may be subject to different consequences that vary from state to state (some states will fine the elector or replace the elector with a substitute). You can see how your state's electors are bound here.

Even though we hear the results of the popular vote almost instantly at the end of Nov 4, the electors don't actually cast their votes until Dec 15 (that's just for this year...the rule is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December...who the fuck made that up?). The popular vote results that you hear are just really likely predictions of how the electoral vote will turn out (more than 99% of electors have voted as pledged throughout our nation's history). After the electors cast their votes, and make a bazillion copies of everything, the election is decided.

The electoral college is why certain "swing states" get so much attention. Because most states have a "winner-take-all" system of electoral college votes, the states without clear favorites require a higher voter turn-out to make a difference (like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida). But in other states, it actually doesn't matter how many people come out to vote. For instance, California has the highest number of electors (55), but it is considered a "safe" state for democrats (because there are many democrats living there). And no matter how many people turn out to vote in CA, CA still gets those 55 votes. So they don't campaign so hard in California (or New York or Texas), or try so hard to encourage voters to come out, because it's already highly likely that there will be a clear winner from one party.

To sum up this whole mess in a simple way, each party in each state nominates a number of electors equal to the number of congressional representatives afforded to that state; on Nov 4, whatever candidates get the most votes get the corresponding electors "elected;" On Dec 15 the electors theoretically vote for whoever you voted for, but can be "faithless" and vote the other way (although unlikely); the winning candidate becomes the President elect and has until Jan 20 to get his shit together.

There is a site for polls that you should check out called fivethirtyeight.com. They calculate a variety of election polls by assigning each poll a weight based on the pollster's track record, the poll's sample size, and the recentness of the polls. The more reliable polls have more weight. Then, they do a ton of statistical crap that equals a really thorough and interesting poll system that you can't get from your average CNN polling (the site explains it in its FAQs, for anyone interested). So, according to fivethirtyeight, even though the current polls estimate the popular vote to be relatively close (52.2% for Obama), the electoral vote is a friggin landslide already (354 electoral votes for Obama projected today...the site updates daily).

So it's awesome for everyone to vote, but if you live in a swing state, you can see why it's especially important that you get your ass to the polls. This year the swing states are (as listed by CNN):

Ohio
Michigan
Colorado
Nevada
New Hampshire
Florida
Virginia
Missouri

Are you in one of these? Don't be a dick. Go vote for the electoral college member who will in turn vote for your presidential candidate of choice.

The end of an era

2008-10-22T11:57:00.004-04:00

...Sort of? I have not been without a job since I was 14 years old. I have been known to keep two jobs at once. And yet, after an unfortunate and traumatizing incident with graduate school (see comments section in "Epiphany!") , I have been unemployed for almost four months. There has been much mooching off of the Boyfriend, which has made my feminist self very unhappy.

Some good things came out of the Great Unemployment, like this blog. And a close and personal bond with my pet bunny (he's litter trained AND he responds to voice command. That's good bondin'). But now, thankfully, it's time to move off of my crumb-encrusted couch, turn off my Simpsons season 4-7 DVDs, and put my pants back on (if I can find them). Because today I accepted a job offer.

Because I want to keep my blog as anonymous as possible, and because I want to avoid getting Dooced (although that worked out well for her in the end, didn't it?), I probably won't reveal much about my working life. I guess I can say that I'm involved in academia, and that it involves Psychology, because I've already revealed that much in past entries. And it helps to know that information in order to understand my extreme nerdiness.

But I promise that even though eight hours of my day will soon be consumed by other activities, you can rest assured that I will still have an endless supply of things to write about ENTIRELY IN CAPS LOCK BECAUSE IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING MAD. Because those things never go away.

Plus, if I use this blog as an outlet, I have a lesser risk of alienating my future co-workers with insane ranting. Or maybe, if I get really lucky, my co-workers will be just as crazy as me, and we can rant together, like a bevy of homeless schizophrenic bag-ladies.

I don't start for a few weeks, but I'm celebrating today anyway. I'm going out, putting a new coat and hat (I want a cloche!) and boots on my already-bloated credit card, and then buying me a Max Brenner hot chocolate, because that shit is DE-FUCKING-LICIOUS. What now, Economy? What now?

Hm. Turns out I'm NOT an Ameican citizen.

2008-10-21T10:15:00.002-04:00

Jon Stewart has brought up his qualms with the McCain Campaign's excessive pandering to "small-town" America a few times. I hadn't really noticed it until he mentioned it a few nights ago and again last night (it was the main theme of his show last night). This issue grinds my gears.

Until I was 17, I lived in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. The population in 2000 was 3,512 (smaller than Wasilla!). When I was 16, I worked for a summer picking strawberries on a farm. My high school was surrounded by farmer's fields. My best friend grew up on a farm (and naturally, being best friends with her, so did I). My memories of childhood include playing in woods, barns, creeks, and cornfields (damn it's easy getting lost in that shit). My best friend's father was a truck driver. My own mother worked a series of factory jobs. I have seen cows and goats get castrated (and I have seen it go horribly, horribly wrong). I have taken my father's pick-up truck and ramped it over road-bumps and done donuts in fields (don't tell my dad, for the love of god). I was once asked to go line-dancing for a date (I declined, for the record). The Olive Garden is "fancy." I've shot a gun many times (I took the Boyfriend to the local armory the first time he visited home. The fine fellows at the armory hailed me as the best girlfriend ever).

So yes, I am from "Real America." I am from the "hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America area of this great nation" (Thank you, Ms. Palin. How kind).

But in those 17 years, despite lovely scenery, fond childhood memories, and a healthy knowledge of farming, I have seen things that have deeply disturbed me. I have seen ignorance, racial intolerance, and deep-seated sexism. I have seen abusive parents, neglected children, and low education levels. I've seen teen pregnancies (a LOT of teen pregnancies. I've also seen one barely-a-teen pregnancy). I've seen violence and hatred towards gays, atheists, blacks, and women. And I've seen all of this condoned, if not actively encouraged, by authority figures (be those figures religious leaders, parents, or school personnel).

So I got the hell out of dodge and went to a university in a moderately-sized city (pop over 300,000). There I learned that more people existed than white, small-town people. That those who are not white, straight, christian males of comfortable means face a TON of discrimination that is often subtle and easily-ignored by the majority's eye. I learned to respect other people and their struggles, and I learned to be skeptical of many things and trusting of very, very few.

And then I moved to New York (pop: over 8 million). I learned that Harlem is a very friendly place, and everyone says "hello" to you on the sidewalk (contrary to popular myth, this is not something that happened often in my hometown). I learned that almost everyone holds the door open for everyone else. I found a city where people from VERY different backgrounds co-exist. Where over 170 languages are spoken, and no one tells anyone that "you gotta speak American in America." Where accents might be hard to understand, but everyone makes the damn effort, because how many fucking languages do you speak? Where gays, atheists, blacks, hispanics, women, the transgendered, the poor, and the just-plain-eccentric are not open-season for bigots. Diversity is king, here, and we are happy that way.

I'm not saying that intolerance or discrimination doesn't exist in NY. It exists everywhere, as it is a product of our society and culture. A product partially fed and fattened by people like John McCain, Rush Limbaugh, George W., Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and the like.

But what I AM saying is that New York (and Chicago, and Boston, and San Francisco, and Dallas...) are REAL parts of America, too. And that we're often much nicer and more pleasant in terms of respecting our fellow human beings. And you can't disenfranchise us by saying that we're not. Many of us, like myself, came from what McCain is calling "real America" (which, by the way, I read as white, uneducated America), and we left because we didn't like that those places had no opportunities for us. We could not grow and thrive there either financially or intellectually, because those places are very limited in the experiences that they offer. We knew that there was more out there, and that the "more" is available where the population is larger and more diverse.

Places like my hometown are "real" America, too. But they aren't to be glorified. They aren't any better than New York. For the people who choose to live there, they offer something more than New York: families, jobs, lower costs of living, a different style of living. But they aren't some special piece of heaven, either. They have nasty sides, and if you've lived in a place like this, you know that the nasty parts are NOT few and far in between. Low levels of education and global awareness are not something to be celebrated. Ignorance isn't something to be celebrated. Associating an entire religion followed by 1-1.8 billion members with "terrorism" isn't something to be celebrated. Automatically associating brown people who have funny names with said religion and terrorism isn't something that's "folksy" or "charming", either.

McCain and Palin are insulting EVERYONE in America when they claim that people from small-towns are "real" and "patriotic" and "love their country the most." I'm real, too, and so is my vote. Patriotic shouldn't mean "unquestioning, die-hard fan of war and the current administration." To love one's country shouldn't mean "I have a yellow ribbon on the back of my truck." Loving one's country means questioning the government, questioning the status quo, and actually giving a shit about EVERYONE who lives here, including non-whites, immigrants, and people with diverse backgrounds. Loving one's country DOESN'T mean only loving the white parts, or the male parts, or the Christian parts, or the 4-person nuclear family parts.

To the people in small-town America: When McCain and Palin tell these things to you, they are diminishing and dismissing the problems that you face. They are ignoring your underfunded schools. They are dismissing the social ills that chill your community. They are underestimating the problems that you face in accessing good jobs and healthcare. They are making you into some sort of magical, mythical being: The strong farmer, the wise factory-worker. They are boxing you in and trying to woo you with vague rhetoric. They are trying to tell you that you love this country the most, so that you will be content and follow them wherever they go. But you have problems, don't you? And you shouldn't be content, should you?

There are 8 million people in New York, 3.8 million in Los Angeles, 3 million in Chicago, 1.2 million in Dallas, and 223,000 in New Orleans. Those people are real. Those votes are real. Attention must be paid.

Halloweenie

2008-10-17T15:37:00.003-04:00

When I was something like 7 or 8, my parents called me downstairs where they were watching TV. Because I was a really lovely and special child, instead of going downstairs, I'm sure I angrily called out "WHAT?!?!?!" from my bedroom. "Just come here!" my dad said. There was urgency in his voice. So I traipsed downstairs, all SIGH! And my dad was all "just watch this!"

"Why? What is it?"

"Just watch!"

And this, my bloggie friends, is the fine piece of Americana that my father was so excited to finally share with his youngest daughter:

That's right. The motherfucking Thriller video. And what did I do, after standing in stunned silence for thirteen minutes and 41 seconds? What would any eight year old do?

I screamed and then ran up to my room, where I'm sure I sat on the bed sucking my thumb for an hour and waiting for Michael Jackson and his team of perfectly choreographed zombies to take me away and force me to learn their dance moves. IN HELL.

In retrospect, I guess I was wise to fear Mr. Jackson.

So, enjoy the video. I hope it gets you in the Halloween spirit, because it sure still scares the hell outta me.

Women's "health"

2008-10-15T23:30:00.002-04:00

Are you fucking kidding me, John McCain? You just put women's health in QUOTES??? OUR HEALTH IS NOT A JOKE. AND YOU DO NOT GET TO TELL US WHAT IS HEALTH-RELATED OR NOT.

Carrying a baby for 9 months is ALWAYS RISKY. ALWAYS. So, John McCain, who will NEVER HAVE TO CARRY A BABY, we are not fucking walking uteri. I know you and your trophy wife love your damn adopted baby so much, but GUESS WHAT. We are not here to make babies all the time for people who can't have them. That's not how it works. And it's our bodies that get FUCKED UP for 9 months, so if we don't want to do that, WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO. And that's PART OF WOMEN'S HEALTH.

Oh and also, you're offended at being called a racist? Maybe you should try NOT MAKING RACIAL COMMENTS. Calling Obama a terrorist is RACIST and that is the end of it. If you think that you're offended, you should try being in Obama's shoes.

Caps lock aside, this was a much juicier debate than the last one. The moderator did a really good job, I thought, of trying to make the candidates answer the questions. I wish they had done that at the VP debate. I'm sorry they didn't mention gay rights at all.

My childhood is disappearing!

2008-10-15T10:34:00.002-04:00

Aw fuck. Another piece of my childhood is going far away. American girl announced that it's discontinuing Samantha Parkington and all of her accessories (in a ploy to make us all rush out and buy stuff).

Coincidentally, I was just telling my dad about how when my little cousin visited, we went to the American Girl store. This excited me to no end, because I was freaking OBSESSED with my Samantha doll when I was a kid. I asked for nothing but all things related to Samantha for every major gift-giving occasion. As a result, I didn't have many normal toys, but I did have a ton of shit for the doll, including a bed, wicker table/chair set, a school desk, and more outfits than I had for myself. I also had a ridiculously detailed knowledge of the Victorian era (also: Didn't the Victorian era end in 1901? Shouldn't the doll have been marketed under the Edwardian era? Or is it different for the states v the UK?).

My little cousin has a "modern" doll, which sort of annoys me because I feel that the historical dolls really teach more valuable information (because who else teaches a ten year old detailed lessons about 1904 child labor?) I also knew a great deal about the other time periods through the other dolls' books. But my cousin, who said that she liked the Kit doll, couldn't tell me what time period the doll lived in (the great depression, of course!). And I was all, SEE? IF SHE HAD A HISTORICAL DOLL SHE WOULD KNOW.

Sidenote: If I had ever been to an American Girl Store when I was 9, it would have BLOWN MY MIND. Seriously. I would be standing in the middle of all of the outfits and accessories, and there would be a small "pop!" And then you would see brains start running out of my ear.

Siiiiigh...I guess my future daughter will just have to settle for the accessories that I collected back in the day. Hopefully I can glue some of the broken ones back together...

You have a long way to go, baby.

2008-10-14T12:17:00.004-04:00

There is an article today about a school in Tacoma that is apparently treating their special ed students like horse shit.

To sum up, a father recently found out (through other students) that his 17-year-old special needs son was routinely picking up garbage and performing other custodial duties throughout the school. The school did not obtain the parents' permission for the boy to do this sort of work, and it was never included in his IEP (for those of you not in the know, that's an "individual education program". It's mandated for all disabled students by law, and is generally developed in part by close communication with the caregivers). In addition to recycling and collecting garbage, the boy has been observed scraping moss from between the cracks of the sidewalks, scraping gum off of the lunch tables, and using his bare hands to pick up condoms and cigarette butts.

Now, I know that special ed students often have vocational training during their school day in order to help them adjust to society and to facilitate independent living. But this does not sound like it falls under that category. What is sounds like is that someone decided hey, those kids who can't speak for themselves would make AWESOME free labor. Get that kid a garbage bag.

This news item is disturbing in its own right, but I find that I am particularly sensitive to injustices such as this. See, my mom was a special ed kid. She developed epilepsy as a child. Her first seizure left her in a coma, after which it was apparent that she had developed learning disabilities. I can't specifically tell you what, if anything, she has been diagnosed with, because this was back in the 50s and 60s, and I'm not even sure if they had a name for it. My best guess is dyscalculia (think of it as dyslexia, but for math instead of reading), based on the fact that she was always in special ed classes for math (she was mainstreamed for most of her other classes), and that she seems to fit the criteria for it based on everything that I've seen. For instance, the difference between tens and tenths confuses her to no end. I don't believe that she has ever taken an algebra course, due to her inability to comprehend these concepts.

My mom is a person that tries very, very hard in everything that she does; however, her disability has left her unable to accomplish as much as she would like, and it often holds her back (she wanted to go to school part-time to be a phlebotomist, but when she looked into colleges and realized that she would have to take math courses, she stopped pursuing that goal).

But here's the thing. My mom has been held back by HER OWN TEACHERS so much more than her actual disability. She had to endure special education in the 60s at Baltimore public schools. Allow me to now share with you a couple charming tales from her school days:

-When the elementary class was graduating from fifth to sixth grades, the school had a cake and ice cream party for them in the cafeteria. The special ed students were not invited. When the special ed students complained, they were allowed in the cafeteria alone the next day to eat the leftovers from the day before.

-My mother and her mother went in for a conference with the guidance counselor. In front of my mother, the guidance counselor proceeded to tell my grandmother that my mom would never amount to more than a cashier or a waitress, if she was lucky, and should stick to those things.

There are more horror stories, but you get the picture. Inept and insensitive school staff basically made my mother feel worthless and incapable of anything. She's pretty dependent on us for a lot of things that she is capable of handling herself. And it's because they basically took any self-esteem that she had and shredded it into a hundred pieces. And then they took those shreds and burned them into ash, and then took the ash and put it in a concrete block and heaved the block to the bottom of the sea.

So you can see the problems that are caused when school personnel fail to take the education of the disabled seriously. They squander potential and deprive their students of fulfilling lives. They do a lot of damage that goes on to do more damage (for instance, my own mathematical knowledge is lacking, which I feel is partially due to the fact that I was unable to get much support for it at home).

After hearing my mother's school horror stories, I always took comfort in the fact that disabled rights and education have evolved and are much more sensitive and sophisticated today. That if I had a child with epilepsy, she would receive all of the positive support and encouragement that she needs to succeed. That no one would ever tell her that there is something she "can't" do, when she may very well be capable of it.

But I guess that's not really the case, is it?

Look at this tangle of thorns

2008-10-13T15:49:00.004-04:00

Apparently Lolita turns 50 today. This is my all-time favorite book for about a hundred reasons, and I think I've read it about three times now. I'm at that point where I like to open the book to a random page and read for a short bit, then flip through to another section. You bibliophiles know what I'm talking about.

So if you haven't read it yet, go pick it up. It's not even that long, I swear. Or, if you haven't the time for reading, go netflix Kubrick's 1962 version of Lolita. This is one of my favorite movies, as well. James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers, and Sue Lyon couldn't have been more perfect picks.

EDIT: Hm, apparently I wasn't supposed to use that pic of the book cover, because they replaced it with a huge red square proclaiming what a low-down dirty thief I am. Duly noted.

Blogging is dangerous work

2008-10-12T19:49:00.003-04:00

Quick post: A blogger that I like very much was bullied into leaving the blogosphere, recently
(let's count how many times I can fit the word "blog" into this post. Blog). Going by the handle "Possummomma," this particular writer used her space on the internet to broadcast her thoughts on her family, religion, and atheism. She mainly documented the challenges she faced as an atheist and as a parent. Given my interest in developmental psychology, and the fact that I am also an atheist, her topics were relevant to me.
It's a long story, but here is a good link that explains what happened to her (there is also a short summary at the top, for all of you with goldfish-like attention spans).

It's so sad that this woman has to endure death threats, zealots posting her personal information, and threats to her family simply because she isn't afraid to talk about her atheism. She has been stalked and threatened on numerous occasions, all by people claiming to be Christians (Jesus is LOVE, DAMMIT). By the way, she's a mother of four and she has LUPUS. Way to bully a mother with a severe illness. Totally what Jesus would have done.

Sometimes I forget that we live in America. Because I thought that not only were we allowed to have free speech, but that we could also have any religion (or non religion) that we wanted. I didn't know that we all had to believe in a god. What a great fucking country this has turned out to be. We're all so very free.

My sincere condolences to the P-momma family, and I certainly hope that she is able to eventually return to the online community.

Atheists are still the most-hated minority in America. People seem to think that it's okay to hurt us, to intimidate us, and to keep us from holding public office in 7 states. This, despite the fact that we never knock on your door with pamphlets, tell you that you're going to burn in hell, or try to indoctrinate/convert your children. We've never started a war based on our non-religion. And we've never told you that you can't practice your religion within your home or church/synagogue/mosque. We rarely commit crimes (less than 1% of the prison population is atheist). So why all the hatorade? Seriously. If you want to have an open discussion, that's okay. But if your intent is to make us miserable because our non-belief makes you insecure, then just go away and leave us alone.

I weep for the girls of America

2008-10-11T23:45:00.002-04:00

I know, I know: two posts in one day, right? Get a life, Phoebe. But I just HAD to share this story.

My aunt, cousin, and her 9 year old daughter (that would be my first cousin once removed for all you genealogy buffs out there) were out visiting for the day, and we were at the giant Toys-R-Us in Times Square. They had Halloween costumes out, and my little cousin was flipping through them. She pulled one out, whirled around, and exclaimed, "I like this one!"

This is what she picked out:

Get this: It's even called "Major Flirt."

Words could not describe my horror. This should have been a key teaching moment, but I think all I could manage was "Oh my god...that's not...put that back."

DO NOT even try to argue that this is not "supposed" to be sexy. Yes. it. is. EVERYTHING about it suggests sex. The name alone disqualifies it from being innocuous.

Little girls ARE NOT sexual objects. Their purpose in life is not to look pleasing to men. Their purpose is not to flirt, or tease, or tantalize. They are not, as Humbert Humbert would say, "nymphs." They are CHILDREN and they are PEOPLE. They have BRAINS AND POTENTIAL. That potential is not to serve you in any way, shape, or form. That potential is for them to do really great things for themselves and for humanity. And when you put them in these skanky little outfits, because it's so fucking "cute," you INSTANTLY tell them that their real potential lies in a sexualization and objectification.

The little boy costumes we saw were firefighters, superheroes, astronauts, pilots, ninjas, pirates, and zombies. They sent messages of strength, skill, and assertiveness. Many were actual professions to which one could aspire.

The girls' costume options: "Twinkle pretty witch", Fairy, "asian princess", "pirate hottie", "pink batgirl" (short skirt, knee-high boots), and monster bride. They sent messages of weakness, passivity, and sex. They ALL had skirts. None were actual professions. Oh wait. You CAN have sex for money. I forgot.

Apparently the costume that my cousin actually got is no better. Of course, it's from Wal-Mart, the family-friendliest company ever (Because family-friendly=making sure women know the importance of looking sexy)!

If you feel like wanting to blow your brains out, scroll through Wal-Mart's selection of girls' Halloween costumes. This Lolita culture is not okay. Shit like this is why women aren't taken seriously, starting from childhood. Shit like this is part of the reason why we experience rape, abuse, lower pay, fewer educational options, and higher rates of depression.

I'm always on the fence about whether I want children or not (largely because stuff like this scares me), but I do know that if I have a daughter, she will be my first action towards correcting these problems. She will NEVER be dressed in such a degrading Halloween costume. She will not own Bratz dolls. She will not have Hannah Montana as a role model (or whatever demeaning show Disney is shitting out that particular decade). And she will know exactly why not.

He's an Arab

2008-10-11T21:32:00.003-04:00

This was already posted at one of my all-time favorite blogs, BitchPhD, but this blew me away so much that I had to re-post it here:

First of all, even though he did not handle it particularly gracefully (immediately countering the claim that "Obama is an Arab" with "he's a good family man"? Arabs are not mutually exclusive with good family men), I think this is the single most admirable thing that McCain has done his entire campaign.

Secondly, it is SO FUCKING SAD that McCain's supporters are so nasty that he had to make a speech telling them to calm the fuck down and be respectful of Obama. Because his supporters were screaming things like "Obama is a terrorist!" and "Kill Obama!" at rallies. When you have incited your supporters to such a murderous rage, you have failed. And your supporters have failed as human beings (And I know that I made a joke about wishing McCain would have died in 'Nam, but the key word is "joke." Those people screaming at McCain's rallies aren't joking. Those batshit insane people would ACTUALLY kill Obama if they had the chance. Oh wait. Some neo-nazi meth heads already tried).

If I was a politician, and one day I realized that my supporters were a bunch of Klan members and racist old ladies who think that "Arab" is a dirty word (it's the new N-word!) , I would be so ashamed of the terrible monster that I had created. I would be so ashamed that I would totally re-think every single goddamn thing that I had ever said over the years that caused disgusting wastes of human life to gravitate towards me.
I would think really, really, fucking hard about it.
I would think.
John McCain: Are you thinking yet?

YESSSSS CONNECTICUT, YESSSS!!!

2008-10-10T13:16:00.003-04:00

Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples have the right to marry!!!

This news, in addition to a newly scheduled job interview, has really perked up my dwindling faith in humanity and America. In celebration, I am letting our pet bunny rabbit eat all the household cardboard that he wants, and I am having a peanut butter and grape jelly sammich.

Ok, so California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have finally come to their senses and stopped legally discriminating against gays. Who's gonna step up to the plate next? New York, I'm looking at you...

Epiphany!

2008-10-10T01:53:00.003-04:00

So I was thinking about Amelia Bedelia, as we all do from time to time. And then I realized!!! Amelia Bedelia falls on the autism spectrum! How could I have overlooked this?! She takes everything literally...figures of speech and metaphors are lost on her! Symptom of autism/aspergers!

Okay, this is a major pitfall of having a degree in Psychology (um, aside from unemployment and a lifetime of low pay, I mean. Don't get smart). You can't stop diagnosing. Fictional children's characters included. Realizing this ACTUALLY excited me. I really do belong in grad school, with the other nerds (but alas, grad school is reserved for those with trust funds. At least, the sole program that I got into was. Damn you, ivory tower!!!).

Remember the time Amelia Bedelia was supposed to trim the x-mas tree, so she cut the branches off instead of decorating it? And then she made a date cake by cutting up the calendar into the batter? Good times, Amelia. Good times.

John McCain made us less sensitive towards war veterans

2008-10-09T00:30:00.004-04:00

While watching clips of the debate:

Boyfriend: I hate the way he holds his arm like that.

Me: That's from a war injury!!!

Boyfriend: Really?

Me: Yes!

Boyfriend: I still hate the way he holds it.

A few minutes later...

Me: *googling* Looks like he has degenerative arthritis in his shoulders.

Boyfriend: From the prisoner camp?

Me: I guess. I wish he would have died.

Boyfriend: We are horrible people.

Then we aborted 6 babies and went to bed. The aristocrats.

So, McCain believes himself to be a liberal, apparently

2008-10-07T15:25:00.003-04:00

My sister sent me this link to a Times piece about the origin of the word "maverick." The piece is short, but in summary, it explains that the Maverick family from which the term originated is totally offended that McCain calls himself that, because the word and their name is linked to progressive and liberal values.

Even if we are to go off of the more "standard" definition of maverick (someone who takes a stand independent of others in a group, Webster's College Dictionary), I don't see how this description fits McCain at all. As far as I can see, his "group" is the GOP (Grand Old Poopheads), and since he has voted with his party 88.1% of the time (Source: WaPo), I guess that doesn't make him a "maverick" of the Republicans. Unless disagreeing with your party a mere 11.9% of the time makes you a maverick.

I'm not saying that McCain should be voting against his own party more. There isn't anything wrong with voting along your own party lines. You belong to that party for a reason, and that reason is that you often agree with them. I am saying that he's NOT A FUCKING MAVERICK.

Also, I was watching the season finale from the first season of Roseanne today (you know, the one where she stands up to her sexist asshole boss and quits the job at the plastics factory), and it got me all riled up because that show was made 20 years ago and the issue featured in the episode isn't laughably archaic yet. And people actually want to elect officials who will do NOTHING to fix those problems. Or better yet, who will exacerbate those problems.

If you have forgotten what a gem the first season of Roseanne was, you should netflix it ASAP. I swear that show was like watching my own family. I make no apologies for identifying with TV's favorite white trash family.

Shady, shady business

2008-10-06T13:46:00.003-04:00

The apartment that I occupy now is my fifth apartment in as many years (I'm a nomad!), so I have a lot of experience with landlords, both private and corporate. But I have NEVER had as shady of an exchange as the one that I had with my landlord two days ago:

Me: Hi, L, I was wondering if you could come and make *insert minor repair.*

LL: Sure, sure. Listen, while I have you on the phone, I've been meaning to tell you something. When the fire department comes, don't let them in.

Me: Oh?

LL: Yes, you see they are troublemakers. They make trouble for us. They want to remove the locks and empty the closets (side note: each apartment has a hallway closet containing a boiler. The apartments have no closet space save for these and a small linen closet in the bedrooms. This closet contains all of our shit, but the fire department deemed it a hazard because the shit blocks the boilers).

Me: Uh, well...

LL: So when they come, do not let them in. I will make an appointment for them to inspect. Then I will call and let you know, and you can clean the closet. Temporarily, no? (my landlord is Russian. Imagine all of this in a thick Russian accent). Then they go, and you will put it all back.

Me: *dumbfounded* I don't know...

LL: They are troublemakers. Ok, so tell your neighbors if you see them. Good bye!

what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

Doncha Know, Bobby

2008-10-03T13:37:00.004-04:00

Anyone who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons around the same time I did will recognize the similarities between Sarah Palin and Martha Generic of Bobby's World (aside to Bobby's World fans: Did anyone else ever figure out the gag in their last name? Spelled as "Generic" but pronounced "Jen-a-rick"? When I was googling for a picture of ~~Sarah~~ Martha, I was pleasantly surprised.

I am armed with a transcript and a youtube video of the debate, and I am ready to tear this shit up.

The first question Ifill asked was whether what we are seeing in Washington is its worst or best during the passing of the bailout bill. Admittedly, I don't think that this was a great question. What was Ifill specifically getting at here? Partisanship? Biden said that he thought it was neither, and then went on to talk about how it evidenced how poor our economic policies have been under Bush. Then he succinctly outlined Obama's rescue plan.

Palin on the other hand, starts with this crap about "going to a kid's soccer game" to get a good barometer of the economy. I know that she's trying really hard to be all folksy and a "real person" and "just like us!" but seriously, if she is measuring the economy by how worried parents are at a soccer game, I'm worried. Try watching mortgage rates, the Ted Spread, the Direction of the Treasuries. Try to sound like you know what you're talking about. Palin also spoke only of what McCain had done in the past, rather than what he planned on doing in the future, unlike Biden. She also had the cajones to defend McCain's flimsy attempt to suspend the campaign. Really?? That was a notoriously unpopular decision, so much so that McCain did debate. Do you really want to bring that up?

Ifill then asked what they would do as VP to put partisanship aside. Once again, I don't think this was a great question, and the candidates didn't either, apparently. Biden glazed over it by saying that he has friends on both sides of the aisle, and then asked if he could go back to talking about the economy. Then he brought up McCain's infamous "fundamentals of the economy are strong" blunder.

This is where Palin really started to screw herself. Also the first time she used the phrase "team of mavericks." I'm only going to say this once: YOU CAN NOT BE A TEAM OF MAVERICKS. IT'S LIKE A CLUB OF ANARCHISTS. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A MAVERICK IS?

I feel better. Now Palin brings up that Obama has voted along party lines 96% of the time. Are you kidding me? You want to play that game? McCain has the same number for voting in-line with Bush. Everyone knows that by now.
Then she used the word "maverick" again.

On the topic of lenders v. borrowers in the subprime fiasco (what I like to call "the noodle incident"), Palin started off strong by stating that the lenders were to blame (I totally agree with her. BitchPhD posted a good piece from the Columbia Journalism Review pointing out the extremely unethical behavior of lenders like Countrywide). But then! Then she ended with this gem:
...we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this.

Nice, Palin, nice. First of all, let's point out that it's fucking impossible to own a car or home or education without debt. So "let's not get ourselves in debt" isn't really feasible, is it? And sure, I agree that folks need to be taking personal responsibility. But as is pointed out in the CJR piece, "irresponsible" individual borrowers did not cause this problem. There have been irresponsible borrowers since debt began. There has not been a huge decay in ethics among all borrowers. So you know, try to stick to the fucking lenders. We don't need a lecture.

Biden didn't answer the question (-1). But he did point out that McCain has been largely in favor of deregulating Wall Street (and health care, for that matter), while Obama has been in favor of imposing more regulations. When Palin got to respond (specifically to what Biden said about health care), I guess she couldn't defend McCain's deregulation policies, because she said outright that she wanted to talk about taxes instead. And then did. WTF.

THEN after she made a shoddy attempt to claim that Obama had voted to raise taxes, which Biden refuted, Biden called her out on not answering the question. The moderator gave her YET ANOTHER chance to respond. What did ~~Miss America~~ Gov. Palin respond with?

I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

Wow. Basically she told the moderator, Biden, and everyone watching "FUCK OFF LALALLALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALA"

The closest she got to answering those questions was a weak attempt at claiming McCain's attempts at campaign finance reform and regulating the tobacco industry were evidence of his commitment to regulation. Yes, Sarah, because those two things are exactly the same as Wall Street and Health Care.

I think Biden nailed her when it actually was the time to talk about taxes. She tried to claim that small businesses would hurt under Obama's plan to increase taxes for those making over $250,000. Biden pointed out that 95% of small businesses make less than that, and won't see an increase. Palin also tried to promote McCain's $5,000 tax credit for health insurance, and Biden was quick to point out that the tax credit will be paid for by taxing our health insurance through our employers, then giving that money to the insurance companies. And then that 12 million of us will be dropped from our regular plans for the $5,000 plan. Swish!

Ifill then asked what promises the campaigns had previously made that they could no longer keep in light of the economy shitting blood on everyone. Biden gave an answer ("slow down" commitment to double foreign assistance). Then he went on to explain how they planned on not going through with tax cuts to the wealthy and oil companies promised by the current administration, and what they absolutely would continue to do (providing incentives for new jobs with an energy policy, education, universal health care).

Palin? Did not answer the fucking question again. Wanted to talk about the energy plan now. Is she even listening? She also slipped in a "bless their hearts." Acting like my mother DOES NOT EXCUSE YOU FROM ANSWERING THE QUESTION.

Then Ifill called her on it. "there's nothing...you would take off the table?" Now there has to be something. Biden manned up and admitted at least one thing. Come on, be honest here. It will build trust. Everyone will respect you for it. We're all waiting with baited breath:

"There is not."

Strike three, Governor.

AND THEN. OH MY GOD:

And how long have I been at this, like five weeks? So there hasn't been a whole lot that I've promised.

WHAAAAAAA? Allow me to translate: "I've only been following this whole "politics" thing for five weeks! Golly, I didn't really know a gosh darn thing about it before, huh? At least not enough to know what to tell ya we're gonna do for ya!"

Governor Palin. Please. I know this only happened a little while ago for you, but if your political knowledge doesn't expand beyond this time, why the hell are you in politics?

Later, Biden was talking about his stance on bankruptcy, and said that he believed McCain's stance differed (but that he wasn't sure if he differed). When asked if that was true, Palin said "That is not so." Okay, fine. It's not true. Care to elaborate on that? NO, she DIDN'T care to elaborate. She wants to talk about ENERGY instead. And so she did.

Ifill was all, okay bitch, let's play energy. What of climate change? Predictably, Palin tried to blame it on "cyclical temperature changes." READ A BOOK PALIN. Then she said she didn't want to argue about causes. As Jon Stewart so eloquently put it when Palin said the same thing during the Couric interviews: THE CAUSES MATTER. We don't know what caused your lung cancer, but here, have another cigarette! You can't fix it if you don't know how it started. Biden said as much. And admitted that global warming is manmade. I applaud you, sir.

The next question was on gay marriage. This is a big one for me. Ifill asked if they supported granting same-sex benefits. Biden did well here. He said he was absolutely in favor of it. I was cheering him on. Palin answered like the bigoted homophobe that we all know her to be. She stated that granting same-sex benefits goes "closer and closer" to redefining marriage and that would be "unfortunate." Then she tried to say that she would be "tolerant" of people "choosing" those relationships. So obviously she is super-enlightened on homosexuality. And really committed to tolerance. Then she said outright that gay marriage was a no for her, but that she would never do anything to prohibit things like hospital visitations. Well that's mighty generous of you, Governor, but guess what? Not granting gay marriage AUTOMATICALLY makes those things impossible for gay couples. And a lot of other things too. Thanks a lot for ensuring that gays remain second-class citizens. So "tolerant" of you.

Ifill didn't fuck around here. She just asked Biden straight up if he supported same-sex marriage, rather than just benefits. His answer rang in my ears: "No." Aw, Biden. Why'd you have to drop the ball here. I know he "has" to say this, or whatever, and I knew that he had taken this stance before (So has Obama, unfortunately). But it hurts so much. In 25 years, this bigotry will be as outrageous as having blacks drink in separate fountains from whites. But why can't they see it now?? We have such a long way to go in this country.

On the topic of the war, Palin went on to claim that "the central war on terror is in Iraq." No it's not, you ass. Iraq didn't attack us. Iraq is where the oil and money war is. Go fuck yourself.

Palin also said this, which just killed me: ...with some of these dictators who hate America and hate what we stand for, with our freedoms, our democracy, our tolerance, our respect for women's rights...

I love this rhetoric. "THEY HATE OUR FREEDOM!" Yeah, people hate freedom. That's exactly the problem. They are super-villains who hate freedom and want to enslave the human race. Oh, and our "respect" for women's rights? You respect women's rights? YOU? REALLY? You are EXACTLY the kind of person who is RUINING WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

She also said that it was "beyond bad judgment" and "dangerous" to attempt diplomacy with enemies. Yeah, let's just bomb the shit out of everyone we disagree with. Don't talk about it first or anything. Since it's so "dangerous" to have an open discussion with people you disagree with. God, you are like the second coming of Christ, aren't you, Palin?

But then? Then she said that they would engage in diplomacy "first and foremost, but diplomacy is hard work by serious people." Huh? So engaging in diplomacy is "dangerous," but you would try it first? But it's too hard and only for serious people? So you aren't serious? And can't do it? Man, you ought to be a salesperson. Because you are really selling me on yourself.

You know what, this is a really long fucking post. And as I'm looking at the transcript, I could keep going and going and going. But I think we all get the idea. And I want to point out Palin's latest blunder (misquoting Madeline Albright in stating that all women who don't support her are going to hell) over at Jezebel. The Jezebel author did a good job of telling Palin to go fuck herself, so I'll let you go read that for yourselves.

Since my brains started leaking out of my ears before I could finish dissecting the debate, why doesn't everyone share their favorite "Jesus Christ WTFOMGBBQ" moment in the comments?

The Great Debate!

2008-10-02T11:28:00.003-04:00

Er, not really? But I am super jazzed up for tonight's Palin-Biden Smackdown. I don't think that the shortened time frame will help her. If anything, rambling is her secret weapon. She talks in circles for so long that if you aren't paying attention, you forget she didn't answer the question (unless Katie Couric is present, in which case you and Gov. Palin will be reminded THRICE of the original question). Speaking of Katie Couric, does anyone feel as bad for her as I do? She had to spend the whole goddamn day with that blathering ex-beauty queen. The look on her face for every question was all STOP REPRESENTING MY GENDER YOU ARE RUINING EVERYTHING.

The Boyfriend and I were discussing last night how we know so little about Joe Biden. I guess in a sense, I don't really give a shit, because I would vote for a box of cling-wrap over McCain/Palin (It keeps your government fresh!). But I guess that would make me an uninformed voter, which is the worst kind of voter, so I did some digging and here's my list of Pro/cons concerning Mr. Biden:

Pro:

He's made some reasonable choices concerning abortion, including voting no on defining an unborn child as eligible for SCHIP, no on prohibiting minors from crossing state lines to obtain an abortion, yes on expanding stem cell research, yes on funding to educate teens on contraceptives, no on banning human cloning, no on maintaining a ban on military base abortions.
He would like to remove troops from Iraq and invest in new programs by eliminating war funding and tax cuts.
Ok'd civil unions, voted no on flag-burning ban, no on constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, yes on defining sexual orientation in hate crimes, no on ending special funding for women and minority-owned businesses, yes on prohibiting hiring discrimination due to sexual orientation, no on banning affirmative action federal funding.
Voted no on limiting death penalty appeals
Voted no on increasing penalties for drug offenses
Has said that voting for No Child Left Behind was a mistake, voted no on requiring schools to allow voluntary prayer,
Provide for emergency fuel assistance, make every car sold a flex-fuel car, voted yes on factoring global warming into federal project planning, yes on reducing national oil usage by 40% by 2025, yes on banning arctic wildlife reserve drilling, take away subsidies to oil companies
Voted no on declaring English as official language of government
Commitment to never use torture, disappoves of Don't Ask Don't tell, limit soldier deployment to 12 months.

Anywho, there are a lot of other things he has done, but those are some of the things that jumped out at me as that of which I approve. That said, Biden has also done a lot of things that just really piss me off:

Con:

No public funding for abortion, supports partial-birth abortion ban, accepts Catholic Church view that life begins at conception
Voted yes on prohibiting same-sex marriage (god seriously? Every candidate will say they approve unions and partnerships and all these other words, but they won't call it "marriage"???? SEPARATE ISN'T EQUAL, DUMMIES).
Voted yes to loosen restrictions on cell phone wiretapping (I don't care how scared you are that a terrorist will bomb your beloved shopping mall. People who would give up their freedom for security are stupid, stupid fuckheads who deserve the Orwellian society that they get).
Fought for up to 12 weeks leave in the Family and Medical Leave Act...but FMLA has a LOT of problems that I am not okay with. Including that 12 weeks isn't really long enough. It has a ways to go and I would hate to see Biden contented with that.
Voted yes on reauthorizing the PATRIOT act, no on prohibiting same-sex basic training in the military (go ahead and segregate the troops by sex some more, that will really help foster understanding and eliminate violence towards women when the troops do have to work together).

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about Biden. Overall, I agree with him more than I disagree. But the things that I disagree with him are really important issues to me, so, you know, I'm conflicted. Either way, he is OBVIOUSLY a better choice than Sarah Palin, whose views are so incomprehensible to me that she might as well be from Mars. I eagerly await the debate tonight.

Also, can anyone picture what Palin is doing right now? I envision her sitting in a room with a McCain aide, smiling vacantly as the aide futilely attempts to coach her for tonight.
Aide: Now what do you say when they ask you about foreign policy?
Palin: *blinks* Some folks get to travel abroad, but I never did!
Aide: ...Yes. Now what is your stance on education?
Palin: I wish they taught shopping in school!
Aide: Close enough. Women's issues?
Palin: Let's buy makeup so the boys will like us!
Aide: I don't really think McCain wanted the presidency anyway. You're gold. Go get 'em, tiger.

*special thanks to Simpson's Episode Lisa vs. Malibu Stacey

Heroin sandwich

2008-09-30T20:28:00.005-04:00

If ever you should find yourself hungry and in the magical land of Manhattan, I highly recommend a teeny lil' shop in Greenwich Village called The Peanut Butter and Co. Sandwich Shop. We've eaten there twice now, and I swear it's been a multiple-orgasm in my mouth each time. Perhaps this is because I have never progressed past the eating habits of a six year old. No kidding, I hate vegetables and many fruits. I prefer that we purchase macaroni and cheese in the wheel or dinosaur shapes. And I usually have a box of fruit-by-the-foot hanging around. So naturally, I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I eat them almost every day, sometimes twice. This place sells regular PB&J, but a bunch of really delicious variants. In the two times that I have been there, I have sampled four sammiches (presented in order of least to most favorite, although I still liked the "least" a lot!):

4. The PB&J of the week: This week was Crunchy peanut butter and pumpkin butter. Simple and tasty, perfect for fall.

3. The Elvis: The Boyfriend tried this one. PB, banana, honey, and bacon (bacon optional, but of course we got it because we love all things pig). I thought it was pretty good, but he wasn't sold on whether the ingredients complimented each other. I would say the worst part was that it was REALLY sticky. I was concerned that my ability to breathe was impaired. I would say that if this combo sounds like something up your alley, it probably is. If you're not sold on it in theory, you probably won't like it that much in practice.

2. Dark chocolate dreams: Chocolate PB, cherry preserves, and shredded coconut. A friend tried this one. It was pretty fucking good. And I don't even usually like cherries.

1. Cinnamon raisin swirl sandwich: Cinnamon-raisin swirl PB with vanilla cream cheese and green apple slices. I can still taste it. I have the shakes from withdrawal from it. I nearly peed my pants at first bite. Basically, it's heroin between two slices of wheat bread.

The sandwiches run between 5 and 7 bucks, and they all come with a bag of their own, kettle-style chips and carrot slices. The carrot slices were perfect in that they were cut the only way in which I will eat carrots (I don't fuck with those weird baby carrots. They taste funny. And I'm not good at cutting whole carrots. And if you don't cut them right they take WAY too long to chew and my jaw gets tired, and then sometimes I inhale the little bits into my sinuses and it's really uncomfortable. You get the idea). So it's a pretty good deal. If you ask, they will cut off the crusts for you, too :)

Plus they have an extensive and tasty beverage menu, including my all-time favorite, Oregon chai tea! I got hooked on that stuff during a brief and painful waitressing stint at an Eat-N-Park.

For anyone in NYC, this place is down on Sullivan St, between W. 3rd and Bleecker. And, in addition to being a really cool place to check out for yourself, it's totally an awesome place to take a kid to eat. I'm sorry that I didn't have access to a restaurant like this during my McDonalds-dominated childhood.

Anyway, I gotta go. My Chef Boyardee is ready.

Damn pinkos

2008-09-29T16:14:00.005-04:00

Lucy (welcome to my blog, Lucy!) raised her concerns about electing Obama in my comments. What struck me about the comment is that it sounded a lot like the concerns that my parents have...issues that to me, an unemployed 20-something with a ton of time on her hands, have obvious answers; however, other people are actually employed and do not have limitless amounts of time to research these issues on the interweb while eating Nutella straight out of the jar (if you have yet to try Nutella, I am sorry to tell you that you are living an empty and meaningless life).

So I'm going to address these particular issues in a post, since it seems too involved to attempt on the comments board.

His resume is a little thin and he has yet to tell me HOW he plans to implement CHANGE. I am all for CHANGE, I just want some details.
This is the plight of all politicians, no? The details are always sketchy. Not to mention, the rhetoric is bothersome in that it is of a general nature. To address this topic, you have to ask yourself what change you are looking for. Do you want economic change? Social change? Foreign policy change? Each of these is a complex category, and has to be addressed separately. I think one of the best resources for this is a lil' site called ontheissues.org. You can search by topic or candidate. Frankly, I feel the best gauge of what a candidate will do is what that candidate has already done. Look for their past voting record, declarations that they have made, etc. I agree that it is hard to get a "straight answer" as to what exactly will happen. But knowing his stance on the issues is usually a good indicator.
As for his "thin" resume...honestly, he's a young guy for a presidential candidate, no kidding. But he's been a legislator since 1996, a senator, since 2004, he belonged to a law firm specializing in civil rights and neighborhood economic development for many years, among many other things. He's packed a lot of punch into his 47 years. Go ahead, google his career. Wikipedia is a good resource. His resume is only "thin" compared to someone with 30 extra years on him. And if you compare it to Palin...god, don't even get me started. The bottom line is, that "thin resume" stuff is just hype put out by the McCain campaign. If you compared McCain to Strom Thurmond, McCain would look like a political toddler, too.

over the years, I have become less fond of taxes
Ah yes, the taxes. The older we get, the more money we make, the more important that becomes. So the answer here is yes, Obama will raise taxes. But wait! There's more! He's only raising taxes for those that make above $603,403. Do you make that much? Then maybe you should vote for McCain, whose tax cuts benefit that group more than any. The Washington Post has a really simple chart to see where you would fall on the tax cut spectrum. Also, you can go to electiontaxes.com to estimate your personal taxes for 2009-12 under the candidates' proposed plans. The answer may surprise you! Also, I want to point out that if you make enough money to have increased taxes under Obama, it really is nicer of you to share the wealth. One person reaalllly doesn't need that much. And they certainly don't need more tax breaks. That's just how the rich get richer while the poor get...well, Nutella on the couch.

his health care program scares me. Are we getting dangerously close to Socialism with his ideas?
This is a concern that my father has expressed as well. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Lucy had the unfortunate experience of being raised during or close to the Cold War. There is no reason to fear universal programs like these. They don't make us "communists." They don't mean that we'll all have to wait in bread lines. They don't mean that everything you earn will be taken away from you and divvied up among the workers. I promise. The Republicans just call socialism because they know it will scare you. We have a lot of good socialized programs: The post office, public schools, medicare, social security. Yes, these systems have flaws. So do the privatized ones. BUT. Here's the thing. A lot of people need these systems. Not everyone can afford private schools. Or health care. Or retirement. A lot of people need help. The people who make the most money do "earn" it, but they are often able to earn it because they already occupy privileged places in society. The opportunity to earn money was always presented to them, and they were able to take it. There are a lot of people who do not EVER get the opportunity to earn as you do. They grew up poor, they had uneducated parents, they did not have access to proper health care, they did not have access to a good education. Your tax dollars help those people have access to those things. Those people are not suckling at your teat. They just need some help. We aren't communists for helping our fellow Americans reach their full potential. Helping those people will make the country a far better place, even if it means you take one vacation this year instead of two. Everyone should have access to quality and affordable health care!! And privatizing it ensures that many people are barred from receiving the help that they need. Cancer patients can't get treatment, children die when they didn't have to. Insurance companies do everything they can to avoid paying for treatment costs. I myself do not have healthcare right now. If I discover a lump in my breast tomorrow, do I deserve to suffer and die because I can't afford treatment? If your company went bankrupt tomorrow because of corrupt corporate practices and you got laid off, and then your child needed an emergency appendectomy that you can't afford without your healthcare, does that make you lazy and deserving of suffering? This is a reality for many, many people. It's important to remember that not everyone is as lucky as you are right now.

As I have aged and worked hard for my money, well, I like to keep most of it or at least I prefer to give it to the charities I choose
Giving to charities is wonderful, but it's important to separate taxes from charities. Although tax dollars often do go to what some would consider "charitable causes" (social programs such as funding homeless shelters and early-childhood education initiatives), they go to a lot of other programs as well. For instance, I wouldn't consider the USPS a charity. Furthermore, tax dollars go to many different and specific institutions that absolutely must receive a certain amount of money to operate, and it would be too difficult to rely on the voluntary will of the people to donate that money (I seriously doubt that public schools could keep afloat under such a system. There's that whole notion of "my kid doesn't go, why should I pay?!").

The government doesn't seem to be doing such a 'bang up' job of handling our funds
I agree with you 100%! That's why I'm voting for new government leadership! McCain thinks the same as Bush. Check out his voting record. I believe that as someone with a lot of experience in civil rights and inequality, Obama will do something more reasonable with our tax dollars...aka, actually helping out the Americans who need it. McCain just wants to look out for his own...preserving the status quo of the white, straight, wealthy, and male.

The points Lucy brought up are all valid concerns of many voters. I hope that the links were helpful and cleared up some gray areas. Now I'm off to lick the Nutella jar clean.

Bloggers don't cry

2008-09-28T22:14:00.004-04:00

Am I the last one to watch Boys Don't Cry? Probably. Either way, I'm disturbed and now recognize that it was a bad idea to watch a movie about social injustices (atrocities?) tonight, especially since there is a grievous one being committed against a friend of mine as we speak. Since I plan on retaining my anonymity in this blog, I wish to also respect that of my friend's (the incident in question is of an extremely sensitive nature). However, I hope to speak to him soon and gain his permission to write of his ordeal. In the meantime, I'll say this: It involves the Patriot Act and Orwellian government actions that disgust and sicken me. And they should have the same effect on you. So expect a very serious post in the near future.

Debate: BAM!

2008-09-27T12:01:00.002-04:00

We had a nice little debate party last night, since a dear friend was visiting from out of town. I thought about writing a long-winded analysis of it, and maybe through the miracle of DVR, I will go back and do that later. But for now let's just say that OF COURSE I think Obama was the master debater (insert immature giggling here). But, having a background in the social sciences, I gotta say that what I'm really interested in are social issues, so I suspect I will have more enthusiasm to blog My Big Opinion after debates addressing those things.

For now though, I'll be lurking in Times Square and in other touristy places today, because that is the price you pay when you move to New York and have many out-of-town friends. If anyone cares to share less-conventional entertainment ideas for guests, I'd LOVE to hear them.